It’s the fourth event this week. Held at the same manor and when Chorong attends, she doesn’t even step into the ballroom. Instead, she finds herself going to the terrace-like balcony every single time.

(With no parent limitation because she willingly asked to tag along today, much to her mother and father’s surprise.)

Before she steps onto the platform, the black-haired girl pauses right under the arch, reluctant to walk in. She’s rehearsed several casual greetings hours prior – a bunch of I haven’t seen you in a while’s and Where have you been’s, all to her reflection in the spacious girls’ bathroom, trying to perfect the nonchalance in her tone because God forbid if she comes across too clingy to a stranger – just in case she sees Eunji again.

Chorong honestly doesn’t even know why she’s acting like this.

There’s been three events before today, none of which she’s encountered Eunji, and so the easiest excuse she lets herself believe is that she’s beginning to forget the short-haired girl’s face.

(Why she wants to remember it goes disregarded.)

She shakes off the nerves hitting at her, mentally telling herself she’s being silly, deep breath after breath, carefully moving past silk to be welcomed by smooth marble and a watercolour sky. Her eyes are immediately darting everywhere, searching every nook and cranny this balcony can possibly offer. When she sees that it's really unoccupied, again, disappointment creeps at her like the three previous times, just a lonely ledge at the corner looking almost weirdly incomplete, a bitter taste in the back of slowly getting stronger. 

Who was she kidding—

“Yoohoo!” There’s a loud yell coming from below her.

The black-haired girl’s chest rises as soon as she hears the voice she hasn’t been able to get out of head since that day, rushing to the edge of the balcony to peer down, where she can make out Eunji standing near the fountain, jumping and waving at her with two hands.

“Looking for someone?”

The black-haired girl doesn’t waste a second – practically running to take the back staircase that leads straight to the garden, the nerves eating her up alive again, swallowing her whole in excitement. The air gets caught up in when she sees that the other girl is at the bottom, waiting for her.

“Eunji,” Chorong says, a little breathlessly. It’s absolutely nothing like she rehearsed, too shaky. “Um – hey.”

“Hey yourself.” Eunji grins. She’s already starting to move again and Chorong is forced to catch up with her without protest, almost out of fear to lose her like she did last time. While the two girls walk side by side, everything immediately falls quiet and it's more awkward than she’d imagined for their second meeting.

Chorong actually still can’t tell if Eunji is real, or if she’s made her up with the help of her imagination – even when she’s standing right next to her, in all her intriguing glory. She finds herself unconsciously stealing glances, shy and confused as she struggles to match the short-haired girl’s walking pace. The sun is still hanging low in the sky so when she does, the black-haired girl gets a better look at her face than she did the other night. Dark eyes and defined jaw, confident shoulders and smooth hair, her relaxed features somehow making her look like she’s radiating.

Pretty. 

It’s the first thing that crosses Chorong’s mind.

Eunji finally speaks up, and it startles her out of her little daze, “So, you remembered my name.”

The black-haired girl almost tells her that she couldn’t really forget it. That she actually chased after her, searched for her moments after she left that day and her parents weren’t too happy to find her wandering around, but she was nowhere to be found. And now she’s here, again, with a new fitted suit and all. What Eunji said is really only a statement but nodding in response seems a little too enthusiastic for Chorong, so eventually, she just settles for: “Not really.”

Eunji chuckles and doesn’t further prod. They finally find a place to sit, right on the front of the three-tier fountain’s edges, and Chorong has never felt so relieved because she’s never had to walk so much in her heels. As they settle down, the mist of water touching their skin, she realises the short-haired girl is a little closer now, probably not on purpose, but when their shoulders brush, it sends shockwaves through Chorong’s body nonetheless.

“So, then… who were you looking for?”