Chapter 9

Yuri's POV

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The knocking at my door became louder and more impatient as I tried to ignore it. Sitting in front of my mirror, I practiced how to say 'no' to the other girls in case they tried to take advantage of me too.

"No, Taeyeon. I will not agree to your outrageous conditions. You are the leader of this group, the role model, the --" I looked down at my notes to remember the next point. Discipliner. "The one who implements discipline. Out of all the members, I expected you to --" KNOCK. KNOCK. THUD.

My monologue was interrupted by the loud knocking and what appears to be kicking at my door.

"Kwon Yuree! I know you're in there. You better open this door now if you want to know what I just found out about you-know-who," Tiffany screamed from the other side of the door.

Getting up from my seat, I reluctantly opened the door and found a red-faced Tiffany holding onto Sooyoung and Yoona by their hands. Throwing my door wide open, Tiffany barged into my room, pulling the other two with her.

"Close the door and sit down," Tiffany ordered while practically throwing the two girls on my bed.

"Ok, since we three are team Yuree, I'm going to also share this information with you two so we can come up with brilliant ideas and eventually get what we want. AchooMinnie," Tiffany said while hinting to me that she wanted my Minnie with a fake sneeze.

"Real inconspicuous, Fany," I said as I rolled my eyes.

"So tell us, what is this piece of information that you have? I can't wait for Yuri to cook me some Korean stew tomorrow. Yum," Sooyoung was practically drooling as she said this.

Tiffany clapped her hands together and was bouncing up and down excitedly with a huge smile in her eyes.

"So I had a one on one chat with Sica just now and I found out who she likes!"

Yoona, along with the other two girls started to squeal in my room while holding onto one another, jumping up and down. I probably would have squealed too, but I was actually more curious than excited by the news. A part of me was also jealous that Jessica revealed this so easily with Tiffany.

"So who is it and why are you telling me this? You know, you shouldn't be gossiping about this especially after Sica confided in you," I told Tiffany with a hint of disapproval.

"Yah, Yuree, don't you get it? You could help set her up with this person and then once they start going out, she'll be extremely grateful to you, the matchmaker! Plus, you'll get to spend more time with her."

"I guess that sounds like a good idea. So tell me, who am I trying to set her up with?"

"You know the cute guy that works at the bookstore? The one who looks like Daniel Henney?"

Yoona's eyes widened upon hearing the name Daniel Henney. "She likes the owner of the store?"

"I guess so. Hmmm, I didn't know he was the owner. Jessica not only has good taste but good eyes too."

"What's the name of this bookstore?" Sooyoung asked while sitting in front of my laptop.

"I think it's called Prologue," Yoona replied.

I looked over and saw SooYoung typing away on the computer. "We don't even know his name, how are you going to google this guy?" As I said that, I realized that I have unknowingly agreed to Tiffany's plan. To set Jessica up with this Prologue guy.

"Well, even though you guys are all helping me with this, I can't suddenly just give all three of you gifts. It's too suspicious and then all the girls will want something from me, Jessica will definitely find out about this 'Team Yuri' thing, and then she'll never speak to me again!" I said while doing the quotations in the air with my fingers.

"Well, the other girls don't really know that we're getting something in return for helping you," Tiffany retorted.

"But Sooyoung said that they all know about this."

"Not quite, unnie. When Sooyoung asked me what I did to get the cake, only she and Tiffany were at the table."

"And I only told Taeyeon..." Tiffany said with guilt in her voice.

"SOOYOUNG!"

"Hey, I thought everybody knew. Well, since some don't know, you should be happy now," Sooyoung defended.

I looked at the time and realized that we only had a couple of minutes before having to rush off to our busy schedules. The four of us won't be seeing each other until much later in the evening and by that time, we'll probably already be asleep.

Wanting to set up some sort of a reward system to avoid any suspicion, I suggested, "Ok, how about this. For every useful idea that you guys have, I'll give you a point --ONLY if I use it. Scratch that. Between the 3 of you, I will choose ONE of your ideas. The first person to get five points will receive their end of the bargain. How does that sound?"

"Well, that's easy. I got the information and the matchmaking idea, so 1 for Fany and 0 for Yoong and --"

"Oh! Don't be so sure of that," Sooyoung who had been busy typing away on the laptop interjected.

"You came up with the information and the idea, but I have a plan."

"What's the difference? The plan is my idea!"

"No. My plan is substantial, yours is exactly that, an idea. A thought."

"Unnies, we're just trying to help. So what's this plan of yours?" Yoona tried to calm them down.

