Nayoung eagerly walks into the hallways for the next lecture, albeit she denies her cheerfulness and pushes away as well any possible reason why. Nayoung gets to her locker, softly humming as she retrieves her necessities and casually arranges them in her bag, before giving the locker door a light push and locking it up, all with a pleasant tune on her lips. 

She then proceeds to make her way to the next place she is supposed to be. LT2, she smiles to herself, Superposition lecture. 

"Haebin ah!" Nayoung swiftly turns her head over to the source of the sound with alert eyes, her ears sensitive to the said name. 

"Oh, Jiyeon ah! Annyeong," Nayoung watches as Haebin beams and greets the girl who has called her with her everyday eye smile. Nayoung's heart aches a little, but she doesn't know why. Her initial cheerfulness is washed away in an instant, as any sign of gleam vanishes from her face. 

"Yahh, Kim Nayoung, why are you stoning in the middle of nowhere?" Nayoung regains her senses and finds Mimi right before her.

"Mimi unnie!" she jumps, slightly startled. "Why are you here?"

"Picking something up from a friend in the Science fac. Why, are you still lost on your way to your lecture?" Mimi doesn't batter an eyelid and Nayoung cannot tell if she's joking or not, but the underlying sarcasm in the sentence irks her.

"Unnie! I know my way already," Nayoung protests and walks off in a huff. 

Mimi chuckles. "Yahh! Why are you like that today?" she asks, but doesn't get any reply as Nayoung leaves without turning back. Just as Mimi is about to pick her feet up, a familiar figure walks past her.

"My lecture's at LT2," the familiar figure says to another girl, "See you later!"

"Ne Haebin ah! I'll get going!" Mimi's jaw drops at the girl's warm response, and she remains rooted to the ground watching as both part ways. 

"So that's Haebin?" Mimi mutters under her breath with furrowed eyebrows in astonishment. No wonder Nayoung was petty, she thinks, and laughs to herself once more.

・・・

Nayoung has herself seated in the very first row of the lecture theatre, refusing to go any further back lest her eyes land on the very person she doesn't want to see. She remains silent, her head down, shutting the world out while fiddling with her fingers, the prior incident still troubling her.

"Nayoung ssi?" she is shaken out of her daze by a call of her name, to which to turns in puzzlement towards where it is from.

"Chungha ssi?" Nayoung's eyes lightly widen, "You're in this lecture too?"

The girl named Chungha blinks, and nods with a small, shy smile. "I didn't know you're in this lecture too," she replies, a little sheepishly, "May I sit beside you?"

Nayoung is surprised by the request.

Her lack of response must have triggered a panic in Chungha, who, immediately explains, "Uh, I usually sit here, right before the chalkboard so I could get a good view," slightly flustered.

"Ah!" Nayoung recovers from the confusion, "Mianhaeyo, I didn't know. You can sit here!" Nayoung pushes her lips into a smile while she removes her belongings from the seat next to hers. 

Chungha reciprocates her smile with a gentle yet bright one and seats herself beside Nayoung. "Heehyun's in this lecture too," Chungha adds, "but she'll be missing today's". 

"Is she?" Nayoung tilts her head a little with the question. "I never realised," she mumbles. Chungha doesn't reply her, and she starts feeling jittery. 

"Um, what do you major in?" Nayoung attempts to start a conversation while they both bring out their notes and stationery from their bags.

"Uh..." Chungha ponders for a while, "Engineering. Though not yet specialised," Chungha replies, "You?"

"Industrial Engineering," Nayoung grins, "So we're sort of similar?"

The girls laugh together but it dies down almost instantly. Soon, an awkward silence encompasses them and Nayoung begins to feel goosebumps on her arms.

"You're... Kim Nayoung ssi right?" Chungha starts, somewhat timidly.

Nayoung stiffens up, "Ne," she answers. "There's also an Im Nayoung ssi in Cheer too right?"

"Ne! Ne," Chungha releases a restless chuckle, "I thought I could've been wrong."

Nayoung's lips form a small smile and she shakes her head. The awkward silence returns, and Nayoung is back at fiddling with her fingers.

"By the way..." Chungha tries again after a cough to clear , "Are you coming later? Haein sunbae called for a gathering to discuss the seniors' farewell, so we're going on a team lunch," she asks with a small smile.

Nayoung pauses and rolls her eyes up to recall. "Right," Nayoung mutters, "I haven't been reading the messages in the group," Nayoung chuckles nervously. 

"Heehyun won't be there but there'll be others like Sohee, oh and Im Nayoung ssi who will be coming too," Chungha smiles at her.

"I should be able to," Nayoung nods her head with a smile, silently grateful for the invitation from Chungha, as well as their warm interaction despite both of their shyness.

The awkwardness does reside throughout the lecture, but Nayoung is thankful that doesn't have to go through the next hour alone, or with anyone completely foreign. 

"We should get going," Chungha says with much urgency when they pack up, for that day Park ssaem had been overly talkative and had to eat up a few more minutes to complete the section of the topic.

"Nayoung ah!" the girls look up from their bags upon the loud call. "Annyeong," Nayoung sees Haebin before her, with a wide smile.

Nayoung inwardly sighs, still fairly displeased with Haebin, though she knows she's being narrow-minded and unreasonable (she doesn't even know why she's annoyed at Haebin- the morning incident was tiny and doesn't explain much), so she pushes the corners of her lips into somewhat a smile and says plainly, "Annyeong."

Haebin notices the lack of enthusiasm, but it doesn't show on her face which sets Nayoung livid.

"Have you decided?" Haebin asks next, still with a smile. 

Nayoung's mouth forms an 'o' shape. "I'll move in," she forces a smile once more. Not giving Haebin any time to react, she turns around to Chungha and puts up an even brighter smile, "Let's go."

While they make their way out, Chungha asks, "You've yet to move into the student hall?"

"Yeah," Nayoung is slightly embarrassed.

"Who was that?" Chungha asks again.

Nayoung sees from the corner of an eye that Haebin is walking behind them. A little louder, with a fire in her eyes, she answers, "Just, from my middle school."

But Nayoung thinks it wasn't harmful enough. Haebin's a nice person, she knows, Haebin's too nice a person. And Nayoung hates her heart for choosing a person like Haebin. 

"Chungha yah, let's speak casually?"

author's notes: decided not to leave yall hanging for too long!! since i got this out last year too. anw jiyeon refers to lovelyz's kei, i heard haebin and kei became chingus recently heh main vocalsss