How This Ends
2/2
(Minkyung/Yaebin)

I’ll be over you.

December 2016

Yaebin knows she's reached peak denial when she drags Minkyung into a train car and Minkyung looks at her with that exasperated look of fondness and her knees damn near cave.

Minkyung points out the text on their tickets and Yaebin at once wants to hug her and maybe also cry a little bit.

It's dumb, she knows, it's dumb to wish, but Minkyung has always been so observant, why couldn't she just be this little bit more observant when it comes to this?

She drags Minkyung into the train. Out of the train. To the castle. They take selfies in front of the castle. Behind the castle. Under the trees. Yaebin makes Minkyung take photos of them with the setting sun, in front of the setting sun. Yaebin's always been good at taking photos of things, not people, and there's something about having her take pictures of them, of their faces, of their shadows.

They finally sit by the beach after Minkyung makes them go around in search of that one particular kind of soda she saw that one time and to be honest, Yaebin wouldn't care if they got stranded because that would mean they have more time together.

Time together.

She sits in the dark, her head resting on Minkyung’s shoulders, strands of Minkyung’s hair tickling her cheek in the soft breeze, let's the the sound of the waves fill her ears and she tries her hardest to not think.

Minkyung knows everything. Everything. Her hopes, her fears, her thoughts, everything except her feelings and Yaebin is nervous about their debut that it's finally, finally, finally happening and yet it doesn't quite feel real but Minkyung grounds her although she makes her heart race and it's crazy and strange but it's true and Yaebin can't really put it into words but Minkyung does something to her.

She does.

Like a good leader would, the soft voice in Yaebin's head says, and Minkyung is an excellent, excellent leader, she thinks as Minkyung gathers the silence around her and holds Yaebin's beating heart in her hands.

They miss the train.

Yaebin panics because it was her fault and how is it that she's already managed to screw it up when they haven't even debuted yet and Nayoung-unnie will be disappointed and they haven't even-

Minkyung hugs her and Yaebin feels her heart settle in the cradle of her arms, feels her heart held right there in that one moment in time on a train platform in a small town in Japan in the night as the smallest of flies bustles about the lamp, then crashes and fizzles out.

Yaebin knows Minkyung doesn’t know what she does to her. She knows she doesn’t, knows that  she doesn’t know that the tiniest way she her hands makes Yaebin warm, makes her stomach do flip flops, makes her heart beat, beat, beat in her ears as they sit in a taxi and Yaebin breathes in the scent of old, old leather.

She’ll come back, one day.

When they’re all famous and popular and they’ve done all the things they’ve wanted to do and Yaebin’s stood on all the stages she’s wanted to stand on and all that’s left that she doesn’t have is Minkyung.

She’ll come back then, with her, and tell her everything.

Tell Minkyung that she owns her heart, that she always has and always will, that she calms her and soothes her like no one else does, that Yaebin wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t be who she is today, tomorrow, forever, without her.

Yaebin tells herself that one day, she’ll find the courage to bring Minkyung back here.

And she manages only to tell Minkyung that they’ll be back.

Together, the word sticks in , clings to the surface, and fights its way back to her lips but all she says is “You’ll know.”

She knows Minkyung doesn’t know.

Jan 2017

Eunwoo knows.

Yaebin doesn’t have to say a word for Eunwoo to know. Eunwoo just knows. She takes one look at Yaebin and Eunwoo just knows.

Yaebin half expects her to make a jab or something but Eunwoo just tilts her head to one side, thoughtfully, then says nothing.

“No comment?”

Eunwoo shrugs, “It could work.”

Yaebin feels her heart sink.

That’s not what she wants to hear. She wanted to hear Eunwoo say it can never happen, that it is impossible, that she should stop, that it will tear them apart, that it is a terrible idea, that Yaebin is being selfish and silly and dumb.

But Eunwoo looks at her seriously, “It could.”

Yaebin shakes her head, feels her heart betray her in a shaky laugh, “I-Nah, she’s too cool for a person like me.”

Eunwoo blinks up at her, wide-eyed and confused, adoring and baffled and Yaebin knows she must have saved a country in her pas