Things were sailing as smoothly as they could be. 

Haseul's departure had been just as painless as planned. She really did leave at the crack of dawn, a bit too tired to cry, just letting herself breathe in her car, silent except for the sound of the engine and the sun rising in the sky. 

Traffic wasn't so bad, she stopped for coffee, she put on some music, and she, just, drove. Haseul had done a lot of reflecting this summer. It wasn't the kind of thing one should stop, but it was nice to take this time to stop analyzing and just be. 

Home, the home of her parents was only a minute away. It was going to be weird, especially since her parents weren't coming back for another day or two. She wasn't sure how to feel about being all alone at home. Readjusting to home, THAT home. The home that was fraught, where she'd really need to put the work in to feel okay. 

And...there she was, pulling into the driveway, silence surrounding her, when...

"Haseul!" She finished pulling in, put the car in park, turned it off, and looked up. 

There were Jinsoul and Jungeun, standing in front of the car with the biggest smiles on their faces. 

Haseul almost teared up. 

"Jinsoul! Jungeun!" she cried, leaping out of the car to pull them into a tight hug. 

Oh, she missed them, She really had. 

"We missed you!" the girls said in unison, jumping around. 

"I missed you both too!" Haseul would never let these girls go again. Never, ever, ever. 

"Wait, wait..." Jungeun said, both girls pulling away. 

"Happy birthday!" they both yelled, holding up bags of presents. 

Now she really teared up. 

The whole time, she'd been loved. So, so loved. At least now, she could be grateful she could finally see it. 

"We missed your birthday, so we wanted to celebrate when you got back!" Jinsoul said excitedly. 

"We thought we'd do a sleepover at your place, but I mean, you kinda did just get back from your trip so you must be tired..." Jungeun added. 

"No way! I'm so happy you two are here. Really. I need a girl's sleepover today." 

"Yay!" Jinsoul cheered. 

"Let us in so we can open your presents, we've been waiting out here for like twenty minutes," Jungeun said. 

"Oh my god, of course!" Haseul quickly grabbed her luggage from the car, and they all came inside. 

"So how was your summer?" Jinsoul asked as they all headed upstairs to her room. 

Haseul smiled to herself. And she spent the rest of the night telling them everything.

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A/N: and...that's it! I am seriously SO SORRY this took me, like, an entire year to finish. I grew a lot this year though...it was very much a reflection of what haseul went through in this story too. anyways.... i really really hope you all enjoyed, despite how long it took me. i put a lot of energy and effort into this one so i hope it paid off! please let me know in the comments what you all thought <3

i very recently quit my job (YAS) so i should have a lot more time for writing! im planning on working on lots of fics: nct (kunten and nomin), twice (my first twice!) and loona. Twice and loona will be set in my summer camp au...if youre familiar with me as an author you may know what stories im talking about! and the loona one will be a sequel to the first loona summer camp au.

if you liked this story, (not to self promote too much), please think about checking out the rest of my fics! i have a million, lots of nct and a few other loona ones. and like i said above, more loona is coming! i think my more recent fics (anything written after late 2018) are pretty decent :)

thank you to everyone for all of your support! all of the very lovely comments i received were incredibly encouraging <3 i sincerely love you all. thanks for sticking with it all this time!

love, rainbowdonkeys