Daisy, who had finished class early because of an exam, had decided to go to the usual meeting room somewhat earlier than usual. Humming, he glanced side to side a bit as he walked, to some particular beat or other, despite the fact that he wasn't listening to anything at the moment. A ray of afternoon sun from the west-facing window caught his eye and he pretended to glare at the offending pane of glass.

He reached the empty classroom in the humanities building that was usually unlocked for their purposes precisely at the same time as someone else. He hadn't even noticed the sweatpants-and-hoodie clad student until they both tried to reach for the doorknob of the classroom.

"Oh, sorry," said the other student suddenly, wiping the back of his hand on his mouth. His left hand was clutching a microwavable bag of brown rice and chicken breast pieces.

"Are you looking for..." trailed off Daisy, who was trying to scope out if this was some new recruit of Skip's or something. It couldn't have been Sunny, since he didn't even recruit himself into things, as far as he could tell. May have been Jjim's recruit.. did handsome people all know each other? He wasn't sure if that was how it worked or not.

"Uhh.. yeah, I'm just trying to find.." said the other student in response, "...you know." He had shoved his free hand in his sweatpants pocket and looked like he was playing around with his keys. He unconsciously made a facial expression a bit reminiscent of a goldfish as he tried to wait through the silence.

"Oh, oh, yeah, here come in," said Daisy hurriedly, opening the door. "Wait, so do you know Skip, or Jjim? Because Skip is like.. the leader, and he seems like he does the most work, but Jjim.. you might know him as the most handsome guy on campus, but none of us use our real names, that's kind of the point of the club I guess. Did anyone tell you that? You probably already know."

He turned to the other student who had paused in the doorway after hearing this discourse with his spoon held loosely to his side. Now his expression was very much like a deer with a flashlight being shined in its face. "Wha— I don't— I was just.. my—"

The deer-eyed athlete (since he obviously was an athlete, judging by his gym bag and his commitment to sweatpants) vaguely pointed to something behind Daisy with his spoon without further explanation.

Daisy turned around and saw the jumprope on the floor. "Oh.. this?"

The other student, who was chewing on another mouthful of brown rice and chicken breast, nodded three tiny nods, this time a bit like a bird.

Daisy wondered if it was possible to have such diverse facial expressions among the animal kingdom.

"Ilef wit in ear," said the sweatshirt-clad student apologetically. He had his hand in front of his mouth as he chewed. "I mean, I left it in here."

"Wait so.. you aren't here for the club?" asked Daisy, realizing his gym bag said #9 CAPTAIN.

"No I— wait, what club?" The deer eyes were back. "Sorry, I just did a short practice in here last night because it was raining and the sports center is closed because of the windows..."

He trailed off, but it appeared Daisy was no longer listening. "Bro, sorry, you what?"

Having finished his last bite of chicken and rice, the student was now tying his hair. Again he froze, a black rubber band clamped in his mouth. He wordlessly took it out, hurriedly tied up his hair, and immediately said, "Was that illegal?? Oh no, I'm so sorry. Please don't report me for breaking and entering. My coach is going to kill me—"

Daisy was gaping at him. "Ille—illegal?? Are you kidding? You have so much commitment that you came in here because you wanted to find a place to jumprope? Are you insane?"

The other student laughed somewhat nervously. "I mean, I have to keep my motivation, right? It's stress relief, nothing else really. I'm not the best on the team, but as long as I have the best motivation, that's enough, right?"

"So you're captain?"

"Yeah."

"What sport?" said Daisy, fascinated.

"Volleyball!" said the captain of the volleyball team.

"Dude... that's really impressive."

"It's just jump roping," he insisted. "I have nothing else to do."

Daisy wordlessly handed over his jumprope. "I guess I forgot to lock the door yesterday night."

"Well, thanks," laughed the volleyball player, hoisting his bag over his shoulder as he finished zipping up the jumprope. "By the way, what club even is this?"

"Well, that's sort of the point," said Daisy. "We don't know. Skip started it because he wanted something to do, and every meeting the few of us sort of.. do whatever we feel like doing."

"Skip? Isn't he the guy who skips class?"

"Yeah, do you know him?"

"Who doesn't?" laughed the volleyball player, his multiple earrings swinging around. "Wish I could skip practice and I still could win games, but I guess that doesn't work when you rely on muscles and not brains."

