The banner proclaiming their class’s victory in the choir competition still waves valiantly in the wind against the side of the school building. Seulgi wishes they’d take it down already. It’s been, like, a week. A week of having to endure Kang Jiyoung’s smiling (no, smirking) face greeting her every morning (so damn early in the morning) as she hikes up that awful hill. And she can’t even ignore it, either, because every morning Soojung points it out, and she’s so happy that it’s still up, acknowledging their victory that Seulgi can’t be one hundred percent upset about it. So she can be live with the fact the dumb banner is still there. And she knows it’s even dumber, but, as long as that banner is there, she hopes a pigeon poops on it. And maybe on Kang Jiyoung’s pristine face. Maybe. Even a wet leaf getting stuck somewhere on it. That would be good. 

God. Did Kang Jiyoung have to have that expression on her face when they were taking that photo? Couldn’t it have been a picture of Seungwan maybe? She sang solo, after all. Or even Soojung? They were more than enough photogenic girls in the class to paste all over the news and on banners. Did it have to be Jiyoung?

This morning, Seulgi seems to have gotten up early for nothing anyway. While she was in the train, Soojung texted her to tell her that she’d overslept, and that Seulgi should head up the hill anyway early (and ‘possibly stall?? If necessary? Plz??? ^^;;;;’) to get class. But at least the train was refreshingly empty. And now she can glare at Jiyoung’s face to her heart’s content as she enters the gates. 

“You don’t like her,” a voice observes.

Seulgi just about has a heart attack, flinging her bag up in the air before it catches around her shoulders and wallops her right around in the back. 

The obnoxious snigger that follows is unmistakable, though.

“What? Huh? Oh, it’s you again.” Seulgi narrows her eyes.

“Sunbae! That’s no way to treat one of your treasured juniors!”

“Treasured?”

“Yeah, me,” Joy drawls. “You’re even slower than usual in the morning, huh, sunbae?”

Ugh! “Who ever said you were treasured?!”

It’s that little Park Sooyoung again. Joy. Well Seulgi sure isn’t experiencing much of it now. And just when she contemplated warming up to the little twerp. Slow? This morning is cold, okay!?

“It’s okay. It doesn’t need to be spoken. True things are displayed by actions. That’s how I know it’s real.”

Oh my god, Seulgi thinks. Middle school disease is a terrible, terrible thing. A terrible thing indeed. Oh god. What was she like in middle school?

Joy strides up to her and the infuriatingly tall middle schooler puts a hand on her shoulder, like a reassuring hug and spins them both around to look at the giant print out of Jiyoung’s face, next to the word congratulations on that damnable banner.

“Hmm… Pretty… And yet so dislikable. I totally see where you’re coming from!”

“What? Who?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you,” Joy says. Seulgi is not sure how to feel about this use of ‘you’. It’s the right you, so it’s not exactly being rude but it’s hardly polite, either. She thought that Joy respected her as a big sunbae. “You don’t like that girl on the banner. Are you jealous?”

“What?” Seulgi looks aghast, then up at the picture, and then back, disgusted. “Why would I be?” 

“I don’t know. Is she blocking things with your girlfriend?”

“What? No!”

“Hmm…. Really? She looks like that type.”

Seulgi tries not to think too hard about it. Do Seungwan and Jiyoung ever even talk to each other? She can’t remember. She only recalls the times that Jiyoung was taking to Soojung. “…Were you here for something?”

“Oh! Right!” Joy’s face lights up. It pains Seulgi to note that it is adorable. “Thanks for reminding me!”

“…” Seulgi’s never wanted to physically express the passage of silence so much in her life.

“Actually, before all that, where are my manners? How have you been doing, Sunbae?”

Seulgi highly doubts this is any sort of tangential motivation for Joy having come here, but she decides to be a mature, reasonable adult and entertain her. “Okay.”

“Things with your girlfriend are going well?” Joy asks, barely containing her excited glee. Maybe she was wrong. Seulgi wonders if she’s ever met another real-life gay person before. 

