Yeji looks like she's going to run and leap into Lia's arms, and she's this close to achieving it, one of her legs already bent at an angle, preparing for the jump—and she probably would have, had Lia not held up her hand and said, almost too soft to be heard, "Don't."

Ryujin would laugh at how absolutely ridiculous Yeji looks, mid-jump and frozen like something out of a comic panel, if her own heart doesn't stop at the tone Lia's voice's taken.

A weight of silence settles, and Lia, looking distressed, blabbers on. "No—I mean—I 'm not—" she cuts herself off, clearly frustrated, slapping her hands down her face. "Just—"

Ryujin loathes how devastatingly breakable Lia looks right now, and she wants to move, wants to wrap Lia around her arms and kisses the hard lines on her face away, until Lia is warm and happy again. But their eyes meet, and Lia's gaze is cold and pained, and Ryujin knows in that moment that Lia won't want her too.

Her hands, still on her sides, have never felt so damn heavy.

In the end, it's sweet, beautiful Yuna who's able to break through the awkwardness. Cautiously, she approaches Lia, two arms extended low, as if she's approaching a tiny, kicked out puppy. Lia doesn't make any move, doesn't pull away when Yuna finally circles her arms around her shoulders, loosely at first, then tighter. Hesitant, Lia grabs on to Yuna's arms, her face going from being in total agony to devastation to close to tears, and that does it.

Yeji and Chaeryeong pounce on Lia with what could only be described as a hug attack, nearly toppling the frail girl in the middle backwards, screams of, "Lia-yah!" coming out of their mouths. A weak laughter bubbles out of Lia, the kind of laugh she does when she isn't sure to cry or to whoop in joy, and Ryujin watches, unsure and in something akin to jealousy, Lia burying her face into the crook of Yeji's neck, Chaeryeong's hair tickling her nose.

It kills her how much she wants to touch Lia.

"Ryujinie," Yeji half-whines, half-scolds. "Get in here."

Ryujin's eyes snap up to Lia's. "Oh—"

"Ryujin," firmer this time, stony. Ryujin realizes at this point Yeji's broken the silent treatment agreement, and doesn't know what to do—risk suspicion by refusing to, coming off even more as an , or join in their dog-pile on Lia and have Lia absolutely ing loathe her.

Ryujin hates how predictable it is that she takes the second option.

Carefully, she tracks the circumference, finding a spot where she can embrace Lia without touching her more than Lia wants to—which is probably not at all. She slots herself next to Chaeryeong, thinking the brown-haired girl is most probably the safest choice, being the only one in the group who knows about their kiss and the subsequent uality crisis, and sort of flops into the ten-armed hug, hoping her feelings for Lia transfer somehow.

And they would've stayed like that forever, had Lia not complained about how hot she is in a voice that's finally not sad or close to tears, and they laugh and laugh and drag her into the living room, settling into bean bags and relocating their five-person cuddle more comfortably, Ryujin sequestering herself at the farthest point from Lia, but yearning.

*

"I love you, Lia-yah," Yuna mumbles.

At some point, someone's the television, and they're watching re-runs of some old episodes of Running Man on mute. Lia's still in the clothes she went out in this morning, jeans and a bulky sweater that looks really soft to touch, which makes for a pretty funny picture when you consider the rest of the girls are in shorts and various oversized clothing. Lia doesn't seem to have energy to change clothes, though, and honestly, after the day she has, none of them really wants to leave Lia out of sight.

Years of training and months of living together mean that at this point, they more or less can read one another pretty easily. And they all have come to the silent conclusion that Lia's not going to talk about any of it soon, but that's okay—Ryujin's learning that it's her own story to tell, and whether she wants to or not is her choice. But she really hopes Lia would, wants to absorb some of that burden from her shoulders, feel it for herself, if she can, so she understands Lia better. Bear it for Lia.

It's an insane coincidence that Yeji ends up being the one who says it. Sometimes, their group's near telepathic connection is way too scary.

"Please talk to us, Lia," she says. "Maybe not now. But please... not... not ever?"

"I don't know," Lia says, quiet. She's looking straight at the television, though Ryujin can't tell if she's really watching.

"You're not being a burden," Chaeryeong chides, as if reading her mind. Ryujin wants that ability. "We're a team. We're in this together, alright?"

"Are you going to sing High School Musical?" Lia interjects, clearly grasping at humor to alleviate the serious tension.

