Behind the meadow and over the first hill in the horizon was a lake. A vast lake that Seulgi didn’t know the name of, but she decided it was called Starfield. Cause at night, the stars reflected off the surface of the water and it created a field of stars. Seulgi discovered this spot after condemning Nayeon in the debate club. She needed a walk after what she had just done. 

“Why am I so sad?” She asked herself, tapping the surface of the water with a branch she found lying closeby. It created ripples in the water, ruining the beautiful Starfield she’d come to love.

(Amygdala: It’s simple. You chose pride and greed over empathy. Just like your mother. You don’t want to be like her.

Frontal Lobe: No, she chose to survive. Just like her mother. If she made a fool of herself, Fairchild would hear of it. She’d be just like Nayeon, a laughing stock.)

“Perhaps,” she whispered before she touched the surface of the lake once again, creating the ripples that destroyed the peace.

Seulgi sat on a little dock protruding from the mainland. Her feet hung over the water. They swayed. It reminded her of the roofs of the city, but it wasn’t ever this quiet. She didn’t think she would ever get used to the quiet of this place, but nonetheless, the quiet was nice. It gave her a chance to think.

Fairchild was rough. She didn’t show it. Nothing but a charming smile. Because that was what she did in the city, to fit in, just smile and pull people down to get to the top. Or else.

(Frontal Lobe: Or else you’d sink to the bottom like the others. If it’s not you, then it’s someone else. On top of that pile is something glorious, and you’re willing to be the bad guy to get it.)

“Yeah, I’m the bad guy.” Seulgi reached up at the moon, as if she believed she could actually catch it. “But a bad guy who’ll get somewhere.”

(Cerebral Cortex: You’ll get six feet deep. That’s what you’ll get. One day, you’ll cross someone who shouldn’t be crossed. And oh baby, we’ll be here watching.)

“You sound like you’re having a fun time.” 

Seulgi twisted her head behind her. It was Irene, walking on the dock slowly like she wasn’t in any rush. This place had something tied to it that made people *calm*. It was like a drug, but this drug didn’t kill you.

“Just needed a break is all.”

Irene snorted. “A break already? It’s the first day of class!” Irene took the space beside Seulgi. She sat close. Maybe *too* close but Seulgi wasn’t in any mood to call her out on it.

“Yeah, well. You’ve been here longer than me. I guess you get used to it.”

“Used to what?”

“Pulling people down,” Seulgi confessed. It twisted Irene’s beautiful face into something else. A can of rotten sardines, more like. When you smell it. It looked exactly like that. 

“What does that mean?”

“It’s nothing. Just a thought.” Seulgi waved it off. But Irene *knew*. Seulgi knew Irene knew, but whether or not Irene knew what she meant didn’t change the fact that Irene was close to the *top*, wherever it was. Seulgi was neither curious what the top entailed, but she wanted to survive near it. Like the first mate of a pirate galleon. The vice president. The sous-chef. 

“You seem to have found my hideout spot.” Irene waved her hands around, her way of expressing Starfield. “How do you like it?”

Seulgi hummed. “It’s quiet. Never thought I’d like the quiet, but I do. But I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it either. Chaos and bloodshed, that’s something I’m more in tune with.”

“That reminds me. Is the school...do you think it’s fine as it is?”

“What do you...what do you mean by that?”

“The status quo. All the rules. The back-stabbings and the like. What you did to Nayeon.” 

“You heard that?”

Irene hummed. “Word travels fast. People who can use words to their advantage is something to be admired here. Something to be *exploited*.”

Seulgi pursed her lips. “To answer your question, I have to ask what the alternative is. If the status quo is gone, there must be a replacement.”

“It could be anything. Something you’re more in *tune* with. It could be chaos and bloodshed.”

(Frontal Lobe: She’s testing you. Better to think for a moment before you rush in head first. You could lose her if you do.) 

Seulgi turned her head away from Irene, who stayed and watched her face closely. She looked off into the horizon. Into nothingness. There, where the night sky and the surface of the water kissed, was where she found her answer.

Irene wasn’t looking for a *real* answer. It wasn’t a yes or no question like she framed it as. She wanted a question for an answer.

“What if…” Seulgi paused for a moment, making sure if she was right. “...what if chaos and bloodshed *is* the status quo? That, in the end, we’re never going to please everybody. There is *always* someone that’s going to be unhappy and they’ll want to change it.”

Irene smiled for the first time tonight. Seulgi did it. She solved her *riddle*. 

“That’s exactly what I was thinking. Wendy warned me about the cheating, that people would find newer ways to cheat. That it’s in our very *nature* to lie and steal and put other people down. That the best we can do is to *live* with the cheats and work our way around them. It begs the question. Even if I was the president, would I even change the status quo for good? And I’m still answering that.” Irene nudged Seulgi with her elbow. “Thanks for entertaining my crazy thoughts. It’s good to have someone I can just *talk* to. No strings attached. No other ulterior motives.”

(Frontal Lobe: You would like to say the same, but you know that isn’t true.)

Irene’s a bonafide two-face. Ulterior motives are in her blood.

Before Seulgi could get a word in, Irene said, “I've got to get going now. The others need me there. By others, I mean, my election team. The preliminary was today. I think I told you.”

Seulgi nodded. “I remembered. I didn’t vote.”

Irene merely nodded, a bit disappointed about the fact.“Say hi to Sooyoung for me,” was what she said before she turned around and walked off the dock.

And so Seulgi was left with her lonely branch, making ripples in the beautiful lake that never needed changing.

Tuesday came. It was one of *those* days. Days where she longed for her bed. Maybe glue herself to it. Face buried in her pillow as she slept the morning away. Seulgi didn’t do that. Instead, she tolerated the headache. Fought through the pain. And left her room hobbling to her first period class clutching her head.

After she struggled climbing those dreadful stairs, she figured she could rest in the lecture hall. Like Eunji, she could put her head down, drool on the table, and leave her worries behind. 

But when she arrived, the lecture hall was blinding. *All* the lights were on. All, as in, not a single spot was cast under shadow. And Seulgi felt like hurling a chair at an unsuspecting drummer yelling, “NOT QUITE MY TEMPO.”

But she was much too tired for such energetic displays.

(Motor Cortex: You’re moving like your grandma on four bottles of whiskey and maybe her fifth puff of weed. You can’t even walk straight. What were you thinking sleeping at three in the morning?!)

This one reminded her of stale bread. She couldn’t explain what stale bread sounded like, but it was also like a can of soda left out for too long and all the carbonation fizzled out. Like it was dry and there was no bass to her tone. 

She imagined a school teacher with four kids waiting for her at home. Debt-stricken. The only respite was when her husband came home and they’d hug and kiss. They would spend only two or three hours with each other before they had to go back to sleep. Then the next day came and she had to live through hell once more. It was just like her amygdala. It sounded...sad.

Maybe it didn’t always sound like this. It could be perkier if she wasn’t so sluggish right now. But this was the voice when her head pinged and panged from the pain. 

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