[CONTENTID1]Green Shirt[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]9[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]For the night, Shuhua slept on the couch and Soojin slept on her bed. 

For the first time, in a long time, they weren’t sleeping in the same room. 

In the morning, Soojin left the dorm to go on a walk and Shuhua pretended she was asleep when she heard the older girl leave. 

Shuhua stubbornly waited for an apology while Soojin stubbornly avoided confrontation.

A few days had passed and both girls remained adamant about avoiding each other. The only time they were together was during practice, when they forcibly were cooped in the same room and trapped at a close proximity by the choreography to execute the correct dance formations. Everyone in the dorm sensed the growing tension between the two as each day passed. However, no one had time to address it—nor did anyone want to get in between the two—due to the busy schedule ahead. They had a few more performances to carry out before they could have a few months of much-needed rest. 

It was now a day before they would have to tackle a few weeks of full schedules in September. Luckily, they didn’t have to practice today and Miyeon—being the sensitive, gentle-hearted, devoted friend she was—decided to spend the day with one agenda in mind: to fix whatever was going on with Soojin and Shuhua. Yes, it was out of the kindness of her own heart, and not at all because she had lost at a confusing tournament of rock, paper, scissors against Minnie, Yuqi, and Soyeon that lasted at least eight rounds the day prior, which determined who would be assigned this mission. 

Nevermind that. Let’s just call it a random act of kindness.

Although Miyeon had known each of the members for the shortest amount of time, she knew one indisputable fact: Soojin and Shuhua were inseparable. Needless to say, the image of Shuhua sleeping in the living room instead of her bedroom where Soojin was, was unprecedented. 

Therefore, she woke up early today—a grand token of her efforts because sleep was extremely valuable to her—to tag along with Soojin on her morning walk, who had no objections to her presence. Soojin liked Miyeon. Miyeon never forced conversation out of Soojin. Today was no different. They both walked in a comfortable silence. 

It was autumn yet again and the cool breeze whisked across both of the girls' faces as they took relaxed steps across the paved streets. Sounds of birds chirping, crisp leaves rustling along the ground, and people’s meandering footsteps surrounded them. An occasional noise of a car rumbling past drowned out all the other noises for a second, for all of the sounds to return again soon after. While Miyeon was enjoying the serene ambiance of autumn, Soojin was walking with her eyes glued on the gray pavement, watching each foot step in front of the other. 

Why is falling in love so difficult? 

Over the past few days, Soojin decided that she knew precisely why.

Love has been an object of discussion for centuries—an ongoing topic of interest for many. Poets wrote countless stanzas to express their own take on the matter. Singers performed countless songs, creating an invariable amount of lyrics to be accompanied by different melodies about the exhilarating feeling. Filmmakers tried to capture the raw emotion onto a screen, hoping that the cameras, the artificial lighting, actresses and actors would be able to portray the complexity of it all. However, when it all came down to it, love was merely a chemical reaction that occurred in our brains. Simple as that, yet everyone loved to romanticize romance. 

When you see someone you love, your brain responds by producing an abnormally high amount of oxytocin and dopamine. It’s the reason why you’re over the moon when they’re near you or when they text you if they’re not. It’s the reason why you gush when they look at you or when their hands graze your own. And if it happens for long enough—if they are around for long enough—your brain adapts to the excess happiness these hormones create. It grows addicted. It expects you to be happy forever, unaware that this human form of ecstasy hasn’t signed some contract guaranteeing their permanence. You couldn’t buy their presence like you could a pill. 

People could leave. And what happens then? Your poor, naive brain no longer produces the same amount of oxytocin and dopamine. It goes back to its normal rate of production. The normal amount that kept you going before you met this person who you were so enamored by. But normal no longer feels normal. You don’t remember what it feels like to be lonely after you’ve relied on someone else for so long, after you’ve had a dangerous taste of what love feels like. Now, normal was unbearably painful. Your brain has grown addicted to love and now that the person that had given it to you is gone, it’s confused and panicked and hurt. You’re confused and panicked and hurt and you bear with all of these emotions that come with loss until your brain stops clinging on to the hope that the person will come back and realizes that you have to survive on your own. 

So, rather than “Why is falling in love so difficult?”, the question really should be:

Why is falling in love so easy? 

Why was it so easy for Soojin to be whisked away by this girl from Taiwan? Why was it so easy to develop feelings for her despite knowing that there were variables that were out of her control? 

To that, Soojin had no idea how to answer.

“What’s wrong, Soojin?” Miyeon asked, finally breaking the silence and trudging onward with the first step of her plan.

“Nothing,” Soojin replied mindlessly, her eyes still looking at the scuffed rubber tips of her sneakers that served as evidence of their age. Left foot, then right foot. The steady rhythm of her footsteps entranced her while her mind rambled on in contemplation.

Miyeon linked her arm with Soojin’s and said, “I’ll ask again. What’s wrong, Soojin?”

Miyeon’s abrupt contact threw her figure off balance, disrupting the steady beat of her footsteps, catching her attention. Soojin glanced at the older girl. Miyeon gave her an expectant gaze. Soojin shrugged, “I said some things I shouldn’t have, and now Shuhua’s mad at me.” She continued to walk, resuming her paced steps indifferently with the added weight of Miyeon’s arm.

Miyeon matched her steps, “Why not apologize?”

“I tried,” Soojin said referring to her rather weak attempt at making amends after her defensive outburst. It was a poor excuse, a cop-out. However, the image of Shuhua walking away taunted her. Granted, it was what she deserved. 

