I started a new job. Wish me luck. Updates will be less often from now on as a result. I really wanted to get this chapter out to you guys as fast as I could since I was updating more frequencly as of late but it's so long that it's likely I missed some typos/mistakes. If you could, it would be helpful if you could point them out in comments. Thanks for still reading!

“Everything is fine,” Seulgi whispers to herself, staring at her reflection in her phone screen like it’s a mirror. “Everything is fine. I am fine.”

She read in an article that this sort of thing, however ridiculous sounding, is actually very good at reaffirming resolutions. Her lacklustre self from as recent as a few months ago would be appalled. 

“If you’re going to do that, you should at least consider setting higher goals.”

“H-huh?” 

Seungwan pops up over her shoulder, tucking her chin over the curve of it so that the crown of her head is also pressed into Seulgi’s neck. “It’s kind of like self-hyponisis, right? At least throw in something about wanting to improve your grades while you’re at it.” She giggles. “Or did I interrupt you before you got to that?”

“I don’t know how you can just act like nothing’s happened.”

“Like you said,” Seungwan replies. “Everything is fine. What’s there to worry about?”

Seulgi leans away, huffing ands Seungwan laughs some more as she stands back up. Seulgi pushes back her chair from her desk and swivels it around enough without scraping it against the group to face Seungwan.

“Good morning,” Seulgi says since Seungwan doesn’t care for the nicety of it and she can’t think of anything else to say.

“Morning,” Seungwan chirps, hands tucked behind her back. She smiles so hard that her eyes are just little crescents on her face, almost pressed closed.

She didn’t see Soojung on the way up to school and waiting seemed like trying too hard, so she just went ahead and settled down into her desk. It’s unusual to see Seungwan here so early. She glances at the clock. Or rather, it’s unusual to see Soojung in so late. 

Seungwan lingers at her desk, sitting on it. She hasn’t even deposited her things at the front of the room the way she usually does. Maybe she’s unaccustomed to getting in here so early too. Is it worth commenting on?

“I don’t usually get to say good morning to you,” Seulgi notes, possibly a little sappy. “It’s nice.” 

“Is it?” Seungwan smiles glibly. “Maybe you should do it more often.”

“Maybe you should come in earlier like this.”

Seungwan kicks her legs back and forth, balanced on the edge of the desk. Her skirt flutters a little with the movement. Seulgi looks away. 

“If you really wanted to say good morning to me, you’d figure out a way.”

Seulgi whips out her phone. Seungwan’s phone bleeps. Intrigued, she reads it. Seulgi knows the message she’s written, Good morning~ isn’t exactly the work of poet, but there’s sentiment to it. Seungwan smiles, kicking her legs more quickly back and forth like an excited kid.

“I guess you like it too.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Maybe I’ll keep sending you those every morning then.”

“Maybe you will.”

And maybe she’s right. Maybe there really is nothing to be worried about. Seungwan sits down at her desk to prepare herself for the start of the school day. Seulgi’s fingers brush the spot on her desk where she was sitting. It’s still warm.

Soojung barrels into the classroom just before the bell rings and manages to seat herself presentably before the teacher comes it. Another feat of capable only of Jung Soojung. As she skitters her chair neatly square to her desk, Seulgi catches Jiyoung turning her head to check in Soojung’s direction before she has to whip it back to the front so the whole class can properly greet their teacher.

Seungwan is too busy leading the morning greetings and precursors to attendance to be able to turn her head behind to check. Thankfully, Seulgi’s seat is in opportune Soojung-observing position— Wow that sounds super creepy. It’s also, not that she’s ever cared to note it, in prime Kang Jiyoung observing position. 

Since there’s more than a few rows dividing them, Jiyoung has some other classmates pass back a note. It goes through Eunji and Bomi and Yookyung and then to Soojung. Soojung unfurls it, pressing it open with care against her desk, tucking it a few pages under her textbook so it looks like a memo or a scrap bookmark rather than a note. She’s surprised Jiyoung went with a note when they’ve all become, as high school students are wont to do,  experts in classroom stealth smartphone usage.

But Soojung smiles a little when she reads the note and then tucks it into the pages of her textbook, crammed with all sorts of other paper — Seulgi knows because once she picked it up and Soojung nearly had a nervous breakdown when paper came tumbling out — that makes sense for Soojung’s strange method of study. It’s just another piece of paper in a big collection of paper now, Seulgi tells herself. As unremarkable and  untraceable as hay in a haystack. 

“I overslept,” Soojung says, in something that’s part whining, part almost-crying, part complaining. “I even cycled so fast but then there was this old delivery guy who was carrying packages of bottled water up to this who lived on an apartment partition could only access by stairs and then—”

Seulgi wonders if she’s kind of an for the only dominant thought in her head being ‘That should be ‘this who lived in an apartment partition’. Soojung usually likes to be corrected on these things, but she’s ranted all  the way past it already, the moment’s gone and, more to the point, it seemed like supremely bad friend etiquette to be correcting her grammar when she’s this distressed.

She concludes her tirade, deflating on the her desk not a limp pile of jellied bones, her hair brushing over her forehead and forming a dark curtain that blocks out the light from reaching her face.

“You still made it to school in time,” Seungwan assures, and rubs her back. Soojung hiccups something that might be a sob or might just be hiccups. Jiyoung (ugh, why  is she part of this conversation) slides a boxed drink that could be juice or milk, Seulgi isn’t really paying attention into the corner of Soojung’s desk and pokes her, prodding her to drink it.

“Soojung, I’ve got to go,” she says. “I need to buy lunch.”

Soojung looks up, then at the drink then properly gets up to unwrap and then stab a straw in it. Jiyoung waits through this whole lengthy process until Soojung says, “Okay, bye.”

It feels somewhat of an anticlimax. Whether Jiyoung thinks so or not, she leaves Soojung with the rest of the packed lunch crew and Seulgi’s posture that she didn’t even realise was that tense slackens. 

Soojung doesn’t say anything but she shudders once, like a weird spasm, and then her face goes back to being the default, eerily composed blankness. (It must have been the hiccups, because she does so again a bit later.) She drinks happily from the straw, something only vaguely identifiable by the way the corners of her eyes crinkle up. 

“Sorry,” Soojung says. “I get kind of weird when I’m hungry. I had to skip breakfast too, on the way to school. To get to school on time. It wasn’t fun.”

“I see.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Since you skipped breakfast, I’m not surprised.”

Soojung digs into the shadowy recesses of her bag, a secret pocket dimension. Then her face turns cold and pale and—

“Oh, crap, I need to buy lunch too,” Soojung says. “I forgot I left before I could pack anything too!”

Soojung rushes to get up, her chair scraping against the floor as she pushes up from the desk. 

“Soojung,” Seulgi says, when Soojung is half-way to standing up and squatting awkwardly in the air. When she does, Soojung gives up and plops right back down into her seat, head titled and inquisitive.

“Did you sleep alright?”

“Mmm, alright.”

No she didn’t. “You have dark circles under your eyes.”

“I didn’t have time to put on makeup today.”

“Are you sure you slept all right?”

“Fine, fine,” Soojung grumbles in what could mean ‘I slept fine’ just as easily as it could be, ‘fine, that’s enough’. She must be mildly annoyed at being kept away from food.

“But you were fine, right? It wasn’t our fault or anything. We didn’t…like…” Why does she feel so guilty?

“Is this about yesterday or something else?” Soojung says. 

“About yesterday,” she says quietly. There are still some people in the room, but not a lot, and they’re all preoccupied with other things. This night not be the best time or place, but they may as well figure out when those suitable things will be.  So she brings it up. For once, she’s not going to procrastinate.

“What about yesterday?” Seungwan insists, somewhat nervously, rearranging her hair to lie neat against her forehead.

Seulgi says, as vaguely as possible. “Why did you come in there, anyway?”

“I was looking for you two and Seungwan told me earlier that she was heading in that direction so I just decided to try my luck.”

“But I’m Wendy,” Seungwan mutters under her breath, pouting. “Wendy…”

“Seungwan told you she was?”

