As all good things do, this starts with a bang.

The type that leaves a champagne cork slamming into Nayeon's midriff, and gets bubbles everywhere.

"I think I'm dead," Nayeon whimpers, and crashes into the dusty ground. She gets up a moment later, squeaking in indignation at how dirty the council room is. "Double dead now."

Jihyo sighs.

This is going to be a long year.

-

Their first meeting and the ceremonial champagne-pop are supposed to signify a few things. Firstly, the exit of the old student government and the entry of the new one, which isn't happening, because this is the first student government their school has ever elected. (Jihyo blames budget cuts and poor planning, but there is something exciting about being the very first. She fancies herself a trailblazer.)

Secondly, the end of the campaign season, which was tiring all over and featured Jihyo sleeping a total of five hours across five days. The same can probably be said for the rest of the student council, especially one of their two sophomore publicity heads that Jihyo knows to be Chou Tzuyu, the popular sprinter and star of the track team. She looks like she hasn't gotten a good night's sleep since she was born. Jihyo's personally just glad that the emotionally taxing campaign season is over, and they can start work on things that actually matter instead of giving out hotdogs to buy votes. (Their internal liaison, some girl in her year named Kim Dahyun, did that. Jihyo's still impressed at the number of hotdogs she had on hand.)

Thirdly, the whole champagne thing is supposed to signify the coming of a prosperous age for all of them. It's highly prestigious, but the mood is ruined by the fact that they're sitting in a dusty council room that hasn't been cleaned in years and looks like it was used by the zoology club for sheep shearing. That, and them not knowing each other at all. Jihyo knows Nayeon and Jeongyeon, of course, and she kind of knows Sana because duh, Nayeon and Sana have been together since middle school, but that's about it. Oh, and Momo. She doesn't quite remember how she knows Momo, but she does. They're all seniors, and Jihyo is still absently worrying about how they'll take to having a junior as council president.

That said, there's nothing to do now but find out. Jihyo claps her hands once, and watches disorganized chaos unfold across the room. The four senior students seem to have banded together already - Jeongyeon has a string of fairy lights slung over her chest like a toga, and Momo is hanging off her and trying to pull the fairy lights in her direction. In addition to that, they seem to have adopted Dahyun - the younger girl is talking animatedly to Nayeon and Sana, and nearly hits Sana in the face with how excited she is.

Only the sophomores - Chaeyoung and Tzuyu - are paying attention. They're in seats beside each other, not close enough to imply that they know each other, but close enough to show unity. It must be tough, being the only underclassmen in a council of nine. Jihyo remembers being like that, and smiles wistfully.

Along with them is Myoui Mina, another girl in her year who was elected logistics head of the council. Jihyo realizes that this means that Mina will end up working closely with their treasurer, Nayeon, and sends a quick prayer out there for Mina.

Mina gives her a small smile when their eyes meet, and Jihyo finds herself filled with confidence to tame this unruly bunch. If she could get the student body to vote for her in an overwhelming landslide of an election, she can get this council under control. Her body buzzes with the excitement of being able to call them 'her' council. This is real, this is happening!

She claps her hands together again, "Hi!"

"Hi," the seniors (and Dahyun) chorus. Mina, Chaeyoung and Tzuyu look uncomfortable at what looks like a clique, but Jihyo brushes it off and makes it her personal mission to integrate everyone into the council.

"Hi everyone!" Jihyo puts on her best smile. "I'm Jihyo, your president. I hope we can have a good year together! How about we go in a circle and introduce ourselves! You can say your name, your grade, and one interesting fact about you. I'll go first. I'm Jihyo, I'm a junior, and I really like vanilla lattes!"

"We're not even in a circle," Mina points out apologetically.

"I never let that get me down," Jihyo replies, pointing at Mina. "You can go next!"

"Jihyo," Jeongyeon says, "You're shaking."

"Am not," Jihyo says defensively, but it's true. Tzuyu winces from her seat and holds out her hands to steady Jihyo, as if anticipating her fainting. Jihyo feels insulted by the very notion. "It's just excitement."

