It was Karina’s first and last morning at the hospital when a hurricane and a cyclone named Ningning and Giselle respectively had stormed in her room completely unannounced and without any prior warning . She barely had a moment to gather her thoughts when they both loomed over her with worried expressions on each of their faces, hovering and suffocating. Where did these two even come from?

“Jimin! Oh, you poor thing,” one of them had exclaimed.

“Woah, what–” Winter, who had just woken up due to the sound that came out of the blue, swiftly stood up on her feet with a baffled look. “Ningning? Giselle? What are you two doing here? How did you know where–”

“Ah, right.” Giselle clasped her hands together, “We put a tracker on the minivan.”

Karina immediately took notice of the way Winter’s hand stealthily gripped the handle of her gun that was hidden behind her back. The detective hadn’t even noticed that she was carrying the entire time until now that she was probably thinking about shooting these oblivious civilians in front of her. God, Winter was such a cop sometimes, and that was certainly not a compliment.

“Minjeong, my wife is a journalist who wrote fifty-eight articles that went against fifty-eight egotistical politicians. Trackers on everything else we own are necessary.” Giselle explained, heedless of the subtle retraction of Winter’s hand. “Also, we got really worried when we woke up and realized Vanessa still wasn't home.”

Scrunching up her eyebrows, Karina looked cluelessly at the blonde who, apparently, just gave her a shrug. It wasn’t until Ningning had spoken that her own confusion dissipated.

“Vanessa is the minivan.”

That made sense.

“That doesn't answer my question.” Winter stood her ground, and from the looks of it, it seemed as though she was still hypervigilant towards everything else due to what had happened yesterday. “How did you even manage to get past the receptionist?”

Giselle frowned, side-eyeing her wife. “Uh, like normal people?” she answered, ostensibly confused with the foreign hostility behind Winter’s tone. “We told her we were looking for a pregnant Minjeong, and she just led us here. We really weren't expecting a dying Jimin, though.”

“She’s not dying,” Winter corrected quickly. Karina appreciated it, really.

“Debatable.” said Ningning, her scrutinizing eyes grazing the detective.

“She looks like death.” Giselle retorted clearly.

“Thanks?” Karina blinked dubiously.

She wasn’t really offended – considering that she really did look like a character from Resident Evil sans the guns, most-likely-stolen-BDUs, and probably that god-awful smell. She still had to thank the nurses for that. 

Giselle’s lips curled into a sweet smile as she gave her an approving thumbs-up. Karina just returned the gesture awkwardly.

“So what happened?”

“I got shot.” Karina deadpanned.

“You got shot!?” Ningning shrieked in surprise the same time Giselle yelled a ridiculously dramatic, ridiculously wrong: “You shot her!?” to Winter.

Outrageously insulted to be even accused of such a thing, Winter faced the couple like a red-hot drifting racecar that Karina was almost worried she’d gotten herself a whiplash. “What? No! Why would I shoot my own wife!?”

With folded arms and suspicious glare, Ningning continued to grill. “Then who did?”

Now taken aback, Winter locked her gaze to Karina as if communicating wordlessly.

The detective herself didn’t even know what to do. After all, Winter was the one who signed thousands of foolproof contracts created by a secret maybe-government company as if she were signing autographs and then proceeded to live her life scared to death that one wrong word could get her decapitated by a clandestine agency. Nonetheless, Karina kind of didn’t want her to die just yet. Or ever, really. So instead of saying anything, Karina shrugged the other side of her shoulder and left the decision to Winter.

“Okay, guys—you might wanna sit down for this,” the blonde advised slowly, and Karina arched an eyebrow. 

So she was doing this. Alright, then.

The couple did so without any protest seeing that they were most likely just as eager to find out why their landscaper neighbor was currently attached to a hospital bed.

“Karina is not my wife.” Winter started and went straight to the point.

Her advice to the two completely became useless as Giselle quickly rose to her feet and dragged up her wife with her. Karina had to stifle a laugh at how comical this entire situation had suddenly looked, and eventually kept to herself as the three continued to throw misunderstandings after misunderstandings toward each other.

“Yeah, no , Captain Obvious!” Ningning reeled off, “Who even is Karina?”

