It was already 11:30 when Yuri was still twisting and turning on her bed. She had work tomorrow at the company, but she still wasn’t able to sleep because of a certain someone in her mind; it was none other than Jessica. She would try to make up excuses that she was merely getting used to a different environment and the new bed, and maybe also because Sooyoung was giggling for some reason she did not know of next door…but deep inside, she knew those weren’t the real reasons. Frustrated, she completely removed her blanket and supported her body up with her hands pushing against the bed. She let out a deep sigh, swiping off the hair covering her sight to get a clearer look at the alarm clock next to her bed. 11:47PM, it read.

Knowing that she wouldn’t be sleeping anytime soon, she slipped off the comfy cushion twin-size bed and swung the curtains of her windows aside, revealing a star-filled night in the sky. As if it already became a habit, Yuri began talking with the natural lights up above. She knew well they would never reply but they would at least be there to ‘listen’ to her.

“Stars… do you think she remembers our promise?”

 

Right after the last bell rang when students were finally dismissed, Yuri headed to her locker to prepare for her baseball practice. Opening the small silver door, a yellow note was laid neatly on top of her belongings, written with the handwriting she instantly recognized. Not leaving a second to spare after scanning through the letters on the piece of paper, she immediately locked her locker and headed toward the opposite direction of her earlier intended destination.

Turning her head from side to side, she made sure that no one was around to ‘chase’ after her. After checking that the area was cleared, she shoved herself into a garden that was almost invisible behind all the tall trees. There she saw a doll-like brown hair girl leaning her back on the bole of the tree…sleeping.

A small smile appeared on Yuri’s lips as she walked over to the girl and gently shook her awake. “Hey miss ice princess, wake up.”

“Don’t call me that…” The other girl answered, still half asleep. She wiped her eyes and slowly lifted her eyelids. “What time is it…?”

“It’s almost 3:00 o’clock.”

“Ahhs… I se-… Wait-” The brown hair girl suddenly became wide awake when she heard Yuri’s reply and jolted straight up from her slumping. “You skipped practice!?”

“Yeah, I ditched it. You said on your note to come meet you N.O.W. See? You even spelled out it out in English.” Yuri answered casually, showing her friend the note she received.

“But you didn’t have to skip practice. Isn’t your game in two days?”

The black hair girl smiled again and sat herself next to her friend, laying her head on girl’s shoulder ever so comfortably. “But you’re more important.”

“Yuri…”

“Hmm?”

“You’ve been avoiding me a lot lately. Especially whenever I mention about Donghae-oppa.” Yuri slightly twitched at Jessica’s use of familiar honorific toward her sunbaenim. She then abruptly removed her head from Jessica’s shoulder and suspiciously averted her eyes away from Jessica’s gaze. “Don’t tell me you didn’t because I know you were.”

Yuri gulped since she had been found out. She didn’t know what to say since everything would turn out to be excuses. She just couldn’t bring herself to tell Jessica the truth.

“Yuri, I want to know why you’re doing this. I feel like we’re growing apart.” Yuri could hear from Jessica’s voice that the girl was nearing her tears, but she still couldn’t say anything. Nothing had triggered her… not until that one question. “Do you hate me now?”

Yuri completely lost her control and failed in attempt to ‘restrain’ herself. She pulled Jessica into a tight embrace and began to let it all out. “Babo… How could I hate you? Am I not being obvious enough…?”

Yuri released Jessica and stared straight into the girl’s eyes. Soon, Yuri leaned in closer and aimed for Jessica’s lips. In reflex, Jessica closed her eyes and shrugged up her shoulders. Yuri grinned teasingly, moving Jessica’s bangs aside and gently kissed her forehead.

Deep inside, Yuri knew well she shouldn’t let this chance past. She had to risk telling Jessica, even if their friendship was at cost. She couldn’t afford to lie to the person she loved any longer.

