I.

 

It all starts on a Tuesday morning. Literally a week before Valentine’s Day.

 

The moment Aeri steps into the wide hall of their school, she's suddenly being bombarded by confessions from students of their school.

 

She checks her phone, rolling her eyes when she sees what day it was.

 

Of course.

 

A week before Valentine’s Day.

 

This isn't the first time this happened and it definitely isn't gonna be the last. Briefly, Aeri wondered if they were here for her or her . She secretly hopes they're not for her.

 

"Aeri-ssi!"

"Uchinaga-nim, I have a favor to ask!"

 

Ah yes. Of course.

 

"Hi Aeri-ssi," the tall guy greets her breathlessly, with an elegant red envelope and a small box of what Aeri knew were chocolates in his hands. "Could you please hand this to Yoo Jimin for me? You're close to her, aren't you?"

 

Aeri wordlessly nods, taking everything that had to offer for Jimin and not herself without any complaints despite the fact that her arms will most likely start to hurt from the weight of everything in her hands. She's already used to it anyway.

 

Actually no, scratch that. It all starts when Aeri finds a small bag of what she assumes are chocolates sitting comfortably on her desk.

 

Aeri drops the stash of chocolates and love letters on Jimin’s desk, huffing at how Jimin remained nonplussed as she did something on her phone.

 

Picking the bag on her desk, she marvels at how the bag feels somewhat heavy in her hand despite it being marginally smaller than her hand.

 

Eyes narrowed, she looks at the person sitting beside her desk and hands her the bag.

 

"Jimin, here."

 

"What do you mean? It's yours," Jimin hums without looking up from her phone. Gardenscapes again? Aeri thinks to herself as she scrunches her nose.

 

... Wait.

 

'Yours'?

 

"Be serious," Aeri deadpans, dropping the bag onto Jimin's desk. "It's yours."

 

"I'm telling you, Aeri-ya, it's definitely not for me. It's yours." Jimin scratches her nose, picking the bag up and putting it on Aeri's desk, still focused on her stupid Gardenscapes again.

 

Aeri smirks, deciding to play along with Jimin (really, she's just not in the mood to go back and forth with Jimin right now).

 

"Okay, let's say you're telling the truth. Have you seen who put this on my desk?"

 

Jimin shrugs, still not looking up from her phone. "Dunno. I was — still am, by the way — too busy playing my game."

 

"Gardenscapes is boring , I don't get how you love that… thing."

 

Jimin gasps at her words, offended and — you guessed it — eyes still transfixed on her phone. "You take that back, Aeri-ya. Gardenscapes is everything to me."

 

Aeri rolls her eyes at the dramatic display, drags her chair back, and sits beside Jimin. "Yeah yeah, nerdy cat." She raises the hand holding the chocolates to her face, scrutinizing it. She glances at Jimin, who now has her tongue sticking out as she squints at her phone's screen. “Is this really mine?”

 

“If it’s on your desk, then it’s definitely yours.”

 

“What if the sender accidentally put it on mine, thinking it was your desk?”

 

“Don’t be silly, Aeri-ya. It’s yours, it probably has your name on it somewhere.”

 

Blinking at the words that come out of Jimin’s mouth, Aeri narrows her eyes at the bag in search of her name. Sure enough, she spots her full name written at the bottom of the bag with a black marker, she assumes.

 

"Geez. They should’ve used a more visible marker or something. Do you think that I'll get food poisoning if I eat these?"

 

When she asks that question, Jimin finally looks up from her phone, a silly little smug smile on her lips as she smirks at Aeri. "Try one. You won't know unless you try."

 

"Are you trying to get me killed, Yoo Jimin?"

 

Jimin shrugs before returning her attention to her phone once again. Geez, how interesting was Gardenscapes that Jimin's more interested in it than in Aeri? "I didn't say that, Aeri-ya. I'm just saying, I was never killed whenever I ate the sweets people would leave in my locker every year on Valentine's Day."

 

"They did what?"

 

"Yes?"

 

“How do they even have access to your locker? I don’t even know the combination to it.”

 

Jimin shrugs, smiling cheekily at her. “No idea. Perhaps you should do a better job at being my number one fan.”

 

"And you just ate them?" Aeri asks, incredulous, ignoring Jimin’s words. Jimin shrugs again.

 

"They looked good and they were either on my desk or in my locker, so why not? Free food is great in my dictionary." Jimin explains, tapping away on her phone. 

 

"What if they were tampered with or something?" 

 

"Well, I'm alive and well, talking to you right now, aren't I?"

 

Aeri rolls her eyes at the cheekiness of Jimin’s response, eyeing the bag warily. She glances at Jimin again, recoiling at how Jimin is already staring at her. Raising a brow at her best friend, she reaches into the bag and pulls out one tiny piece of chocolate. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she quickly pops the chocolate into . 

