One could say that Hyejoo isn't a very avid supporter of the (cue exasperatingly peppy female voice from that one life coaching advert) 'everyone can make it if they really try' mentality.

She learns this early on in life when the last spot on the soccer team gets ripped from her hands by that one privilaged child who had a natural talent for the sport despite her parents having reassured her again and again that she was good enough to play on the starting line up all season. The mere fact that she manages to kick the ball at her sister's face without even meaning to clearly states otherwise. Therefore, she's only at the unripened age of eight when she realises it's all complete and utter bullcrap (excuse the foul language) fed to children so they grow up spoiled, impatient and pampered. Like the rest of the student body.

(Really, she just wishes that instead of babying her the way they had done all of her eight years of life, they had given her the actual cold truth and pushed her to become a better soccer player. She really hates the way that senior and privilaged child Kim Hyunjin still rubs it in her face.)

So, having pushed away this puny, discreditable way of living, she instead takes to the life of a realist.

"Do you think I can touch the ceiling in the stairway with my hand?"

"I think you'll break your leg."

She doesn't understand how the likes of Jeon Somi, bright and overly-confident, have made it this far into high school after the amount of crazy stunts pulled trying to defy truth (and gravity, by the looks of it).

"..."

"Ha! It's actually my arm that br- Ah! Ya, call the nurse! It hurts!"

Hyejoo swears that she is surrounded by a bunch of idiots who have unrealistic expactations from life and fate and destiny as if it owed them anything at all. Truly, she doesn't understand what people expect from a world that they are slowly killing every day. If she were the world then she'd be very pissed that the impotent humans selfishly taking advantage of everything around them actually had the nerve to ask for everything to be fine and dandy - ooh, with a side of wealth and prosperity on the side, while you're at it.

Really, what does Kim Minjoo really expect when she gets her papers back?

"I can't believe it, my parents are gonna kill me!"

"You got one higher than last time."

"Thirty-one out of a hundred is still beating-worthy! I think the teacher has it out for me..."

"Minjoo... you spend all lesson sleeping."

"No I don't, I pay attention!"

"There is a whole account of you on SNS dedicated to the things people have written on your face while you sleep."

"Wha- Jo Yuri!"

Instead of going to the cafeteria during lunch (or sleeping, in the case of Minjoo), she stays put in her seat and buries her head in her pile of books and meticulous notes. She knows for a fact that all the information isn't going to magically transfer itself into her brain no matter how much Lee Daewhi tries to experiment with this theory in the back of their history class with his best friend, Yang Yeongin, and the foreign student transfers, Lai Kuanlin and Zhong Chenle (she's seen them all simultaneously pressing their foreheads against the textbooks in pre-exam induced anxiety as futile attempts to learn about the Joseon era).

Hyejoo knows that she isn't the best when it comes to studying, so she does her best to keep up with the classes and homeworks set by their teachers without much complaint. Her parents try to tell her to relax and enjoy her youth, but it's difficult to do so when she knows that other, much smarter students are out there competing for that same spot in that one high-paying company. She wished instead that they willingly let her attend cram school and didn't disturb her so much when she was trying to study.

She knows that this isn't the same for her annoyingly bubbly peer (who insists on calling her her friend), Choi Yerim. That girl has somehow managed to convince herself that her talking at Hyejoo about her exciting adventures with the two university students she met a while back as they sit beside each other at cram school means that they have some sort of bond.

"I'm not kidding, Hyejoo, something weird is happening."

"Right..."

Yerim is the kind of girl who is imaginative and starry-eyed (those type of people who take 'the floor is lava' way too seriously), so she isn't very fazed whenever the girl comes up with something even more ludicrous than the last.

"Come on, Jungeun-unnie's eyes literally turned red - and before you say anything, no I wasn't high, I'm still a minor - that has to be the weirdest thing that's ever happened."

"She was probably wearing contacts."

"They were glowing! I've never seen anything like it!"

Of course, Yerim is also extremely excitable, which meant that it isn't hard for her to get caught up in the exhiliration of these tales she comes up with. More often than not, her voice rises to volumes where their teacher hears it.

"Son Hyejoo, Park Chaewon, if you want to chat about whatever it is you're chatting about then I suggest you do so elsewhere."

