Check out their Weekly Idol episode to see Subin crushing on Cathy all through. A+. Would recommend. 

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Being popular wasn't everything. It wasn't as easy as that. It wasn't as if it didn't take any effort. Subin involuntarily tipped the corners of her lips down as she saw some boys grouping around one of the new first year girls. They had been grouping around –her- before. She had never particularly enjoyed it, but now that they weren't there, she felt abandoned.  

Honestly, Subin had always found ways to remain popular. Either fashion-related wise or by dating the captain of the school's football team. The latter only because he was the most wanted guy in school, of course. Subin tired of him quickly. Siwon turned out to be a huge in the end. Not only that, but after having dated the most popular guy, she found nothing would shock her schoolmates anymore. She had doomed herself, really. How was she supposed to divert attention back to her this year? Things sure were getting harder. 

Honestly, it appeared as if she'd need something really big. Something shocking.  

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

Cathy pushed the bucket along with her foot, her hands too occupied with other cleaning gear. She hated this job. She loathed it. When she had applied in this pizza tent, she hadn't been too set on serving pizzas but, on second thought, it had to be better than the job she'd been given now. She spent her days cleaning disgusting pizza floors and smelly bathrooms. She couldn't wait until she found something else. She couldn't afford –not- to work, however. Bus fares wouldn't pay themselves and, to be entirely honest, she might need some new clothes. Desperately.  

She came here 2 evenings during the week after school, plus during the day in the weekends. Sometimes, she really felt as if she had no life whatsoever left. How sad was it, that school was actually the time she considered 'chill'?  

"Think of the money," she mumbled to herself, finally leaning over to drop the cloth into the bucket of warm water. She swirled it around for a bit, enjoying the fact that the water was still clean for now. It wouldn't be for long. She eyed the bathroom, her nose crunched. This job .  

She pulled the rag out of the bucket just as she heard the door open behind her. She got up, dropping the cloth on the ground before pressing her mop onto it. When she didn't hear anybody walk into a toilet stall, however, curiosity got the better of her and she glanced over her shoulder.  

This girl was just... staring at her. Cathy stopped in her tracks, not bothering to hide the fact that she was annoyed by blatantly staring back at her. The longer she stared, however, the more the girl seemed familiar. "Subin," she just said in greeting as she finally recognised the girl. She didn't know her. Well, she knew –of- her. Who didn't? She was pretty. She was rich. She was popular. That was all she knew. It was enough for her not to want to know anything else. She turned around again, continuing her mopping of the floor.  

"You work here?" Subin asked her and Cathy didn't even know why. They had never talked before. They had never even had eye-contact for more than a second, with which Cathy was more than okay, really. Subin was a year older than her, so they didn't share any classes. There was absolutely no reason for them to have any contact at all.  

"Yeah." 

Cathy didn't need to turn around to know how much she surely disapproved. She couldn't care less. She continued mopping the floor, not even looking up once.  

"Would you like to earn money in another way?"  

Cathy furrowed her eyebrows together in confusion. Why wouldn't this girl stop talking to her? "I'm fine."  

"This doesn't look –fine-," she heard the girl come closer and Cathy stopped instinctively, straightening herself before turning to face the tall girl. 

"Look, what do you want? I don't know you."  

"You knew my name." 

"I know OF you," she was casually leaning on her broomstick, maybe secretly a little happy to be distracted from her work, until her boss would come to check up on her of course. 

"That's good," there was a smile on her face that seemed way too kind and familiar. It made her a little uncomfortable.  

"I need you help to make sure people will keep 'knowing of me'." 

Cathy snorted, of course this was something that had to do with popularity. This was her queue to start working again. She focussed herself upon the ground again, mopping it roughly, "I honestly don't care about any of that." 

"I wasn't expecting you to. But I think you might care about earning more money, in a way easier than cleaning public toilets too." 

"I really don't," even money wasn't a good enough incentive to get involved in high school drama. She would avoid that at all cost and she could just feel this whole thing heading straight towards it already. 

"You'd rather clean toilets than help me? I feel mildly insulted," she didn't sound insulted, more so amused, which was something Cathy could appreciate. From her reputation, Cathy had expected for Subin to be a prissy spoiled brat. She lifted her broom, picking up the rag before throwing it into the bucket again. "Surely there is someone else you can bother to help you out? One of your lackeys?" She had to smirk at the thoughts of the group of sheep following Subin around. Boy, it was kind of scary at times.  

"I need your help specifically. You're a lesbian, right?"  

Cathy frowned, "what does that have to do with anything?" This wasn't going to be pleasant, for sure. 

"I want you to be my girlfriend." 

Cathy scoffed, "uhm... That's not how it works." 

"I just need you to pretend to be my girlfriend for a while." 

"Why?" 

Subin remained calm, apparently not bothered by her questions. Cathy envied her patience. "My popularity isn't what it used to be. Dating a girl will surely get people to talk about me again." 

Cathy raised an eyebrow, "I can assure you, it won't be in the good way." 

Subin shook her head, "that doesn't matter." 

Cathy didn't know whether to laugh or not. She was baffled, "are you serious? Are you so desperate for attention?"  

Subin shrugged, "yes."  

At least she was honest. Cathy would give her that. Still, she eventually shook her head, "no thanks. I'm not getting involved."  

"As I told you, I can pay you a lot." Cathy believed her. It wouldn't be nearly enough though, for her to get involved in this. "No thanks."  

