Dahyun lets her hands dig into the grass, absently playing with the fragile blades while she watches Sana. The older girl is running around with Momo, alternating between throwing herself in her arms or skipping off with the other in tow. Dahyun is sure the game would make sense if she was close enough to hear them, rather than just see their seemingly erratic motions; it certainly made sense a few moments ago, when she was doing her own share of running around with the other two. But now she’s a little out of breath, so she sits back and watches the pair.

Sana pauses, apparently distracted from her game, and lets Momo tackle her side without reaction. Instead, she is gazing in Dahyun’s direction, waving her arms to catch her attention. Dahyun squints for a second, a bit confused, but eventually brings up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun and waits for Sana’s message. The older girl smiles at the gesture and immediately forms a heart over her head with both arms, giggling as Dahyun shakes her head with an eyeroll that the distant girl probably can’t see.

Dahyun is Sana’s best friend, has been ever since they became roommates on the older girl’s second year of college. She isn’t sure why, maybe it really was just their forced proximity that evolved naturally into intimacy, but what she does know is that, out of their group of friends, she is the person Sana is closest to.

She questions it sometimes. It’s hard not to when the girl is so sociable, able to befriend anyone at any time, but she is always reassured. When Sana naturally drifts back to her side, arm around her waist and voice so low that only Dahyun can hear her. When they stay up for hours just talking and Sana finally quiets down and says in a hushed whisper that “you’re the only one I’ve told that.”

So they’re best friends. Dahyun is glad, and not just because she knows how lucky she is to get along so well with her roommate. She’s honestly glad to be Sana’s best friend, because the older girl is everything she could want in a friend, because she is a sweet, precious person who deserves all the love in the world and Dahyun can only feel blessed that this ray of sunshine has decided to love her back.

After a moment’s hesitation, she brings up her own arms, nearly losing her balance as she returns Sana’s gesture. It’s definitely worth it when the older girl grins from ear to ear, eyes shrinking under the force of her smile. The sheer happiness radiating from every inch of her is almost blinding, tugging at more than just Dahyun’s lips. Her heart flips in a familiar pattern and all she can do is smile a little harder and will it away.

The thing is, Dahyun doesn’t just love Sana. No, she’s very much in love with her best friend, whose smiles are brighter than the Sun. She is absolutely head over heels for the girl with the sweetest eyes, sweetest voice, sweetest words.

She drops her arms and goes back to watching the pair. Smile barely dimming, Sana returns her attention to Momo, tugging at arms that are still wrapped around her waist to pull the slightly shorter girl closer and attack her with kisses. Momo resists weakly, face contorting with a look of anguish so cute that even Dahyun couldn’t resist it, but Sana is relentless and by the time the girls return to Dahyun’s side, Momo’s cheek is unmistakably marked with Sana’s pink lipstick.

Sana is a flirt. Dear Lord, is she a flirt. In other circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem for Dahyun. She isn’t one to judge others and she doesn’t see why excessive flirting would be some mortal sin. And in Sana’s case in particular, she knows first-hand just how harmless it is. The girl simply flirts with everyone, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. If Dahyun had to spend the rest of her days watching Sana flirt with every person that crosses her path, she would only feel lucky.

Her friends settle on either side of her and Dahyun immediately pokes her finger into Momo’s cheek, smudging the kiss mark. “When I told you to have fun without me, this isn’t what I had in mind,” she jokes, amused by Momo’s embarrassment.

“Aww, is our Dahyunnie jealous?” Sana cuts in at once. Somehow, she is so close that she’s nearly on top of Dahyun, although the latter could have sworn that Sana initially sat down at a normal human distance from her.

“Does Dahyunnie want a kiss too?” Momo joins without hesitation, so shy when the attention is on her but so eager to dish out the teasing when her younger friend is the target.

Dahyun turns to Momo, leaving the biggest threat for later. “Only if it’s from you,” she replies with a quirk of her eyebrows, well aware that the best defense is a good offense, at least with Momo.

“Only from her?” Sana is quick to voice her protest, arms slipping around Dahyun from the back and holding her in a hug that is far too comforting given the danger of the situation. When she speaks again, her breath hits Dahyun’s ear and she can only pray with all her strength that her body won’t betray her by tinting her pale cheeks bright red. “That’s not fair, Dahyunnie. Don’t you know how to share?”

The real problem is that Sana also flirts with Dahyun. And for some reason, maybe because they’re the closest, maybe because Dahyun is particularly susceptible to Sana’s charms, it always feels like she ends up getting the shorter end of the stick.

It would be pointless to try to escape Sana’s hug, Dahyun knows that much, so instead she turns around as much as she can manage with the little space Sana has left between them. She finds herself distractingly close to sparkling eyes, not to mention pretty pink lips that beg her gaze to stray. But she knows she’d be lost if she glanced down for even an instant, so she resists the impulse and tries her best to look unimpressed.

