Chapter Text
The 2 girls, Kim Minjeong and Yu Jimin, were destined to be best friends or as so everyone told them. They became friends at the pure age of 5 in Korea. As their kindergarten teacher-Mrs. Jang said, the 2 were placed together and immediately clicked. They were inseparable at that point, all the time they begged to be put into classes to their counselor and groups together and every time they were able to, by their charm and aegyo.
As they grew up together, from moving from Korea to America when they were 13. They found their own similarities and differences of basic topics that also led to their romantic types, like how the two 15-year-olds were at a neighbor's housewarming in Los Angeles. Minjeong found then that she liked their son’s charm.
“Yah, Jimi-a look,” Minjeong loudly whispered.
“What Minjeong,” Jimin answered from her seat on the couch as she looked over her history homework again and didn't bother to look up at Winter.
“Ugh,” Minjeong groaned from the living room area she was standing in, “stop looking over that dumb homework again and just turn it in already, you probably already got a 100 on it,” Minjeong complained that her best friend kept on doing homework instead of feeding her fantasies over the older boy across the room standing in the hallway talking to her mother.
“Okay okay, I’m turning it in right now, what do you want,” Jimin complied and clicked the few buttons to turn the assignment in.
“Finally, goodness you’re obsessed with having the best grades,” Minjeong said, glad that she was finally listening to her and getting up now.
Jimin didn’t reply to Minjeong’s comment and went over to her to see what she wanted to say now.
#--
From the start of 4th grade to now as freshmen in high school, as the date stated it was already January 20th. Jimin listened to Minjeong exclaim about her new crushes every single year.
She believed that Minjeong really could pull guys, out of the two Jimin was more focused on school to even think about dating guys, so she listened to her friends talk about new crushes and love interests. Of course Minjeong cared about her grades too, but not as much as Jimin did.
Minjeong always believed in Jimin and her intelligence so she usually just did her work quickly and checked with her after. Most of the time, Minjeong made a few mistakes from doing it so quickly and wanting to talk to their other friends, but still she was smart too and got good grades.
#--
“Look at him!” Minjeong exclaimed trying to be quiet but it didn’t matter much because all the adults were talking loudly in the kitchen, so most conversations couldn’t be heard unless you were right next to them.
“Kang Hanjin?” Jimin asked, still not impressed at the new boy she liked, Jimin disliked most of the boys Minjeong liked, but still supported her relationships even if she didn’t exactly approve of their looks. As long as Miyeon wasn’t heartbroken, Yurim didn’t care what she did with them.
“Yes,” Minjeong sighed jokingly, closing her eyes, leaning backwards with the back of her hand on her forehead as the boy, Hanjin, shot a smile to Minjeong’s mom.
“Goodness, what do you even like about him?” Jimin asked, she knew that she wouldn’t like him anyways even after Minjeong told her, but she still asked the question.
Minjeong cracked open an eye to look at Jimin, “You won’t even understand,” Miyeon pouted and stood up again to look at the girl properly.
“Oh come on, whatever you’ll tell me anyways,” Jimin sighed, but lightly laughed alongside, “you know me too well anyways.”
Minjeong stopped pouting and smiled at the laugh, it wasn’t often that Jimin laughed at what Minjeong said or did so the small moments were taken with great care.
“Yahh! Jimi-a!!” Minjeong exclaimed with a laugh and hugged Jimin lightly so she wouldn’t topple over her suddenly hugging her and wrapping her arms around her shoulder, snuggling into her shoulder.
Jimin was accustomed to already being randomly hugged by Minjeong so she wasn’t that surprised but laughed and lightly put her hands onto Minjeong’s arm that was around her now.
“Okay, just tell me what you want now and get off me,” Jimin said after 10 seconds (new record high for Minjeong!) and Minjeong took her arms off of her and excitedly spoke about the boy for a minute straight.
“Are you seeing this?!??!?,” Minjeong whispered loudly, pointing, continuing her rant.
#--
Jimin couldn’t understand the things the older girl explained, like how Minjeong thought the boy’s eyes sparkled or how his demeanor was cool and easy. Jimin was a simple girl trying to get through high school as valedictorian, she didn’t understand the feeling of having a crush at the slightest.
Jimin really did try to understand, but she wasn’t one to find herself a crush easily, so in the end after only 3 months, she did what was more important to her, school work.
