A/N: Hi everyone! Thanks for the new subs and upvote! I'm so sorry for the delay. Things have been hectic with life lately. I'm leaving a shorter update than usual but don't worry because I'll be updating in the next few days again. Let me know what you guys think of this one too, won't you? And try to guess which ship is gonna cameo next!

Word count: 1,295 words

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Tuesday.

“Yoojung-ah! I got you this!” Doyeon excitedly waves a piece of sausage in the air as soon as she and Nayoung step foot inside their train car.

Mina and Yeonjung turn to Nayoung who’s carrying the rest of the snacks they bought in a white plastic bag. After a bit of rummaging in the said bag, the two turn to Doyeon, each with an unpleasant expression on their face.

“How come Yoojung’s the only one with a sausage? We want one of those too!”

“Yeah! Or a whole lot of those!”

“Sorry, girls. The snack lady said they ran out of sausages. That piece Doyeon has is the last one.” Nayoung explains. She sits back down on her chair and smiles at Sejeong who’s already seated, ignoring the commotion across the aisle as Yeonjung and Mina pounce on Doyeon to try and steal the last piece of sausage.

“How was it, going with Yoojung?” Nayoung asks. Sejeong smiles.

“She’s a good kid. Told me about her and Doyeon’s story.” Sejeong looks back at the younger ones, sees Doyeon overcoming Mina and Yeonjung to give the sausage to a worried looking Yoojung. “They’re cute, huh?”

“I envy them.” Nayoung says in all honesty. Sejeong turns to look back at her. 

She hesitates but still brings herself to ask. “For what?”

“For a lot of things. For having each other. For being so sure despite being so young. For being so in love that nothing else matters.”

“I wish I was once like them but I don’t think I ever was.” Nayoung adds. 

Sejeong takes her time to look at Nayoung carefully before she asks “What was it like with her? What was she like?”

 “Suhyun and I met when we were in university. She was my first real friend ‘cause I at making friends big time. But she, for some reason, stuck with me.” Nayoung purses her lips, wonders what to say more, where to begin. “She was really bright and I wondered how someone so full of life could find someone so plain like me to be worth spending time with.” 

Sejeong’s forehead scrunches but Nayoung misses it because she turns to look out the window at the changing scenery.

“Yeah, she did. And I knew then that I had to hold onto her no matter what because she was charming and she took care of me and she made me smile. But…” There’s a sad smile on Nayoung’s face as she trails off.

“But what?” Sejeong prods.

“But I guess she had some things she wanted to hold onto as well. She had someone else to hold onto to be exact.” Nayoung sighs, turns to look at Sejeong. “During the time that we met, she was just breaking things off with her girlfriend. It was messy. I don’t think they ever settled what needed to be settled because it all turned out to be a cycle of breaking up and getting back together over and over and over and I-” Nayoung stops, looks down at her clenched fists and tries to catch her breath. How did she even run out of breath like this?

“And I was just caught up in between the whole thing, every time.” She says, out of strength.

There’s silence for a while between the two of them and they just listen to the small talk Mina, Yeonjung, Doyeon, and Yoojung share from their seats.

“Why didn’t you just leave then?” Sejeong finally speaks. Nayoung turns to her with her brows furrowed.

Why didn’t she? Why? Her frown deepens as she mulls over the answer.

“For the longest time, I thought it was because I loved her that much to want to stay even though everything was clearly not working out. But if I’m going to be completely honest, I…” 

“You stayed because you thought there wasn’t anyone else who would put up with you aside from her.” Sejeong finishes for her. 

A small part of her thinks that she should at least deny some of that, maybe just to soften the implications a bit, but one look at the other girl tells her that Sejeong isn’t jumping into conclusions based on presumptions, that Nayoung isn’t simply being judged here. There’s something in Sejeong’s eyes that Nayoung can’t fully grasp but it lets her know that Sejeong knows. So when those words come out from the other girl’s lips. All she can do is agree. 

“Yeah… yeah, I guess I did.” Nayoung smiles sadly. “That was really stupid of me, huh?”

Sejeong had come to connect the dots so quickly when it took her this long. If it was this obvious, why was it so hard for her to see?

“No, not stupid. It’s a lot of things but it’s not stupid.” Sejeong says softly.

“Then what was it?” Nayoung isn’t even sure if she heard her because her voice had dropped to a mere whisper.

But Sejeong did. 

“I think you were just scared of being alone. You were scared and you clung onto her because she was your salvation from loneliness. You thought she was. And you stayed.” Sejeong pauses, looks up at the ceiling of their train car and lets out a small smile, more like a wince actually. 

“We, humans, have the tendency to settle for the things that we are familiar with even though it’s hurting us. We tend to settle because the uncertainty of finding something better scares us because we don’t know if there’s such a thing. We’re all just scared of the things that we don’t know, that we don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to blame yourself for anything, Nayoung. You’re just human.” Sejeong turns to her and offers her a smile. “The good thing about being human is that… when we fall, we can get back up again. We can try again.”

Nayoung’s eyes stray across the aisle to their younger friends, laughing together. She sees Doyeon reaching over to the seat next to her so she can hold Yoojung’s hand and kiss it. Nayoung remembers what she said to her about love. That it’s not perfect. That there will always be uncertainties. The things that they don’t know of, the things that they don’t understand. But what really matters is that they brave it, fight through it and fight for each other. 

She and Suhyun, whatever they had is over. Whether it was real or not (Nayoung knows it was for the former parts, not so much for the latter parts), whether it was her who was lacking or was Suhyun, doesn’t really matter anymore. What matters right now is that she overcomes what she fears because up until now, she was controlled by this fear. She had made a home in her comfort zone because it’s the only thing she knew. She stayed even though she was unhappy and deemed herself satisfied. But water that had ceased to flow only breeds mosquitoes. Water that had ceased to flow is dead. And she was dead for so long. Maybe it’s time for her to start living again.

“Hey, Sejeong?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’ll do that. You know, try again.”

Sejeong raises an eyebrow at her. “Not with Suhyun, I hope.”

Nayoung chuckles. “Not with her, no. With someone else.”  

Sejeong gives her a half-smile as leans back on her seat and yawns. “That’s a wise choice, Nayoung. But I’m afraid we’ll have to discuss this some more later.” Her eyes flutter to a close and her head lolls slightly to the side as she finally falls asleep.

Nayoung doesn’t even have to think about it when she sits a bit closer to Sejeong and tilts Sejeong’s head to rest against her shoulder. And she too drifts off to sleep.