When Mina was growing up, she would always be lulled asleep by her mother's gentle voice. Mrs Myoui would tell the young girl tales of brave warriors, of shape-shifting animals, of ethereal women and Mina would close her eyes to the bright moon with a contented smile on her face, dreaming of a fantasy world of never-ending happiness. She had promised herself then that she would always remember this beautiful world of her choosing. Then Sixteen happened and that promise all but faded into a distant memory, much like her childhood innocence. The harsh training regime that she forced herself through just to become the best left her little time for anything else. But Sixteen was also when she met her.

Son Chaeyoung

Mina had never met a girl with more talent than Chaeyoung. Sure, the other girls were talented, no one could hold a candle to Jihyo's vocal range or even dream of outshining Momo and her insane choreographies, but to Mina, Chaeyoung was the most talented nonetheless. Because to her talent was when Chaeyoung went to cheer up their youngest, Natty, with Tzuyu and Somi by her side. Talent was when she passed the last bottle of water in the room to Jiyoung because everyone knew the vocalist had been singing since God knows when in the morning. Talent was when she, alongside Dahyun, went around the room, trying to hype the other exhausted  girls up. Because talent to Mina was not the numbers that they were marked with on that clipboard but the effortless way Chaeyoung would try to make the others smile. And she noticed how Chaeyoung would try her hardest to make her smile. 

Everyone told her that it had to be demoralising to someone so young, when all Mina's replies to her actions involved a deadpan stare and too straight lips. And Mina thought so too, it would have been infinitely easier to just stop trying to talk to her completely but Chaeyoung, to her credit, didn't shy away from this challenge. In fact, Mina realised, she was always trying harder to make Mina smile. 

"She doesn't usually do this," 

Jihyo had mused to her one day when they were working on Mina's korean together, sitting side by side, fruitlessly trying to negate the room's freezing temperatures with their combined body heat. And when Mina only raised a single thin eyebrow as she continued shivering in her jumper, Jihyo elaborated.

"Chaengie, she doesn't usually try so hard to make someone smile. She's always been so quiet."

Somehow, Jihyo's words weighed a lot more than any other trainee in the room and Mina could only assume it was from her long time in the JYP building, she practically grew up within its four concrete walls. So Mina believed her wholeheartedly, and they made her feel so much warmer. She was so busy smiling to herself that she failed to notice the way the corner of Jihyo's lips turned up in a barely there smirk.

As the days continued to pass by in a dizzy swirl, Mina wondered if Chaeyoung noticed that she was also paying more attention to the tiny rapper. Slowly, her eyes began to sparkle with more emotion and if you looked closely, the corner of might have been raised. But she noticed that Chaeyoung had a bad habit, that was to sit alone in the practise room deep into the night with nothing but her phone, a pencil and a notebook whose pages were practically filled already as her only company. It was habit that Jihyo, as the  most experienced, and Nayeon, as the eldest, had tried time and time again to change. With unfavorable results, it would seem. Because when Mina pushes open the heavy wooden door with a small, weary sigh, she sees Chaeyoung tucked away into the corner, head down, eyes closed, feet tapping along to a melody Mina could not even dream of hearing. 

"Chaeyoung, it's time to go home." 

This habit was a new one for her, it had already been 3 weeks since she would stay back late in the building, coming up with any excuse to wait up with Chaeyoung. But Mina still feels that hot, uncomfortable swoop in her stomach whenever Chaeyoung stares at her with those blown-wide, brown eyes. It was almost like she didn't expect Mina to come back for her. 

"C'mon, let's walk back together." 

She says quietly instead, gentle voice floating across the empty space to Chaeyoung and suddenly, the younger girl is scrambling to her feet, a million-watt smile brighter than all the stage spotlights combined blinding Mina with its brilliance alone. Chaeyoung gathers her things quickly and in no time at all, Mina finds the both of them crunching the loose tarmac pebbles under their shoes as they walk home with only the glow of street lamps lighting their way. Their walks had always been surrounded by silence. But not the suffocating kind, Mina thinks to herself as she puts one foot in front of the other and pauses to hear Chaeyoung doing the same. This silence was almost warm and inviting, like her huge fluffy blanket back home, like they were comforting each other with their presence alone. And any comfort was always welcome, Mina breathes heavily through her nose as she shakes her arms, they still ached from the numerous pull-ups she did in the gymnasium with their trainer. 
Chaeyoung clears from beside her and Mina shifts her gaze to the side, eyeing the younger girl from the corner of her eyes. This is not the first time Chaeyoung has disrupted the silence but she has never done anything after that. And unsurprisingly, she only takes another step forward before her fingers tighten around her fraying bag strap. Then Sixteen ends and Twice begins.

"I just don't understand her sometimes. I don't even know why this is effecting me so much!"

