I waited for her.

I waited for her after class, but she walked past me not sparing me a glance. I waited for her at lunch to sit next to me, but she sat next to Chanwoo and Sana. I waited for her after school to tell her I’d see her later after basketball practice, but she was gone already. Normally she's the one waiting for me until practice is over.

“Good luck Junhoe!” Yein wrapped her arms around me to pull me into a hug, an uncomfortable one. She's been around me the whole day. She left class with me, entered class with me, sat next to me during lunch and now she was here waiting for me right before practice started. I'm sure I was supposed to appreciate it: After months of not seeing her, here she was still caring about me like she did before. But if that meant for Mina to not be around anymore, then I wasn't sure if I appreciated it all that much.

It was when she pulled away that I noticed Mina on her phone walking to our direction. I quickly told Yein to go, hoping that she'd be gone before Mina noticed me. Yein was being clingy, as always, and I really couldn't have it at the time, “Please go, I'll see you later again.” I told her and she finally walked away. When she was out of sight I looked up again to the hall Mina walked in earlier, but it was empty.

With disappointment I was about to enter the gymnasium but when I turned around I saw Mina grinning through her quiet giggles in front of me. Watching her like that brought a smile on my face automatically.

“I'll wait for you.” She said when my coach called all team members to gather.

//

After practice was over I started to look for Mina. I was excited to see her again because she was no longer ignoring me. It felt weird to have her ignoring me, since it's always her who I talk to the most. I left the main school building and walked towards the tables underneath the cherry blossom trees, assuming she'd be there (she always was). When I walked around the corner I finally saw Mina, but not only Mina,

“Junhoe!” Yein jumped off the bench and ran towards me while I shot Mina a pleading look. Yein was about to flail her arms around me but I took a step to the right side, just in time to have my hand grab on Mina’s. 

“See you tomorrow Yein!” I said and turned around to walk away with Mina. I felt guilty for doing so, but at that moment the only thing on my mind was Mina.

There's this place Mina and I always accidentally met each other before, when we were still at our earlier stage of friendship. I'd come because Jinhwan worked there part-time, and Mina would come because it was close to the building of her dance school's practice rooms.

“Goo!” My friend greeted me. Out of all my friends, I always felt the closest to Jinhwan. Now don't get me wrong, I got along with all of them, but for different reasons. It's just that with Jinhwan I could share more personal stories; Things that only he wouldn't judge me for.

Jinhwan smiled at us and walked to the kitchen after greeting us. Mina and I sat down, putting our school bags on the ground and waiting for our meals.

“Why did you give her the cold shoulder? That was mean, she's probably hurt.” Was the first thing she had to say, just as I forgot about Yein.

“I'll make up for it. I was just too excited to see you again. You've been giving me the cold shoulder too, you know.” 

I wasn't sure what she was trying to do, but I wanted to talk about it. Because that's what we did: we talked to each other, and we understood each other. This shouldn't have been any different. 

“I'm sorry about that.” She looked down and I chuckled, lowering my head to meet her eyes, “It's okay, really.” 

Jinhwan came with our meals. I handed the medium sized burger with fries to Mina, and unwrapped my big sized burger to take a bite. We sat there in silence, eating our meals and questions still lingering in my mind.

“I do wonder why though,” I swallowed my food and dropped the bomb. Or well, I thought I did. Her answer, however, was quite simple and honest: a little bit of jealousy, she mentioned. The real bomb was dropped weeks later. And no, it was not by me.

//

In the picture were Mina and I. Oh, and also Yein. She wouldn’t leave me alone, and I started to doubt my ways of handling the situation. That, and Jungkook joined me in the canteen before any of my friends did.

“Hey dude,” he sat down next to me with one foot resting on the seat.

“Oh hey, how is it going?”

“Good, good. But I’m not here for a small chat or anything.” He was straightforward with his intentions and I wasn’t sure if I was glad that he cut me the bull or if I thought he was being rude, “Yein missed you a lot. Look, I’m not going to interfere into your messy relationships but what I don’t want to see is my sister getting hurt. Get your act together man; you’ve been brushing her off for more than an entire week.” was all he had to say before he left.

