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It was less hectic of a week than what she thought it would be.
While Chaeryeong would’ve expected for this week to be as exhausting as the last, given that the end of the period was upon them, she had finished all of her projects last week and all she was missing were a couple of class presentations - and while she was somewhat tired, it was nothing compared to the swings the looming deadlines of projects and essays were making towards her - mostly, she was happy the heavy season was almost over.
She got to school and went straight to her locker, taking out her stuff while checking her schedule, making sure she doesn’t miss anything.
Yeji’s leaning on the locker beside her. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing much, probably watch something after I get home, why?”
“We were wondering if you wanted to come with us” this time Jisu, her best friend, answers “we’re going to dinner and the arcade to celebrate surviving through this week.”
“It’s Tuesday” Chaeryeong deadpans, there’s not much surviving through the week , although she does understand the sentiment “but I’m down, I feel like we haven’t hung out in forever.” she says while stuffing her things in her backpack and closing her locker door. “Is anyone else coming?”
“We’re going to ask the Shins when they get here” this time Yeji answers, while taking a peek towards the end of the hallway “it’s weird that both of them are late though…”
“I can ask Ryujin during class if you want,” Chaeryeong offers. She's got math first period which she shares with Ryujin, “she could probably ask Yuna, or we could ask them during lunch?”
Yeji’s nodding enthusiastically when Jisu says “Oh I also share second period history with Yuna, I could probably ask her.”
“Perfect then! It's settled!” Yeji says while she checks her watch, “we can talk about the details during lunch, I gotta blast though, I wanted to ask Miss Park something about the presentation before class starts. See you guys later!” and then bolts.
They watch as she makes her way to Miss Parks’ classroom when Jisu turns around and asks “Ready to go?” Chaeryeong responds with a nod and they walk towards her classroom.
“So…” Chaeryeong starts “second period history with Yuna?” ending with a teasing tilt to her voice.
“Yup” Jisu answers nonchalantly, as if she didn’t hate history and chose to fill her humanities optatives with her worst subject only because of the younger girl.
“And how’s that going?” she asks again, acting as if the shorter didn’t ignore the implicit question.
Jisu turns to her with a tilt of her head and asks “What do you mean?”
“You know, the whole huge obvious crush you have on her?” Chaeryeong states matter of factly.
Jisu blushes at that, but to her credit she stands her ground “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” tries to recover her composure and stands a little straighter “I just think she’s a great friend, someone I care about a lot.”
“Hmm.” Chaeryeong nods, as if she believes her, and promptly changes the subject to something more trivial as they continue to walk towards her classroom, Jisu looks relieved and her posture relaxes somewhat. She may be nosey, but she also knows when to stop pushing a subject. She will keep an eye out though.
When they get to Chaeryeong’s class, she waves Jisu goodbye and says that she will meet her at lunch, the older girl smiles and goes on her way. She gets to her seat and starts taking out her stuff, and while she’s setting everything up, a gray bob near the doorway catches her attention. She turns towards it to see Ryujin, panting, with tousled hair, a crooked tie, and no sweater.
“You look like you just ran a marathon” she says while motioning for the shorter girl to get closer and starts fixing her tie.
“I feel like it too.” Ryujin sighs, runs a hand through her hair while she lets Chaeryeong fix her tie, “I forgot to charge my phone last night so my alarm didn’t ring, thank God Yuna stayed over last night though, if it weren’t for her I wouldn’t have woken up at all.”
The younger girl finished fixing the tie and continued taking out her things “Oh, why did she stay over?” While it was common for the cousins to stay at each other’s houses, it usually wasn’t on weekdays, so she was a bit intrigued.
“She needed help with her math homework so I helped her out, but then we stayed up watching movies until we forgot that it was Monday, I think we fell asleep at like 2 a.m.” she explains “So she woke up to her alarm, and got ready as she usually does when she stays over, except for the fact that she didn’t make a sound, so I didn’t wake up until the time when I usually leave, I didn’t even get to have breakfast, just grabbed an energy bar and drove us here.” She finishes her sentence with a pout and runs her hand through her hair again.
