The life of a superhero is not glamorous, Sana thinks as she reaches overhead to wipe a dusty shelf.

 

Granted, she did choose to spend her Friday night like this even if there are a lot of other things she could do that would be more exciting than wiping dust off of books she doesn’t even own. It’s not that she’s too tired to go out with her friends, either. Somehow, she’s simply contented with passing most of her free time inside this spacious but cluttered lab, cleaning up while listening to slow, indie R&B songs softly playing from the other side of the room, enjoying the calm atmosphere while there’s no one else around except—

 

“Mina?” Sana hears someone call out before seeing them enter the room.

 

“Hey, Chaeyoung,” Sana greets, reaching to put a book back on the shelf after she’s finished wiping it.

 

“Hi, you’re… dirty,” is Chaeyoung’s response with a matching look of disappointment on her face. “I was gonna say ‘hi you’re not Mina,’ but that’s not the part that you can do something about.”

 

Sana rolls her eyes, then extends her right arm towards her friend and uses her eyes to point to the black tie hanging around her wrist. “Can you tie my hair up for me? I should have done it before getting my hands dirty.”

 

“I’m in a hurry. Ask your girlfriend to do it.” Chaeyoung refuses. “Where is she anyway?”

 

“I’m here!” Mina exclaims, emerging from the messier half of her workshop concealed by tall metal racks filled with various equipment. It’s where she does her magic, which is designing and inventing weapons and wearables for the Supers. The outer half where they all are now is more of a lounge, with two pull out couches and the shelves with mostly-untouched books that Sana is currently cleaning. “And here are your gloves,” Mina adds, beaming, as she hands Chaeyoung a silver, seemingly metallic pair.

 

“You’re a life saver,” Chaeyoung responds as she takes the gloves from Mina and plants an exaggeratedly loud kiss on the girl’s cheek.

 

“What are those for?” Sana asks, eyeing the gloves.

 

“For protecting my hands from Tzuyu,” Chaeyoung explains, mentioning their friend with super strength. “She crushed my fingers the last time she got excited over seeing a puppy.”

 

This makes Sana smirk and nudge Chaeyoung. “So you guys hold hands now, huh?”

 

“Friends hold hands!” Chaeyoung exclaims defensively.

 

“Mhm,” Sana hums, keeping the teasing look on her face. “And why are you in a hurry? Do you have a date to rush off to?”

 

“We’re just gonna go out for dinner! It’s no big deal, and it’s certainly not a date!” At this point, Chaeyoung is turning pink, and her looking flustered makes Sana laugh.

 

“Keep telling yourself that.”

 

“Don’t listen to Sana,” Mina intervenes, rubbing Chaeyoung’s shoulder in an attempt to comfort the girl. “Just go enjoy your not-date.”

 

“I will, thanks,” Chaeyoung tells Mina with a smile, which turns into a glare when she directs her gaze towards Sana. “Take your wonderful girlfriend out, you idiot! Do you two even remember what the sun looks like?”

 

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Sana denies in the same defensive tone that Chaeyoung used earlier.

 

“Keep telling yourself that!” Chaeyoung counters with a smug smile, then quickly exits before Sana can think of a reply.

 

With a huff, Sana returns to what she was doing before Chaeyoung interrupted her.

 

“You know you don’t have to do that, right?” Mina reminds Sana from behind her. “I can just ask anyone with air powers to snap their fingers and make all the dust fly out of the window.”

 

Turning to face Mina, Sana replies, “But can they arrange your books alphabetically?”

 

“I’m sure they can, but they won’t.”

 

“I just like having something to do.”

 

“And you choose to do this?” Mina asks, amused.

 

“Cleaning is relaxing!” Sana defends herself. “And my room is already spotless, so I’m gonna clean your entire lab and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

 

“Okay, cleaning the lounge part, that one I get, but the entire lab? You know my workplace is always gonna be messy no matter how often you clean it, right?”

 

“Perfect. I’ll never run out of stuff to do.” Sana beams, and all Mina can do is shake her head.

 

“Just make sure to shower afterwards,” Mina says before walking closer to wipe some dirt off of Sana’s cheek that Sana didn’t even know was there.

 

Sana’s smile widens at the sweet gesture. “This is why everyone thinks we’re dating.”

