“Eomma, unnie doesn’t want to get out of the treehouse,” Chaeyoung whines, and rightfully so, because Nayeon has spent the past few days practically living in it, and she’s pulled the rope ladder up so Chaeyoung can’t come and kick her out.
Their mother follows Chaeyoung outside, “IM NAYEON!” she shouts.
Nayeon’s head pokes out from a window, “what?”
“Get out of your sister’s treehouse!”
“Nope.”
“Eomma!” Chaeyoung whines again, stomping her feet a little.
“Shut up you little as—angry child, I built this place, with my BARE HANDS!” Nayeon screams back, hold up her hands, which are covered in bandaids.
“You could have always worn gloves,” their mother points out.
Nayeon squints at her, “whose side are you on?”
Ignoring the question, their mother sighs, “Im Nayeon, you are 21 years old, stop acting like a child.”
“Wh—what?? Me?? A child?? At any rate the real child is—is there!” Nayeon sputters, pointing at Chaeyoung.
“Chaeyoung-ah, make sure you never turn out like your sister.”
“Okay eomma.”

Eventually Nayeon drops the ladder down, so that Chaeyoung can climb up, but doesn’t leave.
“Unnie, why are you always up here? Don’t you have anything better to do?”
“I, as a 100% real, true adult™, am able to do what ever I want, and you have no right to question me,” Nayeon huffs, as she rests her head on the windowsill.
Chaeyoung rolls her eyes, “are you just here to watch Mina-unnie?”
Nayeon chokes, “what no! That’s ridiculous! Why would I—why would I want to watch Mina?”
Chaeyoung smirks, narrowing her eyes slyly, “I’m telling Mina-unnie.”
Nayeon’s mouth opens and closes, failing to make any sound at all, apart from laboured gasps. It’s also just her luck that Mina has come out to water her plants.
“Mina-unnie!” Chaeyoung yells out the window.
Mina looks up and waves.
“Mina-unnie! Unnie comes up here everyday just to look at you!”
Hearing this causes Nayeon to panic and she tackles Chaeyoung to the floor.
“That is false and untrue! I just like to—admire your garden!”
Mina laughs, “I know,” she says softly.
“Y-y-you know?” Nayeon panics more.
“Yeah, sometimes when I look up there I see your head moving around.”
Nayeon hides her face in her hands, “this is embarrassing.”
Mina smiles, “it’s okay, you can watch me, I don’t mind. It just gets a little lonely when I know you’re there but I can’t see you.”
Nayeon can feel her body temperature slowly rising, and her eyes drift from Mina’s kind eyes, to her gummy smile and her pale pink cheeks, and she realises; it’s so unfair that Mina has this kind of effect on her. How rude. How dare she make Nayeon’s heart beat so dangerously fast?
“Unnie isn’t saying anything because she’s stupid,” Chaeyoung’s voice tears her away out of her stupor.
She turns to her sister and glares, “shut up, you .”
“Mina-unnie! Did you hear that? Unnie called me a ! You can’t like her, she’s mean and stupid!”
Nayeon tackles her sister to the ground and almost smothers her before she realises, Mina likes her. Leaving Chaeyoung on the whining on the ground, she leans on the windowsill with newfound confidence.
“So,” she grins, “you like me?”
“I will neither confirm nor deny that statement,” Mina looks away, flustered.
Chaeyoung shouts from the floor, “Unnies are so dumb!! This is why I have a girlfriend before you guys!!”
Turning around, Nayeon squints, “you have a girlfriend? But you’re like, five.”
“Hey! I’m eleven!!”
“Yeah anyway. Why do you have a girlfriend?? Does momma know??”
“No.”
“I’m telling.”
“Unnie nooooooo!!”
There are sounds of a scuffle occurring, and two heavy thumps when the sisters scramble out of the treehouse, Nayeon in the lead, and Chaeyoung in hot pursuit. Mina shakes her head fondly, assuming that that’s the last she’ll hear from either of them today—that is, until Nayeon’s head pops up from behind the fence and she nearly has a heart attack.
“So….my question was left unanswered,” Nayeon raises her eyebrows.
“I do recall saying “I will neither confirm nor deny that statement”,” Mina raises her eyebrows back.
Nayeon squints. Mina does the same.
Realising that she won’t be getting an answer anytime soon, Nayeon gives up, “oh fine. You win. For today though, just for today.”
“Well Im Nayeon, looks like you underestimate my ability to keep my silence.”
Keep her silence? Nayeon begins to panic, “wait wait wait, “keep your silence”?? are you going to ignore me? Please don’t ignore me, talking to you and hearing your voice is basically the highlight of my day please don’t do this how am I supposed to live without seeing your smile please Mina I’m begging you—”
“Okay you’re going to have to calm down just a tiny little bit Nayeon-unnie.”
Nayeon stares at her in horror, “did I just say that out loud?”
Mina stifles a laugh, “maybe. Yes.”
The look of horror on Nayeon’s face worsens tenfold; her world crumbles around her. Mina’s gentle smile turns into a frown of confusion when Nayeon suddenly disappears and all she can hear are her rapidly disappearing footsteps. Suddenly the flowers in her garden look a lot less pretty.

Nayeon returns to watching Mina from behind the treehouse walls, but Mina doesn’t come out. In fact, she doesn’t come out for a few days, and Nayeon begins to grow concerned, because her flowers are slowly drooping, and that can’t be a good sign. After four days, she can’t take it anymore. Dragging their hose as far out as it can go, she pulls it over the fence and begins watering the plants. When she finishes, she’s tired and her arms are sore from holding the hose up, and Mina still hasn’t appeared. She realises that Mina’s garden is a lot less pretty without Mina in it.

A week passes, and Mina’s plants stop drooping, thanks to Nayeon’s diligent watering. But Mina still hasn’t come out and Nayeon’s concern increases, and she decides to face her fears and manages to force herself to Mina’s front door. Swallowing the lump in , she presses the doorbell. An agonising few seconds later, the door opens and she is faced with Mina’s widened eyes and the door slamming shut. Nayeon’s mouth opens and shuts, and she doesn’t know whether or not to ring the doorbell again, or if she should just leave. Thankfully, the door opens again, and Mina looks a lot less terrified.
“Hi..Nayeon-unnie,” she says timidly.
Suddenly, it’s very awkward, “hey Mina.”
A silence falls over them and Nayeon begins to squirm, she can’t take it anymore.
She clears , “have you..have you been avoiding me?”
Mina doesn’t answer, and turns a shade of red.
Nayeon begins to feel even more nervous than before, “I—I watered your plants for you; they were starting to die.”
Mina looks up at her, “thanks.”
The softness of her voice makes Nayeon’s heart skip a beat and she realises that it’s stupid, how her head’s been denying everything her heart tells it.
“I miss you,” Nayeon looks away, “I missed you everyday I didn’t see you.”
She hears Mina inhale sharply, and looks up at her. She finds the same longing that she feels flowing through her veins in Mina’s eyes and she realises that Chaeyoung was right; they really were stupid. How humiliating.