In a school bathroom, two girls were standing in front of the mirror and chatting.
“So where's the party at?” one of them asked, running a pink lip gloss over her lips.
Her friend, who was fixing her hair by her side, shrugged.
“At Minjung's, I guess.”
“Do you think there will be lots of guys there?”
The second girl snickered.
“At Minjung's? You bet.”
“Wherever the party's at, just make sure not to invite that weird Eunsook, 'cause she'll drive them all away,” a third girl added acridly, emerging from one of the stalls and coming closer to wash her hands.
At that moment, the door of a neighbouring stall opened and another girl appeared with a look of calm disdain on her face.
“Taeyeon,” one of the girls said with a fake smile. “Nice haircut.”
Taeyeon ignored her half-hearted compliment. Instead, she looked at the girl's friend who had spoken before.
“Maybe it's your ty personality that drives them away, Yoona?” she suggested coldly.
No answer came. They didn't really like Lee Taeyeon. To them, she was weird too. But she was known as a fairly nice girl. Also she always got high marks and won every dancing contest. It wouldn't be smart to bully her. Plus, there was something menacing in her voice that contradicted her angelic face.
Everybody turned away as if nothing had happened.

Taeyeon was watching an idol dance practice video on her phone when her best friend finally entered the class.
“Hi, everyone!” Eunsook cried cheerfully, pushing her long hair away from . A few unenthusiastic mumbles greeted her back. “Hey, baby,” she added in a quieter voice, dropping her bag on top of the desk next to Taeyeon's.
“Hey,” the other said with a gentle smile.
“You won't believe what happened this morning!” Eunsook began excitedly.
Two girls exchanged telltale glances behind her back.
“Down in the subway, my hair got caught between the doors!” And she laughed as if the memory made her feel truly happy.
“Oh no, it must have hurt,” Taeyeon said with concern.
“Well, it kinda did...” Eunsook was rummaging her bag for something, taking things out and putting them back inside it again as she searched for the needed item. An almost empty box of Tictac? No. A leftover chocolate? No. Cigarettes? A sanitary pad? No. “…But it was fun!... Ah, there you are.”
She had been looking for an eraser and now it was found. The girls from the bathroom did little to hide their annoyance and watched Eunsook with twisted mouths. Taeyeon hated the way they looked at her friend like she was some kind of gross animal, and a part of her was still indignant over the stinging words she had heard by accident. Sitting in the same room with those malicious people was unbearable now.
She glanced at the clock and rose to her feet.
“Let's go take a walk,” she said, grabbing Eunsook's arm.
“Okay!”
Before they left, Eunsook managed to grab that piece of chocolate she had in her bag.

There was still some time left before the bell, so the girls paced down the corridor slowly, talking and laughing quietly between themselves. Eunsook shared her snack with Taeyeon and told her about a talking banana she had seen in a dream last night.
“And he said that I would never learn to draw. How can a fruit be such a jerk,” Eunsook concluded with a pout, and Taeyeon giggled, covering . Her friend was just too cute. “Your hair is so pretty, by the way!”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah, you look like an actress.”
Taeyeon chuckled.
“I know.”
“I wonder if I should cut my hair, too. Dad says I look like a ghost from a nightmare.”
“No, don't do that.” Taeyeon raised her hand to a strand of her friend's long black hair. “It's so beautiful and shiny. It would be a shame to cut it.” She fixed Eunsook's skewed bow.
Her friend's eyebrows flew up.
“Wow, I forgot it was in there.”
She had had doubts about her hair, she said. But if Taeyeon liked it, she would leave it the way it was.
On their way back Eunsook remembered that she had something to show to her friend, but that needed to be done in private. They found an empty classroom and slipped in, closing the door behind them.
“I bought myself a supercool new bra,” Eunsook announced proudly and raised her uniform polo shirt up to the chin for a second.
“Wait, I didn't catch it,” the other girl said.
Eunsook repeated the action, flinching slightly as someone outside walked by too close to the door.
