AUTHOR

The whole story had been changed and edited to its finest. I suggest you nerds read it all over again. Enjoy.

P.S.
Please read the endnotes at the end. Thank you!

Winter Kim found herself in a rather peculiar situation after waking up that Saturday morning. She was in bed. Together with Karina Yu. The infamous campus princess — both . Well, she was still wearing her undies, but still — .

Winter wracked her brain to recall what happened that Friday night. She had been invited to a party and had gotten drunk along the way.

Her Chinese best friend, Ning Natalie Yizhuo, had advised that she needed to lose her mind a little because she was beating herself up with tons of school stuff. She had done what she was told, and then, all of a sudden, she couldn’t remember what happened right after.

She wouldn't have been shocked if someone said she had made a bloody fool of herself at that party, considering she was such a blubbering mess when she was drunk. She was hoping she hadn't gotten herself into a big mess with anyone.

Much to her dismay, ‘unfortunate’ was her middle name.

She was now facing the person she’d never expected to encounter. Blue eyes locked with hers, looking at her knowingly, keenly, and deciphering.

“You're not going to run away and walk out of this room and pretend that this didn't happen, are you?”

In every accidental one-night stand, of course, that thought was not an option anymore. Embrace each other at night like long-time lovers, and in the morning, shrug off every memory like it never happened. That should have always been the case.

And of course, that had been Winter's initial plan after assessing the situation. But looking at Karina Yu's threatening, yet smiling face, she knew well how screwed up she was.

Let's just laugh first. Winter let out an awkward and forced laugh, trying to hide her previous intention.

"N—no, I wasn't thinking of that at all."

"Good." Karina smiled, satisfied with her answer. She gingerly moved closer to Winter, wrapping both of her arms around her waist.

Winter couldn't seem to utter a single word. Seeing a Karina in front of her was... was... was — she didn't even have any words to describe it.

"Look at you getting so shy and red! How adorable," she kissed her temple, "Not to mention, you were so rough on me last night." She chuckled teasingly.

Rough? Winter didn't like the sound of that. She had never imagined herself as the ‘rough’ kind of person in bed. As the innocent kind of gal she had always portrayed herself to be, it sounded so wrong in so many aspects. She couldn't even remember what happened last night. Might as well being rough. Whatever that meant. It was her first time doing such a thing with someone, yet she couldn't recall anything!!

“You must be hungry. Stay here. I’ll make some breakfast.”

Karina got out of bed wearing only her knickers. Winter covered her eyes immediately in hopes of not ogling at the latter’s . Seeing a topless Karina Yu was already enough to give her some spicy nightmares at night. Karina saw the cute gesture, chuckled, and then proceeded to grab a tee from the cupboard.

"You can look now." She teased and continued chuckling.

Winter was still covering her eyes, waiting for Karina to get out of the room. She was too embarrassed, utterly dumbfounded (having a crisis maybe), to meet her eyes.

Everything was still sinking in. She couldn't believe she had slept with Karina! The infamous campus Princess-It Girl-Everyone's crush, Karina Yu! Then she heard the door being opened and then closed, signaling that Karina had already gone out.

Winter, think! You dolt! She cussed, forcing her brain to come up with an idea to get out of this situation. She hurriedly, yet softly, tiptoed to grab her clothes that were resting on the sofa. She blushed when she saw herself with just her undergarments in the mirror. I gotta get out of here — fast, she mentally remarked.

She went out of the room, careful not to make any sound. She saw the latter on the kitchen counter, beating some eggs while humming.

Some people might fall in love with a barefaced Karina Yu making breakfast while wearing only a tee and her knickers. It felt utterly domestic, and it was such a sight to behold. But Winter was different from those people.

It might be rude to leave without saying goodbye. But Winter knew that she shouldn't get involved with Karina. Goodbyes were not necessary for a one-time thing. And this, right now, was only a one-time thing. Once she got out of there, everything would be forgotten. Oblivion was a curse.

Luckily, she found her way out of Karina's dorm room. It was fortunate that no one saw her. She couldn’t believe that the latter lived alone in that big of an arse place, while Yizhuo and she had to share the bathroom with five more people. How unfair.

She tried to take in where the bloody hell she was, and it seemed like she was on the other side of the campus. She ran back to their college dorm at speed. She wondered and cursed why they had classes on weekends; it was supposed to be a rest day.

She shouldn't have listened to Yizhuo. Nothing good came out of . Never trust a redhead, she muttered to no one.

