Chaeyoung sat alone under the tree at the park at the campus area, she looks down for once in a while after she took some random pictures with her camera, wincing a little bit when she put too much burden on her right arm where the guy she fought two weeks ago injured her shoulder pretty badly. She away the blood on her lip where it ripped and stitched, Chaeyoung closes her eyes after she puts down the camera on the empty space on the bench she was sitting on. Sighing, she replied the event two weeks ago in her head where two guys beat her up, she wasn’t supposed to be distracted, she wasn’t supposed to get Mina distracted and got her head hit so hard with a stick that Chaeyoung knew the guy would use, and she was supposed to informed Mina about it. But she didn’t, she asked herself why thousands of times for the past days, and she blames herself of her girl’s injury.

Her back was on the back rest when she sees a girl walking towards her, long dark hair, short skirt, dark long-sleeve top that’s tucked into the skirt, her bag hanging in one of her shoulder, a small teddy bear keychain wearing the same bag as the one she has on one of the zippers of her bag. The girl has an iced vanilla latte she bought from Starbucks in one hand, she showed her bunny teeth as she smiled to some people she might not know the names as they are waving towards her. Chaeyoung took the camera and put it on her lap, the girl sat beside her after making sure no one follows her anymore. She handed the younger girl a cup of strawberry ice cream. She focused her attention to Chaeyoung, tucking strands of hair behind the girl’s ear.

“How’s your shoulder? Get any better?” Chaeyoung shook her head no, playing with the ice cream inside the cup. “It’s not your fault, Chaeng. No one could probably know what would happen during a fight.”

“I saw him grabbing the stick from the car when I ran to her, Nayeonunnie, I should have told her about it, warned her at least.”

Nayeon sighs then hugged the girl on her neck, pulling them closer so then Chaeyoung could rest her head on Nayeon’s shoulder. She kisses the top of girl’s head, smelling her hair afterwards. Nayeon’s finger ghosted around Chaeyoung’s bandaged shoulder all the while thinking how bad Chaeyoung must feel towards Mina and how it could affect her healing process.

“She will be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“She’s not dead, Chaeyoung. If she does we’ll be having a funeral by now.”

“That’s so not helping.”

Nayeon chuckles, “She is fine, the hospital I sent her in informed me that someone came and took her home.” Upon hearing the information, Chaeyoung stops playing with the ice cream. Nayeon notice the sudden change in movement then sighs, rubbing the younger girl’s arm. “She will be fine, I promise you.”

“I mean what if it’s those people from that night? They were really eager in trying to kill us.” Chaeyoung said worried, pushed away to look Nayeon in the eyes before the other girl pulled her back in.

“It was not any of them, I was at there at the hospital all the time, Chaeng. I could never leave her alone, not after what happen.”

“Okay. Who was it then?”

“Yoo Jeongyeon.”

“Jeongyeon unnie?” She pulled away from Nayeon completely now, looking at the girl before her as she was confused from the information Nayeon gave her. Nayeon just nodded her head and tapped her shoulder telling Chaeyoung to lean on it again, and she does.

“Stop pushing me away, I’m your team leader.” Nayeon flicked Chaeyoung’s forehead playfully before she continues filling the girl in. “So yeah, she was in and out of the hospital because her fellow basketball player admitted there four days before I took Mina in for a hit and run, I told the hospital to call me if someone took her without giving them my name. I knew she would ended up taking Mina into her care, I mean she is Yoo Jeongyeon after all, she would never have a heart to just left Mina stranded at the hospital with no one to take care of her. And then I remembered you told me that she might have a crush on Mina so I think it’s all just in its place.”

“But she is in Dahyun’s circle, shouldn’t we be more careful about it?”

“We should, that’s why I still have my eyes on her. I put tracker in Mina’s earing and in Yoo Jeongyeon’s jacket when I bumped on her the other day at the hospital. So, I kind of monitor their movement.”

“Oh,” Chaeyoung slumped her shoulder in relief after hearing it, but then she furrowed her brows. “but only a tracker, not a microphone?”

Nayeon scoffed as she face-palmed at the girl’s word, put a little bit pressure with her hands that was resting on Chaeyoung’s injured shoulder. Chaeyoung yelped. “I figured I do your job when you couldn’t, can you at least thank me for that? Also, since you told me that she’s clear then I think it’s kind of your fault if she ended up in Dahyun’s circle for a reason?”

“Oh my god, my shoulder will never recover.” Chaeyoung flinched, biting Nayeon’s collarbone that made the girl gasped in surprise.

“Kid! What on earth??” Nayeon pushed Chaeyoung away from her, touching her shoulder where Chaeyoung bit her.

