[warning for some brief moments of dubious consent! 20k]

safe spaces.

It’s raining that day—the first spring rain to hit Seoul after a long streak of warm weather. She’s disappointed by the gloom encompassing Seoul. It’s dark and cold and she knows it’ll only be muggy weather from here on out. At least the rain will wash away the spit and trash that constantly litters the street, a sight that mars the beauty of her little concrete city.

Still, the rain dampens her mood more than she’d like it to and not even stepping into the cozy café could manage to lift it. The rain pitter patters off the windows, a steady rhythm that, when paired with the rich smell of roasting coffee beans, makes her feel sleepy, almost. She finds she’d rather be home, curled around her laptop nursing a hot cup of tea, rather than working.

“Kwon Naeun.” A voice cuts through her thoughts and her elbows slip from the counter. She barely manages to catch herself before she smacks her face first into the counter. She blinks, scowling, when she hears a snicker.

“Glad to have you back.” Byun Baekhyun peers down at her, the sleeves of his white button down bunched up around his elbows as he crosses his arms over his chest. He tries to hide his grin as he looks down at her, but his mouth keeps twitching upwards, his teeth threatening to show. His hair is messy (windswept, Baekhyun had corrected her once with one of his big, boxy grins, eyes twinkling with the kind of mischief she’s always associated with trouble, and Bae Irene had snorted in reply for her), and his silver bracelet—the one that has the word fearless engraved along the edge—glints under the warm café lights. He’s glowing a bit, despite the gloomy weather, and she is momentarily in awe of his beauty. It’s ethereal, almost, like he has decided to take the sun and all its duties and the skies are now weeping, dark clouds rolling overhead angrily.

For a moment, just a moment, they lock eyes, his chocolate eyes lingering a moment too long on hers, before she catches herself, yanking herself up and out of this—this daydream, because that is what it is, and she reminds herself that she has a boyfriend. She has a very lovely boyfriend whom she loves very much. She thinks of Kim Jongdae, his curly lips and kind eyes, the terrible jokes he’d always make, and how much she loved to hear him laugh. Of course, she knows there’s nothing wrong with admiring someone for their beauty (Kang Seulgi likes to gently remind her of this whenever she’d catch Naeun staring at Baekhyun a moment too long), and she’s noticed Jongdae do it plenty of times before.

(Sometimes, it makes her stomach churn. But Jongdae had told her once, during their rare moments of cuddling, when she’d have her head tucked under his chin and he would wrap his arms around her so securely, that he loved how cool she was.

“My last girlfriend would always get so jealous whenever I even looked at another girl. Not to talk or anything, but it was pretty, uh, crazy? Anyways, it’s cool how chill you are. You’re just like one of the guys, but hotter.” He had grinned down at her, that pretty, curly grin of his, and despite the churn in her stomach, she had managed a smile, leaning up to press a kiss to his lips.

He had smiled into it and the churning in her stomach quickly turned to butterflies. Maybe it was just that all along.)

“What are you always daydreaming about, anyway?” Oh Sehun asks from near the drip machine. His expression is stoic, a mask really, but he raises a brow, lifting his eyes from his work to her.

“Is it me?” Baekhyun hums, voice dropping low. She blinks, her stomach churning, but she manages to roll her eyes at Baekhyun. Baekhyun laughs at her expression, both hands in the air and tone slightly more serious, changing suddenly, “I’m kidding!”

“Yeah.” She nods, quickly, almost placatingly, “Yeah, I know.”

Sehun snickers though, loudly, “It’s totally you, hyung.”

She stands up straight, indignant, which only makes Sehun’s grin grow larger. “It’s no—”

“It’s not me, it’s obviously her boyfriend she’s always thinking about.” Baekhyun shrugs, nonchalant, his smile constant, steady, and she finds that though his looks are mesmerizing, there’s an undercurrent to his tone that is almost disappointed. It’s a little jarring, especially when he mumbles, “Lucky dude.”

Sehun laughs again, guffaws really, and almost knocks over the cup of coffee he’s painstakingly made. Wendy Son practically materializes from thin air, a tray of freshly baked goods balanced precariously in one oven-mitted hand, just to chastise him, “Be careful. You broke two of these already.”

“It was an accident.” He pouts, and Wendy makes a face, her lips pursed before she unceremoniously drops the tray on the table. Sehun’s attention is diverted immediately and Wendy sighs as she reaches over and turns off the machine before the cup overflows. “Oh, what did you make this time?”

Naeun inches over, Baekhyun right beside her, as she peers at the pastries. They’re little macaroons, perfectly puffed and shiny, almost as if they’ve been airbrushed onto the tray straight from one of those pastry shop photographs in Paris, half of them pink and the other half blue, all edged with colorful crumbled cereal.

Naeun takes one look at the pastries and decides she’s in love. “Please, marry me.”

Wendy laughs, too loudly. “I call today’s daily special: Couple-roons.”

“Oh, that’s a terrible name. I’d like to withdraw my marriage proposal.” Naeun responds immediately.

Baekhyun practically cackles and Sehun snickers, as well, and Naeun’s stomach churns, even as Wendy’s expression falls slightly at the sound of everyone’s snickering.

Naeun blinks, adding, “They look really good, though, Wendy.”

Wendy smiles slightly, uncertainly, “Thanks.”

“Why aren’t you guys working?” Irene sidles up from behind the cashier after handing someone a latte, “Oh, these look beautiful, Wendy!”

Wendy beams this time.

“She calls them Couple-roons.” Sehun can barely keep a straight face as he says it.

Irene blinks at Sehun, expression not once changing as she says, “It’s not bad.” Sehun’s amusement falters and that’s when Irene takes her eyes off of Sehun, focusing on the macaroons.

Irene squints at them for a moment, and even with such an awkward expression gracing her features, she still looks beautiful. She reaches up to tighten her ponytail before she asks, “But, why are they only pink and blue?”

“Because…they’re for couples.” Wendy says, slowly, a slight furrow to brows as if she doesn’t understand why Irene would ask such a question. Maybe she doesn’t understand. Her bright smile doesn’t even falter.

Irene stares at the macaroons for a moment longer and Naeun swears her eye twitches, before she sighs and mutters, “Yeah, I guess.”

“Can I try one?” Baekhyun asks. Before Wendy can say yes, they all go for one, Baekhyun and Sehun taking the blue ones, Irene turning away, a stiffness to her shoulders Naeun does not miss, and Wendy picking up a pink one. Naeun takes two, ignoring Wendy’s disapproving gaze.

The little bell attached to the door rings then, the jingle echoing throughout the shop, louder than the soft music Baekhyun and Sehun compete over picking every time they have a shift. They all look up, since the store has been relatively empty so far today, except for a few people, strangely enough, and Kang Seulgi’s standing at the threshold of Café Neo dripping wet. Her long black hair is drenched and she’s shivering, teeth chattering.

“I—I for—forgot—my—my um—brell—a.” Seulgi stutters out, arms wrapped around her torso, and Irene, Naeun, and Wendy are all instantly on the move. Naeun grabs a whole roll of paper towels—Manager Kim and his no waste policy be damned—and a moment later Baekhyun appears at her side with his coat and Sehun with the mop. Seulgi trembles like a cat that’s been dumped in a bathtub, her eyes watery, and Naeun has honestly never seen Seulgi so utterly upset like this. Baekhyun dumps the coat on one of the tables and helps Sehun mop up the rainwater while the three of them maneuver Seulgi to the restroom, helping her peel off her sweater and t-shirt, Irene slamming the hand dryer’s button continuously since it keeps shutting down.

“Seul, are you okay?” Naeun frowns at the way Seulgi sniffles, even as Wendy makes her squat under the hand dryer so they can attempt to dry her hair.

Seulgi blinks rapidly, almost surprised by the question, but she nods vigorously. “I’m fine. It’s okay. I’m just having a bad day, that’s all.”

Naeun doesn’t believe her. The words rush out of her too fast. But, when she opens to press, maybe even say something along the lines of you look like you’re having worse than just a bad day, Irene shoots her a glare over Seulgi’s head and Naeun instantly clamps shut. The only person she’s ever met who has a scarier glare than Bae Irene was her lab partner from sophomore year, Do Kyungsoo. Naeun thinks they’d make wonderful friends.

“Kwon, go get me Baekhyun’s coat. She’s shivering, poor girl.” Wendy snaps at her, smacking her knee.

“Ow.” Naeun yelps, clutching her knee.

Wendy just gives her that winning smile of hers, all sweet and cheerful, sort of like those cheerleaders in American television.

Naeun pretends to limp out of the restroom, pouting dramatically. Seulgi laughs a little, a pathetic hiccup that has all of three of them this close to cooing aww out loud. They don’t. Thank God.

“Is she okay?” Baekhyun asks, watching as Naeun grabs his jacket from where he left it on the table. His voice is hushed, since there’s a couple customers in the store—a couple from the looks of it who just so happened to order the Couple-roons Wendy made so lovingly, pink for the girlfriend and blue for the boyfriend.

“Yeah, she says she’s fine. She’s doing the drowned kitten look well though.”

“Sounds hot.” Sehun mutters from the counter, snorting a little.

Naeun says, “More like cold.”

“Oh, Kwon’s got jokes.” Sehun says, “About time one of you girls do.”

“What’s that suppose—”

“Naeun.” Wendy hisses and Naeun decides a mother-hen mode Wendy might just be scarier than Irene, in general, which is a magnificent feat all on its own.

“Thanks.” Seulgi says. She looks very tiny wrapped up in Baekhyun’s big parka coat. Her hair is dryer, though. Naeun doesn’t know how to respond so she just smiles, as gently as she can.

Irene’s expression morphs into one of utmost amusement, so that must mean Naeun’s completely failed at the supportive, gentle smile part.

They all step out of the restroom, Wendy ushering Seulgi to the table directly under the heater vent—a coveted table during the summer when they blast the air conditioning—fussing over her while Seulgi just smiles reassuringly and keeps repeating that she’s fine. Naeun notices she does look better. At least, now, she looks less like she’s three seconds away from sobbing and more like Wendy’s the one three seconds away from sobbing and she’s trying to stop that from happening.

Baekhyun’s leaning against the table Seulgi’s sitting at, frowning, “How could you forget your umbrella?”

Naeun’s always found Baekhyun and Seulgi’s relationship fascinating; he’s acts like both Seulgi’s older and younger brother, simultaneously, and Seulgi mentioned offhandedly once that she and Baekhyun knew each other since they were in diapers. Naeun finds it adorable, in a way, because when Baekhyun talks to Seulgi he tends to let his guard down in ways she’s never seen him do around Naeun. For starters, he doesn’t flirt excessively with Seulgi like he does with Naeun and neither does he try to impress her. Around her, he’s just Baekhyun. She finds she likes that version of him—where he’s normal and not so interested—and sometimes finds herself wishing he’d act that way with her.

Seulgi frowns, too, her fingers tightening around the coat wrapped around her, “I was in a rush. I woke up late and then I realized I was late for work, so I called a cab instead of waiting for the bus. Except—except the cab broke down. It was a mess. I had to run to work.”

Baekhyun just sighs, “You could have called another cab. Or me. I would have called a cab for you.”

Seulgi opens to respond when someone suddenly turns up the television. They all turn at the sudden noise, the deep voice of a male newscaster booming through the restaurant, cutting through the soft music overhead with a sharp, urgent tone that’s overwhelming in how rushed it is, the words spilling from the newscaster’s lips. One of the customers has the remote in his hands and he’s unmuted the television, staring at the television as he clutches the remote. It takes her a moment too long to really, truly process what the newscaster is saying, what the customer is so transfixed on.

“…found stabbed to death. The police are still reviewing CCTV tapes as we speak, however the streets around the incident in Hongdae—as indicated here—have been closed off for further investigation. Unfortunately, the rain might slow down police work, however the police assure the public that they will solve this case as quickly as possible and bring the murderer to justice. They are currently taking steps to identify the victim, a young woman who looks to be in her twenties. Now, we’ll go back to…”

The bright red breaking news flashes before her eyes and video of a street corner teeming with police officers and police tape is painfully familiar. She blinks, rapidly, her thoughts whirring, but Sehun is the first to speak.

“That’s just two blocks from here.” Sehun’s voice is low, quiet, as he stares at the television, eyes wide. Naeun can see the horror and shock spreading through the expressions of both her coworkers and the couple customers in the store. She can feel her own face twisting up into something very similar to that.

She doesn’t say what she’s thinking. Sehun doesn’t continue his thoughts, his usual stoic expression downtrodden and his mouth stuck in a little ‘o’ shape. No one mentions how this murder victim could have very well been one of them. It happened so, so close to their little coffee shop, a place she considered almost untouchable from the horrors of the outside world, a place that is just warmth and vanilla lattes with just a dash cinnamon. It’s so jarring, so terrifyingly surreal. Irene just stares at the television screen. Wendy looks stricken. Seulgi’s fingers are shaking a little, perhaps remnants of her earlier shivers. Baekhyun has his arms crossed over his chest.

There is a moment, where the pitter patter of the rain outside sounds too loud and she sees Café Neo as a lot less impenetrable than she originally thought. Shock rattles her, makes it hard for her to really focus on any one thing. She notices the way the couple huddles closer, the woman blinking rapidly and the man pursing his lips, the way cars honk outside, the tea kettle someone left on shrieking, the sound echoing all around them. Everything seems to accumulate, building and building. Blood is rushing, pounding against her ears.

