"So, how've you been?" Sooyoung asked with forced casualty as she sat on a bench in one of the school corridors. They were lazily looking through piles of paper they had been given by their teachers; information, maps, anti-bullying contracts, things Sooyoung couldn't bother with even if she wanted to.

A few seconds passed along with the rustling of papers before the answer came. "Oh, I've been... alright," Hyoyeon said from beside her. Sooyoung nodded, trying to ignore the potential sadness hidden in Hyoyeon's answer.

On the other side of Hyoyeon was a boy named Minho, someone Hyoyeon knew from her old school. He was nice, Sooyoung thought, but she didn't know if she trusted him. She could never really see his intentions with saying or doing anything. She quietly praised herself for the of genius she performed that was introducing him to her friend Taemin, who was now sitting on Minho's other side. The two were chatting away, forgetting the girls' existence completely. Yes, she did indeed have her genius moments.

The other girls were around somewhere, too. When the group absently started drifting away into the corridor, she had stayed back on purpose to be alone with Hyoyeon, who otherwise had a tendency to stick closely to Tiffany. She felt a little sting of guilt as she thought of Taeyeon and Sunny, and how awkward they must be. But for now, she thought, they'd just have to power through.

She turned a leaf over and stared tiredly at a list of teachers' and staffs' names. "I was very sad that I couldn't reach you these past months," she said. Hyoyeon looked up at her; the way her blond hair waved from side to side giving Sooyoung a glee-filled kind of heartache. "I tried to search you up on the internet, but I really couldn't find you anywhere. You're very sneaky."

Hyoyeon smiled and looked back down to her papers. "We don't have access to the internet at my house," she said. Sooyoung's mouth almost fell open.

"Seriously?"

"Yes, my dad thinks old, creepy men will be at our doorstep in a second if I so much as get a Facebook account." She laughed a little, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Wow," Sooyoung mumbled. "Can people even survive without internet access nowadays?"

"It seems so," Hyoyeon nodded. A trance seemed to fill Sooyoung's head with every move the other girl made. She looked so soft, so... fragile. Like maybe she wasn't real. "We have a computer though!" Hyoyeon continued excitedly. Totally adorable. "Though it's kinda old, you know... from around the big bang or so, give or take a few years." Sooyoung laughed and turned another page, not even reading what it said. "I go on it sometimes when I get so desperately bored that I want to play with paint."

Taemin and Minho exploded in hysterical laughter beside them, their bodies turned against each other and Taemin's hand resting on the other boy's shoulder, completely in their own world. Hyoyeon gave Sooyoung a slightly frightened look and turned her back more towards the boys to face Sooyoung better. Smiling, Sooyoung looked down, feeling her ears become warm when their knees touched. She wondered if it was possible that that was their first actual physical contact.

"Well, anyways," Hyoyeon said, reaching up to put her hair behind her ear, "what about you? How have you been?"

"Oh, you know," Sooyoung replied, giving up completely on the pile of papers by turning it upside down. "Same old, same old. Not much has changed. I still live with my mom, still trying to write songs, meet new people. Waiting for something to happen, pretty much."

Hyoyeon nodded, mirroring Sooyoung's actions and flipping over the papers in her lap. "Do you ever hear anything from Leeteuk anymore?" she asked. Sooyoung shook her head.

"No, never. Do you?"

Hyoyeon shook her head. "Nothing." A thoughtful look took over her face. "Actually..." she added, sounding hesitant, "I'm kind of surprised to hear you don't see him anymore."

"Why so?" Sooyoung asked, frowning slightly.

"Well," the other girl said, looking down and picking at her jeans. "When I heard he had hooked up with somebody, I kind of thought it would have been you."

Sooyoung stared at her. "Seriously?" she said, not bothering to hide the look of well-meant disgust that broke out on her face.

"Yeah," Hyoyeon said, giggling a little at Sooyoung's expression. "I always thought you guys were... well-matched." The taller of the two looked away, trying not to think about the disappointment after hearing Hyoyeon thought of her together with a guy. Or anybody else, in fact.

"I see," she said, fighting to not sound too angry or disappointed or... totally not trying to give Hyoyeon a hint. Of course not. She rolled up the papers in her hand into a cylinder.

The other girl leaned out a little from the bench to catch Sooyoung's gaze. "I guess I was wrong?" she said questioningly, her eyes searching Sooyoung's face.