“Sica, I-”

“W-wait!” Yuri’s confession was cut-off before it even got mid-way to the main point, surprising Yuri who was on full-gear and ready to tell her crush. Jessica had placed her finger on Yuri’s lips, stopping her from what she was assuming Yuri would say.

“I’d always knew, Yuri. I’m really sorry that I tried to pretend that I don’t…” Jessica had her eyes on the grass, stuttering on words while still feeling embarrassed from the kiss. The black pearl found it cute how she could make the ice princess react in this way. “C-Can you give me some time Yuri? I’m not prepared to hear you say t-those words, yet. I… I promise you I’ll tell you my feelings when I’m ready. I’m not really sure right now, and I don’t want to hurt you.” Jessica lifted her head, as if she just in some courage from staring at the grass for too long. She looked deeply into Yuri’s eyes, while meaning what she said, “I promise you that I will absolutely not date anyone until I tell you how I feel!”

Yuri broke into a giggle which later became a small laughter, thinking of how adorable Jessica was acting toward the whole situation. “Okay, I understand.” She let go of the girl’s shoulders and held up her pinky. Jessica stared at it then back at Yuri with questionable eyes. “It’s a promise, right? I’ll wait for your response.”

Jessica smiled out of relief and hooked her pinky tightly with Yuri’s as they pressed their thumbs together.

“It’s a promise.”

 

Even though Yuri was smiling from remembering the moments of the past, her face was drenched in continuous flowing tears. She gripped onto the blanket sheets and buried her misery into the warmth. Before Yuri knew it, she cried herself to sleep, with one thought flowing through her head.

‘Now that she got him, I guess… I should just give up and move on. Kwon Yuri… Jessica never once belonged to you.’

 

Sooyoung had just finished her relaxing shower after a tiring day. She dressed herself in a loosely pair of pajamas and dried her hair with a towel. She had plans to head straight to bed, but it seemed the piles of paper on her desk had not permitted her to do so. Groaning in distress, she walked over to her work table and sat herself down on the chair, looking completely uninterested at the company papers laid on the desktop.

Her father had encouraged her to move back to Korea to work for the Kwon family. She had always preferred living here rather than Japan, so her decision was quick and definite. The Choi and The Kwon had known each other through, yet, another business relationship, although they had close ties and trusted one another in deals and trades.

Sooyoung and Yuri became friends with each other with a love and hate friendship, although they understood one another’s feelings well despite the fact they had only knew each other in less than a year. Sooyoung was at the level where she could be fully trusted by Yuri, enough to even to be the first to hear about Yuri’s conflicts with her love life. Despite being in only a few nonsense relationships, Sooyoung had tried her best to give Yuri the best of advices and comfort her whenever she was in need. Sooyoung was a true great friend, but not everyone notices this because of her rough bi-polar personality on the outside… especially toward the one named Sunny.

‘Why am I thinking about her again?’ The tall girl shook off the thought of the shorter girl in her head.
Sooyoung then attempted to distract herself by concentrating back to the résumés of people who was seeking employment in the Kwon Enterprise. She carefully scanned through files, viewing the summary of experiences of the ones who would be interviewed the day after. Out of the twenty files, she picked out a dozen which had decent records, but out of the dozen, only one had truly caught her eyes. The paper was filled with lists of numerous achievements and high academic scores with excellent credits. It was rare to see such sight. Curious to find out who was the highly educated person was, Sooyoung scanned her eyes upward to view the person’s name; Song Qian it read. She had no idea who it was, but her instincts were telling her she had saw the girl somewhere before.

Sooyoung’s brain began to switch off as her eyes grew weary. It was already 11:45 and she had been tired the whole day. She turned off the light on her desk and slumped herself on the bed, pulling the sheets up to her face. Just when her eyes had closed and she was in between reality and the dream world, a familiar tune started playing. The annoyed giant searched for the object emitting the sound, silently cursing at the person who had disturbed her. However, as soon as the name entered her vision, she quickly sat up (as if she was fully awake) and answered the call without another second of hesitation.

“Hello?”

