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It’s January, a few short weeks into the first term after Winter Break, and the air is so brisk with cold that Yuqi can see her breath forming above the knitted edges of her scarf. She buries her nose in it, seeking warmth enough to get some feeling back into her face, and waits. It can’t be that much longer now.
Her hands are stiff and shoved deep into the pockets of her puffer jacket, one holding tight to the folded paper she’s been trying not to crumple too irreversibly. In five more minutes the bell will ring, and she’ll be forced to give up and head inside. But she’ll make it.
Students mill past Yuqi through the school gates in a steady stream, and only a few of them bother to ask her what she’s doing. It’s too damn cold to be hanging around outside this morning, and nobody wants to linger. Not even for Song Yuqi.
When the crown of Soyeon’s head appears over the hill, it’s not like she immediately notices either. There are a lot of students with black hair, even cut close to the shoulder like that. Not many wearing black leather jackets over their school blazer, though.
Yuqi pushes back from the wall, dropping her foot from the lounging pose she thought looked cool in tv dramas, and cuts Soyeon off a few steps from the gate.
“Jeon Soyeon,” she says, muffled through the scarf before she shakes her head to free her cold nose.
Soyeon looks at her silently, hands in her pockets and a tired, blank expression on her face. She’s hard to read, but Yuqi’s never been deterred by that kind of thing.
Instead, she pulls the folded sheet of paper from her pocket and holds her fist out between them, gesturing with it. When Soyeon ignores the offering and continues to stare her down, Yuqi brings her other hand up to unfold the graded test paper.
Slowly, like a drifting ice bank, Soyeon’s eyes move down from Yuqi’s wide-eyed expression to scan the page.
“Looks like you failed,” she says dryly, after a tense few seconds have passed.
A couple of students run past them through the gates, and Yuqi can see very well how they veer around Soyeon like she’s in a physical bubble of her own. The nervous expressions. Soyeon is barely over five feet tall, but she has a powerful reputation.
“You’re good at Mathematics, right?” Yuqi blurts out, encouraged now that she’s managed to pull four words out of her quarry. She drops the hand with her test paper still gripped in it. “I heard you’re in the top five for grades in our whole year.”
“So? Are you asking me to cheat for you or something?”
Up to now, that’s one thing Soyeon’s never actually been accused of, to her credit. Making an upperclassmen cry on her first day, sure. That’s a story that follows Soyeon everywhere. Smoking with Seo Soojin behind the school gym hall and disrespecting the teachers. There are other rumours circulating, but Yuqi takes them all with a pinch of salt.
Because, well, Soyeon is very pretty.
“What? No way,” Yuqi says in a voice that might be too loud. Soyeon looks at her like she’s a barking dog. Not a cute one, either. “Please… please tutor me!”
The pause that follows this request is all but glacial.
“I’m really busy,” Soyeon responds finally, stepping to one side in an effort to pass by.
Yuqi darts left to block her way again, both hands clapped together prayer-like after she quickly stuffs the test back into her pocket. She bats her eyelashes at Soyeon like she really is a dog, a puppy; she gets told very frequently how cute she is. If ever she needed to use it, now’s the time. “My parents will seriously take my bedroom door off if I fail again. They’ll make me spend every weekend chained to a desk if I don’t pass. You know, we’re Chinese. It’s serious for me.”
“Maybe you should study better,” Soyeon offers with a hard frown. She swerves right again, just to meet the same brick wall of desperation as Yuqi throws her arms wide.
Yuqi steps closer. “I want to, so that’s why I need a tutor! And I can pay you.”
This seems to hold a bit more sway, at least. Soyeon glances between Yuqi’s pleading face and the open gates, looking thoughtful. “How much?”
An opening. Yuqi beams, and in an instant she’s plucked a purse out of a sewn pocket in her schoolbag. Her cute red coin purse with giraffes printed on both sides. If Soyeon’s eye twitches disdainfully, Yuqi pretends not to notice.
“I have fifty thousand won here, maybe, but I can get more.”
“You’re really serious,” Soyeon mutters, looking around them for an audience or a candid camera as she awkwardly pulls her jacket in tighter by the pockets. There are no more students arriving now, and it’s just the two of them lingering outside the gates. “Are you stupid? Put that away, or people will think I’m mugging you.”
“But I really mean it,” Yuqi says innocently, smiling down at Soyeon as she closes the purse with a snap.
Soyeon looks uneasy for a moment, and then she holds up a hand. “Look, don’t—don’t pay me. I don’t need it. I can tutor you for a little while, so your parents don’t take your door off or whatever.”
“Thank you,” Yuqi shouts full on into her face, she’s so excited. Soyeon flinches back from Yuqi’s outstretched arms like she might try to hug her. It’s not like she wasn’t considering it. “You’re really a good person, just like I thought.”
“Huh?”
Yuqi slaps a hand over her mouth, still beaming at a wattage that seeps right through it. “Never mind. Okay, so when should we start? After school? I have basketball practice on Mondays and Thursdays, but I’m free every other day. We can do all of them. You can come over to my house, it’s not far, and then I’ll drive you home after—”
“No,” Soyeon cuts in darkly. “Once a week, in the library, after school.”
“The library,” Yuqi repeats, and she can’t help the disappointed pout that’s souring her expression. So much for their intimate study group in Yuqi’s bedroom, with an empty house around them until her parents make it home from work. She’s been nursing that fantasy for days.
“Yes, on the first floor above the office building if you’ve never seen it.”
That feels targeted. Yuqi scowls, but then a tiny smile pulls at the corner of Soyeon’s full lips and she turns to a human puddle. So what if Soyeon thinks she’s a fool right now? The only way from there is up.
“Let’s meet on Wednesday,” Soyeon adds.
“Oh. Yeah, okay, just Wednesday for now.”
By the raised eyebrow, the last part of her answer hasn’t been overlooked. Yuqi grins bashfully, and then she nods her head until a thick wave of hair pulls loose from under her scarf.
Across the empty school yard, the bell shrieks for their attention in a short, angry burst of noise.
“I’m going,” Soyeon says, and this time Yuqi lets her dart past into the open gates. Very soon, they’ll be drawing shut on their metal track and leaving the stragglers to their fate with security. To her credit, she’s never actually been this close to cutting. Maybe Soyeon hasn’t either, because her feet are picking up like she might start jogging ahead. “Don’t be late. Wednesday. I won’t wait for you more than ten minutes, got it?”
“I got it.”
Soyeon does start jogging then, but she skids to a halt just a few feet away. Yuqi manages to duck through the gates behind her, in case they start shuddering while she’s mooning after Soyeon’s back.
When Soyeon turns to look at her, there’s a curious expression on her face. She calls over, “What’s your name?”
And when Yuqi shouts it back, Soyeon smiles for real this time.
“Cute,” she says in a speaking tone, but Yuqi still hears it over the wind, even if she’s not supposed to. “Don’t be late,” Soyeon says again, and this time she picks up speed as she jogs away.
Yuqi smothers the happy squeal bubbling in her throat with the fabric of her scarf. Wednesday is only five days away, and then seven more after that. Her whole week is about to narrow down to this cyclical countdown.
After a few more seconds she hears the gate slam into place at her back, and only then does she start running herself.
-
Let it be known that ambushing Jeon Soyeon outside the school with her failing test paper wasn’t Plan A, or even plan B.
To be honest, Soyeon’s reputation as a delinquent is a little overblown. Make one girl cry, and wear a little too much dark make-up around the eyes, and people start to keep a wide berth. Even though Soyeon has consistently scored in the 95th percentile of every subject since freshman year. If anything, that seems to make her more intimidating to people.
The grades thing – that’s something Yuqi has noticed more recently. Two years of school together, and somehow she’s never really picked up on Soyeon’s existence before. It’s not like they’re in the same class to begin with, but Yuqi knows just about everyone. Maybe the general consensus is the reason – because Yuqi is always the centre of the crowd, and if the crowd is moving well clear of something, she’s not bound to stumble over it.
And Soyeon is – something. It doesn’t help that she barely speaks to anyone.
