The next day at school when Eunha arrived she was feeling anxious, she was scared of the looks and comments she would get. Because of the rumor spreading so fast everyone at school knew about the bet and the kiss.

As she approached the gates she could see some groups turning to look at her and some whispers like “it’s her..” or “she’s the lesbian..” Eunha looked down and walked in ignoring them all, suddenly she felt an arm taking hers, she looked by her side and saw Yuju smiling at her. 

“Morning!” smiled Yuju. Eunha felt better seeing her best friend by her side, they walked in the corridor and went straight to the school journal editing room. They sat at their desks and the other students in the room greeted them nicely, Eunha looked at Yuju with a questioning look and when their classmates were far enough Yuju came closer to Eunha. 

“They are on your side, most of them got bullied by the football team before.” she explained and Eunha understood. “That's why I was thinking we should attack back with the bullying issue, denouncing Sowon and what she did, many students admire her but she showed her true side and we should write an article about how she is a bully?”

“Isn’t it too much…?” asked Eunha unsure, she was mad at Sowon but she didn’t want to hurt her, Eunha wasn’t sure it was the right idea.

“Eunha, I know you are the kindest and most forgiving girl in this cruel world, but you can’t let this continue, she deserves it.” said Yuju.

Eunha hesitated but then sighed. Yuju was right, she needed to attack back or she would always be the victim. “Okay, but I write it and we publish it tonight so it’s in tomorrow’s journal.” said Eunha as she started feeling more determined. 

Suddenly they heard a knock at the journal’s room door. A little group of five students entered and looked at Eunha, they bowed politely and greeted everyone.

“You are Eunha right?” asked a boy younger than her and Eunha nodded.

“It’s me.” she answered and he smiled looking excitedly at his friends.

“We are members of the LGBT support group.” he said, handing Eunha a prospectus. Eunha looked at it shyly. “We wanted to tell you that you can join us for the meeting anytime, and of course we are on your side, the bullies always take advantage of us and humiliate us, so we need to stick together.” he explained nicely and Eunha blushed. All this was so new to her, she wasn’t even sure about her uality, all she knew was that she liked Sowon but she wasn’t sure she liked only girls, or boys, or both…

Yuju seemed to read Eunha’s confused face and she stood up, standing beside her best friend.

“Thank you for your support guys, we could write something about you and your group in another article. It could help many students questioning themselves, they can come to you and participate in some talk meetings.” said Yuju very nicely and sincerely.

Eunha looked at her and then at the students in front of her. “Yeah, that’s really nice of you guys, and it gives me more ideas for the article.” she said looking at Yuju who looked up at her with a raised eyebrow. “We could include some other stories about other gay student being bullied. It would have more impact if I’m not the only one.” she explained.

Yuju hesitated. “Eunha, can I talk to you for a minute…?” said Yuju pulling up and dragging Eunha by the arm at the other side of the room without waiting for an answer.

“Are you crazy?” she asked her and Eunha shook her shoulders.

“What?” she asked back, “You wanted me to write that article, it was your idea, and it will be awesome to bring together their experiences.”

Yuju looked at the students waiting by their desks then at Eunha. “I don’t know, I was thinking about you denouncing how popular kids bully other students and humiliate them, or the effect a bad rumor can have and all… not about… about you being into girls or something…” she said. “If you do that everyone will assume that you are gay…” said Yuju and Eunha thought about it for a minute.

“Isn’t it already what everyone is talking about?” she asked. “I’m like the most popular lesbian of the school...” she said thinking about the rumors and everything. Yuju sighed. “Look I’m not sure about all this either, but we need to do something, and the fact that I was attracted to Sowon is true so… let’s write this article sincerely and tell everyone the truth about what happened and how I ended up in this situation…” said Eunha and Yuju noded.

“So this little crush was more than just sport admiration.” said Yuju raising an eyebrow teasing the sorter girl. “I didn’t think Sowon would be your type.” she joked some more making Eunha blush madly.

