Taemin ate the last donut on her plate and all Joo Yeon could do is swipe some of the powdered sugar from the plate onto his cheeks. He laughed with his mouth full, and Joo Yeon playfully stood back at the atrocity of it all.

“Oh, just kiss me,” Taemin bellowed, reaching over to Joo Yeon with open arms and his mouth still full of the salivated donut. He puckered his lips where some powdered sugar remained. Joo Yeon, not able to resist Taemin’s corny advances, laughed as she leaned over and planted a sweet kiss on his sugary lips.

Evidently, all was well.

It was the day after Joo Yeon’s fall from grace with Jong Yoon and Taemin’s unusual situation with Yeo Jin at the restaurant. But, as the gods have allowed it, all was well. Joo Yeon called the night before, Taemin had asked what she had been doing all day, Joo Yeon mentioned work and Taemin left it there. He didn’t feel the need to interrogate her any further if she had already told him what he wanted to here, even if it were less or more of the truth. Now, they were eating pastries and drinking tea in Joo Yeon’s apartment at 11 am before Taemin had to go to dance practice.

“Let’s watch a movie,” Taemin suggested, getting off of her couch and crawling to the DVD shelf in her TV armoire. He picked out Pride and Prejudice and Braveheart and then showed them to Joo Yeon for further suggestions. She scrunched her nose in protest and he went back to the drawing board. “Aha!” he interjected, his eyes landing on Die Hard. He picked it up and showed it to Joo Yeon expectantly.

She rolled her eyes. “You know what, let’s just watch some TV.”

“Good idea,” Taemin said, settling back on the couch with her. Joo Yeon picked up the remote from the arm of her couch and her television. As usual, her TV was playing the fashion channel. They were showing a documentary series about young and aspiring fashion designers in the industry. The current episode was about a 20 something woman from Gangnam – of all places, because that was already one of the trendiest places in Korea – whose father had helped her start up her first line after she dropped out of high school. Joo Yeon watched intently, as would be her automatic reaction for anything fashion related. The 20 something fashion designer was discussing different kind of stitching techniques she enjoyed using in her designs.

“You know,” Taemin spoke up. “If that were you, and I had happened to be watching this channel, I’d have continued watching even if you were rambling on and on about how you sewed your clothes.”

Joo Yeon hushed him. “I think I know this girl.”

“Who?”

“Her, the fashion designer. I think she used to be a sunbae of mine at my high school.” Joo Yeon paused to continue watching the 20 something at work. After a while, she exclaimed, “Yes! I do know her! She used to go to my high school but had to drop out because – ”

Joo Yeon shut immediately, her eyes glued to the screen. Taemin shifted in his seat.

“Because what?”

“Well, she got pregnant.”

“Oh,” Taemin said noncommittally. “That .”

“Yeah, it did,” Joo Yeon muttered to herself.

“What was that?”

Joo Yeon perked up. “Yeah, it did. For her, I mean. It for her.”

With a sudden surge of embarrassment, Joo Yeon changed the channels. She settled for MNet, where they were playing a new show featuring some new boy group that Taemin wasn’t too fond of. She kept it there, just to taunt him. She threw a playful sideways glance at him, but when she noticed that he wasn’t paying attention and had been reading a text on his phone, Joo Yeon shut the television off.

Taemin looked up from the text he just sent.

“Let’s go out,” Joo Yeon proposed. “You only have an hour or two until you have to go to dance practice, right? I want to do something.”

Her boyfriend wrinkled his nose. “I have to pass on that offer.”

“What? Why?” Joo Yeon pouted. “We don’t have to go anywhere with a crowd. Let’s go a museum or something.”

Automatically, an idea popped into Taemin’s mind. He remembered the artist who had just recently opened her gallery. Maybe they could go there and “accidentally” bump into Jonghyun whilst Taemin has his arm around Joo Yeon to, as you already know, claim what was his. But he looked at his phone, where a new text message was received. It was an affirmative reply to his previous text.

“I can’t,” he fretfully said. “I have to be somewhere right now.”

“Where?” Joo Yeon asked, looking at the little clock on the armoire.

“Just… to meet up with Jongin,” mumbled Taemin. “I forgot that he just bought a new soccer game for the PS4 and was going to be at my dorm to play it with me.”

Joo Yeon scowled. Sometimes, her boyfriend’s age never really matched his inner person. But she couldn’t blame him. He’s known Jongin, another “dancing machine” from another boy group in the SM Entertainment company, longer than he’s known Joo Yeon, so she had to owe him one based on the longevity of the boys’ friendship.

“Fine,” she relented, falling back into her couch. “Sometimes I think you love your guy friends more than me.”