“Hmm.” Soojung in a breath and contemplates. “Saying that she ‘told’ me seems like a strong word, but that’s the message I received from what she said so…”

“The door didn’t seem very… Difficult to open, to you?”

“It seemed kind of jammed, so I just pushed it open. It’s like the door to the music practice room I used with Jiyoung. That accidentally locks itself every now and then, but the little slot in the door where the lock bolt is supposed to meet the lock isn’t carved in very well so there’s kind of nothing for the lock to lock into and you can just sort of push it open if you brute force it enough. This whole school is kind of falling apart a little bit, you know?”

“You should take that up with the student council if it bothers you,” Seulgi says. “But maybe not. The president seems kind of…” 

“Seo Juhyun? I heard she was—”

“You shouldn’t address your seniors so causally like that, Soojung,” Seulgi says, because now she’s pretty much sure it must be a recurring habit of Soojung. “It’s going to get you smacked.”

“I say sunbaenim if I was talking to her,” Soojung assures. “But I’m not talking to her. We’re just talking about her. And I was just saying her whole name for the sake of clarification and—”

“I’m with Seulgi on this. Even though Seohyun-unnie would let it slide. It’s one of your habits.”

“I have habits?”

“Everyone has habits.”

“Yeah, but you’re saying it like I have habits.”

“I don’t know what that means, Soojung.”

“I don’t know what you mean either.”

“I guess we should talk about what happened yesterday,” Soojung says. “We can’t put it off forever.”

The expression Seulgi has on her face does its best to convey Actually, I’m pretty sure we could. The expression on Seungwan’s face does something similar. Soojung’s social tact fizzles up in the wind and she completely misses these things. 

“You said we were oversharing,” Seulgi hisses because the room is overcrowded for her tastes. “For instance, the person you had with—”

“Why is it important that you know about that?” Soojung says. “Do you need my advice for deflowering your girlfriend? Because to be brutally honest, I assumed this advice searching would be going the other way around.”

Seungwan chokes a little on her drink. She does so in the most refined way possible, which means it all just comes to a little bit of coughing and what went down the wrong pipe and then a brief moment to re-compose herself, none of it having attracted the attention of anyone else in the room. (Seulgi would not be near as graceful, which makes it a doubly good thing that her food was still on the tupperware. The new habit of bringing a packed lunch only pleased her mother.) But the sputtering and the cough does spill some of the drink down her shirt and so, embarrassed at acting out of character maybe, she excuses herself to try and rinse it off before the white fabric stains.

Soojung only looks bemused, if not confused. 

“Um, no, I just,” Seulgi says, setting her hands down somewhere steady where they can’t hit anything or herself by clumsy accident. “Why are you bringing it up?”

“We never actually decided not to talk about it,” Soojung says, tilting her head. “I just asked and then there was too much information being shared and then we all just seemed like we’d procrastinate on the decision until a time we were all less stressed out.” 

Actually, is Soojung allowed to be so defensive about that when she’s the one who brought up all the information revealed yesterday?

“Just—” Seulgi rubs at the throbbing headache thats coming on from thinking about that. “Just go eat lunch.”

Only five minutes between lessons. They wait for the teachers to rotate through the classroom. No getting up out of the seats, though. Soojung fidgets in hers. She flicks some paper, the corner of a notebook, between her fingers. The sounds is quiet but noticeable. It reminds Seulgi of the steady click Soojung’s bicycle makes as she walks beside it.

Seulgi says, just loud enough for Soojung to hear, “You keep touching your knee.”

“Oh. Um.” Soojung cranes her head around to look at her and then looks away and timidly scratches the back of her neck, avoiding eye contact. “I kind of fell off my bike this morning.”

“If it hurts you should go see the nurse.”

“It doesn’t hurt that much. I starched it up a little. It’s no worse then when you fall down on the playground as a kid.”

Her skin is dotted in dark brown smatterings. Her socks have white dust marks on them. “It looks like it’s been bleeding.”

“I did fall on the road.”

“You didn’t tell us that part.” 

“Who’s us?” Soojung says, quite seriously. “Is this like when you say ‘our house’ or ‘our mom’ even though you’re just talking about you, because that’s just how the language works in that situation?”

Seulgi pauses. Well, that is a thing that happens in Korean that doesn’t really happen in English, but, “No. I mean Seungwan and me.”

“Ooh,” Soojung drawls out. “Okay. I get it now.”

Maybe she was underestimating Soojung and it was all just baiting for this moment. Seungwan is at the other end of the classroom for now, it’s true. Seulgi’s not sure if it’s hot because she’s getting annoyed and angry or embarrassed.

“Speaking of Seungwan, is she okay?” Soojung says.

“Why wouldn’t she be okay?”

Seungwan’s not the one who apparently had a road accident on a bicycle. 

Soojung is quiet for a moment, contemplating. Her fingers run back and forth and sideways and tap on the table and flick at the corner of a piece of paper. Oh, it’s that. Soojung’s still holding the coupon Jiyoung gave her in her hand. It looks even more creased up that it was before. The way she fiddles with it, Seulgi isn’t surprised. (Soojung fiddles with a lot of things, though, consciously or unconsciously. She doesn’t like having empty hands.) She shouldn’t be surprised Soojung still hasn’t used it yet either. Where’s the time? Maybe she’ll do it over the weekend. That would be something to look forward to—how Soojung next customises her bike. Hopefully she won’t give into impulse purchasing and add even more things her shopping basket when she just went in for some new tyres. That’s probably exactly what the company owners were hoping for when they issued those coupons.

Class is starting. These kinds of conversations never did well in time-sensitive environments.

Soojung keeps her head trained on the board. “I’ll tell you later,” she announces in a whisper to the front of the classroom. Seulgi manages to hear it anyway. She knows that Soojung knows she did. That’s why Soojung bothered to do it at all.

The attention Seulgi manages tops to the lessons is half-hearted at best. It usually is something along those lines, but, as of late, she was enjoying managing a new average trend of about sixty five, maybe even seventy percent focus. Today it drops down to below the halfway threshold. She hears sounds and looks at the lines that form words, but can’t make heads or tails about if those actually are supposed to mean anything. 

And with practice really about to kick in in full, with Seungwan and Jiyoung at a joint helm that will probably run them all ragged, she needs to allocate her willpower wisely. It results in a lot of zoning out. (She’s just conserving her energy. She swears.)

The last lesson of the day ends and Seulgi can’t even be happy about the end of school because she knows the day isn’t really over. Not when they have this choir thing to train for. (Yes. Train. Not practice, train. Seungwan was very specific.)

Soojung notices the blank look on her face and frowns. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“With what?”

“Me knowing.”

“It’s not like we can magically erase the knowledge from your memory, though, is it?” Seulgi says.

“We can’t, that’s true, but…” Soojung trails off. “Wendy didn’t want me to know, right?”

“Who?”

“Seungwan.”

Seulgi rolls her eyes.

“And she seemed pretty shaken up about it,” Soojung goes on.

“She seems pretty fine to me,” Seulgi says.

Soojung frowns at her, brow scrunching up. “I guess if there’s anyone she wants not to worry, it would be you.”

Before Seulgi can ask for more detail on that Seungwan peeks her head around the corner. “You two, hurry up. What kind of an example are you setting if you’re late to rehearsals?”

“Alright, guys, that’s a wrap.” Seungwan looks down at her watch. “And I have to go now. See you guys on Monday!”

Seungwan dashes out of the room and then, without much time lag if her guess is any bit correct, right out of the building too.

Jiyoung picks up where she left off. “Make sure to practice bars sixteen to twenty two again. We’re sloppy. We can’t figure this out as a group unless everyone knows what they have to be doing. Other than that, we’re all on track. Let’s have a round of applause for all our hard work today.”

Soojung starts clapping. She claps loudly. That’s just the way her hands smack together.  People quickly follow suit. Seulgi patters out a polite applause with them. When that dies out, people naturally reach for their stuff. Seulgi lingers by her bag, watching Soojung gather up reams of sheet music, and the rest of her things scattered about the room: a phone charring in the back corner, a water bottle on a random high shelf, a notebook that’s fallen off the piano, a pen that’s made its way around the room when people were signing an attendance sheet because no one else could be bothered to pull out their own.

