Jiwon woke up the next morning after what was probably one of the best sleep he had in the past year.

There was already a notification on his message app. Who would contact him so early in the morning already? Usually it was Simon who contacted him to pick him up when he had schedules, but Jiwon didn't have one today (or as far as he could remember). He grabbed his phone and it lit up brightly, causing him to wince in annoyance. The blue bubble of the message popped up on the screen.

“Good morning, Oppa! Have a nice day 😊!”

Right, Jiwon realized, he did have someone who would wish him good morning now, didn't he?

He glanced at the clock, almost 11 AM. He typed back, “Good morning? But it's almost afternoon already.”

He pressed the send button, and less then ten seconds after he put his phone down, a pinging sound of notification rang from his phone.

“😆😆”

“Oppa, did you just wake up?”

“Yeah,” Jiwon replied.

“😭😭😭 I'm sooooo jealous…. I had a schedule early in the morning.”

“Oh, are you still filming now?”

“I'm on a break.”

Dara sent a picture, herself in the waiting room, holding a half-eaten chocolate muffin.

Jiwon muttered out loud to himself, “Cute.”

At the sound of his voice, the lump at the end of his bed moved, revealing Lucy, who barked once, tilting her head at him. Somehow, it made Jiwon feel a little bit embarrassed.

He typed on his phone, “Have a good time filming. Fighting! Text me when you’re done.”

Before he hit the send button, he stared at his text again, rereading it for the second time, third time, especially the last part. Would that request be too presumptuous of him? Even though she wasn’t technically his official girlfriend yet (his stomach did a somersault at that thought), it would be normal for them to text each often, right? Isn’t that what the kids are doing these days? Jiwon had no idea. Was he taking too long to type his response? Had Dara noticed him incessantly typing and pausing and typing again from the top panel? He groaned in frustration. Why was this so hard? He ended up deleting the last sentence of the message, just to be on the safe side, and finally hitting the send button.

The reply came back five seconds later “Thank you Oppa 😊”

Then, he could see the little text under Dara’s name, ‘typing…’. It popped up, disappeared for a few seconds, popped up again, disappeared again. He had to bite back a laugh. Seemed like he wasn’t the only one struggling with the texting.

Finally, another text popped up. “I have to go now. I’ll text you later!”

Jiwon couldn’t stop the grin spreading on his face after he read the last sentence. That was a go sign, wasn’t it? He typed back the message he had meant to send earlier.

“Yes, text me when you’re done. Bye!”

She reacted to his message with a heart emoji. He kept staring at that emoji, that stupid red heart on his phone screen for what must have been more than five minutes, with what must have been a silly grin on his face.

Jiwon had never been that attached to his phone before. For all he was concerned, it was just the one thing that forced him to respond when his manager woke him up for his schedules with a panicked “Jiwon Hyung!!!!”, and it entertained him enough with games when he had to wait and his beloved gaming PC was out of range. But he kept his phone close to him throughout the day, placing it next to him with the screen up so that he could notice any new notifications. The new text from Dara appeared at around 1 P.M. He briefly wondered whether he should immediately reply, or to wait a while so that he didn’t seem like he was so eagerly waiting for her text. But whatever. He was waiting, and he was eager, so he grabbed his phone to reply. After that, they were off. Jiwon didn’t think he had ever held his phone in his hands for such a long time, just to go back and forth with her.

First they talked about each other’s meals. Dara was eating her late lunch and Jiwon admitted that he just sort of meshed his lunch and breakfast together since he woke up so late anyway, so she nagged him about not skipping his meals. Then Jiwon asked her what she did when she was eating. She sent him a screenshot, of Jiwon himself on screen during a round of the ‘Guess Who’ game in ‘New Journey to the West’, and he laughed so hard out loud when she texted that she particularly liked to watch the show while she was eating, so that she could watch the great looking food the PD team offered them, and then them losing every chance to taste those food anyway. Their conversation only lulled for fifteen minutes tops, when one of them had to do something and put off the phone. he had to pause the conversation a bit to feed Lucy. Somehow, he felt that his little dog was staring at him strangely the entire time he was filling her food bowl. When he came back to his phone, he saw a huge wall of text from her that was a list of ten things he could try out the next time he played the ‘Shout in SIlence’ game. He sent her Na PD’s contact number in response and told her to try it herself.

They went on and on, until Jiwon looked at his bedside clock in shock because how could it be 11 PM already? He had to go, because he did have an early schedule tomorrow and he needed to sleep, but he was also in the middle of convincing Dara to watch the original Star Wars films (and to never touch the prequels even with a ten foot pole).