"Okay...," it sounded contemplating, "is there something else you want?"  

Cathy huffed. She sure was persistent, "nope."  

"There must be something."  

Cathy cocked her head, closing her eyes. She was getting quite annoyed and was about to snap when suddenly a thought came to mind. She didn't want much, really. Everything she wanted she could work for to achieve somehow. Except one.  

- 

It was perfect. Subin hadn't realised that this would be her saving until she saw the girl at the pizza place she had decided to go to that day. It had to be fate. 

What better way to regain some attention by turning out to be dating a girl? It was the best plan that had occurred to her until now, definitely. It would work. For sure. If only she could convince this girl! Honestly, when she saw her cleaning toilets, she had figured it would have been easy enough to convince her with money, but she was unpleasantly surprised.  

"There must be something?" She tried again, satisfied with how calm her voice was coming out. She was quite good at hiding her desperateness. She racked her brain for what else she could offer the girl as she opened again. Contrary to her expectation, however, she quickly closed it again as she spaced out slightly and her brows furrowed together in thought. So, there was something after all. Interesting.  

"What is it?"  

Cathy blinked a few times, "nothing," she eventually said, slight blush on her cheeks. Subin pursed her lips, "Just tell me what you want and I will give it to you. You have my word." She saw the younger girl stop her movements again. So close! Just a little push. "whatever it is, it will all stay between us. Nobody will know." 

The wooden broomstick hit the ground as Cathy straightened herself, apparently trying to gather the courage to spill what it was she wanted. Subin didn't know why, but she felt butterflies in her stomach as she held her breath in anticipation. 

"I want you to help me get together with a girl."  

Well... This was definitely not what she was expecting. Her eyebrows rose up in surprise, "a girl? What girl? How am I supposed to help with that?"  

As a lesbian, Subin was sure Cathy would know more about hitting on girls than she did, for sure. What the hell was she supposed to do? Seriously, she could offer the girl a lot but this was not one of those things. 

"Her name is Chaeyeon. She's in my class. She's quite popular and I believe she really looks up to you. I think you could really influence her to at least give me a chance?" 

"uh," Subin wasn't at a loss of words often, "I can try?" 

Cathy pursed her lips in thought for the whole of 5 seconds before slowly nodding, "okay."  

"Okay?' 

"Okay." 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

"She looks pretty," Subin eventually had to admit after scrolling through Chaeyeon's Facebook page for 5 minutes.  

"She is," Cathy just said while looking along over her shoulder.  

After 5 minutes, Subin already had some sort of idea of what Chaeyeon was like. Mainly because her profile was almost an exact copy of her own. She was popular to a certain extent. If that meant she also thought in the same way Subin did though...  

"This is going to be easier than I thought."  

"You've got an idea?"  

Subin grinned, "Our goals are tied together. You see, we will be the talk of the school, giving me what I want. In the meantime, you will also get more popular, no doubt, hanging around with me...," she swooped her hair over her shoulder as she raised her eyebrows, "after which you'll surely catch Chaeyeon's eye."  

Cathy just frowned, not looking very convinced, "you think?"  

Subin shrugged while nodding, "yeah. Given she's gay at all, of course."  

Cathy nodded, snorting.  

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

Subin's friend stared her up and down, "this seems like a horrible idea. You'll be labelled 'the lesbian' forever if you do this." Cathy had to agree with her. 

"Of course not. If I date a guy afterwards again, it'll all be okay. In the meantime, we'll be the talk of the month though." The girl with orange hair just raised her eyebrows, "if you say so." It was clear she wasn't as sure of Subin's plan at all. Cathy thought it was a  plan too. For Subin at least. Hopefully it would work for her. 

"Chill, Serri. It won't affect you if anything goes wrong," Subin rolled her eyes. 

"So, when are you guys going to start 'dating'?"  

"Soon. First, we have to give her a make-over."  

Cathy widened her eyes, "what? You didn't say anything about a make-over!" She liked her clothes. Sure, she could use new ones, but this was her style. 

"Look, this will only look good for me if you look good. It's just for now, afterwards you can do whatever you please."  

Cathy scoffed, "you don't think people will notice a sudden change in my style?"  

Subin eyed her doubtfully, "you think enough people pay attention to you now to notice?"  

Cathy's jaw dropped down. It wasn't like she cared that she was unpopular but to put it like that...  

Subin sighed, "sorry, I didn't mean it like that. We'll just go shopping together and pick things we both approve of, okay?"  

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

So maybe it wasn't all that bad. After having convinced Subin that flannels were standard lesbian wear, she had allowed her to buy loads of those. Not even with her own money! Maybe it would all be worth it in the end, after all.  

That was, until Serri pushed her into a hairdresser's chair and started playing with her hair.  

"Wait, what are you doing?"  

"Fixing this."  

Fixing? FIXING?! "There's nothing to fix!" 

"I meant IMPROVING it," she quickly added, but by the bored tone of her voice it was obvious she didn't think the same as she said. Cathy pressed her teeth together. For Chaeyeon.  

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

Subin had had boyfriends before, but barely any had been smaller than her. Definitely not a head smaller. It felt weird to have Cathy by her side. It felt slightly off. Her hand was small within her own, opposite of the usual firm protective grips she got from her boyfriends.  

Nonetheless, it seemed to have the desired effect. People were whispering already as they walked through the school gates. They w