Clovers

"How can you start eating without me?!" Haneul exclaimed the moment she and Iseul arrived at the chicken restaurant, not minding the looks she got—people were used to her anyway. She saw two familiar girls sitting on their usual seat near the entrance. One of the girls had a dark brown hair and she was a bit short. Then, the other girl had a long black hair and a really pale skin that made her seem like a beauty soap's model—her height was tall too!

"How can you overreact every time we start eating without you?" The shorter girl asked, chuckling.

"Don't laugh as if this is a joke, Jung Seri," Haneul warned but it did not sound serious at all.

The tallest girl among the four shook her head. "What do you plan on doing this week? Tomorrow is Monday again but nothing exciting is happening to our school. What will happen to our club then? We will not do anything again?" She asked in her usual soft and feminine voice. Out of the four, she was the only one who was feminine. Many actually wondered how she even managed to keep up with the three hyper girls but that would forever remain as a mystery.

Haneul sighed, sitting down beside the brownhead—whose name was Seri. "As much as I want to do something, I cannot find any new cases, Yerin." She told the tall girl. "It's not even helping that Iseul does not want to hack the police's website. That morning dew* is being cruel to me."

[[A/N: *Iseul means 'dew' in English so Haneul is playing with her sister's name.]]

The tallest, Yerin, laughed a bit while Iseul just quietly sat beside the former. "But I heard that police's system is really strict now. We can end up being arrested if we're not careful."

"I know that." Haneul huffed like a little kid. Sometimes, the others found it hard to believe that she was actually the eldest because she was as stubborn as a five-year-old. "But even escaping from the police is even more fun than doing nothing at all. We're a detective club. We should be looking for something exciting to do, right?" She looked at her members. "Right?" She asked once again, shoving a piece of chicken into her mouth, earning herself a 'gross' from Iseul.

"But running away from police is not very inviting," Seri pointed out, chuckling. "You're really weird, Haneul. And really childish too. Are you sure that you are two years older than me?"

Haneul clicked her tongue. "It's big sister Haneul for you. I am older than you. Stop talking as if you're more mature. Remind me again why I have to hangout with kids." She sighed in a dramatic and exaggerated manner, shaking her head as if she was disappointed with herself. "I could have hangout with the cool jocks and the varsity team or something," she added.

The other three girls chuckled. They also had no idea why Haneul had decided to hangout with them when that girl had a lot of friends to hangout with. Perhaps, it really was their club that made them all closer to each other. Their desire to become detectives might had been the real reason. "Why don't you hangout with people around your age?" Iseul asked Haneul. "We'll be just fine."

"No, thank you. Remember the last time I let the three of you hangout alone? The plan was to hangout in Myeongdong, how did you end up going to Incheon instead? It's a train away!" Haneul pointed out exasperatedly. She could not even think of any reasons how someone would end up going to Incheon instead of Myeongdong that was just a bus ride away. Haneul could only groan at the memory. After all, she was the one who had to fetch the three from Incheon at eight in the evening because the three girls did not call earlier for help, thinking that they could go back on their own.

Iseul, Seri, and Yerin also grimaced at the memory. They never thought that they could have a really bad sense of direction until that incident. "Okay, I admit that having you hangout with us is much better than getting lost in the middle of Incheon again," Seri said.

"Ah, by the way," Yerin chimed in. "Let's go back to the issues about school. I heard that tomorrow, many new exchange students would come to AIS. Do you think that it will be fun?"

"It depends," Haneul munched on her chicken. "If they are mean then it may or may not be fun. If they are nice then it may or may not be fun. Where did you get that information by the way? I thought they'll surprise us? The directress wants us to be startled when we see someone else in our room which is pretty exaggerated in my opinion," she added, shrugging her shoulders.

"Yeah, her idea is a bit off," Seri agreed with Haneul.

"Not a 'bit'. It is really off," Iseul pointed out, chuckling. "Anyway, should we look for new members tomorrow? It's been a while since the school year started. In two more months, we will have the summer break already. Our club has been idle for more than a month. We should do something."

"What should we do? Should we steal something then investigate who stole it?" Haneul joked.

"Very funny." Seri laughed sarcastically. "We should do something about it. I agree with Iseul."

Haneul clicked her tongue. "What do we do? It's not like we can find a new case if we found new members," she said. "If you guys just agreed with me about hacking the police's system, we would have had found a perfect case already." She added, scrunching her nose. "But then again, running away from the police is not my definition of a perfect case."

"It's not our definition too," Iseul told Haneul. "We can join two clubs, right? Why don't you join another club if you're so bored?"

"I was actually thinking of abandoning our club and just join the newspaper club but there's so much things to do in there. Plus, with those many writers and contributors, they won't need another one," Haneul stated her desire. "I even rejected their offer last time. I cannot just approach them then act all friendly and join, right? They wouldn't even accept me at this rate." She frowned.

Seri shook her head. "I don't think so. You have a good background and a good image. I think that they will make use of that. You can join them if you want to," she assured Haneul.

"So, are you guys, like, kicking me out right now or something?" Haneul raised a brow. "I am the club's leader in case you have forgotten." She rolled her eyes.

"We haven't. We're just telling you that aside from this club, you can join another one," Iseul reasoned out. "Or you can just study for your CSAT," she teased Haneul.

Haneul frowned. That CSAT was very important to every student in South Korea. It could break or make one's future and almost everyone knew how Haneul hated how an examination could dictate her life. She believed that she was in a free country. She did not want to be dictated by a written exam that did not even test her intelligence but tested her memory and/or her luck. "Stop reminding me about that damned exam. I still have several months to take it. Why would I waste my youth studying for it?"

"If you failed in that exam, you cannot go to college," Yerin chimed in with her soft voice. "It points you directly to SKY*," she added.

[[A/N: *SKY stands for the top three universities in Korea: Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University.]]

"I know that. You guys don't have to remind me. Let's focus on our main goal for now," Haneul changed the topic. The others gave her a confused look so she continued. "I'm talking about looking for the Messiah, of course!" She clasped her hands together.

The other three girls let out a sigh and shook their heads. Of course, Haneul would only talk about nonsensical things whenever she had nothing to do. They wondered if things would finally be exciting for the eldest and for them as well.