“Hey sweetheart,” Mina heard Joy call for her while she was doing her own business in the café, and she perked her ears like a dog. Omg, she called me sweetheart, her head provided, why doesn’t it sound weird? “Up for a party?”

“A party?” Mina’s whole face started to glow up at the mention of the party, and she beamed back at Joy happily. “For real? Where?”

“A friend of mine got invited into a party for a friend of hers and she told her she could invite anyone,” Joy shrugged with a pretty smile up her face, pleased to be receiving such delighted expression from the younger girl. “So here I am trying to stuff her house with as much people as possible.”

Mina’s heart started to skip a dozen beats and stumbling over one another in pleasant delight, her head providing her with every kind of thoughts about what she’d do in that party. Drinking and dancing, and actually having the time of her life. Her eyes started to twinkle and her legs twitched at the promised craziness she would soon be able to face. However, her happiness was cut short because she knew how she could get in parties, so wild and free to the point of insanity, and could she really be like that around these girls? Her eyes darted toward every girl in the café who were waiting for her response, those strangers? No, she wasn’t ready enough to be in a party around them. If her boys were here, she would agree in a heartbeat, but.. now.. with these girls, she wasn’t ready.

“.. no, sorry, I can’t.” She mumbled sadly, looking down at her fingers. Wow, did she say no to a party? Mina couldn’t believe the words came out of !

“You serious? Why can’t you?” Wendy exclaimed in surprise, because she wasn’t the only one who saw that delight in her face, right? Mina looked up and unconsciously pouted at the older girl. She had been introduced to Wendy yesterday, and she was.. well, a replica of joy but less gay. “Are you like, the type of person that actually doesn’t party on a school night?”

“Everyone shouldn’t party on a school night, Wendy. It’s called being responsible.” Seulgi murmured dryly, taking a bunch of cups in a tray from the table ahead of her and settling them somewhere else.

“What? That’s so boring!” Wendy exclaimed in protest, eyes wide in disbelieve because what the hell? Responsible people actually existed? Where?

“Right?” Joy exclaimed back happily, a big smile up her face. “That’s what I think too.”

“ my life.” Seulgi whispered to herself helplessly but Joy apparently heard her and returned to being the sappy girl she was – sappy and erted.

“I’d you.” Joy winked and Seulgi just gave her a flat look, unamused to a default. Mina felt her awkward smile turn a bit genuine, liking Seulgi’s responses to everyone’s nonsense on a spiritual level. She was a bit like her, Mina decided, cynical and bitter in a way, but Joy was also a lot more like her too, with her bubbly, joyful and ecstatic personality that drew people to her. Mina realized that working with these girls would actually not be so horrible, since she could spot a few familiarities in them; even if some of the girls were a bit.. forceful toward her.

“Why aren’t you coming, sweet pea?” Wendy turned around from Seulgi and Joy’s whine festival (okay, Seulgi wasn’t whining, it was just joy, lets be real) to shoot Mina a wink, and Mina’s awkward smile returned back to her face.

Yup, a bit forceful with their excessive flirting toward her.

“Um, well..”

“She doesn’t really know you guys to go to a party with you,” Yeri said and when Mina turned her attention to the younger girl, Yeri beamed happily at her. Mina thought Yeri looked quite different when she wasn’t crying. “That’s kinda intimate, don’t you think?”

“Right, intimate as in all those gorgeous people you’ll soon grind on.” Wendy commented and she quickly leaned over Joy to share a stupid giggle. Mina’s awkward smile became extremely pained, a similar smile of pain glazing over Yeri’s face as she tried to avoid Mina’s eyes because of her stupid, stupid unnies. Seulgi, like usual, was found murmuring.

“Maybe I’m not destined to die.”

“Girls, back to work!” they heard Irene’s sudden below coming from their backs, and everyone jumped apart to focus on their duties, Joy and Wendy ceasing their giggles with a cough, quickly walking away to stand over their position behind the counter.

Meanwhile, Mina stayed in her place, since they were the ones who crowded over her position around a big square table she had been wiping consistently the past ten minutes (because you don’t get jobs done when you’re talking with people) she thought, the girls were strange; there was no other way to conceive them. Seulgi, maybe, was less weird than everyone else because she’s deadpanned most of the time, appreciating no one’s humor. She kind of reminded her of Kyungsoo, which struck some kind of familiarity in Mina’s heart. The rest though, the rest were bizarre. They were too friendly, too open-minded, too.. free? It wasn’t particularly bad or anything, Mina was just.. she wasn’t used to them or their sense of easiness. It was also quite odd how easily they acted around her, especially Seulgi, who didn’t seem to like her at the beginning but now seemed to accept her so fast.