"So I found the bookstore's website and it just so happens that the book Sica wants is in. But they only have 1 copy. So what you're going to do, Yuri, is go down there with Sica, try to introduce the two of them to each other and I'll buy the last book. Then you're going to keep going back with Sica everyday to find the book --or should I say, find out more about the owner. That way, not only will you be hooking the two of them together but you also get to hang out with Sica alone."

"That's actually not a bad idea, Sooyoung. Well, any other ideas before I give her the point?"

Tiffany began to pout. "That's not fair. You're using my information and my idea to form your plan. You wouldn't have been able to do that without me," Tiffany said with her puppy face.

"Fany, remember I said best idea out of the 3 gets a point."

"But --"

"Kids! We're going to be late. Hurry up and come out," the leader's voice entered the room from the other side of the door.

"Fine, you won this round, Choi SooYoung. But I'll get you next time," Tiffany said as she stormed out of my room.

Before following them out, I quickly wrote T, Y, and S on my whiteboard drawing a vertical line under 'S'.

---

By the time I got back to the dorm, it was almost 2am. All the girls had returned from their schedules and were already sleeping in their rooms.

Without turning the lights on, I walked into my room to change into my pyjamas. I had already showered at the studio before coming back because I knew that once I saw my bed, all I'd want to do is just sleep.

I made as little noise as possible while changing in the dark. Placing my discarded clothes on a chair, I stood at the side of my bed before allowing gravity to take over, with my front side making contact first.

"Ahhh!" I heard a scream from under me. Instead of the familiar feel of my mattress, I felt a fragile body under mine, separating us by a blanket.

"Oh! Sica! I didn't know you were here. Sorry!" I said while propping my body up slightly with my hands. My face was extremely close to hers as I did not have much energy to push myself up completely.

Jessica moved her hands down my sides and rested them by my waist, and seemed to be holding onto them.

"Heater. Broken. Remember?"

"Oh right! So you and Hyo are sleeping here again?"

"Yuri, do you not see me under you?"

"Haha, sorry for the understatement. I'm really tired right now."

I was about to roll off her but I'm pretty sure I felt Jessica tighten her grip on my waist so I didn't move. Instead, I shifted my support from my hands to my arms, bringing me even closer to her.

"You work really hard and take good care of us. Thank you, Yuri," Jessica whispered in my ear as she pulled me down entirely for a hug.

Comfortable as I was, I realized I must be crushing the girl with my weight, so I quickly ended the hug and rolled onto the side. Getting under the warm covers, I pulled them up over Jessica's exposed shoulders.

"It's cold tonight."

"Thanks. Goodnight, Yuri."

We were both on our respective sides on the bed and I was ready to drift off to La La Land before I remembered Jessica's injured hand. I searched for it under the blanket, brushing against her thigh and stomach before getting a hold of it. I rested her hand on top of my stomach and started to massage it lightly.

"Did you remember to put on the medication that the doctor gave you?" I asked while staring at the ceiling.

"No. I thought you were supposed to do it for me."

I sighed at her dependence and princess-like expectations of other people. With an amused smile, I asked her where she placed the jar.

"It's right next to you on the table."

"Sica-yah, next time just ask one of them to apply it for you instead of waiting until 2am."

There was no response from Jessica, but from observing her these past couple of days, I'm quite positive that she's pouting in the dark.

"I didn't mean to scold you. I just want you to get better faster. So please, don't go to bed sad."

"It's not that... it's just... forget it," she told me softly with hesitation in her voice.

After applying the ointment on her hand, I placed her hand back next to her. Aish, my hand hurts too from all the hard work. I wonder if I could use this medication. Too tired to do anything, I just placed the jar back on the table before pulling the blanket up to sleep.

Everytime I was about to drift off to sleep, I would wake up from Jessica's tossing and turning. I looked over and to her backside, asked, "Can't sleep?"

"Mmmhmm," she agreed.

I can't either because you keep moving and kicking me by accident. But I shrugged it off and continued my attempt to fall asleep. About 20 mins later, I felt her hand moving around under my pillow, sliding and lifting my head. She stopped sliding her hand around and turned back onto her side with her back facing me. A short while later, Jessica resumed her fidgeting which was worse than before. To stop her from moving, I finally decided to throw my arms around her, holding her tight.

"You move too much, Sica baby," I whispered while placing the object that she was searching for into her hands.

I felt her body stiffen before she finally relaxed as she put her arms over mine, and her hands onto the small Minnie doll. With that, the two of us fell asleep in each others warmth during that cold night.