“Do you know about the pro scrabble player, Mo ?” Chaeyong asks. “She’s become the new rising star as she have won the district and the open competition back to back. Seems like no one can beat her … yet.” She continued.

            “Waiz unzhil I enzher zhe inzher-zhool.” (Wait until I enter the inter-school)  Momo mutters back as she munches on her Kit Kat. “They said she’s pretty and have this mysterious yet elegant aura. They called her ‘The Black Swan’. Cannot wait to finally meet her in the inter-school. Maybe she can beat you Mo.” Chaeyoung says as she places the tiles on the board. The word is ‘loser’. “20 points for me.” Classic Chaeng.

            The members are having their practice as the inter-school is drawing near. Being the club’s president, Momo would frequently held practice after class, which are reading dictionary or magazine, and having scrabble matches occasionally. Who even practice for scrabble ? They just used the competition as an excuse to end class early. Smart thinking right ?

“30 points for ‘fool’. Didn’t see that triple word there ain’t ya. ?” Jeongyeon shouts while the air. “Darn it” Chaeyoung sigh and Momo just stare at the board thinking of the next word.

There are only the three of them as Hana decided to excuse herself from the competition. It is her final year and she wants to focus on her studies so she passes her responsibilities to bring home the glory towards Momo. She knew that Momo would definitely win the inter-school as she have the knack for it. Momo always have this kind of talent where she could find space and tiles to form word that can reward her with many points. This always make Hana jealous of her ability. That was the reason why she never woke Momo up for the competition as she knew that she can’t even compete with her. But there was no reason to be jealous anymore. She chuckles at the thought of her pabo sister who cannot even wake herself up.

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Using the unused tiles that they swap earlier, Momo started to arrange them to form a word ; ‘leprechaun’. Momo successfully hit the triple word and double letter with it “Okay, give me my 120 points. Eh ? Looks like I’ve used all of my tiles on the rack and the there are no more tiles left. I guess the game have ended with me …. “ Momo raises her voice “winning !” she grins as she turns the pouch upside down to reveal that all of the tiles have been used.

“Urgh, not again!” Chaeyoung and Jeongyeon exclaimed and scratch their head clearly frustrated. They started to fish out 15 thousand KRW each and hand it to the smiling Momo. After checking their score sheet, they dump themselves on the sofa and start a conversation, trying to pass the time.

            “Hey, how’s Nayeon ? Have been a long time since our last hangout.” Momo strikes a topic. “She’s fine, just have a little argument about places to eat last night.” Jeongyeon and Nayeon always bicker over petty little things. But they love each other so much that in the end, they will be all over each other again. Nonetheless, Jeongyeon still loves to snap ugly picures of Nayeon and post it on SNS before deleting it. The laugh is worth it.

            “How about Tzuyu ?” “Well she’s fine, a bit busy for the week as she had that archery competition coming. We hang out sometimes.” Momo starts to frown. “Well water is wet, tell me something new, like what do you guys do yesterday, do you guys kiss yet ? Help the lonely soul here please. What’s like to be in looooooooveee ?” Momo does a twirl with it. “Any improvement in your relationship with your hand ?” Jeongyeon cuts in. “Okay, stop it. I don’t want to hear anymore.” Momo replies, clearly unamused. 

            “Say Momo, how do you like to play scrabble ?” the smol bean who is watching the school’s flower garden breaks the silent. It is a good question. How did Momo get herself into all of these ?

9 years ago

            “Mommy, mommy, I don’t want to go !” a 7 years old Hirai Momo cries as she hugs her mother’s leg in an attempt to stop her mother. “No sweetie, we have to visit mommy’s friend. She’s very sick right now.” Her mother tries to console Momo. “Mommy promises to buy her sweet Momoring her favourite jokbal after this.” And with that, all the tears and snot are out the window and Momo put on a very big toothy smile. “Okay mommy, lets goooo~”

            “You can sit over there at the play room. Mommy will be quick.” Little Momo trots toward the play room. The hospital’s play room is very big and noisy. There are many children there ; some of them reading books, some of them running around, and some of them just sits at the corner of the room sleeping with snots coming out of their nose. “Eww” Momo managed to express her disgust. But of all of the many scenes playing around, she can’t help but notice a very peculiar sight. A small girl with shoulder length black hair is sitting alone at a table. She’s fiddling and arranging yellow tiles on a green board. Feeling sorry, Momo walks toward her and joins her at the table.  

            “Hi !” The girl jumps in her seat and look up at Momo as she greets her. She was shocked to see the girl. “I’m Momo, nice to meet you !” she continues with a smile plaster on her face. “I’m M-Mina” The latter shyly speaks. Momo then asks to join her in whatever she is playing and Mina is more than happy to finally have someone to play with her, but she never reveals it as she keeps on with her blank face.

            “What is this ? How do you play with this ?” Momo frowns as she never sees the game before. “Y-you don’t know this ? This is scrabble.” Mina answers but Momo still have the frown sticking at her face. “Can you teach me on how to play Scrabble ?” Momo asks Mina to which she only nods and shows her gummy smile to Momo. Momo eyes sparkle at the smile like it was the most beautiful things that she has ever seen.

            Momo is a fast learner but she’s not fast at calculating, so does Mina which resulting in both of them to decide to ignore the bonuses. Momo spells ‘jokbal’ on the board and she counts the points. “Only 19 ?!” Momo pouts as she realise that she’s gonna lose to Mina. “Even my favourite food cannot help me.” Momo sigh as she looks at the score sheet. Mina’s scores is 104 while Momo’s …. well, she’s not bad for a person who just starts to play. Momo scores a meekly 86. “Nonetheless, I still loves Jokbal though” Momo let out her bright smile again. Mina just chuckles at the sight of Momo when she talks about food.

            “Momoring, mommy’s done.” A gentle voice echoes through the play room. “Looks like I gotta go. See you later Minari~” Little Momo says as she runs towards her mother and holds her hand. Mina looks at the sweet sight upon her and can’t help but to hear the mother and daughter’s conversation. “Mommy, mommy, today I make a new friend. Her name is Mina. I like her very much !” Momo says with a smile. Upon hearing that, Mina can’t help but smile; today, she has finally gotten a friend.

“Hey, why is your cheek so red ?!” a passing by kid asks Mina and she immediately looks down to hide her face.

A/N : Sorry, if it's bland. The points for every words placed during all of the scrabble match is fiction. Im just too lazy to check it up on the internet :P And you can also get points up to 100+ for a word if it hit the bonuses. ^^