“You did what?!” Jessica shouted on her phone. Thank god she had the elevator all to herself. Otherwise, she would get side-eyed for failing to regulate her noise.

She heard Yoona loud and clear, alright. She punched someone on the face. Hearing it the second time around may provide clarity to the event leading to physical violence. On the other hand, this didn’t come off as brand new information anymore. Little Yoona did have a minor affinity to brawl, wrestling (literally) in juvenile fights when she’s provoked, especially of a bully. That fact should somehow aid Yoona’s defense as the less culpable one for igniting the fire.

“Where are you right now?” Jessica demanded. She punched the floor button repeatedly like the ride would go faster the harder she pressed it. She’s late and she never is, but she is.

“Cafeteria.” Yoona modestly replied. “Look, the situation is not that screwed up. I made it look like a miscalculated step. Everyone thought so too. He just didn’t react well and-” She’s far from done with her sentence but Jessica is already asking another round of question.

“Did he hit you?” The threat of such outcome is not sitting well on Jessica’s mind that it had her voice waver in fear and unease.

“No.” It appealed to Yoona that Jessica would come running if that was the case. “His head accidentally butted against my eye. He was trying to launch an attack because according to him, nobody messes with the son of Lee Studios. You know about their family and the big movies under their umbrella. Anyhow, there were students who had him restrained so the damage done is not bad. I happened to be standing close so he got me.”

Jessica breathed too loudly than she meant which Yoona heard. “Did you get it on ice?”

“Yes.” Yoona shook the sealed bag of ice cubes over her phone as proof and stuck it back to her swollen eye, flinching at the sharp prick of pain.

“No rupture around your eye?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you-”

“Jessica, I’m fine.” Yoona told her with a promise, putting a stop to Jessica and her ramble of inquiries that would turn this conversation into an endless circle. “It’s the other guy you should worry about, but I’ll feel better if you don’t.” She quipped.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I am.” I am now, Yoona thought while smiling to herself. She had Jessica riled up and worried that it’s become an ordinary phase in their talks. It’s what they’ve been doing these days, a fracture of their time monopolized for each other, where fifty percent of it is Jessica checking on her injury and its recovery. But she liked it regardless of how annoying the repetition and lack of end. It felt good and satisfying knowing she’s receiving added care from someone that she looked at differently from the rest.

“You.” Jessica said, a little enraged, “Claiming you don’t like attention, but sure as hell you’re good at getting one and to top it off, you went vigilante on the attention-seeking son of Jonathan Lee. He’s not gonna let this go.”

“He started it,” Yoona spat. “He cat-called the girls passing by him and even held his phone downwards to snap photos underneath skirts as if he could freely do that because his parents are famous and he’s an egoistic bastard. But hey, I’m the one who took the matters on my own hands so I’m the bad guy.” Yoona picked up the sound of the elevator bell when Jessica reached her floor. “Are you busy? I just heard the elevator.”

“I’m having lunch with friends.” Jessica stalked down the hallway leading to her friend’s residence, heels echoing the tile.

“But I can call you if things get ugly, right?”

Jessica halted on her feet. “Are you trying to ask me if I’m up for roleplaying as your guardian?” She should have seen that coming. With Yoona’s parents out and about and her incessant need of having no association with them in any occasion, Jessica as her guardian would fit the bill.

“Only if things turned . I haven’t been summoned or anything. Just in case.”

“.” Jessica muttered, the curse rolled out her tongue in its very foul and hard form.

“Is that a…” The word is an abstract word in this context, difficult to follow where that response is leaning into.

Jessica’s fingers pressed the bridge of her nose. “Like you gave me a choice.”

“Yes.” Yoona hissed. Jessica would just pretend she didn’t hear that.

“Hang up and try not to call me.” Jessica strongly suggested.

“Oh, I am hoping for the same. I’ll text you though.” Yoona said, ending the call and opening a gaming app she can play with one hand while other held the ice against her eye. She could call Yuri or Sooyoung, but both of them have class and they’re yet to hear about the incident.

