Sohye had always had pretty shoddy luck, but this was something else.

"Mina? As in hangs with the scary upperclassmen who probably smoke behind the school Mina?"

Sohye could only nod.

"Wow." Yeonjung furrowed her eyebrows, probably wondering how Sohye's luck always managed to be this bad. "But on the bright side, didn't you say you thought she was cute? This is totally your chance to talk to her."

"Shh!" Sohye leaned across the table to slap a hand over the other girl's mouth. Mina had probably never been in the library, but it didn't hurt to be careful.

Yeonjung peeled Mina's hand from her face. "So what are you gonna do?"

--

After school the next day, Sohye found herself walking towards the shed where the athletic equipment was stored in the spring. In the winter, she knew, it was the preferred hangout for the scary upperclassmen and Mina.

She could do this. Sohye had spent an hour the night before talking to Mr. Sniffles, and he said that real penguins were always brave. Besides, Mina was a freshman like her. How bad could she be? Sohye smiled to herself and set her shoulders a little squarer. This couldn't be too hard. All she needed to do was introduce herself and give Mina the assignment sheet for the project. A robot baby. Sohye shuddered a little thinking about the thing. She had seen the videos of those things online. At least it was only for a month. But still, she had a plan and the introduction was the easiest pa-

"Whadaya want?"

Sohye startled and stumbled back when a girl much taller than her appeared out of nowhere. Sohye's heel snagged on an uneven patch of grass and the world froze for a moment, giving her just enough time to think one thing: crap.

Sohye had barely begun to process the fall when someone grabbed her hand and pulled her rather forcefully back onto her feet. Before her stood Kim Nayoung, who was, in Sohye's opinion, the scariest of the scary upperclassmen. 

Sohye had heard the stories. She thought some of them most certainly couldn't be true, like the one about Kim Nayoung lighting the gym on fire or the one where she commandeered a school bus to go to the amusement park, but with Kim Nayoung in all of her light haired, long legged glory standing in from of her with an eyebrow cocked and her hands on her hips, Sohye was starting to rethink her doubt.

"So?" Nayoung nudged her shoulder with two fingers, causing a dazed Sohye to stumble back a few steps. "Whadaya want?"

Sohye somehow connected the thought in her muddled brain that if she didn't start talking now, she may very well be hung by her underwear from the flag pole. SO she started talking.

"I-I, uh, em," Sohye spluttered out words. "Mina!" Nayoung's right eyebrow slowly raised to meet her left and Sohye knew she was doomed. Sohye swallowed and tried her best to string together a coherent sentence. "M-Mina. Partner. She's, uh, my partner for Home Economics."

Nayoung looked at her for another few seconds, both eyebrows raised. Sohye braced herself for the oncoming-

"Well, why didn't you just say so?" Nayoung broke out into a grin and pivoted, shouting a bunch of nonsense followed by "Mina! It's yours!"

Sohye could hear a faint crash from inside the shed, followed by Mina sticking her head out and shouting back. "Eh?"

"Yours! Your Home Eco partner!"

"Eh!?"

"How deaf are you?" Nayoung threw her hands up