Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Seungkyung and her boyfriend break up she doesn’t tell Chan anything.

Chan has to get it from Hansol, who apparently heard about it from someone else in their grade. Chan guesses it must really be a hot topic, because Hansol never hears gossip about anyone — or if he does, he never cares enough to share it.

She waits to ask Seungkyung about it until they’re at the convenience store after school, the twenty minutes they always spend together before Seungkyung goes to her cram school and Chan goes to mess around in the park with Hansol.

“Sorry about your boyfriend,” Chan tries, feeling weirdly hesitant as she sets her juice carton on the ground and looks over towards Seungkyung. Sweat is already starting to form at the back of her neck — it’s gotten so hot lately. Summer vacation is coming soon.

Seungkyung snorts and tosses her hair over her shoulder, like she doesn’t care at all — a ruse, Chan knows. Seungkyung cares too much, about everything, all the time.

“You’ll find someone else,” Chan offers, but that just makes Seungkyung look even madder.

“Why does everyone keep assuming he broke up with me?” Seungkyung snaps. “I’m tired of it.”

“…he didn’t?” Chan asks, surprise colouring her voice before she can help it. Seungkyung scowls.

“No,” she says, clearly annoyed. “Does everyone just think I’m pathetic? Is that it?”

When Seungkyung got a boyfriend Chan expected her to lord it over her, but she’d been weirdly quiet about it. She never talked about him, and whenever it came up she seemed so embarrassed. Chan hadn’t really thought about it too much. Seungkyung hates it when she doesn’t know exactly what to do — Chan had supposed having a boyfriend wasn’t any different. Seungkyung just had to figure it out first and then she’d be insufferable about it, just like she is about everything else.

Instead she dumped him, apparently, and didn’t tell anyone about it — not even Hansol.

Not even Chan.

“Of course not,” Chan says immediately, a little shocked. “You’re not pathetic.”

“There are things more important than boyfriends, you know,” Seungkyung says, an edge to her voice that Chan’s not sure she understands.

“Okay,” she says slowly.

“There are,” Seungkyung insists, scowling at her.

“I said okay!” Chan laughs, partly to diffuse the tension and partly because Seungkyung looks so ridiculous — eyebrows stuck together in the middle, mouth drawn up in a childish pout. Her eyeliner is smudged on one side, like she forgot she was wearing it and rubbed at her eye anyway. Chan doesn’t tell her. Seungkyung’s always nagging Chan about her appearance, now, like she didn’t start wearing makeup barely six months ago. Chan misses the Seungkyung who was just as ugly as Chan apparently is now. It didn’t matter when neither of them cared.

“Ugh,” Seungkyung scoffs, but she falls silent soon after.

A moment passes before Chan reaches back down for her juice, taking a mouthful and then offering it to Seungkyung. Seungkyung takes it without looking at her, drinks it in tiny sips.

The sun beats down on the road in front of them, harsh and unforgiving. Sweat drips down Chan’s back.

She waits, but Seungkyung doesn’t say anything else.

It’s still silent between them when Chan spots Hansol at the crosswalk up the block, walking towards them with his eyes glued to his phone. He has his headphones in, deaf to the world around him like he always is. Seungkyung keeps telling him he’s gonna walk into traffic one day if he keeps it up.

“Hyung!” Chan calls, waving an arm to catch Hansol’s attention. Hansol looks up, startled, his confusion melting into a broad smile when he sees who’s calling him. He waves back and starts walking in their direction.

Seungkyung makes an unhappy sound. Chan casts her glance over to look at her.

“If you keep doing weird things like that people will think you’re trying to be a boy,” Seungkyung says, voice peevish.

Chan shrugs, frowning.

“So?”

What’s wrong with people thinking she wants to be a boy? A lot of things would be easier if she was a boy, probably. Her mom would let her help with deliveries at the restaurant, for one, instead of hiring brain-dead Im Shinwoo to do it — Seungkyung’s words, not Chan’s. No one would make annoying comments when she walks home from the park with Hansol every night.

Seungkyung wouldn’t be giving her that weird look right now.

She isn’t even saying anything — she’s just staring at Chan like she’s from a totally different planet.

“Whatever,” she says, finally, tossing her hair behind her shoulder yet again. Hansol reaches them before she can say anything more, smiling down at where they’re still sitting on the curb.

“Hey Boo,” he says, nudging Seungkyung’s foot with his own. Chan laughs at the way Seungkyung’s scowl fades, a smile fighting its way onto her face.

“Hey,” Seungkyung says, still a little sullen but letting Hansol pull her to her feet. He reaches for Chan next, and she uses him as leverage to jump up with a lot more energy than Seungkyung. Hansol takes the weight of it easily, laughing at her enthusiasm.

“You ready?” he asks her. Chan nods, still grinning. “We’ll walk you to your academy,” Hansol says to Seungkyung, turning his focus back towards her, and she makes another face in response.

“You don’t have to — ”

“We want to,” Chan interjects, pushing close to link an arm through Seungkyung’s. “We hardly see you anymore.”

“You were just seeing me,” Seungkyung mutters, rolling her eyes again, but she lets them walk her the two blocks towards the intimidating cram school entrance easily enough. They leave her with the other exhausted-looking students milling aimlessly outside the door before they make their way to the empty lot past the park.

Chan and Hansol never talk much when it’s just the two of them, silences falling between them that Seungkyung would never let pass. Today is no exception, at least until they pause to take a breather, lying side by side on the grass.

“Hey,” Hansol says, and Chan turns her head to look at him expectantly. “I just wanted to say — I’m glad it’s not weird between us.”

Chan makes a confused sound, not sure what he’s talking about.

“Because of what happened last weekend,” Hansol clarifies, and Chan makes a little “ahh” of understanding.

“Of course it’s not,” she laughs, elbowing him. “Why would that make it weird?”

Hansol lets out a relieved laugh of his own.

“I guess you’re right,” he says, turning his gaze towards the blue sky above them. Chan settles on her back so she’s looking up too, both of them content to watch the clouds in silence.

“Seungkyung and I used to fight over which one of us would get to marry you, you know,” she says after a moment, the thought spilling out as it occurs to her. Hansol coughs out a surprised laugh.

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t make fun of me,” Chan warns, laughing a little as she remembers how seriously they’d both taken it. “She made me cry once.”

“Wow,” Hansol says, eyes widening. When she glances over at him Chan doesn’t think she’s imagining that he looks a little impressed.

“I said we should both marry you together, but she said we couldn’t,” she explains. “And then she told me that obviously you’d choose her, because I was too much of a baby.”

“Harsh.”

“Yeah,” Chan agrees. “Seungkyung’s always been intense.”

It’s funny now, but Chan still remembers how upset she’d been at the time. Seungkyung was always trying to leave Chan out of everything, acting like the year between them meant she was automatically right about everything. Chan resented her for it for so long. Sometimes she still does.

“She has,” Hansol agrees now. He doesn’t say anything more — about Seungkyung, or about feeling weird — and Chan’s glad. She feels just as comfortable with Hansol now as she did before. There’s no reason for anything to change.

They can only mess around at their makeshift skate park until eight — Geonhee leaves for tutoring then, so Chan has to go home to be with her dad. Hansol walks her home the way he always does, waving a polite goodbye outside her apartment complex before he turns around to go back towards his own place.

