“EARTH to Minjoo~!”

Minjoo’s thinking bubble popped when Yuijin suddenly waved her hand with just a few centimetre distance from Minjoo’s face. The long-haired girl quickly smacked that playful hand down and went back to eating. 

“What’s wrong with you?” Minjoo asked with her eyebrows furrowed. 

“I should be the one asking you that. What’s wrong with you?” Yujin then put more meat on Minjoo’s plate. “You’ve been spacing out since earlier. Is there something wrong?”

“I am not spacing out.”

Yujin had to move backwards after that answer. “Do you dare lie to me when I just pulled you out from space?”

“Shut up and just eat.” Minjoo sighed. “You’re just over-observant now since you’re happy that your crush noticed you.”

“ACK. Right…” Yujin scratched the back of her head while laughing like an idiot. Minjoo just glared at her before letting out another sigh.

If Yujin’s identity is a secret she keeps from the whole world, it’s something that she didn’t keep from her best friend, Minjoo. When she confessed about her peculiarity to Minjoo, the girl accepted her as she is and there was no drifting apart that ever happened between them. They actually grew even closer with Yujin freely sharing her frustrations to Minjoo.

Living together with her conventional parents, it was Minjoo that kept Yujin sane.

It was still her that kept Yujin stable after she moved out from her parent’s house.

“Stop laughing like that, Yujin. It’s gross. Your nostrils are flaring.”

“W-What!?”

The two went on with their banter while talking about Yujin’s crush until Yujin also brought out Minjoo’s apparent crush on the basketball team’s star player and the banter grew longer.

When the two were finally tired of reasoning, they just both surrendered and declared that banter to be a draw. It’s a usual scenario for the two of them. It may be something stupid but to them, it's proof of how strongly they are connected with each other. 

It’s something that Minjoo fears to lose once she lays her feelings out in the open.

That’s why she chose to keep it a secret.

She’d be keeping it to herself until the day that someone might sweep her away, at least she hopes to be swept away. She hopes that once Yujin moves on with someone else, she’s already gotten rid of those unrequited feelings. 

She had decided to bury her feelings in the deep until that day when her resolve was shaken with what Professor Bae said.

‘Will it really be better if I tell her?’ Minjoo asked herself once again while playing with the food in front of her. ‘Would it be better to regret after confessing or regret about not confessing at all? Either way would hurt anyway…’

Yujin then frowned when she noticed what Minjoo was doing with the food. 

‘At the very least, my friendship with her won’t be put at risk if I don’t confess to her. I’ll be able to stay by her side as a friend even though she would surely be with someone else but…’ There went another sigh. ‘Forget it. She already likes someone else. I bet she’s never seen me as a possible girlfriend anyway since we've been friends since we were in our diapers. She probably thinks of me as a sibling and nothing more… I would only complicate things if—”

“Minjoo-ya.”

Minjoo jerked with that call from Yujin. “Y-Yes?”

“Are you really okay? Did something happen that you’re not telling me? You are not the type to play with food.” Yujin looked really worried and Minjoo found it so cute that her heart clenched a bit. She heard herself scream internally. “I’m sorry… Did the poster thing offended you? If that’s what you’re grumpy about then I’m sorry, okay? I won’t be doing that again, hm?”

Yujin’s soft, wooing voice caught her off-guard. Yujin even reached out and held her hand, something that’s not really alien to both of them since they usually walk around while holding hands. But yeah, things changed when Minjoo realised her own feelings for her best friend.

”D-Don’t do anything stupid like that again, okay?” Minjoo answered. Her heart literally melted with that sweet action from Yujin. Sometimes she’s still confused on why her best friend never had a relationship when she’s this sweet and thoughtful. Is it because Yujin isn’t very open about her preference?

‘Ah, right… It’s actually pretty hard to find out who swings the same way. We are both closetted so it would be harder for others to approach us.’ 

“Alright.” Yujin smiled sweetly at her. The girl even gave her hand soft presses before she let her go. “I will not do that again. I mean, I will not settle to the small posters and will surely get you that banner—“

”Ahn Yujin!!!”

”I’ll be confessing to Jimin-ssi.”

That sudden declaration of Yujin suddenly halted all Minjoo’s movements to the point that she forgot to breathe for a moment. Her eyes went wide for a second and she felt energy depleted from her body. “Y-Yes?”

Still wearing that warm smile, Yujin continued frying more meat while laying out what’s on her mind to her best friend. 

“I am planning… on confessing my feelings to Jimin-ssi.” Yujin repeated. 

Minjoo gulped as she took a hold of herself. “W-What made you get into this decision? I-I thought you were just crushing on her. I d-didn’t know that it’s already this serious?”

”Right? I thought I was just really admiring her.” Yujin ran her fingers through her hair. “But I guess lately, I am building up greed inside of me. I want to know more about her and be closer to her… I want to at least try…”

‘She already knew what happened to Professor Kang after she confessed but now she’s taking the risk?’ 

