Notes: [1] two-shots to kill my writer’s block and also more of an experimental writing than anything really jfjkgfgklg I want to try my hands on a more light-hearted uni/college au. The second half is still really rough so ill probably upload it in a few days, a week tops. Enjoy! :))

“Listen, I literally just broke it off with Seungwoo two days ago. A fling this soon wouldn’t look good on my name.”

Over the blasting trashy remix of some dubstep from the ‘05 criss-crossed with The Chainsmokers’ song everyone’s grown tired of, her ears could still catch the irritation in Jaehwan’s harsh-whisper, “I got you an invite. So you better come outta this party smashed and,” Jaehwan pauses, eyes scanning the rowdy dance floor to catch the word, and Sejeong follows her gaze to the firm of a guy hugged in leather, “and arms linked with a, uhh, significant other.”

“Jaehwannie, meeting my future significant other in a crass freshmen welcome party with male pole dancers means they’re not worth the keep. Not the best ‘how mommy meets daddy’ story for the kids.” Still, she lets Jaehwan whisk her away to some place away from the dance floor, somewhere dimmer. Jaehwan greets some familiar faces along the way, long “hiiiii”s for the ladettes and concise, but pheromone-laced “hi” for the lads with the looks. Jaehwan has always been the clichéd gay best friend of her own.

Since middle school.

So putting up with him this time around too should be a walk in the park. Unfortunately, Sejeong has downed quite a few polite drinks herself and she could feel the influence creeping in. Handicapped, the walk turns into a crawl.

Jaehwan parks full-stop at a crowd of three guys lounging around the bar, then he pulls a stool for himself and one for her, movement all practiced. Sejeong plays along.

The lights here are much dimmer than the dance floor’s. The harpooning beams of every flashy color possible is traded off for a much diminished hue of blue and purple. The blue makes it easier for the drowsier eyes and the purple sets all the flirty liners on the table. A mix of the two and you get the spot-on mood for impromptu reckless .

She knows where Jaehwan is going with this.

The blonde (Jaehwan recently dyed his hair a flashy shade of gold) chats the three guys. One of them pulls an adieu for the dance floor. One of them has his eyes twinkling for Jaehwan. The other one looks mostly disinterested. From this quick observation alone, Sejeong already knows the meathead that’s going to be her share for the night.

She’s still too sober to laugh at the jokes scattered around the flirty exchanges.

The topic is something about interests in general. Meathead #1 said something about mastering the act of making lamb skewers and Sejeong’s sure there’s supposed to be an entendre on it somewhere, but before she could give it a much-needed analysis, Meathead #2 is already onto her. “Any past-time ya fancy?”

“I like…” she feels Jaehwan’s gaze on her, “reading. And watching movies I’ve watched before.”

“That’s girly. I like it.” Meathead #2 his lower lip, probably thinking the lighting would curtain it in purple. “Pick a drink, I’ll get you one or two depending on how things go.”

Jaehwan throws her a look as he stands back to his full-height followed by Meathead #1. Sejeong’s eyes are trained on them even when they both leave as a pair – no personal space left and hands all over each other. If Succubi were to be proven real, she’s sure Jaehwan’s among the Top 10 scorers.

“So? The drink?”

Sejeong fakes a mulling hum, then dissolves it with a smile, “Thanks, but I’ll pass, need my morning to be easy. Got things to do.”

“I wanna buy you something. Food? Girls your size could use some meat.” He leans in closer and Sejeong pictures him as a shark when his grin leans a little bit to the left. “I’m a pretty meaty guy if I gotta say so myself.”

“I think I’m suddenly vegan,” Sejeong averts her eyes to the new patron of the bar, two stools away behind Meathead #2. The smirk isn’t pleasing to her eyes and she’s in need of… something else to focus on.

“Oh.” Instead of pulling back from the decline, he leans even closer, too close for Sejeong’s comfort. “Then you won’t mind this eggplant.”

Sejeong feels her eye twitches. “Sooooo about the drink offer,”

“Offer’s closed, mate.” Meathead #2 must’ve been quite the snake, for Sejeong’s taken aback by the arm that’s already slithered around her thigh. “Mate. Haha. I say we mate, ya know. Bow wow.”

