Ahn Yujin was the most annoying person in the world.

There were so many things Minju could list out, so many that the list would probably go on forever. Her stupid classmate was just so, so… damn irritating that Minju would do anything to make her stop.

For instance, the name-calling.

It happened once at the tutoring center, when Minju was trying to help the little elementary schooler with her multiplication tables. Ahn Yujin had walked past, ruffled Minju’s hair, and said, “Good going, Pea.”

On the bus they unfortunately shared on the way to school, Ahn Yujin liked to stand beside Minju and rest her arm on Minju’s shoulder. “Just right, Little Bear,” was her favorite line.

At lunch, though her own group of friends was all the way across the cafeteria, Ahn Yujin made a point of dropping by Minju’s table to swipe her yogurt cup off her tray. “You should ask them for a fun-sized one, Mini.”

In the library, every single time Minju reached for a book — even if it was on the bottom shelf — Ahn Yujin would breeze by, snatch the book off the stacks, and say, “Picture books are that way, Nugget.”

On the basketball court in gym class, whenever Ahn Yujin intentionally bumped into Minju, which was infuriatingly often, she’d always have that stupid smirk on her face as she said, “Oh, sorry, tiny human, didn’t see you there.”

By Minju’s locker, which was regrettably right above Ahn Yujin’s: every day, every time Minju went to get a textbook, she would hear that voice, drawling in a ridiculous accent, “And here we see Little Miss Tiptoe in her natural habitat, struggling to reach into the unfathomable heights of her locker…”

Ahn Yujin was the most annoying person in the world.

Apart from the name-calling, she also did the thing where she would hide Minju’s things all over the place — and then refuse to reveal their locations.

The first time it was Minju’s stationery. After a partner project together (where Minju did, like, 70% of the work while Ahn Yujin just stared at her, ugh!), Minju searched everywhere for her little sushi eraser, to the point of nearly crying in frustration by the time school ended. And the next day, when she found it on her desk in the morning, Minju looked up to see Ahn Yujin doing that dumb smirking thing at her.

The second time it was Minju’s math worksheet. She even saw Ahn Yujin take it, Minju watched her take it, but no matter how many times Minju asked for it back, all she got in return was the fakest innocent look ever. If Yuri hadn’t intervened and grabbed it out of Ahn Yujin’s folder, Minju would’ve never been able to do her homework.

The seventh time it was Minju’s sneaker. Her sneaker! Everyone was laughing at her as she hopped desperately around the classroom, trying to get Ahn Yujin to stop walking away with her shoe — and of course, Minju just had to trip and fall and get a bruise on her elbow. Ahn Yujin didn’t even say sorry when Minju finally snatched her shoe back.

The fifteenth time it was Minju’s umbrella. By this time, she was really close to just not caring anymore, but it was pouring outside and she had to get to the tutoring center in an hour. So Minju marched over to Ahn Yujin and demanded her umbrella back, only to have the infuriating creature point at the top of the blackboard. Fifteen minutes, Minju spent, just jumping and jumping to reach for it until Wonyoung had taken pity on her and helped out.

The twenty, what, twenty-seventh? The twenty-seventh time it was Minju’s sushi eraser, again. This time Minju just ignored it. She borrowed Hitomi’s eraser and just ignored the cheeky looks Ahn Yujin sent her way. Ahn Yujin could have it if she liked it so much; Minju wasn’t going to play her stupid game any longer. And lo and behold, the little eraser was on her desk when she came back from the bathroom in the last class of the day.

Ahn Yujin was the most annoying person in the world.

Given her absolutely terrible personality, by all rights Ahn Yujin should be a useless lump of coal, right? No! Minju hated to admit it, but if she was ranked top by grades in their class, then Ahn Yujin was a close second. So close, in fact, that Ahn Yujin just wouldn’t stop reminding Minju about it.

“I got a 97, Tic-Tac,” Ahn Yujin said when they got their math exam back. “What did you get? Oh, 99? Cool.” She didn’t even ask before grabbing Minju’s paper out of her hands!

“We both got As for Bio lab,” said Ahn Yujin. “I checked with Mr. Nam just now.” Then she looked at Minju expectantly, as if she was waiting for Minju to say thank you. And why would Minju do that? She didn’t ask Ahn Yujin to look at her grades for her!

