I parked the car as carefully and cautiously as I could. And when the vehicle stopped along the sidewalk, I immediately dialed Jihyuk’s number. As her phone rang, I did a little celebratory dance. “Hello?” she answered.

“Jihyuk, come down now. I want to show you something.”

“Oh?” she exclaimed, taken by surprise. “Can I bring Hyuk with me?”

I pondered about it for a while. “Of course.” And hung up. After a few minutes, they stood just by the doors of the apartment complex. Hyukjae was looking everywhere, and so was Jihyuk. In the end, I honked the horn and rolled the windows down.

A mixture of happiness and shock flashed across Jihyuk’s face. She quickly gestures for the other to rush towards me. “What’s this? Have you decided to become a driver now?” she asked.

“What are you saying…”  I mumbled in disbelief. “This is my car now. See?” And I proudly presented to her my driver’s license. “I wanted to show you this on Christmas day but then it had been delayed until a while ago.”

She linked her arm around Hyukjae’s and they both gave the car an all-around look. “It’s a beauty,” she commented with a sigh. Leaning against the open passenger window, “Can you give us a ride?” Jihyuk asked with a grin.

Without waiting for me to answer, she climbed up the passenger seat while Hyukjae sat by the back. As the windows slowly rolled up and the engine began to hum back to life, her hand crept up to hold mine. “I’m proud of you,” she said softly, her thumb drawing circles on the back of my palm.

Just as I was about to kiss her, Hyukjae’s head appeared from in between our seats. “Where are we going?” he prodded as the car went out of the residential streets and out into the main highways. “Are we going to the mall? Are we going to see a movie?”

She repeated the question right back at me. “Are we going to see a movie?”

“If you want to.”

“Like a date?”

Hyukjae cleared his throat from the backseat. “If we could leave your Hyuk twin in a baggage counter of some sort, then yes, it’ll be our date,” I stated.

“Ya,” Hyuk exclaimed. “We are twins, remember?” He gestured to Jihyuk with his thumb. “We are a package deal. If she goes, I go, and vice versa. And I already gave her my heart last Christmas, so I think that explains a lot, if not everything. Her bond with me is stronger than her bond with her sister.”

“That’s so scary,” she muttered, staring out the window.

“You love me and you know it,” he mumbled under his breath, causing me to erupt in laughter. I never knew having to live with them both was going to be this troublesome. If in the car, it was about being twins and whether or not they were a package deal, in the mall, it was about which movie to watch and the popcorn.

“What do you think?” she asked, sighing and laying her head on my shoulder as we both stared at the monitor with the cinema schedule. “And is there a daycare where we can leave him or something?”

“Don’t act as if I’m not here!” he exclaimed. “Whatever you say, I still want to watch that horror movie.”

I scoffed. “When we had watched The Grudge long ago, you couldn’t look at the ceiling and couldn’t take a bath without the bathroom door slightly open for an entire week.”

“I was just…I was just afraid to slip on the bathroom floor and bump my head.” He shoved a handful of popcorn in his mouth. “If you don’t want to, then I’ll just go home.” And he spun on his heels, beginning to walk away.

Jihyuk sadly watched his figure slowly disappearing before running off to put on arm around his neck and drag him back to where I was standing. “Fine, we’ll watch that stupid movie,” she finally muttered in defeat. “Is it okay with you?” She turned to me.

I scratched my head and nodded anyway, proceeding to fall in line by the ticket machine. With six people in front of me by the queue, the two couldn’t wait any longer. Instead of staying by my side to keep me company, they spent their time going up and down the escalator, like it was their first time seeing one.

A security officer noticed them and called their attention, which caused the two to scurry to my side. So now they remembered I was here. “Stop it you guys,” I scolded. “And you,” I turned to Jihyuk. “Stop playing around like a child.”

But did they listen?

“Nooooooo!” Jihyuk squealed as she ran away from Hyukjae, who was throwing popcorn kernels at her. I love Jihyuk, I really do, but sometimes she just makes me confused.

And so it had been like that for the next ten minutes as I waited for my turn on the ticket machine. After we had gotten the tickets, we wasted no time in going to the theatre and taking our seats. Jihyuk sat in between Hyukjae and me.

“Baby?” I called out.

With my eyes on the screen and my hand patting her lap, “Jihyuk,” I tried again, thinking maybe she was too concentrated on the movie, but I still got no response. Turning to her direction, I sighed. She was covering Hyukjae’s eyes while Hyukjae’s covering hers. Seeing how there’s no chance of me getting her attention right now, I crossed my arms and endured the screaming and shrieking of everyone in the theater in silence.

When the movie was over and the credits were rolling, I stood up and headed to the exit without another word. Jihyuk caught up with me not long after with Hyukjae trailing close behind us. “I really can’t believe the ending,” she commented.

