jihyo strides back toward her room with thick, heavy books in her hands. it’s only the second day of the week, yet she already feels the burden of the countless amount of homework piling up. with slight difficulty, she rummages through her pockets for her keys and fumbles with the lock before it finally clicks open, and she’s immediately met with a wave of smoke as the room reeks of stale tobacco.

 

“, nayeon,” she softly curses as she proceeds to open the windows and reach for the air freshener. she scans the place, and thankfully, it’s still clean. she mentally prays that she’ll never see the day when nayeon ultimately sets the room on fire.

 

neatly arranging her books on her shelf, the one picture on her bulletin board catches her eye. jihyo finds six girls staring back at her, their eyes crinkling and their smiles bright as they grin from ear to ear while huddling each other. jihyo smiles back unconsciously, and realizes that she barely recognizes them anymore.

 

//

 

she taps the tip of her pen against the table, eyebrows furrowing as she racks her brain. the piece of work neatly displayed on the table in front of her stares back at her, as empty as it was half an hour earlier. she buries her head in hands, and not two seconds later, she hears a loud crash and a string of profanities. jihyo’s eyes fly open.

 

“ing chair,” jeongyeon repeats for the umpteenth time as jihyo helps her up, her burning face lowered so as to avoid the death glares from the other students in the library, and obviously, jeongyeon couldn’t care less.

 

“what was that?” jihyo asks. jeongyeon is almost never awake at the library, only accompanying jihyo whenever she needs to study so as to make full use of the free air-con, and yet she causes the most disturbance.

 

“i had a nightmare,” she says, matter-of-factly, “again.”

 

“did nayeon die this time?”

 

“no,” jeongyeon snaps at her. but when jihyo raises one eyebrow, she’s met with a defeated groan. “almost.”

 

“tell her to stop smoking then,” jihyo says while getting back to her work, “and whatever shady stuff she’s been doing.”

 

“what makes you think she’ll listen to me?”

 

“what makes you think she won’t?” jihyo sighs exasperatedly, “for god’s sake, you’re her girlfriend, jeongyeon, do something.”

 

“but you’re her roommate!” jeongyeon argues.

 

“whom she barely even speaks to.”

 

when she doesn’t receive a reply, she goes back to attempting her questions, and this time, jihyo finds herself actually writing something.

 

//

 

mentally cursing herself for forgetting to bring her jacket, jihyo sprints out of the lecture hall the moment the lecturer dismisses them. she makes a beeline towards the nearest washroom, dramatically pushing the doors open and practically flinging herself into the nearest cubicle. she lets out a sigh of relief when she’s finally able to empty her bladder, until, she hears a sound, and subconsciously holds her pee.

 

“oh, momo, don’t stop.”

 

what the .

 

jihyo desperately contemplates on quickly finishing her business and making a run for it, but a part of her tells her that she needs to know if the voice belongs to who she thinks it does. she stills.

 

“momo, , i’m close.”

 

and now jihyo really wants to leave. she thinks she may have been a terrible person in her past life, because she’s always getting stuck in situations like this. giving up on trying to identify the other person, jihyo tries to be as silent as possible as she prepares to escape, until,

 

“come for me, sana.”

 

what the actual .

 

now jihyo’s moving on autopilot, out the door and into the hallway and she isn’t even sure if she turned off the faucet, and she really is starting to hate herself for damaging the environment further. she’s only snapped out of her reverie when she feels her body collide with someone else’s as she helplessly stumbles onto the ground.

 

“whoa, you okay?”

 

a pair of hands help her up, and jihyo goes white upon recognizing the girl.

 

“did you just see a ghost or what?” mina jokes, and jihyo’s at a loss of words.

 

“jihyo?” she’s brought back into reality again, “are you okay? do you need to go to the sick bay or something?”

 

“oh no, i’m uh, i’m fine.”

 

“okay, you sure you’re alright by yourself?”

 

“yes,” jihyo says shakily, before her eyes travel to the tall stack of paper mina has in her hands, and they suspiciously look like test papers. upon noticing that, mina clutches them closer to her chest, and releases her grip on the other girl.

 

“alright, i’ll see you later in class?”

 

“yeah, later.”

 

and when the class with mina starts, the teacher announces that they’d be having a pop quiz, and while the entire class groans and starts to complain, jihyo notices all but one student who accepts the news neutrally, or, rather positively, and when the test commences, jihyo sees mina confidently answering the questions, almost as if it isn’t her first time seeing them.

 

the class ends, and jihyo decides between talking with mina regarding the test and the washroom incident and just keeping shut, when the speaker sounds.

 

“hirai momo, please report to the principal’s office immediately. i repeat, hirai momo to report to the principal’s office immediately.”

 

“i’m surprised that she’s still not yet expelled.” jeongyeon is suddenly by her side, and jihyo gives up on mina, for now.

 

“what has she done this time?”

