bathroom stall.

quatre

-          the next day she made sure to get to school earlier than normal. the halls rung with early-morning chatter as friends lingered by their lockers and caught up.

a certain face caught on the edge of her vision. smiling eyes, toothy grin. jimin. she cursed herself for forgetting his locker was this way. surely he would bring up jeongguk right away. and then her heart lurched painfully when she saw the boy he was talking to. of course it was jeongguk, she should've expected it. but she was too close now to make a u-turn. she would just have to speed by and hope jimin didn't notice her.

one step. two steps. in her mind's eye she could see jimin pouncing: "this is jeongguk! jeongguk, this is yerin! she thinks you're super cute!" her life would be ruined...three steps. four steps. now she was past the two boys, but she thought she had seen jimin's eyes glimmer in recognition as she passed.

panicking slightly, she looked for a quick escape. the bathroom was only a few strides away. she quickened her pace and ducked behind the door as she heard jimin cry out, "oh, yerin!"

the bathroom was cool, and her breaths echoed off the tiled walls. she was the only one there, and yet she made her way slowly down to the second stall.

softly closing and locking the door, she pressed her back to the wall and tipped her head up at the ceiling. she'd rather be caught dead than be embarrassed like that...but it wasn't just that. the idea of meeting jeongguk made her inexplicably anxious. so much could go wrong. what if jimin had told him something weird about her? what if she tripped over her words or fell over somehow? what if he remembered her, after all these years? what if he didn't?

yerin pulled herself out of her reverie. she had to get to class. she gently unlocked the door, took a deep breath, and stepped out of the bathroom stall.