The walk from the girls’ shared living room to the main bathroom was short. It took about ten seconds of actual walking time to get there, depending on how much of a rush one was in. But to Seulgi, it felt like an eternity.

    The blonde-haired girl could already feel the moisture beginning to accumulate beneath her armpits, on her palms, and under her feet. Her heart had gone into a series of restlessly rapid rhythms that almost made it difficult to hear properly. She made a conscious effort to keep her breathing steady and regular, because she didn’t want to start hyperventilating when she spoke to Joohyun.

    “Joohyun has a crush on you.”

    Seulgi simply couldn’t wrap her head around it. There was no way. To begin with, Joohyun had never shown any interest in other girls whatsoever (never mind that she had never shown any interest in boys, either). And, even if Joohyun were into girls, she had so many other choices that she could easily obtain. Why would she choose Seulgi of all people? Seulgi, who could pretend to flaunt her looks as much as she wanted to while on stage or in public, despite firmly believing that she was the visual hole in the group. Why would Joohyun ever date someone with monolids for God’s sake? Joohyun had to be acting the way she was because of some other reason. Maybe she was on her period. Maybe she simply felt betrayed as a friend when Seulgi left her last night to sleep beside Seungwan. Maybe… maybe Seulgi had no idea what was going on Joohyun’s mind, but either way, she wanted to make things better.

The monolidded girl had always been content to sit back and admire her love from afar, to keep her feelings locked away as tightly as possible, even as they threatened to burst from her chest, to spill out of her like a tsunami of raw, unfettered emotion. She’d always been content to enjoy Joohyun’s friendship, to steal little bits of intimacy in the form of skinship or cuddling when she could. It never satisfied her completely, and if she was being utterly honest with herself, it actually left a cavernous hole in her heart knowing that it could never progress any further than that, but that was okay. As long as she was in Joohyun’s presence, and she was able to see that toothy, genuine smile on her unnie’s face, to hear that child-like, carefree laugh, it was all okay.

Seulgi didn’t mind going back to her facade at all. She would apologize to Joohyun, they would work this out, and everything would be fine again. Or, as close to fine as they could reasonably be. The monolidded girl would be lying to herself if she didn’t have some tiny glimmer of hope that perhaps Joohyun shared these feelings, or at least something similar, but Seulgi stuffed this hope away into the most remote corner of heart. She knew that the less she expected, the better.

    Seulgi took a deep breath as she reached to knock on the bathroom door.

***

    Joohyun sat on the tiled floor of the bathroom, back pressed against the tub, crying into her bent knees. She had no idea what had prompted her mini-meltdown before. Was it the way Seungwan and Seulgi had so casually joked with each other about sleeping together? No, Joohyun slept with Yerim all the time, and it was strictly platonic; a comfort measure, nothing else. Joohyun had no right to be jealous of the monolidded girl sleeping with someone else. Was it the fact that Seulgi had abandoned her for Seungwan in the dead of night, without even making up an excuse for it? No, it still would have hurt her either way to know that Seulgi was leaving her to sleep next to someone else. Was it the fact that she wasn’t the one to take care of Seulgi last night? No, they were all groupmates, it made sense for them to help each other out like that. Was it the fact that Seulgi had been half ? Perhaps, because as much as Joohyun didn’t want to admit it to herself, she wanted to be the one that Seulgi laid in bed half (and maybe even fully) with.

    Joohyun wanted to clean herself up, wanted to stop crying like a child, wanted to go back out there and apologize to Seungwan and Seulgi for her unacceptable behavior. She didn’t know how she would explain it (how could she explain it to them when she couldn’t even explain it to herself?), but she had to do something to make up for the way she acted… Right now, however, she couldn’t. She didn’t want to stand up, didn’t want to think about what awful things Seungwan and Seulgi were probably saying about her, didn’t want to face them. She just wanted to sit here and cry, because for the first time since meeting that gorgeously perfect monolidded girl out there, Joohyun was finally beginning to understand her feelings.

    From the day she’d met Seulgi, back when they were just trainees, Joohyun had always thought Seulgi was ph