the lonely hearts club [saida, minayeon, jeongchaeng]

Chapter 10: bad decisions, i've made them all

"We're dating!"

Chaeyoung chokes on her own saliva.

"What?!" Everyone but Sana exclaims, and Chaeyoung is close to tearing their hands away from each other when Sana shoots her a pleading look. Just go along with it, it reads, and Chaeng feels anger rise from deep inside of her. This wasn't the fucking plan.

"What the hell?" Momo frowns, nervous giggles and all. "Since when?"

"Just two seconds ago," Sana beams, pulling Chaeng closer. She tries to smile, but she's pretty sure it looks like she in actual physical pain. "But we've liked each other for a while now."

Chaeng's grimace is painfully obvious, to everyone but Dahyun. "Yes... so much..."

"Congratulations!" Dahyun jumps from her seat, clapping her hands together and smiling at them. All these complex plans just for Dahyun to celebrate that they got together -- today couldn't possibly get any better! "I knew you guys liked each other!"

Tzuyu stares at them, looking very very confused as she licks her ice cream with a frown on her face. When they discussed the plan with her (making Dahyun jealous, etc etc), Tzuyu seemed to be pretty on board. In fact, she had even said that it was a good plan and that they should go along with it. But it seems even she agreed that taking it to actual dating was a step too far.

"Sana-bear," Chaeyoung turns to stare at her... girlfriend (?), sarcasm dripping from her voice. "Can we talk for a second?"

Sana almost flinches. "Yes, Chaengie."

When they step outside and they are as far away from the other girls as it's physically possible, Chaeyoung grows red as a tomato in anger.

"Are you stupid?!" she whisper-yells at her. Sana whines at the insult, mumbling something along the lines of 'I deserved that'. "Yes, of course you did! I'd beat your ass, but if I did that I'd be beating up my own girlfriend now. What the hell, Sana? Dating?"

"I know, I know!" she cringes. "I'm really sorry, I just panicked."

"It was one date, you jackass!"

Sana puts her arms up in surrender. "I fucked up, I know."

"We were supposed to say we were going out on one day, just one," Chaeyoung groans in frustration, striding around anxiously. "Now we have to pretend to be dating? Oh God, the entire school is going to hear about it. Jeongyeon --" She interrupts herself with a groan. "Fuck."

She doesn't even know why she curses at that, but she does. She hadn't thought about having to explain this to her, or if she'll even care, and that makes it slightly more horrifying. Sana immediately shuts up at that, and they spend a second as Chaeyoung paces in circles, deep in thought and wondering how the hell she got involved in this.

"Listen, I really am sorry," Sana says, truthfully, after a brief pause. "But if Dahyun doesn't seem affected by this at all by Homecoming... we drop it. I give up." Chaeng looked up at her and found Sana looking solemn and a little bit sad; but determined nonetheless. Her lip threatened to start trembling, but she didn't let herself give up. "I'll know if she'll never like me back, and I'll leave her and you alone."

She can't help as she feels... sorry for her. Chaeyoung scrunches up her face in frustration, then releases with a sigh.

"Okay," she nods because it's hard being upset with her when she knows how bummed out she's actually been for the past... month, probably. "Until Homecoming. But then we have the nastiest fucking break up ever."

"Oh," Sana snorts. "You bet."

Chaeyoung hadn't even exaggerated -- when Monday rolls around and she finally arrives at school, everyone's staring at her and whispering to their friends like she's some kind of D list celebrity. Tzuyu, who walks beside her, giggles the entire time while Chaeng rolls her eyes and considers lifting her middle finger at all of them. She had barely gotten any sleep anyways -- not studying for the History exam she had today of course, but thinking about how the hell she was going to navigate this mess she had gotten herself into.