Speaking of the devil, she hadn't texted her yet. Winter opened her phone and saw a bunch of texts and missed calls from her so-called, redheaded, best friend. She sighed, bracing herself for what was coming.

♦

Her best friend, Ning Natalie Yizhuo, was like a fusion of Natalie Portman and Lily Collins, but the Asian version. It also explained the origin of her second name.

Winter always deemed that the Gods were so unfair when they made Yizhuo descend from heaven. It was like Aphrodite meeting the common folk. Such a head-turner. Wherever she went, people would break their necks 360° just to get a glimpse of her. Birds chirped, butterflies flew, and flowers bloomed wherever she walked. It sounded straight out of a Disney movie. She wasn’t exaggerating.

“She’s so gorgeous, she doesn’t look real,” was quoted by one of the members of her own fan club every time they passed the hallway. It made Winter cringe whenever they stared at her best friend with a love-struck look.

Winter was, up until now, still wondering if her best friend was aware of this nonsense because she could be utterly dense sometimes. Let’s just give her the benefit of the doubt, shall we? she muttered to herself.

Due to this advantage, everybody deemed that she was an angel blessed from heaven. But Winter knew best that Yizhuo was the opposite of angels and heaven. Yizhuo was an absolute devil in disguise. With her perfectly sculpted face, she could fool anyone by just acting innocent.

"Where were you last night? I was so worried, I thought you might have hit your head and passed out or something.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, “Wait — did you get laid last night?"

"No." Winter immediately blurted out. Yizhuo looked at her skeptically.

"You did, didn't you?"

Winter groaned in annoyance, realizing that she would be stuck with her best friend's never-ending tease.

"Girl, you look like you just had . Don't ever lie to me, Kim Winter. I practically raised you. I know you from head to toe." She pointed her index finger, up and down, accusingly.

“Bloody hell, Yizhuo! Can we please not talk about this?”

"Oh, no, no, no. We are definitely going to talk about this right now.” The smirk she gave irked Winter a lot. “My little Winter just got laid. What happened to ‘I’ll never have because I’m going to be a nun’ motto of yours, huh?'"

Winter was imagining different ways of slapping her best friend in all different directions just to shut her up.

“Who did you shag?! Was he hot?"

Winter glared at her best friend, trying not to smack the crap out of her — for real this time. Yizhuo had this uncanny obsession or nosy kind of behavior about her love life. And she wasn’t going to feed the little devil anything that could spark her interest.

"I'm not telling you anything. We gotta go. We have class."

Yizhuo hummed, uninterested, "All right, just so you know, we're not done here, Winter Kim."

“Can you stop saying my whole name? It’s so cringe.” She hissed in annoyance. And she knew that Ningning was just doing it to infuriate her more.

“Whatever,” she casually replied, smirking more.

In disbelief, Winter questioned herself about how she managed to befriend someone like Yizhuo. Totally uncharacteristic of her.

♦

Winter spent the rest of the period snoozing. She looked at her best friend on the other side of the room, animatedly chatting with some of their classmates. She sometimes envied how easy it was for Yizhuo to befriend people. That was a joke, actually.

Winter never saw herself as the extroverted, people-person kind of girl. She didn’t have the tendency to tolerate any sort of draining human interaction. Those kinds of bullocks were all Yizhuo’s job. As the designated third-party observer with no personal interest whatsoever, she’d rather stare from the distance and watch people embarrass themselves. That, she could say, was very much entertaining to witness. Don’t we all agree?

She doesn’t have the popularity that Yizhuo has. Everything she does is pretty average. Just a typical college student thriving to finish her degree, nothing more, nothing less. Well, we could just all say that this isn’t just a facade that she created just to get off people's radar. What sort of radar, you ask? Any kind of radar.

Winter was born into a very wealthy family. It’s sort of a secret that she hasn’t told anyone except her best friend. She receives a decent amount of allowance from her parents. But she doesn’t flounder the money around like a spoiled brat just to annoy unfortunate bystanders. She used to do that before. But she learned her lesson eventually. Also, Past-Winter is already dead, buried in a coffin of her consciousness. She should have stopped haunting her until now. That biach.

  Oh, dear. Did she just curse? She should probably stop watching Mean Girls with Yizhuo for the hundredth time now. Also, dressing like a sack of potatoes has its benefits. She will know if the people she’ll encounter are genuine or not.

 Winter is totally not