Ah, she forgot to mention: their teacher is not only an , but apparently also blind.

Fortunately, however, it manages to silence both Yerim (who immediately drops her head to glare at the exam paper in front of them for the first time in that hour) and Park Chaewon (who had been whispering non-stop to Park Siyeon about whatever it was that managed to excite skittish eighteen-year-olds the whole time).

Despite having to put up with Yerim's endless stories about her 'red/blue-eyed unnies' who 'magically teletransport through different dimensions' as she was trying to study for their up-coming exams, she was grateful for her connections that had managed to get them into this particular cram school. They obviously prioritised seniors over every other student as it was their last year before applying to their desired universities, so when Yerim had offered to get her into the cram school (the girl had said she didn't want to suffer alone and wanted her closest friend with her) she had blindly taken the opportunity.

This meant being placed at the back of the classroom with all of the students who weren't there because they wanted to be, but were forced to be by their parents (a.k.a Park Chaewon and her accomplice, Park Siyeon).

The two rivalled Yerim in terms of energy and her hyper-active nature, and Hyejoo couldn't help but develop a mild dislike for the two older girls who would dramatize everything like there was no tomorrow.

"Eunwoo-unnie finally let me sit next to her yesterday."

"Oh my god, she loves you!"

"Hah, I knew she wouldn't be able to resist my charms."

"And you wanted to give up just cause she hit you that one time! What did I say?"

Hyejoo has seen and talked to Jung Eunwoo that one time her older sister forced her to visit her at university because she was craving the pastries from the bakery next to their apartment, so she knows for a fact that she's already emotionally-unavailable if her Facebook status page anything about her relationship. Having to listen to the two idiots beside her while resisting the urge to pull up said Facebook page and crushing their unrealistic expectations sometimes gives her headaches.

No matter what, she can say that Park Chaewon is the most horrendously optimistic person she can think of - not even Yerim can beat her in that department.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to spill my hot chocolate on you."

"It's fine! I'm sure they'll have a spare shirt in the office anyway."

"But - your skin is turning red..."

"I was feeling cold, don't worry." (cue ditzy laugh)

Of all the times she has seen the senior around school with her questionable group of friends, she has never seen her without the traces of a smile. It honestly irks her just how much the girl laughs and grins, because really, what is there to be happy about on a Monday morning after accidentally being sprayed with water from the sidewalk by one of those expensive cars heading to the private school down the block? If it were Hyejoo, she would have probably memorised the number plate and hired the most vengeful person she knew (Im Yeojin may be small, but she seemed to have a lot of pent up ire inside of her) and vandalised their new paintwork with their house keys.

Her heart clenches from exasperation every time the senior dismisses anything mildly negative with a breathy laugh and a soft wave of the hand. Didn't she have any other commands aside from 'happy.exe'?

Though sometimes, her realistic way of living gets her into trouble she didn't even know was possible.

"Seriously, do you think I can hit the back of Kim Hyunjin's head?"

Hyejoo takes the time to calcualte the distance between their seats at the back of the classroom and the senior's, located towards the centre of the room where she's currently dozing off in the palm of her hand. The tight paper ball has to surpass two rows and the heads of Hawng Hyunjin's unnecissarily tall posture and Kwon Eunbin's slouched one as she dutifuly completes the questions on the paper. If Yerim can get the force of her throw and the angle so that the ball curves above the other two senior's to hit the desired target, then the task would be a success.

Humming, she glances at Yerim's mischevious eyes and the way she expectantly tilts her head. "I think you can. But instead of a forty-five degree angle, make it more of a fifty."

Yerim's lips part in an ominous grin and her attention focuses completely on aiming at the back of Kim Hyunjin's head as the senior exchanges seemingly harsh whispers with the school's golden girl, Jeon Heejin. Beside Yerim, the Taiwanese transfer student, Yeh Shuhua, watches in amusement, eyes wide with mirth and anticipation. The girl never says much, but Hyejoo doesn't dislike her because she seems to understand the way she thinks whenever she shoots annoyed glares at the other two seniors on her left.

