Chapter 10

Yuri hummed as she sat on her bed jotting down notes. The special training trip had been a huge success in her opinion in terms of how everyone improved their individual skills and their team work. She had found that being around some of the creative geniuses of their group had helped get her own creative juices flowing. While she had started to apply qi arts to her music, she found she was limited by the music that she knew which were all slow, but powerful pieces.

For the last few weeks since they’d come back from the special training, she practiced using her gayageum and tried infusing her music with her qi like she had done when she helped Sakura recover. At first, she was quite happy with the results. However, as she started to tinker with her newly created skill, she realized that if she tried it in a battle, an opponent with a stronger qi level would easily be able to withstand the first few strums of her instrument. She needed a quicker song that could fire multiple attacks in a row and if she didn’t know any music that could do that, she would just create it herself.

“Other schools will go?” Nako asked excitedly from across the room where Yuri sat mulling over musical arrangements. Yuri blinked at Nako’s raised voice that was almost a shriek which caused her to wonder what the two girls were talking about.

“Yeah,” Wonyoung answered. She sat at their dresser watching herself in the mirror while Nako braided her hair. She could see the older girl’s excited face. “Why are you so happy to hear that?”

“I’m just excited to see some of Korea’s most famous martial arts schools,” Nako said breezily as she tried to get herself to calm down.

“Nako’s a big fan of Twice School. They’re pretty famous even in Japan,” Sakura said, joining in on the conversation. She’d been playing go by herself in one corner of their shared room when the conversation suddenly piqued her interest.

“Like you’re not interested in seeing Irene,” Nako said, trying to deflect some of the attention off of her obvious excitement. She felt guilty that she was feeling happy at the prospect of meeting her idols when so many of her former schoolmates where rebuilding their lives back in Japan. She tried to remind herself that she was here to learn enough so that she could go back to Japan and be of some help to them. She wasn’t here to play around. Yet, it was difficult to contain herself when she had been a fan of Twice School since she’d had a chance to see them fight in Japan.

“Oh, that would be a dream come true!” Sakura also felt the same shame as Nako at finding herself happy attending these extracurricular activities instead of focusing on her martial arts. However, unlike Nako, Sakura had the unique ability to momentarily ignore any shame.

“Unnie likes Red Velvet School?” Yuri asked, putting down her brush, as the conversation was getting more interesting than perfecting her new technique. She’d never seen the fangirl side of either of their Japanese members before.

“I love them so much,” Sakura squealed. “Their moves are so cool and beautiful. I watched them fight in Japan once from afar. Back then, even when I was at my full power along with my other school members, I didn’t think I could match the aura that I felt from the five of them. I would die if I could see them fight in front of me up close.”

“It’s too bad then, because it’s not a martial arts tournament. And, they might not even show up,” Wonyoung said, deflating some of the air out of Sakura’s sails. She was a little miffed that her Unnie was gushing over someone other than their own members like she usually did.

“Oh,” Sakura said in a small voice. She knew it just had to be too good to be true. She was definitely not worthy to stand in the presence of a goddess like Irene.

Wonyoung felt a stab in her heart at being the one to turn Sakura’s smiling face into one full of disappointment. She hummed and hawed before finally relenting and deciding to give Sakura some more information. “It is a tournament of a sort. Just not one that focusses on martial arts. Instead, all the schools compete in other areas of interest that are deemed important and make a person a complete person. Things like playing musical instruments, playing go, reciting poetry, doing calligraphy and so on. The Red Velvet school usually takes part in the archery competition, so there’s a good chance they’ll be there.”

“Really?” Sakura asked as her mood did a one-eighty degree turn.

Wonyoung was rewarded with Sakura shining a beautiful smile as her mood shot up again. This time the stab in her heart was a pleasant pain. Unnie is so dangerous!

“You’re in luck too Nako,” Yuri chipped in. “Twice School also usually takes part in the archery competition. You two will get to see them compete against each other.”

“Well, I don’t know if compete is the right word. Twice School is talented at everything, so I’m sure it won’t really be a competition,” Nako said confidently.

“Twice is a great team I’m sure. They’ll enjoy second behind Red Velvet School,” Sakura said as she glanced sideways at Nako.

“Yujin, are you awake?” Minju asked from her bed.