Mina peeked at them as she moved to another table, catching them once again gather around each other to tattle, Irene gone and no where to be found. Even Seulgi moved toward them, with a roll of her eyes, but she was still moving toward them. Mina found her heartbeats accelerate in her chest, and she wondered, would she finally be accepted by girls?

-

Walking home, Mina felt her bag vibrating against her thigh, and she paused in her strides toward her apartment with a skip of her heartbeats. She contemplated whether to take her phone and actually check the phone call or not, because well, she was sure it was Suho calling. Why? Because she didn’t go to his house where he specifically told her to come there and she specifically agreed. Why didn’t she text him and tell him she couldn’t make it? Because he’ll question her about it, he’ll ask her why, he’ll wonder where she was, and he most likely would visit her workplace. Why didn’t she want him to figure this out? Because he’ll know she was working, without telling him.

It wasn’t that big of a deal since Suho’s gentle personality (most of the time) prevented him from saying anything hurtful or decline her decisions outrightly. But she didn’t want to see that disappointed look in his eyes, not because she failed to mention her desire to work to him, but disappointment that his money didn’t suffice, that she wanted more, that she wanted to be independent and self-resilient. She wanted to be important as her own person, as the girl who did everything by herself and conquered demons she didn’t think she’d be able to conquer with how fragile her life was and used to be. She wanted to grow out of herself, of her weaknesses, and having a stable job was a first step to being this girl, or woman, she wanted to be.

She didn’t loathe Suho’s money, or his constant support. She accepted his apartment, his car, his donation to her university (sure, the apartment and the car she shared with Sehun and Kai, plus the donation was for the college she shared with them as well) but she didn’t want him to constantly do these things for her. He was rich, super, and he didn’t seem like he was facing bankruptcy anytime soon. But did she want their relationship to be defined as only this? No, she didn’t want to be the woman Suho’s paying for, she wanted to be the woman Suho didn’t need to pay for, because she’s not unstable.

(A small part of her did it because Suho refused her love for him in times of need because he considered her as weak, weak because he did everything for her, and that that was what their relationship was for him. But that was not right, and she didn’t want him to think of her as the vulnerable girl to always take care of. She can take care of herself fine, and the image he had of her was not the real image she was taking. She was going to show him how to be a person worthy of having their own decisions).

Even through her self-induced terror, she still took her phone out of her bag, the sound of the phone overbearing the sound of the zipper growing loose by her fingers, and her heart stopped pacing all together when she saw the caller ID.

It was definitely not Suho.

It was her father.

She told him how many times not to call her until the woman she hates is out of his life? How many times did she accuse him of taking sides, and that hers will always remain vacant as long as that woman existed? How many times did he cause her great despair, great feeling of helplessness, because of his own blinded eyes? Did she want to take the call? Honestly? No, no she didn’t, but she did anyway, and the first thing she heard was his weak, shaggy breath.

It broke her heartbeats into tiny pieces.

“Hey..” His voice came like a breathless murmur and her own breath escaped her fragmented chest. “Hello, sweetheart, how are you doing? I didn’t think you’d pick up the phone.” He released a small, weak laugh and Mina didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to do. All of her life, all of her damn life, that was the only thing that managed to make her strong, his laughter, his weak laughter, but when she walked away, when she realized the amount of fraud, time and strength it took for her father to make just one of those laughs, it broke her, so she left. She left because she couldn’t take them no more and she told him to leave too, because if she couldn’t resist crying every time she heard them, how hard was it for him to make them?

But did he listen to her? Does he ever?

“Dad, I told you not to call me,” Mina tried to force strength into her voice, she really did. She clutched her phone tighter and she focused on the stale street with flashing lights across her, leading to her apartment approximately ten steps away – because she counts her steps all the time when she’s close to her apartment – with clear, focused intensity. But her voice still cracked. Mina hated herself at that moment. “I told you, Dad, I told you to just; up and leave, I always tell you—“

“Honey, please,” His please seemed to be as broken as he was making her and she kept mum, she closed her lips shut and just, stared at the space ahead of her. “I’m already so tired and I just want to hear your voice and rejoice again. You know you’ve always been my source of strength.”

“No, no Dad, no,” She released a small, withered cry, but she quickly pressed her hand on , hard and harsh, suppressing her growing wheezes. She didn’t want him to hear her weep over him when, when he was lying. “No, please, I don’t want to do this anymore. I know you’re lying to me.”

“Why would I lie to you?” Her father’s voice was laced with confusion he didn’t even bother hide, and she felt the warm, salty sensation of her tears on her cheeks, grazing her lips, and she didn’t allow her racking breathing to reach the other side of the phone.