“That does sound like something that would happen to you.” she chuckles a little bit and Ryujin’s pout only gets bigger. “Oh, I was wondering if you wanted to come to the arcade and have dinner tonight? Although you might be too tired based on what you told me.”
“No no, I would love to go! At what time is it?” She sounds a little too excited for Chaeryeong but she doesn’t mind it, attributes it directly to the fact that she got little sleep and is probably living this day through adrenaline and her energy bar, so she doesn’t mention anything.
“I don’t know exactly, we’re gonna talk about it during lunch. You can ask Yeji then, but probably after classes end. Jisu is supposed to ask Yuna about it too.” Chaeryeong answers.
Ryujin’s smile falters a little bit, hopefully nothing too noticeable, while she does love her friends, she thought she was getting to go alone with Chaeryeong (she has already accepted the fact that she has this pitiful crush on the slightly younger girl, and has had it for a while) still, getting to spend time with her best friends doesn’t sound bad at all. “Yeah, ok. I’ll ask her during lunch then.” and gets to setting up her stuff as Miss Kim walks into the classroom and asks them to open up their books.
Yeji, Jisu and Yuna were already sitting down at their usual lunch table, with Yeji and Yuna on one side of the table and Jisu sitting across from them, arguing about something when Ryujin and Chaeryeong arrived, “No, you just never want to try what I make!” Yeji exclaimed with a pout, while stomping her feet.
“What are we talking about guys?” Ryujin asked quickly, confused but used to their antics at the same time.
“Yeji is making a fuss about Yunas brownies being really good because we don’t want to try what she cooks.” Jisu said while rolling her eyes, “She’s just a big baby about not being able to cook.”
“Yeji, I love you but you almost burnt down your house while trying to melt chocolate… I think we’re justified in not wanting to try your food.” Chaeryeong commented “Maybe you could try taking a course or something?” And sat down next to Jisu, with Ryujin sitting down next to her.
“I don’t know… I have tried following some recipes to the T and they still come out badly somehow, I think I’m just cursed in the cooking department.” the oldest girl said with a defeated sigh, “Maybe I should just make you guys cook for me all the time.”
“It isn’t that bad Yeji, why don’t you cook something with me,” Ryujin added “I’ll make sure this curse you’re talking about won’t chase you down.”
Chaeryeong giggled at that and commented about how good Ryujin’s cooking was, while the short haired girl looked down a little bit for her blinding smile not to give her away, but judging from the way the youngest girl was looking at her, she wasn’t doing a great job, and was glad that Chaeryeong wasn’t looking in her direction.
“Yeah maybe someday Ryujinnie, on other news though, are you both down to go to the arcade and dinner later?” The oldest asked while exchanging glances between the two Shins.
“Yeap I’m free!” Yuna said enthusiastically while a quieter “me too” was added from Ryujin.
✧
They agreed to go to the arcade after Jisu was done with her student council meeting, which meant Ryujin had two hours to kill, given that she had last period also free, where she decided to go to the library and take a nap - they had the most comfortable and best napping sofas and it was probably empty given that it was almost time to go home, and most people were in classes.
When she got to one the furthest sofa to the right, she immediately left her stuff on the other end so that a stranger wouldn’t try and share the sofa. That was honestly just plain weird and she really needed that power nap for the evening, never mind the horror it would be waking up to a non familiar face. She put her headphones on, made herself comfortable and closed her eyes, hoping dreamland would take her soon.
Getting out of her last class, Chaeryeong decided to head towards the library.
There really wasn’t much she could do while waiting for their friends to finish their classes except head to the library and play on her phone or watch some videos with her headphones on, it didn’t really matter what she did while was there honestly, they had the most comfortable seats in the entire school, it was a no-brainer to head there and wait for her friends.
As soon as she got to the library she went as far away from the exit as possible, and saw a familiar face that had a similar idea as her; Ryujin was sleeping with her headphones on, her stuff sitting on the other side of the couch, and she looked very peaceful. Chaeryeong noticed her to be shivering a little bit, so she took her extra jacket off and placed it over the older girl, hoping she could stay asleep for the hour they had until they would leave the installations.
