Sooji wakes up to the light streaming through white curtains and a pounding in her head. She lets out a groan, clutching her head when she hears the door opening and slamming shut, a lot louder than it had to. “So you’re awake now?” She looks up to see her mother, an unamused frown splayed across her face.

    Sooji just lets out another groan and flops back down onto her pillow. “What happened last night?” she questions, closing her eyes to shut out the bright sunlight.

    “I was hoping you would tell me,” her mother says. “You don’t remember?”

    “If I remembered I wouldn’t be asking you, would I, mother?” Sooji retorts.

    Her mother's frown deepens. “Sejoo and Sihyun brought you back home. Said you had too much to drink while celebrating your graduation last night,” she answers.

    “Oh.” Sooji blinks. She may not remember much from last night, but she’s sure that she didn’t spend last night with Sejoo and Sihyun. Her mother exits the room with a sigh, probably exasperated by her daughter’s antics, and leaves Sooji to wallow in her hangover.

.

    “What happened last night?” is the first thing Sooji says the moment she enters their usual hangout spot — a lounge drenched in garrish neon lights. This is what she gets for allowing Sejoo to decorate this place.

    “Whoa-ho-ho,” Sejoo calls out. “What? No apologies? No ‘thank you for bringing me home, Sejoo. You’re the love of my life’?” he teases, raising the pitch of his voice in order to do his terrible impersonation of Sooji. He leans in closer to Sooji, puckering his lips in an attempt to annoy her even more than this lingering hangover is.

    Sooji pushes his face away and turns to Sihyun, the more reliable idiot out of the two. “What happened last night?” she reiterates.

    Sihyun shrugs. “I got a call from some girl who was using your phone. She said you got drunk last night and asked me to pick you up from from her house.”

    Sooji freezes. A girl? Fragments of memories from last night start to flash through her mind, and there’s an echo of Kiyoung’s voice calling out “Taehee-yah” with a gentle fondness Sooji had never heard from him before. “Taehee,” she murmurs to herself.

    The boys perk up at the sound of her voice. “Taehee?” Sejoo repeats. “Who’s Taehee?”

    Sooji jerks out of her reverie and shakes her head to brush off their concern. “It’s no one,” she answers. And she better stay no one.

.

    Taehee doesn’t stay no one. As it turns out, Taehee is actually one of the recipients of her mom’s scholarship foundation, as Sooji finds out from the booklet handed out at the entrance of the award ceremony. And as if on cue, Taehee enters Sooji’s vision as soon as she looks up from the banquet.

    She looks beautiful, the part of Sooji’s mind that’s not consumed by anger and heartbreak says. She looks the same as when Sooji first met her — all pastel lace and girlish innocence. Exactly the type of girl Sooji can picture Kiyoung being head over heels for. And then the thought disappears, drowned in anguish as soon as Sooji sees Kiyoung head up to her, fondly greeting her with a gentle pat on the head. Taehee scoffs but doesn’t reject the gesture of affection, making Sooji clench onto her flute of champagne until her fingers turn white. A hand lands on her shoulder, and Sooji turns to see that it’s Sihyun. He’s flanked by Sejoo, and they’re both looking in Taehee and Kiyoung’s direction.

    “Isn’t that the guy you went to the party with the day of our graduation?” Sejoo asks. Sooji nods. “What happened?” he questions, low voice gentle. Sooji thinks to just brush it off but it’s Sejoo and Sihyun, who have been her best friends for as long as she can remember. So she spills everything, bitterly recounting about how Kiyoung had showered her in flowers and affections only to humiliate her in front of his friends.

“Who’s she then?” Sihyun asks, gesturing to Taehee.

Sooji thinks about telling them about her encounter with Taehee, but there isn’t much to tell as her memories were muddled by too many glasses of wine. “His first love,” Sooji says simply.

“Oooh,” Sejoo lets out. “Are we planning to wreck some havoc? Some good ol’ revenge on Mr. and Mrs. Dickbag there?” He rubs his hands together in excitement and Sooji rolls her eyes. To be honest, it hadn’t occurred to her. She was thinking about maybe causing a scene, one that involved her slapping Kiyoung and ruining his overly gelled hair with a couple of flutes of champagne to the face, but maybe Sejoo is onto something for once.

