Nayeon tries not to think about the thing or how it may lead to other things , because, honestly — and don't tell Jihyo she said this — it's all going well. This whole thing, despite having her fair share of doubts, it's actually working out for her, effectively so. See, now, she doesn't have the urge to swing Jeongyeon's baseball bat towards her television, smash the remaining tea cup collection she inherited from her grandmother, and thrash her whole apartment down into pieces.

 

I'm calm now , she thinks.

 

So, she tries, really hard, to not think about it.

 

“Nayeon-chan,” Mina murmurs with a slight nudge to her shoulder, Nayeon caught a whiff of vanilla and chamomile — it eases her nerves in a way. Mina smiles at her, tilting her head to the side, “you made a wrong stitch.”

 

The younger girl moves to sit beside her, soft fingers wrapping over her tight knuckles. Nayeon catches her breath — Mina looks absolutely stunning under the dim lights of her home.

 

“Are you okay?” Mina whispers worriedly, eyebrows meeting in an adorable scrunch. There are four moles mapped out on her porcelein skin like a constellation, distance so calculated Nayeon is convinced it must have been sprinkled by Gods themselves, and she's certain that there are more, hidden — it drives her crazy to know she cannot just hold her hand and trace it with her own fingers.

 

She can't just do that, she's not supposed to, and she shouldn't even be thinking about doing it at all.

 

God, this is frustrating.

 

“You're a bit flushed.” Mina touches her forehead, Nayeon flinches. A flash of surprise morphs in Mina's face, immediately drawing back.

 

Nayeon wants to tell her that it's okay.

 

But for someone who cannot, for the love of all good, shut up to save herself, seemed to have been zipped for all eternity whenever the younger girl was around.

 

“Maybe we should call it a day,” Nayeon announces, putting the half-way done beanie on the table. It looks messy and out of place sitting beside Mina's carefully hand-knitted sweater.

 

“Yeah, we should,” Mina hums, avoiding eye-contact, “sure, sure.”

 

Now, it's Nayeon's turn to look surprised and confused.

 

She coughs, grabs her coat in a hurry. The faster she gets out of there, the sooner she stops thinking about the thing .

 

“Hey,” Mina says, almost breathlessly, it made Nayeon halt, “are we okay?”

 

Mina hands her a hot pack.

 

Nayeon receives it, careful not to touch Mina's skin.

 

Nayeon couldn't give the younger girl an explanation, it would give away too much, and confrontation isn't really her strongest suit, but she can assure her that they are okay. Because they are — the not-okay part is mostly her, and it shouldn't concern Mina even though, technically, it kind of concerns her and , why is her thoughts raging at a maximum speed she needs to calm down before she —

 

“Nayeon-chan,” Mina runs her hand on both her arms, “breathe.”

 

Nayeon did. Because it's Myoui Mina. Her body's autonomy is already attune to her soft voice and gentle touch — it doesn't make any sense, not even to Jeongyeon, with her so-called degree on psychology —

 

“Breathe, unnie.”

 

Mina is coherent, maybe too in-place and collected for Nayeon's mess-accustomed brain to understand. A lot of things don't make sense when Nayeon is with her.

 

Because again, she's Myoui Mina.

 

The reasons are littered inside her head, impossible to grasp and arrange because, drumrolls , she's Im Nayeon.

 

Im Nayeon doesn't make any sense either. But not in a good way like Mina — Nayeon is messy, and angry, and has some pent-up issues. She has a tendency to miscommunicate, shut people out, use humor as a defense mechanism, and  throw things around until they're completely and utterly broken beyond repair.

 

“Do you want to sit down first?”

 

Nayeon sighs and nods. 

 

Mina allows her to lie down on her couch as she disappears towards her kitchen, coming back minutes later with mugs of hot choco.

 

“Can I take a nap for a minute?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Mina positions her head on her lap, her fingers digging carefully on Nayeon's hair, massaging her scalp.

 

“Is this okay?” Mina says softly.

 

Nayeon murmurs something under her breath, giving up all her inhibitions to God. 

 

Jihyo help me .

 

She inhales and looks up, smiles warmly at the younger girl, the genuine all gums and teeth, bright and so-Nayeon . Something to ease the clouding worry on Mina's face, because Mina deserves all the good things in the world, and Nayeon isn't good, but she supposes a smile would suffice, because smiles are good right?

 

“Unnie,” Mina husks, pink dusting her cheeks, “you're staring.”

 

Ah, it.

 

But the younger girl returns the kind gesture albeit bashful, smiling like an angel. And maybe it's the light or the weird angle, but Nayeon swears she sees a halo forming at the top of Mina's head, illuminating her being with soft flecks of light, dusts of gold and silver accompanied with thrums of harps as if she just descended from the gates of heaven to bless humanity with her calming presence.

 

“Mina.”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Don't go.”

 

Mina giggles, “you want me to stay?”

 

“I'm calm when you're near.”

 

The thing knocks at the back of her head relentlessly. Nayeon thinks about it for a second before she opens the door, welcoming it with a side-eye and a groan, and finally allowing herself to melt in a long-overdue acknowledgement.

 

I'm in love with Myoui Mina.

 

“ That's the thing ,” Nayeon groans on Jihyo's shoulder when she comes home that day, “She's wonderful.”

