tales of youth: the golden age

ii;

(ii)

Kang Seulgi was one of Soojung's favorite.

She had things that Soojung wished she had – no, she was not envious of her. It was more like an admiration; and to Soojung, Kang Seulgi was one definition of perfection (brain, hair, skin, face, personality, nice way of talking, confidence.)

And a siren's voice.

But Soojung was never one to judge from outer appearance – it was one of those days when she discovered her singing after the school had ended in vocal class. It was also after that she started talked to her and to her surprise, Seulgi responded her with lots of story of how her learned to play instruments and how she gave up her free pass to enter the school of performing arts.

(It wasn't much of a story, but it was enough for the first time they met)

It wasn't because that beautiful smile of her, it wasn't because that beautiful voice of her. It was something that pulled Soojung to know more about Seulgi – it was the way she talked, made it seemed like she was someone with a lot of passion; someone who knew what to do with her own life.

And Soojung admired how Seulgi's eyes lighten up when she talked about everything she loved (because apparently, Soojung didn't pay attention to what she was saying).

Soojung felt that she was really nothing compared to Seulgi.

Jongin didn't think that Soojung would be this annoying.

She shoved all those endless talks about her new friends – those whose names were Seulgi, Sooyoung and Taeil – into his throat; and he was very annoyed with it, to be honest. It had been about three months after they got into high school and there was midterm test soon and the only thing that he asked to her was to let him study peacefully.

"Oh, come on! Can't you keep up to things that I said? Taeil is awesome! You gotta hear this-"

"Krystal."

She stopped for three seconds and then closed her eyes, "Okay. What do you want me to talk about?"

Jongin continued scrambling things on his book as he ignored her and simply said, "Nothing."

"You know I hate silence."

"Just like I hate your endless talks."

To be honest, she envied him for having enough time to study. Theatre was a busy club to begin with; it had a lot of activities as they joined contests, parade - and knowing that she entered one of the favorite schools in the town, theatrical was something that students anticipated a lot.

Dark circles started to appear around her eyes and Jongin noticed that. Her lack of sleep and her tired body really bothered him, though – not because she looked like a walking dead body, but it was because she didn't take care of herself properly. Both of them knew that theatre was busy, but both didn't expect it would be that busy; practicing until night. She didn't even get to have lunch.

He had always told her to take some day off and sleep, but she didn't and kept forcing herself out and it bothered him. It felt like he needed to shove sleeping pills to her mouth just for her to sleep – Jongin erased those thoughts immediately. And just then she was talking about her new friends so happily with a very tired face.

"So," Jongin says, "What about them? That Taeil boy?"

Soojung rolled her eyes, "I've lost the mood."