Chapter Text
“I like to smell my own farts.”
Seungwan pinched the skin between her eyebrows. Compose yourself, compose yourself, compose yourself, she chanted over and over again. She had to admit this wasn’t the weirdest thing someone had ever admitted but it might’ve set the bar for the day.
She couldn’t complain. Not exactly. The Secret Keeper Booth was her idea. She proposed it in a student council meeting and the committee was on board if only because no one really liked talking to the guidance counselor. He smelt like cheese and liked to pick his nails with a toothpick while students poured out their hearts about their dog of ten years dying. He was a nice man but sometimes it just didn’t cut it. So the students decided to take matters into their own hands.
With the help of the theatre tech kids, they made a booth akin to a confessional—one side for the keepers and the other side for the Secret-ers. Secret Yellers? Mystery Men? Seungwan wasn’t keen on what to call them yet but they made do.
And for the low price of one thousand won (all proceeds going to the school activities budget), you got seven minutes to tell your secrets and worries.
“Is that weird?” The boy on the other side asked.
Seungwan opened her eyes and sat up, checking the time on her wristwatch (since they weren’t allowed cell phones in the booth). Her shift had only started and she couldn’t wait to get out of there if this was the kind of thing she was going to hear all day. Unfortunately, there were still four minutes on the stopwatch for this session.
The whole idea behind the booth was for students to tell real secrets and have real problems. It should be easy to do when you couldn’t see the other person’s face but she hated to admit it was things like this they heard more often than not.
“Hello?”
She sighed. “The booth is only to tell your secrets. We cannot offer advice.”
“Why not?”
“Those are the rules.” As stated on every flier and posted on the outside of the booth for visitor convenience.
“Then what’s the point?”
Seungwan clenched her jaw. She could give the usual spiel about how they weren’t licensed professionals and giving expert advice while not being experts themselves was against the law. Today she settled with,
“Sorry, but those are the rules.”
“Then I want my money back!”
She rolled her eyes just as her stopwatch beeped indicating seven minutes was done.
“Your time is up.”
“Wait—“
“If you have any concerns, questions, or complaints please drop them into the mailbox at the student council room 7-D. Thank you for coming.”
With a grumble, he left and Seungwan slumped in her chair. Not the best start to her shift.
The hinges whined as another visitor entered the booth. Seungwan propped an elbow on her knee and rested her chin against her fist. Only one guest in and she was already worn out. She didn’t have high hopes for the next.
“Welcome to the Secret Keeper Booth where your secrets are safe and you can kiss your worries goodbye,” she droned. The slogan could use some refining.
“Hello?” came a soft, velvety voice. Feminine. Light.
Seungwan perked up a little bit at that. She sounded nice. Like she had something real to tell.
“So, I’m just supposed to tell my secret and then I go?”
“That’s the idea.”
“I’m not going to get in trouble or anything am I?”
“All secrets are confidential unless they are cause for concern in which the guidance counselor will have to be notified.” And they were very serious about that rule.
“But that’s for, like if you’re depressed or something, right?”
Seungwan winced. Not the most graceful or politically correct way to put it. “Or something.”
“Oh.” She paused. “I’m not depressed or anything! I’m fine. It’s not anything like that I just wanted to make sure.”
“What brings you in today?”
“I have a crush.”
Seungwan nodded though the girl couldn’t see her. Crushes were a common secret brought to the booth. They were simple but they were fun. Seungwan always enjoyed hearing the person talk about how great their crush was. How much they wanted to show them how much they liked them. Or how flustered they got just from seeing them. Her heart would warm with theirs and would ache with the sad tales of how their crush would never notice them or they liked someone else or they were just too good for them.
“I know that’s not like crazy or anything,” the girl continued, “but it sort of freaks me out. Crushes aren’t my thing, you know? People crush on me not the other way around.”
Seungwan rolled her eyes with a smile. Whoever this was, she was confident. She must be popular. She sounded like one of the popular girls. The ones who weren’t afraid to state their opinion for all to hear and flaunted down the hallways with their holier than thou attitude.
Seungwan used to think those types were untouchable. They used to intimidate her. But being in this booth getting to hear them confess secrets like this made her feel like she had a one-up on them even if she didn’t know their name or their face.
“Anyway,” the girl started again, “It’s been bugging me but I can’t stop thinking about her.”