As if watching a slow-motion shot, the three of them observe as the paper ball soars through the air at the perfect speed so it perfectly misses Hwang Hyunjin and Kwon Eunbin. However, the angle has failed Yerim, and they watch in moderate horror as the paper misses Kim Hyunjin's unsuspecting head and instead smacks Jeon Heejin in the face.

"Ah!"

Hyejoo isn't as prepared as Yerim and Shuhua, who rapidly duck their heads to their papers as if they hadn't been a part of this whole scheme (Shuhua may not have verbally taken part in the planning, but she hadn't failed to miss the way she had snickered encouragingly at the idea), so when both Heejin and the teacher's eyes zero in on them, she remains perfectly still and looks straight back at them.

Big mistake.

"Son Hyejoo, I see that you're not in the mood to do any work, and neither is your friend Ms. Park."

Both Siyeon and Chaewon's head swivel around to look at the teacher, interrupting whatever conversation they had been having this time, and visibly flinching when they catch his heated glare in their direction.

"U-Um, sir, do you mean me or...?" Chaewon stutters, eyes darting between the other 'Park' and the teacher.

"Of course I mean you!" He raises his voice a little, and all five girls sitting at the back jerk at the vexation in his voice. "Why can't you two be more like the rest of the students in your row? You think just because you're sitting at the back that you can mess around? If you're not going to take this seriously, then I'd rather have you run errands for me."

Hyejoo frowns, ignoring the guilty glances Yerim is sending beside her. "Sir, I didn't do anything."

That only seems to tick him off even more. "Sure, that's what they all say. Now, you and Ms. Park can go and organise some of the example test papers in the storage room until the time is up. I want you to deliver them to me by the end of the day."

She goes to argue again, but the look he sends her is enough to silence a whole army so instead she just solemnly nods her head and obediently stands up. She catches the glare Kim Hyunjin is giving her and scoffs, resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at her like a child. What's her problem anyway? The paper didn't even touch her thanks to Yerim's horrible aim.

Chaewon silently follows after her as they move through the building's hallways, listening to Hyejoo scuff her feet against the floor. All Hyejoo had wanted to do was study for the test and now she was being sent out of the classroom for something she didn't even do. If her parents find out about this then they'll use it as another reason to take her out of the program and enroll her into that dance school they've been insisting on ever since her cousin first explained the concept of it to them. And no offence to Sooyoung, but she knew that the chances of her ever becoming a professional in that field and earning enough money for her to live off of were very slim.

They manage to make it to the small storage room (more like closet) without exchanging any words (which Hyejoo is thankful for) and turn on the dim yellow lights. The cardboard boxes are a mess, some of the lids and papers scattered around the room from the rush of trying to get them as quick as possible. Realistically, there's no way they can organise all of this in one evening, which is probably why the taecher has sent them here in the first place.

Hyejoo sighs and accepts her fate. If she wants to at least redeem herself then she might as well get this done as quickly as possible.

"At least we're not cleaning the third floor toilets." Chaewon interrupts the silence with that hopeful voice of hers, the optimism annoying Hyejoo more than she already needs to be.

"This still ." She mumbles, stubbornly sifting through white pieces of paper with wasted ink stained on them. The task was utterly pointless.

"Come on, it's not that bad." The senior tries to liven the mood, laughing lightly. Hyejoo's heart contracts again in that same annoying manner whenever the older girl does that stupid laugh. "I though he'd be calling my parents, then it would ."

"He probably will." Hyejoo deadpans, shoving all of the papers into their designated cardboard box and discarding it to the side.

Chaewon just makes a humming sound (which makes her want to throw the cardboard box at her to get her to stop trying to make conversation) and crouches on the floor beside her. "I mean, at least we don't have to do the math paper."

There we go. Another one. "Shouldn't you appreciate the fact that we actually get the chance to learn something from this instead of avoiding it like everyone else?" She spits harshly, frustrated that she just had to be shoved into a small closet with the most optimistic person in the school.

The older girl seems slightly surprised by the outburst, but it doesn't take her long to bounce back with another positive comment. "Of course, but if we were still in that classroom then we probably wouldn't be talking right now, right?"

