A/N: It's a short one this time guys, sorry! I wrote this entire fic scene by scene and didn't think about chapters at all, but just split it into chapters afterwards. If I made this one longer, the next one wouldn't make sense. So sorry! I've definitely learned a lot from this experience, haha. Well, that's all, hope you'll enjoy!

Monday came and brought new, not so exciting tension along with it. Days went by in which Sooyoung noticed that Hyoyeon treated her no differently than before, as if the movie night never happened. Sometimes it drove Sooyoung crazy wondering what the other girl was thinking, but on the other hand, it wasn't like anything had really happened between the two of them. Not really. So what exactly had she been expecting?

Sunny and Jessica spent most of their time around each other, but without really talking. Never alone together. And Sunny found herself often sitting around waiting for Jessica to talk to her, apologize, or maybe offer her support, but she never did. They seemed to have come to a silent understanding of not letting anybody else know about the tension they struggled to hide from their surroundings, but for Sunny, it was hard. Almost impossible. Every time Jessica came into her sight, she just wanted to run away. What had gotten into her when she came out to Jessica? Why did she do it? They barely knew each other, so what was the point at all? Why had she thought that the other girl would have something useful to say to her, and why was she so upset when she didn't?

She found that Jessica looked at her less and less as the days went by. After the fight, Sunny had really thought they had worked things out between them, and that they had a good friendship ahead. But of course she had gone ahead and ruined everything.

The only question for her, was why her gayness ruined their friendship.

Before long, Sooyoung decided that her plan to ask Hyoyeon for help with her math problems had been dormant for too long. She didn't know anything about Hyoyeon's math abilities, but the more she thought about it, the less she cared about passing the course. Alone time with the blonde in question seemed a lot more important right then. And maybe if the opportunity presented itself, and she was gifted with a big dose of courage and maturity, she could ask her what exactly was going on between them.

It didn't seem very likely, but still.

Lunch time on Wednesday was when she decided it couldn't wait any longer. She walked up to Hyoyeon where she was standing alone by her locker.

"Hi, Hyo," she said with strained cuteness, leaning against the closed lockers to Hyoyeon's right.

Hyoyeon cautiously looked up at her attempt at being cute. "What are you on?" she asked.

"Nothing," Sooyoung shrugged, letting her cuteness fly away along with her pride. "I just wanted to ask you something."

"What?" Hyoyeon asked, even more cautious than before.

Sooyoung walked around her as Hyoyeon seemed to be digging through something. She stopped at Hyoyeon's left instead. "I'm having some trouble with math," Sooyoung said, crossing her arms with a depressed look on her face. "It doesn't want to co-operate with me at all."

"Aha," Hyoyeon said questioningly.

"You must have taken this course last year, right? So you must know it."

Hyoyeon laughed a little, stopping her locker search. "Barely, but I guess."

"So..." Sooyoung tried, looking at the other girl expectantly. "Would you mind helping me with it?

Hyoyeon closed her locker, looking very unsure. "Oh, I don't know..." she said, walking slowly down the corridor. Sooyoung skipped after her.

"Pleeaaase?" she begged, again trying to put on a cute face. Hyoyeon stared her incredulously for a moment before laughing at her and walking on. "What can I do to convince you?" Sooyoung asked. "I'll do anything!"

Hyoyeon shook her head, her smile dying down. "It's not that I don't want to," she began, "but I barely even passed the course myself, and I've not even thought of it since last year..." she looked at Sooyoung apologetically. "I think I'd cause more damage than I'd help."

Sooyoung walked beside her, nodding her head in defeat. Her mind ached at both the thought of Hyoyeon rejecting her, and the thought of her math help out the window. She really, really didn't want to ask Seohyun again...

"So what about..." Sooyoung looked around madly, grabbing at straws, "English?" She remembered hearing Tiffany praising Hyoyeon's English skills weeks ago.

"English? Really?" Hyoyeon said, giving her an odd look that was almost suspicious. "Aren't you already good at that?"

Sooyoung blushed a little. Yes, she was actually good at English, she no problems with it what so ever. Plus, she loved the subject. Part of her doubted that Hyoyeon could really teach her anything, but again, it didn't matter. She needed Hyoyeon's attention to be on her. "No," she lied guiltily. "And I heard Tiffany say you've become really good at it, so it'd be really nice if you could..." she trailed off into mumbles and stared at her feet. They were nearing the cafeteria, and people and noise was starting to fill the corridor.

"I guess I could try," Hyoyeon said with a shrug. "I don't know why Tiffany keeps saying I'm making progress, but... I did pass it last year with flying colors," she added with a proud smile that held a hint of smugness. Sooyoung needed to fight for a breath at the sight of it.