“Ah shut up!” laughed Eunha as she hit Yuju’s arm. “Let’s work on this article, I will need your help so while I work on my part you could interview them so we can add their stories too.” said Eunha in full journalist mode.

It took more than one hour for Yuju to listen and take notes about the little group stories. Eunha on the other side had more difficulties. It was so personal to tell everyone about what really happened. Maybe Yuju was right, she wasn’t ready to tell the world she really liked Sowon and was used by her like this… Maybe they should stay more vague and write about the bully in general and how a bad rumor can break someone…

The little group left and Yuju approached Eunha. “So how’s your article going?” she asked looking over her best friend’s shoulder but saw that Eunha was a bit stuck. “You still wanna do it?” asked Yuju and Eunha sighed.

“Yeah but it’s difficult to open up so much to everyone…” said Eunha. “I need some fresh air, I will continue after.” she said with a small smile to reassure Yuju who nodded.

“Okay I will work on the other part and write down everything for the rest of the article.” said Yuju taking her notebook and going to her computer to write down the stories of the other students.

Eunha left the journal office and walked in the corridor. She wanted to pass by her locker to take her bottle of water before going out and getting some fresh air but as she approached she saw a guy and a girl in front of her locker, they had spray paint in hand.

“Yah!” yelled Eunha running to them, they laughed and pushed her as ran away before Eunha could see who it was. Eunha fell on the ground and looked at her locker, she saw what they did. They wrote “stupid dyke” 

Eunha got up and saw Sowon standing in the corridor on the other side. The tall girl looked at her sadly.

“Eunha…” she said as she walked to her but Eunha frowned. “I’m so sorry…”

“I don’t want your pity.” said coldly Eunha as she quickly took her bottle of water and turned her back to Sowon slamming her locker shut before walking away.

Eunha was reassured to see Sowon wasn’t following her to try to talk to her more, she wasn’t sure she could handle seeing her in front of her again. Eunha knew that her pretty face would make her doubt everything and that Eunha needed to be strong to write this article so she tried to forget Sowon’s face and drink some water before sitting on a bench to relax a bit.

After 20 minutes that looked like an eternity Eunha got up, she walked back in and was surprised to see her locker was already cleaned up. She didn’t have any class this morning so she would usually spend her time working at the journal with Yuju.

Now she seriously needed to finish the article before lunch and go to her classes this afternoon. She entered the journal room and sat back at her desk. For the next hour Eunha worked hard, she wrote down about the new year eve party, how she got invited to her first party and how she ended up alone with Sowon who saved her from another bully… Eunha sighed she really must have looked like the perfect victim.

She described how Sowon seduced her and kissed her. How she took advantage of her for the bet and how everyone is talking about her now, how people call her and how her locker got vandalized. Then Yuju send her the other part and Eunha made the link to other similar stories, adding Yuju’s work and finishing by warning readers that anyone can end up in a bad situation because of some bully like Sowon, that one rumor, one bad joke, one stupid bet can destroy someone’s mental health and push them to hate themselves, to want to disapear and even want to die. She taked about the suicide rate in highschools and how bullies are directly responsible. 

When she finished she asked Yuju to read it to make sure it was okay to publish it then they showed it to the rest of the journal team who agreed that it was very good.

Eunha was still hesitating, one thing that was annoying her was that while writing her article she realised she was invited by Sowon’s sister and she wondered if Umji knew about the bet and kinda invited Eunha for that. If Umji was part of the devil plan too.

“Okay,'' said Eunha, “ we can start printing as soon as the rest is finished, I will stay after school to take care of the rest.” she said and they all nodded.

They finished the editing for the rest of the news in the journal and it was time for lunch. They all parted ways and Yuju and Eunha went to the cafeteria. As they entered and took their plates, some guys at the football table started throwing food at Eunha calling her the little dyke and laughing, soon some other students joined them and Eunha ran away followed by Yuju.

