The dormitory is silent on Friday nights.

Chanyeol’s wobbly footsteps ring hollow in the empty halls. A fraction of the dormers returned to their homes for the weekends, and the curfew is an hour more lenient than usual. After spewing out his dinner at a street’s duct, he went back to the campus together with Baekhyun. He masked the smell of booze, vomit, and cigarette smoke with his body spray and by chewing on menthol candy.

After winning their game of League, they had a drink at a lowly food tent. Baekhyun bought the soju. He has a counterfeit identification card he uses to get away with underage drinking. Their puerile and juvenile countenance slipped right under the vendor’s nose.

In one of their conversations, they mocked the other team of students who ended up paying only half of the bet. “We’d better get Joohyun something once those punks pay what they owe,” Junmyeon suggested, to which the rest of the boys agreed.

Chanyeol tried not to get drunk. He can’t really hold his tongue when he does. He got wasted one time and he couldn’t stop mumbling Jinri, and that’s when they knew.

At eight pm, he catches his roommate practicing music with his flute.

“I’m about to pass out,” he says, sitting at the edge of the bed, bending down to remove his shoes and socks and throwing them under his bed.

“Had fun?” Kyungsoo asks. He’s in his typical sleepwear—cotton pyjamas in pastel colors. He looks at Chanyeol—watery eyes and cheeks unusually pink.

Chanyeol rasps, “It depends what constitutes fun for you.”

The owl-eyed guy doesn’t know what to respond to that. Sometimes sarcasm just goes over his head. He picks up his flute again and starts playing notes from Vivaldi’s Summer. A tune both hauntingly beautiful, vibrant, but also melancholic, of longing. Slow in some parts, rapid in some. Chanyeol listens for a good three minutes and feels moved that his eyes begin to water.

“,” Chanyeol sighs, his face getting redder. “I saw them again tonight, at the parking lot.”

Kyungsoo looks up at him, clueless. He finds his roommate tipsy—an observation he makes once he fully studies Chanyeol’s face.

Chanyeol drawls, “Kai and Krystal… they… I found them kissing once. Near that in’ tree where I stealthily smoke. I don’t—I think I should do something. I can’t just… bury it, can I? Jinri is going to hate me though, I’m sure. Who’s this guy coming in trying to ruin her friends? Hah! I’ve been a coward. No—all my life I’ve been a coward.” He whimpers, sad and exhausted.

“Go to sleep,” pleads Kyungsoo sternly. He deduces his roommate becomes even more of a chatterbox when drunk. Chanyeol revealing the barest of himself makes him a bit worried. All the pent-up anxiety the guy has, when he seemed as if he had no troubles at all. Despite their differences, he deeply sympathizes with him in that matter.

Burying the back of his head against the softness of his pillow, Chanyeol yawns. Says, “I should do something, right… I should… without getting my friends involved… I should do things on my own… I should…” before he falls into a deep slumber.

Joohyun laughs—that’s the first thing she does when Seulgi sneaks into her room and she sees the yellow plaster on her forehead.

“What’s funny?” asks Seulgi, narrowing her eyes. She’s bundled up in a beige sweater.

On the floor, the illustration broad, tubes of water colors, and paint brush are sprawled. Seulgi tiptoes around it, and sits on a spot beside Joohyun. Their knees touch.

Joohyun, rolling up her big shirt’s sleeves, answers, “I don’t know, sometimes my sense of humor is weird.”

Seulgi responds with a soft exhale. Rubs her fingertips over the strip of bandage. “I got hurt from practice,” she mutters, “that’s what I told Krystal when she asked.” To her friends, as well, when they gathered during the day for their last leg of study sessions.

The temperature dropped lower that evening. Wendy left for home. Alone, Joohyun kept herself busy by studying, ironing her newly laundered clothes, and putting her woes aside. She’ll deal with it later.

“I thought it was childish,” admits Joohyun.

“Childish?” Seulgi blinks.

“The band aid, I mean,” she clarifies, pointing to the athlete’s narrow forehead. “It looks like a sticker.”

“But it’s cute,” pouts Seulgi. She likes Pikachu, and her brother bought five boxes of those bandages. She received them as a Christmas gift, months before she left middle school. He thought she gets scratches too often, both from being clumsy and a soccer player.

Joohyun bites her lower lip. “I didn’t say it looks horrible.”

Seulgi squishes her cheeks with her sweater paws. “I’m seventeen, let me have this at least.”

“I’m not telling you to take it off either,” Joohyun snorts. “Anyway, let’s start this so we can finish before bedtime.”

Joohyun explains the image she wants on the blank canvas. Playground, brown earth, sparse weeds, autumn trees, and purple sky. Seulgi picks up the tubes of water color. Squeezes a meager amount of paint on a palette. Dips the brush into the water and mixes some pigments before painting on the board.

