As light flooded into Jinsoul's room she woke up, drowsily shaking her head. After a few minutes of trying to fall back asleep, she gave up and opened her eyes. She immediately grabbed her phone and checked her texts. She didn't get any new messages in the night, but went to her texts anyways to look at the selfie Jungeun sent her the previous evening. She grinned just looking at it, remembering the way that Jungeun's arm wrapped around her shoulder. She was a little bit disappointed that Jungeun had not texted her again after that, but she smiled again when she realized it was because Jungeun expected her to show up without a message. 

Jinsoul briefly looked at the time, gasping a little when she realized it was already eleven o’clock. At first she wondered why she woke up so late, but then remembered that she hadn't gone to bed until very late last night. Too much reality tv and a new crush could only too easily cause insomnia.

Jinsoul shifted out of bed, running her fingers through her hair before immediately going to the bathroom. She got ready nervously, not quite as thoroughly as the day before, but she was okay with that. She didn't want to be too overbearing, and she felt a lot more comfortable with Jungeun. She still wanted to look nice though, triple checking her appearance in the mirror. Carefully she put her things into her bag, and she walked out of her room.

As she went down to the basement, she eyed the Starbucks thoughtfully. 

“Would it be weird if I bought her a scone? I might come on too strong. But it would probably make her happy..." Jinsoul debated out loud to herself. Eventually, she just bought everyone a scone, and walked down to the basement. She was early again, but as she walked into the arcade restaurant, she noticed the other girls were already there. 

"Hey," Jinsoul said, plopping down next to Jungeun and handing everyone a scone. They all grinned and thanked her, but Jungeun just kept staring at her.

"Is something wrong, Jungeunnie?" Jinsoul asked, testing out the new nickname.

"She thinks you look nice, she's just too afraid to say it," Hyejoo spoke for her sister. Jungeun and Jinsoul both blushed, Jinsoul asking Jungeun if it was true with her eyes. 

"Yeah, she's right," Jungeun said with laughter, but still completely honestly. Jinsoul grinned and blushed.

"Thanks for these by the way, they're my favorite," Jungeun spoke.

"It’s really no problem.”  Suddenly, she remembered something.

"Hey Haseul, what happened with Vivi last night?" Jinsoul spoke in a hushed voice, being careful not to let Vivi, who was standing only a few feet away, discover they were talking about her. Hyejoo started giggling, Haseul blushed, and Chaewon rolled her eyes.

"Literally, it took me three hours to get her to say hey," Chaewon complained. Haseul's blush deepened.

"I was there. It was a crazy goose chase, Chaewon trying to pull the phone out of Haseul's hands. We literally had to threaten her with purposely destroying her car so she couldn't see Vivi anymore to get her to text hey," Yerim confessed.

"God, you're so ed, Haseul," Hyejoo said.

"I would've killed you if you'd accepted your car's death," Jungeun spoke.

"Anyways, that totally cut into Hyejoo and my daily scream session," Chaewon spoke again.

"You guys have daily scream sessions?" Jinsoul asked.

"Thank god they had to miss one, Hyejoo is so loud. The neighbors are terrified," Jungeun said.

"Well, they are in middle school. The neighbors should expect weird stuff to happen," Yerim responded.

"Um, you guys know we're here, right? Anyways, we have to maintain our tiktok channel," Hyejoo said.

"The ing neighbors came over and knocked on our door last week, telling you two to be quiet," Jungeun said with exasperation.

"Well that's just because Chaewon's so damn good," Hyejoo said seriously.

"Can we stop? I get enough of your...weirdnesses at home," Haseul spoke.

"Amen," Jungeun responded, shaking her head in solemn agreement.

"If you guys are going to make fun of us, you'd better not come to our house when you and Vivi decide to finally get together," Chaewon said to her sister.

"We probably won't, I mean, Vivi's an only child," Haseul responded.

"How the hell do you know that?" Yerim asked.

"Facebook," Haseul responded, grinning.

"Oh my god," Hyejoo muttered.

"Speaking of Vivi, what happened after you texted her?" Jinsoul asked.

"Well, she texted back about a minute later, and we kept a conversation going for a little while," Haseul replied.

"They texted for so long that I had to leave. I had planned on staying to read every single one of these texts, but it was like nine o'clock, and my parents wanted me home," Yerim said.

"I bet they texted all night," Chaewon said, grinning sneakily. Haseul blushed.

"That's really cute," Jinsoul spoke. 

"You should go talk to her!" Hyejoo said.

"Hell no! We may be texting buddies, that does not mean we've progressed to people who can talk to face to face," Haseul responded. Chaewon and Hyejoo rolled their eyes in unison.

"That's so dumb. We're in middle school, and we know that's not how it works," Chaewon said, referring to herself and her girlfriend. Haseul sighed and looked over at Vivi. Vivi waved and grinned, and Haseul waved back, staring creepily before Jungeun yanked her back to the table.

"Dude, you can't just look at people like that," Jungeun said.

"Well, you look at Jins-" Hyejoo began.

"You shut up," Jungeun interrupted.

