Fact: Mina is an introvert.

There’s a reason why her parents were so surprised when she told them she wanted to pursue being an idol, and that is the blatant fact that Mina is shy and passive.  Sure, she’s sweet and nice and friendly—at least, to a certain extent—but she can only handle a certain amount of human interaction per day, and sometimes (read: most of the time) she reaches that daily limit before the day is even halfway over.

The other members usually about it, calling her an aunt or an older brother for never leaving her room, and Mina can’t grumble about it because she knows it’s true. She rarely puts herself out there, although it’s not for the lack of trying. There’s just a certain level of comfort that she feels when she’s alone, one that she just can’t seem to achieve when there are other people around. She tries really hard to step out of her comfort zone, and that comfort zone unfortunately doesn’t cover any place outside of her own bed. However, her intrinsic behavior always ends up overpowering her most gallant efforts.

Well, always except when Hirai Momo is involved, anyway.

Apparently, what happens when an unstoppable force (Mina’s helpless crush on Momo) meets an immovable object (homebody Mina) is that the immovable object moves anyway. That is, the only time that Mina ever leaves her room is when Momo wants to try a new restaurant and asks Mina to come with.

She doesn’t know how Momo does it, but the girl definitely has a knack for finding new food places before they even open. Maybe it’s simply one of Momo’s God-given talents, along with dancing and making Mina fall for her without even knowing it.

Mina is fairly certain that her feelings can be seen from outer space, so the others may already have an idea about her conspicuous fondness for Momo. She has long given up on her attempts to conceal her emotions, however, because Mina could have “I love Momo” written in capital letters all over her forehead and Momo still wouldn’t notice it.

Besides, there’s a part of Mina that actually wants Momo to know. It doesn’t even matter if Momo feels the same way; Momo can reject her now just to get it out of the way. Unfortunately for Mina, that moment is probably not going to happen any time soon because her love language is ambiguous as heck and her crush is the most oblivious person in the world.

And so Mina can do nothing but bottle all of her stupid feelings up, keep showing her love for Momo in the tiniest ways, and hope that Momo would take a damn hint and realize what Mina’s heart has been subtly trying to tell her for years.

She’s probably hoping in vain, but that doesn’t stop her from telling Momo that she’ll be ready in a moment before Momo even tells her where they’re going.

Their destination turns out to be a new place that sells jokbal, and okay, at this rate, their cholesterol levels are going to kill them before they reach 30, but at least, they’ll die together, so Mina is not about to complain. Like the other ones that Momo has dragged Mina into, this current place is small and quiet, and there are only three people in it aside from them.

Mina treasures these short private moments because even if they’re just mostly made up of small talk and Momo’s commentaries about the food, Mina can still pretend like they’re on a date. It’s also the reason why she always makes it a point to pay for everything when they go out to eat, so when Momo reaches for the check this time, Mina almost loses it.

“Uhh, what are you doing?”

“I’m paying,” Momo says simply, as if she didn’t know that Mina’s question was rhetorical.

“Yeah, you can’t do that,” Mina opposes, making Momo narrow her eyes in confusion.

“Why not?”

Because I’m in love with you and I can’t say that out loud but I can say it by buying you food that you obviously love a lot more than you can ever love me, Mina wants to say, but she bites her tongue. Instead, she compromises, “Okay, you can just pay for your half, and I’ll pay mine.”

“Uhh, yeah, you can’t do that,” Momo says, mirroring Mina’s earlier words.

“Why not?”

“Because if we split the bill, then this wouldn’t be a date,” Momo says so casually, and wait, what?

“… This is a date?”

Mina is so, so confused, and apparently, Momo is moreconfused that Mina is confused because she blinks and slowly answers, “Yeah, I mean, we are dating, right?”

Suddenly, Mina forgets how to breathe and chokes on air. Thankfully, she eventually gets over the shock to say, “Y-yeah, I guess we are.”

She hears Momo heave a sigh of relief. “Good. For a second there, I thought I was reading this all wrong.”

“You’re not,” Mina immediately assures. “You’re reading this absolutely right.”

So maybe Momo is just as bad as Mina is when it comes to this expression of love thing. Still, Momo goes home with a full stomach, and Mina goes home with a girlfriend she never even knew she had. Mina even reaches out to hold Momo’s hand along their way making Momo smile, and she figures that maybe being assertive every once in a while won’t hurt at all.

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A/N: Feel free to send me prompts and ruin my list of ships @ twitter.com/snakelinesslave or up-for-anything-really.tumblr.com.