 

“No, everyone thinks we’re dating because you’re always here, even on Free Day,” Mina corrects.

 

Every month, the Supers are given a whole day when they're free to leave the Academy and go wherever they want. It's for their own safety, as well as their loved ones’, since being with their non-Super family members often is not going to help maintain their anonymity.

 

Sana hasn't taken much advantage of this, however, and never went out of the Academy on such days.

 

“What, you think I’m planning to stay here tomorrow?” Sana replies, even if that is in fact her plan for the upcoming Free Day.

 

“Well, aren’t you?” Mina raises an eyebrow, and Sana digresses.

 

“It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.”

 

“Yes, you do,” Mina answers shortly, but the way she says it suddenly makes Sana’s heart heavy.

 

They haven’t talked about it since Sana came back. She was hoping they never have to ever again.

 

“You don’t go out on Free Days either, and everyday is your Free Day,” Sana says, trying to ignore the ache in her chest.

 

“You still don’t want to talk about it, huh?” Mina notices. “Hasn’t it been over a year?”

 

“You’re counting?”

 

“You’re not?”

 

“I’m not,” Sana says more harshly than she wants. “I’m trying not to think about it, Mina.”

 

“Doesn’t that just make you think about it even more?” Mina asks. “You don’t have to take my advice, but sometimes you have to stop running to make everything less exhausting.”

 

Sana sighs. She knows Mina is right. She knows she should stop avoiding it and just face the problem, especially since she’s already a year too late.

 

“I don’t know if I’m ready, Mina,” Sana voices out her fear. “What if I’m not?”

 

“Then, come back here,” Mina replies simply. “I’m not going anywhere.” Mina reaches for Sana’s hand with her left and reaches for something on the bookshelf behind Sana with her other hand.

 

Mina hands a book to Sana, and the latter silently reads the title on the cover.

 

Uhi.

 

“You can give this to Nayeon when you go see her,” Mina explains. “She collects comic books, right?”

 

“Yeah, you remember?” Sana says, surprised, because she’s only ever talked about Nayeon once with Mina, which happened on the day she came back to the Academy. “Wait, I’ve been asking you to give me this and you kept refusing, and now you’re telling me you want me to give it to someone you’ve never met?”

 

“It’s not like she’s some random stranger. She took care of you when I couldn’t. I’d give her anything she wants.” Mina replies, and Sana doesn’t know whether she should feel betrayed or touched. “Besides, you disappeared for a year. I don’t think it would be a good idea to come empty-handed.”

 

For a few moments, Sana just stares down at the book in her hands. She is certain that going would be the right decision, but knowing that is what’s right doesn’t make it any easier to do.

 

“Will you walk me to the train station tomorrow?”

 

If it were any other friend, they would ask Sana why she doesn’t just teleport and question her decision of choosing the longer way of getting to another city because she’s prone to overthinking and will probably opt to go back home before she even gets to her destination.

 

But this is her good friend Mina, another one on the list of people Sana thinks she doesn’t deserve to have, who simply gives her a soft smile.

 

“Of course.”

 

---

 

Having a lot of time to think about what to say and do on the way to Nayeon certainly didn’t help.

 

What do you even say to someone you left out of the blue and didn’t talk to for a year? Now that Sana thinks about it, she just wasted time and simply delayed the inevitable since there is nothing she could say or do that would make things right.

 

When she realizes this, however, she’s already back in her old school, and since she’s here, she figures she might as well see Nayeon, even if she doesn’t find the courage to come up and talk to the other girl.

 

Finding Nayeon doesn’t turn out to be an easy task. At the very least, going around unnoticed wasn’t hard thanks to her invisibility powers, but Sana walked around the campus twice without any luck in finding the girl she’s looking for.

 

When she finally spots Nayeon, she realizes why it was so difficult.

 

Sana sees her walking to their old dormitory, and to say that Nayeon looks different would be a huge understatement. Gone were Nayeon’s thick glasses. Gone were Nayeon’s messy curls.

 

But Nayeon’s smile, that one Sana could easily recognize.

 

Aside from that, Sana can barely find traces of the old Nayeon, her Nayeon, and sure, this new Nayeon is stunning, but all of this still leaves an unsettling feeling in the pit of Sana’s stomach.