She sat there in the corner for about two hours, waiting for…something to happen, like the Dean’s office demanding for her presence because Michael Lee decided he’ll play the victim. She only stood up to replace the ice and went back to her table. Suddenly, a shadow fell over her. She looked up, eyes blinking more times than it should.

This is the last thing that could happen to her day, besides punching Michael. Seo Juhyun stood before her, books secured in her arms. Hair over her shoulders, she’s in jeans, frayed open red shirt and a cami underneath - the style flaunted her nice curves. It isn’t that Yoona is staring too long to observe that, but it’s easy to notice.

“Hi, Juhyun.” Yoona monotonously addressed.

“Do you mind if I…” Juhyun bobbed her head over the chair next to Yoona.

“Sure.” Yoona put down the ice bag on the table, picked up her backpack and phone across the table and dumped them to her side to clear a room for Juhyun. She isn’t dumb not to give Juhyun liberty to share a table with her (although a lot more is quite available for occupancy). At least, Juhyun exercised permission unlike Yoona who just sprouted to her view before at the library.

“Are you gonna eat or something?” She asked, just to lubricate the looming silence while Juhyun propped her books and bag on the table.

“How’s the eye?” Juhyun’s attention automatically going to that part of Yoona’s face. It didn’t look that bad, but Yoona had pale skin that made call for a glance or giving the damage a double take.

“Just swell.” Yoona teasingly said, wiggling her eyebrows. She’s immediately in resent doing that because it hurt like a . A modest chuckle escaped Juhyun, catching the discomfort from a wrong choice of gesture .

“I think he deserved it.” Juhyun made input, causing Yoona to second guess whether she figured it is no accident.

“He’s an .”

“A total prick.”

“I’d like this opportunity to highlight the work of the outside forces and their orderly arrangement of me, tripping in front of Michael Lee with my fist on his face.” Yoona spoke at the most dramatic and sarcastic way she possibly could.

Juhyun laughed in heaps of breath, shoulders sagging as she stifled herself from cracking too loud. “A blessing in disguise.” She added to Yoona’s prompt when she’s recovered.

“If that’s how you’d call my purple blotch, then sure.” Yoona lowkey shook her head. Seo Juhyun is enjoying her humor. That’s a sight she couldn’t begin to imagine before.

“How come we never talked?” There’s a probing motive to the question that’s layered of wasted opportunities they could have wandered, as Juhyun seemed to imply. “We’ve shared classes. We might have crossed paths more than I could count on my fingers.”

While that’s a mystery to Juhyun, to the rest of Jane Avery, it’s a popularly elusive fact. “I’m not one of you, as promulgated by most people.”

“Yoona, it’s early to say but I’m certain you don’t uphold yourself with such opinions.”

“No.” Yoona thought she could get away with a generic answer, ‘You’re popular. I’m not.’ “I don’t really care about that, honestly. It’s...it’s hard when you’re surrounded by those who think and believe so.”

“Is that why you didn’t show up at the Zeta party?”

Yoona knitted her eyebrows at the mention. It made sense though. Juhyun is an honorary member of the biggest sorority in the campus. Yoona failing to attend under no known critical, matter of life and death circumstance is…well, nobody has ever turned down an invitation from Zeta.

“That’s not really my scene. I’ve been to parties, but the invite-only kind is too posh. That would bore the hell out of me.”

“You make it sound like you’ve been to lots.”

You have no idea. “Just, you know, rumors.”

“Your teammates had fun.” Yoona didn’t need to be told something she already knew. The endless cursing and OMGs at midnight via text are evidence enough. And the stories the day after like the one with the exotic drinks concocted by high salary grade bartenders from Brazil that had Sooyoung speak in litanies about Yoona being a sour puss and eventually passing out on their way home that Yuri had to accompany Sooyoung as her head’s on the bucket. Maybe she’s wrong about the Zeta, but her opinion for the rest hasn’t changed.

