I couldn’t sleep.

Many times in my life there had been nights where I would just lay down and gawk at anything that’s above me and wait for the morning to come.

Sometimes I would go to schedules without any sleep the night before.

I wouldn’t know. Maybe it was because of how busy my life became that the less sleep I got, the less sleep I needed.

But I liked sleeping. Surprisingly, I could sleep an entire day.

Maybe tonight was just one of those sleepless nights.

Maybe I was just so happy that my mind couldn’t rest.

I had already told my parents the unthinkable revelation what any parent of a ballerina/one of the most sought-after faces in K-pop would hear.

I told them I was in love with another girl group idol whom I had known for the past nine years of my life and that was also how long I was in love with her.

I was so scared to break the news to them.

Ever since I was in this relationship with Momo, half of me was in fear of how my parents would react.

Momo’s parents were okay with it, very okay with having me around like that.

I wasn’t expecting my parents to be anywhere close to their disposition.

Truthfully, they weren’t, at least my mom.

My father was.

He just wanted me to be happy.

My mother said she would need some time to digest everything in. It was still a shock to her that her only daughter was tangled in a romantic knot with someone else’s daughter.

But that was all she had to say.

She did not oppose.

She was not disappointed.

She even let Momo and I stay in my old bedroom.

Tonight, I couldn’t stop smiling. Even though it was just the ceiling above me, I couldn’t seem to stop showing it how happy I was with everything.

My life was in a positive direction.

Our comeback was remarkable.

I was in relationship with Momo.

And our families had approved of our relationship.

It was all that I could ask for.

“Momo,” I turned to my side and checked if she was still awake. It was already a quarter till 3 in the morning. “Are you sleeping?”

“Hmm?” She responded, her voice sounding hoarse. She was sleeping with her back to me.

“Did you sleep alright?” I asked.

She turned to face me. “Not really. You?”

“I couldn’t sleep at all.”

She smirked, placing her arm on my back, tracing circles. “What are we going to do about that?”

I laughed. “Not now,” I said. “You know how loud I can get.”

She held me close to her and I laid on her chest.

“Do you wanna go somewhere?” I asked.

“Where would we go? It’s 3 in the morning.”

“Just follow me,” I said getting up. “Grab your jacket.”

In our pajamas, we snuck out of my house quietly.

I hadn’t been able to do that since high school. I never got caught. I was quite the sneaky child, a far cry from the innocent swan my parents and everyone else thought I was.

“Be careful,” I whispered to Momo as we went down the stairs. “You might wake my parents up.”

“Why do I feel like we’re teenagers again?” She whispered, looking through the darkness of the staircase.

I held a laugh.

When we were living at the dorm, this was the exact same scenario. We would be sneaking out while our managers would be sleeping in the next door. If not going on dates while still on contract, we would all go out as a group and just walk around the city when no one would recognize us.

It was fun. Breaking the rules was really a fun thing to do.

Then Momo and I made it outside of my house.

The streets were empty. There were no cars or motorcycles driving by. Not even a stray dog was there to be seen.

“Should we call for a taxi?” She asked.

“Nope,” I shook my head. “We are going to walk.”
 

“What?” She cried in protest. “But I don’t want to walk!”

“Seriously?” I raised my eyebrow. “Just follow me.”

I took her hand.

“Okay…” She obeyed.

We walked through the night. The sky was getting a little less dark as we strolled the quiet streets in Kobe.

“Where are we going, really?” Momo asked again.

She had been asking since we left the house and I maybe enjoyed torturing her like that.

“To the beach,” I finally answered.

Momo laughed. “You know, we would never get to do this on ordinary days.”

“Yeah,” I said as we passed by the buildings. “People would go crazy if they saw us walking around like this.”

She pressed my hand and smiled at me. “They really would.”