Day 208

“Thanks for running with me even on the weekend,” Sakura said as she and Hitomi took a break. They’d found a park with benches nearby where they could sit.

“I wanted to get up early too. I need to help the class get ready for the culture festival today. You promised that you would come by, right?” Hitomi asked again for what Sakura felt like the hundredth time.

“Right, of course!” Sakura said, but she secretly wished she had asked what Hitomi’s class was doing before she’d agreed. “What made you guys decide to do a haunted house?”

“We have a lot of drama club students in my class and someone mentioned that the culture festival was only a couple of days past Halloween. They convinced the rest of the class that it would be fun to try and scare people out of their minds. I wanted to do a bread café or something but was outvoted.”

“A café would have been nice. I think a lot of classes are doing that though. Ours is doing one too.”

“Are you sure you’ll have time to visit? You sound like you’ll be pretty busy. Don’t you also have to help out at the art club for your art exhibit?”

“I should be okay. Eunbi-senpai, Yena, and Yujin and I are all taking turns manning the station. We’re just doing an exhibition, so there isn’t really that much work that needs to be done. We let people in and answer any questions if they have any and maybe sell some stuff too if we’re lucky. Last year, we only sold a few things, so I’m not expecting any major sales.”

“Hmm, I wouldn’t be too sure of that. You were getting popular before the sports festival already, but you gained even more fans after it. People were moved by how you and your class ran for that girl that fell down. So, I could see you guys being pretty busy.”

“People aren’t going to buy my stuff just because I’m popular, which I’m not,” Sakura said with a not-so-confident voice. She had been noticing that the number of people she talked to during the course of a school day had dramatically increased.

“You’d be surprised how things can change because of popularity,” Hitomi said with knowing smile. “Since the track club won an event, there’s been talk about the track club being bigger next year. It could be a great year for them.”

“Them? Aren’t you joining the club again next year?” Sakura asked, picking up on Hitomi’s choice of words.

“I think I’ve gotten everything I wanted out of track this year. Watching Nako become so happy after she formed the light music club made me want to try something that I’d always dreamt of being.”

“Oh? What is that?” Sakura had never heard of any dream that Hitomi might have had before outside of track.

“I always wanted to be a cheerleader. In middle school, I had only gone to the track tryout because some of my other friends went. My plan was to go to the cheerleader tryouts after, but a certain someone made me change my mind.” With the last sentence, the girl adopted a serious demeanor as she suddenly stared at Sakura.

“Ah, I didn’t know that,” Sakura gulped as she felt Hitomi’s eyes penetrate deep into her soul. She felt herself pinned down by the younger girl’s gaze.

“You’ll take responsibility for completely upending my life, won’t you, Senpai?” Hitomi asked with a heavy emphasis on the word senpai.

Sakura felt she couldn’t even blink as she slowly nodded under Hitomi’s heavy pressure. “What can I do?”

“I heard you are friends with Lee Chaeyeon. Could you introduce me to her? I’d like to ask her for some pointers and about how I could join the cheer dance club next year.”

“How are you doing? Sorry, I’m taking so long,” Sakura said as she applied the final touches on Chaewon’s face.

“I’m okay. You’re really good at this,” Chaewon said as she sat patiently.

Sakura blushed at the compliment. “I’ve had a lot of practice this year. It is also kind of like art I think.”

“Everything looks a bit sharper. I like how it looks like I’m not wearing makeup,” Chaewon said as she brought her compact up closer to her face to see herself in the mirror.

“That’s pretty much the point. We’ll make everything a little lighter and sharper. I think girls here like the vampire or ikemen look. Ch-Chaewon, do you need to take a bit of a break? I’m mostly done. We just have to put the wig on, and you should be all set.” Sakura was slowly finding it easier to say Chaewon’s name.

“Okay, Sakura,” Chaewon said as she got up from the chair to stretch. “When are your shifts?”

“I’m working with Chaeyeon as one of the kitchen-help first and then later, I’ll take a shift with Hyewon as a host.”

“You’re so lucky. I wanted to work in the kitchen too, but the class insisted I do two shifts as a host instead,” Chaewon pouted.

Sakura felt her heart melt at the sight of the pouting girl. She almost told her the real reason the class wanted two shifts out of her as a host. When the class had sampled each person’s food, Chaewon’s had clearly been one of the worst. The class had feared for the safety of their customers if the girl was allowed to cook. “You were so good at the rehearsals. I think a lot of people are going to pick you.”

