Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nothing was going according to plan.

It was supposed to be an easy mission. In and out. Destroy the stolen classified information and leave. A couple hours and then they would stop by the ice cream parlor because Mina had requested the treat and no one could say no.

They weren't expecting an ambush of close to fifty armed guards as soon as they set foot inside the old warehouse.

"Where the hell is Chaeyoung?!" Jeongyeon snapped, pulling against time to slow the stream of bullets ricocheting around them.

"She said she had something important to do!" Dahyun answered, her voice echoing in a chorus around them while her mirror images were dispelled one by one.

"Something more important than the mission?" Jeongyeon asked rhetorically. "Ji? Got any insight for us?"

"There's too much going on!" Jihyo called back, hunkered down beside Mina at the far side of the room. "I can't hear her!"

Momo appeared out of thin air to tackle Nayeon out of the way as her previous cover of a few boxed crates were blown apart in a mess of splintered wood.

"Sana, watch your left!" Nayeon yelled, untangling herself from Momo as a masked assailant wielding a lead pipe charged at the girl flickering in and out of sight.

Jeongyeon turned, pulling at time again to slow it as Nayeon fought to reverse it, their powers clashing in a collision of push and pull that rendered them both useless.

A burst of movement and Tzuyu was suddenly in front of Sana to take the blow instead, staggering with a cry of pain at the impact against her skull. Her head swung to the side, a hand flying up to cradle her temple, deafened by the shrill ringing in one ear, but she remained standing.

She threw her free arm out, a fist striking her assaulter in the chest with enough strength to send them flying backwards.

Sana grabbed the younger girl's arm and yanked her behind a pile of metal piping, frantically brushing aside Tzuyu's hair to find the impact.

"Sana?" Jihyo called over, heart hammering against her ribcage like it always did when the youngest purposely put herself in harm's way, and sagged in relief when Sana gave her a shaky smile in return.

Tzuyu was fine, likely just mildly concussed. She would bruise and complain when they fussed, but as always, she’d taken worse hits before.

"Dahyun!" Mina cried out, panicking when the final duplicate disappeared, and Momo leapt out of cover again to grapple the original to safety.

"What's the plan?" Sana called over, her palm lingering on Tzuyu's cheek as the youngest slumped forward with a nauseous groan, forehead pressed against Sana's shoulder.

"This was the plan!" Jihyo called back.

"I don't understand," Nayeon sighed irritably. "We did recon. We planned it all out. Where are they coming from?"

"I think that this is the back-up," Dahyun commented from beneath Momo.

"There shouldn’t be any back-up in the first place,” Nayeon growled.

We didn't trip any alarms," Mina commented. "They were ready for us."

"You think someone tipped them off?" asked Jeongyeon.

"No..." Mina frowned, glancing around at the chaos. "I don't think that our client was very honest with us. This seems like a lot of security for something as simple as leaked phone records."

“They lied to us?” Tzuyu lifted her head again to peer over at Mina and Jihyo, wide eyes wounded at the thought. “But Fei and Jia were so nice.”

“Not lied,” Sana soothed her with a simpler explanation, “Mina means that they didn’t tell the whole truth.”

“Lying by omission,” Jeongyeon said, then pointed a stern finger at their youngest member, “which you are never to do, by the way.”

Tzuyu just looked more confused and scratched at the spot in her hairline where the pipe had struck her. “What would I lie about?”

“You’re confusing the maknae!” Momo lamented as she finally rolled off of Dahyun.

Dahyun nodded in agreement, peeking around the small half-wall at the shooters. “They have to be running low on ammo,” she said. “We need a new plan.”

“I vote we bail,” said Momo.

“I second that,” Nayeon raised her hand and promptly lowered it when a bullet skimmed past. “Whatever they’re paying us isn’t worth this. My bruises have bruises.”

Jeongyeon nodded. “Even Tzuyu is taking damage now and–” She froze. "Uh, where the fuck did she go?"

Sana turned, eyes widening at the empty space beside her, and glanced around desperately. "I don't know! She was right–!"

She was cut off as a metal beam flew over their heads towards their assailants, the unyielding steel slamming into four of them with a resounding thud.

"How does it feel, huh?!" Tzuyu shouted, staggering forward with an indignant frown. "Not so nice is it?!"

"Holy shit, Tzu!" Momo praised loudly. "That was awesome!"

"No!" Jihyo scowled at the speedster, "Do not encourage this," and turned back to Tzuyu, "Tzuyu, get behind cover!"

Tzuyu stumbled back a step, left pupil dilating from the earlier blow to her skull, and grabbed another steel beam from the pile.

"Tzuyu, that's an order!" Jihyo met eyes with Jeongyeon, panic tightening in her chest when their youngest refused to listen.

Nayeon tilted her head curiously. “How hard did they hit her head?”

"You are all...being...so...rude!" With a pained cry, Tzuyu hurtled another beam in the direction of gunfire taking out another two riflemen and reached for a third, muscles straining from the effort.

"Tzuyu!" Jihyo raised her chin, bringing out the voice her team knew well enough to heed, but Tzuyu was too disorientated to notice. "Someone get her into cover!"

"Preferably before the little idiot hurts herself," Jeongyeon muttered.

“I’m not tackling her,” Momo said firmly. “The kid is a literal statue. Last time I almost broke my nose.”

Jeongyeon growled under her breath and focused on her hands, pulling inward to try and drag time to a halt but she still couldn’t do more than slow time to a crawl, not enough time for her to reach Tzuyu before it resumed again.

“Chaeyoung’s haunting powers would be so useful right now,” Momo sighed.

“’Haunting powers?’” Nayeon guffawed.

“Telekinesis,” Mina corrected quietly, “and I agree.”

Jeongyeon slumped back in defeat, resigned to still being unable to stop time. “So we’re in agreement to beat up the tiny–”

A pained cry had their attention snapping back to Tzuyu, frozen by a masked assailant they’d missed stabbing a stun baton into her side, searing through her damaged clothing to the soft skin beneath. The beam slipped from her grasp, eyes rolling back into her skull, and Tzuyu collapsed, body rendered immobile by the deadly current of electric charge.

"Chewy!" Sana vanished from sight, hidden as she hurried to the youngest's aid, Momo flashed over to tackle Tzuyu's attacker, and Dahyun threw out another dozen clones again to provide additional cover, sweat forming on her brow.

"We're pinned down, Ji," Mina said quietly, her hand finding Jihyo's as watchful eyes took in the damage around them. "They're all drained and I can't use my ability from a distance."

Jihyo looked around in desperation, trying to formulate a plan when their options were sorely limited. Tzuyu was out for the count, meaning they no longer had their heavy hitter for a frontal assault. Sana was starting to flicker more frequently, her ability sapped under pressure, so the element of surprise was gone. Momo was one more jump from having a heart attack and Dahyun would give herself an aneurism if she attempted her duplication trick again.

And Chaeyoung was nowhere to be found.

That left Jeongyeon, Nayeon, Mina, and Jihyo herself. The two eldest members' powers conflicted, time manipulation working at its finest, and Mina was still training how to use her ability from a distance, meaning she would need to be close enough to be shot point blank for her hypnosis to have an effect, and Jihyo's senses were too over-stimulated for her own ability to focus.

Shit.

“I still think that we should bail,” Momo snarled as she slammed the man’s head against the ground hard enough to knock him out. “How’s the kid?”

“Not good,” Sana breathed, looking at the speedster with watering eyes.

“Well, she did just get clubbed and stunned,” Momo muttered. “I wouldn’t imagine that’s very good for your health.”

“And I’m going to club her again when she wakes up!” Jeongyeon called over to them.

“Like hell you are!” Nayeon bit back, clambering over to smack her shoulder. “Touch a hair on my child’s head and I’ll glitter-bomb the house!”

Jeongyeon gasped loudly. “You wouldn’t.”

“Jihyo,” Mina squeezed her hand, eyes suddenly bright with an idea. “They have radios.”

Jihyo squinted at her. “Mina, what in the actual fuck–?”

“I think that I can use hypnosis without actually seeing them,” Mina continued quickly, not even giving Jihyo time to critique her idea. “I told Nayeon to buy me a Switch on the phone last week and she did.”

“Mina,” Jihyo smiled fondly, “you’re really hard to say no to. That doesn’t mean that it was your power.”

Mina’s eyes flashed with irritation, the adrenaline of the fight making her leg bounce. “Do you have another idea?” she challenged.

Jihyo glanced around at her team again; Nayeon and Jeongyeon bickering, Sana fussing over Tzuyu who was on her fourth rendition of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ in the wrong key, Momo and Dahyun slumped together in exhaustion.

No. She didn’t have another idea. Not one that got everyone out alive, at least.

“Momo!” Jihyo caught her eye and gestured to the unconscious militant. “Give me his radio!”

Momo didn’t even question the command. She crawled over to the man and patted down his uniform in search of the device, grinning triumphantly when she unclipped it from his belt. “I got it!” She held it up for them to see and screamed as a bullet tore through the radio, snapping her arm back down in a hurry.

Silence fell upon them and Jihyo felt the vein in her forehead pulsing furiously.

“Momo...” Sana gently released Tzuyu’s hand, flickering in and out of sight. “What the fuck?”

“Great going, idiot!” Nayeon sneered, earning herself the full extent of Momo’s glower.

“Then reverse time and fix it!” she countered bitterly.

Mina dropped her head into her hands as the bickering began anew and whined quietly under her breath. She had never performed well under stress. “There goes that plan,” she sighed.

“We need a fucking miracle now,” Jeongyeon grumbled.

Then Jihyo felt it. Another entity that she knew as well as the other seven around her. Strong, free-spirited, stubborn, loyal.

Chaeyoung.

The far door flew open and hurried footsteps approached as Son Chaeyoung tumbled into the battlefield with her shirt on backwards and a missing boot. She threw up her arms when another wave of bullets swarmed them, changing their motion as easily as stirring a spoon. When her hands twisted so did the bullets, turning to face the gunmen instead, and all it took was a quick flick of her wrist to fire them back.

Several cries were cut short and whoever was left standing was promptly taken over when Chaeyoung pulled down the ceiling above them, ending a gunfight that they had been enduring for several hours in only a few minutes.

Jeongyeon clambered to her feet, face growing warmer and warmer the longer she stared at the telekinetic, chest heaving with furious puffs of breath.

“Jeongie...” Nayeon touched the other girl’s elbow gently. “Deep breaths...” She waited until Jeongyeon did as instructed before turning blazing eyes to the short telekinetic and thundered, “Where the hell have you been?!”

“Long story,” Chaeyoung answered vaguely, leaning over with a shuddered exhale. “I’ll explain later. We need to leave now.”

“I expect a full explanation,” Jihyo said, slipping back into the role of leader easily enough with the lack of gunfire. “And it better be a damn good one.” She pointed at Dahyun. “Go with Mina and secure the files.”

“Yes, boss!” Dahyun beamed and gave her a tiny salute in parting, slipping into the back office with Mina leading the way.

“You guys really got shot up, huh?” Chaeyoung mumbled, having the decency to sound at least a little guilty. “Where’s Tzu?”

Jihyo’s heart sunk at the question, eyes snapping over to Sana and Tzuyu, and she left Chaeyoung to be interrogated by Jeongyeon and Nayeon. She stepped around the broken crates and scattering of bullet casings to reach the duo, ears picking up on Sana’s soft words even from a distance.

“I don’t like it when you do that, Chewy,” the girl murmured, hunched beside the youngest with a heaviness to her shoulders that Jihyo hadn’t seen before. “I know you can take it, but I don’t like it when you get hurt.”

Jihyo felt a smile tug at her lips, mirroring the sentiment. It was strange. Logically she knew that Tzuyu was close to being invincible, but actually seeing her take the damage was jarring. She could still vividly remember the first time Tzuyu had actually bruised.

It was a long time ago, tucked away with memories of white walls and the glaring stench of sterilization they all strove to forget yet haunted them all the same.

Tzuyu had been half the size then and so frightened of human contact, quiet enough that Jihyo had actually begun to suspect that she was mute until Dahyun managed to blurt out ‘I love you’ as the only Mandarin she knew.

“Hey, Tzu,” Jihyo knelt down beside Sana and rested a gentle hand on her back, losing all anger at the dread seeping into her palm, “how are you doing?”

"I tasted lightning," Tzuyu mumbled deliriously. "It wasn't very nice...like licking a battery..."

Jihyo sat back on her heels with a relieved sigh. "Why would you even know...?" She shook her head, resigning herself to the fact that she really didn't want to know, and shifted her attention to the head wound. "Any dizziness? Nausea? Double vision?"

Tzuyu squinted up at her, left pupil still swollen from the earlier blow. "You're so pretty, unnie."

"And you've taken too much damage today," Jihyo murmured as she brushed Tzuyu's hair out of the way.

The youngest of their group's powers could be simplified down to super strength, able to withstand far more damage than a normal human, but every blow drained her, forcing her body to compensate to the new pain, and that – combined with the ability to fling steel beams across a room – meant that her metal skin wore down over the course of a fight.

As Mina always said, she was only impenetrable to a point, but that had never stopped Tzuyu from being their shield.

“Hey,” Sana teased, eyes shimmering with tears, “why does Jihyo get all the compliments?”

Tzuyu hummed quietly and reached up to touch Sana’s cheek. “I let him hit my head for you,” was her tired response and enough to provoke a smile, no matter how small.

Happiness wasn’t something they had experienced much as children, certainly not at the Company under lock and key. They had been marked as dangerous, sighted as valuable individuals, and with no roots to speak of they had been easy enough to make disappear.

“Did I get the bad guys?” Tzuyu asked wearily. “Did I protect everyone?”

Jihyo blinked back tears at the childlike question and could only nod, swallowing down the lump in her throat as she forced a smile.

“Yes, Yoda,” she said softly. “You were remarkable.”

Tzuyu nodded and settled again, content enough with Jihyo’s answer to rest her battered body, and Jihyo took a moment to look at her. She was only younger than Chaeyoung by a couple of months but the difference was there mentally. Tzuyu wasn’t very good at interacting with people, never having had the chance to develop friendships when she was capable of snapping bones by accident, but that had never stopped Sana from trying.

Sana was their most loving member, full of so much affection for others even after the Company had tried to claw it out of her. She was the complete opposite to Tzuyu and yet they somehow worked as partners.

Sana snuck in where Tzuyu couldn’t go, invisible to those who didn’t know to look, and Tzuyu forced open the doors to get her there.

Jihyo reached out to tap Tzuyu’s cheek when her eyelids fluttered. “Can you walk?”

"I've got her," Jeongyeon appeared on the girl’s other side, smile painfully tight when she carefully dragged Tzuyu's limp body over her shoulder. "Let's get you home, kiddo."

“Are we still getting ice cream?”

“How about we get you patched up first?” Jihyo suggested gently.

Tzuyu groaned in agreement, eyes squeezed shut in pain. “Good idea.”

Sana scrambled to her feet to follow Jeongyeon out of the warehouse, fussing every step of the way. “Be careful with her head!”

“Ow...”

“What did I just say?!”

Quiet laughter pulled her gaze to Mina and Dahyun, returning with small smiles that spoke of success. Mina approached her, USB in hand, whilst the illusionist went to greet Chaeyoung’s late arrival.

Mina’s smile grew when she caught Jihyo’s eyes, gummy and warm, and she dropped the USB into a waiting palm. “We’re asking for more after this, right?”

“Oh, definitely,” Jihyo agreed.

“And looking at the information first?”

Jihyo looked down at the small rectangle in her hand with a small frown. Whatever was on it had been enough for their client to withhold information and lead them into a fight they weren’t prepared for.

It wouldn’t be at all professional to pry, but as Tzuyu had quite rightly claimed, the information’s protectors had been very rude.

She looked at Mina resolutely, a new fire burning in her chest. “We should at least check that we’re not going to be hunted for this,” she said lowly.

“Guys,” Chaeyoung spoke up, wise enough to avoid Jihyo’s eyes, “I’m sorry. I should’ve been here...”

"It's okay!" Dahyun chirped and swung an arm around Chaeyoung's shoulders, barely managing to hide her own wince of pain. "We totally had it under control!"

Momo doubled over behind her to loudly expel the contents of her stomach, exhaustion and motion sickness finally settling in.

“Yah!” It was just unfortunate that it was over Nayeon’s feet.

Chapter Text

There was always something calming about arriving home.

Maybe it was because it was theirs or because they had worked so hard to get to where they were, but pulling into the driveway always sparked no small amount of pride in Jihyo’s heart.

It wasn’t a big house, not even slightly, but there was enough room for the nine of them without it feeling too crammed, certainly more than what they had started with. From a locked room no larger than a closet, to a hostel, to a rundown apartment, to a nicer apartment. Most of the moves came down to accidental property damage or Company agents cropping up in the area, paranoia chasing them across the country, but they were safe for the time being in Seoul.

The city was large enough to hide in and crime had increased enough for them to perform contracts without attracting too much attention. For the past seven months it had been safe enough to call home. For seven blissful months they had stopped running.

Dahyun, Chaeyoung and Tzuyu were enrolled in the local high school, Dahyun set to become the first of the team to actually graduate. Sana, Momo, and Mina were attending night classes at a college downtown. Nayeon worked weekends at a café, Jeongyeon had managed to secure slots for training by helping out at a nearby gym, and Jihyo kept everything together.

This was their second chance, not as test subjects in Project Signal, but as a family in Twice. They had lived one life already, one they wanted to bury, and Jihyo believed wholeheartedly that Twice was their way to do that.

They all tumbled through the door in an exhausted line and split off in different directions habitually as they always did after missions.

Tzuyu and Momo made a beeline for the kitchen, Momo needing to refuel her body while Tzuyu went to the freezer for an ice pack with Sana and Mina in tow, the latter acting as their unofficial medic in most cases.

“I’m incinerating these shoes,” Nayeon announced dramatically, flicking her hair into Jeongyeon’s face in passing, “and taking the longest shower of my life.”

Jeongyeon snagged her by the collar of her shirt before she could get any further and dragged her back outside to dispose of said shoes before she treaded the mess through the house.

Jihyo glanced at the only two left and nodded her head towards the living room with the USB on offer. “Go ahead and order some food,” she instructed, giving Chaeyoung a pointed look. “You still need to explain your absence to the team. Dahyun, do what you do best and find out what’s on this please.”

Chaeyoung nodded obediently, sheepish enough to part without another word, and Dahyun gave Jihyo a crinkled-eyed smile, taking the stick they’d been beaten up trying to steal, before trailing after her smaller friend.

A sudden pull in the air had her drifting towards the kitchen, lips turning down at Tzuyu, hunched on one of the bar stools in obvious distress.

"Here," Mina set glass of water down on the countertop and pressed a handful of pills into Tzuyu’s palm, "you're going to have one killer of a headache tomorrow."

"Worse than the one I have now, you mean," Tzuyu grumbled.

Sana's brow twitched with a concerned frown, gentle fingers tying long hair out of the way, before she pressed an ice pack against the growing wound.

“Things could always be worse,” Momo said lightly, sliding onto the neighboring stool with a teasing smile. She pushed the glass of water out of the way and replaced it with her half-downed obnoxiously blue energy juice. “You could’ve fallen down two flights of stairs again.”

Four expressions shifted to similar winces of pain, none worse than that of Jihyo. Tzuyu might have been slightly immune to pain, but she had felt every single step fallen the moment she had touched Tzuyu’s arm.

All it had taken was a second. They had dropped their guard for a second and everything had gone wrong. Tzuyu was tackled through a rusted railing and fallen two flights, Momo was stabbed in shoulder with a screwdriver, and Mina was strangled half to death to silence her voice.

One second.

That was all it ever took.

“Does your side hurt?” Sana asked quietly, reaching for the edge of Tzuyu’s shredded shirt.

“I’m fine,” the younger girl squirmed away and the ice pack fell to the ground. “Leave it alone.”

Sana followed with a frown. “It didn’t look fine.”

“Stop it,” Tzuyu whined.

“Stop fussing and let me see.”

“Sana–” Cold fingers brushed against the wound accidentally. “Ow!”

Mina rolled her eyes with a heavy sigh and Momo laughed under her breath, both exchanging a knowing look that Jihyo couldn’t decipher even with her enhanced senses. She looked between Sana and Tzuyu, noting the faint flush of anger across Tzuyu’s cheeks and the distance Sana had created, looking at the younger girl with an unreadable expression.

One she was about to question before a thunder of footsteps approached.

“Who hurt my TzuTzu?!” Nayeon tumbled into Jihyo, stepping on her foot with painful force even without shoes.

Sana opened her mouth to answer but Tzuyu beat her to it with a very quiet, “I’m okay,” and reached stiffly for Momo’s glass to force the pills down her throat.

Nayeon’s brow creased slightly. “But I heard–”

“In the nicest way possible,” Mina stepped in and switched the energy drink with water again, giving the rest of them a look caught somewhere between irritated and downright murderous, “none of you are helping so could you please go and make sure that Dahyun doesn’t order half the menu again.”

Momo perked up at the mention of food and darted off, grabbing Sana’s wrist to tow her away too. “Dubu!” she called loudly. “Order me double of everything!”

Jihyo shook her head with a soft breath of laughter that trailed off when she realized that Mina was giving her the ‘Doctor Myoui’ look as well. “I should check on how Dahyun’s getting along with those files,” she said in parting, already backing away with both palms up in apology.

“We’re leaving TzuTzu alone with her?” Nayeon questioned quietly.

Jeongyeon appeared on her left, smiling bemusedly at everything she had heard, and forcibly turned Nayeon by her shoulders. “The kid is in perfectly safe hands,” she said and gave a soft push towards the living room, “don’t antagonize the doctor.”

“But–”

“Nayeon,” Mina’s eyes lit up, her irises shifting from warm brown to cold silver, “go away.”

And like the flick of a switch Nayeon’s expression slackened. The lyrical note in Mina’s voice worked its magic and sent the eldest of their team walking away in the opposite direction, just as commanded.

“You know,” Jeongyeon smirked deviously, “I wouldn’t be opposed to you telling her to shut up more often.”

Tzuyu nodded in agreement and Jeongyeon’s smirk stretched into a toothy grin, laughter in her eyes that she wisely kept to herself. Nayeon hadn’t seen it and didn’t need to know that her adored TzuTzu had sided with Jeongyeon... She would lord that over her later.

“Do I have to make you leave too?” Mina questioned.

“Nope!” Jeongyeon winked at the youngest of their group. “Be a good girl for Doctor Myoui, TzuTzu!”

Tzuyu’s eyes narrowed and Jeongyeon took that as her cue to trail after Jihyo and a hypnotized Nayeon.

The leader of the team glanced at her with a heavy sigh, displeasure evident. “Do you have to antagonize her all the time?”

“I do it out of love, Hyo,” Jeongyeon drawled. “And she gives as good as she gets. If anything it’s self-defense.”

Jihyo blinked at her as a look of concern started to appear. “That’s not–”

“Hey, boss!” Dahyun waved at them from the couch, glasses on and her laptop situated on her lap with a sullen Chaeyoung beside her, flipping disinterestedly through one of the many takeaway menus they had collected over the past months.

Even if she was actually reading the descriptions of the different meals, her input wouldn’t matter. Momo and Sana were already talking over one another to whoever the poor soul was on the other end of the line, speaking far too quickly for the employee to be writing everything down.

“This is child’s play!” Dahyun chirped happily. “They didn’t even encrypt anything. A couple passwords and a hidden virus that didn’t do squat.” Her brow twitched at Nayeon’s empty expression. “What’s up with her?”

“She pissed off the siren,” Jeongyeon shrugged and was promptly elbowed in the side for the comment.

“She’s fine,” Jihyo said dismissively. “So what did you find?”

Dahyun’s eyes sparked. “No phone records.”

Jihyo raised an eyebrow at that. “None at all?”

“Nope.” Dahyun gestured to her laptop screen. “There’s some seriously suspicious transactions and a few backups of emails threads, but no phone records.” She glanced at Chaeyoung. “It’s what’s on the bank records that worries me.”

Chaeyoung nodded in agreement. “It confirms the lead I was following.”

“’Lead?’” Jeongyeon echoed.

“Myoui Mina!” Nayeon blinked out of her trance and whirled back around to the open archway with a furious glower. “How dare you use your witchy magic on me!”

Mina stepped into the room with a small coy smile, eyes shimmering with just enough silver to make Nayeon think again about assaulting her. All of her fight dimmed in an instant when Tzuyu shuffled in behind her, whining quietly at the noise, palms pressed against her ears.

The girl was already walking easier, a heavy dosage of painkillers working their way through her body. Jihyo didn’t even want to know how many pills she was on now. It always seemed to be more the older she got.

“Sorry, TzuTzu,” Nayeon apologized in a much quieter voice, her grudge against the hypnotist put on the backburner for the time being.

Tzuyu flopped onto a lone armchair, rigid posture indicating that she wanted some space, and almost immediately her leg started to bounce, one hand lowering to tap a habitual rhythm. She didn’t like taking medicine, not even to dull aches and pains. It reminded her too much of lab coats and needles.

"So," Sana moved to sit on the arm of the chair, fingers carding through Tzuyu's hair gently, "where were you, Chaengie?"

Jihyo’s eyes narrowed at the interaction, frustration rising at Sana’s complete lack of personal space, but Tzuyu's leg had ceased its agitated bouncing and the anxious tapping against the other arm of the chair had slowed its pace.

"Yeah," Jeongyeon butted in, "and what was so important that you couldn't wait until after our mission?”

Chaeyoung leant forward, her skin unusually pale in the light, even in contrast to Dahyun who was practically illuminated compared to the rest of them. She looked almost unwell and Jihyo didn’t need to touch her to know that she was worried, but the key thing with their telekinetic member was not to push.

Confrontation would only make her withdraw and raise her hackles in defense. She was a protective creature, fighting with everything she had for what she believed in. She wouldn’t have abandoned the mission without good reason.

