She follows the Korean girl in front of her down the streets, winding past the multitude of buildings in the city so ridiculously absentmindedly that she nearly loses her balance a couple dozen times, each near trip-and-fall earning an amused snort from Nayeon.

People watching has been occupying the majority of her consciousness. The masses of young people (mostly women) ebbing and flowing through the sidewalks laugh and smile and hold shopping bags and phones, wasting their midday hours weaving around clothes shops and knick-knack stores.

Sana’d be envious, having not gone shopping with Soyeon, Hwang Eunbi or Jung Eunbi in weeks, if it weren’t for one unsettling thought building in her head. How, in the realm of possibilities that exist in this universe, of the different lives and strangers whom she crosses paths with on a daily basis, how did Im Nayeon, of all nine million people in Seoul, get close to her Momo? Is this city that small?

Nayeon walks up a short flight of sun-faded stairs, which Sana once again barely makes up thanks to her tunnel vision, and hits the button on the glass doors, watching as they open for them to enter the Lotteria. With Nayeon turning around to face her, Sana catches the self-satisfied smile on Nayeon’s face as she asks: “You want anything, babes? It’s on me.”

Strong winds that tousled her let-down hair have now been replaced by the staleness of the inside of a fast-food restaurant - the smell of an overused grill and cleaning chemicals especially apparent when she takes a deep breath.

“I…”, Sana lets drift with no continuation, her vocal cords conjuring up a slew of incomprehensible little sounds as she holds her gaze with the impatient girl before her. Letting arms she didn’t know she’d raised fall to her sides and breathing an exhale of air out through now-pursed lips, Sana cranes her head to look at the menu.

Before she can even scan through the tantalizing images of burgers and chicken and sides, Nayeon rests a hand on Sana’s shoulder and gives it a few pats. “Cheese sticks it is then, think you need ‘em,” she settles, and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear as she makes her way to the counter. Sana spares her friend a few glances, regarding the Nayeon who’s waiting in line to order with her eyes glued to the screen of her phone, before taking a seat and planting her face in the palms of her hands.

She squeezes her eyelids shut and takes in the chatter of her surroundings; their conversations about their school work and idols and part-time jobs and trivial things that don’t really matter in the whole scheme of things. Then shuts them out. Slowly opens her eyes and looks through the spaces between her fingers, past the blur of too-close fingers, to the grain of the table and wonders how she’s ended up in a situation like this, on a day like this.

If only she were hungover. This wouldn’t have happened.

The compartmentalization of what happened with Momo and Nayeon at the center fails on Sana, and suddenly she’s faced with the suffocating realizations of far too many things at once.

It’s surreal. So insanely surreal. And frightening. So insanely frightening.

Sana takes a stand menu off of the table because she must have something to grab onto, to hold onto, to be occupying the emptiness in her hands. There’s a single word that Momo would have suggested by now, an instruction that she could and should use but it escapes Sana’s mind and a shattering wave of panic crashes into her, launching her heart into overdrive.

What had happened to the bursting box marked in bold with Momo’s name? Kept safe in her labyrinth-like mind she’d made an oath to herself she’d never let anyone tread into? Not Jeongyeon, nor Mina, nor Chaeyoung, not Nayeon?

Momo, her cotton, her velvet, her warmth, her simplicity, all so untarnished by the discord and unsightliness of the outside world.

Ripped apart by one little smirk.

She doesn’t blame Nayeon, of course. Or at least, that’s what she wishes to believe.

But she questions herself deep down if it would be self-centered of her to think of Nayeon as the Theseus to her (way less barbaric… more protective) Minotaur (yes, she has been listening to some of Minho’s mythological ramblings), the one to liberate the things she would much rather hold on to.

There’s a hitch in her breath as she shakes her head to the thought. “That’s a really, really, really horrible analogy,” Sana reminds herself in a barely audible whine. Because Momo is safety, Momo is security and Momo is an ephemeral enigma who appears and disappears in realities and dreams. And Sana believes that the helpline volunteer, everything about her, is incomparable to any other impression she knows of.

That, and, well, Nayeon isn’t exactly her enemy.

Nonetheless, Sana guesses it’ll disturb her forever to not know why she views Momo this way. Views her like the lines from dialogue in a movie she’s misplaced in her memory; so unreachable, so faded, so aged, yet so affecting, so clear, so present.  

It also disturbs her to delve deeper into the improbability of the only Japanese-speaking LGBTQ helpline volunteer in Seoul having a personal connection with a classmate of hers. With Nayeon, of all people.

Seoul is small. Far too small. Who else does Momo know?

She’s shivering now, teeth chattering, even as she’s wrapped under two layers of clothes, even as she’s feeling the intense heat coming from the uneasiness trapped in her chest. It’s cold and the stand menu her trembling hands are on the verge on snapping in two is cold and her feet impatiently tap against the tiles of the floor as if to say it’s cold and that maybe she should bolt.

