Irene sighs, looking at the message Seulgi texted her. Apparently, the subway’s closed for some sort of construction and Irene’s on her own since the other teacher is out with the flu and they can’t carpool for the next couple of days. Why did she have to wear heels today?

    “Irene!” a voice calls out. The teacher looks behind her to see Joy, still dressed in her Judo uniform riding towards her on a bike.

    “What happened to calling me teacher?” Irene asks, eyebrow raised.

    Joy shoots her a cheeky grin. “We’re not in school anymore,” she replies, pointing out the fact that they were indeed not in school, but instead two metres outside of it. “So what’s up?”

    “Nothing,” comes Irene’s short reply as she leaves Joy behind, heels clacking on the cement.

    “Ah, are you walking to the subway station? I heard it’s closed for construction,” Joy rambles on, slowly riding beside the teacher. Irene decides to ignore her, instead focusing on how much her feet would ache by that evening. Joy continues riding beside her for the next couple of blocks before she decides to cut Irene off, blocking her with the bike.

    “What now?” Irene says in exasperation.

    “Hey pretty lady,” Joy jokingly addresses her. “You ready for the ride of your life?”

    “No,” Irene responds flatly, walking away unimpressed. If this kid was going to try and woo her, she should at least do it in a less juvenile way.

    “But seriously though,” Joy continues, riding beside her once again. “You’re wearing heels and you live far away. You’re going to get hurt, so let me help you out just this once.”

    Irene sharply turns to look at Joy, who jolts her bike to a stop in response. “How do you know where I live?” she asks heatedly.

    Joy blinks in confusion before laughing. “We live in the same building and I saw you once when I was checking the mail. You don’t have to worry about me being a stalker.”

    “Oh,” Irene mumbles back in embarrassment, face heating up.

    “So come on,” Joy says, patting the back seat of her bike. “Get on. It’ll be romantic- like those dramas.”

    “It’s a traffic violation. If those dramas were real, everyone would be arrested.”

    “Oh.” Joy visibly deflates.

._.

    "Well," Joy starts again, eyebrows furrowed, "I could at least do something for you." Irene, while grateful for how considerate Joy is, shrugs and continues to walk away. The kid was starting to become more of a nuisance than a help. "Ah!" the student exclaims loudly, getting off her bike and running towards Irene. "Here," Joy says, taking off her shoes and placing them in front of Irene. "I know they're a bit big but it's better than having those heels chafe your ankles, right?" Before Irene has a chance to refuse them, Joy cuts in, "Please don't take it as a chance for me to try and get you to fall for me; take it as an act from a concerned person looking after someone who doesn't seem to have too much concern for herself." The girl shoots her a playful smile before turning more serious. "So please take them."

._.
 

    “Irene!” a voice calls out the following day. The teacher turns around to look and instantly regrets it. Joy rides toward her, furiously pedaling alone on a two-seat bike. The student stops in front of her and gestures to the bike in a ‘ta-da’ motion. “Look! It’s not a traffic violation!” Joy proclaims proudly.

    ‘But it is embarrassing,’ Irene thinks to herself, face-palming. She decides to pretend not to know her, ignoring Joy’s calls, and takes a more difficult- a steeper- route back home. When she realizes she hasn’t heard the soft clicking of the bicycle tires for a while, Irene looks back (‘not out of worry,’ she drills into herself) to see Joy leaning against the bike, chest heaving and beads of sweat trailing down her jawline. Irene hesitates for a moment, biting her lip in thought, before huffing and stomping back down to Joy. “Stupid,” she scolds once she reaches the younger girl. “It’s a two-seat bike; why are you pedaling it by yourself like an idiot?" She reaches into her purse and pulls out a handkerchief. Joy stares up at Irene in wonderment as the teacher tenderly wipes away her sweat. Irene then proceeds to shove the cloth into Joy’s clammy hand before looking away, the tips of her ears bright red. Glaring at Joy, Irene sneers that, “You’re lucky I’m wearing pants today,” and gets onto the second seat of the bike. The entire time, Joy just stares at Irene in pleasant surprise, a bright smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

._.

