Archive of Our Own ^beta

When Mina had first met her fianceé, it had been on a summer afternoon, when the sun was shining brightly in Osaka, Japan. Both of them had been invited to a very important company brunch, and Mina had been quiet, and he had been so charming, always trying to make her giggle. She had fallen for him and his dashing smile almost instantly.

It wasn’t long before the both of them were dating, then engaged to be married soon after. Things had moved so fast — she had a ring on her finger after just a year of dating, but Mina had been convinced that he was the one, even if he cost her a couple of friendships along the way. After having decided to focus most of her time to plan the Wedding, Mina quit her job, secure in her decision, even if she did enjoy working as Assistant Manager for her old company, her fiancée seemed happier that way. Less threatened by her. And she still had her father’s pension money saved for emergencies. She figured she’d be okay, she’d always been before.

It had been a particularly stressful day of planning the wedding when she got home sighing and stumbling out of her high heels, whining when her feet touched the cold marble floor. She pondered on opening a rosé bottle for a second before she noticed how eerily quiet the house sounded. She called her fiancée’s name to no avail— he was supposed to be home from work already. She frowned and sent him a text, before climbing up the stairs to see if he was taking a nap. 

When Mina arrived at the bedroom, she found the entire place pristine clean, but her closet and jewelry case were emptied out— her wedding dress included. Gasping, she reached for her phone and dialed her boyfriend’s number, hands shaking and fearing for the worst, until after the third time she called he picked up on the third ring.

“I’m sorry, Mina.” The voice on the other end of the phone said. “I just can’t do this.”

Mina’s throat had dried up so quickly she almost coughed. “Do what?”

“Marry you. And I’m sorry about the money.”

“The mo—?”

He hung up. The nerve of men.

That’s how she ends up at her ex-roommates house, Jihyo, soaking wet from the rain.

“Holy shit,” is the first thing that comes out of her mouth when she sees Mina standing on her doorstep. “Myoui Mina?”

“Hi,” she greets awkwardly, shifting from one foot to the other.

“It’s been like,” Jihyo shakes her head in disbelief. “Like four years.”

“May I come in?” 

After Jihyo nods, she lets Mina inside her tiny apartment, with dark blue walls and empty pizza boxes on the small coffee table, right in front of a green couch. Mina makes an effort not to stare, but it’s hard not to.

“Sorry, this place is a shithole,” Jihyo says, making a face at the mess. “I’m sure you’re used to things looking fancy-er.”

“So were you,” Mina replies while Jihyo bends down to throw away the pizza box.

Jihyo huffs, not looking at her. “Well, having a rich family doesn’t mean you don’t make bad financial decisions. Or that you’re immune to taxes.”

Mina cringes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...” 

“It’s okay,” Jihyo shakes her head, throwing the box in the garbage and cleaning her hands on her ripped jeans. “My dad’s in jail for tax evasion and we lost all of our money. Yeepee.”

Mina looks around, still wet from her hair to her toes, her shoes making a wet sound when she moves too much. Jihyo curses under her breath when she notices and disappears down the hall, excusing herself to get a towel.

“So,” she calls from the bathroom. “Why are you here? Excuse me if I don’t believe you were just in the neighborhood.”

“Uhm...” Mina scratches the back of her head, even if Jihyo can’t see her. “What if I told you I’m just visiting you?”

Jihyo reappears then, a purple towel in her hand. She hands it to Mina, who takes it with equally apologetic and grateful eyes. “Not really. You haven’t called me once in the last three years. I don’t even think you follow me on Insta.”

Mina dabs the towel on her face, sighing. Then she wraps it around herself, feeling herself begin to shake.

“I’m in trouble.”

Jihyo raises an eyebrow at her.

“Then why come to me?”

“You’ve never been able to say no to a wet dog.” Mina shrugs, the corners of her lips starting to tremble, her vision growing blurry. “Oh, Jihyo. I don’t know what to do...”

Jihyo’s hard attitude melts right then, her brow furrowing with concern, her scold transforming into a grimace. She wraps Mina in a hug and Mina lets herself be hugged— she hasn’t had any time to process what happened to her until then. She hadn't even let herself cry.

“Shh, it’s okay, what happened?” Jihyo runs her fingers through Mina’s wet short brown hair, comforting her. It works— Jihyo’s touch has always been like magic, motherly. She’s always known what to say, what to do. “I’ll make you some tea, you’re freezing and it’s summer. ”

Jihyo places her hand on Mina's back and gently guides her to the couch, and disappears into her tiny kitchen to put the kettle on. Mina takes this opportunity to finally open up and after fifteen minutes she has a warm cup of (strawberry?) tea on her hands, and her hair is mostly dried.

“He just left me,” Mina shakes her head, staring into her pink cup. “He took all of my money and left me. He emptied out the shared bank account and he convinced me not to sign a prenup. And I— I don’t have anyone else. I quit my job, I spent every penny on this wedding, and I don’t have any friends and I didn’t know where else to go...”

“What about your house?” Jihyo asks. “Can’t you sell it to get some money?”

“The house is in his name too,” Mina shakes her head. “I could sue, but I don’t have the money, and I don’t know where he is, and I—” panic rises all the way up her throat, like vomit, and for a second she can’t breathe.

Sensing her distress, Jihyo places a soft hand on hers. “It’s okay. You have me. This place isn’t much, but you can stay here until you get back on your feet.” 

Mina breathes a sigh of relief, leaning into the touch. 

“Thank you...”

Jihyo pats her hand. “You’re a smart girl, you have a Masters's degree. You’ll figure it out.”

Mina smiles, weakly, the smile not quite reaching her eyes. Sometimes, she feels anything but smart.

She sleeps on Jihyo’s couch that night, wrapped in an itchy blanket and a hard rock for a pillow, and imagines it’ll be like this for many nights to come. She goes to sleep, lonely quiet tears streaming down her face.

Mina meets Jihyo’s friends soon after — the next day to be exact, when one of them barges in the morning after Mina arrives, waking her up with a start.

“Park! You won’t believe what just—” the girl stops in her tracks. “Oh. Who are you?”

“... Mina,” she replies after a second, before Jihyo’s head pops from the hallway. 

“Nayeon? What the hell are you doing here at—” she looks down her phone to check the time and curses under her breath. “Shit! I’m late for work.”

When Jihyo disappears once again, the girl rolls her eyes and turns to look at Mina once again. 

“I’m Nayeon.”

“Hi...” 

After a moment of silence, Nayeon plops down on the loveseat next to the couch, resting her feet on the coffee table. Mina checks her phone half-heartedly, expecting a text from her ex, but she finds it as empty as she feels. She bites back a sigh.

“Another stray, huh?” Nayeon looks at her, pointing with her chin.

“Huh?”

“Crashing the good ol’ couch,” she nods. “Jihyo’s good with strays like us. She’ll help as much as she can.”

Mina blushes. 

“I guess.” She wouldn’t think of herself as a stray, as someone in need of help— It makes her feel slightly strange, so she clears her throat to explain. “I was just spending the night. I’m not staying for long. I just need to find a new job and get back on my feet.”

“Heh,” Nayeon chuckles. “Isn’t that what we always say?”

Mina doesn’t really know how to respond to that, so she decides to change the subject instead.

“How do you know Jihyo?”

“We used to work together,” Nayeon nods, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I had just lost my apartment, and I had dropped out of college ‘cause I couldn’t afford it, and… well, Ji took me in.”

Jihyo appears then, fastening the buttons of a uniform vest. “Nay, let’s go. If I don’t get there in time Momo’s going to eat all of the good donuts.”

“Yeah, okay. I have to do early work assignments for the students anyway,” She nods. “And we gotta stop by that store to buy beers for tonight.”

Jihyo looks around for her keys.

“Tonight?”

“We’re seeing the girls tonight, remember?” Nayeon asks, groaning when Jihyo shakes her head no. “Dude, you always forget about our get-togethers. This is the only night off Sana gets from work.”

“Shit, I forgot,” she shakes her head, finding her keys on the kitchen counter. “My brain is the size of a peanut.”

“We know,” Nayeon adds. Then, “We’ll have to drive Momo too. She sold her car last week.”

“Did she really?” Jihyo makes a face, walking towards the door. Nayeon shrugs.

“She needed the cash.”

“Screw being poor, honestly,” Jihyo sighs, then turns to look at Mina as she turns the keys and opens the front door. “Mina, make yourself comfortable. I’ll be back by six. You can eat whatever you find in the fridge.”

“Okay...” then she adds, in a tiny voice, “Thanks.”

Nayeon winks.

“See ya then.”

She spends most of the day watching TV or scrolling through her phone. She thinks about texting her ex-fiancée, thinking that that might make her a little less miserable to just tell him to go to hell, but the thought makes her feel sick for some reason. The sadness hasn’t fully settled into bitterness just yet.

Mina makes herself a sandwich by noon with whatever she manages to find inside Jihyo’s fridge — some cheese and ham and tomatoes — and sits down in this strange living room, in this apartment that isn’t hers, and fights the urge to weep like a baby when she thinks of the day before.

She decides to take a nap by two PM and is woken up three hours later by the sound of keys and the door right next to the couch opening. Mina opens her eyes to the sight of Jihyo and three other girls — she recognizes Nayeon immediately from that morning, but not the redhead and the girl with black hair.

“And he said— Oh!” One of the two girls says — the one with orange hair — stops in her tracks and speaks. “Is this Mina?”

“I’m sorry,” The other girl says apologetically. “We didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“It’s okay...” Mina says, a small smile on her lips to reassure them. “I was just taking a nap anyway.”

“Well, we got beers,” Nayeon grins, holding up grocery bags with her left hand. “Time to party!”

Mina rises from the couch, silently praying that her hair isn’t a mess. Jihyo disappears into the kitchen while her friends busy themselves around the kitchen table.

“Ugh, it’s finally Friday,” Sana whines as she sits down on the dinner table, and once Nayeon sits next to her, she lifts her feet and places them across her lap. “I’m so fried I could become an egg.”

