You’ve long since known that you’re no stranger to getting left behind.

You’d had to watch your family dog get taken away about four years ago, when your father started to get sick and had to divert his funds to buying maintenance medicine instead of dog food.

(Thankfully, one of your neighbors, the Yoo family, were kind enough to adopt Ahri, and would even invite you to visit their home from time to time; an opportunity you all too eagerly took. This was how you met Yoo Jeongyeon and her childhood friend.)

A couple of years ago, your friends from the high school you attended drifted away from you one by one as you started spending almost all your free hours working part-time, to help shoulder the burdens of your mother, your older brother, and your then-bedridden father, whose health seemed to keep worsening each day.

Two years ago, on the third of September, the person who you’d considered the closest thing to being your first love disappeared from your life, leaving behind a hastily scrawled note and a prominent scar in your heart.

One year and six months ago, your father closed his eyes for the last time, refusing to fight death’s clutches any longer, and ultimately (unfairly, you sometimes think) deciding his family should stop fighting for him, too. 

A few minutes ago, you looked on as Chou Tzuyu made her way out the door of your bedroom, and you thought you’d be used to it by then, but as the world’s gears decided to turn again seven minutes later, you stood among the small white cards that lay strewn across the floor, a painful hollowness bearing down your chest.

You know you are no stranger to being left behind, but it turns out it still stings whenever it happens, each a little more sharply than the last.

You wish you could do more than just watch, and you hate yourself for doing nothing but that, every single time.

You kneel on the floor, still very much wrapped in your thoughts as your fingers hover on the fallen cards. Your gaze lingers a little too long on the one with Tzuyu’s name, a mix of confusion and unease pooling inside of you.

You honestly had no idea what possessed you to show her those cards. You’d had a good day with her, it was very much obvious that she had taken a liking to you, and everything was going well. You’d more than accomplished your mission of gaining the trust of yet another person in your class.

And yet, you pushed her away by telling her who you really are—or rather, who you really aren’t. You felt the need to let her see how much of a fraud you are. Maybe you wanted at least one person to know the truth. Maybe you wanted it to be her.

Maybe you hoped that, even then, she would stay. But that was wishful thinking. Of course Tzuyu would leave. She left the way your father did, the way your friends did. 

The way she did…

As if knowing the exact direction your mind was going, the first of the white cards you’d ever written on appeared at the corner of your eye, among the mess on the floor. It was a little yellowed and creased at the edges from having been taken out of the box so much in the last couple of years, but the name on the card was still as clear as ever.

“Im Nayeon.”

-----

“H-Hello,” you remember your fourteen year old self greeting a pair of teenagers who didn't look much older than you were, bowing a little more stiffly than you should have. “I'm here to see Ahri, if that's okay.”

The first girl you’d seen once or twice whenever you stopped by the Yoos’ bakery and happened to catch her helping out. Her hair color was drastically different both times, but the smears of powdered dough on one cheek and the slightly cheeky smile on her face as she carried trays of freshly-baked bread from the back room were a constant.

You saw the very same grin then as the girl, Yoo Jeongyeon, hopped off the edge of a low sofa; where earlier, she’d laid with her legs dangling off the side, her head on the lap of the second girl. “Dahyun-ah! It’s been a while. Come on, I’ll show you where Ahri is.”

“Thanks, Jeongyeon unnie,” you answered politely. Out of courtesy, you bowed to the other girl, who hadn’t moved from her seat. “Hi, my name is Kim Dahyun.”

For a whole second that seemed to stretch a lot longer, she stared at you with a narrowed gaze, looking as though she was scrutinizing your entire being rather than just your physical features. You never failed to remember, even years later, the way it made your insides twist into the most uncomfortable knots, even if you had yet to understand why.

Your tension should have disappeared the moment her lips broke into a wide, toothy smile that made her two front teeth stand out in a way you’d later on find adorable. You should have been able to return it with a smile of your own and feel at ease knowing she at least didn’t dislike you the moment she saw you.

