“See you later, mum. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Chaeyoung bid farewell to her mother, who was washing the dishes they just used for their dinner and gave her mum a kiss on the cheek.

“Okay, have fun. Make sure Lisa looks after you,” Ms. Park chuckled, teasing her daughter. 

“I don’t need looking after, mum,” Chaeyoung groaned, missing the humour behind her mother’s words. 

‘Yeah, well, behave yourself. And if you can’t be good, be safe.”

The blonde turned around and scrunched her face, snarling at her mother’s bewildering remark. “Mum, what are you on about? I’m into girls. I’m not gonna get pregnant,” the blonde scoffed. 

“I just mean be safe in general,” Ms. Park shrugged, giving Chaeyoung the sense that she didn’t understand what “if you can’t be good, be safe” meant. “I know how you can get, Chaeyoung.”

The blonde rolled her eyes again and wondered if her eyes would stay that way if the wind changed. “Alright, mumI’ve got to go. Lisa’s here,” the blonde opened the door, waving behind herself at her mother with her eyes fixed on Lisa’s decade-old black Ford Focus. 

_______

Walking up to the house after leaving the car at Lisa’s house since she lived closer to the party venue, the Thai girl held onto her best friend’s arm. Lisa was Chaeyoung’s closest friend, and the only friend she would allow to walk with arm-in-arm. The blonde would say she tolerated her friend’s need to link arms, but the truth was she actually liked the feeling of support, which made her feel wanted and loved. 

Both girls looked stunning, with Chaeyoung with her blonde hair flowing down, hanging in front of one shoulder, wearing a black cropped t-shirt, showing off her faint abs, and a red and black tartan mini-skirt for making access for a girl lucky enough to be her one-night-stand. Lisa, also had her hair down with her signature bangs, wearing a navy dress, which went down to her knees, much lower than the mini-skirt worn by her playgirl best friend. 

“Okay, you promised me that you’d behave yourself tonight,” Lisa reminded Chaeyoung as their feet stepped onto the driveway of the old, brick house, which towered over them at three-stories tall. 

“Yeah, yeah, I remember,” Chaeyoung rolled her eyes at her friend’s concern. 

“So no getting hammered, alright? You normally do stupid when you're wasted,” the Thai girl warned but couldn’t help herself chuckle at her friend’s drunken history. 

“Well, I’m not working tomorrow. So, can I at least get a little wasted?” Chaeyoung pretended to plead with her best friend. 

“A little wasted? Yeah sure. I can control a tipsy Chaeng,” Lisa laughed, making Chaeyoung giggle too. “But promise you won’t make a scene,” the Thai girl continued with a warning tone. 

“When have I ever made a scene?” The young blonde rolled her eyes again and wished that her friend wasn't so concerned about her, which she then took back because she secretly likes being worried about. 

“You’re joking right?” Lisa snickered at her friend’s choice to forget about the many scenes she’s made throughout the past. “How about the time when you…”

“Alright, alright! Let’s not do this!” Chaeyoung cut her friend off before she could list the endless embarrassing drunken stories she had on her best friend, of which she was always keen to remind her.

______

The door to the student house swung open, revealing a muscular, baby-faced man, who welcomed the two girls to the party with a smile. “Hey, welcome to chaos,” he joked, raising his hand to gesture the girls to come in. 

They both walked side by side, through the door, the hall, and into the living room where a huge circle of students sat, giggling, yelling, and chugging whatever they had in their plastic cups. 

They made their way past the ring of students through the musk of beer and whiskey that hung in the air. Dozens of people filled every square foot of the house as the two girls fought their way through the crowd, through the living room, the dining room, and finally into the kitchen. Chaeyoung was surprised at how big the house was. For a student house, every room was big and spacious, although Lisa informed her that only four second-year university students lived there. 

Settling themselves against the kitchen counter, a lad made his way over with two freshly-filled plastic cups of beer. 

“Hey, welcome to the party. Glad you could make it, Lis,” the relatively handsome, well-dressed student welcomed Lisa. 

“Thanks, Chan. This is my best friend, Chaeyoung,” Lisa gestured to the blonde. 