Eunha was teary. “My sweater is ruined…” she said as she had some spaghetti and tomato sauce on it.

Yuju took her to the bathroom, and they passed by Sowon, who was with Yerin. They walked to the cafeteria direction. Sowon was wearing a different sweater and had some paint on her jeans, the two basketball players looked at Eunha who looked down while Yuju rushed her inside the bathroom.

Yuju took some paper and cleaned Eunha’s face and hair before taking off her sweater to try to clean it too.

“If we clean it right away we can take away the stains.” said Yuju nicely while Eunha just stood there looking down. She clenched her fists, she really was mad. She was the one that was humiliated again.

Soon the door opened. Yuju quickly looked at the door and saw Umji and SinB. “Here’s some salt.” said Umji who probably brought it from the cafeteria as she saw what happened to Eunha.

“I don’t want your pity either…” said Eunha, finally looking up and meeting eyes with Umji who frowned.

“It’s not, I just want to help a friend,” said Umji sincerely. “I really can’t believe what my sister did to you and I guess you are wondering if I knew about all this…” said Umji and Eunha looked at her waiting for an answer. “Well I didn’t, I… I didn’t even knew Sowon would do something like that… she’s not the type to enter in this kind of games, she never really got along with other popular kids… at first I thought she wasn’t able to do something like this but she’s different since that night, she yelled at me, and even got suspended from the team this morning because she got into a fight with one of her teammates…” explained Umji. “I really don’t recognize her…” she said sincerely. “So I will be on your side.” she said sincerely and Eunha brushed her tears away.

“Thank you Umji..” said Eunha, while SinB helped Yuju by holding the sweater under the hot air blowing machine to make it dry faster. Once it was all clean and dry Eunha put it back on and Umji decided that they should all go eat outside.

They took their bags and left the school, SinB chose the place and even invited the girls, they all sat down when Umji’s phone started to vibrate multiple times.

She apologized and looked at her notifications, she had many messages from her friends. She opened and saw that it was about Sowon. They all send her videos where we could see Sowon walking to the football table and hitting the football team captain in the face with a full plate of spaghetti. Then all the cafeteria transformed into a food fighting scene.

“Omg…” whispered SinB as all the girls were watching the videos. “I think your sister won’t be only suspended for basketball but also from school after this…”

“But why would she do this…?” said Yuju shocked.

Eunha hesitated, was Sowon doing all this for her? No it was impossible, Sowon said it herself, she got closer to Eunha because of the bet, it was nothing so why would she defend her now… maybe she was feeling guilty? Because everything that happened to Eunha is her fault… 

Eunha shook her head. It was too late anyway, her teammate at the journal probably printed it by now anyway and if Sowon was feeling guilty it was her problem, she needed to think twice before bullying someone...

***

Sowon hit the football team captain between the legs with her knee when the cafeteria suddenly became silent, she looked around and saw the assistant principal pointing his finger at her and at the football captain team, he stood up and looked at her. 

“You .” he hissed as he walked with difficulty, his face still covered in tomato sauce. He brushed away the rest of the spaghetti off his shoulders and Sowon followed him while the calm regained the cafeteria and people started to ask the students to clean up the mess.

They both entered the principal office and sat down.

“She started it!” immediately said the football player at the moment their respective coach entered the office.

“What the hell happened?” asked Sowon’s coach mad, she looked at the tall girl disappointed. “Suspending you from the basketball team for 3 weeks wasn’t enough?” she asked her and Sowon stayed silent.

“She’s right, you were into a fight already this morning with one of your teammates and now you start a fight with someone else?” asked the principal wanting to understand.

“She’s crazy! all because of that dyke, she’s probably a dyke too!” said the football player before being shushed by his coach.

“What happened?” asked the principal and the football player started talking again.

“She attacked me and threw food at me for no reason!” he said innocently.

