“Miss me?” It took a beat and half for Sana to fully process her current position, staring up at the person holding her protectively. She blinks her eyes multiple times to see if what she’s seeing is not just some figment of her imagination.

“Well, I suppose since you’re staring at me like that then that’s a yes.” The girl slowly assists Sana back to her feet, the latter still unsure of how to react and unaware of the amount of eyes that has now focused on them.

The other girl’s mouth quirk to the side, looking at the still surprised Sana in front of her. “Oh come on! No hug?”

“What are you doing here, Eunha?” Momo was beside Sana in a flash, a hint of anger evident on her face. Eunha scoffs and rolls her eyes mockingly at Momo.

“Nice to see you too, Moguri.”

“Uh-uh, you do not get to call me that. What are you even doing here? I thought you moved far away, preferably to hell?” Momo grits, reaching for Sana’s hand and pulling her behind her.

“Is that really how you’re gonna talk to your best friend’s first love?” Eunha shifts her weight to her left foot and peeks at Sana over Momo’s shoulder, still looking at her like a deer caught in front of headlights. “You’re really going to let her talk to me like that? We did have history.”

She takes a bold step forward, eyes fixated solely on the blonde.

“A very ‘fun’ history.”

Sana doesn’t react fast enough; all she sees is a blur which is Momo, launching herself forward at Eunha and trying to land a hit on her. Thank heavens for Tzuyu and, surprisingly, Chaeyoung’s fast reflexes at grabbing Momo before she can actually reach the dark-haired girl.

“This is quite a welcome, huh?” Eunha taunts. “I’ll be seeing you around again, Sana.”

The girl walks away, pleased with the commotion she has created. The two lieutenants release Momo from their hold, the latter immediately coming to Sana’s side and a worried expression replacing her previously scowling one.

“Are you okay?” Sana seems to snap out from her daze as she looks at Momo, and then at Tzuyu and Chaeyoung. She bites the inside of her cheek, trying to hold back a fit. When she said she wanted to distract herself, she didn’t mean for a certain nightmare to come back.

Why won’t things go her way, for once?

The last year has been a complete whirlwind of events and she feels like she’s in some sort of hellish limbo that she can’t get out of. She looks at Momo again and reaches for her hand, holding on it firmly as if to say she’s fine.

It was actually more like she’s reassuring herself more than Momo. She can’t help but chuckle at herself, earning a questioning look from the brunette.

“Let’s just go.”

---

Dahyun had just pulled up in front of the academy’s main building, ready to pick up Sana and maybe Momo when she sees the altercation happening. She was about to get out of the car when she saw Momo lunging at someone, Tzuyu and Chaeyoung were luckily quick on their feet and held the girl back.

She wonders who the girl is, snapping a couple of photos of her on her phone as the mystery person walked away.

The captain looks back on where her subject stood frozen. She feels a pang of guilt hit her as she looks at Sana trying her best to compose herself in front of everyone while Momo held her hand and spoke to Tzuyu and Chaeyoung.

Needless to say, Dahyun was worried.

She takes a deep breath and unbuckles her seatbelt.

Meanwhile, Sana does invite Tzuyu and Chaeyoung to stay over at her house for the night. The two politely declines, saying they still have to finish unpacking at their new home and asks for a rain check, which Sana disappointedly nods in agreement to.

After the whole ordeal with Eunha, all she wanted was some company and a distraction. Suddenly, that party sounded really tempting.

Momo bids her goodbye as well, promising to come over right after dropping and picking up a few things from her house. Sana watches as the brunette jogs over to her ride before making her way to hers.

She sees the familiar black car that takes her home and takes her time in walking towards it, mindlessly kicking a pebble until she reaches the backseat door.

Reaching for the door handle, another hand beats her to it and opens the door for her. She squeezes her eyes shut and breathes out a puff of air in annoyance.

“Who the is it now? UGH!” She groans, her lower lip disappearing underneath her pearly whites. She was definitely going to give this person her piece of mind.

“Wow. Bad day?” Sana freezes for the second time that day. She immediately opens her eyes and sees Dahyun standing beside her, looking at her with concern. Her heartrate suddenly rose again, only this time, it wasn’t bad.

“Hi.” A lopsided grin graces Dahyun’s lips while Sana looked at her, dumbfounded.

“Hi- I mean- What are you doing here? I thought you left?” Dahyun’s grin disappears and is replaced by an apologetic smile.

