Mean Girls

viii. the party

Chaeryeong scrolls through her tumblr with a bored sigh. Reception isn't the best by the parking lot, where she's currently sitting as she waits for Yuna and Lia, and it's taking forever to load the posts.

A honk sounds and Chaeryeong lifts her head to see Yuna parking her car, reckless as ever, with a panic-stricken Lia by her side — also as per usual. She rolls her eyes and slides down from the wall where she had been for the past ten minutes.

"Morning, ladies," she greets, leaning over Lia's open window. "Ugh, will you ever stop with your Beyoncé obsession?"

Both of them gape at her and Chaeryeong laughs.

"Don't you dare say such a thing ever again, Chaeryeong, or I swear I'll hunt you down and hit you with my rolled-up posters of the queen!"

"Kinky," Chaeryeong teases, smiling with her tongue poking out from behind her teeth.

"You're in an awfully good mood," Lia says, closing the car door behind her. "Is Ryujin dead? Did you make her yell at you already even though it's only—" she makes a show of looking at her watch, "—8:18?"

"Don't you mention that name to me so early in the morning," Chaeryeong huffs, with a flip of her hair. "I was having a good day, Lia!"

Yuna snorts, grabbing the wrists of them both to start pulling them towards the school entrance. "Spill it."

"My parents will be gone this weekend and they're only coming back Sunday evening!" Chaeryeong announces, clapping her hands excitedly. "We can finally have a party, it's been so long!"

"Ohhh." Yuna starts tapping her fingertips against each other, a wicked grin on her face. "Party party? On Saturday?"

"Or slumber party?"

"Lia , what are we? Ten?" Yuna elbows her with a glare. "No, it's the first party of the year, it needs to be massive."

"So what?" Lia asks, stopping by her locker to leave her cheerleading bag. "We invite the whole school? We come up with a theme?"

"No themes, that's too much work and it's already Wednesday, we don't have that much time," Chaeryeong says, shrugging. "And I don't want an open invitation to the whole school either because the one time we did that, my house was such a mess that even the cleaners couldn't bring it back to normal and I got grounded for a month."

"Alright, so who are we inviting?" Yuna persists. "The cool kids?"

"Of course," Lia states, as if it were obvious.

"Yes, but also, I'll make sure to get some strategic invitations in place."

Yuna lifts an eyebrow at Chaeryeong, but Lia just shakes her head.

"It's election season, CheeChee." Yuna rolls her eyes and starts walking away. "Every event is a political event!"

* * *

Chaeryeong finishes applying her makeup — nothing too extravagant, just eyeliner and mascara to draw attention to her eyes, and pink lipgloss because she likes the way it looks on her —, and sort of allows herself to drop to the floor, staring at her different shoe options and not feeling particularly in love with any of them. She ends up picking her pair of black Converse since she's always been fond of seeing girls in dresses wearing Converse. Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, she decides she wants to wear her hair up, so she ties it in a high ponytail with a cute red bow, carefully placed strands framing her face.

The bell rings and Chaeryeong runs downstairs but it's just Peter, the guy she pays to buy her alcohol.

"Hey, Chaeryeong." He smiles, and gives her a quick side hug. "Just got the kegs out of the freezer so they should be on point by the time the party starts."