When Ryujin woke up, she cuddled up to her blanket and covered her face with it mumbling “5 more minutes please.” trying to get to sleep again until she heard a very familiar giggle, making her dare to open up one eye and see the face that plagues her mind constantly. She takes in her surroundings and then remembers she isn’t at home, but in fact napping in the library, and that she’s not laying on her bed with her bedsheets, but on the couch and with… a jacket? She doesn’t remember ever bringing a jacket or using one as a blanket.
The confusion must show on her face, because she listens to the giggles again, louder this time and the angelic voice coming up with an explanation “I came here to pass the time,
but I saw you asleep and cold, so I used an extra jacket I had to drape it over your shoulders.” Ryujin hums as thanks, still a little dazed from her impromptu nap. “Come on sleepy head, Jisu is done with her meeting and they’re all waiting for us already.”
Chaeryeong stands up, grabs Ryujin’s backpack and turns around to give her a hand to stand up and head out. Ryujin grabs it gratefully and when she goes to give Chaeryeong her jacket back the younger says to just keep it, mumbles something along the lines of being a mess when sleepy and fixes her hair, which was resembling the hairstyle she had in the morning.
Really, all Ryujin can do is stare intently at the concentration face that Chaeryeong has, and is left to think about the tender care of her hands when they were running through her hair, all while surrounded in the scent of honey that’s familiar for her nostrils, but not quite enough for her to tune it out. She feels a little bit dizzy, a little bit like flying and a lot like she’s falling deeper into the affection she has for the black haired girl.
✧
Yeji was the first one to spot Ryjin and Chaeryeong, she waved them over and asked “Where were you guys?”
“This one here was taking a nap at the library.” Chaeryeong said with a chuckle with Ryujin showing a sheepish smile. Yuna threw her a knowing look and when Ryujin raised her eyebrows as a form of question, the younger pointed with her eyes at what the shorter was wearing, causing her to blush because she still had Chaeryeong’s jacket.
Jisu was looking between Chaeryeong and Ryujin and gave a
look
to the younger girl, and when she looked plain confused she decided to change subjects “Well, they’re here. Everyone’s ready to go?”
After having a nice dinner, going to the arcade for a couple of hours, losing a lot of money to the claw machines trying to get a fox plushie that Chaeryeong said was cute, beating all of her friends at the bike racing game, and making a fool out of herself on the hammer game by barely reaching 30, Ryujin went home.
She was sitting on the back of the bus choosing the music she wanted to play; after putting her “vibes ✨ 🌑” playlist “LOVE YA!” by KYUKOH started playing. She put her phone on the pocket of her jacket and kept her hands inside, when she felt something on her hand, she took it out and saw a paper folded in half unfolded it and saw a combination of numbers.
To say she was confused was an understatement, there weren’t enough numbers on it for it to be a phone number, and it wasn’t written by hand, it was actually printed on the small paper. She kept thinking what the numbers could be all the rest of her way home; she got to her house, said hello to her family and went upstairs, it didn’t hit her until she got to her room, that paper was taken out of Chaeryeong’s jacket, not hers, so it was something Chaeryeong related.
It wasn’t until she was about to sleep that she remembered why the format of those numbers seemed familiar to her. They were a locker combination, or more specifically, Chaeryeong’s locker combination.
✧
Chaeryeong had woken up tired after the day of hanging out with her friends, a little cold, but nothing that a nice hot shower and a cup of coffee wouldn’t fix.
She opens up her locker on Wednesday morning, going over the mental checklist she has about which subjects she would need to take the notebooks before she can pass through the hallway her locker is in without going out of her way. There was no one next to her locker this morning, which was to be expected, she had arrived later than usual, late enough for her to miss her friends but not for her to be late to classes.
She’s in the middle of taking out her chemistry materials (third period class, the last one before passing through this hallway again) when she spots an envelope that says “To: Chaeryeong”. She grabs it and turns it around, checking in case it has a name from who it’s from, she’s curious about it but her running a little late could become into actually getting late to class , so she packs it in her backpack along with the rest of her books, closes her backpack, her locker, and heads to class right as the first bell, signaling that classes will start soon, rings.
