The calming blue sky above their heads temporarily made her forget the fact they were currently breaking a major school rule, as students were strictly prohibited from accessing the rooftop for safety reasons; she had no clue to why Jung Eunji had a spare key to the entrance, but she was in no mood to pry now that she had experienced the blissful atmosphere the secret location had to offer.

As she laid flat on her back and disregarding every concern of hers, Son Naeun allowed the soft-looking clouds above to hypnotise her, feeling as if she was drifting amongst the endless ether. It had been a while since she felt this carefree, and she was secretly glad to have accepted such an invitation.

However, a warm voice soon reached her ears, and she was pulled back into reality as her eyelids slowly peeled themselves open.

“Say, are we like, friends now?” Jung Eunji asked casually while glancing down at the girl with a gentle smile on her face. “Or is it a common thing for you to ditch your best friend for some random acquaintance?”

“I only agreed to join you because I know how Chorong-unnie won’t be coming back from the cafeteria anytime soon.” Naeun scoffed playfully before pulling herself up into a sitting position, slightly stretching her arms that were now warm from her brief sunbath. “I didn’t want to waste my lunch by being bored and alone, you see.”

Upon hearing her excuse, Eunji raised her head towards the sky and let out some light-hearted laughter.

Naeun had to forcefully prevent herself from laughing along- which she almost did- as the other girl’s laughter was incredibly contagious.

“You are such a tsundere, you know that?”

“I’m merely stating the truth.”

“What if Chorong-yang’s looking for you right now?”

“Please, we both know how she’s currently occupied by your best friend.”

“Oh? That’s quite a confident statement.”

“It’s been like this for the past few days, Jung Eunji, and I don’t think your friend’s planning on breaking her streak.”

“Well… true. She can be a stubborn bastard sometimes.”

The unusual duo resumed to another moment of peaceful silence until Eunji suddenly turned her head towards the other, blinking with curious eyes.

Naeun sensed it easily and glanced back at her, making direct eye-contact.

“Is there… a reason to why Park Chorong’s so scared of Bomi?”

“I thought we went through this already.” Naeun raised an eyebrow.

“Kind of, but I’m still a bit confused.” Eunji replied, “During their first encounter, Bomi actually prevented your friend from getting hurt. Obviously Chorong-yang knows this fact, yet she’s still terrified of her. If I was in her shoes, I’d be hella grateful and I’d even try to befriend my saviour.”

Silence abruptly returned to the rooftop as Naeun failed to respond right away.

Eunji noticed her hesitant behaviour and chose to remain silent, giving her some time to be alone with her thoughts.

She could sense there was a lot going on within her head.

The cold-looking female finally spoke up after an entire minute, her peaceful state of mind no longer present. “Chorong-unnie… has been through a lot in the past, and some of her worst memories were caused by people like y-”

She abruptly stopped herself as she glanced right at Eunji’s face, an apologetic look on her own as she hastily thought of a better way to phrase her intended message. “Like, um… the kind of people you and your friend may associate with…”

“Oh.” Eunji widened her eyes- not from the latter part of the girl’s sentence, but rather the first half. “I thought she’d be a popular kid with those looks of hers- and by that I mean she looks pretty and smart, which is a double kill that should win everyone over. Aren’t you guys like, model students?”

“Well, she is pretty popular… but in both a positive and negative way.” Naeun let out a sigh as she recalled some past memories of theirs. “Just like Newton’s 3^rd Law, while she gained some admirers with her beauty, she also received a fair amount of hatred that was sprouted out from jealousy.”

Just as a piece of cloud masked over the bright sun, the ‘delinquent’ glanced upwards once more as she struggled to process the shocking information. “Damn, I would’ve never imagined…”

Naeun chuckled lightly as she turned her head to observe the student beside her, incapable of containing her fascination for the girl despite of being in the midst of a serious conversation. “I mean, I can’t blame you. We’re so different that I’m sure it’s impossible for us to relate to one another.”

“But still, just because Bomi and I dress like a pair of thugs, it doesn’t mean we’re actual s.” Eunji pouted, “I swear we’re pretty nice people.”

“I know, that’s why I’m trying to correct my own ways of thinking, too.” Naeun huffed lowly, “I want to believe in your words and hopefully someday, Chorong-unnie would be able to understand what you’re talking about, too.”

Jung Eunji found her entire body freezing from what she had just heard, failing to comprehend the sentence despite of understanding every word individually. “Uh… sorry, but I don’t follow?”

Her sincere and rather adorable-looking plead for help caused Naeun to meet her eyes with a soft smile.

She tilted her head as she hummed in a mixture of amusement and embarrassment:

“Can’t you see I’m trying to open up to you?”

The unexpected response caused the other girl’s heart to subconsciously skip a beat, somewhat touched yet extremely flustered to hear it being said out loud. “O-Oh um… thanks, I suppose. I appreciate that, a lot.”

Naeun also experienced some changes to her pulse rate upon hearing how flustered Eunji became, though she somehow managed to sound unbothered.

“You need to know that by opening up to you, I’m trusting you to not hurt me.” she revealed as she stood back onto her feet, brushing her skirt clean with both hands. “I want… the two of us to become an example for them, because this might be a way for Chorong-unnie to recover from the past.”

“You’re not just saying all this because you still feel bad about our first chat, are you?”

“No, and I really did think this through. Having Chorong-unnie conquering her fear would benefit both herself and your friend’s little crush on her, no?”

“Well, that is true…”

It turned out, for poor Eunji, the surprises were endless.

Son Naeun proceeded to baffle her further by extending an arm out, her gaze asking for her hand to be taken.

Despite of her confusion, the tough-looking student ultimately fulfilled just that, resulting themselves to now be shaking hands under the shimmering sunlight.

“Let’s start anew, Eunji-sshi.” Son Naeun hummed with an unfading, mesmerising smile, making Jung Eunji incapable of doing anything other than to stare back in utter astonishment. “My name is Son Naeun…

“… and it’s a pleasure to meet you.”