Minjeong really doesn’t know how she ended up here. 

“ Fah, that’s cooked, mate.” Jake snickers, kicking up his feet wearing thongs on an unoccupied plastic stool. “You’re really going to make a poor girl chuck a shoey. You’re slack.”

She really can’t pinpoint what exactly drove her to this moment in time. It’s a bit confusing, to say the least, but she’s ed and she does not want someone’s sweaty shoe juice in .

Like most university students, everyone is at the ripening age of adulthood and that calls for some late-night shenanigans that are up to no good. Minjeong finds herself at a party with a bunch of new people and most of her high school and even her old primary school friends. To put it into less words, Sydney is small and everyone just knows each other.

Like how she knows Yu Jimin, the prettiest girl to ever frequent Sydney. And not only that, she was a beauty; she was a sweet girl and smart too. In comparison to Minjeong’s boyish nature, crass language, and barely passing grades, it was a terrible match. But it didn’t stop Minjeong from forming a crush on her during high school because somehow they shared the same P.E class for a few years. Thank Minjeong was sporty, since Jimin was notorious for always winning any sports event at their school. She’d always be presented with plaques, trophies, certificates and ribbons stamped in gold with first place. 

To put it simply, Jimin was an overachieving dux goddess who graced their dingy town. 

But now she’s here, looking stupid in front of her crush.

Everyone had some sort of crush on Jimin and it didn’t help that they went to a co-ed school. The boys all wanted her and tried their luck and sometimes Jimin would entertain them but that was much of it since she was busy studying. She says she wants to be an astrophysicist... or a doctor—which is the most simple term Minjeong can understand. In simple terms, she wants to be a ing rocket scientist and Minjeong thinks that’s so cool. 

Jimin had one boyfriend in year 9 and he was in year 12 (which Minjeong thought was kind of weird, but each to their own), but they broke up when he graduated and Jimin actually missed two days of school in that year for the first time in her life. She didn’t get an award for perfect attendance that year and Minjeong thought that was ing crazy. But she bounced back for the next few years, and Minjeong could only fawn even more. Only a handful of her friends and maybe the school counsellor, knew she was a lesbian. She doesn’t remember how the counsellor knew but clearly she was an angst-filled year eight back then. 

In a place like this, it’s best that you keep your secret safe ‘til you’re older and in uni. 

Girls envied her, were jealous of her beauty and brains, talked and made rumours and Minjeong was the only few who didn’t. (Because she was gay and her poor little gay heart combusted every time Jimin smiled at her in the halls or had a conversation with her.)

And back to the shoey.

They’ve been at this party in Jake’s mansion of a house’s backyard for a while now since he lives with his parents, who aren’t home, and somehow they’ve ended up playing drinking games near the bonfire some of the boys crafted.

“Oh, yeah.” Felix guffaws.

“You guys are dickheads.” Minjeong huffs.

“C’mon, don’t be a wuss.” Felix grins saccharinely.

“Yeah nah, no way.” Minjeong shakes her head.

Minjeong looks around and in the crowd around the bonfire, Minjeong registers Jimin’s eager face. Hold on, does Jimin want to see her do this too? Would it make her look cool or gross? Well, if a girl tells her to do something, then aye, aye—off she goes. (Discretion warning: Jimin has not said anything or told Minjeong to do anything.)

“Don’t be chicken; come on.” Felix chuckles.

“Fine, you dodgy ; I’ll do it.” Minjeong huffs.

“Oi, hectic!” Felix gees her on.

“Oi, bloody oath, Jeong!” Jake grins. 

“Whose shoe are we sacrificing?” Minjeong asks.

Suddenly everyone looks around and Minjeong already feels a sinking feeling in her pit.

“Why are we looking at Chris?” Minjeong blinks.

“Oi Channie, pass your shoe up, ey!” Felix calls out.

“Me? Why?” Chris asks.

“Minjeong’s doing a shoey!” Felix grins.

“No way!, Eshays!” Chris laughs, shuffling his way up to them with a cold one in his hand. “I’d pay to see that. Hold on, let me take my—”

“Ew! off! Anyone’s shoe but his!” Minjeong grimaces. “He’s probably gymmed in those shoes and played footy in them! Get your eshay TNs away from me!”
“Which makes the shoey even better!” Jake snickers.

“You guys are such .” Minjeong groans.

“Aye, a dare is a dare. It’s your fault for choosing dare, .” Ningning shoves her and Minjeong grumbles.

“ you, you’re doing it with me.” Minjeong says.

“What? Why me?” Ningning scoffs.

