It was a normal Friday night in the life of Kim Jungeun. The TV was playing a historical K-drama. Jungeun was not too invested in the show, but she has nothing better to do tonight anyway. She stirred in the Chinese takeout she had picked up on her way home from work. On the screen, she could see the female lead kissing her lover farewell. Bitterly Jungeun took another bite from the noodles in the carton box she was clutching onto. 
 

Jungeun was turning 30 in 2 weeks. She had not made a big deal about it and told everybody to not come over. She was embarrassed to still be single at this age. She knew that she shouldn’t because love would come her way at the right moment, but she still felt frustrated it hadn’t happened yet. Her last serious relationship had ended in college, and after that, Jungeun had found trouble connecting to people.

Jungeun had a college degree in journalism and was a successful editor at Seoul’s Daily Paper. She absolutely loved her job and was currently appointed the position of chief editor. She had been in the business for 5 years now. All the blood sweat and tears had been worth it in the end. Her job was what kept her going and where she got all her strength from. Though she loved her work, coming home to an empty house every day with no one but her cat Eclipse to greet her gave an empty feeling inside.

Jungeun’s mom often scolded her for not being in a relationship. Now that she was 30 it was around the time to get married, but Jungeun had not brought a girl home in years. To the deep sadness of her mother, who wanted Jungeun to be married in the traditional way, like her older sister Taeyeon.

She also did not have many friends besides her team of colleagues she worked closely with. Her only other friend was her childhood friend Jiwoo, whom she had known since kindergarten. Jiwoo was engaged to Haseul, a former college classmate of Jungeun. Jungeun had been the one to introduce the two. Until this day she was still close to both of them. 

Jiwoo often tried to set Jungeun up with women, but this never worked out. Jungeun knew her best friend was only trying to help, that Jiwoo only wanted Jungeun to find the same kind of love that she and Haseul had found in each other, but Jungeun never felt like she would find what they had, not even close.

She swallowed the last bite of her dinner and got up from the couch to toss the Chinese takeout carton in the rubbish bin. While she made her way over to the kitchen her phone rang. Jungeun reached over to her purse where the sound of her ringtone was coming from.

“ Hey Jungeun, it’s me! ” the sound of Jiwoo’s voice chirped into Jungeun’s ear. “Yeah I know I can see it on the caller ID.” Jungeun snickered.

“ Oh right, well- how are you doing? Jiwoo said, laughing it off,’  I haven’t heard from you in a while. ” Jungeun paused because the truth was she had been burying herself in work to not think about how she was really feeling. 

“I’m okay, just eating some takeout and watching TV,” Jungeun answered her friend.

“ Oh, I see, well if you’re not busy tonight why don’t you come over? I haven’t seen you in ages, it’s been too long. ” Jiwoo said from the other end of the line. Jungeun thought for a moment. “ I don’t know…Don’t you have plans with Haseul tonight? ” She asked.

“ We were gonna plan on watching a movie, but I’m sure she would love to see you too, so come over, ” Jiwoo said. 

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to ruin your night together-” Jungeun started, but she was interrupted by Jiwoo 

“ Don’t be silly of course she would love to have you let me ask her myself, ” and before Jungeun could stop Jiwoo she had already lifted her ear off the phone to call for Haseul.

“Haseul baby please come!” Jiwoo called out. Haseul was in the other room when she heard her fiancée call out for her. 

“What is it, honey?” Haseul asked, walking towards the other woman. 
 

“It’s Jungeun, she would like to come over can you please tell her it’s okay?” Jiwoo said, looking at Haseul with big eyes. 

Haseul froze for a second looking from Jiwoo at the phone in her hand. “Come on Seul Jungeun is waiting for your answer,” Jiwoo pushed the phone in her fiancée’s hand gesturing her to pick it up.

Haseul got herself to her senses again and reached the phone up to her ear. 

“ Hey Lip, how are you? ” Haseul said to the woman on the other end of the line. Jungeun smiled hearing the nickname Haseul had given her in college. No one else ever called her that. 

“Hi Haseul, I’m fine thank you for asking, what about yourself?” Jungeun asked.

“Good thanks. So, I hear you want to come over, we would love to have you! You’re always welcome of course.” Haseul replied warmly. 

“Oh, let’s go to that new cafe they opened up around the corner, we wanted to go there soon anyway,” Jiwoo said to Haseul. Haseul nodded and turned her attention back to the phone.

“ Jungeun, would you like to meet us at the new cafe around the corner of our apartment? ” Haseul asked, with a tinge of shyness. Jungeun thought for a moment, on both the question and the slight change in Haseul’s tone. Dismissing the latter as nothing, and focusing on the question instead, she knew she needed a distraction and this was probably the best way to do it. 

“Yes that sounds good, can you text me the details?”

“Yes, of course, we will be heading out soon can we see you there at 8 PM, does that work for you?” Haseul asked. 

“That works for me, see you there!”

