Seulgi remembers absolutely nothing about the day. 

How she managed to get on the bus, how she got dressed, if she ate, if she made proper sounds: all a vague, indistinct mess. She knows that Seungwan has been jabbing her elbow into her stomach several times, only because of the dull stinging pain there, and also on the side of her arm where Seungwan has had to keep prodding her to stay focused or away or stay something, but, that aside, everything is a hazy blur or waiting and watching and too much sound and bright lights.

They are waiting again, lined up in chairs, like little blocs, enclaves or countries, segregated by school uniform, in a cavernous hall when, all of a sudden, people around her start cheering and whooping. Seungwan burst into applause. Seulgi fixes her eyes forward through the dark, to where the spot light shines out aggressively.

Jiyoung, being choir pioneer, is the class representative for them. As she steps out on stage to collect the trophy, a medal getting hung around her neck on behalf of all their efforts, Seulgi feels an uncomfortable gnawing itch in her chest.

They line up in pairs to sit on the bus, because the bus’s arrangement of seats is in pairs too, two a side except for the big row of five at the back. Seulgi’s never enjoyed sitting at the back, because of the sheer inconvenience of having to crawl through all the other people to get to the front and off the bus (which really seems the most important thing given the whole utility of the action and why you boarded in the first place) so she doesn’t join the scrum of people debating who should get up in there.

Someone proposes that they let Jiyoung, Soojung, Seugwan and (mysteriously but maybe because she hangs out with the last two) Seulgi have they prized position, but Seulgi doesn’t want to contemplate who the fifth person in that arragment there will be (no one else was particularly as involved with competition practice) and absolutely no one wants to be the fifth wheel so that idea is abandoned.

Soojung doesn’t notice this ongoing conversation, staring out into space, clearly out of it. The bags under her eyes are starting to show. She squints at a light somewhere. Is it the sun or the reflection of it off a bit of metal or a window? Soojung’s gaze is absolutely unfocused. Seulgi can’t even begin to make an inference. Seungwan pinches Soojung’s arm as if to say ‘wake up’ and Soojung blinks hard trying to comply. Jiyoung pesters the teacher to letting them on the bus faster, breaking off from the line to negotiate the doors opening, at least, so they can get on and rest even if they don’t leave yet, but the bus driver is no where in sight (still on a smoke break?) so there’s not much anyone can do.

Disgruntled, Jiyoung steps to the bus door and shoves. It opens. The engine, it seems, is humming away quietly and the bus was never locked in the first place. (This seems unsafe. Seulgi opts not to think too hard about this.)

Soojung bursts through the newly open doors first and sidles up somewhere in the middle of the bus, by a window so no one has to crawl over her legs in case when the bus is filled to capacity. Everyone lets her. There’s still some murmuring about stretching legs before the long ride. (The waiting time for that victory announcement felt like forever.)

She turns to Seungwan, pensive.

“Doesn’t this feel like kind of an empty victory?” she says, leaning over to Seungwan.

“You only get as much of something as you put into it,” Jiyoung tells her, with just enough good timing to get back just in time to be able to overhear the conversation. Did she steal Soojung’s magical appearing habit? The trophy in her arms is cradles like a baby, too tenderly. Seulgi tells herself that it’s ridiculous, at odds with the rest of Jiyoung’s face, and with the expression on it. “I guess you just didn’t put in enough.”

She pushes past to board the bus. Seulgi helps Seungwan up the step, the big leap between the floor and the highly suspended bus, and looks down the one long corridor inside.

Soojung, run ragged by all the last minute practice and fine-tuning and errand brooking in the days leading up to this monumentally anti-climactic event, is asleep, slumped over in her chair, her neck leaning so off to the side Seulgi is concerned it might snap without someone’s shoulder to rest it on. When the bus rides across every bump on the road, she’s sure to wake up, if not get a terrible cramp as her limp head bounces along all the uneven government-mandated potholes and surfacing. Soojung does not wake up at the words. Why not? Even if she was awake, she would have trouble hearing them. Seulgi wonders how satisfying a victory this is to her.

Since Soojung took the window seat on the bus, Jiyoung sits next to her in the aisle-side. When they first depart from the competition venue, she sees Soojung head whip to and fro and bump against the window as the bus’s ty suspension and bus driver’s tier driving send them shaking over every speed bump and turn on the road.

Seungwan leans her head on her shoulder, the side of it instead of on top because Seulgi’s torso just comes up like that, falling asleep, one arm gently landing in her lap. Seulgi rearranges her so that she’s less slumped over. Her cheek is warm, as is her side, all pressing against Seulgi’s. In the chill of the bus, heating not turned up very high to try and converse fuel because the school is even more of a cheapskate than the government, it’s a very welcome warmth and Seungwan’s (sort of) embrace, and the steady motion of the bus, send her drifting off not too long. Maybe she was more tired than she realised.

