Sooji made her way up the stairs, passing by her parents who were in the living room and telling them she was going to get ready for bed. Her parents simply hummed in confirmation. As she closed the door to her room behind her, she adjusted the sliding switch so that the light was only halfway on; the pink walls of her room barely noticeable. Climbing into her bed, she pulled the picket from the hood of her pocket and further examined it. There was a stamp on the bottom right corner, so it was legitimately bought. She chewed on her bottom lip as she wondered why Jinyoung would have bought a ticket. Surely, he was aware that players on the soccer team were freely admitted, right?

“Maybe he wanted to give it to Miyoung?” Sooji thought aloud, but shook her head when she lingered over the option. The e-mail she read earlier on the bus clearly stated that both cheer and soccer teams had free entrance. It was quite possible that Jinyoung could have forgotten, though. In the short time she had known him, he had forgotten to do homework a few times. She sighed, and thumbed the edge of the ticket. A lot of effort and money had obviously been put into the ticket because the custom design was printed on glossy paper. It was a shame that students couldn’t keep their tickets as souvenirs of the night.

She continued to sit in silence before she got up from her bed and moved to her desk. Opening the bottom drawer, she retrieved a leather-bound book hidden between her previous schools’ yearbooks. After plugging her earbuds into her phone and selecting her favorite playlist, she removed key-shaped charm her necklace and unlocked the journal. A quiet giggle caught in the back of as she flipped through the earlier pages, eyes shining happily as she read entries on how she was excited to sing in the chorus of her school play as an angel, or how much fun she had playing in the snow with ‘Jieun’, her imaginary friend. Her brows raised slightly when she turned to a page with a polaroid taped. It was an older photo of her at her elementary graduation. Behind her on the wall was a list of all the students’ names followed with gold star stickers. Next to her name were three long rows of golden stars that she proudly pointed at. On the right side of the photo stood a younger version of Dongbin. He too was pointing at his collection of stars; his number of stars barely half as many as hers. Even though he was smiling, his eyes were red and swollen from crying.

“I forgot I had this picture,” Sooji leaned closer to further examine the photo, nose almost touching the page. She read the following entry with it, trying to decipher her poorly written Korean. The entry talked about how sad she was going to be in middle school because she wasn’t going to see Dongbin anymore. She then proceeded to call him a weak crybaby because even though she should be the one crying, he was the one who shed tears. She tried her best not to laugh when she read about how she would beat him up for leaving her if she ever saw him again.

Flipping quickly through the next pages, she finally reached her most recent entry. Admittedly, she didn’t write in her journal often so her last entry was from the first day of high school. She reread what she wrote about how dumb she was for no preparing her belongings the night before, resulting in her being late for the bus. However, her nagging tone changed when she began talking about the new friend she made. She chuckled at her description of their first conversation, “That’s right, I don’t think Jinyoung wanted me to talk to him.”

Sooji turned to a new page and carefully taped the ticket on one side. She figured Jinyoung wouldn’t need it anymore now that the homecoming dance was over anyway. Boys didn’t keep memoirs, right? Grabbing a deep purple pen from her pencilholder, she began to write:

“Dear diary, let me tell you about my homecoming night…”

Jinyoung slung his backpack over his shoulder and grabbed his gym bag from his locker, getting ready to leave for practice. He was running a little late because he needed to stop by the athletic office to drop off a form. However, when he kicked his locker closed with his heel, he was surprised to see Dongbin waiting behind it. Jinyoung took a step back, eyes wide in surprise, “Oh. Dongbin. You scared me.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to,” Dongbin bowed his head down slightly in apology. He stood there for a while, not saying anything until Jinyoung asked if he needed anything. That was when Dongbin finally realized he was supposed to keep talking. The taller boy cleared his throat and held out a homecoming ticket, “I was wondering if you could take this. I don’t need it anymore.”

“Ah… um, I don’t think I’m the right person to be giving this to,” Jinyoung replied, “I’m on the soccer team. I get in for free,”

Dongbin’s shoulders drooped, “Oh. Well um… you have a lot of friends, right? Or at least… you know a lot of people, right? So, maybe one of them could use it or something. I don’t know, but I’m not going anymore so I was hoping to give it to someone who could use it.”

At first, Jinyoung was going to argue again that he didn’t need it until he remembered Sooji and his conversation earlier at lunch. He glanced at the ticket and figured Dongbin would have gone to homecoming had he not freaked out after asking their classmate. With a sigh, Jinyoung accepted the ticket so Dongbin wouldn’t worry anymore. “I’ll see if I can find someone who wants to go.”

Jinyoung’s thoughts were interrupted when a small pebble skipped the sidewalk, tapping the concrete as he accidentally kicked it while turning the corner to his street. Other than that, there was nothing but the sounds of crickets chirping and the whispering of his thoughts in his head. Looking around, Jinyoung recognized the familiar houses of his neighbors. He didn’t realize he was getting near his house already. He could’ve sworn he had just left Sooji’s house. That’s probably why they say not to daydream when you’re walking around at night. Who knows where he may have ended up if he didn’t snap back to reality? 

