“Tell me again how I got roped into helping you?”

“It’s because we’re friends,” Seungwan says.

Seulgi had been under the impression Seungwan didn’t want her to overstrain herself, but the next thing she knew, she had a vending machine juice box straw stuck in and a box full of random things shoved into her arms along with the instruction to carry things around. 

To be fair, it might have been part of Seungwan’s elaborate plans for supervision to keep her hydrated and away from stupid choices that would otherwise jeopardise her sports day performance. Seulgi might be on the brink of illness, but she wasn’t ill yet and Seungwan’s unfortunate cutthroat canny was enough, apparently, not to let her waste even an ounce of usable man power. 

She really takes this inter-class competition thing seriously.  

“It’s important everything goes just right.”

“It’s just a sports competition.”

Seungwan gasps, aghast and slams her hands against a nearby wall to produce the properly dramatic sound. “It’s not just about winning, Sseul. A victory is about something more. It’s symbolic.”

“A victory is symbolic?” Seulgi repeats, voice flat.

“Exactly,” Seungwan drawls out, swinging an arm over Seulgi’s shoulder. She leans in, conspiratorial like they’re about to plot a secret operation to overthrow the prime minister or rob a bank. “Winning this is like telling the whole school who the number one first year class is.”

“I don’t care about popularity,” Seulgi says. Classroom politics are just…ugh.

“Then care because it’ll be fun,” Seungwan chirps. 

“Running’s not fun.”

“It’s athletics too,” Seungwan says. “Track and field, track and field. And, anyway, even if running’s not fun, winning is.”

“Seungwan…”

“What? It is. Winning is totally fun. You think so too.”

“Seungwan, you’re not even good at sports.”

“I’m not bad at sports either.”

No. Model student Son Seungwan couldn’t be bad at anything. Most days, Seulgi wondered how she even got into the same high school as such an overachiever. Were Seungwan’s overseas middle school transcripts not good enough for anywhere else?

“How are you going to win if you’re not good at sports?”

“I don’t have to win, silly Sseul. Have you forgotten it’s a team competition? The class’s victory is my victory!”

“So you’re just going to ride off of everyone else?” Seulgi says. By ‘everyone else’, she means Soojung probably. And Seulgi too, unfortunately.

“No,” Seungwan says. “It’s a team effort. Even if I’m not so good at the running, I can do the organisation.”

“Why does this matter again?”

“You don’t like winning?” Seungwan says, aghast. Seulgi can’t tell if she’s teasing anymore. “Come on, everyone likes winning. It’s fun. You don’t think winning’s fun?”

“Everyone in the world would agree winning is fun,” Seulgi says, “just like they would say breathing is useful. It’s not enough of an incentive to do anything.”

“Wow, what a party pooper,” Seungwan chimes. “Just wait for the day. You’ll definitely get swept up by a wave of school spirit.”

“That was such a specific metaphor.”

Seungwan takes the time to stop walking, backtrack the few steps to where she’s standing and flick her square in the forehead. “You just wait and see. It’s going to be great.”

Seulgi rolls her eyes. “How much longer are we going to do this?”

“We only have until the end of lunch before we have to get back to class.”

Then don’t wast time flicking me in the forehead and making dramatic speeches, Seulgi wants to say. Then it hits her. “Wait. I don’t get lunch?”

“Soojung brought rice balls. You can have one before class starts but we don’t have time to go to the cafeteria.”

“Soojung’s just going to eat it!”

“I told her not to.”

“Soojung’s will is weak when it comes to food and you know it!”

“We’re all friend here, Sseul. Soojung knows it’s for you. I’m sure she can manage herself on this one occasion.”

“She’d better.”

“Don’t look so grumpy. The true preparations haven’t even begun!”

“Are you talking about next week where we get a chance to rehearse the tug of war and stuff?”

“Just be happy they gave us the day off to prep for the big day!” Seungwan lectures.

“I would rather spend it sleeping.”

