Trouble is in season, and it’s only the beginning of summer. In addition to the sizzling heat, Minkyung littering the student council office with popsicle drips, Seungyeon knocking things over even without directly offending the objects, and never-ending paperwork – President Im Nayoung faces the hardest predicament of all: an angry girlfriend.

…then, she sneezes. An angry girlfriend and an insufferable flu. And a blocked nose.

She’s aware of her worryingly low Emotional Quotient, though not much can be done about it. There’s some truth to the whole “stone” monikers. She once thought, with her inability to function as a competent Homo socius, she could keep herself out of feely-feely skirmishes. Time and time again she’s proven wrong. If anything, her proficiency in reading social cues wrongly nets her more troubles than she could afford. Example given: a “tumble” she had with Minkyung a week ago (don’t leak it to the public, though!). Over something petty, they paid the friendly resolution full-cash with a broken jaw and a broken Minkyung. Kyungwon was the only human present to testify, but one can’t force the classified information out of her rigid loyalty for people.

Nayoung’s thankful; that minor incident certainly would tarnish her name even though Minkyung struck first.

Back to present time, paperwork formed miniature Himalayas on her desk and Jieqiong’s been refusing to answer her calls on top of ignoring her carefully authored texts. She attempts to diminish her blooming headache by harshly massaging her forehead, then croaks out in a voice roughen by the flu, “What to do now?”

Kyungwon answers her from the couch. “Presidential work or your crumbling lovelife?”

“Both. Actually, I know how to deal with the former. The latter is miles away from my area of expertise.”

“Flowers?”

“I don’t think a bouquet that costs any less than 10,000 Won,” wheezes, “could win a hardened heart.”

“Price doesn’t equal value!” Kyungwon’s laugh sounds half-amused, half-tired of her already. “You can ditch the idea of bouquet and high-end dinners. All you have to do is make sure you are sincere.”

Minkyung, from the other side of the couch, on the other hand sounds tired of her already, mostly because she’s also stuck with the same flu. “Unlike you, girl knows her game when it comes to the ‘feelies’. She’s Aphrodite for Pete’s sake.  You’re a frickin’ wack at it so I suggest you just get to your knees and kiss her feet.”

She looks up and shoots Minkyung a look with the intention to shut her up.

“And, uh, eat her puss. Girls like that. I like that.”

“If I try to bed her, will I send the wrong message?”

Kyungwon cuts into the conversation, perhaps in attempt to salvage her from Minkyung’s scamming ways. “That you only see her as a buddy? Yes. Back away. Stick to the sugary romantic stuff. Keep it simple though, overdoing it might paint you a ‘try-hard’.”

With that in mind, Nayoung racks her brains for a romantic gesture that won’t cross the thin line between “sweet” and “did you pluck this out of a flopping IU drama?”. “A serenade?”

Uncomfortable silence fills the office. Kyungwon’s looking at her with remorse while Minkyung throws her hands up in the air. “See?! The only good thing you have going on is your flaming bod. Make her scream out her forgiveness! Steam her hot!”

Minkyung could’ve spew out even more obscene stuff, but a sneeze rips through her and cuts her sentence short. Nayoung thanks the god while wildly tending to her own itchy and reddening nose.

Before Nayoung could talk Minkyung out of making her doing illicit things in broad daylight (she’s sort of this desperate for Jieqiong to forgive her, alright?), a rapt knock to the office’s door steal all the unsaid comebacks. Minkyung fixes her sitting position, Kyungwon, the only one in the room immune to all sorts of germs and third world diseases, launches to her feet and volunteers to open the door.

“Excuse me? I hope I’m not interrupting?”

Kim Sejeong warily walks into the room after a nod of acknowledgement from Kyungwon, followed by a chirpy Eunwoo. The usual Eunwoo.

“Stay away unless you want GERMS!” Minkyung flails her arms around to emphasis the germs everywhere implication in her warning. Sejeong looks visibly alarmed while Eunwoo sniffs around “to check”. The usual Eunwoo.

Sejeong does an attention-grabbing cough, “Pres, if I may? I have something to discuss.”

“Two things!” Eunwoo chirps from beside her with two fingers held up.

Nayoung sighs. “Ten minutes, if it’s alright with you?”

“Five. I’m here with the intention of reminding you about the budget paper you need to sign,” Sejeong adds a wink, and Nayoung feels none of the rumored effects, “we need it to buy club stuff.”