“Are you going to be able to handle it? I saw you reading the script multiple times. You even took it home with you.”

When Sakura had gotten the ‘script’ for what a male host should say to their customers, she had been struck by nostalgia. She had ended up taking the script home to read and had pretty much brought it everywhere with her so that she could practice her delivery at any time. “Old habits, I guess. I tried to be an actor when I was a kid. Reading a script over and over was something I used to do all the time.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed that you had any acting ability. I could usually guess when you’re not telling the truth,” Chaewon said with a smirk.

“I can hide something if I want to,” Sakura insisted.

“Oh?” Chaewon moved up to Sakura until their faces were inches apart. “Did you really like the sandwich I made when we were deciding who would take cooking shifts?”

“Uh,” Sakura could only say as she became flustered by Chaewon’s up-close beautiful face. “I can’t do it when I’m not prepared. Give me one more try.”

“Sure,” Chaewon said smugly as if already assuming that she had won her point.

Sakura closed her eyes and drew from the script on how a player acted. Her mind cleared itself of Chaewon’s crooked smile and in its place was her new persona and what she was like. She reached around the small of the girl’s back and pulled her close.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Chaewon sputtered out and immediately tried to escape Sakura’s embrace, but Sakura wouldn’t let her go so easily.

“If I had to eat your sandwiches for the rest of my life, I’d die a happy guy,” Sakura said in a low voice that was filled with confidence.

“You’re lying. You definitely didn’t like them,” Chaewon gasped out, but her words did not match her actions as she stopped struggling and slowly melted into Sakura’s embrace.

Sakura used her other hand to grasp at Chaewon’s hand. She looked at the hand intently and lovingly. “Anything made by these hands would be the work of a goddess.”

“Oh, my,” Chaewon murmured. After a moment, she shook her head as if clearing her head and gingerly unwrapped Sakura’s hand from around her. “These girls won’t know what hit them. You’re good.”

Sakura shook her head as well as she got out of character. It had been a long time since she last acted. “Uh, thanks. I might be a little out of practice though.”

“This reminds me of the barbeque we had over the summer,” Chaeyeon said as she deftly switched places with Sakura in the small makeshift kitchen area they had created for themselves.

“Yeah, that was fun and so is this,” Sakura said, nodding enthusiastically as she ducked and slid under Chaeyeon’s outstretched arms. “But we had a bit more space.”

“You move pretty well you know despite how bad you are at sports,” Chaeyeon said.

Sakura glared at her best friend who was a picture of innocence as she looked back at her. “Don’t you start that up again. I thought you went to get the cleaning supplies, you know.”

“Aww, don’t be like that. You danced very cutely,” Chaeyeon insisted. She absolutely believed her friend was simply saying that to make her feel better. She’d been so embarrassed to have been caught by her best friend who was a legitimate dancer.

“Well, I wasn’t really going for cute,” Sakura said glumly. She moved to the toaster when she heard the toast pop up. Without even looking she reached behind her, knowing Chaeyeon would have margarine ready for her. Sure enough, she felt her friend’s hand the slide small tub of margarine into it

“You probably can’t help it. Every dancer has a style and yours just happens to be cute.”

“And yours is powerful, precise, and charismatic. How I wish I could dance like you,” Sakura said, trying to deflect the conversation to be more about her friend.

“Hey, I could teach you,” Chaeyeon said brightly. “The cheer dance club doesn’t have many activities during the winter, so you’d be helping me out by practicing with me.”

As annoyed as she was when Chaeyeon brought up this topic, her heart warmed at the way her friend phrased it as if Sakura would be helping her. In reality, it was Chaeyeon that was helping Sakura learn how to dance. She finished putting the spread on the toast and then slid the plate to the other side so that toppings could be put on it. “It’s a club sandwich.”

“Oh, come on. You can’t just ignore me. Hey, why don’t you just join me and… Hitomi was it? You said she wanted some pointers and was interested in joining our club next year. The three of us can learn together. It’s almost winter, so it’ll be too cold to run outside soon. Dancing is great cardio too.”

Sakura had to admit that Chaeyeon was making valid points. “You’re not usually this pushy about things. What’s gotten into you?”

