#eunsook

The door to the detention classroom is cracked open when Minjung rounds the corner of the hallway. She sighs, rubbing her hands over her face. She hates this. She's a good girl. She's never gotten detention before. Anxiety creeps under her skin, makes the hand she extends to pull the door all the way open tingle unpleasantly.

Inside, there's a smattering of other kids already sitting in the desks. Minjung bites her lip. Is she late? She can't be late. She doesn't think she's late. School ends at 2:45, and her detention slip says she had to be there by 3:00, and she's pretty sure she hasn't been wandering around looking for the right classroom for that long. Her hand is halfway to her pocket to grab her phone to check the time when she hesitates. She doesn't know if having her phone out is, like, legal. In this room. She doesn't want to get into more trouble. Instead she glances around the room for the clock. 2:54. Yeah, okay. She's good.

She finds the detention teacher and nervously walks up to his desk. Her detention slip is at the ready and she hands it to him nervously, shifting her weight from foot to foot. He takes it, reads her charge (fighting), glances her up and down. Minjung feels herself blush, feels like he's judging her. She's not a fighter. It wasn't her fault. She's a good girl.

She wishes she could say that out loud, explain herself what happened, but just like when she was faced with her biology teacher, just like when she was sent to the vice principal, just like when she had to talk to her dad on the phone, all she can do is look down and feel guilty and try not to cry. This is the first time she's ever ever ever gotten into trouble and everyone is mad at her for it. She's dying on the inside.

On the outside, she just watches the teacher scribble his initials on her detention slip and wave her off to find her own seat. Turning around, she looks over all of the empty seats and the couple of filled ones anxiously. She doesn't know anyone here. None of them are looking at her, but if she sits in the front or the middle, then eventually at some point they'll glance up and see her anyway. So she guesses she has to go sit at the back. But then if she does that, then will the teacher think she's an extra delinquent? Fuck.

The fear of what will happen if she keeps just standing here not moving outweighs her fear of what will happen wherever she takes a seat, so she just goes with her instinct and heads to the back corner of the room. She sets her stuff down at the desk diagonal from the one in the very corner. One row up and one column over. That way she's not in the back back but she's out of view of the rest of the class, unless they all turn in their seats to stare at her. Which, as much as her anxiety screams at her is a thing that will definitely happen, she knows in her brain is statistically improbable. Besides that, no one should bother her.

Getting comfortable at her desk, she pulls out the book that they're reading in her literature class. As long as she's here she might as well get some work done. She's pretty sure this is what people do in detention. It's either this or sit around and talk and be a cool rebel, but that's definitely not up her alley. She just wants her time in here to pass by quickly and with no interruptions.

So, naturally, as soon as she finds her place in her book and reads more than two paragraphs, someone walks up to her desk and stops there, tapping a fingernail loudly on the corner of it.

"Hey, scuse me, gorgeous?" a voice asks, and Minjung is so surprised that she forgets to blush as she looks up. She remembers fast, though, as she realizes that she's looking up into the big brown eyes of someone that she's known since middle school but has never spoken to. Junghee, loud and confident and talkative and colorful. Colorful, from her long, three tone blond to brown hair spilling in curls over her shoulders, countless piercings in her ears and eyebrows and nose and lips, bangles and bracelets peeking out from a bright blocky patterned hoodie, a skateboard under her arm splashed over with so many different shades of clashing pink that it almost hurts to look at.

Minjung has always been intimidated by her and she definitely still is now that Junghee is looking down at her, literally, one hip cocked as she leans her hand on the desk.

"You're in my seat, honey," Junghee says. "It has my name on it, see?" She points to the left corner of the desk where the initials kjh are written in red sharpie.

"Oh," Minjung says. She's. She's in Junghee's seat. Oh no. "I'm–I'm sorry,–I'll move, um, sorry–" she scrambles to gather up her bag and her book, fumbling to stand up quickly. She didn't mean to take anyone's seat. Especially not someone that's apparently in this detention room often enough to have a dedicated seat that they like to sit in. Especially especially not Junghee's seat.

"It's okay babe, you didn't know," Junghee says, smiling pleasantly. She slides into the desk easily as Minjung clatters her way into the desk just behind her. "It's just that this is the only left-handed desk in this room, so." She shrugs, pats the little extended part of the desk on the left side, and turns to face forward and dig through her bag with a final little smile.

