It’s 4 PM. Momo’s waiting for Mina at the Twice lounge. Chaeyoung, Tzuyu, and Jeongyeon are also there, playing NBA 2k16. (Tzuyu and Jeongyeon are, anyway; Chaeyoung’s just watching. Momo on the other hand keeps looking at the door, expecting a certain brunette to arrive.)

 

“Hey Chewy,” Chaeyoung starts, “what happened to you at the gala?”

 

“Oh, uh, I was with Jihyo-unnie,” replies Tzuyu.

 

“Jihyo?” Chaeyoung repeats. “Mina’s friend?”

 

Tzuyu nods.

 

“Nice,” Jeongyeon comments. “That’s another one to add to your list, Yoda.”

 

“It wasn’t a date,” Tzuyu clarifies. “She isn’t my type, you know. I just… just asked her for a few singing lessons.”

 

“Why not?” Chaeyoung asks.

 

“I—I don’t know, Chaeng. Look, I have somewhere to be right now.” The Taiwanese girl stands up.

 

“Where are you going?” says Jeongyeon.

 

“Gonna get Korean lessons,” Tzuyu answers, hurrying out of their lounge.

 

“Well, I guess I better get going, too,” Chaeyoung mutters.

 

“Me too,” Jeongyeon adds. “Momo-yah, you’re not leaving yet?”

 

“No.”

 

Jeongyeon and Chaeyoung leave the room as Tzuyu did. Momo sighs and looks at her wristwatch. It’s 4:05 PM. She waits for 5 more minutes until the door opens.

 

“You’re late,” she says to Mina coldly, standing up and gathering her things.

 

“Gomenasai,” Mina responds, uttering the Japanese term for saying sorry. “Our professor dismissed us exactly at 4 so I had to rush to get here.”

 

“Whatever. Let’s just go. We’re wasting time already.”

 

Mina frowns. 10 minutes isn’t a lot, she thinks. This raccoon doesn’t have any patience whatsoever.

 

“Minari, let’s go!”

 

—

 

About 15 minutes later the two of them arrive at a dance studio. A man is already waiting for them.

 

“Sorry we’re late, Hunpyo seonsaeng,” Momo says to him as she and Mina come inside. “Somebody here doesn’t consider the value of time.”

 

Mina scoffs. How mature can you get, Momo?

 

“It’s fine. I tweaked a few steps before you guys came. Shall we start?”

 

Both Mina and Momo nod.

 

“The theme of this dance is ‘Dangerous Love,’” Hunpyo starts. “The concept: Momo loves Mina so much that she locks her up and she dies.”

 

“I think I’ve heard about that,” Mina utters. “A man locked his wife up and she dies, but he was never found guilty. And everyone seemed to just shrug it off so he walked away free.”

 

The dance teacher smiles at Mina. “Exactly. I already like this partner of yours, Momo. You should be more like her.”

 

Momo rolls her eyes. “Whatever.”

 

“The song is a remix of Beyoncé’s Crazy In Love. It fits the ballet-slash-contemporary feel of the choreography, since you Momo asked for a ballet concept.”

 

“Since I’m dancing with Mina, I immediately thought of ballet,” says Momo. “Although I’ve never danced ballet before, I’ve always wanted to try it.”

 

Mina is surprised, to say the least. But she figures it’s the reason why she’s called Dancing Mochine—because she can learn any type of dance and kill it.

 

“Okay then. We have a long way to go, girls. Let’s go.”

 

They try learning the first part of the choreography—the one where Momo has to hold Mina’s arm and hug her from the back, and then she has to cup Mina’s face and push her backward.

 

The result?

 

Awkwardness. Pure awkwardness.

 

Momo and Mina have to be in close contact with each other, but instead, it seems like the two are actually pulling away from one another.

 

Hunpyo shakes his head. “Momo, Mina, what’s this? I know I said the audience has to feel tension between you two, but this is not the tension I’m looking for!” He sighs. “We need to take five.”

 

Yet after the break, it seems that the two are even more uncomfortable with each other. Hunpyo calls for another break, but it still isn’t working.

 

They practice two more times this week, repeating the same choreography. Like the first practice, Hunpyo isn’t satisfied.

 

“We’re going nowhere,” he complains by the end of the week. “We have to go back to this another time. But for next week, let’s start working on the other parts of the choreography. Momo, I need to talk to you alone.”

 

As Momo walks toward the dance teacher, Mina speaks and grabs Hunpyo’s attention.

 

“Seonsaengnim, I’m gonna go ahead. I, uh… have to do my homework. Bye.”

 

“See you next week, then,” Hunpyo replies.

 

Mina glances at Momo, who slightly nods her head in acknowledgement. Mina grabs her bags and leaves. The truth is that she doesn't want to go home with Momo today. The “awkwardness” is getting to her and for some reason, she doesn't know how to talk to Momo lately.

 

Hunpyo turns back to Momo when Mina is out of the room. “Momo-yah, what’s your problem this week? Usually you get the choreography so quickly, even the emotions. Do you have an issue with the concept?”

 

What is the problem with Momo? She doesn’t recall feeling this uncomfortable dancing before. When she asked Hunpyo to teach her and Mina and the guy pitched the concept, she even felt excited. But why is she acting like this now?