The New Patron Person behind Meathead #2 rustles from their seat. Sejeong tries to look past Meathead #2’s hunk shoulders to signal a subtle help, but the lighting isn’t doing her any favor. Taking a detour to her past party-invites for a trick to get rid of a nosy horndog, she’s hit with a realization that there isn’t a lot of parties she’s ever been in. She’s never the party person. She had a boyfriend during her freshman year, so there was no urgent need for dance floor flings, in addition to her part-time of private teaching middle schools to keep further financial issues away. She was busy keeping up her honor student status while aiming for a scholarship back in high school, so she was too booked to fool around. She had a good friend that disliked parties like this with an intense passion back in middle school, and she made sure to never let her astray.

Before she could stage a fainting act, Meathead #2 was tapped in the shoulder by The New Patron Person, the latter’s face obscured by the clunky lighting, a hand holding a glass of martini.

And in a voice that instills something in Sejeong, The New Patron Person—she, says, “Hey, knock it off. You’re being a bother.”

Meathead #2 unlatches his attention off Sejeong and takes a quick roundup of the girl from head to toe. Sejeong can’t really see her from her spot due to a mix of the lighting and the fact that Jaehwan has her Myopia glasses confiscated for the night.

He raises from his seat to level with the girl. “What’s your problem?”

“Y, you’re the problem. You’re clearly being a bugger to her, Eyesore.”

Sejeong swallows a chuckle down . Of course she didn’t miss the way her savior stuttered on her hitter. Either way, it was sort of cute.

Meathead #2 clearly doesn’t fancy the warning, as he slacks an arm around Sejeong’s shoulders and announces in his gruff tenor, “My b, we’re leaving. Not gonna play a spitting game at ya.” And he turns to Sejeong with a grin spooled with bad news. “C’mon Sejeong, we’re moving to somewhere snazzier. Rid of this basketcase so we can have some fun.”

In a rather unpredictable turn of event, the girl goes up to their side and splashes a fresh Martini up Meathead #2’s face while spewing out another warning. Sejeong winces not at the act, but the ugly fight that’s going to transpire from it.

And she’s right.

“What the hell do you want from me?” His snarl’s laced with venom and he has a fistful of the girl’s collar twisted upwards. “Say that you want the girl and go.”

“I want you to,” she snarls back, Sejeong readies a fist just in case, “I w, want you to get your slimy hands off her, you, uh, ing sewer rat.”

Ineffective insult aside, it is somehow enough to set Meathead #2 off as he flings an arm back ready to launch a clean hit on his target. But before she’s made his sandbag, Sejeong latches a grip onto his arm and musters her strength to twist his tensed muscle and earns herself a pained groan-roar. Sejeong seizes the chance and pulls his vulnerable self aside and he crashes onto one of the stool before falling onto the floor and hitting his head against the counter.

That marks her first ever bar fight. Hopefully also her last.

She grabs her savior with her and power-walks to the dance floor, ignoring the few witnesses of their smack-down, past the inebriated bodies prowling under the colorful flashes and the bewitching dubstep beats.

Making sure they’re just two specks among the dancing drunks, Sejeong whips around to the other girl and hooks a palm flat on the slope of the girl’s neck, “Play along and pretend we’re too drunk to not dance—“

“I am sorry I was supposed to be the one doing the saving but oh god I just can’t deal with jocks. Especially hunk ones, like, they look like they eat science major nutjobs for breakfast and drink their juiced brain matters for dinner.” The girl lays her apology and the extras all one in one breath, in a voice that tickles the temporal lobe of Sejeong’s brain. The voice feels familiar somehow.

Sejeong blinks once, twice, thrice, and is only brought back when she feels someone’s rubbing up against hers. “Oh, um, it’s okay. I don’t think I could find the chance to slam him down without your intervention, so yeah, thanks, um…”

Sejeong lets her sentence runs along since she hasn’t gotten the girl’s name, but now that they’re standing in some place with a decent lighting, she’s finally able to catch the girl’s features – the tired eyes, the sharp nose, the lower lip she idly brushes with a thumb. The cotton fluff of strawberry blonde shade she has for her hair that quietly invites Sejeong to burrow her face in there.

