adolescence makes for an ego both prickly and tender, standing in shoes that weren’t hers to fill. glossy lips and shimmery cheeks do little to hide a barbed tongue and diamond-cut teeth, but they’re at the age where that invites admiration as much as it does conflict. somin’s smart enough to pass off as a scholarship student, pretty enough to cover the rest of it with shallow popularity. still, she snaps at every threat, imagined snakes in the grass—and ito misaki counts among them, taking pot shots in the dark, clearly aiming for something that she hasn’t figured it out yet. the other girl bites at her heels with every step, dropping meaninglessly hinting lines in her path when they meet.
but make way for the ultraviolet, teenage riot—bae somin is seventeen, and angry, and not as eloquent as she will be in six years’ time. “shut up, loser,” is her response, replete with an eye roll and a scoff. straight from the handbook of mean girl comebacks. the high schooler kicks at one of the stray chairs lying about, sullen and sour. she’s supposed to be at the mall with eira, or having terrible ideas with junseo, not staying back because of thinly veiled threats about demerit points on her record if she doesn’t clean the stupid storage room of the school’s auditorium by the end of the day. “and that’s your problem, not mine,” she adds, a toss of her perfect ponytail. somin doesn’t need the scholarship, and she didn’t earn it, either; the reminder stings a little more than she’d like it to.
the storage room is filthy. even south korea’s top private high school has one of those never cleaned, tlc hoarders type rooms hidden behind its auditorium, stacked to the brim with plastic chairs collecting cobwebs and crumbling banners from seasons past. prodding one of the stacks of plastic chairs brings up a cloud of dust that makes somin gag. what do the teachers expect them to clean with just brooms and dustpans? “gross,” she grumbles, then decides, with all the classroom power her reputation has netted her, “you clean those,” points at the disgusting, ancient, probably rotting everything in the room, then gestures down to the doorway leading to the auditorium, “and i’ll ‘sweep’.”
“real mature, bae somin.” she scoffs with disdain at the other’s rebuttal. sometimes mimi found it difficult to grasp the reality that they were both the same age and under the same circumstances. “it is your problem, actually. grow up and take some responsibility in the situation.” mimi was never usually this aggressive. for the most part, the teen did her best to stick to the status quo and get along with the general population (even if it meant lying about an interest or two). but with somin, it was different. she triggered the fight within mimi that she was normally so good at keeping down.
“if i didn’t know any better, i would think that you didn’t even care to keep your scholarship in the first place.” there had always been a part of her that was suspicious of the other’s intentions on campus. considering her boastful demeanor, mimi was under the impression that there was something more. but her suspicions were just that— suspicions. she had no actual evidence proving that bae somin was anything but the average scholarship student, which kept her biting her tongue, refraining from any direct accusations.
normally, mimi would laugh at the other’s entitled behavior, but today she was just too tired to bother putting up with it. rather than reacting to the orders, mimi simply continued to clean her section of the room. “you’re welcome to clean or not clean whatever you want, but i will be reporting that to the teachers. and then you can face whatever disciplinary consequences— whether it be suspension or the revoking of your scholarship— all on your own.” she’d never been one to be above blowing a whistle or two if necessary, nor did mimi care about what would become of bae somin after she did.