“Oh.” She glances at the papers stacking one another into a mountainous pile, and promptly faces Sejeong again, trying for an apologetic look. “It should be… somewhere in this pile. We’ll look into it later, so, um, the second “thing”, if you may?”

Sejeong jitters into a fit of scrunched brows and animated hand gestures. Eunwoo’s already sporting a scowl even before Sejeong switches away from her appealing expression. “In case you aren’t aware ‘cause you’ve been neck-deep into student council stuff, your girlfriend has been hot on everyone’s asses lately. A girl ticked her off and she practically blasted her off the classroom. It was horrible.”

Jieqiong. Jieqiong?

Eunwoo provides back-up, “She broke my pen into five parts! Five! What kinda sorcery? Aphrodite didn’t crack everyone’s pens in the ‘lores – or quills, or whatever things ancient deities used in the fancy-pantsy Greek era with lots of dudes.”

She doesn’t make any concerted effort to show her surprise as this isn’t the first instance of a Moody Jieqiong. While generally someone who’s an expert at faking content, when she’s ticked off far enough, Jieqiong would swallow a whole komodo dragon in one huge gulp without a bat of a pretty eye. She’s learned not to cross her at this fazing phase. “We’re certainly in a pickle, but it’s nothing time can’t fix.”

“Time waits for no man!” Minkyung quips from behind Sejeong and Eunwoo and is prematurely cut off by her own thundering sneeze.

“You heard her,” Sejeong’s frown is making her feel bad, “an apology wouldn’t hurt.”

“Just an apology might cost me an arm and a leg.”

Sejeong looks like she’s about to retort some more before something goes off in her head. “As much as I wanna meddle more, I have a club meeting to attend to. Eunwoo, you staying here?”

“Uh-huh. I have a stone-head to persuade.”

“Okay. Catch you later!” Sejeong turns to leave and bids a nod to Kyungwon, who’s opening the door for her, and Minkyung, who’s keeling over after being shaken from another quake of sneeze.

Her gaze follows the track and field vice-captain until she’s out of the office, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Eunwoo, who quickly questions her, “Why the stare?”

The recent happenings had Im Nayoung alerted. The incident with Mr. Jang, the uninvited guesting of a cult that should be dead since years ago terrorizing an amusement park, and then there’s the recent suspicions casted on students Kim Nayoung and Ki Heehyun from Class 2-1… “Kim Sejeong? She’s suspicious by association.”

Eunwoo raises her brows, puckers her lips, and seizes the chair in front of the president’s desk. “Juicy! Tell me more.”

Even Kyungwon has her ears metaphorically stuck out for her gossiping needs even though she’s still seated on the couch while Minkyung is still busied with her uncompromising nose.

“I noticed they’ve been snooping around. Kim Nayoung and Ki Heehyun, I meant. Research, I assume. Of what, I’m unsure. But looking at things that have been happening recently, it’s possible they’re trying to figure something out.”

Layers of scrunched brows from Eunwoo notifies her of the girl’s confusion. “You saying Sejeong is in cahoots with those chums? Sejeong?”

“Not surprising considering her background.” Kyungwon answers for her and it steals Eunwoo’s attention. “The Mr. Jang incident, Kim Kwangsoo’s jailbreak… people from back then might connect the dots.”

“Well duh, I’m a woman from the now. An explanation, please!”

“I hope you won’t mind a trip down the memory lane. Sit tight, it’s gonna be dramatic.”

Not used to a more playful Kyungwon, Eunwoo shoots Nayoung a concerned look. To which she replies with a shrug.

“Ten years ago, the government did a closed experiment far from the public eyes. Classified information among the government, investors, researchers, and, well, the test subjects. Most of them are researchers’ kids or just kids plucked out from the civil orphanage.” The tension suddenly compressing the air doesn’t go unnoticed. “Eleven kids were subjected to tests experimenting with their fire. Eleven. Me and Minkyung. Do you know Chu Sojung from the Fighting Club? Better known as Exy these days, that’s her stage name in the ring. There’s the third-year Jung Mimi, though I didn’t talk much to her. Heehyun was among the eleven too. And, uh, the other president candidate who bitterly lost to President Im, Lee Haein from class 2-3. And, well… Kim Sejeong.”

“Oh. Of course. Man, it’s always the friendly looking gals!”

Minkyung protests from the couch opposite of Kyungwon’s, “Sojung ain’t friendly-looking and Heehyun looks like a female Taylor Lautner! She woofs!”

