(note: finally finished the first one-shot! i'll be working on trizgarcia's request next. enjoy!)

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Minah sighed, watching as a girl she recently met making up with the guy she had strong feelings for. Which now, she regrets having. He was a jerk to her; using her to get back at the other girl. But there he was, sitting at a booth with the girl; a girl who was so much older than both Minah and the boy, at least six or seven years. The young girl didn't know the older that well, so she didn't know exactly why the boy loved the girl, but Minah did know that she was a very pretty, very beautiful woman. And she seemed like a nice person from when she talked with Minah yesterday. Yesterday was when Minah officially met her.

          The ice in her drink chinked in the cup as Minah looked away from the scene of the other two. She tucked the hair that was falling into her face behind her ear as she took ahold of the straw the café put with the drinks. She swirled the straw around, trying to distract herself. But the action didn’t help much. Now, though, she wondered why she was still in the café, watching them when she wasn’t involved with them anymore. The boy was never hers, even though it had felt like he was when they were going out. It felt real, but he must have just been a good actor, plus she was just blindly in love with him.

          It started about a month ago. Minah was eating lunch in her friend’s classroom, since once they became 3^rd years the best friends were separated after being in the same homeroom for the two previous years. The boy whom she had a crush on since last year shared the class with her friend, which somewhat made her nervous. Even though she and the boy were kind of friends, because she liked him, she would tense up when he was near. Her feelings started to form last year. Minah, her friend, and the boy all were in the same class. For a project in a science class, Minah was partnered with the mentioned two and another boy that was friends with the boy. Somewhere during that time, she started thinking about him more and her heart would pound from the sound of his voice, from just seeing him, or when someone would even just mention his name.

          “Hey,” Shin Hyejeong, Minah’s best friend starts, while leaning closer to Minah. “Look who’s coming.”

          Minah looks up from her lunch box and spots him. He’s heading over to where she and Hyejeong sat. He smiles at them and leans over, resting the palms of his hands on the edge of the desks that Minah and Hyejeong moved so they were facing each other, so his fingers were curled around the edges and his wrists were pointing up.

          “Hey Hyejeong, Minah,” he greeted, still sporting that smile Minah adored.

          “What brings you here, Chansik?” Hyejeong asks, giving Minah a quick glance and teasing smile. Hyejeong knew of Minah’s crush and liked to .

          “I wanted to ask Minah a question.” Chansik looks over at Minah and Minah blinks nervously, surprised he had something to ask her. They haven’t really talked since last year, other than a few words here and there every once in a while. She gave him a slight nod to tell him to continue on and ask the question. “Wanna walk home together today?” 

          “Yes! I mean, um, yeah, sure.” She had to mentally hit herself for giving such a direct answer so quickly and she felt embarrassed that she had to correct herself to be more relaxed and not so eager. Chansik wanted to walk home with her! Her heart that she swore that was already pounding hard, pounded even harder as if it was trying to pound its way out of her ribcage.

          Chansik let out a chuckle at her reaction. He leaned off the desk and gave her a wave, going to go back to his friends. “See you at the gate after school.”

          Once he was out of earshot, Minah turned her head from Chansik’s figure to Hyejeong so fast, she almost got whiplash. “Oh my gosh,” she blurted, waving her hands in front of her face to cool it down from overheating. She was so nervous that her body had heated up.

          “There you go, Minah,” Hyejeong commented with a grin and then took a bite from her lunch.

          “I can’t believe it.” Minah sneaked another look at Chansik and saw him laughing with his friends. Chansik must have felt her staring because he looked at her back. She was about to look away, but he gave her a V sign with a grin. She gave him a nervous smile back, the corners of twitching, and sent back a V sign, her fingers and hand trembling. He looked away so did she. She smothered her face into her hands.

          When her embarrassment fit ended, she remembered it was lunch and she needed to hurry up and eat before lunch was over. Minah went to eat but her eyes widened at her empty lunch box. Her eyes narrowed at the girl who sat across form her, who was washing down all the food she just ate with a juice box. “Hey!”

♦♦♦

          School was finally over. Minah met up Hyejeong at the door of Minah’s classroom. The two walked to the shoe lockers to change from their school slippers to their street shoes.

          “Are you nervous?” Hyejeong flipped her long hair over her shoulder, to get it out of the way of her face.

          “Like you can’t even imagine,” Minah laughed with a sigh. She was excited, but she questioned why Chansik decided to walk home with her today. He never showed any interest in her before today. She always figured it was a one-sided crush. Maybe Hyejeong already knew Chansik liked Minah, too, because of how much she joked about them being a couple and how apparently she didn’t think it was weird that he suddenly wanted to walk together. Minah had to be over thinking. Yeah, that’s it. She’s over thinking.

