Hana, Eunji, and I were all sitting at a table in the library’s cafe one sunny day, gossiping about random things and having our usual afternoon snack. As Hana and Eunji playfully argued about who was hotter, Kim Woobin or Yook Sungjae, I looked at them both as I reminisced about the first time we had all met and became best friends.

Flashback to study hall, year 10

“Hurry up Jieun-ah, you know I’m short so I can’t see the list!” Hana complained to me through the phone.

“I’m trying, there’s so many people though!” as I tried to squeeze my way through the crowd of people who wanted to see the list of who made it in the school’s next play. My main goal, however, was not the school play’s list, but the study hall list, to see who was in my group. When I managed to near the front, the crowd suddenly began to loosen up. However, being the totally clumsy me, I managed to bump into the wall and steady myself with my hands, finding the list was right underneath my hand.

“Geez Hana, the list is at our eye level, why’d you make me do this?” I complained back at Hana.

“Because I knew it would be fun for you hehe,” she playfully said. I could hear her smile from the other side. “Now hurry, which group are we?”

“Hold on, I’m looking,” I said as I quickly scanned the list. I quickly found our names. “Ah, we’re group 9! And the new student is in it too!”

“Nice, okay then, I’ll meet you there!” Hana said and hung up on me, leaving me go on my own.

“Aish, that girl,” I muttered under my breath, as I hurried to the study hall to meet Hana and the new girl.

-5 minutes later-

“I’m here!” I said as cheerfully as I could, even though I was completely out of breath. I dumped my backpack next to Hana’s seat and looked at the seat in front of her, which was occupied by a girl with long black braid tumbling down her back.

“About time,” Hana said, giving me a look of playful disappointment.

“Hi, I’m Ahn Jieun. You must be Jung Eunji?” I ignored my best friend and asked the girl with the braid.

“Yep, I’m Jung Eunji! Nice to meet you!” she replied back, with a cheerful smile.

“I’m assuming you and Hana have greeted each other before I arrived?” I ask Eunji while giving my friend a look out of the corner of my eye.

“Of course we did,” Hana interrupted when Eunji opened to answer.

“Hana, the question was for Eunji, unless you suddenly changed your name to Eunji as well,” I slightly scolded my friend. In response, Hana stuck her tongue out at me and we all laughed. From that day on, the three of us got closer, helped each other out whenever we could, and became the best of friends.

End of flashback

“Jieun. Jiieunnn. YA ANSWER ME!”

“What?” I snapped back to reality to find my friends standing over me and looking at me in wonder.

“Were you daydreaming again?” Eunji asked.

“About her imaginary boyfriend maybe,” Hana teased and we laughed.

“Nah, it was about the time when we all met, I remember it as if it was yesterday,” I dreamily said.

“I remember that day, it was pretty fun,” Hana said as she went back to her seat.

“So Jieun, no boyfriend yet?” Eunji asked.

“Nope. Probably never will,” I reply, with a hint of sadness.

“You’ll find someone. Hopefully,” Hana said, trying to cheer me up.

Suddenly, I saw two library staff members putting up a poster on the window. Leaning around in my seat to get a better look, I managed to see the words LIBRARY and VOLUNTEERS. Getting excited, I pointed at the poster when the staff left. “Look guys!”

Hana and Eunji turned around in their chairs. “LIBRARY LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS TO WORK. ORIENTATION THIS FRIDAY,” they read out loud in unison.

“Oh... it doesn’t sound that bad,” Eunji said. “But I was never a big fan of the library in the first place, you always told us to meet up here and we just went along with it until it.”

“Yeah,” Hana said. “You can sign up if you want, but Eunji and I will stay out of it.”

“Oh… you sure?” I asked, kind of disappointed.

“It’s fine,” they said together.

“Okay then,” I said, starting to get excited. I couldn’t wait until this Friday!