A collaborative work of mine with Ez. Originally written in Indonesian.

Their next destination is the beach. Or The Bay, as they’d like to call it. There’s a night festival at night every weekend, and while Hitomi isn’t fond of a crowded area, she has heard of the night festival’s culinary and it’s a given that Minjoo easily joins in just by the mention of ‘food’.

But aside from that, it’s as if Minjoo would refuse. In truth, they always travel together all around South Korea. Just the two of them, Minjoo being the driver and Hitomi being the navigator—with sometimes Yuri and Nako tagging along if their schedule permitted. After all, only with Minjoo Hitomi feels the safest. Despite her usually clumsy streaks that come often during their walks together, Minjoo is a good driver—and also a careful one, to add.

Today is just like any other day of the two of them traveling alone. Minjoo as the driver, Hitomi as the navigator—as per usual. So far, Hitomi has done a pretty good job keeping Minjoo awake and entertained throughout the long journey, and Minjoo has done pretty well done herself trying to keep her drowsiness away just by the thought of food and a very happy Hitomi.

It's halfway through the journey when Hitomi suddenly falls silent as if running out of a topic to talk about.

But no matter, because Minjoo wants to say something.

“Hii, I actually don’t like driving that much.”

As someone who has accompanied the older girl countless times everywhere as her navigator, it comes up as a surprise for her. Hitomi can’t hide her surprise; she frowns at Minjoo, tilting her head to the side as she directs her curious look at her. “Really? Why?”

Minjoo frowns as if trying to come up with a reason as to why she doesn’t particularly like driving. She gives up after a short minute; preferring to focus on the road that slowly starts to darken with how the sun has beginning to set on the West.

“No particular reason,” she says with a small sigh and a nonchalant shrug. “Maybe it’s just reinforced by the thought of how I just don’t feel like it’s my style? I don’t know—I think motorcycle is more my style.”

The girl beside her laughs, amused. “Weirdo. Why did you even learn to drive a car then, and get a driving license for a car?”

This time, it’s Minjoo’s turn to laugh. Her eyes seem to glint with a light so familiar to Hitomi that she can’t help but smile. “It’s for you. You always like to talk about how you want to travel all around South Korea.”

“So I did,” Hitomi agrees, but doesn’t seem to understand Minjoo is hinting. At least, it takes a full 5 seconds for her to realize it. “Wait, do you mean—“

“I want to take you myself,” Minjoo grins at her, nodding. “To wherever your heart’s content. I think it’ll save a lot of our money too, don’t you think so?”

“Now that you put it like that...” Hitomi shakes her head, her expression thoughtful. “Is that why you talked out Nako and Yuri from learning how to drive?”

“Nako can’t reach the pedal and Yuri is too emotional when playing cart rider. I’m actually saving your life, here!”

“Just say that you want to be the only one driving me around.”

“That,” Minjoo grins, “is accurate.”

“Figured.” Hitomi snorts as she shakes her head in disbelief. A burst of smug laughter can be heard coming from her right, but Hitomi doesn’t even feel annoyed. Rather, it causes her lips to curve upwards to form a small smile of amusement.

They fall into a comfortable silence following the conversation, with Minjoo has her gaze fixated on the road and Hitomi lost in her own thoughts. It’s not good to have a deafening silence to proceed for too long, especially when it’s getting dark and Minjoo is a little bit more tired than usual. But it’s not like Hitomi knows what to talk about either—she’s just as tired as the girl driving beside her.

So she turns up the volume of the radio, bobbing her head along with the beats of ITZY’s newest song. Her initial fear of having Minjoo losing her concentration because of her sleepiness is gone the moment Minjoo starts bobbing her head and moves her shoulders energetically as the song reaches its . Hitomi can’t help but let out a laugh watching Minjoo trying to belt out a note.

“Okay, I don’t think I can sing anymore,” Minjoo admits as the song changes to a TWICE’s song.