Seungwan choked. Literally. Saliva burned in her throat and she coughed trying to dislodge it from her windpipe
Wait. Her?
“Are you okay?”
She reached for her water bottle and furiously drank a gulp down. “I’m fine. Continue.”
“You’re not a homophone are you?”
“I think you mean homophobe.”
“Potato, tomato. I can’t be here if you’re going to judge me. I read the fine print.”
The No Judgement Clause that they inserted on the flier. Seungwan was actually surprised someone had read every detail she put into it. She appreciated this visitor.
“I’m not judging you.”
“Good.” She cleared her throat. “Because that’s not even the worst part. She’s a huge-freakin-nerd. I’m talking colossal! How is this possible? I’m too pretty for that.”
Wow. Okay. That was a little harsh but she was entitled to her own opinions and thoughts and judgments.
“Not that she isn’t attractive because she is. She’d have to be, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“Are you mocking me?”
Whoops. She couldn’t let real feelings show. They had to be objective. “No.”
“Uh-huh.” She didn’t sound convinced but she went on anyway. “It’s just that, this is all so unexpected. It’s made me seriously moody but I can’t tell my friends.”
Typical. Probably too embarrassed for that.
“You’re really not going to tell anyone this, are you?”
“I don’t even know who you are.”
“So?”
“We are one hundred percent confidential.”
“Is that in writing or something?”
She pursed her lips. “If you’re worried, you don’t have to come back.”
“You’re the one who should be worried.”
That was menacing.
Her stopwatch beeped.
“Your time is up.”
“Wow. Great. Most disgusting seven minutes of my life.”
The door on the other side creaked and slammed shut as the girl left leaving Seungwan bemused.
What an odd day this was.
-/-/-/-
Swinging by the booth at the end of the day, Seungwan gathered the money box and headed to the student council room to drop it off.
She found Joohyun, their fearless president, and the treasurer inside, discussing upcoming activity matters. She stayed with them for a bit, hashing out details until it got late and they decided to figure it out another day.
Shouldering her bag, she walked out, bidding the others good night. It was late in the day and the halls were empty, void of most students who had already gone home and didn’t stick around for night classes.
She started for the exit, trying to figure out what homework to hit first when she was hit with crippling dread.
She heard laughing before she saw them. After school hours meant after school practices which meant them. The volleyball girls.
They were the pride of the athletic department along with the boy’s football team. They weren’t all bad but everyone acted like they ran the place. That admiration went to their heads and thus resulted in a pack of high horse hyenas who laughed in the face of authority and turned up their noses at those not deemed on their level.
There were only three of them this time. Each bitchier than the first with their gym bags hanging off shoulders and knee pads pulled down to their ankles.
Seungwan ducked her head, making herself as invisible and small as she could as she passed. She wasn’t scared of them per se. Based on success, they were technically on the same plane. Except they’d get athletic scholarships while she would take an academic one. She wasn’t intimidated but she knew better than to ignore social hierarchy. She knew better than to poke at the lions unless she wanted her head chopped off.
She knew she wasn’t a lowlife the way they tried to make others feel but she steered clear anyway. Sticks and stones break bones but words were just as painful.
Eyes down, she did her best to evade their scrutiny. If only it was that easy.
One of their bags clipped her on the hip, knocking them both back. She stumbled, catching herself on a set of lockers before she could trip over her feet and topple backward onto the floor. That was the last thing she wanted. Well, maybe the last-last thing she wanted because the real last thing she wanted was to be noticed. Noticed by her.
But here she was, flattened against a set of lockers looking very much the loser she felt in the moment with her staring at her as if she had just disgraced the queen or something. To her, she might as well have considering the girl she ran into was Kang Seulgi, the captain of the volleyball team.
But Seungwan wasn’t afraid of Seulgi. Seulgi wasn’t partial to lashing out or threats or snide remarks. She was easy-going if not a little shy which didn’t reflect itself when she was on the court knocking spikes against their opponents. Seungwan couldn’t say the same for her other teammate, however. And she didn’t mean Kim Yerim who was snickering behind a hand at her, eyes darting between everyone waiting for whatever torment was about to befall Seungwan’s poor unfortunate soul.
She meant Park Sooyoung. Her teammate with the stupid nice hair and the disgustingly charming laugh and the ridiculous toned legs and the overrated beauty that she knew she had and used it as a weapon against any and all who crossed her path.