Chaeryeong grins and nudges her softly in the ribs. "Don't tempt me," she says. "But I mean it, Lia. We—the rest of us—may never well know how it feels like to feel the things you do, but it doesn't mean we will judge you, okay? So when you start to not feel good, you can talk to us. Any of us."

"In—"

All eyes snap to Ryujin. She feels her face flush, but she pushes on. "Including me," she finishes, daring herself to look at Lia, who's positively stunned. It makes Ryujin mad—does Lia not think Ryujin would want to listen to Lia? Ryujin had told her exactly the night they kissed that she wanted Lia to do just that, and Lia had told her she'd tell Ryujin everything, to see Lia getting all surprised as if Ryujin had once shut her down... the feeling that dawns on Ryujin isn't pleasant.

It occurs to Ryujin that maybe, just maybe, Lia didn't really mean the kiss.

After all, Chaeryeong could talk all day about how obvious it is that Lia liked her, but Chaeryeong's not Lia. Who's to say that things haven't changed? Maybe Lia no longer likes Ryujin, maybe she talked through it with whoever it was she was meeting back there at the building and they made her realize how bad Ryujin is for her. Ryujin doesn't know if she can handle it, if Lia changes her world this much and doesn't want her any more, and she has to look away, her fist in front of so the whimper that she lets out is nearly inaudible.

It's almost funny, how Ryujin never even thought twice about Lia in this way, and how now, with the kiss and a thousand burning questions laid down between them, Ryujin can't handle the thought of having her feelings not reciprocated.

Something passes in Lia's eyes, and it could be relief, but Ryujin's not sure if it isn't just her own feelings projecting. "Okay," Lia finally allows, small and quiet. "Thank you."

"Ah, don't thank us! You would do the same for any of us!" Chaeryeong says, burying her face into Lia's shoulders. "Remember in the beginning, when I was really sad because people were so mean about me? You held my hand and told me I was beautiful and stayed by my side the whole night. You should let us do the same too, sometimes."

"But it's different—"

"No less important," Yuna cuts in, insisting. She nudges Yeji, who nods fervently.

"We're a team," she reinstates once more. "Your burden is ours to bear, too. Same as your joy."

All the snuggling, kind words, and encouragement have got to be too much finally for Lia, who Ryujin is sure still feels overwhelmed from her earlier meeting, and unwittingly, she bursts out crying.

She can't tell if it's a good cry—but happy tears won't look like this, Ryujin supposes. There are creases in her forehead that wouldn't be there if she were happy, her lips too wobbly, but no one tells her to quit crying. Yuna takes one of Lia's hands and Yeji takes the other, and they let Lia ride it out, Chaeryeong rubbing a hand down her back, soothing until her breaths stop coming so quick. There's no judgment that passes. They all have a quiet understanding that this is part of Lia's process, just letting it all out after spending so many months keeping it all inside her thin ribcage, fighting not to let it show.

With all her might, Ryujin places a gentle hand on her thigh. Lia's head snaps to lock her in a tearful gaze, and Ryujin doesn't tear her eyes away. She gives it a subtle squeeze, hopes it's enough to be grounding.

It's release, Ryujin thinks. And they let Lia have it.

*

For the next few days, Yeji is adamant on not acting weird, but her insistence on not making things weird just puts everyone on edge and in turn, makes things weird, and dinnertime passes in awkward silence until Lia says with barely concealed annoyance, "Drop the act, everyone. I'm not made of glass." And proceeds to send Yeji into near tears, apologetic and desperate to make things work.

Lia persists that she doesn't need special treatment, and Ryujin wants to protest, wants to tell her that it's also not okay to treat it like it's nothing wrong. But Ryujin doesn't say it to Lia; she still doesn't know where they stand, emotionally, if Lia's allowing Ryujin's input in her precarious relationship, especially since Ryujin found that unintentionally, with their midnight snacks, she might have played a role in exacerbating Lia's symptoms.

She did a lot of research on eating disorders, after figuring out her biuality. (It's kind of funny how she worried about it so profoundly, and now it's just simply background noise to the worry that has become the soundtrack ever since the kiss.) She learned that there are many kinds of eating disorders, that just because Lia falls under the archetype of skinny, young woman in her early 20s, eating disorders could affect people of all ages.