When she wakes up, late enough that she can recognise the scenery and streets flittering pass her in the bus window, rubs her eyes, careful not to disturb Seungwan, still laying in exactly the same spot and kind of cutting off her blood circulation just a little bit. There’s a bit of drool threatening to spill out of the corner of . Seulgi wipes it away with the pad of her thumb. There’s also a hair from Seungwan’s long, side-swept bangs, that has been shaken loose and falls down near the exact centre of her head, like a line drawn in men down her face. Seulgi brushes the stray strand of hair, dancing up and down with the exhale and inhale of breath from Seungwan’s nose, behind her ear. The class president needs to maintain her dignity more than Seulgi needs to appreciate the view, after all. 

She looks around the rest of the bus. Eunji and Bomi are next to each other, heads keened forward, bumping into each other as the bus jerks. Whether some one was trying to lean against someone else was unclear, but whatever their arrangement was before, they’ve failed it. Other people are asleep too, heads lolled back, and there are the occasional few still awake too—headphones plugged in or staring down at their laps[ to where there phones glow with soft cold light. And speaking of people who are asleep… 

She notes that Soojung’s head is finally in a stable position. Stable and resting against Jiyoung’s chest. Not even shoulder, chest. Jiyoung’s bag sits on her lap. She brought a pillow. At the moment she looks to have constructed makeshift stand for Soojung to rest against comfortable, a pillow on top on the bag on top of her lap, the softest arrangement she could find. Soojung’s hair falls in front of her face, everywhere. Jiyoung hasn’t bother to try and tidy it up.

Seulgi stares. Seungwan is still asleep, still warm, still pressing into her. The chill of the outside air bites through the window. Maybe Jiyoung just feels the eyes on her, or maybe she checks this side, habitually, because she knows how Seulgi gets. They cross gazes. 

Jiyoung’s expression is unreadable, yet somehow also b with a twitching energy that can’t stay still. Her eyes are lined with dark reddish-purplish shadows. Her skin is blotchier than before. If she was wearing makeup before, she’s either taken it off, or it’s faded off her face. Soojung stirs as they cross a particularly tall speed bump without any particular amount of deceleration. Her head is about ready to fall out the makeshift backpack and pillow rest but Jiyoung’s hands move faster and stabilise her before that happens—a gentle cradle that seems like a gross exaggeration of the way that Jiyoung held that trophy, now tipped over by her feet as the bus swerves to meet a hard turn on the road. It seems she’s done this before.

Jiyoung looks down. At the crown of Soojung’s head, at the floor—Seulgi can’t tell. Her eyes twitch a flicker up and meet Seulgi’s, flinching as though she’s realised Seulgi never looked away. Jiyoung takes her hands down and away from Soojung’s head. Her eyes are dark. Seulgi can still see them, even if Jiyoung won’t look at her.

She looks like she hasn’t slept a wink.

The article about their school winning the choir competition gets published online. The denizens of the fair web can’t stop talking about much else except Jiyoung’s  face, noting how pretty she is. Seulgi’s not sure whether to be uncomfortable or not — this, inevitably, ends up being the topic of discussion for just about every article with someone’s picture on it, after all.

An alumni has commented too. “I used to go to this school. It’s nice to see the current students revive it to it’s former glory. Fighting!” 

Seulgi feels a little better about winning.

The banner in front of the school is embarrassing. It makes Seulgi wish they’d just been soundly defeated instead. Or won a more minor victory. The banner reads, ‘Congratulations to First Year Class Three for their first place victory’. There’s even a picture, lifted from the newspaper, of Jiyoung, on stage, shaking the hand of the judge as she accepts their prizes. Well, they are a very visual people, after all. But the garish colours and picture and blaring text make the whole thing look tacky, in her opinion. It would have been more bearable if it was just black text on white. The school must have been really desperate to celebrate something except the middling to middling-high test scores it manages to generate on average. (They haven’t had a successful sports or recreational activity team in years.) Speaking of rankings, it’s going to be midterm exams… The kind that get sorted into national rankings… What a headache.

There goes one responsibility for another. Just delightful.

Seulgi gets snapped out of her reverie a loud noise.

“Sunbae, congratulations on your school’s win!” The exclamation is accompanied by a patter of applause.

Oh. This kid. Seulgi thought she’d seen the last of her.

“Joy, right?”

Joy’s eyes light up. “Sunbae! You remembered!”

More applause. Seulgi’s not sure if it’s earnest or if she’s being made fun of.

“And did you just come here to congratulate me?”

Joy offers a sheepish grin and half-hearted shrug, head at a jaunty angle, tongue sticking out of her smile. “You know, sunbae, most people would say thanks first before going on the attack like that. As expected from you.”