“Try again?” Miyeon entreated. Deep down, Soojin knew that all she had to do was keep trying, but she also had this underlying fear of rejection that was preventing her from approaching the younger girl. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was childishly hoping that Shuhua would just forget about this—forget about how she acted—so things could go back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened. Wishful thinking. 

Soojin offered Miyeon a curt reply that may as well be the equivalence of silence, “I don’t know.”

“Come on, Soojin. Is your pride really more important than a friend?” 

“It’s not my pride,” Soojin replied grumpily.

“Then what is it?” Miyeon asked, not understanding why it was so difficult. Soojin surely wasn’t helping her understand with her ambiguous answers. 

“I’m just—I’m not used to…” Soojin had no idea what she was trying to say. She wasn’t used to hurting Shuhua? She wasn’t used to the girl ignoring her? Soojin thought she would be the one person that Shuhua could count on to not hurt her and here she was, like some box of damaged goods delivered straight to a girl who had enough to deal with on her own. What if she couldn’t change? What if she would never be enough for Shuhua? What if she couldn’t give her the happiness that she deserved? And what if Shuhua realized all of this and decided to leave?

“You’re not used to…” Miyeon urged Soojin to continue after realizing that the younger had left a fragment of words floating in midair, unfinished.

“Hurting her. I’m not used to hurting her,” Soojin settled with that answer. 

“It’s bound to happen sooner or later. It’s not like you intentionally did it, right? People make mistakes,” Miyeon said in an encouraging manner, reminiscent of the way an elementary school teacher would talk to a student.

“But what if it’s not just a mistake? What if it’s me? What if I’m the issue?” Soojin asked, posing a tiny fraction of the concerns she carried with her these past few days. 

“What did you do exactly…?” Miyeon asked, growing a bit more concerned as she heard distress slip through the girl’s voice. 

Soojin shook her head. She was not ready to go turn this into a couple’s therapy session, especially when Miyeon had no idea that they were a couple.

Despite the lack of information she was receiving from the girl beside her, Miyeon continued to speak, hoping her words would somehow resonate with Soojin, “We all have issues, Soojin. And I really don’t think whatever you think you did was bad enough to make Shuhua decide to cut you out of her life. The girl admires you. She literally compliments you every ten seconds. That would only happen to me in an alternate universe!” 

Soojin smiled at Miyeon’s animatedness toward the end of her talk. It made her just a bit smug that Shuhua didn’t treat the Miyeon the same way she treated her.

“Try again. Give her a chance to forgive you. Don’t make the decision for her by avoiding her,” Miyeon said. “Talk to her when we get home, okay?”

Soojin nodded, still hesitant to approach the younger girl. 

The rest of the day Soojin and Miyeon went shopping and eating. Partly because every colorful piece of clothing displayed before a window seemed to catch Miyeon’s goldfish-like attention span. Mostly because Soojin welcomed the distraction Miyeon presented. She followed Miyeon around the streets of Seoul without protest, wanting to prolong the time she had before confronting the situation.

- - -

Currently, Shuhua was wrapped in a blanket that looked more like she was residing in a makeshift cocoon that only had openings for her face and her arms. Her eyes bored holes in the phone screen. She was in Minnie and Yuqi’s room, playing PUBG with the second-youngest member, who she found was just as—if not, more—enthusiastic as she was about the game. Minnie had escaped their ear-piercing shouting, which manifested whenever they played this game together, by going to Soyeon’s room. Soojin and Miyeon hadn’t been home the entire day—doing who knows what—and it irked Shuhua even more than the person who was currently cursing her out on PUBG through the screen.

“Yuqi! What are you doing?! Hurry up!” Shuhua complained while tapping furiously at her screen.

“What do you mean, you little—I’ve been covering your the entire time! You would’ve died ages ago!” Yuqi replied with just as much intensity.

The two bickered continuously for the duration of the game, shifting the blame to each other for their current losing streak. A losing streak that this current game would most likely contribute to. Their loud voices hid the click of the front door opening. Soojin and Miyeon had returned from their outing. 

They opened the door to find the living room empty and its couch unoccupied. The noise from Yuqi’s room caught both of their attention. 

Maybe it was a good thing. She might have more time than she thought. “You know what, maybe it could wait until tomorrow. She’s busy playing with Yuqi—”

“Nope. Nice try. Let’s get it over with. You can do it, Soojin,” Miyeon said using the hand that wasn’t miraculously holding three overflowing shopping bags to guide—more like push—Soojin toward the chaos contained by a closed door.

Before Soojin could protest, Miyeon barged into the room that held two screaming maniacs and raised her voice to get the younger ones’ attention, “Soojin wants to talk to you, Shuhua.”

Shuhua took her eyes away from her screen. Her cocoon was unraveling itself as she looked up at the sudden intrusion, revealing her disheveled hair. Her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes narrowed at the pair casting them both a confused glance. She didn’t hear them come in. She her hair quickly, attempting to fix the tangles that had mysteriously formed under the shelter of her blanket.

“Shuhua!” Yuqi exclaimed in frustration just as Shuhua’s avatar had been murdered while she was looking away from the screen. “Great. Go talk,” Yuqi said sulkily. She turned her head to look up at the two figures standing by the doorway, “You just cost us the game, unnies,” Yuqi grumbled at yet another defeat. One more addition to the losing streak.

Shuhua turned off her phone, notably much more unbothered by her own death than her teammate. “Let’s go to