“How’s the pet store job going?” Momo says, opening a bag of groceries. For a second Mina doesn’t really know where to sit, but Nayeon pats the chair next to hers, so she settles there.

“Fine,” Sana makes a face.

Jihyo returns from the kitchen then, holding trays of food — chips, chicken nuggets, all clearly store-bought, and Mina can’t remember the last time she ate something like this. Probably because she’s never eaten something like this. It’s a strange thing to see Jihyo so settled into this lifestyle when Mina thinks back on the woman she used to be. She’s always been kind and friendly, but Mina still remembers Jihyo sipping champagne during auctions, eating shrimp and caviar and fraternizing with millionaires on the daily.

Now they are both eating dinosaur chicken nuggets in an eight hundred thousand won apartment. Funny how life works out sometimes.

“How did you end up sleeping on Jihyo’s couch?” Momo asks, then adds, “I’m sorry if it seems rude, you just don’t seem the type to crash into lots of couches.”

Mina’s on her third beer, so she doesn’t really mind explaining why. She tells them all about her ex and her failed wedding and the millions of wons she owes to catering companies and her expensive dress and venue.

“How haven’t you hired a hitman to kill him yet?” Nayeon asks in disbelief.

“She doesn’t have the money for it,” Jihyo chuckles, and Mina smiles half-heartedly.

“Basically...”

“We could steal from the safe my boss keeps in the warehouse,” Sana giggles, drunk with beer.

“Where did you work again?” Mina frowns. 

“JYP supermarket chain,” Sana replies, a bottle of beer in her hand. “I work on the one near Dubeon. I’m a cashier there.”

“So he just keeps a safe in the warehouse?”

“It’s most of the store’s money, apparently,” she explains. “Though I’m not supposed to know about it. I don’t think he knows I know... Hm.”

Mina hums, deep in thought.

The idea doesn’t come out of her mouth until an hour later, when the others are giggling about something Nayeon said about her boss. They’ve all been complaining about their jobs one way or the other the entire evening, and Mina has nothing left; nothing to lose. That’s a scary thing. A woman with nothing to lose.

“Let’s do it,” Mina says.

Momo’s halfway into finishing a bag of Doritos. “Do what?”

“Rob the store.”

“... What store?”

“The one you work at, Sana,” Mina replies, slightly exasperated but mostly feeling a strange sort of thrill. “Let’s do it. You said your boss keeps a safe in the warehouse, right? Then let’s steal it.”

“You’re—” Jihyo says, then shakes her head. “You’re joking, aren’t you?”

“I know it sounds crazy,” Mina begins, only to be interrupted by Nayeon’s laugh.

“It’s not crazy it’s demented,” she corrects.

“We need the money, don’t we? And Sana’s boss is an asshole if her stories are anything to go by, so he deserves it, and it’s not a small business, so they won’t really suffer from losing money, and —”

Jihyo holds up her hand to shut her up for a second. “Hold on, you’re serious? You want to commit a felony? You want to rob a supermarket ‘cause your husband left you at the altar? And since when did you start talking so much?”

Mina’s face flushes a deep shade of red, not from the alcohol.

“Mina, what’s your zodiac sign?” Sana asks, before being silenced by a smack in the arm from Momo.

“I’m sorry but this is insane,” Jihyo concludes. “If we got caught we’d go to federal prison and I’d snitch on all of your asses to get a plea.”

“We won’t, though,” Mina shakes her head. “Sana knows everything she needs to know about the store so we can make our way around it.”

“I’m sorry, Sana is your selling point on this?” Nayeon asks, amused.

“Hey!” Sana whines. “I could rob a store if I wanted to.”

“Sana, no offense, but you once almost passed out when Momo ran a red light. You don’t have a criminal bone on your body.”

Before Mina can comment, Sana does first. “Yeah, but I— I really need the money.”

“You’re considering it?” Momo asks in disbelief.

“Grandpa is sick,” Sana shrugs, her eyes avoiding everyone else’s. “I don’t have enough to cover the medical bills and they are going to evict us if I don’t choose between paying for his treatment of our apartment and I… I need the money...”

Silence falls upon the five of them.

“Fuck, Sana,” Momo murmurs, reaching her hand to stroke hers. “I didn’t know that.”

“I was too embarrassed,” she shakes her head. “I got fired from my second job and I’m pretty sure I’ll get fired from this one at some point too. So… if we were to… hypothetically rob a store… I might be, hypothetically … interested.”

Mina blinks in surprise.

“You would be?”

Sana’s cheeks are flushed — from the alcohol and embarrassment. “Yeah.”

“I want to go to that Dance Academy,” Momo says all of a sudden. “I know I said I didn’t, but I really do. And I— I can’t afford it. And I never went to college, so no job actually wants me, and I want to move out from my parent’s house once and for all so I— I might be interested too.”

Jihyo’s eyes widen. “You lot want to orchestrate a robbery? Like actually? Like you three brainiacs are going to pull off a robbery?”

“My parents are losing their house,” Nayeon says after a second. “And being a teacher… the money’s just not enough to help them.”

“Nayeon, you too?”

She rolls her eyes at Jihyo. “Don’t act so self-righteous,” she says. “We’re all fucking broke. We need the money and it’s not a terrible idea, isn’t it? How long have you lived in this place? Don’t you want to show those bastards that shunned you and your family that you’re just as good without your good girl money?”

Jihyo’s nostrils flare open. Nayeon struck a nerve.

“Fuck off,” she groans. “Of course I want to move out of this place.”

“Then...” Mina says, all four pairs of eyes landing on her. “Let’s rob that store.”

Jihyo ponders on the idea for a moment, drawing her lips into a thin line. After a couple of seconds, she says, “Fine. But if we get caught, I’m ratting on all of you. Even you, Sana! And especially you, Nayeon!”

They leave most of the planning to Mina, given that it was her idea in the first place. Mina doesn’t mind it as much as she lets them think she does — the truth is that she finds herself liking the plan more and more. If she’d continued to see her therapist they would’ve probably said she’s almost using this as a replacement for her wedding day. You want to rob a supermarket ‘cause your husband left you at the altar? Jihyo had said, so Mina saves the date: July 15th. She marks it on her calendar, in red ink, her very own V for Vendetta.

But only when the day comes does Mina finally realize how much of a bad idea it actually is. Somehow it didn't sink in the day before, when Momo had accidentally hit Nayeon on the face with one of the fake guns Nayeon had confiscated from her students and somehow managed to sneak out of the school; or this morning, when Sana had asked if they could use cute nicknames for the operation and had crossed out Mina’s name in the whiteboard Jihyo had hung in the kitchen and wrote ‘ Penguin ’ right next to it. 

Mina puts on her ski mask — trip to the mountains, she had told the unsuspecting store clerk — and urges the others to do the same, who follow suit a bit reluctantly. Sana is already inside working, waiting for their signal that they’re about to barge in. Nayeon starts tapping her foot against the floor of the van.

“Are we actually doing this?” Momo asks, a tremble in her voice. “We’re committing a felony?”

“I can’t go to jail, you guys. They’ll eat us alive there, we’re too pretty for prison.” Nayeon whines. 

“C’mon,” Jihyo rolled her eyes, face hidden by her mask. “You were all onboard an hour ago.”

“You seem convinced now...” Mina says, frowning. “You were the only one who didn’t want to do this before.”

“I actually can’t keep living in that rat-infested apartment anymore,” she shivers. “And you need to do this for some strange psychological reason, and Sana’s grandpa is ill, Momo deserves to go to that expensive dance academy, and Nayeon needs the money to help her parents, so yeah. I’m on board now.”

A small silence settles between them. Mina’s breath comes out slightly ragged, mostly because of the adrenaline that’s rushing through her veins — planning on stealing a supermarket is one thing, going through with it is a whole other thing  — but also because Jihyo is right.  There’s a reason they are doing this. Momo hasn’t had any luck in the job department after she dropped out of college to follow her dreams of being a dancer. And being a store clerk doesn’t cut it for Sana when she has to pay for all of her grandfather’s meds and medical bills. Nayeon’s been in and out of jobs for years after she got fired off her last one after standing up to her inappropriate boss, and Jihyo’s dream of having her own restaurant has only gone downhill after she lost it to a storm. 

A familiar face flashes inside Mina’s head, and she has to grip the door handle. The face of a person who’s left her with nothing.

“Let’s fucking do this.”

“Fuck it,” Nayeon curses, turning the door handle and stepping out of the van with one of the fake guns. Jihyo takes the opportunity to text Sana the keyword.

From: JihyoHyoHyo

To: SanaKimBap

What do you want to have for dinner?

As far as robberies go, this is one quite simple and goes as smoothly as one would expect an armed robbery to go. Sana opens the back door for them, and the four of them step into the breakroom. No one is there — Sana’s made sure of that, everyone is busy with work. Mina turns around and goes over the plan with the other three who nod as she speaks. At this point, they know it like the back of their hand, but it comforts Mina to go over it one last time. Momo gives her a look before she opens the door and Mina nods.

Adrenaline pumps into her veins when chaos breaks loose. Nayeon and Momo aim with their guns as Jihyo tells everyone to remain calm, and points her own gun at Sana, urging her to show her where the warehouse is. There are no cameras there, so once they are out of sight, Sana whines.

“That was so cool,” she says. “I wish I could point fake guns at everyone. Especially my stupid boss...”

“Focus,” Jihyo warns her.

“Right,” she nods. “The safe.”

Sana guides them to the supplies closet in the warehouse — Sana explained she stumbled upon it when she once dropped a bottle of pickle juice in the meat aisle when it was her turn to close for the night and she didn’t want it to be discounted from her pay so she tried to clean it herself — and they find the safe there, hidden behind the bottles of bleach and the brooms. It all starts to look very suspicious from there on.

“Why is this here...?” Mina asks under her breath, slightly confused. “This makes no sense.”

