Chapter Text
The thing about crowded places and Chou Tzuyu is that those two things don’t mix very well together. There was a time when Tzuyu wondered if parties could be her thing, but survey says it seems unlikely.
People are bumping into her wings and leaving splotchy stains of sweat and cheap beer on her white dress. It’s not even crowded in an exciting way. It’s just sticky and hot and gross and all Tzuyu wants to do at this point is go back home and sleep. Her friends are next to her, Dahyun holding on to her arm and Chaeyoung guiding them into the kitchen for drinks.
October is the month for high school Halloween parties, and unfortunately for Tzuyu, her friends are committed to attending every single one they can. Despite her reluctance, she’s at the first Halloween party of the year dressed as an angel, wings and all. Dahyun says it’ll loosen them up and give them fun memories of freshman year. Chaeyoung says that it’s a surefire way to hook up with upperclassmen boys. Tzuyu is interested in none of those things.
Dahyun disappears a few steps into the kitchen, probably snatched away by one of her many other friends. She turns to Chaeyoung but she can see the hungry way her friend is eyeing the boys in the next room. Chaeyoung kisses her on the cheek and tells her to have fun before running off to meet some boy from art class on the dance floor and Tzuyu isn’t interested enough in having sweaty bodies rub up against her to follow behind. Plus, the “have fun” is a dismissal. Dismissals are stupid.
Parties are stupid.
It really shouldn’t surprise her that parties are stupid, especially ones that aren’t being run by responsible adults, but it kind of does. She’s watched a lot of television dramas in her life to have an inkling of what to expect, but it’s nothing like that. There’s no neon lights and tall white men doing keg stands. There’s not even a keg. There’s a sad little punch bowl in the middle of the kitchen table and two plastic jugs of off-brand Russian vodka. She'd much prefer a classy party run by some rich housewife, the kind in her favorite dramas, the ones that feature shrimp cocktails and insurance scamming murder plots.
Tzuyu rubs her finger over the rim of her red solo cup.
Parties aren’t really her thing, after all. She wishes she were alone.
She spots a door off to the side and she bounces her way through way too many tipsy bodies to get to it. Slipping out of the house feels like ripping off a bandaid. There’s fresh air free from the scent of dirty locker room and spilt vodka. The backyard is surprisingly empty and incredibly dark, although the light from the moon reflects a beautiful glow on the surface of the pool. She walks up to it, slipping off her shoes on the way over.
The backyard is a little chilly but not enough to be uncomfortable. Tzuyu sits down at the edge of the pool and dips her feet in. The water is nice. Although there’s music blasting from the house, the bass is muted and the words are muffled. Night noises fill the air - the soft chirping of a grasshopper, a wind chime whistling from a tree, bubbling of the timed water filter.
She prefers the tranquility of the night over the booming of the party. Tzuyu doesn’t care enough to be bothered by many things, but she hates the intrusion noise brings to the pretty sounds of the world. In a world as noisy as this one, she feels protective, almost selfishly possessive, over those rare moments of quiet.
It calms the small spouts of anxiety that the party was turning in Tzuyu.
“Don’t be like that, Nayeon.” She suddenly hears a frustrated voice call out. “You need to relax.”
Tzuyu looks up from the surface of the pool to see two figures walking along the other end of the pool. She frowns at their loud intrusion but stays in place.
One of the figures whips around. “Never tell a girl to relax! Are you kidding me? Are you stupid or what?”
The moonlight illuminates the figures a little better from the position they’re now in. Tzuyu can tell that the girl called “Nayeon” is dressed in something like a dragon hoodie, with a horned tail and hood sticking out of the ends. The other girl is dressed as a knight, wearing a shirt that looks like linked metal with dangling chains over the shoulders.
Tzuyu looks away, back at the moon reflecting on the surface of the water, immediately disinterested in the two figures. The costumes are cute, but the dragon, knight, and princess trope is one of her least favorites ones. Who wants to be that stupid girl sitting around, waiting for a knight in shining armour?
