On Nayeon’s insistence, Tzuyu ended up waiting by Sana’s locker at the end of the school day to apparently “ the lady home, because every lady should have an home”, even though the tall girl had pointed out that one, she was stereotyping an entire gender, and two, despite her height, she was sort of timid and of absolutely no use as protection.

“It’s a courtesy. It’s totally standard,” the eomma informed Tzuyu, completely ignoring her complaints. “When you’re courting someone, you should definitely walk them home. This shows good manners!”

“Oh, okay.” the maknae’s head bobbed up and down in understanding. “Wait, what?”

“Plus, you’re neighbors!”

Nayeon had even delegated to Momo the task of tailing Tzuyu so the latter wouldn’t decide to ditch Sana (seriously, what kind of person did Nayeon think Tzuyu was?!). Momo had taken the liberty of interpreting “tailing” as “clinging excessively to the target”, and was seriously standing (clinging?) in the way of Tzuyu’s social life. If, you know, she had one. Ahem.

Anyway, that was why Tzuyu was waiting awkwardly by Sana’s locker at the end of the day, fiddling with her fingers, avoiding eye contact with any passerbys, and trying to pry Momo off of her arm. Don’t even ask how Nayeon got Sana’s locker number. Eommas have their ways.

“Ummm, Tzuyu,” Chaeyoung, Tzuyu’s smol rapper friend and classmate who happened not to mind racoons, whispered to the latter. Or, at least, whispered as best she could with the noisy chattering of other students in the hallway and their tremendous height difference. “Why are we standing next to...” she looked up and down at Sana’s locker, which would have been an ordinary locker if it wasn’t adorned with flowers (both real and fake), cringeworthy messages on horrendously pink sticky notes, and a folded letter addressed to “SANA♡” all taped to its poor front. Tzuyu made note of the little heart with disdain, reminded of how popular the older girl was. “...next to Sana sunbae’s locker at the end of the day, when we could we going home and enjoying our peaceful lives?”

“You mean, going home and poring miserably over huge piles of homework,” Tzuyu corrected. “And yeah, sorry for making you suffer through this. I promised Nayeon unnie to accompany Sana home because we’re neighbors and unnie thought that she might need protecting or something (I’m the wrong person to ask, seriously), so we’re waiting here. I didn’t consider the fact that you would get stampeded over.”

“Well, you should’ve,” Chaeyoung complained. “I’m literally dying here.” She frowned. “Wait, are you making fun of my height again?”

“I’m not, Chaeng!” Tzuyu gave her best puppy dog pout, and Chaeyoung immediately softened. “I was just going to ask you if Sana was coming, but then I remembered that you wouldn’t be able to see her anyway.”

“Hey! For your information-” the shorter girl was forced to stand on her tippy-toes and crane her neck at an uncomfortable angle, trying extremely hard to prevent herself from toppling over.  “I think...I think I actually see Sana? Is that Sana? Blonde hair, brown eyes, sort of tall, really pretty friend named Mina, some boy following her around everywhere?”

Tzuyu was surprised and slightly amused because Chaeyoung actually could see Sana coming, but she furrowed her brows at Chaeyoung’s description. “Some boy?”

“Ummm, well, he’s just keeping pace with her and chatting. I’m pretty sure he’s a sunbae? We would probably know him if he was in our grade.”

“He looks familiar,” remarked Tzuyu, squinting and attempting to recall where she had seen that (she hated to admit it, especially when he was standing next to Sana) cute face and that mop of brown hair before. Sizing him up, she realized that she was nearly as tall as he was and immediately felt better about herself.

“Oh, that’s Youngjae,” Moguri suddenly interjected from her spot wrapped around the Yoda’s numb arm, startling the latter. “He’s a tenth grader, and he’s a surprisingly nice guy. He’s also in your math class. Seriously, Chewy, where have you been for the past two months? Why do I know your classmates better than you do?”

“Nayeon unnie must be rubbing off on you.”

“Oh, the sunbaes are coming over now,” Chaeyoung cut them off excitedly, hopping up and down. “This’ll be a fun conversation!” she said, with a tone that implied that she was not sarcastic at all.

The three of them simultaneously turned their heads to greet Sana as she skipped over happily (how was she always happy? Did she have some sort of magical happy drug that Tzuyu could borrow?)

“Hi everyone!” the blonde chirped, immediately inducing a waving response from Tzuyu, Momo, and Chaeyoung. “Have you been waiting at my locker this whole time? I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have taken so long if I had known.” She pouted slightly in apology.

“It’s okay,” whispered Tzuyu, almost too quietly for anyone to hear.

“Awww, thanks, Tzuyu!” Sana beamed, causing Tzuyu to flush in embarrassment and the onlookers to stifle their snorts. “Time for introductions! This is my best friend Mina!” she gestured to the ballet dancer, who gave a small but graceful bow as greeting.

“Ohmygosh sunbae is so coooooool,” Chaeyoung squeaked into Tzuyu’s ear. Or her neck, but close enough.

