Taeyeon looked pale and small lying under that blanket in her room. She smiled as her friend took her favorite banana milk out of her bag like some contraband good. (Tae's mother prohibited bringing ‘plebeian’ food into the house.)
“Drink carefully. Small sips,” Eunsook prescribed with a concerned frown on her face.
Tae laughed.
“Yes, doctor Lee. Please.” She reached out for the chubby bottle in her friend's hand.
“If you get worse because of me, I'll go and eat something off the ground, get it?” Eunsook warned her, still not giving her the milk.
“I won't get worse. I promise. Now give it to me.” She unclasped the girl's fingers one by one and got hold of her trophy, finally. “You do eat stuff off the ground sometimes, though.”
“Only when the ground is clean.”
Taeyeon laughed, bringing the straw to her pale lips. She was shining with happiness. Eunsook could feel that her friend was genuinely glad to see her again, despite everything that had happened.
She started walking around the room slowly, taking in the familiar interior, touching the random objects that she would probably never see again. Eunsook was the only one who was allowed to touch Tae's stuff... Jinki was, probably, too – now. She dragged her finger along the edge of the desk – it was so messy it was hard to believe it could belong to such a clean, pretty girl like Taeyeon. Cosmetics, copybooks, pieces of stationery, sticker sheets and CDs were mixed together, blending into one colorful mess. Would she even be able to use all of that multicolored nail polish at least once in her life?
Eunsook noticed a piece of paper pinned to the corkboard.
“You kept my crappy drawing.”
“It's a pineapple wearing sunglasses. How could I throw something that special away?”
Eunsook chuckled.
“And that's the memory I'm going to leave behind. Sad.”
Taeyeon pouted.
“It's a good memory! Come here and tell me about your day.”
She reached out her hand.
“In a minute,” Eunsook sighed, continuing her inspection.
The posters and pictures of idol groups on the walls were always new, changing according to Taeyeon's current preference. Fickle, fickle girl.
“Did you put Jinki's letter in there too?” she asked, pointing to the infamous green box sitting on top of the wardrobe.
Taeyeon shook her head.
“It's not there.”
Eunsook raised her eyes to the ceiling, with cheap fluorescent stars and moons plastered to it, just like the ones she had in her own room (they had bought them together so they would be able to look at the same stars before falling asleep), and felt the tears coming. She lowered her head and felt one teardrop escape and roll down her cheek before she could pull herself together.
She couldn't tell her. She knew it the moment she had crossed the threshold. She was too weak.
Eunsook wiped the tear away.
“Come here,” Taeyeon repeated, too softly to not make her friend hurt even more.
This time Eunsook complied. She rolled the spinning chair over to the bed and sat down beside the sick girl.
“Did you have a bad day?” Taeyeon asked, taking her hand in hers.
“Yeah.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
Eunsook rubbed her eyes with her free hand, telling herself to calm down.
“I do. But I can't right now. I'm sorry.”
“It's alright. You will tell me when you're ready.”
Or somebody else will, Eunsook thought bitterly. But she nodded anyway.
“Are you very ill?” she asked, changing the subject.
Tae sighed.
“I've almost recovered, for sure. But mom is being paranoid.”
“You look pale, though.”
“That's because I'm not getting any air lying here. Mom thinks she can just lock me up and the problem is solved.”
“She must be worried,” Eunsook suggested.
But Tae looked sceptical.
“She's always like that. She can't really deal with stuff.” Suddenly, she pulled herself up to wrap her arms around her friend. “I didn't tell you before, but I missed you so much.”
“I missed you, too,” Eunsook answered, hugging her in return. And I always will.
“I'm so sorry I was a to you that day at the restaurant,” Taeyeon said into her neck.
Eunsook patted the girl's back.
“You weren't a .”
“No. I know I was. And I feel ashamed.”
“It was me who asked for a break because I was jealous.”
They released each other and were silent for a moment. Each seemed to be deep in thought.
“Do you still feel that way... about Jinki?”
“No. And yes. It's complicated... Tae.”
