judge me once, love me twice | 2yeon

16 | the return of zeus

"Jeongyeon unnie!" Dahyun runs up to Jeongyeon and hugs her tight. "It's been ages! Happy birthday by the way!"

Jeongyeon hasn't come back to school, but she's back on the radar, and out and about with the friends she made.

"Thanks, Dubu." Jeongyeon smiles sweetly at the girl. "I missed you guys."

"Yeah, right." Mina chips in. "You must have enjoyed your time away from school."

"Not really, I missed those easy equations Miss Shin gives us." She gives a small wink to Mina, who just rolls her eyes in response. She looks at the six girls in front of her and notices there's someone missing. "Dahyun, Chaeyoung, Tzuyu, Mina, Sana, Momo...Where's Nayeon?"

Mina glances at Sana who does the same back. Momo catches on and can't help but stifle a laugh.

"What's so funny?" Jeongyeon's genuinely confused.

"Nothing..." Momo breaks out into laughter, with Mina and Sana following after.

The three youngest ones look at the other three.

"I think it's a Japanese thing." Dahyun comments, and Tzuyu and Chaeyoung nod their heads in agreement.

Jeongyeon looks around and sees Nayeon walking up to them, with dark circles under her eyes. "Sheesh...What happened to you?"

Nayeon glares up at her. "What does it look like, Yoo?"

The Japanese girls suddenly become silent, and whilst there isn't much tension, it wouldn't take a detective to notice that Nayeon hadn't been herself lately.

Recently, Nayeon walked out of class just to scream, and then started sobbing. The girls called this 'The Yejun Effect', because as Chaeyoung said: "She's goin' crazy, man."

"I think the lack of sleep has been getting to her brain." Tzuyu comments. "But then again, she's always been like this."

"Are you calling me crazy?" Nayeon questions, and Tzuyu shrugs. The older girl just decides to brush past it. "Anyways, let's get going. The show starts soon."

*****

After the show, the kids are fan-girling over the movie, the Japanese kids are eating, and Jeongyeon and Nayeon are watching over them.

From the distance, you could hear Chaeyoung saying, "And when the guy flew in the air? That was so sick!" And Tzuyu would simply smile in response.

"And when the girl ran through the fire? Bro!" Dahyun adds, and she and Chaeyoung start screaming with excitement.

On the Japanese table, Sana is just rambling on about how cool the show was, and Mina and Momo listen intently to her little speeches.

Close by, Jeongyeon and Nayeon sat on their own table, not too far away from the others.

"So, Jeongyeon," Nayeon takes a quick sip of her americano. "When are you coming back to school?"

"Mm...soon."

Nayeon wants to ask about the text she saw but she feels like it's an invasion of privacy, and it might be the very thing Jeongyeon was running from in the first place.

She wants to learn more about Jeongyeon but she doesn't want to seem too pushy.

Things like this take time.

"By the way, Jeong." Nayeon puts her Americano down. "Have you ever been in love before?"

Jeongyeon raises her eyebrows, and lets out a "hm?"