Coming back to school after the weekend, Dahyun noticed something strange. Nothing seemed to have changed at all. And that was precisely the strange thing.

It had all been made perfectly clear. Sana’s reputation might as well have been painted on the lockers. She flirted, didn’t care about your feelings, made you fall in love with her, and then moved on, your heart mangled and clutched in her brightly painted fingers. But for some reason, in spite of everything Dahyun had been told, going against every warning, every whisper, Sana hadn’t moved on yet.

When Dahyun went to her locker in the morning to get her books, Sana was standing across the hall with her friends at Jeongyeon’s. She cast them a quick glance, not trying to draw attention, but Sana caught her eye and waved cheerfully. Dahyun returned the wave, a little unsure, and Sana smiled, eyes still sparkling and definitely directed at Dahyun. 

Walking to Algebra after lunch, down that same infamous hallway of their first meeting, Dahyun found herself walking just in front of Sana. She kept quiet, thinking the girl maybe hadn’t noticed, only to nearly jump out her skin when Sana leaned in and whispered something in her ear. 

“Try not to slip again.” Dahyun’s eyes flicked to the wet floor sign Sana nodded at. When she tried to look back, Sana had gone, leaving Dahyun with a racing heart that she told herself came from the scare and not the way Sana’s lips might have brushed the shell of her ear.

It made no sense why Sana had deviated from her well documented pattern. Dahyun puzzled over it with every smile, every giggle, every little comment. What made this different from the rest? 

Maybe the problem was that a vital step had been missed. Because Dahyun hadn’t fallen in love with her. No siree, she most certainly had not. Maybe Sana was just refusing to give up, waiting until Dahyun gave in and caught feelings for her before she left her in the dust. Well then, Sana was going to be very disappointed, because Dahyun was not going to fall for her. Absolutely not. Nope. But like, something had to change, right?

Dahyun decided that she was tired of being flustered and anxious all of the time. It was stressful and putting a lot of pressure on the veins in her cheeks. She declared she was going to take some initiative in this whole affair. If she was going to have to deal with this until Sana’s attention span lapsed, she might as well get something out of it.

When Sana smiled at her in the hall, she returned with crossed eyes and finger guns. When she found herself behind Sana in the lunch line, she made her own jokes about the mysterious putrid yellow sludge they called “soup” before Sana had the chance. There was a shift. Much to Sana’s delight.

Dahyun still got flustered. Pretty often. This newfound amiability only fueled Sana’s advances, but it was less uncomfortable than before. It was a… new feeling. One that she couldn’t quite classify or decide her opinion on.

Dahyun found herself with an unexpected shadow on her daily afterschool walk to the bus stop. She looked up to the overcast sky and took a deep breath. She was determined. Instead of cringing, she straightened her shoulders, bucking up her confidence. 

“You know, at school is one thing, but if you start following me in public, I’m going to have to call the police,” she called out. From behind, she heard a high giggle and then there was a shoulder brushing her own and the smell of cigarettes and car exhaust was replaced by sweet perfume. 

“It’s not following, it’s accompanying,” Sana insisted.

“Oh, is that so?” Dahyun asked. “Well, to what do I owe the pleasure of your accompaniment?”

“My car’s in the shop, I have to get home somehow.” From the way Sana was grinning, she didn’t seem the least bit upset that she didn’t have her car. “So I can accompany you all the way to the bus stop.”

“Oh, I’m thrilled.”

“You should be.”

They walked in comfortable silence for a little while, which was strange in and of itself. Since when was Dahyun this comfortable around her? She could feel the fluster coming on and silenced it forcefully. No, that’s over. They arrived at the bus shelter and came to a stop. 

Dahyun glanced about, searching for something to break the silence. “So, what part of the city do you live in?”

Sana smirked, and it became clear that attempting conversation had been a bad decision. “Well, wouldn’t you like to know? Want to come back to my place, Dahyunnie?”

