It was a drunken musing that shouldn’t be taken seriously. A barely coherent request drawled out with what tiny sobriety Jimin’s mind could hold on to. A frustratingly honest observation – a compliment, regardless, it was something influenced by alcohol. And none of it should be taken to heart.

Only an impulsive person would gladly take a heavily intoxicated request and carry it on. Jimin ponders on this, the cogs inside her head shifting – she really didn’t know Kim Minjeong at all.

Anyway, the point is;

It was supposed to be forgotten, like Minjeong’s smoked cigarette thrown in the trash. A one-time hit, a high meant to last a couple of hours long before the adrenaline plummets down.

In hindsight, Jimin was never meant to associate herself with Minjeong. They are too different, standing levels away from the unspoken high school hierarchy. And their interests do not coincide – not that Jimin knows Minjeong’s inclinations, she doesn’t, but she knows Minjeong likes to brood, with a cigarette carefully placed between her lips outside the school’s premises.

(Jimin wasn’t looking, I swear – but the instinct to tell Minjeong off was too strong – because, logically, the rules and regulations of the school extend within close proximity, and the girl is still wearing the school’s letterman jacket. What would other kids think about their student council’s reinforcements? A joke?)

Jimin chokes on her coffee when a familiar, worn out vintage shirt passes through. The smell of smoke filling the air. There was a slight tug on her chest, and when she met a pair of curious orbs, her breath hitched.

“Jesus Christ.”

Kim Minjeong ing dyed her hair black.

She closed her eyes, trying to even the heavy staccato inside her chest. She shakes her head, watching Minjeong saunter past her and straight right into her seat. An intrusive streak of cold electricity runs through her spine, winding her up before fragments of the previous Friday night mold into a reeling film.

///

“Do you smoke?”

Jimin shrugged, “No.”  

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

Jimin peeled her gaze from the street, opting to look at the woman leaning against the wall. Her eyes roamed around the figure unabashedly, borderline rude and invading but Minjeong didn’t seem to mind.

(She never does.)

Minjeong tilted her head, grabbed a stick from a case and casually flicked the lighter.

“Do you like smoking?”

Minjeong looked at her with mild confusion, it was a weird question, Jimin would admit.

The younger girl sighed, putting the stick between her lips. It dangled awkwardly along with her words, “I don’t.”

Jimin looked up to Minjeong, patting her fingers through the rough pavement, waiting for her to provide an explanation, elaborate a little, but the younger girl didn’t. Instead, she let the silence dragged on, welcoming it with sheer comfort. It wasn’t uncomfortable, sharing space with Minjeong, even with the unusual quiet – Jimin is always surrounded by people, she’s always seen – and this, sitting with an unlikely company at midnight, while a party rages on behind them, feels… peaceful.

Jimin likes it.

The silence continues–

But, Jimin is Jimin. The president of the student council, the editor in chief of the school’s journalism club, naturally inquisitive, and she’s drunk – of course she would push it, for the sake of research and out of genuine intoxication, inevitably running carelessly.

“Why are you still smoking then?”

For a moment, she felt small, because Minjeong was looking at her – staring right through her soul, fiery gaze piercing her futile intentions of getting an answer.

Minjeong shrugged, “Force of habit.”

It was such a simple answer, adequate enough to shut Jimin out without being rude.

Jimin pouted, and in her blurry peripheral vision, she could see that Minjeong laughed.

“I’d like to try,” Jimin said, minutes later, her earlier frustrations gone, replaced with another fleeting interest.

Minjeong looked at her, clearly surprised, “Yeah?”

Jimin nodded, and Minjeong pushed herself up from leaning against the wall to sit beside Jimin. The material of Minjeong’s leather jacket came in contact with her arm. It felt alienating, being this close to her.

 “Ready?” Minjeong’s eyebrow quirked.

Jimin grinned sheepishly, Minjeong looked away for a moment – a small smile tugging at her lips. Then she turned around with a serious expression, “you have to hold it in.” Minjeong inches closer, her breath ghosting the shell of Jimin’s ears, “and then let go.”

The younger girl’s fingers brushed against Jimin’s lips when she offered the stick, her other hand caressing Jimin’s back. She noted the faint scent of perfume and sweat – all overpowered by the smell of something that isn't a cigarette.

It’s not a cigarette. Jimin should have known.

She remembers coughing, her lungs burn, eyes moist and on the verge of tearing up, but when she looked up to Minjeong, the girl was smiling. Amused even, the smile grew even wider when Jimin asked for another try.

Minjeong shook her head, she has a dimple, a gentleness in overall edge, “No.”

Jimin whined with her temples exploding in nausea, “Why not?”

Minjeong aimed the billowing smoke from towards Jimin with a raised eyebrow.

She starts coughing again.

“That’s why.”

Jimin frowns, empties her red cup in two full swigs. The bitterness stays in , but the warmth of the alcohol eases the heavy feeling inside her chest.

