It doesn’t help that Hyosung is Bomi’s own darn cousin. But of course this is how things are. Hyosung will always be Hyosung, and that means pretty, curvy, and a bar that is set too high for a girl like Bomi.

Breakfast is miserable, especially when things goes like this:

“So, Grim, how long have you been dating Bomi?” Hyosung asks with a little smirk on her face that Bomi stiffens at.

Bomi had never been quite comfortable around Hyosung, and please, it is not because she is Daehyun’s girlfriend, but more because Bomi believes the older and curvier girl is out to make her life miserable. It is not about Daehyun; she is over that, okay, so over that. Bomi is not the stealing-boyfriends type – contributed mostly to the fact that she cannot even score her own man, it is even less likely she shall be able to snag anybody else’s. And Himchan does not count because abduction is against the law for gods’ sake.

“How long has it been, sweetie?” Himchan asks, cocking his head as he stares at Bomi. He reaches out a hand and ruffles her hair with it before resting it on her shoulder. Bomi fights the urge to shrug him off because her face is heating up. She wishes Himchan would go back to being terrible to her, it was so much easier when he isn’t acting like a legit boyfriend.

Bomi shrugs.

Himchan laughs at that, like what she had just said something absolutely lovely, which irritates her even more.

“It feels just like yesterday,” Himchan replies, turning to give Hyosung his handsome smile. “She surprises me everyday.”

Bomi fights the urge to gag. “Yep. I’m full of surprises.”

“So, anyway.” Hyosung flutters her eyelashes flirtatiously. Bomi rolls her eyes. “You know, there was a time when we thought Bomi, with all her causes, might end up doing something useful, like, go to law school!”

“Being a democrat is not a cause!” Bomi grumbles, stabbing her fried egg.

Hyosung goes on, eyeing Himchan like he is a piece of meat, “…but instead she’s doing a degree in, what, Liberal Arts–”

“It’s fine arts!”

“Yeah,” Hyosung snorts, “I don’t even know what that means.”

Bomi grits her teeth and tries not to heat up. Hyosung is a , has always been.

Himchan laughs at Hyosung’s attempt to be funny by discrediting her cousin as though he actually finds it amusing. He says, “Well, that’s the expensive way to say, ‘do you want fries with that?’”

Bomi snaps her head away feeling hurt.

Incidentally, her eyes land on Daehyun who is sitting beside Hyosung. She feels her heart jackrabbited when their eyes connect. He is watching her with a slight frown between his eyebrows, his gaze flickering to Himchan’s arm that’s still circled around her shoulders. Bomi, suddenly wary that Daehyun knows something, tugs at Himchan’s shirt until he turns to look at her, brows raised.

“Hey, you’re a dude with…dude parts. Can you tell me why Daehyun’s staring?”

“What?” Himchan says, turning to eye Daehyun before Bomi can stop him. He covers it up quickly when Daehyun looks away by laughing. “Well, honey, it’s obviously because we’re such a great couple. Don’t you think so, Daehyun?”

The addressed male jerks back. “I, what?”

“You were staring at my Bomi?” Himchan says.

“What? No- I wasn’t I–”

Youngjae says, “Oh you totally were!”

“No! Jesus-”

“C’mon, Daehyun… you can’t possibly find Bomi interesting now that she managed to get over you?” Hana jokes, but the table goes awkwardly silent.

Bomi groans and hides her face in her palms. Yeah, sure, maybe her crush over Daehyun had been obvious, but none of her friends nor his friends had ever been outright direct about it. For gods’ sake, it has to happen when she gets herself a boyfriend. Doesn’t even matter that he’s fake.

They all stare at Himchan. Hana coughs.

Then something soft presses against her forehead as a warm hand tugs at her palms. She glances up just in time to see Himchan pull away.

Himchan’s eyes are soft and understanding, like he knows exactly how she’s feeling, and the gentleness in his smile kind of drowns out everything else.

“Come now. It wasn’t like I didn’t know,” Himchan says. He leans in and gives her nose a quick peck, then takes her hand in his.