Plan A, the very first and very obvious one, was to approach Soyeon directly in the lunchroom. Except she doesn’t seem to eat there. Does she eat? Yuqi checks the classrooms, all of them, and then the playing fields, and a bunch of other places until she’s circled the whole building twice for possible sightings.
Even the bathroom, even though Soyeon doesn’t seem like the type of loner to go that far.
She spends a week like this, just poking around for a girl that clearly doesn’t want to be found.
“You’re getting creepy about it,” Minnie says to her, after Yuqi ditches her at lunch to wander aimlessly yet again. She’s getting used to eating on her feet by then. And Yuqi probably deserves the slating from her best friend after asking her to help track down Soyeon’s student locker.
She doesn’t find it, and the office administrator gives her a foul glare for asking. What, like she’s going to cram garbage into it as some kind of bullying stunt? Yuqi’s got a glowing reputation. The old hag.
With Minnie sniping at her in one ear, and their friend Shuhua taking potshots in the other, she’s got no choice but to change her tactics.
Plan B. And that’s Seo Soojin.
By this time, Yuqi’s very familiar with the Jeon Soyeon rumour mill. She’s not really put off by any of it; she doesn’t even believe the really salacious parts. That tiny scrap of a girl isn’t taking any grown men down in hand-to-hand combat. The part about Soyeon hanging out with Soojin – a real delinquent, if not a soft-spoken, conflict-avoidant one – has some legitimacy to it. And Yuqi knows because she knows Shuhua, who just happens to be Soojin’s neighbour.
“Introduce me,” Yuqi says to her one day, and then every day after that for the better part of a week, until Shuhua headbutts her in the nose and says fine.
From there, Shuhua lets Yuqi trail after her when the school day is over, and Shuhua always heads to the gym hall after class to wait for Soojin.
“Is she beating people up back here?” Yuqi asks her shamelessly as they’re crossing the schoolyard. “Stealing lunch money?”
Shuhua squeals in mock offense, but the face she turns on Yuqi does look frustrated. “Don’t believe that kind of rumour, she’s not like that.”
“So why the gym?”
“Soojin’s in the dance club. She stays late sometimes, so I watch her practice or read on my phone,” Shuhua explains.
Yuqi gasps, pulling off an energetic attempt at krumping as they stop by the steel double doors. “Street dance? I didn’t know we had a dance club.”
“Traditional dancing– and stop that, you’re so embarrassing!”
Just to spite her, Yuqi drags it out another thirty seconds before running out of steam. Also, there are girls leaving through the doors now and she doesn’t actually want to look stupid in front of them. Not that she’s a bad dancer, when she takes it seriously; Yuqi could probably outdance Soojin, in her own humble opinion.
Speaking of Soojin, she leaves the gym at the back of the pack, eyes downcast until Shuhua calls her over. Another victim of reputation around here, Yuqi thinks. She wonders if Soyeon’s in a club as well. That could be her ticket in.
“This is my friend, Song Yuqi,” Shuhua says to Soojin, waving a hand at Yuqi.
“Okay.” Soojin eyes her warily, no doubt suspicious of this surprise visit when the two have never been introduced. And who knows what kind of unflattering picture Shuhua has painted up to now. Yuqi throws up a peace sign, but this just leads to a further narrowing of eyes.
“She wants to ask you something. Um… it’s kind of…”
“You know Jeon Soyeon, right?” Yuqi blurts out.
Soojin blinks faster, clearly taken aback. She glances at Shuhua, hesitating. “I do…”
“Is she single?”
“Wow,” Shuhua says flatly into the long pause that follows.
“Is this a joke?” Soojin sounds annoyed, and her lip curls in a way that says Yuqi has about ten seconds to rescue the situation before she storms away.
Shuhua elbows Yuqi as if she’s landed them both in the dog house. “Just explain!”
“Ow,” Yuqi snaps at her, grabbing at her side like Shuhua’s bony elbow has done any more than jostle her. It’s the principle of the thing. “It’s just a question. I’m not kidding, I want to know if she’s dating anyone, okay?”
“Why?” Soojin demands stubbornly.
“Because…” Yuqi shuffles from foot to foot, feeling some heat building up into her face. She hasn’t had to put it into words like this up to now, and it’s a little more awkward than she was expecting, this kind of thing. Usually she’s the one being pursued. “I’m just… interested. If she’s got a…” The words trail off, and it occurs then to Yuqi that Soyeon might not even like girls to begin with. “If she’s with someone like that. And where she goes at lunch – I don’t ever see her around, and I want to. To see her around. And get along with her, you know…”
Soojin must notice her straining by the end, because she shakes her head and pulls the strap of her gym bag further up one shoulder. “No, Soyeon isn’t seeing anyone.”
“She’s not?” Yuqi perks up immediately. “That’s cool. That’s—”
“And no, I don’t think you’re going to get anywhere with her either.”
Shuhua exhales sharply through her teeth, as if injured on Yuqi’s behalf. She pats Yuqi’s shoulder like she’s trying to be comforting, but Yuqi won’t be deterred that easily. “Says who? Maybe you don’t know because you’re—” a social pariah “—too busy with dance club or whatever, but I’m really popular with girls. Anyone will tell you. I have a cute face and a great body, and I’m smart too. And good at sports. I play basketball, and I’d probably be the captain by now but some shitty upperclassmen didn’t like foreigners, so... Anyway, my personality—”
“Could use some work,” Shuhua butts in, slapping a hand over her mouth.
“Look,” Soojin says over the muffled noisiness dammed by Shuhua’s clammy palm. “It’s nothing to do with you. Soyeon just doesn’t pay attention to people like that. She’s a total introvert.”
Yuqi’s heart warms, and she stops fighting Shuhua long enough for her guard to come down and the hand to drop from her face. Of course, she’s just an introvert. “I don’t mind that she’s shy.”
“Not shy,” Soojin corrects her. “She’s just got a low battery for… people. Especially people with a lot of energy.” Pointedly, Soojin cuts her eyes over to Yuqi and then glances away. “And she takes her studying really seriously. You’re never going to compete with her textbook.”
“My grades are pretty good too, so maybe we can study together.”
“Look, I’m trying to help you out here. Why are you so hung up on Soyeon anyway?”
“Just because,” Yuqi says mulishly. If Soojin’s not going to help her – actually help her – then she’s not going to get any juicy details out of Yuqi either.
“Fine. I’m going home.” Soojin turns on her heel, striding away without another word.
Yuqi makes a rude gesture to her back, only to get a slap across the back of the head from Shuhua.
“You’re such a pain,” Shuhua snipes at her, and then she’s off chasing Soojin at a jog, leaving Yuqi by her lonesome self.
They’re all technically headed in the same direction, but Yuqi figures that she can wait a few minutes to avoid an awkward tag-along. Soojin was a bust anyway – what kind of friend wouldn’t want to help set Soyeon up with a hot girl like Yuqi? It’s so strange.
Still, the conversation plants an idea in her head, or at least the makings of one. If Yuqi can’t compete with Soyeon’s textbook, then maybe she can use it as a bridge to Soyeon’s heart. A path of origami flowers made from all the scattered pages.
And it’s this romantic thought that leads to the early morning stand-off.
Plan F. F for a failing grade, which Yuqi prints meticulously on a scanned copy of her last test paper. Is this illegal, she wonders. Well, probably not.
-
It’s Wednesday.
“So then, once you’ve found the differential of this part, you can just substitute the numbers in like this.”
Soyeon’s pencil makes a rhythmic scratching noise as she solves the homework problem, going line by line in a systematic way. Rather than watching the page, though, Yuqi stares instead at the little wrinkle of focus between her thin eyebrows.
She already knows Soyeon is smart, from the hours of investigation it took to get them here. The borderline stalking, if you’d take Minnie’s word for it. But Yuqi wasn’t expecting this level of sheer professionalism when she asked for private tutoring lessons. The fantasy was more of a flirty sharing of books, each of them holding one side as they turned the pages together. Cuddled in close in a hidden nook of the library. In hindsight, that wouldn’t have been too conducive to actual studying.