“Let’s find out what’s inside,” Sana replies, a bundle of nerves. 

Jihyo puts her skills to use. It only takes her five minutes and three hairpins to open the safe. 

“My door gets jammed all the time,” she explains. "Living in a shithole apartment has its perks."

The last thing Mina expects when she opens the safety is to find six hundred million won tucked safely inside. 

“What the fuck,” Jihyo chokes out.

“There’s...” Mina is almost dumbfounded. “This isn’t normal... It can’t be.”

“Do you think—?” Sana asks, but gets choked up in her own words.

“Let’s freak out later,” Jihyo shakes her head, grabbing banknotes and storing them hastily inside their bag. “Preferably when Nayeon and Momo don’t have to pretend to be aiming guns at people in aisle six.”

Mina nods, understanding that they should do things now and ask questions later. The cops will be here soon. Mina focuses back on the mission, and before they come back into the store, she turns to Sana.

“We can’t seem suspicious,” she says. “You need to be visibly upset.”

Sana grows panicked. “I can’t just cry on command!”

Jihyo purses her lips.

“Puppies under the rain.”

“Oh my God ,” Sana says, and the tears start falling from her eyes almost instantly.

Mina leaves the store feeling uneasy. The adrenaline wears off by the time they get to Jihyo’s apartment, missing the cops by a few blocks, and instead worry settles into her gut, not because they might get caught, but because of what they found. She can barely hear her own thoughts over Nayeon and Momo’s giggles, and Jihyo is the one to put a stop to them, apparently feeling the same way she does.

“This isn’t actually normal, guys,” Jihyo throws the bag over the table and opens the bag, revealing the pile of green banknotes. “A normal, unremarkable supermarket store doesn’t just have almost five hundred thousand dollars hiding in their warehouse supply closet.”

“Who cares?” Momo asks. “We still have the money!”

“ We do,” Mina says, busying her teeth with her bottom lip, restlessly walking back and forth in Jihyo’s tiny apartment. “This could mean bad news...”

“Like what?”

“Like this is dirty money and someone’s going to come looking for it.”

Nayeon gulps, her mood damping considerably. “Well, no one knows we did it, right? So it doesn’t really matter, we’re okay.”

“You’re assuming we won’t get caught, ”Jihyo replies, earning her a smack from Momo.

“Don’t say stuff like that!” she says.

“Sana’s covering for us with the cops right now, no one knows it was us, we avoided all the cameras, we didn’t leave DNA, and no one cares about a robbery at a small supermarket,” Nayeon adds, visibly trying to calm herself down. “We are fine .”

“That’s right,” Momo nods. 

“I hope you’re right...” Mina murmurs, a bitter taste settling in her tongue.

“Let’s manifest. I'll get some candles.”

A week later no one comes looking for the money, so no one has enough patience to wait around to see what happens. Sana pays for her grandfather’s surgery that goes without any complications, Momo starts attending the dance academy she wanted, Nayeon’s parents keep their house and she buys a red convertible, and Jihyo says goodbye to her shitty apartment and quits her job at the car dealership that made her so miserable.

Mina ends up getting a job in a local café and renting a small but dignified apartment near a lovely park she likes to take walks in occasionally. She saves most of it for a lawyer… just in case her ex-fiancée wants to show his stupid face around. She spends her days watching TV, craving to learn crochet off of Youtube, and flirting with the cute customers. At night, she sits by the windowsill and drinks a cup of warm tea before going to bed. It’s by far her favorite part of her new routine.

It’s then when she sees it. The hooded figure in the park.

At first she doesn’t mind it much. It’s dark and sometimes teens like to aimlessly wander around the park to smoke weed or drink alcohol, so she thinks it might be one of those when she sees them. But then the person looks up at her building and stares.  Mina thinks she’s imagining things, but the woman looks right at her, and she feels panic rising all the way to her throat. The woman is tall, and she doesn’t look like a teenager, and her eyes are cold and defiant and — Mina shuts the drapes and turns off her lights, not able to maintain eye contact, a chill of fear running down her spine. 

She runs to her front door and locks it, then wipes her hands on her jeans nervously. Her heart is beating so fast inside her chest she feels like it might run away.

Mina wonders what she should do for a while, but the truth is that it was nothing. What is she going to do? Call the police to tell them someone was staring at her? Even then, she doesn’t really want to invite the cops into her home and draw any unwanted attention to herself after what she’s done. She barely gets any sleep that night — she thinks about calling Jihyo or Sana, but decides better than to frighten them when virtually nothing happened — she tosses and turns in her bed and only gets a few hours of sleep. 

The morning later, feeling slightly calmer, she steps out of her room and peeks through her window to see if the hooded figure is still there, but it’s just the usual crowd of mothers and children, and Mina sighs, relieved. 

She goes to unlock her door when something calls her attention. A note. Someone slid it from under her door, and Mina’s blood runs cold.

I KNOW YOUR SECRET. MEET ME IN THE PARK TOMORROW AT MIDNIGHT AND BRING YOUR FRIENDS JIHYO, NAYEON, MOMO AND SANA TOO.

That’s how she finds herself in the park right in front of her apartment, wrapped in a winter coat in the middle of August, standing with her friends, shivering but not from the cold. Momo seems more frightened than she’s ever seen her, and Sana has been uncharacteristically quiet the entire time. Mina feels like she’s walking into her own funeral.

“I told you this was a bad idea,” Jihyo groans, an angry frown on her features.

“Now’s not the time to start casting stones,” Nayeon says, snarling. “You spent as much of the money as we did.”

“And now we're going to die because of that,” she spits out. 

“Stop it...” Mina says, glancing at Sana’s increasingly panicked state. “You’re scaring all of us.”

“It’s the truth,” she mumbles, shaking her head.

“Mina,” A voice greets, forcing their bickering to an end.

A figure sits on one of the park benches. This time, the woman is not hiding; she has a white turtleneck on, black pants, and in another lifetime Mina might’ve thought she was beautiful. Now, she just finds her terrifying. Surrounding her there are four other girls — one with long legs and long brown hair that looks extremely intimidating, and another one with short black hair and bangs, next to two smaller girls; one with orange hair and a blonde.

“ What is this? Hobbit convention? ” Nayeon murmurs under her breath. Jihyo smacks her behind the head, barely concealing her chuckle.

“Glad you could all make it,” the woman smirks, smug.

“Who are you?” Momo questions nervously.

“I’m Jeongyeon,” she responds, crossing her legs, stretching her arms and resting them on the top of the bench.

“How do you know who I am?” Mina asks, her voice sounding more on edge than she had hoped.

“I know everything about you,” the woman smirks. “Didn’t I say so in the note? I know your secret. And by secret I mean I know about your little felony.”

Jihyo’s nostrils flare open. “You can’t prove anything.”

“No, I can’t,” she shrugs, pulling something from the pocket of her jeans. “But I can make you pay for taking what’s mine.”

Sana gasps when she makes out the shape of a gun, taking a step back. Mina chokes on her own spit, raising her hands in surrender, Momo cowering in fear in them. 

“We don’t want any problems, okay?” Jihyo says, hands trembling.

“I know you don’t,” Jeongyeon says, nodding. “That’s why you will pay me back. You see, the wons you stole from us you now owe us.”

“But we already spent most of it.” Nayeon chuckles nervously. “There’s no way we can give it all back.”

The tallest one of the bunch shifts on her feet, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She says, “Then you’ll have to work for it.”

Mina swallows.

“How?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Jeongyeon replies. “Chae.”

She motions for one of the girls with her hand — the one with red hair — and she grabs a black bag that was hidden behind her and slides it until it stops right in front of them. Nayeon raises an eyebrow at it, and Mina throws a questioning look at Jeongyeon, who nods in response. Mina clutches down to unzip the bag and finds the bag filled with hundreds of a thousand won banknotes.

Sana’s eyes open wide. “How much money is that?”

“Around forty million won,” Jeongyeon says. When Momo gasps in shock and clutches Sana’s arm, Jeongyeon adds, “It’s your responsibility.”

Mina tentatively reaches for some of the banknotes.

“They are fake,” she concludes.

Jeongyeon clicks her tongue, impressed. 

“Oh,” Sana’s mood falls. “What are we supposed to do with it?”

“Any guesses, Mina?” Jeongyeon says, an eyebrow raised, a challenge of sorts. Mina waits a couple of seconds before she answers.

“You want us to make counterfeit notes.”

Jeongyeon is pleased.

“You’re smart.”

“She went to a good college,” Nayeon adds with a hint of annoyance to her tone. “How are we supposed to make fake banknotes, exactly? None of us know how to.”

“You’ll have help,” Jeongyeon nods, and the redhead — Chae, Jeongyeon called her — steps forward. “Chaeyoung here is in charge of the designs. She’s a genius with a pen.”

The tallest one begins to explain. “You’ll get a batch of around a million won — approximately a thousand banknotes of a thousand wons — per week and you’ll have to remove the ink and dye them to use the paper to print fifty thousand won notes.”

“How do—?” Sana’s voice sounds almost choked up.

“I’ll be supervising you. There’s a special warehouse near the Dubeon lake where we work and where I can teach you how to do it,” the tall girl nods. “My name is Tzuyu.”

Silence falls upon them. It’s not like Mina can agree — there is really no other choice but to agree with whatever Jeongyeon is saying with the barrel of her gun still resting on the bench.

“What about when we’re done...?” Mina asks, gulping. “Once the debt is paid, will you let us go?”

“Pinky promise,” Jeongyeon says, her smile not faltering. Mina can't pinpoint whether she’s mocking her or simply being playful, although she’s not certain which one she prefers. Mina’s not entirely sure she can trust anything that comes from Jeongyeon — in fact, she doesn’t trust that smile one bit — but she swallows her doubts back down. 

Mina is a little surprised at how well the five of them adapt to their new "jobs". She had expected that it would take them more time to actually get a good work rhythm, but all of them blend into each other’s spaces almost seamlessly. Momo and Nayeon are in charge of erasing the ink and dyeing the bills a different color, while Jihyo supervises the printing process and Mina and Sana take care of cutting and making sure the bills are an exact copy of the real ones. 