Sooyoung who she had the not so fortunate privilege of sharing a class with, having to watch as boys flirted with her and girls envied yet swooned over her and teachers let her off easy with the lame excuse of always having to practice.
Sooyoung who sometimes peeked at her papers trying to steal answers and muttered comments under her breath when Seungwan was trying to deliver a presentation making the students around her giggle.
Sooyoung who was a force that never seemed to go away and was always there. Always around. Always taunting her in the far most corners of her mind and wouldn’t get lost.
Sooyoung who Seungwan couldn’t stand. She hated.
“Accident prone much?” Sooyoung snipped.
Seungwan wanted to bite back. She wanted to challenge her, knock her down, make her chest burn in embarrassment and her stomach go weightless but she had nothing. She was thrown off her game at the sudden appearance of Miss Bitchalicious in all her wonderfully fitted practice uniform glory. And she never did well with multiple people giving her attention all at once.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
Sooyoung rolled her eyes and ushered Seulgi along asking her in the sweetest of voices if she was okay. Of course, Seulgi was okay. She wasn’t the one who got bulldozed by a gym bag the size of a semi-truck. Not that anyone noticed. Not that anyone cared. Not that Sooyoung cared.
Seungwan straightened herself out and stormed down the hallway wondering why she even cared in the first place.
-/-/-/-
Same time as the previous day, and at the same time as the next, Seungwan took her place in the booth. Except she must’ve woken up on the wrong side of the bed today because every single secret—
”I can put my entire fist in my mouth.”
“I wet the bed again last night but I can’t tell my mom or she’ll make me wear pull-ups again.”
“I cheated on my physics test?”
“My best friend is a moth named Fred.”
—was driving her insane. She had half a mind to go to Joohyun and tell her that they should take down the booth. That it wasn’t working the way they planned and the council members who took time out of their day to sit and listen to the woes of the student body were just sounding boards for weirdos to get their weird crap off their chest.
Except she knew what Joohyun would say. Something wise like, ”Just because it doesn’t mean anything to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean anything to them.” And that was why she was the president and Seungwan was her second.
“I hate her.”
Seungwan started back to attention, her fuming cut off short when she recognized the voice from the previous day. The girl was back and she was flustered.
“Like, I seriously hate her.”
“Who?”
“My crush! Keep up, dingus.”
Dingus? Seungwan shook her head, letting it go.
“Who does she think she is?” The girl seethed. Seungwan imagined steam coming out of her ears. ”Why can’t she stay in her own lane? Why does she have to cross mine?” She huffed before rushing to tack on, “and don’t say it’s because we both go to the same school. I know that but it’s hard!”
Seungwan smiled. Her interest was piqued, and despite rules about making too much conversation with the Secreteers (name work in progress), she couldn’t help but inquire more. “What happened?”
“She assaulted me! With her eyes.”
“Her eyes?” she deadpanned. High school students were so dramatic. She would know. She was one though she liked to think she had a little more sense and control than the average teen.
“She has pretty eyes,” the girl muttered. “Pretty eyes for daggers, I guess. And she just goes around stabbing me with them. How am I supposed to cope with that? I’m already suffering enough from liking a”—she audibly shuddered—“nerd. Now she thinks she can just look at me whenever and however she wants.”
Seungwan bit the inside of her lip to keep from laughing. Honestly, this had to be one of the funniest things she heard all day. She was grateful. Listening to this girl was parting the gray clouds that had been following her around. Maybe she wouldn’t propose getting rid of the booth anytime soon if it meant quality content like this coming to her now and again.
“Maybe that’s how she looks.”
“Are you calling her ugly?”
“No, I—”
“She’s not ugly. I don’t like ugly people.”
Seungwan rubbed her fingers into her temples. She didn’t know many people who swung from decently complementary to devastatingly shallow in one breath without batting a lash. The popular ones were a different breed. Perhaps that was why she stayed off their path. Because one moment she would be interesting to them—the smart girl who could help them with their grades—while the next moment she would be a water bug easily squashed beneath their feet. Finicky little shits. The lot of them.
“I wish she would evaporate.”
Seungwan couldn’t hold back her snort. It was all very elementary, she thought. But she could sympathize. Love made people silly.
“I’m serious,” the girl pressed, off-put by the blatant show of amusement. “It would be easier.”
