"Surprise!"

Evie launches into Seulgi, giving her a big bear hug and a little bit more as she feels herself being pinned to the wall, glossy lips attacking her own. She pushes her straight away, but apparently too late as Joohyun is already standing there, looking at them. The woman retracts immediately and disappears from vision.

", what's that?" Evie jumps in surprised, catching only her shadow.

"Joohyun-unnie is here." She whispers. Her face is definitely burning.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know." Evie says back in whisper.

They both fix themselves before walking in to see Joohyun sitting calmly on the edge of the sofa bed.

"Unnie, this is my friend, Evelyn Song." She introduces the guest.

Joohyun stands up and approaches them, extending her hand. "Hi, I'm Joohyun."

Evie shakes it. "Hello, you can just call me Evie. Nice to finally see you in person."

"Nice to meet you." Joohyun smiles, eyes trailing down to the orange Hermès paper bag Evie is holding.

"Oh, right." Evie exclaims, following Joohyun's gaze. She turns to Seulgi, handing her the bag. "This is for you. Happy birthday!"

"Wow, thank you." She takes the gift.

"It's not a Birkin, so don't get too excited." Evie warns her with a smile. "You don't seem like the type who would like a Birkin and I know you won't be happy to be given something so expensive so I got you something more appropriate. Also, open this first." She hands her a smaller bag.

Seulgi does as told as the three of them move to the dining table. Joohyun stands by her side, observing silently. "When did you get back? I thought you were still in Amsterdam." She says, putting the bag on the table.

"Last night. I thought I'd give you a surprise. Sorry for barging in like this, by the way." Evie shoots Joohyun an apologetic smile. "She said she'd be home alone today so of course I flew ten and a half hour back so princess won't be lonely on her birthday." Evie teases, turning to poke her side.

Seulgi fakes gagging with the utmost exaggeration, making Evie laugh. She then answers before Joohyun could. "Unnie only told me last night that she was coming."

"Oh, it's so sweet of you to come to keep her company. You're not going home for the holidays?" Evie asks.

Seulgi steals a glance at Joohyun and sees her eyebrows move involuntarily, as if saying who are you to say that to me? But she gives a polite smile, ignoring the first part and answers, "I'm going back to my hometown tomorrow."

"I see. You stayed back on purpose, didn't you? No wonder she and Wendy always speak so fondly of you." Evie comments with a smile.

Joohyun lets out a small chuckle and deadpans, "They've been doctrinized to always say good things about me."

Evie cackles at the response. "I like you already, Joohyun-ssi." When Seulgi fishes out a pretty purple box, Evie explains to the both of them. "This is from a famous handmade chocolate store in Amsterdam. They sell interesting flavours like lavender, drambuie, plum, pepper and vanilla poppyseed. I got you a bit of everything. They don't use preservatives so make sure you finish them in a week or so."

Seulgi opens the box and she feels like she can smell all the flavours Evie just mentioned. She offers the box to Joohyun but she says that she's still full from the ribs earlier. "I'll try it later." She says politely, while Evie reasons that she's watching her weight after going crazy on a food bingeing while in Amsterdam. Seulgi pops one in , recognizing the smell as lavender.

"Now, these are my favourite." Evie shows a box of assorted cheese. "They have the best Gouda in the world." She points to one of them. "This should last about.. wait, do you know much about cheese?"

To make things easier Seulgi just shakes her head with a smile. Evie then goes on to give them a presentation on how to preserve cheese. Depend on the types, which can be categorized into hard, semi-hard, soft and semi-soft cheese, they can last from a month to half a year unopened. Evie then tells her what the best way is to store them, even giving her a tip to cut them in small portions and put those she would like to keep longer in the freezer for a maximum lifespan. Seulgi catches Joohyun giving her a funny look while Evie lectures them about cheese.

"Thank you. These are all so thoughtful." Seulgi tells her gratefully while stacking the boxes neatly.

"Alright then, I will leave you two to your party." She jokes, air quoting the word 'party'.

This is when Seulgi feels like she's being put on a tight spot. It feels rude to just let Evie leave but she isn't sure if Joohyun would be comfortable if she stays. "You can.. join us. We aren't really having a party, as you can already see, but there are a good half portion of ribs left and a lot of sweet treats." She decides to coerce Evie into staying. It's only polite, she's sure Joohyun would understand.

"Yeah, you should stay." Joohyun chimes in, fortunately. "You came all the way from Amsterdam just for her birthday." Joohyun says dryly, making Evie laughs again.

"Nah, I don't want to interrupt. I'll just come back lat- wait, are you staying over?" Evie asks Joohyun.

"No." Joohyun answers immediately, shaking her head.

"Then I'll come back later in the evening?" Evie suggests, turning to check with Seulgi. "I have errands to do anyway. This is going to be my first Lunar New Year in Korea since I was a child by the way. I'm half-excited half-dreading having to see my big family."

When Evie finally leaves, Joohyun looks a bit bumped and Seulgi couldn't stopped herself from teasing her. "If I didn't know better, I'd think that you were jealous."

"What?" Joohyun looks at her confused.

"Your whole attitude just now screamed jealousy to me." She explains, giggling.

