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The charms on Hana’s silver bracelet clink together with every flick of her wrist.

Mikimoto pearls and chrome-plated dolphins ring a familiar whimsical tune to you, always accompanied by your best friend’s cheery voice, animated storytelling, and the eventual rush of affection in your chest when her head finally finds rest on your shoulder. As an after-school routine, the two of you would hook elbows and walk along the landscaped pavement leading back to the front gates, your companion chattering about the latest celebrity scandal or some fascinating conspiracy surrounding the imperial family — anything, really, to ease your minds from the strain of digesting intensive university-level courses and balancing study schedules.

Today, with Hana’s conversation tapering off and her dreamy gaze straying to the collegiate gymnasium, she confides in you a different thing.

“Will you wish me luck, eonnie?” You’re only a week older but she doesn’t let you forget it, like a younger twin set to the ways of harmless mischief. “I’m going to confess after the game this afternoon. Just here to see you off. Aren’t I so good?”

It’s different today – the glossy plump of her lips. Dior, you think. It smells good.

You hum shortly, but there’s a teasing lilt to it. “Why so eager to replace me?” you tease. “You know I’ll be back soon.”

“Oh, I just bet.” Hana snorts. “Delegates schmelegates. There won’t be any oppas at model United Nations.”

“And if there are?”

Hana’s endearing grin makes a reappearance. “They won’t be Min Yoongi!” she replies, confident. Your eyes roll.

The school shuttle arrives, a private limousine to take you to the airport. Instead of immediately climbing in when the chauffeur pulls the door open, you hang back and stare at her for a moment.

Hana’s your favorite person. She’s doughty, alright, but nobody’s fool. You never want her touched by the world. Even though it’s not just your call, you want to be each other’s first and foremost, even after you’ve found other people.

Like this. Forever.

“Best of luck, then.” you tell her.

“You too, eonnie! Don’t make the Harvard boys cry!”

Her remark earns her a soft peal of laughter that trails after you as you get into the limousine.

Under the late afternoon sun, your laughter reminds Hana of windchimes. Light, airy, fleeting… Something truly precious but impossible to appreciate unless one has grasped the beauty of silent things and drowned in the noise.

When she looks back on it forty-eight hours later, this is the exact moment Hana wishes time had stopped, and never started again.

You press the doorbell a third time and level your mouth to the intercom.

“Hello? I’m Hana’s friend from university. Can you please buzz me in so we can go to school together?”

Thirty minutes of insistence and the head housekeeper makes her way to the wrought iron gates, stern-faced in informing you that the judge’s daughter is not receiving visitors nor taking messages.

“She’s already missed two weeks of school,” you say anxiously. “I haven’t heard from Hana at all.”

“Young miss.” She sighs. “Thank you for your concern. But the university has been notified and is well-informed on the matter.”

“What matter?”

With a contrite look, the woman bows and bids you goodbye. 

“I’m her best friend! How can you not even take a message?”

The housekeeper has already turned her back to you and the gates remain closed. You can only glare at her retreating figure, then at the time on your wristwatch.

“I heard about your feat at the Harvard event from the Dean’s Office. Congrats,” the batch representative greets you when you accost him in the corridor during dismissal.

Even though you have the same advanced literature courses, you don’t know much else about Kim Taehyung apart from the specifics. He’s well-read, an austere Type A on scholarship, and your social circles don’t overlap. Being committee officers of sorts though, you share a mutual sense of respect for each other.

You don't dawdle. “Oh, actually, I just wanted to ask about Hana…”  

Taehyung’s head tilts, the mess of dark tresses shifting slightly to the side. “Hana? Ryeo Hana?”

You nod. “I wouldn’t bother you with this if it wasn’t important, but… she hasn’t been to class for weeks. I’m worried. We have class projects together, too, and I’ve tried my best to reach her. Since you’re the batch rep, I thought you’d know something…”

An expression slowly builds on Taehyung’s face the longer you go on. You know he knows you’re close to her, but you don’t immediately place the guilty look on him because there would have been no reason for him to be at all. When his gaze darts past you and his fingers fidget with the hem of his long sleeves, it comes out from you not like a question.

