Sunny was proven right when Mr. Kang their math teacher called Taeyeon out earlier in class and asked her to at least pretend she’s listening.

“Ha ha ha, Mr. Kang was funny, and your tomato head made another appearance! Ha ha ha”

“Quit it.” The two friends were sitting at the stairs in front of their school building, talking while waiting for Sunny’s ride home, her friend have long stopped insisting to give Taeyeon a lift. They live in opposite directions and Taeyeon likes taking the bus.

“Tiffany likes you too. Maybe even in the same way you like her.”

“You can’t seriously believe that.”

“Oh come on, give yourself more credit Kim Taeyeon. She pulled the moves on you girl.”

“Seriously? Unbelievable. What moves? Giving me jelly and vitamin drinks doesn’t really relate to anything concrete about her having romantic feelings for me Soonkyu. Have you been listening to yourself?”

“It’s Sunny! Look Kim Taeyeon, name one person in our class, heck even the entire school who knows you have particular fondness for jelly? She even got you the cola flavoured ones! I can’t name one person. I thought I was the only one who knew that, and I only know that because we practically spent all our lives together, because I’m your best friend. For her to have known, either she is particularly observant about these sort of things or she has been paying attention to you which brings me back to my initial point that maybe she likes you too.”

“Seriously?”

“Please start saying something else, you’ve repeated that word more than twice now.”

“She was just being friendly is what I think.”

“Why are you so opposed to the idea that she likes you too? You’re supposed to be on your grinning-like-an-idiot mode now.”

“Not opposed to it, what you’re saying just sounds too good to be true. No matter how I wish it to be true I can’t let myself readily believe that she likes me too. And I’d appreciate it if you stop at grinning next time, there’s really no need to add ‘like an idiot’”

“I have an idea Taeng!”

“Quit shouting!”

“Listen, why don’t we test her?”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“You have to start being friendly with her, we can observe her better if you two get close.”

“Did you just ignore me?”

“I mean it’s easy to look for that kind of signs right?”

“You are ignoring me.”

“Now we know what to look for and even if we don’t we can easily google it.”

“…”

“Humor me okay? You got nothing to lose anyway.”

“Say I go with you on this. How exactly are we going to go about it?”

“Easy, you gotta toughen up and talk to her, get closer, and we’ll observe.”

“I’m not sure I get that.”

“You grow a backbone and start trying to get closer to her yeah? We’ll have a lot of opportunities to observe her reactions and from that conclude if she feels the same way, if she likes you too.”

“Isn’t that like deceiving her?”

“How so? We are not scamming her Taeng. We’re just trying to get the best scouting report from the field before we send you to battle. Basically, we are trying our best to protect your heart.”

“I get that. Worst case scenario we conclude that she doesn’t like me too, and if I’m not willing to risk things further, I can just end up her friend. That’d be a win in itself to be honest.”

“Check our chat. See you tomorrow Taengoo!” Sunny didn’t wait for her reply and proceeded to the gate as soon as she spotted one of her family’s cars. Taeyeon grabbed her phone and opened the chat she shares with Sunny.

12 SIGNS A GIRL LIKES YOU [credit to the websites Lee Sunny was linked to from Google]

1. She will attempt to make eye contact often, even if she averts her gaze every time you return it
2. She touches/plays with her hair when talking to you
3. She touches and bites her lips when talking to you
4. She punches your arms while laughing
5. She asks if you’re dating someone
6. She calls you a player or a heartbreaker
7. She doesn’t flinch or pull back when you get too close
8. She’s recommending date spots
9. She touches you
10. She mentions when she’s free
11. She doesn’t mention guys in front of you
12. When she introduces you to her friends, they seem oddly familiar with who you are

 “When did she even…” Taeyeon read and reread the list that Sunny sent her. She can’t deny the things her friend listed actually make sense. She realized Sunny’s right, she needs to at least get a little closer to Tiffany to have the opportunity to look for the signs the list mentioned. She sighed deeply, stood up and started walking to her bus stop.

“I should ask Sunny to make me a ‘How to Grow a Backbone” list.”