"Well, I mean..." Sooyoung started, looking up to meet Hyoyeon's eyes and immediately looking back down with a smile as her stomach shook. "I guess I'm not really interested in people like that," she said, trying to sound light and unaffected.

"People like that?" Hyoyeon repeated after a beat. "Hyper people who make great friends with every girl in the world?"

"Not exactly," Sooyoung smiled, pulling a little at her short hair. "I think Leeteuk's great in every way. I know it doesn't really sound like it," she added after seeing the look of disbelief on the other girl's face. "But I really do think he's great. It's just that... Sometimes his attention span can be really short and he's so..." she took a deep breath, willing her sudden nervousness to go away, "...male."

Hyoyeon stared blankly at her for a few moments before understanding what she meant.

"Oh," she said. Sooyoung waited, her stomach aching with wishes that the other girl would show some kind of reaction. "Not as well-matched as I had thought, then," Hyoyeon said at last with a small smile.

Sooyoung laughed. "I guess not." Their eyes met for a few seconds before Hyoyeon looked down again, her hair falling from behind her ear to cover her face. Sooyoung took the opportunity to admire it for the thirtieth time. Her heart was speeding up again. Had she totally misread everything between herself and Hyoyeon? Would the other girl try to distance herself from Sooyoung now? Had she figured out that Sooyoung might have a crush on her, and Sooyoung was the one misreading everything?

She watched Minho and Taemin get up from the bench and disappear down the corridor without looking back, apparently having forgotten about their friends. Turning her head the other way, she realized the other 7 girls had walked off too, and the corridor had become very silent.

Among the mass of silent people, she noticed a very distressed-looking Taeyeon making her way towards her. She could see the relief light up the girl's eyes when she finally spotted her.

Sooyoung didn't know if she was relieved or enraged at her arrival.

"There you guys are," Taeyeon sighed when she reached them. Sooyoung immediately took the excuse of giving the newcomer more space and scooted closer to Hyoyeon, who didn't move away. Sooyoung shuddered as their thighs pressed against each other.

"Here we are," Sooyoung smiled at her best friend as she sat down beside her. "What's up? Where is everybody?"

"Yoona and Yuri are somewhere looking for Sungmin, but they should have found him by now," Taeyeon said thoughtfully. "I have no idea where they are. And Sunny and Seohyun are getting along very well with Tiffany and Jessica." The sour voice made Sooyoung frown, but she knew her best friend had a problem with sharing her people sometimes. She put her arm over Taeyeon's shoulders and sighed contentedly.

"Hi, by the way," Taeyeon said, leaning out and giving Hyoyeon a wave. The latter smiled at her, holding up her hand too.

Sooyoung, who didn't share Taeyeon's problem with people-sharing, felt warm with affection at the slightest interaction between her best friend and Hyoyeon, two of her most favorite people in the world. And how was that even possible, she thought; she barely even knew Hyoyeon, even though they'd met countless of times. They'd never had the chance to have any particularly intimate conversations.

Still, there was something. She felt uncontrollably driven to Hyoyeon's side every time they were around each other, and she had felt it from the very first time they met. She had found numerous times that she couldn't keep herself away from the other girl for too long. Sure, just like her friends kept telling her, she used to have crushes on people as often as she changed socks, but at the end of the day she had always realized that it wasn't so much about the people involved. It was about feeling admired. It was about the feeling of suspense when sitting beside somebody and having their hands accidentally brush against each other.

But Hyoyeon showed no interest in her, she thought as she craned her neck to look at the girl in question, who had gone back to reading through her pile of papers with an intense interest in her eyes. She couldn't be sure that Hyoyeon had any kind of feelings for her.

This feeling was something Sooyoung had never experienced before.



"Damnit, damnit, damnit," Sunny cursed under her breath as she stood searching through her locker one early morning. Tiffany, who had been assigned the locker beside Sunny's, watched her calmly.

"What's wrong?" she asked after seeing Sunny almost tear some stray papers apart in her frustration.

"I must have forgotten my notebook at home," the shorter of the two mumbled and let her hands rest on the bottom of the locker. "I don't even remember bringing it home. Ugh, damn it, and we have physics in ten minutes..." She sighed.

"Hey, take it easy," Tiffany began, but Sunny shot her a look that told her to stop.

