It was after school hours when Joohyun could be seen observing Seulgi from afar. She was sitting on the cemented ledge surrounding the school’s notable, humongous oak tree smack dab in the middle of campus, the grown, green leaves branching off into a canopy over her head. The school’s cafeteria transformed into a dance studio every Tuesday and Thursday. The body-sized mirrors on wheels were placed against the wall opposite of the glass windows, which granted Joohyun the opportunity to witness the upcoming piece the dance team was currently working on.

Seulgi was among the co-ed dance team, acting as one of the best main dancers by being at the front of the line next to the dance captain. Whenever the dance team practiced, Joohyun did not usually find herself sitting here, gawking at Seulgi. However, when an opportunity was granted for her to do so, then it was foolish to reject the offer. Well, Seulgi did not exactly ask her to watch her practice—more so it was Sooyoung who asked her to.

Only because, in Sooyoung’s words, “Seulgi has one fine body,” but it was not like Joohyun was sitting here, waiting for the moment to truly witness the glory that was Seulgi’s body.

No, that was absolutely not the reason.

Not at all.

It totally wasn’t when one of the dance moves required everyone to spin and raise their arms above their heads, delivering a smooth and slick body roll right afterwards. Seulgi definitely delivered that move because Joohyun’s eyes were turning into saucers at this point, her jaw slacking and the textbook on her lap almost dropping if it was not for Seulgi abruptly turning around to her direction. Dance practice just finished and now Seulgi was glancing around the campus.

Joohyun blinked out of her trance and hastily made herself appear presentable by properly positioning her textbook back onto her lap and dropping her head to block the view of anyone looking at her flushed face. She could hear the dance team complimenting each other for another good day of practice, and just when she thought everyone had left campus to go home, footsteps directly approached her along with a sweet call of her name.

“Joohyun unnie?”

Said girl unexpectedly glanced up from the textbook her eyes were staring at. Just staring. Not reading. Seulgi was standing a few feet away from her with her hands clutching onto the straps of her backpack that was slinging onto one shoulder; her being from head to toe was glowing with a healthy red and her chest was still heaving from the productivity.

Joohyun was not going to lie—anyone in her position would not dare to deny this, actually—but a flushed, exhausted Seulgi straight out of a dance practice was a sight to behold. She thought anybody else would look quite gross, like a bucket of water was dumped over their heads to replicate the image of an individual drenched with sweat. But Seulgi, although still bearing the perspiration along her hairline, was still very adorable and precious to look at.

Seulgi tilted her head to the side, and a slight smile graced her rosy face. “What are you still doing here, unnie?”

Joohyun was alarmed at the question, staring more at the high ponytail on top of Seulgi’s head instead of looking straight in her eyes.

“I-I, uh,” she stammered and nervously rubbed the pages of her textbook, crinkling them a little bit. “I’m studying.”

Seulgi hummed and made way to sit down next to Joohyun. She placed her backpack in between them but lifted a bent leg over the cemented ledge to face the older girl, the other leg swaying ever so lightly against the side of the chilled cement.

“Why are you studying out here when there’s plenty of room in the library?” she asked.

Joohyun looked down at her textbook once again—what was the point of keeping this open when she couldn’t even understand a of a sentence she probably didn’t even read? She closed it shut and sat it aside before glancing over to Seulgi from the corner of her eyes.

“Uh, um, I thought I’d appreciate the air out here while it’s still sunny.”

“Oh, yeah! It’s supposed to rain the next few days,” Seulgi said and nodded. “Got to prepare for those floods!”

Joohyun nervously chuckled. “Ah, yeah. H-How are you?”

“Oh, I’m doing okay. Not really having the best day, but I’ve been better.”

Wait, I did that wrong.

“As for the last bullet point, if you just ask someone how their day went, they will tend to focus on the negatives. So just ask her what good things happened to her that day and maybe you’ll see that smile you have fallen for since day one.”

That’s right. Bad things usually outweigh the good things because it takes more of a toll on us.

“Any good things?”

Seulgi raised an eyebrow and hurled a glance elsewhere, visibly pondering about her day. Her lips gradually spread into a small smile and she nodded.

“Dance practice was actually pretty fun today! We’ve been practicing hard lately because we’re competing in two months, but it’s been productive and I like it.”

