Minjoo quickened her pace to reach Yujin who was now getting further and further away from her. She tried calling her name, but it seems like she wasn't hearing her or chose not to.

Just about halfway from their house, near the next row of houses, Minjoo finally caught up to her, grabbing her arm and making her stop.

"Yujin, wait." She breathed out.

It took Yujin a few seconds before turning back. When she did, she had a blank look on her face and didn't look directly at Minjoo.

There was silence. None of them spoke up as neither knew how to start.

"D-Did you..." Minjoo started, stuttering. She stopped herself, knowing perfectly well that Yujin heard their conversation.

"How long have you been standing there? By the door?" She asked instead.

Yujin shrugs, still not looking at Minjoo. "A few minutes now I suppose."

Minjoo sighs, thinking of what to say next.

"And, I suppose you heard the conversation between Yuri and I?"

Yujin scoffed, smiling sorely. "I don't know. Take a guess."

Minjoo looked down as she fumbled with her fingers, feeling bad about herself, and feeling worse that Yujin had to hear her say those things.

"Yujin, I'm sor--"

"No, no, no." Yujin cuts her off. "I don't want to hear you saying that. For all I know, you meant all those things you said."

Minjoo could only look at Yujin desperately, not knowing how to refute her statement. She didn't know herself if she meant it or not. She could've said it because of her emotions running wild earlier or maybe she had meant to say it out loud all along.

"I know you hate me." Yujin suddenly says in a small voice, breaking Minjoo's thoughts. "I wasn't numb not to notice, you know."

Now, that was one thing Minjoo was sure about. About her hating Yujin—but that was before any of this has ever happened.

"But even if you did, I still chose you as my partner." Yujin added.

Minjoo looked at Yujin confusedly, wondering what she was saying.

"Remember back then, Ms. Im told us we can think of who we want to be paired up with in the contest because the machine may take our choices into account? That time, I answered the questions only thinking of you."

Minjoo felt the life getting out of her. How come she didn't know this? Why was this the first time she told this to her? And why did she want to be paired up with her?

"But I guess the machine must've had an error because it's pretty clear that I wasn't the partner you had in mind."

Yujin paused, taking a deep breath in before continuing.

"I noticed, you know. The first few times that you and I got paired, I felt that you didn't like me. But since we're in a contest, you tried your best to get along with me and I appreciate that...even if I knew you weren't really doing that for us to become friends."

"Yujin, I... that was just..." Minjoo started.

"By chance," Yujin spoke again that stopped Minjoo from speaking further. "do you remember what we talked about yesterday? About the friend who I relied to during my hard times?"

Minjoo's eyes furrowed, unsure why Yujin would bring that up at the moment. Nonetheless, she nodded her head slowly, indicating that she remembered.

"That person, the one who I was referring to yesterday...is you, Minjoo. You were the one who I relied on to during those times." Yujin says.

Minjoo's eyes widened in surprise. "I-I don't get it. Why me? And how come I didn't notice you were trying to be friends with me before this contest?"

Yujin chuckled bitterly. "Maybe because I was just bad at expressing myself that you didn't notice."

Yujin looked up, blinking rapidly. Minjoo noticed that her eyes were a little glossy.

"My friends said I would never be able to make you notice me because I was bad at making friends other than them. I ignored them that time because I really, really wanted to befriend you and get to know you."

"At first, I tried approaching you. But time just won't allow it, and everytime I went near you or went looking for you, you weren't there already or you were busy talking to somebody."

Minjoo looked down in embarrassment, remembering she did those things on purpose everytime she saw Yujin getting near.

"And then I thought, what could I do for you to notice me? I thought of a few things actually but none of them really worked." Yujin said, chuckling slightly at the end.

"First, I the sprinklers during one of our exams because I overheard you saying you weren't able to review because your mom asked for your help with something the day before. Second, I purposedly failed my experiment during Chemistry class so our teacher wouldn't scold you anymore about forgetting your homework. Third, I sprayed those fake snow all over the rooftop because I saw how sad you looked about snow coming late that y