“Sorry, my cheeks have been reserved for one girl only. Maybe another time,” she adds with a wink. Without missing a beat, Sana swings a leg over Dahyun’s lap, clumsily straddling her, and cradles her face with both hands.

“Fine. Not the cheeks, then.” This time, Dahyun is definitely too surprised to keep the blush from spreading across her cheeks.

It’s ridiculous, really, and it makes her feel beyond ridiculous. There is no reason why having a cute girl sit on her lap and smirk down at her should leave her so flustered, not when she knows how little it means. But her brain goes blank every time and all she can manage is a slight eyeroll and her best attempt at exasperation, especially when Sana notices her discomfort and only leans in closer, a definite hint of amusement hidden under innocent curiosity.

Still, it was much worse at first. When she became a spluttering, blushing mess, eyes widening and arms springing up to push at Sana’s shoulders and put some acceptable distance between them. That dramatic reaction never failed to have laughter pouring out of Sana, the sound somehow even more distracting than the touches.

“Not anywhere else, either,” she states with as much authority as she can muster up. It mustn’t be a lot, because Sana barely registers her words before she’s moving closer, drawing out a flash of panic from Dahyun until her trajectory shifts and it becomes clear that she’s not heading towards .

Soft lips make contact with Dahyun’s forehead, wrinkled in anticipation, then Sana pulls away with an infuriating and extremely endearing grin. Dahyun’s heart feels like it’s going to burst right then and there but she takes one breath, then another, and puts on her best resigned smile.

“I really can’t believe I’m the youngest here,” she attacks with an accompanying poke to Sana’s side. “You are way too childish.”

She’s learned the hard way that the only hope she has of discouraging the older girl is to brush it off and show absolutely no reaction. She can’t quite manage the stoic expression she aims for, not yet, maybe never, but it’s still a lot easier to fend off Sana’s playful advances by sighing, leaning into the touch with resigned passivity and playing along. Eventually, after a few pats on the head and condescending nods, she manages to detach from Sana and recover some semblance of personal space, essential for her continued mental stability.

“Well, how am I supposed to resist that cute face?” Sana asks with wide, innocent eyes. Vaguely, as if from a great distance, Dahyun registers Momo’s giggles.

Because it would be so, so easy to give in. To let herself believe that Sana means it. That tight hugs and nuzzles against her neck and sweet, gentle kisses carry the message that her body traitorously insists on reading, every time. But it’s Sana. Flirting is what she does, as simple and inconsequential as a greeting or a smile. Surely, if Dahyun keeps trying, she’ll eventually manage to convince herself of it.

(...)

Sana has always believed in fate. Not in the sense that there is some great plan for her; she just knows, in some part of her mind, that everything will turn out alright. Call her an optimist, but she has had evidence enough of that in the past. Out of all her friends, she was the only one who never broke a single bone, despite playing along with every dangerous and stupid plan they had. Even though she struggled with school at times, she managed to get good grades and into the college she wanted.

And most of all, she somehow ended up sharing a room with her very best friend and most important person, Dahyun, from the moment the younger girl got into college. And it’s this belief that things will work out for the better that helps her remain confident even when she can’t see how the situation will change. It lets her be happy with the way things are and not worry too much about the details.

When she finally gets to the dorm room after lunch, Dahyun is already inside, sitting on her bed and gazing at her laptop. Her roomie shifts as soon as she hears the door open, pulling her laptop out of the way just in time for Sana to happily take its place.

“Hi,” she breathes out by Dahyun’s ear. Dahyun smells nice, like she always does, and Sana smiles at the familiar scent.

“Did you miss me?” Dahyun asks lightly, her arms reaching around Sana to steady her, one hand patting her back steadily. “I mean, it has been…” She draws back one arm to study the watch on her wrist. “A whole 6 hours.”

Sana shakes her head, her hair brushing against Dahyun’s neck. She pulls back just enough to see the goosebumps forming on the sensitive skin. Her hand itches to smooth them out with a light touch, but she resists the impulse and inches away to face Dahyun. “I was asleep when you left for your morning class, so I haven’t seen you since last night.”

The younger girl’s face contorts into exaggerated surprise. “Oh, well, that’s completely different then! That’s like 15 hours!”

“Two thirds of a day,” Sana provides helpfully, scrunching up her own face with displeasure. The hand on her back moves to the top of her head, which Dahyun pats soothingly.

“There, there. I’m here now.”

She can see the glimmer of fondness in Dahyun’s eyes, enough to remove any bite from the girl’s patronizing attitude, and it’s all she needs to allow herself to believe Dahyun’s words. To believe that she missed Sana, as much as Sana missed her.

Sana has always been clingy with her friends, that much isn’t new. But she’s never felt like this, never counted down the hours until she could see someone again, never relaxed into an embrace and felt so at home.

That’s why, as much as she wants to nuzzle against Dahyun’s neck and let herself be enveloped in her presence, she keeps her distance, just enough that she can study every inch of the younger girl’s face.

