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YURI

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Highschool. Yuri was always curious about what would happen in high school. Her parents told her that highschool may be the most memorable part of her school life. She would get to meet new students, new teachers, new friends, and probably would also learn important lessons in life. Her mom told her that she really enjoyed her highschool life and that it was when the kids started to bloom beautifully like what happens to flowers during spring. That is when they start to explore things, start to do more for themselves without thinking so much about it, but also start to feel the weight of decision making. Highschool is mostly the time where kids start to realize what they want to do in life, or realize the people who they want to keep in their lives.

And as she saw Hana’s beautiful smile directed to her as her friend congratulated her, she can’t explain, but she somehow understands what her mom said about realizing what she wants to do or wants to keep.

It would be making Hana smile. She wants her to keep smiling.

“Thank you, baby.” Yuri responded with a full smile. “And also, thank you for taking care of me. You know, I think we won because of you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t—”

“Oh come on, if you didn’t bring me to the clinic, I won’t be able to recover quickly, and my team wouldn’t win without me of course.” Yuri explained, her eyebrows wiggling up and down as she showed her signature smirk.

“I take it back, you’re— arghh!” Hana turned around annoyed at what Yuri said.

Yuri was just joking and trying to tease Hana, but the latter seems to always be cranky when she’s around.

“I’m just kidding, baby.” Yuri grabbed Hana’s arm gently, trying to turn the little girl around once more.

“Stop calling me baby!” Hana exclaimed, but not too loud for anyone else to hear.

“We’re back to that?”

Hana just shook off her hand and walked back to her friends who were busy talking to the new basketball team members. Yuri just followed Hana, shaking her head in amusement, and they joined the crowd.

“Here comes the hero of the team!” Charlee shouted as Yuri approached.

“Stop that, dummy! If anything, it was Luna who was the hero! She put in the last shot!” Yuri humbly said as she placed her arm around Luna’s shoulder. “Give her a round of applause, ladies!”

She heard Hana scoff at that, probably because Yuri bragged about being the reason why the team won, but now she wanted them to applaud Luna because of the last shot that she made. “Do you have any objections, baby?” Yuri asked her with a grin.

“I have an objection regarding your face, it's irritating!” Hana screeched annoyingly. The people around sniggered because they knew that Yuri and Hana would start bickering again, “You’re so—ouch!”

“Why? What happened?” Yuri was suddenly by Hana’s side, checking up on her. “What’s wrong?”

“I bit my tongue.” And sure enough, Hana’s tongue was bleeding very slightly. It was a good thing that the wound was not that deep. “Someone must’ve been thinking about me.”

“If that’s your logic, then my tongue would be bleeding incessantly.” Yuri responded, clicking her tongue.

Hana hit her by the arm, thankfully not the injured one, and screamed. “You’re so conceited! I hate you!”

“Wha— what did I do?” Yuri asked, puzzled by Hana’s outrage. The girl turned around and started to walk out of the gym.

Yuri just scratched the back of her head, as Hana added, “Girls? Will you really stay here with them?” She added, directing the question to her friends.

“I’m coming!” Maia immediately responded and ran towards the fuming Hana and s her arms towards hers, but not before she threw another quick glance at Charlee whose mouth was hanging open because of Hana’s sudden tantrums. The other girls followed Hana, except for Nia who was still clinging to Jae's arms.

“Nia!” Jia shouted.

“Just wait—ugh!” Nia rolled her eyes, and then forced herself to smile before giving another flying kiss to Jae who looks like a tomato right now.

“Nia?” Yuri called, and it looks like the girl was also annoyed with her, probably because she and Jae were interrupted. But Yuri ignored Nia’s glare and whispered to her, “Please make Hana press something clean on her tongue to stop the bleeding, and then do a cold compress. Or you can also eat popsicle sticks, just plain ice or anything cold so that it will heal immediately.”

It looked like Nia was somehow less angry at her now, and then answered her with a question, “Is that all?”

“Uhh, yeah. Tell her parents about what happened, so that they can make sure that it won’t be infected.”

“You sure have a lot of concern for Hana’s tongue, huh.”

Yuri just sighed, and looked at Nia seriously, because she was really concerned about Hana.

“Alright, alright!”

