Hitomi’s late grandmother was a witch.

It’s something she’s heard being discussed during family gatherings, hushed remarks or quiet inside jokes circulating and feeding the statement in the minds of the young. The words are never spoken with ill intents; even without ever getting to know her late grandmother herself, Hitomi maintains a fond image of her from the whispers and stories she has heard. Her grandmother sounds like a warm person, every bit of magic she did only ever done to help and help and help. And, she has thought several times that perhaps her grandmother wasn’t a witch. Perhaps she was just an ordinary human like them, and the magic was her kindness, her willingness to give a hand to others who need it.

Until her mother passed down a charm to be hanged on her bedroom’s wall.

*

This is what happened.

The day after she put the charm up on her bedroom’s wall, she exchanged messages with Yujin—the chatty junior she met through the kpop dance cover club she had signed up for—before bed. It went like this:

@hitomi [online] | aka mochi cheeks, cheese dealer, [ES] hitomi

hitomi
I think there’s no harm in telling Minjoo that you like her,

yujin
theres so much harm in it!!
i dont with feelings its scary
i might ing die
i might get ing laughed at
and, idk, got screwed up in public?
NOT THAT I THINK SHES AN BUT

yujin
people are pricks they coulddd make everything harder
I MIGHT GET CLOWNED AND DIE OF ING EMBARRASSMENT
and this world is gonna ing lose me
damn, imagine that. imagine losing me, my wit, my beauty, my smarts,
my glorious

hitomi
What.

You might wonder what’s wrong with that conversation between two college students of age enough to curse. Well, that’s because you’ve been seeing the message log as it was stored in Yujin’s phone.

In Hitomi’s phone, however, the entire exchange looked like this:

@yujin [online] | aka ahnyu, menace #2, [ES] yujin

hitomi
I think there’s no harm in telling Minjoo that you like her,

yujin
theres so much harm in it!!
my glorious

hitomi
What.
Did you just call me your glorious

yujin
NO!?!?!??!@?!@??#@

Yes.

For some reason, messages containing a curse word in it doesn’t reach Hitomi. Whether it’s thrown away to some kind of digital signal void or gets eaten by a nonphysical entity to keep Hitomi’s innocence (ha) intact, she doesn’t know. What she does know is, this charm has been giving her all sorts of feelings over the messages she doesn’t receive. Mainly confusion. Yujin is still alive, thankfully—Hitomi wasn’t rash enough to skewer her alive over a miscommunication, but she does keep nagging at the younger to use gentler language so that she could receive everything without losing some contexts.

(Yujin promises that she’s working on that, but it’s been months and they definitely still have some mishaps here and there.)

In hindsight, it’s not too bad of a charm. Hitomi is definitely old enough to handle curse words—Hell, she uses them herself, though definitely a lot rarer compared to Yujin who uses it like it’s the broth to her soup—but she also doesn’t mind getting her friends to speak in a more civilized way whenever she’s in her bedroom. It makes for a power move, too, like that one time where she got into a heated argument with her brother. Caps, curse words, hurtful phrases—you name it. So she told him that she’s entering her bedroom now, and if he couldn’t talk nicely then she wouldn’t read his messages.

It worked quite well.

The aggression in their conversation dwindled down, and though there were still some passive-aggressiveness veiled in their exchange, no sentences spoken were too severe to make them hate each other for life—

So no, she isn’t taking the charm off.

She imagines her grandmother snickering fondly from up there over the situations she and the charm keep finding themselves in, and, yeah, no.

Of course she’s not taking the charm off.