She follows the curve of her eyes, softened by affection, the teasing quirk of her lips, the way Dahyun moves to follow Sana’s retreating face, such a slight movement that she probably isn’t aware of it herself. Her eyes linger on every feature, taking them all in with pleasure, each more perfect than the last.

“Why are you staring at my nose?” Dahyun eventually asks, breaking the silence that has probably dragged on for a while now. Her brows are slightly raised, uncertainty shining through, and her eyes are settled firmly on Sana’s.

Sana hums thoughtfully, amused at Dahyun’s growing look of suspicion. “I don’t know, it just looks a little lonely.”

This draws a snort from the younger girl. “Lonely? How is that even-” she begins, but is unceremoniously cut off by Sana, who leans forward to drop a gentle kiss on the tip of her nose, motivated only partly by the mischievous wish to fluster Dahyun.

With a yelp of surprise, Dahyun falls backwards in a clumsy attempt to put distance between, but Sana simply follows along, dropping on her chest with a fit of giggles. “There, that’s better,” she remarks happily, tapping the small smudge of lipstick she’s left behind with her index finger.

As much as she enjoys teasing Dahyun, she knows there’s a limit to how much she can do before the younger girl begins to grow uncomfortable. Not the fun kind of uncomfortable, where she scrambles for words and her cheeks fill with color, and which Sana finds absolutely irresistible. No, the king that comes after, when she goes quiet and her eyes glisten with something that Sana can’t quite read, something she can only hope isn’t the growing need to pull away.

So Sana rolls off of Dahyun without protest, secretly pleased when the younger girl’s arms seem to follow her body, reaching out for her before they settle back by Dahyun’s sides. The fact that Dahyun’s instinctive reaction is to keep her close, even if she won’t allow too much proximity, reassures Sana that everything is alright between them.

“You’re so very proud of yourself, aren’t you?” Dahyun questions, interrupting Sana’s thoughts. She’s studying her face with an unimpressed expression, though Sana can see the earnest affection in her eyes, always shining there no matter how much the girl tries to hide it.

She’s probably misunderstood Sana’s smile, seen it as smug when really, it’s nothing but elated. She’s just happy to be here, with Dahyun, close to her favorite person. She just loves Dahyun, so much more than the younger girl has ever realized. And despite her life philosophy, she can’t help hoping, a little bit, that things will change sooner rather than later.

“Your cheeks look lonely too,” she says, instead of the jumble of thoughts occupying her mind. Dahyun shifts back warily.

“Out,” she commands without any real bite. “Out of my bed.” Sana giggles at Dahyun’s jabbing arm, prodding her ever so cautiously toward the edge of the bed like the younger girl fears that Sana will cling to it and pull her closer.

She wants to kiss Dahyun. Not on the forehead, or the nose, or the cheek. She wants to kiss her for real. But the panic creeping in at the edges of Dahyun’s eyes every time she comes close keeps her from pushing too far.

Instead, she giggles and shuffles off the bed.

(...)

Sana groans, a low and drawn-out sound. Her voice is slightly muffled and Dahyun knows without turning that the older girl has buried her head in her arms. She still turns, because it’s a welcome distraction from her own work. That, and because she wouldn’t pass up a chance to look at Sana.

As expected, the girl’s face is on her desk, everything but long, light-brown hair concealed by her crossed arms. While Dahyun watches, she seems to find a new cache of willpower within herself and slowly raises her head, blinking defeatedly against the light from her desk lamp that harshly illuminates her notebook.

Dahyun quickly returns her attention to her own notes. She’s not afraid of being caught staring, but she knows Sana will grasp at any opportunity to interrupt her studying, and a friendly face looking her way is her favorite kind of distraction.

She gets through a few more lines, somewhat distracted as she strains her ears to catch the scratching of Sana’s pencil or the muted flipping of pages. She’s pretty sure she hasn’t heard a thing, and her suspicions are only confirmed when Sana clears much more loudly than necessary.

“Dahyunnie,” she calls, dragging out the word pleasantly in her sweet voice. Dahyun sighs with feigned impatience, secretly a bit happy at getting a break from work. She’s diligent in her studies, but even she was getting a little bored.

“Yes?” Sana perks up immediately despite Dahyun’s tone of suspicion. She knows by now that the younger girl will only acknowledge her distractions when she’s already halfway to indulging them.

“I’m bored,” she whines cutely, pitching up her voice and blinking innocent eyes at Dahyun as soon as the latter turns to face her. “I don’t want to do any more homework.”

When Dahyun speaks, she swears it’s not just those wide, sparkling eyes that motivate her answer. After all, Sana has been working for a while now, and it’s not like she didn’t make an effort to break through the inertia before giving up on her notes. “So don’t,” she retorts lazily, amused as Sana’s expression oscillates between delight and confusion.

“Really? You’re just going to let me stop, no nagging?”

Dahyun quirks an offended brow. “Hey, I resent that.” Sana laughs in response, not bothering to defend herself. “And yeah, why not? Follow your heart.”

