I didn’t deserve her.

That was the hard truth and quite frankly, I really didn’t want to accept it. I’m not exactly as innocent as everyone thinks I am. Even though that sounds quite cringy and generic, I had reasons to back it up.

Being one of the most athletic girls in the school, I became quite popular early on. Almost everyone knew me as “the girl who made every single sports team without trying”. Though I tried to stay humble, the fame would sometimes get to me and I would end up boasting about all the ribbons and medals I had gained from previous competitions.

Growing up, I was always considered the ugly kid. Every year. I still remember my friend telling everyone about how I was fatter and more unattractive than majority of the grade. Remember staring at her in disbelief as I shamefully looked at the ground in embarrassment.

I wasn’t pretty. No one had a crush on me like they did with the other girls, and no one complimented me daily about how cool my eyes were when the sun shined in my irises.

Then puberty happened. Summer passed and suddenly there were boys confessing to me back and forth. I had no idea how to respond. Afterall, I was severely inexperienced in the field of.. boys actually noticing me?

I never took boys seriously. They always had 5 other girls that they were crushing on and would date literally any girl that was considered above average in terms of looks. But you know what this also meant? They were manipulated easily. Almost too easy.

Boys always secretly think you have a crush on them if you don’t reject them. All those boys that confessed? I didn’t reject them or accept their confessions. I would flirt but if they ever called me out on it I would shrug my shoulders and tell them not to be so full of themselves because I didn’t accept their confession in the first place. Did they really think that'd I would accept them that easily when they'd been calling me ugly for the past few years?

The first time a girl had a crush on me was my best friend. I had been flirting with her for most of the year as a joke, although I never expected her to develop feelings for me. Yooa was a sweet girl who was arguably one of the prettiest girls in the school, with a cute and generous personality.

She just wasn’t my type. I could feel my heart breaking as I finally noticed her adoring eyes and small gestures done to impress me. I didn’t have the heart to reject her or lead her on. I did the thing I thought would be the best for everyone. Distance myself from her until she stopped liking me or moved on. That’s how I lost my best friend.

Even though she never did get over me, I regret flirting with her for an entire year and then revealing that I didn’t feel the same way as her.

I was attention starved and when everyone was showering with me with affection and compliments- it felt pretty good. Really good.

I sllowly became a player. Flirting with everyone until they fell for me. Texting with 4 boys simultaneously and constantly making jokes about dating them. It was like a cycle. Something I couldn’t stop and didn’t want to.

Have I ever truly liked anyone? After I met Yongsun I started to question that. I would feel all stupid and giddy whenever she was around, almost always blushing whenever she started a conversation with me. I had never felt that with anyone else before.

If I thought someone was attractive, I would consider that a crush. But that’s not what liking someone is about. I didn’t do dating and that was that. The closest I ever got was an unofficial relationship, which, we were both still allowed to chase other people at the same time since we weren’t anything confirmed.

I feel like I’m going insane. This girl that I had met a few weeks was making me question my moral code that I had spent building up for so long. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. She was always on my mind. Pathetic.

Did I deserve her? Absolutely not. Do I care? No.

~

By now literally, every single person in the school knew about my huge crush on Solar except for Solar herself. She was actually quite oblivious. (Cute)

Whenever I was in a 5-metre radius of her all my friends would start wolf whistling and pushing us together. She would blush awkwardly while I would die inside.

Yongsun being the nice person that she was, helped me improve my art a lot until I got to the point where I was better than her.

“Yongsunn~”, I whined, tugging at her sleeve. “Please teach me how to draw good like you.” She chuckled and ruffled my hair, giving me a blinding grin. “You’re better than me, silly. You don’t need my help anymore. In fact, you might have to start teaching me!”

We laughed it off but I was actually quite sad that she wouldn’t be teaching me anymore. I had made progress with her, as we were closer now and she would leave multiple supportive comments on all of my artworks to which I would take the opportunity to flirt with her.

Unfortunately, she would only respond with “yeet” or “no u”. Sad times indeed.

Have I mentioned that she’s totally out of my league? Even though I have a lot of people who like me I can still tell who’s above and below my level. Yongsun was perfect. I couldn’t find any of her flaws. She was nice, artsy, pretty as hell- I really didn’t know why she didn’t have a million boys chasing after her.