Dahyun cleared , refusing to blush. “No,” she stated. “I was going to help you figure out what bus to take.” She nodded her head towards the route map posted on the side of the shelter.

Sana cast a brief glance at the map, but didn’t seem very concerned with it. At least, not more concerned than she was with making her company flustered. “Well, that’s very thoughtful of you, but I have ridden public transportation before.”

“Well, I, uh, didn’t know that.” Dahyun was one more interaction with Sana from taking a vow of silence, but she just seemed to get more and more amused.

“Cute,” Sana cooed. Fighting off the blush was getting increasingly difficult. “I just take the number 4 uptown until 12th. You?”

“The number 4 uptown until 8th.” Sana squealed in delight. Dahyun side eyed her, acting skeptical. “Are you sure you’re not stalking me?”

“Please, if I was stalking you I’d be doing a much better job of it. I’d get the van, binoculars, the whole nine yards. You’d never even know.” Dahyun let out a snort in spite of herself.

Clouds were beginning to darken as the bus pulled up to the curb. Dahyun made a show of letting Sana get on first. Maybe it was because she didn’t fully trust Sana with her back turned but it came off chivalrous anyway. It wasn’t too crowded and Sana pulled Dahyun into the seat next to her. 

Dahyun, determination unwavering, hazarded another chance at conversation. God knows why, because the last one had gone so spectacularly. “So, you live up here? I thought you had one of those houses in the neighborhoods downtown.”

Sana seemed to brighten at the implication that Dahyun was thinking about her at all. “No, I live in an apartment. Nayeon and Momo live downtown but Jeong and I live in the same building up here.”

“Couldn’t you have gotten a ride from her then?” Dahyun asked. 

Sana faltered, just for a second before regaining her composure. “She’s going to Nayeon’s this afternoon,” she explained. 

“Oh, well, good for them,” Dahyun said lamely.

Sana brushed past the dip in the conversation. “What about your friends, huh? Hard to believe they let you walk alone to the bus, you three are practically glued to each other.” 

Dahyun hummed. “Yeah, they both had projects to work on, I think they hung back in the library.” 

Sana’s interest seemed piqued. “Tell me about them.”

“What?”

Sana shrugged. “I feel like you know so much about my friends, I want to know more about yours.”

Dahyun blinked like a rebooting computer. “Oh, well, um, we’ve been friends since middle school. Tzuyu, she’s the tall one, she was pretty quiet at first. Still pretty quiet now, to be honest, but super smart and witty when she wants to be. Chaeyoung, the smaller one, she’s really artistic and passionate. It’s a kinda weird dynamic. Lemme tell you, their arguments are catastrophic. Like this one time in 7th grade…”

She found herself talking about her friends for the rest of the bus ride, meandering from story to story as she was reminded of them. Sana didn’t stop her, only interjecting with questions and reactions probably too enthusiastic to be entirely real. She never took her eyes off of Dahyun. 

The bus screeched to a halt. The driver called out, “12th street!”

Dahyun stopped in the middle of her story, something wild about how Chaeyoung dared her to die her hair orange in 8th grade. “Oh, this is your stop.”

“And?” Sana raised her eyebrows in question.

“Normally, people get off the bus at their stop,” Dahyun said. “Are you sure you’ve ridden public transportation before?”

“I’m sure.” The doors hissed closed.  “Finish your story.”

Dahyun paused, blush finally managing to break through. “Yeah, right. So, we’d gotten the dye from a friend and brought it up to my bathroom. Remember, we hadn’t even told our parents we were doing this...”

She went on, and they both departed at Dahyun’s stop. Just as they stepped off the bus, the first heavy drops of rain splattered on the pavement. They darted quickly under the shelter.

“I spent the entire weekend stressing. I confronted them about it on Monday and they told me they had decided to keep a squirrel as a pet . Here I was, thinking our friendship was falling apart, when really they had just been keeping a woodland creature under Tzuyu’s bed and didn’t want me to find it,” Dahyun finished grandly. 

