Having to transfer to another school was not the sole part of Eunsook's punishment – she also had to do all of the class duties, wipe the floors when necessary and fulfill tasks when asked. And asked she was all the time, because, as she figured out right away, the whole point of the punishment was to keep her busy every second. In the end she was so tired she didn't care anymore. 

“Mrs. Han,” she said, approaching the class teacher. “It's resting time, and I'm actually resting, so I wonder if you have anything for me to do instead.”

The woman's eyes wondered around the classroom before stopping on the trash can by the wall.

“Collect all the trash,” she ordered dryly, and Eunsook picked up the can, nodding repeatedly.

She didn't know why she was doing this to herself.

Walking between rows of desks, she would bend down to grab a candy wrap or random crushed pieces of paper off the floor and put them inside the can. 

“Oh look, trash collecting trash,” Yuri remarked, chuckling. “Can I make a contribution?” She took the gum out of and extended her hand, but Eunsook peeked inside the can and shook her head.

“I'm sorry, but there's no room for you to fit in,” she answered lightly, and a couple of Yuri's friends giggled in their sleeves as she walked by. 

Taeyeon sat by her desk with an uncertain expression.

“Do.... Do you have, um, anything?” Eunsook asked in a sheepish way.

Taeyeon smiled nervously.

“Um, yeah. This… I do...”

She was going to put the candy wrap she'd been clutching into the can that Eunsook was holding, but it dropped on the floor instead. 

“Oh, sorry.”

“It's okay.”

They both bent down to pick it up and bumped their foreheads. 

“Sorry,” Eunsook apologized, rubbing her head.

“No, I'm sorry.”

Their hands touched as both girls grabbed the candy wrap simultaneously. Taeyeon's cheeks turned pink and she let go of it quickly.

The other girl bit her lip and proceeded with her task, wanting to fall through the ground as she was walking away. 

It had been four days since Taeyeon had returned to school, but they hadn't been able to have an actual conversation yet. Eunsook couldn't even tell whether it was because Taeyeon was avoiding her, or for another reason, because, to be completely honest, she was avoiding the other girl herself. Which wasn't difficult, with all of the tasks she was being showered with all day long. She was aware of that cowardice of hers, but didn't know exactly where that cowardice was coming from. She was simply afraid. Maybe she felt like a liar. Maybe it was the possibility of Tae feeling disgusted with her that scared her. To be fair, Taeyeon did not look disgusted, but she did look perplexed and uncertain, which was still sad. 

Eunsook's bullies got less verbal, having decided, apparently, to replace words with action, and harassed her with petty, spiteful tricks, which were more annoying than verbal abuse, as she couldn't really parry or retort the offense in any way. The teachers saw all that, but didn't want to interfere. Instead, they comforted their sense of personal integrity by thinking that keeping Eunsook busy would also keep her away from abuse, which was not working that way, actually. 

As she was mopping a puddle of instant soup someone had purposely spilled all over the floor, she heard people laughing at her in all directions. 

“What, what, what?” Eunsook wondered exhaustedly. She watched them all, wiping sweat off her forehead and breathing heavily. “What, did you put something on my back, you little bugs?”

She felt her back up and down with her free hand and took the paper off. It was a sticky note with the word ‘QUEER’ written on it.

“You guys are slow at processing news, are you?” she muttered, not surprised. She put it on her forehead instead. “It's funnier when it's here,” she said louder, and people laughed more. “But the thing is, I'm proud of who I am, so you can just keep entertaining yourselves.”

Mrs. Han appeared in the hall and marched up to her quickly. 

“Go outside and clean the territory,” she commanded sternly, tearing the note off the girl's forehead and crumpling it. 

“But the lesson...” Eunsook began, and the teacher broke her off. 

“Punishment,” the woman explained curtly.

“Will you read this sentence for us, Taeyeon?… Taeyeon?”

She winced, as if awoken from a dream.

She started reading aloud, and she could hear her own voice very clearly, but it might as well belong to another person – so detached her mind was from her surroundings. Only one thing had her attention at the moment – the empty desk in the corner of her eye. Where are you, Eunsook?

Taeyeon knew that her friend was probably sweating somewhere, doing some work that had been unfairly assigned to her, and she hated it. She hated Mrs. Han, whose longtime favorite she was. She hated their classmates, and that emptiness, dumb and quiet, and horrible.