Mina frowns to Sana and Momo as the three of them sit in a café not far from the JYP building. It was a rare day off and the three Japanese members had instantly grabbed at the chance for a much needed break. Sana scratches her cheek as she takes in the tiny annoyed crease in between Mina's eyebrows, the way she nibbles at the inside of her cheek when she is frustrated and the unceasing animated ways her hands have not stopped moving from the time when she started recounting her problems with the dwarf rapper and then shares a smile with Momo. This only prompted Mina to frown harder, causing Momo to reach foward to poke at her cheeks.

"Keep frowning like that and you'll be the next one with wrinkles."

Momo warns as Sana laughs at the completely helpless look that crosses the features of their youngest. Mina only pouted and stuffed with the ice cream in front of her, resolutely not looking at any of the older girl's in their face. Momo nudges Sana and they both smile such knowing smiles at Mina that she feels the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. This time, it was Sana who opened .

"Oh my dear girl, you're in love!"

Mina replays this conversation in her head over and over again as she stands outside the wooden doors of the practice room. If she moves closer, she could just make out Chaeyoung singing and usually, that is enough to make her forget all the pains and aches in the world. But not today. It just makes her stomach drop that much lower. Mina presses one cold, clammy hand to her nose and breathes deeply as the other curls around the door's metal handle. The way Chaeyoung's voice just cuts off abruptly as the door swings open clears Mina's head somewhat but when their eyes meet, the pounding returns tenfold and Mina finds herself at a loss for words.

"Eonnie? You're not leaving?"

She blinks and suddenly realised that Chaeyoung is already in front of her, bag slung casually over one shoulder, eyes searching. The short distance between them that Mina saw as a vast ocean in that moment vanished in an instant and she shakes her head, offering a tentative smile as she steps back into the corridor, Chaeyoung following immediately at her heels, pausing only just to flip the switch to the lights and fans down.

"Let's go home."

But this time, Mina reaches behind her and takes the smaller hand in hers. She pretends that she doesn't feel Chaeyoung's hand freeze up and twitch backwards. Almost like she wanted to run. But then she hears a quiet exhale and Chaeyoung's fingers wrap themselves surely around Mina's own and she wonders why she ever doubted anything else. However, even with this new development, Mina still gives Chaeyoung a quick glance when she clears , hand stopping mid-swing.

"So what did you do today, eonnie?"

Never in a million years would Mina have expected that Chaeyoung would be the one who broke the silence. But today was full of surprises, apparently. She struggles to form a reply, the korean language still leaving such a foreign taste on her tongue. So she replies with one word and hopes that Chaeyoung understands her.

"Thinking."

"Of what?"

Mina takes another few seconds to answer, even if the words were already rolling around on the very tip of her tongue.

"Of what if's."

Chaeyoung hums and resumes swinging their hands between them. Mina wonders if she just didn't understand or was too polite to push.

"I think of what if's too."

Mina sharply in a mouthful of air and chews on her lips. Now she was the one that wasn't sure of Chaeyoung's stance. But the only thing she could hear on the walk back was the wind. They reach home and Chaeyoung cracks a tired smile at Mina before disappearing into her room with a soft click of the door. Everyone was already asleep in her room and Mina treads on the very tip of her toes towards her bed. So when someone calls her name in a raspy question from across the room, she thinks the bug-eyed expression she made was completely justified.

"Mina, is that you?"

She squints in the general direction of Nayeon's bed and only just makes out the silhouette of their eldest from the tangle of blankets that she wrapped around herself like a cocoon. Mina nods and Nayeon lifts a hand from the warm fleece and points to the door, before swinging her own legs off the bed. Mystified, Mina complies and the door to their room clicks shut.

"What is it, Nayeon eonnie?"

Mina takes in the way Nayeon blinks sleepily at her and how her eyes flit over to the maknae's door before snapping back to her face. Usually one of the more outspoken with her real feelings of any situation, her faux nonchalance was unnerving.

"You've been waiting for Chaeyoung?"

It wasn't a question, Mina knew that much, no matter how much it sounded like one. Honesty sounded good. And she nods once, still wondering where the conversation was veering towards. 

"Why?"

Mina takes a moment to think carefully. Why? Sana and Momo might have said that she was in love with Chaeyoung but Mina doesn't remember herself agreeing. Then she realises that she doesn't really know why. Honesty is important, after all. So that is what she says.

"I don't know."

Nayeon tilts her head to the left and regards Mina with disbelief painted all over her face. 

"Really?"

"Really."

Nayeon shakes her head with a sigh and leans forward. It happened so quickly, Mina only feels the throbbing sting of the strong flick to the forehead. 

"Well, that might help you. Don't lead her on, Mina-yah."

Everything reverts back to the way it was after that night. Chaeyoung would resume looking at her in shock when the door was pushed open and their walks home together would be bathed in silence again. But this wasn't the good silence, Mina hated this silence, she could almost feel it pressing on her lungs. It was uncomfortable. So she lays under her blanket on her bed and wonders why. She barely feels the bed dip and Sana slips in next to her. 

"Chaeng?"

Mina turns at once to the older girl, looking so lost Sana felt her heart break a little.

