The Foreigners' Guide to Staying In Love; Victoria/Hangeng (Part 1/2)
Title: The Foreigners' Guide to Staying In Love
Author: mawaru_berry
Pairing/Focus: Victoria-centric, Han Geng/Victoria, Victoria/Amber
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 13,873 words
Summary: Two foreigners in love. Two foreigners going home. And then two different desires pulling in different ways.
It was a cool June evening after a rainstorm when he heard it. The sound of plastic bags rustling out of a pair of arms, and a feminine Mandarin swear. Han Geng dropped the cigarette from his fingertips like he'd burned his fingers. He sprinted around the corner until he found the cause of the sound that'd sparked his interest.
What was even better was the sound of her mumbling in Mandarin Chinese, even if it was to herself and from what Heechul had told him, people who spoke to themselves were nuts. Han Geng figured that there should be an exception if she was using his foreign tongue.
"Let me help," he said, stunning her with his perfect, native vocals.
"I--I'm okay--thank you," she stuttered. Her hair fell, smooth with dyed waves at the ends, into her face as she leaned down again to adjust the one paper bag she'd used. The others were plastic.
"So you're Chinese, I presume? I heard you talking to yourself," he said with a chuckle.
The paper bag was unfortunately ripped at the bottom. Han Geng reached for the watermelon and smiled at her when she blushed. He realized there were some very sadly squished blueberries underneath the much heavier fruit Han Geng was now holding. He made sure not to drop this one, though. No reason to ruin her groceries anymore, although it was a miracle that this watermelon hadn't gained a single crack from its fall.
"Oh, shoot," she said, half reaching down to scoop up the remnants of dead berries. Obviously, she forgot to keep blushing about how he heard her talking to herself. The fruity mush on her fingers seemed to be enough of a distraction.
"Sorry about your blueberries. Can I help you carry anything, though?"
"Um, sure," she started to stand, placing the salvageable items back into their bags. Han Geng felt like she was the most forlorn over the blueberries, though, instead of the squished tomato near the end of her heel. Then again, those were the only two demolished products. "The watermelon…could you--"
"No problem."
"Thanks, it kind of, um, broke the bag it was in."
Han Geng noticed she'd piled the other fallen foods into only two bags now, that looked difficult. The rain picked up again, and he left his jacket on the front steps to Heechul's apartment building, twenty feet--give or take a foot--away from where he was now. The girl started walking. He didn't have her name yet, but did he want it? Wait, how could he want it? Or: how could he not want it?
"Do you live nearby?" she asked.
"My friend lives over there," he motioned with his head. "I was just on my way home from dinner. At his place. His name is Heechul."
"Oh, that's nice."
"Did you just move in?"
She balanced the paper bag on her thigh, propping herself against the door as she pulled her keys out of her pocket. "Last month." She brought her leg back down and used her back to keep the door open. She let him through first.
"What's your name?"
"Victoria." She made sure to look him in the eye when she said it.
"I'm--" he paused, briefly. Damn, what's his name again? Oh, yeah. "--Hankyung."
"I'd shake your hand but I can't."
He laughed. She made a move like she would have covered her teeth with her hand as she laughed. Han Geng decided he liked her smile, shining underneath fluorescent apartment lobby lighting. They headed for the elevator.
Victoria lived on the second floor of her apartment building. It was almost the same building as Heechul's, not too far away, and Han Geng remembered this without intending to as he took the stairs back down from said second floor, from the door of her apartment. She hadn't invited him inside, and he couldn't tell why he was almost hoping she would.
As soon as her door was open, she'd left him outside to put down the two bags she still had and came back for her watermelon. That'd been it. They said goodbye, and Han Geng recalled the need to grab his jacket before jumping on the latest running bus. He'd have to run to catch it. Otherwise he'd be walking until 1am at the earliest, and it was already half past midnight.
---
She was partially blinded upon waking up, and she had this faint drifting scent of nicotine and apples in her nose, lingering, like it'd been there all night. A flash of his face went through her mind before she suddenly realized that no, he's not here anymore, he left after the passage of watermelon from his hands to hers.
Maybe the watermelon still smelled like him. It probably did. When she sat up, her surroundings pertained not to her own bedroom, the only familiar feeling was the weight of her ten-month-old cat Kuixian sitting on the backs of her thighs. The couch pillow wasn't as soft as her panda-shaped pillow. Victoria kind of wondered why she liked so many childish things. But she'd always been that way.
She scooped up Kuixian and put him in her lap. He mewed at her with an unpleasant look on his face and she pouted right back at him, setting him free to run around the rest of her apartment.
When she opened the door to her room, she found the most plausible reason for why she'd chosen the couch over her bed.
Amber. Krystal. Sleeping, sprawled out and almost dead in appearance. Victoria poked Amber in the side and received a shout piercing her ear in return. "What the--?"
"Could you guys not crash at my place without telling me first?" Victoria figured the sleepiness was talking when she opened her mouth, because on a regular basis, she wouldn't mind. Except for the presence of the sixteen-year-old. "And Krystal, why aren't you at home? Your sister already doesn't like me…"
"Jessica can shove off," Krystal rolled over. Her borrowing of Victoria's clothes to sleep in was also rather obvious. "Don't fucking care."
Amber nudged the youngest girl, who reached out to hit her so she'd go away, but Amber dodged the attack. "Next time we'll just go to Heechul's place."
Victoria paused. "Did you just say 'Heechul'?"
"Yeah," she blinked. "Why?"
"Uh," Victoria had nothing. "Interesting." Lame response.
"Yeah, the next apartment building over," another blink. "Seriously, I don't get it. Why?"
"I was just curious."
"The whole setup of his house is pretty similar. Well, I mean like, it's, I don't know. Krystal, help me out."
"She means that they're built the same," Krystal mumbled into Victoria's pillow. Was that drool? Victoria had an urge to shove her out of the bed, but left her there. As long as she didn't have to be the one to deal with an angry Jessica Jung, she was okay with it.
"Like I said, just curious," Victoria said again, and after a moment of silence and what seemed like Krystal snoring, she sighed. "Who wants breakfast?"
Amber perked up. "Pancakes?"
"I never said that."
"But I did. Pancakes?"
She smiled as she gave in, taking out new clothes to change into for the day. A clean white button-up on for work and a fresh pair of dark jeans was all she needed. She turned away from the other two. Sure, she may have been a dancer, used to having to change into and out of costumes in front of anyone backstage, but real life sometimes grabbed her by the ear to tell her to remember modesty. Too often, perhaps.
"Krystal, call your sister," Victoria said before heading into the hall, and Amber was close behind her. Krystal might have grunted a yes.
It was while Amber started to pick out the ingredients from Victoria's closet when the older girl checked the clock on the wall and let out a small, surprised sound and jumped. "What?" Amber asked, not bothering to switch out of a temporary English state of mind.
"Work!" Victoria squealed. "I need to leave now or I'll be late!"
"Does this mean no pancakes?"
"Amber!"
"Okay, okay," she held her hands up, defensively. "I'll make 'em."
Victoria left a kiss on Amber's cheek before darting towards the front door, nearly forgetting her her wallet and shoes. "Feed Kuixian before you leave!"
Amber didn't have enough time to complain before the front door slammed closed, and Krystal was sulking out of Victoria's room, into the kitchen. Said cat Kuixian was now pawing at Krystal's toes. "But he hates me."
---
The sky was overcast again, like it had been yesterday. The difference was that the ground was almost dry again. She didn't have to avoid any puddles on her way to the bus stop. At one point in her career as a dancer, she'd learned how to run in high-heels. It was never related to her art, only a grand idea to wear at after parties, or more semi-formal dinners and meetings with those who wished to hire her as a part-time instructor or choreographer. The running was only required on the off chance that a random interference would attempt to make her late.
As she made the final stretch, a stranger asked the bus driver to hold the door. The woman was what Victoria's Korean teacher told her to call an 'ahjumma.' And Victoria hadn't really adjusted to the term yet, but that didn't mean she couldn't use it, or that she couldn't give a, 'thank you, ahjumma' after, when the woman sat down and Victoria grabbed one of the handlebars above her head.
She jerked a little to the side when the bus lurched. Glancing at her watch, Victoria started to worry that she might be late in the end, despite her running.
It was going to be a long day. Or at least it would if she let it become one. Working at the café from 9:30 until her lunch break at 2pm, and then another shift for three hours. Then off to the dance studio until whenever rehearsal was over, and those ended whenever they wanted. When Victoria was a younger and still in her motherland, she would have had outlines of times, she would've ended at 8pm and been home by 8:45, in bed by 9. But she'd been younger, and little girls needed to be in bed by 9 at the latest. She could hardly remember when that early curfew dissolved into nothing.
Victoria almost forgot about her own stop until she focused her eyes again, glancing at the 'ahjosshi' who needed to squeeze past her to get to the front of the bus. Quickly, she followed after and slipped out the front door before the bus driver could close it. One more glance at her watch, and she started sprinting again. At least she was only wearing two-inch heels today.
The clock struck 9:30 just as she flew in the front door, hair blowing out behind her and settling around her shoulders once the bells clattered together, the sound of the door closing.
"You're so on time, I just felt physical pain," Kyuhyun stopped, giving her his best cringing face. She hit him on her way to the back of the restaurant with the back of her palm, a smile on her face. Victoria didn't bother to note that as usual, he made next to no sense.
"Tiffany," Victoria tapped her on the back as she slid over to her uniform--a loose term. An apron. "Time to get up."
Tiffany lifted her head and yawned. "Vicky?"
"We're open, come on, our shift's starting," she made a point to grab Tiffany's uniform as well, tossing it at her. It met with Tiffany's face, and she was probably pouting underneath the fabric.
"Can you make me some coffee?" Tiffany mumbled as she stared down at the apron, now balled up in her hands. Victoria straightened out the fabric before gently draping it over her friend and coworker. "Please?" she asked, even while Victoria fixed the few strands of hair she'd put out of place with her fussing. She used even more of her fussing to put them in a more normal situation.
Victoria rested her hand on Tiffany's shoulder, her face taking on a default half-pout. "Okay, okay."
"Y--" Her cheer was stifled by a yawn.
"Only if you promise not to make me be the one to pay if Kyuhyun finds out that I gave you the coffee we should be giving the customers," Victoria demanded, plucking two mugs. One for herself. Her bad night of sleep was just starting to catch up with her. Although she quickly changed her mind when she was pretty sure she heard someone else's shoes tapping their way into the kitchen.
When the sound subsided, as the shoes (and hopefully the person…hopefully) seemed to be heading for the restroom instead, she reached for the coffee pot and poured some for Tiffany.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said in English, too fast for Victoria to interpret but from having other friends like Amber and Krystal, she could figure it out. "You go out first, I'll catch up."
"Okay, fine."
"Hey, hey, did you pay for that?" A voice chided her from the doorway leading to the front of the café. Zhou Mi.
Glancing at Tiffany, Victoria saw that she was already being pointed at. This, of course, had happened before. Same situation, same finger pointing at her, only the one that caught them was different. Last time it'd been Kyuhyun. "She made it for me."
Zhou Mi wasn't buying it, especially from the look on Victoria's face as she leaned on the counter. The kind of look that said she'd been wronged and she couldn't believe it, as subtle as it may be. Tiffany did her best to come across as innocent. It didn't work. She fished some money out of her wallet, flinging it at Zhou Mi.
He chuckled, picking it up off the kitchen floor with a smile. "I'm glad we can all be mature adults here."
"Tiffany," Victoria shot her a look.
"The terms were that I wouldn't make you pay if Kyuhyun found out, okay? Do you see Kyuhyun? I don't, not here."
