- JY -

Jeongyeon doesn’t know what she is doing there. They still had a month to go before the school starts yet she’s there standing by the school corridors guiding few new students around the school grounds.

There were a lot of better things Jeongyeon could have done today: build that lego she had recently bought, or continue that 1000-piece puzzle she had yet to finish, or simply enjoy the comforts of her bed as she watches a series. But she didn’t, not that she even had any choice, she doesn’t, not when Nayeon woke her at 5am in the morning with a pout and cringe worthy tone as she pleads to her for help(Nayeon mentions lacking enough students to tour the new ones), then she remembers why she’s there, standing with flyers on one hand and a sign around her neck.

Jeongyeon really had no choice. 

It is still a mystery to her though, how Nayeon managed to nab the President spot. She wasn’t really the most organized human being to graze the earth, nor was she the most responsible person Jeongyeon has ever met. There were a lot of better options to go with, then again popularity did play a bigger role on this, and damn Nayeon sure is popular. If there was something good that had come out of Nayeon’s popularity was having Jihyo as her running mate and winning the vice president spot, at least they have someone organized and responsible in the council.

A smile instantly grazes her lips as new students suddenly flock to her direction, grabbing the flyer one after another and asking directions to gymnasium, auditorium, and some places in school Jeongyeon had never been to. She answered each and everyone that asked, her smile never leaving her face (Good that Jihyo explained in detail every nook and cranny of the school before they got here.) And just as fast as they crowded her, they dispersed from the hallways and into the direction she led them to.

Jeongyeon let out a sigh, more out of agitation than relief. She wasn’t really good at handling a mob of eager students thrilled to explore the school she isn’t ready to be into, at least not for a month. And before she could gather her thoughts again, she feels a gentle tap on her shoulder and a soft, almost inaudible “Excuse me…”

“Oh Sorry, I-..” Jeongyeon suddenly finds her words stuck in as soon as her eyes fully catch the girl standing timidly behind her. Jeongyeon swears she’s been around beautiful girls to know what real beauty is. But this girl standing in front of her, with jet-black hair stopping unevenly just right around her shoulders, deep round hazel eyes, pink lips and pearly whites flashing her a shy smile, Jeongyeon is suddenly reminded that perhaps she may have not been around that much.

“....to the gymnasium.” She sees the girl’s brows knit at the center and that shy smile curl into a downward frown. Jeongyeon realizes she hasn’t been paying attention, instead staring at the beauty(as corny as it sounded) far too long.

She clears , and pretends “Oh gymnasium. Go straight ahead, then turn right. Continue walking until you see the exit. You’ll see it from there, one with a dome-like roof.”

It is absurd, really, Jeongyeon is so sure of it, because this girl’s giggle sounded so velvety and incredibly melodic it begs to question how someone could be this alarmingly attractive without even knowing anything about them. The sound, Jeongyeon notes, is beginning to be a favourite of hers.

“No, I’m looking for the auditorium. I know that the gymnasium leads that way.”

“Oh.” Jeongyeon gasps lightly, finally grasping at the little mistake she had made. Normally she would have internally scolded herself at the lack of presence, then again, hearing and seeing the girl giggling before her never made that mistake anything but wanted. And hell was she ever thankful for ogling that long. “Sorry. To be honest, I wasn’t paying attention. Got up too early for this. And I-...”

Jeongyeon stops, thank god she manages to do so, wondering why the hell was she explaining in detail to someone she barely even knows and who barely even cared. She coughs, rubbing her nape with her free hand, continuing with a slight nervousness “Auditorium right. It’s the building next to this. You can take the same path, through the exit but turn left. Then you’ll see it, not far from here.”

“Thank you.” she sees it again, that smile, less shy and a little more collected, but equally charming.

“Hey, um..” Jeongyeon starts. She’s been meaning to ask her a question. Afterall, it would be nice to put a name on such an angelic face.

“Jeong!” She hears that familiar voice calling her out. Jeongyeon turns to the direction and sees Nayeon happily waving a hand. She turns to look at the girl again, ready to ask what she has been itching to ask but Nayeon’s voice cuts her off again “Jeong!”

She looks at Nayeon again then back at the girl who now seems to be hesitating whether to stay or to leave. “I was wondering what-..” 

“Hey dufus, you deaf?!” Jeongyeon unexpectedly feels an arm cradling her neck, pulling her down. “I’ve been calling you out.”

Jeongyeon grimaces at the unwanted position Nayeon had put herself in. Being locked around someone’s arm, height leveled with her friend, with complete lack of control, and dubbed as a dufus would never really do her image any good in front of the girl she’s trying to give a better impression. “Can you cut that out! I’m talking to-”

“Who?” Nayeon asks, removing her arm off of the taller girl.