"I'm sorry, it's just that I know how easy it is to fall behind. I really need my notebook, I can't remember any of those things if I don't write them down," she explained. Tiffany leaned against her closed locker.

"It's fine, you can borrow a page in mine," she said, holding up her own notebook for Sunny to see.

"Really?" Sunny said in relief, shutting her locker as well.

"Of course," Tiffany nodded, standing up straight. "But we'd better head to class, or we're gonna be late. Do you have a pen?"

"Yeah," Sunny breathed and held up the yellow pen in her hand.

"Great, let's go." Tiffany put her hand behind Sunny's shoulder and forced her into motion, and the two set off towards a classroom a few floors up.

Sunny smiled to herself as she walked by Tiffany's side. There were few things she hated more than meetings with new people, but any thoughts of awkwardness around the taller girl had quickly evaporated the first time they talked among themselves. Tiffany had a warmth to her, a kind of motherly feeling, that immediately put Sunny at ease. She was actually quite proud of being able to make a friend so quickly; it made her hope that maybe her social awkwardness was about to go away.

Or maybe it was all just about Tiffany, she thought as said girl ordered her to walk ahead through a very crowded corridor and kept a hand on Sunny's shoulder until they came out on the other side. She truly felt like a mother to her.

After passing through a lot of sounds and motion that made Sunny's head feel like mush, they finally reached the classroom. Walking in, they found Taeyeon, Hyoyeon and Yuri hunched together, speaking in low voices in the otherwise very noisy room. They all straightened out as Tiffany and Sunny walked in, and Taeyeon, who was sat between the wall and Hyoyeon, gave a sad little wave at being separated from her friend.

Tiffany sunk down in the chair beside Yuri, and as Sunny followed her, no one noticed the way Taeyeon's fingers squeezed tightly around the pencil in her hand.

"Have you heard anything from Jessica today?" Sunny heard Yuri ask Tiffany lowly. She turned her head and scanned the room for the blond girl, but instead her eyes fell on Sungmin who sat alone a couple of rows behind them. She waved to him, and he gave a short nod back, his black hair falling into his eyes, before looking down to his notebook. She sighed a little. The boy clearly didn't like her. Her eyes rested on his black, fingerless gloves and she wondered why he seemed so secretive.

"No, nothing, isn't she here yet?" Tiffany whispered back to Yuri. Sunny listened absent-mindedly.

"She isn't. I've texted her but you know what she's like sometimes..." Yuri hurried to explain, and that tiny piece of information made Sunny intrigued. What was Jessica like? Why wasn't she there yet?

And most importantly, why was Sunny herself suddenly so very nosy?

It wasn't until Sungmin looked back up at her that she realized she was still staring at him. Smiling awkwardly, she turned her head back to the empty desk in front of her and closed her eyes. Great.

"Alright," came a shrill voice from the front of the classroom. Sunny almost leapt out of her seat. She sighed deeply as the physics teacher walked in; she thought she usually had a good tolerance for people and all their weirdness, but during her three years of high school she had never learned to like the woman. She was blond, probably around her mid-forties, and in Sunny's eyes she looked like a burnt wax doll.

Sunny sighed and leaned back in her chair, immediately shutting off the teacher's voice in her head. Tiffany turned to look at her for a few moments before opening her notebook at a random page and scribbling something down. She then tapped Sunny's shoulder and held it up for the shorter girl to see.

U ok?

Sunny sat up and reached for her pen.

Yes, fine, it's just the teacher, miss...whatshername. I think she's laughed a maximum of three times in her lifetime Sunny wrote and pushed the notepad back to Tiffany. The other girl waved her hand at her with a sort of disapproving smile on her face; Sunny was starting to learn that Tiffany didn't like badmouthing just about anybody.

It took almost ten minutes for Jessica to come bursting through the door, causing every head in the room to turn and stare at her. She remained in the doorway, looking guiltily down at the floor while the teacher eyed her critically.

"Do you have a particular reason for being late, miss...?" The teacher asked.

"Jung," Jessica said shortly. "I missed my ride, I had to walk."

The teacher gave a sour nod. "You can go take your seat."

