They snuck out of the hotel wearing matching black bucket hats. Sana didn’t really need to hide her face, since she walked through town completely invisible, but Nayeon appreciated the gesture anyway. Almost as much as she appreciated Sana holding her hand the whole way through the city so that Nayeon would know where she was.

She led Sana down to the Han River. This was probably one of the coolest bases she had, so she really hoped Sana would be impressed. At the riverbank, she went over to a particular tree and pressed down on a specific bump. The tree began to creak as it slowly opened up, revealing a staircase leading down beneath the lake.

“Woah.” Sana sounded as awestruck as Nayeon had hoped. “This is so cool! How long did it take you to build this?”

“For me, time isn’t a problem.” Nayeon replied smugly.

In reality, it had taken her eighteen months and many, many failed attempts. If someone ever dug beneath the Han River, they’d be stunned at the amount of waterlogged secret bases they’d find. Minions who actually knew how to build underwater hideouts were far too hard to come by.

She guided Sana onto the staircase, and watched as she flickered into visibility. The look of amazement on Sana’s face made Nayeon feel…feelings. Happy feelings. Possibly even butterflies in her stomach, but she had always found that metaphor too cheesy.

“I’ve never been inside a secret base before! My base isn’t a secret, and actually it isn’t really a base, just a building. I’m pretty sure we don’t even own it.”

“Some way to treat your finest heroes.” Nayeon laughed. “The more I hear the more I understand why you quit.”

“They tried to give us managers.” Sana’s face screwed up in distaste. “Said that we should stop being so publicly intimate for fear of alienating potential supporters, and that’s a direct quote.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t go through with it.”

“Mina actually told them to eff off.” Sana smiled at the memory. “It was the first time I ever heard her curse other than when she’s playing videogames. Momo and I were so proud.”

Sana’s face flickered for a second, hints of sadness poking through. Nayeon gulped, relieved when the stairs finally ended and they entered the base.

“This is the one base Tzuyu has never managed to find, so you’re actually the first guest to ever enter it. I’m going to try and give a tour, but it might not be great.”

“Well if it’s really bad, I’m sure we can find other ways to entertain ourselves.”

Sana’s blatant staring at Nayeon’s lips was enough for her to shake off her nervous jitters. Sana had been impressed by everything Nayeon had shown her so far. This girl was a miracle and Nayeon needed to stop doubting her. Just because no one else who spent more than five minutes around Nayeon had ever thought she was cool, didn’t mean that Sana would also start to think that way.

“Well this is the main room.” She waved a hand around at the dark blue walls and light blue floor. “Over here is the corkboard I was telling you about, then there’s the desk for the additional notes to help me plot my schemes. In the corner there’s a piano and in the other corner is one of those old record players, just in case I need some dramatic music while I work. There’s a bunch of beanbags to sit on because I wasn’t bothered getting more chairs. Then on the other side of the room there’s a kitchen set, complete with a fully stocked fridge.”

“All this in one room?” Sana’s eyes looked like they were shining, but that was probably just the fluorescent light reflecting off them. “I could live here forever! How come being a bad guy gives you a better base?”

“Because we don’t follow the laws of capitalism. Or any laws, really. It’s great.”

She noticed Sana looking to the left, and Nayeon smiled once she realised what had caught her attention. A dart board hung on the wall, with a picture of Tzuyu stapled to it.

“You’re so talented!” Sana exclaimed, running her fingers over the five darts stuck in the board. “And this combined with the stalker corkboard gives off really creepy vibes! It’s exactly what I thought a real supervillain base would look like.”

Nayeon decided not to mention that she hadn’t been able to throw a single dart successfully, and had instead just stuck them in the places she thought made her look the most intimidating and evil. She’d sort of regretted it afterwards, because it had been a really nice picture of Tzuyu and Jihyo refused to give her a new copy.

“Part two of the tour is pretty simple. There’s a small room to our right with a TV and a table to eat the food cooked in the kitchen. It’s a good place to relax, but I like the beanbags better.”

Sana took a quick peek into that room, before following Nayeon upstairs.