Taemin threw his head back in uproarious laughter. “I can promise you that that is nowhere near true. In fact, if I loved them so much,” he brought his face nearly a centimeter from Joo Yeon’s. “Then why do I like kissing you more?”

Joo Yeon inched away. “Because you can’t kiss guys.”

“That is… true.” Taemin laughed again in defeat. He got off the couch and stretched his arms out like a cat from his nap. “I have to get going now. Yeo – Jongin is waiting for me. Bye, jagi,” he bent down to kiss his girlfriend, “I’ll text you later.”

***

Taemin’s never had to lie to Joo Yeon before; she usually proved herself understanding. It’s unusual that he had ever had to use Jongin as an excuse, but it’s not like it was absolutely, achingly necessary that Joo Yeon needed to know that he was meeting Yeo Jin. She was his friend, and that’s what he was doing right now. Meeting a friend.

But why did his heart beat erratically the moment he drew closer to the playground near his dorm?

Anyhow, as he neared the swing set, where he noticed Yeo Jin’s glossy, black hair, he felt a strange proclivity towards her presence that was, seemingly, laced with an inexplicable insurgence. Taemin tried hard to think about Joo Yeon. He tried to think about his pretty girlfriend with her pretty little eyes and her pretty little nose. Joo Yeon, Joo Yeon, Joo Yeon, Yeon Joo, Yeon Ji, Yeon Jin, Yeo Jin, Yeo Jin, Yeo Jin.

“Yeo Jin,” he breathed out as he approached her. She was looking down at her sneakers that were kicking the sand below the swing set with earphones tucked into her ears. Taemin slowed up to her, where she finally noticed his dark boots next to her feet. She looked up, wrenching her earphones away from her head.

“You came,” she said, almost too incredulously.

Taemin’s eyes lit up momentarily, noticing that she garnered no ill-feelings towards him as what had happened the day before at the restaurant she worked at. And just as quickly, he reverted back to looking quite indifferent. Just to put his guard up, you know.

“Told you I would.” He shrugged.

“Right, well,” replied Yeo Jin. “I just wanted to apologize about what happened the other day. I didn’t know what got over me. I didn’t know why I lashed out like that, I mean, it’s not like I have every right to. I guess I was just a little hurt – or something. We were friends, but I thought that we were really good friends that you could tell me everything and I, the same. I just didn’t realize that you didn’t see our friendship in that way. So.”

Taemin sat down on the swing next to Yeo Jin, gently rocking himself back and forth, toeing the sand with his heavy boots. He sighed.

“Look, Yeo Jin, I do view our friendship like that. You’re that kind of friend that I can go to and talk to without having to stress over the fact you’re probably going to judge me. You’re different from the other girls and even guys that I talk to everyday.” He paused. “But I just didn’t know what to say about Joo Yeon – that’s her name, by the way. I liked our friendship right now and ever since I broke up with my last girlfriend, we’ve gotten closer and honestly, I really liked that. I thought that bringing Joo Yeon into the conversation would complicate things. And I guess I was right.”

Yeo Jin bit her lip, feeling aptly displeased with herself. She looked back at how she reacted to his utterance of a girlfriend and realized, in retrospect, that she really did meet Taemin’s predictions. She breathed out in exasperation. After a moment, she turned to look at Taemin.

“So, can we start over?”

Taemin, smiled emphatically at her. Certainly, he was in cahoots with Yeo Jin’s proposal.

“A thousand times, yes,” said he. And in a treacherous motion, he reached over and held Yeo Jin’s hand, squeezing it affectionately.

***

Joo Yeon’s sophomoric mother lived in a village on the outskirts of Seoul that was redesigned as a palatial estate for families just like Joo Yeon’s. Because it was far from her apartment, she relented having to switch trains on her way back to her parent’s manor and thus resulted in only visiting once in a while or when she had behaved boisterously and needed a proper chiding from her parents. This time, when her mother called her unexpectedly after Taemin left her apartment, she got her mother to send a car over to pick her up and bring her back to her parent’s home. As her mother was the one who beckoned for her, she only agreed to follow if she didn’t have to take the train.

Though a longer trip, it gave Joo Yeon ample time to formulate proper arguments and rebuttals for her case, if she knew what her case was, that is. And since it was unexpected for her mother to ask her to come back home, Joo Yeon was having a difficult time pinpointing the real reason why she’d be asked to come home. By the time she reached Gyeonngi-do, she still had no proper case to put up against.

Her parent’s housekeeper met her at the entrance and guided her to her mother’s study, where Madame Cho was busy perusing a new business investment proposal. When Joo Yeon entered, Madame Cho slowly pulled off her glasses and set them down on the table before massaging the bridge of her nose. Joo Yeon could tell that that was not a good sign and immediately took a seat on the visitor’s chair in front of her mother’s desk. She anticipated for what her mother had to say.

