“Have you ever heard of the word ‘strategy’?”

               “Calm down, Minju…”

               The girl with the pink hair scoffs at her friend’s remark, “Calm down? Listen to yourself, Hyewon! Nobody just kick on someone’s door, accusing them of being a stalker without any critical evidence! Critical evidence, you hear me?!”

               “You’re the one who suggests that she is a stalker…” Hyewon shrugged.

               “Yes! I SUGGESTS! Meaning, it’s nothing more than a theory! An inference! We’ve got to test it first before we come down to a conclusion, don’t we???”, a slight sound of annoyance can be heard from Minju’s tone.

               “Okay, I get it. Now stop being mad, this isn’t fun…”

               “Minju’s right, though. Now that you already confronted her, she will be more careful than before. It’ll be harder to catch her…” Wonyoung is sitting on Minju’s bed, hugging Minju’s pillow. The girls often spend their time in the dormitory, Minju’s room to be exact, to either gossiping, studying for tests, or doing assignments together. Right now, their main agenda is to determine which side Miyawaki Sakura is on, the friend or the foe.

               “Hm, this is hard! Hyewon, you just have too much secret admirers and creeps following you around! How are we supposed to differentiate which is which?”

               “Right, we need to focus. So, this will be the first time Sakura made the list of creeps… last time we met her, she’s super rude towards us. Now, that could be a kind of disguise to hide her real intention…”, Minju starts.

               “And what would that be? Her real intention?”, Hyewon flips her textbook but not really reading it as her eyes is still focused to Minju.

               “Getting your attention, obviously!” Wonyoung chimed.

               “I mean, she got my attention, alright. But, I’m not sure it’s the kind of attention a stalker wants…”, Hyewon says. “I literally fought with her at the library few days ago…”

               Minju waves her hand around, “An attention is an attention, doesn’t matter what form it is, Kwangbae. It is what she wanted from you, to think about her, to get in your head!”

               Hyewon chuckles, “I love you guys, but I just can’t deal with the notion of ‘Miyawaki Sakura is obsessed with me’ thing… it’s not possible, she hates me, she hates US!”

               “… Or is she…”, Wonyoung giggles, burying her chin deep in the pillow she is hugging. “You know, people often disguised their inability to profess their feelings or simply, their confusion with bad behaviour towards the person that they like…”

               “That…”, Hyewon pauses for a few seconds, “has to be the most intelligent sentence you’ve ever said this semester yet… but still, it doesn’t make sense!”

               Minju laughs at Hyewon’s little nudge. “She’s high!”

 Wonyoung scrunches her nose in disapproval, “Hey! Not funny, you two!”

               “Sorry, sorry…”, Hyewon pressed her palm together, “I’ll be serious now, okay?”

               “Hmph!”, Wonyoung protests. “Too late!”

                “Anyway, how are we gonna do this? How are we going to find out whether Sakura sunbae is a stalker?”, Minju looks at Hyewon with a raised brow.

               “I… think I have a plan…”, Wonyoung starts, already forgetting what just happened.

               “You… have a plan?”, Hyewon asks.

               “Yeah! But we have to be discreet about it. No one knows but us three!”

               “…Really? What’s this? Tactical espionage? Are we going to infiltrate the Blue House?”

               Wonyoung blows strong air from her nose. “Kwangbae, I swear to god! I can only deal so much of pop-culture references from you-”

               “Okay, okay. It’s just one reference… one…” Hyewon calms her down, she continues with a low mumble, “It’s not even that obvious… it’s not even my good ones…”

               “Hyewon!”

               “Alright, geez. Let’s hear your plan, Wonnie…”

***

               It has been a few days since Sakura last saw her most hated, most annoying arch enemy, Kang Hyewon. She finds that being away from the girl is somewhat therapeutic. That and maybe the fact that her Industrial Economics classes are cancelled for the entire week. She’s feeling better, less angry now. Her life feels like less chaotic than it was these past few weeks. Her mind is clearer and honestly, much calmer.

               Sakura stares at her stacks of homework. In front of her is a piece of paper with Navier-Stokes written all over it. Her professor earlier hinted that the question can be solved by applying the damn thing, which frankly, she can’t seem to find out how. After a long, hard scribbling hoping that she can magically solve it, Sakura finally gave up. It’s quite ironic, really, for a self-proclaimed problem solver.

