Chapter Text
They were cute, Yerim must admit. They were cute together and individually. How Hyeju, with a gloomy face, would surprise Chaewon with a plushie of a new Kirby variant was cute. How Chaewon would gasp and hug her new plushie in her arms was cute.
Chaewon was feeding Hyeju a spoonful of her meal with a beaming smile. Yerim put her head in her hands. She wanted to scream at her friends to stop being so cute. Yeojin, however did not resist that urge.
"Stop being gay!" She yelled at the couple who now stopped giggling and feeding each-other.
Hyeju cackled and put a hand on Yeojin's head. "Oh come on, this is gonna be you and your future girlfriend."
Yeojin sneered with her arms crossed. "As if. I have never been interested in anyone, and I never will." Yeojin stated confidently with her chest puffed out. Yerim and the others eyed each-other with unamused expressions. That was one of the boldest lies known to mankind. Lord JiU knows how many times Yerim had to listen to Yeojin talk about her fifth crush of the month. Last week was Lee Chaeyoung aka Isa from their shared music class.
"You say that as if you're not staring at Chaewon all the time." Hyeju snickered at the youngest, teasing her for acting head over heels for her girlfriend.
Yeojin scoffed. "Your argument is invalid; everyone stares at Chaewon!" Hyeju raised a brow at the youngerst's announcement. She knew what was coming.
A debate. She, Yeojin and even Chaewon were part of the Debate Club and would actively participate in debates even outside of club activities. They were also the only members in the debate club. Yerim was not a part of it. No one really remembers why; something about how drugs were not good for kids which in hindsight doesn't make any sense as a reason for someone to not join the club all their friends were in.
"Oh yeah? Well what you just stated goes against the rules of argumentation. Just because everyone does it, doesn't mean you're right."
"No, I am simply pulling out statistics. 100% of people stare at Chaewon." Yeojin leaned in and pointed her index finger down on the table with a challenging smirk.
Im Yeojin. President of the school's debate club. 144 wins, 9 ties, and 0 losses.
Uses her unmatched charisma to get her way, and never settles for a loss.
"Where's the source?" Hyeju gave a sly smirk of her own, leaning back into the nonexistent backrest of the cafeteria seat with her hands relaxed behind her head.
Son Hyeju. Vice-President of the debate club. 99 wins, 0 ties, 6 losses.
Hyeju's arguments are always solid. Unfortunately, she is not as enthusiastic as Yeojin and doesn't have people to support her when she's in a pinch. Never settles for a tie. You win, or you lose.
"Right next to me." Yeojin pointed at Yerim, who was enjoying her friends' bickering until now. She stopped chewing on a piece of bread, wide-eyed, like a deer caught in headlights.
"What?" Yerim asked, mind going blank. She was following the conversation, but she was rendered speechless by the sudden mention.
Yeojin huffed. "You gotta like- support my claim by saying 'yes I love Chaewon and I look at her every day'!"
"Uhhhh..." Yerim looked towards Chaewon for help, but the blonde simply giggled. "Y-yeah.. I guess?"
Choi Yerim. Art student with no affiliation with the debate club whatsoever. 0 wins, 0 ties, 67 losses.
Has no idea, ever. Yeojin always catches her off guard to add to her win count. Those 67 losses of hers? All Yeojin.
Yeojin groaned and slapped her forehead. Hyeju hummed in satisfaction. "Source is non-credible, and provides minimal information." Her lips formed into a smirk. "Looks like today will be your first loss, president." She dropped the final word like a bomb.
Yeojin glared at the older. "I'm not giving up now." She stood up, her chair screeching as it was pushed back. She lifted her hand up high and cleared her throat loudly.
"WHO HERE STARES AT PARK CHAEWON DAILY?!!!" The small girl yelled out for the entire cafeteria to hear. Students stopped speaking. It was silent for a second. Some hesitantly put their hands up, and everyone gradually raised their arms up into the sky. Hyeju's eyes were wide as she looked around. Everyone- Including Yeojin, Yerim, and even Chaewon, had their arms raised. Yeojin smirked. "How's that for a credible source? You witnessed it."
Hyeju finished looking around and grumbled. "Fuck you."
Yeojin smirked. "Personal attack- you lose."
"Fine. Good game." Hyeju scoffed, sticking her hand out for a handshake, which Yeojin gladly accepted.
Yeojin - 145 wins, 9 ties, 0 losses
Hyeju - 79 wins, 0 ties, 7 losses
The cafeteria clapped for a few seconds before going back to their own conversations like normal.
Yerim grinned at Chaewon. "Wow, you're really miss popular around here!" She exclaimed and Chaewon smirked with a raised brow.
"I'm not the school's visual for nothing~" She flipped her hair while looking to the side.
Park Chaewon. Visual and MVP of the debate club. 423 wins, 0 ties, 0 losses. The only reason she has so many wins is because whatever she says, goes.
"You know water is wet, right?" Chaewon once asked a boy in the grade below them. The underclassman bowed down to a 90º angle. "Yes, my queen," he said. 5 of the 7 losses Hyeju had was because of her.
"Choco-mint is good." Chaewon stated while on an ice cream date with Hyeju. Her girlfriend looked at her like she murdered her family. Chaewon tilted her head to the side, expectant. "...Yes my queen." Hyeju mumbled. That was her first loss.
After the debate, the girls had gone back to normal conversations, such as how their parents were doing and what they ate last night. "I didn't eat anything." Chaewon had said. "Food needs me~"
Yeojin side eyed the woman and leaned in to whisper to Hyeju: "What is wrong with your girlfriend?"
Hyeju shook her head. "You have no idea..." She jabbed her fork into another piece of- what even was she eating? "What was the menu for today?" She glared at the orange piece of food that was slowly sliding off her fork.
"That's a potato." Yerim furrowed her brows. "It's pretty obvious too..." She added. Hyeju looked down. It was indeed a potato.
"You know Yerim, some people don't have eyes. We gotta be nice to people who can't see sh-" Hyeju smacked Yeojin in the face before the younger could finish. She went back to (not) eating her food while Yeojin sent her a barrage of curses.
"I'm gonna kick you out of the debate club!" Yeojin threatened when she noticed Hyeju wasn't fazed by her amazingly incredible insults that were mainly about Hyeju's mother.
"You wouldn't do that." Hyeju squashed a 'potato' with her fork, finally acknowledging her smaller classmate.
Yeojin smirked. "Oh yes I would."
Yerim gasped and looked up her sorry excuse of a meal, a piece of 'potato' dropping from her fork. Chaewon took a break from looking at her nails to raise an eyebrow at the bickering duo.
Hyeju narrowed her eyes. "Rule number 31 of section 7 of the 'Official Debate Club Rulebook:' The president of the debate club cannot kick out the vice-president without the agreement of more than 60% of club members."
Yeojin was taken aback. "...You actually read the rulebook?"
"Well... yeah?"
"Like- all of the seven hundred pages?"
"Yes."
"You're weird."
"You literally wrote it!"
"Yeah well I didn't expect people to actually read it?! Chaewon did you read the Official Debate Club Rulebook?"
"No that shit's for nerds."
"Ouh damn your own girlfriend called you a nerd."
"Someone's gotta be the smart one in the relationship."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing, babe. You're the smart one."
" :) "
"Woah how did she do that?"
"ANYWAYS- urgh-" With great effort, Yeojin lifted a large book up with several grunts. She then slammed the Official Debate Club Rulebook onto the school dinner table, its weight causing the table to wobble for a good three seconds before stopping. Yeojin ignored the fiery glares from her classmates sitting on the other end as she blew the book's cover and reached her hand out to dust it off. It was double the size of a McDonald's Happy Meal (boycott!)
"Okay, section sevennnn rule thirty-oneeee..." Yeojin stretched the numbers out while opening the cover. Dust blew in her direction causing her to cough and wheeze. Yerim handed her a napkin which Yeojin gladly accepted, but instead of wiping her face off, she used it on the book pages. Yerim stared into the void, speechless with an open mouthed smile.
"Got it!" Yeojin exclaimed after flipping through countless pages. She tried to lift the book up as if was the Excalibur but obviously failed because she was not the Chosen One. Choosing to ignore the mocking snickers made by the nauseating couple in front of her, she read the passage: "The president of the debate club cannot kick out the vice-president of the debate club without the agreement of more than 60% of club members- who wrote this shit?!"
"You did." Hyeju stated absentmindedly while sipping on her apple juice box like a pipe.
"I did?" Yeojin raised a brow incredulously. She turned her head towards Yerim. "Did I?" She asked her.
Yerim gave a helpless shrug.
Yeojin sighed, but immediately sprung back up. "Well, if I was the one who wrote this book, I should be able to change the rules!"
Hyeju stopped drinking her juice. "Rule 512 of section 8 of the Official Debate Club Rulebook: The president is to make no modifications of the rulebook when it has been finalized and printed into an actual book with a hardcover."
Yeojin looked up at Hyeju, then looked back down at the book. It was a hardcover.
Yeojin pouted and chewed her inner lip while thinking of a way to win this argument. Her eyes lit up as she remembered something, then proceeded to pull an entire blowtorch out of the pocket of her skirt. "It's not a rule if it doesn't exist." She said with a devilish grin as she lit up the torch. Everyone's eyes widened, including the aforementioned classmates sitting at the end of the same cafeteria table. Yelling ensued.
"HELP?!!"
"WOAH WOAH WOAH WOAH-"
"ASDGDFHDGJFJ-"
"YEOJIN WHAT."
The plethora of panicked yells caused everyone else to turn their heads to look at what was unfolding. Even more yelling ensued.
"DON'T FUCKING BURN IT?????"
"ARE YOU INSANE?!"
"YOU'RE GONNA CAUSE A SCHOOL FIRE!"
"YEOJIN PLEASE LET GO OF THE TORCH." A surveillant yelled as she stomped her way towards the commotion.
"DONALD TRUMP SAVE US..."
"Okay who the hell said that?"
"Uhm, Yeojin please don't burn the book?" Yerim had a very nervous tight-lipped smile on her face. A single drop of sweat rolled down her forehead as she tried to gain her friend's attention.
"Meh." Chaewon said while recording the event on her phone.
"THIS IS DESTRUCTION OF EVIDENCE." That one was Hyeju. She didn't actually care about the fire, or where Yeojin got the blowtorch from or how she managed to fit it in that miniature skirt pocket. She only cared about winning the argument.
Yeojin turned her attention from the book to Hyeju. The other thing that also turned was the blowtorch with the tip spitting fire. "WAIT. IF THERE IS NO COMPETITOR I CAN'T LOSE."
Yeojin shoved the blowtorch in Hyeju's face. Hyeju dodged it and snatched the blowtorch out of Yeojin's two hands. She raised it up, then brought it down to her knee to snap it in half, effectively ending the commotion. Somehow, it did not explode.
The entire cafeteria hall entered a dead silence. Ten seconds later, they went back to their original conversations.
Hyeju, with a smug face, handed the bits and pieces of the blowtorch back to Yeojin, who simply stared at it.
"That was like thirty bucks."
"You literally just tried to burn my face off. Babe, Yeojin just tried to burn my face off."
"You would look pretty either way, so..."
"I don't know if that's insulting or comforting."
Yeojin pointed at Hyeju after putting the remnants of the blowtorch back into her pocket. "You're trying to change the subject! That's a foul-"
"Yeojin."
Yeojin froze mid-sentence. With wide eyes and a guilty smile, she slowly moved her gaze towards the person who had just called her.
Principal Bae stood with her arms crossed, with the surveillant Ms. Son, standing behind her.
"Good afternoon, Mrs Bae!" Yerim greeted with a genuine grin.
With the bridge of her nose pressed in between her thumb and her index finger, Principal Bae let out a long, exhausted sigh.
"Yeojin... I don't want to say this."
"Then don't say it, ma'am." Yeojin tried to joke, only to be greeted with silence. She closed her eyes and silently cursed at her three friends for not laughing. They all sat behind her with varying looks of guilt, Hyeju being the most guilty of them all and Yerim looking like she's just happy to be there.
"But what the fuck was that?"
Yeojin was effectively shut up and pursed her lips, her eyes shifting nervously around the principal's office. Her eyes finally laid upon the picture on Mrs. Bae's desk. It had a stunningly gorgeous woman in it, with a large adorable smile. Yeojin thought she kind of looked like a bear.
Yeojin was snapped out of her daze when she heard the impatient nail tapping on the desk. She locked eyes with Principal Bae again, who looked at her, impatiently waiting for an answer with a raised eyebrow.
"Is that your wife?" Yeojin started. Principal Bae looked taken aback by her question since her eyes widened a little.
"...Yes?"
"She's very pretty." Yerim finished for Yeojin with a smile. Principal Bae's cheeks reddened from her statement.
"Uhm... Thank you." She gave a shy smile of her own. She then remembered she was the principal and the student in front of her just attempted to commit arson. "Yeojin what was that for?"
"Uhhhhh!" Yeojin was once again left speechless, looking like a headlight caught in deers. She scratched the back of her neck with a nervous laugh. "Well, you see, I got a little carried away with a debate I was having with my friend..."
Mrs. Bae attention ticked when she heard the mention of a debate. "Ah, I see. It's for your..." she looked at a few pages on her desk before readjusting her nonexistent glasses, "debate club, am I correct?"
"Yes ma'am!" Yeojin exclaimed with pride and enthusiasm as her club was named.
"Do tell, how many members are in your club?"
Yeojin's mouth stopped working.
"Three." Hyeju replied in the backround.
"Three?" Principal Bae parroted.
"Four, actually!" Yeojin's mouth started working again. "Yerim's also a part of the club. Right, Yerim?"
"Uhhhh..."
"Well, three or four members don't really matter in this case." Irene tapped her pen against a piece of paper. "Look, Yeojin. Your behaviour was far from acceptable in these school grounds. You terrorized many students, brought an entire blowtorch to school (Lord Boa knows how you managed to fit it in your pocket), and threatened to commit arson. Unfortunately, you must be punished."
Yeojin at least had the gall to look down in guilt. "I'm sorry."
"I know you are," Mrs. Bae said, sounding more like a disappointed mother than a principal, "but I'm afraid sorry won't cut it this time. I will leave you with two choices." She put down her pen and paper and stuck a finger up. "First choice: expulsion-"
"WHAT?!" Yeojin and her friends stood up and exclaimed. They were about to start arguing until Principal Bae ordered them all to sit back down, which they did. She stuck up a second finger.
"Or, you and your friends in the debate club start a fundraiser. If the school did burn down due to your careless actions, a lot of money would have been put in for reparations. Don't look at me like that- I'm not insane enough to actually have you fundaise an entire school's worth of reparations, so you have to get enough money to be able to fund at least a quarter of it."
"Oh I'll take that one-" Yeojin started.
"But if you cannot raise it by the end of the school year I will be forced to disband the debate club."
"WHAT?!" Yeojin, Hyeju, and Chaewon exclaimed. Yerim did not because she was not an actual member of the debate club.
"Oh and you get expelled, Yeojin."
"WHAT- hey why didn't any of you say it with me this time?" Yeojin turned back to her friends after shouting that word alone. Hyeju looked at her with bored eyes.
"We already heard that threat once before it kind of already lost the element of surprise." She stated. Yeojin's expression was one of hurt and betrayal. She wanted to ask Hyeju if her existence was only worth one gasp, but Principal Bae cleared her throat before she could do so.
"Anyway, these are the choices you have to pick from. I would like to hear your answer by the end of this school week, or I will assume you have chosen simple expulsion." She said in a somber voice with hands clasped in front of her face.
Yerim raised her hand. "But Principal Bae, today's Friday."
"Yes."
"So what you're saying is she only has a few hours to choose?" Yerim continued.
"Yes."
"Okay then I'll raise funds with the club." Yeojin announced, catching everyone's attention.
Her friends behind her stood up in shock. "Wait what?!"
Principal Bae looked surprised herself. "You've already made your decision?"
Yeojin looked at the principal with a fire of determination in her gaze. "If I'm gonna get expelled, I might as well die trying, right?"
"Uhm... well, yes."
In the back, Yerim seemed actually cheered up by Yeojin's statement, unlike Chaewon who leaned to whisper into Hyeju's ear, "That was a lame anime cliché."
The group of troublemakers stepped out of the principal's office after a few more comments from Mrs. Bae about the arrangements. They silently walked through the empty hallway for their next class. Well, as silently as it could be with the incessant sighs from the number one troublemaker. None of them really processed what happened yet. Hyeju was the first one to come back to her senses, and when she did, she jabbed Yeojin in the arm.
"Ouch!" She yelped. "What was that for?"
"For roping us in your quest to redemption. Two hundred and fifty thousand is a shit ton of money for anyone to try and get and that's like quadruple the average yearly wage." Hyeju sighed.
Yeojin narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, honestly it was like choosing between jackshit and fuckall. But you'd help me not get expelled right?"
Hyeju scoffed playfully and nudged Yeojin where she had previously hit her, making the shorter shout an obscenity. "Obviously I would. What's a club without its president? Honestly I think if you took the first choice the club would disband anyway. I'm not managing anything, and I don't think this diva-" she points at Chaewon, "would want to either."
"Yeah, totally." Chaewon agreed while tweeting 'YALL WILL NAWT BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED LMAOOO' on her phone.
Hyeju rolled her eyes at her girlfriend who was too busy trying to get a hit tweet."But yeah, honestly we can try. The cost might be four times the yearly wage, but we are four people in this club. I'll do my part." She pat Yeojin on the head, earning a genuine grin from her club leader. Hyeju thought she looked adorable when she wasn't being a goblin.
Yerim let out a nervous giggle. "Haha yeah me too! Well- im not actually part of the debate club sooo..."
Yeojin whipped her head towards her best friend. "Yerim you should officially join the debate club!"
"Well!"
"Please? For me?"
"Uhhh..."