“Mm?”
No, Eunsook couldn't tell her the whole truth. But one question was tormenting her.
She touched the bead bracelet on Taeyeon's wrist that she always wore. She had made it herself and wanted to get Eunsook into that passing hobby of hers, too. But she didn't have enough patience for that.
“If you found out something about me... Something you didn't know... Would you change your opinion of me? Would you hate me?”
Taeyeon looked back at her, clueless.
“Did you kill someone?” she asked, unperturbed.
“Imagine I did?”
The girl didn't even take any time to think before answering:
“You had a reason, then. But I'd still be sad if you had to go to prison.”
“Suppose I mugged someone?”
“It means you had no other choice. I'd go to the court and testify that you're usually a very kind person.”
Eunsook smiled in spite of her misery because of her friend's determination to defend her even in the face of justice.
“Okay, then... What if I kicked a child?”
“Kids can be annoying.”
“Shouted at an old person?”
“Oh, please.”
“Made out with a married guy?”
“Sure that made his day.”
Eunsook laughed.
“Stole someone else's project of a spacecraft and got famous?”
That got Tae thinking.
“Knowing you, you'll do plenty of charity and make amends.”
“What if I were revealed to be the mafia boss who hires immoral old people to transport drugs stuffed inside watermelons?”
“At least you give jobs to old people.”
“And if I was a world-class villain who wants to fill the planet with clones?”
“Can I have my own Lee Joongi, then?”
“What if I made a gross tape?”
“I'd be proud of your movie career. As long as it's not with Lee Joongi.”
They both burst into laughter.
Eunsook got carried away too easily.
“But what if I simply wasn't who you thought I was?” she asked quietly when the joy subsided.
Tae leaned her head to the side.
“Are you implying that you're not Lee Eunsook, my best friend who takes care of me and is the funniest girl I have ever come across?”
“Well, I'm not, but...”
“Then it's okay. Whatever it is.”
Somehow Eunsook didn't feel any real relief. Her friend's generosity would hardly mend her broken heart.
She knew Tae's mom was coming home soon, so they talked a bit more, and then she rose to her feet to leave.
“No homework sheets for today?” Taeyeon asked, running over the prints her friend had brought.
“No, sorry.”
“It's alright. I'll get them later.”
Before going away, Eunsook allowed herself a weakness – one last expression of tenderness. She leaned in to kiss Taeyeon's forehead.
The girl laughed softly.
“Don't worry about me. I'm not dying.”
“Of course you're not, silly.”
Eunsook picked her backpack off the floor and added: “Hope we'll meet at school.”
Tae sniffed.
“Do you think we might not?”
Eunsook didn't respond to her sarcastic question. Instead, she smiled wearily and walked out of the room with a wave, closing the door behind her carefully so as not to make a noise.
She stared at the wooden floor as she walked towards the front door in her white socks. She wasn't going to miss this house and its high ceilings, its huge vases and leather-bound sofas, Eunsook thought. She didn't belong here anyway. But that room, that messy room with stars on the ceiling... There she would want to go back, but wouldn't be able to.

As she was stepping out of the gate, she heard the sound of a car door being shut. Mrs. Lee, Taeyeon's mother, had returned home in a taxi.
Eunsook bowed and started walking away, because that was usually expected from her anyway, but the woman called her name and motioned her to come closer.
“Yes?”
“Does my daughter know what happened this morning?” she asked without prior ado.
“No.”
And she quickly fired her second, and probably the most important, question:
“Did you tell her anything about your abnormality?”
Eunsook smiled, like she
usually did when she wanted to punch someone in the face.
“No, I didn't tell her anything about my abnormality.”
Mrs. Lee looked like a person who had finally got their way out of constipation – or at least like someone who had won a lottery – so relieved she was. She even laughed, in spite of her habit of being expressionless at all times.