No, Soyeon’s the real deal as a tutor. If Yuqi actually needed the help to begin with, she might really be learning something. But then, Yuqi has near-perfect grades already. She has studying down to an art form in the privacy of her bedroom, as a matter of fact.
And Soyeon is very, very pretty.
Especially when she’s focusing, Yuqi thinks, watching her twirl the pencil around thoughtfully. Soyeon has very small hands and cute, delicate fingers, but the way she manoeuvres the pencil between them is showy and dexterous. Yuqi’s mind begins to drift somewhere adjacent to the gutter.
“Do you think you could try the next one on your own?”
She blinks, flicking her eyes up from Soyeon’s hand, which is now offering her the pencil, to her upturned face.
“Sure,” Yuqi says, beaming and taking it from her. Their fingers touch in the process, a little bit on purpose. Soft hands, too. Of course. “Which one is it again?”
“Right here.” Soyeon drags her chair closer and pushes the handout over to Yuqi’s side of the desk.
The library they’re studying in is always empty after school, so there’s no one around to see the dazed look on Yuqi’s face when Soyeon’s arm touches hers. And nobody to judge her for ducking her head so that their faces are only a few inches apart as Soyeon points out the next question for her to solve.
Yuqi makes quick work of it, hesitating in the middle to seem like she might not remember the steps. She writes the number four when she needs a three, crosses it out, and then smells the perfume Soyeon’s wearing like a cracked whip to her senses when Soyeon nods appreciatively. It’s not sweet, like the brand Yuqi carries around, or the kind that clouds up the changing room after basketball practice. Kind of earthy, maybe, like a boy might use.
“You’re getting the hang of it faster than I expected,” Soyeon says. Yuqi feels like this is a somewhat backhanded compliment. Does she look kind of slow?
“Oh, yeah, I guess I am. But this next one,” Yuqi trails off in a panic, flipping the sheet over to the problem on the back, which she has yet to even look at. “I’m totally lost, you know? Could you show me how to solve it?”
Soyeon glances over the question once, and then she smiles patiently before taking the pencil back. She doesn’t drag the paper over, just leans closer on her elbows until Yuqi has to look up, around the rickety shelves, anywhere that’s not down to where her school shirt is loosely open at the third button.
“Of course, but pay attention, okay?” There’s definitely amusement in Soyeon’s voice.
Yuqi drags her eyes down from the ceiling, and her heart jitters uneasily at seeing Soyeon looking back at her out of the corner of her eye, a sly smile on her lips.
“Okay,” Yuqi says, but it’s probably more of a croak. Soyeon tucks a lock of short black hair behind her ear before putting pen to paper and solving the equation, just as confidently as the last one, and the one before that.
They sit in comfortable silence for a moment, Soyeon looking down and Yuqi watching her concentrated face in profile. Soyeon explains something about the calculation, carries on writing, and all the while a clock is ticking on the wall above their heads in quiet intervals. Somewhere outside the library windows, one of the girls’ sports teams is practicing loudly on the turfed playing field. Shouts and cheers and the ticking clock and the gentle chatter of Soyeon’s voice. These sounds all gather up into a single drone in Yuqi’s hearing.
A lock of hair slides free from behind Soyeon’s ear again, too short to hang suspended. It brushes her cheek, and Yuqi wants to tuck it back into place but she won’t. Giving into an impulse like that could jar Soyeon like a frightened deer and send her running.
“That’s how you solve for the variable, ‘x’,” Soyeon murmurs, the pencil finally still in her hand. She looks up at Yuqi expectantly. “Got it?”
“Mm-hm.” Soyeon has very full lips, pink and pretty, even moreso when she pouts them in confusion.
“Is there something on my face?”
“What? No, I’m just listening.” Yuqi straightens her back at once to create some space between them. Too obvious. She needs to reel it in.
Frowning, Soyeon touches her cheek self-consciously with the back of her hand. “Anyway, it’s four-thirty so I’m going home.”
“Already?”
“I promised you one hour a week,” Soyeon reminds her with a small index finger raised instructively. She sweeps an earmarked textbook into her backpack and pushes away from the table, leaving Yuqi’s handout sitting forlorn by itself along with the pencil. “That’s all you’re getting out of me. I have cram school soon.”
And then she’s striding away, barely waiting for Yuqi to say her goodbyes.
Resigned, Yuqi turns in her seat to watch Soyeon go, chin propped on the back of it as she tracks Soyeon’s path through the library’s automatic doors and on into the main building.
This is already their fifth session, and it feels like no real progress has been made.
-
“You’re going to get caught if you keep skipping class like this.”
Yuqi looks up abruptly, chin lifting from her palms where she’s been sat watching the running track for a good fifteen minutes, high up on the bleachers. Miyeon had been down there running earlier, along with a crowd of girls from another class, and suddenly she’s standing over Yuqi in her gym kit, hands perched primly on her hips.
Sometimes, it’s like being friends with a mother she never asked for. The one she has is just plenty.
Instead of sniping back at her, Yuqi sighs in a weak, forlorn way, and gazes back down at the running track. “My stomach hurts, so the nurse said I should get some air.”
“I don’t think it’s air you’re looking for,” Miyeon says, but kindly. She sits down on the bench at Yuqi’s side, and they both watch the same ring on the same side of the field below.
Jeon Soyeon is just finishing a lap, her legs working powerfully in school mandated gym shorts. She’s tiny, and not the fastest runner, but she stands out from the pack in terms of energy committed. That’s just Soyeon, though; the type who can’t half-ass anything. Yuqi likes that about her. That and everything else.
“Oh, Yuqi,” Miyeon murmurs, and Yuqi groans into her hands.
“Minnie told you.”
“Shuhua, actually, but you’re not exactly subtle.”
“I’ll kill her,” Yuqi says, even though it’s mostly her own fault. The Soojin incident is going to haunt her for a while.
“When did this even start?” Miyeon asks.
Yuqi follows Soyeon with her eyes from one side of the track to the other in a swift loop, lips pursed as she considers the question. Or more specifically, whether she feels like answering it. People keep asking her, why Soyeon, why now, and it’s like they don’t see what Yuqi sees.
She doesn’t want them to. At least, not to the same extent.
“Do you remember when I caught that flu virus over Winter Break?”
Miyeon puts a finger up to her chin, ever the picture of ladylike composure. Even in the sleet-grey gym clothes inflicted on them by the school, like they were convicts to be contained and duly exercised twice a week. “Let me think… yes. You left me six very loud and dramatic voicemails while I was on a flight to see my grandparents. I remember the coughing fits.”
“I hate getting sick,” Yuqi says defensively. “I hate staying indoors.”
“So you were just calling anyone who’d pick up?”
“Right, but nobody was around. And what I really needed was someone to go buy me some more medicine. And tampons. My parents weren’t home.”
“I’m sorry,” Miyeon says, like she could help choosing that one day of all days to board a plane.
Yuqi shrugs her shoulders, still looking down at the track field, but now it’s more to avoid the watery sympathy she can feel from Miyeon. The guilty eyes burning into the side of her face. “Don’t apologise, it’s no big deal. Anyway, I didn’t mention it when you called back because I already went out shopping by myself.”
“While you were sick?” Miyeon asks, aghast. “That’s dangerous, Yuqi! You were almost delirious on the phone.”
“But I needed it, and anyway the convenience store was like two blocks away. And it was way early, so I figured it would be quiet. I put on a mask, and a hoodie. And, oh yeah, my sunglasses too – probably looked a little drugged out at the time.”
“And Soyeon was at the store?” Miyeon guesses, which puts a damper on Yuqi’s dramatic narrative build, but whatever. She’s getting to it.
Because yes, Soyeon was there. And it was the first and last time Yuqi’s seen her out of her uniform; instead, she was swallowed by a black hoodie that hung dress-length to her knees, khakis poking out from underneath like twin toothpicks. Thick headphones pinning her hair down, and that now familiar frown clouding her expression.
