It is a fine, sunny Saturday. After she treats Kyungsoo to a meal —Happy Meal, mind you, because Sooyoung won't let Kyungsoo be actually happy— and vomits at him about how the night went perfect and ended with a kiss on her cheek (Kyungsoo has coughed a "child's play" but Sooyoung is never one to listen to haters), she goes to a real daylight date with Seulgi.

The group hasn't gone to the cafe since the train ride, but Sooyoung and Seulgi have been texting hardcore since then. After some long and pleasant playful banters, she managed to talk Seulgi into treating her some chicken. So here they are, in the most famous chicken place in Seoul, a pile of chicken in front of them waiting to be devoured.

During their meal, Sooyoung finds out how Seulgi likes chicken almost as much as Sooyoung does —only because no one can beat Sooyoung's love for chicken. She also finds out that they both are messy chicken eaters. There is sauce all over their fingers.

Sooyoung playfully smears the sauce on her fingers onto Seulgi's cheek. It looks tempting, but she doesn't know if it's too early to it off Seulgi's face, so she doesn't. But she does take a picture of Seulgi looking dumb and tempting.

On the other hand, Seulgi doesn't smear sauce on Sooyoung's face. Instead, she everything off of her fingers. Very seductively so. Sooyoung groans.
 

*
 

They walk around and find an arcade centre, which Sooyoung thinks is completely unaccidental because Seulgi seems like she is very familiar with the place. Even the creepy coin guy knows Seulgi’s name. It is pretty weird and amusing to Sooyoung, how Seulgi actually has spent a lot of time in this place. She wonders who Seulgi usually plays with.

“Yo! You didn’t say you were gonna come!” A familar voice comes from behind and when Sooyoung looks back, Sehun and Jongin are there. Of course. Who else in this cruel world loves games. This , Sooyoung wants to spend this day with Seulgi alone.

Apparently, it shows in her eyes and Sehun catches it. He laughs. “Don’t worry, we’re just heading out.” Sehun pats Sooyoung shoulder, makes knowing eyes at her. Gross. Sooyoung is gonna kill Sehun someday. She adds Sehun to her "To Kill" list, which actually is just a list of dumb boys.

Seulgi bids them farewell, then hurries Sooyoung to a Taiko Master machine. Sooyoung isn’t good at it, so she aegyos Seulgi to spare Sooyoung and let her play the easy level. It works, obviously, Sooyoung's aegyo works wonders.

She bombs the game, partly because she’s really horrible at it, but mostly because Seulgi is so, so good. Plus, she looks really serious for a person playing drumming game at some arcade. It looks really attractive somehow.

Sooyoung eventually quits and cutely requests Seulgi to play the hard level so she can see Seulgi nailing all the beats and looking super serious and super hot hitting the drum. God. Sooyoung wants to be the drum so much? It's not weird.

Seulgi keeps directing Sooyoung to rhythm based games, which Seulgi is extremely good at. While it makes Sooyoung even more hot for Seulgi, she doesn’t want to look too inadequate in front of Seulgi. So she drags Seulgi to the basketball machine and beat the out of her.

“This is cheating! You're too tall!” Seulgi keeps trying to distract Sooyoung from scoring but, tough luck, not only Sooyoung has the height advantage, but she is also a genius when it comes to basketball. it, Sooyoung is a genius when it comes to everything. But not rhythm based games. Sadly not rhythm based games.

Sooyoung smiles in victory when she scores another 3 points and makes 50 points gap between her and Seulgi’s score. "Okay. Rub it in. I'm not good at sports, whatever." Seulgi sulks and it is incredibly cute. Like watching a 5 years old stomps their feet.

"You are not good at sports." Sooyoung states the obvious. "But it's okay, you're good at playing drums, guitar, probably every instrument in the world. It's like you've played them since you were 5. Your parents must be obsessed with the whole ~good Asians should play instruments~ stereotype."

Seulgi's eyes disappear into two attractive curves when she laughs. “I don't actually play them! I just.. Play these games a lot." Seulgi looks at her feet, her cheeks are blushing. Is she shy? "I've only played them since my first year in high school..” Seulgi mumbles.

It is now Sooyoung's turn to break into laughter. "Unnie, you're a nerd!" Seulgi playfully hits Sooyoung out of shame. Laughing at Seulgi gets Sooyoung some playful punches, Sooyoung mentally notes and mentally files it in “Future Reference” folder. Sooyoung is not a masochist.
 