"Yeah, um–yeah, um, sorry," Minjung says, mumbles, trails off. Fuck. She tries to focus back on her book, but before she can even find where she was, a hand with pastel painted nails gently pushes it down.

"Minjung?" the new girl asks, and this time when Minjung looks up, she audibly swallows. If there's one girl that she's more intimidated by than Junghee, it's Gwiboon, and that's the girl that's looking down at her with her sharp, pastel pink lined eyes behind curled brown bangs. Junghee is intimidating because she's loud and hot; Gwiboon is intimidating because she's pretty and popular. "I like to sit –"

"Oh!" Junghee says loudly and suddenly. She twists in her seat and slaps Minjung's desk in her excitement. A wide smile is on her lips as she looks at Minjung and says, "I knew there was something else I forgot to tell you. You can't sit here either, it's Gwi’s favorite spot."

"Oh, um, yeah, of course," Minjung says quickly. Of course someone else sits here. Of course Junghee doesn't just sit here in the back alone like a loser. Of course Minjung is in the way. She gathers up her stuff again and fumbles out of the desk. "I'm, um–"

"Still okay," Junghee says lazily. She's still twisted around in her seat, but now her elbow is propped up on Gwiboon's desk and her chin is propped up in her hand and she's smiling up at Minjung through her lashes. "You still didn't know." And she winks at Minjung before turning her attention to Gwiboon as she takes a seat. Minjung is pretty sure that she never stopped blushing from when Junghee first spoke to her but she's also pretty sure that she just blushed harder.

She looks around nervously, trying to find a new place to sit; she still doesn't want to be in the middle or the front, but she doesn't want to go too many rows away from these two that they think she's avoiding them. In a mildly controlled panic, she just moves over one row to sit in the very back corner of the room and plops herself down. Whatever. Whatever whatever whatever. It's not like she's ever going to get detention again, probably.

Next to her, Junghee and Gwiboon chatter quietly, Gwiboon complaining about some project or another and Junghee blatantly flirting with her. Minjung tries to focus on her book but now it's hard. Now it's real hard to focus and keep her mind away from the entire rest of the room. Maybe she should just try to nap or something. That might help.

She puts her book back into her bag and then centers her bag on her desk to use as a pillow. Slipping her arms around it, resting her head on it, she closes her eyes and tries to focus just on her breathing. It doesn't really work; all that happens is she's nervous without seeing anything for a couple of minutes until her desk jostles and she blinks open her eyes.

In the desk in front of her, a third girl that she's always been intimidated by has appeared. Eunsook. Short messy honey blond hair, familiar big baggy sweater, classy black glasses. She doesn't look at Minjung as she dumps her bag onto her desk and faces the other two.

“Hey gays,” she says lazily.

“You again?” Gwiboon says. Her tone is snooty, but she's smiling at Eunsook like they're best friends. Of course they are. Of course the pretty cheerleader and the hot skater girl and the cool nerd are all best friends. Of course they all come to detention regularly together. Of course they just happened to all sit directly around Minjung. Why the fuck not. Now she wishes that she had risked one of the other seats further away. Nothing could be more hell than this.

“Me again,” Eunsook shrugs. “Called Mr. H a fuckhead to his face.”

“God,” Gwiboon hisses, putting her face into her hands as Junghee snorts into giggles. “Why?” she demands. Eunsook sighs shortly and rolls her eyes, glancing to the front of the classroom.

“Because, fucking,” she says, “that asshole called him a fuckhead to his face again, so I had to like, cover for her.” She gestures with an annoyed hand to a fourth girl that's making her way to the back of the class now.

Minjung doesn't know who she is; she's dressed in all black with chipped nail polish and a wavy black undercut parted in the middle and she looks like she's about ready to fall asleep on her feet. Minjung starts to panic, starts to think that she'll have to get up again so this girl can sit down, but when she reaches Eunsook’s desk, she stops there and just plops herself down easily in her lap.

“Morning,” she mumbles to the other two.

“You really don't have to keep getting in trouble with Taeyeon just so she doesn't seem as bad,” Junghee tells Eunsook, cheek propped up in her hand and smile pulled up to be lopsided.

“That's what I keep saying,” Taeyeon mumbles. Eunsook just shrugs, wrapping her arms around Taeyeon’s waist and hooking her chin over her shoulder.

