CHAERIN'S POV

"Did you hear?" one of my friends from cheering, Yoona, asked as I slid into homeroom, late, Monday morning. I wasn't usually late; in fact, since Dara had been my homeroom teacher, I was usually early; but I'd been behind that morning. And it didn't seem to matter, as Dara was late, too. Even later than me.

"Hear what?" I asked, signifying that most likely, I hadn't. "We're playing Sanfield on Friday," she filled me in.

Sanfield had a Division One football team, and their cheerleaders were professional. They competed every year, always made it to states, and sometimes made it to nationals. And the team always travelled for away games, no matter how far.

"," I said as much to myself as to her. This was definitely a problem, as the team was nowhere near where it needed to be. I took some responsibility as captain for the state of the team, and placed none on Dara. My feelings for her aside, Dara had been the best coach the team had in the three years I was on it. If we suffered, I owed it almost completely to the general apathy of people like Tiffany Hwang, who placed gossip and jealousy over her performance.

" I know," Yoona said. "If we don't get it together this week, we might as well not show up." That was when Dara entered, hair wind blown, and keys in her hand. The semblance of lateness; I knew it well.

"So you heard?" she said to us, referring to Yoona's last comment. "Sanfield?" I speculated.

"We're screwed."

"We can face them," she said confidently. "We just have to work. Hard."

"Really hard," I agreed.

"So pass that along," she said as she went through her stuff for an attendance sheet. "No absences, no lateness, no laziness. We need to get a new halftime routine down, with better stunts, and the jumps need a serious amount of work." I smiled. I loved it when she took charge.

"Let's go to work," I encouraged, suddenly excited by the challenge. So all that week, work we did. We did strength training. We did new intense stunts. We worked on cheers, we even reworked our motions. All the while, Tiffany scowled, but complied. I began to think that maybe Dara and I had gotten through to her, and she actually had decided to put her energy into cheering. I knew I had. By Friday, cheering had about all the energy I possessed.

 DARA'S POV 

That entire week, I don't think I knew the meaning of the word sleep . Practices were running until about 6:30, on average. I had grading to do, lesson plans to make. Even when I found time in which to sleep, sleep evaded me. I just had the feeling that Taeyeon hadn't fully forgiven me for Saturday, and the guilt was keeping me up at night. That, and the permanently looming notion that I was completely at the will of an irrational nineteen year old girl, who could at any time have my job taken away, or have me carried off to court. I knew, as well, that Friday would be the most important game my girls cheered at that year. If they didn't get it together, Sanfield would no doubt put them to shame. But if they actually pulled through and performed, this game would put them on the map. Sanfield was well recognized, and we all knew it. If these girls could hold their own against them, that meant our Athletics Director would take note. That meant more funding. That meant competitions, materials, travelling...everything these girls deserved, but didn't have. And it was in my hands to lead them to getting it. I found myself almost willing the passage of time. I was dying for some day in the future where this game was behind us, the team was where it wanted to be, things with Taeyeon were better, and Chaerin and I were able to be together without worrying about the cost. Technically speaking, that day was December 15. But even after that, it wasn't going to be easy for the two of us. We still couldn't go public, for the sake of my job and her social survival. We couldn't be seen together, and we couldn't let on during school at all. It was a lot of adversity to struggle against, and though more often than not I pushed the thought away, I was more and more frequently haunted by the silent question of whether or not we would make it.

Top called me Thursday night just to see how I was doing, as the last time he left me I was so hung over I was practically still drunk. Of course, one of the first things I asked about was Taeyeon. "Surprisingly, she doesn't seem completely and totally pissed," he said.

"Really?" I asked. That was something. "Yeah, which is progress for someone who's