pairing: Jihyo x Mina

summary: If you travel far enough, you meet yourself.

raiting: M (mild y times)

Ocho Rios, Jamaica

People at the beach begun gathering their things: towels, water bottles and runaway slippers trying to hide in the sand. Sun on the horizon was waving for the last time and as it began to fade, it became more tender – previous extreme heat dropped to an affectionate warmth. Another day would soon be over.

Mina was still standing in the water, watching the sun go down. She was wearing a black swimsuit that would have been slightly plain on anybody else, but against the fading yellows and reds of the sky, she looked just as beautiful as her surroundings.

A part of Jihyo would have wanted to join the young woman on the waterline, but another, wiser part wanted to keep watching and not break the moment too soon. Mina had always been an elusive one and the way she existed on her own had always been the most intriguing thing about her. There was nothing that needed adding as she was already whole.

Breaking from her thoughts, Jihyo began to collect her things from the sand. The air was already filled with a small buzzing of little insects and a strange sort of humming. It was as if the smallest bushes of greenery by the pool and near the beach were jungles in themselves, full of life waiting for darkness. It was so different to the mechanic and irregular hum of the great city back at home. Here the concert of life flowed in and out like the waves on the shore.

Finally, she straightened her back and stood in her full length in the dusk. Giving one last look to the waterline, she hoped she could bring back the earlier image as her mind graved for a distraction. But no matter how much she wanted, the beach in front of her remained empty.

Mina was not there.

-

Toronto, Canada

Jihyo stirred in the dark, at first unsure where she was. Muted, angry voices could be heard coming from behind her head and when she realized what it was all about, she groaned and turned to her side. She picked up her phone from the space next to her pillow and winced as the bright light flashed on her face.

5:04 am.

The noise behind the wall grew even louder and she could almost make out words. If the couple had used Korean she could have understood, but their rapid-fire English was too much for her early morning, slug of a brain. For once, she was happy about it. She couldn't think of anything more tedious than to listen to a fighting couple. Such fights never made much sense to an outsider. So much anger about small, ridiculous things that were only masking bigger hurts and problems.

It's good to be single, she thought and almost believed it.

As the yelling showed no sign of slowing down, she pushed away any hope of sleeping again and began going through new e-mails and messages. Most of them were mass e-mails from the company, meant for managers and idols alike. What to expect next, new projects coming up in six months from now and other things that did not interest her that much. One e-mail was a work offer for a new variety show, but she didn't give it a much thought.

However, she did give her full attention to a message she had received from Tzuyu.

Unnie, I haven't gotten any cards yet! Hurry up!

Despite her grey - bordering on blue - mood, she smiled because it was so like Tzuyu. It was the maknae's way of saying she missed her. As she kept on thinking of the girl, she began to miss her so intensely that tears nearly reached the corners of her eyes. She closed the phone and decided not to answer.

If she was honest with herself, she was tired of being available all the time. Available to her groupmates, her company, her fans, her family... It was not that she didn't like being there for everyone, but sometimes she wished someone would have reached out to her in return, with the sole purpose of making sure she was okay.

But she was okay, was she not?

She noticed that the noise in the next hotel room had died down. As much as she had wanted the fight to end, the newborn silence felt suffocating. What if the fight had ended badly, what if the other person had been hurt and was now bleeding in the bathroom and nobody was there to help them because...

Her thoughts rambled on, leaving her to take a backseat and watch them drive her closer and closer to a cliff, but never quite over it. By the time, she began to fall asleep again (despite being sure that she wouldn't) her thoughts had already gone somewhere else.

...what if I don't want to go back?

-

Tromsø, Norway

"Seriously, Jihyo. You've been gone for almost two months," Nayeon said, her voice sounding slightly distorted on the phone.

The phone call had started nice enough, with Nayeon telling her about everything that had happened since the last time they had spoken. She learned about Nayeon's latest drama filming, heard the juiciest bits about her members’ love lives and what the managers were planning for their next comeback. She tried to ignore the fact that the last-mentioned bit of information made her stomach do small, clumsy somersaults.

However, as soon as Nayeon had begun to ask questions about how she was doing, things got tricky.

"I told you I wouldn't be coming home anytime soon," she said defensively. It probably sounded as irritated to Nayeon's ears as it did to her own.

