“I’m in love…”

An inattentive noise reverberated from Jeongyeon as a form of acknowledgment to the random confession her dopey best friend had just declared.

“That’s nice, Mo,” The shorthaired girl hollowly replied, vigorously shaking the spray-paint can grasped in her right palm with her eyes concentrated intently on her current art project. “But do you think you can stop being in love for just a second to keep a lookout?”

The two troublemakers were discreetly crouched down on one side of a Laferrari luxury car, completely concealed by its large mass as mastermind Jeongyeon ruthlessly coated a chain of black splotches on the once flawless, candy-apple surface.

While obedient, law-abiding students’ scrambled off to attend their studies or rushed to indulge in some good old wholesome fun with their friends after school, Yoo Jeongyeon and Hirai Momo worked overtime to uphold their reigning title as the wild menaces of Yeou high.

Usually, it was Jeongyeon who had the duty of keeping a sharp eye for any buzz kill authority figures while Momo did all the dirty work. This formula worked best for them since Jeongyeon was way too for perfection to execute a prank quick enough to avoid getting busted and Momo possessed the attention span of a flea.

But today was different.

Today, Jeongyeon had a score to settle.

She and the severely underpaid and poorly treated—as he so loved claim—English teacher, Mr. Gong, harbored an unhealthy loathing for each other.

Their epic hatred manifested right at the start of freshmen year when Jeongyeon thought it’d be funny to place fresh dog turds in Gong’s lunch bag. Once he discovered the putrid horrors marinating in his lunch, the pixie-haired girl loudly accused the middle-aged man of being a literal ‘ eater’ for all of homeroom to hear. Completely humiliated, Gong instantly pinpointed Jeongyeon as the culprit and had it out for her ever since.

During today’s class, he kicked her out for offhandedly calling him a dickhead to which he punished the punk by forcing her to repeatedly quote ‘Gong Ji-Chul is not a dickhead’ in front of the entire class.

So, as an appropriate act of revenge, Jeongyeon decided to plaster a giant on the side of the pompous ’s brand new sports car.

Momo was normally bloodthirsty for these kinds of revenge pranks, almost foaming at the mouth in anticipation of any form of payback.

However, in this particular instance, she was entirely too self-absorbed and distracted to care.

“She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on…” The glossy eyed blonde sighed dazedly, completely disregarding Jungyeon’s request and continued to stare off into the nothingness in the distance. “She’s even more beautiful than a butterfly freshly hatched from its cocoon…”

The metallic clanging of the pea-sized bee-bee noisily rattled inside the paint can as Jungyeon prepared to release another wisp of toxins into the empty parking lot’s atmosphere.

“I don’t know, dude,” Jungyeon chuckled heartily at the entranced girl’s pathetic attempt at a metaphor. “Butterflies aren’t exactly beautiful. Haven’t you ever seen one of those things up close? Total nightmare fuel.”

The love-struck blonde craned her neck to face her comedic best friend, an intense look of sincerity gleaming in her brown eyes. “I’m serious, Jung…I’ve never felt this way before…I’m head over heels for this girl.”

Jungyeon, who had been both insensitive and skeptical of her doofus friend’s sudden confession up until this point, ceased her actions to stare back at the latter. The doll-faced girl’s cheeks were flushed a dusky shade of pink, her dilated pupils and slightly agape mouth adding an extra touch to the overall goofiness of her current expression.

“Mm…your face does look stupider than usual,” Jungyeon curiously noted, lightly tapping her index finger against the paint can’s tip despite it being wet with black residue.

Momo released a pained groan.

“My heart has been throbbing uncontrollably ever since I first saw her,” Without warning, Momo spastically reached out for Jungyeon’s free hand and placed it over her chest. “Feel it! Feel my heart beating for her!”

Jungyeon retracted her hand away in disgust before the erratic drumming of Momo’s heart segwayed them further into the realm of weirdness.

“Get ahold of yourself, woman, sheesh,” The shorthaired girl chortled then commenced her graffiti art for a few more squirts before raising to her feet to admire her work.

“What do you think?”

Momo lifted to Jungyeon’s height and shifted her body to view the surprisingly well-drawn obscene male body part splattered all along the flashy foreign vehicle.

“It’s aiight, I guess,” Momo slurred, unimpressed.