“So,” she said as she sat back in her chair, folding her hands over her lap. “I have heard that Oh Jong Yoon is back in Seoul.”

For a moment, Joo Yeon was seized by a sudden twinge of panic. As aforementioned, Jong Yoon’s name was tantamount to a rancorous curse that ought never to be spoken in their household because of who he was related to. But in deeper consideration, that was not the major reason why Joo Yeon’s parents had resented him beyond the permits of civil pacification. 

“I hope you’re taking precautions and avoiding him as much as possible,” her mother said with austerity. Joo Yeon stared blankly at the golden toad paper weight on her mother’s desk, trying hard not to give away any emotion that says, sorry, mother, I had just spent a night at his place the other day. Joo Yeon remained quiet.

“Joo Yeon, look at me,” Madame Cho said, and Joo Yeon quickly looked up to see her mother now leaning forward on her desk and staring icily at her direction. “I do not want to hear or see anything that accounts you to the company of him. If I ever hear such a thing, I promise you I will have you stay home with us until he has left Korea. Do you understand?”

Joo Yeon didn’t move or speak, but after a second she nodded timorously.

“Good,” her mother returned. “Now, please stay for dinner. Your father wants to see you as soon as he comes back home.”Joo Yeon let out an audible whine, to which her mother replied, “He hasn’t heard about Jong Yoon yet, and I haven’t told him. So don’t worry. He only wants to see you and ask how you are doing.”

“Ok,” Joo Yeon said, her voice croaky after not speaking in awhile. She got up to leave.

“And Joo Yeon,” Madame Cho said before her daughter left the room. “Please understand I’m only doing this for your own good.”

Shortly afterward, Joo Yeon slunk back to her parent’s family den where she splayed herself carelessly on the couch to watch TV. Her parents boasted a huge entertainment system that they have so cleverly tucked away in a den that was forbidden for non-familial guests. The Park’s housekeeper entered the room with a tray of raspberry iced tea.

“How are you, baby?” The Park’s aging housekeeper, Mrs. Han, asked with precious endearment. She placed the iced tea – sweetened, just how Joo Yeon always liked it – on the coffee table in front of her and patted her on the head.

“Fine,” Joo Yeon said, her voice muffled by the couch pillow that was placed over her face.

“And your boyfriend?” Mrs. Han inquired with a hushed tone.

Joo Yeon sat up quickly, looking around the room for anyone else. “How do you know that?”

Joo Yeon fun fact: She hasn’t told her family about dating Lee Taemin.

 “Your phone,” Mrs. Han said, her gaze flickering towards Joo Yeon’s phone on the coffee table. Since it was on silent mode, Joo Yeon hadn’t noticed that Taemin was now calling her. Her phone displayed a picture of him with the caller id labeling him as “Darling”. Joo Yeon grabbed it and Mrs. Han sneaked off with a shifty smile. Before Joo Yeon answered the phone, she called out to Mrs. Han, “Please don’t tell anyone!”

“Yeobeosaeyo?” she said once she picked up.

The person on the other line was not her boyfriend. “Uh, yeah, hi. Miss, your boyfriend left his phone here at the restaurant you were just at.”

Joo Yeon grabbed the remote and pressed the Mute button to silence the TV. “I’m sorry, what?”

“This is the manager of Red Bean and I’m only calling to tell you that your boyfriend left his phone at the restaurant that both of you were just eating in. If you want to come and pick it up, just see me. I assume you would be the girlfriend he was with earlier, because you’re on his Recent Calls list labeled as ‘Darling’.”

A flash of confusion took over Joo Yeon. She double-checked her phone’s screen to make sure that it was really Taemin’s phone. It was. “I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong number. I was never at that restaurant.”

“Ok, whoever this is,” there was a trace of irritation in the manager’s voice, “the owner of this phone left it here at the Red Bean. If you have any other way to contact him to tell him that we found his phone, then that would be great. Thank you, bye.”

The manager hung up on Taemin’s phone and Joo Yeon was left with an odd sense of bewilderment. She thought Taemin would be at dance practice by now or still playing that video game with Jongin. Immediately, she called Jongin.

“Ah, Joo Yeon,” Jongin answered after the first ring.

“Jongin, hi,” Joo Yeon greeted briefly. “Is Taemin with you?”

“No, he isn’t. I haven’t seen him the entire day.”

“What?”

“I said I haven’t – ”

“I know what you said, but what? He told me he was going to meet up with you at his dorm today.”

“No we didn’t... I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jongin. “I never made plans to see him today. Tomorrow, though, I will.”

Joo Yeon scratched her head. “I am so confused right now.”

“Me too,” added Jongin.

