“Tell her that if she wants to talk, she knows where to find me,” are the last words I hear from Kim Dahyun that day, before she turns a corner and disappears from the second floor hallway of our high school.

I bite down on my lower lip as I struggle to keep my tears unshed, and for a few moments, I seem to succeed. My limited vision somehow causes my mind to pull up a hazy memory from the weekend before—one of a heavy-lidded gaze barely focusing on an apprehensive Im Nayeon, who was talking to someone using my phone, moments after I’d fallen asleep on her lap from her having run soothing fingers through my hair. 

“Is this… Kim Dahyun?”

The small victory of holding my tears back is short-lived, though, as I feel them roll down my cheeks on both sides anyway, as if to mock me.

I feel a small hand run up and down my back just then, and I suddenly remember that I’m not the only one standing in the hallway outside my classroom.

“Tzuyu-ah,” Chaeyoung says calmly, “Are you going to tell me what Dahyun unnie really said to you?”

Afraid that my voice would betray me, I merely shake my head a little in response, but I do dare to meet my classmate’s eyes, and I’m relieved when I see nothing but genuine concern swirling in them. 

“I understand. I’ll wait until you’re ready to tell me, okay?” 

“O-Okay, Chaeyoung-ah,” I finally muster enough courage to answer, my voice catching in my throat for a second. “Th-Thanks. Umm…” I trail off, not sure how to steer ourselves away from the awkwardness of this conversation. Even so, I try my best to push through, because the girl deserves that, at least.

“So if Ah-tzi—ah, I mean, Nayeon unnie, used to live with your neighbors, they must be Momo unnie, Sana unnie and Mina unnie, right?”

“Oh, right!” Chaeyoung answers, immediately perking up. “Yeah, sometimes I see one of them when I’m taking out the trash or something. A couple of years ago, it was always Nayeon unnie on trash duty, I guess, because she was the one I’ve talked with outside the most. Since she moved out, though, it’s Momo unnie I’ve been talking to instead.” 

I listen as she continues to share a few funny conversations that she’d remembered, including one where a frazzled, half-asleep Nayeon had thought she’d been too late to take the trash outside, having passed out earlier in the evening and then jolting awake to what she was convinced was dawn the next morning. (Chaeyoung helpfully informed her that it was actually only nine the same night, and the garbage truck wouldn’t be coming until at least an hour later.)

But even the most humorous, most blackmail-material-worthy tales at the expense of my unnies can't do much to distract me from Dahyun’s mysterious message to Nayeon, as well as everything else she’d told me earlier. And so, even when my ears try to absorb Chaeyoung’s stories, my mind still wanders, continuing to chase after the almost sinister echoes of Dahyun’s words.

“You’ve been using me to satisfy your curiosity. Haven’t you?”

-----

Nayeon never locks her bedroom door at night. I suppose she keeps it that way because of all the times I’d sneak into her room (something I’d often done since we were kids and a habit I haven’t quite shaken off until now) and lie down next to her, whenever I find it hard to fall asleep on my own. 

No matter how drowsy she is, she would always be quick to offer her arm to tuck under my head, pull me close and hum a lullaby in my ear, threading her fingers through my hair as she does. 

Tonight isn’t much different, until, just a few minutes after I’ve settled in beside her, I hear Nayeon’s humming suddenly start to wobble, and then stop completely, only to be replaced by faint sniffling sounds. It’s the trickle of water flowing from her cheek to the back of my neck, and the belated realization that I’d never actually seen Nayeon cry with my own eyes before tonight, that finally makes me turn around to face her.

“Ah-tzi?” I ask in a voice barely louder than a whisper, raising my hand and covering it with my oversized sweater sleeve before gently rubbing it on to each of the other girl’s eyes. I feel my insides twist at the sight of her glistening eyes as they meet mine. “What’s wrong?”

“I—It’s nothing, Tzuyu-ah,” she answers, already pushing my hand away and trying to turn me again to face away from her, but I refuse to budge. “Come on, let’s go back to sleep, okay?” she says, almost pleadingly, her voice grating at the edges.

“It’s not nothing,” I persist, and the sharpness of my tone makes Nayeon fall silent. She looks away, her lips trembling a little bit, and I instantly regret snapping at her. “You keep saying I can talk to you about anything, right?” I try again, making sure to be softer this time. “Well, it goes both ways.”

