"SO YOU TWO broke up?"  Mina Choi's eyebrows rise on her forehead, her calm and raspy voice sounding off louder than usual, but even in the still library, her voice is the same octave as a normal whisper.

"We didn't break up because there's nothing to break Choi," I tell her as we sat on the carpets of the back of the library in the middle of the nonfiction and biography sections where no one ever goes. I don't how I got here because I rarely go to the library except to fake study with Caleb but somehow Mina Choi got me to sit down with her in between shelves of books secluded from the rest of the world. "I just want to know why he's been acting so weird lately."

Mina sat criss-cross-applesauce with a stack of books beside her, occasionally flipping through them before placing them back down again. "Was it something you said? What's the last thing you two talked about?"

"We went to the movies. I thought everything was fine."

"Which movie?"

"That new cheesy slasher film with that one girl who's in everything now."

Mina picks up another book, skimming through the pages. "Maybe he hated the movie." she shrugs her small shoulders up and down.

I sent her a knowing look. "He didn't hate the movie."

"Then what else could it be?"

I pursed my lips together as I thought for a moment, eyes widening when a subtle memory comes back to me and I clasp a hand around Mina's forearm which causes her to turn her head away from her books, her round-shaped eyes darting from me to my hand around her. "Oh my God . . ." I breathed out.

"What?"

I buried my face in the palm of my hands, a heat of embarrassment coming over my face. "We were doing something . . . you know? That something," I make my two pointer fingers touch and Mina's face scrunches up almost immediately. "and he tried to grab my ass and I told him to never do that again."

"You really think Cassian is upset with you because you wouldn't let him touch your ass?" Her brows raised up at me and hearing the words from someone else's mouth definitely put things in a different perspective but what else could it be?

I shrugged. "That's all I got Choi."

"I think it may be deeper than that . . ." her eyes trial off down the row of bookshelves in front of us for a moment before returning to me. "you should just try to ask him to be honest with you — however more honest you can get with a guy who you sword fight with."

"I've tried that already."

"Did you really? Or did you just ask him to stop acting like a little bitch?" My eyes trailed down to the tacky carpet under us, my fingers plucking at the loose fibers. "Maybe . . ." I quipped. 

"Dangsin-eun babo," You are an idiot, Mina raises a hand and slaps me across the head and I rubbed the spot where she made contact.

"Jinjja mwoya?" What the hell, my voice raises but then I remember we're in the library and I fix my octaves. We banter around in Korean for a moment with Mina calling me all types of idiots and me defensively saying I'm not. It's after we exchange a few words that I realize this is the first time in a while I've spoken in my mother tongue with someone who wasn't my halmeoni. I let out a laugh at the realization.

"What the fuck is so funny?" She nudges me in the shoulder with her elbow, fixing the point dexters on the bridge of her pointed nose.

I rubbed my shoulder out of instinct. "You know since you're older than me technically you're my noona." I've never had a noona (older sister/ used as a term of endearment) before. It's always just been me and halmeoni and she gave up years ago trying to help me improve my Korean and cultural courtesy, but sometimes when Mina and I have these random outbursts where she just speaks the language I realize this must be the feeling my mom had been craving when she finally returned to South Korea after her terrible life here in the states. To be a person who knows their mother language, their history, their culture.

"Don't ever call me that again." Mina's death glare snaps me out of my thoughts.

"What? It's true. You're my noona. It's cool. I've never called anyone that before."

Her brows raised at me. "Never? You don't have any siblings? Cousins? Anything?"

"I probably do but it's always been just me," I tell her as I begin to fumble with the carpet fibers again. "and you know I'm not the most knowledgeable on Korea and our cultures courtesies or whatever so I never really had a reason to use honorifics when speaking to anyone other than my halmeoni."

Mina's dark eyes shifted behind her circle-framed glasses for a moment as she stared at me, and just for a slight moment there was an unfamiliar glint in her eyes and I can't tell if it was bouncing off of the pitiful mess she feels for my situation or if it's the light from the large square window of the library making her look like that.

"Whatever Jaylen." She waves me off with a slight tug on her lips, which isn't something you get often from Mina Choi so I savor it greatly — tucking the small little moment in the back of my head.

"Plus you're the only one I can talk about that shit with," I tell her.

"And who's fault is that?"

I scrunched my face up. "I'm not telling anyone else. I didn't even want to tell you but you walked in on us and started running off like a track star."

She scoffed. "Well, it's not my fault Cassian left his phone with me like we grew up together or something, and it's not my fault you two were about to start ramming each other in the middle of the locker room like some rabbits."

"No one was about to ram anyone let's not get crazy." I correct her holding up a finger at her that she quickly takes into her own small hand giving it a squeeze that surprisingly made me wince under her oddly strong grip.

"Shit," I let the curse word fly out in Korean as I snatched my finger back. "You're abusive, you know that right?" Mina's eyes roll to the ceiling at my words. "I'm not abusive you just need your ass kicked."

I exhaled a low sigh resting my head back against the walls of the library, eyes closing as I let the subtle silence take over me for a moment. "Nobody's kicking my ass, Choi."

"Your grades say differently." The girl quips under her breath as she flips another page in her book.