There are signs, like an unearthly obsession with counting calories, eating only tiny portions, bingeing and purging. Ryujin doesn't know what to make of those earlier signs—it seems that when she thinks about it, she'd also experienced those. In the beginning, she was very conscious of her food, and tiny portions were necessary to keep her around the margin of the body weight written in her contact, but the bingeing and purging are new terms that she's just discovered.

Bingeing, as far as she knows, is when the person suffering from said disorder eats copious amounts of food in one sitting, usually after starving for the whole day, to satisfy their hunger. It's kind of pulling her as taut as a string, trying to classify if their past midnight meetings count as that. She doesn't think the amount of food they consumed is copious—maybe the equivalent amount of a large fries at McDonald's, and when they were not eating fries, they usually just sat in the kitchen floor and passed around a bowl of cereal between them, talking idly about nothing in particular.

Then there's purging.

Yuna's words only lead Ryujin to think of the worst, and it makes her nauseous to imagine Lia bowled over the toilet, forcing two fingers down to empty her guts. She tries not to assume, learned her lesson in not assuming especially after where it got her, but it's hard not to think of the worst when Lia continues to refuse to speak of it.

And then, beneath all the concern and constant worrying, there's the issue of the kiss. There's the issue of whether or not Ryujin should be pondering about the kiss when the question of Lia's mental health is at hand—what's the most ethical thing to do? Lia's going through a difficult time already by herself, and now amplified by the attention of the media—wouldn't Ryujin just be imposing then, bringing up the kiss? What if it just makes things worse?

It's just—god, Ryujin knows she shouldn't push. And she's not trying to, really. She wants to give Lia time. It's just that she hasn't been able to not think about it, as if Lia's unveiled the key to the Pandora's box right under her nose and told her not to touch it. A starving man with a plate of food, told to wait. Damn near impossible. She keeps reminding herself that seeing Lia okay, up and cracking jokes and eating normally again is enough, but every time their skin brushes each other, all walls crumble. Like a dam, the longing pushes and erodes until Ryujin's left with nothing but a pitiful Lia-shaped hole in her heart, and no way to fill it.

It makes her feel awful. And it isn't that Ryujin wants Lia to reciprocate—she wants to, but it’s not a top priority (to hell with Chaeryeong saying she would, Ryujin never wants to assume again)—or kiss her again so they become girlfriends (she doesn't even know how that would work), it's that Ryujin would feel content if Lia just lets her in again. Tell her everything, like Lia said she would. Be a shoulder to cry on. But Lia has been nothing but painfully civil and formal, and so that's out of the question.

So Ryujin stews and yearns, treats Lia with the same wide-berth that Lia's giving her, and tries not to go too insane.

It's not working too well, obviously. Ryujin knows she's going to fail. The thing about her is that once she's discovered something, she gets preoccupied with it. When she was introduced to music the first time when she was five, she wouldn't stop crying until her parents played her songs again. At ten years old, when she saw idols for the first time on television, she spent the remaining years before she was scouted honing her body into the perfect dancer—stamina, the singing abilities. She doesn't just let things go once she decides she cares. She doesn't find herself caring about too much, but she's latched on to Lia, and now it's become impossible to notice how absolutely goddamn gorgeous she is.

Their stylist always makes sure they all look their best, but sometimes, Ryujin thinks that Lia’s given extra privileges just for how beautiful Lia looks in every outfit she’s put in.

Today, for a show, Lia's wearing jeans—and they're not even fitted, skinny ones that hug the her hips in a way that makes Ryujin want to hide her face in her hands—they're a little loose, a high-rise but not quite high-waisted, with holes in the knees and thighs. She wears a sheer sleeveless top with a high neck that gives her an elegant air, her hair, shorter now, stylishly mussed and down. Lia looks good, she always does, but what makes Ryujin want to crawl up a wall is the pair of red gloves that she wears, the way the shade matches the tint of her lips, even her cheeks, the top of her button nose. The way she looks down at her phone, nonchalant, resting her chin on her fingers, covered by the velvety fabric of the gloves. She looks—expensive, like someone Ryujin should ing kneel for, and it's just way too confusing to dissect.

It's not like the other girls don't look gorgeous—Chaeryeong, especially, in clear holographic thigh-high boots, looks especially striking, Yeji's corset top and cut-out back (Ryujin plainly refuses to analyze Yuna because she is a baby)—and there are certainly... ier outfits that Lia has worn (the hot pants and crop-top duo that still haunts her goddamn dream), but this ing look. Ryujin can't deal.

