Sana smiled to herself slyly as she walked down the hallway, shoes tapping against the freshly polished linoleum. The sound echoed through the emptiness of the school. A high school after the final bell rings feels very similar to an ancient mausoleum. Huge, hollow, haunted. The atmosphere couldn’t have been more different from Sana’s mood.

A certain event from earlier in the day kept coming back to her, and she could feel something like anticipation humming in her veins. Something very fun was coming. And she was excited for it.

This energy carried her through the halls and to the gym. Taking a right at the double doors, she walked to the very end of the corridor and knocked on a door that looked like it might have been closed since the school was built. It opened with a long screech, piercing eerily through the deserted space.

    “There she is!”

    Sana was ushered through the door by an enthusiastic Momo. She looked around, taking in what appeared to be an abandoned office. Nearly the entire space was taken up by a battered dest, a dirty chalkboard, and a sagging coach. A thick layer of dust covered everything. Sana beamed. “You were right, Jeong, it is perfect.”

    “Thank you!” Jeongyeon responded from the couch. Nayeon, seated next to her, huffed. “Someone disagrees.”

    Nayeon sniffed disdainfully. “There is dust everywhere.”

    “No, but we can fix that,” Sana insisted, sitting down in the desk chair and spinning. The chair felt like it might break under her weight. “It’s exactly what we were looking for.”

    “I agree,” Momo declared, plopping herself down on the couch with Jeongyeon and Nayeon. It groaned ominously under their weight. “Are you sure we’re allowed to be here though?”

    “Well,” Jeongyeon squinted in thought, tilting her head back to look at the ceiling, “not exactly. Coach said I could stay after school for practice, which I’m not doing. But I’m pretty sure the administration doesn’t even know this is here. Can’t have rules if the place doesn’t exist.” Sana and Momo giggled, only making Nayeon look more disgruntled.

    “Come on, babe, smile! It’s great.” Jeongyeon implored, reaching out to mess with her girlfriend’s collar. “Just admit that I found us the perfect hang out spot. Come on. Just admit it.” She grinned goofily, and Nayeon’s scowl started to crack with her girlfriend’s antics. Their faces started to get closer.

    “Hey!” Sana interrupted. “I have something to tell you all, and it is definitely going to cheer you up.”

The couple stopped abruptly and separated reluctantly, twin looks of skepticism on their faces.

    “This better be good, Minatozaki,” said Nayeon.

    “Oh, it is. I…” Sana paused for dramatic effect. “Met a girl.”

    The room was thoroughly underwhelmed.

    “That’s it?” Jeongyeon asked, deadpan. Nayeon rolled her eyes. Sana scoffed, taken aback.

    “Yes, that’s it,” Sana said, offended. “Not good enough for you?”

    “Sana,” said Momo, “you meet a new girl everyday. I love you,” she made a sympathetic face, “but that is no longer news.”

    “No, no, I’m telling you, this was special,” Sana insisted, leaning forward of the desk.

    Jeongyeon heaved a sigh, deciding to give in. “How’d you meet her?”

    Sana smiled proudly.

“Fell on top of her.”

    Nayeon gave a burst of laughter. “Damn, Sana, you really work fast now, don’t you?”

    Momo chuckled almost disbelievingly. “How did you fall on her?”

    “Well, it was more like she fell into me, but I ended up on top.” She smirked playfully. Jeongyeon looked at her, eyebrows raised. Sana’s grin only widened, recalling the moment in pristine detail.

She had been walking to her Chemistry class from lunch, trying to remember the room number. She paused in the hall, reaching to search through her bag for her schedule, when a blunt force hit her back, nearly knocking her feet out from under her. She was thrown off balance and spun to see what had happened, only to slip on the wet floor and collapse on top of the person who she assumed had initially bumped into her. Her face landed in their neck and she groaned, pain lancing up the hand she had thrown out to break her fall.

“Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry.”

Sana heard the stuttered apology and felt the vibrations of the person’s voice thrum through the side of her face pressed against their throat. Raising herself up on her elbows, she struggled to get a look at this person. She blinked, clearing the daze of the blow from her vision and, for a moment, she was breathless. It wasn’t because of the fall.

    This girl was beautiful. Even woozy and half unconscious on the floor, she was radiant. Her hair was splayed out on the floor underneath her, shining in the fluorescent lighting, and her soft features were drawn into a grimace. She looked like a sleeping princess, if said princess had just been woken up by someone shoving her out of bed onto the floor. Despite the pain shooting up her arm, Sana smiled.

    “No need to apologize.”