Tae had never thought Eunsook could be anywhere but sitting in that chair, propping her face with her hand and almost always drifting to sleep – most of the things they learned were too easy for her.

Why did Eunsook not talk to her? Why did she, Taeyeon, step back and keep shut every time there was a good opportunity to talk? 

“Your speed and understanding are very good,” her English teacher's voice remarked hazily after she, only half-present, had translated the sentence. “But you need to work on your pronunciation.”

He asked her to repeat a few sounds, which she did.

At the end of the lesson, after a few seconds' inner struggle, he mentioned Eunsook.

“As she is not present today, I ask you to tell her that her composition won and took the first place. But her work will not be included in the school's special compilation, which I personally think is a shame.”

Yuri snickered – a calm and obnoxious sound.

Eunsook was somewhere nearby. She would be back soon. But to Taeyeon that unoccupied chair looked ominous and dramatic. 

“Mr. Peters,” she called quietly as she approached the teacher after the class was over. “Do you have a copy of Eunsook's composition? I'd like to read it.”

He did, and he gave it to her – two sheets of printed text containing a piece of her shining imagination.

Eunsook thought she was going crazy. Trash was everywhere. Gum was not coming off the stone tiles. When she thought she had picked all the pieces of glass from the grass, she would only find more. 

“Is this how wealth turns into filth?” Eunsook wondered, holding something that looked disturbingly like a used in her gloved hand.

“Ew,” Kim Gwiboon said, taking her eyes off her phone for a moment.

“Are you going to help or what?” Eunsook asked, already knowing what the answer would be.

“I'd love to, but it's against my principles,” the girl replied shortly. 

“You have principles?”

“No.”

Eunsook sighed. If this girl didn't want to budge, she wouldn't. 

Kim Gwiboon studied at another class, was ambitious (and slightly dangerous when in the wrong mood), looked like a little fox and considered it the aim of her existence to turn her life into a work of art. 

“Do you know the difference between rich kids and pigs?” Gwiboon continued, probably scrolling through and admiring her own pictures on Instagram. 

“Hm?”

“Pigs are cute,” Gwiboon answered her own question and gave a laugh that was too loud and sharp for someone who had received a punishment after being caught smoking in the rest room.

“You're a rich kid too, though.”

“Yeah, but I'm better than everyone else.” (Kim Gwiboon never had a problem saying things like this.) “Oh, give it to me.”

She pointed to the crushed can of Dr Pepper Eunsook was about to throw into the bag where all the metallic things went. No doubt, she had an idea of a picture to take with that can, or even a series of pictures that she would later call ‘postmodern chaos’ or ‘post-apocalyptic angst’, or something no less pretentious. But somehow she could pull that stuff off without being unbearable.

She took pictures while doing bizarre poses and Eunsook watched her while having rest. 

She smirked. 

“I saw that,” Gwiboon informed her quickly. She was hanging from the bench, messy hair covering her face, while taking a photo with her free hand. (That one was supposed to be dramatic for sure.) “You might be thinking I'm a pretentious and guess what.”

She glanced at the other girl. 

“You are?” Eunsook guessed, raising her brows innocently. 

Gwiboon frowned. 

“I was going to say ‘I don't care’, but...” She shrugged. “Can't argue with that.”

Eunsook had to go back to work as she wanted to finish it as soon as possible. She was really upset about having to miss English, which was her favorite lesson, and the fact that Mrs. Han had done this on purpose to make the blow harder. 

Finally, she tripped over a loose tile and tumbled on the ground, face first. The bag for food-related trash flew out of her hands, opening as it fell.

Normally, Eunsook would laugh at something like this. With that bright personality of hers, she found her own awkwardness amusing. But she was too tired for self-irony now. She put her head on the asphalt and sighed. Then her shoulders shook and tears began flowing out of her eyes in one convulsed, never-ending stream.

Gwiboon clicked her tongue disapprovingly. 

“Now, that's crude.”

“What's crude? You find lamentations of a tormented human heart crude?” Eunsook asked, sobbing uncontrollably. 

Wow. I'm really turning into Jonghyun lately.

“Tears are such a vapid way to express emotion. Really a commoner's thing,” Gwiboon observed, unmoved. 

