Something in the cafeteria brought about a sweet scent in the air. That was the first thought that popped into Sakura’s head as she and Chaeyeon walked into the room. It wasn’t obvious that there was a smell when they initially walked in, it was the type of smell that would hit one’s nostrils at full force like a fragrance and lotion store would.

Sakura pulled on Chaeyeon’s sleeve, “Do you smell that?”

The dancer didn’t look confused with the visual’s inquiry, “Yeah, I smell it. The scent is sweet but it’s very subtle, it’s not bombarding my senses.”

Chaeyeon suddenly put her nose on her neck and sniffed, “Well, it’s not you who smells like that.” She sniffed again before pulling away, “But you do smell really nice, though.”

Sakura, who stayed frozen and quiet throughout the whole escapade, gulped and tried to mumble something out to distract herself from the thoughts of what happened moments ago. “O-oh yeah… it’s my, uh, new perfume?” her statement ended up sounding like a question as if she herself did not know what she put on herself (which she did by the way and it was a new perfume she was trying out).

“It’s really nice, I like it. You should wear it more, and you kinda smell like cherries,” Chaeyeon appeared oblivious to the questioning intonation in Sakura’s reply to her, to which the older was grateful for. “Regarding cherries, you look like one right now. You’re sort of red on the face, are you okay?”

“Yep!” the visual squeaked out. She could feel the spot where the younger’s nose was at tingling, whispers of her inhale burning her skin in the best sense of the word.

“Okay then,” Chaeyeon looked at her weirdly but continued to walk farther into the cafeteria.

Sakura followed close behind, thanking her Irene shrine back at the dorm for making the younger so unaware of the situation. However, her ignorance comes at a certain cost, though.

Chaeyeon has intuition and common sense but sometimes she could be quite dense. Sure, Sakura could get away with slipping up certain things about her feelings towards the dancer, but she also wants Chaeyeon to show some sort of sign that she can understand that she’s attracted to her. It gets outright frustrating.

Sometimes, she gets jealous of Hyewon’s boldness. Yes, Eunbi may vocally reject Hyewon’s advances but at least she shows that she has a liking to her, even if it’s small, with her red face and blatant denial when they point out her involuntary smile when looking at the rapper. With Chaeyeon, all she gets is a cocked head with a confused expression. Perhaps Sakura should be bolder? Nah, that’s too scary!

But what other choice does she have? What else could she do? Now that she thought about it, there is one solution that’s obvious but she’s too much of a wuss to do it. There’s no way she was going to do it. What if Chaeyeon doesn’t feel the same?

Why the hell did Chaeyeon do that? How did she even find the courage to do that?

She should’ve left it at her description of the subtle scent they smelled, but noooOOo. She had just had to ram her nose into Sakura’s neck because she’s gay as . And now?

Now she can’t get that fragrant and honeyed cherry scent out of her mind. Chaeyeon wanted to smell it again and she began to crave it more than she craved spicy food. It wandered into territories that shouldn’t be explored, and she searched for things to distract herself.

Sakura quickened her steps to match Chaeyeon’s, and the dancer wished she didn’t. Since Chaeyeon had been exposed, and essentially became addicted in seconds, to Sakura’s perfume its scent came back at full force. It hit her nose harder than her kick did during Produce 48. It took just a few moments for her thoughts to wander again.

She wonders what it would feel like to snuggle up on the couch with Sakura, watching some K-drama on the tv, arms and legs tangled up under the sheets to keep themselves warm. When the lights turn off, when everyone else is asleep, they’ll rest on the couch and, maybe, she’d finally make a move. She’d move her face closer and closer, and eventually, her lips would close the gap and-

“Jjaeyeon?”

Chaeyeon snapped out of her reverie and whipped her head around to look at Sakura, “Yeah?”

“I said the smell from earlier is coming from the kitchen,” the Japanese pointed at the kitchen window.

“Huh,” Chaeyeon sniffed the air, and she noticed Sakura stiffen from the corner of her eye, “I think you may be right. Now that we’re closer, I think they might be baking something.”

They walked towards the door leading to the kitchen and knocked.

“Wait a sec!” a vaguely familiar voice called out.

This downtime gave Chaeyeon the chance to think back on her daydream. Why did it wander so far down the rabbit hole? She didn’t want to contemplate those unreachable possibilities but it was so tempting. But what’s the point of dreaming if she can’t even find the backbone to act based on her feelings.

She wanted to tell Sakura, she really did. But those rare times that she did hint at her, the cherry blossom girl didn’t seem to catch it. Chaeyeon didn’t want to blame it on the language barrier,  and it was futile to blame it on that since the J-line has spoken Korean for a year now, but she also didn’t want to blame it on Sakura’s mentality. She doesn’t want to admit it to herself that Sakura is dense because she has hope that the older might catch on, but that hope is slowly dying and is getting replaced with frustration and discontent.

The door opened and revealed Instructor M. Wait, no… it’s the other one, Instructor Ella.

“What brings the students under my sister’s tutelage here in my domain?” she dramatically asked while dusting her hands off. The flour stood out starkly against her dark brown apron.

Chaeyeon answered for both of them, “We wanted to see if we can ask anyone if they could give us some pointers on what to cook for when we’re in Fiji.”

“It’s also a fun task that Eunbi unnie gave us and we’re willing to do it,” Sakura added.

Before the instructor could reply, Yujin stepped out with a basket full of pastries and two containers of bibimbap and some smaller containers of various side dishes. She narrowly missed Chaeyeon and Sakura and almost dropped her basket.

“Oh, hi guys. I was just about to bring this back to Minjoo unnie so we could eat.”

“I see you changed into something comfortable,” Chaeyeon pointed out the second youngest’s choice of paja