It’s the same thing every morning—Mina opens her locker, and a pink slip of paper flutters out.
“Another love letter?” Jihyo tries to look over her shoulder as she examines it.
“I mean…I guess? I’m not too sure what they are,” Mina squints.
“Why does your secret admirer have such bad handwriting?”
Mina sighs, “I don’t know.”
She folds the piece of paper into quarters and tucks it into her pocket, making sure it doesn’t crumple. Maybe one day she’ll manage to decrypt it.

    Jihyo begins to pester her about the letter, pressing her to open it and let her have a look.
Mina relents, “okay fine. But it’s not like you’ll be able to read it anyway.”
“You wanna bet?” Jihyo raises an eyebrow.”
Mina pulls the letter out of her pocket, “no.”
She waits as Jihyo reads the letter, watching her expression. Nothing.
“Nothing,’ Jihyo shakes her head, “I got nothing. This is the worst writing I’ve ever had to try to read in my life, and my dad’s a doctor.
Mina laughs and takes the letter from JIhyo, “oh well.”
“But aren’t you at all curios to know who it is?” Jihyo asks.
Mina shrugs, “who knows.”
“You’re so boring.”

    Out of the corner of her eye Mina sees a blur of Nayeon and Jungyeon. She squints. There is a twinge in her chest, which she ignores, and she heads off to class with Jihyo.

    When she gets home she takes the folded piece of paper out of her pocket and unfolds it, smoothing it out, looking at it one more time before she puts in in the box where she keeps the rest off the letters (all pink and folded). She sighs as she puts the lid back on the box. Jihyo, Nayeon and Jungyeon were absolutely no help at lunch today, but who can blame them? As much as she likes the thought of a secret admirer who sends love letters everyday, what’s the point of letters if no one can read them? She sighs. Nayeon and Jeongyeon always look at each other weirdly whenever she brings up the letters though, so maybe they know something about them? She’ll ask them tomorrow.

    She finds Nayeon by her locker after school, fiddling with the lock, most likely because she forgot the code again.
“Nayeon-unnie?” Mina approaches slowly.
“Yes?” Nayeon spins around, hands still fiddling with the lock, “ah! Mina! My favourite dongsaeng!”
“I thought Jihyo was your favourite dongsaeng.”
“Ah well, love is fickle isn’t it?” Nayeon shrugs, “anyway, did you need something?”
“I um….” Mina looks down at her feet, “do you happen to know who my secret admirer is?”
Nayeon’s hands stop moving. She sighs, “yeah, I do.
“Oh…could you—”
“Oh no no no no no I’m not telling you, no way,” Nayeon says, folding her arms with resolve.
Mina’s heart sinks a little, “oh…okay…”
A hand is placed on her shoulder in sympathy, “hey, it’s not ‘cause I don’t like you or anything, I’m just—you know, sworn to secrecy under the friend code, you feel?”
Mina nods her head in understanding, “it’s okay, unnie, I understand, thank you anyway. See you tomorrow!”
Nayeon watches Mina as she walks away. She shakes her head; why can’t Jungyeon be less stupid about this?

    The thought of asking Jungyeon about this makes her palms sweaty. She’s never been close to Jungyeon, for reasons unknown even to Jihyo. Jungyeon is…well…her friendship with Jungyeon is one that is soft and quiet, often unnoticeable in the midst of Jihyo, Nayeon and Jungyeon’s bickering, but it’s there. It’s there in the way Jungyeon leans into her when the four of them laugh uncontrollably about something; it’s there in the way Jungyeon waits for Mina to finish packing up after math and they leave together, while Nayeon always leaves before them (“you guys are so slow, I swear to god”); it’s there in the way Jungyeon takes cares care of her, pays attention to her silently, without asking for anything in return. 

    The first time she sees Jungyeon is, contrary to popular belief, not when Jihyo introduces them, but when Jungyeon bursts into their first session math class, late and dishevelled, hair windswept and shirt untucked, spewing apologies and bumping into every desk she walks past on the way to her own (including Mina’s). Mina watches this girl in wonder—this girl, who bruises herself on the corners of desks, who brings a makeup bag instead of a pencil case, who sleeps through class, who sits two seats away. She spends the next two sessions thinking about this girl, and then she meets Jihyo. She doesn’t need to say much, because she and Park Jihyo just click, and it’s decided; Jihyo will introduce her to her friends, Jungyeon and Nayeon. Mina agrees. As they walk to Jihyo, Nayeon and Jungyeon’s table, Jihyo explains to her things about the school that she isn’t really sure of, a discussion that continues even after they reach the table, only pausing so that she can be introduced to Jungyeon and Nayeon. When she sees that ‘Jungyeon’ is the clumsy girl in her math class that she can’t seem to stop thinking about, Mina decides that for now, it’s safest to just pay 100% of her attention to Jihyo while she talks, because there’s no way she can look at Jungyeon and stop looking.