It hadn’t even been a minute, and the seat next to me was taken yet again. Mina grabbed my arm and put it around her, resting her head on my shoulder. Her hair tickled the crook of my neck and I could smell lime, most probably from her shampoo. It was comforting, but not enough for her to not notice how tense I was.

“What’s wrong?” she asked me. I shook my head and told her it was because of my low grade for physics. I didn’t lie, I never did.

Throughout the whole forty minutes break time, my mind was for once solely on Yein.

I felt like I had painted her wrongly in my mind (and possibly Mina’s, too), because Yein wasn’t just a clingy ex-girlfriend. No, Yein was more than that. Yein was smart and down to earth. She was socially aware, had strong opinions, was determined and did everything with passion. She was a good dancer, something I recognized in Mina and me, too. She liked shopping, and often would drag me with her when her friends weren’t available. She was also funny, and it used to be like a breath of fresh air to be with her.

The Yein I had in my mind for the past week wasn’t that Yein. Clingy, overly-excited and bothersome Yein wasn’t who used to be my girlfriend, and I felt guilty for thinking of her like that.

“It’s going to storm.” Mina’s soothing voice woke me from my thoughts and I looked through the window on my left side. The sky was becoming dark, and the wind that blew through the open window felt stuffy. I had two more periods to go, and I decided I wanted to spend those two shared periods with Yein, with her.

So when I got to my classroom, I sat down next to her. I greeted her, for once properly acknowledged her presence and even started an actual conversation with her. It felt familiar and I felt good.

And that was how I started treating her normal again. Thinking back, I felt like a douche.

//

My reclaimed interaction with Yein became the talk of the school. I would be sitting in class with Mina, talking about whatever, and I'd pick up Yein's name in the same sentence as mine in a whisper from somewhere in the corner of the room. I wondered if Mina heard it too.

I'd be waiting next to Yein's locker, and I'd hear people wondering out loud how Mina felt about my friendship with Yein, and sometimes I wondered too.

But still, Mina and I stayed the closest. I assumed that we were in a position where rumors didn't hurt whatever we had going on. We would still hang out at my place after school, we would still meet up during weekends, we would still call at night, she would still wait for me after school and I would still go visit her during ballet practice. 

It had been three weeks since I learned to balance my past and my present crushes.

It was Thursday. I sat in the canteen with the regular squad. Mina’s arm was entangled with mine and our intertwined hands laid on my lap. She rested her cheek in the palm of her hand with her elbow supporting her on the table, just staring at me. Jokingly I would look back at her strangely, and sometimes I would sent air kisses and winks.

“I'm going to dye my hair brown.” She told me.

“Oh great, I was starting to get tired of the platinum blonde. It looks more yellow-ish now, too. I wanted to wait with dyeing it until you mentioned it yourself.” I said and let my hand slide through my hair. She giggled and fixed my hair for me when we heard soft ruffles coming from outside. We looked through the window and saw the sky painted dark grey.

“It's going to storm.” Mina said and it felt like a déjà vu. It was time for my last subject, and we headed to our respective classrooms. 

On Thursdays Mina had ballet practice at six, and she was out of school at two. Plenty of time to dye our hair, I thought. Mina’s last class was shared with Yein, so when I waited for the bell to ring in front of her classroom for the whole hour I didn't only interact with Mina, but also Yein. Through the glass windows I sent Mina smiles and winks every time I looked up from my phone and saw her glancing. I sat down on one of the windowsills in the hallway, attached to the windows of the opposite classroom. It was about halfway through the seventy minutes of class when Mina stopped sending me her sly smiles and grins. I assumed her attention was on the lesson, but something about Yein's more frequent smiles and glances made me think otherwise. 

Finally the bell rang and Mina walked out of the door opening. I walked up to her with a grin, “So what color should I dye my hair to? I was thinking brown, so we can match.” I told her excitedly but she looked at me with a deadly gaze, and it wasn't the kind that made me feel giddy.

“I'm not sure if your girlfriend would appreciate that.”