               Sakura leans back on her chair, she exhales loudly. It reminds her of her junior year, where she would cry, and her eyes would swell the next day every time she didn’t manage to answer a question given by the professors. How times has changed. Nowadays, Sakura could care less. If she can solve it, good. If not, then it will remain so until the professor passes the answer sheet.

               Thinking about the past reminds Sakura of what Chaeyeon had told her a few days before, about giving chances to other people. As a matter of fact, her friend has been saying that for years now, but she didn’t bother to do anything about it. It’s not that Sakura ignoring the advice, it’s more to how she doesn’t know where to start.

               She knew she had some kind of attitude problem; since everybody around her keep on reminding her about that, so it must be true to a certain point. She feels like people are somewhat right to criticise her and deep inside, she wanted to change. But changing is scary. To venture into unfamiliar places such as allowing new people into your life bears new consequences. She’s scared of being a disappointment to people as much as she’s scared of being disappointed by others.

               There was a time when Lee Chaeyeon asked her about why she keeps on doing Miss K’s business, she answered in a short sentence, ‘It felt good’. Honestly, it does.

               People are probably going to assume Sakura loves being Miss K because she wanted attention and helping people is simply a façade to satisfy her narcissistic cravings. Which is not true. To her, Miss K is about finding hope within herself, to reassure herself that she is not a walking mean machine, to know that she is to an extent still capable of kindness. When she is behind the mask of Miss K, she can start anew. No backlash, no judgement, just blank slate. One thing that Sakura know is, doing her best to help these people make her feel like she worth something.

               A lot of times she convinced herself that her feeling towards Kang Hyewon is caused by the difference of treatment they both have received. Her bitterness simply originated from the public’s ungenerous behaviour towards her. Sometimes Sakura wonders, what if she actually is at fault. Sometimes, just sometimes, Sakura wonders if her hatred towards Kang Hyewon is actually justified.

               Her long train of thought is interrupted when her phone beeps, an email just arrived. Sakura opens it up, it’s Choi Yena’s schedule from Number 13. She read it carefully. She taps on her phone’s screen, “Today, running practice at 5 p.m.…” Sakura look at the time, it is only half past 2. She contemplates whether to use the remaining time to squeeze her head and try to answer her homework or she could just bail and have an afternoon snack.

               It didn’t take long for Sakura to come to her decision. The assignment be damned.

***

               There’s a small tteokbokki stall located near the front gate of the University, it is well-loved by the student and the teachers alike. Although, Sakura must admit, there is a slight change in their sauce’s taste since last year and it is not to her liking. Sakura suspect either they have a new cook or a new, less tasty recipe.

               She still visits the stall frequently, albeit not as frequent as before to try the tteokbokki again and wishing for it to come back to its original taste. So far, only disappointment.

               “Auntie, I’ll have one serving…” she ordered.

               While she was minding her own business, waiting for her snack, a familiar voice echoed next to her.

               “Two serving, please!”, Hyewon says as she looks down on her tiny wallet for some change.

               Sakura’s eyes bulged; she didn’t notice Hyewon’s arrival because of the strong saucy smell prevents her from smelling the younger girl’s Hermes. Why does Hyewon have to regularly come up in her life. Her mind quickly flashes back to the library incident, Sakura snorts silently.

               Hyewon of course, notices the small figure beside her, she starts, “Didn’t take you as the tteokbokki kind of person…”

               “… What was that supposed to mean?”

                “I’m saying, ‘are you here to stalk me again’?”, Hyewon leans closer to Sakura, whispering.

               “In case you didn’t realize, I was here first before you. So, it wouldn’t seem that I’m here with a sole purpose to stalk you, don’t you think?”

               Sakura’s words were only met with a small shrug. Hyewon continues, “Is it…?”. A subtle movement of her head shows hint of uncertainties. After a small and inaudible sigh, Hyewon starts again in a much slower, passive tone, “So… about that night… I uh, I guess I kinda owe you… a thank you…”

               As if she was attacked with electric jolts, Sakura’s body and mind become numb from hearing Hyewon’s sentences. Is this real? Is this a dream? Did she magically transported into an alternate universe? What is going on? The feeling that Sakura is feeling right now is something that she can’t explain. If it is to be described by words, she would say ‘A kitten kneading on the inside her stomach’ kind of feeling. It’s unsettling but weirdly enjoyable.

               Weird, why thank her now? Why didn’t Kang Hyewon thank her a few days ago when this crazy motherer chased her to the library? What’s inside her head? What’s up with her? What has changed?

