“I’m looking for Kang Seulgi.”

The room quiets in an instant. 

Seulgi pushes her chair back under her desk as she stands. She steps out of the doorway. The moment they disappear from eyesight, she can hear the raucous whispers spike back up.

“Sorry,” Bae Juhyun-sunbaenim says to her. “It seems there’s been a misunderstanding. I tried to make sure Sooyoung didn’t bother you as much anymore. It was the least I could do.”

“Who?”

“The middle schooler from this morning?” She tilts her head, thoughtful. “I guess you really don’t know what was going on. I feel even worse. Sorry for accusing you.”

Oh, so that’s why that persistent kid seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth after being so adamant about getting her help.

“I’ve been trying to make sure she doesn’t bother you,” she says and Joy’s prolonged absence starts to make more sense. “I hope she hasn’t. She’s a good kid, I swear. She can just be a little bit…”

“You don’t need to tell me twice.” But how did you find out about it in the first place? Seulgi is just a teensy bit too scared to say.

“Thanks for your understanding.”

“It’s fine.” Seulgi says. She pauses. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says. “Just a little frazzled.”

“Oh. Third year must be tough, huh? The exams and all?”

“Huh? Yeah, exams, right. Exams are a lot to worry about.”

“Seulgi, sorry again. Juhyun told me but I—” She clears . “Anyway, if Juhyun thinks you’re okay, then it’s okay.”

Juhyun, Juhyun… She calls Seohyun-sunbaenim ‘Juhyun’ instead of ‘Seohyun’? Okay then. That seems like it will make things more complicated, but okay.

“Sooyoung,” Seulgi says, using the name Juhyun uses. “I guess I don’t mind having her around.”

“Seulgi, you’re a saint. Even I get sick of her. I just want to keep her out of trouble.”

“Yeah. Message received.” 

She can’t be that bad if has people like that looking out for her.

“I’m sorry,” Bae Juhyun-sunbaenim says. “I don’t want to cause a fuss or pull you away from lunch like this… But I didn’t know when else. And I’ll be busy after school so I thought I couldn’t catch you so…”

“It’s fine,” Seulgi says. She’s done eating lunch anyway, and was spending the rest of her precious break time watching Soojung and Seungwan bicker over some byzantine trading deal they were making swapping kimchi for radishes on each other’s lunch trays  with boiled eggs as some kind of intermediary currency (weirdos). 

“That day, back when I stepped in when you were talking to Sooyoung,” Juhyun-sunbaenim goes on, wringing her fingers against each other, wiping off some invisible stain with one finger as another picks at a cuticle, “I was actually looking for you. I wanted to apologise earlier than this. I hope you understand. I shouldn’t have thought poorly of you or scolded you like that. I was hasty.” 

Seulgi evaluates. When she was a (shall we say) exuberant, clueless middle schooler, there were people there for her, weren’t there? The circumstances following most of second and third year in middle school obstructed much she could do in terms of this whole mentorship, looking out for the hoboes thing but… Looking back at it, at Joy’s stupid grin, at Bae Juhyun’s concerned face, at the admittedly adorable way that grade schooler scurries behind her ‘Sooyoung-unnie’. No, wait, ‘Joy-unnie’…

There were plenty of things that got taken from her in middle school. What the hell? Seulgi figures it’s about time to take them back.

If she only half-heartedly wanted to help Joy before, then… Well, it’s not quite a full heart yet. Maybe three-quarters. Maybe even seven-eighths. 

“Do you not have younger cousins or something?” Seulgi says, settling into their classroom. “It can’t be that weird to hear someone call you ‘unnie’.”

Soojung keeps fiddling with her phone. 

“My cousins are all the same age as me or older,” Soojung replies, then pauses. “Or they’re American and we just don’t bother.”

“Oh. With your cousins you…”

“We speak English.”

“Never Korean?”

“If they’re Korean, I speak Korean. If they’re American, we speak English.” Soojung doesn’t elaborate any more than that. 

“So, uh… But still,” Seulgi says, “You’re Korean is pretty good. You must have practiced before. You parents taught you?”

“They spoke it to me a lot and made me speak it at home, but I didn’t have to write it much. I can’t spell very well. Double constants at the end of letters and stuff. Double constanants, sorry.”

Seulgi remembers correcting her spelling. She glances over Soojung’s paper. An essay riddled in red ink. Yookyung’s handwriting has left a small message at the top in the only free gutter space. ‘Fighting!’ and then a smily face, . Soojung catches her looking and gives a sheepish smile. “I used to be really good at essay subjects too. I could make up just about anything to answer a question.”

