Ari once again sat at the tables in the corner of her neighbourhood convenience store, going over her homework. It wasn't very late at night this time, so there were many more customers coming and going from the store, accompanied by the small sounds of people bustling around. Still, it wasn't so noisy that she couldn't focus, and it was better than being at home where she was at constant risk of rolling into bed and giving up on all the homework that was due by tomorrow.
She was tired. It had been a draining day, and she was just so, so tired.
Starting from that phone call from Neko, today had degenerated into a hectic mess in a matter of minutes. Dealing with the barely muzzled beast that was a drunk Samuel Seo was already stressful enough --- really, her heart still raced when she thought about how she could have become a teenage mom with a single moment of carelessness --- but the hour following Ari's shocking alleyway encounter had also been a dizzying, endless rush of movement: calling to request Manager Kim's help in taking care of things, returning Neko's call whilst also placating her anger, then popping back into the karaoke room to explain the situation to her friends. Neko had long prepared a mobile medical van to transport the weakened Inu, and Gangnam was only so big; Ari barely had time to catch her breath from the shock of a half-hard Samuel Seo (he was immense!!!) before having to jump into the van to start work.
Afterwards, she'd had to make things up to her friends by accompanying them to wherever they wanted, which had included a bowling alley, a crowded hotpot restaurant, and an arcade where Zack had almost gotten into a fight with a tall, particularly good-looking boy in a green jacket. The fight itself had only been prevented because Mira had dragged Zack off by the ear with a scolding and Ari had given the boy a (probably undeserved) apology and two big handfuls of 500 won coins, which he had kept asking for for some reason.
While fun, that all meant that Ari hadn't had the chance to do any of the homework she'd been procrastinating over the weekend. Hence why she was white-knuckling through her worksheets right now.
Pencil moving furiously, she listened idly to the convenience store part-timer softly humming a song that she could swear she'd heard somewhere recently. His voice was actually quite nice.
As the door chimed with the entry of another customer, Ari threw down her pen and ruffled her hair wildly.
"I don't get it," she groaned, slumping back into her chair. "Homework is the bane of high school students all over the world."
Should I just ask to copy Jay's? she thought. But she knew herself; if she did that once, then she'd do it twice, and then she'd do it all the time because Jay would never stop her. Then she'd never learn this concept properly, and then she wouldn't be able to set a solid foundation so she could keep her options open when it came time to take her CSATs, which would then mean that...
"Argh!" Ari said, kicking her feet a little to distract herself from her spiralling doom thoughts. "Why isn't my answer in the options? How come I'm getting a decimal?"
Helplessly thumping her forehead against her workbook a few times, she moaned, "Someone save me..."
"Um," said someone. "Excuse me."
A little embarrassed, Ari shot up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on and stared up wide-eyed at the speaker --- a beautiful woman in an expensive lady's suit, holding a box of energy drinks in hand.
"I don't mean to be nosy," the beautiful woman said, staring back awkwardly at Ari. She looked as if she wasn't yet sure if she regretted calling out. "But do you need help?"
"Yes!" Ari said in a bright, crisp tone. "I do! I need help!"
The woman came round to stand next to Ari's elbow, bending her head a little to peer at the paper. The ends of her long hair, dyed a warm brown, lightly tickled the back of Ari's bare arm. She smelled nice, a subtle mix of expensive perfume and fresh shampoo.
"There, do you see?" the woman said, pointing to Ari's scratch work with a neatly manicured finger. "While passing by, I saw that you had accidentally forgotten to switch the inequality when you multiplied the negative for this, this, and this question."
"Oh my gosh," Ari gasped, her pencil diving in to fix the errors. She was suffering this much over such a dumb mistake... "So that was it!"
In about half a minute, Ari finished solving the first problem that had been causing her brain to crash and confidently circled (C) on her worksheet.
"Well, other than that, the rest look fine," said the woman, earnestly scanning the rest of the page.
Ari sat back, satisfied, and beamed up at the beauty. "Thank you, unni. You're so kind!"
The woman gave her a slight smile back. "It wasn't much, but I hope it helped."
"Unni. I have just one more question."
"Yes?"
Leaning closer, Ari said, "What shampoo do you use? It smells so nice."
Ari chatted with the pretty lady for a few more minutes about her shampoo (rosemary and mint, from some expensive brand that Ari immediately gave up on ever buying), her favourite energy drink (the one she was carrying right now), her neighbourhood (the huge, affluent community just up the hill from here), and her age (shockingly, still in high school!). When the other woman's phone rang with a message from the person who was, apparently, waiting for her in the car, Ari sent her off with an enthusiastic farewell and returned to her homework.
"Ah," Ari said to herself a few minutes later. She smacked her pencil against her forehead. "I should have asked for her name and KakaoID."
Well, it was okay. They both lived near this area; they'd probably see each other soon anyway.
••••
All anyone at school had been talking about over the past week was the festival. Monday, of course, was no different.
"Let's tally up the votes. Show of hands, guys, who's voting for Candidate 1?"
Ari yawned, slowly lifting her head from her desk. What vote? What candidate? She glanced sideways at Zack, who looked quietly mutinous, and then back at Jay, whose hand was up.