“Still didn't catch it.”
Another swift movement of fabric.
“Now?!”
Taeyeon shook her head and then broke into laughter in spite of her will.
“You troll!” Eunsook cried and punched her friend's shoulder lightly.
“I'm sorry. Your s distracted me. They look great.”
“Then it's a good bra, I guess.”
Eunsook smoothed her shirt and they walked back to the classroom.
“If you show that to Mr. Go, he'll give you ten A's in a row.”
Eunsook shrugged.
“I'm gonna get them anyway.”
The teacher was already there. He motioned the apologizing  girls to take their seats quickly and join in the group work.
“Where have you been? Going down on each other?” a girl named Yuri muttered pungently under her breath as they turned their chairs to face their group partners.
“No. Just scissoring,” Eunsook parried matter-of-factly and took her copybook, ignoring Yuri's open-mouthed stare.
“What's scissoring?” Taeyeon whispered in her ear later.
“No idea,” her friend answered, her eyes almost closing as she smiled. Then she turned away quickly.

Today was another day when Taeyeon's boyfriend came in his fancy black car to pick her up after the classes. Before getting in, she turned around to wave to  her friend.
“I will call you, Eunsook,” she promised, and she never stopped waving as the car started and accelerated speed, her friend's well-proportioned figure getting smaller and smaller while waving back at her.
They took a turn and Taeyeon leant her back unto the passenger seat with a sigh.
“Did you have a good day today?” Jongin asked, rolling his window up so that Tae wouldn't get chilly.
“Yes, I did. You?”
“Same.”
They talked a bit more and then he put on a CD that she liked.

“Hey, goddess,” Jjong sang with a grin, one eye shut because of the bright sunlight hitting his face.
“Move,” Eunsook grumbled and sat down on the stair next to him. She didn't want to sit on someone's gum.
“Why so grumpy today?”
“Not grumpy. Hungry.”
Eunsook took a bag of potato chips from her bag and popped it open with a loud noise that scared a few pigeons off. Stuffing a big pile of chips into , she also fished out two cans of soda. “How are you?” She threw one of them at Jonghyun.
“Aw!… Wonderful. Got a whole new detention today.”
“What did you do this time?”
“A rant on how gender roles and heteronormativity create an unhealthy social environment and corrupt young minds. It was a pretty short one, actually.”
“Bet they didn't understand a word.”
“The world, Eunsook. They don't understand the world and the way it works... Why are you here, though? Is your girlfriend ditching you again?”
Eunsook groaned.
“She isn't my…”
“When are you going to tell her, though?”
“Tell her what, Jjong?”
“I don't know?” The boy shrugged. “That you prefer doughnuts to bread sticks?”
“I like all kinds of food,” Eunsook murmured, grabbing some more chips.
“Or, alternatively, you could skip all the metaphors and just tell her you're a lesbian.”
“I can't. Don't want to. Won't.” Eunsook kept shaking her head while still chewing. The thought of such a confession mortified her.
“Why?”
“If she finds out about my feelings, our friendship will be ruined.”
“Perhaps if she doesn't find out, you will be ruined.”
“Maybe she doesn't want to be friends with a lesbian.”
“If she survived your Donald Duck impersonation, she's gonna be fine with your uality.”
Eunsook gasped indignantly.
“Shut up, it's hilarious!” she slapped her friend's shoulder, but Jonghyun only laughed. 
They sat for a while in the sun, observing the library goers that walked past them busily before Eunsook's friend informed her that his inspiration had been re-ignited.
“All these unrequited loves make me want to play guitar.”
He gave the girl a meaningful look that she understood right away. Jonghyun wanted to do a jam session in his room. A ‘jam session’ meant that he would come up with three chords that struck the strings of his sensitive soul in a special way and play them over and over while Eunsook would sing some gibberish with awkward rhyming. Then he'd put the guitar away and they would discuss the greater matters like exploration of space and the passing nature of a human life before Jjong's mom would call them to the kitchen to eat something excellently cooked.