At least until the bell over the door jingles and a group of customers walk in. It’s like they’ve opened the lid of a pressure cooker and suddenly everything settles, drops, but there is still something unsettling lingering there, prickling under her skin. She’s the first to spin and head back to the counter, greeting the customers with her customer-service-smile. The others follow shortly, though Irene lingers for a moment, speaking quietly to Seulgi.

For a moment, the world has stood at a standstill, but as everything in life always does, the moment passes, and life moves on. The world keeps spinning.

(She doesn’t notice the cracks until much later.)

~.~.~.~.~

Kang Seulgi peers at the cabs zipping past the bus as it stops and the last few high schoolers left on the bus hop off, all laughing and pushing at each other. She sighs as she presses her forehead against the bus window—a voice that sounds awfully like her mother’s reminds her scathingly of just how dirty the bus window is and how many breakouts she’ll have in the morning and she ignores that voice, as she usually does.

Today was a really bad day, worse, she thinks, then the time she had to do a group presentation and ended up doing all the work the night before. She sighs again and then the bus goes over a pothole and she yelps when she knocks her forehead against the glass hard. She presses her hand to her head, groaning, when she sees a small movement at the corner of her vision.

She blinks, forehead still stinging in pain, confused because the only non-inanimate object in the bus is the bus driver and what looks like a sleeping man in one of the seats closer to the front that faces inwards rather than forward, his baseball cap pulled over his eyes. She rubs her forehead, sighing again, because despite the fact that the man is sleeping, she still feels a sort of discomfort at the pit of her stomach.

Maybe, it’s the result of her incident this morning with he cab driver.

(She thinks of how talkative the cab driver had been, mentioning that his cousin went to a university near here as well.

“Are you a student, too? Are you headed to Hongik?”

Seulgi had smiled at him through the rearview mirror, a brief thing, as she shook her head, “No, I’m a part timer.”

Usually, after giving the address she’d like to go to, most cab drivers would let the radio take over the silence, but there was something strangely uncomfortable about the pointed questions from the driver. Seulgi’s never been good at being cold, not the way she knows she should be, the way Irene tells her to act sometimes. She tends to smile at strangers if she makes prolonged eye contact—usually it’s because she feels awkward and she has this horrible need to make people like her, something she wants to blame on her mother but even that she can’t do. She knows she feels uncomfortable with the questions, but she chalks it up to awkwardness. She had smiled.

The man was stopped at a light when he looked into the rearview mirror, a look in his eyes that made her stomach churn incessantly, before he said, “So, what time do you get off work, then?”

“I…uh…” Seulgi stuttered out, reddening.

He smiled, and she remembers wondering what she had been doing to make him seem so encouraged. Baekhyun had told her once that she’s too nice and that’s why so many men try to confess to her. Her mother told her it was because she dances, with that horribly scathing tone of hers that’s found a home in her head. One of the men she rejected asked her why she kept smiling and flirting with him during their partner dance assignment if she wasn’t interested, tone accusing. Irene told her that her behavior has nothing to do with it (well, she added a couple colorful cuss words in there, too, but that’s the gist of it). Wendy suggested just giving one of those boys a chance because they seem like nice boys and it wouldn’t hurt, would it? Naeun mentioned self-defense, her expression very, very serious. Sehun had asked her why she was so embarrassed with all the confessions. It’s everyone’s dream to get that many confessions, Sehun had said, with a shrug. She wasn’t quite sure who to listen to, or what to believe, all she knew was that she’s never really liked all that attention on her, unless she’s performing, and it’s strange to think that even being nice to someone, or doing her part in a partner dance that should be all professional, somehow warrants anyone thinking she’s interested in them?

He had stared at her through the rearview mirror and her stomach flipped because she’s already given him the address to her workplace, so he knew where she worked. In that moment, she had felt more uncomfortable than she had ever felt before. She had glanced out the window, then, a little desperately, but the rain was nothing short of a torrential downpour. He casually said, “You’re adorable.”

And she had panicked, staring hard at her phone before exclaiming, too loudly, “Oh, you know what? It turns out I’m not working today. You can let me out here. Thank you!”

She pulled out a wad of won from her purse.

He blinked, rapidly, turning to look back at her, his eyes lingering on her face, “Oh, uh, I can drive you back home if you’d like. It’s raining so hard, you’ll get drenched. It’ll be free, too, don’t worry.”

She wanted to say, is it really?

Instead, she pushed the wad of won into his limp hands, avoiding skin contact, and replied, tone shrill and too polite, “No, thank you. Here you go, keep the change.”

Then she was stumbling out the car and powerwalking down the street, ignoring him calling after her, “You forgot your umbrella!”)

Maybe, it’s the result of the news, of a dead woman they had finally identified near the end of her shift.

Kim Jieun. Twenty-one years old.

She was barely a year into university and she was brutally murdered just two blocks from where Seulgi works. There’s something so terrifying about it, about the fact that they still haven’t caught the killer, about how Seulgi could have been friends with the girl, how it easily could have been her. When she blinks, Kim Jieun’s face is etched into the back of her eyelids. Sometimes, her facial features distort, morphing into familiar features—those of Irene’s or Wendy’s or Naeun’s or even herself, of her classmates in her dance classes, of the senior she admires, Sunmi, of her roommate Park Sooyoung—because Kim Jieun could have been anyone and it’s an unsettling thought.

It had all been a coincidence, a matter of the girl being at the wrong place at the wrong time. It had to be. She couldn’t believe it was premeditated, though the experts on television suggest maybe it was—why else would someone stab the victim six times? It had to be a crime of passion.

Maybe, it’s all of the above, that’s leaving her feeling wary of her surroundings, exhaustingly so. She is too aware of the black-capped man sleeping at the front of the bus. When she gets off at her stop, there’s a strange sense of relief crashing over her when the man remains asleep inside of the bus. He doesn’t get off at her stop and the tension in her shoulders disappear as she hurries down the dark street, fingers gripped around her keys.

Maybe, she just needs a good night’s rest to forget about everything that’s happened today.

~.~.~.~.~

A couple days later, Bae Irene sits in lab class, chin resting in her palm as she stares at the circuit board in front of her.

“We need to connect this wire to this switch.” She says, pencil poised as she points out exactly which wire and switch she’s talking about.

Her group consists of three boys, Kim Minseok, Namjoon (she never caught his family name), and a Minhyuk (there are about five Minhyuks in this class alone so she’s forgotten exactly which one he is), all of whom are currently bent over the table with their goggled faces much too close to the circuit board as they discuss how they’re supposed to get it to work. When she speaks, they look up; they always tend to look at her when she speaks, probably because she doesn’t bother speaking often.

Namjoon frowns, eyes flickering from her pencil to the circuit board. “Why would you think that?”

“Because I actually read the prelab today.” Irene answers.

Minhyuk purses his lips and flips through his lab book, “What page?”

“Fifty-six.” She says.

“Yeah, it’s fifty-six.” Minseok confirms, hand pressed down on his lab book. “And, she’s right. It says right here.”

She wants to know why none of them would believe her until they see it written down, but she decides it’s not worth her time. Last time she provided a formula for one of their problem sets, Namjoon spent five minutes looking up the formula just to make sure. When Minhyuk did the same thing a week before, Namjoon asked, you sure, Minhyuk nodded, and that was it.

They eventually finish the lab, much slower than Irene expected since no one else read the prelab and they continuously asked her for page numbers for any instructions she gave out until she just decided to have each page number ready and shove it under their noses every time they asked, and she ends up rushing to her next class. Minseok looks like he wants to tell her something, but she’s already stuffing her lab book into her bag and sidling right past him, ignoring Minhyuk’s eye roll.

She makes it to her next class a little early, thankfully, so she spends the extra five minutes going over her math notes for the quiz scheduled next week. She can hear the conversations buzzing all around her, mostly discussing weekend plans. The girl in front of her—a really, really pretty girl named Hani who Irene may or may not have sat behind on the first day of classes because of how attracted Irene is to her—leans sideways and waves her phone at her seatmate. Her seatmate is a tiny girl with delicate features, beautiful in a dollish sort of way, her round glasses hiding her face. Irene remembers that her name is Lee Jieun and she’s something of a prodigy in the music department in their university—her voice is like an angel’s and she can write music incredibly well, though no one focuses on the writing portion as much as her looks and her voice.

(After entering university, it took Irene about a year to come to terms with the fact that every time she sees a pretty girl, she gets a little stricken by their beauty. She never really thought too hard about her tendency to find girls pretty, how no matter how they looked, she always admired some feature on them, and she can truly admit that she’s never met a truly ugly girl in her life. They’d be pretty in some way, or make her laugh, and there was always a nice, warmth bubbling up in her chest around some girls—a feeling that only escalated when she first entered university. She used to think it was a desire to be friends. She tended to gravitate towards girls in general and she always chalked it up to finding comfort in women, since she grew up surrounded by women more than men. All her closest friends were women, except for maybe one.

She never really thought about it until freshman year of university, when she first started working at Café Neo and Naeun, Seulgi, and Baekhyun invited her out to one of her first parties. It wasn’t a scene she really found comfort in—there were too many people stuffed into one place, too many wandering hands, and too many drunk people making decisions she wasn’t entirely sure were of their own volition. Still, she liked the idea of it and, a couple parties later, she ended up in one of the upstairs bedrooms with a girl named Jisoo from one of her gen-ed classes. It wasn’t too quiet and there was nothing that magical about it; she could hear the drunken shouts drifting from up the stairs, even with the door shut, but there was something about how soft her eyes were when Irene had hesitated, there was something sweet about the way she kissed her. There was something there, in the softness of her skin and the butterflies churning at the pit of Irene’s stomach, and, despite it all being a one-night thing, Irene thinks it changed her more than anything else freshman year of college.

Suddenly everything made sense and there was a certain clarity in her that had never been there before. She liked girls. She was still attracted to boys, though not as much as she was attracted to girls. The internet called it biuality. Some of the girls she hooked up with it called it not putting a label on it. Some of the boys she hooked up with would either wave their hand, entirely too dismissive, and call it hot experimentation or they would ask, with one hundred percent seriousness, what do you think about a ? Some would get strangely jealous, others would mention offhandedly, you just haven’t found the right guy yet.

Freshman year of college brought a lot of things into perspective and she started to notice more than she ever used to. She notices that when some men find out that she’s also attracted to women, they start to speak of the women around them to her the same way they would if they were around their guy friends—suddenly their words become more vulgar, pointed words about the size of a stranger’s and the shape of her , and they expect her to speak the same way. She isn’t sure why that happens, why that wall is suddenly dropped, but it does, and she doesn’t know how she feels about it. For one, it feels inclusive, like she is one of the guys, but it also feels off, almost objectifying.

She also notices the way some women excuse men, especially the men they are in a relationship with or even attracted to, for things she believes to be bull—she isn’t sure if her low tolerance is because she knows she’s less attracted to men than she is to women, by a marginal degree but still relevant, or if she’s been asked about threesomes one too many times and it’s made her bitter. Her cousin would complain about how her husband doesn’t clean the house, but when Irene asked why she didn’t just confront him, she mentioned that he vacuums and washes dishes at least.

“It’s more than most husbands do.” Her cousin had shrugged.

And then there were her friends who seemed strangely nonchalant about the times they’ve hooked up and the men they’re hooking up with never took the time to get them off, too. Irene thinks that’s ing ridiculous, because what’s the point of hooking up if you’re not going to get off?

“I can’t make him.” Wendy had replied to her once.

“I know that. You can politely tell him, though.” Irene had muttered back.

Wendy had reddened, “I did. He said he didn’t want to because it’s gross.”

“See, that’s ed up. You hi—”

“Shh! I don’t want the whole damn café to know about it.” Wendy sighed. “It was disappointing, but I mean I get it. It must be weird for guys to…you know…?”

Irene had found herself scowling at Wendy from behind the counter, pausing in her scrubbing of the tables, as she hissed, “And, what? They think it’s not weird for a girl to have his shoved down her jugular?”

Wendy had reddened even more than before before waving the rag in her hand, “It is, but boys are stupid. I wish I was lesbian just so I wouldn’t have to deal.”

Then Wendy had sauntered off and Irene had found herself frowning at the table.)

“Have you checked the news yet?” Hani asks Jieun, her eyes wide. Jackson Wang, an international exchange student who sits right in front of Hani, spins in his chair, his snapback nearly slipping from his head.

“You don’t think it’s true, do you?” Jackson asks, his expression filled with worry more than anything.

Irene frowns at her notebook, just as her own seatmate slides into the chair next to her. She glances up for a moment at Shindong before she returns to her notes.

Jieun stares between Hani and Jackson, “No, I didn’t check yet. What’s happened? Is it—is it about the Hongdae murder?”

“Yeah, it is. Your parents knew the girl’s parents, didn’t they, Jieun? And, you guys have the same name. That’s crazy, isn’t it?” Jackson asks, then, leaning close as Hani hands her phone to Jieun. Jackson’s pursing his lips, eyes sympathetic, and Irene can see the slight trepidation and the anxiety in Jieun’s eyes. It’s not every day someone with the same name as you is murdered. It must be unsettling, in all kinds of ways.

Jieun nods, though, a distracted movement, her attention focused fully on the article on Hani’s phone.

