Archive of Our Own

Minjeong remembers it vividly, the day her family moved into their current home. No, she doesn’t really reminisce about it because oh, it would be her home for years! No, she wasn’t dramatic like that. It’s because it was the first day she met Yoo Jimin, the girl who would never leave her alone since that day.

It was the summer of 1957, somewhere at the end of June. The eight year old Minjeong at that time was super nervous about finally starting second grade.

The grass rustles underneath Minjeong’s feet when she jumps out of the car, her eyes darting around everywhere like a curious child and trying to take all the scenery in. It was like any other neighborhood, houses connected together, some had large backyards and what not. Yet it was beautiful, especially the clean area in front of the house. The green grass made it better.

She was about to turn around and help her mother until she suddenly felt a hand connecting itself to the back of her head and then going away as fast as it came. Minjeong’s face scrunches up and she grabs the place of the impact in pain, she turns around immediately knowing who the culprit was. 

“Seriously, Ryujin? Stop hitting me out of nowhere, how many times do I have to tell you I’m older than you!” The girl in question, Ryujin, just rolls her eyes before replying, “By like two minutes? It doesn’t matter. When will you accept that we are the same age?”

“I’m still older!–” Minjeong’s voice immediately quiets down when she feels a hand on top of her head, meanwhile another hand rests on Ryujin’s. “Now, now, children. Don’t fight or I’ll tell mom.” Their older sister, Chaewon says. The twins just glare at each other before turning away, obeying their sister anyways. 

Because even if Chaewon was chill, she could be their worst nightmare if they ever tick her off.

“Oh what a mess..” They hear their mother say, the trio of siblings quickly turn around to find their mom facing the house in front of them. Minjeong tilts her head out of confusion before following her mother’s line of vision. 

And oh wow, it really was a mess. Unlike their own house, the house in front of them seemed to have no signs of neatness, whatsoever. Weeds growing out of nowhere, the grass being incredibly uneven on the lawn and pots of flowers lining up on the windows.

“Come on, Jisoo. Don’t get distracted, we need to get all this stuff inside the house before the sun sets; it’s already 2 pm.” Their other mom says as she hands a box filled with glass objects to Chaewon, the reliable older daughter, who takes it and heads inside the house. 

“I know, Jennie, it’s just.. how unlucky are we to have to face such an eyesore of a view everyday from now on? I wonder who owns that? Must be such a mess of a family.” 

“The Yoo’s.” Minjeong says. “What?” Jisoo raises an eyebrow and the younger girl immediately feels her throat dry up, but she still manages to gather up some of her courage before replying, “The Yoo’s live there, it’s– it’s written on the signboard.” She points at the small signboard beside their mailbox and indeed. “Oh,” Her mother replies and then shrugs, not caring enough about the people there.

Minjeong also notices a small head shyly peeking out from one of the windows of the Yoo’s house, intently watching her and her family. She doesn’t think much of it. Then, she turns around towards her new house again.

Jennie just chuckles before giving Jisoo a light shove towards the large truck resting behind their car. “Bring some of the stuff from the truck now, will you? I’ll be in the house arranging everything with Chaewon and Ryujin. Take Minjeong with you,” She says before dragging Ryujin away towards the house. “Why me!” Ryujin yells and Minjeong smirks out of victory.

“Come on, kid. We need to hurry.” Jisoo says and Minjeong immediately straightens up before following her mother towards the truck. She enters the back of the truck with the help of her mother and stands at the corner while Jisoo checks the boxes, waiting for the older woman to tell her what to do.

A few minutes passed in silence with Minjeong just watching her mother, one of the few moments where she wasn’t scared of her, but that peace was soon disturbed by the noise of the grass rustling and a pair of feet running towards the truck.

“Hi!” A high-pitched voice croaks out and Minjeong turns to her left to see a young girl, probably as old as her, standing with a large smile on her face. She had long silky black hair, a very small face, sharp features and a mole beside her lips. “Hey..?” Minjeong says in reply and her eyebrows furrow when the girl jumps into the truck and stands beside her, their shoulders brushing against each other. She was taller than Minjeong.

“What’s your name?” She asks in a cheery tone. Minjeong squinted her eyes, trying to understand why this girl was getting so friendly with her when they were just strangers before replying, “Minjeong. Kim Minjeong.” She says and turns around to look at the taller girl.

“Pretty,” The girl says and Minjeong is left dumbfounded.

Jisoo turns around, a frown on her face because of the sudden intrusion. “And who might you be..?” She asks with her hands on her hips. “I’m Jimin! Yoo Jimin! I live in that house over there!” She enthusiastically says while pointing at the house in front. “Oh no..” Minjeong mutters as she nervously glances at her mother, whose frown only deepens.

Minjeong watches Jimin stare at the box the older woman was holding, then she smiles and puts her hand on the sides of the box. “Can I help you with this?” She asks as she looks up at Jisoo with sparkling eyes. The younger Kim tried to stop herself from gasping in horror. The woman harshly pulls it out of Jimin’s grasp before saying, “No.” She then turns around to Minjeong and hands the box to her. “Go take this inside and help your mother,” The younger girl gets the message, so she nods and takes the box before hurriedly trying to get out of there.

Of course, there was no way God would let her get out of there that easily.

She’s in the middle of the way to her house when she feels a small hand grasp at her own hands that were holding the box. She looks up to find Jimin smiling at her, an unfamiliar glint in her eyes.

This Jimin girl sure has small hands considering her height.

But Minjeong never had her hands in someone else’s grasp unless it’s her mom Jennie or her siblings. The thought alone causes her cheeks to heat up and the warmth that she felt on her hands told her that it was very much real, Yoo Jimin was the first person to ever hold her hand (excluding her family).

Then, Minjeong remembers her mother’s silent dislikeness towards the girl and her family. So, she immediately pulls her hand out of Jimin’s grasp, lets the box of books drop on the ground and then rushes over to her mom’s side who had just come out of the house because that was the only courageous thing to do at the moment. “Oh? Who do we have here? Looks like you’ve already made a friend here before your sisters, Minjeong!” Jennie smiles.

“I’m Jimin, ma’am!” Jimin says with a grin before averting her gaze from Jennie to Minjeong again, that unfamiliar glint in her eyes returns. 

And at that moment, while hiding behind her mother from a girl she just met, Minjeong decides that she doesn’t like Jimin. At all.

Jimin remembers it vividly, the day a certain short haired girl moved in with her family in the house in front of them. She reminisces about it a lot, more than she thinks. Yes, she was dramatic like that. But how could she not? It was the day she met the girl who entered her world like a tornado, it was the day she met Kim Minjeong.

It was the summer of 1957 when nine years old Jimin who had recently turned nine years old was roaming around her house, holding a book in her hands and bored out of her mind.

Her mother was out for work and her older sister was busy doing her homework. Jimin decided to visit their basement downstairs, it had been a while since she went down there. Her hands try to reach for the switchboard in the darkness and after a few minutes, she manages to flick the light switch on.

The basement lights up, a honey-like color radiating from the lightbulb above. Jimin makes her way down the rest of the stairs and lands on the floor with a small jump, a habit of hers. Then, she slips in through the cracks between the old couches and furniture that were in the basement and stands in front of a large portrait of a woman with short, dirty blonde hair.

“In memory of Yoo Jeongyeon,” reads the bronze plate below the portrait. “Hi, mom.” Jimin says and  smiles as she stares at the smiling woman in the black and white picture. “I haven’t visited in a while.. sorry.” She says and sits on the table below the portrait before turning around and looking up to the picture again.

“Mom’s out working again and you know Yeji.. always the hard working student that she is. So, I’m a bit bored by myself. Don’t take it as an offense that I’m only visiting you because I'm bored, okay?” Jimin continues and chuckles. “Anyways.. I– I read this book today.” She says and puts the book she was holding on the table.

“It’s a romance novel, actually. I was reading it and wondering if, you know, if I’ll ever fall in love. If there would be someone who would fall for me too. I can already imagine what you would be saying if you were here, Jimin! You’re too young for this!” Jimin says and glances up at the portrait again before laughing.

“It just described love in such a beautiful way, you know. I can see that mom loves you the way these two characters do, even though you’re not here anymore. From what I can remember, I guess you loved her too, probably more than mom herself did.” She continues before staring at a blank part on the wall in front of her. “I guess I kind of want that too..” Her voice trails off.

“In the novel, it said that when you fall in love, you just know . You just know when you look at the other person’s eyes.. so I’m guessing the same would happen to me? I’m not sure though–” Before Jimin could continue however, a voice from above called out to her. “Jimin! Bring me a glass of water, please!”

Jimin sighs in response before looking at her mother’s portrait again. “See you later, mom.” She mutters before turning off the lights and rushing upstairs. She closes the basement door before going towards the kitchen, where she grabs a glass and heads over to the sink to turn the knob. 

Jimin watches the water fall inside the glass but her attention is taken away when the honking of a car is heard from outside. She looks up to see a truck, a car in front of it and three children and two women getting out of the car. She giggles a bit when she sees one of the girls smack the back of the head of a girl who had her back turned to Jimin’s house. Then the other taller, and probably older girl who was standing on the side, puts her hands on the top of the younger girl’s heads.

Jimin watches their interaction with an amused look despite not knowing what they’re talking about, but she feels her breath getting stuck in her throat when the girl who was hit in the back of her head turns around. She looked a bit younger and very pretty.

The girl points at her house and Jimin feels her heart’s pace fastening up. She wonders what they’re talking about? She swears she and the girl made eye contact for a brief moment before she turned around again. Oh, does she want to be friends with her?

“Jimin!” The voice breaks her out of her train of thoughts and it’s only then Jimin realizes that the water was overflowing from the glass. She immediately twisted the knob again, not wanting to waste much water and then she tilted the glass to let some of the water fall out from it. After she’s happy with the amount of water, she rushes to Yeji’s room and puts it on the table the girl was studying on. “Thank–” Jimin doesn’t even let her older sister finish her sentence as she dashes out of the room.

Jimin stands in front of the mirror in her living room and immediately tries to fix up her messy look. She tries to brush up her hair to look a bit cooler and wipes some of the sweat from her face caused by the summer heat. It didn’t really make much of a difference in her appearance, but Jimin likes to think that at least she tried.

She then hurriedly makes her way out of the house and towards the truck, because she can see glimpses of a girl leaning her back against the inside of the truck while watching something.

Meeting her made Jimin even more excited, so she runs faster and stops when she’s right in front of the girl. “Hi!” She internally cringes at the way her voice comes out. “Hey..?” The shorter girl says, Jimin smiles even more when she hears the girl’s pretty voice as she enters the truck and stands beside her. She could definitely be a singer. 

“What’s your name?” Jimin asks.

“Minjeong. Kim Minjeong.” The girl replies as she turns around to look at her, but Jimin almost misses her response when she makes direct eye contact with the girl.

Her heart almost jumps out of her chest, Minjeong had very pretty eyes. Suddenly, Jimin gets this fluttery feeling inside her, as if there was a feather tickling her lungs. “Pretty,” The word leaves her mouth before she could stop it, and all of a sudden, Jimin knows. Jimin knows that this was the moment the romance novel was talking about. 

Before she could dwell too much on it though, a deeper voice breaks her thoughts. “And who might you be..?” The woman asks with her hands on her hips. Jimin figures that this must be Minjeong’s mother and her instincts scream at her to make a good impression on the older woman.

“I’m Jimin! Yoo Jimin! I live in that house over there!” She replies before pointing towards her house with a grin on her face. Hopefully Minjeong and her mother don't think that her house is too shabby. (It’s not much, but it’s home.)

Jimin’s eyes then darted towards the box the woman was holding and her instincts from before return. She grabs the sides of the box too before looking up and politely asking, “Can I help you with this?” Minjeong’s mother takes it away from her grasp though, and Jimin thinks that maybe she doesn’t need any help.

“No.” She says before turning to Minjeong and handing the box to her. “Go take this inside and help your mother,” Minjeong just nods before rushing out of there.

Jimin panics, she hasn't even properly talked to the girl yet. So, she also hurriedly makes her way out of the truck with a jump and runs towards her, before grabbing one of Minjeong’s hands that were holding on to the box. 

A smile automatically tugs on Jimin’s lips when Minjeong looks up at her. 

Jimin thinks she could drown in those eyes all day. Oh no, is this what her deceased mom thought when she looked at her other mom too?

Minjeong immediately pulls her hand out of her grasp, startling Jimin. 

The box drops on the ground and some of its contents spill out. Then, she rushes over to another woman who Jimin didn’t even realize was standing there. She must also be Minjeong’s mother.

“Oh? Who do we have here? Looks like you’ve already made a friend here before your sisters, Minjeong!” The woman smiles as she looks down at the girl who was behind her, gripping her dress with her hands and staring at Jimin. 

“I’m Jimin, ma’am!” Jimin says with a grin before averting her gaze from the older woman to Minjeong again. 

And at that moment, while gazing out at the shorter girl’s sparkly eyes that seemed to hold stars in them even in broad daylight, Jimin decides that she likes Minjeong. A lot.

Minjeong had a gut feeling that day when she first met Yoo Jimin that this was only just the start of her troubles. Still, she was surprised when the taller girl had immediately ran up and hugged her when entered the classroom of her school during her first day of second grade. It embarrassed her to no end.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of her troubles. Everyday, Jimin would sit beside her during lunch and force her to play with her during break. It’s as if fate was playing games with her when the teacher partnered her up with the taller girl for an art project. 

For Minjeong, this was hell. The constant teasing from her classmates and sometimes even her new friend Hyejoo. “Jimin and Minjeong sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-NG.” It became worse when even Ryujin, who was in a different classroom despite them being in the same grade, heard about it. She teased her about it to no end.

(Minjeong also hoped that Jimin would stop holding her hand out of nowhere, because when she does, Minjeong feels heat crawl up to her cheeks and her ears become red. She looked like a whole tomato, like how her cousin Kim Jiwon would get red whenever she got embarrassed.)

Her first year in a new town wasn’t what she expected, and the next three weren’t any better either. So, as the sixth grade came around, Minjeong decided that enough was enough, she needed to take some action. During the first few days of sixth grade, 11 year old Minjeong decided to keep a close eye on the slightly older girl.. when she wasn’t busy staring at Minjeong herself.

And Minjeong noticed the drastic contrast between the way Jimin looked at her with such sweet eyes yet looked at their grade’s popular girl, Jeon Somi, with such hatred. 

Hyejoo helped her hatch the smartest and perfect plan of all time. Ask out Jeon Somi and let Yoo Jimin just watch, until she loses interest in her. She called it the “#GetRidOfJimin project. Although she was using the girl to get rid of Jimin, she still wondered why Jimin hated Somi so much. 

Somi was nice, pretty and popular. What’s there to hate about her?

It started during the second week of sixth grade with Minjeong rushing out the bus to chase after Somi who had already left, with Jimin trailing behind her. It was the perfect opportunity and the black haired girl didn’t let it go to waste. 

“Somi, hey!” Minjeong calls out and the girl in question immediately brightens up when she turns around to see who was calling for her. “Hey, Minjeong.” The blonde haired girl smiled. Minjeong unconsciously gripped her books tighter when she felt Jimin’s gaze from behind her. It wasn’t the usual lovey-dovey one, no, it was more of an ice-cold glare.

Looks like the plan was working after all. 

“I was wondering if you would like to sit with me at lunch today,” Minjeong boldly says. “Sit with me at lunch,” was basically an indirect way of asking out someone. Somi looked a bit startled and Minjeong watched the way the girl’s face heated up. Was this how she looked whenever Jimin would get a bit too close to her?

“Oh.. are you serious? Why?” Somi says while trying to hide the smile creeping up to her face.

“I just want to hang out with you.” Minjeong replies and tries to flash her killer smile she stayed up all night practicing for. The cold gaze from behind that made her body’s hair stand up remained. “Alright,” Somi says and grins. Minjeong nods and grins back for a completely different reason.

The next few days at school, Minjeong would try her best to always be within Jimin’s radius whenever she walks around with Somi. Like that one time, during break when Somi was busy babbling about some sleepover she had with her friend Chaeyoung and Minjeong just absent-mindedly nodding. The black haired girl looked up from the ground when she noticed a familiar pair of shoes, it was Jimin putting books in her locker.

Minjeong immediately grabbed Somi’s hand and smiled at the girl (despite not knowing what she was saying) when Jimin’s eyes fell on hers. 

