Chapter 12

“Hey, it’s not guaranteed that we’ll get into trouble,” Yuri pouted at Yujin. She nudged Wonyoung, looking for support.

“Right! Yuri and I will be on our best behaviour,” Wonyoung said with a wink.

“Well, whatever you say, me and Hitomi are sticking to you two like glue today,” Yujin said adamantly. She’d seen first hand how much trouble Wonyoung and Yuri could get into if left alone. Both were fairly well behaved on their own, but somehow when they were together they fed off each other’s wild side and became nearly uncontrollable.

“Maybe Wonyoung and Yuri are tired of being with me all the time. We see each other every day in the dorm,” Hitomi lamented while looking down at the ground.

“Aww, no Hitomi, we like being around you!” Wonyoung said as she put an arm around Hitomi and gave the shorter girl a hug.

“Yeah, yeah, we do,” Yuri muttered. In the past, she would have just been like Wonyoung and rushed to the Japanese girl’s side to reassure her. But lately, she was getting the feeling that Hitomi was no longer the pitiable girl that she once was.

Yujin stifled a giggle as Hitomi turned her head and winked. Enlisting Hitomi was the best idea that she had come up with to help her handle the pair of troublemakers. The girl was a master at using her cuteness as a weapon.

“Hmm, guys, do you get the feeling that we have a lot of space around us?” Wonyoung asked as she looked around. All around the garden, where part of this year’s non-martial arts competition was held, there were people gathered watching the various performances of all the students. However, around their group, there didn’t seem to be any people at all as if people were avoiding them.

“I did think it would be more crowded,” Hitomi added in. When she had heard about this competition from the others, she imagined there would be throngs of junior students all milling about exchanging all sorts of information about each other’s schools and themselves. Back in her old school, there were similar activities, but it was a much more reserved affair as it would have been rude for her to act informally with anyone she didn’t know which meant everybody pretty much. She’d been looking forward to possibly making new friends, but it didn’t look like it would happen.

“I think our Wonyoung and Yujin are scaring them away,” Yuri whispered, while grinning widely. She had heard from Chaeyeon that this might happen.

“We are?” Yujin asked. She had always found it easy to make friends with others, but it didn’t appear as if she would be able to this time. The other juniors were purposely giving them wide berth.

“Chaeyeon said that while this is not a martial arts tournament, every school that’s attending is still a martial arts school. The other students will be wary of us since we’ll be most likely their toughest competition in any real martial arts tournament,” Yuri repeated what Chaeyeon had warned her about in the morning. She could feel the truth of Chaeyeon’s words as she herself had scanned the crowd instinctively for any group that might likely be their competition. She had been surprised to find that there were no other groups that came close to the power that even their two youngest gave off.

“Nothing we can really do about it. We can try and suppress our qi, but I think it’s too late now. I’m used to it anyway,” Wonyoung said, giving a sad smile.

“Aww,” Hitomi cooed as it was her turn to reach around the taller girl for a quick hug. Though, the girl put up a tough front, there was no way she was really comfortable at being stared at as if she were a freak of nature. Hitomi hadn’t really ever experienced anything like that until she had come to Korea. When she, along with Nako, suddenly scored high in the entrance exams, she felt the eyes of both the Japanese and Korean examinees on her at all times. “You’re not so scary.”

Yujin also reached around Wonyoung’s slender shoulders for a hug. Their former school had discovered her a few months before they discovered Wonyoung, so she knew first hand how it felt to be the focal point of everyone around. “If they’re this scared of us now, wait till they actually face us in a tournament.”

Yuri nodded. “This is a good thing. Nobody knows us right now, so if the other juniors are looking at us, that means their schools are looking at us. There’s a good chance we’ll be invited to attend real martial arts tournaments.”

Wonyoung gave the three girls a reassuring smile and a wink. “I’m okay, really. I’m definitely not the only scary one here. I’m sure they’re freaked out over the three of you as well.”

“We’ll be freaks together,” Yujin laughed. “If everyone is watching us, let’s make sure to visit and watch each of our unnies in the competition.”

“Yeah, I want to watch Yena Unnie,” Yuri piped up. “I’m sure we’ll finally be able to see a cool side of her for once. She usually only shows us her dorkier side.”

“Isn’t she the one that’s most likely to lose out of all of them?” Hitomi asked skeptically.

“Sakura unnie swears that Yena is okay at some games,” Wonyoung offered.

“Well, she will for sure be the one that is most likely to do something embarrassing,” Yujin said in a teasing way.

“Her embarrassing side is what I like about her,” Yuri said unashamedly as she left the other girls lagging behind her.

“Shouldn’t you be with the other girls?” Sakura asked Nako as they stopped at the edge of the firing range where the other spectators stood.

