m e e t   m e   h a l f w a y

chapter one: pina colada

This story could have been started in numerous ways. With Seulgi’s first day at college, when she promptly crashed her bicycle into a towering, gargantuan freshman and eventual first love. With her first college drinking event, when she had to haul her lightweight roommate’s drunken out of the barbecue joint, assisted by said roommate’s more –thank god– level-headed boyfriend. With her first day of work, when the day ended with even her workaholic best friend threatening to resign. Or, at very least, with the night of her first blind date, when she successfully weaseled her way out, ditched the poor er, and along the way ended up running into her future husband. It could have started with something poignant, heartfelt – something worth telling.

But no, it had to start with Doyoung, my annoying brother.

“Doyoung,” Sooyoung said, steeling her eyes, “I can’t be with you.”

Doyoung could hear a deafening crack – probably coming from his heart. It came as a bolt from the blue. He stared agape at the beautiful, willowy young woman sitting across him.

“W-w-why?” he choked. His voice came out in hoarse, inaudible mutters. “We’ve been doing so well.”

They had been. They had followed a fairytale routine of romantic date nights, lush weekend getaways, and unforgettable seaside summers – just one summer, but still. He knew her love languages, her favorite restaurants, her pet peeves, her habits, her dreams, even her parents. They were supposed to be on track for a house in the suburbs and a white picket fence, not a pink slip. She was the love of his life and he thought he was hers.

So he didn’t understand why she was looking at him with such cold, unfeeling eyes – like he wasn’t the love of her life. “We’re not, Doyoung.”

“We have! We’ve been so happy together! We always got along - never argued, fought or–“

“And that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Sooyoung sighed, interrupting Doyoung’s frenzied garbling. “There’s nothing to us. No passion, no excitement. We’re just good friends.”

How the hell am I getting friendzoned by a girl I’m dating? “Maybe we’re just in the middle, right? We started off as friends, but that’s become a great foundation for us as lovers.”

“Doyoung.” Sooyoung looked him squarely in the eye. “With love, you can’t meet someone halfway.”

Doyoung felt his breath hitch at his throat. He could have gone ballistic, flipped the table over like any man would to a girl who had just toyed with his feelings. Or, he could have played a more manipulative game and charmed her into coming back to him and then dumped her for revenge. That would have been a story for the ages.

But there he was, lower lip jutting out, no more than a four-year-old whose mother didn’t buy him ice cream. Against his better judgment, Doyoung began to bawl, with large, fat tears rolling down his cheeks.

By the bar, a young woman nearly fell off her seat.

“Holy !” Wendy jumped, knocking over her drink. Her eyes angrily searched for the source, unaware that she had been part of a domino effect that had her tipped Pina Colada on her boyfriend’s pants.

“Holy indeed.” A loud groan rumbled from Yuta’s lips.

With any other drink, he would have looked like he peed his pants. With her white, milky Pina Colada, it was like he–

“Damn, dude,” Jaehyun chuckled. He was on the other side of the bar counter snorting into his drink. “Thought you were the type to keep yourself in your pants.”

“Well, I am. Unlike yourself.”

Yuta snatched the piece of tissue Jaehyun smugly proffered and began rubbing at the stains. Wendy burst into laughter, the tickle of amusement superseding her initial shock. She attempted to aid her boyfriend, but was too busy doubling over to watch where she was wiping.

“Christ, Wendy, you’re just making it worse,” Yuta said, which only made her laugh even harder. “Where else are you going to find a man who loves you even when you throw your drink at him?”

“A pet store,” Wendy replied, giggling. “I’ll buy a lion and name him Nakamoto Yuta.”

He sighed in defeat and pinched her nose. Jaehyun wasn’t sure where to look – at the annoying lovebirds, or the poor, heartbroken sod in the middle of the restaurant. The world is a strange place.

He chose the heartbroken sod, only because he felt sorry for him and he definitely had seen him before somewhere–

“Hey,” Wendy said, following Jaehyun’s gaze, “don’t you think that guy looks kind of familiar?”

The man started turning to the right, probably to shield his swollen, tear-stained cheeks, only to give Jaehyun a full view of his face. Holy . Jaehyun’s eyes widened. Kang Seulgi.

Jaehyun shrugged. Seulgi probably would have wanted him to, too. “Beats me,” he said.

“You don’t even look at me that way when you break my heart,” Yuta pouted, clutching dramatically at his chest.

“Oh my god, Yuta, stop it, of course I do!”

They were back at it again. Jaehyun was supposed to be on his break, and was honestly contemplating just heading back to the kitchen. Having the flames in his face was probably better. Jaehyun felt almost grateful when one of the nearby bartenders nudged at him.

“Hey,” Ryujin said. “What do you want me to whip up?” She was eyeing the crying man, who Jaehyun had already recognized as Seulgi’s twin brother.

Jaehyun turned to her. “Long Island Iced Tea. And the ice.”

“Aye, aye, captain.”