*

i just want a day of peace @eunkwonb · 43m

note to self: buying snacks one day before camping is a bad idea because i end up impulsively buying for everyone in fear of them forgetting to buy their own snacks

i just want a day of peace @eunkwonb · 40m

AND having hyewon tag along DOESNT help

     |
 

     accepting bribes xoxo @kanghyeaaaah · 39m

     i wub u <3

     |
 

     i just want a day of peace @eunkwonb · 38m

     begone satan
 

     |

     accepting bribes xoxo @kanghyeaaah · 37m

     :( ok [goes back to my pringles]

quack quack motherers @choiy_n_s · 36m

‘snack shopping’ just say its a date its okay

quack quack motherers @choiy_n_s · 33m

I JUST RECEIVED A THREATENING MESSAGE TELLING ME I HAVE NO RIGHTS FOR SNACKS

giant baby ●◡● @wonyjangie · 32m

someone pls help me discourage @twicenaknak from bringing stilts sOMEONE PLS HELP ME DISCOURAGE @twicenaknak FROM BRINGING ST

quack quack motherers @choiy_n_s · 30m

IM HURT THESE MESSAGES WONT MAKE IT PAST HIICHANS FILTER
 

     |
 

     i’m gay, Harold @kchaewons · 28m

     user choiyournames stop memefying hitomi’s grandmother’s charm challenge
 

     |
 

     quack quack motherers @choiy_n_s · 26m

     CHOIYOURNAMESUEWYUDHIJKHSSKF
     I TAKE IT BACK THIS IS MORE HURTFUL,
     HOW DARE U,,,
 

     |
 

     selling user ahnyu for one bread @hiisdaily · 25m

     i won’t be sharing my snacks with you either, yena-unnie!

quack quack motherers @choiy_n_s · 23m

not you… not you……

            selling user ahnyu for one bread @hiisdaily
            Replying to @choiy_n_s and @kchaewons

            i won’t be sharing my snacks with you either, yena-unnie!

every song is a sad song @jjoyulee__ · 21m

i cant wait for the camping i want to get there and immediately sleep

dm for kermit memes @justminjuthings · 20m

has anyone seen yujin,
 

     |
 

     selling user ahnyu for one bread @hiisdaily · 19m

     check my display name for reference
 

     |
 

     dm for kermit memes @justminjuthings · 18m

     oh my god
 

     |
 

     f word hiichan lives! @ahnyuism · 17m

      U HIICHAN IM WORTH MORE THAN JUST ONE BREAD!!!
 

     |
 

     dm for kermit memes @justminjuthings · 16m

     oH MY GOD
 

     |
 

     selling user ahnyu for one bread @hiisdaily · 15m

     what happened did yujinnie reply with a curse word again
 

     |
 

     i’m gay, Harold @kchaewons · 15m

     yep

bend down before me peasant @twicenaknak · 15m

the stilts i ordered from amazon just arrived!
 

     |
 

     giant baby ●◡● @wonyjangie · 14m

     YOU STOP RIGHT THERE

*

The dance cover club has been divided into five groups at the start of the year; two males, two females, and one co-ed. Hitomi herself is in the group of twelve girls, led by Kwon Eunbi, an Architecture major already on her final year as well as a mother hen.

Said mother hen has proposed for their team to go camping in the woods for three days around a month ago, a proposal that’s been met with nothing but enthusiasm. Two days into the planning, Hitomi could see that Eunbi was starting to regret—half of the members are magnets for trouble, who the Hell thought this is a good idea—but the mother hen in her still made her pull through anyway. Hitomi suspects that even with all the complaining Eunbi gives to the bullying the other members have given her, Eunbi treasures them a lot.

Her phone beeps, indicating a notification. She checks it and hums—it’s from discord, a new message in her private conversation with Chaewon.

@chaewon [idle] | aka angry fairy, almost arsonist, [ES] chaewon

chaewon
ughhh pls don’t mind me about that day it was horrible
also, about the twitter thing just now
well
i can, like, talk with yena to make her stop doing that if you want
(also don’t forget to bring the regular meds you have!)

She smiles, flopping down onto her bed. Chaewon is Eunbi’s favourite along with Hyewon, both for vastly different reasons. She has heard from Chaewon herself that they’re childhood friends, while Hyewon is just—Hitomi hesitates to speculate, but honestly, she wonders if Eunbi is in love with the foodie queen.