“I literally have no idea what you are talking about,” Seulgi says.

“But you’re right,” Joy continues. “There was something I wanted to ask you. I know it’s been a pretty long time since we last spoke, and that’s pretty much been my fault, so I’d like to fix that first. Here’s my phone number!”

She sticks out her hand and a scrunched up ball of paper that presumably holds such information.

“No, it’s okay,” Seulgi says, eying the clenched fist as though it’s a time bomb waiting to be set off. “You can keep that.”

Joy’s hands fall to her sides. She pouts. It’s clearly being forced and clearly trying to appeal to some protective side of Seulgi’s personality. Little does this kid know that Seulgi has not protective, maternal side.

“Oh come on! I’m not a troublemaker. I just want some advice from a really admirable sunbae. I’m not trying to trap you into admitting anything, I swear!”

“That was really suspiciously specific.”

“…Okay, I could see how you’d get that idea…” She can see the mental hoops Joy is jumping through in her mind to try and come up with a way to salvage the conversation. “But, sunbae! The truth is just this! I just want a girlfriend. You’ve had girlfriends before, right? So just help me out. Give me tips. How did you do it? You know how it is with older girls…” 

Joy sighs wistfully, staring up at the sky with all of the melancholy of autumn. 

Aish. This kid. “And where did you learn all that?”

“You just hear things from here and there, you know?”

Seulgi feels that headache coming on. “Whatever you heard, it isn’t true. I didn’t have a girlfriend. Those were just rumours.”

“‘Didn’t have’,” Joy repeats, trailing off with a laser focus on grammar that would be impressive it were in an exam situation instead of here, outside the gates of Seulgi’s school. “Doesn’t that mean you have one now, even if you didn’t have one before?”

“Look, kid,” Seulgi sighs, rubbing her temple to stave her oncoming headache. “I know you mean well but this isn’t really  the sort of thing you go around asking people.”

“But you do have a girlfriend,” the middle schooler insists. “At this current moment in time. Now.”

Trapped. Seulgi’s always been terrible at lying. Should she make an attempt? Oh, screw it. “That’s true, yes.”

Joy applauds, whooping and cheering. At least the banner is providing an excuse slash reason for this spectacle. Maybe winning really isn’t so bad. Seulgi glances around to see if anyone is paying attention to them. Thankfully, no one is.

“I knew you’d have a girlfriend, sunbae. There’s no way anyone as cool as you would be able to stay single for long. Especially at a school like this. I bet you just have to beat the chicks back with sticks, right?”

“…What are you talking about…?” Is this what middle schoolers were really like? Had Seulgi critically misunderstood something of utmost importance about them back when she too was a middle schooler? She doesn’t remember having this kind of an imagination. And she’d appreciate it if Joy would top saying the world ‘girlfriend’ so loudly out in public like this.

“Wow! Daebak! You have a girlfriend now! No, not daebak. I mean, of course you do! See? I called it. They say believing is half of making something reality, so you should really repay me for helping you by giving me some girlfriend getting advice.”

“You really need to leave.”

“Oh come on,” Joy whines. “If you have a girlfriend then as my respectable sunbae, help me out and teach me how to get one too.”

“And why should I be doing that, exactly?”

“To impart important knowledge across the boundaries of generations?”

“There must be, what, a three year agree different between us at most? Does that count as a generation gap?”

“Its a whole new generation of people that attended middle school with you,” Joy reasons, calm. Damn, that almost sounded convincing.

“Hey!” a voice calls up and Seulgi hears the footsteps bounding towards her, much too loud and cheerful to be Soojung, so since there’s only one other person who would talk to her on a regular basis…

“Seungwan!” she says, startled.

Seungwan grasps her unease at once takes a step in front of her, intervening between the standoff she’s having with Joy. So that it looks less embarrassingly like she’s cowering behind her, she takes a step to the side so that she can still see Joy while staying behind Seungwan. It’s still all ridiculous though.

“Is everything alright here?” Seungwan says, giving Joy a glare that is quite happily returned: two people more suited to smiling really just making awkward squinting faces at each other.

Oh, this can’t go on. Seungwan means really— No, Seungwan definitely can’t pull this off. She should take more lessons from Seo Juhyun-sunbaenim before she ever tries to pull off something like this… (Then again, if she did do well, then what would it be that Seulgi should have really said to that? Good job intimidating a kid? An annoying kid for sure, but…)

She clears and lightly grasps Seungwan’s wrist, making her turn back away from the staring (read: squinting) showdown that’s going on.s

“It’s okay, Seungwan. I can handle it.” A pause. “You’re here early today.”

“Yeah!” Seungwan’s eyesmile flashes on to max, too bright. Seulgi can feel her heart fluttering. “Looked forward to seeing you today.”

