It’s one of those days when everything’s going fine, the weather’s great, the grass is green and the flowers are blooming and having an awesome boyfriend to top it all off.

He’s left a tub of your favorite ice cream in your freezer and some roses in your refrigerator even though it’s not a special day or anything and maybe you should start getting suspicious because roses either mean, “Happy whatever-special-day-it-might-be” or “I’m sorry for whatever-might-be-happening.”

Sign #1

Nah, you’re just overthinking things.

Totally.

—-

He all but tackles you into one of his bear hugs when you come out from work and you have to beat his back so he can let you get some oxygen before you pass out.

"How are you, jagi?" he sweetly asks, his voice a little higher than usual, normally indicating that he’s nervous about something, if anything.

Sign #2

You internally shake it off before replying that you’re fine and thank you for the ice cream and roses even though today’s not anything special.

He just gives a cheeky smile and wraps his arm around your shoulders as the two of you walk to your apartment.

—-

"Jagi, can you iron this for me real quick?" he yells from his closet.

"Why is it that you’re in your twenties and you still haven’t learned how to iron properly?" you refute with a pillow muffling your voice.

His head pops out from the closet and a pout has taken over his face and damn it, why does he have such puppy eyes—

Must resist, must resist—!

"Ugh," you groan, throwing off the covers and blindly finding your slippers before grabbing the white, slightly wrinkled dress shirt in his hands and trudging over to the laundry room where the ironing board and iron resides.

Ironing takes like five minutes. Literally.

You just got over your stuffy nose not too long ago, and when you press his shirt into your face on a whim because he smells really really good, there’s a floral scent on it that’s so sickly and fake and just pure disgusting.

Sign #3.

You shake the thoughts out of your head and hand it back to him without a word and hide under the covers from the blinding light and his voice.

—-

He’s not much of a drinker, so when you’re walking home on the path that always passes by a bar, you see a familiar head of dyed hair with a totally unfamiliar head of reddish hair.

No no no, this is Korea where a good portion of boys and men dye their hair into different colors and girls do it, too.

Sign #4.

—-

Those high heels are most definitely not yours.

In fact, you don’t even own any high heels because they’re painful and flats are so much more comfortable than any other shoes in the world besides fluffy slippers and flip flops and sneakers but you can’t exactly wear those to work, so flats are your first option.

But back to the main issue, those black killer heels are definitely not yours.

And he’s neat enough to not throw ties on the ground.

Your heart pounds in your ribcage because you were hoping this wouldn’t happen any time soon and you’re trying to figure out where you went wrong in the relationship—

Moan.

The sound hits you like a bag of bricks and you stumble, crashing against the wall and pitifully sliding down against it as your head painfully spins.

It’s quite noisy, especially when your purse hit the shoe rack in the process of and causes it to fall over rather clangorously and soon enough, your now ex-boyfriend is running out half- with his pants ped and belt unbuckled and unevenly distributed in the belt loops.

"Jagi?"

Hearing his voice makes the throbbing in your head even worse and you depend on the wall to support your frame. You’re chugging down Aleve when you get home.

"G-go back to your wh-," you painfully wheeze, feeling around for the doorknob and quickly turning it as you tumble out the door and into the air-conditioned hallway.

Things are still painful when you get into the elevator and he hasn’t run out to chase after you because he most likely took your command to get back with that stripper of his, and luckily your best friend is number 3 on your speed dial, and you wouldn’t be calling her at eleven at night unless it was something completely dire.

"Oh my god, he cheated on you, didn’t he?" she gasps into the phone, completely aware of the few things you’ve told her, like the perfume on his shirt, seeing him at the bar, getting you roses for no apparent reason.

"You know me too well," you rasp into the speaker.

"I’m near his apartment. Stay at the front and I’ll come get you."

"Thank you so much," and you’re starting to weep in the phone.

"Hey, what are sisters for, homegirl?" You can hear the sad yet trying-to-amuse-and-comfort-you voice and you flip your phone shut so you can concentrate on getting out the front door and past-learned self-defense in case some creeper makes it to you before she does.

In the three minutes you wait for her, your phone buzzes and rings non-stop and you know, boyfriends have personalized ringtones so you just let it go as you rest your head against the white bricks of the apartment and close your eyes, hoping that you can shut it off for the time-being.

When she pulls up, you see a grocery bag or two in the back seat and as you question her while buckling yourself in the passenger seat, she smartly replies, “A girl’s best friends are chocolate and ice cream and brownies and cookies.”

Hell yeah, they are. Forget that  about diamonds being a girl’s best friend.

—-

She’s totally annoyed by your phone ringing non-stop and promptly rips out your battery and tosses the phone into the trashcan while commenting how she’s going to get you a newer phone because flip phones are outdated no matter how much you deny it.

Movies, secrets, stories, comfort food, and girl time.

It kind of takes your mind off of what happened two hours and thirty seven minutes ago.