(Jiyoung, surprisingly, sprinted off out of the room not much long after dismissing everyone. Trying to one up Seungwan or not? That is the question.)

Now that the session has officially ended, Soojung’s pool or remaining energy has dipped down to a low and she seems to be operating in power saving mode.  She pulls out half a piece of bread, still wrapped in the plastic packet it was sold in and takes a bite. Then she looks to her side, at Seulgi, and sits up straight, startled.

Chew. Swallow. It wasn’t chewed enough probably, given the hasty way Soojung’s jaw was moving and the visible lump that, travelling down , makes Seulgi wince in sympathy about how it might hurt.

“Are you waiting for me?” Soojung says.

“You don’t have to rush,” Seulgi says, eschewing the need for a yeah right before. Soojung can figure that much out right.

“, sorry,” Soojung says, and stops packing things in neatly and more starts just flinging them into the deep abyss of her backpack. 

Seulgi raises her voice and says, “No, I’m not I a rush, seriously, are you? You can calm down.”

“I would have thought you’d want to get home soon,” Soojung says, gesturing out the window and the darkened sky. 

Seulgi shrugs. “It’s fine.”

“Isn’t it cold?”

“Are you cold?”

Soojung pauses. She crosses her arms. She looks away, slight blush. “Yes.”

“Is it—?”

“Don’t say it’s because I’m from California!”

“Okay, okay.” Seulgi holds her hands up in surrender. “Just get a warmer coat then. A scarf. Gloves are a necessity in winter, though. Seriously. A hand warmer, maybe.”

After a length blink, Soojung zips up her bag and throw the (partly cosmetic) flap over the top until it snaps down into position. “Well, thanks for the advice. I guess. We can go now,” she says as far as Seulgi can hear.

(It could have just as likely been Thanks for the advice I guess as it was I guess we can go now. The pauses between words with Soojung can be somewhat…ambiguous.)

“It’s our routine, right?” Seulgi says. “Not going to like gratuitous music practice ruin that for me.”

“Not going to rush anywhere either.”

“Not really.”

Soojung laughs a little.

“It’s better if you just do things comfortably,” Seulgi says. People continue to file out of the room. They might be one of the last ones. “You don’t have to worry just about catching up with other people. With school too. If you keep up studying like that, your vision’s going to go.”

Soojung laughs a little more. “What’s with this sudden lecture.”

“While you’re captive and not busy for a change, I figured I might as well.”

Soojung leans back in her chair. She takes as large gulp and air in and then deeply exhales. In an out. Seulgi thinks she needed that moment to breath.

She suggests, “You can finish the bread, if you want. I don’t want you to pass out due to low blood sugar on your ride back or anything.”

She expects another laugh because that time she actually tried to make a joke, or at least a statement that might be halfway funny because of the words she had chosen and not the uncharacteristic behaviour she was displaying or the randomness of just suddenly nagging. But Soojung just flinches in a way that’s only ever so slightly noticeable, held part for the most part, and shakes her head. “No, I’m okay. I don’t think I can fish it out of this mess anyway…”

“Just eat something, Soojung. I never even asked you. Did you manage to buy lunch alright today?”

“Lunch?” Soojung thinks hard. Yeah, Seulgi’s like that too. Forget mathematical equations, remembering what was eaten just a few hours ago was challenging enough. (How did Seulgi make it this far into school again?) “Oh, yeah, I had lunch. Lunch was eaten. By me. I ate lunch. I had lunch? I ate lunch.”

“I think you’re overthinking,” Seulgi says. “They’re both perfectly fine ways of saying things. Is your brain fried? I think your brain in fried. Just sit there and eat your bread. The study sessions in the library are booked till way later and the third years are all using it to cram for midterms. The school isn’t going to lock us in any time soon, even if we’ve stayed back for practice.”

“But…”

“Soojung, it’s fine. Just eat your food.”

As predicted, the remaining morsels of bread have book shaped dents in them, but cosmetic attractiveness is not something Soojung places high priority on in her food when she’s hungry. Seulgi said not to rush, but the hunger really must be real because Soojung scarfs it down in a blink of an eye.

“There,” Seulgi says. “That wasn’t that bad, was it.”

Soojung scrunches up the plastic in one hand. She takes a drink from her water bottle. She  closes it, packs it in the bag, and then leafs though it, rearranging the papers that were unceremoniously jammed in there before. Seulgi waits, wordless, trying to exude as patient and nonjudgemental/supporting an aura as possible. Soojung’s nerves just seem on edge.

That assessment seems only reinforced by the next random words that she hears out of Soojung’s mouth:

“Do you hold grudges easily?” Soojung says. “Or do you forgive really easily?”

“I guess it depends.”

Soojung doesn’t seem particularly let down by the answer. She must not have been expecting much of one in the first place. “Yeah, I guess it usually does.”

Seulgi her lips and decides to take the plunge by asking, “Do you hold grudges?”

“If it’s about me, then I don’t really hold grudges,” Soojung says, “but I don’t really forget things either.”

“Isn’t that kind of the same thing?”

“Just because I remember what someone did doesn’t mean I have to hold it against them forever. Is that petty?”

Seulgi thinks. “It’s being careful.”

It’s not like she can disapprove of that.

They find Jiyoung waiting, pacing the dirt track that surrounds the bike rack and, in particular, Soojung’s bicycle.

At seeing their leisurely walking pace, she says, sharply,  “Jung Soojung, have you just been dawdling around this whole time?”

“Hi, Jiyoung,” Soojung says.

“This isn’t the right time of day to say ‘hi’.”

“Is there a right time of day to say ‘hi’?” Soojung asks Seulgi, tilting her head. She’s about to ask Seulgi for a follow up to that question when Jiyoung steam rolls ahead.

“The point is that I’ve been waiting around her while you took your own sweet time.”

“I wasn’t aware you were going to be waiting anywhere so I was just doing things comfortably.”

Jiyoung kicks the back tire of Soojung’s bike and frowns. “It’s no wonder you still haven’t replaced the tires on this bicycle. This is just a health risk. It’s unacceptable.”

Soojung grumbles, so quietly only Seulgi who’s standing right next to her can hear, “As unacceptable as being unable to play tenths because I have small hands and asking for the score to be re-written…?”

“What if you fall again?” Jiyoung says.

“Oh, um, I guess I didn’t know you were so concerned.”

Yes, actually. It’s actually a little admirable of her to be actually calling Soojung out on it too. Seulgi had been eyeing the dubious state of the bicycle Soojung trucked herself to school with everyday for a while now, especially as of late, but she’d never managed to just spit out the words in any kind of direct way. It’s surprising that Jiyoung would worry about someone else like that but it reminds Seulgi that, maybe, other people were dong their best to change too.

“You’d use your hands to break your fall and injure them.” Jiyoung crosses her arms “And it’s too late for anyone else to the accompaniment before the competition.”

Okay, that makes more sense. Forget what she’d previously thought.

“Let’s go,” Jiyoung says. “We need to fix this metal death trap of yours before it actually kills you.” She pinches the rubber. “What did you even run over today? Do you even keep this properly inflated?”

“It leaks,” Soojung says, kicking the dirt by her shoes back and forth, a child being scolded but refusing to accept it’s their fault they’re begin scolded.

“We should buy you a better patch kit while you’re at it.”

Soojung says, “What? Now? But, I left the coupon in my desk.”

“Forget the coupon, I can get you a dozen coupons. Let’s go.” She tugs Soojung’s arm.

Now, Seulgi’s never thought that much of Jiyoung, but she’s never recalled seeing the other girl act rough and actually drag people around physically. Even with Yookyung’s dark days, she’d limited (or maybe that word was giving it too much beneficence, restrained herself from other means rather) herself to social alienation and things that wouldn’t seem at all incriminating as evidence, even on social media and messaging apps, if someone else were to look.

“But it’s far,” Soojung whines. 

“The reason you can’t cycle anywhere is because your tires are flat. We fix that and you’re good to go anywhere and everywhere. It’s because you don’t take care of your own things that you have so much trouble doing anything.”

“But I need to—”

“You need to do what?”

Soojung glances at Seulgi and then back at Jiyoung. “Um, nothing. Never mind.”