“Coz you opened your mouth, ankle-biter.” Minjeong grins.

“Wha—”

“Oi! Everyone! Ningning and Minjeong’s chucking a shoey!” One of the boys decides to announce loudly. 

Very quickly, a crowd gathers and Ningning’s shooting Minjeong a dirty and Minjeong can only grin so brightly. She falters slightly when she sees Jimin right next to her a.b.g. best friend, Aeri, and the crowd of her other girl friends. They’re all whispering amongst each other and Minjeong just wants in on it because she can’t tell if she’s making a dumb decision or not. She should’ve just chosen truth instead of dare, since she was trying to be different from the previous turns.

Ningning and Minjeong hold Chris’ shoe in hand with matching expressions of disgust. Felix heads over to the esky and brings out a fresh cold one as everyone’s cheering and recording as Felix pours beer into the TNs. 

“You better take three-fourths of this or else I’ll kick you.” Ningning says.

“ off, we’re talking half.” Minjeong frowns.

“No!” Ningning whines.

“Don’t whinge.” Minjeong scrunches her nose. “Shouldn’t have spoken, stupid.”

“Have a crack at it!”

“ Chug!”

“Chug!”

“Scull it!”

Ningning drinks from the shoe and screams when she’s done. When she passes the shoe to Minjeong, the latter wants to kill Ningning. She barely drank half. She pinches her nose with one hand and accidentally locks eyes with Jimin. , she probably looks like an idiot right now.

She takes a deep breath before downing the remaining alcohol in the shoe. Once she’s done, she throws it at Felix, who gets hit in the chest.

", that was nasty! I’m going to kill you, Felix!” Minjeong growls and Felix’s eyes widen.

“Oh, —” 

“Hah! Jeongie’s staunching poor Felix, adlays!” Chan laughs.

“Come back here, you boofhead!” Minjeong screams, racing after Felix, who is incredibly fast.

“No, you’ll never catch me!” Felix is laughing in the wind.

They chase each other into the house and around the yard. 

“Arc up, Minjeong!” Another one of their friends gee on Minjeong.

“Felix, you’re too slow! Minjeong’s the same size as you and oh !” One of their friends laughs loudly.

Minjeong finally manages to catch Felix and they both tumble onto the grass with a heap of tangled limbs.

“Eat , Lee!” Minjeong squishes his face into the grass.

“I’m sorry!” Felix cries out.

“Alright, knock it off, you kids.” Chan separates the two of them. 

Minjeong collapses onto the grass, feeling dizzy and out of breath. Everything looks wonky so she closes her eyes briefly just to breathe. All she can smell is alcohol and the simmering barbey Jake and his friends set up earlier. Most of the snags and meat were burned, so it was an unsuccessful sausage sizzle. Barely even on par with Bunning’s ones. 

She also vaguely registers a pretty laugh and maybe she believes it’s Jimin’s. She’d like to think it’s Jimin’s. 

That’s all Minjeong hears from the rest of the partygoers until she starts feeling woozy. She actually hadn’t been drinking properly up until the shoey and the goon sack spinning around on Jake’s clothes hanger. She’d been taking slow slips and talking more to distract everyone from the fact she’s a lightweight, but now she’s feeling it and the shots of Soju passed around earlier didn’t help either. She hasn’t properly eaten and she’s getting dizzy. The game of truth or dare is long gone and some people have already gone home, except for her.

“ Minjeong.”

Oh, and now she’s hallucinating her crush's voice.

“Mm…” Minjeong groans into her hand. She’s sitting on the ground on the concrete porch of Jake’s backyard, trying to get her together.

“Is she alright?” Aeri whispers to Jimin.

“Clearly not. She’s a lightweight.” Jimin whispers back. 

“Are you two talking about me? I hear you...” Minjeong grumbles. “Head hurt.”

Minjeong lifts her head slowly and she squints in front of her. Jimin is squatting, looking right at her and she blinks.

“Are you Jimin? Or am I dreaming?” Minjeong blinks.

“I am Jimin.” Jimin smiles and Minjeong finds herself smiling too.

“Ohh… you are!” Minjeong giggles.

“Oh, she’s gone.” Aeri snorts.

Minjeong is too ed to register Jimin’s gentle touch of moving her hair out of her face, but Jimin is in close proximity, and she doesn’t smell like bonfire smoke. She smells soft and warm, like fresh cookies or maybe Minjeong is so drunk she’s making up more gay in her head.

“How are you getting home, hm?” Jimin asks softly.