               Sakura ponders, her mind rushes back to earlier back in her room, when she was thinking about changes and stuff. Now is probably the time to do it. Now is the time to start. She needs to prove to herself that Miyawaki Sakura is a good person deep inside. Just one act of decency, ONE! She wonders again where to begin. A smile? A ‘You’re welcome’?

               “About time,” she answered shortly. Sakura curses herself, it’s no good. Being nice is hard. Being just decent to Kang Hyewon is even harder. Why? Just why?

               “Yep… so I guess we’re even now?”, Hyewon side-eyed the person standing next to her.

               “I guess so…” Sakura clears . Right now, she just wants to go away from this place, away from Kang Hyewon. Why is this suddenly feels so damn awkward? Why the hell her tteokbokki is not here yet? She is fidgeting, although trying her best to hide it, Hyewon still manages to notice her small movement.

                Sakura’s body staggered. What are these weird tickles inside her? What is this feeling? There’s something that Sakura can’t put her fingers on. Something heavy, something anxious, something unpleasant. She’s suffocating, not literally, and her heart throbs incessantly. What the hell is going on with her?

                When Sakura finally received her snack, she quickly left without saying anything. Well, it’s not like she got something to say to Kang Hyewon. No, she doesn’t.  

***

               The running track is quite far from Sakura’s faculty building. She wanted to use her Toyota to get around, but when she tried to turn it on this morning, her car just let out a pathetic cough. ing Toyota. She has to spend her morning to call a tow truck and follows them to the workshop to get her car dealt with. No car, hence, the bus.

               The stadium is busy, with students running around putting up decorations for the upcoming sports championship and athletes practicing on the field. From afar, Sakura can see a young girl with a ponytail. Her constant pout can be mistaken as petulance, but soon to be realized as some kind of DNA trait after a long hard look. It just simply never goes away. That has to be Choi Yena, her client. Sakura moves to the edge of the seating area and rest her arms on the deck railing.

               Some of the student from her faculty actually recognizes her and starts to give her this weird face, which Sakura ignore with a hair flip. It is unmistakably weird that she’s here since she’s not much of an any sport fan or doing any type of sport or doing any physical exercise. She admits that she seldom working out. After the day she had a hard time escorting Hyewon to the hospital, she feels like she should be exercising more and build her muscle strength but finding a free time itself is such a hard thing to do. So, she just gave up. Well, not actually giving up, maybe just putting it at the very back of her bucket list.

               “Wow, you’re so popular! Just overheard some girls talking about you!”, a voice suddenly calls her out. “Why are you here?”

               “Hey, Vee. Still doing the student council’s hard labour, I presume?”, she answers without looking at the person behind her. She knew this person way too well.

               “As always, you know it. So, why are you here again?”, Chaeyeon stands next to her friend, overlooking the field. “Here to stalk someone?”, she lowers her voice.

               “Yes.”

               “Oooh,” Chaeyeon raised her brows, “New case, huh? Aren’t you already so heavily occupied? I mean, you are not forgetting your Industrial Economics assignment, do you?”

               Sakura turns her head to face her friend, “I’m not, Chaeyeon. I’m stressed out by those, that’s why I’m doing this first.”

               “… Yeah... I will never understand that logic… like, how are you supposed to ‘relax’ doing the same thing that causes your stress at the first place?”

               “You know what? I don’t understand it either.”

               “Hm…”

               A few minutes of silence ensues between her and her best friend, but it doesn’t feel awkward at all, unlike with Kang Hyewon. With Chaeyeon, this feels organic. It is so hard to comprehend her unnecessary fidgets in front of Kang Hyewon just now, like what the hell was that? That must be because she and Hyewon is not really close, thought Sakura. In fact, they’re not close at all. Obviously, it’s gonna get awkward, duh!

               Sakura shake the thought about Hyewon away and divert her gaze to Chaeyeon. For some reason, she’s feeling nostalgic and somewhat… grateful? This little fujoshi is the only person she can be at ease with. She can tell her everything, asks her anything and she would listen to Sakura well. If there’s something on her mind, Chaeyeon is the first to know.

               “Chaeyeon…”

               “Yeah?”

               “Do… Do you think I’m a good person?”, her voice is so low that it got dampened by the loud shrieks of the stadium visitors.

               “What’s that? Can’t hear you!”

