We look like giants || SOOSHU

Chapter 1

Junior year. Shuhua grins excitedly to herself as she clutches her colorful comforter and sheets tighter to her chest and bounds up the front steps of her new rented house. Yuqi and Miyeon had been her suitemates freshman and sophomore year when they were confined to the dorms at Cube University and now that they're free to choose their own dwellings, they can't imagine living separately. After a lengthy search for a house with an appropriate bedroom to bathroom ratio for three college aged girls, they'd finally settled on a large house with four bedrooms and three bathrooms.

Then came the issue of who would be taking the fourth room. They seriously considered using it as a second living area or a study or even a dance party room (that gem had been Miyeon's idea), however the promise of lower rent won out and they soon found themselves scouring Facebook for a reasonable addition to their household. It's not that they were picky, per say, they just didn't want to end up with an axe murderer or a crazy cat lady as their new roommate.

The solution to their problem came in the form of Miyeon's cousin deciding to transfer to Polis to run on the track team. Upon Miyeon convincing Yuqi and Shuhua that her cousin was a perfectly normal twenty-one year old woman and promising she'd be the one sharing a bathroom with the girl in question, the decision was final.

Shuhua dumps her bedding on the mattress and box springs that take up most of the back wall of the master suite (she'd drawn the long straw when it came to choosing rooms) and sighs when she sees how many boxes she still has to unpack. She can hear Yuqi breaking down empty boxes in her room across the hall and Miyeon's weird dance fusion music drifting from her open door across the house. Their fourth roommate is still on her way, Miyeon had assured earlier, and her parents had moved in their niece's furniture earlier that day.

It's nice finally being in a house, Shuhua decides. Although they have to worry about yard care and utilities now, they no longer have to concern themselves with keeping the noise down at night and now they have laundry in their house instead of down three flights of stairs and a creepy ass hallway like it was at the on campus apartments they'd lived in last semester. That and she's still living with her two best friends.

Yuqi and Miyeon probably know Shuhua better than her own mother. Not that it's surprising. Shuhua and her mom can barely manage strained small talk without it escalating into an argument. High school had been hard, but her roommates are her family now. Shuhua just hopes that Miyeon's cousin moving in doesn't throw off the dynamic the three girls have built over the past two years. She knows Miyeon has told her over and over again that her cousin is slightly closed off, but really cool, however Shuhua can't get the image of this new girl coming into her life and stealing away her friends leaving her alone again.

There's a knock at the door frame and Shuhua looks up from where she's unpacking her art supplies and sees Miyeon grinning at her.

"Unnie. What's up?"

Miyeon shrugs, venturing further into the room, and throws herself onto Shuhua's unmade bed, causing the neatly organized stack of books Shuhua had placed there earlier to topple over. "Just seeing how the unpacking is going for you. Got tired of putting clothes on hangers."

Shuhua sighs at the mess Miyeon's made of her books, but goes to sit next to her anyway, grinning when the girl wiggles closer until her head is in Shuhua's lap.

"I'm glad we're living together again."

"Me too," Shuhua answers as she threads her fingers through dark hair.

Miyeon sighs in contentment and is closing her eyes when Yuqi comes barreling into the room and tackles both the girls sitting on the bed. Miyeon squeals in surprise and bats at the intruder. Yuqi squirms until she is sandwiched between Shuhua and Miyeon and buries her face into Shuhua's shoulder.