[Tuesday]

Hyejoo finally allows herself to untighten her scarf the moment she steps through the library’s doors, just barely escaping a chilly November gust of wind that blows by, its remnants picking up her loose strands of hair before settling as the doors swing close on their hinges behind her.

Cheeks rosy from the cold, Hyejoo pulls off her red woolen hat, gingerly depositing it alongside her scarf into the safety of her backpack. She’s careful not to lose it— that hat had been a Christmas present from her older sister a few years ago, and Hyejoo had treasured it ever since.

She greets the kind librarian, Miss Seohyun, leaving the older woman with a small smile and books to be returned before unceremoniously dumping her bag at a nearby table and walking off into the numerous stacks of books, searching the shelves for a new novel to read.

Hyejoo’s casually meandering down the Young Adult section, aimlessly going through her agenda for the day when a quiet huff of frustration breaks her thought process, successfully catching her attention.

Wandering a few shelves over, Hyejoo blinks in surprise as she spots the distinct sight of a small blonde girl reaching up on her tiptoes, a pout on her lips as she reaches up for a book on the top shelf, not quite able to grasp it.

A few seconds pass, and Hyejoo watches wordlessly from behind a stack of hardcovers as the small girl jumps up for the book in a last-ditch attempt to reach it, only to let out another annoyed huff, punctuated by a conceding sigh. As frustrating of a sight as it is, Hyejoo can’t help but find the girl’s annoyance oddly endearing.

It takes a few seconds of Hyejoo mulling over the pros and cons of what to do before she heaves a deep breath, exhaling in an attempt to banish her nerves, before making herself known.

“Um,” Hyejoo starts, successfully getting the attention of the shorter girl, and the raven-haired freshman flushes, awkwardly twiddling with her thumbs as the blonde girl blinks up at Hyejoo innocently. Hyejoo wonders if this girl knows she looks like a fairy with her height and bright eyes. “W-would you like some help?”

Immediately, the short, fairy-like girl brightens.

“Yes!” She exclaims in delight, clapping her hands in an adorable manner, and Hyejoo swears her heart starts stuttering in her chest. “That would be amazing!”

“Which book were you reaching for?”

“It’s The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius. I need it for my essay on Ancient Rome.”

Hyejoo nods, easily spotting the title and plucking it down from its high shelf, handing it over to the blonde girl and feeling her stomach do all sorts of things at the way the other girl beams at her as she takes the book and clutches it to her chest.

“Thank you so much for this! I’m Park Chaewon,” she introduces herself with a bright smile, reaching out a hand to Hyejoo. “I’m a sophomore. What’s your name?”

“H-Hyejoo,” Hyejoo manages to stutter, returning Chaewon’s handshake and shooting the apparently older girl - Hyejoo would not have guessed that - a small smile of her own. “I’m Son Hyejoo, a freshman.”

“Hyejoo, Hyejoo,” Chaewon hums, as if she were testing how the name rolls off her tongue. “That’s a pretty name! And you’re definitely a nice start to the school day, especially on a Tuesday.”

Hyejoo blinks. “What’s wrong with Tuedays?”

Chaewon puffs out a sigh, cradling the The Twelve Caesars to her chest as though it were something precious.

“Tuesdays make the weekend seem so far away,” Chaewon says, pouting in a precious way that makes Hyejoo's heart do strange things that she can’t quite place. “I don't like them. They make me sad— not that Wednesdays are much better as halfway marks...”

Hyejoo almost wants to give the smaller girl a hug.

“I see…” she murmurs instead, chews on her bottom lip thoughtfully. “I never thought of it like that, but yeah,” Hyejoo frowns, “I see what you mean about the weekend seeming far.”

Chaewon sighs again, slumping her shoulders, flashing a tired smile Hyejoo's way.

“It is what it is, right?”

Hyejoo nods slowly, unsurely

“Right…”

Somehow, she doesn't like Chaewon being sad. Being sad doesn't suit Chaewon at all.

But then just like that, the solemn look on the blonde’s face is gone, replaced by a happier grin, and Hyejoo's not sure of whether it’s real or plastered there for show anymore.

“Well, Hyejoo!” Chaewon chirps. “Thank you for lending me your height! I’d stay and talk longer, but this essay really needs to be written, and I won’t have enough time to work on it in the afternoon, so I really have to go. I’ll see you around?”

Hyejoo nods earnestly.

“Of course,” she says softly. “I’ll see you around.”

And with that, Chaewon beams, scurrying over to the checkout desk, Hyejoo waving her off, the freshman’s hand lingering in the air long after Chaewon had left the library.

--

Hyejoo genuinely doesn’t understand how she never managed to notice Chaewon until now, because after their brief encounter in the library, it’s like Chaewon is everywhere.

In the hallways between classes, coming out of the bathroom right when Hyejoo’s passing by, waving in a friendly manner at Hyejoo as the small blonde girl nearly bumps into her on the way to talk with her friends— it’s like Chaewon, and Hyejoo’s very active thoughts about Chaewon, are following her throughout the whole first half of the day.

She stumbles into the cafeteria after nearly tripping over a stray napkin left on the ground, and Hyunjin somehow manages to see, even from their usual table all the way across the cafeteria, close to the line for buying lunch.

“Don’t slip up, Hyejoo,” Hyunjin teases as Hyejoo plots down into the seat next to her, and the freshman rolls her eyes.

“Says the girl who tripped over nothing when she walked into her English class and saw Heejin sitting there in the front seat,” Hyejoo grumbles, and her best friend gapes. Hyejoo holds her gaze, clicks her tongue. “Such a hopeless girlfriend.”

“How do you even know that?!”

Hyejoo’s smile is smug.

“Heejin told me.”

“That traitor.” Hyunjin’s mouth falls open. Then, she promptly shakes her head, before fixing Hyejoo with a curious expression. “Anyway! You looked kinda distracted there, Hyejoo. You hardly trip on anything. Is something up?”

Hyejoo shrugs. “I mean, not really. I guess I’ve just been a bit off this morning ever since I helped Chaewon-sunbaenim get a book during my usual library time.”

“Chaewon?” Choerry, Hyejoo’s fellow freshman friend interjects just as she sits down at the table, across from Hyejoo. She pops a french fry into as she places her tray down on the table, before picking up another one and pointing it accusingly in Hyejoo’s direction. “Like, Park Chaewon? As in popular sophomore, fairy princess Park Chaewon?”

Hyejoo offers a perfectly arched eyebrow at that last description from her friend. Without a doubt they were talking about the same Chaewon.

“Yeah. I didn’t realize she was that well-known,” Hyejoo admits.

“She’s in the journalism club with Jiwoo-sunbae!” Choerry chirps.

“She’s one of the most popular girls in my grade,” Hyunjin explains. “She’s also good friends with Heejin,” she continues, briefly mentioning her girlfriend. “She transferred here last year, along with Heekki, so they were newbie friends together. I’ve talked to Chaewon enough to say that we’re pretty friendly, and we hung out a bit last year when we worked on assignments together.”

Hyejoo nods slowly. thoughts churning through her brain.

“I see…”

Hm… what to do with that information…

--

“Great job today, Hyejoo!” Coach Seulgi calls as Hyejoo pushes herself out of the pool after swim practice that afternoon, the chlorinated water dripping down from her body as she hauls herself up. Seulgi claps her shoulder, a proud grin on her face that Hyejoo finds herself mirroring. “Your laps are looking as clean as ever! You’ll be practicing your relay starts with Jinsoul, Yves, and Hyunjin tomorrow. Got it?”

“Gotcha,” Hyejoo nods, shooting her coach a thumbs up before Seulgi pats her back and moves to talk to a few of the other girls.

An involuntary shiver runs through Hyejoo body as soon as Seulgi steps away, the air outside of the pool significantly colder than the water. Wrapping her arms around herself, she starts to make her way to the locker rooms, only to have a warm towel tossed her way before she can reach her destination.

“Wha— Hyunjin?”

“We left your towel near the heater with the rest of ours! We don’t want you to get sick with the weather outside getting colder,” Hyunjin offers as explanation for the surprisingly warm towel as Hyejoo wraps herself up. “Incoming!”

“Cap!” Hyejoo yelps as Jinsoul throws her arms around her shoulders, the older girl’s grin broad.

“That’s right, you forgot to take off your swim cap,” Jinsoul jokes, reaching up to peel off the black swim cap still firmly on Hyejoo’s head. Immediately, Hyejoo’s dark hair tumbles down, her low ponytail only slightly wet instead of full-on soaked.

Another set of hands tug on the hair band, and Hyejoo squeaks as Yves runs her hands through raven locks, working her way through the tangles.

“Gotta let your hair down so it’ll dry before you get outta here. It’ll freeze outside if you don’t,” Yves hums. Hyejoo flushes, fighting the urge to bury her face in her hands. She’s been on the team for a few months already, and she’s still not used to the older girls babying her so much.

“Don’t you all ever get tired of watching over me all the time?” Hyejoo voices questioningly once they’ve pulled away.

Jinsoul her head, as though confused by the concept, while Yves chuckles to herself and Hyunjin barks out a laugh.

“I’ve been looking after you since elementary school, Hyejoo,” Hyunjin rolls her eyes, lightly punching her best friend’s shoulder. “And these unnies adopted you as their kid the moment you joined the team. Ask better questions.”

“I feel like we’ve been rejected by our own child,” Yves frowns, arms loosely looping around Hyejoo’s waist. “Jinsoul, we’ve been rejected by our second kid.”

“Thanks Sooyoung, now I’m having a crisis,” Jinsoul replies, tossing an arm over Hyunjin’s shoulders, the sophomore letting out a grunt at the sudden contact. “I think our firstborn tried to imply that she’s no longer a part of this family.”

“Y’know, it’s way too easy for people to get the wrong idea from you two,” Hyunjin states, having given up on fighting the swim captain long ago.

Jinsoul shrugs, winking playfully at Yves, who blows a kiss the blonde swim team captain's way.

“Let people think what they want,” Jinsoul grins wickedly. “We’d be a pretty hot couple anyway.”

“Just get married already,” Hyejoo jokes, only to let out a loud laugh as she’s shoved away by Yves.

“It’s not like we didn’t try,” Yves pouts dramatically, and it draws laughter out of all four of them, an inside joke that only they share.

Hyejoo’s face hurts from smiling so hard, observing the three girls in front of her. She’s always been friends with Hyunjin, they’re best friends, for crying out loud. But how she managed to get involved in a friendship with Jinsoul and Yves of all people, easily the two most popular seniors in school, still has Hyejoo scratching her head in bemusement.

Still, Hyejoo knows that she wouldn’t trade this feeling for the world— the feeling of looking forward to swim practice every day, just to see her friends’ smiling faces, to joke around with them, to feel included; And as Jinsoul challenges Hyunjin to a kickboard and pool-noodle battle after next practice, Hyejoo realizes that this is why her weeks pass by so quickly.

It’s good, Hyejoo thinks, as Hyunjin says something witty to Jinsoul, and Yves threatens to push them both into the water when they both laugh boisterously, to have something to look forward to every day.

--

She rips out a piece of paper from her notebook to use as scrap paper as she settles down into her chair at the dining room table, pulling out her algebra homework from her folder. She then takes a deep breath, raises her pencil, and gets to work.

Fifteen minutes later and Hyejoo’s done exactly twenty percent of the algebra problems— as in, there are only five questions, but she finished the first one and got bored.

Tapping the eraser end of her pencil on the wooden surface of the table in annoyance, Hyejoo lets out a huff, resting her elbow against the table, propping her cheek against the palm of her hand as her thoughts drift elsewhere.

Absently, she sets her pencil down, hands reaching for her scrap paper as she settles back in her seat and crosses her legs, thinking. She’s pretty sure her mind goes up, somewhere beyond the clouds as she lets herself wander somewhere far, far away from her homework. Suddenly, her thoughts are far away from Algebra 2 and are entering the dangerous territory that Hyejoo had marked earlier today as “Park Chaewon.”

Hyejoo groans, mentally staking a big WARNING sign into the ground there. Chaewon is dangerous territory. She’s that final dungeon in that open-world video game that Hyejoo’s utterly terrified of visiting, yet can’t help but be entranced by, can’t help but be curious, drawn there not on her own volition.

She sighs, tipping her head back and closing her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I met her literally today! What the hell is going on…”

Forcing her eyes open, she grumbles under her breath, turning her attention back to the dining room table, where she’d spread all her materials out.

“I gotta finish this…” she mutters, ready to continue working on her homework when she realizes that her scrap paper is nowhere to be seen. “Wha— Oh.”

Hyejoo stares blankly at the origami crane that had taken form in front of her, resting innocently on the table. She hadn’t realized she’d made it— Hyejoo used to fold paper cranes often, mostly out of habit, because Mina had taught her how to make cranes, because Mina had sat Hyejoo down one day, because Mina had wanted to teach Hyejoo paper folding, because Hyejoo had wanted to make them for Mina, for her big sister.

Hyejoo still remembers falling down the stairs that day, sniffling and crying as big sister Mina had consoled the young Hyejoo. Mina’s wide eyes had been frantically scanning the room, not knowing how to get Hyejoo to calm down, only to set her eyes on a pile of origami paper she’d purchased on the way home from school.

“It flaps its wings,” ten-year-old Mina had said softly, pinching the neck and tail of the paper crane, pushing and pulling. She’d giggled as seven-year-old Hyejoo had taken the paper creature with careful hands, sensing its delicacy, tears having stopped a few minutes prior.