“The experiment was inhumane enough that a skirmish between who opposed the cruel nature of the experiment and the government in charge of it. Supposedly, Kim Kwangsoo’s cult was involved in this too, as the government had a close tie with his cult behind the scene, but I don’t have the heart to dig more. Was too busy trying to keep myself sane.”

Silence shrouds the club room as a whole, but Minkyung pokes a hole at it. “It’s all in the past, though. Kwangsoo might be up and about… for now, but he won’t do lots. I mean, the govt isn’t on his side now. Am I right or am I right?”

It’s understandable for Eunwoo to have a hard time digesting it. Her friends might be waist-deep in conspiracies and things supposedly left for the professionals.

“Then,” Eunwoo manages to croak out, “what about Nayoung? Kim Nayoung?”

Kyungwon looks slightly taken aback. “Not sure but… she’s definitely not in the experiment. Isn’t she powerless?”

A follow-up by Minkyung is necessary, “Yeah. No Nayoung was harmed in the mess. But you know her fam – no way in Hell they aren’t involved.”

“Ohhh… and the plot thickens.” Most probably burdened by the newfound knowledge, Eunwoo sags into the seat. Though, she flings herself forward a second later. “Oh! You gonna do something about Jieqiong or what?”

Without looking up from the budget paperwork she’s doing, she answers, “An angry Zhou requires an utmost care. I’ll deal with her later, my hands are loaded right now. Papers I need to sign, the upcoming school trip - “

“Can’t you spare even five minutes for her? Phone her? Make some effort?”

“I’ve been trying.”

“Want me to try in your place?”

Eunwoo’s far from the belligerent façade she’s sporting right now. Assuming it is a show, since there’s no need to put on knitted brows and whetted glare over her and Jieqiong’s… fallout. “She’s been ignoring my calls.”

All traces of seriousness gone, Eunwoo kicks back into a laugh. “Well, try again! She’s gonna get tired of the missed call notifs. She’s probably alone right now, sulking on the rooftop. You snuck her a duplicate key to the rooftop, right?”

“She made me…”

“Ouch, hopeless romantic. Breaking rules for your gal!”

“A harmless rule-breaking. Jieqiong won’t burn the entire building just with an access to the roof.”

She sighs, and Eunwoo turns around to converse Minkyung and Kyungwon about something mundane. Laughter and gossips and badmouthings (and sneezes from Minkyung) decorate the room while Nayoung tries another call. She’s ignored again, but at least Eunwoo’s not looking at her like she just stole her fiancé. Or fiancée. Whichever way Eunwoo swings to.

“Anyway, pres, the results for Produce 101’s second round is out in case you haven’t exited this office for three eternities! We all made it to the next round!”

“Oh?”

Eunwoo directs a sneer at Red Nose Minkyung, “Minkyung barely.”

Minkyung whines, Eunwoo sticks a tongue out, Kyungwon laughs, and Nayoung turns back to her paper, making sure her hair curtains her growing smile.
 

Day two of the fallout, her flu worsens and there’s still a sizable amount of work to do. Minkyung’s napping on the couch after doing her share. Nayoung lets her, since she’s riddled with a flu worse than hers and Kyungwon’s keeping her company by the constant clicks of tongue, short chatter, and steady work. Seungyeon has been on library duty for three days straight. As Minkyung puts it, a fate worse than death, really.

Aside from being the heart of students’ administrations and event-organizing though, the student council also functions as…

KA-BLAM!

“Uh, hey, that sounds like—“

BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!

“—a mess…?”

Kyungwon eyes her, waiting for her response, while she listens to more banging noises. The noises aren’t that faint; like they’re just a hallway away.

This calls for a Baywatch situation where the present student council members run out of the clubroom, ready to pummel all kinds of evil. Only this time, it doesn’t sound like Lee Haein extorting money out of first years, or anything minor for the matter. Only this time, Minkyung’s half a corpse and Nayoung’s head has been hard-wired to calculate the school trip transportation budgets for the next five hours, and Kyungwon is probably the only one of them who can hold her ground… should something too physical happen.

A lone figure nears into them with bated breath, unkempt hair, a sleeve of her blazer torn apart, and top two buttons missing in action. Her trademark sling bag, however, is fully intact. “OUT OF THE WAY, THEY’RE ALL PSYCHED FOR ME!”

“They?” The universe answers Kyungwon’s question with a hoard of students ascending the stairs from the second floor, all running towards for one particular person – the screaming, flailing, and pretty much war-torn Kim Nayoung. “Oh. Oh god.”