The warehouse is an old, abandoned place that feels cold and dark most of the time. She doesn’t ask Dahyun or Tzuyu what they do, but she has an idea when she sees them loading up guns in the back of a pick-up truck. Jeongyeon has an office where she spends most of her days in, and sometimes her and Seulgi spend entire nights stuck inside. 

Mina doesn’t really know what to think of her at first. The only thing she can come up with is that Jeongyeon is strange. She’s goofy and kind one second, playing pranks on Chaeyoung and Dahyun like they are her little sisters and the other she’s sharp and calculated, professional and ice cold. They don’t interact much, but she knows how pleased she is with the work they’ve done for her so far. Mina should be terrified of her, and she is, but there’s something else there, like admiration, this need to please and rebel at the same time. Mina doesn’t ponder on it for too long.

“Mina,” Seulgi interrupts her while she’s working one day. She looks up from her work, a thin layer of sweat on her forehead. “Jeongyeon wants to see you in her office.”

Sana frowns beside her, looking slightly anxious.

“O - okay,” she says, putting down her glasses. “I’ll be there in a second.”

Ignoring the nervous looks from her friends, Mina wipes the sweat off her hands on her jeans, ignoring the anxious knot forming on the pit of her stomach as she knocks on the door to Jeongyeon’s office. When she hears a soft voice telling her to come in, Mina steps inside.

“You wanted to see me?”

Jeongyeon is sitting in a big black leather chair that makes her look even more intimidating than she is in front of her dark wood desk. It all reminds Mina of The Godfather a little too much.

“Yes, come in, Mina,” Jeongyeon nods. Suddenly Mina feels like a kid being called into the Principal’s office.

“Is everything okay?” She wonders aloud, her voice sounding smaller than she hoped it would.

“Yes,” Jeongyeon nods. “Everything’s good. Great, even.”

“Why did you want to see me, then?”

“You’re a business major, aren’t you?” Jeongyeon questions, and Mina nods, puzzled. How does Jeongyeon know this? 

“I studied at Seoul University and have a bachelor’s degree...”

“I need you to do a job for me.”

“O - okay,” she says after a beat of silence. “How do you —?”

She winks. “I told you I knew everything.”

“How did you know we were the ones behind the JYP robbery?” Mina asks her, tired of wondering. “We avoided all of the cameras, we made sure that no one knew. How did you figure it out?”

Jeongyeon shrugs, almost cheeky. “Your friend Sana is not the best of actresses, you know.” Puppies under the rain can only do so much, Mina thinks in passing. “We already knew she knew about the safety box. Then we just traced the rest to you and your friends.”

Mina doesn’t respond to that. She should stop asking questions she doesn’t really want to hear the answer to. Instead she asks, “What do you want me to do?”

Jeongyeon takes a few documents from one of her desk drawers and slides them across the table.

“I need you to tell me if these look too suspicious.”

Mina tentatively reaches for one of them and starts reading — Mina realizes these are mostly finance reports, probably from Jeongyeon. It doesn’t take her more than fifteen minutes before she’s finished reading all of them. A beach house, a bakery — these seem like normal business finances and wouldn’t raise a lot of questions. 

“They seem perfectly normal,” she announces, and Jeongyeon smiles, satisfied. Mina expects to be dismissed then, but Jeongyeon shocks her with another question.

“Why did you quit your job as Assistant Manager in that big Japanese company?”

Mina blinks. It’s been so long since then — in truth, not even two years have passed since she quit, but it feels like a lifetime ago now.

“I was going to get married,” she says. “Then he left me and took everything with him.”

Jeongyeon holds her gaze for a second. Somehow Mina feels the undecipherable look on her face is genuine — it’s not pity, it’s not sadness. It’s almost angry. Something inside of Mina burns for a second, a spark that dies too soon.

“Fucking men,” Jeongyeon murmurs under her breath.

After a second Mina realizes that she’s laughing. She’s lost her mind. Jeongyeon, on the other hand, looks entirely too pleased.

Jeongyeon makes it a habit of inviting her into her office after that. She makes a pretense of doing it to ask about finances and how to be more discreet about the laundering with her fake bakery business, but really, she’s just making conversation 70% of the time. Sometimes Mina finds herself staring at the door of her office like a puppy, wondering when Seulgi will walk out to tell her Jeongyeon wants to see her.

She wonders about Jeongyeon and Seulgi’s relationship sometimes, even if she doesn’t want to. Sometimes she thinks about it too much, and she feels like ripping her own hair out. Why is she so noisy?

She’s inside Jeongyeon’s office looking through some documents when Dahyun knocks on the door.

“I have word from the Kim bunch,” Dahyun announces. Mina tries not to pry, but it’s hard to do so. “Things are tense. They’re saying they’ll send some of them here.”

Jeongyeon makes a face. “They are just rumors, right? In any case, let’s make sure we’re ready.”

“They are restless,” Dahyun tells her, cryptically so. “I smell trouble, Jeong.”

Jeongyeon nods. “Okay. Let’s be prepared.”

“Trouble…?” Mina asks, shifting in the small chair she’s sitting in, putting down the documents she’s reading with a worried frown on her face.

“Nothing to worry about, Myoui,” Jeongyeon re-assures her as Dahyun leaves her office. “You girls are doing really well.”

“We want to pay our debt,” Mina nods, although sometimes that is not entirely true. It feels a bit pointless to lie to Jeongyeon when she’s always able to read her like an open book. She raises an eyebrow at her, unimpressed.

“Something’s bothering you,” she says, slightly amused.

Mina looks away, warmth spreading across her cheeks, which only serves to make Jeongyeon more curious.

“Is Seulgi…?” she trails off, then feels like smacking herself across the face. “Nothing, never mind.”

“What? Seulgi what?” Jeongyeon is practically jumping out of her chair to hear. Noisy, Mina thinks, and bites the inside of her cheek to keep herself from blushing even more still.

“I… didn’t know you and Seulgi were dating, that’s all,” she finally says. 

Jeongyeon looks slightly taken aback for a second, and then she bursts into laughter. “What?”

Mina blinks. “... You’re not?”

“We did a couple of years ago, but it didn’t last for long,” she shrugs, the smile on her face never fading. “What?” Jeongyeon asks, a teasing glint to her eye. “Jealous?”

Mina blushes and looks away again, fighting the urge to tell her to screw herself. She ignores the slight relief she feels from the news and wonders what in the actual hell is wrong with her and her ever-beating heart.

She doesn’t have too much time to dwell on it before she hears a commotion outside. Jeongyeon stands up from her chair, the relaxed atmosphere switching to tense in a second, her senses sharp.

“What’s going on?” Mina asks, alarmed.

“Stay here,” Jeongyeon urges her, stepping outside of her office, her hand already reaching for the gun in her back pocket.

Mina’s throat goes dry when the door closes after her — Sana, Jihyo, Momo and Nayeon are all out there, and if a gunfight were to break out they’d be in the middle of all the bullets. Mina’s leg starts bouncing up and down from where she’s sitting, and when she starts hearing screams her heart stops and all sense is thrown out the window.

She stands up and goes for the door as soon as her legs cooperate with her, but suddenly she has no time to think when she’s staring down the barrel of a gun as she opens the door, freezing in her tracks.

“Who's this?” The person holding the gun asks.

Jeongyeon’s gun is aimed at their head. “None of your business.”

Mina sees that all of the girls are armed, guns pointed at different armed strangers. Mina thinks that if a needle were to fall in this very second all hell would break loose.

“I told you to not sell in my territory,” the person says, growling low in the back of their throat. From the corner of her eye she can see Seulgi and her gun, looking slightly more irritated than worried, and then Mina's eyes finally fall on Jeongyeon, her face giving nothing away. Mina must look like she’s about to cry, because Jeongyeon’s nostrils flare.

“Dubeon is not your fucking territory,” Jeongyeon growls. “Now leave before I blow your brains out.”

Mina’s hands start to shake. She wants to try and find her friends with her gaze but she’s frozen as the person walks closer to her. All she can think about is how she was serving lattes just a few hours ago today.

“She’s scared,” the person notes, amused. 

“Well,” Chaeyoyng scoffs. “You're pointing a gun to her head, dickhead.”

“Maybe I’ll just kill her to send you all a message,” the person chokes out, and Mina can’t help the sound that escapes her lips. She’s scared, but that fear quickly turns into something… strange, something resembling anger more than fear. "She's a newbie, isn't she?"

“Fuck you,” she says, low in her throat. She hasn’t spent the last two months reprinting counterfeit banknotes to get shot by a lowlife criminal in a fucking warehouse. The person raises an eyebrow at her.

“What did you say?”

Somehow in the middle of the commotion, she manages to catch Jeongyeon’s eye, and Jeongyeon looks at her this time. Something flashes across her gaze and then she’s opening her mouth.

“ Duck .”

Mina doesn’t need to be told twice — she ducks to the floor, covering her ears when she hears gunshots going off, the sound of stray bullets hitting walls. She tries to make herself smaller but as soon as it starts it’s over, and she’s brought back to the real world when she hears something fall next to her. She looks up to find the body of the person who threatened to kill her laying in a pool of their own blood.

Mina lets out a strangled sob of surprise; she cowers away from it like she’s been burned, and she tries to focus her vision on something else to calm the rapid beating of her own heart — all she can hear is white noise, and she winces at the pain of her eardrums almost being blown off. But something else catches her eye when she looks up.

“Jeongyeon...”

Jeongyeon's skin is paler than usual, her blouse stained with blood, ruining her white shirt to the point of no return. There's a moment where Mina thinks she's covered in the blood of someone she killed until Mina sees the bullet hole on Jeongyeon's shoulder.

"Shit," she murmurs, and before she can help it she’s standing up and walking towards her, a primal instinct taking over her.

