A/N: Thanks for all the comments. This is Nako's POV chapter, but I'm still spending some time to flesh out the main characters. There will be a chapter dedicated to her once it rotates back to Nako. Please enjoy!

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“Unnie.” Nako greets faintly as Eunbi comes into a classroom where two other students and a couple of teachers sat.

“Mrs., ehem...Miss Kwon…, please have a seat here.” An older man stood up and gestured a an empty chair beside Nako.

“Good evening, Mr. Kim. I’m sorry for being late. May I ask what happened?” Eunbi sat down and glanced at Nako worriedly before facing the Principal with a confident face, her tone also a lot calmer and colder than usual.

This is Ice-Queen Eunbi’s front. Nako thought with a small, undetectable curve on the right corner of her lips. Go Eunbi-Unnie!

“It appears that Nako participated in a scuffle with someone in another class. Well, there were around four of them on both sides…” He glanced around the classroom, clearly noting that most of them are gone with their parents already. “We were trying to find out the cause and the culprit, but no one has told us anything, so to be fair, everyone who was in the fight will receive the same punishment.”

“Mr Kim?” Eunbi interrupts. “If I may.”

The Principal nods.

“Nako is nice and gentle. She gets good grades and never got into trouble. She helps out at home and all our neighbors love her. What I’m trying to say is, I find it unbelievable that she got herself into a fight.”

“Normally, that’s when I come back with, ‘All parents think that way of their kids,’ but Miss Kwon, I do agree with your observation here. Nako is a nice girl. However, I saw it with my own eyes that she was among one of the groups that got separated by the teachers in the fight. And may I add also, that there’s hardly a scratch on her. It seems curious to me… a small girl like her does not get hurt at all in the middle of the fight…”

Nako’s poker face falters slightly as she fidgets with her fingers. She’s a bit nervous about where the conversation will lead, and stole a glance at the other taller student sitting two rows beside them.

“Well, that proves she’s just caught up accidentally, doesn’t it?” Eunbi tries to sit even straighter up to project a sense of righteousness.

“Quite on the contrary, could she, perhaps have something hiding, something to tell?” Mr Kim probes and eyes Nako again with a cooked up eyebrow.

Oh, come on, not hammering on that point again are you, Mr. Principal? Ok, I need to stick with the lines...

“I really have nothing to add. The fight started without any reason. No one started it and there’s no deep cosmic story behind it. Look,” Nako stood up and bowed deeply, also prompting her guardian to stand up too. “I’m deeply sorry for the trouble we caused, for the trouble I caused. Eunbi-Unnie came already, so why don’t we just move forward with the detention hours and all get out of here?”

“Nako, manners…” Eunbi hushed crossly, but quickly another voice supersedes her.

“Hey!” the voice from the other side of the classroom rung. “No, there’s no reason for Nako to apologize, if anything, it’s those jerks in Class C who should get all the punishment!” The taller girl now also stood up and fumed madly at the Principal. 

“Yujin, stop with the nonsense.” Nako hissed.

“No I will not. Do you know what they called you, what they called us?”

“Hey!” Nako raised her voice and look directly into Yujin’s eyes, mouthing: ‘You promised!’

Eunbi was looking back and forth, still very clueless at what is going on. Nako on the other hand, dreaded having more of what happened this afternoon discussed, and sat her sister down along with herself, whispering to Eunbi, “Don’t worry, it’s just a few hours of detention, just let me do all the talking and we go.”

“Of course I can’t.” Eunbi pressed onto her arm and whispered back forcefully. “What if you’re wrongly accused?”

“Well, I’m not.” Nako replied simply and defiantly. She seldom puts on this stern face, but the last time she did, she was using it command Eunbi-Unnie out of wallowing in guilt about missing the last seconds of seeing their Okaasan at the hospital after her car accident. So, that commanding look did have its effect on her older sister, who now regards Nako carefully and retracts her hand.

“Look, Miss Nako.” The Principal sighs and tries again. “We’re only here to help. Not only will we cancel the detention of the victims if we learn about the truth of who started the fight-- and for what; We might also bring the perpetrators to actually correct their mistakes rather than letting them off with a few hours of chores, do you see what I mean?”

Nako fully understood that this time, they could get out of it if they told the truth. But this will also kick start a cycle, and she has something bigger to worry about too.

“Like I said. Yes, they called us Class A nerds, then I kind of slipped because there was a puddle, and Yujin and Wonyong thought I was attacked, so that’s where all the misunderstanding started and we got all….’huddled up’. Really it’s nothing serious.”

“If you insist…” Mr Kim shook his head and took out a note on the schedule of the addition hours Nako will do next week. “Miss Kwon, as you heard, everyone will be punished equally. The kids will help clean the old building in time for their winter term party, so for a few nights, you might consider coming to pick her up directly because it will be quite late. And needless to say, no club activities for the next two weeks.”