(Yujin thinks they are. Yuri says maybe. Minjoo suggests to leave them alone. Sakura and Nako are ready to open a betting pool about their love life, which Chaeyeon and Wonyoung are vocally against—while Yena just wants to send them to a honeymoon in Hawaii.)

hitomi
Ah, don’t worry, unnie! I’m not annoyed. It /is/ kind of funny, actually… but thank you a lot for looking out for me c:
(And I’ve put them in my bag! Don’t worry uwu)

chaewon
if you say so :]
you better go get some rest then

hitomi
But it’s still so earlyyyyyyyyyyyy :PepeHands:

chaewon
cute.
but yuri told me that you’ve been staying awake for two days to finish a project, sooo

Hitomi puffs her cheeks, unseen by the sender of the message. She still wants to talk to Chaewon, always wants to talk to Chaewon, somehow, but Chaewon is right about her latest endeavour and the unconscious time it has deprived her of. (Yuri is a filthy traitor, though.)

She suppresses a yawn, which must’ve been the result of her tiny little brain getting reminded of the criminally lacking sleep she has suffered recently. It comes out as a huff as she types a reply,

hitomi
Fine (◞ _ ◟) I’ll sleeeeeep

chaewon
good :]

hitomi
You should sleep too!

chaewon
i will soon, no worries

Hitomi lets out a sigh, feeling an easy warmth settling at the bottom of her stomach. It’s always there whenever she’s with Chaewon, or talking to her. She has only recently been brave enough to speculate about their leader being in love, and she was able to come to that conclusion because she has forced herself to sit down and compare her own actions around Chaewon with that of Eunbi’s around Hyewon.

(Borrowing a word from Wonyoung’s vast vocabulary, Eunbi and herself are… whipped. Nako kindly calls it ‘like seeing a puppy following its owner eagerly even when the owner isn’t holding food,’ while Yena said something Hitomi has respectfully chosen to ignore because honestly, if she’s too blind to detect her own feelings for Yuri, then taking advices from her just sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.)

But.

But even though Hitomi is tentatively admitting her own feelings to herself, she doesn’t know if Chaewon feels the same. It—hurts, a little. Not knowing. The hurt is subtly there to accompany the warmth whenever Chaewon does something sweet, or looks after her, or says something incredibly caring, or chuckles at one of Hitomi’s jokes.

Because does she feel the same, or is Hitomi only a sister-like figure to her?

(Yena has a lot of strong opinions on that, which again, Hitomi has chosen to ignore, because, again, Yena herself is a dense clown, so.)

Hitomi closes her eyes briefly and takes a deep breath, before finally typing in a reply.

hitomi
Allright! Goodnight, Chaewon-unnie. Sweet dreams :blobheart:

It’s enough that I get to message her daily, she tells herself, not for the first time. The thought tastes bitter on her tongue, but she curves a smile anyway. A smile that turns a little more genuine when a message greets her inbox,

chaewon
goodnight and please do have a sweeter dream than mine would ever be, hitomi. see you tomorrow! :]

It’s enough that I get to close my days with goodnight wishes from her like this, she tells herself, thumb caressing the message on her phone’s screen before she closes the discord application. It’s a habit of them, to message each other until one of them has to go to sleep, and exchange goodnights. A habit that, perhaps, would be dangerous for Hitomi’s heart down the line, but for now—for now she cherishes it, hoping it wouldn’t ever stop.

Her gaze flickers to her grandmother’s charm on the wall, and she wonders if her grandmother had ever bewitched a charm to make one more fortunate in love.

Wonders, if it’s passed down on any of her cousins.

Snickers, as she thinks of her very much single brother and wishes, well, I’d more want him to have it, rather than me. This is still manageable.

Treasuring Kim Chaewon in secret like this is still manageable.

*

“My baaaaaaack,” Minjoo whines, almost throwing her bag to the ground the moment they arrive in their camping site. “My back is broken! I have no back now. I have officially become an invertebrate.”

“That’s really not how the animal classification works,” Yuri begins, only to get pulled away with Yena to God knows where.

“I told you to let me carry it,” Yujin says, shaking her head. She rummages through her bag then produces a bottle of strawberry milk, ing it towards the older girl, “Here. I got that as a bonus from the minimarket yesterday.”