Sana saw the girl’s eyes light up with the fearful recognition of prey spotting predator. She scrambled desperately from underneath Sana and stood up, half formed words and syllables spilling from . It seemed to be taking a great amount of effort with her injured head. Sana was quick to follow her up. Now standing, she took notice of their height difference, and smiled wider. That was always fun. Shorter girls tended to be easier to fluster. She decided to take full advantage of the situation.

"I’m Sana,” she said, leaning forward slightly, causing the girl to step back. “What’s your name? I don’t think I’ve seen you around.” She was beaming brightly but the girl’s eyes only widened, fear obvious.

“Uh, D-Dahyun,” the girl said, spluttering like a fish out of water. Sana’s eyes glinted devilishly.

“Nice to meet you, Dahyun.” She enunciated the name, savoring it. Dahyun gulped.

“How is it that I missed a pretty face like yours in this school?” Sana asked, tilting her head.

Dahyun’s eyes widened further and she mumbled, spitting out something like “frshmn”.

“Ah, you’re a freshman,” Sana said. “Well, if you need any help, getting acquainted with the school and all that...” As she spoke, she crowded even further into the girl’s space. Dahyun found her back pressed against a locker and panicked.

She coughed, clearing and trying to jump start some courage. “Um, uh th-thank you for the offer, but I have, I have to go, I have class.” She tried to walk off, but Sana put up an arm, trapping her.

“What? No, you’re hurt, after that fall.” She pouted and Dahyun gulped again. “Let me take you to the nurse.”

“No, no, really, I’m fine.” Dahyun stammered.

Sana leaned in, impossibly closer.

“I could kiss it better.”

Dahyun gave a strangled cry and forced her way out of Sana’s grasp. “No, no, I think it’s good, I’m fine, what fall? Right as rain, perfectly okay. Goodbye, Sana.” She left hurriedly, blushing bright, and Sana smirked in her wake.

“See you later, Dahyunnie!”

Sana grinned after telling the story, taking pride in the looks on her friend’s faces. They all looked shocked, but not too shocked. Momo’s mouth was dropped open, and Jeongyeon exhaled shortly, biting her lip in amusement.     

“Wow, Sana,” she said. “I’m surprised you didn’t devour her right there in the hall.”

“Well, she gave her best shot, didn’t she?” Nayeon laughed. “Almost gave the poor kid an aneurysm.” Sana tried not to snicker with pride at that.

“Why do you think she was so afraid of you?” Momo asked.

“She probably heard about Sana’s reputation,” Jeongyeon said.

Sana mock gasped, clutching her chest. “What ever could you mean by that, Jeongyeon?”

Jeongyeon rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Sana.” She affected a high, imitating voice. “‘We flirt, it’s what we do!’ You’re the worst of us all, everyone knows it.”

Sana continued her offended act, looking to the other girls only to receive affirmative nods in response. She dropped it, shrugging with a smug nonchalance.

“Well, I guess I can’t fight it, if the people have spoken.” She leant back in the desk chair, gazing up at the ceiling. “I don’t know though. This girl felt different from the other girls i flirted with.”

“Maybe you’re just not used to getting rejected so quickly,” Nayeon suggested, earning a laugh from the other two on the couch.

