It hurts to watch her.
She shines.
She's brighter than the sun, she's too beautiful for your eyes.
It's hard to look at her.
It's even harder to look away from her.
You're going blind.

///

"How do you do it?" asked Dahyun.

The question is asked in an almost aloof tone, bordering on being too casual, too flippant but it's not. Sana knows (or at least she thinks she knows) that it's not a question borne out of casual curiosity. She hears the quiet connotation behind it, the hidden question that wasn't being asked,

How do you stop caring?

(The answer? You don't.)

But maybe it's just her; maybe Dahyun is really just asking a question to break the silence because Dahyun simply cannot be capable of asking anything too perceptive. It’s not possible. She’s too free-spirited, too aloof, and she simply cannot be able to see things that aren’t the obvious. They haven’t spoken since break and perhaps Dahyun just wanted to talk and Sana is just overthinking things way too much.

(Wallowing in self-loathing is more like it.)

Out of the possibilities, Sana chooses to think that Dahyun is simply asking a question out of curiosity. She chooses to think this was just a way to break the silence and she sips on her bottle of water before asking in an overt cheery tone. A tone that is spoken almost too joyously, too brightly, too fake that Sana catches herself and tones it down half-way,

"How do I what?"

She puts up a small grin and Dahyun is staring at it far too long than Sana would like. The silence engulfing them again while Dahyun continued to stare at her and her grin, probing. It almost felt as if the other girl was trying to find the imperfections in her grin but Dahyun won't find anything.

Her smiles were perfect.

The silence had fallen between them again, draped them with an awkwardness and uncertainty that could make most people squirm. Sana's the first to turn her attention away and Dahyun stares just a little bit longer, eyes wandering every contour of the Osaka born native's face. Trying to find the cracks in the mask, the dents in the armor but she can't see them because there were none to see.

It's a second pause before Dahyun gives up momentarily, turns her head and they're simply sitting side by side. It’s a return to normalcy, no probing, no weird stares, nothing and if Sana could, she would have let out a breath of relief. Sana doesn't do that though, she just sits in their corner, watching the other members walk about, chattering amongst themselves and go over certain moves.

It’s almost as if they didn't talk at all.

She thinks that Dahyun had dropped it, is glad that Dahyun doesn't persist anymore and stops asking questions she doesn't really want to answer. She isn’t sure she even has the answer but they stay quiet like they never talked in the first place.

There are no words being exchanged between them, nothing but the sound of sneakers squeaking across the da