She sobered quickly and crossed her legs in the chair. “Easier than telling her?”
“Are you crazy! I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I—Because I can’t. We don’t even talk.”
Seungwan’s eyebrows lifted. Interesting. She should’ve expected that. Nerds didn’t fare well the land of popularity. It was a wonder how this second rate student-zen even pinged the girl’s radar.
“I know what you’re thinking. How can I like someone that I don’t even talk to?” She sucked her teeth in annoyance. Seungwan could practically hear her rolling her eyes. “It’s possible. Not like love at first sight but like—” she groaned in frustration. “Do you understand?”
“I think so.” She could try to at least. Admiring someone from afar was a thing and Seungwan was guilty of it herself once or twice.
“I wish I could talk to her.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I thought you weren’t allowed to give advice,” she spat back. Seungwan knew her eyes must’ve been narrowed, scrutinizing her.
“It’s just a question.”
“Don’t ask questions.”
“Okay. No questions.”
A second of silence ticked by. “I’m done talking. Is my time up yet?”
Seungwan looked down at her stopwatch. She hadn’t even started it. “Yes.”
“Great.”
And just like that, she was gone.
-/-/-/-
Walking through the gym, Seungwan inspected the posters and signs being put up. Pep rallies were stressful and she was in charge of making sure they panned out perfectly.
Clipboard in hand, she checked off her list as she observed, occasionally offering a line of advice to those working to add the finishing touches.
“Be careful,” she shouted to two members up on ladders who were hanging a banner over the doors.
They offered her a thumbs up and she kept on, scaling up the bleachers to get a better look at the setup. She was so engrossed in her duties that she missed her perched on one of the seats. Normally Sooyoung wasn’t so easy to miss. She was so...shiny for lack of better words. Always put together, radiant, loud even when she wasn’t opening her mouth.
Seungwan always noticed her even if she didn’t want to. It was like she was a piece of metal and Seungwan’s eyes were magnets forever drawn to her dumb (lovely) face.
So she was completely blindsided when she heard someone rudely ask—
“What are you doing here?”
Seungwan nearly lost her balance on the step she stood on. Her life flashed before her eyes at the prospect of her tumbling down the bleachers and face planting into the court. That might have been better than coming face to face with Sooyoung who she turned around to find straddling one of the seats.
Her backpack was open and she had a textbook between her legs along with a notebook. The gym was an odd place to be doing school work but to each their own.
“Working,” she offered.
“Oh, yeah, you’re in Student Council.”
“Vice President.” She wasn’t just in it she was the backbone of it.
“As expected.”
Seungwan narrowed her eyes, glancing around in search of the captain or even the other brat Yerim who fueled Sooyoung’s fires. Neither were anywhere to be found and Seungwan was suddenly extremely nervous.
“Did you study for the history test?”
Seungwan’s eyebrow cocked. Was Sooyoung really asking her about...class? Not like they had much else to talk about but that was the thing. They didn’t talk. They didn’t speak. Despite being in the same class for a couple of years now, they avoided each other. Sooyoung was popular and gorgeous and Seungwan was Seungwan. Their circles never overlapped and their interests, she was sure, were polar opposites of one another.
She couldn’t understand why now of all the times they had encountered one another that Sooyoung would be asking a harmless question about a test. But maybe it wasn’t harmless. Maybe this was a prank. Maybe Yerim was going to come around the corner and throw water balloons filled with Jell-O at her while Seulgi filmed it all on her phone and they would post it online so everyone would laugh at her.
That was it. That had to be it.
She offered a shrug in answer.
“Right. I bet you never have to study for anything.”
If that was meant as a compliment, it completely missed the mark. “What makes you think that?”
“Don’t act so modest.” Sooyoung laughed that haughty, warm, light sound of a laugh. “Everyone knows you’re like the top in the class.”
“No, I’m not.” Joohyun was. Well, they shared the position, alternating back and forth between who was one and two. Right now it was Joohyun and Seungwan was okay with that. What she wasn’t okay with was the way Sooyoung actually looked offended by her answer.
“Oh.” Eyes cut her up and down.
“Yeah, ‘oh’.” She bristled, irritation rising up in her quickly. “Don’t act like you know me.”
She inspected her nails cooly. The emerald was a good color on her. “Acting isn’t really my thing.”
