One day, a university held a random fill-in voting section on their official school's website. The students eventually found their way to the voting box as it was on the home page of the website, it asked “Who is your favourite pair in SM UNIVERSITY?”

 

Then below the question, in red noted, ‘All votes are made anonymous by default. Don't spam. Do not input real names. Only ship names. 13 letters max. Do not include real pairs, that’s no fun. All kinds of ships are allowed. Crackhead-level ships are welcome too. Thanks for participating.’

So the students took a screenshot and passed it around their circles, on kkt, whatsapp, fb, twt, ig and even sns for those who didn’t use social media. A week after, the online vote box on SMU’s webpage was the talk of the university grounds. 

 

The vote stand disappeared from the school’s website a week after opening. The space the box used to occupy this time said, ‘We are now processing votes!’

 

The next thing that happened was that the school announced, ‘WENRENE IS SUPERIOR!’ across their website, replacing “SM UNIVERSITY” the university’s name (which normally ran across the top of the site). Additionally, the school's squiggly logo was replaced with an umbrella symbol which held two letters underneath that read ‘JS’. The ’J’ on the left was in pink and the ’S’ on the right was in blue. The university’s major colour scheme also changed from a baby pink to a lilac purple.

 

Some students began screen-capping every detail pertaining to the weird information found all over their school’s homepage, even screen-capping til the last pixels, as if materialising a sort of receipt. They gathered on a secret KKT chatroom and organised their screenshots, discussed possible meanings and then proceeded to decrypting the letters and colours. Down to the specifics of the san-serif font used and then even to identifying the precise index shade of the CI used.

 

Three days later the text and logo were removed and the website was back to it’s usual format. 

 

SM University had also sent out sns texts, e-mails and letters addressing the incident of their website. It explained that the school's website had been hacked by a user called ‘NYOETRIM’, an ICT staff had discovered the left over digital footprint which revealed thus. The message continued with formal apologies over any inconveniences. Lastly adding, ‘Anyone who may have any information or are even slightly familiar of the mentioned user name, please report to us immediately. We will not be pulling any punishments, do not be afraid. Thank You.’

 

Across the university grounds, you would be able to hear the murmuring of students still in discussion over the incident.

 

“Doesn’t it sound like Taeny?”

“Nah, it stated no real pairs so…”

 

“J and S…”

“They're initials of somebody's name, right?”

“I think so."

"I wonder who."

"Maybe it's..."

 

“But the blue and pink are way too general. I have no clue who it is.”

“Don’t you know there are four popular people who are known for loving those colours?”

“Sort of…”

“You know! Taeyeon, Tiffany, Irene and Wendy... Them? Ring any bells?”

“Oh damn! Yes! Yes! Oh my god.”

“And by eliminating a pair off…”

“No way...”

“Yes way.”

 

“Wow. Our university must be made up of crackheads for a pair that have no connection to win? I swear my ship is realer than this unknown henwing ship!”

“Beats me. But I like it.”

“Stop grinning like a fool.”

“You’re suppressing a grin too, you fool.”

“Am not.”

“Liar~ You like this ship a lot too.”

“Damn righ- Not!”

“For a third year, you sure are bad at lying.”

“That has no relevance right now. Are you mocking my age? Come back here!”

 

“Just to tell you, I actually voted.”

“Oh? Who did you vote for?”

“Irene and Wendy, hekhekhek.”

“What the heck… you crazy idiot.”

“What, why!”

“They’ve never spoken to each other, no interactions. A single conversation? Nada.”

“And?”

“And... they live in completely different departments, how could they be a pair, you dumb nut!”

“Yeah but looks like I wasn’t the only one who voted for them. Shipping is just for fun.”

"This shipping is going viral. I don't know how fun it'll get. Plus most of the student body don't even know it's them. It's just a ship name. We don't know if 'wenrene' is even Wendy and Irene-unnie so stop talking nonsense."

"But people who know, know."

"How does shipping them even make sense though."

"They are superior! Even our university's admin said so!"

"The hack said so not our university!"

"I can't hear you!!"

“Hmph, whatever. I’m curious too but you’re acting way too smug right now.”

"You're just unhappy because your vote wasn't acknowledged."

"I don't know what you mean."