Jeongyeon comes behind her as means of moral support, and Jihyo lets out a long breath. She makes a note to thank Jeongyeon later and Google how to give good welcome addresses. She really should've watched that compilation of presidential inauguration speeches last night when hyping herself up for this. Nayeon had called her excessive on their Skype call, but Nayeon is, well, Nayeon.

"How about we get into a circle?" Jihyo grins.

-

"Hi, everyone!" Sana chirps. "I'm Sana, the external liaison. I'm a senior and a fun fact about me is that, uh, I'm..." She looks to Nayeon helplessly, unable to think of a suitably fun fact about herself. Nayeon thinks, too, before whispering into Sana's ear. Sana brightens up. "Oh, yes! I scream when my inner thighs get touched."

"Do I want to know why you know this?" Jihyo sighs. Chaeyoung looks like she doesn't get it, and is pestering her to tell her. (Chaeyoung and Jeongyeon have gotten suspiciously pally within the span of half an hour. No one's complaining, but it's just... shady.)

"You do that too!" Momo exclaims, nudging Jeongyeon.

"Next, please," Tzuyu calls.

All eyes fall on Nayeon. She shrugs, "I'm Nayeon, the treasurer, and uh, I failed calculus twice in a year." She does the 'I'm watching you' gesture when Chaeyoung and Dahyun burst out laughing, even to Mina who looks like she's having a hard time holding it in. "I'm also the eldest here, I think."

"Grandma," Jeongyeon mumbles.

After the introductions are done, they end up going through the workplan for the year. "Seeing as it's our first year, I don't think we'll have to do much, so we can plan for maybe four, five events," Jihyo says, poring over the school calendar. "Two of them are the winter formal and prom, so that's that."

"We should start off with a fundraising event," Mina says quietly. That's all Jihyo has gleaned from her so far - that she's pretty, and very quiet. She's pretty sure Mina even moves silently, like a cat. At any rate, it's a refreshing change of pace from the rest of the council, especially the seniors. "We don't have anything in our treasury."

"Seconded," Nayeon says, and high-fives Mina. Mina's smile is gummy and is up there in Jihyo's top ten sights.

There are nods from the rest of the table. (The table is sort of circular and sort of L-shaped, and Jihyo likes the feel of it, even though it's old and donated from the library out of pity. It makes her feel like one of the knights of the round table.) "Okay, so what should we do?"

"N*ked car wash," Sana suggests immediately.

"No, no," Dahyun shakes her head, scrunching up her face, "That's too risque. Half-***** car wash."

"How about a bake sale?" Chaeyoung suggests. "We can collaborate with the middle school's PTA. My mom makes good cookies. I'm sure we could get them to sponsor us or something."

"And we can bake at someone's place, too," Tzuyu supplies helpfully, looking away shyly when Chaeyoung beams at her. "It can be the council's first bonding activity?" Tzuyu sounds ridiculously earnest, and Jihyo told herself that she was tougher than this, but she finds herself nodding anyway.

"Great idea. Any other contributions?" Jihyo claps her hands. "My place this weekend?"

-

Given the fact that there isn't any money in the treasury to count, Nayeon takes it upon herself to help Sana out with contacting the PTA for the bake sale. And of course, with all things -- they get distracted. They don't even make it down to the storeroom down the hall before Jihyo has to step in to separate them, and even then they're still holding hands as they skip back to the council room. It's disgustingly sweet, and Jihyo wonders how they're going to do their council duties with each other in the way. Nayeon's saving grace is her offer to bring in beanbags from home to put in the room. Sana says she'll sign a softball and they can pass it down to future student governments.

Mina and Tzuyu, meanwhile, are helping out to clean up the council room. Mina has a broom, and Tzuyu a mop. Dahyun makes herself useful by carrying the dustpan around and telling Mina that she'll be here as long as Tzuyu needs her - very kind but not very necessary. Chaeyoung pitches in by guarding the bucket of mop-water, though Jihyo suspects that might just be a ploy to get near Tzuyu.