"You know, you still paid," said Zhou Mi, grinning.
Tiffany scrunched her eyebrows together. "I'm going to ignore you now."
He slid over a piece of paper torn from his notepad. "In that case, listen to this and take care of a few drink orders, please."
Amused, Victoria rushed out to the front of the restaurant before she could hear Tiffany's reply, or perhaps lack of a reply. Kyuhyun came out of nowhere, directing her towards the other side of the café. "Over there," he said, with a sort of gentle push.
"Okay," she gave him a weird look. "Um, you can let go of my arm now."
"Got it. Not like I'd want to touch your arm anyway, weirdo."
"You just did, though."
"Oh, go take people's orders already!"
Victoria stifled some giggles, but did as he said. After all, he was the closest thing to her boss without actually being her boss. He was her boss's son, and that was good enough to scare her when it mattered, no matter how much Mrs. Cho loved Victoria.
"Good morning," she said, looking down at her notepad for a brief moment. "What would you…like…?"
"Oh. It's you!"
"Hankyung-ssi?" she asked as her eyes started to widen. His started to do the same. Victoria saw Kyuhyun out of the corner of her eye, though, and got back to business as soon as she could get over the surprise of seeing here. Besides, it wasn't like people didn't go out to get coffee and a muffin for breakfast at cafés on a regular basis.
"So, um, what would you like?" she asked again. Hankyung blinked and looked at her confusedly, but then seemed to understand what she was asking. Victoria wondered if she should speak in Mandarin around him.
"Coffee, and, hm--a cranberry muffin?"
"Can do," she nodded. "Caff or decaf?"
"Caff, definitely," he said with a smile.
"Rough night?"
He shrugged. "Went to sleep late. I left something at my friend's house--the one I told you about--and then he just really likes to talk sometimes. We probably talked for at least another hour and then I needed to get home somehow."
She finished drawing a little smiley face on her notepad and looked up at him again. "Then you are definitely getting caff. I make a pretty good cup of coffee," she put her hand to her cheek. "Or at least, that's what I've been told."
"And before, you seemed so much more modest than that," he said, laughing.
Victoria feigned shock, one hand on her hips. "So now you're saying I'm arrogant?"
"No! I was just kidding." It was cute how flustered he got, while retaining a decent amount of calmness. Victoria felt her cheeks warming up, like someone had put their palms against her face.
She glanced around, knowing that despite the low amount of customers so far, she knew that Kyuhyun would be all over her with his annoyed yet blank face and any disapproving glares he might be saving up just for her for standing around and making small talk. Victoria and her co-workers would always pray internally that Zhou Mi would be the one to catch them chatting it up with customers, not Kyuhyun. There was something about the way the latter looked at you that made you want to shrivel up and cry, more so on his bad days. It was just too eerie.
Victoria smiled at Hankyung again, and bid him a momentary goodbye, bowing her head and slipping off to take more orders like she was supposed to. Normally she didn't stop to talk with customers for that long. Normally she didn't stop to talk with a customer who, 24 hours ago, had been nothing but a stranger.
"So, how do you know Han Geng?" asked Zhou Mi as soon as Victoria came back into the kitchen. He seemed to be on his way back out, but he stayed by the doorway when she walked in.
"Hm?"
"Han Geng?" he repeated. "Oh. Um, Hankyung."
"How do I know him?" she said, pulling out a few coffee mugs and doing her best to multitask when the subject was, for some reason, very distracting. "I met him yesterday, actually."
There seemed to be something Zhou Mi wanted to say, but at the same time, didn't want to say. She stared at him for a good few seconds, before he said, "He's a good friend of mine. Family friend," and then he flashed one of his bright smiles. "Nice guy, Han Geng-ge."
Victoria tried to focus on the coffee she was making, not the all-knowing grins of that Zhou Mi that now floated around in her brain.
---
By the time Amber moseyed on into the café, it was close to half past noon. Victoria was the first person to get to her, and Sulli had come along, too. "Did you feed Kuixian before you left?" Victoria asked, after Amber and Sulli had sat down, the former taking off her baseball cap and fixing her hair with a few nonchalant shakes of the head.
"Krystal. She took care of it. I told you Kuixian hates me," Amber whined, and Sulli snickered.
"And then she went home?"
Amber shrugged. "Not that I know of. The last I saw of her, she was eating pancakes in front of your TV and petting your schizophrenic cat."
"Kuixian is not schizophrenic, Amber!"
"One minute he purrs at me, then he does a completely 180 and leaves a scar on my wrist. My family flipped when they saw that--they almost wouldn't let me come back to Korea, Victoria," she shot the older girl a look that sort of said your fault, you know.
Sulli nodded. "Unnie, I agree with her. That cat is crazy."
"Well, you've met the guy she named him after," Amber said. "She probably just saw the similarities."
"Kyuhyun is not schizophrenic, either, you two." Victoria put her hands on her hips. She glanced behind her quickly, making sure that the human wasn't actually behind her at the moment. Then again, she was defending him, not offending.
Kyuhyun could always be watching.
She clicked her pen against its accompanying pad. "Now tell me what you want."
---
There was no need to be at the bookstore. An impulse trip. She'd gotten a few recommendations from friends at the dance studio lately. Even so, she'd done too much grocery shopping this week. She needed to cut down on the books, no matter how much they tended to help her Korean comprehension. Friends usually gave and lent books to her all the time. Yet here she was, walking around the aisles of the used bookstore close to the studio. She'd gotten off work early today and had some time to kill before rehearsal would start.
"Victoria?"
She whipped around, a book almost flying out of her hands. And then she blinked in slight disbelief. "Han Geng?" Hadn't she just seen him yesterday? Today, though, was slightly different. There was another person with him.
"This is a surprise," he said, striding over to her. The man walking slightly behind him held onto Han Geng's sleeve. "What are you doing here?"
"Obviously she's looking at books," said the other man.
"Actually, I was only browsing," Victoria smiled. "I have a budget to stick to."
"Heechul never sticks to his own budget. He hoards books, he could practically build a small house with them."
"Oh, shut up," the other man--Heechul, Victoria assumed, and remembered that Han Geng had mentioned him before, albeit barely--smacked Han Geng's arm.
"What? There are books all over your floor. You can't go five feet without getting a paper cut on your big toe."
Heechul sneered. "He exaggerates," he said, moving his eyes to Victoria and extending his hand towards her. "I'm Kim Heechul, by the way."
She returned the gesture, shaking his hand. "Victoria Song."
"Her apartment building is close to yours," Han Geng said, looking from Victoria to Heechul.
All Heechul did was give him a questionable look. "And how the hell do you know that, mister?"
"I met her when I was leaving your place two nights ago. Jeez, calm down," he laughed, eyes crinkled at the corners. Victoria thought he looked even more gorgeous that way.
Heechul raised an eyebrow and elbowed Han Geng in the side. "I'll be up front, paying. If you aren't there in five minutes, I'm dragging you out, got it?"
"Yeah, sure."
Victoria couldn't help but giggle at their banter, especially when Han Geng wasn't even looking at Heechul, and Heechul obviously wasn't having any of that.
"By your ear."
"Have fun with that."
"Or another thing. And trust me, you wouldn't be happy about that one, Hankyung--"
"Heechul, go buy your friggin' books, I'll meet you there soon!" Han Geng--Hankyung? Victoria wasn't sure which name to use anymore, or whether they could be the same person at all--pushed his friend gently towards the sounds of a bored college-age employee punching in numbers on the cash register.
Victoria was already sure of something she wanted to ask him. "So what do people call you?" she tilted her head to the side, studying him. First, by his face.
"What do you mean?"
"You told me that your name is Hankyung," she started. "But my friend Zhou Mi told me your name is Han Geng. I just called you Han Geng when I saw you, and you didn't correct me, but then Heechul-ssi called you Hankyung, too. Are you just one of those people who doesn't bother to correct anyone when they say your name wrong?" But then Victoria thought about how she'd done that at some point, when she was still Song Qian at school, before she'd picked up the name Victoria in her second year of high school.
"Oh," he said, his mouth taking on the shape of his syllable. He grinned after that. "You could say that. Honestly, my name is Han Geng. Heechul started calling me Hankyung at some point, and then everyone he knew started using it. Domino Effect, you could say."
She listened to him laugh.
"The only people who still call me Han Geng are my Chinese friends, my parents, and my Korean friends who actually want to learn Chinese," he said, his laughter increasing.
"So does that mean that you want me to call you Han Geng?" She thought she'd try it. See what he'd say.
The smile never left his face. "That'd be nice," he paused, as if just remembering something. "Hey, Victoria?"
"Hm?"
"Why are we speaking in Korean?"
Just as she was about to open her mouth to give him an answer she hadn't thought out that well, Heechul came back into the aisle and grabbed Han Geng's sweatshirt. The only thing that made her follow as he was practically dragged away was the fact that he now started to mention dinner together.
Sometime before they were gone and out the door of the bookstore, he called out a restaurant name a time, and a day. After the two of them were out of sight, she pulled out her cell phone and typed up a mini note down, one that she would scribble on a post-it note after dance rehearsal and stick on the fridge.
---
Krystal wasn't there when Victoria came home at nearly 2am and plopped down on the couch with the desire for sleep trekking all across her eyeballs, but Amber was. She lowered the TV's volume and stared at Victoria's blank face. "Did they turn you into a zombie today, or something? Because, hey, I think you'd be great for the part."
"Amber, I'm tired," she said. Short and sweet. Sort of.
"You're telling me you want me to tuck you in, aren't you?"
"It'd be so awesome if you did," Victoria mumbled, and Amber almost didn't catch it.
Sighing, Amber stood up from the couch, choosing to walk over the television set to turn it off before coming back to the couch and looking down at Victoria. Her eyes were already drooping more than before, and Amber sighed once more and bent down before wedging one hand underneath Victoria's legs, the other behind her back. Victoria swung her arms around Amber on her own, and let herself be lifted.
"I'm not sure how I'd feel about changing your clothes for you."
Victoria only grunted. How attractive.
"Because you'd probably end up hating what I'd pick for you."
The older girl rolled her head onto Amber's shoulder, warm air from her nose brushing over Amber's collarbone and neck. "Just pj's," she said.
"If you say so." Amber set Victoria down at the foot of the bed, making sure she didn't land too hard, and then she trotted over to the dresser, pulling out anything that seemed good and comfortable. The elder of the two seemed already comatose by the time Amber slipped her jeans off and replaced them with some loose shorts. Victoria barely twitched when Amber had to pull her shirt over her head, and she fell backwards again onto her bed as soon as it was off, starting to tangle her own arms in her blankets.
"Argh, come on, Vic."
"Tired…"
Amber bit back a third sigh. "Hey, don't you want a shirt?"
She didn't say anything, except a mumble into her comforter. Amber leaned her chin against her palm for a moment, before pulling a sweatshirt from Victoria's closet and forcefully sliding Victoria's arms through the sleeves.
"You're so calm for the fact that I just saw your bra, Vic," said Amber, gently dragging Victoria towards the head of her bed, trying to get the covers from underneath the older girl to on top of her. "Then again, you probably have no idea what I just said, you're so tired. Bet your feet are gonna hurt in the morning."
By the time she achieved success in tucking in her older friend, Amber resigned herself for the evening, sliding into the other side of the bed. She listened to Victoria's breath until she couldn't hear anything but dreams about giant cupcakes and floating pigs--not flying.
---
Luna was ecstatic over the phone, her voice sounding musical as she raved to Victoria about how thrilled she was for her about the date on Friday. Victoria could only nod and 'yeah' or 'hm' along for most of it; it was enough to keep an excited Luna satisfied.
"Do you know what you're gonna wear?"
