The trio made their way to the food counters and quickly got lost in trying to pick what to have for lunch. After ten minutes of friendly bickering about which meal looked better, the girls moved away from the queue to look for a table. 

Eunjung spotted an arm waving at her and smiled at the girl. “Come on girls, I’ve spotted Soyeon. Let’s go join them.” They made their way over to another trio of girls who were seated at a table next to the large glass windows overlooking the beautiful university park. “Hi sunbaes! I’d like you to meet my classmates, Jiyeon and Hyomin.” Eunjung said while gesturing at the two girls next to her. She started to introduce the trio to them. “The girl with the mole is Jihyun but she goes by the name of Qri. She’s currently pursuing a degree Beauty Therapy Management. Tom and Jerry over there are known as Boram and Soyeon. They’re both in the Vocal Degree course.” The three girls smiled at them and warmly gestured to them to sit.

As the three hoobaes sat took their seats, they could not help but admire the view outside. Glancing around, Eunjung looked at Qri, “Do only seniors get to sit here? I don’t see any freshmen in this area.” Qri nodded and took a sip of her iced tea, “It’s been a long time tradition that the seniors in this university get first picks of where they want to sit, library books availability, that sort of thing. But don’t sweat it, most of the seniors in this school are pretty decent.” The three hoobaes nodded knowingly.

“So if you three are in the same class, I take it that you two have enrolled for Arts and Theatre like Jungie?” Soyeon merrily asked them. Hyomin and Jiyeon nodded enthusiastically and smiled at Soyeon. “What’s the vocal degree like, sunbae-nim? I was pretty keen on it but I’m not confident with my voice.” Hyomin asked Soyeon. “Aigoo, call me Soyeon. Sunbae-nim sounds so old.” Soyeon laughed before continuing, “It’s fun but the practice time takes it’s toll on you. Me and Boram are always worried about falling sick because it would affect our performance.” Boram nodded in agreement and added, ”Also, you can’t practice in the dorms since there are other students as well. So we’ll have to go down to the music rooms if we want to practice.” 

“Are you all staying in the dorms, unnies?” Jiyeon asked with a mouthful of sushi. All three of them nodded their heads. “Well, I’m originally from Goyang but I moved to Seoul when I was twelve. Soyeon here is from Andong and we met in high school. Boram is born and bred in Seoul.” Qri explained. Jiyeon looked at Boram and asked, “But why stay in the dorms when you stay in Seoul?”. 

“Because she can’t bear to be without her darling Soyeon for more than a day.”

“YAH!”

Boram turned a bright shade of red before turning to Qri and playfully smacking her arm. Qri starting guffawing and Eunjung snickered while Soyeon turned to Jiyeon and Hyomin. “What about you two? You girls from around here?” Jiyeon nodded looking confused at the sudden change of topic and Hyomin shook her head while blushing slightly at the new information she received. “I’m from Busan but my parents got me a place nearby.” Hyomin said softly. Soyeon nodded, noticing how Hyomin was being humble about her background. It’s not any day that you could buy a home in the heart of Seoul just because your child is studying in the big city. 

“Unnie, who’s that?”

Jiyeon suddenly pointed at an elderly man who was standing on the second floor balcony. Knowing that the second floor balcony was sectioned off for the lecturers and administrators, Soyeon looked up and saw a elderly man peering down, observing the mass of students. Turning back to Jiyeon, “That’s Lee Soo Man, the founder and president of this university. I heard he sometimes observes students from afar and handpicks them to become his valedictorians or something along those lines.” Leaning in closer to them, Soyeon said in a hushed tone, “I heard he’s really strict and works his prized students to the bone because he has no child of his own to push. Apparently, he only has one niece who is rebelling against him by not wanting to enrol here.” 

“Rebelling?” Hyomin asked.

Soyeon nodded and continued, “She recently came out of the closet to her family about her orientation. Her parents don’t mind their daughter being gay but our president got really angry. From what I gathered, she’s a pretty smart student who showed a lot of promise but liking girls, well, let’s just say she caused quite a big scene at her high school graduation in front of her uncle.”

Hyomin was curious. Did this niece come out of the closet in front of her whole high school? “What did she do?”

Shaking her head, Soyeon shrugged. “There was a newspaper clipping about it, but it was hushed down so much that it just said that a student was throwing a tantrum with no explanation.” Hyomin widened her eyes in surprise, “How do you know so much then, unnie?” Soyeon looked at Hyomin with a glint in her eyes, “I had an ex-boyfriend who studied in the same school as his niece. Lee Soo Man was the founder of his niece’s high school too.”

“Ex-boyfriend? But you and Bor-?”

Soyeon laughed and waved her hand. “Jong-Hyuk was an old story. I met this shikshin after that.” Soyeon turned her head and looked lovingly at Boram who had teamed up with Jiyeon to quietly steal a distracted Eunjung’s food. 

Hyomin nodded and looked back up to the balcony only to see empty railings. Before she could ponder more about what she just heard, the rest started to get up since lunch time was over. Eunjung checked their timetable and stated that they had Fine Arts next. Hyomin was glad the classroom was in the next block as she was dying to walk off her full stomach. Grabbing her sling bag, Hyomin, Eunjung and Jiyeon waved goodbye to their sunbaes and proceeded to walk to their next class.

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Author’s Note:

Here’s another update for you guys. 

Sorry if it’s a little dry out of Sunbyung but I hope the little Soram bits made up for it.

I promise you guys that there’s a big dose of Sunbyung goodness in Chapter 5.

Again, thank you for the subscribers, votes and comments!

You guys are amazing! :)