“Am I selfish?” Nayeon asks Jihyo.
Jihyo pauses and thinks, “do you want me to answer that?”
Nayeon is silent for a moment, “no.”
“Then I guess it’s up to you,” Jihyo shrugs, “are you?”
“I think,” Nayeon sighs, “Mina would say yes.” 

    “‘Don’t’?” Mina echoes. Her voice is faraway and exhausted.
Nayeon looks at her with eyes, tired from looking at future without Mina, “don’t,” she repeats.
“Do you—do you hate me, Nayeon?” Mina looks at her in disbelief, “why do you make me suffer like this? Don’t you think that I have had enough?”
“I—I don’t hate you.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t want you to suffer, Mina,” Nayeon’s tongue seems to double in size in and she stumbles over the words but she tries anyway, “I just want—I just want you to be okay again and I just want you to love me again—I just want you.”
Mina is silent.
Nayeon continues, “I know I’m drunk right now and you’ll never believe me but I—I’m in love with you, Mina, no matter how many times you tell me I’m not and that it’s not real. I know it’s real. I just—never realised that it was love, with you, because you were always there and now you’re gone and I just miss that feeling so much. I miss that feeling when you’re there because it feels like I’m missing something. And I took you and your presence for granted for so long and I’m sorry. I guess I just—never thought I’d ever have to go a day without you, that you’d always be there for me but now you’re not and it hurts so much. And knowing that I’m the reason why you aren’t here with me and the reason you’re hurting makes me feel like dying, but I know—I know I’ll always feel like this if I never tell you I love you, no matter how late it is.”
Mina remains silent.
Nayeon begins to panic, “please say something.”
She sees Mina swallow a lump in , “I wish I could believe you,” she whispers.
“Why can’t you? I’m serious, Mina, I love you now, I loved you before and I’ll keep loving you. The only thing that’s changed is that I know now that thing you make me feel when you’re around is more than just the satisfaction of friendship,” Nayeon exasperates, taking steps forward, while Mina moves backwards.
Mina shakes her head, eye squeezed shut and tears still falling, “you fall in love too quickly, and you fall out of it just as fast.”
Nayeon doesn’t know what to say anymore. She’s run out of words and her arms are starting to feel heavy and her head begins to pound and all she can think about is kissing Mina again because good god, how has she not kissed her before. So when Mina stops moving back she takes the opportunity to pull her in and hold her tight. She just holds her.
Her heart begins to breathe once more when Mina holds her back.
Mina is shaking and sobbing and Nayeon’s shoulder slowly becomes damp but there’s something in this moment that makes Nayeon find herself crying too. She waits until Mina stops sniffing and she stops crying to take Mina’s face gently in her hands. Shaky thumbs reach out to wipe the tears away, and she presses her forehead to Mina’s. There’s an understanding, finally, of how real everything is. Nayeon’s eyes close on their on and she breathes a sigh of relief onto Mina’s lips. She kisses her and they can’t stop.

    She ends up on Mina’s bed, the two of them in their underwear and Mina is on top of her, kissing her like her lips are air and she hasn’t breathed in years. Nayeon kisses her back with the same fervour.
Nayeon kisses her back and she tastes like everything she’s ever wanted and it just feels to good to be true.
Mina kisses her back and she tastes like salt and sadness and Nayeon feels the warm tears slide past their lips in streams and soon Mina can do nothing but cry and Nayeon just lets her. Mina cries and Nayeon is there to wipe away the tears. She holds Mina in her arms gently and throws the covers over them. The tears are cold on her shoulder but she is warm in the arms of her lover.
“Do you love me again?” she asks softly.
Mina nods with haste.
Nayeon wipes her tears away again and kisses her gently.

    Nayeon watches quietly as Mina falls asleep, tired from crying. She will wake up with puffy eyes and an aching jaw but those pains will soon be soothed by Nayeon.

    She can hope.

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CHRIST THAT WAS A RIDE I HOPE THIS IS THE END OF THE ANGST
its a little short but i think this is a good place to end the chapter
okay im dead time to sleep
if there are mistakes its bc i dont ever edit stuff and only ever notice them after ive already posted oh well