Victoria giggled. "You sound like Krystal."
"Just beating her to it," Luna chirped. "He sounds like a really nice guy, unnie. Ah, tell me more later, after the date!"
Victoria nodded, aware that Luna was a phone line away and twenty minutes by bus. "Of course. Oh, I have to go. I'm meeting my dance partner."
"For what?"
"Extra rehearsal," she replied, sheepishly.
"Unnie," Luna's voice turned somewhat warning in a split second. "You're working yourself too much. You're always tired! Just the other day, Amber told me you came home at two in the morning and she had to tuck you in."
"Oh right, she did," said Victoria, scratching her head as if she could only just remember. She never thanked Amber, though. Woke up in the morning to hear Amber leaving, the zipper on her sweatshirt clinking and her rubber soles tapping the floor by the door had been Victoria's only inclination of Amber spending the night again. It wasn't an odd occurrence, though.
"All I have to say is: get some good sleep before you go on this date!"
They ended up talking for at least another ten minutes before Victoria almost tripped down the stairs when Luna was telling her about this guy who smacked her butt while she was out with Amber and Zhou Mi. "He must have thought I was older than I actually am," Luna said, not sounding particularly upset over it, more like confused but laced with a pinch of a disgruntled attitude.
The older girl muttered a fast, "Luna, you need to be more careful--alright, I really do have to go," because closing her phone and rubbing where her hip had met the railing in her attempt to save herself from falling. She limped a little out the door, but the small ache subsided by the time she'd gotten to the bus.
---
She couldn't remember if Han Geng had said to meet him outside the restaurant, or inside the restaurant. And then she remembered that he hadn't specified on whether it would be either. Heechul had been dragging him off to go wherever else they had to go. Heechul reminded Victoria of Sulli, only more forceful the way he did things. Sulli had never dragged Victoria out of a bookstore by the hood of her sweatshirt.
Five minutes after she went inside, she looked around and figured since it wasn't a particularly fancy restaurant, just something simple, there wasn't anyone she could ask who would know if he'd arrived yet. Victoria twisted her lips and headed towards the bathroom, fumbling around in her purse. A little displeased over Han Geng's tardiness, and a little worried, too, she tried to focus on the fact that she needed to touch up on her lipstick.
She put the tube down a few seconds later, though, staring at herself in the mirror. Was she really that worried about this thing? Was it even a true date? She'd made herself look nice and all, and she thought she did a damn good job. The past two nights had been her only two nights this month to not have foot arch-achingly long dance rehearsals, and she'd even gotten some decent sleep. Heck, she'd even taken a cat nap in the café kitchen during her lunch break, under Tiffany's "watchful" eye.
By the time she walked out of the ladies room, there he was, standing near the entrance the restaurant. He looked nervous, like he'd done something wrong. Victoria was sure that the reason had to be the time. The ticking hands inside her small watch told her that he was ten minutes late.
And then she felt like she was swimming, or walking in slow motion as she approached him. There was an odd sensation that zipped through her fingers when she tapped him on the shoulder. She was dry, and stranded for a brief second, until he looked at her. "I'm so sorry," were the first words to come. "I could give you a world of excuses but some of them would be lies and some of them would sound too weird to be the truth so I don't think you'd believe me but I'd rather not lie to you."
"That's a good sign," she said. "And it's okay, I was almost late, actually."
She could tell that he didn't believe her, but let it go. "So, um. Let's get our table?"
"Sure."
They made sure to switch back to Korean once they'd been seated and there was a non-Chinese waiter involved, but between the two of them, they spoke only Mandarin. Victoria rested her cheek against her hand, gazing at him over the able, and he gazed back. She still didn't know if it was right to call this a date, but every once in a while, she'd forget about the dilemma and just say yes, it could be.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" she asked, eyelashes batting for a quick second, those pretty little fluttering things that framed her eyes.
"I wanted to…well," he set down his soju for a second, with I have a story for you in his eyes, "when I was younger, I wanted to be a dancer--and I guess I still do--though I started to get this dream of becoming an actor."
It wasn't much of a story, but it was interesting. "Is that where you're headed now?"
"No, but it's how I met my best friend, in Korea," Han Geng shrugged.
"Then where are you headed now?"
He flashed his teeth for her. "To a world of literature."
Victoria immediately smiled and raised her glass to her lips with the pinky finger raised. "Sounds fancy," she said before downing her alcoholic contents.
"It's actually not," he laughed.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, it's not. Freelance writer. And I'm working on my first novel--but it's in Chinese, so it wouldn't sell very well around here without someone who could translate it better than I can speak the language."
"What about your best friend, couldn't he help out?"
Han Geng chuckled. "He knows almost no Chinese. I've taught him most of what he knows. The other he learned from movies, he told me. He's useful for other reasons."
Victoria couldn't help but show that she was intrigued. "Useful?" she giggled, covering her mouth like they were on a reality show and it was important to humble herself. But what she didn't realize is that he could care less, and he wanted to pull that hand out of his way of seeing her pretty smile. "How so?"
"For being a friend, you could say," he half-stuttered, downing what was left of his drink. He bit his lip as the liquid burned its way down. "He's good at that. With me. I guess."
"You don't sound very confident about that, ge," part of her wanted to stop calling him ge, though. She did nothing about this part of her, kept it to herself and closed her eyes for a second. "Is this friend Heechul?"
"Yep."
"So he's your best friend?"
"He is."
"I think my friends know him, too," she added.
Han Geng seemed interested. "Really?"
"Just two teenagers I've met over the years of living here. They're in a band together that performs mostly at a club I worked at for the first year after I moved to Seoul. I just kind of, well, befriended them. Actually Krystal technically wasn't in the band yet, she was too young."
"Krystal?"
"Yes," Victoria nodded, sipping her drink again.
"Krystal Jung?"
"Don't tell me you know her, too. This is getting weird!" she laughed.
Han Geng shrugged. "I don't know her that well, but Heechul does. Do you know Choi Jinri by any chance? I mean, Sulli?"
Victoria widened her eyes. "Yeah, I do."
"Luna Park?"
"Stop knowing all my friends. It makes you seem creepy, they're all teenagers," she raised her eyebrows.
"Heechul knows them, and I know them through Heechul. Just barely, though, he only mentions them, and I've been around Krystal before. But hey, if anyone is creepy, it's Heechul--he's a year older than me, okay? You should see how he acts with Sulli," Han Geng started chuckling. "It's almost like he's going to shove a ring on her finger the day she hits the legal age."
Victoria grimaced.
"Well, not really. Sorry, did I freak you out?"
"Only a little."
"I'm sorry," he said again. "It's a running joke I have with a friend."
"Is this friend anyone else I know?" Victoria teased, raising the edge of the glass to her lips again. She shouldn't have.
"Cho Kyuhyun?"
She ended up spitting her soju back into its bottle.
"V-Victoria?" he started to lean across the table, trying to figure out if she was going to choke.
"Are you kidding me! You know him! The dork I named my cat after?"
"You named your cat Kyuhyun?"
"Yes! Well, Kuixian."
"You call him Kuixian, too?"
Victoria wasn't sure who they were referring to anymore. The snarky, fat cat in her apartment or her boss's son, the snarky and not fat Kyuhyun. "Kyuhyun is usually just Kyuhyun, unless I'm angry."
"You don't seem like the type who gets angry that often."
"I'm not," she said. "It takes a bit to get me going."
"I won't try for that," he said. "You also seem like you'd be scary when you're angry."
Victoria chuckled, not giving him another word after that, averting her eyes and taking another sip of her drink. He watched her, as if waiting for an answer. Her silence was probably enough.
"You're interesting, Victoria."
"My Chinese name is Song Qian, if you were curious."
He grinned. "How'd you know I was?"
Victoria sat back, crossing her legs. "I just had a feeling."
---
"You think I should ask him out again?"
Amber remained still, but Krystal nodded, twirling her (Victoria's) spoon around in her (Victoria's) cereal. "Well, you didn't ask him out last time."
"You know what she means," said Amber, who was for the most part uninterested in this conversation.
"What I'm saying is that unnie should feel more free to take chances with this guy--be more bold. He seems like he's into that kind of stuff. Female empowerment, from what I barely know about him," Krystal shrugged. "I'm just proud of you. You found a good guy."
"How do we know he's a good guy, though?" Amber countered.
"Because Heechul-oppa--wait, nevermind. Because unnie doesn't take shit from jerkwads."
Victoria cringed. "Krystal, your language--"
"Is Korean. Actually, English. Eh, who the hell knows anymore."
"Hey, Krystal, what language do you think in?" Amber snorting, as if her question was hilarious.
Krystal let out a huge, angered noise of some sort, smacking her palms against her forehead. "Damn it, Amber, why would you do that to me?!" And she appeared to shut down for the next ten minutes, while Amber and Victoria attempted to start up a different conversation.
But it all came back to, "I do really like him." Victoria started to pout.
Krystal put forth the best smile she could. "And we're so glad you didn't find another asshole."
Victoria found herself internally admitting defeat, but not over the prospect of asking Han Geng out on another date. Instead, because Krystal would most likely never stop using her preferred vocabulary.
---
It was sort of strange, how it all happened. Victoria would blame it mostly on Krystal. Amber seemed partially responsible, but at the same time, not so much. She seemed to only be going along for the amusement. Krystal, however, was determined--with a certain fervor Victoria had never seen in her before--to get Victoria on another date with Han Geng.
"I got his number from Heechul-oppa," said the teenager over the phone. Victoria switched it from one ear to the other, swishing her hair out of her face at the same time. "So. Please, unnie, don't screw this up."
"Why are you so interested in helping me?" Victoria asked, almost suspiciously.
There was a brief pause on the other end. "Because you're twenty-three."
Victoria sighed, not bothering to tell the girl that her comment made such little sense to Victoria. So what if she was twenty-three. She had a little less than seven years until that promised age, as she thought of it: The Age That Song Qian Will Get Married By.
So she said, "I have time."
"That's what you'll keep telling yourself," Krystal pointed out. "Then pretty soon you'll be 29, and oh look, it's February 1st! And you only have one day to get married, but you have that fat cat Kuixian and by then you'd have at least four other ones, too. Not to mention a house full of freeloading teenagers like Amber and Sulli."
Victoria frowned, because she couldn't quite find it in her to add, 'and you' to the list. Nor could she find it in her to mention that she and Amber wouldn't be teenagers anymore.
"It'd be really hard to find yourself a boyfriend, let alone a fiancé or a husband by then, for God's sake."
"Okay, okay."
"Okay what?"
"You can stop harassing me, okay?" she barely laughed, bumping her head against the counter she was leaning against. "But do you have to be with me here when I call him?"
Amber jumped up. "Come on, Krystal, let's go for a walk. Unnie needs to call her new boyfriend."
It took Victoria another three minutes after the girls skipped off to remember that Amber never called her unnie, or ever had the desire to. Tapping her fingers against the counter, she thought that maybe it was just a slip of the tongue. She took a deep breath, tried to calm her heart, and dialed his number.
---
"You know, I'm so glad you called," he said, for what must have been the third time since he picked her up from her house. Apparently he actually had a car ("It's been in the shop for a while, there was something wrong with a part of it that I can't even remember how to say in Korean"). Granted, it was no Ferrari, but it was comfortable.
"I--I'm glad I called, too," she said, unbuckling herself once he parked.
He was smiling. It was contagious. "All set?"
Victoria tucked some hair behind her ear. "Yep." She opened the passenger door and stepping onto the sidewalk. With the click of a button, Han Geng locked the doors and shoved his keys into his pocket before coming around the car and smiling at her again. They linked arms as they walked into the restaurant.
