romeo + juliet

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The next day after school, Chaewon walks to the library to meet the freshman she's been assigned to tutor. She's embarrassingly excited, looking forward to meeting a possible member of the next generation of mathletes. When she walks towards the table they'd agreed on and sees a black-haired girl in an oversized hoodie, headphones on and, yes, drumming on the table, she realizes her expectations for the meeting may be a little too high. Still, she plasters on a smile, sitting in front of the girl and setting down her books.

"Are you Hong Eunchae?" She asks. The girl, Eunchae, nods, reluctantly taking her earbuds out and staring at Chaewon with dead eyes.

"Not so excited for tutoring, huh?" Chaewon gives a sympathetic smile. Eunchae rolls her eyes and Chaewon presses her lips together, trying to quickly come up with a different approach.

"Okay, let's keep this professional, then," says Chaewon, matching the girl's uninterested look, "You listen to me, you do better in school. You do better in school, you don't have to do tutoring anymore. Deal?" Eunchae nods and Chaewon begins to wonder if she should also start communicating in nods and grunts to better relate to her.

They start the session and it goes okay. Eunchae is a fast learner, but Chaewon can tell she isn't trying and she seems to forget everything as soon as she's learned it. Chaewon is beginning to get frustrated when she sees something out of the corner of her eye that freezes her in her seat. The freakishly tall mutant she'd been doing her best to avoid is walking through the library with her best friend, Nakamura Kazuha, by her side. Chaewon ducks her head, knowing she looks stupid hiding from nothing but too desperate to avoid Yunjin's gaze. This makes no sense. Yunjin never goes to the library. Eunchae turns to see what Chaewon is hiding from and, to Chaewon's horror, the younger girl breaks out into a grin at the sight.

"Yunjin!" Eunchae calls across the library, attracting dirty looks from the other patrons.

Yunjin turns, "Baby Hong?"

Chaewon wants to sink into the floor. Not only is Yunjin heading towards their table, they now have half the library staring at them. When Yunjin spots her, her smile widens, quickening her pace to a jog. Chaewon could kill her. Who jogs in a library?

Yunjin reaches their table and Chaewon shoots her a look that she hopes says leave before I lose my shit . The last thing she needs is Yunjin coming over and undermining whatever authority she's managed to hold onto. Ignoring Chaewon's telepathic messaging, Yunjin engulfs Eunchae in a hug that looks almost painful, completely with slaps on the back which shake Eunchae's whole body.

"How do you know ChaeChae?" Yunjin asks the younger girl.

"I'm her tu-" Chaewon begins to explain, but Eunchae cuts her off.

"We're friends," Eunchae says quickly, "We were, um, studying together."

"Studying together?" Yunjin repeats, "Zuha and I were just coming here to study! What are the odds?" She plops down in the seat beside Chaewon and Kazuha takes the seat beside Eunchae. Chaewon wants nothing more than to tell them to get lost, but Eunchae is smiling for the first time in the entire session and she desperately wants this girl to learn, so she bites her tongue.

"Okay," She turns back to Eunchae, "Where were we, the quadratic equation?"

"Oh," Yunjin claps her hands, "I need to review this too."

Chaewon doesn't make Yunjin's class schedule her business, but she's almost sure that it doesn't include Algebra 1 with the freshmen. Still, she doesn't have time to argue about Yunjin's math curriculum. She sighs and continues with the material, doing her best to tune their new guests out although Yunjin's obnoxiously loud voice makes it pretty much impossible.

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