“So let’s go. I know a shortcut. Unlock your bike and say goodbye to Seulgi.”

“Do you…want to come along?” Soojung offers, sheepishly, as she stoops down to put her combination into the lock.

To her surprise, Jiyoung doesn’t reject the offer. Instead, she says, “Maybe she’ll listen to you. These tyres are a death trap, aren’t they? The treads on them and the rust. Seulgi, tell her to fix them.”

Loathe to admit it as she is, Jiyoung does have a point. “You really should get it fixed.”

Soojung sputters, “But right now?”

“There’s no time like the present,” Jiyoung says, and it sounds way too much like something Seungwan would say so  Seulgi cringes. “Let’s go, let’s go.”

She has two arms wrapped around Soojung’s. Soojung stumbles in Jiyoung’s direction, by which she means any direction Jiyoung is headed. And, at the moment, that’s away from Seulgi.

“Jiyoung, wait! I haven’t even unlocked my bike—”

In the morning, she gets greeted by Soojung, rolling along on shiny new tyres with gleaming white rims, the kind she used to have before the first set got punctured and the patches didn’t hold and they had to be replaced by the safety hazards.

Judging by the smile, the tires must be nice ones. Judging by the smile, she slept her fair share of hours last night. 

“This is better,” Soojung says and dismounts her bike in one fluid motion. “But cycling was way easier. I think pedalling on those ty tyres was like practicing running with weights on, you know?”

“So now you’re even more ridiculously overpowered than before.”

“I am not,” Soojung protests. After a moment, her whole posture seem to change and tense up. She goes, “Is…everything all right?”

“Huh? What?”

“The two of you.”

Two of who…? Oh. Right. Seungwan. That’s right. They should be thinking as a ‘two of them’ now. Huh.

“Seungwan’s fine, yeah. We’re fine, why?”

“Hmm, I guess I just want to make sure,” Soojung says.

“Okay then.”

“Just because I don’t want to be causing any trouble,” Soojung blurts out. “I get that things might be different now and there’s nothing wrong with that. No problem at all.”

“Right. Okay.”

“Just as long as she knows.”

“Okay…”

“You’ll tell her?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“That’s good. That’s good. It’s good to make sure she’ll all good.”

“Yeah…”

“Because we’re all friends here, right, and I don’t want any misunderstandings happening.”

“Got it.”

“And she’s busy enough so she doesn’t need anything more to worry about. You either. Neither. You know what I mean. Both of you should be happy.”

“Thanks…?”

“And you’re dealing with it well, so far. Me, I mean. Sorry. Like, I wasn’t that sorry at first but I reflected and realised maybe I should feel a little more apologetic about the whole thing. And not knocking. Even though it wasn’t locked.”

“…Okay?”

“But, like, as long as she’s fine, it’s fine. You’re fine. You seem fine. Are you fine?”

“I’m fine.”

“Well, okay. If she’s fine.”

“Fine. Right.”

Blissful quiet for a moment. It lasts about a beat.

“You’re sure she’s fine?” Soojung says.

“Yes.”

“Okay. That’s good. Yes, that’s a thing. Fine is good. Just making sure. Because she didn’t seem fine up the time.”

“…” Seulgi gives up replying. Soojung knows she’s listening.

“And she seemed pretty shaken up about it,” Soojung goes on. “And I wasn’t sure. If your sure. Are you sure?”

“She seems pretty fine to me,” Seulgi says.

Soojung frowns at her, brow scrunching up. “I guess if there’s anyone she wants not to worry, it would be you.”

Seulgi scoffs. Two sides of her war and the victorious one decides to change the subject. “Your tires are nice.”

“Huh?”

“Your new bike tires. They’re nice.”

“And they’re super road worthy,” Soojung boasts. “The whole thing is. Everything got serviced. It was probably overdue.”

“They go well with the frame. Nice colour.”

“Thanks. I argued with Jiyoung about the selection.”

She won, presumably. Jiyoung, huh…?

It was late in the evening when they went. Far, allegedly. She wonders if Soojung got dinner afterwards. She wonders where Soojung got dinner. She wonders if Soojung went home and reheated leftovers to her mother’s stoic glare or a quick twist of an ear or if neither of her parents were home at all to notice or if she bought something at a store and packed in into a plastic bag or if she ordered something when she reached home and waited forever for it to get delivered or if Jiyoung bought her a meal on the way back. 

Seulgi swipes her foot across the ground and in the direction of Soojung’s bike. She ends up going a little closer than she intended and taps the side of the tires with the heel of her shoe. The swiping kicks up dust into the air, speckling itself across the formerly neat expanse of white.

“Hey! Gentle!” Soojung scolds. “These are new. I can’t stain them already.”

“Seulgi, let’s go somewhere.”

“Like where.”

“An amusement park.”

“Ew. No.”

“Come on, it’s like a date staple for couples!”

“We can go lots of places that are date staples,” Seulgi says. “Aquariums, movies, ice skating. But not the amusement park, okay? I don’t want to go.”

“None of those places have a haunted house.”

“I can make up better excuse for you to cling on to me if you want.”

“Hah! As if!”

“So you’re not interested in that? Okay, message received.”

“Wait, no. That’s not what I meant!” Seungwan shakes her head. She pats her cheeks lightly like an athlete preparing to psych up for a big match. “Amusement park! Come on! Let’s go! Like, how about in two month? We can go to a haunted house. Come on, at least a haunted house!”

“I don’t want to,” Seulgi says, and she hopes this matter can get resolved before a cold sweat starts beading on her hairline. “I don’t like those places.”

“Are you just scared?” Seungwan jibes. She leans in close. “Come on, admit it.”

“No! I just don’t want to go, okay, Seungwan?” Seulgi snaps.

Seungwan recoils. She regroups and, not paying much mind the the angry note, changes tact.

Seungwan puffs her cheeks out. Adorably. She whines, “But I already bought tickets.”

Isn’t that just like Seungwan? To go ahead and make plans assuming that. Happily committing herself to both money and time like it’s only hers. (Not that Seulgi has any things to busy herself with except Seungwan when you get to it technically, but still, she’d like to be consulted about it….) One of these days, it might not work out as well for her. Cuteness will have to win at this juncture, at least. It seems like Seungwan is trying to do something here and since Seungwan always tries things, then Seulgi should at least be the kind of person who can try to try them out, right? Isn’t that her role.

Seulgi crosses her arms. Grouchily, so Seungwan doesn’t think she’s the one hundred percent victor, she says, “You can at least ask me.”

“Why?” Seungwan says, so carefree that, even if it’s a joke, it makes Seulgi press her tongue hard agains the room of the . “I know you’ll come anyway.”

Seulgi frowns a little at the accusation and wants to protest, but finds she can’t. Well, then it’s true, isn’t it? She slumps her shoulders resigned to the arrangement of the universe. Things are as they are. They’re just like that. 

"Hey, enough frowning like that," Seungwan says. Seulgi would like it to be a little more paniced. (Like, does Seungwan even care?) She tries to throw a warm smile. Yet again, the same sort of steam roller strategy to winning over Seulgi's affections. She tells herself again that they’re just like that. Things are as they are. (But do they have to be?)

The thought niggles at the back of her brain. Seulgi buries it under the taste of cotton candy, the sound of lively crowds, the sight of Seungwan’s smile. She tells herself it doesn’t matter.

(Later, Seungwan pledges to change the date of the tickets, at least. Seulgi would have thought a refund would show greater remorse than banking on the idea she'd just come around eventually. And, what's more, banking enough on it to announce her intentions directly to her face.)

Ever since they told Soojung — well, ever since Soojung found out — everything feels more solid in a sense Like telling someone about things has made them stop being some imaginary fantasy and reminded her, in fact, it is a real thing that she hasn’t completely made up in her head. It also feels like she’s committed more, somehow, because someone else knows that they’re supposed to be couple-y and couple-like and acting as couples should, is expecting them to be a couple and so on and so forth. And that’s kind of—

Well she’s not sure exactly how that makes her feel.

Grounded, certainly. Grounded in the good way, tethered down and not in danger of keeling over in a strange just, that’s for sure.

