For everyone that participated in my little Guess-What-Yuri-is contest, thanks for amusing me. Winner will be announced at the end of the chapter.

Unfortunately, I’ve been having some hardware issues (and I don’t know when I’ll be able to afford/resolve them) so this episode’s gifs are…minimal. Hope you don’t mind.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Staring at the back of the other girl’s head, Jessica gulps as she nervously clenches her clammy palms together. Not sure where to begin she takes a deep breath before eventually feebly asking, “y-you’re not mad, are you?”

The other girl remains turned from Jessica and stays quiet as she continues staring at the wall for a beat. After a quick sigh, she flatly replies, “I am.”

Jessica gulps. She fidgets in her spot, wishing that the other girl would at least turn around and look at her. “I-I’m sorry.”

When her roommate does finally turn around, Jessica tenses. Though Yuri’s bright and outgoing for the most part, Jessica has seen the strange darkness hiding in the back of her roommate’s eyes, so she fiddles with her fingers, not quite sure what to expect when Yuri meets her gaze.

“I’m a little mad…but I get why you went through my stuff.”

Jessica breathes a slow sigh of relief. “I-I was just worried.”

Yuri nods. “I get it. And don’t worry, there won’t be a second time, okay?”

“Okay.”

Slinging her duffle bag onto her shoulder, Yuri makes her way over to her roommate to give the shorter girl a pat on the head. “Thanks for looking out for me though. It’s nice having people that care.” She offers Jessica a slight smirk before she suddenly purses her lips into a straight line. “But, seriously, don’t go through my again.”

“I wo-won’t!” Jessica stammers, well aware of the way the quidditch captain towers over her. “I promise!”

“Okay, cool,” Yuri says, giving the girl’s hair a ruffle, chuckling over Jessica’s cute, nervous stammering. “I’ll see you later, roomie.”

“H-have a good practice!”

Once the room doors slide closed, Jessica blows out a long sigh, hating that her school year so far has just been a summary of fighting and making up with girls left, right and center. Tired, she flops back onto her bed, whining to herself as she does. It’s not only her bizarre roommate, but there’s definitely someone else that’s occupying her thoughts.

Flat on her back, Jessica lies in bed, wide, wide, awake when she can’t stop thinking about it. Having her flirty roommate is already a hell of an experience, but Jessica’s never been kissed by another girl before. She swallows tightness in , but it does nothing to dull the memory of Taeyeon’s lips, ghosting over hers.

“You’re really nice,” Taeyeon whispers.

Glad to see the girl finally calming down, Jessica gladly takes a tender hold of Taeyeon’s head and guides her down against her shoulder. They sit in a comfortable silence for a bit till the wolf-girl starts to move and Jessica simply freezes when Taeyeon sits up abnormally close—so close that she ends up brushing their lips together before pressing forward, soft and gentle.

The kiss only last for a stunned beat and, once Jessica’s whole face feels far too hot, she quickly snaps away. Dumbfounded on how to respond, she feels stupid when the only response she can muster for the Gryffindor girl is a cough, followed by a raspy whisper of, “i-it’s really late. We should get back to our dorms.”

“Sica—?”

“Come on. Let’s go.”

Thinking about last night makes Jessica blush. In fact, she’s pretty sure she feels her entire body flush out of embarrassment when she thinks about how Taeyeon had so boldly confessed to her without words. “Oh my God,” Jessica sighs into her palms, burying her head as far back into the pillow as she can get. “What is happening?”

***

***

Since the…incident, Jessica’s been wondering where her potions partner has been for the past week. Granted, Taeyeon must have been exhausted and resting after fighting with her counterpart for so many days, but still, Jessica pouts when she hasn’t seen the girl in so long.

And just as she thinks of her friend, crying and curled up in the darkness of that musky dungeon, Jessica spots a pale figure in the distance with long raven hair. After she squints briefly, it doesn’t take her long to determine that the female in the Gryffindor sweater is, indeed, Kim Taeyeon.

Before she even gets a chance to call out for her, she watches the wolf-girl glance over and meet her gaze.

Jessica opens to shout, “Hey, Taeyeon,” but as soon as their eyes meet, Jessica watches the Gryffindor girl immediately turn into a different direction and hastily vacate the corridors.

“What the hell?” she mutters to herself, shocked by the reaction.

Part of her tells her to chase after Taeyeon, but the other half of her brain keeps her feet still, telling her not to harass the girl, who might not want to see her at all. Dejected, Jessica turns in the opposite direction and decides that maybe today should just be a drama free day—despite her knack for sniffing out trouble at every turn.

