You're not blind. You knew that jerk Soobin wasn't treating her well, and sadly, watching her get slapped across the face was full proof of their toxic relationship. You regret saying those mean things about her, you regret misunderstanding her personality. Most importantly,

You regret how you didn't punch Choi Soobin in the face for mistreating Chaewon and your friends. 

"What the hell is going on in here?!" The principal, Mr. Lee walks in along with other teachers and uh oh, the most fearsome among them, Bae Yoonjung, with a look that's not very pleasing directed towards the cheerleaders. 

The strict growl of the principal makes all the students put their phones away, as you see your friends and the jocks slowly backing away from each other. You watch the teachers walk around the cafeteria in disapproving looks, but you could care less about that right now. 

Once you made sure your friends were okay, and that Yuri was being taken to the infirmary in order to get cleaned up with Yena escorting her, you find a way to escape and look for a particular wavy-strawberry haired cheerleader. You barely escape the crowd, but once you do, you start looking everywhere for her.

Your feet take you to the bathroom on the end of the hallway, away from all the rowdy noise in the cafeteria. As you walk in, you notice no sign of her, or anyone in that matter, but the more you walk in the direction of the cubicles, you hear the sound of sniffles. You slowly take your feet in the direction of the noise, until you're directly in front of the locked cubicle. You know it's her, even though all you can hear was the sound of soft crying, you know Chaewon's in there.

"C-Chaewon? Are you in there?"

The crying and sniffles stop for a moment. She probably didn't notice you walking in the bathroom as she was far too upset of the situation. I meean, you would be livid as well if your boyfriend slaps you in front of the whole school, but then again you'd never want a boyfriend since you're gay.

"Minju?" Your heart breaks. You hear her say your name, but you can feel the absolute sorrow and melancholy tone in her voice. She needs comfort, and you want to be there for her.

"Chaewon...can I come in?"

Silence, yet again. You can almost hear the non existent clock ticking due to how quiet it is. It's just the two of you in there, and she knows that. Why can't she just allow you to comfort her? 

The silence is going to drive you insane. You don't hear her respond to your question, you don't even hear her crying. It's like time has stopped. It's like both of you have stopped breathing, just waiting. You don't hear her breathing, which honestly makes you a little bit more worried, I mean hasn't it been like five minutes? How has she gone this long without taking on oxygen?

You sigh, of course she doesn't want to seek comfort in you. Why did you run after her in the first place? You knew she didn't want anything to do with your kind, the nerds. You don't why you even followed her, you weren't exactly thinking at the time.

But some part in you still hoped...hoped that your childhood best friend, now ex-best friend, was still in there. That maybe you, the person who knows her, well knew her, better than anyone else, can be the one she seeks comfort in again. Your past with her was a story for another time, and you'd rather not relish in it right now.

Letting out another sigh due to her inability to respond to you, you find yourself giving up. She probably wants to be alone, and you don't want to disturb her anymore. It was stupid of you to think she'd open up to you anyways... whatever past you two had was long gone, and there was no hope of getting her back.

You turn your feet to the direction of the door and start heading out, until you stop. You hear the lock in the cubicle turn, and you barely have enough time to turn your head to the cheerleader as you feel the collar of your uniform getting pulled in by a stronger than you remember force. She heavily pulls you in the cubicle before locking it and shoving you against the stall door. You feel her head bury itself into your chest, and you suddenly feel your uniform getting wet, probably from her tears soaking into your shirt.

"Minju..." You didn't know it was possible for your heart to break even more, but the desperation in her voice makes you feel weaker than ever before. You realize you never stopped being weak for her, you never hated her. , you still love her, but she doesn't need to know that.

She doesn't say anything, and you don't force her to. You give her the warmest hug you can offer, and caress her hair, just like the way you used to when you were younger. You think she cries harder once you do this, and you only hug her even tighter, if that was possible.

Once her sobs have quieted down, you slowly loosen your hold on her as you feel her doing the same.