She liked the way Jimin’s eyes burned in anger whenever she saw her with Somi. Because it meant her plan was working, obviously. Everything was going smoothly and she could not have asked for a better life.

That was, until, Ryujin decided to take an interest in Somi. It was crazy, how could her own twin rat her out to Somi like that?

It was the middle of February during recess when Minjeong was outside cleaning up her face near one of the outside sinks when Somi harshly turned her around by her shoulder. Minjeong furrowed her eyebrows out of annoyance and as she was about to ask the blonde girl what was up, she felt a painful impact on her left cheek.

Somi’s slap had so much power in it that Minjeong stumbled back and would have almost fallen down if it weren’t for the sink behind her. She noticed that the blonde haired girl’s eyes were teary and her nose was red. 

Minjeong could already tell why she was so mad and who exactly told her. She mentally cursed herself for being born with a twin. 

“You’re the worst.” Somi said with her jaw clenched before she almost ran out of Minjeong’s vision.

That breakup wouldn’t have sucked so much if only Jimin wasn’t near the entrance gate of the school, watching the whole scene in 1080p. Minjeong rolled her eyes out of irritation, why did fate hate her so much?

Jimin had a gut feeling that day when she first met Kim Minjeong, that it was fate; Maybe soulmates really do exist? 

Her gut feeling was proven right during the first day of second grade when she was chatting with her friends when a very timid Minjeong quietly entered the room with her books pressed against her chest. Jimin’s face instantly lightened up, Minjeong was here. Out of all the classrooms for second grade students in their school, Minjeong was in the one that Jimin was in.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of Jimin trying to take care of Minjeong though. She always noticed how Minjeong struggled to converse with the kids at class, sat alone at lunch and stared at the view outside the window in their classroom during break. Jimin didn’t want the shorter girl to feel left out.

So, she started to sit beside her during lunch and play tag with her during break. Jimin originally didn’t think that Minjeong would like playing tag so much, but she always seemed to be running away from her whenever Jimin approached her during break, so she figured that the girl’s favorite outside game was probably tag.

Jimin noticed how mean the kids were to Minjeong sometimes. They teased her constantly and made weird jokes all the time. She also noticed how the girl would not stand up for herself, at all. And that made Jimin become even more protective over the girl. 

Sometimes, Jimin would hold Minjeong’s hand (despite Jimin herself being a bit shy) because Minjeong was just so clumsy, the girl had practically no strength in her and would fall over the smallest things. 

(Jimin watched through her house’s window that day, when Minjeong hurt her knee and her mother, Ms. Jisoo was scolding her while pacing around the kitchen of their house. The scared expression on the young girl’s face made Jimin promise to herself that she would never let Minjeong get hurt, ever again.)

The next three years were the same, with Jimin trying her best to get closer to Minjeong. She’ll admit that she was a bit sad on how Minjeong became friends with Hyejoo before she became friends with Jimin, when the girl had been trying to get close to her for years. 

Sixth grade came around and Jimin felt that maybe things were finally starting to look up for her. Whenever she would look away from Minjeong to focus on the teacher’s lecture, she would feel the girl’s gaze on her. It made her weirdly giddy and she started remembering the day she first met Minjeong and locked eyes with her.

Then, here comes a certain blondie trying to take Minjeong away during the time Minjeong was finally warming up to her.

Jeon Somi.

A whiney, gossipy and too flirty for her own good type of girl. Jimin didn’t know what the whole school saw in her, why would anybody like an arrogant rich pink princess? Apparently, Minjeong did.

It was during the second week of sixth grade when Jimin noticed Minjeong rushing out of the bus faster than usual. So she decided to fasten up her pace too, to see what’s up with the girl. She certainly did not like what she saw. Minjeong had her back turned to her but she could see that the girl was saying something to Somi because of her adorable fluffy cheeks.

Somi’s face lightens up and she looks so stupid, like a teenage girl in love. Oh my god, is that how Jimin looked whenever she talked to Minjeong?

Jimin had a slight inkling on what the two were talking about after she saw the grins on their faces. It didn’t leave a nice feeling on her chest. The next few days were hell for Jimin. Wherever she would go, Minjeong would be there with Somi. Like that one time when she was putting books in her locker, she noticed the two passing by while holding hands.

Her eyes burned in anger as she stared at the two, it was obvious that Minjeong didn’t have any interest in what the blonde girl was saying, yet she kept babbling? Jimin always paid attention to which topics would have Minjeong’s ears perk up and which topics would have Minjeong go to sleep while listening. 

Somi never noticed though, because the two weren’t a good match at all. What did Minjeong even see in the girl?

It didn’t last long though, about a month after when Jimin was about to go out of the entrance door to the playground to her friends, she saw Somi approaching Minjeong from behind. Jimin was curious as to why the blonde looked so mad, so she stayed in her position to see the scene unfold. 

Jimin felt her eye twitch when Somi harshly turned Minjeong around. Who does she think she is to touch Minjeong like that? 

The next thing she did shocked Jimin. Like, wait a fucking minute, did Jeon Somi just slap Minjeong? Jimin couldn’t find it in her to be angry, she rather found it funny. Minjeong can finally see what type of girl Somi is now, plus they’ve obviously broken up at that moment. Minjeong stumbled back at the slap and Jimin would’ve gone there to help her, but she wouldn’t interrupt this crucial moment.

Somi says something to Minjeong and immediately brushes past her. Jimin watches the whole scene with an amused look and a giggle threatening to leave her lips any minute.

Then came seventh grade, which brought a lot of changes. Minjeong’s hair reached her waist, meanwhile Jimin’s voice had a drastic change, it went from the cute high-pitched tone to more of a deeper, smoother tone plus she also dyed her hair to a red wine color, (Not that Minjeong cared) Ryujin and her being in the same classroom along with Hyejoo and Chaewon moving out for college.

Although the biggest change for Minjeong that year wasn’t any of that, it didn’t happen to Jimin or school. It happened at home when her grandmother started living with them. Taeyeon was her grandmother’s name. 

The woman would always sit on a chair in the living room, sometimes reading a newspaper or staring out the window. Taeyeon didn’t talk much in general, let alone having a proper conversation with Minjeong. Minjeong felt a bit hurt by it because she heard such good things about the woman from her mother Jisoo so she was eager to meet her.

Too bad Taeyeon didn’t have the same eagerness to meet Minjeong or even Ryujin.

It was in the middle of May of 1963 when Minjeong was in eighth grade when Taeyeon decided to hold her first conversation with Minjeong where her responses were more than three words.

Minjeong had just entered the house with a soda in her hand after messing around with Hyejoo outside who lived in the same neighborhood. It was weirdly warm that day. She was about to go up the stairs to her room when a voice she isn’t used to hearing, calls out to her. “Minjeong, come here.”

The girl in question turns around, trying to hide the shocked expression on her face as she hesitantly makes her way to her grandmother. “You can sit down,” Taeyeon said with a smile, wasn’t this the first time Minjeong had ever seen the woman smile?

Minjeong felt weirdly excited but you couldn’t really blame her, the woman she looked upto was finally talking to her after months of ignoring her. “Yes, grandma?” She said as soon as she sat down while fiddling with her fingers after she put her bottle of soda on the ground. “You’re friends with Yoo Jimin, right?”

Minjeong couldn’t comprehend what she was hearing. “Wait- what? Why would I be?” She asks, an offended expression on her face.

Taeyeon chuckles before replying, “Well, she lives in the house in front of ours, not only that but she also goes to your school right? You two are in the same grade,”

“Yeah but she’s a bit older.. how do you know all that?” Minjeong asks as she couldn’t wrap her head around the fact on how Taeyeon knows all of that. “Well, the article here says that she’s an eighth grader from SM High, that’s your school, isn’t it?” Minjeong nods, although she can’t help but roll her eyes at the headline of the article.

“Why aren’t you friends with her?” 

Minjeong couldn’t believe that Yoo Jimin was the reason why her grandmother was talking to her for the first time in a while. “Well, you would have to know her.” Taeyeon pretends to think for a bit at Minjeong’s reply before saying, “I’d like to.”

Minjeong felt offended. “Yoo Jimin.. she’s not exactly the type of person you’d like to be friends with. Why do you even want to know about her?”

“The girl has an iron backbone. She sticks to what she wants and doesn’t let anyone take it away from her,”

Minjeong snickers at the second sentence and mutters, “Yeah, I can tell.” Then she looks up at Taeyeon again. “An iron backbone? That girl is pushy beyond belief and she- she’s just annoying. She’s been stalking me and bothering me since second grade?”

“Really?” Taeyeon says, an amused expression on her face. “I see my granddaughter must have something special in her to have someone like Yoo Jimin chase after her.”

Minjeong clenches her jaw. She? special? Minjeong thinks she’s the most worthless person in the world (Her mother Jisoo likes to remind her of that everyday) so even if Jimin was a crazy stalker obsessed with Minjeong, she would still think that Jimin deserves better. (And she does. Minjeong would never not think that Jimin deserves to like someone who’s worthy of it.)

Taeyeon notices Minjeong’s silence, so she takes her newspaper in her hands and hands it to Minjeong, who takes it without any complaint. “Now, read that. Without prejudice.” She says as her wrinkly finger points at the large headline at the top.

“Eighth grader Yoo Jimin from SM High School takes a stand against adults.” With a picture of Jimin sitting on a tree attached below.

Yoo Jimin and that stupid sycamore tree.

It had been like this since they were young, Minjeong roaming around their block on her bicycle with Ryujin when Jimin’s voice would somehow make it to her ears. She would try to follow the voice and soon her gaze would land on a girl far up on a tree, sometimes with her older sister. “Hey, Minjeong! Do you wanna climb this tree with me and my sister?”

Minjeong thinks the tree really was pretty, climbing it wouldn’t be that much of a hassle either. Minjeong also didn’t want Jimin’s eyes to lose that light in them whenever she would ask her. Because Jimin’s eyes were, kind of, slightly, pretty.. especially when they shined.

But Ryujin and her annoying teasing smirk would bother Minjeong, so, so much. She would glare at her younger twin before looking up to the other girl’s expectant eyes. “Um.. my mom asked me and Ryujin to pick up something from.. someone. Sorry!” She would say and cycle away while Ryujin stayed behind for a bit to shout to Jimin, “No, she didn’t!” and then she would cycle away after winking at Yeji.

(Minjeong tries to ignore the sting she felt in her chest everytime she would see Jimin’s expectant eyes lose its glint after Minjeong rejects her offer.)

When Ryujin tries to tease her after they reach their home, Minjeong would try to say anything that would make her twin think that she can’t tolerate Jimin. At all. “Climbing up a tree with Yoo Jimin? That’s the last thing I’ll need! I’ll be dragged right back to second grade– I can’t go back to that hell!” She would feel relief in her chest when Ryujin laughs at her response and stops teasing her. 

(Somewhere in her mind, Minjeong can feel that she’s not exactly telling Ryujin the truth. She tries to push that thought away though.) 

It sucked that their school’s bus stop was right in front of that tree. So in result, everyday ever since the school year started, Minjeong and her classmates had to listen to the girl’s loud and annoying blow-by-blow traffic report. 

“It’s three blocks away! two blocks!” Minjeong squinted her eyes as she looked up, trying to make out Jimin’s figure in the tree despite the sun and it’s blinding light. She can hear Hyejoo scoff from her side, which made her unconsciously smile too. “One block!” The girl said and started to climb down the tree. 

“As if that’s any valuable piece of information.” Minjeong says and reverts her gaze from the girl, back to Hyejoo just so Jimin wouldn’t know that she was staring at her. “I hate it when she does that.” Hyejoo replies. “Her minutely traffic report crushes all my hopes of the bus not showing up and me not having to go to school.” The bus arrives by the time her best friend finishes her sentence. Minjeong chuckles at her friend’s reply.

Hyejoo heads inside the bus as quick as light and yells, “Race you to the back!” And just when Minjeong was about to head in too, she felt a hand harshly land on the back of her head. She knew who the culprit was before she even looked back.

“Ryujin….” Minjeong said and sighed when the girl stood beside her. “Hey, loser. See you at school,” Her twin says with an annoying smile on her face before jumping up on the bus as well. Minjeong didn’t really need a bully at school when her own sister was there. Before Minjeong herself could enter the bus this time, she felt a weirdly familiar shoulder brush against her. Minjeong could feel her breath hitch for a quick second when she turned around to look at the girl.

“I think the tree looks particularly beautiful in this light. Don’t you?” Jimin says, her eyes glancing back to the tree for a second before turning back to Minjeong. Somewhere around fourth grade, when Minjeong made her first friend (Hyejoo) and Jimin didn’t bother her as much as before, a silly banter started between the two that would last for years. “Not as beautiful as me, though.” Minjeong replies, a teasing smile on her face.

Minjeong’s teasing smile would change into more of a fond smile when she would watch Jimin roll her eyes at her and walk towards the bus. The girl stopped right at the door of the bus and turned around to look at her again, “You’re just visually challenged. I feel sorry for you,” She replied before heading inside.

The smile changed into a dramatic gasp, and that gasp would change to Minjeong clenching her teeth. Minjeong felt weirdly offended, did Jimin really think that stupid sycamore tree was more beautiful than Minjeong? There was no way. Also, ‘Visually challenged?’ This coming from the girl who lived in the house which was practically the joke of the neighborhood?

Their house’s condition became worse than the day when Minjeong and her family first saw it! They had bushes growing over their windows! Weeds here and there! She remembers that day when their entire family was in the living room, doing their own thing while her mother Jisoo was staring out the window towards the house of the Yoo’s. 

Minjeong put down her newspaper that she was reading, curious about what her mother was doing. “Does that woman have no sense of vision? How does she even have the audacity to make a painting of that sorry excuse of a yard? Does she have no shame?” The woman kept ranting.

“No.. miss. Im does landscapes and she sells them at the fair, I think? People say they’re beautiful.” Chaewon says as she bit into her apple before going back to writing into her notebook. Chaewon had come back home during break.

“Landscapes? Beautiful? It would be beautiful for the world if she did some landscaping on that.. I don’t even want to call that a yard.” Jisoo says before rolling her eyes and walking away. Minjeong doesn’t say anything, she never does.

It was another normal day at their town when Minjeong was talking to Hyejoo while heading to their bus stop, with Ryujin trailing somewhere behind her with her own friend, Chaeryeong or something. Minjeong expected to arrive at the bus stop with Hyejoo and watch Jimin let everyone know about her minutely traffic reports like usual. She didn’t expect to find a bunch of firemen and other men in uniforms with their vehicles below the tree.

“Listen, girl. Either you come down here right this second or we cut this whole thing down with you!” One of the men yelled while looking up and Minjeong’s eye twitched at the tone the man used, because she instantly knew who he was talking to. Despite that, she peaked up at the tree for confirmation about who it was; Although she wishes she didn’t because at that moment, Jimin’s eyes locked with hers. (Minjeong hated how Jimin’s eyes lit up the moment she arrived; She didn’t deserve all that, especially when she knew she was going to let Jimin down again.)

“Minjeong, you guys! Come up here! They won’t cut the tree if we’re all here!” Jimin yelled, her eyes never leaving Minjeong.

And the bus arrived on cue, all her classmates who were previously busy watching the girl on the tree in amusement, hurriedly started making their way into the bus. Minjeong received some shoves from them because she was standing right in front of the gate while gazing up at Jimin. 

“You guys! Please– Minjeong.. please! You don’t have to come up so high! Just– just a little bit!” Jimin’s voice started getting smaller and smaller as she watched her classmates get on the bus without caring. Minjeong knew she was the girl’s last hope.

Minjeong was about to move to the tree– she didn’t know what she was going to do but she was going to do something. That is, until that loud annoying voice comes back.

“Come on, Minjeong. Don't tell me you’re getting all soft for Jimin and her stupid tree, are you?” Ryujin asked with a smirk, her head peeking out the open window of the bus as she stared at her twin’s back. Minjeong turned around and glared at her before turning back to look at Jimin. 

Minjeong questions, why did that mutant tangle of gnarly branches mean so much to her?

She felt bad for the girl.. but she wasn’t gonna cut school over it. And have Ryujin make her life hell for it.

Minjeong entered the bus without sparing Jimin a second glance, just so she wouldn’t have to watch the light in her eyes die down, like usual.

Jimin wasn’t at the bus stop the next morning. Or, the morning after that. Sure, she was at school; But you would never know it unless you really paid attention.. and Minjeong did. Minjeong paid attention even when she didn’t want to. Also because Jimin wouldn’t come to bother her at lunch anymore.