Seungwan huffs. “The fact they gave us the day off in the first place is a sure sign that we need to be taking this seriously.”

“They do it so we have a outlet for all our frustrations and can arbitrarily compete against each other to resolve our grudges without trying to kill each other the rest of the year,” Seulgi dryly replies.

“Exactly!” Seungwan declares with a wide sweep of her arms, as though gesturing to a rapt audience instead of the dead air in the school hallway. “We only get this chance once a year. If we don’t get everyone back on a decent level now, the rest of the year will be miserable. I know I can’t deal with anymore of the drama from the start of the year. Let’s just make sure all the rest of the air stays clear.”

Seulgi flinches a little at the reminder, internally kicking herself. Seungwan’s reasons are good and make sense and if anything, she should be totally behind her and not whining about having to carry posters and manage event allocations or gathering supplies to paint support banners for their class— 

“Besides,” Seungwan goes on, “I really, really like winning.”

Never mind then. So that’s the real reason: Seungwan’s ego happily supporting the community cause wining would champion. Seulgi knows that any hint of an ulterior (or not even ulterior but coexisting supporting motive) shouldn’t really erase  the fact that winning really will help the class get along better but it still feels sort of a bitter, chalky taste in . At the same time, it’s weirdly refreshing to remember that Seungwan isn’t a perfect figure CGed into a reality on unworthy mortals with outstanding morals  to match her beauty. There’s a streak of petty childishness there in Seungwan too, pushiness to match her unrelenting cheerfulness and Seulgi wonders when she started putting Seungwan on that weird pedestal the rest of the class shoved her onto with the whole ‘President’ title.

“First thing’s first, we need to make sure the sign ups for the events are good. We should distribute the events to make sure everyone is rested enough for the class tug of war at the end, but also so that we maximise our chances of victory,” Seungwan lectures yet again. Seulgi is fine being her obedient minion and trailing behind her.

“So what does this have to do with the posters?”

“Oh, nothing. I just volunteer to help put up the posters for the teachers. It’s next week, after all. We’ve gotta get the school in the right spirit or competition won’t be fun.”

“Won’t it be easier for us to win if the other classes don’t know what’s going on and don’t properly prepare for the competition?”

Seungwan mock gasps and puts a hand in front of , eyes in abject horror. “Seulgi, you  heartless fiend. Don’t you know a win won’t mean anything if you don’t have to fight for it? Besides, it’ll just give us a bunch of trouble next year when the classes change. You need to look out for yourself in the long term too, you know?”

“Ah, right,” Seulgi says reluctantly. Then again, impulsivity has always been her fatal flaw. Well, amongst other things.

“Just follow me.” Seungwan winks. “I’ll do your long term planning for you.”

“Is that a marriage proposal? How long are you going to be taking care of things for me?”

Seungwan shoves her in the arm hard enough she almost loses her balance and drops the box.

Soojung blinks. “You must really be out of it. Even I know Wendy’s class president. And I just got here.”

It's not exactly the rousing show of support Seulgi was hoping for when she started complaining, but she'll take it. Soojung's usual expression is exactly blank enough that she can pretend she's seeing what she wants.

“You’ve been here long enough. You don’t have to feel self conscious about it,” Seulgi assures. The classroom is still slowly filling itself back up with students despite it being the brink of class resuming. 

“Still…”

Seulgi frowns and returns back to the topic at hand. She grouses, “Since when was this a thing that happened? Weren’t there elections? Why wasn’t I there?”

“You were there,” Seungwan corrects out of nowhere. 

Doesn’t she need to eat? Doesn’t she have better things to do than magically appear midway in a conversation? Who does she think she is? Soojung? 

Seungwan frowns a little and the corner of her eyes crinkle. “Were you half-asleep again?”

Probably is the answer. Seulgi should care more about squandering her education, but she feels strangely serene about it. Her homework is all handed in on time and her grades are adequate. There’s not enough to be really worried about, is there?

