It was a sweltering day at camp, so hot that the girls were sweating from the moment they woke up all the way through breakfast. 

"It's way too hot to do anything," Nayeon groaned. 

"But the cabins get really hot too," Momo answered. Everyone nodded dejectedly in agreement. 

"What about the pool?" Sana suggested. 

"Actually, that sounds nice," Jeongyeon answered. 

"We can grab popsicles at some point too," Dahyun added. 

Mina grimaced, but didn't say anything. She'd brought a swimsuit at her parent's insistence, but she packed it at the bottom of her suitcase for a reason. But...it was really too hot to do anything else. So when everyone went back to the cabin to change, she dug through her suitcase for her one-piece nonetheless. 

She threw an oversized t-shirt over it and followed the rest of the girls down to the pool. 

Mina watched as most of the girls immediately pulled off their cover-ups and jumped into the pool without a care (or in the case of Nayeon, laid down on a pool chair). She just sighed, standing on the edge, playing with the edge of her big t-shirt. 

She had a hard time looking at the rest of them, eyes glancing into the pool where they laughed and played, and back at her own self. It was obvious that Jihyo, Momo, and Sana had hit puberty a little earlier than she had: and what had developed was gorgeous. Mina knew that what was under her shirt was the body of a little girl. Not even the body of a ballet dancer. 

Mina knew that spending all of her life so far with her body under scrutiny, ballet recruiters scanning her to make sure she was perfect even before she got out of high school, was probably not good for her. Sitting with teachers and fellow dancers, judging each other in their leotards. But it hurt when she didn't look like the girls the recruiters fawned over or Jihyo.

What was even worse was that nobody else seemed to care, or at least care enough to let it affect them.

Mina squeaked, pulled out of her thoughts when a wet hand tapped her foot. She looked down and there was Chaeyoung, giggling up at her from the pool. 

"Aren't you super hot?" 

"Eh..." Mina shrugged. She was sweating from every pore, but Chaeyoung didn't need to know that. 

"Come on," Chaeyoung whined, jokingly tugging on Mina's ankle. "You're gonna pass out!" 

Mina looked back out at everyone. Even though they were dressed similar to how the girls in Mina's ballet school dressed for class, there wasn't the looking that happened. Everyone was checking each other out, but it was for intimidation or humiliation. It just seemed like everyone was curious about each other. And at the end of the day, there were just looks, not stares. Nobody was judging each other. 

Maybe, this was different, so it would be okay. 

"Alright, fine." 

Chaeyoung cheered as Mina threw her t-shirt off to the side, jumping into the pool as quickly as she could. She breathed deeply; the cool pool water felt so good on her skin, and it had been forever since she'd been in a pool. 

"Ugh," she groaned. "It's so nice." 

"I told you!" Chaeyoung said, kicking her legs in the water and by proxy splashing Mina and Momo. Momo gave her a fake glare, and Chaeyoung looked panicked. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!" 

Momo smirked and gave Chaeyoung a huge splash, accidentally hitting Mina in the face with water in the process. 

"Okay, I have now been hit twice. It's so on," Mina said jokingly. 

"It is so on," Momo answered, and Mina had never enjoyed a splash war more (or before). 

While the splash war slowly absorbed most of the other girls, Jeongyeon swam to the edge of the pool where Nayeon was still laying on the chair with her sunglasses on. Her swimsuit was back with chains, decorated with charms and jewels, circling her waist. Even though the camp has no wifi, she was still playing on her phone. 

"What are you even doing?"

Nayeon cleared . "Sunbathing." 

"So weird. Going to the pool and not even getting in the pool. Can you even get into the pool with that swimsuit? Wouldn't it rust?" 

"Okay, you know what?" Nayeon set her sunglasses on top of her head. "You are such a pick me. Let me live my life." 

Jeongyeon laughed loudly. "That is so funny that you think I'm a pick me. Really funny. Says a lot. You think I'm me for male attention? When there's no men around? I'm just me. I'm sorry that bothers you." 

"Then why do you care so much about what I'm doing? I don't tell you that you are weird and have bad fashion." 