          The two friends were approaching the gate. The shorter of the two (just by a few inches, Minah always argued, and would stand on her tippy-toes), saw the boy waiting by the gates, playing on his phone.

          “Good luck,” Hyejeong cheered while giving Minah a fist pump, using both of her hands. Minah nodded and took a deep breath. The two parted from there as Minah tried to casually stroll over to Chansik.

          She stood next to the much taller boy. He seemed to be too engrossed into whatever he was doing on his phone because he didn’t even know she was right there.

          “R-ready?” She asked, trying to talk in a cool tone but instead she ended up stuttering a little bit. Chansik looked away from the screen and to her. She tried to give him this I totally don’t have a crush on you and we’re totally cool friends type expressions, but she was sure she was making it awkwardly. He cracked a smile at her, most likely trying not to laugh. She must have been making a ridiculous face. She dropped it.

          “What was that expression?” He snickered.

          “It’s my face!” She snapped back, both annoyed and embarrassed; annoyed because he was laughing at her when she was nervous and embarrassed because she must look like a total idiot.

          “Alright, alright, let’s go.”

          The two of them left the school grounds and walked down the sidewalk.

          Minah was arguing with herself in her mind. She knew she was acting like fool. She was acting like one of those girls in those girly romance comics one of her other friends was obsessed with. And she needed to calm down. Chansik was just a boy. He was a boy she was familiar with. No other boy made her act this way. Last year, she was totally fine being around him. Come on, Minah. Get a grip. You’ll be fine. He has no interest in you anyways.

          “So,” Chansik said, bringing Minah out of her mind and back to reality. They had already been walking for at least five minutes or so in silence. “There’s a reason I asked you to walk home with me.”

          “And what’s that?” Minah asked, thankfully calmly.

          Chansik stopped and grabbed Minah’s hand to stop her, too. She was facing him and she was looking up at his face while he was looking down at her. Minah was too conscious about him holding her hand. He didn’t let go.

          “I wanted to tell you that I like you and to ask if you wanted to go out.”

          Minah almost had a heart attack. No way! He liked her, too!? She could feel her face heat up and she was pretty sure Chansik had some redness dusting his cheeks and even on his cute ears.

          “Okay…We can go out.” She mustered out, forcing each word to come out clearly. “I liked you, too…Since last year.”

          “I know.” Chansik laced his fingers through Minah’s. “I’ve liked you since…uh, I dunno. I just suddenly realized it.”

          “You knew!? For how long!?” Minah didn’t know that she had been that obvious with her feelings. She thought she was discreet about it besides with Hyejeong. But even then, it wasn’t like she was screaming it all the time and forcing herself on him. She had kept her distance and tried to never gaze off at him. Only when she knew she could get away with it, is when she did it.

          “A while ago, I think. I overheard you and Hyejeong once.” He grinned down at her, and she looked at their hands together with a blush taking over her face. Chansik made a comment how her reaction was cute.

♦♦♦

            The next day after school, the brand new couple was walking home once more. Today, Minah felt more comfortable around him and didn’t stutter as much or make a fool out of herself, thankfully.

          Chansik took Minah down a route that he said would take a longer time to reach Minah’s house so they could spend more time together. They didn’t take the route yesterday, which Minah was thankful for because she was over whelmed from the whole sudden confession and everything. And when Minah had gotten home and parted with Chansik, her first instinct was to call Hyejeong and tell her what happened. Her friend was very happy for her.

          “I don’t think I’ve been down this way,” Minah commented, not familiar with any of the buildings they were passing.

          “I didn’t either until recently,” Chansik replied.

          Minah looked over to him as he abruptly stopped. They were in front of a bank. The girl was confused on why Chansik suddenly wanted to stop here. Did he need to take out money? Was he already going to buy her stuff? Was she already thinking greedily?

          An older woman exited the building, dressed very professionally. Minah saw she was really pretty. She noticed Chansik was looking, too, making Minah feeling annoyed and slightly jealous. The second day of being together and he was already looking at other women? She didn’t know he was that type. But her thoughts were flushed when Chansik had turned towards Minah and commented how cute she was. And then he leaned in and kissed her. She was surprised during the first second, but then she got into it and kissed him back, her eyes sliding shut.

          When they broke apart, Minah was in a slight daze from the kiss. It was her first kiss so she didn’t know how else to react. She saw that Chansik looked behind him but that moment didn’t register into her mind. Her mind was still focused on the kiss.

          “You really are so cute, Minah.”