“Yeah, but then she would get kicked out and I wouldn't have a girlfriend anymore,” she says.

"I wouldn't stop being your girlfriend if I got expelled," Taeyeon says. She yawns into the back of her hand, then rests her cheek on Eunsook's temple, closing her eyes.

"And calling an asshole an asshole isn't it enough to get her expelled anyway," Junghee points out. Eunsook shrugs.

"Yeah, well, maybe I'm also using this as an excuse to rebel against my parents because I'm tired of them expecting me to be perfect all of the time just because I'm, like, good at taking tests or whatever," she says. "And I can't just go get high like a normal delinquent. I can't stand the smell." She scrunches up her face and shakes her head. Under her breath, Taeyeon mumbles, "coward."

"Well, quit it," Gwiboon snaps. "You're going to ruin your reputation and then your parents will tell my parents and then I won't be able to use going over to your place as an excuse to actually go out and party."

"Wow," Eunsook says blandly, eyebrows rising into her bangs. "I'm so flattered that you care so deeply about me." She hikes Taeyeon up further into her lap and reaches out a foot to kick Gwiboon's shoe gently. "What about your reputation, huh? What are you in here for again?" she asks.

Gwiboon scrunches her nose. Instead of answering, she reaches into her bag and takes out a binder, opens it up, flips through it until she gets to a homework worksheet.

"I forgot to take my meds this morning so I forgot to pack my homework," she mumbles. "And I did it and everything this time, I really did," she whines, slouching in her seat suddenly, "But Mr. H wouldn't believe me."

“Oof,” Junghee says. She reaches out and pats the top of Gwiboon's head sympathetically. "That sucks real bad, dude."

"Thanks," Gwiboon mumbles. She looks at her homework, and then sighs, puts her pencil down, and rests her cheek on top of her binder instead. "What about you, slutboy?” she asks. "You get in trouble for being a slutboy again?"

"You know it," Junghee says, smirking and winking. Then she frowns a little and scrunches her nose. "This time I wasn't even trying, though," she pouts. "Like–" she glances behind her at the teacher, then turns back and lowers her hands to the hem of her hoodie. She pulls it over her head and off. Under it is a black t-shirt, but with the sleeves ripped off at the shoulders and big and small holes ripped and cut into it. It curves low around her collarbones, accentuates the round muscles of her shoulders and arms, a few holes offer the tiniest glimpse of her dark red undershirt, it looks tough and grungy and sloppy and–

And Minjung has been just quietly observing these four this whole time, peeking out from the bed of her arms, but suddenly she has to look away. Suddenly she's feeling emotions other than quiet and nervous and introverted. Suddenly she's feeling. Very very very gay.

"H told me I was distracting the boys or whatever," Junghee is saying, "and I'm like, what is this, 1990? And besides, if gaylord supreme Minjung over here can see me and look away that quickly, then so can the boys, right?"

"Minjung? Where–oh! Minjung, Hey."

God damn it. She's in hell. Minjung looks up, because she can't just not, and is immediately in the worst place in the entire world as all four of these girls look right back at her. Her gay blush deepens into a full anxiety blush.

"Hi, Eunsook," she says quietly, trying to smile back at the girl in front of her. Eunsook is smiling easily enough, switching to hook her chin over Taeyeon's other shoulder so she can be closer.

"You cut your hair, I didn't recognize you before," she says. "It looks nice."

"Oh, um, thanks," Minjung says. This time she does smile a little bit as she reaches behind her to feel up the little ponytail at the back of her head. She likes her hair also.

"Who...?" Taeyeon asks, looking at her with sleepy, hooded eyes.

"I've known her since elementary school," Eunsook tells her. "She's really nice. She's just quiet."

"She's really cute," Junghee says. Minjung glances at her, then wishes she hadn't, because Junghee is licking her lips and looking at Minjung like she wants to eat her up and she hasn't put her hoodie back on and it's just. A whole lot. "Aren't you on the soccer team, babe?" she asks. Before Minjung can confirm, Gwiboon interjects.

"Yeah, soccer practice is at the same time as cheer practice so I see her around a lot," she says. The look she's giving Minjung is very different from the one Junghee is; a little frown, confused, judging? Probably not, but it doesn't stop Minjung from feeling like she is. "No idea you ended up here, though," she adds.