Minjeong told herself that she should be glad about it; Isn’t that what she always wanted?

Although, she never wanted Jimin’s smile to fade away and her eyes to grow tired, like it is now. 

And as Minjeong was on her way to Jimin, who was getting on her bicycle to go home after school, to apologize, to tell the red-haired girl that she was sorry. But then she thought, no, this was the last thing she needed, for Yoo Jimin to think that she missed her. If she told her that, her life would’ve been worse than when she was in second grade.

So, all she did was watch Jimin cycle away.

Jimin loved to watch her mother paint; It’s more like Jimin loved to hear her mother talk while she painted. It’s quite a rare opportunity, because her mom Nayeon is always out working to make ends meet. Jimin learnt a lot about her this way, and it slowly dawned on her on how her mother used to be such a fierce woman when she was young.

Jimin learnt how the woman met her deceased mother while the two were trying to steal alcohol from the same convenience store. She also learnt how the woman wished she had finished college.

Then, one day Nayeon surprised her with a question.

It was like all the other days when Jimin would watch her mom paint. The woman would sit in their backyard on a stool and paint her landscapes on a canvas while Jimin would always be on her left, sitting on a chair and watching her. “So.. what’s going on with you and uh, Kim Minjeong?” Nayeon asks as she turns to Jimin, a knowing look in her eyes.

Jimin couldn’t hide the immediate smile that tugged on her lips as soon as she heard the girl’s name.

“What do you mean? Nothing,” She replies but the shy smile on her face says otherwise.

“Oh.. okay. I see, sorry.” The older woman replies with a teasing tone in her voice as she turns back to painting on her canvas. “Wh– why would you even think that?” Jimin asks. “No reason, to be honest. It’s just that..” Nayeon says dramatically before pausing her painting to look at Minjeong again. “Just that you seem to talk about her.. all the time.”

“I do?” Jimin says but immediately looks down on the ground when she meets Nayeon’s eyes, the heat rushing to her cheeks. “Yeah, you didn’t notice?” The older woman says, a fond smile on her face as she watches her child act the way she used to when she was a teenager and madly in love with Jeongyeon. Jimin shakes her head in response before looking up and replying, “I don’t know.. It’s something about her eyes.”

Jimin’s gaze drifts off to a far distance. “They were the first thing I noticed about her. It’s like she holds millions of stars and constellations in them, and you know me, I’ve always been a fan of stargazing.”

“So, she has beautiful eyes, doesn’t she?” Nayeon says with an amused expression. “But what about her?” She asks as she turns back to her painting once again. Jimin’s gaze reverted from the distance, back to her mother’s face. “What do you mean?” Jimin asks with a raised eyebrow.

“What about her as a person?” Nayeon repeats.

“What?” Jimin still doesn’t get it, Nayeon chuckles in response before saying, “You have to look at the whole landscape instead of just focusing on a part of it.” Jimin’s eyebrows furrow as she asks, “What does that mean?”

Nayeon shakes her head at the naivety of her daughter. “Your mother, Jeongyeon, told me this. A painting.. is more than just some of its parts. A cow by itself is just a cow, a meadow by itself is just grass and flowers.. and the sun peeking through the leaves of a tree is just a beam of light. They mean nothing more than just something temporary you know? But when you put them all together, it can be something magical.”

Jimin didn’t really understand what her mother meant that day, until one day when she was climbing up higher than usual in the sycamore tree to rescue a kite she watched fly away from in front of her house.

It was quite a long way up, maybe because Jimin had never climbed that high whenever she was in that tree. The higher she got, the more magnificent the view got as well. The breeze was so sweet, it was nothing similar to Minjeong, but whenever Jimin would take a deep breath to fill her lungs with the sweetest smell she had ever known, she would be reminded of Minjeong and her deep chocolate eyes.

Jimin takes the kite that was stuck in the tree branch, her eyes never leaving the view in front of her.  “Hey, seems like you, uh, found my kite!” Speak of the angel, or should Jimin say, Minjeong. 

“Minjeong,” She says as she looks down to see the long black-haired girl, before turning back to the view in front of her again. “It’s so beautiful..” Her words trail off.

Minjeong scratches her elbow with her right hand as she speaks, “I can’t! I, uh, sprained my ankle and I totally can’t walk.” Jimin looks down again to see the girl’s twin, Ryujin standing beside her all of a sudden, like a devil who suddenly appears whenever you have to make a decision and tries to lead you to the bad choice, looking up at Jimin with an amused expression. Ryujin elbows the girl in her stomach before muttering something, probably something like, How would you walk here if you have a sprained ankle?

Minjeong holds her stomach in pain as she glares at Ryujin before looking up at Jimin again. “I mean– I have a rash. Yeah.. I have a rash.” The girl’s voice became smaller and smaller as she spoke.

From that day, that place in the tree became Jimin’s spot.

She could just sit there for hours and look at the same scenery over and over again. Jimin can’t explain it but that view gave her world a change. Somedays, when she would climb up the sycamore tree during noon and come back home during the evening, she would watch the sunsets be purple and maybe even pink. On some days, the sunsets were a blazing orange setting fire to the endless clouds in the horizon. Jimin’s eyes shone at the magical view. This must be what her mother must be talking about.

The view was a plain, large grassy field with trees and yet it was nothing like everything else Jimin had ever seen.

Some days, Jimin would wake up extra early and climb the tree while watching the sunrise. One morning, before school, Jimin was in her same spot in the sycamore tree when she heard the noise of tires screeching from below. One or two trucks arrived and stopped right near the sycamore tree and multiple men got out from the trucks while bringing out tool boxes.

“Excuse me! Um, sir! You can’t park there! That’s a bus stop!” Jimin shouts, but makes her voice soft enough to not seem rude. “Hey, what are you doing up there?” One of them said, as he tried to look up at Jimin despite his hat hindering his vision. “You can’t be up there! We’re gonna take this whole thing down now,” One of the other men said from the side.

Jimin felt her heart drop and an empty feeling in her stomach. “T-the tree?” She asks, her hands unconsciously wrapping protectively around the branch she was holding for support. 

“Yeah? Now, come on down already. We don’t have time.” The same man from before spoke. 

“Wait– but you can’t just cut a tree like this! Who gave you permission?” Jimin frantically says as her palms start to become sweaty. “The owner, who else?” The man yelled. 

“Why?”

“Because he’s gonna build a house where this tree is. It should be obvious why he wants to cut this down. So come on already, we have work to do and we don’t have a lot of time.”

“Wait but– you can’t cut this tree down! Not– not so soon.. you just can’t!” 

Jimin and the workers’ argument continued for a while until a group of teens started to arrive at the place and curiously looked up at Jimin to see what the matter was. “Listen, girl. Either you come down here right this second or we cut this whole thing down with you!” One of the men yelled while looking up, and that was when Jimin’s eyes lit up as a certain black haired girl came into view. 

Minjeong peeks up curiously and finally locks eyes with Jimin. “Minjeong, you guys! Come up here! They won’t cut the tree if we’re all here!” She yells, her eyes silently pleading Minjeong. The bus also arrived at the time, and Jimin starts to panic when she watches all her classmates rush into the bus. “You guys! Please– Minjeong.. please! You don’t have to come up so high! Just– just a little bit!” Jimin’s voice started getting smaller and smaller as Minjeong made no signs of any movement, she just stared at her. Jimin knew Minjeong was her last hope.

Just when she thought that Minjeong was going to come closer to the tree and do something, the girl instead turns around to the bus and glares at Ryujin for something she said, who had her head outside the window. Minjeong then looked back at her, there was a weird feeling in the pit of Jimin’s stomach.

Then, Minjeong enters the bus without sparing her a second glance. Jimin closes her eyes and lets her tears fall as her hold on the tree tightens.

What happened after that was a blur.

It seemed like the whole town was there just to come and watch Jimin, and nobody was there to help her. She could see a bunch of journalists with their cameras taking pictures of her with the tree and soon after, her mother arrived. Jimin watched her mom talk to a fireman to help her climb upto where Jimin was, and they agreed. And as she watches her mother come closer and closer to her spot, she could feel the rest of the hope she had left, chip away slowly.

Nayeon makes it up to Jimin’s spot, her right hand holding onto the ladder she was on and her left hand reaching out of the crying girl. “Sweetheart, it’s time. You need to come down,” Her voice was soft and slow.

“Mom.. please.” Jimin’s voice broke. “Please stop them.”

“Jimin sweetheart–”

“Just! take a look– please! Why does nobody ever want to look? You can see the whole world from here.. please. mom.” 

“I can see it, sweetie. The view is beautiful.. but it’s not worth your safety. It will never be. Come on.. it’s time.” Nayeon’s voice was firm.

Jimin hesitantly shakes her head, “Mom..” Her voice broke even more. “Jimin, it’s time to come down now.” The woman softens her voice as her hand grabs onto the girl’s wrist. “Just this once.. please?” Jimin’s voice was barely a whisper now. “It’s time.” Nayeon says with a final look. Jimin takes one last look at the view behind her and she could feel her heart break into millions of pieces as she climbs down from the tree with the ladder.

And that was it.

Jimin didn’t have any sleep for the next two weeks, she was always up thinking about that sycamore tree. The first week she cried a lot, but she cried so much that the next week she didn’t have any tears left. The sycamore tree had officially made her numb to crying.

Of course, she had to go school. She decided to take a bicycle for going to and coming from school instead of the bus after the tree got cut down. She doesn’t think she would be able to handle seeing the most magnificent tree she had ever seen to get turned into a stump. 

Nothing really seemed to matter anymore.

One day during the evening, when Jimin was studying (Not really, she was just thinking about the tree while sitting on her study table with her notebook in front of her.) she heard a knock on the door to her room. 

“Come in,” Jimin’s hoarse voice surprised herself too, she must have been crying so much. “Are you okay?” Nayeon asks as soon as she opens the door, a large rectangular object covered with a cloth in her hands. “Yeah.” Jimin replies a little too quickly. “It was just a tree,” Her next statement was lower than whisper, but her mom still heard it.

“No, it wasn’t just a tree.” Nayeon replies as she stands beside Jimin’s study table and takes the cloth off the object before the girl could respond. Jimin turns around to see a strangely familiar tree painted on a large canvas. Oh , it was her sycamore tree.

Weirdly enough, she didn’t bother hiding the smile that tugged on her lips as soon as she recognized the tree. 

“You should never forget what you felt when you were up there.”

Jimin could feel her eyes turning moist as she stood up to hug her mom, “Thank you.”

That painting was the first thing she opened her eyes to in the morning and the last thing she saw when she went to bed. 

Although, her mother’s statement from before always bugs her. ‘You should never forget what you felt when you were up there.’ Now that she thinks about it, what did she really feel when she was up there? And whenever she tries to think of an answer, she gets reminded of what she felt when she was near Minjeong. The sweet breeze that she inhaled reminded her of Minjeong.

The tree meant so much to her because it reminded her of Minjeong. The sycamore tree was a substitute for Minjeong . And the magical view that she saw when she was up in the tree was her world; Her world which became so colorful because Minjeong was by her side.

Any person who would’ve made this discovery about themselves would be shocked and realize that they are madly in love with that certain someone about it.

Weirdly enough, it didn’t really make Jimin happy.

When she could finally look at the painting of the tree without crying, she saw more than the tree and thought about the view up there. Jimin’s view of the things around her were changing. She thinks, even if that tree disappears someday, the view would always be there; You’d just have to manage a way to climb to see it.

Even if Minjeong won’t be by her side someday, Jimin’s world would still be colorful; She would just have to try to see it.

And as those thoughts invaded her mind, Jimin couldn’t help but wonder, did she still feel the same things about Kim Minjeong?

Minjeong’s never been a fan of eggs, especially sunny side ups. To her, eggs had a disgusting smell that made her gag everytime she would come near one. One time, when they were in neighborhood punk siblings Yeonjun and Beomgyu’s garage, who had formed a band with Jimin’s older sister Yeji and her own twin Ryujin (despite her mother Jisoo’s multiple protests.) Chaewon had also come that day to watch her sister play the drums because she was back home for break.

Minjeong was simply bobbing her head to the tunes, wondering if their mother would ever give Ryujin permission (not that she needed it) if she ever watches the band perform.

(Minjeong also wonders if the woman would give her permission to join the band too because even if she had rejected the offer Yeji proposed, secretly she still wanted to join them. But no, she said no, because she was scared of her mother. Minjeong has always been a coward.)

“Hey– hey guys! shh! Looks like Vivian’s found her dinner,” Yeonjun says and pauses the band’s session. Vivian was Yeonjun and Beomgyu’s pet snake.

Minjeong’s head shot up from where she was sitting on the couch, then she decided to lean closer to the glass crate because all the others were doing the same. “Cool,” Chaewon said as her eyes were glued on the snake devouring the egg– raw – egg. The black haired girl thinks she might throw up any moment.

If a slimy reptile finds raw eggs delicious, then there’s no way there’s a place for eggs in Minjeong’s diet. 

After that, Minjeong started to have nightmares.. that she was a small human trapped in a giant egg and she was going to get devoured by a huge monster. She’d wake up just in time, just when the mouth of the monster was about to close up around her and she would be swallowed. One time, she would even imagine the monster to be her mother, she woke up in cold sweat that day.

Soon, the real nightmare began.

Minjeong opened the door after she heard the knock since she was the only one in the living room. 

“Hey, Minjeong.” The smile that haunted the girl for days came back. Jimin’s eyes were sparkling too, like always. Minjeong sighed unconsciously, wondering what she’ll have to say again to ruin Jimin’s hopes, like always.

“I brought these over for you and your family.” The girl said with a grin as she pushed her box towards Minjeong, the girl looked down to see the box had a bunch of eggs lined up together. “My chickens are laying eggs,”

“What?” Minjeong said in amusement as she took the box from the girl.

“The ones I hatched for the science fair,” Oh.. oh. “How could I forget?” Minjeong chuckles, her voice laced with bitterness.

It was so like Yoo Jimin. It was just like Yoo Jimin to dominate the science fair with her project despite there being 50 other projects in the room at the same time. All that crowd and audience just to watch Jimin’s boring eggs hatch? Minjeong was right beside the girl, showing her two mothers her erupting volcano. Yet, everyone around them seemed to find those boring chicks being born more interesting instead of Minjeong’s super cool volcano.

“Oh– oh! I think the last one’s hatching!” The voice of a high-pitched woman said from beside, which caught her mother Jisoo’s attention, who gave a slight nod to Minjeong before going to watch Jimin’s project.

Jennie watched her wife leave and out of curiosity, she decided to follow too. Of course, not before she gave Minjeong’s arm a light squeeze and an assuring smile.

That day, Jimin won and Minjeong lost without Jimin even knowing that the two were competing.

But does that make Minjeong obliged to eat the girl’s lousy eggs? No! 

“Jimin is such a sweet child, isn’t she?” Jennie said as she happily munched on the omelett that was made with Jimin’s eggs, the woman’s cheeks puffing cutely. “I don’t care, I’m not eating these tomorrow.” Ryujin said as she sat on the chair opposite Minjeong. The older twin decided not to say anything as she kept eating her dinner, which were the same omelets. 

“Ehh, look at you enjoying them. You must have been so happy getting them from your crush, right?” Minjeong felt her eye twitch at the comment as she looked up. Taeyeon, who was sitting on Ryujin’s right, chuckled a bit before asking, “Jimin’s your crush?”

“What? You have a crush on the Yoo girl?” Her mother, Jisoo, who was sitting at the head chair asked.

Minjeong frantically shook her head. “No– no! I swear, Ryujin is lying! Mom!” She turned to Jennie, who was right beside her. The woman chuckled in return before patting Minjeong’s head to tell her to calm down with a fond smile on her face. It sometimes amused Jennie how the two twins were so different. Ryujin was like a cat, while Minjeong was like a puppy.

The head pat immediately calmed the girl down, who just glared at her younger twin before going back to eating her dinner.

“How do we know there’s no chicks in these eggs.. like how are we so sure that no dead chick is gonna just pop out one day.” Jisoo says after a few minutes.

“Do they have a rooster? If there isn’t a rooster then the eggs can’t be fertile. So, if the eggs aren’t fertile.. you won’t find signs of any dead chick.” Taeyeon replied as she continued eating. “If they had a rooster, then we would’ve known, right? The whole neighborhood would have.” Jennie replies.

“Maybe they got it de-yodeled.” Ryujin absent-mindedly says.