Geonhee rushes out as soon as Chan opens the door, barely muttering a greeting. Chan gives the door a sarcastic wave after it’s slammed shut behind her, laughing to herself as she slips her shoes off to go into the apartment for real.

There’s no real food in the fridge, so Chan sends a message to her mom to ask her to bring side dishes home from the restaurant. She grabs a packaged cookie for a snack instead before she comes back out, dropping a kiss onto her dad’s cheek before flopping down onto the living room couch. She’ll just rest for a moment before she starts her homework, Chan tells herself. Just for a moment.

“Did you have fun with your friends?” her dad asks.

“Friend,” Chan corrects around a mouthful of chocolate. “Yeah. Hansol and I skated.”

“What about the little Boo girl? I haven’t seen her around in a while.”

Chan snorts out a laugh — if Seungkyung heard anyone call her that she’d lose it completely, probably.

Well, no.

Maybe not if it was Chan’s dad, actually. Seungkyung loves him — she’s always doting on him and laughing at all his jokes. She thinks he’s hysterical. She told Chan she was jealous of him, once, when she was sleeping over at Chan’s apartment, her voice hushed with embarrassment as she said it. Chan had laughed and said they could share.

“She’s really busy with school,” Chan says absently, swallowing the last of her cookie and crumpling the wrapper in her fist. “Appa. Did you do your exercises with Geonhee before she left?”

Her dad pulls his face into an exaggerated “whoops!” expression. Chan frowns.

“Appa. You gotta do your exercises,” she insists, pushing herself to stand up from the couch.

He grimaces in response.

“Let’s do it now, come on,” Chan insists. “It’ll be fun.”

“Your youthful energy is too much for me,” he says, finally, fighting a smile as he looks up at her. Chan rolls her eyes and swats at his arm.

“Dummy,” she says, but there’s a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“You can do these by yourself, you know,” she says once she’s helped him back onto his bed, the motion routine by this point. She watches as he grimaces and practices pushing himself upright, fighting the urge to jump in and help him. The doctor said he had to do it by himself.

“I got it from here, Chan-ah,” he says, grunting a little with the effort. “You can go study, okay? If I need you I’ll call.”

Chan hesitates, then nods.

“I’ll massage your legs for you when you’re done,” she says firmly, because the doctor said that’s important, too.

“Alright,” he says with a sigh.

“And invite the Boo girl over for dinner sometime!” he calls as Chan makes her way out into the living room.

“I will!” she calls back, waving a careless hand he’s too far away to see.

It’s harder than it sounds to invite Seungkyung for dinner these days — she’s so busy all the time, doing extra work at school and then academies on top of that. She never really has time to hang out at all, outside of the times when Chan and Hansol walk her to her study café after school. Hansol says sometimes he picks her up afterward too, not to be protective but just because he wants another chance to hang out. Chan would go with them but she can’t — she has to be at home, then. Her dad gets too tired sitting at the restaurant all day, and Geonhee goes to so many academies now. Chan’s the one who has the time to help.

But the semester comes to a blessed end, eventually, and when summer vacation starts Chan finally convinces Seungkyung to come over.

Chan’s mom is working and her sister has a two-hour math lesson, so it’s just the three of them in the apartment. Chan shoos Seungkyung out to sit in the living room with her dad so she can reheat the food her mom left in the fridge. Seungkyung makes a show of voicing her skepticism at Chan’s ability to do it herself, but she doesn’t actually resist. When Chan pokes her head out a little while later, side dishes carefully unwrapped to bring out, Seungkyung’s commandeered the remote and they’re watching a music show together, Seungkyung offering loud and opinionated commentary as her dad nods along.

“Dinner’s ready,” Chan calls.

Seungkyung grumbles at her for interrupting, muting the TV instead of turning it off, but she comes to help bring the food, swatting Chan’s hands away when she tries to carry too many things at once.

Chan’s dad spends the entire meal showering Seungkyung with attention until she glows, praising her hard work and nagging her for it in equal measure. Chan rolls her eyes next to him and tries to force some vegetables on his plate.

After dinner Seungkyung washes the dishes and Chan lets her, preoccupied taking her dad to help him into his pyjamas.

“My helpful girl,” he says when she gets him into bed, turning on the tiny TV they got for the bedroom so he won’t get so bored by himself. Chan laughs, a little dismissive, but something inside her glows at the praise, too. She’s always been close with her dad — when she was really little they’d dance together, her mom told her once. She said there were videos, but Chan’s never seen them. Her dad hasn’t been able to dance in a long time.

Back in the room Chan shares with Geonhee Seungkyung’s already flung herself across Chan’s bed, her phone about two centimetres from her face as someone on the tiny screen talks animatedly about — Chan doesn’t know what, she can't hear it properly. She shoves Seungkyung over to flop onto the bed next to her, squishing her face in close to Seungkyung’s to get a better look at the screen.

Makeup — of course. Some beauty YouTuber. Chan casts a glance over to watch Seungkyung’s face screw up in concentration, watching carefully as the girl on the screen applies false eyelashes with expert precision.

“How do they make it look so easy?” she moans, sounding frustrated and pissed about it in equal measure. Chan watches the girl for a moment longer, squinting to try to see it better on the tiny phone screen. She doesn’t really understand what she’s talking about, but the movements are pretty straightforward. Recognizable, from when Chan had to do it herself.

“Fake eyelashes aren’t so bad,” she says absently. “You just have to get the hang of it, that’s all.”

Seungkyung makes a disbelieving little noise, clearly not convinced. Chan huffs a little — she hates when Seungkyung doesn't take her seriously.

“I’m serious!”

“How would you even know that?” Seungkyung asks impatiently.

Chan doesn’t wear makeup anymore, but she knows what everything’s for — back when she was taking classes for real she had to do it herself for showcases, practicing at home until she could get her eyeliner just right by herself because she was too proud to ask any of the other girls. Her mom was too busy with the restaurant to help her, and obviously her dad wouldn’t have known anything about it. She didn't have any choice but to learn.

“I’m a dancer,” Chan reminds Seungkyung. “I did shows, did you forget?”

For some reason that makes Seungkyung get quiet, her huffiness fading as she looks over at Chan.

“Right,” she says. “I remember.”

“I can show you,” Chan offers into the weird silence that follows. “It really isn’t that hard, once you know how to do it. You just have to practice.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Seungkyung huffs, sounding annoyed more than anything, but she twists to dig a pouch out of the backpack she brought with her. It’s a real makeup bag, too — one of the ones with sections, instead of just a pouch with a zipper at the top. Chan wrinkles her nose — does she carry that with her everywhere? Is it really that important? As Chan watches she opens it carefully — everything inside is neatly organized, tubes in pastel colours all arranged by size.

“Are you really never gonna do shows again?” Seungkyung asks. She doesn’t meet Chan’s eyes as she says it, busy fishing out the lashes and glue from her makeup bag.

Chan shrugs, frowning.

She can’t deny the way it stings, hearing Seungkyung say it like that. Chan misses performing — of course she does. But there are some things that are more important than that, Chan knows now.