Sana broke out into giggles. “Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Why didn’t they just tell you what they were doing?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe they didn’t trust me to make rational decisions about it. Which is probably a valid concern, I would have gotten bitten trying to teach it tricks or something,” Dahyun said.

“Why do I feel like that’s definitely something you’d try to do?” Sana asked.

Dahyun shrugged. “It is what it is.” She looked around, apparently just noticing where they were. Rain was dripping through the cracks in the roof of the shelter. “I’m sorry, I feel like I’ve been talking forever,” Dahyun said.

“No need to say sorry,” Sana responded. “I like listening to you talk.”

Dahyun was still apologetic. “But now it’s raining and you have to walk like four blocks.”

The snaky smirk settled into place. “You could invite me to your place.”

Dahyun really should have seen that one coming, but it still managed to make her eyes widen. The casual facade she had steadily maintained collapsed and she stood agawk with nothing to say. 

Sana giggled. “I’m kidding, Dubu. But listening to you stutter is almost as fun as listening to your stories.” 

Dahyun, flabbergasted, responded with the only thing her mind could come up with. “But, still, It’s raining.”

Sana smiled softly. “I’m not going to drown.” She gave a little wave and started to step out from under the shelter. 

“Wait! Just,” Dahyun shrugged off one last bit of better judgement and slung her backpack off of one shoulder, ping and rummaging through it.  “Here. Wear this, okay?” It was Sana’s turn to be taken aback. She found herself entirely dumbfounded and uncharacteristically flustered as Dahyun pressed the bright blue rain jacket into her hands. 

“You can just return it to me later.” Thunder boomed overhead, and the downpour started to pick up. “I gotta go. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She ducked her head and plunged into the storm. Sana was left standing alone under the bus shelter, processing the raincoat she now held in her hands and the empty space in front of her. Coming to, she poked her head out from the shelter and shouted at Dahyun’s departing silhouette. 

“Thank you, Dahyunnie!”

