Mina was lying on her bed and going through her gallery. She laughed at the candid photos she's secretly taken of Nayeon. The photos are neatly organized in one folder so she could delete them all at once if someone insisted on borrowing her phone. It was all saved in a hidden folder on her computer for future use. Her phone started ringing and she sat up before answering it. "Nayeon? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. Why would you think that?"

"Oh. Well, you've never really called me before so I thought something was up." Mina hugged her knees as she listened to Nayeon's voice on the other line.

"I must've chickened out every time I tell myself to call you." Nayeon laughed. The laugh that Mina kept thinking sounds like someone is summoning the devil. "Could you get ready in, say, twenty minutes?"

"Ready for what?"

"I've thought about the perfect date but we need to go now."

"Now? But it's already late."

"It's only 8 in the evening, grandma. I know you stay up later just to play." Mina was going to protest but Nayeon was already instructing her what to wear. "Wear something warm and something that would keep the bugs away."

Mina leaned on her headboard. "Where are you taking me? If you don't tell me then I refuse to leave my bed."

"I will drag you out of your bed if you're not here in twenty minutes." The line went dead.

Mina scoffed, quickly changing her clothes and sending a text to her older sister telling her that she would be going out. She saw a car parked in front of their house and she approached it. She opened the door and inside was a grinning Nayeon. "Did you really try to bully me into going out on a date with you?"

"I'm sorry. Old habits die hard."

Mina crossed her arms across her chest. "Can't you just tell me where we're going?"

"It'll ruin the surprise. Everyone knows the surprise factor is included in the criteria."

"What criteria?!"

"Driver, let's go!"

Nayeon became uncharacteristically quiet after that. The silence gave Mina a chance to look at Nayeon a little more closer. The Nayeon that everyone knew would walk around the school being a menace to her fellow students but the Nayeon Mina knows liked holding her hands and leaning her head on Mina's shoulder. The Nayeon everyone knew have two people in her posse and together the three of them bully other students but the Nayeon Mina knows have two best friends who will have her back when she's in trouble. Even though Nayeon has stopped getting students' lunch and their money, she still had that reputation but Mina knew better.

Nayeon was staring at something on her phone and Mina could not help but admire her facial features. Don't get her wrong. She liked it when Nayeon smiled but when she was looking down like she was at that very moment, to Mina it was perfect. She fished her phone out of her pocket and was about to unlock it to take a photo of Nayeon when the car went over a ditch and Mina dropped her phone.

Nayeon was quick to get it for her. She was about to give it to Mina but she frowned when she saw the lock screen. "I'm not your wallpaper?"

The dejected-looking Nayeon was so funny to Mina and she giggled which made Nayeon frown even more. "Do you have to be my wallpaper?"

Nayeon did not answer. Instead, she showed her phone to Mina. The lock screen wallpaper was a photo of her that Nayeon must've taken after they've visited Nayeon's dad. Nayeon unlocked her phone and the wallpaper was another photo of Mina where she was drinking bubble tea.

Mina decided to lie. "Well, I don't have a picture of you, that's why." Minutes ago she was just staring at her camera roll that was full of Nayeon's face.

"Now's your chance." Nayeon smiled and put up a peace sign as she waited for Mina to snap a photo but the latter only stared at her. She pouted and Mina deemed it to be the right time to take that photo.

Mina immediately set it as her wallpaper and showed it to Nayeon. "Why do you hate me so much?"

"You look adorable."

Mina was smiling from ear to ear when she heard a shutter went off. Nayeon laughed when Mina tried to glare threateningly at her. "I won't delete it. You can't make me."

The car has finally stopped and the driver told them that they've arrived at their destination. Nayeon told Mina to wait for her and got out of the car first. She walked to the other side and opened the door for Mina. "It rained a bit earlier so it's a little muddy here." She held out her hand and Mina grabbed it.

"Where are we?" Mina looked around and the first thing she saw when she got out was a pond. "Are we going to go fishing at this hour?"

Nayeon pulled her closer and tipped her head up with her finger. "You better look up."