“What, we are now equally hurting. Although yours won’t last as long as mine but I’ll take it.”

“Are you on something?”

“Yeah, painkiller.”

“Hey, don’t do drugs you’re underage!”

“I’m not underage and those are meds the doctor gave me!”

The older girl kicks Chaeyoung’s feet and almost dropped the camera to the ground by the force, Chaeyoung gasped as her reflect works on catching the camera from falling and breaking. She looks at Nayeon then the girl hugged her almost immediately, saying sorry as she laughs and kisses Chaeyoung’s face. Her hug almost crushed the small girl if she didn’t hear Chaeyoung whined telling her to not hugged her too tight as she was afraid her shoulder would fall apart. When Nayeon lets go of the hug, Chaeyoung rest her head on Nayeon’s shoulder again. She took the coffee from Nayeon’s hand then take a sip of it before she finally ate her strawberry ice cream. Nayeon plays with the girl’s hair after she took the camera on Chaeyoung’s lap and went through the gallery. She checks the picture one by one.

“Shouldn’t you be in class right now, unnie?” Nayeon hums, still looking at the camera. “Then why are you still here?”

“I have more important thing to do.”

“What important thing?” Chaeyoung looks up meeting with Nayeon’s when the girl feels Chaeyoung moves in her hold.

“Delivering the strawberry ice cream, letting you drinks my coffee, filling you in, and complimenting your great captured pictures.”

Chaeyoung giggles, squirms in Nayeon’s arm then feed herself the ice cream Nayeon brought her. “Is that so? You haven’t compliment any of the pictures though.”

“I haven’t?” Nayeon fake a shock. She pats Chaeyoung’s forehead with the arm that was circling the girl’s frame several times causing the younger girl to whined then laughed before she rested her head atop of the girl’s head. “You took reaaaaally good pictures I hope I’m as talented as you.”

“You took good pictures too.” Chaeyoung said putting away the now empty cup of ice cream then cling into Nayeon even more.

“Comparing to Sana, not you.” she said singing the words.

“That’s not true.” Chaeyoung laughed more before she continues. “People will freak out if they know we are thisclose.”

“I know right, I wonder what they would think. They probably spread a picture with a caption that I cheated on Momo.”

“That might be it. We can’t be seen this close, though. I actually a little bit concerned that someone might see us right now.” Chaeyoung then looks around, pulling away from Nayeon but still holding the older girl’s arm. “It’s so unfair that you have to be the popular one and I’m not.”

“Chaeyoung, I screamed popular.” Chaeyoung pushed her shoulder playfully. “You’re too small.”

“Hey what’s wrong with being small? I’m cute.”

“Oh, who said that? Did you just praise yourself? I thought being narcistic is my thing.”

Chaeyoung only laughed at her, she took her camera from Nayeon’s hand then snapped a picture of the girl. They both checks the result afterwards. Nayeon drinks her coffee again then stood up.

“I’m hungry, and since we’re not supposed to be friendly, I’ll let myself looking at your back while you’re walking. Let’s go, my treat.”

“Now we’re talking. I choose the food too.”

Nayeon rolled her eyes, wait until Chaeyoung far enough before she started walking, looking down at her phone pretending to not giving any care in the world to the girl walking several meters in front of her. In this world, Nayeon and Chaeyoung is not friendly, they are the polar opposite and they are planning to keep it that way.

Not far from where Nayeon and Chaeyoung was once seated, someone was quietly taking a picture of the two when they were clinging into each other. The person bit her lip, anxious and disappointed at the same time. Hoping that whatever possibility she had in her mind were not going to be right. She walked away from where she was hidden when Chaeyoung stopped in her track.

She turns to looks to the campus main gate, her whole body froze, Chaeyoung choked on her words when Nayeon looked up from her phone and to the smaller girl in front of her. She looks to where Chaeyoung’s attention averted to, and saw Mina walking in to the campus with Jongyeon on her side, supporting her. Nayeon looks back to Chaeyoung and almost lose the girl in a heartbeat if she didn’t stop her from running to the other side of the campus. Chaeyoung looks back at her groggily then she bit her lip after seeing Nayeon shook her head no. Her eyes are glossy, and her breathing was erratic. Nayeon gets the feeling as if Chaeyoung would scream Mina’s name if the girl didn’t pull herself together, and they couldn’t just let everyone in the campus see the worry and the fear in Chaeyoung’s eyes. Their identity would be laid off if that happen, and besides, seeing both Mina and Chaeyoung in an injury at the same time would only cause people to presume both of them got it from the same event.

Well, they were but they can’t let it happen.

