“LET’S GO CRANES, LET’S GO!” A horde of cheerleaders and their obnoxious pom-poms stampede down the front courtyard of the school, receiving roars and whistles from the students.

As Aerin looks around, she sees students dressed in all blue, repping the school’s colors and mascot. Some students subtly show their support by wearing a simple blue bracelet, but Aerin sees people going as far as painting their whole face blue.

It was game day, the first soccer match of the season. As Aerin saw just how excited these people got for the game, she, too, grew anticipation. She had never went to a school game in high school, but since she was starting a new chapter in her life, she was down to try new things.

Then, without her thinking, Aerin takes out her phone and starts calling the first person that comes to mind: Baekhyun.

“Hey, are you going to the game tonight?” Aerin says, with a bit of nervousness. Baekhyun (and the rest of the guys) were the closest people she considered friends, so truthfully, she had no one else to call.

“Yeah, it’s tradition. There’s gonna be a pre-game party and post-game one afterwards, so duh!” Baekhyun responds.

“Oh, cool. That sounds fun.” Aerin forcibly laughs.

“Why,” Baekhyun smirks from behind his phone, “Aerin, are you hinting at something?”

Aerin scoffs, “Me? Pfffft. Actually, soccer isn’t my cup of tea. I’m more of like, like a golf person? Sometimes tennis, but I didn’t have that channel at home so I didn’t really have a chance to watch that--and I’m blabbering aren’t I? Haha, I just, just don’t like soccer. Yeah.” me, Aerin thinks to herself.

“Okay, Aerin.” Baekhyun chuckles. “Soccer’s pretty ing boring, but wanna go with me and the guys? I guess, we’ll try to make it enjoyable.”

Finally, a ing invite! “Yes, yes! I am free, that I am. So, text me the details?”

“Yes, I will do that. That I will do,” Baekhyun imitates her. “See you tonight.”

“Kay! See you then.” Aerin hangs up and squeals to herself. Who would’ve thought shy, reserved Aerin from high school would actually be something social? “, I need an outfit,” Aerin reminds herself, before skipping back to her flat to pick the perfect fit.

--

“Down to the damn eyeshadow,” Baekhyun says, once he’s in front of Aerin’s door. Right when the phone call ended, Aerin sped back to her room and scoured her closet for anything blue. Perhaps she was going too far, as Aerin even committed to wearing blue undergarments. “Your school spirit is almost nauseating.”

Aerin rolls her eyes at Baekhyun, “If you think I’m going too far, you haven’t seen the rest of the school.”

“Oh, trust me. Jongin’s painted his chest blue--even his s.”

“Okay, TMI,” Aerin giggles, “Can we go yet? We need good seats.”

Baekhyun nods and the two amble towards the soccer stadium. On the way there, Aerin swears she’s turning color blind, as her entire vision is filled with just the same shade of SNU’s navy blue. At one point, she thinks the very grass she’s walking on is blue.

“My eyes are literally hurting from all of this,” Aerin says out loud.

“It helps when you drink beforehand. All I see is purple.” Baekhyun replies and burps, the stench of German Heineken reeking in the air. “Hey, Minjun! Come here, you er!” Baekhyun then walks off, completely disregarding he has a lost freshman by his side.

“Baekhyun?” Aerin says out, and there’s no sarcastic response back that she expected. Aerin panics and turns around and around, just perplexing her more since all she can see is blue. “Baekhyun!”

The chants and cheers from the crowd of people around her amplify louder and louder, and Aerin’s heart starts pumping from the unwanted adrenaline. “BAEKHYUN!” Aerin screams even louder, but it drowns in the rest of the students’ shouts.

“Hey!” A hand is placed on Aerin’s shoulder, to which the girl jumps at the sudden contact. Aerin twirls around, and the girl speaks again, “You ok? You lost?”

Aerin sighs, “Yeah, a little bit. My ing friend went off somewhere.” Aerin eyes the girl one last time; though she had just met this stranger, Aerin wanted to assume that all girls would help each other out--regardless if you knew them or not.

“Come,” the girl takes Aerin’s hand and starts walking through the influx of people, “we’re near the entrance. There’s always a crowd of people huddling in the front for no reason.”

Aerin just lets her legs do the work and goes in whatever direction the girl went. Aerin sees a beam of white light through the ocean of blue shirts and she shouts, “Freedom!” The two go past one last student, and they are finally out of the crowd, both taking a breath of much needed air.

“Does everyone need to go through that?” Aerin huffs. Aerin gets a better look of the girl and can’t deny the fact that she’s absolutely gorgeous. Her short hair accentuated her jawline in the prettiest way, and her big eyes glistened. Aerin makes a note to herself that she could never rock a bob the way this girl could.

“Yeah, pretty much.” The girl laughs and puts her hand in front of Aerin, “I’m Soojin. Sophomore.”

“Aerin,” she responds back and shakes the hand. “I’m a freshman.”

“Yeah, I could totally tell.” Soojin chuckles. “What would leave a freshman by herself in that pit of people?”

“It’s no problem,” Aerin is quick to defend the guy, though she has no reason to. “He probably go distracted by the rest of the guy friends we were supposed to go with. Wanna help me look for them?”

Soojin eyes the stadium, as if she’s trying to see if her group of friends are there yet. Soojin sees a girl’s hands violently waving in the air, trying to get her attention. “, that’s my roommate. She’s so annoying--let’s go try to find your guy friends, yeah?”

“Definitely,” Aerin giggles and now is the one leading the way. Aerin’s just walking around the arena until she sees at least one of the guys--there’s 6 of them, so there could be no way she couldn’t find them.

“Aerin!” A male’s voice screams out a few feet away from her, and Aerin squints her eyes to see Chanyeol.

“That’s them,” Aerin turns back and says to Soojin, who nods.

Once Aerin is on their row, she is quick to yell out a cluster of curse words at Baekhyun, who is sitting in the middle of the guys. “You ! You just left me alone, what if I died!”

Baekhyun is about to shove a mouthful of popcorn, but he steadily puts his hand down after seeing this side of Aerin.

“You left Aerin by herself?” Chanyeol says, the baritone in his voice is certainly intimidating.

Baekhyun awkwardly smiles, “Oops?”

Aerin rolls her eyes, and Chanyeol extends his long arms over to flick Baekhyun on his forehead.

“Ow! I’m sorry, Aerin! I’m a human being, I know.” Baekhyun quickly rubs over the spot Chanyeol flicked him at. Aerin giggles and moves over to the side to high-five Chanyeol.

While Aerin moves over, Baekhyun catches a glimpse of the girl besides her. “Well,” Baekhyun clears his throat, “are you going to introduce us to your friend?”

“Oh yeah! I forgot,” Aerin says and scoots over for Soojin to meet the rest of the guys. “This is Soojin.”

Soojin waves instead of shaking hands with each person. “Hey, I’m Soojin. Nice to meet you guys.”

Aerin continues, “She came to my rescue after a certain someone left me.” She shoots at Baekhyun, who completely disregards her comment.

“Aren’t you an angel sent from above?” Baekhyun personally offers his hand for Soojin to shake. “I’m Byun Baekhyun.”

“Ha,” Soojin laughs. “I was there to help, because you were the one that left her. Isn’t that ironic?”

Baekhyun slides over a few seats, cursing under his breath for the guys to move over. “Well, I was actually, uh, found my friend that’s also a fellow missionary, just like I am. We had really passionate plans to go