Kyungwon turns to her and all she could manage is a hurried, “Retreat! Retreat!” as they hurry down the hallway, making sure to make a turn away from the student council office to avoid collateral damages the rioters might cause. “What is this?! An explanation, please!”

Kim Nayoung, though sounds wrecked and out of breath, forces herself to speak, “We need to hide first! There should an unused classroom near the other stairs,” a pant, “I’ll tell you all the shimmies there.”

They round the corner and practically dives into the empty classroom and waste no time to barricade the door with tables and chairs. Kyungwon points out the other door for them. “Should we work on that door too?”

“Just lightly. That door should be our escape route should we’re ready with a plan.”

“Roger, pres.”

With the doors taken care of, she directs her attention to the chum who, unfortunately, she has to share the same first name with. “Explain.”

Kim Nayoung, pretty much an inmate under her and Minkyung’s glares at this point, sinks into a seat. “You aren’t gonna like this. Basically, we were having a chemistry class like usual with Dr. Wonshik and it was, you know, just the usual, until Suhyun decided it was funny to pour a whole bottle of love potion on me. Dr. Wonshik’s patented one. The thing worked like a charm! Now people want a piece of my fine meat.”

Minkyung frowns harder. “I don’t.”

The absurdity of it all has her dizzy. “Love potion? Suhyun – Lee Suhyun? This was all a prank?”

“A prank, but certainly not a harmless one! They got me good once but I managed to scamper out.” Kim Nayoung gives the torn sleeve of her blazer a pinch. “Not without a sacrifice. This, and soon, my innocence.”

“This is rather hard to process. Details?”

Kim Nayoung sighs, her face getting sourer. This time, she launches on an explanation with sharp hand gestures. “We were in the lab for chemistry class. Dr. Wonshik has been working on this love potion thing – a blend of pherone, copulin, and other stuff that supposedly, forces a huge amount of oxytocin production in your head.” She makes a sniffing sound before she continues, “The ‘potion’ gave me this fragrance that tampers with your neurotransmitter the moment you inhale too much of it. Since Suhyun poured an entire bottle on me, I’m pretty much a walking solidified pheromones right now.”

Minkyung sniffs around, each sniffing harder than the last. “My nose’s blocked. Can’t smell anything.”

“Ohhh! No wonder you aren’t all over me, you can’t even smell it.” The pheromone-soaked girl turns to her. “How about you, pres? You in love with me yet?”

“Never.” She coughs. “I’m sick too. Any idea on how to deal with them?”

“Okay, you all won’t mind a bit of Story Time right?”

Minkyung frowns harder, if it’s even possible, and plops down beside her while angrily rubbing her nose. “With a love-struck mobs waiting outside… I won’t mind huddling here forever.”

“So, like, when Suhyun poured the love potion onto me, I was halfway outside the lab. Sejeong was outside, though she had no business with me. She was waiting for Chaek. Since she was the person in the closest proximity, she was affected first and foremost… and god that was really awkward.”

Nayoung blinks at the other Nayoung’s suspenseful pause. “Did she try to undress you?”

“Spot on. She tried to bare me on the spot, talk about ually-deprived? Anyway, I couldn’t waste any more time since I could feel the other people in the room getting visibly affected too and before I had to deal with a crowd of love-struck idiots lusting after my untainted body, I punched Sejeong in the face. Hard.”

It’s Minkyung’s turn to blink. “Did she die?”

“She, uh, she liked it. She moaned.” Kim Nayoung hurriedly coughs an anyway. “So I had to hit the back of her head just so she could safely black out. I’ve been on the run ever since. Tell you what, brute force couldn’t knock some sense into their heads.”

After giving it some thought, she draws a conclusion. “The whole affecting the production of oxytocin bit sounds eerily similar to Eunwoo’s Adonis power. Which means, it will wear off after some time.”

Kim Nayoung answers her deduction with an askew smile. “Love has an expiry date, it’s a matter of whether you keep falling for the same person or nah. Especially since scientifically, it’s implied that love is purely hormonal anyway.”

“That means we should just stall ‘till they’re all back to normal.” Minkyung seals the plan with a clap.

Looking at their newfound confidence, Nayoung adds, “But keep in mind, we must hide you, Kim Nayoung, away from unaffected students at all costs, since a whiff of your fragrance could turn them…”

“Bat in love?”