She smirks. “Maybe.

.

    They finish plotting before the ceremony had even started serving dessert. The plan is simple. Taehee is obviously Kiyoung’s weakness, as shown by the way he looks at her as if she had strung up the moon and the stars. Sooji had scoffed at Sejoo’s description, bitterly downing a flute of champagne she had grabbed out of Sihyun’s hand. But it’s true. Taehee is Kiyoung’s weakness, but that doesn’t mean Kiyoung is hers. And that’s where Sihyun comes in.

    “I’ll seduce her,” Sihyun says simply, an arrogant smirk playing across his face as he settles his eyes onto Taehee in a predatory stare. And then he’ll break her heart, just as he had done with every woman before her.

    And then her mother walks up to the stage, hand-in-hand with Sihyun’s father. And everything falls apart.

.

    As if Sooji hadn’t been pissed off enough as it is, Kiyoung had to come over and make it worse with his smug face and greasy hair. Sooji can’t believe there was a point in time when she had found him charming. She walks away before she can do something stupid like slap him. No, that would ruin the revenge plan she and the boys had promised to commit to. So instead, she storms off to find a quiet space where she can calm down.

    Apparently, nothing is going her way tonight as she bumps into someone. “Watch where you’re going!” she growls, pushing the other girl away from her. The girl doesn’t resist and hits the wall with a resounding thud, before sliding down the wall and onto her knees. Sooji pauses, and takes a hesitating step forward. “Are you… are you okay?” she asks. The girl looks up and it’s Taehee. Sooji mentally scoffs to herself. Of course it is.

    “Oh! Sooji-ssi,” Taehee greets, hastily wiping away the tracks of tears on her face and forcing a trembling smile onto her face. Sooji’s resolve wavers for a moment before she steels herself, crossing her arms across her chest. “Are you a scholarship recipient as well?” Taehee asks.

    “No,” Sooji replies bluntly. “I’m the daughter of the scholarship foundation’s director.”

    “Oh, no wonder I didn’t see you up on stage earlier.” Taehee forces out a watery laugh and tries to stand up. She falters, and without really thinking about it, Sooji reaches out and grabs Taehee’s elbow in an attempt to steady her. Taehee falls into Sooji’s body, and Sooji’s heart definitely did not flutter when Taehee lifts her head up and she notices how close their faces are. “Thanks,” Taehee mutters before stepping away, and it’s only then that Sooji notices the bandage wrapped around Taehee’s ankle.

    “What happened?” Sooji asks, gesturing to Taehee’s ankle.

    “Hm?” Taehee looks down. “Oh! I just fell, don’t worry about it,” she brushes it off with a light laugh. It still sounds forced to Sooji’s ears, but she can no longer hear the tears in Taehee’s voice and for some reason, it makes Sooji feel lighter.

    But then she thinks back to the alcohol muddled fragments of memories she had from the night she met, and immediately frowns. “Was it because of me?” Taehee doesn’t give a verbal answer, but the sheepish way in which she rubs the back of her neck gives it away. Sooji remembers that she had tried to stumble off of the bus after Taehee had woken her up, informing her that it was their stop, and then promptly misjudged the distance between her foot and the next step. She probably would’ve cracked her head on the sidewalk had it not been for Taehee, who had been there to cushion her fall. And then, all Sooji remembers is sitting in Taehee’s lap, staring into her warm, brown eyes in a drunken stupor. “Sorry,” Sooji mumbles out.

    “It’s fine,” Taehee brushes off as she tries to steady herself on her heels again. She sniffles, wiping at stray tears that were still clinging to her face, and Sooji is immediately reminded of how they got into this situation in the first place.

    “Are you okay?” she asks despite the more logical (and angry) part of her brain telling her to walk away. Sooji had always been a person to think with her heart anyways.

    “Hm?” Taehee looks up. “Yeah, I already told you I’m fine,” she smiles.