She gets to her English class right as the second bell rings, spots her friends in their usual place at the middle right of the classroom and goes up to greet them, but before she can do much Miss Kang arrives, talking quickly and telling them to open up their textbooks. Chaeryeong just walks faster to her place next to Ryujin and spares a wave to Yuna sitting behind them.
She takes out her things quickly and opens her textbook to page 84 when Ryujin whispers with a teasing smile and a raised eyebrow “Hey, miss perfect Lee Chaeryeong almost late for school?” Chaeryeong gorans “Ugh, don’t even remind me, I woke up to my alarm but when I looked over it was already the usual time I leave my house at. I blame you by the way, I made some coffee because I woke up cold.”
Ryujin holds a laugh back, but her smile is so big that her whisker dimples are showing “How is it my fault that you got cold during the night?”
“I lent you my extra jacket yesterday,” she answers as if it makes sense “maybe the cold seeped into my system and it didn’t come out until I was asleep.”
The laugh that Ryujin was holding back slipped out of her while answering “That makes zero sense, but I’ll take the blame for it if it makes you feel better.”
“It does make sense you’re welcome; and what would make me feel better is a cup of coffee, but thank you for offering to take the blame.” Chaeryeong says with a small smile.
“Well there’s not much I can do about that while in class, but I’ll keep it in mind.” she answers and before Miss Kang can tell them to shut up Ryujin opens up her book and starts working.
After class finally ends, Chaeryeong turns around to greet Yuna properly as they walk to their next class together.
✧
Cheryeong forgets about the letter she found on her locker until she got back home. She checked the outside again in case it had a name from who it was from, but she came out empty handed again. Without further ado she opened the letter and started reading it.
Hi,
Honestly, this is a little bit awkward to write, but I wanted to give you something to at least try and make your day brighter, like you make mine.
You’re always so beautiful it makes it a little hard to breathe, but yesterday somehow your beauty felt like it tripled, I think it was your blinding smile so early during math, but either way I’m grateful I got to see it.
I hope you don’t think I’m a creep for putting this inside your locker, but I don’t have the courage to give something like this personally to you yet.
Have a nice day, Lee Chaeryeong.
Love, J.
Chaeryeong is left to stare at the letter and think about the words that are in her hand over and over. Somehow the letter is not making her uncomfortable or really emotional like how she supposes getting a letter on a random day would make her feel.
It’s no secret that Chaeryeong’s pretty and popular too, but usually people would give letters on Valentine’s day, or at least in person when she can reject them delicately, only that now, she doesn’t know who to respond to, or what to do even.
She takes the letter, rereads it one last time, finds no name anywhere again, and puts it away. She guesses she can thank the stranger for the confidence boost, and smiles a little bit at the sweet words after she gets to process them and accept them as they are.
✧
A couple of weeks later, when Chaeryeong gets to her locker, Jisu’s waiting nearby.
“Hi!” she says excitedly, coming from Jisu before first period and in a Thursday morning it’s something a little bit unexpected. Nevertheless, Chaeryeong answers with a bright smile and a wave.
“Hey Jisu, how are you?” she asks as she opens up her locker. This time, there’s not only an envelope on the first pile, but also a plastic bag filled with, what seems like,c chocolates.
“I’m okay thank you,” Jisu answers and frowns a little bit when she checks what Chaeryeong has on her hands “What’s that?”
“It seems like chocolates.” She sniffs the bag “smells like them too.”
Jisu rolls her eyes “I can see that, I meant more like, why are they in your locker?”
Chaeryeong shrugs and says with a pout “I don’t know, someone left them for me” she debates whether or not to tell Jisu about the letters from before, but Jisu’s her best friend and she tells her everything, so there’s really not much debate going on in the first place. “They have been leaving letters for a little while too.”
“Ohhhh” Jisu looks at her weird, “any clue who it is?”
At that Chaeryoeng’s pout only gets deeper “No, they only signed the letter as J, and all I know is that we share math class.” she frowns a little bit and opens up the letter.
Chaeryeong,
Don’t skip meals, they’re important for you to stay healthy~~
I brought you chocolates because they remind me of how sweet you are.
Love, J.