“Thank you for the sophisticated choice of word, Minkyung. With that being said, Kyungwon, how is it going…” the words die on her tongue the moment she notices Kyungwon holding her head, palming it with veins bulging around the knuckles. “Kyungwon? Are you alright?”

Kim Nayoung stands on her feet, alarmed, and quickly calls for their attention. “Hey, quick, is she along in the Flu Circle too?”

“Uh, no. She’s in condition green…” Minkyung’s face falls. “Oh . Okay, change of plan?”

Trapped in a classroom with a pheromone’d Kyungwon and an army of pheromone’d heroes in training outside, they aren’t left with much choice. The fact that they’re in third floor and none of them possess the ability of flight means jumping out the window isn’t possible (without landing on the ground as a gooey mess of blood red).

“Hey, pres! Gone mute?”

“I’m thinking. We can’t afford to be reckless, Kyungwon is the manifest of Heracles… we can’t outmuscle her. One wrong move and we’ll have the wind knocked out of us.”

“Say, pres,” Kim Nayoung pokes her in the forearm, “versing Kyungwon or the angry mob outside, which one has higher survival rate for us?”

Nayoung isn’t given an opportunity to reply; Kyungwon looks up, cheeks rosy, eyes unfocused, her shoulder-length cut mussed from the messy grin she had on her head. The second vice-president takes a step forward, and another, and, “Nayoung… Kim Nayoung…”

“Never mind the previous question, I can feel her mad desire for my skivvies. Run?”

There’s no need for an affirmation. The three of them quickly stir into an overdrive, hopping onto the barricade and undoing the pile of chairs and tables one by one while Kyungwon inches closer, steps slow and drunken.

“Where are you going… Kim Nayoung? My love?”

Minkyung gapes in horror, “Anywhere safe!”

“Don’t bark back, you’re gonna anger her!”

Kim Nayoung’s warning comes too late; the drop in Not Kyungwon’s patience is heavy enough for them to feel. The need to disarm her before unwanted things happen qualms whatever left of their solidarity as Minkyung flings a chair towards Kyungwon…

…who easily breaks it into parts with a swing of an arm. The rubbles rain upon the floor.

“Uh-oh. Heracles alright.”

“She is strong, I tell ya!” Minkyung’s voice is shaky at the edge. Nayoung noticed so. “I know what I’m talking about, we’ve been together for ages after all…”

They’re undoubtedly in a pinch right now; between an enraged Kyungwon and a furious mob of hopeless romanticists outside, they won’t be able to get out of this without a torn limb or two…

“Change of plan, pres.”

“What are you planning, Kim?”

“Easy. This.”

The next thing she knows, Kim Nayoung has her fists dugs deep into Minkyung’s collar and pulls her close, and there’s the sound of smooching and Nayoung has to blink once, twice, to confirm that they are kissing (albeit one side forces herself onto the other), and it lasts for three seconds top. Minkyung unlatches herself, but Kim Nayoung has probably mustered every last bit of her energy onto the arms catapulting Minkyung towards Kyungwon’s direction.

The envy of watching her beloved kissing Minkyung square in the lips transmogrifies into full-on fury, and soon, Kyungwon’s already dead-set on choke-slamming Minkyung, who rushes out of the way.

“C’mon, pres, we’re fleeing through the other door!”

The other door’s lightly barricaded and the two easily free it out of the chairs and tables. The moment they swing the door open, shouts from the crowing mob fill their auditory senses. It gives a kick into their survival instinct, and exhaustion aside, they make a run for their lives.

Minkyung’s sacrifice shall not be forgotten. The horrified scream she belted the moment they left her in the classroom will haunt her to her golden age. Then again, the manifest of Dionysus has the tenacity of a cockroach. She has survived countless scorned, cheated women after all.

Outside, a crowd of people thirsting for Kim Nayoung’s tender affections shout at the wake of their desperate escape, running after them in collective stomps.

Though, she fears the worst; Kim Nayoung had been running around the school before she stumbled upon her, Minkyung and Kyungwon, and if a whiff of the scent could overthrow someone’s logic over a mad love, that means the entire building might have been affected. Hell, on the way to the unused classroom, they passed by a handful of students…

Their plan is to stall until these zombified students snap back to normal. To achieve this, they need to hide somewhere isolated off others to not further expand the numbers.

“Nayoung,” she calls out the girl lagging behind her, “what is this weird feeling of calling my own name. Nayoung!”