“Nayeon, you’re seriously too drunk to go back in right now. You need to stop drinking. I’ll drive you home.” The knight says.
The dragon clearly doesn’t like that. “Fuck youuu, buddy! You can’t tell me what to do!”
This is only slightly amusing for Tzuyu.
The knight steps forward to grab the dragon’s arm, but the dragon is faster. She steps aside and shoves the knight to the side, causing her to stumble and fall into the pool. The dragon simply harrumphs, sticks her tongue out at the fallen knight, and storms back inside to the party.
Tzuyu wonders if she should help. What’s proper party etiquette for a drive-by pool shoving?
The knight surfaces before any choice needs to be made, swimming towards Tzuyu, blindly reaching out towards the edges of the pool until her hands grab at the space next to Tzuyu. She pulls herself up, getting her arms up to her elbows on the dry ground.
Heavy breathing and messy hair aside, Tzuyu thinks the girl is kind of pretty. Objectively. She’s clearly an older student, maybe a junior or a senior. Surprisingly, the girl looks annoyed but not angry at the pool pushing.
“Uh, you okay?” Tzuyu asks, more because it seems like the thing to say in this sort of situation than from any real concern.
“Yeah, yeah.” The knight mutters, sputtering and shivering in the water. “Thanks for asking.”
Tzuyu hates talking, but she says something anyways. “I thought dragons were supposed to kill knights with fire.”
“Well, that dragon decided pushing people into pools was the next best thing.” The knight groans. “What did I do in my past life to deserve this?”
The knight pushes her wet hair back, the blonde hair running through her fingers and revealing the black roots underneath. She looks up at Tzuyu, and with the moon hitting her face and shining off both the glistening drops of water on her face and the metal links on her shirt, Tzuyu has to admit she looks attractive. Subjectively.
“The crazy dragon lady’s my ex. She’s still one of my best friends, though.” The knight explains. “She’s a little fiesty when she’s drunk.”
Tzuyu nods in understanding, although she doesn’t really get it. Why be friends with an ex? Exes have so many more motives for murder. Mix that with someone with a predisposition for being “a little fiesty” and Tzuyu thinks that maybe it’s not the dragon lady who’s the crazy one.
“Hey, are you an angel?” The knight suddenly asks.
Tzuyu raises an eyebrow. “...Are you hitting on me?”
“No! Wait, I’m, I -” The girl burns red. “You’re fucking with me. Ha ha. I get it. Obviously I meant your costume.”
“...Yeah. I’m... matching with my friend. She’s the devil.” She says.
“Where’s your friend, then?”
Tzuyu scoffs. “Probably off sinning, somewhere.”
“I thought I saw a little red horny freshman chasing around some of the junior boys. By horny, I mean, she had horns on her head.” The knight said with a laugh. “Why are you not with her?”
“Not really my thing.” Tzuyu says, staring off into the sky.
There’s a smirk on the knight’s face. “The chasing around or the boys?”
“...Both.” Tzuyu says.
The silence between them is comfortable, with Tzuyu sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet in the water and the knight leaning against the edge of the pool with her body floating in the water.
The knight speaks up. “You’re not really the talkative type, are you?” It's more of an observation.
Tzuyu shrugs.
“Mind if I stick around?”
Tzuyu shrugs again. She really wouldn’t mind.
The knight pulls herself out of the water, twisting around so that she’s sitting next to Tzuyu. Tzuyu figures she should feel more at unease with this soaking wet stranger sitting so close to her, but it’s actually not the worst thing that’s ever happened.
“So, what’s your name, Angel?” The knight asks.
Tzuyu is about to respond when the back door opens again and a girl stumbles out. She’s dressed in an orange fish costume and holding a very empty red solo cup.
“Oh, that’s so cute!” The girl says, words slurred.