Now Sana is the one raising her eyebrows, apparently surprised by Dahyun’s philosophy. “Follow my heart?” To be fair, it sounds more like the kind of thing the older girl would say. Dahyun is admittedly a bit more guarded, but maybe prolonged exposure to Sana’s unbeatable optimism and faith in things working themselves out has caused a slight adjustment to Dahyun’s beliefs. Either that or she just likes giving Sana what she wants.

Regardless of the reason, she nods with a slight shrug. Instead of her expected reward of a bright smile from the older girl, she is hit with a questioning glance. “What if my heart wants me to do something dumb?”

“I- What kind of dumb thing?”

“You know, like eat a whole tub of ice cream in one sitting,” Sana replies at once, the serious and business-like tone contrasting amusingly with her ridiculous words. Dahyun is struck once more by the girl’s whimsical side and she can’t avoid laughing at the suggestion.

“That’s not your heart speaking, it’s your stomach.” If they were closer, she’d reach out and poke Sana’s middle, but the distance between their desks is just enough that it would involve getting up, and then Sana would probably just scoop Dahyun up in her arms and she’d never be able to get back to her own work.

Sana’s face scrunches up in concentration, probably trying to come up with another counterexample. “What if it wants me to kiss someone,” she begins, something indiscernible flashing through her face and vanishing so quickly that Dahyun barely registers it, “that I shouldn’t kiss?”

The question reaches Dahyun like an unrecognizable jumble of words that very slowly untangle before her eyes, taking on the shape of something large and looming and not at all pleasant. “Why shouldn’t you kiss them?” she snorts out in a careful attempt at nonchalance.

“I don’t know, it might be a bad idea if they were a stranger on the street or something,” the older girl muses lightly. She looks as carefree as ever, but something about her quick response strikes Dahyun as insincere, like she’s trying to put the topic away just as quickly as she brought it up. That flash of something Dahyun couldn’t quite pin down… Could it possibly be alarm? Instant regret that she’d mentioned something she shouldn’t?

She could see Sana pulling a question like that out of the inexplicable depths of her mind, but she’s beginning to suspect that it wasn’t just a hypothetical, and the thought strikes her like a punch to the gut.

“I can’t believe you’re going to this much effort to prove me wrong for telling you to stop studying," she jokes, trying to give Sana the way out of the conversation that she clearly wants. The older girl smiles at her words and Dahyun hopes her own answering grin is convincing.

The thought of Sana having feelings for someone else, of wanting to kiss them, tugs at Dahyun's insides with painful force. It's one thing to convince herself, slowly and with much effort, that her feelings aren't returned. But having to know that there is someone else fills her with the most paradoxical dread. Of course Sana would like someone eventually, but now that it’s actually happened, she can’t help but feel completely blindsided by the realization.

“Yeah, I guess it doesn’t make much sense,” Sana admits sheepishly, and Dahyun knows at once that her guess was right. She returns her eyes to her own desk before they can betray the turmoil inside her.

“Right, so go on before I change my mind,” she replies in the tone of an indulgent teacher. She doesn’t lift her eyes from the page until Sana is stepping through the dorm room door after a short goodbye. Then, she watches the older girl’s retreating back as she mulls over the other reason why the news has rattled her so deeply.

They’re supposed to be best friends. They don’t keep secrets from each other. So how come Sana never told Dahyun that she liked someone?

(...)

It doesn’t take long for the sting of betrayal to shift into unease and, right on its heels, full-on concern. Dahyun’s reasoning is that Sana wouldn’t keep something like this from her, not unless she had some reason. More than the close connection between them, it just doesn’t make sense that Sana would be this secretive about a crush. She seems like the type who, while not quite eager to shout it from the rooftops, at least wouldn’t shy away from sharing it with her close friends.

So the only conclusion is that something is keeping Sana from telling Dahyun, some obstacle or worry. That, coupled with Sana mentioning that she wanted to kiss someone she shouldn’t, naturally makes Dahyun fear that the older girl has let her innocent heart drag her into some complicated situation. Feelings for someone who is already taken or, God forbid, a teacher or someone who would leave her in a similarly ethically dubious situation.

So she should be worried. She isn’t just going crazy over nothing. It’s concerning, right?

Then why are all her friends acting like she’s put on a tinfoil hat and started spouting off nonsense about subliminal messages and drugs in their food? Every single one of them dismissed her worries, with varying degrees of kindness. Even Momo just shrugged awkwardly and told her it was probably fine. She’s pretty sure the girl would have taken her more seriously if she actually had been talking about government conspiracies.

After seven straight rejections, and a few drinks, she’s given up on sharing her concerns, not quite reassured but increasingly doubtful of her own reasoning. The alcohol does manage to lessen the worry but it also brings out her introverted side, leading her to a quiet corner, where she sits by Chaeyoung’s side on a small sofa.