“And now we come to the main event: the bedroom. Three bedrooms actually, one double, one single and one camp bed. The bathroom’s over there and there’s a large selection of books in the room with the camp bed. That concludes our tour.”

Nayeon spun around to face Sana, not even trying to hide her cheeky grin.

“So, what do you want to do now?”

Sana gave her a lazy smirk, amused by Nayeon’s false innocence.

“I think it’s getting pretty late… Which room has the double bed again?”

“First door on the left.”

Sana slipped inside, tugging Nayeon behind her. Nayeon followed her gladly, still a little astonished that she actually got to be with someone as beautiful as Sana. The phrase ‘get lucky’ had never really felt appropriate to her until now, because boy was she feeling lucky for meeting a girl like this.

Look, she appreciated Sana for a lot of reasons. The fact that she was great in bed was just an added bonus. If this was going to become a regular thing, Nayeon sure as heck wasn’t complaining.

“You know, I’m pretty sure I have some toys tucked away somewhere in there.”

She said this casually, just to watch Sana perk up like a puppy. Sana eagerly pulled her down onto the bed, and the look in her eyes made Nayeon shiver.

“To be honest,” Sana leant down close enough for Nayeon to feel her breath tickle her cheek. “I was kind of hoping you’d say that.”

It took a full minute afterwards for Nayeon to regain the use of words. This was most definitely not a complaint.

“Were we better than last night?” she said, once her voice started working again. “Because I feel like we were better than last night, and last night was pretty amazing.”

“I think we were better too.” Sana admitted, still gasping for oxygen. “That thing you did with the chocolate, that was…”

“Yeah.” Nayeon agreed. “It was, wasn’t it?”

The room fell quiet again. Nayeon focused on catching her breath, because the ways Sana could use her tongue were practically illegal.

Heh. Illegal. She was never going to get tired of that joke.

“You know, we still haven’t had that pillow talk you promised.” Sana rolled over to face Nayeon. “Not to be pushy or anything, because I get not wanting to go through every little detail, but if you want to talk I’m still happy to listen.”

Oddly enough, Nayeon did feel like talking. Partly because Sana deserved a bit more information on the girl she was in bed with, and partly because she actually felt safe talking to her.

Yeah, yeah, she’d only known Sana for two days. Whatever, Nayeon’s heart didn’t care about her brain’s logic.

“I guess it all started when I was eighteen.” Nayeon settled herself comfortably against her pillow. “Before that I was a pretty normal teenager, although I stood out from the crowd a bit thanks to my sparkling personality. But one night when I was walking home, I got struck by lightning. And thus, a cliché origin story was born.”

“You survived a lightning strike?” Sana’s eyes were adorably wide. “With no powers? How are you so amazing?”

“Hush.” Nayeon gently pushed Sana’s shoulder, blushing. “Keep being sweet like that and you’ll make me get distracted.”

Sana mimed zipping her lips, a teasing look in her eyes. Nayeon shook her head fondly, but continued.

“After that, everything sort of hit me at once. I can see the universe in ways no one else can, and it was pretty overwhelming. It took me months just to get a proper grip on reality again.”

Nayeon didn’t like to think of that time, of her mother crying, and her friends trying to get through to her, all while she struggled to ground herself in the timestream she could see around her. Just remembering how helpless she had felt made her get dizzy.

“Getting superpowers was the best thing that ever happened to me, but it was also the most terrifying. There was so much I could do, so much I could change. The knowledge is still inside me, just waiting to be used. If I want to, I can figure out how to see the future, or travel back much further than the reversal light allows.”

“But you didn’t.” Sana said softly.

“I didn’t.” Nayeon agreed with a sigh. “Fate screwed up when it chose to give such amazing power to me. I could go back and stop wars before they start, I could go back to when I was a kid and save my dad from dying in a car crash, I could travel into the future and then find out what I need to do to save the human race. All of these ideas have haunted me, but I’m too scared to do any of them in case it changes who I am now. So much power at my fingertips, and after two years of research the only thing I wasn’t afraid to create was a light that let me travel back two minutes in time. Two minutes was all I was willing to risk, because I’m too much of a coward to ever be a hero.”

