"Tell me where our time went / and if it was time well spent." - pressure, paramore.

-

“Have I ever told you how much I love this place?”

She did not turn to look at Sejeong, the question not new to her ears. She focused on the way her chest moved, rising and falling to the beat of her humanness. After a few seconds of silence, she let her breath escape her lips in one forced, strong motion, watches it turn visible in the cold air.

She had learned from way before that Sejeong would rather hear an indirect answer than an ‘about a million times, yes’. So she replied with a, “It is pretty amazing, isn’t it?”

“You know what I love most about this place?” Sejeong asked, voice much nearer to her ear than earlier.

The view. Sejeong was very vocal about how she found the view to be absolutely stunning. It wasn’t anything special, in Nayoung’s opinion – several other tall buildings stood in the way of the nice rural view beside the city, and the streets below were restless, always full of people and cars speeding their ways around; it stressed Nayoung to no end – but Sejeong was very fond of it.

Nayoung never understood why, but Sejeong was very fond of it.

“What?” she asked back, to humor Sejeong, the same way she did the countless times before that she had asked the same question.

She heard Sejeong scoff, and almost smiled. They were both into not saying what was in their minds, into ridiculing each other by avoiding the truer parts of their lies, and into trying to make themselves believe that the other could never catch on. It was like their little game of endless pretending.

Still, Sejeong answered, “The intimacy.”

A plane flew by, an angry driver honked loudly downstairs, and she felt the space between their fingers against the cold cement vibrate. She blinked, and continued the game she wasn’t ready to end, “I don’t think lying on the cold, dirty floor with furniture that might as well be trash surrounding us is intimate at all.”

“I’m sure some romanticist out there thinks a place like this is intimate.”

“Are you a romanticist then?”

Sejeong shrugged, her shoulder touching Nayoung’s arm very faintly. “I don’t see anything wrong with being one. Besides, this is kinda like our own castle, don't you think? No one can hurt us here. No one can tell us what to do or what to feel, we're just... ourselves. I'ts a beautiful place. Intimate. We're our own rulers here."

She continued staring at the soft blue sky, unable to form words to argue, but too into the game to fully agree. “If you say so.”

“You think you’ll ever bring anyone else here?” Sejeong queried, a sudden shift in the tone of her voice taking place. And even though not an inch of their skins were touching, Nayoung felt her body turn rigid, tense… waiting.

Her eyebrows met as the feeling of lips ghosted against her own, as she felt fingers run across her waist and over her stomach – soft enough that it did not make her laugh, but strong enough to tickle her soul. She bit her lip, weighed her choices, then lied through her teeth, “I don’t know, probably not.”

A small noise escaped Sejeong’s lips, hurt and unbelieving. And Nayoung could feel her own heart constrict, the hair on the back of her neck rising in that way it did whenever she felt guilty of something. She parted her lips, probably to lie and say that it wouldn’t matter anyway – who else they brought here. But that was too much of a lie, she would certainly not like it if Sejeong brought Joonyoung here.

Sejeong sat up before she could lie again, looked down at her face with that quirk on her eyebrows that meant she was trying hard to hide her hurt, the curve on her lips that looked so pretentious it hurt to look at. Then smiled, the fakeness amazingly reaching her eyes.

“Cool,” she replied. And as if it burned to even look at Nayoung, she turned away and stared at the windows of the building next to the one they were at.

It hurt Nayoung when she turned away. She hurt herself by hurting the person she never really wanted to hurt. She knew then that whether in the near or far future, she would hurt remembering the look in Sejeong’s eyes and how the light reflected its watery surface.

It wasn't true that they were their own rulers in this castle on the rooftop. The true rulers were their emotions, and this cruel little game they're playing that neither wants to stop.

-

She still knows that the hurt would never leave. It will continue to haunt her. It was just one simple lie, something she wouldn’t really be sad about if said to her, but something about the way Sejeong looked away, the slightest bit of a frown pulling on her lips as she did so, makes Nayoung’s heart ache up until now.

It’s still on top of the list of regrets she has, hurting Sejeong with that seemingly small lie, thinking that small lie was, well, small, when in fact it hurt Sejeong so much that she didn’t look Nayoung in the eye for almost a month.