“I’m fine,” Jeongyeon insists, although her step falters and she almost falls down. Mina wraps her hand around her waist to steady her, but they end up falling to the ground, Mina’s legs giving up on her from shock. Mina takes most of the fall but Jeongyeon hisses from the pain anyway. “ Fuck .”

“S - shit ,” Mina stammers, cursing under her breath. Blood pours out of Jeongyeon’s shoulder blade, but when Mina checks her back with shaky hands she finds a bullet hole there as well. “The bullet went in and out, that’s good— that’s g - good.”

“How is that good?” Jeongyeon asks, hissing when Mina starts using her hand to cover the injury to try and stop the bleeding.

“I won’t have to take it out,” Mina explains. She grabs her shirt and tears off a piece of cloth from it with her teeth, using it to tie it around Jeongyeon’s shoulder. She half expects a teasing comment from Jeongyeon but all she gets are curses and groans. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes, closing her eyes hard, trying to keep her tears from falling. “They have to - you need to go to a Hospital, Jeongyeon.”

“No,” she shakes her head slightly. Mina ignores the way her own hands are covered in blood that isn’t hers with Jeongyeon’s body resting in her lap. “No hospitals.”

“They fucking shot you, dude,” Chaeyoung says, looking like she’s just seen a ghost. Mina hadn’t even noticed she was next to them, and when she looks up she finds all of them surrounding them with worried eyes.

“I know where we can take her,” Seulgi says, nodding at Jeongyeon’s pale frame. “No hospitals.”

“Is anyone else hurt?” Jeongyeon chokes out.

“Besides the bastards we just took down?” Dahyun smirks at Jeongyeon, who smiles slightly in return. “No. Everyone’s a-okay.”

“Good,” she murmurs. Her hands reach for Mina’s arm, and she grabs it as hard as a woman who’s lost a ton of blood can, and Mina’s heart sighs in relief. She understands this is Jeongyeon’s way of saying thank you.

She spends the entire week scrubbing her hands clean, trying to get the blood from under her fingernails with soap. At some point her hands start itching from all the soap she’s using, but somehow she can still feel it there. It’s a reminder that this is the sort of thing she’s dealing with, and no amount of adrenaline she feels from hanging out with a dangerous criminal will change the fact that blood will be spilled. 

A few days later, while Jeongyeon rests and Seulgi is left in charge, she announces that the debt is officially paid between them. Jeongyeon is good at her word and tells them they don’t have to work with her anymore. She’s still wearing her cast and apparently, she will for a long time. Still, Jeongyeon shows up to say goodbye to them, cast and all. Even Jihyo seems surprised to see her, almost relieved, and Mina tries not to think about the way her heart aches watching her and her injury.

“You did a good job,” Jeongyeon nods solemnly at her before she leaves. Mina feels like she wants to say something as goodbye, but she can’t really find the words, so she just nods back at her. They share a look one last time before she drives away. In a way, Mina feels strangely empty leaving without seeing her smirk for one last time.

She doesn’t expect to see her again.

Mina wakes up with a gasp, clutching the pillow next to her, her forehead sweat running cold.  Her sleep's interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing, and she fights the urge to throw it against the wall repeatedly for waking her up. She blinks a couple of times, trying to remember the dream she’s just had but coming up empty-handed. 

She grabs her phone on the coffee table and stops in her tracks when she reads the name on the screen. 

“Jeongyeon?” she greets, trying not to sound half asleep. She’s not sure if she’s still asleep and dreaming — although she’s not sure if she’d call this a dream or a nightmare.

“Myoui,” the voice on the other end replies. “I need a favor.”

Mina doesn't respond for a few seconds.

“For what?”

“I have a job for you,” the voice on the other end of the line states.

“At...” Mina moves her phone away from her ear to check the time and huffs. “Four in the morning.”

“That didn’t sound like a question,” Jeongyeon replies, a hint of teasing to her tone.

Mina bites her lip.

“It wasn’t.”

“I’m downstairs in the parking lot,” Jeongyeon says after a second that feels like it goes on for slightly too long. “Wake your friends. See you in ten.”

Jeongyeon hangs up then, waiting for no one. Mina sighs, her arm reaching for the nearest coat she’s left hanging around and wraps herself in it. She gets up from the couch she’s been sleeping in (after losing all her money again, Mina’s barista salary isn’t enough to keep living at her old new apartment) and walks down the hallway to Jihyo’s room — who has been kind enough to let her crash her apartment for the past month — and knocks on the door a few times, until Jihyo’s small frame opens the door with a murderous gaze.

“What?”

Mina doesn’t know who she is more afraid of, just-woken-up Jihyo or the Mafia leader. She settles on the one who owns a gun.

“Jeongyeon has a job for us.”

“What?” Jihyo’s disheveled hair looks down to her phone to check the time. “I thought… she said the debt was paid. I thought that we didn’t owe her anymore.”

Mina feels a sense of dread — and something else, something she’s not sure how to name other than adrenaline and excitement — wash over her. “I don’t think you ever stop owing to the mafia, Ji...”

“Bastard,” Jihyo murmurs under her throat.

“Call Sana, Momo and Nayeon and tell them to meet us in the parking lot downstairs,” Mina says, not really in the mood to complain. “She said she wants to see all of us.”

Jihyo nods and closes the door to her bedroom, leaving Mina to stare at the dark hallway, the floor tiles suddenly growing too cold for her bare feet and making her shiver. Mina wraps the coat tighter around her frame, feeling small.

Ten minutes later, she’s standing in the parking lot of Jihyo’s building, trying not to freeze to death because of the autumn breeze that rocks the threes around them. Mina makes out the Powerpuff Girls' pajamas sticking from under Momo’s coat standing next to her, and despite the fact that her Mickey Mouse slippers stick out like a sore thumb she tries to squint in order to look more intimidating, only managing to look like she needs glasses. Mina’s learned a long time ago Momo couldn’t hurt a fly.

“Mina,” Jeongyeon greets her with a nod, a hood covering most of her face. Mina can barely make out her face, it’s mostly dark shadows, light hovering over the bridge of her nose. Something like a thrill runs down her spine; she had really thought she’d never see her again. Mina tries to push the feeling away, bury it deep inside of her.

Behind Jeongyeon, there’s four other hooded figures. She recognizes the shortest one, because she makes no true efforts to hide her identity — Chaeyoung and her fiery red hair could be picked out from a crowd of thousands. Tzuyu is right next to her, and in another time (one where these two weren’t armed with deadly weapons), Mina would find herself laughing at the height difference. 

“What do you want, Jeongyeon?” Nayeon speaks. “The debt was paid. You said so yourself.”

Chaeyoung pulls down her hood from the back, revealing two ponytails and a lollipop. She purses her lips at her. “No hello? Very rude.”

“It’s four in the morning,” Jihyo deadpans. “Excuse our lack of manners.”

“Like Nayeon said, we thought the debt was paid,” Mina says before Chaeyoung can open her mouth again.

“It is,” Jeongyeon nods. Mina stares at the cast on her shoulder, still there after almost a month, and Mina wants to ask if it still hurts. “This is a peace offering of sorts. Or more like… a business meeting.”

“A business meeting?” Momo asks, a frown on her face. 

Jeongyeon shrugs. “You guys have potential.”

“What…?”

“What Jeongyeon is trying to say is that we’re lacking workers and you guys were good help last time,” Seulgi adds from the back. She steps closer, the light finally catching the features of her face. 

“So...” Nayeon’s voice sounds surprised, but there’s a hint of arrogance to her tone. “You guys need us.”

“As much as you need us.” Tzuyu shrugs. “You’re still piss poor, aren’t you? Isn’t that why you guys staged the robbery in the first place?”

Mina bites her lip.

“What kind of job?”

Jihyo takes a step back from her. 

“You can’t possibly be considering any of this.”

Jeongyeon smirks knowingly, the left corner of her lip rising, the dim lighting making her seem almost haunting; the moon shining on her features. She looks like a ghost, but her smirk is the most alive thing Mina has ever seen. She feels the urge to look away, a rush of annoyance surging through her at the thought that Jeongyeon finds her so predictable.

“I want to hear what they have to say,” Sana supplies from the back, and Jihyo turns to look at her, surprised.

“Chaeyoung’s copies are good, but we haven’t perfected the printing and erasing technique yet,” Tzuyu replies for Jeongyeon. “Yours was nearly perfect.”

“Nearly?” Nayeon scoffs.

“There's a place in all of this for all of you,” Jeongyeon says. “The money will be enough to cover what you stole and even more. You’ll be under my protection.”

“My grandpa...” Sana whispers, the sound getting lost into the starry night sky over their heads. Her cut of the money had gone to his meds and medical bills, but that didn’t stop him from falling ill again, especially with winter approaching.

“You did an excellent job,” Tzuyu commends, which seems like a big deal to even her own friends, who all turn to look at her in stunned silence. “Jeongyeon is a woman of her word. She’ll treat you well.”

Nayeon raises an eyebrow at her. “Can the same be said about all of you?”

“We don’t bite,” Dahyun says, her small figure hidden by shadows.

“Somehow I doubt that...” Jihyo murmurs under her breath, her eyes landing on Chaeyoung.

“Even if this were all true,” Momo begins, “I don’t — I can’t actively participate in something that might get other people hurt. We all saw how it ended before.”

“That’s noble, but people die in this business. People will get hurt,” Chaeyoung’s face hardens. “Not everything is unicorns and rainbows. But… we can promise not to do it in front of you.”

“And not hurting them on our behalf,” Sana nods.

“Fair enough.”

“And we need a guarantee,” Mina interrupts before Jeongyeon can step in. “If we want out, we’re out. You let us walk away.”

Jeongyeon raises an eyebrow. “And what’s my guarantee?”

Mina’s gaze hardens.

“Me.”

Mina takes a lot of pleasure in the way Jeongyeon’s gaze falters slightly.

“What the fuck, Mina?” Jihyo asks, reaching to grab her arm. Mina steps forward, avoiding her.

