“i honestly thought you’re already dead.”

joohyun throws a quick glance on the small screen of her phone situated beside her laptop, nothing but a view of someone’s white ceiling.

she furrows her brows, “aren’t you supposed to be listening to your class?”

there’s a loud snicker on the other line, followed by a- “does anyone still do that?” before the screen moves again, gets adjusted and now she could make of park sooyoung still in her pajamas, “anyway, where have you been? yerim has been bugging my dms, thought i squeezed you in my pocket considering your size.”

“students?” joohyun replies as she shifts her attention back on her laptop, moving the cursor to check on her messenger account on the second tab, “yeah, i’m sorry about that. i already dropped a message to her.”

the said message isn’t still delivered though, joohyun reckons that her niece must be still sleeping.

“normal students, normal functioning students,” sooyoung spits out around a yawn, and joohyun’s hunch is proven right when the younger woman says a quick, “park sooyoung, present.”

“it’s already past one in the afternoon,” she points out.

“and?”

joohyun frowns further at the answer, “you’re still in pajamas. have you even had your breakfast yet?”

sooyoung merely shrugs, a sheepish grin on her pale face, “time is relative, unnie.”

joohyun shouldn’t be surprised by the answer, having known sooyoung for years now, but she still emerges her gaze from her laptop to blink at her. she bypasses incredulity and heads straight for unimpressed, “get something to eat, sooyoung.”

“online class is ongoing, unnie. didn’t you said yourself i need to listen?” sooyoung completely ignores the look as she busiest herself reaching something from her side, “but i do have something edible for me to eat, look!”

joohyun scoffs. everyone knows by now that she isn’t really listening. reluctantly, joohyun peels her attention away from her laptop again and stares at the small expanse of her phone, watches how the woman on the screen tries to flex her food, but does it overly, and she could already imagine how this would end, sooyoung spilling her food on her very own pajamas.

“nooooo!”

sooyoung’s scandalized yelp put a halt on the pouring of what looks like an ice cream down her lap as she tries to salvage it. joohyun finds her own mouth twitching in response, quick enough to slap a hand over it.

but when sooyoung stares at her for a beat across the screen, looking like a dejected child over her ice cream, the crestfallen look after realizing what just happened, joohyun couldn’t hold it in anymore. she barks a loud, gleeful laugh that startles the whole room so hard that she actually has to go turn away from the screen just to get a hold of herself.

“unnie!” she hears sooyoung whining.

joohyun presses her hand harder over as she continues to duck over the table, content to ignore the mess unfold in front of her.

she has a plenty of practice in willing away from spending attention from the two, sooyoung and yerim, most of those are due to their insufferable antics and over-using their quirks, or even forgetting about the most basic things. and this is one of them, one borne from stupidity and sooyoung’s relentlessly persuasive personality.

“oh, wow,” joohyun says, when she finally gets her breath back, “online classes have really made you dumb.”

“you bet. there’s no boundary between school and home life anymore, even in the sense of having time to relax,” sooyoung says flatly, a pack of wet wipes visibly seen in her hands.

joohyun flashes her a sympathetic look, propping her chin up on her hand as she watches sooyoung clean up the sticky mess. joohyun was aimlessly perusing her resume after acquiring the wifi’s password when she hears her phone rings with a familiar name and picture on the screen that shortly breaks her concentration, and before she knows it, she’d already pressed the green button.

joohyun was at her last year at the university when she met sooyoung. she was well aware that the sight of the tall woman dressed far too elegantly for the first day of classes would send a thrill of curiosity and interest through most people’s minds. yerim, her niece who had chosen to study at the same university as hers, often told joohyun herself was a vision, a breath of fresh air, and utterly mesmerizing in any kind of clothes despite her height.

but joohyun couldn’t deny that sooyoung was like that, too, as she watched her stride across their campus on light footsteps and settle herself onto a bench under the shades of trees. joohyun had never seen anyone treat a bench like it was a throne, but here they were.

what she doesn’t know why that same woman was accompanying her niece outside a bar that same night. yerim had informed joohyun that she will be attending their university’s annual event that welcomes freshmen and joohyun wasn’t exactly spoilsport to deny her so. yeri’s now in college, hence in a new environment where everything and everyone is something to be curious about and joohyun understands that.

she knows she doesn’t have to give her a strict line of questioning until she got a phone call on her way back to their dorm and the words booze and drunk were linked to yerim’s name, her face ceased in a worried frown.

joohyun tipped her head up against the antagonizing neon lights of several bars and thought about how she’d rather be here than anywhere else. and then she looked to her left, caught a glimpse of fine raven hair woman, the only possible thing from keeping her niece to kissing the concrete. joohyun wanted to say thank you, and sorry, but with yerim who kept on making soft sound then just drifts away on her shoulder, like she sensed this conversation wasn’t for her, joohyun could only flash a grateful smile.

though after a beat, sooyoung snorted, and said, “unnie, your niece is a lightweight. please keep reminding her about that until she graduates.” in a way, the noise must’ve sent a spike of pain through her pounding head, and yerim, who joohyun had already thought sleeping, retorted, “hah! you just lost to me after vomiting your seventh shot!” and sooyoung went back to glaring. silently.

she helped joohyun get them into a cab, brought a couple of medications to their dorm, not free of charge, and educated the younger girl on the dangers of drinking with strangers, to bringing alcohol to yerim and joohyun’s shared dorm, just to increase both of their alcohol tolerance the night after, joohyun wouldn’t have guessed where this unusual relationship was heading as she watches the two stumble drunkenly through her books, and swear at each other.

the two mesh well, especially with their antics. and then it’s like an onslaught of memories; joohyun, in her early twenties, pulling a freshman yerim and a sophomore sooyoung on her graduation pictures. junior sooyoung, winning the secretary position for their central student council, and sophomore yerim, swearing viciously at a erted man they encountered in a bar for celebration and edging away from a newly hired joohyun’s frown.

“unnie, are you in a hotel?” sooyoung asks, and joohyun recovers from her stupor.

“i’m broke broke, sooyoung,” she intones, fiddling with her half-filled cup of tea.

one of sooyoung’s eyebrows lifts in obvious amusement, “so my recommended sites have worked for you?”

“what sites are you talki-“ joohyun places the cup down, registering the words on a vague level, and blinks. then she blinks some more, but something nags at her, “sooyoung, oh my god. i didn’t-“ she splutters.

joohyun makes another strangled sound, her mind fin