There was a sudden rush traffic on her way to the University. The train car filled almost immediately the moment Sana got to the station, therefore she had to wait for the next train to arrive. She glanced at her watch and started fidgeting impatiently. There was no way she could be late for her girlfriend’s graduation. She was more scared of her getting upset than missing her walk the stage and receive her diploma. The Japanese knew Dahyun would never let her live it if she did.

As soon as the train arrived, Sana rushed inside and took her seat. Jeongyeon messaged her asking where she was. The ceremony had already started and the principal was telling her speech. As long as the arts department wasn’t first, she would make it. Sana prayed for dear Lord that it wouldn’t be first. Somehow, time seemed to go by so slow and she feared that Dahyun had already walked past the stage by the time she would get there.

The University station got called up on the speakers and Sana shot right up from her seat. She jogged to the path, going through shortcuts that she knew so well. It was like she was back to the days she rushed past those streets, past the stores, through the crowd, and when the University building came into view, it seemed as if it was just yesterday that she was going to be late for her  physics class.

Sana slowly opened the door to the gymnasium and found the students starting to get up to receive their diplomas on stage. The Japanese heaved a sigh of relief and found her spot next to her group of alumni friends.

“What took you so long?” Mina asked.

“My alarm didn’t go off.” Sana huffed and wiped the slight sweat on her forehead.

She looked up and was immediately met with Dahyun’s glare. It was certainly scary how fast she could spot the older one among a crowd. Sana hesitated on her smile and Dahyun narrowed her eyes at her.

The Japanese placed both hands together as a gesture of apology, hoping that Dahyun would accept it and smile back. She could already feel the intensity of an upcoming lecture even at such a distance.

Dahyun received her diploma first, then Chaeyoung, and finally Tzuyu. The six friends pulled out their phones to take pictures like supportive mothers would to a child. Speeches were made, the anthem playing in the background, and with that, the maknaes’ graduation ceremony came to an end.

The older friends waited outside for the graduating class to disperse. The moment Chaeyoung spotted Mina, she ran up to her and gave her a big embrace that Mina almost lost her balance. The little cub didn’t say anything but kept her arms around her lover’s neck. They hadn’t seen each other in more than 6 months due to the two being incredibly busy. Although they talked everyday, Chaeyoung longed to be able to feel her warmth, and Mina felt the same.

“I’ve missed you too,” Mina muttered. “Congratulations on graduating, Chaeng.” The Japanese finally pulled away and she gave her a soft smile, running her hand through the ends of her hair which had already grown up to her neck. “And congratulations on getting accepted into the company.”

The younger one beamed a smile. She stood up straight, feeling quite proud of herself. “Thank you. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you, and Dahyun-unnie and Tzuyu’s help. Those two really pushed me through, to the point that they were starting to become obnoxious.”

Mina chuckled, “Good. Otherwise, your stubborn head wouldn’t have listened.” She looked into her eyes and then trailed her gaze onto the rest of her. Mina ran her hands down to the younger one’s waist.

“What are you doing?”

“Yah, you-” The Japanese gave her waist a light pinch, which caused Chaeyoung to squirm away from her hand. “How much weight did you lose? You’re practically a stick. Are your eating habits that bad?”

“What are you saying? I didn’t lose much.” Chaeyoung took hold of her hands to pull it away from her body.

“Stop lying. You’re side fat is completely gone. Wow, it wasn’t even a year since I last saw you and you’ve changed this much. What am I going to do with you?”

“You can take me on a date,” Chaeyoung looked up at her and grinned. “We’ll eat lots then.”

“You bet we will.”

“Minatozaki!” Dahyun beamed through the crowd of students, emerging with clenched fist, completely crumpling her diploma in hand.

Sana cowered upon hearing her voice and slowly turned to face her. “Yes, my love?”