Joohyun watches her intently. Seulgi being focused, serious, her wrist moving precisely with each of the brush. Showing her how to make the colors work well on the page. “Do you want to finish this part?” she asks, pointing at the left side of the sky that’s yet to be painted.

“But I think I’ll ruin it,” Joohyun demurs. Her talent in art is half-baked.

“Come here.” Seulgi reaches for and takes her hand.

Joohyun pulls away. “It’s the static,” she flounders. Her cheeks go a little red.

“C’mon, let’s start,” urges Seulgi. She lays her palm open toward Joohyun.

Joohyun shakes the hesitation away. She lets Seulgi hold her hand, and they paint together with her pulse throbbing loudly under her skin.

By Monday, the first wave of examinations commences.

The classrooms are hushed. All heads on shoulders draped with navy blue coats bent down over tests papers. Mulling over lessons they reviewed the past few days or the night before. Others finish early, while the rest chase the time.

It’s taken with different motivations—some do it to rank better in class, while some just want to pass. And fewer take the tests just for the sake of it.

Perhaps, the drive or lack thereof makes a whole world of difference. Perhaps it doesn’t.

“’Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’,” Jinri mentions, out of the blue. “Do words not really hurt?”

While the student population are dismissed half the day, Joy is stuck with Jinri at the multimedia room after exams. They are on the final revisions of the school paper. Its issue should be published and distributed Monday next week.

“It does,” Joy replies, without tearing her gaze away from her laptop screen. “It depends, maybe.”

“See, I churned out another editorial this weekend because our adviser rejected and thought my article on restrictive school policies is too feisty,” Jinri whines, indignant. “Too feisty. Please, it’s an op-ed!”

“I don’t blame you, but I think there is only a certain degree of thought we are allowed to espouse as high school students,” Joy explains. Her keyboard going clack, clack, clack.

Jinri spins her pen on the table listlessly. “Stick to the status quo—that’s more like it.”

Joy stretches her arms. Jinri is a bit too eccentric for her. Outspoken, free-spirited, easygoing, yet hard to read. There are layers to her she has to peel off to truly grasp her as a person.

“I don’t believe it, but we’re supposed to just it up, I guess,” says Joy. It’s too radical a move to voice out against policies. Rules are rigid, unless there’s ample precedent to change it. It’s like going after a pack of hyenas, looking for serious trouble.

Jinri thinks she sounds like Krystal. Stellar grades, spotless reputation, and surrounded by likeminded friends—there’s no reason to bother the system and risk tainting their academic records. It’s not a priority.

“Anyway, you promised we’re hanging out after the exams,” Jinri reminds her.

“I have not forgotten,” Joy answers. It doesn’t leave her mind, in fact. She doesn’t really think she’d fare well on such an environment, but whatever.

It’s just one night, anyway.

Chanyeol doesn’t quite remember the things he said last Friday night to Kyungsoo, and he is almost certain it’s the reason why he hasn’t been back in the dorm.

He thought perhaps his roommate went home on the weekend, which he rarely does. Living off cereal and stolen pasteurized milk can take its toll, though. Like missing home-cooked meals, for one.

It’s already seven pm, on a Monday night. He hasn’t heard from him. Maybe they’re practicing late in the orchestra rehearsal, or he’s pulling an all-nighter at a coffee shop. He has no idea of his whereabouts, but he should be back. Then he realizes he really doesn’t know much about Do Kyungsoo, besides his few inches of hair and laconic personality.

He lies on his bed and tries to think about what it was that he could have uttered.

Joohyun tentatively asks, “Why was I afraid to hold someone’s hand?”

Wendy peers through her fogged-up glasses, steam rising from her hot cup of coffee as she blows it to cool. Smirks, “Are you catching feelings for someone?”

“Never mind,” Joohyun mutters, sinking a fist into her mattress.

At lunch the following day, Joohyun gets her money back.

Junmyeon treats her to lunch. A big bowl of stir-fried glass noodles on a bed of rice. “Those bastards,” he mutters under his breath, after looking at the text message sent by Chanyeol saying they weren’t coming and were eating out instead.

“What?” Joohyun asks, twirling the noodles around her chopsticks.

Junmyeon pockets his phone and answers, “Ah, they changed their minds and said they’d be eating out instead.”

“I made and lost a bet with you guys,” Joohyun says after munching and swallowing her food, “I don’t know why you’re paying me back.”

Make a move, with Joohyun or Jinri or whoever. You guys have been way too unassertive, that’s what Baekhyun advised in his tipsiness that Friday night. Junmyeon thinks its time to start treating Joohyun differently. Slowly, and so nothing will be a shock once the time comes.