She nods, albeit weakly. “I know…” 

“If you’re not ready though, it’s okay—”

“Sana and I had a fight,” Nayeon blurts out with a sniff, cutting me off before I can get another word out. “Or more like, she just stood there and let me fight her,” she adds with a watery chuckle, which later gives way to a guilty sigh. 

“Was it about Dahyun unnie?”

She finally looks up at the mention of the name. “So you did hear me call her with your phone last weekend, huh? Yeah, it was about her.”

“Does Sana unnie not want you to see Dahyun unnie?” I wonder aloud, shifting in my spot on Nayeon’s bed.

“Oh no, she does,” Nayeon says quickly, wiping off a stray tear that rolls down her eye. “Actually, I was the one being, well, difficult.”

I feel like it’s not right for me to ask what exactly she’d argued with Sana about, so after a beat of silence, I decide it’s time to tell her what I’d actually come into her room for in the first place.

“Dahyun unnie actually told me to send you a message today, Ah-tzi. She said you’d know where to find her if you want to talk.”

I don’t miss the way her lips tighten into a grim line, anxiety written all over her face. “Okay,” she breathes out. “I should do this,” she says resolutely, more to herself than to me. “In fact, I should’ve done this two years ago.”

“Done what?” I question, Nayeon’s cryptic words confusing me more and more by the second.

“Begged for her forgiveness,Tzuyu-ah,” she answers, and I give her hand what I hope is a comforting squeeze when I notice that she’s started tearing up again. “If you only knew what I did…” she trails off.

“Then tell me, Ah-tzi. What… What did you do?” I ask, a small part of me dreading the answer, but a much larger part wanting nothing more than to help ease whatever burden Nayeon has been carrying around inside of her for the longest time. 

“Promise me something first, Mei Mei.” I nod slowly, hearing the urgency in her tone. “Promise me that, even if you get mad at me, you’ll at least let me finish what I’m saying.”

“What? I won’t get mad at you,” I say, probably too hastily, refusing to believe that whatever Nayeon had possibly done in the past could be something I would never forgive. She regards me with downcast eyes, as if she knows exactly what’s running through my head right then.

“No, you will,” the other girl says flatly. “And when that time comes, I won’t blame you.”

“Ah-tzi… I… Okay,” I finally relent, knowing that it's pointless and a waste of time arguing with a stubborn Nayeon. “I promise.”

Satisfied with my answer, she nods, lets out the deepest of breaths, gives me a look of silent determination, and then begins her story.

-----

Needless to say, I haven't gotten much sleep for two nights in a row, my mind still pretty much reeling after everything Nayeon had told me. The consequences don’t take long to make themselves known the next day, in the form of deep, dark shadows under my eyes, as well as a perpetual struggle to keep them open and not nod off in the middle of an uneventful lecture.

By the time the bell rings and signals our ten-minute morning break, I fold my arms over my desk and tuck my head over them, my heavy eyelids almost immediately drooping shut as soon as our Chemistry teacher steps out of the room; but not before hearing Chaeyoung chuckle a little bit and say, “Sleep well, Tzuyu-ah.”

My dream is a nice little escape from reality: I’m in my living room in Taiwan, stretching my limbs out as I’d usually do whenever I wake up in the morning while the sunbeams cut through the glass windows. Our family dog seems to be in a lazy mood beside me today, as it starts rolling on to its back, asking for belly rubs. “I missed you so much, Gucci,” I mumble with a small smile, unaware of the fact that the words actually make it out of my mouth in the real world.

I drift off deeper, the dream all too quickly dissolving into a mute, white nothingness, the image of Gucci’s belly fading from my fingertips and from my mind. I groggily manage to remind myself that the bell for next period will be ringing in a matter of minutes.

Except the bell never does do it at the time I’ve expected, and of course, that can only mean one thing. I bury my head even deeper into my arms, groaning weakly. The world should really stop more often during times like this, I think, feeling grateful about it for once. I’m not about to say no to an extra seven minutes of shut-eye.

While my subconscious annoyingly dances on the blurred line between sleep and wakefulness, I hear the sound of heels clicking faintly against the tiled floor, footsteps which I know can only belong to one other person in this room.

“I think I envy Gucci now,” Dahyun says once she’s close enough. I sense some shuffling around before I feel the weight of her back leaning on one of the legs of my desk. She must be sitting on the floor again, as she seems to have a penchant for doing whenever the entire room stills, oblivious to our movement. 

“I wonder—” she halts, seemingly fighting to conceal the emotions in her words, before throwing all caution to the wind and deciding to say what’s on her mind anyway. “I wonder if you ever miss me too, sometimes.”