The pale-skinned woman stomped towards her, lecturing her all the while. “You had me worried! I thought you weren’t going to come, or you completely forgot about it, or something happened to you on the way here. I texted you, but you didn’t reply. I was so distracted, I didn’t even get to pay attention to the whole ceremony. You better have a damn good reason on  why y-”

Before she even got to finish her whole rambling, Sana had rushed towards her and interrupted her with a kiss. Dahyun completely stopped, her mind slowly going blank and she had forgotten all that she was going to say.

The older one moved her hands to her girlfriend’s clenched fists and slowly unclenched them. She felt Dahyun start to relax under her touch, her lips starting to intertwine with hers. Just as Sana was starting to feel relieved that she had calmed her down, an intense pressure slammed down on her foot and she pulled away with a scream.

Dahyun lifted her foot off and pinched Sana’s arm. “You think I was going to let you off the hook with that stunt? Wow, such confidence you have. A lot has changed with me, I won’t fall for that again where you kiss me to shut me up.”

“Really? Ah, what do I do now?” The older one smirked as she took a step forward towards her and placed her hands on Dahyun’s waist.

The younger one gave a startled slight step back, but Sana inched forward to close the distance. The Japanese looked down on her girlfriend, deep into her eyes, their noses inches from each other that it would only take one movement for them to touch.

“What should I do?” Sana whispered so softly, her breath brushed against Dahyun’s lips. “Tell me.”

The graduate looked up at her with widened eyes, and the grip she held on Sana’s arm loosened. She could feel her knees getting weak, her heart pounding as she felt herself getting into those deep, beautiful eyes. Dahyun silently cursed herself for always giving in. Try as she might, she could never remain angry at the Japanese. She had her wrapped around her finger, and she wasn’t sure if she completely hated it.

“W-what are you saying, we’re in public you know...” Dahyun barely said with a breath. She gave quick glances to her left and right to see the people around there, but it was all a blur to her. At that moment, Sana was the only one in clear sight. She looked up at her and then lightly pushed her with both hands. “Okay, okay, I get it. I forgive you,” she said.

Sana beamed a grin, feeling proud of herself. “You just can’t resist me, can you? Admit it,” she poked her playfully, in which Dahyun only rolled her eyes.

Jihyo approached the couple and gave her younger friend a pat on the shoulder. “Congratulations on making it!”

“Unnie!” Dahyun looked at her, narrowing her eyes as if to make sure. “You cut your hair! It looks great on you.”

Jihyo ran her hand through her neck-length hair, giving her a fresh look. She smiled, “Thank you.” Her hair had gotten so long, it was quite a difficult decision to cut it. However, she wanted to do something that would signify the new part of her life, especially since she found the courage to stray away from her parents’ will to have her stay close by. Jihyo took Jeongyeon’s advice and went the distance. Now, she was more than happy to be working for the company of her dreams.

“How’s working for JYP?”

“Oh, you know, living the dream.”

Jeongyeon went up to them and snickered, “Just last week you were calling and complaining about how your coworkers are giving you a hard time. You were practically on the verge of crying at how much work they give you just because you’re new”

Jihyo frowned at the thought of it. “It’s more or less a common occurrence for a newbie to be bullied at their new job. It’s how people feel superior just because they’ve been there longer.” She rolled her eyes, shaking her head slightly, “Even though I could do just as much as they could, possibly even better. Half of the people there are so lazy, and they think they’re all that when the most important job they do is fetch the right kind of coffee for the higher ups. They don’t even do it nowadays. I’ve been on the coffee run for the past month now and that’s not even in my job description. I’m in charge of scheduling for god’s sake, and I have to get coffee on top of that? Aish, what a cruel world we live in.” As Jihyo was rambling on, she didn’t notice her friends had already moved on to the rest of the group and chatted amongst themselves, leaving Jihyo complaining all by herself.

The leader placed her hands on her hips and clicked her tongue. “These children have no respect for me whatsoever,” she muttered to herself as she joined them. Dahyun was showing her frustrations about the various auditions she went to but none of them getting back to her.