---
Seven dates later and they tumbled into Victoria's apartment, his arm securely around her waist, and cheek-stretching grins on both their faces. They laughed until they had no air left to say anything to each other. Victoria kicked the door closed and tried to get her shoes off without bending down to use her hands, but ended up almost falling over. They weren't even drunk.
Han Geng put his arm around her more securely, from behind and rested his face in the crook of her neck. His nose tickled her.
"Um," suddenly, she got a little bit shy. "Do you want some coffee?"
"We had some at the restaurant," he said, his cheek now resting right against hers. She thought of a time when personal boundaries were so much more prominent. Just a few weeks ago, maybe? At least, with Han Geng they were. Amber and the other girls never adhered to any boundaries and then again, Victoria was pretty clingy.
"Right, we did." She maneuvered herself in his arms, making it so that she had her own around his neck, and his hands were resting at the small of her back. Boundaries were no longer important, she thought as she leaned into him, their lips connecting.
Victoria has always been pictured others' minds as a respectable young woman. She'd always keep this in her own mind no matter what she did, even as she could barely bring him towards the door to her bedroom, her mouth too busy being fixated on his. It was hard to be respectable, but at the same time, there wasn't anyone around she needed to be respectable for, except for him. She didn't want him to think she was easy. She broke away for a moment to reach for her doorknob, when instead he grabbed her hand and pressed her against the wall right next to it. Giggling, she trashed nearly every mental photos she had of people's perceptions of her as she kissed him hard enough to bruise his and her lips.
And that's when the door burst open. The door to Victoria's room. Only, it wasn't the two of them stepping across the threshold, it was a teenage girl, who bolted out of there like Victoria and Han Geng had sprouted horns (then again--), fangs, and spat blood at her. The front door slammed shut before the two of them could understand what just happened.
"Um."
"Was that Krystal?" Han Geng asked, his hand being too low to just be on the small of her back anymore. She didn't notice.
"I think it was."
"Why was she in your house?"
Victoria took in the feeling of his hand where it was now, and almost shied away from it. "She and Amber share a key. It's a long story."
He nodded, the confusion in his eyes starting to disappear. "So…do you want to keep going?"
"I…" she averted her eyes, staring at his neck instead of his face. "Maybe. But let's just, let's just hang out. Is that okay?"
Another few nods. He honestly appeared to be fine with it. It was hard to focus for a second. His thumb was rubbing against her side. "Gege?"
"Hm?"
"Do you want to spend the night, at least?"
He smiled. Oh, how he almost never stopped doing that around her. "I'd love to."
---
Strutting into the girls' dressing room, Victoria took deep breaths and looked at herself in the mirror. From the audience, no one would be able to tell how much sweat she produces from all that hard work. On stage--especially with that lighting--sometimes she felt like she was going to faint any second. They always carried on, though, like they'd been trained. Victoria hadn't spent her more youthful days at the Beijing Dance Academy for nothing, after all.
Now, it was time to greet the audience. Or at least, the ones who came because she asked them to, or because Amber and Sulli actually had a real, true appreciation for Victoria's dance. It was time for her to greet her own audience.
She changed quickly, stopping to massage her feet for a brief moment before throwing her sneakers on and brushing past her fellow dancer Meng Jia on the way out. "Good job!" she called out. Jia responded, but her voice was too far away for Victoria to decipher the words.
"Victoria," her main dance partner, Hyukjae called out to her. "Your friends are here."
"Oh, thank you!"
"No problem. Hey, great job tonight. You were awesome," he said.
"Thank you, you were, too!" she bowed graciously before sprinting off the find the exit she needed, the one she always met Amber or Luna at when they came to see her. Sure enough, she reached the door with its blinking last syllable hanging above and pushed it open.
"Unnie!" Sulli chirped, being the first one to jump at her and get her in a hug. Then she was practically stampeded.
"You looked so gorgeous tonight," Luna started up, touching her older friend's hair and gushing on and on. Amber was saying how wicked the choreography was and that Victoria was making it look so easy even though she knew it had to be difficult. Amidst all the glee coming out of their mouths, Victoria spotted some other faces. Although Zhou Mi regularly came to see her perform, she'd never seen Heechul here.
Then Victoria's heart skipped a beat. There was Han Geng, talkig animatedly with Zhou Mi about things she couldn't hear, the ever-present smile in his eyes. He had a look of pride on his face.
She wanted to go to him. Luckily, he came to her first, shooing the other girls out of the way just with his presence and the fact that Victoria fell completely silent when he started walking over. He held his arms wide and she wasted next to no time jumping into them, burying her face into his shoulder.
"I'm so glad you came!" she said into his collar.
"Heechul told me he'd castrate me if I didn't," Han Geng grimaced when they broke their hug. "And I figured most women wouldn't like that."
Victoria laughed, but it was a bit forced.
"And by most women, I meant you," he stopped, letting her be taken aback. He watched her eyes widen, her lips part. "Remember? Krystal kind of, uh…"
"Oh! That's what--you were--you're funny," was all she could say.
"Did she come tonight?"
Victoria took a quick look around. Zhou Mi, Amber, Sulli, Heechul, and Luna were all in sight like they had been before. Not a sign of Krystal, though, not a single one. "I haven't seen her since that night. Luna said she might get her to come. But I don't know, really. If she was here, maybe she already went home?"
"I wanted to apologize to her," he shrugged, seeming defeated.
"That's sweet," she said, laughing a little nervously. "I actually haven't spoken to her for a while, either."
"This is kind of off topic, but," he suddenly said, "I just wanted to let you know that Heechul didn't really like, force me to come see you. He just said we were going somewhere, and I didn't know where but he already bought tickets so I went with him. And then I realized that it was your performance."
"Oh."
He took her hand. "I didn't want you to think that he had to force me to come see you, because if I'd known before I saw the poster outside," he laughed, "I would have been much more excited. But it was fantastic. You're beautiful, you know."
Victoria covered her mouth as she beamed automatically. She'd heard that before, yet it felt fresh this time. "Thank you. I'm glad you came, gege."
"You know, I think we're being watched."
"Huh?"
"Our friends," he motioned with his head. "Are they staring?"
Victoria peered over his shoulder, catching Amber and Luna's eyes for a brief second. The younger girls quickly averted their eyes to each other and pretended to laugh during their imaginary conversation. "Yeah, just a bit."
"Tell you what--wait, first, what are you doing tomorrow?"
"Nothing, really. It's my first full day off in a long time." And she was already breathing a sigh of relief at the thought of it. "Did you want to do something?"
"Why don't you come over to my place? I can make you breakfast," he offered, his thumb caressing over her knuckles. It was an offer she wasn't ready to refuse. She agreed, while also trying not to seem too eager. With a kiss, she bid him goodbye as he left with Heechul and Zhou Mi.
"He should have offered to give us all a ride," Sulli pouted, and Victoria put her arm around her. "And why do you two talk in Chinese, we can't all understand what you're saying."
Amber chuckled. "Uh, Sulli, I think that was kind of the point."
"You don't have the right to talk on that one. You can understand them."
"If you say so," Amber said in her sing-song voice. "She told him that she can lift her leg all the way over her head."
Luna and Sulli whipped around, jaws dropped as Victoria started to flap her arms in defense, no words coming out. She kept mouthing "NO!" over and over again but couldn't cough out a single syllable for another five minutes.
---
The next morning, still a little bit groggy from sleeping in until nine, she decided that she liked watching Han Geng cook. She didn't tell him that she hadn't even showered this morning, but she'd brushed her hair and thrown a sweatshirt over the cami she'd worn to bed and at least worn some nice, clean blue jeans. She had a little bit of makeup on, too. Presentable and rested, that was the look she was going for.
"I make pancakes for the girls all the time," she said, when the plate landed in front of her. "But yours are probably so much better. You put blueberries in them, oh my god, I love you!"
The spatula clacked against the floor.
"I--I mean. Blueberries are," she felt her face turn into a space heater, reddening at the cheeks. "Blueberries are my favorite fruit," she said, her voice small.
After picking up the spatula, he turned around with his own plate. The bottle of maple syrup was in his other hand, he was just grinning normally, as if she'd never said those words in the first place. Victoria's heart pounded furiously against inside her chest. Those syllables were so small, but so big, maybe she should have watched her mouth before anything just came flying out.
"Thank you," he said. "I'm happy you like them."
They ate in silence for a while, Victoria contentedly chewing away while trying to remain neat and presentable. She was good at that. Han Geng had his eyes on her for a while, and she knew, but didn't call him out on it.
"You know, I've been thinking."
"About what?" she asked, after swallowing another bite.
"It's been a long time since I've gone home for a visit. I was thinking of going next week, actually," he said, watching her face slip into complete curiosity. "And I was also thinking that maybe you'd like to come with me?"
She stopped chewing, dropping her fork onto her plate.
"It's okay if you don't--"
"Of course I want to go!" she squealed, jumping up from her chair. For the next couple minutes, they spend their time together laughing as she bounced around, talking excitedly about all the things they could do once they got there, the places and the people, and how they wouldn't have to call anyone 'ahjumma' anymore. Han Geng wondered if that was just the kind of thing a girl like Victoria would find exhilarating.
---
That evening was far less sober, but a little more exciting. It contained at some point, the two of them dancing on Han Geng's kitchen table to the America radio station that was playing Lady Gaga's 'Paparazzi' which had become their favorite song three seconds after it started up.
It was rather embarrassing that the man knew the words (he probably had no inclination of their meaning, though), but Victoria couldn't care less. She'd tossed her sweatshirt into the corner of the room, that was how much should care about what they were doing, as she danced in his arms in a thin, white camisole and jeans. It all felt so effortless. Which was probably because of the alcohol, but she chose to think it was because of how well they meshed.
After all, loving him was cherry pie.
---
Her head was slightly fuzzy when she encountered the four younger girls, sitting around her apartment. She came home at around 10am, and they were all eating breakfast. She realized then that yes, she had spent the night at Han Geng's, and yes, she needed to start letting everyone know about their plans.
The other girls had mixed feelings about the China idea. "How long are you going for? When are you coming back? Does this mean he's in love with you? Does he want to move there with you? Am I going to have to feed Kuixian for you? What about your job? What about your dance? What about us?"
Victoria had few answers or at least, she had few answers that they were completely satisfied with. Nothing was completely enough to keep them happy and at bay. Victoria was fighting an uphill battle with them, but she was doing a pretty decent job, too.
Amber was with her by the time she was finishing her packing mission, offering no more opinions over the matter anymore. She even helped fold a few things, and reminded Victoria to leave post-it reminders for her and Luna. And in plain sight. "Fridge," she said.
"Door, too?"
"Front of the bathroom door, maybe. Luna's more observant than me sometimes, so she should find it eventually."
"Amber, thanks so much for this."
"Tell me again why you didn't ask Krystal, whom your cat clearly likes more than me."
"I never told you that in the first place."
"Then tell me now?" she tried.
"No thank you."
Amber clung to Victoria's wrist. "Please?"
Victoria shook her head.
"Be that way, but I guess I'll find out sooner or later. Don't assume that you can just hide everything from me forever. I know where you live."
"That threat feels so much emptier when I need you to know where I live so you can feed my Kuixian," Victoria said, raising an eyebrow.
"Argh, fine, be that way."
Victoria left a kiss on the girl's cheek, like a small apology. "Time for me to jet. Say anything you need to now, because it'll be a few days until I can use my phone again, okay?"
"Nothing I haven't said that wouldn't have been a repeat."
"Basically, you're saying you'd rather I didn't go."
"Vic, I love how perceptive you can be."
"So nothing else."
"Uh…have fun?"
Victoria rolled her eyes, pulling Amber into a hug. "Your eloquence is appreciated."