For some reason, Hyejoo feels the heat rush to her ears and she quickly untucks her hair from behind them to shield them from the girl's sight. What the hell is up that reaction? She shouldn't be blushing about that. She didn't want anything to do with Ms. Sunshine. Just like everyone else, she's an idealist who expects the world to be full of flowers and rainbows and for everything to be as easy as it was when they were still five.

Chaewon laughs and Hyejoo's heart clenches.

"Whatever" is all she can shoot back before she immerses herself in classifying the papers into their correct places. Her eyes are already hurting thanks to the crappy lighting from the cheap lightbub they have installed and she just wants to get out of there as soon as possible. They're having kimchi jjigae tongiht and she doesn't want to miss it for the world.

Hyejoo doesn't really want to think about it, but maybe it's the way Chaewon looks so delicate as she moves the papers around in her soft-looking hands that distracts her from her work and suddenly she's staring at the older girl as she effortlessly shuffles pages after pages of questions. The girl looks terribly naive and it kind of reminds her of Yerim's own entirely too trusting nature, which kind of annoys her because it seems like she's the only one aware of the evil that lurks amongst humans. How can one be so comfortable around a stranger?

"Can I help you?" Chaewon meets her eyes with an amused gaze, startling her so much that she accidentally misplaces the cardboard box on the top shelf and sets of a chain of events.

Hyejoo tries to catch the box, but it's heavier than she anticipated so she's easily knocked back into Chaewon, who watches in alarm as both Hyejoo and the box fall. On its way down, the box strikes the door handle before scattering its insides all across the floor. Similarly, as Hyejoo falls down backwards, she finds herself stumbling over the cursed stray box she'd put down before being cushioned by Chaewon's body (though it doesn't spare her fragile head from smacking against the metallic shelf).

"Oh my god, are you okay?" Chaewon is quick to lift her head from the shelf, but all it does is send it spinning round and round and round...

"Ah, stop, stop!" Hyejoo pushes her hands away, which is a bad idea because suddenly all the support she didn't know she needed is gone and she hits her head on the shelf again. "Frick!"

"Let me help." The older girl orders, for the first time since they've met actually having the decency to look serious. Her eyebrows furrow in concern and her eyes are no longer holding that same bright glint that says 'bubbles!' (Hyejoo doesn't understand that thought process either, so she blames her probably concussed head for it).

Her hands are soft as they guide her into a sitting position, mumbling incoherent words of concern as a look of pain contorts Hyejoo's features. Hyejoo feels the older girl's hands glide over the back of her head, her tingers slightly massaging her scalp in a surprisingly pleasant manner. She really tries her best to stop herself from letting out that content hum that manages to weasle out of her consciousness' grip, blushing hard when Chaewon raises an amused eyebrow. Though when she goes to explain herself, Chaewon's fingers touch a particularly sensitive part of her head and she lets out a pained shout.

"What the hell?" She shouts, trying to move out from the girl's hold. "That hurts!"

"Duh, you hit your head pretty hard." Chaewon says, rolling her eyes slightly with an entertained smirk. "I'm pretty sure there's gonna be a bump there."

Hyejoo glowers, trying to stand up again despite the surge of dizziness and slight nausea that hits her. "I'm gonna go get an ice-pack."

"Do you want me to come with you, or-"

"No, stay here." She says sharply before trying to twist the door handle.

Her hand only reaches for air.

What the...

Hyejoo looks down at where the door handle is supposed to be and is met with the sight of a small empty space carved into the wooden door. The silver, metallic door handle glints mischeviously back at her from its place on the floor beside the cardboard box which had been knocked down in the first place. It's at times like these when Hyejoo remembers exactly why she's a realist.

"We're trapped."

 She tries leaning against the door and budging it open but then remembers that the door opens inwards. Her headache just intensified by ten.

"Are you kidding me..."

"What?" Chaewon spins around in her place so they're side by side, leaning over her shoulder to look at the empty space too. Hyejoo catches a whiff of coconut-scented shampoo and sweet perfume, so she quickly steps out of the way and as far away from the older girl as she can get in the tight area. "I'm sure we can try something."

Hyejoo just watches in despair as the senior tries to pry the door open with her fingers, only to fail miserably and shake out her hand with a pout when some of the splinters get into her skin. She quickly surveys the area and sees that it's a closed room with no ventelation, and just as she suspected, there's no space between the door and the floor if the marks of the bottom of the door carved into the floor is anything to go by.

