A few days ago, Sooyoung had suggested for the five of them to go bowling. Tonight, it would be their first gathering as a complete group after six months and everyone seemed to be excited. Yeri as well, even though she didn’t really say much. Joohyun could see it in the way her eyes had sparkled at the suggestion, despite her attempts to appear nonchalant about it.

Seulgi also seemed to be looking forward to it. However, Joohyun could sense a bit of tension within the younger girl. Perhaps it was the way she was constantly cracking her knuckles or the uneasy smile on her lips at the mention of the get-together.

Seungwan still had classes and Joohyun was bored, so she decided to drop by Seulgi’s to relax a little while waiting for her girlfriend, even if they didn’t talk much. Besides, the best sort of company was the one you could share comfortable silence with. And the three of them were supposed to go together to the bowling alley anyways, so Joohyun figured it came out handy.

She was lying down on the couch while she observed the focused look on Seulgi’s face as the latter doodled a bit in her sketchbook. The younger girl had decided to pick up her hobby of drawing and painting again.

Joohyun recalled how Seulgi used to draw a lot a few years ago whenever she needed to distress. To be honest, Joohyun still didn’t know what the reason had been behind Seulgi’s sudden decision to quit, especially when it had been something that had brought the younger girl joy. She was happy that Seulgi had returned to it. And god, she was still extremely talented at it. It was almost impossible to imagine that Seulgi was self-taught.

“So… how are you feeling?”, Joohyun asked carefully. Seulgi looked up from her sketchbook with a confused frown on her face, “about tonight. How are you feeling about tonight?”

“Oh”, Seulgi smiled, “I’m excited!”

Joohyun watched her closely, not missing the way the younger girl gulped or quickly averted her gaze. And there was the cracking of the knuckles again.

“Not feeling nervous or anything? Not even a little?”

Seulgi opened , seemingly ready to deny Joohyun’s statements, only to sigh in defeat, a small smile on her face.

“What’s the point in lying to you when you already figured me out?”, she let out a breathy laugh, “even if I did you would be too stubborn to let me off easily…”

“Good thing you know me that well then”, Joohyun grinned.

Seulgi playfully rolled her eyes, but her smile wavered. Joohyun sat up straight on the couch, sensing that the younger girl must have been feeling more nervous than she initially thought.

“Talk to me”, the older girl said. Those three words were all she said and it was enough. Joohyun had learned that sometimes you don’t need a lot of words to convey a message. Sometimes directness is the most effective method.

“It’s just that…”, Seulgi put her sketchbook aside and laid her hands on her lap, sometimes focusing her gaze on them as she spoke, “I’m scared…”

“Of what?”

“I’m scared that…”, the younger girl bit her lip and cracked her knuckles again. Joohyun winced at the sound., “that things have changed too much… I guess… I’m scared that there will be this tension that will always be there. I’m scared that I’ve broken our group and that we’ll find out sooner or later that everything is unfixable. I… I’m scared that I won’t fit in anymore…”

Joohyun’s eyes widened. She hadn’t expected this at all. Maybe save for the tension part. If she were in Seulgi’s shoes, she would probably also be freaking out about the potential awkwardness that would be present. But to think that the younger girl was this terrified that she couldn’t help but think of the most disastrous possibilities. Possibilities that she was almost entirely certain of being far from ever happening.  

“I know that everyone has forgiven me and all, but I can’t help it. I can’t stop thinking about these what ifs. I’m so scared, Hyun. I… I just don’t want to lose all of you. I don’t want to lose our group. Whenever the five of us were together, everything always felt so right. And I’m scared that things won’t ever be like that again…”

“What I’m about to say might sound unrealistic to you and not helpful at all but…”

Joohyun made sure to look Seulgi in the eyes and hold her gaze. She wanted to make sure the younger actually listened, that she knew that she should take these words to heart.

“I think you’re worrying too much. Yes, I know it sounds completely nuts for me say that, but I’m being serious. Like you said, we have all forgiven you. And honestly, none of us holds a grudge. I don’t, Seungwan doesn’t, Sooyoung doesn’t. Yeri also doesn’t. Like, Yeri usually doesn’t forgive people and that fact that she forgave you says something. She stands by what she says, which means that if she forgave you, she doesn’t hold it against you anymore.”

