Archive of Our Own

There were very few things in life that managed to get on Jeno's nerves. Those who knew her would go so far as to call her an angel, with all the patience of a saint. She took things as they came, never getting upset, or irrational, or mad at her band members when they didn't show up on time even though she had more than enough reason to—she was calm. Cool. Zen. 

That is, until it came to Jaemin. 

The girl in question was currently standing right in front of Jeno's locker, armed with the posse of bimbos that followed her wherever she went. (Heejin always said it wasn't fair to call them that, since it was not only sexist but untrue, seeing as almost all of them were honours students. Jeno's defense was that they were blonde.) 

Jeno huffed impatiently, tapping her foot against the floor to try and get Jaemin's attention. It didn't work—she just kept yammering to her sidekicks. And blocking Jeno's access to her own locker. 

“Dude, move, ” Jeno finally hissed, growing increasingly annoyed. “You're standing in front of my locker.”

Jaemin paused in the middle of whatever she was saying, turning around to face Jeno. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the other girl's dramatics. 

“Oh, sorry, Jeno, I didn't see you there,” she said, voice dripping with honey. Jeno wanted her dead. “You should’ve said hi.”

“Why would I do that?” 

“Right, I forgot your vocabulary was limited to nothing but grunts and screeches.” To anyone who couldn’t understand her words, it would’ve made Jaemin look like the picture of respectability. Jeno just snorted in disbelief. “See, now you’re just proving my point.”

“Don’t you have class to get to, blondie?” 

Jaemin flashed her a smile, all teeth. “Aww, you’re worried for me? How sweet.” 

“God—” 

“Just Jaemin’s fine, but thanks.” 

“Look, can you just move?”   

“Why, of course,” said Jaemin, graciously—to put it nicely—stepping away from the locker.  “There we go. Wouldn't want to be late for class, now, would we?”

Jeno didn't say a word, silently unlocking her locker instead and pulling out the books she needed for Classics. She had no interest in wasting any breath on the other girl. She could feel Jaemin watching her, though, and spared a moment sending as many evil thoughts as she could in her direction. 

“My, what large books you have, grandma,” remarked Jaemin, still standing with her arms crossed. One of the blondes—Chaewon—giggled. 

An eye roll was the only response Jeno gave her. She clicked her locker shut, and immediately started walking towards her class in the hopes of leaving Jaemin's earshot as quickly as she could. 

“Don't be too intimidated by the big words!” Jaemin called out as she left, and Jeno finally caved in to the urge to flip her off. 

So yes, Jaemin: the ever-present and only exception to Jeno's normally steadfast patience. It had been forever since their whole shtick started, with Jaemin going out of her way to make scathing remarks and leaving Jeno with no choice but to return them. Tiring, sure, but practically routine at this point. 

She was still seething as she walked into Classics—a whole five minutes early, by the way, despite Jaemin's worries. God, Jeno hated it when she let the other girl get to her head like that. She took her regular seat by the window, tapping her pen against the glass as she waited for the rest of the class to fill in. 

Heejin quirked an eyebrow at her when she came in, slinging her bag onto the table next to Jeno and herself onto the chair soon after. “How long have you been here?”

“A few minutes,” Jeno muttered off-handedly, concentration stolen by the pen in her hands. She'd moved on from tunes to acrobatics, and she ran the risk of having it fly out from her fingers onto some unsuspecting student's head at any moment. 

“Broody,” Heejin commented. She eyed Jeno for another second, before continuing, “Something happen?” 

“Jaemin,” she replied, darkly, no elaboration needed. The sigh it elicited from Heejin was completely unnecessary, though, and Jeno scowled at her for it. 

“Right,” drawled Heejin, dragging out the last syllable. “Jaemin. Of course. How dumb of me to think otherwise.”

That only served to make Jeno's scowl deepen. See, it was like this: Jeno loved Heejin. She loved her very, very much and cared for her opinion (in most cases), and the sentiment was returned. Heejin also, however, found Jeno's rivalry with Jaemin to be—how did one put it delicately—quite stupid. 

“She’s just so infuriating,” Jeno all but growled, finally letting go of the pen and flopping herself headfirst onto the desk. “It’s like she goes out of her way to think of the most obnoxious thing she can say in any situation.” 

“And you don’t?” 

Jeno glared at her. “That’s different. She always starts it.” 

“She's never like this with anyone else,” Heejin pointed out. “In all the few times I've talked to her, she's been nothing but sweet.”

“Yeah, well, I guess she has some sort of special beef with me," she muttered. Wasn't that the half of it. 

“It's just so weird,” Heejin continued, “she's leader of the trans support group, too, so if anything, that should give her more reason to be nice to you.”

“God, don't remind me. Every meeting is like walking into a pit full of vipers. My only solace is Mark.” 

“Weren't you guys friends at one point, though? You and Jaemin, I mean.”

“Christ, detective, what's with the interrogation?”

Heejin looked at her, long and hard. Jeno pretended like she didn't notice. “You never get this irritated when it's anyone else.”

“Trust me, I know. Jaemin is some sort of freakish anomaly designed to annoy every earth sign in her near vicinity.”

“Why do you let her get under your skin so much?” 

“I don’t! She forces herself under it!” 

Heejin made a weird sort of sound, and Jeno peeked up from where she was glued to the table to realise that her best friend was laughing at her. 

“Hey!” she said, indignantly. 

“Sorry, sorry,” replied Heejin, but she was still holding back giggles. Jeno flicked an eraser at her. “It’s just so funny seeing you get annoyed like this.” 

Jeno sighed, as theatrically as she could. “You find my pain amusing?”

“Yes. Do a dance for me, pretty girl.” 

“Blatant objectification of women,” Jeno muttered, but she was smiling. Heejin was right; there was no reason to let Jaemin get on her nerves. And neither was there any point in wasting any more time thinking about her. 

“Oh, also,” Heejin added, “we’re practicing at my house today.” 

“What? What happened to Mark’s place?” 

“His mom had to go out for some last-minute thing and she said she doesn’t trust us alone,” she rolled her eyes, “Something about fires. I’m just glad I don’t have to use his brother’s shitty old drum set again.” 

Jeno thought about the last time they’d been at Mark’s without supervision—pictures of smoke, inedible cookies, and a particularly unhappy dog floated through her mind. She shuddered and closed the window on that memory immediately. “Yeah, that checks out.”  

“Do you wanna walk home with me or are you going to come over from yours?” 

“I need to get my guitar,” Jeno reminded her. “I’ll be over by 5:00.” 

“How do I survive with you for that long,” she groaned, making grabby hands at Jeno. 

“It’s barely half an hour, you’ll be fine,” Jeno laughed. She tried batting Heejin away from her, but she wouldn’t relent. 

Heejin pouted. “Too long.” 

“Some day, I’m going to go out of my way to avoid talking to you for twenty-four hours just to teach you a lesson.” 

“You wouldn’t!”

“Try me, Cancer moon,” 

“You couldn’t.” 

“I couldn’t,” Jeno admitted with a sigh. Heejin may have the Cancer placement but between the two of them, Jeno was far softer than she let on. 

Before Heejin could gloat in response, their teacher walked into the room, a set of heavy papers in his hand and a heavier look on his face. Jeno suppressed a groan. She hadn’t expected to get their last assignment back so quickly; she thought she’d have more time to prepare for the disappointment.

Heejin nudged her in a show of what she thought was solidarity for hey, I did terrible too. If they went down, at least they went down together. 

Something about Jeno that wasn’t quite as obvious as her other traits was her love for unnecessary stationery—her life was governed by the dozens of coloured sticky-notes she’d stuck up all around the house, full of reminders and tasks and hastily scribbled music notes. Her mom’s notes mixed in with her own, practically indistinguishable other than their varying levels of unintelligibility. To anyone else, it’d look like a disorganised mess, but to her it looked like home.  

Pink, neon: hang up laundry. It barely took Jeno any time to get it done, seeing as her mom had only done one load that morning. Small victories. She nabbed a Pop-tart from the kitchen on her way out—less small, but still victorious. 

Green, neon: pills. She knew the purple Estrace lettering like the back of her hand by then; she didn’t even need the Post-it to remind her, but her mother didn’t like taking chances. It’d only been two months since she’d started on the hormones, and she could say without hesitation that it had been the two happiest months of her life. Trans girl joy! 

Yellow, pastel: feed Fish. Luckily for Jeno, Fish had made himself suitably visible right down by the stairs, stretched out comfortably on his little blanket. Jeno grinned, grabbing the tin of cat food placed on the counter underneath the Post-it. Fish was quite possibly the oddest cat she’d ever met, in the sense that he was scared of fish—which, of course, meant that they’d decided to name him after the very source of his fear. 

Blue, neon: BAND PRACTICE!!!! 

After spending another minute to sit with Fish and scratch behind his ears, Jeno pushed herself off the floor and made her way to her room. “Where the magic happens,” her mom liked to put it. 

With the dark blue walls, age-old movie posters taking up all the empty space, and the two guitars hung up in the middle of it all, Jeno supposed it was kind of magical. Not that she’d ever admit it out loud—she had a reputation to maintain.

She took down the electric guitar, zipping up the case and slinging it behind her back with all the ease of someone who’d been doing it her entire life. (Since middle school, which, if you looked at it, really was the extent of an entire life.) Looking around to make sure she wasn’t missing anything, she scribbled a quick note for her mom before shutting the door and heading back out. 

Heejin’s house wasn’t too far from her own; only a few minutes by walk. One she was used to making, too—but before she could get too lost in reminiscing, the sounds of what seemed to be an erupting argument interrupted her thoughts. 

“I like Seven Nation Army! And we do it well!” 

“Please, it is so overdone. Why don’t we just cover Hotel California while we’re at it, huh?” 

“Stop being such a snob.”   

“It's not called being a snob, it's called having taste. Not that you would know.”

“You are so insufferable—”

“Oh, hey, Jeno!” 

Mark waved at her, grinning across the lawn like he hadn’t just been in the middle of what felt like it could’ve resulted in homicide. Heejin mirrored his grin, waving with a spare drumstick, and Jeno warily waved back. 

“Hi, guys,” she said, when she was finally within respectable talking distance. “What’s going on?”

Heejin rolled her eyes. “Mark’s being an idiot again.” 

“Hey, I’m not the one who wants to play—” 

“Okay, okay, I got that bit,” Jeno interrupted, hushing Mark like he was a particularly disobedient pet. “Is this for the Saturday gig?” 

He nodded, so Jeno continued, “Well, then we should probably keep the Seven Nation Army. We’re good at it, like Heejin said, and we can’t afford to take chances for someplace we’ve never played before.” 

Mark sighed, dejected, yet nodded his confirmation. Jeno was only being objective, but that didn’t stop Heejin from looking as smug as they came. Dropping a kiss on Mark’s cheek, she said, “Better luck next time, babe.” 

Ah, yes, the town’s biggest mystery: Mark and Heejin. Mortal enemies? Best friends? Lovers? No one could tell, not even Jeno—and trust her, she’d tried. Every time she brought up the topic with either one of them, they just laughed and changed the subject. 

But this wasn’t the time for that. 

“I have news,” Jeno announced, once they’d all made it out from the lawn and into the safety of Heejin’s garage. The two of them looked at her expectantly. “I signed us up for Battle of the Bands!” 

Both Heejin and Mark’s eyes widened at that, larger than she would have thought was humanly possible. 

“Fucking— Jeno!” 

“It’s just Jeno, thanks,” she said, suppressing a grin. Heejin glared at her with a strange mixture of adoration and potential murderous rage. It was always a coin toss with her. 

“I thought you said we weren’t going to do it this year, that we needed to improve or whatever?” Mark asked, trying to sound mature and rational, but the excitement in his voice gave him away.

“Well, that’s what I thought,” Jeno clasped her hands together, “but I was looking through some of our performance recordings, and found myself thinking that there was no harm in trying—so I filled out an application and submitted the videos. I didn’t really expect us to get in, but well,” she finished, with a flourish of the hands.

“Sick,” said Mark, appreciatively, and Heejin flicked his forehead. Jeno wholeheartedly supported that action. Boys. 

“What he said, but make it less dudebro,” Heejin replied. “We are so going to win.” 

“Even if we don’t, what matters is that we did it!” 

Both of them gave her a look. Jeno sighed. “But yeah, we’re going to win.” 

“Now you’re talking, captain,” said Heejin, grinning. “When is it?” 

“New Year’s Eve, so we have a lot of time. I was thinking we could write a new song for it—really step our game up, you know?” 

Mark gave her a mock-salute. “You got it, boss.”

“I have a few ideas for new melodies I’ve been dying to try,” added Heejin. “And I know Mark’s been scribbling away like an insane person in his notebook lately. I’m sure we can come up with something.” 

“What the hell do you mean, insane person?” 

“I mean, you’re a freak who never stops writing—”

“Now, now, kids,” said Jeno, sighing. She loved her members, but seriously—they needed a major dose of couple’s therapy. “I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something. And Heejin, Mark’s freakish writing is what keeps us going.”

“I know, I know,” she grumbled. Mark stuck his tongue out at her, because he was oh so mature. 

“Besides, we still have some time before we should be thinking about that stuff! Let’s focus on our upcoming gigs now and the big prize a little later, okay?” 

The two of them gave her a mumble of assent that Jeno took as a victory. She’d grown used to mediating their fights, to making big decisions without upsetting either party, to organising gigs and arranging shows and doing everything a leader would do—even though they’d never formally agreed up on it, the role had just somehow been stuck to her. And she couldn’t say she minded it one bit.  

“For today, regular practice?” Heejin questioned, playing with her drumsticks. Jeno nodded, already getting ready to plug in her guitar to the amp. Mark was getting his bass out, too, and an easy smile made its way onto Jeno’s face. 

Something Wicked’s origin story was nowhere near as cool as their band name—Heejin and Jeno had known each other and their instruments long enough to know that they wanted to do something with their musical talent, and Mark just happened to be there. He fit in with the both of them without having to try at all. They hadn’t bothered trying to find a fourth member, and by virtue of Jeno’s ninth grade Macbeth phase, they settled on a name and a branding. 

And since then, they’d only grown and grown. Writing songs, performing covers, getting gigs at local restaurants: the road to the top was lined with these things. Looking around at the room, everyone at their peak mid-performance exhilarance, Jeno couldn’t think of a single reason why they wouldn’t win the Battle of the Bands. 

Yeah. They definitely had a shot at this. 

Mornings, Jeno decided, were not meant for pretty girls. 

She'd tried—she'd really tried to like them, to get up early and finish off work and help around the house and whatnot. Mark swore by the dawn hours, so Jeno thought that it couldn't hurt to try. He was always up at the weirdest times; going to bed by 8:00 and waking up at 4:00. She figured that she'd do the same, try to keep him company. 

Never. Again. 

Jeno groaned, blindly reaching out for the alarm clock on her bedside table that seemed tantalisingly out of reach at the moment. Of course, she'd set it at some ridiculously high pitch that sounded as if it could raise a man from the dead, and now it wasn't turning off, and—

“Jeno?”

She froze, high-pitched alarm be damned. 

“Have you gone mad?”

Her mother's ever-so-comforting voice filled the room, as she trudged herself inside to glare scathingly at Jeno. Nothing she wasn't used to, but maybe not so early in the day. 

“It's four in the morning.”

“Yay, you can read the time,” said Jeno, weakly attempting at a joke. She only received another glare. 

“Next time you decide to do your insane cult rituals at the crack of dawn, I would suggest keeping your alarm a little more down,” her mom continued, tugging her robe closer against her. “Some of us need our beauty sleep.”

“Got it, ma,” Jeno sighed, and as if on cue, the alarm stopped ringing. “You can go back to sleep now.”

“I don't need your permission for that, missy,” she sniffed, already halfway out the door before pausing to ask, “You're not actually in a cult, right?”

“No, ma!”

“Fine, fine,” she said before leaving, and muttering something that sounded suspiciously like exactly what someone who was in a cult would say. 

Jeno flopped back onto the bed and groaned. No way she was going to be able to go back to sleep again after this. 

Two brewed pots of coffee, one half-eaten Poptart, three bowls of cereal, an abandoned piece of homework and three hours later, Jeno finally deemed it a suitable enough time to get ready for school. She was still tired, dead-tired, but something about the mix of caffeine and sugar had her wired enough to forget that she was tired. 

“Ma, I'm leaving!” she yelled out, before shutting the door behind her. She'd left a Post-it on the kitchen table, too, just in case. 

The walk to school was as brisk as it was warm, and Jeno had to remind herself to wear lighter clothing from next time onwards. Maintaining the whole cool rock look was not as worth it when you stank of sweat and other gross walk smells all day long.  

By the time she entered her first class, the exhaustion was starting to catch up to her. So much so that she plopped herself down on her seat with absolutely no inhibitions, resting her head against the cool table in the hopes that it'd wake her up. It garnered her some weird looks from her classmates, but she didn't care. 

Jeno didn't even notice when her teacher walked in, which was a shame, because she actually liked her teacher. Biology was one of the few classes she bothered trying for, and she didn't want to let Ms. Cho down just yet. 

“Good morning, class,” she greeted, and Jeno attempted to regain a semblance of attentivity. How effective this method was is still up for debate. “I've got an announcement for you guys today.” 

Oh, goody. 

“We'll be starting our mesocosm investigations this month.” 

Blank stares from the entire class, except for a certain Jaemin, who looked like she was about to vibrate off her seat. Jeno half wished she would. 

Ms. Cho sighed. “Seriously? We went over this at the beginning of the semester.” 

“It's basically a micro version of an ecosystem that you'll have to build and observe yourself,” she continued. It only served to terrify Jeno further. “It may sound like a lot right now, but you'll be working in pairs. I'll give you all the detailed instructions in a bit.”

Even in her current state, Jeno could tell that this project was going to take a lot out of her. One of the reasons she liked Biology was because they did so much stuff like this—textbook learning had never been her strongest suit- but sometimes, it was better to just stick your head in a book rather than worry over long-term shit. 

“Plus, you can add animals! Little snails. Think about the little snails.”

Well. Jeno did like little snails. 

On that note, she turned around in her half-asleep stupor to search for the usual victim she consulted during projects; Yeji. The girl was a lot smarter than she looked and almost always willing to help out—and she was fairly easy to get along with, seeing as they already had a lot of friends in common.  

Before she could even make eye contact with her, though, Ms. Cho added, “Oh, and I'll be deciding the groups.”

This day just kept getting better and better, didn’t it? 

Picking up on the groans making their way across the class, Ms. Cho sighed. “Trust me, guys, it won't be the nightmare you're expecting.”

Jeno snorted. Teachers were legally obligated to say that, and yet every single group project that she’d ever been a part of had ended in equal parts bloodshed and tears.

Still, she supposed she was looking forward to the project. It was exactly the sort of thing that her mother would find exciting, which was always a perk. Most of the people in her Biology class were relatively tolerable, too, so at least she wasn’t likely to get stuck with a freak. Ms. Cho was announcing the names of the partners in alphabetic order, and Jeno tuned out while she made her way down the Bs and Ds. 

“Jaemin and Jeno,” she said, and Jeno almost broke the pencil she’d been fiddling with. 

Alright, so maybe she’d failed to account for one particular freak in the class. 

Ms. Cho had long moved on, but Jeno could see Jaemin struggling with the same sort of reaction as her. The other girl met her eyes from across the class, the very picture of disgust, and Jeno tried not to fling something at her. 

“You might want to sit next to your partners, now,” said Ms. Cho, once she was done with all the assignments. “I’ll be handing out the instructions, one for each pair.”

“Excuse me, Ms. Cho?” came Jaemin’s voice, and Jeno narrowed her eyes. “Could I change my partner?”

