Love Fool || STAYC

Chapter 8

4 years ago...

"You have to show up. Not like the other time! Sumin! I'm warning you!" Sieun scolds Sumin over the phone.

"Yeah yeah. I will. But if you keep me up on the phone for any longer I'm afraid I won't show up on time princess and then you'll be left without a partner." Sumin jokes as she looks at the outfit she's left on her bed to wear. She's been busy trying to get herself ready for a while now but Sieun has kept talking to her over the phone. She can feel Sieun's excitement over the phone as well as nervousness. She understands all those feelings the girl has because she's sharing the exact same feelings, if not more of them.

Tonight is a special night. It's their graduation party, one that the school is arranging for all students that graduated this year. The rules are the usual: show up with a date, wear something fancy, not drink alcohol inside the school premises though no one is following that rule because everyone has actually brought bottles of "water" with them, hiding their alcoholic drinks inside.

Sumin doesn't care about any of those rules. Doesn't plan on aiming for the queen of the night title that their school always awards every year, doesn't plan on drinking too much or getting loose, doesn't plan on getting wild and partying too hard like how she always does almost every single Friday night now. Tonight, she has other plans.

Tonight, she plans on finally confessing to Sieun. She's had enough of waiting, enough of pushing and pulling, of challenging Sieun. She's almost too sure of the answer which is clear to everyone by now. That Sieun simply doesn't like her that way. Sieun is straight and Sumin knows that too well by now. She's always talked about guys and only and has liked a few guys around their school before. She's never dated anyone, yet, but still, it's pretty clear that she's not interested in girls. Still, Sumin wants to give it a chance, to let it out, even if she gets rejected. It's their last night as high schoolers and as a crazy wild girl that she always is, she wants to try something wild and crazy tonight too. In a different way. Not get too drunk like how she usually does, but confess instead, confess to her best friend who's straight and doesn't like her. That's crazy, maybe crazier than getting drunk and dancing with random people or flirting hilariously with girls and getting rejected.

Sumin doesn't care though.

Today has been a long and eventful day for most students. They graduated, their parents came to the ceremony in the morning, they received their diplomas and congratulated each other. For Sumin's group of friends this hasn't happened because Sumin's friends are younger than her and Sieun. They surely congratulated them the loudest they could though ⏤which was way louder than any other student has done for their friends who graduated today⏤ and couldn't stop hyping them up even hours later from the ceremony. Sumin's mother has showed up, but only briefly because her shift was starting somewhere in the middle of the ceremony, but Sumin didn't mind. She never did. She always understands how working as a nurse can be even if she hasn't been in that field ever before. She understands how some jobs can't have breaks, how people will always need her mom's help so she was way more than glad that her mother managed to be there even for half of the ceremony.

Sieun's parents haven't shown up. Both of them were busy with work, as always. Sieun seemed slightly bothered when they've both waited behind the podium and Sumin would keep looking excitedly around the crowd until she would spot her mom. She soon got over it though because as soon as she also spotted Sumin's mom she smiled immediately, feeling happy that someone very familiar to her that almost felt like an actual mother to her, someone that she adored so much, was there. Sumin hadn't questioned Sieun anything about her parents, knowing well enough how odd things were for Sieun so she only tried to make her happy that morning and forget about her sadness and disappointment that her parents couldn't be there for her.