“Um, anyway, could you tell him that he left his phone at some restaurant called the Red Bean? The manager there assumed that he was with his girlfriend, but that’s impossible because I’m at my parents’ home in Gyeonggi-do right now.”

Jongin hesitated. “Baekhyun-hyung said he saw Taemin earlier today with a girl at the park near their dorm.”

“Do you know who she is?”

“No, and neither did Baekhyun. He also thought it was you,” Jongin explained. “Hey, I have to go now. But I’ll let Taemin know you called about his phone. He probably wouldn’t have noticed since he doesn’t have it with him.”

After Joo Yeon sincerely thanked Jongin, she hung up. She wished her father would be home right now so she could personally give him her regards and then go back to Seoul to see Taemin about this odd nonsense involving an unknown girl at some restaurant. Never had she begun to question Taemin’s loyalty and she didn’t want to start now, but when vexing presumptions pushed her to feel restive and suspicious, Joo Yeon knew it was best to nip it in the bud as soon as she could. With that, she got up and went back to her mother’s office.

“Mother,” she said once entering. Her mother was now out of her desk and leafing through a book from her small, personal library. Madame Cho looked up at her only daughter.

“Yes, Joo Yeon?”

“When is appa coming home? I have to go back to the city now.”

Madame Cho pushed her glasses down the bridge of her nose and looked at Joo Yeon. “He’ll be home in half an hour. Why? Are you needed at Seoul? It’s a Saturday. You couldn’t possibly have work, could you? You’re only a teenager. If those tyrants at that magazine are giving you too much work, I can take care of that for you.”

“No, no,” Joo Yeon quickly denied. “It’s not work-related. It’s just…” Joo Yeon was having a hard time coming up with a good reason to run over to Seoul. In fact, she was going to use the good old “work-related business” excuse, but that obviously blew up in her face before she could even attempt it. For a moment, she considered just telling her mother about meeting up with Taemin, but that was going to create a maelstrom altogether. She bit her lip. “A friend of mine is having a surprise birthday party and I forgot all about it and I have to be at the noraebang bar before 8 tonight.”

Madame Cho sighed, moving back to her desk. “Well, your father and I really wanted to have dinner with you tonight. Please do come back tomorrow if you’re going to leave hastily today. Have Mrs. Park fetch the driver for you, and he’ll pick you up again tomorrow.”

Joo Yeon smiled ecstatically and went over to her mother, pecking her on the cheek with a grateful kiss. Madame Cho chuckled warmly, giving Joo Yeon a hug before she sped out of her parent’s manor with Mrs. Park rashly calling for the family chauffer.

The drive back to Joo Yeon’s district in Seoul gave her enough time to think rationally about all of this. In essence, she was behaving childishly and her jealousy was leveling up at an alarming rate. She frowned to her reflection in the car window as they sped past dreary-looking apple orchards. This was not her and this was the first time Taemin had ever lied to her. Surely, she could have given him a chance to explain himself if he had brought it up. It’s not like she had every power to lasso him into a chokehold without justification; it’s no secret that she bore an even greater guilt.

And then that’s when her surmise began to perpetuate a sudden pang of displeasure and panic for herself. Had Taemin found out about what went down at Jong Yoon’s apartment the night before? If so, was he taking his revenge by derision in the form of mimicry: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? She sunk lower in her seat at the backseat of her mother’s BMW, shame pulling her down like a heavy sea wave.

Obviously, she couldn’t react bitterly. As was displayed in several clichéd, melodramatic movies, individuals who usually accused their partners of infidelity were most often guilty of the crime themselves. Taemin would be alarmed, and if his already weak intelligence would have allowed it, he’d get the hint that she could have been at fault as well.

Joo Yeon looked out the window to see that she was halfway back to the district of Seoul where she lived. It was too late and none too wise to ask her mother’s chauffer to turn back around.

Instead of dropping her off at her apartment, Joo Yeon had her mother’s driver drop her off at Red Bean, thanks to the directions given to her by Na Eun. She entered the restaurant where she immediately asked to see the manager about a phone.

The manager, a tall, thirty-something man with thick-rimmed glasses, held out Taemin’s Samsung Galaxy SIII in its baby blue case and matching plush toy charm that Taemin had received from a noona fan.

“Are you sure you’re his girlfriend?” The manager suspiciously asked, handing to her his phone. “What’s your name?”

“Joo Yeon,” answered she, taking his phone. “And yes, I am his girlfriend.”

The restaurant’s manager squinted his eyes in hesitance. “But the way he acted with the girl he was with earlier made it look like she was his girlfriend.”

Joo Yeon remained apathetic, fighting off any hint that this situation was not going to be a good one. “Right, well, I’ll give this to him. Thank you.”

After bowing graciously at the manager, she left the restaurant and plotted her next destination