The Art of Revenge

Chapter 11

The birthday party was held at a restaurant that overlooked a wide, open lawn which backed onto the reservoir of the town's waterfall dam. It had a huge patio covered by pergola-esque beams, which were strung enchantingly with Edison bulb lights and creeping vines of lush ivy. You thought the party would be relatively small, but as it turned out, the whole place had been booked out just to celebrate Hyejin, and the restaurant and patio were packed full of friends and family. Turns out, Jungkook wasn't going to get his wish of paying for dinner, since everything was already paid for. The food was catered by the restaurant, mostly focused around the barbeques grilling burgers of all types, a long table full of buffet style sides and fixings, and several scattered counters covered in trays of appetizers. There was an area set up outside on the patio where three women and two men - who Jungkook told you were all family - played live music for the night.

It was a lot for just a birthday party - you were lucky some years to even get a cake. You assumed Hyejin was hitting some sort of milestone birth year, and so Abe decided to go all out.

You were a touch tipsy already from the bottle of wine you demolished in the bathtub, but kept a safe high throughout the first part of the evening as the copious amounts of food, socializing, and dancing, kept your body nourished and moving.

It was the perfect atmosphere to be in. You and Jungkook weren't the center of anyone's attention - which was something you worried about, expecting a small group of friends would lead to inquiries about "who the hell the new girl was and why was she with Jungkook out of the blue?" You weren't completely safe, however, when someone Jungkook introduced as his friend Mira, became curious enough to bluntly ask.

"So, what's the deal with you two?" Mira said as she glanced at Jungkook at the bar, who was grabbing another round of beer. "I've literally never heard of you before, no offense. How do you even know each other?"

Mira, you suspected, might've been christened in the Church of Town Gossips. She had already given you the dirty details on several people at the party - which essentially was harmless since you had no idea who the hell they were, nonetheless, who they were related to. But Mira was clever. She buttered you up with the friendly, girlfriend banter you had been missing, made you feel safe in her presence, then when the last beer kicked in, she dug for your secrets which you were all too ready to tell. The girl was good.

"Ughh!" you let out a sigh that could be heard over the loud noises of the bar. "We knew each other from a long time ago. But until about..." you looked up to the ceiling as you tried to count how long it had been since the kitchen, "five days ago?... I was engaged to this other guy. He was having an affair with my best friend. So, I ran away and came here," you confessed, sober enough to know which details of that decision you needed to hide.

"No!" Mira's eyes widened and her mouth fell open as she gawked at you. "You're kidding?"

"I wish I was."

"I'm so sorry, that's awful. What did you do when you found out?"

"I just left. I did get my lawyer to send an eviction notice, and everything I could get refunds for from the wedding, I kept myself, so... the bastard's broke and homeless."

"Good girl," Mira stuck up her hand and demanded a high-five. "Where were you when my ex was fucking around on me?"

"Oh, damn, I'm sorry," it was your turn to be empathetic.

"Yeah, we were married for one month," she punctuated by pointing up her index finger, "then I found out. He missed his sidepiece while we were away on our honeymoon, apparently."

"What is up with these guys?" you began to fume. "Like, I never held a gun to this man's head and forced him to propose to me."

"Seriously," she shook her head. "We had been together forever, and I wanted to move forward or move on. I told him, we either take the next step, or we break-up. He proposed. He should have chosen the break-up. But nooo... he didn't wanna be the bad guy who didn't wanna get married, so he became the real bad guy who cheated constantly."