The pale maknae scratched her head and ran her hand through her hair in frustration. “They should not lie to you and say they’ll get back to you but never will, you know? I need to move on and not hold onto the hope that they’ll call back.”

“You’ve been auditioning?” Jihyo chimed in. “I didn’t know you wanted to get into the music industry...”

Dahyun nodded, “It was a pretty recent decision. But at the rate I’m going, I might just end up being an accompanist for some local theater.”

“JYP is holding auditions next month. You should come through.”

The younger one’s eyes lit up and her head snapped up from her downcasted demeanor. “Really? Are you serious right now? JYP is huge!”

Jihyo smiled as she nodded. “I’ll tell you more when the details come out.”

Dahyun rushed over and gave her unnie a huge hug, causing the older one to stagger back at her weight. Various ideas were already rushing into the younger one’s thoughts as she imagined the kind of audition she wanted to perform. Even after being rejected three times, she remained optimistic. She jumped up and down, unable to contain her excitement, as they walked to their favorite tteokbokki shop. The nine of them felt nostalgic as they entered the all too familiar restaurant and the owner greeting them with sarcasm and a smile on his face.

~

Sana did her usual Saturday morning routine. As she waited for the coffee to brew, she grabbed the bundle of mails stacked in her mailbox. She had forgotten to take out the ones from two days prior and its contents were on the verge of spilling out.

Most of the mail were bills for the apartment utilities and some were newsletters in which Sana merely took a glance at. One mail caught her attention, one of which she had forgotten about until then. It was from JYP Industries, a company Dahyun auditioned at 2 months prior.

The Japanese slowly opened the letter and scanned it. She passed, Sana thought. She dropped the mail on the table and went over to finish making her coffee. She should be happy, she knew that. Dahyun had been wanting it and for sure she would be overjoyed to finally start her career. As of late, the younger girlfriend had been stuck at home, messing around with her keyboard, and jumping from theater to theater watching the local plays. Sana knew all too well how happy the acceptance would make her, but she couldn’t help but be a little down with it.

The company was about 2 hours away from where she was, and working there would mean that Dahyun would have to move. There was no way she could commute 2 hours back and forth everyday. Moving was inevitable if she went with the acceptance.

Sana took a sip of her coffee and sighed. The sound of footsteps dragging on the wooden floor caused her to look up from the table. Dahyun came out of the room, rubbing her stomach and scratching her head with a sleepy expression. “Good morning, sleepyhead,” Sana said with a smile.

“Why are you up so early on a Sunday morning?” Dahyun yawned mid sentence and sat on the seat across her.

“I couldn’t stay asleep for some reason. Here,” she slid the letter across the table towards her.

Dahyun took a look at it, her eyes adjusting to read the words on the paper. She narrowed her eyes and although she was reading it, it took her awhile to comprehend what was written. As the message passed her lips as she read it to herself, it passed through her mind and processed itself. It took approximately 1 minute before she understood. Her eyes opened wide and she grabbed the letter and read it over and over.

Sana could see her eyes go side to side in frantic motion and she couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yes, you’re reading it correctly. How many times are you going to go over it?”

“Until I make sure I’m not dreaming,” the younger one, with her messed up hair and light bags under her eyes, pulled the paper closer to her face. Then she pulled it away and leaned back in her seat. “Wow,” she muttered under her breath.

The Japanese smiled, “Congratulations.”

“I gotta tell Jihyo-unnie!” Dahyun ran to the room for her phone to make the call. She was so caught up in her excitement that she didn’t notice her girlfriend’s glum expression. Dahyun could always tell when Sana was trying hard to hide her emotions, but she was too happy with the news that she barely had time to process how this might affect their living circumstance.

It hadn’t been long when Dahyun moved in with Sana. Less than 3 months and Sana couldn’t very well believe that the life she imagined them to have, living in the same roof and coming home to each other, would end that quickly. The older one knew