3rd Person’s POV

[November 20, 20XX]

They did their best. They truly did. But Kim Erika Dane was hard to persuade. They’ve been trying for the past days to make the idol come back to their dorm, but there was no progress.

“Promise, you’ll always hold the remote control until we graduate.”

“Truly tempting, Jeril. But no, thanks.”

The two of them heard a hissing sound from the old lady by the counter and Jeril gave an ok-sign to her. Right now, the two of them were by a local library (or was it a bookstore?) for some reasons that Jeril doesn’t even know why. She was just following Erika around.

The older girl was now by the Mystery Genre side of the library and was reading the back of each books with nice title, as she ignores Jeril’s suggestion in exchange for her coming home.

“I’ll buy you all of this mystery books in this shelf if you return home, I’m not kidding.”

Erika faced Jeril and chuckled as she shook her head. “I can do that to myself, Jeon.”

“But you wouldn’t have to, if only you go back to the dorm.”

“I’m not going back to the dorm.” Erika sighed. “Atleast, not yet.” she whispered under her breath as she finally choose a book for her. She proceed to the cashier to pay for it.

“It is a bookstore.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Jeril chuckled as she proceed to stand besides Erika. “Why are you buying a book, anyways? Bored at your apartment? Why don’t you go back to the dorm?”

“Jeril…”

Jeril let out a sigh in defeat as she groaned and ran her hands on her hair. “What would it takes for you to go home, leader-nim? I’m being desperate here, December’s coming up.”

“What about it?”

“December. Christmas. We wanted to spend it with you, ofcourse. It’s our last year and considering that we’re a team, we need to celebrate it together. So, please…come home.”

Erika patted Jeril’s head as she chuckled bitterly. “No.” then she left the bookstore.

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“Oh, please. Not you too, Anika.” Erika literally bumped her head on the counter of their laboratory table as soon as Anika sat down besides her. “I’ve had enough of Jeril, you know.”

“I feel you.” Anika laugh as she nodded. “But I need to do this, unnie. I’m sorry.”

“If it’s about the Christmas, then stop. I’ll be in a yearend show, as always. So, stop…”

“it’s not just Christmas, it’s about spending our precious remaining time in Sae Young together. We’re graduating, so we need to spend the time here wisely.”

“And it’ll be spend wisely when we’re together? You doing some vocal lessons, Jeril doing some dancing lessons, Lei being the President and me being Ked. Is that wise? If so, we can do that without living together.” Erika grab a gloves and put it on.

“But wouldn’t it be more better if we’re together? The more, the merrier.”

Erika let out a sigh and pulled some goggles on. She started to do their assigned task and completely ignoring Anika ramble besides her about wanting to be together. Luckily, the teacher caught Anika rambling and scolded her for not doing the task.

Erika thanked the teacher in her head for the silence, but it only lasted for 5 minutes. After that, Anika started rambling again as she does the task so that the teacher won’t scold her.

“Seriously, Lei misses you.” Erika accidentally made a mistake, causing the chemical to create a colored smoke. And because of that, the sprinklers started to turn on.

“Geez. Thanks for the distraction, Choi.”

“My pleasure.”

Erika rolled her eyes and walked out of the laboratory, heading to the lockers for her gym clothes. After wearing the tracksuit, she walked out of the locker room and was about to have a heart attack when she saw Anika waiting for her outside.

“Sht. You scared me.”

“I know, I saw your reaction.”

“Ha, ha. Really funny, Anika. Now, leave me alone.” Erika tried walking away from the main vocalist but the girl wouldn’t let her. “Choi Anika Iniel…I swear, I’ll get mad.”

“Come on, leader. Don’t be mad, I’m just being cutely persuasive.”

“I’m being irritated right now, so you better stop when I tell you.” Erika’s tone was telling the truth, making Anika sigh and nodded.

“Can I persuade you tomorrow?”

“Yes, please. I’ve had enough today, save some for tomorrow.” Anika nodded and walked away from Erika. Seeing the slumped shoulder of the younger girl, Erika ran to caught up with her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you away.”

“No, it’s fine. We’re really persuasive.”

“Only because you care.”

“We do.” Erika let out a sigh and wrapped her arms around Anika. “Why won’t you go back, unnie? We miss you a lot.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll come back soon, but not now. Can you guys wait for me?”

“As long as you promise.”

“I can’t do that.”

Anika nodded solemnly. “Alright, we’ll try. I’ll talk to them about persuading you. You must be really tired of us bugging you, huh?”

“Not really. I mean, maybe it’s because I miss you too. Or, you know, I was just feeding my ego with your persuasion like I’m someone you cannot live without.”

“Well, since now that I know you’re not bothered by it, we’ll continue. There’s someone who really loves persuading you.”

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Erika knew who Anika means, that’s why she knows who it was when the door of the rooftop opened. She heard footsteps approaching and someone sat besides her.

“Hey, Lei.”

“Hey, unnie.”

Erika grabbed her backpack and pulled out a juicepack. “Here. You want to watch a movie?”

“I want you to come home.”

“Can’t do that, dear. Not right now…” Erika proceed to take out her laptop and placed it infront of them. She played one of Lei’s favorite movie, that was in a folder named ‘L’.

“You have a folder just for me, don’t you?”

“I do. Don’t tell Jeril, she’ll call me whipped.” Lei chuckled as she raised her right hand.

“I won’t tell her, I promise.”

“Good.” the two of them stayed in silent as they watched the movie, acting as if nothing had changed. In the middle of the movie, Lei had her head on Erika’s shoulder and the older girl had her arm wrapped around the maknae as they watched the movie in silence.

Once the movie was finished, Lei immediately faced Erika and hand out her pinky to the leader. “Promise me you’ll return to our home eventually.”

“I promise.”

“Pinky promise, Erika unnie.” Erika laughed before intertwining her pinky to Lei’s.

“I pinky promise, L.” with that, they watched the sunset together before heading down the rooftop. Erika took Lei back to the dormitory building and kissed her in the cheeks. “Night.”

“Goodnight, unnie. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Lei smiled at Erika before she entered the building and once she was out of sight, Erika made her way to her car and drove off back to ther apartment. “A good night, indeed.”

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