. N I N E .

Life continued on as normal, except Jihye started sending random videos of Yuki to Taemin. Videos of her at ballet, or at the park, or absorbed in whatever kids show she refused to peel her eyes away from. Or funny little moments like that time Yuki fell asleep on the bus on the way back from ballet and her cheek was smashed up against Jihye's arm. She had looked so painfully adorable that Jihye had just had to snap a photo.

Jihye figured that Taemin missed out on a lot of the every day moments like that, and this was a nice way to keep him in the loop of things. Although his responses came quite late hours later, they nonetheless came. Goofy responses, a lot of emojis, references to old memes and sometimes even selfies mimicking his daughter's poses. Through those messages Jihye got a better understanding of Taemin's playful and teasing side. It was almost like they were friends, shooting messages back and forth, except for the fact that Jihye was very aware that he was her employer and she was careful to observe the line of professionalism, as Euisoo had told her. 

At the end of today's lecture, Jihye packed away her belongings into her backpack and headed to her usual bus stop. There were already a handful of students waiting around, but as she neared, a girl turned around, a girl who Jihye instantly recognised.

Sophie was a short girl, but she made up for it with the tall chunky platform heels she always wore. She was a typical girly-girl: Her favourite colour was pink, she had an obsession with matcha lattes, she curated an Instagram account that was a mixture of fashion and aesthetic lifestyle content. She was bubbly, fun and gorgeous with short, black bobbed hair with curtain bangs. She never left the house without glitter eyeshadow and razor sharp eyeliner. She had been born in America but her parents had moved back to Korea when she was around ten or eleven, which meant she was fluent in both English and Korean. Most of all, she was the kind of girl whose sense of self was so strong that all Jihye could do was look on and appreciate. On bad mental health days, she swiftly squashed the pangs of jealousy towards her that ocassionally arose. 

"Jihye!" The girl said, her face brightening as soon as she saw Jihye approach.

"Hey, what are you doing here? Don't you usually have Mondays off?" Jihye asked. 

"I needed to fit in a very short library session. I even dragged myself here on the bus because I'm getting the tyres changed on my car," Sophie explained. "All this because I bombed my last essay, which you would know if you bothered to check the group chat. We thought you died."

Jihye thought briefly about the group chat she shared with Sophie and their other friend, Jiwon. Pretty much her closest and only friends in the city. The last time they had tried to arrange meetups, Jihye had offered poor excuses like: Sorry, can't make it, or I'm busy that day, but have fun! Or the short, sweet and very blunt: Gotta work!

"Yeah, I've been meaning to check up on you guys," Jihye said apologetically. "I've just been so busy with work and catching up with school that I haven't had time to even think about anything else." 

"I told you to start charging more for your babysitting services. Or just quit babysitting and see if you can get more hours at the dentist."

"I actually don't work at the dentist anymore. And now I only have one babysitting client. Really, I'm more like a semi-full time nanny, but whatever. That's why I've been so busy."

Sophie's response was her beautiful smile, beaming bright like the ones in the toothpaste commericals. "That's great! I can't believe you didn't tell us."

"Life has just been so hectic, but I'll admit I've been a ty friend lately. So yeah, let's arrange something. All three of us. How is Jiwon?" 

Sophie rolled her eyes. "She and and I went to the club last weekend and it was horrible. You know I can't handle her when she gets black out drunk, and you know I can't stand it when she starts crying over her ex boyfriend. Like, I get it, but the break up was four months ago, you know? This is why we need you. You always know the right thing to say and you're not squeamish about vomit."

"You're terrible," Jihye laughed. "And a hypocrite. What about you and Taeho? Are you off, or are you back on?"

"Off," Sophie replied with yet another exaggerated eye roll. "And you can't say anything because we practically had to drag you kicking and screaming out of that five month situationship last year-"

Jihye slapped her hands over her ears as heat rose to her cheeks. "La la la!" She said loudly, pretending she couldn't hear anything. "Don't bring that up, I'm begging you!"

Sophie pulled her arm down with a teasing grin. "So all of our love lives are hot messes. Which is why we need a girl's night." 

"You're right. What's your schedule like? If I have enough notice, I can try and get the time off work." 

"I'm free pretty much whenever. It's you and Jiwon who are busy all the time. You know Jiwon's bartending gig means she works mostly evenings and nights, but what about you?"

"The afternoons and evenings."

"Well then if we can work around school, we could at least meet up for lunch?" Sophie suggested. 

"Sounds good."

Sophie's eyes suddenly widened with a realisation. "Actually I'm picking Jiwon up from the airport next Thursday morning. If you want, we could pick her up and then grab something to eat after." 

Jihye had classes. But she figured she could skip. Missing one day wouldn't kill her future career- or at least she hoped. "I think I should be free. Where did she go?" 

"She went to Shanghai to visit some of her relatives. Lucky girl." 

The bus finally came, rolling to a slow stop in front of them. They boarded, and sat beside each other catching up with one another. About school stress, their disastrous love lives, immediate and future goals, all in the half hour it took for the bus to reach Sophie's stop. As soon as they said goodbyes, Jihye's phone vibrated in her hand. 

It was a video. Of Jihye. She recognised it well. It was when she had been seventeen, and Euisoo had gotten her tickets to an SNSD concert, and her sister had come along with her. It was said sister who had taken this video of Jihye screaming along to 'The Boys' at the top of her lungs, the metal of her braces flashing under the lights. She had been to focused on the stage to notice that her sister had been recording her. And somehow in the following days that embarrassing video had made its way across the entire extended family. 

And here that stupid video was again. Except this time it had been sent to her by Taemin, followed by a string of crying emojis and the message: You were adorable.

Jihye's impassioned fingertips flew over over the keyboard. Who showed you- but she stopped mid sentence because there was only one answer. Euisoo. Traitorous, backstabbing, -stirring Euisoo. He had shared the video even though, after two years of begging, he had promised her that he would delete it. Liar. 

So instead she delet