The young man bowed slightly, respectfully welcoming Chaeyoung to the party, ‘Nice to meet you, I’m Chanyeol,” and then handed the drinks to the two girls who both accepted with appreciative smiles. 

“So, how are your classes going?” Chanyeol curiously asked Lisa, as Chaeyoung’s eyes scanned the kitchen, through the doors and into the dining room. Whatever Chanyeol was saying to Lisa became white noise as she laid eyes on a stunning girl, bending over the pool table that had replaced the dining room table in the room next door. The girl was dressed in a slim red dress that grasped her curves, causing Chaeyoung to bite her lip at the girl’s figure. 

The unknown girl in red was playing pool, and the blonde observed how the girl’s dark hair hung down to one side gently brushing the green felt of the pool table as she positioned herself for her next shot. 

Starring at the girl in red, she took sips of her beer as she waited for an opportunity to introduce herself. Chaeyoung wasn’t shy approaching girls and normally wasted no time at bars in finding a girl to make hers for the night. And tonight was no different. 

The girl in red was now standing with the pool cue in hand, laughing at a joke that one of the friends made while she waited for her female opponent to take her shot. Her opponent was on the black ball, as the girl in red still had several balls to pot, making Chaeyoung hopeful for her opponent to sink the black and put this game to rest. Maybe then the girl would move and an opportunity would present itself for the predatory blonde. 

She smirked to herself as she watched the black ball fall into the pocket, giving victory to the girl in red’s opponent, who smugly smiled to herself and cockily dismissed the girl in red with a arrogant “next!”

The girl in red just rolled her eyes at her opponent's arrogance and pulled out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from her bag. Pulling out a cigarette from the packet, she turned to her friends to inform them that she was going outside for a smoke. Her friends just nodded and the blonde was thankful that none of them smoked as she watched the girl in red walk through the kitchen, making her way to the back of the house, alone. 

Walking out the back door, Chaeyoung locked her eyes on the girl in red who was leaning against the brick wall of the garage, looking around the dimly lit garden as she dragged on her cigarette. A few other people were also outside, chatting in small cliques and paying no attention to Chaeyoung or the girl in the blonde’s sights. 

“Sorry, you lost,” Chaeyoung said softly but confidently as she stopped in front of the girl, but facing the garden. 

“Huh?” The girl was surprised and confused at the statement, wondering what this stranger meant. 

“The pool game. I saw you lose. That girl you lost to seems a bit much, doesn’t she?” Chaeyoung clarified and then dropped a talking point, which she hoped the girl would latch on to. 

“Tell me about it. All she does is play pool at the student’s union bar, and now she’s hogging the pool table at this party. She should at least let someone else have a go, selfish ,” she ended her turn with a growl before taking another drag, making Chaeyoung chuckle at the girl’s rant, which disarmed the girl making her chuckle at herself too. 

“Where did you get that dress?” The blonde spoke her mind, lacing her words with a thin coat of seduction, just enough to make the girl intrigued but not enough to scare her away. Chaeyoung’s eyes roamed up and down the girl, using the time that the girl looked down at her own dress to check out her freely. 

“Oh, this is from Mango. It’s actually the first time I’ve worn it. I bought it a year ago, but the party I bought it for got canceled and then I kind of forgot about, until now.”

“Well, you should wear it more often. You look stunning,” Chaeyoung said, subtly checking her out as her eyes faintly moved up and down, taking in the girl’s form. 

The girl looked at Chaeyoung curiously. She sensed an agenda in Chaeyoung, and her heartbeat sped up as she sensed her agenda was ual in nature. The thought of kissing the blonde flashed through her mind, and she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t by the thought of the gorgeous blonde’s lips on her own. “Are you here alone?”

Chaeyoung smirked at the interest she heard in the girl’s voice. “No, I”m with a friend. I was meant to come with my boyfriend, but I caught him cheating on me two days ago, with some he went to high school with,” she lied, trying to engage the girl in sharing frustrating experiences that she might have had with men. 

“I’m sorry to hear that. Some men are -bags,” the girl half-growled, which piqued Chaeyoung’s interest. Maybe the emotion in her voice was linked to a current boyfriend or an ex. 