She could see in Sana’s eyes that she didn’t agree with Nayeon’s self-assessment, but she stayed quiet to let Nayeon finish.

“Skip forward two years later. I’m twenty, I’ve completed the reversal light, and I have absolutely no idea what to do with it. I already knew I wasn’t cut out to be a hero, but being a civilian didn’t seem possible either. Then I heard that Tzuyu had finally started work as an official superhero, and when I laughed Jeongyeon told me that my laugh reminded her of a supervillain’s. It all sort of clicked into place then. If I wasn’t willing to use enough of my power to be a hero, then why not just use the little I allowed myself and do whatever the heck I wanted? At first, I struggled to think of something I really wanted to do, but in the end, I just decided to use my power to annoy Tzuyu as much as possible. It took a year to get myself set up as a proper supervillain, but so far, I’ve yet to feel like it was a bad decision. Especially since it brought me to you.”

Nayeon was hoping her smooth ending would be enough to distract Sana, but although the girl laughed shyly, her eyes remained serious.

“I’m glad you told me your story.” Sana said. “I like that I know about your past and you know about mine. It makes me feel special somehow.”

“I’m glad I told you too.”

“But Nayeon… I don’t think fate made a mistake when it gave you that power. I think it knew exactly what it was doing. Controlling time is a powerful ability that should only be given to someone wise enough not to abuse it.”

“I have abused it.” Nayeon grinned. “I’m a supervillain. I use my power for my own gain.”

“You know what I mean.” Sana rolled her eyes, but she smiled too. “Like you said, you could reshape the reality we live in. It kind of blows my mind thinking of just how powerful you are. Even with just the reversal light, you could kill me right now, then rewind and pretend it never happened.”

Sana reached down to clutch her chest, staring worriedly at Nayeon.

“I didn’t kill you!” Nayeon protested. “I haven’t killed anyone!”

“Really? I think I would have, just once to see what it was like.” Sana shrugged. “But that’s my point. You can do anything and then just rewind it to avoid the consequences, but you don’t use your powers for anything truly evil. From what I’ve seen and heard all you do is annoy Tzuyu and cause mild hassle for the people of this city. Despite your ability and your status as a bad guy, I don’t think anyone in this city is actually scared of you, and that’s a good thing. I’ve fought a lot of evil people, and I can say for sure that you’re the best supervillain I’ve ever met.”

That might have just been the nicest thing anyone had ever said to Nayeon. It may even top the time Jihyo fought for her to be the lead in their primary school musical because “Nayeon is a star in the making and you all are too blind and deaf to realise it!”.

Nayeon was a master at messing up. This she could admit. Yet somehow, she never seemed to mess up when it came to finding good friends.

“Shoot.” Nayeon sniffed, feeling her eyes well up with tears. “Why do you always have to sound so sincere Sana? I can’t be crying over sappy words, it’ll ruin my reputation.”

“I am sincere.” Sana laughed. “Being careful with time doesn’t make you the bad guy.”

“True, it’s mostly the stealing and the property damage that does it.”

“Exactly.”

They stared at each other for five long seconds. Nayeon wasn’t sure which one of them broke first, but soon both of them were rolling around the bed laughing their heads off. It felt like a weight had been lifted off Nayeon’s chest, and she couldn’t tell if the tears that streamed down her cheeks were from relief, laughter or both.

Either way, Nayeon hadn’t felt this light in a long time.

“Babe, do you have central heating in this place?”

“Hm?” Nayeon raised her head from where Sana was slowly caressing her hair. “Yeah, I had it installed, but I never figured out how to switch it on.”

“Oh.”

“I can get you another blanket if you want?”

“No, no it’s ok.”

Nayeon snuggled back into her pillow. The bed did feel a lot colder now that they weren’t moving so much.

Five minutes later, she changed her mind. The bed felt like a damn ice cube. She really needed to look into getting better insulation and figuring out the heating manual.