Seulgi tries not to heat up, especially around the face area and waves Seungwan off. She makes sure to watch as Seungwan disappears tint the school building, to be sure that she’s not going to be making a surprise trip back to startle them from conversation again.

“Who was that?” 

“No one.”

Seulgi looks from side to side. No, all these onlookers are not really what she wants.  

They retreat (or more correctly she herds them) around the corner, to a little alley flanking the school. Sometimes, students come here to smoke. But it’s too early in the morning for that, so she should be safe and this conversation should be able to go down with a little more discretion. 

“I don’t think that was no one,” Joy announces, looking haughty. She folds her arms across her chest. “So who was that?”

“No one you need to know.”

“I saw her last time,” Joy recalls, looking up in that way people do when they’re trying to bring sunken memories to surface. “She was annoying. What’s up with her?”

“Well thanks. Because of you, she got into a big fight with me.”

“I’ll bet it wasn’t one hundred percent my fault.”

“What?”

Joy shrugs. “You two seem like you’d have personalities that clash anyway. But if it was like, ten percent my fault then I’m ready to take responsibility for my actions!”

“Yes, because that sounded so earnest.”

Joy pauses. “You fought? So she’s your friend. You didn’t use any honourifics. Your classmate?”

She never thought she’d be saying this  but… “Can we get back onto the topic at hand?”

Joy is elated at the interest being shown. Seulgi wonders if that was her whole strategy in the first place. Wily, wily kid.

“Does that mean you’ll help me?”

They stare each other down. Joy is not going to back down until she gets some sunbae-assistance. Seulgi is not going to backdown either. She wants to make this whole thing clear so the rest of her high school existence can be spent free from children haunting her at the school gate and asking her for things.

Someone coughs. It’s not her. It’s not Joy. Another cough. Oh, it’s the sound of a throat being cleared, actually. The two of them both turn their heads to see the source of the sound, right from the direction they came. Seulgi anticipates some teacher telling them to hurry along but instead, it’s Bae Juhyun.

Yes.

Bae Juhyun is there. She’s managed to hunt them down. For once, her slight frame looks like it’s occupying the whole width of the alleyway by virtue of her sheer presence alone. But Seungwan is scarier, she decides. And even scarier than her is Seo Juhyun. She can live with this. She’s been desensitised. That’s the kind of survivor that she is.

Bae Juhyun’s voice is crisp and cool. “Park Sooyoung, I thought you were going to stop hanging around here?” 

“O-Oh, Unnie!” Nervous sweating commences. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Joy-unnie, Joy-unnie,” comes a high pitched voice as its owner comes scampering around the corner so quickly she has to bend, like a motorcycle drifting in a street race, to keep her balance. “We have to get out of here quick! I saw—”

The elementary schooler, Yeri or Yerim if she recalls correctly, stops in her tracks, stumbling with the sudden deceleration. Bae Juhyun-sunbaenim lightly grasps her shoulders so she can regain her balance and, once she has, gently takes her hands away.

“Hi, unnie,” Yeri says, more quietly. She looks down at her shoes.

“Are you bothering this student?” Juhyun says with the heavy authority of all her school seniority.

“Um… no?”

“No, unnie,” Joy says, dejected.

Juhyun turns to her, eyes a little mournful, embarrassed, and can’t quite meet her in the eye. Seulgi imagine aa sheepish shrug of the shoulders, but she can’t be too sure about it. “Off you go then. Just go home.”

“Don’t they have school today too?” Seulgi says. The uniform Joy is wearing should be a tip off. 

Bae Juhyun freezes up and continues, like she knew it all along and didn’t make the mistake, “Hurry up and get to school before you’re late for class!”

Seulgi suppose missing attention to detail like that is what happens when you try too hard to be a cool sunbae in front of the young ones.

The competition of the choir competition means, of course, the teacher’s don’t feel like cutting any more slack to them. So it’s full steam ahead in preparations for second-year and this means a lot of work sheets, and a lot of hand outs. A lot of paper. Since so many trees have died to further her education, Seulgi should really respect their sacrifice and put more efforts through into her studies.

The pile of returned papers lands with a thud onto Seungwan’s desk. The teacher instructs to distribute them—a backlog of marked work from the duration of their gruelling choir practice. She should have known the teacher’s must have enjoyed to loose slack that came from there too — just like their students, they’ve left it to the last minute to return in a huge bulk order. It seems some things never really change, then. Another stack of papers, these ones all identical and blank, joins the part on Seungwan’s desk. That’s a lot of dead tree pulp. Looks heavy. 

“Seulgi,” Seungwan tells her, giving her the other stack of different papers. “Help hand these out.”