The term “quiet corner” might be a bit optimistic, though. It’s about as loud as the rest of the room, which isn’t even that big. None of them are, although Nayeon insists that the house doesn’t look that tiny when it’s just her, Jeongyeon and Jihyo, the usual residents. It’s only when they’re having parties that the place seems to shrink away to nothing and suddenly everybody’s elbowing each other and bumping into that one floor lamp.

Tonight isn’t really a party in the college sense, full of people and noise, but with a friend group this big, every time the 9 of them meet it kind of is a party, especially when there are drinks. It doesn’t help that they always end up playing some stupid party game, 9 times out of 10 led by Nayeon or Tzuyu, who seem to live for the chaos.

It’s safer with Chaeyoung, who appears satisfied to sit in relative silence and people-watch, sometimes with her notebook open to jot down the occasional bit of prose or poetry as inspiration strikes her.

Of course, tonight she isn’t getting silence, or anything close to it, because as much as she tries, Dahyun can’t quite get herself to stop talking. She’s been mumbling nonsense about Sana’s smile and her sweet eyes and her gentle heart and her delicate hands for so long that even kind, patient Chaeyoung has had to conceal a few sighs.

“I just, I know I said this before but she just… She has such a nice smile. It’s not just me, right? Her eyes crinkle up at the corners and it makes her cheeks really stand out, you want to pinch them and-” She breaks off her incoherent speech abruptly at the sight of Jeongyeon approaching them, pushed by Nayeon. Looking behind the couple, Dahyun suddenly notices that everybody else has somehow left the room.

“Hey guys, how’s the, uh, corner?” Jeongyeon asks in an attempt at casual that doesn’t quite convince. Or maybe it’s just the fact that Nayeon is elbowing her side insistently. Dahyun opens to answer, but Jeongyeon carries on before she can get a word in. “Anyway, we - all of us, I mean - we were wondering if you wanted to come play a game.”

Dahyun doesn’t trust the situation one bit, and once more prepares to give her opinion when she is interrupted again, this time by Chaeyoung. “I don’t know, your games are always...”, She pauses awkwardly, clearing to justify her sudden silence, and Dahyun whips her head around to the two girls just a beat too late to catch any incriminating silent communication.

“Uh, fun. They’re always fun and stuff. Let’s do this,” Chaeyoung concludes with a stiff fist pump and gets to her feet. Dahyun watches her in surprise and soon finds herself being hauled to her feet by three pairs of arms.

“What’s the game?” she mumbles at her captors. They ignore her utterly, too focused on dragging the reluctant participant to the cramped kitchen, where the others await. “Hey, what’s the game?” she repeats a little louder, and it’s Tzuyu who answers, with a worrying glint in her eyes.

“7 minutes in heaven.”

About half the occupants of the room blink in surprise, a few doing a bit more than blinking. Sana, for example, smiles mischievously, while Momo seems to shrink in on herself at the notion.

Dahyun, on the other hand, immediately speaks up. “This is childish. It’s a high school game. Right, Chaeyoung?” She turns to whom she hopes will be her ally, despite the earlier betrayal. The younger girl seems genuinely displeased at the choice of game, yet all it takes is a glance at Jihyo for her to shake her head with conviction.

“No, it’s… cool. I never played it in high school, so why not try it now?” She smiles widely, well aware of how her cute grins always disarm her older friends. It doesn’t convince Dahyun, nothing could, but it does let her know that she is definitely outnumbered. And maybe heading into a trap. This feels like something that her friends have planned without her, somehow.

“Momo?” she tries nevertheless, turning to her friend only to find Jihyo’s arm wrapped around her shoulders, like a parent gently but firmly keeping their child from running off and doing something stupid. Oh well, at least she tried.

As if sensing Dahyun’s defeat, Nayeon immediately commands everyone’s attention, pulling a small bag and a few slips of paper out of her back pocket. “Alright, everybody write your names on a piece of paper and then fold it up and put it in the bag. We’ll pick out a pair at random and those two have to go in the closet for 7 minutes.”

Jeongyeon snickers as Nayeon passes her on her round to distribute the slips of paper. “Back in the closet? But I just got out,” she teases, earning an eyeroll and a muttered “not funny” around lips that still curl into a smile.

Dahyun considers just writing someone else’s name, but everybody seems to be looking over her shoulder, so she gives up on cheating and lets her fate depend solely on luck. With a sigh, she drops her name in the bag, trying to reason that there’s only one person with whom she wouldn’t want to spend those 7 minutes, and what are the odds of that one specific pairing popping up?

Nayeon rummages through the bag, widening her eyes for dramatic effect, and Dahyun sweeps her eyes around the circle of people to find with dismay that most of them don’t show a single trace of concern, only confirming her suspicions that this is some sort of trap.

“First name,” Nayeon announces with a flair. Out comes a small, folded up scrap of paper which she hands to Jeongyeon to unwrap.