“You’re doing a good job of it now,” she spat. Sooyoung’s brow furrowed and Seungwan scoffed at her audacity to pretend she didn’t understand. “As if you care about the history test or me.”
“It was only a question,” she bit back. There she was. There was the snarky Sooyoung she knew. “Is that a crime? God, it’s not that deep, Seungwan.”
The drop of her name caught her off guard and the retort she had was lost in her throat. It was stupid to think Sooyoung didn’t know her name. They knew who each other were. Had since forever ago. She knew Sooyoung’s name so it shouldn’t be a surprise she knew hers but there was something weird about hearing her say it. Like they were familiar with one another. Like she’d been practicing the shape of it and how it would fill her mouth.
Seungwan’s grip on her clipboard tightened, trying to keep herself from combusting. She didn’t know why she felt like that. Probably because Sooyoung was a jerk who had never been nice to her and now she had the nerve to call her by name like they were friends.
“I have to finish setting up.”
Sooyoung shrugged. “Whatever. Not like I care.”
Turning her back, she walked down the steps, damning Park Sooyoung to the ends of the earth.
-/-/-/-
“We talked.”
A third time. Wow. If they were going to get regular customers at the booth, she might need to up the fee.
“You did?”
“It was really quick but yeah.” She was all too excited about this brief encounter.
Young love. Seungwan might’ve been a little jealous. The last time she had something this thrilling happen in her own life was in elementary school and the kid who ate glue kept putting candy into her cubby with slips of paper that only had smiley faces on them. She was flattered by his show of interest but Seungwan was a pudgy, awkward kid back then.
Not that she changed much. The pudge was gone but she considered herself fairly awkward. It was no wonder she got poked fun at a lot. She was small despite being the tallest back in elementary school. She was loud, a curse of the vocal cords that she couldn’t control. She had this thing where she never gave up on something, which would be a great quality, but it came at a price sometimes. Like making her too smart for her own good which tossed her to the bottom of the social hierarchy totem pole.
So if she wasn’t going to get to be the protagonist in her own high school romance, she guessed living vicariously through the anonymous students was the next best thing.
“What did you talk about?”
“Class.”
“That’s it?”
“She’s not that easy to talk to. Nerds are weird.”
Seungwan placed a hand on her chest in offense. They weren’t all weird. Were they? She didn’t think she was weird but no one thought of themselves as weird. She probably was weird.
“What’s so weird about them?”
“For starters, they actually like studying.” She made a gagging noise. “Only nerds and psychopaths like studying.”
“What if she’s a psychopath?”
“She’s not. She couldn’t be.”
“Couldn’t?” An interesting choice of words. It hinted that the girl paid a lot more attention to her crush than she let on.
“She’s too nice for that. Well, she’s nice when she’s not being a jerk to me.”
“I thought you didn’t talk.”
“We didn’t. We don’t. But we did and she was a jerk!”
She muttered something under her breath that Seungwan couldn’t quite catch. The words, “rude” and “little shit” was all she gathered.
“Listen.” Seungwan was listening. “I had the entire thing planned out. I would ask about class then ask if she would help me with homework. Not that I don’t get the homework because I do but tactics matter.”
“They do.” To capture the one you wanted you had to go in with a plan. Not like Seungwan knew anything about that but that’s what the romance novels and the teen flicks showed.
“It didn't work,” she deadpanned. “She blew me off.”
“What went wrong?”
“I don’t know! I even complimented her. I thought nerds liked it when you said nice things about their brain.”
“Brains isn’t all they have.” As much as she liked getting rewarded for her intellect it got old. She wasn’t just the Vice President of Student Council. She wasn’t just number two in the class. She wasn’t just the one who always landed some of the best marks on assignments and tests. There was more to her. There was always more to people than you knew at first glance.
“There you go giving advice again,” the girl pointed out.
“You’re right. Sorry. Continue.”
“I mean what else is there?” She seemed genuinely perplexed by the situation. “I can’t tell her she’s pretty. That’s second date material. I’m not even at the sit-with-me-at-lunch base yet.”
Seungwan grinned. That was sort of cute. Lunch seating was a big deal. One reason why she picked a table with little to no one at it or sought out fellow student council members.
“Why don’t you ask her to sit with you?”
The girl snorted.
“Okay. Then start small. Why don’t you get to know her?”