“Awe, that’s kind of sweet.” Jisu says from the left side of the younger girl, where she read the letter, and gives her a smirk that Chaeryeong knows just means trouble “like you huh.” and wiggles her eyebrows.
Chaeryeong tries to act like that didn’t affect her, but her ears went beet red, which has Jisu burst out laughing. “So what are you going to do with this secret admirer of yours?” she asks while still coming down from her laugh attack.
“I don’t know if I’d even call them a secret admirer … nothing as of now though, I just want to finish this week without much trouble.” She gets her books and puts them away on her backpack, along with her chocolates and the letter “anyways, what has got you in such a good mood so early? Usually you’re still grumpy from not getting enough sleep.”
Jisu’s the one that goes red this time “Well, uh, you see, um” she starts playing with the straps of her backpack “I walked over with Yuna and Ryujin today.”
“Oh? Are you finally admitting you like her?” Chaeryeong asked, getting a shy nod in response. “That’s great! And what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing.” Jisu says resolutely.
“What? Come again I thought I heard you say that you’re not going to do anything about your huge” a whiney “not huge” interrupted her, but Chaeryeong continued as if she didn’t hear anything “crush on Yuna, because that must be insane, I must’ve heard wrong, right?”
“No you heard me well, I’m not doing anything. And before you start asking, I just don’t want to ruin our friendship, I really care about her Chaeryeong, I don’t think a
little crush
is worth something to possibly jeopardize our current relationship.”
The black haired girl sighs, “I don’t think that’s something you should worry too much about; she cares a lot about you too, and in the off case that she doesn’t like you, which she definitely does by the way, that’s not something either of you would let come in between your friendship. You both are too stubborn for something like that to happen, you don’t have to do anything now, just think about it, okay? I want to see you both happy.”
Jisu’s eyes get a little watery at that and she pouts, a clear sign that she’s about to cry and Chaeryeong goes to hug her and calm her down, whispering words of reassurance.
Chaeryeong would seem like she’s conditioned to cry whenever the other one does, and it works both ways, as soon as either of the girls eye ducts open the other one follows just as quickly.
Still, it must be hard for Jisu she supposes, if it took her this long to admit her crush, but she gets how nerve wracking it must be to be in love with one of your best friends. (For some reason a certain short haired girl comes to mind, but she decides to ignore it and give her full attention to her best friend who needs her at the moment.)
Jisu calmed down relatively quickly, she thanks quietly because Chaeryeong doesn’t think she could’ve withheld her tears any longer, and after repeatedly assuring Chaeryeong that yes, she was okay and yes, she would let her know if anything changed, they each went to their classrooms.
Upon entering Ryujin called her over, to which Chaeryeong obliged, “I have something for you,” the slightly older girl said, and took something out of her backpack “here you go!” Happy birthday!”
“My birthday is in 9 months,” She says with an entertained smile, then lifted her eyebrow “and I wouldn’t appreciate getting my own jacket as a birthday gift, I think you’d know.”
“I know both of those things, but I wanted to say something other than ‘thank you for lending me your jacket’ that’s just plain boring. Sorry it took so long to get back though.I also washed it, but the dryer wasn’t working properly” Ryujin defended, “Anyways I have something else as a token of appreciation.” and gave her a coffee. “Since you saved me from hypothermia, here you go.”
The black haired girl smiled and grabbed both her jacket and the coffee, taking a sip and sighing appreciatively “Thank you Ryujin, it’s perfect.” To which the other girl blushed and mumbled a shy no problem.
✧
Another day, and a new letter came, sometimes it would bring a gift, sometimes it would just be little things that made her think of Chaeryeong. That’s how Ryujin liked to do it.
This time, she arrived with Yuna and tried to distract the younger girl before heading to the locker, except she insisted on going with her. Ryujin sighed and went to it, she couldn’t risk being too late and having Chaeryeong figure out it was her the one that has been leaving gifts on her locker for weeks now.
When they arrived at the all too familiar locker, Yuna asked “Why are we here? This isn’t your locker.” Curiosity peaked.
“I know… I’ve been leaving letters for her. So let’s hurry up before she arrives and notices we’re here.” Ryujin whispered while she set the locker combination, this time she had brought some Pringles along for the ride.