“For no reason?” asked back Sowon mad. “You are a bully, you started this by using spray paint on that girl's locker to insult her and you were the first one throwing food at her when she entered the cafeteria.” said Sowon. “I was just showing you what being bullied was feeling like and I bet you don’t like it!”

He stood up and looked at her with a menacing look. “You , you will regret it for sure.” he said but his coach put his hand on his shoulder to make the young boy sit back.

“I won’t tolerate such words and attitudes here.” said the principal. “You are both expelled for a week and suspended from your respective sport till the end of the season.

“But there’s a big match soon, some university recruiters will be here, I need to play!” said the boy but the principal shook his head.

“Next time you will think better and not bully other students, it’s not the first time, we already warned you about that, now you can leave.” he said to him as he stood up mad and left followed by his coach. Sowon stood up in silence too but the principal stopped her.  “Not you.” he said looking at Sowon and making a sign for her to sit back. “What’s going on?” he asked her, worried. “You never caused any problems before, you are one of our top students and our basketball star… why would you suddenly start fights?” he asked but Sowon stayed silent and looked down. 

“If something is bothering you, you can come talk to me.” said the principal, seeing that something was definitely wrong with the tall girl. “You can go now.” he finished and Sowon stood up.

She walked out but once alone in the corridor her coach caught her by the arm. “You also have an important match that could open many universities doors at the end of the season, you will miss some great opportunities. If you talk to us we can maybe fix that and allow you to play…” said the coach, also worried by her player attitude.

“There's nothing to fix coach, it’s too late.” said Sowon as she walked away, gathering her stuff to go back home.

The basketball player walked to the bus stop and sat there waiting for a bus to arrive to take her home. She was tired, she was angry and sad. She thought about Eunha’s face, how she looked at her the day before when she heard her say to her teammates that she hated kissing the short girl.

Sowon sighed, she didn’t hate it, she loved it but she was so scared, she didn’t want to get kicked out of the team, be judged by her teammates or even dare say it was true as she agreed with Eunha it would be better that they keep it secret… sadly Sowon let her anger speak and now everything she feared arrived.

She got kicked out of the team, most people and especially Eunha were thinking she was bully, and all the school was calling Eunha a lesbian… Sowon couldn’t do worse, she really hated herself. She didn’t thought everything would turn out like that, she just wanted her teammates to get off her back and focus on the game, she knew this new girl was doing her best to pitting some other girls against Sowon as she wanted to be captain and all this was all she ever wanted because now that Sowon was out she took the captain place. 

She was also the girl that did the graffitis with the football captain on Eunha’s lockers, Sowon did her best to clean it before more people saw it and she confronted the girl about it, that’s why she got into her first fight of the day.

Sowon sighed loudly then she felt someone sat beside her. She looked up and smiled as she saw Yerin. 

“Aren’t you at the practice?” asked Sowon to her best friend.

“No, I can’t practice with that , she took me out of the backcourt and put me on the bench,” said Yerin. “I told the coach I wouldn’t play anymore if she was captain.”

Sowon frowned, “You shouldn't do that, we have big competitions coming up.” she said worried for her friend.

“I don’t care, we always played together, since we were young, I enjoy this sport because we have fun and enjoy ourselves while playing, with her it’s orders and winning… she already yelled at 3 girls because they laughed while training…” explained Yerin sadly.

“I’m sorry…” said Sowon feeling guilty, “It’s my fault, if I didn’t mess up with Eunha and all I would still be captain and the team would be fine at least I guess we were fine when I was captain…”

“Of course we were, you were very professional but also fun and understanding, you would always give us advice and teach us techniques, always kind and considerate.” explained Yerin. “That’s why most of us wanted you to be captain in the first place. You always put the team first and not yourself, like that girl is doing, she did everything to put herself under the spotlight. It’s our first training with her and I already want to kill her!” laughed Yerin.

“My bus will arrive, can I ask you something?” said Sowon looking down.