 

She laments how she was able to taste one of her favorite kinds of sweet treats before she succumbs to her untimely death, and wonders if death usually came as the soft sound of students chattering in the background or the cool breeze that sweeps past her frowning face. She also wondered if dying meant having to hear Jimin's trademark annoying snicker, pondering if Jimin normally laughed at people when they die.

 

"How'd you like it?" Aeri hears the amusement in Jimin’s voice and imagines a -eating grin on the older girl's face. Figuring that she had not, in fact, died from food poisoning , she opens her eyes, rolling them when she finds Jimin playing Gardenscapes on her phone again.

 

Aeri frowns back at the bag of chocolates, primarily due to the taste of the treat she had just consumed. “It’s okay, I guess. Just not something I would eat again though. I don’t even like milk chocolate. I prefer dark chocolate, even probably white chocolate, over this monstrosity.”

 

Jimin’s hands, Aeri notices from the corner of her eye, abruptly stop their ministrations. And then Aeri swears she had seen Jimin nod to herself.

 

II.

 

The next day at school, Aeri finds a small box of chocolates on her desk. She assumes that there are at most six pieces of chocolate in the golden square container.

 

"New chocolates, huh?"

 

She glances at Jimin, who seemed to be sketching something in her notebook. 

 

"Yeah. Still no clue who's giving me chocolates?"

 

Jimin shrugs, and Aeri watches as of Jimin's pencil slide across the yellowish sheet she was drawing on, lines and curves forming the outline of… someone? 

 

"Who's that?" Aeri asks, curiosity piqued by whoever it was that Jimin was sketching a portrait of. She almost fails to notice the pink hue that is painted across Jimin's plump cheeks. Tearing her eyes away from Jimin’s unfinished artwork, she smirks. 

 

"Oh my God, you have a crush on someone, don't you?"

 

Jimin lets out an unconvincing tch , closing her notebook almost immediately. "No. I don't."

 

"Awww, Jimin-ie, you don't have to hide things like this from me!" Aeri coos, reaching across Jimin's desk to pinch the older girl's cheeks, which, for some reason, intensifies the warm tone of Jimin's cheeks, warmth now spreading across her entire face. Mumbling something unintelligible, Aeri leans closer, having not heard what Jimin just said. "What? I couldn't hear you a few seconds ago."

 

Jimin lets out an exasperated sigh, weakly swatting at Aeri's hands for her to let go. "I said, eat your chocolates. The person who'd gone through a lot of effort just to give you those, you know."

 

"So do you know who it was?" Aeri challenges, raising a brow at Jimin, who shrugs. 

 

"I'm just saying, Aeri-ya, chocolates given to you with love taste a thousand times better than when you buy them yourself."

 

"You sure you're not just… I don't know, practicing saying that for a special someone?" Aeri teases, wiggling her brows at Jimin, who groans, covering her ears (Aeri knows that Jimin knows that her ears turn redder than her face when she's flustered).

 

"Just eat the chocolates, Aeri-ya," Jimin mumbles, averting her gaze. Blinking, Jimin's lips curl into a small smirk. "If you do, maybe I'll tell you a secret."

 

Not the type to let any drop of fresh gossip, as Yizhuo and Aeri herself liked to call it, go to waste, Aeri eagerly nods, taking the small golden box of chocolates from her desk. Taking the lid off, she picks up one piece of the sweet treat, scrutinizing it with narrowed eyes before popping it into .

 

Hmm. Dark chocolate. I like it, Aeri thinks to herself, chewing quietly. Aeri would argue that this has got to be the tastiest chocolates she'd ever consumed in her entire life. Even better than the ones she got to eat back in Japan. The balance between sweet and bitter was just… right. Just the way Aeri likes it. She could see Jimin staring at her from the corner of her eye, prompting her to send a questioning gaze at the older girl. "What?"

 

Clearing , Jimin scratches her nape — another habit she had whenever she was feeling nervous. "Just checking if you didn't feel dizzy or anything." When Aeri raises a questioning brow at her, Jimin rolls her eyes. "'Cause like you said, you never know if someone gave you poison in the guise of chocolates."

 

Aeri swallows and smiles at Jimin, the tiniest specks of chocolate on her teeth. "Even if they did, I wouldn't mind. I guess."

 

"Hey, what does that even mean?" whined Jimin, pouting at Aeri. "You mean you'd rather die from food poisoning over a bunch of chocolates?"

 

Aeri shrugs, stretching her long limbs. "If the chocolate was this good, I don't see why not."

 

The pout on Jimin’s lips curves into an amused grin as she closes her notebook. "What happened to being scared of dying from food poisoning for eating food from someone anonymous?”

 

Aeri rolls her eyes, her thumb and index finger. She holds out the box of chocolates in front of Jimin, who just stares at it. "Here. Taste one.”

 

“You sure?” Jimin asks, seeming a bit concerned, but Aeri just waves her hand dismissively. Still skeptical, Jimin reaches for a white chocolate piece, popping it into .

 

“If it actually has poison in it, then I guess we can die together.”