“It’s fine,” she says, instead of explaining any of that. “Haeri-ssaem said I can still practice there as much as I want, as long as I clean up after. She’s going to let me teach classes on the weekends soon.”

Seungkyung doesn’t seem pacified by that, chewing at her lower lip like there’s something she wants to say.

“Give me that,” Chan says before she can get it out, holding her hand out for the little plastic packet of fake lashes Seungkyung has finally managed to dig up from the bottom of the bag. Seungkyung startles, like she’d forgotten it was in her hand. She doesn’t hand it over.

“I only have one set,” she says, still hesitating. Chan makes a face.

“It’s for you, duh,” she says. What was Seungkyung expecting? Did she really think Chan wanted to do it for herself?

“Oh,” Seungkyung says, faltering a little. Chan can’t imagine why. She takes the lashes and the glue from Seungkyung, finally, peering down at them to get a better look.

“Do you have scissors?”

Seungkyung makes a little sound of agreement, digging them out and handing them over. She leans over Chan’s shoulder, letting out a startled squawk when Chan snips the edge of the one of the sets of lashes right away.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s easier if the pieces are smaller,” Chan says absently, already starting to pull the line of lashes apart into sections.

“She didn’t do that in the video,” Seungkyung protests.

“I know what I’m doing,” Chan promises, pausing where she’d been reaching for the eyelash glue to meet Seungkyung’s eyes. Her jaw is set in a familiar line, stubborn chin jutting out. Chan doesn’t back down, just widens her eyes in a challenge. “You trust me, right?”

For a moment she thinks Seungkyung’s going to fight her on it, but then Seungkyung’s expression softens and she nods once, a jerky motion. Chan smiles at her.

“Good,” she says. “Where are your tweezers?”

Seungkyung watches closely as Chan dips the first set of lashes in the glue and shifts closer, one hand resting on the bed by Seungkyung’s thigh as she comes in with the tweezers. “Hold still,” Chan murmurs. Seungkyung’s head twitches in another nod, but as soon as Chan gets close to her eye it flutters, eyelids blinking in a rapid flurry. Chan lets out an exasperated huff and pulls back.

“I said hold still,” she reminds Seungkyung.

“You were coming at my eye!” Seungkyung hisses. Chan rolls her eyes.

“Obviously,” she says impatiently, waving the tweezers for emphasis — they’re eyelashes. What does Seungkyung expect? “Do you want me to do this or not?”

Seungkyung scowls but resettles herself on the bed, expression smoothing out again as she visibly forces herself to relax. Chan moves in again, this time using her free hand to cup Seungkyung’s cheek and hold her in place. The skin of her cheek is soft under Chan’s fingers. Up close she seems smaller than Chan realized. It’s funny — they’re only a year apart, but Seungkyung has always been so much bigger than Chan, with the personality to match. Chan hadn’t realized she’d started to catch up.

“Don’t move,” she breathes, leaning in close. Her hand doesn’t shake as she carefully nudges the clump of lashes along Seungkyung’s lash line, pushing them into place with the tweezers. “Almost — there.”

She leans back to admire her handiwork. Seungkyung has really pretty eyes — big and shining, even more striking framed by the longer lashes. Chan catches herself staring and shakes her head, twisting to pick through Seungkyung’s bag for her mirror so she can hold it up for Seungkyung to inspect.

“How did you do that,” Seungkyung whines when she gets a look at herself, turning her head to examine at different angles. “Whenever I try it I fuck it up.”

“We can do the other one together if you want,” Chan offers. She doesn’t have a real mirror in her bedroom, but Seungkyung’s hand mirror is pretty big. Seungkyung makes skeptical noises as Chan rearranges them, settling herself beside Seungkyung and a little behind her, their thighs pressed together on the bed.

“Here,” Chan says, guiding Seungkyung’s hands around the tweezers and helping her get the angle right to pick the lashes up from their little plastic tray before she dabs the end into the glue.

“I can’t — ” Seungkyung tries, but Chan shushes her and helps keep her hand steady, her other hand holding the mirror so Seungkyung can see herself. Seungkyung’s hand tries to tremble but Chan doesn’t let it, her fingers wrapped around Seungkyung’s to help her.

It takes a few fumbling tries but Seungkyung manages, finally, Chan helping her nudge the lashes into place the same way she’d done for the other eye. She angles herself to get a better look once they’re finished, grabbing Seungkyung by the shoulders to hold her steady as she inspects their handiwork.

“You check,” she says finally, twisting out of the way so Seungkyung can hold up the mirror to get a proper look at herself.

She looks for a long time before she says anything, and when she does her voice is almost a whisper.

“It looks really nice.”

Seungkyung’s cheeks are pink as she says it — real pink, not from makeup — and Chan shrugs, weirdly embarrassed by Seungkyung’s embarrassment. She tugs Seungkyung’s makeup bag over and starts picking through it, pulling out something at random just to give herself something to do — lipgloss, judging by the plastic lips molded to the top of the case. Chan holds it up to her face to squint at the label stuck to the bottom of the transparent pink tube. Shade #006, Kissable Pink. She wrinkles her nose. When Seungkyung sees what she’s looking at she huffs, reaching over to snatch it. Instead of putting it back into the bag she unscrews the tube to open it, picking her mirror back up so she can put it on.

“What would you know about being kissable,” she mutters, sulky attitude completely at odds with how pretty she’s making herself up to be.

Chan rolls her eyes.

“What would you know,” she counters. “Did you kiss Jeon Wonwoo?”

Seungkyung’s hand jerks where she’s applying the lip gloss and she scowls, reaching for a tissue to fix it.

“No,” she hisses, still scowling. She tosses her head afterward, obviously embarrassed at the admission. “It’s whatever,” she adds impatiently. “It’s not like you’ve kissed anyone either.”

Chan should just let it go, probably, but she’s never been able to resist picking fights with Seungkyung.

“Of course I have,” she says instead, and it’s kind of worth it for the way Seungkyung’s entire face drops immediately, her mouth hanging open in disbelief.

“No you haven’t,” she says once she’s recovered her wits, a dismissive tone to her voice that makes Chan bristle.

“I have,” she insists.

The lip gloss wand is still in Seungkyung’s hand, but she’s forgotten about it completely as she gapes at Chan instead.

“Who?” she says, eyes narrowing in irritation. Chan can’t tell if she’s mad Chan didn’t tell her about it, or just that Chan kissed someone at all. Chan realizes, belatedly, that it was probably a mistake to bring it up — she really didn’t want to hurt Seungkyung with it. She only wanted to tease. But now there’s no way to tell her who she kissed without turning it into a big deal.

“Someone from the dance academy,” Chan hears herself say instead — it’s half of the truth, at least. The half that will hurt Seungkyung less. “One of the teachers.”

Seungkyung’s eyes widen, indignation taking over her features as she straightens. In the process she realizes she’s still holding the lip gloss, absently patting around on the bed to find the tube to close it again, eyes never leaving Chan’s face.

“Lee Chan,” she says, scandalized. “Did you kiss an adult?”

Chan winces. Chaeyeon’s an adult, but barely — she only graduated high school last year. She’s working full time at the dance academy now, so Chan sees her every time she stops by. She’s usually the one who lets her in to practice. They’re friends on kakao now, too.