Jeongyeon stops, her eyes wandering off to the girl walking further away from them “...someone”

Nayeon does not press any further, instead drags the taller girl out of there, and Jeongyeon lets her. After all, she has no reasons to stay there, not when the girl is no longer in sight.

....
...
..
.
 

The next time Jeongyeon saw her was the beginning of class. They weren't classmates(she would have loved it if they were), they don't even share the same floor, but Jeongyeon still considered herself lucky. Because even for a short while(a minute and thirty, she counted) she gets to take a glimpse of the girl every morning by the lockers with a dainty smile on her face as she greets a few of her fellow classmates. 

Jeongyeon never thought she'd ever be thankful to both her friends for dragging her up early in the morning and force her to join them in walking to school an hour earlier than she normally would have done in the past. But she is. She is thankful for having persistent friends. And she is even more grateful that the girl likes arriving at school earlier than most students would.

And though she may never be the receiving end of that bright smile, Jeongyeon couldn't help but let out one of her own in which Nayeon would gag at the unusual behaviour Jeongyeon managed to make a habit of every morning(her friend made sure to get her point across by wiping off Jeongyeon's smile with a flick on the nose)

Jihyo did inquire about those sudden changes in her mood whenever they grab their shoes by the lockers but they were never really answered. Jihyo even doubts if they were even heard, because for some reason Jeongyeon was always off in her own world(for a minute and thirty, Jihyo counted too) without any care in anyone and anything.

The minute and thirty rendezvous Jeongyeon had formed ended earlier than she had expected. Not because the girl caught her staring, it was more on how Nayeon and Jihyo’s schedule changed. The one hour earlier became two, and the sooner she got there, the more she had no chance of seeing her. She did try on her own, but found difficulty in waking up without a whining Nayeon ringing in her ears. Eventually that minute and thirty became a 15-second rendezvous of the girl’s retreating form.

It took about two months to today before Jeongyeon decided to give up that little crush she had for someone she rarely sees, hardly hears, and barely even knows. Oddly enough, it is also the same time the girl finally meets her gaze, standing a few meters away from where she is.

“You’re drenched, Jeong.” she hears Jihyo comments before her, voice dripping in mild surprise.

Jeongyeon is the first to turn her gaze away(as much as she didn’t want to) and looks at her friend who is eyeing her from head to toe, “It rained.”

“No it did.” Nayeon mocks, batting an eye.

“Why? Where’s your umbrella?” the youngest of the three continued to ask worriedly

Jeongyeon scratches the back of her head as she flashes a smile hoping it would dissolve the slowly growing frustration out of Jihyo, “I lost it.”

“Yay. Mystery solved.” the oldest remarks monotonously, which earned a scowl from their most responsible, and perhaps most matured out of them.

“Nayeon would you please just do something about this.”

“Why me?”

“Well, who do you think would be responsible for this mess?”

Nayeon’s eyes bulge in an instant, then looks at the trail of water leading to them. She may not be the most responsible human being but she does know when she needs to be, and it’s always something she doesn’t like doing. “What the hell is your problem playing  under the rain?! What are you 5?!”

“I wasn’t playing. I just lost it. And could you please stop hitting me.”

“Do you at least have your PE uniform in your locker?”

“Well…”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Nayeon glares. An exasperated tone evident on her voice.

“I have mine in the locker. It's probably short on the pants but better than a soaked uniform.”

“YAH! YAH!” Nayeon shouts, “Don’t move! Change here! YAH!!”

Neither actually listened as Jeongyeon only followed Jihyo from behind with the droplets of water creeping through the corridors.

- MN -

Mina has never been good at socializing, has never been good at approaching anyone, or vocalizing how she actually feels. Not that she had any problems with that, she liked it- that undisturbed circle around her, it’s quiet and peaceful just the way she wants it.

So when her parents decided to move to another city and she had to transfer school, she never quite felt the burden it brought with it. It wasn’t like she’ll be missing a lot of people back in her old school, nor friends she could cry with as that moving day came. She had none to begin with.

Although that didn’t mean nobody approached her, a lot actually did try. It wasn’t really uncommon to her when students, girls and boys, alike reached out to her; voicing out their admiration in hopes of becoming her friend or probably even more. And Mina let them. But none quite formed a lasting impression on her to actually build a genuine bond.

They were all, as much as Mina hated to admit it, shallow, superficial for their hollow reasons of having someone like her, someone they fawned over, as an achievement in their social agenda. None actually ever did try to truly get to know her, even when she was willing to let them.