"Learned it from you."
Part 2/2
Author: mawaru_berry
Pairing/Focus: Victoria-centric, Han Geng/Victoria, Victoria/Amber
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 13,873 words
Summary: Two foreigners in love. Two foreigners going home. And then two different desires pulling in different ways.
It was a cool June evening after a rainstorm when he heard it. The sound of plastic bags rustling out of a pair of arms, and a feminine Mandarin swear. Han Geng dropped the cigarette from his fingertips like he'd burned his fingers. He sprinted around the corner until he found the cause of the sound that'd sparked his interest.
What was even better was the sound of her mumbling in Mandarin Chinese, even if it was to herself and from what Heechul had told him, people who spoke to themselves were nuts. Han Geng figured that there should be an exception if she was using his foreign tongue.
"Let me help," he said, stunning her with his perfect, native vocals.
"I--I'm okay--thank you," she stuttered. Her hair fell, smooth with dyed waves at the ends, into her face as she leaned down again to adjust the one paper bag she'd used. The others were plastic.
"So you're Chinese, I presume? I heard you talking to yourself," he said with a chuckle.
The paper bag was unfortunately ripped at the bottom. Han Geng reached for the watermelon and smiled at her when she blushed. He realized there were some very sadly squished blueberries underneath the much heavier fruit Han Geng was now holding. He made sure not to drop this one, though. No reason to ruin her groceries anymore, although it was a miracle that this watermelon hadn't gained a single crack from its fall.
"Oh, shoot," she said, half reaching down to scoop up the remnants of dead berries. Obviously, she forgot to keep blushing about how he heard her talking to herself. The fruity mush on her fingers seemed to be enough of a distraction.
"Sorry about your blueberries. Can I help you carry anything, though?"
"Um, sure," she started to stand, placing the salvageable items back into their bags. Han Geng felt like she was the most forlorn over the blueberries, though, instead of the squished tomato near the end of her heel. Then again, those were the only two demolished products. "The watermelon…could you--"
"No problem."
"Thanks, it kind of, um, broke the bag it was in."
Han Geng noticed she'd piled the other fallen foods into only two bags now, that looked difficult. The rain picked up again, and he left his jacket on the front steps to Heechul's apartment building, twenty feet--give or take a foot--away from where he was now. The girl started walking. He didn't have her name yet, but did he want it? Wait, how could he want it? Or: how could he not want it?
"Do you live nearby?" she asked.
"My friend lives over there," he motioned with his head. "I was just on my way home from dinner. At his place. His name is Heechul."
"Oh, that's nice."
"Did you just move in?"
She balanced the paper bag on her thigh, propping herself against the door as she pulled her keys out of her pocket. "Last month." She brought her leg back down and used her back to keep the door open. She let him through first.
"What's your name?"
"Victoria." She made sure to look him in the eye when she said it.
"I'm--" he paused, briefly. Damn, what's his name again? Oh, yeah. "--Hankyung."
"I'd shake your hand but I can't."
He laughed. She made a move like she would have covered her teeth with her hand as she laughed. Han Geng decided he liked her smile, shining underneath fluorescent apartment lobby lighting. They headed for the elevator.
Victoria lived on the second floor of her apartment building. It was almost the same building as Heechul's, not too far away, and Han Geng remembered this without intending to as he took the stairs back down from said second floor, from the door of her apartment. She hadn't invited him inside, and he couldn't tell why he was almost hoping she would.
As soon as her door was open, she'd left him outside to put down the two bags she still had and came back for her watermelon. That'd been it. They said goodbye, and Han Geng recalled the need to grab his jacket before jumping on the latest running bus. He'd have to run to catch it. Otherwise he'd be walking until 1am at the earliest, and it was already half past midnight.
---
She was partially blinded upon waking up, and she had this faint drifting scent of nicotine and apples in her nose, lingering, like it'd been there all night. A flash of his face went through her mind before she suddenly realized that no, he's not here anymore, he left after the passage of watermelon from his hands to hers.
Maybe the watermelon still smelled like him. It probably did. When she sat up, her surroundings pertained not to her own bedroom, the only familiar feeling was the weight of her ten-month-old cat Kuixian sitting on the backs of her thighs. The couch pillow wasn't as soft as her panda-shaped pillow. Victoria kind of wondered why she liked so many childish things. But she'd always been that way.
She scooped up Kuixian and put him in her lap. He mewed at her with an unpleasant look on his face and she pouted right back at him, setting him free to run around the rest of her apartment.
When she opened the door to her room, she found the most plausible reason for why she'd chosen the couch over her bed.
Amber. Krystal. Sleeping, sprawled out and almost dead in appearance. Victoria poked Amber in the side and received a shout piercing her ear in return. "What the--?"
"Could you guys not crash at my place without telling me first?" Victoria figured the sleepiness was talking when she opened her mouth, because on a regular basis, she wouldn't mind. Except for the presence of the sixteen-year-old. "And Krystal, why aren't you at home? Your sister already doesn't like me…"
"Jessica can shove off," Krystal rolled over. Her borrowing of Victoria's clothes to sleep in was also rather obvious. "Don't fucking care."
Amber nudged the youngest girl, who reached out to hit her so she'd go away, but Amber dodged the attack. "Next time we'll just go to Heechul's place."
Victoria paused. "Did you just say 'Heechul'?"
"Yeah," she blinked. "Why?"
"Uh," Victoria had nothing. "Interesting." Lame response.
"Yeah, the next apartment building over," another blink. "Seriously, I don't get it. Why?"
"I was just curious."
"The whole setup of his house is pretty similar. Well, I mean like, it's, I don't know. Krystal, help me out."
"She means that they're built the same," Krystal mumbled into Victoria's pillow. Was that drool? Victoria had an urge to shove her out of the bed, but left her there. As long as she didn't have to be the one to deal with an angry Jessica Jung, she was okay with it.
"Like I said, just curious," Victoria said again, and after a moment of silence and what seemed like Krystal snoring, she sighed. "Who wants breakfast?"
Amber perked up. "Pancakes?"
"I never said that."
"But I did. Pancakes?"
She smiled as she gave in, taking out new clothes to change into for the day. A clean white button-up on for work and a fresh pair of dark jeans was all she needed. She turned away from the other two. Sure, she may have been a dancer, used to having to change into and out of costumes in front of anyone backstage, but real life sometimes grabbed her by the ear to tell her to remember modesty. Too often, perhaps.
"Krystal, call your sister," Victoria said before heading into the hall, and Amber was close behind her. Krystal might have grunted a yes.
It was while Amber started to pick out the ingredients from Victoria's closet when the older girl checked the clock on the wall and let out a small, surprised sound and jumped. "What?" Amber asked, not bothering to switch out of a temporary English state of mind.
"Work!" Victoria squealed. "I need to leave now or I'll be late!"
"Does this mean no pancakes?"
"Amber!"
"Okay, okay," she held her hands up, defensively. "I'll make 'em."
Victoria left a kiss on Amber's cheek before darting towards the front door, nearly forgetting her her wallet and shoes. "Feed Kuixian before you leave!"
Amber didn't have enough time to complain before the front door slammed closed, and Krystal was sulking out of Victoria's room, into the kitchen. Said cat Kuixian was now pawing at Krystal's toes. "But he hates me."
---
The sky was overcast again, like it had been yesterday. The difference was that the ground was almost dry again. She didn't have to avoid any puddles on her way to the bus stop. At one point in her career as a dancer, she'd learned how to run in high-heels. It was never related to her art, only a grand idea to wear at after parties, or more semi-formal dinners and meetings with those who wished to hire her as a part-time instructor or choreographer. The running was only required on the off chance that a random interference would attempt to make her late.
As she made the final stretch, a stranger asked the bus driver to hold the door. The woman was what Victoria's Korean teacher told her to call an 'ahjumma.' And Victoria hadn't really adjusted to the term yet, but that didn't mean she couldn't use it, or that she couldn't give a, 'thank you, ahjumma' after, when the woman sat down and Victoria grabbed one of the handlebars above her head.
She jerked a little to the side when the bus lurched. Glancing at her watch, Victoria started to worry that she might be late in the end, despite her running.
It was going to be a long day. Or at least it would if she let it become one. Working at the café from 9:30 until her lunch break at 2pm, and then another shift for three hours. Then off to the dance studio until whenever rehearsal was over, and those ended whenever they wanted. When Victoria was a younger and still in her motherland, she would have had outlines of times, she would've ended at 8pm and been home by 8:45, in bed by 9. But she'd been younger, and little girls needed to be in bed by 9 at the latest. She could hardly remember when that early curfew dissolved into nothing.
Victoria almost forgot about her own stop until she focused her eyes again, glancing at the 'ahjosshi' who needed to squeeze past her to get to the front of the bus. Quickly, she followed after and slipped out the front door before the bus driver could close it. One more glance at her watch, and she started sprinting again. At least she was only wearing two-inch heels today.
The clock struck 9:30 just as she flew in the front door, hair blowing out behind her and settling around her shoulders once the bells clattered together, the sound of the door closing.
"You're so on time, I just felt physical pain," Kyuhyun stopped, giving her his best cringing face. She hit him on her way to the back of the restaurant with the back of her palm, a smile on her face. Victoria didn't bother to note that as usual, he made next to no sense.
"Tiffany," Victoria tapped her on the back as she slid over to her uniform--a loose term. An apron. "Time to get up."
Tiffany lifted her head and yawned. "Vicky?"
"We're open, come on, our shift's starting," she made a point to grab Tiffany's uniform as well, tossing it at her. It met with Tiffany's face, and she was probably pouting underneath the fabric.
"Can you make me some coffee?" Tiffany mumbled as she stared down at the apron, now balled up in her hands. Victoria straightened out the fabric before gently draping it over her friend and coworker. "Please?" she asked, even while Victoria fixed the few strands of hair she'd put out of place with her fussing. She used even more of her fussing to put them in a more normal situation.
Victoria rested her hand on Tiffany's shoulder, her face taking on a default half-pout. "Okay, okay."
"Y--" Her cheer was stifled by a yawn.
"Only if you promise not to make me be the one to pay if Kyuhyun finds out that I gave you the coffee we should be giving the customers," Victoria demanded, plucking two mugs. One for herself. Her bad night of sleep was just starting to catch up with her. Although she quickly changed her mind when she was pretty sure she heard someone else's shoes tapping their way into the kitchen.
When the sound subsided, as the shoes (and hopefully the person…hopefully) seemed to be heading for the restroom instead, she reached for the coffee pot and poured some for Tiffany.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said in English, too fast for Victoria to interpret but from having other friends like Amber and Krystal, she could figure it out. "You go out first, I'll catch up."
"Okay, fine."
"Hey, hey, did you pay for that?" A voice chided her from the doorway leading to the front of the café. Zhou Mi.
Glancing at Tiffany, Victoria saw that she was already being pointed at. This, of course, had happened before. Same situation, same finger pointing at her, only the one that caught them was different. Last time it'd been Kyuhyun. "She made it for me."
Zhou Mi wasn't buying it, especially from the look on Victoria's face as she leaned on the counter. The kind of look that said she'd been wronged and she couldn't believe it, as subtle as it may be. Tiffany did her best to come across as innocent. It didn't work. She fished some money out of her wallet, flinging it at Zhou Mi.
He chuckled, picking it up off the kitchen floor with a smile. "I'm glad we can all be mature adults here."
"Tiffany," Victoria shot her a look.
"The terms were that I wouldn't make you pay if Kyuhyun found out, okay? Do you see Kyuhyun? I don't, not here."
"You know, you still paid," said Zhou Mi, grinning.
