There were only three times in Minatozaki Sana’s life when she’d felt completely and utterly powerless. 

The time in her early childhood when she’d been out playing in the rain and stood several meters away from a lightning strike (which ended up hitting a nearby tree, and her five-year old self could only watch, stunned, as it burst into a fizzing ball of fire, smoke and vapor); the time when her best friend Myoui Mina, who was fourteen years old back then, had fainted in the middle of class and had to be brought to the hospital. (She, their other best friend Hirai Momo, and Sana had only been living in South Korea for three months when it happened, and while the situation became a lot harder than it should have because the girls could hardly speak any Korean back then, Sana swore she would go through it all over again in a heartbeat.)

And then, five years later, the time when the world suddenly stopped in its tracks, just as she saw Im Nayeon a few seconds away from getting run over by a car trying to beat the red light while she was crossing a busy street.

“Nayeon!” she heard herself yell out as loud as she could from behind the other girl right then. “Nayeon, look out!”

Waves of dread and despair crashed against her as her body sprung to action, chasing after Nayeon even when a part of her knew she was too far away and would never be able to reach her in time. 

“No—NO!” a desperate, strangled scream ripped out of as her arm stretched out in vain, fingers frantically grabbing at air, not even close enough to save the other girl who finally turned her head to the side and saw, much too late, the vehicle speeding towards her.

And then, at the very last possible second, as if the universe had actually listened to Sana’s cry, the car—and everything else around her—came to a sudden, abrupt halt.

For the first few seconds she stood on the sidewalk in shock, blinking hard several times and even giving her arm a hard pinch to see if the stillness of everything around her was part of a twisted dream she would wake up from soon enough. 

Then her eyes went to Nayeon’s wide, frozen ones staring at the headlights of the vehicle that had stopped less than an inch away, and Sana immediately broke into a run once more, weaving through a static, unmoving crowd—her body fueled by white-hot surges of adrenaline, her mind wiped empty of any other thoughts except for the need to reach the other girl and get her as far away from imminent death as she possibly could.

Thinking fast, Sana lifted Nayeon up with one arm under the other’s knees and another on the small of her back as soon as she reached her, crossing the street as quickly as she could with the added weight. No sooner had she stepped on to the other end did her senses get flooded by the world going back into motion, the sounds of traffic buzzing in her ears, and the sharp wind brought about by the speeding black car that had very nearly collided with Nayeon hitting her back.

She could feel several pairs of questioning eyes on her, the passerby wondering why on earth she was holding another girl the way she was that night, but all she could hear was Nayeon softly calling her name, and all she could care about was the tight grip of hands on the front of her shirt as she took deep, heavy breaths to steady her still-pounding heart.

“Nayeon unnie,” Sana muttered under her breath, holding Nayeon close, trying to hide the trembling in her voice, “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

The girl still in her arms let out a broken whisper into the crook of her neck. “Sana, h-how did you—I saw the car—I was s-supposed to get hit—”

“Wh-What are you talking about? I just—just managed to get to you in time, that’s all,” Sana said, deciding to lie, not wanting to make Nayeon’s bewildered state any worse. “You don't think I’d ever let you get hurt, do you?” she added lightly, just enough to play it off as a joking remark, even though they both knew that there was truth in every word.

“Sana… You should’ve…” The rest of Nayeon’s words came out muted, not audible enough for the other girl to hear over the noises around them. Sana felt the girl’s hands clenching into fists as her hold tightened on her shirt even more.

“What did you say, unnie?” 

She watched as Nayeon pulled back, just enough for her to see a mix of pain and resentment in a pair of eyes belonging to a girl who didn’t want to be saved, unshed tears swimming just above their rims.

“You should’ve left me there to die.”

 -----

Besides the story of Sana almost getting struck by a bolt of lightning when she was much younger, her life was relatively uneventful until she met Im Nayeon.

Even then, there wasn’t anything special about the first time Sana heard her name, not really. The Japanese student was much too absorbed in her goals to both do well in class and make new friends, to even notice Nayeon entering the room that day.

The rest of the students around her didn’t share her obliviousness, however, as a flurry of not-so-subtle whispers that filled the lecture hall finally made Sana look up from the seat she’d earlier claimed as her own.

“Yah! Isn’t that Im Nayeon?”

“She’s enrolled in this university? How did I not know this?”

“The Im Nayeon? Really?”

“Don’t bother up, it’ll never work on her.”

“I wouldn’t want to, anyway! I heard she doesn’t have friends because her personality is so bad.”

“She thinks everyone is beneath her just because she comes from a family of chaebols.”

“This is so unfair. We have to work our asses off to pass all our subjects, while she’ll probably just bribe her way through graduation.”

Sana felt her stomach churn, the urge to socialize becoming less and less appealing to her right then as she mentally translated the words she’d caught from all the commotion. Even though she'd never actually met the subject of the rumors, she felt bad for whoever this Im Nayeon was, her reputation already being stained before she could even finish her first day as a college freshman.

If someone from a rich, powerful family was being gossiped about this much, who was to say that Sana, a foreigner who still had trouble picking up most of the cultural nuances in this country, would be spared herself?