With a sigh, Seulgi gets up to do so. She makes her rounds through the classroom, starting at the back and working the the front, the opposite of Seungwan. It will give them an excuse to collide in the centre and, by that time, maybe Seulgi will have come up with a witty, flirty thing to say as they pass each other. If not, she never turns down an opportunity to brush past Seungwan. (She’s such a sap. This is good, right?)

Jiyoung won’t meet her eye as she hands out the sheets. The other girl stares forward, pretending to copy things down from the black board. Seulgi’s fine with that.

There’s something paper covered in red and white polka dots protruding out of the edge of Jiyoung’s desk. Seulgi sets down the handout. As she does, Jiyoung shoves the paper bag away, deeper into the secret continues of the desk pocket with a huff, as though annoyed Seulgi deigned to even take a look at her belongings. Seulgi resists the urge to roll her eyes. 

Besides, the sooner she finishes distributing the handouts, the sooner she can go to sitting back down again.

Seungwan is far too excitable at lunch. Soojung disappeared into the ether to moment the bell rung so there was not hope of having an anchor to her exuberance in that direction. (Where is Soojung, anyway?)

“Guess what date is coming up?”

“…Ours?” Seulgi tries, going for the pun, if nothing else.

Seungwan pouts, biting her full bottom lip. “Do you even pay attention to the app?”

“The couples’ app you made me download to match yours with the countdowns of all our anniversaries? Yes, I pay attention to that.”

“Then you should know what date is coming up!”

“Yes,” Seulgi says. “Ours.”

Seungwan lets out an aggravated sigh and makes a motion to reach for her face and pinch Seulgi’s cheek. Seulgi’s veers out of the way before contact can be made. 

“Okay, okay, you don’t think it’s a funny joke!” She raises her hands in surrender. “Message received, loud and clear!”

Seungwan still isn’t laughing, though. “Are you even taking this seriously?” 

“Of course I am,” Seulgi retorts. “A one month anniversary counts for something, right?” She flashes a smarmy grin, to show ‘yes, I did indeed know what was going on’. 

Seungwan is still annoyed. She  turns away. Seulgi’s heart cathces in her chest pay attention to me and, in a rare occurrence sparked by a flash of panic, Seulgi does the unthinkable and performs aegyo.

“Sorry for teasing, bbuing bluing.” She even does the accompanying hand gestures. Good god.

Silence.

“What was that?”

“Come on, it was cute! I was adorable! Admit it!”

“Fine!” Seungwan scoffs, face heating up (oh how good it is to have the tables be turned) “You were adorable! But don’t get cocky about it”

Seulgi continues to smirk, smugly pleased, anyway. 

Seungwan can’t seem to stand that and pushes her in her chair again. Seulgi almost falls out in a result that is the combination of Seungwan’s forceful push and her own desire to double over into a limp noodle salad of limbs, laughing. 

Seungwan says, as much as she can hear over the internal laugh track playing in her head, “And, anyway, I’m mad at you!” 

“What? Why? What did I do now?”

“Soojung just calls me ‘Seungwan’ now! Even when we’re in private! This is all your influence.”

“Hey, you don’t know it’s just my fault. The whole class calls you Seungwan. Because it’s your name.” 

Seungwan slaps the side of her arm again, huffing. “She just needed to stick it out a little longer and she could have been the trend-setter to change the tide!”

“I’m very doubtful of this.”

“That’s your problem, Sseul,” Seungwan says, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be so bleak.”

“Someone needs to keep you grounded now and then.”

Seungwan sticks out her tongue and pulls down one eyelid, total merong face. Forget the middle schooler pestering her when this elementary schooler at heart is her girlfriend.

“So then,” Seungwan says, sidling up to her as she stretches out all the vowels in the phrase. “If you do indeed know that it’s our one month anniversary, then do you have anything special in mind? You know for me, the class president and choir hero.”

Seulgi remembers all of Seungwan’s solo parts from rehearsals. She sings beautifully. She sings well.  She probably did win them the whole competition.

“Because if you don’t—” 

“I had something in mind.”

“—I could always. Wait. Did you say you had a thing?”

“You did a thing too? Well, uh, I guess that’s kind of…” Fine? We can just do your thing? Annoying? You didn’t think I could put in effort to thinking of a thing? Wait, did you do the thing because you thought I couldn’t do a thing? 

“Nothing,” Seulgi replies, hastily looking away before Seungwan can look into her eyes and try to pry out the truth. 

“Why? Did you prepare some kind of event? Are there going to be flowers?”

“…” Seulgi rubs her arm, toying with the bunched up fabric at her elbow. An event? “Was I supposed to?”

“Is there going to be a flash mob?” Seungwan goes on, grinning, and hopefully just teasing.” 

“…I was just going to buy you sweet potato cream cake,” Seulgi says. “At the book tree cafe place you thought was cool. The book cafe coffee shop that is themed to look like the inside of a mystical tree or something, I mean. And then I thought we could hold hands or something.”