But Jihyo wouldn’t have minded just this once. She would’ve preferred some shrugged excuse about missing a bus or ditching to hang out with a friend, anything else but Chaeyoung taking a long, shuddered inhale of breath and uttering a very quiet;

"I think that the Company is looking for us."

A cold chill settled in the room as time ground to a halt, weighed down by a tidal wave of memories, none of them pleasant.

Locked doors, barred windows, tests upon tests, tasteless meals, a rigorous schedule that never changed, never strayed. Day in and day out they were forced to perform, forced to endure, forced to repent for every mistake, no matter how small or who was at fault.

They weren’t human to the Company, but a collection of toy soldiers. Easily controlled, easily manipulated, sedatives laced through their meals. Escaping the facility had been several months of planning and even more time putting things into place.

The thought that they hadn’t run far enough from the Company’s shadow, that the Company refused to fade into the past, was too much to dwell on.

"Are you sure?" Momo croaked, palm on the speaker of her phone. “I mean, it’s been seven years since–” A faint voice spoke by her ear and she quickly removed her hand again. “Oh, yes! Sorry! That’s everything, thank you.”

“Momo’s right,” Jeongyeon murmured. “It’s been seven years since we got out. There’s no way they could know what we look like. You were ten, Chaeng. You look completely different now.”

“And we’ve been so careful,” Mina added softly. “No loose ends. We never leave a trail.”

Tzuyu’s foot started to bounce again and the tapping resumed, more frantic than before. “You don’t know that for sure, though,” she whispered. “Footprints in the dust, right? We could’ve left something.”

Sana rested her palm on the girl’s crown, offering comfort despite her own concern evident in the way she was flickering ever so slightly. “Dust blows away in the wind, Chewy.”

Jihyo looked around at her team, heart hammering against her ribcage. The fear in the air was thick enough that her lungs struggled to expand fully. Her senses were flooded, the other eight presences suddenly too much to bear.

Her feet were moving backwards, all the way to the window until she could breathe again.

“How do you know that they’re looking for us?” Nayeon questioned. “How did you even get this information?"

“What’s on the bank records?” Jihyo asked Dahyun, nodding her head at Jeongyeon’s concerned glance to indicate that she was fine.

Dahyun adjusted her glasses and turned her laptop around to face the rest of the room. “There are three large sums of money transferred in the past month from Miss A’s personal account to a nameless account.”

“That could be anything,” Jeongyeon shrugged. “What makes it suspicious?”

“The timing,” Dahyun said. “Each payment coincides with this contract.” She pointed at the screen. “The rest of the payments going out are menial things. Rent, fancy lunches, expensive clothes…but nothing with a pattern like this. The first payment was the day before they contacted us, the second was last week, and the third was two days ago.”

“You think it’s something to do with us?” Jihyo concluded.

There was a sinking feeling in her chest, a tiny little whisper at the back of her mind that had been there since the first meeting. Wang Fei and Meng Jia had been their only contacts, the other two CEOs of Miss A remaining as shadows in the background.  They weren’t unknown. Not even slightly. Miss A were a powerhouse in the business of trading sensitive information.

It was what made them perfect clients. They wouldn’t dig into Twice’s business, not unless they wanted their secrets leaked to the public with a tap of Dahyun’s finger.

But there was always a risk.

They had just been lucky enough so far to have avoided any trouble beyond scuffles with thugs. If what Dahyun was implying was true, if Miss A had been paying off someone else in connection to Twice, then they could be in very real danger.

“It’s too coincidental to ignore, boss.”

“Chaeyoung?” Jihyo prompted. “How does that link to your lead?”

Chaeyoung sat up a little straighter and cleared her throat. “I got a tip from Rosé,” she said, continuing quickly when hackles started to rise. “They had a guy in last week asking about us. I knew that you’d just dismiss it so I took it upon myself to trail him.”

“Damn right we would’ve dismissed it,” Jeongyeon grumbled. “They’re just trying to get you to join their gang.”

“They fixed the minivan free of charge last month,” Dahyun pointed out.

“To get us to join their gang.”

“You say that about everyone,” Momo tipped her head back, sighing loudly. “Not everyone in Seoul is in a gang, Jeong.”

“Jennie got his plates and Lisa asked around,” Chaeyoung continued, undeterred by Jeongyeon’s fraying temper. “He goes by Rain.” She leant forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “Turns out that he’s been following us ever since we arrived in the city. Last night I followed him to Miss A’s office.”

“Boss,” Dahyun took over, eyes wide, “this guy doesn’t exist…like, anywhere. No medical records, no personal details, no criminal history...he's a ghost in the system."

“Something’s going on,” Chaeyoung rubbed at her forehead, the mess of paper and coasters rattling around her. “Why would he go there? This was a simple contract. Too little money for a rival to get involved…Too petty for the law…Like Dubu said, it’s too coincidental.”

“Are we still meeting with Miss A tomorrow?” Mina asked quietly. "Would it be safe?"

“I think ‘are we staying here?’ is a more appropriate question,” Nayeon murmured.

Sana yelped loudly at a loud noise to her left, all eyes turning to Tzuyu’s hand which had broken the arm of the chair, the wooden frame hanging at an angle and the fabric covering ripped at the seam.

“Kid?” Jeongyeon prompted gently, all of them prepared to use their abilities if Tzuyu’s upset stretched beyond the poor armchair.

Tzuyu took a deep breath and tucked clenched fists under her armpits. Her eyes dropped instinctively to the ground, eyebrows knitting together as she searched for the right words to convey what she was feeling. Emotions were complicated for her. It came with the territory of being superhuman. Her skin acted as armor and her fists were a weapon, but similar to Momo’s insatiable appetite from an inhumanly fast metabolism process, Tzuyu couldn’t express herself properly.

She experienced feelings differently to the rest of them. Fear, grief, and panic were muted, happiness little more than not being sad, and everything more complex eventually turned into anger and frustration – toxic feelings the Company had nurtured instead of the child in their care.

Her development had been poisoned early on despite their best efforts, the Company digging their claws in deep enough to leave scarring damage even seven years later.

“I don’t…” Tzuyu swallowed thickly, visibly counting with a twitching fist. “I don’t want to move again.”

‘Again.’

Seven months was the longest they’d stayed anywhere outside of the Company. The realization of that stung more than Jihyo thought it would. They’d been running across South Korea ever since their escape, never stopping, never settling.

They’d finally found a home that felt safe but nothing stayed safe forever.

“I’m sorry, kid, but that’s not your decision to make,” Jeongyeon said when no one else spoke. “If the Company have tracked us down then we need to go.”

The flash of anger was evident, heat rising to Tzuyu’s cheeks as she fought to keep her temper at bay, counting with her fist and a heavy breath. “I’m not going,” she said firmly. “I’ll be eighteen next year…” She glanced meekly at Jihyo, unable to meet her eyes. “You won’t be my guardians anymore.”

That sinking feeling came back in full force, heavy and suffocating. There had always been the risk of division in their team. A life of running was difficult and earning a living was even harder when one mistake, one accidental slip of supernatural power was all it took for everything to fall apart.

But what Tzuyu was implying…that she wouldn’t follow as soon as she was the legal age to make her own decisions…that really hurt.

“Tzuyu…” Jihyo took a step towards her, palm stretched outwards, unable to shake that niggling feeling at the back of her mind that something bad was coming. “You know it’s not that simple–”

The doorbell rang.

“That’ll be the food!” Momo cheered, visibly relieved for the change of subject as she clambered to her feet and stumbled out into the hallway to answer the door.

Jihyo looked at Tzuyu a moment longer, sighing softly as she returned to her passive state. The conversation about splitting apart from the group would have to wait.

“Look, we’re not going to do anything yet,” she said, shifting the focus back to their open contract. “We don’t know for certain that it’s the Company. This guy could work for anyone.”

“And we need the cash from this job,” Nayeon murmured.

Momo reappeared with a bright smile and an armful of pizza boxes, far more than they really needed but not unexpected since Momo had been the one ordering. “Bone apple tea!” she declared proudly.

Mina shook her head, sighing loudly. “Bon Appétit,” she corrected.

“That’s what I said. Bones on my feet.”

The hypnotist covered her mouth, closing her eyes in despair. “Why did I teach you that?”

Jihyo thought on it for a moment. They had the upper hand of knowing that their clients were potentially working with an outside party, but it could have just as easily been one of their own clients. They weren’t exactly an ethical business to begin with. It was also possible that the man asking about them could be looking for their services, but it never hurt to be cautious.

“We’ll tie up this contract and lay low for a while,” Jihyo decided. “Just in case.”

“It’ll be like a holiday,” Sana chimed in with a forced smile, gaze drifting to Tzuyu. “You’ll have time for those bruises to actually heal up this time, Chewy-ah.”

Tzuyu hummed noncommittally at the idea, mind far away, and Sana gave up on conversation, instead settling beside her again, not at all deterred by the damaged chair or Tzuyu’s tight fists.

“Not quite a holiday,” Jeongyeon chuckled. “We’ve still got to pretend to be normal.” She gestured to Dahyun and Chaeyoung. “The kids still have school.”

Chaeyoung pulled a face at the reminder. “Isn’t this more important?”

“You’re going to school, Chaeng,” Nayeon glared at her. “At least I’ll know where you are.”

Jihyo nodded. “You’ll be safe. They wouldn’t risk drawing the attention of the authorities,” she said. “We’ll settle up and close the loop.” She nodded again, the tightness easing slightly. “Like we always do.”

She just had to hope that it was enough.

Chapter Text

Chaeyoung didn’t like rules.

She preferred to do things alone, outside of the box created by society. By all accounts she shouldn’t have worked well with a group, but Twice seemed to be the exception.

She butted heads with the leading trio about mission plans and personal freedom, found herself smothered if she was around the Japanese trinity for too long, but Dahyun and Tzuyu…she supposed that they were okay. They kind of had to be given that they shared a room but she would be lying if she denied that they had grown on her over the years.

Dahyun fretted and Tzuyu doubted but they still had her back during all of her half-planned schemes.

“They’re walking into a lion’s den,” Chaeyoung muttered, forcing a smile as she waved away the minivan, thoroughly peeved that she was being forced to attend class while the others went to speak with Miss A.

“They can handle it,” Dahyun rested a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You know that they can handle it.”

“The three of us could take out the entire building before they even called security,” Chaeyoung argued. “They should take us too.”

“Mina’s with them,” said Dahyun. “And Sana will probably stay hidden from sight.”

Chaeyoung sighed heavily. She knew that Dahyun was right and that the team was perfectly capable of handling a potentially volatile situation, but something didn’t feel right – hadn’t felt right ever since speaking to Rosé.

Rain had been asking about them, prying for information no client could possibly need. Names, address, where they studied, where they worked, where they spent free time. He had been asking too much.

They weren’t difficult to contact. A client only needed to leave a message with one of their contacts and a first meet would be set up. No names were shared, no personal details given, and they changed the appearance and plates of their minivan regularly.

Dahyun tidied up any security feed they may have been caught on and Mina made any witnesses forget their faces. Twice only existed to those who knew where to look and Rain quite obviously had.

“Hey,” Tzuyu turned to them, self-consciously touching the bruising hidden beneath makeup, “is it visible?”

Dahyun’s attention shifted instantly as she stepped around Chaeyoung to get a closer look, slightly hindered without her glasses. “It’s healing already,” she noted softly. “What’s in those pills Mina gives you?”

“Maybe her body’s just adjusting to being beat up all the time,” Chaeyoung teased.

Tzuyu looked like she was actually considering Chaeyoung’s words for a moment which Dahyun took advantage of to fix the girl’s shirt collar. “Maybe,” she agreed, then answered Dahyun’s rhetorical question, “Mina doesn’t tell me…I don’t think that I want to know.”

Dahyun gave a sympathetic smile in response and patted her shoulder, happy now that the collar wasn’t twisted. “Probably for the best.”

Mind momentarily distracted from their shady contract and unknown stalker, Chaeyoung latched on to the very reason Tzuyu had the bruise as a playful smirk tugged at her lips. “So Dubu told me that you got knocked into next week protecting the Sanake.”

Tzuyu blinked owlishly at her, completely missing the jibe. “Was I not supposed to?”

“She’s teasing you, Tzu.” Dahyun said helpfully, casting a look of warning towards Chaeyoung.

They might have been aware of Sana’s recent infatuation with the maknae but Tzuyu was oblivious and they had to tread carefully. Sana was well known for her flings, often growing bored or restless when the idea of settling cropped up, and Tzuyu had never been in a relationship before.

Chaeyoung had already firmly decided upon flinging Sana into the Han River if she did anything more than flirt. It had never been formally agreed but relationships within the team were discouraged. There was just too much that could go wrong and anything that could potentially cause a rift in the group was discouraged.

It likely wouldn’t be a problem. Sana wasn’t foolish enough to go against Jihyo and Tzuyu didn’t seem to understand that Sana was being flirtatious instead of just friendly.

One day though, in the far future, Chaeyoung was going to explain the difference… Maybe.

“Oh,” Tzuyu smiled meekly, “Momo’s been trying to teach me about that.”

Hold on a damn minute.

“Momo?” Chaeyoung felt her previous glee shift to indignation. “We could teach you better than she could.”

“Chaeng,” Dahyun cautioned.

“No. I want to know why the hell she’s going to Momo instead of her roommates.”

Tzuyu raised her hand. “Aren’t we all technically roommates?”

Chaeyoung floundered for a response, thrown by the simple technicality. Tzuyu wasn’t wrong, but Chaeyoung didn’t want to admit that. So she didn’t.

“The adults are gone,” she said instead and started to walk away from the school gates, “let’s go.”

“Wait. What?” Dahyun scrambled for a hold of her arm. “What do you mean, ‘let’s go?’ Go where?”

"Are we not going to school?" Tzuyu asked, hands shoved deep into her coat pockets, fingers frozen despite the warm autumn breeze.

Chaeyoung glanced back, unsurprised to find them stopped at the gate. “Following this lead is more important."

"Actually," Dahyun raised a finger, expression mildly distressed, "education is very–"

“If I let this lead go then this guy will drop off the radar again,” Chaeyoung interrupted before Dahyun began one of her long-winded lectures about the pros of education. She didn’t disagree that school was important but the safety of her team was higher up on her list of priorities. “The team is handling the contract. What’s the harm in us checking that the stranger isn’t a Company spy?”

Tzuyu hummed in agreement, expression almost contemplative, but it was always so hard to tell with her. She could’ve very well been pondering their heated ‘Would You Rather’ question from the night before about having fifty puppies or a puppy the size of fifty puppies.

“The harm is that we will be truant,” Dahyun countered, “and my attendance record will be affected.”

“So don’t come.” Chaeyoung rolled her shoulders back with a sigh. “I’m not forcing you,” and it hurt her pride to admit it, “but I could use your help.”

She was more than capable of running a solo mission but for as impulsive as she was, Chaeyoung rarely ran into situations blind. She didn’t know Rain and Dahyun’s quick scour on the internet the night prior had failed to shed more light on his character. He didn’t exist but he was looking for them and Chaeyoung had learned very early on during their limited freedom that the unknown was dangerous.

It was, after all, the very reason they had been incarcerated.

Chaeyoung wouldn’t have minded the company either, not when it was Dahyun and Tzuyu.

“Okay.”

Her gaze snapped to Tzuyu, relief flooding through her at the small smile the younger girl gave, even if it was slightly forced. If Tzuyu was going to join her then Dahyun would too, as she always did, with the excuse of keeping them both out of trouble. She would just rant for a bit first.

"No!" Dahyun quickly moved to place herself between the two, scowling at Chaeyoung as sternly as she could. "Do not drag us into whatever mess you're making!"

Chaeyoung held up both palms, careful not to accidentally move anything around them in public. "Relax," she said lowly. "I just need Tzuyu to break down a couple of doors."

Tzuyu made a soft noise of delight. "I'm good at that."

Dahyun softened slightly, finding it hard to stay upset when Tzuyu looked so happy about being able to help, but they still had another six members to deal with beyond their exclusive club of three. "Chaeng, the others are still worked up after the last mission. If they find out–"

"They won't find out," Chaeyoung assured her.

"They always find out," Tzuyu disagreed, nose wrinkling in remembrance of past plans gone wrong, most credited to Chaeyoung herself.

“So maybe they’ll find out,” Chaeyoung relented, “but,” she added at Dahyun’s quickly souring expression, “it’ll be worth the scolding if it means that we can lord saving their ungrateful asses over them.”

Dahyun and Tzuyu shared a coveted look between them, both silently discussing the best way forward. Chaeyoung may have considered them her closest confidants but if push came to shove then they would most definitely throw her under the bus if it got Jihyo off their case.

“You’re taking the fall if we get caught,” Dahyun bargained.

“And,” Tzuyu’s dimple made an appearance with an endearingly crooked smile, “we’re getting ice cream on the way.”

Dahyun blinked at her. “That’s not what we agreed–”

“It’s what I agreed.”

“That’s not how democracy works.”

 “We didn’t get any yesterday,” Tzuyu was firm on the subject, “and I want some.”

“You don’t even like ice cream, Tzu!”

“I do when someone else is paying.”

Chaeyoung rolled her eyes with a heavy sigh but otherwise kept quiet, allowing the two to bicker as she waited for the lights to change. Their words rolled over her almost comfortingly, lacking any real bite, and with the lighthearted argument she felt some of her remaining dread leave.

If they were really lucky, which they rarely were, then Rain was just an overly curious client and they had nothing to worry about.

The pedestrian light turned green and she gave a small tug on Dahyun’s sleeve to get them moving, knowing that Tzuyu would follow.

They were their own small unit of three, the youngest members bound together in unity and aptly named as the School Meal Club with Dahyun as their responsible leading voice, Chaeyoung as the instigator of mischief, and Tzuyu happily tagging along for the ride with mostly accidental savagery.

Dahyun nudged her arm lightly. “So where are we going anyway?”

“Rosé said he was trailing us,” Chaeyoung said, “so we’ll do the same. He seems to be a day behind us so we’ll start at the warehouse we were at last night and see if he makes an appearance.”

“In our uniforms?” Tzuyu questioned softly. “Jihyo won’t like that at all.”

Chaeyoung reluctantly had to agree with that. It would be foolish to showcase their powers wearing a school uniform that could be easily identified.

“We’ll pick up some masks on the way,” she suggested with a simple shrug of her shoulder, as if her insides weren’t twisting nervously. “Maybe a hoodie or something too.”

She liked to consider herself brave, especially considering what they had endured as children, but the Company had done a very good job of instilling a certain amount of fear in her and the thought of clashing with them again was terrifying.

“And ice cream?” Tzuyu added quietly, voicing it like a question rather than a statement. She wouldn’t complain if they decided against it, not that Chaeyoung had been very good at denying Tzuyu simple requests. Tzuyu was her only younger member after all.

“And ice cream,” Chaeyoung agreed, offering a fond smile for the taller girl.

No matter what happened, she would always have them. Her best friends.

And Chaeyoung knew without a shadow of doubt that she would do anything to keep them.

Chapter Text

“You know, I’m kind of sad that the kids couldn’t come,” Momo sighed, tapping the window absently to quell her nerves.

They’d left the youngest three close to an hour ago and had been stuck in traffic as soon as they’d hit the highway. It gave them time to talk more strategy in the event of their paranoia actually coming to some sort of fruition, but there was nothing Jeongyeon hated more than being stuck. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She could slow time and yet any sort of delay had her itching to move.

Five years of being locked up in a room no larger than their minivan would have that effect.

Jeongyeon had never fully embraced their freedom like the others had. She was cautious, always waiting for the proverbial other foot to drop and the Company to herd them back to white tiles and lab coats. She could still hear the high pitched drone of the alarm when silence settled in.

They had all been so young. Jeongyeon had only been thirteen when they’d escaped, their brave leader little more than twelve. It had been hard to find their footing in a world they hardly knew. Even more so learning to control their abilities and keep everything hidden.

The first few years had been a whirlwind of moving from place to place when neighbors got too nosy about children with no obvious parental figure. It had actually been the very reason Dahyun had taught herself the inner workings of technology. A few careful keystrokes and Nayeon had become their legal guardian at the tender age of eighteen.

For all that she goofed around and acted more childish at times than their School Meal Club combined, Nayeon still took her role as the eldest very seriously. She was someone to rely on, someone they could trust to step up when it mattered, but more than that, she was the first person in her life that Jeongyeon had allowed herself to care about.

“They’re safer in school,” Jihyo said, knocking her head back against the headrest in relief when traffic started to crawl along again. “The less of you I need to worry about the better.”

“Agreed,” Mina mumbled without looking up from Dahyun’s scribbled notes of the information she’d managed to collect. They didn’t usually employ dirty tactics but a little blackmail might be needed depending how the exchange went.

“Have a little faith, Ji,” Sana leant forward, trying to see over Mina’s shoulder, “Nayeon will be on her best behavior.”

Jihyo rolled her eyes with all the fondness of an exasperated leader, lips curling at Sana’s attempt of getting a rise out of the eldest. “I wasn’t talking about Nayeon.”

Jeongyeon found her gaze travelling to Nayeon and a small smile pulled at her lips as gentle humming met her ears. She wasn’t even listening to the rest of them, mind far away on other things beyond the contract.

Tzuyu’s admission had thrown them the other day, Nayeon most of all. She held a particular fondness for her, having been a substitute mother for the younger members over the past decade, but Tzuyu had always relied on her a little more than the others and Nayeon loved that.

Jeongyeon could still remember entire evenings spent trying to teach Tzuyu how to read and write Korean, limited to broken sentences and vague gestures. Chaeyoung didn’t like accepting their help, determined to be as independent as she could, and Dahyun never asked for help, capable enough of tackling assignments on her own.

It had been a frustrating experience. There had been no reason to be literate in the facility they had been raised in, not when the only communication with adults was an unpleasant experience.

But Nayeon had been so patient.

She didn’t raise her voice, didn’t lose her temper, didn’t even bat an eye when Tzuyu accidentally broke the pull-out table of their first apartment in anger.

She was so good with the kids and Jeongyeon couldn’t help but admire that in her…amongst other things.

Jeongyeon tilted her head, something in her chest stirring when the early morning sunlight trickled through the window to cast Nayeon’s face in a warm glow. She had tied her hair back for a change, leaving her face completely uncovered, eyes still half closed with exhaustion edging in, but Jeongyeon thought that she was beautiful.

“Hey,” a finger tapped her shoulder from the seat behind her, Momo smiling knowingly when she glanced back sharply, “you’re staring.”

Jeongyeon set her jaw and felt her face warm when she caught Sana’s teasing smirk, just knowing that the two would corner her later with another request at being her wingwomen, but while she appreciated their desire to help, this was something she wanted to do on her own and with caution.

Nayeon was too important to her to squander their friendship with the complication of feelings.

“We’re finally off of the highway, thank god!” Nayeon tipped her head back with a loud sigh, the line of her throat tantalizing, lips pursed in a sweet pout–

Jeongyeon cleared her throat and forced her gaze away, focusing instead on the large office buildings they were passing. She recognized some of them from the previous meets, bland buildings disguised by obnoxiously bright neon signs that started to become less the further they drove until all that was left were large skyscrapers, intimidating in stature and expense.

She sat a little straighter when Jihyo pulled into a side street, a coil of dread tightening in her gut. Silence filled the minivan, a moment of hesitation creeping in. They had a plan and Mina had already run them through several possible escape routes if anything went wrong.

“Okay,” Jihyo cut the engine and turned around to face the rest of them, solemn as she shifted into her role as their leader, “Sana, are you sure that you can keep up your power for the meeting? You’re not too worn down?”

Sana’s demeanor changed in an instant. Gone were the teasing smiles and bedroom eyes, replaced by a strange serenity, and Jeongyeon wondered briefly who Sana was trying to convince. Jihyo or herself?

“I’ve got this, Boss,” she assured Jihyo.

“Okay,” Jihyo said again, calming ever so slightly and went quiet for a moment as what Momo called ‘Leader Face’ made an appearance. Knowing Jihyo, she was mentally running through every possible scenario twice and then a third time just to be sure. She took so much weight on her own shoulders.

Jeongyeon glanced over at Nayeon, catching her eye in a fleeting moment. They tried their hardest to lessen Jihyo’s burdens but it would only work if Jihyo allowed them to help and sometimes she was as hardheaded as Chaeyoung.

“Ten minutes.” Jihyo exhaled deeply. “We go in that building for ten minutes and not a second more. We will return the information, take the payment, make them forget, and walk away.”

“Sounds simple,” Momo commented softly. “Simpler than other contracts we’ve done.”

“In theory it is.” Mina lifted a printout of transactions and correspondence between Miss A and their own clientele, clients that held sway in South Korea. Politicians, law enforcement, celebrities, large corporations – people with voices that would be heard and reputations that could be ruined. “If they have ties to the Company…that’s when things get complicated.”  

“I don’t like ‘complicated,’” Momo mumbled.

“I’m hoping that Chaeyoung’s just over thinking things,” Mina said, “but she was right about the Company trailing us in Daegu.” Her lips twitched with a small smile. “She’s impulsive but she has good instincts.”

Impulsive.

Jeongyeon shook her head fondly. She butted heads often with their telekinetic, disagreeing on a great many things, but Mina was right. Chaeyoung was reluctant to trust others beyond their small group and those trust issues had worked in their benefit. She had weeded out Company spies and unsavory characters, spotting the threat before it could become a danger.

“Ten minutes,” Jihyo repeated, mostly to herself. “Let’s go.”

Their leader was the first out of the minivan, quickly followed by Mina before the mad scuffle of Momo and Sana trying to beat one another ended with Jeongyeon being forcibly shoved out of the way.

“You cheated!” Sana accused, pouting at coming second in their unspoken race. “You used your power!”

“It’s not cheating!” Momo argued back. “I was born with it. Don’t be mad you’re as slow as a turtle.”

Sana’s eyes narrowed and she flickered from sight, leaving behind an empty space. Suddenly Momo grabbed at her bicep with a yelp, scrubbing furiously at an unseen injury.