“I assumed you would join them. I mean, they’re your closest friends, so I told the Zeta officers that it would ensure your attendance if they extend the invitation.”

“You really did that.” She’s in disbelief at first.

“They kept talking about you and your game. I only suggested the idea of asking you to come, but they thought you’d get intimidated going alone so I said that we might as well include your friends. They decided to go with that. Unfortunately, you didn’t come. But your friends really made up for your absence. They’re great.”

Yoona pulled her head back, eyes searching her.

Juhyun shrugged. “What?”

“Are you guilt-tripping me?”

“Is it working?”

Yoona smirked. “No. Definitely no.”

“Look, I know you’ve heard things about our sorority along with others. The scandalous and torturous recruitment alone is too much real for me to debunk, but there are good people in Zeta who are kissing for the extra-curriculums and not for the sick merriment found in putting someone down. I can vouch for that because I’m one of them.” Yoona found herself trusting that. “The wonderful and smart women of Zeta, they’ve expressed their interest that I wouldn’t be surprised if they ask you out. Well, that was the plan.”

“You were hooking me up?” Yoona eyes grew wide.

“Initially. I wanted to help you in some way that I could. That’s why I gave them the idea.”

Juhyun hesitated. “But it was better that you didn’t come.” Her eyes went astray like it’s suddenly hard to look at Yoona. Such struggle should be familiar to Yoona, but she’s just confused that have dried from nervous and for having not spoken a thing.

“I wouldn’t like watching you hitting it off with one of my friends when it should be with me.” Juhyun went on. “I wanted you there. Not because of them, but because of me. You told me you like me and I admired your honesty and the way you volunteered those feelings for me with no abandon.” She’s leaning in and Yoona, , she didn’t know what she’s supposed to be doing.

“But you’re…I thought-but were clear that you’re not…it’s never gonna-” Yoona has been talking to Jessica too much that the older girl’s stuttering has rubbed on her.

“I told you that you didn’t have to leave. Maybe if you stayed, you would have heard what I could have said.” It’s impressive that Juhyun picked up sense from those broken sentences. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Juhyun’s hand fell underneath the table and found Yoona’s thigh, squeezing her knee then it’s going up in an agonizingly slow pace. Yoona is pretty sure she’s beat read. It’s been too long since she got laid and , this felt remorselessly taunting.

Juhyun herself is taking pleasure from it. With that wanton smile on her face like she didn’t give two s of doing something promiscuous in public.

Warm breath blew over her ear, purring to it. “This…makes me very curious, Yoona.”

By the time Juhyun said that, her fingers have lifted the edge of Yoona’s shirt and stopped at the button of her jeans. Yoona mustered every willpower she possessed, taking that hand and gently planted it back to Juhyun’s lap. E

Everything happened in a blur. Yoona had to fan herself to dilute the color on her cheeks. Stupid, god-damn hormones.

“Okay.” Yoona cleared , convinced that she’s calmed herself down to have a clear mind and ward off the grim desperation that almost took hold of her. “You’re curious?”

“I meant what I said, Yoona. No need to ask and confirm if you mistakenly heard because you didn’t.”

“Uh huh.” She stalled, letting out a heavy breath. “I’m gonna have to say no.”

“No?” Juhyun frowned. Everyone would think Yoona is fighting for a record of the dumbest person in Jane Avery. “Is this your way of getting back at me or something?”

“This isn’t revenge. It’s not…anything. I’ve been in this spot, answering a stranger’s ual curiosities. They were very recreational experiences, but I’m not-“ Interested? No, that would be a lie. Worth the mention that it’s a tempting offer. “You’re on a phase, I think. I respect the fascination you discovered towards the same which I guess I may have triggered. I’m glad that you want to go deep into it rather than repel it or see it like an abomination. I’m just…I’m not the right person for that.”

“Wow.” Juhyun reeled away.

Yoona can’t draw out if it’s upset, confusion, embarrassment, or a mix of it that crossed Juhyun’s face. It could either be one of those. Yo