Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s no good.

Kim Huisu will be the first to admit she’s not much of a writer. She’s not sure why she’d even thought to take up writing, only knew that it started out as one of the few things she could use to distract herself from the stress and pressure of the civil service exam. But now, going over the ‘novel’ she’d written in some crazed frenzy over the past few weeks…

She buries her face in her hands. It’s no good. It’s absolutely no good! Sure, this is just a hobby, not something she should be caring so much about. Plenty of webnovels are way worse than this, and Huisu has read enough to be able to say that much. But she wants it to be good, if just for her own satisfaction. After all, what if this pathetic text document somehow reaches the public and everyone starts bashing her in the comments for her shitty writing?! Not like that would ever happen, because Huisu can’t figure out how she could ‘accidentally’ upload an entire novel, but still!

She sighs. Whatever. Stressing out like this is pointless. A real writer would be more proactive and actually work on fixing their mistakes; unfortunately, Huisu has no idea where to start, mostly because she has a feeling anything she does will just make things worse.

She stares at the screen of her laptop for a long while. Characters. She could start there, right? Characters make up half the whole story. First of all, she definitely has to make some of these extras less one-dimensional…

Microphone feedback rings across the bar for a moment before dying down. Huisu doesn’t even flinch anymore; if anything, she looks up in excited anticipation at the front of the bar, where the stage — little more than a small, elevated platform — has been taken up. The singer, as usual, says nothing as she taps the mic a few more times, then takes a seat in front of it and takes her guitar out of its case.

No hush falls over the chatter and bustle of the bar, nor is everyone’s attention drawn to the stage. Back when Huisu started visiting this place, she used to be affronted on the singer’s behalf, but now she doesn’t mind so long as this means she gets to watch without distractions or interruptions.

The first few notes of the song start up. Huisu leans back against her seat and sighs.

Outside of singing, the singer never says anything: she goes onstage, she performs, she bows, and then she leaves. Huisu doesn’t know if she was always like this or if she’s been performing in this bar for so long that she no longer feels the need to introduce herself anymore, but either way, it only adds to the Mystery & Grandeur she’s got around her. On first sight she’d seemed weirdly familiar, but Huisu couldn’t place a name to her, probably because of her choppy haircut hiding almost half of her face, and so she’d forgotten about it eventually. Huisu’s happy just getting to see her perform, even when no one else seems to care about her. It’s a little like having this special show just for her.

…Well, that’s not entirely true. She is publicly performing in a bar, after all. Still, listening to her low, melodic voice accompanied by the strings of the guitar is one of the few things in Huisu’s life that make her think life may be worth living after all, even if studying day and night for the exams makes her think the complete opposite.

The singer usually performs two or three songs a night; when she finishes the second one, Huisu waits with bated breath, but the singer stands up and stores her guitar back in its case without a second thought. Huisu sighs and slumps against her table. Maybe if she were braver, she could call for an encore like how the other patrons do with the more popular performers… but the most she’s done is the only thing she ever does, which is stare adoringly from afar. Hell, she probably looks less adoring and more creepy, knowing her.

When she glances up, the singer is looking right at her — but only for a moment, because she turns away and heads off the stage.

Huisu glares at her laptop screen, the cursor blinking accusingly back at her. This damn novel… She hadn’t expected to get so attached to her own self-indulgent fantasy, but here she is, writing about high-schoolers despite being an office worker herself. But… maybe she could try polishing the first chapter and… and… possibly… posting it online? Even just thinking about it makes her shudder. Still, the singer looks around her age, and she’s clearly confident enough to go onstage and perform in front of dozens of people everyday. Compared to that, posting some webnovel online is a lot less personal. Maybe if Huisu takes this extra step forward, she’ll somehow do better on the exam.

What kind of wishful thinking is she having right now? Writing webnovels and the civil service exam have zero connection to each other. But if it’ll make her feel better… well, it might be worth a try. Huisu takes a deep breath, exhales, and starts typing.

Kim Huisu is an idiot.

Why did she do that? Why did she focus on her stupid hobby rather than study for the exam? She hadn’t realized the exam dates had been so close, and by the time she was satisfied with the revisions for the first chapter and took the leap of faith (posted it online), she only had a handful of days left to study. After pulling a horrible amount of all-nighters, getting a total of five hours of sleep, and finally taking the exams, Huisu had crashed in bed and remained comatose for nearly an entire day.

And now, here she is, still lying in bed, blinking blearily at her inbox:

— Wow, this sucks. Couldn’t you have tried to be at least a little more original?

— What’s so appealing about the ML? Literally so bland lol

— I’ve only known FL for one chapter but I kinda want her to keep being bullied lmao so annoying

…She’d wasted her time editing and revising her damn novel instead of studying for the exams, and in the end, she hadn’t gotten a single nice comment. Why did she even bother posting this online in the first place then?! Do these bastards realize they’re getting her writing for free here?! Huisu wants to throw her phone against the wall, but then that’d be a perfectly good waste of a working phone, and it’s not like her shitty office job pays her enough to buy a new one and still have some left over for this month’s rent.

“Ahh…”

Huisu sets her phone down to stretch a little, still lying motionless in bed like a beached fish. She can’t do anything but wait for the exam results now. She hasn’t eaten anything all day — on account of having slept all day — but she isn’t hungry either. She’s opened and closed three different social media apps twice each by now.

The sky is dark. Huisu sighs and drags herself out of bed. The exams, at least, are behind her for now; she can go celebrate getting those over with, if nothing else.

By the time she gets to the bar, she’s already regretting not having just stayed in and slept for another 12 hours. Huisu orders the cheapest meal she sees on the menu to eat, then drops into what has become her usual seat, staring at the stage. It’s empty for now, and she knows her favorite singer doesn’t usually perform on weekend nights, but when she’d left the house some ten minutes earlier, she hadn’t been thinking about anything but getting out of that stuffy goshiwon. She’d even brought her laptop along, though mostly because it had already been in her bag and she couldn’t be bothered to take it out.

Her phone buzzes. Huisu vaguely registers the webnovel site in the notification and turns it off.

She picks at her food when it arrives, eating without tasting, then gets herself a drink to slowly sip at so she can make it last as long as possible. Performers take and leave the stage. Huisu seriously considers getting dead-drunk and letting the alcohol take over, but then she has a vision of herself doing cartwheels in the bar or something and decides she’s not that far gone just yet. She still needs to see the exam results…

…The exam results, huh.

Do those even matter anymore? Huisu’s failed time and time again; it would hardly be surprising if she fails once more, even after all her studying. What’s the point in doing the same thing over and over when she already knows what’s going to happen? She can’t pass the exams. She can’t get a better job. She can’t even get some good comments on her stupid webnovel. She can’t do anything right. She’s just a waste of space, taking up room in a goshiwon a university student could use instead… Even at this age, she can’t pass an exam hundreds of people younger than her did… She has no talent for anything… All she’s doing now is wasting her hard-earned money on beer…

She takes another sip of her drink. If she can’t do anything right, if she can’t contribute anything to society, then shouldn’t she… shouldn’t she just…?

The shrill screech of microphone feedback cuts into her thoughts. Someone taps the mic once, twice. Then a familiar voice rouses Huisu from her stupor.

She jerks her head up to look. Her first thought is that she must be dreaming, or that she’s drunk too much, or that she’s died from alcohol poisoning and gone to heaven, but no matter how many times she blinks and rubs her eyes, there’s no denying it: that’s the singer, her singer, up on stage, singing a song Huisu knows all the lyrics to. But — why? In all the times Huisu’s come here, the singer has never performed on weekend nights, so why now…?

She’s so stunned that the song is over before she can even properly appreciate it, but after a short pause, the singer starts a new one. Her voice washes over Huisu, and she relaxes despite herself, the tension leaving her shoulders like a boulder off her back. For a long few minutes, the rest of the bar fades into white noise, the world narrowing down to Huisu in her seat, the singer onstage, the space in between them that allows light and sound to travel. The singer’s voice is deep, slow, and when her second song comes to an end, she wastes no time starting a third one.

It’s a new song, Huisu realizes, through the tipsy haze in her head. A new song… It’s stupid, but Huisu wants to believe, even for a moment, that at least one person had understood her just now. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that the singer is here on the weekend; maybe the singer had just been so excited to share her new song that she had come here to perform as soon as she finished it. But maybe…

Her eyes feel uncomfortably warm. Maybe Huisu can wait for the exam results. Huisu can search for jobs. Huisu can work on her dumb novel. Maybe there are still some things worth living for.

When the song is over, the singer steps offstage, wordless as usual, and Huisu reluctantly returns to her half-finished drink. Right. She can’t just waste her time feeling sorry for herself. She can’t do much now while waiting for results, and no way in hell is she going to start studying in advance if there’s even the sliver of a chance this exam will be the one she passes. Right now, Huisu should…

“Um… hello. Are you alright? You’re crying…”

…should look up… and up, and up, and up… and stare blankly at a very familiar face.

“Ah?!” Huisu jolts so hard she bangs her knee against the underside of her table. Her drink wobbles dangerously close to the edge, but before she can fumble for a grip, a different hand has already reached out to steady it. “Y-You, you… You’re…”

The singer blinks slowly down at her. “Yes…?”

“I… I…” Stupidly, all Huisu can think is, She’s so tall. She only ever saw the singer from a distance, and both of them would usually be sitting down, so Huisu had never realized how tall she is. This close, Huisu can tell she’s nearly a head taller, practically towering over her.

Then her earlier words finally register in Huisu’s brain, and she furiously scrubs at her damp eyes. “I’m fine! I’m not crying!”