 

Jimin almost chokes on the chocolate, wheezing with laughter, making Aeri chastise her with, ‘at this rate, you’ll die from choking on it rather than the food poisoning you’ll get.”

 

“How romantic of you, Aeri-ya.”

 

Aeri rolls her eyes at the sarcasm, suddenly remembering something. “So what was your secret?”

 

Jimin blinked, before leaning closer toward Aeri to whisper into her ear: 

 

“Maybe I like to give chocolates to people I like.”

 

Aeri almost drops the piece of chocolate she was holding between her fingers had it not been for Jimin’s fast reflexes, the older girl nagging her about wasting good food.

 

“So that girl you’re drawing in your notebook- you’re giving her chocolates?” Aeri asks in disbelief and amusement. Jimin shrugs but doesn’t answer. After a few seconds of silence between them, Jimin relents with a groan.

 

“Okay fine. I would. She’s cuter than every single one of the people who like to give me chocolates for Valentine’s, so why not?”

 

“Just how down bad are you for this person to have you making a portrait of them and giving them chocolates?” Aeri mumbles grumpily, making an effort to stop herself from wondering who the heck is this girl and cursing to the heavens above why is it not her?

 

“Are you giving away chocolates that you receive on Valentine’s week to your loved ones?” she asks instead.

 

Jimin rolls her eyes. “Of course not!” She pauses. “Okay. Maybe I let Minjeong have some of mine.” When Aeri gives her a judging look, Jimin huffs. “Look, I don’t like chocolates, remember?”

 

“Why not give some of them to me?” Aeri tries to ask casually, but judging by the look that Jimin gives her, she might have failed her goal. Groaning, she covers her face with her hands. “I just like chocolates, okay?”

 

Jimin hums, shaking her head. “I don’t want you to have any of the chocolates they give me because you deserve more than cheap, weird-tasting chocolates from the local convenience store.”

 

As much as Aeri doesn’t want to admit it, maybe Jimin was right (and maybe the warmth she feels on her cheeks was not from the minimal sugar rush she was getting).

 

III.

 

The next time Aeri receives chocolates from her mystery sender , it was on her favorite desk at the library.

 

Just as she was about to celebrate the fact that she hadn't seen a small bag or box of chocolates on her desk back in their classroom, she finds a heart-shaped box with her name on it and a heart next to it on her favorite desk at the library. 

 

Jesus. 

 

“How did the person even find out that this is my favorite desk here?" Aeri whispers, horrified.

 

Honestly, all of this 'Aeri's-receiving-chocolates-on-good-ol'-romantic-Valentine's-day' thing is getting ridiculous. 

 

The thing about Valentine’s Day is that—

 

Aeri never really gets anything for Valentine's before.

 

Literally never in her life until like two days ago.

 

So to have chocolates suddenly piling up on her desk — it was only really probably one person sending her all this chocolate, but still, it was a huge deal to Aeri — was foreign to her.

 

"Aeri-ya! Minjeong-ah!" They hear a loud voice greeting them, prompting other occupants of the library to hush the newcomer. Aeri watches as Jimin flinches and apologizes to them in a half-shout half-whisper, the glares of other people not quite faltering as Jimin quietly waddles her way to where Aeri and Minjeong are seated.

 

“You’re so loud, Jesus.” Minjeong nags, hitting the back of Jimin’s head with a karate chop. Jimin winces, rubbing the spot Minjeong had hit.

 

“Careful, Minjeong-ah. Jimin’s got a black belt in taekwondo. What you did is nothing compared to what Jimin can do.”

 

“ Wow , is that supposed to scare me?” Minjeong deadpans. The three of them turn when they hear a small cackle behind Minjeong. Aeri smirks when Minjeong turns red at the kiss Yizhuo plants on her cheek.

 

“Hi, my beloved unnies,” Yizhuo greets, bumping shoulders with Minjeong, who does her best to avoid her two older friends’ gazes. “Especially to this one right here, my favorite unnie.”

 

“Ugh, can you two save the PDA for the actual Valentine’s Day?” Jimin grumbles, crossing her arms.

 

“You’re just jealous because you can’t be happily in love like Minjeong-unnie and me with the girl you lik- Mph?!” Minjeong manages to shut Yizhuo up by feeding her the white chocolate she had stolen borrowed from Aeri’s assorted mess of chocolates. Aeri raises a brow at the statement and turns to Jimin.

 

“They know who the girl you like is? Who is it and why didn’t you tell me, Jimin-ah?” Aeri asks, voice tainted with disappointment. Then her gaze softens. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

 

Jimin chuckles nervously. “Well, that's because you're not supposed to know. I mean, they really did find out when they weren’t supposed to.” Then she glares at the couple. “Being too nosy for your own good isn’t a cool thing, just so you know.”

 

“We have the power to make you do anything that we want you to do now,” Yizhuo darkly reminds Jimin, donning a matching sneer with Minjeong.

 

“...Why are you threatening me?”

 

“Should I eat it?” Aeri asks, catching their attention as she stares dow