"Yeah, I don't remember you being a delinquent like the rest of us, Minjunggie, what happened?” Eunsook says conversationally.

"I'm not a delinquent, I'm a good girl!" Minjung exclaims, and then whispers a curse and puts her face into her hands. Fuck. She didn't mean to say that. It was a reflex. She hears a snort and when she looks up, Taeyeon is covering her mouth with the back of her hand. Great.

She doesn't even want to know what Junghee thought of what she just said, so she decides to focus very intently on just Eunsook. At least with her, there's some familiarity there. At least with Eunsook, Minjung is intimidated because she's always so nice. It's easy to talk to her in the moment, even if it's agony to think back over their conversations later.

"I was– there was," she starts. "Some shithead, bullying another kid before class, and he was–” she stops before saying the kid's name. "One of the closeted kids, you know?" she says instead. There's a lot of them at this school and she doesn't know who knows whose business. Just that she knew the business of the kid that was getting picked on, and also that the kid bullying them was one of the biggest queerphobes that she knows. The other four nod vaguely in understanding so she continues.

"So I, you know, got in between them, because, like." She gestures up and down at herself. She's tall and buff and everyone that doesn't know that she has anxiety assumes that she's quiet because she's tough and scary, so it's easy to use that against them. "How could I not, you know, but then he tried to, like, come at me? He tried to start a fight in the hallways before second period for some reason? So I, um. Tripped him," she admits sheepishly. She pushed his shoulder and hooked her foot behind his and watched him fall. It wasn't her most non-violent of interventions, but it definitely didn't deserve a detention. And he definitely deserved worse.

"And then Mr. H showed up and saw him on the ground and me standing over him and the shitbutt started whining like I was bullying him and then Mr. H just gave me a detention,” she finishes, grumbly.

"Told you he was a fuckhead," Taeyeon mutters. Eunsook snorts and kisses her jaw.

"I never said he wasn't, I just said you can't say that out loud in front of him," she says. Then she turns back to Minjung. When she does, Taeyeon rubs spit off of her jaw with her sleeve. "That sucks, but it's really cool that you did it," she says.

"That's so romantic," Junghee sighs.

"God, shut up," Gwiboon sighs right back. Minjung glances to the two of them and for just a second, she sees the softest, mushiest smile on Junghee's face directed right at her before she's glaring and pouting at Gwiboon instead. "For like two seconds, please stop flirting with everything that breathes," Gwiboon tells her.

"Fuck you," Junghee says back bluntly. And then she winks and smiles and wiggles her eyebrows in a very pointedly seductive move. Gwiboon narrows her eyes, but she also smiles. A little bit.

"Be nice," Eunsook chides. She kicks at the leg of Junghee's desk lazily. Junghee turns her dazzling smile to Eunsook, says something about being nice for her specifically. And they keep going, the three of them, talking back and forth comfortably. Taeyeon has closed her eyes again, one hand hooked around Eunsook’s neck and playing with her hair.

Minjung sits at her desk, quiet again. She guesses that now that she's told them why she's here, they don't need anything else from her. She sinks back down into the bed of her arms, deciding to just stare at Junghee's shoes and how they tap all over the floor, unable to sit still. A glance at the clock tells her that there's still half an hour left of this detention.

She actually manages to zone out for a little bit; she knows this because it startles her out of a daze when a hand taps the desk in front of her eyes. She blinks, focuses on chipped nail polish, looks up to find Taeyeon looking down at her. Before she can say anything, Taeyeon twists her hand around and offers her a packet of gum. She nods encouragingly as Minjung hesitantly reaches for it.

It's watermelon flavor. Minjung takes a piece and unwraps it, folding the stick twice before popping it into her mouth. Crumpling up the rapper and slipping it into her pocket, she mumbles, "thanks." Taeyeon nods as she takes the packet of gum back and drops it into her bag.

"Want to hang out after this?" she asks. "We usually go get food together after school." She nods her head at the other three, who are all still just talking amongst themselves. Minjung swallows, confused, nervous. Hang out? With all of them? Her? Hello? She barely knows any of them. Taeyeon least of all.

"I, um," she says, and startles herself at how disappointed she feels when she truthfully says, "I can't." She loves turning down invitations and not going anywhere. Weird. "I have to go home and." She grimaces, rubbing her hand over her face. "Get yelled at again by my dad," she grumbles.