The teacher raised an eyebrow. “Is there a problem?”

“Yes. She’s the problem.” 

What the—Jeno had half a mind to butt in and defend herself, reputation in front of the class be damned. She was only stopped by Ms. Cho sighing and saying, “Jaemin, I’m sure you two can set aside whatever issues you have with each other for the sake of one class project. You’re both good students, and I trust that you’ll come up with something interesting.” 

Jaemin frowned, but nodded. She turned around to send another dirty look in Jeno’s direction, who rolled her eyes and made her way to the other girl’s table. 

“Hi,” she said, flatly. 

“Listen here, Lee,” Jaemin started, abrupt and with no prefix. Jeno was sure that if she rolled her eyes another time they’d fall right out of her skull. “I’ve been looking forward to this project for the whole term and I’m not going to let you ruin it for me.” 

“God, you’re such a drama queen,” Jeno commented. “It’ll be fine. I’m good at bio.” 

“I’m sure you are.” Jaemin said, snorting. 

Jeno bristled, ready to come back at her with something cutting, but Jaemin didn’t stop speaking for even a moment. “We’ll need to set some ground rules while working on the project.”

“Whatever,” Jeno muttered, too tired to argue with her. If she wanted to be bossy, let her be bossy. Less work for Jeno. 

“You have to take this project seriously,” said Jaemin, with the same sort of condescending tone that one would take when talking to a particularly stupid baby. It was not one that Jeno appreciated being used on her. “So no wasting time on the weekends. We’ll be working.” 

“Whatever,” Jeno repeated. 

Jaemin looked appropriately disgruntled by her lack of reaction. “We’ll have to meet up outside of classes, so give me your number,” 

“You already have it.” 

The other girl looked surprised for just a moment; a short moment which Jeno took extreme satisfaction in. “Oh. Right.” 

“Here you go, girls,” said Ms. Cho cheerily, interrupting the briefly weird moment between them to drop the sheet with all the details and instructions for the assignment on their desk. “I see you two are getting along just fine.” 

Jaemin smiled at their teacher, but as soon as she was out of earshot, turned to Jeno with the same look from earlier. “Can you at least read all of this carefully, or is that too much to ask from you?”

Jeno suppressed a groan. This was going to be a long month. 

“I’m seriously considering it,” Jeno said, setting her tray down on the lunch table with a bang and sliding into the seat not soon after. “I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? I’m still seventeen, I have years to work off my sentence and scrounge together a life for myself, right?” 

Heejin squinted at her. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“My plan to murder Jaemin,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I’d say it’s fairly executable.” 

“Yep, you lost me at Jaemin,” sighed Heejin, returning to scrolling through her phone. Some best friend she was. 

Mark, to all his credit, didn’t break character for a moment. In between bites of whatever sandwich his mom had made for him that morning, he asked, “Jaemin? I thought we liked Jaemin?” 

Jeno shot him a look worthy of murdering a man—if Mark hadn’t been so taken with his food, it probably would have. “When the fuck have we ever liked Jaemin?” 

“You guys were, like, best friends in freshman year,” he said, and Heejin looked up from her phone. Trust that to get her attention. 

“I knew I didn’t hallucinate that!” 

“Guys, shut up,” Jeno groaned, resting her head in her hands. “This isn’t about freshman year. This is about Jaemin being, quite frankly, the most annoying person I’ve ever had the luck of meeting.” 

Heejin frowned. “When you’re in the same band as Mark?” 

He didn’t even have to pause before flicking her forehead in retaliation, almost like it was second nature. To Jeno, he asked, “Okay, but what did she do?”

“What didn’t she do,” Jeno muttered. “We’re partners for this group project in Bio.” 

Heejin immediately let out a peal of laughter, looking far too gleeful for someone who’d claimed to not care about Jaemin and Jeno’s rivalry. Jeno scowled at her, but it only served to send her into another fit of giggles. 

“Damn,” said Mark, swallowing down the last bite of his lunch. “Sucks.” 

One who derived entertainment from all her weakest moments, and another who was incapable of replying in anything other than monosyllabic dudebro phrases— why did Jeno hang out with these two? 

“What’s the project?” Heejin asked, when she’d finally calmed down enough from her momentary fit. Jeno shot her a dirty look before answering. 

“We have to build some sort of mini ecosystem and take care of it for a month,” she explained. “It’s actually cool, but I’ve been cursed to do it with Satan’s lapdog herself.” 

Heejin wrinkled her nose. “STEM kids.” 

“Come on, I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” Mark tried. “It’s only a month, right? You can make it through 30 days of contact with your mortal enemy.” 

“Not when said mortal enemy goes out of her way to do everything she can to unleash the closet homicidal maniac in me.”

Mark rolled his eyes, pushing his glasses up further on his nose. “You are so dramatic.”

“We have to meet up outside of class, Mark! I’d say that calls for a little theatrics!” Jeno wailed. “I can barely restrain from jumping a knife on her under a teacher’s supervision, what’s to stop me from doing it in the privacy of my own room?” 

“The possibility of being caught and getting a life sentence?” he suggested. 

“I’m supposed to meet her at the library after school,” she continued, groaning and completely ignoring his words. “Libraries are good spots for murders, right? Quiet, not too exposed?”

“You have issues,” Mark said, gently. 

Jeno stuck her tongue out at him, but internally, she was still rotating his words around in her brain. Thirty days . When you put it like that, it almost seemed like nothing. 

“I guess I can hold back from murdering her for a few weeks,” Jeno finally admitted, sighing. “I’ve managed to for the past years.” 

“I’m always right, baby.” 

“Now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” interrupted Heejin, and Jeno laughed as Mark pouted. “Anyway, now that that crisis is sorted, can we pay attention to mine?” 

Jeno tipped an imaginary hat in her direction. “Fire way, my lady,” 

Heejin let out a dramatic sigh, bringing her hand to her forehead for further embellishment. “Jiwoo touched my hand today.” 

...aaaand Jeno didn’t know why she’d expected anything else from her. 

“Uh huh,” she said instead, because she was nothing if not a supporter of her best friend’s romantic endeavours, “details, please?” 

“Oh, Jen, it was so perfect,” Heejin breathed, like she was some sort of main character in a Disney movie. She certainly had the branding for it. “We were both at the library, right? I was looking for a copy of Emma for class and get this—we reached out for the same book at the same time,” 

Stifling a laugh, Jeno just kept nodding. “Very gay, very romantic. What’d you do next?” 

Heejin stared at her like she’d grown another head. “Take the book and leave?” 

“Oh, Heej,” she sighed. “Sweet summer child.” 

“Listen, she was standing there—looking all cute and perfect—what was I supposed to do?!”

“Nothing at all,” Jeno reassured her. “You’re doing great. Much better than last time’s awkward staring.” 

“Femme lesbians have an unfair power,” Heejin mourned. Jeno was inclined to agree with her. 

Mark’s uncharacteristic quietness hadn’t gone unnoticed by Jeno, as oblivious as Heejin remained. She raised an eyebrow at him over her lunch, questioning, but he only shook his head. She let the topic drop, but her brain was furiously typing away at the mental document titled The Mystery of Mark and Heejin. 

“But that brings me to my main point,” continued Heejin, “When I was leaving the library, I stopped by the music room to check the Battle of the Bands sign up sheet, and you’ll never believe who I saw there.” 

Jeno raised an eyebrow, humouring her. “Who did you see there?” 

Dropping her voice to a hushed tone, Heejin said, “Son Chaeyoung.” 

That was enough to get Mark out of his little spell of silence. His eyes widened, and he repeated, “Chaeyoung? Like, the Chaeyoung?” 

“The one and only,” Heejin confirmed. 

“I thought their band disbanded,” Jeno whispered, still not quite believing it herself. “You’re sure it was her?” 

“Yes, ” she huffed, impatiently. “But it doesn’t matter. All it means is that we have to write a song that goes beyond the realm of amazing.” 

“No pressure at all,” Mark muttered. Jeno poked his side, frowning. 

“Don’t be a Debbie downer,” she chided. “With the three of us put together, we’ll be able to come up with something.” 

Heejin snorted. “Debbie downer?” 

“It’s the principle of it!” 

Mark was laughing, which Jeno took to be a good sign. He was prone to sending himself into spirals over the smallest things, especially when it came to the band—things had been better lately, though, and between Jeno and Heejin they’d managed to get it into his head that he didn’t need to shoulder the burden of songwriting all on his own.  

“Are we practicing today?” Mark asked.

Jeno shook her head. “Can’t, I have to meet Jaemin after school, remember?” 

“Tomorrow, then,” Heejin suggested. “My place.” 

“You know, one of these days, we really should get around to setting a concrete timetable for our practices,” said Jeno, sighing, “but fine, tomorrow it is.” 

Heejin’s eyes twinkled. “Sure, but where’s the fun in that?”  

“Routines are so not rock-and-roll,” Mark added. 

Jeno just rolled her eyes, taking another bite of food. Infants, the two of them. 

“We could do an aquatic ecosystem,” 

“Why? Do you find pleasure in lugging around a tubful of water wherever you go?”

“Fine, we can just do a garden one with potting soil and rocks—”

“ Please, literally everybody and their mother has already thought of that idea.” 

Jeno glared at Jaemin from where she was sitting, across the table, a notebook littered with angry red marks laid out between them. They’d been here at the library for at least the last fifteen minutes and hadn’t even been able to settle on how they wanted to do their project, let alone actually get started on it. Jeno would literally rather be anywhere else. 

“If you’re just going to shoot down everything I say, why don’t you give us some ideas of your own,” she said, finally giving up. There was no winning with Jaemin. 

“Glad you asked,” Jaemin replied, shooting her a saccharine smile. God, how Jeno wished she could slap it right off her face. “I’ve already made a list of components and ingredients that we can use for the mesocosm. We can divide it in half, and each get the different materials.” 

She pushed a sheet across the table, while Jeno just stared on in disbelief. “You realise this is a collaborative project?”

Jaemin rolled her eyes. “I only made this as a backup option, in case we didn’t agree on anything. Which, you know, we aren’t.” 

“Are you just planning on doing the whole project by yourself, then?” Jeno continued, oddly incensed by the idea. Normally, she wouldn’t mind taking the backseat in a project like this—but once again, Jaemin proved to mess up all normality in her life. 

“Do you have to be so dramatic about this? We need to make a decision, so I made it. You’re free to add any changes you want, provided they make sense . ” 

Jeno stayed quiet, scanning through the list Jaemin had handed her. It all seemed fairly innocuous—she’d even added snails, which almost made Jeno smile. Still, she wasn’t fully convinced that Jaemin wasn’t hiding some form of secret weapon in there designed just to sabotage Jeno. 

“It’s fine,” she grudgingly admitted, “but we can’t go on like this.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like you deciding everything for us,” Jeno said, crossing her arms. “We need a truce.” 

Jaemin raised an eyebrow. “A truce.” 

“Yes, a truce!” she huffed. “I don’t particularly enjoy the idea of having to be nice to you, either, but being scathing for no reason isn’t going to get us anywhere.” 

“It gets me plenty of places,” Jaemin muttered, but shut up after a look from Jeno. Sweet victories. “But fine, whatever. What are the terms?”

“No unnecessary insults, no unnecessary aggression, no name-calling or general assholery,” Jeno listed. “Anything that could get God to pull you over at Heaven’s gates.” 

“I’m obviously going to go straight to the angels, but thanks for the heads-up,” Jaemin said, primly. Jeno disguised a snort—every time she thought that Jaemin couldn’t possibly get more obnoxious, the other girl surprised her with something new. “Truce it is.”  

Jeno grinned, pleased, and Jaemin cleared her throat. “So, can we get started on our project now?” 

There were a lot of times in Jeno’s life that she wouldn’t have survived without her mother—she’d been there for her throughout everything, a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on. Most people tended to have a bit of trouble comprehending the full extent of their relationship, wondering how a mother and a daughter could be so attuned to each other, but Jeno didn’t mind the strange looks. Not when her mom was always right there, sending her secret smiles or making silly faces behind people’s backs. 

Right now, though? Jeno was considering giving herself up for adoption. 

“Ma,” she said, aghast, stepping into the house as gingerly as she could. The floor of the living room was covered in tarp, paint cans littered around everywhere. The smell was overwhelming—Jeno had always been the queasy type. “ Ma, ” she repeated. 

“In here!” came the voice of mother dearest herself, somewhere roughly from the direction of the kitchen. Jeno let her backpack fall to the floor, paint stains be damned, and marched inside. 

Her mom greeted her with a bright grin, enthusiastically waving a paintbrush at her from where she was currently perched on one of the higher rungs of a ladder. Her apron was covered in an assortment of colours, enough to pass for a badly done tie-dye job. “Come join me!” 

Jeno levelled her with a look. Her mom just continued grinning, completely unperturbed—which was to be expected, honestly, seeing how often they did this whole routine. Jeno’s mom was always looking for new ways to “spruce up the place”, as she put it, and everytime she did, Jeno ended up giving her a lecture on how it was a waste of resources. It was impossible to live with artists.

“Aw, babe, don’t be a Debbie downer,” she called, and Jeno was hit with a sudden wave of deja-vu. She knew she wasn’t to blame for her terrible choice of vocabulary. “Grab a paintbrush, we’re redoing the kitchen cabinets.”

“You mean the same kitchen cabinets you redid one month ago,” Jeno reminded her, pointedly. She picked up the biggest brush that was lying on the table—for all her complaining, her mother did have a way of making even the most inane projects interesting. And if she was going to help, she most definitely wasn’t going to half-ass it. 

“Yeah, but cerulean is like, so last season,” her mom replied, pushing her hair away from her face. “We need something new, you know? Something—autumnal,” 

“Autumnal,” Jeno repeated. 

“Mhm. It’s October, it’s time to bring out the fall colours!” 

“Yellow?”

Her mom wrinkled her nose. “Why couldn’t you have inherited my artistic sense instead of that huge forehead?” 

“ Hey, ” Jeno replied, offended. She was still standing below the ladder, craning her neck in an attempt to have a proper conversation with her mother. Risking her neck to be treated like this.

“You might be onto something, though,” she said, slowly, bringing the paintbrush down from where she’d been coating the space between the cabinets and the ceiling. A drop of paint fell from it and onto the floor: almost hitting Jeno in the process, who let out a very mature sounding yelp. “Yellow, warmer tones, but still low-key—like copper tan,” she finished. 

“Uh huh,” said Jeno, unimpressed. 

“Daughter dearest, you’re a genius!”  

“Does this mean I still have to help?” 

“Oh, hush now,” her mom said, climbing down from the ladder. Her feet landed on the floor squarely, and she straightened herself up before smiling at Jeno once again. “It’s okay, you can say you don’t really hate painting. You’ll still be emo and cool, promise.” 

At a loss for a good comeback, Jeno only flicked the paint off her brush at her mom, pouting. Her mother narrowed her eyes at her, picking up her own paintbrush menacingly in retaliation—but Jeno hastily cut in with a, “Fine, fine, no paint fight,” 

“Shame,” her mom commented, but she was still grinning. “Now come on, pick a colour that goes with copper tan.” 

“What the fuck is copper tan?” 

Her mom raised her eyes skyward. “I can’t be in this environment anymore.” 

“You are so dramatic,” Jeno sighed, “I know it’s a red, but which red?” 

“And you are a disgrace upon my bloodline,” she informed Jeno, pointing at one of the many cans laid out across the table. 

“Sounds like your problem,” Jeno squinted at the can, “do you think navy would work well with this?” 

Her eyes lit up immediately. “Not all hope is lost on you!” 

Pleased, Jeno dipped her brush into the can as carefully as she could. Painting was fun, but pretending to be annoyed by her mother was even more fun—at least this way, she could get the best of both worlds.  

After a few more minutes of debate on exactly how much of the cabinets they should paint over, peppered with interjections from both parties, the two of them finally fell into a quiet rhythm. They’d decided upon painting only the shelves at the bottom, since they were the most noticeable and easily accessible. The ladder remained abandoned off to the side, seeing as neither of them had much interest in actually being responsible and folding it away. 

“So tell me, daughter dearest,” said Jeno’s mom, in between brush strokes, “how was your day?” 

Jeno snorted. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it.”

She gestured in the universal sign for well, go on. 

“Remember Jaemin?” 

Her eyes flashed with recognition. “The blondie with the big smile!” 

“Yes, well,” Jeno continued, eyes firmly trained on the cabinet she was painting. “we’re partners for this bio project and it’s a nightmare .” 

“She used to come over all the time,” her mom said, fondly, completely ignoring whatever Jeno was saying. “Pass me the small brush, would you?”

“Yeah, but—she’s such a dick now, ma, you wouldn’t believe it,” Jeno cleaned up the brush on a towel before handing it over to her mother, who took it with a contemplative look on her face.

“Hey, not nice,” she replied, furrowing her brows. “I know you guys don’t talk anymore, but I’m sure she isn’t that bad.” 

“She really is!” Jeno insisted, accidentally blotting the wood with too much paint. What was it with everyone around her thinking Jaemin was some form of saint? Had she brainwashed everyone in their near vicinity? 

“Well, whatever,” her mom declared. “If nothing else, maybe this project will help you two get closer again.” 

Jeno frowned. She’d never even considered that possibility, that this might be a chance for them to reconcile things. Besides, why the hell would they want to? Jaemin had made it very clear that she didn’t want anything to do with her anymore, whether it be with her actions back in ninth grade or with the constant flow of insults that followed after. And Jeno—well, Jeno didn’t know what she wanted, but it didn’t matter. 

“Hey, this actually looks pretty good!” exclaimed her mother, pulling back to admire their handiwork so far and effectively jolting Jeno out of her reverie. 

She managed a weak smile. “Yeah, it does.” 

Later that night, when she was getting ready for bed, Jeno found herself pausing in front of her closet. She hesitated, just for a second, before giving in and pulling out the drawer at the very bottom to expose a bright pink sweatshirt. Her hands reached out of their own accord to ghost across the material, just as soft as she’d remembered it to be. 

She shut the drawer almost immediately after. Some things were better left buried. 

Jeno managed to stick to that ideal for all of one day, until she met Jaemin again in the library. 

“Hey,” the other girl greeted, already seated at a table. There was something next to her, covered in white plastic, that looked like it might have been a tower housing the components they needed for their project—unless Jaemin had decided to take up a new career designing sculptures. “You’re late.” 

“By one minute,” Jeno grumbled, setting down her own plastic bag by the table. They’d decided to meet up during school hours itself, seeing as the both of them had a rare free period together. 

“That’s still—” Jaemin cut herself off mid-sentence, as if remembering their truce from earlier and deciding to do the right thing (for once). “It’s fine. Did you get your stuff?”

Jeno nodded in the direction of her bag. “Yes.” 

“Perfect,” said Jaemin, clasping her hands together before bringing them up to set her own materials on the table. Jeno watched as she brought out a plastic container, roughly large enough to house a small animal. Or, you know, an ecosystem. 

“This should be sufficiently big enough to  hold everything we need in our mesocosm,” she continued, “I’ve accounted for the amount of soil we need, and I’ve made some holes in the lid so that the animals will be able to breathe, but I’m not sure whether we should—are you even listening to me?” 

Jeno blinked. “Yes?” 

“No, you’re not,” she said, crossly. “Part of the agreement of our truce was to listen to what we both had to say.” 

“I am,” Jeno reassured her, although she most definitely hadn’t. “Go on, what were you not sure about?” 

Jaemin still didn’t look convinced, but she dropped the topic. “I’m not sure whether we should add worms like we’d planned earlier, since we’re going to be including a bunch of different types of insects, too. If we have too many organisms, we might not be able to pinpoint all the changes.” 