“Yeah,” Yujin answered. She was accustomed to Minju’s late night ramblings ever since they roomed together back during their examinee days. These days, she tended to stay awake for a few moments in case Minju wanted to talk about something.

“We’ve been so busy recently. I was just wondering how you’ve been doing?” Despite the two of them being roommates, Minju had refrained from asking Yujin too many questions after the younger girl had experienced that qi deviation episode.

“I’m okay. I mean it.” Yujin had been a little embarrassed at the fuss that she caused due to her feelings of loneliness. “After spending time with Sakura and Chaeyeon during the training trip I think I realized something about how I was acting.”

“What did you realize?” It always surprised and impressed Minju how mature Yujin could sound sometimes.

“Chaeyeon used to have Sakura as a friend all to herself. After we all made it into the school, Sakura had started to become closer to each and every one of us. I thought she would feel sad because she was no longer the only person Sakura could depend on. But no, Chaeyeon continues to be unwavering in her friendship and be the rock that Sakura can go back to whenever she needs her.” Yujin felt herself blush as she laid her feelings bare all out in front of Minju. She was obviously suggesting to Minju that the two of them resembled Chaeyeon and Sakura.

“Wonyoung is your junior, so I can see how it must hurt to see her growing independently without your help,” Minju mused as she thought about the person Yujin might be talking about and completely missed the mark.

“Right, Wonyoung,” Yujin wanted to smack her older roommate in the head but felt that only her hand would end up hurting due to its density. In the end it didn’t really matter if Minju knew who she was talking about. Yujin had resolved to be like Chaeyeon and be supportive of Minju no matter how much the girl flitted around the other members.

“You know I used to rely on you a lot like Wonyoung. When I first came here I didn’t know anyone, but you were always there for me just like you are now. I think Wonyoung probably feels the same way,” Minju said after thinking about it some more.

“Just wait a little longer, Hitomi,” Chaeyeon said as she added some herbs to the boiling water.

“Thanks, Unnie,” Hitomi said as she clutched at her stomach. The pain wasn’t that bad tonight, but it was bad enough that she couldn’t sleep.

“You should be more careful about your diet,” Chaeyeon admonished the younger girl. “You need to eat regular meals and you need more variety.”

“Sorry,” Hitomi apologized. “I’ll try to do better. How are you able to manage your diet so well? You’re always so slender.”

“It’s a little easier for me, I guess. I don’t like sweets all that much. I learned to cook early on since I’m such a picky eater. Since I cook for myself, I know everything that’s going into my meals.” Even though Sakura was also a good cook, Chaeyeon preferred to be the one that made all of the food for their dorm. The difference between her and Sakura was that Sakura cared more about the taste while Chaeyeon cared more about balance and nutritional value.

“Yeah, your cooking is so good. I never get stomach-aches when I eat at the dorm. Do you think you could teach me how to cook as well as you do? I can make some things, but you know a lot more.” Asking Sakura was a hurdle that was still too great for Hitomi to do, but she felt very comfortable asking her roommate for help.

“Sure. Since you get up early like I do we can practice making breakfast together.” Chaeyeon smiled as she looked at the younger girl. Hitomi was the type of girl who actively worked to fix any deficiencies she found within herself. However, the girl did sometimes take it too far. “Remember, regular meals, so we’ll be practicing lunch and dinner too.”

“Yes, yes,” Hitomi replied sweetly as Chaeyeon went into full mother mode. Even though the girl was barely out of her teens, she acted like a middle-aged woman the most out of all of their members. “I heard from Sakura-chan, that she scolded you during the trip?”

Chaeyeon winced as she looked at the devilish smile forming on Hitomi’s lips. The girl sure knew how to attack one’s weak points. “It was nothing much.”

“Unnie, Sakura’s right, you know. You tend to give in to us too much. You need to showcase your own strong points more,” Hitomi continued in a motherly voice as she watched Chaeyeon squirm as the spotlight was placed on her. “At the next practice session, you should go all out. Don’t hold yourself back anymore.”

Eunbi wasn’t sure how she imagined dorm life with a bunch of ladies to be like. But if she had been asked, she would have said that she expected some soothing melody playing in the background, while some girls painted and some other girls read books on etiquette or something. And everyone would be in bed asleep by sundown. It definitely wouldn’t be like it was at their dorm. She sighed and opened her eyes as it appeared it was going to be another night where sleep was a luxury.