“After I got into a fight with her and all, yeah, I guess it got resolved.”

“You got in a fight?”

“I’m pretty sure I told you about that.”

“O-oh, oh, yeah, but I also kinda figured it would be… Well, whatever! Did you make up really nice after? I hear making up is the best part about fighting?”

Did you read that in a magazine? Seulgi holds herself back from saying. 

“Yeah,” Seulgi says instead. “We’re getting along well now.”

“Even better than before?”

“Sure,” Seulgi says. “Even better than before.”

“That’s great!” Joy declares. “In fact, you should be thanking me,” she says. “If it wasn’t for me, you would have never gotten into that fight and you’d have no girlfriend at all. So pass the good karma back around and help me out now. Sunbaenim, please!”

“Do you think adding the -nim is going to make a big difference?”

“…Maybe?” A beat. “It was worth a shot.” 

Little does this twerp know that Seulgi’s already in the right frame of mind to help her out after all. Hopefully, she can hold off on ruining the good feeling before Seulgi can get around to saying that. 

She half-laughs, half-sighs. How exhausting. She’s very glad she’s the youngest sibling. She doesn’t know how she’d put up with this all otherwise.  “What should I help you with?”

“I’d really appreciate if you would just hear me out and— Wait. Did you just say you’d help me?”

Seulgi laughs, dark and quiet. It’s almost endearing how starstruck and confused that expression on Joy’s face is. “Yeah. I did.”

“Oh, it’s Park Sooyoung-hoobaenim, isn’t it?”

Wait. Seulgi isn’t saying that. And it sure doesn’t sound like Joy.

“‘Hoobaenim’ isn’t a thing,” Seulgi blurts out.

“I know it’s not a thing,” the person sniffs, a little tersely. There’s the clicking of bicycle chains. “I was being funny.”

Seulgi’s brain really is far too slow at processing these things. Speaking of which:

“Soojung?” Soojung? “How’d you get here? I thought you overslept?”

The brisk cold of the wind still lingers, like a chilly bite in the air whenever they move, but Soojung’s hair is still plastered to her forehead in stringy curtains, slick with sweat. She pants as she dismounts her bike. Seulgi’s only seen her look so winded after the sports competion, and that was in the heat. “I dunno. I overslept, and I thought I’d be late, so I just peddled fast. And here I am.”

Seulgi looks back down over the hill. “You pedalled up the hill? Isn’t it easier to walk?”

Soojung shrugs, avoiding Seulgi’s gaze. “I guess I was just too lazy to get off the bike.”

A burst of wind chooses that exact moment to gust up the hill, to Soojung’s back, and send the more dry portions of her hair, not yet sweat dampened, cascading in front of her face like ethereal curtains of silk. There’s a horn that sounds from a truck, deep and low, and weirdly not so shrill like usual. With the sight before her, morning sun still heavy and low overhead, the light is filtered this dreamy, dusky yellow. The truck croons, its horn more like the war horn shells in some pirate film than a construction van.

Soojung stands, silhouetted against the dramatic light glaring off the passing truck and for a moment it all seems absurdly dazzling: the background, speckled grey and white, shuffling behind her, the light catching her hair as the wind tosses it up and her sweat dappled face catching the hazy light in an unearthly glow. But the moment fades as soon as it was there and the truck goes away, the sun barely over the horizon peeks back under a cloud and Soojung struggles to move her sweat dappled, straggles of hair out of , wincing and coughing a little and the cloud of exhaust the truck has left behind in its wake.

But, image apparently fresh in her mind, Joy applauds. (Oh my god, Seulgi thinks.)

“Your girlfriend is great,” Joy says, throwing out a thumbs up while she’s at it. “Ten points out of ten.”

“Aren’t you a little young for that song?” Seulgi says.

“Huh?”

“2PM.”

“What?”

“Ten points out of ten is just a general expression too, isn’t it?” Soojung says. “That’s why it was made a song title in the first place.”

“Yeah, but the way she said it was… Never mind. Forget it,” Seulgi says, shaking her head. “And she’s not my girlfriend.” 