Unfortunately, because she only wanted to study and kept this up ever since 6th grade, she didn’t socialize much, and she only talked to the new friends Minjeong made every year.
This made Jimin seem cold to outsiders, she was a nice person but just based on appearance, she looked less approachable than Minjeong. So quite often, everyone often talked to Miyeon to ask about Jimin.
Minjeong knew that people often said that her best friend had rude-cold energy or something and heard it often, but she often wanted to argue with them when she heard people say bad things like that about her friend because they were wrong!
Now, Minjeong was quite an energetic person and definitely would curse people out when they said false information, but Jimin always stopped her from doing something she would regret even if people said bad things about her.
Jimin knew how to fight and was a black belt in taekwondo so she fought when she had to, but it was never at school. She had a reputation to keep to the teachers and staff at school, but either way students always found things out about people and talked about it, causing rumors and wrong information to spread very fast. Like that one time she (purposefully) hit a bully just a few miles from the school.
Thankfully, the teachers didn’t believe it and shut the rumors down quite quickly because there were no videos about the fight (that she won). So she got past those rumors quite quickly and no one mentioned it again after.
Now since Jimin didn’t care what people said about her because it wasn’t true, she cared if people said stuff about the people close to her.
<<<
2003, Jeongja Middle School
Just two years ago, when they were in 7th grade, Jimin was trying to study for the English test they were having the next day. She was alone in the classroom, peacefully studying during break with their textbook. Jimin was completely fine with being alone, the calm tranquil setting let her focus on what was in front of her.
She put her newly bought iPod on the desk, back from changing the song to the new instrumental she added yesterday. Listening to music always calmed her down, no matter what.
In a crowded space where you can’t breathe? Music.
Stressed? Music.
Or maybe you’re annoyed? Listen to music.
That was her safe space, her breath, and even as a child her parents made her learn how to play the piano, violin, even the harp for the sake of it.
She was like what every parent wanted their child to be like; smart, talented, pretty, respectful, kind, strong, whatever the basics, but the one thing that kept her from being left behind was how she never thought before doing something. “Always trying to be the hero,” her mom said.
#--
“Yu Jimin!!” Her mom yelled after finding out that 13 year old Jimin threatened some older boy in violin class just because he said a comment to her older sister. “Get over here right now!, you cannot be saying those things to someone, especially to people older than you at your age!”
Jimin completely thought it was the right thing to do. She did not regret it, it was only a few words, and her sister agreed and even thanked her when the boy was scared of her that day and apologized. But, of course her sister said it loud enough that their Mom could hear it through the door and that’s where she got a scolding for “being rude” and “disrespecting their ancestors.” Her mom didn’t even know what she said and she was already out and about blaming her.
Jimin didn’t care at that point anymore, her mother didn’t bother looking at her achievements, badges, or whatever thing she brought home after that incident and Jimin didn’t mind either way because Minjeong, her best friend, was always there to congratulate her. Her mother did the minimum, bought food, sent an allowance (way less than her older sister’s allowance though), and paid the basic stuff. But her extracurriculars? Out of the door, she was allowed to keep her instruments, but all the lessons were canceled that day. Even her taekwondo classes.
#--
Jimin told everything that happened to Minjeong, of course she agreed with her. It was normal with them, the guy said something rude, so she said something back. Simple as that, but apparently not to her Mom. Said Jimin was ruining their, “reputation,” or whatever. So then Minjeong suggested she play a loud instrument. Not like an orchestra, a full on loud, ear drumming, instrument.
Could’ve done an electric guitar like Minjeong, but she ended up with drums. It was different from the other instruments she played. More sound, different surfaces, and most of all the fact that she was playing songs with her best friend.
Minjeong knew a guy in her neighborhood that had a bunch of instruments so one day she decided to drop by and learn how to play something. She loved the designs on the electric guitars and wanted to keep one herself that she’d soon buy, so it started off light, learning the notes, which string to pluck, all the basics.
She didn’t even notice it but she started to go over and learn how to play the guitar daily. She was either with different friend groups, Jimin, or over at her neighbor, Jihoon’s, house. That guy was a music nerd, composer, played almost everything at the age of 13, that kind of talent. She was thankful that he didn’t mind her coming over since he was an only child and often was tinkering with music programs alone anyways so it was a win-win for both of them.
So that was how it was, Jimin had a drum set, and Minjeong kept Jihoon’s old electric guitar to practice with at home.
