“That look doesn’t match you at all.”

From where her head is cradled in the folded arms that acts temporarily as her pillow, Bomi groans her discontent. Not, mind you, because she disagrees with his little snide remark, but because she doesn’t need that right now.

It’s true, after all: anyone that sees her right now would probably have the same opinion as Jaebum. Even though her hair has already been bundled up into a ponytail, its light colour is a stark contrast with the monochrome of her attire. Her white collared shirt crisp and right off the ironing board, her black skirt reaching past her knees, she looks like a party girl trying to look professional for an interview with a nice, respectable company.

And that’s exactly what she is.

That’s also exactly what the interviewer thought of her to be.

She groans again, and releases something that sounds like, “Whyyyyyy—” Her head lifts. There’s a pink blotch splashed over her forehead from where she had been leaning her head on her arm. That, combined with her expression of pure distress, makes it quite the task for Jaebum not to burst into laughter. He doesn’t hold back. So she doesn’t hold back kicking him in the shin under the table, either, “Yah, Im Jaebum! Be a little more sympathetic, won’t you…”

As he shakes his head, still laughing, even wiping tears from the corners of his eyes, she sits and scowls at him, wondering just exactly what she ever saw in him. She’s still scowling when he points at something behind her and says, “Here comes your sympathy.”

Sympathy comes in the form of one Jinyoung, affectionately nicknamed ‘Jin’ for as long as she could remember of their friendship, and a tall plastic cup of Iced Americano. He sits down in the free seat, glancing between the two. Once upon a time, Bomi’s glare, which she seemed to have reserved for Jaebum, would have worried Jinyoung. That was once upon a time. Nowadays, he hardly notices it, and thus isn’t at all uncomfortable sliding straight into the conversation, “It didn’t go well?”

She has the thought that she’s groaning too much for someone her age, her size, but yet she does it again and drops her head back into her arms. While Jin cooes sympathetically, Jaebum laughs again. She doesn't bother straightening again to glare at him— instead, an arm unfolds to rise up with her middle finger.

The warm hands that almost immediately enclose around the obscene sign must be Jinyoung’s, because the louder laughter is unmistakably from the older of the two. “Hyung…” he seems to be trying to sound stern. It doesn’t really work, but the laughter dies down and an apology is offered between chuckles. And although Bomi announces gruffly, “You’re not forgiven!” the -eating grin stays firmly pasted across his face.

As if she knows that he’s grinning that arrogant smile of his, she doesn’t lift her head, doesn’t even consider lifting her head. Even when she wants to drink her coffee, she reaches blindly until someone takes pity on her and brings the plastic cup into her hand. (She thinks it’s Jinyoung, but it was Jaebum.)

Even when she hears Jaebum say to Jin, “Take care of her, yeah?” after revealing that he has some place to be, she keeps her nose pointing downwards. Him patting her head only encourages her not to raise her head. She is quite the petulant child, she won’t even try to deny that.

“He’s gone.”

Straightening, putting the now empty cup onto the table, she uses the straw to poke at the ice that sits within. Some of the blocks grind and chip with her abuse. Her lips are pursed into a pout.

“You’re not gonna ask?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I know you’re not actually mad at him,” Bomi looks up in time to see Jinyoung shrug, finishing off the rest of his cup of vanilla latte. She remembers when he had first started hanging out with their group of friends, when he had admitted after a bottle of soju too many, that he had no idea how to fit himself in with them. Now, he does it like second nature.

He puts down his cup, puts down the napkin that he pats neatly against his lips, before noticing her fond smile, and looks back at her with a question in his gaze.

She simply smiles in answer to the wordless question, and pushes back her chair to stand, “Ready to go?”

Across from the coffee shop (the name of which she still doesn’t know, to this day) is the university that her and Jin attends. Fenced in, the architecture is tall and majestic— at least, that’s what their university had always wanted them to believe. To Bomi, however, this place is just another place before the endless uncertainty that her future brings. It’s also the place that Jinyoung drags her to on occasion, insisting that they should do some studying.

Today is another one of those days. Though she’s in no mood to be doing any studying after that interview, she had promised him last week that she would study with him. So here they are now, in the school library, with him jotting notes from a reference textbook while she sits opposite him, pretending to study.

Getting bored with doodling in the margin of her notebook, Bomi’s attention ventures away from the little cartoon characters of three boys, two girls that decorate the paper, and ov