She had scoured the streets to find the appropriate coupons to do so, too. For once, she wanted to pay for Seungwan’s drinks. It probably wouldn’t mean a lot to her, but Seulgi would know and it mattered to Seulgi. 

“Aww, that’s pretty sweet.” Seungwan’s grin melts into something softer and warmer. “I’m sorry for doubting you. That sounds nice, it really does! We should do it.”

“…But…?”

“But I kind of thought you wouldn’t have anything organised so I kind of booked us out for something to do  that might be a little time sensitive.”

“Seungwan, tell me you didn’t buy tickets to the amusement park.”

“We’re going to the amusement park!”

Seulgi groans, burying her face back in her hands. “Really? I told you I didn’t want to go.”

“Lighten up. When you get there, it’ll be way more fun than you think.”

“Seungwan.”

“Please? Come on, the tickets are only good for this weekend. Do you really want to waste money like that? You’ll like it when you get there.”

Seulgi gives her a side long glance, doubtful. She relents. “I should at least get a kiss out of this.”

“Do you want a kiss?”

“Maybe I do.”

“Then you should be prepared.”

Is she really going to do it here? At school? Again? Maybe she’s just teasing. Maybe she’ll just go for an innocuous one on the cheek, too fast for anyone to notice. Blood pounds through Seulgi’s head. “I’m totally prepared.”

“Prepared enough to take me to a haunted house?”

“Seriously?” ‘Blue-balled’ feels like a good word to use here, even if all she was anticipating was a peck on the cheek. (Is she desperate? Oh god, she’s so ing desperate. No wonder Seungwan thinks she can just walk all over her like that. She’s desperate putty in her hands.” 

“Come on. I paid for it. You just have to show up.”

Is she going to really give in? She thinks back to the coupons for the book cafe. The expiration date can hold out for one more weekend. She sighs. 

“Yay!” Seungwan does a little cheering dance, presuming that sigh to be an encapsulation the final breakdown of her reservations, and proceeds to slide an envelope across the table.

“Wait, what?” 

“It’s the tickets. You’re in charge of them, so bring them on the day!”

“You bought them. Shouldn’t you be the one who takes care of them?”

“You have to take the tickets so it seems more like you did the planning. It’s important for atmospheric purposes.”

“I didn’t do the planning,” Seulgi says. “You did.”

“So follow my planning and make this seem like the whole set up behind our situation!”

“I am totally lost.”

“Seulgi!”

“I was going to take you on a date! I had ideas and everything! You’re the one who went of and decided this is the direction you wanted to take.”

“Subtle and low-key is nice too, Sseul, but I want a date with a bit more she-bang just this once, kay? Please?”

“Couldn’t this wait until we’re back in a classroom where I have easy access to my bag?”

“Are you saying you’re going to lose the tickets in the space from the cafeteria to the classroom?”

“I…am not the most responsible person in the world.”

“I think you’re just overexaggerating.”

“No, it’s true. I’m the youngest in my family. That position is just a hotbed for irresponsibility. Just look at how spoiled Soojung is.”

“I’m also the youngest in my family,” Seungwan says.

Well no wonder, Seulgi is tempted to say. Doesn’t debunk my argument.

“Also,” Seungwan adds, “Soojung isn’t even that spoiled.”

“So you’re admitting she’s at least a little spoiled?”

“Not being able to cook rice is okay, Seulgi.”

“You just have to put water in and flip the switch on the rice cooker!”

“Maybe they don’t have a rice cooker!”

“We went to their house! They had one!”

“This is so off topic,” Seungwan says, shaking her head.

“You know I never actually one hundred percent verbally committed to doing this right?”

“It was implied.”

“Implied wouldn’t hold up in a court of law.”

“What do you want me to do? Just go with Soojung?”

“What’s wrong with going with Soojung? You two could have a lot of fun together. She’s a little more your speed when it comes to these things, right?”

“Seulgi…” Seungwan growls, irritably.

Mentioning Soojung’s name is a bit like performing mystic summoning incantation, though. As always, she manages to pop out of nowhere, pulling up a chair next to them with her tray of lunch. It’s both miracle and curse, depending on the way you spin it. “Did someone say my name?”

“Yes,” Seulgi says, right at the same time that Seungwan says, “No.”

Seulgi frowns, looking in Seungwan’s direction. “Seungwan was just talking about the amusement park. You like amusement parks too, right? She wanted to go—”

“So I was really happy to find out that Seulgi’s taking me there for a date!”

“Oh, that’s nice of her.” Soojung smiles. Seungwan is just playing dirty now. There’s no way she can sully the expectation behind that totally oblivious, innocent smile. “It’ll be for your one month anniversary, right? I figured out the date.” She claps. “Looks like things are going well for you.” 