Somewhere to their right somebody coos. Bomi’s face heats up and she wriggles away from him. She feels his warmth and his laughter is so real that Bomi almost forgets that this is all just an act.

“Don’t worry. Bomi told me about Daehyun, actually, on the first day we met,” Himchan says. He isn’t even lying. It was yesterday, jesus.

“That didn’t put you off?” Jieun asks amiably.

“Nope. I made it my immediate mission to get her to fall for me,” Himchan answers smoothly.

“Aw! That’s so cute!”

Bomi suddenly feel like she doesn’t belong there with all these happy honest people. Gods, is she a fraud.

:::::::

White morning drags onto snowy late morning with ‘Grim’ beating all the other boys at ice hockey while the girls – except Bomi – swooned.

“You’ve got such a hot boyfriend, Bomi,” Hyosung says, fanning herself as she pretends to cheer Daehyun on. “I want to know how you score him!”

Bomi shrugs, eyes following Daehyun across the yard out of habit. She winces when he falls over again. Gods, what did she see in that guy, honestly.

“I dunno. I guess I just gave him no choice. But to love me,” Bomi adds hastily.

Hana sings. “I think somebody owes me twenty bucks!”

“Oh yeah!” Jieun pipes up, “Didn’t you two make that bet on Bomi’s first boyfriend?”

“No we didn’t!” Hyosung, the curvy cousin, hisses, eyes darting around.

“Yes, you totally did! You betted twenty bucks that Bomi would never get a boyfriend, and if she does her standard would be so low that–”

“SHUT UP HANA!” Hyosung shrieks, clasping a furious hand over Hana’s mouth, taking a quick glance in Bomi’s direction.

Bomi, who is sitting beside Jieun, heard it all, looks up with indifference on her face. She tries to keep her expression steady even though her insides are heating up from embarrassment and anger.

“Yeah. You owe Hana that twenty bucks, Hyosung,” croaks Bomi, “And maybe you shouldn’t date Daehyun if you keep looking at other people’s boyfriends.”

“Bomi–”

“I’ve always been weird haven’t I?” Bomi goes on, forcing the smile onto . “People teasing me about not being girly enough? I got a lot of that in high school. I’m not surprise people in college are making money off of it.”

“Bomi, c’mon–”

“Whatever,” she says, the smile freezes on her face as she gets up and trudges into the thick snow, heading the long way for the back door, wanting to disappear forever.

Gods, they are going to have such a laugh when they find out Grim is a lie and Bomi is mental.

:::::::

Bomi makes herself some hot chocolate, stripping out of her coat and boots the moment she shuts the back door. She lays the mug down on the chess table, and starts arranging the pieces. Then she takes out her sketchbook from her satchel strewn on the sofa and begins drawing the castle piece five times bigger than the original. She lets her mind wander, doodling elaborate patterns and carvings into the fictional set.

Her mind questions if she’ll ever achieve her dreams as an artist. Her family doesn’t think it’s an appropriate occupation and all her friends had thought she was joking. Hyosung made the biggest joke out of it. Nobody understood why she takes up fine arts. Jongup and Jieun are the only people who are nice about it, but she knows they still don’t see the point.

Jae studies engineering, while Jongup is an athlete. Daehyun, Yongguk and Jieun do practical music. Hana and Hyosung? Contemporary dance.

“Hey.”

Bomi snaps up. Himchan is standing over her, hair drenched in the melting snow, a droplet slowly drips down his pointed nose onto her cheek. Bomi scrunches her eyes, about to tell him to go away when a dry towel drops onto her face. He sits down beside her, snickering, taking the towel off her to dry his hair.

“So. What are you doing here all alone?”

Bomi closes her sketchbook and puts it on the chess table.

“I’m a psychotic kidnapper, you can’t possibly expect better from me?”

Himchan says, “Jieun’s worried. She thinks you might be upset.”

“I’m not.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not. They keep treating me like I’m a kid, it’s annoying.”

Himchan quirks an eyebrow. “You are a kid.”

Bomi rolls her eyes, feeling stung. Great, her fake boyfriend doesn’t see her as a girl either.

“Just because I look like–”

“You act like one,” he says.

“Do not!”

