Chapter Text
sometimes mina presses her ear against the window like the raindrops hitting it can speak to her. she listens intently, always intently, waits patiently for the first sign of conversation.
sometimes nayeon sits next to her, curls into a blanket like a cat and watches mina listen to the rain and they’re both happy.
“it’s grey outside,” nayeon says, a thinly veiled twinkle in her throat. she’s already curled in the corner where the wall meets the window and mina smiles.
“weather said rainstorm,” she offers, answers what nayeon never pushes for.
“why do you like watching them?” nayeon asks instead of the question that burns a hole in her chest.
“it’s calming.” silence settles between them like an old friend, comfortable and unobtrusive until mina feels braveness brew in her chest and, “why do you like watching me?”
nayeon smiles like she’s been caught, and then brighter like she holds the key to unwind the universe and mina presses her ear to the window.
“it’s calming.”
[...]
sana is overexcited on the best of days, can’t sit still on most.
today her leg won’t stop shaking and mina’s heavy sighs are the only thing keeping her rooted to her spot.
“we should go do something,” sana rushes out, like the words might evaporate if she doesn’t speak then fast enough.
“like?” mina asks, half-laughs because rain is still pouring from the clouds and sana hates getting wet.
“like buy a city or start a fight or make a garden!” sana shouts, giggles gleefully and falls back onto mina like the weight of her imagination toppled her over.
mina’s smile stretches from coast to coast and she brushes sana’s stray hairs back with the tips of her fingers. “you’re crazy,” she says, a fact and a question and everything in between.
sana’s grin is warm enough to burn and she settles her head against mina’s lap with no second thought. “i’m crazy,” she says, a fact and an answer and mina laughs and sana is glowing. “you know,” she starts again, if only to avoid silence settling between them and rotting her bones, “contrary to popular belief, i don’t hate rain.”
“no?” mina asks, eyes trace over the words on the paper in front of her but she’s focused solely on sana’s voice.
“i like it at night,” sana sighs. “when there’s no one to talk to and the clouds start singing.”
mina thinks she knows what she means.
[...]
nayeon holds the rim of her mug instead of the handle and she’s always been too reckless for mina’s weak heart.
“you’ll drop it,” mina mumbles when it’s late, the only sounds in the house being nayeon’s humming in tune with the refrigerator’s.
“i won’t,” nayeon promises. “i have big hands,” she adds, slants her eyebrows suggestively. mina rolls her eyes if only because that’s the reaction nayeon was going for. “you know, i’ll make you fall for me one day, myoui,” nayeon says, means it, too.
“one day,” mina echoes. she doesn’t ask nayeon to promise.
“do you ever wonder about different timelines?” sometimes nayeon reminds mina of rain. sometimes, she sticks her ear out a little bit more and hears more behind nayeon’s words than she thinks she’s supposed to. “like, how different would my life be if i wore red shoes instead of black ones, or went out for breakfast instead of cooking, or fell in love instead of hiding?”
sometimes nayeon reminds mina of rain because she is so beautifully pensive and mina loves to watch her.
“it scares me,” mina says instead of an answer. “too many possibilities.” time only flows downstream, she thinks. “if i think about it then i think about regrets.”
“you have regrets, then?” nayeon asks, sips the last of her hot chocolate and puts both of their mugs in the sink before she huddles closer to mina than necessary. mina’s never minded much.
“everyone does. it’s inevitable, don’t you think?”
“that’s sad, isn’t it? the inevitability of something as permanent as regrets.” nayeon’s eyes look half-glazed over and mina wants to hold her thumbs under them, stop the tears before they can think to form.
“unifying experience of humankind, maybe,” she says. nayeon’s lips quirk up in a smile and mina feels like she’s won.
“maybe,” nayeon says, yawns a little bit. “want to play something?” she asks right after, barely enough time to move her hand away from her mouth.
“it’s three in the morning.” it’s not a rejection or an acceptance but nayeon hooks her fingers around mina’s and tugs anyway.
“i think you’re just scared to lose.”
mina is helpless to nayeon guiding her to the living room like a lost puppy on a leash. she lets nayeon win and pouts when she accuses her of doing such a thing and when they fall asleep on opposite ends of the couch, mina thinks about different timelines and how she wouldn’t change a single thing if it meant it would lead to this moment.
[...]
waves lap at the shore and kiss at mina’s ankles and she’s truly never felt more at home than in this moment. it’s hot outside—too hot for sleeping, just right for dancing with the ocean. in a strange turn of events, she was the one that pulled nayeon out of the house when the sun hit its peak and her skin was itching with something golden.
