Despite the uncharacteristically laidback and healthy flow of conversation within the group (it’s a Sunday and the two youngest lieutenants find themselves in the company of Sana and Momo), Chaeyoung finds her mind wandering back to a certain brunette that she hasn’t had the guts to call back yet.

It’s been two days since the party and she hasn’t heard from Mina nor has she tried to call her, not even using their project as an excuse to reach out.

Chaeyoung doesn’t blame her though. She did leave Mina behind at the party without as much as a word and she feels like she’s ruined any chance of getting closer to the girl.

Her distracted smiles doesn’t go unnoticed on Tzuyu’s part though, who silently nudges her from the opposite side of the foot of Sana’s bed where they sat and gives her a look of concern. Chaeyoung shrugs it off and tries to focus on the story that Momo has been telling them so animatedly for the past ten minutes.

“And next thing you know, we were in the squad together!” Momo finishes excitedly, leaning her head on Sana’s right shoulder.

Everything in that scene felt so casual and normal to Chaeyoung.

Sana was still in her hospital pajamas, her glasses perched on her perfectly sculpted nose, blonde tresses flowing freely past her shoulders, while Momo has stuck to wearing her bright pink pajamas and fluffy white coat, supposedly to match with Sana. Tzuyu , in her usual white shirt and jeans ensemble and her with her oversized black hoodie and matching black pants.

“Well yeah, let’s not forget that the first reason you actually wanted to join because you found Mina so pretty.” Chaeyoung’s ears perk up at the mention of the girl who has been plaguing her mind lately.

Momo swats the air in front of her and lets out a cute laugh. “Oh, hush! It was a very short-lived happy crush. She’s a great teammate though and we always have a great time at practices!”

“So you guys have known Mina since freshman year then?” Chaeyoung tries to sound as nonchalant as she can. She barely had any opportunity to have a solid conversation with the girl, and with her ditching Mina at the party, she’s certain she won’t even have anything other than a conversation about their project.

“Not really. We’ve known Mina since we were in middle school, but she was always all quiet and shy.” Momo ponders. “That’s why we were surprised when high school came and she auditioned for the squad before anyone else.”

Sana simply hums in agreement. “I knew she took ballet lessons growing up so she did great transitioning into all the gymnastics and dance stuff. That’s why she’s my co-captain.”

Chaeyoung quietly nods, not wanting to seem suspicious about asking. Sana seems to catch on though, as she continues relaying more information about her co-captain.

“We’re not very close, especially not lately. But Mina is actually pretty cool.”

Momo turns to look at Sana, quite surprised by the unexpected praise she’s giving the girl she was just fighting with a few weeks ago.

“She’s really smart. I guess she kind of has to be, given that both her parents are like that too. So she helps out some of our teammates a lot when they’re struggling with school, I don’t know about the school you came from but at JYP Prep, every athlete needs to at least average a B- if they want to stay on their teams. “

The lieutenant can’t help but smile at this. She’s always felt that Mina was different from the stereotypical cheerleader but hearing it confirmed by someone like Sana makes her feel… proud.

“Ooh, she’s great at baking and cooking too! Remember how she baked all those cupcakes for our fundraiser project? They sold out so fast, she had to go home and make new ones and that’s just on the first day!” Momo says proudly. She’s always had friendly interactions with Mina and has been helped out by her on more than one occasion.

Tzuyu looks at Chaeyoung and she couldn’t help but smile at the awe-struck look and interest on her best friend’s face. Chaeyoung rarely gets any interest outside their work and her ‘nerd’ life, so Tzuyu finds this quite refreshing for Chaeyoung.

And if it makes her best friend happy, she’s all in for it.

“She’s kind of sad actually because was supposed to meet up with Mina at the party. But you know…” Tzuyu spills and Chaeyoung looks at her wide-eyed, like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Ooh, look who’s got a crush.” Sana sing-songs teasingly at Chaeyoung, playfully poking a finger on her now reddened cheeks.

“I absolutely do not have a crush on her, okay?” Chaeyoung says a little too quickly, earning knowing looks from both Sana and Momo. She shoots another accusatory look of betrayal towards Tzuyu before burying her face on her palms from embarrassment. She’s not used to the attention.

The two girls continuously until she couldn’t help but laugh in confirmation.

“She does seem pretty cool and nice. I mean, she helped me out a lot on our first day. I’ve always been bad at talking or socializing in general.” Chaeyoung shyly admits, and Momo couldn’t help but coo at her.

“Aww, you are sooooo cute!” The brunette clasps her hands together as if she had come to a decision.

“Well, I think we can help you with that. You two are partners for our Social Studies class, right? Have you talked since the party?” Momo excitedly asks, to which Chaeyoung hesistantly says a quiet ‘no’ to. Momo feigns a gasp and looks at Sana for advice.

“Hey don’t look at me, you’re the one trying to play matchmaker here, not me.” The heiress playfully scoots away from Momo, the latter pouting at the action. “Oh come on, Sana! She helped drive you here, help our little cub out and get her a date, hmm?”

That was true. Technically, Chaeyoung did ditch her date with Mina to help save her life.

Sana pretends to heave a sigh of annoyance with a playful eyeroll before looking at their new found friends again.

“Ugh, fine.”

---

It’s not that Dahyun was avoiding actually seeing Sana.

Okay, maybe she is.

After the whole party incident, Dahyun has relegated most of the close-quarters bodyguard duties to Chaeyoung and Tzuyu. Meanwhile, she’s always keeping an eye out for Sana from a safe distance; only ever visiting her in her room when she knows the heiress is fast asleep and snoring.