“Don’t ghost pinch me, asshole!”

Jeongyeon turned to snap at them, to tell them to put their childish antics on hold for Jihyo’s ten minutes, when a bout of laughter reached her ears, eyes drawn back, as they always were, to Nayeon.

Jeongyeon wasn’t sure when the change had occurred. When she found beauty in Nayeon’s smile or when her skin started to burn beneath her touch, but at some point along the way friendship had shifted to something more fragile, something more nervous and tender, and Jeongyeon was terrified to admit what she really knew it to be.

“Idiots,” Nayeon muttered fondly, the last to step out into the cool autumn wind. It caught in her hair, tearing a few wild strands from the tie, provoking the urge to want to tuck them behind Nayeon’s ear. There was nothing strange about that. It was a perfectly friendly thing to do.

Jeongyeon shoved her hands into her pockets and turned to follow the rest of the team back to the main street, keeping her pace subtly slow enough for Nayeon to catch up.

Miss A had certainly splashed out on their office building. They’d somehow managed to secure penthouse office space in the Gangnam-gu district, but they held a lot of sway in Seoul and the rest of South Korea so maybe it wasn’t all that surprising.

"Don't touch anything," Jihyo said ahead of them, walking between their two visible Japanese teammates. Her words were mostly aimed at Momo and Sana. “I haven’t budgeted for property damage.”

"We should have left them in the van," Jeongyeon grumbled.

Nayeon nudged her shoulder, trying her best to hide her smirk. “They would’ve broken something,” she disagreed.

“But it would’ve been ours to break,” Jeongyeon said. “Not some millionaire information broker’s overpriced furniture.”

“For all you know they might be cheapskates and get their stuff from thrift stores,” Nayeon commented.

Momo glanced back with a frown, lower lip jutting out in thought. “But…we get our stuff from thrift stores.”

“Because we are cheapskates,” Sana’s voice was a whisper right by Jeongyeon’s ear and she swung out her arm in an act that looked like stretching but prompted a wheeze when the back of her hand hit the invisible girl’s stomach.

“You know I hate it when you do that,” Jeongyeon growled.

“That’s exactly why I do it,” Sana rasped back and Jeongyeon could see the smug grin, but she bit back a comment when they reached the main entrance.

The lower levels of the building were full of other businesses, none of any note during their earlier recon. They were insignificant when compared to the reach that Miss A had and were caught up in their own version of the business world. They paid no mind to what went on in the penthouse office and didn’t even turn their heads when the six of them – five to the rest of the world – went straight for the elevator.

Momo was the one to push the floor button, still riding the high of getting to experience how the other half lived. Most of their early jobs had been for petty criminals expanding their own territory or collecting on protection money. It was nice not having to worry about being jumped just trying to meet their contracts.

Jeongyeon took the peace of their trip up the levels to check on her team. Sana was toying with Mina, lifting some of her hair and pulling on her jacket like a haunting ghost to distract her from building anxiety. Momo was shaking out her hands and close to bouncing on her toes, needing an outlet for her energy, and Jihyo had her eyes closed, no doubt mentally pinpointing every person she could sense above them. And Nayeon–

Jeongyeon felt fingers hook around her pinky and Nayeon’s perfume filled her lungs with the next inhale of breath. Warmth seeped into that one digit, spreading up her arm straight to her face. She could feel her ears burning, her cheeks flushing, and was so grateful that Sana and Momo were both too distracted to notice.

The bell sounded their arrival and the doors slid open to reveal the reception desk manned by someone different every time they had visited. That was another thing Dahyun had discovered. They had a suspiciously high turnover in staff. It was rare that someone stayed employed for more than a few weeks.

Their security team was a collection of contracted mercenaries and their receptionists and assistants were a swapping shift between freshly graduated college kids. Fei and Jia controlled everything alongside two others. Jeongyeon would be glad to never see them again.

“Hello!” the young woman at the desk chirped, waving at them cheerily. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes,” Jihyo stepped forward confidently. “They’re expecting us.”

“Okay. What’s your name and I’ll call–”

“No need, Saerom.” Fei rounded the dividing wall, high heels snapping loudly against the marble flooring. There was certainly nothing cheap about their office. “Take your lunch break, dear. I can handle things from here.”

If the receptionist was concerned about the sudden dismissal when the clock read that it was just barely past nine, hardly time for lunch, she certainly didn’t show it. She obediently gathered her belongings and skirted around the six of them for the elevator, accidentally bumping shoulders with Sana which provoked a small giggle from Momo when the girl blinked confusedly at, what she saw as, empty space.

Fei waited until the doors had closed before addressing them again. “You are short of a few members,” she observed.

“Some of my team were injured," Jihyo answered coolly.

Fei’s eyes narrowed, considering them for a moment before a forcibly cordial smile stretched across her lips. There was nothing friendly about it, not like how Tzuyu perceived their current clients to be. Tzuyu saw a smile and nothing more, but Jeongyeon could see the predator lurking beneath.

“And where are these injured souls?” Fei inquired, playing it off as a kind gesture of concern.

She was digging, looking for information to claw her acrylics into and use as cannon fodder later.

“Recovering.” Jihyo revealed nothing. “I’m sure that you’re a busy woman, Miss Wang. I wouldn’t want to take up more of your time than I need to.”

“You have what I requested?” the information broker asked, surprise audible in her voice, almost as if she had never expected them to succeed.

Jeongyeon felt her pulse quicken slightly, doubt creeping in at the edges. Maybe Chaeyoung and Dahyun’s suspicions weren’t completely unfounded.

“That depends on whether or not you have our payment,” Jihyo countered.

Something changed in Fei’s expression that made the hair on the back of Jeongyeon’s neck stand on edge. Their contract was not large. It would give them enough to get by for another few months without needing to worry about bills or food. The payment would hardly make a dent in Miss A’s finances and they would be getting ownership of their stolen data.

So why did Fei look so disappointed?

“Yes,” Fei turned swiftly, gesturing for them to follow almost impatiently, “this way, please.”

Jihyo took the lead again with Mina and Momo on either side as a unified front, Sana trailing along out of sight to no doubt sneak off on her own at some point or at Jihyo’s request.

That left Jeongyeon and Nayeon as the only two left by the elevator, fingers still holding on to her pinky. Jeongyeon twisted her hand around, offering the whole limb instead of just a finger, and found far more relief than she expected when Nayeon readily accepted it.

Slightly more reassured, they followed after the others and Jeongyeon made a point of memorizing their path. She counted the doors, tucked the nameplates into her memory, and had a vague idea of how long it took to get to the boardroom they had been in once before.

It was a strange room and felt almost suffocating when the door clicked shut behind them. The walls were all made of glass but it was fogged, giving the impression of the office space being open yet keeping all of the secrets hidden just out of sight.

They didn’t have a view of the city outside nor did they hear the noise of traffic, opening the idea that there was some sort of soundproofing. In each corner of the room sat a camera, leaving no blind spots. It was odd for a boardroom, but not unusual for people dealing in secrets.

There was another person waiting on the other side of the room, watching them curiously as Fei walked over to join her.

“Jia regrets not being able to be here,” said Fei. “This is my colleague, Suzy.”

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in the flesh.” Suzy smiled at them. “Even if it is to pay you to go away.”

Despite the kind eyes and gentle smile, Suzy was just as dangerous as the rest, and Jihyo’s guard remained steadfast as she withdrew a USB from her pocket, a copy of the one Dahyun had stashed away in their house.

She set it down on the conference table between them. “We destroyed the hard-drive,” Jihyo said, “but you failed to mention that the people that stole your files would be armed.”

Suzy tilted her head to the side, feigning confusion. “They had guns?” She turned to Fei. “Were you aware?”

“No,” said Fei, then to Jihyo, “I thought that it was up to you to determine how dangerous the job would be.”

Jihyo’s eyes narrowed, fury edging in at the corners, but she remained level-headed. “You agreed to our terms,” she said, “which involves a contingency when the job gets complicated.”

“Meaning you want more money,” Fei surmised. “Which I will gladly provide once we confirm that you have indeed returned our sensitive information.”

She held out an expectant palm and Jihyo slid the requested stick over, content enough with the printouts Mina had tucked inside her jacket and the fact that Sana signaled she was going to follow Fei with a whisper in Jihyo’s ear. Fei and Suzy wouldn’t suspect anything but Jeongyeon had seen the telltale glint in Jihyo’s eyes.

“I will return shortly,” Fei announced and left through the door on the other side of the room, one that led deeper into their lair with Sana likely slipping out behind her.

Everything was going to plan so far. They had Sana keeping an eye on Fei, the youngest trio were safe in school, and Jihyo appeared calm which meant that she wasn’t sensing anything that would be an immediate threat.

“I thought that there were more of you,” Suzy said, regarding them curiously.

“I didn’t find it necessary to bring everyone,” Jihyo replied curtly, not keen on the niceties of filler conversations, especially not with these clients.

Suzy hummed in acknowledgement, eyes drifting to the camera tucked in the left corner behind them. “Pity,” she murmured.

There it was again. A slight shift in character that left Jeongyeon on edge. Suzy’s smile had faltered in a flicker of time so short that Jeongyeon had nearly missed it, but she was used to seeing moments that the others missed.

Nayeon’s hand tightened around hers and Jeongyeon remembered to breathe. Maybe it was all in her head. Nothing had happened yet. They were still in the process of the trade off. Fei would return with their money and they would be home again in no time.

Everything was fine.

“I do have a question, though,” Suzy spoke again when the silence started to stretch out. She trailed a finger across the wooden table, nail scraping across polished pine. “You all look rather young to be facing off armed mercenaries.”

Mercenaries.

At no point had mercenaries been mentioned. Fei and Jia had described the thieves as vigilante hackers, no one of note and certainly not armed.

Jihyo had noticed it too. “We’re capable enough.”

Suzy hummed again and looked at each of them individually, sizing them up as if they were mercenaries themselves – which wasn’t completely untrue, but Suzy didn’t know that.

Jeongyeon glanced over at Jihyo, trying to gauge what she intended to do. Their leader was holding Suzy’s gaze, unfaltering and collected, reminding Jeongyeon exactly why Jihyo had become the leader instead of her. Jihyo performed well under pressure and kept the team together better than anyone.

Momo exhaled loudly, shaking out her arms restlessly, and Jeongyeon wondered if it would have been a kindness to leave her in the minivan after all. Their speedster wasn’t patient and boredom normally led to trouble.

Suzy clicked her tongue. “I’ll be back in just a moment,” she said, already heading for the same door Fei had disappeared through. “I’m just going to go and see what the delay is.”

And then she was gone, leaving the five of them in a silent room with watching eyes.

“Is it just me,” Momo breathed mirthfully, “or were they trying to psyche us out?”

“They were awfully curious about the whereabouts of our other members,” Mina murmured.

Nayeon’s hand slipped from Jeongyeon’s, alerted to a buzzing in her back pocket, and pulled out her worn cell phone. The screen lit up at her touch, showing several missed call notifications that had her brow creasing with worry.

“What is it?” Jeongyeon prompted quietly, rubbing her hands together when the lack of Nayeon’s touch chilled her skin.

"I’ve got three missed calls from the kids’ school," Nayeon mumbled, re-reading the notifications just to be sure. "Should I call them back?"

“Not now,” said Jihyo. “Not here.”

“But what if one of them is sick?” Momo fretted. “Or in trouble?”

“Or about to be in trouble,” muttered Mina.

Jihyo raised a finger. “Quiet.”

Jeongyeon’s attention snapped back to their leader. Her eyes were closed and her brow was creased, listening to the world beyond the small room they had found themselves in.

Momo hopped up onto the edge of the table, swinging her legs. “I hope Sana’s having more fun than we are,” she grouched.

“Quiet,” Jihyo urged.

Something was wrong.

“Shouldn’t they be back by now?” Nayeon asked quietly. “I mean, how long does it take to stick a USB in a laptop?”

Jihyo’s head tilted, seemingly focused on the far wall. She was hearing something they couldn’t, seeing another world in her mind’s eye.

Jeongyeon flexed her hands, ready to fight or flee on Jihyo’s command, and even Momo stilled at Jihyo’s request for silence.

Nayeon shoved her phone back into her pocket and fumbled for Jeongyeon’s hand, gripping so tightly that Jeongyeon could feel that her pulse was pounding as quickly as her own.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Jihyo was simply listening out for Sana or for Fei and Suzy’s return. Maybe Jeongyeon was just on edge from Chaeyoung’s conspiracy theories of the Company following them. Maybe–

Jihyo’s eyes flew open and she grabbed Momo’s hand to pull the girl off of the table as she yelled a frantic command – “Get down!”

Jeongyeon pulled Nayeon to the left and Nayeon caught Mina’s wrist, towing her along with them just as the door opposite them blew open in a burst of gunfire. Bullets rained across the room, ricocheting against the walls like they were hitting metal instead of the expected plasterboard and brick.

This room was soundproofed and now they knew exactly why.

Three masked assailants entered the room, brandishing assault rifles and body armor, and their main offense were currently learning algebra halfway across the city. It was exactly why Jeongyeon had insisted on combat training, so that they could protect themselves when their powers couldn’t help them.

One of the gunmen went down with a cried pain and reached up to clutch at a pair of scissors protruding from his left shoulder. There was a flicker of a person amidst flashing gunfire and the second gunman was felled by a swift kick to the back of their knee which was all Momo needed to charge in and tackle the third.

Sana yelped when an elbow caught her jaw and Mina caught the second gunman’s glare, eyes glowing silver.

“Be still!” she commanded and he fell silent, eyes bulging in sudden fright when the choice was taken away.

Sana was quick to recover and slammed her shin against the man’s skull, dropping forward in exhaustion as he crumpled to the ground.

“Are you okay?” Jeongyeon asked, glancing over her for any obvious injuries while Nayeon helped Mina to her feet again.

“Fine…Fine…I just…Give me a moment.” Sana pressed her hands against her knees, trying to catch her breath again. She was rattled, visibly shaking when Jeongyeon really looked.

“Sana,” she said softly, “what–?”

“Chaeyoung was right!” Sana gasped, gesturing back in the direction that she had just appeared from. “This was a set-up! The whole damn thing!”

Jihyo strode over to the downed gunmen and picked up one of the rifles, quickly checking the ammunition and frowned at what she found. “Rubber bullets.”

“’Rubber?’” Momo echoed.

“They weren’t shooting to kill,” Jeongyeon mumbled, already feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. “They don’t want us dead.”

“Just incapacitated,” said Jihyo.

“But why?” Momo asked, stepping over to rest a comforting hand on Sana’s back.

Fear settled deep in Jeongyeon’s heart. Maybe Chaeyoung was closer to the truth than they thought. It would be far easier to take them out. This felt more like a capture effort than anything. A trap laid out in plain sight.

“The Company,” Nayeon breathed, voicing what the rest of them couldn’t. “It has to be.”

“I don’t care what the reason is!” Sana scrambled upright, flickering in and out of existence as panic settled in deep. “They’ve got security on every floor! Every escape plan we had won’t work!”

“Calm down,” Jihyo said, listening to the floors below them. “Catch your breath and steady yourself. They weren’t expecting us to get out of that.” Her eyes lifted from the floor, wide and burning with fury. “We’ve survived worse odds.”

Jeongyeon felt Nayeon squeeze her hand again and offered a small reassuring smile when she caught her eye. Jihyo was right. They had suffered worse things than an ambush, fought through real bullets instead of rubber and in far tighter spots than a high rise in Gangnam-gu.

They had survived and they would continue to survive because the only other option was accepting defeat.

“You’re right,” Sana breathed. “I know that you’re right. I just…” She sighed and scrubbed at her forehead wearily, throat bobbing as she swallowed. “It never gets easier, you know?”

They did know. It never got easier fighting through life, not when it was the only way they could live life freely. It was so hard to believe in that freedom when the Company crawled out of the woodwork like parasites, but Jeongyeon would sooner die than return to that hell.

“We move forward,” she said firmly. “That’s what we do. We keep moving forward.”

Jihyo nodded, resolute in that fact. “One minute and we move for the stairwell.” She kicked the other guns over. “No matter what happens we keep pushing down.” Her gaze drifted to Jeongyeon. “Forward.”

There was no possibility of going back anyway.

Chapter Text

“This hoodie feels a bit big.”

Dahyun inclined her head towards Tzuyu and barely managed to hide her smile at the younger girl’s frown as she attempted to roll back the sleeves for the fourth time in the past minute.

“It was either extra big or extra small,” Chaeyoung commented.

That was a complete lie. There had been more than enough options that would have fitted Tzuyu better but Chaeyoung had been in charge of their funds and didn’t appreciate Tzuyu’s innocent comment that Chaeyoung might have been better buying something from the children’s section. In retaliation the telekinetic had made sure that Tzuyu’s hoodie had been excessively large.

Tzuyu seemed to accept the answer as the truth. She had no reason to believe otherwise, but her ice cream was at risk of spilling out of the tub.

“Come here.” Dahyun stepped in front of Tzuyu and folded back her sleeves much tidier than before with tight rolls that wouldn’t come undone as fast. She tucked Tzuyu’s hair behind her ears, melting a little at how cute she looked. “All better.”

Tzuyu smiled slightly, gratitude shining in her eyes. “Thanks, unnie,” she mumbled.

“Can you both hurry up?” Chaeyoung had stopped at the edge of the quiet street, scowling back at them impatiently. “We don’t have all day.”

Dahyun rolled her eyes and tapped Tzuyu’s elbow to get her moving again. They were almost on the outskirts of town again. It had been easy enough once they’d covered up their school uniforms. They had caught the subway as far as they could and planned to walk the rest, only stopping momentarily at an ice cream parlor they wouldn’t be recognized at and one the rest of their team would likely never venture to either.

This part of town was much quieter than anything they were used to, mostly industrial warehouses and off-site storage for the companies in the city. There weren’t many police patrols – usually. There also weren’t many attacks on the warehouses – until last night.

Which was why Chaeyoung dragged them through side streets and chained off paths that were overgrown and wild, full of prickly bushes that scratched at their skin and pulled at the thread of their clothes.

“Remember,” Chaeyoung slowed just enough for them to catch up and pointed an accusing finger at Tzuyu, “we need to be quiet about this.”

Tzuyu’s eyebrows pulled down into an indignant frown. “I can be quiet,” she said around a mouthful of ice cream.

“I meant your tendency to break things when you Hulk-out,” said Chaeyoung.

Tzuyu gasped in offence. “I do not ‘Hulk-out.’”

“Oh, you so do. You get mad and then you smash things.”

“I don’t mean to most of the time.”

Dahyun had to bite back a retort that Chaeyoung had tossed enough furniture to not really have enough standing to be lecturing Tzuyu about the importance of being quiet. She didn’t though. She was the mediator amongst them. As much as Chaeyoung loved them, she loved teasing them just as much and enjoyed seeing how far she could push before Tzuyu pushed back.

“I know…” Chaeyoung smirked, eyes flashing with mischief. “Though I bet Sana wouldn’t mind you smashing–”

“We’re almost there,” Dahyun said quickly, providing a change of topic before Chaeyoung actually made their super soldier ‘Hulk-out.’ “I assume you have a plan.”

“Hell no,” Chaeyoung scoffed ahead of them. “That’s Jihyo’s thing.”

Dahyun felt her heart sink a little. “You don’t have a plan?”

“We’ll improvise,” the telekinetic shrugged. “It’s got me this far in life.”

“Okay, while I appreciate the optimism, I was kind of hoping that we wouldn’t be going into this blind.”

“The masks won’t cover our eyes,” Tzuyu chimed in.

Chaeyoung smirked smugly at the comment. “Yeah, Dubu,” she teased. “You’ll be able to see just fine.”

And sometimes, sometimes, Dahyun felt a slight urge to hit her.

She urged them both to be quiet as they neared the end of their shortcut, leader instincts kicking in without Jihyo’s guidance. Tzuyu would listen but Chaeyoung was a wildcard. The telekinetic would do what she wanted no matter what Dahyun said, but she trusted Chaeyoung not to purposely endanger them.

Beyond their spot tucked just behind a storage crate they could see the warehouse from the night prior, distinct with most of the roof missing and the side door meant for employees had been kicked off of the hinges, both a result of the tall and small girls leaning around her for a glimpse.

There was no police tape yet but that didn’t mean that cops weren’t on scene. There had been a lot of gunfire, too much for no one to notice.

“Hey,” Tzuyu whispered, offering her half-eaten tub. "Do either of you want my ice cream?"

"All that fuss and you don't even want it," Chaeyoung scoffed.

“I ate most of it,” Tzuyu protested.

“Then you can finish it,” said Chaeyoung.

"It's too cold."

"What?!” Chaeyoung spluttered, accidentally shoving Dahyun forward a step when she turned to glower at Tzuyu. “What do you mean 'it's too cold? It’s ice cream! It has ice in the name!"

Dahyun tensed as a black sports car pulled up alongside the warehouse, windows tinted far darker than regulation allowed. The alloys were scuffed and there was a dent on the back bumper by the license plate.

“Chaeng?” Dahyun reached behind her to get their attention. “You said that Jennie got his plates, right?”

Chaeyoung pushed Tzuyu’s arm out of the way and squinted across the road at the car. “Holy shit…” She scrubbed at her eyes in disbelief, waiting for her mind to finish tricking them with such luck, and she quickly scrambled for a worn sheet of paper tucked in her bag. “That’s a Jeju plate…” She flattened out the paper, one side marked with ink. “That’s it. That’s his car.”

The driver’s door swung open and they shrank back into cover as a tall man stepped out. He stretched out to his full height and adjusted the sunglasses perched on the ridge of his nose that were as dark as the car windows.

“Well, I owe Rosé a drink,” Chaeyoung muttered under her breath, her tone giving the impression that she was annoyed but there was a hint of relief in her eyes. “That’s him.”

The man tilted his head as he regarded the warehouse and brushed down his crinkled shirt before he reached back into his car. Dahyun stiffened, expecting him to pull out a gun, but he straightened with a sealed envelope and nothing more. If he was smart then he would have a weapon concealed somewhere on his person.

He glanced around briefly, likely out of instinct more than anything, then locked his car and headed towards the door Tzuyu had broken.

Dahyun kept her arm out for a moment longer, waiting until he was out of sight before giving free reign to her friends again. “We don’t have Mina,” she reminded them. “We can’t make anyone forget us.”

Chaeyoung grinned and turned Tzuyu by her arms to open her backpack. She reached inside and pulled out three cheap disposable masks they had picked up from a small convenience store that wouldn’t question why three kids were skipping school. She zipped the bag closed, spun Tzuyu around, and pulled the elastic tie over her head until the mask covered the lower half of her face, then lifted the hood of her hoodie and yanked down on the tassels, pulling the hood tight against her skull and down over her eyes.

“Chou Tzuyu, who?” Chaeyoung crowed as she showcased her work to Dahyun. “I don’t know her.”

Tzuyu whined loudly in complaint at the rough treatment and reached up to free herself. The masks didn’t hide their whole face but with the hoodies that they would ditch – Dahyun had insisted that they donate them – it would be hard to get a clear identification.

It would be enough so long as they kept their distance.

Chaeyoung copied Tzuyu’s disguise with less aggression, not as keen on giving herself the whiplash she had given the younger girl, and grinned almost manically. She slapped the last mask into Dahyun’s hand. “Let’s see what he has in his car!”

Dahyun scrambled for a hold of Chaeyoung’s arm to try and stop her but the telekinetic had already slipped out of reach and was scurrying across the road to the car. “Chaeyoung! Get back here – Chaeyoung!” Dahyun scrubbed a hand over her face, trying to wipe away her growing frustration. “Idiot.”

Tzuyu shuffled awkwardly beside her, still holding her ice cream in offering. “So do you want my–?”

Dahyun plucked the tub from Tzuyu’s hands and poured the melted remnants onto the ground before handing it back. “Wrap it up and put it in your bag,” she instructed, giving guidance to the friend she knew would heed it. “We should make sure that she doesn’t get caught snooping.”

“It’s okay,” said Tzuyu. “He won’t see her over the car.”

Dahyun smirked at the offhanded comment, fully aware that Tzuyu was trying to reassure her instead of insult their other member, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t find it funny. She hid her amusement with her own mask while Tzuyu obediently tidied away her empty ice cream tub, keeping an eye on Chaeyoung as well as the warehouse.

“She’s going to be insufferable if she’s right,” Tzuyu muttered.

“I know,” Dahyun sighed. “But she might not brag about it to us since we came with her.”

“Maybe,” Tzuyu agreed, then paused with a small frown. “What did Chaeyoung mean when she said that Sana wouldn’t mind if I smashed things?”

Dahyun balked at the question, silently cursing their small friend. She was not explaining innuendos to Tzuyu. “Uh,” she fumbled for a way to word things without digging herself a hole, “well, Sana’s the least likely to get mad at you, isn’t she?”

Tzuyu tilted her head in consideration. “I guess so.”

“Then that’s what Chaeyoung meant.”

“Okay…”

Dahyun narrowed her eyes and watched her for a moment, something in Tzuyu’s voice giving her pause. She was worrying away at her lower lip, chewing hard enough to leave it red and irritated, and her right hand was curling and uncurling into a fist – two tells that she was conflicted about something.

“You don’t sound convinced,” Dahyun prompted.

Tzuyu blinked at her and her hand stilled as she sighed heavily. “It kind of felt like she was teasing me again.”

“I can talk to Chaeng if she’s teasing too much.”

“It’s not about Chaeyoung,” Tzuyu mumbled.

“Then what is it?” Dahyun asked. “You know that you can talk to me, Tzu, right? About anything.”

Tzuyu hesitated for a moment as if unsure how much she could or even wanted to say. There was something oddly solemn about her, something that seemed beyond her seventeen years, and Dahyun had to remind herself that Tzuyu wasn’t ten anymore and that she wasn’t looking to be coddled as the older members so often did. She didn’t open up very often in fear of upsetting the team and Dahyun had no intention of interrupting her.