Joy gasps, as though offended. Offended on Soojung’s behalf, or just plain offended? That’s something that seems beyond comprehension. “I can’t believe you, sunbae! No need to be so modest?”

“What?”

“I gotta hear it from the horse’s mouth, the honest truth!”

Soojung keeps taking glances at the school building. Her heel digs into the ground, grinding in circles like it wants to burrow down to the centre of the earth. She looks back and forth between the conversation and the windows of their classroom, and then into the dirt.

“Unnie,” Joy chimes, in the exact same tone again and again like a sound clip on loop, a really bad text notification sound. “Unnie! Unnie. Unnie!”

“What? Who? Oh, right, you were talking to me,” Soojung says. She really needs to realise there are people in the world who are younger than her. 

Dimly, Seulgi recalls Soojung has an older sister. That might be the explanation for most of it. Her sister is off at university so, for the first time, Soojung must be functioning like an only child. Seulgi was a little similarly dazed those first few weeks when her older brother left for college. Of course, he was never one for helping her out much, so she supposes the shock was a different kind then Soojung’s withdrawal. Then again, her brother was only a few trains away. Troublesome, but hardly impossible to get to. Soojung’s sister is at least ten timezones and a painful airplane flight away. 

“Yes?” Soojung says, at last.

“Are you Seulgi-sunbaenim’s girlfriend?”

“No, that’s not me,” Soojung says. “That’s someone else.”

“Like I said,” Seulgi continues. “She’s not my girlfriend.”

“I’m her classmate,” Soojung says, helpfully.

Seulgi says, “We’re friends.” 

“So she’s not your girlfriend?” Joy repeats.

“I thought you weren’t telling people that you had a girlfriend?” Soojung says.

“I’m not,” Seulgi repeats. “She just— It got out.”

“It’s cool. I can keep a secret,” Joy says, puffing out her chest with a childish aura of dignity and honour. How trustworthy. “But you’re not her girlfriend?”

“No, I’m not her girlfriend,” Soojung says, plain and level, less like she’s talking to a small child than she is talking to one of those people stuffed into a mascot costume at Disneyland. Still, very nicely. It’s unfair. Soojung doesn’t talk to her that nicely.

“Seriously?” Joy says. “Why not?”

Soojung shrugs. “Because she likes someone else instead, I guess? And that someone likes her?” 

“And you’re fine with that?”

Soojung shrugs. “Why shouldn’t I be, I guess?”

Joy’s face morphs into a beaming grin. “That’s right. Not much to be sorry about losing anyway, right?”

“Hey!” Seulgi exclaims.

Joy ignores her. So much for being a well-respected sunbae. Or is this a very targeted use of psychology to get her jealous enough to consider helping and get that attention back.  …It’s working. She’s good at push and pull. If she ever does get a girlfriend, that girl is going to have to expend a lot of effort keeping up with this brat.

“Then…” Joy frowns, thoughtful, like this has blown her entire world and understanding of how things work. “Then…who is?”

Soojung looks like she’s about to say something, but looks Seulgi in the eye before to check herself. 

Seulgi explains instead. She might as well dig her own grave while she’s out here doing whatever it is that’s happening. “The other one you met.”

“Tch.” Joy’s head flicks to the side in disappointment. “The loud one who looks rich? I’m disappointed in you, sunbae…”

Soojung laughs and looks a little less tired as she smiles. “What are you saying? That she has bad taste? A girlfriend like that should be considered a catch no matter who you are.”

“Hmph.” Joy crosses her arms, but goes back to check after she coldly looks away to check Soojung’s expression. Little does she know Soojung is the master of chic. This little display is nothing. (But she does hope Soojung finds the little twerp rude enough to walk away instead of being weirdly amused by her antics.) “I bet it was because you were too slow.”

“Excuse me?” Seulgi says.

“The reason you’re lost out on Soojung-unnie.”

“You remember her name?”

“Aw, you remember my name.”