The fact that Yuqi recognises her at all speaks more to the power of her social reach. And her ability to pluck a face from her memory at the drop of a hat; Soyeon had given a speech at the start of this school year, as one of the top performers in their grade. It’s funny, really, that she’d barely been paying attention at the time. It’s like she only really saw Soyeon with her eyes wide open in that moment, ironically with her eyes gumming shut while she was stumbling around with a high fever.
Yuqi doesn’t verbalise this to Miyeon, though. The more important stuff comes after.
“Yeah, Soyeon was there,” she confirms, nodding distractedly. “There’s no way she recognised me though, which is good because I probably walked into like half the shelves along one aisle. I couldn’t find anything, even though I’d been there before. Things looked swirly. I was a mess.”
“Yuqi.” Miyeon sounds crushed as she puts a sympathetic hand on Yuqi’s shoulder.
“Anyway, so there I am bulldozing around, and the guy behind the register is just looking at me. Or at least, I think he is, because everything is a little…” Yuqi waves her hand in tight circles, but smiles to draw some of the worry out of Miyeon’s face. It doesn’t really work.
That whole week over Winter Break, she’d been completely out of it; her parents took a short trip back home to China, after much convincing from Yuqi that she’d be just fine managing the house for a while. She wanted to stay and meet her friends, and, ostensibly, to study hard for the next semester.
In truth, Yuqi had wanted to throw a massive blow-up party and fill the place, but sometimes the universe drops a rock from on high. Instead of drinking herself sick, she spent the holiday wasting away in bed, right up until her parents flew in. And then she had to face their guilty conscience over leaving; although, okay, it was nice to be coddled.
And if she hadn’t gotten sick, maybe Yuqi would have gone her whole life without finding Soyeon in the crowd.
“I panicked, and I really might have started crying, you know,” she continues on, stretching her back muscles nonchalantly so it sounds less pathetic. Miyeon’s continued silence is freaking her out. “And just as I’m kind of slumping forward against the cereal boxes, I feel someone hitting me in the side of the head.”
“She hit you?” Miyeon asks, aghast.
“No, I mean—just a little? It was one of those ice cups, a big one from the freezer. She pushed it, kind of here,” Yuqi says, pointing at the side of her forehead. “It felt good, and then I was able to stand up properly.”
She sighs, lips pursing, and suddenly her eyes are finding Soyeon on the track again, following her just in time to watch her stop at one of the starting lines and bend over to breathe heavily. It feels a little seedy to stare from this angle, but Soyeon really is something.
As the world narrows down to the distant motions of Soyeon’s body as she recovers from the run, Yuqi can only find herself smiling. Mind empty of everything else, right up until Miyeon coughs lightly and elbows her in the arm.
Oh, right.
“And then, she pushed a bag into my hand, and she said, or I think she said, ‘it’s paid for already, you should go home.’ Something like that. ‘Go home’ for sure. And I couldn’t see her face so good behind the sunglasses, but I knew it was her. She has that kind of voice.” Yuqi trails off, considering, before putting this into words. “Distinctive. Right? And isn’t she pretty short for someone in high school?”
“I’m not sure these are things you should say to Soyeon, if you’re ever planning to make a move,” Miyeon observes.
But Yuqi is already lost in thought again, spiralling into fantasy like she’s still sick with flu and a little delusional. Because Soyeon really is short, and the way she looks up at Yuqi with those knowing eyes when they’re studying together. The way her head could fit under Yuqi’s chin if they moved just that bit closer, chairs meeting in the middle… uh-huh.
Sensing the incoming bid from Miyeon for her to re-focus, she picks her thread back up. “So I just turned around and left. Don’t think I even said thank you, or maybe… maybe I grunted. And when I got home, I opened the bag and she’d bought the medicine, and snacks, too. Plus another ice cup. It’s like she took one look at me and just knew.”
“So that’s why,” Miyeon says after a brief silence. She leans back on her hands while Yuqi leans forward, elbows on her knees,
Soyeon is leaving the track field down below, striding back into the main building by herself. All around her, other students trickle by in clusters or pairs; nobody wants to be too close to her, same as always. It looks like class will be ending soon.
“I wanted to thank her properly, when school started up again,” Yuqi mumbles on, not caring about the ticking clock on this conversation. She has a study break next period anyway, and studying by herself has lost any appeal whatsoever. “But as soon as I got close, she walked right past me. And since then it’s been… you know. She can’t wait to get away from me.”
“I’m not so sure,” Miyeon says, musing. She gets up from the bench, patting down the back of her shorts needlessly until Yuqi looks up at her in question. “Someone like Soyeon, well, do you really think she’d just agree to tutor anyone who asked?”
Yuqi stares blankly in response, registering the thought as Miyeon walks away down the aisle to where the steps are.
Would Soyeon tutor just anyone? It’s hard to know for sure, because she’s the type who’d raise her hand in class and rattle off a textbook answer. She’s the type who buys medicine for feverish strangers – or near strangers – at the convenience store. Wouldn’t that kind of person love to teach?
But Soyeon doesn’t like being around people, that’s what Soojin said. Her battery runs out. So maybe Yuqi doesn’t flatline her as quickly? That’s a good start; she just has to build on that, and become Soyeon’s own personal Duracell bunny so that she charges right back up.
Come to think of it, being an introvert sounds like hard work. But it does kind of make Yuqi feel like she’s special for Soyeon to be spending all this time with her.
And Yuqi does feel something in her stomach, then, but it’s not the cramping pain she reported to the nurse earlier. This feels closer to butterflies.
-
On the following Wednesday, Yuqi waits patiently until they’ve worked through a few homework problems. She waits, and it’s hard on her, as someone who’s used to jumping into action when and how she pleases, until Soyeon gets to that point in the session where she’s more or less comfortable.
Things are always awkward to begin with, no matter how relaxed Yuqi acts, and the small talk is minimal from Soyeon’s end. Yuqi wants to know everything that happened since their last talk, and Soyeon wants to tell her exactly one thing that’ll max out her ten-word quota on the subject. But she does listen to Yuqi chatter while they pull out their books and pencils.
Yuqi keeps it light, like always, and her anecdote about the stray dog that ducked the fence and stole their ball during practice went down well. It’s nice to make Soyeon laugh, when she can. When Soyeon’s not focused so intensely on the actual studying.
And when the moment seems right, Yuqi takes a leap. She writes a random number in the answer box, halfway through the solution, and says abruptly, “What are you doing this weekend?”
“That’s not right,” Soyeon points out, eyes fixed to the page.
Not the best start. Yuqi ducks her head and tries to steal Soyeon’s attention away from their homework. “I’ll fix it, but about this weekend?”
After a moment, Soyeon’s gaze slides up to meet hers in a way that makes Yuqi flush a bit. It’s like Soyeon can see right through her, laser-eyed, and has a very low interest in what she finds at the centre. How can she look so cool at times like this? Yuqi is already sweating. “Huh? Why?”
“Well, my friend, Minnie – do you know Minnie? She’s in our grade, but a different class, I think. But she’s throwing a party, right? On Saturday, this Saturday, I mean.”
Soyeon responds with the same flat, unreadable expression.
“At her house,” Yuqi adds, just to fill the silence. “You should come, too.”
“Why? I don’t know your friend.” Soyeon reaches for the pencil in Yuqi’s hand, as if preparing to fix the wrong answer herself, but Yuqi pulls her arm out of reach. Soyeon is simply too short in arm and body to compete with her like this.
“You know me, and I’m the one inviting you,” Yuqi argues. Since when did you need to know somebody to attend their party?
Soyeon taps her once in the side, where Yuqi is exceedingly ticklish, but she shouldn’t have known that. A squeal rips out of Yuqi’s throat that draws the librarian over to shush them, and they sit in a chastised silence for a while until she stops eyeballing them from the check-out desk. Yuqi eventually surrenders the pencil to Soyeon’s grasping hands, allowing her to erase the answer from her homework sheet. It really is that serious for her.
As if rewarding her for this concession, Soyeon picks their conversation back up in a quieter tone. “Just because I’m tutoring you for a while, doesn’t mean I want an introduction to your whole clique of friends,” she says evenly. “Or to lose my precious Saturday night.”