Yerin frowned. “You can ask me anything.” she answered sincerely patting Sowon’s shoulder gently.

“Can you keep an eye on Eunha, I won’t be around anymore and I bet the football team will be mad their captain got suspended, they may want revenge…” said Sowon knowing those guys too well. Their egos were way bigger than their brains and Sowon was worried they would attack Eunha even more to continue what their captain started.

“Did you… talk to her?” asked Yerin knowing what was really going on and really sad that her friend was in this situation.

Sowon shook her head. “She doesn’t want to talk to me… If I could go back in time I would make sure Eunha wasn’t involved in all this mess but it’s too late.”

Yerin smiled a bit at her. “Hey look at me.” she said and Sowon looked up. “It’s never too late. Do you want me to talk to her?” she asked but Sown shook her head. 

“No it will make things even more complicated.” said Sowon, “Just try to keep her safe, in some days everyone will forget about this, and by the time I come back this story will be behind us.

Yerin nodded and they both saw the bus arrive. Sowon hugged her friend and went in the bus, she waved one more time at Yerin as the bus left and sat down sighing again.

“Everyone will forget about this soon,” repeated Sowon to herself, “But Eunha will hate me forever…” she said sadly.

Sowon knew Eunha hated her and she understood, she hurt the girl, she hurt the girl she liked so much, the only person she finally connected with, and seeing this look in the short girl’s eyes was hurting Sowon. The way Eunha had looked at her earlier, all the anger and hate, but also the sadness. Sowon knew she broke the trust they shared since that night on new year eve but she really didn’t know how she could fix this now.

Eunha hated her and Sowon already accepted it, she felt like she deserved it…

As she arrived home she did her chores, she knew her dad had been informed by the school about her suspension. She knew that she would have to face him as soon as he would arrive home from work and she knew that even if he was a really nice dad, he was also very strict about school.

Once the house was all clean Sowon went into her room, she did her homework and messaged Yerin to know if she could bring her the lessons and homework on the next days till she could come back the next week.

At the end of the day she heard the front door and just by listening to the footsteps she knew it was Umji, she also heard some noises coming from the kitchen. Sowon stood up from her desk and walked downstairs.

“Umji please I just cleaned everything, don’t put any mess before dad arrives.” asked Sowon almost begging. “He will be mad enough without adding some other problems…” she said clearly worried about what her dad would tell her.

Umji looked at her frowning. “Oh so now you think about the consequences of your acts?” she asked her sister, clearly angry.

“Oh please are you still mad that you got punished longer than me?” asked Sowon as her relationship with her little sister was a bit chaotic since the party. “Or is it because I yelled at you yesterday? because it’s nothing, you do get mad at me sometimes and I don’t hold a grudge at you for so long, you will seriously need to forget this.”

Umji looked at her. “It’s not about that!” said Umji, facing her sister. “Can’t you see how you are acting recently? I don’t recognize you!” said Umji mad.

“What are you talking about?” asked Sowon frowning too.

“You are out of control Sowon, you bully people, you fight, you got kicked out of the basketball team… What’s wrong with you?!” asked the younger girl sincerely worried about her sister.

Sowon looked at her little sister and sighed. “I-” Sowon was cut as her dad entered the kitchen.

“Your sister is right, I can’t tolerate my daughter acting like this.” he said coldly. “I give you everything and you just put shame on our family. I never thought I would be so much disappointed by my own kids, by you Sowon… I raised you better than this.” he said looking at her and Sowon looked down.

“I’m sorry dad but it’s not what you think…” started Sowon wanting to explain herself.

“I don’t want to hear you right now, just go to your room.” he ordered and Sowon looked up at him, tears running down her cheeks but she didn’t say any more words and turned around to go to her room.

Later Sowon heard Umji walk upstairs and go to her room and she wished she could just go to her little sister and hug her but Umji was mad at her too now and Sowon felt even more lonely than ever. She went into her bed and hugged her blanket as she started crying till she fell asleep...