Minjoo couldn’t believe what’s happening at all. She lowered her head down. She could feel greed creeping up to her as well. “H-How about your parents? W-What would they say if they—“

”Come on, Minjoo. It’s not as if Jimin-ssi would agree to go out with me 100%. I bet I will get rejected too so let’s not worry about my folks for now.” Yujin looked at her for a moment before giving her a shy smile. “Let’s worry about that if ever Jimin-ssi receives my feelings. As for now, I know it’s not that of a big deal.”

”I-I see…” Minjoo forced a smile. “W-When are you planning to tell her?”

”I don’t know.” Yujin sighed but the smile on her face was still there. “I am still thinking about it but since she invited us personally to watch the stage play, I guess I will try to get my feelings through that day when I congratulate her again.”

”Ahh…” Minjoo forced enthusiasm in her tone but even her voice didn’t cooperate with her. “I-I’ll support you about this decision then.”

”Come on, Minjoo!” Yujin tilted her head to the side. “Don’t look sad like that. I told you the chances of me being rejected is higher than being accepted. If ever I even got a miracle, I won’t stop hanging out with you! You are my best friend!”

”R-Right…” The girl nodded but her heart was terribly disagreeing. “I am indeed your best friend…”

YUJIN was already back to her place that night and she’s been staring at her laptop monitor for quite some time yet the document in front of her was still empty. It was as clear as the summer sky.

Since she is aspiring to be a writer too, instead of doing a book report, she would be passing a story with a minimum of 50,000 words as her project for the finals. Midterms are already over and finals would come in just a blink of an eye but Yujin still doesn’t know what she wants to write. 

All this time she only received criticisms from her professors, especially from Professor Bae. The Professor would always point out how boring her stories are because it gives the Professor a feeling that she’s reading a newspaper rather than a story book because of how straightforward Yujin’s writing is.

Professor Kang agrees with Professor Bae’s reaction to Yujin’s work. The popular writer even told her that she could have a good future in writing news or editorial articles. 

But it’s not what Yujin wants. She took this major up so she could make masterpieces like the professor she admires. She wants to make pages that would inspire and comfort people at the same time. She wants to give life to characters that would make an impact on the lives of real people.

She wants to return the same feeling to other people, just like how Seulgi’s works touched her life. 

And now that she’s seeing Seulgi’s masterpieces in a different light, she realised more how she wants to create worlds through written words. 

Yujin gave up… but just for that night. She closed her laptop and grabbed her precious [LFI] book from her bag. After hearing everything from the writer herself, she now sees the book in a different light. 

“Of course, you can’t just write anything without inspiration.” Yujin opened the book in the final page and sighed. What the writer told her about the ending suddenly flashed back in her mind. 

Earlier that day…

“SO, why do you want me to get the courage to confess after reading the book?”

Seulgi was already folding the poster that they stole. “Isn’t it obvious? Even though it didn’t end well between me and Joohyun at that time, a lot more opportunities came to me.”

The professor then handed the poster to Yujin and the girl quickly shoved it in her bag. “Opportunities, you say?”

“Yeah. Romance opportunities.” Seulgi gave her student an awkward wink before stealthily walking out of the storage room of the gym. “Since I got my answer from Joohyun, I was freed from the limit that was set by my feelings for her. I stopped hoping for something that was impossible and opened my eyes to what’s around me.”

Seulgi stopped in her tracks when she made sure that they made it out. “I am not saying that you’ll get rejected but if you ever got rejected, don’t be too hard on yourself. It will be painful at first but pain can be healed through time.”

Yujin nodded, her lips pressed together showing her dimples. “I see. Thank you for the advice, Prof.”

“Ha! No worries! Anything for my protege!” Seulgi laughed like an old guy. “I just don’t want you to hold on to feelings that might cause your downfall. You’ve been harbouring feelings for Jimin-ssi since your freshman years, right?”

Yujin’s eyes widened as her face reddened. “W-W-W-What!? H-How did you know—”

Seulgi rubbed her nose. “I told you. If there is Spidey-senses then there’s also Seulgi-senses. I knew right away that you like her the moment I heard you talking with her.”

“W-What!? Am I that obvious?” Now, the student is sweating profusely. 

“Yeah. At least to me. You better confess now so that your best—” The professor suddenly stopped and just smiled. “Nevermind, enough talk for today. I still need to do some work. It’s because of you that I will be working overtime now. Oh, speaking of overtime, Overtime Playlist only needs one more upvote to reach the 200 mark.”

“Professor! You’re changing the topic again! What were you going to say?” Yujin whined as she followed her mentor. 

“It’s nothing~” Seulgi just smiled. Her attention was then called by the person she was about to talk about. Kim Minjoo and Professor Bae were in the cafe on the opposite side from where they are. Seulgi looked pretty confused on why the two were together then remembered that Minjoo’s Mentor is actually Joohyun. 

They have a so-called Mentoring System in school where students are being put under the mentoring of a professor. Students are free to ask advice and lay out concerns from their mentors. Yujin is under Seulgi, something that Yujin actually begged the management since she was initially assigned to Professor Bae. It was