    The first letter she gets appears in her locker the morning of the first math test of the term. When she sees the pink slip of paper, at first she assumes it’s Jihyo slipping her a reminder of sorts, but she opens it to a “Dear Mina” and a single line of illegible text, followed by a small heart. It is, she deduces, a love letter of sorts. She stares at it in her hand, mouth slightly open in confusion. But the thought of someone liking her brings her an unexplainable happiness and a sort of pride, followed by the urge to show off the letter (which she doesn’t have to do, because JIhyo appears a few moments later and does the showing off for her).

    (But the letter doesn’t leave as big a smile on her face as thinking about Jungyeon does.)

    She supposes it starts when she decides to offer Jungyeon help with physics. She had thought it was a nice thing to do, to offer help, because their classes had swapped tests for marking, and she ended up with Jungyeon’s test. It was mostly multiple choice, so Jungyeon should have been able to do better, but she didn’t and that’s what prompts Mina to it up and try to turn this into an opportunity for them to spend more time together (my gosh, how bold!).

    She finds Jungyeon and Nayeon lazing about at their usual table, and she clears .
“Jungyeon?”
Jungyeon looks up, and falters, “y-yeah?”
Seeing Jungyeon nervous makes her nervous, “Can I—” she falters, “can I talk to you?”
Jungyeon shares a glance with Nayeon, who shrugs, “I don’t know anything.”
She sees Jungyeon gulp, and wonders why either of them should be feeling nervous.
“S-sure,” comes the reply, and she wonders why Jungyeon looks so terrified.

    Things happen so quickly that Mina can barely grasp the situation as Jungyeon runs away while she stands there in confusion. All she does is bring the two of them into an empty corridor to offer her help, because she knows how prideful Jungeyeon is, and Nayeon would surely have to the ends of the earth for such poor academic performance. And the next thing she knows, Jungyeon is rambling and suddenly she’s being confessed to.
She wonders if things will change.
(Of course they do.)

    Nayeon texts her later that evening.
So i heard went down
“Yeah,” Mina sighs in her room, “it did.”

    Mina thinks hard about what Jungyeon said to her. So that’s why Nayeon and Jungyeon were always so weird when she asked about the letters. She’s both relieved and conflicted that Jungyeon is her secret admirer. Relieved, because at least now she knows her feelings weren’t one-sided after all, but conflicted, because Jungyeon won’t even look at her anymore. It’s like Mina doesn’t exist.

    At home, her hands hover over Jungyeon’s name in her phone.

    “So you’re saying Jungyeon is your secret admirer?!” Jihyo asks in disbelief.
Mina nods.
“Oh my god. I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner!” Jihyo groans into her hand, “Jungyeon is always so obvious when it comes to crushing on someone, geez I can’t believe I overlooked that. Maybe it’s because I never thought that she’d ever have a crush on a friend but—oh my god, doesn’t that just make it worse? The fact that you’re friends and now you have to reject her?”
Mina tilts her head in confusion, “why would I do that?”
Jihyo sputters, lost for words for once in her life, “I—you—WAIT.”
Mina manages a grin.
“You didn’t tell me this?? I thought we were friends—best friends!” Jihyo gapes.
Mina’s grin widens. She opens to respond, but she falters when she sees Nayeon and Jungyeon sitting at their table (well, it’s more like Nayeon is sitting and Jungyeon is trying to become one with the obnoxiously bright orange surface). She stops just ten metres short of the table, unsure if she should move closer. Jihyo stand with her, waiting for her to make a decision. Jungyeon begins preparations of table fusion. Nayeon sees Mina standing there and gets up, walking over to them while Jungyeon remains oblivious.
“You should go over there, hey?” Nayeon pats her on the shoulder, and drags Jihyo away, who protests and struggles (but no one can resist the power of Im Nayeon). She begins the journey.

    As she approaches the table, she notices that Jungyeon is muttering something under her breath, words that are barely audible, but they still make Mina blush when she figures out what they are. She sits down next to Jungyeon. For a while she just lets Jungyeon keep going, but it comes to a point where she feels like if she doesn’t say anything nothing will change.
“Jungyeon,” she calls softly.
Jungyeon looks up in what can only be described as sheer horror. Wordlessly, she begins to slide under the table, eyes glazed and face blank.

    Mina frowns.

______________________________

oops i guess its in 3 parts now ty for subbing n upvoting much appreciate!!