“Is she talking to us?” The knight whispers under her breath at Tzuyu.
The drunk girl points directly at them. “You two! You’re Romeo and Juliet! That Leonardo DiCaprio movie! I love couple costumes. Ohmygooosh can I be a fish in the aquarium thingie from that scene?”
In retrospect, Tzuyu should’ve seen this coming. If a girl dressed as Nemo stumbles towards you and points out costumes that coincidentally remind her of the fish tank scene in Romeo and Juliet, chances are, the drunk girl is going to try and recreate it. It’s hard to think that much ahead though so before she can get a word in otherwise, the girl flops forward, diving between Tzuyu and the knight.
It’s so surprising and so incredibly awkward that Tzuyu can’t do anything but stare as the girl lays there, squished between herself and the knight. And that’s her Friday night, now. A drunk asshole dressed as a fish, head almost kissing the surface of the pool’s water, arms splayed across her lap with her legs wiggling. This is great.
Tzuyu and the knight look down at the girl between them before looking up and at each other, both wide eyed with shock.
The knight opens her mouth to speak. “Did that just -”
“Yeah, I don’t -” Tzuyu has no idea how to respond.
“I’ll… I’ll go take her inside and put her down on the sofa or something.” The knight says, pulling the fish girl up with her. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere!”
When Chaeyoung runs out a second after the knight goes inside with the drunk girl, yelling that she ordered an Uber and that it was outside, Tzuyu gets up from the pool and follows behind. She stops walking, just for a second, at the edge of the pool, wondering if the knight would be disappointed if she came back to see one less angel at the party. Chaeyoung grabs her arm and pulls her away.
♞♘
The next day at school, Dahyun and Chaeyoung are blabbing about the party to their friend Mina during lunch. The cafeteria is bustling with more students than usual. Due to the rainy weather, a lot of the seniors, who have permission to eat outside of the school, chose to eat inside. Tzuyu quietly listens to Chaeyoung talk about her failed attempts at seducing some guy she and Mina know from Algebra.
As interesting as hearing her friends go gaga over some greasy boy is, Tzuyu finds her attention drifting to anything and everything else. Her eyes shifts over to a group of seniors that are lingering by the end of the cafeteria. She sees blonde hair with black roots in the middle of the group and her mind blinks back to the pool and the knight. The tall senior suddenly turns around and, to Tzuyu’s horror, their eyes lock.
“Hey! Juliet!”
Tzuyu can feel her face flushing red with embarrassment when the senior waves to her from across the cafeteria.
She quickly breaks eye contact and stares down at her lunch, but it’s too late. Her friends are staring at her. She refuses to look up from her plate but knows they are. She can practically feel Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Mina burning holes into her skin with their curious eyes. She wonders if she could slink under the table or hide under her books forever.
“Hey, Juliet.” Tzuyu looks up in surprise to see the senior student taking a seat in front of her, next to a shocked Mina. “You left yesterday!”
Tzuyu pokes at her food with her fork. “Uber came.”
“Oh, okay. I found out the fish girl’s name, by the way.” She says. “She’s a junior named Sana.”
“I know Sana.” Mina says. “She’s my friend. She can be… excitable.”
“Your friend is definitely something.” The senior says. “Nice girl though. Probably shouldn’t drink so much.”
Dahyun laughs. “What happened?”
“Long story short, we were in the backyard by the pool, Juliet was dressed like an angel and I was dressed like a knight, and your friend Sana, who was dressed as Nemo by the way, saw us and said we reminded her of the movie ‘Romeo + Juliet’. So, she decided to recreate the fish tank scene by diving between us.” The senior explains. “I’ve got to say, very memorable Halloween party.”
“Sounds like it.” Chaeyoung says, her narrowed eyes rapidly looking between the senior and Tzuyu.
“You know, I never got your name.” The senior says.
“Tzuyu.” She mutters under her breath, loud enough for the girl to hear it.