“Sure you don’t,” sings Hitomi. “It’s a shame I didn’t record it earlier. Yuri would have a field day laughing at your face. And Nako would nag at you because you never showed this degree of enthusiasm over TWICE’s song.”

“In my defense, Chaewon unnie plays this song 24/7 whenever I’m in the house. I would be lying if I said that this song doesn’t grow on me.”

“What a coincidence! Nako, too, has been playing this TWICE’s song whenever I come to visit.”

They both share a laugh. “It’s hard to deal with their fanatic asses, I know.”

-

It’s silent again after a while, but this time Hitomi isn’t clouded with worry over having a sleepy Minjoo. It’s significantly more comfortable now that her head isn’t filled with constant worry over the girl beside her, especially after confession about her dislike of driving.

Oh! Speaking of driving...

“Say, Minjoo?”

Minjoo pauses on her humming, glancing over to Hitomi before refocusing back on the road. “Hm?”

“Do you want me to tell you something?”

“What is it?”

“Promise first you won’t laugh about it.”

Minjoo can’t help but laugh, amused by the display of distrust on both Hitomi’s words and expression. “What do you take me in for? If you’re telling about it like that, I can’t help but think about weird things, Tomi.” She gasps scandalously. “Or is it?”

“It’s NOT.”

Hitomi hastily takes her bag from the backseat, placing it firmly on her lap before she begins fishing for something that makes the curiosity in Minjoo grow bigger. It doesn’t take long for Hitomi to find whatever it is that she’s looking for; but instead of showing it immediately to Minjoo, she places it on her thigh with her two hands covering its entire body.

“Do you want to guess?”

Minjoo blinks her eyes, unsure. “Uh, photocard?”

“Nope!” Hitomi giggles. “Do you want to take another guess?”

“Nah,” Minjoo weakly admits. She has never been the one who is good at guessing. “Can you tell me?”

Hitomi uncovers her hand, proudly showing Minjoo a blue-colored, rectangle-shaped object with a big smile on her face. “Tada~! It’s a driving license.”

“Oh, a driving license.” Minjoo nods nonchalantly. It takes a full minute for her the realization sinks in and what a reaction it is. Hitomi swears her eardrums might have burst. “Wait a damn minute—a driving license?!”

“Yes.” Hitomi can’t stop herself from laughing at her companion’s disbelieving expression. “It hasn’t been long, actually. Maybe a week? Ah, yes—it’s been a week since I got this.”

“It’s been a week?” Hitomi nods. Minjoo shakes her head. “So when we went out to eat—the four of us last week, with you treating us... it was actually a celebration?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” She said that yes—but judging from that smirk, Minjoo knows she is right.

“Cheeky brat,” Minjoo huffs resignedly. “So what, I’ve been working as your personal driver since last week?”

Hitomi seems to be unfazed by the slightly bitter tone. Instead, that smug smirk of hers splits even wider. “Personal driver? How lucky I am—I’d never thought someone so beautiful would admit working as my personal driver.”

Minjoo choked suddenly, flustered by the sudden flirtatious claim. In truth, she’s been joking—she doesn’t mind with herself becoming Hitomi’s own personal driver. For eternity, even.

It’s just that she never expects Hitomi would be so bold in flirting with her. The last time she flirted with her was, what, a year ago? and the result was the same—a genuinely flustered Minjoo whose face was so red it rivaled Hitomi’s current red hair.

Right now, Minjoo is flustered and is currently blushing furiously, yes; but her face isn’t as red as one year ago when Hitomi flirted with her so boldly in front of her sister and mother. That, and it’s dark so it’s hard to objectively assess her current redness.

Minjoo clears . “Getting smooth yourself, eh? Where do you learn it?”

“Oh, it’s from my prettiest personal driver, surely,” Hitomi sings, sounding worryingly smug. “She’s the best, don’t you know? Who else wants to drive me around without any destination in mind except for her?”

“You and your sweet talk.” Minjoo shakes her head, again astounded by Hitomi’s capability of spewing words she never thought she would hear coming out from . Hmm. Maybe it was wrong of her to entrust Hitomi to her mother’s hands for these past few months. Who knew what kind of lectures her mother was giving her future daughter-in-law during her absence?

