For the rest of the day and the next, Yuju was spaced out. She wasn’t engaged in her classes. She didn’t attend the student council meeting at lunchtime. She didn’t go to track practice after school. She passed through the days like a zombie, still torn up inside by her encounter with SinB.

What did I do wrong? I threw away everything to defend you, and even you don’t want anything to do with me. She closed the door to her locker with a bit too much force as she shoved a couple of books into her bag for the homework she was planning to do over the weekend- it’s not like she had any plans anyway. She was shaken from her trance-like state when she turned and saw SinB’s friend, Yerin, stood beside her. Her eyes were studying her harshly, there was a questioning look in her eyes, yet both just stared at each other in silence. Yuju heaved a sigh, put on a warm smile and decided to strike up conversation. “Ummm… Yerin… hi” the other girl didn’t even blink, instead her eyes still bored into Yuna wordlessly. “Is everything okay…?” the other girl quirked her head slightly at the question and broke her silence.

“Not really. Can we talk?” her eyes were serious, and her expression steely. SinB told her everything, didn’t she? I don’t blame her, I would too if it was me, but what does she want me to say? Yuju shrugged her shoulders casually.

“Sure, I guess you wanna hear my side of things. First of all though, is SinB okay? Last time I saw her she was really upset and I just want to know how she’s doing”

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you. After you left, she came back and she was in such a state. I’ve never seen her so… so… upset… angry… I don’t even know how to describe it. But she wouldn’t talk to either me or Umji about it. All we can get from her is that it’s something to do with you” the older girl’s eyes were frantic with worry over SinB. It was evident to Yuju that the girl meant a lot to her.

“Ummm… what has she said exactly?” the worry Yuju tried to hide from her voice came out as a quiver. Yerin shrugged her shoulders and let out a tired sigh.

“About you? Absolutely nothing. She won’t tell us what’s got her so upset, but whenever we told her that you were looking for her, her eyes glossed over with this look… we’ve been friends long enough that I know she didn’t wanna talk about it, but that look screamed that she didn’t wanna talk about you. That’s why I’m here.” Yuju didn’t know whether she felt relieved that SinB hadn’t told her friends about their argument or whether she was hurt that SinB genuinely thought so badly of her. Yuju heaved an outward sigh

“Let’s find somewhere quiet, this is gonna take a while.” She led the other girl to an empty classroom. The room had a calming ambiance with its open windows, and pale yellow walls, it gave off a warm vibe, despite the chill that filled it. She began to tell Yerin first about the fallout with Eunha, and then about her encounter with SinB, leaving out no details. “So you see, I only want to help her, but she wouldn’t hear me out. Now she’s mad at me… rightfully so I guess… given what she heard… but I want to apologise to her about it, explain myself, and tell her that I genuinely want to be her friend, but now she doesn’t even want to speak to me. What am I supposed to do unnie?” she looked pleadingly into Yerin’s eyes. The older girl was silent for a few moments trying to process the story she’d been told.

“Well… knowing SinB… she won’t want you to just approach her. She’ll want some space for a few days. I’ll try and wear her down a bit, but she won’t warm up overnight it’ll take some time. Whatever you do, please be careful with her heart, Choi Yuju, SinB is fragile and easily hurt, despite her tough bravado. This isn’t something you can fix immediately. She’s mad at you for what she thinks is a good reason, while I now understand that there must be a hole in her reasoning, she feels like she’s justified, and so won’t be ready to listen to anything you say until she has calmed down first.”

After talking for a little longer about how to tackle the problem, the girls bid each other farewell. Yerin headed for the main entrance of school where she said she’d be getting a ride home, while Yuju held back. There was so much playing on her mind that she wasn’t sure whether she was ready to face home yet.

Meanwhile…

SinB was sat in the practice room, staring blankly at the computer screen while the headphones played the part she’d just recorded over and over again. She wasn’t entirely focused on her work as her mind turned over the events from the previous day again and again. Each time she thought about the hurt in Yuju’s eyes, she felt a pang of hurt sear through her chest, but then she remembered what she had overheard and all of the anger flooded back to her.