“De-yodeled?” Jisoo asks with a scoff. “Yeah. You know, de-cock-a-doodle-doo’d.” Ryujin’s shoulders danced as she spoke. “What the hell are you saying?” Jisoo scrunches her face. “Like how they de-bark dogs,” Ryujin replies and Jisoo finds herself being left dumbfounded.

“Minjeong, why don’t you just ask Jimin?” Jennie says with a soft tone. “What–??” Minjeong says, there’s no way she heard that correctly. “Why don’t you ask Ryujin?” She whines.

“Because you’re friends with her, right? I’ve always seen her around you but never around Ryujin. So I thought, you know, maybe you could ask her.”

“M-mom, I don’t think–” Minjeong was about to say as a nervous smile painted her lips but Ryujin interrupted her by saying, “What– You afraid to talk to her? I knew it! She’s your crush!” The younger twin says as she slams her hand on the table, startling Jisoo who stares at Ryujin with an irritated look.

“She’s not!”

“Okay, stop.” Jisoo says and the two immediately quiet down. “Just talk to her and find out, alright?” This was one of the rare times her mother had requested her to do something, Minjeong was determined to not let the woman down.

But.. she wasn’t that determined to talk to Jimin. So she tried to figure out a way without having to ask the girl, and all she ended up with was Hyejoo.

“How do you tell if one’s a rooster?” Minjeong asks as she and Hyejoo walk down the path towards the bus stop, Ryujin left early from the house because she had stuff to do with Beomgyu. “A rooster’s like.. bigger?” Hyejoo replies in her slow voice. “They have longer feathers too.” Minjeong nods before asking, “But how do I know if a feather is long or short?”

“Girl, are you dumb?”

“I mean– it’s not like I know the standard size, a feather could be as large as my palm and I wouldn’t know if it’s big or not.. because what size are they usually?”

Hyejoo shakes her head and sighs. After a few minutes, she says, “They have that rubbery red stuff on top of their head too.” Minjeong nods, it seems like Hyejoo was very knowledgeable about roosters and chickens in general. “Around their neck too,”

“Oh.. that shouldn’t be too hard to spot.” Minjeong replies. “Although, chickens have that rubbery stuff too, you know. Just that roosters have more.” Hyejoo replies and the black-haired girl nods again.

After that, Minjeong convinced Hyejoo to come spy at Yoo Jimin’s backyard over the weekend. Hyejoo seemed reluctant about it but said yes after Minjeong offered her to have her bicycle for a day. 

“Come on, shh, hurry.” Minjeong whispers as they go around the fence of the backyard of the Yoo’s. “Over here.” She says and bends down to peek through one of the holes in the fence, Hyejoo does the same to another hole beside Minjeong. Thank god some of the chickens were already out of the coop and walking around.

“Does that look like a rooster?” Minjeong says and points at one of the chickens standing in the middle of the others. “No, it looks like a chicken.” Hyejoo replies as she keeps gazing through the hole.

“How can you tell?” Minjeong asks.

“It just does.”

Right, Hyejoo’s knowledge of chickens was far wider than Minjeong’s.

“Shh.” 

“What?”

“Jimin..” Minjeong says as she stares at the redhead girl who just came through the backdoor.

“Yeah, they’re all chickens.” Hyejoo replies and nods. “There’s no rooster?” The girl clenches her teeth before turning to look at Minjeong. “What did I just say?” Minjeong doesn’t look at her as she asks again, “How can you tell?” Hyejoo shakes her head before going back to staring at the chickens, unlike Minjeong who was staring at a certain girl.

“Well, none of them are strutting.” Hyejoo says.

“Roosters strut?” Minjeong asks with a raised eyebrow. Hyejoo clenches her teeth again before looking at the girl, “What did I just say?” 

The two then hurriedly made their way out of there in fear of Jimin catching them.

That day, during dinner when the family conversation reached a halt, Minjeong took it as an opportunity to tell them. “They’re all chickens.” She said with a smug face as she looked at Ryujin. Take that! 

“Really proud of you, Minjeong.” Taeyeon says from the side and the girl in question tilts her head. “What do you mean?” Taeyeon chuckles a bit before replying, “You overcame your fear of talking to Jimin.” Minjeong scoffs before saying, “Psst, yeah. Not a big deal, at all.”

“That’s what she told you? They’re all chickens?” Jisoo asks, an unreadable expression on her face. Minjeong nods confidently, not wanting to cower in fear in front of her mother who may or may not praise her at that moment. Jisoo looks back down to her food as she says, “She’s a genius, You’re both geniuses..”

Minjeong felt the upper corners of her lips slowly going up. 

All of a sudden, Jisoo looked up again as she slightly raised her voice. “Of course, they’re all chickens! The question is: Is one of them a rooster? Or are they all hens?”

Hens? But nobody said anything about hens .

Then, Minjeong realized and that realization sucked the soul out of her body. Hyejoo didn’t know shit about roosters or chickens. Then, Minjeong stuck to the one option that wouldn’t completely have her reputation tarnished in front of Ryujin, who was silently giggling at the older girl’s struggle. “Do roosters strut?” Minjeong asks.

“Yes, they do.” Taeyeon replies.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Jisoo asks with a tired voice while having food in her mouth. “Then, they’re all hens.” Minjeong replies, the smug face coming back again. Jisoo just raises an eyebrow before going back to her dinner. “Well, at least now we know the eggs are fine.” Jennie says as she stacks her plates together.

But no, Minjeong would never eat anything that was related to Yoo Jimin. Especially when she knew Ryujin would tease her again at dinner and maybe even tell everyone at school.

“I’m not eating them.” She says with finality as she turns to her mom. “Why not?” Jennie asks.

“Have you seen their yard? It’s not clean at all! Like there’s no grass.. it’s all mud and chicken poop.. ew.” Minjeong says and pretends to throw up. “Ew, gross. What if we get salmonella?” Ryujin says from the side.

“It’s not very likely.” Taeyeon replies.

“Why should we take the risk?” Jisoo says as she drinks her glass of water. “Well.. then what do we do with the eggs?” Jennie hesitantly asks. “Give them back,” Jisoo says as if it was the world’s easiest thing. “G-give them back? You mean, give them back to Jimin?’ Minjeong asks, there was no way she heard that correctly. 

“You talked to her before, do it again.”

“Plus, you can just lie.” Ryujin nonchalantly said.

Minjeong didn’t want to lie.. and if she had to, the only excuse that came to her mind was ‘My family is allergic to eggs.’ and that wasn’t a very believable lie. But still, Minjeong didn’t want Jimin to feel bad.

And then, Minjeong found a solution. Dump all the eggs in the garbage bin right after taking them from Jimin. She sighed in relief that night when she dumped it in the garbage bin after her mom told her to give them back to Jimin tomorrow. Another near death-experience with Jimin avoided.

And one week later, Jimin knocked on their door again. “Hey, Minjeong.” She says with a smile as soon as the younger girl opens the door. “Hey..” She says as she leans against the frame of the door, a nervous smile on her face.

“Brought you some more eggs,” Jimin says and shrugs as she hands the box of perfectly lined up eggs to Minjeong, who feels her soul getting sucked away from her body. “Wow..” is all that leaves her mouth as she stares at the eggs she was holding in her hands. “Thanks..”

“Did your family like the first batch?”

Minjeong nervously shrugs, “Do you even have to ask?” And at that moment when Jimin’s eyes light up and a cute smile paints her lips, Minjeong thinks that maybe lying isn’t so bad.

“Okay, see you at school.” Jimin says and heads off as Minjeong hurriedly closes the door and opens the door to her right, which also leads outside. The thing was, their garbage bin was right beside their main door, so Minjeong peeks her head a bit to see if Jimin has left yet or not.

When she sees the coast is clear, she rushes to dump all the eggs in the garbage bin.

“Throwing them as soon as you got them, I see..” The only devilish voice Minjeong’s ever known returns. She looks up to see Ryujin resting her chin on her arms, which were on the window of her room. Right, Minjeong forgot that Ryujin’s room was right above. 

Ryujin takes note of her silence and quickly says, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend!”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.” She says and chuckles before continuing, “You know if she ever finds out about this though..” Ryujin’s voice suddenly turns more serious. “You’re gonna break her heart.” Minjeong clenches her jaw, how does she know that this will break Jimin’s heart? Does she even properly know Jimin? Minjeong knows that she doesn’t know Jimin that well either but then again, Ryujin was the one that kept Minjeong from getting to know Jimin.

(Or maybe it was just her cowardness, she doesn’t wanna admit that though.)

Minjeong wanted to say a lot of things to Ryujin, she wanted to let out all her frustrations about the younger girl, but all that ever left her mouth was, “Shut up.” Then she enters the house again through the second door.

Minjeong hoped that the eggs would be a one time thing. It wasn’t though, as Jimin came every week to deliver those eggs.

And soon started Minjeong’s daily life of lies and betrayals.

Every morning, she would be on the lookout for Jimin. If she ever came (which she did, often) then Minjeong would open the door faster than light before the redhead could even knock and take the eggs before slamming the door on her, before the girl could even say hi.

Then, she would dump the eggs before her family noticed. 

Minjeong would question herself everyday when she goes to dump the eggs, why couldn’t she just face Jimin? Was she really that afraid to hurt her feelings? Or was she just afraid of Jimin herself?

It first started way back during their school’s science fair, when Jimin won first place. She always found it fascinating, how life is created and born. Surprisingly, she won first place in the science fair when she least expected it!

Although, that didn’t really matter as Jimin mostly just cared about her baby chicks and not the gold medal that was dangling around her neck.

“Here, here.” Jimin softly said with a smile as she put the chicken feed on the ground from the bucket and watched her already grown-up chickens feed themselves. She remembers that her mom, Nayeon, wasn’t too pleased about the idea. It’s not because of their financial problems but rather because the chickens will need a lot of care and Nayeon simply doesn’t have the time, especially with all the jobs she’s working.

Jimin begged and pleaded, she promised her mom that she would take care of everything. And Jimin always fulfilled her promises.

Jimin’s’ train of thoughts break when she realizes that there are only five chickens eating in front of her, when she actually has six chickens. “Where’s Bonnie?” She says to no one in particular as she stands up and walks towards the chicken coop.

As she stands there trying to find her chicken Bonnie, she notices something moving in a small corner of the coop. Jimin squints her eyes and goes closer to see that it was Bonnie, shuffling around in her place uncomfortably. “Hey, baby, what’s wrong?” She cooed as her hands reached out to take the chicken in her hands.

She pats it on the head while holding it. Jimin looks at Bonnie with concerned eyes and asks, “Aren’t you hungry..” Although her voice trails off when her gaze sets on the place Bonnie was sitting on, there were two eggs laying there. 

“Hey, Bonnie! You’re a mom!” She excitedly says as she puts Bonnie back in her place beside the eggs and rushes inside to tell her mom about it.

As it turned out, it seemed like Jimin’s hens gave more eggs than their small family of three could eat. At first they tried to keep up with the pace of the hens. For over a month, they had eggs everyday. 

But soon after a month of boiling, frying and devilling, Jimin watched their fridge get overflowed with eggs. It was like they were being overtaken by the chickens and their eggs! Then came an angel in disguise, Ms. Na.

Jimin was taking the eggs her chicken laid into her bucket when she heard a sweet voice call out to her. “Jimin, dear.” The girl in question immediately got her head out of the coop and turned to the woman who was standing behind their fence with only her head and shoulders visible.

“Ms. Na?” Jimin said and smiled as she walked towards the woman a bit. “If you ever happen to have any extra, I’ll be really happy to buy them from you.”

“Sorry?”

“The eggs,” The woman gestured towards Jimin’s bucket and only then the girl realized what Ms. Na was talking about. “If you ever have some extra eggs, I actually would like to buy them from you!”

“Really?” Jimin said with a smile.

“Yes, sweetheart! I’m pretty sure I heard Ms. Lee talking about the lack of eggs in her family’s diet too! So she might be interested as well.”

“Oh, great.” Jimin grinned. “Thank you, Ms. Na.” The woman just smiled warmly in response before bidding goodbye and leaving. From that, with Ms. Na and Ms. Lee, Jimin’s overflowing eggs problem was solved easily. Then she thought that Ms. Kim deserved some eggs too, Jennie Kim, to be exact.

The woman always lended her mom ingredients when they ran out or let them use their vacuum cleaner when Jimin’s family’s one broke down.

So, it wouldn’t exactly be right to charge her as she had been such a good neighbor to the Yoo’s. Besides, she might just happen to run into Minjeong once in a while, that would be nice. By the third week, when it was the third time that Jimin brought eggs over to the Kim’s, she realized that Minjeong was already waiting for her.

Minjeong was already waiting to pull open the door when she arrived, take the eggs and say, “Thanks, Jimin! See you at school.” And then shut the door. In return, Jimin got a few moments of alone time with the girl and her magnificent eyes (Jimin couldn’t stop staring at them whenever Minjeong would open the door.)

It was a bargain that mostly worked in Jimin’s favor.

Until the day it wasn’t.

It was two weeks after her sycamore tree was taken down and Jimin finally managed to gather up the strength to get out of bed and deliver the eggs to the Kims. (Her sister Yeji had been delivering them instead of her the past two weeks, and she remembers Yeji dramatically telling her how Minjeong seemed disappointed that it wasn’t Jimin delivering them. Jimin didn’t believe her though.)

Jimin walks up to the porch and knocks on the door. Soon after the door opened, revealing Minjeong in a simple t-shirt and jeans. “H–hey! Jimin. Right on schedule, huh.” The girl says as she looks down at the box of eggs Jimin was holding.

“Yeah, always.” She says as she hands the box to the girl with a smile on her face. Minjeong just nods in return after taking them, then the two stand in a small silence for a few seconds until Minjeong’s eyes suddenly start shifting from her, to the eggs back and forth. 

“So, um.. are you gonna start riding the bus again?”

Jimin felt a bit surprised at the question but composed herself before replying with a shrug, “I don’t know.. I haven’t really visited that place ever since.. you know.” 

“It– it doesn’t really look so bad anymore! It’s all cleared away..” Minjeong responds a bit too eagerly. Jimin just nods and a couple seconds of silence takes over them again until Minjeong says, “Um.. I better get ready for school now. See you there?”

“Yeah.. see you.” Jimin says and smiles as she turns away from the porch and hears the door close. 

Jimin stands there for a while, thinking, maybe it was time that she starts riding the bus again. Plus, didn’t Minjeong just hint at her that she wanted her to? Was Kim Minjeong actually starting to miss Jimin? She just blushed at the thought.

She starts to walk down the stairs until she hears the click of a door from behind her. She turns around, to see Minjeong walk out with a bag in her hands as she sniffs the contents of it before scrunching her nose and pulling her face far away from the bag. Jimin thought it was cute.

Minjeong looked up to see Jimin standing on the stairs, the younger girl had a surprised look on her face as she asked with a sudden high-pitched tone, “Ji– Jimin? What are you doing here..”

“I was just thinking,” Jimin said with a small smile. “It’s pickup day so– the garbage cans are in front.” Minjeong suddenly explains.

Jimin shrugs before saying, “I know. Do you need some help?” She starts walking back to Minjeong. “Oh– uh, no! I’ll do it later!” The girl hesitantly says and that’s when Jimin notices the contents inside the bag. “Are those– are those my eggs?” She asks, dumbfounded.

Minjeong glances at the bag then back up at Jimin. “Yeah, I uh.. I kinda dropped them.” Jimin noticed the girl’s eyes slowly filled up with guilt. “They don’t look.. broken.” She says as she looks at the eggs before looking back at Minjeong. “Why are you throwing them away..?”

Minjeong just shifts hesitantly in silence.

Jimin decides to ask again with a softer tone, “Don’t you want them?”

“It’s– it’s not me. My mother, uh.. my mother thought that it wasn’t worth the risk, Sorry.”

“Risk? What risk?” Jimin asks as her eyebrows furrow. “Salmonella..” The black haired girl simply replied. “What? She’s afraid of being poisoned with my eggs?” Her eyebrows furrow more and she can visibly see the younger girl shrink under her gaze. Suddenly, Minjeong straightens her back before she looks back up at the girl again.

“Jimin– you can’t really blame mother here. I mean, just look at your backyard! It’s kind of a mess. It’s covered in mud and like, turds and stuff.”

“Tha– that’s not.. I clean up the place after feeding my chickens everyday.”