Irene pulls out her phone, as well, especially when she hears Hongdae murder. Irene couldn’t help but think about the girl who was murdered—Kim Jieun—for the last couple days. It could have very easily been anyone, even one of her friends at Café Neo, and that’s what’s most unsettling about this case. It had happened so close to home, so close to the happy little bubble Irene has found solace in since freshman year. It hadn’t helped that Irene had to listen to old men and women on the train muttering about how a young girl like Kim Jieun shouldn’t have been out so late, what was she doing in Hongdae, no doubt clubbing all night instead of studying like a good girl, and Irene had wondered why it was somehow this girl’s fault for being murdered, a girl who was just that, a girl, barely legal, and doing something as mundane as clubbing, something she herself enjoyed doing her freshman year as well. How did going out past a certain hour make her a bad girl?

She sees the article title at the same time Jieun gasps.

“It’s bad.” Hani whispers, shaking her head.

The article’s title is written in big block letters, Murder Suspect Speaks: “I hated how women kept belittling and ignoring me.” Her eyes drift to the body of the article, eyes widening with each word.

“…so I decided enough is enough. I had to do what I had to do. She was just like the rest of them.”

Irene blinks as a chill runs right down her spine. The words settle into her brain and for a moment, she can’t even begin to process them. What the hell?

When asked to clarify, the police attempted to intervene, but he had said, expression very calm and tone steady, “I hate them all. I want them to feel the pain they put me through. So, I started with her.”

Her heart drops to the pit of her stomach and she can’t—she doesn’t know how to process the immense horror curling up at the pit of her stomach.

“He—he killed her because of how other women treated him?” Jieun blinks at Hani. Hani purses her lips.

“Can you blame the guy? Women can be pretty mean.” Shindong speaks up then and Irene snaps her head up to frown at Shindong. There’s a disparaging look in his eyes, a smug smile she’s seen on one too many people, even as he shrugs, as if he thinks he’s made a valid point.

Jieun’s eyes flicker to both Hani and Irene, Hani doing the same, and Irene scowls at Shindong. Jackson blinks at Shindong, smile thinning out into the polite types of smiles she sees on people who do not agree with certain statements, but they don’t want to start something, either. And, how can he when Shindong is older than him, then all of them?

Irene kind of wishes Jackson would say something, still, despite the age difference, especially since he’s a foreign exchange student and he gets more leeway on those things, but he can’t, and she knows it. She can’t, either. A moment later, as if to finalize their inability to say something, the professor steps into the classroom and Jieun and Hani face the front of the room. Jackson turns away after a moment, as well, though there’s a frown marring his usual joyful expression.

Irene still can’t fathom the article and the very idea that the murderer essentially targeted Kim Jieun because of the couple experiences he’s had with a few women. There has to be another reason. There must be something else separating her and her friends from Kim Jieun, in this murderer’s eyes, a defining factor that isn’t just circumstantial.

There must be.

There needs to be.

But—but, there isn’t. The further she scrolls, the more apparent it is, the more her skin starts to crawl and she just wants to go home.

She scrolls and scrolls until she reaches the comments and, surely enough, there’s a comment there that blatantly shouts this is a hate crime. It has thousands of upvotes, but even more downvotes.

She can’t focus during class, even when her professor hands out problem sets for them to work on with their seatmates in order to review.

(She can’t help but focus on the fact that her fears were true, and Kim Jieun really could have been her or Naeun or Seulgi or Hani or anyone really. It could have been any of the women in her university classes, since Café Neo is right down the street. It could have ing been any of them. The only reason it wasn’t was because of circumstance, of Kim Jieun being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And judging from the murderer’s words, it was meant for all of them, anyway. Her stomach flips and she thinks she’s going to be sick.

She watches Jieun hide her phone under desk as she scrolls up the screen with her thumb, pausing ever few seconds. Irene can feel the anxiety rolling off her. Irene can feel it because it seems to be filling her up to the brim as well. She really thinks she’s going to be sick.)

It’s quiet between Shindong and her, mostly because she doesn’t want to speak to him and he seems to pick up on that. At least that’s what she hopes.

Ten minutes later, though, Shindong taps at her side of the desk with the back of his pen. Irene looks up and he asks, “What did you get for number four?”

She tells him, mostly because he looks genuinely confused, she’s not as much of a as everyone seems to think she is—even when she has every right to be, and, unfortunately, he is her senior and she has a social obligation to be polite.

(She wonders what Kim Jieun used to study, whether she could have had a seatmate like Shindong, who she liked, her favorite food, what she did. She thinks about Kim Jieun a bit too much, in that moment.)

Shindong smiles, “Thanks.”

She smiles politely back. “You’re welcome.”

She tacks on a polite honorific and Shindong seems satisfied, somehow, by her response. He leans a little closer and whispers, tone conspiring, “You know, you should really smile more. You look prettier that way. And more approachable.”

She blinks, rapidly, her smile slipping from her face. He smiles at her, as if in demonstration, before turning back to his homework. Her stomach churns.

~.~.~.~.~

Naeun walks into Café Neo, prepared for the busy study rush the afternoon always brings on. This time, the atmosphere in the café is different, though.

Naeun’s been following the news closely lately, especially after the murderer decided to announce to the press—supposedly moments after he got detained as the main suspect, thanks to incriminating CCTV footage—that the reason he killed Kim Jieun was because he felt belittled and ignored by women.

(Jieun had watched the news play out while she was hanging out with Jongdae, a week ago, her cooking up lunch while Jongdae promised to wash the dishes and stole food from the pan before she could ever get it to the plate. The moment had been somewhat sweet before the news had broke out. The television blared in the background, long forgotten, and she liked the way Jongdae would laugh every time she’d swat at his wandering hands. It had been a while since they’ve gotten to spend some actual quality time with each other and she found she’s missed his laugh and how loud and obnoxious, almost whiny, it can be.

She’s missed him. She says so, murmurs it really, while she carefully separates pasta onto two plates.

A pretty, curly smile graced Jongdae’s lips as he caught her around the waist, pulling her back against him, her back flush against his chest. She had laughed, grabbing at his arms, “Dae, let me finish this.”

Jongdae shook his head, leaning close as he pressed his lips to the crook of her neck.

She giggled as he muttered, “I missed you, too, baby.”

“Don’t you want dinner first?” She murmured.

She could feel Jongdae’s lips moving against the side of her neck, from her jaw to her shoulder as he tugged at her shirt. “Nah, I was thinking dessert, first.”

His voice was a low rumble and she found herself laughing at his tone, “Ew, that’s cheesy.”

“Don’t ruin the mood, please.”

“Of course.” She hummed, still grinning as she tilted her head to the side to allow him better access as she allowed herself to melt into his arms, “At least let me turn off the oven, first.”

Jongdae had chuckled, nodding, and she had leaned forward, flicking the stove off. The last time they did this and she accidentally left the stove on, they had set off the smoke alarm and the neighbors would not stop glaring at her for weeks on end afterwards. It may or may not have been nearly two in the morning then. She was never one to remember details like that, anyway.

Jongdae had pressed her up against the counter, the ledge digging into her back uncomfortably, and she had enjoyed the way Jongdae’s fingers fluttered along her hot skin, trailing goosebumps in their wake.

It’s not like she wasn’t into it, or anything. She usually is, at least until Jongdae suggests a new kink for them to try out and she’d hesitantly mutter okay because she didn’t want to ruin the mood or have Jongdae think she was, God forbid, boring or something. She likes being one of the cool girls, willing to try anything once. She likes the idea of being the type of girl who explores their uality in the most outrageous ways, who isn’t vanilla. Jongdae likes the idea of a girl like that, too.

(For once, though, Jongdae kissed her sweetly and set the mood just right. For once, he didn’t ask her to do something strange and she wondered if maybe she does like vanilla, even though she’d swear up and down to her friends that she didn’t. Vanilla is boring. If someone likes it, then they must be boring, too. That’s what Jongdae always says, that's what some of her friend's have said, yet she found she was enjoying the slowness, the sweetness of this moment between her and Jongdae more than anything else they’ve ever done before.)

Jongdae cupped her and hauled her up on the counter as she wrapped her legs around his waist, fingers curling gently around his jaw as she leaned down to kiss him. He had taken his time peeling off her clothes, the anticipation of his fingers creeping up her bare thighs making her toes curl.

He’s too slow, though, too teasing, and she looked up and away, to distract herself of the view of his teasing eyes, creeping hands, and mischievous, curly smile. She looked up and her gaze landed on the television, the headline and the bright red breaking news blaring across the screen, like some sort of siren.

It had startled her, and she had jerked back in surprise, a sting of pain shooting up her arm as her hand made contact with one of the plates of pasta she had left on the still-warm stove.

The sound of a glass plate hitting the floor and shattering jolted her out of her shock. She yelped in pain, clutching her hand to her chest, eyes wide in shock, and Jongdae had jumped, too, knocking the top of his head against the bottom of her chin hard, making her nearly bite her damn tongue off.

“.” Jongdae groaned, stepping back as he rubbed at his head.

“Holy .” Naeun exclaimed at the same time, arm cradled to her chest as she cupped her chin. Still, despite the pain, she hadn’t been able to tear her eyes off the screen, off the headline and the press footage of the murderer, his black face mask and hat obscuring most of his face, as he seemed to speak directly into the camera.

“What the was that, Naeun?” Jongdae had whined, still rubbing at his chin.

She hadn’t bothered answering him, instead hopping off the counter, still cradling her arm and chin as she ignored the fact that her clothing was hanging off her awkwardly. She had avoided the glass shards of the pasta plate and sprinted to the living room, scrambling for the remote.

It had been disconcerting to hear the murderer’s voice so clearly. His tone was steady, calm, and his words were even worse. That night she had dropped down on the sofa, in a state of half undress, a horrible feeling churning at the pit of her stomach, and she couldn’t believe her ears. She sat there and watched the newscasters attempt to decipher the murderer’s words and his underlying meaning—a trend she always noticed the news do, especially for murderers and the corrupt.

It didn’t sound like there was any, to her, but sometimes, it’s hard for people to admit that someone would do something as evil as stabbing a woman six times just because of something as small as a generalization. It’s even harder to realize that the streets of Seoul, a place always touted for its safety, is anything but. People want explanations, excuses. People don’t want to believe that their hometown could be home to a brutal murder that only seemed to be fueled by hate.

“Ugh, nothing kills the mood like a murder.” Jongdae mumbled as he took a seat beside her, though he was staring at the screen intently.

The joke had fallen flat.

From that day onwards, Naeun found that she couldn’t stop thinking about Kim Jieun. She couldn’t stop following the news, reading comments. She even took a detour past the memorial constructed for Jieun, where the murder happened, stopping briefly to stare at the growing bunches of flowers and sticky notes plastered to the spot before she hurried to class.)

Naeun doesn’t expect to walk into a relatively quiet Café Neo, though there is a lone, familiar man sitting in the corner, glancing up at the counter occasionally. Naeun knows he's a regular, but he's strange because he's always alone and never greets them the way their other regulars do. Wendy gestures towards the television, expression heated, while Seulgi nods distractedly, focusing on finishing some drink orders for a couple customers. Baekhyun is cleaning the tables and constantly looking up at the TV. Most of the customers are quietly speaking to each other, working on their laptops, or staring intently at the television as well.

She's barely taken a few steps into the café and Baekhyun's head already snaps up, his gaze landing on her, a boxy grin stretching over his face the moment he catches her gaze.

She drops her stuff off in the break room, tying off her apron as she steps out and Baekhyun is waiting for her with the newest daily special—a single, dainty vanilla strawberry scone.

She blinks at them, surprised, “These are my favorites! Did you make them?”

“Wendy did.” Baekhyun shakes his head, “But, I knew they were your favorites, so I saved you some.”

“Aww, thank you.” Naeun grins as she takes the offered scone, relishing in her first bite. It’s delicious. Wendy is always the best at baking, though Naeun can confidently say she’s not bad at all either. Sehun and Baekhyun barely ever bake. One time, Sehun said it was because he’s never been good at girl things like cooking and baking. Baekhyun doesn’t bake because he’s genuinely awful at it. “Even though, I should really be thanking Wendy, since she made them.”

Naeun grins and Baekhyun pouts, playfully, “But, I kept them warm for you.”

“Did you eat the rest of them while you kept them warm?” Naeun raises a brow, because it's suspicious that there's only one left for her.

“Maybe.” Baekhyun laughs. She watches as he leans against the counter, settling into the spot in front of her. “Of course, if you want more, I know of this really great bakery in Gangnam with the best vanilla strawberry scones in existence.”

“Don’t let Wendy hear you praising competition like that, Baek.” Naeun comments as she makes a move to sidestep Baekhyun.

“I would never.” Baekhyun steps backwards, still facing her, “I’m just suggesting scoping out the competition.”

He hovers over her, a little closer, smile lopsided and eyes twinkling. She raises a brow up at him. “I’ll think about it. Who else is coming?”

“No one else. Just us.” He smirks a little, a confident easy grin that she’s seen plenty of men and women redden over whenever he’d take their order.

She’s not an idiot. She understands the implications of his words. Still, she feigns ignorance, “Just us?”

“Yeah. Like a date.” Baekhyun clarifies, too easily.

She blinks at him, surprised by his bluntness.

Baekhyun must see something in her expression because he immediately backtracks, “A friend-date, of course.”

“Uh, Baekhyun.” Naeun keeps her tone placating, pleasant, despite the uncomfortable churning at the pit of her stomach, “I have a boyfriend, remember?”

“Yeah, I know.” Baekhyun says, shrugging, “It’s just a friend thing, Naeun.”

