Everyone always says that Pinky and Chaeyeon make a beautiful couple, with both of them being a lot more gorgeous than high school students should probably be allowed to be, but the thing is: no one knows exactly why they’re together. And if Pinky was honest with herself, she has no idea why they’re together either. Chaeyeon really only ever talks to people she wants to talk to, and tends to do everything at her own pace, in her own style. It’s like she lives in her own little world and every once in awhile, a lucky mortal would be able to see her float through this plane of existence. And Pinky- well, Pinky has her feet planted too firmly in this world, as Minkyeong had once put it. She yells happy birthday’s from across the hallway to students she barely knows, climbs over Eunwoo’s desk just to ask about the test scores of other classmates, and congratulates everyone on everything. She’s what people would call a busybody, quite simply put.

    Never in a million years would Pinky think that Chaeyeon would end up dating her, of all people. She thought the older girl would’ve ended up dating a bad boy™, the modern day Byronic hero to the vaguely melancholic Victorian literary heroine vibe that Chaeyeon has going on. But she didn’t end up dating a douchebag with more nose piercings than he had pairs of underpants; Chaeyeon ended up dating Pinky. Pinky. Pinky, who gets good grades and is ranked #2 in her class, who enjoys mundane things like reading and wearing clean underwear. Pinky is the complete opposite of Chaeyeon’s type (which Pinky is basing on the trashy iKon poster Chaeyeon has pinned up in her room). But it’s also Pinky who Chaeyeon cornered in the locker room after cheerleading practice during the younger girl’s freshman year, and it’s Pinky who Chaeyeon kissed. That was a pretty weird week, now that Pinky thinks about it.

.

    “Your form is still really poor. The blockers will be able to tell who you’re setting the ball to right away,” Siyeon says as she watches Pinky set another ball. “Do it again. And this time, keep your back straighter,” the younger girl instructs as she tosses another ball at Pinky, followed by another ball and another ball, until Pinky near collapses to the floor, chest heaving and sweat dripping down her face.

    “Let’s stop,” Pinky gasps out, standing back up on shaky legs. Siyeon frowns but before she could say anything, Pinky cuts in. “Yah, not everyone can be volleyball playing machines like you and Nayoung unni,” she jokes. “The rest of us mere mortals need rest after-” she squints at the clock mounted in the gym, “four hours of intense practice. I swear, I’m going to reinjure my wrist if I have to set one more time.”

    Siyeon frowns again, but this time it’s more from guilt than it is from dissatisfaction. “Sorry, unni.”

    “It’s fine.” And it is, really. Siyeon- for the most part- is sociable and friendly, easily relatable and relatively observant. But when it comes to volleyball, she’s somewhere between a god and a monster, and tends to forget that not everyone is on the same level as she is, doesn’t see everything the way she does. And for Pinky, who had seen firsthand how much Siyeon loves volleyball, it’s understandable. But still, that doesn’t mean she’s going to let the younger girl run her into the ground. “Let’s just go home for now. We can work on my horrible form tomorrow,” Pinky says, wrapping an arm around Siyeon’s shoulders and semi-forcefully dragging her towards the locker room.

    Pinky leisurely walks through the empty school corridor and watches as the fading sunlight streams through the windows. Siyeon had ditched her, having remembered at the last minute that she was supposed to be working with Ayoung and Jungmin on a project, but that’s okay.  Pinky stops by a vending machine and buys a drink- something warm and sweet- before continuing on her way out of school. After all, it’s still cold outside despite it being March already.

      The moment Pinky steps out past the entrance of the school building, she immediately spots Chaeyeon sitting on a bench by the bike racks, playing on her phone to pass the time. “Unni!” she calls out, frantically waving both arms in the air. Chaeyeon looks up from her phone with wide eyes, but her lips immediately curl into a gentle smile the moment she realizes it’s Pinky. Pinky waits until Chaeyeon sends a slight wave back before she jogs over to the older girl, drink still in hand. Chaeyeon’s cheeks are a flushed pink from sitting out in the cold for so long and despite this being a pretty frequent occurrence, the sight still worries her. Chaeyeon’s cheerleading practice ends about half an hour before Pinky’s volleyball practice does and she would always wait for Pinky outside of the school- right by the bike racks- claiming that it was too stuffy inside. When it first started getting colder in November, Pinky had scolded Chaeyeon for waiting outside, but the older girl had just smiled innocently and stubbornly continued to wait for her by the bike racks. So Pinky quickly learned how to finagle her way around this situation: autumn was spent giving Chaeyeon her thick coat, winter was spent giving Chaeyeon the rest of her winter gear like scarves and hats and gloves, and remembering to bring extra hot packs to school, and spring- Pinky clutches the warm drink in her hand tighter.

    “Sorry I’m late. Did you wait long?” Pinky asks as she cups one of Chaeyeon’s cheeks with her hand and presses the still warm drink against the other.