“I’ve been thinking about how much of an effort you make so that we can do stuff together since the sports festival. If you can watch a game of basketball with me, then I should make an effort too.” Chaeyeon completed the sandwich and handed it to Sakura.

Sakura fidgeted as she stood next to Hyewon while they waited for customers. The girl had refused to wear a wig but had otherwise accepted all of the class’s other requests of her, including wearing a tuxedo and doing two shifts as host. “Uh, I’ll be in your care,” Sakura said, trying hard not to stammer as the girl cut a devastatingly fine figure in her tux.

Hyewon had the slightest of smiles as she looked at Sakura. “You can relax. Hosting and serving is pretty easy once you get used to it.”

“I’m happy we can share part of a shift together. It was nice of you to agree to doing two shifts,” Sakura said, wondering if she was ogling the other girl too much.

“I’m just happy to help,” Hyewon shrugged as if it wasn’t all that big a deal. “Oh, looks like we have some repeat customers. I’ll be right back.”

Sakura marveled as Hyewon walked with a confident swagger towards the girls who had just sat down. She could see how the two girls were utterly charmed by Hyewon. She, herself, didn’t even notice time moving as she watched the beautiful girl in action. “You remembered their drink order from the last time they were here?” she asked as the girl came back to stand next to her.

“I’m pretty good at associating people with foods or drinks, so that helps me remember things about them like their last orders,” Hyewon said as if that explained everything.

Who associated food with people? Sakura wondered. “What about me?”

Hyewon looked at Sakura and seemed to think for a moment before answering. “You ordered a chocolate smoothie when you were on break earlier.”

“That’s amazing,” Sakura said, feeling touched that the girl remembered something so trivial.

“It’s really not,” Hyewon said humbly.

Sakura could tell that Hyewon genuinely seemed to believe that it was nothing. “You might not think so, but I think that’s why they came back. They really appreciate the service that you give.”

Hyewon seemed uncomfortable hearing the praise and stayed silent.

Sakura smiled as she looked at Hyewon’s blank face. The past year had taught her that this was the look for when the girl didn’t know how to respond. It took her a while, but she finally understood what kind of person Hyewon was and she knew that she was not the only one. “The class also appreciates the things that you do like how you stepped up to be the face of this café and how you lead everyone.”

Hyewon turned her head away to cough politely, but Sakura could tell the girl was awkwardly hiding her blush. When she turned back to face Sakura, her usual blank face had a small pout. “I wouldn’t say I’m the face of the café. Chaewon and you are pretty popular customer picks. And I’m definitely not the leader.”

Sakura shook her head. “You lead by example. When everyone was nervous about how to act, you were the first to greet the guests. You modeled how to act perfectly.”

“You flatter me too much,” Hyewon said with a small voice.

Seeing the girl acting so shy and flustered, somehow egged Sakura on to keep laying on the praises. At first, she had been the same as the rest of the class when she had pegged Hyewon as some high-class chaebol heir who would not deign to lower herself to their level. Even worse was that she had believed the rumors that this girl was also some playgirl that broke the hearts of girls flippantly at the beginning of the year. Now, she knew the girl as the kind-hearted girl that she was. “You deserve every word that I said.”

“Oh, you,” Hyewon said and put an arm around Sakura in a half headlock.

Sakura pursed her lips as she looked at the suspiciously tall girl sitting at one of their makeshift café tables. There were very few girls in the school as tall as this girl. And probably only a couple silly enough to believe that she could disguise herself with a hoodie and a facemask that covered her nose and mouth.

The girl in question looked up at Sakura as she approached the table. “Um, forgive my appearance. I’m just getting over a cold. But I’ll take a menu please.”

“As you wish, Mistress,” Sakura said with a slight tilt of her head. She placed the menu in front of the girl and waited attentively beside her.

The girl to her credit tried to look like she was looking at the menu, but Sakura caught the girl’s gaze on her a couple of times too many to be a coincidence. “These, uh, all look so delicious. What do you recommend?”

“Everything here is delicious of course. Today’s most popular items are our sweets selection. They were baked in the morning.”

“Hmm, I see,” the girl nodded. “Please surprise me with whatever you think would be good.”

“And would you like coffee to go with that?” Sakura asked politely. “The bitterness really goes well with the sweets.”

Even with the mask on, Sakura could sense the girl making a disgusted face. “Really? That sounds fine.”