The younger girl took a deep, steadying breath, and lifted her gaze from the ground. “Dahyun,” she said meekly, “does Sana–?”

“Guys!” Chaeyoung hissed at them from across the road, gesturing wildly with her arm that they make their way over quickly, and Tzuyu obeyed without a second thought, her own worries put on hold.

Damn it, Chaeyoung.

Dahyun sighed and followed after her, crouching by the car at Chaeyoung’s insistence. “What have you done?”

“Nothing, but look,” Chaeyoung pointed down the street at a lone black SUV fitted with private plates, “I heard voices inside the warehouse.”

“Maybe he’s meeting someone,” Dahyun murmured.

Chaeyoung nodded. “That’s what I thought too,” she said. “Let’s find out.”

“You want to go in there?” Tzuyu sent a forlorn look towards the warehouse. “Can’t we stay out here?”

“You’re a freaking super soldier, Tzuyu,” Chaeyoung said incredulously. “You’re like our own human tank.”

Tzuyu frowned at her. “That doesn’t mean that I like being shot.”

Dahyun nodded as she glanced at the hidden bruising. Tzuyu would likely be fully recovered by the following day but more bruises would have to be explained to the rest of the team and Dahyun really didn’t want to be the one doing that.

“That’s fair…” Chaeyoung nudged Tzuyu’s shoulder with an encouraging smile. “But I’m going in there and I’d really appreciate you both having my back.”

Dahyun could see the effect Chaeyoung’s words had on Tzuyu and wondered not for the first time if the telekinetic shared some of Mina’s hypnosis. Every plan Chaeyoung came up with always ended with the three of them getting caught and receiving a lengthy lecture from Jihyo about the importance of safety and anonymity, yet whenever Chaeyoung proposed another scheme, Dahyun and Tzuyu joined her anyway.

Dahyun knew that Tzuyu agreed partly due to a sense of obligation. She was the youngest and often pandered to, babied by the team to the point that she felt like she owed them something in return. It wasn’t completely dissimilar to why Chaeyoung took such large risks either. Both of them felt like they had something to prove, that they needed to earn their place in the group.

Dahyun also knew that she agreed due to a fear she could never shake that the one impulsive mission she didn’t join would be the one where someone didn’t come home again. Chaeyoung was reckless, dangerously so and Tzuyu was blind to threats until fists or bullets were flying.

So she followed as the elected leader of the SMC, the most levelheaded of the three of them, and tried to keep the chaos to a minimum.

“Okay,” Tzuyu mumbled and stepped around them, “but I’m going in first.”

A logical idea given that a bullet would only make her stagger but charging into gunfire for the second day in a row would affect her ability to actually withstand the damage.

“I,” Dahyun said, “will go first.” She didn’t back down at their disbelieving expressions. “I’m the least likely to destroy what’s left of the warehouse if someone shoots at me.”

Tzuyu nodded with a small hum as Chaeyoung glanced at the missing section of roof, both unable to argue with her reasoning.

“Fine.” Chaeyoung turned back to her, all joking gone. “I came in through a door on the other side. We should use that one instead.” She lifted her head over the car, watching the warehouse for a moment before she jerked her head to the left. “Come on. There’s nothing interesting in his car anyway.”

Dahyun celebrated her small victory internally and followed Chaeyoung, glancing back to make sure that Tzuyu wasn’t falling behind. They crept along the side of the building, careful to avoid stepping on pieces of debris, and around past the chained vehicle doors to an open doorway on the far side, tucked away behind rotting stacked wooden pallets and rusted metal shelving that had been left to the weather.

The door was missing, having been blown in by Chaeyoung’s powers, amplified during a fight, which left them with an easy way in and plenty of cover to hide behind.

Dahyun gestured for them both to stay outside for a moment and shrugged off her bag, leaving it tucked in by the door in case of a quick escape. Readying herself to project another image of herself if it came to it, Dahyun crouched low and edged inside the warehouse.

She kept close to the wall, ducking down behind toppled shelving units and large piles of building materials as she moved deeper inside until she could just about make out voices in the direction of the back office.

“I suppose this is what happens when we cheap out on the mercenaries.” Female.

A low rumble of laughter sounded in response. “You failed to tell them what they were dealing with.” Male.

“They were armed and outnumbered them five to one. It should’ve been an easy job.”

Despite her thundering heart, Dahyun found a gap between the pipes, just enough to see Rain and a woman she didn’t recognize, dressed in a tailored business suit. She looked very out of place amongst the dust and grime of an abandoned crime scene.

A gentle hand touched her elbow. “Chaeng went the other way,” Tzuyu whispered. “I told her not to but she wouldn’t listen.”

Shit.

Dahyun appeased Tzuyu by giving her hand a small squeeze and herself a silent promise to knock some sense into their tiny telekinetic once they were in the clear. She just had to trust that Chaeyoung knew what the hell she was doing.

“You don’t need to worry anyway,” said another voice – a female, a voice that Dahyun could’ve sworn… “The targets were returning today for payment. Our team should have neutralized them by now.”

Tzuyu stirred beside her, recognizing the voice too. "That's…"

Jia.

"Isn't she supposed to...not be here?" Tzuyu asked, the fluidity of her question fleeing in the heat of the moment, but Dahyun had known her long enough to know what she was really asking.

Jia was supposed to be at the hand-off with the rest of their team halfway across the city, not in the remnants of a warehouse Chaeyoung had dragged them to on some half-truth of a lead. Yet there she was, talking to the man tracking them, calling them targets like they were another contract…

Targets.

Neutralized.

Dahyun’s blood ran cold, a chill travelling down the length of her spine. Jia was there with one of the two unknown members of Miss A. They weren’t supposed to have walked away the night before and now the rest of their team were about to walk into a trap.

"Tzuyu, we need to leave," Dahyun whispered.

"What about Chaeyoung?"

Dahyun fumbled for Tzuyu’s wrist, having learnt from early on in their friendship not to hold hands when in stressful situations. "Now, Tzuyu."

Defiance flashed in Tzuyu’s eyes. “Not without Chaeyoung.”

Fuck. Dahyun whirled back around to the group and looked beyond them, searching for a glimpse of Chaeyoung amongst the mess.

“Do you have our payment, Rain?” asked the second woman. “Is our business finished?”

Rain hummed in acknowledgment and shifted to the left as his hand slipped inside the back of his jacket. “The targets,” he said, “they’re being held at your office, yes?”

“Yes,” said Jia. “Our colleagues are likely securing them as we speak. Min and I were told to meet you here.”

There. Dahyun spied the telekinetic over to the left, crouched behind a toppled tower of bricks. They met eyes, Chaeyoung’s ablaze with fire, and Dahyun subtly shook her head, warning her against whatever she was planning on doing.

“Then our business is finished.” Rain’s hand lowered again, gripping a pistol. "The Company thanks you for your service."

Tzuyu stiffened at the sight of a gun and moved back a step, her shoe accidentally kicking a bullet casing across the floor. The sound echoed around the building, shattering the silence as three heads snapped around, and Chaeyoung sprang up out of her hiding spot.

She thrust out her palm and sent the pile of bricks falling towards the group with a surge of power from her fingertips and that was all it took for Dahyun to force Tzuyu towards the door, urging her along at a hurried pace while Rain, Min, and Jia recovered.

There was noise on the other side of the room as several armed bodyguards poured inside, distracted enough by their disorientated employers and Rain’s weapon to pay three masked school kids any attention.

Chaeyoung met them by the door and they snatched up their bags, running as fast as they could back towards the subway station. They had just enough allowance left to catch a ride to the Gangnam-gu district. Dahyun had memorized the office address and instructed Chaeyoung and Tzuyu to pocket their masks.

They would need them once they got to Miss A’s offices.

“I told you that they should have taken us too!” Chaeyoung snarled, lashing out while fear pulsed through their veins.

“You can do the whole ‘I told you so’ crap later,” Dahyun bit back. “First we need to rescue them.”

“Easy!” Chaeyoung threw a grin over her shoulder, panic flashing in her eyes. “Yoda, you feel like Hulking-out, right? Miss A paid the guy that knocked your brains out!”

Tzuyu was silent beside them, both hands curling and uncurling as the urge to hit something grew rapidly. “Can we not call it that?” she huffed, moving a hand to grip her aching side. “They’re okay, aren’t they?” Her stride faltered. “Our family.”

Dahyun glanced at her with a sense of dread. The team was all any of them had, the only people they would ever consider family. Each of them would throw their lives on the line for the others in a heartbeat. Dahyun didn’t know what she would do if they lost anyone, but today wasn’t going to be that day.

“They’re okay,” she said with what little confidence she had left. “Everything is going to be okay.”

Please, was what she didn’t say, please be okay.

Chapter Text

Nayeon clutched at the handrail with a loud gasp for breath, only five floors down and already about to collapse. "Why…are there…so…many stairs?!"

“Because we’re high up?” Momo replied, trailing after her with ease.

“It was rhetorical, Momo,” Nayeon huffed.

"This,” Jeongyeon tossed aside her rifle, out of ammo and unwilling to carry an empty gun through the building, and grabbed Nayeon’s bicep to drag her down the stairs, “this is why I insisted that we all learn cardio."

"Why would I run in my free time?" Nayeon complained. “I’d much rather use our days off to hibernate.”

“I vote that we stop taking jobs from people rich enough to have penthouses and private armies,” Mina said, stepping closer to the wall of the stairwell as a round of bullets rained down from the level above.

All three of their borrowed rifles had been abandoned on the way down, more of a hindrance than anything without any bullets to fire back. Carrying empty guns would only slow them down and they couldn’t afford to be slow with a private task force close on their heels.

“Agreed,” said Momo. “I want clients on ground floors.”

The stairwell was tight and unused, evident in the amount of dust and grime that had collected on the ground, and they would have been just as well off in the dark with the way the lights struggled to flicker to life.

“You’re fast as hell, Momo,” Jeongyeon quipped. “Couldn’t you be on the ground floor already?”

Momo raised an unimpressed eyebrow at their temperamental pause button of a teammate and gestured to the stretching mass of darkness below them. “That’s, like, fifty stories, Jeong,” she deadpanned. “Just because I can run it in a blink doesn’t make it less stairs.”

“Could all of you shut up and focus on running in the opposite direction of gunfire?” Jihyo requested sharply. She was scrubbing rather furiously at a bruising welt on her forearm, one of many she had acquired from the hail of rubber bullets during their mad dash for the stairwell – a ‘planned retreat,’ she had called it.

‘Bullshit,’ Sana had called it…though she hadn’t been brave enough to actually say it out loud, but thinking it still counted. She just wanted to go home and kick around until school finished for the day so that she could go and pick up the kids and treat them to whatever they wanted at the café Nayeon worked at, at Nayeon’s expense.

Chaeyoung would inevitably sneak off for some reason or another and Sana, being the supportive teammate that she was, would cover for her until she returned.

Dahyun would try and fail to complete her homework because Momo would tag along like always with the excuse of three kids being too much for Sana to handle on her own when Sana knew that her attention never strayed from Dahyun.

Momo would pretend to be interested in Dahyun’s schoolwork, throwing in a stray answer that would be the furthest thing from correct simply to pretend that she wasn’t only there for Dahyun’s company.

And Tzuyu…Sana’s heart slowed at the mere thought. Her sweet Chewy would tell her everything that had happened at school, even the mundane things like what she had for lunch and how early she was to each class, and Sana would hang on every word just to hear her voice.

Tzuyu would ask about her day and Sana would sink into the domesticity of it all. Her mind would drift to timid ‘what if’s’ that she was too afraid of pursuing. She knew that she had a reputation and she knew that Tzuyu would never judge her for that. Hell. Tzuyu had been so nice to every stranger Sana had been foolish enough to take home.

“Sana.”

She had been told to keep her intentions regarding Tzuyu to harmless flirting as if she was going to ruin the girl, as if pursuing Tzuyu would cause far more harm than any of the fights or the residual internal scarring of the Company’s claws.

And maybe she would ruin Tzuyu. Maybe that was why she wanted her. Maybe it was the appeal of Tzuyu being forbidden, of being told no when she could have anyone else with a few honeyed words. Or maybe it was because Tzuyu responded to her advances the way she did, with sweet replies to missed innuendos and total ignorance to the very fact that Sana was falling so fast that she had taken to sleeping with strangers to fend off those feelings.

“Sana.”

She would never hurt Tzuyu, never her Chewy. Sana had promised as much a long time ago and she had no intention of breaking that promise. Even if it hurt her instead, jagged shards of glass clenching around her heart whenever she held herself back from wanting more.

“Sana.”

Jihyo’s hand clamped down on her shoulder, shaking hard enough to pull her from her thoughts. A dozen emotions flickered in the empath’s eyes, sensing Sana’s internal turmoil before she could mask anything.

“Hey,” Jihyo forced a smile, “we’re going to be fine.”

Sana nodded quickly and clung to that reasoning for the thundering of her heart. It would be so much easier to explain her fear as a result of possible entrapment instead of her growing attraction to the member about as emotionally inept as a rock.

It was doubtful that Tzuyu could feel anything as deeply as Sana did. She had accepted that simple fact. She had been content even, more than happy to just be near Tzuyu, to be granted the privilege of closeness to a girl so terrified of her own strength.

But god did Sana want more.

“Shit.” Jihyo’s hand tightened around her shoulder but her attention had extended beyond Sana. “They’re below us too. Three floors down.” Her attention snapped to the door by Mina. It would take them back into the main office building. “Through there.”

“Are you sure?” Jeongyeon asked, hoisting Nayeon back up from where she had been slumping against the wall. “Couldn’t we just push through them?”

“No. It’s too risky.” Jihyo gestured to the door again. “Through there.”

Sana caught her hand when she stepped towards it, shaking away all thoughts of their super soldier when Jihyo looked back questioningly. “I’ll go through first,” she suggested quietly. “Make sure it’s safe.” She grimaced, realizing that was quite a big promise in hostile territory, and corrected herself, “Safer.”

A bullet ricocheted against the handrail by Jihyo, making their brave leader duck for cover by Mina. She didn’t like Sana’s suggestion, Sana could tell as much by the tightness in her face, but they were out of options and it was a logical solution.

“See me later, losers!” Sana chirped, saluting them with no lack of enthusiasm as she flickered out of sight.

Jihyo blinked at her, the only member still able to roughly pinpoint where she was. “I – be careful…please?”

Sana rolled her eyes fondly, bold enough knowing that no one could see. She had stopped being careful the moment she let the team into her heart.

With little more than a comforting touch to Jihyo’s arm, Sana snuck past and carefully opened the door, slow enough not to trigger any alarms. She leant out into the office floor, perturbed by the empty desks. Chairs were toppled and paperwork had been scattered as if the occupants had been in a hurry to leave. Had there been an evacuation order?

Sana stepped out further and counted to ten. Confident that she was alone, she ducked back into the stairwell. “All clear,” she announced as she reappeared and delighted in the way Nayeon yelped in surprise. It never got old scaring her teammates, not when some of them were so easy to spook.

“Let’s go,” Jihyo ordered and took the lead with little more than a glance to make sure that they were following.

Sana hurried after her and Momo appeared by her side using a quick burst of speed. The speedster leant towards her, voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Do you think that the kids are okay?” she asked. “They seemed fine when we ditched them.”

“Honestly?” Sana rolled back her shoulders, weariness settling in. “I’m, like, ninety percent sure that Chaeyoung talked them into skipping.”

“I’m one hundred percent sure that she has,” Mina muttered on Sana’s other side. “She was never going to let her investigation go.”

“So we need to do damage control again,” Momo murmured, “because I think that Jihyo might actually kill Chaeyoung this time.”

“They have a choice each time,” Mina said, “and they choose to follow her even though the outcome is always the same.”

“Please,” Momo scoffed. “You’d be the first to scold Dahyun and Tzuyu for letting Chaeyoung do it alone.”

Sana bit her tongue, tempted to say that she wasn’t feeling overly pleased with their small member either. Tzuyu was hopelessly loyal and trusted each of them on their word. It never took much for Chaeyoung to convince her to willingly get into trouble and Sana hated not being there to make sure that her Chewy would come home as she left it.

Momo must have noticed a change in her expression because her own softened and she dropped it all together, leaving the three of them to walk on in silence.

Mina hummed quietly in thought, a sad smile pulling at her lips when Sana looked, one that Sana knew well enough from her own reflection. Trust the three of them to fall for people they couldn’t have.

“Aha!” Jihyo threw a fist up in celebration ahead of them and took off at a run, throwing a bright smile back over her shoulder. “There’s another stairwell!”

“More stairs?” Nayeon sighed behind them. “Yay.”

Sana echoed the sentiment, but the sooner they were on the ground the sooner they could go home, and the sooner they could go home the sooner Sana could pilfer one of Tzuyu’s sweaters and pretend to study while she weighed up the consequences of asking Tzuyu out for coffee. Was an hour worth certain death?

The answer was yes. A hundred times yes.

Jeongyeon held the door open, a scowl on her face that had been there ever since they’d entered the building. She looked like she wanted to hit something or someone very, very hard, and Sana decided that she kind of didn’t want to be that someone.

Sana sighed and followed Mina and Momo into the stairwell. It seemed about as unused as the other one, most of the office workers opting to use the elevators instead. Were they not being hunted across the building then they would’ve used the elevators too.

She peered down the centre of the stairs, vertigo striking at the dizzying drop. Maybe it was a good time to approach the leading trio about her growing crush on their surrogate child. If the walk down fifty stories didn’t kill her then Jihyo would, but at least she would die without a guilty conscience.

“Cardio,” Jeongyeon announced, the last to go through the door. “I’m making it mandatory.”

“If you make me run, Yoo Jeongyeon,” Nayeon called from the floor below, “I will run you over with the minivan.”

Jeongyeon stalked past Sana without a second glance. “It’s good for you!”

“So is resting!”

Sana chuckled to herself and they all settled into a steady pace, hurried enough to stay ahead of their assailants but not so fast that they were winded. They still needed to be able to fight if they got intercepted.

Jeongyeon and Nayeon took the lead, still arguing in hushed whispers about adding more exercise to their training regime, but Sana had long since noticed that most of their arguments were light-hearted with plenty of guarded expressions as they walked around the glaringly obvious fact that they were quite clearly into each other.

Sana tilted her head when a curious thought appeared. Surely if Jeongyeon and Nayeon acted on their feelings then the rest of them could as well. It would be a bit hypocritical for two of their three pillars of leadership to uphold the ‘no dating teammates’ rule if they were busy making out.

I wonder if Chewy’s lips are as soft as they look…

“Are you okay?”

Sana’s head snapped around to Jihyo, turning so fast that she nearly lost her footing. Jihyo caught her bicep to steady her and something flickered in her eyes, gone so quickly that Sana was almost convinced that she had imagined it.

Jihyo couldn’t read thoughts exactly, but she could pick up on feelings through touch and Sana had been doing a terrible job of trying to mask hers.

It was unlikely that Jihyo knew where her mind had been drifting to but that knowledge didn’t help her panicked heart in the slightest.

Maybe Tzuyu had it easier after all. Feelings were so confusing. Maybe a muted version would make everything more bearable, especially when those feelings weren’t reciprocated the way she desperately wanted.

Sleeping with strangers is so much easier.

Jihyo looked at her for a moment longer before she finally averted her eyes. Having her feelings broadcasted twice in the one day definitely had to be classed as bad luck, especially when both of those times were when she was thinking about the member their leader had a particular soft spot for.

Rather than wait around for Jihyo to draw her own conclusion, Sana put on a cheery smile and nudged her elbow. “One of my regulars said that she loves me,” she lied, wondering if she should be worried by how easily the words rolled off of her tongue. “I’m trying to figure out how to let her down without making her cry.”

Jihyo didn’t look like she believed her but she didn’t push the subject either. Sana cleared her throat and pushed on down the stairs, a strange tightness tugging against her chest. It upset her to think that Jihyo wouldn’t approve of her dating Tzuyu. Did the team really think that she wouldn’t have Tzuyu’s best interests at heart? That she didn’t care about Tzuyu’s feelings? That she would drop Tzuyu just like all of the girls she had bedded before?

Sana’s step faltered as a bone-deep cold settled beneath her skin.

Does Tzuyu think the same?

She shook the thought away as quickly as it came, a fleeting moment of doubt that left a bitter taste in her mouth. The strangers were the only way she could survive being around Tzuyu without grabbing her and kissing her.

What if she doesn’t feel the same?

Sana wasn’t sure that she could survive the rejection, not from her Chewy, not after years of pining, not when she knew that losing what she did have with Tzuyu would break her heart. The opportunity would arise to broach the subject, it had to. Tzuyu was a little later than the rest of them but she was starting to broaden her understanding of feelings, and Sana was certain that the girl had blushed the previous week when Nayeon accosted her about coming home late from a study date at the local library.

Dahyun had mentioned a female classmate – Chong Elkie, a girl in Dahyun’s year who was helping Tzuyu learn Mandarin. She was pretty, shorter than Tzuyu, held good grades, lived in a nice part of the city, worked part-time at a dog shelter…Sana had been thorough in her snooping. It had been for Tzuyu’s safety of course.

She wasn’t jealous.

Not even a little bit.

Definitely not.

Does Tzuyu smile when she talks about me like she did when she talked about Elkie?

Does she talk about me at all?

A hand brushed against hers and Sana followed the limb to Momo’s curious gaze, an unspoken question lingering there. She blinked and glanced over the railing, surprised to find that they were already nearing the bottom. Jihyo had moved forward to walk with Jeongyeon and Nayeon. Sana bit down on her lip worriedly.

She wanted to be wanted and she wanted to be wanted by Tzuyu.

“You should tell her,” Momo whispered.

Sana narrowed her eyes at the other girl. “Only if you tell Dahyun,” she bartered.

Momo paled and glanced around quickly, checking to see if anyone had overheard. Satisfied that no one had, Momo smacked her shoulder hard enough to make Sana wince. “Don’t out me like that.”

“Don’t give advice unless you’re going to follow it too,” Sana countered.

Momo frowned and shoved her hands into her pockets. Her mouth twisted to the side in a slight pout. “I nearly did last night,” she admitted quietly.

Sana looked at her with a raised eyebrow as if to ask, ‘seriously?’ and Momo chuckled in response.

“I know,” she said quietly. “I just…She has this adorable frown when she’s concentrating and I nearly blurted it out right there in the living room.” Momo shook her head, sighing softly. “Maybe it would be easier if I did…Like ripping off a band-aid…”

A band-aid that would leave a weeping wound behind. A public announcement of feelings would be easier in that it was over quickly, but it would be unfair to Dahyun. It would put her in an uncomfortable situation, cast into a spotlight that she couldn’t escape without an answer to Momo’s declaration.

Sana didn’t want to do that to Tzuyu. She knew the girl and she knew that too much pressure made her shut down. Tzuyu would run and Sana couldn’t back her into a corner like that. It would be unfair, especially when she knew the outcome.

“This ‘no dating teammates’ thing sucks,” Momo muttered.

“Agreed.”

Sana and Momo turned suddenly to find Mina trailing behind them with a similar expression of regret.

Momo smirked, glancing at Sana with a teasing glint in her eyes. “Chaeyoung does look pretty hot when she’s throwing things around, doesn’t she?”

Mina’s eyes widened and her face flushed in embarrassment, caught off guard. Sana wondered if she’d meant to voice her agreement at all or if it was an internal thought accidentally voiced. Mina cleared her throat awkwardly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she rasped.

“Oh, please,” Momo sneered. “As if you don’t get a nosebleed every time Chaeyoung flexes her arms–”

Mina’s eyes flashed silver and she uttered a very quick, “Stop talking.” It was enough to silence Momo completely.

Momo opened her mouth in protest but no words came out. She gestured to her throat and then to the trio ahead of them, on the final set of stairs. Her silence would cause questions – questions that none of them wanted to answer, so Mina sighed and nodded in resignation.

“Speak.”

“You’ve got the easiest crush,” said Momo, still holding a grudge even with her voice returned. “If Chaeyoung doesn’t like you back, you can just make her forget that you told her.”

Mina flinched back at that, genuine hurt cast across her face. “I wouldn’t use my power like that,” she disagreed.

“You use it on us just fine,” Momo muttered. “You use it to get what you want.”

And you want Chaeyoung. Sana heard the unspoken and tapped the back of Momo’s hand as a warning to ease off. It wasn’t fair to take out her frustration out on Mina, no matter the power advantage.

They were all in the same metaphorical boat of crushing on someone they weren’t supposed to. It didn’t make sense to alienate one another.

“I…am never using stairs…ever…again!” Nayeon gasped, dropping to her knees as soon as her feet landed on the ground floor, sinking to the dirty concrete as if it was a bed of clouds.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Jeongyeon grumbled, though her gaze lingered on Nayeon for a second too long, checking that the older girl wasn’t going to pass out.

Jihyo gave the fire door a push and stepped back with a loud sigh. She ran a hand through her hair, hawk-like eyes darting around for another way out. “It’s locked.”

“You can’t force it open?” Jeongyeon pushed at the door, trying the push bar irritably. “What if we all run at it?” she suggested.

“Out of the way!” Momo gestured for them to move as she took several strides back, arms swinging as she readied herself to charge. “I’ve seen the tiny bulldozer do this a hundred times.”

Mina quickly blocked her path, both palms raised to make her stop. “Tzuyu has super strength, Momo. You don’t.”

“Well, Tzuyu isn’t here,” Momo quipped, “Nayeon insisted on school.”

Nayeon rolled her eyes. “Oh, how dare I want Tzuyu to have an education,” she grumbled. “How irresponsible of me.”

“I know that you’re being sarcastic and I don’t appreciate it.”

“Well, I don’t appreciate you criticizing my parenting.”

“You’re not her mother, Nayeon,” said Momo. “And we’re not normal. I don’t know why any of you keep trying to push a normal life on the kids. It’s not fair on them. We will never have the luxury of being normal.”