The younger girl stared until she had set the pringles can and letter neatly, closed the door and checked that no one was nearby, only walking when Ryujin had passed her and made a beeline towards her own locker.
“What do you mean you have been leaving letters for her” she almost shouted, the older girl turned around in panic and whispered back through gritted teeth “don’t be so loud.”
She lowered her voice but grabbed Ryujins arms and shook her a little bit “How long have you been doing this?”
The shorter tried to get out of her grip while shuffling a little bit,”Just a couple of weeks. It’s no big deal though”
“What do” she noticed her voice was loud again and lowered her voice without needing to be told “what do you mean it isn’t a big deal when this has been going on for weeks!” A little bit exasperated she added “does she know who they’re from?”
Ryujin shook her head, “I’ve been signing them with a nickname.”
The younger girl sighed dramatically and placed her crossed arms on the lockers, just to bump her head against them. “Ryujin. You’ve had this pitiful crush for years now. You can’t keep this up and just expect to be okay! What do you even plan to do afterwards?”
“Uh, I haven’t thought that far actually. I just wanted to give her nice things”
Yuna smacked her head into her arms repeatedly now, “please just, think of something because there’s no way both of you can come out of this without anything happening.”
“Yeah, okay, I will. Promise” In that precise moment she spotted Yeji and waved at her “Please don’t tell anyone about this though. You’re the only one that knows” and turned to Yuna, giving her a look the younger could interpret as pleading and sincere, and nodded.
“Hey guys” Yeji greeted them “I feel beat, can this year end already?”
“What happened?” Ryujin asked.
“This semester is killing me” she dragged out the last two words “I just want it to be over. I feel like all I’ve been doing are essays uppon essays, please save me”
Yuna and Ryujin laughed “Come on, it can’t be that bad.” Ryujin commented “Plus I’m sure you’re doing great and you’ll be free from that hell soon.” Yuna added.
“No, it seriously is terrible. But yes I’m almost done with it, when I’m done we’re going to celebrate. I won’t take no for an answer. I miss you guys!”
“Of course!” Yuna said smiling, while Ryujin saluted her “Yes boss!”
“Okay then, now that that’s settled. Let’s head to class?” Yeji said and started walking away “It’s almost time for the first bell.”
✧
After a while of receiving letters and gifts, Chaeryeong decided to do something about the person that was sending her these things. She was growing more and more curious and this mysterious J person hadn’t dropped any new hints about their identity.
She honestly wouldn’t have done anything about it for a while if it weren’t for the courage she got from Jisu and Yuna, who finally admitted their feelings to each other in a sweet display initiated by the younger, which ended up with them going out. They were adorable and perfect for each other, like Chaeryeong had told the older girl, she was happy for her friends, but wanted to be happy for herself too.
So she decided to write a letter of her own, and since she didn’t have much clue about who it was, the only option she could think to do something was to leave it in her own locker, so that when the person got to leave her things at her locker they would grab it. Chaeryeong really hoped they did.
When she was about to go home, Chaeryeong left the letter at the spot where J usually left their letters, with only a To: J written down.
The next day Chaeryeong opened her locker to nothing, and her stomach dropped a little bit, she didn’t know she was looking forward to J’s sweet words, but Jisu must’ve known because she looked over and asked “Nothing this time?”
Chaeryeong shaked her head a little bit. “It’s probably because I left them one this time, maybe they took it and didn’t leave anything to answer later?” It was phrased more as a question than a statement, she didn’t know who she was convincing though, Jisu or herself.
Her mood had been kind of down for the whole day, and when asked about it Chaeryeong would just say that she hadn’t slept that well, that she was tired, or something of that style.
Thankfully, she opened her locker the next morning to another letter, with the usual To: Chaeryeong written down. She instantly grabbed the letter, checked that none of her friends were nearby, and opened it.
Ryeong,
I saw your letter, yesterday too you weren’t in your usual giddy mood, was it because I didn’t leave you anything? I’m sorry if that was the case, I didn’t mean to make you upset.
I had a gift prepared for you yesterday too, but it seems like I was the one getting a present in the shape of a handwritten letter.