“Tzuyu. Tzuyu.” The older girl says. “Tzuuuuyu. I like it.”
“...Thanks.” Tzuyu mutters.
“You know, there’s gonna be another costume party this upcoming weekend at 119 Hayan Street. There’s gonna be a costume contest at this one. Maybe we can go as Romeo and Juliet.” She says. “We could win a gift card to Hyo’s Diner, you know.”
Tzuyu doesn’t look up from her food.
“She’ll be there.” Chaeyoung says instead. “Here, give me your phone and I’ll put in her number.”
The broccoli and rice in front of Tzuyu is mashed into one huge, gross blob. She doesn’t protest but also doesn’t acknowledge Chaeyoung putting her number into the girl’s phone. As soon as the exchange is done, the girl tries to catch her attention but she refuses to look away from her food.
"Hey, so I'll give you a call sometime, okay?" After an awkward few moments, the girl turns to leave.
“Wait -” Tzuyu calls out before she can stop herself. She can feel her face burning even brighter. “You didn’t tell me yours.”
“Mine?” She asks.
Tzuyu finally looks up at the senior. The older girl has a playful grin on her face. She looks different in the overtly bright light of the cafeteria compared to the dim, gentle glow of the moon. The annoying part is that she still looks just as freaking attractive. Tzuyu wants to kick something. Kicking someone right now would probably feel super good. She sort of understands why the dragon lady pushed her into the pool.
Dahyun shoves her elbow into Tzuyu’s side to knock her out of her thoughts and back into the conversation.
“Your name.” Tzuyu says.
Her knight from last night smiles softly at her and it makes Tzuyu’s stomach feel funny. “Yoo Jeongyeon. Nice to officially meet you, Tzuyu.”
Her name is nice. Tzuyu wants to say it out loud, hear how it feels on her tongue, but there’s people around her and that would be totally embarrassing. Jeongyeon smiles a final time at Tzuyu before heading back towards her own friends. Tzuyu wishes she didn’t leave, mostly because she knows that she’s in for an interrogation from her friends.
It’s bad enough that Mina’s been smirking and Dahyun’s been wiggling her eyebrows at her this entire time.
“So, does this mean you’re into girls now?” Chaeyoung immediately probes, eager to get her claws into the newest development. “And is anyone else shocked that Tzuyu is capable of human emotion? I totally saw her blush. That was sooo cute Tzu-tzu, and oh my God, this is totally your first crush, isn't it? I - Ah! Tzu that hurt!”
Kicking someone definitely did feel super good.
♞♘
Tzuyu sets her phone to the highest volume and awkwardly places it on her nightstand. It seems a bit too far to easily reach so she grabs it and places it under her pillow. But then that could muffle the sound, so she grabs it again and places it in the middle of the bed. That… that makes even less sense. She’s never been this stressed about where to put her phone before.
Her text tone goes off in the middle of her trying to shove her phone in the crack between her bed and wall. Her heart leaps in her chest.
Unlocking her phone is the biggest letdown of her life.
Chaeyoung: Did ur romeo text yet?
Chaeyoung: when’s the wedding ;)
Chaeyoung: Romeo, romeo, where art thou romeo??
She groans.
Somehow, in the course of one day, she’s become the very thing she’s always hated - some stupid girl sitting around, waiting for her knight in shining armour.
She’s only a minute into her self-loathing kick when her phone rings.
Tzuyu sighs before picking up the call, mentally preparing herself for another onslaught of Chaeyoung’s relentless teasing. “What do you want?”
“Woah, did I call at the wrong time?” Jeongyeon’s voice calls out from the other end of the line.
“I - I thought you were Chaeyoung.” Tzuyu mumbles.
“Nope, it’s just me.” Jeongyeon says with a laugh. “Hope I didn’t disappoint.”
