Jaemi would be lying if she said she wasn’t relieved that she was able to postpone her awkward encounters with not only Hongbin, but also the star of the drama, Hong Jonghyun. The main love triangle of the drama was actually going to be between her, Jonghyun, and Kim Soeun, who would be playing her older sister. Soeun and Jonghyun both seemed like really nice and easy going people, but Jaemi was still incredibly nervous about working with them and Hongbin because she was virtually a nobody who would be working with an all-star cast and that was just a lot of pressure on her.  

                Hongbin would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed that he wasn’t going to be filming any scenes with Jaemi for two more weeks. The main reason he was disappointed was that he wasn’t going to be filming any scenes at all for two weeks because practically all of his scenes were with he. His character didn’t really have any big part in the drama besides being Nayoung’s “boyfriend.” The writers had yet to decide if Nayoung would just be continuously chasing after Jisung or if they’d ever actually date. He honestly didn’t know which way he personally wanted it to go.

                Jaemi returned from Paris at 1AM, Korean Standard Time, and she was going to have to be at the studio to start filming at 8AM. She was so exhausted, but she still had to talk to Hyuk before she went to sleep.

                “Guess what I did yesterday,” Hyuk requested cheerfully. Jaemi smiled, already feeling more energized from hearing his voice.

                “Did you watch Naruto and do homework?” she teased.

                “Yes… but guess what else I did,” Hyuk urged.

                “Hyuk, I don’t like this game,” she whined. The last time he made her guess what he did, he told her that he bought an alpaca with his friends. She didn’t even know what an alpaca was, but she was sure that it was something he shouldn’t have bought.

                “Should I just tell you?” he said cutely.

                “Probably not,” she answered coolly. He ignored her and told her anyway.

                “I went ghost hunting with my friends!”

                Jaemi gasped and demanded to know everything.  Hyuk laughed at her predictable reaction. He knew she loved a good ghost story. He spent the next hour telling her every last detail of his adventure. He could imagine her sitting cross legged on her bed, leaning on the head board and hugging a pillow to her chest.  From her little surprised gasps and outbursts, he knew he had her on the edge of her seat. He finally came to the end of his tale and concluded by saying,

                “And that’s exactly what happened… in a movie I saw last night.” He heard a little thump in the background and he guessed that she angrily threw her pillow down onto the bed.

                “Hyuk!” she exclaimed. “How could you just lie to me like that? Ugh! You’re so annoying!”

                Yeona was conveniently assigned to do Hongbin’s makeup for the filming. She thought it would be the perfect opportunity to get closer to him, not knowing that his co-star was the same girl from the dinner.

                “Will you just get in the chair? You still need to get your hair done,” Yeona laughed, trying to get Hongbin to stop doing push-ups.

                “Just one more set, noona,” he replied without stopping. He was going to be wearing a tank top for the scene where Nayoung and Jisung meet for the first time and he wanted to make sure that he looked really good for that scene. “11…12…13…” he counted just as the door opened.

                Miyoung and Jaemi walked in, both of them bowing to everybody in the room to apologize for running a bit late. Once Hongbin heard Jaemi’s voice, he started counting a bit louder, “97…98…99…100.” Yeona raised an eyebrow at him and then noticed the girl sitting in the makeup chair next to his. She noticed him cast a nervous glance towards her and she wondered what happened in the month since they met in New York that made him go from hating her to acting like this. All she could do was sigh and remind herself that she was hired because he would never like her the way she liked him.

                Jaemi stared at herself sadly. She had come directly from her hair dresser who dyed her beautiful, ethereal silver hair to a dark, mud brown and added obviously fake extensions to make her shoulder length hair cascade down her back. She hated how much she looked like she did when she was in high school. In fact, the main reason she styled her hair the way she did was that so she could look as little as her former self as possible.

                Hongbin had to subtly pinch himself to make sure that he was in reality and not in a dream where the old Jaemi came back to be with him. He was suddenly reminded of every single memory he had with her, from the time when he gathered enough courage to talk to her only to have her look like she wanted to laugh in his face to the day she told him, with the cold, unapologetic look in her eyes, that she was dating Hyuk.

                Hongbin finished getting his hair and makeup done as Miyoung just started adding loose waves to Jaemi’s hair. He practically couldn’t pry his eyes away from her and based on the whispers from the staff in the room, she could tell that he must’ve been looking at her for a while. She was much too tired to care about any more gossip about her. In the past three years, there had been countless rumors of her and Joohyuk dating and also one ridiculous rumor about her being pregnant with his baby. She had long given up in the battle of false accusations.

