The cafeteria is what students love and dread. Every table is occupied by groups of people. Teen movies weren't kidding about the jocks, the anime lovers, the K-pop lovers, the freshmen, the rich kids, the artsy people, the singers, the Catholics, and the popular kids being in a group every lunchtime. Although not all students have a specific group that they are in, especially not with Seulgi who has no particular friends to sit with during lunchtime. Not that she has no friends, she’s friends with Giselle who is just nowhere to be found, and Irene who she doesn’t want to see right now. She’s too embarrassed to face her after what she did last Friday night. She could remember she was half shirtless in front of the pretty girl, whose name she couldn't recall, and Irene and Giselle who caught them in an awkward position that could have led to a huge misunderstanding. She even remembered she was sobbing while dramatically apologizing to Irene for not contacting her for the past five years. She closes her eyes when she recalls all of them. She realizes how bad the effects of the alcohol are, she thinks she will never drink too much of it when she’ll encounter another party in the future. Now, she's eating with the Catholic students, she’s half-listening to what they were talking about. She doesn’t have a clue about the bible verses they were discussing. She’s not even a religious person. Does she believe in God? Not really, or maybe? One can never know, it depends on your faith if you believe so. She just doesn’t get that each religion claims that their God is the highest God and salvation, and they are claiming that their religion is the best religion of all religions. It feels like stanning your K-pop idols and claiming your idols are the best of all the K-pop groups, your fandom is the best, and your ship is real. Isn’t everybody great individually? Each has its own uniqueness. Why compare? – She doesn’t get it at all.

The realization hits her. She feels bad for comparing religion to Kpop.

“Are you alright? I’m sorry if you’re left out by our topic,” Seulgi’s Science classmate, Hannah Harper, apologetically looks at Seulgi who is sitting beside her. She invited Seulgi to eat with them when she saw her sitting alone. “Sometimes, they just get carried away by the bible verses and…” She pauses. “Anyway, how’s your week–” Before she can finish what she is saying. Giselle inserts herself between the two students who are sitting across Seulgi and Hannah.

“Hey!” The two Catholics were surprised by Giselle’s rudeness to sit in without permission.

“Seulgi, there you are! I’ve been looking around for you,” Giselle grins; she wants to talk to her about what happened last Friday. It was awesome thinking back that Seulgi was with Mina Myoui that night.

“Oh, it’s Giselle Uchinaga,” One of the Catholics says with a sarcastic tone.

“Hannah, tell your friend that Giselle is bad news. She shouldn’t be friends with a person like her,” The girl with a 1950s bob cut fashion interjects. She knows Giselle and she doesn’t like her. She thinks Giselle is a bad influence if Seulgi continues to be friends with a person like her.

“Excuse me?” Giselle raises her right brow, thinking that these religious fanatics are hypocrites. “Where’s the, ‘don’t judge the book by its pages?’” She makes a quoting gesture.

“Isn’t it, don’t judge the book by its cover?” Seulgi corrects Giselle.

Giselle gives Seulgi a look. “Right,” Then she looks back at them. “What Seulgi said,” Raising her brow looking like a 5-star-b*tch.

“Excuse me Giselle Uchinaga, if you can just leave our table. People might get the wrong impression befriending a junkie like you,” A guy says, glaring at her.

Giselle shots him a sarcastic look. She wants to say something that is on her mind. She wants to criticize the way he looks. Him, having that neatly combed hair which looks like by a cow, wearing a pastor-like-white-polo-shirt whose buttons are until his collars, choking him, and his godd*mn crucifix necklace. Did he think having a crucifix necklace and going to church makes him a saint? Giselle glances at Seulgi who has a dumbfounded reaction on her face. She sighs, thinking it’s not worth her time. “Whatever,” Giselle stands up to leave their table. Seulgi is baffled by what’s happening. She looks at Giselle who looks pissed. Seulgi is about to stand up to go after her but Giselle halts on her way to say something before leaving. “I just hope you’re all clean down to your core. Especially you,” She points at the guy. “Mister-I’m-so-clean-I-never-jacked-off-at-school,” Pissed, Giselle said it without a filter. The guy is furious but he couldn’t say anything. Both he and Giselle knew what happened that day. Not long ago Giselle went behind the soccer field in the woods. At that time, she was searching for a good spot to smoke weeds. But when she went there, she caught him ing to a picture of a popular sophomore who’s a male. And now, she hears him saying mean things about her. He should be glad that Giselle didn't out him to his peers. She's pissed but she would never do such a thing. “What a hypocrite,” Giselle grunts.

“Giselle Uchinaga, I really don’t like the way you talk to him. It’s bad and the Lord will not like it,” A girl from their circle defends the guy who became silent after Giselle told him that.

