Tiffany crept in, wary of waking the other members.

She had followed Seohyun home, worried the younger girl would get mugged or attacked. But she kept her distance, not wanting to cause Seohyun more hurt than she already had. Far be it from her to force the girl to forgive her follies.

In her consternation, Tiffany never noticed Sooyoung sprawled messily across the living room floor. She tripped over the shikshin and landed on top of her, resulting in Sooyoung screaming her head off like she was being chased by a serial killer wielding a machete.

“YAHHH!!!! Please don’t eat me!!!! I promise I’ll stop being such a shikshin!!!!! Just please, DON’T EAT ME!!!!!!!”

Which of course, woke the entire house.

In seconds, the house was ablaze with lights and suddenly, Tiffany was standing in the middle of the living room, seven sleep-mussed eyes and one not so surprised maknae staring intently back at her.

“Tippany Hwang Miyoung!” Taeyeon roared, finally coming to her senses and realizing that her prodigal member had finally come home.

Taeyeon was angry. And she had every right to be. She had been under a lot of pressure and stress these days and it was mostly because of this thug standing before her, looking for all the world like a naughty puppy who had been caught peeing on the carpet.

But between anger and relief…Taeyeon didn’t even have to dig deep to know her anger was simply the tip of the iceberg, because underneath it all, she was simply beyond relieved that her dongsaeng was safe. No matter how many sleepless nights she had subjected her to, how many hours spent worrying about her, how many agonizing hours of self-evaluation wondering where she had gone wrong…no matter how much she had struggled…the simple fact that Tiffany was back and safe and standing before her was enough.

Tiffany’s simply being here was her ticket to forgiveness.

Taeyeon took one step forwards, purposely keeping an angry glower on her face. But as expected of a street-hardened thug, Tiffany stood her ground and remained still, staring intently into Taeyeon’s eyes.

Taeyeon took one more step and stopped.

To Taeyeon, the step itself didn’t mean anything, but the seemingly yawning expanse between them did.

She was testing Tiffany. Testing to see how much the girl would be willing to concede, how much she would be willing to let go. Testing to see if Tiffany could bring herself to meet Taeyeon halfway.

The distance between them could easily be covered in three steps, two if the steps were big ones. But to Tiffany, that short distance had never seemed larger or more onerous to cross. She knew what Taeyeon was doing, knew what the older girl wanted from her. But she didn’t know if she was capable yet to let Taeyeon in to help her. Because that is what that step would mean, that Tiffany was, in a weird roundabout way between her and Taeyeon, asking for help.

They stood there, three steps away from each other, both unwilling to close the gap between them. The other girls seemed to have understood that this was of significance between Taeyeon and Tiffany and knew better than to step in. So despite wanting to throw themselves at the thug and hug her senseless, the girls fidgeted, but remained in their spots behind Taeyeon.

Jessica was having the hardest time staying put. Even with Tiffany dressed, she could tell the girl had been fighting again. She could see the skinned knuckles, the slight discolorations of faded bruises on battered hands, the hollow sunken look in Tiffany’s eyes. She had seen these signs before and was more than aware of what they meant.

Like Taeyeon, Jessica was a little irate at Tiffany, but also like Taeyeon, she knew that her anger was minimal. She had promised she would wait for Tiffany, promised she would continue to love Tiffany, promised to overlook the instances when Tiffany was being a complete and utter arse, promised to be there when Tiffany was finally ready to ask for help, and she had no intentions of breaking that promise.

So she silently fought the urge to throw herself at her infuriating but still wonderful girlfriend and just stood watching to see what Tiffany would do.

Tiffany was sweating bullets. If she was being honest with herself, this would be one of the hardest things she had to do. It takes a lot for Tiffany to ask for help. To her, it was a sign of weakness, and she had long since been conditioned to never show any form of faltering or Achilles’ heel. To appear weak meant you were seen as an easy target. And Tiffany functioned on survival-mode half the time. Weak was not an option.

Deep down, she knew that if she didn’t take those few steps, she would still have the girls behind her to catch her if she falls. But she had disappointed and hurt Seohyun bad enough as it was…could she do it again? To all eight girls?

She couldn’t.

But neither could she concede her weakness.

So Tiffany compromised.

She took one step forwards and stopped.

There was now only two and a half feet of space between Tiffany and Taeyeon and it was the most Tiffany could offer.

Taeyeon seemed to understand her dongsaeng’s struggle and knew to appreciate that this was already a very big concession that Tiffany was making. The shorter girl acknowledged Tiffany’s efforts and chose to step up, closing the remaining gap between them and hugging Tiffany tight, her heart almost bursting with joy when she felt Tiffany reciprocate and tighten her hold also.

“You stupid thug…” Taeyeon mumbled as she pulled away, playfully pushing Tiffany in the chest to show her all was forgiven.

Tiffany winced and tried to cover it up with a cough. Participating in illegal fight rings and just being reckless in general hadn’t helped to keep her body in the healthiest of states. Seohyun’s angry attacks earlier didn’t help matters any either. The wince-cough would have been overlooked if Jessica were not already aware that Tiffany hadn’t been taking the best care of herself.

Before the brunette could stop to think, she had already rushed to Tiffany’s side to try and lift up the thug’s shirt, wanting to see for herself the full extent of the damage. Jessica completely disregarded the other girls in the room and how this would look to them. To everyone else, it simply looked like Jessica was just extremely after being separated from Tiffany for so long. Everyone knew how active the two were in terms of their -life, they just weren’t expecting a show.

“Wow-wow Jessi…”

“Stop wowing me and take off your shirt. NOW!”

“Jeshika…the maknae is still