“I have to go,” he texted her, “I have a shoot tomorrow.”

“Oh…. Rest well, Oppa! I’m gonna do this then,” she replied, sending him a screenshot of her TV screen with a black screen with text written in blue: “A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…”

He grinned and replied, “Have fun! Feel free to text me any comments.”

After hitting the send button, Jiwon went to shower, brush his teeth, and he came back to another text from her.

“Oh, I’m going to totally spam you, Oppa.”

He laughed out loud, reacted to the message with a laughing emoji, then plugged his phone to the charger. He was quite sure that the silly smile stayed on his face as he was falling asleep too.

---

Jiwon woke up to an unprecedented amount of texts. And as he was scrolling the text quickly to skim it, his eyes caught one sentence, written in English and in capital letters.

“I AM YOUR FATHER LUKE??????”

Then more texts in Korean, but he could almost hear her yelling the words in his ears.

“What the hell is going on?”

“But he cut off Luke's hand? Why would a dad do that?”

Jiwon decided to scroll all the way to the very top, when she began watching episode 4 and read her reaction from that point on. Interestingly enough, she definitely had a favorite character in Star Wars already. She first mentioned that the pilot guy looked handsome at his introduction scene. Then she continued to make comments here and there about how much she liked Han Solo, saying that he was so cool, so charming, so charismatic, so handsome, so hot. And then when she got to the Empire Strikes Back, she began to gush over Han’s relationship with Leia, saying that they were cute, wait no, they were really cute. She texted him a bunch of crying emojis and stickers when Han was trapped and frozen in carbonite. But she had to stop watching after Episode 5 and now she was still stuck at the cliffhanger.

Jiwon wished that he could be beside her and watch all the reactions playing in her face as she watched the film. Before he realized what he was doing, he had typed out “You should come to my house next time and we can watch Episode 6 together.”

He stared at the text on his screen, considering whether it would be too much to invite her over to his house. Then again, it would almost be impossible for them to see each other physically unless they were in a private space, and their respective apartments were the most realistic venue for a date. It would just be a normal date, a movie date. People do that all the time, right? It was just that they were doing it in their own apartments instead of a cinema. But that wouldn’t be too much, would it?

Jiwon breathed out a prayer, gathered all his courage and tapped the send button. He was too nervous to see the results so he placed his phone face down on his computer desk as he went through his morning routine, a cup of coffee, brushing his teeth, showering. He came back to the desk after another thirty minutes, said another prayer and flipped his phone over.

There was another text, “Sure! I’m free this Saturday night. How about you?”

Jiwon could almost feel his heart double in size in his chest as he texted back, “Yep, I’m free too.”

---

It was Saturday afternoon and Dara was standing in front of her walk-in wardrobe. She walked back and forth in front of her racks of clothing, trying to find a perfect outfit for their - well, Dara supposed she could officially call it that now, their date. Their probation date.

Dara had to suppress a giggle whenever she remembered that word. The whole probation thing was a bit silly, but she understood that Jiwon only wanted to protect her. So it became cute, she supposed. Well, Jiwon oppa had been a great probation boyfriend, so far. He was sweet, he texted her regularly, he asked her whether she had eaten yet three times a day, he made her laugh with his jokes, he carefully read every message when she talked about her day and sent her actual comments instead of just some simple KKK. Really, Dara couldn’t understand why he was that anxious about dating, he was doing it well enough, a bit too well, maybe.

Dara’s eyes scanned her clothes again. Her eyes landed on a simple white long sleeved midi dress. Not too glamourous, yet not too plain either. She grabbed the dress and wore it, spent some more time debating internally on her makeup colors, her shoes, and everything else. It made her feel like she was seventeen again, mulling over her closet before going out on a date with a boy she had a crush on.

Before she realized it, she had spent more than two hours to get herself ready for the date. She was putting on the final, finishing touches in her makeup when her phone dinged again from beside her.

“What do you want to get for dinner? I’ll go out to buy the takeout soon.”

“Whatever you want to eat, Oppa,” she replied.

Jiwon’s reply came almost instantly, “Anything you’re craving then?”

The image of juicy, crispy fried chicken appeared in Dara’s mind. But she shook her head, what if Jiwon didn’t want to eat that? She didn’t want to inconvenience him like that. Besides, it was him who knew his neighborhood best.

“Nothing in particular,” she texted, “Just get whatever’s tasty, Oppa.”

“Well then, what do you think of burgers? This restaurant sells the best cheeseburger I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.”

Truth be told, Dara wasn’t sure whether she could finish an entire burger by herself. But Jiwon must have really wanted to eat the burger, so she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.

She sent out a “Sure!” with a thumbs up emoji.

