“Mina-chan, are you not coming?” Sana not-so cheerfully asks while she slips a hoodie over her pajama shirt, readying herself for the night’s chilly wind. .

Mina doesn’t want to leave the comfort of her bed. It’s so warm, after hours and hours of schedules in the early spring breeze, short too short, shirt too tight; her body needs warmth, it still doesn’t feel enough.

“No...” She replies in Japanese.

Sana puts on the hood, sends her a quick, gentle smile. “Are you sure?”

Chaeyoung pops her head inside the darkly lit room, “Unnie, come on.” Before leaving as quick as she came.

Mina waves Sana goodbye with her hand, and lets it fall to the matress as soon as Sana closes the door of their shared bedroom after her.

She listens to the members’ banters slip further and further away, until the main door shuts close. The dorm turns deadly silent.

Mina doesn’t know who remained in the dorm, if there even is someone still in there with her. The silence strikes her a little hard, harder than it used to. Being born and raised in a calm environment makes life as Twice a little hard, especially when she has Nayeon and Jungyeon’s loud arguments breaking out every day, with Jihyo the Mic as mediator (and equally as loud as them).

Now that she thinks about it, in the middle of her dark room, Jihyo didn’t pass by their room at all while her two other roommates were getting ready.
Does that mean that she’s still in the dorm?

Mina doesn’t want to leave the comfort of her bed. It’s so warm, but the idea of Jihyo in the dorm is even warmer.

She slowly slips a foot on the floor, the other, on the cold tiles; she shivers as stands up (Mina didn’t know she disliked the cold this much) and confidently strides through the bedroom, despite it being nearly pitch black.

She skillfully avoids stepping on the spread legos and clothes.

She creaks the door open. A blue-ish spread of dim lights fall onto the ground -- the television, Mina grew too familiar to this, and she steps out of her room, leaving the door ajar, ghosting past the corridor.

Mina instantly sees Jihyo the moment she goes in the living room, all curled up on the couch, gaze focused on the screen.
She looks so different from the usual, leader Jihyo, strong and unbreakable, with leather gloves and flaming red hair (though she has bangs now, Mina doesn’t know which one she prefers): she looks like Park Jisoo, the one who wears slippers with bunny ears rising up proudly and who ties her hair with rainbow colored hair bands.

“You didn’t go with them?” Mina softly asks. She can almost see Jihyo’s ears perk up when the words carry to her (literally, like a cute fox’s ears), making her shift her look to her in mild surprise.

“Minari!” Jihyo smiles. “I thought you fell asleep already.”

Mina shakes her head slowly and remains unmoving. She’s always been awkward like this, especially around Jihyo and it’s getting painfully obvious.

“Come here,” Jihyo whispers above the hushed sounds coming from the television.

Mina breaks free from tensed shoulders and moves without thinking to go sit beside her leader on the long black couch. She feel the girl’s hands rest on her waist for a second, to help her sit down and really, she tries not to think about the unnecessary but very sweet help once she’s settled (it’s not the first time, Mina has her doubts).

“What are you watching?”

“The movie Chaeyoung downloaded,” Jihyo smirks her way. Mina observes the way Jihyo’s eyes act like mirrors to the poor lights in the room, giving them another life.

“Illegally.”

Mina laughs, bumping shoulders with the other girl for a second. “Ooh, baddie.”

Jihyo answers with a laugh of her own. “It’s Carol.”

Mina remains silent. She doesn’t exactly know the movie, so she might as well stay here with Jihyo by her side, watching a movie, alone in the dorm, late at night.

A deep breath helps her relax a little. She side-eyes Jihyo’s form, then goes back to the movie.

I mean, it’s just Jihyo.

She’s a little late in the thing, but not quite enough to be lost on the main plot.

“So this one is Carol.” Jihyo explains as if sensing her thoughts, with a finger raised to the blonde woman on the screen. “The other woman is Therese,”

Mina immediately giggles at the accent that follows on from Jihyo’s make-up free lips.

“What? I tried!”

“I know, I know.” She answers, muffling it behind her hand.

Jihyo pouts, playfully. Mina’s eyes move to her; and she goes on from there. “It’s settled in the ninety-fifties America. Basically the two of them went on a roadtrip, Therese’s soon to be fiancé is pissed. Oh, and, Carol is having a hard time with her ex-husband. Men are weird.

She smiles at Jihyo’s profile.

“That’s… all there is to know, I believe.”

The cute little tooth is visible in Jihyo’s smile, from where she is looking.

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Welcome.”

A silence settles between them as soon as the words die down in the air. Mina feels somewhat into the movie, simply because it’s the only thing she can do.

“Isn’t that Cate… Cate…” Mina whispers like she shouldn’t be speaking now. Jihyo spares her a delighted look.

“Cate Blanchett! Yes.”

More silence. Mina watches on, now completely absorbed in the movie, in the fifties, in the struggles of a divorced woman and the infatuation of another.

So absorbed that she doesn’t exactly notice when Jihyo stares at her from her spot on the couch.

They’re in a hotel room, the two lead actresses. Mina’s suspicions about the movie clear up piece by piece when Carol starts brushing Therese’s hair.

Mina can almost feel it, touch it, the palpable, romantic tension between the two women. It’s in her hands, it gets so breathtaking that -- oh, Carol kisses Therese.

Goosebumps blanket Mina’s bare arms. An unconscious breath sneaked into her lungs permits her to breathe.