“Do too!” he retorts, poking her side. “Who in their right mind kidnaps a complete stranger, huh? Did you really I think I couldn’t overpower you?”

“But you didn’t–”

“What I saw was a harmless girl panicking, so I just went along, honey,” he says, poking Bomi on her head this time.

“Was falling over and getting knocked out part of your plan as well?” Bomi gushes.

Himchan flushes. “No- but I didn’t think I’d be stuck here the whole weekend. And it’s Christmas! Don’t you think I have my own plans?”

Bomi’s stomach drops. Right. Now she feels guilty for ruining somebody else’s Christmas too.

A ruckus breaks out at the front door. Jongup’s voice travels through the house.

“Bomi! Can you fetch me a towel?”

Bomi darts off with a bright, ‘Okay!’

:::::::

“Oh wow, homemade ornaments,” Himchan comments as he picks up a handmade angel.

Bomi, Youngjae, Hana, Jongup and ‘Grim’ are decorating the house.

This is probably a good time to mention that Youngjae is Bomi’s childhood friend. Like, since when they were in diapers, so this should explain the event that follows…

“Me and Bomi made those,” Jongup says.

“Yeah,” Youngjae joins in, “Bomi’s a bit more withdrawn than the rest of us. But that’s quite obvious isn’t it?”

“Shut up Youngjae,” she says, throwing a tree bobble at him.

“…I mean, all the other girls are so outgoing–”

“Youngjae!”

“–but Bomi’s, I dunno…”

Then, the nightmare named Hana pipes up from under the pile of Christmas stockings, “Remember that summer when we all decided to leave Bomi out during our playtime?”

Hana is trying to find the one with her name on it. Again, she is somebody Bomi knows since kindergarten, because she is Hyosung’s best friend and, for some reason, attend all their family events as though they are her own.

Bomi had stopped questioning this phenomena a long time ago.

“Which summer?” Youngjae says, frowning, “We do that a lot.”

“The one where your aunt–”

“Oooh!” Youngjae starts to crack up. Himchan just stands there looking bewildered. Hana laughs too, clapping like a seal. “Oh gods, okay, Grim– haha, you gotta hear this one–”

“Youngjae?” Bomi says warily.

Jongup stops his mission of trying to untangle the lights to listen.

“–there was this one summer where my aunt felt so sorry for our little neighbour, who happens to be Bomi, that she paid this other boy from way down another street to be her friend–”

“Um, Youngjae–”

“–but, guess what. He gave my aunt her money back!”

Youngjae and Hana howl.

“Oh gods, I wonder what happened to the boy!” Hana says.

“Er- guys,” Jongup tries to interrupt.

Youngjae sighs, wiping tears out of his eye, “Maybe he’s all locked up in a straitjacket now from going all mental–”

“Youngjae,” Bomi hisses, eyes flitting helplessly to an uncomfortable-looking Jongup and then at Himchan who isn’t sure if he is supposed to laugh or cry at this tragedy.

Jongup scratches his ear, hiding his reddening face.

Bomi says loudly, “Guys. He is standing in this room, so shut up!”

Hana and Youngjae look at Bomi who signals not so discreetly in Jongup’s direction.

“Oh,” Youngjae says. “So he became a national track runner then!”

“From all the running away!” Hana squeals, and because they are jerks, they start laughing again.

Jongup sidles to where Himchan is standing, away from the three who are making a ruckus. He says to only Himchan, “Honestly, I only returned the money because Bomi promised me that if I did I could borrow her comics any time I wanted.”

Himchan blinks, surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah. She wasn’t a big fan of this thing she calls modernism or whatever.” Jongup shrugs. “I swear we were only eleven when she started lecturing everyone in the neighbourhood, because apparently they were ‘using people and loving objects’ when it was ‘supposed to be the other way around’.”

There is a long pause where Himchan feels the need to reevaluate everything he knows about this bat crazy college girl.

“Seriously?” he can only ask.

Jongup nods sadly, “Why d’you think nobody wanted to be her friend?”

will be updated regularly from this day onwards 'til christmas eve then compiled into a oneshot for everyone