“You have other plans?”
“Plans at home. With myself.”
Yuqi takes more than a little offence at the word “clique” to begin with, much less the whole rejection when Soyeon clearly has nothing else going on. She spends a lot of time with the same group of girls, sure, but they don’t bully anyone, or even act out all that much. Miyeon’s on the cheer committee, and Shuhua has a part-time dog-walking business that fills her whole week up. Minnie – she cries at kid movies. And Yuqi’s nice to just about everyone.
They’re good people.
From an outside perspective, do they look too hard to approach? It’s not like they can help being gorgeous; Yuqi most of all.
Wait, has Soyeon been avoiding Yuqi because she’s too pretty?
“I’m just not into parties,” Soyeon adds, with her eyes cast down on the table. Maybe she’s sensed the effect of her word choice written across Yuqi’s face, or in her ensuing silence. It takes a lot to steal the words out of Yuqi’s mouth, even she knows that herself.
“Me either,” Yuqi lies through her teeth. But she’s already lying about her grades, so this feels natural too. “Actually, I don’t even want to go to this thing.”
“Then don’t go.”
As if it’s the easiest thing in the world. Soyeon’s got a very direct approach to life. Yuqi also likes this about her; it’s on the list she’s been formulating in her head, in case an appropriate time comes up for sharing it, like out of a romcom. Ten things about you that make my knees weak.
“But see, Minnie’s my best friend, you know,” Yuqi says with her best attempt at a concerned frown. Concern for Minnie, who would hate to do without her. “She really wants me there, and I just thought… well, I’d feel more comfortable if you were there, too.”
Silence follows this sham of a confession, but the impact is more effective than Yuqi could have predicted. Soyeon looks at her, a little wide-eyed, and Yuqi might delude herself into believing her cheeks are pinker than they had been.
“Yuqi, I don’t know…” Soyeon trails off uncertainly.
“Just for a little while! Look, I’ll give you the address and you can meet me there, so if it looks like a bad scene, or you can’t find me, you just leave straight away in your own car. Easy, right?” Yuqi tears off a corner from one of her notebook pages and scribbles down Minnie’s details. For good measure, and just because she can, she adds her own phone number underneath.
Soyeon hesitates when Yuqi slides the slip of paper to her across the table, but eventually unclenches her jaw and sets a hand on top of it. “Will there be parking? If I did think about coming.”
Beaming, Yuqi nods vigorously and spreads her arms wide. “Trust me. Minnie’s house is more than a house. It’s like a whole estate – there’s even a guy out front who’ll park for you. He’s got a hat and everything.”
“Well, that’s encouraging,” Soyeon says dryly, but she cracks a real smile for the first time since Yuqi brought the party up.
Based on the lack of follow-up questions, Yuqi figures that Soyeon doesn’t believe her about the extent of Minnie’s wealth. Or maybe she just doesn’t care all that much. Most people are at least a bit impressed, though, because Minnie’s careful not to advertise it around school. That’s why these parties are a limited affair between friends. And friends of friends.
Anyway, seeing the house in person will probably leave more of an impression than talking about it; Soyeon’s literal-minded that way.
“Then I’ll see you there,” Yuqi announces, because to her it feels like a done deal already.
“I’m still thinking about it.” But again, Soyeon is still smiling at her.
“I’ll see you there,” Yuqi says in earnest.
-
Except, okay, she doesn’t see Soyeon at the party – not yet, anyway.
“You got stood up,” Shuhua says, or yells, directly into Yuqi’s ear from beside her on the couch. If she has an inside voice, it’s still pre-packaged in the box it came in.
Yuqi flinches and throws an elbow out to shove her back the other way, only to send Shuhua’s drink splashing over the chair arm. It’s fine, though; Shuhua’s always drinking water at these things, unlike most of the kids here. And it looks like the couch is stained already with the remnants of someone’s chocolate – or what looks like chocolate, but might instead be Coca Cola.
On a couch this white and pristine, it’s obvious that Minnie’s going to panic when she sees that, and probably blame the innocent party that happens to be sitting there. Yuqi shifts her leg to one side so that it covers the brown patch. Not like it can get any worse.
“You really got stood up,” Shuhua says again, no more sympathetic than the first three times.
“Shut up. She’s probably just stuck in traffic.”
“Are you sure you’re not worried? It’s late. She’s late, and Soojin says she’s chronically punctual.”
Yuqi twitches, mostly at the prospect of Shuhua discussing Soyeon with her neighbour and learning such trivia without passing it on sooner. But she kind of knew this one already; Soyeon was always the first one to their tutoring sessions, and always the first one to leave.
“Not worried,” Yuqi mutters, scowling into her glass before she takes an excessively big mouthful.
Telling Shuhua anything about this situation was probably her first mistake, because she’ll never hear the end of it. First, Yuqi was stupid for lying about her grades, and then she was stupid for only picking one particular subject. And then she was stupid for choosing Mathematics, when she could have thrown in languages too, maybe English; wouldn’t she rather have Soyeon helping her parse meaning from the love sonnets they were covering this semester?
Numbers aren’t sexy, as quoted from Shuhua directly.
But Yuqi now thinks they can be, with the proper tutor leaning over your shoulder.
She swallows, and it’s a little tight going down because her throat is constricted. Not that she’s worried about Soyeon, or thinks she won’t show her face. It’s just the bitter taste of alcohol making her eyes water. Probably.
Wait, what is that? Schnapps? Yuqi looks down at the drink, realising she has no memory of mixing it herself. Is this even hers, or did she pick it up from the corner table on her way to the couch?
Her head feels clouded now, but in a rosy sort of way. She thinks, blandly, of course Soyeon will be here. Soyeon was flustered at the library. She’ll be here. Yuqi wants to see her more than ever right now. That serious but beautiful face, maybe looking a little shy in the massive crowd of sweaty people, and Yuqi can be her security blanket. Be at her side all night, together. It’s a happy fantasy.
“Here, drink this,” Shuhua says, thrusting her half-empty water glass under Yuqi’s nose. “Your head’s drooping and you’re muttering weird things.”
“No thanks,” Yuqi says without restricting her volume, but she and Shuhua are used to yelling at each other.
Ignoring this, Shuhua pushes the rim to her lips anyway, and Yuqi pushes her back forcefully, spilling the rest of the water somewhere behind them. Her own glass is empty all of a sudden too, so she puts it down on the floor, where someone passes by and immediately kicks it a foot away.
“Hey!”
“I’m going to the kitchen,” Yuqi declares, ignoring Shuhua’s nagging and getting sluggishly to her feet. There’s music pounding from somewhere deeper in the house, carrying through all the open doorways jammed with teenagers who only back up to let her pass because she’s Song Yuqi.
Song Yuqi who can’t walk in a straight line right now.
It’s not easy finding the kitchen like this, between the mass of bodies and the many, many rooms that make up just one wing of Minnie’s fancy house. She’s locked up a lot of them, but Yuqi still feels like she’s walking on and on through a looping chain of doorways before she spots the familiar sliver of glossy brown cabinets up ahead.
There’s a couple making out aggressively in her direct line to the room, and Yuqi looks just long enough to check that one of the girls isn’t Soyeon – that similar black wolf cut stops her short – before she elbows them aside and walks on. Minnie almost slams right into her from the other direction.
“Yuqi!”
“What? Hi,” Yuqi says, having to raise her voice over the thudding music.
“Eat this.” Abruptly, Minnie pushes something into her hand, and Yuqi looks at it with bleary eyes. Some kind of hard cracker; there’s a salty aftertaste when she licks it.
“Ugh,” she groans, smacking her lips together. “People keep trying to put things in my mouth today.”
Minnie scrunches up her face. “That’s disgusting. But on a semi-related topic, your girlfriend is upstairs.”
Yuqi almost spits out the cracker after shoving half of it into her mouth. “Guffen?” She sprays crumbs with the blustered word, but Minnie’s already used to her poor table manners.