“So what, maybe I am a commoner? A commoner who is in pain!”

“You're in my company now, so stop being one.”

“Bugger off,” the crying girl sobbed, wiping her nose with her hand. 

“Tears are insufficient,” Gwiboon continued, “as a means of relieving stress, anyway. They just make you feel crappy. Plus, they are ugly.”

“So what do you want me to do, you mean creature?!”

“Hm... Just do what you do worst. Make a song.”

Eunsook went quiet for a while. Kim Gwiboon was a vicious little imp, but her words struck a chord. It had been a while since she had last connected with her inner creativity. She had turned into a crybaby, let the gray reality of the present sink into her previously unblemished mind.

She stood up on her feet, shaking the dust and dirt off her skirt. Then she closed her eyes and took a big breath. Gwiboon have her a look that was both curious and doubtful.

Eunsook, her lyrical genius fully awoken, cleared and started singing, without any coherent melody, but with lots of passion and soul, as well as a great deal of volume:

“Mrs. Han!

What have you done?

I've been here cleaning all day,

But all the rich kids are okay!”

Gwiboon, who had put her phone on record, urged her to go on with a gesture.

Eunsook took another deep breath, and her whole being was overflowing with indignation and a rebelling spirit.

“The truth is that I'm smart and gay,

But you're tryna say that I'm a fool,

Although you all know very well

The only reason why I suffer's that

Everybody at my school...

Is a ing BIGOOOT!!!”

Gwiboon put two fingers in and whistled in approval. Eunsook held her head up triumphantly, her chest heaving up and down. Both turned in the direction of the school as they heard a window open, and Mrs. Han's head popped out of it, her voice screeching:

“Lee Eunsook!!! How dare you disturb the classes in this insolent manner?!”

“I'm sorry, madam!” the girl shouted back. “Sorry for speaking the truth in an art form while fulfilling my undeserved and ignorant punishment!”

A few other windows opened, revealing curious faces of other teachers and students alike. 

“Was not one punishment enough for you?!” Mrs. Han bellowed, white as a sheet. “Do you want more?!”

“Oh my god, what are you gonna do now?! Like, make me transfer?!” Eunsook yelled sarcastically in return.

Mrs. Han slammed the window shut without another word. No additional punishment ensued.

During the intermission, Taeyeon took the stairs down, carrying the sheets her teacher had given her. When she reached a small, unremarkable door under the staircase, she took a hairpin from her pocket and, after shuffling with the lock for a moment, opened it and disappeared behind it.

She sat on the shoe box on top of which she had so often seen Eunsook sitting and checked her phone: it had vibrated on her way here. Jinki was asking if she would like to meet him on the big break. She put the back in her pocket without replying, because that's what she usually did: answered whenever she felt like it. But, unusually, she found out she couldn't quite concentrate on the text before her eyes with that ignored question hanging in the air. 

“I'm busy right now,” she typed, and added after thinking for a while: “Sorry.”

“It's okay,” Jinki replied in a few seconds. “Wanna grab lunch after classes?”

“I'll think about it.”

Taeyeon felt too down to meet people, and she knew that. She was simply too proud to show herself like that – weak, confused, to anyone who wasn't Eunsook. And even to Eunsook she was as good as a stranger now, and she blamed herself for it. 

There was something about Jinki that induced her to be kind to him. Even when she was inconsiderate and stubborn, she could feel it distinctly. It wasn't a good thing, she thought, to grow so meek and susceptible to guilt. And, what's more, it had been getting worse week by week.

Now, she didn't even have the nerve to tell him that she wasn't going to see him that day. 

She began reading.

It was an odd, peculiar story, much like her friend's personality in a whole, with every sentence, every word speaking and breathing Eunsook, painting a truthful portrait of her mind, as it was. It dealed with some strange entities – floating in space, having no substance, not classified by gender or any other parameter, yet conscious and capable of feeling. The two of them fell for one another, and were happy to dance and fly together between planets and stars for eternity (they were not material, and time as we know it didn't affect them), but then one of them wanted to be born on Earth, and try living as a human. The other entity did not share or understand that desire at all, and did their best to talk their loved one out of what they saw as a useless and dangerous plan, but without any success. The first one urged them to follow, promised that they wouldn't forget each other and would be able to meet again, and, thus, the two of them came to Earth as humans... Except they forgot each other, and physical boundaries didn't let them find happiness they had been wishing for. The ending was uncertain: would their human incarnations die after living sad and lonely lives? Would they be together after death, returning back to their initial spirit form, or would the pain and suffering they knew on Earth burn them, turn them into cosmic dust that will serve to create something new? 