Seulgi wants to call Giselle’s attention to calm her down because their voices are starting to rise, and it’s garnering attention from the students around them. Even the sound of the school's televisions that are on every corner of the cafeteria wasn’t able to mask their loudness.

“L-let’s just stay calm–” Before Hannah Harper finishes her words, Giselle’s voice overlaps with hers.

“No offense, but I don’t believe in God,” Giselle does the quoting gesture to emphasize the word God.

Both Hannah and Seulgi feel like they are in a tightrope with the two bickering sides and it's exasperating.

“Then, your soul won’t be saved when the judgment day arrives.”

“It’s okay. I don’t need His ing salvation, 666!” Giselle shouts.

“Jesus will not answer your prayers. Eternal hell will come upon you. Your soul will burn in an endless fire. You will never be saved!”

“Blah-blah-blah, look at our school. We're already in hell! b*tch!” Giselle gives the group of catholic students the middle finger as she walks away from them.

Seulgi and her tablemates become awkward about the situation as the other students are looking at them. One of Hannah Harper’s friends asks Seulgi if she is friends with Giselle. Seulgi tells her she’s classmates with Giselle in Art Class. They tell her that she shouldn’t stick around Giselle Uchinaga because she is a drug addict and a bad influence on her. Seulgi doesn’t know about this information about Giselle. But she doesn’t think Giselle is a bad person based on what they said. She thinks it’s quite unfair to judge her like that. She sighs, feeling bad for not defending her friend, Giselle. Their table goes silent, when Seulgi is about to continue eating her lunch, Irene arrives calling her name. She almost chokes on her food.

“Seulgi, I wanna talk to you for a while,” Irene says.

“M-me?” Seulgi wasn’t expecting to see her today. Irene is the last person she wants to see. She’s still embarrassed by what she said to her. Seulgi wasn’t able to finish her lunch. Somehow it’s perfect timing to get away from their table. She excuses herself from the group and puts her tray on the tray counter. Irene starts to walk away and Seulgi follows her. She doesn’t ask why or where they are going; she just follows Irene without any questions. When they arrive in the Audio Visual Room, she waits for Irene to talk first. Irene folds her arms, stares at her without saying a word. The silence is torturing Seulgi, there are a lot of things running inside her head as to why Irene brought her there. She’s thinking that it has something to do with what she said last Friday, and she really wants to apologize to her, sober. She wants to tell her she’s sorry for not replying to her letters, that she is an for forgetting the promise they made.

“How did you know the guy wearing a black hoodie was a bad person?” Irene asks.

“The what?” Seulgi blinks in confusion. It’s not the question that she was expecting.

“Past twelve that night, I was planning to buy you something in the convenience store when the guy with a black hoodie passed by. You warned me that I shouldn’t go. You told me he was a bad guy. How did you know that?” Irene looks at Seulgi directly in her eyes, wanting to know the answers, but Seulgi is baffled, she doesn’t understand what Irene meant. “Were you so drunk that you couldn’t remember that night?”

“What do you mean?”

“Saturday morning, I watched the local news. The clerk in the convenience store that I was about to go to that night, the morning local news reported he was shot dead. Shot dead by the guy in black hoodie we came across that night. He was shown in the CCTV footage on the news,” She holds Seulgi’s arm. “How did you know?” Her grip on Seulgi tightens.

Seulgi looks at Irene’s hands, she can feel them shaking. Suddenly Irene releases an oddly familiar smell. She looks at her directly in the eyes – they were frightened.

And then Seulgi realizes, it is the same smell, the smell of fresh-cut grass that Irene was emitting that day she found her in the sports equipment room with the PE teacher. She understood it now. It’s the smell of fear.

“This smell,” Seulgi says. “That day I found you in the gym. You smelled like this.”

Irene releases her hands off Seulgi and takes a step back. “W-what smell?” She’s hoping it’s not what she thought it is.

“Fresh-cut grass,” The scent has slowly lessened. Seulgi looks at Irene’s hands which stopped trembling. “Irene, are you scared?”

“I wish you were just kidding with me right now. I wish you’d tell me that night when you told me, was just a coincidence, but I guess, you’re not that kind of person to joke on this matter. You still haven’t changed, at least, that part of you. You still don’t know how to lie even until now.”

Seulgi looks at Irene’s eyes – they were longing. “Maybe that part of me hasn’t changed, but somehow, some part of us has. Aren’t we bound to it? After all, the only constant thing in this world is change.”

Both of them look at each other, missing each other. Neither of them says it, but the silence conveys how much it’s been a while since they felt the reconnection. Somehow, both of them were thankful that they went to the party. If it wasn’t for Giselle’s bridge, there won’t be any step, to begin with.

“Seulgi, I need your help,” Irene says finally.

“What is it?” Seulgi asks, she’s willing to help whatever it is.