"Just go talk to her," Yerim whined, exasperated.

"N-no, I can't," Haseul answered nervously.

"Oh this, I'm not going to just sit here while you guys argue. Jinsoul, you want to walk around with me?" Jungeun asked. Jinsoul nodded happily, and they quickly walked out of the arcade. Once they were a little ways away, Jungeun spoke.

"I can't deal with Haseul's today," she said, voice filled with affection and annoyance toward her friend. She turned to Jinsoul. "This literally happens at least once a week, you know."

Ugh, that must ," Jinsoul commiserated.

"I know, right? The worst part is now we know that Vivi actually likes Haseul back, and she's still too scared," Jungeun complained. Jinsoul laughed.

"It's so sad, yet sort of hilarious at the same time," Jinsoul said. Jungeun laughed as well.

"Yeah, I'm with you. Is there anything you'd like to do?" Jungeun asked.

"Well, I haven't had anything to eat today except for that scone, and I get free food almost everywhere here," Jinsoul said.

"Food sounds good, is there anywhere you recommend?" Jungeun asked.

"Well, you can't go wrong with the buffet," Jinsoul answered. Jungeun nodded and grinned.

"Buffet it is!" Jungeun spoke happily, and let Jinsoul lead the two of them up the escalator and to the buffet. As they waited, Jungeun pulled out her phone. On instinct, Jinsoul peered over Jungeun's shoulder to gaze at the screen. When she looked, she saw that the selfie of Jungeun and herself was her lockscreen. When Jungeun noticed that Jinsoul had seen, she blushed. Jinsoul made a mental note to change the selfie to her wallpaper as well.

Finally, it was their turn in line. They paid and were seated, ordering their drinks (raspberry iced tea for Jinsoul, a coke for Jungeun) and got their food. After a few minutes, they both returned to the table.

"So, why are you and your mom here in the casino for so long?" Jungeun asked. Jinsoul chuckled and wiped , proceeding to explain her situation to Jungeun. 

"Damn," Jungeun said in shock. Jinsoul just chuckled some more, and nodded.

"Well, why do you live in Reno?" Jinsoul asked.

"Hyejoo and I actually live with our grandparents. Both of our parents are dead. They got in a car accident, my dad was a drunk, so whenever he drove it was quite dangerous. Luckily, my brother and I weren't in the car with her, but my mom was. I guess both of our dads are ," Jungeun said.

"Wow, I'm so sorry," Jinsoul said, sympathy and empathy evident in her voice.

"It's alright. When it happened, I was only four, and my brother had just been born. I don't remember them at all," Jungeun explained.

"Well, I'm still sorry.”

"It's fine. My grandparents are alright. They're like, total typical grandparents. My grandma literally just knits all day, and my grandpa is a raging republican, but it's okay. It's probably better than your situation, or if my father had lived," Jungeun said.

"At least I had tons of ing money," Jinsoul said.

"But does money really mean anything?" Jungeun asked. Jinsoul chuckled.

"It doesn't. It really doesn't. I should know, I grew surrounded by the stuff, and yet it did, like...nothing to improve my happiness and satisfaction with anything," Jinsoul spoke honestly.

"You're not like other rich kids," Jungeun said.

"And you're not like other children of raging republicans. Anyways, I'm not rich anymore," Jinsoul replied. Jungeun laughed.

"Then what are you?" Jungeun asked.

Jinsoul took a long time to answer. "I don’t know," she finally responded. “I don’t ing know.” Her expression was completely neutral, and Jungeun’s smile faded. 

"Is that a bad thing?" Jungeun said.

"No," Jinsoul spoke, smiling softly, "I've always been like that. But now, I think now I can start to figure my out." 

Jungeun smiled softly at her but jolted when her phone buzzed in her pocket.

"Hold on," she spoke, checking the text. She sighed sadly after reading through it, looking back up at Jinsoul.

"The girls have to leave, apparently the fighting got to be a bit too much, and they got some stares from customers. They're too embarrassed to stay. Also, Hyejoo says she has some pent up melancholy anger from yesterday and her and Chaewon have to release it," Jungeun said.

“What does that even mean?” Jinsoul asked. 

Jungeun shrugged. “Probably do some all black makeup look, blast screamo music, and sing along? Or write angsty poetry together.”

Jinsoul frowned. "I wish you didn't have to go...”

"Me either. But we'll see each other tomorrow, right?" 

"Right," Jinsoul said, still a hint of sadness in her voice. Jungeun stood up, waving goodbye.

"Bye, Jindori," she spoke.

"Bye bye, Jungeunnie," Jinsoul responded, and Jungeun grinned. As the girl left the restaurant, Jinsoul sipped on her drink. Jinsoul didn't leave until a few minutes after Jungeun left, feeling too lazy to stand. She finally went back up to her room, putting all of her stuff away before flicking on the tv. As he listened to Long Island Medium, she grabbed her phone. She first changed her screensaver to the selfie that Jungeun had sent her the day earlier, before sending Jungeun a text.

Hey Jungeunnie~