There: she dropped the actual bomb.

She turned around and walked away. I wanted to follow her, I really did, but I wanted to make sure nobody heard of that first, and secondly I wanted to speak to Yein.

I found the latter at her locker,

“Ha-di, June.” She greeted casually. 

“Did you tell Mina we're in a relationship?”

She closed her locker door and looked at me innocently and I almost fell for it. I almost believed it wasn’t her intention to drive Mina away, “Are we not then? Last time I checked we never broke up. We're having our first year anniversary next week; exciting, no?” 

I wanted to yell at her tell her no, not exciting because we weren't in a relationship. Verbal communication wasn't needed when my affection was significantly gone. I wanted to ask her if she was blind to not know of Mina and my situation, but I didn’t. Instead I caught sight of Mina walking out of the door and ran after her.

“Mina!”

She turned around, mouth slightly hanging. It was raining outside. Hot summer storms: my favourites. 

“Where are you going?” I asked her. We always walk to my house after school together. “Home.” She answered. 

“Are you crazy? There's going to be lightning and thunder any minute from now, and you plan to walk all the way to your apartment? My sister is coming to pick us up.” I held her hand in mine and started dragging her back inside.

“Junhoe, stop. I don't think Yein would like it if you had some random girl sitting on your bed in your room for hours.” 

I looked at her bewildered. We were still outside; people passing by us with umbrellas and entering cars to get home. It rained harder with each passing second and small lightning strikes were visible from a distance, loud bonking from the sky following after.

“Random girl?” I chuckled in disbelief, “Do you even hear yourself?” The space between lightning breaking through the clouded dark sky and noisy thunder knocking on our ears was becoming smaller, and for once I actually thought it was scary. I didn't wait for a proper response, instead I ran as quickly as possible towards my sister's car when I spotted it with my hand still in hers. She got in with no further disagreements.

“Your ballet outfit is in my house anyway.” I reminded her when she glared at me. My sister shot me a questioning look before shrugging it off. I guess it was that obvious that there was something going on.

“You two are drenched. Did nobody ever tell you that kissing when it's showering outside is only romantic in movies?” 

I was going to tell her off for cracking that joke. Partly because Mina and I hadn't shared our first kiss yet, but mainly because I felt like she put more weight to the tension. I was wrong, though. I felt Mina's fingers gently brush over my knuckles until her soft hand covered mine. It felt cold, and I hoped to get home as soon as possible. I looked on my right and saw her with a small apologetic smile.

Mina didn't stay mad for long, she never did.

When we got in my room the first thing I did was take my shirt off. I didn't have much muscles to show off unlike Hanbin, Jiwon or even nerdy Donghyuk, but Mina's cheeks colored darker anyway. I laughed and quickly put on my dry shirt and told her I was going to the bathroom to get properly dressed. When I got back to my room I saw her dressed in dry clothes which I recognized as my sister's. 

“I'm sorry. I was too naïve to believe her, or any of the rumors.” She looked down at the floor. I walked closer to her and ruffled her still wet hair, “Don't apologise for that. I'm sorry for making you feel like .” I walked towards the balcony door in my room. I pushed the semi-transparent curtain out of my way to take a look outside. The sky was still dark, but the lightning and thunder seemed to have stopped.

“Practice is cancelled for today.” She joined me in looking outside and opened the balcony door, stepping outside and I asked her what she was doing. We just got changed. She didn't answer me, instead she pulled me outside as well. I closed the door behind me and looked in her eyes, raindrops falling on my no longer dry clothes and my already wet hair. She wiped away some drops of rain off my face along with getting my hair out of my face,

“What did Yejin say again about kisses in the rain?”

She tiptoed and pressed her lips against mine. And let me tell you;

they aren't just romantic in films.

_////

_{yein is my fav lovelyz member #justsaying. also im pretty sure yejin is junhoe's sister's actually name, heh. thank you guise so much for subscribing and leaving comments. its really motivating ♡ hope the kiss made up for the constan unnecessary drama. but hey, its high school after all. it wouldn't be what it is without teenagers making a big deal about everything, right? lol}