 

She tries to focus on the brighter side of things, which is seeing Nayeon looking well and confident and happy. Nayeon is even walking with someone, which is great, because one of the hardest parts of staying away for Sana is the thought of Nayeon being lonely. She is glad that Nayeon found a new friend, someone she’s comfortable enough to laugh with and hold hands with and—

 

Oh.

 

As Nayeon leans into the stranger, Sana turns away and closes her eyes, wishing that once she opens them, she’ll be back in the Academy where she can forget about seeing anything.

 

Unfortunately, her powers don’t include teleportation or time travel, so Sana is stuck there, thinking about the harsh reality that Nayeon is already with someone else.

 

Sana really, really wishes she stayed home.

 

The next best thing would be going straight home, but Sana is holding the only thing she brought with her aside from the wallet in her pocket, and she decides she can’t go home without leaving it to Nayeon.

 

She watches as the stranger leaves while Nayeon goes inside the dorm. Sana takes one deep breath, then another, and another, and more until her heart is as calm as it could be after seeing the only person she’s ever loved be in love with someone else.

 

Then, she walks up to the familiar building and through the familiar corridors until she reaches a familiar door like she did a thousand times before, only this time she’s invisible and alone.

 

She briefly considers just going inside invisible and leaving the comic book on Nayeon’s desk, but Sana knows Nayeon is inside the room. She knows she can’t leave like that, not after seeing Nayeon up close, so she makes sure no one else is around before turning visible and knocking on the door.

 

Sana decides she’s not gonna leave without saying goodbye, not this time.

 

The door opens, and Sana tries her hardest to fake a smile.

 

“Hi.”

 

The surprise only lasts a moment on Nayeon’s face before she answers, “Hi.” So far so good, Sana thinks, since she’s not getting slapped yet. “Why did you knock? You know my passcode.” Nayeon adds so casually, like Sana was just there yesterday, but— “Never mind. You probably already forgot.”

 

“I haven’t,” Sana opposes. “Look,” she says before reaching for the doorknob, making Nayeon let go, so Sana can pull the door closed. Sana keys in the digits she still has memorized and successfully opens the door.

 

“Hi,” she says again.

 

“Hi,” Nayeon echoes before gesturing towards her room with her head. “Come in before someone sees you. I’m guessing you used your powers to get into the building.”

 

“I did,” Sana confirms as she steps inside the place she never thought she’d be in again.

 

“That means your training is going well, right?” Nayeon asks, and Sana nods. “That’s good,” Nayeon tells Sana with a genuine smile. “You look good.”

 

“Not as good as you do. I almost didn’t recognize you.” Suddenly, Sana feels conscious about her appearance. She has never felt this way in front of Nayeon before. She has always dressed simply and comfortably, like how she’s wearing a plain red button-down shirt and jeans today with her hair tied up in a high ponytail as always, but now she’s wishing she did something, anything, to make herself look more presentable.

 

“Thanks. I’m glad you appreciate it.” Nayeon gestures towards her dresser with the mirror filled with taped photos before elaborating, “My friends gave me a makeover. They put a lot of work into making this happen.”

 

“You have friends?” Sana asks jokingly, making Nayeon narrow her eyes.

 

“Shut up,” Nayeon says light-heartedly, and Sana laughs as she moves closer to look at the pictures.

 

“Whoa, they’re not imaginary,” Sana teases, earning a slap on the arm. She sees a picture of Nayeon and someone with short hair and glasses that she remembers as the quiet girl they had math class with the previous year. She also sees one with Nayeon sandwiched in a hug with two girls whom she remembers because they’ve bullied Nayeon before. Sana hopes they have actually changed their ways and are real friends to Nayeon now, but that doesn’t prevent her from feeling a pang in her chest at the memory of the things that Nayeon had to go through in the past.

 

That pain is nothing compared to the one she feels when she sees the photo where Nayeon’s lips are pressed against the cheek of the stranger she’s seen Nayeon with earlier, however.

 

“I don’t recognize her.” Sana says about the mystery girl, setting for these words because she doesn’t know what else to say.

 

“She just transferred this year.” Sana waits for further explanation, but Nayeon doesn’t seem to have any.

 

“She kinda looks like me,” Sana observes, and she wonders why the heck she’s still staring at the picture when all she wants to do is forget she ever saw it.