Jimin played the drums in her garage every weekend, her mom was totally annoyed at the sound echoing through the house, but it seemed to her that her mother didn’t care anymore so she just moved on and continued playing after school.
#--
Jimin was amazing at playing instruments, at some point she made her own tracks to listen to while she studied, combining the sounds of piano keys and the strings of a violin.
That was her thing, she did orchestra in school and occasionally composed music sheets with her teacher, Mrs. Lee, so yeah you could say that she’s talented.
#--
Moreover, Jimin was just trying to study, but no, 3 loud popular girls came into the classroom she was in because supposedly they can’t just go into an empty room instead, and they sat down. Right where she could still hear them even if she blasted the music through her headphones.
She tried to ignore the group and focus on the work in front of her and turn their voices into background noise, but she still heard them.
They weren’t talking about anything that interested her so she was about to get up and move to the library instead, but then she heard two guys come into the room talking about Minjeong.
“Yeah did you hear? That popular wannabe Minjeong started dating Seong-tae last week,” one of the guys said.
Jimin froze in her seat, she wanted to see how this would go. It’s been a while since she did any “reckless” things. Of course she was still an amazing student, but she was one to end things if she heard someone say something rude. So she decided to see if it was really worth putting someone in their place.
It was already annoying that he called her a popular wannabe.
Jimin turned down the music a little and listened to what the group was saying.
She quickly looked over to see who it was and it was the real wannabe populars. They were the loud, annoying, gossipers, those kind of people. You could always tell that they were just trying to be close with the actual influential people of the school. All they cared about was status, and pretended that they were close with the actual popular people.
Minjeong told Jimin everything that happens between the somewhat popular to the high ranks, well either way, everyone knows what happens with them. It spreads like wildfire around the school.
Mostly the 1st guy, Kyungmin, was talking about Minjeong like he personally knew her, so when he said that Minjeong was someone that always switched up between boys made her think, ‘wow these guys have no conscience to be talking about like that in front of someone’s best friend.’
Jimin was obviously gonna keep this information that this guy said to herself because she wasn’t going to tell her what rude stuff someone said.
So as the person she is, she definitely was going to have a chat with this guy sometime without Minjeong knowing.
She did think about it but in the rest of her classes she threw herself into working on homework and studying.
#--
After Minjeong’s mom picked her up, Jimin walked home from school. She was only a few blocks down from school, listening to music, until she saw Kyungmin and the other guy, Donghwa, talking to each other loudly where she could hear their annoying voices from a foot away talking about Minjeong.
At that moment, Jimin went back to clearly remembering what they were saying about Minjeong, and the thought of going up to them and punching off the smile on their faces sounded really good to her in that split moment of hearing them.
So, like drunken bravery, Jimin stomped over to them and said, “you guys looking for a fight to be talking about someone so loud?” She sent a sharp glare, intensifying what she said.
“Trying to be protective? What’s so good about popular wannabe anyways, Miss ‘only study’” Kyungmin replied without a care in the world about Yurim coming up to them.
“Because I have a normal decency to not be gossiping about someone, unlike you guys,” Jimin said, looking down at their fancy rich shoes to their faces disgusted.
“Mind your own business then,” Donghwa replied lazily, like her interrupting their conversation was just a minor inconvenience for him.
“Bold of you to be saying that,” Jimin replied, glancing over at the other while rolling her eyes with her arms lightly crossed in front of her chest.
“Just leave us alone and we’ll let you off the hook,” Kyungmin replied, tiredly
“Why? Scared you’re actually wrong?” Jimin continued boldly lightly stepping a foot forward onto the sidewalk
Donghwa scoffed, “what’s a girl like you going to do?” He rolled his eyes, stepping a foot forward as well, “tattle tale to the teachers like the goody-two-shoes you are?”
“She’s gonna go back to that brat and whine after she gets what she was craving for,” Kyungmin replied with a grossening laugh.
Jimin bit the side of her mouth to not say something that she would regret even if they did deserve it.
“Watch your mouth before it really gets you in trouble,” Jimin said coldly.
“Aww I’m so scared, what are you going to do? Cry to dear mommy?” Kyungmin smirked like he knew that he was winning. “Plus it’s not worth protecting that little wannabe, that’s not gonna get anything well in the future,” Kyungmin added like it was the simplest thing.
