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Winter used to be a self-entitled drama queen. But now she's more like a drama magnet, trying to find a way to dethrone herself from all such nonsense. But drama just can’t resist sticking to her, even though she's trying to stay away from it every goddamn time. It’s as if drama has a radar, and Winter is its favourite target. How unfortunate—very unfortunate indeed. Ugh, she couldn’t help but groan. Is this what karma feels like? Because it feels like it is.

Her attempts at trying to live a drama-free life are like attempting to eat a doughnut without your lips sticking on it—which is pretty much impossible! As much as possible, she’d do just about anything to escape from such nonsense. Unfortunately, it has been chasing her like a persistent salesperson at the mall, trying to trick her into buying luxurious stuff as if it were trying to revive the dormant shopaholic devil sleeping within her, which is not happening. Nuh-uh.

Everything that had happened in the past few weeks resulted in a lot of drama. And at the centre of those unexpected matters was, well, guess who? Obviously, it’s none other than the campus princess, Karina Yu.

Y’know it would be easy if Winter would just revert to her old “queen of drama” self, but since she’s a changed woman now, she’s trying to live with her newly found principle that every person deserves kindness, except possibly that person who designed jeans with fake pockets—he’s beyond redemption! He’s clearly never carried a thing in his life! Talk about capitalism at its finest.

Moving on. Even though Karina wouldn’t stop pestering her, she was never violent or forceful. All she ever did was charm and seduce her with that stupid, gorgeous face of hers. As if that’s going to work. Nope! Not gonna happen. Well, truth be told, she does have a soft spot for beautiful things, but that was the old Winter, an impulsive shopaholic with little self-control. She’s different now. Well, aside from her newly found obsession with collecting different sets of Hermès twillies for Prof. Beak, that’s an exception. 

And just like any other day, Winter found herself entangled in yet another dramatic situation. However, this time, she was the one who started it.

She knew she couldn’t avoid Karina forever. That’s why she had been vocal about her feelings to stop the latter's relentless wooing. But it didn’t work because the girl didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. So she thought of another plan, and that was to play Cupid at the school carnival. Karina Yu and Aeri Uchinaga should kiss together in the kissing booth.

That was the plan.

“Why are you trying to set me up with other people?” Karina asked coldly yet calmly. But Winter can feel how pissed she is right now.

Winter feigns ignorance and lets out a nervous laugh. Her aloof demeanour became more pronounced as they stood in the dimly lit parking lot near the vibrant carnival. The colourful lights and distant laughter created a surreal contrast to their tense exchange. Karina dragged her here to confront her, which she dislikes a lot. But it was inevitable, and she just had to get on with it. Everything needs to end now.

♦

Before the confrontation…

Winter went on a two-hour drive to Penwith to visit her folks but immediately regretted it when she was greeted by her older siblings, Jin and Jisoo. The two are mischievous fraternal twins, who tend to smother her with profound affection. And by “smother,” it means that the moment she set foot inside, Jin and Jisoo pounced on her like overexcited puppies meeting their favourite chew toy.

This was supposed to be a relaxing break from all the drama she had experienced at school, mainly because of Karina. Some people might say Winter is an idiot for rejecting Karina’s advances, or that she’s in denial about the cat-and-mouse chase going on between them. She’s absolutely not. She knows exactly what Karina is doing and is okay if the latter feels a certain affection for he