(She convinces herself that it’s because of the joint, and not because Minjeong was looking at her with intent.)

“You should dye your hair black,” Jimin could feel the electricity in her fingers, trying to touch Minjeong’s hair without inhibition, “cut it, highlights. You know, the extremes.”

Minjeong used her arms to support herself, soft palms on the pavement, staring at Jimin with a hazy smile. Jimin felt like her world was spinning, her ears muffling the blaring sound of tacky EDM coming from Ryujin’s house. 

Jimin giggled.

In her inebriation, eyesight extremely out of focus, she saw that Minjeong is equally dazed as she is.

“Would you like that?”

Jimin’s smile was dopey, “Yeah!” Her fingers accidentally grazed Minjeong’s cheek. The younger girl leaned in to the touch, and the fire that shot through her body should’ve been enough to pull Jimin back, but everything feels heavy when you’re drunk, and so Jimin didn’t, “I mean, the blonde and blue combination is pretty but –”

“What do I get in return?” Minjeong played with the loose strands of Jimin’s ripped jeans before meeting her eyes. Mischief gleaming on a warm pool of browns, further accentuated under the moonlight.

Jimin coughed, looking away, getting a bit nauseous at the sight, it took her a few seconds to recover. And then almost like a new personality took over, she laughs, making a point of going theatrical, putting her hand below her chin and thinking loudly, “A date.”

Minjeong’s eyebrow quirks up, “With you?”

Jimin shrugged, “Do you want me or do you have anyone in mind,” she hiccupped, “Aeri and Yizhuo, yeah, uh… Yeji –”

“No,” Minjeong tilted her head, smiling, “you. You’re fine. I want you.”

Jimin grinned, all clouded and drunk, “Deal.”

///

“You’re spacing out again,” Aeri points out, rolling her eyes.

“Sorry,” she coughs, nodding at whatever Aeri was talking about, “Yuna and her vinyl collection… go on.”

“Jisu’s, anyway,” Aeri corrects her, the younger girl glances over Yizhuo, “you coming over tonight for the paper?”

Yizhuo shakes her head, “I don’t know. I have to feed my gecko.”

There’s a banter, food being thrown in the air, a loud shriek (probably Aeri’s) and a menacing laugh (definitely Yizhuo’s), but at this point, Jimin is already numb to the chaos, automatically drowning out the noise of her friends along with the usual buzz of the cafeteria.

Jimin sips on her juice box, spying a certain black haired student at the corner. Minjeong has a lazy smile as Ryujin whispers something in her ear, and then for a briefest moment, Minjeong catches her eyes.

She freezes, focusing on literally anything other than the questioning stare directed at her.

“Jimin, you look distracted,” Aeri comments, “are you okay?”

She nods, saying she forgot to do an errand at the student council’s office, quickly gathers her things and makes a run for her life.

(Jimin feels like she’s going to die with how loud her heart pounds inside her ears.)

“She’s weird today,” Yizhuo says, reaching for Aeri’s pink Pringles after Jimin bolted out.

“Says someone who impulsively got a gecko for a pet.”

“Leave my Ddongie out of this.”

The effect was astronomical, immediate, and incessantly annoying, because suddenly, Minjeong is ever omnipresent — suddenly, she's everywhere.

Jimin constantly finds herself within Minjeong's orbit, like sharing a chemically-induced, barely sober conversation over a joint puts a spell bind that gravitates her towards the younger girl.

Jimin chalks it up to the universe being a total jerk.

(She loiters at the back of Jimin's head like an afterthought, jet black hair and silver highlights painted in terrifying accuracy — it scares Jimin, because how on Earth does she remember a beauty mark exposed in the tear of Minjeong's vintage shirt that says die young?)

And naturally, like some twisted coincidence (because the universe has a ed-up humor), of course, Jimin would be paired up with Minjeong in a school project.

“I'll send you a list of possible books to review,” Jimin huffs, sending Minjeong a quick glance before fumbling through her things in haste. Her books scatter to the floor, and with a silent groan she drops to her knees, “and we could read it over school days, and if we're both done, we can meet up on weekends for the outline.”

“Noted,” Minjeong says as she mirrors Jimin's actions, helping her with a chemistry book that must have been a hundred years old.

“Minjeong…”

Jimin halts, throws the younger girl a look, and opens to say something only to close it again, “I—”

Minjeong stares at her expectantly.

“Nevermind.”

The younger girl chuckles, shaking her head in disbelief, and Jimin glares at her with confusion.

“What?”

Minjeong shrugs, “Nothing.”

Minjeong stands up, making a beeline towards the door where most of their classmates have disappeared long after hearing the bell.

And Jimin clenches her fists, closes her eyes hard before murmuring, “...you look good. Your hair —” she breathes in, and then realizing her lack of coherence, she settles with, “yeah.”

The footsteps stop, Jimin shoots her head up, observing Minjeong's back.

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