Week 1, Monday.

"-And that was Be Natural by SR14G.“ A pleasant voice echoes over the new speaker that hangs above Irene's little reading corner. She glances up in annoyance. Which genius decided to put this here?, she wonders, unhappy that her first day in this school is now ruined. She was adept at blocking out music, sure, but normal speech? Not so much.

As she fishes out a pair of earphones from her bag, the voice overhead continues: “Now for some daily announcements. Um, Irene Bae Joohyun?” The girl in question jolts at her name. “Can a Miss Irene Bae please make her way to the office now? Thank you.”

She slowly rises from her seat, and after stretching her back, Irene slings her bag over her shoulder. Picking up the folder next to her, she flips through the pages until she finds a map of the school that was given to her when she first arrived. B for broadcasting, she thinks as she runs her finger down the directory list. Ah-hah.

As she makes her way down corridors and up stairs, she wonders whether she had possibly done anything to attract attention, especially from the school’s broadcasting station. Arriving at the office, she nervously nudges her round-rimmed spectacles before knocking on the door. “Come in!” A voice — not the one she heard through the speaker, she noted — called out.

“Um, hello?” Irene slides the door open a fraction, her head peeking through. One of the two girls facing her starts to laugh, then gestures with one hand for her to enter. The other girl, a redhead, takes her arm and pulls her towards another, more transparent, door, and pushes her into the room-within-a-room. Irene assumes this is the part of the studio where the actual recording and broadcasting happens, and shyly looks up at the announcer.

The girl in front of her is not like the other two. This girl speaks into the microphone with a crystal-clear, confident voice, and her chocolate-coloured hair cascades like waterfalls. A tap on the glass makes her look up; a pointing finger alerts her to Irene’s presence. The broadcaster turns her head to face Irene, and in that moment, Irene decides that this girl in front of her is absolutely beautiful. She doesn’t know whether it’s the sparkling eyes, the infectious grin, or the friendly aura that just exudes from the girl that attracts her so.

“Everyone, we have our new exchange student, Miss Irene Bae, in the studio with us right now! Hello, Irene, my name’s Wendy. You probably don’t know me since you’re new, but I’m our school’s favourite radio DJ.” Irene swears she can hear the two girls outside the soundproofed room snort.

“Please introduce yourself to the students, just a brief introduction will do.”

“Um, hi, everyone,” Irene talks softly into the microphone, and jerks a bit when Wendy whispers in her ear to speak a bit louder. “My name is Bae Joohyun, but you can just call me Irene. I’m an exchange student from Korea. P-please take care of me…”

“That’s right, everyone!” Wendy leans in to shout into the mike. “And if you don’t know how she looks like, let me help you out. She’s very pretty! Shy smile! Cute glasses hide her charming eyes! You will fall for her if you look into them!” Wendy’s enthusiastic and complimentary description stuns Irene, and when the girl’s smiling eyes flick over to meet hers, Irene comes to the conclusion that today is the best Monday of her life.

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Week 2, Wednesday.

“Ugh, not again,” Irene grumbles as she hears her name being called over the speakers for the umpteenth time. Her library buddy, a bubbly girl by the name of Kang Seulgi, rises from her slumber to pat her encouragingly on the back. She doesn’t bother to take anything with her, keeping her hands free to take random flowers that are towards her by hopeful suitors. Irene doesn’t really comprehend why her schoolmates (of all genders) still insist on giving her gifts when she obviously doesn’t fancy any of them, but she is too polite to reject them properly.

Unlike a certain someone, who she spies sniping a boy down in front of the broadcasting studio. “Oh, Irene, you’re here,” the blonde girl calls out to her. The poor suitor glances up at Irene, hoping that she would help him, but she shakes her head dejectedly.

As the unfortunate schoolmate scurries off, Irene starts to reprimand in a motherly tone. “Joy, give one of those poor boys a chance, will you?” The girl just covers her ears with her hands and prances off.

Kids these days, Irene sighs to herself. She steps into the office, knocks on the glass studio door, and waves to Wendy. Entering the studio, she starts to say: “Wendy, w—”

“Everyone!” Wendy exclaims happily into her mike. “The gorgeous, stunning Irene has come to visit me again!” The gorgeous, stunning girl mentioned puts her hands on her hips and stares at Wendy, judging. 

As the announcer rambles on about good-looking students in their school, she takes frequent glances at Irene, although the latter is too distracted by the multiple dials on the other side of the glass panel separating the recording studio and the control room.