It was definitely much easier to be mad at Choi Yuna when not thinking about the tears that filled her eyes when SinB yelled at her, when she didn’t have to see the way her eyebrows knotted in confusion as she pieced together SinB’s rage, when she didn’t think about how being mad at her made her feel like such an awful person. SinB didn’t want to be mad at the other girl, but she was just so hurt by what had happened that she just couldn’t help it. She didn’t want to leave things badly so she made a conscious decision to apologise to Yuju next time she saw her.

Having made that decision, she couldn’t help but feel like a trashy person for yelling at Yuna, but she felt a lot better because at least she could try to fix things. It helped her to focus better on her music. She was adding a few finishing touches to her work of art that was currently not very close to being finished, but she felt she’d reached a suitable point to close for today.

After finishing up she saved her work and shut everything down. She locked up the room with the spare key that Miss Kim had loaned her. She skipped round to her office and when she noticed the light on in the room she knocked twice and waited until she heard a faint ‘come in’ after a few moments before opening the door. SinB wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see when she walked in, but what she wasn’t expecting was to see the room in a bit of a mess, while said person looked dishevelled, and an unknown woman sat opposite her looking very flushed. Miss Taeyeon cleared and smiled when she saw SinB enter the room. “SinB, what brings you here?” the girl was a little bit distracted by the uncomfortable atmosphere in the room and couldn’t help but feel that she’d interrupted something.

“I… ummm… I wanted to return the key you gave me. Thanks again for letting me use the room, I might need to use it again next week too, if that’s okay? Sorry for interrupting, I’ll just return the key and leave. Thanks again” she mumbled while shuffling across the office and placed the key on the corner of the desk smiling awkwardly at the other woman in the room who hadn’t uttered a word since SinB had entered. As she was about to turn to leave Miss Taeyeon spoke again:

“SinB wait. Tiffany, this is the student I was talking about. SinB, this is my good friend Tiffany, she runs a radio station in town, I was just telling her about your love of music” her eyes lingered on Miss Tiffany as she spoke, a slight blush creeping up her cheeks. The woman held out her hand for a handshake, which SinB politely took.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, SinB. Taeyeon has told me so much about you, and she’s so excited about your little project. If you don’t mind I’d love to hear what you’ve done when it’s finished.” She smiled warmly at SinB as her eyes evaluated the girl in front of her.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, umm… Miss Tiffany. I hope Miss Kim has only told you good things.” She noticed Tiffany’s eyes flicking over to Miss Kim and a fond smile crossed her lips, before her eyes flitted back to SinB “With regards to my project, it’s not really in a position where it’s anywhere close to being finished, but if you’d like to listen when it is, I’d be honoured to get you a copy of it, it’d be an honour to get some kind of professional critique on it” she smiled nervously at the woman who still remained seated and smiled warmly at her.

“Here, take this…” she fumbled around in her bag that was previously under her chair before pulling out a small business card and holding it in the girl’s direction. “Drop me an email, or give me a call when you’re ready and I’d be more than happy to give it a listen” SinB took the card and pocketed it, never breaking eye contact with Miss Tiffany. She dug her nails into her palm of her hand in her pocket, and realised when she felt pain that this was in fact not a dream. This was reality, and in front of her was a pretty DJ offering her assistance with her music.

“Thank you kindly. It was a pleasure to meet you, I’ll take my leave now.” She turned to Miss Kim and bowed slightly “Thanks again for your support, and for letting me work on it. Have a nice weekend” she turned around and walked out of the room, a grin plastered to her face as reality still sunk in. As soon as she clicked the door shut, she heard desperate fumbling inside the room and continued on her way- whatever her teacher got up to in her own time was none of her business.

As she walked towards the gate she spotted Yuju standing near the main entrance her eyes looking after Yerin as she walked off-site. Despite the promise she’d made herself earlier, she didn’t feel ready to talk to the older girl just yet. Her eyes fixed on Yuju for a minute as she continued her trek around the corner towards the other exit. Some things would have to wait for another day.