Mina isn’t sad about it though, it is just another change of scenery for her. And boy how great is the scenery on her new school’s rooftop with nothing but her, the book in her hand and the distant picturesque mountain ranges.  Great that rain stopped even before the first subject started.

“Nayeon you idiot!!!!” 

Maybe it isn’t just her on the rooftop after all. 

Mina peeks through the wall by the door and sees her, that tall, lively and always around the student council, shouting at the other side of the rooftop, hands tightly clenched onto the metal railing.

The girl, Mina deduced, seems to be upset and seems to not notice her as the girl only screams again.

Mina doesn’t know whether to leave or to stay. She hesitates for good reasons though, her presence is still undiscovered and now would be the best time to leave and not deal with this current awkward situation. But on the other side, she still has 35 minutes left on her lunch peroid, plenty of time to spend in her classroom with too many students around- something she isn’t so keen on doing. And between something awkward and something she isn’t so enthused about, she rather handle the awkwardness(if it ever comes to that).

Mina sighs, hoping that slight creak in her direction wasn’t caught by those fuming ears.

Funnily enough it did, as those familiar eyes fell on her own, and a voice sounding quite alarmed, far from that jovial tone she usually hears from her every morning “You!”  

- JY -

Jeongyeon stomps her feet as loud as she could as she makes her way up to the roof. Well nobody was around to hear or see her, but she felt like letting her frustration out. After all, she wasn’t happy about what Nayeon had just informed her over lunch, heck she wasn’t even finished eating her lunch when her friend so annoyingly told her about what she had done. And that cheeky smile Nayeon had on as she said those words really just raised the level up to the maximum.

‘I signed you up for Saturdays duties in the council.’

She reaches the top and slams the door open, screaming from the top of her lungs, hand gripping the metal railing, “Nayeon you idiot!!!!” 

Like hell would she spend her Saturdays in the school helping out the student council. If she wanted that she could have ran against her friend, at least she’d be handling it a little better than Nayeon has been doing.

Jeongyeon screams again. What’s even more frustrating for her is that even though she loathed the idea of spending her Saturdays in the school doing something far from how she normally spends her Saturdays, she knows she’ll give in eventually- that she’ll be there every Saturday to help out. She has always been helpless against her childhood friend. Because as much as she hates to admit it, Nayeon’s pout is her kryptonite.

She sighs with full intentions of calming herself down but then hears a sound behind her. Jeongyeon turns around, and that calm she intends to get is instantly replaced by something far opposite, “You!”

She feels heat rush in her cheeks and heart leaping through her chest. She wasn’t expecting anyone on the rooftop, much more during lunch, since, everyone’s actually having their lunch.

Jeongyeon sees her coming out of the wall, a book in her hand, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I’ll go.”

“No!” Jeongyeon exclaims a little too loudly, then stops and clears , “I mean you shouldn’t. You were here first. I should be the one to go.”

She sees the girl she’s been crushing on for months in front of her hesitating. The girl purses her lips then smiles, that same smile Jeongyeon never thought she would ever be in the receiving end of.

“You can stay if you want.” The girl suggests, her voice so gentle that Jeongyeon swears it felt like soft hands cradling her cheeks. “If it helps.”

Jeongyeon nods shyly, seeing as this is the most she had spent with the girl she remembers she knows nothing about, but generally the same girl she finds breathtakingly attractive.Of course she’d take the only opportunity she has to spend the remaining 30 minutes of her lunch with the unnamed girl.

Maybe spending it in silence wasn’t something Jeongyeon preferred, but she had nothing to say. Especially when everything she wanted to voice out keeps drying somewhere in . Not the same as how vocal her stomach is when it suddenly grumbles a little too loud for Jeongyeon’s liking, “Sorry. I wasn’t able to finish my lunch”

The girl smiles, and hands out an opened box of chocolate flavoured pocky. Jeongyeon happily takes one, bowing slightly to show her appreciation.

“You cut it.” she hears that same voice comments a couple of seconds after.

Jeongyeon looks at her almost unsure whether it was something her mind created or that the girl really did say something. And maybe she is taking too long to respond when the same girl repeats, “You cut it, your hair.”

Jeongyeon finally finds her voice as she replies shyly, a little out of character, fingers running through her hair “Ah yeah. A kid stuck a bubble gum in my hair before school started.”

“Oh.” the girl giggles. “It suits you.”

Jeongyeon was never one for compliments. She had a habit of shrugging them off or just simply choosing not to hear them. But when that girl said those words, Jeongyeon wanted nothing more but to lock that compliment up in a safe, hide it where only she knows and treasure it as long as she lives. 