The drowsy haze in my mind refuses to free me from my semi-dream state, so although I am aware that Dahyun is speaking to me, I do not have enough control of my body to even mutter a response. 

“I talked to Nayeon unnie last night,” she continues, and I can’t determine if she’s telling me this because she’s convinced I can’t hear her, or if it’s for the opposite reason. “She pretty much threatened to kill me herself if I try to hurt you again.” The small laugh she lets out afterwards is both light with amusement and heavy with regret. “She also said that if I don't want to make things worse, I have to be honest with you from now on.”

“I don’t know if I can forgive her for what she did, Tzuyu-ah,” Dahyun admits, the tiniest of cracks in her voice exposing her vulnerability. “But I'll try, okay? I’ll try because—because I know she’s important to you.”

A pang of guilt stabs at me as I listen on. I want to tell her she shouldn’t force herself to make amends with Nayeon just because of how I might feel, but right then, my mind can’t—or won’t—translate my native Mandarin into Korean, and my mouth doesn’t seem to want to so much as move, either.

Dahyun doesn’t seem to take offense at my unresponsiveness. If anything, it appears it’s helping her not to lose her nerve as she starts to say things she otherwise wouldn’t have if I were fully awake.

“You know, I’d do anything to take back what I said before. I’d do anything —” at this point her voice catches in , “for a chance to start over with you.”

“You asked me which of the things I’d told you before was true, and which was a lie. I want you to know, I only lied to you two times.”

Then, in a moment that feels like it's much too soon, she lifts herself up on her feet, and I feel her eyes on me as she stands over my desk. A pair of soft lips later graze the top of my head, and even though they feel so real, a burning sensation prickling at the area she'd kissed, I can’t help but wonder if I’m actually still inside of a dream.

“If you can hear me,” Dahyun’s lips ghost over my ear, which I’m certain is already warm to the touch, “You can ask me about it later. I promise I’ll tell you the truth this time.”

And just like that, the bell finally rings, forcing me awake completely; and just like that, Kim Dahyun disappears from my side, as she always does when the world starts back up again.

Only this time, when my bleary eyes drift towards her desk in the midst of the organized chaos that is high school, I see her already staring at me, a tender little smile playing at the corners of her lips.

-----

When Chaeyoung twists her ankle the wrong way in gym class later today, I immediately volunteer to take her to the clinic—partly to help her, and partly to shake off the drowsiness that’s been weighing me down the entire day. Her height makes her easy enough to carry on my back, and so, in spite of her embarrassed little grumbles of “I’m fine, really” at the back of my neck, I make my way up the stairs and on to the third floor of our school building, lugging her not unlike a backpack with legs.

I decide to stay behind even as the school nurse checks Chaeyoung’s ankle, and when she leaves to get an ice pack and a bandage. 

“Thanks, Tzuyu-ah,” she mumbles, her head down. “I didn’t really like how you carried me all the way here, but still, thanks.”

For some reason, I feel comfortable enough to tease the girl a little bit. “I didn’t do this for you, Chaeyoung-ah,” I say with a perfectly straight face. “I just really wanted to get away from gym class.”

“Yah! You’re mean. I was trying to be sincere!” Chaeyoung exclaims with a pout, trying to move so she can smack me on the arm, but failing because of the pain in her ankle. I quickly get up from my seat at the side of her bed and carefully adjust the other girl’s body to a better position.

“I was just kidding,” I say, unable to hold back a laugh at her expense. Chaeyoung ends up following with her own giggles, and it takes at least a couple of minutes for our combined laughter to die down and hide behind little snorts and grins that make both our dimples visible.

“Hey, I’m not sure if you’ve heard,” Chaeyoung tells me later, nervously shifting around a little bit, “But it looks like the authorities have been going around asking for witness statements from the students and teachers. You know, about Jung-seongsaengnim and Han Jiwoo’s case.”

“Oh,” I breathe out, the mess from two days ago, and then Dahyun’s cold stare, suddenly crossing my mind.  

“Do you think Dahyun unnie is going to make a statement?”

I shake my head wearily. “I don’t know.”

Chaeyoung gives me a sympathetic but knowing look. “You haven’t talked to her since that day, have you?”

I chew on my lip, and a long silence stretches between us as I struggle to piece my thoughts together.

“I just—What if she’s right, Chaeyoung-ah?” I say worriedly, finally verbalizing what I’ve been thinking for the past few days. “What if I only wanted to get close to her because I’m curious about her?”

