Moonbyul sips her coffee at a table not far from the practice room. She’s started writing here sometimes, a table that sits in a nook, sort of between walls, giving it some privacy but left her feeling not so isolated as she worked. She’d be lying if she said she got any work done in the last hour though. That night played on repeat. She knows it’s stupid. Why would she think like that? She keeps remembering Yongsun’s eyes.

Memories aren’t trustworthy. They say that about witness accounts. Given the amount she drank that night and the unlikeliness of the whole situation she must be crazy for thinking they almost kissed. But how can something so vivid never have happened?

Who’s she kidding. She knows it happened, but wouldn’t it be so much easier if it didn’t?

She touches her lips lightly, barely hovering her finger over her bottom lip. Was that what it felt like? She hates that Yongsun is avoiding her.

They were busy that morning, fighting a hangover and getting ready for a radio show. There wasn’t a minute to sit and talk, they spent every waking minute they had free between schedules trying to get some shut-eye, all of them spent from the last night out. But Yongsun didn’t even look her way when they split after the events.

She gives up thinking about this. The dull ache she normally sports when she lets her mind roam to thoughts about her relationship with Yongsun is now this clenching pain in her chest. It hurt to think in circles.

//

Moonbyul peeks around the door as she opens it, wondering if Yongsun was already home. She sees Hyejin grab a bottle of water from the fridge and trudge back to her room instead. Hyejin catches her as she’s taking her shoes off, smiles and mumbles about food she can heat up. She waves the hand clasping her water bottle in the air as she continues walking to her room, acknowledging Byul’s presence and declaring her leave at the same time.

Byul dumps all her stuff on the couch, as she normally does, and takes a deep breath approaching Yongsun’s room. Instead she hears her singing with soft strums of the guitar. The song is delicate, a little wistful; she knows Yongsun wrote it.

She rests her forehead against the door, listening, losing the spur of the moment to talk. It grips her because of how proud she feels, that Yongsun wrote something so beautiful, so raw. Moonbyul comes to an understanding. If she could’ve wished this feeling away she would’ve done it. Everything would make so much more sense. If she didn’t run away from it anymore, maybe she’ll feel like she can breathe again.

Maybe she won’t feel like this anymore.

But maybe doesn’t really cut it sometimes. Every time she thinks about confronting it all, she’d talk herself out of it. How could she even begin to risk something so sacred to her, their friendship. Maybe just touching the surface would be enough, better than diving right in and realizing she’d fallen into an abyss right?

//

She tries to do their banter thing, play around, like everything is normal. She really tries. But then Yongsun wakes up earlier in the morning, sits in the front seat of their van, starts buying coffee for one. Byul feels like it physically hurts, to get shut out like that. She didn’t choose this, but it feels like she was getting punished for it. And apparently it’s obvious the agreed way to approach it was to never talk about it. Ever.

It’s late in the evening. They’re all still holed up in the practice room, having missed dinner and were running over the same minute of one song for the last hour.

God she is insufferable, Byul thinks. She’s annoyed, really tired from practice and Yongsun won’t look her in the eye. She wants her to look over her lyrics for immortal song, but she’s avoiding her like the plague. Well okay then. Hyejin’s been helping her plenty. It was that stupid night with the alcohol. Alcohol s everything up. If Yongsun wanted to forget then fine, whatever, it’s done, she will just wipe the whole ing thing from her memory.

They sit around after practice to discuss their schedules. She wants Wednesday’s slot for the recording studio to fit with vocal lessons the CEO has set up, Yongsun wants Wednesday. Did she really have to pick Wednesday? Wheein suggests another room. They both look at her incredulously, as if the room she suggested was an equivalent to just recording in the hallway.

Wheein backs up. This was totally not about recording. She takes Wednesday. Yongsun leaves.

Byul huffs in frustration. It wasn’t going to work this way, not if the way it’s going interferes with everything else. It gets harder and harder to pretend everything wasn’t real. She sees Wheein sneak another concerned glance at her. She sighs.

Byul comes home to see Hyejin watching a movie on her laptop, splayed out on the couch. Seeing Byul come home, she pulls her laptop close.

“She’s not home.” Hyejin states, arms resting on her laptop, head still resting on the arm of the couch. After a long look at Byul still pulling her shoes off by the doorway, she proceeds to shuffle to the kitchen. “If you’re wondering that is.”

“Thanks.” Byul mutters and changes out of her clothes in her room, emerging to see Hyejin sitting at their living room table. She motions Byul to sit across her as she gets up and goes to grab two cups.

“Are you fighting with unnie?” Hyejin slides into the chair across the living room table and hands Moonbyul a cup of tea.

“Does it seem like we are?” Moonbyul wraps her hands around the warm cup and blows gently at the liquid.

“Well someone’s not happy about something. You two don’t usually go cold for more than two or three days.” She pauses. “Wheein told me Yongsun unnie left practice early yesterday weirdly emotional, you guys never walk around the house or interact here anymore and I don’t know about you but I haven’t heard her laugh in a week.”

“We… Honestly, I have no idea.” Hyejin throws her a look. “I mean… I don’t know how to put it in words. She— she’s driving me crazy. I can’t tell what she’s thinking anymore, she’s all over the place.”

Hyejin sips at her cup of tea, waiting for some sort of elaboration.

“Look I know this is all weird right now and I’m probably not making any sense. I don’t know how to make things like it was before.”

“You like her.” Hyejin states matter-of-factly as she puts her cup on the table.

“What?” It comes out high-pitched, sounding fake and ridiculous even as she says it.

“Don’t you though? You like like her.” Hyejin takes a deep breath, her expression flipping between empathetic and concern. “Did you ever consider you don’t want to be just friends?”

“No… it’s not like that.” Hyejin looks at her patiently waiting, they both know what they were talking about. That much was obvious.

“What.” Moonbyul’s tone is curt, an exasperation coating her voice. Hyejin stays quiet, knowing it’s going to take some time.

“You’re saying you’re okay with it then?” Moonbyul panic starting to form in her eyes as she speaks. “That it’s okay? That– that it’s okay if its more?” More than friends. Her last words die to a whisper.  

“I’m not blind. Neither is Wheein. We spend the most part of our lives with you two so maybe we see things, like a lot of things.” She reaches over and gently grabs her arm resting on the table. “Byulyi unnie, I don’t know what other people will say and maybe it’s just easier to ignore it but it’s not really working for either of you is it?

Moonbyul stares down at her cup and grips the handle even harder. Hyejin continues.

“Honestly, I didn’t think anything of it. Wheein and I would laugh at your poor attempts at flirting, roll our eyes at you.” She chuckles. “You guys were close like Wheein and I were, but then I’d see her fall asleep lying on your shoulder, clinging onto you in a way that’s… It’s just different. And you… I can’t explain it, I just, feel it.”

“Hyejin-ah…” Her voice breaks a little, a deep anguish behind the quickly forming tears.

“You know… I used to think that you guys were just playing. Doing it for fun or for the fans or I don’t’ know… just cause. But it’s not like that is it?” Hyejin takes a breath, knowing Byul won’t answer her question.

“Last week I walked into the washroom after staying late at the company. You guys were fighting and unnie was so obviously crying, and it wasn’t like the crying because she was so mad or stressed. She was falling apart Byul.”

Byul somet