"Can we please...can we not talk about it? I don't want to talk about it." The cheerleader says with even more desperation evident in her voice. You hear her voice cracking and you swear you're gonna kill that Choi Soobin, although not literally, you don't want to go to jail for first degree murder. Although greatly injuring him would give you great satisfaction.

"Do you wanna go somewhere else?" You come up with a great plan to take her to the robotics room. You knew Mr.Kwon would allow you in there anyways. Yes, you would be skipping class, but you honeslty don't know if classes are still going on after that whole fight in the cafeteria. Your friends were probably still being scolded along with the other imbeciles.

She merely nods her head and you slowly take her hand, interwining it with yours. You're scared that she might back away from your touch, but much to your surprise, she doesn't. She lets you hold her hand, and she firmly graps it, to which you smile at. She notices your goofy smile and rolls her eyes, not surprisingly. She only holds your hand tighter, allowing the smile on your face to stay where it is.

You take the lead out of the bathroom and slowly peek outside of the door, making sure the halls were clear and there were no teachers in near sight. You can still hear loud yells and scolding coming from the cafeteria, most likely from Bae Yoonjung and Mr. Lee. 

Thank heavens you're heading to the robotics room with her right now, you absolutely do not want to face the scowling faces of those teachers, especially Bae Yoonjung. You're probably going to all be called for an assembly meeting based on what happened though, which you were not looking forward to. Oh well, at least you get to spend some time with the redheaded beauty.

"Minju where are we going?" You quickly shush her, not wanting to get caught sneaking around the school at this time. Chaewon only groans at your response, but she still follows you anyway. Well at least she trusts you right now.

You smile and let out a breath of relief as you reach the robotics room, and you find Mr. Kwon, your team coach and favorite teacher ever, walking around the room, probably inspecting the robot to see how much progress you've been making. He sees you walk in with Chaewon and gives you a look.

"Oh Minju! I'm glad you're here, I received word from other teachers about the big fight that happened in the cafeteria during lunch...I heard that Yena jumped on the star athlete Choi Soobin and Yohan began kicking everyone. Minju the whole team was involved!"

You sigh, he had the right to be disappointed. You could have stopped the fight from happening, but it was too late as angry Yena would never back down or listen to you when she's angry, especially, when the victim was Jo Yuri.

"Mr. Kwon, I-"

You don't get to finish though, as you look up to face him instead of looking down at the ground with shame. You're surprised to see him facing you with a smile and a thumbs up. You're much too confused, that's for sure. "Sir, what?-"

"Those boys attacked all of you, and inflicted damage on Yuri. Now I'm not one who adheres for violence...but they got what they deserved. Those kids can't expect to bully their victims and not get their karma."

You chuckle out of of relief and amusement. You don't know why you doubted him in the first place, that man has served as a father figure to you, and you knew he would always defend what's morally right. He would be there for you when your own father wasn't, and you knew he served as a better one than he ever will.

He looks behind you and notices the cheerleader looking uncomfortable in the situation, but he quickly recognizes her. "Oh Chaewon! How have you been doing dear? Eunbi dearly misses her favorite dongsaeng in college."

"I'm doing well Mr. Kwon, thank you." Oh yeah, you forgot that Chaewon knew your coach/father figure well, you were reminded of how all three of you played together when you were younger before things went wrong. But once again, that's a story for another time

"Ah well, by the looks of it I'll just leave you two alone then." He leaves with a knowing smile directed towards you, and you can feel the growing heat on your cheeks, making you look down on the floor and covering your face with your hair so the cheerleader doesn't notice.

Mr. Kwon leaves the two of you alone and slowly shuts the door on his way out. The two of you are left in awkward silence, and you simply play with the hems of your uniform as if it'll give you strength to speak to her.

