The winds howled like a hungry beast on the prowl.
I stood with an umbrella outside the house next door with a box of rice cakes and rolls of toilet paper, shivering in the pouring rain.

“We got new neighbors so we better welcome them right!” my mum said, pushing the neatly wrapped box into my hands.

“BUT IT’S RAINING!”

“We already forgot to do it yesterday and if more days past, we just look bad.”

“Wait, when did they move in again?”

My mother knocked me on the forehead.
“I don’t know if I should even be proud of you. How could I be happy about your grades when you are so ridiculously clueless about everything else! JUST GO!”

I sighed as I waited for a response from the intercom by the gate. This is one fancy house but had been empty for quite some years. Apparently the last tenant had a freak accident or something at a zoo involving penguins

…honestly, I don’t even know. But whoever moved in must had gotten the place for a wonderfully low price because they spent all the extra money on renovating it to look even more like a palace.

Suddenly, the gate just opened.
That’s creepy.

A tiny voice cracked from the intercom.

“…it’s an automatic gate. Please come in…”

Okay, totally not creepy.

I continued into this mysterious mansion and opened the unlocked door.

“Um…I brought rice cakes…?”

Suddenly, with a flash of lightening, the lights went out before I even caught a glimpse of what I would expect to be a splendid interior design.

A scream echoed throughout the hallways.

F**K

At this point, I didn’t even care about the fallen rice cakes or flying rolls of toilet paper.
I AM GETTING OUT OF THIS HELL HOLE!

Suddenly, thin fingers wrapped around my shoulder.
I turned around to see a figure with long hair and toilet paper twirled around its body.

As my jaws dropped, it spoke.

I tried to shrug it off pretending it was all cool as I closed the fuse box.
Lights were back on in the mansion and the girl had cleaned up the mess in the hallway, making it seem like nothing had happened.

“It’s okay. Was more worried about you…well, the scream..”

“I was just surprised it suddenly went dark that’s all,” she muttered, walking a bit closer to me, “Thanks for helping me fix this…my parents are out.”

Now that I can see clearly, this girl was the same girl I ran past on the day I got Sana her breakfast.
And she’s very pretty, in this somewhat awkward way.

I patted her on her shoulder.

“It’s okay now. Sorry about the rice cakes. And toilet paper. I’ll bring new ones over tomorrow.”

“There’s another new girl in school,” Jimin whispered into Yerin’s ear.

“Wow, so many this year. It’s starting to get ridiculous,” Yerin mused.

“I don’t mind,” Bambam said, popping up behind their desks and making the two girls jump, “You guys are horrible at being secretive.”

“I don’t mind either…” interjected Momo, who pranced out to the hallway.

“Ow.”

Momo rubbed her eyes as she found herself sitting on top of someone.

“Watch where you are going…” grunted Sana, trying to push her off.

“Do I have to…plus I’m sure the klutzy one was you..” shrugged Momo, who appeared to have no intention to get off.

Suddenly, a gaze pierced through this awkward moment.

“OH MY GOD!”

Momo jumped off Sana at the speed of light and stood stunned in the hallway.

The girl continued to just stare at her silently.

Momo walked to her dance academy from school, in her hip-hop gear and ready to go. She was pouring chips into like any other day as an elegant figure appeared on the large TV screen in the city center.

“Myoui Mina – the Future of Japan’s Ballet World. Only 15 years old!”

“Wow…” Momo thought as she walked pass the screen, “This girl is around the same age as me. Maybe I can be like her one day too…just maybe not ballet.”

She continued on her way and groaned at the taste in , “This would be so much better with ketchup…”

Suddenly, a bottle of Heinz Ketchup appeared before her.

A stoic looking girl with a ballet bun and tracksuit on held it at an arm’s length.
The same girl on the TV Screen.

“Take it,” she said quietly, “I keep three with me at all times anyways.”

2 Years Ago

“I made it to the national dancing championship, Heinz!” 

Momo laughed on the phone to the girl she became friends with after the chance meeting going to dance academies in opposite directions. The ketchup brand became the name she would tease the talented ballerina with.

“Good job,” Mina replied with her usual calm and soothing voice.

“We are going to meet someday, on the world stage!” Momo continued as she excitedly grabbed a bottle of ketchup to add to her snacks.

“Actually…I’ve stopped doing ballet.”

The bottle of Heinz Ketchup fell out of Momo’s hands.

“Like a few months ago.”

Momo was not sure if she was getting a headache from seeing the blood like ketchup on her fingers or from hearing about this sudden, dreadful news.

“WHYYYYYY…” 

Momo cried as Mina considered putting the phone under her pillow so that her eardrums would live, “WHY DID YOU DO THIS?!”

“I just…didn’t feel like it anymore.”

“How can you not FEEL like DANCING? ”

“Not everyone is like you, Momo-chan.”

“…don't call me Momo-chan….DON’T CALL ME EVER AGAIN!”

Momo didn’t know why those words came out of .
But at that moment, they did.
And it felt right.
She was the chips to her ketchup, the modern dance to her classical….they were best friends because of dancing.
How can she cut this sacred bond of theirs?

“Gomen nasai….Momo..”

Was it because Mina stopped dancing?
Or was it because Mina never bothered to tell her when it was happening?
Which one the “sorry” was for, Momo never knew.
She never wanted to know.
She was happy when her family decided to open a jokbal restaurant in Seoul a few months later so she can stop seeing the news of Mina’s sudden end to her ballet career on TV or hear the Japanese words of apology “Gomen nasai” and remember Mina’s last words.

She stopped adding ketchup to her chips.
She stopped eating ketchup completely. 
If necessary she started using mayo on her food. Even on jokbal.
But sometimes she noticed herself saying she needed some for her chips.

She didn’t know why.

“I thought you don’t want anymore ketchup in your life.”

She sidestepped past the confused Sana and headed towards the staffroom.