Sunny watched as Jessica looked around the room to find Yuri, and upon seeing that the seats around her were all taken, the blond made her way over to Sunny and sunk down beside her. Sunny saw out of the corner of her eye how Yuri leaned forward to shoot a questioning look at Jessica. She leaned back and watched the couple in fascination as they seemed to communicate with their eyes.

Something in her stomach burned at seeing them together again.

Sunny leaned even further back in her chair when she noticed Tiffany trying to get Jessica's attention.

"Are you okay?" Tiffany whispered to the older girl, who gave an unnoticeable sigh in response.

"Fine," she breathed, sparing neither Tiffany nor Sunny a glance, and instead pulling out her phone from her pocket and fixing her eyes on the display. Sunny frowned and threw a careful look at Tiffany, who didn't look affected at all by Jessica's foul mood.

What's with her? Sunny scribbled underneath her previous message in Tiffany's notebook. She threw a nervous glance in Jessica's direction, a little afraid of enraging her further.

I don't know, she gets moody sometimes. Don't worry. Tiffany wrote back to her in perfect script, and Sunny forgot to read her message for a moment, caught up in admiring her handwriting. She barely had time to think about what she had read before Tiffany leaned in close to her and started whispering to her.

"I don't want you to get the wrong idea about her. I know she seems... a little off, but I promise you, she's a wonderful person."

Sunny turned and stared at Tiffany, vaguely aware of the teacher rambling monotonously about things she didn't understand. She raised an eyebrow at the girl beside her, feeling unreasonably confused. Tiffany leaned in again.

"Do you know what kind of relationship Jessica and Yuri share?"

Sunny frowned at the question, but nodded.

"I moved to this city when I was 15," Tiffany hurried to whisper on, "and they were already together back then. I came here alone, and they took care of me, kind of like substitute parents. They raised me from that point on. I owe the two of them so much, which I guess is why I feel the need to defend Jessica to you." Sunny struggled to catch every syllable as the teacher aimed a question at a random person in the classroom. She felt increasingly intrigued with every word the other girl spoke. "Jessica has her moody times - in contrast to Yuri who is cool as a cucumber. They're pretty much each other's opposites, which is why they match so well. I just want you to know, that even though she may seem cold, she would never harm a fly, and she's very giving once you get to know her. She's definitely –"

"Do you have something you wish to share with the rest of the class, ladies?" the teacher questioned them, suddenly standing right in front of them. Sunny jerked back, wondering if she somehow had teleported or become invisible for a short second.

"No," Tiffany mumbled immediately, browsing back to the first pages of her notebook and looking very apologetic. Sunny looked down and had to force herself to not smile at the other girl's kind heart.

"Then I suggest you pay attention to the class." The teacher was about to walk back to the front of the classroom when her eyes fell upon Jessica, who was still playing around with her phone. "Cellphones off, Miss Jung," she added before turning her back towards them, her heels clicking threateningly and authoritatively to Sunny's ears. Sunny stared at her back, cursing her brown blazer and bleached blonde ponytail. She had been surprised to hear that Tiffany lived in the city alone, just like Sunny, and she couldn't wait to invade her personal space and question her about everything.

She was awakened from her thoughts as Jessica drew a long, deep sigh, putting her phone away and sinking far, far down into her chair with a dangerously sour look on her face.

"We'll talk more later," Tiffany whispered to her without moving her lips. Sunny nodded, leaning forward to start taking notes of what the teacher was writing out on the blackboard.


Time passed excruciatingly slowly, and tiredness was starting to seep into Sunny's brain. She tried to keep up with the class and take notes, but somehow the fact that Tiffany seemed to enjoy it thoroughly and with energy tired her out even more.

After about twenty-five minutes, Sunny noticed a soft snoring from her left. She let herself forget about physics for a moment and looked carefully at Jessica - in spite of Tiffany’s speech, she was still slightly intimidated by the other girl – and found that she was sound asleep in her chair, her head leaning against the backrest and her jaws clenched shut. Her eyes worked crazily from side to side behind closed eyelids as she snored peacefully.

Sunny let out a mix between a laugh and a snort, and immediately covered with her hand as Tiffany threw her a perplexed look. Sunny explained by pointing towards the sleeping girl to their left, and Tiffany's features softened. She nodded understandingly and the look of absolute affection that took over her face left nothing about their friendship to the imagination. Sunny watched her, too, feeling her fingers itch with need to sort out the other girl's shiny hair as it slowly slid over her face, about to fall down over her eyes.