Taeyeon recalled seeing that story before – in a sketch form, accompanied by drawings at the back of the copybook that Eunsook used for History. It had been shorter, and with a happy ending, with the two beings remembering each other as humans and getting together in the end.

Taeyeon didn't even notice that she was crying until one teardrop fell and smudged a word on the page she was reading. As she reached the end, her chest was aching, and she was sobbing without knowing why she was feeling so terrible. Something was collapsing inside her mind. So many thoughts, big and small, rushed in all at once, deepening the confusion and making her head hurt. Eunsook, Jinki, her mother, the pictures from the story, Eunsook leaving – all of it was demanding her attention, and the latter, the realization that her best friend was, indeed, leaving, and in such depressing circumstances, was as mercilessly strong as it had never been before. 

She lay down on top of that box, not really trying to calm down – her head was spinning and she was too tired to keep herself up. In that state, her face tearstreaken, the crumpled papers pressed to her chest, she drifted off, and the bell rang once, and then again without her hearing it.

Jinki was surprised when he opened the front door and found Taeyeon standing by the threshold: it was too dark and cold outside for a rich, fragile girl like her to be wandering around in places so far from her home.

“Are you okay?” he asked, letting her in and bolting the door.

Tae nodded.

“You should've told me you were coming.”

“Why? Were you busy?”

“No. But I could've picked you up. You weren't answering my messages, so I thought...” Jinki fixed his eyeglasses. “…thought you don't wanna meet today.”

Taeyeon looked at his face, studying his expression. He didn't sound like he was angry with her, and she knew that he wasn't, but she wondered, perhaps for the first time, if he felt just a little hurt underneath his usual calm and friendly exterior. How was he handling it – her wayward behavior, her changing moods? Did all of those neglected messages and cancelled arrangements turn into tiny scars on his pride? Had he expected her to be a nicer, warmer person when he had fallen for her first, had his opinion of her changed?

He didn't look like he was being haunted by bitter thoughts or disappointment as he helped her out of her expensive coat, though. 

“I fell asleep in the closet room, and my phone switched off because it ran out of battery.”

“Oh, really? What did you do after class, then?”

“I walked... I really needed some time on my own,” Tae added in response to the boy's concerned look.

“What were you doing?”

“I was just making some ramen.”

“Oh.”

Jinki caught the hungry stare she sent in the direction of the steaming bowl sitting on the dining table. 

“You hungry?” he asked, pointing to it.

“A little.”

“Then sit down and eat it while it's hot. I didn't touch it.”

“But...”

“I'll make myself another one, it's not hard.”

And he started washing the pot he had used for the first portion. Taeyeon sat at the table, looking around. There were books and copybooks everywhere, but they were stacked in neat piles on the other side of the table and on a chair. Apparently Jinki liked studying in the kitchen.

“Were you watching something?” she asked, noticing his cellphone, leaned against a bottle of ketchup right in front of her.

Jinki filled the pot with water and turned the stove on. 

“Just a documentary. It's not interesting.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It's about space. The black holes, in particular.”

Tae propped her chin with her hand.

“Do they really exist?”

“Yes.”

“I thought they only existed in human souls.”

Jinki chuckled. 

“You'd be surprised to hear how much the universe and human souls have in common.”

“Where do they come from, anyway? The black holes.”

The boy shrugged.

“You could say they come from the dying stars. The biggest stars to be exact.”

Taeyeon frowned.

“The biggest stars turn black and lose their shine and remain like that? It's terrible.”

“It's not if you approach it from the scientific point of view. They are simply things to study.”

“So, you know what stars are made of?”

“Pretty much, yes.”

“And now you see them as balls of fire or whatever, and cannot admire them anymore?”

Jinki laughed again, stirring the noodles in the pot. He looked at Taeyeon. 

“I've studied biology and I could say that I know what humans are made of, too. But somehow I still think you're beautiful.”

The girl lowered her eyes and tucked her hair behind her ear. She didn't say anything.