Soojung hands her a mostly empty lunch box with two rice balls, extra large because that’s what Soojung apparently requires to stay alive and not hungry, still present. “You should eat before class starts again.”

Seulgi blinks. She glances up at the clock, seconds rapidly ticking away. She mumbles out a thanks before stuffing her face with food.

Soojung smiles.

Seungwan flicks the back of her neck. Apparently one of those rice balls was meant for her too. Whoops.

The paper is one of their recently returned quizzes. Seungwan got ninety something points on it and didn’t bother looking too hard into the teacher’s annotations, nor does she have many plans to do so considering she’s scribbling on the blank back of it. Seulgi can only tell what the paper is because the school uses that cheap, thin paper  where even the marks of Seungwan’s ballpoint pen can be seen from the other side. 

It’s a list and it’s titled ‘Provisional Lineup for VICTORY’, all caps included and ‘VICTORY’ heavily underlined and in bubble letters. Seulgi consoles herself that Seungwan didn’t tack on an excessive amount of exclamation points anywhere on there.

Seungwan is copying the list of events from the official sign up sheet the class has, one that she’s no doubt been assigned care of because of the lofty president title, onto the paper. Seulgi wonders if over-strategising is also a bad thing. Seungwan’s sure making it seem that may.

After a beat, she realises the official sign up sheet isn’t a blank as it really should be. There’s the class details filled in at the top, naturally, and their homeroom teacher, but also—

“Why is Soojung’s name scribbled down for so many things?” Seulgi squints at the list. “In your handwriting? Does Soojung even know about this?”

“She said she’d be happy to help us out,” Seungwan lectures.

“What is someone else wants to run these events, huh?”

“Soojung said she’d do the things no one else wanted to do—”

“What? As if—”

“—Since she’s too lazy to bother looking at the event list—”

“Okay, that sound like her.”

“—And the events that no one else wants to do just also happen to be the ones that require super athleticism. Or at least endurance. Someone’s gotta do them.”

“Is Soojung even good at this kind of stuff?”

“Soojung has good reflexes,” Seungwan reasons, “so I bet she’s athletic.”

“How did you make that kind of a leap? I have pretty decent reflexes too.” If she does say so herself, that is.

“She rides a bike to school everyday too, right?” Seungwan replies, apparently ignoring Seulgi’s self-praise. “This place is full of hills. I’m sure she’ll be great. Anyway, have you seen her legs?”

Yes, actually, and they’re great. Seulgi wants to ask why Seungwan’s been staring at them too, but that would be an admission of her own guilt so she just says, “That doesn’t mean she’s going to be good at running. Running and cycling are different things.”

“Pish posh.” Seungwan literally waves away the complaint with her hand like she’s blowing away a bad smell. “I bet Soojung is awesome at this.”

“But how can you know?”

“Sseul, don’t sweat the small stuff. We’re going to be fine. President here, remember?” Seungwan gestures to herself and gives herself a little bow, grinning and topping the whole thing of with a playful wink.

Seulgi is flustered for a second before she remembers what at stake. “So you’re fine with making her do both long distance races?”

“Soojung is really taking one for the team. You’ve really got to admire her team spirit. She’s an example to us all.”

“Will Soojung even survive this?”

“I’ll remember to feed her,” Seungwan protests. “I’m getting snacks for everyone. The school gave us a budget. Everyone already agrees this is for the best.”

“You say this now, but do you really think our lazy Soojung is going to agree to this once she realises just what the unpopular events after all?”

“It’s cool, I’ve got the motivation all planned out. I’ll buy her some meat,” Seungwan says. “I got my pocket money for the month. No drinks then, but I guess victory is worth it! Don’t worry about a thing. This is your Class President you’re speaking to after all. Don’t underestimate Son Seungwan.”

“Please don’t refer to yourself in the third person.”

“Maybe I think it’s charming.”

“It’s really not.”

Seungwan sticks out her tongue. “Bully.”

Seulgi is a little terrified of what else is to come. She’s right. You really shouldn’t underestimate Son Seungwan.