“you’re going to get a burn!” nayeon shouts from her spot under the shade of one of many spotted umbrellas sinking into the sand. mina cups her hands over her brows and somehow thinks that, even with all the distance in the world between them, she’d be able to see the stars in nayeon’s eyes.
“the sun loves me!” she calls back, feels entirely carefree for the first time in months when she throws her arms up and lets the wind move them as it pleases.
it’s still quiet at this time, most people in school or at work and mina selfishly allows herself to believe her and nayeon are the only people in this corner of the earth. allows herself to believe they can become wrapped up in each other and nothing else as nayeon pads her way through the sand and whines about how hot it is and slathers sunscreen on mina’s arms without asking.
the answer is always yes, anyway.
“maybe you were a mermaid in a past life,” nayeon muses when she wiggles her toes into the wet sand and sighs at the cool water splashing against her legs. mina looks at her sideways, smiles a little because nayeon naturally evokes that expression. “don’t look at me like that,” nayeon mumbles, rolls her eyes and mina wonders if all the pink on her cheeks is purely from the sun.
“like what.”
“like you think i’m funny.”
mina straightens her gaze, looks nayeon in the eyes. “okay.”
“that’s worse!” nayeon whines and mina laughs and laughs and then they both find themselves sitting in the waves. “you would be a mermaid because you love water,” nayeon explains seriously. “and you’re pretty.”
mina wonders if all the pink on her own cheeks is purely from the sun.
“if i was a mermaid then what were you?”
“a silly prince that fell for you, probably,” nayeon offers with so much nonchalance mina wonders if she imagined the words. then she tilts her head back so far her hat almost falls into the water but she doesn’t seem to mind and mina thinks she’s never looked more beautiful.
mina stands up then, water dripping from her shorts and leading a trail through the sand and there’s something exhilarating in knowing that nayeon’s curious eyes are following her every movement. she picks up a stray stick—tattered and half-broken but she figures it can do the job.
nayeon’s curiosity is never quite easily sated, and mina’s heart does a flip and then two in the cavity of her chest as she sees the older girl shyly make her way over to where she’s slicing shapes into the sand.
it’s easy, the way she can step back when she’s finished and not feel queasy with worry of what nayeon might say.
nayeon looks at the sand, looks at mina for a second longer and the smile that stretches at her lips makes mina’s heart jump into her throat.
“you forgot something,” nayeon mumbles, barely audible over waves washing in and out of their reach. she crouches down and the sun is beating on her back and mina knows the sand is hot against her fingers but she doesn’t stand up until she finishes with a self-satisfied smile.
and it’s easy when it’s there, written in the sand for the earth and the ocean and the clouds in the sky to see and to study.
mina and nayeon scrawled into the fibres of the universe and projected in the sand.
the waves are already starting to eat at the small crown and small mermaid that nayeon had crafted but mina thinks the image is burned into her memory forever.
[...]
there’s a thing about secrets and myths and stories that should be left untouched that mina’s mother told her when she was a child. said that some things are better left to the imagination, need not be debunked because the truth may be worse than the fable.
she’s always thought the attic was one of those things.
but mix a night of drinking with six curious girls and disaster is bound to happen.
it’s jeongyeon’s idea—of course it is—and jihyo is quick to second it, so naturally sana and momo follow suit. nayeon is simply where the party is and, just like that, mina’s night is decided for her.
“you know,” sana starts, innocent smirk on her face in all its contradictory glory. “ms. bae told me the attic was haunted once.” she says it with conviction and lets dramatic wickedness drip into her words like candle wax. it’s believable, because sana managed to establish a texting relationship with their landlord somewhere between the first and third month of their lease, and it’s believable because sana is sana.
“you’re such a liar,” momo grumbles, but everyone sees the way she clutches that much tighter to sana’s wrist.
“i’m such a liar,” sana repeats with a bright grin now—knows when momo is at her limits and there’s something tender in the way she never pushes.
“i can’t believe we’ve lived here for over a year and none of us have tried opening it.” it’s nayeon that speaks up, half-hiding behind mina and half-pretending like she’s brave enough to be here.
“for a reason, i’m sure,” sana argues weakly. mina sees the excitement sparkling just beneath the surface of her eyes and it ignites something in her, makes her feel like she’s free falling from a cliff instead of about to enter a maybe-haunted attic with too much wine coating her tongue. “if there’s really a ghost living up there i vote we sacrifice nayeon.”
nayeon pouts, clings to mina tighter in a way that twists her insides violently. “fine,” she mutters, “if i die i won’t have to finish my term paper.”
