The rest of the group didn’t have classes in the afternoon, which left Dahyun and Sana walking back to campus by themselves. It wasn’t a far walk but because Dahyun felt the need to stop every minute to broadcast to Sana how beautiful the flowers were, it took a bit longer than anticipated. But Sana didn’t mind. She liked the company of the excited dubu and found it quite appealing how easily amused she was by the trivial things.

As they were walking past the school’s courtyard, Dahyun couldn’t stop jumping around. She hopped on benches and constantly complained about having to stay after school to clean the theater’s storage room for her inappropriate behavior during class, or as Dahyun liked to call it, “expressing her freedom of speech.”

“It shouldn’t be that bad right? How messy can it be?” Sana commented.

Dahyun turned to her, “Sana, you’ve never seen the storage room. It’s filthy! And I surmise that nobody has cleaned it ever since this school was created. There’s probably rats and species there still unknown to science.” She plucked a flower in one of the bushes and started fiddling with its petals. “And since our school has a pretty big theater reputation, the storage room has all kinds of props that haven’t been touched in years.”

“I could help you clean, if you’d like,” Sana offered.

“Would you really?” Dahyun was more than ecstatic but somewhat felt guilty for dragging someone she barely knew into her own consequence.

Sana nodded. “I don’t have any other plans anyways. All I’d go home to is an empty dorm room with barely any belongings. I’d be happy to accompany you.”

The little eagle gave her a wide smile that truly would captivate even the coldest of hearts. Sana was glad to be the subject of such an expression. The Japanese noted that, coincidentally enough, her classes ended at about the same time as Dahyun’s, and suggested they meet afterwards in front of the theater. Sana was eyeing the flower in Dahyun’s hand, and as if noticing the older one’s gaze, Dahyun took her arm and placed the precious white Viburnum in the palm of her hand.  “I guess it’s a rendezvous then! I’ll see you later.”

Dahyun left the bewildered Sana who, unbeknownst to the little tofu, actually didn’t have classes in the afternoon.

~

“There’s too many stuff!” Dahyun bellowed as she wiped the sweat off her forehead. They’d been at it for only 10 minutes and she was already on her 12th complain on why her theater advisor decided to keep props that they most likely will never touch again. “Just toss it out, you know. Or donate it, donating works too. It would certainly be so much easier on us to not have the storage room looking like the island of garbage.”

Meanwhile, Sana was quietly organizing the costumes at one corner of the room. As she was keeping her task to herself, Dahyun came up behind her wearing a white mask from the horror film Scream. It frightened Sana to the point that her scream could be heard to anyone passing by the theater building.

Dahyun laughed out loud as she took off her mask, which only made Sana pout and continue on with her cleaning. And even as an hour passed, the dust in the room doesn’t seem to be reducing, especially since Dahyun was barely doing any cleaning, but rather was goofing around with the masks and the silly props. The excited tofu would call upon Sana to share what she’d found. However, Sana was worried that they’d never be able to finish even as the sun was setting. So the older one merely giggled and nodded to her comical shenanigans, making sure that her hands were moving at the same time.

Even as she was trying to make their rigorous task less exhausting by making jokes, Sana didn’t seem to react in the eyes of Dahyun. This made her all the more disappointed, which made her think that maybe Sana was mad after all at the little accident they had that morning.

After about 4 hours, they were finally able to clear out most of the stuff they didn’t need and the storage room window was now in clear view which was covered by towering boxes when they started. The room didn’t seem all that dusty anymore with the space all cleared out. The theater advisor came in and dismissed the two.

“You should really behave in class more often. It’s not all the time that we need your opinion on every little thing,” the professor scolded Dahyun.

In a desperate want to go back to her room and lay until morning, the little tofu didn’t bother with her usual remarks. “Will do!” she saluted.

The two started walking back to their dorms just as the sky was becoming dark. There was a cool breeze blowing that made the feel of the night all the more relaxing. “Let me walk you back to your room. It’s the least I can do for all your help,” Dahyun offered. Sana couldn’t refuse.

The night stroll back was unusually quiet, though to Sana it didn’t feel like an awkward type of silence. She liked the tranquil atmosphere the quiet school grounds gave off at night. Although, it felt new to her to witness a hushed Dahyun, which left her wondering what was on her mind that left her in such a state.

After minutes of silence, Dahyun finally spoke, “It must be quite lonely to be living by yourself.”

“Hmm, yeah,” Sana shrugged. “But there’s nothing I can do about it. I missed the day where they assigned roommates to everyone so they didn’t have anybody to partner me with.”

“I can come over sometime. Chaeyoung and Tzuyu are probably annoyed with me already, constantly bugging them when they’re doing school work or doing something incredibly boring.” Perhaps Dahyun was trying to find something to make up for Sana’s assistance in the cleaning, or it could be that she really wanted to get to know this angelic being.

Instead