“Sana,” she announces with her own dramatic lilt. Those two really do fit each other, Dahyun thinks distractedly, most of her thoughts focused on the fact that the worst-case scenario is still a possibility.

“Second name,” Nayeon carries on, heedless of Dahyun’s growing fear. Her hand reaches deep inside the bag and pulls out another tiny fleck of white. This one, she hands to Tzuyu.

“Dahyun,” the girl declares in her usual even tone. Dahyun feels the blood drain from her face.

“Can I just, uh, check the names?” she asks with a dry throat. She doesn’t want to sound too panicked, that might hurt Sana’s feelings, not to mention how it would only encourage the others. But she really thinks she’s been set up and if there’s any chance of getting out of it, she’ll try it.

“Sure,” Tzuyu retorts, already reaching out her hand. Dahyun takes the paper gingerly and reads her own name as a chill runs down her spine. Jeongyeon is equally helpful, extending a slip that definitely has Sana’s name written inside.

“Can I see the bag?” she tries again, but this time she’s once again being surrounded by her friends and secured by the arms. She finally chances a glance at Sana, who seems mostly amused by her reluctance. Of course, she’s the predator type. She likes a little struggle.

Sana strolls into the closet ahead of Dahyun and leans casually against a rack while Jihyo and Nayeon bring in a couple of stools for them to sit. It’s a storage closet, not quite small enough that they’ll be squished together, but definitely too small to avoid contact without being very obvious.

She turns around just before being shoved inside to find that she’s being held by Mina. She glances up at the girl with pleading eyes, but she quickly sees that she will have no luck. Mina is either as pliant as a blade of grass or as unyielding as steel, with no middle ground, and fortune did not favor Dahyun this time around.

“You’re in on this, aren’t you?” she asks regardless, because she really does need to know, even if it doesn’t get her out of it. Mina nods shamelessly. “How did they do it? I know they cheated, there’s no way that was a coincidence.”

Mina glances around to make sure nobody hears her, then leans in closer. “Everybody else ripped their papers at the corner, so Nayeon would know which ones to pick.”

Dahyun’s eyes widen. “You were all in on this,” she exclaims more than asks. Mina shrugs, unbothered.

“Well, Jihyo told Momo to do it just now and I told Chaeyoung. But yes, most of us.”

Mina begins to push her into the closet, but Dahyun clings to her desperately. “Mina, why are you doing this to me?” she requests with a hint of desperation, keeping her voice just low enough and her grip just light enough that it doesn’t alert Sana to her growing panic.

“We’re doing this to both of you,” Mina replies as she slowly peels Dahyun’s hands off her arm, finger by finger.

“No, you’re doing it to me,” she repeats meaningfully, raising her eyebrows for emphasis.

At this, Mina momentarily pauses, eyeing her down with an inscrutable gaze. “No, we’re doing it to both of you,” she insists, then takes advantage of Dahyun’s temporary distraction to shove her inside and push the door closed.

“What does that even mean?” Dahyun hisses at the small gap before the door closes fully. She receives no answer.

(...)

“So, come here often?” Sana jokes as soon as Dahyun turns to face her. She is wearing a casual smile, apparently entirely unworried about their situation.

Somehow, this does nothing to slow down Dahyun’s racing heart. “I, uh, sometimes? They keep the dish soap here.” She tilts her arm to point weakly at the bottom shelf of the nearest rack, where the detergents are stored.

The older girl approaches her, but simply pinches her cheeks for a second with an amused smile. “You’re so cute,” she declares evenly, then turns around to rummage around the contents of a few plastic boxes.

“You’re not going to,” Dahyun begins, too surprised to control her reaction, then awkwardly pauses when Sana’s eyes land on her, clearly curious. “To, uh, try to mess with me?” she finishes hesitantly, suddenly a bit guilty at her own clearly baseless accusation.

“Well, I can if you want me to,” Sana declares cheerfully, abandoning the opened boxes to once again invade Dahyun’s personal space. She peers closely into Dahyun’s eyes, the usual dangerous glint sparkling in her own, her face so close that Dahyun can smell her sweet perfume.

It’s distracting, much more than Dahyun can handle in her already nervous and fragilized state. Her heart seems to be beating out some erratic pattern and she reaches back with trembling hands to find some support in the shelves that surround the room. In an unforgivable betrayal, her eyes slide down to Sana’s lips, glistening and alluring even in the unflattering light of the lamp above them.

The older girl smiles briefly and returns her attention to her search. “But we do share a room. Time alone with you isn’t that hard to come by,” she throws over her shoulder. Dahyun can’t hold back an eyeroll, mood shifting instantly from flustered to vaguely insulted.

“So what you’re saying is that you take me for granted,” she points out with indignation that is only partly exaggerated. Sana giggles and Dahyun gives up her protest before the older girl gets any ideas about proving her wrong. Instead, she slowly walks over to where Sana is still shuffling boxes around, curiosity growing. “What are you looking for?”