“Kim Taehyung-ssi. You know something.”

“Maybe.” He sighs. “I don’t want it to come from me, but I understand why you haven’t heard anything about it.”

You stare up at Taehyung, helpless. “What don’t I know?”

You want to tell him, Hana’s all I have.

Taehyung refuses to explain, shaking his head adamantly at you. You’re considering your options at intel exchange and info-haggling when Taehyung clicks his tongue and shoots you a knowing look of disapproval. Quoting the section of the handbook on student privacy, he says the by-laws and guidelines are exactly what his position operates within to advocate for student welfare. He will not break the rules at any cost.

Your nerves rankle at his tone and upright dismissal. You know the batch representative isn’t the only way to find out what’s happened to Hana; in fact, you don’t have to put up with this pointless stickler for one more second. You brush past him, grumbling all the while.

Taehyung catches your shoulder before you can march into the Dean’s Office.

He's wincing at you. Hard. “Let’s go find Jisoo before she’s left. I think she’ll tell you.”

This feeling you have inside isn’t new to you. Like all those before you, once you get to a certain age, the lines and edges blur and you start to think you were born with it. Like a brand, a curse.

Girl. Woman.

During the first few years you learn to use yourself as a commodity. Each part of you has purpose; each angle a posture for mirrored view. You grow well into the world’s perverted definition of personhood and find what it takes to survive. You make do with what you have, with what you can get, and when that happens – it varies how long for each woman – you quickly learn that what it takes to survive isn’t the same as what it takes to be taken seriously.

No, that costs more. Hurts more.

Because you’ll spend the next years imprisoned in the doll of your own making, rethinking how and why you’d grown and built yourself for the destructive use of others, and for a lot of women, those years don’t end. You dote on that hate until it becomes a cycle. Until you start to pile your frustration on your mother, your ferocity on your sister, your hysteria on your first best friend – all girls into women, sharp, unsparing tools of their own oppression – because they’re going through it, too. They knew all about it and felt it in their veins and they just let it happen – to them, to you, and nobody ever thought to warn each other.

That brewing. The singing. Never, never tamed.

That white-hot blinding rage.

“I’m sure you read the sign out front. Girls aren’t allowed here.”

“You don’t seem surprised though?” You hitch yourself onto the tiled marble platform and set your palms flat, caging the thick sides of your thighs. Your pleated skirt isn’t long enough – the sink feels cold behind your knees.

“Not the first trespasser in here, and certainly won’t be the last,” Min Yoongi mutters.

You fix your gaze on the basketball team captain. The ends of his short, bleached hair are slightly damp with sweat, sticking to the sides of his face. Although naturally pale-skinned, he didn’t seem truly exhausted to you, even after the practice game with Ryakuzan. Two hours of assiduous effort and he returned to the barracks quietly, breathing steady, quite unlike the band of players you had managed to avoid as they swung their bags in raucous victory and left.

In Min Yoongi’s brunet stare some type of zeal continued to simmer. You can’t deny his charisma, but you wonder if he’s really any good.

Major university. Team captain in his junior year, string A. He has to be.

He passes by you to get to his locker. His scent is rich and… distinctly male, you suppose. His monochromatic jersey is branded with the school’s insignia and his representative number – zero-three. You don’t flinch when he takes it off without warning. 

His thin mouth twitching at the ends, auburn eyes matching yours in the mirror of his locker door, he says, “I’ll give you this one, though. You’re brazen.”

You blink once. Slow. “Shouldn’t you call security?”

“What for? I can take a little thing like you.”

Condescending. You hate that. “Are you sure?” Your smirk doesn’t match the dull gleam of your eyes. 

Min Yoongi assesses you and you know he sees another girl in uniform. Self-assured, he turns and leans against the closed locker beside his open own.

“You know, this is a very weird way to go about a confession,” he informs you, crossing his arms over his chest. You don’t seem phased by the effortless flex of his toned, naked torso. Also unusual. “I’m not sure if you’re actually interesting, or that I just didn’t expect this from you.”