There was no way she was going to say 'no' to that.
“Let's go, then,” Eunsook complied, standing up to go. Next she somehow tripped over her bag and fell on her hands. “Oh, crap!” she exclaimed as she saw that that filthy gum she'd been trying hard to avoid was stuck to her right palm now. But then she noticed a potato chip she must have dropped without noticing. “Hello, lucky!” And she ate it without regret.

“Do you want it?” Jongin asked, because Taeyeon seemed to lose herself as she admired a navy blue summer dress behind the glass.
“No.”
She took her eyes off the mannequin listlessly and continued walking.
“But you were looking at it. Didn't you think it was good?”
“I did.”
“Then why don't you want it?”
Jongin didn't care about women's clothes. To them they were all about the same. But Tae was distant again, and they needed to talk about something.
She sighed.
“I have enough dresses already.”
“But...”
“No, really. I don't want it,” the girl repeated firmly.
As much as he wanted to give her a present, it was no use to keep insisting. Jongin knew that it wasn't in his girlfriend's nature to say things that weren't true.
It being a weekday afternoon, the shopping mall was half-empty. Jongin would've preferred a walk in the park, but there was a restaurant here that Taeyeon liked. He waited for her cue to go there. It came when they walked out of a bookstore (she bought a new bookmark for Eunsook because she never remembered page numbers) and were about to walk further down the row of shops when Taeyeon stopped abruptly and said:
“I'm hungry. Let's go eat.”
So there they went.
While they were choosing from the menu, Jongin told her about the drunken antics of his friends.
“And then he ran out into the corridor, completely , because we had hidden his clothes around the house.”
“And what did he do to you afterwards?”
“Well, he got tired and stopped chasing us. Plus, he was drunk, and we found him sleeping on a couch in like fifteen minutes.”
“Dorks,” Taeyeon said, shaking her head.
“It was fun, though.” Jongin laughed, amused by the memory.
It was really a happy thing that he could share that stuff with Taeyeon. None of his friends were as lucky.
“Are you going to the party at Minjung's?” Jongin asked after the food had been brought.
“No,” Taeyeon answered firmly.
“Why not?”
“Mom will not like it…”
“I can talk to her.”
“…and Eunsook wasn't invited. So, I'm not going.”
“But, come on, it will be fun!”
Tae shrugged.
“Sure, it will.”
Jongin ate in silence for a minute, clearly frustrated.
“You two seem pretty close...” he observed, frowning. “Are you bound to follow her like that?”
“No, it is my conscious choice. Those people don't like her and I don't care for them.”
“But I will be there.”
“But she won't.”
The boy looked like he wanted to say something, but changed his mind.
“How did you like the meal?” The beaming waitress inquired, coming to take away the empty dishes and addressing primarily Jongin.
He had opened his mouth to utter a compliment, when Taeyeon spoke:
“The meat was not as neatly done as it was last time. It was too dry and kind of bland.”
Jongin smiled as the flustered waitress apologized and hurried away with her tray. People could always count on his girlfriend whenever they needed an honest opinion.
He played with his phone while Tae was away fixing her makeup.

“That was a sick rhythm.” Jonghyun nodded approvingly as Eunsook put away the pan she'd been banging on with table spoons for the last half an hour.
“Duh.”
She removed the hair from and fanned herself with a copybook.
“You have a really great voice, too.”
“I know, dammit.” Eunsook pouted. “But you can't be a singing astronaut.”
Jjong smiled.
“Why not? Hello, Pluto, you're a pretty fruit-o…” he sang in a silly falsetto, running his fingers over the strings of his guitar chaotically.
The girl waved at him dismissively.
“More like, Hello, orbit, why are you so morbid. Don't overestimate our space travel achievements.”
“You're a great lyricist, though,” Jjong complimented her, laughing.
“I'm not sure…” Eunsook stretched her limbs with a yawn. “Do people really need songs like ‘Monkey Magic’ nowadays? Can they relate to ‘The Bread Song’?”