***

“Sica-unnie!”

Jessica looks up from her scroll in hand and spots the young Ravenclaw girl walking over. “Hi, Seohyun. Haven’t seen you for a while,” she greets, smiling softly.

“Midterms, you know?” Seohyun sighs, taking a seat at the table in the courtyard. “Are you done yours yet?”

“Had my last one this morning. I don’t think it went well,” she groans, knowing that her mind hasn’t been focused properly for the past few weeks. “I guess as long as I pass my classes, I won’t get expelled or—HOLY fu—!” Jessica shuts herself up when she catches herself yelling and suddenly pointing at the couple making out beneath the maple tree by the pond. She snatches her rude finger out of the air and covers , physically stopping an “OH MY GOD” from being vocalized.

Surprised, the younger girl glances over her own shoulder to see Sunny sitting there and face with Hyomin, her girlfriend.

“Ohmygod—who is that?” Jessica hisses in a whisper.

Seohyun turns back around from the grotesque sight and gives her senior a light chuckle. “That’s Park Hyomin. She’s in my year—well—was in my year, but then I jumped a grade eventually.”

“I…I didn’t even know Sunny was…gay.”

Mindful of the way the older girl has lowered her voice, Seohyun does the same. “Unnie, what did you expect from all girls boarding school?” she laughs.

“That doesn’t make everybody gay though, right?” Jessica laughs a little more hollowly, distracted by the memory of Taeyeon kissing her.

“I doubt everyone’s ‘gay’, but I’m sure people get lonely and fall in love, all the same,” Seohyun replies.

“Right,” Jessica mutters, finding her own feelings a little easier to swallow without labels.

It’s nothing abnormal here, right? There’s Sunny and Hyomin; Yuri and Tiffany; and Jessica’s even seen those notaries juniors, Moonbyul and Solar, who are always all over each other at the library, dining hall, and Hufflepuff common room—Jessica had once even had to squeak an “excuse me” while trying to squeeze pass their make-out brawl in the corridors.

“Unnie?”

Jessica snaps out of her own rambling thoughts. “Sorry?”

“Are you okay? Are they making you that uncomfortable?”

“Huh? Oh, no! That’s not it. I was just thinking about…something.” Someone.

“Do you want to talk?”

Eyes flickering up, she looks up at the younger girl and finds some comfort in her young, but wise-beyond-her-years eyes. Jessica swallows the tightness in before saying, “you can’t tell anyone though, okay?”

Seohyun nods, curious and concerned about Jessica’s worry

“Ta-taeyeon, she uh…she kind of confessed to me the other night. I think.”

The younger girl is often stoic in expression, so Jessica’s surprised to see the warm, broad smile that suddenly erupts over Seohyun’s face. “Unnie, do you like her too?”

Jessica can only huff a thin laugh, not quite sure of her answer. “I don’t know,” she confesses, feeling rather confused about the whole ordeal. “I really like her as a friend, but I don’t know about maybe more. Maybe it’s like you said, about people getting lonely here at boarding school, I mean. I’m not really sure how I feel.”

Seohyun tries to sooth Jessica’s evident anxiety with words. “Just because she confessed to you doesn’t make you obligated to return her feelings. If you don’t feel the same way about her, then just be honest. And if you don’t know how you feel, maybe you should take the time to think things over and figure it all out in your head first. Just don’t string her along.”

Amused by her junior’s blunt, but honest words, Jessica can’t help from laughing. “You are weirdly smart and mature for your age.”

Seohyun chuckles. “It’s two years. It’s not that big of a difference,” she whispers extra soft, almost as if she was worried for the Korean hierarchical system’s palm to suddenly spring from the sky and reprimand her.

Curious, Jessica has to ask her junior, “how did someone like you end up with Tiff’s gang? Flanking her when she wants to pick a fight with Taeyeon doesn’t really seem like something you’d do.”

“It’s not really about Taeyeon. It’s about Tiffany,” she plainly responds. “Tiffany-unnie is important to me. She takes good care of me.”

“How? By getting you involved in her feuds?”

“No. Actually, um,” she pauses to glance over her shoulder, and Jessica easily follows her line of sight to Sunny and girlfriend, who are now making sickly eskimo kisses. Turning back to face the older witch, Seohyun resumes saying, “Hyomin and some of her friends used to pick on me.”

“You were bullied?” Jessica asks, surprised by how something like that could happen to someone as unique as Seohyun.