"We're going to die." Hyejoo despairs, already feeling the air close in tightly around them.

Chaewon glances at her over her shoulder, looking far too relaxed for a situation that calls for a panic-attack. "Oh, don't be pessimistic. I'm sure someone will come looking for us."

Shaking her head, Hyejoo slides down a bare wall and wraps her arms around her legs. It's a habit of hers to make herself as small as possible in stressful situations, and mentioning that she has claustrophobia would probably explain a lot of her behaviour (except she doesn't want to waste the air trying). "I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist."

The girl raises a disbelieving eyebrow at her, looking terribly entertained by her pre-breakdown behaviour. "You literally just said we were going to die."

"Oh, because we are."

Chaewon laughs and Hyejoo's heart clenches.

"Stop it." She says quickly, looking panicked at Chaewon who restrains herself from laughing further.

"Why?"

Again, Hyejoo's ears begin to burn and she has to look away from the older girl. "You're wasting oxygen."

It only sends Chaewon into a laughing fit and soon the girl is sitting beside her (Hyejoo shuffles away as much as she can, which is only a centimetre or two). "Someone will find us, trust me." There is certainity in her voice with a sprinkle of positivity on top just for the heck of it. It does things to Hyejoo's panic-stricken mind that she doesn't even want to fathom at this point, so she allows the warm sensation in her chest to bloom and her eyes to observe the older girl carefully.

It's the claustrophobia, is what she says to pacify herself.

"So hey, what's the deal with you?" Chaewon's sudden inquiry makes the walls her self-defence mechanism built shoot up immediately, and Hyejoo physically feels herself revert back in on herself at the personal question. The way that the upperclassman's eyebrow arches curiously and lips curve into a mischevious smirk does nothing to calm her nerves nor her growing suspicion that Chaewon is secretly a mafia member to kill her and her family. (Though if she really thought about it, she wouldn't mind having her sister gone for a vacation in Hell for a while)

Warily, Hyejoo shoots a glance at the girl before shyly adverting her eyes to the tiled floor. "What are you trying to say?" Anyone would have heard the defensiveness laced in between her words, though Chaewon simply charges on.

"I mean the whole 'brooding-teenager' look you've got going on." Hyejoo can't help but honest to god feel a little offended. "Like, we wear the same uniform, but that black hoodie of yours makes you look extra emo." Chaewon brings her bunched up fingertips and kisses them in a 'muah' motion, as if she were some chef praising one of their cook's dishes.

She gasps a little in offense. Hyejoo has been called a lot of things in her lifetime, but having 'emo' be one of the descriptory terms in her character profile makes her balk - it makes the indignation and anger rise a little inside of her. She will not be defemated like this when her image certainly wasn't as pessimistic as an emo's. "Excuse me-" There are a million words already forming in her mind in preparation for a valid comeback, but she finds herself gaping at the air like a fish out of the water. "I-"

"Yes, you are excused?" Chaewon prompts cheekily, her grin pushing her cheeks up into her eyes. And lord give Hyejoo strength because her concussion suddenly makes her head spin. (She knows its not the concussion but will she admit that to herself? Never.)

"I'll have you know that I am not an 'emo'." Hyejoo dauntingly tilts her chin up, practically spitting out the term. All it does is make the older girl giggle silently in amusement. "Just because I am realistic and know what the hell is up with the world, it doesn't automatically make me an emo."

"Hey, what's so bad about being an emo?" With an exaggeratedly wounded expression and raise of the eyebrow, Chaewon sets her lips into a pout. "I don't think the emo community will appreciate all this slander."

Hyejoo almost - almost - rolls her eyes into outer space. "Unlike them, I don't brood about life and the impending dooms of death, I-" The words catch in at the "why the you lying" look that the other girl hits her with, and instead sounds of displeasure manage to come out. The outraged 'ah's increase in volume the more Chaewon tilts her head at a downwards angle to display her obvious disbelief, and it gets to the point where Hyejoo is almost shouting and Chaewon is making an ugly expression in her doubt. "I do not brood."

