“Hold on, what’s this chick’s name again?” Yeri interrupted Dahyun, puzzlement etched across her sharp features.

        The blond haired girl picked up her trash bag and shoved another fistful of festive party streamers into its depths, wiping the sweat off of her forehead with the back of her wrist.

        She grimaced as a couple shreds of flimsy purple paper as they stuck to her gloved hand, refusing to release her. “Tch. This stuff is gross.”

        “Her name is Sana,” Dahyun grunted. She shot Yeri a pointed look while she mopped up a dried puddle of punch off of the hardwood floor. “Right, right,” Yeri mumbled, scouring the floor for more papier-mâché. “My bad.”

        All four of them were tackling the ruins of the basement, the last area of Dahyun’s house that needed to be cleared away. On the other side of the room, Tzuyu was stacking up neat rows of empty red solo cups on top of the countertop of the kitchen bar.

        Though she had remained silent ever since Dahyun had started telling them all about Sana and their long, detailed past, Dahyun could tell that Tzuyu had been listening. The younger girl had a penchant for quietly gathering every scrap of information she could before passing on her own opinions and judgements.

        “How come you’ve never told us about her before, Dahyun-ah?” Chaeyoung piped up, taking advantage of the pause in Dahyun’s recounting. She tossed another plastic cup into Tzuyu’s pile while she scooped up empty glass bottles, carefully setting them in the large recycling bin she was lugging around.

        The shorter girl pressed a sweet kiss to Tzuyu’s cheek before moving on to another area, pleased to see the taller girl freeze in place, blushing. “No wonder why you haven’t gotten a girlfriend yet,” Yeri teased. “You’ve been caught up on Sana this whole time, haven’t you?”

        Dahyun groans, scrubbing furiously at the stubborn stain that simply refused to disappear. It had faded ever so slightly from vibrant red, but still stood out on the floor.

        “Look, it’s true that Sana made up a big part of my life, but once she left from college...I figured I should at least try and move on. I didn’t want to keep pining over someone I thought was out of my league,” Dahyun explained, a hint of sadness welling up in her voice.

        She narrows her eyes at Yeri when the blond throws her head back and cackles. Coughing, Yeri instantly turned back around and got back to work, fearing the wrath of Dahyun’s temper. “It’s just that I never found someone...who could compare to the way she made me feel, if that makes sense?” Dahyun continued, quirking her lips to the side.

        “No feelings came to me as easily as they did with Sana, if I was lucky enough to even feel something for someone else, that is.” The basement grew quiet, her three best friends contemplating heavily on her words. Dahyun felt a prick of nervousness, of shame.

        Ever since sophomore year rolled around, Dahyun’s best friends had been trying to get her to go out on dates. Yeri had finally gotten around to asking her childhood sweetheart, Kim Saeron, out on a date during the first week of school that year, and Chaeyoung and Tzuyu had been together since middle school.

        On the off chance that Saeron could join the four of them (she was a grade below Yeri, an eighth grader at the time they started dating, and her parents set strict parameters on her curfew), the other girls always thought Dahyun would feel like the odd man out. A fifth wheel.

        In some sense, they were right. Dahyun did feel a little bit left out whenever she hung out with the two couples. If they went out to eat, she’d look on with a fixated smile as Chaeyoung fed Tzuyu bites of her food and Yeri and Saeron cutely shared a milkshake.

        It was in those moments that Dahyun missed Sana the most. Because of this, Dahyun envisioned Sana alongside the five of them. Over the years, she’d perfected images of Sana laughing along to one of Yeri’s jokes.

        She could imagine Sana admiring Chaeyoung for her latest work of art when Dahyun had walked into the art room after school one day. She’d found the shorter girl pouring her heart and soul into a blank canvas, an assignment from her teacher, and could almost see Sana with her sparkling brown eyes widening at the sight of Chaeyoung’s artistic skills.

        Not only that, but she could see Sana praising Saeron’s acting skills. Knowing how kind and compassionate the older girl was towards her close friends, she liked to think Sana would tape all of Saeron’s dramas or go over lines if the younger girl needed help rehearsing.

        She could envision Sana wordlessly checking up on Tzuyu whenever she seemed more quiet than usual, careful not to draw any unwanted attention to either of them. To Dahyun, Sana’s lack of presence had been like a fatal wound. But all wounds heal with time, and she had plenty of it to recover with Sana having been in college.

        “Two years is quite a long time,” Tzuyu said at last, as if reading Dahyun’s racing mind. The tallest amongst them shoved a stack of cups into a trash can and glanced up at Dahyun with a curious glint in her eyes, indicating that she had a point she wanted to get across.

        “Are you sure Sana’s the same person you remember her to be? It’s possible she could’ve changed since the last time you saw her. College is a little different than high school,” Tzuyu continued thoughtfully. Dahyun nodded her head at the younger girl, re-soaking her mop, mulling over Tzuyu’s thoughts.

        After a moment, she splashes the mop back onto the floor, and the pesky red stain finally disappeared from the floor. Satisfied that she’s done a good enough of a cover up job, Dahyun pauses, pondering how to respond to the younger girl’s questions without revealing too much detail about the night she had shared with Sana.

        “Well, we...reconnected last night over a couple things, but tonight we’re really going to make sure we’re both on the same page,” she said. A tender smile spread across her face as she remembered each searing moment where Sana had been laying her bed, kissing down her neck, touching her bare skin.

        Her best friends could spot her blush from a mile away, and after exchanging glances with each other, wisely chose not to over it. “I just hope that she wants the same thing as I do,” Dahyun mutters, scanning the floor for anymore stains to mop up.

        Chaeyoung flashes her a grin and picks up the last glass bottle from the basement floor. “Well, it sounds to me like she’s a lovely girl, Dahyun-ah,” Chaeyoung says excitedly. “Yeah, I’m sure that it’ll work out,” Tzuyu piped up with some enthusiasm.

        “I think there’s this saying that sometimes in order to be found you need to get lost in the first place...maybe that applies to you and Sana. Maybe you both needed these two years apart before you could meet back up again.” The brunette shrugs her shoulders, glancing at her girlfriend for a second, watching Chaeyoung grasp at the handles of her recycle bin.

        A fond expression washes over Tzuyu’s features. “Either way, I think the both of you have a lot to discuss tonight after you go over and