“Bomi-ssi, you should just stay in and rest.”

“But I want to go to the beach!” Bomi was acting like a child in front of HyeNa, the nurse who had moved with them for a few days.

Chorong entered the room, a frown of worry dominating her features. But Bomi was too exalted to notice.

“What's going on here?” Chorong asked the two girls. HyeNa wasn't much older than they were, maybe a year older than the leader, so it was easy and comfortable to spend time with her, even though they weren't into informal speech just yet.

“I want to go swimming but she won't let me!” Bomi pouted, to what Chorong just shrugged and smiled while shaking her head.

“I agree with HyeNa-ssi,” the older girl said, and the mentioned girl nodded. “You must rest. That's the only thing you can do for now, lay on the couch like everyone else wants to be doing.”

Bomi pouted a little more, but her soft aegyo would not convince her girlfriend.

“Okay,” she surrendered after a few instants, “then can we go to the cinema? I want to watch a movie that just came out today.”

Chorong hesitated, but HyeNa was the one who talked first this time.

“I think you could...” When Chorong looked at her with a questioning stare she just shrugged. “It's not a dangerous activity, and she'll be sitting down the whole time.”

Chorong accepted when she saw Bomi's eyes light up. That brightness was worth everything.

“Okay, then it's decided,” Bomi said in excitement, “we'll go there right after lunch.”

The nurse excused herself for a couple of hours, mentioning some personal business, and promised she'd be back to drive them to the movies. It was her hometown, after all, so she was the one with the most knowledge about the zone.

“We have the house for ourselves!” Bomi raised her arms in excitement when HyeNa left.

“Yeah, Bomi-ah.” Chorong smiled when she saw her happy girlfriend. “Let me make us some lunch. What would you want?”

∼

“Something is wrong,” Namjoo whispered, looked around in suspicion. “They loved each other right just yesterday.”

“Shhh!” Hayoung motioned for silence when their manager entered the room.

He looked around, seeing all the members sitting around comfortably around the couch. Well, not all...

“Where's Eunji-ah?” Naeun wouldn't even look at him, so it was Namjoo who answered. Eunji had been locked up in her room since she arrived home last night, and no one had seen her since then, even though they had been talking about her with Naeun non-stop.

“Just let her be,” Hayoung said, a slight glint of anger in her factions.

The manager thought about it, and then decided to go speak to her later. He knew what was probably wrong with her; it was his fault after all.

“Okay then.” He paused. “You'll be meeting the president in an hour. I really hope you know what you're going to say. You know we all care about Bomi-ah, but this sudden... turn of events has harmed us all.”

“Don't you dare be mentioning the company's outcome when Bomi-unnie is dying,” Hayoung blurted.

Namjoo and Naeun looked at her in surprise, but the latter smiled shortly after hearing it. If only Bomi knew how protective their maknae was of her... She'd be so proud. Hayoung had grown up and was now almost a woman, fighting for whatever she found necessary.

“I'm not...” The manager hesitated. “It's not my responsibility to care about money. I'm just here taking care of you all and protecting you from scandals. And look how this ended up.”

He moved his hand as in covering the whole situation.

“This is not a scandal.” Now it was Namjoo speaking. “It's her health we are talking about.”

“She wasn't brave enough to tell us and now look at her.” Namjoo opened her eyes wide when she heard the answer.

“She hid it from all of us, not only you guys. If Bomi-unnie thought that was best for us, or her, that's her decision. She was in so much pain... she chose not to make us suffer as well.”

“We've gotten ourselves some bold maknaes...” He managed a sad smile.

“Oppa. Stop it.” Eunji walked in, her hair and clothes a complete mess. She was obviously wearing the remains of last night's makeup, her hair disheveled and huge bags under her eyes. She looked horrible.

“Unnie!” Hayoung was the one who exclaimed. “Unnie, you look awful.”

No matter how mad she was at Eunji, that was her unnie after all and she cared. Of course she did. But that wouldn't stop her from yelling at her when necessary.

“Bomi-ah's done nothing wrong,” Eunji continued, her gaze focused on the manager and her voice cold. “And we've already decided that we'll disband the group if necessary. We will fight for her. She's not only another member, she's our sister and we'll never abandon her.”

The other members nodded in agreement, Naeun's eyes clouded with tears but she showed a smile on her face.

“I see,” the manager nodded, staring at the ground. “Okay, let's go talk to the president.”

The girls stood up, following the manager outside.

“I'm sorry, oppa, if I was harsh,” Eunji apologized softly. “I'm not in my greatest mood today.”

“It's alright, Eunji-ah. We'll talk later.”

They were leaving the room when Hayoung stopped Eunji, pulling her so the others couldn't hear.

“I don't know what's wrong with you or what reasons you have to treat Naeun-unnie like this but I know you enough to know something's wrong, and I hope you're talking it through with someone, unnie.”

Eunji looked surprised at Hayoung's intervention, so she just stood still and let the maknae finish.

“We are all here for you, unnie. Naeun the most. But we don't need more issues at the moment.”

∼

“What kind of popcorn?”

Chorong and Bomi were standing in line, waiting to buy popcorn and theirs drinks for the movie. HyeNa had left them at the door, asking them to buy the three tickets while she parked the car.

“Don't you know me?” Bomi winked at Chorong with a wide smile.
Chorong lowered her head while thinking, her smile huge because of the brightness in Bomi's eyes. Every second that she saw Bomi happy lately made her heart leap in joy.

“Can we please have some sweet-and-salty popcorn?” That got an even bigger smile from Bomi. “See? I knew it.”

“Of course you do, unnie. Just like I know you dislike popcorn and you’re only buying them for me.” Bomi smiled and bought a tub of cherry-flavored ice cream for the older girl. “And I know you want this. Obvious. We've been together for years.”

“Even though we haven't been to the cinema much,” Chorong answered, and thanked her girlfriend for the ice cream.

Bomi put her arm behind the older girl's shoulders, bringing her into an embrace.

“It's time to change that, don't you think?”

Chorong opened as in wanting to say something, but she must have thought it twice because she didn't speak. But Bomi did notice it.

“What?”

Chorong shook her head, but Bomi insisted.

“I was going to suggest a very cliché and corny thing to do.”

“Which is...?”

“You should write a list of everything you want to do. By yourself. With the members. And...”

“And with you,” Bomi cut her girlfriend, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah.” Chorong bit her lip in shyness.

The leader hadn't known whether Bomi would become upset or not after hearing it; she was talking about the time Bomi had left, after all, and it wasn't a nice reminder.

Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of HyeNa, who grabbed the food and their drinks and led the way. They entered the already dark room in silence, and looked for their assigned seats in the dark. Bomi tried to avoid the young nurse, sitting at Chorong's left while HyeNa ended up on the leader's right. Chorong raised an eyebrow at Bomi, seeing exactly what had happened, but the younger girl just shrugged like she didn't know what her girlfriend was talking about.

The movie started, and the three girls remained silent. Chorong grabbed the ice cream to start eating, and she grabbed the popcorn from a careless Bomi and offered it to HyeNa, who gently refused. Then Chorong felt Bomi's breath on her ear when the younger girl came closer.

“I have it all written already.” And Chorong knew exactly what her girlfriend was talking about.