“Sana?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want you catching a cold. Do you want to head back to the hotel?”

The sigh of relief from Sana was answer enough.

Soon they were in a nice warm room, wrapped in fresh snuggly bathrobes. Sana was perched at the end of the bed watching some idol show, while Nayeon lay back against the headboard, her attention on her phone.

“Oh, this girl is really talented! I like her!”

“Haeun? She got eliminated.”

“Seriously?” Sana huffed. “Why are all my favourites gone?”

“Because the general public has no taste, I guess.”

“Ugh.” Sana sighed. “At least Sakura will probably make it.”

Grumpy Sana was incredibly adorable, and it was almost enough to get Nayeon’s attention away from her phone. But there was something she was curious about, and with Sana distracted by the survival show she felt safe enough to look it up.

Using the hotel Wi-Fi, Nayeon ran a quick search for the Trinity. A lot of the results weren’t at all related to Sana, but there was one news article that caught her attention. Dated two weeks ago, it described the battle that occurred between the Trinity and an evil sorcerer trying to destroy Tokyo. Most of the article was focused explaining how they’d defeated him, and it was only the end part that caught Nayeon’s interest.

‘Afterwards, we attempted to get a statement from the Trinity. However, Momo and Sana were both too overjoyed from their victory that they just jumped around in a circle cheering and screaming. Mina, the youngest of the Trinity, did attempt to give a statement, but we were unable to hear her over the loud antics of her fellow heroes.”

Below that was a photo taken at the scene. Sana was holding hands with the girl Nayeon had seen on her phone, while in the background a third girl with shoulder length dark hair smiled at them. They all looked so happy, especially Sana with her face caught mid victory cheer.

Nayeon felt a lump in . That photo had been taken two weeks ago, and Sana had told her that she’d been in a bad state for a month or so. If she was that good at concealing her emotions… was she really happy to be here with Nayeon?

“Sana?” Nayeon tried to keep calm as Sana turned around to face her. “Are you happy here? With me? You’re not just hanging out with me because you feel like you owe me for rescuing you at the bank, right? Because if that’s the case I swear you don’t owe me anything, I just want you to have a good time.”

Sana smiled gently at her, and Nayeon felt like an idiot for letting her fear get the better of her. She hadn’t meant to say any of that out loud.

“Hey.” Sana said calmly. “Look at me.”

Nayeon did, and Sana crawled up the bed so that they were eye to eye.

“I’m very happy to be here with you.” She told Nayeon firmly. “I promise to tell you if anything’s wrong, but right now this is the best I’ve felt in a long time. You are the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.”

“How long?” Nayeon couldn’t help but ask.

“Months?” Nayeon saw pain cloud Sana’s eyes for a moment, and once again she regretted opening . “Maybe even a year. To tell you the truth I’m not entirely sure.”

“I’m sorry.” Nayeon mumbled.

“Don’t be!” Sana said, her voice deliberately bright. “Let’s just forget about the bad, and focus on the good. What do you normally do to cheer yourself up when you’re feeling down?”

“To cheer up?” Nayeon hummed thoughtfully. “I would probably kidnap one of Tzuyu’s friends. That’s always fun.”

“Ooh, let’s do it! Will I get to meet her girlfriend?”

“Nah, I kidnapped Chaeyoung two days ago. They’ll get angry if I don’t give her a break. But Tzuyu has another close friend, and it’s been a while since I abducted her.”

“Can we do it?” Sana bounced up and down on the bed. “I’ve never been on this side of a hostage situation. I want to see what it’s like!”

“Why not?” Nayeon laughed. “Do you want to go right now?”

“Yes! Let’s go!” Sana struck a dramatic pose, hands on her hips and everything. “Tonight, we kidnap… what’s her name?”

“Kim Dahyun.”

“Tonight we kidnap Kim Dahyun!”

Sana’s enthusiasm was enough to drain the last of Nayeon’s anxiety away. She put her phone down and sat up with a smile, giving Sana a quick kiss before getting out of the bed.

“Whatever you want partner. Let’s go have a good time.”