“I can’t believe he actually kissed you,” Eunji says in disbelief. It’s the following afternoon, and Tarian is throwing what few belongings she has into an overnight bag for her planned sleepover with Eunji while she talks to said friend on the phone.

Tarian rolls her arm, cushioning the phone between ear and cheek as she zips up the bag she’d borrowed from Naeun. “Yes, yes, for the billionth time yes,” she says, exasperated. “He gave me a goodnight kiss on the cheek.”

Eunji squeals again, so shrilly that Tarian nearly drops the phone. “That’s great! So are you guys dating now?”

Tarian laughs as she adjusts the handphone. “I’m pretty sure you are Naeun’s sister instead of me,” she declares. “You two are practically identical. No, we’re not dating. We’ve only gone on one date!”

She can practically see Eunji pouting on the other line. “I’m just really excited for you. If you and Yonghwa start dating, then you can go on double dates with Minhyuk and me! None of Minhyuk’s friends ever date anyone, so we never get to double date even though I want to.”

Tarian lifts the bag onto her shoulder. “We’ll talk about it later, okay?” she grumbles. “I’m about to head to your place anyway.”

“But it’ll take you ages to get to my house!” Eunji whines. “Twenty minutes at least! And we have so much to talk about! Like what colors you’re going to use in your wedding so I can go get my bridesmaid’s dress!”

“I’m hanging up on you now.”

Eunji laughs. “Okay, okay. I’ll see you in a little bit then. Call or text me if you get lost on your way.”

So Tarian shoves her phone in the back pocket of her ripped jeans, calls goodbye to Naeun and reminds her that she won’t be home until tomorrow, and catches the bus. Eunji lives just past the school, but far enough that Tarian doesn’t particularly want to walk with her overnight bag.

Though she’s only lived in Seoul for about a week, the bus systems aren’t too confusing and Tarian is walking up to the front door of Eunji’s house exactly eighteen minutes later. She lifts her hand to ring the bell, but the door is opened before she can.

Daehyun stands there, looking as surprised to see her as she is to see him. For once he’s not wearing that expression of utter disgust and loathing that Tarian is used to seeing.

But then he comes to his senses and the sneer takes its usual place on his face – which might otherwise be handsome, Tarian finds herself thinking begrudgingly. “What the are you doing here?” he demands, voice laced with something ugly.

Before Tarian can even formulate an answer, Daehyun is shoved so hard from behind that he stumbles and nearly falls down the steps.

“Yah, don’t be such an to my friends!” Eunji exclaims, appearing behind Daehyun with a frown. She gives Tarian an apologetic little smile. “I’m so sorry. My brother is such an sometimes.”

“Your brother?” Tarian repeats incredulously, looking from Daehyun to Eunji and back again, not seeing any family resemblance.

“Step brother,” Eunji amends. “My dad married his mom ages ago, so we’ve – unfortunately – grown up together. He has no social skills.”

“You’re not seriously thinking of letting this in our house, are you?” Daehyun demands, rubbing his elbow where he’d hit it when he fell.

Eunji shoved him again, none too gently. He stumbled again and nearly fell off the steps entirely. “Yah, you don’t get to dictate who can and cannot come into this house! Don’t I put up with your idiot friends every weekend? You can let me have one friend over! We’re not even going to be in your way.” She reaches past Daehyun and grabs Tarian’s wrist. “Come on, Tarian. Let’s go to my room.”

“Daehyun is your step-brother?” Tarian repeats as she follows Eunji up the steps to a frilly pink bedroom at the end of the hall.

“Unfortunately,” Eunji mutters, slamming the door shut behind them, still fuming. Then she stops. “Wait, you know Daehyun?”

Tarian nods, dropping her bag at the foot of the bed. “Yeah, he’s in my homeroom class. He…doesn’t like me very much.”

Eunji chuckles, sitting down cross-legged on her bed and motioning for Tarian to join her. “That’s no surprise, really. Daehyunnie doesn’t like many people.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, you better spill the beans about you and Yonghwa before I strangle the details out of you.”

Tarian is almost at the end of her story, recounting how Yonghwa had walked her home and kissed her on the cheek, when the bedroom doors flings open with a bang and Junhong appears, looking out of breath and red in the face, almost as if he ran the whole way there. “Sweetheart!” he crows excitedly.

Eunji’s face gets nearly as red as Junhong’s. “Yah, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” she screeches, throwing a pillow at him. It sounds like it hurts when it connects with the side of his head, blonde curls going askew. Eunji must have one hell of an arm on her. Tarian makes a mental note to never be on the receiving end of one of Eunji’s blows. “You can’t just barge into a girl’s room! What if we were changing clothes or something?”

“That’s sort of the point,” Junhong points out with a wolfish grin, defending himself from a second pillow attack.

“You’re such a !” Eunji accuses, reaching for something heavier to attack him with. “You’re never going to see me , you little ert!”

Junhong makes a face, chuckling as she threatens him with what looks like an old singing trophy. “Gross, noona. I would never want to see you . I was talking about Tarian.”

Tarian joins in the fight then, throwing the last pillow from the bed at Junhong, though of course her throw lacks the power of Eunji’s. “In your dreams, Junhong. It’ll never happen.”