Ari slowly raised her hand, too.
"Do you even know what you're voting for?" Zack demanded, grabbing her arm and swiftly bringing it back down. Ari, blinking dazedly at him, didn't resist.
"No," she said, yawning. She let the yawn shiver down her shoulders all the way to her fingertips. Zack's hand on her forearm tightened for a moment, then loosened. "When I dunno what's going on, my policy is to always agree with Jay first."
There was a soft huff behind them. Without looking, Ari knew that Jay was smiling.
"Put your votes in for Candidate 2!"
Zack raised his hand, but before he could raise hers, too, Jay reached forward and firmly pulled her arm away from Zack.
"So what are we voting for?" Ari asked, scooting her chair back a couple inches. She pinned Jay's wrist between her arm and side and pulled it forward so she could play with his rings. His fingers wriggled a few times in protest before they gave up and let her fondle them as she wished.
"They're choosing which guy to send to the slave auction. I'm definitely not going," Zack grumbled. "Can't believe I'm a fucking option."
"Yeah," Ari agreed. "What were they thinking? Why are you a candidate? It just doesn't make sense." Jay nodded in agreement.
Zack nodded too, vehement, but then paused. "Wait," he said. "Why are you saying it like that---"
"Okay, it's decided! Candidate 1 had more votes, so I guess our slave auction representative is going to be Zack Lee!"
"No goddamn way," Zack raged, bursting up in his seat. "Are you nuts? I'm never going up there even if I die!"
"Well if you make a profit..."
Ari yawned again.
So Candidate 1 was Zack and Candidate 2 was Daniel...
She paused. She leaned back in her seat to avoid catching Zack's attention.
"Jay, were you voting for Zack to go to the slave auction," Ari asked out of the corner of her mouth, "so Daniel doesn't have to go?"
She glanced at Jay's sheepish smile and began to laugh soundlessly to herself.
My gosh, too cute!
She squeezed his fingers and felt him squeeze back. Having a cute best friend... it was pretty good.
••••
Just as she knew would happen, eventually Daniel was chosen to go to the slave auction. And thanks to Zack's oh-so-noble sacrifice, plus the upperclassmen's fashion show, their class did not need to create a separate booth to contribute to the charity festival, which meant that most of them --- except for the few who had volunteered to take shifts in managing Zack's booth --- were free to explore their first J High festival at will.
"It's nice how everything turned out, isn't it?" Ari said to Jay, walking with her arm interlaced with his. "Do you think we'll be allowed to wear casual clothes to the festival?"
Jay shook his head.
"Oh, the teacher said that we have to wear our uniforms? Too bad, I wanted to show off some of the new clothes I got this weekend!"
Jay paused.
"You think they won't notice? It's true they never say anything even when you or Zack switch out your entire top half..."
As they walked, they began to smell the warm, delicious smell of spicy rice cakes and oden soup. Ari gasped and gestured excitedly at the stall down the street. "Jay!" she cried. "Tteokbokki!"
Jay barely had the time to agree before she dragged him to the stall with one hand, the other scrounging in her bag for her wallet.
"Ari? Jay?"
Hearing her name being called, she turned around to look. Just a few feet away from them stood Duke and Daniel. If she thought hard about it, she vaguely remembered something about them performing together; they were probably going to or from Duke's house for practice.
"Hi! How was practice?" asked Ari, waving at both of them with the hand holding her wallet. "Want some tteokbokki? I'll treat you!"
"Oh," said Duke, fluttering his hands a little. "No, I'm fine!"
"I'm okay too, Ari..."
"Hello, are you Duke's friends?" said the old lady who owned the street food stall. Ari glanced from the owner to Duke and back. If she remembered properly, this must be Duke's grandmother. "Our Duke has so many friends! If you want to eat, of course it's on the house..."
"No way, grandmother!" Ari interrupted, smiling cutely at Duke's grandmother. "For me, snacks only taste good when I treat my friends!"
Ignoring the flustered looking Duke, Ari bounced towards the counter, her ponytail swaying behind her. "Can I get..."
Daniel gave in right away, perhaps sensing the futility of resistance, and even Duke joined in when Ari coaxed him enough. Once they had all eaten to bursting, Ari engaged in an intense back and forth with Duke's grandmother about the price; after invoking the (made-up) words of her mother, father, grandmother, and eight generations of ancestors, all of whom had supposedly made various versions of the claim that food would give you indigestion if you didn't pay for it fairly, Ari finally managed to get Duke's grandmother to accept her ₩50,000 bill. And then, before the old lady could give her any unnecessary change, immediately ran off with Jay in hand.
"I ate well, grandmother!" she called, grinning over her shoulder. "See you in school, Duke, Daniel!"
"!" said Jay, flailing his other hand.
"Ah, bye!"
"Bye Ari, bye Jay! See you in class tomorrow!"
___
[ Author's Note ]
cute daily stuff once again. next chapter, festival! honhonhon i already know you're gonna like what im planning to give u. we are all gun simps, don't pretend otherwise
also, this is unfortunately not the long chapter i promised; i changed my mind about the order of events because ari hasnt seen the plot for too long... mby next time (?)