With Jessica's earlier scolding from the teacher in mind, she decided to wake her up before she got into any more trouble. She leaned forward and whispered "Jessica, wake up," with her eyes fixed on the teacher, who was once again occupied with writing on the blackboard.

Tiffany grabbed her hand suddenly and with force, pulling her back. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she whispered pointedly, throwing nervous glances at Jessica.

"I just don't want her to get into any more trouble," Sunny whispered back. Tiffany seemed to get her point, but kept looking unsure as she went back to her notes. When she didn't say anything else, Sunny assumed that was her cue to continue.

"Jessica," she whispered again, this time leaning in closer. "Wake up. We're in class." She put her hand on the other girl's underarm and shook it carefully. "Wake up."

Jessica stirred, a frown appearing on her previously peaceful face before she opened two very sleepy eyes. "What?" she said a little louder than a whisper, her reddened eyes straining to focus on Sunny.

"You were sleeping in class," Sunny said, nodding towards the front of the classroom.

"Uh-huh," Jessica replied, still not really whispering, "So why did you wake me up?" She straightened her back, getting up from her almost horizontal sleeping position.

"Just... so you wouldn't get into more trouble with the teacher," Sunny hurried to explain, throwing worried looks at the teacher and wishing that Jessica would keep her voice down.

"You know, I can take care of myself," Jessica said, staring into Sunny's eyes with an intensity that made the other girl unconsciously inch closer to Tiffany. "I don't need a babysitter to wake me up whenever she sees it fit," she continued, the tone of her voice rising with every syllable.

"But I just –"

"Okay, you two," the teacher suddenly said loudly, pointing at Jessica and Sunny. "Out."

"What?" Sunny said in disbelief.

"You're ruining it for everyone who's here to learn. Out. Now."

Sunny both felt and saw how every student in the room craned their necks to look at her and Jessica, and she turned to Tiffany, who was leaning down close to her notebook. She slowly looked back up at Sunny with a sad expression on her face. Sunny assumed she was afraid of getting pulled into their mess, and then Jessica got up from her chair and marched out the door. Sunny stared after her.

"You too, miss..." The teacher said, gesturing towards the door. Not bothering with telling the teacher her name, she shook her head and stood up. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Jessica had left her books on her bench, and after a moment of contemplating whether or not the other girl would want her to bring them, she picked them up. She walked out of the room, uncomfortably aware that everyone was staring at her, and stood frozen in an empty corridor as the impact of the teacher slamming the door washed over her.

"Now look what you did," a shrill voice came from a few meters away, and Sunny jerked involuntarily at the sound. She turned around just in time to see Jessica turn around and run down the corridor.

“Me?!” she called exasperatedly into the empty corridor.

Sunny chased after her.




"It's impossible. It just can't be done."

Sooyoung looked up from the book in front of her and all its mind-numbing frustrations. Yoona was browsing madly between the problems and the answers, her face showing total exasperation.

"See, this is why I hate math. It makes no sense what so ever," she groaned, her voice reaching dangerous volumes.

"I'm afraid it does," came Taemin's voice from Sooyoung's left. "I'm afraid it's perfectly logical and that's just why the three of us can't understand it." He stared blankly at the open book in front of him.

They were sitting at a table with four benches surrounding it, Sooyoung in the middle with Yoona to her right, across from Taemin. They had their first free period this morning, and in all their naïveté they had decided to get some math done, as they were all having problems with it.

Yoona sighed. "What about you? Are you making any progress?" She leaned forward to stare down into Sooyoung's notebook, which currently only held a drawing of a giraffe in pants.

"Not so much," Sooyoung said dryly. "I think I might almost be there though..." She drew her eyes away from the giraffe, repressing the urge to draw a little had on its head, and focused on the dancing numbers in her book once again. She almost got it. Unfortunately for her, that wouldn't get her very far in class.

"Wow," Yoona said, inching closer to the other girl, "can you help me?"

Sooyoung gave her a little glare. "Okay, I lied. Unless Mr. Well-Dressed Giraffe here can give you the answers, I'm afraid we're lost."

Taemin stared tiredly at them, spinning his pen between his fingers. Yoona leaned back with a pout. The two girls jumped in surprise when Taemin's book came flying over the table, landing on top of Yoona's. They all stared at it in silence.