When Chan admitted she hadn’t kissed anyone Chaeyeon had offered, that’s all, but Chan’s sure Seungkyung would be scandalized if she told her. Seungkyung would never do anything like that. It’s just like she said — she didn’t even kiss her own boyfriend.

“Forget about it,” Chan says. “I was just kidding.”

That makes Seungkyung even more suspicious — she narrows her eyes as she focuses in on Chan’s face, obviously not buying it. Chan keeps her face blank, though, not letting herself break.

“Fine,” Seungkyung says finally, drawing back. “If you don’t want to tell me, it’s whatever.”

It’s clearly not whatever, judging by her tone, but Chan really doesn’t want to tell her, so she only feels a little bit weird about it as she lets the subject drop anyway.

Hansol leaves for America the first week of summer vacation, the same way he always does. For the first week Chan’s too busy to miss him, spending every day helping her mom at the restaurant so the usual waitress can finally get time off. Seungkyung’s doing a special camp at one of her academies, four hours every morning instead of going to school.

Once the other waitress comes back to part time Chan gets every other day off, so she goes and waits for Seungkyung after her academy just like she did during the semester. It’s a little awkward between them these days, especially without Hansol to create a buffer, but Seungkyung never tells her to stop, and she waits for Chan the few days she doesn’t make it until after Seungkyung’s classes end.

Chan’s late again the second Thursday, stumbling to a halt in front of Seungkyung’s academy to find a tall handsome boy already standing next to Seungkyung, holding her bag for her and laughing at something she’s said. Chan stops to stare at them for a moment, wondering if Seungkyung’s found a new boyfriend already. Kind of weird, if so. She didn’t like the idea too much the last time it came up.

“Lee Chan!” Seungkyung calls when she notices Chan staring, waving her over impatiently. “This is Kim Mingyu,” she says self-importantly as soon as Chan’s close enough to greet the other boy properly.

Chan nods her head a little in acknowledgment.

“He’s in third year,” Seungkyung adds, like maybe she thinks Chan wasn’t being respectful enough.

“Oh,” Chan says. It doesn’t really make a difference to her but — “Nice to meet you, hyung,” she adds, as politely as she can manage.

“Oh my god,” Seungkyung hisses. She moves to dig an elbow between Chan’s ribs but Chan’s expecting it, dodges out of the way just in time. “Stop being weird! I told you to stop saying that!”

Chan makes a face, annoyed at her for nagging, especially when she glances at Kim Mingyu — he doesn’t look like he thinks it’s weird at all. He’s watching the two of them with a delighted expression on his face, looking deeply amused.

“Nice to meet you too, Lee Chan,” he says, grinning. “Seungkyung told me a lot about you.”

Chan freezes where she’d been trying to stomp on Seungkyung’s foot in retaliation, looking up — all the way up — at him.

“Really?”

“Of course,” Mingyu smiles, like it’s obvious. “She told me how good you are at dancing.”

“Oh,” Chan says, smiling back. “Really? That’s nice.”

“Yah,” Seungkyung says, her elbow finally making contact now that Chan’s distracted. Chan winces and shoves her off. “Of course I told him. What kind of friend do you think I am?”

“The best kind, obviously,” Chan says, dodging Seungkyung’s next mimed slap so she can worm her arms around Seungkyung’s neck to pull her in for an overdramatic hug instead. Seungkyung splutters and tries to push her away immediately.

“You’re so embarrassing,” she whines once Chan’s retreated a safe distance, patting at her ponytail to make sure it’s not gone askew. Mingyu makes a concerned sound at the back of his throat and moves in to fix it for her, tucking the flyaway strands back into the elastic. Chan watches, bemused.

“We’re going to the noraebang later tonight, do you wanna come?” Seungkyung asks once Mingyu’s finished, turning her attention back towards Chan. Chan’s so startled by the switch in Seungkyung’s mood that it takes her a moment to catch up. She nods slowly, eyes flitting to Mingyu to see if he’s okay with it. He’s staring down at his phone, though, only looking back up when Seungkyung nudges his foot pointedly with her own.

“What — ”

“Chan wants to come to noraebang with us,” Seungkyung fills in smoothly. Chan rolls her eyes — that is not what she said — but straightens when Mingyu looks over at her, not wanting him to think he’s the one she’s annoyed at. Mingyu shrugs easily.

“Perfect,” Seungkyung says, a little too aggressively. “We’ll all go together, then. I’ll text you when to meet.”

When Chan catches Mingyu’s eye again he’s smiling again, obviously just as amused by how ridiculous Seungkyung’s being.

Mingyu didn’t seem to care that Chan came along, but once the room is rented later that night and they’re settled in he gets antsy and restless, fidgeting on the bench until Seungkyung reaches out a hand to slap him without looking. Mingyu huffs and pouts but settles down — at least for a little bit, but he barely makes it through two songs before he’s pushing himself back to stand up, apologizing when he jostles Chan on his way out. Chan turns to Seungkyung, raising a questioning eyebrow, but Seungkyung just waves a dismissive hand.

Chan’s not sure how much time passes before she realizes Mingyu never came back, but when she asks Seungkyung she only gets another dismissive scowl in response.

“It’s nothing,” she says. “He had to meet someone, don’t worry about it. And would you stop choosing so many ballads? I want to have fun.”

Chan scowls at Seungkyung when she wrenches the remote out of her grasp, sufficiently distracted enough that she doesn’t really think about Mingyu again until it’s time to leave and he meets them at the door, looking significantly more rumpled than he had when they arrived.

“Hey,” he says, a little out of breath. Seungkyung rolls her eyes, reaching her hand up to smooth out the collar of Mingyu’s shirt — she has to stand on her tip-toes until he leans down obligingly to help her out.

“Did you have fun?” she asks dryly, releasing him with a little push to his shoulder. Mingyu doesn’t look at all put out by Seungkyung’s tone, grinning down at her and nodding. Seungkyung lets out a little disgusted noise and shoves at his arm. Mingyu laughs, not budging at all. Chan watches the entire interaction with the distinct feeling that she’s missing something.

Mingyu lives in the opposite direction, but he still tries to insist on walking the two of them home until Seungkyung puts her foot down, insisting that they’ll be fine by themselves. Chan waves goodbye to Mingyu as he walks backwards until he nearly trips and has to turn around, sending one last wave over his shoulder before he walks away for real.

“He’s really not your boyfriend?” Chan asks once they’re on their own, ambling slowly towards their apartment complex. Seungkyung cuts a sharp glance over at her, eyes narrowing.

“You think I wouldn’t tell you if he was?”

Chan stares back, not sure how she’s supposed to respond to that — a few months ago she would have thought that, sure. But Seungkyung didn’t tell her about her last boyfriend, so why would she tell Chan if she’d gotten a new one? Chan isn’t mad about it, but she wishes Seungkyung would be honest.

“Whatever,” Seungkyung rolls her eyes, clearly sensing Chan’s skepticism. “It’s not like you don’t keep secrets, too.”

Chan slows to a stop.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Seungkyung stops a few paces ahead of Chan, turning back to face her.

“You know what it means,” she says. Chan frowns, trying to read her expression — impatient, a little annoyed. Chan has no idea what she’s talking about.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says.