Jeongyeon and Momo disappear together, too, but for something actually productive, because they come back with even more decorations. Jeongyeon hangs a little chalkboard that says 'STUDENT COUNCIL 2017-2018' on the front door, and Momo is nice enough to draw nine little figurines to the members' likeness. They spend the rest of the afternoon pasting motivational quotes and framed art prints on the wall to, as they say, 'jazz up the atmosphere', and Jihyo is feeling much more comfortable in it by the end.

It's nice, and Jihyo can see everything slotting into place already. It hadn't been the most dramatic or amazing of beginnings, but it's less about the beginning and more about the journey, Jihyo tells herself. Or so she's heard. Either way, as she watches the council begin to fall into a pattern that looks like a well-oiled machine, she can't help but smile.

Her council.

She likes the sound of that.

-

"They got caught again?" Momo laughs, letting Jeongyeon nip at her throat and press her into the bedspread.

They're in Momo's bedroom, with the door wide open and Momo would honestly care more about this if not for the fact that Jeongyeon is on top of her right now. She'll apologize later, if they get caught. Which they won't. Because they're masters of hiding. Hiding from their friends, hiding from their parents, hiding with each other.

It's not a perfect arrangement, but Momo'll take it.

"They're dumb," Jeongyeon affirms, pressing kisses to Momo's collarbone, fingers tugging gently at Momo's button-up shirt to pull it past her shoulders. Jeongyeon's expressed hatred of button-ups so often - she's not savage enough to rip them open, but she's also not patient enough to unbutton them one by one. Momo says they should go shopping for new shirts soon.

They really should.

"But they don't have to hide," Momo muses. She lifts her hips when Jeongyeon asks her to, but the expression on her face is thoughtful, intimate, as if she's not quite here. It's distracting, and Jeongyeon would really rather not be distracted right now. Not with the way Momo is just lying here, toned and breathy and even more excited than she was when they were in school.

Sometimes, Jeongyeon wonders how their friends don't pick up on the tension between her and Momo. Only Nayeon knows, and she had to walk in on Jeongyeon and Momo to find out. Even then, she'd asked if the two of them were 'having sex but in a platonic way'. She asks that regularly.

(Jeongyeon never knows how to answer.)

But she concedes that it might be for the best. Sana is too wrapped up with softball and Nayeon at any given time to pay much attention to the intricacies of Jeongyeon and Momo's relationship, and she doesn't really know Momo so it's alright. Jihyo is too busy studying and overachieving to pay much heed to them, too, and Jeongyeon supposes she can't blame her. Jihyo has different goals. She wants a shining college application, and Jeongyeon... Well, Jeongyeon isn't sure yet, but she wants different.

"We aren't them," Jeongyeon says, and it sounds like a promise.

-

Dahyun is the one to create a group chat, having acquired all their numbers within minutes of leaving the council room. There are no texts for a moment as they add contacts, and then it's chaos. Dahyun's pretty sure she sees a nude meant for someone else enter the group chat before it's hastily removed. That, and everyone's embarrassing screen names.

(And hey, Dahyun's screen name isn't embarrassing, okay? tofumaster98 is a very sought after moniker.)

Memes enter the group chat soon after. Jeongyeon sends a rage comic that looks like it's from 2012. Tzuyu replies with an emoji. That's alright, Dahyun can forgive that. Nayeon misuses a piece of texting slang, and everyone collectively calls her grandma. Dahyun shakes her head, smiling as she watches the texts unfold on the screen. Reading all of this makes her feel warm, even when Mina makes five typos in one text, even when Momo tells Chaeyoung to 'eat her ***' and Chaeyoung responds with 'gladly'. This feels like home, even if it's too early to say.

She sets her phone aside and goes back to work.

-

Jihyo's door is wide open when Chaeyoung reaches her place - Jihyo had sent her address out in an extremely obnoxious, emoji-ridden text that cordially invited everyone to come over and bake. She had added in the text that it was 'BYOF' - that is, bring your own flour.

The first thing she sees is Sana running around with her face caked in flour. She steels herself for the sight that greets her within, and surprisingly, it's not as bad as Chaeyoung thought it would be. Sure, it's bad, but she had expected someone to have accidentally stuck their head in an oven by now.

