all my nights taste like gold / purinz

08

THEN.

Chaewon doesn't actually realise how high up in the high school hierarchy Yunjin is until over halfway through her first year of high school, when Yunjin — and by proxy Chaewon — gets invited to a Halloween party. And not just any Halloween party, but Park Chaeyoung's Halloween party.

Park Chaeyoung is head cheerleader, the crowd parts like the Red Sea whenever she walks down the hall, and she's known for throwing notoriously chaotic parties that are difficult to score an invite to. Her annual Halloween party is apparently a very important event on the high school calendar, judging by the way Yunjin and Haseul immediately start brainstorming costume ideas during their study period in the library. Once they're done freaking out over actually being invited in the first place, that is.

Chaewon doesn't know enough about party etiquette to know if Yunjin inviting her is even allowed. Chaeyoung certainly hasn't invited her personally; Chaewon's never even spoken to her directly despite being somewhat jock-adjacent due to her position on the school's swim team, not because Chaeyoung is the kind of scary stock cheerleader out of a 90s movie — although she's usually flanked by Jennie and Jisoo, who do scare Chaewon a little — but simply because she's never had any reason to.

"Are you allowed to just invite other people to her party?" Chaewon asks, watching as Yunjin tries to put Naruto under the acceptable costumes column of the (long) list of costumes her and Haseul are poring over.

"Yeah, it's fine," Yunjin assures her, pouting when Haseul immediately strikes it out and writes literally any anime character under the unacceptable costumes column. "She said I could bring my grumpy friend and my loud friend."

"I am not grumpy," Chaewon grumbles, while Jiwoo shouts, "I'm not that loud!" loudly enough that the librarian promptly asks her to leave.

So despite her neutral stance on Chaeyoung herself and mild fear for her two right-hand women, Chaewon finds herself being talked into attending her first high school party. She makes up some excuse to her parents about going to Yunjin's for a horror movie night, which her mother clearly does not believe a word of, but she ruffles Chaewon's hair regardless and tells her not to do anything that will get her grounded when she drops Chaewon off at Yunjin's to get ready.

Chaewon's wearing a tight red top that she stole from her sister, black shorts, her favourite black boots, with a red cape and a pair of devil horns perched on her head.

Haseul's a vampire, dressed in all black complete with frighteningly realistic puncture marks on her neck, custom made vampire fangs from the Halloween store fitted over her teeth and splatters of blood across her face.

Yunjin has a pair of cat ears on her head and whiskers drawn on her face, and she's wearing tight black jeans and a black crop top. There's also a yellow crescent moon on her forehead, drawn on at the last minute while Haseul wasn't paying attention to thwart the strict no anime rules.

Chaeyoung's house (mansion? Estate? Castle?) is easily the biggest one Chaewon's ever seen — the Parks are loaded — and it's already packed by the time Chaewon, Yunjin and Haseul arrive. Soeun drops them off — Chaewon being the only one with the privilege of an older sibling who a) can drive, and b) is willing to taxi them around — and tells them to have fun.

"But like," Soeun adds on. "Not too much fun that I have to leave my own party to come pull you out of a ditch somewhere. Which I'll do if I have to, I just really don't want to."

"Love you too, unnie," Chaewon says dryly, and Soeun fYunjinies her off.

The party's already in full swing, music blasting from inside and people spilling outside into the garden and onto the pool deck, and Chaewon is a little overwhelmed when she follows Yunjin and Haseul through the front door and is immediately hit with the vague scent of alcohol and the kind of heat caused by a hundred sweaty teenagers crammed into one house.