Jogging the rest of the way to his house, he made sure he passed by the automatic lights along the driveway so that his family would know someone was approaching. He called out to his siblings who were busy watching a movie on the television that he was home. The only response he got was from his mom who welcomed him back from the kitchen. He could hear the kitchen sink running and assumed she was preparing for tomorrow’s meals. Jinyoung noisily ran up the stairs to his room and immediately dialed Jihoon’s number when the door closed behind him.

“Hello?” Jihoon’s voice flowed through the speakers of his phone, “Jinyoung? Where are you?”

“At home,” Jinyoung switched the call to speakerphone as he changed out of his warm up suit into his pajamas, “Are you still at the dance?”

“No, it just ended. I’m on my way home already… but more importantly, why are you at home?” the older boy continued to interrogate him, “One second, you were behind Miyoung and I, then the next second, you were gone! If you didn’t want to go to the dance, you could’ve told us, you know… The three of us could’ve hung out somewhere cooler.”

“Like there’s anything for minors to do at night,” Jinyoung reminded him, grapping his phone and switching the call off speakerphone as he flopped backwards onto his bed, “Besides, it’s not that I didn’t want to go to the dance, it’s just…”

“Just…”

Jinyoung kept silent for a few minutes, trying to figure out how he was going to say his excuse without making it sound like he ditched them for no reason, “A friend – you know Sooji, right? The one who always waits by the bleachers after practice? She came to watch the game. I dropped her off at home after.”

“Why didn’t you just ask her to go to the dance with us, then? Or take her home to dress up if she wasn’t already and come back?” Jihoon really was trying to crack down on him, “You still have that ticket from your other classmate, right?”

“I did ask her! Sort off…” Jinyoung rolled over to grab his soccer jacket from the floor. He almost forgot that he put the ticket away in his pocket. He balanced the phone between his shoulder and his ear, “Anyway, she didn’t seem like she wanted to go.”

“Hmm… I see. Leave it to most of the Class 1A students to miss the dance,” Jihoon sighed, “Well, you didn’t really miss much other than Captain Im’s homecoming king coronation. Did you know the homecoming queen – the varsity cheer captain – isn’t his girlfriend? I never would’ve thought.”

“Oh, really? You’re right, that’s not how it usually goes in movies.” To be honest, Jinyoung wasn’t really paying much attention to the conversation anymore.

The following minutes consisted of Jihoon filling Jinyoung in on the new gossip that he found out during the dance. Eventually, Jihoon ran out of new information to share, so they agreed to see each other again on Monday. Usually they would have resumed practice on Saturday, but their coach was nice enough to let them off weekend practices since they worked hard and won for their first game. To Jinyoung it was both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, he was glad he could sleep in. On the other hand, he now had nothing to do. It was like summer vacation. There’s too much time, but you don’t know what to do with that time.

After they hung up, Jinyoung tossed his phone onto his pillow and dug around his pockets for the ticket Dongbin gave him. However, it wasn’t in any of them. After looking through them once more, he shrugged and laid back down on his bed, “Oh well. It must’ve fallen out of my pocket on the way here. Good thing I don’t need it.”

The next weeks flew by fast because before Class 1A knew it, possibly the most important exams of their time as first-year students were just around the corner: midterms.

Jinyoung cringed at the midterm schedule in his planner. Korean History was not only his worst subject, but it was also his first exam. He leaned his elbow against his desk and grabbed at his hair, deep in thought. How was he going to find time to study for midterms in-between soccer practice, games, and doing homework (since lessons didn’t stop for midterms)? With a sigh, he looked over beside him at Sooji’s desk to ask her how she was going to schedule studying, but she was already out of her seat. Jinyoung watched her walk out of the classroom, chatting with Dongbin about… well, whatever they talked about. Knowing them, it was probably some conversation with big words he recognized from chemistry lecture but didn’t know the definitions of. Jinyoung stood up from his seat, and began putting his things away. He figured he would ask her later.

“Off to practice now, Jinyoung?” Miyoung asked, stopping by his desk. The hairs on Jinyoung’s neck raised. He still had war flashbacks to the one time Miyoung tried talking to him about the homecoming dance. She smiled when he nodded, “Cool, me too. Hey, I was just wondering – did you want to study for midterms together?”

“M-me?” Jinyoung stuttered, not sure if he was hearing this correctly or if he was dreaming.

Miyoung nodded, reaching up to tie her wavy brow hair up into a tight knot above her head, “Yeah. You know, since cheer and soccer end practice around the same time. I was thinking we could go straight to studying and doing homework right after practice.”

A fluttery feeling rose in Jinyoung’s chest as he thought about the offer. Studying with Miyoung? He was sure he would never be any luckier than he was right now. He has used all the luck he had in this lifetime. Trying his best to keep himself from sounding too eager, he agreed. She pink tinted lips curved upwards into a smile, “Great! We can start this weekend if you’re not busy. Anyway, I’ll text you about it later since I have to go, but I’ll see you later!”

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