    Irene realizes that she deeply regrets giving in to Joy as she rides on the two-seat bike with her head down, face blushing from all of the curious stares the two are getting, and shrinks further back into herself once she starts thinking about how weird this must look to everyone around them.

    “This ,” Joy sighs, looking back at Irene with a cute pout on her face. “I thought it’d be a lot more romantic than this.”

    ‘You damn brat,’ Irene mentally seethes, ‘I’m about to have a heart attack out of embarrassment over here and you’re whining about how this isn’t romantic enough?’

    “Irene,” Joy calls over her shoulder, interrupting the older girl’s mental rant, “Can you just humor me and, like, put your arms around my waist or something?” Irene gives a sigh in exasperation but figures that the best way to shut the kid up is to just do what she says, so she reaches her arms out front. And blushes as her arms are too short to do anything except brush against the flap of Joy’s Judo uniform. At the feeling of Irene’s hands grazing the back of her uniform, Joy looks back and laughs at the reddening teacher. “I can’t believe your arms are too short to reach me!”

    “Just keep your eyes on the road,” Irene growls, her face heating up more and more as Joy’s laugh gets increasingly louder. Offended at how Joy is laughing at her, Irene decides to prove her wrong, desperately grabbing for the student’s waist. ‘Aha!’ she thinks to herself victoriously as she manages to successfully grab the flap of Joy’s uniform. The feeling of victory soon fades into mortification as she once again realizes how weird this must look to everyone else. Irene keeps her head down in shame for the rest of the ride home. But for some reason, she doesn’t let go of Joy’s uniform.

._.

    Irene sighs as she watches the rain pour down from the sky, cold droplets spattering heavily at her heeled feet. She should really start checking the news. “Teacher!” Joy calls out from behind her. “Did you forget your umbrella?” Seeing no reason to lie (and secretly hoping that Joy had brought hers that day so Irene wouldn’t have to get her new outfit wet), Irene shyly nods, a light pink dusting her cheeks. “Whoa, me too!” Never mind. Irene groans helplessly and looks out at the rain. Well, it looks like she’ll have to sacrifice the purse she “borrowed” from Seulgi. Irene thinks of them as now even, considering how the other teacher ditched her and left early to go make out with that intern from the hospital she hooked up with that one time she got the flu. “But my Judo jacket is pretty thick. Do you want to use that?” At Irene’s curious look, Joy begins to take off her jacket. “Ah.” Irene sighs when she sees Joy stuck within the confines of her jacket, one arm half out of the sleeve and sticking up ungracefully while the collar forces her head into an awkward position. Irene leaves her there.

._.

    “This is romantic, right?” Joy cheerfully asks as she holds her Judo jacket over the both of them, the freezing rain slowly seeping through the thick cloth. Irene looks over and flinches back a bit once she realizes how close their faces were.

    “You smell,” Irene mumbles, turning her head away as if the smell was too much for her. (In reality, all she can notice is the sweet scent of the rain and the warmth radiating off of the girl next to her.) While Joy worriedly sniffs various parts of her body, Irene presses a hand to her flushed cheek and curses herself.

._.

    Irene stops in her steps the moment she passes by the open door to the gym. She cranes her head to get a better view, biting her lip. The Judo team usually practices around this time; it wouldn’t hurt to take a look, she convinces herself as she moves closer.

    On a blue mat, Joy and a boy ten centimetres taller than her circle each other, bandaged hands outstretched and ready. In a split second, Joy throws her body into the boy and flips the both of them onto the mat, the girl landing on top of the other student. The team members surrounding them clap as Joy helps the other boy up, both of them grinning at each other. Something moves in the corner of Joy’s eye and she looks to the doorway of the gym just in time to see a woman- a teacher- quickly walk away, heels clacking through the quiet hallway. ‘Was that Irene?’

._.

    The tap water runs rapidly as Irene splashes her face again and again as if trying to desperately wash away these feelings, to wake herself up from these foolish emotions. She grips the sides of the sink and glares at herself in the mirror, trails of water slipping down her face. “Don’t you dare fall for her, Bae Joohyun,” Irene whispers to her reflection. The threat echoes loudly in the empty bathroom. “Don’t you dare.”