"No, screw this," Taemin said, getting up from the bench. "I don't have enough self-control to bother with this stuff when I could be doing absolutely nothing." He leaned over the table and picked up his book. "I'll see you guys later."

Sooyoung and Yoona nodded tiredly at him as he walked away, aching with desire to do the same. The younger of the two gave a yawn that made her eyes water, and Sooyoung felt it down to her toes.

"You know, if you want someone to help you, you should probably ask Seohyun," Sooyoung suggested, absent-mindedly giving the giraffe another spot.

"Seohyun?" Yoona said with a frown. "Isn't she a sophomore?"

"She is," Sooyoung nodded, "but she's a total whiz."

A few silent moments passed while Yoona seemed to be considering her words. Sooyoung kept drawing more spots on the giraffe's body, which was now starting to look a bit sick.

"Well," Yoona said hesitantly, "I wouldn't wanna bother her..."

Sooyoung laughed. "Oh, trust me; somebody needing help with school work would be like Christmas for her."

Yoona laughed along, though with slight uncertainty to it. Sooyoung could sense something else was bothering her, and she waited for the other girl to tell her what it was.

"I... I've only talked to her once so far," Yoona said sooner rather than later, confirming Sooyoung's suspicions. "So I don't really know her, but she seemed so..." She fell silent again while looking for words. Sooyoung knew her pain; she had never known how to describe Seohyun to somebody who didn't know her. She was really the type who needed to be experienced to be understood. "...innocent" Yoona finished eventually.

"She is," Sooyoung nodded and finally got started on the giraffe's hat.

"Well, so..." Yoona moved forwards and put her arms on the table. "What's the deal with her?"

Sooyoung's hand slipped when she was consumed with a need to defend the youngest, and the hat cut through one of the giraffe's ears. "That's just the way she is," she mumbled, trying to not sound too defensive. She knew Yoona meant no harm with her question.

The younger nodded. "I guess I'm just a little afraid that I might... somehow... corrupt her? Is that a good way to put it?" She looked genuinely worried, but Sooyoung laughed again.

"I think if that was a possibility, she would be far gone after having been friends with me and Sunny for so long," she said, trying to erase Yoona's worries. "You should totally go and talk to her. You guys might make for unlikely friends." She looked up at the other girl from under long eyelashes and noted an unreadable expression, which totally disappeared when she noticed Sooyoung was looking at her.

"Yeah, maybe so," she replied and smiled weakly.

"She's in English class right now, but she should be out in..." she pressed a button her phone to check the time, "...fifteen minutes. I'm sure she wouldn't mind helping you during lunch, if you're up for it."

Yoona made big eyes at her. "Whoa, Sooyoung, you seem really eager for me to go talk to her," she stated. Sooyoung shrugged.

"Seohyun desperately needs more friends closer to her age. She has no friends in her year, and... well, no one says anything to her, but I'm pretty sure they all think she's a geek," Sooyoung explained self-consciously. She felt a little guilty for revealing the youngest's secrets, but she trusted Yoona. She could definitely see them become friends.

"Oh," Yoona said, nodding and looking down at her lap. As she stood up, she said: "I'll go talk to her then", grabbing her books.

"Do you know where it's at?" Sooyoung asked, smiling warmly at the other girl.

"Yeah," Yoona nodded, smiling back. "You don't wanna come along and get some help from the whiz?" she asked. For a moment, Sooyoung hesitated. She knew Seohyun could probably, well, surely help her with the math, she'd done it many times before, and Sooyoung's pride was already shaking. She was still considering it when an idea that made her heart beat wildly in her chest was formed in her head.

"I already have someone in mind."

Yoona raised her eyebrows but nodded before half-skipping down the corridor. Sooyoung grabbed her pen and drew a little speech balloon by the giraffe's head. Inside it, she wrote "H.Y." along with a little heart. She then leaned back to admire her masterpiece, petted the giraffe on his head and thought ah, Mr. Giraffe, I know how you feel.

Even though Yoona didn't know Seohyun personally, she wasn't surprised when she was the last to exit the classroom when English class ended. She smiled a bit sadly when Seohyun stayed behind to chat with the English teacher. Yoona leaned against the wall outside and tried her best not to eavesdrop as she waited for the other girl to come out. At least that's what she told herself.