“I'm glad to hear it,” she said, speaking the truth. “You are a clever girl and surely you wouldn't want my daughter's opinion of you to change for the worse. That means you are aware of the fact that this behavior of yours is a deprivation and simply nothing to be proud of. I personally think that you are a victim of unfortunate circumstances: your parents divorced and it's natural that your mother could not bring you up the proper way in that environment, but I'm not going to comment on that...”
“You are now?”
Mrs. Lee pursed her lips. She was not to be interrupted.
“I know that you do care for my daughter, as she is a valuable friend, and I hope that you will continue to care about her during your last two weeks at our school and stop associating with her in any way.”
“Why would I do that?” Eunsook asked, feeling her chest burn.
“Because you don't want her to have a hard time at school after you leave, especially considering that her relationship with your classmates leaves much to be desired already.”
“I'm not responsible for that, madam,” Eunsook argued. “She made a conscious choice to befriend people she actually likes.”
“But think of her future!”
“Right now I'm more concerned about my own.”
At this point, Mrs. Lee's lips disappeared entirely, turning into just a thin line of red – so hard she was pursing them.
“Just don't talk. To my daughter.”
Eunsook sighed.
“You are right: she is a valuable friend. That's why I'll only stop talking to her if she tells me to do so herself. Otherwise I don't care.”
Mrs. Lee really looked like she was ready to slap her, and Eunsook was in no mood for that right now. That's why she added, her real anxiety audible in her voice:
“From you, or from someone else, she'll find out soon. And maybe she won't want to talk to me after that anyway... So, don't give up on hope, Mrs. Lee.” Mrs. Lee's opinion of Eunsook could not be lower at the moment, but her guess unexpectedly made sense to her. So she felt a little less annoyed, thinking about that lucky possibility. “Now excuse me, but I need to meet another woman who is disappointed with me.”
She bowed again and left – not because she was hurrying home, but because she couldn't deal with that obnoxious woman anymore.

Indeed, she wasn't looking forward to seeing her mom in tears at all. Eunsook wandered about, silent earphones in her ears and her heart full of lead. She could call Jonghyun and hear his passionate speeches against injustice in the world and get some words of sympathy, but she didn't. Her own tears could wait, too.
It was already late and completely dark outside when her tired feet finally brought her home. The hall was dark and her mother didn't come out to greet her, which wasn't really a surprise to Eunsook, but it hurt her anyway. She left her bag by the shoe rack and went to the kitchen, where her mother was sitting alone with her back to the door.
Wordlessly, she knelt down on the floor, her forehead resting on her hands.
It was awful, of course. Mrs. Lee was torn between sadness and anger, and remnants of hopeful disbelief. She blamed Eunsook, her father, her teachers, Choi Minjung, Fate and – herself. She shouted, and cried, and made endless pauses that were much worse than words, and sometimes her voice would be quiet and faint.
Eunsook's uality or, her ‘illusions’, as Mrs. Lee understood it, was one thing, and the fact that she missed the opportunity – a once-in-a-lifetime thing, perhaps – to have an excellent education among people of status was another, and her future really depended on that. But Eunsook knew that too well herself, and the things that were being said felt unnecessary – she had had enough time to think about it all, she knew herself and that she was her own most competent judge.
She just wanted to go to her room and sleep.
“Why did you have to in?! Choi Minjung is rich, and rich people don't need help from a poor nobody like you!”
Mrs. Lee started crying again.
Eunsook rose to her feet, her legs aching.
“You are right,” she said quietly. “To them, I'm just a poor nobody. Rich people live in their own world, and people like us have nothing to do with it. That opportunity you wanted for me never belonged to me, because I could never become one of them. They knew that, and that's why they made fun of you, and dad, and your jobs, and never said a nice word to me. If you hoped that I would meet a guy there and marry him later, it was naive of you. None of them would ever go after me, because that would have made them outcasts... It all had to be over sooner or later.”
Her mother lowered her head, ashamed, no doubt, and hurt after hearing those things that she knew were true.
“You just said what you said because you wanted to defend her, right?” she asked, raising her teary eyes at Eunsook again. She was denying the truth once again. “You never did those things with her? Tell me it's just because you took pity on her.”
