"Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies."

-Elizabeth Bowen

Rachel hadn't meant to keep in contact with Young-do after their parents engagement had ended.

Of course she'd known they would still see each other at school, occasionally at the types of functions young people of their standing were expected to attend, maybe even a spattering of meetings by pure coincidence in a store or on the street.

However, during their brief forced journey towards being "siblings" Rachel had found herself depending on Young-do for a source of amusement and distraction and much to her horror she found that hadn't changed in the months following the dissolution of their attempt at family.

She found herself tempted to call him at the most inconvenient times like when she passed Kim Tan and Cha Eun-sang holding hands in the hallway or when she thought of a particularly sarcastic remark that went completely over her mother's head or when Bo-na and Chan-young literally made her want to vomit. Even more disturbing was the fact that Rachel gave in to this ludicrous urge more often than not, firing off a text during dinner with her mother or calling him while she struggled to fall asleep.

He was always awake when she called, no matter how late and it never took him more than a few rings to answer.

She wondered if he was having trouble sleeping too. She wondered how he was taking the investigation in to his father's business practices. She wondered how many pathetic hanger on type girls he was using to try to erase Cha Eun-sang.

She didn't ask.

She didn't ask any of it.

Their conversations mostly consisted of sarcastic jokes and wry observations about the people they still had in common-Bo-na, Chan-young, Myung-soo- and Young-do asking at least once "Sister, what are you wearing right now?"

"Ya, aren't you going to answer? You're no fun."

She never did. And she never was, never had been. Being "fun" was a luxury for girls who didn't have to carefully consider their every breath for how it would reflect on them and their mother and the family business. Cha Eun-sang never had understood the benefits her status as nothing gave her that Rachel couldn't even dream of.

She wondered if he really wanted to know.

She never asked that either.