“Or, we could just remove the aphids and stick with grasshoppers only,” Jeno suggested. “I don’t think we should get rid of the worms, they’re our only decomposers,” 

“That makes sense,” said Jaemin, nodding and crossing out something in the notebook in front of her. “We need to keep them around for the snails to eat, too.” 

“Ah, the little slug bastards,” Jeno said, sighing fondly. 

Jaemin snorted. “Cute nickname.” 

“It is what it is,” she replied, shrugging evasively just for good measure. “I have one with me right now, but I’m not so sure that pulling it out in the library would be the best idea,” 

The other girl’s eyes immediately lit up. “Who cares?! I want to see the snail!” 

“But the librarian—”

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Jaemin said, impatiently. “Come on, just a quick peek.” 

Jeno hesitated, but it wasn’t at the thought of sneaking snails into the library—no, this was a much, much worse type of hesitation. This was the type that came with the realisation that she’d been talking to Jaemin for quite a while now, and not a single one of them had said anything to jeopardize the other one’s temper, and this was really not how smoothly she’d expected the truce to go. If she’d known how odd it would be, she wouldn’t have suggested the idea in the first place. 

“Are you okay?” Jaemin asked, frowning. “You spaced out there again.”

Swallowing down all the weird feelings and forcing herself to not overthink such a simple situation, Jeno simply nodded. “Just peachy.” 

Jaemin raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, but Jeno was quick to distract by reaching out for the mason jar housing the snail. It was almost comical how rapidly the other girl’s expression changed, going from eyebrows furrowed to pleading eyes in less than a second. 

“Aww, aren’t you just the cutest little thing,” she cooed, bringing her eyes down until she was face-to-face with the snail. Jeno stifled a laugh. “Look, its shell’s spirals are almost heart-shaped!” 

“I had it custom-made,” Jeno deadpanned, watching as it took two seconds for Jaemin to realise that she was joking. 

“I don’t even have the energy to clown you for your terrible attempt at a joke,” Jaemin declared, “This snail is just so darling! ”

A wave of affection rushed over Jeno, surprising her as much as it did the snail in her hand when she jolted in her seat.  

“Hey, careful with that!” 

“Sorry, sorry,” she muttered, checking to make sure that the snail was unhurt. Judging from the way it still looked half-asleep and perfectly content in its mason jar home, she assumed it was fine.  

“Have you named it yet?” Jaemin questioned, after she also looked over the snail—because she didn’t trust Jeno when it came to “these things”, whatever that meant. 

Jeno shook her head. “Any ideas?” 

“I do like naming things,” Jaemin said, brightening up, “how’s Darling sound?” 

“The most basic name for any small pet on the planet?” 

“You asked me! Plus, it fits,” she added.  

“Darling is good,” Jeno laughed, setting the jar down on the table. “I like Darling.” 

“So do I.” 

They both bent to look at Darling’s reaction to her newly-appointed name. Still half-asleep. 

“You know what, I think she likes it too,” Jeno finally said. 

Jaemin grinned, opening her mouth to say something in response, but before she could get a single word in—

“What is that?! ” 

Eyes widening in panic, Jeno hastily pushed the jar back into the bag she’d taken it out from, taking care not to hurt Darling in the process. She’d managed to get it out of sight just in time for the librarian to come around the corner and stand in front of their table, glaring at the two girls. 

“Nothing, miss,” Jaemin chirped, the very picture of innocence. Jeno tried her hardest not to snort and give them away. 

“You think you can get away with just hiding whatever it was? I could search your bags right now, I know when I hear something,” she threatened.  

“Sure, miss, we have nothing to hide,”  

The librarian only narrowed her eyes, placing her hands on the wrist. “I don’t know what you two girls are up to, but I’d suggest taking a look at the library’s rules before coming in next time. No food, no drinks, and no animals .” 

“Of course, miss,” Jaemin assured her. If it wasn’t for the telltale twinkle in her eyes, Jeno would have almost believed that she was being serious. “We wouldn’t ever dream of breaking the rules.” 

With a last harrumph, the librarian turned around and left for her desk again—and Jaemin immediately fell into a fit of giggles. It didn’t take long before Jeno was cracking up, too, and for a moment they were just two girls laughing in a quiet little corner of the library. 

“I think,” Jeno managed, between hiccups, “you deserve an Oscar for that.”

Jaemin exaggerated a bow, pretending to accept an award on stage. “First, I’d like to thank Darling,” 

“Oh, Darling. Two minutes she’s been in our lives and she’s already wreaking havoc.”

“It must be tough being a perfect woman like her, with people racing after you all the time,” Jaemin agreed, which sent the two of them into another fit all over again. 

“On a more serious note, though,” Jeno said, once the two of them had calmed down a bit more. “We should probably consider taking our project stuff elsewhere, huh?” 

Jaemin nodded. “Yeah, it’ll be especially messy when we actually put together everything into the system.” 

When Jeno did nothing except nod in response, Jaemin continued, “So… where do we go?” 

“Oh, right,” Jeno said, blinking, “my place is always free. It’s not too far, either, so transportation shouldn’t be an issue.”

“Sounds good, we can set up our system by today.” 

Jeno almost agreed, before she realised— “Ah, I can’t after school. I have band practice.” 

If Jeno had been looking closer, she might have noticed the flash of something that passed over Jaemin’s face at the mention of band practice. Instead, the other only girl only shook her head, and said, “That’s fine. We can do it tomorrow.” 

“Okay,” Jeno replied, smiling. 

There was a brief moment of silence before Jaemin cleared her throat again, signalling that they should probably get back to their work. Jeno complied, but her lips stayed upturned.  

“Here,” was the first thing that Mark said to them all morning, around two weeks after Jeno had announced that they were going to be participating in the Battle of the Bands. They’d been throwing around ideas for a possible song, but hadn’t come up with anything concrete yet. Mark looked nervous, almost like he was anticipating something, all while clutching a pile of sheets in his hand. Jeno and Heejin exchanged a look.

“Go on,” Jeno prompted, crossing her arms. They were standing in the hallway, by the lockers, and she had to speak up to be heard over the sounds of high-schoolers. 

Mark thrust the sheets in his hands towards the two of them, repeating, “Here.” 

Jeno was quick to grab them, holding them out so that Heejin could get a good look at it too. Her eyes scanned through the lines, growing wider with each passing verse—she could practically feel Mark vibrating anxiously in front of her. 

“It’s just a bunch of songs I scribbled down last night,” he explained, as if searching for something to say, “nothing that great, really, I don’t even know if we can use it for our performance but I thought that I’d share it with you—” 

“Mark,” Jeno finally breathed out, interrupting him. “This is really fucking good.” 

The boy in question reached up to rub the back of his neck, having the audacity to look embarrassed. After writing what might as well have been the best work of his life so far. “You think?” 

“I know ,” Jeno confirmed. 

“You wrote all of this? In one night?” Heejin added, sounding awestruck. She’d taken the papers out of Jeno’s hands by then, poring overy every lyric like they held the answers to every question in the world. 

“Well, I took some snippets from older stuff and strung it all together,” Mark admitted. “But yeah, mostly last night.”

“You’re insane. A maniac, and I say this with the utmost love in my heart.” 

“Oh, stop,” he muttered, turning a delightful shade of pink. Jeno tried not to giggle—Heejin was so utterly oblivious to the influence she had on this guy. 

“I will not stop! I must declare it from the rooftops or I will die,” Heejin informed him. Jeno watched as the two continued to bicker back-and-forth—well, it was mostly Heejin doing the bickering. Mark was too busy blushing to actually say anything witty.  

She was still thinking about the songs, but mostly one of them in particular. The lyrics weren’t hard to understand—the ever so familiar struggle of liking someone who never seemed to say what you wanted them to, or when. They were laced with all the desperation that came from having a high school crush, and you could really tell that Mark had poured his soul into it. It wasn’t hard to tell who it was about, either. (Jeno had an inkling the lucky lady’s name started with an H and rhymed with eejin. ) 

Still, there was something about the song... something that felt familiar, almost.

Well, whatever it was, this wasn’t the time to think about it. 

“This stuff is definitely first prize worthy,” Jeno gushed, “we can discuss the details tomorrow during practice, fine-tune the lyrics a bit,” 

Heejin nodded. “I can already think of ideas for melodies to go with it.”

“Plus, we have to fill a fifteen-minute set, so we can probably manage to include all of these songs in some form or the other,” she added. 

Mark looked almost overwhelmed by how seriously the two of them were taking it, and Jeno had to resist the urge to reach over and ruffle his hair. She couldn’t believe how much he’d grown in only two years, both in terms of songwriting prowess and personality. 

Before anyone else could say something, the bell rang, signalling the next class. Heejin huffed out a sigh. “Terrible timing,” 

“Come on, drama queen,” Jeno said, rolling her eyes. “It’s French, we like French.” 

“No, you like French,” Heejin argued, “because you think that just speaking English with an accent is enough to get you through the entire class.” 

“Well? Isn’t it?” 

“Jen, I don’t even know what to tell you—” 

They continued bickering all on their way to class, leaving an amused Mark still shaking his head by the lockers. Heejin and Jeno shared most of their classes, by some twist of fate. Mark always complained about feeling left out whenever they started discussing homework, but Jeno thought that he was much luckier than he knew—being in class with Heejin was like being in class with a set of strobe lights. Fun, sure, but so distracting. 

Luckily for them, they weren’t late to the class; their teacher hadn’t even arrived yet. Jeno was just heading towards her regular seat when someone’s voice caught her attention. 

“Hey, Jeno,” Jaemin greeted, nodding at her from over her textbooks. “You’re still coming to my house after school today, right?”

Jeno blinked, confused at the sudden interaction. French was the only class that she shared with Jaemin other than Biology, but the two of them never acknowledged each other’s existence during it—they stayed on opposite ends of the classroom, on separate orbits. 

Quickly regaining her senses, though, she nodded. “Yep, 5 o’ clock.”

Jaemin smiled, pleased, and went back to doing—whatever it was she was doing. Jeno just shook her head, making her way to her seat again. What an odd girl. 

As soon as she reached her seat, Heejin narrowed her eyes from next to Jeno. “What was that all about?”

“Oh, she just wanted to check on something for our project,” Jeno answered, sliding into her chair. 

“In class? In French ?” 

“I mean, it’s less weird than cornering me in a hallway,” 

Heejin still looked suspicious. “Since when have you two been so buddy-buddy, anyway? You made it through two whole sentences without looking like you were considering murder.” 

“Since when have you been my mother?” Jeno replied, exasperated. “We’re on a truce right now, just until the project gets over. It’s all perfectly normal.” 

“Having to clarify that something is normal just makes it even less normal than before,” Heejin muttered, but quickly shut up after a pointed look from Jeno. “Fine! It’s just weird that you two managed to reconcile things so quickly.” 

Jeno frowned, pausing in the middle of getting out her textbook. “We haven’t reconciled things , I told you, it’s just a truce.” 

“Just a truce that involves you going to each other’s houses?”

“We’re working with animals! There isn’t exactly anywhere else we can go that’ll let us bring snails with us.” 

Heejin shrugged. “Whatever you say.” 

Jeno had half a mind to continue defending herself; she wasn’t satisfied just yet. Who was Heejin to tell Jeno what her relationships were like? Not that Jaemin and her even had a relationship. No relationship, not even a friendship, not a single strand of anything other than their temporary truce. 

Before she could act on that thought, though, their teacher walked in, armed with a grim smile and a grimmer set of what looked like surprise tests. 

She groaned. In between Jaemin, Heejin being cryptic, and Jaemin, this day felt like it was out to get her personally. 

Jaemin lived in an apartment building several blocks away from their school, carefully nestled in between the two trees. Jeno remembered the sight in clear detail, from how long it took to get to the top floor to how long it took to climb out the window and onto the fire escape in case of emergency (read: Jaemin’s parents). 

The random memory made a smile flit across Jeno’s face, who tried to school her expression into something neutral as she pressed the button to the elevator. It was the first time they’d decided to work on their project at Jaemin’s place. Jeno’s mom had some clients over, and Jaemin’s parents were both out on work, so it had seemed like the obvious solution. Despite any inhibitions that Jeno may still have had over it. 

“Hey,” Jaemin greeted, grinning as she opened the door. It still took Jeno by surprise, the sudden cordiality—she didn’t think she’d ever get used to Na Jaemin smiling at her, truce or no truce. “Find the place alright?” 

“Yep,” she said. She raised the bag in her hand, adding, “Brought the snail chow.” 

Jaemin’s grin only widened. “Perfect.” 

The two of them made their way to the other girl’s room, with Jaemin leading the way and Jeno resisting the urge to say, “I know.” Everything was almost exactly as she’d last seen it, and she had to stop herself from reaching out to run a hand across the furniture. 

Their mesocosm had been doing pretty good for the past couple of weeks: all their organic matter had been growing as predicted, and Darling was thriving better than ever. She greeted Jeno with a friendly nod when she walked through the door—or so she’d like to think. She always insisted that Darling recognised them, even though Jaemin had been quick to disprove that theory. Science kids. 

“Hey, Darling,” she said, quietly, talking to the snail through the clear plastic of the mesocosm. It probably hadn’t been a good idea to get so attached to a science project; she had no idea what she’d do once she had to put Darling back in the garden, but that was a problem for future Jeno. 

She was quick to add the leaves into the container, watching as they settled comfortably on the soil. Darling didn’t notice them, but that was alright. She was a little slow. 

(Just like Jeno—if she’d looked up from the mesocosm for just a second, she’d have noticed Jaemin looking at her with a strange fondness in her eyes. But she didn’t, so there went another thing unsaid between the two of them.) 

“So,” started Jaemin, clearing her throat. “We should probably get to work on our reflections for the project,” 

Jeno made a face. “I’m so tired of reflecting.” 

“As are we all,” Jaemin agreed. “Still, better to get it done with now so that we don’t have to struggle to catch up towards the last week.”

“Always so prepared,” Jeno teased, just to see Jaemin turn pink. 

“Oh, shut up,” she muttered. “Get out your notebook and try being useful for once,” 

“Need I remind you that we’re still bound by the agreements of our truce?” 

“A truce that specified no unnecessary remarks. That was perfectly necessary.” 

“ You’re unnecessary,” Jeno retorted, miffed and at a loss for any other good comeback. Jaemin just rolled her eyes and patted at the empty spot next to her on the bed as a sign to come on, get to work. 

Jeno was willing to be cooperative for all of ten seconds, until she reached into her bag for her notebook and realised that she hadn’t brought any pens or pencils with her. She frowned. “I need a pencil,” 

“There should be a bunch over there, go crazy,” replied Jaemin, nodding in the direction of her desk. “Though, did no one teach you that it was good manners to carry your own stationery when visiting a lady’s house?”

“Sorry, I was raised by wolves,” Jeno said, offhandedly, too distracted by the extremely large array of highlighters that had found a home for themselves at Jaemin’s desk. “Holy shit, dude, what the hell does one girl need so many highlighters for?”

“You’re supposed to be looking for a pencil!” 

“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to be met by the entirety of the stationery store over here,” she continued rifling through the various items lining the desk, “you have three thumbtacks and no pinboard?” 

Jaemin huffed. “Just in case.” 

“You’re a strange girl, Na Jaemin,” Jeno said, shaking her head. “All this and I can’t find a single pencil.” 

“There’s literally one right in front of you!” 

“Nope, no idea what you’re talking about,” she replied, if only to see Jaemin direct a glare in her direction. Honestly, it was way too much fun messing with her. She could almost understand why Jaemin did it all the time (or had done it, before their truce).  

She was searching for more stuff that she could use as potential clowning material, when her eyes caught sight of something colourful poking out from behind a set of plain white flashcards. Curious, Jeno reached out to see what it was—and immediately wished she hadn’t. 

The object was a pin, hand-painted enamel, small enough to fit itself snugly inside Jeno’s palm. It was shaped like a laboratory vial, the bubbling liquid inside painted to match the colours of the transgender flag. No matter what, you’re always going to be just a nerd to me, Jeno had said to Jaemin before gifting it to her. 

“You kept it,” Jeno said now, out loud. Her voice was barely loud enough to pass as a whisper, but Jaemin heard her all the same. She seemed confused, unsure what Jeno was talking about, but she picked up on the pin in her hand soon enough.

She looked mildly uncomfortable as she replied. “Yeah, I did.” 

It was funny, the difference between things that stayed and the ones that didn’t. All it took was one throwaway enamel pin for Jeno to be hit with an avalanche of memories she didn’t ask for—mental pictures of a tearful 14-year-old Jaemin ran through her mind, running over to her house at 10:00 pm on a Friday night after a particularly bad conversation with her parents. Of course, 14-year-old Jeno’s rational response to that had been to force her mother to teach her how to make pins, and not resting until she’d designed one that she could give to Jaemin. 

“Cool,” she murmured faintly, pushing away all of those thoughts to a corner at the back of her mind to be reopened at a later date. “Found a pencil.”

“Cool,” Jaemin echoed. 

Jeno made her way over to the bed, ready to finally get some work done, but the air was tense with an awkwardness that they’d just been growing out of. Something about Jeno pointing out the pin had made Jaemin’s expression darken, half-buried into her notebook and avoiding eye contact with Jeno. It was impossible for them to continue working on their project like this. 

She sighed. “Jaemin?”

“What?” 

“Can we just forget about that? Go back to talking like we were before?”

Jaemin blinked, once, before hardening her expression. “So you just want to ignore it all over again, huh,” 

“Huh? That’s not what I—”

“Fine,” Jaemin interrupted her. “Fine, it’s whatever. We’ll go back to being normal.” 

And though her words were cordial enough, and she stopped scowling at Jeno like she’d personally murdered her dog, Jeno couldn’t shake off the feeling that she’d missed something in their conversation just then. 

Oh, well. At least they got their work done. 

“Okay, that was good,” Jeno finally said, exhaling as she brought her guitar down. They’d been practicing this set for almost an hour now, and no matter how tiring it got, she wasn’t going to stop until they all had it down to perfection. “We’ll take five, and then from the top again.” 

Heejin groaned, flopping face-forwards into her drums. “We’ve performed this set at least a hundred times before,” 

“Yeah, but not with our new songs,” Jeno pointed out, “we need to get it perfect for this gig so we know what it’s going to be like at the Battle of the Bands.”

“It’s just The Love Club,” Heejin sighed. Jeno frowned at her. “We’ve performed there a hundred times before, too. No way the crowd’s anything like the Battle.” 

“But—”

“Jen’s right,” Mark interrupted, fiddling with his bass. “It doesn’t matter if the crowd’s small or whatever, we just need to get a hang of performing these songs,” 

Jeno shot him a grateful look. She knew that she tended to get easily strung up when it came to practicing, tended to go a little overboard; but Mark was always there to back her up. Besides, with the two of them, Heejin didn’t stand a chance. 

“Joining a band with two fire moons was my worst idea ever,” Heejin muttered, and Jeno took that as her conceding. 

“Please, you love us,” Jeno laughed. “And when we’re carrying home that gold trophy from Battle of the Bands, then you’ll see.” 

That earned her a grin, Heejin’s eyes twinkling with newfound vigour. “I do like shiny things…” 

“But I’d marry you with paper rings!” Jeno finished, singing the words. Mark looked at the both of them with a blank expression on his face. 

Heejin sighed. “We’ll make a Swiftie of you yet, Mark Lee.”

“No thanks,” Mark said, snorting, “I’m immune to your white woman propaganda,” 

“That’s what they all say,” replied Jeno, wisely. “Then again, straight boys are just a different breed, aren’t they?” 