“Why are you not eating? Do you want the noodles to get cold?” Jinki asked. 

“I want to eat together with you.”

Soon the cooking was finished, and Jinki joined her. He put his phone away and grabbed his chopsticks.

“But you didn't put yourself any cheese,” Tae noticed.

“I can eat without it.”

“You put the last piece here?”

She pointed to her bowl.

Jinki nodded reluctantly. 

“Then have it. I'll have yours.”

“Why?”

“Because you like cheese.”

The girl switched the bowls herself to avoid further arguing.

“That's something new,” Jinki joked. 

“Me not being selfish? I know.”

“I didn't mean...”

“No, it's true,” Tae argued, putting her hand on his arm. “And I'm sorry. Now let's eat.”

“Let's eat,” the boy repeated. Yet the words were not immediately followed by action, because he needed a moment to admire his girlfriend's tired, but beautiful face once more.

Jinki needed to finish a report on the computer, and Taeyeon was resting on his bed, drifting off and waking up again to the sound of the keys rattling. Jinki's mother, who had just come home from work, was washing dishes in the kitchen. 

“Your room is cleaner than mine,” Tae observed, putting her hands under the pillow.

“Any room is cleaner than yours.”

“Your mom doesn't like me.”

“Why do you think so?” Jinki asked, his fingers still on the keyboard. 

“I can feel it. Maybe she thinks I'm not right for you.”

“She doesn't know you, though.”

Whether it put Taeyeon's mind at peace or not, she didn't say anymore on the subject. After lying in silence and studying Jinki's back for a few minutes, she wondered aloud:

“You do know that I like you, right?”

He turned to her, a pencil in hand. 

“Well, aren't we going out?”

That answer wasn't enough for Tae. She sat up and asked him to come near. He saved the file just in case and, putting his pencil on the table, rose to his feet to complete her wish. 

“What's happening to you today?” he asked, sitting down beside her and folding her in his arms. “What's making you worry?”

“I don't know,” she answered, her voice trembling. She hugged him back, tightly, almost desperately, as if she was scared and wanted to protect herself by hiding in his embrace and becoming a part of him.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head and she raised her face to look at him. Carefully, she removed his glasses and put them away. 

“Kiss me.”

Jinki, obedient as he was, his lips and leant forward to Taeyeon, closing the distance between them. His mouth glided over hers, and the warmth of his breath together with the tenderness of his touch, tricked her into thinking that her feelings were soothed. Jinki's kisses, although he had learnt something from the experienced Taeyeon, were always simple and innocent, and never demanding or lustful, and she preferred it that way. It was suitable for her age and temper, as she had never imagined herself to be the passionate kind, and curiosity didn't motivate her to push the limits either.

Today, no effort was enough. She was fighting with the misery and the darkness paralyzing her from within, and her lover's tentative caresses proved to be too weak a distraction after all. She took the lead, letting her tongue trace over his lips, and, encouraged by the sigh of pleasure that broke out of her boyfriend's chest, pressed herself tighter against him and deepened the kiss.

The moment was warm and almost unbearably sweet. Jinki regained the initiative, excitement took over his usual timidity, and on the next moment they were moving as one, their rhythm synchronized, their lips fitting each other in perfect harmony. The warmth intensified, and the order that had been reached gave way to chaos as Jinki started kissing the girl's cheeks, nose, mouth and neck, not stopping even for a second to let them both get hold of their breath. 

Taeyeon leaned back, bringing him on the bed with her. Her face was flushed and she wrapped her arms tightly around the boy as their lips met again. She lost herself.

At the moment when the tension reached its peak and she opened her hazy eyes to look at her lover's face with the longing and the passion that had never tinted her porcelain-like features before, a whisper, a quiet cry flew from the tip of her tongue:

“Eunsook. Eunsook.”

She put her hands on Jinki's cheeks and pressed their foreheads together. 

“Eunsook...”

She was crying. 

Jinki's heart was beating so loudly in his ears, it was almost deafening. Yet he did hear. And he did know. 

When he was able to breathe normally again, he pulled away from Taeyeon slowly. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist.

“I'm sorry, Jinki, I'm so sorry,” she said, her body trembling with sadness and her eyes full of tears. 

Jinki set his hand free and rubbed his face. Then he stood up and left the room without a sound.