Jeongyeon arrived at the dorm from her guitar lesson feeling rather content. She was able to make progress even after having spent more than one month without playing because of their busy schedule. Not to mention, and she was feeling kind of guilty to admit she was thankful for it, her teacher had an appointment somewhere else today, so the lesson lasted only one hour instead of the regular two and she was able to go home earlier than usual.

She had planned on studying Japanese for the rest of their day off but, as soon as she entered the building, decided on getting all the rest she could, and headed straight to the bedroom she shared with Momo, who she knew had gone out with Sana and Dahyun.

What Jeongyeon saw when she opened her bedroom door was something that could have been a scene from one of the horror movies she didn't feel scared when watching but made her have nightmares at night: someone was sprawled on her bed, motionless, hair everywhere. The person looked positively dead in the gloomy room, considering Jeongyeon had forgotten to turn on the light.

After these few seconds of taking in this situation, she did what a frightened person usually does: let out a scream. If her scream worked for something, it was to show that the person on her bed wasn't dead, for they propelled themselves up on their elbows in a desperate way and screamed even louder.

Jeongyeon was about to scream again when she realised she recognised that voice.

“Nayeon?!”

“Jeongyeon?!”

“What’s going on?!” Chaeyoung’s own scared voice came from somewhere inside the dorm.

“Nothing, it's fine! Sorry!” Jeongyeon answered and closed the bedroom door. She heard the younger girl say "they've gone mental" to someone - probably Tzuyu -, and assumed their screams must have been really horrifying, because the people who lived here weren't exactly known for being quiet. Well, apart from Mina.

She turned to face Nayeon, who had gone back to being sprawled on the bed. “What are you doing here?!”

“I should be asking you that! Didn't you have lessons?”

“It finished an hour earlier.” Jeongyeon put her guitar and purse on a chair. “Well?”

“Well what?” Asked Nayeon.

“Why are you here?” Looking like a murder victim in a serial killer movie, she wanted to add, but thought it wiser not to.

“I asked Momo.” Said Nayeon, simply.

“Okay.” Jeongyeon was starting to feel concerned. Her brain began calculating the possibilities of what had caused the girl to be here alone, and was hoping it was just a cockroach that had made her run away from her own bedroom, and not something more serious. “But why?”

“I wanted to have a bigger bed for myself for a change,” Started Nayeon, then paused when she saw Jeongyeon was looking at her incredulously. “What?! You know I occupy as much space as I can when I sleep!”

“Can't say I don't.”

Nayeon eyed her. “Anyway. I didn't want to go home just for a day, so I asked Momo if I could stay here.”

Jeongyeon thought this was a weird reason, but since it was Nayeon, she wasn't really surprised. At least nothing bad had happened.

“I thought you’d both be out.” Nayeon continued, an apologetic note in her voice.

Momo actually knew Jeongyeon didn't have full lessons today, but probably forgot to tell Nayeon. She found herself secretly thanking her for this.

"What if it had been Momo who had come back earlier and wanted to sleep?" Jeongyeon asked Nayeon in a more playful way, because she didn't want the girl thinking she had to apologise for being here, or worse, wanting to leave.

“She wouldn’t have, she’s with the girls. But I would stay here with her”.

“Then you don't really mind sharing the bigger bed you wanted for yourself.”

“Or I’d let her have the bed,” Jeongyeon tilted her head in a questioning, amused manner after listening to Nayeon talking as if the bed wasn't Momo's (and hers) in the first place. This girl, really... “If it started getting too cramped, I wouldn't have the heart to shove Momo out of bed, would I? You, on the other hand...”

Jeongyeon suppressed a grin. “Yeah, whatever. Move aside a bit.”

The other girl moved about five inches from the centre of the mattress to give her room. As soon as Jeongyeon lay on the bed, there was an arm wrapped around her waist and a quite puffy cheek pressing against her shoulder.

She raised her eyebrows at the owner of said arm and cheek. “Didn't you say you wanted space?”

“There is space. The bed's still the same size”, said Nayeon matter-of-factly. Jeongyeon rolled her eyes but it wasn’t as if she would be complaining. She moved her arm behind Nayeon's back, so now her left hand was on the older one's shoulder, what ended up bringing them even closer. She could feel Nayeon was smiling.