“Well,” the other girl’s eyebrows furrow together in thought, “Ask yourself this, then. Why exactly are you curious about Dahyun unnie? What do you want to do with whatever you find out?”

The answer comes out of my mouth on impulse, before my brain can catch up. “I want to know what it is I should be protecting her from.” I feel my eyes widen in shock, taken aback at my own words. It takes a few seconds for it to occur to me that I've spoken in Mandarin, and I give the other girl a quick translation of what I'd said.

One end of Chaeyoung’s lips curls up a little bit, and it seems that my response doesn’t faze her in the slightest. “Then there you have it. You want to know her better because you want to look out for her. That’s really all there is to it, Tzuyu-ah.”

“Do you—Do you really think so?” 

She gives me that childlike nod yet again, her head bobbing up and down with absolute certainty. “Definitely.”

I give Chaeyoung a grateful smile, her words having a gravity that I promise myself I would explore later on. “You seem like you’ve had a lot of experience with this sort of thing,” I tell her in the meantime, trying to divert the conversation elsewhere to make the atmosphere between us a little less serious.

She snorts lightly. “I wish. All my ‘experience’ comes from poetry and fiction. I can’t even talk to Mina unnie without embarrassing myself—” The girl stops herself short, realizing she’d just revealed something she didn’t intend to. “Wait, no, I didn’t say anything!” she says in a panic, her arms flailing around wildly. “Tzuyu-ah, tell me you didn’t hear anything!”

It’s my turn to have a mischievous grin on my face. “You have a crush on Mina unnie ?” I say teasingly, pretending to be incredulous, but not actually shocked. Myoui Mina does have an innocent but elegant magnetism about her that must have inevitably attracted Chaeyoung, much like a moth to a flame.  

“Yah! Don’t say it so loudly!”

“What? It’s not like anyone knows Mina unnie around here.”

“But—But it’s embarrassing, okay?!”

I only laugh at Chaeyoung in response, and just then, the ring of the bell signaling the end of the school day reverberates through the halls.

“Looks like you successfully escaped from gym class, Tzuyu,” Chaeyoung comments. “You’re welcome.”

I’m about to back when we both hear soft knocking on the side of the open door. I turn and find Dahyun just on the outside of it, giving us both a sheepish smile. 

“Sorry to interrupt.” Directing her attention to Chaeyoung, she asks, “How’s your ankle?”

The other girl shrugs. “It hurts a little, but I’ll manage.”

“Do you need a ride home? I can have one of our classmates drive you.”

“Ah, actually,” I cut in unintentionally, not wanting to forget the words I’ve formed in my head, “I think I can get Ah-tzi... um, I mean, Nayeon unnie, to pick us up and then drop you off, Chaeyoung-ah. She does know your address.” 

“Oh, okay. It’s been a while since I’ve been in Nayeon unnie’s car,” Chaeyoung answers, perking up at the prospect. “Will it be okay for her though? Isn’t she busy?”

“I’ll call her.” Turning away slightly, I pick my phone up from my shorts pocket and dial Nayeon’s number. A brief exchange later (“Oh, great timing, I’m supposed to pick Sana and Mina up. They’re having dinner with us, by the way!” “Sounds good. See you later, Ah-tzi. And thanks!”), I confirm that Chaeyoung will have a ride home.

“Great, looks like that’s taken care of,” Dahyun says, her smile never wavering. “Well, see you tomorrow, then, Chaeyoung-ah, Tzuyu-ah.”

Dahyun barely moves away from the door when I hear Chaeyoung call out to her. “Dahyun unnie, wait!”

“What is it?” Dahyun asks, eyes wide with concern.

“Um, well…” she pauses, before suddenly having a lightbulb moment and then giving me a forceful kick with her uninjured foot. “Tzuyu here actually wants to talk to you about something!”

“What—Chaeng—!” I splutter, scrambling to not to get pushed off the side of the bed because of Chaeyoung’s persistent kicking.

“Oh,” Dahyun says slowly, one of her more playfully sinister smiles creeping up her lips. “Really?”

I let out a long exhale, lifting myself off the bed to avoid any more kicks. No time like the present, I think. “Yeah, I think I actually do, Dahyun unnie.” 

I turn to give Chaeyoung a dirty look, but all she does in return is mouth the word “Payback” with a cheeky grin before the nurse comes and blocks her from view, fussing over the injured girl.

I follow Dahyun as she walks a few steps away from the clinic’s door. “So,” she starts, leaning on the wall, “I didn’t think you’d want to talk to me so soon.”