“step aside,” jihyo’s voice rings from behind them. she stands with a broom stick in hand and something fierce in her eyes and mina can’t help the tinkling laughter that spills from her lips if she tried. jihyo pointedly ignores it, stomps her feet like it’ll scare away any lingering spirits and then she reaches up to the sky and hooks the broomstick in the too-high handle of the attic door.
they all wait with bated breath as a ladder slides down to greet them, leading up to a frame of pure black and jeongyeon audibly gulps.
“go on, jeongie,” sana teases first, shoves the girl with her knee and watches as she stumbles forward.
there’s a cold gust of wind as jeongyeon grips the first rung on the ladder, something eerily familiar washing over them—something like finality. jeongyeon pushes past the nerves swimming in her eyes and disappears into the framed night sky.
it feels like she’s disappeared, truly. it feels like she’s stepped into another realm, like the attic door separates here from there and jeongyeon is a pioneer.
“jeongyeon-ah?” jihyo calls warily, broomstick clutched so tightly her fingers are white.
it’s silent, wicked creaks of old floorboards ringing out unprovoked in place of an answer.
“don’t be dumb, jeong,” nayeon huffs, steps closer to mina’s body because apparently the attic opens into winter and they’re freezing—this is what mina tells herself, to calm her racing heart and to ease the ache in her throat.
“yoo jeong—"
“boo!”
five piercing screams in perfect unison and jeongyeon’s giggles tie the harmony together.
her head sticks out from the frame and her smile is enough to light a million cities and mina climbs the ladder before she can think twice. it’s something intoxicating about jeongyeon, maybe, always has been. she can lead you into a death trap and make you feel warm all the while.
“atta girl, minari!” jeongyeon claps her on the back and her breath still smells of wine and mina is reminded that they really are a little bit drunk.
there’s no light other than a flashlight bulb glistening against the dusting corners of the foreign room. jeongyeon picks it up from where she set it facing the ceiling and shines the light around as the other four make their way up.
there’s something important in the air that wraps loosely around mina’s neck—a forgiving noose that lets her slip from its grasp as water slips from your palm. it’s cold and it’s dark and it’s—
“fucking huge,” nayeon breathes with a type of reverence that mina isn’t sure she’s heard from the other girl before.
“i can fully stand here,” jihyo announces and jeongyeon shines the flashlight on her with a snort.
“so it’s tall enough for children under the age of seven, nice!” she mockingly cheers.
everybody ignores the hard kick jihyo sends to her knee.
there’s some shuffling and some tripping and stumbling over each other as they move around and it’s not until momo lets out a sharp gasp do they realize that the attic isn’t as empty as they had expected.
“woah,” momo whispers, breathes out a sort of childish innocence that mina thinks she can see swirling in the air like the condensation of her breath.
a box is heaved and pushed and then cracked open like a treasure chest in the centre of their circle and six sets of fingers tremble in excitement.
none of them will be able to explain it in words rich enough to feed the feeble imagination of someone that was not in the room. they won’t be able to explain it in weeks or months or years—the feeling of brightness that kisses every corner of the attic once the chest is opened, the way a spotlight bursts from its centre like a surge of energy and paints them gold before being sucked back in like it never happened at all.
they all look at each other, eyes peering wide and open in the darkness of night as they try to understand what’s real from what isn’t.
“what’s inside,” nayeon finally caves, curiosity consuming any shred of self-restraint.
momo looks around the circle and licks her chapped lips when she sees all eyes on her. “okay,” she mumbles through a huff, reaches deep into the unknown and pulls out a binder layered with enough aged dust to fill a century.
“gross,” jeongyeon whispers, a little bit awestruck and not disgusted in the slightest. she leans forward eagerly, all apprehension replaced by an excited glint in her eyes.
“open it,” sana urges. her head rests where momo’s neck meets her shoulder and her droopy eyes make it increasingly obvious the the alcohol is running its course through her system.
inevitably, because sana is sana and momo has let her settle into the deepest pits of her heart, she opens the binder with trembling hands. her eyes scan the first page with furrowed brows and sana’s head tilts curiously as she reads over momo’s shoulder.
“what?” jihyo asks, leg bouncing as her entire body leans over the chest to get a glimpse.
“are you three fucking with us?” momo asks, eyes set into an annoyed glare as she looks between jeongyeon and nayeon and mina.
“what?” mina laughs. “what does it say?”
momo turns the binder outward and another gust of chill licks at its pages.
jihyo laughs then, too. “funny joke,” she rolls her eyes, flicking jeongyeon’s shoulder. she turns to do the same to mina but her face is hardened in confusion and jihyo forces another laugh out anyway. “c’mon, guys, don’t push it.”