                “So, um, I heard you were in Paris last week,” Hongbin said awkwardly, wanting to talk to her again. He forgot everything about wanting to get even with her or whatever it was that he said he’d do before.  

                “Yeah, I was there yesterday, actually,” she answered plainly.

                “Really? So you flew back last night? You must be tired,” he added light heartedly.

                “I am,” she replied curtly. He nodded and tried to think of something else to say while Yeona disapprovingly shook her head at him from across the room. She hated how rude Jaemi was to not even spare a glance at Hongbin while he was trying to have a friendly conversation with her and she hated how desperate Hongbin looked trying to have a conversation with her when she was obviously not going to give him the time of day. Yeona really didn’t like her.

                Suddenly the assistant director came in to call Jaemi to go on standby for filming. Hongbin watched her take a deep breath and high five her makeup artist. Once she left the room, Hongbin let out the breath he had been holding. He couldn’t fathom that this was actually happening. He was going to work with Jaemi and they were going to fall in love again. He was honestly already half way there. He’d been half way there this whole time.

                After ten minutes of not doing anything, he went out to the set to watch Jaemi film her scene with Jonghyun. Unfortunately for Hongbin, he came out just in time to see Jaemi plant a kiss on Jonghyun’s lips. The director called cut and shouted a suggestion to Jaemi and they filmed that scene again. Following the director’s instructions, Jaemi looked at Soeun more obviously before wrapping her arms around Jonghyun’s neck and kissing him. She felt so weird about it, but thankfully, the director was satisfied with it and that was the end of her kissing scenes. Hongbin was also glad that he wouldn’t have to watch her kiss anybody else again.

                Once the home scenes were finished filming, it was time to shoot the outdoor scene where Nayoung and Jisung meet for the first time. Hongbin saw Jaemi and Jonghyun talk to each other while they waited for the camera crew to finish setting up everything. He walked over, hoping to join their conversation, and thankfully, Jaemi smiled at him. He smiled back at her and greeted the two of them.

                “Oh, Hongbin, do you need any tips on how to throw the basketball at her head?” Jonghyun joked, making Jaemi laugh loudly. He just laughed along politely, unsure of how else to react. The three of them continued to talk to each other for a few more minutes. Hongbin noticed the goosebumps on Jaemi’s arms and politely offered his jacket to her. She stared at him, wide eyed, wondering what he was trying to do. When she didn’t say anything, he went ahead and draped his jacket over her shoulders and chided, “You should remember to bring a jacket when we do outdoor scenes like this.”

                Yeona observed the whole interaction and frowned at Hongbin again. She wished he would see that Jaemi wasn’t into him.

                The director called the actors into their places and the filming began. Jaemi walked alongside Jonghyun his and a staff member lightly threw a fake basketball at the back of her head. Hongbin jogged over and apologized for hitting her. She blinked rapidly and looked him up and down. He felt his heart beat faster seeing her look at him with admiration, even if she was supposedly only acting. The director called cut and told Jonghyun to not glare at Hongbin as harshly as he was. They ended up filming the scene four times, which meant that Jaemi had to stare at Hongbin four times and they had to flirt with each other four times.

                Everything she did still had the same effect on him as it did when they were dating. He smiled more when he saw her smile, his heart beat faster when she got near him, and he couldn’t stop thinking about her when she wasn’t with him.

                Hongbin was about to ask her to get coffee with him when she got a phone call. The way her face lit up when she saw the caller’s name on her phone’s screen made him get a bad feeling.

                “Hey, you know you have great timing. Yeah, I just finished the first day of filming literally like five seconds ago. It was really really really tiring,” she said cutely. The longer she talked, the more nervous Hongbin got. He had a feeling about who she was talking to, but he hoped that he was wrong. Soon, the gnawing feeling in his stomach had taken over his whole body, consuming him with paranoia.

                “Oh really? Well, Mr. Han Sanghyuk, if you think you’d be so good why don’t you try it for a day,” she said with a bright smile on her face; a stark contrast from Hongbin’s darkening expression.

                “Oh, alright, yeah, you should go study. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. I love you, bye,” she said with a trace of a smile on her face. Those last few words she said to him were the breaking point for Hongbin. The world he created in his own head came crashing down around him and the reality set in. He stormed out of the room without saying anything. She called out to him and was confused when he didn’t even look back at her. She couldn’t understand him. First he wouldn’t stop looking at her when she was too tired to talk and now when she was in a good mood, he didn’t so much as to glance in her direction.