They spent a few moments in silence. When Jeongyeon was starting to wonder what had gotten into Nayeon to make her quiet for so long - which, in this case, was barely more than a minute -, the girl turned her head a bit towards her face and started talking.

“I really like your longer hair.”

Jeongyeon smiled. “Me too.”

Nayeon chuckled and gave her a push on the arm. Jeongyeon just knew that, if it wasn't for this side of her body being used as Nayeon's pillow, she would have been given a new bruise to match the ones she had from practice and from the girl's laughing fits.

She wanted to laugh but complained anyway, pretending it had hurt. “Ow! Watch this huge hand of yours.”

It only resulted in Nayeon chuckling and pushing her arm again. Jeongyeon grabbed her hand to avoid being hit with actual strength a third time. “Sorry, sorry, I should have said thanks.”

“No, it's just that I like seeing you all happy with your hair growing. I always said it suits you”. She grinned, moved her hand from Jeongyeon’s waist (since her other one was still being held tight), gave her a thumb's up, and put it back on its previous location.

Hearing this made Jeongyeon really glad, for she was indeed very proud of how long her hair was getting now, making her feel more confident day by day. Moreover, hearing this from this specific person just made the sense of happiness even greater. She wanted to tell Nayeon this but, being the awkward person she was when it came to answering compliments, all she could manage was:

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

Nayeon stared at her.

And kept staring.

“What?!” Asked Jeongyeon from somewhere between confused and annoyed.

Nayeon still didn't say anything. Then it finally clicked.

“Ahhh!” Jeongyeon exclaimed. “You're expecting me to compliment you back.”

“Well, I hear I don't look so bad, myself”. Said Nayeon, and then quickly closed and opened both her eyes in an attempt to blink playfully. Jeongyeon only kept herself from laughing at her because she was just as terrible at doing it.

She could just say something nice, but teasing Nayeon was always more fun.

“You have to deserve the compliment.”

“Don't I deserve it?”

She did, thought Jeongyeon. She didn't even have to do anything. But, of course, she wasn't going to tell her that right now.

Instead, what Jeongyeon said, mockingly, was: “You are the fairest of them all.”

“Be serious.” Was the answer she received, but Jeongyeon just shook her head and laughed.

Then Nayeon made those puppy eyes and pouted her lips.

Oh no.

“Okay, okay”. Jeongyeon sighed. “You're beautiful”.

Nayeon's face lightened up, manifesting that lovely toothy grin once again, and Jeongyeon had to accept her defeat.

Nothing new under the sun.

Chaeyoung had told her how the fans had been saying lately that they had found her only weakness: Nayeon, especially when in aegyo mode.

Although flattered to be seen as such a strong person, Jeongyeon had, in fact, many weaknesses that varied from their maknae line to cute animals and limited edition Lego sets. However, she couldn't deny Nayeon was probably the biggest one. She didn't even have to be playing cute, since her very own existence was already cute enough to make anyone's heart skip a bit, not to mention how funny and kind she has been since the moment they met.

At least, when admitting how weak for the girl she really was, she knew Nayeon was weak for her all the same, and much less embarrassed about showing it.

Things like these made her wonder how obvious they must look to people: the fans had always thought there was something going on between them and, apparently, so did their agency, or they wouldn't have told her to stop being so close with Nayeon in public after cutting her hair short, in order to refrain people from getting the “wrong idea”.

In fact, this was one of the main reasons she never really got to fully appreciate her short hair, as if its length would have made any difference on how she felt about Nayeon. She couldn't help feeling a bit rebellious now she was finally growing it long, and looking closer and closer to the girl in the media (after all, what were they expecting with their My Ear's Candy performance?).

If outsiders noticed things were happening, it couldn't possibly be any different from people much closer to them. When she came running to Jihyo to tell her how she liked Nayeon and how, amazingly, Nayeon liked her back, the younger one didn't even try to look surprised after receiving the seemingly secret information: all she did was roll her eyes and say that finally all three of them, and not only her, Jihyo, knew she had been third-wheeling her best friends for ages.

Jeongyeon told herself that she shouldn't have expected less from someone known to read people well, but the other members seemed to be gradually realising their behaviour wasn't mere playfulness or fanservice. Even her dogs seemed to like Nayeon more than they liked other people that weren't part of the family.