“Yena, you have to be quieter,” Hyewon whispered, but she might as well have been speaking normally since she was bad at whispering.

“I’m trying. You try making a fire without breaking the wood for it,” Yena shot back.

“Unnie’s going to wake up at this point,” Chaewon said, trying again to get the two to stop bickering.

“Your unnie is awake,” Eunbi said as she opened one of the windows to their bedroom. She could see the three girls huddled around a fire in the courtyard. “What are you guys doing up so late?”

“Ah, we got hungry, so we thought we’d have a late-night snack,” Yena answered as she pulled out skewers with fish on them. “Hyewon caught these in the stream while she was training by the waterfall.”

Hyewon tried to elbow Yena to keep her from saying more, but it was too late. She could already see the hurt forming in Eunbi’s eyes. “Uh, I was just there for a short while.”

“You were at the waterfall? You were training on your own again? I thought we said we’d practice together until we got better at the qi sharing technique.” Eunbi had thought that she had made incredible progress during the training trip. And it was almost entirely due to Nako and Hyewon’s strict training of her. To hear that Hyewon had ditched her to train on her own was a big blow to her morale.

“I wasn’t training in the qi arts. I was just doing some basic practice on my forms and stuff. I didn’t tell you because I knew that if I did, you’d want to help and that would distract you from your current focus of improving your qi.” Hyewon had resolved to catch up to the other girls so that she would no longer be a burden to them in any way. If that meant that she had to train twice as hard as everyone else, then that was what she had to do.

“I think I would have listened to you if you just told me honestly,” Eunbi said quietly. She considered her handling of Hyewon to be her greatest failure as a leader. She should have known there was a problem with Hyewon’s special martial arts. She should have known earlier that Hyewon was having trouble keeping up with the rest of the group. She should have done more to make everything all right for the seemingly aloof, yet in reality, the most caring member they had.

“I could have, but you already worry about too many of us. What you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you I guess was what I was thinking,” Hyewon confessed, looking down.

“I think that’s where you’re wrong,” Chaewon said, speaking up. For some reason, she found her eyes wet. She never thought of herself as someone that got overly emotional before, but here she was crying. “You can’t keep secrets forever. Those things you are keeping to yourself will be known eventually and that will just end up making the people that care about you all the sadder.”

“Chaewon, what’s going on?” Yena was perplexed at how a simple late-night snack suddenly turned into an all-out cry fest. She reached to pat the girl on the back in a consoling manner.

Chaewon shrugged off Yena’s touch as she looked up. “You know I was connected to you too when we saved Sakura. It was faint, but I could see it. You smile and laugh all the time, but you are carrying some burden that you want to carry all by yourself.”

Yena flinched as if struck. She looked at the rest of the girls who all looked away from Chaewon’s accusing stare. The girl’s glare was quite legendary.

Chaewon then looked at Hyewon. “Do you really think that keeping things from us will make us happy? I can tell you that Eunbi Unnie is worried sick about you everyday. You never go to her for help, so she just looks at you sadly and then I have to look at her being like that.”

Hyewon shot a guilty glance at Eunbi and could see the woman looking away.

Chaewon finally directed her attention at Eunbi. “Don’t worry about us all the time. We’re stronger than you think. I’ve been your junior for a while, so I know very well how you spend far too much time trying to be the perfect leader.”

Eunbi lifted her head to look at Chaewon who stared right back at her. “I had no idea you felt this way.”

“Well, I do and have felt this way a long time. I guess I can’t tell you what to do if I can’t do it myself. I want all of you to share your burdens with me. We live together for heaven’s sake. If we can’t do that for each other what can we do for each other?” Chaewon breathed a sigh and felt lighter for the first time in a long time. She’d kept shut when she learned about Hyewon’s misuse of a qi art. She remained quiet even after seeing images of Yena when they were joined together. Watching Eunbi struggle had been the last straw.

“Thank you for sharing how you felt with us,” Eunbi said. She then jumped out of the dorm’s window and landed lithely on her feet. She walked over to the fire pit and sat beside Chaewon. “I think we should follow your example. Who wants to start first?

Author’s note:

I realized in nine chapters, I never once wrote a night where the girls spent it in their own rooms. So here it is.

Let me know your thoughts!