"Mr. Kim..."

"Yes, Seohyun?"

"I just wanted to... I was just wondering... I was under the impression that the class would be a little... harder, now in sophomore year."

"But you think it isn't?"

"Well, maybe a little, but not as much as I had hoped."

Yoona frowned. Not hard? English was like alien language to her. Maybe she should ask Seohyun to help her with English too while she was at it.

"It seems, if today's class was any indication, that the other students don't agree with you there, Seohyun." The teacher laughed. Yoona hadn't had any classes with him yet, but she liked his dark, somewhat raspy voice with a hint of a lisp.

"Maybe not... But I just— I really want to learn English, Mr. Kim, and I feel like I can't make any progress at this level. And I really don't want to have to wait another year—"

"If I could, I would put you with the juniors – no, probably the seniors, even."

A short pause. "Thank you, Mr. Kim."

"I'll tell you what. I'll look for something you can do on the side, something a bit more challenging, until next week. Will that be good?"

"Yes!" Seohyun's enthusiastic voice replied at once. "Thank you so much, Mr. Kim."

"No problem. Now go have lunch, will you?"

Seohyun agreed, and Yoona brazed herself as footfalls neared the doorway.

"Oh, and Seohyun..." Mr. Kim spoke again. The footfalls stopped. "It's very unusual to meet a student with a drive such as yours. Be careful with it."

"I will, Mr. Kim," Seohyun replied, voice coming from just inside the room. "Thank you."

Even though she heard her coming, Yoona was still surprised when Seohyun exited the room, English books held tightly in her arms. She didn't see Yoona standing there, but just walked right past her.

It wasn't until then that Yoona realized she hadn't thought of anything at all to say to the other girl, so she just settled for calling out her name.

Seohyun stopped instantly and turned around. "Yes?" she said, at first not recognizing the other girl. "Oh, Yoona," she then said, and her eyes immediately turned a bit warmer. "Can I help you with something?" she asked and took a step closer to Yoona.

"Uhm," Yoona said, mirroring the other girl's smile. "Well, actually, I was wondering..." she tried, but the words died in when a sense of awkwardness took her over. She really wished she would have thought up what to say beforehand.

Seohyun took another step closer to her, looking friendly but now a bit worried.

Yoona laughed at herself. "I don't know how to ask, so I'll just ask," she said, and Seohyun nodded. "I was wondering if you could help me with some school work," she blurted out. Seohyun looked a bit surprised. "I mean, I heard that you were quite the--"

"Geek?" Seohyun interrupted, and Yoona's smile faded. She didn't sound hostile or angry, just plain curious. Yoona stared at her.

"Whiz. I was gonna say whiz."

Seohyun raised her eyebrows. "Really? Someone said that?" Yoona thought she looked like she was trying to hide how flattered she was. "Who did you talk to?"

"Sooyoung," Yoona replied slowly, a little afraid that the other girl would be disappointed to hear that the person to compliment her was her friend.

"Hah," she said to Yoona's surprise, not losing any of her excitement. "And she didn't call me a geek?" Yoona shook her head. "Interesting."

Seohyun started walking down the corridor with baby steps, and Yoona hurried to walk by her side. The younger of the two appeared to be in deep thought, and Yoona felt almost mean breaking them.

"So..." she mumbled after a few seconds, "do you think you could help me?"

"Oh, of course, I'm sorry," Seohyun said, looking back at Yoona. "What subject do you need help in?"

"Math," Yoona sighed, fighting to keep the dejection out of her voice. Seohyun nodded understandingly. When she didn't say anything, Yoona continued: "We don't have to do it right now, I mean, if you're busy or, you know, want to have lunch." She laughed. "We can do it whenever you have time, I'm pretty much always free—"

"No, we can do it now," Seohyun interrupted her seriously. "We have time, I say we do it. Let's go to the library, no?"

"Okay," Yoona nodded, a little relieved. She wished to get it over with as soon as possible.

"I'm happy to help anytime," Seohyun said and patted Yoona's back a little. Yoona laughed again, not being able to stop the smile that came over her face. She wondered how it was possible that this girl could have so much trouble making friends when she was so kind.

She smiled brightly at the girl beside her and allowed her to show her the way to the library. With Seohyun by her side, it seemed like maybe math wouldn't be such a pain after all.

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