“Really? You don’t have to lie.” To Huisu’s alarm, the singer glances at the empty chair across the table, but doesn’t ask to sit down; she hovers almost awkwardly beside Huisu for another moment instead, then says, softly, “Did you… like the new song?”

“Eh?”

“I noticed you didn’t come visit for a while. I thought something might have happened.”

“Oh, I…” She noticed? She notices Huisu? She notices all the creepy staring and adoring from afar? This is the worst day of her life. “I-I had to study for something…” No, wait, what is she saying? Does she want this singer to realize she’s a complete failure in life? “I mean, I was just busy with work… But I love the new song!” Huisu blurts out. The singer blinks again, looking startled, like she wasn’t the one to ask if Huisu liked it just a minute ago. “It’s perfect. It was… really nice to listen to after a long week.”

The singer is quiet for a moment; when Huisu chances a glance up at her, her cheeks look just the slightest bit pink, but maybe that’s just the bar lights. “Then… I’m glad.”

Deciding she may as well go all the way, Huisu stands up and gestures at the chair across her. “Do you, uh, want a drink or anything? On me! I should thank you for performing all the time.”

“Oh, there’s no need…”

“You don’t drink? I can get you… er… juice… just, whatever you want. Please!”

“Well, if you insist… warm water’s fine.”

Huisu tries to give her an unimpressed look, but the singer looks perfectly serious, so with a sigh Huisu relents and waves a waiter over. “For your throat, huh,” she says aloud. The singer takes a seat across from her, staring intently at her face all the while until Huisu coughs and turns away, feeling her face heat up at the attention. What’s with her? Does Huisu just look that funny when she had been crying? Not that she had really been crying, she had only gotten a little emotional just then…

Only when Huisu sits down does the singer allow a small, almost shy smile. “You haven’t changed.”

“…Huh?”

“Since high school.” She tilts her head. “Kim Huisu-ssi… right?”

“Jeha-ya!”

It was shortly after classes had ended for the day. The sun was shining high in the sky. Students were crowding the hallways, exiting the gates in small groups, chattering among themselves.

Another day of Kim Huisu’s high school life.

Yoo Jeha — who wasn’t really her boyfriend but also wasn’t really not her boyfriend — turned around and smiled. “Hey. You’re not going home yet?”

Huisu skipped over and wrapped her arms around one of Jeha’s. “Mm, not yet. Where are you going?”

“I was just going to pick something up from the gym. Wanna come?”

It sounded pretty damn boring. Huisu mostly just wanted to go home and get tomorrow’s homework over and done with, then maybe read a book or two then head to sleep. She hardly wanted to spend time in their school’s stuffy gym, which always smelled horrible and gave her bad memories of all her failures during PE classes. Plus, she honestly couldn’t care less about the small things Jeha did or didn’t do, and she couldn’t imagine him picking something up from the gym would affect her in any way.

But, also: as if Huisu was going to say no.

Huisu liked Jeha. It wasn’t hard: he was polite, he was kind, he was handsome. He didn’t have much of a personality to make you hate him, in Huisu’s opinion. So it was easy to latch onto him, to tease and flirt and hang out with him in between classes. After all, Huisu thought, what was high school life without some romance in it? And Jeha was the perfect guy for it: not too dangerous, not too boring, just right for her to test things out. Spending time with him wasn’t always interesting, probably by virtue of him not being very interesting in the first place, but it was still better than just studying all day.

“There she is again,” someone said. Huisu turned her head, just slightly, just enough to see who was speaking. She didn’t know who they were, of course, but it never hurt to look anyway. “She’s always hanging off Yoo Jeha’s arm. It’s so gross.”

“Oh, isn’t she from Class 2-C? Yeah, I hear she ignores everyone except for her boyfriend. It must be so annoying.”

“You’d think she’d have some shame…”

“It’s so embarrassing…”

Huisu kept her smile fixed in place. It’s fine. She’s fine. What did it matter what these other, unimportant people thought of her? They were just jealous, she told herself. Jealous she had Jeha’s attention, jealous she had such an enviable love life, while they didn’t. That was all there is to it. Honestly, the fact that they were even wasting time talking about her behind her back was pathetic.

Only…

No, no, it didn’t matter. She followed Jeha into the gym; some of the sports teams were practicing, the boys’s soccer team on one end and the girls’s volleyball team on the other. “What are you picking up?” Huisu asked, letting go of Jeha’s arm but still sticking close to his side.

“Ah, I just left my bag here earlier during PE class. Umm, it should be around here…” Jeha sighed. “Did the cleaning staff put it somewhere else?”

“It might be in a storage room.” Huisu smiled, turned away to head for the nearest one. “I’ll go check!”

“Okay — wait, Huisu—”

It was too fast, too sudden, for her to have done anything. One second Huisu was crossing the length of the gym, aiming for one of the storage rooms just across the doorway, and the next second something had slammed against her head at mach speed.

Her memories are blurry afterwards: she vaguely remembers having been hit so hard she lost her balance and fell on her side, and then several voices talking above her, none of them she recognized. She wanted to call for Jeha, but her mouth felt locked shut, her head swimming too much for her to think beyond how much it hurt. Somehow she convinced herself closing her eyes would help, and before she knew it Huisu slipped into a restless sleep.

When next she woke, she was lying in a bed in the nurse’s office. Huisu blinked blankly up at the white ceiling, trying to remember what had happened for her to end up here, when someone sitting beside her spoke up. “You’re awake? Are you alright?”

“What,” Huisu said, flatly.

“I’m so sorry. I was serving the ball, and I didn’t see you pass by…”

Huisu sat up. Her head was still ringing, but at least it didn’t hurt like her skull was about to cave in. “A ball hit me in the head?” she said, slowly, trying to wrap her thoughts around it. It wasn’t impossible — in fact, it probably happened pretty often in the gym — but from how hard it had hit her and how much it had hurt, Huisu had been under the impression she had been run over by a truck.

“Ah…” The student winced. Huisu finally turned to look at her, as if that would change anything; to Huisu, she was as unfamiliar as everyone else at school. “I’m really sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Oh, well…”

Her earnestness was unnerving. Usually Huisu could tell when someone didn’t mean their apology; she had been the victim of plenty of mean-spirited pranks, like her outdoor shoes being filled with thumbtacks and her uniform clothes getting torn or drawn on when they were in her locker during PE. It was never hard to find the culprit, especially after Huisu started getting used to it, and they’d always pout and simper and say they had never meant to hurt her, it had only been for a little fun, they wouldn’t do it again… and of course they’d do it again. They did mean to hurt her. It was for their own form of fun.

Huisu looked away. Being faced with sincerity was disarming. She knew how to deal with spite and scorn, but not the opposite. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Is there anything I can do for you? To make up for it?”

“Ah, uh…”

“I can buy you milk,” the student offered. Huisu felt like she was being run over by a truck again, albeit in an entirely different manner. “Then you’ll grow taller and catch the ball next time.”

“What? No, there won’t be a next time — and no need to buy me anything!”

The student looked unconvinced, but sighed and relented. “Fine. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I probably just need to lie down for a bit longer or something. But yeah, I’m fine.”

After bringing Huisu a paper cup of water, the student apologized once more, bowed deeply, then left. Huisu sat in the bed alone, sipping her water, watching the window curtains flutter to the gentle breeze. The sky was beginning to turn golden-orange, the sun lower than when Huisu had seen it last. She must have been out for longer than she thought if it had already gotten so late.

It was a little funny, that some student she didn’t even know the name of had stayed with her until she woke up, while she had no idea where Jeha was.

Huisu wakes up the next day in a daze.

She brushes her teeth in a daze. She takes a shower in a daze. She goes to the office and works in a daze. By the time she’s clocking out from work, she’s still not entirely certain last night had really happened or if she had just dreamt the whole thing up as some sort of drunken, stress-driven hallucination.

It can’t be, right? These sorts of things only happen in shitty novels, like the one sitting in her laptop right now. Meeting up with a classmate from high school after over ten years down the line, and it turns out that very classmate had not just recognized and remembered her, even though they must have only had one conversation in all three years, but also happens to be her favorite singer…?! When she puts all the facts together, the situation only sounds more delusional.

Right. Huisu really must have just made everything up in her head. It’s not a bad plot point, albeit rather cliché, and she can file the idea away for a future scenario if she ever wants to write something new after I’ll Love You Everyday. She doubts it, though; she’s only gotten more insults in her comment inbox, some of them so rude Huisu is tempted to reply even more rudely if not for how pathetic doing so would feel.

She hesitates by the front door of the office building. Right now she’d usually catch the subway to the bar and spend a few hours there listening to…

…Huisu buries her face in her hands. It’s real. It had definitely been real! She’s horrible with names, and yet she remembers the one the singer — her singer — had given her yesterday, so vividly it’s horrible. Does Huisu want to go to the bar just to undoubtedly embarrass herself again? Absolutely not! She had been humiliated beyond belief when she had to admit she couldn’t remember a single one of her classmates from high school, and though neither of them said it, Huisu knew they were both thinking the same thing: because she was boy-crazy, because she didn’t care about any of them, because she’d only had eyes for Jeha.

But Jeong Jihyeon had only said, “Well, it’s fine. It’s been a while, after all. And you haven’t grown.”

The comment had come so out of nowhere that Huisu could only blink and say, “What?”

“You’re still the same height.” Jihyeon lifted her hand up to measure, though there wasn’t much use since they were both sitting down. “Remember? I hit you in the head because I didn’t notice you.”

“…I’m not that short. I think the problem is that you’re too tall.”