Sakura kept an eye on the table as she put in the girl’s order. She could see the girl fidgeting and trying to be inconspicuous with her eyes darting back and forth. When she’d finished peparing the coffee, she went to bring it to the table. “Here, you are.”

“Thanks,” the girl accepted it graciously. She lifted the bottom of her face mask so that she could take a sip of it. Sakura could see the girl’s lips curl with revulsion.

“There is cream and sugar here if you’d like,” Sakura offered, to which the girl shook her head.

“No, um, it’s fine. It’s just the way I like it,” the girl lied. After a moment of trying to take another sip, the girl put the cup down and looked at Sakura. “So, I heard your specialty is art and that you can give me a personal lesson.”

“Yes, that’s right. Would you like me to teach you while we wait for your order?” Sakura asked, but sat down beside the girl without waiting for an answer as her character dictated. She was playing the role of a confident playboy who looked like a cute otaku on the outside. She wondered how the class came up with these super specific roles.

“Uh,” the girl said, obviously flustered as if she didn’t know what to make of Sakura.

Sakura smoothly reached for the girl’s hand. “You have such pretty hands. I’m sure you’ll be able to draw beautiful pictures with them.”

“Eep,” the girl squeaked out, but didn’t try to take her hand away.

Sakura pulled out her notepad and pencil from one of the pockets of her apron with her other hand and placed it in front of them. She gently placed the pencil in the girl’s hand and guided her hand to the pad. “How’s that?”

“I-I can do it myself,” the girl said finally after they spent a while with Sakura’s hand holding hers and it became apparent that Sakura wasn’t going to let go.

“Oh, my bad,” Sakura said with a mischievous smile. She let go of the girl’s hand slowly, letting her hand glide up the other girl’s arm as she did so. “I’ll go get your order and when I come back, we can draw whatever you like.”

Sakura stretched and stifled as yawn as she left the classroom. She was half glad that her shifts were over. She, surprisingly, had had a lot of fun. Next, to Hyewon and Chaewon, she had been the third most requested host for some odd reason. She found her character to be a bit of a scoundrel and couldn’t imagine anyone liking such a person, but word of mouth had spread as she had been nearly booked solid during her shift.

She looked at the time on her phone and noticed she had ample time before she needed to relieve Yena at the art club. She smiled as that meant she could go and see what Minju and literature club had set out for the culture festival. “Minju!” she called out as soon as she entered the literature club room.

“Sakura, you came!” Minju exclaimed when she saw Sakura.

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” Sakura said as she looked around the room. She could see many pieces of original work laid out around the room. “Please show me your stuff.”

“Okay,” Minju blushed modestly and reached out to hold Sakura’s hand.

Sakura blushed as well as she allowed the girl to lead her around the room. Totally normal to hold hands with your friend, she told herself to keep her heart from exploding.

“This is one of our main features for the culture festival,” Minju said as she took Sakura to the front of the room where an overly large binder lay. She could see plastic sheets covering pieces of paper with poetry on each page. “We wrote poems about the seasons and placed them in here for people read.”

Sakura flipped the binder’s pages one by one, admiring the flowing words of each writer. Eventually, she reached one of Minju’s works. “Wow, you wrote this? This is amazing.”

“Thank you,” Minju said quietly after a long moment.

Sakura looked up from the page to see Minju staring at her. “Um, it is amazing. I’m not just saying it.”

“I don’t mean about that. I mean about everything. You’ve been so supportive of me this year. When I saw you read my poem so seriously, I just felt like saying thank you.”

Sakura reached into her purse and pulled out a handkerchief. She’d been around Minju long enough to know that the girl could get really emotional. “You know, if you start crying right now, I’m going to do it too.”

Minju opened her eyes wide as if that would hold her tears in and for the moment it seemed to work. She let go of Sakura’s hand and lightly bumped her shoulder against Sakura’s in mock anger. However, she still took the handkerchief from her. “I’m okay. But if you started crying, I would definitely cry.”

That’s because you’re too empathetic for your own good, Sakura though but didn’t say. It was like saying the sun was too warm or cats were too cute. Minju was Minju. “I’ll manage. You said this was one of your features. What about the others?”

Minju brought the handkerchief up to her face but could not hide the shy smile before she covered herself. She pointed at several handmade booklets on the desk. “We’re selling those. Those are shorts stories that everyone in the club wrote. We bound them all up into one collection.”

