Sarang didn’t step foot into that church again beyond that day. And she never regretted it.

The next few months passed almost too fast, and Sarang found herself excited for the upcoming summer vacation. Of course, a large part of it had to do with the fact that she could see Luhan all she wanted without the looming stress of completing schoolwork, and now that their friendship had been confirmed, she was even more enthralled by the prospect of being able to spend time with him every day.

With his words of advice, Sarang slowly became more comfortable with the people around her. Even Miyoung and her friends couldn’t bother her too much; their nasty looks made Sarang feel unwelcome for the slightest bit before she remembered her promise to Luhan: she wouldn’t let others’ opinions of her affect the way she lived her life. So she offered them kind smiles whenever she saw them in the hallways between classes and walked on with her head held high.

Soon, the eighth graders entered the period of final midterms, so they were busy studying. Sarang came to be on friendly terms with Sehun, one of Luhan’s friends in Sarang’s grade, but they weren’t close enough to call best friends. After all, their lockers were on opposite ends of the seventh grade hallway and they didn’t have any classes together.

Though not being able to see Luhan so often anymore made Sarang quite unhappy, an unexpected surprise came along to brighten the rest of her seventh grade year. Sarang had been walking to her locker in the morning right before her first class and was in the middle of a massive yawn that overtook her entire face when:

“Hi!” a new voice chirped, much too brightly for such an early hour. Sarang looked to her right and saw a new face smiling at her cheerfully.

“Um…hello.” Sarang was unsure whether this girl was talking to her or not. No one but Luhan and occasionally, Sehun and Minseok, (a boy on the soccer team with Luhan,) would greet her in the mornings.

“I’m Jung Eunji. I just transferred here from a school in Busan. Are all schools in Seoul this big? By the way, my locker is right next to yours so we should become friends!”

Sarang was dumbstruck at this girl’s boldness. Who would want to befriend me?

It was true that she had significantly more self-esteem since she’d taken Luhan’s advice and worked on making herself impervious to others’ opinions of her. But that certainly didn’t mean that she was confident in herself; she had very few friends—if Sehun and Minseok could even be counted as friends—and even fewer people had tried becoming her friend since she’d arrived.

“Oh…okay.”

Sarang decided that Eunji was everything she’d ever wanted to be: happy, self-assured, and on the boisterous side. She didn’t care what others thought of her, which became obvious when she dropped her tray in the cafeteria and cursed up a storm that made the lunch ladies gawp. Then she’d proceeded to grab another tray and fill it up with food again like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

With Luhan’s sudden absence due to his busy studying schedule doubled up with soccer practice after school, Sarang had more time to spend getting to know Eunji. It turned out she also loved visiting noraebangs. On weekends, they would go to noraebangs and sing until their throats went hoarse, and on week days, they’d meet up at one of their homes to work on homework or study for tests together because they had the same schedule.

Sarang liked this Eunji a great deal, but of course, she could never replace Luhan. The only thing Eunji held over Luhan was her Busan accent, which came out sounding strongest when she was cursing or muttering to herself under her breath.

Sarang could only imagine the stress Luhan oppa was under: as one of the most important members of the soccer team—his words, not hers—he had to practice after school and then immediately transition to studying mode at cram school lessons. Then when he got home around midnight, then he’d start on homework and exam studying.

She wanted so much to help him, but she was only a seventh grader. There wasn’t much she could do to help him with the subjects he struggled with in school, and it pained her to see him bear all of his burdens alone after he’d helped her bear hers.

I’m such a useless friend, Sarang had lamented one night, resting her chin on her knees while twirling a pencil between her fingers at her desk. Then her eyes suddenly brightened and she sat up with a brilliant smile. Aha! That’s what I’ll do to help him!

Sarang wanted to learn at the level Luhan and the eighth graders were learning at so that she could help him with things that he struggled with.

Ever since she formulated her plan, she stayed up until the early hours of the morning every single day of her middle school life, trying to get ahead of the seventh grade curriculum and catch up with the eighth.

Then one day, Luhan came over complaining with colorful language that he didn’t understand a thing about what his math class was covering at the moment. Sarang was pleased with herself when she found herself capable of tutoring him through it. “You’re a genius, Sarang! A genius, I say!” Luhan exclaimed. “I can’t believe you know this stuff! You’re not supposed to learn it until next year!”

Sarang just smiled bashfully, but she never gave away her secret. To her, losing a couple hours of sleep for a friend’s sake was something she would never regret.

That stressful time of year had come along: finals.

Sarang worried for Luhan’s grades; he was always inviting her out to do something fun and because she was a seventh grader, the teachers didn’t make their exams too difficult. However, eighth graders were being put under a lot of pressure to pass into their last year of middle school and Sarang sincerely believed that he should be studying, not visiting their favorite ddukbokki kiosk for the third time that week.

“Oppa,” she said as he eagerly snapped his wooden chopsticks into two halves and rubbed them together when the food arrived.

“Hmm? Eat up, Sarang. You ne