“You invited Mina here? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Nayeon couldn’t control her laughter when Momo tells her the events that transpired at the office before arriving at the pub.

“I wanted to make a good impression!” Momo whines. “Besides, it seems like everyone from the department is here.” Momo looks around and scans for her workmates: Dahyun and Chaeyoung are in some sort of drinking race; DK, Seungkwan, and Jihyo are by the jukebox singing and dancing their hearts out; Heechul is flirting with a random girl that just walked in; Jeongyeon, Rosé, and Chungha seem to be having a serious discussion; and everyone else is either dancing or talking to other people in their own tables. To Momo, it really does look like everyone is here—everyone except Mina.

“Look, Momo,” Sana says, causing Momo to break away from her thoughts. “We tried inviting Mina before, just like you did. She’s just not that kind of person, I guess.”

“I’m actually surprised you caught her working late,” Nayeon admits. “She usually leaves earlier than the rest of us. We agreed that she’s a genius, and Jeongyeon can confirm that. No one really questions her designs when she submits them.”

“If she leaves early, then what does she do on her free time?” Momo asks.

Nayeon shrugs in response. “Beats me. You could try asking Jeongyeon; she’s been in the company longer than Mina has.”

Momo turns to Sana to try changing the subject. She’s had enough of Myoui Mina for one day—let alone her first day at work.

“How come you’re not trying to get laid with anyone here?” Momo asks her roommate.

“Eh. I’m trying to score on that HR girl Eunha, but she isn’t here right now. Besides, Dahyun and Chaeyoung are having another one of their drink-offs.”

“Yeah, about that, are those two gonna be okay?” Momo asks.

“Actually, no,” Sana answers. “Oh God, Dahyun’s choking—I need to take her to the restroom. Dahyunnie don’t you dare puke in there!” Sana calls out as she runs towards the drinking duo.

Nayeon feels two arms snake around her from behind. She turns around, smiling when she sees that it’s Jeongyeon, and gives her a wet kiss. Momo takes this as her cue to leave.

“I better get going and help Sana.”

Momo rushes to the restroom and sees Sana holding up Dahyun’s hair, Dahyun’s face almost glued to the sink, and Chaeyoung standing by the wall with her head hung low. Sana sees Momo make a scrunchy face at the sight.

“That bad?” Momo asks.

“Yeah, Dahyun drank a lot,” Sana says wryly, turning to Chaeyoung. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing!” Chaeyoung puts her hands up as she defends herself. “She just asked me if I wanted a drink-off and I said yes. I didn’t expect her to drink that much.”

Sana sighs as she listens to Dahyun cough and spit out her insides. “You okay there, Dahyunnie?”

“Y-Yeah,” Dahyun manages to reply. “I think I’m all good now.”

Sana turns to Momo. “I’m driving these two kids home first. You can head home if you want.”

“Nah, I’ll help you,” says Momo, already making her way to Chaeyoung. Meanwhile, Sana carries Dahyun and the four of them walk outside to Sana’s car.

“Why don’t you stay with Dahyun at the back in case she might hurl again?” Sana suggests, and Momo obliges. Thankfully though it doesn’t happen, and Sana and Momo put Dahyun and Chaeyoung in their respective beds.

“They actually gave you a spare key to their apartment,” Momo says once she and Sana are back in the car. “They must trust you a lot.”

“More like hate me.” Sana scoffs. “They know I have a high alcohol tolerance so they’ve tasked me as their driver and caretaker for situations like this.”

“Dude, they trust you not to take advantage of them when they’re drunk,” Momo tells her. “You’re a good friend, Minatozaki.”

“Hey, I don’t try to sleep with all girls, you know. Just the super cute ones.”

“Like Eunha from HR, right?”

“Yeah, her.” Sana sighs. “She’s so cute and dreamy.”

“Don’t fantasize about her too much or you’ll kill us here on the road,” Momo warns her.

Sana wakes up early the next day because she plans to drop by Dahyun and Chaeyoung’s. She tries to wake Momo up and ask her if she wants to come, but all she hears are incoherent sounds from the girl.