Normally, nothing exceptionally weird happened to SinB. She never really went out at weekends, except occasionally when Yerin and Yewon were able to convince her to go out with them. But what happened on Saturday afternoon was really weird. She was at Yerin’s and they were watching a movie. Yerin, Yewon and SinB were sprawled out on the sofas and were eating snacks while enjoying each other’s company. Yerin’s phone was constantly going off and she was having an in-depth text conversation with someone. This in itself wasn’t weird- Yerin was a well-liked girl, she was outgoing and was popular at school. What struck SinB as weird was the smiled that played on her lips as she read the messages. SinB nudged Yewon who was cuddled up beside her, and nodded her head towards Yerin when she got the younger girl’s attention. “Ooooh, Yennie! Who you texting?” Yerin looked up from her phone, her previous special smile replaced by her regular smile.

“It’s just one of my classmates asking about school” SinB rolled her eyes.

“Unnie, do you expect us to believe that? You’ve got a dumb grin on your face every time they text you. Have you got a boyfriend you conveniently forgot to tell us about?” Yewon said. Yerin laughed wholeheartedly.

“If I had a boyfriend you two would be the first to know about it. Honestly, it’s just school stuff.” She turned back to her phone, and the eye smile returned. Yewon spun off SinB and started hugging Yerin, trying to look at her phone. “Look, it is just school stuff” Yewon read the messages and hummed in response.

“Yuck, it is just school. That’s no fun” Yewon said, returning back to lay in SinB’s lap. What SinB didn’t know was that Yerin had typed into the message box something for Yewon to read. ‘Don’t say this out loud, but Im trying to find out what happened with SinB the other day. Im texting Yuju to see if we can fix things. I think she has a crush on her don’t tell SinB that bit. But either she is genuinely a really really nice person, or our girl has charmed Yuju.’ Yewon grinned while she pulled out her phone and began to text too. SinB rolled her eyes.

“If you guys are going to sit there texting, do I really have to watch this?” the other girls laughed.

“Why? Don’t you like it? It’s a classic, SinB!” Yerin said. Suddenly, SinB’s phone started ringing. She glanced down at it, and Yewon sat up.

“Guys, it’s an unknown ID. Should I answer it?” Yewon looked at Yerin and quirked an eyebrow who just shrugged dismissively.

“I have no idea who it could be. I would leave it for now, if it’s important they’ll call back” Yewon settled back into SinB’s lap as the older girl laid the phone on the arm of the sofa and reverted her eyes back to the movie. Her phone rang again. She glanced down at the screen and huffed as she saw the same number flash across the screen. Again, she let it ring out. Within a minute of the call ending she got a text. From: XXXXX XXX 103 (13:22): Can we talk? Please call me when you get this? she glanced down at the screen and her eyes nearly dropped out of their sockets. Whoever had called her really wanted to talk to her. ‘It’s probably a wrong number anyway.’ She thought to herself. But still, there was a curiosity within her that slightly hoped that whoever it was, was actually looking for her. Her phone lit up again as she received another text: From: XXXXX XXX 103 (13:30): SinB… please? This was weird, whoever it was desperately wanted to talk to her. She excused herself from the room and went to the kitchen to call back whoever it was. It seemed important.

The phone rang once… twice… three times… just when she thought it was going to keep ringing, the call connected, but nothing could be heard from the other line except chatter and background noise. “Errr… hello?” SinB said, trying to keep the worry from wavering her voice. Still nothing. “Hello?” she tried again. Still no response. “Ummm… I’m not actually sure who this is…. If you’re just going to be silent on me… I’ll ….ummm… I’m going to call back later… and if you still don’t reply then… I guess this isn’t important…” she ended the call and ran a hand through her hair out of frustration while letting out a hot breath.

She went back to her friends who were sat attentively on the couch waiting for her return. “Who was it?” they asked simultaneously.

“I umm… dunno… whoever it is, they have the right number because they addressed me by name, but they didn’t say anything when they picked up the phone. Both girls looked at each other in confusion.