Minjeong just shrugs before replying, “It doesn’t really look like it.. and we didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

Jimin pokes her inner cheek with her tongue as she looks down and timidly asks, “Have you always thrown them away?” Minjeong doesn’t reply, she just looks back down on the eggs. Jimin feels her jaw clench as rage takes over her for a second before she decides to calm herself. “You know, Ms. Na and Ms. Lee pay me for my eggs.”

“They do?”

“Yeah, 60 cents per dozen.”

“I– I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Jimin feels her mouth pathetically say, “How could you?” Minjeong looks up at her and replies, “I’m sorry.” Jimin clenches her teeth before saying, “No, I don’t think you are.” Then, she walks out of there as fast as she can.

It didn’t really take Minjeong that long to realize that after that day with the egg incident, her and Yoo Jimin’s relationship will never be the same. And she was right.

Yoo Jimin avoids her gaze everytime their eyes lock whether it was in school or outside. That one day when Minjeong was taking out her bicycle for a ride when she noticed a figure crouched down on the ground pulling weeds while wearing gloves.

She took her bicycle out of their house’s garage and sat on it after bringing it on the side of the road, her eyes never leaving the figure as their houses were facing each other and only separated because of the road in between. The girl pulling the weeds looks up as if she had felt Minjeong’s gaze on her and the latter gets to stare at the eyes that don’t light up anymore when Minjeong looks at her.

Jimin holds her gaze for a second before quickly looking away and focusing on her work. Minjeong feels a weird clench in her chest which hurts; It hurts too much.

But she didn’t have the courage to approach the girl, to tell her she’s sorry and that she didn’t mean it. So like the way any other coward would do, Minjeong tightens her grip on the bicycle’s handles and cycles away with a grim expression.

It was worse having Jimin mad at her than Jimin annoying her.

The way the redhead ignored Minjeong at school whenever the latter would approach her to sit beside her during lunch or outside whenever they happened to bump into each other was a constant reminder that the black-haired girl was a jerk to her. Minjeong agreed, she deserved it; But that didn’t make it hurt less.

After a few days, when Minjeong was coming home with the new popular game that she borrowed from Hyejoo when she visited her house, things got weird.

When she was near her house and Jimin’s, she noticed someone else working in Yoo’s yard along with the redhead. She squinted her eyes when she came a bit closer to the duo, to get a better look.

She couldn’t believe her eyes.

Why is Taeyeon helping Jimin in her yard? “It’s okay, you won’t hurt them.” The older woman says and lets out a hearty laugh meanwhile Jimin just smiles out of shyness. 

Minjeong didn’t decide to say anything, she just tried to mind her own business as she headed inside her house to do her homework. It sucked that her study table was stuck together with the wall her room’s window is on and that window faces the front of their house. Meaning, Minjeong had a clear view of Jimin’s house and the duo working on their yard from her room.

Minjeong couldn’t stop looking at them from the window even when she tried to. The longer she stared, the madder she got.

But why exactly was she mad?

Was it because Taeyeon had said more to Jimin than she did to Minjeong during the time she’s been living with their family? Is it because this was the first time she’s watching the woman laugh? Or.. is it because of the way Jimin is talking so happily with her grandma, as if she hadn’t been ignoring the woman’s granddaughter this whole week?

Or is it because Minjeong was actually mad at herself, for not being able to talk to Jimin like a coward while her grandmother was doing it right in front of her own eyes?

It was the evening during that same day when Minjeong was reading a magazine on her bed when she heard a knock on the door.

“Come in,” The girl says, her eyes not leaving the magazine on her lap. 

The door opened to reveal Taeyeon, with an unreadable smile on her face. “Oh– hey grandma.” Minjeong says as she straightens up on her bed instead of laying down out of politeness. Then she continues to stare at her magazine, not reading a single word on it as her ears perk up when the older woman starts to speak. “Jimin.. she told me about the eggs.”

Minjeong doesn’t say anything, she just gulps and refuses to meet the older woman’s gaze. Taeyeon notices her silence and decides to speak again, “You know, Minjeong.. one’s character is set at an early age. Please don’t swim so far away that you can’t swim back.”

“Sorry?”

“Honesty, I’m talking about honesty here. Be a little honest with yourself, sometimes a little pain down the road can save a lot of unnecessary pain. You being confused and refusing to not come to terms with how you feel is gonna hurt a lot of people, more than you think.”

Minjeong doesn’t know why but she suddenly feels a direct pain in her chest. It seemed like the older woman’s words hit exactly where it was supposed to.

Taeyeon just leaves the room after, not waiting for Minjeong’s response.

Minjeong thinks that Jimin must have had a lot of arguments in her life, because why is the girl so good at holding a grudge and ignoring her? (Minjeong knows she deserves it.. but it’s really frustrating her now.)

All week at school, she tried to approach the redhead. She would wait for the girl outside her classroom after her classes would end and Jimin would always use a different door to get out of the classroom. It sucked even more that the redhead and Ryujin shared a few classes together, so whenever her twin would notice her outside the classroom, she would approach her and say, “Aww.. Trouble in paradise? lover’s quarrel?”

Minjeong would just grumble in response while staring at Jimin’s back which disappears at the corner of the hallway after two seconds.

When the girl was in her yard, Taeyeon would always be there. 

One Saturday morning, Minjeong found an opportunity. Taeyeon had gone to town with her mother for property work related to some lands (The woman was rich .) 

“It’s looking really beautiful..” Minjeong says as she stands behind the new fences that Jimin installed on their yard with Taeyeon’s help. Jimin was just sprinkling water on the grass with her hose but Minjeong notices her shoulders stiffen and her grip on the hose tighten when she hears her voice.

Jimin turns around and Minjeong feels her breath hitch when those same chocolate brown eyes lock with her own. 

“Thanks.” Jimin says and Minjeong winces at the slight coldness in her voice. Jimin always talked to her in a warm tone, so this was new. “Taeyeon did most of it.” She continues after a pause. Then, the girl turns around again to continue her work. 

“I’m sorry for what I did.. And said.” Minjeong says, her right palm brushing against her left arm’s elbow.

Jimin turns off the hose and turns to look at Minjeong again at her words and the latter swears that she was scared as hell. “I really don’t understand you sometimes. Why didn’t you just tell me about it?” Minjeong nervously shrugs as she responds, “I don’t know.. I’m sorry. I was being dumb. What I said about your yard was really insensitive too.”

Jimin looks at her with an unreadable expression before shrugging and reverting her eyes to somewhere else as she replies, “It’s all for the best, I guess. Taeyeon taught me so much! You’re.. you’re lucky. I wish I had grandparents too.”

Minjeong doesn’t feel words come out of her mouth so she forces herself to say something, but all that comes out is, “Oh.”

“I feel bad for her, you know? She says that I remind her of her wife, Jessica. Like, can you believe it? Apparently she was a rebel and stood for what she loved no matter what.” Minjeong just nods in response, then she decides to speak up again, “Well.. good luck with the grass. I’m sure it’ll turn out pretty.”

“Thanks.” Jimin says and turns around.

“I.. uh.. I guess I’ll see you around.”

“I guess so.”

And when Jimin doesn’t say anything more, Minjeong takes it as her cue to leave. She awkwardly turns and starts walking towards her house, occasionally glancing back at Jimin who didn’t look back once.

Even if Minjeong was a bit disappointed by the lack of enthusiasm in Jimin’s voice when she went to talk to her, at least she apologized and the whole egg saga was over. After months, Minjeong felt as if things were finally back to normal as she can finally enjoy her favorite tv show ‘Bonanza’ with her family in their living room. Ryujin was upstairs though.

It was after the intro for the show ended when Ryujin casually came down the stairs and headed for the exit door in the living room immediately. Jisoo quirks an eyebrow before saying, “Where are you going?”

Ryujin stops in her tracks and turns to look at her mother with a bored expression. “At the Choi’s with Yeji. We’re gonna make a demo together.” She says and leans against a wall.

Jisoo snickered in response and replied, “As if you guys know how to make a demo.” Ryujin just scrunched up her face to show her irritation and decided not to argue back because she was running late anyways. Minjeong felt oddly curious about the demo, but she decided to push that curiosity far away though.

“You don’t know anything.” Ryujin says before opening the door and walking out, “I’m late.” She said nonchalantly as she went out. “Be back by 11!” Jisoo yells.

“So.. I invited the Yoo’s for a sit-down dinner this weekend.” Jennie says all of a sudden and Minjeong looks at her mom who was beside her with a horrified expression, she saw through the glass’s reflection that her mother, Jisoo had the same expression on her face.

“What?!” Jisoo says.

“The new kindergarten where I started working last week, seems like they were having a problem deciding between me and someone else for a new teacher. Nayeon works there and she’s highly respected too, apparently she referenced me there.. which is why I got the job.”

Jisoo rolls her eyes before saying, “I told you, you don’t need a job and especially a job that Nayeon got you.” Now, it was Jennie’s turn to roll her eyes as she spoke, “So, what am I supposed to do? Just sit and work in the kitchen like straight women are forced to do by their husbands? God, didn’t expect you to be this stereotypical, Jisoo.”

Jisoo furrowed her eyebrows as she replied, “Stereotypical? I’m a woman working a job too, what the hell are you talking about? You don’t need that job because I already have a well paying job and we’re certainly way better off than the Yoo’s, you really didn’t need a favor from that woman.”

“That woman’s name is Nayeon! We’re better off because Taeyeon here is rich and also because our children aren’t missing a parent! Your job alone doesn’t carry this household’s expenses.”

“Are you seriously trying to invalidate my contribution to this family?” Jisoo yelled and Jennie just huffed in response before getting up from her seat. “Think whatever the fuck you want to think.” She said to her wife before leaving the living room. “Don’t talk to me like that!” Jisoo yelled as she also got up and followed her wife.

Minjeong sighed out of frustration, if only she was as smart as Ryujin and had figured out that their parents would get into a fight if they stayed together for more than 30 minutes, then she would’ve left the house as well. Taeyeon, who was sitting on a different chair, got up, just to sit next to Minjeong.

Minjeong was a bit surprised but decided not to say anything when the woman started the conversation saying, “So, looks like the dinner party is on? Are you excited?”

Minjeong furrows her eyebrows as she looks at her grandmother. “Why will I be excited?”

“Jimin.” Taeyeon simply said.

“What? me being excited because of Ji– Jimin? Pfft.”

“Jimin.. she’s quite a girl.” The woman suddenly says. “Some of us get dipped in flat, some of us in satin and some of us in gloss. But every once in a while, you find someone dipped in iridescent. And when you do.. nothing will ever compare.

‘Flat? Gloss? Iridescent? What the hell does all that mean?’ Minjeong thought as she laid in bed that night. Yoo Jimin was always just a plain boring girl with sparkly eyes to Minjeong.. until that moment. 

Minjeong quickly got up from her bed and walked to her study table, where she had kept the newspaper Taeyeon gave her from before. The newspaper where Jimin and her sycamore tree was plastered on the front page. She scanned through the words in the article and thought about the way Jimin talked about that giant tree. Really, who in junior high talks like that?

There was suddenly a weird fluttery feeling in her stomach and a weird twist in her chest.. which was something she was familiar with. Because she felt that everytime she would come in contact with the redhead in the past. Minjeong could feel herself slipping but she’s not sure how she would get a grip.

Jimin’s never been one to dwell much on her family’s financial status or properties. It didn’t matter that they weren’t rich, they were happy with what they had. (Except for wanting her mom to rest more, the woman can’t seem to catch a break even during the weekends.)

At the moment, the family of three were sitting at their dining table for dinner. Yeji is currently singing a demo of the new song her band came up with meanwhile Jimin and Nayeon were just watching her proudly. “That was reallyyyy good!” Nayeon smiles after the older girl finishes singing. “Yeah, we’re gonna record it later at Choi's garage.”

“It’s a really cool project.” Nayeon says encouragingly.

The word project rings a bell in Jimin’s head. She stares at the red-white checkered tablecloth which was laying on top of the table as she scrapes her fork against her knife which she was holding in her two hands. “Speaking of projects..”

Jimin gulps when she feels her mother’s entire gaze on her. She refuses to meet the older woman’s eyes as she says, “I’ve been thinking about fixing up the yard.”

“Hmm?” Yeji hums as she looks at the younger girl intently.

“I don’t know– plant a lawn and some pretty flowers, maybe even put up a fence? It’s not like grass seed costs that much either.. Right?”

“Jimin, that sounds like a hell of an expensive plan.” Nayeon jokes and Yeji laughs.

“I could pay it with my egg money–”

“No? That’s your money.” Nayeon was quick to interrupt the younger girl as she put her own fork down on her plate, the utensils clanking against each other slightly. “Sweetheart.. I won’t be able to help around because I will be busy and Yeji will be busy with her band, I don’t think you can take care of that large yard alone.”

“But– I want to do it! I can do it!”

“Why are you so eager about this?” Yeji asks from the side as she pats the corner of lips with a napkin.

“Because! it.. it looks so bad.” The sentence was lower than a whisper but Nayeon caught it anyway as she raised an eyebrow and turned to face her younger daughter completely. “Jimin.. What's going on?” She asks as she gently puts her hand on top of Jimin’s hand. “It’s– it’s nothing.”

“You can tell us.” Nayeon says softly and that was the last push, Jimin decides to tell her mother about the egg situation. “The Kims have been throwing away our eggs because they’re afraid of salmonella. Because.. our yard is such a mess.”

“Don’t tell me Ryujin said this?” Yeji says with a stern look. “No.. Minjeong did.”

“Well, a girl doesn’t come up with something like that on her own. It must have been a family discussion.” Nayeon says, an unreadable expression on her face. “You know what, just don’t give a damn about what they said, you know. It doesn’t matter what they think and you shouldn’t care.” Yeji says.

“No, it’s not just because of them. I’ve been thinking of picking up a new hobby to pass some time and I’ve had gardening on my mind for a long time.. so this was just a push for me.” Jimin lies through her teeth.

“But sweetie.. you won’t be able to take care of such a large yard on your own.” Nayeon softly says. Jimin shook her head before reassuringly saying, “I can do it, mom. Trust me.”

Jimin wants to think that the reason she started to work on her yard was only about her wanting to make her house look better and practice her hobby. After what Minjeong did with the eggs, why should Jimin care about what she thought?

She wanted to think that it had nothing to do with Minjeong. But it did, because whenever she would place her feet on her yard, the younger girl was all she thought about it.

“Are you pruning that or hacking it to death?” The sudden voice breaks Jimin out of her thoughts, she stops smacking the plant with her pliers. She wipes the sweat forming on her forehead and lifts her hat up to see who was calling out to her. Oh, it was an older woman and strangely she seemed familiar.

The woman smiles and comes closer to Jimin before sticking a hand out. “Hi, I’m Kim Taeyeon, Minjeong and Ryujin’s grandmother.” Jimin smiles and takes the woman’s wrinkly hand as she continues, “Sorry it’s taken me so long to introduce myself.”

“Nice to meet you.” Jimin said, just because Minjeong was an asshole sometimes doesn’t necessarily mean her grandmother was one too, so she decided to be nice to the older mean.

“Are you trimming all these to the same height?” Taeyeon asks as she heads over to the bushes near their windows, Jimin follows her as she replies, “I mean, yeah that’s what I was thinking. I don’t know anymore though.. would they look better by just taking them out?” Taeyeon shakes her head as she inspects the bushes.

“These are Hicksii shrubs, they should prune nicely.” She says as she puts on her gloves before starting to cut with her own set of long pliers.

Jimin was a bit confused, why is Minjeong’s grandmother here? Sure, maybe the woman wasn’t as rude as Minjeong but it was still weird. Is she here because of what the younger girl said? Did she send her own grandmother to apologize for her?. “Listen Ms. Kim.” Jimin starts but Taeyeon cuts her off, “Call me Taeyeon.”

“Taeyeon. If you’re here because of what Minjeong said.. I don’t need your help.” Jimin tries to word it politely.

Taeyeon slightly tilts her head and puts her hand up to block the sunlight as she looks up at Jimin with a smile. “Read about you in the paper.” She says before going back to cutting. “Jessica would’ve sat up in that tree with you all day.” 

Jimin tilts her head as she asks, “Jessica?” Taeyeon doesn’t respond for a second and for a moment, Jimin thinks she sees a sad expression on the woman’s face under her hat. “My wife.” She simply says and then she smiles again before looking at Jimin, “You remind me a lot about her.” 

Jimin smiles, still a bit confused. “How?”

“That tree.. you loved it, didn’t you?”

Jimin doesn’t hesitate for a second when she replies, “I did. I.. still do.”

