Yongsun sat a desk in a corner of the university’s library, glowering at the blank pages of the composition book laid open in front of her. It had been nearly a month since she started attending classes again, and it was harder for her to get into the rhythm of things than she had thought. She raised her hand, placing her pencil to paper, before letting it drop again. “Dammit.”

Hearing a chuckle overhead, she glanced up to see Hyejin standing over her. “Having trouble, unnie?” At Yongsun’s answer - if a growl could be considered an answer - she laughed again. Settling down in the chair opposite Yongsun, she took out her phone and checked the time. “What if we went for some lunch now, unnie? Get some air, clear your head…” With a wicked grin she nudged Yongsun. “See your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Yongsun denied hotly, her voice increasing in decibels. Nearby students glared at her, and a librarian passing by frowned disapprovingly. Apologizing with a sheepish look on her face, Yongsun turned to glare at Hyejin who only shrugged.

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” she whispered and wiggled her eyebrows at Yongsun. “Come on, let’s go!”

Hurriedly stuffing her things into her bag, Yongsun jogged after Hyejin who had somehow already made her way out of the library and into open air. “Where are we going?” she asked, mimicking Hyejin’s quick and confident stride. 

Hyejin turned to look at her and tilted her head. “Didn’t I already say?” She pointed in front of her. To Yongsun’s surprise, they had already reached the corner of campus where the creperie was located. Hyejin continued to walk forward, but was suddenly pulled back. She turned her bemused gaze onto Yongsun, and then to the woman the latter had her eyes fixated on.

Byulyi stood in the cramped, little stall, an apron tied around her waist and a spatula in one hand. As she chatted with a couple of customers, with some skilful flicks of her wrist she folded and packed the crepes cooking on the hot plates and handed them over to the waiting girls. To Yongsun’s chagrin, the girls did not leave after receiving their food. Instead, they continued to hover around the stall, tittering and flirting with Byulyi.

Yongsun put on her sternest frown and stormed towards the stall. Amused, Hyejin trailed behind her at a safe distance. “Hey!” she shouted, immediately attracting everyone’s attention. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Byulyi’s face lit up like fairy lights on a Christmas tree. “Yongsun-unnie!” She waved her spatula at the approaching woman, not at all sensing the wrath building up in her. 

Yongsun rounded on the two confused, giggling girls. “If you’ve got your food, please clear off. You’re distracting her and stopping our other customers from getting their lunch.” She said it in such a snappish tone that the girls just stood and gaped at her. “Well?” she demanded. Taking the hint, one of them hastily waved goodbye to Byulyi before dragging her friend away.

More than prepared to tell Byulyi off for flirting with the students, Yongsun turned to her. But how could one be angry with Byulyi’s disarming grin? With a sigh, Yongsun raised her hand in an awkward wave. Chuckling, Byulyi leaned over the service counter to high-five her instead. “Hold on for a while, will you? Yonghee-unnie should be coming back soon, she had to go and get more ingredients.” 

“Hey, Byulyi-unnie. How’s the stall going?” Hyejin appeared next to Yongsun after she was sure Yongsun wouldn’t going to scold anyone else.

“Oh, hey, Hyejin.” Byulyi handed freshly-cooked crepes over to her waiting customers. “As you can see, it’s been pretty busy lately, even more than normal. I don’t even know how or why it happened, but it feels like almost everyone’s coming here for food.”

Hyejin hummed in response, but it didn’t require any detective work to figure out why the stall had started to attract more customers. Just from this lunch line she estimated over half of them were females, whether student, university staff, or even random passers-by. Almost all of them, she noted, were staring at Byulyi with obvious interest, and at Yongsun with varying levels of confusion and wariness.

Amused, Hyejin raised her voice. “Are you going to be free soon, unnie? Let’s call Wheein over, then you and your girlfriend-” many customers looked over, alarmed at the word, “-can go on a double lunch date with us.”

Yongsun poked her in the side. “She’s not my girlfriend!” she hissed.

“Really?” Yonghee asked from behind her. Whirling around, Yongsun came face-to-face with her laughing sister. “It’s been a month, Yong. Get your act together.” Chuckling at her sister when she spluttered in response, Yonghee turned to Byulyi and nodded at her approvingly. “Go get lunch with them, Byul. You’ve been the best.”

