“I’m going to destroy you.” Mina spits out as Chaeyoung gestures wildly for her to do more. “I’m going to destroy you!”

Chaeyoung slaps the script down on the bed as she looks at Mina sternly. “Are you asking for my permission to destroy me? You have to be more vicious, you sound too meek!”  

Mina pouts slightly at how Chaeyoung is being so strict with her. Even though she knows Chaeyoung is doing this for her own good, it still doesn’t feel good to have her cheery little cub suddenly being so stern with her. Suddenly, an idea comes to mind.

“Is that so? I thought I was being tough.” Mina suddenly speaks in satoori and she can see Chaeyoung blinking as she looks at her.

“What’s with the sudden accent?” Chaeyoung asks, the fierce façade faltering.

“I thought you Koreans like girls with cute accents. I’m trying to look cute for you right now.” Mina replies with a straight face and Chaeyoung also stares back with a straight face. There’s still no reaction from Chaeyoung a few seconds in and Mina thinks all has failed when Chaeyoung just collapses back onto the bed.

“Oh that was so cute! That is like the cutest thing I have ever seen in my life wtf I’m dying!” Chaeyoung laments as she rolls around in bed while hiding her face in her hands and Mina just smiles as she shifts closer to try to hold the squirming girl on the bed.

“Who, me?” Mina asks teasingly as she drapes her arms around Chaeyoung’s waist. Chaeyoung stops squirming, removing her hands away from her face to look at Mina properly. She’s so beautiful, and now she’s cute too? Myoui Mina, you are really unfair.

 “No, me. I’m the cutest.” Chaeyoung holds Mina by the cheeks and lands a peck on her lips. She knows her actions betray her words, but she doesn’t really care (she knows Mina knows anyway). She feels Mina poke her dimple and her smile just grows bigger. This must be heaven on earth, and this must be an angel in her arms.

They are just lying there, contended and warm in each other’s arms when Mina’s phone suddenly sounds, indicating a message. Mina reaches for the phone on the bed stand lazily and Chaeyoung feels her shifting away as she reads the message. “What is it?”

“Huh? It’s nothing.” Mina says rigidly, and it doesn’t take an idiot to know she’s lying. Chaeyoung sits up, grabbing the phone away from Mina and she sees the familiar name of Mina’s longtime customer and she doesn’t even have to read the message to know the content of it.

“Give it back!” Mina clambers as she tries to reach over for the phone in Chaeyoung’s hands but the latter just pushes her off, pressing the call button in a fit of anger. She knows this is Mina’s job, but she hates it. She can close an eye for the first few times, but this is her limit. The other end picks up and Chaeyoung spits into the phone, civil formalities all forgotten. 

“Hello? Listen bastard, she’s not a call girl, so stop texting her like this.” She seethes into the phone as she tries to keep it away from Mina at the same time.

“Son Chaeyoung!” Mina tries to warn her verbally when she loses out physically.

The reply on the other side further infuriated her further by asking if she’s Mina’s pimp. “So what if I am huh? What are you going to do about it you ?”

She briefly hears the man saying that he’s coming to fight her when Mina wrestles the phone away from her, ending the call before throwing the phone on the bed. The two of them just stand there, staring at each other as they pant from the overexertion.

Mina just glares at her. “Stop overreacting. Who are you to control me?”

Chaeyoung just lets out a sigh of disbelief. “Are you seriously asking who I am? I don’t deserve to hear you talk to me this way.”

Mina takes a deep breath, like she’s calming herself down. She raises her eyebrows as she stares at Chaeyoung defiantly. “You have a girlfriend, you moron.”

Not anymore, but Chaeyoung doesn’t say it out. It would make her feel more pathetic for verbally admitting that she gave up on someone so good for someone who doesn’t even appreciate her when she’s just trying to protect her. She just laughs bitterly. “Yeah, you are right. I’m nothing. Sorry to disturb you all this time.”

She leaves, slamming the door in her wake.

--

The door slams shut and Mina plops back down onto the bed. She didn’t mean to sound so mean and she knows where Chaeyoung is coming from, and she feels a little something swell in her chest from Chaeyoung’s overprotectiveness but she squashes it before it grows. It’s better to draw the line before she deludes both Chaeyoung and herself into thinking there can be anything more to their relationship than what they have now.

She picks up the family photo by her bed stand and brushes it fondly. She doesn’t like what she’s doing, but what choice does she have? Her family needs her.

Dancing has been her passion ever since she could think, and there was nothing else Mina could think of doing other than that for the rest of her life. Her parents were nothing but supportive of their only daughter, sparing no resources to send their daughter to the best dance academy on the globe. But of course, that’s only possible if you have money. Her father’s business has started to dwindle, and she knows, despite her parents’ insistence, that the company will collapse sooner rather than later. The company does collapse, and she sees the worry in their eyes when she FaceTimes them, and she knows that she should no longer chase her dreams. Before, people would have said she’s courageous for chasing her dream. But now, people would just say she’s willful for insisting on chasing those dreams with her family’s predicament.