Mina's mouth gaped when saw the sky full of stars. It looked like an art project of a 5 year old that involved bottles of glitters. She looked in amazement as the stars illuminated the sky while Nayeon looked at her in admiration. "It's beautiful."

"Come on. We have all night to look at it." Nayeon led Mina to where their tent was. "We're in Juwangsan National Park, by the way. You should probably tell your sister since we'd be staying here all night. I don't want her getting worried and calling the cops on me."

When Mina saw the tent, her jaw had once again fallen on the floor. "You set this tent up?"

Nayeon chuckled as she pulled Mina and made her sit on a chair that was just outside the tent. "Do I look like the camping type? I looked at the manual once and decided that I'd rather sleep on the mud. The guards did it. They are pretty useful these days." She brought out a bottle of mosquito repellent. "Hands."

Mina held her arms up so Nayeon could apply the mosquito repellent on her. She watched as Nayeon carefully rubbed it on her hands, forearms and her exposed arm.

"Done. Could you apply this on your face?"

"Let me see." Mina grabbed it from Nayeon's hand and squeezed a handful. "It says here..." As she was expecting, Nayeon came closer to read what Mina was supposedly reading and Mina took that chance to put the mosquito repellent on Nayeon's face. "Does your face feel a burning sensation? Is it numb or itchy?"

"And I'm the bully." She wiped the excess mosquito repellent from her face and wiped it on Mina's before kissing the latter's forehead. "Stay put while I cook us dinner."

"I've already had dinner," Mina said.

Nayeon checked her watch. "It's only 9pm. Which nursing home did you come from?"

"6pm is a nomal time to eat dinner."

"Yeah if you're 80 years old and needs to sleep at 7pm." Nayeon took out a pot and two packets of ramyeon.

"What time do you guys eat dinner?"

"When I eat by myself, I eat at around 11 but when I eat with the guards, about an hour earlier." While she was talking, she noticed something that should not have been there and she cussed the guard who owned a mace in her head. "Yesterday I ate really early because Tzuyu kept complaining she was hungry." She carefully picked the item up and tried hard to hide it from Mina's line of sight.

"That cannot be healthy. You sh-- Im Nayeon, is that a half empty bottle of soju in your hand?"

Nayeon immediately hid the bottle behind her back. "That's just a bottle of...that is not mine." The look on Mina's face showed that she was not buying it do Nayeon chose to be honest. "There's an explantion for this. We all needed a shot."

"Where's the explanation?"

"Okay, I don't know about theirs but I'm not sure about this being the perfect date. I didn't even know if you were going to like it and I was nervous. If you didn't like this then I'm going to have to go with the second option and we'd have to sneak in a library and have our romantic candlelit dinner date there. So do you see now why I needed that shot?" Mina was feeling playful and shook her head. "Because I'm nervous that our first date as a couple would and I really want it to not ."

"Well, you've got lady luck on your side as you could tell by how I reacted earlier but that's still considered as underage drinking and alcohol is bad for your liver. Y--" Mina still had a lot to say but Nayeon was staring at her with a grin on her face and she thought Nayeon wasn't taking what she was saying seriously. "Are you laughing at me right now?"

Nayeon tried to keep a straight face but it only made her burst out laughing. "I'm not."

"I am so close to getting that bottle from you and shoving it up--"

"I wasn't laughing at you. I just...you were just really cute looking like a very concerned mom." Mina wasn't looking very amused. "A very hot concerned mom who only has one kid so far."

"Go cook your dinner."

It was another round of banter when Nayeon asked Mina if she wasn't going to eat with her. Mina insisted that she wasn't hungry but sulky Nayeon was hard to resist and exceptionally annoying. Almost like a cab driver who feels obligated to have a chit-chat with his sleepy passenger.

Mina watched Nayeon struggle just opening the packet of ramyeon. She even saw her sending what seemed to be a distress call to the guards who were peacefully resting in the car and she wondered how Nayeon has managed to live that long. "Do you need any help?"

"Nope." After a few more minutes of trying to figure things out, Nayeon was finally able to start cooking the ramyeon but by the time she's done so, she was sweating and looked like she just ran half a marathon. "I'm just going to lie down for a bit." She took her shoes off and went inside the tent. Mina followed her shortly after.

