“Anywhere you go, let me go too, Christine, that's all I ask of you–“

“,” Jungwoo groaned, doubling over, “this song is so bad.”

Jungwoo was turning blue. He, Seulgi, Jaehyun and Yuta were piled into the backseat of Johnny’s cramped Honda Civic. Twenty minutes into the ride, they realized why the back wasn’t meant for four. Jungwoo rolled down the rear glass window, poking his head out for a breath of fresh air and a second away from whatever ridiculous, sappy was playing on the radio.

Wendy, the tiniest of the lot and also the person who somehow managed to secure the front seat, whipped her head around in horror. “What? Why?” she exclaimed. “It’s so romantic!”

“You mean, it’s pretty ing old,” Johnny chuckled, his hands veering the steering wheel and his eyes catching the curves of the long, winding road ahead of them.

“It’s unrealistic as hell,” Jungwoo spat.

“Not to mention, the girl sings this with one guy and gets together with someone else,” Jaehyun added, happily pouring fuel over Wendy’s stoked flames.

Wendy frowned, folding her arms in a huff. At times, her friends truly had no class. “Well,” she sniffed, “I love it. I think it’s one of the most beautiful love songs out there and that we should put it on the lineup for next week.”

Yuta exchanged looks with Seulgi, who was squished in the middle of him and Jaehyun. “She’s not serious, right?”

“I think she is,” Seulgi chuckled.

“I am!” Wendy affirmed, her eyes shooting daggers at Yuta. “In fact, I’m going to sing it now!”

All five erupted into loud groans, attempting to shut Wendy up before she could belt out the entire chorus. Their voices echoed down the highway as Johnny stepped on the accelerator, sending the car speeding through the orange-gold horizon.

Wendy hummed along to the familiar tune, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as she pulled into the parking lot. To her, the entire setlist of The Phantom of the Opera was the gold standard of romantic musicals. If her real work was any less romantic, she would have considered being a stagehand for the musical when troupe took a tour to Seoul.

It made her a little sad when she had to turn the key on her engine, letting it whir to a stop. She still had the ghost of the melodic soprano floating through her ears when she walked through the glass door, with the tinkle of the bell of the entryway slowly bringing her back to earth.

“Good morning, Wen!” Giselle called cheerfully, peeking her head out of the receptionist counter. “Back from your morning appointment?”

“Yeah, wedding cake tasting for Kim Hyoyeon,” Wendy nodded. She hoisted her spoils of war – five different cuts of fondant-draped wedding cake– onto the table, causing Giselle to emit a gasp.

“Is that for us?” Giselle clasped her hands together excitedly, with a look of pure adoration etched onto her face. The other girls in the office were also starting to crowd around the table, eyes already feasting on the spread of cakes.

Wendy nodded. “Yup. She was tasting so many of them that we had a mountain of leftovers. Not sure if she was there to plan her wedding day or for a weekend dessert.”

But no one was paying attention to Wendy’s story of cake procurement – they had already started to take the box apart, divvying up the rare, free treats. Wendy shuffled away, about to head to her desk, when her eyes fell upon a small woman leaning by her office doorway, the only person not gawking at wedding cake samples like she’d never seen a wedding cake in her life.

“Looks like the cake tasting went well.” Kim Taeyeon her heel, heading back into the interior of her office. Wendy took it as a cue to scuttle in behind her.

“Much better than we expected! We managed to lock down the flavor, tiers, color – everything!” Wendy replied exuberantly. “She even said that she might compromise on the flowers, that carnations would actually match well if the cake’s in ivory.”

Taeyeon nodded, sliding into her seat. “Perfect. Her future mother-in-law’s been messaging me all morning about how either the wedding has carnations or she’s ready to call the whole thing off.”

Wendy gave herself a little pat on the back. Months of tailing the fussy Hyoyeon and somehow guiding her into actually making decisions would have gone into drain. Wendy pilfered her notebook from her satchel and took her usual position in front of Taeyeon’s teakwood desk.

“So,” she said, pulling up her scheduler, “next week, we’ll have eight new client consultants, five engagements, three weddings, four dress fittings– Oh, and Choi Sooyoung decided to proceed with the package we gave her. She’s coming in later today for her first appointment!”

“Noted,” Taeyeon replied, finishing up a line in her email before turning back to Wendy. “Though, scheduling weekly tasks isn’t your job anymore, Wen. Get one of the new girls to do it. You’re not an assistant anymore, remember?”

Taeyeon’s smiling reminder elicited bubbles of laughter from an amused Wendy. What can I say? Old habits die hard.