“Thank you, Nia!” She even hugged the girl as a sign of gratitude.

“Wow, you still smell like a baby.” Nia commented, a little loud for everyone else to hear.

“Nia!” It was Jia, again. And when they both looked at their direction, Hana was glaring at them too.

Nia giggled, then she ran off towards her friends and complained loudly that she’s still trying to flirt.

“What was that?!” Jae asked, at the same time that Charlee also asked, “Why????”

Charlee even pushed Yuri playfully as she whined, “I’m still talking to that beautiful angel over there. I was just about to ask for her number!” Her friend purposely said the last word longer as if to make a point, while Jae did not speak after her outburst.

“Dude, you’ve been talking for a couple of minutes already, you should’ve already asked that.”

Yeah, right. You’ve been seeing Hana since you were kids, but you don’t know her number. Her brain interrupted.

“Bro, I was just asking for Nia's help, and it was for Hana.” Yuri tried to explain to Jae who was clearly sulking because she hugged Nia. “I won’t be in your way, I promise.”

Jae was not the one who easily complains about things, so they were somehow shocked that she reacted that way. But Yuri understood because this is also the first time that she saw Jae being interested in someone. She doesn’t even have a crush during their middle school days. She also doesn’t want to make her friend feel that she’s sabotaging her.

“Aigoo, unnie! You told me to be good to Hana-uunie, but you’re the one who’s bad to her.” Yuna teased. Yuri approached her little sister and wrapped her arms around her shoulder. “Yah! I love you and all, but unnie! You’re sweaty! Ew!” Yuna freed herself from Yuri’s hold and ran away from her, and with the intention of changing the focus of the conversation to her, she teased Yuna a little bit more by trying to catch her, making her little sister scream and laugh while her friends either joined them in laughing while some are just shaking their head with a smile.

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“Thanks, ma! I owe you one.” Yuri smiled over the phone.

“You don’t owe me anything, kiddo! Just make sure that you won’t bring unruly kids, okay? Yuna will be at the house too, so make sure that your sister won’t be uncomfortable.” Dahyun answered on the other line.

“I will, ma! I promise. Tell mom I love her! I’ll see you later.”

Yuri hung up and said, “Guys, my parents agreed that we could stay at our house to celebrate.”

“Alright! Free food!” Charlee happily exclaimed as she high-fived Luna, who was also excited to be invited over.

"Are you being deprived of food? Just tell us, so that we could tell your parents about it." Yuri said mockingly and it was a good thing that Yuri was able to move away from Charlee before she was able to hit her.

“Unnies! I want to go home now, are you done fighting?” Yuna asked, exasperated by her sister and her friend’s playful squabble.

Yuri and Charlee instantly stopped their teasing and walked towards where Yuna is. “Come on, guys! You heard the boss.” Yuri said with a smile as she picked up her sister’s things. “You can just take a shower at our place, then we can use the pool.” Her friends cheered at what they heard and excitedly followed the siblings. They all might be privileged, but who would not be excited to hangout by the pool with your friends?

When they reached the parking lot, their respective drivers were already around. The group opted to just place their things in their cars, but decided to just ride with Yuna and Yuri to their place. The ride was of course full of laughter and stories. Aside from the original squad, only Luna and Seul were the only ones left when Yuri was done talking to her mama.

While her friends were talking, she opened up her phone and checked Hana’s twitter account. She decided to send her a message and if possible get her number so that she could contact her. It was long overdue anyway.

Yuri immediately pressed the send button, before she could even think about deleting the message.

After a couple of minutes, Yuri checked her message to Hana and found out that the girl just left her on read. She smiled to herself knowing that Hana would definitely ignore her but she didn’t regret sending her a message. And she knows that the girl would probably ignore her unless she does something that would force her to respond.

Almost immediately, her notification blew up. And just as she predicted, Hana replied to her message.

It seems that Yuri was being ignored again, so she thought of what she could post so that Hana would respond to her message.

Yuri was smiling from ear to ear because of the immediate effect of her tweets, as she happily opened Hana's message.

Yuri didn’t notice that her friends had already stopped talking and they were just watching her smile all by herself while looking at her phone. Her mistake was thinking that they wouldn’t notice that she’s not chiming in and responding to th