"Oh, you mean the ual assault happening earlier?" Joohyun asks jokingly, pointing to the front door where Evie attacked her earlier. "I don't want to ever see you or Seungwan or Sooyoung or Yerim kiss anyone. Gross. Just gross. Especially Yerim. Ew."

Seulgi laughs her off at the response. She then walks back to the table and starts opening the forgotten Hèrmes paper bag from Evie.

"She's really generous." Joohyun comments, watching her taking out the wrapped handbag. "She's the one with the Porsche, right?"

Seulgi confirms that Evie is indeed the so called chaebol she has been involving herself with. Joohyun seems to be keeping things to herself so she asks her to just voice out whatever she has in mind. The older woman refuses to do so, not wanting to rain on her parade but Seulgi insists. "We're not dating.. yet. So this is the perfect timing for you to give me a warning or just simply share your wisdom."

"Oh, I thought you were already together." Joohyun seems uncertain. "Listen, I think I told you before to stay away from people like her, but.. I think I was stereotyping them. Honestly, she seems cool. And if you're happy then who am I to say anything about it?" She smiles. "Just.. be cautious, okay? She might be nice but she's still a part of her family. I know you've watched dramas and they're often exaggerated but a lot of it is true, you know. I have a cousin who married into a crazy rich family and people always say that she's lucky but in fact, she's miserable. More than miserable, actually. Like.. almost killed herself kind of miserable. So, if you're just having fun then sure, go for it. But if you're thinking about a future with her, then.." She shrugs. "Sorry, I don't mean to bring your mood down but I think it's important for you to consider other factors and not just love."

She remembers a few years ago when Joohyun rushed back home to Daegu when her cousin was hospitalized. She never found out the reason and she didn't know it was the cousin who married into the conglomerate family. She nods her head and takes a deep breath. "I understand. I have my doubts too and I was planning on talking to her about this."

By then, a beautiful navy blue and brown Hermès Herbag Zip has come out from the paper bag. They both marvel at it.

"She's right. This suits you more than a Birkin bag." Joohyun says, feeling the fabric of the bag with her hand, sighing. "Now my gift looks so shabby."

Seulgi turns to where she has put the box Joohyun gifted her earlier, finally knowing the real reason Joohyun seems sort of down since Evie appeared. She immediately assures her. "I don't know what's inside that box yet but I'm telling you, your seaweed soup is what we're all most looking forward to every year. Nothing beats your soup."

Joohyun rolls her eyes. "Kang Seulgi, if you were a guy, you'd exactly be the type that I hate the most. Stop it with your nonsense and go try the bag on!"

Seulgi laughs as she stands up, not to go to the mirror to see how good the bag looks on her but to go get Joohyun's gift. She opens it exitedly like a child on Christmas morning. She gasps when seeing a very cute teddy bear, which she quickly realizes is not just a knick knack but an actual table lamp. She spends the next minute exaggeratingly raving about the gift while Joohyun is telling her to shut up, surpressing a smile.

-

'My grandmother was married to this man and I always thought she had a very simple and uncomplicated love life. But she just confessed to me that she spent her whole life dreaming about another man she was in love with. She just accepted her fate. It's so sad.'

Seulgi's TV screen shows a movie in which the two main characters are walking leisurely at an amusement park. A giant ferris wheel is shown at the background spinning endlessly.

'I guarantee you it was better that way. If she ever got to know him, you know, I'm sure he'd have disappointed her eventually.' The male character says in response to the female.

She feels Joohyun moving for the first time in the past few minutes. 

'People have these romantic projections they put on everything. It's not based in any kind of reality.'  The male character continues.

"You always fall asleep when I'm the one picking the movie." Seulgi says, a little grumpily.

Joohyun lazily removes her head from Seulgi's shoulder. "Seulgi, we've watched Before Sunrise unhealthy amount of times. At this point I hope the ferris wheel would have fallen down while they were still in it to make it more exciting."

She gasps as if Joohyun has just said something incredibly scandalous. No, it was scandalous. "What kind of a psychopath are you?"

"An original visual kind of a psychopath."

"Wow, you really have no shame. To think that you pretended to hate that line when we first saw the lyrics." Seulgi tsks at her.

"I've sung it too many times I have no shame left." She turns to lean on the other side of the couch, stretching her legs to rest them on Seulgi's lap.

They continue watching the movie in peace until Joohyun speaks right on the scene where Jesse and Celine are making out on the grass. They're adults but they still find it awkward watching kissing and scenes. The two maknaes, on the other hand, would woo and woah at it, which somehow makes it less awkward instead when they have movie nights at the dorm.

"Your dad called me a few weeks ago asking if something happened to you. I didn't know how to answer him so I made up something about work. I hope it's okay?"

"What?" Seulgi snaps her head at her the moment her dad is mentioned. She hasn't heard about any of this. "Why did he call you? Oh my God, this is so embarrassing."

"He was just worried about you because you moved out so suddenly." Joohyun's foot taps on her lap comfortingly.

"He shouldn't have." Seulgi sighs, leaning deeper into the couch. When she hears nothing but the sound of the movie, she turns to Joohyun who is playing with the hem of her shirt. "Unnie?" She calls.

"I felt very guilty. One, for lying to him. Two, for hurting his daughter." She mutters.