“Sober up first, or this is going to be embarrassing for you,” Minnie says, shaking her head. “I said she could go to my room for a while. She seemed really bothered by the noise, and it’s quieter up there.”
“I love you,” Yuqi says in all seriousness, and then crams the rest of the cracker between her teeth, crunching fast and noisily.
“Just don’t… don’t do anything stupid, okay? Be super honest. Soyeon is the type who respects a straightforward approach more than anything.”
When Minnie hands her a bottle of mineral water from the fridge, Yuqi chugs it dutifully for a few seconds before crushing the plastic in her hand. The room has become a little less floaty around the edges.
It still takes some hands-on guidance from Minnie to help her find the main staircase, but Yuqi is left to make the climb herself as Minnie flits off to chase some kids away from the locked door to her family’s wine cellar. The life of a wealthy party host isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Yuqi would still make that trade, though, any day of the week. Even though she’s more athletic and charming than Minnie.
Only when Yuqi is halfway up the stairs, getting clearer-headed by the minute, does she start to wonder how Minnie of all people knows what “type” Soyeon is. Soyeon had said herself that they weren’t acquainted, just a few days ago and back in the library.
It’s possible they got to talking when Soyeon arrived here tonight; the whole thing is pretty easy to explain away. Even if Yuqi’s now a little jealous at the thought of her best friend and her crush talking so privately without her present. Minnie’s not exactly a flirt, and her eyes are straying elsewhere in their friend group these days.
And really, Yuqi thinks as she takes careful steps up to the first floor, being honest is good advice even from an outsider’s perspective. But not so easy when she’s already in the middle of a lie, even a lie that in her opinion is a small and inoffensive one. She’s not failing, and she doesn’t need a tutor, but nobody can say that getting extra support on her homework is a bad thing.
And as Miyeon said, it’s not like she forced Soyeon to agree.
There are more couples slotted together even up along the staircase, blocking steps with their gross tentacle-like tangle of limbs. Yuqi has to physically nudge one of them with her foot to pass by, and she’s not particularly gentle about it.
Because Soyeon’s up there by herself, waiting. Yuqi’s stomach churns, just like it did on the bleachers that day.
Minnie’s bedroom isn’t far along the landing, her bubblegum pink door shut tight with a sheet of paper tacked on reading: enter tonight, thumbs hacked off tomorrow. Smiley face, heart, smiley face.
The thing about being rich is that people will believe you’re capable of just about anything. When in fact, Minnie has sometimes cringed away from other people’s papercuts.
With no mind for the empty threat, Yuqi tries the doorhandle and finds it locked, probably from the inside. She tries knocking politely, her nose pressed close to the door jam as she calls Soyeon’s name over the heavy bass from downstairs. This seems to work, because Yuqi hears the lock click and Soyeon’s wary face appears very close to her own, at least a strip of it does, when the door gives way a couple of inches.
“Hi there,” Yuqi says, smiling without really thinking about it. Soyeon showed up. It’s like a mythical beast just trotted anxiously into her territory, and the last thing she wants is to scare her off.
“Oh,” Soyeon responds shortly, but the visible tension between her eyebrows smooths out almost immediately.
“Can I come in?”
For a moment, Soyeon just looks at her, as if trying to make something out from her expression. Whatever it is, she seems satisfied enough to open the door a little further so Yuqi can slip through the gap. On the other side, once the door is slammed shut at her back, the music does feel less overpowering.
Minnie’s room is unchanged from the last time Yuqi saw it, which was only a few months ago by now. They do sleepovers often, but on a more rotary basis. Sure, logistically Minnie’s house has the most space to contain the whole group, but her brothers get testy when the place is overrun with girls every weekend.
Soyeon perches on the edge of Minnie’s king-size bed, her feet barely touching the floor. It’s impressive enough that Minnie hasn’t pushed her to remove the heavy Doc Martens she’s wearing before trampling over her expensive carpet, but Yuqi’s not complaining; she likes seeing Soyeon in this comfortable style outside of the pressed school uniform. The heavy black jacket isn’t exactly fit for this party, but Soyeon looks smaller like this, cuter, even with her make-up a little more on the heavy side.
As Yuqi drinks this all in, Soyeon watches her back like a hawk until their eyes meet and Yuqi nervously looks away. She circles the room instead, eyeing the collage of polaroid photos on the wall above Minnie’s vanity.
Trying to look as laid-back as possible, the opposite of how she’s feeling, Yuqi puts her hands on her hips as she looks around. “So you really came after all,” she says confidently. This role is an easy one for her, even if she might sound a little too pleased.
“Yes. I must be out of my mind.”
Love makes you crazy, that’s the line which immediately forms in Yuqi’s head, and she barely refrains from blurting it out. Too eager, for sure; she doesn’t want Soyeon to think she’s a player. Or worse, a creep.
Instead, Yuqi says cheerfully, “The estate is huge, right? I really warned you.”
“Sorry for doubting you,” Soyeon offers, and when Yuqi glances over there’s a slight smile on her face already. Awkward, but cute.
Yuqi beams back at her. “I never exaggerate.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you see the valet?”
“He must have been on break,” Soyeon responds dryly.
Yuqi stops wandering then, now that she’s displayed a suitable level of nonchalance about this situation. She plants herself next to Soyeon the bed, mindful to keep a good hand’s width of space between them so she doesn’t come on too strong.
Her head is still a little floaty from earlier, but her heart is working hard enough for the both of them. The thought hits her again; Soyeon is here and not at school. And they’re alone together.
“Thank you,” Yuqi says, when the silence starts to grow a little too thick. “For coming tonight, I mean. I know you don’t like this kind of thing, so it really means a lot.”
Soyeon’s eyes are suddenly pinned to the shag rug laid out beside the bed, but she smiles again, this time with just the corner of her mouth. She’s so pretty. “Just for a while, like I promised.”
“You didn’t actually promise,” Yuqi observes.
“No? Then maybe I just wanted to see Song Yuqi in her natural habitat. Outside of the QB library for a change.” Soyeon looks up suddenly, fastening Yuqi with a look that seems meaningful. And not just because Yuqi wants it to be.
“You wanted to see me?” Yuqi hones in on just the salient part of that sentence as she feels the mood shift.
She pinches Minnie’s pink bedspread between her fingers, not really noticing that she’s leaning towards Soyeon until they’re suddenly very close.
“Have you been drinking?” Soyeon asks, but quietly. She’s looking at Yuqi’s face through half-lidded eyes. Accentuated by more eyeliner than she’s ever worn to their tutoring sessions. The thought of Soyeon taking such care in her appearance for this tugs at Yuqi’s feelings even more.
Yuqi wets her lips and nods honestly, but she’s looking at Soyeon’s mouth too. Full lips, slightly parted and a little shiny; Soyeon might even be wearing lipstick. She might even pass it over, if they…
“I’m not drunk,” Yuqi says confidently, blinking hard to keep her thoughts on track. “I’m one hundred percent, absolutely, no doubt about it, stone cold sober right now.”
Soyeon laughs under her breath, flashing her teeth wide in a way that reveals her gums just a little, and Yuqi feels warmth blooming up from her chest. To make her smile that much, even once, feels like a real achievement. “I’m not convinced.”
“I told you before, right?” Yuqi says softly. “I never exaggerate.”
There’s very little space between their faces now, and Yuqi thinks that this really must be the moment. Soyeon hasn’t backed up once, and her hand is flat on the bed barely an inch away from Yuqi’s. The signals are clear as day, no matter how she looks at them. And she’s really looking.
But as Yuqi contemplates the move she’s about to make, her eyes flick once over Soyeon’s shoulder to the headboard of Minnie’s bed. Fairy lights are strung up along the curved edge, fastened with more polaroids of Minnie posing with friends and family.
Yuqi recognises one of them, because she has a matching photo in her own room back home, of herself making rabbit ears with her fingers behind Minnie’s head, both of them grinning for the camera. Miyeon had taken that one last year at an amusement park.
It’s the polaroid right next to it that really grabs Yuqi’s attention though. Because’s she’s not in it, but Soyeon is.