“And you stood up for it, you tried to protect it with everything you had even when it seemed like the whole world was against you. Jessica was like that too.” Jimin unconsciously smiles before silently nodding as she goes back to working beside Taeyeon.

They worked on the yard for weeks and the entire time they worked, they also talked. Taeyeon wanted to know more about the sycamore tree and Jimin could feel her excitement meter breaking as she talked about it more and more. Taeyeon understood how much it meant to her. 

She also said that she agreed with what Jimin’s mother said, about the sum of the parts of a painting being much bigger and more important than just one part of it. It was the same with people, but sometimes with people the sum of their parts could be less. The whole concept was a bit confusing yet interesting to Jimin. 

Jimin started to focus on the people she’s known since elementary school whenever she was at class or in the hallways. She tried to figure out if they were more or less than the sum of their parts and.. it seemed like Taeyeon was right. Most people were less than the sum of their parts.

But out of all her classmates, the only person she couldn’t figure out was Minjeong. Before this, she would’ve proudly said that Minjeong was much, much bigger than the sum of her parts. But now.. she wasn’t so sure.

That day when Minjeong came to apologize to Jimin when she was spraying water on her lawn, she kept thinking about the younger girl’s apology. Was Minjeong really sorry? Or was she just saying all that to make herself feel less guilty? Then she thought, maybe Jimin just wanted Minjeong to be greater than the sum of her parts.

Maybe Jimin tried to convince herself that Minjeong was greater than the sum of her parts. And when Minjeong was explaining herself that day, as Jimin looked into those eyes that she fell in love with, for the first time she didn’t feel her heart skip a beat. Instead, a greater realization dawned on her. 

Kim Minjeong was way less than the sum of her parts.

A dress-up sit down dinner was in Minjeong’s immediate future. That immediate future was less than three days away during the weekend. But Minjeong tried to push that to the back of her head, not wanting to feel anxious about the event before it even started.

Yet, that made seeing Jimin at school even more uncomfortable. Minjeong finds herself staring at the girl in science class. Jimin was taking something from a tube and putting it near the flame thrower type machine– Minjeong didn’t even know what they were doing. (She forces herself that she was bad at science despite having straight A’s and not because she wasn’t paying attention in today's class because she was too busy staring at a certain redhead.)

The protection glasses everyone wore during the class were for protection only, then why the hell did Jimin look so goddamn good in them? And the way her hair fell behind on her back, revealing her face in a majestic way. Minjeong secretly thanked herself for picking a seat far away from Jimin, just so she could appreciate her beauty from the side.

Minjeong sighs as she keeps staring at the girl.. What is she even doing? Why is she staring at the girl she supposedly hates like some lovestruck girl? 

Minjeong feels a menacing gaze from behind and she feels her heart drop as she turns around. Seems like Jo Yuri had just caught her staring at Jimin.

God, why did she have to sit beside Jo Yuri for this class? The girl was friends with Jimin. If Minjeong didn’t do or say something fast, this would spread like wildfire. So, she tries to save her dignity as she awkwardly chuckles, her eyes looking everywhere that isn’t Yuri as she says, “There.. was a bee in her hair.”

“Yeah, there was a bee in her hair.” Minjeong says a bit more confidently as she finally looks up at Yuri, who had her eyebrows raised. “See, there it goes.” Minjeong awkwardly points at nothing. “It just flew away.”

Yuri looks at the place Minjeong was pointing at, then goes back to the black-haired girl again. “There’s.. no bee.” 

Minjeong awkwardly swipes her fingers at the window as she replies, “It flew out the window.”

Then, she convinced herself that she dodged a bullet. Minjeong had to put Jimin out of her mind and put her focus back on the important stuff like schoolwork and what not. Yet.. she found herself bringing the newspaper with Jimin’s face plastered on it to school, just so she could stare at it during the classes she didn’t share with Jimin.

“Hey girl.” Hyejoo says as she settles on the chair beside Minjeong’s in the class they share together. The latter chuckles at the other girl’s lethargic attitude and her all-black outfit. 

“What’s this?” Hyejoo suddenly perks up when she notices Minjeong’s book looking thicker than usual, she brings the paper from the inside of the book to her table and scans the words written on it. “Oh– woah!” Hyejoo mutters as she gets more and more shocked the more she reads the paper.

“It’s not what it looks like.” Minjeong says.

Hyejoo just looks at her with a straight face. “Okay, it is what it looks like. But I can explain.” Minjeong says and gulps. Hyejoo doesn’t reply as she keeps staring at her with her blank face. It causes Minjeong to finally admit the truth, “Okay, I can’t explain. Look, can we just talk about it later?” She says and grabs the newspaper out of Hyejoo’s hands and puts it back inside her book.

“Whatever you say..” Hyejoo replies.

Minjeong doesn’t say anything, she just hesitantly looks at the girl before turning to zone out again while staring at the blackboard. She had to talk to someone.

Well, why not Hyejoo? Maybe she could get Minjeong out of this mess. Hyejoo was surprisingly sensitive when it came to the matters of the heart.

Minjeong dragged the girl to the library after lunch started, the latter just grumbling out of irritation the whole way there because she couldn’t get to eat her favorite sandwich. (“The so-called ‘Inkigayo’ sandwich is not more important than this!” Minjeong tells her while dragging her away.)

“Are you freaking mental? Yoo Jimin. You hate her.” Hyejoo almost shouts in the quiet library, the two were in between two bookshelves for more privacy.

“That’s what’s weird, I don’t think I hate her anymore. I can’t stop thinking about her.” Minjeong says with a sad pout, she looked like a kicked puppy as she tried to explain how she felt for the girl. “You got it bad, Min.”

“Well, what do I do?”

“Well, you gotta nip this in the bud. I mean, think about it, these aren’t real feelings.”

Minjeong tilts her head and furrows her eyebrows at the statement. “They’re not?”

“Nah, you just feel guilty because of the whole egg fiasco.” Minjeong chuckles bitterly before replying. “Yeah, and also because I insulted her yard.” Hyejoo shrugs before saying, “Well it’s the truth. The place is a dump anyways.” Minjeong feels a bit offended at that, so she defensively says, “Well it’s not her fault. Her mom does so many jobs to make ends meet because there is no one else in that house who earns money, so obviously she didn’t have time to take care of the house. All of their money goes to their daily necessities so they can’t just suddenly buy seeds and all the stuff overnight. But, Jimin’s been starting to work on the yard! It’s coming out well.”

“Yeah, well it’s not your fault the girl’s poor as fuck and can’t afford to buy something worth a dime. Now, I know why she always chases after you all the time.”

“What are you saying?” Minjeong says as she raises her eyebrow, she was really confused.

“You’re rich as hell, Jimin’s poor as fuck. Connect the dots, Minjeong. She’s a fucking gold digger.” Hyejoo says and smiles as if she’s got it all figured out.

Minjeong couldn’t believe it, is this how her bestfriend’s mindset was? She wanted to yell at Hyejoo, she wanted to punch Hyejoo in the face, tell her that she didn’t know Jimin like Minjeong did. But Minjeong was a coward.. all that came out of her mouth was:

“Heh, Oh.” An awkward chuckle. 

“Right.. yeah.” She says and Hyejoo grins before fist bumping her. “Yeahhh.”

“Right.. um. I’ll talk to you later.” Minjeong says and quickly takes her leave from the library without waiting for Hyejoo’s response. 

Minjeong didn’t try to hide the grim expression on her face as she walked back home from school with her books in her hands. She was supposed to go to Hyejoo’s house after school.. but she couldn’t be around her, not after what she said, so she deliberately took her time on walking back home. Plus, it gave her more time to think.

Hyejoo.. she had crossed the line this time. For a weird moment, Minjeong thinks Ryujin would’ve reacted the same way if she ever told her. Or maybe not, since she was getting a bit too close with Jimin’s older sister.

But Minjeong didn’t care anymore about what they thought. Minjeong liked Yoo Jimin. 

Admitting this after years of denial unconsciously put a smile on Minjeong’s face. She felt relieved in a sense, as if a huge weight was lifted from her chest. She didn’t bother to hide her smile as she walked back home even when she got weird stares from the people around her.

Sunday mornings are usually peaceful in the house of the Yoo’s. Nayeon decides to sleep in because it was a free day and Yeji is out for her band practice meanwhile Jimin spends her time spraying water on their lawn. But this Sunday.. Jimin felt weird. It was all because of a certain black-haired girl living across from her house.

Jimin had to do something about her weird mixed up feelings for Minjeong.

Jimin hears a click and the closing of a door from behind her. So, she stops pressing on the hose she was holding and turns around to see her mother standing near the door while holding a plastic bag. The woman stares at the lawn around her as she walks down the porch, then looks at Jimin with an amused smile. “You really did it.”

“Proud of you.” Nayeon says as she starts walking towards their car outside of the fences of the yard. “Thanks, mom.” Jimin smiles but furrows her eyebrows when her mom walks out of the yard. “Where are you going?”

Nayeon pauses for a minute before speaking, “To see your mother. It’s her birthday.”

Jimin watches her mom get into the car and close the door but before she could drive away, the younger girl suddenly perks up saying, “I wanna come with you!”

“Oh, honey. Just stay with Yeji, she’s home I think and just enjoy your morning.” Nayeon says as she sticks her head out the window. Jimin hurriedly makes her way towards her mom before saying, “No, mom. I wanna come.” Nayeon looks at her for a second before sighing and getting out of the car, closing the door with a thud as she says, “Okay, better leave a note for Yeji.”

For some years, Jimin had actually never visited her mother’s grave in a while. The last time she went was probably when she was 6 or 7 years old. She hadn’t visited the basement with her mother’s portrait in a while either because she was busy working on her lawn. 

The two didn’t really say much to each other while on their way to the graveyard but it didn’t really matter to Jimin. She just liked being with her mom even in silence.

“Do you remember this place?” Nayeon asks as she opens the car’s door for Jimin, who gets out with a small jump and looks around the place. It was a small graveyard. “Not really.” Jimin honestly said and pouted, Nayeon chuckled before holding the plastic bag in her left hand taking her daughter’s hand in her right hand.

“Yeah, well that’s kinda my fault. I didn’t really bring you with me whenever I visited Jeongyeon.” She says as she opens the fence door to let Jimin enter before entering the graveyard herself. Then, Nayeon takes the lead in walking and Jimin follows behind her, not really knowing where her mother’s grave is.

Nayeon abruptly stops in the middle of walking on the path between the gravestones and turns around, Jimin almost bumps into her. She also turns around to her left to see what her mom was staring at, and one gravestone in particular catches her eye.

“In memory of Yoo Jeongyeon. 1914 - 1952.” Jimin forgot how to breathe for a second as she stared at the patch of grass in front of the gravestone. So, that’s where her mother is now. Jeongyeon was so close to her, yet so far. “Your mother died at a very early age, didn’t she?” Nayeon said with bitterness laced in her voice, Jimin didn’t look at her mother, scared that she would end up crying if she looked at the expression of the older woman.

Nayeon settles down on the green grass, Jimin follows. “She passed away when you were three.. so I doubt you have many memories of her?”

“Hardly.” Jimin mutters. Nayeon nods before speaking, “She passed away while trying to save you and me.” Jimin knows this, but she listens anyway. She would never not listen to the story of the last heroic moments of her mother. She decides to stare at the gravestone, trying to take in the fact that she was sitting in front of her deceased mother.

“It wasn’t my turn to pick up Yeji from school that day, it was Jeongyeon’s. It was Valentine’s day though.. so I wanted to surprise her with you and me. I– I thought she wouldn’t want to go out once she entered our house with Yeji.. so I decided to take you with me to her school to surprise Jeongyeon and kinda force her to go to a new restaurant together, as a family. We– were walking out of Yeji’s school together on the road and I wasn’t paying attention to the cars around me. You were up in my arms as we walked.. the next thing I knew I was rolling on the ground on the side with you tightly clutched in my arms and Yeji was crying loudly from afar. I got up and saw Yeji kneeling beside Jeongyeon.. who got hit by the car.”

Nayeon pauses for a minute or two before saying, “What happened after that was a blur and now.. here we are.” 

They sit a few minutes in silence with Jimin occasionally squeezing her mom’s hand that she was holding. “Do you remember that one thing I told you once? A painting being more than the sum of its parts?” Jimin’s ears perked up as she turned to look at her mom. The woman had puffy eyes and a red-dish nose as she spoke, “Jeongyeon told me that.”

“Oh..” was all that left Jimin’s mouth. She thought for a second before asking, “What more did she say about it?”

“Nothing really, just that people tend to delude themselves into thinking they love someone while only focusing on a certain aspect of that person. It can be something physical or a personality trait. When you get hurt by them, you try to convince yourself that you love them while only thinking about that one aspect that you fell in love with. But when you stop only thinking about that one thing and then try to put all the parts together.. you’ll realize that maybe that person doesn’t make your world as colorful as you thought, Or maybe they do. It just depends on the person really.”

Jimin doesn’t say anything, she just tries to push away some thoughts that she didn’t want to admit.

They talked for a while and when it was time to leave, Nayeon pulled out a bouquet of flowers from the plastic bag and put it near Jeongyeon’s gravestone while whispering, “I miss you.” Jimin misses her mother so much who she doesn’t even have enough memories of, then how much pain is Nayeon going through when Jeongyeon was literally the love of her life? Jimin feels terrible for her mother, and also guilty that she can’t do anything to take her sadness away.

When they came back home, everything looked the same. But something changed in Jimin. It’s like before Jimin used to see the world in blurry glasses, and now she can see everything clearly.

Nayeon decided to break the silence at the dinner table that night by saying, “Jennie Kim invited us for dinner this weekend.” Jimin felt her heart drop. “Did she invite all of us?” She asked. “Yeah.” 

“Even our friend, salmonella?” Yeji said bitterly. “Yeji.” Nayeon softly said and looked at her. “Why? After all these years? The girl says and Jimin finds herself smiling, maybe she can skip the dinner too if Yeji does. “She said she felt bad that she didn’t invite us over before and.. apparently they want to get to know us more.” The woman says and shrugs.

“And.. you wanna go?” Jimin says softly from the side. “Well, she insisted.. and I think it would be very nice.” 

Yeji sighs and Nayeon knows she’s won the argument, so she smiles and takes a deep breath before saying, “We’re going.” Jimin pursues her lips out of hesitation, she wasn’t too thrilled about the dinner with the Kims but it meant a lot to her mother, so Jimin decides she should go. 

The next day at school, Jimin couldn’t concentrate at all. Her thoughts kept running back to her deceased mother and her words. She wonders how lonely her mom must have felt taking care of two children without having someone beside her for years. 

She was at the library, thinking about those things while holding her pencil in her hand with her books sprawled across the table when Yuri suddenly pulled the chair in front of her and sat down on it before saying, “Kim Minjeong likes you.”

“What?”

“She’s got a huge crush on you.” Yuri grins.

Jimin rolled her eyes, she really didn’t have the time for jokes like this at the moment. “What are you talking about? Kim Minjeong does not have a crush on me.”

“Oh yeah?” Yuri says and she has a smug smile on her face as if saying that she knows something Jimin doesn’t. “In science, I caught her staring at you. She said it was because there was a bee in your hair.” Yuri snorts before continuing, “Isn’t that the lamest excuse or what?”

Okay… what the hell is Yuri talking about?  There’s no way– there’s just no way– and all of a sudden Jimin feels herself getting hopeful. Then she thinks, yeah there’s no way. “Maybe.. there was a bee?” She shrugs feeling unhopeful. “Oh please, I’m telling you that girl is lost in love land. Come on,” She says before standing up.

Jimin raises an eyebrow, “Where?”

“”I saw her sneaking off with Hyejoo!” Yuri says as she grabs Jimin’s wrist before dragging her towards between two bookshelves. “What..” Jimin mutters before looking through the crack of the bookshelf in front of her, and there she was, Kim Minjeong leaning against a bookshelf facing towards them meanwhile Hyejoo had her back turned to them.

“Are you freaking mental? Yoo Jimin. You hate her.” Hyejoo almost shouts in the quiet library, Jimin’s expression immediately darkens and she bites her bottom lip. Sure she knew, but hearing it out loud actually kind of hurt.

“That’s what’s weird, I don’t think I hate her anymore. I can’t stop thinking about her.” Jimin watches Minjeong say while looking like a kicked puppy. Jimin unconsciously smiled as she looked at Yuri, who also smiled while looking at her.