"So-"

"Look-"

Well that made it more awkward than it already was, if that was even possible. Building up courage since you did bring her here out of intuition, you start off the conversation, "So uh... this is the robotics room, I guess." You start to realize how accurate the stereotype of 'socially awkward robotics nerd' really is.

"Yeah...I uh- I remember you telling me about how much you wanted to join the robotics team before." This statement coming from Chaewon heavily shocks you. She remembered? 

"Oh, you remembered..."

"Yeah..."

Silence again. You wonder how much more awkward you can possibly get. Come on Minju...you can do this, it's just Chaewon. Pretty, beautiful, pretty, kind of rude, did you mention pretty? Chaewon...

Your thoughts of the pretty strawberry haired cheerleader were interrupted as you hear her chuckle to your side. "So you think I'm pretty huh?" Oh how much you hate, love and miss, that smirk. She always did that when you were kids and it still irks you to this day.

"I didn't mean to say that out loud." Seriously though, you have got to stop saying things out loud. You need to work on keeping your thoughts to yourself at some point in your life...

"Minju, why'd you bring me here?" She wonders, of course she'd ask why the robotics room out of all places. Then again, you haven't told her how much of an impact this team was to you.

"This place...I know you think of us lowly. As losers who cannot possibly climb up this stupid hierarchy of high school cliques, but it does mean a lot to me. When I told you how excited I was to join the robotics team, when I always talked to you about my passion for science, I was being serious. This room...it gives me a sense of comfort. It makes me feel safe, it gave me a home when my own house couldn't do that to me..." You notice you're rambling about personal stuff and you quickly catch yourself.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's okay." She puts her soft hands on top of yours. You almost forgot how delicate and smooth her hands were. How they made you feel like everything was going to be okay. How they were there to comfort you when you went to her crying about your family issues at your house. 

You look into her eyes and you notice something different...yet the same. You see the old Chaewon, your Chaewon. The Chaewon that was your best friend. The Chaewon gave you the warmest hugs when you were upset. The Chaewon that only showed her soft side to you. You start to realize how much you miss that Chaewon.

"You know, I thought I could do the same for you. I wanted to bring you comfort too...away from all the ruckus in that room. This room was always a place me and the others could go to when we needed it the most, it's like our safe room...so I wanted to share that with you." You sheepishly smile at your cheesiness. You've always been this way with her, you wonder if it surprises her now.

"But why? I haven't exactly been treating you well Minju. Why are you being so nice to me?" You hear her voice crack again, and you think she might start crying soon. 

You want to be honest with her. You want to stop telling yourself you despise her. You want her to know how much she meant to you, and how much she still does mean to you. You know you still care for her, and the incident proved just that. Your impulsiveness showed how you never stopped caring about her, and that you would never hate her. No matter how much you tried.

"Chaewon...I still care about you. I tried to hate you, just like you did to me. I told myself how much I despised you, how much I hated you for looking down on me. But, I can't help it. I know it's utterly stupid to care about someone who's been treating you like your entire high school career, but I know you Chaewon. I know you better than that Choi Soobin. I know you better than anyone else..."

You know it's selfish. How you declare that nobody knows her better than you do. You know it's the truth though. You know she's changed and Chaewon herself doesn't like it. You can still read her just like you did back then.

She doesn't say anything for a while. The silence engulfs the room yet again and you focus your attention on something else, the robot, to look away from her. You're honestly scared of her reaction...you don't know which Chaewon she will show to you.

Rather than saying anything, Chaewon tackles you in another tight hug, and you can only bury your head on her shoulder. You hug her as tight as you can. You know she doesn't want to talk about it...well at least not right now. Instead, you follow her silent wishes and communicate without using words.

You want to show her that everything is going to be okay. You want your hugs to convey the message you've been trying to tell her all this time, but you were too cowardly to say with your own words. You want the tightness of your hug to tell her that you'll always be there for her no matter what. You will always be there to comfort her. No matter what she's going through, no matter if she's pushing you away...you want to tell her

I still love you. Forever and always.