SEEN ON SNAPCHAT

VIDEO, 23 SECS on Kaeun Lee's story: Suzy and Jinyoung are standing outside the one Starbucks on campus, yelling at each other as other students are either staring or desperately pushing through the forming crowd trying to get coffee before their next class. The only part of their argument clearly picked up by the audio is Suzy screaming "At least I didn't Jaebum Im!" Video cuts off just as the surrounding students collectively ooh.

Caption: damn this year's student gov elections r 🔥🔥🔥

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"It could be worse," Jackson shrugs.

Jinyoung stares at him over the entire handle of Bacardi he's considering downing. "Jackson," he starts, as if he's talking to a child who doesn't understand the gravity of the situation. "This video's been viewed four hundred fifty-seven times. Not taking into account that it's on the meme page now." He rubs at his temples. God, he's going to pop a blood vessel. "Who ing put it on the meme page, anyway?"

"Jeongyeon," Jackson quips. "She superimposed evil Kermit onto Suzy and regular Kermit onto you and it's actually ing hilarious." He starts to turn his laptop screen towards Jinyoung. "Wanna see it?"

Jinyoung twists the cap of the Bacardi. the fourteen page paper he's got to finish before morning. True writers write better when they're drunk, right? "No, Jackson," he frowns. "I'd rather not."

Jackson sighs, closing his laptop. "Dude, you're no fun! This is why no one's gonna vote for you."

"Excuse me?" Jinyoung asks, raising an eyebrow. He scrunches up his face at the aftertaste of Bacardi on his tongue. He really needs to tell Wonpil that just because something's on sale doesn't make it good. "Says who?"

Jackson collapses onto Jinyoung's bed in his sweaty gym clothes. He's got to know by now that Jinyoung hates when he does that, but then again, who knows? What Jackson has in spades in popularity, to Jinyoung's amazement, he lacks in social cues. It's like the whole bees-shouldn't-be-able-to-fly kind of thing, except Jackson is unfortunately human and getting Jinyoung's freshly-washed bed sheets dirty. "Like, everyone," Jackson says. "Jinyoung, my man, you know I love you but you're like –" He cuts himself off, scanning Jinyoung's face for traces of anger.

"I'm like?" Jinyoung prods, taking another swig of alcohol. He's not drunk enough for this.

Jackson sits up abruptly. "You're like this stuffy English major. And not even the hipster kind who would read, like, Murakami. I don't even know how Jaebum got you to bed without acting out Romeo and Juliet beforehand or something."

Jinyoung honestly doesn't know whether to feel offended or complimented. Because reading Romeo and Juliet before sounded like great intellectual to him, and Jinyoung pointedly didn't anyone below a 3.8 GPA after all. "I've slept with more people than just Jaebum," he scoffs. "More than you would know, thank you very much."

Jackson rolls his eyes and holds up a hand. "Mark Tuan, Jisoo Kim, Brian Kang," he lists, ticking off a finger for each. , he really has to stop drunk dialing Jackson.

"And Sooyoung Park," Jinyoung adds, feeling attacked. It was a bit of a stretch – they'd only gotten to third base before she'd disappeared into the bathroom and never came back.

Jackson throws his arms up in surrender. "Point is," he says. "That you can't win against Suzy. Suzy's actually fun."

Jinyoung barks out a laugh. "That's complete bull." Suzy also cut half the line during peak hour at Starbucks – during midterms season, no less – and when Jinyoung had kindly told her to go to the back to uphold the societal concept of fairness, she called him a douchebag.

"Well," he'd said with a tight smile. "At least I know how to wait my turn. Did you even graduate from kindergarten?"

Suzy narrowed her eyes at him. "You would know, you pushed me during recess to get to the basketball court and I broke my ing arm." She shot him a polite smile of her own in return. "But at least I know how to forgive."

"At least I don't hold grudges."

"Yeah, and I wasn't valedictorian in high school."

"That was bull, you failed first semester of AP Lit."

"At least I'm not still stuck in a pipe-dream fantasy of becoming a Nobel-prize-winning writer."

That’s where Jinyoung remembers getting truly offended. No one was allowed to on his five-year plan to success. Especially not Suzy Bae. "At least I didn't the student body president in order to get a position!"

That wiped the smug smile off Suzy's face. Jinyoung smiled evenly and shrugged. She'd had it coming for years now.

What Jinyoung hadn't expected was her yelling in retaliation: "At least I didn't Jaebum Im!"  

There'd been a mix of silence and a persistent ringing in Jinyoung's ears in the aftermath. And when all that passed, someone whispering, "Well, this has been some ed up ual frustration."

"Yeah," Jackson says, after Jinyoung finishes his spiel about the whole incident. Sans the ual frustration comment, Jinyoung would die if Jackson knew about that. "That's why Suzy's fun. She knows what people want. Her ing around and making friends out of it is just a bonus for this campaign thing and a minus for you."

Jinyoung squints in thought. The Bacardi's making his head swirl, along with the residual anger from everything that happened today. "So what you're saying," he tries to spell it aloud. "Is that I need to be more fun if I wanna win."

"Yes," Jackson groans. "That's exactly what I'm saying! God, if I come back on a Saturday night and see you reading The Count of Monte Cristo with a glass of wine again –"

"And if I wanna be more fun," Jinyoung interrupts. "I need to be more like Suzy."

Jackson furrows his eyebrows, considering. "I mean, I guess. But you can, like, find other ways too –"

"So basically," Jinyoung continues. "I have to sleep with a bunch of people to make allies." He throws back another swig of Bacardi. "And then I'll win. That makes so much sense. You're actually a ing genius, Jackson, I should've trusted your opinion before."

"Thanks? I mean – Wait. No, Jinyoung, that is not what I meant. I was thinking more, you know, going out to socials –"

Jinyoung claps Jackson on the back. "Thanks, man." He stands up, swaying toward the door. "Now if you'll excuse me," he slurs. "I have some work to do."

Jinyoung has no idea why Jackson yells, "What kind of monster have I created?" after him.

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