Jungyeon’s perfectionist demeanor inflated tenfold at the slightly aloof feedback.

“What’s wrong with it?”

Momo folded her arms over her chest and tilted her head off to the side as if she were attempting to deconstruct the meaning of a Picasso painting.

“It looks just like a .”

Jungyeon scoffed.

“Well, duh. That’s the point.”

“Yeah but it’s too anatomically correct,” Momo countered.

“So?”

“So, it’s not funny.”

Jungyeon restrained the great urge to send a frustrated slap right upside the pea brain blonde’s head.

“I’m not trying to be funny, . I’m trying to ruin that Gong er’s ego.”

“Gimme this,” Momo swiped the half empty spray paint can from Jungyeon and added a few of her own artistic touches to the piece to contort the image into a much more comical shape. “There, now it’s funny.”

Jungyeon backpedaled a few steps and observed the overly exaggerated graffiti , slowly nodding her head in approval. “I see your point. It’s definitely funnier this way.”

Momo beamed proudly, “Would I ever steer you wrong?”

The two vandals were far too entangled in their admiration for the offensive drawing to notice the hulking presence behind them boiling in unbridled rage.

“What in God’s name have you done to my car?!” The extremely livid voice of Mr. Gong boomed, causing both punks to nearly leap out of their sneakers.

“Run!” Jungyeon shoved Momo ahead of her and the two hightailed out of the way before Gong had the chance to snatch them up by their wrinkled uniform blazers.

“Get back here, you criminals!” The distraught teacher shrieked, his face flared tomato red with the bulging veins in his forehead on the brink of bursting.

Risking being captured, Momo spun around for a brief moment to toss the paint can at Gong’s feet while Jungyeon flipped him the bird, laughing hysterically as they fled the parking lot.

The dubious pair sprinted hard down the streets of Seoul, increasing their pace each block they passed even though they knew they weren’t being chased.

The thrill it bestowed upon them was exhilarating.

They hadn’t stopped until they reached the deserted old playground only a few blocks from Momo’s apartment complex. The playground’s equipment was deemed unsafe for children due to its rusted appearance yet the community never bothered to bulldoze the place.

Both girls laughed through bated breaths as they stepped onto the dry mulch, breaking off for solace in their usual spots. Jungyeon plopped herself on one of the unstable swings while Momo spider monkeyed her way on top of the medium sized jungle gym.

As their soft giggles subsided, Jungyeon spoke.

“She, huh?”

The blonde haired girl blushed profusely.

The long and grueling struggle with her uality had been a battle of the ages in Momo’s book. She denied it a numerous amount of times though she knew there was no need. Jungyeon herself had long admitted that she too was a lesbian. However, even with the comfort of knowing this, Momo kept up her ‘I’m one hundred and ten percent straight’ façade.

It took a few bland boyfriends for her to finally realize and accept her fate. The timing of her acceptance seemed most appropriate considering she had already fallen for a girl anyway.

“You already knew …” Momo sheepishly muttered, her slender fingers wandering around the decaying metal of the twisted jungle gym.

Though she was facing her back, Momo knew her best friend was smiling her empathic smile, the one that always made her feel at ease—let her know without words that everything will be ‘A-Okay’.

“It’s still good to finally hear you say it out loud,” Jungyeon laughed while adjusting her weight back and forth on the swing, the tired chains creaking with every motion. “It gets lonely being the only queer.”

“You were never alone, dummy,” Momo sighed peacefully, laying spread eagle on the oddly shaped jungle gym. “You’ve always had me and you always will.”

A pang of emotional warmth tugged at the heartstrings of Jungyeon upon hearing her best friend’s devoted words but she absolutely hated getting mushy with Momo.

The overwhelming awkwardness it brought felt so out of place.

“No need to be disgusting,” Jungyeon snickered with the latter casually waving off Jungyeon’s dismissal for affections.

A tranquil silence washed over them shortly after. Mostly, it was like this, with the two of them mentally leaving the other to sort through their own thoughts.

Jungyeon knew Momo like the back of her hand and vice versa.

She strained her neck to peer up at the blonde who laid at a comfortable angle on the jungle gym, her hand in the air tracing unknown shapes in the soothing spring breeze.

When they first met back in their toddler days, the language barrier between them should have been an issue—Momo being Japanese and Jungyeon, Korea