“Do we even know a Karina?” Giselle added questioningly, “Are we supposed to know a Karina?”

“See, that’s the thing—”

“I’m Karina.” the woman in question had finally spoken, growing to feel bad for a tremendously frustrated Winter.

However, her statement completely flew over the couple’s heads, more specifically, over Giselle’s perfectly combed hair.

“You’re a twin!?” she asked—or shouted, more like.

Slapping her palm on her own face, Karina could only sigh defeatedly. “Good lord,”

Now at this very moment, Karina could finally empathize with all the criminals she had once interrogated back at the precinct. This was already driving her up the wall and making her want to pull her hair out until it was barbed.

“She doesn't have a twin!” she heard Winter say across from her, falling into exasperation just as well. “Her real name isn't actually Jimin. It’s Karina.”

Ningning and Giselle gasped.

“And my name is Winter, not Minjeong.” Winter said, awkwardly wrapping her fingers around the bedrail. “We’re—” she swallowed, glancing at Karina briefly as she continued. “we’re undercover agents.”

Ningning and Giselle gasped. Again .

They really had the knack for enacting their reactions twice, but always managed to make the second time even more dramatic than the first. It was their own little couple thing, and definitely something that Karina found unequivocally ridiculous.

Still, it was funny.

Stupid and funny.

“That’s why I couldn't find you on LinkedIn!” Ningning threw an accusatory look at Karina, to which the latter returned with a shrug (again, with one shoulder).

Giselle began to walk as she racked her mind, her feet circling the room before eventually stopping back to her previous place. “Wait, so you guys aren't really…”

“Married? No.” Winter chuckled in amusement. “She works for the local police department from another city, and I’m an FBI agent.”

“Dressed like that?” 

Winter’s eyes curiously followed down where Giselle had trained her obvious condemnatory gaze, which just so happened to be on her white t-shirt and red sweatpants. then flew open, speechless and wounded.

“Wait, so what were you two doing in Ether Hills?” Ningning cocked her head to the side.

Due to exhaustion, Karina didn't feel the need to intervene as she allowed Winter to take charge of this fiasco all on her own. Her brain was still kind of foggy anyway. She remained still, watching in silence as Winter started telling the whole undercover story from the beginning up to when the detective had ended up in this hospital bed. Giselle and Ningning listened diligently, eyes solely focused on the blonde as if she were their second grade art teacher explaining the color theory. Fortunately, though, the blonde’s incessant attempts to explain it all in perfect detail hadn't been in vain exactly as the married couple seemed to finally grasp what she had been trying to say after a few minutes.

“Seulgi is a drug lord!?” Ningning practically rent the air with that full voice of hers.

“But she looks…” Giselle sighed, staring up into nothing dreamily. “Soft. And kind. And sweet, and pretty, and hot–”

Ningning gave her wife a dirty look that laid between a murderous glare and a ferocious scowl. 

“You’re a married woman.” she said, the expression on her face remaining unchanged.

“I’m just saying!” Giselle defended herself as she threw a knowing smile towards Winter. “Even Min– Winter agrees that she looks hot, right?”

Okay, this was something that captured the detective's interest. Objectively speaking, Seulgi really did look attractive if the entire drug trafficking business was out of the question, so she genuinely wondered what Winter would have to say about that. Karina lifted her head to see the blonde’s reaction, only to be met by avoidant eyes and brushed off movements of her hands.

“Leave me out of this,” said Winter as she ultimately made the choice of leaving the two to deal with that.

With a quick shake of her head, the blonde ambled towards the hospital bed with a smile and an expectant look. 

“Do you think she’s hot?” Karina questioned out of curiosity. 

Really, she was just curious. She was a detective, after all. It was just natural for her to ask things.

Winter took an immediate step back, her feet already leading her to the door. 

“Okay, I’m gonna go get some food outside. Do you need anything else?” she asked Karina while hovering a hand ready to twist the doorknob. 

The still very much curious detective shook her head no, her forehead creasing when it didn't even take a second for Winter to dismiss her as she looked over the married couple who were now cuddled up on the couch as though they weren't just on the verge of separation minutes prior. Those two really were something, Karina thought to herself.

“What about you, ladies?” Winter turned to face the couple.