Joohyun finally turned her body to face Seulgi. “You must really like dancing.”

Seulgi hummed. “Yeah, it’s an outlet for me.”

When her eyes curved into those adorable crescents, Joohyun could practically feel a deep pool of warmth in her chest coursing out to the rest of the veins in her body. Seulgi could do anything—she could smile at her, dance for her, or even embrace her and she would always feel sparks and butterflies, as if her body did not know the correct way to respond to these interactions from a darn crush.

And it was getting difficult for Joohyun to bottle this up in front of someone who did not know the slightest bit of her feelings, but by all the means, it was the crush herself, anyway (because most of the times, those who were crushed on were quite oblivious). Though, she did not have to worry too much about it because Seulgi was not the first person to pop into mind when it came to being well aware of her surroundings. Tons of people had crushes on her, and she would not know until they directly told her, but even at that point she would still be unsure.

Although perceived as clueless sometimes, Joohyun identified it as a loveable charm of hers.

“What about you, unnie? How have you been?”

Joohyun slightly raised an eyebrow at the question returned to her. But she averted her gaze for a moment, a hand creeping up to her chest to feel the erratic beating of her heart.

“I’ve been okay…. Better, actually.”

**

“What happened after?”

“Nothing…. We went our separate ways; she went home and I went to the library….”

Sooyoung groaned and palmed her forehead. “Why didn’t you go home with her this time around?”

“I couldn’t! Not even if I wanted to!”

“And why not?” Sooyoung questioned her as if it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard.

“Because any longer with her and my heart might’ve exploded from how fast it was beating!”

Sooyoung cooed at her and laughed afterward. “Aww! Look at you, unnie, falling so hard for someone who looks like a lanky bear.”

“Hey, you were the one who said she has a ‘fine body’!”

“And I’m not denying that,” Sooyoung spat back. She turned to the whiteboard and smacked the ruler against the first set of words she wrote. “Now, let’s get on with the lesson, and this time you have to ignore what your body is feeling and take it a step further. Otherwise you will get nowhere and continue being in that awkward, small talk stage.”

**

Joohyun had no idea whatsoever how Sooyoung managed to persuade her into waiting around on campus for Seulgi to get out of class.

It was a Friday and usually she would head home during lunch period since she had no class afterwards to attend; however, since Seulgi was still a year younger than her, the junior class still had another hour lecture to pay attention to. She would have ditched this altogether and retreated to her precious, soft bed, but she could not take the nagging, high-pitched voice of Sooyoung’s out the back of her head unless she actually completed this task.

Asking Seulgi out on a casual date.

And by casual, Sooyoung meant bumping-into-her-in-the-hallway-and-acting-surprised-to-see-her-but-ask-her-out-for-a-drink-after type of casual.

Sooyoung did not realize that Joohyun was totally incapable of doing so because she was such a horrible flirt. She would end up in a stammering mess with her cheeks flushed and humiliate herself as a result. Seulgi would laugh at her afterwards and walk away while shaking her head. Joohyun would face palm herself for the nth time in that hallway. And there would be snickering and recording right in her face.

Oh, no, Joohyun couldn’t go through with this to see uneasy videos of her on social media forever.

The worst-case scenarios continued to pop up in her mind and she couldn’t stand the reality of embarrassment from her fellow peers—what more asking a girl out on a “date” with her was not something that was exactly ordinary on this campus.

If Sooyoung was here right now, then she would have smacked Joohyun upside the head with that long ruler of hers that she always somehow had—actually, it was like magic whenever that wooden stick appeared out of nowhere. But she wouldn’t because Joohyun was older than her and would have destroyed her right then and there.

It irked her how much Sooyoung was having an effect on her even if her presence was not apparent. Her harassing voice lingered in her mind, urging her to fulfill her mission of asking Seulgi out for a drink so she could get this full one-on-one interaction with her to get to know her better.

But it was so difficult for Joohyun because she was typically not the one to ask someone out.

Damn, she gave those boys props for gathering the courage to always ask her out even when they were sweating bullets and stuttering on their words.

This must be how they felt moments prior to asking her out, and she kind of felt guilty at the thought of it because she frequently flat out reject them on the spot.