"Chaeyoung!" Jeongyeon greets, thumping her back affectionately. She has an oven mitt on one of her hands and a softball in the other hand, a softball that appears to be Sana's, from the way the other girl is yelling at Jeongyeon to give it back. "Sorry, Minatozaki," Jeongyeon giggles, tossing the ball over to Momo. Chaeyoung spots Jihyo walking Sana to the sink to wash the flour off her face.

"Jesus," Chaeyoung says out loud. Tzuyu looks up from the recipe book, laughing at the expression on Chaeyoung's face.

"Hi," Tzuyu smiles, "We're making muffins." She nods to a steaming tray sitting on the counter, where some muffins are being left to cool. Chaeyoung doesn't miss the way one of them has a huge bite taken out of it. That, and the fact that Momo's lips look the slightest bit burnt, and that she looks extremely sulky.

Ah.

"Any way I can help?" Chaeyoung asks, picking up the dropped oven mitt. Nayeon has the other oven mitt, and she waves cheerfully at Chaeyoung from her spot on the stairs. She's holding her phone in her other hand, pointing it at Sana and Jihyo as Sana washes off the mess on her face. Chaeyoung doesn't even want to think how it got to this state.

Mina appears, hair in a ponytail and looking extremely domestic as she searches for a socket to plug the electric mixer into. "Could you sift two cups of flour? Sana was supposed to do it, but she got all of it on her face."

"Not an accident," Dahyun, who's beating the eggs, grumbles. Chaeyoung didn't even know muffin recipes called for eggs to be beaten. She agrees, grabbing the flour and sifting out two cups as Mina asks, and they're an efficient machine for a while, with Tzuyu copying out recipes so that everyone stays on task. (Something that is totally Momo's job, but Momo delegates the butter and sugar mixing to herself, so that's that.) She may or may not lick the spoon once or twice, but that's the perks of the job, she supposes.

-

"These look pretty good," Nayeon says, tying up the last of the packages. Since none of the seniors were useful enough to bake, they were convinced (read: Mina gave them a look) to help package the muffins instead. It's a relaxing job, and Nayeon and Sana even sit across the room from each other so they don't get distracted. Like a well-oiled machine, even. "How much are we pricing them at? Three thousand per pack?"

"These are priceless," Momo declares, eating a deformed muffin that Tzuyu had deemed 'so f*cked up that it's okay if you eat it'. "Good job, maknaes. All five of you."

Dahyun finger-guns Momo, seeming to enjoy being called that. The others, however, do not take so kindly to that, and Momo pretends to cower underneath the heat of Tzuyu's stare and cry for mercy.

"You're so lame, Momo-unnie," Tzuyu shakes her head, sounding wise beyond her years. Momo reaches over to ruffle her hair affectionately, and Tzuyu tilts her head to hide her smile.

In the corner of the room, Sana announces, "There's flour in my br*."

No response.

"Nayeonnie," Sana repeats, "There's flour in my bra."

Nayeon blinks, before her eyes widen. "Oh. Oh. Okay. You can come over and wash it off later."

Sana grins, and even Mina joins the rest in making gagging noises.

-

"Beautiful," Sana sighs drowsily, hanging off Nayeon's bed as Nayeon comes out of the washroom in nothing more than a sports br* and shorts. Nayeon's hair is still wet, and she smells like grape-scented shampoo when she walks past Sana to get to her study desk, and it makes Sana that much drowsier. "Nayeonnie," Sana whines, "Come here."

"Busy, baby," Nayeon replies, flicking through her binder. There's a stack of undone calculus homework that Nayeon had carelessly stuck in there, and she has a vivid flashback to her teacher telling her that she would get her off the council if it meant passing calculus. She shudders.

Sana props her head up with her hands, kicking her legs out impatiently. She sinks a little more into the mattress, and she sighs happily, because Nayeon's bed is really comfortable and Sana doesn't want to leave. But she knows when she isn't wanted, and she doesn't want to bother Nayeon. They used to have a problem with telling each other when they needed alone time, and Sana's glad that they're over it. "Should I go?"

Nayeon hums, picking up a pen and writing her name. It's a start. "You can stay, but I'm not going to be done for a long while. I'll Skype you later?"