“Can I flap the wings too?” Hyejoo had asked quietly.

“Of course!” Mina said. “Do you want to learn how to make one?”

Hyejoo let out a stray hiccup.

“Don’t you have ballet rehearsal?”

Mina had waved her concerns away with an elegant flick of her wrist.

“It’s in thirty minutes. We have time.”

Back then, thirty minutes felt like all the time in the world. Back then, Hyejoo had practiced making cranes with every scrap piece of paper she could find, even at school. She’d leave Mina a crane in her lunchbox every morning. There was all the time in the world.

But then suddenly Mina had moved out of the house, to an apartment in Seoul to keep furthering her ballet career that Hyejoo and Mina’s parents had been so very, very proud of, and Hyejoo had sworn that Mina had taken her origami habits with her.

Apparently not.

Now, Hyejoo looks at the little paper crane, spies the telltale pencil markings on its wings from where she had written her algebra work down before folding it. Gingerly, she picks it up, smiles to herself as she pinches its neck and tail, pushing and pulling, watching the paper crane’s wings go up and down.

A light bulb flickers on in her head.

--

“Hello? Hyejoo?” Hyunjin’s voice rings through the phone’s speakers, and Hyejoo mumbles a hello of her own, shouldering her phone. “Hey, are you good, Baby Wolf? There’s a lot of sound on that end of things.”

“Yeah, I’m just looking for my pack of Sharpies,” Hyejoo quickly explains. She lets out a small groan of annoyance when the packet is nowhere to be seen, shutting the drawer and moving on to the next one.

“If you say so,” Hyunjin sounds jokingly skeptical, and Hyejoo rolls her eyes, although a small smile toys on her lips.

“I’m sane,” Hyejoo says absently. Another drawer, another sigh. She closes it without further thought. “I swear.”

“So why’d you ask me to call?” Hyunjin asks. Hyejoo can hear her take a sip of a drink. “Why couldn’t you just text like a normal person?”

Hyejoo pulls out another drawer. She huffs, pushes it back in.

“I couldn’t risk you having a record of what I’m going to ask you.”

“Excuse me, what?” Hyunjin seems to sputter on her beverage, and Hyejoo snorts. “Hyejoo, sweetie, you know that I love you dearly, but I don’t think any amount of bribery can get me to help you hide the body—”

“Oh, please!” Hyejoo huffs impatiently. “If I really wanted to hide a body, I would definitely go to Yves-unnie instead. And I wouldn't even have to bribe her.”

“Fair point.”

Giving up on the Sharpies for the time being, Hyejoo spends the next fifteen minutes describing her encounters with Chaewon from earlier in the day. She hesitates right before she begins to spill everything though. Then she remembers that this is Hyunjin, her best friend since the age of six, and with those thoughts in mind, she plunges into her plan.

By the end of all, Hyejoo’s throat hurts a little from talking so much, and she doesn’t even need FaceTime to know that Hyunjin’s grinning the widest, face-splitting grin possible from the other end of the phone.

“So you wanna leave a little folded note on her first period desk in the morning? That’s so cute, Hye!”

“It’s an origami crane, not just a folded note,” Hyejoo clarifies. She frowns, shuffling down the hallway and into her room. “I’m thinking of leaving her something for the next week, to give her something to look forward to every day. I’m trying to find my nice permanent markers to write on it, but…” she sticks her tongue out in concentration, pulling out the drawers under her bed. She brightens a moment later. “Oh! I found them!”

“It sounds like you’ve got a crush, Baby Wolf,” Hyunjin singsongs, completely disregarding Hyejoo’s satisfaction at her discovery.

Hyejoo frowns.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure.”

“No, really,” Hyejoo’s frown only grows exponentially with her puzzlement. A crush? She only met Chaewon today in the library, helped her out because Chaewon is short and Hyejoo likes to think of herself as at least a semi-decent human being. How on earth could she have a crush on someone after less than one day? Not possible. “I don’t understand.”

“Whatever you say, Baby Wolf,” Hyunjin chuckles, leaving Hyejoo only more confused. “You’ll understand soon enough, I’m sure.”

“Wha—”

“So if you don’t have a crush on Chaewon like you say,” Hyunjin muses, and Hyejoo lets out a low groan. Her best friend really has no intention of giving this up, does she? “Why can’t you just give her the crane yourself?”

“You know exactly why I can’t do that, unnie,” Hyejoo whines, fiddling with the packet of permanent markers in some attempt to let herself be mildly distracted by something. “I’ll just make a fool of myself! It’s better that she doesn’t know.”

“Whatever you say, Baby Wolf,” Hyunjin repeats again, a lilt to her voice this time. There’s a poignant pause of silence over the line when Hyejoo scrunches her nose, debates straight-up ending the call right then and there, but then suddenly Hyunjin’s sighing dramatically. Hyejoo can imagine her crossed arms and overly-dramatic eye roll.

“Well!” Her best friend says coyly, and Hyejoo’s already regretting this. She should’ve just stuck it out and figured out where Chaewon’s desk in history class was on her own accord, but it looks like Hyunjin’s all too willing to help now, so there’s no backing out. “It looks like I have no choice but to offer my assistance, right, Baby Wolf? I’ll even do this for free this time. You don’t even have to compensate in bread, just remember to mention me at your future wedding.”

“Remind me how we’re friends,” Hyejoo demands.

--

[Wednesday]

Hyejoo walks through the school’s front doors exceptionally early the next morning, Hyunjin in tow. The older girl had been sitting outside on Hyejoo’s porch steps, propped up on an elbow, casually scrolling through her social media feed.

The younger girl has to blink and rub her eyes just to make sure she isn’t dreaming, because this is the exact way Hyunjin used to wait for her before their walks to middle school.

Except this isn’t middle school, this is high school. Hyejoo’s a freshman now, and Hyunjin’s a sophomore. They’d been separated into different schools for a year, because of Hyejoo being in the grade lower, and neither of them could’ve predicted all the change that only one year could bring.

“It’s been awhile since we walked together,” Hyunjin comments, pushing off the steps, falling in step with Hyejoo as they make their way down the front path.

“We walked together in the beginning of the school year,” Hyejoo shrugs, not wanting to make a big deal out of it, regardless of how much she thought it was.

“That was the first day of school, Baby Wolf,” Hyunjin deadpans, and Hyejoo just lets another attempt at a nonchalant shrug roll off her shoulders. “It’s November now! It’s been months! In middle school, we walked to school together every day!”

“In middle school, Heejin wasn’t here yet,” Hyejoo reminds her best friend gently, tries to keep anything suspicious out of her tone.

Hyunjin chews on her bottom lip.

“I suppose there was no girlfriend back in middle school,” she admits, and Hyejoo smiles warily.

It’s not that Hyejoo doesn’t like Heejin— on the contrary, Hyejoo rather loves Heejin, because Heejin is smart, and funny, and kind, and she loves dancing, and loves saying hi to Hyejoo in the hallways, and even more than that, loves Hyunjin very, very much. With all that being said, it’s safe to say that Hyejoo’s pretty glad that Heejin transferred to Hyunijn’s grade from a neighboring town at the beginning of the last school year.

So no, Hyejoo doesn't hold anything against Heejin in the slightest, she really doesn't.

It’s just that when you’ve had a crush on your best friend since the beginning of middle school – your best friend who just so happens to be your neighbor from as long as you can remember – it’s a bit difficult to just move on from something like that.

Hyejoo thinks she’s dealt with it pretty well, having accepted Heejin’s new presence in their lives way back when Hyunjin first showed signs of liking Heejin. She’d been jealous at first, of course she had, but Hyejoo had never let her feelings for her best friend be known anyway, and she could tell that Heejin was good for Hyunjin. So Hyejoo had smiled in resignation, opting to be Hyunjin’s “number one wingwoman” instead.

She’s come to terms with the fact that she’ll never be more than Hyunjin’s best friend anyway.

It’s fine, it really is. Hyejoo’s moved on, and while she misses Hyunjin sometimes, she knows that the older girl tries her best, going out of her way to keep Hyejoo firmly in her life. Hyejoo can’t help but find it endearing, recalling how Hyunjin had jumped at the opportunity to bring Hyejoo to the swim team because it meant that they’d be doing activities together more often.

In the end though, Heejin is Hyunjin’s number one fan, cheering at every swim meet she can attend, giving Hyunjin kisses for good luck before every race, and it’s all very wholesome and sappy and Hyejoo thinks they’re happy so she leaves them be and tries her very best to be happy for them too, because they deserve it, they really do.

“Speaking of the girlfriend,” Hyejoo mentions, looking curiously at Hyunjin. “Aren’t you supposed to be walking her to school today?”

Hyunjin shakes her head, a small sheepish smile forming on her lips, and Hyejoo raises an eyebrow.

“I told Heekki that I would be walking with you early,” Hyunjin says. She stares straight ahead, looking down the same neighborhood rows they’d walked together for so many years. “Then Heejin told me that I need to walk with my best friend more often. She’s right, y’know? I miss our early morning talks, as annoying as you can be,” Hyunjin jokes.

There’s something funny that wriggles in Hyejoo’s gut at Hyunjin’s words, but Hyejoo smothers down the smile nonetheless.

“You really don’t need to,” Hyejoo says honestly, because it’s true, Hyunjin really doesn’t have to. Hyejoo’s been fine walking to school by herself, having found her place in the library, and she knows that Hyunjin doesn’t usually like waking up as early as Hyejoo. Still, the slightly older girl looks like she’s about to protest, so Hyejoo sighs dramatically, crosses her arms, “But, I suppose since you’re so whipped for your girlfriend, I have no choice but to comply.”

Hyunjin tips her head back and laughs, shoving Hyejoo playfully.

“Shut up! Anyway, let’s just get to school already so you can leave that note for your crush.”

“Chaewon-sunbaenim is not my crush!”

--

Hyejoo still ends up sitting alone in the library though.

Apparently, Heejin had also needed to get to school early, and she’d met Hyunjin and Hyejoo by the school’s main entrance, beaming at the both of them in a manner that had been way too energetic for so early in the morning. Still, her smile had been infectious, and Hyejoo had easily smiled back.

Heejin’s presence allegedly had something to do with dance practice and their team leader, Kim Jungeun, being “hellbent on getting us to nationals this year” — Heejin’s words precisely.

So Heejin had headed off to dance practice soon after, with Hyunjin promising to watch their practice as soon as she and Hyejoo had settled their “business.”

(Hyejoo had rolled her eyes at the word choice. “Why are you so sketchy, unnie?”)

It had only taken them two minutes to reach Hyunjin’s first period history class though, and even less for Hyunjin to easily point out which of the rows of empty desks was Chaewon’s.

“You’re one hundred percent sure?” Hyejoo had asked tentatively, the hand holding the paper crane hovering anxiously over the desk.

“I swear it, Baby Wolf,” Hyunjin had replied solemnly, drawing an X over her heart. Then she’d paused, ping her bag and rifling through her stuff, pulling out a fresh pad of sticky notes and handing it over to Hyejoo. “Here, write ‘for Chaewon’ on one of these and leave it next to the crane. That way, even if I’m somehow wrong, no one can deny it’s for Chae. Also keep these, you never know when you'll need them again.”

Not even five minutes later, Hyejoo and Hyunjin had parted ways in front of the library— Hyejoo having left the paper crane on Chaewon’s desk and scrambled out of the classroom, her best friend hot on her heels, and Hyunjin having waved goodbye to Hyejoo as she’d gone to find Heejin’s dance practice.

And so now Hyejoo sits slouched at her usual table, a new novel in her hands. This time it’s Lois Lowry’s The Giver, and while Hyejoo easily acknowledges that the book is incredibly well written, she slowly comes to the realization that her heart just isn’t into the book.

She sighs, setting the novel down onto the table surface, looking around the quiet room.

There’s a wave of loneliness that suddenly washes over her, and not just from the barren library.

Hyunjin’s still her best friend, no doubt there, but she already has Heejin. Mina, her big sister, is still off in Seoul, fulfilling her dreams of dancing ballet professionally. Both of her parents are supportive and yet somehow not present; Hyejoo loves them dearly, but they’re hardly home because of their work.

It’s all just a bit… sad, Hyejoo supposes.

Not overbearingly sad, she thinks, hopes. Just a sort of… bittersweet type of sad.

Hyejoo wonders if everyone feels like this.

She sure hopes not.

Suddenly, the doors to the library are being pushed open, and Hyejoo’s eyes widen as she spots Park Chaewon entering the library, a small mint green paper crane in her hands.

Hyejoo immediately straightens in her seat.

“Hyejoo!” Chaewon calls in greeting, beaming, and Hyejoo feels her heart swell. The blonde holds up the paper crane proudly. Hyejoo thinks she might burst from happiness. “Hyejoo-ah, look, look! I found this on my desk this morning, when I went to my history classroom to leave my stuff! Isn’t it pretty? I don’t know who made it, but look at this message: I hope this makes your Wednesday a bit brighter! That's so adorable!”

“That’s great, sunbaenim!” Hyejoo enthuses, feeling a smile start to color her features, stretching itself higher and higher. “I’m glad you’re looking happier this morning!”

“Today is going to be a good day,” Chaewon simply declares, grinning even as she pulls plops herself down on the other side of the table from Hyejoo and pulls out a textbook to examine. “Like, I really do think so.”

“I do too,” Hyejoo agrees easily, smiling. “A really, really good day.”