“Chaeyoung keeps her extra drawing stuff here, I’m pretty sure it’s in one of these boxes.” Dahyun hums at the explanation, joining Sana’s search for lack of anything better to do. She longingly thinks of her phone, abandoned on a kitchen counter after it was confiscated by one of the many pairs of hands that led her to the closet. It’s a bit excessive, she thinks. It’s not like she was going to call the police or something.

Her half-hearted search is brought to an end when Sana cries out happily, pulling a block of drawing paper out of a box crammed all the way at the end of the shelf. The paper is handed over to Dahyun and the older girl leans over the other boxes to return an instant later with a case of colored pencils.

They consider the logistics of drawing while sitting on the stools before giving up and settling next to each other on the hopefully-clean floor. The minutes pass easily while they fill their sheets of paper with color, neither of them particularly skilled but having fun nonetheless.

They’re having a silent battle, Sana pushing back Dahyun’s arms while the younger girl determinedly attempts to scribble on Sana’s beautiful blue sky with her neon green pencil, when there is a knock at the door. Dahyun immediately jumps in place, the close position that felt completely natural only a moment ago becoming unnerving and vaguely embarrassing.

“How are you guys doing in there?” Nayeon asks, sounding nothing but amused. Dahyun wonders how long they’ve been trapped in the closet. Possibly much more than 7 minutes, considering both of their completed drawings.

“Fine,” she answers in a flash. She doesn’t want anyone to get any ideas. Sana is watching her with a small smile, but she ignores the attention. “Super great. Can we leave now?” Sana openly giggles at her eagerness, finally letting go of her arms. She nearly slumps forward into the older girl, but quickly straightens up.

“Did you kiss?” Oh, right, Nayeon. She’s still out there. Wait, what did she just ask?

“Did we what?” she asks nervously. By her side, Sana giggles again, but now it doesn’t sound quite as at ease.

“Did you kiss,” Nayeon repeats without hesitation. “You can leave when you’ve kissed.”

“What?!” Dahyun demands in horror. Sana’s smile, which lessened the slightest bit at the information, returns in full force as Dahyun gets up to her feet so quickly that she nearly hits her head on the side of a shelf. “That’s not in the rules! We stay in here for 7 minutes, that’s it!”

“Well, you were saying it was childish, right? This is the grown-up version. You have to kiss.”

Dahyun’s brain begins working at a staggering pace, running through all possible ways out of this. She swings her head wildly around the tiny room, like any windows might materialize if she wishes hard enough. Sana scoops up their supplies, protecting them from Dahyun’s imminent pacing, then sits on one of the stools. How can she be so calm about this?

While Dahyun thinks, hushed voices can be heard through the thin door, Nayeon and somebody that sounds like Jeongyeon. They appear to be discussing the ethics behind keeping their friends hostage, but Dahyun ignores them in favor of estimating whether she’d be capable of breaking open the door. Possibly, but it’d cost her already close-to-broke friends a bit to fix. She’d pay for it herself, but she is also not exactly swimming in money.

The conversation dies down and Nayeon knocks on the door again. “Okay, we’ll give you another 7 minutes. Get kissing.”

“Wait!” she calls out desperately. “We kissed. Just now. While you were talking.” This captures Sana’s attention, and the older girl gazes at Dahyun with raised eyebrows as they await Nayeon’s judgment.

“Dahyunnie, are you lying to me?” the voice behind the door asks slowly.

She shakes her head before remembering that Nayeon can’t see her. “Nope. Honest truth. Just kissed.” Sana is amused again. Of course she is. Dahyun is so glad that at least her spiral into madness is making someone happy.

“Tongue or no tongue?”

She blinks, unresponsive for a few seconds. “Sorry, what was that?” she requests in a weak voice.

“Tongue? Or no tongue?” Nayeon repeats a little slower.

“I- uh-” She flounders, eyes swinging wildly between the door and Sana, who at least has the decency to not be laughing. Now if only she’d come over and help her. “I mean, that’s not…”

“Yeah, I’m not buying it,” Nayeon cuts off casually. “So I’ll be back in 7 minutes. See ya.”

Dahyun doesn’t even bother arguing. She slumps into her empty stool with a sigh and gazes straight at the door, the single, flimsy obstacle between her and freedom. Still silent, she leans to the side until her arm is resting on the edge of a rack, then lets her head tilt against the same support.

She isn’t sure how long she spends just staring at the door, letting hopelessness consume her. Eventually, she notices that Sana has been scooting her stool closer and closer, until the older girl is looking over her shoulder.

“We could just kiss.”

She snorts derisively, a small smile growing on her lips at the joke. Then she turns to face Sana and realizes that it wasn’t a joke at all. The older girl watches her expectantly, expression as light as her voice, but definitely, absolutely not joking.

“Just kiss,” Dahyun replies, not even bothering to voice it as a question.

“Well, it’s a kiss. It doesn’t have to be a big deal,” Sana points out with a small shrug. She offers an encouraging smile, leaning forward slightly to rest her chin on Dahyun’s shoulder, under both of her hands.