Chaewon rolls her eyes, crouching next to Hitomi and slipping her own bag off her shoulders. “That last information was so unnecessary,” she said, “Yujin should stop being a coward.”

Hitomi snorts, steadily unpacking the tent she has been tasked to bring. “I’ve been telling her that the whole semester.”

Chaewon watches as Hyewon comes to them to retrieve the folded tarp. “It’s not like Minjoo doesn’t like her,” she absently says, “they keep having library dates, for God’s sake. One of them should woman up—”

“Ya! Kim Chaewon!” Yena yells from across the camping ground, “Help us with Wonyoung’s tent, it’s too rich-looking and—and complex—and just get your over here, stop being disgusting with Hii-chan!”

Hitomi coughs into her fist, cheeks warming up. Chaewon huffs, flipping the screaming girl off—even though Yena probably wouldn’t see the middle finger from the distance—and sighs when she turns to Hitomi again,

“Well, seems like it’s time for me to slave away.”

Hitomi pulls up a smile and nods, giving her a thumb up. Chaewon furrows her brows,

“You’d be okay? Hyewon-unnie would definitely help you with the tent, and—”

“I’ll be fine, Chaewon-unnie.” She takes one of the tent poles and uses it to point at Chaewon’s raised eyebrows, “Have some faith. It’s not my first experience camping.”

Then Chaewon chuckles, one hand reaching up to gently ruffle Hitomi’s hair. “Sure,” she lightly says, unaware of the heart somersaulting inside Hitomi’s chest, “I trust you to make our sleeping place comfortable, Admiral Honda.”

“Don’t injure yourself,” Hitomi says as Chaewon gets up, fingers leaving Hitomi’s head. She resists the urge to ask her to do that again, shoving the thought deep inside her head to never be allowed a return.

“Of course,” Chaewon confidently says, grinning at her and giving a two- salute. She then turns to walk towards where Yena is struggling with the flaps of Wonyoung’s expensive tent, and Hitomi doesn’t look away until Hyewon suddenly materializes next to her, clearing —

“The tent poles aren’t going to connect themselves, Hitomi.”

Hitomi yelps, turning back so fast and nearly stabbing Hyewon’s left eye with the tent pole in her hand.

“Unnie! Don’t do that!”

“Sorry,” Hyewon snickers, clearly not sorry, “come on, we need a place to sleep tonight. I’ll help you assemble it.” She picks up the rest of the poles and points towards the direction where Eunbi is sitting near the spread-out tent, laid atop the carp Hyewon has set up earlier.

“Thanks,” Hitomi croaks, reaching out for the stakes. At least it’s Hyewon, and not Nako, who will mercilessly, or Yena, who will extra mercilessly.

She takes a brief glance at Chaewon’s busy form around the other tent, and resists the urge to reach up and touch her head, where Chaewon has ruffled her hair.

She gets up and follows Hyewon.

*

Their activities after successfully setting up the two tents (because while Hitomi’s is decent-sized for four, Wonyoung’s is, as expected, big, enough to provide place for the rest of them without it getting too packed like canned sardines) are comprised of eating lunch, resting after the labour, setting out to make fire and preparing dinner, then having said dinner while lightly chatting and playing ukuleles. They have agreed to not create a schedule too binding, and treat this chance as a wholesome bonding experience for them instead. The activities that will require more energy are lined up for tomorrow, while today is mostly just them settling into the camp, taking their close proximity with nature in stride.

“As I said,” Wonyoung stresses, “I don’t have a curfew.” Her lips twitch as she ends her sentence, and no one believes her because that must’ve been a held back yawn just now.

“It’s okay, Wonyoungie,” Nako says, patting her head, an act only made possible by her sitting on a stool while Wonyoung’s on the ground, “it’s ten, so it’s understandable that you’re already sleepy! Besides, Hii-chan must be sleepy too.”

Hitomi blinks, not expecting to be name-dropped like that. “Me?”

“Yeah! You didn’t sleep much last night, did you!”

“Excuse me?” Hitomi puts her hands on her hips, pretending to be furious, “I did, actually! Chaewon-unnie made me.”

“I mean, it’s not like I absolutely know if you really went to sleep or not,” Chaewon begins, mischief glinting in her eyes. Hitomi fakes a betrayed gasp just as Yujin starts to chant,

“Fight, fight, fight—"

“You guys,” Yena cuts in, shushing Yujin, “you know who’s dead sleepy?”

Everyone turns towards her, and immediately stifles a laughter at the sight of Yuri, curling up next to Yena, latching onto the girl’s arm and resting her head on Yena’s shoulder.

“Aww,” Eunbi coos, heart probably already melting inside her chest, “take her inside, Yena.”

“As in bring her inside,” Sakura unnecessarily clarifies, “not like, take take, you know like—"

Chaeyeon pinches her thigh, causing the girl to yelp. “Stop insinuating erted things, Kura!”

“Nasty,” Nako comments, wrinkling her nose.

“What take take does she mean?” Wonyoung innocently asks, ears covered by Minjoo’s palms.

“No one is answering that,” Eunbi cuts in before Hyewon could open . “Give Yena some mercy, she already looks like a cooked shrimp—”

“I’m not!”

“Dude,” Chaewon sighs, tired of the denial.

“Honestly, unnie, I’d give you a mirror if I’m holding one right now,” Hitomi says.

“You’re just going to wake Yuri up the longer you stay here,” Hyewon sagely advises her. “Bring her inside, and cuddle with her to your heart’s content. Don’t worry about feelings, she’s unconscious anyway—”

Wonyoung loudly clears , “In this house we support consensual cuddles—”

“I’m not going to cuddle her!” Yena urgently hisses, face absolutely red. “I’m just—I’m gonna wake her up and accompany her to go inside and there won’t be any cuddling.”

“This is just sad,” Chaewon whispers, loud enough for Hitomi to hear, and Hitomi just nods, smiling slightly as she watches Yena wake Yuri up, the latter drowsy and a lot clingier when Yena tells her that they should head to bed.

“Why do you think Yena-unnie refuse to be honest?” she asks, finally shifting to look at the ember of the fire they used to make dinner earlier.

“Because—” Yena is a coward, she could practically hear Chaewon say, has heard it be spoken countless of times, but this time Chaewon trails off. As though a thought prevents her from immediately finishing her sentence.

Hitomi angles herself to face the older girl when silence stretches longer than a breath,

“Unnie?”

Chaewon’s lips are pursed, eyes staring at the clasped fingers in her lap.

“Admitting feelings aren’t always easy, eh?” Chaewon finally says after a beat, her quiet voice almost lost under the buzzing conversations of their friends.

Hitomi feels her stomach drop. Feelings. Does Chaewon have such a feeling for someone? For her to look so somber as she muttered the words, it must be—Hitomi feels her guts twisting, a sharp prick to her chest causing her heart to ache.

“Yeah,” she heaves out, looking away.

“Yena’s still a coward, though.”

She forces a smile, burying the flicker of pain as best as she can. “A lot of people are,” she replies by way of agreeing. Like me, she doesn’t say, but thinks, and thinks again, and again.

She doesn’t feel very enthusiastic about staying awake longer, suddenly, and slowly fakes a yawn.

In response to her action, a hand warmly wraps around her shoulders, and she wishes it wouldn’t have to be this kind of warmth, one accompanied with ache, but she leans into the touch anyway, like a moth drawn to the deadly fire.

“Sleepy?” Chaewon whispers.

“Mmm.” Any other day and she would have leaned her head on Chaewon’s shoulder, basking in her care, greedily drinking in any kind of closeness she could have.

Perhaps not tonight.

“I’ll go inside,” Hitomi murmurs, shifting away from Chaewon, the latter’s hand slipping from her shoulder as she moves to get up. The conversations around them halt. She smiles at Hyewon’s flat narration of our second victim to exhaustion and it’s not Wonyoung, reassures Eunbi that she’ll be fine going inside their tent first, and pauses when Chaewon gets up, too, dusting off her pants.