“Why don’t you get to know her,” she mocked. Seungwan was too taken aback to be offended and she was too nice to be rude back especially with the sad sigh she heard. “What if she doesn’t want to get to know me?”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
“If you knew me, you’d know.”
Seungwan tilted her head in interest. So she wasn’t as stuck up as she let on. There was insecurity in there.
“Just be yourself,” Seungwan offered.
“That’s the problem.”
“You’re the problem?”
“Her not realizing what a catch I am is the first problem,” she snapped back. “How am I supposed to be myself when she doesn’t even really see me anyway?”
Tough one. Seungwan swerved. “The booth is only to tell your secrets we cannot offer advice.”
“Wow. Hypocrite.”
She wished the girl could see her apologetic smile. She wished she could be more help but she had already overstepped her boundaries and it felt wrong to interfere in a situation she didn’t fully know.
Just as she was about to offer her condolences, her stopwatch beeped. She was sad that seven minutes was up. The more she spent time with this girl the more curious she was about the dilemma and the people involved. The more she wanted things to work out.
“Time’s up.”
“Yeah, yeah I’m going.” The chair whine as she got up but she didn’t move beyond that. “Do you really think being myself would work? You can answer that since time is up.”
It was a technicality but Seungwan was okay with it. She had been breaking the rules so far anyway.
“How can someone like what they don’t know?”
“Are you sure you’re not the real guidance counselor?”
“Positive.”
-/-/-/-
The week ended with rain.
Exchanging books from her locker, Seungwan grabbed her umbrella out and headed for the exit. Most complained about the rain ruining their weekend but it didn’t matter to Seungwan. She had piles of homework to do and ideas to pitch at the next student council meeting regarding what to do with the next fundraiser.
She hardly had time to give thought to herself, let alone cast to the prick of a human that she saw in the school lobby.
She tried her best to ignore her but someone like Park Sooyoung was hard to ignore. Especially considering she was splayed on the floor with her head propped on her gym bag while she thumbed at her phone.
Any other day, Seungwan would continue on and go home but the sight was odd. It was late. And if she remembered, teams didn’t hold practice on days before the weekend so there was no reason for Sooyoung to still be around. Not like she did night school or anything. Did she?
“It’s not polite to stare,” she spat.
And just like that, any concern or curiosity evaporated.
“Wait, are you leaving?”
“What? Did you think I lived at the school, too?”
Sooyoung grimaced, though it quickly snapped into a glare. “I hope your umbrella breaks.”
She dropped back against her bag and Seungwan started for the door where she stopped. She shouldn’t stop. She should keep going. Go home, have dinner, maybe detox with some brainless drama before getting a jump on school work.
Her gut had opinions of its own and it halted her in place, forcing the next words out of her mouth.
“Why are you still here?”
“Waiting obviously.”
“For your mom?”
She blanched as if Seungwan said the sky was purple. “For the rain to stop, hello! I know I’m not the only one who sees the monsoon coming down outside. I’m not some sort of masochistic looking to catch a cold so I’ll wait.”
That was more words than Seungwan needed but it was an answer.
She peered out the glass. The rain was supposed to last the rest of the evening into the night. If Sooyoung was waiting for it to stop, she would be waiting for hours. And no one, not even punks like Sooyoung, deserved the torture of being stuck in the walls of school longer than necessary.
Damn her conscience. “Where do you live?”
Sooyoung answered without looking up from her phone. Seungwan was half hoping that she said somewhere out of her way. She hoped it was one of those nice parts of town so she could pop a mean joke about how she could just ask her butler to pick her up. She hoped for a lot of things but what she got was surprised to find that she wasn’t very far from where Seungwan lived. With that surprise came empathy and she hated that she was a nice person by nature.
“Do you want to walk to the bus stop together?”
Sooyoung finally looked up. “What?”
“I’m going that way. I have an umbrella.”
The hopeful look on her face melted into scrutiny. “Is this some sort of joke?”
“Why would I be joking?”
“Why would you be offering?”
“Why would—” she gritted her teeth, calming herself down. It worked for a moment until she saw Sooyoung’s shit-eating grin. “Forget it.”
She pushed at the door.
“Wait!” She had never seen Sooyoung move so fast. Not even on the volleyball court when she took a dive to save a ball before it could hit the floor. “I’m coming.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and stuffed her phone away into her pocket. “Don’t pull anything funny.” She warned as she ducked out the door ahead of Seungwan who popped the umbrella open.