“See you later then, sweetie,” Sana says, hopping off Momo’s bed.

The next days and few weeks pass by smoothly. Momo learns that most of the Engineering Department goes to the Cheer Up Pub every night, making her wonder how they seem so normal during office hours. Soon enough though she does the same, as she couldn’t turned down Nayeon or Sana or anyone else who invites her to go to the pub with them.

As for her actual work life, Momo is still assigned to a buddy, and she hasn’t been given her own project to test yet, but Nayeon assures her that she’ll get at least one by the end of her first month. Momo has almost forgotten her embarrassing encounter with Myoui Mina—almost. She does her best to avoid the girl, which has been pretty easy since Mina doesn’t even join her team for lunch.

Nayeon’s prediction comes true when, three weeks into the job, Rosé tells Momo that she’ll be assigned to test a chip on her own.

“That’s great, Miss Rosé!” Momo couldn’t hide her excitement.

“The Layout Engineer’s just finishing the rendering, but the Design Engineer should be here anytime soon to talk to you about it,” Rosé explains to her. “Oh, speaking of, Mina’s coming in here now.”

Momo immediately enters a state of panic when she hears Mina’s name.

“Mina,” Rosé starts, “I don’t know if you’ve met Momo but she’s our newest Test Engineer. She’s in your hands now. Good luck, Momo!” Rosé pats her on the back before walking away.

Momo doesn’t realize she’s staring at Mina until the girl waves her flash drive in front of her.

“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry,” says a flustered Momo.

“It’s alright,” Mina tells her softly. “The file is in the folder with today’s date.”

When the flash drive loads in the computer and Momo navigates to the said file, she sees that the folders are arranged according to year, then month, then day. Momo realizes two things: the first, that Mina has been in the Design Team for at least two years; and the second, that she’s extremely organized.

“There,” Mina says when they’re in today’s folder. Momo clicks it and it opens. “So the chip is a transceiver designed for high-frequency applications.”

“Is that an inductor?” Momo asks, pointing towards a yellow spiral on the part of the layout.

“For the transmitter, yes,” Mina answers. “The modulation scheme is patented so we had to add a mixer to the receiver.”

Momo hums as she tries analyzing the schematic. “Oh, you have a balun?”

“Yes.”

“Then you don’t need a current source in your mixer here.” Momo points to another part of the picture.

“What?” Mina asks, clearly annoyed, as if Momo had asked a stupid question. “The current source is there to make sure that the voltage at this point is equal.”

“Yes but if you have a balun, then the mixer’s inputs will be balanced, and you won’t need the current source anymore.”

Mina doesn’t answer Momo and stares at the screen, deep in thought. Momo doesn’t realize she’s been holding her breath until Mina speaks again.

“Holy crap, Momo,” Mina says. “You’re absolutely right.” Mina ejects her flash drive from the computer and unplugs it. “I’m gonna need to fix this.”

Momo doesn’t get to respond as Mina dashes out of the room.

“Hey, Momo,” Nayeon mutters beside her, making Momo snap back to reality. “Why are you just staring there like some sort of weirdo? You have work, you know.”

Momo blinks before she could reply, just to make herself sure that that conversation with Mina did happen.

“Uh, Mina’s changing her design so I’m waiting for her at the moment.”

“MINA WHAT?”

The shock on Nayeon’s voice is enough to make Momo turn to her. “What?” she asks Nayeon.

“Mina’s never changed her design before,” Nayeon tells her. “What did you even say?”

“Nothing, just that she doesn’t need a part of the mixer.”

“And she agreed with you?” Nayeon lets out a low whistle. “Wow.”

“It doesn’t seem like a big deal.”

“Oh, it is,” Nayeon insists.

Momo rolls her eyes at Nayeon, but deep inside she feels sort of special that Mina changed her design after their conversation. But Momo overthinks and wonders if she made Mina mad because she had to change her design and—

“I think I’m gonna go to Mina and see how she’s doing. You know, so we could finish this early.”

