Hi I'm back from the dead! A quick note first this isn't exactly a new chapter but different turn of what chapter 5 (Siyeon and Kyla's first meeting in the auditorium) could have been. Please read the A/N, important information!

TW: Mentions of homophobia, bullying and fat shaming

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Kyla wandered off the field and around the school. Truth to be told she was looking forward to knowing more people and slightly disappointed that Pledis Girls High didn’t offer rock-climbing as an ASC. She had a natural affinity with sports-related stuff but the few sports-related ASCs like cheer-leading didn’t much interest her. Moving to Korea for her high school education after spending months in America meant that she had to make friends from scratch.

Not that she minded. Kyla doesn’t miss the… teasing she had to put up with back in L.A.  Neither did she mind the peaceful silence that accompanied her today, compared with the laughs and jeers she had to put up with back home. Is weight really such an important factor? Can no one see her for who she is? Why must everything be measured against a scale? And it got worse when they found out about her being- no. This is a fresh start. I can’t afford to let the thoughts stop me from moving on. Kyla took a deep breath and pushed the door to the school auditorium open.

            Instantly, she was hit with the ear-deafening blast of an EDM track and loud cheers from the crowd gathered. Kyla blinked at the sight of what looked like a quarter of the school population and most of the freshmen bobbing their heads along to guy rapping on-stage. Ah, this must be the competition slash audition that she overheard a tall blonde senior talking about. Deciding that she wanted to check out the performances, Kyla quietly made her way towards the back of the crowd.

            Standing quietly by herself in a corner, she caught sight of a petite brunette jamming to the song while still holding onto a microphone and cue cards. As the chorus of the song approached she got increasingly excited and started waving her hands about wildly.

“ALLLLLLLLLLLL MINEEEEEEEEEEEEE! WOOO!”

The beagle screamed and hopped up and down, hair flying into her face and everywhere. Kyla couldn’t help but stifle a laugh watching the brunette, she found her careless antics rather engaging, more so than the performance itself.

“Eunwoo unnie is funny, isn’t she?”

At the low voice coming from right beside her ear Kyla herself jumped and whirled around. She stared at the girl behind her, who was looking back at her with bright eyes that twinkled with mischief. Kyla is no stranger to mischievous eyes that should spell DANGER in big bold words, but there was something in the other’s eyes that strangely compelled Kyla to want to trust her. Something akin to warmth, something that she missed dearly.

“Don’t worry I don’t bite. Okay maybe I do, but I promise I won’t bite you.”

“…”

“Are you here with your friends?”

“…Uh, no?”

“Tsk, tsk, that won’t do, let’s be friends then. I’m Siyeon, what’s your name?”

“…Kyla”

Siyeon flashed another smile at Kyla.

“Great, now that we know each other let’s grab a seat.”

Siyeon grabbed Kyla’s wrist and dragged her towards the seats, away from the burette (was it Eunwoo?), who was slowly making her way towards the stage as the song approached its ending. Kyla stared at girl leading her up the steps and at their linked hands and wondered if she had just made her first friend in years.

            Kyla and Siyeon picked their way carefully through the smatterings of people watching the performances. Along their way to the further roles of seats Siyeon quickly explained the situation to her. By the time they finally settled down at a quieter role near the back, a frown adorned Kyla’s face.

“So… you’re saying whoever wins the competition earns a date with erm…”

“Yewon?”

“Yeah, her. Just like that?”

“Yeah, just like that.”

“Isn’t that kind of like an infringement of her rights? I mean who came up with this anyways?”

At that Siyeon rolled her eyes and her eyes took on a burning gaze,

“I know right? I thought I was the only one who finds this whole thing an issue, I’m glad you do too! I mean, not glad about this, like, whatever you get my point. I wanted to bring it up to the council president but she’s like currently running around trying to make sure the other clubs don’t get even more excited so like no one is stopping this. And there’s no use bringing this up to the club president because that overly hyped-up air-head was apparently the one who brought it up. Like, hello?”

Kyla blinked at the passionate speech, brain taking a short moment to properly translate the rapid-fire Korean.

“… Who decides the winner of a date with Yewon then? And what if the winner is some jerk?”

“The school band JuNuRe aka. Consisting of the club president and crew. Oh, don’t jinx it, the only contenders so far are random people with mediocre skills and are obviously just  out to score a date with a cute girl.”

“Who’s Yewon anyways?”

“She’s a member of the PAC-MAN ACS and close friends with the school band. What with them basically selling her off like a slice of strawberry cake I don’t know whether they’re really friends honestly. Lemme look for a picture.”

Siyeon swiftly whipped out her phone and began scrolling. Kyla took the time to scan the crowd and to finally hear what the emcee, Eunwoo, was talking about.

“…was one of our last performance and we only have one last one lined up. She’s a new freshie, give it up for Ted Jungseo!”

Ted Jungseo? It can’t be…

Kyla’s face turned pale as she watched a familiar face strutting up on stage. She watched as she swaggered up, one hand still obnoxiously tucked into her pocket and an ever-constant half-smirk on her face.

No, no, no, not again…

“Hey, I found a picture! Look, she’s an absolute angel, both visually and internally. Like she’s the- hey, what’s wrong?