Jjim walked through the door at that exact moment, toting what looked like a plastic bag of five whole orders of fried chicken. "Yaaaaah, our fresh Daisy, did you manage to find a new member?"

Daisy turned towards him. "Yoooo Jjim bro, we were just talking about gym bros, me and this gym bro." He laughed at his own pun.

"Ahhh what is this, we have another gym bro?" hollered Jjim, who had set the chicken on the table and had come over to see what all the fuss was about.

"His name is Jjim around here," said Daisy, trying to explain what was going on, with little success.

"'Jjim'?" asked the volleyball captain. "As in 'mandu jjim'? As in 'jjimdak'?"

Jjim beamed. "Today I brought BBQ chicken though. You're here, anyways, so you have to eat something."

The actual gym bro looked positively alarmed. "I just ate.. chicken breast..." he said.

"Yaaah... now hold on.. I have friends on the volleyball team," said Jjim, who was now pointing at him with a container of unopened sweet radish. "And I know you don't have practice right now because you just had a game. I also know you won today. Finally, chicken breast isn't really chicken. So just sit here and eat."

"You won your game?" said Skip, who had just entered, with a miserable looking Sunny just behind. "I saw on the group chat. Congratulations. You're on the volleyball team, right?"

The volleyball team captain was now looking back and forth at everyone, deciding who to answer first. "Yeah, I'm the captain," he finally said at last, tugging on the strings of his hoodie. "You're Skip." It wasn't a question.

"Yeah, but today I'm 'present'," he laughed ruefully, tossing his bag on the floor next to his usual chair. When it hit the floor, it sounded like an entire library was crashing into the floor. Sunny eyed the bag mistrustfully.

"How did you know it was volleyball?" asked Daisy, looking back and forth between the leader of the club and the leader of the volleyball team, as if he was trying to uncover their hidden telepathy.

"That was the only game there was today," shrugged Skip, who was already putting out napkins. "You're staying for chicken, right? As usual, this friend over here ordered too much." He jabbed a finger over at Jjim, who was carefully peeling open the radish container he had been brandishing a few moments earlier.

"Hey, everyone is going to thank me later when we convince this guy to join our club for real," he said, with an air of fake annoyance.

"Yeah, I know, I know," laughed Skip.

Sunny suddenly spoke from his end of the table, his bright bleached hair stuffed into a black beanie that looked like it had been eaten by moths. "Weren't you in one of my classes?" he said, squinting at the taller athlete. "I remember because you kept eating those bowls of instant brown rice in there."

Daisy burst into laughter. "This is legendary," he said. "I can't believe this friend is known for eating brown rice. He was literally just eating that just now. Check the wrapper, it's literally in the trash." He doubled over laughing. "Yah, Kim Hyeonmi!" he wheezed. "Brown rice... captain—" He wiped tears from his eyes, clutching the back of a chair for dear life.

The volleyball team captain looked a bit alarmed at how funny Daisy thought this was, but sheepishly said, "Yeah, I hear that a lot. My teammates are always saying that volleyball was founded when Hwanwoong took me into a cave and made me eat 100 bowls of brown rice..."

Sunny disbelievingly shook his head. "People say that stuff?"

"You, Hyeonmi," called Jjim, from the other side of the table. "Eat. You need to be big and strong."

"He could probably kick you over a fence," muttered Sunny, who was picking the breading off a chicken leg with his chopsticks.

Jjim, who always seemed to catch his comments, replied, "Hey, I could just stare at him with my handsome face and he'd probably collapse." He tried to make a face that was probably supposed to be heart-stopping.

"I'm really sorry about him," said Skip, making a poor attempt at a whisper. "He's literally always like this."

The now-dubbed brown rice captain, Hyeonmi, suddenly burst into hysterical laughter. "What even is going on??" he asked. "All we need is the bird guy.. you people are insane. Everybody— your name—chicken—" He vaguely pointed over at Jjim, then Skip, who was making a resigned and apologetic facial expression, and tried to say a few other things, but was unsuccessful, since he kept laughing.

"I'd tell you to leave," said Sunny, who was pretending he had a massive migraine. "Save yourself.. but it's too late."

As if on cue, Hyeonmi suddenly noticed a brown carton on the table. "Is that—" he wheezed, clutching his stomach, still possessed by hysteria. "that—that chocolate milk?"