“Wh-what? Can’t speak a lot, I’m,” a loud panting, “I’m beat,”

“We need to hide for the time being. At this rate, you’re going to affect everyone in the entire academy!”

“Oh. I mean, uh,” Kim Nayoung’s voice is much smaller this time, “it’s not like I haven’t unwillingly love potion’d everyone in this building—“

Their road ahead is blocked a different wave of crowd… letting out ardent cries of Nayoung’s name. Not the Nayoung she is, thankfully. She couldn’t begin to imagine the chill running down Kim Nayoung’s back. With a blockade in the form of flesh and blood, Nayoung has no choice but to go through them without causing any casualty, which means keeping her fists to herself. “We’ll get through them.”

“The hallway isn’t that wide, getting through them might be a ‘lil iffy. You okay with that?”

“You okay with that? They might snatch your skirts when you’re not looking.”

“Um, I wear shorts underneath.”

“Perfect. Don’t forget to drag your own weight with you.” With gritted teeth, she intercepts a girl who’s launching her own body at Nayoung by grabbing her waist and redirecting her fall to another offending girl. Finding an opening, she ducks away from a girl trying to jump her and squanders aside, backing herself into a wall just beside the fire extinguisher hung on the wall. She flattens a palm on the cylindrical surface and gathers her focus; feeling the steel material molding into a shape she imagines it to be.

A steel staff surges out of the fire extinguisher’s surface and it pokes a frenzied girl on the cheek hard as she topples over. Nayoung grips on the staff, un-attaches it from the object she extracted the material from, and hooks the staff onto the waist of a girl who’s trying to claw onto the other Nayoung’s shirt, and pushes her out of their way. In domino’s effect, the thrown girl pushes several other girls onto the floor. The way is cleared now.

“N-neat weapon,”

She swings her staff, making the girls around them warily back off for fear of getting a clean hit. With the makeshift red carpet made for them, they rush through it behind the staff’s propeller swing. “As a manifest of Hephaestus, I could extract a material and shape it into a weapon I design in my head. It’s a practical power.”

“I envy!”

The last girl blocking their way tries to aim for her thorax, but she paddles to the girl’s legs and trip her forward, where they both easily side-step away from her fall.

“We’re save! God! I’m still in one piece!”

She wants to say, not yet, but there’s no need to because Kim Nayoung’s relief is short-lived.

Someone catches up to them, a bolt of gray top and pink skirts much like their uniform running just beside them in the flash of a lightning.

The pheromone-emitting girl’s stuttered cry when she realizes Kim Chungha is just an arm away from taking her flower buds away here and now. Were it not for the graveness of the situation, Nayoung would’ve found it hilarious.

Instinctively, the two pull a sudden brake and Chungha skids into a halt just two steps in front of them. Hermes Chungha won’t be easy to power through. In addition to her practiced ease with mixed martial arts, her own raw strength, astounding adaptability, she’s also blessed with the speed of Hermes. Nayoung clutches on her staff tighter.

She might have hit some girls to push them out of the way – but it was nothing one couldn’t recover from in three hours. One-on-one fight, however, deters the chance of avoiding beat-ups.

“Pres, my pearls are screaming for help.”

Nayoung can’t find the energy to deal with the girl’s senseless remarks. Instead, she puts on a defensive stance the moment Chungha pulls herself back, ready to cannonball herself. A flash of pink breezes past her and hits Chungha in the head, disappearing into sprinkles of pink that fades soon after; though, it stops Chungha’s movement altogether. The manifest of Hermes doesn’t look pained, but her eyes are no longer onto Kim Nayoung’s.

“Jackpot!”

She has become acquainted enough with the voice to tell whose it is. Very much so. “Eunwoo!”

Eunwoo rounds the corner they’ve passed minutes ago, an arm stretched outside as if she’s holding out an imaginary bow. What zoomed past her must have been Eunwoo’s “Cupid’s arrow”, her mark as the manifest of Adonis.

The brief confusion shrouding Chungha is their chance to subdue her. She drives her staff to Chungha’s legs, toppling her to the front, and the latter salvages her fall by tucking her head in and rolling forward. It gives them enough time to make a run for the stairs leading them to the rooftop.

Eunwoo, follows after them. “I’m going with you guys if you don’t mind? I’ve shot some fair share of people and now I have some crazed admirers of my own!”

They reach the rooftop and she hands her staff to Eunwoo as she pulls a key to the rooftop from her pocket. Carrying one everywhere has always been her thing ever since she got a hold of the master key, one of the president’s perks, as it’s easy to monitor the school happenings from the top. With the nature of their school, it’s always good to know what’s up.