Instead of an answer, the girl put her hand on her mother's shoulder and bid her goodnight, telling her that she was very tired.
She never wanted her mother to be ashamed of her or think that she was an ungrateful daughter, and she was honestly sorry. But, whether it was the influence of Jonghyun's justice-craving spirit, or her own common sense, Eunsook felt that none of it was actually her fault – she clashed with the big cynical world and lost because it was too close-minded to accept her and she, being just a school girl from a broken home, could do nothing. Sadly, her mother was a part of that world, too.
Before she went to sleep, she thought of Taeyeon. It wasn't a bitter thought, nor was it mixed with self-pity or any other miserable feeling. She loved her – that's all she thought about.

Taeyeon's mother was having a struggle inside her mind. Of all things, she wanted her little girl to stay innocent and pure, but she was going to find out about that inconvenient scandal sooner or later – and the context was what worried Mrs. Lee most of all. What if it was brought to Taeyeon in a positive light? What if some reckless ideas got into her head?
Notwithstanding her sincere disgust and embarrassment with the whole subject, Mrs. Lee decided to talk to her about it herself. But she was too prudish to be straightforward, and talked through hints and vague insinuations, to which Taeyeon, sitting on her bed in her fleece pajamas and filing her fingernails, listened with a confused expression.
“I'm sorry, but I have no clue what you're talking about,” she said eventually, frowning. “What did Eunsook do?”
Mrs. Lee bit her lip in frustration. She became more precise and even went as far as to say that Eunsook had had a ‘wrongful relationship’ with Choi Minjung.
The nail file fell out of the girl's hand and onto the floor, clinking.
Her mother was now expressing her ‘sadness’ over the traps that young souls could fall into in the modern world and the fact that Taeyeon's friend had turned out to be unworthy of her friendship after all, but her daughter was not listening to her well, it seemed. She sat with her plump mouth open and stared into space.
“Are you saying that she went out with Minjung?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“And she is a lesbian?”
Mrs. Lee's nostril quivered at the vulgar word that she immediately wanted to wipe out of her daughter's vocabulary. But she responded with a grave nod.
“Are you sure, though? People always gossipped about her for no reason.”
“She confessed it herself.”
“She...? She really...? Woah... ”
Mrs. Lee's forehead creased as she watched Taeyeon's reaction to the news. She was shocked, as expected, but she just didn't seem to take it critically enough, and that was somewhat alarming to Mrs. Lee.
When the silence continued for too long, the woman cleared and began:
“Anyway, I strongly…”
“But she didn't tell me anything,” Taeyeon mused aloud. “Why... ”
“She must be ashamed,” Mrs. Lee answered, needlessly. “As it is, I strongly...”
The girl looked at her without really seeing her.
“Eunsook has been into girls this whole time,” Tae said absentmindedly, and it wasn't clear whether it was a statement or a question. “Eunsook. Is gay.”
Mrs. Lee's sense of propriety beeped red and she somehow felt that it was vital for her to walk out of the room and not be around her daughter right now. Which she did after bidding her goodnight and leaving without looking her in the eye.

As she was having her coffee with a blueberry croissant next morning, Taeyeon came down the stairs, all dressed and carrying her schoolbag in her hand.
She poured herself a big glass of water and, having finished it in a few gulps, told her mother that she was ready to go to school today. She had dark circles under her eyes after a night full of thoughts.
Mrs. Lee knew she was supposed to feel satisfied, but she didn't.
“Are you sure you are strong enough?”
“Yes, I am,” Tae replied, not touching the jam toasts waiting for her on the table.
“But you're not eating.”
“You know that I can't eat in the morning. Other than that, I have no fever, no coughing, no runny nose. I'm alright.”
She was looking at her mother expectantly.
“We need affirmation from the doctor first.”
“Can we get it today, then?”
“We need to make an appointment.”
“Can you make it now so that we can go today?”
“I'll be busy today.”
“I can go alone. Just make the call first.”
“You don't know how to speak to a doctor.”