“i don’t know what this is,” mina mumbles, flipping through the pages and feeling dread settle like an anchor in her stomach.
“that’s literally you and nayeon,” sana huffs out, nerves pulled taut as she sits up straight.
“wait,” nayeon finally speaks, grabbing mina’s wrist to stop on a page filled with newspaper clippings. “roommates killed in house fire,” she reads out.
mina’s eyes dart around the photo that occupies the bottom half of the newspaper page, sees her’s and nayeon’s smiling eyes in front of an unfamiliar house. it’s her, she knows, but it’s someone else, too. someone that looks brighter and weathered all at once and her throat clogs with unprovoked tears at the sight of her reflection.
“suspected arson,” jeongyeon continues like the words pain her. “is this a joke?” she asks, eyes darting frantically between nayeon and mina. “because it’s not funny.”
nayeon’s face turns downward into a scowl as she forces the picture in front of jeongyeon’s face. “when have i ever had hair this long?” she asks harshly, watches jeongyeon soften considerably.
“hold on,” momo mutters finally, face pale. “that’s our house.”
“what?” sana leans forward to peer at the photo of the non-mina and non-nayeon, posing cheekily in front of a house that is definitely not their own. “our house doesn’t look like that, mo.”
“no,” momo grumbles, pulling the binder from nayeon’s hands and laying it in the centre. she points to the corner, “see?” she asks, watches recognition wash over their faces.
“the creepy oak tree,” jihyo whispers.
silence settles into the grooves and edges of the buried history unveiled before them and jeongyeon squirms in anticipation.
“doppelgängers are a thing,” she excuses, eyes flitting around the room like focusing on one spot—one on person—would be dangerous. “i saw one girl find hers at a mall and then, like, six other people posted photos looking just like them.”
sana sits up on her knees and takes one of jeongyeon’s shaking hands between hers. she laughs a bright chuckle that scares away the darkness but mina can see the nervousness pulsing through her pupils.
“jeongie’s right,” she laughs again. “this is just... a really crazy coincidence.” nobody says a word. nobody moves or speaks or breathes and sana clasps her hands together. “we should try to get some sleep.”
and nobody can fight it when sana’s pleading eyes meet theirs, and nobody can muster up the courage to say anything more than a goodnight before their doors shut behind them and their locks click like it’ll keep the demons away.
mina pads into the bathroom with her bare feet and gentle steps and queasiness pulls at her stomach, makes her wobble on her path before she finds purchase gripping the porcelain sink.
she looks up into her reflection with tired eyes, tries to see the woman in the photo, tries to notice the brush of colour on her cheekbones that made her look ethereal, the waves flowing through her hair like the most tamed rolling ocean. she feels something toxic and gruelling slip its way up her throat and turns on the cold water to keep the feverish heat at bay.
she washes her hands and counts how many times the left passes over her right and the nausea slips away like a thief in the night.
[...]
the attic becomes a tale that is wordlessly agreed to never be spoken about again. the morning after was filled with bloodshot eyes and nervous smiles as they tiptoed around each other with fear lingering in every corner.
it went back to normal quickly, with jeongyeon teasing momo and momo teasing jihyo and then there was boisterous laughter too loud for them to fear any spirits that may live in the closet.
tonight, nayeon and sana have turned the living room into a whirlwind of psychology notes, jeongyeon and momo and jihyo cook something maybe edible, and mina locks her bedroom door.
“how are the puppies?” mina asks through the receiver as she aimlessly taps her fingers against her keyboard, frowning at the random words that appear before her.
“they’re warming up,” tzuyu says on the other end, as if she hasn’t been updating mina on them every second of every day since she picked them up from the shelter. as if she doesn’t know mina has other words somewhere, dancing sadly through her mouth before slipping back into her lungs with each inhale. “they love ray,” she laughs then, tries to brighten up the storm cloud she can hear brewing through the phone. “him and kaya napped together when i went to visit your parents.”
it’s supposed to help, mina knows. tzuyu paints the colours of kobe in as many words as her vocabulary will allow, lets mina close her eyes and be at home whenever they find the time to call.
tonight, though, mina’s eyes fill with tears and tzuyu’s heart clenches a million miles away.
“i miss you,” mina says through a watery breath. she feels silly, because tzuyu will come visit soon and mina will take her to the best restaurants in seoul and they’ll laugh and hug and—
and tzuyu will leave again. and mina will be reminded that she is not home and nothing is permanent.