Nayeon flinched back, stung by Momo’s words, and glanced around at the rest of them briefly before she gestured to the door sharply. “Let her run into the door, Mina.”

Mina didn’t move. “Don’t they at least deserve some sort of attempt at a normal life?” she questioned. “Don’t you want that for her?”

Her.

Sana glanced at Jihyo and Jeongyeon, watching for some sort of tell that they had picked up on it too. Jihyo had moved closer to the door, ear pressed against the cold metal, listening.

Momo settled at the question, anger soothed. “Of course I do,” she said. “I just think that it’s cruel to give them a glimpse of something the world won’t let us have.”

“If we save up enough and try hard enough, then maybe – maybe we can try to have a normal life,” Mina murmured.

“We have been trying, Mina!” Momo snapped back. “Everywhere we go something goes wrong and ‘normal’ turns into ‘batshit crazy’ again!”

Jihyo jerked upright and seized Jeongyeon's arm to tow the older girl out of the way just as the locked door flew open, forced by a strength hard enough to break the top hinge.

"Told you I could do it," a familiar voice gloated softly.

"I never said you couldn't," said another they knew by heart. "I was just hoping to avoid more property damage if we–" Dahyun stepped into view and blinked at them, the lower half of her face covered. "Oh, thank goodness! We were worried we'd get here too late."

Momo squinted at her, her debate with Mina forgotten. “Why are you wearing a mask?” she asked.

Tzuyu appeared behind the illusionist and her eyes squinted when she met Sana’s eyes, a smile hidden behind a similar mask. Sana couldn’t stop herself from clinging to the hope that the smile was just for her.

“Those are new hoodies,” Jeongyeon pointed out.

Sana eyed up Tzuyu’s hopefully. It was too big but Sana definitely planned on borrowing it at some point…permanently.

Dahyun and Tzuyu looked at each other, wide eyes sharing a whole conversation. They were trying to create an alibi. Sana glanced at Momo and received a slight nod, solidarity in sparing the younger two from their leader’s wrath.

"Hey." Nayeon had staggered to her feet again amidst the chaos and was glaring at her wards with an expression Sana had learned to fear.

Tzuyu gave a confused wave, "Hello."

Cute. Sana felt her heart melt. How could one human be so unintentionally adorable?

"No, not 'hey,'" Nayeon seethed, "Hey." She strode forward and jabbed an accusing finger against Tzuyu's chest. "Why aren't you in school?"

"Oh..." Tzuyu looked to Dahyun, wide eyes pleading for assistance. "I got lost?"

“’Lost,’” Jeongyeon echoed but she was quite clearly trying to hide a smile.

Tzuyu glanced between them, as guilty as any kid caught in a lie could be when she could barely utter a whispered, “…yes.”

“Wait...” Mina raised a calming hand, looking at Dahyun and Tzuyu in askance. “Where’s Chaeyoung?”

Behind Tzuyu, three soldiers flew across the car park, thrown by an unseen force, and the final missing member of their team walked over with a spring in her step, a bright ‘I-told-you-so’ shining in her eyes, but beneath the smugness she was quite clearly pleased to see the rest of them.

“Nice one, Yoda!” Chaeyoung cheered as she clapped Tzuyu’s shoulder.

“Right! I’ll deal with you three later.” Jihyo herded everyone outside and the fresh air hit them like a collective sigh of relief. “Let’s leave before the people with guns catch up, yeah?”

“Fine by me!” Momo hooked an arm around Dahyun’s shoulders to steer her towards a side alley and away from their displeased teammates. They would go the long way around to the minivan, just in case they were still being followed.

“Son Chaeyoung,” Nayeon growled, moving towards the telekinetic but Mina was quick to intercept her and towed Chaeyoung away by her hand with Jeongyeon and Nayeon close behind.

“You three have just earned yourself a whole weekend of extra training,” Jeongyeon declared.

“What?” Chaeyoung’s hackles were up, arguing the whole way back to the van. “But I was right! If it wasn’t for me then you’d still be stuck in there!”

“Tzuyu kicked the door down, not you.”

“Because I told her to!”

Sana bit back a smile, unsurprised that the telekinetic had incriminated herself as quickly as she had. Chaeyoung’s temper never helped her when she was in trouble. She refused to accept that she had done anything wrong and Jeongyeon refused to accept that she had done anything right.

“You’re hurt.”

Sana startled at the quiet voice and looked to her left, finding Tzuyu there with worried eyes and a hovering hand, lifted just below her shoulder as if she was going to touch her. She smiled at her concern and touched the sore spot on her jaw.

“An elbow to the face,” she reassured the younger girl, “I’m fine.”

Tzuyu met her eyes, searching for lie. “Promise?”

Sana caught the outstretched hand and held it gently in her own, hoping it comforted Tzuyu as much as it did her. “Promise.”

Tzuyu blinked at their joined hands, fingers flexing as she debated pulling away. She had mentioned once before that she was frightened of breaking Sana’s hand, so Sana had introduced the simple touch as gently as she could, always allowing Tzuyu the option of pulling away.

It never failed to warm her heart every time she didn’t.

Tzuyu settled with a soft sigh as the tension fled her body while a small smile appeared, endearingly shy, and the girl capable of so much harm was brave enough to give Sana’s hand a tiny squeeze that meant the world.

Sana didn’t notice that Jihyo was staring at their joined hands with pursed lips, the burden of a leader heavy on her shoulders, and the concern of a friend flickering in her eyes.

Chapter Text

Mina liked silence. She enjoyed sinking into the comforting blanket that absolute quiet offered, using it to reflect and recuperate, but she lived with eight other humans. Silence was rather hard to come by. She had managed to find a little solace in treating the wounds of her friends, often times demanding peace when she slipped into ‘Doctor Myoui’ mode and she was lucky in that her regular patient, the gentle giant of a being, tended to be quiet too.

“I didn’t even do anything wrong!”

“Are you being serious? You went behind our backs after some guy with a gun when you should have been at school!”

Mina sunk lower on the worn bench with a soft sigh, watching Jeongyeon and Chaeyoung take swings at one another – not entirely correct – Jeongyeon was throwing punches at Chaeyoung while the shorter girl blocked them with quick bursts of telekinesis. It was a good training exercise that allowed Jeongyeon to release her frustration and taught Chaeyoung the importance of control.

Dahyun and Tzuyu were standing off to the side, flanked by Momo and Sana who had successfully managed to ward off Jihyo’s attempted interrogation about their own side mission. If she got to Tzuyu then the trio would be done for. The girl couldn’t lie to save herself.

There had been no point in returning the younger three to school, not when they weren’t sure what the three of them had actually done, so Nayeon had called in with a lie of a stomach bug and their absence was no longer questioned.

So they’d scurried away to hide out in the rundown gym for a while, laying low enough until they were sure that it was safe to go home.

Mina didn’t really mind. It gave her time to wind down from their turbulent morning and the rest of the team weren’t bothering her, wise enough to give her some space after she had used her powers to stop a fight verging on physical between Chaeyoung and their eldest members when Tzuyu flippantly mentioned seeing a gun.

Sana and Momo had found it hilarious when Jeongyeon nearly drove them off the side of the highway, but Mina quite liked living so she blurted a quick command to make everyone calm.

Momo’s accusation still lingered like a haunting whisper at the back of her mind, blurted without much thought, but it meant that Momo believed, at least to some degree, that Mina manipulated them freely without guilt.

‘You use it on us just fine. You use it to get what you want.’

Did she? Mina was sure that she had only ever abused harmless commands, like telling one of them to leave her alone or be quiet in the heat of the moment, less sensible when arguments brewed amongst them.

She had never used it against any of them with malice though. She would never use her ability like that. All it had taken was a loss of temper, the jealousy of a hormonal thirteen year old, ‘You never spend time with me anymore. I don’t want you to hang out with Dahyun or Tzuyu anymore,’ and Mina had unintentionally caused Chaeyoung to avoid the other two members of her club that Mina had once been so envious of.

It took a week to notice the change and a very upset Tzuyu, so worried that she had accidentally said something inconsiderate when it had been Mina’s doing, and she had immediately tried to correct her mistake. It had been an easy enough fix, luckily not harmful enough to erase Chaeyoung’s entire relationship with her playmates, but the lengthy scolding from Jeongyeon and a guilt-ridden heart had taught her to be mindful of how she phrased her commands.

‘If Chaeyoung doesn’t like you back, you can just make her forget that you told her.’

She wouldn’t use her ability to change anything about her friends. If Chaeyoung didn’t return her affection then Mina would just have to live with the consequences of that, just like the rest of them would too. She didn’t want to take shortcuts for her own benefit.

“What’s the point of going to school when I’m never going to have a job?” Chaeyoung challenged. “Can you imagine Tzuyu working in an office? The slightest bit of stress and she’d break her desk! And Dahyun? When she sneezes, there’s a chance that she’ll clone herself!”

“It’s a privilege the rest of us didn’t get, Chaeyoung,” Jeongyeon snapped back. “We’ve all made sacrifices so that you could have this opportunity.”

“For what?” Chaeyoung threw her hands out irritably, palms to the sky in question. “Dahyun taught herself how to hack and we taught Tzuyu Korean. What opportunity are you talking about?! So I can add ‘graduated high school’ to my list of achievements? I can do so much more if I didn’t have to attend classes I don’t care about!”

Mina rested her head back against the wall, careful to avoid the flaking off-white paint. They’d managed to get the basement level as payment for Jeongyeon’s help doing odd jobs around the gym. It was dark and damp, and there was a lingering scent of sweat that they couldn’t air out even with all of the candles and air fresheners they had invested in, but it was enough.

It gave them a private space to vent powers and train in combat without drawing too much attention or the worry of property damage. The basement was too derelict for the owner to bother about a few extra cracks in the walls and the building was never occupied enough for noise complaints to be reported either.

Which was lucky given how often they seemed to be yelling at one another these days.

Tensions were high and they weren’t the children they used to be, blindly following Jihyo’s leadership without question. Each of them had their own personalities separate from the group. It wasn’t unrealistic to believe that at some point their goals wouldn’t align anymore.

Chaeyoung was fed up of being treated like a child, Tzuyu was tired of having to lose and make new friends every time they picked up and moved, Dahyun wanted to go to college and pursue a degree, and Mina just wanted something normal.

She wanted her own place with enough space to hide without someone wandering in. She wanted to walk around the city without the fear of being followed. She wanted a job that didn’t involved crooked people in power or firearms and the risk of blunt force trauma.

But Momo was right. They didn’t have the luxury of ‘normal,’ and any tiny relief that they found quickly dissolved into madness all over again.

Their contract should have been an easy job. Retrieve lost data, hand it over, get paid, and go home, but now they were out of pocket and the looming threat of the Company infesting Seoul had them all on edge. It wasn’t at all surprising for Chaeyoung and Jeongyeon to be at each other’s throats.

It was a little odd that neither Nayeon or Jihyo had stepped in yet, both resting on the dusty piles of worn stacked practice mats with matching frowns, but they were equally as furious with their tiny telekinetic. Chaeyoung wouldn’t find any reprieve there. They were likely waiting for their turn to have a go at her after Jeongyeon.

Mina glanced over at the other two members of the SMC. Dahyun and Tzuyu had escaped most of their members’ ire due to the glaringly obvious fact that it wasn’t their idea to skip school. Chaeyoung had never intended on going to class. From the moment she had received the tip about Rain, Chaeyoung was always going to follow it, consequences be damned. 

It might also have been the fact that Dahyun had been apologizing profusely ever since they got in the minivan and that Tzuyu had been – in Chaeyoung’s opinion – painfully honest with the few answers Jihyo had managed to wrangle out of her before Sana and Momo interfered.

Chaeyoung’s partners in crime weren’t very good at dealing with the fallout of their crime.

“Why is it so damn hard for you to just admit that I helped you?!” Chaeyoung had started to force back Jeongyeon’s blows harder than necessary. “They had soldiers stationed outside each exit. There’s no way you would’ve got out of there without me!”

“That’s not why I’m mad!” Jeongyeon’s voice had risen to almost a shout, the tone enough to make even Sana fall silent. “I’m mad because you went behind our backs because your pride was hurt!”

Here we go...

Mina noticed the change in Chaeyoung before anyone else did, their little human time-bomb. She was a sensitive creature beneath all of the tough armor and one of her tells before she did something stupid was a slight twitch of muscle around her nose.

Three…

The next tell was when her eyes narrowed.

Two…

Then her jaw clenched painfully tight.

One…

Chaeyoung flung out both palms and Jeongyeon lost her footing as she was thrown across the old creaky floorboards into Dahyun and Tzuyu, taking the illusionist out like a bowling pin whilst their human shield barely moved.

‘Chaeyoung does look pretty hot when she’s throwing things around, doesn’t she?’

Momo wasn’t wrong…but tossing their members around wasn’t ideal, not when she was the designated medic on the team.

“You never take me seriously!” Chaeyoung snarled, shifting back into a stance to hit Jeongyeon with another blast of energy, but the older girl threw up her hands and pulled them down sharply in two clenched fists to slow everything around her, effectively giving herself enough time to move out of the way.

“Because you get told ‘no’ and you have a tantrum like a total child!”

Mina rolled her eyes. They antagonized each other without even meaning to. Chaeyoung pushed and Jeongyeon pushed right back. Yet they shared the same endearingly awful humor, often times laughing at their own jokes. The sudden back and forth between them the last few months was giving Mina whiplash.

Tzuyu took a sudden step forward while Momo and Sana helped Dahyun to her feet, protective instincts flaring in a confused fog. She needed to protect the team, but Jeongyeon and Chaeyoung were fighting one another and that conflicted with everything she had been taught.

Mina had to admit that she held a certain affinity for their youngest member, nothing in the romantic sense, but completely platonic. Tzuyu had been so quiet as a child and had naturally gravitated towards Mina, unafraid of losing control when Mina could use a single command to make everything stop. It had been a long time since she had needed to use her ability in such a way though.

“Tzuyu,” Jihyo intercepted her quickly, ducking to catch the girl’s muddled gaze, “they’re okay, sweetheart. No one’s hurt.”

“Tell that to my back,” Dahyun grumbled.

“Drama queen.” Sana dusted the girl off and caught the back of Tzuyu’s hoodie between her fingers, pulling just enough to divert Tzuyu’s attention long enough for Nayeon to haul Jeongyeon upright again, muttering a quiet scolding for instigating her short flight. “Chewy,” Sana tugged gently on the material, “come and sit with me. My legs still hurt from all of those stairs.”

Mina raised a curious eyebrow at the noticeable change in their youngest member. She had calmed as soon as Sana had called her name in that overly sweet way, a butchered version from childhood that Sana had kept as her own special endearment for Tzuyu.

She was curious because she had noticed Chaeyoung responding similarly to her own voice.

“Chaengie,” Mina called softly and Chaeyoung turned her head, giving Mina a glimpse of the upset she was desperately trying to hide. It was time for all of them to have a much needed break. “Come on,” Mina offered her hand to the embarrassed girl, “let’s go for a walk.”

Chaeyoung leapt at the opportunity to escape, scrambling for her hand before Jihyo had time to grab her by the scruff of her jacket, and Mina met their leader’s gaze with a silent promise of, ‘I can handle this.’ Jihyo didn’t seem to have it in her to argue either, as fed up of the past few days as Mina was, so she nodded her acceptance and Mina towed Chaeyoung out into the afternoon sun.

Stepping out into the crisp autumn breeze had an immediate effect on Mina’s pent up agitation. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with breathable air instead of the stale stench of their basement space. It worked for the purpose of training but Mina wouldn’t choose it as her first place to waste a day.

Chaeyoung exhaled loudly beside her and flexed out her hands, using her own methods to calm down before they went any further. Mina gave her the time to do so, content enough to readjust to the city noise in the meantime.

She liked Seoul. They had been all over South Korea, seeing more than most people their age on a very limited budget. Seoul was busy but there was comfort in that. It made her appreciate the rare moments of peace more.

It was easier to feel invisible when there were a hundred other people passing by. It was easier to feel normal when no one was looking. Everyone was far too consumed by their own lives to pay them any notice.

The sun was already starting to dip behind the tall buildings, reflecting against the glass of the office block across the street in a golden glow. There was beauty to be found in the complexities of the city, in the way that there was always something open, always someone working, always something happening. Mina could allow her mind to wander and the city would continue around her, sweeping her away in the noise.

“I didn’t mean to lose my temper like that.”

Mina turned her gaze to Chaeyoung and found the younger girl scowling at the traffic as if every passing stranger had wronged her in some way.

Jeongyeon wasn’t far from the truth about Chaeyoung’s pride being problematic but Mina knew that it was more than a mere issue of ego.

Chaeyoung was the second youngest of their team and the hand-holding that went to Tzuyu extended to her, but while it was an aid to Tzuyu, Chaeyoung saw it as patronizing. She perceived it as not being trusted, as not being capable enough, as not being heard, which lead to a recklessness that Mina both feared and envied.

Chaeyoung wasn’t exactly fearless, but she also wasn’t afraid. She was brave and never let the thought of consequences stop her. She charged into everything blind and adapted to the situation.

Like the hustle and bustle of a never-sleeping city, Mina thought that there was something so beautiful about that.

“I had everything under control,” Chaeyoung continued when Mina remained quiet. She had learned to let the telekinetic vent first. “Three of us went on the mission and three of us came back. I proved that Rain is a Company spy, I proved that the contract with Miss A was a trap, and I made sure that no one would recognize us, but it’s still not enough for them! I’m just an incompetent child!”

Oh, Chaeng…

“I’m not–” Chaeyoung’s voice cracked. “I’m not a child, Mina.”

Mina smiled softly and rested a gentle hand on Chaeyoung’s forearm, sliding it down to lace her fingers through Chaeyoung’s. A perfect fit. “I know,” she murmured. “We’ve never been children…not really. We didn’t get the chance.”

Chaeyoung peeked up at her, eyelashes wet with barely suppressed emotion after a grueling few days, and she nodded in agreement. “I just feel like I need to prove my worth all the damn time,” she mumbled. “Then the others get pissed and I…you know…” Throw things around.

Mina took a moment to admire Chaeyoung, from the pride in her shoulders to the timid uncertainty in her eyes. She was a paradox, both unbelievably brave and yet so full of self-doubt. She couldn’t seem to accept that while she drove their leader and second-in-command to the brink of insanity with her half-planned schemes their love for her was unconditional. Jihyo would never turn around and cast Chaeyoung from the team. They were a family and anything other than the nine of them together would feel incomplete.

That tiny sliver of doubt humanized her. Powers aside, Chaeyoung had been damaged by the Company just as much as the rest of them. It was difficult to trust the older members to have her best interests at heart when she had never known adults to care about her wellbeing before.

Mina was determined to prove to Chaeyoung that the team – their family – needed her.

“Hey,” Mina gave Chaeyoung’s hand a gentle squeeze, “When did you last eat?”

A small smile appeared, sheepish yet lacking any real remorse. “The abominable puppy giant wanted ice cream,” Chaeyoung said, then laughed, all pent up aggression washing away, “Tzuyu complained that her ice cream was too cold.”

Mina shook her head fondly, pleased that Tzuyu had remained mostly unchanged through the years even though she was about to overtake Jeongyeon in height – much to the older girl’s dismay.

“Ice cream doesn’t really constitute as a meal,” Mina said, warmth flooding through her chest when Chaeyoung’s smile grew. “Would you like to get some food?”

Sana yearned and Momo pined, both painfully obvious about their desires, but Mina knew how to be discreet about her crush. She was more subtle in finding ways to spend time alone with a certain member.

“The others will probably be hungry too,” Mina added, providing herself with an excuse.

“I’d love to,” Chaeyoung agreed quickly, already pulling on their joined hands, “and I know just the place! Come on!”

Mina laughed when she was forced to stagger along behind the younger girl, pleased to see Chaeyoung carefree again, even if she knew it was fleeting, and allowed Chaeyoung to lead her through the noise of the city, talking loudly about how she had discovered the diner and why it was so good.

She let Chaeyoung’s voice wash over her, happily listening to her ramble on about nothing and everything, her hand so warm to hold as the world around her faded into background noise. For a moment she could pretend that they were normal, that there was no Company, no Project Signal, no inhuman powers…they were just two friends going out for a very late lunch…normal...

Mina liked silence but this was the moment of peace she cherished the most.

Chapter Text

“You just let them go?!”

“You weren’t making any headway arguing with her, Jeong. You both need space from each other for a while.”

“What I need is for the little idiot to actually follow instructions for once in her damn life!”

“Jeongyeon.”

 Tzuyu closed her eyes and focused on counting out a pattern on the rough surface of the bench, using the rhythm to ground herself while Nayeon and Jeongyeon argued a few feet away. The counting had actually been Momo’s idea, the speedster relating to the need for distractions, but while Momo used physical movements to ease her boundless energy, Tzuyu used it to stay grounded and not lash out.

Two taps with her index finger – pause – three taps with her middle finger – pause – a roll of her fingers.

She didn’t like it when the team argued. It made her feel strange and unsettled inside, caught somewhere between wanting to cover her ears and wanting to demolish the nearest wall with her fists in equal measure, the achingly numb pressure building until it was wound around her body in a crushing embrace that threatened to suffocate her if she forgot to take a breath.

Two taps with her index finger – pause – three taps with her middle finger – pause – a roll of her fingers.

The Company had been simple. She understood her purpose. She had been a weapon, sculpted into an obedient soldier. She had followed the rules without question, finding comfort in the simplicity of an unchanging routine and knowing that she would be held accountable for being anything other than what was expected.

Then they had escaped and simple became complicated.

There was a whole world beyond the confines of the white walls and locked doors. A world they weren’t welcome in because they were different. A world that was so loud and so busy and full of people that Tzuyu didn’t understand.

The team had told her that the Company were needlessly cruel and that their training was abuse, that she didn’t deserve anything that had happened, no matter how strong it had made her – it had been wrong and Tzuyu was always good.

Two taps – pause – three taps – pause – a roll of her fingers.

She didn’t believe them at first which had lead to a long string of quiet conversations with Jihyo, Jeongyeon, and Nayeon with lots of tea and blankets, discussing sensitive topics late at night without the rest of the team listening in.

Then she started to understand the difference between abuse and discipline when she wasn’t beaten the first time she had a physical scuffle with Chaeyoung. No one had raised a hand to her. Momo and Mina had sat her down in one of the bedrooms of their first apartment and taught her how to count until she could breathe again. There had been no pain or bruises, no lingering resentment, no attempt to see how far her limbs would bend or twist until they broke, only gentle explanations about why she needed to practice ways to stay calm and why she couldn’t lash out when she wasn’t.

Humans were fragile creatures and they couldn’t withstand the damage she could.

And they were so complicated.

Two taps – pause – three taps – pause – a roll of her fingers.

Every time she tried to approach her more parental members about why everyone else was teasing her about her new friend, Elkie, helping her study or about Sana when the older girl was only ever kind and attentive, she was patted on the head and told not to worry about such things.

But she wanted to know. She wanted to understand – the team had encouraged her to ask questions – and it was unfair of them to tiptoe around her questions like she didn’t notice.

Tzuyu didn’t want to have to depend on the team for every social cue.

Two taps – pause – three taps –

Her hand was stilled by another.

“Chewy.”

Her eyes fluttered open at the soft voice, something shifting back into place, and she blinked blearily at Sana, wondering when she had moved to kneel in front of her, but there she was, kneeling on the dirty floor and looking up at her in concern.

Tzuyu frowned. That wouldn’t be good for her sore legs, so she said as much, “Unnie–” or tried to say until she was promptly silenced by a finger pressing against her lips.

“Chewy, you need to let go of the bench,” Sana instructed softly and Tzuyu followed Sana’s directing nod to the hand that wasn’t counting.

Her left hand was gripping the edge of the bench, her fingers curled around it so tightly that the wood was splintering and tearing into her palm. She willed it to open and inhaled sharply when she couldn’t make her limb listen to her mind.

“It’s okay.” Sana gently guided Tzuyu’s free hand to rest against her chest, taking a few deliberately slow breaths for Tzuyu to follow, and rested her other hand on the one Tzuyu couldn’t control. “Just focus on what I’m doing, okay?”

Tzuyu nodded wordlessly and did as instructed, glancing over at the leading trio purely out of instinct. They were still arguing amongst themselves, no longer about Chaeyoung but about what they were going to do about the severe lack of funds. She searched for Momo and Dahyun, worried when she couldn’t find them.

“Chewy.” Sana’s thumb started to rub soothing circles on the back of her hand, applying just enough pressure to draw her attention back. “Eyes on me, angel.” She smiled when Tzuyu met her steady gaze. “Can you feel that?”

Tzuyu hummed in admission and focused on the gentle touch, willing herself to feel the warmth of Sana’s fingers against her chilled skin, and slowly, a faint heat from Sana’s fingertips started to seep into her hand, soothing the biting cold of her frozen limb.

She tried to flex her fingers again and exhaled deeply in relief when they started to uncurl from the bench, finally easing from splintered wood.

“Good girl,” Sana murmured as she lifted Tzuyu’s hand, still trembling as the muscles and tendons struggled to relax fully, to her mouth and pressed a gentle kiss in the center of her palm, like Jeongyeon used to when Tzuyu scuffed her knees or scraped her hands when she was younger, but this felt…different.

Jeongyeon’s kisses didn’t make her stomach feel strange, fluttering almost like she was scared but not quite. She remembered Chaeyoung mentioning butterflies once but that was absurd. Butterflies couldn’t survive inside the human body.

Maybe she was sick.

She would ask Mina to check later.

Sana sighed in front of her and guided both hands back to Tzuyu’s lap, leaving them neatly folded as she reached up to touch her cheek. Her eyes drifted to the fading bruise beside her left eyebrow, just barely hidden by makeup after a day of running across the city, then flickered down to her lips.

"I like you, Chewy," Sana said softly, sounding almost mournful to Tzuyu’s ears, like she was saddened by it, "but not how the others like you."