In the spring of her senior year, Wendy had discovered Taeyeon’s wedding planning agency by chance. She was at a café in the same building, garbed in a black blazer and a pencil skirt that felt way too tight for her, mourning her inability to keep up with the other business school try-hards at her disaster of a job interview. Johnny and Seulgi had companies lining up to nab them the moment they passed their bar exam, Jungwoo and Jaehyun were continuing to grad school, and Yuta was, well, broke and doodling designs on his sketchbook, but that was just Yuta. The week before, he had sent a text to the group chat, announcing that he was getting a callback from some design house. Even Yuta had been getting his together.

Wendy had been about to call it quits, seriously considering the option of being a trophy wife to an all-providing husband, until she saw a place that looked like a cross between an advertising agency and a bridal boutique with a bolded sign: “Wanted – assistant with a passion for romance, no experience required!”

There was no need for a job description. Wendy was sold. And for the next ten years, she never looked back.

“Stop doing it, okay? I promoted you last year,” Taeyeon chuckled. “Don’t make me take it back.”

“Well, if you do, I’ll just stay as an assistant to the great Kim Taeyeon forever,” Wendy winked jokingly. Taeyeon laughed, waving away Wendy’s flattery. “Honestly, though. I’m happy to do it. The newbies will take a while to learn the ropes, anyway.”

“Even so, it takes away time from you handling real cases, Wendy.” Taeyeon rose to her feet, plucked a folder from her shelf, and turned back to Wendy. “Besides, I have something I want you to take the lead on.”

Wendy dropped her notebook. She cupped her hands over . No way.

Taeyeon’s eyes glimmered. “Choi Sooyoung. You’ll be her lead wedding planner.”

Wendy emitted a high-pitched scream, throwing her arms around Taeyeon and jumping about in excitement. Taeyeon chortled, patting her young protégé on the back, knowing full well that she was going to be more frenzied with delight than all the sugar-high cake-eaters outside.

Giselle knocked on the door, traces of fondant and cake crumbs littered over her lips. “Hey, Wen, there’s a dude outside looking for you,” she called. “He’s wearing this neon vest.”

“Neon vest?” Wendy arched her brows. She distinctly recalled pulling into the right lot. Maybe when she was singing along to The Phantom of the Opera she might have distractedly parked in one of the lots meant for the lawyers from Johnny and Seulgi’s office, but they wouldn’t sell her out like that. Johnny was a prick, but not that much of a prick.

She wandered out into the open working area, her eyes catching the sight of the boy in the neon vest, with a smile on his cherubic face and the brightest eyes in the world. In her world, at least.

“Mark!”

“Why’re you looking so thin?”

Concern lined Wendy’s brows as she watched her brother devour his sandwich in two bites, looking like he hadn’t been given food for weeks. He had always inhaled everything put in front of him, eating food by the droves, but none of that ever seemed to show up on him. It could have been attributed to his wondrous metabolism, his penchant for dancing everywhere he went, or just Wendy’s innate sisterly impulse to feed him whenever she saw him.  

“Do I?” Mark asked, eyes widening. He reached for his second sandwich from the pile Wendy had laid out for him.

Wendy nodded. “Have you not been eating enough?” she asked, before she narrowed her eyes. “Have you been spending all your money on those stupid phone games instead of food?”

“Of course not!” Mark exclaimed defensively. His food came flying out of his mouth, his expression evidence of his guilt.

Wendy clicked her tongue, rubbing at his mouth with a napkin. “Goodness, Mark.”

“I’ve just been busy,” Mark insisted, pushing off his sister’s worrying hands. She had always been worried, and at that point it was second skin to him. “Did I tell you? I got a part time job at a dance studio in Apgujeong.”

Wendy’s eyelids flew open. She stared at him, her expression contorted with horror and disbelief, like he had committed a capital crime instead of the actual opposite.

“A part-time job?” she screeched. “What?”

“Wendy-noona, holdup–“

“I told you that we’re okay on finances – I literally just got a promotion last year! You’re supposed to be studying!”

“I know, I know,” Mark sighed. “Don’t worry, I’m not doing it because I’m short of anything. I figured I’d just earn something from teaching dancing, rather than doing it for free at a school club.” At Wendy’s unconvinced look, he patted her arm, “I promise, I’m studying a lot.”

“You better be,” she warned. “If I get called up for your grades again, I swear to god, Mark, I’ll seriously just–“

Wendy made a punching motion with her hands to illustrate her point. Mark just emitted a laugh and moved to his third sandwich.

Mark wasn’t actually a troublemaker. When she announced that she was taking over his college debt at the last family dinner, she had seen the discomfort that stiffened his expression. She understood. He had watched her struggle through college with a myriad of different part-time jobs, and even then all she could afford was cup ramen and the occasional jajangmyun. He wouldn’t have the heart to put her back there, not when she had upgraded herself to café sandwiches.

But being eight years apart also meant that he sometimes felt like her child, rather than her brother. And Wendy would do anything for him, as long as it was within her–

“N