*
 

After they exhaust themselves playing Dance Dance Revolution —they never find a conclusion of who’s better, because they insist they are better than each other— Seulgi takes Sooyoung to a cafe she really likes near her campus. Apparently, they’re famous for the dessert and Seulgi likes sweet things.

They enter the cafe and find a booth near some kind of stage. The cafe's wall is decorated with fake instruments, music sheets, and posters of vintage singers. It's fresh, moreso because they've been spending time in Sooyoung's parents' boring basic non-themed cafe. She wonders if anyone will perform tonight. She hopes they play silly love songs so she can sneak her hands to Seulgi's.... body parts of her choice.

Someone does perform tonight. The girl performing right now has short hair and wears baseball cap. It covers her face a little but Sooyoung can see how gorgeous she is. She plays the guitar and sings a song about how to accept yourself the way you are, that you are beautiful no matter what, and that you just have to be you.

It is a really beautiful performance. Sooyoung forgets to eat her dessert.

Sooyoung is about to gush to Seulgi about how beautiful the performance was when the singer girl walks to her table. The Girl smirks at Seulgi and Seulgi smirks back. Seulgi stands up and meets her halfway, then they hug. Then The Girl kisses Seulgi's cheeks.

Hm?

"You said you weren't coming!" The Girl punches Seulgi’s arm playfully. It's like they've known each other for a long time. Her hand stays in Seulgi's waist so nicely, so comfortably. It's like watching a bird fly with its wings.

You get jealous of the birds because you don't have wings and you want to fly.

It is a bad analogy, Sooyoung thinks.

They're chatting and catching up and Sooyoung has been stirring her chocolate mousse for possibly an hour (it's only been 5 minutes).

"Unnie! Come sit with us. Let me introduce you to Sooyoung. She was my cute junior in our high school." Seulgi finally drags The Girl to their table and introduces Sooyoung to The Girl. As a cute junior.

"Hi Sooyoung! I'm Amber!" The Girl shakes Sooyoung's hand excitedly. English name. So cool.

"I'm Sooyoung. Unnie, your performance was really good and touching. You looked so cool!" Sooyoung finally gushes her impression of the performance, although her excitement has died down for some reasons.

Amber's face lights up when she says that, tho, and that makes her relieved. "That is the best compliment anyone's ever said about my performance. Thank you so much. This song means a lot to me." Amber shakes her hand excitedly. This girl is so cute. Almost too cute.

Seulgi keeps telling her to sit with them but sadly she has to go. She has another event to charm people at, or something. So she hugs Seulgi, pats Sooyoung's head, and bids her farewell to the both of them.

When they finally settle back down, the atmosphere has become a tiny bit weird. Maybe it's because Seulgi hasn't really told Sooyoung who Amber is? So Sooyoung asks.

"How did you guys meet each other?" Sooyoung tries to feign nonchalant. She is back to stirring her chocolate mousse. It is unexpectedly a really calming activity. Thank you, chocolate mousse.

"We used to perform together in high school. Obviously you didn't see, you were still in middle school then." Sooyoung lets out a sigh of relief. "Oh, also we dated?"

There it is.

Sooyoung just hums. "She seems really great." She doesn't know what to say. Is it too intrusive to ask about when and why and where and how did they break up? Maybe it's too soon. “Did you go to the arcade a lot with her?” Sooyoung is digging her own grave.

“We did! She was the one who introduced me to the place. She really loves games.” Sooyoung's expression darkens and Seulgi reads the room. She laughs. "Don't worry. It was a long time ago. She saw me as a little sister, and we were really just like siblings, so we decided to call it off and just stay friends slash occasional duo. Completely professional performers." It's weird. The explanation should've made Sooyoung feel relieved, but it does absolutely nothing to her.
 

*
 

The night is cut short by Sooyoung's ill excuses. They're already in the train home and it's barely 8 pm. Sooyoung just wants to be home and curl up in her bed.

The seats are filled so they have to stand. Sooyoung stands in front of the door, as if she can't wait to hop off of the train. Seulgi stands next to her, looking concerned.

Her stop has come and she's waiting for the goddamn door to open when she feels a tap on her left shoulder. She instinctively jumps away.

Seulgi looks puzzled, and it makes Sooyoung feel like . But the door is open and she sees her way out. She mumbles a half hearted "Bye, Unnie." and walks as fast as she can. She doesn't look back.
 