“What are you even doing here?” Eunji demands, setting the trophy back down on the desk. “I thought Daehyun left.”

“He texted to say that Tarian was at his house, so of course I came over,” Junhong says, beaming happily at Tarian with that smirk that says more than his age would suggest.

Eunji looks from Junhong to Tarian and back again. “How do you guys know each other?”

“Oh, Tarian and I go way back,” Junhong assures the dark-haired girl, winking obscenely at Tarian. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

“If you count stalking as going way back, sure,” Tarian mutters sarcastically. “And don’t call me sweetheart. It’s creepy.”

“Junhong!” Daehyun’s voice booms from downstairs. “Where the are you?”

“Up here, hyung!” Junhong shouts back, still grinning devilishly.

Daehyun appears over his shoulder, still sneering. “Quit bothering my sister and that . We’ve got to go meet the others.”

“But I want to hang out with Tarian,” Junhong pouts.

“Well too bad,” Tarian retorts. “You are not invited to this sleepover.”

Junhong’s face lights up like it’s Christmas. “You’re spending the night, sweetheart? As in, you’ll be here all night?”

Tarian immediately regrets revealing this little tidbit. “You’re not invited, okay? Now go away!”

Junhong only leaves when Daehyun drags him down the hall, which is no mean feat considering how much taller than him Junhong is.

“God they’re so annoying,” Eunji whines, slamming her bedroom door shut again. She flops back down on her bed. “Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, planning your wedding to Yonghwa.”

Tarian chuckles and playfully shoves her friend. “Quit getting ahead of yourself. It’s been one date.”

“But there’ll be more, right?” Eunji prompts.

Tarian tries not to blush. “Yes, we’ll probably go out again. He’s nice.”

“And good looking,” Eunji adds with a wicked wink. “You’re going to be the envy of all the girls at school.”

“I don’t want to be the envy of anyone,” Tarian laments, leaning back against the pillows that had been reclaimed. “I just want to blend in and graduate without too much drama.”

Eunji chuckles and picks at Tarian’s blonde hair. “Yeah, good luck with that fitting in thing.” She laughs when Tarian swats her hand away. “Okay, okay. Let’s watch that drama I was telling you about! We can order pizza in a little bit.”

The two of them are curled up on the sofa, munching their way through a large cheese pizza and watching episode seven of Reply 1997 when the front door opens and a plethora of male voices waft into the living room.

“Oh great,” Eunji moans. “It sounds like they’re all here. Just pretend like you don’t hear them.” And she turns the volume on the television up.

Tarian does her best to play oblivious, keeping her gaze steadily trained on the television screen even though it’s pretty impossible not to pay attention to the six boys who traipse into the living room.

“Ooh, pizza,” Daehyun says, grabbing for the last slice only to have Eunji slap his hand away.

“Order your own if you’re hungry,” she mutters grumpily despite her suggestion to pretend like they didn’t see the boys. “This is mine and Tarian’s. I’m sure she wants the last piece. Don’t you, Tarian?”

“Sure,” Tarian answers, biting back a smirk as she grabs the last slice of pizza and takes a huge bite.

Daehyun’s unhappy gaze narrows on her. “What is this still doing here?” he demands.

“She’s spending the night, idiot,” Eunji replies with a roll of her eyes. “Didn’t I already tell you that?”

“Did mom and dad tell you that you could have someone over while they’re out of town?” Daehyun demands next, crossing his arms over his shirt.

Eunji slaps him upside the head. “Do you ever get permission when you bring these idiots over? Do I need to have permission to bring one single friend over? Aish!”

Himchan chooses that moment to squeeze onto the couch beside Tarian, draping his arm around her shoulders. “How’s it going, Tarian,” he says, giving her a greasy grin. “Long time no see.”

“If you want to keep that arm, I suggest you move it,” Tarian replies with a quirk of her blonde eyebrows.

Himchan seems to think about it for a second, but eventually does as he’s told.

“Come on,” Yongguk mutters, voice deep and sounding much older than a high schooler’s. His eyes meet Tarian’s briefly. “We don’t have time for this .”

“But hyung,” Junhong whines, draping himself over the back of the couch and wrapping his arms around Tarian’s shoulders. “I want to hang out with noona!”

“We’ve got stuff to do,” Yongguk says, and the tone in his voice leaves no room for objection.

So Himchan gets up and Junhong withdraws his arms and the six of them head upstairs to Daehyun’s room.

“Sorry about them,” Eunji apologizes. “They’re so annoying. But they seem to be working on something so they probably won’t bother us any more tonight.”

Tarian glances over her shoulder in the direction they’d disappeared. “They really seem to listen to Yongguk, don’t they?”

Eunji shrugs indifferently. “I guess so. He’s their leader. He can joke and laugh as much as the next guy, but he can switch to business-mode as quick as that.” And she snaps her finger for emphasis.

Tarian doesn’t want to be curious, but she can’t help it. “What exactly is it that they do?”

Again Eunji shrugs. “I don’t really know, to be honest.” She bites her lower lip. “I wouldn’t get involved with them, though. Daehyun may be my brother, but they’re not good news, Tarian.”

Tarian forces a laugh. “I hadn’t really planned on it,” she says. “Now let’s rewind this part. I totally missed what happened.”