"You like him?" Yuna says, running to catch up with her from where she'd been leaning against the front gate. One of the off-season jocks doesn't stop at the sign, nearly runs them over as they try to cross the parking lot. "Jeonginnie?"

Jiheon narrows her eyes at the license plate before yanking open the passenger door of Yuna's hand-me-down sedan. "Say it a little louder and the whole school will know, you know?"

Yuna tosses her backpack into the back before collapsing onto the driver's seat. "Heol," she says to the car ceiling.






Jiheon knows Yuna knows Jeongin because they were both on track together first year, before Yuna quit after getting the most awful shin splits. She used up all the ice in Jiheon's freezer one afternoon when she came over to study and it left a little wet spot on the seat covers, where it'd melted.

"Is it because of the braces?" asks Yuna, after she's pulled up the steep driveway of Jiheon's house. Someone back in middle school had called Jeongin "metal mouth," and no one had quite forgotten about it. He came to class late two weeks ago after his last orthodontist appointment with the most perfectly even teeth Jiheon had ever seen.

It was love at first sight when, after his presentation in World History, Jiheon raised her hand to ask a question for participation points and he'd directed that faultless smile toward her, diplomatically.

Jiheon manually unlocks her door, pulling her backpack straps over her shoulders. "No way," she says as she lingers, carefully turning over each possible rebuttal for their respective pros and cons. "I'm not into teeth, okay?," and then she slams the door closed.






Jiheon is totally into teeth.






There's really no reason for her to like Jeongin, honestly. They didn't run in concurrent social circles, and there was that time in study hall sophomore year when Jeongin launched a paper plane into her neck after missing the mark on Jisung Han, the class clown. He pitted the blame on Hyunjin, who ended up with a two-day detention for trying to clear his name. Jiheon found it all mildly impressive, when she'd finally stopped being pissed.

Two days after Yuna bombards her with nonstop hey, so do you like him? texts worded five thousand different ways, Jeongin's leaning on the side of Yuna's car as they cross the parking lot. This time, Yuna flips off the jocks when they run the stop sign.

"Why're you here?" Yuna scoffs, pushing him to the side to get into the driver's seat. Jiheon stares like a deer in awkward-social-situation headlights, when all you could really do was wait for one of the obviously closer two people you were hanging out with to acknowledge your existence.

"I texted you, like, right after seventh period. Aren't you always on your phone anyway?" Jeongin nods his head toward her. "Hey, Jiheon."

"Hey," she says as Yuna hip-checks him again with a, Whatever, but J