She feels her cheeks warming a little and hopes that the tint that manages to spread across her face is light enough to be left unnoticed, “you should have seen when I cut it myself. It was uneven for a whole week.”

The girl laughs, “I doubt you’d look anything less pretty than you are now.”

Jeongyeon was suddenly taken aback at the sudden confidence the girl has. How the girl managed to say those words without a hint of reluctance. She then realizes she finally knows one thing about her, that the girl who seemingly looks timid could be so overwhelmingly brazen when she feels like it.

“I could say the same to you” Jeongyeon manages to reply(taking far too long though), lacking the same amount of confidence the other has.

“Thank you.” is all the girl said when they went silent again.

Jeongyeon understood silence, understood that probably the girl beside her wanted that peaceful environment as she reads her book. But Jeongyeon also understands that she only has right now to ask; to engage in a conversation with a girl she probably would never get to talk to again.

So Jeongyeon turns to her side, and looks at the girl, throwing away any sign of cowardice behind her, and asks “So what are you doing here?”

The girl looks up from her book and murmurs a soft “hm?”

“What brings you up here?”

“I like it here. Why are you here?” the girl turns to ask “Aside from shouting Nayeon is an idiot?”

Jeongyeon suddenly feels embarrassed from her earlier action. She rests her cheek onto her palm and replies, “Well she is an idiot. Have you met her?”

“It takes one to know one.”

Jeongyeon gasps, faking a hurt expression, then rebukes “It takes one to be around one.”

The girl laughs, more naughtily this time around, and Jeongyeon notices how the sound seems so delicately enticing. 

“So you’re admitting it?” the girl up a brow

Jeongyeon squints, leaning closer as she measures up the challenging gaze the girl threw at her. “You’re surprisingly different”

“And you’re surprisingly straightforward.”

“I mean it as a compliment”

“How so?”

“Well… there’s more to it than meets the eye. Don’t get me wrong, you’re really pretty, probably one of the prettiest girls I’ve seen, but sometimes, pretty could be boring. But you, you’re surprisingly engaging.” Jeongyeon notes, fingers cradling her chin. “And you’re reading a guidebook for Zelda. That’s something.”

The girl chuckles, realizing how Jeongyeon manages to catch the small detail around her hand. They continued their conversation, this time with Jeongyeon having lesser things to worry about. They both went on and about how Jeongyeon had managed to find all the Korok seeds (she did brag her little advantage over the girl who is having some troubles around the massive world)

They shared a laugh, something Jeongyeon never thought she’d be sharing with the same girl she only used to share the minute and thirty rendezvous with(not that the girl was even aware of it).

Not long after, the bell rings, cutting off their discussion(and some friendly banters) about the game and a little more aside. Jeongyeon is the first to stand up, offering a hand to the other girl who welcomes it with another smile.

“I guess I’ll see you around.”

“Ah, yeah I guess we’ll do..”

The girl smiles again before walking past Jeongyeon and to the door. 

Jeongyeon had been dying to ask really, something she should have asked 3 months ago but never really had the chance to. “Hey um…”

The girl looks at her with the same curious eyes she had during the school tour. “Hm?”

“I’m Jeongyeon.” she didn’t ask but said hers instead.She never really felt confident in asking anyway. The girl curves up another smile and Jeongyeon is so sure she’ll never get tired of it. 

“Mina.”

- MN -

Mina stops from walking, and stares at the purring kitten inside the box. She remembers it all by itself earlier this morning when she was walking to the school. She remembers building a little roof over it with torn up boxes she found by the sidewalk next to it. And she remembers leaving as it is, hoping that the rain wasn’t strong enough to trample the cardboard roof.

But what she doesn’t remember is a green polka dot umbrella sheltering the kitten and bread cut into little pieces next to it. 

Mina bends down, a familiar name catching her eyes printed on the handle

Yoo Jeongyeon Jjang!

parts a little, earlier incidents flashing before her eyes.

That same girl dripping wet as she walked along the school corridors, with little to no care of the murmuring students around her. That same girl who managed to flash a smile as she gets scolded by her friends. That same girl who said she lost her umbrella when she braced the heavy rainfall. 

“Mina-ssi?”

Mina looks up as soon as that familiar voice echoes through her ears. She smiles, a kind of smile she has yet to give to anyone, other than the girl who owns the little green umbrella standing beside her, “Hey.”

And for the first time in Mina’s life, she never felt so compelled to know someone as much as she wanted to know Jeongyeon.