The full memory of their one and only interaction from high school had only returned to Huisu on the subway ride home, after Jihyeon had made sure she wasn’t too drunk before bidding her goodnight and leaving. Huisu had sat there, staring at her dim reflection in the subway windows, thinking it was funny of the other woman to say Huisu hadn’t changed when the same can apply to her. She still has that earnest sincerity that had made their encounter and conversation memorable in the first place, and maybe that was what had made her so familiar to Huisu from the very moment she stepped into the bar and heard the beginning notes of her song.

Maybe it’s supposed to mean something. Huisu isn’t the superstitious type, has never placed much faith in religion or receiving signs from the divine, but maybe it’s supposed to mean something, that someone who actually cares about her — even if it might just be the faint attachment a singer has for their fan — had showed up just as Huisu was ready to give it all up.

She sighs, runs a hand through her long, tangled hair. Then she heads for the subway.

Huisu is earlier than usual, embarrassingly enough; Jihyeon isn’t on stage yet, nor can Huisu see her anywhere in the bar. She takes her usual seat and gets a drink, then feels at a loss for what to do and so stares blankly at the table for minutes on end before finally retrieving her laptop, just to have something else to stare blankly at for another several minutes…

What is wrong with her? It’s like she’s waiting for a date or something. Huisu navigates through her files, empties her recycle bin, and generally does fuck-all on her laptop. Why does the wait feel so much longer this time?

On habit Huisu opens one of her text documents, just before her laptop probably would have fallen asleep from inactivity, and instantly regrets it.

She should just delete this stupid novel before it ruins her life more than she’s already let it. As if on cue, her phone buzzes with yet another comment, one Huisu doesn’t even bother looking at before deleting the notification; she already knows it’s going to be another insult on the protagonist’s personality, or the male lead’s lack of appeal, or how crude the writing style is, whatever. Yet no matter how many times Huisu sees the document in her folder, she can’t quite get herself to delete it forever. Several times she’s chickened out of the decision, recovering the file from her recycle bin and immediately hating herself for it.

After all, it’s a stupid, boring, unoriginal novel, but it’s her stupid, boring, unoriginal novel. Despite all the misery it’s brought her, Huisu still remembers how she’d genuinely had fun writing it at the start, hunched over her laptop in her apartment and trying to stuff every single romance cliché she knows into the main couple’s relationship, how making this novel had helped pull her through some of the worst days of her life.

The current band’s performance comes to an end, to a smattering of applause, and Huisu looks up just in time to see — her heart jumps up to her throat — Jihyeon stepping up onstage, guitar case slung over her back as usual.

Huisu’s not sure why she had expected anything to change, but everything is the same as ever: Jihyeon taps the mic, brings out her guitar, and sings. The familiar notes of the song wash over Huisu, and now she feels silly for having been so anxious about whether or not to come earlier; visiting here is always the highlight of her day, a way for her to stop thinking about passing the exams or paying this month’s rent. Huisu rests her chin on her palm and watches Jihyeon sing, feeling oddly happy she can finally call her singer by name.

When the second song is over, though, Jihyeon stands up and places her guitar back in its case — then glances over in Huisu’s direction and gives her a small, barely perceptible smile, one Huisu wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been watching the whole time.

Huisu’s head slips off her hand.

She hurriedly pretends to look like she had just been reaching for her drink, but her hand’s shaking so bad she gives up on that lest she spill her drink and make an even bigger idiot of herself. What was that? That had definitely been out of the usual. No, wait, maybe… that’s probably just something friends do, right? Besides, this isn’t a concert venue or anything, where Jihyeon’s supposed to remain professional, so this is totally normal. No big deal. Nothing to almost spill her drink for. Huisu takes a cautious sip of it now, just to calm down. Why had she gotten so worked up about it for a second anyway? It was just a smile.

…It was a nice smile. It was familiar, too, not just because Jihyeon had given her a similar one last night but also because of a memory, old and yellowing at the edges but some of the smaller details still starkly clear in Huisu’s head.

“Is this seat taken?”

Huisu almost spits out her drink. Miraculously she swallows it without choking and stammers, “N-No, of course not!”

Jihyeon slides into the chair across Huisu with a murmured thanks. “Let me get you something,” Huisu offers. “Not warm water this time, seriously.”

“I don’t like anything else on the menu, though,” Jihyeon says.

She sounds like she means it, horribly enough. Huisu sighs and shakes her head; if she insists and gets some random juice drink for Jihyeon and she ends up genuinely disliking it, that’d just be embarrassing and rude. “Fine… That was a great performance, as usual,” she ventures, feeling her cheeks warm even if it’s just a staple compliment. She can’t quite meet Jihyeon’s eyes when she sees the other woman’s smile in response. “Uh, did you always want to be a singer?”

Jihyeon shrugs. “I did it for fun during high school. Now… well, I still like doing it.”

“Oh…” It says a lot about how little Huisu had paid attention to everyone other than Jeha that she hadn’t known Jihyeon had been singing even back then. “It’s funny,” Huisu says, more thoughtfully than anything. “I only really remember you played volleyball.”

A flicker of emotion crosses Jihyeon’s face, but it’s gone before Huisu can look any deeper into it. “The team asked me to join because I was tall.”

“Uh, not because of how well you could hit the ball?”

“I think they only realized that during tryouts,” Jihyeon says, dryly. “It’s fine. It’s not like I went around advertising my MeTube channel.”

“…You had a — never mind,” Huisu coughs. Why is that oddly cute…? No, that’s probably how lots of singers start out when they’re young, right?

Jihyeon seems unaffected. “How about you?” she asks. “We were classmates for three years, but we never spoke. I only really knew you as Yoo Jeha’s girlfriend.”

She’s so matter-of-fact about it that Huisu can only laugh; she supposes it’s only fair, that the people around her know as much as she knew about them. “Yeah, well…” She hates reminiscing about her high school life, not just because of the bullying but also because of just how ridiculous her thing for Jeha had been. It had taken her three years and a quiet, nondescript breakup at their graduation party to realize it hadn’t even really been a thing for Jeha so much as it was a thing for what she saw as the romantic ideal, the far-off dream of a happy ending when she hadn’t yet known how much worse things would get from high school onwards.

She started thinking less and less about him, and about love in general, from her second year of university. Nowadays she only sees him in the male lead of her novel, the character everyone criticizes as bland and boring, and Huisu can’t find it in herself to deny she had modeled that character a little after him, if only because she couldn’t think of anyone else to use as reference. What does it say about her, then, that there are barely any other fleshed-out characters in that stupid book but the protagonist and her love interest?

“It doesn’t matter,” Huisu says, when she realizes the silence has stretched on a bit. “I mean, I get it. That’s all I did during school, didn’t I? It’s amazing I didn’t flunk and repeat all three years.”

“It really is,” Jihyeon mumbles. At first Huisu wonders if this is a thinly-veiled insult against her intelligence, but then Jihyeon adds, “If I were you, I don’t know how I would have put up with all the other girls.”

Ah. Right. That was… something that had happened. “It… It’s nothing,” Huisu says, but she sounds unconvincing even to herself. She had told herself time and time again that it was nothing, that it didn’t matter, that the other girls were only doing that because they were jealous, that this was just a sign that Huisu was so much better than them… but there’s no denying now how lonely those three years had been.

If even one person had spoken to her — if even just one person had reached out, maybe…

“Well, that was years ago now,” Huisu says, softly. “What does it matter?”

She reaches for her drink, drains it, sets it back on the table with a hollow clink. Jihyeon is quiet for a while, then sighs. “What do you do these days?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, I…” I’m trying and failing to pass an exam I should have years ago… Huisu clears her throat. “Nothing interesting. Office job.” She gestures vaguely at her laptop, then realizes how stupid that is, because currently it’s open on the text document that is most certainly not office work. Well, it’s not like Jihyeon cares enough to —

“Really?” Jihyeon tilts her head. “You mean you work even while you’re here? You should rest instead, you know.”

— to… notice… This is the next worst day of Huisu’s life. “Um, how did you notice…?”

“It was just recently. For a few weeks, I saw that you wouldn’t do anything but type on your laptop with this really focused look on your face… You must be dedicated to your job.”

No, Huisu had a bout of rebellious-teenager-disease last month and skipped out on studying because she had gotten it in her head that writing her shitty romance novel would be better for her future! “Gah,” she grumbles. Just thinking about it makes her want to bury herself in a hole and hide away from her embarrassment forever, but when Jihyeon just keeps looking at her, Huisu sighs and relents. “Uh, it’s… this isn’t work. I mean… it’s… like, a n-novel…”

Jihyeon blinks. “Oh, I get it. You’re writing?”

“…I’m not good at it. I just wanted to do something as a hobby.” Huisu leans back, tempted to close the document and get it out of her sight, but too tired to so much as lift her hand and move her finger across the trackpad. “But when I posted it online, I just got a bunch of hate comments, so what was the point…”

“What’s it about?”

“I really don’t want to say.”

“Hmm.” Jihyeon’s expression doesn’t exactly change, but somehow Huisu can tell she looks amused. “Then can I read it?”

“N-No, that’s even worse!”

“It can’t be that bad. I’m not going to insult you to your face or anything.”

“Ugh, but still…” Does Jihyeon write her own songs? Huisu has no evidence to back that up, but it seems like something she’d do. In that case, isn’t she kind of like a poet, and definitely a way better writer than Huisu is?! To show a senior in writing her novel is like asking to be humiliated! “S… Some other day,” she groans, when Jihyeon shows no signs of letting up (by which Huisu means: no signs of breaking intense eye contact). “When it’s better.”

Jihyeon takes a sip of her water. “You know novels improve when you have other people taking a look at the first draft, right?”

“Ugh. Were you always like this?”

“Like what?”

