QOTD: ‘All people make mistakes and grow from them, but the only unforgivable mistake in this world is getting caught stealing fries from your friend.’ -George Washington

            “It’s okay, Yeri, you know you’re a superstar, and you have never disappointed anyone.” Yeri paused, mulling over her self-pep talk. “Okay, your mom may have saved your number in her contacts as ‘my only disappointment in life,’ but that has to be a joke. Right?”

            Someone snorted as he walked past Yeri. Yeri rolled her eyes.

            “It won’t be too hard. Just walk in with the athletes after classes end and hang out in the restroom until you hear them leave. Piece of cake, Yeri, piece of cake. You’ve snuck through the backdoor of an ice cream shop and pretended to be an employee to get free ice cream, so this is nothing.”

            She didn’t remind herself that someone had called the police on her and Saeron had to come and explain that ‘no, she’s not a bad kid, she’s just an idiot.’ Lord knows Yeri could’ve weaseled out of the situation herself, but she was just letting Saeron do the talking so her efforts of coming out to meet Yeri wouldn’t be wasted. Yeri was considerate that way.

            Yeah, Yeri was really considerate. She marveled at her well-mannered nature as she held the door open for the horde of softball players headed her way and smiled at each and every one of them, ignoring their confused looks at seeing a girl decked out in all sorts of accessories (on top of her standard school uniform, of course) in the athletics multicomplex. Pulling out her phone, Yeri opened up her social media to log her progress, very impressed at how quickly she was working. She’d hit a million followers in no time.

            ‘SMSS: Seulrene is at the docks! There will be a quick maintenance as we swap out equipment before sailing. This is Captain Yeri, and I look forward to seeing you soon.’

            The freshman nodded in content as a few hundred likes immediately appeared under her post, her notifications buzzing crazily to keep up. Some students commented, including but not limited to personal plugs, ramblings about stuff completely off-topic (did they really think she was talking about the crew team?), and lines of question marks. Amidst the rapidly appearing words, Yeri spotted a comment that simply said ‘ARE YOU CRAZY?!’ and clicked on it to see that Saeron, a.k.a. @wonnabin_my_ahjussi, had written it three seconds ago. Yeri replied to her comment with an angry face and a ‘reported, ’. There was no space for negativity on her account, not when Yeri was about to be the school’s genie. Saeron would eat her words; Yeri was everyone’s superstar, shining star, superstar.

            “Yeri, right?”

            Yeri looked up in surprise at the familiar, tall girl in front of her. Joy waved.

            “I didn’t know you played sports. I don’t think I saw you tryout for cheer either.”

            “Um, yeah…” Yeri shifted her eyes in nervousness. “I’m just here to watch practices, because my friend from last time wanted me to check it out while she visits someone. Wasn’t sure where to enter.”

            Joy nodded lightly and smiled, grabbing Yeri’s hand. “No problem! Generally we only allow athletes back here, but I can take you with me to watch and I’ll show you the visitor entrance on the way. I’m sure Coach Lim won’t mind too much; she’s really nice.”

            Yeri pressed her lips together and gave Joy a tight smile, nodding mindlessly. She felt herself getting dragged into the corridor, which was brightly lit and almost blindingly white, from the walls to the tile floors. The freshman caught herself wondering how the custodians kept the place so clean when it was a shared space with athletes, including those who probably came back in with dirt from being outside.

            “You don’t mind if we stop by the cheer room lockers real quick, do you? I just need to change and drop off some stuff in my locker.”

            The Hallelujah chorus erupted in a corner of Yeri’s mind as she gave a thumbs up and strained her ears to listen for chatter in the room at the end of the hall. Lo and behold, it seemed that the cheerleaders hadn’t left for practice yet, so Yeri laid out how she would make her escape. Or rather, how she would come up with a convincing excuse to stay behind in the locker room.

            “Girls, get ready in five!” Joy shouted as soon as she walked in. Yeri looked at her curiously. “Oh, I’m the co-captain. Sometimes Irene will be a little late because Almighty President Son will assign her to do something right before practice, so I lead warmups and such until she arrives.”

            Yeri nodded. “Is she going to be very late?”

            “Generally, no. But that doesn’t make Wendy any less of a snake.”

            “I see.”

            Yeri saw the cheerleaders bustle about as they tied up their hair and changed shoes, lightly conversing amongst themselves with no heed to the small freshman girl standing near the entrance. Joy went off to change and Yeri scanned the room to see if there were any lockers that weren’t being used at the moment.

            “Hey, what are you doing here?”

            Yeri jumped backwards and ended up knocking the side of her head on a wall at Irene’s sudden appearance. The older girl tilted her head and asked if Yeri was okay, offering a hand to pull her back up. Yeri smiled awkwardly and hoped that no one saw her.

            “Uh, hey. Fancy seeing you here.” Yeri face-palmed internally. When was the last time she had been so unconfident, so uncool? She shook her head and straightened her shoulders. “I’m here to watch you practice.”

            “Yeah?” Irene placed her stuff in a locker and started changing. “You joining cheer?”

            Yeri mentally noted which locker Irene was using. “No, my friend from last time...she can’t make it, but she wanted me to see how practices go.”

            “Oh.” Irene nodded, hair tie between her teeth as she pulled her hair up. “If you want, you can record one of our routines and show her.”

            Yeri didn’t know how she was going to steal Irene’s stuff if they kept trying to drag her out to the field. Maybe she shouldn’t have said she was here to watch practice. Maybe she should have said she was in trouble and had to clean the locker rooms. Not that that was very believable.

            “Um, sure. Thanks.”

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