🏆 THE AMBY AWARDS 2023 TOP PICK - DIVERSE LIT 🏆
It's Rin and Hye-jin against the world. Or so it should have been.
Nagara Rin and Joon Hye-jin, college sweethearts and passionate gamers, have lived a fairytale marriage. Not even a decade after did...
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"Tell me again why I'm here, getting abused by your brush?" Hye-jin slapped her friend's hand coming towards her cheek with yet another dab of powdered blush. Any more and she would look like someone slapped her.
Anette had the nerve to look scandalized. "It's a must! Those guys at the programming club should be enamored by us!"
"It's a programming club, Anette," Hye-jin leveled her gaze at her friend. "The only thing they're going to be enamored with are computers and sexy in-game characters."
"Listen to the woman, Anie," Seon-Yi, who had draped herself over the bed and found a Chic Girl magazine, said. She flipped through the crinkly pages, the sound annoying the hell out of Hye-jin. "We're not going to a club and we can't since we're still technically minors."
Anette pouted but withdrew her brush attack. "Fine," she said. "Let me just do your mascara to make your eyes pop."
Hye-jin groaned. "My eyes are fine," she said. "Let's just go. I'm dying to get my hands on some games inside the campus. My laptop is strictly off-limits and my desktop is back home."
Who said going to a dorm inside the campus during the current term was a good idea? Even though she ended up on the same floor as her friends, Anette and Seon-Yi, she still missed her room in the province. Sadly, it'd take at least two hours by public bus to step foot in the house she grew up in. She shouldn't have dreamed of going to Whiteridge City. It wasn't as cracked up as she thought it to be.
Before she could get out of her chair, though, Anette whipped out her mascara bottle and popped the lid. "Just let me do your eyes, please?" she bobbed up and down in solicitation. "I promise I'd make you really pretty! Hotter than the chicks the programming club is rumored to have."
Hye-jin sighed. When Anette was on to something, there was nothing to stop her. "Fine," she relented. "But you better treat me to a bottle of banana milk for a whole week. Got it?"
Anette blubbered a ton of agreeing sentiments. She's going to forget it the next day and Hye-jin wasn't the type to insist on her end of the bargain anyway.
A few more minutes later, three girls strode out of their dormitory hall dressed in the most ridiculous clothes Hye-jin had ever seen inside the campus. She opted for a comfortable, baggy sweatpants with a matching hoodie but Seon-Yi, their resident fashionista, insisted they wear figure-cutting sets. Even if she didn't seem to adhere to Anette's goal in fishing for guys, her only goal in life was to dress Hye-jin up in stuff she's too scared to wear herself.
A doll. That's how Seon-Yi treated Hye-jin.
It's not like Hye-jin hated it. At least she got free shopping trips and the latest clothes to go around. Free stuff was always good.
When they got to the dingy basement and slid the door to the programming club, the familiar scent of stale coffee and dried sweat filled her nose. The air was humid, as if the air conditioning unit stopped working ages ago. Clacking noises, muttered curses, and feet stomping against the dusty carpet covering the floor filled the space. The only source of light in the whole room were the bright screens. Not a single one was unoccupied.