“Yoo-hoo, anyone there?” Sakura asked as she knocked on the desk where Yena sat in a daze.

“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t paying attention,” Yena said as she quickly put the thousand yen bill she was staring at into the petty cash box.

“You act like you’ve never seen money before,” Sakura said as she looked over the list of items that the art club had managed to sell. It wasn’t many, as she expected, but every little bit helped and eased their art supply budget a bit more.

“Hey, it’s the first time someone bought something of mine that I made before, okay?” Yena said sulkily as she got up.

Sakura looked at list of sales again and noticed that one of Yena’s items did sell. “What? Really? I’m so happy for you,” she said and reached over to grab Yena’s hands and started jumping up and down excitedly.

Yena seemed suspicious for a moment before she also started smiling widely and jumped up and down along with Sakura. “Yeah, I was so shocked when they handed me the money,” Yena said after she and Sakura settled down from their initial excitement.

“Well, a lot of your stuff was pretty raw,” Sakura said, never seeming to have any trouble being blunt with Yena compared with Minju.

“I like to think of them as unpolished gems,” Yena sniffed.

“So unpolished, they might as well be dull,” Sakura teased. “But you never gave up. I’ve never seen someone put so much work into something that they might not have any talent for. You must love it a lot.”

“Thanks, even if that sounds like a slight. You’re right. I don’t know why, but I really like craftwork. My parents are getting annoyed of me recycling everything in the house for my projects. If I had to say why I like it so much, I think it was because it was the first thing I learned here. Eunbi-senpai and even you, were really patient with helping me learn. At first, to be honest, I just wanted to get it over with.”

Sakura nodded. She and Eunbi had decided that since Yena only came to the club sometimes, that it would be better for her to work on projects that could easily be picked up again like crafting. A lot of times it was more difficult to come back to something artistic and be in the right mindset again. “You still move pretty fast between projects. But that can be a good thing. I think you’re learning so fast because you experiment a lot and fail a lot.”

“Again, thanks, but you really should work on your wording,” Yena said, rolling her eyes.

“I thought our join project might have sold since it turned out pretty cute,” Sakura said as she moved over to one of their displays. She had created caricatures of the art club members and Yena had decided to create stuffed toys in their likeness. When she got to the table, she saw a big sign that hadn’t been there when they set up the day before. [Not for sale].

“Uh, sorry, I couldn’t sell those,” Yena said sheepishly. “There’s too much sentimental value. I know I didn’t ask you beforehand about not selling them.”

“You’re so popular now,” Yujin whined. She sat, slumped over, at the front desk as Sakura saw a group of girls out the door.

“Me? I think they were here for you,” Sakura replied. The art club was not nearly as busy last year compared to this year. This year there had been non-stop visitors and Sakura was sure it was due to the popularity of Yujin and Yena.

“They were here for you. Didn’t you notice how they only looked at your artwork,” Yujin retorted.

“Well, they could be here for you and be interested in my drawings. I am pretty good you know,” Sakura said honestly.

“A lot of those girls weren’t from this school. I think a lot of them were middle schoolers who are interested in coming here next year. They wouldn’t know who I am. But they probably know about the girl who roleplayed as a ridiculously hot guy all morning.”

Sakura sighed as she went over to her sullen kohai. She placed a hand on the girl’s hair in a soothing gesture. She had to remind herself that the girl could be quite childish sometimes and prone to temper tantrums. “Hey, I’m sorry that you couldn’t book me.”

“You told me you didn’t think anyone would book you to be their host! You were nearly booked your entire shift. All of the times that I could make, you were full,” Yujin said with a pout and stared accusingly at Sakura.

“I think it was because we turned out to be more popular than expected. My classmates, Hyewon and Chaewon really drew a lot of people in, I think. What do you want me to do about it?”

“How about you serve me here as a host? We’re alone right now,” Yujin said enthusiastically as she sat up straight.

“Eh? That’s way too embarrassing. I’m not even in costume,” Sakura said putting her hands up in front of her for emphasis.

“I see,” Yujin said and slumped back down on the desk.

Sakura sighed and went over to where she had tea brewed along with some finger food prepared for guests. She poured a cup of tea and placed a sandwich on a clean paper plate. She cleared with a small cough and brought the offerings to her precious junior. “Ahem, would you like some tea and a snack, Mistress?”

Yujin looked with and beamed with a smile. “Yes, please.”