Tiffany scrunched her eyebrows together. "I'm going to ignore you now."
He slid over a piece of paper torn from his notepad. "In that case, listen to this and take care of a few drink orders, please."
Amused, Victoria rushed out to the front of the restaurant before she could hear Tiffany's reply, or perhaps lack of a reply. Kyuhyun came out of nowhere, directing her towards the other side of the café. "Over there," he said, with a sort of gentle push.
"Okay," she gave him a weird look. "Um, you can let go of my arm now."
"Got it. Not like I'd want to touch your arm anyway, weirdo."
"You just did, though."
"Oh, go take people's orders already!"
Victoria stifled some giggles, but did as he said. After all, he was the closest thing to her boss without actually being her boss. He was her boss's son, and that was good enough to scare her when it mattered, no matter how much Mrs. Cho loved Victoria.
"Good morning," she said, looking down at her notepad for a brief moment. "What would you…like…?"
"Oh. It's you!"
"Hankyung-ssi?" she asked as her eyes started to widen. His started to do the same. Victoria saw Kyuhyun out of the corner of her eye, though, and got back to business as soon as she could get over the surprise of seeing here. Besides, it wasn't like people didn't go out to get coffee and a muffin for breakfast at cafés on a regular basis.
"So, um, what would you like?" she asked again. Hankyung blinked and looked at her confusedly, but then seemed to understand what she was asking. Victoria wondered if she should speak in Mandarin around him.
"Coffee, and, hm--a cranberry muffin?"
"Can do," she nodded. "Caff or decaf?"
"Caff, definitely," he said with a smile.
"Rough night?"
He shrugged. "Went to sleep late. I left something at my friend's house--the one I told you about--and then he just really likes to talk sometimes. We probably talked for at least another hour and then I needed to get home somehow."
She finished drawing a little smiley face on her notepad and looked up at him again. "Then you are definitely getting caff. I make a pretty good cup of coffee," she put her hand to her cheek. "Or at least, that's what I've been told."
"And before, you seemed so much more modest than that," he said, laughing.
Victoria feigned shock, one hand on her hips. "So now you're saying I'm arrogant?"
"No! I was just kidding." It was cute how flustered he got, while retaining a decent amount of calmness. Victoria felt her cheeks warming up, like someone had put their palms against her face.
She glanced around, knowing that despite the low amount of customers so far, she knew that Kyuhyun would be all over her with his annoyed yet blank face and any disapproving glares he might be saving up just for her for standing around and making small talk. Victoria and her co-workers would always pray internally that Zhou Mi would be the one to catch them chatting it up with customers, not Kyuhyun. There was something about the way the latter looked at you that made you want to shrivel up and cry, more so on his bad days. It was just too eerie.
Victoria smiled at Hankyung again, and bid him a momentary goodbye, bowing her head and slipping off to take more orders like she was supposed to. Normally she didn't stop to talk with customers for that long. Normally she didn't stop to talk with a customer who, 24 hours ago, had been nothing but a stranger.
"So, how do you know Han Geng?" asked Zhou Mi as soon as Victoria came back into the kitchen. He seemed to be on his way back out, but he stayed by the doorway when she walked in.
"Hm?"
"Han Geng?" he repeated. "Oh. Um, Hankyung."
"How do I know him?" she said, pulling out a few coffee mugs and doing her best to multitask when the subject was, for some reason, very distracting. "I met him yesterday, actually."
There seemed to be something Zhou Mi wanted to say, but at the same time, didn't want to say. She stared at him for a good few seconds, before he said, "He's a good friend of mine. Family friend," and then he flashed one of his bright smiles. "Nice guy, Han Geng-ge."
Victoria tried to focus on the coffee she was making, not the all-knowing grins of that Zhou Mi that now floated around in her brain.
---
By the time Amber moseyed on into the café, it was close to half past noon. Victoria was the first person to get to her, and Sulli had come along, too. "Did you feed Kuixian before you left?" Victoria asked, after Amber and Sulli had sat down, the former taking off her baseball cap and fixing her hair with a few nonchalant shakes of the head.
"Krystal. She took care of it. I told you Kuixian hates me," Amber whined, and Sulli snickered.
"And then she went home?"
Amber shrugged. "Not that I know of. The last I saw of her, she was eating pancakes in front of your TV and petting your schizophrenic cat."
"Kuixian is not schizophrenic, Amber!"
"One minute he purrs at me, then he does a completely 180 and leaves a scar on my wrist. My family flipped when they saw that--they almost wouldn't let me come back to Korea, Victoria," she shot the older girl a look that sort of said your fault, you know.
Sulli nodded. "Unnie, I agree with her. That cat is crazy."
"Well, you've met the guy she named him after," Amber said. "She probably just saw the similarities."
"Kyuhyun is not schizophrenic, either, you two." Victoria put her hands on her hips. She glanced behind her quickly, making sure that the human wasn't actually behind her at the moment. Then again, she was defending him, not offending.
Kyuhyun could always be watching.
She clicked her pen against its accompanying pad. "Now tell me what you want."
---
There was no need to be at the bookstore. An impulse trip. She'd gotten a few recommendations from friends at the dance studio lately. Even so, she'd done too much grocery shopping this week. She needed to cut down on the books, no matter how much they tended to help her Korean comprehension. Friends usually gave and lent books to her all the time. Yet here she was, walking around the aisles of the used bookstore close to the studio. She'd gotten off work early today and had some time to kill before rehearsal would start.
"Victoria?"
She whipped around, a book almost flying out of her hands. And then she blinked in slight disbelief. "Han Geng?" Hadn't she just seen him yesterday? Today, though, was slightly different. There was another person with him.
"This is a surprise," he said, striding over to her. The man walking slightly behind him held onto Han Geng's sleeve. "What are you doing here?"
"Obviously she's looking at books," said the other man.
"Actually, I was only browsing," Victoria smiled. "I have a budget to stick to."
"Heechul never sticks to his own budget. He hoards books, he could practically build a small house with them."
"Oh, shut up," the other man--Heechul, Victoria assumed, and remembered that Han Geng had mentioned him before, albeit barely--smacked Han Geng's arm.
"What? There are books all over your floor. You can't go five feet without getting a paper cut on your big toe."
Heechul sneered. "He exaggerates," he said, moving his eyes to Victoria and extending his hand towards her. "I'm Kim Heechul, by the way."
She returned the gesture, shaking his hand. "Victoria Song."
"Her apartment building is close to yours," Han Geng said, looking from Victoria to Heechul.
All Heechul did was give him a questionable look. "And how the hell do you know that, mister?"
"I met her when I was leaving your place two nights ago. Jeez, calm down," he laughed, eyes crinkled at the corners. Victoria thought he looked even more gorgeous that way.
Heechul raised an eyebrow and elbowed Han Geng in the side. "I'll be up front, paying. If you aren't there in five minutes, I'm dragging you out, got it?"
"Yeah, sure."
Victoria couldn't help but giggle at their banter, especially when Han Geng wasn't even looking at Heechul, and Heechul obviously wasn't having any of that.
"By your ear."
"Have fun with that."
"Or another thing. And trust me, you wouldn't be happy about that one, Hankyung--"
"Heechul, go buy your friggin' books, I'll meet you there soon!" Han Geng--Hankyung? Victoria wasn't sure which name to use anymore, or whether they could be the same person at all--pushed his friend gently towards the sounds of a bored college-age employee punching in numbers on the cash register.
Victoria was already sure of something she wanted to ask him. "So what do people call you?" she tilted her head to the side, studying him. First, by his face.
"What do you mean?"
"You told me that your name is Hankyung," she started. "But my friend Zhou Mi told me your name is Han Geng. I just called you Han Geng when I saw you, and you didn't correct me, but then Heechul-ssi called you Hankyung, too. Are you just one of those people who doesn't bother to correct anyone when they say your name wrong?" But then Victoria thought about how she'd done that at some point, when she was still Song Qian at school, before she'd picked up the name Victoria in her second year of high school.
"Oh," he said, his mouth taking on the shape of his syllable. He grinned after that. "You could say that. Honestly, my name is Han Geng. Heechul started calling me Hankyung at some point, and then everyone he knew started using it. Domino Effect, you could say."
She listened to him laugh.
"The only people who still call me Han Geng are my Chinese friends, my parents, and my Korean friends who actually want to learn Chinese," he said, his laughter increasing.
"So does that mean that you want me to call you Han Geng?" She thought she'd try it. See what he'd say.
The smile never left his face. "That'd be nice," he paused, as if just remembering something. "Hey, Victoria?"
"Hm?"
"Why are we speaking in Korean?"
Just as she was about to open her mouth to give him an answer she hadn't thought out that well, Heechul came back into the aisle and grabbed Han Geng's sweatshirt. The only thing that made her follow as he was practically dragged away was the fact that he now started to mention dinner together.
Sometime before they were gone and out the door of the bookstore, he called out a restaurant name a time, and a day. After the two of them were out of sight, she pulled out her cell phone and typed up a mini note down, one that she would scribble on a post-it note after dance rehearsal and stick on the fridge.
---
Krystal wasn't there when Victoria came home at nearly 2am and plopped down on the couch with the desire for sleep trekking all across her eyeballs, but Amber was. She lowered the TV's volume and stared at Victoria's blank face. "Did they turn you into a zombie today, or something? Because, hey, I think you'd be great for the part."
"Amber, I'm tired," she said. Short and sweet. Sort of.
"You're telling me you want me to tuck you in, aren't you?"
"It'd be so awesome if you did," Victoria mumbled, and Amber almost didn't catch it.
Sighing, Amber stood up from the couch, choosing to walk over the television set to turn it off before coming back to the couch and looking down at Victoria. Her eyes were already drooping more than before, and Amber sighed once more and bent down before wedging one hand underneath Victoria's legs, the other behind her back. Victoria swung her arms around Amber on her own, and let herself be lifted.
"I'm not sure how I'd feel about changing your clothes for you."
Victoria only grunted. How attractive.
"Because you'd probably end up hating what I'd pick for you."
The older girl rolled her head onto Amber's shoulder, warm air from her nose brushing over Amber's collarbone and neck. "Just pj's," she said.
"If you say so." Amber set Victoria down at the foot of the bed, making sure she didn't land too hard, and then she trotted over to the dresser, pulling out anything that seemed good and comfortable. The elder of the two seemed already comatose by the time Amber slipped her jeans off and replaced them with some loose shorts. Victoria barely twitched when Amber had to pull her shirt over her head, and she fell backwards again onto her bed as soon as it was off, starting to tangle her own arms in her blankets.
"Argh, come on, Vic."
"Tired…"
Amber bit back a third sigh. "Hey, don't you want a shirt?"
She didn't say anything, except a mumble into her comforter. Amber leaned her chin against her palm for a moment, before pulling a sweatshirt from Victoria's closet and forcefully sliding Victoria's arms through the sleeves.
"You're so calm for the fact that I just saw your bra, Vic," said Amber, gently dragging Victoria towards the head of her bed, trying to get the covers from underneath the older girl to on top of her. "Then again, you probably have no idea what I just said, you're so tired. Bet your feet are gonna hurt in the morning."
By the time she achieved success in tucking in her older friend, Amber resigned herself for the evening, sliding into the other side of the bed. She listened to Victoria's breath until she couldn't hear anything but dreams about giant cupcakes and floating pigs--not flying.
---
Luna was ecstatic over the phone, her voice sounding musical as she raved to Victoria about how thrilled she was for her about the date on Friday. Victoria could only nod and 'yeah' or 'hm' along for most of it; it was enough to keep an excited Luna satisfied.
"Do you know what you're gonna wear?"
Victoria giggled. "You sound like Krystal."