“I bet you could,” Seulgi says. “I don’t doubt it in the slightest.”

“You seem like you doubt it at least a little bit.”

“I don’t.”

“Right… Okay then.”

“I really don’t. My face just looks like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like, kind of doubtful. That’s just how it looks. Someone like you should know how it feels to be misjudged just because your face looks a certain way.”

“What way does my face look?”

Wait. Does Soojung really not know or is she teasing again in that blunt way that she never understands is teasing until Soojung’s done with her private joke to herself?

“Uh—”

“Just joking.” Soojung says, flat. She looks at the lock screen of her phone, expectant. “I know how my face looks.”

Seulgi can’t tell if it’s actually a joke or not.

“But your Korean has gotten better,” Seulgi says. “Not that it wasn’t good before.”

“No, no,” Soojung replies. “You can say it. It’s good to know there was some improvement.”

“You must have been studying a lot.”

“I got some practical application,” Soojung says. “Arguing with Jiyoung really forces some linguistic leaps of intuition to keep up. You have to keep going if you don’t want to get talked over.”

“You and Jiyoung are arguing?” Seulgi says, secretly, disgustingly pleased.

“We argued,” Soojung says. “We don’t anymore. As much. We worked it out. Mostly. I guess. Anyway, choir competition is over now. It’s less to worry about, and less to argue about.” She stretches our her fingers, examining them against the light. “And my hands don’t hurt as much anymore.” 

“Oh. That’s good.”

“You don’t have to keep pretending.”

“Huh?”

“Even I know you don’t like each other,” Soojung says, blithe, with a dull scowl, like a knife that has trouble cutting through meat but keeps getting used because there’s nothing else around the house to do the daily tasks with. “Can you even pretend that it isn’t true?”

“It’s true,” Seulgi says. “I sure don’t like her, but I thought you did.”

“Since when did anyone ever care about that?”

“Soojung. What’s up with you?”

Soojung sighs. She punches the bridge of the  nose. She take a deep breathe in. “Forget it. I don’t need to share any of this with you, okay? I’m sorry Ive been grumpy. I’ll do a better job of keeping it to myself in future. Are we all good now?”

“No, we’re not all good. I don’t know what’s going on with what you said at all. Just tell me and then we can try and do something together!”

“That’s not what I need right now, okay? Just— Just give me some space. I can’t think like this. I need some room to breath. Okay?”

“Soojung…”

“Seriously. It’s fine. Just leave it alone. I’m fine.”

You’re not fine, Seulgi thinks.

She’s still too much of a coward to say it.

Seungwan sits in the front. Right at the front. She doesn’t even have bad vision or anything. Seulgi cant’t image why anyone would voluntarily choose to place themselves in that position when they could go elsewhere.

The point is, Seungwan sits at the front and Seulgi doesn’t so it’s not like she can just surreptitiously pass notes through to her, one or even two desks away. No. Relying on other people to transmit the message to other people is just going to result in it being intercepted. (Even if no one, except maybe the front row, Seungwan included, is paying attention.)

For a sensitive message like this, that’s not an option.

There’s only one solution.

Seulgi will just text in class.

No matter how many times she stithies taps out messages between the pages of her book, or in the storage compartment of her desk, trying to still face forward and make it look like she’s doing something perfectly innocuous, she still rattles out weird typos, feeling for the glass touchscreen of the phone with fumbling fingers.

All typos get transmitted to Seungwan.

Seungwan does not check her phone. (Stupid honour student…)

Maybe a little old-fashioned analogue intervention will work now. If only to get Seungwan to check her phone and reassure her that she hasn’t received a sudden influx of spam mail.

Seulgi scribbles a note on a bit of paper she tears out from her notebook. She folds it up fast a few times, into squares and rectangles that get smaller and smaller. Then, just in case, she writes, For Seungwan: Secret on top to reinforce her point.

Now, how the hell is she going to pass it all the way to the front of class? She could ask to go pee and try to leave in on Seungwan’s desk on the way out… That seems smooth.

Okay. She can do that.

Step one, make sure paper is secured in her hand.

Done.

Step two, raise hand and hope the teacher turns away from the black board long enough to notice so she can proceed with step three, ask to go to the toilet to pee.

Half-done. Her hand is up, elbows straight, but there’s no reception for it.