*
 

That night in bed, Sooyoung tries to sort out her feelings. Tries to find the root of the problem of this whole situation. Tries to be mature.

She fails. She is immature and childish and jealous of Amber.

Worse. She keeps replaying the part where Seulgi introduces her to Amber. A cute junior. Then she remembers how they broke up. Amber saw Seulgi as a little sister. Amber kissed Seulgi's cheeks like it's nothing, Seulgi kissed her cheek like it was nothing.

Sooyoung doesn't know if she's reaching and jumping into conclusion, but everything clicks. Has she been reading it wrong?

Everything is too much and she can't think clearly, so she decides to force herself to sleep.
 

*
 

Even a good night sleep doesn't make her feel less ty. She goes to see her phone and there are messages from Seulgi asking if she feels better. Sooyoung doesn't really want to answer it. Because she'll be lying if she says yes, and she doesn't want to explain things if she says no. So she ignores the text and continue to curl up in her bed. It's Sunday and she can do anything she wants. If she wants to lie down, think of bad things, and ignore everything, she is going to do it, dammit. Nothing can stop her.

So she does just that.
 

55 new messages from Seulgi is left unread by the end of the day.

 

*
 

Sooyoung begs to her parents to let her off working on Monday, and they magically let her. Most likely because they offered her chicken the previous day and she rejected it. Yes, she was too sad and confused for chicken.

She finally gets to spend an evening on a weekday with her friends. Hayoung and Yerin suggest her to go to a cafe where the sweets are good, but the wound is still fresh. So they go to a chicken place where Sooyoung can rant about her sad love story and feel sad, but she also can eat chicken and feel less sad.

Hayoung and Yerin can't offer anything but hugs and kisses. Which makes Sooyoung feel even more sad because her friends do kiss her cheeks and hug her. Seulgi is no different than her friends. Maybe she is her friend. Maybe Sooyoung shouldn't want to put her face between Seulgi's legs until she can hardly breathe. This is sad.
 

*
 

Sooyoung hasn't felt any better. Her parents let her off the next day as well. But she plans to rot in her room watching love movies and eating nasty snacks. She feels like it is the right thing to do.

As she walks past the school gate, a familiar voice calls her name. Her heart sinks.

"S-Seulgi Unnie..?" She looks back and finds Seulgi leaning on the wall next to the school gate. Sooyoung doesn't even like this situation and hopes the earth swallows her alive, but she also feels so relieved to see Seulgi's face. Does that even make sense? She misses Seulgi so much. It has been the longest 3 days of her life.

"Can we talk?" Seulgi takes two steps towards her.

The least thing Sooyoung wants right now is talk. She doesn't know if she's ready to hear the truth. She can't even trust her voice to not tremble if she has to talk about her feelings. She wishes they can come back to the flirting phase, where she can pretend the crush is mutual. And where a kiss on a cheek cannot possibly be platonic.

But Sooyoung is an adult.  She should solve problems instead of running away from them.

“Can we not talk?”

Oops. Sooyoung is a fragile teenage girl. That is one truth.

“Sure.” Seulgi takes Sooyoung’s hand. “You’re gonna accompany me walking down memory lane.” Seulgi smiles and her eyes turn into two cute crescents and and, oh, how can Sooyoung possibly say no to the most adorable form of human being.

“You just graduated last year.” Sooyoung snorts. Fighting the smile that is trying to take place on her face. She shouldn’t smile. She is still mad at Seulgi for absolutely no reason at all.

Seulgi snickers and drags her back into the school. Sooyoung reluctantly lets herself be dragged around the school. It's weird. Sooyoung goes here everyday so everything is whatever but Seulgi looking excited seeing her old class and pointing her old seat gets her a tiny bit excited as well.

Seulgi has played the piano in the music room, run on the field, pretended to eat and played with food trays in the cafetaria, and joked with her old home room teachers in teacher's room. All the while, Sooyoung has followed her around and she can’t help but enjoy the evening stroll. But she still can’t shake off the unnecessary bad thoughts in her brain.

"Hey, show me where you practice basketball!” Seulgi excitedly requests. Sooyoung hesitantly shows her the way to the indoor court. She hopes people are practicing right now so she can skip it and just end this night.

The court is empty. Obviously. Because Sooyoung has the best luck in the world.