Sana shook her head at the ceiling. She didn’t think that was it. She felt a different sort of pull to Dahyun. It wasn’t just fun to flirt with her, it was exhilarating. It was like a caffeine shot to her brain every time she remembered the girl. Sana felt her smile widen at just the thought. She was very excited to see Dahyun again. As soon as possible.

~~~

“SHE FELL ON TOP OF YOU?”

“Well, I think technically it was my fault.”

Chaeyoung just looked around, flabbergasted. Her eyes wandered around the shelves that surrounded them, as if searching for an explanation in the spines of worn books that hadn’t been checked out in ages. They had come to the school library to study, already bowing to the increased pressure of high school, but Dahyun was burning. She had to tell them about her incident with Sana in the hall that afternoon, spitting it out of nowhere over their World History textbooks. She received quite the reaction. Chaeyoung looked like she was reenacting some sensational scene of confusion with the air, and Tzuyu, seated next to her, seemed equally incredulous, though showcasing it in a less theatrical manner.

“She fell on you, and then?” Tzuyu prompted, ignoring Chaeyoung’s increasing dramatics.

“Honestly, it’s a blur.” Dahyun struggled to recall more details of the incident. She could only remember sparse details: a blunt pain in the back of her head, a sweet floral smell, blood rushing to her cheeks, and Sana’s glossed lips so close to her own. She decided not to express these thoughts to her friends. “We had a little conversation, I stuttered like an idiot, she offered to kiss my head better, and I ran.”

Chaeyoung shook her head, almost in wonder, running a hand through her hair.  “God, the audacity of that girl. Seems like Jihyo wasn’t exaggerating.” Tzuyu nodded sagely. “Hopefully she’ll leave you alone.”

“Yeah,” Dahyun said, staring at the book on the table in front of her and fiddling with the corner of a page. “Well, I mean, I don’t know.”

Chaeyoung rounded her eyes on Dahyun in an instant. “You’re not into her, are you?” she asked.

Dahyun met her eye and then darted to Tzuyu, who had an equal look of tension on her face. “No, no, of course not,” she said quickly.

Chaeyoung still eyed her suspiciously. “Alright… good.” She looked back to her text book, not seeming entirely convinced, but willing to drop the topic for now. “What was the first human civilization again?”

Tzuyu opened to answer, but Dahyun didn’t hear a word after that. Her head was whirling too quickly, thoughts of wet floor signs and Sana’s perfume and everything else from that moment dancing like leaves on wind in her mind. It was all very strange and confusing and this adjustment was already rough enough without adding promiscuous older girls and friends’ disapproval. But Dahyun really didn’t know.

As she went home that afternoon, having bid farewell to her friends at the school doors and wandering alone down the road to her house, Dahyun found that her mind just couldn’t stray from Sana and her friend group. Jeongyeon and Nayeon, leaned up against a locker in the morning, wrapped up in each other and offering spare words of support. Momo, giggling like a fool at a funny comment thrown across the lunch table, eyes shining with reckless joy. Sana, pressed against her front on the floor of the South hallway, smelling dangerously like sugar and flowers. It was like they were some giant inescapable presence, a blanket spread over everything in Dahyun’s world. And when she got to school the next day, she realized very quickly that things were exactly the same there.

It was one of those things you didn’t notice until it was pointed out to you, and after that, you saw it everywhere. All anyone cared about were those four girls. What they were wearing, what they were saying, what they were doing. Students spoke more about them than any class offered by the school.

“I heard Yoo Jeongyeon got a new car over the summer.”

“Yeah, I heard Im Nayeon bought it for her.”

“Hirai Momo told some girl on the cheerleading squad her favorite food is jokbal.”

“Oh gosh, I should write that down.”

“Do you think Nayeon and Jeongyeon would ever have a ?”

“Not with you.”

“Have you ever heard Sana sneeze? It’s the cutest thing in the world.”

Everywhere Dahyun went in the school, the whispers followed. They could be about the most inane to the most graphic things imaginable. It was incredible, the amount of gossip these girls could create by apparently just existing. Dahyun was somewhat amazed, but highly annoyed.

It was so persistent, drilling into her ears at all times. And it didn’t help that a significant amount of the whispers were about Sana. Sure, the school adored them all, but a clear favorite was beginning to emerge. It was difficult enough for Dahyun to sort through her own thoughts without an endless torrent of gossip about the most prominent figure on her mind being poured on top. She, just for an hour at least, wanted to not hear about, entirely forget about, Minatozaki Sana.

Things finally began to slow down as the final bell rang and the students poured out the school doors, fleeing from hours of boredom and brain wracking but weighed down with hours of homework. Dahyun wasn’t among them. She had spotted a poster on the club pinboard earlier that day and decided to check it out. She desperately needed a distraction from her own brain.

Dahyun spotted the classroom down the hall and approached hesitantly. The amount of noise from inside was unexpected; she hadn’t thought this club would be that much of a draw for people. Steeling herself, tugging the straps of her backpack closer, she stepped through the door.

Nobody took any notice. Everyone was immersed in their own conversations. Students sat scattered on desks and counters around the room, talking to each other just loud enough to be abrasive. At the head of the room, behind the desk where a teacher would commonly reside, stood Mina, who surveyed the room with a pensive stare. Dahyun, relieved to see a familiar face, made her way up to the front.

“Hey, Mina,” she greeted. Mina turned abruptly, as if drawn from thought, and smiled in recognition.

“Oh, hello, Dahyun,” she said. “Are you here for Japanese Club?”

“Yeah, I’ve always wanted to learn,” Dahyun replied. “I saw the sign up sheet and thought ‘hey, I’ve always wanted to learn’, so here I am.”

Mina chuckled. “Yes, well, I hope you do get to learn,” she said. “This club can get a bit chaotic, I’m afraid not enough actual Japanese is taught.”

“Yeah, I noticed it seemed a lot more popular than I thought it would be,” Dahyun remarked, glancing about the crowded class. Mina nodded in agreement.

“Yes, people do seem to enjoy it,” she said, but there was something noticeable in her voice. Dahyun didn’t think she was being entirely genuine.

She asked, “So, are you the leader of this here shindig?”

Mina grimaced slightly. “Co-leader, actually.”

“Dahyunnie!”