They share another laugh, letting themselves loose at the moment. But no matter how hard Minjoo wants to not think about it, she is still curious about the reason why Hitomi decided to learn driving and keeps it a secret from her for the entire week.

“Why did you suddenly decide to have a license, Hii?”

Like what Minjoo predicted, Hitomi doesn’t answer immediately—choosing to make it slightly harder for Minjoo to not think negatively. Her expression is thoughtful with her fingers rubbing her chin, the last time Minjoo glances at her. She is gazing intensely at Minjoo instead of the distance, once again making familiar heat crawl up to the older girl’s neck and face.

For a brief moment, Minjoo forgot—that Honda Hitomi is capable to make her heart skip a beat just by a look alone. It’s endearing—but it’s also dangerous, as Minjoo is driving but her mind is straying away from the road, distracted by her own thought of returning the affectionate gaze and possibly make Hitomi’s face as red as her hair as an act of revenge.

“Wh-why are you looking at me like that?” Minjoo doesn’t mean to stutter, but she can’t help it. A bold Hitomi is a dangerous species, it seems. Even more so than the fatal cutie Hitomi she always knows.

“No reason. You look cute.”

Minjoo rolls her eyes. She clicks her tongue. “Come on, just answer me, Hii. Why did you suddenly decide to take a driving test?”

Hitomi laughs. “Are you saying that I’m not supposed to?”

It’s supposed to be a joke, but Minjoo can’t help but feel slightly hurt by that nonchalant answer. “I’m sad,” she says, “I’m really going to be sad if you’re going to travel alone from now one.”

Hitomi immediately drops her smile, but her eyes still show that she’s pleased instead of guilty hearing that sulky declaration rolling out from Minjoo’s mouth. If Minjoo isn’t so focused on the road, she would see how Hitomi isn’t the slightest bit guilty and it’s a guarantee Minjoo will throw a tantrum afterward—

If she isn’t so distracted by the beautiful glow on Hitomi’s dark brown eyes, that is. Because most of the time, she lost her anger the moment she laid her eyes down on Hitomi’s eyes. How cliche, but it’s the truth—she is weak with anything about Hitomi. Especially her eyes.

“Ah,” Hitomi mumbles out as a reply, holding an amused smile from blooming on her lips at a sulky Minjoo. It almost feels like a ritual for both of them to suddenly have a sulky Minjoo, no matter how light-hearted the discussion is.

She won’t say that it’s a hindrance—because it’s clearly not. It’s endearing, but maybe she’s saying it because she’s used to it and knows exactly how to remedy the problem before Minjoo becomes sulkier. After all, persuading Minjoo is perhaps the easiest task if she had to compare it to other people—though it’s not an excuse for Hitomi to annoy Minjoo often.

“Min,” she reaches to tug Minjoo’s long sleeve, “I’ll tell you, do you want to hear it?”

Minjoo only grumbles under her breath. Hitomi doesn’t know if it means yes or no but she just settles on answering either way. Hopefully, it’ll uplift Minjoo’s mood even just for a bit.

“We talked about going on a road trip to Busan before, right?”

Minjoo doesn’t answer, but her eyebrows twitched up.

“If we ever do it—well, I hope so—I want us to take turns in driving. I know how easily tired you are when you are driving and I—I just can’t let you do that. So learned how to drive, since I can’t trust Nako and Yuri with my life and I know you can't, too.”

Her sincere speech maybe isn’t quite enough to have Minjoo spare a glance at her, but at least it succeeds in softening the frown on her face and Minjoo is no longer pouting like a child.

Hitomi smiles, amused.

Slowly, her fingers creep down from Minjoo’s sleeve to settle on top of the older girl’s hand. She nearly laughs as she notices how tight Minjoo is gripping the gear stick, almost like clawing it. Maybe she’s annoyed knowing that no matter how hard she tries, she just can’t.

