Sitting inside 1:31 am at her usual place, Baram leaned her chin on one hand, while the other scribbled away in her journal. After the events following the celebratory dinner, Baram spent restless nights turning and tossing in her bed, unable to filter through her thoughts and thus sought comfort by sorting through her inner turmoil by writing it out, giving form and shape to the whirlpool of emotions heaving havoc inside of her.

Usually she kept her journal strictly within the boundaries of her room, away from the danger of being seen by outsiders. Nonetheless, this time she found no comfort in her lonely and desolate flat. Against her better judgment, she sought refugee at the speakeasy.

“That glass of whisky is feeling neglected you know,” Jinyoung mused, staring at Baram being immersed in her writing. “What are you working on anyway? A new script?”

Tapping her pen against the half filled page, Baram gives Jinyoung a secretive smile but provided no answer. Instead, she lifted the glass of whisky and took a small sip, savouring the flavours in .

“Great whisky like always,” Baram hummed, secretly wondering to herself when it was that the speakeasy had become her safety haven.

What would she do if one day she was no longer able to come here as she pleased? How should she tread the blurred line between her and Mark? How should she behave once she ran into him? So many questions and yet no answers. Baram had inadvertently spread her roots in the hidden speakeasy and she could not imagine being exiled from it. At the same time, she had no idea what was motivating Mark’s actions around her. Thus she had no way of predicting what he would do next or what would be the final trigger before the blurred line was fully erased.

“I hear you and Mark had another eventful evening,” Jinyoung mentioned with a tone of nonchalance.

“You hear a lot of things,” Baram replied, keeping her eyes on her journal, specifically the paragraph mentioning the events that Jinyoung was referring to.

“Actually I didn’t hear much, but saw Mark walking you home. You both looked pretty out of it.”

“I think the term you’re looking for is follow. He followed me home,” Baram corrected, consciously choosing to not focus on the second half of Jinyoung’s statement.

“You let him though.” Jinyoung shrugged his shoulders. “So loosely speaking he walked you home.”

Huffing at the male trying to be witty, Baram raised a brow at him, wondering where the conversation was taking them.

“How’s work going anyway?” Jinyoung asked, causing Baram to frown at his uncharacteristically persistent questions. “Didn’t think you were serious when you said you wouldn’t be coming for a while.”

“The whole team went off to Busan for filming,” Baram replied, deciding that satisfying the curious bartender would probably be less tortuous than trying to ignore him. “Had a celebratory dinner the moment we came back to Seoul. Ran into Mark on my way home.”

“Doesn’t sound like you had much fun at the celebratory dinner,” Jinyoung noted, observing her lack of enthusiasm at the mention of the dinner.

But then again, Jinyoung doubted he had ever seen the girl look anywhere near enthusiastic. The closest to it would be when she discovered a new whisky that she enjoyed. Even then though, it was a contained spark of excitement that was barely detectable by a casual onlooker.

“I just wanted to go home.”

“And yet you are here already.”

“You don’t want me here?”

“No…” Jinyoung shook his head gently. “I just assumed you would need more alone time to reenergise and what not.”

Indeed, that was what Baram had planned to do; to close herself off for a week or so and lead the hermit life. However, for whatever reason, the hermit life did not come easy to her this time. Instead her feet were itching to step out of her studio flat and walk down the familiar route towards the speakeasy.

If Baram were to be honest with herself, her rationality was telling her to avoid the place like plague due to the danger of running into Mark. At this point she was at a loss as to where they stood, especially after how she had stopped him from beating up Jin. The red haired male was clearly displeased with what the girl had done, especially since she had not offered him a reasonable explanation behind her motives. Nonetheless, did she n