Dahyun didn’t turn around, knowing any resolve she had built up had been washed away. She cursed her decision to give Sana the jacket, knowing it would only be used against her, and now she had to walk home in the rain. And she had talked that whole bus ride. And Sana had listened. God, what was she thinking? She made it up to her apartment, nearly frozen and dripping onto the carpet, tinged with regret. But thinking about Sana’s parting words, and her eyes sparkling when Dahyun told a funny story, the discomfort seemed to be only skin deep and she felt oddly warm nonetheless. 

~~~

As Sana’s relationship with Dahyun seemed to be growing closer, her other friendships were doing the opposite, and Momo was getting concerned. All of Sana’s texts were stilted, she hadn’t wanted to hang out over the weekend, and she wasn’t being nearly as affectionate as normal. Momo was sure she was freezing her out, but she just didn’t know why. 

Their walk to the cafeteria had been uncomfortably silent. Momo attempted to break the ice. “Is that a new jacket?” she asked. Sana hummed noncommittally, which wasn’t an answer. 

“Why are you wearing a rain jacket indoors?” Nayeon asked. Sana shrugged dismissively, which still wasn’t an answer. Nayeon seemed to lose interest, spotting Jeongyeon up ahead and rushing to her, but Momo was still troubled. 

“Are you doing okay?” Sana didn’t respond. She her focus was further down the hall, and Momo followed her line of sight to where Nayeon now held Jeongyeon in a close albeit forced embraced. “Sana?”

“Yes, Momo?” Sana jerked her head around to face her friend. She had finally given a response, but she seemed pissed, and Momo was looking for answers.

“I just want to know if you’re doing okay,” Momo said placatingly. Sana took a deep breath.

“Yes, I’m perfectly fine,” she said, but the tension hadn’t left, and it only seemed to increase as they caught up with the other half of the group at the doors to the lunch room. 

Momo continued to press. “You just haven’t seemed yourself lately and I was wondering if I did something or-” Sana stiffened. Momo tried to catch her eye but she averted her gaze around the busy room. Her eyes landed on a table in the right corner, and in desperation to stop the conversation, she made a rash decision.

“Then he decided, without the permission of any of the other council members, to divert half the funding of the arts department to the football team,” Jihyo said with heavy exasperation.

“Ugh, what a ,” said Chaeyoung.

Jihyo nodded. “I have no idea how he got elected president, but the school has been a worse place ever since.” Mina nodded in agreement.

“Jihyo, you should run for president,” Tzuyu said.

“I’ve definitely thought about it,” Jihyo replied. 

Mina rolled her eyes. “She says, as if being student body president isn’t the first step in her intricately designed plan for total world domination.”

“Mina, please,” Jihyo chastised. “It’s the fifth step, I’ve been orchestrating my take over of the world since middle school.” The table broke out in laughter.

Since that fateful first day, the trio of friends had found themselves joined by Jihyo and Mina every lunch. They sat across the table from the younger three and provided them with high school advice and helpful anecdotes. It seemed like the older girls had taken the freshman under their wing, which was fortunate, because their presence was probably the only thing that had kept Dahyun and Chaeyoung from blowing something up in the student microwave by now. 

“But seriously, you’d be a great president,” Dahyun insisted. Jihyo waved it aside in humility. “It’d also be good for college applications.” The freshman class had just received their first “you need to start padding your resume or you will become a lifelong failure at the age of eighteen” lecture, and suffice to say, it was weighing heavily on all of their minds.

“Yeah, colleges love that leadership stuff,” Chaeyoung added.

“I definitely plan to, but I can’t until senior year. However, speaking of leadership,” Jihyo Mina, “how’s Japanese Club?”

Based on the abruptness of the segue and the look on Jihyo’s face, she had been wanting to bring this up for awhile. Mina winced. “What about it?”

“Still doing that?”

“Yep.”

“Interesting.” 

“What’s so interesting about it?” Mina said indignantly.

Jihyo looked away, feigning indifference. “Nothing, I just can’t really see a reason why you would still be doing it. I mean, unless you count M-”

“Jihyo.” Mina gave her a warning glare.

“I’m not saying anything,” Jihyo insisted, with a side eye that said she was certainly saying something.