Seungkyung laughs in disbelief, eyes casting towards the empty road and then back. It’s late enough that the street is mostly quiet, the buzzing cicadas all they can hear. They’re right outside the empty lot all the kids at their school used to say was haunted, the worn-out metal fence around it the only thing keeping in the ghosts. They used to dare each other to climb over it every night, but Seungkyung and Chan were the only ones who ever did it. All they found on the other side was grass.

“You kissed Hansol,” Seungkyung says, clear from her tone that she’s pissed Chan didn’t tell her before. Chan stares at her, taken aback.

“He told you?”

“Of course he did!” Seungkyung’s face is turning red with frustration, her familiar temper starting to burn. “Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Chan says honestly. “You’d get mad.”

Maybe too honest, judging by the way Seungkyung’s entire face twists up in anger at her admission.

“If you knew I’d get mad then why’d you do it?” she asks immediately, leaning in as she says it, clearly moments away from jabbing an accusatory finger in Chan’s face. Not everything’s about you, Chan wants to snap back at her right away, Seungkyung’s anger riling up her own the way it always does. They’re both always like this when they get going. They can make each other so much worse.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” Chan says stubbornly, setting her jaw. She’s not going to let Seungkyung make her feel bad about it — she is not. It was between her and Hansol, Chan tells herself, ignoring the stab of guilt she feels at the thought. Now that Seungkyung’s calling her on it she’s starting to wonder herself. Why didn’t she say anything? Was she being a bad friend? It didn’t feel like it mattered at the time — they’d laughed it off as soon as they did it, pulling back and wiping their arms across their mouths, twin grimaces on their faces. “We just wanted to try it to see, that’s all. You were busy, or you could have tried, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Seungkyung looks really furious, now, the kind of anger Chan knows is covering up hurt. Chan can’t think of anything to say that won’t make it worse.

“What else did Hansol tell you?” she asks, finally. Seungkyung narrows her eyes.

“Why?” she asks, visibly suspicious. “Were you guys keeping other secrets, too?”

We weren’t keeping any secrets at all. Even if Chan said the words out loud, they wouldn’t do anything to help. She knows that’s not how Seungkyung sees it — anything they don’t tell her is a secret, and anything they leave out automatically becomes a lie. It doesn’t usually bother Chan, who never really has anything to hide, but she hates it when Seungkyung twists things around like this. Chan’s never been the dramatic type, so it’s like Seungkyung has to make up for it by being twice as bad, her reactions always two times too strong.

So Chan keeps her mouth shut, eyes trained still on Seungkyung’s flushed, angry face. Her hair is escaping from its ponytail, baby hairs framing her face the way she always complains about, no matter how many times Chan tells her she looks fine. There’s still a metre of space between them, but neither of them have moved to close it.

“Hansol told me you guys kissed, and that you weren’t gonna do it again,” Seungkyung says, finally, looking really mad that she had to be the one to speak first. “That’s it.”

“That’s what happened,” Chan says, a pleading note creeping into her voice. “Can’t you just leave it?”

Seungkyung stares at her again, and it seems to go on for a long time, neither of them willing to break eye contact.

“Fine,” Seungkyung says, finally, turning back to start walking towards their block again. Chan gives in and takes the few steps to catch up but Seungkyung doesn’t look over, eyes straight in front of her. She doesn’t acknowledge Chan at all the whole walk home, not even to say goodbye when they part ways to go into their separate buildings.

This isn’t the worst fight they’ve ever had — not by a long shot. It’s nothing compared to last year, when Chan let herself into Seungkyung’s apartment and caught Seungkyung throwing up in the bathroom. Seungkyung swore, red-faced and shaking, that she’d never forgive Chan if she told anyone, and Chan nodded because she didn’t know what else to do.

She told her mom anyway, of course, the first chance she got, and in return Seungkyung did her best to keep her promise. She didn’t talk to Chan for three weeks, icing her out completely and forcing Hansol to act as their go-between.

Chan felt bad for him — neither of them ever even told him why they were fighting. Honestly, she and Seungkyung never really talked about it with each other, either. Seungkyung just showed up next to Chan when she was walking home one day, starting up a conversation like nothing at all was amiss, and they both silently agreed never to speak about it again.

Chan feels bad now, too, but this time it's for herself. She doesn’t want Seungkyung to be mad at her again, even if she is being dramatic. It seems like Seungkyung’s been slipping away from her since they started high school, a slow but inevitable divide. Chan has been trying not to let herself think about it, but right now it feels like too much to bear.

She doesn’t want to lose her best friend, but she doesn’t want to grovel for Seungkyung’s forgiveness, either. They’re both too stubborn. They need Hansol in the middle to smooth things out, but he’ll be gone for another week and a half.

Two days later Im Shinwoo quits without notice to help his girlfriend sell vitamins, and all of a sudden Chan’s so busy she barely has time to think about Seungkyung at all. The girl who usually waitresses takes over deliveries, which leaves Chan to help her mom in the restaurant all day.

Her mom takes pity on her, though — on the third day one of her friends comes in to help so Chan can leave early — early enough that she could catch Seungkyung on her way home from cram school, probably. She stops at the closest CU for ice cream by herself instead.

She’s preoccupied trying to get the wrapper open as she makes her way back to the sidewalk, so wrapped up in it that she doesn’t even notice there’s someone in her way until she’s run into them headfirst. An apology slides through her lips as she takes a stumbling step backward and looks up.

“Oh,” she says, startled, finally getting a good look at the person she headbutted — it’s Kim Mingyu, somehow even taller than Chan remembered. “Hey, hyung.”

Mingyu looks surprised to see her, but he smiles easily enough.

“Hey. You heading home?”

Chan nods distractedly, finally getting the wrapper on her ice cream down far enough to start tearing into it.

“Yeah,” she says, muffled by a mouthful of sugar.

“I’ll walk you back,” Mingyu says, straightening up a bit. It’s a little weird — they don’t actually know each other at all, not without Seungkyung here to connect the two of them.

“I can walk myself,” Chan says, frowning. “It’s only a few blocks.”

Mingyu wilts a little bit, looking put out.

“It’s dark,” he protests. Chan hesitates, then shrugs and decides she doesn’t care. If Mingyu wants to waste his time walking her three blocks to her apartment building, that’s his business.

“Sure,” she says, and Mingyu straightens back up, his easygoing smile finding its way back onto his face.

“Are you and Seungkyung okay?”

Mingyu barely makes it ten steps before he asks, not subtle at all. Chan makes a face as she tries to catch the chocolate threatening to drip down her hand.

“It’s whatever,” she hedges. She doesn’t really want to talk about this with Kim Mingyu. Honestly, she doesn't want to talk about it with anyone. It is what it is, right? Seungkyung will get over it eventually. She always does.

“Seungkyung seemed really upset when I saw her yesterday,” Mingyu presses. Chan can’t quite figure out why he cares.

“Are you really not her boyfriend?”

The words are out of Chan’s mouth before she can catch them, her curiosity getting the better of her like it always does. But why else would Mingyu be so worried about Seungkyung’s business? It’s not like Chan hangs out with a lot of boys, but she’s been best friends with Hansol since they were in elementary school and he’s never once tried to interfere like this.