But then her eyes drifted to meet Nayeon’s and, completely forgetting about feeling bad, she felt something else entirely—a “something else” that rendered her slack-jawed and blew away any air she’d gathered in her lungs, not to mention any coherent thoughts she’d been forming in her head. A “something else” that reminded her of a slowly blooming tsubaki flower in the springtime back home in Osaka—except the season right then was way past spring, and she could swear the blooming was happening somewhere inside of her instead.

A “something else” that whispered words along the lines of “How is it possible for someone to be that beautiful?”

“It can’t be helped. Some people are just born with it,” a low, slightly haughty voice interrupted her thoughts, making Sana whip her head to come face to face with the subject of the whispers herself. How long had she spaced out that she didn’t even notice the girl she’d locked eyes with taking the empty seat beside hers? 

And did she really say that last thought out loud?

Attempting to get back her bearings, Sana straightened and broke out her friendliest smile. “Hello sunbaenim! Um,” she paused, her cheeks coloring with a pink tinge of embarrassment that she knew was out of character for her, “Please don’t mind whatever I said earlier. It's a bad habit.”

“Really?” the other girl said dryly, regarding Sana with what looked like a scrutinizing gaze that made the latter feel small, complete with slightly narrowed eyes and a deep frown. And then, after a handful of seconds that, for a nervous Sana, seemed to stretch much longer than they should have, a pair of front teeth poked out from between Im Nayeon’s lips as they stretched into an amused smile. “What's the bad habit, though? Thinking out loud, or calling everyone you meet beautiful?”

Sana fell back on to her seat without answering, all too relieved to know that the girl sitting beside her right then wasn't about to give her hell for her verbal slip, at least. 

“I’m Im Nayeon, by the way,” she said, her face scrunching up into what Sana thought right then was the cutest little grimace before adding, “But I guess you already know that because people don't seem to know what whispering means. You don’t, um, mind if I sit here, do you?”

“Oh, of course not, sunbaenim!” Sana answered with as much of a bow as she could while being seated. 

Nayeon looked at her questioningly. “Okay, relax, what’s with the ‘sunbaenim’? Aren’t you a first-year, too?”

“Not exactly—”

A chorus of students’ obviously startled greetings cut the other girl short as their professor made his way into the lecture hall. “Good morning, gyosunim!” 

“Minatozaki?” The instructor, a tall man who looked like he was in his early forties, with dainty-looking hands, called out, not bothering to acknowledge the other students. “Do we have a Minatozaki Sana in this class?”

Albeit puzzled, Sana raised her hand immediately, not wanting to seem inattentive. “Yes, gyosunim!”

She received a hum in response before the instructor spoke again. “Excellent. I’d like to congratulate you on your early admission to our university. I hope you learn as much as you can during your stay here, Minatozaki-haksaeng.”

Sana could feel all the eyes that had previously been on Nayeon, including Nayeon’s herself, burning a hole through her head right then. While she was never particularly bothered with getting attention, she was certainly not expecting to draw all of it on her this early. 

Feeling the need to explain her situation, as well as starting to find the deafening silence eating away at the room more than a little uncomfortable, she took a deep breath and stood up, making sure to bow to the professor first before facing the students’ general direction. “Thank you, gyosunim. Um, I’m Minatozaki Sana,” she started, pulling her lips into a polite smile. “I’m in my last year of high school at Seoul International School, but I’m taking a few classes here this semester because I was recommended for early admission. I'm very thankful for the opportunity.” She mustered as bright of an expression as she could despite the frantic throbbing of her heart in her chest. “I look forward to working well with all of you, sunbaenims, gyosunim. Please take care of me.”

No sooner had she taken her seat did the whispers return, this time even louder and a lot less subtle than before. 

“Minatozaki? Is she a foreigner?”

“Early admission? Wow, that girl must be really smart!”

“She doesn’t look like the smart type though. She’s too pretty!”

“Shut up, nerds these days clean up really nicely, you know?”

“You shut up, I never said she was a nerd!”

“Alright, settle down, let’s begin.”

Sana ran a slightly nervous hand through her then shoulder-length, dark brown hair, keeping her head low and replaying her words in her mind, a habit she’d developed after years of scolding—mostly by her high school teachers—for unknowingly committing handfuls of minor verbal faux pas time and again. 

She’d almost forgotten that Nayeon was sitting beside her, until a distinct, barely-held-back snicker broke through her thoughts. A little offended, she wanted to ask the girl which part of Sana's introduction she found so funny, but as she turned to her side, she saw anything but malice on the older girl’s face. (She was becoming a little red in the face from trying to hold her laughter down, though.)

“S-Sorry, I’m not—It's not you or anything like that,” Nayeon clarified a whole minute later, after finally stifling her laughs enough to speak. “It’s just, these people will talk about anything, won’t they?”

Sana knew she was supposed to start listening when the professor began talking about the subject’s course outline, but she was actually worried that the girl beside her might run out of air and choke sooner or later if she didn’t humor her at least a little bit. That, oh, and there was that weird sensation that she’d earlier labeled as “something else” beginning to engulf