               “Nevermind…”

               “HA?”

               “I said, nevermind!!!”

               “…Oh! Okay, hey you can tell me later at home… Anyway, I’m off to check on our faculty’s decoration. Coming with?”

              “No, I’m staying here…”

              “No, no, I insist, tertiary secretary!!! Join us in this extravagant preparation for the celebration of field day! Also, we need more hands. You are part of the student council too, remember?”, Chaeyeon place her hands on her hips. “Come help us, trust me it’ll be easier for you to stalk people like that!”

               Sakura looks at her, thinking how she does make sense, “You know what? Alright, I’ll go…”

                Sakura was doing collages on a small banner when her eyes catches the figure of Choi Yena again. She is preparing for a trial run. Sakura keep her eyes on her, her hand hovering on top the banner.

               When Yena was doing her trial run, there are part of the stadium that went wild, like for real. These people are actually her hardcore supporter, they even have this signs and cheerleaders, even matching T-shirt to show support for her practice run. The amount of effort by these people seems to be the equivalent of those coffee trucks sends by fans for their favourite artist. Sakura can’t find a better or a much nicer words to describe this behaviour but ‘blind fanaticism’.

               So, Yena is popular and therefore, the circle of people who could’ve stole her bra become bigger. Sakura scratches her arm as she thinks about the way to lure the ert out. She abandoned the banner she was working on and looks around the stadium. While she was walking on the grass near the track’s side, she notices a long-haired girl sitting alone on one of the benches. The girl is silent, hands intertwined, eyes focused on the track.

               Sakura thought that she must be one of Yena’s fanclub member, from the look of her T-shirt matching the rest of those other people Sakura mentioned. But she sat alone on that bench, away from the crowd. Yena finishes the practice run at first place and when the long-haired saw this, her face lit up with a wide smile crept upon her lips. Sakura observes the person without making any sound or movement, watching as the girl being all giddy on her own.

               “What are you doing?”, someone shouted from her behind.

               “Huh?”, Sakura turns around just to find Kang Hyewon is jogging closer to her, all sweaty with ragged breathing. She stops in front of Sakura, taking Sakura’s view away from the long-haired girl, folding her arms. “What?”, Sakura asks.

               “What are you doing? Why are you staring at that girl?”, Hyewon’s tones is filled with suspicion. “First, you’re stalking me, and now you’re stalking this innocent girl? Do you find us that interesting? Ah, you know what I think you are? A serial stalker!”, Hyewon says in a playful tone, which sending mix messages towards Sakura.

               “I didn’t stalk you OR that girl, okay? Why are you here, Kang Hyewon?”

               “Obviously for the practice run. So what? You’re just love staring at people for fun? Because you like us? Yeah, it’s called stalking…”

               Sakura rolls her eyes softly; she has no time for this. “I never stare at you, though. So, based on your own words, you’re not in the list of people that I find ‘interesting’… Don’t give yourself too much credit,”

               “Ouch, girl…” Hyewon’s face genuinely shows how much she is offended. “You don’t have to be so defensive; I was just playing around…”

               “Right… I’m not your friend, there is no ‘playing around’ between us!”

               “But you came all the way here just to support me…”

               Sakura almost can’t believe what she’s hearing. “What? I didn’t come here for that!”, she stammers a little bit at the beginning.

               “Really? But you were looking at me, weren’t you?”, Hyewon smiles haughtily at her. “You did look at me!”

               Sakura’s mouth went agape at Hyewon’s shameless remarks, silently wondering what the hell is wrong with this girl. “Cut the stalker crap already, you hear me?”

               “So, what do you think?”

               “What do I think about what?”, Sakura still keeping her sight on the long-haired girl sitting on the bench, which is now slowly standing up from her seat, leaving.

               “About the practice run? My running technique? I’m quite fast, right? Actually, I am very fast! Those were only 20% of my full potential.” Hyewon claimed, her tone filled with smugness.

               “Uhh… what the hell, Kang Hyewon???”, Sakura divert her gaze from the long-haired girl. “What are you doing right now? Also, didn’t you lose to that one girl during the trial…”

               “Ahhh, see! You were looking at me!”, Hyewon let out a wide smile, showing her perfectly lined-up white teeth. “Don’t worry, no shame in that. I know it’s hard not to stare at someone like me… I mean, come on!”