Mina rolled her eyes. “Listen, it’s not that bad of a club. Dahyun can tell you, she’s kept coming to-” She stopped in her tracks, realizing she probably shouldn’t have said that. The table rounded on Dahyun, who sat like a statue, as if if she didn’t move, they wouldn’t be able to see her or the color blooming in her cheeks. 

“You’re still going to that?” Chaeyoung asked, incredulous. Dahyun nodded weakly. It was true, she had continued to go to the club, but knowing how her friends would react, she decided it was be a good idea to not tell them about it. 

Jihyo seemed bewildered. “Dahyun, why would you possibly keep going to that club?” Chaeyoung and Tzuyu gave her equal looks of confusion.

She didn’t have any clear answer for their questions. Dahyun couldn’t have told herself why she kept going. She was becoming more friendly with Sana, maybe if she spent more time around the older girl she’d get desensitized to her antics. Maybe Sana would even give up on the whole thing if Dahyun stopped playing hard to get. Well, she hadn’t really been playing hard to get in the first place, and based on Sana’s continued flirting, it didn’t seem to be doing anything anyway. Maybe the she wanted to figure out that feeling she got whenever Sana laughed at one of her jokes. Maybe she just wanted to learn Japanese, okay?

Dahyun’s mouth hung open, lost for words. She tried to wade through the mess of her thoughts, searching for a suitable answer, but she was saved from answering by a call from behind. Or maybe she was just doomed further.

“Dahyunnie!”

Every head at the table turned to see Sana striding towards them, followed by an anxious looking Momo and confused Nayeon and Jeongyeon. 

“Mind if we sit here?”

If Dahyun was lost for words before, it was nothing compared to now. Her head was spinning. Without waiting for an answer, Sana sat down next to her. The three friends hovering awkwardly behind her slowly took their own places, Nayeon and Jeongyeon across the table next to Mina and Jihyo and Momo seated on Sana’s other side. The group, though surrounded by the raucous uproar of the cafeteria, was painfully quiet. 

Sana, ignoring the air of tension, leant into Dahyun’s side. “I needed to return your jacket.” Dahyun suddenly noticed her own raincoat wrapped around Sana’s frame, in flagrant violation of the school dress code. That feeling stirred in her stomach again. Everyone else around the table reacted as well, but in very different ways.

Reeling from the shock of the intrusion, Mina met eyes with Momo across the table, only to promptly break the contact and focus steadily on her lunch tray. Momo sent her eyes anywhere but on the people in front of her. Confused as to why they were sitting here with random underclassmen and not in their normal table across the room, Nayeon and Jeongyeon gave the group nearly identical looks of bemusement. Jihyo met their looks with unconcealed disdain. Silent as always, Tzuyu surveyed the scene skeptically. Chaeyoung shot Dahyun a look of pure “what the absolute hell”.

Dahyun gulped.

“Well, uh, thanks, Sana,” she said uneasily. The older girl shrugged the coat off, almost reluctantly, and handed it over. 

“Okay, well,” Jeongyeon spoke up. “You’ve given her the jacket.” She gave Sana a pointed look that said plainly “why are we still here”.

Sana brushed it off. “Maybe I also just want to spend some time with my Dubu.”

The reactions that pet name garnered wouldn’t have been disproportionate to a bomb going off. Jihyo’s eyebrows shot up to her hairline and Chaeyoung looked like she’d just been slapped. Dahyun realized that the only person who’d ever really seen Sana flirt with her on a consistent basis was Mina, during their time in the club together, but when she looked over for her reaction or maybe some support, she could see Mina’s focus was still firmly set on her food. Feeling very exposed, Dahyun tried to ease up the atmosphere. 

“Aw, come on,” she groaned, but Sana persisted. Her ability to ignore the awkwardness would have admirable if it wasn’t causing Dahyun physical pain.

“It’s true, Dubu, you might as well own up to it.” Sana squeezed her cheeks again, like she had in the library. “I think it’s cute.” She leant in and pressed a quick kiss to the point on Dahyun’s face where she had pinched.

It was… soft. Really soft. She was enveloped in the scent of Sana’s perfume and the spot on her cheek seemed to glow. Dahyun froze in place, but Sana didn’t react at all. She did it so casually. And Dahyun guessed that it must be a casual thing for her, that she kissed girls on the cheek all the time and never meant anything by it. But it certainly meant something to Dahyun. And to the other members of the table.