“Yeah, this is on us for trying to get the Harry Styles fan to listen to good music,” 

“Can you guys stop talking about me like I’m not here?” Mark said, exasperated. 

Jeno made a shushing motion with her hands. “Shh. Boys are meant to be seen and not heard.” 

“Joining a band with two mean bi girls was my worst idea ever,” he muttered, and Heejin burst into laughter. 

Once they’d all calmed down a bit and taken a breather, Jeno clasped her hands together to get their attention. “Alright, class, from the top again.” 

“It’s not been five minutes!” Heejin protested. 

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s been more ,” she said, pointedly. “Come on, this is the last time, I promise.” 

“You said that the last time.” 

“Well, we’ll just have to be better than before for me to actually keep my word, won’t we?”

Heejin pouted, but Jeno was far from her days when it would actually have had an effect on her. “Hanging out with Jaemin changed you.” 

“The—what’s that supposed to mean?” 

Out of the corner of her eyes, Jeno could see Mark raise his eyes skyward, as if to say here we go again. Heejin just crossed her arms from in front of her and continued, “You’re bossy .” 

“I’ve always been bossy,” she argued, weakly. 

“Yeah, but this is like, Jaemin-level dictatorship,” Heejin flipped her hair over her shoulder, “but it’s not like it’s a bad change. I like it, makes things more refreshing.” 

 Mark made a noise of assent from where he was sitting. “She’s good for you.” 

Jeno furrowed her eyebrows, confused as to what the two were implying. How was her becoming similar to Jaemin in any way a good thing? 

“Well, our project ends next week, so we’ll be back to normal soon enough,” she said, picking up her guitar again. She tried not to think too hard about what normal would entail, what with their last interaction going the way it had. 

“Aww, no plans for any dates?” 

“Why the hell would we—you’re joking,” she realised, after catching the way that Heejin’s lips quirked upwards in amusement. “Of course.” 

Heejin laughed. “You’re just so easy to mess with. Especially when it comes to Jaemin.” 

“Yeah, you’re like a hundred times more tense when it comes to anything involving her,” Mark added. “Makes for great comedic timing.” 

“You guys are terrible people,” Jeno informed them. 

Heejin only grinned, and replied, “We know.”

“And you’re sure we have everything?” 

“Yes, I told you, I rechecked the requirements in the handout that Ms. Cho gave us at least three times.” 

“You don’t exactly have the best track records with these things, maybe I should check again—”

Jeno sighed, arms tired from lugging around their gigantic mesocosm through the entire school to the Biology classroom.  “Jaemin. We finished our project. It’s fine.” 

“I know, but,” she cut herself off, frowning. “I can’t help but feel like we’re missing something.” 

“You always feel like that. It’s the side effect of being a control freak.” 

Jaemin scowled at her. “I am not a control freak.” 

“Whatever you say, Ms. I Want To Do Everything By Myself Even In A Group Project,” Jeno snarked. God, her arms really were getting sore. Normally, they’d be taking turns to carry the container, but Jaemin had made up some lame excuse about Jeno being beefier and therefore logically, she should be the one carrying it. Jeno had tuned out at the word beefy. 

“Can we go in already?” Jeno demanded. “This thing is heavy. ” 

“Yeah, whatever,” she muttered, and pushed open the door for Jeno to walk through. She managed to make it to their desk without collapsing, setting down the mesocosm as gently as she could—out of respect for Darling, if nothing else. 

Jeno brushed off her skirt, straightening up until she was face-to-face with Jaemin again. There was barely anyone else in the class yet. Jaemin had made them come early, for whatever reason—the control freak in her struck again. (Jeno didn’t mind, though. She’d had a free period before either way.) 

But despite the lack of people, Jaemin was still ignoring her gaze, frowning and leafing through pages of the report they’d written together. It was normal Jaemin behaviour, but Jeno was still on edge.

“Hey,” she started, quietly. “Are we good?” 

Jaemin looked up from the report, eyebrows still furrowed. “Well, technically the truce lasts until we finally submit the project,” 

“Not the truce, I mean… you know,” 

For a moment, Jaemin looked so confused that Jeno thought that perhaps it would’ve been a better idea to simply stay shut. Her eyes quickly widened with realisation, though, and she finally said, “Yeah, we’re good.” 

The verbal confirmation was a lot more comforting to Jeno than she’d like to admit, releasing a mental sigh of relief. Out loud, she grinned. “Thirty minutes until I can go back to calling you a bitch again.” 

“Oh, please. I can name plenty of times within our truce that you called me a bitch.” 

“Those were all called for,” Jeno sat down on the seat facing Jaemin, steepling her fingers under her chin, “there’s something about being aggressive without reason.” 

“And I’m the one with issues?”

Laughing, Jeno was about to reply, but paused when she saw that the other girl was still deeply engrossed in whatever she was reading over. Jeno sighed forlornly, moving away from Jaemin and into her own space. Thirty minutes. 

Except. Except. Here was the thing: 

Jeno didn’t really know if she wanted the truce to end. 

Complete shocker, right? It wasn’t as if she’d been showing any interest in Jaemin whatsoever over the past couple of weeks, or as if she’d been constantly beating herself up about certain events in relation to certain blondes, or as if she’d been actually enjoying herself through some parts of the project. She’d been dreading the whole thing since the beginning, and now that it was over, she’d expected to feel like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders—not like this. She didn’t even know if she was just letting Mark and Heejin’s words get to her head, or if this was how she really felt.  

Either way, she didn’t get much time to dwell on it. Every group had to make a short presentation on their mesocosms and their main findings from the project; and Jaemin and Jeno were up soon. Jaemin kept poking her throughout the entire class, making sure that she had her notes and knew what she had to say. Jeno was only half-listening: she couldn’t stop thinking about how weird it would be to go back to ignoring the other girl after spending so much time together. 

It was only after class—which went great, Ms. Cho even complimented them on their snail—that she decided to voice her concerns. 

“Hey, Jaemin?” she asked, waiting for the other girl to finish gathering her books. 

Jaemin glanced at her. “If you’re waiting to call me a bitch, better do it now and get it over with.” 

“No, it’s not that—” Jeno sighed, cutting herself off. This was so stupid . If things between them hadn’t changed over the course of a year, what was a one month long project going to do? 

“Well?” Jaemin prompted, standing up until she was face-to-face with Jeno. 

“I was thinking that,” she paused, searching for the right words, “maybe we don’t have to, you know. End things here,” 

Jaemin raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?” 

“Maybe we can continue our truce,” Jeno said, all in one breath. “Except it wouldn’t really be a truce.” When Jaemin still didn’t say anything, she tried again, “Friends?” 

Jaemin’s face was carefully blank, as if she was trying to figure out what to say. Jeno had only seen her like this a handful of times before—she was usually so full of expression and colour that this felt like a whole new person. 

“Why?” she asked, at last. 

“Why not?” It was an easier response than saying everything else on her mind. 

That earned her a smile, against all odds. “Sure, Lee. Friends.” 

Jeno let out a sigh of relief—though what she’d been so tense about, she didn’t know. She’d managed to survive so long without Jaemin, she was sure she could survive another year. 

“Cool,” she said out loud, “epic, even. Nice.” 

“Not even a minute into our friendship and you’re already making me regret it,” 

“Oh, shut up,” said Jeno, crossing her arms, “do you want to come over to my house after school today?” 

If Jaemin had raised her eyebrows before, this time, they shot up straight into her bangs this time. “ Why? ” 

“Because that’s what friends do, you moron,” she replied, rolling her eyes. 

“Do friends also call each other morons?”  

“You’re special,” Jeno said, sweetly. Jaemin laughed, hoisting her bag higher over her shoulder. 

“I can’t make it today,” she admitted, “I have some errands to run for my mom. Does Friday work?” 

Jeno was nodding, ready to agree, before she realised— “Oh, I have a gig on Friday,” 

“Oh.” Great, she was already messing up the whole friendship thing before it had even started. 

“You should come,” Jeno blurted out, “to the gig, I mean.” 

Jaemin looked properly surprised, eyes widening behind her glasses. Jeno couldn’t really blame her. 

“It’s at the Love Club, the cafe over at the next block,” she continued, before Jaemin could say anything (like no ). “I think you’d like it.” 

After what might have been the longest pause in Jeno’s life, Jaemin finally nodded. “Sure. I’d love to come.”

The Love Club was a bit different from your regular cafe: for one, it wasn’t really a cafe. To call it that would be doing a disgrace to all of its other services, but it was the one that fit the best. People visited the place for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from just getting a coffee, to checking out the books at the mini store, to getting drinks a little stronger than a coffee—and, of course, to see bands like Something Wicked. 

The mastermind behind the whole idea went by Ten, and Jeno had been enamoured by them ever since they’d first met. She’d stumbled across the place while searching for possible venues to score gigs at, and had been intrigued enough to actually visit in person. It hadn’t taken more than a few exchanged words and a sample of their band’s music for Ten to readily agree and give them the gig. Playing for such a small crowd had been strange at first, especially because there weren’t really any huge props or strobe lights they could use for staging, but they’d gotten used to it. 

Still, despite the number of times she’d performed at the exact same place, Jeno couldn’t help the nerves bubbling up her throat at that moment. She tried to dismiss it as just the pre-show jitters that came with performing a new piece for the first time, but she knew the real reason had blonde hair and wore pink lip gloss. 

She sighed, and moved away from where she’d been leafing through the books just to pass time. She was here way earlier than she needed to be—their turn at the stage wasn’t for another hour, but Jeno liked the place. 

With one last glance at the magazines, she turned around to head straight for the makeshift bar. Right now, while it was still daylight, it served coffee and juice and friendly diner food; after sunset, it moved onto stronger things. (And, much to her chagrin, it also meant that she had to move away from it.) 

Luckily for her, she wasn’t alone. Yangyang, one of the part-time workers at the Love Club, gave her a bright grin just as she sat down onto one of the stools lining the bar. 

“Jen!” he exclaimed. “It’s been too long.” 

“It really has,” she agreed, giving him a twin smile. It was impossible to not smile while you were around Yangyang. “I didn’t see you the last time we came to perform,”

“I was visiting my aunt for the past week, I just got back! She had a baby and he’s the cutest little thing on earth, I can show you pictures,” he gushed, already pulling out his phone. Jeno let him take her through the entire story of his new cousin, absent-mindedly fiddling with one of the coasters on the counter. Yangyang was always the most enthusiastic person in the room, but it never got annoying; it was one of the many things that Jeno loved about him. 

“Anyway,” he said, finally finished with the impromptu slideshow. “That’s enough about me! How are you, how’s the band?”

Jeno laughed, twirling a strand of her hair between her fingers. “It hasn’t been that long, you know. We haven’t disbanded yet.” 

“Hey, you never know in this industry,” he said, sagely. “You think everything’s going fine, all the members are getting along great and then boom ! Tears, backstabbing, bloodshed,” 

“Well, luckily for us, there has been no mutiny as of yet,” she grinned, suddenly remembering that Yangyang didn’t know yet, and added, “we’re participating in the Battle of the Bands this year!” 

His eyes grew twice their size, and Jeno tried not to giggle at the sight. “Holy shit, Jen, you guys are definitely going to win!” 

“That’s the plan,” she said, twinkling. “You should come see us, I’ll even sign your t-shirt if you ask nicely,” 

“I might just have to take you up on that offer.”  

They kept talking for a little while longer, interrupted at one point by Ten, who came over to scold Yangyang for not offering their customer a menu—and even though Jeno honestly didn’t mind, watching the boy’s ears redden was a sight to behold in itself. Ten was probably the only one who could get Yangyang to such a state. 

By the time Heejin and Mark arrived, Jeno had made it through two cups of coffee and half a cherry scone. (Yes, they arrived together , a fact that did not go unnoticed by Jeno.) Mark gave her a confused look, while Heejin rushed over to steal the other half without so much as a word of greeting. 

“Hello to you too,” Jeno said, dryly. 

“Hi,” Heejin replied, mouth full. Jeno wrinkled her nose. 

“Manners,” she scolded, only for Heejin to stick her tongue out in response and say, “Whatever, princess.”

Before Jeno could retort to that, Mark jumped in with, “What are you doing here so early?”

“Nerves,” she said, shrugging. 

Mark gave her another weird look. “You're nervous. About singing at the Love Club.”

“You know, new songs and all,”

“Nope, that's not it,” Heejin chimed in, finally done with her scone. She'd wiped the crumbs on her shirt when she thought no one was watching—Jeno was. She sent her a distasteful look. “What's up, buttercup?”

Jeno sighed. There was no hiding anything from these guys. “I invited Jaemin here today,” she admitted, ready to hear the endless ragging from the two of them. 

Instead, Heejin just grinned. “Cool! We'll just have to be better than ever before to impress her, huh?”

“Yeah, we got this,” Mark agreed, nodding. “Don't worry, Jen, we won't embarrass you in front of her.”

“Like we'd embarrass ourselves anywhere else!”

Jeno found herself at a momentary loss of words, somewhat taken aback by how easily the two of them had taken the information. It wasn't like she'd wanted them to react weirdly, but seeing how they'd been acting every time she so much as mentioned Jaemin the past month… 

Heejin must have picked up on her thoughts, because she reached out to flick her on the arm. “Please, we've both seen this coming from a mile away. It's good that you two are patching up.”

“Thanks,” Jeno said, at last, even though there were probably a million other better things she could've said. Some musician she was. 

“We got this, babe,” Heejin repeated, before tapping her on the shoulder. “Now come on, let's finish setting up.”

The stage at the Love Club was tucked away in a sort of large alcove to one end of the place, carefully designed to make sure the sound carried all across the room. It was less of a stage and more of a slightly elevated platform, though it made up for its lack of space through the killer acoustics. Ten had even strung up some fairy lights to add to the ambience. Not exactly the ideal place for a rock band to be performing, but it had treated them well. 

While Mark and Heejin were caught up in taking care of their instruments, Jeno took the chance to scope out the audience. There was always a different assortment of people sitting at the cafe, mostly some kids searching for new music and new food. Something Wicked didn’t really have any fans—at least, not unless Jeno’s mom counted, what with her foam fingers and glittery banners—but there were a few regulars at the place who always clapped and cheered to their songs. Jeno waved at one of them now, a cute girl named Ryujin who she’d seen around the hallways at school. 

She’d just started to get back to her members when she heard the telltale sound of the cafe door opening, accompanied by the little jingle that the bell above the entrance made each time. Jeno followed the direction of the sound—only to be met with Jaemin herself.

“Hey!” she called out, excited. Jaemin turned at the sound of her name, eyes widening in recognition when she caught sight of Jeno on the stage. 

“Hey yourself,” Jaemin replied, moving towards her and into the main area of the cafe. She eyed the stage set-up. “This is quite the place you’ve got here.” 

“One of the hidden gems of the city,” Jeno agreed. “You can just chill out or maybe order something, we don’t play for another few minutes.”

Jaemin nodded, still looking distracted by all the decorations littered throughout the cafe. “What kind of stuff do they serve here?”

“Oh, everything. I’m sure that Ten and that wizard they keep locked up back in the kitchen know how to cook every single dish in existence.”

“Did they pay you to butter this place up or something?” Jaemin teased, and Jeno made a sound of protest. “I’ll hold you to your word, though. Happy playing,” 

Jeno watched her make her way to the bar with a rueful grin on her face, only knocked out of her thoughts when Heejin pinched her side. “Ow!” 

“Come on, don’t get all moony eyed on me now,” Heejin said, rolling her eyes. “We still have a set to play, you know. You can flirt with Jaemin all you want after that.”

“I’m not flir—!”

“Yeah, yeah, we know, you’re a born Casanova. Now can you plug your guitar in so we can get started?” 

Miffed, Jeno did as she was told, but she didn’t do it happily. It didn’t take long before they were ready with their setup, and by then, the rest of their regular crowd had started trickling in, too. Yangyang even gave her a thumbs-up from the bar. 

“Hey, guys,” she said into the mic, once she was sure that there were enough people present. “We’re Something Wicked, and we’ll be keeping you company this evening.” 

Someone wolf-whistled. Grinning, Jeno continued, “We’ve written a couple of new songs for you all tonight, yell if you like them!” 

And with that, they were off. 

All their sets started off with the same intro sequence by Heejin on the drums. Jeno let the feeling of being on stage wash her over, the feeling of being surrounded by the two most important people in her life and the music they’d created together—it wasn’t anything that could be explained, it needed to be felt . So Jeno did. 

Playing their new music came a lot more naturally than she would’ve expected, and when Mark’s voice merged with her own, it felt like they’d been singing it since forever. There were a good amount of yells sounding throughout the room, filling the place with an electricity that didn’t just come from the music, but Jeno was too busy searching for something else (or rather, someone else). 

Jaemin was looking directly at them, eyebrows furrowed in the sort of intense concentration that Jeno had come to associate with her being genuinely interested in something. Her eyes met Jeno’s from over the microphone, expression relaxing immediately. She smiled, and Jeno felt like she could’ve taken over the world. 

“We saw this movie literally two months ago,” 

“Two whole months! A classic like this needs to be rewatched at least once a month!” 

Jeno’s mom glared at her. “Oh, so it’s fine when it comes to the Princess Diaries, but suddenly when I want to rewatch Legally Blonde I’m old and need to find new movies .” 

“Does Legally Blonde have Anne Hathaway?” she asked, pointedly, before plucking the DVD out of her mom’s hands and making her way to the living room. “Come on, get the pizza with you.” 

“I’m the adult here, you know!” her mom called out, but complied nonetheless. Jeno snickered as she slid the DVD into the player. This was one of their little traditions—sitting down with old-school DVDs and pizza every other week, for a good old mother-daughter bonding session. At some point they’d run out of DVDs to watch (and it wasn’t like any stores nearby still sold them), so they’d stuck to rewatching their favourites. Which, of course, resulted in debates just like these. 

“You should be so lucky to have me,” she continued, walking into the living room with the boxes of pizza carefully balanced on her hands. “Next time, we’re watching a bimbo movie of my choice.” 

“Yes, yes,” Jeno said, waving her away. “You and your blondes.”  

Her mom gave her a mournful look. “I still haven’t given up hope of you bleaching your hair.” 

Jeno gasped, hands reaching up to cover her hair protectively. “Not my gorgeous ebony locks!” 

“You are so dramatic,” she said, rolling her eyes, and reaching for a slice of pizza, “have you seen how cute that friend of yours looks with blonde hair? That could be you,” 

“Yeah, but that’s because it just fits the Jaemin vibes.” 

Her mom raised an eyebrow. “What, pray tell, are the Jaemin vibes?” 

“Well, for starters, she’s a femme lesbian. I,” Jeno explained, gesturing at her current choice of clothing that looked like it had been taken straight out of a Hot Topic pamphlet, “am not.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that.” 

Satisfied, Jeno reached for the remote so that she could finally play the movie, but her mom continued talking. “So, judging by the fact that you didn’t immediately spout several death threats at the sound of Jaemin’s name, I’m judging things are going good with you two?”

Jeno flushed. “I’m not—we’re—we’re friends,” 

“Is that what they’re calling it these days,” her mom mused. 

“Ma!” 

“Hey, I’m just saying,” she replied, laughing. “It’s good that you two are friends again. I told you the project was a blessing in disguise.” 

“Fine, fine, your motherly instinct is always right and I will never disrespect it ever again,” Jeno conceded. “Can we watch the movie now?”

Still laughing, her mom nodded, and Jeno gratefully pressed play. Snuggling up on the couch, she made herself as comfortable as she could in order to peacefully watch Anne Hathaway go through her white version of a magical girl transformation. Younger, closeted, Jeno had always had a strange fascination with that scene—what did you mean you could turn into a pretty girl at the flick of a wrist like that? Granted, it had probably given her more unrealistic expectations for the future than anything else, but it was still a comfort movie.   