Instead, you found yourself barely registering as she introduced herself (“I’m Im Nayeon. It’s nice to meet you, Dahyun!”), your throat suddenly drying up and your thoughts scattering. There were entire wells of emotions you couldn’t identify that started to bubble up inside of you, and even as early as then, you thought that Nayeon’s smile might be one of the most dangerous things she could use against you if she ever wanted to.

The first few times you visited, about a month after it was adopted, you mostly kept to yourself and Ahri whenever the older girls were around. Pretty soon, however, both Jeongyeon and Nayeon became particularly insistent that you join them to play with Jeongyeon’s cat, Bomb, and Nayeon’s little Pomeranian, Kookeu. 

It didn’t take long for you to get used to their usual banter, and you’d steadily become better at maneuvering around them whenever they argued and asked you to pick a side. 

(Truth be told, you always had to stop yourself from siding with Nayeon every single time. Especially when she used that damned smile on you, seemingly having no idea how it would make your brain short-circuit and your heart forcefully hammer against your ribcage, threatening to spill out the yet-to-be-identified feelings you insistently refused to put a name to.)

“Come on, Jeong, what’s wrong with telling the truth?” you heard Nayeon whine the moment you entered the Yoos’ living room one weekend.

“It’s not wrong, unnie, it’s just... It could get you into trouble if people hear you say things like that. They might think you’re being overconfident.”

“It’s not being overconfident if it’s true!” she retorted. As soon as she saw you, she dragged you by the elbow and said, “Tell her, Dahyun-ah!”, probably hoping you would simply agree without even asking. 

Of course, you knew better than to mindlessly go along with anything, even if it was for Nayeon. Even if part of your arm was still warm and tingling from where her fingers had wrapped around it. “Um, what are you two even talking about?”

Jeongyeon let out an exhausted sigh that you’d heard all too often from all the times she’d had to put up with the minor inconveniences that always seemed to follow her best friend like a magnet. “Nayeon unnie was voted class representative today, but she refused the position because she said she was too pretty for it.” 

You couldn’t hold back an amused snort. “That does sound like Nayeon unnie, alright.”

“You’d think that was enough, but no,” Jeongyeon continued, rolling her eyes. “She also said, in front of her entire class, that being a class officer of any kind made you too busy to pay attention to your looks. The rumors say their class president was this close,” she gestured with her index finger above and her thumb below, leaving an almost nonexistent space between them, “to strangling her on the spot.” 

“So she basically said being a class officer makes you ugly?” you asked, giving Ahri light scratches behind the ears the way you knew it always liked.

And just like that, you saw that smile yet again (with the erratic beating of your heart following suit like it always did). This time, it was one of triumph mixed with pride. “See, she gets it!”

Jeongyeon covered her face with her palm in mock exasperation. “Please don’t encourage this ahjumma, Dahyun-ah.”

“Yah! Who’re you calling ahjumma, Yoo Jeongyeon?!”

You couldn’t see Ahri, Nayeon and Jeongyeon as much during the summer, as you’d started a part-time job at a small convenience store a few blocks from your middle school. On your days off, though, when you were able to go to Jeongyeon’s house, it would be just the two of you, as Nayeon’s parents would take her abroad and she wouldn’t return until the weekend before classes started again.

You found that being around Jeongyeon alone was much easier and much less dangerous to your emotional health. Although she had a penchant for pulling little pranks on you whenever she was bored (which was all the time, it seemed), you never had to worry about your cheeks heating up whenever the tips of her fingers so much as brushed against yours, and you never had to spend nights after your shifts at the store staring up at your bedroom ceiling, replaying the memories of her annoyingly loud laughs and the way she looked at you as if she had you all figured out.

I don’t like her that way, you’d reason with yourself whenever your mind drifted to Nayeon yet again. I don’t like girls that way. 

Do I?

You decided that, between juggling your part-time job, your studies, looking after your father at the hospital, and spending weekends with Ahri, you didn’t have time to begin a long and difficult road to self-discovery that you simply weren't ready for. And so, you let your unidentified feelings towards Nayeon stay that way as months—and then, before you knew it, a year—flew by. Surely, just being in the same space as her and mentally preparing yourself for the little flutters in your chest from time to time whenever you were together was enough.