“Hey, are you okay?” Chaeyoung reached out and reassuringly rubbed the girl's upper arm and giving her a comforting smile, which the girl thought was genuine. Well, it half was. “I sense you have something to get off your chest.”

“Yeah, well...I just had a fight with my boyfriend before coming here. We arrived two hours late because I had to babysit my younger sister while my mum worked late. He said that my sister was old enough to take care of herself. I said “no she’s not. She’s only eleven.” He said “fine”, he wasn’t waiting for me, and went to the party alone when we planned to arrive together. But you know...whatever,” the girl said trying to make out like she didn’t really care, but she obviously did. Chaeyoung continued rubbing the girl's arm gently with almost featherlight touches. 

The girl didn’t even realise that Chaeyoung had taken a step towards her while she vented about her boyfriend’s attitude until she lifted her head and saw the blonde’s face barely a foot away. The girl was excited by the closeness, and butterflies danced in her stomach and warm tingles ran through her body when she saw Chaeyoung paying great attention to her lips. 

The girl in red didn’t know what was happening. All she knew was that there was a beautiful, y, mysterious blonde enigma in front of her, looking at her like she was the only thing that mattered in the world. She tried to remember the last time someone looked at her like that, and her heart sank when she realised no one ever had. Until now. Her heart jumped back up and raced faster than ever before when she returned her thoughts to the possibilities of what might happen next with this enigmatic blonde.

Never had she thought about kissing a girl. It was wrong in their society. It was taboo. But the thought of her connecting her own lips with the blonde’s, who was looking at her with so much desire in her eyes, was all she wanted. She craved it, and for a moment she thought if the blonde was a witch who had cast a spell on her, because she felt utterly helpless. Before she could even process another thought, the girl pulled the blonde towards her, crashing the blonde's lips against her own. 

Their lips danced together, opening and closing in a messy rhythm as their tongues swirled together, taking in the taste of each other.

Chaeyoung gripped and pulled on the girl's hair, releasing a moan from the other, who only felt pleasure radiate from the playful act on her scalp. 

“OI! Get the hell away from her!” A deep voice yelled from the back door of the house. Everyone heard except for the two girls who were lost in each other’s senses. The man charged over to the girls, pushing Chaeyoung off of the other girl causing her to stumble back and almost trip over a plant pot next to the wall. 

“What’s your problem?” Chaeyoung growled back, ready to fight.

“My sister’s not gay, so off your weirdo!” The man almost roared, sending warning glares to the blonde, who replied with her own. 

“Really? Well, your sister just had her tongue down a girl’s throat. That’s gay if you ask me,” the blonde challenged the man with a daring smirk, as the man's glares turned to daggers with violent intent. 

“Yeah, well no one did, you freak!” The brother of the girl stepped towards Chaeyoung, threatening her by invading her space. But the blonde didn’t move, undeterred by his so-called threatening advances. 

“Hey, what’s going on?!” Another male voice yelled from across the patio.

“This freak was just trying to turn your girlfriend gay!” The brother yelled in the direction of the other man while pointing an accusatory finger at Chaeyoung. Meanwhile, the girl in red just stood frozen against the wall, terrified from being caught red-handed kissing someone else of the same gender. 

“What do you mean?” The other man walked over to them with an air of confusion and anger.

“She just had her tongue down your sister’s throat,” the brother explained with aggression, making sure his sister wasn’t to blame. 

“Hey, that’s not fair. We both had our tongues down each other's throat,” Chaeyoung remarked in frustration, knowing full well that kissing involves two people, and that the other girl very much wanted it.

“Joy, is that true? Did you have your tongue in that es mouth?” Joy’s boyfriend yelled, trying to stop himself from lunging at Chaeyoung. 

“No! I swear! She just pushed herself on me and shoved her tongue in my mouth,” Joy shook her head erratically, holding back guilty tears.

“Oh, for sake!” The blonde raised her hands and sighed in frustration at the complete and utter lie.

If the girl’s brother was looking at her with violent intent, the boyfriend was now looking at the blonde with murder in his eyes. His fists balled, and eyes narrowed, and his breathing deepened, and almost everyone outside could hear every single breath. “Get the away from her. My girlfriend’s not gay!”