This changes things. “You know me,” you reply, flat.

He throws you a weird look, like it’s obvious he would. ”We share some lectures, don’t we?”

You shrug, nonchalant. “I only found out about you by name two weeks ago. So this is your face, huh?”

“Wow. Alright.” A lazy grin stretches on Min Yoongi’s mouth. “I can confirm. This tactic is really working for you.”

“So how does this happen, usually?” You try to keep your tone even. “Do I bring out a handwritten love letter and read it out? When do I blush? Sh-Sh-Should I stammer like this?”

Black eyebrows shoot up. “Am I sensing… anger?” He tilts his head forward, a slight provocation. “Are you actually angry at me? You’re here because of something I did?”

You stare at Min Yoongi. Quiet, unblinking.

“Ah. Not something, no.” An angelic, nearly winning smile settles on his face as realization dawns. “Someone.”

You flit your gaze over him, head to toe. ”I just don’t get it,” you murmur with a small frown, tone vaguely incredulous. “What did she see in you?”

His lips fold inward, like he’s fighting back a laugh. “Maybe if you remind me the name, I’ll remember.”

You indulge him. “Ryeo Hana. If you can remember me from class – I’m sure you remember her.”

“Ryeo Hana…” His mouth mimics yours as he looks to the ceiling and pretends to think about it. When his eyes return to you, they’re alight with supposed recognition. “Ahh, Ryeo Hana! Her. The girl who confessed to me two Fridays ago, after that buzzer-beater match with Shohoku.” You’re barely able to mask your disgust with disinterest but the sly boy unexpectedly picks up on it. “Yes, I remember Hana. She was cozy. Cute,” he goes on to say, assuring you with a wave of his hand that he wouldn’t go off topic like that. “I just wasn’t sure if she wanted me for me, you know?”

“So, what, you showed her exactly who you are?”

“You think so?”

Min Yoongi pulls his weight off of leaning against the lockers and takes strides toward you now.

“I invited her to the weekend after-party so we could get to know more about each other.” His gaze darkens when your knees hit the muscles of his legs mid-thigh. He’s too close. “So that my twin Yoonji could meet her.”

Your stomach curls in on itself as he goes on.

“I don’t think Ryeo Hana actually liked me. Yoonji propositioned her and she was all for it, too. I was shocked. So suddenly? She confessed to me, not us. So yes, I turned your friend down, but I did it gently.” Min Yoongi clicked his tongue in disappointment. “At the after-party though, she hung around. How were we supposed to know that she didn’t know how to say no to a happy little packet? That she hadn’t tried them before? How were us sunbaes supposed to know?” He shrugs. “She uploaded that picture onto her profile herself. Everyone just made a big deal out of it because of her father. People like to play prude, but none of us had anything to do with that. That was all her. I guess she was just feeling really good at the time.”

You want to scream and claw at the hubris Min Yoongi wears. Lose yourself in the music. Let the rage sing.

Hana. Your Hana.

“I’m sure Judge Ryeo’s cleaned up the situation by now.”

You don’t scream. Instead you nod and smile and hum. “That’s right, he has,” you confirm.

Hana’s your girl. Hana’s all you fucking have.

“So, is that it?” Min Yoongi smiles tartly, then drops his chosen façade into pure neutrality. “Can you go now?”

He’s an actor, like you. But he’s no woman.

“One last thing. I thought I should ask...” Your tone sounds genuinely curious, airy and flirty out of nowhere. With a tired bark of a sigh, the athlete turns back to face you and you can feel the radiating warmth of his body once again. “Does your sister Yoonji know how to put on concealer? I think you’re a shade Ivoire in Lancôme?”

Genuine confusion passes over his features. Min Yoongi’s just a boy.

If his sister’s a woman, she’ll know what to do for him. She’ll know how to take this.

You reward him with a smile. “Because how else am I supposed to know, sunbae?”

You let it sit for a millisecond, and then your dominant fist flies.