SinB sipped a warm cup of tea, sat on the counter, watching Umji as she made breakfast. She was on house arrest because of what had happened, just to make sure that she was really okay. With her eyes following her partner’s movement at every step, SinB was satisfied to just be around her.

“Eunbi ah, don’t you have class in a bit?”

“Hm? Yea I do.”

“Shouldn’t you get ready to go? Did you even do your homework?”

“I’m skipping today.”

Umji turned and put her hands on her hips, her breakfast sandwich sat completed on a plate beside her.

“You shouldn’t be skipping classes, that’s not responsible.”

“I…I’ll stay here.”

“Classes are important Eunbi ah, go? Please?”

SinB pouted as she placed her empty cup into the sink, filling it with water.

“You don’t want me here?”

“What? That’s not what I’m saying, come here.”

Umji hugged SinB warmly, her hands resting comfortably around her partner’s waist. Sometimes SinB was like this, a spoiled child who wanted nothing more than just held and taken care of.

“For a person claiming to be caring for me, you sure are high maintenance.”

“What’re you saying? Me? High maintenance? Hah.”

SinB shrugged her statement off but Umji caught the small smile and the telltale truth that the hug was reassuring her.

“Come on, I’m not going anywhere, go to class please?”

“….fine.”

SinB detached herself reluctantly, grabbing her bag, she trudged to the door. Holing the handle with one hand, she stopped and turned to look back at Umji.

“I’ll be back the moment class ends! Promise!”

And promptly ran off.

“Geez, so energetic for a girl who complained having switched to morning classes.”

Taking her sandwich to go sit at the dining table, Umji nearly choked on her first bite when a shriek sounded from the older duo’s room. Choking down her food, Umji chugged water for a few seconds to make sure that everything went down properly before moving to go check on her teammates. They didn’t have to get up this early, but that scream without any alarming premonition flags meant that it was something harmless.

“Yerin unnie? Yuju unnie?”

Poking her head through the doorway, Umji flushed bright red before apologizing and slamming the door shut again. Yuju groaned as she dragged a hand down her face. Calm, Umji was a reasonable person, but she can still have misunderstandings, still, she was easy to explain things to. Tugging her shirt back over herself, she glared hotly at Yerin who was now kneeling on the floor with an apologetic face.

“Sorry….”

“I can only accept that apology if you weren’t fully conscious.”

“I swear I didn’t mean to!”

Yuju sighed as she leaned back on her arms. First, Yerin flops on top of her asleep at 3am in the morning, waking her from her already shallow sleep. Next, she wakes up with Yerin’s hands on her bare chest. She ran a hand through her hair. Usually, skinship didn’t bother her. Usually. But when she was harboring small feelings and getting felt up without her knowledge was a little humiliating and honestly, unfair.

“It’s fine Yerin unnie.”

“No, it isn’t, I don’t understand why I ended up at your bed, it’s never happened before! I swear! I don’t have any sleeping habits!”

Yerin looked as if she were about to cry, she must have felt terrible for Yuju to perhaps have had a traumatic experience, as the average person might have towards her, but Yuju was perfectly sound in mind to not mind it after ignoring the thoughts.

“Maybe you were extremely tired from our little attack.”

“Maybe…”

To tell the truth, Yerin was a little bit of a paranoid person, she hated horror movies and she absolutely hated jump scares. Kidnapping, the act of kidnapping, seeing her youngest team member being carried away had left an impression on her. A very bad impression. Wandering back to her bed, Yerin sat on it and contemplated whether or not to talk this out with Yuju, in case something else happened, or that she did this again. She was almost certain that the reason how she ended up in Yuju’s bed was precisely because her body needed to confirm that Yuju was still there, even in its subconsciousness.

“Look, I’m not against skinship; most of the time anyways. But next time, at least get permission.”

“I swear I won’t- huh? Permission?”

Yerin looked up quizzically, was that blush on Yuju’s cheeks? Pushing the thought aside, she responded coolly.

“Yea, consent. I got you.”

Yuju seemed satisfied and left to explain to Umji.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With warm arms still wrapped around her, Eunha woke up with a start when one hand jerked in a random direction. The jolt had spooked her senses and she had been slightly alarmed, but it turned out to be involuntary movement on Sowon’s part. Blinking into focus her surroundings, Eunha looked down to see that Sowon was still wrapped around her, it was nice and warm, full of safety almost.

Reaching to touch Sowon’s hand, she noticed that Sowon’s skin under her long sleeve was slightly feverish, she twisted around to check Sowon’s forehead, but her mentor had seemed fine on her head. Holding Sowon’s right hand, she pulled back the sleeve just a bit to dark purple veins connecting Sowon to her black metal cuff, almost as if poison was trying to make its way through her system.

Gasping lightly as she traced the purple veins along Sowon’s wrist, Eunha tried to make sense of them, she still didn’t know what happened with Chungha just yet, but this was most likely the result of a fight from then. Letting go of Sowon’s hand when she felt her mentor shift, Eunha stayed still for Sowon to press fully against her back, her front pressed warmly against Eunha’s back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, you don’t have clearance to be down here-“

“Good night.”

The guard crumpled to the ground unconscious as a uniform clad figure stepped into the hall of cells under the school grounds. The prison.

Finding the illusionist’s cell, they leaned close, and whispered something to the chained blindfolded girl.

“You’ll do it right?”

“ahhh….AAAAAHHHHHKKKKKKK!!!”

“Good girl.”

==============

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