Two hours later, Jeno was satisfied in both stomach and soul. They’d ordered way more pizza than they needed—as per usual—and she was already looking forward to eating the leftovers in the near future. It was barely even 10:00 pm, though, so she turned to her mom with the intention of asking if she wanted to get another movie in—but stopped short when she caught sight of her expression. 

“Ma?” Jeno ventured, when she didn’t offer anything of her own. “Everything okay?”

Her mom sighed, raising her eyes to meet her daughter’s. “I need to tell you something.” 

Jeno’s mind immediately jumped to the worst case scenarios—she’d murdered someone, she wasn’t her real mother, she was going to abandon her, her dad was back in town . She took a deep breath, collecting her thoughts before prompting, “Yeah?” 

“The thing is,” she started, looking uncharacteristically nervous. “I’m seeing someone.” 

Jeno blinked. “That’s it?” 

“I—yes?” 

“Oh, that’s great!” Jeno felt like a gigantic weight had just been lifted off her shoulder. Of course she’d been freaking out over nothing; this was her mother, after all.

“You’re not mad?” her mom pressed, looking increasingly confused.

“Mad? Why would I be mad?” she questioned back. “If anything, I’m glad . You haven’t dated anyone in ages.” 

“This is different from the others,” her mom admitted, slinking back into the couch. In times like these, it was hard to tell which of them was the teenager and which of them was the mother between the two. Jeno attributed it to the many complications that came with having a kid at sixteen. “We’ve been seeing each other for almost two months now.” 

This time, Jeno frowned. “Two months?” 

“I know, I know I should’ve told you before, but,” her mom took a pause for breath, as if searching for the right thing to say. Jeno stayed quiet. “Everything is just going so good, you know? I didn’t want to ruin it by taking things faster than needed.” 

“So telling me would have been ruining it?”

“Baby, you know I didn’t mean it like that—” 

“Yeah, no, I know,” Jeno said, shaking her head, “I get it, it’s fine, ma, really.” 

Her mom gave her a worried look. “I really am sorry for not telling you earlier.” 

“It’s fine,” she insisted. Because it was. No matter how close they were, her mother wasn’t obligated to share every detail of her personal life with her, and it would be unfair of her to ask for it. It didn’t matter if she still felt a little hurt; it wasn’t her place to. 

“Come here,” her mom finally said, pulling Jeno closer into a hug. “My favourite daughter.” 

“Your only daughter,” Jeno pointed out, voice muffled from where she was squished against her mother’s neck. “Unless that’s something else you haven’t told me?” 

“You’re right, I’ve been hiding a sister from you all this time. She’s living in our basement and I have to go down there periodically every day to give her food and water.”

“That’s like, a stranger, horror fusion of the Parent Trap,” 

Her mom gave her a weird look. “Honey, I don’t think you’ve ever seen the Parent Trap.” 

Jeno giggled, snuggling further into the hug as she sent back a retort of her own. It was familiar enough that she could cling onto that thought, burrow herself into the crook of her mom’s neck, and pretend for a second that everything was fine. 

Unluckily for Jeno, everything was not, in fact, fine. 

As much as she’d tried to repress the other night, there had been a strange feeling threatening to bubble out of her throat and all over her mom’s happiness—she wasn’t quite sure what it was, but she could tell that it was probably green in colour and underscored with a heavy dose of guilt. 

Here was the thing, right? She’d grown up with her mom, and her mom alone. Of course she’d dated in that time, but none of them had ever been major enough for her to announce it to Jeno like that. Hell, Jeno hadn’t even met any of them—they’d had a strict no-men-in-the-house policy as she was growing up. But with this one, with the way that her mom’s eyes lit up even at the mere mention of his name, she could tell that it wasn’t going to be the same story. 

Jeno sighed, pulling her knees closer to her chest and closing her eyes from where she was sitting on Heejin’s couch. She’d just finished spilling everything that had been plaguing her mind since her mom had sprung that information on her, and the other girl was looking at her with a mixture of concern and sympathy on her face. 

“Did you talk to your mom about any of this?” she asked, softly. 

“No,” Jeno replied, sighing again. She let her legs fall to the ground again, drawing circles against the carpet of the floor with her feet. “I couldn’t.” 

“You can’t do anything about it if you don’t at least tell her your thoughts on this,” 

“Hnngh,” she replied. At Heejin’s raised eyebrow, she further elaborated, “It’s just such a shitty thing for me to do… I mean, she’s really happy with this guy, and all I can do is think about how it might impact our relationship?” 

“You’re sixteen,” Heejin reminded her. “It’s only natural you’re worried about it.”

“Hnngh,” Jeno repeated. Heejin threw a cushion at her. 

“Promise me you’ll talk to her about it soon.” 

Jeno furrowed her eyebrows. “No.” 

“ Jeno. ” 

“ Heejin. ” 

The two glared at each other, locked in a staring competition—the only natural way to decide the outcome of an argument like this, of course. Jeno knew that Heejin was right on a logistical level, but she also didn’t want to admit it to herself. 

“Fine,” she finally conceded, if only because Heejin’s eyes were starting to bore into her soul. “Fine! I promise I’ll think about talking to her soon.” 

“I’ll take it,” Heejin agrees, and Jeno throws the cushion back at her. 

“Anyway,” Jeno continues, folding her legs and turning to face Heejin. “Enough about me. What’s up with you,” 

“What, this is a gossip session now?” Heejin asked, laughing. Jeno nodded, very seriously. 

“Hmm, let’s see,” she said, pretending to think. “Jiwoo said hi to me in the hallways yesterday.” 

Jeno rolled her eyes. “Are you ever going to get over that crush? It’s hopeless.”

“Excuse me!” Heejin said, affronted. “Thanks for the vote of confidence!” 

“I’m just saying, ” she pointed out. “Maybe you should look somewhere else. You know, maybe there’s someone there for you right in front of you that you haven’t been able to see.” 

Heejin looked at her suspiciously. “Is this your way of confessing to me?” 

“Wh—no!” 

“Sure sounds like it,” she said, not sounding convinced at all. “What the hell are you going on about?” 

“You know what? Forget it,” Jeno replied, exasperated. Dealing with Mark was bad enough on its own, but Heejin was a whole other level of headache-inducing. At least Mark was aware of his crush. 

“Maybe I should think of branching out, though,” Heejin mused. “Think you can get your blondie to set me up with one of her nerd friends?” 

“My— what? ” God, Jeno swore she needed years of therapy to recover from a single conversation with this girl. Everything she said felt like a punch to the gut in a different area each time. 

“You know, Jaemin,” she said, arching her brow—and in a twist of fate and cruel irony, Jeno’s phone decided to light up at that very minute with none other than a notification from the devil herself. 

Jeno reached for it immediately, which only made Heejin’s eyebrows go higher up on her forehead. She cursed herself mentally. Rule number one of talking to Heejin while trying to hide something was exactly like rule number one of talking to a large, possibly dangerous cat: no sudden movements. 

“Is that the belle in question?” she asked, innocently. Jeno cut eyes at her. 

“You are not French,” she informed Heejin.

“I didn’t know you guys were texting,” Heejin went on, and Jeno tried to sneak a glance at her phone screen while she was still talking. She could make out an ice cream emoji of some sort. 

“We’re not,” she said, like a liar. To be fair, they weren’t meant to be texting. But Jaemin had sent her a GIF of a cat not long after establishing their newfound friendship, and it had all gone kind of downhill from there. This time, however, Jaemin was texting to inform her of a new ice cream place that had opened down from where she lived—which explained the emojis, she supposed. 

“For someone who’s not texting, you’re smiling awfully wide at your phone right now.”

Jeno scowled at her. “You are worse than a mother.” 

“Only to you, my dear,” Heejin said, happily, clasping her hands together. “So? What’s she saying?” 

“Gossip monger,” she muttered, but showed her the screen anyway. For as nosy as Heejin could be, Jeno was worse. “She’s asking if I’m free right now.” 

“I was joking when I asked if you guys were going on dates, but I don’t think it’s a joke anymore,” Heejin replied, eyes widened. 

“It’s not a date!” 

“Yeah? So all your best-friends-turned-enemies-turned-tentative friends ask you out for ice cream on a Sunday afternoon?”

“You are insufferable,” she said, typing away at a response to Jaemin at the same time. 

“So are you free?” 

Jeno frowned. “I was planning on saying yes, but I can stay if you want,” 

“No, no,” Heejin said, making shooing gestures with her hands. “Go, get your girl.”

“There is no girl-getting!” 

“Sure there isn’t,” she replied, smiling all-knowingly. It was quiet for a few moments, save for the clacking of Jeno’s admittedly long fingernails against her phone screen, before Heejin spoke up again. “Hey, if all the jokes about you and Jaemin make you uncomfortable, you know I can stop, right? Just say the word.” 

Jeno looked up. “Aww, Heej, you care,”

“Shut up,” she said, reddening. “I take it back.” 

“It’s fine, though,” Jeno replied, laughing. “It’s not like I don’t do the same for you.” 

“Yeah, but,” Heejin continued, uncertain. “I don’t want to ruin anything between you guys just because I couldn’t shut up,” 

“Please, you’re ruining nothing,” she said, shaking her head and pausing mid-text. “Although you do know that I don’t actually like Jaemin like that, right?” 

Heejin snorted. “Right.” 

“What does that—” 

“Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about just yet,” Heejin assures her, “go have ice cream.” 

See what she meant about years of therapy?

Thirty minutes and many exchanged death threats later, Jeno found herself waiting by the neon pink sign proclaiming the words “Ye Olde Ice Cream Parlour”. It was corny as hell, but she resisted the urge to snort out of respect for its patrons. Jaemin was supposed to get here soon, anyway, and Jeno checked her texts for the umpteenth time. 

“Hey!” came the ever-so-familiar voice, and Jeno’s face split into a grin. Jaemin was waving at her from across the road, and she waited patiently for the other girl to come join her. 

“Wow, you were actually on time somewhere for once,” said Jaemin once she caught up to Jeno. The words were something that she would’ve expected to hear a month ago, but this time, they came paired with none of the past malice.

 She stuck her tongue out at Jaemin. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.”

“That can’t be true, you’re still as tasteless as usual,” she replied, shaking her head and pushing open the door to the ice cream parlour in one fluid motion, “being on time doesn’t make up for not liking mint chocolate chip.”

“It tastes like literal toothpaste!” Jeno cried. 

“I don’t think you’ve ever had toothpaste in your entire life.”

“I have, and it tasted even better than the monstrosity that is mint chocolate,” 

“You kid now, but wait til you try the mint chocolate ice cream they have here,” said Jaemin, sliding into her seat. They’d found a cosy little booth towards the back of the place. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever had before.”

Jeno gave her a horrified look. “Are you trying to poison me?”

“Trust me,” Jaemin insisted, and Jeno narrowed her eyes. 

“Fine,” she agreed, “but only if you order the strawberry ice cream.”

This time it was Jaemin’s turn to widen her eyes. “Are you trying to poison me ?”

“Aha! See, now that’s just unfair.”

“You are the absolute worst,” Jaemin grumbled. She grabbed one of the many colourful menus placed out in front of them, flipping through it. “If I’m going to do this to myself, I’m at least going to do it with enough toppings to drown my misery in.” 

Jeno laughed, plucking out a menu for herself. Bickering like this was just so easy —the same as ever, but also not. It was at least a definite upgrade from the stifling politeness that had haunted the early days of their “truce”. 

“We should get a milkshake,” Jeno suggested, after a few minutes of skimming through the first page. “The kind with ice cream on top and two straws.”

“What are we, white people in the 90s?” Jaemin replied, raising an eyebrow. 

“Can’t hurt to try,” she said, eyes twinkling. “Plus, there’s a couple’s discount, see.”

Jaemin blanched. “We’re not—”

“Yeah, but they don’t know that,” Jeno nodded in the direction of who she assumed were the owners of the place. They waved at her in greeting, and she smiled innocently back. “Come on, we’re both broke. Live a little.”

“You’ll make a criminal out of me, Lee,” she huffed. “Fine, but I’m picking the flavour.”

Jeno pouted. “I wanted the strawberry!” 

“I will kill you right here, right now.” 

“Aww, Jaem, you say the sweetest things sometimes,” 

It didn’t take long before the two of them ordered and got their ice creams, and Jeno made a point to make sure that Jaemin finished every single scoop of her strawberry. 

“It’s so sour, ” she whined, making a face. “I can’t believe you’ve done this to me.” 

“Your taste buds are simply weak,” Jeno informed her. 

“Says the person who’s barely touched their own ice cream.” 

Jeno looked down at the green monstrosity in her cup, suddenly feeling queasy. “Alright, maybe this wasn’t our best idea.” 

“No takesy-backsies!” Jaemin demanded. “You dug your own grave, now lie in it.” 

“Can’t I just throw you in and run away instead?” 

Jaemin glared at her. “That is not how death works.” 

“How would you know? You’ve never been dead before, have you?” 

“And neither have you,” she countered, “but I’m fairly sure pushing someone into a pit not meant for them isn’t guaranteed to get you into any spots in Heaven,” 

“Ah, the angel speaks,” Jeno said, grinning and steepling her fingers under her chin. “Do tell me more about Heaven.”

“This is a really odd version of a pick-up line,” Jaemin muttered. 

“What, no points for creativity?” 

“That train left the station right alongside your sense of dignity.” 

Jeno laughed, leaning back in her seat. “You wound me, Jaemin.” 

“That’s on you,” she replied, shrugging. She took another bite of her ice cream and immediately gagged, pushing it away. “God, this shit really sucks.” 

Jeno’s mint chocolate chip ice cream met a similar fate; the pink and green scoops melting forlornly into their glass cups as they went ignored by the two girls towering over them. She almost felt bad for wasting the food. 

Their salvation came by way of the milkshake, though—chocolate, a fair compromise between the two of them. You couldn’t go wrong with chocolate. 

“Enjoy your drink, girlies,” said the waitress affectionately, after dropping off the glass. Jeno smiled at her, reaching out for Jaemin’s hand across the table. Only to make their couple story more believable, of course. 

“Thank you,” she replied, as warmly as she could. Jaemin wrenched her hand away from Jeno’s as soon as the waitress walked away, shooting her a glare that she was happy to respond to with a matching smile. Really, this whole friendship was working out a lot better than she’d expected it to. She could almost imagine it turning into a regular thing—and then dismissed the thought entirely, instead distracted by Jaemin noisily taking the first slurp of the milkshake.    

jeno 🐱: 

jeno 🐱: fish today

jaemin 🍓: (≧◡≦) CUTIE 

jeno 🐱: not a single brain cell in sight 

jaemin 🍓: you are too mean to your cat ヽ(`⌒´メ)ノ

jeno 🐱: hes stinky 

jaemin 🍓: no!!!! 

jeno 🐱: brat cat. naughty man 

jaemin 🍓: ＼(º □ º l|l)/

jaemin 🍓: IM TAKING HIM AWAY FROM YOU!!!! 

Okay, so maybe the texting was a regular thing now. 

And the “dates”, for lack of a better word. The saying hi to each other between classes. Hanging out after school, before school, whichever came first. Sending each other tweets and cat pictures and everything in between. Jaemin was a regular thing now, and Jeno had no idea what she was going to do about it. 

“Why is she staring at her phone like a freak?” 

Heejin shushed him. “Don’t interrupt her. She’s going through something.”   

Jeno ignored both of them in favour of her continuing to stare at her phone ( not like a freak, thank you very much, Mark). Her screen currently announced that Jaemin would be picking her up at Heejin’s house, after they were done with band practice, so that they could go over to Jeno’s house for a documentary they’d promised to watch together. 

It was all very unreal. Jeno from a month ago would have probably punched her in the jaw. 

“Can she go through her thing faster? We’re missing out on precious practice time.” 

“You can’t rush love, Mark!” 

That got Jeno to look up from her phone immediately, narrowing her eyes at Heejin. “Who said anything about love?” 

“No one, my dear,” she said, sweetly. “Was that Jaemin?”

“Maybe,” Jeno replied, warily. She wasn’t sure how much ammunition to give the other two. “She’s going to be picking me up from here after we’re done.”

Mark snorted. “So much for a temporary truce.” 

“Do you have something to say to me—”

“Now, now, kids,” Heejin interrupted, being the one to break up the fight instead of start it for once. Jeno glared at Mark, and then her. 

“Isn’t love supposed to make you a nicer person?” Mark wondered out loud.   

“I’ll show you nicer person ,” Jeno threatened, getting up from where she’d been lounging on the floor, against the wall. 

“I’m sure you will,” he said, impatiently. “Can we get started now? I have something I want to try for this set,”

“Jeez, who put a stick up your ass?” Jeno muttered, but moved towards her guitar all the same. If the way that he was alternating between looking bitter and downcast was anything to go by, it was probably something to do with Heejin again. 

The girl in question remained completely oblivious, as per usual. She grinned, waggling her eyebrows at Jeno. “Picking you up here, huh?” 

“Yeah, I sent her your address, I hope that’s fine,” 

“Oh, it’s perfectly fine,” she all but purred. Heejin was terrifying when she got like this.

“Right,” Jeno replied, slowly, tuning her guitar. “Please stop looking at me like that.”

Heejin did not stop looking at her like that. Jeno resisted the urge to scream. 

“Can we take this song out of the setlist?” Mark said, suddenly, prompting frowns from both girls in the room. 

“Which one?” Jeno asked, cautiously. Mark really did look like he was in a bad mood. 

“Queen Of My Heart,” he replied. “We can replace it with something else, Puzzle Pieces, maybe.” 

Jeno’s frown deepened, and so did Heejin’s. “That’s one of our best songs. We’ve been practicing it non-stop for the past few weeks, we’re practically guaranteed a win with it,” 

“I know, but—” he stopped himself short mid-sentence, as if remembering something. “Yeah, nevermind, you’re right. Give me a second.”

And with that, he left the garage, without giving them even a second to digest what he was saying. 

Heejin sent her a look. “What the fuck was that all about?”

“I have no idea,” Jeno said, furrowing her eyebrows. “I think I’m going to go check on him.”

“I’ll come with,” Heejin offered. 

“Oh, um,” she paused, unsure whether that would be the best idea. She had a faint inkling that she knew what Mark was freaking out over, and Heejin being there would only make things worse. “How about you stay here? Let’s not overwhelm him.”

She shrugged in response, continuing to play with her drumsticks, but Jeno could tell she was worried. Resisting the urge to sigh, Jeno followed Mark outside, only to find him glaring at the bushes lining Heejin’s yard as if they’d done him some sort of personal crime.  

“Mark?” she started, softly. He grunted in acknowledgement, but didn’t turn around. “You okay?”

“Fine,” he muttered. 

Jeno hesitated, not sure if she’d be overstepping with what she wanted to say. “She’s really oblivious, you know.”

That got Mark’s attention. He met Jeno’s eyes, and she tried to send him what she hoped was a comforting look. “What are you talking about?” he asked, finally. 

“Heejin,” she clarified. “You’re not as subtle as you think you are. Well, except to her.”

Mark let out a strangled noise, a cross between a particularly angry kitten and a dying whale. Jeno took his lack of articulated response as a sign to continue, “Maybe you just need to spell things out for her a little more.”

“I wrote her a song , Jen,” he said, exasperated. “How much more obvious do I have to be?” 

“This is Heejin we’re talking about,” Jeno reminded him, gently. “The girl couldn’t recognise a confession if it knocked on her door. Try something a little harder to ignore.”