Mina sat herself down near Nayeon's head and gently lifted it up to rest in on her lap. Nayeon who had her eyes closed mumbled, "Why are you suddenly being affectionate?"

"To say thank you."

Nayeon opened her eyes. "For what?"

Mina ran her hands through Nayeon's hair . "For doing a good job so far in making me believe that I could trust other people again." She leaned down and planted a kiss on Nayeon's forehead.

"I suddenly don't want to eat and just stay like this."

"No. Get up. You worked really hard on that ramyeon. Honestly, what kind of idiot takes that much time to make instant food?"

Nayeon sat up and stared blankly at Mina. "I miss the affectionate Mina already."

"Too bad she just comes and goes." Mina stood up and pulled Nayeon with her.

The ramyeon, much to Mina's surprise, didn't taste so bad but because she's already eaten dinner, Nayeon was forced to eat her half.

"Do you know anything about stars?" The two of them were now lying down inside the tent. Nayeon has removed a part of the tent so they could look up and see the star-filled sky.

Mina hummed. "Stars, constellations, what they look like, stuff like that. I didn't have much friends and I wasn't allowed to even go to sleepovers so when I was a kid, I would secretly get my sleeping bag and go to my balcony to look at the stars and I kept wishing I had someone, a friend, to look at them with me."

Nayeon turned her head to look at her and her hand automatically found its way to Mina's. She was thinking she could've climbed up at that balcony every night just to look at the stars with Mina. She wouldn't have cared if her room was on the top floor of a high-rise building.

"You're a Virgo, right? It's right over there." Mina pointed out. "It looks like it has arms and legs. Do you see it?"

"No. There's like a billion stars. How could you even be sure?"

Mina just giggled and pointed another constellation. "I'm Aries and it's right there. Mine looks like the line graph of a song that's being stramed online. People stream it on its first week, mostly fans, and then it declines because people got tired of it eventually."

"Wait, why is mine so far away from yours?"

"What do you expect? I was born in March and you were born in September."

Nayeon scowled. "I wish I could move them closer."

Mina enjoyed looking at the stars so much and telling stories to Nayeon about the names of the constellations tat she failed to notice that the latter was already having a hard time trying to stay awake. She only noticed when Nayeon started talking in her sleep.

"At least I'm smarter than Jihyo." Mina turned her head to look at her. "I love Pretty Myoui a lot." It made Mina blush. It's been a while since Nayeon referred to her as "Pretty Myoui" even though her friends haven't stopped calling her that.

Mina sat up and moved closer to Nayeon. She lied down facing Nayeon. She meant what she said to Nayeon earlier about trusting people. Nayeon was making it easier for her to open up more and she really appreciated that. Before she met Nayeon it was just a series of asking herself if she should share something to someone and deciding not to. Now, it just felt natural for her to share something trivial or maybe something more intimate especially with Nayeon.

She tucked Nayeon's stray strand of hair behind her ear before she closed her eyes and drifted away to dreamland.

---

Nayeon woke up before Mina did and she was about to get up to wash her face but Mina's arm around her waist was stopping her from doing so. She smiled and rubbed Mina's forearm. She wasn't sure if this was the perfect date for Mina but she did remember her excited and gleeful voice as she talked about some girl named Andromeda and what the largest star in the constellation of Leo is before she dozed off. It might not have been perfect but she was guessing Mina had fun.

Nayeon had fun, too. She got to lie dowb under the stars with Mina and now Mina was hugging her in her sleep.

It wasn't long before Mina woke up, panicked. "What time is it?"

"Relax. It's a Saturday morning. I wouldn't have asked you out if it was a school day the next day."

Mina pinched the bridge of her nose. "We have dance practice today. It does not look like it's 5am from what I can tell by looking outside. Sana is going to be livid."

"We're going to be livid." Mina creased her brows and looked at Nayeon. "Livid as in dark purplish in color." She grinned. "I'm putting that dictionary in good use."

____

the two meanings of livid

-very angry

-dark purplish

thank you for the get well soon's. unfortunately the condition is chronic but i do feel better than i did weeks ago