“I saw you vote for yourself and Beyonce. Can't lie in my face when I saw with my own two eyes!”

“What! How did you- No I did not!”

“Yeah yeah~”

“Jeez, stop it. Yah! Don't run off. Don’t merong at me! Why I oughta’-”

 

“You heard that?”

“Eung. But I don’t know what they’re going on about.”

“Have you heard of Wendy?”

“She’s that really popular kid right?”

“Among the freshmen she is the most popular. Don’t worry you’re the most popular among the second years so don’t worry.”

“Why are you talking like that?”

“I know you get jealous easily, unnie.”

“I do not get jealous easily and I’m not that popular, you’re just exaggerating. Everyone just likes my graphic art of the bunnies I illustrated, it’s not a big deal.”

“That project won you that huge overseas competition unnie, it is a big deal. People like you in general, you can't even ignore that, unnie.”

“Yeah, well if you say it like that, I guess maybe. But idk about them liking me that much...”

"Nope, I say so. So it's true."

“Whatever. Anyways, that user ‘NYOETRIM’, aish I can’t pronounce it.”

“What about nu-yo-weh-teu-rum?”

“It seems familiar.”

“You’ve seen the name before?”

“Nope, it's just that it feels like I should know what it means...”

“Oh, well nevermind about that unnie. Can we go and buy some crossants?”

 

___

 

Meanwhile in the KKT Crackhead-Deciphers chatroom (8):

 

“We’ve figured it out!”

“What is it?”

“Look!”

“Why do you type so slowly! Hurry! Hurry! What is it! I can't wait!!!”

“So impatient, be quiet!”

“If you bold the ’n’, ‘o’ and ’t’ of ‘NYOETRIM’… do you see it?”

“Huh? What bold why?”

“Omg stop questioning it. Wait, I’ll just bold it for you.”

“Yes please, hurry. You’re taking so long! Bold! Bold!”

“This: NYOETRIM.”

“Hmmmm.”

“I can’t see it.”

“Wait.”

“It makes 'NOT YERIM'!!”

“Ohhhhh.”

“Omg you are a genius!”

“No sheep Sherlock.”

“Lol.”

“I got auto-corrected gdi.”

“Don’t use vulgar language, our maknae will read it.”

“Why is it that only 4 people have read my messages!”

“Lectures and Maknae went to her club.”

“Sorry.”

“Yerim huh…”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. I slept past three today, brain mushy.”

“Doesn’t Taeyeon get visited by that kid often?”

“She does?”

“Wait til she reads our latest findings!”

“Anyways I’m gonna go get a Americano, see you girls later.”

“See you!”

“It was fun staying up late last night to confirm that the colour index of the pink and blue used weren’t yours or Taeyeon’s designated tones of pink and blue.”

“Haha, you all wanted to double check even though we told you we didn’t pull anything.”

“As if you two could have. It’s a free voting box. You can’t control that.”

“I’m aiming for world domination, don’t underestimate me. Plus I know Yerim personally, I could have. Anyways see ya laters, xoxo.”

“WHAT.”

“WHAT.”

“Wait, what the duck.”

“I know how to pull the right strings. Oh and how to push the right buttons, you know ;). Badum tss, xoxo.”

“She came back just to say that?”

"HHHHH."

“Dirty dirty.”

“WHAT THE.”

“Someone kick her out of the group chat pls.”

 

___

 

Elsewhere in a random music room, someone sneezes for the third time.

 

“Ahh bless me. Sorry.”

“Bless you, no worries.”

“Urgh, is someone talking about me?”

“Hm?”

“Speaking of, do you know about that vote box prank on the school’s website?”

“Oh, yeah I sort of do. My unnies have been talking about it a lot. I had to mute the group chat since it kept lighting up throughout the night.”

“Wow really!”

“Yeah, I hope they slept properly. I worry about them sometimes. Anyways, you were saying?”

“Um, well... I kind of feel like it’s about m-“

 

The door opens abruptly and before she could continue, the club president waltzes in and starts waving his hands gesturing for the members to gather around him. So she grabs her music sheets together and mutters an, ‘I'll tell you later. Let's go over.” before ping her guitar case and bringing her guitar out. Immersed in her club and music, she forgot what she was going to say in the end.