“You don’t look sleepy, unnie,” she says, “stay longer and socialize.”

Someone else snorts, but Chaewon shakes her head. “Setting up Wonyoung’s tent was more tiring than I thought,” she explains, lips curving up into a soft smile. “Sleeping sounds like Heaven right now.”

Hitomi knows she’s losing this argument, if it’s even one. She has no right to ward Chaewon off from their tent—which they share with Eunbi and Hyewon, the other eight filling in Wonyoung’s giant one—and everyone is staring at them, dissuading her from starting a scene.

“Allright, then,” she finally says, wrapping her arms around herself. She turns to the rest, drawing up a small smile, “Good night, everyone.” She sees Chaewon nodding out of the corner of her eye, as though piggybacking at her statement.

“Rest well,” Eunbi warmly tells her.

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite you!” Wonyoung chirps.

Sakura starts, “Use pr—” and the rest of the word is muffled by Chaeyeon’s palm, immediately clamped over the girl’s mouth.

“Good night,” Minjoo smiles, Yujin leaning heavily on her shoulder, eyelids already halfway into closing completely. “The both of us are probably going to retreat in a while, too.”

“Yeet,” Hyewon says.

Chaewon turns to her and offers one hand, head tilting briefly towards their tent.

“Let’s go?” she says, open palm waiting for Hitomi’s clammy one. And, and Hitomi feels foolish, for entertaining the thought to just walk ahead and leave the older girl’s hand alone, sparing a little pain for Chaewon to experience, just like the stewing ache within her heart. But she isn’t cruel. Her feeling for Chaewon has never made her a cruel person before, and she doesn’t want to start now.

She doesn’t want to hurt Chaewon just to be even.

So she slowly reaches for it, allowing herself to feel a little warm at the easy smile working across Chaewon’s face when their fingers intertwine.

A squeeze, and Chaewon whispers, “Come on.”

They walk towards their tent.

                                                                          *              

Their sleeping arrangement, courtesy of Eunbi, is like this:

Hitomi on the South side, then Hyewon, then Eunbi, then Chaewon, with their belongings arranged neatly to be by their feet.

After changing into their pyjamas (they faced opposite directions, and it’s not like any of them went completely at any point in time), Hitomi lies down on her sleeping mattress, turning her back on Chaewon’s side. She doesn’t think having the night talks like they usually do will be good for her right now, and Chaewon is oddly quiet, as though she can sense Hitomi’s falling mood.

For a moment, only rustles fill the room inside the tent. She feels the barest urge to turn around, to check on what Chaewon is doing, and she wonders fleetingly if Chaewon is secretly one of those people who can fall asleep as soon as their head hits the pillow.

And then, the screen of the phone she has placed on the side of her pillow brightens. Hitomi squints, picking up and unlocking the gadget, and holds in a breath when the discord notification adorning her screen is of a private message from a certain someone.

@chaewon [idle] | aka angry fairy, almost arsonist, [ES] chaewon

chaewon
goodnight, hitomi. :]

And then, before she could debate with herself whether to reply or not, another comes.

chaewon
i know that we’re like in the same room right now but
it feels weird not telling you that, so i’m doing it.
sweet dreams!

She quietly exhales, her insides fluttering pathetically within. Her thumbs twitch, wanting to—to type a reply, anything, but before she can tap the typing column, a line pops up. chaewon is typing…, it says, then it stops, and another message appears.

chaewon
i love you so ing much, hitomi. maybe more than you’d ever realize

Her heart skips a beat. And then another. Before she knows it, she’s having trouble breathing, eyes widening as she stares and stares at the message plastered over her screen. For a moment, she’s afraid Chaewon could hear her heart drumming up loudly, but instead of a concerned question, what she hears is a faint gasp.

And then the line disappears from her screen.

chaewon is typing…

She watches, and watches and watches until that, too, disappears, with no new messages this time. Chaewon has stopped typing, and the message is still deleted, and is Hitomi dreaming? Has she unconsciously slipped into a dreamland, is that why this is happening? Was that line a figment of her imagination? That would explain a lot, actually, especially since Hitomi rarely, if ever, reads Chaewon curse—

Hold on.