--

They continue their reading in silence, right after Hyejoo calls Chaewon sunbaenim again and Chaewon softly says, unnie is better, Hyejoo. The freshman merely wonders if she can sink into her seat, maybe melt into a puddle of happiness.

“What do you think of Thursdays?” Hyejoo finds herself asking out of the blue, fifteen minutes into their comfortable silence of reading when she sets down The Giver. She dog-ears the page she’d left off on about halfway through the book.

Chaewon immediately looks up from her textbook, twirling her pencil thoughtfully, occasionally tapping it against her college-ruled notebook as she thinks through Hyejoo’s question.

“They’re not the worst?” She eventually offers as a careful explanation. “Not as bad as Tuesday or Wednesdays, because at least Thursdays remind you that the next day is Friday. On the other hand though, it’s not Friday yet and you still have to deal with another day of school.”

“That’s a logical way to look at it,” Hyejoo comments. She understands where Chaewon’s coming from, she really does. She rips out a page from her notebook, jotting down a few notes from her The Giver reading, and maybe a bit something more as well. Across from her, Chaewon nods absentmindedly, having foregone studying and started moving her pencil outside of the lines.

The sound of the doors opening catches both of their attention, and Hyejoo sits up straighter when she hears a gaggle of girls enter the library area, loudly asking Miss Seohyun where they can find certain historical resource books for a paper they’re probably cramming for.

Chaewon spots the girls, momentarily flinching in surprise at their sudden racket, but simply she pouts and returns to doodling after the initial shock.

And from where she sits, Hyejoo notices the flock of butterflies that take flight in Chaewon’s margins.

--

[Thursday]

She leaves a light blue origami butterfly on Chaewon’s desk the next morning, placing it neatly on the corner of the surface and making sure to leave the little For Chaewon! sticky note right next to it too.

Hyejoo’s about to leave the classroom when she finds herself hesitating. Biting her lip, she quickly shrugs off her backpack, digging for her pencil case and pulling out her fine-point Sharpie. With careful handwriting, she pens the message, It’s Thursday! You’re almost there! Almost time to fly free to the weekend! before dumping her materials back in her bag and ducking out of the room before a teacher could arrive.

She passes by Chaewon, walking into the school with Hyunjin and Heejin, not even a minute later, and as Hyejoo greets them shyly, she lets out a mental sigh of relief. There’s no telling what would’ve happened if Chaewon had gotten to class even a minute earlier.

Hyunjin turns around to wink at Hyejoo as she walks by though, and Hyejoo feels her face heat up as she scurries away to her own class.

She gets a series of texts from Hyunjin right as first period is ending—

Hyunjin: chae wouldn’t stop smiling for the rest of class

Hyunjin: i didn’t see if you left anything for her today, but i’m just gonna assume you did

Hyunjin: wait never mind chae just carefully placed a paper butterfly into her folder

Hyunjin: ur doing good kid, i’m so proud *sob emoji*

Hyejoo: pls stop ur scaring me

“Why are you smiling like that?” Choerry asks in suspicion as she stops by Hyejoo’s desk, waiting for her friend to gather her stuff.

Hyejoo simply grins, shakes her head as she pockets her phone and shoves her notebooks away. Shouldering her backpack, she shrugs, lets the grin stay on her face as she and Choerry make their way out the door.

“Oh, no reason.”

--

[Friday]

The next afternoon, Hyejoo steps behind the diving block, wrings out her arms, twists her neck from side, bouncing on the balls of her feet, trying to wriggle all the nerves out.

“Leave ‘em in the dust, Hye!” Hyunjin yells, cupping her hands around from maximum volume. With her at the other end of the pool, Jinsoul and Yves whoop in support, their fists pumping in the air as the rest of the team cheers from the sidelines.

“You’ve got this, Hyejoo!”

Hyejoo laughs as Seulgi’s voice raises above the rest, the young coach being as vocal as possible.

She waves at her her teammates in understanding before closing her eyes. Over at the judges table, the meet referee continues to speak with the group of officials, and Hyejoo takes deep breaths, trying to calm her beating heart with the few spare moments she has left. She’s been on the swim team for a few months now, but the sheer rush of nervous adrenaline she feels from a race never fails to show its face.

Behind her, she hears the voices of two other girls from the opposing team, standing behind her in recovery from participating in the last heat.

“So this is the Son Hyejoo that coach mentioned? What did he say about her again?”

“She’s the freshman who came in this year and immediately was put as the stroke rep for BBC High’s fastest medley relay team.”

“Whoa, that’s kinda scary. Like, she’s a freshman and already racing with Jung Jinsoul, Ha Sooyoung, and Kim Hyunjin? Jinsoul and Sooyoung are record holders for freestyle and butterfly .”

“Yeah, the big guns. Kim Hyunjin’s only a sophomore too, but she only was added to the relay after her older sister, Kim Seolhyun, graduated last year. Hyejoo’s just a really good freshman.”

“She must’ve come out of nowhere too, right? I don’t remember a Son Hyejoo from any youth swim clubs.”

“She like, literally appeared from thin air. Apparently this is the first time she’s ever been on a team, but she’s already made such a name for herself. Look, she’s in the middle lane of the fastest heat! She’s the fastest out of all of us here! That’s terrifying force right there, dude.”

Hyejoo allows herself to chuckle at their comments. It’s true, she hadn’t had any intentions of ever joining the swim team— hell, when she was younger, she’d absolutely hated water. It was only thanks to Hyunjin dragging her to one of the team’s open summer practices that Hyejoo had begun reconsidering, finding herself surprisingly enjoying the water. She’d continued to attend for the rest of the session, and by the end of experience, Seulgi had approached her, the coach having been very impressed with her natural skill.

“You’ve got so much promise,” Seulgi had said, nothing but sheer honesty in her voice. “It would be a shame not to take advantage of it, don’t you think?”

Hyejoo had been an official member of the swim team from that day on. Jinsoul, Yves, and the other older girls had become her older sisters, and Hyunjin was absolutely thrilled to have her on board. Meanwhile, Hyejoo had gained herself a supportive family in the process— a win on all fronts.

All things considered, Hyejoo’s been having a pretty good winning streak this week.

She thinks back to earlier that day, when Chaewon had spotted Hyejoo at lunch, saying hi to Hyejoo with a bright grin on her face. Hyejoo had been able to spot the origami envelope Chaewon had slotted into the front of her homework folder, the words, To carry all your hopes for the weekend! written neatly on the front. After a short exchange, Chaewon had bid her goodbye to go sit with her friends from the journalism club, but the smile on Hyejoo’s face from their brief interaction remained until the end of lunchtime.

A whistle blows, piercing through the memory, but Hyejoo finds herself grinning, even as she opens her eyes and climbs atop the diving block.

She’s more than ready.

“Swimmers, take your marks!”

Her left foot touches the tip of the diving block, and she bends down, her fingertips just brushing the block’s edge.

Complete silence, and Hyejoo can hear nothing but her own steady breathing.

She’s ready.

Three… two… one…

The starting whistle blares through the air, and Hyejoo dives in without another thought.

--

It’s all over as soon as it begins, and suddenly Hyejoo’s outstretched hands are grabbing at the finish line, flopping against the pool wall, utterly exhausted. Everyone’s screaming and it’s loud and then she’s being hoisted out of the pool and the first thing she sees—

—is her team captain’s wide, wide grin.

“One minute and fifteen seconds! Hyejoo, your race time was one minute and fifteen seconds!” Jinsoul screams, simultaneously wrapping Hyejoo up in a towel as well as a tight hug. “Baby Wolf, that’s only a second off from nationals! You’re so close!”

It takes Hyejoo a whole five seconds to realize what Jinsoul was talking about, because everyone is still shouting incoherently, and the world is so, so muffled to Hyejoo’s still water-clogged ears, so she tugs off her swim cap and hastily taps the water out of them before asking Jinsoul to repeat herself.

“Hyejoo,” Jinsoul says seriously, towing the freshman out of the diving block area so that the next event can start, and Hyejoo finds herself in front of the audience stands, full of cheering onlookers. Jinsoul places her hands on Hyejoo’s shoulders, looking her dead in the eye. “One minute, and fifteen seconds.”

Hyejoo properly hears her time and goes starry-eyed, mouth parting.

“That’s only one second off…” She whispers in disbelief, her pre-race grin reappearing on her features with an excitement that Jinsoul mirrors with her own expression. “I can almost qualify for the national competition!”

“And you just won first place in your race,” Hyunjin adds, popping out from behind Jinsoul with a goofy smile and a breathless Heejin, who must’ve just rushed over from dance practice, by her side. “Don’t forget your ribbon, you dope!”

Hyunjin slaps the first place ribbon onto Hyejoo’s back, the sliver of fabric sticking to Hyejoo’s wet swimsuit.

Hyejoo rolls her eyes playfully, peels off the ribbon and beams at her time written on the back: 1:15.

“I got here right in time for your big moment, Hyejoo! You did so well!” Heejin gushes reaching out for a high-five, which Hyejoo happily reciprocates.

“You were so fast!” Another voice chimes in, sounding rather awestruck.

Hyejoo nearly jumps three feet in the air, whirling around in shock.

“Chaewon-unnie?!”

Chaewon beams at Hyejoo from where she sits on the bleachers, her eyes crinkling into crescent moons as she waves at Hyejoo enthusiastically.

“That was amazing, Hyejoo!” Chaewon exclaims with sparkling eyes, kicking her feet adorably, clapping her hands like a kid in a candy store. Hyejoo’s heart starts doing funny things, like threatening to thump its way out of her chest. “I’m super glad I decided to cover this swim meet with Jiwoo-unnie today! I got to see you in action, Hyejoo!”

Hyejoo flushes, turning away momentarily, only to catch the mischievous eyes of her teammates and Heejin, and she lets out a small squeak before turning back to Chaewon, muttering out a small, “I’m glad you’re here too, unnie,” before allowing a laughing Hyunjin to drag her back to the locker rooms for a pre-relay meeting.

--

Hyejoo maybe wants to die when Jinsoul makes the four of them put their hands in the middle.

“Let’s do this for Hyejoo!” Yves shouts, leading their cheer, and Hyejoo resists the urge to fade into the ground the moment the other girls yell at the top of their lungs.

“For Hyejoo!!!”

“So she can show off in front of her crush!”

“She’s not my—”

“So she can show off in front of her crush!”

“Please, just let me drown—”

“BBC on three! One, two, three!”

“B-B-C!!!”

“If we don’t win this relay, I’m pushing all of you into the pool afterward,” Hyejoo deadpans, and she gets three Cheshire cat grins in response. She looks up to the ceiling and groans to hide a fond smile of her own.

(They win first place, of course they do. Chaewon congratulates Hyejoo afterward with a wide grin and an I’d hug you right now but you’re sopping wet so I won’t do that, but I wanted you to know that I would! from the younger girl, and Hyejoo feels that sunshine-y feeling spread throughout the rest of her body, tingling from her toes to the top of her head.)

(After Chaewon leaves to find Jiwoo, Hyejoo pointedly ignores the wicked grins on her teammates’ faces.)

--

[Monday]

Chaewon enters the library on Monday morning, plopping herself down across from Hyejoo before pulling out the usual textbook.

She flashes Hyejoo a warm smile right before she dives into her reading, and Hyejoo easily returns it with a happy smile of her own.

Then Chaewon pauses, the look on her face thoughtful before the blonde girl turns and digs into her bag, emerging back to society a moment later with a little, dark blue origami fish. She places it next to her notebook, giving Hyejoo the perfect view of the small paper creation.

It had taken Hyejoo a long time the previous night to find the working white Sharpie to write her message on the origami creature— Let’s dive into the week ahead! You’ve got this!

They spend of the rest of their library time mostly in silence, Hyejoo engulfed in her novel and Chaewon’s pencil scritch-scratching as she takes notes.

Still, Hyejoo still catches the way Chaewon occasionally glances over at the paper fish, smiling gently at it every once in a while.

The raven-haired freshmen detects a familiar warm feeling in her stomach, and Hyejoo’s noticed that it’s only truly around when she’s near Chaewon.

She supposes that she should probably listen to the part of her that’s worried that she’s becoming addicted to Chaewon’s presence. The other half of her simply doesn’t care, continues dancing on a warm gust of happiness.

Hyejoo just knows that when it comes down to it, she’ll be siding with the latter.

--

The warm feeling feels significantly colder when Hyejoo gets back to her house after swim practice.

She stares blankly at the calendar, the red permanent marker in her right hand still remaining uncapped. She’d crossed off today’s date, a Monday, only to stare indifferently at the circled Tuesday with passive ambivalence.

It’s her birthday tomorrow. She’s turning fifteen.

It’s supposed to be a big year, she supposes. She started high school, she’s that much closer to college, that much closer to becoming an adult.

Hyejoo stares at that red circled date and wonders why it means nothing to her.

The staring contest with the calendar goes on for another thirty seconds before she turns on her heel, leaving the kitchen, spinning the permanent marker on her fingers and reuniting it with its cap.

She unshoulders her backpack, dumps it unceremoniously to the ground next to her usual seat at the dining table. She fishes out her homework folder and braces herself for the incoming algebra problems.

--

[Tuesday]

She leaves a pastel yellow paper flower on the corner of Chaewon’s desk the next morning. There’s no real message this time, just little doodles of :D emojis on all of the petals, but something tells Hyejoo that Chaewon won’t mind that much.

Fifteen minutes after she’s just cracked open The Great Gatsby, Chaewon rushes into the library, looking noticeably frazzled, yet somehow still looking every bit like a fairy princess despite the windswept hair and flushed cheeks, still red from the cold.