But it’s not a kiss, Dahyun thinks bitterly. It’s much more than that. It’s her whole heart, out in the open. And if Sana kisses her, it’ll be just another empty, flirtatious gesture. Another simple thing that Sana will brush away and Dahyun will never forget. It is a big deal, there’s no way for it to be anything else.

Sensing her tension, Sana lifts her head and straightens up, putting some distance between them. “I’ll tell them we kissed,” she says brightly, turning around to gather the supplies she previously scooted lazily towards a corner of the room. “They’ll believe me, why would I lie about it?” she adds with a giggle. It sounds off, but Dahyun can’t see her face to check.

She sits on her stool, alternating between studying the door and Sana’s back, feeling for the first time in a long while like she isn’t sure how to approach the older girl. Once everything has been put away neatly and there is no more reasonable excuse for delaying it, Sana sits back down on her stool, on the other side of the small room.

There is a stretch of silence that feels like the most uncomfortable moment Dahyun has ever spent with Sana. Is she angry that Dahyun didn’t accept her offer? Offended at the rejection of what she probably thinks is just a simple and innocent solution to their problem?

“Why are you so far away?” Dahyun finally asks, and immediately feels like an idiot. It’s a tiny room, it’s not like Sana has travelled across the country. Still, the older girl looks away, her lips pressed together unhappily like isn’t an unreasonable question at all.

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” she admits softly.

Dahyun swallows down her surprise, trying to focus on the positive. At least Sana isn’t mad at her. “If you being close made me uncomfortable, I’d probably have requested a new roommate by now,” she says lightly. Sana’s sad eyes come to land on hers and she tries again. “Honestly, it makes me more uncomfortable to see you so far away. Come on, just come over here.” She opens her arms invitingly and Sana only hesitates for a moment before she’s shyly making her way over, sitting gently on Dahyun’s lap.

“Do I push too much?” Sana asks in a whisper, eyes focused on the patterns her finger is drawing on the fabric over Dahyun’s shoulder. Dahyun tries to catch her attention, but she won’t budge.

“Of course not. If you did, I’d tell you,” she reassures the older girl despite the failed attempt at eye contact.

“No, you wouldn’t, because you’re nice and you don’t want to hurt my feelings,” Sana replies a little louder, still avoiding Dahyun’s gaze. Her fingers still, pushing slightly like she wants to dig down but doesn’t dare.

Dahyun’s hand moves to Sana’s cheek of its own volition, brushing the smooth skin. “Sana,” she begins gently, and the older girl finally looks at her. In that instant, her words fail her, the whole speech about how much she loves Sana and would never deny her anything and could only be happy at her happiness fading from her mind like a cloud of smoke struck by a gust of wind.

She falls into Sana’s eyes, large and questioning and unforgivably sad. Her lips part in wonder and still she can only look. She sees the affection and the fear and the uncertainty and she just knows. She understands it all in a burst of clarity that, in a few moments, she’s sure she won’t be able to explain.

But she doesn’t need to explain. She knows what she needs to do. Her hand slides from Sana’s cheek, shifting forward until it’s cradling her neck. Then she pulls down, more a suggestion than any definitive motion, just enough for Sana’s head to tilt towards her own. There’s a flash of surprise in Sana’s eyes that Dahyun is sure she’ll treasure forever, because what are the odds that she’d be the one initiating this?

And then their lips meet. And she’d be annoyed that this is how it happens, being kept hostage in their friends’ storage closet, but she’s just so incredibly giddy. So incredibly happy.

It’s only a short peck, enough for Sana to understand and not worry anymore. Enough for the sadness to be wiped away from her sweet, beautiful eyes. Enough for her lips to form into the brightest smile as soon as Dahyun has pulled back.

A knock on the door startles them both, and Dahyun nearly laughs at the sight of a jumpy Sana. “I’m back,” Nayeon announces needlessly. “Did you kiss?” she plods on without pause.

Dahyun turns to Sana, awaiting her response. “Yes,” the older girl announces with breathless joy, the smile on her face almost goofy in its intensity.

Suddenly, the door is thrown open and everyone is right outside, studying them with single-minded focus. Sana is still on Dahyun’s lap, and showing no sign of wanting to get off, so Dahyun bites the inside of her cheek to fight off her own smile as she stares down her friends. She wants to look unamused and maybe a little judging, but she knows she probably looks more like an idiot who just kissed her crush and is trying her best not to gush.

Someone in the crowd squeals, and it sounds suspiciously like Tzuyu, who then begins elbowing everyone in her way to stand at the front of the group. “Tongue or no tongue?” Nayeon asks once again, ignoring the way Jeongyeon shakes her head at the lack of discretion.

There is no response from either Dahyun nor Sana, but it takes only a moment for the other 7 to break into laughter. Dahyun turns to study the girl still in her lap, to find that she has flushed a brighter red that she has ever seen. Oh, she could have fun with this.