Mingyu just laughs, though, like there’s a joke that Chan doesn’t know.

“Definitely not,” he says. His voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’m seeing someone else.”

“Oh.” Somehow Chan’s even more confused, now. She wonders who it is — not anyone she’d know, surely. A thought occurs to her, making her frown in concern. “Would she be okay with you walking me home like this?”

Mingyu only laughs even harder at that, which doesn’t make any sense. It’s a perfectly valid thing to worry about. Boyfriends are supposed to walk their girlfriends home, not random friends of their friends — Chan doesn’t want some older girl to hate her because of a misunderstanding.

Mingyu looks up, casting his gaze around to see who’s near them — no one, really, besides the little old lady at the bus stop.

“They won’t care,” Mingyu says. He hesitates for another split second, then leans in close, voice dropped low. “I can trust you, right?”

Chan nods dumbly, even more confused than she was before. She wonders, vaguely, if this is going to turn into one of those situations her mom warned her about — is she about to get trafficked? Is Kim Mingyu going to try and sell her drugs?

“Hyung graduated last year,” Mingyu says. “I’m saving up to go live with him when I’m done with school.”

It takes Chan a moment to get what he’s trying to tell her, and then —

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Mingyu fidgets for a moment, scratching first at his hair, then his nose. “You’re okay with it, right? Seungkyung said you were chill.”

“Seungkyung said that?”

Chan can’t imagine a situation where Seungkyung would say something that nice about her — if she had to guess, she’d imagine something more along the lines of Seungkyung complaining about how embarrassing she is. She knows what Seungkyung’s like.

“Yeah,” Mingyu says again, squinting down at her. “She’s your friend, right?”

That hits harder than Chan expected it to. Is she Chan’s friend? She still is, right? It was just one stupid fight. Chan was trying not to worry too much about it, but now that Mingyu looks so concerned it’s making her kind of nervous, too.

She clears her throat, crumpling her empty ice cream wrapper in her fist.

“Yeah,” she agrees, forcing a smile onto her face. “She’s my friend.”

Mingyu nods slowly, looking closely at Chan’s face like he’s waiting for her to say something more. Chan doesn’t really have anything else, though — what is there? She has to talk to Seungkyung, that’s all.

“Are you really trying to save money?” she asks, changing the subject to something safer. “My mom’s hiring, if you want. Our delivery guy just quit.”

Mingyu perks up, a childish smile brightening his face right away.

“Yeah?”

Chan nods, smiling.

“Here,” she says, coming to a stop on the sidewalk and digging her phone out of her pocket. “Give me your number, we’ll call you about it.”

“That would be great.” Mingyu sounds genuinely pleased as he dutifully types in his contact information. It makes Chan feel steadier than she’s been all day, like she’s regained her footing a little. She hadn’t even realized it had slipped.

“My apartment is right there,” she says once Mingyu’s done, nodding towards the complex across the street. “I can go the rest of the way by myself.”

Mingyu steps back and nods, waving her goodbye as she crosses the street. When she turns back to check on the other side he’s still waiting, sending her one last cheerful wave before he turns towards his own home.

But the apartment is weirdly silent when Chan opens the door. She frowns — Geonhee was supposed to be home with their dad. But Geonhee’s never quiet, always leaving the TV on or playing her phone games with the volume turned all the way up. If she was home Chan would know.

“Appa?” Chan calls, dropping her backpack on the floor in the entryway. “Geonhee? Yah, Lee Geonhee!”

But there’s no response, and when Chan makes her way into the living room it’s empty, the TV switched off. A sense of dread starts to creep up her spine as she checks the kitchen and finds it empty, too. There are dishes in the sink but nothing on the counter. Chan frowns. Maybe her dad’s still at the restaurant? Maybe their plans changed — maybe Geonhee never took him home at all.

“Appa?” she calls again, more hesitantly this time. Still no response.

Chan can feel her hands start to tremble as she moves towards the second bedroom where her parents sleep. When she pushes the door open only to find the room dark and empty her heart starts to speed up for real.

“Appa?” she calls quietly, retreating back into the hallway and making a final stop at the bathroom, hand sweaty on the doorknob as she twists to open it.

When her eyes land on where her dad is lying on the floor she freezes, stomach dropping, before she runs forward to check him.

“Appa,” Chan says urgently, grabbing his shoulder to turn him onto his back. His arm is twisted strangely, she realizes with a sick lurch in her stomach. “Appa,” she says again, louder, shaking his uninjured arm. His skin is warm, she registers with sick relief. She can see his eyes moving beneath the lids.

“Appa!” Chan calls, and his eyes blink open. She breathes out a sigh but doesn’t relax, still clutching at his shoulder. “Appa, what happened?”

For a moment all he can do is groan, disoriented. Chan wonders, vaguely hysterically, if he even knows. Did he hit his head when he fell? Does he have a concussion? Chan doesn’t know how to check for that. Why doesn't she know how to check?

“Ah, your appa’s a fool,” her father says, finally. Chan trembles, then sets her jaw to make it stop.

“What happened?” she forces herself to ask, trying to sound like she can take control of the situation.

“I wanted to go to the bathroom, obviously,” her father says, wincing and gesturing at her to help shift him upright. But Chan doesn’t know how to get him up without moving his bad arm, so she shakes her head.

“I’m going to call an ambulance,” she says. Her voice is still shaking a little, despite her best efforts. “Wait until they get here, okay?”

“You don’t have to — ”

“Appa,” Chan cuts him off. “Please.”

He breathes out a resigned sigh and nods, letting her try to get him more settled on the floor before she pulls her phone out from her pocket and dials. She’s never had to do anything like this — her heart is in her throat as the call connects. She straightens her posture when the dispatcher answers, trying to sound as mature as she can as the woman asks her questions — is it an emergency? Is there blood? Is he breathing? Where is she located?

Chan answers them all as carefully as she can, squeezing her father’s hand tightly in her own until the call disconnects.

“They’re going to come,” she promises, looking down at him and faking a smile as best she can. Her dad always brags about how strong she is. How brave. “Where did Geonhee go?” she asks, looking around as the thought suddenly occurs to her. “Wasn’t she supposed to be here?”

“She had to do a project with her friends,” her father answers, voice trembling a little. He’s clearly in a lot of pain. Chan squeezes his hand harder and swallows.

“She can’t do that,” she says, anger starting to replace her earlier helplessness. “She was supposed to stay here til I got home. You can’t — ”

“I can’t what,” her father says, pain turning his voice sharp. “I can’t be here by myself? I’m an adult, Lee Chan. I told her to go.”

Chan stiffens, stung.

“That’s not — ” she starts, but the sound of the buzzer interrupts her. The paramedics must be at the building. “Appa,” she says as she stands to go get the door. “I didn’t mean it like that, I promise — ”

“I know,” he breathes out, eyes fluttering closed as he cuts her off. “Just go get the door, Chan-ah.”

Chan wants to hesitate, to make him reassure her for real, but the buzzer sounds again, longer this time. She leaves him there to go answer it, hands trembling as she waits at the door to let them into the apartment.

It feels surreal when they bring in the stretcher, brisk and no-nonsense as they ask Chan to lead them in. Chan guides them to where her father is lying, trying to stay out of the way as they maneuver him onto the stretcher.

