“Tell me about your first kiss.” Naeun was getting bolder and bolder, and Chorong couldn’t help but blush when she heard her dongsaeng’s demand. First kiss... those two words transported Chorong to a cold bathroom in one of the venues where they had announced their comeback, not much more than a year ago.

She couldn’t help the soft weeping that was surely coming from the cubicles, making it possible for whoever that was outside to hear. When the leader came out, her eyes were puffy red, and they opened in shock when she saw Bomi standing right there, obviously waiting for her.

“What's wrong, unnie? Don't cry.”

“It's alright... I just thought…” Chorong started to sob again, and Bomi couldn't help but pull her closer into a hug. Chorong shivered at the contact, but it felt good to have her friend care about her that much.

“Bomi-ah... I just thought my first kiss was going to be with someone I really loved, but it's wasted...”

Bomi lifted her eyebrows in surprise. Had he kissed her unnie? But jealousy was to be left for another occasion; the important thing now was to stop Chorong's sobs. It broke Bomi's heart to see the older girl cry.

“No, it's not,” she said, holding Chorong's shoulders so she could look at the other girl right in the eye. “Your first kiss is the one with meaning. The first kiss is the one that makes your heart grow and your body tingle. Your first kiss is supposed to be the one that makes you glow and shake and stutter.”

Chorong looked at the other girl in confusion.

“But... how's that supposed to happen? I wasted my first kiss in someone who did not make me feel all that,” she started. “And there's no way a kiss can make you shake all over.”

“Then you really haven’t been kissed properly, Park Chorong.” Bomi pulled the older again against her and cupped her face with her hands; Chorong didn’t know what was going on until it was too late.

When their lips touched, Chorong’s heart expanded in her chest, beating so loud that she thought everyone could hear it. Warm and soft, Bomi’s lips moved against hers, and she lost track of everything else around her. In that moment, there was only them. Nothing else mattered.

Unconsciously, Chorong moved her hands up to hug Bomi’s neck, letting herself be immersed in the kiss. Chorong’s knees started to fail her when she felt Bomi’s kiss deepen. The older girl was soon shaking all over, lingering for more.

Bomi silently asked for permission to deepen the kiss even more, and Chorong, not really knowing what she was doing, opened a bit, giving Bomi more access. Bomi knew what she wanted, but she wasn’t going to scare Chorong on the first day. The older girl was still so innocent, and that’s one of the reasons Bomi had fallen for her. She needed to protect the other girl.

Their tongues intertwined in a silent dance, their lips locked completely and both of them grabbing the other like they would never let go. But Bomi had shown Chorong what a knee-melting kiss was, and she did not know how the leader would react if she took things further.

So she moved back.

Chorong stood frozen in her feet, her eyes wide in shock. She couldn’t even form a coherent thought, that’s how confused she felt.

Bomi stared at her patiently, waiting for a reaction. But what she hadn’t been expecting was Chorong to blink twice and mumble something unintelligible before turning around and swiftly fleeing the room, leaving a bewildered Bomi behind.

∼

 After having dinner, the tired members each moved to their own rooms, looking forward to a good night of sleep. Naeun and Hayoung whispered something to each other before saying goodnight, and Chorong grabbed Bomi’s hand to take her to the room. Eunji finished cleaning up with Namjoo’s help, and the two parted ways to go to their rooms.

“I’ll be right back, Naeun-ah,” Eunji told her roommate before going to the living room. She walked past Bomi, who was on her way to the bathroom, and stopped her by grabbing her wrist forcefully.

“We need to talk, Bomi-ah.” She sounded angry, but also disappointed. “Right now.”

Bomi looked at her friend in confusion, but she nodded and said she’d be right there after talking to Chorong. She had a bad feeling about this.

“Unnie, don’t wait up for me,” she told her girlfriend. “Eunji-ah wants to talk to me about something.”

“Is everything all right?” Chorong asked from the bed. Something weird had been going on between Eunji and Bomi, something that had been happening since they were still in their dorm in Seoul. Chorong couldn’t help but feel like they were hiding something from her, but it wasn’t in her nature to eavesdrop others’ conversations.

“Yeah... why wouldn’t it be?” Bomi’s answer was vague, and that was what worried Chorong the most. She knew Bomi hadn’t been feeling too good lately, but that seemed to be over since they were in Jeju, right?

No matter what, she decided she couldn’t be left behind if something was going on, and she went against her morals when Bomi left the room and she silently followed after a couple of minutes.

∼

Chorong could hear voices in the living room, so that’s where she went. The conversation sounded heated, even if she couldn’t really make out what they were saying until she was right at the door.

“Yes, I lied to you, Eunji-ah.” Bomi dropped the bomb as soon as she could, going straight to the point. “I did have something bad when I got checked by the doctor. Really bad.”

Chorong’s heart skipped a beat. Eunji opened her eyes widely and her face got paler than usual. After everything they had been through, she had learnt to trust Bomi, who was serious when she knew she had to be and could be trusted about the important stuff. But hiding this from her, when Eunji had specifically been the one to ask her to go to the doctor… Eunji was mad. Really mad. But she decided to be the understanding friend Bomi needed right then and made an effort to be on her side no matter what. Chorong, on the other hand, was finding it hard to breathe normally, but she wanted to see where the conversation was going before interrupting.

“You haven’t told unnie, have you?” Eunji asked after a deep breath. Bomi could barely shake her head, but the look of guilt in her eyes was visible even to Chorong, who had just managed to get a look of the situation while hiding behind the door.

“I have an angiosarcoma,” Bomi blurted. “And that means cancer. Painful, incurable cancer that’s unfairly getting on my way.”

Eunji’s eyes opened even wider and she grabbed Bomi’s hand as a way of denoting empathy, something she couldn’t mutter with words. Chorong felt her knees tremble and she fell onto the wooden floor. The painful impact made her go back to her senses and she stood up quickly, running out of the door before Bomi or Eunji, who had obviously heard the noise, could come after her.

But they did anyways. The phone on the floor was clearly Chorong’s, and when Bomi saw that phone case, a picture of herself and her girlfriend holding hands and smiling, she felt her heart rip open. The guilt had reached a point where it hurt more than the cancer she was fighting, and the illness made her bones hurt, her whole body feeling like her blood was on fire most of the time.

Bomi ran out of the house, followed by a confused Eunji who quickly caught up, not suffering the effects of the tiredness of a cancer to stop her.

“See? That’s what you get by hiding it from her!” Eunji couldn’t even speak while running, but she managed to express herself quite properly, in Bomi’s opinion. “You thought that was a good idea?”

“Of course I did! What would you have done in my case?” Bomi shouted back.

“I would have told her! Just like I would’ve told you!” Eunji was also yelling, no matter how late it was at night. “You have to stop running now. I’ll go after her. You cannot tire your lungs with this, not anymore.”

Bomi nodded but continued running for her girlfriend. The two girls could see Chorong’s figure way ahead, getting closer to the edge of the woods next to the house. Eunji tried to stop her by calling her name, but there was no reply from the older girl. When the younger tried to tell Bomi to seriously stop taking her body to the limit, the other girl wasn’t standing next to her anymore.

Now it was Eunji’s heart who stopped. She quickly ran back, looking around for Bomi. When she saw her friend’s figure lying on the floor, motionless, the scream that rose from was the highest note she had ever been able to produce.