The school bell rung before Joohyun could dwell on this any longer, and she jumped in her spot out of panic because she now only had about a minute to ask Seulgi out before she stepped off campus to go home. Students were filing out from the halls and she briskly paced down the wide expanse of campus, catching several gazes of admirers passing by her as well as a few of Seulgi’s classmates, who she was able to recognize not because she saw them all the time whenever Seulgi left her classroom.

Definitely not.

It wasn’t like she just happened to know who she sat next to when she passed by her classroom on random days either.

Seulgi appeared in her range of sight with earphones plugged into her ears as per usual. Joohyun was not able to call her name out to garner her attention, but it was not something like her to yell across multiple of heads, anyway. She hastily made her way over to the lonesome Seulgi calmly walking toward the gates and gently tapped her on the shoulder.

Seulgi halted in her tracks and turned around to face her, and when she realized it was Joohyun timidly smiling at her, she rapidly took off her earphones and shot her a bright smile.

“Hi, Joohyun unnie!” she cheerfully greeted. “What are you still doing here? Didn’t you get out earlier?”

“U-Uh, yeah, I was just… heading from…” Joohyun looked behind her and hesitantly stuck a finger out to a random direction, “that way… until I saw you!”

“Oh, did you have to stay behind for a class or somethin’?”

“Y-Yeah! I was… I was just asking my Biology teacher questions!” Joohyun lied.

Seulgi smiled at her anyway. “As studious as ever, huh, unnie? I really like that side of you.”

“Oh… thanks….” Joohyun awkwardly rubbed the nape of her neck.

There was a moment of silence until Seulgi scanned her surroundings, observing all the other students walking past them to head back home. She averted her gaze back onto Joohyun who was somehow still standing in front of her but avoiding her stare at all cost.

“Do you… want to walk home together?” Seulgi offered.

Joohyun appeared alarmed and almost immediately nodded her head. “Uh, yeah, that’d be great, actually, since we’re both heading out, right!”

Seulgi chuckled at the mouthful of sentence Joohyun just spewed out and nodded in agreement. The latter, on the other hand, lowered her face and hissed under her breath, mentally hitting herself in the head for becoming easily tongue-tied around her crush.

“It’s hard to believe that you’re older than me when you’re this adorable, unnie,” Seulgi complimented.

Joohyun’s eyes were wide upon the comment and oh, so pure Seulgi was still innocently staring at her, as if what she had just spewed out did not leave her burning up from her chest to her face. She could feel her whole being heating up effortlessly, and if it was this natural to get her flushed, she sure as hell did not want to know what would happen should something further than compliments would do to her.

“H-Hey, I’m still your unnie, you know!” she tried to cover up by lightly scolding the younger.

Seulgi smiled like she usually did, eyes scrunching loveably and small laughter emitting from . It was like she knew Joohyun was harmless. “Shall we get going?”

“Yes...of course.”

She took that step forward to be side-to-side with Seulgi before they began their journey together back home.

Oh, right.

Joohyun still needed to request for more of Seulgi’s company at a café shop down the road. When they started pacing down one of the main roads, she hurled a glance to the side, observing Seulgi who was paying no mind to her but peacefully and comfortably walking next to her. Seulgi was not much of a talker, it seemed. She would have her moments when she would go on and on about a topic, but even then it would be fairly short compared to Sooyoung animatedly talking about her favorite TV show. Joohyun had to tune her out sometimes.

It was actually quite comfortable walking with Seulgi in this silence, basking in the sun and the clear skies hanging above their heads. Joohyun wasn’t talkative herself (sometimes you don’t always have to be talking to maintain a good relationship, you know?).

She could get used to this.

“Say, Seulgi….”

Said girl raised her eyebrows and turned to Joohyun with a noise of acknowledgement, her bright eyes gazing right at her.

“D-Do you,” already stammering again, “Do you want to stop by a café… on the way home?”

“Oh! That would be great, actually! Are we going to the one that opened up a couple months ago?”

Joohyun nodded and Seulgi had a light bounce in her steps now.

“I’ve actually been wanting to try that place for a while, but I never actually had the time to.”

Joohyun warmly smiled at the sight of Seulgi becoming excited for a typical cute café shop.

“We can try it together, then.”