Which is strange too. The whole reason she decided to actually do something with Seungwan, to go out with Seungwan, well, wasn’t that to take a leap of faith? If she feels grounded, she supposes she’s done falling. So this must be where the jump led? Just here? It’s strange to think things can change so easily like that.

Things have changed and not changed enough. Seulgi wishes she could just find the root of this dissatisfaction in her heart and flush it out already. She doesn’t want to feel like this, with this nagging sense of something out of place no matter how good things seem to be. What is it about her? Is something in her so messed up she can’t even be happy when she has every reason to be?

“Talk to me about whatever you like,” Soojung says. “I’m no good at starting topics for conversation. I’m okay at joining in, I guess. But, apart from that, I don’t really have much in the way of ideas.”

Seulgi says, “I’m not much of a talker.”

Soojung snorts.

“What?”

“Nothing. Forget it. Just, you can talk if you want. Don’t worry. I’m equal opportunity.” Soojung smiles, looking smug and it’s then Seulgi manages to process what the information actually means. “I’m looking forward to the stories. If it’s just me that knows, you’re going to need some outlet to vent at.”

“Maybe Seungwan and I will just pledge not to vent at all.”

“Good. You can always just vent at each other.”

Seulgi laughs. “About what?”

“About anything. About me if you want.”

“We’re not going to talk about you behind your back.”

“Everyone talks about everyone else behind their backs anyways. It wouldn’t be anything new or strange if you did.”

Seulgi falters a little. “Is that what you think…?” About us, she was going to say, but opts not to; why she does she doesn’t quite know.

“You don’t have to feel bad about it or anything,” Soojung assures. “No matter what, there will be people who dislike you, right? So you just have to do the things you want to do confidently with the people who’ll support you.”

“That’s…actually really cool of you,” Seulgi says.

“I learned it from you,” Soojung says.

“Huh?” Seulgi says.

“I guess you don’t remember…”

“Remember what?” 

“Don’t worry about it. Little things shouldn’t bother me, right?” She smiles so hard her eyes disappear as they close. It leads into a yawn. That would explain the rare sight of that kind of smile on Soojung’s face. Seulgi appreciates it all the same. After that, Soojung’s demeanour becomes much more serious, like the fatigue has reminded her of something. “But seriously, like anything. Even if it doesn’t make sense, or you just feel like or whatever. You can tell me. If anything’s wrong. Anything.”

The earnestness takes her back. Seulgi swallows. She tries to lighten the mood. “What if I don’t know what’s wrong?”

Soojung takes it absolutely seriously. “Then, keep talking about it until you can figure out what it is. Sometimes just hearing it makes it easier to figure out. Or when someone’s helping you figure it out.”

Another attempt to dilute this thick air: “Like you?” 

“That depends,” Soojung says. “Are you sure it’s me you want to be talking about this with?”

“Should I be talking about this with you?”

“You’re the person who has to decide these kind of things…” Soojung says, frowning. “I guess, if you don’t have a problem, then I could hypothetically think of some way to get at it… But, I’m not really good with fixing anything. If it’s me, then… Well, stuff like that doesn’t always make sense. I would just leave it alone.”

“Didn’t you just tell me to talk about it?” For someone who’s so quiet most of the time, Soojung really is an advocate for talking. Talking, talking, talking. Seungwan does things, at least.

“Well, fixing a problem and being asked to fix a problem are different things, right?”

“Soojung, you’re acting strange.”

Soojung tells her, “Problems don’t disappear over night just because someone makes a big gesture.”

“But there’s not any sort of problem.”

“Even I know there’s a problem.”

“Well, nothing happening. It’s not a big problem.”

Soojung’s tone is pretty much like so what. “And?”

“And If it’s not going to be death with, it doesn’t need to be brought up,” Seulgi says in a clipped tone.

“Whatever your problems are, pretending they’re not there isn’t dealing with them either.”

“We don’t have problems. This is just a stressful time.”

Soojung sighs. She says, “You two should help each other through these things. I don’t want you to fight like that. Like you did before. Just fight like you usually do instead. That’s better.”

Seulgi gives a side eye. Soojung shrugs.

“I did figure it out eventually,” Soojung says. “Sorry I took so long.” She slouches back against the wall. “As usual, too slow.”

But the thing is, they’re not fighting, though. Not anymore.

Jiyoung has taken to leaving various snacks and drinks of Soojung’s desk, with post-it note messages on cute stationary shaped like clouds and cats. The tone of the messages doesn’t match the aesthetic of the stationary, but this disconnect seems typical of Jiyoung or at least typical enough to Soojung who never comments on it. 

The messages themselves 

And if bullying Soojung into taking care of herself is really the only way to get her to do that, then she supposes she can’t begrudge Jiyoung’s approach. It gets direct results, at any rate. Which is more than Seulgi can say any of her approaches have ever delivered. With Soojung, there’s no room for anything more subtle than a sledgehammer to the face. (Well, there are exceptions that make her question the sentiment, but then those exceptions, more often than not, just make her feel like questioning herself.

Today’s selection is soy milk.

“You and Jiyoung seem to be getting along well these days,” Seulgi says. She’s brought up enough random people Soojung talks more often to now that this one slips under the radar. But by now maybe Soojung thinks she has some weird insecurity about sharing her friends. (Okay, maybe she does, but that’s irrelevant.)

“We get along fine for what we need each other to do,” Soojung says, folding up the little post it note into a square speck and flicking it across her desk. If Seulgi was doing that, it would fly off into the middle of the classroom and someone, Jiyoung most likely, would tell her off for littering. Their desks are near the back of the room. If Soojung sat where Seungwan sat, she’d try and make the shot into the wastepaper basket. But here’s too far and even Soojung’s doesn’t dare make the attempt. 

“Hmm,” Seulgi observes. “I guess as long as it’s okay being like that.”

“You know,” Soojung says, tapping her fingertips together, index to middle, middle to ring, ring to pinky and back again in a complex sequence that must require more dexterity than her fluidity makes it seem, “Maybe you should be a little more worried about how you and Seungwan are getting along.”

“Sorry, what?”

“You’re going to start fighting again at this rate,” Soojung observes neutrally as she underlines seemingly random words in her textbook.

“No we’re not,” Seulgi says. She looks more closely at Soojung’s book. There doesn’t seem to be any connecting theme or thread the underlining. Not even a shared cool-sounding-ness. “What are you doing?”

“I’m marking the words I need to look up in the dictionary.”

“Oh.”

Seulgi looks a little closer. Sulphur. Carbonate. Electrolysis. Neuroplasticity. Soojung has  notebook open with more words written in it too. Convection current, spelt incorrectly too. Should she correct it or will Soojung realise? Autocorrect will handle it on her phone. She frowns. She forgets Soojung has to learn these things too. They don’t exactly come up in conversation.

“You dropped your pencil,” Seulgi points out.

“Oh.” Soojung leans down to pick it up and while she’s distracted, Seulgi leans over and corrects the misspelling. Hopefully. She might have made it worse. Convection current. No, that’s right. That’s fine, then.

“This is your pencil,” Soojung says, holding it up.

“Oh, my bad,” Seulgi says.

Soojung gives a smile and a little roll of her eyes, more affectionate than tired. “It’s because our taste in stationary is too similar.”

“Do you mean cheap?”

“I like simple basic things,” Soojung assures instead. 

“Hmm, I guess.” They’re more similar than Seungwan with her little page markers in the shape of small animals or brightly coloured clouds or her pens and pencils, white and dotted in pastel polka dots and more. And, anyway, for someone with allegedly bland taste in stationary, Soojung sure likes her showy tires.

“You shouldn’t try to change the subject, though,” Soojung says.

“About what?”

Soojung repeats, “You’re going to start fighting again if this keeps up.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“If you’re upset about something, aren’t you supposed to say it?” Soojung broaches. “You’re so tense all the time.”

Seulgi averts eye contact. “I don’t want to annoy her. This is a busy time.”

“No,” Soojung says. “You’re both annoying each other. I would know.”

“What?”

“I’m just saying, it’s not like you have anyone else to complain to.”

“You said I could complain to you as much as I liked.”

“Or you could just spit out what you want to say.”