“I’ll think about it.” She concedes, placating. Baekhyun throws her his signature boxy grin and her stomach churns at the way his mood shifts so easily.

Baekhyun opens his mouth to say something else when Wendy’s angry voice carries over towards them, though she’s obviously trying to keep it hushed. Naeun glances over after she hears a very annoyed, “I’m so sick of hearing them constantly talk about this case.”

Naeun blinks. She can see the slight flush in Wendy’s cheeks, her fingernails tapping away erratically at the coffee counter, given up on helping Seulgi finish up the orders. Seulgi bows to one last customer before she mutters, “It’s important to stay informed, though, Wendy.”

Wendy rolls her eyes, “They’re making it such a huge deal. It was a murder, okay, all right, I get it. But what’s up with all these speculations about his motives? What about speculations about her? I mean, why the hell was she out so late anyway? And alone, too? That’s just asking for trouble, especially if she was dressed for the club.”

Naeun blinks rapidly at Wendy’s pointed tone. Seulgi’s brows furrow and she opens , as if she wants to say something, but then she seems to decide otherwise, clamping shut.

Naeun wants to say something. She imagines what Irene might have said to Wendy in this particular situation—something along the lines of she was out late, that doesn’t mean somebody’s suddenly allowed to kill her, Wendy, what the ?—but Naeun has never been that type of person. Besides, everyone is entitled to their opinion, right? Freedom of speech and all that, right?

(A small voice at the back of her head that sounds suspiciously like Irene mutters, sure, they have the freedom to say what they want, but everyone else has the freedom to tell them their opinions are .)

Someone nudges Naeun’s side and she jolts out of her thoughts, glancing sideways. Baekhyun is grinning at her, dark eyes flickering over her face, “You’ve been more spaced out then usual, Naeun. You good?”

“Uh, yeah.” Naeun nods before she fully ties her apron and quickly scurries behind the kitchen, ignoring the thoughts running through her head. She vaguely wonders when the hell Irene became the voice of her inner consciousness. She certainly didn’t sign up for that.

Near the end of her shift, when the store is at it’s coziest and there are just a couple students studying in the far corners, focused hard on their laptops, the television catches Naeun’s attention again.

Only this time, the news anchor's solemn voice overlays video footage of women holding signs, of the beginnings of what looks like a protest, and Wendy’s words, they’re making it a huge deal, echoes in her head, over and over and over, her voice twisting into a caricature of itself until the small voice in her head—that has now established itself as a little Irene apparently—mutters, Because it is.

Naeun isn’t quite sure what she’s supposed to do with that information.

She and Baekhyun finish their shifts at the same time and she is mostly lost in her thoughts until he nudges her again, still grinning that sweet smile of his, eyes lingering on her. He gestures behind her, “Want me to walk you to your bus stop? It’s pretty dark out.”

Naeun glances around, unable to stop thinking of how Jieun had been stabbed to death just two blocks from here, in the dark. She shivers involuntarily and she wants to say yes, but Baekhyun is—sometimes, she wonders if he knows what catching a hint means. She wishes she could figure out if this is him just being friendly or if this is him showing her how he likes her again.

Before she can utter a word, though, a familiar voice calls out to her, an edge to his tone that isn’t exactly as familiar as his voice. She spins on her heels anyway, grinning from ear to ear as she exclaims, “Jongdae!”

Jongdae sidles up to her, wrapping an arm around her waist, “Hey, babe.”

She blinks as he looks up and eyes Baekhyun for a moment, uncharacteristically silent. His grip around her waist tightens significantly as he says, “Hey, Baek…ho?”

Naeun purses his lips because she knows Jongdae knows who Baekhyun is, she’s mentioned him plenty of times and Jongdae knows the names of her other coworkers because of how much she’s mentioned them. Baekhyun waves, a little awkwardly, though his eyes flash, “It’s Baekhyun. We’ve had like two years’ worth of classes together, Jongdae.”

Jongdae just nods. "Yeah, I guess so."

Naeun rolls her eyes, good naturedly, and Baekhyun smiles, though it is tight and not quite friendly, only softening when he glances at her. Jongdae’s grip tightens even more, making her elbow him subtly, even as Naeun says, “Bye, Baek. Jongdae can take me home.”

Baekhyun nods and Naeun spins on her heels, Jongdae following after her a moment later.

~.~.~.~.~

“I don’t like him, Naeun.”

Naeun rolls her eyes and says, her serious statement disguised by a playful tone. “You’re just jealous.”

Jongdae scowls, scrunching up his nose cutely, “No, I’m not. Why would I be jealous?”

“I don’t know. You have the answer to that, don't you?” Naeun raises a brow.

Jongdae pouts, sulking, for the rest of the bus ride back to her apartment.

~.~.~.~.~

Later that night he kisses her roughly up against a door, the doorknob digging painfully into her back. It’s a bit of surprise; she steps out of the bathroom, her face moisturized, and he catches her by the waist, grip a little too bruising.

“You’re mine.” He says, growls really, against her lips in a possessive way that sends the strangest shivers up and down her spine.

She pulls away from his lips first, laughing a little breathlessly, her heart thrumming, and she says, “Okay, you’ve made your point.”

“Say it back.” Jongdae presses her up against the wall this time. She grimaces slightly at the way his hands clasp at her pajamas.

“I’m yours.” Naeun nods, placating, as she pulls away from his sloppy kisses, “Now can you stop being so possessive and put me down? I just moisturized my face and I’m tired.”

“I thought you liked me when I’m possessive.” Jongdae is breathless as he says that before he pushes forward and presses wet kisses against her jaw, his finger curling around her hair as he kisses down her neck.

“When did I say that?”

“I mean, girls like a guy who’s in charge, right?” Jongdae murmurs against her collarbone. “Come on, please. I need you.”

“What? My moisturized face is so y you can’t contain yourself?” Naeun asks, trying for a joking tone, even as Jongdae kind of just hooks his fingers under the waistband of her pajama shorts and drags it down and she squirms a bit at his touch. She can’t help the frown plastered across her face. He doesn’t notice it.

She barely catches his response, his faint, “That ten step routine just really does it to me. Come on, it’ll be quick.”

Her stomach churns but she thinks back on his previous words, how girls are supposed to like a guy in charge, a possessive man. Isn’t that how it is in all those dramas she’s seen? She figures that he’s right, it’ll be quick, and then she can go sit on the couch and they can cuddle like they’re supposed to. She’s supposed to be the cool girl, anyway, right? The girl down with doing whatever, whenever, the girl who should be making her boyfriend, whom she genuinely loves so, so much, feel good, especially when he went through such an emotional rollercoaster of being jealous earlier. Even though she’s tired and she’d rather just sit down, she’d rather not have , Jongdae is insistent and she thinks, what’s the harm, like he said, it’ll be quick.

She blinks when she realizes she’s completely zoned out and he’s already done, her back sliding down the wall as he helps her steady herself.

There’s an uncomfortable churning at the pit of her stomach as she watches him slip into the bathroom, leaving her alone in the hallway with wobbly legs. Slowly, she heads to the couch and curls up, Jongdae joining her a minute later, cuddling her just as she originally wanted, and all the while there is a strange twisting feeling at the pit of her stomach. His cuddles aren’t nearly as warm as she wants it to feel. She just feels uncomfortable. Even when she takes a moment to go pee before returning to the couch, nothing changes. She feels strange, her skin crawling a little.

She flips the channel lazily and they’re hit by a bright red breaking news.

Jongdae mumbles, “Ugh, change it. This is just depressing.”

She doesn't change it. Her stomach truly drops, instead, her fingers frozen over the channel up button, when she processes the words coming out of the news anchor’s mouth, his solemn expression and the way his usually robotic, stoic expression momentarily glitches, a horrified look passing through his eyes.

After a brief, professional pause, he says, “There has been a new development in the case that shines light on the protests brewing over the Hongdae Murder Case. It seems…It seems that the protestor’s accusations of misogyny being the primary reason behind the assailant’s motives may hold some inkling of truth. CCTV tapes have revealed that while the assailant was at the crime scene, six people passed by him, all within the two hour block in which he stood in that corner, all alone, most smaller than the assailant, as was the victim. The assailant is visibly appears to notice each of these six people pass by him, as shown in the footage on the screen. However, he did not strike until he caught sight of Kim Jieun. Protesters say it is not a coincidence that while the victim was a woman, the six people that passed by the assailant in the vicinity of the crime were all men. They say it may have not been premeditated, but he waited, specifically, for a woman to show up.”

“Woah.” Jongdae mumbles, his breath tickling her skin, making her shiver a bit.

She just stares at the television.

~.~.~.~.~

Seulgi is constantly distracted. There are always moments, now, where she would just be sitting in the library finishing up homework or practicing a dance routine in an empty practice room when the hairs at the back of her neck would stand on end and she’d swivel in her spot, heart racing, only to find that she is entirely alone. It must be paranoia; with recent developments of that murder case several of her friends and classmates have gone out and bought pepper spray just in case and Seulgi constantly feels like there are eyes on her, even at moments like these when she is completely alone.

One day, she swears she sees someone staring at her over their book in the library, a familiar face she can't quite pinpoint, but when she double checks, there’s just a boy reading his assignments intently and a group of freshmen whispering loudly about their weekend.

She’s totally losing it.

“Seulgi?”

She blinks herself out of her thoughts and Kim Jongin blinks at her, frowning. She reddens slightly at the look on his face—he’s not much older than her but he’s incredibly skilled and best friends with one of the best dancers of the year, perhaps even in the university, and she doesn’t want to disappoint him, especially when he specifically asked her to work with him on this project. “Sorry, I didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

“It’s fine.” Jongin shakes his head, smiling kindly, “It looks as if you’re pretty exhausted. We can just meet up tomorrow after you get some rest. I need to be somewhere in half an hour, anyway.”

Seulgi blinks, owlishly, at his words and Jongin smiles, the same way most people do when she looks confused, as if she’s being adorable. Still, she says, “Is that okay? We only have a week to figure out the choreography before we have to present.”

Jongin waves a hand, “You’re actually really good, even when you’re distracted. We’ll be fine.”

She isn’t quite sure if she’s supposed to take that as a compliment, especially when it’s a known fact that she’s one of the best dancers in her classes, right behind Jongin and his best friend, Taemin. She ranks better than some boys, which was an obstacle to overcome because her professors have always been adamant on creating separated, gendered rankings. She is good. She has the ranking, acolades, and begrudging mother who cannot do anything but complain to prove it.

“Uh, thanks?” She murmurs, too quiet, the snappiness she intended on injecting into her tone completely gone, leaving zero impact on Kim Jongin since he’s already grabbed his stuff and is halfway out the practice room door. She frowns after him, the hairs at the back of her neck standing on end again. She glances around, frowning at the windows on the far wall, next to the door, that shows them who is passing by in the hall. No one is there, but her stomach still churns.

~.~.~.~.~

Seulgi is surprised to see Naeun at the house party, though she’s sure Naeun is more surprised to see Seulgi there. Lately, Seulgi’s been swamped with work, classes, her mother’s weekly phone calls filled with nitpicking everything, and she hasn’t been able to go out. Finally, she’s managed to have a free night, but she’s not really feeling the stuffiness of the house so she parks herself on a comfy chair on the balcony of the tiny apartment and Naeun joins her moments later, the look in her eyes strange.

Seulgi has always thought Naeun to be one of the coolest girls she’s ever met. She’s always easygoing and joking about everything and she isn’t necessarily afraid to be mean to someone who deserves it—there have been plenty of rude customers that Naeun refused to take from.

(Irene is usually Naeun times one thousand in terms of not taking from anyone.)

Seulgi finds she’s a little jealous of that.

(She feels bad about it, about feeling any type of jealousy towards her friends, but Baekhyun always complains about how she basically acts like a doormat and allows people to step all over her. Seulgi had tried to defend herself, but Baekhyun always gave her a look and once said, “You can’t even say no to your mom. And you don’t even live with her anymore.”

Seulgi bites her tongue, had wanted to retort with you’re not much better, Baekhyun, but she knows that Baekhyun’s family is a sore subject for him (he knows it is for her, too, but he forgets to not bring it up all the time) so she feels bad and doesn’t say anything, shrugging instead. Baekhyun always seems to pity her in those moments, or maybe remember how much of a he's being, because then he just sighs, ruffles her hair, and says, “I’m not going to always be here to protect you from people who want to take advantage of you, Seulgi. That’s all. Sorry I snapped at you and brought up your mom, I’m just worried.”)

She is jealous of the way Naeun just sprawls out on the other chair, how she doesn’t seem to worry about how she looks in a crop top and a short skirt with her legs spread out wide in such a carefree way, a sitting position Seulgi’s mother would no doubt scream at Seulgi for. Naeun just looks like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

Seulgi’s jealous of that.

But then, Seulgi notices the way there’s a crease between Naeun’s brows and Seulgi thinks, maybe she does have plenty of cares in this world.

Everyone around her, especially all the women she knows, have been more tense than usual due to the news and recent events. Even her mother spent about half an hour nagging her about buying pepper spray and not going out past nine without Baekhyun. Her mother never really nags her about her safety, so that was a strange experience, in general.

Naeun takes a swig of beer, hiccupping loudly as she stares out at the city beneath them. It looks so serene. Seulgi wishes she could find comfort in the familiar skyline, but it is slowly cracking at the edges, like a broken snowglobe, and she thinks her happy little bubble she’s managed to engulf herself in is beginning to burst, slowly but surely. It’s a disheartening thought. It has her feeling edgy, paranoid, as if someone is watching her. She really needs a break.

