Nayeon had every intention of making things right with Momo the next day. She had spent the previous, restless night thinking about the disastrous encounter with Momo, and the tiny voice of reason in her head finally concluded that the whole thing was an accident and Nayeon had been a jerk to push Momo when she tried to help. Nayeon felt better after waking up early to wash Momo's hoodie and making plans to find her during lunch to apologize, but the good vibes faded quickly the moment Nayeon stepped on campus and was suddenly branded as "beer girl". It wasn't the cleverest of taunts, but it was surprisingly effective at riling up flames of embarrassment and frustration that Nayeon's tiny voice of reason had no hope in quelling.

It was with increasingly darkening feelings that Nayeon sat through her morning classes with people snickering all around her, likely sharing videos and pictures of last night's beer disaster, if all the secretive phone sharing and laughter in her general direction was any indication. If only looks could kill, Nayeon would've silenced the disrespectful teasing in an instant. But Nayeon was merely human now, a person who had fallen from campus idol to campus laughing stock in the span of an evening, and she had about as much power to wield as the laundered pink hoodie nestled safely at the bottom of her backpack.

"Oh how the mighty have fallen," Nayeon thought bitterly to herself. But unable to manipulate the actions of her former friends and admirers, Nayeon found her thoughts turning toward something that she could control. And suddenly she was planning a revenge campaign against Momo, the source of her predicament, Nayeon's feet carrying her quickly past groups of jeering classmates and toward the cafeteria where surely she would find Momo and an outlet to relieve the frustration she was feeling.

"Hey," Nayeon snarled at Momo and Sana through gritted teeth after finding the pair seated together in the cafeteria as expected. She slammed her hands down on the table, startling them both with her outburst. Momo's eyes widened impossibly as she looked at Nayeon, as though she hadn't expected Nayeon to ever talk to her again.

"H-hey," Momo replied. She winced apologetically, likely still guilty about last night's events. "I'm sorr--"

Adrenaline was coursing through Nayeon's veins and she felt the overwhelming urge to lift Momo by the shirt collar and throw her to the floor again, apology be damned, but she spied an unopened milk carton on Momo's lunch tray. Her body seemed to act on its own as Nayeon went deaf to Momo's apology and opened up the carton of milk. And then she poured the contents over Momo's head in one swift motion, Momo's loud shriek suddenly bringing the attention of the entire cafeteria upon them.

"What the do you think you're doing?" Sana shouted furiously as the milk rained down on her best friend. She shot to her feet and stormed quickly to the other side of the table to push Nayeon away, but Momo shakily held up a hand to stop Sana's approach and then waited until the milk carton had spilled its last drop.

"I-it's fine," Momo said, attempting to be calm. The cold milk dripped down her face like rain and Momo wiped the liquid from her eyes as Nayeon angrily crushed the carton and threw it at her for good measure. Nayeon took a shuddered breath to match Momo's, searching in heart to see if the explosive action against Momo had brought her the relief she was looking for. (It had not). And where Nayeon expected Momo to be furious by the unexpected milk shower, Momo merely looked up at Nayeon with a small smile on her face. "I definitely deserved that. Are we even now for last night?"

Somewhere in Nayeon's heart, she knew that the right thing to do was to accept what seemed to be Momo's attempt at a truce. But that unpleasant feeling in Nayeon's chest was back, and the feeling only seemed to grow stronger the longer she looked at Momo's kindhearted smile. Unable to bear the sensation any longer, Nayeon swung her arm and knocked Momo's lunch try clear off the table.

Relief was still nowhere in sight, but Nayeon couldn't stop now, not while everyone was watching them. With a cold glare and a heart burdened with guilt as Momo's smile faltered in time with the clatter of the tray against the floor, Nayeon coldly sneered into Momo's warm brown eyes. "We're not even. Not even close."

If Nayeon thought that Momo was a timid person who would take her bullying without complaint, Nayeon was completely wrong. Barely a day later, after Nayeon's conscience had won out again and she was preparing for a second attempt to return Momo's sweatshirt and apologize, Nayeon rounded the corner of a crowded lecture hall to find Momo standing in front of her.

"M-Momo!" Nayeon exclaimed, startled that the person she had been thinking about had suddenly appeared. "I--"

If Nayeon had been able to finish her sentence, a practiced and sincere apology would've come out. But instead, Nayeon was rudely interrupted as Momo stepped forward and slapped the books right out of her hands. Nayeon's papers and textbooks went flying down the hall, scattering spectacularly at the feet of the onlookers who had stopped to watch the latest round of Nayeon vs Momo unfold before them.

The desire to go collect her fallen items was overshadowed by Nayeon's desire to figure out what the hell just happened. It would be a lie for Nayeon to say that she knew Momo's personality, but every one of Momo's actions since their first encounter had indicated that Momo was no bully. Perhaps that explained why Momo looked so absolutely shocked by her own actions, Momo's eyes wide and unblinking as she gazed at how far and wide she had managed to launch Nayeon's belongings in a single motion. But then Momo's expression melted into that of trepid triumph, and Nayeon was once again confused.