“I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Besides, I’ve already walked around the garden area by myself earlier. Actually, I also met this nice unnie and asked her to help me when I got lost.” Nako said as she stared hard at the spot where the entrants were supposed to come in.

“You talked to her on your own?” Sakura gasped.

“Yeah,” Nako said, shrugging. Sakura found the weirdest things to be impressive. She could see Chaewon and Minju’s confused looks. “Unnie is pretty shy if you haven’t noticed. She’s especially shy with people she really admires.”

“Nako!” Sakura shrieked, but didn’t deny it.

“Really?” Minju asked. “But didn’t you come to me during the exams and you didn’t even know me.”

“She was probably with Chaeyeon Unnie when she went to you, right? Even with Chaeyeon Unnie, she was the one that approached Sakura Unnie first,” Nako said, spilling even more beans on her senpai. “Did you notice how awkward she was with you, Chaewon Unnie, when we all got accepted into the school as students?”

Chaewon blinked. A part of her had assumed there was some awkwardness between the two of them due to the incident that happened during their examinee days. The four of them including Yuri and two other examinees had actually all been on the same exam team at one point, but the teachers had forced them to narrow their team down to five members. Sakura and Minju had been cut from the team as a result. Chaewon had since talked it over with Minju and there were no hard feelings between them. But, Chaewon had never done the same with Sakura. “You didn’t talk to me because you couldn’t? You were too shy?” Because you like me so much? she thought but didn’t voice.

“Uh, well, you know, I was thought you were so cool when you were our team’s leader. Minju was always my first pick to make it in to the school, but sometime later I thought that maybe I had another person in mind,” Sakura answer shyly.

Chaewon felt terrible to assume that Sakura’s distance with her was due to something that now seemed so long ago. She remembered her shared vision with Sakura and it suddenly made sense to her. In that dream like vision, Sakura had indeed been acting like a flustered girl unable to meet the eyes of the person she was interested in. “Um, thank you for saying all of that.”

“I was your first pick?” Minju couldn’t really believe her ears. She had been so happy when Sakura and Chaeyeon had picked her to be a member of their exam team, but she hadn’t really known why. To hear that out of all the examinees, Sakura had picked her to be the one to make it into the school meant a lot to her.

Nako rolled her eyes as she watched Minju became even clingier with Sakura as if that were possible. She could see Chaewon half-heartedly try to pull Minju off, all the while looking at Sakura with a soft smile on her face. Nako had been on the receiving end of her senpai’s sudden love confessions before so knew how it felt. “Hey, hey, you guys are drawing everyone’s attention to us.”

Chaewon looked around and could see what Nako was saying was true. She instinctively glared back at the people around her, activating her ‘Death Glare’ technique. Immediately, the eyes that were looking at them diminished. She was able to tell from the crowd’s eyes that they were mostly focussed on Sakura and herself. Me? They’re looking at me too?

“What did you see?” Sakura asked when she saw Chaewon use her special martial arts technique. “Oh, right, you can’t tell us.”

Chaewon hadn’t been allowed to divulge information about her former school’s secret martial arts, but as she spent more and more time with her new members, she found herself more able to place her trust in them. “No, it’s okay. I am able to see a person’s intended target if I can see their eyes no matter how many people are in the group. They were mostly looking at you and me.”

Minju and Nako nodded in unison. “You two are pretty impressive. Chaeyeon unnie said that many people use this competition to scope out the strong martial artists,” Minju said as she remembered her and Nako’s conversation with Chaeyeon.

“Well, it looks like they’ll be looking at someone else soon enough,” Nako said as she sensed people with high qi levels start to come into their vicinity. “Hey, look it’s that school you like Saku-chan. See? She can’t even look that way.”

Minju giggled as she watched Sakura look in the opposite direction. “Unnie, you like Red Velvet School?”

“Yeah,” Sakura said, unable to make full sentences at the moment. She could never forget that unmistakable qi signature and knew who it belonged to as soon as she sensed it. Even with her head turned, she could feel the qi emanating oh so close to her. What do I do? She’s here! Irene’s here!

“Look how close they’re standing to us,” Chaewon said as she watched Irene and Joy stand at edge of the range near them.

“Saku-chan, look,” Nako said again pointing, but Sakura refused to budge.

“They’re here to cheer on their teammates I guess. But usually, she’s the one that takes part in this competition. That’s too bad for you, Sakura,” Minju said sadly for Sakura’s sake.

“Yeah, looks like their school is up against Twice School right now,” Chaewon said as she watched some girls break off from the crowd and head towards the center of the range. Having trained hard with her fellow students for the past few months, she was able to tell there was a definitive difference between the two groups of girls on the field compared to them on the sidelines. “Wow,” she accidently said out loud.