“Sooyoung? Sorry, am I bothering you?”

“N-no, not at all.” Sooyoun lied, reaching for the lamp to turn the light back on. “So what’s up, Sunny?”

“I just can’t sleep. Why are you up so late?”

“I had work to go over for tomorrow.”

“Are you sure I’m not bothering you?” Sunny asked again from the other line. She couldn’t trust Sooyoung, putting the hour into consideration.

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. So what do you want to talk about?”

 

Tiffany grinned widely to herself, revealing her eye-smile, while holding the calendar up in the air, acting as if she had just won a great award. She couldn’t take her eyes off the circled date, remembering the appointment she had made with her new friend Taeyeon. Tiffany couldn’t lie to herself; she knew that she kept repeating how cute Taeyeon was in her head when they were talking in the garden, even though it sounded awkward considering how she’s a girl herself.

She walked over to her laptop and impatiently waited as the search engine processed her entry. She clicked on the first link… which revealed to be a full page of information about Taeyeon. ‘Doesn’t this seem kind of stalker-ish…?’ Tiffany thought to herself, despite the fact she was still reading everything on the webpage.

Tiffany was caught by surprise when her phone suddenly vibrated and gave off its ringtone loudly. She grabbed it while eyes still on the laptop screen and answered without checking who was calling.

“Hello?”

“Tiffany, are you still awake? Oppa wants to talk.”

Tiffany jolted up from her seat. It was her boyfriend, Jaejoong. They only text each other when they need to ‘talk’ but now Jaejoong had called her, which was a rather rare occasion.

“Yes, oppa?” Tiffany expressed her happiness through her signature smile.

“I’m free on the 8th. Want to go out? I’ll have the whole day for you this time.”

“Su-…” Tiffany paused for a few seconds. That date sounded very familiar to her. She quickly rushed to her bed where she last left the calendar. November 8th… it was circled not too long ago.

“Tiffany? You there?” Her boyfriend called out to her, sounding impatient for an answer.

Tiffany was in a dilemma. She was stuck between either relaxing her day with Taeyeon, while experiencing being in a studio like she always wanted (although with someone she just met), or a date with her boyfriend, which was what she had been waiting for God-knows-how-long. It shouldn’t be hard to decide, but Tiffany could not understand why she was acting this way.

“Hello?” The other line called out once again.

“Oppa…”

“What is it?”

“I’m… a bit busy on Monday.”

 

Jung Krystal was merely lazing off on the sofa, entertaining herself with some dramas broadcasted on the television after arriving home couple of hours before from her friend’s, Amber’s, house. It was already late at night, and she knew best she should be getting to bed for school the next day. However, she had decided to use the excuse of waiting for her sister and cousin to come home from the party so that she could sleep in late and expected a scolding from Jessica…but things turned out to be quite opposite from what she predicted.

Krystal could hear the unlocking of the door and was prepared to cover her ears from Jessica’s questioning. The moment she spotted her two relatives stepping into the house, she distracted her sister’s attention so that she would not notice the hour.

“Welcome home. How’s the par-”

“Good night, Krystal.” Before she could even finish her diversion, Jessica had walked over to her, patted her on the head and went straight to her room.

“Good night.” Seohyun waved to the youngest girl and also headed to her own room.

To Krystal’s surprise, both Jessica and Seohyun immediately locked themselves into their own chambers, bearing spiritless expressions while being preoccupied within their own thoughts. Now Krystal was seriously wondering what had happened at the party…

 

Seohyun hopped on to her bed right after she finished dressing into her warm Keroro pajamas. The girl’s room was filled collectibles of a certain character from a Japanese animation, ranging from plush toys to little stickers that she never really used. Everything was neat and tidy, unlike her cousin, whom she usually had to clean up the mess after.