“Yeah? Well it’s worth doing this,” Jimin said before stepping forward and hitting a sharp punch to his jaw. The impact made him topple down to the ground.
Jimin looked back and said to the shocked Donghwa, “don’t do anything unless you want to end up worse.” The boy nervously nodded and stepped back.
Jimin turned back to Kyungmin who was holding his jaw with one of his hands and glaring at her like he was trying to shoot lasers through her by just looking. She crouched down in front of him casually, like she led everything around here before saying authoritatively, “so you gonna apologize for being rude or do I have to slap some sense into you as well?”
“I hate you–” was all Kyungmin said before she slapped him on the side where she also punched him. The sound lightly echoing in the empty space,
making a red mark start to form immediately. Kyungmin hissed from the pain and glared at her again.
“Wrong answer, answer me correctly like you mean it if you don’t want to get hit again,” Yurim said, all serious and not hesitating.
“Fine,” the boy groaned before muttering, “Sorry..” while looking away.
“Look at me when you say it, apologize for gossiping and acting like you own everything when you don’t. Don’t make me say this again,” Yurim said straight to the point, she had better stuff to do than control some dumb idiots.
“Okay Ma’am,” Kyungmin said lightly enunciating Ma’am.
Then the other looked up at her, “Okay sorry for badmouthing people and being rude I’ll stop just don’t hit me again,” Kyungmin sighed.
“Good, are we clear? I don’t ever want to see you talking about Miyeon or badmouthing anyone again, fix your behavior, you don’t want to explain that you got beat up by a girl do you?” Jimin said innocently like nothing happened.
“Yeah okay I got it,” he shrugged it off.
“Look at me when you say stuff, it’s manners,” Jimin said.
“Okay, I’ll stop, just let me go,” Kyungmin said looking at her, his hands gripping tightly into a ball on the pavement.
“Good,” Jimin said finally and stood up, brushed the dirt off her clothes, and walked away from the whole mess.
After the adrenaline fled away from her veins the pain on her knuckles started to bloom. She quickly got home, said a quick, “hey I’m back,” to her sister, and went to her room to apply medicine and bandage her hand.
#—
Anyways after that day, a small rumor from one of the somewhat known girls spread that Jimin was the one that made Kyungmin have a bruise but supposedly he just shrugged it off, afraid that he would come back worse or something.
Jimin ignored all the looks and noise around her in the hallways and classes.
Thankfully the rumors only lasted the week and she never really had to fight anyone again.
#—
After Minjeong talked about Hanjin for the past 10 minutes at the house party she soon stopped when she saw that he was coming over.
“Hey, Minjeong, right?” Hanjin said.
“Oh y-yeah, that’s me,” Minjeong replied, suddenly feeling nervous that he was right in front of her, towering over her basically.
Hanjin lightly chucked, showing his dimple when he smiled, “no need to be nervous, I just wanted to talk to you, you seem pretty cool.”
“Oh thanks,” Minjeong said, with a small nervous laugh.
#—
Jimin watched them converse from her spot across the room. The conversation seemed light, they were laughing, well mostly Minjeong giggling at this point, but still soft.
Much different than when Minjeong hangs out with Jimin, she looked like she would bring the moon back for him if he ever even mentioned it once.
Shoot, what? Why was she focusing on Minjeong so much?
Just making sure she’s okay right? Jimin watched the tiny touches on the arm they both gave.
What could they be talking about for them to be teasing a touch for so long?
Whatever, it’s probably nothing, Minjeong will tell her about it later.
Thankfully, heir other friend, Yizhou, who came to the US just before their freshmen year started, came over to Jimin and plopped down onto the couch beside her.
“Minjeongie is really getting what she wanted right now huh,” Yizhou said amused, “and you’re staring really hard at her right now.”
“No I’m not,” Yurim replied way too quickly, slightly wide eyed as she turned over to Yizhou.
“Yeah sure you aren’t,” Yizhou replied with a small smile forming at her quick reply.
“Shut up,” Yurim then muttered and slumped back onto the couch.
“Yeah yeah don’t lie to yourself,” Yizhou said.
Soon enough, it was getting late and everyone was starting to go home. They both went back to their parents' cars and got home.
# --
The next day at school Minjeong was once again blabbering about Hanjin at the party while Yurim was looking over her notes once again.
“Yah, Yu-a are you even listening to me?” Minjeong pouted only slightly.
“Yeah I am, you were saying something about Hanjin no?” Jimin replied, glancing over at her.