Sooyoung sits on the bleachers and watch Seulgi plays around with a ball she gets somewhere. She tries shooting and fails miserably. That gets a laugh out of Sooyoung. “Don’t just sit and laugh at me. Teach me, pleaaaaaaase~” Seulgi uses her best aegyo in hopes that Sooyoung will move her and stop sulking like a big baby.

It kind of works. Since Sooyoung hates herself.

Sooyoung shows Seulgi how to shoot a 3 point, she does it smoothly and she looks cool, of course. She is a genius. She looks at Seulgi and finds Seulgi staring at her. “Wow. You are really good.” Seulgi looks really impressed and if that doesn’t get Sooyoung’s heart beats faster.

Then, Sooyoung goes on to show off and teache Seulgi how to rebound. People have been calling Sooyoung The Queen of Rebound because of her height and she almost always gets to snatch the ball. Which is pretty ironic because she feels like a rebound girl right now. She knows she is not. Seulgi and Amber broke up long ago and stuff. But still, she can’t stop think-

“OW!”

Seulgi is bad at basketball.

Seulgi bumped into Sooyoung when she tries to rebound, knocking Sooyoung down and causing them to fall. On top of each other, just like in those evening drama Sooyoung’s mom watches every day.

“I’m so sorry oh my god are you okay??” Seulgi is panicking on top of her. Sooyoung thinks this situation is very silly and her mom would love to watch it, so she starts laughing. Seulgi looks at her weird, but she ends up laughing as well. Their whole body shakes and Seulgi only has her elbows framing Sooyoung’s shoulders for support.

It was so sudden and Sooyoung hasn’t even registered it yet, but suddenly Sooyoung cannot laugh because there are a pair of soft lips on top of hers. Sooyoung is so shocked she pushes Seulgi’s shoulder away.

“What the .” Sooyoung doesn’t know why she’s angry. A girl she really likes just kissed her but it doesn’t feel right. “Don’t just kiss me if you don’t mean it.”

Seulgi looks puzzled. “You think I don’t mean it?”

Sooyoung sighs. “I.. I don’t see you as a big sister. Okay. I really like you. But if you don’t, don’t be nice to me.” She feels childish and her tone just confirms her childishness, but she needs to save herself from a possible future heartbreak.

“God. Sooyoung. No one kisses their little sister in the lips.” Sooyoung wants to say that Soojung’s sister kinda does. But Seulgi looks pretty serious and Sooyoung doesn’t want to interrupt. “What are you talking about? I like you. Okay? As a non straight single girl to another non straight single girl. I don’t want to be your sister. Please date me.”

Sooyoung blushes. Seulgi just asked her out. “Uh.. Amber kissed you and stuff, and she saw you as a little sister. I don't know. I thought, you too..” Sooyoung can’t finish her sentence. She just realizes how dumb she’s been. “But why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I was about to ask you out that day I brought you to the cafe. But you looked really sulky and not in the mood. Honestly, I can’t believe I’m telling this right now on the floor of our school’s basketball court. This is so unromantic. Ugh. I was about to bring you to Namsan To-”

Sooyoung grabs Seulgi’s collar and smash their lips together. The explanation can wait. She’s been tuning out Seulgi’s rant after “I was about to ask you out” and the way Seulgi’s lips move when she rants drives Sooyoung crazy. She wants to feel it again. This time with all the right feelings.

Their bodies are completely pressed up on each other since Seulgi lost her support somewhere between Sooyoung coaxing Seulgi’s lips to part and Sooyoung moving her hands from Seulgi’s collar to the back pocket of Seulgi’s jeans. Their lips are molded against each other and their tongues fight for dominance, they both are stubborn. The voices and their moans are so sultry it makes Sooyoung's head dizzy.

Eventually Sooyoung pushes Seulgi away to take a breath, but Seulgi just flops onto Sooyoung’s chest. Buries her face in it like she belongs there. She hums and it vibrates on Sooyoung’s body. This is incredible. Is this heaven? Sooyoung thinks.

Seulgi suddenly snaps up and pulls Sooyoung’s hands.

“Let’s go.”

“Whyyy?” Sooyoung whines because the feeling of Seulgi nuzzling her face in her s is good and Seulgi just took it away from her. How dare she.

“Namsan Tower. I bought us love locks in advance last week and you ruined all my plans.”

“Love locks.. Unnie.. You’re too much.” Sooyoung laughs. She can’t believe Seulgi is so cheesy. “You’ve watched too much drama.”

Seulgi glares at Sooyoung.

“Never too much drama.”