The steel door leading to the rooftop creak in a clang. She walks in first, and relieves her lungs with fresh air. As much as she can inhale with a blocked nose anyway. Then, she hastily locks the door back to its place, and ushers the other two as far away from the door as possible, nearing the fence guarding the edge of the rooftop.

“Hey, Eunwoo,” Kim Nayoung calls the other girl out, though still panting, “are you immune ‘cause you’re a walking ticking bomb of love potion yourself?”

“I think so? I mean, I’m the manifest of Adonis, so maybe I was hard-wired the immunity,” she’s pulled down to the floor by her own exhaustion before continuing, “gosh, I was looking for Jieqiong ‘cause we’re supposed to go eat sweets together after school, but when I came back from my bathroom break, Jieqiong was gone and everyone went zombie for a girl who isn’t even worth the affection. Everyone could do so much better!”

She can’t spare a laugh as she’s deep in thought – not even when the other Nayoung grapples Eunwoo into a tight headlock.

“Say, Kim Nayoung,”

“Yes pres? Can it wait ‘till I have Woo’s head popped and done with?”

“No. Just a benefit of the doubt; if Lee Suhyun really poured the love potion on you, then she should be the closest to you at the time, correct?”

“Yeah?”

“Then she should’ve been the most affected. Yet, I haven’t spotted her in the pack.”

“Oh.”

“She should’ve been among the girls chasing after you, correct?”

“Ummm.”

“Is there a proper explanation for this, hmm?”

The blood draining from Nayoung’s face indicates something behind the disastrous oxytocin-filled chase she’s forced to take a part in. So she presses on, and the discoloration continues, and Eunwoo looks like she’s having a severe case of trust issues.

At least until someone reveals herself from behind the rooftop’s water tower.

And calls Nayoung’s name in a sensual, but familiar voice…

“J-jieqiong?!”

Jieqiong lands on her two wobbly feet after lightly jumping off the the ladder to the water tower. The hazy eyes, the mutters of Nayoung, the pink-tinted cheeks – she’s positive in love, just like the others in the Kim Nayoung’s Chemical Made Admirers brigade.

Hooked around her pinky is the duplicate key to the rooftop. And she blames her past self for copying her one.

Something, aside from Jieqiong seeking affection from the wrong Nayoung, quarrels with her lunch. Must be the unavoidable situation where she has to subdue Jieqiong by force.

“Um, pres, the situation’s looking capital B bad and you seem to have an uneasy tummy.”

She glares at Eunwoo. “I can’t hit her. She’s my…”

Kim Nayoung chirps from beside her, “I can! Just issue the command.”

“I can’t tell another person to hit my…”

Jieqiong inches closer and they, in a fit of reflex, back themselves onto the fence. The moment she glances to the courtyard, four floors below right under them, a mass of Nayoung’s admirers have pitched their territory there. Which means they’re ganged right in front of the building’s main entrance.

Conclusion: they’re ed.

Jieqiong dives forward and Nayoung attempts to hold her wrist, but Jieqiong dethrones her in agility; she pulls the wrist Nayoung is targeting back and side-steps away before lunging towards Kim Nayoung’s shoulders.

The death-grip Jieqiong has on Kim Nayoung will be tricky to unlatch. Kim Nayoung’s back digs into the metal fence and she tries to keep Jieqiong away from kissing her by pushing back her cheeks. Eunwoo’s recovering from the ground after Jieqiong -slapped her to the side. Eunwoo. “Eunwoo, shoot her!”

“Y, you’ve gotta be kidding me?! She’s going to like me!”

Kim Nayoung struggles to join into the argument. “Shooting her will stop her for some seconds! At least—ouch, hey, Pinky, easy on my shoulders, please!—we need to stop her from trying to steal my lips first!”

She notices the hesitance in Eunwoo as she assumes her archer stance. A bright pink energy gathers in place for the arrow, but Eunwoo doesn’t look like she’s in condition to shoot accordingly.

And she misses, not by a small margin. Nayoung has to dodge a bit to avoid the manifest of Adonis’ love-arrow.

“Aim better, you dunce!”

“Oh, sh-shut your trap! You don’t understand the internal heart conflict I’m having!”

The second shot misses by a huger margin, and Eunwoo’s disheartened face makes Nayoung abandon the plan entirely, so she leaps forward and holds Jieqiong’s shoulders from the back and attempts to pry her away from the cowering Nayoung underneath.