But that old coot Jeon is just not turning, too enamoured by the map of the Korean Peninsula he’s sketched out on the board and the textbook he’s reading from. Seulgi clears . There’s not response. She looks around. The other girls are either taking notes or staring, bored and vacant, ahead pens tapping or drawing things in their notebooks.

Seulgi coughs and clears a little louder, but all she gets for attention is glares from her classmates. She waves her hand more. Stretches. 

“Seonsaengnim,” Seulgi calls. “Jeon-seonsaengnim.”

Nothing. Now, everyone said he was half deaf but Seulgi didn’t really believe them.

She stretches her hand up a bit more and says, much louder, “Jeon-seonsaengnim!”

And that last stretch overdoes it because her grip on the paper comes lose and the tiny paper bundle goes tumbling forward to settle at Soojung’s feet.

Of all the contrived things the universe had to throw her way—

Mr Jeon chooses that exact moment to finally pay attention, though and turns around with painful slowness, worse than any slowmo playback Seulgi could con jour in her imaginiation.

“Yes, Miss Kang Seulgi?”

Soojung has noticed the paper by now. Of course she has. Soojung’s selective attention has always seemed strange but never as strange as now where she doesn’t seem to have noticed Seulgi’s fake coughing fit but she could detect the delicate fluttering of falling paper. (Weirdo.)

Seulgi looks at Soojung, pleadingly or maybe just pathetically, and then up at Mr Jeon. “Um, could your repeat that part again? I don’t understand.”

“Well, since you’re finally showing an interest in class matters for once, Miss Kang, I suppose I can oblige you. I understand this is a topic that students often find tricky, but it is nice you were interested enough to voice your concerns without worrying about losing face in front of the rest of class. I find it’s becoming an increasing problem these days with students…” Mr Jeon shuffles like a turtle to turn around to the board, clearly enthused. Seulgi feels kind of bad for inspiriing the old man with so much hope about the future of the students going through the education system.

Seulgi sits down as fast as she can and winces at the screech of her chair legs against the floor that results. Her eyes are peeling in front of her at Soojung who is inspecting the torn up bundle of note paper with unnerving thoroughness.

Soojung is in a bad mood, but she doesn’t read the paper apart from how it’s labeled so brazenly with Seungwan’s name, and, instead, seems to be dutifully looking for a way she can get it to Seungwan.

God, that makes it even worse in a weird way.

Mr Jeon is going through pains to make his point clear on the board for Seulgi, but all Seulgi can do is watch as Soojung appraises her surroundings, cogs turning in her head. 

Soojung shifts her seat back, kicking the chair over with her foot and frowns, or maybe it’s a wince. She steadies her position in her seat, angling it just so.

Soojung picks up the paper. She folds it again and again, without opening it, until the paper wrinkles into a tight triangle pyramid. She leans back, and with a side-sweeping flick of her arm, the paper soars into the air and stops dead on Seungwan’s desk before bouncing one off the desk and then to Seungwan’s feet. 

You can do that but you can’t toss a paper ball in a waste basket? Seulgi thinks, recalling the time the girls in class bet Soojung a roll of bread each if she could do it, only for Soojung to fail multiple instances and beg Seungwan for the petty cash needed to compensate the winning side for their troubles. (Maybe offended Soojung had spent the whole night practicing, to make sure such a defeat would never happen again. It sounded like something she would do.)

There’s a movement. Seulgi detects it — Jiyoung’s head turning. Jiyoung? What? Why now? Jiyoung looks at the floor near Soojung’s feet, frowning. Soojung seems to catch her two and when her gaze travels in that direction, Jiyoung’s eyes flick away in an instant. 

What’s up with them?

At the front of the room, Mr Jeon is 100% occupied with his explanation. Seungwan, with a tired pout picks up the paper, reads it, and turns back to face Seulgi, fully assured that Mr Jeon will not noticed. She mouths, “Are you serious?” and crumples up the paper.

Seulgi shrugs, sheepish and shrinking into her seat.

I guess that was a bad call.

As they wait for a new teacher to replace Mr Jeon for the next class, she overhears Soojung and Yookyung talking.

“Soojung, did you twist your ankle?”

“I didn’t,” Soojung says. “I just slept weird.”

“And that affected your ankle?”

“Dunno,” Soojung says. “Oh, I think I tripped a little this morning?”

“You should take care of yourself.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you limping?”

“It’s a little sore. Maybe I need to get different shoes? Oh, but that’s a different issue though,” Soojung says, laughing. “Nothing to do with the tripping.”

“I thought you slept weird.”

“That too.”

