“What did I tell you?” Yu Ri scolded Winter as they walked toward the grass patch again for a game of football after a short safety briefing by Mr Go. “I said, put-the-present-outside-her-door! If you did that, Shin Ah wouldn’t have known it was you and would this have happened?”

She was talking so fast and in such an agitated manner that Winter had trouble keeping up with her. They stopped in front of the football field, where Mr Go was already splitting them into teams. Just then, he instructed Yu Ri to go to the opposing team. Before she left, Yu Ri said, “We shall continue this later!” in the meanest way she could and trudged to the opposite side of the field.

A few hours later, they were reunited in a cafeteria, where they were to have lunch. Winter had arrived early and was already tucking into her pork cutlet when Yu Ri arrived opposite her, setting her tray on the table with a satisfying bang. After which, she wiped her metal spoon with a tissue before tucking in to her food.

“You really ought to have listened to me,” she said shortly.

“Look, I’m sorry, Yu Ri,” Winter conceded. “Seeing Shin Ah alone made me think that she might have changed, somehow. I was just trying to make things better for her. But you’re right, I definitely should have listened to you instead.”

“Look at her, does she look miserable to you? She looks perfectly fine to me.” Yu Ri pointed at a table at the far end of the cafeteria, where Shin Ah was sitting alone. Sure enough, the weakness and insecurity in her was now gone, fully replaced by the air of superiority that Winter was all too familiar with.

Winter shook her head in dismay. “I made a wrong judge of character.”

“You certainly did. Now both of you have become the talk of the town!” Yu Ri paused. “Again!”

Winter was well aware of that. She heard her name slip from the mouths of people she didn’t know when she was queuing up for her food and whilst finding her table. But Winter was so used to such attention that she had long since found a way to get around it: simply ignore them. She knew that if she paid no attention to the gossip, it would eventually go away. Deciding that she should change the subject, she said, “What about you, Yu Ri? Have you given your present?”

At that, all of Yu Ri’s resentment seemed to have melted away and her cheeks were stained a rosy red. “Well,” Yu Ri replied shyly, “I haven’t given it yet. I want to give it to him directly.” She glanced at the table diagonally across theirs, where San Ha, MJ and Rocky were sitting.

“Then what are you waiting for? Go and give it to him!” Winter said excitedly.

“You mean now? But—”

“Now,” she replied firmly.

And Winter watched joyfully from her table a few minutes later as Yu Ri slowly made her way to their table with the gift held tightly in her hands.

“Hi… Rocky,” Yu Ri said the moment she was close enough, her voice uncharacteristically soft. “I have something for you.”

“Ooooooooh,” San Ha and MJ sniggered beside Rocky with huge grins plastered on their faces. They seemed to be enjoying the show as much as Winter did.

“Shut up guys,” Rocky muttered, but when he looked at Yu Ri his face was all smiles, like the sun had risen and had Rocky’s face on it. Yu Ri cleared and placed the gift in his hands; it was a rabbit-shaped fur hat with two extensions that could be pressed. When Rocky pressed the button on one of the extensions, the corresponding rabbit ear perked up straight into the air.

“I’m sorry it has to be this hat,” Yu Ri said furtively. “When they said gift-exchange, I thought it would only be between the candidates so I got something I thought the girls would like… I know this is not your taste but I hope you don’t mind.”

Beside Rocky, MJ and San Ha were making strange cheering noises that grew louder, causing Yu Ri’s cheeks to burn a beetroot red.

“I love it,” Rocky replied brightly without missing a beat, his smile extending to his eyes such that they formed tiny crescent moons above his cheeks. “Thank you for the present.”

Winter chuckled merrily at the scene. When she turned back, she found that the seat opposite hers was filled by someone else that was not Yu Ri.

“No,” the word escaped her lips before she could stop it. Eun Woo was looking at her with a puzzled look. “No what?” he asked innocently.

“Er… no! No, I meant, uh, w-what are you doing here?” Winter splu