“I’ll leave you with this song titled ‘Russian Roulette’, by a favourite singer of mine. Until now, this has been Wendy Son. Thank you for listening!” As the music plays, she walks over to Irene and pokes her in the side, earning her a light smack on the hand.

“What did you call me here for?” Irene asks her, although the both of them already know the answer. Wendy had summoned Irene to the broadcasting office every single day, and Irene would ask the same question, to be met with the same answer. 

So Wendy smirks her little smirk, the one that irks Irene but somehow also manages to make her heart flutter, and replies in her cheesiest tone: “I just wanted to see your face.”

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Week 4, Tuesday.

Irene hears Wendy singing for the first time when she passes by the broadcasting office. Out of curiosity, she opens the door, for the first time not hearing any banter from the inside. Yeri (the redhead from before) and Joy are not in yet, and she guesses that they are probably having some kind of extra classes. Wendy, however, is far too clever to need any remedial lessons, which is how Irene finds her reading over her script for the day.

She approaches the focused girl as silently as she can, hoping to get a little petty revenge from all the times Wendy had called her to the studio for no apparent reason. But then Irene catches a little tune, a quiet piece of music sung under one’s breath, and she leans in so much that a bit of hair manages to release itself from her hairband and tickle Wendy’s neck.

Wendy instantly springs away, tumbling off the chair. Irene sticks a hand out to catch her, but gravity is an awkward romantic, and causes the both of them to fall onto the floor. Groaning, Irene opens her eyes to come face-to-face with the other girl, whose hair was now tousled and covering her face.

“Oh no, Wendy!” Irene quickly brushes strands of hair away from her face, revealing a wince and a pair of pained eyes. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

The girl beneath her just smiles and gently asks: “Are you okay?” Wendy raises a hand and cups Irene’s face, turning it to ensure that she isn’t injured. Irene is amazed that the girl is asking her that question when it should be the other way round, and shakes her head while scrambling up from her position on the ground.

Wendy raises herself to a sitting position, rubbing a tender spot at the back of her head where it collided with the floor. “But what are you doing here? You don’t usually come here on your own, unless… you came here specially to see me?” she teases, and chuckles at the faint pink dusting Irene’s cheeks.

“No!” Irene tries to keep up her facade, but secretly admits that she was maybe thinking of the girl when she was walking along the corridor. Maybe. “I-I was just passing by, and, uh, I heard you singing a bit, and I was kind of curious…” She spies the littered pages of today’s broadcast script on the floor, and hastily changes topic. “Oh, your things are everywhere now, let me help you-”

Wendy places a hand on Irene’s pale arm, stopping her from moving to collect the strewn papers. She looks at Wendy and bites her lip nervously, unsure whether Wendy is the type to get really impatient and blow up if something goes out of order, but judging by her reaction just now she shouldn’t—

So the girl with messy hair and coffee-coloured eyes opens , and sings with the most alluring, angelic voice Irene has ever heard. 

Be my spring, I’ll always be your flower

I hope we can melt each other and open each other up

Our heart to heart that wasn’t visible before

Now we’re facing each other

The hidden flower is finally blooming

I think spring has come.

Wendy’s voice is absolutely captivating, and sparks something in Irene’s heart. She finds her eyes being drawn especially to Wendy’s cherry lips, observing how she mouths the words and at the same time expresses a million emotions.

Wendy finishes the song too soon, Irene thinks, and hears applause coming from the direction of the door. Both girls turn their heads to see Joy and Yeri whooping and clapping like seals. “As expected of Wendy,” Yeri says. “She only serenades the most beautiful of girls.”

“Then why doesn’t she do that to us?” Joy exclaims, offended. Irene doesn’t miss the way Wendy hurriedly brings a finger to her lips to shush them, and smiles inwardly. 

Irene picks herself off the floor as she remembers that Wendy has a radio broadcast to start, and lets the girl usher her to the door. “The song,” Wendy starts to explain as she hovers at the doorway, stalling for time before she has to work. “It’s called ‘Spring Love’. It’s a song that a few friends and I worked on together.” She scuffs the sole of her shoe on the other and bows her head, suddenly feeling rather self-conscious.

Irene bends down to meet her eyes — she’s cute, she thinks to herself, like a little hamster — to assure her that the song is great… except it comes out a bit different when she says: “You’re really cute.” Wendy’s head flies up, blinking rapidly. “I meant the song! The song is really cute!” 

Now totally embarrassed, Irene runs down the hallway, accidentally crashing into other students in her rush. Wendy’s grin could not be bigger as she shouts from the doorway of the office: “See you tomorrow!”