Yookyung laughs, but it’s a little nervous. “If you say so.”

Seungwan slams down her whole collection of binders and folders and notebooks on Seulgi’s desk and huffs.

“I can’t believe you texted me in class so much because something about Soojung was bothering you,” Seungwan says. “I’m sure it could have waited until this moment. I mean— even if you were gonna proclaim your love for me in a message, I still wouldn’t have considered in an appropriate use of a phone.”

“But, Seungwan, I think it’s really important.”

“It’s barely been half a day.”

“But… You know she twisted her ankle, right? She didn’t tell anyone. I don’t think she even put anything on it.” 

“That might explain why she’s in a bad mood then. I would be too if my ankle hurt. Wait. If she didn’t tell anyone how do you know?”

Eavesdropping. “That’s… not the important thing. If she twisted it, well…shouldn’t she go to the nurse, then? If it hurts that much? To affect her mood?”

“Jiyoung would have bullied her into doing that by now, don’t worry.”

“That’s the thing, I don’t think she did.”

“You’re being overdramatic,” Seungwan says. “Soojung’s not about to die from a twisted ankle or whatever the injury was. She’s a big girl.”

“Am I being overdramatic?”

“You can let Soojung be in a bad mood for one day,” Seungwan says. “If it goes on, then we can do something, but let Soojung be moody if she needs to be moody, you know? I trust her that, much. She’ll talk to us.” 

“Will she?”

Seungwan kisses her forehead. “If it makes you worry that much, I’ll make her.”

“Tyrant.”

“You love it. It’s the only way you’ll ever get stuff done.”

The final bell chimes to signal the end of school and it doesn’t fill Seulgi with the same kind of excitement it used to.

She remembers Soojung’s promise to Joy from this morning (okay it wasn’t quite a promise but—) and, lo and behold, Joy is right there waiting by the gates. At least Bae Juhyun won’t be able to crash their ‘party’ this time.

“Sunbae! I’m really glad you showed up. I was worried that you wouldn’t…”

“Don’t worry,” someone says. “Seulgi’s not like that.”

“Soojung?” 

Did Soojung ever get her ankle seen? Is she actually going to cycle home like that, then?

“Oh. It’s Soojung-unnie! Thanks for supporting me!”

Soojung laughs and it feels like nothing is wrong, nothing at all, and the snappish moment from this morning was just that — a moment. “Ah, that’s going to take some getting used to.”

She pats Joy on the shoulder as she walks past. Seulgi isn’t being ignored, no. It’s just nicer to dote on a junior who just addressed you. That’s the natural way of the world.

Soojung says, “Good luck. It’s not easy to like someone who you can’t like.”

“I can totally like her!” Joy insists. Actually, how did Soojung know Joy had thing for Bae Juhyun anyway? Was she ever around for one of those—

“Okay, okay,” Soojung says, chuckling again. “Maybe it was the wrong phasing. Sorry, I’m not so good at that part. But the feel of the advice still stands.”

“Why?” Joy says. “Do you have someone that you like?”

“Joy, don’t bother—”

“Yes.”

Yes? What did she mean yes?

Seulgi manages to wrangle her tongue into moving properly. “You like someone, Soojung?”

Soojung’s expression is enigmatic, not quite a smile, not quite not one either, stirring up trouble. Seulgi can’t tell if she’s bluffing or not, but she’s certainly in high spirits. That’s something to be happy about. It’s better than before.

“Bye,” Soojung says.

“Huh? Uh, oh bye,” Seulgi says, offering a pathetic wave.

“Byu, Unnie,” Joy chirps. “Thanks for giving us our private time.”

Seulgi cringes and wills herself not to look at Soojung disappear from the horizon with the telltale clicking noise for her bike chains.

“Sunbae! Back to the important thing: me!”

“Oh? Huh? Oh, right. You. I guess you want to confess to Bae Juhyun-sunbaenim.”

“Whoa whoa whoa whoa,” Joy stutters out. “Who ever said she was the person I was talking about?”

Seulgi raises an eyebrow. “It isn’t?”

“Okay it is but how did you find out!?”

“…Maybe it’s better if you don’t know,” Seulgi says. She remembers being ‘stealthy’ about these things too. (Actually, did she ever get ‘stealthy’? God. She hopes she’s more stealthy now. For Seungwan’s sake at least.)

“But anyway,” Joy declares, confessing is a little… Uh… excessive… I mean, who’s going to be so forward on the first go without the intel to back it up, right?” Seungwan. “Who would be so brash like that?” Seungwan. “It wouldn’t work out at all.” Unless you’re Seungwan.