Hitomi slips her hand between Minjoo’s own and the gear stick—until Minjoo surrenders and decides to intertwine her fingers with Hitomi rather than keeping on abusing the poor, innocent object. Gently, she brings Hitomi’s slender hand to her lips, pressing her lips down her knuckles with a small smile tugging her lips.

The nonchalant gesture creates not only a pleasant flutter down Hitomi’s chest, but also Minjoo. While it’s not new, Minjoo often finds herself getting shy after being affectionate with Hitomi.

“Must you really kiss my hand like that?”

“Must you really hold my hand like that? I’m driving, you know,” Minjoo retorts good-naturedly.

“Fair,” Hitomi weakly concedes. “But you like it, right?”

Minjoo beams her a smile. “Very.”

Hitomi smiles back, her cheeks warming up. Again they fall into silence with nothing to talk about. Neither of them minded it, as Minjoo doesn’t want to risk any accident and Hitomi doesn’t really want to start any conversation now that her favorite song is playing.

Their fingers are still intertwined together, with Minjoo once in a while releases their joined hands to change the gears. Of course, she would immediately re-link their hands together, as if a second not holding Hitomi’s hand is a moment too long.

“Do you think that,” Hitomi slightly tightens her grip, “us holding hands while you’re driving is... I don’t know, a bit corny?”

Minjoo can’t stop herself from laughing. “But you just tightened your grip.”

“You just did too,” Hitomi points out cheekily, shrugging her shoulders as she does so. “Honestly, I think it’s all your fault for being such a grease it rubs on me.”

“You wound me,” Minjoo dramatically laments. “Do you regret hearing such greasiness from me?”

“Not really,” Hitomi promptly replies. “I mean, it’s you who did that, not some other unnamed beings. Besides, I don’t mind a bit of your grease is rubbing on me—because I’ll be doing it to you, the one and only Kim Minjoo for me.”

Minjoo narrows her eyes as she inches away as best as she possibly can. “I’m scared of you. I think it’s best to get you off the car now.”

-

Minjoo did not kick Hitomi off the car, thankfully. She was joking; because she would never kick Hitomi out of her own car. The opposite would happen, anyway.

“I was joking,” Minjoo mournfully says while rubbing her sore shoulder. She managed to evade the first punch but she never expects Hitomi to throw a follow-up punch. It hurts—now she really remembers the reason why Yuri and Nako lessen their teasing after Hitomi told them that she started working out at the gym.

Hitomi pouts as she folds her arms on her chest. “It’s not a good joke,” she growls as she turns away to face the window. The last time Minjoo said that, she really kicked Yuri out of the car and only went back to fetch the poor girl after Nako nagged at her nonstop.

But it’s not like Hitomi can stay mad at Minjoo for too long. Not when the sight of the night festival rolls into her view and with Minjoo’s settling on her thigh, as if waiting for her hand to join her own. Hitomi rolls her eyes, but she puts her hand on Minjoo’s own, grasping it tightly when Minjoo smiles at her.

“Are we going to hold hands until we arrive?”

“Maybe until slightly before I park the car,” Minjoo yelps. “Ouch! What was that for?”

Hitomi glares at her, growling as she pulls her arm back to her lap. “You’re too silly.”

“But beautiful,” Minjoo yelps again. She glares back at Hitomi. “Honda Hitomi, please stop abusing your pretty personal driver, yes?”

Hitomi rolls her eyes again, but chuckles as Minjoo grasps her hand tighter before she promptly releases it to focus on parking the car.

Apart from having a personality as warm as the sun, Minjoo's humor never fails to bring laughter erupting from Hitomi’s lips. Their journey together always feels fun, especially when it’s only the both of them in the car, and they are free to exchange words and affection without any worry.

Minjoo doesn’t think about the future when she’s only with Hitomi. The same goes for Hitomi, who never thinks about what will it be tomorrow whenever she has Minjoo on her side.

There is no need to worry about the future. Just enjoy the moment and then all is well.