"Chaeyoung?"

Chaeyoung looked up from her notebook at the sound of her voice to see Tzuyu entering their room and gave her a smile. "What's up?" she asked, setting her pen down.

Tzuyu wrung her hands together nervously. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"Of course. Is everything alright...?"

The maknae closed the door behind her and shrugged one shoulder. "Everything's fine. I just wanted some advice."

Chaeyoung motioned for her to sit down and relaxed a bit knowing everything was okay. "Anything for you - what's on your mind?"

"Well..." Tzuyu was silent for a few seconds, avoiding her eonni's eyes. "I have a crush on someone," she exhaled, barely moving.

"Cr...ush?" Chaeyoung wished she could see past the hair falling into Tzuyu's face but at the same time wished she wasn't there. The other girl's words were, to say the least, disheartening. "Crush."

"Yes. It's kind of stupid."

"No no no! Everyone has crushes. Even me." Chaeyoung awkwardly gave Tzuyu a pat on the shoulder, feeling bad for potentially making Tzuyu feeling bad when she herself was feeling bad because of the reason Tzuyu felt bad.

After all, she was right when she said she herself had a crush. It was Tzuyu.

Tzuyu sighed, turning to face Chaeyoung a little more. "Anyway, I want to let them know I like them but I'm not sure how. And you're the one I feel best asking."

"Okay, sure. Well..." She looked around the room, wondering what to tell her. Was she not just a few minutes before wondering if Tzuyu would ever know about her own feelings? It was just as well, Chaeyoung supposed. Something like that would never work out, anyway, right?

"Eonni?" Tzuyu prompted due to Chaeyoung's lack of words and distracted look in her eyes.

Chaeyoung glanced at her apologetically. "Sorry, um. Well, you probably don't want the atmosphere to be to serious. So you'd probably want to make sure you're somewhere you're both comfortable. I mean, it'd be easier to say stuff."

"But how do I tell them? What words am I supposed to say?" Tzuyu put a hand to her forehead as her eyebrows knit together, seeming seriously troubled by something that could be considered rather trivial.

"Have you tried writing it down?" Chaeyoung's hand unconsciously moved on top of her notebook. Would Tzuyu ever see the rap lyrics she'd written with the beautiful girl in mind?

Tzuyu nodded. "I've tried. I guarantee they're no more than scribbles."

"Don't say that! No matter what you say, as long as it's from your heart, they'll appreciate it. Even if they can't reciprocate it."

"That's the scariest part, Chaeyoung. I don't want things to just stay the same between the two of us. I don't want to feel this way but I do!" Tzuyu turned to Chaeyoung and looked her directly in the eye. "If... If you were this person, how would you want someone to say that they like you?"

Chaeyoung gulped. The way the other girl had worded that - "the two of us." She had to try her hardest not to let her thoughts spill out. They were definitely trying their hardest to. "Probably just like this."

Tzuyu stared at her blankly and Chaeyoung felt all of her blood rush to her cheeks, quickly adding,

"I mean, it's comfortable like I said. Just sitting in our room and talking honestly with each other as friends. If someone had something to say it would be easy, right?" She felt like she was lying somehow.

"I guess, so..." Tzuyu closed her eyes and rested her hands on her knees. "Just, 'I like you?' I don't know what else I could even say without it being weird."

"Like what?"

The corner of Tzuyu's lips twitched upwards in some sort of smile with an unknown emotion. "'I know this is weird because we're best friends, but I still find myself falling in love with you every day. At night, I just think about you... Do you think about me?'"

'Yes, Chou Tzuyu. More than anything else.' "That doesn't sound weird at all. You should go tell them." Chaeyoung gave her an encouraging smile. "They're really lucky," she added earnestly.

Tzuyu raised an eyebrow. "Tell them now? Right now?"

"Yeah, why not."

The maknae took a shaky, deep breath before grabbing Chaeyoung's hand suddenly. Chaeyoung herself held her breath. Why did it seem like everything in the past three minutes was ironically leading up to this moment? Like maybe Tzuyu had been talking about her this whole time? That this was her dreams come true.

"Tzuyu, I li-"

"Thank you, eonni. I have confidence for this now." Tzuyu stood up and let go of Chaeyoung's hand. "I'll let him know!"

Chaeyoung stopped herself from falling off her bed as the other girl left the room, jaw dropping instead. "I thought... Oh man," she groaned, picking up her notebook and tossing it to the floor. "This is what I get for letting my hopes up. Disappointment."

And even though everything ended up staying the same, somehow it felt worse.