“I beat you! Got a perfect score.” Stupid Ahn Yujin and her stupid English grade. Minju had studied so hard for the English oral exam, too, but of course that Ahn Yujin would ace it — she breathed in English, anyway.

“You’re so slow!” Ahn Yujin zoomed past on the running track and left Minju just halfway through the first of their required ten laps; Minju didn’t even look up from where she was bent over, wheezing. And when Ahn Yujin appeared again after a minute, she had the audacity to laugh at Minju. “I’m on my ninth lap and you’re not even on your second!” If Minju had any strength left, she would’ve strangled Ahn Yujin.

“I finished mine first!” Even in the cafeteria, Ahn Yujin had to come over to Minju’s table to wave an empty juice box in Minju’s face. “Ten seconds. Bet you can’t beat that.” Which wasn’t even fair, because hello? Since when were they even competing over drinking speed?

Minju was just so done with Ahn Yujin.

Ahn Yujin was the most annoying person in the world.

There was a point in playing devil’s advocate, of course, but Minju was sure as hell that no one took the job as far as Ahn Yujin did. Because whatever Minju said — literally, anything Minju said — Ahn Yujin just had to disagree and make a big fuss out of it.

That time when Minju said to Nako in a private conversation that she thought Justin Bieber got a lot more flak than he honestly deserved, Ahn Yujin had jumped suddenly into their conversation and proceeded to list out a hundred hare-brained reasons why everyone should hate Justin and everything he did.

That time when Minju brought up abortion laws in history class, Ahn Yujin sat up and argued with Minju for the whole class (the whole class!). It was just meant to be a casual comment! Not a debate! But Ahn Yujin just went on and on and on until even the teacher got tired and made them both stop.

That time when Minju mentioned that she liked dogs, Ahn Yujin actually went and pulled up a whole PowerPoint just to say that cats were better pets. With animations and pictures and videos clips, too. And all this while Minju knew for a fact that Yujin loved dogs and had three puppies at home.

That time when Minju wasn’t even talking about soda but Ahn Yujin had randomly walked up and started asking her if she preferred Coke or Pepsi. Somehow, that question had escalated into a full blown argument that had lasted a whole week — a whole week!! — and god, Minju didn’t even like Coke or Pepsi!

Ahn Yujin pissed Minju off so much!!!!!!!!!

Ahn Yujin was the most annoying person in the world.

Minju was a naturally jumpy kid. Loud noises hurt her ears and she hated movies with jump-scares with every fiber of her being. So of course, Ahn Yujin just had to go out of her way to shock the living daylights out of Minju whenever she had the chance.

Like clapping her hands really loudly by Minju’s ears during study hall, making Minju scream and fall out of her chair.

Like tapping Minju on one shoulder and then holding a HD picture of a ghost up on her other side, making Minju scream (again) and trip over her own feet.

Like hiding beside their lockers and waiting for Minju to grab four heavy textbooks before jumping out with a huge yell, making Minju scream (again!) and drop all four books onto the ground.

Like grabbing Minju’s shoulders from behind, just as Minju was about to go down the stairs, and pretending to push her down. This nearly made Minju wet her pants. And yes, she screamed.

Like throwing her pencil case at Minju out of nowhere and just narrowly missing Minju’s head, making Minju flinch and spill the contents of an opened water bottle all over herself.

Like telling Minju the principal was angry and looking for her, making Minju run up three flights of stairs only to realize she’d be tricked. When Principal Lee had asked kindly what the matter was, Minju had gasped out a shaken apology and stumbled to the bathroom for an angry wee.

Ahn Yujin was the most annoying person in the world.

There were so many things she would do to irritate Minju. For instance, Ahn Yujin liked to steal Minju’s phone when she wasn’t looking and take a gazillion selfies with the front camera. This meant Minju had to keep deleting a gazillion pictures of stupid Ahn Yujin whenever her phone ran out of memory, which was often because she only had 16GB of memory space. But did Ahn Yujin care? No! Minju just kept finding more and more dumb selfies on her phone!

Ahn Yujin also liked to sign Minju up for junk emails. Minju had no idea where Ahn Yujin had gotten hold of her email address, and to be honest she wasn’t even sure if it was Ahn Yujin who was doing this ungodly work, but whenever she got a new message from some t-shirt company or panda conservation program — well, Minju got very angry at Ahn Yujin.