“This is Youngjae, my first new friend at this school. Say hi to Momo, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu!” Youngjae smiled sincerely and waved cutely with both his hands in front of him. Tzuyu hated sincere guys with cute waves because there was no excuse to beat them up if needed. At least he was just a friend.

“Hello! I’m Choi Youngjae, a sophmore in this school. It’s nice to meet you all!” he introduced himself very nicely, not put off at all by the fact that he was the only boy in the group and that Tzuyu was trying very hard not to drill holes through his head with her stare. Actually, he even smiled at Tzuyu as well! Smiled! Wow, that boy had some serious nerve.

“Oh, wow! Momo, I’ve heard of you! You’re a really great dancer, right?” Youngjae grinned, immediately comfortable. “Chaeyoung’s really good at rapping. You’re so much better than my friends Mark and Jackson,” he joked, and the dwarf (who was also familiar with the two older members of the male performance team) couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “And Tzuyu! I’ve seen you dance before, and you look really cool. Is it true that you’ve been moved up a grade in your academic classes?” he asked curiously.

“Yes, it’s true,” Tzuyu said confusedly. Why was he being nice? He wasn’t supposed to be nice.

“Oh, that explains why you’re in my math class! Everyone says that you get good scores on tests.”

“That can’t be right.” Tzuyu furrowed her brows again, only slightly determined to prove him wrong. “Math is my weakest subject.”

“Really?!” Youngjae’s eyes seemed to sparkle, and anybody but Yoda could see that he was a very likable person. “Cool, then you must be even smarter than I thought! As expected of the school’s freshman crus-MMMMMMFFF!!”

“He’s a real fan of the three of you,” Sana explained cheerfully, wrapping her arm around his neck and muffling her friend-who-happens-to-be-a-boy’s words with her hand. The blonde leaned over and whispered into his ear. “She’s fourteen years old, please don’t tell her that she has seniors drooling over her because it’s really creepy and  would probably ruin her day.”

“Mmmmmff,” Youngjae replied.

“Anyway,” Sana continued, as if she wasn’t busy suffocating someone to death. “Why is everyone waiting by my locker when you could be going home?”

Tzuyu gave a little hop, trying to remember how she had worded her explanation before. “Oh, um, Na-” She froze abruptly mid sentence, because Nayeon specifically instructed her not to mention that it was her idea.

“You?” Sana prompted after a short pause.

“I,” Tzuyu said embarrassedly. “I, um, thought that, um, we could head home together? Since we’re neighbors, and, um, y’know...it would be cool? We could be friends? Uh...get to know each other! Um...”

“Yeah, sure, that sounds cool! You guys are okay with this, right?” the blonde readily agreed, turning to her friends for confirmation. “Awesome! Let me just get my stuff from my locker,” she told an excited Tzuyu when a smiling Youngjae and a smirking Mina nodded. “Wait for me here. And Mina, wipe that judgemental look off your face!”

…………

Tzuyu walking Sana home was mostly comprised of more awkwardness between the two. It was so awkward that, as Momo would say, you could almost taste the awkwardness. (Then again, according to Momo, you could taste almost anything if you really tried.) The former was embarrassed because she could not think of anything to say to break the embarrassing silence, while the latter, simply content with just Tzuyu’s presence, was unaware of her predicament. She was smiling (what else was new) and kicking a small pebble along the path to the subway station like a small child.

“So, um,” the taller girl tried to start a conversation, even if it meant sacrificing moments secretly stealing glances at Sana’s smile. “Have you been liking this school so far? It’s a pretty big deal, moving from one country to another.”

“Yeah, it’s been really fun for me so far! I love Korean food, the schoolwork is understandable, and there seem to be a bunch of cool people living around here. Like you,” Sana beamed, and Tzuyu had to grin back at her, forgetting her shyness for a moment.

“Well, I’m glad you like it here. If you ever need any help with anything, I’m only a few feet away in our apartment as your friendly next-door neighbor willing to be of assistance.” The Taiwanese girl had been worried that she had spoken too clumsily, but Sana’s smile somehow widened even more at her words.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Thanks, Tzuyu. I’m warning you now that I’m really needy.” She wiggled her eyebrows playfully, and Tzuyu (abandoning all pretenses of acting cool or elegant in front of Sana) snorted.

As the pair entered the subway station, Tzuyu briefly wondered if she would regret making that promise later. (She could already hear Nayeon and Momo’s laughter ringing in her ears.) But at the sight of Sana bouncing up and down and waving their tickets excitedly in her face, she decided that it would be worth it helping a new friend out, whatever it took. Right?

A/N: Guys, I'm so sorry for not updating please don't kill me.

It's actually summer for me right not, but I have a ton of summer homework, and it's only going to get worse after school starts. I totally asked for it by signing up for honors, but still...math is torture. I'm not a very mathy person.

It's another short chapter. I'm sorry, I seem to be incapable of writing long ones. Maybe it's just the mood of the story? I dunno. I fixed the formatting on all of the previous chapters; I'm sorry for that too huhuhu

I hope you guys liked this update! Thanks you so much for reading, subscribing, upvoting, and especially commenting. I like reading the comments. :)