“These shoes are so awful, you know.”     

“Naeun-ah… Stop complaining.”

Eunji and Naeun were trying their bowling shoes on while the other girls were already moving towards their spot in the bowling alley. They had finally decided not to team up but to play against every other member, making it more fun. With six players, it wasn’t that many after all.

The staff had recognized them, and they looked surprised to see them on their own, with no cameras or managers around, but they thankfully didn’t ask any further questions. They had probably seen the broadcast, since they eyed Bomi with a pitiful glare, but the girl just grinned in reply.

“Come on, they’re waiting for us.” Eunji grabbed Naeun’s hand and took her to where the other members awaited.

“Okay, so let’s play rock, paper, scissors to see what the order is,” Chorong said, and the girls all nodded. It was a great way of randomly deciding things, and it was a game the girls played often, so they had great practice.

“Okay, Namjoo-ah, you start,” Chorong spoke. “Then there’s Bomi-ah, and Naeun-ah. Eunji-ah goes next and I go right then before Hayoungie.”

“Let’s play,” Bomi said, and sat down next to her girlfriend while Namjoo stood up for the first round. “I don’t need to ask who’s going to win, since we all know it’s going to be me…”

Chorong shook her head but she was smiling.

“Okay, Namjoo-ah, go,” the leader spoke pointing at the balls.

Namjoo picked a green one, not too heavy but not too light, and got ready. While Hayoung cheered for her, Bomi and Eunji were laughing out loud before the young girl could do anything.

“Wow!” Chorong cheered for the younger girl when she managed to make nine pins fall at once, and Hayoung joined her.

Pin after pin, girl after girl, they cheered for each other and complained at their failures.

“I can’t believe you’re winning,” Bomi told the two maknaes, who cheerfully smiled back at their unnie. “This is so impossible.”

“Don’t worry, Bomi-ah.” Chorong was her girlfriend’s only fan, supportive over everything. “You’ll do better from now on. And you’re not doing bad either.”

Bomi was second-to-last, only Chorong doing worse than her, but she smiled for the leader and kissed her on the cheek.

“Unnie, it’s your turn,” Naeun told Bomi, waking her up from her absent-mindedness while looking at Chorong.

“Oh, right.” Bomi grabbed Chorong’s hand between hers and kissed it. “You’re my lucky charm, unnie.”

“Lucky charms don’t exist,” Eunji mocked her friend, and Bomi stuck her tongue out at her.

Bomi stared at the pins, her eyes mid-closed in focus. She moved her arm back to get enough strength and threw.

“I can’t believe this.” Namjoo and Eunji were crying out of laughter when the ball moved towards the right canal, not touching any of the pins. Even Chorong laughed a bit, it was so comical how Bomi looked completely exasperated and let her body fall against the wall.

“I surrender,” she sighed. Her fellow members couldn’t stop laughing at her, and she was red in embarrassment. “This is unbelievable.”

Chorong stood up and hugged her, a smile still pasted on her lips.

“Fighting, Bomi-ah,” she said. “This isn’t as important.”

Naeun was next, and when she threw more than half of the pins in the first throw, and finished the spare in the second, Eunji clapped for her while side-glancing at Bomi, who was fuming in place.

“I can’t believe they are all doing so well,” Bomi whispered at Chorong, who just caressed the back of her girlfriend’s hand.

“The kids have grown up, Bomi-ah,” Chorong whispered back.

One after the other, they did well, better than Bomi, at least. Hayoung was winning when there were three rounds left for the ending, and Namjoo wasn’t far behind.

“Why are they so good? You are all so good,” Bomi complained.

“Except from me…” Chorong looked down before standing up when her turn arrived.

“Unnie, take this one instead.” Naeun gave Chorong a different ball, with a different weight. The leader was obviously missing because of the weight of the ball, which she couldn’t manage as much as Naeun could.

She looked at the pins in complete focus, the members waiting for her to throw. And when she did, no one could believe it.

“Oh, no, this can’t be happening,” Bomi muttered for herself.

“Wow!” Namjoo cheered for Chorong. “Unnie, that was amazing!”

Chorong looked straight at the place where the pins were. She couldn’t believe she had just scored a strike.

“That was incredible, unnie.” Bomi smiled at her, jealousy obvious in her eyes.

“See? You just needed to find the right ball for you and you could’ve won from the beginning!” Naeun clapped for Chorong.

“Unnie, you’re not last anymore!” Namjoo exclaimed, and then looked at Bomi sideways.

“I’m losing, I’m losing…” Bomi couldn’t believe it herself. “I’m last. How am I last?”

Half an hour later, the game was over.

“Our maknae has won us all.” Chorong patted Hayoung’s back proudly. “That was amazing, Hayoung-ah.”

“You didn’t do that bad yourself, unnie,” Hayoung grinned. “Not at the end, at least.”

“The three losers buy dinner,” Namjoo said, pointing at Naeun, Chorong and Bomi.

“Okay, I’m hungry,” Naeun shrugged and looked at Chorong.

Chorong smiled, and went to hug Bomi, who was feeling incredibly down after all this.

“It’s alright,” Chorong said. “The punishment isn’t that big.”

“I know.” Bomi tried to smile. “It’s just my pride that’s been hurt.”

Chorong smiled and kissed Bomi on the lips.

“I know,” she told her girlfriend. “But I love you anyways.”

“I love you too.”

∼

I love you anyways, she had said that night. That had been even before their trip to Jeju, right when Bomi was starting to act strangely and Chorong used all her alone time to prepare for their anniversary. She had been making this photo album since around Christmas, all their memories collected together in a gift that would mean everything to them both. Their life together was contained in between those pages.

Yes, their anniversary was at the end of July, right in the middle of the summer but before Bomi's birthday, and she had to do something special. Getting that ready, managing to make her idea something physical, was going to take some time. So she started it way before the awaited date.

“I love you too,” Chorong answered, like she always did. After taking her months to say that out loud, she no longer waited for a special occasion to tell Bomi how she felt, and that's what brought them together so strongly. Those times were only filled with love and hopes and dreams, nothing about worrying about the future or terminal illnesses getting in the way. There was only peace.

“You always end up saying that,” Bomi's smirk lightened up her eyes.

They had been spending some quality time together at their company's rooftop, the door locked so they could be on their own. They didn't have permission; back then, only their members knew about their relationship, even if it had been more than a year since they'd been officially together. But their intimacy and love declarations weren't abundant by then, so there was no problem. They were just the closest friends whose hearts fluttered when they were together and who shared soft kisses every once in a while, going further on very, very special occasions.

“What’s on your mind?” Bomi asked her girlfriend, the look on Chorong's face denoting deep thought and her mind lost worlds away.

After she repeated the question, Chorong seemed to wake up from her daze.

“Can you see that?” She pointed at the horizon, where the sea could be barely seen from how high they were. Bomi knew something corny and lovely was going to come next, because of the blush in Chorong's cheeks. And she was right. “I want to live there someday. Next to the beach. Near the ocean. I want to grow old in a place like that, far from the busy center.”

She looked at Bomi before continuing.

“With you.”