Her laugh is airy, and it sends her leaning forwards from the force of it. "Son Hyejoo, I've seen your skull doodles around the name 'Olivia Hye' in the back of your book," Hyejoo literally dies in her place at the exposure, mortification overriding her brain and making her curl further into herself, "I freaking dare you to tell me you 'do not brood'."

Reality check: she may be prideful enough to continue arguing against the older girl's (strong) case, but she promised herself that she'd always be a realist first. She has to admit that she's very, very fond of her black hoodie that she always wears over her school uniform - for various reasons that include comfort, fashion and being able to hide her face from people she doesn't want to associate herself with. Which, now that she thinks about it, is everyone. And perhaps her plainly spoken words whenever being asked to speak, or her reluctance to do anything that she deems useless, can definitely come off pretty passive aggressive. Not to mention her preference of remaining alone at all times to silently judge everyone else that exists around her.

At her abrupt silence, Chaewon cockily smirks at her. Hyejoo briefly scowls at her, fully aware that the older girl just took this as a personal victory over her. "It's okay, Hyejoo-yah," she slowly shakes her head from side to side with a condescending grin on her face, her hand reaching out to pat at her head softly, "if it makes you feel any better, I've always wanted an emo girlfriend."

Hyejoo bats Chaewon's hand away. "You're a ditz." She counter-attacks, the insult having taken some time to bake in the oven and come out as soon as it was ready. She feels victorious when Chaewon gasps dramatically, placing a hand on her chest and leaning away from her, leaving her feeling more smug than she probably should.

But then the words register in her head, and she's suddenly piecing together what Chaewon has just said in her head and-

"...not very nice to call people 'ditz', but I'll take it as a compli-"

"Oh my god, you're so weird!" Hyejoo shouts over Chaewon's mini-ramble, her face burning red. With whatever remaining dignity that she has, Hyejoo buries her face into the sleeves of her hoodie and tries to erase the thought of actually being someone's 'girlfriend' from her head. Her heart thinks that Hyejoo signed it up for a race or something, because it's pounding away inside of her and she almost wants to hit at her chest to tell it to stop directly.

It takes a second for Chaewon to fully register what Hyejoo is freaking out about, but suddenly she's laughing like she isn't at all bothered by her obviously flirtatious statement. "Oh, you're such a cutie~" The older girl coos, the finger poking at the other's cheek almost patronising in a way. "Are you shy about your sudden existential realisation?"

"Shut up." Hyejoo mumbles intelligently into her hoodie, wanting nothing more but for the door to miraculously give way and allow her to escape into the night and return to the safety of her home, where her kimchi jiggae awaits. She doesn't think that Park Chaewon has ever been more infuriating - she's almost sure that this girl has a secret vendetta to annoy her to death.

"I think-"

"You can do that?"

"-that you would make an adorable emo girlfriend." Chaewon finishes triumphantly.

Hyejoo flusters so hard that she physically flinches (she didn't ever think she could get more pitiful, but here she is) and she presses herself against the side of the shelf to get further away from the perpetrator of her reaction. She's not meant to react like this to comments as meaningless as these - she's a realist. The chances of Hyejoo becoming Park Chaewon's emo girlfriend (her heart stutters uselessly in her chest) are a definite 0%, and she's going to make sure that those statistics remain at that percentage even if she has to give up her kimchi jiggae portion to her sister.

"I don't know, Hyejoo," Chaewon sighs dreamily, the smile evident in her voice, "I think we would make a pretty awesome duo."

"In your dreams."

"You could come support me at my cheerleading events-" Of course she's a cheerleader, Hyejoo grumbles to herself as she curiously looks at the older girl. "-and then we'd pull an all-nighter playing Pokemon or Animal Crossing - I also have Black Ops, if you're not interested in those two-"

"How do you know I like to play games?" Hyejoo interrupts the mini-tangent sceptically, eyes wide. If she finds out that Chaewon has secretly been stalking her all this time and gathering enough intail so this exact situation could happen, she will personally murder the older girl.

Instead, she looks pleasantly surprised. "You do? I was just saying that because I like to play." There's a bright glint in her eyes as she leans towards her, and Hyejoo finds herself becoming more comfortable with this familiar topic at hand. "What do you like to play?"

