“Nayeon unnie!!” a small voice calls from the living room.
Nayeon takes a earphone out, “hmm?”
“Unnie!!”
“Alright, I’m coming!”
“UNNIIIIIEEEE!!”
“Okay Chaeyoungie, calm down!”
She’s greeted at the bottom of the stairs by Chaeyoung holding up a slightly crumpled piece of paper with something that looks like a giant green broccoli on it.
“Wow Chaeng! That’s really good!” Nayeon says, taking the drawing in her hands and squinting at it.
“Yes unnie, I know that already, but can you make it for me?” Chaeyoung asks.
“Uh…” Nayeon glances down at her sister, “sure! Broccoli for dinner sounds…healthy!”
Chaeyoung frowns, “nooooo! It’s a treehouse! See?” she points at a spot on the broccoli, and Nayeon can vaguely see the shape of a house, also drawn in green.
“Aah….” Nayeon nods slowly.
Bouncing up and down eagerly, Chaeyoung repeats her previous question, “so can you? Huh? Unnie? Can you make a treehouse for me?? Please????”
“I…uh…did you ask eomma?” Nayeon asks as a last resort, hoping desperately that their mother said no, so that she wouldn’t have to build, of all things, a treehouse.
“Yeah! She said yes!” Chaeyoung starts bouncing up and down excitedly, “she said it would be a great oppa-tuna-tree! But I don't think it’s oppa-tuna-tree, I asked appa and he said that it was an oak tree. I don’t think eomma knows a lot about trees. What’s an oppa-tuna-tree??”
Chaeyoung continues asking questions, but Nayeon isn’t listening. She’s busy accepting her fate.
If I fall out of the tree and die, it’ll be eomma and Chaeyoung’s fault. And I’ll come back to haunt them forever.

It’s been two weeks since Chaeyoung showed her the drawing of a giant green broccoli. And now she’s in a tree, with two pillows strapped to her body, like some sort of armour, courtesy of her little sister.
“Unnie!” Chaeyoung said, “falling out of trees is bad!”
Nayeon roles her eyes at the memory. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, right?
She sighs. She has no idea where to start. Sitting in the tree is somewhat relaxing though, and she looks around. The tree is right next to the fence, branches slightly over it, and she can’t help looking over and noticing that their next-door neighbour’s garden might be the prettiest one she’s ever seen. Looking at their own backyard, she snorts. All they have is grass and and they can’t even sort that out.
“Unnie!!” Chaeyoung shouts from inside, “hurry up!”
Nayeon sighs. It’s time to get to work.

She has always been taught to be grateful and appreciative, but there is no way in hell she will ever be grateful for the sun, not when it’s beating down on her, its bright face laughing at her as beads of sweat roll down her face. The pillows hang from a branch, because they only got in the way of everything. It’s mid afternoon and she’s only just managed to get the base of the deck up. She’s really not cut out for outdoor home projects. To make things worse, Chaeyoung seems to have lost any interest in the progress of her treehouse, and has begun kicking a ball around the backyard.
“Yah! Chaeng-ah! Do you even care that unnie is making a treehouse for you?” Nayeon shouts.
“But unnie is taking too long, and no one is playing with me!” Chaeyoung sulks.
“This was your idea.”
“Unnie is to slow!”
“Why you—” Nayeon plucks an acorn for a nearby branch and throws it at her sister.
“Hey!” Chaeyoung pouts.
Nayeon laughs. In return, a ball comes flying towards her face, and with a scream, she’s tumbling out of the tree. A hard thud on her back alerts her to the fact that she’s returned to ground level, and she can feel the stinging pain of numerous small cuts on her arms and legs, and maybe her face.
“Eomma!! Unnie disappeared!!” she hears Chaeyoung shout.
With a groan, she opens her eyes and sits up, rubbing her back.
“Are..are you okay?” a voice asks her. It’s not a familiar one, and she whips her head around in its direction.
This is not her backyard.