“I'm grown enough to figure it out,” Taeyeon insisted, looking quite determined.
Mrs. Lee pursed her lips. Who had brought her daughter up like that?
“You won't go alone. I'll make a call and we will go together. But you will eat something.”
Taeyeon sat down by the table, rolled her sleeves up and started eating.
“You can't keep me away from school just because my best friend is a lesbian,” she said, chewing her jam toast. “Didn't you tell me I must make it to the top of the list?”
Mrs. Lee ignored the last remark and picked her tablet to check the weather.
As expected, Taeyeon's only health-related problem was the lack of oxygen and physical activity. Other than that, she was absolutely fine. By the time they left the clinic, school lessons were already over, but she could still go to the dancing studio, which she decided to do.
“I can go alone, like I usually do,” Taeyeon told her mother, not following her into the car.
“Just get in.”
“I'm not going to secretly meet my lesbian best friend, don't worry.”
The woman sitting in the car and the girl standing by its open door were looking at each other coldly, with the same seemingly neutral expression which was actually a cover for their tiredness of each other.
“Do what you want,” Mrs. Lee said in an almost robotic voice and shut the door.
Taeyeon stood still as the car left, without waving to it. She knew her mother was watching her in the side-mirror.
After it disappeared out of vision, she waited for the green light, crossed the road and hurried in the opposite direction, her hair falling on her face as she ran past street vendors and cosmetic shops. Her body wasn't strong enough for such challenges yet, and her energy was soon exhausted. She stopped by the familiar red brick fence and bent her back, putting her hands to her knees and panting.
The school was empty and quiet, everyone having gone home.
The word ‘QUEER’ was scribbled on Eunsook's locker a few times with a marker.
Taeyeon dropped her bag on the floor and went to the bathroom where the cleaning tools were kept.
She couldn't erase the marker completely at first, so she rubbed harder, rubbed on and on, standing on her knees, only stopping to wipe the sweat off her forehead. Her face felt wet, too, and she didn't know if her eyes were stinging and moist from tiredness or something else.
When her work was done, the sun was already hiding behind the black and gray silhouettes of company buildings and department stores.
She was twenty-five minutes late to the dancing class, and two girls whispered something about her being a spoiled brat. But they would never raise their voices. Lee Taeyeon wasn't a poor nobody.

“Was she at school today?” Jonghyun's voice asked tiredly on the phone.
Eunsook sighed.
“No.”
“Did she send you any messages? ”
“No.”
There was silence for a moment. Jonghyun knew what Eunsook was thinking. And she knew what he was. Thus, words were unnecessary.
But then he couldn't hold it in anymore.
“I know you don't want me to say it, but...”
“Then don't!” Eunsook snapped, throwing a bunch of nuts into angrily.
“…you should've just told her!!! Dammit!!!”
“I know! But I can't turn back time!!!”
They fell quiet again.
“Are you eating something again?” Jonghyun asked suspiciously.
“Uh-huh.”
“How can you eat when everything is so horrible?!”
Eunsook opened a bag of marshmallows.
“I'm eating because everything is so horrible.”
“Yeah, that will totally fix things. Keep up the good work! You might as well just-”
“I'm sorry to interrupt your sarcastic banality, but I have an important appointment with my microwave right now. If you have other words of wisdom, send them my way in written form.”
And she hung up on him.
Jonghyun chuckled.
“Did your hear her?” he asked, addressing Roo, who was sitting on the floor beside his bed and wiggling her tail lazily. “‘Sarcastic banality’.” He shook his head. “Isn't she awful?”
Roo yawned, uninterested.
The boy patted her head and filled his mouth with a bunch of potato chips from the bag he had resting on his stomach. With his other hand he activated the screen of his phone again and looked at the photo he had set as the background picture. It was a selca they had taken on a sunny day in a park - they were sitting on a bench together, and he was pressing a lock of her long black hair to his face like a moustache. She was smiling her big smile, eyes almost shut, and her arm was thrown around Jonghyun's shoulders.
“Awful,” he repeated softly. “And wonderful.”