She wasn’t exactly athletic, but she was so fit I wondered if she secretly worked out daily. Although she was a bit scrawny for a tall girl like her, it fitted her. I had some weird desire to hold her hand and tell her to eat more, treat her to food on the regular. Cuddle with her whenever we had the chance, sit on the big hill outside our school and watch the sunset…

I shook my head, my weird fantasies were getting a hold of me. Sadly, I was pretty sure none of those things would happen. My observations told me that she had no interest in me. I knew enough to know that she was in fact, biual. I highly doubted it, as I had never heard her talking about girls and only about how hot boys were.

Now if you haven’t noticed, I’m not the straightest person ever. (The amount of time I spend staring at her would agree.) Still, I was a clumsy mess around her. One of my most memorable moments that my friends just love making fun of me for: Solar had come to visit Hani at her locker, which happened to be next to mine. Of course, Hani being the troublemaker that she is, told Yongsun to give me a hug. She gave me a back hug which caused me to gay panic and run away.

Literally, run away. I dashed down the hallway towards the stairs with only my socks on and my locker lock in one hand. A confused Solar and hysterical Hani was left behind at my opened locker while I continued to dash as fast as I could down the stairs. Obviously, this wasn’t the best idea. I ended up tripping down the stairs to the bottom and then faced with the decision of going outside into the muddy field with only my socks or go back upstairs and deal with the possibility of seeing Yongsun again.

I decided to be smart and choose the most logical decision.

When I went back home my socks were so soaked with dirt that I threw them out instead of trying to wash out the endless amounts of muck covering the once bright white colour.

After that, I had gotten endless amounts of teasing and too many sock puns when Solar was around. Of course, I still maintained my player status, but for once in my life, I would willingly stop flirting with everyone if Yongsun asked me out. “The great Moonstar settling down for one girl?? What has happened to society for this to happen?”

I gllared at Hyejin. “Shut the up Ahn, you aren’t any better than me.” She snickered and shrugged, returning back to finishing her homework in the cafeteria.

I had met Hyejin at the beginning of the year at volleyball tryouts, her outgoing personality catching my attention instantly. I didn’t try anything with her at the start, because she was giving me heavy girl vibes which were always not good to mess around with.

She had started flirting with me when she got the chance and to be honest, I didn’t mind. She was quite attractive after all. We ended up dating for a few days until I found out that she was flirting with other girls behind my back.

I hated that it reminded me of myself.

We had a mutual break up and I didn’t hold anything against her- I understood what she did. After not talking for a few months, we met again at basketball tryouts, where we both made the team. Now, I wasn’t the best at basketball by any means, but I still made the team with a spot on the starting line up.

Hyejin was really good at basketball. It was quite hot. It was basically a repeat of what had happened at the start of the year. She would flirt and I would reciprocate.

Krystal was the name of her new girlfriend. From what she was telling me, she was really possessive and got angry whenever Hyejin would even hug another girl. At that time I just shook my head and laughed. She obviously didn’t know about all the other girls that she was constantly flirting with, including me.

I felt bad for the poor girl. She probably deserved someone better.

2 weeks was how long they lasted until Krystal broke it off with her. It was the right thing to do. Hyejin had cheated on Krystal. I knew I had no place to lecture Hyejin about cheating on her, but I was still disappointed in her choices.

Hyejin is an even a bigger player than I am. In fact, she was even dating Yongsun at one point. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had dated every single girl that isn’t straight at one point in time.  

Even though I had only known Hyejin for less than a year, I knew that when I met her she wouldn’t full out cheat on her girlfriend. Flirt, probably, but she had full out dated another girl behind Krystal’s back. She used to charm girls using her sweetness and caring, but now all of that was gone. She won girls over with her bad girl persona.

Whatat was Hyejin turning into?? I’m worried. But I can’t confront her about it because she can easily deflect it and call me a hypocrite. I could see that she was changing. Slowly but surely. I wanted to scream at her and tell her that she was already too far, she had to stop while she still had a chance.

But I can’t. I’m going to have to watch her turn into a monster because I didn’t want to face the fear that she would call me out. Selfish. That’s what I am.