She checked her appearance in the mirror one more time, twirled around, straightened the pleats of her dress.

Jiwon sent her a picture of the restaurant’s menu. “Let me know what you’re getting. The cheeseburger’s great, and they also have a great chicken burger.”

She typed out, “Sure! I’ll order whatever you’re getting. Oppa. I’ll be on my way to your house soon,” as she waited for her apartment lift to take her to the basement. As she drove through the busy streets of Seoul, she could see the sun began to set, the last rays of sunlight in the sky coloring the Han river orange. By the time she arrived at Jiwon’s apartment building, the skies had turned almost completely dark. After she had parked her car, she sent him a text, “I’m downstairs.”

“Give me a minute,” he texted.

Dara stood inside the lift lobby with her heart pounding, her eyes carefully watching the changes in the floor numbers. She held her breath every time an elevator door opened, waiting to catch a glimpse of the person on the lift, then quickly lowering her head so that the baseball cap would cover her face from the strangers.

Until, finally, the lift door opened and revealed him, dressed in an ed black shirt with a white undershirt beneath. The moment their eyes locked, his eyes lit up, a small smile appearing in his face. He pressed the lift button to hold it open as she skipped her way inside the lift. Dara looked up and noticed the CCTV camera at the corner of the lift. She stood a bit further away from Jiwon in the lift, but she could smell his sandalwood cologne, the scent leaving her heady already. The two of them stood and waited in silence as the floor number went up, and finally, the elevator dinged. She followed him through the corridors and they arrived at an apartment door. Jiwon keyed in his door code and he held the door open, letting her enter first.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Dara took off her baseball cap. Jiwon’s smile grew to its full size “Hi,” he breathed.

“Hi, Oppa.”

They locked eyes and burst out laughing together. He’s cute, Dara thought, dangerously cute, now that he’s her probation boyfriend.

“Can I give you a hug?” he said.

Dara nodded, wrapping her arms around him. He put one hand on her waist, pressing her closer, and the other on the back of her head, tucking it gently under his chin. When they let go, he still had one hand patting her head softly.

“You look pretty,” he murmured. Dara felt herself flush, and she decided those two hours she invested on her outfit, makeup and shoes had definitely been worth it.

Jiwon walked to the console table on the side and picked up a bouquet, handing it to her, “For you.”

The flower bouquet was sunflowers with orange tulips. He had remembered her favorite flower, Dara realized, feeling her heart swell. “Thank you, Oppa. This is so beautiful.”

She took a step towards him. He was so close now that she could feel the heat radiating from his body, could watch his Adam’s apple bobble as he swallowed. If she got on her tiptoes, she would be almost at his eye level, and he could lean down, and she could -

A loud bark startled Dara out of her musings. She turned to find a small white dog at the end of the hallway. That must be Lucy, she thought. When Dara locked eyes with Lucy, the dog barked one more time.

“Lucy-ya, be nice.” Jiwon said.

Dara approached the dog and crouched down in front of her, “Hello.”

Lucy sat still, watching her carefully, like a guard dog. Dara lowered her voice and said gently, “Can I borrow your Appa for a while? I promise that I'll return him.”

Dara began to reach out her hand to Lucy. The dog only stared at her approaching hand without moving a single inch. Maybe it would be better to explain things to her?

“I'm your Appa’s,” Dara trailed off, glancing at Jiwon. She felt her cheeks heating up, along with an amused grin spreading, “Probation girlfriend.”

She could hear Jiwon snorting beside her, biting back his laugh. Lucy turned to him, then back to Dara again. Then Lucy began to slowly Dara’s fingers. One , two , three .

“Good girl,” Dara gushed. She moved her hand slowly to Lucy’s head, running her hand through the soft fur. The dog purred, wagging her tail, nuzzling closer. “Oh, you’re a sweet girl.”

After a couple more pats, Dara stood up and walked through the hallway, with Lucy close on her heel. The hallway opened up to a large living room space, with a sectional sofa and a cozy armchair in the middle, facing the TV stand on the left side. At the right side was a dining table and an open kitchen area behind it. She could see the neon lights of Seoul from the glass window, overlooking the Han river and tall office buildings in the central business district. On the far side of the room, there was a staircase leading to the second floor of the house. She could see three doors from the upper landing, probably two bedrooms and a bathroom, as well as a terrace area.

Jiwon agreed to her request for a full house tour with a grin. There was a guest bedroom in the first floor, which was mostly used by Jiwon’s mother when she visited. He converted one of the two bedrooms upstairs as his office and gaming room. Inside the room, there was a computer desk in the middle, with a full gaming setup that perhaps could make her own brother envious. He also had several large standing speakers, along with several instruments. Dara saw a recording mic on the desk, a digital keyboard, an acoustic guitar, and an electric drum setup tucked to the corner.