“I did, kind of…”

Sana remains still, eyes transfixed on Dahyun as if she’s taking in all of her features and the way she spoke.

“I just had to take care of a few things… But I promise, I’m not going anywhere anymore.” A sudden wave of relief washes over Sana. It somehow felt like her first breath of air after being held underwater for a while.

But Sana being Sana, she immediately re-gathers herself and rolls her eyes at Dahyun.

“Psh! As if I care. I wanna go home.” Sana does her best to look nonchalant, getting in the opened car door and letting out a breath as soon as Dahyun closed the door behind her.

“Okay then.”

She can hear Dahyun getting in the driver’s seat and buckling her seatbelt, while Sana looked at her intently through the rearview mirror, somehow feeling like the captain will vanish into thin air if she takes her eyes off of her for even a second.

“Careful now, Ms. Sana.” Dahyun grins as she meets Sana’s eyes through the mirror, flustering the latter for being caught with her blatant staring. “One might think you actually missed me.”

The heiress can feel the heat creeping up her cheeks and mentally kicks herself for not coming up with a good comeback once again.

Dahyun chuckles when she sees Sana struggle to find somewhere else to look at other than her, before settling with staring out the car window, still quiet.

“Now buckle up, princess.”

Princess… She called me ‘princess’…

“What the hell, Minatozaki?” Sana whispers to herself; the smile forming on her lips, getting more difficult to wipe away with each passing second.

---

“What the do you mean on lockdown?!” Sana scowls, pacing in front of Dahyun who stood opposite her in the living room.

Dahyun knew she’d react this way. The girl in front of her is now the complete opposite of the flustered one that she picked up from the academy.

“You heard me. You’re not allowed to go out of this house aside from attending school, until this whole thing is sorted out.” The captain calmly explains and the heiress stops her pacing abruptly and turns to look at her spitefully.

Her plans of distracting herself has basically gone out of the window.

“You can’t do that! I have a life; in case you haven’t noticed.” Sana spat, crossing her arms in front of her.

“A life that I need to protect! I promised you and your mother that I would keep you safe. And I intend to do that to the best of my abilities.” Dahyun steps forward, her eyes boring through Sana’s piercing brown ones.

“Even if that means I have to chain you to this house.”

Sana can feel her temper rising, fists clenching that her knuckles have almost turned white. How dare her order her around and tell her what to do?

“You can’t tell me what to do!” Sana yells now, her voice echoing through the room.

The captain has prepared herself for this. She needs to put her foot down and she needs to do her job. Holding her head up higher and making sure that she kept her eye contact, Dahyun smirks at Sana.

The action, obviously taking the heiress in surprise.

“Well, you’re in for a rude awakening, Ms. Sana.” It was now her turn to cross her arms over her chest as she takes another step forward, her face just a few mere inches away from Sana’s.

The heiress keeps getting pulled away from her anger, for she can feel the hot breath that is coming out of Dahyun’s slightly agape mouth when she stepped closer; her breath having a faint smell of coffee and chocolate.

In a low, yet intimidating voice, Dahyun spoke. “Let me tell you how the chain of command is going to work around here: I tell you what to do and YOU DO IT. End of chain.”

They held their eye contact for what seemed like forever. Sana was having a difficult time trying to read through the captain’s rather intimidating expression right now; which was another first.

She’d always been good with seeing right through people and their intentions, making it easier for her to manipulate them and get what she wants. And it infuriates her to no end that she can’t seem to do it with Dahyun.

At times, the captain will have that annoying smirk that she’d very much like to wipe off her face. Sometimes she’ll look at Sana like she’s the most important thing in the world and other times, like this one, she’d look at her with the most unreadable expression and stare her down, challenging her; something no one has ever done to her before.

At a loss for words, Sana does what she feels would best soothe her frustrations: sending a low kick on Dahyun’s shin.

But Sana seems to have forgotten who she’s dealing with as Dahyun catches her foot effortlessly. Sana gapes at the captain and lets out a yelp when the latter releases her foot and tackles her waist to put her over her shoulder.

“PUT ME DOWN, YOU JERK!” Sana squirms in Dahyun’s hold, as the latter effortlessly carries her out of the living room and up the stairs.

“Stop flailing or we’ll both fall to our deaths.” Dahyun grunts, Sana’s movements making it difficult for her to accomplish her task. She was starting to heave when they reached the top of the stairs and Sana was still going with her streak of curses towards Dahyun.