"It would really mean a lot to me," she choked out.

Hyoyeon nodded. "Would you like to do it now?"

Sooyoung used all the energy in her body to fight down the mess of feelings that came swirling up at the double entendre of Hyoyeon's words. She nodded numbly, trying not to smile like a freak. "That'd be nice. I'll just... go get my books. Wait here," she said before turning around and running back to her locker. She pulled her shirt up over her face and strangled the embarrassed, unstoppable laughter that poured out of her.

They sat down opposite each other in a corner of the cafeteria. Soup was being served for the day, so not many students were bothering with going in, and the ones that did didn't stay for very long.

"What exactly is it that you want help with?" Hyoyeon asked, and Sooyoung panicked for a second.

"Pronunciation," she said then, thinking that bad pronunciation would be the easiest thing to fake.

Hyoyeon laughed a little. "Oh, my weakest field," she said with a hand over her heart. "Damn you, I was planning on keeping that a secret for the rest of my life."

"I'm sure you're great," Sooyoung said. Hyoyeon gave her a tired but appreciative smile. Taking one of the workbooks from Sooyoung, she flipped it open and started looking for a page to use.

"Should we just go for these?" she asked, showing Sooyoung a list of English kitchen supplies. "Even if you already know them, just for pronunciation practice." Sooyoung leaned over and stared down in the book. She knew most of the words by heart already, but nodded.

"Sure."

"Okay," Hyoyeon nodded. "Let's start from the top then."

Sooyoung squinted. Barbecue the page said. She took a deep breath, preparing her mind for the most atrocious Konglish she could manage. "Babikyu," she then said, looking up as Hyoyeon burst into hysterical laughter. "Hey!" Sooyoung exclaimed, amused with the other girl's adorable reaction, but faking offense. "Stop laughing at me!"

Hyoyeon leaned back in her chair with a hand over her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said, trying to compose herself. "You are just too cute." A moment passed and Sooyoung smiled widely. Hyoyeon kept her hand over her face. "But please, give it your best next time, okay?" she said, sitting back up and struggling to keep composed.

"I always do," Sooyoung replied and looked down at the next word. Cake slicer. Oh, brilliant. "Keikeu seullaiseo," she said with ease, and Hyoyeon exploded with laughter again. Sooyoung's heart swelled.

"Cake slicer," Hyoyeon said slowly, trying to correct her, but she definitely hadn't been lying when she said pronunciation was her weakest field. She sounded downright adorable, and Sooyoung had to stop an 'awwww' from passing her lips.

"Cake slicer," Sooyoung repeated, leaving out most of her accent but careful to not say it better than Hyoyeon did herself.

"Right," Hyoyeon said with a smile. "Next." She pressed down a finger by the next word in the list.

Coffee machine. Sooyoung smiled to herself. "Keopi meoshin," she said, and Hyoyeon leaned back in laughter again.

"Come on, Soo, seriously," she said, reaching up to wipe traces of tears out of her eyes. Sooyoung felt giddy, relieved, so happy, and then Hyoyeon's sleeve inched down her wrist and for two seconds before Hyoyeon lowered her arm again, Sooyoung could see a big, horrible bruise on her wrist, purple and shifting into various shades of yellow.

Her heart felt like it stopped beating.

"You're not even trying," Hyoyeon said, looking down for the next word, distracted and unaware of what Sooyoung had seen.

"Hyo..." Sooyoung choked out, staring at Hyoyeon's now covered arm, resting on the table.

"What?" Hyoyeon asked, looking up and losing her smile as soon as she saw Sooyoung's horrified expression.

"How did you get that bruise on your arm?" Sooyoung's entire mouth felt numb at the question.

Hyoyeon leaned backwards at once, both her arms leaving the table and finding their place in her lap. "What?" was all she said.

Sooyoung leaned forward and grabbed Hyoyeon's hand, pulling her arm back up on the table. She tried to push her sleeve up, but Hyoyeon instantly jerked it back out of Sooyoung's grip. Her eyes sent lightning of panic and defensiveness over the table as the black orbs focused intensely on Sooyoung, reading her reaction.

"Did somebody hurt you?" Sooyoung questioned, reaching for her arm again. "Let me see, Hyo."

Hyoyeon stood up from the table. "I have to go," she said, pushing the book over to Sooyoung's side of the table. "I'll talk to you later."

Sooyoung didn't stand up to go after her when Hyoyeon turned around. "Hyo, wait!" she called. The few other students in the cafeteria all looked over at them in confused unison, but Sooyoung didn't care.

"I'll talk to you later," Hyoyeon repeated without turning around, and Sooyoung barely heard it.

She stared at her English book in emptiness.