Her sprained ankle had not fully recovered, but thanks to the fast treatment, the progress of healing had sped up. She traced her fingers along the lines of the sloppy bandaging tied by her ‘savior’. The black hair girl giggled at the thought of her best friend’s over protectiveness, but it soon turned into a slightly sad expression as she remembered how distant they were back at the party. Seohyun couldn’t understand why Yoona was avoiding her. She tried to think up of various reasons why but they just didn’t seem to be the cause.

She glanced at the little green frog sitting silently and stared at it as it looked back at her with large eyes. It was a present from Yoona on her 17th birthday, so unlike any of her other stuff toys, she had placed specifically this one on the bed. She picked it up and began voicing out her worries…to the motionless frog.

“Keroro…What do you think is bothering Yoona-unnie?”

Silence…

Seohyun sighed, knowing that she wouldn’t be getting reply anytime soon. She switched on the nightlights and decided to get some sleep.

Tik tok…tik tok…minutes passed. Seohyun had been staring at the dark ceiling with eyes still opened just like the green thing next to her.

“Hey, Seohyun… what is your relationship with Yoona?”

Her cousin’s question had been replaying her head ever since it was asked. It bothered her that the question had been wondered more than once by many others beside Jessica. What did people see?

As much as she wanted to sleep, she just couldn’t. Someone was now occupying her mind and she couldn’t escape the thoughts of that person… She couldn’t get Yoona of her mind.

Seohyun always admired Yoona’s beauty and kind personalities. The girl’s bright smile always managed to cheer her up. Seohyun found Yoona’s alligator-laughter to be quite cute. She adored her friend’s aegyo, even though it could sometimes be rather annoying. Seohyun always felt like pinching Yoona’s cheeks whenever the girl pouted in a childish manner. Seohyun always wanted to pull Yoona into a hug whenever she sensed depression hitting. She loved how Yoona was always beside her when in times of need. But what she loved most was…
 

Seohyun paused for one millisecond then abruptly got up from her bed. She quickly felt the temperature of her forehead to check if there was any fever, thinking that maybe she was undergoing some sort of headache. Everything was fine. She was in perfect health.

“There’s no way I could have…”

Seohyun shook her head a couple of times and pounded her palms against her temples, trying to wake herself up from what she believed was her dream. Her eyes accidently wandered to the picture frame lying underneath the bright lamp. It was a picture of her and her best friend, Yoona. She reached out her hand and picked it up, staring at the one person smiling brightly in the photo next to herself. Seohyun placed her right hand on her heart, heeding the message it was delivering to her. There was no doubt about it…

“I…l-like Yoona-unnie…”

 

Jessica had been smiling nonstop the minute she stepped into her room. She hugged her pillow tightly and rolled around her bed like a mental person, being way out of control. Numerous times had she tried to calm herself down, only to be struck again with the memories of Kwon Yuri. She was still regretting the fact that she had not told the person she loved how she felt about her, completely missing the perfect opportunity. Not only did she not confess, but they did not even exchange numbers.

Cheering up her own disappointment, the blonde girl walked over to her bookshelf and pulled out a blue self-constructed album. She jumped back onto her bed, lied flat on her stomach, kicked her feet up and down, and placed her palm on her chin with her elbow supporting her. She began flipping through the pages with a cute, wide grin on her face. It had been months since she had last opened it in attempt to refrain herself. What was there to stray away from? Of course, the album was filled with photographs of Kwon Yuri.

Jessica paid full attention to every single picture, looking at every little detail there was, spending more than one minute on a page.
After thirty minutes, she was at the end of the book where the last picture was pasted on… It was of Yuri and herself. On the bottom of the photo was a caption written in pink ink: “August 5, 2007 - This day was the day destiny tied us together. The day we became best friends. The day when I was no longer alone. The day I have you by my side. The day you completed me. Thank you, Kwon-seobang! I love you ♥ Happy 20th Birthday! - Jessica”.

This was a birthday gift to Yuri from Jessica, in which the girl never had the chance to give it to the person it was meant for. The ice princess remembered the hours and days she had sat down and actually ‘worked’ to put it together while thinking of her prince as her motivation. When she had written down those specific three words down with a lovely drawn heart on the album, she no longer meant them as in friendship terms… but as a way of confession… an answer.