I opened my mouth to respond to the girl but she had already returned her attention to the book she was reading and had completely dusted me off. We sat together on the floor of the library in silence letting the minutes pass by us. The silence that lingered wasn't awkward or suffocating like I thought it would be but instead, it was a calming and comfortable one. One that I don't usually have with people that aren't either Caleb, Froy, or Idris. Even me and Bergman managed to turn our stretched-out silence into something. It's strange because the only other girl I've been able to be so comfortable with is Karina but even still there's that underlying sexual attraction we both have with one another playing in the background but with Choi — there's just comforting silence.

I've never really had a female friend that I haven't either slept with or at least almost slept with before so the whole situation is new to me but I don't mind it at all.

My phone dings in my pocket a few minutes later and I reach into my short pockets to pull it out to see the guys inform me that we have thirty minutes before Coach wants to meet us in the locker room so we can load up on the bus and leave for the game almost three hours away. I stretch out my tired limbs from sitting on the floor for the past hour or so.

"I have to get ready to leave for the game," I tell Mina who's surprisingly still reading beside me. She dog-ears a page in the book before closing it. "This one is an away game right?"

"Yep," I answer as I stand to my feet, grabbing my Nike duffel bag off the floor in the process as well. "if we win this one we're one step closer to the championship."

"Love that for you." Mina's voice is so nonchalant and bland that it's hard to tell when she's being sarcastic or not. I decided to think she's being sincere about my mental health.

"You should come."

She makes a face at me. "I'm not driving to watch you kick a ball for almost two hours."

"Coach can make room for you on the bus." I tease.

Mina shakes her head, adjusting the frames on her face once again. "I'd rather watch the basketball team."

I kissed my teeth, my eyes rolling elsewhere. "Please, as if. The basketball team here sucks I'm not even sure their own coach even attends their games. They've been shit since Grayson King graduated." Mina laughs then. It's not loud and rambunctious like I'm used to from other people when I say a joke. It's small and her small heart-shaped lips pull back just slightly so I can see her straight row of teeth. It's not much but it's enough for me to smile on my own.

My phone dings again and it's the group chat telling me to hurry the hell up.

"You should get going before you have to bear crawl on the court or whatever you soccer players do for punishment." Mina shooed me away and I laughed at her words.

"I'm going, I'm going . . ." I say to her as I start to walk down the shelves of books that lined us, turning around at the halfway point. "but Choi you gotta promise me something."

Mina tilted her head at me like a confused puppy dog, brows raising just the same. She exhaled a low sigh. "What Jaylen?"

"If we win this game you'll come to our next one. It's a home game and it's gonna be a big one!" I point at her, watching with anticipation as her face flexes into an unreadable expression.

"How about this she stated," Her arms folded over her chest. "if you win this game I'll come to the next one, but also if you win — because I'm sure my chances of you guy's losing are slim and I'm sure Coach Carter is paying the other teams off or something — you'll have to come with me. I'm not telling you where we're going or what day we're going but you'll come with me. No questions asked."

My lips tugged at the corner at her challenge. "You know I'm never one to break my promises."

"Neither am I."

"Then it's a deal."

Mina tips her head at me all cool and it surprises me a bit at how effortlessly all her movements seem to be from the simplest things. "See ya Park." I return the gesture before turning on my heel and rushing over to the field on the other side of campus.

••••

I managed to make it just as everyone starts loading up on the bus. I see Coach marking off people's names as they step on. Froy is standing in line typing away on his phone and I creep up behind him, grabbing ahold of his shoulders. "Booo," I barked into his ears causing the bigger boy to jump out of his shoes almost. I burst into fits of laughter and he shoved me lightly — which with Froy's strength meant I went stumbling a bit.

"I was just about to call your ass. Everyone's been asking where you were. Idris and Caleb are already on the bus." He waved his cracked phone screen at me and I rolled my eyes as I fell behind in the line.

"Yeah yeah, I was busy," I tell him shoving my hands into my pocket as we move with the line toward the entrance of the bus.

"A quickie with Karina doesn't count as busy."

It's my turn to shove him now. "Shut up. That's not what I was doing."

"I'm just stating the car fax. I see someone in a better mood than the other day. Rina must really be putting it down. Two-hand twist combo moose knuckle super soaker five thousand —"

"Froy get your ass on the damn bus!" Coach Carter's loud voice cuts through us causing both of us to jump in our skins. We hurried to step up onto the bus as Coach marks our names off the list. We find Idris and Caleb in the back of the bus and go to join them. I get a seat by myself so I stretch my legs with Froy in the seat behind me, Caleb to my right and Idris strayed directly in front of me, already turned around with his freckles face leaning over the seat to talk to us.

"So I finished the Buffalo Dip," he started and we all let out a loud groan, Froy even throwing a pair of socks at the boy shutting him up mid-sentence. "Not this shit again." Caleb made a face and before you know the three boys are joking across their seats, their voices mixing together and I laughed at the things being said but I'm always laughing whenever we're all together. That's the way it's always been.

I turned my attention to the front of the bus seeing the seats fill in quickly. Among the sea of players on the bus, I don't see a familiar face in any of the seats until the last person to enter behind Coach comes out to view.

Cassian's eyes roamed the seats seeing most of them occupied or filled with bags. His eyes get to the back of the bus and land on me and the open space by me. I silently hope he decides to make his way back here, secretly hope he sits beside me and everything that happened to the other day will be forgotten like it never even happened but when he falls in the seat closest to him with the designated Water Boy of the team I realize that what I secretly hoped for was not going to happen.

••••
EXCUSE ANY MISTAKES OR ERRORS

Cassian after filling the room with negative energy: