Friday morning found Mia nervously pacing back and forth between the racks of Club Wi Fan.
She'd been there since 7:00 in the morning when Byeong called to ask her to cover the opening shift, despite skipping school to work all day yesterday.
Four cups of coffee later and Mia was both jittery and on-edge, which was not making a good combination.
As far as her 'plan' went, tonight she was putting it into action. Tonight she was going to wow her precious Renjun-shi, and come Monday morning she was no longer going to go unnoticed in the school halls.
But the problem Mia now faced was the exact question of what to wear tonight. Because this was the most important night, the night everything was riding on. And it was Halloween.
Not only did she need to be bright, colourful, and fashionable, but she needed to actually look like something, and not just lingerie with animal ears.
Still pacing frantically, Mia ended up walking into the bathing suit rack. Angrily, she shoved off it and paced in the opposite direction.
Why did they still have bathing suits out in October, anyway? It was like they didn't understand the concept of seasonal. No one went to beaches anymore, and hardly anyone her age went to the public pool.
Thoughts of the beach led her mind, of course, directly to the particular incident at the beach last summer. Specifically, last August, the day she decided it was a good day to go to the beach.
And what a good decision that had been. Mia loved swimming, and she loved water, but she was always too shy to go out in public.
The only bathing suits she owned were a gross navy one-piece and a blue string bikini she felt horridly uncomfortable in. That day, however, her parents had been fighting again and Mia had been desperate to get out. So she grabbed the blue bikini and stormed out.
That day, Huang Renjun had been on lifeguard duty. Mia had been secretly in love with Renjun since she moved to Seoul, but had always been too shy to ever speak to him.
If Mia had been brave, she would have laid her towel out right underneath his chair and stretched out in her blue bikini and won him over.
But Mia wasn't brave. Instead, she kept her towel wrapped fiercely around her and sulked by the snack bar.
It was only when she watched Renjun disappear under the water's surface that years of swimming lessons and love kicked in.
She had sprinted down the sand, ripping off the towel as she went and dove into the water after them.
Saving them hadn't been hard, she was a strong swimmer. But with all the people crowding around her, soaking wet and in a tiny scrap of clothing, her mortification at being seen like that made her dash away.
Mia had shoved the bikini in the bottom of her drawer and resolved never to think of it again. But seeing all these tiny ones out on display just made her blood boil.
"Hey!"
Mia jumped, startled. Suji poked her head around the rack, smiling. Mia had been so lost in her thoughts she hadn't seen her enter the store.
That wasn't very good of her. "Suji!" Mia covered her surprise. "What are you doing here?"
Suji shrugged. "Just looking around the mall, for stuff for tonight. There's so many people from school hanging around!"