 

“apparently, some girl in one of her classes named dahyun said sana was pretty, and her friend, chaeyoung, i think, argued otherwise while calling sana a . chaeyoung’s sent to the hospital for possibly a broken nose and a swollen eye while dahyun’s at the sick bay for a grazed knee. poor girl tried to help her friend while she was getting the beaten out of her.”

 

by now, jihyo is so used to hearing stuff like that she doesn’t even blink. “but sana isn’t even momo’s.”

 

“exactly.”

 

//

 

jihyo thanks jeongyeon as she leaves her room with her notes. the elevator doors open the moment she reaches the hallway, and momo emerges with a small gasp.

 

“hey,” jihyo greets after a few seconds of silence.

 

“hi,” momo offers a shy smile back.

 

a dead silence follows, and a slight hint of awkwardness, if it weren’t for jihyo breaking it.

 

“that looks bad,” she says, gesturing towards momo’s bloodied knuckles.

 

“oh no, it’s fine.”

 

jihyo wants to tell her that it’s not, and that none of these are, but momo’s chuckling as if she’s really fine and jihyo doesn’t have the heart to ruin that.

 

“so, uh, i may have walked into you and sana this afternoon,” she says before thinking, or rather, after too much thinking. jihyo was never one to keep things to herself. moreover, these were her friends, and if there was any chance in getting them back together again, jihyo figures she’d at least try.

 

“oh,” momo murmurs, hanging her head low, either in shame or embarrassment. “i’m sorry.”

 

jihyo shrugs. “i’m not the one who has to hear that.”

 

“y-yeah, i know,” momo’s voice cracks as she talks, and jihyo almost feels bad for her. “i’ll do something about it. will you, um, will you not tell her, in the meantime?”

 

this is the part that jihyo never understands. while jihyo has always been someone who acts on things promptly and likes to solve her problems as soon as possible, momo seems to be the opposite. she tends to procrastinate, often till it’s too late to do anything about it. but then again, everyone has their way of doing things, and jihyo thinks maybe she’d trust momo to solve her own problems this time. after all, people change.

 

“sure.”

 

she’s walking into the elevator and reaching for the close button when momo calls out to her.

 

“jihyo?”

 

she looks up, and meets momo’s gaze. it’s desperate, longing, and empty.

 

“i’m sorry.”

 

“what for?” she replies, and the last thing she sees before the doors close is a smile that doesn’t reach the eyes.

 

//

 

jihyo blames it on her luck, or rather, the lack thereof when she bumps into sana and mina on her way back.

 

“jihyo!” sana waves to her from a few metres away, and jihyo smiles back, but she’s really bad at hiding things, so when she spots the intertwined fingers as she approaches the two, she reminds herself to keep the conversation as short as possible.

 

“where were you coming from?”

 

but of course, if there was anything that hasn’t change, it would be sana’s inability to stop talking.

 

“i just borrowed some stuff from jeongyeon,” she waves her pile of notes, “bumped into momo too.”

 

jihyo notices the way sana looks away.

 

“oh? how is she? heard she got herself into a little trouble,” mina clenches her fists and throws a little punch into the air, and jihyo laughs.

 

“well, she seems fine. how was the quiz today, anyway?” and once again, she lets herself speak without holding back.

 

“it was fine, i guess, a little unexpected,” mina says, and if she was hiding something, she clearly didn’t show it. “how do you find it?”

 

“i just pray that i pass,” jihyo chuckles, and mina makes the attempt to laugh along.

 

“babe, let’s hurry before we get stuck in the long queue, you know i don’t like waiting for my ice cream” sana whispers to mina, but loud enough for jihyo to hear. “we’ll see you around, right, jihyo?”

 

jihyo offers an assuring smile, before the other two scurry away, hand in hand, seemingly innocent and problem-free, and jihyo almost feels happy for them. if only that were the case.

 

//

 

“have you seen my pack?”

 

that’s the first thing nayeon says to her upon entering the room. not the usual “how’s classes?” that she used to ask, or even a simple “hey”. instead, it’s an inquiry on her pack of cigarettes, and jihyo sighs.

 

“i threw it away.”

 

“you what?”

 

she hears the obvious rise in nayeon’s tone, the anger that ignites over something so trivial. in the past, nayeon would almost never shout at her, always sticking by jihyo’s side and defending her. now, she’s defending something that isn’t even supposed to mean that much.

 

“yeah, i threw it away.”

 

“it was expensive,” nayeon says through gritted teeth, as she throws up her hands and walks back toward the door. “you owe me one, jihyo.”

 

jihyo wants to retort back, wants to correct nayeon that she doesn’t owe her anything. but when she hears the door slam behind her, she realizes that she does. not just nayeon, but to every single one of her friends. she owes it to them to help them change, and it’s all up to her now.

 

//

 

note: so i haven’t written in so long and everything’s rusty, but here’s something! this idea has been bugging me for a few days now, and hopefully you guys will enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it. some characters are a little unclear for now, but they’ll have their chapters. do let me know which ones you’re looking forward too huehue and maybe i’ll switch up the order a little. thank you for reading!