Fei and Kris argue the entire car ride to the restaurant.

They are incredibly annoying.

Even I can see that they obviously like each other. Why else would they fight like that?

A scene flashes across my mind- a long drive to a party, a heated argument, a crop top and a skirt- but I hurriedly shove it away.

My phone buzzes with a text and I surreptitiously pull it out.

Joshua: Guess who I just made an online dating profile for!!!!!!!!

A screenshot of an eHarmony page with the name “Do Kyungsoo” is attached. A blurry selfie of a shouting Kyungsoo is uploaded on the profile, and I have to stifle a laugh. I zoom in on the “About Me” section.

Name: Kyungsoo Do (you can call me sudoku, even though I’m too stupid to know what that is)

Age: 23, but I act like I’m 14

Hobbies: at cooking, at fighting, being a whiny little baby

Likes: Nothing.

Dislikes: Smiling.

Contact info given upon request ;) ;) ;)

Oh my god. I text Joshua, You’ve really outdone yourself, and he replies with multiple winky faces.

“What are you laughing about?” Kris calls from the front seat. My eyes dart up in surprise.

“Nothing,” I respond, and he snorts.

“You haven’t said anything this whole time.”

“You and Fei have been a little preoccupied,” I point out.

Fei clicks her tongue. “I’m sorry that you have to spend time with him, Mihae. I know he’s terrible.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“So tell us about yourself, Mihae.” Fei props her head up on one hand. “What do you like to do?”

“Are you single?” Kris cuts in. Fei gives him a furious look.

“Have you even heard of professionalism in the workplace?” she exclaims. “You’re disgusting! This isn’t college, okay? You can’t just hit on every girl you meet-,”

“Oh, please,” Kris sneers. “You’re just jealous because you never dated anyone.”

“Wha- because I’ve been focusing on my education and job! And as I recall, someone asked me out the first time he met me-,”

“That someone was drunk and incapable of a logical thought process at the time. And also passed out 5 minutes later.”

“Yeah right, Kris." Fei gives him a smug look. "That's a great excuse. You know what? I could totally get a boyfriend if I wanted to!”

He smirks. “Yeah? Then why don’t you?”

“Fine!” She crosses her arms. “I will!”

I sink back in my seat, zoning out again. Honestly, what a mess.

After what feels like an eternity, we arrive at Le Aureole, the ritzy French restaurant we are meeting our client at. I still don’t really know what’s going on. All I’m going to do is watch and learn.

This should be quite interesting. Kris works on the business side of the company, while Fei works with the technology side. If they could actually cooperate for once, who knows what they could achieve.

“The team we’re going to meet is Cloudform, Inc.,” Fei whispers in my ear as a waiter leads us to a table. “They’re a business consulting startup that wants to purchase a network security package. Apparently the founders of the company are recent graduates from Wharton. Very impressive-,”

I stop listening to Fei at this point, because we arrive at the table and I see the faces of the 4 employees from Cloudform.

One face in particular causes me to freeze in my tracks.

When he sees me, he shoots up so quickly his chair tips backwards and crashes to the floor.

“Preet,” I breathe.

“Mihae?” Fei frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“I bet that kid’s her ex-boyfriend,” Kris sighs. “Ah, young love.”

“Sunil?” The brunette girl sitting next to him nudges him. “She isn’t an ex, right? You told me you’d never dated anyone else before-,”

"Ooh, love triangle," Kris says gleefully. "How cu- ow! Stop punching me, Fei!"

“She’s not an ex,” Preet says dazedly. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Ami-,”

“Okay, let’s catch up later!” I exclaim. I try to ignore the shudders running down my spine, caused by that name.

I haven’t heard that name used in 4 years.

“Right,” Preet coughs. “Er, well, let’s... get started.”

The brunette is still eyeing him suspiciously. Kris and Fei are staring at me. The other members of Preet’s team look utterly bewildered.