Turns out there’s no need for her to ask for the girl’s name. She could articulate all the syllables perfectly—Kim. Na. Young. Kim Nayoung. Na. Young. Nayoung—the middle school buddy she’s lost years ago, and it’s funny because of all circumstances possible in their lifetime, they’re reunited among the clingy smell of alcohol and lit cigs. And it’s funnier when she realizes that Nayoung isn’t really the Nayoung from years before. Middle School Nayoung wouldn’t be caught dead lounging around in a party. This Nayoung has lost her round-rimmed glasses, her freckles, and her childish pigtails. This Nayoung has traded her knitted vest for a bomber.

“Hey,” she says, after eons of silence.

“Hey,” Sejeong replies, equally bummed. Welcome back, she actually wanted to say.

“Which prince charming brought you home?”

Sejeong isn’t even ten steps outside her room and she’s already attacked by Hakyeon’s question. She laughs and it comes off forced because she isn’t even smiling, and Hakyeon looks up from the quick toast breakfast he’s been concocting.

“A… friend. She’s nice, we clicked well in the party.”

A misstep and now Hakyeon’s probing deeper. “She?”

“Yeah. She’s a she. A nice She. I wasn’t looking for a hook-up, gee,” Sejeong tacks a light giggle along and slips into a seat, eyes the two plates, and feels the half-truth nibbling her from within. She’s withholding an information from her brother, probably the only man she trusts with all her life, and even though the bits and pieces concerning Nayoung is nothing groundbreaking nor life-threatening, it’s still something. “The weather—“

“You ed a she?”

Sejeong’s halfway into biting her toast, so she replies by knitting her eyebrows in a comical wrath.

Hakyeon’s frown isn’t of disapproval. Hopefully. “You’re into shes now?”

“No—I mean, I don’t know, but that’s not the point.” At the way Hakyeon’s face bunches defiantly at his trade-marked lips, Sejeong relents, feeling all the words sloshing past her lips. “Nayoung is back. I saw her in the party—somehow, which is bumming cause she would never go to parties and years before she was such a house slug it took me hours long of pep talk to drag her outside and last night she was also in a bomber and not some lame clothing from the 70’s. And—“

Hakyeon lifts his glass and downs a gulp of water and puts the glass back all in a calm poise. “Good? You were really chummy with her back then. You two used to watch movies she rentaled together in the living room. Invite her over for a dinner for old time’s sake?”

“Oh my god, no,” her laugh is only half-genuine as she abandons her breakfast and sinks into her seat, “not happening any time soon. I didn’t even ask her numbers. I don’t know which ‘dept she is in. So that’s that. The weather—“

“Jaehwan kidnapped you to a party where people mate and you ended up reuniting with your childhood bud instead? That’s pretty novel. People would kill for that kind of drama.”

“Yup,” and it’s simply a yup until Sejeong confesses, “except that she’s not. She was, god, she was, until we had a fallout ‘cause I put her on a blast. ‘Cause my dumb middle school self said all those horrible things. All because she said she liked me that way.”

It was the usual friendship-turned-ugly kind of story, but fast forward five years later, Sejeong’s voice still wavers through the recount. Regret sweeps over Sejeong and suddenly she feels fifteen all over, except now Nayoung’s back instead of leaving, and Nayoung’s sneaking back into her life styled in something 21^st century instead of her grandma’s hand-me-downs.

Last night she was re-introduced to Nayoung’s signature giggle. It remains mostly the same even through the years, only matured by a tinge.

Still, Nayoung is still the very same Nayoung she hurt years ago, and she knows the free ride she got last night was far from their last encounter.

On Wednesdays, she and Jaehwan go on an outing where they try out moderately-priced eating spots for hours of gossips, gay tell-tales (from Jaehwan’s side), philosophical life woes (from Sejeong’s side), and mostly mindless chatter. Sometimes they’re not a duo. Her friends tend to fill them in with the university’s happenings. Jaehwan’s friends are all loud chums with (faux) designer clothes. She doesn’t have any tutoring schedule on Wednesday, so she’s freed for the rest of the day. Either way, Wednesday’s afternoon is usually an uneventful eventful time for Sejeong.

This time around, the start is rockier. Jaehwan says, voice apologetic as his shoulders slacken after a thorough checking on his jeans’ pockets and his bag, “I forgot my wallet. I think I left it in my last class. We gotta dash back to my ‘dept and get it before it’s gone for good.”