She’s aware of the lingering uneasiness that she has in her chest. She’s been trying to shake it off, asking herself why things seem to be going wrong with every turn. Almost as if there hasn’t been a single peaceful day since she got here.

So, Dahyun dives into her investigation. She grips the steering wheel as she waits, checking her watch constantly for the time, her eyes trained on the entrance of Crossroads Fitness Gym. After a few more minutes, she decides to get out of the car and wait by her car instead.

Right on the dot, Eunha emerges from behind the double doors in her gym clothes, obviously finishing her work out session.

Distracted by fishing out her keys from her gym bag, Eunha bumps straight into Dahyun.

“Hey, watch it yo-“ Eunha freezes on the spot, her eyes widening as soon as she recognizes the person in front of her. Dahyun quietly looks at her, holding Eunha on both arms as if to steady her or perhaps to keep her from running away.

Luckily, Eunha keeps standing there looking at her, eyes filled with confusion and a tinge of fear.

“We need to talk, Miss Eunha.”

The girl visibly gulps, pulling her arms forcefully away from Dahyun’s grasp. She crosses them quite defensively as she takes a couple of steps back from the captain.

“If this is about what happened with Sana, I already told her everything you need to know, okay?” She shakily says, eyes flitting between her car behind the captain and Dahyun.

Dahyun is surprised that she’s already spoken to the heiress, but doesn’t let it show on her face. She’s gotten good at that, not letting anyone see how she feels or thinks. She keeps her eyes trained on Eunha, the other shifting uncomfortably under her gaze.

“I just wanted to talk to her, okay? I-I wanted to… I wanted to apologize, for what I did.” Eunha stammers, her arms wrapping around herself protectively.

“And what did you do exactly?”  The captain asks in her low voice, taking a cautious step towards Eunha.

“I-I don’t think a bodyguard has any right to stick her nose into our business, don’t you think?” Eunha tries her best to sound brave, doing as much as trying to match the look Dahyun was giving her right now.

“You see, that’s where I completely disagree.” She takes another step.

“I think it is exactly my business to know. After all, you were in there with her while she’s on the floor.”

Another step.

“Cold and barely breathing…”

And another.

Eunha finds herself backed up against the wall of the building, Dahyun merely a couple of feet away from her.

“And you just stood there, doing nothing.”

From another perspective, the scene looks quite ridiculous. Eunha is significantly taller than Dahyun and yet here she is, practically cowering against the wall.

“I-I…” She stammers out again, unable to find the words. “I didn’t do anything wrong, I swear.”

“That’s such a coincidence though, isn’t it?” Dahyun scoffs, her knuckles turning white from clenching it so hard. “That Miss Sana just somehow ends up in a room with you, knocked out cold and then landing in a hospital emergency room.”

The captain couldn’t decide whether Eunha was scared, angry or just downright good at pretending.

“Tell me, how is it that this all happens as soon as you’re back in her life? Why did you come back after all this time? I heard you’re some hotshot athlete; could probably date whoever you want.”

Eunha’s jaw clenches at the insinuation and tries to stand up taller, looking down at Dahyun.

“I told Sana already and I am telling you now: I only wanted to talk to her. I. DID. NOTHING. WRONG.” Her voice doesn’t waver this time.

“Oh, I hope that is true.” Dahyun continues; her words bordering between calm and threatening.

“You best hope I don’t find any proof that you had anything to do with all of this, or I will make sure you pay for it dearly.” With that, Dahyun quietly turns around and heads for her car, leaving behind a rather pale Eunha to scramble for her car keys once more.

---

“There’s nothing much yet, Cap. SinB and I have been replaying the CCTV footages we’ve gathered from the Park Mansion and the surrounding neighborhood but everything looks quite normal, for a party that is.” Jeongyeon reports through Dahyun’s earpiece as she drives back to the hospital.

She figured she can’t really stay away from Sana for too long, or leave Tzuyu and Chaeyoung with her too much or it’ll get suspicious.

“We’re looking into a few shady characters we were able to see through all the flashing lights in the videos, and it’s a bit challenging but we’re going to keep looking.”

“How about the ones from the Minatozaki Estate? Any clue how Miss Sana and Miss Momo got out?” The fact still puzzles her, honestly. She hasn’t really asked Momo about it either and Dahyun knew Sana is smart, but actually being able to slip through not one but three Special Forces Agents is beyond her.

“Oh, that’s actually quite an interesting thing.” Dahyun hears SinB interject from the other end of the line.

“So, I pulled out the floor plans of the mansion itself, did you know it’s actually pretty old? Anyway, guess what? There are loads of crawl spaces that go all over the entire house like secret passageways. I’m guessing the old owners of the house had it made that way for some reason before the Minatozakis purchased the home twenty years ago. It can fit a whole grown person, maybe even two if they squeezed in just enough.”

Dahyun hears more shuffling in the background, and then SinB’s voice getting louder, presumably getting closer to Jeongyeon’s phone.

“So I traced the pathway from Miss Sana’s room and it’s possible that there may have been an entrance from inside her room that leads down to the pantry behind the mansion. If they did got out there, there’s a manhole for a service tunnel just a few feet from the pantry that is barely covered by the security cameras.”

“And let me guess, they used that service tunnel to get out of the estate grounds?” Dahyun asks, slightly relieved she’s getting answers but still annoyed by how Sana was able to do all this under her nose.

“Bingo! I checked the routes of the service tunnel and found three possible exits, but nearest one is right on the west side of the estate grounds, and over to the next block. Quite a long walk but not covered by our cameras so its brilliant really.”

“Damn, Cap. We got played by a high school senior?” Jeongyeon jests from the other end and Dahyun couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.

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