Hyejoo can’t help but take in Chaewon’s flustered appearance with a hint of concern, a furrow in her brow.

“Chaewon-unnie? Are you—”

She’s cut off by Chaewon suddenly producing a small bag from behind her back, a pair of wide, doe eyes blinking up at her with something Hyejoo can only describe as uncharacteristic nervousness, as Chaewon gently nudges the bag across the table.

“For you,” Chaewon mumbles shyly, and Hyejoo can only stare, absolutely gobsmacked, for a good five seconds out of sheer shock.

“M-me?” Hyejoo stutters.

Chaewon ducks her head, nods bashfully as a curtain of hair falls forward, obstructs her eyes.

“For you,” Chaewon repeats, firmer this time. She motions towards the gift with a finger, the silent gesture clearly telling Hyejoo to open it.

It’s with shaky hands that Hyejoo carefully pulls out the tissue paper, shifting through the small bag, her hand coming into contact with something cool to the tips of her fingers. She scoops at it, pulling it up, out of the bag. A small gasp leaves Hyejoo’s lips as she stares at the keychain like it’s a precious treasure.

It really is, though.

Hyejoo’s eyes rake over the little keychain, her heart about to leap out of its chest and dance around her as she finds herself from stammering in awe at the design of a little cartoon wolf, nosing its way through a book.

“Unnie, this—” Hyejoo can’t stop the wide grin from spreading.

“Happy birthday,” Chaewon says softly.

Hyejoo whips her head around to look at the older girl with wide, wide eyes.

“How did you know?” Hyejoo asks quietly.

“I was with Hyunjin over the weekend, working on our English project,” Chaewon explains, shyly shifting from foot to foot, her hands coming to play with the her fuzzy sweater sleeves— the sweater that Hyejoo thinks looks utterly adorable on her, sweater paws and everything. “She let it slip that it was your birthday today, and that… that you usually don’t really do anything special so I…” she motions vaguely to the wolf keychain, glimmering in the early morning sunlight. “I decided to go look for a little something to get you. Do you like it?”

“I love it, unnie!” Hyejoo exclaims, and immediately, Chaewon’s nerves appear to dissipate into thin air. Suddenly, the excitable, bubbly Chaewon as usual makes her appearance, beaming up at Hyejoo and clapping her hands together happily.

“I’m so glad!” Chaewon lets out a sigh of relief, smiling like she’s just won the lottery, when Hyejoo’s the one who’s sure that she just won something.

“Thank you, Chaewon-unnie,” Hyejoo says honestly, genuinely.

Chaewon shakes her head, her smile growing fonder.

“Just keep it on your bag for at least today, Hyejoo,” Chaewon teases.

Hyejoo rolls her eyes good-naturally, poking Chaewon with a gentle finger.

“As if it’s ever coming off,” Hyejoo says, her tone light and playful despite not joking in the slightest.

--

The locker room is empty when Hyejoo steps into it after school that day, and she frowns in confusion as she places her backpack into her usual locker and drops her swim bag onto a nearby bench. Where was everyone?

She’s about to pull out her swim cap when Yves pokes her head in, peeking into the locker room and lighting up when she sees the freshman inside.

“Hyejoo!” She strides up to the younger girl, grabbing her hand as Hyejoo looks at her in confusion. “No need to change today, let’s go!”

“Wha— why?” Hyejoo drops the towel she’d just taken out.

“You’ll see!”

Hyejoo allows herself to be tugged out of the locker room, out into the open pool area, and her eyes widen as Yves leads her over to the bleachers, where the other swimmers and Coach Seulgi were seated.

And then suddenly, Hyunjin and Jinsoul are standing in front of her. Her arms completely full, Jinsoul holds a cake with a wide grin on her face, while Hyunjin beams as holds out a birthday card, decorated cutely with balloons and a cartoon birthday cake.

With wide eyes, Hyejoo takes the card, nearly chokes on a laugh as she sees the way someone had taken a permanent marker and drew little wolf ears on every single balloon on the cardstock, and feels tears well up in her eyes as she opens the card and immediately sees all the crammed writing that decorates the insides.

“We had to add another page,” Seulgi says with a low chuckle as she walks up to the freshman and places a warm hand on Hyejoo’s shoulder, and Hyejoo notices how her members had legitimately taped an extra piece of paper into the card. Even then, the addition had been filled to the brim with cramped paragraphs. “We had too many things we wanted you to know.”

To our boss baby Hyejoo,

You entered our team this year and made a biiiiiiiiiig splash! Your hard work is awe-inspiring, and I’m so incredibly proud to be your captain! You were the piece that our 4-person relay team had been missing <3

~ Your captain, Jindori-Jinsoul ^^

“Jinsoul wrote her name too big,” Joy, another senior on the team who Hyejoo had come to love for her quick wit, complains loudly. The rest of the team bursts into laughter as Jinsoul is quick to fire back a defensive, hey, I’m her captain!

The messages continue like that, some just as long, some more simple—

Hyejoo-ah!

I’ll treat you out to ice cream over the weekend! Let’s continue working hard together!

~ your favorite unnie, Yves

Hyejoo chuckles as she arches an eyebrow in Yves direction, who shrugs in a why not? gesture and smiles.

Your dedication to the team coupled with your skill is amazing, Hyejoo! You’re such a good kid, don’t forget to let loose a little! If you ever want video game buddies, the rest of the team and I are more than willing to stand in :D

~ Coach Seul

And—

I wanted to make your first birthday as a high schooler memorable. Did I succeed? You’ve always been there for me, Baby Wolf, and I really don’t deserve a best friend like you. I can’t even explain how happy I am to be in the same school as you again! Here’s to over a decade of friendship <3

Love you always,

Your best friend, Aeongie

“Hyunjin,” Hyejoo whispers, feeling a tear slip down her face. Immediately, she closes the card, tucks it under her arm, and buries her face into her hands to hide her crying.

A pair of arms wrap around Hyejoo’s shoulders, and it’s Hyunjin who pulls her into a tight hug.

“Hyunjin,” Hyejoo hiccups. “You—”

“I didn’t want you to be alone,” Hyunjin says, her voice thick. “You’ve spent your birthday alone every year, and that’s not fair! You’re supposed to spend your birthdays with the people who love you, and I know your parents are good people with good intentions but they’re always so busy so… So I told Jinsoul-unnie and Yves-unnie that you’re always by yourself and they jumped at the chance to throw you a party, and everyone was immediately on board and— Hyejoo, you’ve got a family with us! I just—” her voice drops, and Hyunjin chuckles through a sob. “I just wanted my best friend to be happy on her birthday.”

“You’re the best, Hyunjin,” Hyejoo laughs, pulling back and wiping at her tears with the palm of her hand.

“I know I am,” Hyunjin says cheekily with a grin that Hyejoo returns. “Now, let's eat some cake!”

--

Her chest feels lighter when she returns home, later that afternoon.

As she unshoulders her backpack, and catches sight of the little wolf keychain, glinting proudly in the afternoon light streaming in from her bedroom window, and she smiles to herself. Today has been a good day.

Immediately, her phone starts ringing from where she’d set it down on her bedside table.

Hyejoo picks it up, flopping backwards onto her bed as she answers it absentmindedly.

“Hello?”

“Hyejoo-yah, happy birthday,” a warm voice chimes.

Hyejoo freezes.

“...Mina-unnie?”

“Mmhm,” her older sister hums, and Hyejoo bolts upright, eyes wide. “Can we FaceTime?”

“Y-yes, of course.”

Mina smiles at her gently. Hyejoo feels her chest tighten.

“I didn’t want to miss your birthday,” her older sister says. There’s something in Hyejoo’s chest that squeezes and twists itself at the sheer honesty she can hear laced into Mina’s words. No, no, that’s unfair, she doesn’t get to do that. After all this time, she doesn’t— “You’ve grown up so well… You’ve gotten really beautiful, Hyejoo.”

Hyejoo wants to cry. These tactics are straight-up cruel.

“You look as pretty as always, unnie,” Hyejoo merely mumbles in return, and she sees Mina’s eyes soften as the older girl says a quiet thank you.

They don’t talk for much longer; Mina asks Hyejoo how the school year was going, how high school had been so far. Hyejoo had says that she’s been good, that the workload hasn’t picked up too much yet, that she’s doing well and keeping healthy and getting plenty of sleep, says that she hopes Mina is taking good care of herself as well.

“I’ve taken care of myself well,” Mina says reassuringly. “Nayeon is here too, and she makes sure I don’t forget anything.”

Hyejoo nods wordlessly, her mind fleetingly wandering off to thoughts about Mina’s girlfriend, Nayeon, the bubbly older girl who keeps Mina on her toes. Mina and Nayeon had met back when Mina was still in town, and they’d left for Seoul together as well, Nayeon promising their parents to look after Mina. Hyejoo’s glad to see that they’re still going strong, and she has half the mind to ask Mina about Nayeon’s whereabouts when—

“How are mom and dad doing?” Mina asks.

Hyejoo swallows, heaving a deep breath.

“I don’t see them very often,” Hyejoo admits, and the frown that taints Mina’s lips is so small and brief that Hyejoo’s sure she wasn’t supposed to see it. She says nothing about Mina’s expression. “They’re always out on business trips, both in other cities and out of the country. I’m usually alone in the house— whenever they do come home, it hardly overlaps with when I’m there. Sometimes I’ll catch mom or dad as they’re leaving, since they leave when I get home from school, and we’ll exchange greetings and they’ll apologize for having to leave again and they’ll tell me they love me – a-and I never doubted that! I know they have good intentions, I really do – but then I’m just alone again, really. But… but I think they’re doing well.”

“Hyejoo…” Mina sounds sad, and Hyejoo clenches her eyes shut, wishing she wouldn’t hear the forlorn undertones there. “Hyejoo, I—”

Hyejoo’s about to tell Mina not to worry when someone in the background calls Mina’s name, asking her to return to rehearsal. Hyejoo heaves out a sigh of relief, glad that she didn’t have to have that conversation this time. She doesn’t need to cause more worry for Mina, not when her older sister is already so busy.

When Hyejoo opens her eyes, Mina’s still frowning.

“I’m sorry,” Mina says, but she doesn’t say for what. Hyejoo gets the feeling that those two words hold a lot more meaning than Mina is able to tell her right now. It’s alright, it really is.

(Except it’s not, it’s downright unfair.)

“I’ll call again soon, I’ll talk to you more.”

(Unfair, unfair, unfair.)

“Okay,” Hyejoo says softly.

They say their goodbyes and hang up on each end, but then Hyejoo’s left staring at her empty room, her phone laying forgotten on her bed, just another reminder of her empty house, empty family, empty life.

A heartbeat later and she’s crying into her pillow, muffling her sobs and she doesn’t know why, it’s not like there’s anyone else in this house, this place, her home.

Why had her sister called her today?

It’s not like she’s ever called Hyejoo on her birthday before. It had always been a text, that, while heartfelt, had never felt like enough. It could never be a substitute for the real thing.

Had Mina known that Hyejoo would be missing her the most on today of all days?

(Downright cruel.)

She misses Mina, realizes that now. She wants Mina around, she realizes that now.

I’m doing swimming now, Hyejoo wants to tell Mina. I have a new family, and they love me a lot.

(Unfair.)

I have a new family, and they love me a lot, but they’re not you, Mina-unnie. I love Jinsoul-unnie and Yves-unnie and you know how much I’ve always loved Hyunjin-unnie… But they’re not you, Mina-unnie, and I’m not sure what to do now.

--

Hyejoo dreams of butterflies that night.

She wakes up feeling a little bit better.

--

[Wednesday]

Hyejoo enters the school early as per usual, placing a new origami crane on Chaewon’s desk before heading off to the library.

Chaewon joins her not long after, sitting in her typical seat across from Hyejoo with a soft hello and a slight wave of her hand. They don’t have to say much to each other, even now; Chaewon’s small smiles are more than enough to send Hyejoo’s stomach into a flurry of flutters.

Hyejoo feels herself get giddy at the way Chaewon holds the little origami crane carefully, as though afraid to even accidentally crumple a wing.

Chaewon still doesn’t know that Hyejoo’s the one leaving the origami, at least that’s what Hyejoo thinks, and in all complete honesty, she’s fine with that for now. Chaewon is cheerful and Hyunjin’s been telling Hyejoo about how Chaewon smiles more, smiles brighter these days. Hyejoo’s heart is full.

“You look happier these days, unnie,” Hyejoo comments, flipping a page of Animal Farm while smothering a grin.

“Do I?” Chaewon asks innocently, but the smaller girl beams, running a thumb over the origami crane’s wing, and Hyejoo feels her heart soar to the skies above.

--

[Monday]

Their routine goes on for a whole month, Hyejoo getting to school at super early hours to drop off a little origami creation on Chaewon’s desk before heading over to the library, where they’d meet and read or study in each other’s presences.

Hyejoo falls into a simple cycle regarding her paper creations; Mondays are for different paper animals, whichever Hyejoo finds appropriate or meaningful; Tuesdays are when flowers are given, sometimes different kinds like tulips, daffodils, and roses amongst others; Wednesdays are for paper cranes in varieties of colors; Thursdays are for the folded butterflies that Chaewon loves to much; and Fridays are little envelopes, to carry Chaewon’s hopes and plans for the weekend.

