Minkyung doesn’t know if she finds it hard to breathe because of the wraparound dress her mother got for her or because of how overly-crowded the room had become.

Everything smells of expensive perfume and she wonders if she was the only one getting nauseated by it, briefly having her visions blurred and Minkyung swore for a moment that the flutes of champagne looked like stars. She staggers back a bit but quickly catches her balance.

Curse these heels.

How her mother forced—suggested that she wore high heels to match her dress despite the fact that her height already competes with their town’s tallest oak tree is beyond her.

Minkyung sees no point for her to participate in their town’s annual summer gathering. It’s not like it’s Christmas or New Year’s Eve. It’s just something their town made up to get the people to know their neighbors better just for the heck of it. It is a relatively small town after all.

 And of course, like any other get together, only the adults were enjoying themselves.

Minkyung fans a cloud of cigarette smoke blown her way out of her face before erasing the frown gracing her face at the sight of her parents walking towards her.

“Enjoying your evening, darling?” her father asks earnestly.

Minkyung looks around her and says, “There’s too much boogie-woogie going on for my liking.”

Her father sips from his own champagne flute Minkyung hadn’t realized he had with him before speaking. “The night is young, Minkyung. Perhaps you should try dancing tonight.”

Minkyung thinks she’s rejected every boy in town who’s asked to dance with her. She doesn’t tell this to her parents though.

Instead she offers them a smile before they leave her to her own devices. Once her parents are out of sight, she leans back on the nearest column and lets the melody of the trumpets drown her system. It was much better to watch than join in on all the dancing going on. There was barely enough room for another pair anyways.

She sees a few of her friends on the dance floor, sees Yaebin repeatedly stepping on that Vernon Chwe boy’s feet by accident while spewing out a thousand apologies from what Minkyung could make out. She looks a little to the left and sees Mr. and Mrs. Park talking with her parents, spots Kyungwon trying to help Siyeon slip away.

She shakes her head at her friends’ antics, cranes her neck a little to get a better view as to where Kyungwon and Siyeon run off to this time. Minkyung follows them with her fox-like eyes all the while checking on their parents to see if they have noticed Siyeon’s disappearance. A little bit more and they’re out the door, which would mean another success for the duo.

At least her friends were having fun. Minkyung smiles at the thought, stretches her neck out a little more to look over the shoulders of a couple who just passed by, loses sight of Kyungwon and Siyeon.

She scans the area where she last saw them, looks left, looks right, and finally she catches sight of—

Someone who dare rival her in the height department. Minkyung immediately gives the newly entered girl a once over from where she stands, which proves to be rather challenging given the fact that the stranger was at the other end of the room and there were too much people bopping to swing music in the middle of it all.

Minkyung could see that the stranger was wearing a black lace frill long sleeved dress and as she made her way through the crowd, Minkyung couldn’t help but conclude that this stranger is a fine physical specimen.

Minkyung has never been one to just steal a glance. She stares hard at the figure weaving her way through the crowd, tries hard to think which family she belongs to because she was sure—so sure that she wouldn’t let a face like that walk around the streets without having a single clue what her name was.

She takes a right, takes a flute of champagne in her hand as she makes her way to a couple from which Minkyung could only assume were her parents judging by the way their outfits were complimenting each other. Minkyung sees them talking, pretty stranger would smile from time to time and Minkyung just couldn’t help but be absolutely—

“—stupid.” Minkyung only catches the last word before pushing herself off the column she’s been leaning on and takes a deep breath before turning to the source of the voice. “I said you looked stupid.”

Minkyung rolls her eyes good-naturedly at the sudden interruption of her reverie. Kyungwon and Siyeon snickers beside her.

“That’s Nayoung. Im Nayoung.” Siyeon says as she flattens out her skirt with her palm. “I heard my parents talking the other day with the Ims.”

Minkyung nods absentmindedly, not at all bothered with how Siyeon is blatantly providing her information, not even wanting to confirm if Minkyung would want to hear it in the first place. She should be used to it by now.

“You know the Ims,” Siyeon continues. “They only come to town to check on their summer house. Apparently this is their first time bringing their kids along.”

Minkyung was about to say the name out loud, wanting to know how it would feel for it to roll off her tongue but she catches sight of Yaebin skipping towards them, leaving it stuck on .

“Save me!” Yaebin says with a fake exasperated tone, quickly grabbing Minkyung’s hand who grabbed onto Kyungwon who grabbed onto Siyeon as Yaebin dragged all of them to the dance floor. Siyeon shoots her a glare, Kyungwon only laughs and goes along with it, Minkyung could only wonder how they managed to squeeze through to get to where they stand now.

The jazz orchestra plays another song, this time with more emphasis on the percussion.

“Why did you drag us here?” Siyeon hisses through gritted teeth.

“To dance, dummy!” Yaebin replies with a hearty laugh. “I’m a terrible, terrible dancer and if I dance with other terrible dancers, I would stop feeling self-conscious about it!”

“That’s one way to put it.” Kyungwon has an easy smile on her face as she says this, takes Siyeon’s hand in hers and gives her a little twirl. Minkyung’s hand searches for Yaebin’s but only gets a grasp of thin air, sees Yaebin already dancing with her father.

She looks around, notices how she’s sticking out like a sore thumb when everyone else around her had a partner to dance with. She sees her parents by the side looking rather amused at her. She scrunches her nose at them. She looks to their right, rather surprised that her parents were beside the Ims.

Minkyung notices three things.

One, her father seems awfully close with Mr. Im. Maybe that could earn her points with his daughter.

Two, said daughter is not with them.

Three, their soft gazes landed somewhere over her shoulder.

She follows said gazes and warmth shot painfully up her neck.

Im Nayoung was about two dance pairs away from her. Alone.

She’s pretty, Minkyung knew that. But she’s prettier like this, at a nearer distance. Minkyung realizes she’s been staring when Nayoung looks at her, realizes she should do something about it because she is Kim Minkyung, goddamn it.

So she walks up to her, head held high, tries her best not to trip on her own feet. Her heels were too much of a pain but that should be the least of her concerns right now.

There was silence for a brief moment, both of them allowing the sounds of the band fill in for the dead air.

Nayoung holds out her hand and Minkyung clumsily accepts it. She pulls her towards her, narrowly avoiding a foot to the back of her head from a pair who were too much into the tossing and turning. Minkyung catches a whiff of white diamonds yet she doesn’t feel as dizzy as she expected to be.

“I’m Nayoung.” Minkyung bites back a I know. My friend told me. She knows everything. I’ve been staring at you for the past fifteen minutes. before taking a step back to return to their previous safe distance.

“Minkyung.” she introduces herself in return. She hopes, wishes, prays that her voice didn’t shake.

“I’m guessing you don’t dance much.” Nayoung says, almost like a slur. Minkyung finds it rather cute.

She shakes her head. “I have two left feet.”

The woman in front of her chuckles at this. It sounds light but there was a rasp in it and Minkyung thinks it’s amazing how everything she’s seen so far in Nayoung is in neither two ends of the spectrum.

“Do you swing?” Nayoung asks.

“Uh.” A pause. “You mean like both ways?”

Silence. Only the bass of the cello could be heard, the beat of the drums reverberating around the room and Nayoung is looking at her.

She’s just looking at her.

“I meant the dance.”