A curse.

She takes a deep breath, heart still hammering inside her chest. A curse. Chaewon’s deleted message contained a curse. It would have been filtered out if Hitomi was in her room right now, the charm from her grandmother hard at work. Only she isn’t, she is miles away from the charm, and messages with curses make it into her inbox—

With a tremble of her thumb, she slowly scrolls up.

*

chaewon Yesterday at 9:49 pm
i ing love you, a lot.

*

chaewon 11/12/2019
would it be too goddamn much to ask to be there in your dream?

*

chaewon 10/12/2019
i love you. i’m a ing coward, i’m sorry

*

chaewon 09/12/2019
i ing wanted to kiss you when you smiled like that this morning :pensive:
i do really love you too damn much, huh

*

.

.

.

*

chaewon 02/08/2019
lets ing test this
I LOVE YOU
i aint ever gonna stop loving you,
…oh you really don’t see the messages do you or you would’ve been concerned
dare i… damn…
still no ing reply, i guess it’s true then

chaewon 02/08/2019
i think i’m falling the in love with you, honda hitomi. and i don’t think i can stop myself.

*

Hitomi gets no sleep.

“Did you get any sleep at all?”

Chaewon’s concerned voice reaches her as she hunches near Yena, watching as the older girl starts making fire. She looks over towards the source of the voice, lack of sleep tugging her lips down into a frown as she watches Chaewon getting near,

“Why, do I look terrible, unnie?”

Chaewon blows out a breath. “You never look terrible,” she says, resting one palm over Hitomi’s head and ruffling her hair. “Want to go with me to the communal bathrooms? Eunbi-unnie wants me to get some water for stew, and you could wash your face.”

“Mmm,” Hitomi drawls out, slowly pushing herself up, one sleeve up and rubbing over her eyes. “Fine.”

Their walk towards the communal bathrooms—located around ten minutes walk from their camping ground—is mostly silent, the chirps of the morning birds filling the air as dry leaves and needles creak under each of their steps. Hitomi hangs a little behind Chaewon, watching the older girl from the back.

She thinks of the lost messages she has backread last night, the filtered confessions from the person in front of her. Chaewon isn’t the type to pull pranks this long, especially one that goes for months—

Months, the little voice at the back of Hitomi’s mind says, in awe. For months, after their exchanged goodnights, Chaewon would send a message Hitomi was never meant to read. I love you. Everyday, without a fail, except for some days—where, if Hitomi recalled correctly, she wasn’t sleeping in her room; either a sleepover, or staying up at the campus, or somewhere else.

Last night was an exception. A slip-up, if Hitomi were to speculate the faint gasp she heard a moment before the message was deleted. Did Chaewon forget, for a moment, that Hitomi would be able to read messages unfiltered? Did habit get the better of her, fingers typing in and clicking enter before she could fully realize what she was doing, thus the accidental message? Was she praying and thinking that Hitomi had gone to sleep, and that’s why she stopped typing, wishing the message was deleted before it could be seen?

Admitting feelings aren’t always easy, eh?

The quiet sentence, spoken with an ache lacing the words—

Was she thinking of Hitomi, as she said them?

“Here we are,” Chaewon says, and Hitomi nearly collides with the older girl’s back. Chaewon turns around just in time to see Hitomi stumble, and then warm fingers curl around her arms, the soft voice gently chiding,

“Be careful.”

Hitomi has so much questions. Too many questions. And—and the biggest of them all is why, why has Chaewon been doing that, the messages, wouldn’t it be painful to keep sending honest confessions only to have it never read—

“Chaewon-unnie,” she breathes out, “do you bring your phone?”

Chaewon blinks, and the hold around Hitomi’s arm loosens, the warm fingers falling away. “Yeah? What about it—”

“I think Eunbi-unnie sent something to our team’s server, we should check.” She pulls out her own phone, fingers cold both from the morning air and the anxiety creeping up from under her skin. From the corner of her eye, she sees Chaewon obliging, producing her phone from her pocket and unlocking the gadget.