“Yeah, sure,” an unconvinced Nayeon replies. “You don’t need to give me an excuse, you know. Just say you wanna gawk at Mina and go.”

“I don’t!” Momo groans. “Whatever, I’m just gonna go.”

“See you later, lover girl!”

In the Applications Team “cave,” Chaeyoung peeks over to Sana to check on her work. She scoffs when she sees the girl on her phone, playing Friends Marble.

“Have you even finished working?” Chaeyoung asks Sana in a loud voice, causing Sana to fumble and drop her phone.

“Yah!! Chaeyoung, you caused me to go bankrupt!” Sana screams, trying to reach for her phone but Chaeyoung is faster. “Wow, for someone so short you managed to snatch my phone before I can.”

Chaeyoung ignores this comment and simply rolls her eyes. “You can get this back when you’re done working.”

“Dahyunnie! Dahyunnie!” Sana whines as she approaches Dahyun on the other side of the room. “Chaeyoung stole my phone!”

“Sana, stop being a baby,” says Dahyun. “Chaeyoung, give Sana back her phone.”

“But she isn’t working!”

“Excuse you!” Sana yells. “I’m compiling my code but it’s taking a long time. I’m just taking a break right now. But you made me lose! Now what’s Eunha going to think of me?”

“Eunha?” Dahyun blinks. “The girl from HR?”

“Yes, that’s her!” Sana’s back to her excited self again. “Anyway, we were playing and she told me if I won the game I can stay over at her place tonight. But I. Freaking. Lost.”

Chaeyoung smirks at Sana’s demise. “Then I’ve successfully completed my mission.”

“Why you little—”

“Sana,” Dahyun says her name firmly, commanding. “Stop. Chaeyoung, just give Sana her phone back.”

Chaeyoung scoffs, but follows Dahyun’s order anyway.

“Thank you, Dahyunnie!” Sana hugs Dahyun tightly, but the other girl doesn’t respond. Sana sees Eunha and lets out a squeak, running out to her without warning Dahyun or Chaeyoung.

“For someone who sees so many girls to flirt with, Sana sure is blind,” Chaeyoung remarks.

“What?” Dahyun says, tearing her gaze away from Sana.

“Dahyun, I see the way you look at Sana. You’re in love with her.”

Momo makes her way to the Design Division and sees Mina hard at work in altering her design. With the girl looking so into her element, Momo decides not to interrupt and just stand there, until Mina notices a still figure by her side.

“Oh, hi there, Momo,” Mina greets her, still looking at her computer screens.

“Um, I’m sorry you had to change your design,” Momo mumbles.

“No, it’s fine. Your suggestion was pretty efficient, actually. Removing the current source is gonna save us some power. Good job.” Mina turns to Momo and gives her a warm smile before turning back to her work.

It took everything in Momo not to have a seizure when Mina smiled at her. Seriously, who smiles like that—like, an angel or something? Momo thinks to herself.

“I’m still gonna modify the layout for this but I’ll come back to you right after lunch,” Mina tells her after a moment of silence.

Momo simply nods before walking back to the Testing Room, wondering how much of a genius Mina really is if she really could finish the design alterations by lunch time.

Mina keeps her word to Momo and goes to her desk when Momo comes back from her lunch.

“Here,” says Mina, pointing to the area where the removed part used to be. “I changed the sizes a bit because the current source is gone.”

“Oh, they got a little bigger,” Momo observes.

“That’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, it can still fit in the testing equipment?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Great. I just have to send this to Fabrication and they’ll have it ready for you tomorrow morning. Sorry it got delayed.”

“It’s okay.”

Mina turns around to go back to her desk, but Momo is quick to stop her.

“If you’re free, the other girls and I are gonna go to Cheer Up Pub later.” Momo coughs, trying to hide her nervousness. “You can come with us if you’d like.”

Mina offers her a warm smile, and just like when they were in the elevator that first day it gives Momo a bit of hope. Unfortunately, it disappears when Mina replies with, “Sorry, I have somewhere to be right now. But thank you, for the offer.”

At least Momo got to see Mina smile.