 

Jihyo cuts her off, “Tell her.”

 

Nayeon shuts up.

 

Jihyo sighs. Jeongyeon drops a chocolate bar on Nayeon's lap. 

 

Nayeon stares at it, hoping it would melt on her pants so she could have something to fuss about other than Mina and the thing .

 

“I'm me,” Nayeon says in a small voice.

 

Something inside Jihyo cracks. Because Nayeon is loud, confident and out-of-control. She's rambunctious, does what she wants regardless of the aftermath — and seeing her look this sunken is a foreign ground. Jihyo is completely thrown off the trail.

 

And she's grateful for Jeongyeon's distractions and her ability to handle Nayeon in times like this.

 

“Nabongs,” Jeongyeon chews on her chocolate bar, “do you mean the iest woman on the planet or —”

 

Nayeon laughs, but Jihyo recognizes the slight sad lilt on the tone.

 

“Yes, I am indeed the iest woman on the planet, but ,” Nayeon shakes her head with a lopsided grin, “I break things.”

 

Jihyo and Jeongyeon looks at each other.

 

It's the truth.

 

Nayeon's eyes focus towards her broken television, the appliances that are yet to be replaced, picture frames with chipped edges and broken shards sitting at the right corner of the living room, not far from it is a fist-shaped hole on the wall.

 

Her apartment is a mess, a bigger, more accurate representation of what goes on inside her head.

 

This is where it all started.

 

When Nayeon is frustrated, Nayeon vents. When Nayeon vents, her place suffers — and for the longest time she thought it was normal.

 

Until she met her friends. The ones she managed to keep, and actually stayed.

 

Jihyo recommended going to therapy. Nayeon obliged, because mother God Park knows the best out of their friend group. There, she met Dr. Minatozaki, more sunshine than a doctor — who lets her eat salt and vinegar chips on her couch even though it made her office smell awful. 

 

During one of their sessions, Dr. Minatozaki casually suggested adopting a hobby, like pottery or knitting or something that does not involve punching walls. Nayeon agreed, and Jeongyeon knows Kim Dahyun, the bar owner of the club she frequents, and Dahyun is friends with Hirai Momo who has a client at the dance studio that knows how to knit.

 

It's this weird entanglement of someone knows someone and that someone also happens to know someone and that is how Im Nayeon found herself searching for a certain raven-haired girl with moles — lots of them , as per Jeongyeon's description — in Chou & Son's café the first day she met Mina.

 

Looking back, everything felt like a poorly-planned blind date. With Nayeon's dress shirt buttoned at the wrong places because she's late and completely forgot about the whole agenda to her spilling coffee on herself because she accidentally knocked the cup when she fought Mina for the bill — it was a nightmare.

 

But Mina laughed it off, and the sound made Nayeon's stomach flip. It wasn't long before she felt herself mirroring the action.

 

“Myoui Mina.” Nayeon remembered Mina offering her a handkerchief, her initials lined with gold sewed in impeccably perfect calligraphy on the fabric. 

 

Everything about that day went so wrong, but meeting Mina felt like it was the only thing that needed to go right.

 

“You're working on it, right?” Jihyo smacks the back of Nayeon's head, “Mina is helping you.”

 

“And you're in love with her,” Jeongyeon adds, “make a move, get laid, and invite us to the wedding.”

 

“That's bold coming from you,” Nayeon rolls her eyes, “you can't even ask Jihyo on a date.”

 

Jihyo pretends she didn't hear anything. Jeongyeon glares at her, the veins on her neck popping in embarrassment.

 

“ Anyway ,” Nayeon sighs, shifting the topic back again, “Mina, she's... I don't know — she's too good.” Nayeon starts rambling, a nervous tick, “And you know what I do with good things, I… I —”

 

“You're working on it.” Jeongyeon reiterates Jihyo's words, “Dr. Minatozaki is helping, right? And Mina too.” Jeongyeon reaches out for her hand, Nayeon reaches out for Jihyo's, an innocent look creeping on her face as she connects her friends' hands on her lap.

 

Jeongyeon blushes, Jihyo looks away.

 

“Scheming ,” Jeongyeon shakes her head, and Nayeon laughs maniacally.

 

Jihyo coughs and pulls her hand, Jeongyeon looks disappointed.

 

“Unnie,” there is softness in Jihyo's eyes, one that she knows is only reserved for moments like this one, “and we're here for you too, you can talk to us.”

 

Nayeon sighs.

 

“So, when are you going to invite Jihyo to that dinner?”

 

Jeongyeon's nostril flares, Jihyo's face heats up watching Jeongyeon stomped out of the room when Nayeon starts rolling on the floor, roaring in laughter.

 

“That is a date,” Dr. Minatozaki points out, shaking her head in amusement, “you can stop referring to it as a 'dog-walking' activity.”

 

Nayeon deflates on the couch, the chips suddenly taste too sour for her own liking, but she straightens up with another senseless display of denial, “No. Technically, it's Ray and Kookeu's date. Not ours, we're just walking them.”

 

“What do I do with you,” Dr. Minatozaki laughs, offering a bottle of water to which Nayeon happily accepts.

 

“You can start by telling me what to wear,” Nayeon says casually.

 

“You're paying me to ask what to wear for your date—”

 

“It's not a date!”

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