Chapter Text
Yujin was furious. No. Yujin was more than furious, she was fuming, like she could blow up the whole world right then and there.
She still couldn't believe how her vacation had ended a week early, when the school principal had sent her a long email. First congratulating the girls' team for placing third at state – a huge triumph for Yujin, as it was the first year of high school for more than half the team, and they had achieved the highest position in the entire history of the school’s team – then he dropped the bomb: the team hadn't gotten much support at the games, not even when they were undefeated for more than ten games in a row, so they would have to move to the secondary field, thus opening up space for men's football to get some extra training and games.
It was more than expected that Yujin would be angry about this, she had become the team captain for this year, she expected the students to be committed to going to the games due to last year's results. What she received was a drop in her team's morale, while the men's football team gained the honor of something that wasn't theirs, their team hadn't even made it past the second round of the local qualifiers in the last 10 years, it was all because some of the players were some of the most popular boys at school.
“Sir, please listen to me” Yujin chased the principal through the school hallways on the first day of school.
“Ms. Ahn, the decision has already been made”.
“The decision means we will have to play more away games, and our budget has not increased to allow us to do this”.
“Well, where there’s a way, there’s a will, miss”.
Yujin planted her feet on the ground as she watched the man walking away, this could only be a joke.
“Captain” Leeseo – the new first-year high school striker, who had only come to school to be on the team – appeared atjers side, squeezing her shoulder to get her attention.
“How can this happen?”.
“We can come up with some plan to fix this”.
“We barely had enough money to pay for two trips last year”.
“Maybe we can become popular, think about it, you’re cute, some of the girls on the team are too, we can, I don’t know, we can try tik tok”.
“We already tried, we didn’t even get 7 likes on the vídeos”.
“That's because they're boring, I wouldn't even know who you are, if I hadn't been to the last championship, leave the bill in my hands”.
Yujin turned to the girl as if she was seeing two heads, but Leeseo was smiling confidently at whatever her baseless plan was.
“Go to class, child”.
The first two weeks of training had been terrible, she wanted to be the first to tell the team about the bad news, but the director had thought it was a great idea to have sent the same message to everyone. Not even the coach was managing to raise morale.
For this reason, all training sessions seemed to have been longer than usual, and much more solitary as well, with none of the players daring to speak a sentence that had more than three words between them. Yujin felt like she was the worst captain in the entire history, not only of football, but in the entire history of sport.
Her energy had left her body so quickly that even her routine had changed, on the weekends she used to go to the park, maybe she could drag some of the girls to get an extra workout for fun, sometimes she just ran in the park in the afternoon and then stretched out on the grass until dusk. After her defeat against the director, she spent Saturdays trapped in her father's workshop, and Sundays buried in her bed.
That Saturday she was also in the same place in the workshop, leaning over the counter while looking through some magazines that she had bought earlier that day. It was a pretty busy Saturday for the workshop, she couldn't remember a day that she had seen so much movement, she was more than happy to remain invisible long enough so that her hand didn't get dirty.
“I can’t believe this” A voice caught her attention, Yujin put her invisibility at risk to see where it was coming from.
“I’m sorry, miss” One of the mechanics said “should I continue with the procedure?”.
“Give me a few minutes”.
Yujin recognized the girl from her school, Jang Wonyoung, the most popular cheerleader among the others, partly because she had started her modeling career the year before, and had quickly achieved success. Yujin had lost count of how many times she had found photos of the girl around the city.
That time she looked like she was in a terrible moment, with her hands in her hair as she tried to call someone.
Yujin thought five times before getting up and going to her, but in the end intrusive thoughts won.
"Any problem?" Wonyoung seemed to get a little scared at the approach.
“Someone hit my car, now I have to pay 2000 dollars to fix it as quickly as possible”.
“Were you in the car when they hit? Do you need any help?”.
“No, it was parked, I don’t drive”.
Yujin stood in the same place, waiting for the girl to explain what was really happening, and as a successful model she didn't have the money to pay for the repairs. Wonyoung didn't pay much attention to her, still stuck on the phone, when she was unsuccessful she huffed, squeezing the cell phone between her fingers.
“Look, I took my parents' car to a party, my friend was driving and parked in front of the party, some drunk idiot wrecked my side, and then ran away, now I have this problem to solve before they get back.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, is time the problem?”.
“The problem is that my parents monitor my bank account, I can't just take all this money out of my account, they will ask too many questions about it, now none of my friends have this money to lend me”.
Yujin hated how much her intrusive thoughts took over her mind in recent years, her father told her that it was a teenage thing, something like puberty changing the chemistry of her brain. She hated her intrusive thoughts and puberty, because the next thing she said was “we go to the same school, my name is Yujin”.
"We go?".
Yujin swallowed the blow her ego took and continued “I need your help”.