He has always liked Joohyun. She passed by him in the corridor on the second day of school, and had to turn his head twice to look at her again. She’s beautiful. Boys were charmed. They picked on her because they liked her. Joohyun hated the attention and the teasing. Junmyeon tried to step up and berate them for doing so, and that’s when they began to hang out. He kept the rowdy guys away, but little did he know she was also a riot once she got used to him.

“Ah… well…” he stammers, “I just thought that you decided that bet on a whim, and besides, I have enough cash to go by.”

Joohyun lifts a brow and puckers her lips, “Oh, alright. Whatever you say.” Money is not a problem when it comes to Junmyeon. He comes from an affluent background. Airline company, or something of the sort. He has always acted like a big brother.

Junmyeon smiles awkwardly, and pats her head. “Eat well.”

To her astonishment, Joohyun swats his hand away and chides, “What are you doing? Don’t touch me like that.”

He shrinks in his seat, to his chagrin, and consumes his meal tensed.

“I don’t buy it,” Sehun divulges.

He went with the couple to shop at the mall. Krystal left them to themselves. She said she’s going to scour the department store and other shops for a new set of apparel for fall. They’re at the grocery, ambling in the snacks aisle.

Seulgi, surveying the rows of packs of chips, asks, “What?”

“You said you got hurt during practice. You didn’t. I know, because we practice together,” he explains. He shoves two packs of the same chips to his basket, flavored barbecue and cheese. “Why would you lie?”

Among the group, Sehun doesn’t like being left behind. He makes it a point to catch up. Make keen observations. He doesn’t tell his friends how to live their lives but he wants to know what’s going on. He always comes to them head-on, without beating around the bush.

“I fell over a slide,” Seulgi admits. She picks the honey butter chips in the end. It crinkles as she places it in her basket full of toiletries.

“And why should you hide that fact from Krystal?” asks Sehun. He always believed Seulgi isn’t dishonest, maybe except for a few white lies. It’s out of character for her to be. She’s transparent. Easy to read.

“Because I don’t want to upset her,” Seulgi answers, walking straight ahead. Maybe that’s a safe answer—enough to keep her friend at bay.

“A slide, huh,” Sehun mumbles, too low for her to hear.

Seulgi goes back to the campus aboard the public bus. Beside her, Krystal leans on her shoulder. Bags of grocery items are on their laps. The passengers are evenly spread out to the seats. They’re at the front row. The driver hums to a tune.

The vehicle stops at a red light. Seulgi then asks, “Do you really hate Joohyun?”

Krystal moves away and questions as if she didn’t hear it right the first time, “What?”

“It’s just—I think you should apologize for that incident,” she pleads, looking out into the street through the windscreen. Pedestrians fill out into the street to cross to another sidewalk. She sighs, “I saw it. You pulled her hair.”

“Seulgi, what is this?” Krystal asks, brows furrowed. “Are you taking her side?”

“No,” denies Seulgi, “Maybe. I don’t know, but I think the two of you should make up.”

“Make up?” Krystal scoffs. “We’re not friends, not ever. And it should stay that way.”

Joohyun has always ground Krystal’s gears. During the class meeting back in the first year, they argued about the corridor policy. She got accused of up to authorities. It made her furious, that she wanted to shove Joohyun down and tackle her, but she decided to keep her cool. Joohyun clearly did not want to back down, despite the points she presented that lead to the rule. It only ended when the class president at the time shushed them, and Joohyun walked out of the room.

“Krystal... Joohyun is a person that needs understanding,” insists Seulgi, cracking her knuckles. “If you’re kind to her she can be kind to you. Wouldn’t that leave the two of you in a better place?”

“I don’t understand people who think rules are beneath them,” Krystal retorts. The traffic light turns green. The bus lurches forward again. “She’s trouble. Kind people like you fail to see it, but they’re the type of students who won’t do you good.”

“That doesn’t justify you hurting her,” Seulgi argues, now shifting her gaze to her girlfriend.

“She asked for it,” Krystal huffs. “Anyway, what’s done is done. I won’t bother her unless she crosses me. Don’t ever bring up that again. Please.”

Seulgi gulps, and they ride in silence for the rest of the trip.

On Wednesday, the clouds are huge and grey above the sky.

But Joohyun doesn’t notice it when she saunters out of the classroom in haste after taking the tests. She finishes third to the last, with a few unanswered questions. At the locker hallway, she almost slips. She opens her locker and changes her set of books to review tonight. Then, she scours the corridors.

When she’s at the south of the second floor building, where the hallway overlooks the parking lot, she finds Kai walking bouncily. Happy. Probably looking for his car so he can leave the campus. So Joohyun runs north, downstairs, then past the common hall at the ground floor. Upon reaching the entrance, and stepping outside, it begins to rain. She shields her head with her arms, swearing, but she wants to catch Kai before he leaves.