Chaeyoung studied how every once in a while, Mina had to bit her lip and furrowed her brows to fight the pain in her head, Jongyeon would stops from walking then checks on Mina all the while asking her if she wants to sit down for a little bit. Mina will shake her head and smiled at the teal head and assured her that she was okay and she can take it. Chaeyoung has her hands tremble as she keeps her feet still from running towards the girl and remind herself to breath properly so then the pain in her shoulder would gradually subsided. However, she can’t.

She saw Jihyo screams Mina’s name from inside of the building and the girl crashed on Mina while she ran. The later almost fall back but Jihyo pulled her by the arms, checking on her from head to toe then gasped at the bandage on Mina’s head. Chaeyoung can see clearly how broken Jihyo was only by her eyes, which make her snapped aback and tells herself that that is exactly how she would look like if she ran herself towards the Japanese girl. People would easily see her feelings clearly in her eyes. Chaeyoung’s breathing calms down after she keeps telling herself to, and her hands stops trembling as she focused on the stinging pain on her shoulder, it hurts but it helps. Chaeyoung was finally calms down until she saw Sana walked slowly towards Mina.

One of her hand falls to her side as the other covers , the girl’s eyes are clearly giving the impression that she was indeed shock about the bandage around Mina’s head. Jihyo makes a place for Sana beside her – in front of Mina – without a care in the world about how Jeongyeon look annoyed at the girl. It was so sudden, and it gains people attention when Sana hugs Mina, tightly.

Here, Nayeon’s breath hitched, she had her hands in fists when Chaeyoung looks at her. The older girl bit her lip Chaeyoung concerns that it will make her lip bled. She walked towards her, trying to reach for her fisted hand when the girl turns around and walked away. She told Chaeyoung to go get lunch without her and if she heard it right, Nayeon’s voice cracks when she spoke.

When she looks back to the other side of the campus again, Sana already pulled away from Mina, but her head was hung low then Mina wipes Sana’s face gently. Sana was crying, Chaeyoung wasn’t sure why but she is, and it was confirmed at how Jihyo keeps on rubbing a comforting circle on the girl’s back and how Mina offers the hem of her blouse to the other girl. Chaeyoung realize something then, and it’s not going to be good at all. Her shoulder was hurting again and she groaned, then sighs. She took out her phone and type a message before she puts it back on her pocket and walks away from the scene.

At the other side of the campus, Mina pulled out her phone and opened the message. She looks around the campus area to no avail. She can’t find Chaeyoung then remembers that she is the team bug after all. Jeongyeon touched her arm, and she shook her head then smiled.

“It’s nothing.” She said softly before she turns to look at the girl in front of her. She fixes Sana’s hair and grinned, the other girl can’t help but to mimic her. “That’s better.”

Sana then circled her arm on Mina’s then intertwined their fingers, her face turns a little bit pinkish when she looks at Jeongyeon and raised one brow.

“I got her, you can go now.”

“I’m not–“

“You know what,” Jihyo butts in then grabs Jeongyeon’s wrist as she pulled the girl away. “let’s just go. I need peace for once in a while. I’ll see you at the dorm, Myoui! Don’t disappear on me again.”

Mina giggles at Jeongyeon’s irritated expression when the girl try to break away from Jihyo’s grip but waves her hands at Jihyo. When the two gets in the building, she looks at Sana who was already looking at her, Mina feels her face heated up. The other girl’s eyes are anything but joyful.

“What’s up?”

Sana reached up to grace Mina’s forehead where the bandage is “Are you really okay? You skipped classes for two weeks, then you came back with this.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You better.” The girl sighs, unsatisfied. “I finished the project, I was going to give you the result but I couldn’t find you. Is it okay if I give it to you later?”

Mina looks at Sana beside her when they started walking, wondering what happen to this girl when she was gone that she became all soft and shy with her. She hums as the answer to the girl’s question so then Sana wouldn’t see how she was looking at their intertwined finger and feel weird about it. She was about to asked her but something in her told her not to and just enjoy whatever it is right now. She deserves something normal after a guy hit her head really hard, anyway.

She listens to Sana talking random things to her, she nods sometimes and the other times smiles while looking at her. When the girl stops talking for one second, Mina starts to think about the text message but soon forgotten when Sana squeeze her hand and starts to giggle before she even starts talking. Mina forgot about how the pain in her head supposed to kill her, then laughs at Sana failed attempt of talking instead as she keeps on laughing and never tell Mina anything at the end. Sana walks Mina to her seat at her class then told her to wait for her when the class ended, she said that she would pick her up and be her guide for today. The watched Sana walks away and waved at her from outside the class before the girl vanished behind the closed door.

Mina flashed out her phone, reading the last text message again before she spends the whole class worrying about the small girl.

Her head is hurting again.

Chaengchaeng

01.57pm

I’m really sorry.

*