Somebody was hurting Hyoyeon. Somebody was leaving bruises on her body. That body which she wanted to hold more than anything, that body she slept beside on Tiffany’s couch... Sooyoung remembered Hyoyeon's now injured arm as they lay beside each other. Had she already been given the bruise back then? Or was it new?

A million questions shot through Sooyoung's sorrowful mind, while it seemed like some of her old ones was just answered. That song, the one she’d listened to with Hyoyeon – Beautiful Stanger – came into her mind again, familiar and pleasant but now changed, like meeting an old friend.

It will never be the same.





Tiffany found Jessica, Yuri, Hyoyeon and Seohyun just before classes were about to start again, sitting by a table that was drenched in too much graffiti. Hyoyeon and Seohyun moved closer to the wall to make room for her to sit down.

"Guys," Tiffany said firmly. "Beach night on Saturday. Yes?" She was met with frowns of varying sizes.

"As in actually going to the beach?" Jessica asked, her chin resting Yuri's shoulder. She looked even more tired than usual, Tiffany thought.

Nodding enthusiastically, Tiffany smiled. "It's been way too long since we went. We can play volleyball, just like old times, and make a fire, and eat marshmallows..." she trailed off, mind going blank at all the pleasantries. Yuri smiled affectionately at the memories, and Hyoyeon looked silently happy with the plan, but nobody replied to Tiffany's suggestion. "So what do you say?"

"Who exactly would be going?" Seohyun asked. Tiffany shrugged.

"Us. We'd ask Yoona, Sunny, Taeyeon and Sooyoung too, of course," she said, and Seohyun smiled.

"Then I'm in," the youngest said. Tiffany gave her a thankful pat on the back.

"I'm out," Yuri said distractedly.

"Me too," Hyoyeon agreed, staring down at her nails in guilt.

Stomping her feet, Tiffany made deer eyes at the two. "No, guys, come on," she whined. "It'll be fun!"

"I work nights on Saturdays," Yuri dead-panned. "You know that."

"Right, right, sorry," Tiffany replied, holding up her hands in apology. “You should just quit if it makes you so miserable.” She reluctantly pulled her gaze away from Yuri, and turned to Hyoyeon instead. Pouting, she fluttered her eyelashes at the younger girl.

Hyoyeon laughed insecurely, looking at Seohyun for potential support. "But... won't it be... cold and stuff?" Hyoyeon asked.

"We'll make a fire," Tiffany said. "Fire helps everything." She stared at the other girl expectantly, but Hyoyeon still looked unsure.

"Oh, I don't know..." Finding that Seohyun wouldn't give her any support, she glanced at Jessica and Yuri on the other side of the table.

Tiffany followed her gaze. "You're coming, right?" she asked Jessica, who nodded. Tiffany beamed at her. "See, everyone's coming, and it'll be so much more fun if you come too!" Yuri glared at her a little at the word 'everyone', and Tiffany shot her an apologetic look before turning back to Hyoyeon again. "I'll protect you from... you know... whatever you want to be protected from! It'll be so much fun, pleeeaaase?"

Hyoyeon sighed, closing her eyes to shield herself from Tiffany's unstoppable puppy eyes. "Fine," she breathed out. "I'll go."

Tiffany erupted in a loud "yay!" and did a small, sitting dance.

"But if we freeze to death out there, I'm blaming you," Hyoyeon said sourly, poking Tiffany in the side.

The older of the two jerked away in surprise. "If you manage to freeze to death in front of a fire, you're definitely talented," she said, rubbing her injured side.

Hyoyeon nodded, not having heard a word of what Tiffany actually said. The cold wasn't what bothered her about going to the beach, not even close. She was prepared to go out of her way to avoid Sooyoung forever, never seeing her again. Why did she have to see that bruise? And why didn't she just pretend she saw nothing like most other people and countless of teachers had done over the years? Why was she the one who had to notice, making her the one that Hyoyeon really needed to get out of her life?

She sighed silently, trying to tune back in to the conversation the other girls were having, without success. Her mind was still spinning from her earlier encounter with Sooyoung; her head was filled with a mixture of anger, sadness, anxiety, and above all things, fear. Fear of what would happen next time she had to face Sooyoung, fear of what Sooyoung would do if Hyoyeon didn't tell her the truth behind her scars, fear of that warm gaze and loving embrace that was always waiting for her around the taller girl. She wanted to blame Sooyoung for noticing, for saying something, but deep down, she knew it was her own fault. She was the one who let her sleeve fall down her wrist, and was it on purpose? She didn't even really know.

How could she have been so careless?

"Did something happen?"

"No, nothing happened. Nothing new, anyway."

"But you've been so quiet over the last few days... Are you sure nothing happened?"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure."