“Bus, maybe… I’m too povo for uber right now. I bought the soju from the bottle-O…” Minjeong mumbles. 

“Did you come here with friends?” Jimin asks.

“Yeah.” Minjeong nods sleepily. “Ning and I Ubered here… she paid…”

“Right-o, you know what,” Jimin sighs. “We’re going to put you in Jake’s spare room, okay? Aeri, help. I’m too drunk for this too.”

“Alrighty.”

They both pick up Minjeong like a rag doll and drag her upstairs with Jake’s permission, of course and they throw her onto the clean bed. However, Jimin’s knees buckle and she falls with Minjeong too.

“Goodbye; you two rest well and call me in the morning. I have work tomorrow.” Aeri says.

“You’re going to leave me here?” JImin whines.

“Yeah, , you live too far. I love you but I am not driving forty minutes in the middle of the night for you,” Aeri says.

“ you, Uchinaga,” Jimin groans.

“Don’t chuck a sook with me, miss-who-refuses-to-get-her-licence. You’ll be right. Love you!” Aeri twirls out of the room and closes the door.

Aeri planned to drive home alone after that, but somehow she finds herself making a pit stop on the way to her apartment since Ningning needed a ride home. She wasn't as drunk as her best friend but she still needed to get home or else her Chinese mother and father would fry her and never let her outside the house again. And of course Aeri agreed because Ningning didn’t live too far from here. (She’s also susceptible to pretty girls.)

Jimin, in the dark, quiet room of Jake’s spare room, kicks off her shoes and s the zipper of her skirt to breathe. When she turns to get comfortable, she sees two big brown eyes blinking back at her.

“ Jesus—! I thought you were asleep.” Jimin huffs after almost being scared less.

“Sorry, I was sleepy but now I’m in a bed next to Yu Jimin and I’m not sure if it’s real.” Minjeong says softly and Jimin blushes because, what the ? Has Minjeong always been this cute?

“It’s very real, sweetheart.” Jimin chuckles softly, tucking her hands under her cheek.

“Oh. Okay.” Minjeong blinks and the next thing she knows, she’s trying to get up to escape.

“Woah, hang on, where ya going?” Jimin reaches out and grabs Minjeong’s wrist to pull her back down. “Are you going to chunder?”

“No, I’m fine; I just can’t be in bed with my crush; we’ve skipped all the steps.” Minjeong yaps drunkenly.

“Your what?” Jimin blinks.

“I’m sleep in floor.”

A thud is heard and Jimin has zero time to register with how fast and slow Minjeong is moving at the same time. She rolls over and peers over the edge and sure enough, Minjeong is lying on the floor, curled into herself like a puppy. Silence follows and Jimin isn’t sure if she’s dead or not.

“Minjeong.” Jimin tries but she doesn't get a response. “Kim Minjeong!”

“Mm.” Minjeong sighs. “Five... five more minutes, mum.”

Jimin giggles before moving to the floor, crouching next to Minjeong.

“Come up and sleep on the bed, Jeongie.” Jimin shakes her lightly. “Your body is going to hurt.”

“Can’t sleep in bed with crush.” Minjeong shakes her head.

“Even if this crush wants you to?” Jimin asks.

“Well…” Minjeong sits up, smiling dopily, which makes Jimin smile too. “In that case, I can’t say no.”

Minjeong moves up and lies on one side of the bed and Jimin lies on the other side too. 

“But no sleeping!” Minjeong decides sternly. “We cannot.”
“Okay, puppy.” Jimin giggles. “Let’s talk then.”
“Mmkay.” Minjeong nods lazily, mussing her hair against the pillow. 

“You know, you’re pretty fast. I didn’t think you were actually going to catch up to Felix.” Jimin says.
“You reckon I couldn’t? You don’t have faith in me?” Minjeong pouts and Jimin pokes Minjeong’s cheek.
“Silly, you drank and I didn’t think you would be able to.” Jimin chuckles.

“But I did!” Minjeong grins.

"Yes, you did. Good job.” Jimin laughs.

“Mhm, I did good job.” Minjeong’s eyes are half closed as she smiles softly at Jimin. “Are you proud, Jimin -ie? Was I cool?”
“You were very cool, Minjeong -ie.” Jimin copies the lilt in Minjeong’s voice and it makes the latter giggle.

“Even when I did the shoey?” Minjeong sighs sleepily.

“Yeah, even the shoey.” Jimin snorts.

Jimin’s fully aware she’s talking to Minjeong as if she’s a small puppy, but she really can’t help it. Minjeong really l