“I know, I know, it’s just—” he started, then cut himself off again. “How did you and Jaemin do it?”

This time, it was Jeno’s turn to frown. “What?”  

“All of this, the texting, movies, whatever,” Mark gestured, “not even a month ago you two were at each other’s throats all the time. Completely oblivious, in your words. How did you do it?”

“I don’t,” Jeno said, and faltered. “That’s different. We had—issues—and we talked through them. You and Heejin don’t have anything like that. You just need to make it clear to her that you like her, so that she can finally realise that she likes you, too,” 

“Does she now,” he muttered. Jeno sent him a look, eliciting a sigh. “I guess you’re right.”

“I know I am, babe,” she replied, cheerfully. “Now, are you going to keep moping like a whiny baby or are you going to get in there, perform the shit out of some songs, and start working on a plan to woo the fuck out of Heejin?”

“ Woo? ” 

“That was not the point of my pep talk!” 

Mark laughed, and Jeno breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m going to perform the shit out of some songs and then woo the fuck out of Heejin,” he confirmed. 

Jeno beamed at him. “That’s the spirit.” 

The two of them walked back into the garage, Mark in a significantly lighter mood than before, and Heejin raised an eyebrow at Jeno. She only shook her head in response, mouthing the words, he’s fine now. Heejin looked like she wanted to ask more, but held back (for once). 

The rest of practice went by without a hitch. They’d never sounded better, in Jeno’s completely humble and unbiased opinion—Mark was singing with absolutely no inhibitions, now, and the emotion in his voice seemed to make the songs come alive with a newer colour than they had before. The realisation made Jeno smile into her mic, lips curling against the lyrics. 

Amazing as they were, there was still a thought threatening to take over all the unoccupied spaces in Jeno’s brain. She tried to push it to a corner, to focus on the music they were performing instead, but Mark’s voice continued its traitorous little whisper in her head: how did you and Jaemin do it? 

We are nothing like you and Heejin, Jeno’s internal monologue insisted. Because they weren’t. Mark and Heejin were meant to be, each other’s perfect match through every stupid little argument. Soulmates, if she were to use the word. Jeno and Jaemin were just dumb kids with unresolved issues from middle school who’d decided to be mature and move past it now that they were older. 

There was nothing weird about it, and they were most definitely not oblivious. There was no subtext, no secret meaning underlying any of their interactions, and Jeno had most definitely never written a song for Jaemin before. Neither was she planning to any time in the near future. 

By the time they were done going over their set for a third time, Jeno had finally managed to get the constant repetition out of her head. She packed away her stuff quietly, watching out of the corner of her eye as Mark showed Heejin something on his phone that made her laugh. He was looking at her with a goofy grin on his face, and it felt like a moment so personal that Jeno had to wrench her eyes away. 

Nothing like her and Jaemin . 

There were only two times that Jaemin had taken Jeno by surprise: once, when she’d agreed to her offer of friendship almost immediately, and the second, when she’d confessed that she didn’t like Taylor Swift’s music much. This time was slowly shaping up to be the third, though, and Jeno almost dropped the book she was carrying in her hand when she turned around from the library bookshelves and got a look at the other girl. 

Jaemin looked just like she always did, clad in her everyday denim jacket and round glasses. She had a bag slung across her shoulder and a hand in the air, as if gesturing to Jeno, but she was having a hard time processing things—namely because Jaemin’s hair, previously the blondest blonde known to all of humanity, was now a startlingly bright shade of pink.  

“Pink,” was all Jeno could manage as she took in the sight in front of her. She cursed herself internally, trying to pull herself together, but she couldn’t get over the shock of the sudden change. And the shock over the fact that Jaemin actually looked good in the sudden change. “Pink,” repeated. 

Jaemin grinned, seemingly oblivious to the effect she was having on her. She touched a self-conscious hand to her hair. “You like?” 

“I,” she started, words swallowing themselves before they could even leave her throat. “Yes. I do like.” 

“It was pretty much an impulse decision,” Jaemin admitted. “I got tired of the bleached look.” 

Jeno hummed absent-mindedly, trying to come up with a response that wouldn’t make her sound like a bumbling idiot. She had the strangest urge to reach out and run a hand through the other girl’s hair, but she had a feeling that wouldn’t exactly dock any points off the bumbling idiot scale. 

“Guess I can’t call you blondie anymore, huh,” she finally said, laughing awkwardly. The two of them were standing at the library’s check-out section, and Jeno almost squeezed the book in her hands to death. 

“Nope,” Jaemin agreed. “Time to come up with something new.”

“Bubblegum,” Jeno blurted out. Jaemin raised an eyebrow at her. “You know, because, it’s,” she faltered. “Yeah, nevermind, I’ll think of something better.”

“I’m sure you will.” 

“Are you here to take the book or gossip? I don’t have all day,” came the impatient voice of the librarian, and Jeno started at the realisation that it was already her turn in line. 

“You okay?” Jaemin asked her, touching her arm once they were out of the library. Her eyebrows were knitted together in concern, and Jeno desperately wanted to reach over and smoothen them out. “You look distracted.”

“I’m fine, just a little tired,” she said, like a liar. Well, in her defense, she couldn’t exactly tell Jaemin that she was still reeling from the shock of seeing her with pink hair, could she? 

“Oh, do you want to take a rain check on today’s documentary? Maybe you should get some rest,” 

“No, no!” Jeno reassured her, hastily. “I’m fine, really, don’t worry.”

“If you say so,” Jaemin replied, but didn’t look convinced. “You don’t exactly have the best track record with these things.”

“What are you, my mother?”

“God knows you could do with three of them,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re so irresponsible.” 

Jeno didn’t know whether she should be offended or touched that the other cared this much. She decided to go for the former option, “Excuse me! I am perfectly responsible!” 

“Not when it comes to yourself,” Jaemin looked oddly cross. “You always forget to look after your own needs in favour of everyone else.”

Well, what was she supposed to say to that? 

“That’s not true,” she settled on insisting, “I can take care of myself.” 

Jaemin sighed. “Whatever you say. Now come on, or we’ll get late for the doc.” 

The road to Jeno’s house is one well-worn by the two of them, and it’s hard to tell that Jaemin had only started visiting regularly again just two months ago. She seemed to find her way just as easily as Jeno, moving through the front door like it was her own house.

Fish came to greet them almost immediately, and Jeno laughed at his enthusiasm before shutting the door softly behind her.

“Hey, baby,” she said, crouching down so that she was eye-to-eye with the cat. He stared back at her impassively, eyes large and unblinking. “We’ve got a guest today, say hi.” 

She got up, leaving space for Fish to flick his eyes across Jaemin, before turning back around to Jeno again. 

Jaemin let out a whine. “See? He hates me!” 

“He does not hate you,” Jeno said, laughing and scratching behind Fish’s ears. “It just takes him time to warm up to new people,”

“You’ve been saying that for the past month,” she complained. 

“Time is subjective.”

“Your face is subjective,” Jaemin muttered, and sent a forlorn look in Fish’s direction. He remained uninterested, instead leaning further into Jeno’s hands, which only elicited another cry from Jaemin. “Never before has a cat ever hated me!” 

“Well, there are firsts to everything,” Jeno tried, but judging by the glare sent her way, it probably wasn’t the right thing to say. “Your ego would be too big if there wasn’t at least one exception to that rule.” 

Jaemin huffed. “That’s a stupid sentiment, but you know what? I’ll take it.” 

Jeno led Fish to the stairs, next to where his lunch was kept. “I’m going to go look in the kitchen for some food,” Jaemin announced, and Jeno shook her head ruefully at how easily comfortable she’d made herself here. 

Once she was done making sure that Fish was taken care of, she wandered back into the kitchen to find Jaemin squinting into the fridge. 

“There’s nothing here,” she said, mournfully, upon noticing that Jeno had entered. 

“What? That can’t be true,” Jeno reached in to grab a set of carrot sticks she’d put in there herself the other day. “See? Healthy.”

Jaemin made a face. “Want ice cream.” 

“You are going to die,” Jeno informed her, shutting the door to the fridge. “Come on, I’ll make popcorn.” 

That seemed to uplift Jaemin’s mood, and Jeno snorted at how easily she was won over. As she grabbed the popcorn from the cabinet—still sporting the lovely shades that she and her mom had painted it last month—Jaemin took a seat at the kitchen counter. 

“Auntie isn’t home?” she wondered out loud, and Jeno tried not to wince. 

“Nope,” she replied, glad that her back was turned so that Jaemin wouldn’t have to see the sudden souring of her expression. “She’s out with her boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Jaemin sounded surprised. Jeno didn’t blame her. “That’s new.”

“It is,” she agreed, and hoped that Jaemin would leave it at that. Luckily for her, she seemed to get the hint. If she picked up on anything off with Jeno, she didn’t mention it. 

“Alright, let’s go,” Jeno finally announced after a few more minutes of silence (save for the popping of corn kernels). Jaemin perked up immediately, grinning at the smell of butter filling the air. “Popcorn’s done, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wonderful voice is waiting.” 

The realisation arrived on a Wednesday, almost comical in its modesty. Long overdue, Heejin would have called it. Good thing Heejin wasn’t here.

It was one of those lazy after-school afternoons that Jeno had been seeing a lot of lately, hanging out on the empty campus long after everyone else had left. She wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere if she’d been just by herself, though; Jaemin was her key to the school. Jeno had gotten too used to waiting around for the other girl as she finished up her projects after classes.

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” Jaemin reminded her.

Jeno shrugged, legs swinging from where she’d comfortably positioned herself on the shelf next to the sink. They were in the chemistry lab, a place that Jeno usually made a point to not visit unless absolutely necessary, but she supposed exceptions could be made. “Not like I have anything better to do.” 

“You don’t have anything better to do than hang out at school after hours, watching me do extra credit chemistry work?”

She wrinkled her nose. “This is extra credit? God, you’re such a nerd.”

“Not the point,” Jaemin replied, exasperated. 

“Why are you so eager to get rid of me, anyway?” Jeno asked, eyeing the notebooks she was writing on. “Is this some sort of secret spy stuff you’re disguising as schoolwork?” 

“You watch too much Kim Possible,” she muttered, then paused, as if remembering something. “Isn’t your band battle thing soon?”

Jeno brightened immediately. She hadn’t expected Jaemin to remember, even if she did mess up the name. “Yeah, in two weeks. You should come!” 

“What, you don’t think I have any other New Year’s Eve plans?” 

“Nothing could possibly be cooler than hanging out with the best band of the decade,” Jeno said, cheerfully. “There’ll be an afterparty for everyone later, too.”

Jaemin gave her a doubtful look, to which Jeno responded with only a whine and nudge of the shoulder. “Come on, it’ll be fun, I promise. I know our music isn’t exactly your thing, but for me?” 

“Your coochie eyes won’t work on me,” Jaemin said, pointedly. “But yes, of course I’ll be there. You guys better win, though.” 

“Oh, don’t you worry. We’ve got that covered .”

“Overconfident,” 

“Like you’re one to talk, bubblegum,” Jeno shot back, feeling pleased as she caught sight of the flush that coloured Jaemin’s cheeks. 

“It is my God-given right as a Leo,” she started, and Jeno immediately made a loud raspberry noise. Jaemin glared at her. 

“If you’re going to insist on staying here, at least stay quietly,” she grumbled. “We can catch a movie once I’m done, if you want.” 

Jeno nodded, happy to go along. She mimed zipping her mouth and throwing the key, an act that was only met with an amused snort from Jaemin—but it wasn’t long before she was ignoring her own promise and opening her mouth to speak anyway. 

“What are you working on?” Jeno wondered, eyes trailing back to her notebooks. The pages were crammed with numbers and letters in Jaemin’s, quite frankly, terrible handwriting. She couldn’t make out heads or tails. 

Jaemin made a face. “I’m helping my teacher with some stuff for the freshmen’s labs,” she explained, gesturing to the equipment lying on the table around her. 

“Nerd,” Jeno observed. 

“They’re sweet kids!” she said, defensive. “And the extra credit is always welcome.”

“I’m sure,” replied Jeno. It earned her another huff from Jaemin; her hair got all puffy at the top when she was getting riled up over something. It was almost cute, kind of like a cartoon character. 

The silence lasted for all of ten minutes before Jeno interrupted it again. “Jaemin. I’m bored.” 

“Hi, bored,” said Jaemin absent-mindedly, scribbling something down. Jeno resisted the urge to pout. “This won’t take me longer than another five minutes.”

Humming a sound of assent, Jeno plopped down from her seat atop the counter to make her way to the table that Jaemin was working on. She sat down on the chair across her, watching her work with all the focus of a laser beam. There was a distant voice in her head, one that sounded suspiciously like Heejin, calling her a creep, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Jaemin didn’t even seem to notice their sudden proximity. Jeno supposed that was a blessing in disguise, given the fact that she didn’t know what the fuck she was doing. Her heart rate seemed to have taken the reigns of control over her body, leaving her brain scrambling and banging on the door. 

And, well—that was just what Jaemin did to her, wasn’t it? She made her lose all inhibition, all sense of identity and restraint that she had over herself, until the only thing she could do was wait on her thoughts to catch up with her actions. She made Jeno forget who she was supposed to be; what she was supposed to be doing. 

Right now, sitting right across from the girl in question and watching the thin lines of her mouth curve downward into a frown, Jeno thought there was something she would much rather be doing. 

“Hey,” she said, softly, just like she’d done countless times before. 

Jaemin looked up, still distracted. Her features were arranged into an expression that Jeno was more than familiar with: irritation laced with mild amusement, but it quickly melted away into quiet surprise once she took in how close the two of them were sitting. 

“Hey,” Jaemin replied, just like she’d done countless times before. It was all the encouragement Jeno needed before leaning in and closing the distance between them—something she should have done before, too. 

Jeno only got  the chance to brush her lips against the other girl’s for a split second, before a loud sound coming from right outside the lab startled them both. She jumped back immediately, heart pounding all the way into her ears. There was a teacher standing in the doorway, lugging a cart full of what looked like potentially dangerous chemical equipment. 

The teacher paused when she saw the two of them, looking at Jeno first and then finally recognising Jaemin. “Ah, you’re here! Are you working on what I assigned you?”

“Yes,” said Jaemin, and Jeno wondered if she was imaging the shakiness in her voice. “Yes, I am. I’m done with it.”

“Wonderful,” replied the teacher, beaming. “I just came by to drop off this stuff, you can give me your work tomorrow in class.” 

Jaemin nodded, mutely, and neither of them said anything for the long five minutes in which the teacher stayed in the room. Jeno’s head was beating twice as loud as her heart, suffocating her with thoughts of you shouldn’t have done that and you’ll never have a chance now. It didn’t help that Jaemin’s face remained impassive through it all, almost like nothing had happened. 

Maybe nothing had happened. Maybe it would be easier for her to just pretend like it hadn’t instead, and go back to—to whatever they’d been before. Maybe that way she wouldn’t run the risk of ruining everything a second time. 

As soon as the teacher walked out the door, Jaemin turned to Jeno with impossibly wide eyes. “Was that—”

“I’m sorry,” Jeno interrupted, and she could already feel the guilt clawing its way up her throat. Jaemin looked confused, hurt, almost, and she hated to think that she’d made her feel that way because of just one badly timed decision. “I really should get going.” 

And so she left, not sparing a single glance for the other girl in fear of what she might find, taking her backpack but leaving her heart beating on the linoleum floor of the chemistry lab. 

It didn’t take long for everything to fall apart, after that. 

Jeno hadn’t talked to Jaemin at all since the incident. She tried to chalk it down to the other girl just being busy, since she knew that she had schoolwork to worry about, but even she wasn’t that naive. She’d sent at least 3 cat GIFS in their chat and received no response to any of them, no matter how much time she spent scrolling through their chats and desperately wishing that she’d even read the messages. 

Plus, in the middle of everything going on with her personal life, she’d almost forgotten about the looming date on top of her. The Battle of the Bands was only two weeks away, and the tensions in the air were higher than ever. 

Things always got like this before any major event between all of them, with everyone feeling on edge and having their nerves rubbed completely raw. They’d been practicing their set for more than an hour now, and Jeno knew that they were doing amazing. Amazing wouldn’t cut it at an event like the Battle, though, which was why she was insistent upon picking at everything until it was flawless. 

“Mark, you’re not locking in with the kick drum properly,” she said, as soon as they paused for a breather. “We need the punchiness for our sound. Try to pay more attention to when the bass drum hits.”

He nodded, taking a swig of water. Jeno trusted him to take care of it, so she turned to Heejin, continuing, “You’re overplaying. Your fills are overpowering the rest of the song, and it’s making it sound like you’re playing for just yourself instead of for the whole band. Give the music some space to breathe,” 

“Got it, boss,” Heejin replied, but it sounded strained. Jeno knew that it wasn’t easy to listen to this much criticism all at once, especially so close to such an important event, but she couldn’t help it. 

“Alright, once more, from the top,” Jeno signalled, once she was done setting up her metronome. She wasn’t blind to her own inconsistencies, either; she had to speed up her playing, make it cleaner and faster than what she was doing now. Her fingers were starting to ache from the frets, but it wasn’t anything that she wasn’t used to already. 

They’d made it maybe five minutes into their set before she interrupted them again. She’d heard a bright twang of strings coming from Mark’s direction, hitting against the body of the guitar and resulting in a sound unpleasant enough to cause her to wince: “Mark!” 

He paused, blinking, and Jeno felt that unfamiliar wave of irritation yet again. “You’re playing the bass strings too hard,” she explained, trying her hardest to keep her tone civil. “It sounds terrible. Slow down.” 

Heejin looked like she wanted to say something, but quelled herself once Mark only nodded his assent. They started again, definitely cleaner than before, but Mark was still—

“You’re doing it again,” Jeno snapped, breaking off in the middle of a song. She knew she probably shouldn’t keep ruining their flow, but really, was it this hard to play well? 

“Cut it out, Jen,” Heejin said, glaring at her. “It sounds fine. You’re overreacting.”

“Fine won’t win us the Battle of the Bands!” 

“We’re practicing. It’s been more than an hour, we’re all tired, and we’re still managing to sound as good as we can. Cut him some slack.” 

Jeno bit back on a growl. It wasn’t like her to get so frustrated at all, but nothing was going how she’d planned it—and she’d planned it perfectly. Perfectly enough to earn them a trophy. “‘As good as we can’ isn’t enough. We need to do better.” 

“And we will,” Mark chimed in, for the first time since they’d started practicing. “We’ll do better.”

Heejin shook her head, crossing her arms. “You’re overworking yourself. If we all keep playing like this, non-stop, we’re going to burn ourselves out. And that won’t be good for the Battle, will it?”

“If we can’t handle a little bit of practice, then maybe we shouldn’t even have gone for the Battle in the first place,” Jeno retorted. Heejin levelled her with a cool look. 

“This isn’t a little bit of practice. This is you looking for problems where there aren’t any.” 

“Yeah, tell that to the judges at the Battle, won’t you?”

“Even the judges won’t be as neurotic as you,” Heejin scoffed. 

Mark was starting to look increasingly panicked, eyes flitting between the two of them. They never fought, and even if they did, it was always about something extremely frivolous. “Guys, why don’t we take a break for a few minutes, take a breather?” 

He went ignored. Jeno cut eyes at Heejin, growling, “You can take things as lightly as you want right now, but when we win, you’ll be thanking me,”

“Maybe winning isn’t worth it if it’s making you turn into a robotic freak!” 

Jeno blinked, taking a step back from the force of Heejin’s words. 

