It wasn’t everyday Jinyoung asked his classmates for help with homework, but with Math being the first subject after lunch break, he had no other choice.

Jinyoung and Sooji sat across the table from each other; one taking her time and enjoying her lunch, while the other frantically switched his attention back and forth from one mathematics workbook to another. Jinyoung had completely forgotten they had math homework to complete, and unfortunately for him, had been assigned at least two days’ worth of pages. He was eternally thankful that Sooji offered to let him copy her answers. It was one of those assignments where you needed to show work so Jinyoung didn’t want to make copying her homework obvious. The problem; however, is that math is very hard to fake work with. So, instead, he tweaked a few steps so that he would get slightly wrong answers. Partial credit was better than no credit.

“Ah don’t forget the additional problems in the practice manual,” Sooji pointed to the pink page marker placed at the back of the book, “He’s said he was going to check those too.”

Glancing over his shoulder at the giant clock on the wall, Jinyoung clicked his tongue in annoyance when he realized he only had less than half an hour left. He was only halfway through the main set of problems and was quickly running out of time. Shaking his head, he returned his attention back to Sooji, “Dang… how many problems are there? Is it hard?”

Sooji took a moment to finish chewing, also using that time to think about how many review problems they were assigned, “Hmm, I think there are five, but they were kind of long. Two of them were word problems and the other three were cumulative. They weren’t hard. My work is there though, if you need it.”

With the first half of the year quickly coming to a close, their teachers had been cracking down on assigning homework and speeding through lessons so they could cover the planned material before their winter break. Compared to their usual pace of one chapter for three days, their teachers were now spending one chapter for one day. If you didn’t understand it on the first day, you’d get lost for the next day. Though he no longer had a strict practice schedule, Jinyoung was still struggling to keep up with this pace. The only down time he had really was during the weekend, but even then, sometimes he wanted to spend the whole Saturday doing nothing or going out with his friends. It wasn’t easy being in Class A.

While Jinyoung continued finishing his forgotten homework, Sooji cleaned up their table; she put away his tray for him as well. As she was making her way back to the table, form the corner of her eye, she saw Miyoung waving to her from the window. She had returned to her seat when Miyoung ran inside the lunchroom and slipped into the seat beside her. The older girl greeted Jinyoung and Sooji when she arrived, and quickly wound her hair up into a messy bun that still looked somewhat neat atop her head. She peered over at Jinyoung, “Hey Jinyoung, mind if I borrow Sooji for a second?”

After Jinyoung hummed in approval, Miyoung turned her attention to Sooji, placing her hands on the younger’s shoulders, “Are you going to winter formal?”

“Winter formal? I’m not sure, to be honest,” Sooji answered. Originally, she hadn’t planned on going, but with the way Sewoon was so pleased with how the preparations were going, she thought it would feel bad if she didn’t.

Her answer didn’t seem to satisfy Miyoung as she continued to insist that Sooji go, “Come on, Sooji! Go~! You didn’t go to homecoming or the Halloween dance. Don’t you think it’ll be fun to dress up?”

Miyoung did have a point. The last time Sooji had dressed up nicely – as in, dress, pretty hair, makeup, etc. – was during her fourth-year dance in junior high because it was mandatory for all the graduating students to attend. Still, that was in junior high where barely any boys attended the party because they were only allowed inside by invite only. With a sigh, Sooji reached up and pat the hand Miyoung was resting on her shoulder, “Alright, alright. I’ll check my calendar… I mean, this doesn’t mean I’m going. I still need to think about it. Besides, I don’t think I even have a dress that fits me anymore.”

“That’s the next thing I was going to ask you!” Miyoung said enthusiastically, clapping her hands together and slightly bouncing in her seat, “Do you want to go dress shopping with me tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Sooji blinked at the random offer, “I can’t tomorrow. That’s presentation day for extension and I’m giving one.”

“Oh, well then… how about this weekend?”

Sooji realized Miyoung wasn’t going to let up on going shopping together, so she gave in and agreed to go during the weekend. This seemed to excite Miyoung because she smiled from ear to ear; Sooji smiled back. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea going out with another female friend. Since she started high school, she didn’t have much female interaction outside of those in her extension when collaborating during experiments anyway. With a glance at the clock, the pleased look on Miyoung’s face turned into one of panic, “Oh shoot, lunch is almost over.”

“I may or may not have forgotten to do my history homework that Teach Park said he was going to grade today,” Miyoung admitted sheepishly, slowly getting up from the table so she could hightail it to her locker, “So, I’ll talk to you later about our plan for this weekend, okay? See you in class!”

And with that, Miyoung was gone.

There was a brief silence between the remaining two students at the table until Jinyoung closed both the workbooks in front of him, letting out a heavy sigh. He finished with then minutes left before break was over; ten minutes to calm down and celebrate how he wasn’t going to get marked down for having incomplete homework. He returned Sooji’s workbook by sliding it to her, “So, when did you and Miyoung start getting friendly?”

Sooji shrugged. It wasn’t that she didn’t know, it was more of a question as to why. Ever since they went to Everland together, Miyoung began talking to her more often. Before, they would simply exchange greetings during homeroom, but now they held conversations and did things together. For a recent history presentation, when they were permitted to choose partners, Miyoung approached Sooji and asked if they could work together. This surprised Jinyoung and Dongbin because Sooji always worked with Dongbin, and Jinyoung would work with Miyoung. And when cheerleading practice was still going on, Miyoung would walk with Sooji to the science building before heading off to the gym. Sooji assumed that Miyoung really did just want to be friends. From what she had been told, Miyoung wasn’t particularly close with anyone on her cheer team because they were all from different classes. Nevertheless, Sooji enjoyed her classmates’ company.

“Miyoung is really nice. She cares a lot about her friends,” Sooji smiled, gripping at the hem of her skirt, “I can see why you like her so much.”

With the winter formal being less than a week away, the student council and the volunteers were starting to feel like time was a car speeding on a highway. All the decorations were made and packed away in boxes, tickets were being sold, and Sewoon’s nagging was on full power. The past few days, the volunteers had been staying longer hours making sure everything was ready for transport to the venue. The dance was going to be held at a party hall in the city that apparently Sewoon had fought on the phone for hours fo