Seulgi sips at her drink too, the alcohol making her feel warm.

It’s quiet for a long moment before Naeun glances over at Seulgi, a strange look in her eyes, and she whispers, “It’s so scary how peaceful everything looks from up here.”

Seulgi blinks, rapidly, at Naeun’s tone, at how Naeun voices exactly what Seulgi was thinking about the city below. Seulgi pauses to take another sip from her drink before she says, “Yeah, it is, isn’t it? Especially after everything.”

(Seulgi realizes this is the first time they've mentioned what's been happening. It feels strange, as if they've opened a whole new can of worms no one knows what to do with.)

“But, it’s like…like I hear everyone mentioning how surprised they are by all—all this.” Naeun gestures at the city, swaying a little, and the way she slurs her words indicates that Naeun is a lot more drunk than Seulgi thought she was. Her tone isn't so cool, it's just thoughtful, edged with something a little painful to hear. “It’s not really that surprising, is it? It’s always been here, hasn’t it? We just never noticed because it seemed…insignificant? Normal? I don't know.”

Seulgi frowns, “What do you mean?”

“All those boys who would stalk you just because you smiled at them. All the times on TV when the lead would grab the girl by her wrist. Those couples on the streets that everyone would ignore, you know the ones who would fight and no one wou—would want to get involved, even when he raises his hand on her. When they’d keep asking you out even though you say no. Every time your boyfriend, or any boy, would ke—keep asking please even though you don’t actually want to—so you give in so that your lives can move on and—” Naeun cuts herself off, her hands dropping to her lap, her chest rising and falling. Seulgi watches as she folds her arms over her chest, as if she is hugging herself and Seulgi’s heart squeezes at the sight, the way Naeun’s eyes grow glassy, just a little bit, especially at the last part. Seulgi doesn't know much about Jongdae, but the way Naeun looks, so defeated, so tired, makes Seulgi decide she doesn't really like Jongdae, especially based off Naeun's words.

Seulgi reaches out, placing a hand over Naeun’s. She does not pull away, she just looks up Seulgi, and Seulgi says, very sincerely, “Naeun, I’m so sorry.”

Naeun stares at Seulgi for a long minute before she murmurs, “You’re so sweet, you know that. There’s nothing for you to be sorry about but you’re just—you’re so nice.”

“I know.” Seulgi rolls her eyes a little, smiling slightly at the way Naeun says it, with such awe it makes Seulgi redden a little. “It gets me in trouble a lot. I wish I was stronger like you or Irene.”

Naeun shakes her head, the movement stilted, both slow and fast, clearly drunken. “No, no, no. Being kind doesn’t mean you're not strong. It’s just…It’s amazing because it's not something that exists these days, you know? We need more kind people like you in this world.”

“But Baekhyun says I’m too nice. Everybody does.”

“ Baekhyun! everybody!” Naeun exclaims, shouts really, her voice bouncing off the night sky and settling over the city, making Seulgi giggle. “There’s nothing wrong with being too nice. I wish I was nicer. Irene does, too, I bet. You’re, like, empathetic, and honestly not many people can say they are.”

Naeun reaches up to pat Seulgi’s cheek sweetly. Seulgi can’t help but smile.

“You’re way too good for all of us.” Naeun continues in a mumble, eyes alight as she blinks at Seulgi, “And you know what’s crazy? That isn’t even going to go to your head and inflate your ego because you’re that pure. A whole cinnamon roll.”

Naeun continues to squish Seulgi’s cheeks and she just laughs, letting it happen. Seulgi thinks Naeun’s exaggerating, obviously, but she finds comfort in her words. Naeun isn’t necessarily the type to dole out compliments like this and Seulgi will take what she can get, exaggeration or not. She lets Naeun pull her into a hug and ignores the hairs standing up at the back of her neck and the feeling that someone is watching her; she’s just being paranoid, her nerves fried from all the horrible news she’s had to absorb lately whenever she turns on the television. She’s fine. Naeun just hugs her tighter and Seulgi notices the slight tremor to her fingers. Seulgi rubs Naeun’s back gently.

~.~.~.~.~

There’s been a constant tension in the air for a while now, like a rubber band pulled taut, ready to spring, but never quite getting there. Everything that has accumulated over the past few days hits a boiling point just a few days later and all those cracks in her safe haven shatters completely.

The coffee shop, she realizes, is just as susceptible to outside evils as anything else is. It is not exempt from the tumultuous world beyond these walls.

The television is on and they’re all gathered around it. The coffee shop is completely empty, as if everyone seemed to know what would happen and they’ve decided to stay home.

The kettle on the stove hums lowly, the whistles only getting higher and higher as the minutes passed.

They’re watching the news cover the protests. It’s huge now. There are women in face masks, black caps, and big sweaters holding up signs written in both Korean and English, she was not for killing and the news interviews a few women, their faces covered, blurred from view, and their voices altered, as they say, almost hesitantly, I do not wish to live in a place where I am told to be careful just because I am a woman.

Men think they have some kind of right over women’s bodies and lives, someone else says..

Baekhyun crosses his arms over his chest, his jaw tightening, and his low voice echoes throughout the coffee shop, “Not all men are like that, though.”

The tea kettle’s shrill whistle grows and grows.

Naeun glances sideways at Baekhyun, frowning. Seulgi keeps staring at the television. Wendy sort of nods. Irene is the one to say, “Well, no one’s saying all men are like that.”

Baekhyun jabs a thumb at the television, “They keep saying men this and men that. They’re generalizing.”

“Because it’s easier to say on a platform where you only have a couple seconds to make your point.” Irene crosses her arms over her chest, turning to fully face Baekhyun, “But, I mean, if you’re getting so offended maybe there is some truth to her words that you don’t like? If the shoe fits, right?”

The tea kettle’s shrill whistle screams into the silence of the coffee shop, the only sound in the entire coffee shop after Irene’s words.

Irene glances at Naeun, very obviously, and Baekhyun absolutely notices the pointed look, the backhanded comment accompanying it. Naeun blinks, rapidly.

Baekhyun glares at Irene, full on scowls, and no one really knows what to do. There has never been a fight between any of her coworkers before and its completely unfamiliar territory. Even Sehun looks at a loss for words.

Baekhyun just spins on his heels and stomps away, slamming the break room door shut behind him. Irene scoffs. Naeun and Seulgi exchange a look. Sehun glares at Irene when he’s sure Irene isn’t looking, because despite everything he will always be slightly afraid of Irene. Wendy frowns.

From that point onwards, Café Neo is nothing of the safe haven, the comfortable little bubble, it was once was. It is not exempt from all their worries and fears.

~.~.~.~.~

Byun Baekhyun likes to think himself a nice guy. He doesn’t play with girls’ hearts, he helps old ladies carry heavy things to their cars, he smiles to strangers, but, most importantly, he isn’t an . He is everything, really, that his father is not. At least, he tries to be.

His mother is always cooking or cleaning. Even when he arrives home one weekend to visit, she is still cooking and cleaning, still bent over backwards to clean the house of nonexistent dust. Still, she pauses to pull him into a hug and give him a big kiss. He smiles, wiggling out of her grip. His father is there; he is always just there, existing at the edges of his life, never fully in it, never fully out of it.

“Why do you still baby him like that? He’s in university.” His father mutters, eyes never leaving the television as he eats his food, tie loose.

The image of his father sitting there in his loosened office clothes, watching television and eating, sometimes even drinking, while his mother flits around has always been such a constant in his life. Sometimes, he wonders if years will pass and he will take his father’s place while the woman he marries flits all about and his own son stares at him like this, with the strangest bit of resentment, maybe even longing, and the same kind of indifference that one might have with a stranger, all mixed up into one knot in his stomach.

Sometimes, he wonders.

Plenty of people tell him that, in the end, children always become their parents. He doesn’t know if he wants that. Sometimes, he catches himself in the midst of a relationship acting just the way his father does, emotionally closed off, unable to talk about feelings, cold, and when he does, he tends to cut those relationships off because it—it kind of scares him, how similar he is to his father, sometimes. They say the cycle continues, always, and Baekhyun tries to fight it, but sometimes, he wonders if it’s worth fighting. Will anything turn out any different? Will he really become the kind of father that tells his son it's okay to cry, that attends his hapkido matches, that does anything that doesn't involve household finances and complaining about household finances?

His father doesn’t say hello or how are you or how is school going, he just looks Baekhyun up and down and says, “I hope you’re getting good grades and not wasting my money.”

Baekhyun shrugs, nonchalant, even as his mother throws his father a look and a pointed, honey. Baekhyun says, “Depends on what your definition of good grades would be.”

His father snorts but he doesn’t ask. He never really did. Baekhyun only ever has memories of his father at the dinner table at moments like these, but just barely. Sometimes, there’d be fights where his father would hit him hard over the head and he’d shout I hate you and his father would tell him to stop acting like a moody little girl. The last thing he told his father before left for school, ignoring his mother’s pleas for him to visit for the last four months, was I hate you. Honestly, he thinks the sentiment hasn’t entirely changed. If anything, he doesn’t hate his father anymore, instead, he just doesn’t care anymore.

(Somehow, Baekhyun thinks that is worse. Who feels such high levels of indifference towards their own father? But then, his father had never been home, always intent on fulfilling his god given financial duties as the provider, even if that means being home would never be a thing. Baekhyun doesn’t think he has any memory of his father in anything other than that stupid suit, with anything other that stupid briefcase.)

“How is Seulgi?” His mom asks as she doles out warm rice. She settles into her spot at the table, looking at Baekhyun expectantly. He’s noticed she’s been asking a lot after Seulgi. It’s strange, because Seulgi’s mother lives right next door and he knows for a fact that his mother talks to her often. Then again, Seulgi's mother never really asks after Seulgi, she just critiques her. Honestly, Baekhyun doesn't understand why Seulgi still picks up her phone calls, though Baekhyun is one to talk since he still attends family dinners regularly.

“She’s fine. She’s really busy with her studies.”

“But you aren’t?” His mother eyes him skeptically. He grins playfully and his mother laughs.

His father says, “It’s not healthy for a girl to be so busy.”

Baekhyun frowns, “She likes being busy.”

His father just nods and the silence between them stretches on, his mother occasionally asking him questions, the television blaring and blaring. Baekhyun finds he’s really beginning to dislike that television.

Much later, after he’s done helping his mother wash dishes, though his mother shakes her head the entire time and tries to get him to just sit down and relax, he settles into the living room, glancing at his phone since he’ll need to head back to his apartment soon.

His mother is still in the kitchen when his father says, “When are you going to make a move with Seulgi?”

Baekhyun blinks, mouth falling open. “What?”

The very idea of asking Seulgi out is just—it makes him cringe. He can’t see her as anything other than a little sister. He knows she’s pretty and sweet, that plenty of his friends think she’s attractive, but he feels zero attraction towards her. Maybe it's because he's seen her during her awkward braces phase and she's seen him during every single one of his ugly haircuts. They've seen each other at their most awkward and he thinks a romantic relationship would be really ing weird. Besides, he’s still not necessarily over Naeun and it’s annoying how she’s been occupying his mind so thoroughly, how even Irene noticed it enough to bring it up in that stupid argument.

His father rolls his eyes, “Come on, son. Just man up and ask her out.”

Something about the way his father says that, all pointed the way his father used to tell him to stop crying or stop playing with Seulgi's toys even though he liked it, as if he’s still that tiny kid and his father knows him infinitely better than he knows himself, even though his father was never even there to begin with, rubs him in all the wrong ways, anger itching under his skin.

(It also reminds him of the way Irene spoke to him in the Café a couple days ago. That time, he couldn’t contain his anger so he walked out. This time, he can contain his anger and annoyance.)

Baekhyun just doesn’t respond, pushing himself to his feet and kissing his mother goodbye, citing an early class tomorrow, before he heads out, taking care not to slam the door shut behind him. He doesn’t know why, but every damn time he enters his childhood home, he feels like he’s a little kid again, forced to endure his father’s condescending comments. Every time, he hates the mere sound of his father’s voice. He wants to be able to ignore all that resentment because it certainly isn’t healthy, yet it’s always there. He knows exactly why it’s there, too, no matter how much he ignores it.

~.~.~.~.~

Baekhyun and Sehun sit on his couch, flipping through a bunch of channels before they settle on some sports broadcast. Sehun’s on his third can of beer and Baekhyun is on his fourth, as they wait for their chicken delivery.

He doesn’t know how the hell their conversation veered into talking about Naeun, but somehow, that’s exactly where it went and Baekhyun can’t really help but vent.

He only ever talks about his feelings when he’s drunk. He’s really becoming his father, isn’t he?

“I’m so nice to her, but she’s still dating that Jongdae guy. He’s so ty. Totally looks and acts like a ing .”

Sehun rolls his eyes, “Come on, hyung. You know why she’s still with him.”

Baekhyun sighs, “Because girls like s.”

Sehun nods, sagely, “Girls always like the s. It’s just how it is.”

“Is that why you always act like one, Sehun?” Baekhyun snorts, peering at him as he flips the channel.

“You bet it is.” Sehun winks and Baekhyun laughs.

Sehun pauses on the news, where there’s coverage of a protest. At first Baekhyun thinks it’s of the women and feminists protesting, but it turns out it’s not.

Sehun snorts over his drink, “See, you were right.” He jabs a finger at the screen, at the men gathering with signs.