Ah. Huisu hadn’t meant to say that. In fact, she’s not even sure what she means by like this, only that there’s something about Jihyeon she can’t quite put into words. Maybe it’s just because she hasn’t spoken so easily and casually to someone in a long time, but — something about her is comforting, reassuring. Is it also just because Huisu had known her, however peripherally, in high school? Or because she’s still her favorite singer, just with a name to her face and voice?

“I don’t know,” Huisu eventually admits. “It’s just… you’re… nice, I guess. I mean, if you were anyone else, any of my old classmates from high school, I bet you still wouldn’t like me now, right?”

“People change.” Jihyeon looks a little confused. “You said it yourself. That was years ago now. You didn’t do anything to me, anyway, or to any of those other girls — I have nothing to hate you for.”

Oh. “Oh,” Huisu says, lowly. “I didn’t… That’s…”

She hadn’t thought of it like that, but she supposes it’s true. She may have ignored her classmates and everyone else around her in favor of chasing after Jeha, but she had never gone so far as to have fights, whether in the form of shouting matches or pulling hair or anonymous hate comments. The most she did was demand apologies from whoever was behind the latest prank that could have gotten her seriously injured. But after so long, part of her had begun to think, even then, that she deserved it — that she deserved what she was getting, that she deserved the thumbtacks in her shoes and the water spilled down her uniform and the spiteful glances shot her way, because… why?

“Um,” Jihyeon says, meekly, “sorry. I didn’t mean to… um. Sorry.”

“Why—” are you apologizing, Huisu meant to ask, but one word from her own wobbling voice and she curses herself out in her head. Why does she keep embarrassing herself in front of Jihyeon? Why does she keep crying for no reason in front of the one person who has been kind to her these past few weeks, these past few years? “I’m not crying,” she says, trying to laugh and ending up making some wet gurgling sound. “Damn it. Don’t apologize.”

Jihyeon scratches the back of her neck. For most of their conversation she had been staring intently at Huisu’s face, enough to be unnerving; now she’s looking everywhere but at Huisu. “Still, I… let me make it up to you.”

The words are familiar, even after all this time. “Are you gonna buy me milk?”

Jihyeon stands up, tugging her coat off where she’d hung it on the back of her chair and shrugging it on. “They don’t have any here. Come with me outside?”

The evening chill is pleasantly cool after the stuffiness of the bar, though Huisu knows it’ll get unbearably cold in a few minutes; her office clothes aren’t exactly thick, after all. She follows Jihyeon a short way down the road, then watches as she fiddles with a ratty old purse to insert a few coins in a vending machine, the light flickering so that it only glows on one side. “What do you want from here?”

Huisu takes a look at the selection. “I… don’t know. These are some weird flavors.”

“Really? Peach isn’t so bad.”

“Um, it’s peach combined with peppermint, though.” When Huisu sees Jihyeon’s hand hover over the button for it and realizes the other woman is genuinely about to get one for her, she hurries to say, “Tea. I’ll take green tea.”

For a while they just stand there in companionable quiet in the half-glow of the vending machine, Huisu warming her hands around her can of green tea and Jihyeon cracking a can of the peppermint-peach juice for herself. It’s getting late — Huisu would normally be on the subway home by now — but this time Huisu can’t find it in herself to bid goodbye. If anything she wants to stay here a little longer, just to soak in the feeling of having a friend by her side for the first time in years.

“You shouldn’t let those comments get to you,” Jihyeon finally says, though she’s staring up at the sky rather than at Huisu. It’s a full moon tonight. “On your novel, I mean. I’m sure it’s great.”

Huisu snorts. “Don’t say that. You haven’t even read it.”

“Because you won’t let me.”

“Because it’s awful.”

Jihyeon huffs a soft laugh, more of an exhale than anything. The light of the vending machine casts a faint glow across her features, illuminating the sharp planes of her face and an even sharper jawline, and for a moment Huisu feels her face go warm even if it’s her palms wrapped around the can of hot tea. “If you say so. I only mean… no one starts out great at something. I had to practice a lot before I felt confident in my singing too. So… if you enjoyed it, enough that you picked it up in the first place, you should keep going. That’s all.”

Huisu looks down at her tea, saying nothing for a long moment, letting Jihyeon’s words linger in the space between them. Did she enjoy writing her novel, even as amateur and inexperienced as she is? Yes, without a doubt. It had been more of a self-indulgent romance fantasy than anything, but she had still enjoyed it.

“Alright,” she sighs. “I’ll think about it, I guess.”

Jihyeon gives her that small, shy smile again, and Huisu has to look away lest she end up staring. “Do you take the subway? I’ll walk you there.”

On the rare occasion when work slows down and Huisu has some free time in the office, she opens up her text document — to her dismay it has once again cemented itself in the quick access menu — and sits there, spinning in her office chair, trying to do something more than think about how much it sucks. After getting concerned glances from the coworkers on either side of her cubicle the third time she does this for longer than five minutes, Huisu eventually gives in and actually looks at the screen.

First of all, she should do something about the male lead. What’s so appealing about the ML? the comments had said: he’s too bland, too boring, the guy-next-door who doesn’t do much aside from treat the protagonist well. And Huisu supposes she can see their point — in real life, a guy like this would be great, but in fiction, he’s way too boring to care about. In fact, there are more readers vying for the second male lead to win, albeit she’s pretty sure they’re only saying that to spite her. Still, what can Huisu do? She likes nice guys, damn it! Is that so wrong?!

…Well, she supposes she can give him more of a personality. For example, a trait or hobby that doesn’t seem like something he’d do… and maybe he can have some superficial ‘flaws,’ like a bad haircut. Huisu taps her chin in thought, then types the first things that come to mind. Right, right. Things like these can come together and make him more endearing to the readers…

“What do you like in guys?” Huisu asks, later that night, two drinks in and Jihyeon sitting across her, running her thumb across the rim of her glass. “I’m trying to make this idiot more appealing…”

“Should you really call your characters idiots…?”

“Just answer. What’s your type?”

Jihyeon hums, resting her chin on her palm so that her hand covers her mouth. Huisu’s noticed her do that more than once, and it looks like a kind of nervous habit, which is… strangely endearing. Without thinking she notes that down on her laptop. “Pretty… I guess?”

“…Huh? Like, pretty boys?”

Jihyeon sighs. “Sure. Something like that.”

Well, that doesn’t help. The male lead is already something of a pretty boy, which is why Huisu had made the second lead more rough and rugged (as rough and rugged as a high-schooler can get). “Anything else?” she prods. When Jihyeon hesitates, Huisu offers, “You know, I like neat and tidy guys? But that’s not much to go off of, so I want to know what else people are into.”

“Neat and tidy, huh.” Jihyeon stares at her for a long, indiscernible moment, then says, “Maybe if you let me read, I can—”

“Ugh, never mind!”

Next, the protagonist. Huisu will admit she hadn’t given Eun Chaerin anything past ‘pretty’ and ‘likes the male lead,’ but isn’t that, like, fine? Don’t most people project on the protagonist anyway? Well, maybe not, considering how many readers have commented on how annoying she is when all she’s done in the first chapter is say hello to the male lead and get bullied by her classmates for being too beautiful. If Huisu wants her to be less annoying, then…

“Ow, ow, ow!”

“Careful.” Jihyeon deftly untangles the strand of hair that had gotten tangled in her coat button when Huisu leaned in to enter her number on Jihyeon’s phone. Her hand is bigger than Huisu’s, something Huisu can tell without needing to compare, and she feels oddly flustered when she draws back and Jihyeon’s hand lingers in the air for a moment longer before it drops back to her lap. “Isn’t it hard to take care of long hair?”

Huisu sighs. “Yeah. I swear I spend half my salary on shampoo. Honestly, I want to get it cut, but…”

“But?”

Jeha said he liked it long once. “Doesn’t it look nice?”

Jihyeon shrugs. “I think you’d look nice with either long or short hair.”

“W-Whoa.” She had delivered that compliment so bluntly, like she had only been stating a fact. Is that the natural charisma of a performer at work? Wait, that might be something Huisu can use. She types that down on her laptop and says, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, “Well, I guess I can… get it cut, try something new.” Hmm, wait a minute… she can use this too, can’t she?

Halfway through furiously typing a possible plot point down, Huisu glances up to see Jihyeon shift in her seat, her gaze as intense as ever. After enough conversations and shared drinks over this table, Huisu had begun to think she’d grown used to it, but sometimes those dark eyes catch her off-guard still. “You really like writing, don’t you?”

That catches her even more off-guard. “Huh?”

“You know… you look so focused. And this isn’t for work, is it? You’re not being paid for it?” When Huisu shakes her head, Jihyeon smiles, small and knowing. “It’s a good thing you didn’t stop writing just because of those comments, then.”

“Ah, well…” Huisu looks away, feeling strangely shy. Part of her wants to deny it and say that she’s only doing this out of a sense of obligation, out of the responsibility a writer has to their characters, and that this novel is giving her more trouble than it’s worth, but… it wouldn’t be a lie, but it wouldn’t be the whole truth either. Writing isn’t just something to do in her free time; nowadays, she finds herself thinking about the novel even while she’s working, commuting, showering, getting ready for bed.

It is fun, in its own weird, complicated, slightly masochistic way. “Is it like this for you too?” Huisu asks. “With music, I mean?”

She hadn’t described what like this meant, but Jihyeon nods, once, understanding softening her gaze.

At some ungodly hour of the morning, Huisu revises the first chapter despite knowing no one cares enough to reread what had been a horrible debut, then paces the length of her goshiwon at least ten times before finally mustering the nerve to hit post for the second chapter. Then she shuts her laptop down and dives into bed to bury her face in her pillow.