Ryujin held her nozzle to a glass and shot in enough liquor to sedate an entire biker gang. Jaehyun gazed at the center table, noticing –thankfully– that the man’s companion had left him, making way for Jaehyun to douse him with a better poison.

With a nod at Ryujin, Jaehyun picked up the glass of everything but Iced Tea and made a beeline for the man before he could cry the restaurant down.

“Why is my life so ?”

“Maybe because you are a piece of .”

“Kang Haechan!”

The screech from her antiquated phone’s speakers sent Seulgi recoiling. Doyoung always managed to go way too many octaves higher, and Haechan always knew exactly which of his buttons to press.

She checked her surroundings, ensuring no one else had been prematurely disturbed by the crackle of noise. Fortunately, her section of the airport was peacefully empty, a nice change from the usual hustle and bustle when she chose to take Friday morning flights home. She knew Thursday was a good idea, though Jungwoo had spent the entire flight back begging to differ. He could take one night without a meeting – the sleep-deprived er.

“Kang Doyoung,” Haechan started, oh-so-naturally dropping his honorifics, “I’ve literally been crunching out financial models since the crack of dawn, and I still have a load of tasks to get to. If you have all the time in the world to get your heart broken, then your life isn’t .”

Seulgi heard Doyoung emit a sharp hiss. “No one asked for your opinion, you little .”

“You need to shut the up.”

“You need to shut the up–“

“You guys both need to shut the up,” Seulgi groaned, annoyed by the incessant back-and-forth of her brothers. “Chan-ah, did you tell Mom and Dad I booked dinner for us on Sunday night?”

Haechan gasped. “Oh, ! I completely forgot! Seulgi-noona, I’m so, so, sorry.”

“You were supposed to tell them at the start of the week–“

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry, I’ve just been so busy with work.” Haechan was deft and quick, immediately changing up his tone to suit his audience. “Forgive me, Seulgi-noona, I’ll buy dinner on Sunday, I promise–“

“ing lies,” Doyoung cut in. “Kid’s been saying that all year since he started work, and he hasn’t as much as spent a cent.”

“I have,” Haechan said silkily. “I just haven’t spent a cent on you.”

As the youngest in the family, Haechan had a penchant for adding fuel to the flame and being naturally gifted in getting away with it. He could be committing actual arson, and everyone would shrug and call it a day after five seconds – everyone but her twin brother Doyoung, who was both easily aggravated and an easy target. Put them both together and it was usually a natural disaster of a very different magnitude.

Normally at this point, Seulgi would plug in her earphones and let them battle it out in the background, but she couldn’t exactly tune them out when she was actually tuning them in.

“Ugh, whatever,” Doyoung said, and Seulgi almost thought he was going to be the bigger man. Then again, it was Doyoung. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m going on Saturday.”

“To what?” Haechan asked.

“To our college reunion dinner,” Seulgi replied, chewing on a mint. “Well, I’m not going with you.”

She could already sense how appalled he was. “But why?”

“I already told you why – I have truckloads of work, I want to spend some time exercising, and I actually don’t really care about having senseless small talk with a bunch of people I wasn’t even close to,” Seulgi said pointedly.

“Aren’t you great with people? It’s your whole job, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I’m not networking on a weekend.”

On the other end of the line, Doyoung emitted an exasperated sigh. “Seulgi, you know I’m really not in good shape right now. I’m going to be really, really self-conscious when I meet all these people and I’ll probably drink a lot and end up making a fool out of myself. Go with me, please?”

Seulgi furrowed her brows and popped another mint into . The exhaustion in his voice made her heart falter a little, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.

God, Doyoung. She had already heard from Sooyoung and knew that Doyoung was going to call them up and go on a long-winded tirade about his loveless love life. She was going to say something around the lines of “I told you my friend wasn’t into you” – Haechan would have probably said it at the beginning of the phone call and continued to repeat it until Doyoung lost his , but part of Seulgi couldn’t really do that.

“I’ll think about it.”

Doyoung emitted a squeal, and Seulgi recoiled again. “How about you think of restarting my allowance, huh, Seulgi-noona?”

“If you could have done the one job I gave you, I might have considered it,” Seulgi smirked. “Tough .”

“Seulgi!”

Jungwoo’s tired wave signaled he had gotten them a taxi, and Seulgi quickly got to her feet. “I’ll see you this weekend, Chan. Open the door for me later, Doie, I forgot to bring my keys.”

“Alright, love you, bye!” The three of them sing-songed in unison.

Doyoung: My heart hurts. I’m going for another drink.

“Drama queen,” Seulgi muttered under her breath, though more sympathetic than spiteful. So much for opening the door.

She glanced over her shoulder to look at Jungwoo, who had hidden under his bangs with his chin tucked into his chest. Their taxi had stopped at an intersection, the engine softly purring in the silence. She was half-certain that he was asleep, or at least in a safely lucid state for her to have a go at his Vitamin Water.

Midway through her covert mission, a timely hand sliced through the air and circled around her thieving, Vitamin-Water-stealing wrist.

“Don’t even try,” he warned, eyes still closed.

Seulgi tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but to no avail. “You didn’t even pay for