“Oh. My. God. That is the cutest thing I have ever seen, Chaeyoung-ah stay still! Let me get a picture of you.”

Nayeon struck a variety of intricate poses, getting a thousand different angles of Chaeyoung wearing the mechanical cat ears Jeongyeon had ordered online. Although each photo barely had any changes from the previous, you could see Chaeyoung’s face slowly getting closer to the camera, with a hand coming up to block the offending machine’s view.

Chaeyoung hadn’t seen her Saturday night going like this.

When she saw the beige Amazon package that had been dropped off by the delivery man, she had instantly gotten curious over what it could be. So she followed Jeongyeon, pestering her like a little puppy.

That had been a big mistake.

The true owner of the product currently had her head thrown back in silent laughter as she watched Nayeon lose it over how adorable the younger girl looked. Naturally Chaeyoung had been Jeongyeon’s first target.

The ears on the headset were turned downwards as the user scowled at the older girls.

“Chaeyoung, are you currently feeling...embarrassed?” Jeongyeon sputtered out in between her chuckles as she examined the booklet that came with it.

The girl in question narrowed her tiger like eyes towards Jeongyeon.

“Do you even need to look at the manual to know that, unnie?” She spat out, glaring daggers at her. Chaeyoung wondered if it was possible to destroy someone through sheer willpower.

“Ah! Look what do the ears mean now?” Nayeon leant over Jeongyeon’s shoulder to take a closer look at the meanings. The two women their chins and muttered to themselves, much to Chaeyoung’s chagrin. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t taken the ears off yet, but she knew the second she even tried to remove them the two devils before her would put it back on her head.

As the three sat talking amongst themselves about the numerous emotions the ears could display, Momo walked into the living room munching on various sweets from the bags she had open in her arms. As soon she saw Chaeyoung she nearly dropped all the bags, Jeongyeon’s supernatural sense of an impending mess sprung into action and had her sliding across the floor, catching the bags before anyone could even blink.

Momo, oblivious to what had just happened, continued staring.

“Eh, what’s this?”

“Chaeyoung’s wearing a headset that can read your brainwaves and turn it into ear movements to show her emotions. So far they’ve been accurate.” Jeongyeon explained from underneath the Japanese girl, letting out a heavy sigh of relief as she saved the room from needing a major clean up.

Momo’s eyes opened comically wide as she knelt in front of Chaeyoung. slightly open in an ‘o’ shape.

“Kawaii…” She muttered as she scratched the area underneath Chaeyoung’s chin.

Chaeyoung’s left eye twitched.

“Just because I’m wearing cat ears, doesn’t mean that I actually am a cat!” She complained, begrudgingly letting Momo continue her ministrations.

“Ah! Chaeyoung are you feeling,” Nayeon squinted at the booklet, “A little annoyed?”

Chaeyoung turned stiffly to frown at her. “What do you think!”

Momo the maknae’s head, a blissful look on her face. The level of content she was feeling nearly equalled to that of eating jokbal. Nearly.

“Mmm…jokbal…”

Jeongyeon collapsed into laughter, fruitlessly clutching onto Nayeon’s arm as she fell back onto the floor.

Chaeyoung was going to scream.

Another set of footsteps could faintly be heard entering the room. But the girls were bickering too loudly to notice the figure stood behind them.

“What’s all the noise about?”

Nobody heard her.

“Hey!”

The ears on the headset instantly shot upwards as Chaeyoung was startled for a second. She turned around and looked upwards at Mina, whose heart stopped beating for a full five seconds.

She immediately crouched down when she noticed the set of ears on top of Chaeyoung’s head.

“Oh. Wow.” Mina was completely enraptured by the sight of her crush in the headset.

Chaeyoung, on the other hand, felt absolutely mortified.

But the embarrassment was overridden by the sight of Mina. Instantly her heart started going a mile a minute when she realised how intensely the older girl was staring at her.

The ears started moving back and forth, when Chaeyoung realised they were moving rapidly she blushed. Her hands went up to still the robotic movements. The gears and mechanics within the headset continued to move despite her best efforts, so the room was filled with only the sounds of a stuttering machine.

“Ah! Chaeyoung-ah! You’re gonna break it.” Jeongyeon whined from behind her, wincing at the noises the expensive machine made.

The maknae took a deep breath, and reluctantly let her hands fall from the ears. They resumed their fast movements.

Mina giggled. “Why are they moving like that?”

Jeongyeon and Nayeon appeared on either side of the younger girl’s head, sly grins on their faces.

“Someone’s excited!” They sang in amazing synchronicity, a singsong tone that went straight into Chaeyoung’s human ears.

Her shoulders jerked upwards in surprise, smacking the older girls’ chins. The two recoiled in mild pain as Chaeyoung ignored them, she was too busy focusing on the girl crouching down in front of her.

Finally Mina spoke. “Ehe, kawaii.”

Her smile was wide, voice quiet as her eyes sparkled, she was completely off in her own world.

Chaeyoung turned as red as a strawberry as Mina thread her fingers through her hair.

“How come Mina can you Chaeyoung-ah but I can’t?” Momo whined.

“Because she’s mine-UH, Mina. Because, she is Mina.” The short girl cleared loudly, hoping no one had caught the slip up.

Momo flopped onto the sofa, rifling through what looked like her increasingly multiplying bags of sweets. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket, snapped a sneaky picture of the two and sent it to their group chat named ‘Operation MiChaeng’. She captioned the image with emojis of a penguin and a tiger with a heart between them. She smirked, satisfied with her work. She sent the snap, then immediately proceeded to take a nap.

“Where did you get these from then?” Mina asked softly, her fingers twiddling with the fluff on the ears.

“Jeongyeon.”

“Ah, of course.”

The older girl pushed a long piece of black hair that had fallen forward behind Chaeyoung’s ear. Her fingers lingered there, her thumb and pointer finger instinctively rubbing the girl’s real human ears.

Mina pulled her hands back in shock, had she really lost that much control over her body?

“Ah, I’m sorry, it’s just that you look so adorable. I couldn’t stop myself doing that, sorry.” She said, a nervous laugh accompanying her apology.

“Don’t worry about it,” Chaeyoung gently grasped Mina’s wrist with her own hand and leant her face into the other girl’s palm, “I don’t mind it when you touch me.” She looked deep into her eyes, trying to convey everything she felt for the older girl through her words. Through her touch.

Mina gulped.

Chaeyoung blushed.

The mechanical ears moved.

“What does that one mean?” Nayeon leant in close to Jeongyeon so the lovebirds wouldn’t overhear her being nosey.

The shorter haired girl looked down at the various diagrams and smiled. She let slip a muffled chuckle.

“What. What is it?”

She looked at Nayeon with raised eyebrows, then turned her head towards the pair, who may as well have been the only two people alive.

“Love.”