From Five to Six | Michaeng

Chapter 17: Girlfriend School

It is inevitable. People change.

They do not change completely, though. That's impossible. Or at least that's what Park Jihyo believes. She has seen it. Yes, she sees it every day. No one really pays attention anymore but she does. If you take a look at her, your first thought maybe won't be how perceptive she appears to be. Not at all, with her dark red hair, never wearing the proper school uniform, and late assignments. Chaeyoung would definitely misjudge her in the blink of an eye.

Nevertheless, she would be mistaken. Yes, Jihyo may have a few bad habits, like skipping classes, underage drinking, smoking in the locker room, and probably, fooling around too much with her girlfriend— even if some won't classify that as bad—but, she is not all that. She is indeed quite perceptive and smart. Late in assignments, yes, but perfectly made.

Jihyo watches people, that is how she knows they don't quite change. Not completely. You know, like the essence thing some philosophers talk about. She has been very interested in her philosophy classes lately. What actually makes a person? What is the essence of someone? Jihyo has no idea about her own essence but she sure knows about the rest.

"Feel like skipping this period?"

"Of course, why else would we be here?" Jihyo smiled and allowed her girlfriend to sit on her lap, receiving her with a loving head kiss. Sana always smelled very sweet.

Sana smiled and reached for Jihyo's hoodie pockets, patting them lightly. She smiled when she got what she was looking for and pulled out a cigarette placing it softly in between Jihyo's lips, using her fingers to trace them more than needed. Right after, she reached between her school skirt and blouse, taking out a lighter.

It was customary for the pink-headed girl to light her girlfriend's cigarettes. She found it hot, in a way, as cliche as it may appear. Especially when they spent time at the lockers. The thing about this locker room was that it was the perfect place to not get caught. Fancy school means fancy courts. Football field, tennis, baseball, you name it. Naturally, there was more than one locker room. This perfect locker room was old, one of the first ones ever made since it was for the football team. Contrary as you may think, it is close to the main building, and the trip from the classrooms up to the football pitch is not long.

The structure of the school goes something like: Parking lot, school building, green area, football field, and tennis courts. For other sports, the field was on another piece of land owned by the school. The locker rooms were always open and accessible, but this one was barely used, since the new one was better, bigger, and closer to everything.

"Thank you, baby," Jihyo smiled and blew out a soft cloud of smoke angling away from Sana.

"Of course." Sana stood up in a swift motion. She skipped around the room to stretch for a while. The smell of cleaning products lingered faintly. "Are we going out later?"

"Sure, you can stay the night and we can finally watch that movie, what was it called? The—"

"Someone's coming!" Sana's soft voice raised at her from near the door, she had felt steps.

Jihyo sighed and put out the barely burned cigarette against her shoe, then waved her left hand lamely dispersing the smoke. Sana worried too much, Jihyo worried too little.

Sana got next to her again. She felt steps now entering the room. A row of lockers blocked the view from the entrance but in a second they saw Im Nayeon raising her eyebrows at them.

"I can still smell it, you know?"

Seeing her, Jihyo scoffed and smiled again realizing there was no danger. She regretted the waste. "Hey."