               Sakura wanted to slam her own head right now for being so straightforwardly stupid. She got no one to blame but herself for being dumb. That one was so easy to detect but she falls for it. “What do you want?”

               Hyewon shrugs, with no emotion whatsoever visible on her face. “Nothing. Just wanted to make small conversations…”

               “You ran all the way from the finish line to here, just so you can make ‘small conversation’ with me?”

               “Yes. That is correct.”

               “After accusing me of stalking someone?”

               “Yes. In fairness though, you were stalking that girl, right? So, it’s not really an accusation.” Hyewon said without any blatant regret.

               Sakura can feel her energy is quickly seeping away. Just give it to Kang Hyewon to make her feel tired and worked up in a matter of minutes. Her pupils wonder from left to right before she starts, “… Okay…” Seeing the long-haired girl is no longer within her sight, Sakura become even more desperate to escape from this deranged person. Without saying anything, she tries to move forward and leave. But to her surprise, Hyewon’s voice stopped her from doing so.

               “Wait! Hold on! W-We’re on good terms now, aren’t we?”

               “Really, Kang Hyewon? After what just happened? You still think we are in good terms?”

               “You said so just this afternoon… I thought we were doing friendly jabs and such.”

               “Oh wow…”

               “… Yeah… you know what, I don’t even know since when we got bad blood between us.”

               “That’s not… you know what, whatever. I don’t have time for this. Goodbye.” Sakura says as she hastily left. That awkward feeling that she felt before strikes again, for no apparent reason.

               Sakura squint her eyes as much as she can, trying to find the girl in the middle of the thick crowd. When her eyes got a glimpse of her, Sakura maintained her distance from the girl as she follows her from behind. The crowd make it harder for Sakura to keep her sight upon the girl, she struggles with her weak muscles as she tried to shove people to the side. A guy even curses at her for her aggravated movement, she pretends not to hear it.

               She was still keeping eyes on the girl when her shoulder bumped with someone. It was so strong that Sakura’s body turned around. She loses her balance for a second, but quickly regained it as her eyes wildly looking for the person she’s been tailing. She increases her pacing, head moving left to right, anxiously trying to locate the girl. No matter how hard she tries, she just can’t find the girl anymore. Sakura stops at the middle of the parking lot, wiping droplets of sweats from her forehead with a fresh tissue. “Damn it! This is all because of Kang Hyewon! Ugh!”, she crumples the tissue in her hand. “Nothing but trouble!”

               “She’s gone, huh?”, Hyewon’s voice once again echoed near her, giving her a slight shock.

               Sakura close her eyes and sigh. She waited until the person walk in front of her. “Kang Hyewon. Again, what do you want?”, she asks the raven-haired girl. “Why are you following me?”

               “Uh, I’m not. Hello? This is the parking lot, that’s my ride over there?”, Hyewon retaliates. She scoffs, “Don’t give yourself too much credit!”

               “Oh, for sake…”, Sakura rolls her eyes. She let out one last sigh before she turns around to leave.

               Hyewon shouted at her, “Hey!”

               “What now?!”

               “Um… how’s your assignment?”, the younger girl rubs the side of her neck.

                Sakura’s eyebrows creased as hard as they ever creased, her eyes radiate some serious doubt. “…Okay, why do you care about that?”

               “You know… just wondering how you’re doing with the thing…”, Hyewon shrugs. She continues, “Did you, uh manage to find any references…? Are you okay with the calculations and… stuff…?”

               “…… I’m fine!”

               “Really? Like, no stumbles at all? At all???”

               Sakura looks at Hyewon, she carefully studies the girl’s intention. Suddenly, she was hit with a revelation. “Oh, I get it now! Hah! You think I wouldn’t figure this out???”, Sakura laughs sarcastically.

               Hyewon raised her brow, “Ha?”

               “I get it, I get it… The professor sent you, didn’t she?”

               “What? Why would she do that?”

               “Ohhh, I don’t know! But tell this to the professor, I WILL get that assignment done! I will not repeat another semester! She thought she can keep me here? Well, she’s wrong!”, Sakura says confidently, waving her index finger in front of Hyewon. She stops to take a breather, when she came to her senses again, “On second thought, please don’t tell her that last part…”

               “Hey, I’m not here because of the professor. All I’m saying is, I can help you with that… just so you know!”, Hyewon once again answered.

               “You would love that, wouldn’t you? ‘Helping’ me so that I can be strayed further, so that I failed!”

