Chaeyeon has never viewed meeting after long separation as something awkward.

She didn’t feel that way with Somi, or Daehwi, or the TWICE members. Getting to meet them again after having their paths diverging away from each other is something that feels fortunate. Sure, there is bound to be pockets of silence, but Chaeyeon doesn’t dread those. Not really.

So she wonders why she feels the beginning of anxiety creeping up her heart as she marks the calendar.

Only a few more days until she meets Sakura.

 

-

 

(Chaeyeon has never viewed meeting anyone she hasn’t met in a long time as something awkward, or something to be nervous over.

Then again, Miyawaki Sakura isn’t anyone.)

 

-

 

Chaeyeon tries to not be obvious about it, but she’s obviously failing if Chaeryeong, her dearest sibling, Miss I’ll Happily Ignore Your Crisis For My Own Peace Of Mind If I Can Help It, decides to say something about it.

“You stole my bed for her, Unnie.”

Chaeyeon spurts out the tea she’s been drinking, coughing violently.

“What I’m saying is,” Chaeryeong goes on, unsympathetic to Chaeyeon’s struggling lungs, “just bring up the bed if it, like, goes awkward.”

“What are you saying?!”

“Kkura-unnie would probably appreciate an update on her former bed. Say it’s gotten a new cover or something.”

Chaeyeon downs a gulp of water to calm her insides down. Chaeryeong takes interest on the dust of creamer on top of her coffee, carefully poking around with the back of her spoon.

“...I’m not anxious about Saku-chan,” Chaeyeon huffs.

Chaeryeong scoffs in a manner that would’ve gotten clipped and  become viral in tiktoks or youtube shorts. Chaeyeon is still the older sibling, though, so she tones her snark down when Chaeyeon pouts sadly, settling with a shake of her head instead.

 

-

 

(Chaeyeon isn’t anxious about it, not at all. It’s not like they don’t contact each other regularly. Among the members, Chaeyeon is the one who knows Sakura’s days the most, especially after she graduated; and she thinks it’s the same way for Sakura too.

She isn’t anxious. She looks forward to meeting Sakura again.

The day inches nearer, and Chaeyeon repeats these thoughts like a mantra even more.)

 

-

 

She video-calls Eunbi, who happens to be in the middle of a baking session with Minjoo. They’re trying to make macarons, Minjoo declaring that this is her redemption arc, and with a light heart Chaeyeon voices consent to Eunbi’s offer to rest the phone on the table, facing their workspace.

“So, Chaeyeon-ah. Why did you call?”

Chaeyeon hums. A Sakura-related thought was clawing up when she pressed call, but she isn’t sure what to say now. If she should say it at all. “Nothing! Just feeling like it.”

“Awww,” Minjoo coos, cleaning up after the flour.

Eunbi isn’t as convinced. “I don’t have to fight anyone in your company, do I?”

Chaeyeon laughs, surprised. “What?”

“Just checking.”  Eunbi shrugs, like fighting companies is a perfectly normal activity and possible to achieve. Chaeyeon feels a bit touched, but also a decent amount curious whether that offer holds up if she were to fight not a company, but someone.

“Oh, Chaeyeon-unnie! When’s Kkura-unnie’s flight?”

Like a mind-reader, Minjoo throws in the question with a cheery smile. Chaeyeon does a perfect job of shrugging, her eyebrows lifted like she’s asking ‘how should I know?’

“I’m not her keeper, Minjoo-yah.”

“…But she would’ve told you!”

Of course she would. Sakura did tell her, already, but perhaps Chaeyeon is in the mood of questioning everything. “Oh yeah? And why is that?”

“Because,” Minjoo says, arms flailing, gesturing strongly like she’s trying to communicate the 10-page essay inside her head that she’s written to answer Chaeyeon’s question. Eunbi just looks on from the side, amused by the whole situation.

Chaeyeon’s face breaks into a grin when Minjoo’s struggle for words continues for nearly a whole minute. “Wow, thank you. That was very convincing, Minjoo-yah—”

“It’s because you’re you,”  Minjoo says finally, firmly. “And—and Kkura-unnie is… Kkura-unnie. Ah, this makes more sense in my head…”

Eunbi cracks up at that, and after a while Chaeyeon does too, Minjoo whining at their teasing. She stomps away from the frame with a  declaration of ‘at least the sink isn’t laughing at me.’  Eunbi approaches the phone and shifts it so that Chaeyeon can see Minjoo’s disgruntled back, giggling when Minjoo catches what she does and loudly complains.

And then the oven dings, and the conversation shifts, away from Miyawaki Sakura and the remark Minjoo made, and how it silently settles at the bottom of Chaeyeon’s stomach.

 

-

 

(It’s because you’re you, and Kkura-unnie is Kkura-unnie.

In WM’s practice room, shirt drenched with sweat, Chaeyeon stares up at the ceiling and cradles the anxiety pulsing inside her chest like a second heartbeat.

What if we aren’t anymore?)

 

-

 

In the end, she calls Sakura, one night while she’s in bed and an invisible force compels her to dial the number before she can overthink it.

“…Hello? Chaeyeon?”

Something inside Chaeyeon’s heart squeezes with strange warmth. “Saku-chan,” she says, and doesn’t say anything else for quite some time.