“Do you use this room for recording, Oppa?”

“No, not really,” Jiwon answered, “Only for demos, mostly. It’s mostly for me to play around and scribble down ideas. I’ll go to the YG studios to smooth out the details later.”

“I see. Do you still write songs?”

Jiwon scratched the back of his head, “Only when the inspiration strikes.”

“How about recently?”

The dim light in the room made it impossible for her to be sure, but she thought she could see a growing flush on his cheeks, “I might have written something.”

Dara perked up, “Can I listen to it?”

“No!” Jiwon answered, then quickly began explaining, “Not that I don’t want you to listen to it. It’s still in a very rough shape. I usually never let anyone listen to my first demos, only the second and onwards.”

Dara hummed her understanding, “Well, I hope you’ll let me sneak in some preview before it was released then. I can totally brag to Eana Eonni that I’ve listened to the new Jekki songs earlier, Oppa.”

Jiwon laughed, “Well, no promises. But I’ll see what I can do.”

He led her outside, and Dara pointed to the other room, “What’s this room?”

“My bedroom,” Jiwon answered, then he shifted on his feet, “I - Uh - I tried cleaning it up, it’s still super messy. I’m not sure if you’d want to see it.”

Dara laughed. “Next time, then?”

For a moment, Jiwon paused, looking at her intently. “Yes,” he said, nodding, “I’ll show you next time.”

The house tour concluded and it was time to move on to the next event: dinner. Dara’s eyes widened as Jiwon began to unpack the takeaway food he had gotten.

“Oppa!” Dara exclaimed, staring at the spread of food around her. “Why did you get so many?”

Jiwon had gotten a beef cheeseburger, a chicken burger, a bowl of mashed potato, cheese fries, hot fudge sundae, and strawberry milkshake.

“Well, I wasn’t sure which one you’d like, so I figured I could buy different items on the menu so that you could try more.”

“I eat very little though,” Dara said, “What about the leftovers?”

Jiwon shrugged, “I’ll eat the rest for my meals tomorrow. It’s okay, just try out and eat whatever you like.”

They ended up moving the spread of food on the coffee table in front of the sofas so they could eat while watching Star Wars Episode 6 together. Jiwon had pressed the play button after the two of them settled on the sofa with a burger each on their hands. Jiwon let her choose which burger she wanted first, and she grabbed the chicken burger, so he had the cheeseburger on his hand instead.

“The chicken burger is good, Oppa,” Dara said. “Do you want to try?”

“You can enjoy it, Dara, I’ve eaten it before.”

She nodded. After taking a couple of bites, Jiwon pushed the cheeseburger on his hand to her.

“Try this one,” he said. She took a bite from the burger on his hand. The beef patty was tender and juicy, with the sour tang of tomato combined with the salty taste of the cheddar cheese.

“It’s really good, Oppa,” she said. Jiwon grinned softly at her expression.

“Do you like it better than the chicken one?”

Dara considered it for a moment, “I think they’re both good. But next time I’ll probably order the cheeseburger instead.”

Jiwon nodded, then handed her the burger in his hand. “You can have this then.”

“But it’s yours. And the chicken’s also good.”

He only blinked at her, with his hand still outstretched to her direction. “You like the cheeseburger. Take it.”

Dara had truly liked the cheeseburger better, but she felt bad for taking his burger. She wondered whether she could just wait it out until Jiwon gave up and ate his burger himself, but she looked at his steely, determined gaze, and remembered that this was the Eun Jiwon she was dealing with, the Eun Choding that had driven so many top entertainment PDs in Korea nuts because of his stubbornness.

“Dara-ya,” he said, looking at her with a soft gaze, “I don’t mind. You can take it.”

Damn it, Dara thought. Damn him and his eyes. She exchanged the burger in their hands, and Jiwon grinned wide, definitely pleased with himself.

Next, he made her try the two potatoes: the mashed potato and the cheese fries. She had liked the cheese fries better, but she knew he would give it to her if she had said so, so she declared that she liked the mashed potato instead. Thankfully, Jiwon didn’t immediately place it in her hands, he put both potatoes side by side on the table, within reach from both of them. He placed the mashed potato closer to her side, while the cheese fries was in front of him. The two of them would pick a potato from either tray and eat it while Return of the Jedi played in the background. Around ten minutes later, as Luke arrived at Jabba the Hutt’s place to free Han and Leia, Jiwon suddenly switched the two potato trays.