“Yeah obviously, but like do you know what I’m saying exactly?” Minjeong questioned.
“Ugh fine, I don’t know what you’re really talking about sorry,” Jimin said, with a sigh.
“See I knew it,” Minjeong pouted, “put away those notes and listen to me, that’s what a break is for, you can study during study hall or whatever,” Minjeong said
“Okay fine whatever,” Jimin sighed, but she listened to Minjeong anyways,
she always did.
“Yay! Thanks,” Minjeong exclaimed happily and continued talking when Jimin was focused on her.
#--
During these times when Minjeong was focused on a guy on a talking stage or something, Jimin had time to study alone in the classroom while Minjeong did whatever with someone else. She didn’t mind that she hung out with someone else, she could have her own time to herself, but today there wasn't anything for her to study or go over.
The majority of her classes there were tests or she just had free time so nothing to really look over for. So she just sat there really, thinking about whatever came to mind.
Until Yizhou came into the room loudly with someone else, a new face.
“Hey Jimin!” Yizhou exclaimed, “Come meet my new friend Ae-ri!”
Yizhou practically dragged Ae-ri into the room and closed the door again (thankfully). She brought 2 chairs over so now Yizhou and Ae-ri were sitting in front of her.
“Okay okay, Ae-ri-ya this this Jimin, Jimin, this is Ae-ri, cool?” Yizhou said.
“Yeah fine,” Ae-ri said and then asked, “how did you guys meet?”
“Oh my best friend Minjeong, talked to her first and then we just became friends on the 1st day of high school,” Jimin replied.
“Yeah that's basically what happened, Minjeong came up to me and basically dragged me over to you so we’d talk,” Yizhou said amused, remembering how that happened just a few months ago.
“Anyways now I’m bringing you guys together, talk while I go and grab some snacks from the vending machine, don’t sit in silence” Yizhou threatened and stood up, brushing down her uniform skirt.
She walked out of the door and the two girls just looked over at each other before they both said, “So–”
Ae-ri then laughed at the sync and said, “go ahead.”
Jimin smiled as well and started, “what brings you here to this school? I don’t think I’ve seen you this year.”
“Just my parents' business stuff, I guess they’re building their own corporation or something around here,” Ae-ri replied.
“Oh so you’re rich huh?” Jimin said teasingly and asked, “where did you live before then?”
“Oh well actually, I used to live in Japan for a bit, we had an apartment while my parents worked in an office job. It paid well so we had good money, but soon enough my dad wanted to expand so we moved over here.” Ae-ri replied.
“Whoa seriously? That's pretty cool. I've wanted to go to Japan—wait, are you fluent in Japanese and Korean then?” Jimin continued.
“Yeah,” Ae-ri smiled a little, “I’m actually Korean Japanese, my dad is Japanese and my mom’s Korean so yeah I’m fluent in both and, fun fact, I learned English in Japan, so I just speak normally around here,” Ae-ri said.
“Quite the polyglot, aren’t you?” Jimin lightly teased, “I can barely even speak English fluently and you're here fluent in 3 languages,” Jimin said, shocked at her fluency.
“Yeah I get that,” Ae-ri agreed with a small laugh at her shocked expression, “I also go by Giselle so you can call me either, I don’t mind.”
“Okay, thanks good to know,” Jimin nodded and soon enough Yizhou finally came back with the snacks.
“Heyyyy, I’m back, how’d it go?” she exclaimed, stepping back into the room with like a million snacks in her arms, cradling it basically at this point.
“Good, found out your friend was a polyglot,” Jimin replied and Yizhou laughed.
"Yeah, that's Gigi for you, she's even learning French right now, it's insane,” Yizhou said teasingly as she lightly ruffled Giselle’s hair after she dropped all the snacks onto the desk, “take what you want, it’s on the house,” she stood proudly.
“Thanks a lot Ning, and stop flexing about my language skills to people,” Ae-ri replied as she tried to fix her hair.
Jimin noticed their closeness, how they already had nicknames for each other, it was pretty cute.
“How long have you guys been friends?” Jimin asked as she grabbed one of the snacks from the pile and pulled it open.
“Since she came here,” Yizhou replied, munching on a snack as well, “so like a few months ago?”
“It was in October, I came a week before Halloween and Ningning already decided that I was gonna go trick or treating with her and my idiot self agreed,” Ae-ri said flatly.