When her brain was starting the process of creating conspiracy theories about everyone, pets included (were they hers or not: Gucci would judge her pretending to hate Nayeon's affection in public the most, she just knew), seeing them as infatuated teenagers - which wasn't completely wrong since they were, in fact, infatuated, and perhaps closer to being teenagers than adults -, Jeongyeon was brought back to reality by Nayeon's fingers running through her hair. She was comparing their hair colours, talking about how their current shades of dark blonde were almost the same.

A little startled from resurfacing abruptly from her thoughts, all she could do was look at Nayeon, who then found it was her turn to ask why the other one was staring weirdly at her.

“What? It is almost the same colour!” Said Nayeon, removing her hand from Jeongyeon’s hair to point to her own.

“You're cute.”

Nice going, Jeongyeon, out of the blue. Just do everything in your power to look even weirder. She could feel Gucci judging her now for being completely lame at being affectionate all the way from Taiwan.

She watched a very familiar expression appearing on Nayeon's face: she opened and her eyes grew big, looking shocked and amused at the same time.

“What?” Nayeon asked again, letting out a little laugh.

Jeongyeon wasn't even able to answer. The best she could do was refraining from burying her face in her hands and end up making the situation even more embarrassing. It wasn’t that she never said these things to the girl because, in reality, she did it a lot. It was the way she suddenly blurted it out that made her feel the silliest and most awkward person in existence.

She was glad when Nayeon kept talking.

“Wasn't it your habit, calling everyone cute?” She didn't sound angry. She sounded like she was having a lot of fun at the cost of Jeongyeon's embarrassment. A little well-deserved revenge from having to endure the public thinking Jeongyeon didn't care for her more than it was expected.

“It is! But you are. Cute, I mean.”

Nayeon was smirking at her.

“Seriously. I even said it to that magazine!" Jeongyeon was starting to feel her cheeks burning. Why couldn’t the girl just accept the compliment without asking things? “I told them your smile is very cute.”

The next thing she saw was said smile moving closer and closer to her face, as Nayeon gave her a peck on the lips.

“Thank you.” said Nayeon, still smiling. “Point taken.”

Jeongyeon thought she was going to melt, not only because of that quick kiss that was enough to leave her like this, but also because of the awareness of how much she adored the person beside her right now in this old bed.

She still got a bit shy every time they kissed but, having gone through enough embarrassment already for the last moments, found a way to force some of her confidence to come back. “That's all I get after calling you cute? Thought you had been desperate to hear it...”

Again, that shocked/amused expression showed on Nayeon’s face. “Who’s desperate?!” She pushed Jeongyeon, stronger this time than the first ones.

Jeongyeon didn't even have time to scold herself for thinking she was getting anything other than Nayeon's famous push after saying that, for the same hand that had pushed her arm was now grabbing her by her sweatshirt's collar and pulling her down to a second, deeper kiss.

 

---

 

Momo knew Jeongyeon was coming back earlier from guitar class, something she still hadn’t realised she had forgotten to tell Nayeon, but assumed she was just going to spend the day in the living-room reviewing Japanese grammar, since that was what she had said she would be doing. However, when back hours later from her day out with Sana and Dahyun, and expecting to see only Nayeon in her bed, she wasn't really surprised to find Jeongyeon sleeping beside her.

She smiled at how neither of them were graceful sleepers. Jeongyeon had half-open, and the small portion of her face that could be seen from the depths of her sweatshirt's hood was marked in more than one place with the lipstick that was now almost entirely gone from Nayeon's lips.

Meanwhile, Nayeon had one side of her face squashed against her own hand and, with her other one, was grabbing the fabric of Jeongyeon's rather ugly track trousers, probably having unconsciously aimed for a thigh and missing due to the looseness of the clothes.

Jeongyeon, having shared the bed for years with Momo, was occupying only one third of it from instinct, and Nayeon's legs were in such a position that seemed about to make the other girl roll off the edge with the slightest of movements.

Keeping herself from taking a picture of the scene, more from having had enough fun by mocking Sana all the way home than from wanting to respect Nayeon and Jeongyeon's privacy, Momo went out of the bedroom, leaving the two girls to their sleep.