But at least it's only for a single five-minute show, right? Ryujin can survive.

Wrong. They end up going to a radio interview and Lia keeps everything on, especially the gloves. It begins to feel like a personal torture when Lia is assigned to sit right next to her, of all places. Ryujin has to pretend like she's not about to catapult right out of her seat while answering tame questions about the comeback and their favorite songs off the album.

(It's Nobody Like You. Duh.)

Ryujin swears that if the radio host hasn't forced their hand by asking the exact questions that their manager has explicitly told him not to, she'd still be useless over Lia. As it were, her attention's stolen when the radio host says, "So, Lia, have you been eating well?"

Ryujin freezes.

Lia's answering smile is hesitant, but thank god it's radio. "I have, thanks for asking."

"Ah, that's good to know," the host says. "So everything that Ryujin said is not true, then?"

"Actually," Yeji steps in, ever the curt one. "I think that question's not on the table."

"But why not?" The host asks. "In the days since the news broke, it's opened up a discussion on unhealthy standards in the music industry. Your fans even ended up trending an awareness hashtag for body positivity. It became the #1 trend worldwide for 4 hours."

Ryujin's surpise is reflected right in Lia's squeak. "It did?"

"Yeah," the host pushes. Ryujin exchanges looks with Chaeryeong—they didn't know. They wouldn't; all they knew about social media and trends were from print-outs that their manager curated. Yeji sneaks some quick Googling sometimes, but it’s likely that trends like that won’t show up on Google on the first few pages. "Don't you feel like you should seize this momentum and do something influential about it?"

Lia looks on helplessly, a deer caught in headlights. Ryujin wants to swerve the car and smash it right into whoever puts that look on her face. "I..." she says, then stops. Lost.

Not your place, Ryujin aggressively reminds herself. Not your goddamn place.

"I want to make music," Lia settles, finally. "Since the first time I went to a concert, I've always wanted to be an idol. I often looked at the stage and imagined myself on it when was younger." She bites her lips, the words sounding rough and unpracticed out of , but sure. She glances at Yeji, seeking support, and at Yeji's nod she plows on. "I realized that the path on becoming an idol is hard, and actually being an idol would be harder—and I know that I'm supposed to stay strong, for my girls—" here, Yuna takes one of her hands, "for my fans, too, when things became hard. But sometimes... it's not so easy."

Out of the corner of her eyes, Ryujin sees Yuna lift Lia's hand, bring it to her face. Yeji reaches over and puts her hand on top of their joined ones. It makes Lia laugh, a light, little sound that finally feels full of mirth.

"I've been given the privilege to live such a good life, so I know that I have it easy—"

"It's not a competition, Unnie," Yuna whines.

"—but I get hit hard, too," Lia admits, and she collapses against the back of the chair, as if admitting that takes a lot of her energy. "But I don't have the luxury of dealing with it on my own, and instead everything becomes a headline. What should be just a misunderstanding between friends can become a huge career-ending scandal." Ryujin fights to keep her face neutral. "So... if I may, I'd really, really like to keep this to myself. Figure it out as I go along."

Lia clenches the other hand, the one that's free, under the table, and Ryujin thinks, it. She reaches for it, grips it tight in her own hand. Lia blinks at her, startled, but Ryujin holds on.

Miraculously, Lia doesn't push her off or slap her hand away. She shifts, rearranging their fingers so their fingers slot against one another, and Ryujin finds it damp with sweat, but she doesn't care.

"Maybe," Lia says, "maybe, when I'm a little sure, I'll share it to you guys. But for now, I thank you for your support, and ask that you please give me the privacy I need to handle this personal matter."

Chaeryeong's hand is on theirs, too, now. There's no way she misses the way Ryujin tightens her grip, and the way Lia squeezes back. But Ryujin doesn't care.

Lia's taken hold of her own narrative, and that's more important than the decency of hiding her big dumb crush on her. , Ryujin is so ing proud of her, this level of openness and vulnerability that Lia doesn't owe to anyone, really, but chooses to show anyway.

"I love you, Lia-yah!" Yeji is saying again, and they all chorus in unison—but for Ryujin, the words are bigger, more meaningful than the rest of the girls mean it to be.