She pads briskly to the west, to the length of the building. Her coat and bag are soaked. She didn’t bring her umbrella. She thought it wouldn’t rain because the morning started bright and hot. When she turns so that she could walk the path to the parking lot, someone tugs her backpack. She ends up bumping against the person.

“What are you—” she pauses once she looks up and sees the person behind her.

“I saw you at the common hall, walking out into the rain,” Seulgi explains, black umbrella in hand. “What were you thinking?”

Joohyun lowers her eyes. Mumbles, “I went the wrong way.”

“You forgot that the dormitory is the opposite way?” Seulgi laughs. Drops of rain continue to pelt on her umbrella. She moves close to Joohyun, so the latter’s left shoulder wouldn’t get wet. However, her right shoulder gets drenched. She doesn’t mind. “Anyway, you shouldn’t be running in this downpour without anything to protect you.”

“I have my arms,” Joohyun quips. Her skin’s a bit damp. The moisture has seeped through her blouse. Hair, coat, and skirt dripping.

“And look at you,” she giggles. She pulls out a dry, monogrammed towel from her backpack and hands it to Joohyun. “Don’t say no thanks.”

Joohyun chuckles. She grabs the towel from Seulgi’s hand and wipes her face with it. “Why are we always bumping into each other?” And she feels that knot in her stomach again. Like when Seulgi was holding her hand while they were painting.

They traverse the length of the building again, to the east. They skip puddles. Pass by the wide sports field. Joohyun talks about how sorry she is for giving her a scratch on her forehead and knees. Seulgi assures her for the nth time that it’s alright. The raindrops fall consistently to the earth. Their ankles get flecked with mud. Their elbows brush against each other.

“Thank you,” Joohyun says once they arrive. It’s so genuine that she loves the way the words roll out of her tongue.

“No problem. Bring your umbrella next time, alright?” replies Seulgi, hanging her folded umbrella on the stand. “You wouldn’t know, you’re gonna have to brave a storm next.”

They part after.

Wendy chases Joohyun up the stairs. Holding onto a hot cup of noodles. Asks, “Hey, I saw that. Seulgi and you? You two know each other?” She was at the lobby, dispensing hot water, when through the glass doors she saw the pair outside, at the porch.

“Sort of,” Joohyun simpers and shrugs.

“Oh, that’s interesting,” Wendy remarks.

Joohyun is able to converse with Kai the following day.

He takes her to the baseball men’s locker room. He has a duplicate key as the captain. It’s empty. They shut the door close. Sunlight pours in through the windows. Kai leans against a locker, slouched, while staring down at Joohyun who’s inches shorter than him.

“I have questions,” Joohyun begins. She crosses her arms.

“Go on, fling them at me,” he goads. He sheds his coat and says, “Sorry, it’s stuffy in here.”

It’s an understatement to say her conscience has ripped her to shreds the past few days. She has tossed and turned in her bed, almost unable to sleep thinking about how to deal with the situation. She knows she shouldn’t be the one burdened, but it isn’t easy at all.

Joohyun huffs then asks, “Why couldn’t you tell Seulgi the truth?”

“Why?” Kai repeats, shoving his hands in his trouser’s pocket. “Because I like Krystal.”

“W-what,” Joohyun stutters, tilting her head. Unable to comprehend the answer. “Stop the riddles.”

“Who’s riddling?”

Joohyun takes a step forward, and scowls, “You like her enough to not call her on her bull? What kind of nonsense is that?”

Kai giggles loudly that his shoulders quiver. “I don’t know about you, but that makes a lot of sense to me.” And there’s nothing truer that he’s said. Anything he has done for Krystal, and even the things he hasn’t, only makes sense to him.

“So you want to keep your silence because you don’t want to make her accountable,” Joohyun puts together. “But have you ever thought and considered Seulgi’s feelings?”

He exhales sharply, scratching the back of his head, ”I don’t care what she feels.”

Slap—

Joohyun hits her palm hard against his left cheek. So hard, like a thunderous clap tearing through the air. Half of Kai’s face turns red. A bright red mark. It stings. He rubs it softly. Joohyun’s shoulders heave, indignant at hearing the words. Kai laughs—jeering, and throaty.

“You’re ed up,” Joohyun fumed. Her fists are tightly clenched.

“Go, tell them. I couldn’t care less anymore. Take Seulgi for yourself. That’s what you want to happen, right?” Kai provokes. Joohyun tries to slap him again but he blocks it with his arm. “What, isn’t that the truth? I’m making it easier for you.”

Joohyun shrugs her arm from his hold, and leaves, slamming the door shut.

author's note:

i’m wondering if i’m getting the pacing right... ;~; anyway thank you guys for reading!!