♦♦♦

          The next week or so went the same exact way. Minah and Chansik would go home together and Chansik would lead her through that route that would lead them outside of that bank. That same woman would be exiting the bank by the time they got there or a short time after. And once the woman was at least glancing in their direction, Chansik would kiss Minah or hug her and tell her how cute she was. And once the woman was out of sight, Chansik would either take Minah home or take her somewhere for a date. Minah was getting suspicious.

          Just when Minah was going to call out Chansik for his weird habit, the boy changed their routine for their walk home. This time, Chansik took her to get ice cream and then they went to the library so they could help each other with their homework because they both didn’t do well with their grades. And after that, they didn’t take the route anymore. He never took her in front of that bank anymore.

          Two more weeks passed and they were a happy couple. They would meet half way on the walk to school in the morning. During lunch, Minah, along with Hyejeong, sat with him and his friends to eat. There seemed to be one of his friends that had taken an interest in Hyejeong, but Hyejeong had no interest back. (Hyejeong liked another guy that was about five years older than her, but that’s a whole other story.) After school, they would study together, go on dates, or just walk home together. They even met up on the weekends. It was fun and Minah liked always being with him whenever they could be together.

          They were together for a whole month when things started to get fishy again. Chansik was taking Minah down that one route again. He was repeating everything. He did it for a few days again before Minah was trying to figure out what was going on. She had to find out because Chansik was being weird.

          It was a Friday, and today Minah declined walking home with Chansik. She told him that she had something to do after school and she left without him.

          Minah was walking to that bank. She made sure Chansik wasn’t going the same way so she wouldn’t get caught but she never caught any glimpses of him.

          The girl arrived at the bank and she waited for the woman to exit the building. The woman was taking longer to come out than usual. Minah was about to boldly go in and try to find the woman, but as she was about to step forward, the woman came out. She was even prettier up close Minah noticed when she got closer.

          “Excuse me,” Minah called to the woman. The woman looked over at Minah confused. “I want to talk with you.”

`        Fortunately, the woman agreed to talk with Minah. The younger girl took the older to a nearby café. They both sat at a booth that had green and blue cushioned seats, sitting across from one another. It was silent between them as Minah tried to think of what she wanted to ask the stranger. A pretty waitress came up to their booth.

          “Hello, my name is Ahyoung and I’ll be your waitress. Can I start you two off with anything to drink?” They girl offered. Minah ordered a drink with the woman ordering hers right after. The waitress, Ahyoung, wrote down the orders and told the two sitting down that the drinks would be just a few minutes.

          “So,” the woman started, “why did you want to talk to me? I don’t even know who you are.”

          “Oh, right, sorry. My name is Bang Minah,” Minah introduced, forgetting she never even told the woman who she was. The woman seemed to be slightly shocked to hear Minah’s name.

          “Park Sojin,” the woman replied back, with a hint of nervousness in her tone.

          Minah stared at Sojin, trying to think of how she wanted to ask her questions. It would be rude to just ask “What’s Chansik’s problem with you!? Why does he always kiss me in front of you?!” So Minah held back from shouting those.

          “Um, do you know a Gong Chansik?” Minah saw Sojin bite her lip, most likely from hearing Chansik’s name.

          “I do. We broke up over a month ago,” Sojin admitted and then sighed. She opened to say something else, but the waitress came over with their drinks. The third girl asked the other two if they wanted anything to eat, and they declined, saying the drinks were just fine. The waitress left. Minah watched as Sojin took a sip from the straw; Sojin’s gaze directed to the cup the whole entire time. The older woman took a deep breath and then looked Minah in the eyes.

          “I broke up with him because I’m seven years older. I was upset because everyone always assumed that he was my cute younger brother and when we said we were a couple, they disapproved and said it would never work between us. And they thought it wasn’t good that we had such a huge . He told me their comments didn’t bother him and they could say whatever they wanted because he wanted to be with me no matter what. But I think he was upset about it and I didn’t want him to be surrounded by negative comments just because of me.” Sojin’s voice was starting to tremble like she was about to cry. “So, I decided to break it off. He seemed mad when I said I wanted to break up, but then he told me he was cheating on me with a girl his age named Minah and that he was just using me because I had money and I could treat him to nice things and give him things this ‘Minah’ couldn’t give him.” Sojin dryly laughed, looking to the side and wiped away the tears in her eyes. It was obvious to Minah that Sojin still loved Chansik.