It fanned out easily over both of them but it was still a tight fit. Sooyoung had to sacrifice half of her bag to the rain while Seungwan dealt with occasionally bumping into the giantess every now again when their strides didn’t match. Not like they really could. Sooyoung was nearly a head taller than her and she took up a lot more room than she appeared to.
The walk to the bus stop was one of tense silence. Seungwan kept her eyes on the ground, watching as water bounced and sloshed at her feet while Sooyoung stared forward. It was so awkward, Seungwan almost wanted to just give Sooyoung her umbrella and endure the downpour on her own. But the girl had a point. It wasn’t worth the risk of a cold so she sucked it up and powered through.
Reaching the bus stop, they separated now under the cover of an awning. Sooyoung slumped against the far side, taking her phone out to play on again while Seungwan stood alone, waiting with her hands in her pockets. It would be a few minutes until the bus arrived which meant a few minutes stuck with Sooyoung that would turn into a couple more minutes stuck with Sooyoung on the bus that would turn into nearly thirty stuck with Sooyoung as they walked home.
Great.
She really thought this through.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” The voice was so soft it was nearly missed. Seungwan looked back to find Sooyoung looking at her with hesitant eyes. It was a weird look on her. It did something in Seungwan’s chest. “About not having to study.”
This old argument? She would’ve thought Sooyoung forgot about they’d exchange in the gym. Odd of her to bring it up again. “We all have to work hard.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Jesus fu—” she took in a breath and let it out in a huff. “Fine. I don’t know you. There. I admit it. Happy? Now, are you going to let me apologize or what?”
“Oh. That’s what you were trying to do?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“Coming from you, yes.”
“You act like I’m the spawn of Satan or something.”
“You’re not?”
“Yeah, I’m no Little Miss Sunshine and we’ve exchanged like two nice words ever but at least I admitted I was wrong about you. What’s your excuse?”
Ouch.
Brakes squeaked as the bus rolled up to a stop. Seungwan opened her umbrella for them but Sooyoung clamored passed her inside. She ducked in after, finding her standing toward the back. When their eyes met, Sooyoung looked away, turning her back to shut her out.
Seungwan frowned. She deserved that. Maybe she was a little harsh. Despite everything, Sooyoung wasn’t terrible. She was a lot of other things that she wondered if anyone else noticed. Like her kindness. It was rude of her not to hear her apology no matter how awful it was. Everyone should be allowed to right their wrongs even if they were pompous, popular, volleyball player, bimbos who thought they were better than everyone else but secretly had a heart of gold.
Wait. What? No!
Sooyoung was a jerk and she deserved every lash she got.
At their stop, Seungwan got off. She stood on the sidewalk, umbrella open and waiting. When Sooyoung appeared, she begrudgingly held her arm out, catching her beneath the umbrella and fell into step at her side.
The awkwardness was back with tension thicker than before. Seungwan’s knuckles were white from how tightly she clenched the umbrella handle. There was a little devil on her shoulder telling her to rip it away. But the longer they walked, the less upset Seungwan felt allowing guilt to filter into its place.
This was stupid. She knew better. Sooyoung was right.
Swallowing her pride, she took in a breath. “Apology accepted.”
Sooyoung scoffed. “Gee, thanks.”
“I’m sorry, too. Truce?”
Sooyoung looked down at her hand but didn’t take it. Letting it drop, Seungwan buried it back in her pocket and let the rest of the walk carry on in silence.
It wasn’t long before Sooyoung turned and started toward an apartment building. It was only a block or two away from where Seungwan lived and she wondered why she never noticed.
She walked her all the way up to the entrance where an overhand shielded them from the rain. They both shifted awkwardly, neither one knowing what to do. A man stepped out of the door, walking between them.
“I’m going inside now,” said Sooyoung. “Thanks.”
Seungwan wasn’t sure why that made her feel so weird. It wasn’t like she didn’t appreciate it or liked hearing it but that’s just not who they were. Yet.
“Couldn’t let you catch a cold, right?” she joked.
Sooyoung rolled her eyes. “Now we have a truce.”
She slipped inside letting the door close with a wet smack.
Seungwan took to the sidewalk wondering why that even made her smile.