Sana perks up. Their Skype sessions have always teetered the line between friendly and risque, and she's willing to take that chance. What can she say? She's hormonal.

"I'll see myself out," Sana hops off.

"Love you!" Nayeon calls out behind her, because she does.

-

"Hey," Mina greets as Momo enters the backroom, wrapping her apron around her as she does so. She has no idea why they have to wear the apron when they rarely get to go out in front and make the drinks, anyway. "You didn't come yesterday. Yongsun was asking where you were." Yongsun is their manager who is often too busy with school to even come down, who pays their barista extra to mark her as present, so Mina's not too sure why she even bothered asking where Momo was yesterday. Momo hates her.

"Busy," Momo says briefly, before wrapping Mina in an affectionate hug. "Sorry I didn't get to talk to you much during the council meeting. How's things?"

"Council or life?"

Momo takes a checklist off the wall, beginning to tick off the shipments that arrived this morning. "Start anywhere, little buddy."

"Okay," Mina nods, "Well, I think I have a platonic crush on our council president."

"Platonic crush," Momo says calmly.

"Yes, a platonic crush." The younger girl adjusts her glasses on the bridge of her nose, "You know, like when you're not crushing on someone in the romantic sense, but in a friendship sort of way. Jihyo is interesting. I want to be friends with her."

"A platonic crush," Momo shakes her head, laughing at the completely serious, slightly puzzled look on Mina's face, "You kids have new words for everything nowadays."

-

Sana ends up going for a run around the neighborhood, going home to change into a getup not unlike Nayeon's before she starts off at a steady pace. It's not often that she gets to do this - Nayeon absolutely hates exercise and will do anything to avoid it, which usually leads to Sana bribing her to lead an active lifestyle - and Sana likes it, likes the evening sun beating down on her face as she jogs through the neighborhood.

Her muscles feel well-stretched instead of tired, and she's relieved that she hasn't lost all her fitness. Competition season is coming up, and Sana tells herself that she's got to be in tip-top shape. No more, no less. She even mimes the actions of batting as she runs past the school, and would probably do sliding drills if the space permitted it.

She squints into the evening sun, seeing a familiar figure in front of her. They're moving at a much faster pace than Sana is, and so she puts in a little more energy into her movements, hoping that it's who she thinks she is.

"Good training session?" Sana huffs as she catches up with Tzuyu. The sprinter looks startled but slows down enough for Sana to keep pace. (Sana is offended - she's the captain of the softball team, and she thought Tzuyu would know that, at least. She's really got to promote herself more.) "What are you doing outside school on a Sunday, kid?"

"Same as you," Tzuyu deadpans, "Training. School's closed on Sundays."

They jog in silence for a mile or so before Sana starts huffing, and then they stop for water. Sana acts like she wasn't about to collapse, but a wily smile from Tzuyu shows that she sees throught it. Tzuyu is cool, for a sophomore. She doesn't pretend to know things that she doesn't, or wear ugly hypebeast clothing, which is more than Sana can say for herself when she was in tenth grade. Tzuyu has this dignified air about her, and Sana finds herself watching jealously as Tzuyu downs a Pocari Sweat.

"You're pushing yourself pretty hard," she notes as Tzuyu does warm-down stretches.

The younger girl shrugs. "I have to."

"How come? Reputation?" Sana's more than aware of Tzuyu's star reputation, and also the fact that she single-handedly carries the track and cross country to regional victory. Tzuyu seems the type who would want to keep up that sort of reputation, whether it may be for her ego or for posterity. "Didn't peg you for the shallow type, Chou Tzuyu."

Tzuyu turns and gives her a withering look that makes Sana regret that she spoke. "No. I need the scholarships."

"Oh." Sana is from a well-to-do family, a trust fund kid if you will, but Tzuyu doesn't need to know that. "Sorry." It's awkward, the wealth disconnect between people. Sana's well aware that some kids in the school can't afford the clothes they wear, that a street from where she lives is abject poverty.

"I'm going to go for another round," Tzuyu says, "See you around, unnie."

-