A counter-protest, the news anchor says, showing the block where the woman was murdered. There are a thousand colorful post-it notes and flowers huddled into that one corner and Baekhyun is a little mesmerized by the imagery, by the amount of people who decided to pay their respects to a woman he frankly does not even remember the name of.

But, then, the camera pans to a group of men, arms crossed, paper banners in hand, words like do not blame all men and a man who does not hide his face at all when given an interview stating, we should vet immigrants coming into this country who are making our country unsafe, instead of blaming all our men.

Sehun says, “Seriously, this was gonna happen eventually. Those girls are being so emotional about this. The murder was just an outlier. A random murder that happened because some crazy man felt ignored by a pretty girl. Sometimes, happens. Why blame an innocent group for it?”

Sehun shrugs.

Baekhyun stares at the television.

~.~.~.~.~

Naeun steps into the café, wrapped up in a scarf, to Café Neo’s owner waving at them as he slips on his coat.

Boss Kim Junmyeon is a kind man who visits sometimes to help out, especially on payday with their checks. He tends to make the worst kind of coffee-related jokes that Naeun genuinely enjoys, though no one else does. Aside from the coffee puns, he's always making sure to ask after them and if their days have been good like a sweet uncle.

“Naeun, hello!” Junmyeon waves, smiling brightly.

“Hey, Boss Kim!”

Junmyeon smiles at the nickname—they all call him Boss Kim ever since Wendy started it. “Did you guys miss me a latte?”

She sees Baekhyun pausing in his coffeemaking over Junmyeon’s shoulder, his eyes widening as if he can’t believe Junmyeon just said such a thing. Seulgi can’t hold back her laugh and she has to cough just to hide it. Irene grimaces so hard she almost looks not-so-pretty for a moment, which is a feat all on its own. Sehun outright laughs in disbelief.

Naeun laughs, awkwardly, though she can’t help but give in because, well, she kind of sort of loves stupid puns, “Of course, we’ve bean wondering where you were.”

There is a collective groan from behind the counter, from all her coworkers. Naeun actually snorts in amusement. Junmyeon’s expression lights up as he throws his head back and lets out a loud guffaw.

Junmyeon waves to all of them, reminding them to take their breaks, and wishes them well before he leaves in a flurry, giving her a thumbs up first, before he scurries out the store, the bell attached to the door ringing out his dismissal.

She pulls her apron tight as she slips behind the counter.

Irene looks her right in the eye and says, “I don’t know you anymore.”

“Please, you know my pun was brewtiful.”

Naeun laughs at Irene’s expression, since she looks about two seconds away from blowing steam out of her ears. She joins Baekhyun at one of the machines and he shakes his head, mocking disappointment.

Naeun wonders, briefly, if the tension from earlier has managed to straighten itself out.

(Baekhyun still makes offhanded comments at Irene as if they didn’t have a fight and Irene answers them, though her answers are one worded, and Naeun figures that’s better than the silent treatment. Perhaps, her tiny bubble of lovely, coffee-scented bliss is fine. Perhaps, it is not as shattered as she was afraid it’d be.)

Hours later, they’re hit with another slow hour. The store is totally empty, the loner regular had left ten minutes ago. Seulgi’s sitting at a table nursing a hot chocolate, her shift already over, as she waits for Baekhyun since they’re supposed to have dinner at her parents’ house together. Naeun has her laptop out as a means to get some studying in during her long closing shift tonight. Sehun is mopping the floor. Wendy, who had come in an hour after Naeun, and Irene are cleaning tables. Baekhyun is leaning against the counter, pretty fingers tapping away at the countertop as he waits for the clock to hit seven, so he can head out.

Baekhyun is staring at the television, zoning out a bit. Naeun sidles up next to him, looking up at the TV just to see what’s caught his attention and made his expression so stony and his brows so furrowed.

Baekhyun mumbles to her, “We should really stop having the news on in here.”

Naeun knows he’s right. It’d certainly help clear a lot of the tension that’s constantly entangling in their lives, but Naeun can’t stop watching the news. It’s like watching a train-wreck, she should turn away because it is traumatic, terrifying, but it’s so morbidly fascinating and it’s hard to look away.

Her gaze drifts to Sehun watching the TV in fascination as he leans against the mop in his hands, dirty floors forgotten. Wendy’s paused in her table cleaning, too, while Irene seems to be intently staring at her hands as she cleans the table, as if she doesn’t want to look at the TV.

Naeun’s sure Irene can hear the television, since it’s very loud. It’s not necessarily a news broadcast, but rather a roundtable discussion, hosted by the news program. It’s a matter of opinion and the topic of the discussion is written along the bottom of the screen, Hongdae Protests: The Other Side, it says.

The man currently on the screen is someone by the name of Jinyoung Park. Frankly, Naeun thinks he looks creepy—there’s something about the slightly dead look in his eyes and the lack of emotions in his expression that bothers her, his expression always calm and steady, stoic even.

He is nodding, very calmly, to something the host says before he speaks, his words firm, the blurb under his name reading Professor of Psychology, Seoul University.

“…Resentment is a revelatory emotion that can mean one of two things. Either a resentful person is just immature, in which case, excuse my bluntness, you should just shut up, quit your whining, and get over it. Or—or, they are being taken advantage of. It shows you that something needs to change, or you need to take action and change it. I think, in this case, these so-called anti-protests, are just that. Men are taking action for the resentment society has always had on them. We’re called aggressive and less agreeable. All the tv shows and movies show us like this, and now there’s this murder and suddenly it’s become a blanket statement—a blame game really—of how every single man is this terrible, angry monsters, just like that murderer. Men are not like that. There are plenty of good men who try their best to make the women in their lives feel safe. It is unfair.”

The host nods, “So, you consider this an outlier.”

“Absolutely.”

“Still, this murder seems to have sparked a gender equality movement bigger than what anyone could have anticipated. Some argue that, although this incident is obviously an extreme case, gendered and ual violence is incredibly common in our country, even normalized. What do you think of this?”

“See, gender equality is a peculiar thing. Boys are suffering, in the modern world. They are less agreeable. They are more disobedient and more independent, traits that are seen as both negative and positive respectively. Girls are the opposite. Boys are more interested in things while girls are more interested in people, that’s just how it is. Boys are less susceptible to anxiety and depression. We have all these kinds of inherent biological differences that prove that ultimately, gender equality isn’t possible. Of course, everyone has the right to feel safe, but inherently, women are weaker and will always feel unsafe around men, because they are physically stronger. We can’t change that fact. It’s data; it’s unchangeable. We cannot be equal if nature won’t allow it, especially when the equality is demanded off a case that is such an extreme outlier like this. This women’s gender equality march is pointless. All they are doing is taking this poor women’s tragic murder and turning her into this political cause that is inherently pointless because it goes against the natural order. It won’t change a thing and—”

“Can someone please turn this off?” Irene snaps, breaking Naeun out of her reverie.

Naeun tears her eyes off the screen, her stomach churning because of what the man had said. There’s something so very unsettling about a man stating that she will always feel unsafe around men, in some shape or form, and there’s no way to change that. It’s unsettling, but she can’t quite figure out why or how. It just leaves her stomach churning uncomfortably.

Irene looks pissed, mouth pressed into a thin, hard line.

Sehun passes the mop handle in his hands back and forth, glancing between Irene and the TV. “I mean, the dude has a point, Irene, you have to admit.”

Baekhyun frowns because even the most oblivious of people can sense the fact that Irene is about ten seconds away from an explosion. “Sehun.” Baekhyun mutters, in warning.

“Come on, let me play devil’s advocate here. If gender equality really becomes a thing, then what? You guys want the right to do boy things? We punch each other all the time, so does the violence really go away, because with gender equality, men and women should be able to punch each other as much as they want, right?”

“That’s the first thing you think of when it comes to equal rights? You think of the right to be able to punch another person in the face?”

“I’m just saying, for the sake of argument. I would never actually do something like that, obviously.” Sehun pouts, shaking his head quickly.

They all watch the back and forth like it’s a tennis match. Naeun has never seen Irene so angry before.

“If you want to be safe, just buy some mace. What’s the point of protesting?” Sehun adds.

“Because, that’s not solving the problem, it’s just masking it.”

And then, just as Naeun makes eye contact with Seulgi, who’s grip on her hot chocolate is really very tight, her eyes wide, Wendy, of all people, speaks up, and, frankly, Naeun is surprised because Wendy never engages in arguments with Irene. The one time they did, it was apparently really bad and they didn’t speak for weeks, but Naeun was never there to witness it. Seulgi said she was and she sounded terrified at just the memory of it.

Wendy rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest, “Honestly, I agree. It is pointless. I mean, look at the women in all the other countries—like Africa, India, or Saudi Arabia—they’re so much worse off than us, but these girls are all making a big deal out of nothing and wasting everyone’s time. We should be grieving the death of a young girl, not blowing things out of proportion and crying about how all men are awful and how oppressed we are. Women are being murdered in the Middle East, Irene. We’re so much better off and we should be grateful. Like, boohoo, we have to carry around pepper spray. Who cares? Man the up, you know.”

Irene blinks, rapidly, almost startled at the mere fact that Wendy’s decided to intervene and defend Sehun and that Jinyoung guy still droning on and on in the background. Then Irene says, scathingly, “How is that logical in anyway? ‘Women are more oppressed everywhere else, so just be grateful for what we’re allowed to do in our progressive country and get over it?’ Have you ing seen our laws, Wendy? Have you sat there and listened to your sister apologize to her husband’s family because she didn’t have a son, even though genetically it’s not even her ing fault? Do you think anyone’s really going to let it fly if you decide to pepper spray them in the face for touching you? Especially if you get assaulted somewhere like a company meeting or a ing school trip?”

Wendy seems to pause, momentarily, at Irene’s words, before she says, her voice quieter this time, still pointed, “No, I mean half of those are just your experiences and things you’ve made up, it’s not common, besides, like I said, those women in third world countries have it way worse.”

“Did it occur to you that it’s absolutely possible to care about what’s happening to women in other countries while simultaneously trying to fix our own country’s ty laws? Multitasking, Wendy, have you ever heard of it?”

“It’s still a pointless fight. We’re not made up the same way and men and women excel at different things. A protest isn’t going to make that go away. It’s just how it is.” Wendy crosses her arms. “I still don’t think it’s right to use a dead girl as a way to make political gains.”

“Exactly! It’s disrespectful.” Sehun nods, frowning, “Besides, we’re just arguing for the sake of it, I don’t get why you’re getting so heated.”

Naeun watches Sehun and Wendy essentially turn on Irene. Irene looks exhausted and annoyed and Naeun feels bad because though she does agree that it’s never great to ride off the death of a real person for political gain, she thinks this is different, because it’s not for political gain. It’s just so it never happens to another twenty-one-year-old girl ever again. Or, God forbid, a girl younger than that. It’s for safety, for awareness and prevention. Irene’s words are heavy, but they’re true, very very true, and Naeun feels bad for her and how no one is really listening to Irene.

Wendy makes a face, “You seriously sound like one of those crazy feminists, Bae.”

“How can you tell me you don’t believe in gender equality when you’re a woman?” Irene frowns at Wendy, brows furrowed.

“Obviously, I do. Don’t put words into my mouth.” Wendy makes a face, “I believe that everyone should be treated equally, but that doesn’t mean we need to tear down men in the process or act like there are still no inherent biological differences between us that we should take into account. I don’t agree with all that crazy new feminist rhetoric, that’s all.”

Irene looks so utterly exasperated when she glances around at the rest of them, brows raised, her gaze lingering on both Seulgi and Naeun, flickering back and forth. Naeun glances sideways at Baekhyun who, surprisingly, doesn’t say a word, his face unreadable. Naeun wants to speak up for Irene, she really does, because it’s not fair that they’re ganging up on her, but she can’t get herself to say anything. She’s lived her life being the agreeable type, the kind of girl who is cool, who is placating and easy to digest.

She can’t really get herself to say anything in Irene’s defense and she feels bad, especially when Irene’s expression falls, ever-so-slightly, when she realizes that they’re going to leave her hanging. Seulgi doesn’t quite meet her eyes. Seulgi was never the confrontational type, always too nice to say anything.

Irene stares at the two of them before she turns to both Sehun and Wendy and says, very clearly, very slowly, disappointment and anger radiating from each syllable, “Kim Jieun was murdered, and they are protesting to keep that from happening again. The fact that you’re just citing supposed biological differences, which is bull, because biological differences aren't collective and half the biological differences that idiot listed, that you are no doubt thinking of, are just ing stereotypes or environmental and societal effects tha—you know what, never mind, never mind. You’re not listening to me. You’re not even bothering to practice any ing empathy, so I’m done.”

And then Irene yanks off her apron and tosses it on the floor, spinning on heels and stomping away.

Sehun mutters, “What a .”

Wendy rolls her eyes and says, “Ugh, right.”

The door slams shut behind Irene a moment later, though Naeun catches the slight hesitation at the door.

Naeun blinks, feeling terrible, her stomach churning. She peeks over at Seulgi and she’s staring at the table, her face hidden.

~.~.~.~.~

Seulgi is quiet for the entire bus ride back to her parents' house. Baekhyun seems to be restless, his fingers entangled in the ends of his scarf and his leg shaking so hard it makes both their seats tremble. 

When they step off the bus, Baekhyun finally says, "Are you ok?"

"I wish I said something." Seulgi just shrugs.