Her hand lingered against Tzuyu’s cheek, the touch causing a prickle of static across her skin, a faint tremor of pleasant warmth. Sana’s tongue darted out to wet her own lips and she opened her mouth to say something more, seeing Tzuyu’s furrowing brow at a tone she didn’t quite recognize.

Music erupted from her back pocket, a loud pop song Tzuyu had heard on the radio in the minivan earlier. Sana made a face at the name that was flashing on her screen, an expression that Tzuyu understood as Sana being annoyed, and the older girl answered it.

“Eunha, hey,” Sana pulled away quickly and flashed Tzuyu a bright smile as she hurried towards the stairs.

Sana never talked on the phone around her when it was one of her own friends and seemed even more reluctant to let Tzuyu talk to the ones she brought to visit the house which Tzuyu found very odd because the friends she had spoken to had all been very nice.

Tzuyu sighed loudly and settled back against the wall. Her skin tingled almost pleasantly where the memory of Sana’s touch remained, already cooling again without the warmth, and her eyes followed Sana until she couldn’t see her anymore.

‘I like you, Chewy, but not how the others like you.’

Tzuyu looked towards their leader again, still engaged in hushed discussions, and tugged down the sleeve of her hoodie to hide her damaged hand. She didn’t want to interrupt them and it was unlikely that they would answer her question without the kid-glove answers.

“Catch!”

A bottle of water appeared in her line of sight and Tzuyu caught it without a second thought, reflexes fast even in her fogged state. She set it down in her lap, not trusting her own strength quite yet, and perked up a little at the reappearance of Momo.

Momo would answer her question.

Momo always answered her questions.

“That’s a thinking face if I’ve ever seen one,” Momo commented lightly as she sat down on Tzuyu’s right. She leant over to flick her ear playfully. “What’s on your mind, kiddo?”

“Where’s Dahyun?” Tzuyu asked quietly. Dahyun would answer her questions too but she was always so careful with how she worded her responses and Tzuyu didn’t want that.

“Bathroom,” said Momo. “Quit stalling and tell Unnie why you’re frowning.”

Tzuyu sighed and shifted, digging her fingers into her aching palm as a distraction. Momo noticed the movement. Tzuyu saw it in the way her eyebrows twitched, but if Momo saw the damage then she would fuss over it, and then Nayeon would fuss too, and Tzuyu wouldn’t get an answer.

So she threw a curveball.

"Sana told me that she likes me," she blurted quietly.

Momo’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as her face brightened with a smile. “Yeah?”

Tzuyu straightened to stretch out her spine while she replayed Sana’s words in her head to check she hadn’t misheard her. “She said that she likes me, but not how the others like me…” Tzuyu looked at Momo questioningly. “What does that mean?”

“What do you think it means?”

Tzuyu frowned, agitation rising instinctively. “I don’t know,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “That’s why I’m asking.” She pressed harder against her palm and gritted her teeth at the sting, clinging to the feeling. “I don’t like it when you do the cryptic therapist thing, Momo.”

Momo smirked and reached over to tousle her hair affectionately, laughing when Tzuyu swatted her away. “Okay,” Momo twisted her body around so that she was facing Tzuyu and guided her to do the same, “do you like Sana back?”

"I like all of you."

"That’s not...” Momo sighed and scratched the skin beneath her jaw in consideration. “What's a better way to phrase it?" Rhetorical. Tzuyu took pride in recognizing the tone. “Remember when we talked about love?”

Tzuyu nodded and recited the lesson, “An intense feeling of deep affection.”

“Exactly.” Momo beamed proudly. “And you know that I love you with all my heart, don’t you?” Tzuyu nodded again. “You’re my baby sister, but Sana…” Momo hesitated and glanced quickly towards the center of the room, checking that no one was listening in. “She loves you, but not like that.”

Tzuyu tipped her head back, whining at the non-answer. “Momo…”

Momo’s smile softened with sympathy. “I don’t want to betray Sana’s trust, kiddo.” She reached over to fix the mess she’d made of Tzuyu’s hair. “You should talk to her.”

“I wanted to,” Tzuyu grumbled, “but Eunha called.”

Her heart twisted at the name, a spiraling storm of emotions gripping her. Her throat felt too tight and her palms were clammy with sweat. She liked Eunha. She had met her on several occasions and enjoyed her company. Eunha was nice and didn’t try to hug her in greeting like some of the others did. Eunha respected her need for space. She liked Eunha…so why did the thought of her make her feel like she was going to vomit?

Momo’s eyes sparked with curiosity, seeing her reaction. “You don’t like it when she talks to her many girlfriends, hm?”

Girlfriends. She scrubbed her hands against her skirt and swallowed around the lump in her throat. Her heart was pounding so violently that she feared it was going to burst from her chest. “I think I’m unwell,” she whispered, already starting to rise with the intention of going outside for some air.

Momo caught her hoodie before she could get far. “You’re not unwell, kid,” she said softly, smiling the same gentle smile that appeared when Tzuyu accidentally mispronounced her words and Tzuyu found a small part of herself settling at the familiarity. “You’re freaking out a little, but you’re okay.” She paused and tried a new tactic. “How did you feel when Sana answered the call?”

“Annoyed,” tumbled from her lips before she could stop herself.

Annoyed. Was she annoyed? She knew what annoyed felt like, she knew what it did to her, but this felt…different somehow. It was different and confusing and Momo wasn’t helping the way Tzuyu wanted her to help.

“Why?” asked Momo.

“I don’t know.”

“Why did you feel annoyed, kid?”

Tzuyu growled and scowled at where Momo’s fingers were tangled in the side of her hoodie. She could feel the burning ache of anger pushing the cold aside. “I don’t know!”

But Momo kept pushing. “Why were you annoyed?”

“Because she picked Eunha over me!”

Tzuyu froze at the admission that spilt out, stunned by the words that were spoken, but that was definitely her voice and Momo looked so proud. She was annoyed because she’d lost Sana’s company, Sana’s attention, Sana’s touch.

Oh.

‘I like you, Chewy, but not how the others like you.’

Oh.

Tzuyu’s mouth was painfully dry when she tried to swallow, the motion causing shards of glass to tear down the length of her throat. She was normally so cold, chilled without the fire that fueled her strength, the tips of her fingers frozen like ice, but suddenly the room felt far too warm and her clothes felt far too restricting.

‘I like you, Chewy, but not how the others like you.’

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Tzuyu mumbled wearily, giving a slight pull on Momo’s hold that the older girl relinquished immediately.

“Is everything okay?”

Tzuyu’s head whipped around to find Dahyun a few feet away, approaching with an eyebrow raised in question, and she glanced back at Momo with a hidden plea. She knew that Dahyun wouldn’t make her talk if she didn’t want to but she would keep insisting that she was willing to listen and that was almost worse.

Momo seemed to understand that she needed some space and tipped her head towards the stairs in silent understanding. “Tzu was just asking if she could stretch her legs outside.”

Tzuyu latched on to the excuse and nodded enthusiastically, already reversing stiffly, as if taking her eyes off of them would give them a chance to jump her. “Yes,” she stammered weakly. “Outside.”

‘I like you, Chewy, but not how the others like you.’

“Kid,” Momo tossed the untouched water to her, “don’t wander too far, okay?”

Tzuyu nodded again, nearly giving herself whiplash from the motion, and fumbled to unscrew the cap. She took a lengthy gulp, losing some of her nerves when the cold water soothed her parched throat. She definitely needed to speak to Mina if she was going to be experiencing those kinds of reactions. It couldn’t be healthy.

‘I like you, Chewy, but not how the others like you.’

Tzuyu tripped on her way up the stairs and cursed under her breath as she weaved her way towards the front door, unable to clear her mind of Sana’s echoing words. Her heart was still thundering against her chest, the pulse extending all the way to her ears which felt like they were burning. She clamped her hands over them, trying to make her mind quiet enough to think, but Sana flickered behind her eyelids with that pained expression she couldn’t decipher the meaning of.

‘I like you, Chewy, but not how the others like you.’

Tzuyu shivered when she stepped out onto the street, hit by a sudden gust of wind that chilled her all the way to her bones. She inhaled sharply through her teeth and made a sharp turn to the left as she let her feet move on autopilot in the direction of familiar streets she often walked to ease cluttered thoughts, not even noticing when she walked by the cause of her current predicament tucked in the shadow of an alleyway with another stranger in her grasp, chasing away feelings with her lips.

Tzuyu heaved a sigh and shoved her hands deep in the front pocket of her hoodie. It was easier when there was a language barrier and she had no idea what any of them were saying.

*********

Back in the training room, Momo was just barely able to hide her smirk when Dahyun turned back to her, head tilted in concern.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“Nothing to worry about,” Momo assured her. “We were talking about feelings.”

“Ah,” was all Dahyun said in response and she stepped over to sit in Tzuyu’s spot, tracing her fingers carefully across splintered wood. “It was about Sana, wasn’t it?”

Momo raised an eyebrow, intrigued. She was almost certain that Dahyun hadn’t been close enough to hear them, definitely not when she had mentioned Sana’s name.

Dahyun leant towards her with an easy smile, flecks of warm copper shining in her eyes when sunlight trickled through the smiley-face Chaeyoung had drawn in the dust of the small street-level window behind them.

Oh.

“Chaeyoung was teasing her earlier,” Dahyun explained. “The jokes flew right over her head, of course.”

Momo inhaled sharply at the close proximity and internally kicked herself when all it did was flood her senses with the sweet perfume the younger girl always wore, an enticingly sweet mix that always reminded her of summer flowers.

Oh.

Her sympathy for Tzuyu increased tenfold, wondering how on earth the kid could handle Sana’s shameless advances when Momo was that affected by Dahyun’s smile.

Dahyun rested her chin on the heel of her palm, knee digging into her thigh, expression thoughtful. "Who do you think will make the first move?" she asked.

"Sana," Momo answered instantly. "Tzu's a complicated little thing when it comes to feelings." That’s putting it lightly. “And Sana loves toying with her.”

Dahyun’s eyes twinkled warmly. “She said that you were trying to teach her about teasing.”

Momo cleared her throat and used the very tactic she had taught their human wrecking ball, counting to a solid ten before she was sure that she could answer without blurting out that Dahyun looked so beautiful when she smiled.

“Uh, yeah.” Momo tore her eyes away and focused instead on a single leaf on the floor a few feet away that one of them must have trailed in on their shoe. “I thought I could try to level the playing field a little for her.” Talking about something else helped her calm the nerves buzzing underneath her skin. “She’s seventeen,” she said. “She doesn’t need to be babied anymore.”

“Small chance of that happening,” Dahyun mumbled with a subtle gesture towards the group still caught up in their own heated debate. “Jeongyeon cried the other week when Jihyo pointed out that Tzuyu is the same height as her now.”

Momo rolled her eyes. As funny as it had been to witness Jeongyeon having a mental breakdown and then proceed to demand that Tzuyu stop growing to which their youngest member had confusedly pointed out that she couldn’t do so but she would crouch if it made her feel better (it didn’t), Momo couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed. How was Tzuyu supposed to grow up when she was still shielded from subjects deemed ‘too sensitive.’

Momo loved the kid dearly and felt just as mournful that she was outgrowing them, but purposely holding her back wouldn’t do any of them any good.

She had been criticized before for trying to explain as much to the others, but Dahyun understood, not with the selfish reasoning Sana had, or the rebellion Chaeyoung always seemed to fuel. Dahyun understood that Momo just wanted to help and–

Dahyun was staring.

Momo felt her heart flutter unhelpfully, the reaction making her lurch forward with a gasp for air. She couldn’t fill her lungs properly, not when Dahyun was looking at her like that – eyelids hooded, gaze impossibly soft, lips turning down slightly at the corners.

"Heart palpitations?" Dahyun asked quietly, resting her palm over Momo's heart without a second thought, and Momo felt it stutter all over again.

Maybe Tzuyu isn’t the only one who’s complicated when it comes to feelings.

Then the smile was back, warm and kind, her eyes practically slits from the force of it, bright like pure, unfiltered sunshine – breathtakingly beautiful to glimpse but staring too long would make her blind.

Strangely enough, Momo didn’t find that she minded that risk, not if Dahyun’s smile was the last thing she saw.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Dahyun stood and offered her hand. “They’re going to be at it for a while still and fresh air will help the palpitations.”

Momo almost considered declining for the sake of her poor heart but temptation won over and her hand slipped into Dahyun’s, sending her pulse soaring to a dangerous speed. If it was going to be a heart attack that took her out then so be it.

She would take that risk if it made Dahyun’s sunshine-smile stay.

“Lead the way.”

*********

“Okay,” Jihyo stepped back from Jeongyeon and Nayeon, wrinkling her nose at the emotions rolling off of them in waves that threatened to drown her, “you two need to sort out whatever this,” she gestured to them, “is please, but we’re all in agreement?”

Nayeon nodded, her eyes trained on Jeongyeon’s lips, chest heaving with furious huffs of breath. “Only if Jeongyeon apologizes,” she bartered.

“For what?” Jeongyeon growled, scowling back at her. “You suggested robbing a bank, Nayeon. It’s a stupid idea.”

“No more stupid than selling lemonade,” Nayeon fired back.

“For fuck’s sake…” Jihyo scrubbed at her aching eyes, all energy drained from her. It wasn’t their argument that had sapped her will to maintain the peace so much as the underlying lust that was seeping out of them. “Can you do this ‘middle-aged-couple-heading-for-a-divorce’ act later? You’re giving me a migraine.”

Nayeon and Jeongyeon were still considerate enough to put their own argument on hold, both easing off so that Jihyo could breathe again.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “Are we in agreement then?”

“Small jobs until the kids graduate then we move on,” Jeongyeon muttered. “Sounds fair enough and shouldn’t draw too much attention to us in the meantime.”

“Not everyone will want to move.” Nayeon dropped her standoffish stance entirely when her brow twitched with remorse. “But yes…I agree.”

Even if it divides us.

Jihyo heard it as clearly as if Nayeon had spoken, a tinge of doubt slipping out. It was her responsibility as the leader to keep them all together, but the reality she had accepted a long time ago was that it was near impossible for nine people to agree on everything.

Sometimes Jihyo had the unfortunate task of being a not-so-nice leader. Sometimes she had to put her foot down.

Speaking of which…

With their argument mostly settled aside from some disgruntled complaints and a few compromises still to be sorted out, Jihyo turned to face the bench where she had left the rest of their group.

"Right, team–!"

She blinked at the empty space and quickly swept her gaze across the room in search of their missing teammates.

"Where did everyone go?"

Chapter Text

The next week flew by without incidence.

The SMC actually lived up to their club name and attended school, even a very disgruntled Chaeyoung, still clinging to the reasoning that she didn't need a higher education when she could make their furniture levitate – hardly a valid argument in Jihyo’s opinion but she was content enough to let the telekinetic shout a little at the unfairness of it all if her attendance record didn’t take another dive.

Their Japanese teammates didn't cause any issues either, too busy studying for upcoming exams for their night classes, so busy that Sana didn't bring anyone home with her.

Jihyo still caught a whiff of a perfume she didn't recognize when Sana walked by one night though and she made a mental note of the tiny twinge of disappointment that flickered across Tzuyu’s face. She had noticed that their youngest member had been spending more time with Momo and though it stung slightly that Tzuyu wasn’t confiding in Jihyo, she was pleased that the girl was talking to someone.

Dahyun and Mina had proven to be the most tolerable in terms of company. With Tzuyu pulling away and Jeongyeon and Nayeon constantly at one another’s throats, Jihyo had found herself enjoying the peace the two quieter members’ company offered. The gentle tapping of Dahyun typing on her laptop was the only noise at times other than a small noise from Mina while she played on her Switch nearby.

It was nice. Normal, even.

Which was why it left her feeling very unsettled.  

There had been nothing on the news about the warehouse gunfight or the ambush in Gangnam-gu, just weather reports and small mundane news stories that hardly warranted media coverage. Dahyun had been able to find out that Miss A had liquidated their assets and rebranded themselves the day after their close call, hardly surprising given what they did as a living and if they were on the Company’s hit list – which was highly likely after hearing the kids’ version of events at the warehouse with Rain and the gun.

They wouldn’t have to worry about retaliation if Miss A were too busy trying to stay out of reach and Jihyo had reminded the team to remain extra vigilant.

‘The Company thanks you for your service.’

Words Jihyo had heard enough during their incarceration when agents struck with a battle of conscience were quickly disposed of. It confirmed Chaeyoung’s theory at least – an ego boost that the girl absolutely did not need – that the Company's influence stretched further than Jihyo had originally thought.

They had agreed on small jobs that couldn’t be traced, cash-payments only to avoid a paper trail, and it had been going well so far.

Momo and Sana had agreed amongst themselves to pickpocket the shadier attendees of Sana’s usual clubs, a combination of speed and invisibility making them the perfect candidates. Dahyun had managed to siphon money from several offshore banking accounts of corrupt officials, sums small enough that wouldn’t be noticed. Nayeon and Jeongyeon were still blending in easily enough with their own separate jobs, both bringing in a pay slip that kept the lights on.

They would be able to tide over for a few more weeks without much worry.

Which was why she was riddled with dread when Jeongyeon kicked the front door open and hurried into the kitchen looking every bit like a child – or Sana – at Christmas.

"Jung-gu!” she announced loudly.

The sudden noise made Mina drop the pan she had been draining in the sink, which in turn caused the mug of tea cradled in Tzuyu’s hands to burst into shards of ceramic, sending the dark liquid spilling onto the floor and all down the front of her clothes. Her cry of despair brought Momo in on a gust of wind, socked feet slipping in the puddle, and the combined momentum sent her careening into Mina’s back, resulting in their unfinished dinner toppling into the drain.

One. Week.

Jihyo had one blissful week of peace. She should have known that it wouldn’t last.

*********

That mess was what had led Jihyo to be huddled in some dark, narrow alleyway on the west side of the city with Jeongyeon and Nayeon wedged in beside her.

“I know you said small jobs,” Jeongyeon had said, “but – just hear me out, okay?”

Jihyo should have said no.

“There’s a weapons deal going down in Jung-gu.” The first warning.

“All we have to do is intercept the payload.” The second warning.

“Chaeng already has a new buyer lined up.” The third warning.

She really should have said no.

Jihyo felt unsettled about the whole thing – she had been feeling unsettled ever since the contract in Gangnam-gu went south. If it were solely up to her then she would’ve already had their bags packed and the house up for sale, but decisions like that would make her leadership more of a tyranny than a democracy.

So there she was, riddled with doubt and regretting ever taking up the position as team leader in the first place.

She could just barely sense the rest of her team scattered throughout the warren of shadowed back alleys. Momo, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu were on the south, waiting to block the only road into the dead-end street. Dahyun and Mina were hidden near the drop point, ready to distract and trick, and Sana was standing by the main road, hidden from sight to alert them when the gang’s van arrived – credit to Chaeyoung’s friends that Jeongyeon still insisted were in a gang of their own.

They had a plan and several escape routes – but they had also walked into the Miss A building with a plan, several of them at that.

Maybe it was time to move on.

Tzuyu would forgive her in time, Chaeyoung would be mad no matter what, and Dahyun could always forge a high school diploma...

But Jihyo was tired of running too.

She was so tired of running.

“Move over,” Nayeon grumbled, “your elbow is crushing my kidney.”

“That’s not where your kidney is, idiot,” Jeongyeon grouched back, but still shuffled over to give Nayeon more room.

Jihyo sighed in relief when her phone finally lit up with a message, a small impulsive smile tugging at her lips when Sana’s name flashed across the screen in their group chat. Finally.

Sanake: It’s go time people!

(sent 1.17am)

On cue, a black van rolled into the street with its headlights off like a bad omen, the side decorated with a faded skull decal missing the jaw and chin. Whether it was by design or simply the wear of time and weather, Jihyo was unsure, but if she needed a fourth warning...

The side door slid open and five men emerged, followed by another from the front passenger seat whilst the driver remained in the van, likely as a contingency in the event of a quick getaway.

Seven. Jihyo couldn’t sense anyone else.

“Yugyeom. Jackson.” One of the men moved around to the back of the van. “Help me unload the crates. The buyer will be here shortly.”

“So Mark gets to chill in the van and we have to do all the hard work?”

“Shut up and get the crates, Jackson.”

Jihyo leant around the wall, careful to avoid the moss and grime, and made a quick gesture to Mina and Dahyun. They were up first and if it all went to plan – which it rarely did – then the hypnotist and illusionist would be all that they needed.

But, just in case, Jihyo had a backup plan.

FastFood: All clear on our end, Boss! Coming back now.

(sent 1.19am)

And that plan came in the form of their roadblock closing the distance. Sana was free to do whatever she wanted whilst invisible but Jihyo knew without a doubt that Sana would be wherever Tzuyu was. An observation she was rather reluctant to accept.  Jihyo wasn’t blind. She had seen the looks being cast about amongst the team.

Honestly, sometimes it was as if the team forgot that she could pick up on their feelings. Most of it was through touch but she could sense intense emotions, like the overwhelming fear when Chaeyoung had first brought up the Company, and again when Nayeon and Jeongyeon had their marital spat in the middle of their temporary training room.

Jihyo knew that Sana was particularly fond of their youngest member but what she had felt when she touched Sana’s arm on the stairs...it was so much more than the fleeting fascination she had expected. The intensity of it had seared the soft skin of her palm with phantom fire, burdening her heart with grief, and Jihyo had grieved with her in that moment, her heart mimicking Sana’s while it longed for something just out of reach.

Tzuyu.

Maybe Jihyo had judged their Casanova too quickly. She flirted shamelessly, but that was all she did. Sana wasn’t pursuing Tzuyu like Jihyo had suspected. She was holding herself back for Tzuyu’s sake and...possibly because Jihyo had forbidden it.

Jihyo felt a tiny prickle across her skin and glanced down the street. Momo and Chaeyoung were approaching, staying out of the dim streetlights and keeping their footsteps light.

Where was Tzuyu?

Minatozaki, I swear…

“Hello!” Dahyun chirped.

Jihyo cursed under her breath and set the matter of missing teammates aside for the time being. She just had to trust that Sana and Tzuyu knew what they were doing and that it wasn’t anything reckless.

Dahyun was skipping towards the men, her demeanor as bright and friendly as her smile, while Mina walked close behind with far less energy than the illusionist.

The men looked amongst themselves, quite clearly confused by the appearance of two young girls in a less safe part of the city in the dead of night. Two crates were on the ground already and a third was being lifted from the back of the van, the process abandoned halfway in favor of watching the strange encounter unfold.

“Hi?” one of the men said, even offering a confused little wave, and he was promptly elbowed in the side by one of his friends.

“Quiet, BamBam,” he grunted, then turned to Dahyun and Mina with a dubious scowl. “Can I help you?”

“That depends,” said Dahyun, talking loud and spritely to keep all attention on her.

The man shifted uneasily. “On what?”

Momo and Chaeyoung were in position, ready to intervene if there was a change, and Jihyo was prepared on their side. She held back and gestured for Momo to do the same. There was something beautiful in the way Mina and Dahyun could manipulate the world to suit them.

“Do you sell guns?” Dahyun pursed her lips in a pout, one that had Momo covering her mouth across the street, and twisted her hands, playing the innocent buyer perfectly. “I heard a rumor that you do.”

“You want to buy a gun?” BamBam asked. “But you’re just kids.”

Dahyun shrugged. “Money is money.”

“We already have a buyer on their way,” said one of the others.

“How old are you anyway?” BamBam squinted at Dahyun. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“It’s past my bedtime,” Nayeon grouched. “Can we wrap this up already? I need my beauty sleep.”

Jihyo rolled her eyes at the dramatics. It wasn’t as if she needed it. Nayeon was in love with herself and she made it a personal quest of hers to squeeze compliments out of them. She inclined her head to warn Nayeon back into silence with a single threatening expression she had long since perfected.

“No, you don’t,” Jeongyeon whispered in a voice so quiet that it was nearly lost in the wind, but Jihyo heard her, and judging from the sharp intake of breath to her left, Nayeon had too.

“Do either of you see Tzuyu or Sana?” Jihyo asked.

“No,” Nayeon muttered. “Maybe you should try calling one of them.”

"Tzuyu," Jeongyeon said. "She'll answer."

"Tzuyu doesn't have a phone," said Nayeon. "Not after the 'flappy bird' incident."

"Right!” Jeongyeon grinned, barely holding back laughter. “She put a hole in the screen!"

Jihyo glanced down at her phone, worrying her lower lip between her teeth, and sent another message to the group.

GodJihyo: Minatozaki. Where are you?

(sent 1.26am)

“Strictly speaking, yes,” Dahyun flashed BamBam a mischievous grin, “but I have permission.”

“Are you cops?” another gang member asked.

Dahyun’s grin widened into a blinding ray of light as Mina stepped forward. The hypnotist was the only member needed to pull the mission off without employing violence. She would sing her siren song and none of the team would have to raise a fist.

“We’re not cops,” Mina said. “But we are going to be confiscating your goods.” She smiled sweetly and met the gang leader’s eyes as her own turned silver. “And you’re going to let us.”

The leader froze and blinked in a daze, the telltale glimmer of silver in his own eyes being all that remained of Mina’s talent. Subtlety was Mina’s specialty, the unlikely suspect with her quiet demeanor and gentle voice, using words as her own personal arsenal.

“Jay B?”

Mina turned her attention to her next target. “Step aside.”

The gang member did as asked, causing the others to stir uneasily.

“Jinyoung? What the hell?” Jackson dropped the crate he had been unloading, causing the heavy box to drop onto Yugyeom’s foot, and the young man pulled a pistol from the waistline of his pants. He pointed it at Mina. “What the fuck is going on?!”

Jihyo could feel their fear.

Dahyun’s laugh echoed around them, using Mina’s sudden attention to project a copy of herself behind Jackson and he swung around to aim at the manifestation.

Distraction working, Mina shifted her gaze to BamBam. “Restrain him.”