“Of course!” Jonghyun cried, scratching his dog's ear because she kept his hand for attention. “It's better than rich capitalists singing crap about justice anyway.”
“That would make them crapitalists,” Eunsook concluded thoughtfully and Jjong laughed again with his head thrown back. He placed the guitar near the couch and lay down, putting his feet on his friend's lap. His dog, Roo, was quick to jump right on his stomach.
“Ah, girl, daddy should feed you less… Do you really think Taeyeon won't accept you if you come out to her?”
“No idea. Maybe she doesn't even know what a lesbian is.”
“Come on! Don't you watch gay movies together?”
“They're all about guys, though… I mean, she asked me what scissoring was.”
Jjong cocked an eyebrow.
“So she's interested?”
“Nah, it wasn't like that.”
Eunsook was playing with her hair like she usually did. She took two strands from either side of her face and started weaving them together.
“Is that the braid beard?” Jonghyun asked, amused.
Eunsook nodded.
“I still don't get what worries you. Just take your shirt off and she's yours.”
“I kinda did today.”
Jjong raised his head.
“You did?!”
“Yeah. To show her my new bra. In a non-ual way,” Eunsook elaborated to soothe her friend's excited feelings.
He propped himself on an elbow.
“Show me too in a non-ual way.”
“What will you show me?” Eunsook asked nonchalantly. Her braid beard was almost complete.
“My Superman underwear?”
The girl thought for a moment.
“Deal!” she agreed and grabbed the hem of her shirt.
Jonghyun shielded his eyes with his arms just in time.
“Woman, are you crazy?! I was just teasing you!”
“You were? Oh.” Eunsook smoothed her shirt out in a businesslike manner. “Sometimes I forget that you're just a weak man.”
“Yeah, keep that in mind for the future.” Jjong frowned and looked around. “What's that sound? Is someone chopping wood? And is someone... a cow?!”
Jjong's poster-filled room was suddenly booming with a bizarre combination of noises that would be appropriate in the countryside, but not on a quiet middle-class street in Seoul. Even Roo started barking and wagging her tail in alarm. Eunsook, too, looked confused for a few seconds, but then confusion was followed by recognition. She jumped up, shaking Jonghyun's feet off her lap, and picked her bag off the floor.
“It is the sound of my grandpa's farm,” she explained, taking her phone out. “How I miss my grandpa. And the farm... Oh-oh-oh, shut up, she's calling.”
Jjong rolled his eyes. He didn't have to ask who ‘she’ was.
“Hi, sweetie.” Eunsook smiled broadly as if her friend was standing there in front of her. “What are you up to?”
“Don't you already know she's on a date?” Jonghyun mumbled. Eunsook shushed him.
“Riding the longest escalator ever,” Taeyeon's phlegmatic voice said.
“Cool! Up or down?”
“Down. I remembered how we were saying goodbye once and you had to ride down, but you kept climbing up.”
Eunsook giggled.
“And annoying the out of all the ajummas!.. Er, sorry.”
“I'm used to your swearing by now,” Tae assured her. “I've bought you a present. Inspired by your absentmindedness.”
“I love presents inspired by my absentmindedness! What is it?”
“You'll find out tomorrow. The escalator is over. Bye.”
And the call ended. Eunsook smiled dreamily, staring at the darkened screen.
“She's literally calling you in the middle of her date... What other signs do you need?”
“I don't think it's a sign, though. It's not a big deal,” Eunsook argued, coming back to the real world.
“You don't want to let yourself dream a bit, huh?”
“I dream alright, don't worry.” She plunged back on the couch and rubbed her stomach. “Jjong, why won't you go ask your mom when the food will be ready? I'm starving!”
Jonghyun had the same question on his mind and left at once, followed by the excited Roo. Eunsook closed her eyes, and thought of Taeyeon's smile, and the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, and her fearlessness. Dreams. Yes, she had many.