They both sidestep a familiar looking man who has gotten off the bus before them and is know bent over and tying his shoes in the middle of the sidewalk. 

Baekhyun stares at Seulgi for a moment, ignoring the feeling of agreement welling in his chest. Instead, he reminds Seulgi, "You can work up to it, you know. Speaking up to someone."

Seulgi stares at her hands. She doesn't say anything. Baekhyun just gentle pats her back. He wishes, for a brief moment, that he said something, too. Irene didn't deserve to get ganged up on. He doesn't know much about what she was saying because it's not something he ever really noticed or experienced. He still isn't quite sure which side he agrees with.

Seulgi, on the other hand, decides right then that she will work up to it. She will learn to speak up. Maybe, she will start with her mother, tonight. Her heart races at the thought and the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end, that paranoia of being watched creeping back up her spine. Or, maybe not. She'll start slow.

~.~.~.~.~

Irene is sitting in lab class, bored as she watches Minseok put in the final touches to their joint lab report. She taps away aimlessly at yet another circuit board they got to work fairly quickly, this time around. Minhyuk turns in their report and they get dismissed, leaving her a good amount of time to just take a break.

Irene kind of dreads the idea of a break. She doesn’t want to be alone with her thoughts, not really. Ever since she walked out of work, she’s been feeling nothing but anxious. She knows she can be harsh sometimes. She knows she can come off as a , but actually hearing the word slipping out of the mouths of a friend is always jarring. She hears it often enough where it shouldn’t be so shocking anymore, but it still is.

Namjoon hurries out of the class immediately and she remembers him mentioning he has a date after class, so she figures he’s going to get ready for that. He looks excited. She shoulders her backpack and Minhyuk walks ahead of them, phone out, his thumbs tapping away. Minseok matches her strides. She doesn’t bother looking at him.

Another couple minutes pass of silent walking, side-by-side, until finally Minseok says, speaking to her hesitantly as he always does, “Hey, you okay?”

She wrinkles her nose at the doors of the elevator ahead of her before she turns to look at him, maintaining her slightly annoyed expression, “What?”

“Well, I mean, you didn’t correct Minhyuk once no matter how many times he almost ed up our lab today. It’s very unlike you.”

Irene narrows her eyes at Minseok for a moment before she says, “Is that really all I do during lab?”

“You also make Namjoon feel intimidated. At least, that’s what he told me.”

“Why? Because I actually do the pre-lab?”

Minseok snorts, “Probably. I don’t think Namjoon knows how to read. Like, he’s really, really intelligent, but sometimes he just refuses to read, and I think he doesn’t know how.”

Minseok’s voice is low, conspiring, and Irene can’t help but smile a little at his words.

“If he managed to get this far without learning how to read, he might be a genius.”

Minseok grins, all gums, and Irene decides maybe Minseok is all right. She’s always so quiet in her lab class and her partners never really try to make small talk with her, so their group dynamic just morphed into the kind where she’d quietly get her share of work done. And apparently tell them off when she has to.

(She’s not going to lie, she kind of hoped someone would start talking to her, but they never tried. Maybe it’s because, like Minseok said, she’s intimidating. She also gets that a lot, as much as she hears the word , and it’s annoying because more than anything, Irene is just shy. She’s also thinks she’s kind of boring. She enjoys doing laundry, for one. When she mentioned that to Naeun, she had laughed and called her a grandma.)

After they get off the elevator, Irene pauses at the entrance to their university building and gestures towards the street, since her next class was cancelled earlier in the day, “I’m headed home.”

Minseok nods, gesturing towards the other side, where the library is, “Okay, I’ll see you next class, Irene.”

Irene nods, smiles a little, “Okay.”

Minseok grins, “I hope you feel better. You let Minhyuk get away with way too many mistakes. His ego can’t handle positive reinforcement like that.”

Irene laughs then, she can’t help it. Minhyuk really is kind of egotistic. Minseok waves and Irene finds she doesn’t feel so exhausted right then.

Still, her thoughts are running at full speed and the word and intimidating runs and runs through her head, burrowing into the deepest crevices of her mind. She hates it because she’s always prided herself in being secure in herself and who she is, but, maybe, she just can’t believe that Wendy had agreed with Sehun. She can’t believe that Naeun and Seulgi didn’t even back her up. She gets it—Seulgi is never one for confrontation, a product of a critical mother and a really sweet personality, and Naeun has this sort of complex, one that hides her insecurities quite well beneath a cool girl façade that even took Irene months to see through, and she wants to be well liked—but Irene is still hurt. Irene is, mostly, just disappointed. Remarkably, she’s not surprised, just disappointed.

And disappointment is a heavy thing, especially when it’s induced by a group of people one considers to be their friend. It’s heartbreaking on a level she doesn’t think she’s ever experienced before, and she’s been disappointed plenty of times by mediocre romantic relationships, with both men and women.

Friendship is a sort of love that is more unconditional, she finds, then romantic relationships. It’s this sort of unconditional love, this sort of intimacy, that stems fully from shared emotions and a no-strings-attached care for each other. It’s this silent agreement to have each other’s back. She knows that friends do not have to agree on everything. But, the disappointment is still there and it is still so heavy on her shoulders, weighing her down noticeably enough that even Kim Minseok noticed enough to try and cheer her up.

She frowns as she walks home. Sometimes, she wishes she was as heartless as some people call her when they think she can’t hear.

~.~.~.~.~

Seulgi’s cheeks are flushed a pretty red and Irene finds she is just a tiny bit mesmerized by the sight of it. Seulgi truly is absolute stunning, in an adorable sort of way, her eyes striking, even when they barely manage to meet Irene’s gaze. Irene resists the urge to coo. She’s supposed to be mad at Seulgi.

Seulgi sighs before she groans loudly, dropping her head into her folded hands and hiding her face in the between her arms and the table. She swings her legs and mumbles, “Mm Uhee Eye-eeen.”

Irene leans her elbows on the table, tilting her head as she rests her chin on her palm just to watch Seulgi writhe against the table in obvious conflict with herself. It’s beyond cute. Irene cannot help the smile, hiding it with her fingers, palm still pressed to her chin. “I can’t hear you, Seulgi.”

Seulgi groans, again, louder, and half the patrons of the restaurant glances at Seulgi, half bewildered while the other half smiles, also amused. Seulgi’s just universally adorable and that is Irene’s absolutely unbiased, objective opinion on the matter.

Seulgi lifts her head, her messy hair covering half of her face as she purses her lips. She must notice the way Irene tries to cover up her smile because Seulgi’s shoulders seem to relax a little at that as she smiles, hair still covering half her face.

She pushes her hair back with a huff. Irene tries not to stare at the movement.

“I said, I’m sorry, Irene.” Seulgi manages, finally. She’s still leaning forward on the table as the waiter comes to deliver their lunch. Irene notices a slightly familiar looking man looking back at them, eyes lingering, but then he looks away, turning back to his food, and she figures she’s just imagining it as she thanks the waiter for her food.

Irene purses her lips, “I know. It’s fine.”

Seulgi shakes her head, though she is known leaning back in her chair, chopsticks in hand. She points the chopsticks at Irene, “I really wanted to say something, but it’s just—Wendy always tells me all these things I don’t agree with and expects me to agree with her and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” Seulgi pauses, her gaze flickering between Irene’s, so insightful it has Irene dazed for a moment. “You’re not a . That went way too far.”

Irene shrugs, but she can’t help the way her expression twists a bit at Seulgi’s words. “Seriously, Seulgi, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Seulgi looks Irene right in the eye, uncharacteristically forward, and Irene kind of feels like Seulgi is staring directly into her soul. It’s unnerving. Irene looks away first.

“Okay, if you say so.” Seulgi doesn’t sound like she believes Irene, but Irene is grateful when Seulgi changes the subject. It also helps that someone passes by their table and accidentally knocks into it, knocking over both their water glasses in the process, and Seulgi finally tears her eyes off of Irene’s. He bows to them, stuttering, and Seulgi shakes her head, waving him off, dabbing at the water in her lap with a napkin. Irene notes, moments too late, that it was that same familiar man. The waiter hurries over with new glasses and a mop. The man scurries off, face red.

~.~.~.~.~

Irene is curled up in bed, late at night, catching up on her dramas when her phone buzzes with a text. Irene blindly claws for her phone, not taking her eyes off the drama, fingers curling around her phone just as the end credits start up.

It’s a text from Park Chanyeol and honestly, she’s missed him. They’ve been friends since high school and even though he’s turned into quite the boy, they still get together occasionally and catch up. He was one of the first people she came out as biual to and he has never mentioned anything negative about her uality, though sometimes he does just straight out call her lesbian or straight rather than biual, based off who she's dating at the moment, though she just chalks it up to him still learning. Despite how flirty he tends to be, especially now, she finds him hilarious and really enjoys his company, unable to see him as anything other than the gentle, clumsy idiot he had been in high school. He’s always good at lifting her mood and that is exactly what she needs right now.

She sends him a hey, how have you been?? back to his casual hey text.

She squints at time. It reads, 1:27 AM.

Disappointment is truly this heavy kind of thing that never lifts, she realizes. Maybe, her disappointment isn’t because of her friends, necessarily, but because of how she always tended to look at the world around her, with rose-tinted glasses that would color the world, and all her friends a pretty red, masking all the red flags. To her, the red flags would just look like normal flags. In hindsight, she should have seen this coming. There had always been little things leading up to the immense disappointment certain people wpuld dredge up, from Wendy to Sehun to even Chanyeol. The weight on her shoulders had piled on gradually over the years, unnoticeable until suddenly her knees started buckling under the weight of it.

I’m bored. Chanyeol says. She makes a move to type out a response when Chanyeol adds, So uh are you still gay lol

She stares at the monkey emoji he sends afterwards, followed by the eye emoji and the smirking face emoji, and her stomach does this strange little twist. It reminds her of the times when boys would ask her if she’d have a , or when someone would eye her too intensely, ignoring anything she’d say just to stare at her. The only difference is, this time, this is from a genuinely close friend who she just wanted to catch up with, who she just wanted to make her laugh, so she’d feel less like . Yet, he somehow, someway, succeeded in making her feel more like .

Irene was never one to cry, but something builds up in her chest and she finds she is unable to hold back tears. She receives another text from Chanyeol, a hey don’t leave me hanging and another monkey emoji.

Somehow, that makes it worse, frustration building up in her chest as tears begin to spill down her cheeks. The notifications she has on her phone for news outlet tweets buzzes in her hand and she catches glimpses of investigation coming to a close and then—then she sees the name Kim Jieun and Irene momentarily wonders, as she always does these days, what would happen if that name was hers, instead. If it was Bae Irene, instead. At that, selfishly enough, Irene starts crying harder.

~.~.~.~.~

“Are you all right?” Naeun stares intently at Irene, but Irene looks the same as she ever did, just as pretty and just as perpetually bored. Naeun admires that about Irene. She thinks it’s an incredible skill to maintain such indifference so easily. Naeun wishes she could relate because despite how hard Naeun tries to maintain that image, Naeun really has no chill at all.

Jongdae’s arm around Naeun’s waist tightens a little. Irene glances between Jongdae and Irene, and Naeun briefly wonders if Irene can notice the tension Naeun can't shake off regarding Jongdae. All Irene says is, “Yeah, I am.”

Naeun nods, doesn’t push it because she knows Seulgi’s already spoken to Irene. Seulgi’s already told Naeun how much Irene was avoiding her conversation about that fight, so Naeun figures she won't bother Irene about something she doesn't want to talk about. Naeun smiles a little, “Are you going to quit, though?”

Irene shakes her head, “I need the money and I like the flexibility. Boss Kim pays well compared to everyone else.”

Naeun snorts, “Yeah, thank god he pays us all the same. I'd lose it if I was getting paid less then Sehun.”

Irene grins, though she does look like she wants to say something. She hesitates.

Naeun smiles, plasters her most winning smile across her face, “Well, next time Sehun or Wendy open their big mouths, I’ll tell them to off for you, okay? I promise.”

This time, Irene blinks, rapidly, at her words, clearly surprised. Naeun is a little offended. Naeun pushes, “Besides, you set their asses on fire with your words alone. It was really amazing.”

This time, Irene blushes, speechless, and Naeun figures maybe the fight did affect Irene in some way because usually she’s not so quiet and she never blushes at Naeun's compliments. She’s good at being witty, or at least glaring at Naeun for the hell of it. Still, Naeun laughs. Jongdae frowns from beside Naeun, no doubt frowning at some random person who glanced at Naeun, even as Naeun waves Irene goodbye so Irene can get to class on time.

~.~.~.~.~

“A café au lait has more caffeine.” Naeun states without looking up from her phone.

Jongdae drives with one hand on the wheel, the other one resting on the back of her seat. She had mentioned once how that’s dangerous. He had just scoffed at her in response.

Jongdae shakes his head, “No, I definitely heard that lattes have more caffeine in them. Café au laits are the watered down, fancy versions of lattes.”

Naeun frowns, glancing up at Jongdae, though his eyes are pinned on the road. “Then you heard wrong.”

“I’m totally right. You make a café au lait with coffee and milk but you use espresso and milk in a latte, so a latte essentially has more caffeine than a café au lait.” Jongdae explains to her, quite seriously.

She blatantly stares at him, this time around, frustration bubbling at the pit of her stomach. Lately, all she has been feeling towards Jongdae has been frustration and she isn’t quite sure why.

(Or maybe, she is and she doesn't want to admit it. He's exhausting and pretending to be chill with the things he says and does is exhausting as well.)