               Hyewon fold her arms. She stares at her senior, “Unbelievable. You’re impossible, you know that! Like why would I wanted you to fail?!”

               “I have a better one! Like why would you wanted to help me so suddenly?”, Sakura stared at the person currently folding her arms in front of her. After seeing Hyewon is left without any comeback, Sakura continued, “I thought so.” The older girl then proceeds leaving the lot after a huff.

               Hyewon rolled her eyes hard, letting out a heavy exhale. Wonyoung’s planning is sure as hell difficult to carry out. “Damn it!”

***

               “It’s guilt.”

               “Huh? Are you sure, Chaeyeon? Check again, try different keywords…”

               “I wrote everything that you said to me and these are the first page results… And this one is from WebMD; you just can’t go wrong with WebMD…”

               “Right…”

               It’s night-time now, Sakura and Chaeyeon are in their home, resting after a long day of decorating the stadium. Unlike the usual Tuesday night where both would spend their time studying in their respective room, the two wasted their remaining hours talking about the things that happened. Well, mostly Sakura telling Chaeyeon about her life.

               “Miyawaki Sakura, you need to have more faith in me! Reading WebMD is equivalent to getting a medical degree nowadays, haven’t you heard? I’m basically a doctor now.”

               Sakura rolled her eyes at her friend. Chaeyeon just laughed at that response. She continue scrolling down her phone, “Unless… you have a con heart disease or it could be thyroid problem, or liver, or spleen, or fibromyalgia… Oh, you know what, it could be lymphoma too, holy !”

               “Yeah, yeah. I get it. I could have various of deadly diseases in me.”

               “Or, it was and still is simply the feeling of guilt.” Chaeyeon ended. She extended her left hand to reach for the opened bag of chips on the table. She takes a chip and slowly crunch it with her front teeth, much to Sakura’s annoyance. “You’re feeling guilty. Towards whom? Dish it, girl!”

               “Uh… I’m not sure…”, Sakura responded, very much truthfully.

               “Oohh, can I guess?”, Chaeyeon raised her hand that currently holding another chip. “Please! Please!”

               Sakura stared blankly at her friend before she signalled with a small shake of her head for Chaeyeon to continue.

               “It’s Kang Hyewon!”, Chaeyeon said with a confident smile.

               “That’s…”, Sakura halted. She starts again awkwardly, “I mean…”. Sakura made an abrupt stop again. “I uh… I don’t know…”

               Chaeyeon can’t help but feeling excited. “Bless! Bless my heart!”, she chanted. “I always knew you’ll come around, Saku-chan!”

               “Chaeyeon, I told you I’m not sure!”

               “You also told me that these things only happened in the presence of Kang Hyewon… Sooo…”

               “Huh…”

               “…Yeah…”, Chaeyeon nodded.

               “Y-You think… so…?”

               “I know so…”

               Sakura scoffs, “I mean, that’s not making any sense!”

               “It’s definitely making so much sense to me!”, Chaeyeon hit back.

               “How?”

               “You really want me to explain it to you?”

               “… No thanks…I can do it on my own, I guess…”

               “Saku-chan, you said that Hyewon come to you first, right? And that she said, ‘thank you’. And she offers to help you with the assignment?”

               “Uh-huh…”

               “Maybe she is sincere. Maybe she is thankful that you saved her the other night. Maybe she truly is trying to make amends with you…”, Chaeyeon said.

               “I don’t know… seems sketchy…”

               Chaeyeon lunges her body forward, she holds Sakura’s shoulder and squeezed them tight. Her face is only a few centimetres away from her friend’s, “Hey, Hey! Listen to me, Sakura! This is an opportunity, you hear me?! An OPPORTUNITY!!! You will not let this go! Not on my watch!”

               “Uh, what is going on…”

               “Just listen!”, Chaeyeon shakes Sakura’s body, “This is all perfectly lined for you. The only thing you have to do is to take the first step! Oh my gosh, I can’t even enunciate how much I’m excited for your life!!!”

               “…Whaaat…”, Sakura chuckles.

               “This is your chance! To meet someone new!”

               “You make it sounds like it’s something romantic, Vee…”

               “You know what mean, Saku-chan! You can make new a friend!”

               Sakura looks at her friend with sceptical eyes, “Me? Friend with Kang Hyewon? Pshh, right!”

               “Come on, Sakura!!!”

               “No! Not gonna happen!”