    Chaeyeon’s smile deepens as she nuzzles her face into Pinky’s hands. “A bit,” Chaeyeon admits. “But it’s fine. It’s for you.” Chaeyeon says those words so casually but Pinky can feel a burst of heat spreading across her cheeks and the tips of her ears warming up as she blushes. Sometimes, Pinky thinks Chaeyeon doesn’t have any clue what she does to her, but other times, she thinks that Chaeyeon knows exactly what she’s doing and just enjoys flustering the heck out of the younger girl.

“A-anyways,” Pinky starts, looking away to try and hide her (very obvious) blush. Chaeyeon giggles. “Should we go now?”

Chaeyeon nods before finishing the drink Pinky gave her with a practiced speed that only comes with being in a sport with a strict coach, and tossing it in the trash. She unlocks her bicycle from the bike rack and motions for Pinky to get on. “Let’s go.”

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    The soft click-click-click of the bicycle wheels complements the sound of Chaeyeon’s heartbeat nicely, a gentle rhythm that drowns out the noise of the city. Pinky likes being involved- meeting new friends, greeting old ones, joining extracurriculars and school events; she likes living life at a fast pace. But- Pinky tightens her arms around Chaeyeon’s waist- sometimes it’s nice to slow down and let Chaeyeon’s quiet world envelop her, to let herself get lost in the steady beat of Chaeyeon’s breathing and the warmth emanating from her back.

    “So,” Chaeyeon starts casually and Pinky opens her bleary eyes in surprise. Pinky is usually the ones who starts the conversations on their journeys home, and on the days she don’t, Chaeyeon either remains quiet or starts humming trashy boy group songs to herself. It’s a bad habit that Pinky is trying very hard to break Chaeyeon out of. “When are you going to quit the volleyball team and come back to cheerleading?”

    Pinky groans and rests her head against Chaeyeon’s back. “I told you: I’m going to leave the volleyball team when Siyeon fully recovers from her ankle injury.” Siyeon had been Pinky’s first friend, the only person who was kind enough to befriend her when Pinky first moved to Seoul from China, and during their first year of high school- when Siyeon was on the volleyball team and Pinky was still on the cheerleading squad- Siyeon had severely injured herself in a game, enough to not even be allowed onto a volleyball court as she recovers. And Pinky, being the very loyal and very amazing best friend that she is, had agreed to join the volleyball team as their setter once Siyeon had asked her to, explaining that they would be short players once the third years graduated. Chaeyeon never said anything about it, never explicitly expressed that she was angry, but she had also refused to go to any of Pinky’s games, which the younger girl admits did hurt her a bit. That is, until she saw all the cute little doodles and encouraging little messages Chaeyeon would write on the inside of her knee pads and the bottoms of her shoes. And after that, well, who could blame Pinky for being more than a little bit in love with the older girl.

    “But?”

Pinky lifts her head up and stares at the back of Chaeyeon’s head. She fiddles around with the fabric of Chaeyeon’s shirt for a bit before confessing, “I really like volleyball.” Chaeyeon stays quiet and for a while, so does Pinky. “And I really like this team. If they’ll have me, I think I want to stay.” Pinky bites her lip before looking back up at Chaeyeon. “Are you mad at me?”

“I was never mad at you, Kyung-ah,” Chaeyeon replies softly, voice barely audible over the bustle of the city surrounding them. “I’m just a bit disappointed that we won’t be getting to spend as much time together as we did last year.”

Pinky’s relieved smile turns mischievous when she asks, “So are you saying that you don’t like this?” referring to their daily ride home together.

“No,” Chaeyeon says, removing a hand from one of the bike handlebars and placing it on top of the hand Pinky has wrapped around her waist. “I’m saying it’s not enough.” And Pinky immediately buries her blushing face into Chaeyeon’s back, feeling the rumble of Chaeyeon’s laughter as she does so. “But also,” Chaeyeon continues more seriously, tightening her grip around Pinky’s hand on her waist. “I don’t like it- seeing you get hurt like you did a couple of weeks ago.” And as if on cue, Pinky’s injured wrist twitches in a small surge of pain and she has to clench her fist to distract herself from it.

“But what about the time Jung Haerim dropped me during practice and I got a concussion?”

Chaeyeon scoffs before brushing the comment aside. “Details,” she says nonchalantly and Pinky laughs as if she doesn’t know that Chaeyeon was the reason that Haerim had to transfer to Fantagio Academy following Pinky’s injury.

“You big softie,” Pinky teases, poking Chaeyeon in the side with an accusing finger.

The bike wobbles as Chaeyeon lets out this short bark of laugh and Pinky screams in the face of sudden danger. “Yah,” Chaeyeon scolds later, after the bike has since stabled. “Don’t do that again. I could’ve really hurt you.”

“Don’t worry,” Pinky says, huddling closer to Chaeyeon’s back. “You won't. I trust you.”

Chaeyeon’s hand feels warm over Pinky’s when she promises, “I’ll try my best.”