Jihyo coughed, smiling tightly. “Sana, maybe you should give Dahyun some room. It’s kind of crowded here, so why don’t you, you know, back up all the way to your table over there.” She spoke with a passive aggressiveness Dahyun had never seen from her. Her eyes were ready to kill.

Sana turned away from Dahyun for the first time since sitting down. “I’m sorry, is there a problem with us sitting here?” She smiled back, but there was nothing but combativeness in her tone.

“A problem with you, specifically, but I can’t say the others are exactly welcome either,” Chaeyoung said bitterly. Sana met her eye, and with Chaeyoung’s glare, all pretense of subtlety was lost.

“Come on, you guys, it doesn’t matter that much, we have room.” Dahyun tried to defuse, but she only made it worse.

“See, Dahyunnie doesn’t seem to think there’s a problem,” Sana said. “Maybe you should listen to your friend, trust she knows what’s good for her.” The comment was very pointed, and Dahyun flashed back to the last story she had told on the bus. Her anxiety started to increase.

Chaeyoung scoffed. “Oh, I trust ‘Dahyunnie’ just fine. It’s you I don’t trust.”

“Have I done something to offend you, Chaeyoung?” Sana asked. Chaeyoung paused, thrown off with the use of her name. Since when would Minatozaki Sana know her name? Jihyo picked up where she stopped.

“I think you’ve done enough to offend all of us,” she said. 

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Sana asked, affronted.

Jihyo rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. “I don’t know, why don’t you ask Eunha? I mean, if she’s still willing to speak to you after you abandoned her for her best friend. Or Joy, but she might just throw something at you like the last time you tried to talk to her. Oh, but if they don’t want to talk to you, there’s still a line of girls whose hearts you ripped out who would love to explain to you why maybe someone wouldn’t want you intruding on their lunch.”

Sana raised her eyebrows, opening to say something, but Chaeyoung cut her off.

“And we don’t plan on having Dahyun added to that lineup, so it’s about time you moved along,” she said bluntly. Dahyun cringed, not happy to hear her name pop up again, or really for this conversation to be continuing at all. The escalation was making her nervous.

“Look,” Sana stated defensively, “You can throw things at me that I’ve done in the past, some of which, if I might add, were misunderstandings-”

“Some?” Chaeyoung interrupted.

“Yes, some.” Sana continued without hesitation. “But what makes you think that’s what I’m doing here?”

Is that not what you’re doing here? Dahyun wondered.

“Is that not what you’re doing here?” Chaeyoung asked scathingly, nearly shouting. The atmosphere of the table was boiling. Six pairs of eyes watched like a boxing match, ready to see who landed the final punch. Sana tried to speak, but Jihyo got in just before her, going for the knockout.

“Because, from where we stand, it looks like you just want to take advantage of Dahyun in the exact same way and leave her broken hearted after you’ve gotten what you want from her. Why would we expect anything else from you?” she asked.

The bell rang.

Suddenly the situation was brought back into stark reality. Sana sat stock-still, like she was either about to lunge across the table or burst into tears. Nayeon and Jeongyeon, wanting to avoid both of those possibilities, quickly stood up and went to help Momo usher her away.

“This has been fun, let’s never do it again,” Nayeon said, addressing Mina and Tzuyu because they were the only ones at the table who would look at her. The four girls walked away quickly, leaving the other five sitting in silence. Chaeyoung and Jihyo were seething and Dahyun was distressed.

“She has the goddamn audacity to-”

“Chaeng, can we just drop it?” Tzuyu said, eyeing Dahyun.

Chaeyoung met her eye, and upon seeing Dahyun’s discomfort, relented. “Yeah, sorry, it got heated.”

They silently got up and cleared the table. Out in the hall, Sana’s friends had pulled her aside.

“Sana, what was that?” Jeongyeon asked.

“That was the same girl from the gym,” Nayeon said. “What’s the big deal with her that you had to start a shouting match?” 

“Guys, maybe you should calm down a bit, I think she might need some room to breathe,” Momo said.

Sana ignored them all. She brushed past them, following the stream of people exiting the cafeteria and leaving her friends standing next to the doors. She wandered, in a dizzy, irritated haze, not in the direction of her next class, not in the direction of anything really. She found herself in the Literature hallway, pulled out of her cloud by the buzz of her phone.

Momoring :P 

Meet me in the office

