Chapter Text
Prologue
People are asymmetrical.
Minatozaki Sana gets a pack of cookies shoved to her face on the first day of high school. The supposed homeroom teacher is smiling at her warmly, there are her classmates for the next three years playing around in the background, and chatter identical to angry goose noises fills the air. Sana stands there on the doorway, right under a wooden sign that spells out 1-B.
"Cookies for every new student!"
She accepts the flower-shaped cookies with a small bow and proceeds to her assigned seat, next to a girl with shoulder-length black hair and timid eyes. Some of the kids talk about how cool that second year student's speech was in the opening ceremony, Sana agrees and nods when they ask for her opinion. The homeroom teacher's name is Kang Seulgi, teaches art, in her late thirties, everyone swoons.
It's a start, somehow.
The small event remains on the blurry shelves of Sana's memory lane, and she fast forwards a big leap.
----
People are, indeed, asymmetrical.
It's somewhere in Sana's second year, a little more than a dozen pages ripped off the calendar since her first day.
There's a change, in the form of a former second year who gave the student body speech in last year's opening ceremony. Straight, silky brown hair that reaches her back, lips that turn into heart-shapes when she tumbles back in laughter, and well-kept uniform without a single crease.
Sana fast forwards again.
----
They're asymmetrical.
The way Im Nayeon holds Sana's hand is like melted sugar, an aftertaste of sweetness choking up lungs with honey clogging up her entire bloodstream. Long fingers, large palms, it wraps around effortlessly. Sometimes Nayeon's hands are sweaty, trembling from the delicate thread around her heart, sometimes it's tender, as if everything's made out of porcelain and Sana's hands are the most fragile out of all.
Sana doesn't know whether it's ironic or not, as she (always) stares at their intertwined hands, the exact same way Nayeon has Sana wrapped under her fingers. The intricate details of her heart is structured from balloons, ready to burst and pop at any given time. It sways and bounces around on a certain brown haired girl's palms with a trembling fear of falling out. Maybe it already fell, maybe it's hanging off the edge and no one cares, maybe it's on the brink of flying away.
Im Nayeon is older by a year, and if Sana counts very carefully there's a fifteen months gap between them. (Not that it matters at all, but the small tidbits keeps her at bay, far away from the rushing waves and hurricanes.). Im Nayeon wears her uniform perfectly to a T without a wrinkle, straight hair and straight A's, never comes late, attends the night classes almost religiously, and never talks back to Teacher Song even if he's the number one douchebag in the whole world. At this point, Nayeon might just be the epitome of a perfect girl—
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Reality sets in, and they're in the school's cafeteria, Nayeon's halfway through her boxed lunch and a piece of lettuce is sticking out of her mouth. Sana's frozen in her place, the school's lunch tray still full in front of her except for a half eaten grilled fish that looks pathetic.
Oh.
Nayeon munches through her food before continuing, "You've been staring for a whole minute, Minatozaki. Is there something on my face?"
Sana flushes for a while, but then takes a slurp of her banana milk, eyes staring back at Nayeon, "No, you're too cute it's distracting me."
It's predictable, how Nayeon chokes through her mouthful of rice and splutters before taking large gulps of water. Nayeon's face is beet red, right hand covering her face as a habit whenever she's embarrassed. The whole gesture is very amusing, how the slight glint of mischief flashes by Nayeon's eyes even though the girl is definitely ten degrees into burning from shame. It takes a while before Nayeon finally calms down and scoffs, body raised forward in an intimidating manner.
"Is this a challenge, Minatozaki?" Nayeon asks with a smirk. Sana notices her hand twitching as if holding back herself from yanking the younger girl's uniform collar.
But Sana kept silent, only giving a genuine smile that further screws Nayeon. She doesn't say it, but the look in her eyes is enough to make Nayeon fall back into her chair with arms crossed. It's definitely entertaining, how easy it is to mess with Im Nayeon, how easy it is to make the senior go on a limbo of different emotions with the simplest motions. (And how easy it is that Nayeon makes Sana tumble along with her reactions.)
There's the feeling of soft soles on Sana's calf, and the playful smirk is back on Nayeon's lips. It doesn't linger, the sensation leaving almost a split second later. Nayeon's still staring intently, as if she's studying the whole surface of Sana's face as a research paper, with every bit as the markings of a chapter. The hazel eyes are mesmerizing though, and the way the cafeteria's pale light falls on them is definitely tugging on Sana's heartstrings like the climax of a puppet show, her bare feelings stretched out to ends of infinity, somehow ending up in the person in front of her.
There's Im Nayeon, perfect third year student that excels in almost every subject, the spokesperson of the student body, object of admiration for every aspiring schoolmate, embodiment of smiles and politeness. The exact same Im Nayeon with some mischievous tendencies, high energy that soars up to the skies, sitting in an expensively large cafeteria ten minutes into lunch break.
Sana whispers every nook and cranny of Im Nayeon inside her head like it's a prayer, and she wouldn't have it any other way.
"Nayeon-sunbaenim, your lunch looks delicious."
"Ah, why really? You refused my offer to make you lunch yesterday!"
The noisy cafeteria zooms out into the far, far background, and Nayeon's incessant whining is all she can hear.
"You're one of a kind, sunbaenim."
Sana traces back a few steps.
----
(One would say it's a tale, Sana begs to differ.
It's not much as a tale as it is a wishful thought, because mere eyes don't see the finish line before they pass the starting one.
She's not trying to remember the fruit of her efforts.
Sana doesn't.)