“You know you could just not attend, right? No one is forcing you to go to that reunion.” Said Hwasa casually from the couch where she was trying to find something to watch on TV.

“No, you don’t get it, if I don’t go people will think I’m a loser and that I was too scared to show up there.” Replied Moonbyul with a frown. She sat next to her housemate with a huff.

“Or maybe they’ll just think you already had something to do that you couldn’t cancel. You are being too negative Byulie.”

“But Krystal is going to be there! I need to see her. Or maybe I need her to see I am there.” She scratched her head. “I’m still unsure of what I need…”

“What you need is to stop being such a creep. Krystal is your ex-crush, so what? You haven’t seen her in years, you have moved on!” She finally decided on a channel and left the remote on the table.

“Yeah, but…” muttered Moonbyul, not very convinced.

Hwasa rolled her eyes and looked at her friend. “But what?” She asked.

“You know how my classmates treated me… I always dreamt about going to the reunion and showing off how successful I am…” She explained quietly, toying with the edge of the blanket they had for the couch.

Hwasa sighed and softly put her hand on Moonbyul’s one.

“Hey, look at me.” She waited until Moonbyul did it. “You are successful. You are one of the best lyricists there are right now and basically every time any of your classmates turn on the radio, they listen to one of the songs you’ve written. Not everybody can say that.”

Moonbyul mumbled something under her breath, quiet enough that Hwasa didn’t get it.

“What? I couldn’t hear you.” Hwasa looked at her attentively.

“I said, that even if I have a nice job, I’m still single.” Moonbyul frowned again, hating how pathetic she sounded.

She was aware that being single wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t like she never had any relationship, they just didn’t last for long. In fact, she preferred being single over being with someone who she didn’t truly like. But this situation was different.

During her school years, Moonbyul was known as the nerdy and gay girl with no friends. It wasn’t a good memory for her. The only person who was nice to her was Krystal, easily the most popular girl of her year. No wonder she fell so hard for her, she was beautiful, smart, nice…

That’s why it was important for her to go there and prove her jerk classmates that she was so much more and that she was over them. The downside of her plan was that she really wasn’t over it. She owed them her still present low self-esteem. Still, she could pretend for a night, but it would be way easier if she had someone next to her.

“If only…”

In that moment the doorbell rang, interrupting her thoughts. She looked at Hwasa and raised her eyebrow.

“Are we expecting someone?” Hwasa shrugged, focused once again on the TV.

Moonbyul shook her head and got up and walked to the door. She looked through the peephole and instantly smiled. She quickly opened the door.

“Wheein!” She laughed as the smaller girl pounced on her, hugging her tightly. “I thought you arrived tomorrow!”

Wheein smiled broadly, showing her dimple.

“My parents have to work tomorrow, so I decided to come back a bit early.”

Moonbyul opened to ask another question, but she was shoved aside suddenly by the third girl in the room.

“Wheein!”

“Hwasa!”

The older girl chuckled and watched how the two girls jumped around the house screaming and laughing. She doubted she’d ever get tired of being around them, they made her feel revitalized and most of all, cared for and loved.

She had met Hwasa a few years ago, when she kept sending demos to the label Moonbyul worked at. She went by her real name back then, Ahn Hyejin.

At first she didn’t get any calls back, but that didn’t stop Hwasa from trying as many times as possible. Moonbyul felt bad for all the time she had to wait, but the label received a lot of demos weekly even if they weren’t a really big company.

It was Moonbyul who picked up her demo and listened to it. It wasn’t her job, but when work was slow she liked helping around. Even if she focused on writing lyrics, she was interested in music composition and production too, and listening to the demos helped her imagine how she would mix and improve t