“Yeah,” Nako agreed as she stared straight ahead at the two schools in front of them. “They’re amazing aren’t they.”

Sakura had no trouble looking at the other Red Velvet School members who were much further away. “Both of them are completely different than everyone else here. That’s what the world is like, huh?”

Yena paced nervously as she glanced at the door to the waiting room over and over. “It’s taking them a long time to decide the results. I think I did okay, I won more than half my matches. How did you guys do again?”

“This is the third time you’ve asked. Like I said, we don’t really know. We don’t really have an opponent to measure against like you did,” Eunbi said as patiently as she could. Outside, she appeared to be calm and collected, but inside, she was as much as nervous wreck as Yena. This was their school’s ‘debut’ to the outside world and as leader she felt it was on her if they failed to make an impression on the other schools.

“I think I played my pieces alright, but I don’t know how my competition did,” Chaeyeon repeated for Yena’s benefit.

“Hyewon, you practiced a lot, right? You tried your best, right?” Yena felt bad for asking, but she still asked anyway.

Hyewon didn’t mind Yena’s repeated questions and simply nodded. However, Yena kept staring at her, obviously looking for more information this time. “I knew all the topics. I wrote an essay on one of them and when they asked that I create a matching verse for a poem, I matched it. I think I did okay. I saw Yuri and the other girls watching me from the sidelines when I was on poetry. They seemed to enjoy it.”

Yena nodded, though remained skeptical. For someone who spoke so tersely, it was hard to imagine her being able to be eloquent like a poet. “Yeah, they were watching when I played one of my matches too. I almost lost my concentration, but I somehow won that one.”

“They’re good girls,” Eunbi said with a motherly smile. It had felt good to see her babies cheering for her as she painted.

“I played with a lot more flourish when they were there, but I think I embarrassed them,” Chaeyeon said with a laugh. She giggled as she remembered them all averting their eyes.

“I bet you played like a demon possessed. You played so hard, all your hair ornaments are out of place,” Hyewon laughed.

“Well, you’ve got ink all over your hands and some on your face as well. I’m pretty sure people think of you as some sort of literary maniac.” Chaeyeon laughed again just imagining the people entering the gardens and watching her and Hyewon perform.

“Did you see Sakura and the others?” Hyewon had seen Sakura’s group briefly, but that had been when she was writing her essay so could not really call out to them.

“Yeah, they were there,” Chaeyeon said. “I saw them during one of my breaks. They said they were going to head towards the archery range though. You know how she is with mingling. Besides, walking around the garden is meant for really green girls so that they can become more acquainted with the martial arts world. Nako and Sakura don’t really need it.”

“I wish I could have gone around to see you guys compete,” Yena sighed. “I would have cheered for you guys so loudly.”

Eunbi grabbed Yena as the girl paced by her and pulled her down on to her lap. “Stop pacing already. Yeah, I know you would have been the best cheerleader. You probably care the most out of all of us about how we do, including me.”

Yena strugged to get out of Eunbi’s embrace for a bit, but then just gave in and let their leader hug the hell out of her. “It’s only natural I think. Twelve as one, right?”

Chaeyeon smiled at Yena and Eunbi. Those two girls lived that mantra every day of their lives. “Got room for me?”

“Yeah, you come here too, Hyewon,” Eunbi asked with a wide smile.

Hyewon gulped as she walked towards the three hugging girls and joined in. Since she had realized how she felt about some of the girls in their group, it had become awkward for her whenever any form of skin-ship happened. However, she was also the type of girl to just not give a damn and go with it. And hugging Chaeyeon seemed like a good idea.

Chaeyeon felt the hairs on her neck prick up as Hyewon smiled at her. She was reminded of the vision she had of a cat pouncing on a bird when they were helping Sakura. She had assumed that it represented Hyewon’s resentment of her and Sakura being extremely close, since she knew that the other girl also shared the same feelings she had for the Japanese girl. But now, she was not so sure as her heart started pounding.

Yena finally managed to squirm from the pile of bodies hugging her. “Okay, I think that’s enough hugging. You guys are wrinkling my dress.”

“Hey, it looks like they’re putting up the results,” Eunbi said as she watched an official enter the waiting room and glue several pieces of paper onto a large board.

“Well, let’s get it over with,” Yena said as she headed towards the board.

“Wait,” Eunbi said, motioning Yena to come back towards the group. “I just wanted to say that, no matter how we did, I want you all to know how proud of you I am. Regardless of the results, I think we impressed all schools with how complete all of our students are.”

Hyewon conveniently forgot Yena’s earlier declaration of there being enough hugging and grabbed the girls all into one more group hug. “Thank you all for your hard work.”

Author’s note:

I was smiling the whole time I watched all the twitter updates of the girls during the ISAC. I hope they go again.

Let me know your thoughts!