She’s glad that the neighbour with the pretty garden has an even prettier heart, and doesn’t seem to mind that Nayeon came crashing out of the sky and into her flowers. Instead, she invites Nayeon in and offers her some tea, before tending to her injuries. They aren't too serious, but she insists. The two of them sit in silence as she dabs at Nayeon’s scratches gently with an alcohol swab, which makes it sting a little, but it wouldn’t be polite to say so, so Nayeon doesn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry about your flowers,” Nayeon says after the silence begins to become unbearable.
“Oh, it’s okay. They’re not that important, not when someone falls out the sky,” the girl smiles.
“Ah well, you know, it’s just one of those days where you just—” Nayeon clenches her fist dramatically, “fall out of trees.”
Her neighbour giggles, and Nayeon grins.
“What were you doing up in that tree anyway?” she asks.
Nayeon sighs, “well, my sister wanted a treehouse, so I have to build it.”
“By yourself?”
“Mhmm.”
“Oohh, that sounds cool!” she stops dabbing at Nayeon’s wounds and wraps the alcohol swab with tissue and throws it away.
“Yeah well, I guess it is, not for me though,” Nayeon scoffs.
The two fall back into silence, and Nayeon begins to feel like she’s overstayed her welcome and clears .
“Well…I guess I should go now. Thanks, and sorry about your flowers..” she grins sheepishly.
“It’s fine..Nayeon-ssi.”
Nayeon is taken aback, “wait, how do you know my name?”
Her neighbour laughs, “sometimes your little sister pops up over the fence and watches me while I garden. She also talks about you a lot.”
“Oh my god. I—oh my god. Are you that—Mina-unnie she talks about sometimes?? With the pretty flowers? Damn I always thought that was some kid for her school I just—what??”
Mina giggles, “well it was nice meeting her Nayeon-unnie. Maybe the next time we see each other, it won’t be when you fall out of the the tree again.
Nayeon blushes, “please let that go.”
Mina smiles, “I can't promise that.”

Nayeon returns home, slightly dazed.
“Eomma!! Unnie is back from disappearing!!” Chaeyoung shouts when she sees her.
“Nayeon-ah, where did you go?” her mother asks, sounding slightly concerned.
Nayeon snaps out of her daze and glares at Chaeyoung, “well, that one kicked a ball at me, and I fell out of the tree and into our neighbour’s flowers.”
“It wasn’t my fault!! Unnie threw an acorn at me!!”
“HOW DOES THAT MAKE IT BETTER?? I FELL OUT OF A TREE, CHAEYOUNG.”
Chaeyoung, sniffs, “you shouldn't have thrown that acorn at me.”
Nayeon looks at her mother in exasperation.
“You’re the older sister, you shouldn’t have thrown that acorn at her.”
“What even is this,” Nayeon throws her hands up into the air, resigning to the out come and going to her room.

Working on the treehouse starts to grow on Nayeon, mainly because Mina comes out to water her plants at least once a day, and spends a while tending to her garden as well. The treehouse is also beginning to take shape, and within a month, it’s nearly done.
“Wow, you’re amazing,” Mina says one day, looking up from her flowers, with a watering can in her hand.
Nayeon blushes, “it’s not that great.”
“Yes it is, you’ve built a treehouse, all by yourself, that’s really cool!”
Nayeon blushes. There’s a silence, the kind that they’ve both gotten used to, that involves the both of them with dreamy smiles and unfocused eyes, and Nayeon saying that she’s looking at Mina’s flowers and Mina saying she’s looking at Nayeon’s handiwork. They both know their own lies, but not the other’s.
The silence is broken by Mina, “you know, Chaeyoung told me to stop talking to you, because when I talk to you, she says you work slower.”
Nayeon scoffs, “that little midget. Don’t listen to her, this is all her fault anyway.”
Mina smiles wistfully, "but I’m kind of glad for this, you know, because I got to finally meet her Nayeon-unnie.”
Nayeon doesn’t know when or why being called “Nayeon-unnie” by Mina starts making her heart feel like it was beating in slow motion, but it’s happening now and she can’t stop it.