“Maybe they accidentally answered the call in their pocket and had no idea” Yewon suggested

“Yeah! Leave them a text and say you tried to call but got no answer. Then if they call back, find out who it is” Yerin added. SinB nodded. The explanation made sense, and she felt a little embarrassed for talking to the inside of someone’s pocket, but nonetheless she typed out a message To: XXXXX XXX 103 (13:37): Hey. I tried to call, but I guess you accidentally answered the call in your pocket because I couldn’t hear anything lol XD I guess I’ll call you back later. She hit send and set her phone back down. There was a nagging curiosity about who it was at the other end, about what they could possibly want. She tuned out the rest of the movie, her thoughts wandering. Her mind kept leading her to think about a certain girl at school with a cute smile, kind eyes, and bangs, a girl who everyone seemed to adore, the girl who broke SinB’s heart. As if she would ever have been interested in me anyway, not when she’s got Eunha and the rest of the school falling at her feet. She didn’t realise that the credits were rolling until she felt little Umji get out of her lap to switch the TV off. She glanced over to see Yerin staring at her, and she raised an eyebrow in question. “Is everything okay, B?” SinB smiled warmly at her best friend.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” Yerin’s smile faltered a little and her eyes were filled with worry over the younger girl.

“You’ve been wearing a glazed expression for the last twenty minutes or so. We’ve been friends long enough that I can tell when there’s something on your mind” SinB heaved a gentle sigh. And Yewon sat down in between them again, grabbing SinB’s hand in an affectionate manner.

“We only want to help” She looked at both of her friends and realised she didn’t want to keep all of this bound up any more.

“I guess to explain this, I’d have to explain everything…” she proceeded to tell them about what happened between her and Yuju at the start of the week, and then Yuju’s conversation with Eunha, and then about her argument with the other girl over what she’d heard. “And there’s just so much going on in my head that I can’t keep it all to myself… and you both know how I’ve kind of admired Yuju from afar for so long, and then for this happen hurts like heck and… and… and…” and before she could control it, hot tears were running down her cheeks and sobs drowned out her words. The other girls were quick to jump in with hugs, affection and encouraging words. Yewon looked over to Yerin with a quizzical expression. The oldest girl simply shook her head, she wasn’t sure that SinB needed to hear that Yerin was on Yuju’s side just yet. Yewon gave a subtle nod and returned her gaze to SinB and her thumbs gently wiped tears from the other girl’s cheeks. It broke their hearts to see SinB like this. Yerin, who had an arm wrapped around SinB’s shoulders in a side-hug, whispered sweet nothings into her ear like a lover would. She figured she should say something in Yuju’s defence, but didn’t want to upset the crying girl further, so proceeded to tell SinB how special she was, how valued she was, and how much she loved her. None of it was a lie, there was a tone of sincerity in her voice that sounded raw and exposed, like every ‘SinB-yah, you’re so, so, so special to me’ and ‘I love you so much’ carried so much more weight than face value. And soon enough SinB stopped crying when she realised how foolish she was being, when she realised how important her friends were.

“Guys…” she sniffled back the last of her tears “I’m sorry… you don’t wanna hear any of this… but thank you, it’s nice to know that I’ve got friends like you….”

“What do you mean ‘we don’t wanna hear any of this’? Of course we do! If something’s bothering you, we want you to feel like you can talk about it, because maybe we can help you to help you work things out”

“Y-yeah… SinB, you know we only want what’s best for you, and if there’s anything we can do to help, we would go through hell and back to make sure we could bring back your smile. You don’t deserve to feel the way you’re feeling now, and if Yuju didn’t have so much going on in her life maybe she’d realise that you’re a ray of sunshine in her life that brightens it up.” Both Yerin and SinB blushed at the girl’s comments

“Awww, you guys. You’re so sweet both of you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” SinB said while pulling her friends closer. In that moment, her Yuju situation didn’t matter to her, because she was surrounded by the most important people in her life. For a moment, she was completely content with her life.

Author's note: No Sinju content in this chapter, but hopefully things are about to get more interesting.... I have some idea about what's to come next. (Sorry if you were just getting your hopes up) Hopefully everything you've read makes sense. It makes sense to me, as an author, but that's because I know what I meant with every thought. If you're confused or have any questions, ask away and hopefully I can clear things up.

As always, thank you so much for reading this fic, for subscribing, commenting and for upvoting. I never expected any interest in this story, so to see subscriber numbers increasing and that some of you like it enough to give it an upvote makes me really happy. That's all from me this time. Take care of yourselves, stay safe, keep warm, and keep smiling. Sending love *-* xoxo