One Monday, Hyejoo leaves a small orange origami frog on the corner of Chaewon’s desk, the words let’s hop through the week! writing daintily on its back, and as they sit at their library table, Hyejoo notices Chaewon’s thoughtful expression as the older girl regards the little frog.

“Hyejoo?” Chaewon asks out of the blue.

“Mmhm? What’s up, Chae-unnie?”

“Do you have any idea who’s leaving me all these messages?”

Hyejoo feels herself tense up, the air around her suddenly becoming cold.

“Why do you want to know?” she asks, trying to go for something nonchalant. She pulls out her water bottle, trying to fix her dry throat.

“I think it would be nice to know,” Chaewon shrugs, her thoughtful smile melting into something soft and dreamy, and Hyejoo’s heart stutters in her chest at the sight of it. “I want to thank that person for making my days that much better from something so simple. I feel really warm, y’know?” She giggles. “My friends are curious too. They even put up a poster near my history classroom, asking who the mystery person is. If this continues, Jiwoo-unnie’s threatening to put a wanted ad in the school paper.”

Hyejoo chokes on her own drink in shock, a violent cough leaving her lips. She slams a fist against her chest to stop her coughing fit.

“That,” Hyejoo says hoarsely before clearing , “That seems kinda… extra?”

“That’s what I said,” Chaewon giggles. She leans over the table, her small hand coming to gently touch Hyejoo’s free one comfortingly. “I don’t think I’d let them take it that far. After all, if they’re anonymous, they’re anonymous for a reason, right? But still,” Chaewon smiles, in a daze, “It would still be nice to thank them.”

There’s a whirlwind of thoughts circulating through Hyejoo’s mind.

“I don’t know,” she says weakly. “I have no idea who it could be.”

Chaewon hums, nods with an understanding lilt to her voice.

“I suppose it would be hard to know, wouldn’t it?”

Hyejoo nods slowly.

“It does seem kind of difficult,” she says.

They spend the rest of the time in poignant silence, and when the bell rings and they part ways at the library entrance, Hyejoo offers Chaewon a small wave, while Chaewon grins, bidding Hyejoo an energetic goodbye before scampering down the hall.

Hyejoo continues to stare in Chaewon’s direction, trying to memorize Chaewon’s figure, all the way up to when Chaewon rounds the corner and is out of sight.

--

[Tuesday]

She made a mistake.

Oh god, she made a mistake.

Hyejoo stumbles out of the history classroom before the two occupants inside it ever even notice that she’s there.

Her legs move on their own, mechanically moving down the hallways, still barren in the early morning light.

She speeds up.

Faster, faster.

I need to get out of here.

With a balled up fist, Hyejoo crumples the light yellow paper flower up in her hands, tosses it into a nearby trash can.

Her eyes sting with unshed tears as her footsteps ring heavy through the school corridors.

She has half the mind to apologize to the person she accidentally jostles as she walks by, doesn’t even recognize who it is until there’s a concerned voice calling her name.

“Hyejoo?” It’s Heejin. “Hyejoo, are you alright?”

Hyejoo stops in her tracks, her mind running a mile a millisecond, whirling her back to only a few minutes ago, when she’d nearly entered that classroom, only to stop herself and have everything shatter to pieces anyway.

She can still hear the voices.

“I’m glad you liked all the origami, Chae!”

Nancy’s voice had run loud and clear through the classroom, tapering out into the hall, where Hyejoo had froze in shock.

Nancy…?

“It was very kind of you to leave me all the messages!” Chaewon had sounded as kind, as sweet, as grateful as ever. “Thank you so much! And this white crane is adorable as well!”

No… No, Chae, that’s not… that’s not…

“Anything for you,” Nancy had replied, and Hyejoo hadn’t even needed to be in the room to know that both sophomores were beaming at each other.

All the while, there had only been one thought circulating through Hyejoo’s one track mind as she tried to get a grasp on everything that was happening: how could she lie like that? How could she lie to Chaewon’s face?

The sad part is that now, as she reflects back on it all, Hyejoo doesn’t even know which “she” she had been referring to. Nancy had lied this morning, yes, but Hyejoo herself had lied to straight to Chaewon yesterday, during their talk in the library.

She should’ve said something yesterday, when it had just been her and Chaewon, when Chaewon had just warned her about the poster her friends had put up.

It’s too late now.

And she’s not okay, she really isn’t.

“Hyejoo?” Heejin’s worried voice jolts her out of her thoughts, and Hyejoo blinks, realizing that the slightly older girl was still waiting for an answer.

“I’m fine,” she whispers.

That’s the last thing she says before the exits the school building, Heejin’s gaze on her back the entire way – Heejin, who stands back and watches Hyejoo leave with sad eyes, knows that Hyejoo needs to, even if she doesn’t know the reason why – and Hyejoo doesn’t look back.

It’s cold and rainy and entirely too dreadful outside, but Hyejoo walks all the way home anyway.

--

(“Hello? Heekki, what’s up?”

“Hyun, Hyejoo just left the school building.”

“What?! Without going to class? Why?”

“I’m not sure, but she looked on the verge of tears… oh god, Hyun, she looked so sad… I couldn’t stop her, she really looked like she needed to leave.”

“Oh no… Heejin, I know I promised to walk you home after school today, but—”

“Hyun, if you don’t ditch me for your best friend, I’m going to be very disappointed in you.”

“This is why I love you, Heej.”

“Oh, I know you do. But you also love Hyejoo, so you better make her feel better.”)

--

In the afternoon, her doorbell rings, and Hyejoo has to take a step back in surprise at the sight of Hyunjin standing on her doorstep, a folder full of what must be homework tucked under her arm, with Yves, Jinsoul, and Seulgi in tow.

“I-I thought there was practice today,” Hyejoo stutters as she takes in the kind smiles of the older girls.

“I canceled it,” Seulgi shrugs, and Hyejoo gapes at her coach, who gives her a crooked smile. “Trust me, none of the girls are going to deny the rare day off. You’ve all been working so hard, especially for your meet this Friday. A day of rest isn’t going to hurt anyone. These kids wanted to stop by and cheer you up, so I drove them over and decided to tag along.”

“You’re not even that much older than us,” Yves rolls her eyes in jest, grinning as Seulgi shoves her playfully.

“Plus, we thought you might be lonely,” Jinsoul adds, flashing Hyejoo one of her signature captain smiles.

“So we come bearing gifts,” Yves chuckles, and it’s only then that Hyejoo registers the big box of donuts that the brunette carries. “Look, we even got those cruller ones you like.”

“I also brought my Nintendo Switch!” Hyunjin cheers enthusiastically. “So we can play multiplayer games!”

“You guys really did all of this… Oh, what about…?” Hyejoo looks down at the decently sized folder of homework in her hands. She frowns, not wanting to put it all off until later, and she flips open the folder out of curiosity, trying to gauge how long it would take to finish. She blinks in shock when she sees all of the answers already filled out. “What—”

“Heejin took care of your English and history homework,” Hyunjin winks, “She felt bad after seeing you this morning, and she wanted to come over too, but she still had dance practice. Oh, and Jinsoul-unnie finished all your math and biology homework on the car ride over.”

Hyejoo’s eyes bug out of her head as Jinsoul throws her a peace sign, tongue sticking out playfully.

“We’re what the kids call, ‘chaotic good,’ yeah?” the swim team captain smirks, successfully eliciting a laugh out of Hyejoo. The blonde-haired girl takes a step closer, resting her hand on Hyejoo’s shoulder comfortingly. “We’re here for you, Hyejoo, no matter what you’re going through.”

“Oh, one more thing,” Hyunjin pipes up, and Hyejoo notices how her best friend looks considerably more nervous all of a sudden. Hyunjin shifts anxiously on her feet. “I know the whole thing with Chaewon and the origami was supposed to stay a secret but… I kind of told Jinsoul-unnie, Yves-unnie, and coach about it on the way here…? They were asking about why you were down, and I just… had a feeling – like, a best friend’s intuition, y’know? – that it had something to do with Chae.” She pauses, only to hastily tack on, “I totally understand if you’re mad! It really wasn’t my place to tell anyone, and—”

“Hyunjin,” Hyejoo chuckles, making sure to keep her tone light to reassure her friend that she had no plans of getting angry. “I’m not mad at all. I’m glad you did. It’s, um, refreshing, actually, to not have to explain it all myself.” She winces. “This morning hit a sore spot… I made a mistake. Or, lots of them, probably.”

She receives understanding looks all around, and for the first time, Hyejoo allows herself to feel better because of them. Her friends didn’t come all this way to pity her, they came to sympathize and brighten her pretty awful day.

Hyejoo has to admit that they’re doing a damn good job so far.

“Yeah, Nancy’s been gloating about the origami thing all day,” Hyunjin’s nose scrunches in annoyance. “I just knew something was up, since I knew it was you giving Chaewon the messages every day. It’s been over a month now.”

“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Hyejoo,” Yves says softly, steps forward to rub the freshman’s back comfortingly. “Let’s just hang out and have a bit of fun, ‘kay?”

“We can finally see who’s better in Smash Bros Ultimate,” Seulgi says immediately, a spark of excited competitiveness tinging the coach’s words. Hyejoo perks up at the sentiment— she and the young coach had been playfully bantering about their Smash Bros skills for months now.

“That sounds great to me,” Hyejoo breathes, a genuine smile etching itself across her features. “Let’s go inside… And, thank you, guys. Really. This means a lot to me.”

“We’ve got your back, Baby Wolf,” Hyunjin simply says, stepping past Hyejoo into the house, and Hyejoo laughs, beckons for everyone else to follow. “We’re family, remember?”

It isn’t hours later, after Hyejoo and Seulgi had duked it out in Smash Bros too many times to count, after Hyunjin had completely dominated the competition in Mario Kart, after Jinsoul and Yves had broken out into countless teasing arguments over character choice, that Seulgi finally pulls Hyejoo aside, letting the other three girls bicker of the next game to play.

“You and Chaewon… Well, I don’t know her personally, but Hyunjin had been talking about her, how you make her smile, and I think that there’s so much promise,” Seulgi says kindly, an arm around Hyejoo’s shoulders, and Hyejoo holds her breath, recognizing those words. The same words, yet for a completely different purpose. “It would be a shame not to take advantage of it, don’t you think?”

Hyejoo exhales, feeling considerably more calm than she’d been feeling earlier.

She nods, her mind startlingly clear.

“It really would, I realize that now.”

“So you know what you have to do?” Seulgi’s eyes sparkle like she knows something that Hyejoo doesn’t.

Hyejoo doesn’t dwell on it, only nods again in understanding.

“Yeah, I think I do,” she smiles.

--

[Wednesday]

Hyejoo forces herself to go to school the next day, despite fully knowing how awful it would be.

She’d arrived early that day, praying that Nancy and Chaewon wouldn’t be in the history classroom.

Much to her relief, there hadn’t been anyone present, but even so, Hyejoo found that she couldn’t bring herself to leave the little crane in the little corner on Chaewon’s desk, where she’d otherwise leave it. She’d frowned to herself, scooping up the paper crane and putting it back in her pocket, where she’d carried it around with her for the remainder of the day.

She hadn’t gone to the library either. Instead, she’d stumbled across Heejin, who’d smiled in relief upon seeing Hyejoo at school before promptly asking if Hyejoo could come with her to dance practice and check out their dance for an upcoming winter competition.

Hyejoo had accompanied her without hesitation— Heejin was on the dance team with Choerry, after all, and Hyejoo had been introduced to the older members as well a while back.

Overall, there definitely could’ve been worse ways to start the day.

But, just as she’d expected, the talk about Nancy and her “unconventional style of courtship through origami” (Hyunjin’s words, not hers) had still the talk of the school, and it’d made the pit in Hyejoo’s stomach drop just that bit much deeper.

She’d only seen Chaewon once as well, spotting the girl’s flowing blonde hair tied back in a ponytail.

Hyejoo had chewed on her bottom lip before walking in the opposite direction.

By the end of the school day, Hyejoo stuffs her hand into her hoodie pocket, only for it to brush against the paper crane, serving its only purpose as a constant reminder, and Hyejoo sighs.

Her feet bring her to the closed door of the journalism room.

Hyejoo can hear the boisterous voices of the journalism club members, Chaewon’s unique voice somehow rising above the others, despite it being considerably softer than the rest.

Gingerly, Hyejoo stoops down, leaves the silver paper crane in front of the door before turning on her heel and walking away.

She just hopes that Nancy won’t take credit for this one too.

--

She’s trudging her way to the pool locker rooms, sighing at the lack of progress made today, when—

“Hyejoo! Hyejoo, please wait!”

She freezes in her tracks, her hand already on the door, about to push it open.

Slowly, she turns around, almost afraid of what she’ll find.

It’s Chaewon.

She knew it was Chaewon, there’s no way she could ever mistake Chaewon’s voice, its clear sound like a chiming bell, for anyone else.

And yet Hyejoo still finds the air getting caught in at the sight of a breathless, panting Chaewon, looking like she’d just sprinted a marathon to catch up with her.

The first thing Hyejoo notices is the way Chaewon clenches to the wing of the silver paper crane like a lifeline.

In the dying afternoon light, Chaewon’s golden hair shines, pulled out of its earlier ponytail, tumbling down her shoulders in waves, and the older girl’s chest heaves as she pushes a few stray strands out of her face, scrambling to straighten up upon realizing that Hyejoo is waiting for her.