“ See you there, bye Lip! ” 

“Bye, Seulie ,” Jungeun responded brightly. 

Almost instantly after Jungeun had pressed disconnect on her phone, she received a text message from Haseul with the address of the cafe. 

Cafe Rosy

365 Colors Street 

Xx Seulie

Jungeun smiled at the text message, completely unaware that a hint of a blush spread over her cheeks. With no more time to waste she grabbed her coat from the chair, she had chucked it on coming home earlier. She looked around the house to see if she had everything. 

The TV was still playing the drama Jungeun had tried watching earlier. She walked over to turn it off and saw there was still packaging from her take out on the floor. She had not even opened her fortune cookie yet, this was something she always saved for last. Jungeun grabbed the fortune cookie and tore off the plastic wrapper. As she snapped the cookie in half the note with her fortune was revealed. 

Love will come to you in an unexpected way.

Jungeun stared at the fortune and shook her head. With all the luck she had been having in her romantic life for she knew that could just mean she would find a new stray cat for Eclipse to play with. Jungeun got up from the ground and tossed all the packaging of her takeout in the rubbish bin. She looked at the fortune again and tucked it in her coat pocket, maybe it would bring good luck. With that Jungeun was out the door, off to meet her friends.

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[ 20 minutes later at the cafe ]

Arriving at the cafe Jungeun spotted Jiwoo and Haseul seated in the back. She waved at her friends as she walked towards them. Cafe Rosy had a nice feeling it was small but compact with cute decorations and relaxing music playing. The entire place was packed and people were chatting away enjoying their coffee and snacks.

Jungeun had reached her friends, Jiwoo and Haseul smiled at her as she approached. “Jungeun it is so good to see you.” Jiwoo chirped flying into Jungeun’s arms. Jungeun hugged the shorter girl back, it felt good to see her too. Jiwoo let go allowing Haseul to greet Jungeun. 

“Lip, so glad you made it,” Haseul said warmly. She leaned in for a hug and Jungeun gave her a few taps on the back. Letting go Haseul smiled at her, Jungeun had missed that smile. She took off her coat and sat down on the couch next to Jiwoo.

“We waited to order so we could drink at the same time,” Jiwoo said to Jungeun. 

“Aw, that is so sweet of you, you shouldn’t have,” 

The women sat in silence as they all looked over the menu card to decide what they were gonna drink. 

“I think I know what I want, do you guys?” Haseul asked, Jiwoo and Jungeun nodded in reply. “Excuse me, can we order please?” 
 

A young girl with long dark hair approached the trio. “Yes of course, what can I serve you?” the girl asked as she pulled out her notepad. The girl was dressed in a white apron with frills on the edges coloring pink. It fit the cute coffee shop theme of the cafe.

“One large caramel macchiato for me please, with extra cream and extra caramel on top, also one of those large chocolate chip cookies,” Jiwoo said. The girl wrote down her order and she looked over at Haseul. 

“I would like one chai latte and a piece of warm apple pie please,” Haseul said. The young waitress noted the order and turned to Jungeun. 

“And for me a cup of fresh mint tea with honey, no snack thank you,” Jungeun said closing the menu. The girl nodded and wrote it down. 

“Those will be coming right up for you.” She took the menus from the trio and walked off to pass on the order.

“No snack, are you sure Jungeun?” Jiwoo asked her. 

Jungeun nodded definitively, “I’ve been snacking too much lately, living alone isn’t healthy, I’m telling you!” 

The other two laughed at the comment. “Well, you are always welcome to come over to eat at our place, right Haseul?” Jiwoo looked over at her fiancée.

“Yes, of course, you are always welcome,” Haseul smiled.

“So Jungeun what have you been up to lately, please enlighten us,” Jiwoo said turning her attention to her friend. Jungeun managed to smile at the question. 

“Well, I am working on a new piece. My team and I are investigating the underground black market in Seoul. We already have a lot of material but it is confidential so I can’t share too many details. And-” She paused for a moment. “I also got promoted to the chief editor which I am pretty stoked about.” Jungeun couldn’t help but give a genuine smile of excitement talking about it. This was the current highlight of her career, something she had dreamt of since entering college. A big case like this in her new position is what every journalist dreamt of the one piece that could overturn your career.

“Jungeun congratulations, that is so exciting! You have worked very hard it is no surprise you got promoted. What kind of research have you been doing? Please tell me more,” Haseul said excitedly. She put an arm under her head leaning forward listening to Jungeun gush about how they had found out new techniques to get inside information on the trades within the illegal market. Haseul listened to every word Jungeun told her and was fascinated by her results so far. 

After college, Haseul got a job at Loona the World as a columnist. Loona the World was an informative cultural magazine of different cultures, countries, languages, religions, and more. Haseul enjoyed her job very much, it gave her all the freedom to do her own research and produce columns of topics she found interesting.

Jiwoo nodded in agreement, listening to the other two women talk about Jungeun’s new project. Jiwoo was not too interest