“I won’t leave. They can, but I can’t.”

Sana’s face goes completely pale. “Mina, what—?!”

Mina drowns out the voices of her friends, her eyes falling on Jeongyeon’s and focusing on the dark brown of her irises. There’s a shine of something there, competitiveness, as if she’s certain she’ll be the last one standing of this strange and unspoken bet they have going on between them, where each one pushes the other to see who’ll give in first.

The rush of adrenaline that pumps through Mina’s veins reminds her of the day she first met Jeongyeon in that darkening park, the way something inside of her awakened that night. Something unspoken, something she dared not name. Something that had been asleep from the moment she was born, something that remained asleep after so many years of being perfect, of being a trophy, something shiny on the shelf she called her home.

“I accept,” Jeongyeon ends up shrugging, breaking eye contact to address the entire group, a silent spell broken. “Does this mean you’re all in?”

“Fuck no! Not if—”

“Yes,” Mina interrupts.

“Mina,” Momo’s in complete disbelief. “We can’t do this if it means selling you out to the fucking mafia!”

Dahyun's head sticks out. “It’s technically not the mafia—”

“I don’t mind,” she shakes her head. “Someone has to do it, right? Out of all of us, I’m the one with less on the line. Sana needs this, you need this, Nayeon and Jihyo need this; I’ll be… I’ll be just fine, okay?”

“You’re insane,” Nayeon huffs out, and then her whole face softens. 

Mina nods, a surge of affection for these four women suddenly leaving her breathless for a few seconds. She nods, trying not to let her emotions overtake her.

“Deal.”

They start slow. 

Jeongyeon gives them smaller jobs, something they can handle and doesn’t feel as radical. They start laundering a million won per week with thousand won banknotes in the same old warehouse they worked at that first time. Mina is left to supervise the batches they make, and she’s supposed to report back to Jeongyeon with updates or if they need anything.

All of them are tentative at first; it feels so much more different than their first time working there. It’s one thing to work for a criminal, one entirely different thing is to work for a criminal because you want to. No one is born a criminal, Dahyun told her between shifts, shrugging at them when she questioned their pace. You need to take your time.

Mina ponders on Dahyun’s words. She hadn’t ever sat to think about what or who Jeongyeon was behind the mask, behind the gun powder and luxury of the criminal lifestyle. In a way the others see her as her new right-hand woman — which seems to make Seulgi grind her teeth together sometimes — but she’d surprised herself by just how quickly she’s adapted to this lifestyle the first time. Not only that, but how much she enjoys it still.

The thrill Mina gets after a job well done should scare her, she’s aware of this. She can see it in the way Sana worries her bottom lip sometimes while watching her lead like she’s done this for years, in the way Jihyo stares disapprovingly at her most of the time. 

The truth is she likes her job. She likes working with Jeongyeon, even if Jeongyeon is… a strange person to decipher. Mina doesn't mind as much. She likes a challenge.

Jeongyeon makes it a habit of inviting Mina to her office to discuss everything, even if there's really nothing to discuss. Mina appreciated that Jeongyeon cares for her opinion (and her girls, as Jeongyeon calls them. Sometimes Mina feels like Jeongyeon sees her as their leader) and she gladly sits down in the chair right in front of Jeongyeon’s desk to discuss numbers with her.

“We’re moving to bigger banknotes next week,” Jeongyeon announces, not looking up from the iPad she’s holding. Instead she places it on her desk and pushes it towards Mina so she can see Chaeyoung’s work. As usual it’s perfect, and Mina looks at it in slight awe. “Think your girls can handle it?”

The challenge in Jeongyeon’s voice almost makes her smirk. An arrogant smile, smug. Mina just settles for an unimpressed look.

“Yes,” she replies. 

Jeongyeon holds up her hands in the air in defense, smiling, like she loves to push Mina to scoff — and Mina’s entirely certain that she does. “Just making sure,” Mina wants to wipe the smirk off her face but finds herself fighting back one of her own. “We’ll need to have a shipment ready soon. The guy we sell it to agreed on a new price for more quantity.”

“Do you think we’ll need to work faster next month?”

“Yes,” She nods. “But it also means an increase in salary. At least twenty-five percent.”

“I see,” Mina nods back at her, thinking about something Momo told her earlier, about needing some extra cash for a new car. “Okay… I’ll make sure it won’t be a problem.”

“Good,” Jeongyeon says, a smile taking over her features. It’s not arrogant or teasing, she just seems pleased. “Glad to know you’re on board.”

Mina knows she shouldn’t, but she feels good knowing Jeongyeon cares enough about her opinion to ask her before doing anything. In a way she feels like an equal to her, which just feels like dangerous territory altogether. She’s not supposed to enjoy any of this the way she does, she’s supposed to be terrified, to want to run away. And yet… Mina finds comfort in all of this. Like she finally has control, or at least a pretense of control, and she’s hungry for it. World’s worst timing to have a power trip, huh?

Her eyes fall to Jeongyeon's shoulder blades and she stares, thinking about the time she had once almost watched her bleed to death. As strange as it sounds, it had humanized her in Mina’s eyes, even if Mina feels entirely too guilty about the whole thing. If she hadn't been there, maybe Jeongyeon wouldn't have gotten shot to save her.

“Does it hurt?” she asks. Jeongyeon’s eyes follow her gaze and shrugs.

“Sometimes,” she says. “I’ve gone through worse.”

For me? Mina wants to ask. Instead she says, “Why do you ask me if I’m okay with something before you ask me to do it...?”  

Jeongyeon seems slightly thrown off balance by the question, but she recovers quickly. She avoids her gaze for a second.

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“You’re running a money laundering business,” Mina says, adding a huff at the end of her sentence. Instead of getting mad Jeongyeon laughs, because of course she does. “Why do you… care? I work for you, don’t I?”

“I don’t know why I ask, Mina,” She shrugs. “I might run an illegal business but I’m not a monster.”

No. You’re just a criminal, Mina thinks, although that’s not exactly fair, is it? She’s given them a way out. Mina is who accepted to come back. Doesn’t that make her just as bad? And even then, Mina can't really force herself to believe Jeongyeon is not a bad person — she knows her now, after months of working with her, she’s taken a bullet for her, for Christ's sake. Maybe she does bad things, but she isn’t a bad person. Mina almost wishes she were.

She doesn’t really know how to answer. There’s a whirlwind of emotions settling in her gut and twisting it, making her feel like she doesn’t know where she’s standing right now, so she just settles with a simple, “Okay.”

Jeongyeon looks as conflicted as her. Mina wonders if her opinion holds so much weight over Jeongyeon, if she ever loses sleep wondering if Mina thinks she’s a monster. Jeongyeon reaches back for her iPad awkwardly, her facade slipping slightly. She looks oddly small then, sitting in her oversized leather chair. When Mina had first walked into her office she had thought it looked like a rip-off of The Godfather.

“You can leave,” Jeongyeon says. Before Mina can thank her for the meeting, Jeongyeon speaks again, “I don’t mean you’re dismissed. I mean— If you wanted to leave. To walk away. I wouldn’t stop you.”

Mina’s mouth goes dry.

“Oh.”

“If we are going to keep doing business with each other, I want this to be clear,” Jeongyeon’s voice is serious and professional, but there’s something else to it. Mina can’t identify what it is for the life of her, and at the moment she’s too shocked to even try to figure it out. “You are my equal. I don’t—” she shakes her head, struggling to find the words. “If you wanted to, you'd be free to walk away.”

“But… the girls...”

“They walk away with you,” Jeongyeon continues. “You’re not my prisoner, Mina. You’re not Rapunzel. You do this because you want to, or you don’t.”

“What if I talk?” Mina blurts out without thinking.

She chuckles. “I have dirt on all of you as much as you have on me. That makes us equals, right?”

Her first instinct is to run away. She’s finally free; there’s no rope tying her to this place or Jeongyeon anymore. Sana’s bills are paid, Mina has enough to get back on her feet, Jihyo got a new apartment. The truth is that there is no longer an excuse to stay here, and it terrifies her. Now Mina has to face the truth of her. That she likes this, even if when she closes her eyes she can still picture Jeongyeon bleeding on her lap, the body of the man she just killed in the background of their own life threatening moment. She likes the power, the luxury that comes with the exclusivity. And worst of all, she has to admit she likes Jeongyeon ; that she likes to spend time with her, she likes being her equal and she likes to be by her side. 

“Do you want me to walk?” she ends up asking, feeling like her heart is trapped inside her chest.

“No,” Jeongyeon says, and if her stare is anything to go by, she’s sincere. She feels the nervous energy oozing off of her. “No, Mina, I don’t want you to go. But I will respect whatever decision you make.”

She doesn’t know what else to say next. Mina is a determined person, no matter how shy or quiet she may be, but this goes beyond wanting. This is about admitting. Accepting that she wants this. That she is no longer the girl that sits in the corner, no longer the bride to a successful banker and entrepreneur, or the girl that grew up in the privileged side of Tokyo, not really allowed to want.

But… Mina wants this. Even with the blood underneath her fingernails, Mina can’t go back to the old life she led. That is the truth of her. She likes this; she enjoys this. Jeongyeon’s eyes are burning holes on her skin, her gaze intense. Mina holds it for a second, tentatively.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says. “I’ll tell the girls about the shipment.”

The smile Jeongyeon gives her is equal parts relieved and smug, and Mina ignores the warmth that spreads across her cheeks.

By their sixth month Jeongyeon rents a freaking yacht, which is just— ridiculous , but they end up in Barbados for an entire weekend, sipping cocktails, pretending this is all normal, like there isn’t blood in the sleeves of Jeongyeon’s shirt.

They have dinner in the boat’s deck like they’re some sort of strange family, the stars shining above their heads. Jeongyeon sits on the head of the table, Seulgi by her left and Mina sat to her right, the rest sitting on either sides of the table, eating something that reminds Mina of her old life.