Siyeon brought her hand up to tap on Kyla’s shoulder to get her attention but the latter remained frozen. She changed to take her hand in a warm hold when she saw Kyla’s expression. The latter started at the sudden contact and seemed to break away from her thoughts, the glassy and forlorn look in her eyes quickly disappearing as soon as they had arrived as they locked onto their linked hands.

“Kyla, are you alright?”

Siyeon reached with her other hand to cup their linked hands even more tightly. Gone from her eyes was the twinkle of mischief, in its place was genuine concern for her new friend, a new friend who looked like she had just taken a trip back down Hell for a memory lane. Kyla remained stoic. She chewed on her bottom lip nervously, an action that didn’t go unnoticed by Siyeon who again tightened her grip on Kyla’s hand.

            Kyla contemplated whether to tell Siyeon what caused her to suddenly look like she had just seen a ghost. Not that the truth was far from that. She doesn’t want to change what seems like a budding friendship into a tragically short-lived one. She doesn’t want the other girl to look at her with disdain, with contempt, with nonchalance, looks that she was far too familiar with. She doesn’t want Siyeon to know her past years in school and treat her differently, like the way they used to. Yet when she turned to perhaps laugh and brush off the incident, the eyes that met hers were different. Siyeon’s grey eyes were gentle, were non-judgmental, were kind. Kyla took a deep breath.

“Can you promise me not to tell anyone what I’m going to tell you?”

“Not a soul.”

“Really?”

“Really. You know what? Let’s seal this in the most serious way we can. Pinky promise?”

The warm grey-eyed girl released her hold on Kyla’s hand to link their pinky fingers in a pinky promise. Kyla blinked at her words and took another deep breath, their still linked hands now resting on Siyeon’s lap.

“Please… please don’t freak out.”

“I promise I won’t.”

“I’m gay.”

Kyla waited for the dawning realisation, the disgusted gasp, the recoiling hands that would shoot away as if her words were like fire, the horrified face to look up at her, the eyes that screamed MONSTER. FREAK. LIER. She waited for Siyeon to physically recoil, to move away from the vile creature that dared to spurt out wrong thinking, to turn away, yet again.

But Siyeon didn’t. Siyeon looked at her the same way. She didn’t avert her eyes away from Kyla’s shaking frame, didn’t shoot away with horror in her eyes, didn’t change her ever-gentle gaze that filled with the same warmth. Siyeon reached forward with her other hand to secure Kyla’s slipping grip tightly. She calmly waited for Kyla to continue, as if the news didn’t affect her at all.

“I… you… you’re not surprised?”

“I am.”

“You’re not disgusted?”

“No, of course not! Why would I?”

“I… I’m… gay.”

“And? That doesn’t change anything.”

“That girl in front is my ex. She pretended to be gay and then outed me to my entire school and denied any relation to me at all. She made my life hell for the last two years of my life.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that she’s a total ***** to out you to everyone but that news won’t not only not shock me. It won’t shock many of us here.”

“Us?”

“Hell yes. In fact judging by the people I know so far, this whole school is hella gay.”

“… Really?”

“You remember Eunwoo? The emcee and brunette that was jumping around just now?”

“Yeah?”

“She just started crushing on her seatmate, YooA. Wheein, choir angel, has been dating Hyejin for the last 4 years. Sejeong, school track star and multi-talented performer has been chasing Nayoung, Kim Nayoung, for the past 9 months. The two form teachers of 2A and 2B, Jessica and Tiffany Hwang, got married last month in Canada. Literally even the council president is secretly crushing on an underclassman that’s is the same level as Eunwoo. There’s nothing to hide from here. We’re basically all gay.”

Kyla could hardly dare to believe her ears. A-acceptance? The same scenario that happened back then won’t happen again? She won’t be ostracised and abandoned for being ‘wrong’? It sounded too good to be true, if she were to be frank. Siyeon seemed to have noticed the doubtful look in her eyes because she spoke again.

“Anyways, don’t worry okay? I’ll protect you. I promise.”

Siyeon fixed her twinkling eyes on Kyla again, making her heart skip a tiny beat. Her grey eyes shone brightly, this time with confidence and passion. Maybe… just maybe… things could be a little different.

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PLEASE READ THE BOLDED PARTS!

Hi guys!

Firstly, I'm really really sorry for disappearing for the longest time, this is  the most important academic year of my life and I can't screw up my chances of getting quality tertiary education >.< It's a short break now (aka. time to give a ton of homework, y'all thought it was a break?) so I'm taking time off to update this fic. So this is what chapter 5 could have been but I ended up focusing on SiyeonxYewon instead, I thought it abruptly brought the story to a much darker turn instead so hesitated to post it. What do you think?

To be honest I've been facing a MAJOR writer's block for this story and my creative juices (+ motivation) have come to a grinding halt. Actually I have like 10 different one-shots and drabbles waiting to be written out instead, and non-chaptered short stories would give me more flexibility to update/write so...

This fic will be on hiatus until:

a) My national examinations are over!

and

b) Motivation comes back!

Until then I'm really sorry but I'll be taking a step back from this (for now!) Thank you for reading so far and rest assured I will be back!

-Youngni