“i miss you, too,” tzuyu says and mina thinks maybe that’s one thing that will ring true every day of her life.
[...]
momo’s eyes blink open blearily against the bright sun setting through her curtains. she turns to stretch, fatigue bleeding from her muscles and out her fingertips as she reaches to the ceiling and then—
“ow,” she hears from next to her. her lips peel apart into a smile almost too wide to contain as her fingers lay to rest on sana’s face.
“you feel pretty,” momo mumbles, voice coarse from sleep. she curls over into sana’s arms and listens to the content hum she lets out.
sana has her eyes closed and momo has half a mind to whine until she opens them, but there’s smile whispering against sana’s cheeks that makes her bite her tongue. she holds her breath as the bold sunlight dusts over the slopes of sana’s cheeks and the curves of her lips and the planes of her jaw and she thinks a beauty like this must go against the laws of humankind. she thinks maybe, definitely, she’ll find it written in one of jihyo’s books about policies and legality and she’ll smile in sana’s face and say i knew you weren’t real.
“you stare very loudly,” sana mumbles. momo’s chest constricts when she realizes her eyes are open and the orange of the sun dances in them and makes them golden.
momo lifts sana’s hand and presses a kiss to each finger and holds them against her heart. sana’s smile grows wider, and wider still when she feels her heartbeat thud faster and faster and—
“we should get up,” momo whispers like it’s a secret and sana’s pout is unavoidable.
“but we have such a good thing here,” she whines—means the warmth and the cuddling and the close proximity but she could mean a million other things, too, and momo feels the first sparks of something ugly flaring deep inside her.
“somebody will be home soon,” she finally builds the courage to say. something sad kisses the sunlight in sana’s eyes and momo tells herself it’s only the moon doing its job.
she detangles herself from the mess of limbs that lay in sana’s bed, presses her lips to sana’s cheek in a half-apology for the thing that neither of them can explain. she steps into her clothes and out into the hallway and she turns to see sana already watching her—always watching her.
“can we watch a movie later?” sana asks like she knows the answer and momo nods like she knows they’re still okay. she wonders how much longer they have until a movie won’t be enough to mend the unknown between them.
she swivels on her heels, dragging her feet along the hardwood and grips the railing as she reaches the staircase. her foot is barely planted on the first step when a creaking door echoes down the corridor and pulls her gaze.
“mina?” she calls, sees the girl peeking just her head into her own bedroom. mina turns to the sound and her face is pale and momo’s feet are icicles on the floor.
mina smiles at her then, and it feels like the pictures on the wall sway playfully in time with it—like they move with the light it carries until it reaches momo on the other end of the hall.
momo’s heart holds its hands out and catches it, pulls the light into her chest and she’s startled by the sudden warmth melting through her body. she opens her mouth to speak again, ask a question that her tongue has not yet untangled, but mina slips into her room and the door closes behind her and the photos stop dancing.
she stares at the closed door as emptiness fills her chest where the light quickly dims. “huh,” she breathes out, face twisted into confusion as she continues down the stairs.
“momo,” sana calls then, her door just barely cracked open. momo cranes her neck to catch her gaze around the corner of the staircase and sees her cellphone held between her bare shoulder and her ear. “can you check if mina’s keys are in the kitchen? she thinks she forgot them at home.”
it’s near habitual, the way she almost begins to turn back, almost begins to hop down the stairs to carry out whatever sana asks of her. but now, her eyebrows furrow and her breath comes out in a sigh.
“why can’t she check herself?” she asks, a little petulant and maybe a little bit offended that mina ignored her.
“she’s at the library still,” sana answers distractedly.
“what?” momo asks, hairs standing straight on the back of her neck before her brain has time to catch up. “isn’t she home?”
sana laughs in a way that would make momo’s stomach turn inside out if she didn’t already feel on the verge of sickness. “minari,” she coos into the phone. “are you home?” and momo can hear the static giggle that mina lets out through the receiver and her feet sound like thunder in her ears as she dashes down the hallway.
she throws mina’s bedroom door open and her stomach lurches at the sight of nothing.
“mo?” sana calls. she’s behind momo now, face painted different shades of concerned and momo’s lungs heave with a type of urgency that she can’t understand.
“sorry,” she mumbles out. “i just—i thought i saw her.” sana’s hand rubs deep into the muscles of her shoulder and momo laughs. “must still be half asleep, or something.”
and then she goes downstairs, and she finds mina’s keys, and she leans into sana’s gentle presses and loving kisses.
but she can’t stop the warmth licking at her heart and turning her blood to fire.