“Mr Kim, I…” Nako eyes Eunbi and see the conflict in her. She’s banking on her sister’s inconfidence to challenge authority to overpower her protective Unnie side to get through this. Please...no more questions...Nako silently prays.

“I will talk to Nako when we get home. Thanks.” She stood up and bowed. “And I’m sorry for all the trouble she caused.”

Nako took Eunbi’s hand as she is led out of the classroom. Suddenly, Eunbi stops on her tracks and noted, “It’s 6:30 already. Mr Kim, are these two kids...still waiting for their parents?”

Before any teachers could answer, Yujin spoke up.“Wonyoung here has her chauffeur downstairs. Her parents are out of town, so she,” She grins cheekily at the very young looking girl who had been sitting at the side silently, “is going to take the parentless me home.”

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The windshield wipers produces a steady score of screeches as the car hums along the wet highway. They are on their way to pick up Sakura before heading home, and none of them is talking.  Eunbi-Unnie made a phone call just now to cancel some plans she seemed to have made that night, and then it was a whole ten minutes of dead air.

Nako tries to switch on the radio but that is stopped by Eunbi. She can tell that she has gotten more upset since they left the classroom, but she remained silent all the way. Something about what Yujin said probably ticked her off, Nako reasons.

“Unnie…” She ventures.

“Nako-ya, just let me drive. It’s raining and dark, so I have to be careful.”

What an excuse. Nako rolls her eyes and put on her pair of earbuds to play some music. She knows the sensitive individual her Eunbi-Unnie is after sharing a roof with her for almost three years now. In the beginning, it wasn’t easy for Nako to adjust to a new home, let alone a new country and parent, so at first she decided to stay out of the way of the leather-jacket cladded Eunbi, who came back late every night, looking all badass and . With the roaring sound of her bike announcing her arrival night after night, the silly mind in Nako’s baby brain expanded her imagination of Eunbi’s backstory into some bike gang Korean Yankee fight club she thought her sister was in. She might have had a few nightmares because of this, dreaming about her new stepsister abducting her and tying her up on a stake as an obstacle in some crazy bike duel course they compete on. She might or might not have thought that was a premonition of something that would definitely happen in reality, which did freak her out but also reinforced the formidable image she had of her new sister. Looking back, Eunbi acted more like an angsty teenager not knowing how to start a conversation properly than someone actually sinister or even, just confidently cool. They were just ed into a new family arrangement they both weren’t used to, so everything was magnified, exaggerated, and distorted through the lens of her observations.

Anyway, while acting avoidant, Nako was also looking on intently. She noticed how the older girl’s eyes would follow her at the breakfast table, thinking that Nako wasn’t looking. She would act aloof to her and Okaasan, but would also carelessly leave a creased Japanese phrasebook she’d been using outside the balcony, only for Nako to pick it up and put it back on the dinner table stealthily. Eventually, curiosity got the better of her, and she slipped out to the balcony one night shortly after they moved into the new house that late summer, where Eunbi still thought was her own sanctuary that no one had discovered.

Flashback to two and a half years ago

“Watashi wa, Eunbi-chan desu...Kaisha-in desu...Dojoo? Yorokush...” 

Nako heard the mumblings of Eunbi butchering the pronunciation as she practiced off of the phrasebook. Why is she still on page three after a whole freaking month?

“Ehem…” Nako coughs and announced her presence as she slid the balcony door shut. “It’s Douzo.”

“Nako-san…” Eunbi still appeared awkwardly stunned that she got discovered practicing Japanese.

“It’s Na. Ko. Chan.” The then 13-year old girl who was shorter than her peers and looked just out of elementary school did a cute pout as she sat down and propped her head up with her elbows, staying quite a few inches away from the precociously dressed Eunbi with fiery red lipstick and ripped jeans. “And no, I’m not scared of you.”

Eunbi smirked at the sudden remark, and looked pleasantly surprised at Nako’s Korean. 

“Kid...do you speak our language?”

“Yes, in fact, I’ve been learning it for three months and getting quite good at it. Even the teachers at school said I’m a genius.” Nako smiles proudly at her own achievements, revealing her signature dimples in the process.

“Good for you.” Eunbi looked up at the sky, pretending to be unconcerned.

“So, Unnie? Can I call you that?” A glance and a slight nod from the older girl prompted Nako to continue. “So ...what do I need to do?”

“Huh?” Eunbi huffed, with a scrunched up nose and a questioning look.

“I mean, can you not sell me to your gangmates? I don’t want to die yet!” Nako suddenly crumbled into pleading mode.

Eunbi was so shocked at the question that she stared at the child in front of her in disbelief, breaking out of her icy queen facade. “Wait...Nako-chan...Nako-chan?” She tried to sit closer but the smaller one only shuddered and cowered back.

“I don’t want to get run over on a stake by one of your bike gang duels! I know how to make rice balls. How bout this...I give you a free rice ball e