Love is War | purinz

5.

It didn't take long for Kazuha to finally make her way back, slipping back into the kitchen from the crowd relatively unscathed. Reporting back to Yunjin on what everyone was up to, mentioning a few names she wishes she didn't recognize. Kazuha knew of Minjeong, saw her pulling on her shoes in their doorway more than a few times at the start of the year. She seems nice — Yunjin remembers the small, awkward wave Kazuha offered the girl when they met each other for the first time. But upon the many requests for her to stay out of trouble , Yunjin decides against telling her about the encounter.

The two of them were so caught up in conversation, placing bets on whether their freshman teammate would drop the whole I can't stand her! gig about her blatant little crush before winter break, that they barely noticed who had slipped in through the front door. It's only instinct that they turn towards the sound, a gentle swell of greetings on top of the volume that plagued this place. Kim Chaewon and Miyawaki Sakura slide through the crowd in their direction and Yunjin's drink turns sour in her mouth.

Ever so popular, being dragged into conversation by every single person that spots them. Everyone here seemed excited to see the cheerleaders spare for one person, eyes trained carefully on Chaewon's every move — Yunjin scowls at just how fast her mood takes a turn.

Looking as perfect as she always is, standing out so starkly in that crowd. The people that had immediately swamped her as soon as they recognized her barely held a light to how much she shone. Hallway crush — a title the girl held all throughout highschool.

Looks like things like that never change. Yunjin bitterly downs the rest of her drink in one fell swoop.

She was about to let loose the string of complaints she had to Kazuha until she saw the girl's expression, following her careful gaze to Sakura with her back turned towards them. Eyes locked carefully on the girl's presence, hands occupying themselves with each other restlessly below her waist. Seeing her roommate flustered was a surprising change, caught off guard enough to let herself get pulled out of the kitchen.

Out of the two years she's spent nearly every single day with her, she's never seen Kazuha behave in such a peculiar way. Always sporting a calm, composed demeanour that rarely let other people get the better of her.

Until today, with Kazuha's grip on the front of her shirt strong enough to wrinkle it for the next hour.

Leading them quickly away into the next room, Yunjin barely caught the plastic shot glass shoved into her hand the second Kazuha stopped. She watched as the girl peeked around the corner into the hallway where the two cheerleaders had been occupied by conversation, quickly darting back seemingly even more panicked than before.

"Let's take another shot," the words tumble out of Kazuha's mouth, picking up a cup of her own. Yunjin barely had time to shoot the liquor back at the sheer speed at which Kazuha downed it, writing a subtle mental note that liquid courage is in the girl's playbook.

Still wincing away the burn of forty proof down her throat, Yunjin leaned around the bend to catch a look herself. Sakura was chatting with a group of girls she didn't recognize but the conversation was lost to her with the little Japanese she knew — Yunjin swears at the one time continuing her Japanese lessons with Kazuha over the dining hall table would have been useful.

Kazuha's grip on the front of her shirt jerked her back into the next room and out of Sakura's potential sight. Leaving Yunjin to enjoy the sight of her friend being appallingly flushed for just seeing the girl. For how long she's known her, Nakamura Kazuha hasn't had anything that even resembled something as trivial as a crush .

Or at least, Yunjin hopes it's a crush. Maybe she just really wants an autograph.

It's a passing thought that drifts into her alcohol-addled mind, still staring intently at Kazuha's apparent nervousness — if she gets laid, will she stop making me do those ab exercises with her at two in the morning?