 

Momo tries to recall the choreography they’ve been practicing the whole week. The first time they did it, Momo had no issue with holding Mina’s arm as she’s already done it before. Heck, she held hands with the ballerina at the gala last week—she still feels all tingly about it, if she’s being honest. It’s probably why, during the dance practice, she felt shy about being close to Mina. She wanted to avoid contact, but at the same time, she wanted to dance well. Unfortunately for Momo, she couldn’t do both at the same time.

 

“I—I’m sorry, seonsaengnim,” is all Momo manages to say. What else is there to say? That, yes, she wants to do the choreography well but can’t because she’s afraid that, if she gets close enough to Mina, her heart will explode? She can’t tell him that.

 

Hunpyo sighs. “Whatever it is, you two need to work it out. I’ll see you next week.”

 

The following week comes, and they start with the other parts of the choreography, specifically the part where Mina is now “trapped”. She and Momo take turns in being taught by Hunpyo, and the sessions go smoothly.

 

In the middle of the week during practice, as Hunpyo asks Mina to practice in front of the mirror on her own, he calls Momo.

 

“So did you guys work it out yet?” he asks the brown-haired girl.

 

“Well…” says Momo, scratching her head.

 

“For goodness sake, Momo. Mina is your girlfriend, is she not? Then how come you two couldn’t act like one?”

 

Momo keeps quiet and just looks at the floor. Hunpyo smirks as an idea comes to mind.

 

“Mina,” he calls out. When Mina turns to them Hunpyo gestures for her to come.

 

“Mina,” the dance teacher starts again, “Momo is taking you out on a date this weekend.”

 

Momo’s eyes widen. “WHAT?”

 

“Look,” says Hunpyo, “I don’t know what’s happening between you two, but you need to act like a couple—I mean, how hard is it, huh? You need to be comfortable with each other and I think going on a date will rekindle that fire you girls seem to have lost.”

 

Momo pouts; on the other hand, Mina doesn’t seem to show any expression.

 

“If next week you have no progress on the first part then I’m gonna drop out of this project.”

 

—

 

For the next three nights Momo finds herself wide awake during the night. Usually she’d eat some food and immediately fall asleep, but now she couldn’t even close her eyes. She’s thinking about what she and Mina should do on their “date” but to no avail. The next day she decides to ask Sana for help.

 

“Hunpyo seonsaengnim said you should be comfortable dancing with each other, right?”

 

Momo nods.

 

“So you should be comfortable with each other as friends first—sorry, as girlfriends.”

 

“How am I supposed to do that?”

 

“Umm… You could talk?” Sana tells Momo as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

 

“We do talk,” Momo argues, frowning now.

 

Sana shakes her head. “What I meant is that you need to share more personal things about yourself, Momo-yah. Tell her something you don’t tell a lot of people. That shouldn’t be hard considering you’re, well, you.”

 

Momo sticks her tongue out at Sana.

 

“I’m serious though,” the squirrel-lookalike clarifies to the raccoon.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Momo replies. “Thank you, Sana.”

 

—

 

Mina and Jihyo are eating lunch at the Management building cafeteria. Jihyo notices that her penguin friend is eerily quiet. (Yes, Mina is generally quiet, but when she’s around Jihyo she brings up a conversation topic once or twice. But now? Nada.) She isn’t even eating much—just playing around her food with the fork.

 

“Yah, Myoui,” Jihyo mutters, catching Mina’s attention.

 

“Huh?”

 

“What’s up with you? You need to eat.”

 

“Oh, sorry. It’s just dance practice with Momo. We’re not dancing right, and now our dance teacher wants us to go on a date to move past it.”

 

“What’s so wrong about that? You two have gone out on a date before, right?”

 

Mina forgets that she hasn’t told Jihyo yet that she and Momo aren’t really dating, and they’ve never even gone out on a real date (the gala doesn’t count). She silently scolds herself for almost slipping up, then thinks of an excuse to tell Jihyo.

 

“Well… It’s just that Momo and I haven’t been talking each other lately,” she says. “We’re not even texting. So I don’t really know.”

 

“You could be the one to text her first, you know that, right?”

 

Just then, Mina feels her phone vibrate. When she sees that it’s a text from Momo she immediately reads the message.

 

From: Momo

lets go out 2mrw minari ill pick u up

 

Mina doesn’t see Jihyo looking at her, disgusted at what seems to be a lovestruck penguin.

 

“So I’m guessing that was from Momo?”

 

“Oh, uh… yeah,” replies Mina, trying to hide her smile, but failing.

 

Jihyo scoffs. “You lovesick fools.”

 

Mina types her reply on the phone.

 

To: Momo

Ok.

 

(She deliberately left out any smiley because she doesn’t want Momo to find out that she missed her.)

 

When Mina puts her phone back in her pocket, she notices Jihyo holding a few papers that seem to contain Korean vocabulary and grammar lessons.

 

“You working on your Korean lately?” Mina asks her, joking of course. She knows that Jihyo is a fast language learner and she sometimes teaches other students as a side job. “Who are you teaching this time?”

“Um,” Jihyo mutters, sweating a little, “Chou Tzuyu.”