Nayoung doesn’t know, really, why it hurt Sejeong so much. There’s this itching feeling at the bottom of her heart telling her things she wouldn’t ever let her brain form into words, but she disregards it as soon as it starts – or at least tries to, the heart is a very stubborn mechanism.

She sighs, the back of her head leaning against the cold hospital wall, eyes staring at the light bulb lighting up the dim hallway. It’s quiet times like this when she remembers every single regret she has, most of them involving Sejeong.

And now a new regret is added. She, a woman who grew up in a household full of shouting and cursing and ignoring the child crying by the side, the one who swore she would never let her own child experience the cruelty, has endangered the child she loved most in that exact way.

She wants nothing more than to run down the hallway to the stairs at the end and throw herself down the said stairs. Her imagination runs wild with these not-so-creative ways to hurt herself. But she stays seated on the hard-as-rock leather couch, trying to entertain herself with her suicidal antics.

It is, after all, her turn to wait for any news about Mina. And she’s determined to do her job responsibly, since it was very hard to convince the others to take a break, especially Sejeong.

She let herself drown in her thoughts again, loving the way she hates the hurtful beating of her heart.

-

Nayoung hated a lot of sounds – Suhyun’s annoying laugh and Heehyun’s rapping, to name a few – but what she hated most is the sound of Sejeong’s hitched breaths as she tried to stop herself from crying. She heard it that night, and despite the fatigue aching her body, she left the couch and entered Sejeong’s room. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Sejeong looked up with bloodshot eyes, cheeks wet with tears. “Nayoung.”

“Yeah?” she asked gently, sitting beside Sejeong on the bed and putting an arm around her, hugging her. “Why are you crying?”

Sejeong didn’t talk. Instead, she handed Nayoung something – something she had seen Chaeyeon show them a year before, during the exact same month, with the exact same bloodshot eyes Sejeong was looking at her with. Intelligent words left and her eyes refused to look up at Sejeong’s but her arms refused to leave Sejeong’s body.

One thought echoed above all the screams of ‘no’ in her head: why.

“Joonyoung’s?”

A head fell on her collarbone and Sejeong nodded against it, smearing the tears on her favorite band shirt. Then, Sejeong spoke with a voice so broken it reminded Nayoung of her own heart, “I’m sorry.”

Sejeong didn’t have a reason to be sorry, really. But Nayoung didn’t realize it then. She was too clouded by her own hurt. But if there was one thing she was good at, it was pretending she was alright. So she sighed, then shrugged. Then she tightened her hold on Sejeong, let her fingers weave through her hair, and hummed words she didn’t really mean like “It’s okay, everything will be okay.”

Sejeong fell asleep in her arms, voice still hitching every few moments, eyebrows furrowing, lips twitching, and grip on Nayoung’s hand growing stronger.

Nayoung’s heart broke every time.

-

Eunwoo offered to beat him up; Suhyun hugged Sejeong; Chaeyeon stared sadly; Haein groaned a ‘not again’; and Im merely pursed her lips together, disappointment lacing her features.

It was Heehyun who asked, “Will he accept his responsibilities?”

Sejeong shrugged, body trapped in Nayoung’s arms shaking along with it, “He will after he gets his doctorate degree. His family really wants him to get one and- and it’s his one dream. His future-”

“What about yours?” Heehyun snapped, eyes fuming in anger. Chaeyeon grabbed her hand but she took it back harshly, pointing it at Sejeong. “What about yours? What about your dreams, and goals, and bucket lists? How many ing years until that boy gets his doctorate degree? He’s not even that smart, Sejeong. God, what about your future? Will that all go down the drain by themselves because of a ing mistake?”

“She isn’t a mistake,” Sejeong muttered, holding her stomach.

Heehyun raised an eyebrow, “She?”

“I… I want the baby to be a she. Always wanted a daughter. And I know it’s impossible but I’m hoping all these ‘she’s’ and ‘hers’ will make her one. You know, when you think it enough, it’ll come t-”

“You’re keeping it?”

Silence engulfed the room as everyone stared at Heehyun, each one shocked at the question.

“You let Chaeyeon keep Dani,” was Sejeong’s hurt reply. Nayoung dragged her fingers up and down her arm in an attempt to calm her down. “I wanna keep her.”