“Yeah. They didn’t like when I got dumped into their group and they really made the effort to give me a hard time. We had to get together in the dorms to work on our project on the weekend and they started taking things too far. They tried to beat me up, but it was bad timing for them when Tiffany showed up.”

“Oh boy…what did Tiff do?”

“I don’t know what she learned in Salem,” Seohyun laughs, “but she had them all pinned to the wall, four feet off the ground, before I even knew what was happening.”

“Christ,” Jessica mutters at her friend’s frightening aggression.

“Tiffany-unnie stood up for me when no one else did, so if you’re wondering why I’ll stand with Tiffany no matter what, that’s why.”

“Even if it means being malicious to someone else?”

Even with the smart, gentle demeanor of the girl, Jessica’s still surprised when Seohyun simply nods and tells her, “yes. I’m protective of people I care about…and Taeyeon’s not exactly as sweet to everyone else as she is to you.”

Jessica bites her tongue when she thinks about all the other Taeyeon is enduring on top of normal school. She manages to muster a plain, “I see,” for her junior.

“Look, I don’t personally have anything against Taeyeon, but I don’t like what problems Tiffany-unnie has with her. But if you like her, I’m not judging you about it.”

Jessica wriggles a bit in her seat, still uncomfortable with whatever drama still boils between these two groups. “Hey. Could you not tell Tiff about Taeyeon? I know you said you got her back and everything, but I just don’t want to—”

“Unnie, you don’t need to worry. I already told you, I’m just protective, not malicious,” Seohyun replies with a soft smile. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Seriously, how are you even real?” Jessica scoffs at the girl’s irritating poised personality. “Thank you though.” She glances over Seohyun’s shoulder and notices that Hyomin has vanished from Sunny’s arms now and the remaining Gryffindor girl is gathering her things and leaving. “Uh, hey, Seohyun, I actually have to go do something. Catch you later?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks for the talk,” Jessica says giving the girl a pursed smile before jogging over to Sunny.

“Sunny?”

“Hey, what’s up?” the Gryffindor girl greets as she balms her chapped lips.

“Could you do me a favor?”

Right by the entrance to the courtyard, Yuri stands there with her lips pressed into a thin line, straining her acute hearing for any more juicy gossip that she can pick up from Jessica. She thinks she hears Sunny squeak words that sound like, “I told you not to go to—are you stupid?!”

Confused, Yuri almost leans into the courtyard entrance to hear a bit better, but she snaps away just as fast when Jessica and Sunny both hastily exit with little warning. She quickly turns from them, surprised when neither of the two girls notice her on the way out.

Yuri hears Sunny squeak out a, “she did what?!” until the two of them vanish out of the pagoda towards the dormitory complexes. 

Blessing her somewhat sharp hearing, she shakes her head, wondering how her sweet roommate can possibly be getting into lured into someone’s vulgar charm like Kim Taeyeon. However, Yuri smirks when she thinks she might have pegged out the Gryffindor girl’s weak spot. 

 ***

“Have you been avoiding me?”

Taeyeon almost has a heart attack as Jessica steps into her bedroom.

“H-how did y-you?—”

From the entrance of the dorm room, Sunny pokes her head in from behind Jessica and tells her roommate, “you have a lot of explaining to do, missy, and I want every detail later!”

Taeyeon instantly turns red as Sunny slams the doors closed, leaving her alone with…Jessica. Oh god, Taeyeon turns so damn red as this confrontation is happening far too soon for her liking.  

“Have you been avoiding me?” Jessica asks again, looking a little dejected.

“I-I’m sorry,” Taeyeon stutters, feeling fragments of guilt trickle into her conscience. “It’s just—I’m just really…embarrassed.”

“Because you kissed me?”

Oh lord. Taeyeon blushes even darker when Jessica’s blunt as ever. “I-I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to make things awkward between us,” she mumbles.

Still huffy and annoyed, Jessica wants answers. “Do you like me?”

Taeyeon’s face burns over the girl’s straight forwardness. “Um,” she gulps, “y-yeah, I think so.”

“Like…like me, like me?”

Taeyeon buries her beet-red face into her palms, muffling her reply of, “if you asking me if I have a crush on you, then…y-yeah.”

Jessica shouldn’t smugly grin when she sees her friend embarrassed like this, but she can’t help that the confession is inflating her ego. Cautious, she decides to take a seat next to her friend on the mattress, mindful of keeping a courteous gap between them. “You could’ve told me.”

“I didn’t even know,” she admits with a light laugh. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. You were just there and—” Taeyeon feels her stomach burst into flutters when she thinks about the way that Jessica was tenderly holding her and str