“How would I say it, though.”

“So there is something you want to say!”

“No!” Seulgi protests too quickly. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

It’s too late to escape the trap. “I don’t know what to say.” Well, that’s true. It’s not like she even know what it is that feels so weird with her.

Like a lightbulb has just lit up above Soojung’s head, she springs into action.

Soojung tears up corners of scrap paper, really just her test. Doesn’t she need to keep that for reference…? Well, it’s not like the teacher will really be wanting it back. The neat triangles of paper (Soojung tears paper well too, talk about useless skills)  get pushed towards Seulgi one at a time.

“It like a complaint, so you don’t want to voice it, right? But if you say something positive in with the negative, you’ll feel less like you’re complaining and more like you’re improving.” Soojung explains, “On this one, you can write the things you do that make you happy. And on this one you write the things that are making you unhappy. And it’s be fine. So go. Write. I’ll turn around.”

“What? Write? Right now?”

“Don’t procrastinate. They’re just feelings. Go.” Soojung swivels around her chair and starts counting down. Seulgi feels pressured. This doesn’t feel like Soojung (even if, begrudgingly, she has to admit it’s helpful). “Hey, Seulgi, I know you only write down answers in tests. You never hand in essays that you have two weeks to compose at home but in a test you’ll always hammer out something good. I looked at your papers! You lent them to me. Don’t pretend you don’t do well under pressure.”

Pressure, technically, is the only thing that makes her move (so long as it’s not overwhelming to the point of being suffocating) like the threat of her mother’s slipper, wielded like a weapon in proficient hands, when it’s her turn to sort and put out the garbage.

But throwing more random words at paper to make up for having more words doesn’t feel like it will help, even if it’s a start at something and Seulgi really needs the momentum. (That’s the stubbornness kicking in.) And she knows that Soojung’s not going to read and check what she’s written, since that’s a part of couple privacy (that’s the lazy cheat kicking in) so she just scrawls random letters onto the papers so that the sound of writing makes Soojung think she is and, well, she flips the papers, empty, upside down.

Soojung hears the slamming of palm against paper against desk and turns to face her again. As expected, she doesn’t check. (, Seulgi is not helping herself out here. Why? Why?)

“So,” Seulgi says, playing along and ignoring the nagging, clawing, something feeling of dread in her stomach.

“Now, you go tell her what you think.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I can do that.” I don’t think I want to.

Soojung takes both of her hands and stacks them together, grasping them in her own. Then she bobs them up and down a little bit in what Seulgi realises is a little bit like one of those group huddles that end with a big explosion of arms raised to the sky. Her fingers are cold.

“Manse~” Soojung chants. “You can do this.”

“I’m not sure you’re using that right.”

“You’re Korean. You should be able to tell me if it’s right or wrong.”

Seulgi’s dulled sense and even slower thought processing can’t really produce any sort of comeback.

Soojung shakes her head, apparently realising the unfathomable void that’s opened up where her brain is supposed to be. “You’re going to go there and talk to Wendy and you’re going to tell her about your day to warm up.”

“Okay,” Seulgi say. That seems straightforward. 

“Then you’re going to say ‘thank you’ and read out this short list you wrote about reasons you’re happy together. Then you’re going to read this note you wrote down about the thing she does that makes you unhappy.”

“O-okay?” Seulgi says. Soojung pats the pieces of paper into her hand and it feels like a commitment she can’t shirk now.

“Good,” Soojung decides.

“W-wait! What happens after that?”

“That’s between you two,” Soojung says. “I’m not part of this relationship.”

Seulgi walks up to Seungwan. Seungwan is looking down at a mess of papers and highlighters. Seulgi looks back behind her. Soojung gives her a thumbs up. Seulgi looks back in front of her. Seungwan finally lifts her head. Seulgi looks back again. Soojung’s gone. To give them privacy, presumably.

Seulgi opens . She inhales.

In the end she doesn’t say anything. But she tells Soojung she does. 

Soojung gets her test paper back. Yookyung, who’s handing them out to the rest of the class, high fives her as she points out the score. It’s just a neutral observation Seulgi makes while Seungwan is being flanked at all sides by people trying to use her test paper as an answer key for the questions they messed up on. Seulgi keeps her paper score side down on the table. Unremarkably satisfactory is a neat summation of her score.

“You and Yookyung seem to getting along,” Seulgi says. “That’s good.”

“Yeah, her notes are really useful. And she explains things well.”

“It’s good you’re friends.”

“I think Yookyung was just happy to be talking to someone in the grade who was younger than her,” Soojung says, chuckling. “She’s quiet but a little…doting?”

It’s not that it’s her, it’s just that your face just asks to be taken care of, Seulgi doesn’t tell her, though if Yookyung gets a little kick out of being a month or so older than someone in the grade at last then it’s no place of hers to be judging. 

Seulgi puts a hand on top of Soojung’s head, like petting a cute animal. The weight of it makes Soojung blink, snapping out her reverie of thought to look blankly at Seulgi, exactly like a fascinated pet looking for food. 

Seulgi ruffles her hair. “Soojung, don’t even worry about it.”

Soojung blinks again. “Okay.”

The top of Soojung’s head is fun to touch. It’s very round. Like, perfectly. Like, super evenly. That’s a weird thing to know. That is, isn’t it? But it just is. It’s kind of fun. Soojung in general is kind of fun to touch. Seulgi was never the biggest fan of skinship but Soojung is just— Well, Soojung’s fun to poke and pat and etc. The fact other people share this opinion simultaneously makes her feel better and more normal and really weirded out. 

And just to clarify, it’s not like the bad touching or anything. Soojung— Everyone just likes to pet Soojung like she’s a stuffed animal, okay?

Still, that last point strikes chord. It something kind of like treating Soojung like an exhibit at a petting zoo. She’s just trying to catch some extra sleep in between class periods (and who wouldn’t want to try that now and then because every day is just that tiring, you know) and people all keep touching her. Seulgi doesn’t like being touched very much. It’s annoying. Does Soojung like to be touched? Is it bothering her? Is this really hypocritical on Seulgi’s part?

Well, they have touched now and then, her and Soojung, but they’re friends, right, and so that’s different, maybe? The rest of the class— Well, actually, is Soojung all friends with the rest of them too? Is there a different between friends and good friends? Maybe Seulgi is just being too damn righteous. Maybe Soojung doesn’t care at all, dead to the world as she’s splayed out over her desk. .

“Hey, you guys, maybe we want to take it down a notch?” she suggests, to two people, huddled over, balancing random pieces of stationary on Soojung’s head and waiting to see if they fall off with the steady ebb and flow of her breathing.

“Yeah, maybe this is a little excessive,” one of them says.

The other one takes of the items but, unable to resist temptation, starts to use the squishy rubber end of the pencil to poke at Soojung’s head. One, twice, then hard enough to make her head move a little to the side. Soojung makes a cute complaining noise. She pokes with her finger instead, same amount of force. No complaining sound this time. Fingers must have more surface area, less stabby, more fleshy. Ew. Bad choice of words.

“Is that really better?” Seulgi says, skeptical, thoroughly not impressed look on her face. 

“But the top of Soojung’s head is fun to touch,” comes the protest. “I don’t really get why, it just kind of is.”

The other one joins in, lightly patting. “It’s kind of addictive.”

“What’s addictive?” someone else, new to the conversation pipes up.

“Soojung,” it’s clarified. “Her head.”

“Oh, the top of her head? It’s really nice right?”

“What’s nice, what’s nice?” Someone else says. “Hey, don’t leave me out!”

Pretty soon, there’s a whole crowd of people around Soojung, trying to investigate the hype.

“Soojung,” Seulgi starts, loudly enough that Soojung should know she’s being addressed. “Are you just letting random people pet you?”

“I guess,” Soojung mumbles and then closes her eyes to go back to sleep.

Various hands either take quick prods at Soojung, or linger enough to pet her hair or play with loose strands.

“Hey, you guys,” Seulgi say. “Does she even—”

“I don’t think she cares. You get sleepy when people play with your hair anyway.”

“Soojung’s hair is pretty~”

“‘Nk you,” Soojung mumbles, the vague remainders of politeness drifting out of her semiconscious body.