Which must be why Sakura says, “Yes? …Is something the matter? Are you okay?”

Chaeyeon mums. She rests her left hand on her chest, feeling the faint thud of her heart beneath her palm. She imagines Sakura, lying beside her, and wonders if Sakura ever does the same thing. Feels the same thing.

“How are you feeling? About coming back.”

She waits with an unnamed knot tightening around her stomach. Sakura hums, seemingly giving the question a considerable amount of thoughts, and then.

“I’m anxious,” Sakura says first. “…about leaving,” she resumes a meaningful beat later. “And about the things I’ll need to face, in the future.”

“Mmm.”

“But I’m also… excited? I…” Sakura takes a deep breath, “I’m looking forward to the future.”

Chaeyeon swallows. “That’s good.” She wonders what her own future looks like. The very words are tugging at the tip of her tongue, but she doesn’t say it, because… because.

“I’m sure your future is a brilliant one, Saku-chan.”

Sakura is silent for a beat.

“Chaeyeon,” she then says, “you’re healthy, right? You’re doing okay?”

Chaeyeon makes a confused noise at the back of . “Mm? Yes. I’m, I’m taking care of myself well. Why are you asking?”

“Hmm,” Sakura hums. “Because I’m also looking forward to meeting you again.”

The strange warmth within Chaeyeon’s chest simmers. “Oh,” she breathes out.

“So, don’t fall sick.”

Chaeyeon bites back a smile. “Same with you.”

“Eat your… healthy snacks and hydrate well.”

She can imagine Sakura making a face at ‘healthy snacks’, and she can’t help but giggle at that.

Their conversation continues, with Chaeyeon pretending to offer sending said healthy snacks and Sakura triumphantly pointing out that she would no longer be in Japan when the snacks arrive. Throughout their exchange, the room inside Chaeyeon’s heart, that has gradually grown stuffed as days go by, finally breathes a little better. Banters rise and fall, words softening, Chaeyeon closes her eyes and thinks she can just feel Sakura lying beside her as their conversation accompanies the night growing older.

It feels like them...

“Chaeyeon,”  Sakura whispers, minutes deeper into the night, with Chaeyeon’s eyelids heavy and her consciousness already halfway into the dreamland. An amused snort sounds, the next words dipped in gentle fondness so familiar that Chaeyeon feels physically embraced and soothed into the welcoming slumber:

“Have a sweet dream.”

 

-

 

(Okay, so Chaeyeon is anxious, she will admit.

Anxious that in meeting each other again, they will find that they have changed.

Because she doesn’t want what she has with Sakura, this ease and comfort and openness and fondness and all the things that make them them, to change.

Feels rather terrified that it would, really.

So the day approaches, and Chaeyeon grasps at the building anxiety but now she also thinks, muses gently to herself,

Ah, so Saku-chan means this much to me.)

 

-

 

sakura: chaeyeon, I truly appreciate you sending the pic of your room to me

sakura: but I must let you know, that with my internet gone the whole flight it was the only interesting thing I could analyze because coffee has robbed me from any desire to sleep

sakura: so keeping all that in mind, it is with utmost affection, but also incredulity, that I must say

sakura: [attached picture: a very zoomed in picture of what looks like a remote, obvious from the grainy and blurry quality it holds. On the back of the remote is what seems to be a writing, as well as some red-colored pixels that might have been a heart]

sakura: you kept this?!?!?!?!?!?!

chaeyeon: .

chaeyeon: asdljfsld’ls;akd;fk

chaeyeon: how did you identify that???

sakura: I can recognize our remote anywhere

chaeyeon: just how bored were you in that plane

sakura: not the point. the point is that you, lee chaeyeon, stole a property from our former dorm

chaeyeon: I didn’t steal it!!

sakura: anything you say can be hold against you in a court of law

chaeyeon: saku-chan I swear, I can contact jayoung-unnie she can vouch for me—

sakura: I’m claiming custody!

chaeyeon: what

sakura: open up FBI is here

chaeyeon: I’m not sure FBI covers South Korea,

sakura: I said open up

sakura: unless you want me to stand in front of your door for hours

chaeyeon: ??

chaeyeon: .

chaeyeon: OH MY GOD

sakura: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

 

-

 

(In a true Sakura fashion, of course she’d pull something like this instead of just announcing her arrival like normal people would. Of course she’d grin with only a hint of abashed flush on her cheeks when Chaeyeon opens the door and balks at her actually being there. Of course she’d laugh—crisp and hearty even if a little tired—when Chaeyeon pulls her into a hug.

Of course she’d hug Chaeyeon back, head slotting comfortably into the crook of Chaeyeon’s neck, murmuring a soft ‘hi, it’s really good to see you again.’

Of course in the end—as they pull back from their hug and stand there, looking at each other, beaming smile painted on their faces—

They’re still them.

“Welcome—“ back, home, Chaeyeon thinks, breathes, “to Seoul.”

Sakura’s smile softens, hands squeezing Chaeyeon’s arms.

“Glad to be back,” she replies warmly, fondly, and God.

Miyawaki Sakura does mean so much to Lee Chaeyeon.

 

 

(END)