ROOM OF MIRRORS° h.sj

015

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SAEBOM HIGH
NOON
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✧──────✦ sumin and sujin walked into the gym together and separated once they reached sooah. when the former received a text saying that her sister was skipping her tutoring session, she made a b-line to the gate to meet her.

sujin stood by sooah as sumin walked sideways behind the row of people to reach her and seojun's friends. she didn't think they'd take the 'dress like girls' advice seriously, but here they were dressed in cheerleader outfits and completed the look with wigs and lipstick.

"you guys look great!" sumin laughed as she passed someone in a pig costume.

"we have an extra if you want." someone in the back pulled something from their bag and tossed it to her.

she peered into the uniform and looked at the tag. "how'd you guys know my size?" no one answered her so she just set it to the side and sat down as they cheered during warmups.

the row of boys in front of her booed at suho who walked in just before the game started and sumin leaned forward on the railing. the person in the pig costume kept sniffing, so she reached into her bag and pulled the head up slightly to throw a tissue in.

the referee blew his whistle and the boys jumped for the ball. suho pushed it back to his team and passed it back and forth before eventually running past seojun and scoring.

the game went on for another two quarters and the score had been neck and neck. sumin thought the rivalry between seojun and suho would make for an interesting game, but the yawn bubbling in her throat said otherwise.

she slumped in her seat as suho threw the winning basket. the two boys talked on the court of a few seconds and suho walked away into the locker room. sumin knew if she talked to him within the next week, she'd get an earful about how tragic his life was.

an hour later, the students at the fair sat in the outdoor bleachers as a band sang a ballad. the only spot left was next to jugyeong who had noticeably puffy eyes, she guessed that she was the one in the pig costume.

jugyeong slid over more towards sooah as sumin sat down. she exchanged a few words with the other girls in an attempt to make conversation, excluding sumin of course. how could she be friends with people that forced her onto the edge of a building? she didn't think sumin was a bad person in the beginning, but jugyeong decided she had no choice but to be skeptical of her now.

"this is in memory of the late jung seyeon." the vocalist hesitantly spoke into the microphone, almost like he knew it was wrong. sumin stiffened as they began to sing the song that she knew seojun had wrote with seyeon. her and seyeon weren't the closest, but she knew him well enough.

she stood up from her seat and trudged away from the venue. as sumin came face to face with seojun, she pushed his shoulder to turn him around. her hands found their way to his back, and she pushed them towards their school's main building.

sumin made the striking revelation that she couldn't avoid him to save her life. she held out a juice box to seojun and sat on the desk opposite from him.

"you still suck at basketball," she poked the plastic straw into the carton.

"i couldn't focus because his face pisses me off that much."

a moment of silence flooded the room until sumin slid off the desk and gently placed her hand on his oh-so precious hair. "you did well."

before seojun could lean into her hand, sumin was already sliding the door closed behind her. he moved over to the window seat and looked out. seojun caught himself smiling as she skipped over to chorong and the others with a grin that stretched across her face. he couldn't remember the last time she smiled like that around him, or in general.

throughout middle school, his friends would always scream at him asking why his eyes would follow a girl they never knew when she walked past. luckily she never heard their jeers and his last sense of pride was saved. all he knew was that she sat in the window seat of the class next to his. he didn't once regret taking bathroom breaks every class period for a week in order to obtain that information.

so when he saw her sitting on their neighborhood swing set in the dead of night, his legs carried him to the one beside her. all common sense thrown to the side. he'd introduced himself to her, and she introduced herself to him. seojun finally matched the face to a name, kang sumin of class 1-4.

as the months went on and they got closer, middle school seojun found that she was an avid fighter. always showing up on his doorstep with a bruised cheek, but refused to give him context. despite the situation, he didn't mind it though, he enjoyed quality time with her, a lot.

when they'd go out for lunch, seojun lived allowance to allowance in order to pay for their meals. she never let him spend much on her, saying how she had an allowance too, so the person with the check switched at every outing.

he'd even taken up cooking for her. his mother put a hand over her heart and another on her eyes, saying how 'she was going to faint' when he asked her to teach him how to cook.

"are you sure i can have this?" she'd always ask when he handed her a neatly packed bento box.

and he'd always respond the same way, "my mom made extra and told me to give it to a friend." although his expert lying nearly went down the drain when she'd been visiting his apartment on the weekend. sumin happily approached his mother and thanked her for the prepackaged lunches that she received at least once a week.

"what lunches?"

"seojun said you sent them because you made extra..."

seojun's palms began to sweat when his mother raised an eyebrow at him.

"oh! i remember now," she let out a laugh that he could easily compare to the wicked witch of the west. "i'm glad you enjoyed it!"

safe to say, seojun had a lot to explain once sumin left.

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SAEBOM HIGH
MORNING
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✧──────✦ the teacher passed out the exam scores of last week and the class was on edge, some more than others.

"kang sumin."

"kang sujin."

the two walked up to the podium and took their papers from the teacher's hands. sujin walked down her row and quietly sat in the desk. her shaky hands flipped the paper over and her eyes darted to the bottom corner. 2/25

sumin now sat in her seat and flipped an eraser. one side had "live" carved in it, and the other had a badly drawn skull. she opened an eye and looked at the eraser. the skull laid face up and sumin pretended she hadn't seen it, she wasn't one for superstitions and myths anyways.

"what'd you get?" seojun looked over her shoulder at the paper that still hadn't been touched. sumin grabbed the corner of the paper and flipped it so quickly, her hand slammed on the desk. 13/25

"i'm a goner." sumin mumbled into her hands as sujin crumpled her paper and threw it into her organized bag.

the teacher finished handing out the testing papers and set his hands on the podium. "all flowers must endure the wind as they bloom. even the most beautiful flowers had to endure the wind as they bloomed. don't let your grades upset you too much."

the speech had the kang siblings pulling at their hair. inspiring quotes were only for those who had control over their life. if you didn't, that sucks.

"i'm meeting with your parents this week to discuss your grades."

the twins twisted their heads over to face each other. they both mouthed, "we're done for."