“It’s a promise, right? I’ll wait for your response.”

“I kept my part of the promise…if only you had waited for me a bit longer. Yuri…you babo.”

Jessica rolled off her bed to place the album back on the shelf neatly. She turned her head to the side and stared at the window. She walked over to it and pushed the curtains aside revealing a beautiful view through the glass. Placing one hand on the window’s pane, she gazed at the stars that were that were shining brightly in the dark night.

“I talk to stars. Whenever I have a problem or feelings I cannot convey to anyone else, I tell them. They may not answer me but it gives me a feeling of relief just being able to let it out with…something.”

Jessica took in a deep breath and began testing out Yuri’s logic. “Stars, do you think I can still keep my promise…?”

The blonde girl then immediately felt a sense of awkwardness within herself. It just didn’t work for her. She closed the curtains, turned off the lights, and jumped back on the large cushion.

‘I need someone who can give me an actual answer…’

 

The sun had risen from its sleep as it shone its lights across the sky, brightening Seoul from its dark night.

Jessica was the last to wake up from her slumber as she walked outside her room toward the smell of food in the kitchen while shuffling her messed up blonde hair out of her face. Seohyun had woken up the earliest to prepare meals for the two lazy siblings. Krystal was digging into her breakfast while looking back and forth between Seohyun and her sister, both who seem to have dark circles under their eyes, which clearly indicated how much sleep they had.

Krystal finished her meal in less than five minutes and had already begun to pack up her stuffs, heading toward the door.

“Why are you going forty-five minutes early, Krystal? School is just around the corner.” Jessica wondered, considering the fact that their home was about two blocks away from Krystal’s high school and the university Seohyun was attending.

“Amber and I are going to get there early to prepare for …uh…our project. Bye Jessica unnie, Seohyun-unnie!” And with the unclear reply, Krystal dashed out the door to prevent from anymore questions.

Jessica shook her head at her little sister and went back to eating her morning meal. She looked at her plate and played around with her food. Jessica twisted the strands of spaghetti onto her fork and dropping it back down without eating it.

Seohyun noticed her cousin’s strange behavior and asked out of concern, “Is there something wrong with the food, unnie?”

“Hey, Seohyun…Do you think it’s ever late to fulfill a promise?”

Seohyun tilted her head slightly at the out-of-nowhere question from Jessica. She then answered honestly in her opinion, “I think it’s never too late to fulfill a promise, unnie. If you still can keep the promise, then there’s never a ‘too late’…but that’s just only what I think. Why did you suddenly ask this?”

A wide grin appeared on Jessica’s lips as she looked up at Seohyun with rather cheerful eyes.

“It’s just that I made a promise a long time ago, so I guess now… I should fulfill it.”

 

The first YulSic flashback is finally revealed! (>__< )
I personally think this chapter was seriously badly written so I apologize... As you already know, my weak spot is grammar OTL
I want to point out/clarify a couple of things in this chapter cause it would be important to know if some of you didn't pick it up along the story.

1. This whole story is going by the 2010 calendar! So November 8th, 2010 is literally on a Monday.
2. Yuri is currently 20 years old and Jessica is 21. The flashback was when they were in their freshman year of college. I don't know how the Korea Education System works but let's just pretend that they're all correct (>__< )
3. The whole point of showing how Jessica talked to stars and gave up right after was to prove how opposite Yuri and Jessica were.
4. This chapter was named 'Conversing with The Stars' because Yuri and Jessica were talking to the stars, but if you guys know Keroro, he also has a small star on his hat and SeoHyun was talking to him LOL

Feel free to ask me any questions and I'll try to answer them non-spoiler-ish xD
The next chapter is the 'Monday' chapter! Look forward to it~
(Sad to say there's no YulSic in the next chapter but it will be a really important part for all the other pairings, especially TaeNy.)
-June