But then, one day, it wasn’t.

“Hey, Dahyun, you’re in your last year of middle school, right?” Jeongyeon asked out of the blue, a haphazard pile of papers, textbooks and notebooks covering her entire living room table when you entered her house a handful of weekends after summer vacation ended. 

You nodded, leaning down and scooping an approaching Ahri up into your arms as soon as it noticed your presence. “Yup, why do you ask?”

“Which subject do you like best?”

“I think I’m pretty good with numbers, so I guess anything with math?”

The other girl, whose hair was now a little longer than before, stopping just short of her shoulders, the color this time a toffee-like brown, scrunched up her nose, obviously not sharing your interest in the subject. “Oh. Well, if I could give you one piece of advice for when you start high school, it’s ‘Don’t put your homework off until the last minute’.”

“Isn’t that what you and Nayeon unnie have been doing, though?” you said teasingly, fishing out a little bag of Ahri’s favorite dog treats from your pocket. “I’ve never seen you guys do anything school-related until now.”

Nayeon groaned from her spot on the floor right in front of the untidy table, rubbing her eyes tiredly. “If you must know, I’m always on time with my homework. My brain is just fried right now because of all the studying I’ve been doing over the summer.”

“That’s what you say every year, Nayeon unnie,” Jeongyeon answered. “What do you even study when you’re on vacation with your parents?”

“How to cast curses on my enemies in another language,” Nayeon said dryly. Noticing a lack of response from both you and Jeongyeon, who stared at her incredulously, her poker face gave way to a snicker. “I’m kidding. Don’t tell me you forgot, Jeong? I’m pretty sure I told you before. I’ve been studying Mandarin.”

“Why? So you can talk with the Yakuza and use their services to silence whoever pisses you off?” Jeongyeon joked.

“Maybe,” was all Nayeon answered, with a wiggle of the eyebrows, before turning back to her forgotten homework, her lips tightening into a thin line as she started to focus. As an afterthought, she muttered, “But the Yakuza is Japanese, pabo,” which earned a little kick on her arm from Jeongyeon.

“If you’re so good at it, why don’t you teach us a few words, unnie?”

You found yourself nodding eagerly, having always been fascinated with foreign languages. (Your playlist that was chock full of Japanese, English, as well as Korean hip hop songs with English rap lyrics were a testament to that.) You swore the possibility that it could be Nayeon who would open you up to yet another language was just a little bonus. 

Unable to resist the attention, the older girl gave up on her notes and faced you with a thoughtful expression. That stare again… How could your heart still thump so wildly in your chest exactly like the first time she’d looked at you like that?

“Well, I’m not sure what your names are in Mandarin yet, I’ll have to ask my tutor next time.” She tilted her chin and stared upwards, as though she’d be able to find the words hovering above her head. “But anyway, I’m gonna start with ‘Dahyun, you’re the best’.”

You regarded her expectantly, and you noticed that even Jeongyeon was starting to be more interested too, judging by the way she pulled her legs towards her chest and laid her chin on her knees.

“Dahyun, ni shi zui bang de,” Nayeon spoke with a warm look in her eyes, her accent noticeably slowing down and becoming more stilted, as opposed to the confident, low-pitched but obnoxiously loud one that her Korean always came with. 

Even so, you could practically hear the hard work and sincerity she’d put in on pronouncing each word as accurately as she could, and you found yourself falling into those unknown feelings a little bit more—which was always the case whenever you learned something new about Im Nayeon.

“How about me? Say something about me!” Jeongyeon urged, sliding down the sofa and nudging Nayeon’s side as she took a spot beside her.

“Okay, okay, just stop that,” Nayeon breathed out with a laugh, trying to block her arm from Jeongyeon’s sharp elbow. “Jeongyeon?”

The short-haired girl immediately sat at attention and leaned closer, excited to hear what Nayeon’s next words would be. “Yes?”

You looked at the two girls in front of you, and while you’d had no doubt as to how strong their bond was from all the years they’d known each other, it was in the next moment when it occurred to you that there might not have been enough room in it for Kim Dahyun.

“Wo ai ni.”