It’s a convincing smile, more convincing than her previous one had been. But Sooji has lived among people who hide behinds masks for far too long to not recognize when someone is pretending. She sighs and digs through her purse for a short moment before handing Taehee a lollipop. “You don’t have to tell me anything. Just-” Sooji pauses, pursing her lips. “Just feel better.” Taehee blinks. Sooji falters, the arm holding the lollipop recoiling just a bit. “What?” Sooji asks. “Do you not like this flavor?” Sooji can’t help but feel a bit offended. It’s her favorite flavor. Why wouldn’t anyone not like it? Sooji takes the lollipop back to inspect it, but is stopped by warm hands holding hers.

“No, no, it’s fine!” Taehee exclaims, hastily taking the lollipop out of Sooji’s hands and immediately popping it into . “Mmm, I love raspberry!” she says, grinning at Sooji.

And Sooji can’t help the small laugh that makes its way past her lips. “It’d probably taste a bit better if you take off the wrapper.”

Taehee freezes and Sooji has to purse her lips to hold back the impending chuckle. “Right,” Taehee agrees, sheepishly taking the still-wrapped lollipop out of . “Thanks.”

Sooji regains her composure and straightens back up. She doesn’t say ‘you’re welcome’ and instead just smirks, and leaves with a coolly said “Let’s not meet like this again.”

.

    Sooji turns the corner and immediately leans her head against the cool plaster of the wall. She closes her eyes, places her hand against her chest, and counts the heartbeats pounding away against her fingertips at an abnormally fast pace. Maybe, she thinks to herself, just maybe she should reconsider the plan of revenge she had spent all evening concocting with Sejoo and Sihyun.

    Taehee’s bright smile flashes behind her eyelids. Yes, just maybe.

.

    It’s only later that Sooji notices that there’s a notification for a text on her phone. “Thanks for the lollipop!” it had said. “It was delicious (And yes, I remembered to take off the wrapper this time)”. There’s a warm smile that makes it’s way across Sooji’s lips before she even realizes it. But then the smile melts off the moment she had seen the contact name Taehee’s number was listed under. “First Love” it says on the top of Sooji’s phone screen, as if it was mocking her. How dare Taehee do this? Smugly rubbing into Sooji’s face that she’s the one Kiyoung is in love with, and not her. Well, Taehee can have him! Sooji will be content with having her revenge instead.

She immediately deletes the text and contemplates deleting Taehee’s contact altogether, but decides against it. Sooji instead grips the phone tighter and heads off to Sejoo’s place. They have a plan to carry out.

.

    “Here, gimme your phone,” Taehee told Sooji, taking her phone out of the drunk girl’s grasp.

    “What are you doing?” Sooji whined. Apparently, after Sooji’s angry drunk girl stage came the whiny drunk girl stage.

    “I’m entering my phone number into your phone,” Taehee answered, although she doubted Sooji will remember any of this when she wakes up. “So you can call me anytime you run into any trouble with Kiyoung-oppa ever again.” She looked over to see Sooji staring hard at her, and immediately flustered. “I- I mean, only if you want to of course! I’m not going to force you into anything!” she backtracked.

Sooji continued to stare at her for a few more excruciatingly long moments before dropping her head onto Taehee’s shoulder. “You’re warm,” Sooji sighed out, distracting herself by toying with Taehee’s fingers.

Taehee blushed before remembering the task she had at hand. Right, the phone! She stared hard at the phone screen. She had entered her number already, but what should she put as her contact name? Any logical person would just put down their name but — “Would it be weird if I put down my contact name as ‘First Love’?” Taehee mumbled to herself. She looks over at Sooji, who was still distracted and immediately remembered the way Taehee could see her own reflection in Sooji’s round eyes when she had leaned close to her face, remembered the gentle way Sooji had called Taehee her first love.

    Taehee looked down at the phone in her hand, and smiled proudly at the contact name she had just listed herself under. ‘First Love’.

A/N: Hello, I am still gay but this time back with another chapter. Maybe I should start watching the drama with subs so I actually know what's going on before I try to write fic based off of it? LMAO Anyways, please comment or upvote if you liked the fic. Thanks!