“Look, I can’t tell you there won’t be a bit of tension tonight. I mean, it has been quite a few months since the five of us hung out and lots of stuff has happened. But I’m pretty sure we’ll get over that in no time. You know why? Because things changed. And you know? Change doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Change can actually be good. And I would say that in this case, it’s a good type of change. Because what change is that this might have made our group stronger rather than broken as you think it will be.”

“You… you really think so?”, Seulgi asked, a worried frown painted on her face. Joohyun caught the way the younger girl brought her hands together to crack her knuckles. She quickly leaned forward and held them to prevent her from doing so.

“I know so”, Joohyun smiled reassuringly, “we all got to know each other more and went through it together. And individually, there were a lot of changes as well. There was progress. Don’t they say that you grow through trials and tribulations?”

“Yeah… yeah, I guess so.”

“Well then.”

They shared a moment of silence just looking at each other. Joohyun observed the younger girl closely, wondering what might be going through her head. She noticed the way Seulgi briefly let her gaze fall on Joohyun’s hands who were on top of Seulgi’s.

“To be honest, I also want to talk about something else… well, it’s actually still related but… I feel like I haven’t properly mentioned it.”

The younger girl now seemed even more nervous.

“What’s wrong, Seul?”, Joohyun frowned. She traced her thumb over the girl’s hand.

“It’s just that…”, Seulgi’s fingers moved restlessly, searching for another opportunity to pop her joints as an immediate source of short-lived relief, “I still… like you.”

Her voice wavered at the word ‘like’, giving away that it was more than just the mere feeling of liking her. Joohyun continued to trace Seulgi’s hand, making sure she was giving the younger girl her uttermost attention. Talking about this was a good thing. One of them was finally taking the first step.

“It has been so many years… and it’s going to take a bit of time for me to… not feel that way anymore. And…”, Seulgi’s voice was slightly shaky, “I really wanted you to know this. I want to know whether… you feel uncomfortable about it.”

“I know you still feel that way about me. I didn’t expect for it to magically disappear or anything.”

Joohyun gently squeezed Seulgi’s hand before continuing.

“And I don’t feel uncomfortable about it, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

Seulgi’s eyes widened. Apparently, the younger girl wasn’t expecting such a nonchalant attitude from her. But it was the truth. By now, Joohyun knew better than to lie.

“You really don’t?”, Seulgi whispered.

The older girl shook her head.

“I trust you.”

Honestly, the surprising look on Seulgi’s face was a bit painful. It had been almost one month since they had started talking again. One month after the apologies and the younger girl had tried so hard, nobody could deny how much effort she had been making to set things right. And yet Seulgi still seemed to feel guilty, as if for some reason, she could never be free from her mistakes.

It made Joohyun realize that no matter how much forgiveness you receive from the people around you, forgiving yourself was also an important and crucial form of forgiveness to receive.

“Besides”, Joohyun now raised her hand, holding up her pinkie finger, “we are best friends, aren’t we?”

Seulgi looked at her finger and let out a breathy laugh.

“You still remember”, the younger girl’s smile grew.

“Of course, I do.”

The winter of 2011 when Joohyun had spent the night at Seulgi’s house and they were still awake at almost four in the morning. The time when people’s hearts tend to take over the tongue, the hours when the soul is bared and the night is painted in sentimentality. That was when they had promised each other, their two pinkies intertwined and their innocent hearts filled with visions of a hopeful future, to remain best friends for a lifetime.

And now here they were, still side-by-side with that same wish and hope. Except, Joohyun believed that in a way, their friendship had become stronger. She couldn’t explain why, but she felt it. A change. Perhaps it was the survival of their bond after those trials and tribulations. The lessons learned this year. Or the fact that both of them had grown in ways that their younger selves could have never dreamed of. 

Honestly, if someone had told her younger self that she would move out of her parents’ house, confront her mother, befriend three other people, have a relationship and finally be more honest and straightforward about how she felt, she would have laughed in that person’s face, believing that they were sputtering out non-sense. That there was no way that would ever become her reality; even if she wished it would.

And yet it was her reality. And it was better than everything she had dared to dream of.

Joohyun was sure Seulgi felt the same.

“So? Are we?”, the older girl asked with a grin on her face.