“Sure. We’re not that far off your building anyway.”

Jaehwan, voice slightly shaken by his power-walk, then says in the most scrupulous tone, “Plus, we might run into your Nayoungie.”

‘Nayoungie’ was the nick of a girl with unruly fashion sense, bad hair styling, and grandma glasses. 2017 Nayoung has probably grown out of the moniker.

The thought of running into Nayoung brings a frown to her face, for some reason. “I don’t think she’s doing engineering. I mean – really, Nayoung?”

“We have plenty of girls doing engineering, I mean, it’s still a Men’s World here but, you know, it’s engineering,” Jaehwan pauses to catch a breath, “we nest nerds.”

She squints an eye as a straying strand of hair threatens to poke her eyeball clean. The wind’s rough on her hair. “Okay, but like, other science-y majors exist. What are the odds?”

The moment they step into the building, they’re greeted with a rather busy hallway, with people coming in and out of the building in waves. Jaehwan ushers the two of them to the class by cutting corners and shouldering a few bumps. At least until they’re three classes away.

The hallway is densely packed and the hallway is busied by an a capella, backed by rhymed claps, then Sejeong sees a group of people lined up – the very singers. Some of them are carrying a box with the top shaved off which some goers put pennies into.

Jaehwan, rubbing his shoulder after bumping into another body, sheds a light into the situation, “Ohhhh yeah, the civil engineering peeps are doing this yesterday too. They’re fundraising for a project—hey, excuse me, don’t push especially not your canned coffee. This shirt cost me a fortune.”

The acapella itself isn’t too bad, lacking instruments aside, they’re singing a mashup of the “in” pop songs in harmonies. Proof that they have people with musical flair in the major.

When Sejeong bumps into something, it’s not quite a person. Or rather, another one of those fundraising box, carried by a klutz that happens to get into her way. Before Sejeong could coin a quick apology, she looks up to,

Strawberry blonde. Tired eyes. Sharp nose. Giacometti-sculpted jawline…

What are the odds?

“Oh, hey, um,” Sejeong sputters, a hand autopilots itself to the top of her head, trying to comb the mess the spring wind made, “fancy seeing you here… Nayoung.”

“Oh, yeah… we’re doing a fundraising project,”

“Fundraising.” Sejeong parrots as her eyes wander far past Nayoung, to Jaehwan’s retreating figure as he ducks into the classroom. Now that she’s left to dry, she might as well make the coincidental reunion a smooth run-in. “Tell me about it so I know the pennies are in good hands?”

“Well,” Nayoung starts, the Nayoung Grin creeps onto her face, (and Sejeong pretends she isn’t affected), “we have this big project in July where we do donations, giveaways, open concert, there’s gonna be a showroom for our works too… the usual, really. Oh! We’re gonna give packs of food, rations, and secondhand clothes to the poor. That’s the whole point of the project really. We’ve been putting on shows here and there to raise the fund so if you like it maybe you can drop a gold or two?” Nayoung shakes the box a little and it makes dull thumps of coins kissing one another and shuffling of paper money.

“Cool! Good luck on the project. Gotta support everything humanitarian.” Sejeong slides in some paper money into the jagged hole. Then, she sees Jaehwan approaching them, steps relaxed. His puckered lips suggest that he’s whistling, even, though it sounds muted with the acapella going on the background.

“Anyway, Sejeong, if your friends are interested in donating, whether it’s money or secondhand stuff, just contact me.” Nayoung tilts the box enough for Sejeong to really read the marker scrawls on the front. There’s Nayoung’s number written in blue, the writing sharp and stilted around the edges. Same old Nayoung.

There’s Nayoung’s number.

Sejeong laughs her most forced one yet (of the day) as she takes out her phone with the intention to snap a pic of Nayoung’s contact information, keeping in mind to keep the pic starred among the favorites. “Suuuure. I’ll take a pic. I have, ummm, some friends who would be so keen on humanitarian stuff like this,”

And that’s when Jaehwan pipes in. “God, what friend? Mimi is a tightwad—“

“Alright, thanks, now I can rope my friends into donating,” and with this supreme knowledge I’ll be able to search for your Facebook page too. Perfect. “But you know kids these days are all about those socialite social media, it’s the era of information and all and by that I mean can I also have your Instagram? For humanitarian purposes, I swear.”