It has to be better, right? She’d worked so hard this time, had really thought about her characters and treated them as people rather than just as empty shells she could use to live out her fantasies. She has to have done well this time… right?

There’s no point thinking about this. She’d done the best she could, so now — Huisu reaches up to put her phone on do-not-disturb when she hears the ping of a notification — the only thing she can do is get some sleep so she doesn’t pass out during work tomorrow.

In the morning, when she sees an email with the subject line Exam Results, her novel is the last thing on her mind.

Not for the first time, Kim Huisu swallows the contents of the email down, resignation scratching against her throat like sandpaper. She has soggy cereal for breakfast. She takes the subway to work. She sits down in her cubicle and sets her bag down on the desk. She pulls her laptop out.

Her eyes feel hot. Huisu closes them and presses the balls of her palms against them until stars wink in and out behind her eyelids. She’s too tired to cry, but she also can’t see what crying after her umpteenth failure would do besides make her feel more tired than she already is. She shouldn’t be surprised. She isn’t surprised, really, can only feel dry disappointment pressing down on her chest as if trying to snap her windpipe and crush her lungs from the weight. She’d done the best she could — hadn’t she? She’d studied the hardest she could — hadn’t she?

No, she hadn’t, she thinks with a hot, furious coil of anger — she’d been working on her stupid novel, her useless, pointless novel that would never do anything for her, would never get her a job or a paycheck or anything but misery and frustration and faceless people hiding behind anonymity telling her how useless and pointless she is —

She inhales, exhales. Inhales. Exhales. It isn’t even lunchtime, Huisu thinks, bitterly, yet here she is about to have a full-on meltdown over something she should have expected. In public, no less. How much more pathetic can she get?

Huisu goes through the motions of office work, for once glad her tasks are just predictable enough that she doesn’t have to think too hard, but her thoughts are occupied by things other than the email now sitting in her trash bin. She ignores the text document stubbornly staying in her shortcuts. She gets instant noodles from the convenience store for lunch. She takes short power naps when the workload lightens and leaves her with free time. When the clock hits six, she’s up and striding towards the elevator without a word to any of her other coworkers.

She’s already at the subway station, waiting for the next train, when she realizes: there is no way she can go see Jihyeon tonight.

What would she do? These past few nights have all been Huisu working on her novel, revising it to perfection, and now she feels ridiculous for having cared so much about something so silly. Jihyeon had probably just been humoring her, might have just felt sorry for her friendless high school classmate — after all, someone as successful as her, watching Huisu slave away on something doomed for failure regardless of how hard she tried… And how would she even be able to pretend that she’s at all normal today, that she hadn’t just suffered through another rejection, another disappointment?

The train she’d been waiting for screeches to a halt, its doors sliding open. Huisu watches passengers step off, others step on, crowding in to snag a free seat, a spare handrail. Normally she’d be one of the people getting on — normally she’d be behind those closing doors — normally she’d be excited to go and see the one person who had reminded her there were still some things worth living for.

She thinks of how Jihyeon might look at her if Huisu told her about the exam, thinks of the pity she might see in those eyes — and Huisu turns away, lets the train rattle along its tracks without her.

It’s not a long walk home. Besides, she thinks, if she’s never going to pass the exam and get a better job, she may as well cut down on unnecessary spending, like drinks at the bar.

The next few days go by in a colorless blur. Huisu works mechanically: filling paperwork, eating two meals a day, falling asleep early out of lack of things to do. Jihyeon texts, once, but the most Huisu does is clear other notifications besides the ones for her message, just so she can reread Are you okay? over and over without actually having to leave her on read. After some searching Huisu finds Jihyeon’s page on a music streaming site and loops her entire discography for hours on end, all throughout work and sometimes before she sleeps, that soft low voice filling the silence of her cramped apartment.

She closes her eyes. Like this she can pretend nothing has changed, can pretend she’s still in the bar listening to Jihyeon onstage, can pretend they’re still equals and that one of them isn’t a complete failure.

One night, standing just outside her office building, Huisu makes a mistake.

She makes a series of mistakes, in fact, the first of which was to hesitate. Her feet are filled with calluses and blisters for walking the distance between her apartment and the office for the past week, so she had stalled there outside the building, briefly entertaining the thought of using the subway again. In the past doing so had meant she just barely managed to pay rent each month and she had little to nothing in terms of savings, but since she’s been spending less these days, taking the subway shouldn’t matter as much. Also, she hardly wants to overexert herself, be unable to walk, and be even more worthless than she already is.

In that moment of hesitation, her phone buzzes. Huisu checks it without thinking — her second mistake — and then drops it.

Miraculously she manages to catch the thing before it would have shattered into pieces on the pavement, but that doesn’t change what she’d seen on the screen — no, it does, but only for another notification to arrive.

— Huisu-ssi. Where are you?

— Can I come visit?

There’s… There’s no way, right? Jihyeon doesn’t know where she lives or works, so it’s not like she can actually come look for Huisu even if she wanted to, which she clearly does. And Huisu has no intention of telling the other woman her address, because… well, why would she?! She wants to see Jihyeon, sure, but she doesn’t want Jihyeon to see her! It’s been a week or so, but she’s sure one look at her and Jihyeon will somehow know about her failures… or, more likely, Jihyeon would ask why Huisu hasn’t been visiting the bar recently, and Huisu’s never been very good at lying, unless it’s to herself.

Huisu exhales heavily. It’s cold enough now that she can see her breath puff out before her in a small cloud of white mist. Stupidly, all she can think about is that can of warm green tea Jihyeon had bought her from the vending machine, so long ago now, when Jihyeon had encouraged her to keep writing. What had that done for her, in the end?

The best option would be to ignore her messages, obviously, but before Huisu can stuff her phone in her bag and march on her way home, a third message comes in:

— Please respond. I’m worried about you.

…Even through a text message, she’s still got that natural charisma. If Huisu were a lesser woman, she’d be giggling and blushing to herself right now. Still, she supposes she can see how sudden radio silence from her end would be worrying, so… Huisu should at least reassure Jihyeon she’s alive, right? She can lie and say she’s been down with a fever or something. Yes, an advantage to texting is that lying is much easier. She types out a quick message and sends it.

Jihyeon-ssi, I’m fine. I’ve just caught a fever recently. Sorry I haven’t been able to see you.

Unsurprisingly, this is her third mistake. The reply comes faster than Huisu can close her phone:

— Are you still sick? Can I come visit?

She’s repeating herself… Jihyeon’s definitely not giving up, is she. With a sigh, Huisu takes a seat on a nearby bench so she doesn’t wear herself out standing for so long.

I’m better now. No need to worry.

— I still want to see you. Have you had dinner yet?

…Can’t this woman take a hint?! Ugh, so what if Huisu wants to see her as well? She can’t let anyone see her in this sorry state, and she just knows Jihyeon’s piercing stare will see right through whatever facade she puts up to pretend she’s fine. It’s for the best if they just stop meeting up, Huisu tells herself; at this point, she’s a walking magnet for bad luck, and she hardly needs anyone else getting caught up in that. Jihyeon deserves better friends who don’t ghost her for a week and…

— If you haven’t, do you want to come eat with me? My treat.

…and… Huisu hears more than feels her stomach growl. Shit. Damn it. Now all she can think about is the same packed meal she’s been picking up from the convenience store everyday for lunch and dinner, and how she’s fairly sure she’s going to throw up if she eats it again. Damn it. Shit.

Maybe… it wouldn’t be so bad? It would just be one dinner, and Huisu’s been through worse. She can pretend to be normal for one dinner.

Her fourth mistake: Alright. Where is it?

Huisu hadn’t been expecting anything, mostly because she’d never heard of the restaurant Jihyeon had sent the address of, but she’s pleasantly surprised to see it’s some kind of café — no matter how hungry Huisu is right now, she has a feeling stuffing her mouth with a five-course meal will only lead to worse things. When she steps inside, the chimes above the door tinkling gently, she spots Jihyeon at a nearby table right away, and she slides into the seat across her. “Hey, hope I’m not late.”

“Oh, you really came.”

“So you didn’t think I would?” Huisu huffs, though she can hardly blame the mild surprise on Jihyeon’s face; she can’t count the number of times she had hesitated on the walk here, telling herself it wasn’t too late to just apologize over text, turn around, and make a break for it back home. “I’m really sorry I disappeared on you for so long. I mean, I was going to—”

“It’s fine.” Jihyeon stands up and reaches over the table. She moves so fast that Huisu can only squeak before Jihyeon has the back of her palm pressed against Huisu’s forehead.

Her hand is warm. Huisu can hear her heart thundering in her ears.

Jihyeon draws back with a frown. “Looks like your fever isn’t completely gone yet… If you were feeling sick, you should have said so.”

“Huh? O-Oh, I mean… uh… no, I should be fine,” Huisu coughs. Yeah, she’s totally recovered from her non-existent fever. “And anyway,” she hurries to add, a little indignantly, “you wouldn’t have let me go, would you? So insistent over text!”

“I was worried.”

“Right, and I told you I was still alive, so—”

“That doesn’t mean you’re alright,” Jihyeon says, and that stops Huisu in her tracks. Normally Jihyeon doesn’t show much emotion, which means Huisu feels dumb little flares of triumph every time the other woman laughs lowly, rolls her eyes, or especially gives her that trademark small smile, often half-hidden by her hand. Now, though, the concern on Jihyeon’s face is almost distressingly clear, and when she sits back down on her seat she does so reluctantly, as if trying to think of anything else she can do aside from check Huisu’s temperature.