She blinks several times, eyes leaving the screen to lock on Jihyo’s profile. A silent, tension filled soundtrack of pianos and violins fills the dim-lit living room.

Mina sits up a little, pulling her back straight.

Eventually, Jihyo notices her stare, and with slightly pursed lips issuing from the scene taking place on the television, she faces her.
Mina gulps her thoughts away because Jihyo looks somewhat attractive with her half-lidded eyes, free from any makeup and their weird, almost grey color shines under greens and oranges reflected from the screen. All she can hear is the music. All she can see is Jihyo.

The brunette breaks into a smile. Mina smiles back, feeling the need to duck her head low because her chest is burning, kind of tightening around itself and her cheeks are tickling.

It’s getting a little too warm in here.

“Are you okay?” Jihyo asks, a gentle hand on Mina’s shoulder highlighting the concerned tone dripping from her words. Mina sniffs a little, eyes shifting to the screen, where the scene pans on Carol holding a gun (and, really, it’s probably just a cold).

She doesn’t understand what happened, a few minutes before this instant. She felt so high up, like standing on top of the tallest mountain or flying above the highest cloud.

“Yes.” She answers as calmly as she can. Jihyo’s gaze lingers on her face, leave as soon as Carol’s distressed voice reach their ear.

Silence. Jihyo’s hand is still on Mina’s shoulder, though her thoughts seem to be indulging in whatever is happening in the movie.

“They’re seperating,” The brunette speaks, and Mina turns to her. It’s like her eyes won’t focus on anything other that her precious leader. “The guy caught them.”

If she’s not mistaking it, she can hear a slight anger dripping from Jihyo’s words. Anger? Is she angry that they got caught? Does that mean that she wished they wouldn’t?

Mina her dry lips. There’s a question hanging on the tip of her lips, right there, if only she could muster up the courage and--

“Mina,” Jihyo starts. Said girl blinks the fogginess of her look away.

“Yes?”

“How… How do you feel… about them?”

Their eyes meet -- she wouldn’t say clash, it’s not the right word. More like blend together, the same feeling is shared.

“About Carol and Therese?”

Jihyo rolls her eyes with a twitch of the lips, catching the teasing drift from her practiced accent. At least hers sounds a little more english. “Yeah.”

After a second of staring at each other, Mina gets it. She gets Jihyo, from the way her eyes are glistening, from the way her fingers claw onto her shoulder with a little too much power and she knows, that Jihyo might not be like Chaeyoung, because Jihyo might not be watching this movie to discover about the whole concept. It goes far beyond that thin line delimiting their comfort zone.

But maybe that’s what is so enticing about it.

“I feel…” A lump in block the most important word, but she swallows and it’s gone. “I feel okay, about them. I feel more than… okay.”

By then, Jihyo already shifted closer to her. Mina is conscious that she has a habit of speaking really low, especially when unsure about what to say, but the distance is still growing smaller even when her lips are sealed shut.

The world reflects in the girl’s eyes, like magnets of her own, she can’t leave it; can’t leave the warmth she’s been looking for and willing to rest into.
Jihyo’s hand comes to subtly ghost over the skin of her jaw, and Mina shivers more than she would have imagined.

She reads in the girl’s eyes, reads something dangerous yet secure, foreign yet very familiar.

Similar to the little call out “Come here,” from earlier.

Mina lets her fingers run on Jihyo’s thigh, reaching the clothe of the shorts short that the girl is wearing under this cool graphic black shirt that makes her charm ooze from everywhere (and her hand is somewhat welcomed, by a sigh).

It’s just Jihyo, she tells herself. But precisely, it is just Jihyo that gets her so tormented.

“How about you?” Mina breathes out when Jihyo’s finger trail too close to her lips. It’s so silent that she wonders if she heard it at all, and if she’ll have to repeat it; but her strength is running low, especially when only a few inches of air separate her lips from the cheshire cat’s ones.

“I’d say,” Jihyo starts, and Mina feels her breath hit her lips. She has to them not to let them dry up, or maybe not to let Jihyo get away with it. “I’m familiar.”

Mina pushes forward. The tip of her nose lands on Jihyo’s round cheek, the tip of her lips land on Jihyo’s pink lips. Kissing someone is nothing spectacular. She knows it, she had to practice a lot of things during trainee days and teenage years. But kissing someone you like is something spectacular.

Someone you yearn for, someone you see everyday, someone so spectacular herself that Mina beats herself up over the tiniest things she ever dared to do around her.

But to have Jihyo kiss her back? Lips battling against her own? Oh God, her head is spinning.

Mina has to detach herself from Jihyo for a second when she gets lightheaded by the thought of the situation. The movie’s still going, sounds muffled by their short breaths cutting through the night.

“I’m sorry I--” Mina breathes in. “I got…”

“Lightheaded.” Jihyo finishes for her, like she was the one speaking the sentence. She looks up to find Jihyo looking at their intertwined fingers and she wonders, when did that happen?

The sound of xylophone gently echoe in the room. Mina shifts her gaze to the screen. The credits are rolling up on a black font.

“It ended already?” Jihyo chirps up with surprise, voicing out Mina’s thoughts. “I couldn’t focus during the whole thing to be honest.”

She giggles, Jihyo always makes her feel fuzzy like that. Mina turns to her with a little-too-wide smile baring her pearly white teeth.

“Me neither.”

A white lie wouldn’t hurt, when she wins everything at the end.