As embarrassing as it was, it pleased Sakura to see such a small thing able to change Yujin’s mood so completely. “Here you go.”

Yujin took the cup and lifted her pinky as she tried to drink the tea in a dainty fashion. The effect was ruined by her giggling, however. “Being here like this with you reminds me of last year.”

“Last year? You weren’t a student here.”

“I was just like that group of middle schoolers actually. I came here to visit the cultural festival because I was interested in coming to this school. You don’t remember, but we kind of met last year.”

“We did? I’m sure I would remember if I met you,” Sakura said as she looked up and down at the girl in an exaggerated way.

Yujin laughed. “Well, I guess I had a bit of a growth spurt. But yeah, I had come to the art room and you were so excited since I seemed to be one of the few people that visited. You took me around to look at all the pieces of work you guys had displayed. I remember thinking that I’d never met anyone so excited about their club before.”

Sakura looked at Yujin and tried to imagine a shorter girl and probably makeup-less. “You were that girl? Wow, you really grew up tall and pretty. So, did you join the club because of that?”

“Yuri!” Sakura cried out as she tried to stop herself before she tripped onto the girl.

“Senpai!” Yuri’s eyes opened wide as Sakura almost barrelled into her.

Fortunately, Sakura was able to put the brakes on and stop herself. “Yuri, it’s dangerous to sit on the stairs like this. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your concert? I’m headed to the gym right now.”

“Ah, I still have time. I just wanted some alone time before the concert started. You can go on ahead though,” Yuri said with what Sakura thought was a forced smile before turning her head to stare straight ahead.

Sakura had wanted to get there early so that she could get a good seat, but there was something about the way the younger girl was acting that made her pause. “Oh, I see. Do you mind if I join you until it starts then?”

“No, go ahead,” Yuri said and scooted over on the stairs so that Sakura could sit down beside her.

Sakura moved to sit beside the other girl. They sat there for a full minute in silence before Sakura turned to Yuri and reached out to hold one of the girl’s hands. It took her a moment since the girl had been gripping her hands together tightly. They sat there, hand in hand, silently as the tension in the girl’s hands slowly subsided.

Yuri sighed deeply after a while. Her breath sounded ragged as it escaped her lungs. After a second sigh that sounded better to Sakura’s ears, Yuri turned to look at her. “Sorry, I didn’t even know I was holding my breath.”

Sakura turned to the girl and could see a more natural smile on the girl’s face. “It’s no problem.”

“Did you notice I wasn’t doing well?” Yuri asked with a more relaxed tone of voice compared to before.

“I think the usual Yuri usually squeals more,” Sakura joked while giving the girl’s hand a squeeze. “Actually, I think I recognized that look you had. I had the same look on my face when I stared at myself in the bathroom before the art club’s open house started. I wanted so badly to make a good impression on whoever might visit the club, but I was a wreck. You had same look on your face just now.”

“I didn’t even realize something was wrong with me until I started to head to the gym. I’ve never been anxious about singing before,” Yuri said, her voice no longer sounding strained. She squeezed Sakura’s hand back firmly to show that she was feeling better. “But suddenly I had a panic attack. My heart started racing and it was running so fast that I wondered if I might die. I couldn’t calm down at all.”

“Sounds like a panic attack alright,” Sakura said, nodding.

“What did you do? I remember going to the art club that day to join, but you seemed fine,” Yuri said.

“Like I said I was in the bathroom staring at myself, but I was also psyching myself before I had to face the open house. I don’t know if I’m the most qualified person to tell you how to handle this, but that was what I did. I try to prepare myself by getting in the right headspace. Sitting alone in the classroom waiting and feeling anxious wasn’t something I could do.”

“Like sitting here on the stairs alone?” Yuri asked with a wry smile. “I don’t know if that’ll work for me, but I do like the idea of getting myself mentally prepared. I think I should probably wait with the other girls. They might be feeling the same way I am.”

“Good job,” Sakura said as she entered the music room.

“Thanks,” Nako replied from where she stood. She was looking out the window. The wind blew in and caused the younger girl’s hair to flutter all around her. The effect made her childhood friend look even more ethereal than usual.

“You guys prepared so many sets in just a few months. You even had time to prepare a Twice cover including the dance choreography. Where did you guys ever get the time to do all that?” Sakura asked incredulously. She literally was next door to the light music club and hadn’t expected the club to perform a full kpop song including dance.”