*

Their manager chews out the radio host for breaking interview protocol, but soon finds that she can’t be too mad. After finding out about the positive reactions that weren’t told to them, Yeji texts one of her friends to send her screenshots of first responses to the interview, and they’re kind of blown away that for every five tweets sent out, at least three are supportive of Lia. Even international fans. In Canada, where Lia used to live, her name becomes the trending topic for three hours.

It makes Ryujin’s heart soar. She’s not really one to care about what people say, has never been one who’s curious enough to seek out tweets and articles like Yeji, but the fact that the fans are on Lia’s side feels damn good. It’s about time, she thinks. Everyone should appreciate and love Lia, because she deserves it the most.

Finally, when they get home, the atmosphere feels light. Lia offers to help Yuna cook, and the youngest puts WANNABE on speaker and starts dancing in the kitchen, and soon enough, it turns to a cooking/karaoke event, with Lia screaming along giddily into her gochujang-smeared spatula, eyes closed in concentration.

“I don’t wanna be somebody!” she sings, and the rest of them follows up with a heartfelt, “Just wanna be me, be me!”

Yuna hoots. “I wanna be me, me, me!”

Dinner is a one-pot situation, and Yeji, the strongest of them, carries the soup into the living room, where Chaeryeong has set up The King: Eternal Monarch to watch while they eat. It feels almost like they’ve slipped again to normalcy, and Ryujin’s still humming under her breath as she volunteers to wash the dishes—which she never does, really. She hates washing the dishes. But Lia looks so comfortable and snug in her bean bag that Ryujin never wants to disturb that.

With the positive mood, Ryujin would’ve thought sleep would come easy, but of course, the second her head hits the pillow, she becomes restless. Her eyelids are closed, but her mind won’t shut up. She tosses and turns, annoys an exhausted Yeji enough that the leader throws her bear plushie at her and tells her to go the hell to sleep, or shut up. It’s the harshest Yeji has ever been to her, and Ryujin’s not surprised—Yeji’s a monster when she’s tired and sleepy.

So, avoiding the kraken, she quietly slips out of her bedroom. Maybe she’ll drink hot chocolate and mope around in the living room until she falls asleep in one of the bean bags.

It feels like a déjà vu then that she finds Lia in the living room, laying across the couch, staring up emptily at the ceiling.

For a second, Ryujin considers running back to her bedroom. This feels too dangerous, too soon—isn’t this how the whole mess began? But her traitorous feet creak when she reaches the bottom stair, and Lia sits up so quickly that Ryujin has no choice but to make herself known to the girl that kissed her and turned her world upside down.

Lia’s eyes are wide when they lock on Ryujin’s. Ryujin doesn’t think she can look away even if she’s held at a gunpoint.

As if they’re in a drama, they open their mouths at the same time.

“Ryu—”

“I’m sor—”

And Ryujin doesn’t blush, right? Because her image is teen crush—she’s suave, she’s cool. The girl everybody wishes were their best friend. Unbothered by stupid little teen stuff like love and crushes. But right then, she feels her cheeks warm, and she knows that if she holds up a mirror to her face, she’d be red up to her ears.

Like a cliché, Ryujin says, “You go first.”

Lia bites her lip. They’re at different ends of the room, but even this far, Ryujin feels the irresistibleness of that one act. Lia looks unsure, but at the same time, also like she has a frog in . When she speaks, it’s soft, like gliding rose petals down her back. “Come here.”

It’s the last thing Ryujin expects to hear from Lia, so it takes about a while for it to sink in. Once it does, though, Ryujin wastes no time—and she wouldn’t object to being called desperate at all, because she has been. The thought of being allowed in such a close proximity to Lia is enough to send her into lovesick sighs.

(Shut up, she knows she’s whipped.)

Ryujin’s in front of Lia now, their shadows overlapping in the half-light of the living room, Lia sitting down and looking up at her, unreadable in the dark. Ryujin’s surprised when Lia’s arms shoot out to pull her into a tight embrace.

Ryujin gasps. “Lia—”

“Just,” Lia strains to say, mouth across Ryujin’s stomach, only separated by a layer of thin t-shirt. Ryujin wills herself not to think about the possibilities when the layer is removed. “Stay here.”

Ryujin stills. Confusion comes floating up her chest, making tight. She doesn’t understand what’s going on. The whole day she pines and wonders in anguish if Lia’s ever going to let her this close again, and she hates that the second she gets what she wants, instead of feeling satisfied, she feels conflicted. Some part of her wants clarity, but the other part is screaming at her to let it be. Don’t push. Let Lia go at her own pace.