“Hyejoo,” Chaewon breathes, and Hyejoo swallows nervously. Chaewon seems to notice, and she shakes her head. She parts her lips again, speaking louder this time. “I-I know you probably don’t want to talk right now, I— it’s a lot for me too, so I can’t even imagine what you must feel right now. I— I’m sorry for that.”

Hyejoo shakes her head.

“Chae-unnie, it’s—”

“It’s not fine!” Chaewon interrupts, her voice trembling, and only then does Hyejoo notice how Chaewon holds back tears, looks up at Hyejoo like she means the whole world. “It’s not! Just… just…” She takes another deep breath. “Neither of us are in our best mindsets right now, so I don’t want to keep you for long, b-but I’m going to be in the library tomorrow morning! Meet me there?”

Chaewon’s question holds so much hope, so much anticipation, weighted so heavily for only three words.

Hyejoo can’t find it in herself to do anything but nod.

“I’ll be there,” Hyejoo says softly, and she watches the relief flood into Chaewon’s eyes.

“Thank you, Hyejoo,” Chaewon tell her, genuine affection, appreciation shining through.

Hyejoo only nods again, flashes Chaewon a small, tired smile, and steps into the locker rooms.

--

Hyejoo’s rounding the bend to her house, eyes trained on the ground as her feet scuff against the pavement, and when she finally looks up, it’s to do a double take when she realizes that there’s an achingly familiar car in the middle of the usually sparse driveway.

She could recognize Mina’s red sports BMW from miles away— she’d still look forward to even getting a brief glimpse of it on the rare holidays when her older sister wasn’t cast in a showcase.

Today isn’t a holiday though; perhaps she’d left it for a trip overseas?

Still, she can’t help the faint sliver of hope that runs through her body as she pushes open the front door and drops her back on the living room couch, making her way over to the kitchen. Her heart pounds as she hears faint footsteps from upstairs— no, it couldn’t be, could it?

Regardless, Hyejoo still gets the shock of her life when she steps into the kitchen, only to make eye contact with the girl who sits at the kitchen table, sipping on a cup of coffee. Immediately, a smile blooms across the older girl’s face at Hyejoo’s sudden appearance.

“Hyejoo!” She greets the high schooler like it’s a normal day after school. “Welcome home!”

“N-Nayeon-unnie,” Hyejoo stutters, eyes going wide in shock. “W-what—”

“Minari’s upstairs changing her clothes,” Nayeon tells her with a nod, giving information that has Hyejoo sharply intaking breath. Mina is here, in their home. “She’ll be down in a minute! We weren’t sure when you were going to get home, or whether you had swim practice today or not.”

“I-I see,” Hyejoo says, struck by how oddly normal the whole conversation is, as though she’s been having conversations like this with her older sister’s girlfriend everyday of her life, and not like they’d just waltzed back in like no big deal. “I didn’t have practice today, but I did stay a little late.”

Hyejoo pauses, realizing that in the midst of Nayeon’s (and Mina’s) sudden appearance, she’d completely forgotten about mulling over what she should say to Chaewon tomorrow morning. And to think that I’d been stressing so much over it too… and then this happens…

“You stayed late?” Nayeon her head in curiosity. “Did something happen at school, Hyejoo?”

“I don’t know, unnie…” Hyejoo sighs, shrugging her shoulder in resignation. “There’s just some drama happening in school right now, and I guess I’m not really used to being somewhat involved in it? I’m just really tired.”

Meanwhile, Nayeon frowns.

“I didn’t think you were the type to get yourself involved in high school drama, Hyejoo,” she says, fixing the younger girl with concerned eyes.

“I’m not!” Hyejoo quickly protests, the very thought of her sister’s girlfriend thinking bad of her sending Hyejoo into a mild panic as she hastily tries to explain her situation in more detail. “And it’s not the… the bad kind, I promise!”

“What’s not the bad kind?” Mina questions, striding into the kitchen and leaning up against a countertop after dropping a quick kiss to the top of Nayeon’s head. She proceeds to scrutinize Hyejoo, looking her up and down, as if she’s seeing Hyejoo for the first time in person. “You didn’t get in trouble, did you?”

Meanwhile, Hyejoo flinches backwards, gaping at the sight of her very own older sister in her own family’s household. It’s striking, how almost out of place Mina looks in this place, the very house she’d grown up in. Had it really been so long since Hyejoo had last been here with Mina? The last time they’d really seen each other, though the encounter had been brief, had been at a Christmas party held last year by the ballet company for families of the dancers.

Upon seeing Hyejoo jerk away out of reflex, the look in Mina’s eyes soften into something sad and apologetic.

“Sorry,” Mina whispers.

Hyejoo shakes her head.

“N-no, it’s fine.” Hyejoo heaves a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts. “Nothing bad, I swear. I don’t even think the people involved even know I’m any part of this. Or at least, they didn’t know. It’s just that… I had a really good thing going, but I think I just blew my chance to make that good thing even better, and now I’m just… back to square one again.” Another dejected sigh leaves her lips. “I might’ve even taken a few steps back, now that I think about it.”

Her words are met with a pertinent silence that swirls around the kitchen, making the relatively large room suddenly seem that much smaller, perhaps because of the three bodies in it. She watches Mina and Nayeon share a look, something knowing passing through their eyes.

It’s then that that Mina lets out a small chuckle, pushing herself off her perch on the countertop, making her way to sit beside Hyejoo, taking her little sister’s hands within her own, nothing but kindness passing through as she looks her sister in the eyes.

“Tell me everything,” Mina says with a gentle smile. “If you’d like, that is. I’m here to listen, Baby Wolf.”

Baby Wolf. The familiar nickname washes over Hyejoo and warms the pit of her stomach that had been looking so dark not long ago. Everyone calls her Baby Wolf— the swim team calls her Baby Wolf, hell, Hyunjin’s been calling her Baby Wolf since the sixth grade. What they hadn’t known was that Hyunjin had picked up the nickname from Mina herself, who’d given Hyejoo the wolf plushie in her room that she still treasures to this day.

I’m here, Mina had said. Tell me everything, I’m here to listen.

“Okay,” Hyejoo whispers, and takes comfort in the way Mina’s small smile spreads into something more.

--

For the next thirty minutes, in the confines of Hyejoo’s own bedroom as Nayeon waits for them downstairs, her older sister listens in apt concentration, gentle eyes gripping onto every single word as Hyejoo recounts her adventures as Chaewon’s anonymous origami deliverer. She talks about everything— how she’d been folding the origami herself for Chaewon, berating herself for allowing someone else to come along and take credit for work that wasn’t their own.

“I was stupid,” Hyejoo exclaims, hands coming up to tangle in her own raven black hair in frustration. “I’m such a coward… I should’ve just given the origami to Chaewon myself from the very beginning!”

“You’re not stupid,” Mina quickly says. “It was Nancy’s fault for lying to Chaewon in the first place about something so big. You might’ve not revealed the truth to Chaewon, but it’s even worse to steal someone else’s credit for something you didn’t do.”

And she talks about Chaewon— how she’d met Chaewon by reaching for the book that Chaewon hadn’t been able to, how Chaewon had been feeling down during the week about all her responsibilities, how the younger blonde had gone from a random stranger to Hyejoo’s permanent book buddy in the library in the earliest of mornings.

“I-I think I like her, unnie,” Hyejoo confesses suddenly. “I really, really like her. It makes me so, so happy to see her smiling, and I loved being the reason for her smile. The origami really was to cheer her up and it was only supposed to be only a week-long thing, but I didn’t know that I— that I—”

“—would get so attached?” Mina offers.

“Yeah,” Hyejoo breathes out. “I got so, so attached. And I’m so scared that now that she’s found out that I really am the person who’s been giving her the origami, things are going to change, and— and while I’m not sure if that change will be for the better, I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

“Chaewon wants to see you and talk to you, right?” Mina says gently, massaging Hyejoo’s hand with her fingers. “That’s always good. If she really didn’t want to work things out with you, she could’ve told you that right then and there, but instead, she decided to give you time to think things through. It shows that she cares about you, Baby Wolf. She’s the one who gave you that wolf keychain for you birthday, right? Oh, Hyejoo, she’s your friend and she cares about you so, so much.”

And Hyejoo sniffs, does nothing but nod and nod and it’s not until Mina says anything that Hyejoo realizes that she’s not as okay as she thought she was.

“And— Hyejoo?”

The raven-haired girl blinks, looking up at her older curiously.

“Mm?”

“Hyejoo, you’re crying,” Mina whispers, immediately leaning forward to wipe the tears silently streaming down Hyejoo's cheeks with her thumbs.

“H-huh?”

It's only then that Hyejoo realizes that her vision has gotten blurry, obscured by the tears pooling in her eyes. She clenches her eyes tight, rubbing at her eyes furiously, shaking her head, trying to keep her emotions at bay.

“Hyejoo,” The older sister murmurs, cupping Hyejoo’s cheeks. “Hyejoo, what’s wrong?”

“N-nothing,” Hyejoo manages to whimper out. “I’m just really happy, unnie.”

“You are?”

And Hyejoo sniffs and nods and cries, her words getting cut off into an achingly wet sob because Mina is warm and kind and loving and she’s missed her big sister so much that it hurts.

“Unnie, you’re here.”

Mina chokes out a cry, lurching forward to throw her arms around Hyejoo’s shaking frame. She presses Hyejoo’s face into the crook of her neck, getting as close to her little sister as humanly possible.

“You’ve gotten so tall,” Mina comments quietly, the volume just a bit louder than Hyejoo’s silent tears and hiccups. “Swimming really has made your shoulders broaden, has it?” She can feel Hyejoo nod into her shoulder. “That’s good, that’s good… your shoulders are broad, your arms are strong, you’ve become so dependable… Oh, Hyejoo, when did you grow up to be so strong? You’re the same height as me now.”

“I hadn’t realized,” Hyejoo mutters, still furiously trying to dry her eyes.

“That’s my fault,” the older girl confesses sorrowfully like a secret, and in the mirror on her wall, Hyejoo can see Mina staring out the window to where the rain patters away on the green leaves of the tree outside. “I’m sorry, Hyejoo. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that I wasn’t there for so much of your life, I’m sorry that mom and dad were so busy with work or with me that you basically had to raise yourself, and I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better big sister.”

“Unnie—”

“But I’m so thankful too!” Mina continues, and Hyejoo clamps shut, entranced. “I’m so thankful to Hyunjin for always being there for you throughout it all, and I’m thankful for your swim team captain and teammates, who stayed with you and were there for you when I couldn’t be— they’re better unnies than I could ever be. And Chaewon… I’m so thankful for Chaewon, who’s making every day of yours less lonely.”

“They’re all wonderful,” Hyejoo agrees softly, burrowing closer to her sister. “And I love them like they’re sisters of my own. But unnie, didn’t you know that you’re the best big sister I could ever ask for?”

“I don’t know how I could possibly be—”

“Thank you for teaching me what it means to be dedicated, unnie,” Hyejoo mumbles into the fabric of Mina’s woolen sweater. “And thank you for teaching me origami. Nothing… none of what I have today would be possible without you, unnie.”

“Hyejoo,” Mina’s voice cracks. “I’m sorry—”

“I’m so happy, unnie!” Hyejoo beams, tears shining in her eyes like little stars. “Unnie, right now, I’m so, so happy. Please, let’s just be happy from now on?”

Mina is quick to nod, holding Hyejoo tight on the bed.

“Always, Baby Wolf.”

--

“How are you here, unnie?” Hyejoo suddenly asks later, as she and Mina join Nayeon downstairs in the kitchen, where Mina’s girlfriend had already begun making them dinner. I hope you like kimchi fried rice, Nayeon had said with a wink, and to Hyejoo, who’d been living off of the takeout her parents would order for delivery for her every night (or the microwave ramyun she’d heat up herself), any homemade meal might as well be a gift from the gods.

“I thought you would’ve been preparing for the Nutcracker performance or something,” she continues, carefully pulling out three plates from the cupboard and gingerly setting them down at the table. “You’re usually really busy this time of year.”

“I decided to take a break,” Mina explains, pausing for a moment to huff indignantly when Nayeon snickers and purposely bumps Mina’s hip against her own as the ballerina is trying to bring a plate of fried rice to the table. “Ever since I was ten, I’d dedicated myself to that theater, and I mean, I thought I was obligated to— they’re the best in the country, after all. I thought it was worth dedicating all my time into because of the status.”

“It was worth it!” Hyejoo protests, seeing the doubt in her older sister’s eyes. “Unnie, you’re famous in the world of ballet and even outside of it! You’re a prodigy and everyone knows it!” She puffs out a cheek, crossing her arms. “And don’t bother telling me I’m wrong— I know you guested on that variety show as a teacher, and I recorded all of your episodes.”

Mina throws back her head and laughs, having set down the plate. She giggles and throws her arms around her sister’s neck, hugging her close.

“You’re the best, Baby Wolf,” Mina whispers into her ear, and Hyejoo smiles wide, the first one in a long, long time. The younger girl looks up, meeting eyes with Nayeon, who matches her smile with her own.

“What made you want to take a break?” Hyejoo asks as she pulls back, and it’s not until then that she realizes that she now stands on equal footing as Mina, their eyes at the same level. When had that happened? She can still remember having to tilt her head up to see her older sister not too long ago.

Mina falls silent, and Hyejoo frowns. She grips Mina’s hand tightly.

“Unnie?”

“I FaceTimed you, and you had grown up so much,” Mina finally says, a faraway look in her eyes. “I had already been feeling something, I think. It’s your first year in high school, and it just hit me— Hyejoo’s in high school? Somewhere along the way, I think I’d forgotten that you’d still be growing up, even without me. And then we FaceTimed and you’d gotten so mature… I couldn’t believe that I’d missed so much, Hyejoo.”