“Well, she was just making out with me. That's kind of gay, isn’t it?!” Chaeyoung asked rhetorically as she and everyone else there knew that she was right. 

The boyfriend lost it at the thought of his girlfriend doing anything remotely gay, grabbing Chaeyoung by her shoulder and slamming her against the brick wall, causing the blonde to gasp at the impact of her back hitting the bricks He then stepped back and Chaeyoung knew exactly what was coming next after two years of kickboxing and sparring with her instructors. With hatred in his eyes, the boyfriend drew back his fist and hooked his arm around, connecting his first with the side of Chaeyoung’s mouth. The blonde could feel spit fly from at the impact as her head jolted to the side. 

Dazed from the punch from the much larger man, she looked back at him, trying her best to look unfazed, although the weight and anger behind the punch almost left her seeing stars. Shaking her head slightly, she managed to regain some kind of focus and prepared herself for another punch, which she was sure was coming. 

The blonde would never admit it, but she was grateful for Joy’s bother who dragged him away from her, trying his best to calm his friend down. The seething man shrugged his friend’s arms off him and regained his composure, pulling the fabric of his shirt from his shoulders to adjust it to fit more comfortably.

“Stay away from her,” he pointed at Chaeyoung, who could hear the venomous threat behind his words. The boyfriend roughly grabbed Joy’s arm and dragged her back inside accompanied by her brother, leaving Chaeyoung alone with her thoughts, and the throbbing sensation that had just begun on the left side of her lips. She used her tongue to the area of lip and instantly tasted the familiar iron-rich taste of blood. Her hand moved up to as she used her index and middle fingers to pat the wounded area and wasn’t surprised when she lay her eyes on the red substance that now coated her digits. 

______

The morning after, Lisa pulled up at Chaeyoung’s house at ten past ten, with Chaeyoung looking worse for wear, after drinking her misery away after the bust-up she had with Joy’s boyfriend. 

The young disheveled blonde stumbled out of the car, still hungover from the copious amounts of beer she consumed until three in the morning, and closed the car door which sounded more like a slam as her hangover caused the sound to rattle through her ear canal and crash through her brain.

Once the shock of the slamming car door dissipated, she shook her head and turned to walk up her driveway without saying goodbye to Lisa, who found much amusement in observing her friend in her fragile state. 

“Good morning, Chaeyoung,” the blonde heard a familiar voice welcome her, and looked in every direction until she found the right one to see the familiar figure of her brunette neighbour. 

“Oh, Jennie. Good morning,” the blonde stumbled over her words as she ran her hand through her hair, and preened herself to make herself look more presentable, even though her makeup was worn off, her hair was in disarray, and her lip was swollen.

Jennie stood a couple of metres away from Chaeyoung, seemingly nervous but feeling obliged to engage in small talk with her neighbour. The brunette was also exceptionally curious as to where Chaeyoung had been and to why she looked like that. 

Upon seeing the brunette, Lisa rolled down her window, on the passenger’s side, next to the pavement, assuming that this was the new neighbour Chaeyoung had talked about. Being her best friend, Lisa felt the need to warn her friend to be nice. Without saying a word, as to not embarrass her friend in front of Jennie, she just lifted her finger and pointed at Chaeyoung while making a scolding expression with her face, silently telling her friend to behave herself. 

Turning to her friend, the blonde saw the wordless warning, and raised her eyebrows and nodded her head slightly, reassuring her friend that she would play nice with the beautiful brunette.

Jennie, who was holding on to a lead, with a brown ball of fluff named Kuma on the end of it, turned to the car and waved at its driver. “Hi, I’m Jennie, nice to meet you.”

“Hi, I’m Lisa. Nice to meet you too. I’m Chae’s best friend,” the Thai girl introduced herself politely with a smile. 

“Oh really?’”

“What? Are you surprised that I have a friend?” Chaeyoung scoffed, feeling insulted by Jennie’s implied surprise.  The brunette held her breath for a second as she searched for a response because the truth was: yes, she was slightly surprised that Chaeyoung had a friend because the blonde seemed to be some kind of misfit who was struggling to find her place in the world. On the other hand, her surprise was also accompanied with relief, relief that she did have a friend, a hopefully trustworthy and supportive confidant who could help steer Chaeyoung on to the right path. 