“None of this is about our band, anyway,” Heejin continued, when Jeno didn’t say anything else. She was too stunned to respond. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on with you, but if you don’t talk to us about it and just lash out with no good reason, we can’t help you.” 

Even Mark’s eyes had widened by then, shaped like saucers as they took in everything that was going on. Heejin was looking at her like she couldn’t believe she’d said all that, but her jaw was set with the sort of determination that she took to mean that she didn’t regret saying it, either. 

Jeno took in a shuddering breath, turned around, and left the garage without another word. 

Everything was going wrong —everything she’d been waiting for since the past few months was laughing in her face and ripping itself into shreds. Not only did she ruin one of her most important friendships a second time, she also fought with her best friend over the stupidest thing possible, and now she was walking through the streets entirely aimless. If this was the universe’s idea of a joke, it was definitely succeeding. 

She blinked back tears, rubbing a hand across her eyes. A laugh bubbled out of her throat at the sheer misery of her situation. Lee Jeno, everyone, PhD in fucking everything up. 

Once she’d managed to calm down and regain her bearings somewhat, she finally realised where she was. Her feet had unconsciously led her to Jaemin’s neighbourhood, recognisable from the trees decorating almost the entire area. 

Jeno laughed again, but more bitterly this time around. She looked up at the apartment building in front of her, the almost-intimidating brick and mortar that was the only barrier between her and Jaemin right then, and thought, fuck it. 

She didn’t know what she was expecting when she rang the doorbell. She had half a mind to turn around and run away before anyone could even come forward, but she forced herself to stick to her decision this time around. 

It took almost a minute until Jaemin opened the door. (The longest minute of Jeno’s life, probably.) Her eyes widened when she realised who it was, and she immediately shut the door again—for a second, Jeno thought that was a sign she didn’t want to talk, but she overheard Jaemin talking to her parents on the other side. 

When she came out again, the first thing she did after shutting the door was glare at Jeno. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I,” she started, then faltered. “You weren’t answering my texts,” 

“So you come to my house? ” 

“I didn’t know where else to find you,” Jeno replied, and she didn’t care if her desperateness was audible in her voice. “You won’t look at me at school.”

Jaemin scoffed. “Yeah? You don’t think there’s a reason for that?” 

Her arms were crossed, in defense mode, as if she was apprehensive in front of Jeno. Something about the sight made her ache—was that all it had taken for all the walls to come shooting back up? 

“I’m sorry,” Jeno finally said, at a loss for words. In a better world, she’d have cue cards and bullet points and notes prepared for everything she wanted to say to Jaemin, but in this one, all she had was impulse and the blood in her veins. 

“For what?” Jaemin’s expression was perfectly blank. 

“About what happened in the lab,” she didn’t know how to put a name to it without wanting to scream in terror, “I shouldn’t have done that, and I’m sorry. Can you—can we move on, go back to how things were before?” 

Jaemin didn’t say anything, just looked at her, searching. Jeno swallowed down her nerves, begging her heartbeat to calm itself down, but to no avail. She was doing the right thing by apologising for something that had made Jaemin so obviously uncomfortable, so why did she feel like she’d just fucked everything up a second time? 

Whatever it was that Jaemin found on her face, it wasn’t good. Her expression hardened into something tougher than ice, not quite as delicate as she was used to. “No.” 

Jeno blinked, stunned. “No?”

“No,” she confirmed, “No, you do not get to waltz into my house and demand me to forget something like that just happened, you do not get to apologise for it and expect me to take it, just like that. You don’t get to do that.” 

“I—”

“Save it,” Jaemin snapped. There was a fire in her eyes that Jeno didn’t quite recognise. It terrified her. “You’ve already pulled this shit once before. I should’ve learned my lesson from that, but I’m not exactly the smartest when it comes to you, am I?” 

She laughed, but it was without humour. Jeno didn’t dare say anything else. 

“So no, Jeno, we cannot just move on and pretend like nothing happened. I won’t do that to myself again.” With that, she moved back into her apartment, leaving Jeno to stare at the door for long after she was gone. 

Jeno didn’t cry. 

She tried her hardest to—she really did. She bought two of the biggest tubs of Cherry Garcia ice cream she could find, got out the electric blanket, put on the saddest movie she could think of off the top of her head, and settled herself in for a night of wallowing, but the tears just wouldn’t come. All she could do was replay the sub-zero expression on Jaemin’s face, over and over for hours on end. 

It was enough to drive her mad. She sniffed, took another bite of ice cream, and sunk deeper into her blanket. She was only half paying attention to the movie playing on her laptop, but she found herself feeling jealous of the girl in it. At least she had someone to comfort her through her breakup.  

Breakup. Did it even count as a breakup if they weren’t together in the first place? Was it just a severing of ties, an end ? Was there really no way that she could salvage this? 

A noise from the living room distracted her from her inner spiral. “Jeno?” her mom called out, the familiar sound of keys clinking against each other filling the air as she made her way to Jeno’s room. “I thought you were spending the night at Heejin’s t—oh, dear,”

Her mom stopped short when she caught sight of her, pausing in the doorway as if she wasn’t sure how much to push. There was a sympathetic look on her face. “Jeno, baby, what’s wrong?”

There were a lot of things that Jeno wanted to say to her mom. She had weeks of resentment and bitterness built up from feeling forgotten, feeling replaced by the new boyfriend in the equation. It would’ve been so easy for her to say something cutting, to start a new argument, to tell her mom that maybe if she really wanted to know what was wrong she would’ve made a point to be around the house more. 

She didn’t, though. She was too tired to fight with yet another person that was important to her. “I fought with Jaemin.” 

“Oh, honey,” that was all it took for her mom to come rushing to her side, taking a seat by her pillow and running her hands over her forehead. It made Jeno feel like she was a little kid again, six years old with gashes on her knees. “I’m sorry.” 

“And Heejin,” Jeno added. “I fought with Heejin, too. That’s why I’m not there tonight.”

“You never fight with Heejin,” her mom said, surprised, and Jeno would’ve almost snorted if she didn’t feel so miserable right then. 

“Apparently not,” she replied, bitterly. Her mom squeezed her hand in support, casting a look at everything she’d surrounded herself with, and asked, “What happened?” 

Jeno squeezed her eyes shut. Still no tears, but she could feel her chest aching, almost like it had been hollowed out entirely. “I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“That’s okay, baby,” she said, gently, stroking her hair. “Are you watching this movie? Do you want me to put something else on?” 

“You can turn it off,” Jeno mumbled. She wasn’t missing out on anything. 

She complied, putting away her laptop on the desk and taking care of the wires. She took the half-empty tub of ice cream, too, scolding Jeno lightly for going out and buying new ice cream when they already had the same flavour at home. Jeno laughed, and for the first time that day, it didn’t come out fake. 

Her mom sent her a smile, fond and personal. Once she was done fluttering around the room, doing everything she could to make sure that Jeno was as comfortable as could be, she made her way back to the bed and sneaked in next to Jeno. 

It was nice, being pampered like this. Jeno needed to feel like a kid sometimes. Here, wrapped up in her mother’s arms like she was six years old again, she finally let herself cry. 

The next few weeks passed by like a blur. Jeno apologised to Heejin, and to Mark, and they’d shared a teary group hug after band practice with the promise of never letting pre-show jitters get in the way of their friendship ever again. It had been very My Little Pony-esque in its execution, but Jeno was glad that they’d managed to talk it out. 

Heejin had apologised to her, too, telling Jeno that she’d said things that she didn’t really mean. She was still worried about how Jeno was doing, though. 

“How are things with you?” she’d asked, an uncharacteristically concerned look on her face. “You’ve been very high-strung lately, is everything okay?” 

Jeno had just laughed awkwardly, dismissing it and replying with, “Oh, it’s nothing. Just nerves, same as you.” 

She hadn’t looked convinced, but she dropped it after making Jeno promise to come to her if there was anything she needed to talk about. It was almost enough to make Jeno cry all over again. 

Jaemin was nowhere to be seen at all, though. Jeno hadn’t even chanced on the other girl at school, which gave her the sneaking suspicion that she was actively avoiding her; which, to be fair, she couldn’t exactly blame her for. Whatever, it was fine. She had bigger things to worry about—like the Battle, which was less than a day away.

“This is it, huh?” Mark said, wistfully. The three of them had planned on meeting up for one final round of practice, but they’d abandoned that idea in favour of ordering pizza and sitting on the floor of Heejin’s garage.

Heejin rolled her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. It’s just a competition, we’re not going off to war.” 

“The competition is the war, Heej!” he cried, picking up another slice of pizza. “Damn, it’s going to feel so weird when it’s over.”

“Yeah,” Jeno agreed, “but it’s not like we’re swearing off all practice forever. We’ll still be doing gigs, and there’ll still be other competitions.” 

Mark huffed. “You both are such party poopers. Isn’t a guy allowed one night of reminiscence for the vibes?”

“Nope,” Heejin and Jeno said at the same time, laughing and lifting their pizza slices together like they were clinking glasses. Mark just pouted again. 

For the first time in a while, Jeno felt content. The feeling stuck with her all through the day and to next morning, when they were meeting at Heejin’s house again to go to the venue together. Her mom would be joining her for the actual event, sometime in the late afternoon. 

The Battle of the Bands was organised by her school, but there was no way in hell that her school would be big enough for the amount of people that the event attracted. It was held at a concert hall in the city, quite possibly the largest concert hall that Jeno had ever been to—which wasn’t saying much, considering that she’d never been to one before/.

It was easy to get distracted by the place’s opulent decorations, the pictures on the wall, the autographs lining the banisters. She had a hard time believing that their school managed to afford this—she knew that there were other sponsors of the event, but it all seemed so professional. Jeno could almost imagine herself coming here outside of the Battle, as a returning performer and not just a participant in some competition. 

Heejin huffed impatiently, tugging at her sleeve and telling her to get a move on. Jeno sent one last mournful look at the frames before letting herself be manhandled by the other girl. 

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she muttered, shaking her off. By the time they made their way to the practice rooms specifically marked out for the participants, Jeno had managed to earn herself three glares from Heejin and a sympathetic grin from Mark. All in all, things were shaping up how she’d expected them to. 

Unsurprisingly, the rooms were also huge . This time, even Heejin had to let out a breath of awe as she took in the equipment that they’d be playing with:

“This is a Gretsch drum set,” she said, slowly, almost as if she couldn’t believe it. She spun around on her heels, turning to Jeno. “Since when is our school rich enough to let us use a Gretsch drum set?”

Jeno shrugged. “My guess is as good as yours.”

“Let’s just enjoy what we have and not ruin it by asking questions,” Mark suggested, halfway through staring holes into the bass pinned up on the wall. They weren’t allowed to use any of the instruments except the drums, which meant that there wasn’t much he could do except gaze after it longingly. 

“I second that motion,” Heejin agreed, seating herself behind the drums. “A Gretsch. God.” 

As for Jeno, she was still as enamoured by her own guitar as she had been when she’d first bought it: it was perfectly demonic, and her mom had teased her endlessly for it. It was well-loved with use by now, and she handled it carefully as she tuned it. This baby was going to win them their first Battle. 

“Should we practice?” asked Heejin, eliciting looks of surprise from both the other members. “Don’t look at me like that! I can be sincere when I want to!” 

“We know you can, but it’s still funny,” Mark said, a fond smile playing on his lips. Heejin stuck her tongue out at him. 

“No practice,” Jeno answered, shaking her head. Now it was her turn to receive the odd looks from everyone else. “We’ve practiced enough, we’ll drive ourselves crazy doing it so close to the event. Let’s just—take it in,” 

Heejin grinned, bright as could be. “Aye aye, captain.” 

“Now come on, let’s explore the arena,” she continued, and Heejin groaned. 

“You both are just going to nerd out over every single artist’s pictures and autographs!” 

Mark snorted. “Oh, yeah? Like you weren’t just geeking out over a drum set?”

“That’s—different,” she argued, weakly. Jeno and Mark exchanged a look, before turning on Heejin with both their strongest pleading eyes and pouts. It took less than ten seconds before she admitted defeat. “Oh, fine, you guys are so dramatic,” 

“Aw, we know you love us, babe,” Jeno said, laughing. Heejin scowled at her, adding, “If I get bored, you guys owe me cake!” 

“I did see a cafe here on our way in,” Mark chimed in, as the three of them made their way out the door. All the other bands were out and about, too, either talking among themselves or mingling with everyone else. No one seemed to be practicing, either. 

Jeno made a face. “It’s going to be way too expensive to get shit from there. I’ll treat you guys to ice cream when we win,” 

“ When you win?” an unfamiliar voice piped up from behind her. She turned around, confused, only to be met with a girl a few inches shorter than her. She had a mischievous look on her face, and a glint in her eye that reminded Jeno of someone she knew. “You’ll find that that may be harder than you expect.” 

“We know,” Jeno replied, smoothly, once she got over her initial surprise. “And we intend to come out on top through it all.”

The girl laughed, a tinkling sound, and extended a hand. “Jung Jinsol, nice to meet you,” 

“Lee Jeno,” she answered. She could feel Heejin giving the stranger a once-over from next to her, “analysing the threat”, as she liked to put it. Mark was probably trying his hardest not to cower at the sight of a pretty girl. 

Jinsol turned a curious eye to the other two. “Is this your band?” 

“Yes,” Heejin cut in, before Jeno got the chance to answer. “Where’s yours?”

“Oh, I’m not participating. I’m here as an alumni, if you will; last year’s reigning champions,” 

All of a sudden, Heejin’s eyes widened, as if she was just now realising who she was talking to. “Wait, you’re Jinsoul?!”

“The one and only,” she said, in a sing-song voice. Jeno had no idea what that meant, but she had a feeling that if she voiced her question out loud, Heejin wouldn’t hesitate to kill her right then and there. Luckily for her, Jinsol’s interest had been taken up by their third member: “And who are you?” 

Mark startled, turning pink at the ears. Jeno snickered softly as he replied, stammering, “Uh, Mark Lee,” 

“What, you have to think about your own name?” Jinsol teased, and the flush on Mark’s face deepened. Heejin looked like she wanted to say something, but held back. 

“Anyway, I’ll leave you guys to do what you were doing before,” she continued, pushing loose strands of hair behind her ears. Shooting a wink at Mark, she said, “Just thought I’d check in on all the promising candidates.” 

As soon as she left, Heejin was frowning, and Mark looked far too flustered to deal with anything sanely, so Jeno decided to take the route of peace and ask: “Who was that?” 

Heejin turned on her, appalled. “Jeno!” 

“Hey, don’t look at me like that!” 

“Jung Jinsol, her stage name’s Jinsoul,” she hissed. Her expression was torn between adoration and frustration. “Lead singer of The Lunatics. They’ve won the Battle three times. ” 

“Damn,” Jeno replied, whistling. “Hell of a high school band.”

“They’re still together,” said Heejin, sighing dreamily. 

“That’s gonna be us, you know,” she pointed out, and Heejin grinned at her. 

Mark, still shaky from the interaction with Jinsol like the easily flustered straight boy that he was, gave her another smile. Jeno laughed at him, “You are so easy,” 

His smile immediately turned into a scowl. “You try talking to Jung Jinsol without turning red!”

“Whatever you say,” Jeno said, smirking. “Now come on, we have places to see and territories to mark.” 

They did not end up marking any territories, but they did end up making some new friends: Heejin was feeling particularly extroverted that day, and Jeno was more than happy to comply. Mark seemed to be a magnet for pretty girls with guitars, though, so he was faring a little less better (a fact that served to amuse Jeno and annoy Heejin). 

After collecting the Instagram handles of at least three people with hair the same shade of bright purple, Jeno thought that it was probably time to get back to their room. The event would be starting in another half hour, and they needed to check in with all the technicalities required to perform. It would be extremely embarrassing if their sound decided to fail them mid-performance. 

Mark was a bundle of nerves all the way on their walk back. Heejin rolled her eyes, calling him a pussy and saying that everything would be fine no matter what, but the two of them had known her long enough to know that it was mostly a facade. Jeno herself wasn’t faring much better, but she was forced to pull herself together for the sake of the band. 

Their performance wasn’t the only thing plaguing her mind, either. Snippets of a conversation from what felt like another life ago— “for me?” “yes, of course” —played on loop through her brain, even though she knew the chances of Jaemin showing up despite everything were extremely slim, if not non-existent. Still, Jeno couldn’t help the way her eyes kept hunting for the telltale sign of bubblegum pink hair. 

“We’re on second-to-last,” Heejin said, effectively jolting Jeno out of her thoughts. She was reading off of the list that had just been posted on the pinboard outside the backstage door. “Last is Chaeyoung’s band.” 

“Oh, we’re doomed,” Mark wailed, and immediately received a smack to the head from Heejin. 

“Second-to-last is an extremely good spot to play,” Jeno chided. “We’ll just have to make it a performance good enough that the judges don’t care for whoever comes next.”

Heejin flashed her a grin. “I love when you go all fearless dictator mode.”

“I guess,” Mark muttered, rubbing the back of his head. “God, we really should have practiced earlier, we wasted so much time— ”

“Mark,” said Jeno, sternly. He turned to look at her with round eyes. “We are going to knock the socks off of everyone sitting in the audience today. They won’t know what hit them.” 

“Listen to her, Mark,” Heejin added, and slung a friendly arm across his shoulder. It seemed to help him regain some of his bearings, because he stood up a little straighter and looked them right in the eye. 

“Let’s do this thing!” 

Jeno stifled a laugh. “We have ages before we perform, Mark.” 

“Oh,” he said, deflating slightly. “Well, it’s never too early to get hyped up,”

“That, I can agree with,” Heejin chimed in, and Jeno couldn’t help but nod along.

After checking the rest of the listings—there was a special performance at the beginning by last year’s winning band, which Jeno supposed explained why Jinsoul had been there—and finishing up all their technical requirements, the three of them snuck out to check the stage they’d be performing on that evening. Like most things in the arena, it was huge: you could fit two bands on there and still have room for an extra saxophone player. It did nothing to ease the swarm of butterflies that had made a home in Jeno’s stomach. 

“Jen!” someone called out, and she turned, recognising her mother’s voice immediately. A grin spread across Jeno’s face as her mom made her way over to them. 

“Someone’s here early,” Jeno commented, once her mom was done hugging all of them individually. She made a face, saying, “What, I’m not allowed to be excited for my only daughter to win at the biggest competition for miles?” 

Heejin laughed. “You really know how to boost our morale, auntie,” 

“Well, I’m Something Wicked’s number one fan for a reason, aren’t I?” she said, eyes twinkling. Even Mark was smiling by now, and Jeno sent a quick prayer of thanks for her mom. “Anyway, I’m not even that early. There are already people here, see?” 

To Jeno’s surprise, there actually was a slow stream of people trickling into the auditorium. She hadn’t even realised how many there would be—they’d never played for a crowd so large, before. 

“All participants backstage, please,” announced the speakers perched up at the top of the room, and Jeno winced at the static. Her mom pouted. 

“I can’t believe you’re too busy for your own mother,” she said, sighing theatrically. “Go, leave me all alone,” 

Jeno rolled her eyes. “Cheer for us when it’s our turn!” 

“What, like I brought the foam fingers and pom poms for nothing?” 

Grinning, Jeno gave her mom one last hug before turning around backstage with the rest of the band. They’d needed the reassurance that there was someone out there rooting for them; for all her bravado, even Jeno got nervous sometimes. 

Backstage was a mess, to put it lightly. It was full of high school students running around, tensions high in the air, frantically going over last minute preparations with each other. Heejin and Mark seemed to fare a little better, feeling relatively calm from their earlier talks,  but Jeno was still worried that the energy in the air would end up affecting them all. Luckily, she’d brought along the perfect distraction: 

“Come on, we can’t go up on stage without the proper look for it,” she said, cajoling Mark specifically. She knew Heejin would have no qualms about it. “We have a reputation to maintain!” 