“Because you love her, dad, you love her more than you love me. She’s your source of joy, don’t tell me your lies.” She murmured softly, loosening the harsh grip she had on so she’d speak properly, feeling the warm blood rush to her lips once she released, and she was this close to closing her phone or toss it away. But she didn’t, again.

“Sweetheart, I love you both,” She heard him say, clearly, the weakness he showed just seconds ago out of the wind, the same hurtling wind that was attacking her from all around. She hated how declaring her love for her made him strong. “Why can’t I love you both? You guys are both my source of joy and happiness. I just wish you didn’t leave, I just, I just want you here with us, so we can be a family again.”

“We were never a family, dad,” Mina said, trying to be as clear-minded as her dad sounded, but a new patch of tears were cascading down her cheeks, and she felt them disappear past her chin, soaking the collar of her shirt and seeping into the hallow of . She wanted to sob loudly so badly but her father was living a nightmare of his own, and she didn’t care if he was aware of it or not; she didn’t want him to see hers as well. “We were never one. She hurt me day and night. She made me eat that ty rock food of hers and she made me want to do bad things to myself. She’s abusive and she’s killing you—“

“Mina, sweetheart, she’s not like that, or, or, you don’t know what she’s going—“

“Why the do you keep defending that ?” Mina bellowed, all of a sudden, the sound of hers she produced was so loud, so massive, that it reverberated through the empty street into different echoes. Mina could practically hear the stunned silence from her father’s side, and she took the chance to vent all of her frustrations to him. “Why do you love her so much? Why is she always so worth it to you? How did she manage to get you so brainwashed like this!” Mina continued to yell, her voice strong, and she realized amidst her frustrated yells, the stream of warm liquid shaping her drawn cheekbones. However, she was inconspicuous of her tears, or chose to ignore the scorching fires they left as a trail down her skin. “Why is she always the more important one? She’s not ing worth a damn dime, dad, she’s pathetic, a fraud, she weighs less than the dirt under my shoes, and I know you know it, so ing why? Why is she always first? What about you? What about the life she deprived you of? What about the gray, green and purple marks she makes on you daily out of freaking love like she says? What about your broken heart that loved a broken piece not worth the price of a ratty pipe in a sewer? What the hell is wrong with you? I don’t freaking understand!”

“Mina, I—“

“No, don’t give me your usual bullcrap, I know what kind of a person you are. I know how you view her, I know that she’s important but I ing don’t understand how you have any capacity left in your shattered soul to forgive each and every one of her mistakes! I don’t get you, dad, I don’t get your decisions, I don’t get your fear! I will protect you, I said I will protect you! Suho will, Baekhyun will, Jongdae, Minseok and the rest will! We will always have your back and help you through her but how can we when you don’t have your back yourself?”

Mina heaved with distress and tears, tears so strong, gushing out of her swollen eyes like stripes of salt and white silk. She wiped at them using the sleeves of her black T-shirt, the T-shirt that smelled a little bit of Sehun because it was his and they had a little quarrel about her always stealing from his clothes despite his size dwarfing her body. What she was wearing smelled of Sehun and suddenly she wanted to be enclosed in his arms rather than his clothes, him or Kai, or Jongdae, or Yixing, or Suho or anyone from the boys really. She heard her father’s own heaves and she realized, with a paralyzing astonishment, that he was crying too.

Her father was crying too. And she winced. Why was it that whenever she talked to him, he ended up crying?

“I just, I hate seeing you so in pain, Dad,” She whimpered through the phone, tilting her head against it as if she wanted to hug her father’s voice. Her legs felt weak under her large weight and she slowly began to curl them, bending over her knees and sitting on the dirty street, tears unstoppable and weeps finally; finally growing a voice she allowed release. “I hate that you’re letting yourself go through all of this. It’s not worth it.”

“I’m sorry.” She hear him stutter, vulnerability to his tone that made her glower with burning anger, so she stood up quickly on her feet, rising up largely, because having these self-induced, fragile yet deep globs of lava easing out of her was hard to swallow when she was sitting down.

“What the will I do with your apology?” She yelled, growing red in the face because of fury, not sadness. She was sure her heated face would vaporize her sweltering tears. “I want you to leave!”

“No, no, honey no, I can’t,” He gasped, full on fear, and her heart twitched at that familiar tone of absolute horror. Horror of leaving her. “She has no one—“

“I don’t give a what she has or hasn’t!” Mina exclaimed, interrupting the wail of scare he was babbling with. He stopped talking abruptly. “I want her to rot in prison for the remaining years of her life—“

“Honey, I have to go.” There was a swift change in his tone, his voice changing from raging, raw fear, to a nervous kind of hesitation, and Mina’s heart squeezed for it knew what was happening there before she could pronounce it. “Your mom’s home.”

And he hung up, the dra