She says, very slowly, “Jongdae, you do realize I’m a barista, right?”

Jongdae blinks, “Yeah.” He laughs, a little awkwardly, as if he’s just realized what he’s done.

“Café au lait is half milk and half coffee, which is why it has more caffeine. Lattes only have a third of espresso.” Naeun snorts, “I know my coffees, Jongdae. Thanks.”

Jongdae rolls his eyes, “Okay, fine. I just heard differently, that’s all.”

She rolls her eyes, too, snorting once again, the frustration creeping further along her veins. Jongdae doesn’t respond, in fact, he doesn’t say a word the rest of the car ride to work, sulking like he always does. Naeun finds she doesn’t really care. It’s a strange feeling.

~.~.~.~.~

Café Neo appears somewhat different to her when she steps in. For starters, despite the gentle aroma of roasting coffee beans wafting through the air and the soft buzzing of hushed conversations between customers, there’s a coldness to the air Naeun has never quite experienced before.

The tension, she realizes, is so thick, one could slice it into neat little passive aggressive pieces and serve them up with a little butter and tea. There’s a handful of couples in the café, their heads close or their hands curled in the others, and Naeun finds she is put off by the sight. Maybe, Naeun is beginning to feel that revelatory emotion of resentment Mr. Jinyoung Park had spoken about so reverently on TV the other day. Naeun sort of wants to tell herself to shut up and get the hell over it.

Baekhyun catches her eye and he winks at her. Naeun almost scowls. But, she doesn’t.

Aside from Baekhyun, who is either incredibly oblivious or just choosing to ignore the thick tension, everyone else is solemn. No one is smiling, unless they’re speaking to a customer. No one really looks at each other.

Irene is back and Wendy scoffs at Irene’s every movement. Seulgi sidles up between Irene and Wendy, as if she’s attempting to shield Irene from Wendy’s anger with her own body or something. Naeun finds the notion really endearing. Sehun avoids Irene at all costs—clearly terrified of Irene’s glares, though Naeun can’t really blame him. She doesn’t pity him, either, since he did call Irene a . There’s one customer, in the corner, who is sitting all alone, though he isn’t facing out the window but rather straight at the counter. He looks more familiar than the others, and she realizes that it's that one loner regular. She does think it's a little strange that he keeps glancing up at the counter, sometimes even staring blatantly, but before Naeun can investigate, Baekhyun waves a hand in front of her face, snapping her out of her daze like usual.

“You have iced drinks duty with Wendy.” Baekhyun says, with a grin. Naeun glances at Wendy, who is angrily refilling the special of the day box with strangely misshapen sugar cookies, no doubt a product of Wendy’s anger as well. She slams the tray on the counter to loosen the cookies much too aggressively. Irene snorts in amusement at the display, loud enough for Wendy to hear, and some of the customers glance their way in alarm before turning back to whatever they were doing.

"Why?" Naeun groans, “She’s going to kill me.”

Baekhyun just grins, all beautifully. At that moment, Sehun passes by with empty coffee mugs, his eyes on Wendy and Irene, and he murmurs to them, “God, why are you all so dramatic?”

Naeun has to suppress an eye roll and a that’s funny coming from you, especially since Sehun basically started the fight between Irene and Wendy and now they’re all trapped in the middle of it.

The tension only grows thicker as the minutes tick by, feeling slower and slower in the heavy atmosphere around them. It seems even the customers can tell something is up. Café Neo has a reputation for having incredibly cheerful employees and they’re certainly not living up to it, today.

Naeun’s just glad to see some of the especially mushy-gushy and touchy couples leave the café.

Naeun’s making an iced coffee when there’s a bang in the kitchen. Naeun glances back over her shoulder, through the open doorway kitchen, and a tray of cookies is all over the floor, misshapen sugar cookies broken beyond repair. Wendy is absolutely fuming. Irene looks annoyed. Naeun locks eyes with both Baekhyun and Seulgi, who are both frozen.

The hairs at the back of Naeun’s neck stand on end because she can sense the impending shouting match about to begin. Just as she hands the customer their iced coffee with a too bright smile, it begins, as if on cue. Baekhyun backs away from the kitchen.

Seulgi and Naeun gesture at him to break up whatever fight is beginning. Baekhyun says, “I don’t want my face scratched off. My looks are all I have.”

Naeun throws a dishrag at him. Baekhyun ducks.

Naeun notices a customer, the same one that had been sitting in the corner facing the counter, the loner regular, strides towards the counter, phone in hand. Seulgi’s already at the register.

There’s a loud, grating, but faint, hiss, “What the did you just say?”

Naeun flushes, just as Seulgi says, in a high pitched voice, “Hi, welcome to Café Neo, what can I get for you today?”

“How about your number?”

Seulgi falters, blinking, before she stutters for a moment. And then, her expression straightens out and she looks surprisingly cold, not so nice, and very, very determined as says, very seriously, “No.”

Naeun blinks in surprise at Seulgi’s expression. Even Baekhyun and Sehun are surprised, Baekhyun frozen next to the counter and Sehun’s eyes wide as he carries more mugs in behind the counter.

For a moment, everything is too calm. There is no more yelling behind the counter. The soft hustle and bustle of the café and the hushed whispers are nothing but passing sounds that are somehow soothing, comforting almost. The television buzzes in the background, nothing horrifying broadcasting like usual. For a moment, Café Neo is the rosy little café Naeun always believed it to be.

And then, the whole thing bursts apart.

She hears Wendy repeat, still hissing, though it echoes too loud despite their low tones, you’re seriously such a .

She watches the man—he's definitely one of their regulars. He’d always order the same thing and blush when Seulgi would take his order, gaze constantly lingering on Seulgi, and then he'd sit in the corner and glance at her often. His hopeful, confident expression flips into something absolutely livid, eyes ablaze.

His tone is harsh, angry, and incredibly loud, cutting through the hushed atmosphere immediately. “What?"

Naeun vaguely notices that Wendy and Irene has stopped fighting, or at least she can’t hear them anymore.

His expression is filled with absolute, undiluted anger as he exclaims, volume rising, “Do you think you’re too good for me or something?”

For a moment, Naeun sees Kim Jieun in Seulgi and that monster in this man. For a moment, the rosy café loses all of it’s rosiness and everything is moving nightmarishly slow. She feels a hand brush at her back. She can feel eyes on them. The hushed sounds of the café is lost to silence. Seulgi blinks, though she speaks firmly, still looking so, so determined, when she says, I don’t even know you, please calm down before I call the authorities. She feels this faint, out-of-body surprise at Seulgi’s firm, authoritative tone, and she is definitely proud of her determination. Naeun can see how Seulgi’s hand is shaking. She’s scared less. Maybe, Naeun is, too, especially when the man starts screaming, his low voice echoing as he says, are you ing kidding me? It escalates, in the blink of an eye, when the man grabs Seulgi’s wrist from over the counter. Seulgi yelps. No one in the café does a thing; they just stare. All the rosiness is gone and everything is just too clear. There are plenty of men who are much bigger than this man, but they mind their own business. There are women who do not move, even though they probably have mace in their purses. Nobody does anything.

(Naeun thinks back on a protester she had read an interview of once. How the anonymous woman, always anonymous unlike the counter-protesters, had said, “Maybe not all men, but there are plenty of these genuinely wonderful men who have a friend who feels entitled to a woman, to their body or their time or their attention, and they never bother to tell that friend off. They just let it happen and say they’re minding their own business. So, not all men, maybe, but damn well too many.”)

His grip tightens and Baekhyun is the first one to surge forward.

He practically leaps over the low counter just to punch the man square in the face. Wendy audibly gasps from behind her. Irene lets out a low whistle. The man stumbles, clutching his bleeding nose, as he stumbles to his feet. Baekhyun’s already on his feet. He looks so small compared to the man, but he also looks positively pissed. Naeun pats herself down, searching franticly for her phone until she finds it. Irene reaches for Seulgi’s frozen form, gently examining her bruised arm. Naeun calls the police.

(Naeun is vaguely aware of the television droning on in the background, picking up on the news anchor announcing the verdict of the Hongdae Murder Case.)

A few other customers have their phones to their ears as well, no doubt calling the police. Some are taking videos.

(“…We do not classify this as a hate crime of any kind and will be dropping the misogyny charges…”)

Baekhyun says, “Pick on someone your own ing size, you ert.”

(“The perpetrator is mentally ill and was indisposed at the time of his statements. He did not know what he was doing…”)

The man swings a fist at Baekhyun’s head.

(“…reportedly said at his first trial that he does not feel repentant or regretful of his crime…”)

Baekhyun ducks and straight up headbutts the man in the stomach.

(“…looking at thirty years in prison plus twenty years with an electronic tag, as well as medical treatment…”)

Sehun mutters, blinking at Baekhyun, “Holy .”

~..~.~.~.~

Café Neo looks strangely rundown from this angle, sitting on the sidewalk across the street alongside an emergency ambulance and a handful of police cars. They watch as Junmyeon talks to the police, constantly glancing back at them all the while. Seulgi has been pulled aside by the police, her expression exhausted. She had mentioned, beforehand, that she swear she's seen him elsewhere. Irene confirms that he was at that restaurant and Seulgi's eyes widen while Irene's narrow. He's a stalker, she hears Seulgi tell the police. But, they just nod and drill her with questions, all while the stalker just sits there, a few feet away from Seulgi, still glancing at her, fuming, surrounded by police, an EMT treating his broken nose while his hands are cuffed. No one really questions him.

(She wonders why Seulgi looks like the one being interrogated. She also wonders why they're letting him sit so close to her and look at her. Naeun scowls.)

Baekhyun sits on her left, icepack pressed to his chin, where the man managed to get a swipe in. Irene is on her right, and Wendy sits between Baekhyun and Sehun. They all sit slumped on the sidewalk, staring at the police lumbering about, knees and shoulders knocking together. One of the police starts talking to the man while Seulgi continues answering questions with another officer. They have a clipboard for her.

They watch as the man jabs his cuffed hands in Baekhyun’s direction. She hears his nasally voice hiss, he assaulted me.

They don’t put the man in a police car. The police keep glancing over at Baekhyun. It’s glaringly obvious what the outcome of all this might end up being. Naeun can see the Rolex on the man’s wrist, bunched up against his sleeve and his handcuffs.

Baekhyun sighs, very quietly, before he says, “Maybe, you were right, Irene.”

She glances at his face and his gaze meets hers. He looks wary, but disappointed. Then his gaze slides past her, to look at Irene.

Irene snorts, but there’s really nothing funny about it. Seulgi looks annoyed and the police officer seems to explaining something to her that Seulgi doesn’t like. Irene says, “I’m always right. It’s both a blessing and a curse.”

Sehun and Wendy are extremely quiet, just watching the events unfold.

Naeun laughs a little at Irene’s words. So does Baekhyun, even as the police officer that had been talking to the rich man—the assailant and the stalker—approaches them, his eyes fixed on Baekhyun.

He says, tone stern, “Get up, kid.”

~.~.~.~.~

Naeun stares at her phone, wrapping her scarf tightly around her neck. She received a text in her group message with Irene and Seulgi, her eyes widening at the news article Seulgi sent them. It’s been a couple months since the Hongdae Murder Case, and she half expected everything to be as pointless as Wendy and Sehun argued it’d be. It certainly felt that way a few months ago.

She figures, when expectations are so low, they're at the ground, anything can be good news.

Government rolls out measures responding to Hongdae Murders, the article says, Ministerial-level talks to be held with the Ministry of Education and the National Police Agency this Wednesday.

yooooooooooooooo, Naeun texts back, obnoxiously adding a million emojis.

Irene says, do you always have to do that?

Before she can respond, there’s a soft voice from behind her, “Naeun?”

Naeun turns on her heels, unable to help her grin at the sight of Do Kyungsoo blinking owlishly at her, expression entirely different from the glares she used to see on him (apparently he used to glare because he was blind as a bat), his scarf hiding his smile, though his eyes crinkle, giving it away.

“Hi.” She says, a little breathlessly. She doesn’t try to act cool or collected. For once, she doesn’t feel the need to impress him.

Do Kyungsoo blushes a bright red.

Sometimes, she misses Jongdae. Sometimes, she falls back into her old habits, but it’s not as often as before. Things are changing, slowly, very very slowly, but it’s happening. It's really better than nothing, at least.

Kyungsoo holds out a warm, gloved hand. She takes it enthusiastically, swinging it between them. His scarf barely hides his smile. She doesn't bother hiding her own smile, at all.

a/n: Woop there it is - this was based heavily off the Gangnam Murder Case (Seocho dong public murder case), which I will link an article to because it's truly an interesting but super infuriating case to hear about. I remember when I first learned about the case, it really stuck with me and I think about it a lot, so I decided to research it more and write a fic about it. Like feminism has such a bad connotation these days and I think misogyny and gender equality is still a HUGE issue in every country, especially recently. The protests AND those counter protests that were done to derail those protests were all based off the aftermath of the Gangnam Murder and it's incredibly disheartening to know that it's real. I had this whole idea in my head about protraying everyday misogyny and how it affects people and did a lot of research for this, mostly centered around Korean women since this is based in South Korea, but I do think this is still relevant and, unfortunately, a universal experience for all women and femmes, so I really do hope the points I made came across well kjsnfkjad. Feedback would be HUGELY appreciated, since this is so different from what I usually write, and if you've read to the end, I love you all a lot. Thank you so much!

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