“Soojung, you’re supposed to say, ‘no, no, it’s nothing special’ and act embarrassed. That’s how you’re supposed to take a compliment here.”

Too late, Soojung’s already asleep again.

No one seems to take offence to that, though. A cacophony of voices rings out, like church bells when the hour strikes something requiring an appropriate amount of ceremony and show.

“Because you always get really sleepy when someone’s playing with your hair, you know? In the mornings in elementary school, my mom would braid my hair and it was so early I’d sometimes fall back asleep again.”

“I just liked playing with my deskmate’s hair. I always did it in class. I got so distracted. And then she got sleepy. And then I got both of us in trouble. Then I had to sit on a desk alone so I wouldn’t be a nuisance.”

“That really sounds like you.”

“Hey what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Ah, that desk is getting too crowded. I can braid your hair instead.”

“Sounds like a plan!”

At least the crowd is thinning out around Soojung.

Eunji pokes the tip Soojung’s nose with a pencil.

“G’ ‘way,” Soojung slurs, muffled through her arm. 

“I guess she wakes up for some things after all.”

“Okay, you guys, I think that’s enough,” Seulgi interrupts, trying to cut through the thinning crowd.

Seulgi’s intervention doesn’t do much.

“Come on, it’s just Soojung.”

Seulgi’s blood heats up, a simmer before the boil. She breathes deeply. She thinks about what’s really going on here. When she starts to fathom a recognisable string of words together in her head she opens and prepares to—

“Oh, Jiyoung, hey! We’re just…” the voice starts of strong but trails of into tense silence. 

The remaining crowd scatters off. The few who don’t still part like the red sea for Jiyoung, who has, in effect just shooed everyone away.

Exploiting her clear path, Jiyoung leans down on Soojung’s desk so she’s talking near Soojung’s ear. Sternly, she says, “Soojung, this is no time for naps.”

Soojung shakes her head to clear her hair away from her face. Unobstructed by anything to muffle the sound, she says, “But I’m tired.”

“You’re tired because you didn’t go to sleep after I told you and spent two hours scrolling  through naver for funny pictures of small animals.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Then it was food. Or you found some weird aesthetic photography blog. It’s always the same things with you.”

“But don’t you just need to browse the internet a bit aimlessly before going to sleep? To just relax and stuff.”

“Looking at a screen before bed is bad for your sleep patterns.”

Soojung is just sulking now.

“Sit up,” Jiyoung says. 

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Soojung whines, half-hearted, as she sits up anyway.

“That’s bad for your back,” Jiyoung says. 

Soojung rolls her eyes.

Seulgi got what she wanted. Soojung looks markedly less dead and there aren’t any people making a game over fussing at her head.

But, unnervingly, this nagging pattern seems kind of familiar and it makes the skin at the back of her neck crawl up and down her spine.

She feels like she’s on auto pilot most of the time. Auto-pilot in everything. Is it just that time of year where everything feels vaguely surreal? She’s settled in too well to her routines, and school is alright now that Seungwan takes it upon herself to turn every spare moment into a study session that’s really a couched date. Seulgi’s grade may be improving a little, but she has to worry if Seungwan is really backsliding.

With the choir competition too, that’s on autopilot. Seungwan sings her her part for her once so she gets a better feel for it than random dotted bean sprouts over a page of A4 paper, and practice is smooth enough. (She’s in the same section as Eunji and they talk a little in the short breaks when they’re all sequestered together awaiting orders.)

Theoretically, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with anything. 

She just doesn’t feel that— 

Well, feel much of anything.

Eating ramyun, stooped over a convenience stood’s standing table, her backpack straps still digging angrily into her shoulders, Seulgi’s not sure about the ambiance. This is, no doubt, what broke high schoolers do, but still… Well, at least the convenience store coffee is cheap. Seungwan seems to be experiencing a mild thrill from the novelty (damn rich kid) as she drinks it to accompany her kimbap. She’s trying not to look to shiny eyed but Seulgi can still see through it. If she wants, though, she can always just pretend that Seungwan is looking that way because of her.

(The kimbap is, of course, more expensive than the instant ramyun. Seulgi just needed something warm in her, alright? The coffee alone wouldn’t have cut it.)

Seungwan says, “This is fun.”

“Do you enjoy slumming it with your poor girlfriend?”

“You’re not poor and this isn’t slumming it.”

“I went to your house once. It was practically a mansion.”

“My house isn’t that nice,” Seungwan says. This just really kind of only makes it worse.

“Hmm,” mumbles just to make a noise that proves she was listening. She doesn’t have anything to say back in reply.

“But seriously, this is fun. It’s nice. I like it. Just hanging out like this.”

“Sorry about the view,” Seulgi says. From the counter, they have a delightful front row seat to the downpour of grey rain flooding the greyer streets. Grey as everything else. Seungwan wears a blue scarf. Deep, saturated, rich blue. It’s bright without being blinded. Dark blue, but striking. Jewel-toned. Seulgi only ever wears blue in shades of navy, so she notes it with great interest.

“The view is fine. Everything is fine. I like it,” Seungwan says. She pauses. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever just taken a second to stop and see what’s around.”

“When you say stuff like that,” Seulgi drawls, “I don’t know whether to call you super cute or super annoying.”

“Thanks for corrupting your super sheltered girlfriend.”

Seulgi makes a wry smile. “I’m not sure that’s what you should be calling it.” Seungwan is the one that’s a bad influence, randomly making out with people in not quite locked rooms.

“Gosh, all the preservatives and additives in  this food just taste like rebellion and victory.” 

The preservatives and additives are in Seulgi’s food, not Seungwan’s because how many things can you really add into kimbap, but she supposes the mysterious chemical mix that makes up the coffee is more than enough to spike intrigue. Also Seungwan’s nice scarf is too nice to be risked in the line of ramyun soup spatter. (But Seungwan probably eats way neater than her anyway so that point might just be moot.) 

“Seungwan, you better slow down. You live your life so wild now. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to face your parents.”

“You better take responsibly.”

“Oh. Now should I?” 

Under the table, she holds Seungwan’s hand. Friends hold hands too. And they’re both still wearing uniforms. Girls around their age are touchy anyway, right? It’s only weird if she acts weird. No one will notice. That’s still— (That feels like a shame, but it also feels comfortable.)

Seungwan’s phone buzzes. Not a call or a text or a message on Kakao Talk, but the usual wind chime notification sound of her calendar alerts. Some other schedule. Her life is just like  that. Her shoulders slump, and pulling away, she says, “Well, I’m heading off.”

“I’ll go too—”

“Hey, finish your food first.” 

“You’re not going to wait for me?”

“Sorry,” Seungwan says. “I really have to go now.”

Seungwan looks at her watch this time.

“Okay, I get it. Bye.” Seulgi waves. She hasn’t reached the kind of level where she can giving goodbye kisses in public, even on the cheek. But her hand lingers on Seungwan’s arm before she lets go and she can tell, by Seungwan’s silent smirk, that she likes the clinginess.

Seungwan doesn’t even have to open door on her way out. An college-aged looking guy is making his way through and holds it open for Seungwan as she’s on her way out. He leans back into the door, holding it with his body weight, as Seungwan smiles politely in thanks. He seems starstruck. But Seungwan is just too pretty like that. Seulgi isn’t even surprised. Not even when he trips a little as he closes it once she’s gone.

He buys cigarettes and pack of chips. Definitely not Seungwan’s type. She’s not worried. 

She returns her attention to her left over food. Seungwan abandoned some leftovers in her rush too. She might as well finish those. Someone has to. She drinks the remainder of her soup from the ramyun bowl, scooping the last broken shards of noodle into with the disposable chopsticks and pulls the last few slices of Seungwan’s kimbap over to her side of the table so she doesn’t have to lean weirdly.

Oh, Seungwan left some of her drink too. Might as well strike while the opportunity is there…

She tips the cup back and taps on its bottom, shaking loose every last drop of Seungwan’s now tepidly room temperature coffee.