“Huh?” Yuqi says, loud even to her own ears.
Soyeon jerks back, her eyes flying open as she frowns at the abrupt reaction. “What’s wrong?”
Yuqi reaches past her shoulder without answering, and her brain is a little too rinsed to notice their proximity for a moment as she plucks the photo down from Minnie’s headboard in two fingers. It’s about the size of her palm, and it looks older than a lot of the others. But that’s definitely Soyeon’s face; Yuqi’s spent more than enough time studying it.
Soyeon without make-up, but even so her features are distinct. They’re wearing uniforms – middle school, Yuqi thinks, from the modest styling. Soyeon and Minnie at school together. Soyeon and Minnie wearing matching blue headbands, with some kind of spiral emblem at the centre of their foreheads. Both of them smiling wide, and Minnie’s arm thrown comfortably around Soyeon’s narrow shoulders.
“This is you, right?” Yuqi asks, flicking her hand around to show Soyeon the photo.
Soyeon looks at it for barely a second before averting her eyes somewhere else. The tense little line from earlier is back between her eyebrows. “Yeah, so what?”
“You said you didn’t know Minnie. In the library, the other day, when I invited you. I know you did.” It’s hard not to sound accusatory, but Yuqi tries anyway. She’s definitely hurt, though.
“I don’t know her,” Soyeon says quietly, still not looking Yuqi in the eye. “That doesn’t mean I never knew her.”
“Were you friends? Did you have a fight?” Yuqi wants to understand, more than anything.
Minnie’s never mentioned this, which seems odd because they’ve always shared just about everything. Yuqi and Minnie and Miyeon and Shuhua. It’s been like that since they started high school, when they met for the first time and formed their tight knit little group, around which a wider circle had eventually formed.
Yuqi’s been so open about her feelings for Soyeon, too. Why wouldn’t Minnie tell her that they used to be close? It feels like a betrayal in some ways, like a lie of omission. If something really bad went down between them, surely Minnie would have warned her off in the first place, instead of encouraging her to come meet Soyeon in private. In her bedroom.
After another stretch of silence, Soyeon pushes herself up off the bed and paces over to Minnie’s vanity. She drags small fingers through her dark hair, ruffling it in a way Yuqi would find sexy at any other time, before putting both hands into her jean pockets with her thumbs still poking out. “Yes. No. We didn’t… fight. We just… it was different when we came to this school. Minnie was always good with people, she made a lot of friends that way, and I don’t really…”
She trails off, but Yuqi knows enough by now to fill in the gaps. Soyeon doesn’t really talk to people. They’re scared of her, or those that aren’t think she’s bad news despite never exchanging a single word with her. That’s why she’s a ghost in the hallway, the type you’d spot out of the corner of your eye. The type who vanishes when you turn to look.
Soojin called her an introvert, but Yuqi thinks it might be a little more than that now.
She wonders, with a sick sense of trepidation, if her own arrival into Minnie’s life had played a significant role in this phased breakdown of their friendship. She never once paid any attention to Soyeon, not before this last Winter.
“It was better not to force anything,” Soyeon continues, shrugging. When she turns back to Yuqi, her face is cool and unemotional. “It happens to a lot of middle school friendships.”
Yuqi’s face must look as crumpled as her chest feels, because Soyeon gives her a strange look after a moment. “What? What is it? Why does it matter?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what?” Soyeon shakes her head, walking back over to sit beside Yuqi on the bed. She takes the polaroid gently from between Yuqi’s fingers and sets it on the dresser.
“I invited you here like this, and I didn’t even know all that.”
“It’s ancient history now. We were kids, and it happened so naturally,” Soyeon insists. She laces her fingers together in her lap and frowns at them as Yuqi watches her. “And actually, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie about it the other day.”
“Why did you?”
“I was embarrassed, probably,” Soyeon says, glancing over at Yuqi before continuing. “I don’t even know. I wanted you to think I was above this kind of thing. But it was a stupid lie.”
Yuqi’s heart skips at the thought of Soyeon trying to impress her. It turns out that they’re not all that different, and it makes her reflect more positively on her own lie. The original lie.
Soyeon looks so worried about how she’ll react to this, when really they’re just meeting at the same level for once. And Yuqi can’t help but leap into it.
She blurts out, without taking another minute to check herself, “I’m not actually failing that class, you know.”
Soyeon’s turns her head slowly, and she’s not reacting much so Yuqi decides to go for broke. “You think you told a stupid lie, but I can beat that. I never needed tutoring. I just wanted you to talk to me.”
Swiftly, Soyeon’s face seems to glaze over, the confused jut of her bottom lip lining out to form a flat expression that Yuqi can’t get a read on. It’s not positive, but it’s not particularly angry either.
“Eh?”
“Actually, my grades are really good, and I’m super smart as well as good-looking. But at first, it was like you didn’t seem to notice that about me. I couldn’t even find you most of the time!” Yuqi feels herself going on a tangent, she’s so aware of it, but the floodgates are wide open and Soyeon is frowning at her now.
If she keeps talking, maybe she’ll hit on the right thing to say here, the way to make Soyeon smile again. And then maybe they’ll go back to the point in the evening where they almost kissed, like a checkpoint reset.
So Yuqi rattles on, “It was all I could come up with so that you’d spent time with me, talking to me, you know? Even once a week was good. And you were seriously hot as a tutor. I’m serious, I got real goosebumps, and I think I got even smarter somehow, even though I would just watch you a lot of the time…”
Even after all this has spewed out between them, Soyeon doesn’t look like she’s about to throw herself into Yuqi’s arms. If anything, she just looks bemused. “Yuqi—”
“And— And we got closer, right? And you came here because you wanted to see me more. I wanted to see you too, like all the time, so it turned out really good.”
“Yuqi,” Soyeon tries again, this time more forcefully. And Yuqi might finally have shut up, but then the bedroom door swings open, battering the wall behind so violently that they both jump.
A number of things happen then in very quick succession. The amorous couple Yuqi had kicked aside on the stairs earlier stumble into Minnie’s room together, one of them walking backwards because they’re still attached at the mouth like their spit is the glue secreted by starfish underwater.
Yuqi yells at them to back the fuck out of there, bright red in the face, and then Minnie herself is storming in behind the couple, yelling too but in a more resigned way. It’s probably not the first pair she’s had to shoo from a private space that night.
A loud crash follows Minnie from the hallway outside, like something ceramic hitting hard tiles and shattering into unrecoverable little pieces. Miyeon comes running in behind Minnie to announce that a fight has broken out in the living room, and would someone please intercede because she’s not equipped to deal with it.
More people spill into the room behind her, as if the line of people filtering in are gatekeeping something more exciting on the inside, a second party they all want a stake in. Except they’re all talking over each other in the process, and the music from downstairs is cranking up several octaves to compensate.
Yuqi throws herself off the bed, about to physically push the whole group out and shut the door – to actually lock it this time. But she makes it all of two steps before Soyeon is shuttling past her like a bullet, her smaller form ducking under people’s arms until she’s slipped from the room completely and out of view.
“Hey! No, wait! Soyeon!” But Yuqi can barely hear herself over the crowd, and Soyeon’s probably well past the point of listening.
Swearing violently, Yuqi barrels after her, almost headbutting Minnie when she tries to grab her arm on the way by. Definitely elbowing a few noisy idiots out of the doorway to get through. She hits the hallway at a run and takes the stairs two, three at a time until she reaches the main foyer, spinning three-sixty in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Soyeon’s black jacket; if only she had an eye for more vibrant colours.
The crowd is like a wall on every side as Yuqi searches.
Her heart is plummeting when Shuhua breaks from the mass of teenagers and grabs her by the sleeve. “What happened? You disappeared for so long, I thought you’d gone home early.”
“Soyeon,” Yuqi says in lieu of answering. Her breathing is coming in short gasps, more from panic than exertion, but it’s making her sentences a little nonsensical. “Upstairs with her, talked and then—ran away. Shit!”