“That’s okay!” Hyejoo says quickly, before she furrows her brow. “Wait, maybe a little less than okay,” she admits, and Mina smiles weakly. “But you’re here now, unnie, and that’s all that matters to me.”

“Thank you, Hyejoo,” Mina whispers, pulling Hyejoo into a hug that the younger sister sinks into. “You’re too nice of a kid, you know that?”

“I just love my big sister,” Hyejoo says honestly.

Mina’s smile is blinding, and Hyejoo returns it with vigor.

--

[Thursday]

Hyejoo enters the school even earlier than usual the next morning, carefully making her way through the hallways to the library, as though afraid of what she’ll find there.

What she finds is Chaewon already there, seated at their usual table, a book in her hands. She doesn’t realize that Hyejoo is already present, but as the younger watches her, the sunlight streams in through the window, hitting Chaewon’s blonde hair in just the right way such that it turns golden, aflame.

Hyejoo thinks she looks gorgeous in the morning light.

It’s then that Chaewon looks up from her book - The Princess Bride, Hyejoo can see now, as Chaewon closes it - and smiles gently at Hyejoo.

Wordlessly, she beckons Hyejoo over, her expression as warm and inviting as any other morning.

It’s only then that Hyejoo takes her usual seat, hesitating for a brief moment before reaching into her backpack and pulling out a small, blue paper butterfly.

Chaewon’s eyes light up at the sight of the little paper creation, especially as Hyejoo shyly pushes it across the table.

“For you,” Hyejoo says softly.

“Thank you, Hyejoo,” Chaewon smiles.

They lapse into silence.

“So you were the one who left me all of these?” Chaewon asks after a moment, cupping the blue paper butterfly within her small hands, but Hyejoo notices how she holds it delicately all the same, careful not to crumple the edges of the butterfly. “You folded all of these yourself?”

Hyejoo’s heart pounds in her ears, the heavy beating drowning out all other sound, but for some reason Chaewon’s soft voice cuts through all the noise, and Hyejoo just can’t look away from the smaller, blonde girl. And Chaewon looks up at her like she holds all the secrets in the world, like she holds more knowledge than could ever be found in this library that had grown so dear to the two of them.

It’s with a bashful dip of her head that Hyejoo nods, peeking at Chaewon through her lashes, letting her long dark hair fall forward, as if trying to create a curtain between the two of them. Still, nothing but Chaewon remains, the look in her eyes just as soft as ever before.

“Yeah…” Hyejoo whispers, her voice failing. It’s not until she sees the wide smile bloom across Chaewon’s face a heartbeat later that she clears , trying to sound a bit steadier.

“Yeah… It was me.” She tries to stop the small smile of her own from spreading, but judging from the glimmer in the blonde girl’s eyes, she failed miserably. “I— is that okay?”

“Of course!” Chaewon exclaims, eyes going wide as though she can’t even fathom why Hyejoo would be asking such a question. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You looked so happy when Nancy stepped up and said that she’d been the one who’d been folding the origami,” Hyejoo twiddles her fingers as she mumbles out a response, thinking back to the scene in the classroom from Tuesday, watching Nancy stride up to Chaewon and present her with her own paper butterfly she’d made. “I thought you’d be disappointed that it was someone different…”

Chaewon smiles tenderly, shaking her head. “I only was happy because I thought that I could finally thank the person who’d been leaving me the origami. But the more I mulled over it, the more I thought there was something wrong. By the next morning, I’d come to the conclusion that it hadn’t been Nancy, and I was pretty sure of myself too. I questioned her, and she admitted that she had lied to me yesterday afternoon.”

“Really?” Hyejoo’s mouth falls slightly ajar. “How could you tell?”

“There were a lot of things,” Chaewon chuckles, leaning backward onto the bookcase, resting her head near a paperback copy of Brave New World. “For starters, she gave me a paper butterfly on a Tuesday. I usually only got butterflies on Thursdays.”

“You noticed?” Hyejoo can’t help but be surprised that Chaewon had paid such close attention.

“They’re my favorites,” Chaewon giggles, and it sounds like tinkling bells. Hyejoo thinks she could listen to that sound for the rest of her life, just Chaewon giggling, Chaewon happy. “I would always look forward to Thursdays. They were a nice reminder that Friday was right around the corner, that I was so close to the freedom of the weekend.”

“I’m glad they served their purpose,” Hyejoo laughs softly, eyes wandering down to the blue paper butterfly that Chaewon thumbs tenderly. “You used to look so sad on Thursdays.” She clicks her tongue. “Tuesdays are paper flower days. What an amateur.”

“Definitely. Thursdays made the week feel super long,” the shorter girl sighs dramatically, smiling sheepishly up at Hyejoo. “Receiving one on a Tuesday only reminded me that there were still three days left. But yeah… it was the butterfly on Thursday, and also the fact that the butterfly was made out of white paper. You never use white paper, you always used colored paper— I find that kind of funny, now that I think of it,” Chaewon scrunches her nose, giggling again. “You always dress in black, Hyejoo-ah.”

“Black is easy to wear!” Hyejoo protests weakly, sparing a quick glance at the black woolen sweater she wore under her blazer. “It goes well with everything, but um, it’s not really a color for cheering people up. At least, I didn’t think so.”

“And why not white?”

“Oh. Um,” Hyejoo bites her lip. She taps the tip of her shoe against the carpeted floor, bouncing her leg. “I guess I think of white as a special color? White is good for… permanent things. Because you can see the writing really clearly.”

Chaewon hums.

“I see where you’re coming from.”

Hyejoo nods.

“Yeah…”

“I’m proud of you, you know?”

Hyejoo’s eyebrows raise at that.

“Proud?”

It’s Chaewon’s turn to nod, an easy smile overtaking her doll-like features.

“Yeah. You’re really brave, Hyejoo. Did you know that? You’re really brave for telling me. My heart feels so happy I think it’s about to burst, y’know?” Her eyes crinkle in a perfect eye smile, and she reaches forward across the table, taking one of Hyejoo’s hands with both of her own. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so thankful.”

“I’ve honestly never been so terrified,” Hyejoo admits shakily, leg still bouncing instinctively as she watches their now intertwined hands. She’s never been so nervous, not even for an oral presentation, not even for swim team meets. “You… you’re too good to be true, Chaewon-unnie. Sometimes I still question if you’re really my friend or not.”

Chaewon hums again.

“I think our hands fit together rather nicely, don't you think?” She comments in an offhand manner, though her words hold more weight than she implies. Hyejoo blinks, only then noticing how naturally they'd taken to holding hands.

“Yeah, they do,” Hyejoo smiles to herself.

“Anyway,” Chaewon chuckles, and she beams at Hyejoo and shrugs. “How did your afternoon go yesterday?”

Hyejoo heaves a deep breath, honestly a little relieved at the slight topic change.

“It was… really nice, actually. Mina, my sister who I told you about, came home yesterday.” Hyejoo pauses, and Chaewon nods encouragingly. “I talked to her for the first time in a while… like, really talked to her. Gosh I just—” Hyejoo blinks back tears threatening to fall. “It felt so good to have her back, and to know that she’s staying for a while… I’m just… so glad.”

“I’m so happy for you!” Chaewon gushes, hands squeezing Hyejoo’s. “I’m glad you and your sister are reconnecting.” A thoughtful look evolves into a soft, affectionate smile as she presses patterns into the back of Hyejoo’s palms. “I’ve… I’ve liked you for a while, Hyejoo.”

The taller girl’s breath hitches, not expecting that in the slightest.

“Y-you have?”

It almost sounds too good to be true.

“Mmhm,” Chaewon mumbles shyly, ducking her head and peering up at Hyejoo through her lashes. “I just wanted to let you know that now… so that you’re not surprised in the future by anything I do, y’know? And I… I don’t want you to feel pressured into doing or saying anything right now! You just really got your sister back, and it sounds like you’ve got such a good thing going on, so I think you should focus on that right now.”

“I-I—” Hyejoo sputters, once again caught off guard by Chaewon’s words. She takes another deep breath in an attempt to collect yourself. “You think so…? B-because I think I’ve liked you for a long time too, Chaewon-unnie, and I don’t,” Hyejoo flushes, realizing what she’s about to blurt out, “I don’t want to lose you again.”

The smaller blonde girl’s smile only grows wider and wider with each word.

“I’ll wait for you!” Chaewon boldly proclaims, and she places a hand over her heart in the form of an oath. “I’ll wait for you to be ready, Hyejoo, as soon or as far off as that time is. I can promise you that.”

“You would do that for me?” Hyejoo asks quietly, straining her ears to make sure she heard properly, despite Chaewon’s voice ringing clear through the empty library.

“Absolutely,” Chaewon says, not wavering in conviction whatsoever. “I’ll wait. I promise you.”

Chaewon beams, and Hyejoo feels the affection rush through her body for the older girl— Chaewon, who’s been nothing but kind, and friendly, and caring, and considerate; who Hyejoo gravitates towards, but who also gravitates towards Hyejoo; who kept Hyejoo company, who made Hyejoo realize that maybe, someone could bring her love too.

And then she gets an idea.

--

Hyejoo approaches her house with a spring in her step, a wide smile on her face as she sees Mina’s red car still parked in the driveway— a clear reminder that Mina, and by extension, Nayeon, wouldn’t be going anywhere, anytime soon.

She bounds through the front door with a grin, and upon hearing noise from the dining room, makes her way through the house to the source of the commotion.

She’s greeted by the comical scene of Mina and Nayeon seated at the dining room table, origami paper scattered all about, Nayeon frowning in frustration as her origami rabbit somehow doesn’t look quite right as Mina laughs freely beside her, nearly keeling over from laughing so hard.

“What on earth happened here?” Hyejoo giggles, pushing away some of the paper to set down her bag.

“Nayeon wanted me to teach her some origami too,” Mina chuckles, wiping away tears of laughter as she finally composes herself. “So we went to the bookstore and bought a few instruction manuals so that she could pick out what she wants to do and I could help her. She’s not the best at paper folding, as you can see.”

“I’m trying my best!” Nayeon protests, pouting.

“You’ll get better with more practice, unnie,” Hyejoo comforts the older girl, who still pouts but shoots Hyejoo a cheeky grin the moment Mina moves to toss some of the failed attempts into the kitchen recycling bin. “Anyway, Mina-unnie, can you help me with something?”

“Of course, Hyejoo,” Mina says immediately, heading back into the dining room, where she spots Hyejoo perusing through one of the instruction manuals. Her curiosity melds into giggles as Hyejoo points at one of the pages insistently.

“This one,” Hyejoo says, a blushing mess. “You made me one a long time ago, but you never taught me this one when I was younger…”

Mina laughs gently, tugging Hyejoo into the seat to the left of her. She hands Hyejoo a white square piece of paper.

“I guess I really should’ve taught you this one back then, huh? Well, better late than never!”

--

[Friday]

It’s in the early morning light of the next Friday morning that Hyejoo finds Chaewon in their little corner of the library, little corner of the world, yet again.

Chaewon looks up as she hears Hyejoo approaching, beams her way and immediately reaches for Hyejoo’s hand as soon as the younger girl takes her usual seat across the table.

Hyejoo finds that there’s something profound and adorable at how Chaewon’s hands are so much smaller than her own, especially as she lets her fingers curl around Chaewon’s, how she finds herself naturally rubbing small circles into the back of the blonde-haired girl’s palm, how Chaewon looks at her with wide, doe-like eyes like Hyejoo’s the reason why the sun rises in the east every morning.

“You didn’t leave an envelope for me this morning?” Chaewon asks teasingly, her tongue poking adorably out from a playful smile.

Hyejoo shakes her head, trying to school her expression after a light laugh leaves her lips.

“I have something different for you today,” Hyejoo admits, retracting her hand and trying not to think about how it feels just a bit emptier now as she reaches for her backpack. “Is that okay? I wanted to give it to you in person.”

“That’s more than okay!” Chaewon says enthusiastically, bobbing her head in encouragement.

Hyejoo nods, mustering up all the courage she’d gained from yesterday and praying that it’s enough to get her through— she owes it to Chaewon and her patience and kindness, Hyejoo knows that much.

So she heaves a deep breath, and a second later, she’s pushing a white origami paper heart across the table, nudging it shyly in Chaewon’s direction, blushing at the tiny gasp that leaves Chaewon’s lips moments later.

“Hyejoo…” Chaewon whispers, just barely brushing the heart with her finger tips, as though afraid it would break under her touch. Her smile turns soft as she sees where the words Hyejoo’s Heart is written as neatly as possible in the upper right corner.

“Hyejoo, this is… this is really for me?”

The younger girl nods bashfully, dipping her head.

“Turn it over,” Hyejoo murmurs quietly, twiddling her fingers nervously. “There’s… there’s more on the back.”

Chaewon purses her lips, turning the paper heart over in her hands with the utmost care, only to in her breath as she trains her eyes on the words that had been gingerly written there.

Immediately, Chaewon bends down and goes rummaging through her bag on the floor. A moment later, she pops back up with a black pen in her hand, looking reasonably flustered, her cheeks dusted with the most appealing shade of pink.

Hyejoo lets out a breath of relief she doesn't realize she's been holding.

Meanwhile, Chaewon uncaps the pen, carefully writes her response, the black ink staining the white paper, her letters crisp and clear for all to see. She nudges it back to the other girl.

