The three families often talked about moving together to a little neighbourhood of their own, where other friends of theirs from China would join them, but the idea always seemed so distant and too much work to actually implement, especially after the Tuans and Chois moved to the US (where Mark and Youra went to the same kindergarten and elementary school, where they ended up becoming best friends).

So they kept that dream in their hearts and settled for extended phone calls or video calls until the fateful day when all 3 families got opportunities to move to Korea, Seoul to be exact. Everyone was ecstatic, this meant their dream of creating their own little society could finally come true, and it did.

Mark, Jackson and Youra went to the same middle school and high school and had plans to go to the same university as well but in the end decided that they didn’t want to jeopardise their dreams and aspirations just so they could stay together. Besides, they lived in the same neighbourhood, they could literally see each other every day.

“Hey, so are we going for ice cream or what?” asked Youra, distracting the boys who were thinking back as to how they had come to this very moment.

“Well, we might as well now, considering Jackson has been bugging me about it for almost a whole week now.” Mark said as he attempted to hit the back of Jackson’s head but missed when he ducked down.

“Alright!” Jackson and Youra said simultaneously as they high fived each other.

-

The three of them walked to an ice cream parlour that was near their neighbourhood and Mark ordered for them while Jackson and Youra sat outside on the crosswalk.

Mark came outside with their orders and Jackson and Youra quickly grabbed their ice creams from his hand to see if he had got their favourite orders right.

They had bet on whether he would be able to get their orders without them having to tell them what they wanted, solely based on his memory of what they liked.

Youra bet that he could and Jackson bet against and now was the moment of truth.

“Ha! He missed the chocolate chips on yours!” He pointed out triumphantly to Youra before pumping his fist and then looking at Mark questioningly. “But dude, how do you not remember that she loves chocolate chips?

“For your information, Wang, I haven’t had chocolate chips with my ice cream for ages. He’s done just fine.” She lied before inspecting Jackson’s order. “See, he even remembers that you like crushed Oreos on yours like me!”

She winced as she said the last part, Mark had forgotten to get the Oreos for her and if Jackson noticed that, then she would have lost the bet. Well, she already technically had but Jackson didn’t need to know that.

“You two do realise that this bet makes no sense, don’t you? I mean it’s obvious Youra is lying through her teeth about the chocolate chips, and you Jackson, you’re just nit-picking on everything so you can win.” He stated before taking another bite from his ice cream and then talking with his mouth full. “What you guys should have done is told each other your orders beforehand and then compared everything so that it would be a fair comparison.”

Youra pushed his chin upward. “First of all, don’t talk with your mouth full and secondly,” She hit the back of his head, making him wince, “Can’t you keep your mouth shut? I was winning this bet!”

“Aha! So it is true! You were lying about the chocolate chips! I knew it!” Jackson said as he ate another bite of his ice cream.

“Gosh, I’m best friends with hooligans.” Youra complained as she pushed Jackson’s chin upward as well.

“You’re just complaining because this hooligan won the bet.”

Youra sighed and took a bite of her ice cream as Mark asked about the bet.

“Our beautiful Choi Youra has to wear my jersey next week when we have our basketball match.” Jackson explained as he put an arm around Youra’s shoulders. She shoved him off of her before laughing and letting him put an arm around her again.

Mark choked on his ice cream but no one noticed. Had he really taken that long in the ice cream parlour that they had decided to date in the time he was inside?

“I really don’t see why you want me to wear your jersey, I’m not even your girlfriend.”

Mark let out a sigh of relief before wondering why he did.

Maybe it’s because it would be weird if two of my best friends were dating each other. That makes sense, right?

“Well, you’re one of my best friends! That counts for something, doesn’t it?” Jackson whined as he poked Youra on her side, who in retaliation smacked his thigh. “Dude, you have got to stop hitting us like that. It’s like you don’t even know your strength or something. For your information, it hurts like hell whenever you hit us.”

“See,” She turned to Mark, who she had noticed had been pretty quiet so far, “This is what I don’t get about you two. If you guys know you’ll get hit when you annoy me then why do you do it anyway?”

Mark chuckled. “Don’t you think our whole friendship is sort of if not completely based off of annoying or teasing each other? Think about it, what else do we do?”

Youra thought about it for a moment. “We eat ice cream together and when we were little, we played games together. See, our friendship isn’t just solely annoying each other.” She replied even though she had realised then that Mark was right.

“Yeah Youra but you gotta admit, we’d be pretty boring friends if we didn’t annoy you. I mean, all I do is joke around and irritate you. Imagine if I didn’t, I’d be like a shell of a person or something.” Jackson countered with a shiver.

