Before the beginning of her junior year, Jeon Heejin didn’t even knew the existence of one Kim Jungeun. She was too focus on her future to pay attention to boys or girls around school.

In her mind she believed she had her fair share of dating the year before and since it didn’t go as planned, she should just give up on the matters of the heart altogether and concentrate all her efforts on maintaining her high GPA, keeping up with all the extracurriculars she’d signed up for and managing everything that came with being the co-captain of the cheerleading squad. 

The last thing Heejin had time for was a silly school crush. But of course that didn’t stop her heart and mind from obsessing once she saw Kim Jungeun for the first time.

It was their first class on AP Biology and Heejin was one of the first students in class. Student after student arrived and soon Heejin realise she didn’t know any of them personally. Most were people she never paid attention and the few one she’s seen before were only from shallow pleasantries exchanged in the hallways or parties. 

None seemed to really interest Heejin until one last student came in. The girl was 5 minutes late to class and Mr. Choi, their teacher, didn’t waste time in scolding the student for her delay. The girl, that later Heejin found out called Jungeun, gave him a faux apology, clearly not bothered by her mistake and went straight to the last desk in the back of the class. 

Heejin was immediately intrigued by how that girl managed to look cool and pulled together when she was walking into class with obvious hand-me-down uniform and bruises under her eyes from lack of sleep. The girl still looked strikingly beautiful and her voice sounded like an angel. Oh no.

Needless to say that Heejin’s plans to focus solemnly on class were flushed away. 

The younger girl took the time to calmly observe Jungeun from across the class for the following months. They’d never exchanged a word, but that didn’t prevent Heejin from spending a good portion of her time admiring the girl's profile and noticing how cute she looked trying to fight the urge to sleep. 

Most times than not Jungeun would nod off during a lecture or notes, only to jerk awake a few seconds later. The younger found that slightly amusing, especially when the older would try and check around to see if anyone saw it before returning her gaze to her notebook, only to fall asleep again a few minutes later.

Truth be told, after months of watching the girl, Heejin had gotten to a point where she was sure that little crush of hers was completely one-sided and she’d never ever get the chance to befriend the girl, nevertheless date her. She was more than fine only admiring Jungeun from afar, in a complete platonic way. Even because they were from complete different crowds and the chances of their world colliding were small to none, or so Heejin thought.

Months went by until a week ago fate decided to intervene in the form of one weirdass party and the situation that Heejin was sure she had under complete control went from platonic to real really fast.

That friday night was forever attached to her memory as it kept replaying in her mind over and over again ever since it happened. All because Chaewon decided to throw a party and decided she wanted to risk her life and do drugs for the first time, Heejin remembered with a snort. 

And what were the odds that the reason why Jungeun showed up there was because the girl that was required to be there, Yves or whatever, was actually somewhere else with her best-friend Jiwoo–that had ditched the party without an explanation at the time–because they’re secretly dating? Certainly the odds weren’t that high, but Heejin was living proof it could happen, after watching front row destiny play in her favour.

Not that it was that much of a favour when after she lived her own twisted fairytale, everything crashed in the blink of an eye. Literally.

Finally being able to kiss the girl she’s been crushing for the past months? Awesome. Having the same girl throw up on her and then forget everything that happened, including that incredible kiss? Not so awesome.

So after the party she took her little miracle with a grain of salt and decided to keep her distance from the older girl, like it’d always been. Because her not remembering is a sign for me to leave it like it is and be grateful for the little I was spared, is something she’d often tell herself. 

Well, sort off. That kind of thought was definitely a factor why she still had yet to talk to the girl since she last did it when she decided to stalk Jungeun at her workplace. But honestly the only problem was that Heejin just lacked the courage to go up to the older girl and talk to her, simple as it sound. She had her mind set that she’d end up being rejected if she tried anything and that’d be a blow to her pride that she just couldn’t take.

So she settled in keeping a cool, outward indifference to Jungeun, pretending she didn’t even existed, before fate decided to test her for the second time, almost exactly two weeks after the party.

She was watching Mr. Choi finish writing on the black board, as usual, when came the pre-strike.

“What you have in front of you is a proposal for the science fair. You and your designated partner have three weeks to decide on what you’re going to do, create it, and present it at the fair. Many of you have your grade on the line here, so I’d suggest you consider participating before you decide that you don’t want to,” Mr. Choi advised, glancing at a few students in particular at the back of the class. Somehow she had a feeling that look was directed to her secret crush.

“I’m also requiring a poster presentation and a written report to hand me beforehand.” The class chorused a groan as he continued “As I’ve mentioned you'll be split into groups of two. And before you pounce, I’ll be picking the pairs. Earlier today I placed the partner assignments up on the board. It’s up to you and your partner if you both will be participating on the fair or not. However, before you go look at it and split up, we have to finish this overview. I would advise taking notes, as very few of you are likely to read the textbook.”

He continued with his class while Heejin’s pondered her availability to do this project. If she decided to do this, it’d be the third project she’d agreed to that needs to be finished before the end of the month and she knew it wouldn’t be a good deal since besides doing all this work she was also packed with cheer practice and all the extracurricular activities she was part of.

But it wasn’t in Heejin’s nature to turn down a chance to pump up her grades. She was a greedy overachiever and if she was given any chance to rise her chances of getting accepted to her dream college, she’d do it without thinking too much about the effort she’d need to put to accomplish that. It’d be rushed for sure, but after getting the A+ she was confident she’d receive, it’d be worth it.

She was so immersed inside her own plan, organising her schedule and creating strategies to  manage all of that, that she didn’t notice that the day’s lecture was over and the students were finally allowed to look up the board. 

Heejin waited until there wasn’t a line and got up to take a look at it.

She wasn’t very picky when it came to partnership since she got along with most people from her school, but being the perfectionist that she is, she just hoped it was someone that’d take it as serious as she did. If they weren’t she’d find a way to do this by herself.

Heejin’s eyes scanned the list of names in front of her until she found her own, followed by—

Kim Jungeun.

Her eyes grew twice its size. No way. She took a second look at the list to confirm if what she read was actually real and not something her brain fabricated to give her false hope. Nope, definitely real. What do I do? What do I do? Wha–

“If I were you I’d get to work during these last few minutes.” She heard Mr. Choi s