“You got it bad, Min.”

“Well, what do I do?”

“Well, you gotta nip this in the bud. I mean, think about it, these aren’t real feelings.”

Minjeong tilts her head and furrows her eyebrows at the statement. “They’re not?”

Jimin continues watching Minjeong through the crack of the bookshelf and eavesdropping on their conversation.

“Nah, you just feel guilty because of the whole egg fiasco.” Jimin pursues her lips and tries not to think about the whole egg situation. 

Minjeong just chuckled before saying, “Yeah, and also because I insulted her yard.” Jimin clears her throat when she feels Yuri’s uneasy glance towards her. This was not going how it was supposed to go.

She watched Hyejoo shrug from behind as she said, “Well it’s the truth. The place is a dump anyways.”

Jimin feels a bit surprised when Minjeong quickly says, “Well it’s not her fault. Her mom does so many jobs to make ends meet because there is no one else in that house who earns money, so obviously she didn’t have time to take care of the house. All of their money goes to their daily necessities so they can’t just suddenly buy seeds and all the stuff overnight. But, Jimin’s been starting to work on the yard! It’s coming out well.”

Why would Minjeong defend her like that if she hated her?

“Yeah, well it’s not your fault the girl’s poor as fuck and can’t afford to buy something worth a dime. Now, I know why she always chases after you all the time.” Jimin feels her heart sink, so that’s what people thought about her? Would Minjeong think about her like that too?

“What are you saying?” Minjeong says as she raises her eyebrow.

“You’re rich as hell, Jimin’s poor as fuck. Connect the dots, Minjeong. She’s a fucking gold digger.” Hyejoo says.

“Heh, Oh. Right.. yeah.” Okay.. so that’s what Minjeong thought too. Jimin could feel her eyes tearing up and her breath getting stuck in her throat. Minjeong fist bumps Hyejoo with a tight lipped smile. Every word they say after that gets faded into the background and Minjeong soon leaves the library.

Then she remembered that Yuri was beside her. Jimin just gave the girl a tight lipped smile. Yuri looked at her with guilty eyes as she said, “Sorry.. I thought–”

“It’s okay. It’s fine.” She says before quickly heading back to her seat in the library. “I expected it anyways,” Jimin muttered under her breath. 

It was fine, it really was. Because now Jimin’s confusion is gone.

Jimin was sure that she no longer liked Kim Minjeong. 

Minjeong watches her mom set up the table from behind as she says, “You’re working hard, mom.” Jennie sighs before replying, “I just want it to be nice.” And it was nice, plates and forks lined up together on each side with a flower vase in the middle of the table.

Jennie looks at Minjeong’s attire and raises an eyebrow, “Why aren’t you dressed?” Minjeong puts her hands up in defense as she says, “I’m going, I’m going.” Then she heads off to her room. 

Minjeong sighed as she pulled multiple clothes from the closet in her room. She wanted to look good for Jimin.. but she didn’t want Jimin to think that she wanted to look good for her. Minjeong puts on another shirt and stares at herself in the mirror, something from the corner of her eye catches her attention. She walks closer to her window and shit.. the Yoo’s were already on their way.

Minjeong grunted before pulling the shirt off her body and trying another one. “Minjeong, come down! They’re here!” She hears her mother call from downstairs. “C–coming!”

Minjeong rushes off downstairs and stops at the end of the stairs to see her mom greeting the family of three. “Jisoo, Ryujin come on! They’re here!” Jennie says again before taking the plate that was in Nayeon’s hands. “Ooh, homemade pie? You’re too skilled in everything, Nayeon.”

“Hey.. Yeji.” Ryujin suddenly stands beside Minjeong on the stairs as she greets Yeji, who doesn’t say anything in response. Seems like Minjeong wasn’t the only Kim nervous to meet a Yoo.

“Good evening.” Jisoo greets as she hugs Nayeon and Minjeong finds herself surprised. Then again, maybe she was just faking being nice. “Come on in, we should’ve done this a long time.” She says as the two along with Taeyeon head inside, leaving the four youngsters alone.

“We need to talk.” Ryujin suddenly says before grabbing Yeji’s wrist and leading her to somewhere else. and now Minjeong is alone with Jimin. She pursues her lips before coming down from the stairs and standing in front of the other girl, “Hi.”

Minjeong’s never noticed it before but Jimin was really tall. 

Jimin doesn’t say anything, she just shuffles awkwardly. Minjeong awkwardly nods her head before saying, “You look really nice.” Jimin stares at her with an unreadable expression before saying, “I heard what you and Hyejoo said about me in the library.” 

Minjeong feels her heart drop to her stomach.

“So, I don’t wanna speak to you. Not now, not ever.” She says before heading to the living room. Minjeong feels.. empty all of a sudden as she watches Jimin approach Taeyeon who was talking to Nayeon.

“Well– what you’re proposing is a perpetual motion machine. So, it’s not possible.” Nayeon tells Taeyeon but before the older woman could reply, Jimin cuts in saying something like, “Well, if you had two opposite charged poles with a neutral conductor..” It all fades into white noise for Minjeong though as she stares at Jimin’s back.

Perpetual motion? Here Minjeong was dying inside and they were talking about perpetual motion? and how did Jimin know about all that stuff? 

“Guys! dinner’s ready!” Jennie yells from the dining room and the trio start to leave but Minjeong quickly taps Jimin on her shoulders before she can leave. “Jimin, can I talk to you for a second?” She says as soon as the girl turns around. “It was wrong what Hyejoo said.. I know.”

“Well, did you know it was wrong when she said it?”

“Yeah.. I– I wanted to punch her. But we were in the library..”

“So, you just agreed and laughed with her?” Minjeong gulps before looking down as she said, “.. Yeah.”

“Then that makes you a coward.” Jimin replies before rushing off to the dining room, leaving Minjeong alone in the living room.

Minjeong had to sit in front of Jimin at the dining table the whole time. It sucked more because the latter would not even look at her for a second. There was a time where Yeji was talking about her and Ryujin’s band and Jennie revealed that Jisoo used to be in a band too. Minjeong watched her mother awkwardly giggle before saying, “That’s– that’s not me anymore.” The more Ryujin bragged about their band’s achievements, the quieter Jisoo got. She tried to plaster on a smile every now and then, but underneath it all, she looked really sad.

Occasionally, Jisoo would glance at her own mother, Taeyeon from time to time with an uneasy gaze.

Minjeong thought for a second, was her mother a coward just like her?

The rest of the evening was painless enough. But Jimin didn’t say a word to Minjeong the whole time, she never even looked at the latter. Until she was about to leave.

Minjeong watched the two family’s hug each other near the door from the living room when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She was surprised to see it was Jimin. “I’m.. I’m sorry I was so angry when we came in. I think.. Everyone had a good time. Your mom was very nice to invite us all… See you.” Then she abruptly took her leave.

Honestly? Jimin’s apology made things worse for Minjeong.

Minjeong knew Jimin didn’t forgive her deep inside, instead it felt like Minjeong wasn’t too important to even hold a grudge against her. It’s like Jimin didn’t care enough to hold a grudge.

As Minjeong laid in bed that night, she thought about how Jimin was out of her life. Or more accurately, how she was out of Jimin’s.

As Jimin was getting dressed for the dinner at the Kim’s, she found herself staring at the painting of the sycamore tree her mother gifted her and she became angry all over again. She thought about how Minjeong had never been a friend to her, ever. She never supported Jimin with the sycamore tree, threw away her eggs and she made fun of her by calling her a gold digger.

When Nayeon called that it was time to go, Jimin walked out with every intention of telling her mother that she wasn’t going over to the Kim’s.

“Yeji, sweetie, hold this for a second. I need to check my hair.” Nayeon hands the pie over to Yeji before fixing herself up in the mirror in the living room. 

And as Jimin watched, she realized that she just had to go, because her mother looked so happy. But that didn’t mean she had to be nice to Minjeong though. It felt good to give Minjeong a piece of her mind.

She told Minjeong what she thought after they arrived at their house and she was determined to not talk to her for the rest of the evening. At dinner, a realization dawned on Jimin that she was having dinner with a group of strangers. Except for Taeyeon, she didn’t know any of these people, not even Minjeong.

Jisoo– Ms. Kim was confident and smooth on the outside, but it seemed like she had buried a huge part of her identity deep inside.

By the end of the evening though, Jimin felt weirdly calm and neutral. When she went to talk to Minjeong again, she didn’t feel any of the fireworks or any leftover anger, no flutters, no nothing. Jimin went to bed that night feeling peaceful for the first time since the sycamore tree was cut down.

As Jimin laid in bed that night, she thought about how good it felt to not care about Minjeong. 

The dinner with the Yoo’s really messed up Minjeong for the next few days. Then, the annual school fundraiser arrived and Minjeong thought about how she should just end her life. Why? because she was a flower girl.

The chosen  “flower girls” as the school calls them– are auctioned off in front of the entire student body by the highest bidding students. Seems like Minjeong was about to have that fate in the near future. She sighed as she tore her eyes away from her name written on the Flower girl list on the school’s notice board.

She started to make her way towards her locker when she heard a voice from behind. “There she is, my idol!” Hyejoo yelled as she quickly caught up to Minjeong.

“One word and you’re dead.” Minjeong grunts.

“No– no, I’m being serious. Listen, you won’t believe this.”

“What is it?” 

“Two of the hottest chicks in school are fighting over you.” Hyejoo explained but Minjeong only felt herself getting more confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Choi Jisu– Julia broke up with her younger girlfriend Shin Yuna and now, she and Somi are having a bidding war over you.”

Somi? Didn’t Somi hate Minjeong?

“I..” Minjeong was speechless for a bit, there were the school’s two hottest girls fighting over her yet she was pining over a girl who would not even spare a glance at her way. “I don’t care.” She said.

Hyejoo looked at her with widened eyes as she said, “Are you nuts? Jisu– I mean Lia dumped Yuna for you! You’re.. you’re my idol!”

As comforting as it was to be Hyejoo’s idol, it didn’t lessen the horror of being Flower girl number nice. Minjeong could only hope that a truck hit her before the school event started.

The woman on stage taps the mic several times to check if it was working before speaking with a smile, “Welcome everyone, to this year’s Flower girl auction! Once again, we are pleased to present 20 of SM High’s finest young women.. ” The rest of the words fade into the background though when a voice calls her from behind. “Minjeong! Minjeong!”

Hyejoo opens the door that leads to the backstage and sneaks inside the backstage where Minjeong and all the other Flower girls were. “What are you doing here?” Minjeong asks as soon as Hyejoo stops in front of her. Hyejoo wasn’t a selected Flower girl for this year.

“Yoo Jimin’s in the third row.”

Minjeong feels her breath stop at the name but she still manages to quirk an eyebrow and stammer out, “S–so?”

“So! she’s got a wad of cash!”

Minjeong snorts loudly before looking around to see if anybody heard it– everybody did. “Bullshit,”

“Bull-true! I saw her counting it by her locker.” Minjeong doesn’t believe Hyejoo, she doesn’t want to, but somewhere in heart breaks at the thought of Jimin possibly betting for some other girl who is probably not Minjeong.

“And now.. please give a big SM High welcome to your 1964 Flower girls!” With that, Hyejoo leaves as soon as she came and the huge curtain in front of Minjeong and the other Flower girls gets lifted up. And all of a sudden, Minjeong finds herself standing on top of a stage in the auditorium, being stared at by the entire student body who were clapping while sitting on comfortable blue chairs lined up together.

She also noticed her sister Ryujin in the back, eyeing her with a mocking look to which Minjeong responded with an eye roll. The older students were there too just to watch their juniors get humiliated, Minjeong spotted Yeji sitting in a corner.

Minjeong squints her eyes at the third row in search of a certain girl. Seems like Hyejoo was right, Jimin was indeed sitting there, avoiding eye contact with Minjeong at all costs. She was wearing a brown dress with a matching headband and Minjeong is baffled at how someone could look so good even in casual clothing.

But.. Jimin with cash? What does that mean? Was it possible.. that she would bid on Minjeong? 

But Minjeong shoots down that thought as soon it occured in her mind, there’s no way that would happen. (Although secretly, she still wished she would be proven wrong by Jimin.) “First up, we have.. Lee Chaeryeong!” The woman– well, SM High’s principal said as she looked at the list of names in her hand.

The girl in question, Chaeryeong, steps forward beside the principal to separate herself from the rest of the Flower girls, a bouquet of flowers in her hands. The principal then begins to list her qualities, “Chaeryeong’s on the chess team and her hobbies include stamp collecting and playing the guitar.”

Chaeryeong proudly grins at that and scratches the back of her head out of shyness. “Remember, when you bid on someone, you would not just be spending the whole lunch in our cafeteria and enjoying our tasty feast– but also enjoy some private time during the afternoon!” The principal explains the rules again.

“Okay, who will start bidding at 5$ for Lee Chaeryeong?”

Thus began the bidding. Or in Lee Chaeryeong’s case, the lack of bidding.

The auditorium was quiet for a bit. “Anybody?” The principal hesitantly spoke. All of a sudden, Minjeong sees her own twin raise her hand and Minjeong is left dumbfounded. Doesn’t she like Yeji? Then she tears her gaze away from Ryujin to Yeji, to find the latter staring holes into Ryujin’s side profile. Then, Minjeong finally gets the hint. Ryujin was trying to make Yeji jealous. 

Whatever, they can play whatever lesbian power mind games they wanted to play. Minjeong had other things to worry about.

“Very good! Here we go!” The principal slams her hand on the mic stand out of excitement. “Five going once.. Five going twice.. SOLD!”

The rest of the bidding went by quicker than Minjeong thought. She wasn’t really paying attention to what the woman in front of them was saying, she just heard “SOLD!” every once in a while and then she would have to move forward in the line. Jimin still hadn’t placed her bet. And soon enough, there was only one Flower girl in front of Minjeong. Meaning Minjeong was next.

“Number eight is Uchinaga Aeri!” The woman says as Aeri steps forward and pushes her glasses to the top of her nose bridge. “Aeri is a member of the debate team and her hobbies include writing and model airplane building..” The rest of the words fade into the background because Minjeong has a short attention span plus she didn’t really care about anything else at that moment.

All Minjeong cared about was Jimin. 

“Let’s start the bidding for Aeri Uchinaga at 5$.. Anybody?”

All Minjeong could think about was Jimin.

What if.. Jimin actually does bid on Minjeong? What if she got stuck in a bidding war with Somi and Lia and lost?

“No bidders?”

Minjeong was contemplating all the possible scenarios that could happen like the overthinker she was when..

“Eight dollars..”

Minjeong thought she would’ve almost snapped her neck at the speed she looked up to find the person who’s voice softly said, ‘Eight dollars.’ She looks up to see Jimin with her arm up in the air and an uneasy expression on her face. Yuri, who was beside Jimin, looked at her with widened eyes.

“That’s more like it! There you go, eight dollars! Do I hear ten?” The principal cheerfully says meanwhile Minjeong could feel her heart cracking into tiny bits of piece every second. There’s a weird pain in her chest, and she doesn't like it at all.

Yoo Jimin was bidding on Uchinaga Aeri?

“Okay! Eight going once..”

How could she bet on Aeri?

“Eight going twice..”

How could she bid on anyone?

“Sold to Yoo Jimin!”

Minjeong just deeply exhales, she’s tired. She doesn’t even care if anyone bids on her or not, if there’s a bidding war on her or not, Yoo Jimin didn’t want to bid on her and now she just wants this event to be over with. 

The principal pats Aeri on her back before the girl went back to the backstage. “Next, is Flower girl number nine, Kim Minjeong!” Minjeong knew she was supposed to step forward, but she couldn’t move. “Step up, Minjeong. Don’t be shy!” The principal sweetly says and Minjeong slowly looks up and awkwardly chuckles before stepping beside the woman.

“Minjeong here likes to play volleyball–”

“Five dollars!” Somi suddenly says and raises her arm. The principal is startled but she quickly composes herself before saying, “Oh, well– Wait until I–”

She was once again cut by Lia, who yelled, “Ten!” and then glared at Somi.

The principal giggles before saying, “Oh, well looks like the bidding is already underway for our little heartthrob here!” Minjeong doesn’t even smile at the joke. 

“Fifteen!” Somi says.

“Twenty!” Lia says right after.

“Twenty-five!”

“Thirty!” Minjeong gulps at the bidding getting more and more expensive, this was making her nervous all of a sudden.

“Thirty-five!” Somi yells.