“You like the cheese fries better,” he said.

Dara opened to argue, but Jiwon continued, ”You’ve only eaten the mashed potatoes twice in the last five minutes, while you’ve grabbed ten fries. Dara-ya, I understand that you don’t want to make me feel bad, but if you want something, you can just say it. I don’t mind.”

She found herself unable to speak for a few moments. Dara had always been the one who had to give in. She was the eldest child. She was the pushover kid in school. She was the kind and the understanding girlfriend. She couldn’t remember the last time she was at the receiving end of such gestures from any of her ex boyfriends, “You’re a great - “ Dara paused, quickly adding another word - “probation boyfriend.”

Jiwon snorted to suppress his laughter, “Well then, thank you. You’re a great probation girlfriend too.”

He smiled at her so sweetly that the butterflies in her stomach was catapulting all over the place. Later, after tasting the dessert, Dara declared she liked the sundae better and claimed it as hers. She could see the amused twinkle in his eyes as she devoured the sundae clean.

They paused the film for five minutes to clean up the food after they were done with it. When they returned to the sofa, Lucy also climbed onto it to get some snuggles. She ended up sprawled on the couch between the two of them, with her head on Dara’s lap and her feet on Jiwon’s. She kept snuggling closer to Dara’s side, which meant that she kept kicking at Jiwon. Dara had to stop giving Lucy belly rubs at one point because she wanted to grab her mug to drink. When she lowered the mug, Lucy was glaring at her with a look so indignant. It was almost hilarious how quickly that look melted away the second Dara went back to petting her. Dara giggled at the sight.

Jiwon rolled his eyes at his dog’s behavior. “She won’t even look at me now. Should I feel betrayed?” he muttered, “I should, right? I raised her.”

“Of course not, Oppa. She’s just curious about me because I’m new to her. Isn’t that right, Lucy-ya?” Dara gave her more head pats, and Lucy let out a sound that reminded Dara of her cat, her Dadoong-ie, almost like a purr. “Aigoo, Lucy-ya, you’re so sweet. You act so tough but you're so soft inside, aren't you? Just like your Appa.”

Dara was expecting a clever quip back from Jiwon. Instead, he just looked at her, then very determinedly had a staring contest with the floor. She fought the urge to squish his rosy cheeks, or grab his face in her hands and kiss him senseless. Instead, she turned her head back to the screen, where lightsabers and blasters are firing off and pretended not to watch the small smile spreading in his face from the corner of her eyes.

---

After the Death Star was blown up, Emperor Palpatine was defeated, and (most importantly) Han and Leia had their wedding, the clock was slightly past midnight. Jiwon had insisted on driving her home, but Dara had also insisted back to him that she had her car, and she could drive back home herself. Finally, he settled to walking her to the car instead. Dara was grateful for that as she entered the basement floor. It was dimly lit and deserted. She could hear no sound other than their footsteps. A ghost showing up from the pillar in front of them would be a good jump-scare indeed. She shook her head and walked even fast to her car.

“Here we are,” Dara said, taking a big gulp of air in relief. “Thank you so much for today, Oppa. I had a lot of fun.”

Jiwon smiled at her, “I had lots of fun too. Drive home safely and have a good rest. Text me when you get home.”

Dara nodded. She opened the driver’s seat door and was about to climb in when Jiwon said, “Wait!”

She turned around. He was fidgeting with his hands, then he took a deep breath, and stepped forward. He leaned down, and placed a soft kiss to her cheek.

“Dara-ya, goodbye,” he whispered, his breath tickling her and sending gooseflesh through her body.

He was about to stretch back to his full height, so Dara locked her arms around his neck to keep him in place, and got on her tiptoes. The kiss she landed was more on his jaw than his cheek, because she could only reach that much. She gave him on final squeeze before letting go. He stood on the side of the car, a smile firmly in place, waiting for her as she started up the car and got ready to drive.

Just before she began driving off, she gave him a very excited goodbye wave and shot him a finger heart. She could almost hear his laugh through her car window in response, and he shyly, gave her a finger heart in response.

Dara drove through the streets of Seoul knowing that she was really, really looking forward for another date with her probation boyfriend again.

---

(Author's Note: Sorry this took so long lol. Fluff was never my thing, and I probably spent too much time writing and trashing and rewriting this very awkward (but sweet) first date. It was honestly a miracle that I managed to write 4.7k words of fluff  without feeling like I want to set my hard drive on fire. Hopefully the words would flow out from me faster once we’re back to our regularly scheduled dose of angst and pining :V)

Next time: The three-month mark of the relationship, which means it's time for some deep personal reflections and mini-meltdowns.