“Is there someone you need to call?” one of the men asks her, and Chan startles — her mother, she realizes. She never even thought —

“Yeah,” she says hoarsely. “I need to call my mom, she needs to — ”

“Don’t,” her father calls out from where they’re strapping him in, wincing as the movement jostles his arm.

“Why not?” Chan frowns. Her phone is already in her hand, unlocked, as she waits for his response.

“I don’t want to — ah,” he pauses to take a steadying breath. Chan wants to move closer, to comfort him the way she always does, but the paramedics are in her way. She has to stand back instead. “I don’t want to worry her. She’ll leave the restaurant, you know she will.”

“That’s okay,” Chan says weakly, not understanding the problem. “It’s just one day. She won’t mind.”

“You can come with me,” her father says, shaking his head. “You always take care of me. Don’t call her, okay?”

Chan bites her lip, worried, as she thinks about it. Her phone is clutched in her hand, still unlocked. Will her mother be mad if she doesn’t call?

A stupid question — of course she will.

But her dad will be mad if she does, and he’s the one in front of her — white-faced with pain and clammy with sweat, weaker than she’s ever seen him. Chan swallows and nods, finally, pocketing her phone and moving closer to the stretcher.

“Okay,” she says, nodding hesitantly, taking a deep breath to steady her voice. “Okay. I’ll come with you.”

The ambulance is crowded. Chan sits where they guide her and tries not to get in anyone’s way, chewing at her bottom lip and fighting the urge to take out her phone anyway, to call her mom even though she said she wouldn’t.

She doesn’t, in the end. She does what her father asked her and stays silent, watching.

Chan’s phone rings while she’s waiting for him to come back from getting x-rayed, one foot up on the plastic seat as she picks anxiously at a scab on her knee. She startles at the vibration, heart in her throat as she fumbles to check it. It’s not her mom, though. It’s Seungkyung.

“Yah, Lee Chan,” Seungkyung says as soon as Chan answers, already sounding mad — like she’s planning on picking up their last argument right where they ended it, careless of the days that have passed in between. Chan doesn’t even have the energy to really get annoyed, eyes on the wall in front of her and saying nothing. There’s a poster about financial relief for the elderly pinned up there. Chan stares at the little cartoon man in the wheelchair, at the way he’s smiling and waving, and chews viciously at her bottom lip as a sick sour feeling festers in her stomach.

“Yah,” Seungkyung says again, when Chan still hasn’t said anything. “Yah! Lee Chan! Are you listening?”

“I’m listening,” Chan says, clearing her throat and blinking hard, trying to pull her focus back to the phone. She can hear Seungkyung breathing through the line — she always holds the phone way too close when she talks, like a grandma. She gets mad every time Chan makes fun of her for it but she still always fucking does it.

“Why do you sound so weird?” Seungkyung sounds more accusatory than concerned, voice brisk and dismissive. Chan blinks again. Her dad hasn’t come back yet. Should she just call her mom now? It’s close to closing now anyway, right? Should she just —

“Chan?”

“Oh,” Chan says. “Sorry.”

Before Chan can say anything more there’s a clamour somewhere down the hall from her, loud beeping followed by staff rushing into one of the other rooms.

“What is that?” Seungkyung asks immediately. “Where are you? Are you at home?”

“I’m at the hospital,” Chan says before she can stop herself, eyes caught on the now-open door at the end of the hall. She wonders what’s happening inside. There’s a pause on the other end of the line, just for a split-second, long enough for Chan to realize what she said and regret it, and then —

“You’re what? Oh my god. What happened? Oh my god.” Seungkyung says it all in a rush, already working herself up into a panic. Chan winces at the volume of her voice, the urgency in Seungkyung’s tone scraping at her frayed nerves. “Chan? Oh my god. Are you okay? Which hospital?”

“It’s fine,” Chan says, trying to sound very sure of herself. Her voice comes out too weak, though. She sounds like the little kid she knows Seungkyung thinks she is.

“Why are you there? Did something happen? Who’s with you?”

Seungkyung keeps asking questions, her palpable worry as overwhelming as it always is. Suddenly Chan wants, desperately, to tell her exactly what happened. She wants someone next to her, someone to help her. She doesn’t want to be sitting here alone.

“My dad fell,” she says, tears welling in her eyes as soon as she gets the words out. She scowls and swipes at her face, hoping Seungkyung can’t hear it in her voice. “They said he’ll be okay, he just. He fell.”

“Is your mom there?”

A tear finally makes its way down Chan’s face for real, faster than she can stop it. Her fingers are all wet now, useless to try to wipe the tears away. She doesn’t have a tissue — she doesn’t have anything. She only brought her phone with her.

“No,” she chokes out, humiliated, clutching the phone so tightly it feels like it might snap. She’s the one holding it too close, now. Seungkyung can definitely hear her stupid breathing. There’s another long pause. Chan waits for whatever Seungkyung will say next and hopes she doesn’t hang up.

“What hospital?” Seungkyung says, finally, and Chan tenses. “Well?” Seungkyung asks, when Chan doesn’t reply right away.

“You’re mad at me” is all she can think of to say, staring at the linoleum tile under her feet.

Seungkyung huffs impatiently into the phone.

“Of course I’m mad at you, you were being stupid. Which hospital?”

“The Severance one,” Chan says, finally, still feeling lost. “Up past the bank.”

There’s a muffled noise on Seungkyung’s end, like she’s moving around. Chan just keeps holding the phone, silent, waiting. She’s supposed to be handling this but she doesn’t know what else to do. She should just call her mom, but every time she thinks about it she remembers the expression on her dad’s face. She doesn’t want him to be disappointed in her.

Chan didn’t think she was a coward, but she’s afraid of that.

“I can be there in fifteen minutes,” Seungkyung says suddenly, startling Chan out of her thoughts. It takes a few seconds for what she’s said to really sink in, but when it does Chan feels a rush of desperate relief spread through her whole body, followed immediately by a wave of guilt.

“You don’t have to do that,” she says, the words coming to her mouth on their own. She doesn’t mean it, obviously. Usually Chan hates it when Seungkyung tries to take control of everything, but right now the idea is distinctly appealing.

“Shut up,” Seungkyung says immediately. “Don’t do anything stupid until I get there.”

Chan’s mouth snaps shut.

When Seungkyung shows up she’s got both Geonhee and Chan’s mom with her, craning her neck to search for Chan as soon as she’s out of the elevator.

Chan waits for her mom to yell at her for not calling but instead she just pulls Chan close, tucking her head into her shoulder the way she hasn’t done in years. Chan lets herself have a minute like that, gasping in shaky breaths, before she pulls back, jaw set.

“Are you okay?” her mother asks, cupping her clenched jaw in both hands, and all Chan can do is stare at her. Why wouldn’t she be okay? She isn’t the one anyone needs to be worried about right now. She nods blankly as her mom leans around her to flag someone down she can talk to, stepping backward in between Seungkyung and Geonhee. Geonhee’s fucking around on her phone with one hand, the other one up to her mouth so she can chew on her fingernails. She scowls when Chan pushes her hand away, but she doesn't say anything about the way Chan squeezes it once, hard, before she lets go.