“No, no…not at all,” Jennie masked her lie with a shake of her head, trying to reassure the blonde.

“Well, I better go. I have an assignment due tomorrow,” Lisa excused herself, waving at the pair on the sidewalk before pulling away. 

As Lisa left, Jennie turned her entire attention to the rough blonde in front of her, and that’s when she saw it. The shiny purple mark on the corner of , swollen up, giving her a round lump and thick lips on that side of . Jennie furrowed her eyes in concern and took a step forward wanting to place a hand on the blonde’s cheek and run her thumb over the bruise, making sure that it was real. But as she took that first step forward she instantly took it back, returning to her original position as she was worried that Chaeyoung would use the closeness to inspect her arm once more. 

The blonde saw how Jennie advanced and then instantly retreated and understood the reason for it. Instead of calling her out on it, which she would have normally done, she decided to stay mute on the topic, as she decided to continue playing the long game to finding out the truth behind Jennie’s arm. She had decided the other night that she didn’t need answers right now. She would get the answers eventually. So even though staying quiet on the topic was difficult for Chaeyoung, she knew that it was the best thing to do for now. 

“What happened?” “Who did this to you?” Jennie referred to the glistening scarlet and purple bruise on the corner of the blonde’s mouth.

“Oh right. So you wanna know what happened to me when you don’t tell me what happened to you?” Chaeyoung half-growled. She may have settled for waiting for answers, but she was still the snappy teenager with a chip on her shoulder.

“I did tell you. So now you tell me. Who did this to you?”

“No one. I fell off my bike," Chaeyoung smirked as she purposefully told an obvious lie, trying to convey that she was never going to tell the truth. 

“Tell me the truth,” Jennie demanded, although she lacked conviction. 

“The truth? Really? So you wanna hear my truth while you continue to lie?” The blonde cursed herself for her snappy attitude towards Jennie. She really was planning on being patient for answers, but her hangover was making it hard to care right now. 

“Is this because you like girls?” Jennie asked with concern and sympathy glistening in her eyes. 

“Yeah, well it’s not the first time,” the blonde shrugged as if it was no big deal, which made Jennie’s heart drop in her chest. The flicker of defeat on Chaeyoung’s face and in her words ached the brunette’s heart, as she tried to imagine the blonde’s troubled past. 

“What do you mean? It’s not the first time they’ve assaulted you?” Jennie asked quickly with anger building in her body at the thought of this young woman being beaten just for liking girls. “You need to go to the police,” she suggested with utmost seriousness as Kuma sat infront of her, sensing the distress in his owner’s voice. 

Chaeyoung took a deep breath and dragged out her sigh as she clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes at her innocent neighbour. “Yeah, well maybe you do too,” the blonde growled and dragged out each syllable before storming up her driveway and into her house, leaving Jennie alone with Kuma and her racing heartbeat, going over their bewildering interaction in her head.

________

Looking through her window, Jennie sipped on a cup of tea as she watched Chaeyoung’s house, wondering what the blonde was going through. The images that she imagined before during their encounter on the street looped in her mind, images of Chaeyoung being beaten by others because of her uality, which she hoped weren’t real even though she sensed the reality of the implied abuse through the words “it’s not the first time.”

Jennie’s blood boiled as she imagined someone punching the young blonde just because she was attracted to girls and didn’t follow society's norm of heterouality. 

The brunette debated whether or not to go over to the blonde’s house, to offer her shoulder to cry on, or to offer her an ear to listen. She was nervous as she knew how unpredictable the blonde could be and how carefree she was in other peoples’ personal space. 

However anxious she was of Chaeyoung’s determination in solving the mystery behind her arm, she felt it was her obligation as a neighbor, and now as her tutor to comfort the blonde and support her the best she could. She didn’t know enough about the blonde’s past to help her move on from it. In fact, she knew nothing at all. But as she collected a history textbook from her office bookshelf, she knew she could support the blonde by educating her and guiding her to a brighter future.