Jeongyeon looked back at her, confused for not understanding the words, but seemingly flustered for a whole different reason both you and she had yet to know. “Wh-What does that mean?”

“It means, you’re a turd.” She lightly shoved Jeongyeon’s shoulder, but before a pout could appear on the other girl’s lips, she muttered shyly and looked away, “It means ‘I love you’, you pabo.”

Jeongyeon looked stunned, and the seconds dragged on, as if waiting with you for some sort of reaction. When she finally snapped out of whatever trance she’d been under, she tried drawing attention away from her reddening cheeks by giving Nayeon a slightly harder push in return. 

“Eww, stop being cheesy, Nayeon unnie!”

As both of them argued yet again about something you could no longer be bothered to pay attention to, trapped inside a bubble of their own while you stayed stuck on the outside looking in, you came to the realization that, while you’d been falling and falling for Nayeon, she may have very well been going through the exact same thing all this time (maybe even for much longer, if you wanted to take a guess). Just for a different person who was all too clearly not you.

With those three foreign words, and the way she stared at Jeongyeon in the same manner that you’ve always done to her, you found yourself crashing and burning headfirst into a tangled thornbush full of feelings that you could no longer pretend didn’t exist.

-----

The shrill ringing of your phone makes your thoughts evaporate, dragging you right back to the present, where you stay sitting on your bedroom floor, Im Nayeon’s card still on your lap.

Her name doesn’t quite disappear from your mind even as you read the one displayed on your phone’s caller ID, but your chest does tighten for a second when you see Chou Tzuyu’s name instead. You make a split-second decision to take back everything you’d told her earlier tonight. How, you didn’t quite know yet, but you’d always been good at creating a believable alibi or two under pressure.

You take your phone, a slew of apologies already at the tip of your tongue when you tap the answer button. “Hello? Tzuyu-ah? Listen, I’m sorry about what I said—”

To your shock, it’s a different but all too familiar, lower-pitched voice that answers instead of Tzuyu’s soft one. A voice you haven’t heard in the last two years.

“Dahyun? Is this... Kim Dahyun?”

Your mouth goes dry, and the hand holding your phone starts to sweat. “How—How do you have Tzuyu’s phone?” 

The few silent seconds of hesitation are deafening, because all you hear while you wait is the blood pounding in your ears.

“I’m Tzuyu’s roommate. She came home soaked from the rain and… Well, you just happen to be the first person in her message list that's not me or Sa—” she stops short, clearing nervously. “Um, it's—it's been a while, hasn't it, Dahyun-ah?”

You’re not sure how long you can keep yourself together as you listen to the voice that had been, years ago, so much a part of you until it wasn’t, so right then, unable to conceal the pain in your tone, you blurt out the only question you can think of. 

“What do you want from me... Nayeon unnie?”

-----

You go through the next Monday in a daze, your mind still replaying the rest of your phone call with Nayeon as if you haven’t already been thinking about it since Saturday night.

“Dahyun, I… I want to apologize to you properly… Can I see you?”

“There's really nothing to apologize for, unnie.”

“You know that's not true. Please—”

“I’ll think about it. Don’t—Don’t call me again.”

“So she really just let Jung-seongsaengnim touch her shoulders like that again today?” a girlish voice you know that belongs to one of the students in a different class breaks through your thoughts, not bothering to hide the tinge of disgust in her tone.

You blink, realizing right then where you are: inside a cubicle in the girl’s bathroom, where you’d been sitting over the toilet seat, staring listlessly towards the closed door in front of you. As you pull yourself back to the present, you overhear a conversation and have a feeling you know exactly who its subject is going to be.

“Yeah,” someone else replied. “It’s not surprising though, Kim Dahyun just lets everyone do what they want with her.”

“I heard she stopped school for a year to be a—a worker,” the last two words were said in a whisper that wasn’t exactly as discreet as the voice’s owner had probably hoped. “Is it true, Jiwoo-yah? That news is all over the school!”

You hear Jiwoo scoff. “Of course it’s true,Younghee-ah. I was the one who found out about it, after all. The only reason she’s even back in school is because she has a regular client who’s been paying for everything.”