“I think I need even more help” Wonyoung rolled her eyes as she turned her back, Yujin circled her again
“Listen to me, please, my football team needs to become more popular, and you need money that I have, I’ll pay for your repairs and you help me with the team by pretending to be my girlfriend for two months” Wonyoung just looked in disbelief, Yujin was starting to think that the idea had sounded even more stupid than she had imagined “are you listening to me?”.
“I can hear you, I just don’t want to”.
“Look, I’m not saying we need to actually date, I just need you to lie for me for two months, the favor you would be doing for me is bigger than the Money, think about Charity”.
Wonyoung took just one more look in her direction before walking away, Yujin was already emotionally preparing herself for a scenario in which she became the target of the entire school on Monday, when Wonyoung spoke again.
“My friend also thinks her whole plan is weird, but she also thinks that maybe you are into something, so let's make this ridiculous plan work”.
"Serious?" Yujin couldn't contain the big smile on her face, maybe she found a future for the team.
“Yes, but don’t get excited, it’s only two months, so at the end we will fake a horrible breakup and never talk about this again”.
"OK".
Yujin didn't look at her father’s eyes as she swiped her own credit card through the machine, she didn't need any more judgment than the girl next to her was already giving her. After he explained that the car would be ready in a week, Yujin followed the girl outside.
“Do you need a ride?”.
“No” Wonyoung pointed to a white BMW pulling up next to them, on the driver's side was the cheerleader captain, Rei “If we're going to do this, we need to change some things about you”.
"What?".
“Starting with your clothes” Yujin looked at her own clothes, sure, the shirt from her favorite restaurant was a bold choice, but the sweatpants were her favorite “Give me your address and we'll take care of it tomorrow”.
As Yujin typed the address on the notepad, followed by her number, even though the girl hadn't asked about it, Rei reached out to the passenger window. "Hi, I'm Rei, Wonyoung said we're going to the same school."
“Apparently” Wonyoung cut her off by getting into the car after taking her phone back.
“I’m Ahn Yujin, we had a few classes together last year”.
“The new captain of the football team, right? I heard the director went after you, but I think you're already figuring it out how to fix it”.
Yujin didn't miss the way her cheeks heated up, much less Wonyoung her his eyes, while Rei drove away laughing. Later, Yujin had to lie to her father when trying to explain that, yes, she knew what she was doing when she handed over the money from her soccer camps for the rest of high school to the popular girl who didn't even know she existed (Yujin hid the second part for herself).
Her routine was changed again the next day, when Wonyoung showed up at her house at nine in the morning, while she was drooling on her sheets, and her mother took her to her room.
“Yujin, darling, you have a visitor” her mother opened the door.
“Good morning, Yujin.”
She remained petrified on the bed for a few seconds, wide eyes staring at the two figures at the door, until she jumped up, trying her best to fix her hair, straighten her clothes and wipe her face.
“Mom, you need to knock on the door” Yujin complained.
“You didn't tell me that someone was coming to visit us” The lady turned to Wonyoung with a big smile on her face, Yujin raised her eyebrows “Wonyoung, dear, would you like to have a coffee with us?”.
“I'm sorry, I already ate before coming here, I just wanted to help Yujin quickly before I go to my photoshoot, but I promise I'll come back here for this”.
Yujin just watched the two talking before her mother left the room, if her mother smiling for a visit was something new for her, a carefree Wonyoung was even more pleasing to her eyes.
For a few seconds, as she sat on her bed, and Wonyoung went through her clothes, she wondered if she would survive two months of pretending to date a girl like Wonyoung, when even the floral dress the girl wore made her heart beat spontaneously.
“Do you really need that many team jerseys?”
“This is called a collection”.
“Shouldn’t a collection be treated well? When was the last time you washed them?” Wonyoung poked her head out, when she saw that Yujin was just sitting with pink cheeks and an embarrassed look, she sighed and continued "Let's just keep them in the collection then, or at least use the prettier ones”.
After the fastest half hour in the world for Yujin, Woonyoung had divided her clothes into three piles: the acceptable ones, the gray area, and the ones she hopes Yujin never wears in her presence. Yujin tried not to think too much about how the third pile was the biggest of all by a large margin.
"Well, as I expected, we need to go shopping, at least this won't alert my parents."
"I can pay".
“You already spent two thousand dollars, buying clothes for you won't alert my parents, see this as charity, just like I did yesterday” Wonyoung looked at her phone when a noise caught their attention “I need to go now”.
“Do you need a ride?”
“No, just make sure your clothes are washed for tomorrow.”
Yujin tried not to notice how tightly her mother hugged Wonyoung before she left, saying that she hopes Yujin would bring her there more. Just like Yujin tried not to notice the two similar looks her mother gave her: one When she was saying goodbye to Wonyoung, and the Other When she saw that Yujin had spent the rest of her Sunday in front of the house’s washing machine.