With only an hour’s break for lunch, they settled for a small restaurant nearby that, according to Nako, made the best cheese katsu she had ever eaten in her whole life. Placing their orders, the four women sat down at a free table with Nako and Hitomi on one side, and Hyewon and Eunbi on the other.

Sensing the awkwardness that was sure to come, Nako and Hyewon immediately struck up a conversation to lighten the mood. As Hitomi followed their banter with a smile, she accidentally met Eunbi’s eyes and shrunk in her seat. Eunbi wanted to chuckle at the duality of the blonde Japanese girl - one minute, she was the star of the show, exuding passion and confidence, and the next minute she was sitting shyly with her head bowed in front of Eunbi.

“So, Hitomi,” Eunbi ventured with the gentlest voice she could muster, “how did you meet Nako?”

“We, um, we met at the start of first year.” Hitomi glanced at Nako nervously. Nako patted her girlfriend’s hand in encouragement, and they interlocked fingers under the table. Gaining strength, Hitomi continued. “We shared some of the same tutorials, so we ended up becoming friends and hanging out together.”

“Then you invited me to watch one of your cheerleading practices, didn’t you?” Nako exclaimed. “I’d never really seen a proper cheerleading performance before. I still remember thinking how cool your moves were. I practically fell in love with you when you were practising backflips.”

“And as they say,” Hyewon finished, “the rest is history.” 

Just as she said that, their food arrived. Four identical plates of cheese katsu were slid in front of them, followed by their chosen sides. Nako and Hitomi brightened up at their plates of curry rice; Eunbi gave Hyewon her best side-eye as she moved her tteokbokki away, forcing Hyewon to focus on her ramen instead. Nako excitedly dug into a slice of cheese katsu, her eyes widening in joy as the cheese stretched and stretched. The more she pulled it away from her, the longer the cheese grew from the katsu, until in the end Hitomi had to step in and break the never-ending cheese string with her chopsticks.

“So you started dating after that cheerleading practice?” Eunbi insisted on continuing the conversation, ignoring the food in front of her as she sipped her drink.

Nako shook her head as she swallowed a mouthful of curry. “Nah, she rejected me.”

Eunbi choked on her Sprite. Hyewon snickered as she patted Eunbi’s back. “Classic Hitomi. What happened?”

Blushing furiously now, Hitomi deliberately avoided Eunbi’s burning gaze as she explained how Nako started crushing on their cheerleading captain, Nayoung, after getting rejected. Hitomi thought nothing of it at first, but as Nako and Nayoung started spending more time with each other, Hitomi found herself getting quite annoyed any time she saw them having fun together. It wasn’t until she saw Nako kissing Nayoung that she realised she actually had feelings for Nako all this time.

“I was kissing her on the cheek,” Nako clarified, getting a tad intimidated by her older sister’s bemused glare. “It was just on the cheek, nothing too serious.” She turned to grin at Hitomi. “I didn’t know that was when the lightbulb went off in your hea