"Just beating her to it," Luna chirped. "He sounds like a really nice guy, unnie. Ah, tell me more later, after the date!"
Victoria nodded, aware that Luna was a phone line away and twenty minutes by bus. "Of course. Oh, I have to go. I'm meeting my dance partner."
"For what?"
"Extra rehearsal," she replied, sheepishly.
"Unnie," Luna's voice turned somewhat warning in a split second. "You're working yourself too much. You're always tired! Just the other day, Amber told me you came home at two in the morning and she had to tuck you in."
"Oh right, she did," said Victoria, scratching her head as if she could only just remember. She never thanked Amber, though. Woke up in the morning to hear Amber leaving, the zipper on her sweatshirt clinking and her rubber soles tapping the floor by the door had been Victoria's only inclination of Amber spending the night again. It wasn't an odd occurrence, though.
"All I have to say is: get some good sleep before you go on this date!"
They ended up talking for at least another ten minutes before Victoria almost tripped down the stairs when Luna was telling her about this guy who smacked her butt while she was out with Amber and Zhou Mi. "He must have thought I was older than I actually am," Luna said, not sounding particularly upset over it, more like confused but laced with a pinch of a disgruntled attitude.
The older girl muttered a fast, "Luna, you need to be more careful--alright, I really do have to go," because closing her phone and rubbing where her hip had met the railing in her attempt to save herself from falling. She limped a little out the door, but the small ache subsided by the time she'd gotten to the bus.
---
She couldn't remember if Han Geng had said to meet him outside the restaurant, or inside the restaurant. And then she remembered that he hadn't specified on whether it would be either. Heechul had been dragging him off to go wherever else they had to go. Heechul reminded Victoria of Sulli, only more forceful the way he did things. Sulli had never dragged Victoria out of a bookstore by the hood of her sweatshirt.
Five minutes after she went inside, she looked around and figured since it wasn't a particularly fancy restaurant, just something simple, there wasn't anyone she could ask who would know if he'd arrived yet. Victoria twisted her lips and headed towards the bathroom, fumbling around in her purse. A little displeased over Han Geng's tardiness, and a little worried, too, she tried to focus on the fact that she needed to touch up on her lipstick.
She put the tube down a few seconds later, though, staring at herself in the mirror. Was she really that worried about this thing? Was it even a true date? She'd made herself look nice and all, and she thought she did a damn good job. The past two nights had been her only two nights this month to not have foot arch-achingly long dance rehearsals, and she'd even gotten some decent sleep. Heck, she'd even taken a cat nap in the café kitchen during her lunch break, under Tiffany's "watchful" eye.
By the time she walked out of the ladies room, there he was, standing near the entrance the restaurant. He looked nervous, like he'd done something wrong. Victoria was sure that the reason had to be the time. The ticking hands inside her small watch told her that he was ten minutes late.
And then she felt like she was swimming, or walking in slow motion as she approached him. There was an odd sensation that zipped through her fingers when she tapped him on the shoulder. She was dry, and stranded for a brief second, until he looked at her. "I'm so sorry," were the first words to come. "I could give you a world of excuses but some of them would be lies and some of them would sound too weird to be the truth so I don't think you'd believe me but I'd rather not lie to you."
"That's a good sign," she said. "And it's okay, I was almost late, actually."
She could tell that he didn't believe her, but let it go. "So, um. Let's get our table?"
"Sure."
They made sure to switch back to Korean once they'd been seated and there was a non-Chinese waiter involved, but between the two of them, they spoke only Mandarin. Victoria rested her cheek against her hand, gazing at him over the able, and he gazed back. She still didn't know if it was right to call this a date, but every once in a while, she'd forget about the dilemma and just say yes, it could be.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?" she asked, eyelashes batting for a quick second, those pretty little fluttering things that framed her eyes.
"I wanted to…well," he set down his soju for a second, with I have a story for you in his eyes, "when I was younger, I wanted to be a dancer--and I guess I still do--though I started to get this dream of becoming an actor."
It wasn't much of a story, but it was interesting. "Is that where you're headed now?"
"No, but it's how I met my best friend, in Korea," Han Geng shrugged.
"Then where are you headed now?"
He flashed his teeth for her. "To a world of literature."
Victoria immediately smiled and raised her glass to her lips with the pinky finger raised. "Sounds fancy," she said before downing her alcoholic contents.
"It's actually not," he laughed.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, it's not. Freelance writer. And I'm working on my first novel--but it's in Chinese, so it wouldn't sell very well around here without someone who could translate it better than I can speak the language."
"What about your best friend, couldn't he help out?"
Han Geng chuckled. "He knows almost no Chinese. I've taught him most of what he knows. The other he learned from movies, he told me. He's useful for other reasons."
Victoria couldn't help but show that she was intrigued. "Useful?" she giggled, covering her mouth like they were on a reality show and it was important to humble herself. But what she didn't realize is that he could care less, and he wanted to pull that hand out of his way of seeing her pretty smile. "How so?"
"For being a friend, you could say," he half-stuttered, downing what was left of his drink. He bit his lip as the liquid burned its way down. "He's good at that. With me. I guess."
"You don't sound very confident about that, ge," part of her wanted to stop calling him ge, though. She did nothing about this part of her, kept it to herself and closed her eyes for a second. "Is this friend Heechul?"
"Yep."
"So he's your best friend?"
"He is."
"I think my friends know him, too," she added.
Han Geng seemed interested. "Really?"
"Just two teenagers I've met over the years of living here. They're in a band together that performs mostly at a club I worked at for the first year after I moved to Seoul. I just kind of, well, befriended them. Actually Krystal technically wasn't in the band yet, she was too young."
"Krystal?"
"Yes," Victoria nodded, sipping her drink again.
"Krystal Jung?"
"Don't tell me you know her, too. This is getting weird!" she laughed.
Han Geng shrugged. "I don't know her that well, but Heechul does. Do you know Choi Jinri by any chance? I mean, Sulli?"
Victoria widened her eyes. "Yeah, I do."
"Luna Park?"
"Stop knowing all my friends. It makes you seem creepy, they're all teenagers," she raised her eyebrows.
"Heechul knows them, and I know them through Heechul. Just barely, though, he only mentions them, and I've been around Krystal before. But hey, if anyone is creepy, it's Heechul--he's a year older than me, okay? You should see how he acts with Sulli," Han Geng started chuckling. "It's almost like he's going to shove a ring on her finger the day she hits the legal age."
Victoria grimaced.
"Well, not really. Sorry, did I freak you out?"
"Only a little."
"I'm sorry," he said again. "It's a running joke I have with a friend."
"Is this friend anyone else I know?" Victoria teased, raising the edge of the glass to her lips again. She shouldn't have.
"Cho Kyuhyun?"
She ended up spitting her soju back into its bottle.
"V-Victoria?" he started to lean across the table, trying to figure out if she was going to choke.
"Are you kidding me! You know him! The dork I named my cat after?"
"You named your cat Kyuhyun?"
"Yes! Well, Kuixian."
"You call him Kuixian, too?"
Victoria wasn't sure who they were referring to anymore. The snarky, fat cat in her apartment or her boss's son, the snarky and not fat Kyuhyun. "Kyuhyun is usually just Kyuhyun, unless I'm angry."
"You don't seem like the type who gets angry that often."
"I'm not," she said. "It takes a bit to get me going."
"I won't try for that," he said. "You also seem like you'd be scary when you're angry."
Victoria chuckled, not giving him another word after that, averting her eyes and taking another sip of her drink. He watched her, as if waiting for an answer. Her silence was probably enough.
"You're interesting, Victoria."
"My Chinese name is Song Qian, if you were curious."
He grinned. "How'd you know I was?"
Victoria sat back, crossing her legs. "I just had a feeling."
---
"You think I should ask him out again?"
Amber remained still, but Krystal nodded, twirling her (Victoria's) spoon around in her (Victoria's) cereal. "Well, you didn't ask him out last time."
"You know what she means," said Amber, who was for the most part uninterested in this conversation.
"What I'm saying is that unnie should feel more free to take chances with this guy--be more bold. He seems like he's into that kind of stuff. Female empowerment, from what I barely know about him," Krystal shrugged. "I'm just proud of you. You found a good guy."
"How do we know he's a good guy, though?" Amber countered.
"Because Heechul-oppa--wait, nevermind. Because unnie doesn't take shit from jerkwads."
Victoria cringed. "Krystal, your language--"
"Is Korean. Actually, English. Eh, who the hell knows anymore."
"Hey, Krystal, what language do you think in?" Amber snorting, as if her question was hilarious.
Krystal let out a huge, angered noise of some sort, smacking her palms against her forehead. "Damn it, Amber, why would you do that to me?!" And she appeared to shut down for the next ten minutes, while Amber and Victoria attempted to start up a different conversation.
But it all came back to, "I do really like him." Victoria started to pout.
Krystal put forth the best smile she could. "And we're so glad you didn't find another asshole."
Victoria found herself internally admitting defeat, but not over the prospect of asking Han Geng out on another date. Instead, because Krystal would most likely never stop using her preferred vocabulary.
---
It was sort of strange, how it all happened. Victoria would blame it mostly on Krystal. Amber seemed partially responsible, but at the same time, not so much. She seemed to only be going along for the amusement. Krystal, however, was determined--with a certain fervor Victoria had never seen in her before--to get Victoria on another date with Han Geng.
"I got his number from Heechul-oppa," said the teenager over the phone. Victoria switched it from one ear to the other, swishing her hair out of her face at the same time. "So. Please, unnie, don't screw this up."
"Why are you so interested in helping me?" Victoria asked, almost suspiciously.
There was a brief pause on the other end. "Because you're twenty-three."
Victoria sighed, not bothering to tell the girl that her comment made such little sense to Victoria. So what if she was twenty-three. She had a little less than seven years until that promised age, as she thought of it: The Age That Song Qian Will Get Married By.
So she said, "I have time."
"That's what you'll keep telling yourself," Krystal pointed out. "Then pretty soon you'll be 29, and oh look, it's February 1st! And you only have one day to get married, but you have that fat cat Kuixian and by then you'd have at least four other ones, too. Not to mention a house full of freeloading teenagers like Amber and Sulli."
Victoria frowned, because she couldn't quite find it in her to add, 'and you' to the list. Nor could she find it in her to mention that she and Amber wouldn't be teenagers anymore.
"It'd be really hard to find yourself a boyfriend, let alone a fiancé or a husband by then, for God's sake."
"Okay, okay."
"Okay what?"
"You can stop harassing me, okay?" she barely laughed, bumping her head against the counter she was leaning against. "But do you have to be with me here when I call him?"
Amber jumped up. "Come on, Krystal, let's go for a walk. Unnie needs to call her new boyfriend."
It took Victoria another three minutes after the girls skipped off to remember that Amber never called her unnie, or ever had the desire to. Tapping her fingers against the counter, she thought that maybe it was just a slip of the tongue. She took a deep breath, tried to calm her heart, and dialed his number.
---
"You know, I'm so glad you called," he said, for what must have been the third time since he picked her up from her house. Apparently he actually had a car ("It's been in the shop for a while, there was something wrong with a part of it that I can't even remember how to say in Korean"). Granted, it was no Ferrari, but it was comfortable.
"I--I'm glad I called, too," she said, unbuckling herself once he parked.
He was smiling. It was contagious. "All set?"
Victoria tucked some hair behind her ear. "Yep." She opened the passenger door and stepping onto the sidewalk. With the click of a button, Han Geng locked the doors and shoved his keys into his pocket before coming around the car and smiling at her again. They linked arms as they walked into the restaurant.