The cashier looks at her, amused by the gusto with which she’s eating, probably, and though she doesn’t do much else but smile, Seulgi recognises the restrained tremble of her shoulders as that of a person trying not to laugh. Seulgi won’t be embarrassed. (It’s a thing she’s working on.) But she does turn a little away so she can’t see the cashier as she eats, salvaging the last remnants of her pride.

The cashier looks down, counting stock or reorganising the bills in the cash register or just something else productive and not in the least focused on Seulgi. This is better. This is good. Seulgi takes an overview of the table. There’s nothing left to be wasted. This is fine now. She can go. Totally. Just throw away the receipts so her mother can’t judge what she spends her money on and she’s all set.

Seulgi puts one hand on the handle of the door, cold steel pressing into her palm, and walks straight forward, the force of her whole self behind each step.

She proceeds to smack face first into the glass.

This is the right door, right? This isn’t a fixed door. She’s sure of it. Looking up, aghast, at the Seulgi-shaped smudge against the glass does nothing to the vestiges of her self-belief, though. 

What the hell? Seungwan just got through here a few moments ago.

Sensing her distress, the person behind the counter scrambles the help her up and then fluffs up the edges of her brightly coloured vest, proclaiming her to be an employee of the store.

“Sorry,” the shop attendant not much older than them, certainly not at all taller, maybe just a high school student doing part time work—Seulgi would be hard pressed to think they were anything more than a first year university student at max—assures and fiddles with the door, shaking it back and forth.

“Uh, yeah,” Seulgi says, vaguely dazed from having walked into a glass door.

“The door here jams. You just have to shove it hard enough and it’ll work out. There’s not trick to it, unfortunately.”

“Seems to be a lot of that these days,” Seulgi grumbles. Just a bit of force and her entire body weight just bounced off of it.

The shop attendant/cashier/staff worker/what have you doesn’t seem to glean her bad mood. Reminds her of Soojung in some ways. She says, “Yeah, the cold weather just makes all the door frames and doors swell in weird ways. Especially in wood houses. Kind of interesting, huh?”

“I guess.” Seulgi sweeps the remainder of her things into her bag and gets up to leave.

The door makes it open and Seulgi goes ahead through it.

“Have a nice day!”

She doesn’t look back.

“It’s getting dark earlier,” Soojung says. She yawns. “It makes me sleepy.

“Are you one of those people?” Seungwan asks. “I guess someone from California would miss the sun.”

Well, Seulgi was too late to intervene on that one. She shoots Soojung and apologetic look (for what? Not managing her girlfriend, maybe?) but Soojung is preoccupied defending herself against Seungwan so it escapes notice.

“I’m from San Francisco, not L.A.,” Soojung huffs. “I’m just tired and the weather’s not helping.”

“Are you grumpy because you’re sleepy?” Seungwan teases. 

Soojung pouts, brows furrowing.

Seulgi intervenes, “It’s just getting to that time of year, right? We’re all running out of steam.”

“The choir competition is just around the corner. Hang in there, Soojung.” 

“Yeah,” Soojung drawls. “Then it’ll be a blind rush of studying and cramming.”

“You’ll be okay with that too,” Seungwan assures. “Want to copy my notes?”

“Mmm, it’s okay,” Soojung replies. “I only need to memorise how to spell everything.”

Seulgi cracks out a laugh she was trying to keep in.

“It’s not funny,” Soojung whines. “If I only had to give my answers verbally this would all be fine.” She sighs. “I need to memorise more things too… I don’t think notes are really going to help with that.”

Seungwan pats her back. “Time really flies, huh?”

“Guess so.”

Seulgi agrees. She wishes it wouldn’t.

Seulgi hands in her assignments dutifully. She sits through practices dutifully. She eats lunch with Seungwan and, when they’re in luck, Soojung too. 

Soojung sleeps a lot on top of her desk. More often that she did before, she means. Since it’s getting cold out, she usually has a blanket in her lap. Sometimes, she sees Soojung with a random other blanket tossed over her shoulders. The others in the class seem to be taking it turns to lend them theirs. Soojung gets cold easy. While she’s asleep, Jiyoung continues to swing by and put a drink on the top right corner of her desk. That’s the corner closest to Jiyoung’s own desk. She supposes that’s the general idea. Soojung doesn’t move about in her sleep, not even to stretch as she yawns, so she’s never seen anything put on the desk get knocked over to this day. Actually, to be honest, after the first major head petting incident, there was an occasion once the class was all gathered all around seeing how many things they could stack on Soojung’s head without them falling over or waking Soojung up. They were only foiled because of the time limit rather than Soojung. (The conclusive test result after multiple trials: even her breathing is too calm and too steady.) 

Even if Jiyoung’s involved, this isn’t bullying. Soojung is just too fun to pick on and tease and it feels a little like going back in time because even if they poke fun at each other, everything gets resolved (when it comes to Soojung, anyway) with nothing much more than chocolate bread. (She has a particular bakery she’s very fond of and apparently Eunji lives very close to it.) 

Jiyoung is getting along better with the class these days too.

That might be a little harsh, actually. It wasn’t that Jiyoung was very much of a loner, but that the class seemed rather divided in general. (Yookyung’s situation just had things end up like that.)

But now Seungwan talks to everyone and Jiyoung talks to everyone and Soojung is talked to by everyone and, she hates to admit it, but this choir competition has forced them in a room often enough and with enough of a person to bring them together more than Sports Day did. Sports Day had too much riding on too few people, even if the team spirit was there in who to root for. She has to hand it to Jiyoung—she’s turned a totally optional extra-curricular activity into something special. It actually feels like they stand a chance.

She says to Seungwan, “Things have been going well.”

Seungwan smiles happily, dopily, cluelessly. “They have.”

“Seungwan, I like you too,” she says. “But I—”

“Ah, you said it,” Seungwan says, conveniently ignoring the other parts.

Seulgi stops. She thinks. She remembers Soojung’s thumbs up and an empty promise to talk. She feels sick. She says, “I need to say something to you.”

Seungwan stops. Seungwan listens. Seungwan is listening. (Listening?)

“Something’s wrong.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then maybe nothing’s wrong.”

“But something doesn’t feel right,” Seulgi insists. “Doesn’t it feel kind of like everything going to go wrong soon?”

“Ha, your personality really is like this, huh?” Seungwan says. “Soojung said you were worried about something but I kept telling her there was nothing to worry about.”

Isn’t there something wrong if two people are trying to tell you something is wrong? Seulgi thinks. All that comes out is an aggravated sigh.

“I don’t think this is okay.”

“Seulgi, you’re not used to things going well for you, right?”

“Excuse me?” 

“I get I might be a little out of touch with how you think, because things usually go well for me—” Here Seulgi is polite enough to bite back the wow, no kidding because it’s not Seungwan’s fault she’s— Okay, it is Seungwan’s fault, but she’s not doing it on purpose. “—But the fact things are going well doesn’t mean something bad’s going to happen. You’re life can be enjoyable, no hidden costs necessary. So don’t freak out. It just means you’re finally getting a turnaround.”

“No, but I really think that—”

“You need to stop worrying so much,” Seungwan says and slaps her back and then her shoulder and then rests a hand on the cook of her neck, so that her thumb is over Seulgi’s pulse point. 

“Shouldn’t we just think about if things do…?” Well, do what, exactly? Seulgi is trying to figure out the words she wants to say to Seungwan as she goes along, but Seungwan’s replies aren’t giving her much confidence. Maybe Seungwan is right and she’s just a paranoid killjoy. “Shouldn’t we…?” 

“Why?” Seungwan says. “This is peaceful. Let’s enjoy life like this while we can.”  

Sleet falls down from the sky, grey clumpy patches of water lining the road. Not the delicate white snowflakes that would make this so picturesque, but at least she should be happy it’s not cold enough for that just yet.

Seungwan hold her palm open to the sky and watches the water droplets make dark marks on her hands where she stretched her cotton sleeves over them. That’s fascinating too. Seulgi wonders if it’s what she’s doing, or if it’s because she’s Seungwan.

“This is nice,” Seulgi says. Her breath puffs out into a white cloud for one vague second before it disappears into nothing. She reaches over and laces her fingers together with Seungwan’s. They’re warm. They’re always warm.

And so the days pass.