“Hey, calm down,” Shuhua says urgently, grabbing Yuqi by her shoulders and shaking aggressively. It doesn’t help much, but at least she has Yuqi’s attention.
“I’m calm!”
“You’re yelling at me!”
“Sorry. Just—” Yuqi tries to push Shuhua’s hands away as she looks around again. At least her lungs have eased up on the pressure. “Let go for a minute, I need to find Soyeon. I think I really pissed her off back there.”
“Did you get pushy?”
“No,” Yuqi snaps defensively, although she has to think about that a bit. No, she hadn’t even touched Soyeon. Just talked to her… at her… God, she feels like an idiot. Worse than. “No, I just asked her about—look, it doesn’t even matter.”
Shuhua’s face scrunches up in sympathy, which is worse than hitting her in the head would have been. “You told her about the fake grades.”
“Well, yeah,” Yuqi admits after an awkward pause. Was that the wrong move? It was already clear that Soyeon took her free time, her study time, seriously; maybe she thought Yuqi had been wasting it to mess with her.
“You’re still stupid,” Shuhua says at once, because she doesn’t pull punches, just comes out swinging. “I saw her leaving through the front door a minute ago.”
Yuqi jerks back from her grip, affronted, and this time Shuhua sets her loose. “Why didn’t you start with that? Asshole.”
“I thought you’d done something! She looked kind of freaked out.”
As if Yuqi would ever do something like that – but she does understand that kind of girl code. And she would have done the same, but that doesn’t stop the agitated muttering Yuqi does under her breath as she takes off running again.
She can out-run Soyeon; watching her sprint during gym class the other day only confirmed that. But if Soyeon gets to her car, then it’s all over. Yuqi really doesn’t think Soyeon will be cropping up for their next session on Wednesday, not after this.
So it’s a desperate, full-pelt run that she maintains all the way out to the makeshift parking lot near the gates to Minnie’s estate, where the family probably recognised a freshly mowed lawn before they left for the weekend. Now there are cars lined up in graceless rows, tyre marks criss-crossing through the mud. The sun must have set a long time ago, but Yuqi moves from row to row, peering around for that familiar shape.
And she does find Soyeon, eventually, which is a miracle in itself because she’s crouching by a car that might be her own. And there’s an unlit cigarette jutting out of her mouth, balanced on her full bottom lip at an angle as Soyeon struggles with a lighter between her cupped hands.
Yuqi stops and watches this display in complete shock, even with both hands on her knees as she pants off the cardio she wasn’t planning on doing tonight.
When Soyeon finally glances up, Yuqi tilts her head and asks, somewhat gratuitously, “You smoke?”
Soyeon pauses in her efforts to get the lighter to ignite, and she plucks the cigarette from her lips quickly as if she still has a shot at hiding it. “Only sometimes,” she says, frowning. “Crowds like that make me tense.”
In that moment, Yuqi realises that Soyeon’s abrupt flight from the room might have had more to do with the explosive intrusion from a bunch of random people than it did with anything Yuqi might have said. Soyeon’s social anxiety had kicked into gear spectacularly; this thought comes with some relief, but more than anything Yuqi just feels a stab of sympathy.
She can’t imagine running out of a party like that because of… well, people. Yuqi loves people, even when they’re drunk and disorderly.
“It’s a bad habit, you know,” Yuqi says, in lieu of anything else to say. I’m sorry you’re like this feels much worse than anything else she’d already said tonight, even though it’s how she feels. Not that nagging is going to help, but it comes easier. “You shouldn’t do that anymore, it’ll really mess with your body. If my coach smelled that on me, she’d have me thrown off the team. She already doesn’t like me much.”
“I don’t see why, you’re pretty easy to like.”
Soyeon freezes when the words exit her mouth, like she’d been chewing on them and neglected to swallow. She glances at Yuqi, probably seeing the blush that’s suddenly hit her full in the face, and flicks her cigarette away completely with a resigned sigh.
“I think so, too,” Yuqi says bluntly.
At this, Soyeon blinks once, as if registering her shamelessness, and then buries her face in her elbow. Yuqi sees her shoulders jerk up and down and thinks she might be laughing silently, or maybe coughing.
She almost stumbles back when Soyeon stands up from her comfortable squat, and there’s still a warm little smile on Soyeon’s face as she tucks the lighter into her pocket and leans back on the car bumper. It must really be hers. “You’re cute.”
With powerful self-control, Yuqi stops herself from repeating the last thing she said. Instead, she fumbles for a compliment in return. “You’re—you really—”
“Song Yuqi,” Soyeon interrupts her, or rescues her from putting a sweaty foot in her mouth.
Yuqi shuts up and lets Soyeon say her piece.
“Soojin told me you were asking around about me.”
“Shit!” Yuqi claps a hand over her mouth, blushing even more fiercely.
“She said you wouldn’t give up even after being warned off. Actually, she apologised to me, because you seemed even more set on pursuing me afterwards. I don’t think you made a great impression on her.”
“I can explain that,” Yuqi says weakly.
Soyeon’s gaze is more piercing than usual, with black strands of her hair drifting over her eyes in the light breeze. And it’s like Yuqi’s foot just landed in a bear trap, because now she looks like a major stalker, and of course Soojin wouldn’t keep her mouth shut about this.
But even so… despite knowing the truth, Soyeon had still agreed to tutor her, hadn’t she?
Yuqi narrows her eyes, and the confused tilt of her head seems to amuse Soyeon more than anything. She laughs out loud, flashing her gums again, and says cheerfully, “I’m glad your cold got better.”
“You knew.”
“Did I ever tell you?” Soyeon pushes off from the car, and she moves a step closer with her arms crossed casually over her stomach. “I’m not doing so great in English, these days.”
“But you’re—” A genius, a total study freak. And actually, Yuqi thinks then, a little sneak who knows how to play a game; Yuqi thinks she might really be in love. “Is that so?”
Soyeon hums to herself, darting her eyes up like she’s considering things. “It seems like I could do with a tutor. Got anyone in mind?”
Shuhua’s unprompted advice from earlier springs to mind then, about languages and love sonnets. The idea seems to be spreading. But Yuqi can do better than that.
She straightens up her back, cherishing the scant few centimetres of height she has on Soyeon. It’s easier to look a little imposing, a little sexy, from above; that’s Yuqi’s perspective. She puts her hands on her hips and moves even closer to where Soyeon is stood. They’re close enough to touch now, if they want to.
“I’ll tutor you, sure, but it won’t come cheap.”
Soyeon looks up at her, perplexed. “You’re serious?”
“I want a date,” Yuqi says openly, raising her arm between them with her index finger pointed up. “One date for every tutoring lesson, to be arranged for that same week, if possible. And if you miss out now, the price goes up by one every day after.”
“That’s a pretty rigid offer,” Soyeon muses, which is not a no.
“And I want your phone number, too.”
“We might have to negotiate some terms around these dates.”
Soyeon shifts her eyes over Yuqi’s shoulder, to where she knows the dark outline of Minnie’s giant house is still looming very close. Lights from the party are probably flashing through every door and window. The music carries tirelessly on the wind to reach them, even at this distance.
These parties are probably never going to be a thing for Soyeon, but that’s not a deal-breaker. They can have smaller parties. They can sit in an empty lot all night, just like this one, if it means hanging out with Soyeon.
Yuqi nods easily. “I get it. So…?”
So now what, is what she means, but that’s lost on the wind when Soyeon takes one more step closer. When Soyeon’s hand reaches up to cup the back of Yuqi’s head, fingers tangling in her long hair as Soyeon draws her down and raises herself up on tiptoes to get even closer.
“So I accept,” Soyeon murmurs almost directly into Yuqi’s mouth, before catching her lips so confidently that Yuqi’s certain she must have done this before.
But jealousy can come later, if at all. Because Soyeon doesn’t taste like smoke, and she doesn’t taste like alcohol in the way that Yuqi probably does after the night she’s had. There’s a hint of spearmint on Soyeon’s tongue when it slides into Yuqi’s mouth, out there in the dark parking lot, and Yuqi wants to explore that very thoroughly, like the good student she is.