As soon as the door opens, she is engulfed by a blur of blond hair. The hug is soft and tight, but Mina can’t help feeling a bit dizzy as the person is jumping like a hyper puppy who just meets their favorite human.

“Mitang! I knew you would be home!”

“Hi Mina. Is this the right time? Sana wants to surprise you, we didn’t expect you would have someone over.”

Momo’s words make Mina freeze in her place. Sana, now has stopped jumping and lets Mina catch her breath, peeks over Mina’s shoulder to see the person Momo referred to. Momo’s hand is putting behind Sana back, obviously to calm her excited girlfriend. It doesn’t help much as Sana squeals and runs right to the couch direction, where a HUMAN Chaeyoung is sitting.

Reluctantly, Mina follows Sana to the living room, with Momo trailing behind. They haven’t talked about this. Chaeyoung did ask her not to tell others about this whole human-cat incident, and Mina of course kept it to herself. Besides, the story is crazy enough for Mina to land a place in asylum if she tells everyone how her cat turned to human. But Sana and Momo are her best friends, she doesn’t know if she can hide from them.

“Well hello Mina’s friend! Who are you? Where are you from? How long have you known Mina? How do know her?”

Good thing Momo gets a hold of her girlfriend before Sana can actually jump on the poor girl.

“Sorry, she can get a little carried away.”

Momo says as she pulls Sana back, but her face shows she’s just as curious. Meanwhile, Chaeyoung looks stunned by the attack of questions from Sana.

“This is Chaeyoung. She is…”

Mina, now standing behind Chaeyoung’s back, puts a hand on the girl’s shoulder. She really doesn’t know what to introduce Chaeyoung. Fortunately, the latter seems to be pulled out of the daze by Mina’s touch.

“Mina’s house mate! Yes. I am Mina’s new housemate. Nice to meet you two.”

Chaeyoung looks up at Mina, who quirks an eyebrow at her answer. So… Housemate. That’s how they’re gonna play?

“New housemate? For how long? Mina never mentioned she has a new housemate.”

“It’s been just a month. And I guess I forgot to mention it. Work has been crazy, you know.”

Mina chuckles nervously. She must think of something quick to distract Sana from this interrogation.

“You look familiar. Did we meet before?”

“Err… I don’t think so.”

“Chaeyoung right? Is that a Korean name?”

“Yeah. I was born in Korea. But my family moved to Japan when I was 5 so I basically grew up here.”

“Does your family live near here?”

“Uhm. My mum passed away a long time ago so I’m on my own.”

“Oh… Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Nah, it’s alright. It was long time ago.”

The air suddenly turns awkward. Sana looks a bit embarrassed because of her inappropriate question so Momo speaks up for her.

“Sorry we haven’t introduced. I’m Momo, and this is my girlfriend Sana. We’re Mina’s best friends. Nice to meet you too.”

“Human best friends.”

“Huh?”

Chaeyoung’s offhand remark seems to throw everyone off. Sana and Momo looks at her questioningly while Mina raises her brow in amusement. The youngest obviously surprises with her own words, only jumps to explain herself after a moment of panic.

“Oh sorry. Mina told me about you two. She said you two are her human best friends.”

“Ah yeah, there’s still Chaengie on my way of becoming Mina’s best friend. Where’s the little beastie anyway?”

They exchanges a look of slight panic. They should have definitely talked about this before.

“Out. As usual.” Mina finally answers.

“Shame. I was expecting to see her.”

Sana pouts, looking around as if Chaengie will pop out of nowhere and jump on her lap as usual. The sight of Sana pouting is so cute it makes Chaeyoung wants to turn into cat to greet her. Sana has been so nice and soft to her from the day she showed up at Mina’s dorm room unannounced, always spoils her with food and belly rub.

“Why are you here anyway?”

Mina asks. It’s not that she isn’t happy to see her friends, but they hanging here for long can bust her (and Chaeyoung’s) flimsy lies.

“To check on you, of course. And hang out. We haven’t hung out in months. Don’t you want to see us?”

“Of course I’m glad to see you. It’s jus-…”

“Great! We will have a girls’ night!!! I brought food. Chaeyoung, are you busy tonight?”

“No, I don’t-“

“Awesome! Join us! We should get to know each other more!”

They don’t get to react as Sana quickly takes Chaeyoung’s hands in hers and beams brightly, much to Chaeyoung and Mina’s horror.

They settle for a Uno game, as “3pm is not the right time for movie, yet”. It takes Chaeyoung a few round, but when she gets a hold of it, things start to get interesting. To Mina’s dismay, Chaeyoung is quick to learn a few (bad) tricks from Sana and Momo, including using pout to get out of unfavorable situation. And cheating! Mina has hung out with Sana and Momo long enough to be immure to their pout and whine but she doesn’t have immunity to Chaeyoung’s yet. Her pouty face is so cute, it even makes Sana squeal.

“Aww she’s so cute. You can’t put out a draw four at this cute little face, can you?”

So she attacks Sana instead, when the turn is reversed. Serves them right, for corrupting her Chaeyoung.

They stops after a while, when the made-up rules are too much to keep up, and decides to just casually hang out for a while before ordering dinner. Sana and Momo’s food turns out to be all snack.

“You said you moved here from Korea since small right? Do you know Korean?”

“I do. I lived in a small Korean community in Japan so I can speak both languages.”

“Ooh nice. Can you say something in Korean?”

“Err… Anyonghaseyo”

“Ah I know this one, it’s hello right? Say something more!”

“I am actually a cat and I have known you for a while.”

Both Sana and Momo don’t understand . But they are wowing at her with fascinated look on their face, urging her to speak some more and cooing at how cute her pronunciation is.

Meanwhile Mina is baffled. She didn’t know Chaeyoung was born in Korea and can speak the language. Think about it, she doesn’t really know much about the girl. She knows of Jihyo, who has taken care of Chaeyoung, and Chaeyoung’s two friends, Dahyun and Tzuyu. The girl talks about her daily tasks a lot, but rarely tells anything in her childhood. Why she moved to Japan, why she only mentioned of her mother, on very rare occasion, never her father. Is there any incident that made her afraid of thunder?

Chaeyoung knows almost everyone in Mina's life. She lived with Mina's family, with Sana, and listens to Mina's stories about her work. That's basically everyone in Mina's circle. But Mina barely knows the gir