Friday.

Jae still thinks it’s his best idea yet, but the expression on Jamie’s face only spells out bloody murder. In big bold red letters. Next to her feet is a plastic toy hammer, a weapon of mass destruction in the right hands. Possibly the only thing that will tether her to her sanity for the next thirty minutes or so.

“Explain to me again,” I begin, taking in a deep, slow breath, “how this is supposed to attract potential fresh babies to our team.”

Jae turns to me, exasperated—but not nearly exasperated enough—from having to repeat his spiel for the last hour or so since coming out to the quad. He steps forward, beatific smile on his face, and spreads his arms wide in complete and utter surrender to the powers of the universe. “My dear Kitty Kat—“

“I have a name, Park Jaehyung—“

“Irrelevant. Kitty Kat, my Kitty Kat, what you send out to the universe is what you get in return.” He lifts his face to catch the sun. “We’re sending out good vibes. Good vibrations for everybody.”

“Are you high? Or drunk? Dude, you gotta be something.”

Definitely something. Who in his right mind would come out to the middle of the quad for Orientation Week dressed in a vomit-green stegosaurus onesie? Park Jaehyung, apparently, considered it normal and ideal. And if we’re to follow that vein of thought, the rest of us aren’t any better off if we’re willingly lining up to publicly humiliate ourselves all for the sake of solidarity. It could be worse, I tell myself. Really, there are far worse things. Like war. And famine. And the global climate crisis.

“We’re all in this together,” Jae says. For a moment, I’m half-expecting him to break out in song and dance. It’s happened before. “Don’t even pretend you’re not into this just a little bit.”

“Why can’t he just come out in his hoodie and play his guitar?” I mutter darkly under my breath. Now that image would most definitely attract a crowd. A crowd of girls, perhaps at first, but that’s better than the strategic avoidance I foresee in our immediate future.

“That wouldn't be Jae, now would it?” Namjoon joins me behind the booth. It’s really just a table filled with fliers from last year, application forms, and a laptop playing The Best Of After School Sweg footage from the past two years. Random footage of the crew’s ridiculous antics flashed across the screen: Jae inside a box, a drunk Jackson delivering said box, Jamie making faces at the camera, Namjoon accidentally breaking things. The title is a misnomer. It should be The Worst Of. We’d play music, but the day team was already broadcasting over the quad’s PA system. They have it easy. People wanted to be on the morning team.

I shake my head at the ridiculous yellow onesie Namjoon is wearing. He looks like an egg yolk. On the half shell. “What are you even supposed to be?”

“Gudetama,” he answers. As if that’s supposed to mean something to me.

This morning, I woke up to seventeen messages from Jae on the group chat saying we all should (an executive order, not a request) stop by the station for an emergency meeting before heading off to our respective classes. When I got there, Jae was elbow deep in a pile of onesies yelling eureka over and over to himself as if he’s found the cure-all for cancer. Thankfully, Jamie and Jackson were there to distract me from thoughts of a furry . Not that I thought Jae in a furry was hot or anything. I’m not even into that, for the record. Anyway, long story short, Jae’s bright idea was that we should dress up for when we start handing out fliers this afternoon. According to his research, people respond to cute. Cute was our winning strategy.

“I thought you’re supposed to be a chicken?” Jackson asked when Jae handed out our designated costumes. He picked them out specifically, he had said. He put thought into it, he claimed. Jae was already wearing his. Proudly.

“Fun fact,” Jae answered, “Dinosaurs are more closely related to chickens than reptiles.”

“Then why am I a donkey?” Jackson was Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh franchise. “I should be the dinosaur. I’m Tyranno Wang?”

“It’s called poetic irony, my friend,” Jae said flatly. “Learn it well.”

Although the truth is more likely that this was as much as he could find from wherever his source may be. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually owned the onesie he’s wearing. Or all five he brought with him. Maybe he had pyjama parties with his roommates. Dyed each other’s hair and talked about how evil and confusing girls are. Totally plausible.

“Are you sure this is even sanitary?” I asked when he handed me mine. I scowled at it. Because I didn’t think Jae heard the disdain in my voice. “Where’d you even get this?”

“Just put it on,” Jae said, rolling his eyes and dumping the fluffy fabric in my arms. “Could you just deal with it for one afternoon? One afternoon.”

But I didn't want to put it on. I didn’t even want to touch it. I continued to scowl at him best as I can. “You’re doing this to spite me, aren’t you? You secretly hate me, don’t you?”

“You are so melodramatic. Can’t you just support me? Like for once in your life? Just one time. One. Time.”

“No, see saying that invalidates every other thing I’ve done for you.”

“Give me one thing you’ve done for me. Just one. One major life event that you wholeheartedly and willingly, like from the bottom of that deep empty black hole of a heart in your chest, supported.”

“You argue like an old married couple,” Jamie said, then. A smile was evident in her voice, a wry one. Like she were insinuating insinuations that shouldn’t be insinuated at all.

I wanted to strangle something. Like a puke-green stegosaurus.

“Jealous already?” Jae shot back, hands on his chest in mock hurt. Jamie blanched and  stumbled backwards. “Always so jealous. You should be more secure in our relationship, man.”

Jamie visibly cringed and whacked at Jae’s face with the leg of her black dragon onesie. I believe she’s Toothless from that dragon movie. Then Namjoon came in, half-asleep and mumbling incoherencies, and Jae had to repeat his entire contingency all over again.

So that was this morning. Now, Jackson is wagging his tail and getting people to pretend to be interested in radio for like five seconds before they awkwardly escaped. Atomic Bunny Jamie stood next to them, her plastic hammer hovering dangerously close to Jae’s head. As for myself, I’m sitting next to an egg dodging all the judgey looks my way.

Or maybe they were looking at Namjoon.

“I did not sign up for mutually assured destruction when I signed up for this,” I say.

Namjoon just nods. “Better have read the fine print before you signed that application form.”

“Did you?”

He laughs. “Hey, I’m not the one complaining about—“

“Yeah, that’s Rat Monster,” comes Jackson’s voice. He turns to us and gestures at the three girls he’s victimized to stop at our booth. “Hey guys, meet Mina, Sana and Momo. They’re exchange students from Japan!”

“It’s Rap Monster,” Namjoon corrects. Not that it even fazed Jackson one bit. “Rap. R A P.”

“Ignore him,” Jae says, “