"Did someone say something to you?"

"Yoona, please..."

Yoona looked up from her book, and the look of fear in Sungmin's eyes made her forget what subject she was even studying in the first place. "I'm sorry," she said, realizing she was coming on too strong. "It's just that I worry about you, you know."

"I know that," Sungmin replied, scribbling something down in his notebook. "And I'm thankful for it, I really am. But nothing new has happened, really. Just the fact that I was beat down on the first day of school here is enough to make me..." He shrugged, not taking his eyes off the table, "you know."

"Yeah. Of course, I get it," Yoona said, but she knew he was sitting there opposite her, in the empty classroom, lying to her straight to her face. "Just tell me if something happens, okay? I know I can't be there with you all the time, and..."

"Take it easy," he said sternly. "They're only chasing me thirteen hours of the day, not twenty-four." He flipped his long bangs to the side. "It's not your responsibility to look after me, and I get that."

"But I want to," Yoona pleaded. "Don't say that it's not my responsibility, cause I want it to be. I want to be there for you." She put her pen down on the table, and Sungmin mirrored her actions. He reached his hands up in the air, stretching with a yawn, and in that moment he was very glad he chose the gothic lifestyle. The white makeup easily covered up the burn on his cheek.

"You do the best you can, and that's more than enough for me," he said, but his words died down when two figures entered the room and walked up to their table.

"Hi," Tiffany said cheerily, smiling warmly at Sungmin. Jessica stood beside her, as always looking tired.

"Hi," Yoona said questioningly. "What's up?"

"We need to talk to you about something," Tiffany replied, and Sungmin stood up from his chair.

"I'll be right back," he said, exiting the room without another backwards glance. Jessica sunk down in his chair, and Tiffany watched him leave over her shoulder with a worried expression.

"Everything okay?" she asked Yoona, who shook her head dismissively.

"Fine. What do you need me for?"

"We're going out to the beach on Saturday," Jessica filled her in, "and you need to be there."

"Uh..." Yoona said, feeling slightly flustered after Sungmin's sudden departure. "Okay, sure."

Tiffany jumped on the spot, the same old beaming smile gracing her features. "Awesome," she said happily. "Then I'll let you get back to your studying." She grabbed Jessica's arm, pulling her up from the chair. Jessica stood up heavily.

"Talk to you later, yeah?" Jessica said before being led out by Tiffany. Yoona nodded with a somewhat fake smile as they left.


Sungmin returned about ten minutes later, leaning in and scanning the room before entering. When he noticed it was empty except for himself and Yoona, he walked up to the table.

"Where did you go?" Yoona asked nonchalantly. She didn't understand why Sungmin kept avoiding her friends and dodging every chance at being social, and she didn't like it. Not a bit. There was no reason for him to be scared of her friends - did he really think Yoona would let them do anything to him?

"Bathroom," Sungmin replied shortly, immediately going back to his schoolwork without another word.

Yoona wanted so badly to ask him why, why did he make it so hard for her to help him, but she didn't know how. She knew, of course, that it wasn't his fault that he was being bullied - how could it be? And with the way things were right then, they were getting through the days alright. People yelled things in the corridors sometimes, but they mostly kept away whenever Yoona was around. When Sungmin said nothing happened, she knew he was lying, but arguing about it seemed like a lost - and really twisted - cause. They got through fine, but she didn't want them to just get through. She wanted them to get through with flying colors, wanted them to build an everyday where Sungmin wouldn't need to feel scared of moving through his school on his own.

So Sungmin let Yoona help them get through, but he never let her actually help him. She thought the first step towards fixing Sungmin's situation was to let him meet more people: the rest of Yoona's friends, for example. It would raise his confidence and show people that he wasn't as ed up as people seemed to imagine.

And really, even though she didn't want to admit it, sometimes she was afraid that the bullying would somehow pull her in. That she would get a taste of herself because she hung around with Sungmin - wasn't that usually what happened when people tried to help victims of bullying?

"What did they want?" Sungmin asked, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"What?" Yoona said, feeling like she might have missed something.

"Your friends, when they came by." He didn't look up from his work, like he didn't really care.

Yoona thought for a moment. "Nothing," she then said, also going back to her book. "Nothing important."

Sungmin didn't question her, and she was glad he didn't. She didn't know why she lied, why she didn't want Sungmin to know about the beach night when all she wanted to do was get her friends together. That was all she wanted, wasn't it? There wasn't any other reason why she kept wishing she could hang out with the other group of girls, was there? Not a certain young girl in particular, who was intelligent, emotional and typically naive?

Yoona shook her head at herself to stop the thoughts. But she really couldn't deny the dawning sense of dread, longing and discontentment that increased with every passing day.