How do phone conversations usually go? Tzuyu’s more used to being quietly irritated and giving one word answers while Chaeyoung or Dahyun scream about one thing or another into her ear. She's probably supposed to say something by now.
“You know, I had fun at the party, just sitting at the pool with you.” Jeongyeon says after a moment of silence. “Kind of the highlight of my week.”
Tzuyu’s pretty sure her face can’t possibly get any redder.
“...It was okay.” Tzuyu says before twitching at her own words. “Okay as in... it was nice.”
“Cool.” Jeongyeon says. “And it’s a pretty cool coincidence that our completely different costumes kinda worked together, huh?”
“Yeah…” Tzuyu murmurs.
“So, listen.” Jeongyeon sounds on edge. “I was hoping that maybe tomorrow, after school, you and I could go somewhere and get something to eat or whatever. I know this really cute dumpling place down by the river. They sell bubble tea, too! You’d love it there, I think. My treat.”
That’s a cue for Tzuyu to respond but she momentarily forgets how to speak. She was wrong about before. Her face does get redder.
Jeongyeon nervously fills the silence with more words. “I was also thinking that we could probably walk by the river after we eat or whatever. I gathered you’re not really much of a talker and it might not seem like it but I’m actually not that much of one too, so we could just kind of walk down by the water and look at the moon and maybe feed some ducks or something. We could obviously talk too but I wouldn’t force you to or anything. I’m totally fine with spending a quiet afternoon with you. But like, we don’t have to, if you’re busy or something. I just thought I’d ask -”
“I - yeah. That sounds… that sounds really nice.” Tzuyu finds her words somewhere during Jeongyeon’s rambling. “I’d really like to.”
“Great!” Jeongyeon’s confidence returns to her with Tzuyu’s affirmative response. “Awesome. Great. I’ll meet you by the west wing entrance after 8th period, okay?”
“Okay.” Tzuyu says.
“Tomorrow, don’t forget, okay?” Jeongyeon says, teasing the younger girl. “Don’t fake your death or anything. I’m fresh out of poison.”
Tzuyu cracks a smile. “...Okay, Romeo.”
“Goodnight! Goodnight! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow!” Jeongyeon dramatically acts out in the worst accent Tzuyu’s ever heard. Tzuyu laughs anyways.
By the time they hang up the call, it’s already past Tzuyu’s regular bedtime. She feels a whole lot of strange emotions but she ties herself together while she brushes her teeth and washes her face. When she finally crawls onto her bed and gets ready to sleep, her eyes are wide open. There’s something bubbling inside of her chest and she knows she has to do something. She wants to do something. It’s going to burst inside of her and tear her up if she doesn’t. So she stops fighting it.
She turns around and squeals, honest to God squeals into her pillow, her feet kicking into her mattress and a stupid giggle erupting from her mouth.
It’s so embarrassing that as soon as it ends, she turns back around completely stone-faced, trying to pretend that what she just did never happened. Chaeyoung can never find out about this. She tries to shake off the feeling but she still feels that same bubble of excitement in her chest. She groans. Wasn’t squealing into her pillow enough?
With a frustrated groan, she closes her eyes and tries to stop her mind from wandering back to Jeongyeon. Focuses on thoughts of school and papers. On thoughts of cute dogs. That new television series she’s been thinking about watching. About her future plans to travel the world. To go to Norway one day, stand on the highest mountain she can, see the Northern Lights. The mountain would be almost silent, only the sounds of the wind and the snow falling, the beautiful sight of the aurora borealis spread before her and her alone.
She frowns. She doesn’t want to be alone though. She thinks she might want to share the quiet with someone else, for once.
Maybe she needs to just let her mind go, and so she does. She lets her mind go wherever it pleases and she ends up thinking about dumplings and bubble tea by the river, about a knight in shining armour and angel wings, about walking in comfortable silence with someone under the light of the moon. About a warm hand in hers.
Tzuyu bites her lip and swallows back a smile.
She can’t wait for tomorrow.