“Another lesson?! Didn’t the tutor say she’d be busy today…?” Chaeyoung whined, pouty lips hidden under the cover of her blankets.

“Come on Chaeyoung. You guys made a promise. If PD-nim let you guys go to America you said you would try your best to learn English.”

“Well clearly my best is not the same as your best…”

“Chaeyoung, come on. Your instructor is already waiting in the other room.”

Resorting to only making unintelligible noises for the rest of the argument, her manager had no other choice except to back out of the maknaes’ room – but not without pulling one last trick from her sleeve.

“Alright, fine. I’ll stop bothering you…” Her manager sighed, but just as she was about to shut the door behind her, Chaeyoung could barely make out the words under her breath. “Can’t believe I have to be the one to cancel on Mina, especially after that crazy house fire she went through…”

At the sound of that one name in particular, just as predicted, Chaeyoung shot up off her bed sprinting off to the bathroom before her blanket had even touched the floor.

“Make sure to brush nicely, you might regret it if you don’t~” her manager chimed one last time before fully shutting the door.

It was a sly move her manager pulled, but it worked like a charm. Chaeyoung continued to tear through the locks of hair that wouldn’t settle right, more angry at the fact that she was rushed for time now since her manager hadn’t mentioned Mina’s name sooner. She pouted at herself in the mirror, giving one last look at the hideous shape her hair decided to take having literally just jumped out of bed.

On one hand, she could fix herself up as best as she could, but considering all the work that needed to be done to fix her hair, her face and her breath, it would mean she only had half the time to spend with Mina. On the other, she could literally roll right out of bed as her pure and unadulterated self to spend as much time with Mina as possible…

Despite feeling like she was staring back at the most horrifying thing she’d ever seen in the mirror, the choice was obvious to Chaeyoung.

No one, however, could have expected Mina to be more worse for wear than she was, her clothes in tatters with black stains all over them having been kissed by the fire. Immediately Chaeyoung’s heart sank. Here she was thinking about how she would be presented when Mina had gone through far worse and still showed up on time.

“Chaeng! You made it!” Mina giggled as she waved at the disheveled girl, taking the hand that had been fixing her own hair and motioning Chaeyoung to take a seat across from her. Her smile persisted despite the fact the smell that now aded the classroom, but nothing could ruin her happiness at this point.

As Chaeyoung was about to open to ask what happened, Mina shushed her right away.

“English only. This is for your own good. You promised, remember?” Mina raised her eyebrows in a teasing manner.

Chaeyoung couldn’t help but smile. The fire may have taken Mina’s belongings but her bright and beautiful attitude was left untouched.

“Yes, remember! Yay!!” Chaeyoung parroted Mina’s words back at her clapping her hands in fake excitement, but only growing more and more worried for the hour ahead.

“No. I remember. Say it again.”

“I remember…”

“Good. Now can you write that out for me?”

Chaeyoung gave her a big fat pout, which was hard for Mina to fight off at first, but with resilience she resisted.

“Chaeng, it’s two words. This is really simple. If you can’t even do this how do you expect to finish this whole exam I wrote out for you?” Mina unraveled what seemed to be a scroll from ancient times that rolled down the whole length of the table ending up on the floor in front of Chaeyoung.

You’ve got to be kidding me, Chaeyoung’s eyes read.

Not at all, Mina’s replied.

It’s funny the things we do for love.

Because, whipped as she was, Chaeyoung took the whole exam from top to bottom, even taking the time to write her name cutely at the top of the page which Mina giggled at.

And whipped as she was, Mina never took her warm and loving eyes off her, watching the little scrunches of her nose every time she didn’t understand the question, or the way her dimple lit up the room with every moment of realization. Most sane people hated proctoring exams and demanded at least some kind of pay for it, yet Mina found herself stupidly smiling to herself, able to even be in the presence of her student – another reason she made the exam so long in the first place. It took her all night to write the questions in the dim light at the front seat of her sedan, but just being there, in the moment, Mina confirmed that everything had indeed been worth it.

Chaeyoung’s turn came soon after, trying as hard as she could to keep her eyelids from obstructing her view of Mina. She didn’t want to miss a single little noise Mina would make, or the way she would bite her pen while she was grading, even the way her eyebrows raised every time she was shocked at Chaeyoung’s wrong answers was pretty. She should have felt anxious, nervous, horrified even that Mina would be scoring and judging something that she deemed herself bad at, but honestly Chaeyoung welcomed it. She had always felt cared for and loved by Mina, so much so that worrying wasn’t even possible when they were together.

Even when the exam paper on her desk had a big fat zero at the top, Mina’s angry face was just so… captivating.

But her instructor’s expression softened rather quickly, much to Chaeyoung’s dismay, as she had already deciphered the sneaky girl’s plan.

“Let me guess, you planned to get every question wrong so PD-nim would schedule even more lessons so you could see me more often?”

“Was it that obvious?” Chaeyoung sighed, her plan already falling to pieces.

“Well no one can get every single question wrong unless they have a good idea what they’re doing…” Mina chuckled, “It’s quite impressive actually.”

“I don’t get it… Why aren’t you mad? You should be mad at me!”

“What? I could never be mad at you,” Mina’s expression stayed warm and soft in the face of Chaeyoung’s anger.

“But your apartment burned to the ground! You should be out apartment hunting right now. Or clothes shopping! Everyone knows about the fire… why are you here with me??”

“Chaeyoung…” Mina places her hands on Chaeyoung’s face. She loves the feeling of holding her, her thumb caressing her cheek leaving soot stains. “There’s no place I’d rather be. And besides, I made a promise to you, didn’t I? I promised that even once I moved out I’d always be here for you. Even if it means being here to learn this stupid language with you. So that someday you can be as unstoppable as you were made to be.”

A tear ran down her face, over the smudge that Mina had left.

The words suddenly came to her. She didn’t even have to think. The emotions welling up brought them out of her memory. Words she’d always wanted to say to Mina.

“I love you.”

Three simple English words earned her the warmest hug she had ever received. Chaeyoung pressed her cheek against her chest and ash-stained hands left marks on the back of her head, but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered more in that moment, and all other moments combined, than Mina’s warmth.

“I’m so happy.”

“Me too.”

Mina rested her cheek atop the younger girl’s head with a chuckle. She meant it. After the hell she had been through recently, Chaeyoung remained the bright spot in her life. Apart from all the sleeping in her car, the smell she could never seem to get out of her hair and the egregious lawsuit she was facing against the building owners, she still couldn’t get herself to miss out on English lessons.

After all, nothing would make her happier than seeing Chaeyoung achieve her dreams.

But for now, nothing mattered besides the warmth they shared between each other, at least until the hour for their lesson was up.

"With you, I'm unstoppable."