               “So you rather having this mini heart attack every single time you meet her? You’re literally a walking panic attack time-bomb!”

               “It’s not a ‘mini heart attack’! Plus, we have no proof that it’s my guilt that causing all this.”

               “It is! Trust me! It’s a mini panic because you’re feeling guilty. You said so yourself.”

               “Gosh, Chaeyeon!!!”

               “Gosh, Sakura!”

***

               Chaeyeon’s right. Sakura had stayed up all night for 2 days just thinking about it and she have come to agree that she does, probably feeling guilty towards Kang Hyewon. She remembers the time she would -talk about the girl to Vee despite Hyewon did nothing to her. Again, she uses the popular trope ‘girls always ting on other girls for no reason’ thing to justifies her action. She feels like a real loser. All this time, hating on some kid and it brings nothing good to her life. News flash for Sakura, ting on Kang Hyewon does not make other people love her more.  

               Sakura sighs. In her hand is the typed manuscript of her Industrial Economics assignment. For some reason, the professor suddenly messaged her last night, asking her to come down to her room and presents her with Sakura’s progress. Sakura thought that the professor was busy, with her cancelling the classes for this week, but apparently not busy enough.

               The professor told Sakura to meet her close to 10 in the morning. Usually, Sakura would leave her house 15 minutes before the meeting, but since her car broke down, she has to leave early and wait for the bus. When she arrived, there was some time to spare so she spends it with checking for any errors in her manuscript.

               “Progress report already?”, a familiar voice once again echoed on Sakura’s left ear. But unlike before, her reaction is mildly steady instead of being shocked and all.

               “Yes,” Sakura answered shortly.

               Hyewon leans against the wall next to Sakura. She extends her neck to look at the manuscript, “Hm, I’m not trying to scare you, but I think the professor will ask you for a redo…”

               “How do you know that?”, Sakura asks in an uninterested manner.

               “I just know. The professor’s been teaching us a different subject, so I know her dislikes when it comes to assignment.”

               The short-haired girl put away her manuscript. “You know, it’s very interesting that I’ve been encountering you so frequently these past few days…”

               “Hey, you’re the stalker, you tell me.” Hyewon smirks.

               Sakura tries her best not to allow her annoyance taking over. If anything, she sorts of deserves to be treated like that. She is technically a stalker, and Kang Hyewon is simply stating nothing but the truth. “Why do you think the professor will tell me to redo? What did I get wrong?”, she diverts back the subject.

               “You’ll see…” the younger girl expressions didn’t change.

               “What was that supposed to mean?”

               “I’ll be in the library, find me on the third floor if you want to…” Hyewon then proceeds to leave the hallway.

               Sakura was left alone, dumbfounded. She stands awkwardly in the hallway, waiting for the professor to call her in. Her head is spinning just thinking about redoing her current progress. She unconsciously praying that the professor wouldn’t ask her to change much of her initial work.

***

               Hyewon was typing something into her laptop when she heard a huffing sound in front of her. She ignores the person as she drags a chair and sits in front of her.

               “You said third floor, this is the fifth!” Sakura said with her shortened breath. The library’s elevator is under maintenance, students have to use the stairs. Sakura and her untrained muscles work so hard just tor reach the end of the fifth floor’s stair.

               “Sorry, short term memory. I thought I told you to go to the fifth floor. Are you sure you didn’t hear it wrong?”, Hyewon moves her laptop to the side. Her eyes meet with Sakura’s.

               The older girl just rolls her eyes softly. “You were right. She did ask me to redo…”

               Hyewon shrugs. “Hm.”

               “She said my calculations are all wrong…”

               “Of course it is…”

               Sakura stares at the younger girl for a few seconds before shifts her sight onto her rejected manuscript. “You said… you said you can help me… the other day…”

               Hyewon can feel the suffocation in her lungs from trying to suppress her own laughter. She clears and starts, “Yes, I did…”

               “So… that offer… is it still open?”

               “It is… but now for a price…”

               “Wait, it was free before?”, Sakura can’t help but knocking her own head mentally. She could’ve gotten the help earlier and saves herself some time and effort.

               “Yes, but now it’s changed. Do you still want it?”

               “… Yes, yes I still want it…”

               “Okay,” Hyewon shuts her laptop and store it in her backpack. “This Saturday, please come to this address.” Hyewon slips a piece of paper on the table.

               “What’s this?”

               “Just come, and then you’ll see…”