When was the last time someone has been so worried for her? Huisu looks away, shame bubbling up like bile in her stomach. “I’m sorry,” she repeats, more sincerely than the first time around. “I was just… going through a lot.”

“It wasn’t a fever, was it?”

“Sorry about that, too.”

Jihyeon only sighs. “What do you want for dinner? Get whatever you like.”

For a while they eat in peaceful quiet; the food is good, definitely better than cold convenience store meals, and Huisu has to hold herself back from wolfing it all down just so she doesn’t make herself sick. Jihyeon eats quickly and quietly, more preoccupied with sipping her strangely-colored drink that looks like it might be a cherry smoothie but is most likely some fucked-up combination of flavors, knowing her taste. When Huisu’s finished eating and is desperately thinking of a way to excuse herself without looking like an eat-and-runner, Jihyeon asks, softly, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Right. Huisu should have known she wouldn’t have been able to escape so easily. “No,” she sighs. “It’s a bit too embarrassing to say.”

“I see.”

“…It’s not about my writing or anything, just so you know,” she feels compelled to add, even if Jihyeon’s expression hadn’t changed much to imply anything. “Just, well… I guess, if I had to compare it… it’s kind of like with—” Huisu struggles to think of which honorific is appropriate for this context, then gives up and says, “Jeha, back in high school.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s, like, I liked him, but… I didn’t really like him?” Huisu winces. She’s known about her complicated feelings on this for years, but what is she even saying right now? This is why she can’t be a writer. “I just felt like I had to. Haven’t you ever felt that way with anyone?”

Jihyeon looks almost sad. “No, not really. But, so, whatever you’re going through… you’re just doing it because you feel like you have to? Is it something you want to do?”

“That…” Huisu chews on her lower lip. “I mean, I have to, right? To get a good job and earn a living salary and…” It occurs to her that saying all that now means her predicament is painfully obvious, but when Jihyeon doesn’t look at her any differently, shows no scorn or pity or disdain, Huisu decides she can’t find it in herself to care. “It’s just something everyone has to do, don’t you think? Or, like, something a lot of people have to do to—”

“You like writing. Don’t you?”

“…Jihyeon-ssi,” Huisu sighs. “I’m not like you. Writing isn’t something I’ve always wanted to—”

Jihyeon cuts in again, gently: “Music wasn’t what I always wanted to do either.”

“…Eh?”

“I did well in one of our last volleyball competitions in high school.” Jihyeon looks away, staring out the café window beside them. People pass by, briefly illuminated in the glows of street lamps before fading into darkness again. “Because of that, I got a sports scholarship for college. But I got myself injured during second year.” She pushes her drink around on the table, widening the circle of moisture. “It healed, but the doctors said too much activity would make it dangerous. I couldn’t pay the tuition fee, so I dropped out.”

Huisu blinks. “You… Just because you couldn’t play, you had to…?” Do all sports scholarships work like that, or is this one university just that ruthless? Had Jihyeon’s grades not been good enough to make up for her injury as well?

Jihyeon nods. She doesn’t meet her eyes, almost as if ashamed, and Huisu wants to tell her not to be, that the injury hadn’t been her fault, that more consideration should have been given to her case — but she snaps her mouth shut, at the thought of Jihyeon repeating such words to her. “I told you, right? I only did music in high school for fun. I thought I should start getting serious about my career once we graduated, so I stopped. But when I felt—” She makes a vague gesture with her hand that Huisu somehow understands, “about dropping out, music… helped me. Sports were something I felt like I had to do — music is something I like.”

Huisu is quiet, more because she has no idea what to say. She had always figured Jihyeon had known she’d wanted to pursue music, especially if she had started doing it in high school, but to hear it from her like this… “I didn’t know,” she says, quietly. “I mean, you’re already so good at singing, so I just always thought…”

Jihyeon shrugs. “It’s fine. My point is — failing at one thing doesn’t mean the end of the world. I don’t think any lesser of you for it, if that’s what you were worried about.”

“…What, was it obvious?”

“I really did think it was a fever when you texted,” Jihyeon sighs.

As promised, Jihyeon pays, though Huisu puts up a token struggle on splitting the bill before relenting. They don’t take three steps out of the café before something cold falls on Huisu’s forehead, and she jerks back in reflex before realizing what it is. “Snow?” No wonder it’s been so cold lately. Somehow Huisu manages to be hyper-aware of the date, mostly because she’s grown used to awaiting exam schedules, without realizing it’s just about time for winter to arrive.

Jihyeon hums. “It’s the first snowfall.” She reaches up to catch a drifting snowflake, and in the light of the street lamps she looks so impossibly indescribable that Huisu has to look away. The feeling of her hand, warm and rough against Huisu’s forehead, is still at the forefront of her memory. It’s probably nothing, right? Jihyeon just casually, naturally does things that make Huisu feel ready to swoon on a fainting couch, but it’s probably just because Jihyeon’s… like that, and Huisu hasn’t spoken to a friend in so long. That’s it, right? Otherwise Huisu can’t think of an explanation for why she always —

“Um… it’s picking up a little, isn’t it?”

Huisu snaps out of her thoughts. “Huh?” Now that she’s paying attention, the wind is getting harder, and the snow is beginning to fall at a… much faster rate than just a few minutes ago. “Oh, the first snowfall is also the first storm. Well, thank you for dinner, Jihyeon-ssi, but we should both be going before it gets worse…”

“Mm. Are you taking the subway? I’ll walk you.”

“Oh! No, my place is close by. Like, a 20-minute walk.”

“…Is that really close by?”

Huisu grins weakly. She’s not lying this time; she’d done a double-take at the address and balked at how close it was to her street. Relatively speaking, anyway, and these days 20 minutes is nothing compared to her daily walks to and from her office building. “Will you take the subway? I’ll walk you.”

Jihyeon smiles but shakes her head. “I’m also walking.”

“In this weather? Is it close by?” When Jihyeon only shrugs, Huisu frowns and crosses her arms. “Won’t you get sick? A singer can’t catch colds.”

“It’s fine. I’d rather not spend on a taxi if I don’t have to.”

“O-Oh…” Huisu’s an idiot. Jihyeon always walks her to the station on their bar nights together, but she’s never actually seen Jihyeon get on the subway herself, and it makes sense that performing at a cheap bar doesn’t exactly pay well. The walks Huisu has been taking for the past week must be the kind of walks Jihyeon takes for the past several months, possibly — probably — longer. Normally Huisu would mind her own business, because she’s sure Jihyeon doesn’t need any pity the same way Huisu wouldn’t want the other woman to pity her, but… the snow is coming down fast, and…

Well, doesn’t Huisu owe her for everything Jihyeon has done for her, whether she knows it or not?

She clears her throat. “Say, if you want… you can wait the snow out at my place first.”

When there’s no immediate response, Huisu dares a glance up at Jihyeon and almost passes out from humiliation at the clear surprise on her face. “I mean, what if the weather gets worse while you’re walking?! Getting stranded in a snowstorm is no joke! It’ll be safer this way, right? Besides, it’s late, and I should… I want,” she amends, “to do this for you. Like, I don’t know. A sleepover?”

“…Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course,” Huisu sighs. “So long as you don’t snore or anything.”

“Then…” Jihyeon smiles, one part relieved and one part something like affectionate, if Huisu were just a little more delusional. “Thank you, Huisu-ssi.”

What the hell is Huisu supposed to say to that? A bland ‘you’re welcome’ would pale in comparison to that sudden shine of sunlight in the middle of the first snowfall. Huisu just mutters something too low for Jihyeon to hear and starts walking, relieved she falls into step beside her without complaint.

They walk in silence for all of five minutes before Jihyeon says, “So you never liked Yoo Jeha?”

“Oh, man. What about him?”

“Well, you mentioned him earlier, and I’m curious.”

“Hm…” Huisu sighs. She may have come to terms with what had happened and how much of a stupid, manipulative, idealistic girl she’d been in high school, but she’s never had to actually explain as much to another person. It wasn’t like she was the half of the couple who people wanted to talk to. “I was definitely fond of him, but… it wasn’t the true love I wanted it to be, I guess.” She had been in love with the idea of him, certainly, but thinking about Jeha these days just makes Huisu feel immeasurably guilty. In a way, she had used him to live out her romance fantasies, not unlike how she had treated her novel characters just a few weeks ago.

Jihyeon says nothing for a moment, then asks, “Have you found anyone else? Just wondering. You don’t seem to talk about other people at all.”

“Hey.”

“I’m only saying.” But she sounds amused.

Well, she’s not wrong, Huisu admits. Right now, Jihyeon really is her only friend… “No, I haven’t. There wasn’t… I couldn’t really find anyone I cared about.” That sounds mean, so she hurries to add, “All the men from university were either boring or misogynists, you know? I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything from business majors.”

“The men, huh,” Jihyeon mumbles.

“What about you?” Huisu returns, flustered despite herself. How’d the conversation suddenly go to her current love life? Or lack thereof, anyway? “You must be popular, right? Do you have a boyfriend right now?”

“No.”

She’d… gone unexpectedly curt. Had Huisu struck a nerve? Maybe she’d gone through a bad break-up recently? “Oh, I see…”

Jihyeon scratches her cheek. “I’m not interested in men.”

“Oh, I see… huh? O-Oh, you mean you’re too busy to date, right?”

Jihyeon stares at her. The silence drags on for the longest seconds of Huisu’s life before she sighs. “I like women.”

Huisu stops in the middle of the pavement.

“Is it that surprising?” Jihyeon asks, turning away and shoving her hands in her coat pockets. She can’t seem to meet Huisu’s eyes, which is good, because neither can Huisu. “I’ve never had to spell it out to anyone like this until you.”