The two not-so-secret close friends stared at each other, neither wanting to back down. As much as they liked to tease and annoy each other, everyone knew that these two were ready to do anything for the other no matter what happened, as long as it was for their own good. And that’s also why they knew that no matter how harsh Heehyun’s words may have felt like, she only had the best intentions in mind.

Nayoung cleared and heads swerved to look at her, eyes wanting an excuse to look away from the tension building up. She sighed. “Let’s keep her. We’ve been through nine months of Dani. We can go through nine months of this girl. Or, um, hopefully girl.”

“I agree with Nayoung,” Chaeyeon said, stepping closer but eyes on Dani slumbering in her arms. Then they lifted and landed on Sejeong’s still flat stomach. “Let’s keep her. It would be too unfair to not keep her.” She looked at Heehyun. “You guys gave Dani a chance. You guys went through nine months of me being an absolute brat. Another nine months won’t hurt.”

Defeat swam in Heehyun’s eyes. “Chaeyeon, that’s not fair, I-”

“What’s not fair is not letting Sejeong’s child get a chance at living when we all went through nine months of Dani.”

“I- but Chaeyeon…” She raised her hands, moved them around, then let them fall limp by her sides with a sigh. “Fine. And, well, it’s not like we can tell Sejeong to not keep the child anyway.” With another sigh, she shrugged. “I guess it’s another nine months of rotational sleepless nights.”

The sound of relieved sighs and tiny chuckles filled the room, a feeling of content and love swell in Nayoung’s chest as she smiled at her friends.

Haein groaned, ruining the perfectly heartwarming moment. “God, I regret the day I married all of you.”

A few laughs here and there, and a slap on the arm from Heehyun to Haein. But all Nayoung could see was Sejeong’s watery eyes as she stared at their friends, and felt her own sting. She hugged Sejeong tighter, letting a few tears fall on her head as her heart ached of some kind of dread that she excused as just her anxiety acting up.

She was just too negative and scared sometimes. But then again, there are things in life to be scared of, she just didn’t know – refused to even think – that her biggest fears would actually come true.

-

She’s reminded of why she hates the quiet so much – her mind and how it would not stop. She slaps the heel of her hand against the side of her head a few times, wishing it’d stop the voices. Wishing her mind would stop sending signals to her heart, making it ache in that way she knows doesn’t easily go away. She doesn’t even know why she let her mind remember, but now she just wants it to stop. She finally shuts her dry eyes tight, watching the bright shapes and squiggles and lines dance.

“Hey, you okay?”

She opens her eyes and finds her same named friend staring down at her with concern. She opens to reply, to tell her she’s hurt and she just wants it to stop – that she just wants the ache to leave. But then she sees the uncertainty swimming in Im’s eyes and she looks away, shrugging.

Her gaze lands on Suhyun, standing across Im and looking at her with her own concerned expression. And she looks at her in time to see it change into pain as the heavy silence falls on them the way it does every time Im’s in the same room as them.

The two sit next to her, the silence making her heart ache more and more each second. Funny how she used to beg for the quiet but now, she’s willing to beg for it back. Mistakes be damned.

It’s just different. Wrong. Out of place and uncomfortable. She doesn’t want this. She doesn’t-

“Hey guys!”

Without looking up, each and every one of them knows who it is. But still, they do, and they find Eunwoo’s smiling face bringing a little brightness to the dull hallway. They murmur their own ‘hey’s.

Except Im. Im stays seated, unable to look up more than once.

“Eunwoo said hey,” she grumbles to her same named friend and ignores the way Suhyun’s sending her warning looks, “And when someone says hey, you say ‘hey’ back. It’s only polite to do so.”

Eunwoo’s eyebrows furrow, eyes blinking and weight shifting from one foot to another. “Um, it’s okay, Na-”

“Hey,” it lacks the enthusiasm, and is instead filled with guilt and anger.

But Eunwoo takes it with a smile. “Yeah. Um.” The youngest clears , unable to figure out why the tension is so thick. “Hey.” Her smile widens and Nayoung almost hugs her for her innocence. She plops down beside Im, and raises her phone. “My song got in the Top 100.”

They freeze, similar to that way they did years ago whenever Eunwoo shouted ‘red light!’ even when they weren’t playing the game. (Eunwoo found it very amusing how these girls older than her froze every time she uttered the words, and the older ones found it very adorable how Eunwoo grinned at them every time they stopped moving. It was a win-win situation.)