Preet is right. This should not have happened. When we left 4 years ago, the Seven Stars and X.E. put us in completely different places with completely different identities, and stripped us of each other’s contact information (in the fear that we would attempt to contact each other and thus somehow alert Yohan). Although Lina promised that she would find a way to keep in contact, the gangs (probably Baekhyun and Marge) have eliminated all possibilities of that.

They made sure that we would never cross paths with each other. Hell, I don’t even know where Anna is right now, and I didn’t know where Preet was.  

I am so tensed up during the entire meeting that I can’t focus on anything going on. When Fei, Kris, and the rest of the people at our table stand, I don’t even notice- until Fei subtly kicks me under the table.

“Sorry,” I breathe, scrambling up. “Uh, thanks, Cloudform, for having us here.”

Kris gives Fei a meaningful look. “Why don’t we give Mihae a little bit of time to... catch up with her friend?”

I throw Preet an alarmed look. The brunette is scowling, but grudgingly strides off to walk with Kris and Fei. The rest of Preet’s team trails behind her.

Then it is just the two of us.

“So,” he finally says after a long silence. “Long time no see.”

“Wharton, huh?” I say. “Looks like you’re doing great there.”

He does. Gone is the gawky, scrawny boy from Brookhaven. Preet is tall and fit. With muscles. Muscles.

And apparently, a jealous girlfriend. Jesus.

“I guess so,” Preet quietly says. “You’re doing pretty well yourself. Sentrix, huh?”

“Yeah. Today was my first day, actually. Crazy coincidence, huh?”

He is peering at me with unreadable eyes. “What?” I ask.

“You seem different.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugs. “Just- more serious, I guess. Mature. Surprising for Ami Hwang.” Preet chuckles a little, and then stops when he sees my stony expression.

“How have you been... doing?” he murmurs in a more somber, heavy tone. “You seem a little- I mean, I’m just- just asking.”

I can read between the lines. I know what he’s saying.

But I’m sure he can figure it out.

All of us were scarred from all the fear and terror and gunshots that followed us for those 5 months during junior year. Scarred from seeing a classmate murder our best friend before our very eyes.

But that night left a deeper mark on me.

I have been trying to avoid thinking about all of that for 4 years.

“The question we should be focusing on is why we met,” I say. “Do your handlers know about this?”

“Kai and Hansol? Nope. How about yours?”

“No.” I furrow my eyebrows. “Marge and Baekhyun would never slip up like this. Why did they let this happen?”

And in the next moment, it becomes evident why.

A tall, gorgeous woman waltzes into the restaurant, followed by a stream of stick-thin models and personal assistants. She is typing away on her iPhone and barking orders at the people around her.

“Make sure the fall catalog gets run by the purchasing department before we release it. I’m going off the hunch that plaid is going to be in this season. Everyone needs to look amazing in it.” She looks up in exasperation. “God, who even made a reservation at this restaurant? French food is going to make everyone fat-,”

The woman sees Preet and I standing by the table, blank expressions on our faces.

Her iPhone and purse clatter to the floor.

“Anna,” Preet exhales.

The three of us are standing in a circle at the back of the restaurant, not looking at each other. There is so much tension hanging around us that it could be cut with a blunt knife.

“It was on purpose,” I finally say. “Marge and Baekhyun brought us all here intentionally.”

“Obviously,” Annabelle huffs. Like Preet, she has drastically changed as well- except for the worse. No more sweet, cheerful Anna. Nope, the woman in front of me, Michelle Park, is blunt, stubborn, and condescending. Apparently, being some high-class fashion designer for a designer company in Milan has caused her personality to morph into something resembling a high school cheerleader's.

According to her, she and her entire team arrived in New York City on Friday to prepare for Fashion Week in September. She was picked to lead and represent her company here for the first time.

And then someone- someone- made a reservation for this restaurant.

At the exact same time as Preet and I.

What a coincidence.

Ha.