“I didn’t, either, honestly,” I answer, in that unintentionally blunt way which seems to have become second nature to me for some odd reason. 

Dahyun gives me a pained, guilty smile. “Okay, I deserve that.”

“I do want to tell you something, though. About what you said, the other day—”

“I didn’t mean that, Tzuyu, I’m sorry I—” Dahyun cuts in, blurting out a hasty interruption. I raise my index finger to stop her from getting another word out.

“You were right about that, Dahyun unnie,” I go on, giving her what I believe is my most decisive stare. “I did—I do—want to get close to you because of my curiosity. But not for the reason you think.”

The other girl swallows, seemingly caught off-guard at my sudden assertiveness. She nods slowly, willing me to continue.

“You know I’m not the only one right? Everyone, our classmates, our seniors, our juniors, even some of our teachers want to know more about you. So what makes me different from all of them?” By now, I’m nervously pacing in front of a perplexed Dahyun, trying to get the words out of my mouth in a language we can both understand. “Everyone is curious about why you’re so likable as a person, and they’ll take any bit of information they can use to try and ruin that.”

“I kept thinking about what the reason for my curiosity is, if it’s the same as everyone else’s. I talked to Chaeyoung, and she says it’s because I want to look out for you. But now that I think about it, unnie, I don’t think I can protect you from everything, no matter how much I want to. So instead,” I stop my movements just when I’m right in front of the other girl, breathing a little more heavily than I normally do, my heart hammering in my chest at the weight of my next words, “I want to know what your fears and worries are. So I can face them with you, if—if you’ll let me.”

“T-Tzuyu-ah...” Dahyun trails off, unable to say any more.

I decide I may as well ask the questions I’ve always been meaning to for the past few days. “What are you so afraid of, Dahyun unnie? Why did you have to send that video from Younghee’s phone instead of reporting Jung-seongsaengnim to the school yourself?”

“I—I…” The older girl’s eyebrows meet in the middle, her jaw clenching tightly. She closes her eyes for a good, long second, and when they open again, the normally mild-mannered Kim Dahyun seemingly turns into an entirely different person.

“I just don’t want to be that girl, okay?!” she says sharply, clouds of uneasiness with jagged edges of anger swirling in the glare of her chocolate-brown gaze. “I want to get back at Jiwoo, at Jung-seongsaengnim, at everyone! But I don’t want to be the person who ruined a student’s future, and—and the person who took away someone’s job. I don’t want that hanging over my head! I—I don’t want anyone to hate me.”

“Why? Why are you scared of people hating you?”

“I’m not scared of people hating me, Tzuyu!” Dahyun snaps, unable to stop the tears of frustration from trailing down her cheeks. Then, as if all the fire inside of her has been snuffed out, she seems to all but deflate, and in a much smaller voice, she admits, “I’m—I’m scared of people leaving. When people stop liking you, they give up on you, a-and then they leave you.”

The voice of a Dahyun from weeks ago echoes in my head just then, as I remember how crestfallen she looked the moment I’d moved to stand up from my desk to leave the room.

“Come on, I was just kidding. Don’t go. I’ll feel weird being here on my own.”

And suddenly, at this moment, everything makes sense.

The reason why she smiles at everyone even if she knows they talk badly about her behind her back; why she knowingly lets our classmates shamelessly take advantage of her kindness; why she never talks back or defends herself from all the rumors surrounding her; the reason why she just lets Mr. Jung touch her…

Although faint and frail, Dahyun’s voice cuts through my train of thought and derails it completely. “Now that I think about it, I—I guess I showed you those cards before because I wanted you to leave. Maybe I wanted you to go before you could—you could mean something to me.”

The question tumbles out of my mouth before I can think about it. “What about now? Do I mean something to you, Dahyun?” And I tear my eyes away from hers, afraid to actually know the answer, but stupidly hopeful enough to stick around and hear it, anyway.

“Yes, Tzuyu-ah,” she says simply, without missing a beat, and when I look back at her, all I see is the truth in her gaze. “You do.”

I stand there, falling silent at her turn to be honest, and it takes every shred of self-control I have to stop myself from mindlessly jumping headfirst into swearing I’ll always be by her side. My chest tightens painfully, because as much as I want to comfort her with my words, I find that I never seem to either have enough of them, or have the right ones.