~~~

Sana was still fuming as she pushed open to door to the abandoned office. It was looking slightly less abandoned now, some of the dust having been cleared and the furniture rearranged to make more space. Momo sat on the couch, fiddling with her phone in her lap. She looked up at the screech of the door hinges.

“Hey, Sana, I almost thought you weren’t going to show up.” She stood, making to get closer, but Sana didn’t meet her eye. She sat down on the desk and Momo hovered awkwardly.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t want to go to class anyway.” Sana was being cold. It was obvious and she knew it, but the feelings she had been suppressing for the past few days were very simmering very close to the surface after that spat at the table. 

Momo seemed to search for something to say after that, but Sana beat her to it. 

“Where are Jeongyeon and Nayeon?”

“I thought I should talk to you alone,” Momo said. 

Sana sniffed. “And what is it that you wanted to talk about?” It was tense, but a different kind of tension from the lunch room. That had been heated and humid. This was stagnant and frigid.

Momo took a deep breath. “Sana, you’ve been off for a couple days and I want to know why. I asked if you were okay earlier and you said you were and, as your friend, I wanted to believe you. But you’ve been cold and serious and nothing like yourself and you aren’t acting okay.”

“Well, I’m sorry that I’m not being bubbly enough for you,” Sana replied coolly.

“No, Sana, come on, you know that’s not what I meant,” Momo plead. “It’s like today in the cafeteria. You dragged us over there and then picked a fight with them. Not to mention how it seems like you’ve been pissed at Jeong and Nayeon ever since they got together. I’m not mad at you but that doesn’t seem like something an okay person would do. I just want to-”

“You didn’t have to follow me.” Momo stopped in her tracks, surprised at Sana’s response. She had expected some anger, but it just sounded bitter. Sana wouldn’t meet her eye, but she sat curled in on her self on the desk.

“Of course we followed you, you’re our friend,” Momo said. “We weren’t just going to leave you-”

That struck a chord in Sana and suddenly all the fears and anxieties she had been harboring and pushing down since the assembly, simmering so close under the surface after the fight at lunch, burst red hot in her mind. She couldn’t stand it anymore.

“I saw you and Mina at the assembly,” she said, almost too calm.

Momo froze, eyes wide like a deer in headlights.

Sana continued. “I didn’t know she was on the cheerleading squad.”

Momo opened , searching for something to say. Sana still wouldn’t look her in the eye. 

“Because you know, Momo, we asked you what you were doing and you said you were flirting with a cheerleader and, as your friend, I wanted to believe you.” Sana’s eyes started to glisten with tears. It was such a tragic bastardization of their usual glow. Her words were still serious and cold, but she bit at her lip and seemed to be struggling to keep it together. All of the emotions were just welling up in her and she couldn’t stop it.

“Sana, I don’t-”

Sana interrupted her, still staring off into the distance. “I’m not really upset that you lied. I mean, yes, that hurt, a lot.” Momo winced in guilt. “But I’m more upset because I feel like everything is changing. And it makes me really anxious. First it was Nayeon and Jeongyeon and then I see you at the assembly, and I know you lied to me, and you’re with this girl and I just…” She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

“This flirting thing, it’s always just been what we do. And it scares me that it might stop being a thing that we do, and it will just be a thing that I do.” Sana’s voice faltered. “How sad would that be?”

Momo crossed over to sit on the desk. She didn’t try to touch Sana, wanted to give her space, but she needed to be closer to her. “Sana, I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want to be the only one doing this, okay? It just, it scares me a lot.” Sana said, voice strangled.

Momo’s heart was breaking for her and she just wanted to help, but she hardly understood what was happening. “Mina and I…” she said, “it’s nothing more serious that what we’ve done before. I mean, I’ll mess with her during club and I talked to her at the assembly but it’s just for fun. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to leave you alone. That any of the three of us are ever going to leave you alone.”

Sana started to shake, voice quivering. “I just want you to promise me that things aren’t going to change too much.” Her voice cracked heartbreakingly on the last words. 

“They aren’t going to,” Momo, tears gathering her own eyes now, reached out a comforting hand on Sana’s shoulder. “I promise. It’s still just going to be us four. Doing what we’ve always done. We love you.”

Finally, a tear fell from from Sana’s eye and she turned, wrapping her arms tightly around her friend. Momo took her in, held her close as they both let tears spill in each other’s arms.