 

“What? No, she doesn’t.”

 

Sana snorts. “Yeah, I’m kidding. She doesn’t look like a total loser like me.”

 

“First of all, you don’t look like a total loser, but I guess she kinda is the most popular girl in school right now.” Nayeon pauses. “I’ve never said that out loud, but now that I did, I’m finding it even harder to believe that she’s actually dating me. Me.” She lets out an amused laugh. “Can you believe it? Who could have guessed that she’d be my first girlfriend?”

 

Oh.

 

Sana feels an overwhelming feeling she can’t possibly describe. All she knows is that she wants it to go away.

 

How do you even respond after knowing someone you never had completely now belongs to someone else?

 

“She’s very pretty, and I can see that she makes you happy.” Sana doesn’t even know how she managed to say those words, but what made that even hard to say was knowing that those words are all true.

 

“She does,” Nayeon confirms even if she doesn’t have to. Sana already knows with the way that girl makes Nayeon smile that one smile she once reserved only for Sana. “You know how I used to wish I was invisible? When she looks at me, I’m just… really happy that I’m not.”

 

Have I ever made you feel that way? Sana wants to ask, but she bites her tongue.

 

“I’m glad you have her,” she says instead. Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, Sana tells herself, but she just can’t stop her masochistic self from adding, “You two look great together.”

 

“Thank you, and thank God for that makeover.”

 

“For what it’s worth, the thought that you ever had to change anything about yourself never crossed my mind,” Sana utters sincerely. She used to wonder if she did enough to make Nayeon realize she has always been beautiful, and now Sana knows the answer.

 

For a moment, Sana’s words leave Nayeon silent. She hears Nayeon sigh heavily and sees her cross her arms. “You can’t just be gone for a year, then come back and say things like that.”

 

Seeing this is as good a time as any to apologize, Sana starts with her eyes on the floor, “I know I can’t ever say this enough, but I’m really, really sorry. I shouldn’t have disappeared on you.”

 

“That is your superpower after all,” Nayeon interrupts, and even though it was said with a light tone, it doesn’t make Sana feel any less guilty.

 

“I wanted to stay, Nayeon,” Sana continues. “I was afraid that if I told you face to face, I might never leave.”

 

“Why not? Did you think if you had told me, I would have stopped you from leaving?”

 

“I know you wouldn’t have, but that’s what would have made it so hard. I know it wouldn’t have been any easier for you than it was for me, but I know you would have told me to do the right thing because…” Sana trails off, not knowing how to put what she wants to say into words. She looks up to meet Nayeon’s waiting gaze before concluding, “Because you’re you. How could I ever let go of someone like you?”

 

Nayeon doesn’t say anything in return immediately, and Sana spends that entire minute of silence worrying that she may have said too much. Then, Nayeon finally speaks. “I wish you would have told me all this a year ago, Sana. There were so many things I wanted to tell you. I wish you were here to hear me say all of it.”

 

“I had a lot to say, too. Words I couldn’t write in that letter because I’ve always wanted to say them out loud.”

 

Sana remembers every word she wrote on the letter she left for Nayeon. She recounted how she realized her powers were getting stronger, how she wished she told Nayeon about it sooner, how she wished she could have told Nayeon all of this in person, and how she had to leave before she changes her mind.

 

She didn’t include the part that says how much she knew she was going to miss Nayeon.

 

She didn’t include the part that says how difficult it was to make that decision.

 

She didn’t include the part that explains why a huge part of Sana wants to pretend that she will never develop her powers just so she could spend the rest of her days with Nayeon.

 

She didn’t tell Nayeon that she loved her.

 

“Saying these to each other now won’t make things any better though, would it?” Nayeon says, interrupting Sana’s contemplations as if on cue, like she can somehow hear all of these thoughts inside of Sana’s head.

 

“It wouldn’t,” Sana agrees. “I should go. I think the longer I stay, the harder it will be for me not to let them all out.” She doesn’t know if she wants Nayeon to stop her from leaving, but the other girl just looks as defeated as Sana feels. She remembers the one thing she was supposed to give Nayeon and hands it after saying, “Oh, and this is for you.”

 

The heavy atmosphere slowly dissipates as Nayeon takes the book in her hands and lets out a soft chuckle. Confused, Sana can only watch as Nayeon places it on her desk and pulls out another book from her shelf.