“So, then, short of a confession, what are you trying to accomplish.”

“You could, um, check for me what my chances are?”

“…Are you serious?”

“It takes someone really reliable to do that for someone you know!”

“Okay, okay,” Seulgi concedes. “I’ll check up on that for you. Is it just if she likes girls of it she like younger girls or—”

“Find out if she likes me!” Joy blurts out, panicked. “I mean, uh, if you can. Or at least, how she sees me… But don’t let her find out it was me who’s asking.”

“…Aren’t you asking a bit much there? I thought you want advice on how to confess, not a blow by blow research guide to set the scene for it…”

“The point is, Sunbae, can you do it? I decided it’s not right of me to burden you with other things… So just this one thing, can you do it?”

Aw, damn. With an expression like that— Seulgi says,  “I’ll do my best.”

“Great!” Joy says. “Thank you.”

“Wha— Just that? Hang on a second, I think we need to talk a bit about your expectations here—”

Joy is already running away, though. Her face is flushed pink, too pink to be just from the cold. 

“Hey, Joy! Wait up a second!”

Do you even know what you’re asking?

At the convenience store they frequent, her and Seungwan she means, especially after practice (when they had practice) to catch a quick coffee and something resembling a meal (because Seulgi tell her parents she’ll eat something on the way back to try and justify heading back so late without saying she’s with Seungwan and because Seungwan likes being together out of school like they don’t have enough hours in the day there already) the cashier (who works way too many shifts to actually be a student like she initially thought) seems to have memorised her order. Seulgi is happy to be on the end of anything that results in her coffee faster, though. 

It’s a convenience store, so they can’t give free service or anything like that, but she’s especially speedy in ringing up their order, or scanning through the hodgepodge of crap Seungwan pulled off the shelves when they get to the till. That’s good. But, on the downside or upside, she tends to open the door for Seulgi a lot. It’s either being considerate about that time she smacked her face straight into it or just kind of embarrassing. Seungwan wasn’t around for the astounding display of dignity, though, so just assumes the cashier is just very attentive. Seulgi remembers reading articles on blogs about college grads who can only get part-time employment the same as they did in college because things are so tough, the economy is so miserable, everyone is so goddamn miserable, and so on and so forth. (Seulgi doesn’t contemplate anything about what she’ll do, which entrance exam subjects she’ll sit, what major she’ll go for, how much this will break the back of her parents or, at the very least, mess up the neat lines of their checking account.)

The girl who works behind the counter isn’t exactly super cheerful bright, and it is kind of part of her job description to smile and act pleasantly towards customers, but it’s uplifting enough that Seulgi wants to believe her life isn’t entirely bleak. She hopes that the girl really is still in school, or waiting on something good, or is, at the very least, not totally dissatisfied with her life. She’s pretty, with clear skin and the hint of double eyelid creases at the corner of her eyes, not too deep but still there. They’re probably around the same height. Or maybe Seulgi is a little taller. She wasn’t really paying attention.

She has to go anyway. She’s meeting Seungwan.

Seulgi hasn’t told her mother where she is right now. Her brother went back to university, her father is working overtime, as usual, and her mother had to go check on her sister in Kyungsando. 

But this is the only time left in the day, and she’ll take these private moments however she can, even if it means stealing pittance while the sun rests below the horizon and Seungwan has only just gotten out of hagwon. 

There’s no starlight here, clogged behind clouds and the pollutant run off from blaring streetlights and skyscrapers and cars lining the road like rhinestones on an idol’s bedazzled coat, but Seulgi can pretend they’re in their own galaxy, one where Seungwan can make brake lights look like the spotlight.

The light is pretty and it bounds around Seungwan’s hair like a pretty halo, in bright colours from the neon of every store’s competing signs. She looks like a heroine out of a drama or a music, backlit in every other shining thing, scarf wrapped high around her neck, nose poking out, eyes sparkling and smiling, breath pluming delicate wisps that curl through the air like they’re dancing. (Seulgi thinks it’s funny, because even half-shrouded in darkness, Seungwan shines.) Seulgi thinks she looks particularly kissable. She gently tugs Seungwan’s scarf away from her face and plants a chaste kiss on her lips. She pulls away. Maybe Seungwan pulls away too. 

They look away from each other.

In the end,  Seungwan’s finger tips brush against her. They’re both too embarrassed to hold hands on the way back, but something this, the intimate almost touches, are even better.