“Something must be going on at HQ,” Preet says, ignoring Annabelle’s rude comment. “Baek and Marge are trying to send us a message.”

“What if I don’t want to know the message?” Annabelle crosses her arms. “I like my life right now, okay? Everything’s going great for me. The last thing I want to do is return to...,”

A flash of pain crosses her eyes. She swallows.

“I don’t want to go back either, but something must be seriously wrong,” Preet says gravely. A cold wind blows past us, causing goosebumps to appear on my neck.

Annabelle turns to me. “What about you, Ami?” she asks, her voice surprisingly soft. “You’re the last person I’d expect to want to go back to all of that.”

I look away.

“We don’t even know what any of this means,” I murmur. “I don’t... I don’t want to think about this.”

There is an uneasy silence. Preet and Annabelle exchange heavy looks.

“How do you think Lina’s doing?” Annabelle says in a voice so quiet I can barely hear her.

Preet stares at his feet. I slowly shake my head.

My chest aches.

“How about this,” Preet suddenly says. “Why don’t the three of us just stay in contact? Anna, you’re going to be in New York until September, right?”

“Right,” she replies tersely.

    “And I’m going to be here until the end of summer, too, until school starts again, and Ami lives here. It all works out. If there’s anything going on, we should be able to figure it out within the next few months.”

    Every time they say the name “Ami”, I feel like throwing up.

    “Fine. I’ll give you guys my number.” Annabelle grudgingly rattles off her number to us, and Preet does the same.

    “Make sure your handlers don’t find out about this,” Preet warns me and Annabelle.

She snorts. “Please, Sehun and Wonwoo wouldn’t be able to detect anything suspicious, even if it hit them in the face. How they became gang members, I don’t know.”

    “Fine, fine.” He turns to me. “Ami?”

    I blink. “Yeah, sorry. Uh, my number is... is...,”

    Why am I so reluctant to tell them? Only a few years ago, I would have killed to get Anna and Preet’s contact information, to talk to them, to see them, goddammit. But I don’t want to now.

    Because if I do, it’ll start bringing more parts of my past back into focus.  

    I take a deep breath in. Preet and Anna are staring at me expectantly.

    It’s just a number. Calm down.

    “623-3543,” I breathe.

    Nothing is going to happen, Mimi.

    “I said we’d give you a little bit of time to catch up,” Kris says, his eyebrows raised. “Not an hour.”

    “Sorry,” I utter, plunking down in my desk. “I’ll work overtime to make it up.”

    Kris bats his hand. “Oh, stop. There’s no need to do that. Just answer one question: he was an ex-boyfriend, right?”

    I shake my head, disconcerted. “He was one of my best friends in high school,” I murmur.

    “Cute. Where’d you go to school?”

    “Brookhaven,” I say dazedly.

    Kris’ eyebrows shoot up. “I’m sorry, did you just say Brookhaven?”

    ! My eyes snap back into focus.

    “Yeah, Brookhaven,” I respond casually. “A dinky little town near the outskirts of Chicago. Terrible place to live. Why?”

    “Oh!” Kris’ astonished expression dissolves into his normal insouciant smirk. “For a moment there, I thought we were from the same place. I grew up in Brookhaven, New Jersey. It was a pretty great place, actually.”

    “You’re lucky,” I smile. “The Brookhaven where I'm from is the absolute worst place in the world.”

“Tough luck,” Kris shrugs. “Well, I won’t disturb you for too long. I have to go find Fei so I can piss her off. See ya.”

This whole day has been completely surreal.

I am hoping- no, praying- that nothing will happen.

   A/N: YALLS COMMENTS ARE THE BEST OMFG I AM SO HAPPY YOU GUYS ARE LEAVING SUCH AWESOME COMMENTS ALKDFALKSDFSADF

yeeeahhh ami is really different lmao... and ~something~ is happeninggggg

um for some reason my text is stuck in italics? why omg