And then to top off Nayeon's towering pile of bewilderment at Momo's actions, Momo smiled radiantly and dropped a confident, "we're still not even, Nayeon. Not even close," before walking away and leaving Nayeon alone with an increasingly familiar and unpleasant feeling in her chest.

(At least, Nayeon thought it felt unpleasant at the time).

Nayeon wondered if it was overly dramatic to say that she was questioning the meaning of life whenever she encountered Momo lately. After weeks of fighting with her archnemesis, their exchanges were quickly becoming childish and utterly pointless. Nayeon and Momo still vehemently regarded each other as enemies, but they were more likened to school children fighting on a playground than people hellbent on ruining each other's lives. And if you asked Sana, they were definitely just two idiots who had run out of proper ways to exact revenge on each other, and she told them this frequently whenever she was around to witness the exchange between enemies.

"Guys, this is just sad now," Sana said with a roll of her eyes when Nayeon ran into her and Momo just outside of the campus library. They were standing in front of the fountain with Momo and Nayeon exchanging insults that were about as effective as a knife cutting through water.

The initial vengeance inferno that ravaged Nayeon's heart like wildfire a few weeks ago was now just a whimper of a flame. It wasn't that Nayeon had lost interest in getting revenge on Momo per se, but her search for relief from the teasing of her peers was no longer a burning issue now that the teasing had died down. Nayeon was no longer a campus idol, but she was no longer a laughing stock either and that distinction was good enough to temper Nayeon's frustrations and the severity of her vengeful actions.

But the fighting wasn't as lame as Sana made it out to be. Dormitory doors had been vandalized, backpacks had been thrown out of windows from multi-story buildings, and Nayeon was sure that Momo owned at least one shirt that had been ruined throughout the course of their rivalry. And Momo too had exacted a good deal of revenge of her own. Nayeon would've rated them 10 out of 10 as enemies at the peak of their fighting. (Plus bonus points for their rivalry inadvertently improving Nayeon's Japanese skills). But Nayeon lowkey had to agree with Sana that the fighting was getting a bit sad these days.

"Oh yeah, well at least I don't have a stupid face like yours. I'd probably throw up every time I looked in the mirror," Momo retorted with an angry pout.

Sana sighed and covered her face with her hand, shaking her head with exasperation while Momo and Nayeon glared resolutely at each other. If Nayeon was being honest with herself, which she found herself doing more often as of late, she wouldn't mind it one bit if they stopped treating each other like enemies whenever they ran into each other. But for the sake of her pride, whatever shred of it still remained after weeks of petty fighting, Nayeon couldn't back down now from their feud now.

"OK, enough enough enough," Sana declared, stepping between them and waving her arms to stop them from launching into another exchange of childish insults. Nayeon smirked at the evident frustration all over Sana's face, as though Sana was feeling the strain of Nayeon and Momo's war more than they were. "You guys have been fighting for WEEKS and I'm tired of it. It was interesting at first, but now it's just lame. No more fighting, OK? Let's all just be friends."

Friends? Nayeon did a double take at the unexpected word, wondering if Sana had really just suggested that they all be friends. Clearly Momo and Sana had not discussed this in advance, because Nayeon looked over to find that Momo appeared about as confused as Nayeon felt. But the most surprising part of Sana's announcement was that Nayeon actually felt a little relieved at the idea of becoming friends with Momo and Sana, the alternative being walking away from this odd little association she had built up with them.

Common courtesy dictated that Sana should have given Nayeon and Momo a few moments to process a suggestion of this kind of magnitude, but Sana, being the bold and carefree person that she was, apparently thought that actions were better than thinking. And before Nayeon could even process Sana's friendship suggestion, she was forced to process the sensation of Sana grabbing her by the collar and throwing her backwards into the fountain. Momo, who was apparently grabbed by Sana as well, splashed headfirst into the fountain beside Nayeon, both of them drenched in an instant by the icy waters of a cold, October-tinged bath.

"SANA WHAT THE ," they cried out in simultaneous indignation.

Sana merely smirked at them from dry land. "I'm just christening your new friendship. Now Nayeon, would you be a dear and take your new friend Momo back to your apartment to change? Momo and I live all the way across campus and it would be cruel to make her walk all that way in the cold while wet." She paused for just a moment, letting an increasingly mischievous sparkle enter her eyes. "Well, you know how far away we live, don't you Nayeon? I mean, you dropped by a few weeks ago to vandalize us."

Nayeon ignored Sana's teasing comments as she struggled to exit the fountain, focusing instead on the fact that it probably wasn't a good day for Momo to wear a thin white shirt under an even thinner cardigan. Nayeon groaned in frustration at how meek and helpless Momo looked as the younger girl stood pitifully in the knee-deep water.

"I never said we were friends," Nayeon mumbled to neither Sana or Momo in particular, but she held out her hand anyway to help Momo step over the lip of the fou