“What are you talking about?” Seulgi spits out. Why oh why does this kid always find a way to make herself unlikable just when things are going well for her?

Joy jabs a finger up at the big portrait of Jiyoung on that banner. 

“Oh, is she the reason you’re not going out with Soojung-unnie? You said you didn’t like her.”

“What?” Seulgi sighs and tries to compose herself, rubbing at her temples to quell this oncoming headache. “No. That’s not why I don’t like her. She’s childish and petty and a bully.”

“So aren’t you being childish and petty too?”

“I’m not a bully.”

Joy flinches. She recoils. “Right. Sorry. Right. I heard. I should have known better. Sorry.”

Seulgi can’t even feel bad. “You should be.”

And yes. Soojung has been around for the entire duration of that exchange. Including ‘that’s not why I don’t like her’. That— That is a whole can of worms that—

“Oh! Seulgi! Soojung! I should come in to school early more often! Seems like I miss out on all kinds of stuff!”

Where are all these people coming from?

“Morning, Seungwan,” Soojung greets.

“Good morning, Soojung.”

“Why are you early?” Seulgi says. “Seungwan, you’re never early.”

“I’m early sometimes,” Seungwan protests. She makes note of Joy there and glares. Joy senses the mood and glares back. Seulgi wonders if she has any good fortune left in her reserves to spent in this moment.

Seungwan slings and arm around her shoulder, making her territory. Talk about even more misconceptions and miscommunications. Soojung only seems amused by her misfortune. She’s not going to be any kind of ally in the battle for freedom today.

Soojung makes a sputtering ‘Pfft’ noise that she drowns into the back of her sleeve. Brat.

“Well, funny seeing you around again,” Seungwan says, putting in too much effort to sound casual.

Joy responds in kind to the hostility. “I don’t think it’s funny at all. I just came here to see my dear sunbae.”

Oh god.

This is— This is going to get misunderstood.

“Your dear sunbae, huh?” Seungwan repeats, her arm getting tighter and a little more noose like around Seugli’s neck. She looses her footing. “Sseul, you never told me you had such a close dongsaeng.”

“Not a dongsaeng.”

“Dongsaeng, hoobae, what’s the difference? You still never told me?”

Seulgi is scared of jealous Seungwan, to be honest. Is there a more suitable emotion to be experiencing? She thinks not. Soojung, that brat, only looks amused.

“I guess you’re not on that level yet.”

“Oh really? What kind of level do you think you’re at then?”

Seulgi finds herself increasingly squashed in a rivalrous sandwich. 

Soojung finally decides to take mercy upon her. She clears . “Okay, let’s just everyone take a step back, okay?” She whispers, just too loud for Seulgi to hear, “She’s not trying to steal your girlfriend, okay? She just wants advice on how to pick up girls.”

Seungwan perks up at that, like a plant that finally got watered.

“Oh that’s easy then. Kid, you should have said so.” Seungwan waves away the tension with an even hand, like she’s blowing away an unpleasant odour. “If it was tips on how to pick up chicks you needed, you should have called me.”

Seulgi slaps herself in the face. She’s awake right.

Soojung mouths, “Mosquito?” and then turns her attention back to the Seungwan/Joy stand off.

“Called you?” Joy says. “Oh, unnie, that’s okay. At school, I do better working through the model answers, than I do looking at the common mistakes.”

Seulgi see’s Seungwan’s eyelid twitch and her chest stutter as she like tries to keep her breathing steady and even. “Haha, wow, so frank. Maybe you’d be better off with some one on one personal tutoring.”

“Wow, that sounds great!” Joy says, leaning in near Seulgi. “Unnie, you’re so kind. But I think Sunbae should volunteer herself for these things, right? No need to be so pushy about them.”

“I, um,” Seulgi stutters, caught between two ticking time bombs. “I, uh…”

Soojung looks out at the horizon, and the sun’s position on it, the sky bleeding awake with a slow infusion of colour. Seulgi wouldn’t be surprised if she could tell the time just by the shadows on the ground and the sun overhead.