The Japanese schoolgirl digs the heels of her shoes into the matte tiles, and they make a forgettable noise.

Her sight lands on her Theseus, who nonchalantly slips her phone into her purse to direct her attention to the woman hollering at her with their tray full of items at the counter. Sana doesn’t like the way she pulls her lips inwards less-than-personably at the reappearance of Nayeon in her field of vision. She doesn’t, truly, but this secret was hers to keep, hers to hold onto for however long she wanted - no - needed to.

What’s even more distressing, however, is the way Nayeon heaves an unassertive, shaky sigh as she sets the tray down in the middle of the table, snatches and shoves a fry in , and plops down into the seat opposite hers. Avoiding eye contact for a few beats in time, her friend places her palms flush against the tabletop before proceeding to tap at its surface with her fingernails.

Not of notice to Sana is how the tips of the middle and index nails on her left hand have had their mauve polish chipped off. If Sana were as intensely perceptive, observant as the other girl, perhaps she would have wondered if Nayeon had been hard at deliberating over the entire situation too.

“I didn’t, like, get straws,” Nayeon admits, taking another fry in between two fingers and playing with the limp chip this time. Finally, she looks into Sana’s fluttering eyes and clears at her quiet composure - the intense soundlessness of Sana is chilling, is unnerving. “Save the environment, that kinda , you know?” the girl adds, half in truth, half in hopes of a reaction from the voiceless schoolgirl.

Sana doesn’t blink, doesn’t say a word.

“This probably isn’t how you’d imagined coming out, is it, babe?” Nayeon tosses the fry back onto the tray, wipes her fingers on a napkin and rests her hand lightly on the back of Sana’s. The latter flinches at the touch but quickly welcomes it with the release of the stand menu, and even a hesitant smile at the way Nayeon rubs ‘o’s to warm her ice-cold skin. Sana shakes her head, unable to speak with how confused she is.

Nayeon looks to the ceiling, maybe, to search for answers, then directs her gaze to Sana’s eyes. She begins with another sigh, then: “I’m not, like, good at, like, super serious talk with, like, anybody or even my close friends!” Sana notes the nervousness obvious in Nayeon’s speech, feels the ‘o’s over her skin increase in size and with pace.

“But I mean like,” she continues, now making large, wild gestures with her other hand. “You- I knew that you were, like, gay ever since you ing told me how you had the hots for like half of Red Velvet yet didn’t, like, fangirl over any male idol at all.”

Has she been that obvious?

With a slight rise of one of Sana’s eyebrows, Nayeon takes the cue (no matter how wrong she may be) and revises her statement, adding: “Okay, maybe one or two but you get the point.” The older of the two reaches into a mustard yellow packet and offers a cheese stick to Sana with a shrug and a softer gaze. “And maybe it felt, like, nice? You know? To know know that you’re not the only lesbian in school. Okay, well maybe I know about a few but they’re es. So, just… just to have you, like, confirm it by being at the center and, like, Momo and everything. It’s… It’s everything.”

Hesitantly, the Japanese girl accepts the cheese stick with the tiniest “Thank you”, biting down on it, pulling at it to watch a string of mozzarella materialize and stretch and thin. Nayeon sighs again (Sana’s lost count) and removes her hand from Sana’s, choosing instead to run fingers down her scalp, comb through her hair, distracting her nerves.

The saltiness, umami of the cheese, herbs and spices settles on her tongue as she swallows the cheese stick, and Sana inwardly thanks Nayeon. Thanks Nayeon for remembering how she’d said she missed having them from over a week ago, thanks Nayeon for treating her with a tenderness she hardly sees in her, thanks Nayeon for the empathy. Empathy, not sympathy. Empathy, not-

Momo.

In spite of the significance of it all, the significance of her first ever coming out to someone she knows in real life, one who she can see and can hold, her thoughts trail back to Momo. How foreseeable that this be the case; that even as the clouds in her mind coalesce and even as the faint appearance of an impending doom threatens to surface, that all thoughts lead back to Momo.

Never fails; always does.

Why didn’t you tell me about Momo?

“Look, it may not look like it but my heart is ing beating at the ing rate of a thousand beats per minute, okay?”

How did you meet Momo?

“‘Cause you’re sad and I can’t ing handle a sad Sana!”

Were you one of her callers too?

“I’ve never even seen a sad Sana ’til fu-ah-now!”

Are you dating Momo?

“Satang…”

Are you dating Momo?

“Satang!”