Hyejin could already see sulky expressions beginning to form and struggled to hold back a laugh. Meanwhile, Byulyi leaped out of the stall, grinning from ear to ear, her apron already carelessly discarded in a corner. “Thanks, Yonghee-unnie! I’ll be back before you know it!” Hooking one arm around Yongsun’s waist, she nudged Hyejin with the other arm. “Come on, let’s go find Wheein.”

They found Wheein in one of the university’s many art studios, and watched as she sketched, stared at her drawing, erased it, and then sketched again. Byulyi finally decided to end her suffering after she repeated the ritual ten more times. She grabbed Wheein’s hand and gently placed the pencil on the table. “Time to eat, Wheein.”

Wheein startled and goggled at her, then shook her head like a puppy coming out of water. “Woah, unnie, when did you come?” She leaned back and saw Yongsun and Hyejin leaning against the doorframe. “When did all of you come? What time is it?”

Patting her roommate’s head affectionately, Byulyi helped her pack up. “We’ve been standing here for about half an hour, Wheein. Hyejin suggested a double lunch date.” Uttering a quick ‘oh’ in understanding, Wheein gathered up all her drawing materials with one swoop of her arms and dumped them all into what Byulyi thought was a bag too big for her, as it probably outweighed her by several pounds and if laid flat was at least a head taller than its owner. But Wheein had argued that it was the only bag that could hold all her things and not break, and that was the end of that.

Now the pint-sized Jung Wheein easily lifted the bag with one hand and skipped towards the door. “Hyejin!” She cooed the name and rose on her toes to give the pleased woman a quick peck on the lips. Being the whipped woman Hyejin was, she didn’t think twice before taking the excessively large bag from Wheein and slinging it over her shoulder. At that, Byulyi poked Wheein’s shoulder and gave her a thumbs-up. You chose a good lady, the thumbs up said, and Wheein couldn’t agree more.

*

“How’s the stall doing?” Wheein asked over a large bowl of ramen. The quartet were sitting together, squeezed into a small booth in one of her favourite university cafes, and slurping up Japanese-style ramen from bowls at least twice the size of their faces. 

Byulyi flashed her a thumbs-up. “Pretty good so far, honestly. I was telling Hyejin that the number of customers suddenly increased a lot when I started working there, so…”

“Yeah, probably because all the girls on and off-campus have a crush on you. What’s spending a bit more lunch money and waiting in a long queue if they get to see you and experience your greasiness?” Wheein winked at Hyejin, cracking up with laughter.

Sitting directly opposite her, Yongsun shot Wheein a withering glare, causing the younger girl to shrink in her seat. “She’s free to chat up whoever,” Wheein mumbled into her noodles. “Not like you two are dating or anything.”

Yongsun’s brow creased even further. Sensing imminent danger, Byulyi reached over and squeezed her thigh as a warning. “But even with the influx of customers, I don’t think it’s possible to raise two million bucks. Two million, dammit, in two months. We bumped the price up a little, and over a month we’ve only still made about ten thousand. Basically,” Byulyi sighs, “we’re screwed.”

Yongsun took Byulyi’s hand in hers. “No we’re not, Byul-ah. To be very honest with you, I don’t think Yonghee-unnie and I could have ever earned that much money over a month if it was just the two of us. You’ve helped us so much even without us asking for it, so don’t beat yourself up.”

“Yeah, and besides,” Wheein added, “two million dollars in two months is basically impossible, unless you’re some kind of crazy rich mogul, which none of us are.” She sent Byulyi an amused grin. “Unless you are, and I didn’t know it.”

As expected, Byulyi relaxed and laughed. “I wish. But what else can we do? Getting a loan from the bank, or fund-raising, or…”

“Leave that to me and Yonghee-unnie,” Yongsun assured her. “We’ll figure something out. Yonghee-unnie will figure something out, like the last time. So don’t worry about it.”

*

Despite the confidence that she displayed earlier, Yongsun was actually quite anxious. She didn’t know what would happen to her and Yonghee if they really couldn’t pay back all that money. In her stress-induced haze, she wandered around campus, accidentally taking a roundabout route back to the library.

“Yongsun!” She failed to hear her name being called until it was shouted directly into her ear. “Yongsun-sshi!”

She jolted in surprise and whirled around, and jumped again when she realised that Eric was standing right in front of her with a somber look on his face. “Yongsun-sshi, can we talk?”

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(Thank you for being patient, everyone. The next chapter is being written as you read this, so if everything goes well i.e. the internet doesn't keep cutting off all the damn time here, another update can be expected in a few days. Thank you once again.)
(Oh, and Happy Holidays!)