Soojung says, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Yeah,” Joy says, “listen to her. I like her. I can’t believe you’re going out with that other one and not her.”

“Hey!” Seungwan says.

Soojung doesn’t make a noise, but her eyebrows shoot up her forehead.

“Sooyoung-ah,” Soojung says, kindly but awkwardly. If Joy was shorter, maybe she’s be bending down to meet her at eye level. But Joy is obnoxiously tall so Soojung just stands there, shoulders swaying a little side to side, restless as she talks. Seulgi’s not sure she’s ever said that to someone younger than her before, never addressed them by name quite like that. “I think you should get out of her before Bae Juhyun shows up.”

“Sunbaenim,” Seulgi can hear Seungwan mutter under her breath as she lightly elbows Soojung in the ribs, not that Soojung seems to pay that any notice.

“Oh crap! I forgot about her!”

“But Bae Juhyun—” (Seungwan violently coughs in a way that sounds very like sunbaenim) “—is in a student council meeting this afternoon and our dear Seulgi hear isn’t in any clubs and should be very free when school ends today.”

“Wow. Thanks!” Joy smiles. She grasps the straps of her backpack in her hands, like someone gearing up to leave. At least Soojung has found a way to make her scram. “Unnie, you’re cool, I like you way better.”

Again Soojung take a bit to process. “Wait, me?”

“How dare you!” Seungwan exclaims, poking Joy in the chest, right in her middle school uniform name tag, stitched into the fabric. “I’m perfectly likeable!”

“Well she’s cooler so there!”

Seungwan moves to take another step forward and Joy ducks, hiding behind Soojung. It only barely works as cover because Soojung is the only one of them just tall enough to match her height. (And the kid will probably get taller to boot—life is unfair.) 

“Hey, don’t hit,” Soojung says, which is strange or maybe not strange at all considering how often she gets hit. By them. In the name of friendship, of course.

Seungwan huffs and crosses her arms. She pushes Seulgi in front of her, more like a wall to block out nuisance than a human meat shield.

“Don’t dislike each other so much,” Soojung warns. “That’s the first step to being way to attached to someone.”

“What?”

“My sister says the line between love and hate is razor thin.”

“Well your sister can keep her advice to herself,” Seungwan says. “I don’t think it works outside of the Jung family.” 

Joy pulls a face and Seungwan returns it. Children, the both of them.

Soojung rolls her eyes, more amused than offended. “I’ll leave it to you.” 

Joy pulls her face even harder and, sticking out from behind Soojung, turns tail and runs. “Don’t forget our appointment this afternoon, Sunbae!”

“I wonder if she’s going to be late,” Soojung muses.

“You’re not supposed to be concerned about her!” Seungwan complains, grabbing on to Seulgi’s arm tighter, like a security blanket. “You’re supposed to be on our side!”

Soojung shrugs. Indignant, Seungwan draws her Seulgi shaped barrier closer to block of Soojung from her line of sight. Soojung just laughs. They walk to class. If they don’t they’ll end up being the late ones.

(Soojung still manages to poke her in the shoulder and look in the wrong direction. Seulgi is cruelly frame and Seungwan flicks her in the ear. Soojung does not express a hint of remorse.)

Author’s note: Soojung being sweaty and riding her bike up a hill is of plot significance. Not just because I wanted that image. No jokes.

It’s been a long time… This part of the story is giving me trouble. There were a tonne of scenes to write but I keep changing what should follow the last chapter… It feels like poor Seungwan keeps getting pushed further and further back while I deal with this whole Joy thing ;_; 

I work full time now. That’s why I don’t update as often. But I will always manage to put something up for Soojung’s birthday… It’s still October 24^th somewhere in the world, right?

There’s always the problem of getting things right or getting them done. I think I’m just going to push through with this, guys. Hope you understand. Things in this chapter are a little…off and I’m not quite satisfied… But I can’t bring myself to make you guys wait any longer. This’ll have to do. Thank you to everyone who is still reading after the long hiatus.