“I think I watched only about one third of the film,” Hyukjae retorted.

“Eh~” she teased. “I thought you were a big boy now?”

“Says the girl who kicks the seat in front of her when a scary scene comes up.”

“I do not!”

“You do.”

“No, I don’t!”

“Yes!”

“Ani~”

“You do, you do. Jihyuk is a scared little girl. Period. No erase. No correction liquid. No end.” Hyukjae said, covering both his ears.

As a result, Jihyuk sulked in defeat even until we reached the car by the parking lot. “Aren’t you guys hungry?” she asked instead.

“I don’t like fast food,” Hyukjae interrupted my chance of speaking even just once. “Just cook for us at home.”

“Who said I will?” she snapped back, stomping her way to the passenger seat. “You can’t make me do stuff.”

“I’ll order pizza then,” he said and entered the back seat.

Taking my time on reaching the driver seat, I yanked the door open and entered. For the first time that day, it was silent. But I knew for sure that once the two reconciled, the noise will resume. And they did, like two children in the playground, they made up without apologizing to each other.

“Look at that cute thing,” Jihyuk exclaimed, pointing to something outside the window.

Hyukjae whipped his head to the direction of her gaze. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “That looks like my Princess. Have I told you about Princess?”

She shook her head.

“Has Donghae told you about Princess?”

She shook her head again.

“She was my best friend,” he said with a sigh. “She was there through good times and bad. When she left, I felt like dying with her. I was young back then. But I’m okay now. I already moved on.”

“What happened to her?” Jihyuk pressed.

“She was run over by a car,” he continued.

She shifted in her seat to look at him fully. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” she said. “You must have loved her so much. Did you two break up before she died?”

Hyukjae and I made eye contact on the rearview mirror, but I suppressed a laugh. I was mad at both of them. “Princess is a dog, Jihyuk,” Hyukjae explained, before he cracked up, rolling about the backseat as he laughed.

Jihyuk sneaked an accusing glance at me, but I wasn’t talking to her at the moment – or to any of them for that matter. But she crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. “I knew that,” she mumbled, her cheeks tainted pink.

Once we arrived back at the apartment, they resumed their own world, one that I have no existence in. After I have parked the car by the lot and reached the apartment, Jihyuk was in the bedroom. She was sorting out fresh clothes from the laundry basket. “I think this is Hyuk’s,” she said and threw out all that was Hyukjae’s in his room.

As I kicked my shoes off, she entered with a huge grin on her face. Shaking her head, “That babo,” she muttered and sat beside me.

Suddenly, Hyukjae opened the door. Holding a phone by his ear, “Hey, what pizza do you like?” he asked, his gaze solely on Jihyuk.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. That pizza will be for you. I will cook for him,” she said, gesturing to me. Turning to me she said, “What would you like to eat?”

I stood up and headed to my closet. “So now you realize I exist.”

“Is there something wrong?” she asked softly.

“Why don’t you ask Hyukjae?” I said, turning around to remove my shirt. They exchanged wary glances. “You two do whatever you guys want, anyway.”

Like my voice was a nearing storm, Hyukjae pulled the door close and left to escape to his own room. I sat on the bed with my back against the headboard and took a book. As I was pretending to page through it, “Hey talk to me,” Jihyuk said. I pretended not to hear anything. “Ya, ya, talk to me please,” she called out again and again. When I still took no notice of her, she shook me by arm.

I looked at her. “You finally notice me now? You were so absorbed with Hyukjae a while ago, or should I say, your Hyuk twin?” She blinked back at me in silence. “I tried talking to you but you didn’t hear me. I tried calling for your attention, but you didn’t see me.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “It’s just that whenever I going out with you or asking for your time, you always tell me to go to Hyukjae so I got kind of used to him by now.” I knew for sure that she was right, that it was partly my fault. But still. I continued pretending to read. “Hey, I’m sorry, okay?” Jihyuk pleaded, her breath feeling warm against my skin as she inched nearer. I can feel her breathing against my cheek. “Don’t be mad at me, please?” And she kissed me.

I let out a yawn and continued my act, although I haven’t turned the pages of the book. “Ah~ I’m hungry, I’m hungry~ when will the pizza arrive?” I said, trying to win her out with impatience.

She clung to my arm. “Stop trying to ignore me,” she whined and laid her head on my chest.

I sighed. “Why do I feel like there’s a heavy burden on my body…”

She giggled but whined afterwards. “Please forgive me. I can’t take it when you’re ignoring me,” Jihyuk said in exasperation. When I ignored her still, she won me out by using a secret weapon: seduction. She nuzzled her face against my neck. “Oppa…” she whispered breathily, her lips dangerously close.

Oh what the hell, I’m a man anyway. I gave up and leaned in to kiss her, missing the familiar way moved against mine. She pulled away and poked my nose. “Gotcha.”