Ryujin would listen to those words if she’s a kinder woman. As it is, she’s a selfish piece of .

She wraps her arms around Lia’s shoulders, pressing her head closer. She wants to kiss the crown of her head. “I guess we’re even, huh,” she murmurs.

“Even?”

“Yeah, with the whole ignoring one another when we’re supposed to be talking thing,” Ryujin says.

Laughter wheezes out of Lia’s mouth, but it sounds heavy. Ryujin feels her interlocking her fingers on Ryujin’s back, as if sealing Ryujin for her own. Ryujin doesn’t think she minds much. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, but she’s already forgiven when there’s nothing to forgive. Ryujin tells her as much, and she laughs again. “You’re too good to me, Shin Ryujin. How are you so kind to the girl who stole a kiss and dipped?”

Ryujin’s breath catches.

Her fingers dance on the top of Lia’s head, playing a gentle lullaby that only they both know the words to. “I’d like to return the kiss, if you don’t mind,” she says, and cringes at how ing corny that is.

Lia looks up, and there’s this look of pure wonder that Ryujin feels not deserving of, but she loves it when Lia looks at her like that. She rests her thumb on her bottom lip, and she swears, swears to everything that is holy, that Lia’s eyes darken. It makes her feel hot all over.

“No refunds,” Lia jokes, but even Ryujin can tell her breath’s come up short.

Ryujin lowers herself to her knees so they’re about eye-level, though with Lia sitting on a couch, she’s got a bit of a higher ground. That’s okay—it’s perfect this way. Ryujin gets to look up at Lia and observe the texture of her skin.

“May I?” Ryujin asks.

“I’m a lot of work,” Lia tells her, quiet like a secret. “You alone won’t make me better.”

“I’d be foolish to think I could fix you,” Ryujin says. “I don’t want a relationship where I walk in thinking you’re broken. That’s not what I want.”

“What do you want?” Lia asks, reverent.

“I want you.”

“But I’m—”

“You’re the kind of person that belts out Into the Unknown unprompted in the middle of a V-Live, then runs yourself ragged worried that you can’t sing as well as the rest of us,” Ryujin interrupts. “You made Chaeryeong cry by telling her that she’s beautiful, but wouldn’t listen to us when we tell you that you also are.”

Lia presses their foreheads together, tender. They share a breath. “I can’t sleep,” she admits. “I kept thinking about what I said at the radio interview. Kept thinking maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. I felt like I put a bigger target on my back.”

“Lia, what are you talking about?” Ryujin pulls away to have a clear look on the expression on Lia’s face. “People support you.”

“Not everyone.”

“ the people who don’t,” Ryujin says, suddenly angry. “I’ll protect you from them. I don’t give a . I know the other girls don’t.”

“God, please don’t. I’m not worth the trouble.”

“ that,” Ryujin snaps. “This isn’t a you thing, baby. Standing up for yourself is brave and incredible, especially when you’re locked into the corner that way. I guarantee you, if it was me—or Yuna, Yeji, or Chaeryeong—you would support us no matter what. So let us do the same, okay?” Her lip wobbles, but for once, Ryujin’s trying to be the strong one. “Please?”

Lia exhales shakily. Her hands reach up to cover both of Ryujin’s, cupping her cheeks. Ryujin snuggles closer. “Baby?” she mutters, and Ryujin feels her face warm again. She moves to pull away, embarrassed, but Lia holds her in place. She tells Ryujin, “I like that.”

Despite herself, Ryujin grins. “You like it when I call you baby?”

Lia ducks her head. “Okay, if it’s going to be a thing—”

“Baby,” Ryujin whispers. Lia closes .

“Ryujin,” she replies, her name rolling off her tongue like a prayer, and Ryujin can’t help herself. She kisses Lia, and it’s fumbly, sloppy, but at least it lasts longer than their first stolen kiss. Their mouths move in tandem, little pants spilling out of Lia’s mouth whenever they part, and Ryujin lives for that hitch of breath whenever their lips touch, so she does again and again.

And again.

“It’s not going to be all sunshine and rainbows,” Lia says urgently, as if the very touch of her fingers on Ryujin’s waist alone isn’t enough to make her feel that way. Ryujin kisses the frown away, wonders how the hell she ever lived without kissing Lia before.

“I know,” Ryujin promises, and doesn’t let Lia doubt again for the rest of the night.