The young man stilled only for a moment before he was moving towards Jackson, arms extended to grapple him in a tight hold that any onlookers would have perceived as a bear hug. The sudden touch startled the other man enough to drop his weapon, the gun landing close to the unnamed gang member, but Mina was already advancing with the allure of soft words and a hypnotic gaze.

“BamBam, get off!” Jackson snarled as he fought against his friend’s suffocating grip. “Yugyeom! Youngjae! Help me!”

Yugyeom limped back a step, wide eyes casting around in blind panic, but it was Youngjae who scrambled for the pistol. He was bumped by BamBam and Jackson, causing him to trip over the crate, and the noise seemed to be enough to shake Yugyeom out of his paralyzed state. He stepped around his fallen friend, hand stretching out for –

The gun was gone.

Jihyo glanced across the street again and smirked when Momo waved back with the missing pistol, holding it high in her own personal victory while pride prickled at the edge of Jihyo’s senses.

Her phone buzzed in her hand, alerting her to a message from Sana.

Sanake: The buyer won’t be a problem. See you soon. Chewy says hi.

(sent 1.33am)

“Be still,” Mina’s words ghosted over Yugyeom with immediate effect and she looked down at Youngjae where he was cradling his bruising shin, “Stay down.” She met Jackson’s frightened stare. “Everything’s fine.”

Jackson settled instantly, fear replaced by a blank expression that stirred something deep inside Jihyo’s heart, confusing her for a moment until she realized why.

It was an expression she used to see in the mirrored hallways of the Company facility they had been raised inside.

Mina rolled her shoulders back as her eyes fluttered closed, likely feeling the strain of holding on to the hypnosis, and inclined her head towards the van where the driver sat, gaping at her in terror.

Dahyun made a quick spinning gesture with her finger aimed at the window and he complied, rolling down the glass barrier. He held up his hands in silent surrender.

“Don’t move,” Mina rasped, beads of sweat forming on her brow.

Jihyo caught Momo’s eye again and gave another hand signal, telling them that it was safe to advance. “Come on.” She tapped Jeongyeon’s elbow and left the cover of the alleyway, pleased to be able to breathe again without being smothered by the intoxicating feelings seeping out of her second and third in command.

With all seven men still affected by Mina’s powers, she pushed a little further, extending her ability to a limit she had been experimenting with. The silver that hugged her pupils extended outward, covering her irises, then pulled inward to consume her pupils, leaving all but the whites of her eyes coated in shimmering silver.

“The buyers tipped off the cops,” she said, casting her spell across the men caught in her web, “You had to abandon the payload to avoid arrest.”

Jihyo watched in fascination as the men tidied up the scene on autopilot. The fourth and final crate was lifted from the back of the van and left beside the others before they all clambered back inside with empty eyes and neutral expressions.

The driver put the van into reverse and the gang disappeared down the street with a warped version of the night’s events in their minds. They wouldn’t remember Twice. They would only recall a botched delivery and evading the police.

“That was brilliant, Mitang!” Momo crowed the moment it was safe to be loud again and jogged over to deposit the stolen gun in Jihyo’s waiting palm, more than happy to rid herself of the weapon.

Mina could only give a weary smile in return, exhausted and suffering from a growing migraine.

“I was brilliant too, right?” Dahyun asked.

Momo faltered until she noticed the mirthful gleam in the illusionist’s eyes and rolled her eyes playfully. “You were okay, I guess.”

“You were magnificent, Dahyunnie!”

Jihyo’s head snapped around at Sana’s voice and exhaled in relief when she saw Tzuyu walking alongside her with a small smile that brightened at the sight of them unharmed.

Momo bristled at Sana’s comment, hearing the flirtatious undertones. “You didn’t even see it.”

“Dubu always does well,” Tzuyu said softly, mistaking the tension as a need for validation, unneeded praise she would gladly provide. It made the captain of the SMC smile regardless.

“Thank you, Tzu.”

“Where were you anyway?” Chaeyoung guided Mina towards one of the crates, helping her sit down while she scoured her pockets for the painkillers she had packed earlier.

“Sana was teaching me how to deceive people,” said Tzuyu

“Sana was what?” Jeongyeon growled.

“Teaching me deception,” Tzuyu answered obediently and winced at her own mistake. “That was a rhetorical question. Sorry.” She looked towards the crates and wandered over to check them out. “Will all of those fit in the minivan?”

“It’s okay,” Chaeyoung rested her hand on Mina’s shoulder, providing support while the hypnotist recovered, “my buyers will be here within the hour to pick them up.”

“Minatozaki,” Jeongyeon glowered at Sana, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t teach the kid to lie.”

“It’s a good life skill to have.” Sana seemed to disagree. She pulled her hands back beneath the long sleeves of her hoodie – Tzuyu’s hoodie. She had convinced the taller girl into gifting it to her with little more than a few soft words and pleading eyes. “What if Chewy needs to talk her way out of a situation? Lying could save her life.” She rolled her eyes when Jeongyeon’s glare deepened. “All I did was tell her to give the buyers the wrong directions. It’s not like she’s going to change character over night and start lying to us. Right, Chewy?”

Tzuyu wasn’t listening. She had wedged her fingers beneath the wood and was testing the weight curiously. “I think I could lift two of these with one hand.”

Jihyo smiled at the fondness that trickled out of both girls after Tzuyu’s comment, tempers settling again. Tzuyu was Tzuyu. Their teachings were molding Tzuyu into the adult she was becoming but she had her own personality beyond that, endearingly trusting and brutally honest. Sana would have to try a lot harder if she wanted to corrupt their maknae, yet somehow Jihyo didn’t believe that Sana wanted to do that at all.

Chaeyoung’s phone pinged loudly in her back pocket and she read the text with a smile. “That’s them,” she told Jihyo.

Headlights flickered further down the street and Momo quickly tugged Tzuyu away from the crate she was toying with by the collar of her jacket.

“Rein in the superpowers, kiddo,” the speedster reminded her quietly. “Mina’s used enough of hers.”

Mina shook her head – and promptly grimaced when it reignited the fiery ache behind her eyes. “I can still make them forget if I need to.”

“No need,” said Chaeyoung.

Jihyo was about to question what Chaeyoung meant by that until she received her answer in the form of a heavy-duty truck rolling to a halt a few feet away, black with a pink logo on the side.

BLACKPINK.

Jihyo glanced at Jeongyeon warily. “Chaeng…”

“You called the mechanics?” asked Momo.

Jeongyeon’s glare turned to focus on the telekinetic, only holding back from murdering her when four figures emerged.

“I heard that you lot were doing some spring cleaning,” Jisoo called over to them.

Tzuyu frowned. “It’s October.”

“Tzuyu!” Lisa bound over to tousle her hair. “You get taller every time I see you!” She looked at the crates and whistled between her teeth. “Nice haul. Help me load it into the truck and we’ll get out of your hair.”

Momo patted Tzuyu’s back, reminding her to limit the use of her ability. “Tzu and I can give you a hand,” she offered.

Chaeyoung glanced over at Jihyo and visibly swallowed at the three icy expressions directed at her. “I’ll help too,” she squeaked and hurriedly lifted a side of one of the crates.

Jihyo shook her head, too tired to stop her. Jeongyeon could yell at her on the way home. Her second-in-command shifted beside her and Jihyo held out her arm. “Let her go, Jeong.”

“She called in a gang, Jihyo,” Jeongyeon hissed. “I knew that they were a gang.”

“I don’t care who they are so long as they get rid of the very illegal firearms so we can go home and go to bed,” Nayeon said, hiding a yawn behind her hand.

Rosé walked towards them while the others began to move the crates, carrying a worn satchel. She held it out to Jihyo and nodded at Jeongyeon and Nayeon in greeting, raising an amused eyebrow at Jeongyeon’s unfriendly demeanor.

“Chaeyoung didn’t tell you we were coming, I take it,” she murmured. “I didn’t expect her to.” She shook the bag pointedly. “Payment in cash as requested.”

Jihyo looked beyond her while Lisa and her own teammates lifted a second crate, catching Momo’s eye when she noticed Tzuyu’s side lifting higher than the others.

“Are you sure that there are guns in here?” Lisa asked. “It feels very light.”

Momo subtly nudged Tzuyu with her elbow and the younger girl smiled sheepishly before loosening her grip to make the crate heavier again.

“Maybe you’re finally gaining muscle, Manoban,” Chaeyoung teased.

Lisa pulled a face at her. “Shut up, noodle arms.”

Sana floated around Rosé and plucked the satchel from her hands, winking at Jihyo in passing. She tossed it over to Dahyun to count and helped relocate Mina before the others stole her temporary seat.

“Chaeyoung said you found that guy with the Jeju plates,” Rosé said to fill the silence.

“We did,” Jihyo answered carefully. “Thank you for the heads up on that.”

Rosé smiled warmly and shrugged off her gratitude. “I owed Chaeyoung a favor, and besides,” she said, “I have a soft spot for her.”

“Uh-huh,” Jeongyeon didn’t sound convinced. She half-expected the freely given information to come at a price.

Nayeon sighed heavily and rested her head on Jeongyeon’s shoulder, using her as a pillow and effectively dampening her agitation.

Jihyo reached up to scrub at her eyes, so glad that it was Friday night – or Saturday morning depending on which member she asked about the time. She was going to sleep in and indulge in a copious amount of junk food and enjoy a weekend of peace.

It was going to be lovely.

“That’s the last one!” Jennie announced, already climbing back into the driver’s seat. “Let’s move it people!”

“You didn’t even break a sweat, Tzuyu!” Lisa held out her fist and after Chaeyoung’s example of a fist bump, Momo guided Tzuyu’s fist to tap hers without accidentally breaking bones. “I’m half-tempted to employ you.”

Sana gasped and scurried over to tow Tzuyu away, causing Momo and Chaeyoung to share a teasing glance, laughter dancing in their eyes.

“Sorry to disappoint, Manoban,” Chaeyoung chuckled, “but she’s ours.”

Lisa shrugged, grinning back at them. “It was worth a try,” she said and looked over at Rosé. “Time to go, Rosie!”

“Pleasure doing business with you, Park.” Rosé bowed her head before turning to return to the truck just as Jisoo secured the final crate in the back. “Chaeyoung has my number if you need us again.”

“Like hell we will,” Jeongyeon grumbled under her breath.

Dahyun walked over and pressed the shoulder strap of the satchel into Jihyo’s palm. “It’s enough to see us to the end of the year at least, Boss,” she murmured. “With appropriate budgeting, of course.”

That was good enough for now.

The headlights of the truck receded into the distance until they could no longer hear the engine and Jihyo glanced down at her phone, blinking at the glaring light to make out the time.

2:17am

By the time they got back to the house and ready for bed it would be long after 3am.

“Okay,” Jihyo gestured towards the alleyway she had hidden in an hour prior, knowing that their minivan was parked on the street at the other end. “Time to go.”

She was going to commit murder if anyone woke her up before noon.

Chapter Text

Nayeon loved Saturdays.

It was the only day of the week she voluntarily dragged herself away from the comfort of her bed at an ungodly hour to have all of Jeongyeon’s company to herself. She got a couple of hours at least before any of the others came back to the world of the living and Nayeon cherished every second of it.

“Can you pass me the sugar please?”

Jeongyeon held out a hand while the other controlled the electric whisk and Nayeon gladly handed her the measured bowl of sugar, sliding closer to retie the strings of Jeongyeon’s apron.

‘Chop it like it’s hot’ decorated the front of it along with a stylized cleaver – a Christmas present from Chaeyoung, the second half of the No Jam Bros, armed with a limitless supply of Dad jokes and puns that almost always fell flat.

Nayeon would deny that she found their attempted humor endearing. The duo would be insufferable if they knew.

There was something soothing about cooking, something calming in its simplicity, especially when Nayeon wasn’t the one doing it.

She tilted her head, appraising the younger girl appreciatively. Nayeon might have been firmly against cardio, but it was definitely working for Jeongyeon. She looked good.

“Thank you,” Jeongyeon murmured softly, glancing at her with a small smile that made Nayeon want to kiss her cheek.

So she did, letting her lips linger for a millisecond too long, and reveled in the blush that crept into Jeongyeon’s skin.

That was Nayeon’s other favorite thing about Saturday mornings. She had time to indulge in sweet kisses and tender touches that made Jeongyeon squirm without interruption or Jihyo scolding them about the limitations of dating.

They could date anyone they wanted outside of the team, anyone in the world, but Nayeon wanted Jeongyeon.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried dating other people either. There had been a few others during the years, a few dates and nights spent away from home, yet none of them had made Nayeon’s heart flutter like Jeongyeon did.

Nayeon smiled fondly and slid her arms around the other girl’s waist. “You smell good,” she mumbled, resting her cheek on Jeongyeon’s shoulder to nuzzle her nose against her neck. “So pretty.”

Jeongyeon’s laugh was little more than an amused huff of breath, as if her breathing didn’t hitch every time Nayeon complimented her. Nayeon would let her pretend as much as she liked so long as her reaction stayed the same.

“You’re only complimenting me because I’m making pancakes,” Jeongyeon muttered.

Nayeon squeezed her tightly. “Hey, I’m not that shallow.”

“Yes, you are,” Jeongyeon said, softening the blow with a smile, “but we’re all a little flawed.”

“You love me with my flaws,” Nayeon teased, seeking validation beneath the playful taunts because she had seen the looks when Jeongyeon was caught off guard and she needed to know that what she felt wasn’t one-sided. Her pride couldn’t take a blow like that.

“Of course I do,” Jeongyeon rolled her eyes fondly, “You’re my best…” Friend.

Ouch.

Nayeon pulled away. No, the friend-zone hurt so much more.

Jeongyeon cleared her throat, feeling the loss of her company. “You mean a lot to me,” the younger girl whispered, terrified to speak any louder. “More than…that.”

Nayeon raised a curious eyebrow in response. “More than I do as your best friend, you mean?”

“I can love you and still consider you my best friend,” Jeongyeon said, a little more defensive than intended, then seemed to realize exactly what she had confessed and began to backtrack, panicking at her own mistake. “Well, obviously I love you. I love all of you, but that doesn’t – I don’t – I mean, I do – I just – fuck. I didn’t mean to say that.”

Jeongyeon covered her eyes with a shaking hand, her face redder than the strawberries already washed and ready for breakfast (Nayeon would take the fact that she had been using the knife upside down to her grave).

‘I can love you and still consider you my best friend.’

Nayeon bit down on her lip, debating her next move carefully. There was only one path she wanted to take, even if it backfired tremendously.

She reached out carefully, hesitating only for a moment before curling her fingers around Jeongyeon’s wrist to pull her hand away, and rested the other on the other girl’s cheek, applying just enough pressure so that they met face to face.

“You,” Nayeon whispered, “are such an idiot, Yoo Jeongyeon.” She shuffled forward a step, her heart leaping into her throat. “I’ve been giving you signals for four years.”

Jeongyeon’s eyes widened in surprise, mouth moving soundlessly until she managed to squeak a very feeble, “You have?” and Nayeon could see that she was trying to find some way to explain herself again.

She was going to come up with some half-hearted rambled excuse that barely made sense and then they wouldn’t talk about it ever again, just like every other opportunity that Nayeon had let slip through her fingers.

“Nayeon, I–”

Nayeon surged forward to claim Jeongyeon’s lips in a searing kiss that ignited fiery desire down the length of her spine. Consequences be damned, she had been waiting almost half a decade and–

Jeongyeon wasn’t kissing her back.

She pulled back slightly, worried that she had misread everything, until Jeongyeon chased her to continue the kiss.

The apology on the tip of her tongue vanished as Jeongyeon’s free hand settled on her waist, a warm and steady presence that she sunk into, and Nayeon forgot about everything beyond Jeongyeon, tentatively brushing her tongue across Jeongyeon’s lips only to be granted immediate access, as if Jeongyeon had been waiting for a sign.

The tension fled Jeongyeon’s shoulders in a fluttered sigh and they both fell into the familiarity of each other. Jeongyeon had been Nayeon’s first friend, the one person she trusted more than anyone else, her rock through years of uncertainty, her first love, and she was kissing her back.

Lungs aching for breath, Nayeon pushed Jeongyeon back with a palm against her chest and pressed their foreheads together. “I love you too, stupid.”

“You’re not supposed to,” Jeongyeon murmured, gazing back at her wistfully.

“Why not?” Nayeon fired back, though she knew. They were a team, they weren’t supposed to complicate things with feelings, but Nayeon was long beyond caring about that. It was more complicated pretending to not have feelings. “We jumped straight to marriage and adopted seven little heathens.”

“That’s not entirely correct,” Jeongyeon chuckled.

“No?” Nayeon teased. “We have a house, a soccer-mom-minivan – legally we all share my surname–”

“You bullied Dahyun into doing that.”

“All I’m missing,” Nayeon released Jeongyeon’s wrist and lifted her hand between them, wiggling her ring finger suggestively, “is a ring.”

She half expected Jeongyeon to recoil and dismiss the whole thing, spluttering flustered excuses until she was red in the face and incoherent, definitely not to gaze back at her adoringly.

“You want to get married?” Jeongyeon asked, speaking ever so softly, and then it was Nayeon who was the one riddled with nerves.

Her mouth was suddenly painfully dry, her throat like sandpaper when she tried to swallow, and she was spared from answering at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, alerted by the audible creak of the fifth stair from the bottom.

Time alone was fleeting in a house of nine.

“One day I’ll figure out how to slow time with you,” Jeongyeon sighed. “Then we’ll have all the time in the world.”

Nayeon pulled away reluctantly. “I’m going to hold you to that, Yoo.”

Jeongyeon nudged her lightly, her smile forever warm and welcoming, exactly what Nayeon imagined home would feel like.

“I’m counting on it.”

There was a soft scuff of socked feet and their sleepy super soldier wandered into the kitchen, rubbing at her eyes in a way that made her seem several years younger. She had quite clearly just woken up, snuffling slightly as she readjusted to the late morning light.

“Good morning,” she mumbled and any lingering irritation at their moment being interrupted disappeared in an instant.

"Hello, sleepy head," Nayeon cooed, "would you like some breakfast?"

Tzuyu's nose wrinkled in distaste, bleary eyes blinking until she could see Nayeon clearly. "Are you going make it?"

Nayeon smiled brightly. "Yes."

"Then no."

Jeongyeon guffawed loudly and laughed louder still when Nayeon slapped her arm in response. “She’s helping me, kid,” she told the youngest. “The food will be edible.”

“I take great offense to that,” Nayeon protested. “I am a great cook.”

“You gave everyone food poisoning the last time I let you cook dinner.”

“How was I supposed to know that the chicken was raw in the middle?” Nayeon pointed at Tzuyu. “Tzuyu didn’t get sick!”

“Tzuyu never gets sick,” Jeongyeon countered. “She’s immune to pretty much everything. And the chicken was pink in the middle.”

“Why would I be looking at the middle of the chicken, Jeongyeon?”

And they were back to bickering again.

“Can I…” Tzuyu’s soft voice ended their argument before it could truly start. She was still lingering in the archway, overdressed for how warm the house was, but Tzuyu was always cold. It was hardly surprising to see her dressed in several layers while the rest of them lounged about in shorts. “Can I help too?”

"I don't know, kid," Jeongyeon was saying, "the last time you tried to help–"

"Jeongyeon." Nayeon drove her fingers into the other girl's side when she saw Tzuyu's expression fall.

Nayeon loved Jeongyeon, almost embarrassingly so, but Tzuyu was her baby. If Tzuyu wanted to help make breakfast then Nayeon would move the damn planets to let Tzuyu help make breakfast.

Jeongyeon relented with a soft sigh and looked around at the ingredients contemplatively, wondering what Tzuyu could do without having to worry about more broken dishes. She had tried baking with Tzuyu when she was younger, hoping that the careful measuring and time keeping would help the younger girl to practice control over her own strength.

It had worked for a time, providing the foundations of trust and reliance, a small bit of breathing room between learning how to be like the rest of society and how to keep tabs on the other powered individuals.

Tzuyu came to see them as family and Nayeon swooned a little at just how good Jeongyeon was with kids.

Then Chaeyoung and Dahyun indoctrinated Tzuyu into their little club and the baking lessons stopped.

“Okay, kiddo,” Jeongyeon gestured for her to come over to them and pushed a metal whisk into her hand, one that wouldn’t be missed if Tzuyu bent it out of shape. “Nayeon can help you make another bowl of batter.” She gave Nayeon a look that promised a permanent ban from the kitchen if she didn’t follow the recipe. “Are DubChaeng still sleeping?”

Tzuyu nodded. “They were up late talking about crushes.”

Nayeon and Jeongyeon shared a look between themselves.

“And…” Jeongyeon cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Were you talking about crushes too?”

“No. I wanted to sleep.”

“Oh, thank god,” Jeongyeon grumbled, switching places with Nayeon to start cooking her own batter. She crouched to retrieve a pan from one of the low cupboards. “Sleep is good.”

Nayeon smirked at her reaction and cracked an egg into the bowl, pausing on the second when she noticed the slight frown on Tzuyu’s face. “Tzu–?”

"How would I know that I like someone differently?"

Jeongyeon jolted at the sudden question, cracking her head against the top of the cupboard unit she was searching through, and the egg tumbled from Nayeon’s hand to smash against the floor by her feet.

“Oh no,” Tzuyu lamented for the poor egg.

“What do you mean by ‘differently?’” Nayeon asked while Jeongyeon recovered from her head wound.

"I like you," Tzuyu tried to explain, "because you're my family and I know that Chaeyoung and Dahyun are my best friends." She glanced away shyly. “What does it feel like to like someone more than that?”

“That depends on who the someone is,” said Jeongyeon.

Nayeon tapped Jeongyeon’s shoulder in warning. She wasn’t going to let Jeongyeon’s denial of Tzuyu growing up scare the younger girl away.

“What do you feel around this someone?” Nayeon asked cautiously.

Tzuyu’s eyes followed her as she grabbed a cloth to clean up the broken egg, tapping the counter beside the bowl.

Mina had assured her that she was perfectly healthy, smiling like she knew something Tzuyu didn't, and Momo had encouraged her to increase her tutoring time with Elkie strangely enough. Chaeyoung had explained the butterflies last night and it did seem a little closer to what she felt around Sana, certainly less worrying than potential health problems at least.

“I feel…” Tzuyu thought of Sana’s smile when she had successfully convinced the buyer that he was in the wrong part of town, so bright and proud, and how she was never afraid to touch her, not even when Tzuyu forgot her own strength. “Warm.”

Nayeon met eyes with Jeongyeon, seeing a similar reluctance and denial she was feeling. Both of them had been expecting to have such a talk eventually but that didn’t make the actual act any less daunting.

“Okay, TzuTzu,” Nayeon took the whisk from Tzuyu’s hand and shooed her towards the dining table, “it’s time to talk about the birds and bees.”

“Huh?”

“Sit down, sweetheart. I need to strategize with Jeongyeon.”

Tzuyu tilted her head, looking every bit like a confused puppy. “But I was helping you make pancakes.”

“Sit – sit.”

Tzuyu obeyed with little more than a heavy sigh and resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t allowed to help anymore. She slumped down in her usual spot and watched curiously as her substitute parents completed the cooking without her. She didn’t mind, not really. She had mostly just wanted to ask her question before the others woke up like Momo had suggested.

Not that she’d gotten much of an answer.

Birds and bees.

Whatever that was supposed to mean.

“Morning, Tzu.”

Jihyo greeted her with a soft smile, up earlier than Tzuyu had expected after the long rant the night before about severe consequences if they woke her up before noon.

Tzuyu glanced over at the clock. It was barely after ten.

“Good morning,” Tzuyu replied.

Jihyo tipped her head towards Nayeon and Jeongyeon as she approached. “What are those two whispering about?”

Tzuyu shrugged. "They mentioned birds and bees," she told her quietly. "I think they're trying to tell me about climate change."

"Oh, sweetheart." Jihyo rested her hand on Tzuyu’s shoulder, unsurprised by the confusion that met her palm, and sunk into the seat beside her. “It’s not literal.”

“Like the butterflies?”

Jihyo smiled fondly. “Exactly like the butterflies,” she said. “Why did they mention…birds and bees anyway?”

“I asked them how I would know that I like someone differently,” Tzuyu answered, then turned to Jihyo with another question. “What does it feel like?”

“Ah,” Jihyo stretched out her neck, “so it’s going to be one of those mornings. Okay.”

“Pancakes!” Jeongyeon pushed a plate stacked full of the promised breakfast in front of them, pausing to give Jihyo a withering glare before she hurried back to continue her strategizing with Nayeon.

‘Nayeon and I are handling it.’

Jihyo had understood the look clearly enough but she had never been able to say no to her younger members – not even Chaeyoung, her rebellious little idiot. Tzuyu had been sheltered enough and Jihyo knew she was just as guilty of walking around her questions.

She could sense the others starting to move upstairs, the house becoming busy again. It reached her senses like a buzz of white noise, a gentle hum of thoughts and emotions she had grown used to. She could just about make out Chaeyoung and Dahyun whispering in their shared bedroom, and the others making their way downstairs.

Jihyo subtly touched Tzuyu’s wrist in the guise of reaching for the syrup as Sana shuffled into the room.

“Morning, kiddos,” Momo waved at them, making a beeline straight for the pancakes, “I thought that I could smell food. Nayeon didn’t make it, right?”

“My cooking is not that bad!”

“It totally is.” Momo grinned at Tzuyu. “Tzuyu agrees with me. Don’t you, Tzu?”

Tzuyu’s attention didn’t stray from Sana and Jihyo felt warmth flooding into her skin, a sensation she had never experienced before from the younger girl. She was always so cold but the sight of Sana made her warm…happy…

Jihyo entertained the idea for a moment, deep in thought. It would be cruel to deny Tzuyu happiness if she started to reciprocate Sana’s blatant advances and Jihyo did trust Sana.

She was just worried about the fallout if things didn’t work out…for all of them.