“Wow, it's been, what, 4 months and you're only telling me about her now?” Jimin said to Yizhou, swallowing her food.
“Yeah I was gate-keeping,” Yizhou replied, like that was totally normal to just not tell your other friend about someone you met.
‘I’m surprised that you kept it a secret that you were hanging out with someone for this long,” Jimin said jokingly.
“Yah! I can keep secrets to myself if I want to,” Yizhou hastily replied, turning her head over to Jimin.
“Yeah yeah okay,” Jimin replied amused.
This was a nice distraction for Jimin, talking to Yizhous’s new friend Ae-ri. They could become a friend group after Minjeong deals with her relationship situation even.
#--
Minjeong was currently with Hanjin chatting alone in a classroom, she felt nervous. She’s been alone with her past boyfriends before but this felt different. Maybe it was the fact that they weren’t dating yet and there was a pulsing chance for something to happen this moment.
They’ve only really started talking after the party and she’s definitely been enjoying it, but the question is, does he feel the same? Will he ever?
These questions kept Minjeong locked onto the people she likes. The chase and quiet eavesdropping behind the doors was the excitement that bloomed through her veins.
She wasn’t evil like how other people faked their love, but at her age, finding a real relationship that actually worked really was her goal.
It was fun to have crushes and admire from afar, but really, she loved hanging out with her friends more than she could ever say.
A boy or crush wouldn’t be able to change that. But either way she was here with Hanjin, her current crush, so it's better to focus on that.
#--
The two continued chatting until the end of the break and so Hanjin walked Minjeong to her class and they went their own ways to their classes.
When she walked in she saw Jimin first talking—well more like listening to Yizhou talk. That was normal, but she looked over and saw a new face.
‘A new girl that I didn’t know about? That's new,’ Minjeong thought automatically.
She stood in the doorway watching the 3 talk with Yizhou and the new girl starting to make inside jokes between the two of them.
‘So they must be close then,’ Minjeong noticed quite quickly.
Soon enough, Jimin looked over and waved her over to join them. Yizhou and the girl paused before turning around to Jimin and waved her over as well.
Minjeong walked over and sat next to Jimin as Yizhou started to get ready to explain who the girl was.
“Okay Minjeong-a, this is Ae-ri, Ae-ri this is Minjeong.” Yizhou said simply.
“Nice to meet you,” Ae-ri said with a kind smile as she looked over at Minjeong. She looked pretty and seemed smart so she decided that it was no harm that they would become friends.
“Nice to meet you too!” Minjeong replied, sending back the smile.
And so then the 4 of them talked, sharing stories about themselves in their hometowns.
#--
That was how their friend group stayed. Throughout the years, that day when Yizhou introduced Ae-ri to Minjeong and Jimin.
But, we still need to talk about the relationship between Hanjin and Minjeong.
The way Minjeong would describe Hanjin wouldn’t be very exact of how someone else would, so let's go with what a friend would say.
Hanjin was simple, wore plain t-shirts with a pair of jeans or sweatpants, black short hair, tall enough for a high schooler, followed rules, respectful, understood social cues, and was just a good person overall.
The guy had good grades and was a mama’s boy, so even if it wasn’t Minjeong, people would still say he’s charming. He wasn’t athletic, but skinny and that was what people liked so it was fine.
In other words, whether everyone liked him platonically or not, to everyone that he talked to, they would say that he’s nice so kudos to him.
#--
Minjeong was a party person, as you know, a social person. Now even though they’re only freshmen, her rich mom takes her to parties—well banquets more like, but still the same concept.
Either way she knows herself that she’d probably be able to go to multiple parties and not get bored.
So right now, she’s at a banquet that Hanjin’s mom hosted.
Which meant that Hanjin was there somewhere.
-
Minjeong stood in a corner talking to her brother while also looking around trying to find someone her age to talk to. This place was full of adults who wore smiles and did things at the right time, like her parents, who were currently talking to some businessman.
Suddenly then when her mom made eye contact, her mom waved a hand to tell them to come over. Minjeong saw and listened, walking over with precise steps.
“Mr. Kwon, meet my son and daughter,” their mom said, tilting herself to face both of them, “Jungwoo and Minjeong,” she pointed out the 2 of them when she said their names.
Jungwoo and Minjeong both bowed to the other, a respectful gesture to help their mom get a contract with the guy. They knew what was happening.