“Hands off…! I just want to kiss her so we can seal our love together! Then we can get married in Cali and adopt eight kids—“

“NOOOO,” The Cowering Nayoung lets out a huge shriek at the laid out future plans and her movement is frenzied by the double.

Well, the “future” Jieqiong has planned for them is horrifying alright…

The mess of entangled limbs further pushes Kim Nayoung against the waist-tall railing. The way her strangled help quivers, at this rate she’s going to be pushed over the edge... and even though she’s rumored to have a handy sling bag that could transform into a parachute (or a glider? Which is which?), there’s only Hell waiting for her down there.

Either way, as the student council president, she couldn’t afford to let the corpse count out of this incident raise to a number above zero.

“Jieqiong, stop this at once, you’re going to push her over the—“

A black liquid-y hand grips onto the railing. And another. And another until the amount could be added up to ten, and she notices some of those hands pushing Kim Nayoung from the back, steadying her from the danger of falling.

What now?!

More of the hands crawled up from below and, in the middle of the tentacle-hands, is Kim Sejeong jumping over the metal railing and landing on the rooftop’s floor with two pitch black colored hand shooting out to grab both of Jieqiong’s wrists.

“Oh Zeus! You saved me, Sejeong! You saved my innocence!”

Sejeong coolly wipes the dried blood at the edge of her lips and replies with a low, “Barely. Plus, the fight isn’t over yet.” Nayoung notices her swollen left cheek. Must be from the punch Kim Nayoung graced her.

Sighing, she wraps it up by hitting Jieqiong in the back of the head, and her death-grip on Kim Nayoung loosens as she drops to the floor in a reminiscence of a marionette getting its strings cut. Though the rioting crowd four floors below is still going on with their “WE WANT NAYOUNG” coordinated chants, at last, peace, for now.

Eunwoo drapes Jieqiong all over her lap. Sejeong points out the Pietà plagiarism. Kim Nayoung heaves a heavy sigh of relief as she slumps against the metal railing.

She still couldn’t find the relief in herself. A train of thought pits against the part that wants to feel the load is off her back.

Lee Suhyun not being among the angry, intoxicated with love crowd. Kim Nayoung. Kim Nayoung and Lee Suhyun…

Everything finally forms a click in her head. She turns on her heels and zips out of the rooftop, descending the stairs and pushing Eunwoo’s “Pres?! Pres, where are you going?! Your girl is out cold for Pete’s sake!” to the back of her head.

The hallway is empty and her unkempt hair shadows her suspicious frown on top of her crooned eyebrows. It’s unwise to let even a student watch her looking so… in distraught.

When she arrives at the student council office, the room is vacant as Minkyung and Kyungwon are still busy doing god knows what, and Suengyeon is nowhere to be found, and every other else anywhere but in the office since morning. Everything would’ve looked like the usual. Not under Im Nayoung’s scanning eyes.

Whoever infiltrated the office to do whatever must have thought she wouldn’t notice, but the slight difference in the bookshelves containing various files and records can’t go unnoticed by President Im Nayoung.

She takes a brisk walk to the main computer in the office, unlocks it, and goes over to the check on the surveillance camera it’s connected to.

The footage isn’t that surprising. Someone really did went over the shelves, reading the files and writing it down onto her notes. (She didn’t use her phone to snap some pics instead, probably because phones are easily tracked. What a smart aleck!) What gives off the intruder’s identity is, however, her appearance – the appearance of Im Nayoung.

Lee Suhyun, the manifest of Morpheus. Able to manipulate her appearance into someone else’s. Not the rarest of power, but she is the only suspect she could jab a finger onto, especially with her relation to Kim Nayoung and Ki Heehyun.

Her phone rings. Mr. Jang flashes on the screen. Probably to talk about the trip. He must’ve found a well-facilitated and rather cheap in cost hotel for their four-days stay. She answers the phone. For now, the whole thing with Lee Suhyun takes a backseat to the school trip, but she will definitely not let this go off the hook so easily.

Notes: [1] Sorry for the rather long length, I’ve cut down a lot too but I need to hurry to get into the real thing haha :(

[2] Adonis Eunwoo. Aphrodite Jieqiong. Hephaestus Nayoung. Make your connection. 8)

[3] with IOI coming back (which means…. Gugudan drought ;;) I’ll be here often, though university’s getting busier. Still, writing is a kick back I need from assignments and social necessities LMAO