“M… I… I’m no- I’m not a lesbian… I’m bi, not gay,” Sana spits out as a diversion, relatively, somewhat sure of the label she hasn’t really thought about since she was fifteen. Nayeon drops a half-eaten fry. She gives her friend her classic look of incredulity, signing an “x” with two crossed fingers. “What do you mean,” Sana says, making the same gesture as if it’d help with her understanding of whatever it may mean.

“Sana… I don’t think you’re bi.” Sana’s eyelids flicker. “Trust me, I know tonnes of bi people and like, they’re… something else. You’re not that.”

Momo wouldn't say that. 

As sweet as the girl is for the empathy, for the comfort, for the cheese sticks, Sana doesn’t necessarily appreciate the way Nayeon enunciates her last word. Doesn’t like what it suggests. Doesn’t like how it misplaces years of second-guessing, sleep deprivation and Google searches. Doesn’t like how it erases the instances (no matter how few they may be) where she did feel something, maybe. Something. And something isn’t nothing.

Or is it?

Tossing the last halved cheese stick in , Sana shakes her head once, to forget, then shakes it faster, harder, in forced conviction. “I… I know what I-”

“Babe, were you even attracted to those s?”

Yes, yes, maybe, yes.

“-Nay, can we talk about...“ She grabs a napkin with closed eyes, pressing the material against , muffling her next words: “I don’t know, I just… I like girls and guys and… I wanna, like, move on from that, kay? It’s… done.”

Sana opens her eyes to a resigned Nayeon finishing the last of her fries with a of her fingers. “So… are you, um, seeing anyone right now?”

Nayeon chuckles a little, balling a paper napkin in one hand as she her arm with her other. “Pff! No, I wish...” Her hand settles on her arm and she breaks their eye contact to shift her gaze to the floor, the slightest pinkish hue coloring the tiniest bits of her cheeks. She chuckles, again. “See, I do, like, like someone right now, but, Sana, babes, if I told you who I’m crushing on, you just might wanna ing, like, kill me or something so I’m not taking chances.”

Mentally flipping through a list of girls they both know, Sana deliberates the possibility of Nayeon liking Momo to her liking someone else, and determines, eventually, ultimately, after a good few seconds, that perhaps it can’t be. Can’t be Momo. Because she wouldn’t kill Nayeon for liking Momo, right? Wouldn’t kill her for having a crush on Momo, who is considerably closer to, considerably fonder of Nayeon than Sana has ever been.

No, she wouldn’t.

But who else could it be? Jennie? Chaeyoung? Soyeon? Jeongyeon?

“Anyways,” the girl sat opposite her says, shaking Sana out of her reverie with the sound of a soft slam of the balled up napkin against the tray. With cleared, less-than-flushed-looking cheeks and a curiosity entwined in her expression, Nayeon leans closer to Sana, asking: “Who is Momo to you, other than, like, a helpline volunteer?”

The schoolgirl looks to Nayeon with almost pleading eyes as she spurts out a “Who am I to Momo?”. Sana shakes her head with the most minute of movements - so minute one wouldn’t even be able to notice it from more than a foot away - as if to forgo any less-than-optimistic thoughts, as if it may clear the silly thoughts materializing in her head. “Wh...what does she say about me?”

“She…” Nayeon starts, looking the ground again, this time without the shyness of before, without the blushing cheeks. “She doesn’t really, like, mention you-”

“I’m S-chan,” Sana states, a dash of half-wrecked optimism apparent in her tone.

Nayeon flips stray locks of hair to the side, twirling strands of them around her index as she bites on her bottom lip. “Yeah, no, she hasn’t mentioned an S-chan, or… yeah, like, no, um…” The hair she releases falls into a slight curl as it hits her chest, and Nayeon captures Sana’s sight with a more confrontational, although characteristically less-than-serious stare. “You haven’t answered my question, you know?”

The answer slips effortlessly from Sana's lips: “What am I supposed to say?”

An incredulous laugh escapes Nayeon. “I don’t know, “Oh, Nay, she’s like a friend!”, “She’s just my helpline buddy who I casually invited to dinner and a walk under the cherry blossoms, totally platonically”. Usually, you have like a metric ton to say about everything!” Nayeon shrugs again, sighs again, for the umpteenth time.  “And I mean that in a good way babes, like, I like really do. Appreciate it.”

The older girl nearly reverses on her words, nearly says more to take back the implications she'd voiced when she sees something click and slump in Sana, though she hesitates and chooses to stay silent. Nayeon looks out the large windows of the restaurant, lips glued to the rim of her soda-filled cup, and watches the cars and the vans and the people as they pass. 

Unbeknownst to her though, Sana has many things to say.

In fact, Sana’s got a four thousand word essay on Momo as is. But why bother to explain the circumstances that’ve led Sana to her calling the helpline with a shaky heart? Why bother to put into words the complexity and the simplicity of how she perceives Momo? Why bother to even try to encapsulate the warmth she feels from someone she barely knows when they clearly, clearly, don’t think about her?