"Do I love her?"

"Why don't you think so?"

And this time, Mina knows why.

"Because what if I'm just in love with the idea of loving her. What if I just love this fairytale that she's made for me?"

It's barely there but Sana detects it nevertheless, the urgent lilt of Mina's normally monotonous tone. Because what she says next is said so despondently, Sana finds herself at a lost for words.

"I can't help but think happiness is such a fleeting thing."

Mina curls into herself and hugs the stuffed penguin her arms that much tighter. Sana feels for Mina's trembling hand in the dark and holds it securely in her own.

"Mina, happiness is fleeting. But if you don't go put yourself out there and catch it, will you ever experience it?"

Chaeyoung was sitting so motionlessly in her corner that Mina thought that she had fallen asleep. But when her eyes shoot open the second Mina's foot landed a little heavier than intended, Mina knows that where ever Chaeyoung was, it was the furthest she had ever been from her dreamland. So she opens , not sure where to start when Chaeyoung merely closes her eyes again, leaning languidly back into her corner. But Mina sees the subtle way her shoulders bunched in on themselves nevertheless. Almost as if she did not want to be found.

"C'mon Chaeyoung, time to go home."

Just Chaeyoung, not Chaeng, Chaengie, but Chaeyoung.

"It's okay, I think I'll stay a little longer. You can go back first."

Mina surprises even herself when her feet takes her across that metaphorical vast ocean till she's next to Chaeyoung. Even more so when her normally soft voice comes out louder than intended.

"It's late, Chaeyoung. We should go."

"I don't understand you!"

For someone shorter than her, Chaeyoung could be imposing when she wanted to. Mina finds her resolve faltering when her trembling eyes meet Chaeyoung's steely ones.

"You send me all sorts of mixed signals. I thought I understood but now I'm not so sure. What's going on, Mina eonnie, you know I don't like this."

And Mina knew Chaeyoung deserved that much so she takes a deep breath and starts to speak.

"When I was younger, my mother would tell me stories to put me to sleep. I would always go to bed happy and contented. Because everyone in the  a stories found happiness. But, once she told me a sad story and maybe that's why I remember it so well. About a geisha called Sakura-ko. She was a noble man's daughter but sold herself as a geisha to support her mother when her father died. So many people loved her, Chaeng, they came bearing lavish gifts from everywhere in the world. But she only loved one. A young man, heir to his father's prosperous business who understood her hardships better than any of her suitors ever had. And how they loved each other!"

Mina was laughing now, but when Chaeyoung lifted her hand from where they hung limply at her sides to touch her face, Mina felt the freezing dampness that trailed from her eyes.

"He went mad for her, until he collapsed and she had to nurse him back to health. But she left him after three nights together, Chaeng. Because she knew they could never be together and she did not want his reputation damaged by her lowly status. So she disappeared, no one could find her. The young man married someone else in the end and had a young boy who grew up to be just like his father, but could never forget her. He planted sakura trees everywhere in their compound and his family would always spend their time basking in their beauty. But one day, while the young son was playing  amongst the trees with his parents seated not far away, a wandering nun approached them for alms. The father ordered his servant to fill her wooden bowl completely with rice but his son insisted that he should do it. As the young boy was filling the bowl, the nun suddenly seized his sleeve and looked him straight in the eye. She recognised him as the son of her lover and the young boy asked her why she started crying."

Mina barely noticed how Chaeyoung had moved that much closer to her, she was almost breathing her air, and Mina could feel each warm puff of air from Chaeyoung's lips wrapping around her heart.

"So she told him about a young boy much like him and how she had left him because it would be better. The young boy wept with her and his father came running after hearing the sounds of his son's cries. His son recounted to him what the nun had said and the man knew that it was Sakura-ko. He searched high and low for the her but could not find her and all that was left of her were the sakura petals falling around them."

Mina took a shuddering breath and swallowed the lump in . And in that moment, Chaeyoung understood.

"I understand, Mina eonnie."

Mina turns and her red-rimmed eyes meet Chaeyoung's brown ones, sparkling with unshed tears. 

"You don't need to worry about me. I understand now."

And she finds that she can no longer control the tears streaming down her face. Chaeyoung's hands may have been smaller but when they gripped hers, Mina cannot think of anything more warm and encompassing.

"You don't need to pull yourself away because you won't ruin anything, Mina eonnie." 

Mina can feel Chaeyoung's breath on her lips and through her blurred vision, she still manages to focus on Chaeyoung's dry lips.

"We won't end up like Sakura-ko and her lover. Because if anything, we'll only make each other stronger, right eonnie?"

When Chaeyoung looks at her like this, eyes full of hope and silent strength, Mina finds that she can never say no.

So she says yes and Chaeyoung smiles more brightly than she has ever seen. Later, Sana will give her a knowing look in the dorm and casually comment on her swollen lips. But now, Mina thinks to herself as she is tugged towards the door, she'll bask in her happy ending for a little longer.