Seulgi raised her arm, intertwining their two pinkies as she met Joohyun’s gaze with sparkles in her own.

“For a lifetime.”

Joohyun then couldn’t help but burst out in laughter.

“Wow, this is so cringey. We really were in that late-night sentimental mood, huh?”

“I was literally just thinking about this”, Seulgi playfully pulled a disgusted face, “honestly, only Seungwan can handle this level of cringeyness while being… well in a way sober.”

“Yeah, I’ll have to agree with that.”

“Though, you both are kind of like that sometimes.”

Joohyun’s eyes widened.

“What do you mean with ‘both’? I’m not like that!”

Seulgi raised an accusatory eyebrow.

“Right… except you are. Whenever you guys are together it seems like you’re on a mission to spread global lactose intolerance with that insane amount of cheesiness coming out of both your mouths.”

Joohyun dramatically gasped.

“How dare you!”

“Don’t they say that the more you spend time with someone, the more you’ll start behaving like them?”

“I mean yeah but-”

“Just accept it, Hyun. You became one of them.”

“One of who?”

Seulgi’s grin widened.

“String cheese sticks.”

“Did… did you just compare me to a string cheese stick?”

“I did.”

“Do you want to die?”

Seulgi slightly tilted her head to the side, a teasing smile on her face. She was definitely enjoying this.

“Doesn’t sound very threatening coming out of a string cheese stick.”

Joohyun quickly grabbed one of the pillows next to her on the couch and threw it at the younger girl’s face, resulting in another burst of laughter from the latter.

“Your throw is surprisingly weak. Which actually shouldn’t be surprising at all considering you’re a string che-”

“Okay, I’m going to kick your ”, Joohyun said as she stood up from the couch.

“Oh no! Please, don’t infect me! I don’t want to become one of you!”, Seulgi shrieked, quickly standing up as well and running to the other side of the living room.

Joohyun blinked a few times, processing the fact that Seulgi was indeed standing on the other side. Sometimes she forgot how fast the younger girl could be.

Which made chasing her pretty much an impossible task.

Not that she didn’t attempt it, resulting in several minutes of running around in circles, the sound of their breathy laughter loud in the air. Joohyun wondered whether it could be heard throughout the whole building at this point.

A sudden knock brought them to silence, both continuously trying to keep an eye on each other and then the door. Joohyun squinted as Seulgi’s lips formed into a smirk. The younger girl then launched into a sprint towards the door, reaching the knob before the older girl could even move two steps despite being closer.

On the other side, Seungwan was looking at both of them with wide eyes.

“Wha-”

Before Seungwan could even finish one word, the taller girl grabbed her by her shoulders and turned her around so that she would stand between Joohyun and Seulgi.

“Seungwan, save me!”, Seulgi’s grip on Seungwan’s shoulders tightened slightly as she moved her around like a shield.

“Save you? What?”, Seungwan frowned.

“Joohyun is going to infect me and turn me into a string cheese stick!”

“I mean, if we are going to be technical about this, Seungwan is one too. So it’s pretty much two vs one”, Joohyun grinned.

Seulgi quickly let go of Seungwan, dramatically gasping as she slowly took a few steps away from them.

“Oh no… you’re right… I’m doomed!”, she suddenly dropped to her knees and raised her arms, clenching her hands into fists as she looked up at the ceiling, her voice high-pitched, “doomed I tell you!”

Seungwan blinked a few times and then looked at Joohyun.

“String cheese sticks?”

Joohyun thought about how on earth to explain whatever the reason was that they were running and pretty much screaming, eventually settling for a shrug.

“Okay… anyways…”, Seungwan pointed towards the direction of her apartment with her thumb, “I already changed for tonight. Have you guys already…”

Her gaze travelled over Joohyun’s hoodie and sweatpants as well as over Seulgi’s shirt and shorts.

“You guys do know that we have to be there in like one hour and a half, right?”

“Yeah, you’re right. We should hurry up”, Joohyun agreed.

“One hour and a half? Oh, that’s a lot of time”, Seulgi waved it off.

“Right, and that’s exactly you are always late.”

“Yeah, okay, fine. You’ve got a point. I’ll go take a quick shower”, Seulgi said, admitting defeat.

“You do know a