“We wanted that one to be a secret, so we actually met up outside of school during the weekends and during the summer to practice,” Nako laughed.

Sakura had never seen her childhood friend with such a contented look on her face before. “One of your dreams had always been to sing in front of an audience and you did it.”

“Yeah, I did it,” Nako said with a smile. She looked at Sakura as her smile quickly turned into a frown. “Do you think it’s greedy of me to want more?”

Sakura laughed at the seriousness of Nako’s look. “No, of course not. It’s human nature to want more after you’ve had a taste of something.”

“But I’ve been so lucky already. It feels like I would be asking for too much if I want more,” Nako said, still frowning.

“I wouldn’t say you were lucky. You and the rest of your members earned all of it. You worked hard to get to this stage and if you wanted to go even further then I think all of you have the right to go and get it.”

“You sound like Yuri,” Nako said. “She’s always saying ‘let’s get it’ when we feel nervous. She’s like our rock and our motivator.”

Sakura decided not to expose Yuri’s earlier panic attack to Nako and simply nodded. “She is amazing. Your whole club is amazing. I think a lot of the reason your club is amazing is because of you though. You give everyone in the club a chance to shine. I know you gave that high note to Yuri to sing in that one song. It’s not like I hadn’t heard you practicing it for a month. Those other girls are great singers, but I can tell they’re not as great as you. You gave them a lot of lines.”

Nako shrugged. “We’re a team. Team unity is more important than any personal achievement I might make.”

Sakura breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Eunbi in their club room. She had gone down to the grounds to check out the bonfire. But the one person she had hoped to see there wasn’t there. Thinking back to the year before, she remembered the two of them watching the bonfire from their club room.

Eunbi turned around when she heard the door open. She smiled. “I knew you would find me here.’

“Of course. That day was probably my favorite last year,” Sakura said as she moved to the window to join her senpai.

“Can you believe it’s already been a year since that day?” Eunbi asked as she turned back around to look at the glowing bonfire.

However prepared Sakura was for her senpai to immediately give her a side hug as soon as they stood side by side, she was still flustered by the simple intimate action. Sakura tensed up for just a moment before she forced herself to relax and enjoy the older girls’ warm embrace. “No, I can’t. I can’t believe half the stuff that’s happened since last year.”

“A lot of things have happened since then,” Eunbi said nodding, her voice cracking slightly.

Sakura put her own arm around the older girl until she reached Eunbi’s head. Gently, she pushed the girl’s head until it lay against her shoulder. “And many more things are still to come,” Sakura said, sensing what was choking her senpai up.

“Not with me,” Eunbi said. “Not here, in this club room.”

Tears that Sakura had been trying hard all day to hold in, slowly streamed from her eyes. “Then we’ll find a new place for us to make memories,” she said, her own voice cracking.

“It won’t be the same,” Eunbi said softly.

“Nothing ever is,” Sakura whispered back. “It’ll be better.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. We both know each other a lot better. There won’t be any awkwardness.”

“The awkwardness was part of the fun,” Eunbi said with a voice that was between a giggle and a sob.

“For one of us. For the other, it was scary,” Sakura said with a voice that shared the same mix.

Eunbi brought a hand up to her face to wipe at her tears. “Where do you think this new place will be? At university? There’s no guarantee that I’ll pass the exams at the one you’re going to.”

Sakura had to fight off the lingering effects of the playboy in her mind as she almost said that their place would be in their hearts. She shook her head and prepared to say something equally cheesy probably, but heartfelt. “Anywhere and everywhere. There doesn’t have to be any specific place. I just know that no matter which university you go to, which city you work in, which country you live in, I’ll find a way that we can meet.”

Chaeyeon: Why tuxedos?

Sakura: Fanservice is the hallmark of any game. We have a lot of female fans.

Chaeyeon: That’s okay, I guess. That’s tamer than bikini shots.

Sakura: Well, not really. If we add two shots with us in tuxedos leaning in really close to each other, we’ll get the BL crowd going.

Chaeyeon: BL?

Author’s Note:

So proud of our girls and our fandom. History has been made and I couldn’t be happier to be a part of it along with my fellow Wiz*Ones.

Fic wise, hoping to have something out for Sakura’s birthday. I want to do something special for it, but not sure if I can get it done in time.

Let me know your thoughts!