What was the point trying to tell Nayeon that she wanted to see more places? It wouldn't be a world tour (that’s how she had titled it in her head) without going to at least one country in every continent and so far she had only been to a few. If she didn't use this long break in the group’s schedule she might never get another chance in who knows how long and then she might not want to go again.

Nayeon sighed, clearly swallowing the first words that came to her mind.

"It just feels weird without you here. I mean, of course we can handle ourselves and our schedules. Dahyun can get out of the bed in time now and Mina knows how to make her voi-"

"I miss you, too, unnie," she cut in quickly. "But I need this, okay? There are some things I need to figure out on my own."

The silence on the other end of the line spoke of hesitant encouragement and Jihyo could feel her grip on the phone relax a little. Nayeon did do her best to understand her, even if it wasn't always easy.

"Alright, just don't let the polar bears get you."

"I've only seen reindeer here," she said warmly and as they said their goodbyes she felt happy that Nayeon had called. It had been good to hear her voice.

After a warm meal at a small restaurant, in a corner of the town, she walked outside and was greeted by a strong wind. A fishing ship was braving the weather and moving on the fjord. It was already too dark to see the mountains on the other side of the water, but she knew that their white peaks would be watching everything and everybody like ancient giants too tired to move from their resting places.

It was a hauntingly beautiful place with a heavy undertone that soothed her aching heart just enough.

As she began walking on an icy pavement, she let her mind get distracted by thoughts of Mina. At least, until she would get back to her hotel.

Wasn’t it funny, how no matter how much sightseeing and traveling she did, she would always end up in hotel rooms at the end of the day that looked exactly the same?

-

Milan, Italy

She was bordering on losing control as the woman slipped a hand under her shirt. She had watched those hands earlier in the bar, when the woman had approached her like a creation of her own mind. She was tall, flirty and so graceful that it seemed almost unnatural.

"You're beautiful," the woman breathed in to her ear with a heavily accented English that sounded like spicy liquor. She knew that any words the stranger would choose to say would sound better than anything she had ever heard before.

Just for the sake of her own safety, Jihyo captured the woman's red lips with her own, so that she wouldn't keep talking. She was altogether too tired of talking in languages that she could hardly speak or understand. Luckily, almost anyone could understand the language of fingertips on skin.

The woman's hands teased the skin of her lower back and when she felt a knee pushing up to meet the fabric of her underwear she had to give up on kissing. The room was full of breathing, her breathy moans and sharp intakes covering the sound of the woman's small gasps of wonder.

As Jihyo felt the woman nibbling the skin of her collarbone, she wanted to push her away, just so she could change their dynamics. This was not something she was used to and maybe not even something she could get used to. She was being taken and lead by a stunning woman, in a hotel room in Milan, and she wouldn't even make it to the bed before it would all fall apart. The realization of what was happening was almost as sensual as the act itself and as the woman pushed her knee roughly one last time Jihyo came hard...

...with Mina's name on her lips.

Even as the woman was kind enough to sooth her afterwards and not expect anything in return, it couldn't quite take away her feelings of guilt and humiliation. Or stop the tears from falling.

-

Tokyo, Japan

She woke up from a nightmare only ten minutes before her alarm was to go off. Terrified, she jumped out of the bed, rushed to the window and threw the curtains open all the while Mina's laughter rang in her ears. She had loved the sound before, but now she only ever heard the twisted version of it in her dreams.

You have to tell her, she thought and watched as the city far, far below began to light up with life.

Three months ago she had left Korea and her group behind, hell-bent on forgetting and suppressing the emotions that had taken her by surprise. She hadn’t told anyone about what was the biggest motivator in her desperate flight from country to country because she couldn’t quite understand it herself.

But the truth was, no matter how hard she tried to forget her feelings they always came back. Mina was everywhere. She was in on the wings of large moths in Jamaica. She was in the friendly smiles of people in Canada. She was a reflection on sea water in Norway. She was in the fingertips of the woman in Italy. But she was especially here in Japan.

"Travel far enough, you meet yourself," she whispered and felt calm for the first time in ages. She would go back home and she would tell her. Mina would understand and it would be okay. If not right away, then someday.

She walked back to the bed and picked up her phone.

5:58 am.

And as if the universe had already heard about her decision, there was a new message on her phone, from the only member that hadn’t contacted her during the trip.

Minari

Please come back.

A/N: I should've named this as "Jihyo's Gay Panic Tour."