“I… I… I mean! I guess… I didn’t really…” Why hadn’t Huisu thought about this?! It’s not a big deal or anything, but she hadn’t been expecting it at all, and… is she just stupid or something? So everyone Jihyeon knows had figured it out from the get-go, but Huisu is the only one who’d been shocked?! Wait, okay, get it together. It’s not like this changes anything. It’s just a bit like finding out a friend has liked pineapples on pizza this whole time and Huisu is only finding out now.

Before she can open her mouth and come up with something smart and reassuring, though, Jihyeon shrugs and says, “It’s alright. I just wanted to let you know before we get to your place.”

For a moment Huisu is genuinely bewildered by what that’s supposed to mean. Then she sputters, “What? No! You mean you think I’d change my mind because of that? No, no, of course not! I’m not — That kind of thing doesn’t matter to me! People who think like that are idiots, and stupid, and, and…”

“Okay, you’ve made your point,” Jihyeon says, sounding embarrassed for her. For once, Huisu doesn’t care; if she has to embarrass herself to make it clear this changes nothing, so be it. “Thanks, I guess. It just didn’t seem fair to sleep over at your place while you… really didn’t know about it.”

“I get it, I’m blind,” Huisu groans. “Anyway, um, how did you… I mean, when did you know?”

“That I don’t like men?” Jihyeon mulls it over for a bit, then says, slowly, “Probably in high school? Girls used to confess to me behind the gym a lot.”

“Huh?! So, uh, did you go out with any of them…?” Even after over ten years, this kind of gossip is still strangely exciting.

“No. I wasn’t really interested in any of them.”

“Oh…” That’s right, hadn’t Jihyeon said her type is… what was it? She said pretty boys, right? No, that was just Huisu, because Jihyeon doesn’t even like boys, which means she likes pretty… girls… Agh, Kim Huisu is so stupid! Why had she just assumed on her own like that? It’s amazing Jihyeon hadn’t corrected her or anything, but maybe Jihyeon had figured it wouldn’t change anything, since Huisu had been pretty intoxicated at the time and would have just reinterpreted her words… Damn it, why, why, why is she so stupid… “W-Well, um,” she stammers, “are you interested in anyone now?”

Jihyeon shrugs. “Maybe?”

“Whoa, for real?”

“I’m not sure yet. I don’t think she’s noticed either,” Jihyeon adds, her voice too composed to be entirely natural, “so I’m fine with waiting until we’re both sure.”

“Wow…” Huisu sighs. “You really are so cool with everything, Jihyeon-ssi. If I were you, I think I’d want to know the other person’s answer right away.” Not that she actually knows what she’d do in such a situation, Huisu muses. After all, she’d never cared about anyone after Jeha, and she’s fairly sure the only reason Jihyeon makes her heart flutter so much is because she keeps forgetting people can be nice.

Jihyeon looks at her for a long moment, expression inscrutable, before turning away.

They arrive at Huisu’s place just as the snow begins to seep into their clothes. The impromptu sleepover is fairly uneventful: after insisting Jihyeon use the bathroom first and lending her some old clothes for pajamas, Huisu arranges two futons instead of just one on her floor tonight, dividing her measly supply of pillows and blankets between the two of them. Considering the snow and the fact that her window can never fully close, this just means neither of them are going to be at all warm tonight, but there’s not much Huisu can do about that.

Just as she’s finished kicking the piles of trash and undone laundry to the corners of the room, Jihyeon peers out from the bathroom doorway. “I’m done. I tried not to use too much water.”

“What? D-Don’t be silly, it’s fine.” There is something horribly distracting about her wet hair, droplets of water glistening at the ends. Huisu means to apologize about the state of her heater, which is that she doesn’t have one, when Jihyeon steps over the threshold and into full sight. Huisu almost trips over one of the futons. “Wow — you turned my shirt into a crop-top!”

Jihyeon goes a faint red. “Not on purpose.”

“Well, it doesn’t look bad on you. Sort of.” It definitely shows off a lot more skin than Huisu usually gets from Jihyeon, who seems to exclusively wear coats and jackets over her clothes. Then again, the weather might have factored into that, but still. Huisu allows herself exactly one more second to stare — okay, it would be more accurate to say ogle — the slip of skin between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her sweatpants before clearing her throat and looking pointedly away. “Pick whichever futon you like. I’ll go shower now.”

Predictably enough, Huisu finishes showering and finds Jihyeon has picked the one closer to the window. She looks almost comically tense, sitting stiffly upright in the futon and holding the stuffed rabbit Huisu had left there. “What… is this?”

“What does it look like?” Huisu towels her hair off, sighing at how heavy long hair is when wet. She really wants to get it cut soon, but just thinking about how much it would cost, even at the cheap salon she usually visits, makes her shudder. “Don’t you like stuffed animals?”

“Well…” Jihyeon shrugs and places it beside her pillow. “Sure, it’s cute.”

Huisu dries her hair as best as she can without an actual hairdryer, then flops into the futon beside Jihyeon. They’re not sharing the same bed, but there isn’t much distance between them either, and they spend several awkward seconds just sitting there before Huisu coughs and says, “So, uh, goodnight!” She reaches for her phone on instinct, already opening a familiar app before realizing she had been about to play Jihyeon’s music and instantly closing it, plugging it in to charge for the night instead.

Jihyeon looks faintly amused. “Goodnight. Thanks again for having me over.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Huisu rolls over to lie on her side before the soft smile on Jihyeon’s face can disarm her any further, though she only lets herself relax when she hears the rustle of blankets as Jihyeon lies down as well.

Failing at one thing doesn’t mean the end of the world… Huisu sighs. As long as she’s able, she should keep studying, right? She doesn’t really want to, and at this point she doubts she’ll ever actually pass the exams, but… doesn’t Huisu sort of owe it to herself to keep trying, just so her suffering and misery over the past several years won’t all be for nothing? Starting tomorrow, she’ll set aside time to study again, once she gets home from work. She should go back to taking the subway to get home earlier as well…

She’d expected the anxiety of having someone sleep right beside her would have kept her up all night, but the exhaustion of the day catches up to her quicker than she thought, and Huisu drifts into sleep in no time at all, the gentle rhythm of Jihyeon’s breathing beside her almost like a song.

In the morning, Huisu wakes up to her phone alarm as usual, set earlier ever since she started walking to the office — and by ‘earlier,’ she means ‘at half-past five.’ She turns it off before it can go on for too long, but Jihyeon is already shifting, blinking blearily up at her when Huisu sits up. Her hair is ruffled beyond help, flopping over her eyes that Huisu wonders if she can actually see anything through that. “You… get up this early…?”

Huisu winces. “It’s fine. Go back to sleep.” She doesn’t mind if Jihyeon spends the rest of the morning here, half because it would be cruel of her to force Jihyeon to work on less sleep than she might usually get and half because the thought of Jihyeon going through her morning rituals here has her stomach doing a little twist. “But I have to get going to work… soon…”

Her phone buzzes with a notification in that moment. Huisu checks it without thinking, scowls when she realizes it’s just from the webnovel site again — then blinks, when she sees the comment preview:

— Author-nim, this looks really good! Will the next chapt…

…Huh?

Huisu has to try twice to slide the notification open, her hands shaking and not just from the cold. It’s the most recent comment on the second chapter of I’ll Love You Everyday — since she had uploaded it a little over a week ago, the comments and notifications had slowed down until Huisu had almost begun to forget about them again. She’d figured the comments would just be hate again, but…

— Author-nim, this looks really good! Will the next chapter introduce the ‘stranger’ mentioned at the end?? Is he the second male lead? So excited to see how he’ll compare to the first ML! But I don’t want to be torn rooting for both of them TT

…Seriously, huh? This has to be a joke, right? The commenter seems so sincere about it that Huisu has a hard time believing someone who actually hates her work would leave such nice words, but… wait, could this be a trap? If she replies to them saying thank-you, will the person laugh at her and say they had just been lying? It sounds paranoid, but Huisu can’t count the number of times something similar had happened in high school.

She considers deleting the comment, but after a moment’s thought, she scrolls up instead to previous comments.

“…Huh…?”

“Is something wrong?” Jihyeon asks, her voice suddenly much closer than earlier — Huisu jolts, narrowly avoiding slamming her shoulder against Jihyeon’s chin. She’d been leaning slightly closer, as if curious about what Huisu is looking at on her phone but too polite to take a peek herself. “Um, sorry,” Jihyeon apologizes, rubbing her eyes, when she looks at whatever doubtless startled expression is on Huisu’s face. “You just looked so shocked. I thought it might have been an emergency…”

“No, no, nothing like that! Just…” Huisu coughs. How embarrassing would it be to admit she had gotten all worked up over some praise for her novel? Jihyeon’s probably used to compliments on her songs all the time. “Uh, well, nothing’s wrong. Really, go back to sleep.”

Jihyeon runs a hand through her hair, which only further messes it up. “Wouldn’t it be rude to keep sleeping after the host has already left for work? I might as well have an early day too.”

“Ahh… well, if you’re sure. You can use the bathroom first.”

Jihyeon doesn’t protest or argue, standing slowly up to stumble towards the bathroom, having to lean on the wall more than once. Definitely not a morning person, Huisu notes. She waits for the lock on the door to click before returning the full force of her attention to her phone, still open on the comments section.

— The first chapter was horrific but the second actually looks kind of promising? MC is still annoying but less than in the first chap & ML is cute when it revealed he secretly uses the music room to sing. Also his habit about hiding his smile was neat, is there a reason for that?