 

When Sana sees the cover, she lets out a short laugh, too.

 

Uhi.

 

“I bought this after you left,” Nayeon explains before offering the comic book to Sana. “How about a trade?”

 

“Deal,” Sana says as she accepts the book. With that, she has no other reason to stay here, so she says, “It was really nice to see you.”

 

“You, too,” Nayeon replies, and Sana wonders if she actually meant it. “I hope you’re not thinking about leaving without giving me a hug.”

 

The truth is that that’s exactly what Sana was planning to do because she figured she’s handled enough emotional torture for today. Still, she doesn’t want to deny Nayeon of anything, so Sana steps forward and wraps her arms around Nayeon’s shoulders. In return, Nayeon pulls Sana even closer by gripping onto Sana’s shoulders and burying her face into Sana’s neck.

 

As Sana hugs Nayeon, she lets herself pretend that things were different.

 

She lets herself pretend that she’s just an ordinary girl who never left and who will never have to leave.

 

She lets herself pretend that she’s not scared this will be the last time she’ll ever hold Nayeon in her arms.

 

Then, she feels her heart break when she hears Nayeon start to cry.

 

Sana feels Nayeon’s tears against her neck, and she wants to tell Nayeon that she’s sorry, a million times over.

 

She wants to tell Nayeon that she’s the only reason why Sana wishes things were different.

 

She wants to tell Nayeon that she loves her and she always will.

 

But feels as tight as her chest, and sobs come out of her lips instead of the words she wants to say, so Sana just tightens her embrace and pretends that her tears are all she has to let go of in that moment.

 

---

 

Sana goes straight to Mina’s lab when she gets back to the Academy. She places the comic book copy that Nayeon gave her on one of the lounge’s bookshelves and decides to leave it there. She finds Mina fast asleep, sitting in front of her computer, and well, that sight doesn’t surprise Sana anymore.

 

It’s practically a routine for her at this point. First, she’ll go to the workshop late at night instead of going to her bedroom. Then, she’ll see a sleeping Mina hunched over her laptop, so Sana will fix up one of the pull-out couches, the one closer to the walls, with the blankets and pillows that Mina left on it because she sleeps here more than she sleeps in her room. (Come to think of it, Sana isn’t even sure if Mina has ever slept in her own room.) Finally, she’ll carry Mina to the couch and lie down next to her, so she can fall asleep while thinking about how Mina is surely going to complain about a sore back when they wake up in the morning.

 

Most of the time, Mina would be sleeping too deeply that she won’t even realize she’s being carried, but there are times like this one when she’d wake up in the middle of it.

 

Sana slips under the covers beside Mina, and with her eyes half-open, the latter murmurs, “You’re back.”

 

“Yup, safe and sound,” Sana says as she turns her body so that she’s facing Mina, then rests her arm on the other girl’s stomach. “Go back to sleep.”

 

Instead of closing her eyes, however, Mina stares at Sana. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

 

Truthfully, she is too exhausted for this conversation, and not just in the physical sense, but Mina is the only person that Sana would ever talk about this with. “What do you wanna know?”

 

“If you’re gonna be alright.”

 

Sana appreciates how Mina doesn’t bother to ask her if she’s okay because she’s clearly not. She takes a moment to think about the answer to her friend’s question, and it’s the thought of Nayeon being happy and content with what she has right now that makes Sana decide, “Yes, I think I will be.”

 

“That’s all I need to know,” Mina says before giving Sana a small smile and a soft kiss on the forehead. “Good night,” she mumbles, then closes her eyes.

 

Sana shuffles closer to Mina and wonders if she will get to rest tonight. As tired as she was, she’s also thinking too much and feeling too much. It’s ironic, how all of this is keeping her from dozing off, when at the same time, she knows that the only way she could escape all of these thoughts and feelings is by falling asleep.

 

So she squeezes her eyes shut and takes long, deep breaths.

 

She tells herself that it’s okay. She’s not okay, but it’s okay not to be okay. Time will pass, and so will the pain.

 

Someday, she will heal.

 

---

 

A/N: If you figured out that Nayeon is dating WIL!Sana (from the Princess Diaries bit), you get another cookie from me.

 

You can yell at me @ twitter.com/minamyouwu