Author's note: my dear readers, I kindly ask you to please suspend your disbelief and pretend 1) that the weather in Chicago on the day before MyCon wasn't actually perfectly sunny, 2) that it's remotely believable that Byul and Yong would sleep in different hotel rooms. 

Thank Mooshinim that Mamamoo doesn't have more members, otherwise I would be already here writing a complete retelling of The Sound of Music where Yong is Maria and Byul is Captain Von Trapp. You got lucky... this time! 

Enjoy :) 

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Yongsun was startled awake.

In her eyes, she still felt an impression of lightning so bright it got to her brain, even through her closed eyelids and the drawn heavy curtains of her hotel room.

Sure enough, she only had a couple of seconds to brace herself, and then came thunder.

Thunder so violent, that Yongsun had to take a deep breath and remind herself that she’s a grown woman — one that had been warned that a tornado was in the books for tonight.

She got up and walked through the unfamiliar room.

Peering through the glass pane of the hotel room window, a scene of chaos unfolded. Now, Yongsun understood why Chicago is nicknamed “The Windy City”.

The sky was a maelstrom of dark clouds, twisting and twirling with unrelenting ferocity. The wind roared like a freight train, tossing debris through the air with wild abandon. Rain poured down in torrents, blurring the world outside into a watery haze.

Yongsun only vaguely remembered experiencing weather like this in Seoul once, when she was a kid. This, the hotel personnel had told them while warning Mamamoo and their staff about the alert, was just a run-of-the-mill tornado. Nothing special, nothing to worry about. These Americans truly live life on the edge, Yongsun thought. If this is nothing special, I don’t want to know what the real thing is like.

From the safety of her hotel room, the raw power and force of the elements were both mesmerizing and terrifying, a show of the might that this foreign, north American nature could unleash.

A sharp pang of homesickness shot through Yongsun. She might have dwelled on it, had it not been for the sudden frantic knocking on her door.

She smiled to herself as she went to open it, a pretty good idea of who might be on the other side already forming in her mind.

She wasn’t disappointed. Hyejin stood there, with her hair in a bun, a suggestive satin camisole, Homer Simpson pj bottoms, and an expression on her face that Yongsun knew very well. One that told Yongsun that her maknae’s tongue was glued to the roof of .

“Jinnie?”, the leader said, gently. “Are you scared?”

The maknae shook her head vehemently, denying, and yet not speaking a word.

Just at that moment, the sound of thunder boomed once again, seemingly shaking the very foundation of the building.

Hyejin flew into Yongsun’s arms.

Yongsun smiled to herself, cradling the maknae’s head for a short moment before trying to detach herself. “You’re not frightened of the storm, are you? They told us it was coming.”

But Hyejin wouldn’t let her go, holding onto the leader’s waist. She buried her head in Yongsun’s hair, seeking protection from the loud noises coming from outside.

Yongsun sighed. “You just stay right here with me,” she murmured, trying to reassure the youngest, then channeling all of her hard-earned muscle strength to carry Hyejin to the bed. She moaned in fake effort, and Hyejin’s chuckles caused a fond smile to appear on the leader’s lips.

“Where are the others?”

“They’re asleep, I think?”, Hyejin finally spoke. “They’re not scared,” she then added in a whisper.

She wasn’t even finished speaking when loud thunder erupted again, almost drowning the noise of someone else frantically knocking on Yongsun’s door. Hyejin burrowed into Yongsun’s neck, and Yongsun let her be, but only for a few seconds — she knew she had another kid to think about, after all.

“Let me go open the door for a sec,” she whispered.

Hyejin reluctantly loosened her grip on the leader’s waist.

Yongsun opened the door, and there she was — a frowning Wheein, all of her facial muscles contracted in a pained, unsettled look.

“See?”, Yongsun smiled at Hyejin, then closed the door behind her second youngest, a hand on her shoulder gently guiding her inside. “Alright, Wheein-ah, up there on the bed.”

“Really?”, Wheein asked incredulously, knowing very well that her leader usually allowed no one in her bed, except maybe, occasionally, a freshly showered Byulyi.

“Well, just this once.”

Wheein settled next to Hyejin on the fluffy comforter. The maknaes looked at Yongsun expectantly, wondering why the leader was still standing by the slightly ajar door.

“Now all we have to do is wait for Byulyi,” Yongsun explained with a confident smile.

“You won’t see her,” Wheein replied resolutely. “Byulyi’