Byulyi sat in her room, perfectly silent, and made herself go through the few thoughts that she had formed in her head. Number one, it turned out that Yongsun had a boyfriend. No surprise there, she decided, as Yongsun was a very sweet girl and highly deserving of love. In fact, that man was more than lucky to be able to date such a beautiful woman. Number two, Wheein and Hyejin were there, which meant that they also knew about Yongsun’s boyfriend. Perhaps she was the only one who didn’t know, then. She sighed and ran long fingers through her hair; maybe this explained why, number three, she had felt like someone had lodged a blunt knife in her heart.

So she did what she always did whenever she felt troubled: she dialled Krystal’s number.

“Hi, Byulyi?” The voice on the other end of the line was definitely not of the ice princess that she had called. Amber was a very sweet woman, and very friendly, but Byulyi knew that even that has its limits, especially when one’s girlfriend tends to be extremely popular with guys from all the cohorts in the university. But it’s too late to hang up on this call, and besides, that would be very rude of her, and Byulyi wasn’t a rude person.

“Amber-sunbae, is Krystal there?” Byulyi hoped she wasn’t intruding on anything, well, intimate or personal, unlike the last time she had called. The woman chuckled and said no, her girlfriend was spending some time away from her phone to focus on her project, and she was in charge of answering her calls instead. 

“Like a personal assistant,” Amber joked, and Byulyi could just see her trademark silly grin on her face. “Is there anything urgent going on?” When there was silence for a whole two minutes, Amber hummed, creating a small bout of static that crackled like the fuzz in younger girl’s mind. As it cleared, she let it all out, emphasising on the strange feeling that burned in her chest when she saw Yongsun receiving flowers from a man, the shining smile that she gave to someone else that wasn’t Byulyi, and the fact that she seemed to be the only one who wasn’t given this piece of information.

Amber hummed again as she listened, creating again that infernal fizzing noise of static, and waited until Byulyi finished her explanation. Then she thought about it all for two seconds, and chuckled with glee. “Hey, junior. You want to know what I think?” Byulyi nodded, forgetting that Amber couldn’t see her. “I think you’re jealous.”

“J-jealous? Of who?” The younger woman spluttered in shock at the word. Jealousy was one thing, sure, and she knew that she was almost definitely envious of Wheein, Hyejin, and Yongsun’s tightly-knit friendship, and sometimes wished that she could feel more involved in their escapades. But jealousy?

“Of that dude, of course. You know what jealousy entails, right? You not only want to date a pretty girl, like Krystal—” Byulyi did a little ‘heh’ at that “—but you want a specific person, this Yongsun girl, who to your knowledge is already dating someone else.”

“That’s right,” Krystal’s voice chimed in at that, loud enough to make the girl jerk in surprise. “Look, Byul, being envious and all is normal. We all lack something or other that we want… except me, probably.” She mumbled the last part of her sentence under her breath. “But if you’re jealous, if you want that girl, you’ve got to do two things. One, admit to yourself that you like her, because denial will do you no good. Two, you need to figure out what you want to do. You might confess, and she may reject you since she has a boyfriend, but after that you can, and should, learn to move on. The most important thing is…”

************************************************

The door to Wheein’s apartment opened with a creak, and she peered in, her head turning left and right before she stepped in and left her shoes on the rack by the door. “Unnie?” she called, shuffling into the living room with her socks on. Hyejin followed her in, hands in her pockets and bag slung over her shoulder. “Byulyi-unnie, are you home?” Wheein tried again, and was about to show Hyejin to her room when her flatmate leaned out from around the corner.

“Oh, it’s the romantic duo,” she drawled, hair wrapped up in a towel and body clad in a snow-white bathrobe. “What’s up?”

“Hey unnie, we’re just dropping in to change before leaving.” Byulyi raised her eyebrows in question. “We’re going out with Yongsun-unnie and her friend,” Wheein said, placing heavy emphasis on the last word.

“With that guy? The tall one with the sunflowers?” Byulyi asked with a resigned sigh.

If Hyejin was drinking water, she’d have choked on it and spat it out, so astonished was she at Byulyi’s knowledge of this event. “You k-know about Eric s-sunbae?” Her girlfriend stuttered, eyes wide. “I-I mean, her boyfriend?”

The taller woman frowned and scowled, crossing her arms. “Why not? If you two know about him, why shouldn’t I?” she accused, annoyed about being left out. Unexpectedly, however, she did not show any hint of real anger, and her pout was more of a complaint rather than anything else.

Hyejin thought about it for a while before agreeing, and came up with a spontaneous decision to make the woman even more jealous. “Do you want to join us, Byul-unnie? We can introduce you two to each other, and if you bring someone else along we can make it a triple date!” Wheein rolled her eyes and nudged the curvaceous woman with a well-aimed elbow; the older girl wouldn’t be that silly to fall into her trap.

What she had forgotten, however, was how competitive and childish her friend could be when she wanted something, or in this case, someone. Byulyi stuck her chin in the air and instantly said: “Okay, I’ll call someone to join us, so you can tell Yongsun-unnie that it’s going to be a triple date instead.” And with that, she her heel and walked back into her room to prepare.

Left alone together, Wheein curled her lip in frustration. “Why is unnie so dumb?” She hissed between her teeth, already feeling a headache brewing. Hyejin, on the other hand, was feeling rather proud of herself, and threw an arm around Wheein’s neck and pulled her into a one-armed embrace.

“This is going to be one heck of a fun time!” Hyejin whisper-shouted into the girl’s ear, making her twitch from the ticklish feeling. Making their way to her bedroom, Wheein flopped onto the queen-sized bed in the room and closed her eyes.

“Let’s hope so.”

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hello everyone! i just released the first chapter of A Wandering Lostness, another MMM fic. there was previously a wheebyul tag, but after some consideration i removed it because to be quite honest there was like maybe one small chapter that hinted at it, but after reading it again i don't think that it should represent the whole story as a tag, because there are more ships in that story planned out that may be more prominent. i'll update the tags as i go along, so... we'll see~

anyway, the first chapter of the Alice in Wonderland AU is here: [link] if you're into slightly dark stuff and descriptive writing, i'm trying out both of these styles so please check it out. :D

finally, thank you everyone for sticking with me and the stories that i write. i have so many ideas for many different stories, and i hope that you, dear readers, will support me through my little endeavours~ thank you!

-ash