Mark sighed, looking at Jeno, then Heejin, and then the tube of glitter in Jeno’s hands. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“Nope!” Heejin said, cheerfully, and sat him down on one of the many chairs littered throughout the room. “Let’s get you pretty, boy,”

“I’m already pretty,” he replied, offended, but let Heejin do whatever she was attempting. Jeno smiled, content, glad that they were doing something more productive than beating themselves up over the performance. 

The hours passed by quickly after that, especially once The Lunatics performed their opening number to start the show. Jeno watched with wide eyes, the way that Jinsoul’s presence seemed to take up the whole stage, the way that every member of the band seemed to stand out in their own way—even the members who didn’t sing. It was mesmerising. It made Jeno think, I want to be like that. 

All of the other performances were great, too. They’d known that competition would be tough; this was one of the most elite Battles in the city, after all, but it was one thing to know it in theory and another to see it in person. Even from what little of the performances she could see from backstage, Jeno knew that every single band out there had the potential to be the next big thing. 

Soon enough, it was nearing the end of the event—the clock’s hands were neatly edging towards 5:00 pm, which was when Something Wicked went on. 

“Something Wicked in five,” announced the guy who’d been running through everything, glancing in their direction. “Get ready.” 

Jeno took in a deep breath, exchanging a look with Heejin and Mark. She opened her mouth to say something encouraging, but Heejin slung an arm around the both of them before she had the chance, bringing them together in a tight group hug. Just the three of them against the world.   

The first thing that struck Jeno when they got onto the stage was the silence. 

A few hundred strangers in the audience, all looking up at them with expectant eyes and pursed lips. Waiting to be impressed, to be entertained, to be given a show that they wouldn’t forget anytime soon. It filled Jeno with a thrill unlike any other.

“We’re Something Wicked,” she said, speaking into the mic, pulling it towards her like she’d done countless times before. “And we’re going to make sure you remember that.” 

Heejin played the drum intro, and with that, they were off. 

Everything went just as smoothly as they’d expected it to, as they’d slaved away for days to reach the level of. Heejin hit every single beat on time, eyes shining with a sort of intensity that Jeno hadn’t seen in a long time. Mark’s playing was perfect, too, not missing a single note and improving drastically on everything Jeno had mentioned to him before; the glitter on his cheeks reflected back against the lights. 

Jeno herself felt untouchable. Any sign of nerves still left in her had died off as soon as the first note of music hit her ear, and the songs seemed to flow through her body as easily as the blood in her veins. This, right here, singing to a crowded room with the loves of her life on either side of her, was what she was born to do. 

They reached the end of their first song, immediately transitioning into a slower, jazzier number that Heejin had come up with the idea for. It was different from their usual sound, and from most of what they’d seen at the showcase tonight, and Jeno thought it had been a genius move to sandwich it between two of their more upbeat songs. Mark sang his heart out, winking at Jeno when they made eye contact across the stage. He looked like he was having the time of his life. 

She laughed, too, and took her singing to the audience: they looked less like sitting ducks now, and more like people who were having their minds blown by a bunch of 17 year olds. Jeno liked that. 

The music switched to another new song, the one that Mark had been beating himself up over and Jeno’s personal favourite. She scanned the crowd through the lyrics, searching for her mother, wondering if she’d actually made good on the promise of foam fingers (you could never tell with her). What, or rather who, she found was even more surprising than anything her mother could come up with.

Jeno’s eyes caught on bubblegum pink hair, heart stilling in its cage as she realised who she was looking at. She almost forgot what her next lines were, stumbling on the chords, but Heejin was quick to cover up for her with a well-timed interruption. 

Jaemin stared directly at her through it all, gaze intense enough to burn a hole through the wall. For a moment, it felt like everything around her seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of them alone in the room with nothing but a spotlight leading from Jeno to Jaemin. She kept singing, but this time, the words took on a newer meaning. 

The song changed, and she ripped her gaze away, pulse still beating unsteadily. Jeno knew that the others had probably picked up on her sudden dip in concentration, and god knew her own brain was buzzing with a million different questions, but this wasn’t the time to focus on any of that. This was the final song in their set. She picked up her pace, hitting the notes cleaner and harder than ever before, and closed her eyes. 

They won. 

“Something Wicked!” the judge announced, and for all of their confidence, none of them could actually believe that it had just been their name that was called out. “The winner of this year’s Battle of the Bands is Something Wicked ! Could the members Jeno, Heejin, and Mark please make their way onto the stage?” 

The three of them stood in their position in the audience, staring at the judges’ table with their arms wrapped around each other in disbelief, completely shell-shocked. Jeno’s mom gave them a light shove, telling them to get a move on, and it finally sunk in that they won.

Heejin screamed. 

“Something Wicked?” the judge repeated, looking around. The people around them were giggling, pointing at the stage, but Jeno was in too much of a haze to fully comprehend everything that was going around. They won? 

“That’s us, that’s us!” she called out, finally coming to her senses, and they practically had to run all the way up to the stage. Her heart was pounding with sheer happiness; she felt like she could’ve drowned in that moment alone. They won! 

The trophy was even larger than it looked in the photos: it took all three of them to hold it up when the judges handed it to them, and even then Jeno thought that they might collapse under the weight. They were scrawny band kids, they didn’t have the upper body strength for this. 

“Congratulations,” the judge said, shaking their hands warmly once they’d set down the trophy and taken all obligatory pictures while on stage. Jeno was fairly sure she’d heard her mom’s camera shutter go off at least thirty times. “Would you like to say anything to the audience?” 

“I—” 

But anything that she might have wanted to say was cut off by a loud thump noise from behind them, and Jeno turned around to see what was yet another surprise in a night chock-full of them: Mark, kissing Heejin, right there on the stage like there was no one else in the world to see them.  

Heejin’s eyes were blown wide open before she returned the kiss with equal passion, and Jeno felt her heart swoop in contentment. When she’d told Mark to do something that Heejin wouldn’t have been able to ignore, she hadn’t expected this, but she supposed it had paid off in the end. It was exactly the sort of dramatic flair that she’d have expected their relationship to start off with. Her best friends deserved to be happy together. 

The two of them broke apart after a few seconds, finally realising where they were, cheeks equally flushed. Someone wolf-whistled in the audience, and Jeno sent them a particularly evil grin from across the stage. It only made Mark blush further. 

Even the judge raised an eyebrow in amusement. Jeno, taking pity on Mark and Heejin, flashed him a smile to distract from the kiss. “Thank you. It was an honour to even be selected to play here.”

“Oh, the honour is all ours,” he said, “You kids are really something.” 

And, well, there really wasn’t anything else he could have said to make Jeno happier. She almost kissed him right then and there. 

The three of them made their way back into the audience when the runners-up were being announced, lugging the trophy like an extra limb. They still couldn’t quite believe it. Jeno’s mom greeted them at the seats with a scream and a gigantic group hug, practically engulfing them in her eagerness to congratulate them.

“My babies, my talented babies,” she gushed, still holding them close. “I knew you’d win! You guys are the best band in the entire world .”

“Too close, ma,” Jeno complained, struggling against the chokehold she was now stuck in.

“Hush, you,” her mom scolded lightly, “it’s not every day that your kid wins the Battle of the Bands, you know! Let me dote on you guys some more!”

“You’re the best, auntie,” said Mark, bashfully, and receiving what looked like a particularly painful cheek pull in return. 

“And you! You suave little heathen, you, kissing Heejin on stage like that!” He turned red immediately, but honestly, what had he expected? Jeno’s mom was like a dog with a bone when it came to the slightest hint of romance. “Oh, I’m so happy for you two!” 

“Thanks, auntie,” he whispered, ducking his head. Heejin looked embarrassed, too, but she had enough sense of dignity to at least make eye contact with them. Jeno wiggled her eyebrows at Mark, not saying a word but conveying the message all the same. He kicked her in the shin. Heejin pretended to look away, but Jeno could tell she was laughing. 

Mark was laughing, too. He looked so happy —they both did, and god knew Jeno was happy, too. But there was still a part of her, a traitorous little portion of her brain, that remained fixated on bubblegum hair and eyes that shone like polished wood. She hadn’t seen the other girl in the audience after that little mishap on the stage, and she’d looked. It was almost as if Jaemin had vanished into thin air. A figment of her worst intentions. 

Trust Jeno to find a way to ruin her mood on what was supposed to be the best fucking day of her life. She shook her head, clearing her thoughts, and let a smile take over her face all over again. They won.

It may have been the day of the Battle of the Bands, but it was still New Year’s Eve before anything else. Jeno was used to spending the night with Mark and Heejin, usually at each other’s houses, giggling over a bottle of fizzy apple champagne. This time, though, some of the participants of the Battle were hosting an afterparty for everyone to join. 

“I’ll take the trophy home,” Jeno’s mom had reassured her, “nothing will happen to it, I promise.” 

Jeno looked unconvinced, and also unwilling to part with the trophy for that long, but Heejin smacked her out of it. “Lee Jeno, I swear to God, don’t you turn all materialistic Taurus on us now,”

“I won’t!” she said, pouting. Heejin rolled her eyes, practically dragging her away from the car. Her mom waved an amused goodbye. 

“No need to manhandle me,” Jeno huffed. 

“ Absolutely the need,” Heejin reprimanded her. “We’re going to a party with some very cool people, and if you embarrass me there, so help me god,” 

“How come Mark doesn’t get the same lecture?!”

“Mark is out of the doghouse for now,” she informed Jeno, and the boy in question sent her such a dopey grin that Jeno thought she might barf, “you, however, are not.”

“This is so unfair,” Jeno complained. “You know, without my advice, he wouldn’t even have kissed you tonight!” 

“Hey, now,” Mark squeaked, but Heejin cut in with, “Well, you weren’t the one to kiss me, were you?”

Jeno pouted again, crossing her arms and repeating, “ Unfair. Rude, uncalled for, frankly disgusting, a betrayal by the one I called home—” 

She continued listing as many insults as she could come up with as they walked out of the arena, following the group of girls as they headed to the party location. It was at one of their apartments, and Jeno remembered raising an eyebrow at the fancy uptown address when she’d shared it with Jaemin. 

Fuck, Jaemin. 

The chances that she would show up to the party were extremely low. Non-existent, even, but she’d said the same thing about her showing up at the Battle itself—Jaemin had a way of taking Jeno’s expectations and subverting them entirely. 

Still, there was no use beating herself up about it now. She could cross that bridge when she came to it; right then, her thoughts were less Jaemin and more how much can I annoy Heejin before she finally loses it and beats me to death? 

Her question remained unanswered, much to her dismay. Heejin was quick to get distracted as soon as they stepped inside the penthouse, making a beeline for the punch and claiming that she was going to get a couple glasses for all of them. Mark looked at Jeno, shrugged once, and then followed in her direction. 

Oh, well. She supposed she should have seen this coming. 

Wrapping her jacket tighter around herself, she ventured into the rooms, surprisingly full for what she assumed would have been a low-key event. For every empty spot that wasn’t filled up with Happy New Year! balloons, there were people squeezed against each other. Then again, all of them had probably brought their own friends, too—never underestimate the band kid’s ability to party.  

She made her way to the kitchen, an decision entirely uninfluenced by the very pretty blue-haired girl she’d seen headed in the same direction just a few minutes back. The apartment was gigantic, so that took a considerably longer amount of time than it should have—and by the time she reached the place, the blue-haired girl from earlier was already talking to some greasy looking guy in a corner. 

Jeno sighed. Pointedly avoiding that specific corner, she headed to the fridge, trying her hardest not to look as out of place as she felt. She had a hard enough time around large groups of strangers as it were, and the shortness of her skirt was most definitely not helping. Thankfully, her salvation came in the form of beer bottles lining the shelves of the fridge. She didn’t hesitate to pour them into one of the red Solo cups lying by the counter. 

She wished she didn’t feel as awkward as she did, standing off to one side of the room with a cheesy looking cup right out of a bad Netflix movie. It was New Year’s Eve, for Christ’s sake, she shouldn’t be spending it alone like this! 

But it wasn’t like she could change that, either. Mark and Heejin deserved whatever it was that they’d decided to get up to together; Jeno hadn’t lived through years of them pining for each other just to get between them now. Besides, she’d had other plans for this night—plans that had involved a certain someone, before certain somethings had happened.  

God. Look at her, drowning in self-pity when she should’ve been over the moon at what had just happened a few hours before. 

A loud sound from right outside the kitchen distracted Jeno from her wallowing, and she left her spot to go see what it was all about. A group of guys—she recognised them from one of the acts that night, they’d had a weird name with a z at the end—were pushing and shoving each other without a care in the world. It wasn’t hard to tell that they were wasted beyond recognition, but what caught Jeno’s attention more was the flight of stairs they were coming down from. 

Curious, she headed up the stairs, eager to get out of the stuffiness of the apartment. One of the guys shot her a smile. She ignored him. 

The rooftop was infinitely better as compared to down below: if it had been up to Jeno, she’d have held the party there itself. It was mostly empty, too, which came as a relief. If she was going to be miserable and lonely at least she wouldn’t have to do it in a place where other people could see her. 

Taking a sip of her drink, she wandered out towards the edge, a smile ghosting her face as she took in the skyline. Everything looked so small from the top of the world. Rich people were so lucky to have views like these in the palm of their hands—what she wouldn’t give to be able to see a sight like this every day of her life. 

Spotting some sort of bench near the ledge, Jeno made her way to it, only to stop short in her tracks when she realised that there was already someone sitting on it. 

A very specific someone, actually. 

Jaemin was looking out into the night as if she hadn’t noticed Jeno standing there, not even a few metres behind her. There was a strange expression on her face that she couldn’t quite place (then again, when could she ever?). Jeno had half a mind to head back downstairs immediately and simply pretend that she’d never seen the other girl—but her better senses couldn’t allow her to do that to herself.  

Moving as silently as she could, Jeno sat down on the spot next to Jaemin without a word. If the pink-haired girl was startled, she didn’t show it, only giving her an almost imperceptible nod in acknowledgment. 

There she was: up on the roof with a schoolgirl crush, drinking beer out of plastic cups. It was exactly as she’d imagined it to be, and yet it wasn’t. The silence between them was enough to kill her. 

“Hey,” Jeno said, quietly, so as not to disturb the peace of the night. Her mind was whirring at a million miles per hour in direct contrast. 

Jaemin didn’t look at her as she replied. “Hey.” 

And, god—Jeno hadn’t realised how much she’d missed her. One word from Jaemin was all it took for all her inhibitions to come crumbling down (and the beer in her hand certainly didn’t slow things down).  

“You came.” 

“Very astute observation,” commented Jaemin, but her voice was devoid of its usual snarkiness. Jeno’s heart ached. 

“You—why did you come?” Jeno asked, trying to ignore the bluntness in her tone. She was sure she sounded desperate, too, but she didn’t really care right then.

Jaemin huffed, blowing air out of her nose in the sort of way you do when you find something funny, but not funny enough to laugh. “I don’t go back on my promises, unlike some other people,” 

Jeno winced. She couldn’t exactly blame Jaemin for being bitter, and she was about to say as much, but the other girl continued speaking. “You guys were really good.” 

She blinked, stunned. Of all the things Jeno had expected Jaemin to say, that had not been one of them. “Thank you,” she said, hesitantly. “Told you we’d win, didn’t I?”

A phantom smile flitted across Jaemin’s face, gone before Jeno could properly register it. She didn’t say anything in response, just turning back to face the sky. 

The ultraviolet light filtering across the roof lit up Jaemin’s face, highlighting every groove and hollow. It was etched with a tension that Jeno hadn’t seen in a long, long time, almost as if she was forcing herself to be on her guard. It hurt to think that Jeno herself might have been the one to blame. 

“Hey,” Jeno repeated, more pressing this time. “I really am glad you came.” Jaemin glanced at her, once, before looking away again. 

She paused before continuing, “I’m sorry.” 

Jaemin’s expression hardened. “Stop saying that when you don’t even know what you’re sorry for.” 

“I do know,” Jeno insisted, “I’m sorry for hurting you,”

“Well, you can’t do anything about it now, can you?”

“I don’t want to do this to you,” she went on, and she felt as if her heart might jump out of her mouth with how hard it was beating right then, “I never meant for things to end up like this, for us to stop talking again. Because of me.” 

Jaemin muttered something she couldn’t quite catch, but it sounded like, “I know.”

It was enough motivation to get Jeno through the rest of her spiel. “It’s on me, all of it. I shouldn’t have blown things out of proportion like that, or run away that time at the lab, and believe me, if I could take all those things back, I would. It’s—exhausting, knowing that I’m the one to blame, but not being able to do anything about it—I don’t want to lose you,” she finally admitted. “Not again.”     

There was silence. Jaemin didn’t respond, not immediately, and Jeno was too fazed from the sound of her own pulse in her ears to continue. 

“Say something,” Jeno pleaded, desperate. “Anything.” 

Jaemin looked up—same impassive eyes, same unreadable expression. It was hard to believe that this was the same girl who’d once looked at her like she’d hung the moon.  

“Tell me,” she asked, slowly, “do you regret it?” 

“Regret what?”

“The kiss. Do you regret it?” 

She hesitated, unsure, if only for a second. “No,”

Jaemin’s eyes were searching when they landed on hers, much like they’d been weeks ago, right before everything had burned down. It was still impossible to tell what she was thinking, even for all their proximity. Jeno swallowed.

“Good,” Jaemin finally said, before leaning in to meet Jeno’s lips.   

And all at once, this was the moment she’d been waiting for: her lips were softer than Jeno had expected, and she couldn’t help the soft oh! sound that escaped her mouth. Jaemin reached out, tentatively cupping her jaw with one warm hand, deepening their kiss. She was wearing cherry lip gloss—the nice kind, too—and Jeno could taste it on her lips, on her tongue. 

She buried a hand in Jaemin’s hair and kissed her again, trying to convey everything she couldn’t with just her words. The idea that she was kissing Jaemin, that Jaemin was kissing her , was one she still couldn’t wrap her head around. Jaemin’s thumb swept over the curve of Jeno’s cheekbone, and she made another sound, pleased and a little breathless.  

They broke apart, cheeks flushed, resting their foreheads against each other. Jaemin’s smile was back: splitting her face, splitting Jeno’s heart.

“Tell me,” she said again, resting her hand on Jeno’s chest. Her voice was lower, almost huskier, and Jeno felt like she could drown in the moment forever. “Tell me that we’ll be fine.” 

“We will,” Jeno promised. She brought her hand up to her mouth, pressing another kiss against it, eyes never leaving Jaemin’s. She didn’t think she could ever leave Jaemin. 

She bit her lip, as if holding back a smile to herself. To Jeno, she said, “You know you’re not the only one to blame, right?”

“I do,” she reassured her, “and I would never dream of taking your credit. But we can always discuss more of that later, can’t we?”

Jaemin hummed, content, and moved for another kiss. It was softer this time around, like they had all the time in the world—and maybe they did, because who was going to stop them? They’d made it through everything else that had stood in their way, ending up wrapped in each other’s arms by the end of the story. 

“I think it’s almost 12:00 am,” Jeno whispered, when they parted for air again. Jaemin had found her way closer to Jeno’s side, snuggled against her arm and resting her head in the crook of her neck. It was all sickeningly domestic. “I can hear the fireworks.”

“Happy New Year, then,” Jaemin said, smiling up at her and probably straining her neck in the process. 

Jeno pressed her lips to Jaemin’s, short and sweet. “Happy New Year.”