“Divorce papers.” Ningning answered quickly that her wife, Giselle, almost didn't have time to react.

“Honey–”

Before Giselle could even finish her sentence, Ningning had already placed her index finger on her wife’s jarred lips.

A grimace spread across Karina’s space as she watched them instantly jump right back to what they were doing earlier, which happened to be shamelessly canoodling in front of a poor, slightly touch-deprived and incapacitated detective. 

“Good luck with that,” Winter blurted out to no one in particular before leaving the room.

Karina wasn't entirely sure if she was talking to Giselle, who was on the brink of divorce (or the opposite, probably), or Karina who was on the brink of vomiting because of the scene currently happening before her eyes. She had no idea if its main cause was envy or more on the fact that she desperately needed these two to be banned in 72 countries right about now and though the latter primarily stemmed from the former, she found no harm adding it to her options just to make her love life — or lack thereof — a tad less pathetic.

Evening weaved in after some time and Karina found herself glued to her bed as she sat in silence. Ningning and Giselle had already left an hour ago, even mentioning their plan to visit an animal shelter in search of something to adopt by next month. They said they had been thinking about starting a family real soon, and having a pet around this time would serve as their preparation for the real thing, so Karina didn't bother holding them for much longer. She needed to take a rest anyway.

Except she did everything but that.

Her eyes flickered to Winter, and she wasn't even surprised when something, an all too familiar feeling, tickled in her chest as she traced the blonde’s sleeping figure. She looked so peaceful. Like a cloud in the night, quiet and serene. And although Karina didn't really want to disrupt her sleep, she also didn't want Winter to wake up with a broken neck with the way she was resting her head on the couch.

“Hey, Winter?” she called as softly as she could, afraid to wake the tranquility of the night.

The woman scrunched up her nose, staying still for quite a moment before stirring awake.

“Yeah?” Winter sat up, her voice raspy from her sleep. “Do you need anything?”

Karina hesitated for a second, and then she sighed. “Will you come here for a second?” 

Trapping her lower lip in between her teeth, Karina swallowed a lump in as Winter obeyed without saying anything else. She wasn't really sure what she actually wanted from the girl until she stopped just right beside her bed, and then the next thing that Karina knew, she was already pulling Winter into a tight hug, taking the both of them by surprise. She felt how Winter stiffened against her hold, both her arms suspended fumblingly to her sides as she tried to comprehend what was going on seeing that merely a couple days earlier, they were basically stuck in an endless loop of ceaseless bickering and constant quarrels. Karina knew how this must come as a surprise for her.

“Oh–” Winter’s shoulders eventually relaxed, “This is… nice.”

With a smile drawing on her face, Karina pulled her even closer that Winter had no other choice but to hug her back. She still felt the same even after all those years except now her body was more firm though her tenderness lingered. Oh, how much she had missed this — not hugging in general, but hugging Winter.

“Thank you for telling me the truth.” Karina said, letting her hand briefly graze the woman’s back before letting go, her eyes instantly searching for Winter’s as she voiced out her following words, “And I… I forgive you. For everything. I know we haven't had the best relationship for the last years, and I guess that's partly my fault because I literally avoided you like the plague, but I guess I just want you to know that I do want things to get better between us. I might not show it a lot, but… I miss you. I miss my best friend.”

Years of bottling it all up, of keeping it all inside, Karina couldn’t help the immediate pang of longing as she uttered those words in all her sincerity. She had always thought that this conversation – one that she never thought would actually happen – would be an uphill battle that she’d find herself falling back to ground over and over. She had replayed a scene similar to this in her head countless of times, making up tragic scenarios with endings that never failed to ruin her nights. But having Winter now standing right in front of her, completely different from what she had imagined her to be, was a twist she never saw coming. And perhaps this was better, a right step in the right direction towards what the universe had set in store for her down the road, and the wide smile that etched on Winter’s face was enough reason to believe that maybe it was true.

“I miss mine, too.” Winter said, and for a fleeting moment, Karina almost swore that there was a deeper meaning to Winter’s words more than she’d let on.

Turned out that even after all this time, she still knew everything about Winter despite the years they had spent apart. Although she initially blamed it on noth