The words sink in and the sheer happiness in Eunwoo’s tone oozes out her lips and hugs the three other occupants warmly. In a spur of a moment, Suhyun’s hugging Eunwoo, Nayoung’s jumping out the couch and making high pitched noises, and Im’s actually smiling.

“My song got in the Top 100.” She grins proudly from over Suhyun’s shoulder to Nayoung. “I can finally check that off my bucket list!”

“Eunwoo, oh my god, I’m so ing proud of you!” Nayoung screeches, shoulders hitting her ears as she beams at Eunwoo. Then she jumps again and joins the hug.

Im stays seated, albeit smiling, with a hesitant look on her face. She turns away and studies the screen of Eunwoo’s phone left on the table instead, looking proudly at the name under the song in 94th spot. Jung Eunwoo.

“Wow,” she mutters, making the three slow their jumping. “You did it.”

Nayoung tenses and Suhyun pauses, swallowing the uneasiness away. Eunwoo and her innocent, unknowing heart, though, she shrugs comically, grins fondly and genuinely happily at Im, then grabs her hand and forces her to join the jumping huddle.

“I know!”

Eunwoo continues her screeching and jumping, dragging Im along with her, as Nayoung and Suhyun don’t jump as high and scream as loud anymore.

A new voice sounds and asks, “What’s happening?”

Eunwoo’s grin widens as her gaze lands on Heehyun. “My song got in the Top 100 of Melon.”

The change in Heehyun’s expression from sleepy and confused, to shaking eyebrows and trembling lips, and then lastly, to a huge grin and wide eyes, is so articulate and defined that Nayoung finds herself mimicking it.

Soon enough, they’re all huddled together, jumping together, hugging each other, and shouting together.

In a span of a moment, Nayoung catches each of her friends’ eyes. And her heart swells with this sudden belongingness, this sudden coming home.

Five of them, jumping together and yelling in happiness over Eunwoo’s success. It’s almost exactly the same as that time Heehyun shot the winning goal when she was in high school and in the soccer team.

This is exactly how Nayoung imagined them five during those nights she tried to remember how exactly they were when they were younger. This is it.

She forgets mistakes and failure at being good friends, and just jumps along with them. She lets herself melt into this beautiful feeling of warmth, ignoring the stinging in her eyes as her fingers brush against Im, who’s between Suhyun and Heehyun. Ignoring the way her heart aches for the past, ignoring the way her mind nags at her to listen to Im’s better explanation, one that might fix this family she knew she’d always want to come home to.

And she almost completely convinced herself when a voice interrupts them, “Ladies.”

They stop jumping, hearts still racing, and stare patiently at the doctor looking at them with a hint of a smile on his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Eunwoo tells him, bowing slightly. “We were just excited over-”

“It’s okay,” the doctor, Mina’s doctor – Dr. Jang, assures them. “Besides, I think you have more to be excited over.”

Nayoung blinks, heart racing again just as it was about to calm down. Her hand finds Suhyun’s, and she grips it. “What?”

Dr. Jang smiles. “Mina’s awake.”

A/N:

Hell-o. Bet y'all thought you’ve seen the last of me, huh. Anyway, you guys know the drill: ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to update. (Insert excuse here). (Insert empty promises of more updates here). Thank you.’

But seriously though (this is just for those who are actually curious about why I was away for too long, if you’re not curious, it wouldn’t really be a loss if you skip), I already said it in Love Sold Separately that it was exhausting to write angst and so I took a break by writing “fluff” in the form of LSS. But then I also stopped (not permanently) updating LSS. I have been very busy with uni and my birthday celebration last December (Filipinos, y’all know how stressful a debut is), and then after that I spent the whole Christmas break trying to catch up with friends. Then, I had to focus on uni these past three weeks. Also, I just didn’t have this drive to write like I did before and I didn’t want to write half-heartedly. I’m trying to get back to my daily routine of writing though, but still no promises about the updates because I’m genuinely trying to focus on uni and personal life. Thank you guys for understanding (if you did understand, if you think I’m just making up excuses ((probably totally not true)), then off. Jk. But not rlly), and I’m, um, sorry, I guess. Also, this was short because I'm still just trying to get used to writing again.

Anyway, I hope y'all liked this