Hyejoo picks up the heart, chewing on her bottom lip, failing to restrain her wide, wide smile as she admires the paper heart, feels her heartbeat picking up at Chaewon's addition.

Park Chaewon, will you accept this heart? Hyejoo had written last night, from in the corner of her room, mind whirring a mile a minute.

I'd be honored <3, Chaewon had replied this morning, in their corner of the universe, making Hyejoo’s beating heart thrum in her chest.

“Then it's yours,” Hyejoo says softly, extending the paper heart out to Chaewon once more. “My heart with your name written on it.”

And Chaewon blushes, taking the heart into her own dainty hands, admiring it for a heartbeat in time before cradling it to her chest, over her own thumping heart, gazing at Hyejoo like she's just been presented the key to the universe wrapped in silk ribbon, probably like the pretty ones that Chaewon sometimes ties into her hair, and oh, Hyejoo thinks that Chaewon would look gorgeous with a red ribbon, mentally taking note of that for later reference.

“We have a lot of time before class starts,” Chaewon comments, her thumb grazing the white paper heart as her cheeks redden.

Hyejoo bobs her head in the affirmative, humming in contentment.

“We've got a good half hour, at least.”

“Will you teach me?” Chaewon asks, motioning to the delicately folded heart in her hands. She blushes, eyes fluttering shut for a moment before staring at Hyejoo with all the meaning in the world. “I want… I want to make one for you too.”

Hyejoo can’t even fight the wide, wide smile that blooms across her face, lifting her cheeks and stretching her up to the blue sky above, the light in her eyes rivaling the sun.

So she nods eagerly, beckons for Chaewon to sit next to her as she pulls out a white piece of paper and Chaewon scrambles over to the seat by her side.

It's winter outside, but it feels like spring is coming with the warmth that bursts through Hyejoo's body the moment Chaewon pushes their chairs together and buries into Hyejoo's side, Hyejoo's arm encircling her waist as she teaches Chaewon how to fold a heart of her own, their fingers entangling, their hearts pulsing next to each other, beside each other, with each other.

Hyejoo's never felt a spring like this before, such a force of change, a spring in December, but she hopes and prays (and honestly, thinks it’s pretty likely that) it's come to stay.

--

Hyejoo pins the white heart Chaewon had made for her in her locker with a butterfly magnet.

Meanwhile, Chaewon giggles as she slips the heart from Hyejoo into her homework folder, clutching the mint green folder to her chest before slipping it into her bag.

Hyejoo likes the way Chaewon casually entangles their fingers together like no big deal as Hyejoo walks her new girlfriend to class, likes the way Chaewon rests her head on Hyejoo’s shoulder, likes the way she giggles whenever they pass someone who stares and gawks.

So she squeezes Chaewon’s hand tight in a silent thank you, and by the way Chaewon turns her head to face her, beaming up at Hyejoo like she already knows she got an A+ on that Ancient Egypt paper she handed in last week, Hyejoo grins and knows that the message was received.

--

The moment they walk into the cafeteria hand-in-hand for lunch, Hyejoo’s not sure whether she wants to sink into the floor or shoot her fellow swim team members a glare of a thousand suns, because she’s not sure how she’s going to survive all the whoops and wolf-whistling for the rest of the day.

“Baby Wolf is all grown up!” Jinsoul sobs dramatically, she and Yves clutching at each other for additional effect, and Hyejoo feels her eyes roll up to the top of her head.

“Can you believe it?” Yves cries, wiping at nonexistent tears. She rests her forehead on Jinsoul’s shoulder, gripping the captain’s arm. “I feel like a proud parent!”

“There are plastic knives right over there,” Hyejoo mutters as Chaewon giggles and tugs on her hand. She begrudgingly allows Chaewon to tow her along, tapping her toe on the offshade white cafeteria tiles when she comes to a halt a few feet away from the swim team lunch table. Hyejoo continues to eye the containers of plastic cutlery on the edge of the cafeteria. “Chae, please, I beg. Just stab me with one of them.”

Chaewon only grins, shakes her head wordlessly with something akin to mischief sparkling in her eyes.

It’s Hyunjin who completely disregards her, launching at Hyejoo and throwing her arms around her neck. In her state of shock, Hyejoo accidentally lets go of Chaewon’s hand, although she hears her girlfriend’s twinkling laughter right next to her.

“What’s up with you?” Hyejoo grumbles, trying to pry the unusually clingy Hyunjin from her body.

“My best friend’s gotten so big,” Hyunjin mumbles, low into Hyejoo’s ear so that only she can hear.

Best friend. She’s always been Hyunjin’s best friend. It’s just that, for the first time, Hyejoo doesn’t find herself deflating slightly at the statement. Instead, she feels a wide, wide grin spread on her face, and she laughs, finally finding it in herself to wrap her arms around Hyunjin’s midriff, giving her a brief, tight squeeze before pulling away.

“I can’t breathe!” Hyejoo whines, finally shoving a pouting Hyunjin away. “And don’t look at me like that!”

“They’re just happy for you, Hyejoo,” Chaewon sings, stepping close to Hyejoo and linking their arms without further prompting. “They’re your family!”

“Yeah, Hyejoo,” Hyunjin taunts. “We’re family! I think we’re entitled to showing a bit of love.”

“If that’s your version of ‘a bit of emotion,’ I feel sorry for Heejin and what she has to deal with,” Hyejoo deadpans, and Hyunjin gasps, looking reasonably affronted.

“Excuse me, Son Hyejoo! I’ll have you know that I—”

Hyunjin’s abruptly cut off by the sound of high-pitched squealing, and upon hearing Chaewon let out a low groan of distress as she unlinks their arms, Hyejoo manages to spin around just in the nick of time to watch two other girls – Hyejoo recognizes them as the other members of the Journalism club – tackle Chaewon into a group hug, Chaewon letting out a shriek of shock.

Normally, Hyejoo supposes that she should be reasonably concerned that her small girlfriend has been essentially dogpiled, but judging by Chaewon’s annoyed exclamations of what do you think you’re doing?! Hyejoo figures she’s fine.

“We’re so happy for you, Chae!” The red-headed girl, who Hyejoo recognizes as Kim Jiwoo, squeals loudly into Chaewon’s ear, and Hyejoo shares an amused look with Jinsoul and Hyunjin, while Yves chuckles under her breath.

“Hey, Chuu,” Yves drawls, Hyejoo raises an eyebrow at both the nickname and the way Jiwoo immediately straightens at the sound of Yves’s voice. “Don’t kill our Baby Wolf’s gee-eff just yet. This is the happiest we’ve seen Hyejoo in a long time!”

Jinsoul nods eagerly, swinging an arm around Yves’s shoulders in a friendly manner. “That goes for you too, Jo Haseul! What a great influence you are, as a senior! Tackling your underclassmen to the ground and whatever.”

Haseul only rolls her eyes, sticking her tongue out.

“Like you two should be talking with all the noise you guys were making,” Haseul retorts.

“We were celebrating!” Jinsoul says defensively.

“Just launch me into the abyss,” Hyejoo begs no one in particular, tilting her head up to the ceiling and massaging her temples. “I can’t wait to push you all into the pool during practice today.”

“I know the feeling,” Chaewon sighs, returning to Hyejoo’s side having finally escaped from Jiwoo’s tight embrace. “You have no idea how loud the journalism club room gets, especially when all of us are there. Speaking of which, where’s—”

“Let me just apologize for Jiwoo and Haseul,” a new voice cuts in, and Hyejoo watches as Chaewon’s eyes flood with relief the moment Kim Jungeun strides up to the group, flicking her ponytail over her shoulder and blowing some of the stray blonde strands of hair out of her eyes.

“They’re a bit much,” Jungeun continues. Chaewon quickly bobs her head in agreement.

Much to Hyejoo’s surprise, it’s Jinsoul who responds.

“S’kay, Jungeun-ie,” Jinsoul grins cheekily, but Hyejoo can’t help but notice the way Jungeun’s gaze lingers on Jinsoul’s arm— the one that remains slung over Yves’s shoulder, and while Hyejoo fully knows that that arm means nothing in terms of romantic implications, Hyejoo wonders what Jungeun’s thinking.

In the few years Hyejoo’s known Jinsoul, she’s always had one main takeaway— Jinsoul is deceptively perceptive. Behind Jinsoul’s big smile and boisterous laughter is a witty, intelligent mind— one that notices things that otherwise go unnoticed.

Hyejoo knows this is true, because suddenly she’s blinking, and Jinsoul’s retracted her arm from Yves’s shoulder and is sidling up next to Jungeun, playfully poking the blonde junior, her tone whiny and teasing and it’s so Jinsoul and Jungeun’s own posture has become more relaxed—

“I wonder what’s going to happen there,” Chaewon murmurs, slipping her hand into Hyejoo’s, letting Hyejoo’s larger hand engulf her own. She points her chin at Jinsoul and Jungeun.

“You noticed too?”

Chaewon nods, a shrug rolling off her shoulders.

“They’ve been studying physics together— or more like they just sit down together and do problems. Jungeun doesn’t actually need help, I think. She just likes hanging around Jinsoul.” Chaewon giggles lightly, resting her head on Hyejoo’s chest. Hyejoo easily moves to accommodate her, encircling her arms around Chaewon’s waist. “I think Jungeun really likes Jinsoul.”

Hyejoo hums.

“I hope things work out for them,” she says earnestly, because Jinsoul’s been such a great older figure in her life, because Jinsoul deserves only good things for all the work she’s put into her academics and athletics both, because Jinsoul is yet another role model for her, who did her best to fill in the spaces that Mina couldn’t at the time.

“It worked out for us,” Chaewon smiles. “There’s still the whole second semester before Jinsoul graduates, so maybe this school year will bring good luck to all of us.”

--

[Friday]

She beats her record time for stroke by five whole seconds at the swim meet.

Somehow, the pool area is ten times louder than the first time, and Hyejoo heard the roaring even as she’s swimming, grinned underwater as she crashes to a finish, a whole lap ahead of the other swimmers. The adrenaline had been infectious, even more than the first time, and Hyejoo thinks it might be thanks to the additional people seated in the bleachers, but then again, it might just be her.

(She’s kidding, Hyejoo owes everything to those additional people, and she knows it.)

Jinsoul’s wide, proud grin is still the first thing Hyejoo sees when she scrambles out of the pool, mere heartbeats after the rest of the competition touches the wall, and Hyejoo thinks that she likes that this aspect hasn’t changed.

“A minute and ten seconds!” Her captain screams, picking Hyejoo up and spinning her around in a hug as soon as they’re out of the way. “You beat your previous record by five whole seconds! You’re going to Nationals, Baby Wolf!”

Seconds later she’s getting dogpiled by Yves and Hyunjin, Seulgi bounding over to the group to throw her arms around them all in joy.

“You guys are on fire today!” Seulgi says energetically. She twirls the whistle around her finger with an effortlessness that Hyejoo almost envies. “With Hyejoo qualified for Nationals, that means all of you will be going!”

“All that’s left is our medley relay,” Yves grins, cracking her knuckles in anticipation.

“The best event,” Hyunjin hums. She shares a look with Hyejoo, raises her fist and smirks when Hyejoo rolls her eyes, bumps it with her own fist. “We’re gonna make this one the best yet.”

“Let’s kill it, girls!” Jinsoul shouts, receiving an echoing chorus of cheers in agreement.

--

Hyejoo stands besides the diving block for the final medley relay, jogging lightly in place to try and release some of the excited nerves coursing through her veins. She leans down to high five Hyunjin in turn, following Jinsoul and Yves.

Hyunjin shoots them a thumbs up, climbing into the water to get into position for backstroke.

Meanwhile, Hyunjin looks into the stands on the pool deck, her heart swelling to twice the size when she meets eyes with Chaewon, seated in the stands.

“Hyejoo!!!” Her girlfriend cheers, waving enthusiastically with both her hands.

Hyejoo laughs, feels her beaming smile manage to grow, even after already being large to begin with— she’s come to realize that’s just Chaewon’s effect on her, really.

To Chaewon’s left is Heejin, craning her neck to get a glimpse of Hyunjin, while Choerry, who remains seated on Heejin’s other side, catches Hyejoo’s gaze, yells, “You better win, BBC!”

It’s Jinsoul who responds to Choerry, flashing an OK sign and nudging Yves, who waves at the crowd in turn. The older two girls get loud cheers from the onlookers, and Hyejoo smirks.

“Don’t let the fame get to your head,” she tells them teasingly.

Jinsoul laughs, elbows Hyejoo’s side.

“As if you should be talking! You’ve got your whole cheer squad here for you today!”

Hyejoo can’t really deny that— to Chaewon’s right is Mina, who beams at Hyejoo, shouts a good luck, Baby Wolf! as Nayeon lets out a loud wolf whistle, and yup, Hyejoo closes her eyes and knows, knows that this is the crowd she’d love to swim for, for the rest of her life.

Suddenly, a whistle is blown and the race is starting. By the time Hyejoo opens her eyes, Hyunjin’s flipturning to the return lap, and Hyejoo makes way to climb atop the diving block.

The pool is loud, louder than ever, and Hyejoo loves it, revels in it.

It rings in her ears, vibrates deep into her soul, resounds through her heart, and this is what Hyejoo thinks that this, this is what serendipity is.

She steps onto the diving block and smiles wide, wide, wide, when all she can hear is Chaewon’s supportive voice—

“Go get that ribbon, babe!”

 

End.