Seungwan claps back. They hi five each other. Seulgi feels like she watched some bizarre communication ritual between squealing aliens.

“You have to go to the haunted house,” Soojung says. “It’ll give you guys more excuse to do skinship. And in the dark. It’s heart fluttering. There’s also the suspension bridge effect, but I don’t think you guys will need that?”

“The suspension bridge effect?” Seulgi repeats. Seungwan seems to know exactly what that is, though. 

“When two people walk over a suspension bridge, the waving of the bridge and the height cause their heart rates to increase,” Soojung explains. “When they see each other, they misattribute the increased pulse from the adrenaline and fear to attraction and so the brain convinces them that what they’re feeling really is attraction. But, like I said you guys don’t need hacks for that feeling. You already knew each other pretty well even before I came here, right?”

She’s got to wonder… 

Soojung punctuates her speech with enthusiastic bites of her food. Amazingly, by the time she’s done, so is the food, almost. (Well, it’s well on it’s way to being done.) It happened so naturally she didn’t even realise it was happening. (Does Soojung get indigestion? It seems like that would be a problem for anyone who ate that fast.)

“It’s also why couple like to watch scary films.”

“I thought that was because it’s a dark cinema and it gives you excuses to cling together.”

“Hmm, maybe that too,” Seungwan says and the two of them devolve into a conversation Seulgi quickly looses track of.

She thinks about what her mother might cook for dinner tonight and moves strips of fish cake around in her remaining puddle of soup on her lunch tray.

“See?” Seungwan says. Seulgi realises it’s directed at her. 

“Huh?”

“See, see?” Seungwan says, wiggling her shoulders. (More aegyo? Ugh, it’s working…) “Soojung recommends it too.” 

“What?” she mouthes to Soojung who mouths back, helpfully, “Haunted house.” 

Seungwan turns to Soojung, expectant. “What else should we do?”

“Hmm, I guess just the basic stuff. Feeding each other stall food and snacks, love shot it if you want, selcas everywhere, the merry go-round, the ferris wheel for romantic seclusion, oh, someone should win someone else a toy, an excuse to hold hands as not to get lost in the grounds, lying on park benches as breaks, someone’s head in someone’s lap, standing really close to each other in line waiting and having conversations… The viking! Yeah, go on that! Squish into each other when the ride turns. Hmm… Oh, sharing drinks, crepes, ice cream, that sort of thing…”

The whole time she does so, Seungwan nods gravely, like she’s agreeing to approve UN Security Council measures to intervene in the world’s latest crisis hotspot. 

Soojung’s cascade of date suggestions soon gets cut off. Seulgi is startled to find out who it is.

Jiyoung stands overhead, uncharacteristically gripping one arm with her hand, rubbing it. She maybe gives Seungwan a faint nod of acknowledgement that Seungwan returns (with added interest) with a wave. Seulgi gets no greeting which is fine, because she doesn’t give one in tern either.

Jiyoung leans in close and puts a hand on Soojung’s shoulder. “Can we talk?”

Soojung looks back over to them and seems reluctant to say anything.

Seungwan interjects on her behalf. “Go ahead, Soojung. We’ll see you later in class, kay?”

“Ah,” Soojung says. She gives them another lingering glance. “Okay.”

“Really,” Seungwan assures. “It’s fine.” She winks. Seulgi looks back at Soojung who seems just as confused as her. Jiyoung ignores everyone in the conversation who isn’t Soojung, and ushers her away from the cafeteria.

Seulgi can’t help but feel maybe Seungwan misread that hesitation for something it wasn’t. She looks at Soojung’s back, retreating through the lunchtime crowd of students, right next to Jiyoung.

“No need to hover like that,” Seungwan says. “Jiyoung’s not about to mug her and leave her for dead in a dark alley way.”

“That’s not…” Seulgi sighs.

“And anyway, you have bigger things to be worried about as far as Soojung’s concerned?”

“Huh?”

“Did you think of any of those things as the basis of our date?”

“The date that you planned and sprung out of the blue?”

“The one I told you about before and you rejected.”

“Yes, that’s right. The one I rejected.”

Seungwan clicks her tongue, ready to reject anything that disagrees with her party headline. “The point is: that’s how a date should go. Have that creative juice! Have that inspiration!”

“I was working on it! I can’t exactly come up with things super off the fly like that.

Seungwan says, lips sticking out in a pout. “Even Soojung knows how should be done and she’s not even dating me.” Seungwan leans back and sighs wistfully. Seulgi isn’t exactly sure what the purpose of it is. “You may have ruined the whole Wendy thing for me, but at least Soojung still knows how to plan a date.”

“Just date Soojung then,” Seulgi says, rolling her eyes.

Seungwan takes one trained, strong, musician’s finger and pokes her hard in the ribs.

