November 2016

It was a rather peaceful afternoon in Itaewon. A secret meet up was set up in a restaurant owned by a mutual friend. Business peak hour had just passed, and they were provided a private VIP room on the second floor of the establishment.

Four young ladies sat together on a square wooden table. Jessica sat down with Yoona by her side, while on the other side of the table were two tall figures of Yuri and Sooyoung.

Ever since Yoona patched things up with Jessica, she had made a commitment to slowly bringing her other unnies together. She knew the easiest target was Yuri, so she went to her first and was really excited when Yuri agreed right away to the idea of meeting Jessica. Somewhere along the way, a rather more reluctant Sooyoung was dragged into this little plan of hers.

The meeting started well, with a little chit chat about the weather while they were busy ordering coffee, tea and some cakes. Yoona hadn’t had lunch yet and watered at the words written on the menu but it seemed inappropriate of her to be devouring a big meal, considering the objective of this ‘peace summit’. It’d be easier, more comfortable and, for her personally, more dignified to talk over drinks with something small and sweet, rather than a steak, or worse, a lobster, which she saw on the menu and was very tempting for her.

After their orders were served, the whole table started getting busy. Jessica checked her tea press and saw that the colour was about right. She pressed down the loose leaf tea with the plunger and poured the liquid into her fancy tea cup. By that time, Yoona had already started on her carrot cake, while still thinking of the butter-poached lobster tails she saw on the menu earlier. If things went well, she might want to order one or two to go. She was shoving another spoonful of her cake when her eyes caught Yuri’s, who was sending signals for her to start making conversation again, as it had been interrupted earlier by the waiter.

Yoona asked around the table about their cakes. The responses were good, Jessica even politely offered if anyone wanted to try her lemon crumble pie, which the rest politely declined. Yuri then mentioned that she hadn’t seen the owner of the restaurant for a while. Jessica informed her that the guy was spending more time in Seattle lately to expand his restaurant business there.

More pleasantries were exchanged. Yoona noticed how hard Yuri was trying to keep the conversation going, so she chimed in every now and then to help. Jessica, although was visibly keeping her guard up, tried her best to converse in a friendly manner. Sooyoung, on the other hand, was mostly quiet, until she dropped a bombshell of a question.

“Are you collecting pawns, Jessica?”

“What?” Startled by the question, Jessica's friendly tone had suddenly disappeared. Yuri and Yoona looked at Sooyoung with furrowed brows, then looked at each other.

“First it was Klaire, and then Yoona. Now, you’re trying to get Yuri to your side.” Sooyoung said, leaning in. “Who else have you been talking to? What is this game you’re playing? Are you trying to get enough people on your side then turn them against us?”

That reminded Jessica of the accidental meeting she had with Hyoyeon a few months back, but no one needed to know that.

Yuri put her hand on Sooyoung’s thigh under the table, silently asking her friend to stop talking. Jessica turned to Yoona, seeking an explanation. The younger girl’s eyes avoided hers.

“Oh no, I’m not here willingly. I’m only tagging along to see how you play your tricks.” Sooyoung said when she saw Jessica looked at Yoona.

“I thought you said-“

“I’m sorry.” Yoona cut before Jessica could finished. “To be fair, I didn’t actually say they want to meet with you, I only implied.”

“Seriously?” Jessica shook her head disapprovingly.

She apologized again, then turned to Yuri and Sooyoung, who finally caught on that Yoona had parent-trapped them all. “Sorry, unnies.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. You think I have nothing better to do than to plot against you?” Jessica fired back at Sooyoung. She didn’t wait for her response, as she turned to Yoona and said in a hush tone “I opened my door to you and you did this to me?” Although there was no doubt the other two could hear her well. They were seating on a 4-seat table after all.

“Unnie, please.. I wasn’t.. I just thought that..”

“You’re wasting my time.” Jessica cut her off. She swung the chains of her bag to her shoulder, ready to leave.

“That’s right, leave! You’re really good at that.” Sooyoung snickered, earning a small smack on her arm from Yuri, telling her to stop provoking the already furious girl.

Yuri grabbed Jessica’s wrist, as she stood up from her seat. “Sica, please sit down. We’re already here anyway, let’s have a civil conversation.” She pleaded.

For a split second she thought she might have succeded in persuading Jessica to stay, as she saw a flicker of hesitation in her eyes. But Jessica swatted her hand away, took out her wallet from her bag, opened it, slammed a few bills on the table and left despite Yoona’s voice calling out to her. One glance on the money and everyone knew it was much more than what four sets of drinks and cakes costed. The waiter who served them today was one lucky guy.

“What a ing show off.” Sooyoung grumbled, before turning her attention to Yoona and giving the poor girl her piece of mind for tricking them.

Yuri verbally stopped her friend this time. Luckily Sooyoung finally listened, turning her attention back to her now lukewarm cup of coffee as Yuri reached her hand out to softly tapped Yoona’s comfortingly. Her head hung low. Half-scared, half-disappointed by how the meeting turned out to be. This was probably why Klaire never even bothered all this time, she thought.

-

A few weeks later, Yuri met with Jessica again at the same spot, this time sans Sooyoung and Yoona. She had asked Klaire to set up the meeting, as Yoona wanted nothing to do with it anymore. The deer-faced girl hadn’t had the courage to reach out to Jessica again, except for a long text of apology she sent the evening after the first meeting with four of them took place.

Klaire, too, was understandibly reluctant to help, but Yuri eventually managed to persuade her after a series of bribes and mind games on the maknae. After all, bringing all the unnies back together was once Klaire’s mission too, before she prematurely gave up on it for various reasons. ‘Not worth my mental health.’ She quipped during a late night talk with Yoona after she told her about the disaster that happened.

Klaire played the messenger card well, literally started with the ‘Please don’t kill the messenger’ line on a phone call with Jessica. She told the scary ice princess that she was only relaying a message from Yuri, and she was in no way trying to coax Jessica into doing something she didn’t want to do. It took a full week and a few phone calls for Jessica to finally entertained the idea of meeting Yuri, but the maknae was left unscratched by the end of it. Not that she worried much about it anyway. She was confident that their relationship now was much more solid since that night Jessica kidnapped her. She was positive Jessica wouldn’t shut her off unless she did something really terrible directly to her.

So there Yuri and Jessica were, again, a few weeks later. Jessica ordered the same lemon crumble pie, as she only got to eat a few spoonful the last time. Yuri apologized for Sooyoung’s behaviour, trying to joke that it was bound to happen when stubborn met stubborn. ‘Stubborn One’ being Sooyoung and ‘Stubborn Two’ being Jessica. She stopped herself when Jessica didn’t seem amused.

Yuri also asked Jessica to not be too hard on Yoona. ‘You know she meant well.’ She said. She told Jessica how happy Yoona was when they finally got back in touch with each other, how Yoona couldn’t stop talking about visiting Jessica’s house again after so long, how hopeful she was when she shared the idea to Yuri about meeting with Jessica. 

Yuri explained that the plan initially was just for the three of them to meet, but she suddenly felt awkward about it, so she asked Sooyoung if she wanted to come along. If Jessica was looking for someone to blame, it should be her and not Yoona, she insisted. Jessica nodded. Truthfully, she had forgiven Yoona, it was only her pride holding her back from reaching out to her.

Lastly, Yuri asked, or more specifically implied, if they could be friends again. She was optimistic. She knew Jessica really well, or at least used to, and the fact that the ice princess had been patiently listening to her rambling, with a genuine reaction and without giving a single scoff or a snicker, Yuri knew the conversation went well.

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter