Chapter Text
Monday
Nayeon looked at the students passing her by and briefly wondered what it would be like to have some semblance of a normal and calm life.
“Nayeon, please,” Dahyun begged, drawing Nayeon’s focus back to her as she fell to her knees and began shaking her clasped hands in front of her. “We need your moral support. It’s our first game, and we’re very scared and very small.”
Chaeyoung nodded vigorously, her short hair flopping into her eyes, “Yes, please come! You promised you would. Tell your professor it’s important!”
Nayeon paused before speaking, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers and doing her best not to burst into laughter.
“What I was going to say,” Nayeon said, voice quavering ever so slightly, “was that I can’t come to the game early because I have a lab right beforehand. I will absolutely be at the game. I’ve been a regular fixture at the games for years. I told you: I have several friends on the team, and I wouldn’t miss you two playing for anything.”
“Oh,” Dahyun said, hopping to her feet with a bright smile on her face. “You should’ve said that to begin with!”
“I—,” Nayeon started, stopping short when Chaeyoung pulled her into a quick hug.
“Thanks, Nayeon! Love you! We gotta go to class now.”
Chaeyoung turned, tugging Dahyun with her and beginning to jog, yelling something about how they had 2 minutes to get to class.
Nayeon did the only thing she could do when Dahyun and Chaeyoung pulled her into a drive-by conversation: shake her head and laugh.
She continued to her destination, letting herself fall back into step with the dozens of students around her rushing to and from their classes. She counted herself amongst the lucky ones; her class schedule this semester was wonderfully spaced, and she only had classes three days of the week.
She slipped her phone out of her pocket, letting her eyes flicker between her phone screen and the path in front of her as she typed out a message to her lunch companion.
Annoyeon
[1:23 PM] Gonna be a bit late. Some friends pulled me into conversation. See you in five.
[1:23 PM] Also, feel free to order my usual if you’re already going to be ordering before I get there =D
She slid the phone back into her pocket and focused on making it to her destination without running into anyone. Campus was always so much more hectic during the first week of classes. She blamed the freshmen.
She felt her phone vibrate several times in her pocket and smiled to herself. She had a feeling Jihyo was sending her messages about how she was ‘reliably unreliable’, but she knew that when she got to the cafe, her usual lunch order would be ready and waiting.
It seemed like this semester was off to a pretty good start.
//
Thursday
Nayeon hesitated before pushing the door open. Pushing open this door and stepping into the lab room would make this class all the more real. The metal plate on the door was cold against her fingertips, and she wondered what alloy it was made of. Were there certain building codes that chemistry labs had to follow? Did it extend all the way to the doors in the doorframe?
The sound of a throat clearing behind her snapped Nayeon back into focus, and she pushed the door open before she could find other things to delay her entrance with.
There were about half a dozen students in the room at this point, and none of them bothered to look up when she entered. The students who had filed in behind her were now clustered around a desk at the front of the room, and when she wandered over, Nayeon discovered that there was a seating chart.
She scanned the paper for her name, hoping that next to it would be the name of someone she knew. The chances were slim, as most of her peers had taken organic chemistry years ago, but still.
As expected, the name next to hers was wholly unfamiliar, and as she made her way to her seat for the semester, Nayeon could only hope that ‘Yoo Jeongyeon’ was a half-decent person.
She settled into her seat with a resigned sigh. While organic chemistry wasn’t going to be the hardest class she had ever taken, it was one she had kicked as far down the road as she could. And today was the day she finally had to face it.
She had already taught herself all she needed to know about organic chemistry for the career she wanted. She knew which carbon bonds got her blending and fixing compounds, and she knew the basic reactions that went into synthesizing perfumes. For three years, she had asked herself why she should care about the rest of it.
The answer had come in the form of her academic advisor calling her into his office to tell her that this semester was her last chance to take organic chemistry. And so, come class registration day, she had signed up for this class.
Out of spite, she had signed up for it last. It didn’t change the fact that she had to take it, but she did feel better about it for a minute.
The workload itself wasn’t that bad. It was only two hours of class plus one three hour lab a week. Easy. Well—Nayeon looked around the lab room, wondering if ‘Yoo Jeongyeon’ was already here—easy as long as she got a decent lab partner.
The class portion was a breeze. Organic chemistry was all puzzles and instinct, and if there was one thing Nayeon was good at —besides countless other things— it was taking her impulses and running with them.
The thought of having a terrible lab partner was what made her anxious, what had her awake at 7 when she didn’t have class until noon.
(There had been a traumatic lab partner experience her freshman year in General Chemistry. While it did introduce her to two of her closest friends, she still flinched whenever Momo or Sana got close to an open flame. To this day, they each insisted the other had been the one to throw their lab coat onto a solution that had caught fire.)
So. As long as this ‘Yoo Jeongyeon’ person wasn’t the girl who had already fallen asleep or the girl she could overhear asking someone about the difference between an electron and a proton, she was good.
The minutes ticked by, and Nayeon felt the anxiety that had settled begin to stir up again as the seat next to her remained empty. There was one minute to the start of class, and the professor had already begun writing notes on the whiteboard. She tried to distract herself by looking around the classroom, but this lab looked the same as countless others scattered across campus and held nothing of note.
Six more minutes trickled by, and her lab partner was still nowhere to be found. She tried to convince herself that it was nothing, that she was worrying so much for no reason. There were many reasons someone could be late to class, especially on the first day. Yoo Jeongyeon was sure to come stumbling in any minute now.
Her eyes stayed locked on the door. The professor was still going over the lab syllabus, and she really didn’t need to listen to someone read aloud the words that were printed right in front of her. All she cared about was seeing that door open.
She was right by the door, so it was easy for her to notice a shadow appearing behind the tinted window pane. Nayeon couldn’t help but hold her breath.
The shadow paused for a moment before pushing open the door and stepping into the room.
Nayeon knew immediately that she was doomed.
The first thing Nayeon noticed about the newcomer was the look of disinterest on her delicate features. She glanced around the room before letting her eyes settle on the professor, no sheepishness or embarrassment to be found.
The second thing she noticed was the cup of coffee in the other woman’s hand, steam spiraling up from the lid a clear indicator of its freshness.
“Ms. Yoo, I presume,” The professor said.
Yoo Jeongyeon, her lab partner for the next four months, just nodded. No apology. No concern. Nothing.
“Please take your seat by Ms. Im. She’ll be your lab partner for the semester.” The professor gestured towards her as he spoke, and Nayeon did her best to muster a smile despite her building annoyance.
Jeongyeon’s eyes met hers, and she felt the annoyance spark as the other woman took a sip from her drink, not breaking eye contact. The smile never quite formed on her lips, and Jeongyeon moved her gaze after a beat, slipping into the seat next to her without a word.
Nayeon wondered if screaming in the midst of class was enough of a faux-pas to get her transferred to a different lab slot.
She had liked Yoo Jeongyeon better when she was just a shadow on the other side of the door, something that she could project false excuses onto. But now, now Yoo Jeongyeon was real and corporeal and seemed to not give a damn about this lab.
Nayeon did her best to focus on the professor as he laid out the experiments for the semester as class continued, but she found her efforts stifled by her bubbling irritation. She tried to ignore Jeongyeon, tried to ignore her sketches of weird stick figures in costumes along the margins of her syllabus.
She tried, and she failed. She wondered if she could convince any of her friends to go drinking with her after their game.
It was two hours into class when Nayeon realized that, aside from having an awful lab partner, she also had an awful professor. She’d expected him to end class after an hour or so, explaining what was in store for them and then letting them go. Instead, he seemed intent on using all of the time available to him to regale them with stories of chemistry lab mishaps and wayward students.
Yes, Nayeon had told Dahyun and Chaeyoung that she would be just on time for their game, but she had been banking on being let out early so that she could surprise them. Instead, she was stuck listening to her professor drone on and on about pointless things.
Somehow, she managed to stay awake for the rest of class. About half of the class, her lovely lab partner included, were dozing off. Jeongyeon’s head had dropped to the desk about half an hour ago, and Nayeon had fought the urge to reach over and slap the back of her head.
Finally, with 3 minutes left to spare, the professor released them, suggesting they exchange numbers in order to work on the pre-lab questions before class next week.
Nayeon turned to Jeongyeon with a sigh, ready to snap her awake, but she was met with alert brown eyes instead. Suddenly, she found herself unable to remember what exactly she had been going to say.
“Here,” Jeongyeon’s blunt voice broke through her stupor. “Put your number in.”
She reached out, taking the phone that was offered to her and entering in her number, mind still slightly jumbled. She saved her information, figuring ‘Nayeon – Chemistry' was suitable, and locked the phone before handing it back.
As she did so, she caught a glimpse of the lockscreen. She saw a tall dark-haired girl wrapped up in Jeongyeon’s arms, a smile on both of their faces; it appeared her lab partner may have a soul after all. Something about that girl looked vaguely familiar, but she didn’t have enough time to dwell on it further.
“Thanks,” Jeongyeon said as she took her phone back, unlocking it to check something. “I’ll text you so we can talk schedules and stuff.” Jeongyeon looked up at her, gaze falling back to her phone when Nayeon nodded.
Nayeon opened her mouth to start a conversation, wanting to see what information she could glean about her lab partner besides the fact that she enjoyed coffee and being late.
“So what –,” Nayeon was cut short as Jeongyeon shot to her feet, a look of terror on her face.
“Fuck! Shit, sorry,” Jeongyeon exclaimed as she began stuffing her things into her bag. “I have to leave. Text you later!”
Jeongyeon was gone before Nayeon could even begin formulating a response, and as her eyes fell to the empty coffee cup that had been left behind, she was certain of only one thing.
Yoo Jeongyeon sucked.
//
“Shit,” Jeongyeon muttered to herself as she hit another ceiling light. “Stupid fucking costume. Stupid Tzuyu. Stupid work-study.”
She adjusted her costume with a sigh, checking to make sure that the light up part still worked. Through the mesh screen in front of her face, she glanced at the clock on the wall, noting that she had about 10 minutes until half-time. Ten minutes until she made her debut as the school’s mascot and committed herself to a semester of this.
Perfect. Just enough time for her to text Tzuyu and yell at her for letting her go through with this plan. She knew Tzuyu wouldn’t see her text until after the game, but the knowledge of having sent it would be enough for Jeongyeon.
When Tzuyu had jokingly suggested that Jeongyeon take the mascot position so that she could have a front-row seat to Tzuyu playing, Jeongyeon had responded with rolled eyes and a demand that Tzuyu stop joking around and help her choose between the front desk position at the library or at the gym.
But the idea had refused to leave her brain, and as she laid in bed that night, eyes drifting over books and clothes that had yet to be packed for her return to school, she had thought about it.
And she had kept thinking about it.
And come morning she was logging onto the work-study site and hitting “Apply” on the mascot position. That afternoon, she got the confirmation email, and it was a done deal.
Well, it was a done deal that required her to come up with costume ideas and plan out how she was going to make the most of this opportunity. As Jeongyeon saw it, the advantages of going to a university that had no defined mascot and that only really had successful women’s sports teams were as follows:
1. She didn’t have to wear one ridiculous costume the entire time. She could change from week to week using the school’s budget.
2. She only had to perform for the women’s teams, and soccer was the only big fall semester sport.
And now she was sitting in the locker room with time to kill, having made her way here to prepare her ‘half-time special’. She was pretty sure she’d never seen another mascot light up before, and she needed to make sure things went off without a hitch.
She let her mind wander as she leaned back against the lockers as best she could with what was essentially a giant lollipop on her head.
Her senior year was off to a perfectly solid start. Jihyo was her roommate, Tzuyu had made it onto the soccer team, and her classes were just the right level of difficulty.
Well, except for organic chemistry. As the semester approached, she had thought many times about just dropping that class, but her and Jihyo had made a bet.
And if there was one thing she couldn’t do, it was lose to Jihyo.
The other woman would be insufferable at best, flush with bragging rights and the fifty dollars Jeongyeon would have to hand over if she couldn’t at least pull a B in the class.
Despite the fact that it meant her semester would be full of a subject she hated, Jeongyeon couldn’t help but smile as she recalled the conversation that had led to her signing up for the class in the first place.
“Listen, Park. I can do science! I was a chemistry major my freshman year. Psychology is a science!”
“Please, your degree in social work is a bachelor of the arts. You haven’t so much as counted in three years.”
“You med-school babies are so damn haughty.”
“That’s because we can do complex science.”
“Fuck you. Name a class I have the prereqs for. I bet you fifty bucks I can score at least a B.”
“Organic Chemistry.”
“You’re on. You’re a terrible person who’s going to be giving me money in half a year, but you’re on.”
The look on Jihyo’s face when she got her grades back at the end of the semester would 100% be worth the three hours of lab she had to deal with every week.
Jeongyeon winced as she recalled how her first lab session had gone. She had been nothing short of mortified the entire time. She had walked into that class five minutes late holding an Americano and immediately felt far too much like a stereotype for her comfort.
When she had left her apartment that afternoon, she had been sure that there would be enough time for her to get a coffee and get to class. She hadn't even bothered checking her watch as she waited in line at one of the cafes on campus.
And then the professor told her that her lab partner was the eye-catching woman who had been glaring at her from the moment she walked in, and Jeongyeon had wanted to sink into the floor.
Her pride needed her to get a B, and she couldn’t do that with a lab partner that hated her guts. She had tried, at the very end of class, to patch things up. The entire first half of the class period had been dedicated to planning out her costumes for the next couple months and thinking of ways to make the girl next to her realize that Jeongyeon was not in fact a slacker.
The moment she realized that she didn't know the name of her lab partner was the moment she almost gave up on the bet. The professor had said something when directing her to her seat, but she was too busy trying not to blush to commit the name to memory.
Kim? Shim? Lee? She truly had no idea.
And then. Her nameless lab partner had shifted next to her, pushing her hair over one shoulder and giving Jeongyeon an unfettered view of the column of her neck. Jeongyeon’s eyes had lingered more than they should’ve, and she had dropped her head to her desk the moment she had realized what was going on.
And when she finally got the chance to make her case? She could barely make eye contact and had bolted in the middle of the other woman’s sentence.
As she had been leaving the lab room, she knew she would regret leaving so quickly, but she didn’t really have a choice. She had made a commitment with this job, and she always lived up to her commitments.
She had to get to her apartment and back to the locker room and store her costume there before anyone saw her. If there was one thing that had been stressed to her when she took this job, it was that the identity of the mascot was to stay hidden as best as possible.
Jeongyeon let out another groan as she realized that she didn’t know her lab partner’s name and would therefore have to scroll through her entire contacts list to try and figure out who to message once she finally stopped being so embarrassed. This bet was already off to a great start.
She blamed Jihyo and Tzuyu.
The sound of the locker room door slamming open jolted her out of her plotting for revenge, and she moved off of the bench as quickly as her costume allowed her.
A figure moved into the locker room, and with her impaired vision, all Jeongyeon could tell was that this person had long dark hair and seemed to be in a hurry.
“Where the hell is her locker,” muttered the figure, beginning to move towards a row of lockers.
Jeongyeon wasn’t really sure what was happening, but she knew she didn’t want to be responsible for someone stealing something.
“Hi,” she said, raising her voice to make sure it carried across the room. “Do you need help?”
The figure jumped, hands flying to their chest as they finally saw her. “What the hell?”
Jeongyeon waved, knowing that all the intruder was seeing a giant pink and yellow lollipop waving at them. “I’m the mascot.”
“Oh.” The figure moved closer, and for probably the 17th time that hour, Jeongyeon cursed the mesh covering for reducing everyone to non-distinct shapes.
“You look a little ridiculous.” The voice had a feminine tone to it, and Jeongyeon relaxed slightly. She didn’t want to have to deal with some guy breaking into the women’s locker room to play some sort of prank.
Jeongyeon laughed before she could stop herself, cutting it off once she realized her hard work was being insulted. “Hey! This thing took a lot of time to put together.”
“What even are you?” She was right in front of her now, head craned back to take in her whole costume.
“A cheering stick. See?” Jeongyeon shifted slightly in place, causing the upper half of her costume to sway.
“You look like a lollipop.” The skepticism in the interloper’s voice was clear as day, and Jeongyeon had a feeling that an eyebrow raise accompanied it.
“Can lollipops do this,” Jeongyeon asked proudly, moving her arm inside the costume to flip the switch that was supposed to light up the top of her costume.
“Do what? Stand still?”
Jeongyeon looked up, realizing that the lights in the costume were as dark as they had been before she pressed the button.
“Fuck.”
The visitor giggled.
“Oh, a lollipop that says ‘fuck’. That’s kinda fun.” The mirth in her voice sent a small thrill up Jeongyeon’s spine, and she had to fight back the impulse to say something sarcastic to a complete stranger.
“What are you even doing here?”
“Oh, right. I’m looking for Hirai Momo’s locker. I had a rough class right before this, so I wanted to treat myself to hot chocolate, which of course some jerk spilled on my shirt while cheering, and I need a change of clothes. I know her combo, but I don’t know where her locker is.”
Jeongyeon squinted, scowling when she realized that it only made the person in front of her blurrier. “How do you know her combination but not where her locker is?”
“Momo uses the same combination for everything.”
Jeongyeon supposed she couldn’t argue. She had only met Momo two weeks ago when dropping Tzuyu off for practice, and while the other woman seemed incredibly friendly, she couldn’t really say anything else beyond that.
“The lockers are organized by number. They start at zero over there,” Jeongyeon raised her arm and pointed to the lockers closest to the door, “and circle around clockwise.”
“Oh, cool. She’s number 64. Thank you for your help, lollipop woman.” The other woman laughed once more as she finished her sentence, and Jeongyeon couldn’t help but smile slightly. She would be lying if she said she completely hated the sound of the stranger’s laugh.
Jeongyeon watched, unsure of what else to do, as the other woman moved over to Momo’s locker, entering the combination without hesitation and grabbing something from within.
It was when she went to leave that Jeongyeon decided to ask the question that had been burning on her lips.
“Wait. Who are you? In case someone asks who the person in the locker room was.”
The name was thrown over the mystery woman’s shoulder as she left, and something about it rang familiar.
“Im Nayeon.”
Jeongyeon muttered the name to herself a few times once the door had closed. She swore she had heard that name before. A glance at the clock had her filing away the question for later.
She had a crowd to amaze.
//
Friday
It was the perfect Friday afternoon. Jeongyeon had finished all of her homework for the week and didn’t have class today. She was completely free to just lay on her best friend’s bed and listen to her grumble about how annoying all of her professors were for giving so much homework.
Perfection.
Except for the fact that Jeongyeon was pretty sure she was never going to be able to talk to her lab partner.
She sighed as she once again reached the bottom of her contacts list without noticing a new name. Her lab partner had to be in here somewhere.
She glanced over at Jihyo, wondering how loudly the other woman would laugh if she knew that Jeongyeon had already messed up a relationship so crucial to their bet.
She flicked her finger against her phone screen and scrolled to a random letter. There was Momo from Tzuyu’s soccer team, Myoui Mina from a games design class her sophomore year, and absolutely no sign of anyone new.
She continued scrolling, moving into the N’s with growing trepidation in her stomach. What if her lab partner didn’t understand how her phone worked and hadn’t actually saved her number? What if her phone had deleted the number because —
“Shit!” Jeongyeon sat up fully on the bed, clutching her nose with one hand and grabbing for her phone with the other.
“Are you okay,” Jihyo asked, turning around in her chair to raise an eyebrow at her roommate. “Did you just drop your phone on your face?”
“No,” Jeongyeon scoffed. “I just saw something surprising on my phone.”
Jihyo hummed in a way that told Jeongyeon she didn’t believe her before she turned back to her desk.
Through watery eyes, Jeongyeon stared at the contact information on her phone screen. She knew that name had sounded familiar.
“Im Nayeon,” Jeongyeon muttered under her breath. “What a coincidence.”
“Okay so now you’re talking to yourself. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Jihyo please go away I’m trying to have a moment.”
“You’re in my room, Yoo Jeongyeon.”
“Well. Shut up.”
Jeongyeon fell back onto Jihyo’s bed as the other woman’s laughter hit her ears. She knew she could try explaining what had happened to Jihyo, but she had a feeling the other woman needed all the time she could get with her homework.
Jihyo let out a string of curses as she began furiously erasing something from her notebook, and Jeongyeon nodded to herself.
Her story was better saved for another day.
//
Saturday
Unknown
[8:13 AM] Hi. This is Yoo Jeongyeon, your lab partner. I’m sorry about running out on your on Thursday.
[8:14 AM] *you. When are you free to meetup before next class? I’m pretty open after 1 most days.
Nayeon had been staring at her phone for the last 10 minutes, unsure if she wanted to go tell her lab partner to choke or if she wanted to respond properly.
She had done her best to let their first meeting slip from her mind, had instead focused on getting to watch her friends play soccer. Arriving just in time, Nayeon had been able to wave to Dahyun and Chaeyoung during their warmups, the smiles on the younger girls faces lifting her mood instantly.
She knew several other players, sure. Had met Sana and Momo during her first year and Mina the year after. Jihyo had quite literally ran into her on campus last semester, starting a friendship that had quickly blossomed.
But she had known Dahyun and Chaeyoung since she was 13, had been given her very first job by their parents. It was her job to take care of them after school, a duty that she embraced even when the girls were old enough to look after themselves.
Nayeon hadn’t made friends easily, certainly not in high school, and being around Dahyun and Chaeyoung meant laughter and familiarity. Going to their soccer games followed suit, and attending their games was one of the things she had missed the most when she left for university.
So if seeing both of them running around on that field with the name of one of the most accomplished university’s in the country splayed across their chest made her tear up a little bit, well, she’d just have to hope that no one noticed.
And they had won, and Nayeon was happy.
But that was two days ago and this was today and she had a lab partner to deal with.
Nayeon – Chemistry
[8:33 AM] Next Tuesday. Love Line Coffee. 2:30 PM. Hopefully if we meet at a coffee shop, you can get your precious caffeine and still be on time.
There. That seemed like an even compromise between getting things done and a ‘Fuck off'.
She looked up from her phone when she heard a knock, a smile easily coming to her lips when she saw one of her roommates standing in the doorway.
“You know,” Momo said, smiling “just because you borrow my shirt for a few hours doesn’t mean you have to buy me breakfast.”
Nayeon quirked an eyebrow. “Who said I bought you breakfast?”
Momo laughed lightly. “The muffins on the counter with the note that said ‘Thanks for the shirt’,” she answered, pausing for a moment before continuing. “Also, Mina told me when she said goodbye this morning.”
Nayeon scoffed and rolled her eyes as she moved to stand. “Why couldn’t you date someone that doesn’t expose me?”
“Because then I couldn’t be attracted to them,” Momo answered, her arms falling open to pull Nayeon into a hug as she got closer. “It’s important that the woman I end up with know that you’re a soft loser.”
Nayeon hummed as she settled her chin onto Momo’s shoulder, poking her in the side for good measure. “I’ll have you know I’m a hot commodity on campus. Three idiots have already asked me out this week.”
“Guys,” Momo asked, tone implying she already knew the answer.
“Yup.”
“Gross.”
Nayeon nodded, settling into the embrace and letting herself fully relax. She always did love Momo’s hugs, and it was just the thing she needed to let the last of her irritation at her lab partner bleed out of her.
A few beats passed before she broke the embrace, stepping back and properly processing what her roommate was wearing. Momo was wearing basketball shorts and a sports bra, an outfit Nayeon knew she usually only wore for one purpose.
“Please don’t tell me you’ve already gone to the gym this morning. I assumed you were asleep when I saw just Mina in the kitchen.”
Momo just grinned and shrugged.
Nayeon opened her mouth, ready to say something about Momo’s ridiculous training schedule, when something sparked in her mind.
“Do you know who the mascot is?”
Momo cocked her head to the side, surprise at the change in topic clear on her face. “The mascot?”
“Yeah,” Nayeon responded, feeling herself smile slightly at the thought of her locker room encounter. “For the soccer team. Was dressed as a weird glow-up cheering stick slash lollipop thing.”
“Oooo,” Momo responded, eyes widening with understanding. “That mascot. No I have no idea who that is.”
“Damn,” Nayeon muttered, her shoulders slumping. She knew the identity of the mascot was a well protected secret but still. She had hoped Momo had heard something around the locker room.
“Why do you want to know who the mascot is?”
“She just—,” Nayeon sighed. “I ran into her when I was changing my shirt. She told me where your locker was, and she actually made me laugh after my experience with my demon of a lab partner. Made me curious.”
“Nayeon.”
Nayeon saw the smirk curling on Momo’s lips and heard the tone in her voice and began waving her hands in protest.
“Absolutely not!”
“You have a crush on the mascot!” Momo was laughing now, and Nayeon was torn between grabbing a pillow from her bed to smack her with and continuing to protest.
“Who has a crush on who?” Sana’s voice hit her ears, and a wave of fear came over Nayeon.
Minatozaki Sana was clever, beautiful, and absolutely relentless when it came to her friends’ crushes. Three weeks to the day after she had found out that Momo liked Mina, she had all but tricked them into confessing to each other. Nayeon had gleefully participated in the scheme, texting both of her friends with plans to meetup at a restaurant she had no plans of going to, but that was completely different.
But she knew Sana wouldn’t see it that way.
“No one has a crush on anyone,” Nayeon blurted out, glaring at a still-laughing Momo. “Some people just don’t understand what friendly curiosity is.”
Sana came into view, rubbing sleep from her eyes and yawning. She blinked several times before glancing between Nayeon and Momo.
“Well,” Sana started, pausing when she started yawning again, “I feel like this is something I should care about, but I just woke up so I can’t. Is there breakfast anywhere?”
“There are muffins in the kitchen,” Nayeon said. The faster she could get Sana away from this topic, the better off she was.
Sana said something unintelligible and wandered off in the direction of the kitchen.
Momo turned to face her, likely going to start up the crush conversation again, but Nayeon refused to let that happen.
“Sana’s probably going to eat all of the muffins.”
Momo stiffened, genuine fear coming across her features before she turned and ran for the kitchen, yelling for Sana to wait for her.
Nayeon sighed with relief once she was alone again. She knew Momo didn’t think she actually had a crush on a woman she had just met, but still. It was too early in the morning for teasing.
She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and reached for it, unable to stop the jolt of irritation that came when she saw who it was.
Unknown
[8:40 AM] I’ll be there.
Nayeon saw three dots pop up to indicate that Jeongyeon was still typing, and she was very satisfied to see them disappear without any further text messages.
With any luck, Jeongyeon would show up to their meeting, do the work, and be the semi-decent lab partner Nayeon had been hoping for.
And if not, well.
There was always the screaming-until-they-transfer-you option.