When it’s cleaning duty, she notices, sweeping the floors with half-hearted dedication, that there something stuck onto Soojung’s back: bright yellow paper with something scribbled on it in ball point pen that’s too thin to be visible at this distance.

Irrationally, the first place Seulgi’s brain jumps to is Jiyoung.

“You have a thing on your back,” Seulgi says, peeling the post it note off Soojung’s shirt. Unlike the usual default yellow, it’s a eye-bleeding neon pink. All that’s on it is the word ‘merong’ and a drawing of the :P emoticon or what she more or less guesses is detailed interpretation of what that would look in real life. 

Soojung is fine until she she’s how pink it is, at which point she recoils and flails about like she’s trying to shoe away a bee or a fly and the wind blows it out of Seulgi’s grip. She picks it up to inspect closer. (And also to later properly dispose of in the trash bag she’s carrying anyway since that’s her responsibility for the day.)

“Oh,” Soojung says with dead calm composure, pretending like she hasn’t just freaked out a few moments ago. “I guess I’m being punished.”

“For what?” Seulgi says. She thinks she might have preferred asking ‘by who’ instead but the moment is gone and another question will just make her look too pushy.

“I keep calling Seungwan ‘Seungwan’ instead of ‘Wendy’. Everyone else does.” Soojung says, “I think that’s why she was being so picky about me not saying ‘sunbaenim’ after Seo Juhyun’s name.”

“Seo Juhyun-sunbaenim,” Seulgi corrects for her.

“You know you’re just a pawn in her game,” Soojung drawls out, over dramatically in a garbled, grizzled imitation of a line from a movie that Seulgi probably watched at one point when it was replaying on TV, but can’t remember very well. 

“You get really obnoxious after a while,” Seulgi says. “I had no idea what I was getting into.”

“Really? I think I’m about the same as I was before.”

“It’s not the same as before.”

Soojung tilts her head. She shrugs.

“Were you talking about Seohyun-sunbaenim?” Seulgi tries, before Soojung gets distracted by something, anything, a dog running through the street, a particular rustle of trees out the window. It’s better to make sure Soojung never faces any windows. Having a conversation with her then is… Actually it’s really amusing. She only loses focus for a few seconds at a time and the expression on her face as she tries to recall what was just being talked about without making it seem like she wasn’t paying attention is really priceless. Soojung thinks well on her feet. It’s the same principle that lets her answer questions when teachers assume she’s zoning out. Which is another thing, really: her focused face and her zoned out face are very similar. Soojung’s never really zoned out, she supposes. Just focused on something else she shouldn’t be focusing on.

Soojung says, “Seungwan brought her up. I was just asking a question.”

“You’re going to get in trouble one of these days if you don’t mind your manners. We’re your friends, but other people are going to see  things differently.”

“I’ll remember them when I’m around other people,” Soojung protests. “But it’s just you guys, so can’t I just?”

“Just what?”

“So just can’t I?”  Soojung corrects herself, though Seulgi got the meaning the first time anyway. And it also stops her from having to answer Soojung’s question as a plus. (As an aside, it should be noted Soojung asked to have her grammar and phrasing corrected. She asks all the time. Seulgi isn’t one of those annoying people who goes around correcting everyone’s grammar all the time.) She lets out a deep exhale, with relief or fatigue, she just can’t tell. “I’m just glad there’s no more rehearsals to attend.”

“Doesn’t that mean you just have to spend more time studying and focusing on exams?”

Soojung wilts. “You didn’t have to remind me so soon.”

Seulgi shakes the big, transparent trash bag down, settling its contents. Only one more bin to empty, by the front of the classroom. Since she sits at the back, she rarely uses this one. She sees a paper bag with a polka dot pattern, red and white, scrunched up and tossed into the corner, now submerged by bread wrappers and pencil shavings. She can make out the vague symbol of a pharmacy or something of the sort stamped on it. There’s something bulging inside it, still pristinely square, a box, perhaps. But, apart from the attempted staunching, the rest of the bag is in good contention. The seal of tape is still unbroken over its top edge.

Seulgi tips it all into the garbage.

This chapter had a lot more Seungwan in it before, but that was moved to the other chapter. So either I will post a Part II to this, or just make a new chapter after it. I’ll keep you guys updated. Mega-long chapters are a bit unwieldly, though, even if it’s easier for you to find the hints if I just back them all together in one chapter where they more closely reference each other. 

Anyway, I felt bad it’s been a while since I updated. Work has been busy. So I decided to put this out there for you guys to have something to sink your teeth into! Haha. Well, like I said. You might anticipate a Part II (in which case I will put this chapter in draft mode and republish it so the update shows up) or I’ll just block it into a different chapter. Wait and see!

Enjoy Femslash February!