“This night is so gorgeous!” Sana beams, her eyes shining even in the dark. Her eyes fall to Dahyun’s smaller figure sitting next to her. “Do you think we’ll go to the beach tomorrow?”

Sana warms up to everyone so quickly Mina finds it admirable, the way she can just see the good in people, even when they are wanted criminals. She seems specially smitten with Dahyun, sitting down next to the shorter girl, intertwining herself in her arms in the middle of dinner and making her blush and stammer. Her grandfather appears to be better these days and she’s happier and bubblier than when Mina first met her.

“We can go if you want...” Dahyun says, shyer than usual. Although she turns into a shy mess whenever Sana talks to her, the shameless flirt that she is. Mina can’t help the smile that takes over her features.

“I wanna go too,” Momo comments with a pout.

“Me too,” Chaeyoung adds.

“We can all go,” Seulgi rolls her eyes, raising her champagne glass to her lips. “Even you, Jihyo.”

“Sure,” Jihyo murmurs, her sunbathing lines leaving a trail of white skin all along the outline of her beach dress. She has a bit of a party pooper reputation — even after half a year of being in the business, she still can’t warm up to the idea that they are working for what is basically the mafia — and the others tease her for it. Even though Mina still gets the impression she is thoroughly unimpressed by the five of them, Seulgi seems to have warmed up to her the most, seeking her with teasing smiles and comments.

“Mina,” Jeongyeon calls her name while the others plan their day off. “What do you want to do?”

Mina ignores the pleasant warmth that spreads all over her belly when she turns to look at her and she sees Jeongyeon’s warm smile. 

“I don’t feel like going to the beach,” she admits. “I might stay in.”

Jeongyeon hums. “I might do that as well. Do you mind the company?”

It scares Mina just how much she doesn’t mind it; maybe even craves it. They’ve worked together for a few months now, and their bond is like a red string connecting them both — fragile, threatening to burn, almost tentative like they are walking in circles around something else for some time now. Even in the middle of dinner with her stomach full Mina feels so irrevocably hungry; not for food, maybe not even for power. 

“No,” she shakes her head. “I don’t mind.”

The following day the boat docks by the shore of an island with white sand and crystal clear water, where Sana immediately throws herself to the water, carrying Dahyun by the hand and splashes her until her hair is soaking wet. Dahyun’s so pale she almost glistens in the sunlight and Mina giggles from the boat, thinking about the days she used to love Twilight. Nayeon and Tzuyu stay near the beach with them, where Tzuyu is building sandcastles and Nayeon laughs at Tzuyu’s childlike enthusiasm when she catches sight of a crab and Nayeon grabs it for her. Sometimes Tzuyu seems more like an overgrown teenager than a hitman. 

Momo and Chaeyoung leave to explore the port with sun hats on, with the promise of bringing great food. Chaeyoung’s long left behind her redhead days, but the waviness of her hair is still there. Sometimes Mina catches Momo playing with the locks of her hair, intertwining her fingers with them. Seulgi and Jihyo accompany them, and Mina watches them disappear into the crowd, a respectable distance between them. Somehow, Seulgi seems more genuine when she’s with Jihyo.

She senses when Jeongyeon stops next to her. She acknowledges her presence with a small smile, but otherwise doesn’t look at her.

“How long do you think until Nayeon gets bitten by that crab?”

Mina throws her head back and laughs. “Probably a few more minutes.”

She finally turns to look at her, Jeongyeon’s hands gripping the edge of the boat, smiling at the figures of their friends in the distance. It’s almost curious how they’ve turned into this… strange sort of family. Mina had never expected it’d go this far.

“What are your plans for today?” Mina asks.

“I’m not sure,” Jeongyeon lifts an eyebrow at her. “What are yours?”

“Maybe read a book...” she trails off. 

“That sounds boring,” she teases back, and Mina rolls her eyes, the action hidden by her sunglasses. “Wanna hang out with me?”

This all feels strangely… juvenile. Like she’s back in High School and the coolest, most popular person has asked her to hang out and Mina feels like she’s fifteen again with the way her heartbeat quickens. Except this isn’t High School — Mina is twenty six and this is a person who sleeps with a gun under her pillow every night.

“Sure,” she replies, nodding.

Her and Jeongyeon spend the afternoon together in quiet silence that Mina half expects Jeongyeon to fill, but never does. Sometimes Jeongyeon carries such a nervous energy, like she can’t truly stand silence, sitting around doing nothing, but it seems like she tries for Mina. Mina is a quiet person, but she enjoys it when Jeongyeon fills in the silences for her. In a way it’s comforting, to not feel the need to speak because she does it for her.

Maybe that’s what makes Mina enjoy her company so much. Somewhere after the twenty minutes mark Jeongyeon starts talking to her about the boat and Mina lets a smile overtake her features — she hopes it doesn’t look as terribly fond as it feels.

“My family used to own a yacht like this,” she nods after Jeongyeon is done explaing how they clean the decks.

“What happened to it?”

“My parents died,” Mina says, remarkably unemotional. “My sibling sold everything and moved to Japan and I stayed here in Korea. I was engaged, and… well… that ended up horribly too…”

Jeongyeon gulps. “I’m sorry.”

“What about you?” Mina asks, eyes looking up from the floor. Trying to lighten the mood she adds, “Why did you decide to become a crime lord?”

Jeongyeon seems much more reluctant to talk about this. “Family heirloom. My mother ran a money laundering business, taught me all she knew, then blew her brains out when I turned sixteen.”

Mina bites back a flinch.

“I’m sorry...” she shakes her head. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s okay,” She shrugs. “It’s been a long time ago.”

“Dahyun… she told me criminals aren’t born, they are made,” Minna says after a few seconds of silence. She toys with the tablecloth. Jeongyeon looks at her, curiosity peaked, wondering where this whole thing is going. “Sometimes…” Mina starts, “it feels like there’s something that’s just fundamentally wrong with me. Just… something that’s always been there. And you woke it up.”

Jeongyeon stares at her. Mina thinks back on the first time she ever saw her, standing in the park, her gaze so cold. It’s almost hard to believe they are the same person, that   she was so scared of the woman in front of her. But she knows she shouldn’t forget. Maybe she just wants to.

“Nothing’s wrong with you,” Jeongyeon says, sincerely. “You lost everything you had. It’s normal that you wanted to make people feel as wronged as you were.”

“It’s normal to feel that way, but people don’t align themselves with organized crime to prove a point,” Mina purses her lips. 

“You think we’re bad people?” she questions. It’s not accusatory, just curious.

Mina shrugs. “Not bad… just…”

“Monsters?” Jeongyeon offers, raising an eyebrow at her, small smile tugging at the end of her lips. Mina is reminded of the day Jeongyeon told her she could walk away and she had said to her, I’m not a monster, Mina. If Jeongyeon is one, Mina has claws for hands. 

“Is that such a bad thing? To be a monster?” Mina asks, her eyes dropping to the ground. There was a time when Mina needed Jeongyeon to be the bad guy, the monster, in order for her to keep her own feelings in check. But now that she’s known all of Jeongyeon — the bad, the monstrous, the beautiful — she still finds herself attracted and attached to all parts of her.

Mina has grown enough to learn that not all love is soft and gentle, that not all love makes you compliant and sweet. Some love hardens you, some love is gritty and sometimes dirty. Not all love is a fairytale. Sometimes it is about two people being flawed together, and finding comfort in knowing they aren’t the only ones who are slightly bent. 

“It’s lonely,” Jeongyeon replies, somewhat bitterly.

Mina can’t help it — she slides her hand across the table to find Jeongyeon’s. Jeongyeon looks up, slightly taken aback, and Mina can’t help the blush that spreads across her cheeks.

“Monsters don’t blush, you know,” Jeongyeon teases, and Mina starts giggling. When she stops, Jeongyeon still has the same look on her face, where the corner of her lip is slightly more raised than the other, and she looks at her like she holds the stars. 

Not all love is sweet, but it can have its moments. 

“I want to kiss you,” Jeongyeon confesses, her grip on Mina’s hand tightening. “Can I?”

The question leaves her a bit breathless. Once again she is reminded of the fact that Jeongyeon cares. To her, Mina is her equal. Warmth spreads all that way through her body, from her cheeks to her toes, and she nods slightly, and Jeongyeon smiles and closes the distance between them.

For someone who has killed men, Jeongyeon’s kiss is as sweet as honey and tender as cotton candy, slow, calm. Mina feels like she’s floating — it almost feels like she’s in a movie, in this beautiful yacht, with this person who has done so many things Mina can’t begin to unpack.

Mina wonders what the old Mina would think of all of this. Then decides she doesn’t care, and presses her lips to Jeongyeon’s even harder.

A few hours later all of the girls come back, some slightly redder than the others — namely Dahyun, who certainly doesn’t seem like the kind of person who is very used to spending too many hours under the sun, but seemingly enjoys Sana’s company enough to put up with it — and they have dinner in the deck and Mina feels complete. Jeongyeon holds her hand throughout all of dinner, and Momo elbows Mina suggestively and Nayeon keeps pestering them for answers, but she doesn’t tell them anything. She’s not one to kiss and tell. Besides, she has a feeling everyone already knew, anyway. 

By the end of the meal everyone’s gone to bed except for her, Jeongyeon, Jihyo and probably Seulgi, who for some reason always waits until Jihyo is ready to go to bed before she is. Mina finds it cute, although she’d never say that to Seulgi’s face.

Jihyo and her hang by the deck, Jeongyeon and Seulgi smoking on the other side to not disturb them.

A champagne glass somehow made its way into her hand, but she isn’t complaining. She looks at the sea around them, black as the night sky, and tries to picture the thousand fish that are probably swimming below them right now. Jihyo is beside her.

“What did you do at the port?” Mina asks, wondering if the water is too cold to jump in right now.

“We just went to visit the town mostly. We bought a few souvenirs,” she says. “Me and Seulgi.”

“When’s the wedding?” Mina teases, and Jihyo turns bright red.