Most recently, Ahn Yujin had taken to leaving random bits of paper all over Minju’s stuff. In her backpack, in her pencil case, in her lunch box — everywhere Minju turned, she found blue scraps surrounding her. At times, when she threw out the folded fragments, Minju would catch Ahn Yujin looking at her hopefully. Hoping for what? For Minju to fly into a rage? Oh, that wasn’t going to happen, no it wasn’t. This time, Minju was going to stay calm and play it cool. Just ignore Ahn Yujin. Yes.

Throughout the month, Minju kept finding these little papers in all kinds of weird places. Picking five out of her gym shoes, Minju took a closer look and saw that they were in fact quite neatly folded, each one with a small smiley face drawn on the sides. But Minju didn’t bother opening it — doubtless, it would be some ugly handwritten variation on “ha, gotcha!” and seriously? That was so immature.

Today, though, when Minju opened her locker, a whole cascade of blue notes flowed out of the space. She groaned and was about to pick them up to throw away when there was a tap at her shoulder. Minju ignored it, focusing instead on collecting the scattered mess.

“Go away, Yujin.”

Another tap at her shoulder.

“Go away!”

One more tap, this time a little more hesitant.

“I’m serious!” Minju turned, eyes blazing. “Look at the mess you’ve made!”

Ahn Yujin had at least the sense to look kind of guilty as she held out one more little ball of blue paper.

“I have all these already, no thanks to you,” muttered Minju darkly. “It’s gonna take me forever to pick them all up.”

“Have you read any of them?”

“Of course not!”

“Why not?”

Minju shot Ahn Yujin a glare. “Because I know what they’re gonna say! It’s just gonna be you making fun of me, as usual!”

“But—”

“Just go away.”

“Read this one? Please?”

“Why should I?”

Ahn Yujin shuffled her feet, then did the stupid smirk thing that Minju hated. “Just read it,” she said, ing the note into Minju’s hand.

Minju stared at Ahn Yujin for a long moment before reluctantly giving in. Unfolding the paper, she rolled her eyes and scanned the tiny page half-heartedly. At least the handwriting was neat, which was a surpris—

I like you, said the note.

Minju blinked and squinted.

I like you.

She read again.

When Minju looked up in shock, Ahn Yujin met her eyes with an embarrassed smile. “Y-You read it, right?”

Ahn Yujin was the most annoying person in the world.

Like, really? Who would even confess like by annoying the hell out of their crush? It was so dumb, the dumbest idea ever. No one would ever accept a confession that came from so immature and ridiculous a person.

“But you did,” said Yujin happily.

“Yeah, well,” Minju mumbled, “sometimes there are exceptions.”

“You love me.”

“No.”

Yujin was still annoying. Like now, for instance. She clearly had her own chair, which had been moved up next to Minju’s, but was she in the chair? No, of course not. Yujin was draped all over Minju, her not even touching her own chair, while Minju was being squished out of her seat.

“Did you take my eraser again?”

“Guess where I hid it!”

“Yujin, please give it—”

“Nuh uh,” said Yujin, braiding Minju’s hair absentmindedly. “You have to use the right name.”

“But it sounds so…cringey.”

“Okay, so I’ll keep your eraser.”

“I need it for class!”

Yujin gave Minju a pointed look.

“Okay, fine.” Minju squeezed her eyes shut. “B-babycakes…can I have my eraser back?”

“Of course, Minju-unnie! Here you go!”

Minju pocketed her little sushi eraser hurriedly. As her girlfriend continued to play with her hair, Minju said cautiously, “Can we maybe go for, um, different nicknames? I think B-Babyca— ugh, please? Can I just call you Yujinie or Yudings?”

“I’ll think about it,” said Yujin with a cheeky grin. She got up from Minju’s lap and pressed a kiss onto her cheek. “I’m going to go check our grades with Miss Park.”

“I know I beat you this time!”

“You wish, Dumpling!”

Minju let out a small, fond groan. “Seriously, this girl,” she said to herself. Unlocking her phone, she scrolled through Facebook for a bit before receiving a pop-up notification. “Memory full? Again? But I just cleared everyth— oh, hell no…”

She opened up her camera roll.

“….AHN YUJIN, YOU ARE SO DEAD.”