          “That ‘Minah’ is not me,” Minah reassured. “Chansik asked me out a month ago. And I’m the only Minah he should know that’s his age, besides Kwon Mina, but she moved just before the school year started. I think he was lying when he told you that he was cheating on you and using you.” The girl paused and looked down at her drink, gently tapping her palms against the sides of her glass that was now half empty out of nerves. “It seems like he was just hurting you back because you hurt him by wanting to break up.” It felt like there was a lump in Minah’s throat now and she wondered if Sojin was feeling the same way. Tears wanted to form in her eyes, but she didn’t want to because now she knew exactly what was going on. “And he obviously knew I really, really liked him so he used my name and then got me to go out with him so he could try to hurt you by…” Minah had to pause another time to swallow that feeling in and push the urge of crying “using me to be his girlfriend so it didn’t look like he was lying. And then he tried to hurt you more by bringing me by where you worked. But I think he still has very strong feelings for you otherwise he wouldn’t be still so heartbroken.”

          Sojin stayed silent, even after Minah was done speaking. Minah was too nervous to look at the woman across from her. Those tears that she was trying so hard to keep back would most likely start breaking free and she didn’t want that. It continued to be silent between them. Sojin must be thinking about what Minah told her. Minah didn’t know what to do know.

          “I’m sorry.”

          Minah’s head snapped up when she heard those words from Sojin, her eyes wide. The urge to cry was now gone from surprise. She was confused. She didn’t think the woman would apologize. She didn’t even know what she was apologizing for. “W-what?”

          “It’s my fault that you’re going through this. I’m very sorry Minah.”

          “Oh, it’s okay, I guess.” Minah didn’t know what else to say to Sojin’s apology. “I guess it’s also partly my fault because I didn’t do anything even when I felt like something was wrong until now. And I never thought that Chansik would do something like this. He never seemed to have a mean bone in his body.”

          “I don’t think he does. Maybe he didn’t know how to cope with the whole situation so he said mean things because I hurt him so much. Being hurt by a loved one can make a person do things they normally wouldn’t do.” Sojin had placed her elbow on the table and she rested her cheek on her palm. With her other hand, she flicked the straw in her cup around. Minah didn’t say anything.

          Minah’s hands moved to her lap and she played with the fabric of her school’s uniform’s skirt. She watched in silence as the older woman pushed around the ice cubes in her cup with the straw. A decision formed in her mind of what she was going to tell Sojin.

          “Um, I think it would be good for the both of you if you two got back together.”

          “Excuse me?” Minah knew what she said was unbelievable but she also knew that they both really loved each other and they were hurting too much not being together.

          “I don’t think Chansik was bothered by any negative comments your relationship brought up. I think he was happy enough being with you and that happiness blocked out anything else. And if you weren’t bothered by them, then I don’t see the problem why you two can’t be together. You should just be happy to be together and not care about what people think.” It hurt Minah to say all of it, but she didn’t want Sojin and Chansik to continue to hurt each other. She wanted to cry again, but she put forcefully put on her brave mask. “Chansik and I are supposed to study together tomorrow but I can bring him here to meet with you and you two can make up.”

          “You’re very mature, Minah.” Sojin smiled at Minah. “Not a lot of girls your age would do what you’re doing. Thank you.”

♦♦♦

          Minah was playing with her phone as she waited for Chansik to come meet her at the café. She was already sitting at a booth and she was trying to rehearse what she was going to say. Sojin had met up with her not too long ago and the older woman was hiding at the booth behind Minah so Chansik wouldn’t see her. A text message popped up on her phone. It was from Chansik and he was telling her he would be there in less than a minute. And not a minute later, she could see his figure enter through the door. She took a deep breath and stood up slightly waving him over. He saw her and gave her a smile as he headed over towards her.

          “What made you want to come here first?” He asked when they both sat down. He took the drink she had preordered for him.

 Minah wasn’t sure if she should cut to the chase or stall the whole thing. She didn’t want to keep Sojin waiting but it was so hard to bring up. She didn’t even tell Chansik she wanted to talk. She just told him that she wanted to go to this café before ‘they went to study.’ (And obviously after all of this, they weren’t going to have that study date.) She didn’t even tell Hyejeong about any of this yesterday or this morning.

          “W-well, I met someone yesterday.”

          “And that’s why you ditched me?” He laughed, sipping on his drink. “Who?”

          She was going to admit who, but Sojin bet her to it by getting out of her booth and standing next to theirs. Minah could see the shock on Chansik’s face as he looked to her. “Me. Chansik, let’s talk.”

          “Pardon me, then,” Minah mumbled at got up, to give them privacy. She sat down at another booth nearby, not knowing what to do now.

          Minah had sat at the booth for a good half hour thinking before finally leaving. She gave the back of Chansik’s head one last glace before leaving the café after paying for hers and Chansik’s drink that she had ordered. And as a gust of wind blew over her, she wished her love for Chansik goodbye.

♦♦♦

x B1A4 – Minah x Gongchan x Sojin