Upon reaching the heiress’s room, Dahyun opens the door and sets her down on her bed. “You are to stay in this house this weekend and the weekends after that. If you’re planning on sneaking out, don’t bother. Trust me when I say that I will always find you.”

Dahyun says the last words with such conviction before immediately walking out of the room and shutting the door firmly.

Sana brushes off the stray hairs that has made their way towards her face when Dahyun carried her. She scoffs at the other’s audacity to say these things.

No one tells Minatozaki Sana what to do.

And she’s gonna prove it.

---

Dahyun chugs a tall glass of water, somehow exhausted with her conversation with Sana. Well, it was mostly because of carrying a ballistic Sana up to her room before she can even make a run for it.

“Captain Cutie?”

The captain nearly dropped her glass when she heard the voice. She turns around quickly and sees Momo standing with an awed expression at the entrance of the kitchen, a sports bag slung over her shoulder.

She drops the bag and makes her way over the captain while Dahyun settles the glass on the counter behind her. It catches her off-guard when the brunette engulfs her in a hug, arms wrapped around her waist tightly.

“You came back.” Momo mumbles into her shirt. Dahyun couldn’t help but smile at the girl’s actions. She deeply appreciated how Momo was affectionate towards her and how she feels at ease with her, opposite to how Sana makes her feel; which is on edge most of the time.

The captain doesn’t understand it much but she finds her adorable in a way. So she wraps her arms around Momo’s shoulder, her right hand unconsciously the back of the other’s head. “Yes, I’m back.”

Momo peels herself slightly off of Dahyun, a blush evident on her cheeks. “Where were you? You just left. I thought you weren’t going to come back.”

Dahyun releases Momo from the embrace and leans back on the counter, much to the latter’s dismay. “I had to tend to a few things and like I told Ms. Sana, I’m not going anywhere from now on. Not until this is over, at least.”

“Oh. Okay.” Momo says meekly, still looking at the captain.

“Speaking of which, she’s upstairs. If she’s grumpy, that would be because of me.” Dahyun gives her a tight-lipped smile, knowing she has roused the beast.

“Why? What happened?” Momo asks with genuine concern.

Slipping her hands into her jean pockets, Dahyun sighs. “I told her she’s not allowed to go out besides going to school. She went- “

“I know. That’s how she’s been these past months…” Momo interjects. She makes a move towards Dahyun’s side with her arm brushing against the captain’s and leaning against the counter as well. Dahyun looks at her, waiting for her to say something.

“I know I said that I’d help in any way I can to keep Sana safe and the last time, I wasn’t very successful in that.” Momo starts.

“So I guess the least I can do is tell you everything that’s happened while you weren’t here.” She was hesitant and Dahyun could tell with the way she picked on her lower lip with her fingers; a nervous habit she’s seen Chaeyoung do on multiple occasions as well.

“That would be very helpful, Momo.” Dahyun smiles at Momo, making the other blush some more.

“Alright, uhm, well nothing much really. Sana and I returned to the cheerleading team. I mean we couldn’t really just quit, she’s still vice-captain and we’re so close to regionals so they can’t just lose two cheerleaders. Sana may be a , but not all the time.” Momo sighs, remembering the day they showed up back in practice, mostly because their other teammates and even Mina has asked them to return.

When they did return, however, Momo couldn’t count how many times she’s stopped Sana from picking a fight with Mina during practices.

Dahyun simply nods, urging Momo to continue.

“And oh, we have two new classmates that arrived today. They’re from New York.” Momo suddenly lets out a giggle, surprising Dahyun a bit. “They’re both really cute actually. They’re best friends like Sana and I. Though I think there’s something else going on between those two.”

“Really?” Dahyun asks in amusement, she’s never really had that perspective on their youngest team members.

Momo smiles widely, excitement starting to build up in her voice. “Yeah! They’re really cute because the other is so tall, like model-tall and really gorgeous and the other is short and sooooo cute!”

Dahyun couldn’t hold back her chuckle. It was good that Jeongyeon wasn’t around, or else she’ll definitely use that against Chaeyoung.

“I’m so excited for you to meet them, you’ll love them.” The brunette says with full certainty.

“I bet I will.” Dahyun answers, her lips quirking into a small smile.

Momo stands back up and goes to pick up her sports bag before turning to look at Dahyun once more. “There’s one more thing…”

The captain shifts in her place and