---
Seven dates later and they tumbled into Victoria's apartment, his arm securely around her waist, and cheek-stretching grins on both their faces. They laughed until they had no air left to say anything to each other. Victoria kicked the door closed and tried to get her shoes off without bending down to use her hands, but ended up almost falling over. They weren't even drunk.
Han Geng put his arm around her more securely, from behind and rested his face in the crook of her neck. His nose tickled her.
"Um," suddenly, she got a little bit shy. "Do you want some coffee?"
"We had some at the restaurant," he said, his cheek now resting right against hers. She thought of a time when personal boundaries were so much more prominent. Just a few weeks ago, maybe? At least, with Han Geng they were. Amber and the other girls never adhered to any boundaries and then again, Victoria was pretty clingy.
"Right, we did." She maneuvered herself in his arms, making it so that she had her own around his neck, and his hands were resting at the small of her back. Boundaries were no longer important, she thought as she leaned into him, their lips connecting.
Victoria has always been pictured others' minds as a respectable young woman. She'd always keep this in her own mind no matter what she did, even as she could barely bring him towards the door to her bedroom, her mouth too busy being fixated on his. It was hard to be respectable, but at the same time, there wasn't anyone around she needed to be respectable for, except for him. She didn't want him to think she was easy. She broke away for a moment to reach for her doorknob, when instead he grabbed her hand and pressed her against the wall right next to it. Giggling, she trashed nearly every mental photos she had of people's perceptions of her as she kissed him hard enough to bruise his and her lips.
And that's when the door burst open. The door to Victoria's room. Only, it wasn't the two of them stepping across the threshold, it was a teenage girl, who bolted out of there like Victoria and Han Geng had sprouted horns (then again--), fangs, and spat blood at her. The front door slammed shut before the two of them could understand what just happened.
"Um."
"Was that Krystal?" Han Geng asked, his hand being too low to just be on the small of her back anymore. She didn't notice.
"I think it was."
"Why was she in your house?"
Victoria took in the feeling of his hand where it was now, and almost shied away from it. "She and Amber share a key. It's a long story."
He nodded, the confusion in his eyes starting to disappear. "So…do you want to keep going?"
"I…" she averted her eyes, staring at his neck instead of his face. "Maybe. But let's just, let's just hang out. Is that okay?"
Another few nods. He honestly appeared to be fine with it. It was hard to focus for a second. His thumb was rubbing against her side. "Gege?"
"Hm?"
"Do you want to spend the night, at least?"
He smiled. Oh, how he almost never stopped doing that around her. "I'd love to."
---
Strutting into the girls' dressing room, Victoria took deep breaths and looked at herself in the mirror. From the audience, no one would be able to tell how much sweat she produces from all that hard work. On stage--especially with that lighting--sometimes she felt like she was going to faint any second. They always carried on, though, like they'd been trained. Victoria hadn't spent her more youthful days at the Beijing Dance Academy for nothing, after all.
Now, it was time to greet the audience. Or at least, the ones who came because she asked them to, or because Amber and Sulli actually had a real, true appreciation for Victoria's dance. It was time for her to greet her own audience.
She changed quickly, stopping to massage her feet for a brief moment before throwing her sneakers on and brushing past her fellow dancer Meng Jia on the way out. "Good job!" she called out. Jia responded, but her voice was too far away for Victoria to decipher the words.
"Victoria," her main dance partner, Hyukjae called out to her. "Your friends are here."
"Oh, thank you!"
"No problem. Hey, great job tonight. You were awesome," he said.
"Thank you, you were, too!" she bowed graciously before sprinting off the find the exit she needed, the one she always met Amber or Luna at when they came to see her. Sure enough, she reached the door with its blinking last syllable hanging above and pushed it open.
"Unnie!" Sulli chirped, being the first one to jump at her and get her in a hug. Then she was practically stampeded.
"You looked so gorgeous tonight," Luna started up, touching her older friend's hair and gushing on and on. Amber was saying how wicked the choreography was and that Victoria was making it look so easy even though she knew it had to be difficult. Amidst all the glee coming out of their mouths, Victoria spotted some other faces. Although Zhou Mi regularly came to see her perform, she'd never seen Heechul here.
Then Victoria's heart skipped a beat. There was Han Geng, talkig animatedly with Zhou Mi about things she couldn't hear, the ever-present smile in his eyes. He had a look of pride on his face.
She wanted to go to him. Luckily, he came to her first, shooing the other girls out of the way just with his presence and the fact that Victoria fell completely silent when he started walking over. He held his arms wide and she wasted next to no time jumping into them, burying her face into his shoulder.
"I'm so glad you came!" she said into his collar.
"Heechul told me he'd castrate me if I didn't," Han Geng grimaced when they broke their hug. "And I figured most women wouldn't like that."
Victoria laughed, but it was a bit forced.
"And by most women, I meant you," he stopped, letting her be taken aback. He watched her eyes widen, her lips part. "Remember? Krystal kind of, uh…"
"Oh! That's what--you were--you're funny," was all she could say.
"Did she come tonight?"
Victoria took a quick look around. Zhou Mi, Amber, Sulli, Heechul, and Luna were all in sight like they had been before. Not a sign of Krystal, though, not a single one. "I haven't seen her since that night. Luna said she might get her to come. But I don't know, really. If she was here, maybe she already went home?"
"I wanted to apologize to her," he shrugged, seeming defeated.
"That's sweet," she said, laughing a little nervously. "I actually haven't spoken to her for a while, either."
"This is kind of off topic, but," he suddenly said, "I just wanted to let you know that Heechul didn't really like, force me to come see you. He just said we were going somewhere, and I didn't know where but he already bought tickets so I went with him. And then I realized that it was your performance."
"Oh."
He took her hand. "I didn't want you to think that he had to force me to come see you, because if I'd known before I saw the poster outside," he laughed, "I would have been much more excited. But it was fantastic. You're beautiful, you know."
Victoria covered her mouth as she beamed automatically. She'd heard that before, yet it felt fresh this time. "Thank you. I'm glad you came, gege."
"You know, I think we're being watched."
"Huh?"
"Our friends," he motioned with his head. "Are they staring?"
Victoria peered over his shoulder, catching Amber and Luna's eyes for a brief second. The younger girls quickly averted their eyes to each other and pretended to laugh during their imaginary conversation. "Yeah, just a bit."
"Tell you what--wait, first, what are you doing tomorrow?"
"Nothing, really. It's my first full day off in a long time." And she was already breathing a sigh of relief at the thought of it. "Did you want to do something?"
"Why don't you come over to my place? I can make you breakfast," he offered, his thumb caressing over her knuckles. It was an offer she wasn't ready to refuse. She agreed, while also trying not to seem too eager. With a kiss, she bid him goodbye as he left with Heechul and Zhou Mi.
"He should have offered to give us all a ride," Sulli pouted, and Victoria put her arm around her. "And why do you two talk in Chinese, we can't all understand what you're saying."
Amber chuckled. "Uh, Sulli, I think that was kind of the point."
"You don't have the right to talk on that one. You can understand them."
"If you say so," Amber said in her sing-song voice. "She told him that she can lift her leg all the way over her head."
Luna and Sulli whipped around, jaws dropped as Victoria started to flap her arms in defense, no words coming out. She kept mouthing "NO!" over and over again but couldn't cough out a single syllable for another five minutes.
---
The next morning, still a little bit groggy from sleeping in until nine, she decided that she liked watching Han Geng cook. She didn't tell him that she hadn't even showered this morning, but she'd brushed her hair and thrown a sweatshirt over the cami she'd worn to bed and at least worn some nice, clean blue jeans. She had a little bit of makeup on, too. Presentable and rested, that was the look she was going for.
"I make pancakes for the girls all the time," she said, when the plate landed in front of her. "But yours are probably so much better. You put blueberries in them, oh my god, I love you!"
The spatula clacked against the floor.
"I--I mean. Blueberries are," she felt her face turn into a space heater, reddening at the cheeks. "Blueberries are my favorite fruit," she said, her voice small.
After picking up the spatula, he turned around with his own plate. The bottle of maple syrup was in his other hand, he was just grinning normally, as if she'd never said those words in the first place. Victoria's heart pounded furiously against inside her chest. Those syllables were so small, but so big, maybe she should have watched her mouth before anything just came flying out.
"Thank you," he said. "I'm happy you like them."
They ate in silence for a while, Victoria contentedly chewing away while trying to remain neat and presentable. She was good at that. Han Geng had his eyes on her for a while, and she knew, but didn't call him out on it.
"You know, I've been thinking."
"About what?" she asked, after swallowing another bite.
"It's been a long time since I've gone home for a visit. I was thinking of going next week, actually," he said, watching her face slip into complete curiosity. "And I was also thinking that maybe you'd like to come with me?"
She stopped chewing, dropping her fork onto her plate.
"It's okay if you don't--"
"Of course I want to go!" she squealed, jumping up from her chair. For the next couple minutes, they spend their time together laughing as she bounced around, talking excitedly about all the things they could do once they got there, the places and the people, and how they wouldn't have to call anyone 'ahjumma' anymore. Han Geng wondered if that was just the kind of thing a girl like Victoria would find exhilarating.
---
That evening was far less sober, but a little more exciting. It contained at some point, the two of them dancing on Han Geng's kitchen table to the America radio station that was playing Lady Gaga's 'Paparazzi' which had become their favorite song three seconds after it started up.
It was rather embarrassing that the man knew the words (he probably had no inclination of their meaning, though), but Victoria couldn't care less. She'd tossed her sweatshirt into the corner of the room, that was how much should care about what they were doing, as she danced in his arms in a thin, white camisole and jeans. It all felt so effortless. Which was probably because of the alcohol, but she chose to think it was because of how well they meshed.
After all, loving him was cherry pie.
---
Her head was slightly fuzzy when she encountered the four younger girls, sitting around her apartment. She came home at around 10am, and they were all eating breakfast. She realized then that yes, she had spent the night at Han Geng's, and yes, she needed to start letting everyone know about their plans.
The other girls had mixed feelings about the China idea. "How long are you going for? When are you coming back? Does this mean he's in love with you? Does he want to move there with you? Am I going to have to feed Kuixian for you? What about your job? What about your dance? What about us?"
Victoria had few answers or at least, she had few answers that they were completely satisfied with. Nothing was completely enough to keep them happy and at bay. Victoria was fighting an uphill battle with them, but she was doing a pretty decent job, too.
Amber was with her by the time she was finishing her packing mission, offering no more opinions over the matter anymore. She even helped fold a few things, and reminded Victoria to leave post-it reminders for her and Luna. And in plain sight. "Fridge," she said.
"Door, too?"
"Front of the bathroom door, maybe. Luna's more observant than me sometimes, so she should find it eventually."
"Amber, thanks so much for this."
"Tell me again why you didn't ask Krystal, whom your cat clearly likes more than me."
"I never told you that in the first place."
"Then tell me now?" she tried.
"No thank you."
Amber clung to Victoria's wrist. "Please?"
Victoria shook her head.
"Be that way, but I guess I'll find out sooner or later. Don't assume that you can just hide everything from me forever. I know where you live."
"That threat feels so much emptier when I need you to know where I live so you can feed my Kuixian," Victoria said, raising an eyebrow.
"Argh, fine, be that way."
Victoria left a kiss on the girl's cheek, like a small apology. "Time for me to jet. Say anything you need to now, because it'll be a few days until I can use my phone again, okay?"
"Nothing I haven't said that wouldn't have been a repeat."
"Basically, you're saying you'd rather I didn't go."
"Vic, I love how perceptive you can be."
"So nothing else."
"Uh…have fun?"
Victoria rolled her eyes, pulling Amber into a hug. "Your eloquence is appreciated."
"Learned it from you."
Part 2/2