So, she lies. She lies that she has been hired by a dance company in Korea and quits the expensive but prestigious Royal Ballet School in London. She takes up odd jobs, working part time at convenience stores and chicken stores. Eventually, that wasn’t enough and she’s driven to serve drinks at some sleazy clubs. And that’s where she was scouted to be an , eventually landing an acting role with the help of one of her customer. The job is disgusting, it makes her feel gross, but people got to do what they can to survive, right? She sends almost all her salary back home, surviving on the meagre amount she keeps to herself, and fights loneliness and hunger with the thought that she’s alleviating the burden at home.

All that, was in the past. Mina hadn’t felt this way ever since Chaeyoung entered her life. But she knew this respite that Chaeyoung provided was only temporary, but she didn’t think she would be the one chasing the girl away. Chaeyoung was the anchor that kept her fixed to the shore, but also the anchor that weighted her down. Honestly, she had skipped her work a few times just to spend more time with Chaeyoung, but she doesn’t regret a single moment of it. But it seems like it’s time to return back to reality, as she picks up her phone once again, ready to spew sugarcoated words to flatter men she never had any interest in.

--

Who are you to control me. Who are you to control me.

Chaeyoung growls as she steps on the brakes, the car coming to a harsh stop. She gets out of the car, not really trusting her emotional state to be capable of driving any further. Chaeyoung is so angry, so angry at those words, so angry at Mina for sprouting those words, but mostly, just angry at herself for letting Mina have so much influence over her feelings. It shouldn’t be this way, she was supposed to make Mina fall for her, waive the settlement fee and leave. Falling in love with Mina was not part of the plan.

Why do I still need you when I know I will get hurt?

She hates how even when she’s hurting she still needs Mina, and she especially hates how she still loves the damn girl even though that very same girl hurt her so much. She should have known that Mina was, and still is too much for her to handle, with her illusiveness and mysteriousness, but no. She just lets herself be drawn in, letting herself fall deeper and deeper. And really, she has no one else to blame but herself.

Bonus

“Yo Nabongs!”

Nayeon groans the moment she hears the familiar voice and buries her face in her palms. She just wants the world to eat her up now, if it means she can avoid Yoo Jungyeon. The girl appears right in front of her, smile beaming as she plops down on the chair beside Nayeon with her tray of food.

“Oh and hi Jihyo!”

“Wow, thanks for only realizing I’m here like, after 10 seconds.” Jihyo sarcastically says as Jungyeon just shoots back an apologetic smile with a shrug of her shoulders. Nayeon just isn’t as welcoming as her friend, replying with a, “Screw off Yoo Jungyeon.”

“Awww, why so unfriendly? Let’s just share the table, Dahyun will be here soon.” Jungyeon suggests which Jihyo agrees with a shrug while Nayeon just groans more. Great, another weirdo. She wonders why Chaeyoung even has such friends, when she realizes Chaeyoung herself also has a loose screw. No wonder they always say birds of the same feather flock together.

Suddenly, a mascot walks in, looks around before walking straight to their table. The mascot plops down beside Jihyo, and she removes the head of the mascot uniform to reveal Dahyun. Nayeon and Jihyo just stares at her incredulously, Jihyo immediately wiping the sweat off Dahyun’s forehead.

“What are you doing in the mascot uniform?” Nayeon asks, unable to believe her eyes while Jungyeon unscrews the cap of her cold drink and hands it over to Dahyun.

The girl gulps down the drink from Jungyeon. “Well, the school is holding some event and they needed a mascot.”

“No, the most important question is, why are you STILL in the mascot uniform?” Jihyo asks as she takes over the head of the mascot from Dahyun to put it on the table.

“Well, I’m waiting for the cute Japanese girl in charge of the costume to come and get it back from me.” Dahyun says as she steals some food from Jungyeon. The latter just pushes her tray of food towards Dahyun, letting the girl have it.

“I bet you volunteered to be the mascot because of this cute Japanese girl too.” Jungyeon says and Dahyun immediately looks at her in mock shock before forming hand guns to point at the former with a knowing smile. Jungyeon forms hands gun back at Dahyun and Nayeon and Jihyo just face palms at the two idiots.

“Japanese girls are cute. Now I know why Chaeng is so smitten with hers.” Dahyun says as she chomps down her food and Nayeon immediately looks down to her food. So the girl is Japanese, huh? She hears loud cries from Dahyun and even without looking up, she knows Jungyeon and Jihyo must have hit her because of her loose mouth.

“I’m sorry Nayeon-unnie…” Dahyun apologizes and Nayeon shakes her head, hoping her voice doesn’t betray her. “It’s fine.”

Jihyo immediately diverts the topic to something else, and Dahyun picks up on it quickly, and the topic is quickly tossed aside. But it stays in her mind, playing like a broken record. She feels someone’s hand over hers, and she looks up to see Jungyeon smiling at her gently, a sincere smile with none of the playfulness in her usual smile, a smile as if to tell her it’s okay to not be okay. And for the first time in her life, she feels that Jungyeon isn’t that bad after all.