Jackson, not being the happy go lucky guy he was, the mere thought was the sort of stuff nightmares were made of.

“Okay fine, fine. I concede, you win, happy now?”

“Not quite, no one mentioned another key part of our friendship.” Mark quipped before offering the last bite of his ice cream to Youra. She leaned forward and he fed her as she thought about what he was talking about.

“What do you mean? Xa mi za?” Jackson asked as he swapped ice creams with Youra now that he was distracted. She looked down at her hand which was now holding his ice cream and shrugged. Jackson had good taste when it came to ice cream.

“Dude, you just said the same thing in 2 different languages. Anyways, what I meant to say was, another key part of our friendship is that we’re always there for each other.”

Youra and Jackson looked at each other before looking back at Mark and laughing.

Gosh, who knew Mark Tuan could be so cheesy?

Mark hit the backs of their heads and they both had to stifle their laughs. “I’m serious! I know it sounds cheesy but sometimes I feel like some of us need a reminder of that, don’t they Jackson?” Mark said as he glared at him, hoping he would take a hint.

“Oh yeah! Yeah, they do. You have a point.”

“You guys are horrible at this.” Youra gathered their empty ice cream cups, got up and threw them away before standing and waiting for them to get up. “No one gonna drop me home?”

The boys immediately got up and walked with her, looking at each other and wondering what they should say next.

After a moment of silence, Youra turned around and started walking backwards. “If you guys want to tell me that you’re there for me or any of that other consoling bs, I’d suggest you’d do it right now. My house is coming up.”

“We really are horrible at this, aren’t we?” Mark asked Jackson with a smile before looking back at Youra. “Youra, I can only imagine what the past few days must have been like for you. But we want you to know that if ever you feel like talking to someone, we’ll always be there for you.”

“Yeah and I know we haven’t been hanging out as much as we used to but rest assured we care just as much about you as we did before. Nothing’s changed and it never will. The reason why Mark brought this up is because we’ve been worried about you for the past couple of days now. We just want to know if you’re okay, and if you’re not, then that’s fine too. Take your time but we just wanted to let you know that we’re here for you.”

Mark and Jackson looked at each other before breaking out into goofy grins and singing the Friends theme song, alternating as they did.

“I’ll be there for you~.”

“When the rain starts to pour,”

 “I’ll be there for you.”

They looked at her, waiting for her to continue. She rolled her eyes before continuing with a smile. “Like I’ve been there before.”

The boys smiled at her right before she ended up tripping on a rock. Both boys immediately dove forward to catch her. They put an arm each around her middle and she instinctively put her arms around their necks.

She laughed as they pulled her upright before giving them both a tight hug. The boys looked at each other over Youra’s head and smiled before hugging her back.

They were now right in front of her house and when Youra noticed that, she just smiled and shoved the boys off of her. They stumbled back and looked at her for a second worried but calmed down when they saw her smiling.

‘Beautiful Choi Youra’ as Jackson liked to call her, was crying happy tears.

“Wan ahn! Get home safe!” She shouted as she walked to her door and then inside.

The boys just shook their heads with adoration and bid each other good night before walking home.

-

Youra walked inside her house only to hear shouting seemingly from her parents’ bedroom. She sighed, her smile now dropping from her face, and looked at the time. It was 10 pm; maybe it was best she went straight to her room without wishing them good night.

Besides, not like they really seemed to acknowledge her presence anymore.

She slowly closed the door and made her way to the stairs, tip toeing as she walked upstairs. She managed to make it to her room but just as she was about to open it, the shouting got louder and she could suddenly hear everything loud and clear, as opposed to before which was slightly muffled.

“What do you want me to do, huh? I got you the tickets just like you asked and now you don’t want to go? Why can’t you make up your bloody mind?”

“I have made up my mind! I wanna stay here and take care of our only daughter.”

“She’s a grown adult, I think you of all people know we need this trip more than anything right now. She’ll be fine!”

“Young-hyun, I’m just worried…”

“I know my daughter, she’s not suicidal like her older sister!”

There was a loud gasp. “How could you say that? What if Youra hears you?”

“Youra’s never home anyway and even if she was, she’s probably just sleeping. She won’t hear, but you see? This is precisely why we should go on this trip. I feel like I’ll go insane if I’m here a second longer! I don’t want to fight any longer, I’m going even if you aren’t. Just tell Youra I’m going on a business trip or something.”

Youra walked into her room and shut her door as quietly as she could before sliding down to her feet.

The word ‘suicidal’ was so hurtful.

And so were most of her father’s words.

Youra wondered if that’s what people whispered about when they saw her.

Oh look, it’s the sister of that suicidal girl. Poor thing.

Was that what Mark and Jackson thought