---

You know, pigging out on brownies and tubs of ice cream totally doesn’t make you fat. It just makes you…feel fat, that’s all.

At least, that’s what you try telling yourself when you wake up on your best friend’s couch, feeling fat and lazy but nope, everything from the night before decides to hit you right then and there and you promptly tumble off the couch with the blanket wrapping around you to cushion your fall to the hardwood floor with a loud thud.

“Morning!” your best friend hollers from the kitchen, yelling over the fan from the stove.

She walks in on you still prostrate on the floor and lovingly kicks you so you’re on your back and can breathe.

“We’re getting you a new phone today—NO BUTS—and then we’re moving whatever stuff you might have at his apartment out of there and into yours and then we can move on with life and watch that new movie that just came out. Logan Lerman’s pretty hot if you ask me, not to mention he’s pretty cute with Emma—“

“____________, shut up and let me sleep.”

“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey,” she sings back.

You groan and drag your arm over your eyes to block out whatever your arm might be able to cover.

Which is pretty much nothing.

—-

“The new Galaxy is so nice! Why can’t you get a nice phone? Don’t you—“

“Can I get that phone?” you ask and point at a flip phone that looks similar to your previous model, ignoring your best friend’s whining over how you’re behind in technology and trends, but she knows you can care less.

Her eyes naturally drift over who might be in the mall at this time, and it’s the same old people and oh look, that guy with the sun glasses is being chased down by a mob of girls, for what reason, she doesn’t know, but it’s probably one of those kingkas and—

.

“Hurry up,” she quietly breathes in a warning voice.

You continue to ignore her and inform the phone specialist on your old phone number and register and all that jazz.

She’s poking you in the side now and you can’t figure out why she’s being so impatient with you when she’s the one who decided to drag you out here and get a new phone.

“If you don’t finish right this second, the last person you want to see will see you and hell will ensue. Now hurry your  up, please!” she grits into your ear.

“_________-ah?”

Oh, that’s who she was talking about.

You thank the assistant and grab your best friend’s wrist and drag her away from the stand and him.

But no, he just has to make it like fanfiction and grab your wrist to stop your from stomping away and your best friend flails to catch her balance.

“Please, listen to me—“

“I don’t have time for this,” you angrily sneer at him, yanking your wrist out of his warm, gentle yet firm grasp.

“Seven thirty tonight at our first date. Please.”

—-

You’re now standing on the other side of street, warily watching him through the clear window of the little dukbokki shop he took you on the first date. It’s away from the city and the noise, and he likes to come here often because at least, he can hear his thoughts.

He looks nervous just by the way he’s looking frantically around, jumping at every noise, strumming his fingers quickly on the table.

It’s warm when you walk in and you ignore his stare when plopping in the seat across from him.

“Oh thank god you’re here. I thought you were going to skip out on me—“

“You have five minutes. Time started thirty seconds ago.”

“But—“

“Time’s ticking.”

“I don’t know,” he starts, looking down at his calloused hands in his lap. “Something about her dragged me in—but only physically. It all started when the guys took me to a club and we had a few drinks—I told them I didn’t want to drink, but they made me, I swear—and I guess I got drunk and when I woke up, she showed up, but we didn’t sleep together and—oh god—I just…it was the , but I regret it, I really do, just please please please—“

“You done explaining?” you interject, checking your watch for the time.

“Yes, but please—“ he looks up at you with broken eyes.

“Don’t you dare say ‘take me back’,” you snarl, clearly frustrated with the hackneyed words.

That shuts him up for all but only twenty seconds before he quietly asks, “You believe in second chances.”

Your hot chocolate arrives in front of you and you sip on it before giving your rebuttal to his statement.

“But I believe in true love, too.”

Your chair scrapes across the tiled floor and his hand shoots out from under the table to grab your wrist and try to stop you from leaving him and his heart.


You love him, there’s no doubt about that. Somewhere behind your hostile feelings, your heart still pounds like a school girl’s when you see him and the sweat slightly forms on your hands, just like before, but if he did this for a time and not just once and still managed to love you in the process of, there’s something wrong with his thinking.

Smiling isn’t exactly the right thing to do in these type of situations, but you’ve never done anything conventional in your life, and the small smile on your face signals that you’re doing the right thing.

“I hope she makes you happier than I did. Now please let me go,” you gently push him and tug your wrist, but his grasp tightens when your hand slides into his and that jolt zooms to your heart and makes it skip a beat.

“Please—“

“I mean it, _________. Let me go, and let me go,”  you press, emphasizing the double meaning.

And after a few seconds of staring into his bottomless orbs, he slowly and finally lets go of your hand, leaving you free to move away from him, from your past.

When you don’t move for five seconds, he breathes, “I love you.”

“Not for long.”

You spin on your heel and saunter out of the dukbokki shop with your hot chocolate, away from him, away from love, away from second chances.

Away from whatever that might have existed before all of this.

It’s time to start over and anew.