"Bummer," Taeyeon says. Then she digs in her bag and pulls out her phone. "Give me your number," she says, unlocking it and handing it over. "I like you. We can hang out some other time."

“Um–”

“Ooh, ooh, me too," Junghee says immediately. So fast that Minjung gets the feeling that somehow she was listening even while she was talking to the other two. Minjung doesn't know how she did it but also somehow she's not entirely surprised. Junghee thrusts her own phone onto Minjung's desk. "Maybe we can hang out alone together sometime," she smiles, eyes sparkly little crescents.

And of course, that makes Minjung blush again. She's used to being flirted at by crusty boys, not hot girls. This is so much. She looks at Junghee's phone in front of her, at Taeyeon's phone in her hand, flustered.

"Here," Gwiboon says, handing her phone over as well. "Neither of them will actually remember to text you. I will," she says.

Minjung looks at all of the phones on her desk now, so sudden. She doesn't even have words inside of her at the moment, let alone the words to make some self deprecating comments about how she's horrible to text, so she just picks them up with nervous hands and goes about putting her phone number in all of them. She puts in all of her information, then just sends herself a text of her favorite emoji, the nice little frog, along with their names, so she'll have their numbers as well.

She hands them back, trying to smile and hopefully succeeding; when there's this many people looking at her sometimes she can't really feel her own face. Her therapist says that that just happens sometimes with the anxiety and not to worry about it since it's only a side effect and not a root cause. Instead, she picks up her own phone and starts adding in the contact info for each girl herself. Before she even finishes, she gets two texts.

One is from Junghee; it's a selfie that she must have just taken in the last 20 seconds, sitting in her desk with one hand pushing up the hair at the back of her head, a big toothy grin on her face as she winks at the camera. It makes Minjung blush so she looks at the other text instead. It's from Eunsook, and it says, “i knew i already had your number lmao we texted about a science project one time in like 7th grade hi again : )”

She doesn't know how to reply to that either, so she just glances up at Eunsook and nods a little bit when Eunsook smiles warmly back.

Then, a third text, from Taeyeon that just says: who's your favorite pokémon

Which is finally something that Minjung knows the answer to. So she sends a reply, and watches as Taeyeon pulls her phone out of her pocket, reads it, and then starts typing with a blank expression.

They have a conversation like that, Minjung guesses; the other three go back to talking out loud, but Taeyeon keeps texting her. Every so often Minjung will see one of the other three check their phones and then say something that sounds like a reply to Taeyeon, so she guesses that Taeyeon is texting them too. Maybe she just isn't that into talking. Minjung can understand that. She isn't either.

The end of detention comes like that, with the two of them texting and the other three talking. Junghee sends Minjung yet another selfie, this time one of her smiling with her bottom lip in between her teeth and her free hand doing a tiny little finger heart. Minjung gets it just as the teacher stands up and announces that they can leave, so she doesn't have time to blush properly over it. When she glances up at Junghee, the babe is pulling her bag over her shoulder and swinging her other arm around Gwiboon's waist. She glances at Minjung and throws her a wink and a smile before she pulls her friend out of the classroom.

Taeyeon hasn't moved, even though Eunsook is sighing and pushing at her, trying to get her off of her lap so she can stand. Minjung hasn't seen Taeyeon make one expression the entire time they've been in here, but there's something in the way that she rests her forehead against Eunsook's and licks the tip of her nose that radiates extreme smugness.

Eunsook rolls her eyes, pushes Taeyeon's face away, and then gets her arm under her legs and around her waist like she's going to pick her up. Before she does, she glances at Minjung with her usual friendly smile.

"Nice seeing you again, Minjung," she says. "Really, when Gwi texts you, we should all hang out." And she stands and lifts Taeyeon all in one smooth movement, hoisting her up in the air and rearranging her easily so that Taeyeon's legs line up on either side of her waist. Taeyeon takes this in stride, circling her arms around Eunsook’s shoulders and resting her chin over her shoulder comfortably. Her eyes slide shut like it's just that easy to fall asleep and take a nap when she's being carried.

Minjung follows them out, trying to figure out how she feels about the last hour of her life. She really doesn't know. She thinks she felt too many things and now she's not feeling anything. That happens to her sometimes. Her therapist says it's chill and she just needs to find a way to de-stress.