“Okay, but peep this. I think they’re dating.”

Jaehwan scoots closer, squints at the screen shoved onto his face, then goes back to his dragon fruit smoothie all in the span of five seconds.

Sejeong sighs, retracts her arm, then goes back to Nayoung’s Instagram profile, going back to the display of thumbnails after she’s done over-analyzing a photo of a girl giving Nayoung a friendly, platonic peck on the cheek.

Internally cringing at her own downplaying, she corrects herself.

A photo of a very hot girl (even a straightie would be hard-pressed to deny it) with enrapturing eyes giving Nayoung a questionable kiss on the cheek with her arms slung questionably around Nayoung’s neck. Another detail to add is the carton birthday hat on Nayoung’s head that tipped too far to the edge and its too-loose string. The other girl also had hers on.

“Sejeong sweetie,” Jaehwan starts slow, tone mock-motherly, “your illiterate gotta give the caption a read. You see the word ‘birthday’, ‘surprise’, ‘party’, and ‘Hana’ there? Yes, no petnames. They’re friends. She’s thrown a small surprise birthday party and there’s nothing scandalous about that.”

“Yes. Okay. Now, onto the scientific explanation for the kiss.”

Jaehwan is a dedicated bioengineering student who particularly excels at two things: relationships and scandalous relationships. Sejeong knows he’s the go-to gay bestfriend slash personal counselor to crack the code.

But today, neither of them are in their patience zone. “Sejeong sweetie, who hurt you?”

“I stormed through two tests today and I think I flunked one. Please be gentle on me.”

Jaehwan opens and promptly closes his mouth into a pursed thin line and snatches the phone in her hand, reopens the photo, and thumbs the screen right on Nayoung’s pecked cheek. “Kisses aren’t promise rings, god. Friends kiss. I gave Wonshik some mouth action but do you see either of us walking down the aisle for the other? No. We put the Plato in Platonic and you don’t have to be Socrates to nail that one down. These ladies might just be lady-friends.”

“Some mouth action? You blew him!”

“We were drunk…”

Sejeong reaches for her phone, but Jaehwan’s grip on it tightens instead. His eyes sweep the screen with his brow curiously arched. When his grip loosen and Sejeong regains reign over her own phone, Jaehwan’s pensive hum demands an explanation. She tries with a, “What are you thinking about?”

“On second thought, you’re right. I think they’re a thing. One way to find out… hit her up and reel the ‘yes’ outta her yourself.”

Sejeong’s knee jerk reaction is a derisive laugh that sounds way too cynical for a Kim Sejeong, “Casually sliding into her DMs asking if she’s no longer available for promise rings?”

“Well, yeah, go ahead. Dunno why you’re so dead-set on knowing whether she has a girl or not though, I mean, what are you, her mom?”

“We were friends!” A second later, the reasoning sounds reaching at best. The past tense was certainly there for a reason – she regained contact with Nayoung some days ago and she’s yet to really hit her up with even the most harmless “hi” (or “hiii” if she’s feeling peachier).

Her overblown curiosity on the subject is plain unfair in nature considering that she was the one who rejected Nayoung years ago.

She doesn’t let her mind revisit the happenings years back and stares at Jaehwan in the eyes, “Jaehwan?”

“Mmmmm?”

“Did any of us really press like on the photo?”

“Uhh. Might be my thumb.”

“Oh my god you ing dimwit that photo was posted on APRIL 2016 and we’re at APRIL 2017!” Feeling a migraine coming her way, she sets her phone down and buries her face in a hand. “, Jaehwan,”

“What?”

“On the scale of one to ten how screwed do you think I am?”

Jaehwan blinks. “It stops at ten?”

Sejeong really slid into Nayoung’s DMs and she had never been so thankful of her communicating skills. The conversation wasn’t really awkward, Nayoung’s typos were ice-breaker they needed, and Sejeong’s plotty secured a Saturday date in her department’s cafeteria after remembering rumors on how the engineering department’s eatery were laden with Asian boys. Her department’s is tamer in comparison, also quieter.

“Sooo,” Sejeong unchews her straw, recharged with enough chocolate smoothie to tap a toe onto the topic, “you changed a whole lot since the last time I saw you up close.”