"I don't really mind any, but I prefer to play lore-based games." Hyejoo hesitantly looks away from Chaewon's intense stare, feeling the girl's positivity practically radiating off of her in waves and beginning to contaminate her in this small space. "I'm obsessed with LoL at the moment - I can't really stop playing it."

"League?" Chaewon perks up, tilting her head curiously. "My brother plays - he's always raging in his room and asking to borrow my mouse cause he broke his."

Hyejoo chuckles at that, and Chaewon visibly brightens at her reaction.

Alright, as a realist, Heyjoo has to admit to herself that her perception of Park Chaewon hadn't been all too accurate. She seems like a pretty down to earth person the more she talks to her, and their apparant shared interest in gaming manages to get Hyejoo to warm up to her a little more. Obviously she's not going to open her arms wide and call the other girl a 'friend' (she's not sure she wants to earn herself that particular title (she beats herself up for that thought)), but her curiosity has been piqued and she's suddenly wanting to discover more and more of Chaewon's weird quirks.

"What else would we do if you were my cheerleader girlfriend?" The words have slipped out of before she can hold her tongue back, and she finds herself groaning quietly at whatever motivated her to even say that. She wants to crawl into a hole and die, but for now the sleeves of her hoodie will have to do.

"'Cheerleader girlfriend'?" Chaewon teases lightly, nudging her shoulder with hers (she only giggles when Hyejoo growls at her to stop). "I guess you'd actually teach me whatever it is we've been learning this past week, since you seem to do so well in the tests, and then I'd take you out to eat wherever you want-"

"-the ramen store down the street."

"-yeah, I'd take you to the ramen store down the street, because I'll feel bad as your senior for bothering you for help, and pay for everything you want to eat. And then, when it gets too cold, I'll steal that emo hoodie of yours-"

"It's not emo."

"Are you still denying that?"

"Just because it's black doesn't make it emo."

"Aish, who cares... I still want to try it on because it looks big and warm and cuddly." Chaewon absently says, resting her chin in the heel of her hand and observing the black hoodie with pleading, large eyes.

It's nothing to do with the way she suddenly realises that Chaewon is a looker, or how she actually manages to resemble a kicked puppy as she's looking at her- ah it, it's all to do with that and the way Hyejoo's heart only picks up speed at the small silence between them. Is it really her fault when she's the one who has been asking her parents for a puppy ever since she was six affter she had seen Lilo and Stitch? (Her parents had told her she couldn't get a 'blue alien pet' that became her family, so a dog had been the next best thing.) The older girl pulls of the 'puppy look' sinfully well.

Hyejoo wordlessly shrugs the hoodie off and nonchalantly throws it at her face. She refuses to look at her while her cheeks are still blushed pink, so instead she busies herself with the small doodles she had drawn on the inside of her forearm while she had been bored earlier in the day.

"Hm..." Chaewon hums in content, snuggling into the oversized fabric as if it were a blanket (Hyejoo's heart has apparently changed events and decided to join the gymnastics club without her permission). "Yup, this is it."

"Shut up, ditz." Hyejoo scoffs, fully turning her head away from the older girl abashedly.

"You know..." Chaewon starts again, this time conspiration seeping into her voice as she leans into her personal space. "It looked a lot warmer on you, maybe its not just the hoodie that makes it look cuddly."

With a sharp intake of breath, Hyejoo quickly nudges the older girl away. "What do you want me to do about that?"

Just as Chaewon was about to reply, the door to the closet manages to open, allowing the white light of the school hallway to flood into the room and save Hyejoo's eyes. Intoxicated with relief (nevermind the slight regret that poked at her mind at being interrupted), Hyejoo pushes herself up from her place on the floor and looks at Yerim's slightly panicked face. Beside her, Chaewon slowly rises to her full height, and Hyejoo realises that their height difference is perfect for her to rest her arm around her shoulders comfortably-

"Oh thank the lords you didn't die!" Yerim wails, throwing herself at Hyejoo and wrapping her in a tight hug that the latter certainly did not ask for.

"Ya, Choi Yerim..." Hyejoo scowls as she tries prying her 'friend' off of her.