It was heart wrenching, but it was cleansing in a way. As they sat in that office, Sana felt like maybe it was going to be okay. It felt like a weight in her chest had been eased slightly. She’d been vulnerable and Momo had been there to help her. She didn’t have to be anxious, she didn’t have to be afraid. They could just keep doing their thing, bring the world to it’s feet. Nothing had to change too much.

~~~

The next day, Dahyun met up with her friends at Tzuyu’s locker. If asked, she would have flat out denied that they were meeting here to avoid the group of juniors that often hung out across from Dahyun’s, but she did have to recognize that it was a benefit.

Tzuyu gave her a sleepy wave. Dahyun reciprocated, too tired to open her eyes entirely. They had both stayed up late last night finishing history projects, which had been gracefully placed on the shoulders of the entire freshman class. Because if they went two days without making a powerpoint presentation, how would they learn anything?

Chaeyoung, however, was full of energy and mid-rant when Dahyun arrived. She nodded in acknowledgement before continuing. “Can you believe her though? What did she even think she was doing?”

Dahyun groaned, sure she knew what Chaeyoung was talking about. “Are we still on this?”

Tzuyu nodded as emphatically as her fatigue would allow. She had clearly been putting up with this for awhile before Dahyun showed up. Dahyun leant against the wall of lockers in exasperation.

Chaeyoung would not be silenced. “Yes, yes we are. Because I’m still mad about it. It was so inappropriate! She was practically rubbing herself all over you.”

“Chaeng, come on, that’s a bit graphic,” Dahyun said.

“It was graphic to witness, Dahyun!” Chaeyoung declared. “Or should I say ‘Dahyunnie’?” Dahyun grumbled. “Do you prefer ‘Dubu’?” Dahyun hit her to stop. “God, it’s so greasy, I just hate hearing her voice. And that perfume she’s always wearing, what, does she bathe in air freshener? How do you put up with it all the time?”

“It’s, well-” Dahyun started, but apparently the question had been rhetorical. 

“She just barges in on our lunch, smelling like a Lush store made human, trying to hook her harpy claws into you. And not to mention her flimsy excuse for coming over. ‘Returning your jacket’? Where’d she even get your jacket?” Chaeyoung asked. Dahyun looked down at the raincoat she was currently wearing. It still smelled like Sana’s perfume. 

“I guess I left it at a club meeting or something.” Dahyun said, not very convincingly. To be fair, she hadn’t planned on lying until the sentence left . Based on the vitriol Chaeyoung was displaying, it seemed like the best call, but it didn’t sit entirely right. 

Chaeyoung looked for a second like she might comment on the club thing, but seemed to let it rest. “She’s just insufferable,” she stated simply.

“What a big word, good job, Chaeyoung,” Tzuyu said dryly.

Chaeyoung scowled at her. “It’s like she never leaves me alone! I have to hear about her and her friends all the time, it’s killing my brain cells.”

Rolling her eyes, Tzuyu said, “You know, you’re so tired of everyone talking about them but you’re talking about them right now.”

She paused for a second, but then seemed to realize the truth and backed off reluctantly. “Yeah, yeah, point taken. Whatever, rant over.” 

Tzuyu gave an over dramatic sigh of relief. “Finally.” Chaeyoung cracked a smile. 

“I just get passionate about it, I don’t want her hurting Dahyun,” she insisted.

“She doesn’t look like she’s in any danger,” Tzuyu said. “Unless she does look a lot more like tofu than we think and someone tries to eat her.” Dahyun, nearly asleep against the locker at this point, grumbled at the comment.

Chaeyoung smirked. “Oh, I think someone’s trying to eat her regardless.”

“Gross, Chaeng!”

Suddenly the volume of the hallway increased exponentially. People started rushing towards the other end, gathering in a large crowd around someone holding a piece of paper. Students started shouting out.

“Oh my gosh, it’s been too long.”

“What am I going to wear though?”

“Is it worth going if she’s dating someone already?”

Dahyun, pulled out of her blissful sleepy state by the uproar, squinted. “What do you think they’re talking about?” Chaeyoung shrugged, looking on in equal confusion.

“Oh, haven’t you heard yet?” Tzuyu said. They turned to her, shaking their heads. 

“Im Nayeon is throwing a party on Friday.”