“Nice to meet you guys,” Mr. Kwon said once the two stood up.
“As well as you,” Jungwoo said, respectful, he was the one that was gonna acquire their parents company, he’s even in business classes already as a seventeen year old.
Her parents knew she’d be a lost cause in a business world when she failed her data test when she was 12 so they just let her be because they knew that Jungwoo would take over one day when he was an adult.
Anyways, the two politely spoke to Mr. Kwon and they were soon ready to go with some contract Minjeong wouldn’t understand if she read it.
Minjeong looked over to her older brother expecting him to explain the contract that was happening right in front of her.
Her brother caught her look and quietly explained how the deal works for both companies and all that boring stuff.
Minjeong listened to the explanation surprisingly simply from the other, but Minjeong knew that the paper was full of complex synonyms from the words he changed so she just nodded along as they walked away from the adults.
#--
Soon after Jungwoo found one of his friends at the banquet, he said goodbye to her as he ran off and now Minjeong went to the bartender that was making drinks. A person she knew!
Yeonjun, his dad was a bartender for these banquets and wasn’t there so Yeonjun was taking over at the moment while his dad did something.
“Hey, Minjeong! I didn’t know you were here, how are you?” Yeonjun said, shaking up a drink for the adult that was leaning onto the table.
“Good, you? It’s been a while huh” Minjeong replied sitting down on a high chair.
“Yeah, I’ve been doing well, Taehyun and Soobin started making music covers as well, I’ve been listening to them during the process,” Yeonjun said as he slid the drink over to the guy and he walked away with the drink in hand.
“Oh really? Did they take a break after a while or something?” Minjeong asked, leaning her head onto the palm of her hand, putting her arm on the table.
“Yeah, studies and so what,” Yeonjun said, turning around for a moment and then looking back he continued, “want something to drink?”
“Yeah sure, get me a shirley temple or something,” Minjeong said.
“Like sprite and cherry?” Yeonjun asked, not often was that people were talking about the non-alcoholic version so he asked to make sure.
“Yeah, you know obviously no alcohol,” Minjeong replied amused at his questioning.
“Right… okay then Minjeong, one Shirley temple coming right up,” Yeonjun said, playing the cool bartender again as he walked around and poured grenadine syrup first into the cup and popped open the sprite with one hand, making a vein on his arm to pop out a little from the action.
Totally an attractive action for someone else.
Minjeong just looked at it though like it was nothing. Imagine how bad it would’ve sparked if it was Hanjin. She watched Yeonjun pour the sprite and top it off with a maraschino cherry. Finally sliding it over to Minjeong.
Peaceful until one of their friends, Choi Soobin came over exclaiming how Yeonjun opening the can with one hand was extremely attractive.
That guy was completely head over heels at this point. (both of them honestly)
-
“Wow Yeonjun trying to attract all the girls over here or what,” Soobin said.
“Why would I be trying to do that when you’re here already,” Yeonjun replied casually.
And so, then their gross flirting started to play out right in front of her as she drank her Shirley temple.
“Okay guys, I’m just going to leave you guys alone now, continue your flirting or whatever,” Minjeong said, as she hopped off the seat and walked off to go wherever, this place was boring, nothing interesting to look at or anyone to talk to forever.
Soobin and Yeonjun said their goodbyes to Minjeong as she left and they continued their chat.
#--
Minjeong now sat at some table at the banquet, ready to go home already and do better like talk to Jimin through the window or something, but then Hanjin came up to her!
Minjeong hid her excitement as she saw him walk over to her table.
“Hey, you look pretty bored,” Hanjin teased as he sat down at the other side of the table.
“Yeah, nothing interesting to do,” Minjeong said, “no offence to your parents though, there was just no one to talk to.”
“Well now you have me, right?” Hanjin smiled, that dumb dimple popping out that made Miyeon’s heart swell.
“R-right yeah,” Minjeong said, looking at her red drink instead of his face so she wouldn’t get even more embarrassed.
#--
The conversation continued calmly, nothing crazy, just two friends hanging out at a boring party.
Minjeong was content with just talking to the other, she wasn’t planning on trying to start a relationship with the other at the time, she was already a mess when he even smiled at her.
How would she ever be able to start a relationship with the other?
Well, here was the story.
How 15-year-old Minjeong got with a guy she liked while Jimin silently watched Minjeong fall deeper than she should have.