Why bother attempting to explain how much a breath of fresh air Momo and her gorgeous words were? Away from Dahyun. Away from memories in ed class that poked at her from five years prior. Away from what her mother had said.

Especially, specifically, away from what her mother said.

The TV was tuned to NHK, was broadcasting a program Sana’d not necessarily classed as “wholesome Sunday Mid-morning television”.

She’s sure it featured “alternative lifestyles”, sure that the title alone made her heart palpitate out her chest.

Her father was busy typing up an email on his laptop.

Her mother was listening, although dispassionately.

There was an anxiety gripping Sana as a lesbian couple appeared on screen.

They hadn’t kissed, nor hugged, nor had shown any typical outward physical signs of affection.

But the one thing they did was that they professed - with such confidence, with such a discernible tenderness, with eyes that said all that already had to be said - that they were in love, and that their love was as pure, as deserving of recognition as anyone else’s.

Then,

“Their parents never raised them right… something very broken in their brains.”

“Of course their parents don’t want them anymore! I wouldn't!”

“Isn’t it better to be normal, Sana?”

Sana nods. She thinks she nods. She must’ve nodded; any rebuttal and her mother wouldn’t have let her rush back into her room.

She did cry. She’s positive she cried.

So, as she looks upon Nayeon take another sip of her coke and ahh in contentment, she decides that she needn't explain it. Decides to direct the conversation in another direction, far from the intricacies and subjectiveness of feelings and connections.

“Unnie, how do you know Momo?”

Nayeon plays with the clasp on her purse once she sets the cup down, replying with a: “Answering my ing question with like another ing question, I see how it is,” with a quiver in her lip. She continues her sentence moments later, her pause short enough to not seem entirely faked, yet long enough to arouse suspicion in Sana. She continues with a: “At the center, duh.”

♡

There’s a fluttering of pigeons’ wings nearby as a flock takes flight into the tangerine and purple-hued sky. Sana lightly kicks a discarded piece of bread off the curb and frowns at the low-looming clouds above her that, despite their beauty in the way an orange glow lines their forms, seemingly threatens plans for later tonight.

Sana’s stood by a large faux neon sign pointing to the Italian-Korean fusion place Momo suggested they try. She studies the caricature of a chef (whether it should be considered racist or not, she’s unsure of) and subconsciously pulls a corner of her lip up at how the mustachioed man is surrounded by adorable little piglets.

The other side to her lips follow suit and she beams, looking through the restaurant’s spotless windows and noticing matching piglet statues holding clay pasta dishes and pizzas. The schoolgirl relaxes her grin which shifts into a gentle smile as she runs her finger across a menu stuck against the fake-brick wall. And wonders, a little tilt to her head, if Momo chose to come here for the food or for the decor.

And decides, heels clicking against the concrete as she turns in her place, that either way, how endearing. Moreover, how silly. How silly that she finds something like this endearing.

In spite of how jaw-droppingly tantalizing the pictures of food were, as well as the impossible distractions of an ever-floating mind, Sana’s attention is immediately called towards the direction of squeaky sneakers pitter-pattering down the pavement.

From the distance appears an open-mouthed volunteer walk-jogging towards her, her arms held up with her hands in loose fists, her too-short ripped jeans and too-tight t-shirt from earlier now overlayed with a weirdly familiar-looking jacket.

It’s forest green and deep black, with a stylized K embroidered with sparkling midnight thread over her left . Sana recalls its material in a series of flashes that pass through her mind - of its twinkle and the twinkle of her eyes and the twinkle of lights beyond bus windows.

So it doesn’t strike her as odd when she feels a warmth come over her while Momo swiftly approaches with bright eyes, the latter eventually softly bumping into her, then lazily jerking her head back and laughing it off. Anyone else on the street wouldn’t have been able to see it, but Sana swears she sees the tangerines and violets reflected in Momo’s crescent-shaped eyes.

“Good evening, S-chan,” Momo greets, calming herself with a gentle pat on her own chest. Momo raises the hand as if to give Sana a little wave, though she lets it fall to crane her head around and examine the street behind her.

Sana takes the chance to sigh. She sighs at the saccharine, sighs at effect Momo’s mere presence has on her, sighs at how one little laugh kicks all those rather negative thoughts and doubts of Momo she'd been suppressing solidly to the curb. 

“My friends, well… my friend Jihyo and her girlfriend kind of wanted to join us so, heh…” The shorter of the two shrugs sheepishly, a sorry look slowly taking over the nuances of her expression before continuing with a: “The-They’ll pay for their own food though!”

Ideally, she’d be happy with the added company and the prospect of getting to know Momo outside of the job, but Sana nips at the inside of her cheek at the thought of