"Come on, class has finished and the teacher has already left." Yerim elatedly hops in her place, beginning to tug at Hyejoo's limp arm to speed up the process. It seems that she has only just noticed the other presence, and Yerim belatedly looks at Chaewon, who innocently hugs herself with Hyejoo's hoodie wrapped protectively around her, effectively engulfing her and dwarfing her in size. "Oh, hi Unnie."

"Hi Yerim." Chaewon cutely waves her hand, hidden beneath the long sleeve. She looks amused by the situation as Yerim continues to take in the information presented before her with wide eyes.

"Oh?" If Yerim had had dog ears, they'd be perked up right now. "Hyejoo, is that your hoodie I see?"

Rolling her eyes, Hyejoo glares at both girls. "Shut up, Yerim."

"No~ I don't think I can." Yerim shakes her head violently, as if this is the biggest thing to have ever happened in her seventeen years of existance. Hyejoo can already feel her headache beginning to grow in the back of her head. "What is the meaning of this?"

When Chaewon sees that the other girl is not going to answer the almost rhetorical question, she immediately tightens her hold around herself and smirks smugly at the excitable girl. "My emo girlfriend gave me her emo hoodie to keep me warm."

Yerim squeals excitedly, and Hyejoo can't resist the urge to shove the older girl away from her in a silent form of protest. This was not how Hyejoo had planned her evening to go - she certainly hadn't expected making new alliances with the annoying third year that wouldn't stop talking.

"It's okay, don't be embarrassed." Chaewon says, nudging at Hyejoo's side knowingly with the most irritating smirk ever.

"I really have to go now." Yerim bounces on her feet actively, waving her phone clutched in her hand. "I just got a message from Jinsoul-unnie, so I guess I'll see you in a couple of days."

Hyejoo rolls her eyes at Yerim's nonesense (it's become a routine now: Yerim urgently leaving half-way through something because her unnies are calling her to go to another dimension or some other fairytale story she rattles off about). "You better bring me back a souvenier." She plays into it, ignoring the way the other girl wiggles her eyebrows at her as she glances between her and Chaewon before taking her leave.

"So," Chaewon drawls, her hands now stuffed in the pockets of the hoodie and a cheesy grin on her face (Hyejoo still wants to get rid of the nuisance, though she's not sure if the preferred method would be hitting anymore), "what kind of ramen do you like?"

"What?"

"I'm treating you for tutoring me, remember?" The older girl slowly begins to walk out of the small room, a peppy bounce to her step.

"I didn't tutor you yet..." Hyejoo frowns, automatically following after her.

Spinning around on her heel and the biggest grin of the evening yet, Chaewon teasingly winks at her. "'Yet'~"

Blushing at her slip up, Hyejoo goes to correct herself. But when she sees the slight tint on the other girl's cheeks and the redness on the tips of her ears despite her calm, mischevious demeanour, she finds herself just sighing helplessly and surrendering to the slight smile that has been edging to come out since this conversation started. She still feels her heart aching slightly in her chest, but the more it continues to race the more accustomed she grows to it.

She's a realist, so she won't deny that it's practically impossible not to fall for Chaewon's tricks and charms (and that deep down, she's always had a small thing for her senior). Hyejoo's sure that her parents will be thrilled to hear about her staying out for once instead of being cooped up in her room, and her missing kimchi jiggae night wouldn't really hurt (in fact, she's almost certain that her mother will want to meet the person who managed to get her daughter to leave her books).

"When am I going to get my hoodie back?" Hyejoo calls after the older girl, who still skips down the hallway like a little kid.

Park Chaewon, positive as always, sticks her tongue out at her and flaps her arms around so the sleeves make her look like a bird. "If you want it back, you're going to have to treat me to ice cream."

As a realist -- Hyejoo thinks as she watches Chaewon almost run into the doorway on her way into the classroom, before quickly rushing to Park Siyeon who had been playing a game on her phone and speaking in rushed, high-pitched words with a lovely blush on her face -- she understand that there has to be a balance to everything.

Siyeon jumps in her seat and grins slyly at her friend, clapping her hand on her back as a form of congratulations, even when Chaewon flinches from the harsh impact. But the grin on the latter's face is still as positive and bubbly as ever, and Hyejoo can't help it when the corners of her lips begin to tug up.

A little optimism would balance out her realism.