Jeongyeon scoffed. "Well, you just did." 

Nayeon pulled a nail file from her pocket. "Still doesn't answer my question."

Jeongyeon sighed and rolled her eyes. "Dude, it's just a bummer! Like, we're all having a good time, trying to find to do and get to know each other, and you just wanna be a whiny off to the side. It's annoying." 

"Well, I'm sorry if everything we do is lame. That's not my problem." 

"Then suggest something sometimes." 

Nayeon huffed, putting back on her sunglasses. Jeongyeon sighed and rolled her eyes again, going back to play with the others. 

In the shallow end of the pool, Tzuyu was kicking her legs in the water, sitting on the edge of the pool quietly, but she smiled softly when Jihyo swam over to her. 

"Aren't you hot?" Jihyo asked. 

"...yeah," Tzuyu answered before hurriedly looking away from Jihyo (and Jihyo in that bikini). 

"Then come in!" 

"I don't really wanna get my hair wet though," Tzuyu said, once she regained her composure.

"Ugh, fine," Jihyo groaned, getting out of the pool. 

"W-wait, what?" 

"If you don't wanna get all the way in, we might as well go pick up the popsicles." 

"O-oh. You don't have to get out because of-"

"Nah," Jihyo answered, drying off a little and throwing on cotton shorts and a t-shirt. She grabbed her tote bag with one hand and held out the other to help pull Tzuyu up. "I wanna." 

Tzuyu couldn't help but smile back at her dazzling grin, following after her down to the store. "Anyways," she continued to trot down to the store, crunching the dry grass with their flip-flops. "You're such a cutie, I can't help but wanna take care of you. I look at you and just immediately go into big sister mode." She punctuated this by pinching Tzuyu's cheek, and Tzuyu laughed loudly, trying to escape her grip. 

"Do you have any sisters?" Jihyo asked.

"No, just me." 

"A lot of older girl friends?" 

"No...not too many friends at all, actually." 

Jihyo looked confused. "Really? I thought you'd be super popular at school since you're so pretty and stuff." 

"No," Tzuyu whined awkwardly. "I'm not that pretty. Plus I'm pretty shy."

Jihyo gave her a look. "You have got to be kidding me." 

"What?" Tzuyu whined again. "Look, we're at the store." 

Jihyo rolled her eyes jokingly and the girls walked inside, going straight to the big box fridge. 

"What should we get the others? We forgot to ask what they wanted..." Tzuyu said.

"Hm..." she closed her eyes and grabbed nine at random. "Popsicle roulette." 

"Perfect." 

Jihyo insisted on paying and the girls headed back to the pool. Everyone was at least by the pool now; Nayeon finally put her feet in, with Momo treading water next to her. Mina, Chaeyoung, and Jeongyeon were chatting in the deep end, and Dahyun popped out of the water as the girls approached.

"Where were you?" Dahyun yelled out as they came up, leaning on the edge with Sana hugging her. 

"Popsicles!" Jihyo yelled back, and Tzuyu was sure that their various screams and groans of relief could be heard across the camp. 

"What flavors did you get?" Jeongyeon asked. 

"It's a mystery," Tzuyu explained. "We're playing popsicle roulette." 

"Now get out of the pool so we don't get popsicle juice in it," Jihyo added, and the girls in the water all sat on the edge, feet still cooling in the pool as the sun beat down on their backs. 

"You're up first," Jihyo said, going over to Nayeon. "Don't look."

She dutifully shut her eyes and let her hand wander around in Jihyo's bag. She pulled one out, opened her eyes, and grinned. "Cherry, thank god." 

Jihyo went around to the rest of the girls, letting them take their random pick. Mina smiled as she pulled out an orange flavor. 

"I haven't had a popsicle in forever," she said, trying a bit. 

"Seriously?" Chaeyoung asked.

"I always feel like they're too messy. But we're in the pool here, so it's okay," Mina explained, and she and Chaeyoung shared a smile.

"Ugh, I got grape!" Jeongyeon whined. Nayeon smirked to herself.