I would really like for you to know who I was like you asked, but I’m scared, are you going to get disappointed? Are you going to be sad? Confused?
I promise I will try to gather enough courage to tell you who I am soon. I just need a little bit more time, please be patient with me.
Love, J.
When she finished reading the letter, she was both relieved that she didn’t scare J off, but confused as to what she wrote why would she be disappointed at finding out who J was? It didn’t make any sense. She was so busy mulling over the words in her head that she didn’t see Ryujin arrive until a “Hey” put her out of her reverie.
“Oh, hey Ryujinnie, I didn’t see you” Chaeryeong turned over with a small smile.
“Don’t worry about it.” Ryujin waved her off, “are you okay though? You seem a little off.”
“Yeah? No, I’m okay, just read something, but I’ll be okay, don't worry.” Chaeryeong said with the most unconvincing smile a person could ever give.
Ryujin looked at her suspiciously, and then down at the letter she had on her hand, making her pale a little bit, it didn’t seem like Chaeryeong knew who it was the one that left her gifts and letters, but at the same time, she could just be acting like she doesn’t know. She was starting to overthink, but pretended to not be too bothered. “Are you sure?” she asked, in case Chaeryeong wanted to talk about it, maybe it wasn’t even the letter that got her like that.
Chaeryeong pursed her lips at the question, thought about it for a second and said “Well, actually Jinnie, I have a question.”
She gulped, and asked “what is it?”
“Do I look like someone that would be disappointed because of someone’s kindness?”
Ryujin was taken aback, “Huh? What do you mean?”
“Well,” Chaeryeong was a little bit nervous, but said fuck it “I’ve been getting letters from someone on my locker, and, I was, well am, curious about who it was, so I left them a letter asking if I could meet them, but they wrote this letter back, saying that I might be disappointed or sad about who it may be, and, I don’t get why I would be like that?” Chaeryeong just let her conscious stream flow out “So, do I seem like someone that would be disappointed about who it was? Or something about it?”
At that, Ryujin felt bad for making the younger girl think that, when in reality it was her own insecurities and fears what were making her not come clean about her identity. “No of course not Ryeongie, I don’t think that’s what they mean.” Ryujin kept quiet for a second, and decided to just risk everything, at the end of the day it wasn’t worth it to watch Chaeryeong go insane over it, “Actually I know that’s not what they mean.” Chaeryeong looked at her confused.
“How do you know?”
She said simply, “Because, I’m J.” and took a deep breath while she explained. “I have been liking you as more than a friend for… quite a while now.” She started rubbing the back of her neck, a nervous habit. “That day I overslept and we went to the arcade. You lent me your jacket, there was a piece of paper with your locker combination on the pocket, and I decided to take that as an opportunity to show you how I felt.”
Chaeryeong was a little bit winded trying to assimilate the information. “I… it makes so much sense.” she chuckled a little bit “I’m glad it’s you.”
Ryujin looked over confused “huh what do you mean it makes sense. Wait, did you say you’re glad it’s me?”
The taller girl grabbed her hands “Yeah, I’m glad it’s you… I’ve also liked you for a while, so I’m really glad it’s you.” She said with a smile, looked directly into the older’s eyes, touched her forehead and put her head down. Ryujin was still confused and wondered if she wanted the younger to kiss her forehead, looking between her eyes and it, when she understood she wanted to put their foreheads together.
“I’ve liked you for so long this kind of feels surreal” the shorter said, to which the younger answered “Trust me, it’s very real.”
“Well, to make this official, would you like to go on a date with me? Arcade and dinner? Just us?”
Chaeryeong pulled her forehead away and looked at her eyes. “Just us.” and her smile got bigger, “yeah, I like the sound of that.”
✧
“So why J?” Chaeryeong asked when they were in the middle of sharing some tteokbokki.
“Well, you call me Jinnie sometimes, and it’s also for Jagi. I honestly thought you knew it was me when you called me Jinnie and then asked me what I thought.” Ryujin said with a small laugh.
“I probably should have guessed,” she said with a pout “I think I was also scared of finding out it would be someone who wasn’t you.” Both girls were blushing at that, Chaeryeong still carried on.”But there was nothing for either of us to be scared about.”