— ML IS SO MOE!!! WE NEED MORE CUTE GUYS AS LOVE INTERESTS!!! i hope he doesn’t have the curse of first appearance because i actually really like them as a couple. isn’t mc kinda bland right now though? hope she gets more character development soon like with the haircut scene! thx author-nim!!

— Lol was the first chapter supposed to make our expectations super low, then slowly build them back thru future chapters? This was pretty good. Really like the MC’s best friend, she’s cute & it was kinda unrealistic to have the MC be completely friendless anyway. Looking forward to the next chapters

“Ah…”

There are more comments, all of them gone ignored throughout the past week, but Huisu closes her phone and slumps back onto her futon for a moment, her head spinning. There are too many of these people for them to possibly just be lying to her… right? Part of Huisu is still convinced this can’t possibly be true, that they must have mistaken her novel for something else… but the rest of Huisu wants, so desperately, for it to be real, for her hard work to pay off in the end, for someone to appreciate what she’s done instead of suffer another rejection.

She squeezes her eyes shut. Yes — there are still some things worth living for.

“Huisu-ssi, I didn’t see you in the crowd—” Jihyeon stops halfway to the usual table. “You… cut your hair.”

Huisu fiddles with the ends of her offending hair, the action already turning into a nervous habit. She’s still not used to it being short enough to fiddle with, after all. “Does it look that bad? It’s the first time I ever did it myself.” More specifically, she had bought a pair of scissors and chopped her ponytail off. For a while she had been proud of saving several thousands of won, cut her usual shower time in half, and no one in the office had given her a second glance, but just as she stepped off the subway to head for the bar, Huisu had needed a minute or two (or several) to collect herself at the thought of how Jihyeon might react.

Jihyeon stares at her for another moment longer, her expression as neutral as ever that Huisu can’t figure out if her stare means ‘huh, not a bad look’ or ‘she must never be a hairdresser.’ Instead of either of those, though, Jihyeon turns away and mumbles, “Yeah, sure.”

“…Sure to what?”

Jihyeon drops down on the seat across her. “Are you finally working on your novel again?”

Huisu would normally never let such an ungraceful subject change pass, but she supposes she can excuse Jihyeon just this once. “What do you mean, ‘finally?’ It’s only been over a week,” she mutters, returning to her laptop all the same. She had a vague outline and a few notes typed down while she had been working on the second chapter, and some of the comments — particularly the ones predicting future events, as if Huisu is a skilled writer who plans ahead — have given her ideas, but other than those she’s fresh out of inspiration. Which is why… “Do you still want to read it?”

Jihyeon blinks. “Read… your novel? I thought you didn’t want me to.”

“I promised you could read it someday, right? When it’s better. And, well… I’m not that confident yet,” Huisu huffs, because she knows better than to get a big head over a few positive comments, “but you did also say… novels improve if I get someone to read the first draft. So. Here’s the draft.”

She turns her laptop around so the screen faces Jihyeon, who looks at it for a second before saying, “This is a bulleted list of ideas.”

“Which is a draft! You write your own songs, don’t you? You should understand.”

It had been a guess, but when Jihyeon shrugs and doesn’t deny it, Huisu gives herself a mental pat on the back. “Fine,” Jihyeon relents, falling silent as she looks over the list. Huisu takes the time to get a good look at her face while she’s distracted: her choppy hairstyle, her sharp features, her narrow eyes… She really is the perfect model for the male lead, Huisu thinks. Is it a coincidence that she shares so many similarities with him? Or is it just because Huisu had begun to flesh his character out after she met Jihyeon…?

She feels her face go warm. Or maybe… it’s because Jihyeon acts a bit like a male lead sometimes? Still, that doesn’t have to mean anything. That certainly can’t be connected to how often Huisu finds herself thinking of the other woman, or how quickly Jihyeon’s songs can get her back in the mood to work even after a lecture from her manager, or how much Huisu just likes staring…

…like she’s doing right now. Huisu coughs and looks away, hoping Jihyeon attributes the embarrassment on her face to her novel. “So? What do you think?”

Jihyeon makes a considering noise. “Looks fine to me.”

“Really? Um… is that all?”

“I write songs, not books. I don’t really know what you want me to say…” Jihyeon turns the laptop back to face Huisu. “But I’m glad you’re having fun with this.”

“Oh, well…” Huisu sighs. “This is what I was just thinking about…”

“What is?”

“You act so much like the male lead! Look!” Huisu jabs a finger at the ‘character details’ part of the list, which Jihyeon only raises an eyebrow at. “You’re super tall and look intimidating from a distance, but you’re actually really polite and you like to sing. You’re popular among girls, but you don’t date around and you only pay attention to one person. You’ve even got the same hair!”

Jihyeon stares at her. “What was that middle part?”

“Uh, you’re popular among girls?”

“After that.”

“…You’ve got the same hair?” Huisu navigates to her folder of character references and opens up an image of someone she’s pretty sure is a K-pop idol, but she doesn’t know enough about them to say for sure. “Here, he kinda looks like this. It’s the same, don’t you think?”

Jihyeon stares at her again. Then she looks away and shakes her head. “Never mind. I’m glad,” she says, before Huisu can press her for clarification, “you’re really working on your writing, but — you’re really not going to go for the exams anymore?”

Huisu sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t want to say I’m giving up, even though I kind of am, but…” She trails off. These past few nights, the same thoughts have been running circles in her head: this novel writing is just a phase, she’ll get tired of it eventually, she’ll realize she’s not cut out to be a writer, she can’t make this a real profession, so on and so forth. All of which make sense, really — Huisu had never taken an advanced literature course in university, and half the time all she does is take inspiration from things she’s read in other books, but…

She’s having fun. She doesn’t want to turn writing into a job. Everyday she does her 7-to-6 job at the office and comes home exhausted but still somehow excited to get on her laptop and write, to return to the characters she’s found herself horribly attached to. Huisu had only made Chaerin for self-indulgent purposes, but if anyone calls her annoying again, she’s going to blow up this whole webnovel site and her own account. She likes it — she wants to keep doing it.

“Maybe I’ll try again in the future,” Huisu says, idly tapping the edge of her laptop. “If I’m not too old for it, anyway. But for now, I think I’m fine with this.”

When she looks up, Jihyeon is giving her that small smile again, half-hidden behind the palm of her hand, and with a start Huisu realizes she had given that habit to the male lead as well. Maybe the problem here isn’t with Jihyeon, but with herself? The thought is too embarrassing to bear, and thinking about Jihyeon reading the full novel and seeing all these similarities of herself with the love interest…

“…Huisu-ssi?”

“Yes!”

“I was just asking — do you want to head out? It’s too warm in here.”

“Ah — right, sure,” Huisu agrees, grabbing her things and standing up. It’s not that hot, really, and she had been shivering the whole walk from the station to the bar, but she’ll manage.

Jihyeon gets her tea again, as has become the norm. They stand by the vending machine for a while, Jihyeon staring into space and Huisu checking her phone, rereading old comments — no matter how many times she sees the same compliment, she can’t help but feel a little giddy inside at the thought of people appreciating her work, enjoying this world she had once created for only herself to enjoy. Maybe Huisu would have liked sticking to the shallow high-school romance fantasy it had originally been, but… editing, revising, and improving I’ll Love You Everyday isn’t so bad either, really.

She stuffs her phone back in her pocket to rub her hands together and warm them up. Maybe for Jihyeon, who must run naturally warm, it isn’t too cold out, but Huisu is fighting for her life here. She almost asks Jihyeon if she wants to go stay at her place together again, then realizes how that might sound and almost expires from embarrassment. Why can’t she just be normal around Jihyeon? Is this really how friends act with one another? Huisu’s sure there’s normally less stuttering and blushing and panicked, flustered thinking involved…

“Are you cold?” Jihyeon asks — and then, without waiting for an answer, she shrugs her coat off (which is already horribly distracting in itself, the fluidity with which her shoulders move) and drapes it atop Huisu instead.

Huisu lets out an undignified squeak. “What? I mean, thank you, but — what about you?”

“I’m fine. It’s not snowing or anything.” Jihyeon sounds like she means it too, stretching her arms over her head and consequently giving Huisu a glimpse at the skin between her T-shirt and her jeans. Huisu’s brain short-circuits. “But if it’s too cold for you, do you want to go stay at my place? It’s just nearby.”

“Huh? Oh! Uh…” How had Jihyeon offered the exact same thing Huisu had been thinking about, only a hundred times more casually and nonchalantly?! Okay, so Huisu’s definitely the problem for having second thoughts about everything. Still, the thought of being alone with Jihyeon at her place is making her heart beat hard and fast enough to sound like a drumbeat in her ears — and the worst part is that Huisu can’t tell if that means she wants it or not. “W… What… will we do?” she finally croaks out.

Jihyeon blinks. “Have you had dinner yet? We can order takeout, or pick something up on the way there…” She adds, slowly, “Is there something else you want to do?”

“N-No, it’s fine! Yeah, let’s have dinner!” Huisu practically sees the light bulb go off above her head. “Oh, since you paid last time, it’ll be my treat now! What are you in the mood for tonight, Jihyeon-ah?”

The casual honorific had come out without thought, but if Jihyeon notices, she doesn’t mention it. “I don’t know. Whatever you like.”

“Alright. Well, I don’t really know the restaurants around here. Hmm, I know this good chicken place not far away, though…”

Lending jacket, Huisu types down on her phone, when Jihyeon walks slightly ahead of her and won’t be able to see her screen. One size too big. Very warm. Casual invitation to… No, wait, these characters are still high-schoolers… to have dinner at a café together.

It’s still no good; Huisu is going to need a lot more material than this one idea to write an entire chapter. But — she glances up at Jihyeon — at least she now has much better reference material than she used to.