“Never,” she says. “We’re just friends.”

“Sure… you’ll have to tell her that, though.”

“I can’t— ” she shakes her head, blush gone. “I can’t. ”

“Why not…?” Mina asks, slightly confused. “She’s nice, isn’t she, when she doesn’t look ready to throw us overboard because she can’t stand us anymore. And she’s very pretty… I like her bangs—”

“She’s a murderer. She’s killed people for money,” Jihyo scoffs. “I can’t just look past that like everyone else seems to be doing.”

Mina swallows. “I know… I was just teasing. You seem to like her. I’m sorry.”

“I like her, but I can’t. I can’t do it like you and Sana and Nayeon and Momo do it,” she shakes her head. Even after all these years Jihyo can’t let go of her protectiveness of her friends and Mina feels sorry that she feels the need to carry that burden on her shoulders for so long. Jihyo’s always been the voice of reason, the one they come crawling back to when things go wrong. Mina knows she’s just looking out for them.

She continues, “Are you sorry that you and Jeongyeon are basically together now?” Jihyo asks with an accusatory tone. Mina feels like she’s pinched her, and she shuffles a little to the side, biting back a flinch. “You like this, don’t you?” she says, breathing out a strangled chuckle. “You enjoy all of this. Playing big bad mafia boss, having someone as powerful as Jeongyeon by your side.”

Mina should feel ashamed of this, but the truth is that she isn’t. She shrugs instead, looking out into the ocean and sipping on her cocktail, the boat rocking at their feet. “I’m not sorry, Ji.”

“What did I even expect?” Jihyo shakes her head in disbelief at the lack of an answer, but her tone softens considerably and she sounds more fond than upset. “You’re an Aries after all. I still remember how desperate you were to be the best one in your college classes. In the whole school, even.”

“Aries will be Aries,” she holds up her drink.

A silence falls between them, as they watch the dark blue sea in front of them, the moon reflecting on the calm waters. She’s been in yachts many times in her lifetime, but this night feels so different. Charged with something she doesn’t know how to name. Tonight is no ordinary night. 

“Momo kissed Chaeyoung at the port today.”

Mina’s eyebrows raise. “She did?”

“They were looking at fruits, and Momo and her were talking about something I couldn’t really hear, and then she just kissed her. She had to bend down,” Jihyo giggles, and Mina snorts.

“That’s cute...” Mina trails off, feeling happy for her friends. Momo and Chaeyoung are a strange sort of combination, but they also make a lot of sense. It makes her sad to think Jihyo is denying herself that same happiness. “Ji, don’t you think that maybe it’s time to stop doing the right thing?”

“Mina...”

“Don’t you just want to do what you want ?”

“The world doesn’t work like that,” she shakes her head.

“I kissed Jeongyeon too,” Mina confesses, suddenly growing shy. “For the first time, for the record.”

“You’re playing with fire, Mina,” Jihyo warns her, the smile disappearing from her lips. “You’ll end up burning yourself.”

Jihyo ends up being right. The fire catches up to them quite quickly.

It’s a month after their trip and Jeongyeon and Mina have been tentatively exploring their relationship — they are officially dating, although they haven’t really called each other girlfriends yet or put any labels on it. The girls all know anyway, probably because Mina is very bad at hiding how she feels, and Jeongyeon gets flustered over anything that has to do with relationships and public displays of physical affection, so when they accidentally brush hands or touch each other Jeongyeon’s smooth attitude falters slightly. Mina feels like she’s fifteen again, smiling shyly and reaching for Jeongyeon’s hand from under tables.

She’s working at the warehouse when her phone starts ringing incessantly — today it’s just her, Tzuyu and Nayeon, and the two of them are off, probably making out in some corner while Mina works. She doesn’t really mind half as much. She takes her phone from her pocket and checks for the ID, surprised to see that it’s an unknown number. She wouldn’t normally pick up, but she frowns and does so anyway.

“Hello?”

“Mina,” Seulgi’s voice is heard from the other end of the line. “Jeongyeon’s in jail.”

“ What ?” 

“There’s a fucking cop that’s been trying to bust her for years and he planted drugs on her to get her arrested, and they don’t even let me use my phone,” Seulgi’s usually calm demeanor is replaced by a shaky voice and ragged breathing. “If they bust our operation we’re done for, Mina.”

“What— what can we do?”

“Come down to the precinct,” Seulgi breathes an address into the phone and hangs up shortly after.

The way Mina rushes over there should get her 's license revoked. She arrives at the precinct ten minutes later, demanding that they let her see Jeongyeon. Seulgi finds her screaming at a cop and grabs her by the arm before the situation escalates fully, pulling her into an embrace that leaves her speechless for a second.

"I called a lawyer already, best of the best," Seulgi sighs. "He's on his way and he knows about the business. Hopefully, he'll come up with something to get us out of this mess..."

"How is she?" Mina's throat is dry and she almost feels her knees giving up on her, but she manages to keep it together.

Seulgi pulls away. "Wants to see you."

Mina's heart twists inside her chest.

"Can I...?"

"I don't know," she shakes her head. "They didn't let me."

Mina isn't allowed to see Jeongyeon, not even after the lawyer arrives. An entire day of questioning later, the lawyer Seulgi hired announces they've managed to convince the cops Jeongyeon is not part of a criminal organization but the victim of select targeting by a soon to be retired cop, but that they are not willing to look over the drugs charges given 'the hard evidence'. 

"Can I see her now?" Mina's sure her cheeks are dirty with mascara stains, and hopes they'll take pity on her, especially given she's been here all night, even after Seulgi left to go to bed at her home. The lady at the front desk nods with a sigh, and another officer guides her to the cell Jeongyeon where is.

All of Mina's pent-up emotions catch up with her then — she hadn't really noticed how much she was running on survival mode until she sees Jeongyeon and finally feels like she can relax, even for just a second. Jeongyeon looks up, looking tired and defeated.

"Mina," she murmurs her name like a prayer, and Mina clings to her in a bone-crushing hug when the officer opens the door to her cell. Jeongyeon wraps her hands on her neck and lets herself be held — it's so... vulnerable. So raw, so defenseless, even.

"How are you?" Mina asks.

"Better now," she tries to give her a small smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "I decided to plead guilty on possession charges. They're gonna convict me anyway, and that way it'll be less time."

Mina gulps, ignoring the knot that forms inside her throat. "I understand."

They spend a few more minutes just holding each other, Mina running her fingers gently through Jeongyeon's hair, trying to soothe not only Jeongyeon but also herself. Thinking of what's to come terrifies her, leaves her feeling like a leaf drifting in the river. Jeongyeon steps away after a few minutes.

"Lats night made me think," she says. 

Mina bites her lip. "About what?"

"The future," she confesses. "But mostly about you and me." Mina hums, encouraging her to continue. "I was thinking about your jerk of an ex."

That steals a laugh out of Mina, surprised at the topic of conversation. "Really?" Mina hasn't thought about him in a long time. Why would she?

“Just thinking about what he did to you makes me want to kill him. You deserve better than that stupid prick who left you behind because he was a coward and couldn’t see how good you actually were,” Jeongyeon says, looking the most emotional Mina’s probably ever seen her. “He has no clue what he’s actually missing. And I— I don’t want to miss out on it, either. So...”

Mina's heartbeat quickens.

"What are you saying?"

"I'll be away for long," she says, growing slightly shy, bracing herself for rejection. "I'm not saying we should do it before I leave, I want to give you the wedding you deserve, so I was—"

“You really are proposing to me in a police station before you go on trial for possession of drugs?” Mina says with a slight scoff, although she can barely see through the tears that are clouding her eyes, and Mina sees that grin that makes her want to kiss her senseless and also roll her eyes at her. “I’m going to strangle you, Yoo Jeongyeon.”

Jeongyeon’s smug grin only grows, God knows how that’s possible.

“Can I take that as a yes?”

“Yes, doofus,” Mina rolls her eyes, a single tear falling from her face. 

Jeongyeon ends up with two years of prison for Illegal possession of a controlled substance.

Nayeon and Tzuyu move in together to another part of high-end Seoul with the promise of coming back once Jeongyeon is released to keep the business alive. Jihyo ends up becoming a photographer and Seulgi stays by her side "to look after her", but in most pictures they send to the group chat they are holding hands. Mina keeps her mouth shut about it, but Nayeon always teases her. Momo and Chaeyoung keep the business alive for a while, then decide to try their luck in podcasts, which apparently goes amazingly well. Sana stays by Dahyun's side, the lovesick fool she is.

Mina visits Jeongyeon every day. She sneaks in a phone for her, she learns how to crochet and makes her blankets and socks and she bribes the guards to let her stay longer. Jeongyeon starts a book club in prison and writes songs, and makes knives out of plastic spoons, and promises Mina to teach her to use a gun once she gets out. Their days of money laundering are far from over, she promises her. Mina smirks, places her hand through the glass, and cries sometimes.

The day she finally is let go because of good conduct, Mina waits for her outside prison, with balloons and every cheesy thing she can think of to make the day special. Jeongyeon takes her by the waist and lifts her off the ground like she weighs nothing, and Mina laughs and cries a little too.

They’ve kissed of course, but it’s never felt like this before, not this hungry. Their first kiss on the yacht, the one they shared (which seems like ages ago now, and it almost has) was slow, romantic, forgiving. This kiss is almost angry in the way it tastes, like it’s demanding to know why it’s taken them this much time. Why have you been away from me for so long? Somewhere along the way the lines grow blurred like her and Jeongyeon are one and the same, one heart in one body.

This kiss is red, like fire on their lips, fire in Mina’s fingertips, in her very soul. When they pull away the corner of Jeongyeon’s mouth is smudged with drawings of red lipstick all over her mouth, on the nape of her neck like a hickey— the mark of Mina is all over her; and Mina’s soul soars. 

Mina does not get burned; she is the one that burns.

“I’ll give you the best fucking wedding in the entire world,” Jeongyeon says.

“You better,” is her reply.