“Forty!” Lia also raises her voice. Somi closes her eyes and takes a deep breath before breaking out into an unreadable smile and saying, “Fifty.” Lia who was sitting behind Somi visibly gasps and so does the principal. “Oh, my.. fifty dollars..! Fifty going once! Fifty going twice!”

Minjeong doesn’t notice the way Jimin glances at a smiling Somi with clenched teeth and watery eyes. 

“Sold to Ms. Jeon Somi for fifty dollars! An all time record!” Somi grins before clapping, causing everyone else to clap with her while Lia just glares at the blonde.

It was strange. Here Minjeong was, having lunch with the hottest girl in school, and yet she was miserable. “We’re going up to the lake! My father has a cabin there and you could get the most outrageous tan there..” Somi’s words fade into the background like white noise. Why? Because less than twenty feet away was Jimin. Her Jimin, sitting on a table, having lunch and giggling at whatever Aeri was saying.

Jimin’s laughing.. What is she laughing about? Minjeong was too curious. How could Jimin just sit there and– and laugh and look so beautiful? 

“Minjeong– are you alright?” Somi suddenly asks, pulling Minjeong out of her train of thoughts. She awkwardly smiled before saying, “.. What?”

“What are you staring at?” Somi asks as she looks to her right, god bless she didn’t look behind her. Minjeong waves her off and replies, “Nothing.” Somi looks at her suspiciously before nodding and then taking a spoonful of whatever she was eating, then looking back up at Minjeong to grin and say, “Lunch is delicious, don’t you think?”

Minjeong tries to give off a small smile before going back to staring at the girl who wouldn’t even look in her direction. Somi notices and the smile on her face is immediately wiped off as she asks, “Minjeong, did you hear me? This is a really delicious lunch.”

Minjeong sighs before looking down and replying, “Can we not talk about tans or like.. Food?”

Somi is startled for a second but then she nods and smiles before saying, ‘Well, what do you wanna talk about?” 

Minjeong shrugs and says, “I don’t know.. perpetual motion? Do you know anything about that?” Her gaze drifts back to Jimin. “Perpetual what–?” 

And all of a sudden, Minjeong stands up from her seat. She doesn’t know what happened to her or what came over her, it felt like she was possessed. She heads over to Jimin before pulling her up by her arm and saying, “Jimin, I need to talk to you.”

“What?” Jimin asks as Minjeong turns her around to directly look at her. 

Minjeong doesn’t know what to say and she feels even smaller under Jimin’s uneasy gaze. “What’s going on, Minjeong?” She asks and Minjeong does whatever comes to her mind first at that moment. She awkwardly places her hands on Jimin’s shoulders, the latter asks, “What are you doing?”

And Minjeong closes her eyes and starts to lean in.

Jimin immediately gets the hints and pushes Minjeong by her shoulders, she shoves Minjeong’s arms from her shoulders before saying, “Minjeong, stop it!” And then she runs away. Leaving Minjeong standing in the middle of the cafeteria thinking about how she really messed up this time.

“Minjeong, you didn’t even make it to first base!” One of the girls yelled. “Hey, Minjeong! I could kiss you if you want!” Another girl says and the entire cafeteria laughs.

Minjeong doesn’t think much of it, she hurriedly goes into the direction Jimin went to follow her. Jimin was leaving school and she was at the exit gate. “Jimin! Jimin!” Minjeong called out to her as she followed her out of the building to the parking lot. She stops as Jimin takes her bike out.

“Jimin, wait– can we talk?” Minjeong yells as Jimin hurriedly gets on her bike and pedals away. “Jimin!” Minjeong’s hands fall to her sides out of frustration. 

“What’s the matter with you?!” Minjeong didn’t even realize Hyejoo was following her from behind. Minjeong was too frustrated to deal with her friend right now. “Leave me alone, Hyejoo!” She says and starts to walk, deciding to leave school to go to Jimin’s house. 

But no, Hyejoo doesn’t want to leave her alone. “You get a date– with the finest girl in school! And you blow it all over for Yoo Jimin?” She yells as she walks along with Minjeong. 

Minjeong stops and shouts, “You wouldn’t understand!”

Hyejoo shouts back, “I completely don’t understand!”

Minjeong sighs, tired of shouting so loudly as Hyejoo continues her rambling, “We’re talking about Yoo Jimin here! The nightmare neighbor, the know-it-all nuisance! The gold digger.” Minjeong automatically feels herself fire up again as she pushes Hyejoo by her shoulders and yells, “Shut up!”

She starts to walk away immediately while Hyejoo screams at her from behind, “Hey, have you flipped?! What’s the matter with you?! Well– you know what! If you’re gonna be like this, I don’t want to be friends with you anymore!”

“Well good, because neither do I!”

“Yeah, neither do I!”

As Minjeong walked home with a grim expression on her face, all she could think about was Jimin and she realized that Hyejoo was right about one thing: Minjeong had flipped. Completely.

She wouldn’t give up so easily though. She has to make up for what she did.

Minjeong kept knocking on the Yoo’s door, frustrated sighs leaving her mouth every now and then. She tried to look through the window, but still, nothing.

Minjeong went back to her house and tried to call the Yoo’s landline through their own and she let out a breath of relief when the call was answered.

“Hello?”

“Um– Hi, Ms. Yoo. Is Jimin there?”

“Oh– I’m sorry, Minjeong. Jimin doesn’t wanna talk.” And then the woman immediately hangs up.

Minjeong decided to visit the next day too and it was Yeji who opened the door with a guilty frown. Minjeong sighs and says, “Please, Yeji. I have to see her.”

“I’m sorry, Minjeong. She’s locked herself up in her room– I don’t think I can help even if I wanted to.” And then the door gets shut on Minjeong’s face like she expected. Minjeong couldn’t sleep that night, she kept staring at the Yoo's house through her window. She needs to make up for the dumb shit she did and show Jimin how she felt, somehow.

As Jimin made her way to school that Monday morning while thinking about what kind of new plants to buy for a garden with her books clutched against her chest when Jo Yuri forced Minjeong back to her brain.

“Jimin!” Yuri grins as soon as Jimin steps in the building and grabs her by her wrist to the school notice board. “Look! the list is out.” Jimin squints her eyes trying to get a better look of all the names and then her eyes fall on to a very familiar name. “Thereee she is! Flower girl number nine, your beloved.”

Jimin rolls her eyes as she replies, “Kim Minjeong is not my beloved.”

“Oooh, lover’s quarrel?”

“It’s not a lover’s quarrel, Yuri. I’m over her, okay?” 

“I’m glad to hear it.” Then, Yuri has an unreadable smile on her face as she continues, “Because rumor has it that Somi’s already calling dibs on Minjeong.” Jimin furrowed her eyebrows, she did not believe Yuri one bit. “Somi? You mean Jeon Somi?” Yuri nods with a smile before looking over her shoulder and calling out to her other friends, “Shuhua! Dosie! The list is out!”

That afternoon as Jimin mindlessly poured the chicken feed on the ground without even caring if her chickens were eating or not, she couldn’t stop thinking about the Flower girl auction. She could feel herself going back down the endless Minjeong hole.

But why should Jimin care if Somi liked Minjeong? Why is she even thinking about Minjeong in the first place? Jimin tried to pull herself together. Right, Kim Minjeong was out of her life, she thought as the chicken feed she aggressively threw on the ground while thinking fell upon the chickens, startling the poor animals.

On the morning of the auction, Jimin felt herself getting more and more irritated. She was on edge. She found herself in her room, staring at her egg money in her piggy bank. Jimin pulled out a plan.

It was a simple plan, if she just left her money at home, she would not be tempted to participate in the auction. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t have because of the lack of money. It was a simple yet perfect plan.

Yet her plan was disrupted when Ms. Na called out to her while she was on her bicycle, heading to school. 

“Jimin sweetheart! Jimin!” Jimin immediately stopped pedaling and looked to her right from where the voice was coming from, Ms. Na ran up to where Jimin was with an envelope in her hand. “Hello there,” The woman sweetly says and Jimin smiles in response. “I’m so sorry that it’s taken me so long to get this to you..” Ms. Na said as she pulled a stack of cash from the envelope.

“But I keep missing you in the morning!” She says and hands it to Jimin. 

Jimin tries to give it back to her by pushing the stack of cash towards and saying, “Ms. Na– I don’t want that. I–”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, dear! I’m gonna pay you!” Ms. Na pushed the stack towards Jimin. “No, no– I don’t want it, ma’am–”

“Just take it, dear. Go out and buy yourself something festive, something like pedal pushers! Toodles!” 

“But, Ms. Na– I don’t want pedal pushers!” Jimin helplessly says while sitting on her bicycle. “No, dear, You’ll look great!” And the woman disappeared back into her house as soon as she appeared. 

“It’s okay,” Jimin mutters under her breath. “It’s okay– Just pretend you don’t have it.” Then, she pedals away as her thoughts eat away her mind.

“I heard you’re planning to bid on Minjeong.” Jimin hears an annoying, whiney voice from behind when she was inspecting the seats in the auditorium, looking for Yuri and watching the other students take their place. Jimin turns to her right, to look at the auditorium’s entrance where Somi was coming from with an annoying smirk on her face.

“What– Who the hell told you that? No, I’m not.” Jimin says and furrows her eyebrows.

Somi stands beside her and smiles before saying, “Someone saw you with a whole wad of cash this morning. How much do you have?”

“It’s none of your business.” Jimin says and rolls her eyes. “And I’m not bidding, okay? I don’t even like Minjeong anymore.” She says, a bit softer this time, as if she was unsure of it herself. ‘ Oh, that’ll happen the day pigs fly.” Somi replies.

“It’s true!” Jimin says defensively. “Go waste your money on her, I don’t care!”

Jimin simply watches from beside Yuri in the third row as the curtain gets lifted up, revealing the Flower girls. She stares at Minjeong for a while to take in her attire when she isn't looking and quickly tears her eyes away when the latter starts to inspect the third row. 

Jimin bites her lip and looks down at her feet. She could pretend and say she didn’t care all she wanted, but after seeing Minjeong in a jacket and tie while holding a bouquet of tulip flowers set Jimin’s head spinning and her breath getting caught up in her throat again. 

The auction seemed to fly by.

And before Jimin knew it, It was Uchinaga Aeri’s turn. “Number eight is Uchinaga Aeri!” Which meant Minjeong was next. After their principal announces Aeri’s hobbies, the bidding begins. Jimin looks around the auditorium before turning to Yuri and whispering, “Why is nobody bidding? She’s so nice.”

Yuri replies, “Exactly!”

Jimin doesn't know what came over her but the next thing she knew, her hand was up in the air as she softly said, “Eight dollars..”

“Sold to Yoo Jimin for eight dollars!”

No, seriously– How did this happen? Was it because Jimin felt bad for Aeri? Or was it because she couldn’t trust herself with Minjeong? 

As Jimin made her way to the cafeteria with Aeri on her side, she contemplated the events that had just happened. Here she was having lunch with Uchinaga Aeri while the girl she swooned over for half her life was sharing a meal with her mortal enemy.

“I wanna thank you for bidding on me.” Aeri says as soon as they sit down on the table. “You didn’t really have to.”

Jimin shook her head and smiled, “No, I wanted to. You seemed fun.” She lied through her teeth. Then they fall into an awkward silence with Aeri reaching out to a piece of watermelon and taking a bite. Oof, this was a bit painful. So, Jimin tried to start up a conversation, “I.. heard you like building model airplanes?”

Aeri’s blank eyes are now replaced with an excited glint as she starts to explain. Jimin giggled at how cute the sight was but she couldn’t focus on anything Aeri was saying because Kim Minjeong was right behind Aeri. 

Aeri was saying something about intake valves when all of a sudden, she saw Minjeong get up from the corner of her eye and then march towards her. “Jimin, I need to talk to you.” And all of a sudden Jimin is standing in front of a visibly nervous Minjeong.

Jimin kept asking what it was but Minjeong didn’t say or do anything. Until, the girl decided to put her hands on her shoulders. “What are you doing?” Jimin asks and Minjeong closes her eyes and starts to lean forward.

Everything turned into slow motion.

Sure, Jimin spent half her life fantasizing about those gorgeous pink lips and wondering if she would ever be able to kiss them but.. now when there was an opportunity presented in front of her. It.. it didn’t feel right.

Jimin wanted to kiss Minjeong. But not like this.

Jimin pedaled home so hard and left her bicycle on her lawn as she hurriedly entered her house and locked the door before rushing inside her room. “Jiminie?” Her mom called out to her and knocked on her door. Jimin was on her bed, her face against her pillow as she tried to stop herself from crying.

“Jimin..?” Nayeon opened the room’s door. “What’s wrong?”

“She– she tried to kiss me.”

“Who?– Minjeong?”

“Yes.” Jimin managed to mutter out despite her uneven breath. “In school. In front of everybody.” She says as she turns around to face her mother with teary eyes. Nayeon was about to say something when the doorbell suddenly rang. The woman was about to get up but Jimin immediately stopped her saying, “Mom, please don’t get that. It’s probably Minjeong.”

Nayeon looks at her with a worried face before softly saying, “Sweetie.. maybe you should talk to her.”

Jimin gulped and shook her head, “I can’t.”

Minjeong wouldn’t leave Jimin alone. The girl kept calling on the phone and knocking on their door. Minjeong even had the audacity to snuck around their house and tap on Jimin’s window!

“Jimin! Please! I have to see you– Just for a minute!” Jimin decided to ignore the girl’s repeated pleas. Why didn’t she just understand that Jimin wanted to be left alone? 

After three or four days, Minjeong stopped and Jimin thought it was finally over. 

Then one afternoon, when Jimin was coming to the living room to read a new book she picked.. when she heard a noise in the yard. Jimin looked up to see her mother, who was sitting on a chair in the living room, glanced at her and outside at the yard multiple times.

Jimin suspiciously raised an eyebrow before standing up and going towards the window to see a sight she didn’t expect to see. “Hey– what’s she doing?!” She says as she walks even closer to Minjeong digging a hole with a shovel on their lawn.

“Jimin– calm down. I gave her permission.” Nayeon says and Jimin turns to look at her out of disbelief. 

“Permission? Permission for what? She’s– she’s digging a hole!” Jimin says before turning back to watch the black-haired girl’s actions. “I told her she could.” Nayeon replies. “But– but why?”

It was torture seeing Minjeong dig up the grass Jimin worked hard on just to impress the former. How could her own mother let her do this? Jimin knew that Minjeong knew that she was watching her– because the latter had looked up to stare at her for a bit before going back to work. (Jimin tried to pretend that action of hers didn’t leave any impact on her.)

Jimin watches as Minjeong stops digging and stabs the ground with the shovel, setting it down before going out of view. Jimin sticks her neck to see where she was going. “She’s.. gone?” Jimin mutters.

And it wasn’t until after a few minutes when Minjeong came into view again while holding a tall tree in her hands. “A tree? She’s planting a tree?” She mutters as Minjeong places it into the ground and starts to put the dirt she dug up back to its place.

Then, Jimin found herself unconsciously smiling as she said to no one in particular, “Is it a..?” 

Jimin didn’t really need to ask. She could tell from the shape of the leaves and the texture of the trunk.. It was a sycamore tree. Then she decided to go out to Minjeong.

When the girl Minjeong had been anticipating seeing for the past week finally came out the door, she thought back to the first time she saw the redhead– when she had black hair. As the sun glazed on Jimin’s beautiful skin, Minjeong thought, how could anybody– ever run away from Yoo Jimin?

Then Minjeong looked at Jimin with those eyes. Those magnificent eyes. And then Jimin knew she was still, very much in love with Kim Minjeong.

As they stood there while staring at each other, Jimin realized that they had never really talked. “Do– do you need some help?” 

“Yeah..” Minjeong says with a dazed smile before bending down to brush the dirt back into its place, Jimin bent down to do the same. 

Sure, they had never really talked before. But that day, they started.

And Minjeong knew they would be talking for a long time. Somehow, Minjeong finds an opening and she smoothly brushes her hand against Jimin’s before looking up at the taller girl with a smile. Jimin smiled back.

And as they kept doing their work, Minjeong knew Jimin had finally forgiven her.

Sure, this still doesn’t make up for all the stupid shit Minjeong did to the tall girl for the past few years but that doesn’t mean Minjeong would stop trying. No, Minjeong would do everything for Jimin. Because Minjeong was very much in love with Yoo Jimin.

(And she’ll get that kiss from her some day, when they’re both mature and still in love.)