“It’s scary, actually, how you already mean so much to me so quickly,” she rambles on, “But—if you still want to leave I won't stop y—”

In a sudden burst of courage and just a bit of recklessness, I pull Dahyun forward and wrap my arms around her before she can finish her sentence. I feel her flinch in my embrace for a few seconds before she relaxes into me, burying her head on to my shoulder.

“I won’t promise to stay, Dahyun unnie. I’ll just do it. I’ll just be here for you from now on,” I say softly into her ear. “Just—Let’s make sure we do things right this time. Okay?”

She says nothing, but nods into my shoulder, and I let her stay there, holding her as best as I can, my heart breaking a little as I feel her body start to shake with muffled sobs. 

-----

“I could’ve just stayed home, you know,” Mina says a little grumpily as she sits with Sana, Nayeon and I in the dining room of our apartment later this evening. Her actions seem to contradict her words though, as she pauses to gobble up the kimbap and a piece of dumpling, among other things, on her plate with uncharacteristic gusto. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, Nayeon unnie, Tzuyu-ah,” she adds quickly. “It’s just,” she straightens up in her seat and wipes the corners of with a napkin almost regally, as if she hasn’t just stuffed her face full of food, “There’s this game I’ve been wanting to play all week.”

“Oh, your game can wait, Mitang,” Sana scolds her lightly, to which Mina responds by scrunching up her nose. “I refuse to leave you at home knowing you’ll just cook some ramyun or eat chips without Momo around.”

“Is Momo working late at the dance studio again?” Nayeon asks in the middle of chewing on a piece of kimbap. 

“No, she’s been working on some sort of group project for school,” Mina replies, occupying herself by making a game out of stabbing the body of an innocent dumpling.

I can’t even nod absentmindedly like I usually do when the unnies are talking, so absorbed with my own thoughts and memories of what happened these past few days. My mind is exhausted trying to catch up with it all, and my chest feels heavy keeping everything to myself for so long, which is why, before I can stop myself, I unwittingly interrupt the conversation the other three are having by blurting out the first words I can think of.

“Ah-tzi, unnies, I have a problem.”

It’s not unexpected that Sana, Mina, and Nayeon drop whatever they’ve been talking about to give me their undivided attention right then. After all, this may very well be the first time I’ve ever shared anything remotely personal to them.

And so, I tell them about the incident with Mr. Jung and Jiwoo, as well as all the times I’ve seen him touching Dahyun inappropriately, leaving out the parts where my ability to stop the world came to be involved. 

“What… Dahyun, I didn’t know,” Nayeon mutters to herself, evidently troubled by the news.

To my surprise, it’s Mina who finds a solution. “Um, I know someone who might be able to figure out what to do about this.” Turning to her fellow Japanese friend, she asks, “You remember Park Jihyo, right, Sana?”

For some reason, the name sets off a knee-jerk reaction from Nayeon, who lets out a derisive snort before the other girl can answer. “How can she forget?” Sarcasm practically drips off her voice as she rolls her eyes. “Park Jihyo practically sticks herself to Sana like glue whenever she sees her in school. She won’t even give her time to breathe, what are the odds Jihyo would give Sana time to forget her?”

One corner of Sana’s lips lifts smugly, together with both her eyebrows, at the older girl’s statement. “You really don’t have to be jealous of her, you know,” she says teasingly, a twinkle of what seems like a lot like mischief in her eyes.

Mina gives both girls a dry look, clearly looking like she’s used to, but still gets a little ticked off by, Sana and Nayeon’s obvious more-than-friendly flirting. “Yeah, anyway,” she says tiredly, looking at me, “Jihyo is in the same year as me. She’s a political science major, and she was student council president back in our high school.”

Sana turns to me as well, seriousness taking over her features. “I’ll talk to her, Tzuyu-ah. Don’t worry!”

“Yeah, I guess you should,” Nayeon mumbles begrudgingly. “She better be helpful.”

I let out a relieved exhale, feeling like I’m finally gaining some progress and am no longer just running in circles, unlike earlier in the day. “Thank you Sana unnie, Mina unnie. I really appreciate it.” 

“Hey, Tzuyu-ah, help me out with something, please?” Nayeon says, standing up abruptly and walking away before I can say anything in response. I trail behind her as she heads to the living room and settles on the sofa. 

“Is there a problem, Ah-tzi?” I ask, as soon as we’re out of earshot from the other two girls.

“Are you still mad at me?” Nayeon answers apprehensively with a question of her own, looking at me with visibly troubled eyes. “We haven’t talked much since the other night.”

“I’m not mad at you.” I frown in thought. Looking back at the previous days we were together