“And is that client…”

“Yup, it’s Jung-seongsaengnim!” Jiwoo declared, as if stumbling upon a groundbreaking scientific breakthrough. You can’t help but roll your eyes at the absurdity.

You’ve known about almost every type of rumor your classmates and the other students have been spreading about you, and on a normal day, you would be unbothered by it all. It’s not like they could prove any of it, anyway.

But today, it’s as though something snaps inside of you—not unlike the time you found Mr. Jung at a vulnerable moment, when the world had stopped because of Tzuyu—and suddenly, you feel the urge to make these two gossipers squirm, at the very least.

So you fling the cubicle door open, making sure to make as much noise as possible. You plaster one of your carefully-practiced smiles, approaching the two girls who are standing, shocked, in front of the sink. “Oh, hi Jiwoo-yah! And Younghee-ah, too! Did you just get here? I didn’t notice you.”

“U-Uh, y-yes, we t-totally just got here, Dahyun unnie!”

“H-Hello, Dahyun unnie. I’m sorry to be rude, but I have to get to class now. I’ll see you later, Jiwoo-yah!” 

“Yah! W-Wait for me!”

You let out a sharp exhale, steadying yourself on the sink with trembling hands as soon as both girls make a run for the halls. You chew on the inside of your cheek, cursing your weakness of getting teary-eyed whenever you have trouble containing your anger.

Before the first tear could fall, however, you see a clean, white handkerchief being handed to you from the corner of your eye.

“T-Tzuyu-ah, what… How l-long have you been there—”

The taller girl gently takes your chin so you’re looking up at her, using her other hand to dab the cloth slightly below your lower lashes. Even with all the time you’d taken to study her expressions, this one she has right then you can't read at all. 

“It must be hard to keep pretending you don’t care what people say about you,” she says quietly, her fingers ghosting over the skin of your cheekbones. “I… I know it is for me.”

“Tzu—”

She cuts you off by taking your hand and laying the used handkerchief on it. “Here, keep it. And,” Tzuyu takes out a single pack of choco pie from her jacket pocket (your eyes light up at the sight of it despite the situation) and places it over the cloth. “This one, too.”

You want to ask how she can still be this good to you even after everything you'd said and done the last time you saw each other, but your tongue is glued to the roof of your mouth, your face flushing, flaming hot in all the places Tzuyu’s fingers had made contact with.

You look on as she pulls back, and after a moment of hesitation, she says, “I wish you’d fight back sometimes, when someone talks badly about you, Dahyun unnie,” and before you can think of an answer, she walks past you, leaving you alone in the bathroom, your palm still laying open.

You clutch the choco pie in your hand and place it close to your chest, as though you could do the same to the words Tzuyu had just left you with. 

The words wash over you, and as if those were a trigger of some sort that you’d unconsciously been waiting for, something in your mind clicks into place; and you think that today is going to be the day. The day you do fight back.

Your strides are charged with purpose as you enter your next class before it starts, heading towards your bag and pulling out a worn, beat-up looking phone, careful to wrap Tzuyu’s handkerchief around it while you power it up.

Then, you sit and wait with your hands folded over your desk, ready to make your move as soon as the world freezes. You try hard not to be distracted by the feel of Tzuyu’s gaze on the back of your head as she regards you cautiously, seeming to notice the drastic difference in your mood compared to before.

You shoot up and bolt towards the classroom beside yours as soon as you notice the motionlessness of your environment blanketing everyone but you and Tzuyu, tuning out her voice as she calls after you. When you enter the next room, your gaze immediately falls on Younghee’s desk, and you make your way towards her, taking her phone out of her hand. 

You barely hear Tzuyu’s hurried footsteps as she follows you inside. “What are you doing?”

Pressed for time, you don’t respond, your fingers deftly scrolling through the old phone still covered in white cloth. You find the video clip you’re looking for and enter Younghee’s number.

“Dahyun unnie,” Tzuyu says sharply, and by reflex, you shake off the hand she’d laid on your shoulder. 

Still not giving an explanation for your actions, you proceed to