“He’s going to be a little while,” her mother says when she comes back a few minutes later. She gives Chan a quick onceover and her expression twists a little. She nods at Chan, and hen at Seungkyung. “Why don’t you girls go walk around for a bit? You should stretch your legs.”

Geonhee is exempted, apparently — she moves closer to their mom without saying anything, still staring at her phone, and gets an arm around her shoulders for her trouble. Chan thinks about protesting but Seungkyung grabs her wrist and tugs before she can say anything, leading her out towards the elevator.

They wander through the hospital for a bit, stopping at the vending machine so Seungkyung can buy herself a juice before they end up drifting outside altogether, perching on the curb outside the front of the building.

Seungkyung takes a few sips of her juice and sets it on the pavement, her elbows coming to rest on her knees as she drops her chin into her hands.

“Are you okay?” Seungkyung asks, finally. Chan shrugs awkwardly.

“It’s fine.”

“No it isn’t,” Seungkyung counters immediately, and Chan lets out an exhausted sigh. Why can’t Seungkyung ever let anything go? She waits for Seungkyung to push it, to jut out her stubborn chin and force Chan to talk about it more, but she goes silent and contemplative instead, idly picking at her cuticles. Chan wants to tell her to stop but she doesn’t.

Finally Seungkyung takes a deep breath and looks up, staring out at the trees on the other side of the hospital driveway.

“Did you really kiss Kwon Soonyoung?”

Chan stares at Seungkyung, confused. Where did that come from? What is she even talking about?

“I never said I did that.”

Seungkyung widens her eyes, jaw dropping open like she can’t believe Chan’s nerve.

“Yes you did,” she says immediately, already sounding mad. “You said you kissed someone from your dance school, remember? Before you lied about Hansol.”

“I didn’t lie about Hansol,” Chan says, frustrated. She doesn’t want to talk about this right now. “Would you stop doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“You want me to be wrong so badly, don’t you?” Chan can her the way her voice starts to shake, leftover nerves mixing with frustration. “I didn’t lie about kissing Soonyoung and I didn’t lie about Hansol. Stop saying I did.”

“You did! You said you kissed someone from your dance school!”

Seungkyung’s turning red already, a familiar self-righteous expression on her face. Chan’s pissed and exhausted by it in equal measure. Seungkyung always works herself up over the littlest things. Why can’t she see that it doesn’t matter? Chan can kiss who she wants. Seungkyung can, too — Chan’s not trying to stop her.

“It was Chaeyeon-unnie,” she says loudly, to shut Seungkyung up. “Baek Chaeyeon. Not Soonyoung.”

It works — Seungkyung’s face clears in an instant, shock making her big eyes even rounder as her mouth drops open.

“Oh,” she says. Chan waits for her to say something more — to give her judgment on the situation. To say that Chan’s weird, or a freak, the way she always does when Chan does something she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t mind, usually, but if Seungkyung does it tonight Chan isn’t sure she’ll ever forgive her.

She doesn’t, though. “Why didn’t you just say that?” Her voice comes out quiet and deflated, all her earlier anger already sapped out.

“It wasn’t your business.” It feels too harsh as soon as Chan's said it — she feels a stab of guilt as Seungkyung flinches back. “You always do this,” she adds, to try and defend herself. “You act like just because I don’t tell you something it means I’m lying to you, when I’m not.”

Seungkyung bristles again.

“If you were my friend you’d tell me.”

“What, like you told me about your boyfriend?” Chan can’t help snapping back.

“I’m not having this fight with you again,” Seungkyung sniffs in a sudden fit of self-righteousness, and Chan spits out an ugly laugh in response.

“You brought it up!”

Seungkyung’s mouth tightens. She doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that. Her silence goes on long enough for guilt to set back in, and Chan’s trying to think of something to say to smooth it over when Seungkyung interrupts her thoughts.

“Did you tell Hansol?”

Chan freezes.

“Kind of,” she says slowly. “Yeah.”

She waits for Seungkyung to snap again but it never comes. She just looks hurt, instead — sad and tired and hurt. Chan takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. She doesn’t know what to say next.

“I didn’t want to kiss Wonwoo-oppa.” Seungkyung’s the one to break the silence, eyes forward as she speaks. “That’s why I broke up with him. I don’t want to kiss Mingyu either.”

“That’s probably for the best,” Chan says before she can help it, thinking of what Mingyu told her earlier. She saw a picture of his boyfriend when he took out his phone to give her his contact info — Seungkyung can’t compare with that. The guy looks like he should be in one of those romance webtoons Geonhee's always reading.

Seungkyung snorts and pushes Chan’s shoulder. She’s supposed to be mad but Chan can’t hold back a smile, sighing out a laugh as she rocks backward from the force of Seungkyung’s shove.

“You understand what I mean, right?” Seungkyung asks once they’ve settled, eyes focused back on the pavement in front of her.

Chan squints at her.

“I think so,” she says slowly, not sure she actually does. She doesn’t see why Seungkyung’s making such a big deal of this, but that’s not new. She doesn’t understand why Seungkyung makes a big deal of most things.

“If you stop being my friend I’ll hate you forever,” Seungkyung warns her.

“Don’t be stupid,” Chan says immediately. “Why would I stop being your friend?”

Seungkyung shrugs, an uneasy expression on her face.

“I don’t know,” she says, which is definitely a lie. Seungkyung knows fucking everything. She fidgets, biting anxiously at her bottom lip. “We’re always fighting.”

Chan watches her for a moment — the round curve of her cheek, the stubborn set of her jaw. Her bangs are flat and greasy against her forehead, hairspray finally given up after holding them up all day.

“I won’t stop being your friend,” Chan says, urgency creeping into her voice. Seungkyung makes a little sound in the back of her throat but she doesn’t look up, so Chan keeps talking. “I wouldn’t. It’s okay if we fight.”

She really does mean it. Seungkyung’s annoying and she’s abrasive but she’s Chan’s friend. They’ve stuck together this long, haven’t they? That must mean they’re stuck with each other for real.

Chan tears her gaze away from Seungkyung’s face, looking down at the pavement instead. She scoots her feet so they’re lined up with Seungkyung’s — four sneakers in a row, ankles pressed together neatly.

The cicadas shriek the same way they do every night in the summer, the familiar background music filling the silence between them.

Seungkyung’s still silent. After a moment her head comes to rest on Chan’s shoulder.

“Unnie worries too much,” Chan says quietly.

“I can’t help it,” Seungkyung responds, voice just as soft. A little sulky, like she’s admitting something she didn’t want to have to say out loud. Chan reaches over to grab her hand and squeeze it. Every time Seungkyung breathes out she can feel it against the top of her head. Chan can smell her stupid vanilla body spray, too, familiar and safe.

They stay like that until Chan’s mom comes out to get them, calling for Chan to get her dad’s wheelchair while she signs the paperwork to check out. Chan lets out a relieved breath at the sight, careful to avoid the brace on his arm when she pulls him into a hug.

Seungkyung presses close to Chan as they walk, like she knows what Chan’s too embarrassed to ask for out loud. She doesn’t say anything, but when Chan’s hand finds its way back into hers she squeezes it, tight.

Seungkyung stays with her the whole way home.