Hitomi quickly pulls up the window to their private messages, and begins typing. She hears Chaewon confusedly says, “There’s no message from—” and holds in a breath as she finally clicks the send button, Chaewon’s question trailing off at the same time.

@chaewon [idle] | aka angry fairy, almost arsonist, [ES] chaewon

hitomi
I’m sorry I didn’t say it back last night

Chaewon looks at her with an uncertain smile. “It’s okay. It’s just a good night.”

Hitomi doesn’t answer her. Instead, she types again, and clicks the send button with a slow exhale from ,

hitomi
The goodnight, and the message after that

Chaewon freezes.

And Hitomi continues typing.

hitomi
I was awake. I’m sorry. I read it, since the charm’s at home
But Chaewon-unnie
I meant what I said. I didn’t type wrong.
I said I’m sorry I didn’t say it back last night,
And it applies to both.
The goodnight, and the message after that

There’s a rustle, but Hitomi doesn’t look up. She keeps typing and sending and typing and sending,

hitomi
If you meant it, the words
Then I’d like to say it back to you
Because, I
Me, too
Goodnight and. ing love you

There’s a chuckle. There’s a chuckle so close to her ears and then warmth engulfs her, arms wrapping around her farm and pulling her into a sudden hug. She tenses up for the briefest moment before it registers that it’s Chaewon, Chaewon is hugging her, and she relaxes, melting into the embrace as she stops trying to pour words into her phone.

“You,” Chaewon breathes, sounding both strained and relieved, “Hitomi, you—”

She takes in a shuddering breath, heart expanding within her chest and nose warming up with—it’s relief, too. She’s so relieved she could cry.

“I meant it,” Chaewon finally says, her hold tightening around Hitomi, her voice heartbreakingly soft. “Every word. I meant it. I still mean it. I love you—”

“So ing much?” Hitomi whispers, and happiness bubbles from within Chaewon, rolling off her in the form of crisp laughter. The older girl loosens her hold, pulling away slightly to take Hitomi’s cheeks in her hands, and oh.

Hitomi has always wondered—how do the characters in the movies know when the both of them wish to kiss, since surely they don’t actually hear the romantic background music played as the accompaniment of the scene.

But, right now, with Chaewon’s warm palms gently cupping her face and her own heart trying to rival a whole orchestra,

she kind of gets it.

Chaewon’s laughter is subsiding and in its place is a smile, a smile so soft and beautiful that Hitomi almost can’t believe she’s the reason behind it. Then Chaewon leans in, tenderly as their noses touch, and Hitomi lets herself stay in that moment, closing her eyes,

hearing,

“So ing much.”

And then there’s softness upon her lips, a feathery kiss like sealing the confirmation tightly for them to keep.

(Admitting feelings aren’t always easy, eh?

Yes. It takes months and lost messages as well as stolen sleeps,

but damned if it's not worth it.)

*

@chaewon [idle] | aka angry fairy, almost arsonist, [ES] chaewon

chaewon
i can’t believe eunbi-unnie is still forbidding us from sleeping next to each other

hitomi
I can :pensive:
Eunbi-unnie just wants to cuddle with Hyewon-unnie while depriving us of the same privilege

chaewon
…damn don’t have to expose her like that

hitomi
I’m merely providing the proof of my own claim!

chaewon
of course
well
we should go to sleep quickly

hitomi
Already tired of talking to me, aren’t you, unnie?

chaewon
psshhh
as if
the earlier we wake up tomorrow, the sooner we can cuddle without two (2) barriers

hitomi
I still can’t believe I’m not—one-sided

chaewon
i can :pensive:
and you know how i’ll prove it?

hitomi
…how?

chaewon
goodnight, hitomi.
i love you so much :]

hitomi
.
I
Love you too, Chaewon-unnie.

chaewon
i totally didn’t hear that squeal

hitomi
GOODSNIGGHT AND SWEET DREASMMS

chaewon
sweetest dreams, cutest person in the world ❤

END.