Nayoung’s chopsticks idly pick on her noodles, eyes down on the table as her voice drips of sheepishness. “I can’t stay looking like a soggy noodle forever…”

“I mean, you were definitely not the class’ fashionista back then since you never really cared that much about your appearance anyway, but you weren’t that bad. Unpolished. I’ll go with it.”

“Lies,” Nayoung laughs.

It sounds a little bit too forced on Sejeong’s ears.

“Your glo-up is certainly inspiring though. That color looks good on you too, nice choice on hair dye.” She does a dive-save. “Out of boredom, I rolled through your photos on Instagram.”

Nayoung looks up from her late-lunch almost immediately. Sejeong really clocked on the topic she’s been meaning to bring up, apparently. “I saw. I got the notif so I added you.”

Of course she got a notif. “Yeah. I was so bored in class I didn’t notice I hit April last year.” Sejeong lies through her teeth. “She’s really pretty. The girl in the photo I accidentally liked, I mean.”

“Boredom, I can relate.” Nayoung’s looks downcast. “I sorta wish I take up something I actually like instead of something I thought I needed.”

It’s amazing how she never looks on edge enough for people to notice even when she’s conjuring the most ridiculous lies.

Or maybe Nayoung just doesn’t want to talk about it, but she doubts Nayoung is that intuitive.

A waiter alights by their table carrying Nayoung’s peculiar order, the monthly special jumbo chocolate shake that’s been promoted as the weekly favorite drink twice in a row. Sejeong had a taste of it back when Eunwoo ordered and remember rating it an A- for a university cafeteria menu, which translates to a B among drinks in general. Rather cheap price aside, the size makes it taxing to order solo, so it’s perfect for great value dates.

Nayoung thanks the waiter and while she sets the two straws she requested (two?), she asks her, “Why educational English lit?”

“I find education majors challenging. You deal with people and guide them a step forward to where they want to be. I part-time tutoring kids for some pocket money, so I’m plenty sure now that teaching is a perfect fit for me.”

“You tutor? Middle-school kids? High-school?”

“I’ve been tutoring both. My old textbooks are my saviors, thank god I only doodled at the edges back then.”

Nayoung hums. “Can you take up one more student under your wing?”

“I think so cause I only have one at the moment. The other recently finished high school. Shameless plugging, she got into the university she wanted too.” Sejeong adds a discreet wink to look more convincing.

“I think I’m gonna ‘rec you to a needing soul. Her sis is actually a brilliant student, but she’s aiming for a top uni, so she’s been a little jittery. An extra ‘oomph’ would push her to confidence.”

Sejeong takes the chance to snipe back. “Okay, sure. On the subject of majors though, why civil engineering? You’ve always been interested in music.”

Something passes over Nayoung’s complexion. Something she couldn’t quite catch. Nayoung, for a split second, a cynical ghost possessed Nayoung’s upturned lips. It was quickly snuffed out by a short string of laughter, strung together with a quiet, “No, I don’t think majors like applied music would suit me,” and a quieter, “as you told me years ago,” then a much louder, “finish this with me please?”

One of the straws is turned to her direction. The humongous glass is set in the middle of their two persons table.

She regrets ever coining the drink as a couple drink.

Taking a nerve-wrecking sip, she feels so juvenile to ever feel things towards shared drinks, especially that of between lady-friends. Lady-were-friends.

“Anyway,” Nayoung fishes her phone out of her pocket, her hand slips, she almost drops it, but somehow she manages to tow it back before her phone makes a contact with the floor (some things never change, Sejeong thinks, not even with that perfect hue of hair dye) and Nayoung fiddles with said phone, “I’m telling her that you’re okay with taking her sis. She’s probably online at the moment so she will message you any time soon.”

“Cool!” Sejeong manages to get out before going back to chew on her straw. Her screen lights up almost three seconds later. Anticipation rises. Her eyes zoom into the name of the sender and from afar, the heavy clanking of a waiter dropping a tray serves as the most befitting sound effect.

Shin Hana: good afternoon; this is the right kim sejeong who’s recommended as an excellent tutor i assume?

Notes: [2] file your complaints on the fail attempt at comedy in the comment section below orz