“Tzu?” Jihyo made her decision the moment she saw Tzuyu light up when Sana smiled at her – a real, genuine smile devoid of sly smirking or flirtatious undertones – and leant in close enough that no one else would overhear, squeezing Tzuyu’s wrist to get her attention. Nayeon and Jeongyeon were going to be annoyed but Jihyo could deal with that later. “That is how it feels to like someone differently.”

Chapter Text

Dahyun inhaled sharply between her teeth as she looked out across Chaeyoung’s collection of surveillance photographs and scribbled notes. It was a mess that took up most of the floor space of their small bedroom, becoming a physical barrier between Dahyun and their bedroom door.

She had been standing for well over half an hour now, waiting for Chaeyoung to clear a path, but that outcome was becoming less likely the longer she was ignored.

“Can’t you just shove it under the bed or something?” she suggested, tired and hungry. The sweet scent of pancakes was floating up from the kitchen and made her stomach rumble in protest.

“No,” Chaeyoung mumbled, bent awkwardly across her work in a pose that looked very uncomfortable. Her legs were stretched across the only clear spots, socked feet constantly slipping on the wooden floor, and Dahyun began to wonder how she was actually balancing without falling over. “I’ve taped it together.”

Dahyun should have just gone downstairs with Tzuyu earlier. She could have avoided Conspiracy-Theorist-Chaeyoung, who, in Dahyun’s opinion, was just as terrifying as Mina’s medical counterpart. The lure of a sleeping in had been too tempting and now she was paying for caving to that temptation.

“Why did you tape it together?” Dahyun asked. “At what point did that seem like a good idea?”

“To keep everything organized,” said Chaeyoung. “It’s not my fault that we live in this shoebox of a room.”

Dahyun rolled her eyes. Their bedroom was hardly tiny. There was enough space for a bunk-bed and another single bed with plenty of room to walk around without stubbing their toes…when there wasn’t a whole evidence board taking up the entirety of it.

“Chaeng…” Dahyun grimaced when her stomach audibly complained about the lack of food and sent a hopeful glance at the closed door. Surely someone would come to remind them that breakfast was ready. They would notice that two members of the School Meal Club were missing and someone would come to make sure that they were still alive and then Dahyun could escape Chaeyoung’s paranoia. “Couldn’t we just fold it?”

“I – No! No, we can’t ‘just fold it,’ Dahyun,” Chaeyoung fired back gruffly, as if the very idea was beyond all belief and Dahyun was an absolute idiot for even suggesting such a thing. The nerve she had to provide a perfectly reasonable solution to a completely unreasonable problem. “I have everything exactly where I want it and shoving it under the bed would ruin it.”

Okay. Dahyun liked to think that she was a very tolerant person. She had to be in their large family of misfits, but rolling out of bed into the middle of one of Chaeyoung’s conspiracy boards that littered the entirety of their little hideaway – the only space that was theirs – was her limit.

“This is a shared bedroom,” she reminded her short-tempered friend. “I am your roommate, I sleep here, and I would like to lodge a formal complaint because you aren’t respecting the SMC rulebook – section twelve, line fifteen – that clearly states that shared space is to be shared equally because I can’t get to the door and I’m hungry.”

“Jump over it,” Chaeyoung suggested.

Dahyun glanced at the door, mentally calculating how far she’d have to jump and how plausible it was without a running start. All she could envisage was landing on Chaeyoung’s work and crumpling the paper, and then Chaeyoung flinging her across the room in anger – wait.

“Can you levitate me to the door?”

“Uh…” Chaeyoung considered it for a moment before ultimately disagreeing. “Not without hurting you.”

“It’s either that or you put this shit away before I die of starvation.”

“Don’t call my investigation ‘shit,’” Chaeyoung cautioned. “And you could actually survive for a week without food, drama queen.”

“I don’t want to go a week without food and I don’t even want to know how you know that,” said Dahyun. “You can be as weird as Sana sometimes with her random facts about microwaves and cockroaches. Move your stuff, Chaeyoung.”

“No.”

Dahyun dropped her head back to stare at the ceiling, counting every dent and mark from past ability experiments and meltdowns, resigned to the fact that she might have to miss breakfast.  Taking a deep breath to calm her rising agitation, Dahyun looked back down at the stubborn telekinetic.

“Chaeng,” she said, “this isn't healthy." Dahyun squinted at the collection of photographs, recognizing Rain in more than a few of them. "It's an obsession."

“I’m the only one taking this seriously,” Chaeyoung huffed. “The moment we let our guard down is when the Company are going to swoop in and drag us back to that hell-hole.”

“But that guy is probably being hunted by Miss A’s henchmen,” Dahyun pointed out. “It’s been a week and nothing has happened.”

Chaeyoung’s head snapped up, eyes sunken in exhausted shadows and burning bright with fury. “We should have killed him.”

Dahyun’s eyebrows flew up in surprise at the reply laced with ice, feeling the chill shoot down her spine. She truly didn’t understand the sudden change in behavior. Chaeyoung had been fine the night before. They’d talked about celebrity crushes, then schoolmate crushes, then housemate crushes – very quietly because the walls were very thin and Dahyun wanted to be able to look Momo in the eye at the table without feeling totally mortified.

She really does have beautiful eyes though…

She shook away all thoughts of Momo and the tiny whispering thought of ‘did she save me a seat?’ because Chaeyoung actually looked worryingly capable of committing murder.

They had killed people before, but only when forced to. There had been casualties in the warehouse – but the mercenaries had been using live ammunition, and they had killed scientists and soldiers when they had escaped their prison all those years ago – but there had been no other choice, not when freedom had been so close.

Jihyo preferred that they try not to resort to lethal options, but sometimes there was no choice and sometimes…sometimes there were accidents.

“Chaengie…” Dahyun crouched where she stood, shuffling as close as she dared without disturbing Chaeyoung’s work, “you need to trust that the rest of us are all looking for danger too.” She tried to smile when Chaeyoung’s chin quivered but it felt forced. “One stray agent doesn’t mean that the Company are going to break down the front door.”

“But they could,” Chaeyoung disagreed. “They could and that’s why I have to…” She looked out across her notes and picked anxiously at a folding piece of tape. "When there's one agent, there's another dozen in disguise."

“And what? You’re going to hunt them all down?” Dahyun asked incredulously. “Come on, Chaeyoung. Even you have to know how crazy that is.”

The loose items on their shared bedside table rattled.

“Don’t call me that.” Chaeyoung scowled at her, moisture collecting on her lower lashes. “I’m not…I’m not crazy.”

Dahyun internally kicked herself at her choice of words. ‘Crazy’ was a word that didn’t sit well with Chaeyoung. It came with far too much baggage where a little girl had tried to tell the world about what she had suffered only to have the accusations thrown back in her face as lies and imagined stories.

Chaeyoung had learned very early on that the authorities wouldn’t believe her or even care enough to listen.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Dahyun said softly. “Don’t twist my words just because I don’t agree with,”–she gestured across the surveillance–“whatever this is.”

Chaeyoung scoffed and turned back to her work, choosing to ignore Dahyun instead. “Maybe I will hunt them all down,” she said lowly. “They would deserve it for what they did to us. I could reenact every twisted experiment they did on us.”

“Chaeyoung, are you even listening to yourself?” Dahyun still tried to appeal to what little sanity remained beneath the burning desire for revenge. “What they did to us as kids was awful but killing them won’t make the trauma go away.”

“It’s justice,” Chaeyoung muttered.

“What you’re talking about isn’t justice! It’s vengeance!”

“They deserve worse. The things they did, Dahyun…”

‘We had to apply more force than usual to cause a break. I got to try out my new baton on the little freak at least. I actually made her scream.’

Dahyun blinked and shook her head sharply, catching a glimpse of imagined silhouettes climbing the walls as an echoed wail crept in from a memory she had long since suppressed. It wasn’t real. It’s not real. She curled her hands into fists, pushing down on the rising fear. It was just her brain pulling tricks on her – a byproduct of being able to manipulate reality.

Sometimes Dahyun saw things that weren’t really there.

She took a deep breath and held it until the shadows vanished, and the walls returned to their soft white littered with askew posters they had collected free from Sana’s multitude of magazine subscriptions. Real. They were safe. There were no monsters.

She focused her attention on the telekinetic again. “Maybe they do,” she rationalized, “but you don’t get to be the one to decide that. You don’t get to play God.”

“And they do?!” Chaeyoung swung around to face her fully. Tzuyu’s single bed lifted several inches from the ground along with the bedside lamp and all of her scattered work, ironically enough proving the ‘taping everything together’ method’s worth. “What right did they have?!”

Dahyun felt the prickle of static against her skin, brushing unpleasantly across the fine hair down the length of her arms. It wasn’t the first time she had lit Chaeyoung’s short fuse and it wouldn’t be the last, though normally she had Tzuyu around to be a buffer – or at least a shield between them.

Tzuyu was far more robust when Chaeyoung started throwing the furniture…or her roommates.

“Chae…” It always hurt to see her fall apart. “Clinging to this is only hurting you, not them. And I get why you’re pissed, okay? I am too.” She dug her toes into the rug, grounding herself when the ends of her hair started to rise. “But you need to stop this. You need to stop before you get yourself killed.”

 “I can’t stop, Dahyun!” Chaeyoung snarled. “Don’t you understand? I won’t feel safe until there’s nothing left!”

Bang!

The door swung open and Tzuyu stumbled inside, closing it quickly behind her.

Dahyun looked at Chaeyoung, Chaeyoung looked at Dahyun, they both looked at Tzuyu, and the furniture returned to the floor with a shuddering thump.

Tzuyu looked panicked, distressed enough that even Chaeyoung, mind clouded by plans of revenge, seemed to notice.

“Tzu?” Chaeyoung prompted, pointedly showing her palms, unsure what mood they were being met with. “You good?”

“No – Yes – I have a crush. Like you both do. But on Sana. Jihyo felt it.” Tzuyu looked at the paper trail surrounding them curiously. “Question.” She raised her hand. “What’s all of this?”

“It’s…” Chaeyoung bit her lip in thought. “I’m trying to track down the Company.”

Tzuyu bristled at the name, standing a little straighter as she flexed out her fingers. “Why?” she asked quietly. “I thought that we were trying to avoid the Company.” She bent down slightly, eyes narrowing when she looked at Chaeyoung. “Were you crying?”

“No!” Chaeyoung scrubbed at her eyes anyway, removing all evidence besides them appearing a little bloodshot. “I had something in my eye.”

“Wait.” Dahyun blinked hard, going back a few sentences. “You have a crush on Sana?”

Chaeyoung inhaled loudly, gasping at the realization of what Tzuyu had just told them, and bounded over to grab the younger girl by her biceps. “Holy shit, Tzu!” Her excitement quickly shifted to something more cautious. “Can you even feel things like that?”

“I think so?” Tzuyu pulled away, her brow furrowed in thought. “Jihyo wouldn’t lie to me.” She hesitated. “I questioned it too,” she said. “It was all very confusing. There was a mention of bees.”

“’Bees?’” Dahyun echoed quietly.

“This is great!” Chaeyoung chirped. “You’re feeling things, Tzu!”

Tzuyu wrinkled her nose in response. “Feelings are weird,” she said. “I was starting to think that I was allergic to Sana.”

Ah. That would explain all of Tzuyu’s recent hushed conversations with Mina.

Dahyun grinned, seeing an opportunity to tease Chaeyoung. “Hey, Chaeng,” she said, “you should tell Mina that you feel unwell. She might give you a special check-up.”

Tzuyu’s expression creased with concern. “You feel unwell?”

“No. Dahyun’s just being an asshole,” Chaeyoung sneered, though it was worth the insult to see her mind far away from the Company again.

Dahyun had no doubt that Chaeyoung would continue her reckless plan anyway, but if she could keep her distracted for long enough…maybe she would see sense. It was a big maybe, though.

Son Chaeyoung didn’t like being told what to do and she was the one most resentful towards their upbringing, the test subject that rebelled at every chance she could as her own personal ‘fuck you’ to the Company’s leadership – shadowy silhouettes they had never known by name.

All Dahyun knew was that there were three shadows that served a superior they had never glimpsed. Being locked in an observation chamber for most of her early life, being studied and recorded, had gifted Dahyun with heightened observation. The irony wasn’t lost on her. There had been nothing to do between tests and training besides watching and listening. She needed to know enough to save herself and then that had quickly evolved into knowing enough to save everyone.

But the Company were in the past and everyone had accepted that fact except Chaeyoung, who clung to the injustices committed, furious that no one else cared enough to seek vengeance. To stay hidden, they needed to stay well away from anything to do with the Company. Hunting down agents and investors was a surefire way to draw attention.

Dahyun would just have to keep a closer eye on her unpredictable club member to ensure that outcome never came to be. Maybe she could even convince Tzuyu to help, though she’d need to make sure that Tzuyu didn’t unknowingly reveal her plan to Chaeyoung if she did.

“Have you told Sana that you like her?” Chaeyoung asked their taller friend. “Because she is so into you, dude.”

A tiny smile pulled at the corners of Tzuyu’s lips. “She is?”

“Yes!” Chaeyoung rippled with energy. "You’d have to be blind not to notice or…well…” She looked at Tzuyu in consideration. “You…I guess.”

Tzuyu’s smile faded and her mouth opened, about to question what that meant, when she was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“If that’s Jihyo,” Dahyun hissed at Chaeyoung, “you’re as good as dead.”

Chaeyoung gestured to her work. “She’ll assume that you’re both accomplices,” she countered.

…she wasn’t wrong.

Dahyun looked at Tzuyu and jerked her chin towards the door, prompting the younger girl to press her palm against it, ensuring no one would be able to enter. With that worry out of the way, Dahyun glanced around their bedroom with a small huff of breath, wondering where they could stash Chaeyoung’s incriminating Company obsession so that it wouldn’t be seen.

“Under the rug?” Tzuyu suggested, falling silent when the doorknob started to turn.

Chaeyoung nodded her consent and concentrated on levitating the damning evidence while Dahyun pulled the worn, frayed rug back. The telekinetic lowered her work again and Dahyun replaced the carpet, both of them frowning at the paper peeking out at the edges.

“Chaeng,” Dahyun said, “we’re going to have to–”

“I know.” Chaeyoung scowled and crouched to fold her project beneath the rug, making pained little noises at every crease she needed to make. “This just feels wrong,” she grumbled. “We need to get a bigger rug.”

“Or,” Dahyun suggested, “you could just forget this whole ‘justice’ thing and the size of our rug is fine.”

The bedside table rattled again. Evidently, Chaeyoung seemed to disagree.

“Guys?” Momo’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Nayeon wants to build a pillow nest downstairs for a movie day. She said that attendance is mandatory.”

Dahyun perked up at the prospect and scrambled to gather the blankets and pillows from their beds, free to move again with the floor clear, and piled her collection in the middle of the room for each of them to carry a share.

The doorknob twisted again. “Did you guys get a lock on your door?” Momo asked. “That’s actually a really good idea. Nayeon keeps barging in without knocking to annoy Jeongyeon – which I’m totally fine with, but stomping in at four in the morning is kind of inconsiderate.”

Chaeyoung grabbed an armful of bedding and walked towards the door, casting a final scrutinizing glance at her work to check it was hidden. “Good job, buddy.” She patted Tzuyu’s shoulder. “You can move now.”

Tzuyu removed her hand just as the doorknob shook and stepped out of the way when it started to open, preening a little under Chaeyoung’s praise.

“Ah,” Momo saw the super soldier and nodded to herself, “you have a living lock.” She broke into a grin. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing,” Chaeyoung said quickly.

Knowing which of the three to ask for honesty, Momo raised an eyebrow at Tzuyu. “Kid?”

Dahyun’s stomach dropped, dread weighing heavily inside. She caught Chaeyoung’s worried gaze. They were done for. Tzuyu was going to tell Momo about Chaeyoung’s Company hit list and then Momo would tell Jihyo and Jihyo would kill them.

They were so–

“School Meal Club business,” said Tzuyu. “It’s confidential.”

–dead?

Dahyun blinked in surprise. Well, that was unexpected, but totally welcome. Perhaps there was a benefit of Sana’s influence after all. Especially if she could conjure cover stories without blurting out the truth as she’d been taught to. It would be useful if Chaeyoung kept dragging them into trouble, which was highly likely.

Momo seemed to accept it. “Oh, I see how it is,” she chuckled. “Well, I won’t pry into your exclusive club activities, but Nayeon wants everyone downstairs in five minutes, okay?”

“Already leaving,” Chaeyoung announced, slipping past the speedster without a backwards glance. It would seem suspicious if they lingered any longer and while Momo wasn’t the most observant of their team, she also wasn’t a fool. She would pick up on their tension.

It was better to pretend that everything was fine and that Chaeyoung didn’t want to track down the very people they were hiding from. Ignorance was bliss.

Dahyun would have to keep her fear inside until she figured out some way to safely dissuade Chaeyoung from her plan.

Maybe one of the others had a lighter stashed away and she could burn her newest artwork to ashes. Chaeyoung would be pissed – throwing Dahyun out of the window levels of pissed – but Dahyun could handle her hate if it kept them all safe.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Momo leant back around the doorframe with a bright smile, meeting Dahyun’s eyes with limitless warmth within. “I saved you some pancakes, Dubu.”

“My hero!” Dahyun cried in delight. “I’m starving!”

Tzuyu made a soft noise. “Chaeyoung told me that humans can go for at least a week without–” A pillow smacked her in the face.

Dahyun would apologize later.

When she wasn’t furiously hungry.

And when she’d thought of some way to get payback against their telekinetic roommate for the morning hold-up.

Chapter Text

Jihyo glanced up from her phone from her safe position on one of the two couches at the sound of footsteps on the stairs and offered a smile when Chaeyoung entered the living room with an armful of bedding.

“Dubu and Tzu are bringing more,” Chaeyoung said, lazily levitating her load to the middle of the room where Nayeon had wrangled – bullied, Sana would insist – the others into building a nest.

They would clear the floor in front of the television and move the couches to create a ‘V’ that gave everyone a good enough view of whatever they watched. They were down an armchair though after Tzuyu’s minor meltdown the week prior, not that it mattered when the blankets and pillows were piled up on the floor.

It was something they had done ever since their first night of freedom and had started purely as a way to stay warm when they had owned very little and struggled to keep a roof over their heads, but it had evolved over the years into their own tiny luxury. It was time set aside where they could just be themselves, free from having to pretend to be normal and perfectly understood – because there was no one who would understand them better than themselves.

The sensitive subject of splitting up had been broached when they escaped, an idea that had quickly been disagreed upon. They might have been safer apart, harder to track and less likely to be noticed, but they had been children – most of whom had only ever had human interaction with people that treated them like lab rats.

No, Nayeon – being the eldest and one of the loudest voices – had been firm about remaining as a unit. Scattering nine children across South Korea, four of whom were foreigners, and all of them being so young at the time, was a terrible idea.

Jeongyeon had suggested splitting into smaller groups at her protest, ensuring that their youngest fugitive friends had an older member with them and that the foreigners had a native, but it had never come to fruition.

They had remained as nine and never even considered the idea again. Nayeon wouldn’t let them and Jihyo couldn’t imagine a life without a single one of her eight fugitives. She had learned long ago that no one else in the world would love them as deeply as they loved one another. No one else would understand them.

The rest of the world wouldn’t understand that Nayeon clung to the idea of their team as a family, loving them all with every fiber of her being because she had never been allowed to love anything before. They wouldn’t understand Jeongyeon’s need for control on the small freedoms they had when their earlier life had been completely out of their own hands, or why heart palpitations or tingling skin terrified Momo so much when she was petrified of having a heart attack from a power that made everything so fast.

They wouldn’t understand that Sana had a different partner almost every week because she was so desperate to form connections with people yet terrified to commit and become as trapped as she had felt before, or that Jihyo overanalyzed everything with her need to keep everyone safe, terrified that the moment her guard slipped would be enough to have everything they’d built come crumbling down to the ground.

Or that Mina preferred to be quiet in case she accidentally used her ability with irreversible side effects, or why Dahyun needed reassurance that what she was seeing was real when she could create a whole new version of reality around them. 

Or that Chaeyoung fought so ferociously against perceived threats because she had never been able to fight back as a child, or that Tzuyu was desperate for human contact but denied herself the privilege after, in her mind, too many instances where she had accidentally hurt them.

The world wouldn’t understand them – wouldn’t even be willing to try.

“Chaeyoung, you’re here. Good!” Nayeon gestured to her expanse of blankets and pillows, treading on Sana’s foot when she moved to catch the floating bedding. “You can make yourself useful and help–”

“Let me eat something first, woman!” Chaeyoung demanded, bold enough to sass the eldest with a minefield of bedding and buried teammates between them.

“Excuse me?” Nayeon glowered at the telekinetic and snatched up a pillow by Sana’s head to hurtle it at her willful charge. “I don’t like your tone, Son Chaeyoung.”

Chaeyoung stopped the pillow midair and threw up her middle finger as she backed out of the room for the kitchen.

“I’ll get snacks!” Mina volunteered, already slipping past Jihyo to follow Chaeyoung, mostly to keep her out of Nayeon’s range.

“Yes, girl!” Sana cheered from the floor. “You chase that snack!”

Jeongyeon snorted and flung another pillow at the cocooned girl. “Shut up,” she commanded, though any perceived anger was ruined by the laugh that slipped from her lips.

“Okay,” Nayeon breathed, resting her hands on her hips as she looked around thoughtfully. “The little shit is accounted for…but where’s–”

Thud!

Their heads whipped around to a bundle of blankets at the bottom of the stairs, not at all worrying until it started to move with a soft groan of pain.

 “Tzu?” Momo yelled from the floor above. “Kid? Are you dead?”

“Chewy!” Sana sat up quickly – a little too quickly – and searched around for the mentioned girl only to pout when she couldn’t find her. “Chewy?”

“I’m alive,” a small voice came from the blanket pile.

Sana’s eyebrows flew up to her hairline. “Chewy?”

The blankets shifted again. “I’m okay.” That was definitely Tzuyu’s voice.

“’Okay?’” Nayeon shrieked. “You fell down the stairs!”

“It was on purpose,” the blanket creature replied.

Jihyo pocketed her phone, closed her eyes, and counted to ten. “Why?” It was a question for their youngest member but also extended further to the idiocy her family was capable of.

“It was faster,” said Tzuyu. “I didn’t want to do two trips.”

“So you just threw yourself down the stairs,” Jeongyeon concluded, a disapproving lilt in her voice that quickly dissolved into a weary sigh. “You know what? I’m not even surprised anymore. It still doesn’t beat the time Chaeyoung threw the minivan to get a day off school.”

“It didn’t even work!” Chaeyoung called through from the kitchen. “You made us walk!”

Momo suddenly appeared at the foot of the stairs to begin the task of untangling Tzuyu from her chosen mode of transport. “And that robust little box on wheels is still going,” she said spritely. “Can we just take a moment to appreciate what a tough life that poor vehicle has had?”

“It’s a good vehicle,” Tzuyu agreed, standing still as Momo dusted her down.

Dahyun thundered down the stairs and tripped over the mess at the bottom, yet still managed to slap her taller friend’s shoulder. “You,” she gasped, “and Chaeyoung are making me age prematurely!”

Tzuyu rubbed her wounded shoulder, looking every bit like a kicked puppy, not quite understanding the anger which had resulted in a pink handprint on her skin. “But I’m fine,” she protested. "I'm invincible."

"Impenetrable," Mina corrected sternly, appearing in the archway of the kitchen to ensure Tzuyu saw her displeased expression, "to a point."

“Chewy,” Sana called sweetly and Tzuyu’s head whipped around, “we don’t like it when you get hurt – or,” she added when Tzuyu opened her mouth to reaffirm that she was fine, “do things that could hurt you.”

Tzuyu glanced around at the varying looks of concern. “Ohhh…” She smiled sheepishly. “Then I apologize for worrying everyone,” she paused, then muttered under her breath, “even though I was totally fine.”

“Hey, Tzu!” Chaeyoung shouted. “Jeongyeon put the good snacks on the high shelves again!”

“For good reason,” Jeongyeon fired back. “Momo was in charge of the groceries and all she bought was unhealthy junk that–”

“It’s heightist! That’s what it is!”

Tzuyu’s eyes lit up with glee, able to put her own height to good use. “I’ll help you!”

Sana cooed adoringly as Tzuyu bounded towards the kitchen, keen to help her smaller friend, and flopped back down into the mess of bedding. She covered her face with her hands, muttering about the confinements of settling and the burden of attachments, but Jihyo could feel the warmth that surrounded her.

Warm… Jihyo smiled to herself and folded her legs on the couch, pondering on that similarity.

“Oh, kid!” Momo followed after the super soldier. “Jeongyeon hides the really unhealthy stuff in the cupboard by the fridge.”

“Does anyone in this team care about their own health?” Jeongyeon lamented to herself.

“Hey!” Nayeon put her hands on her hips, scowling at the lack of members. “We are supposed to be having a family day!”

It had been agreed back when they were merely pretending to be a family that Saturdays would be set aside as ‘family days.’ It had mainly been for Nayeon to check in on how the younger members were doing. To make sure that Jihyo wasn’t taking on too much, that Momo wasn’t pushing herself too far, to ensure that Tzuyu’s rehabilitation from soldier to child was going well, to check that Dahyun and Chaeyoung weren’t feeling left out, or that the latter wasn’t finding trouble.

Nayeon nurtured, protected, and defended without interfering, and Jihyo appreciated all of it.

“Excuse me!” Nayeon raised her voice, scowling across the hallway where five of their members were rifling through the cupboards – well, Chaeyoung and Momo were directing Tzuyu while Mina and Dahyun observed with equally fond expressions. “Hey! I know you can hear me!”

“Relax.” Jeongyeon sidled up beside her and slid her hand down to rest on Nayeon’s lower back, soothing her agitation with an easy smile. “How about you start up Netflix and I’ll wrangle in the kids,” she suggested softly.

Nayeon huffed loudly, her shoulders heaving with the effort, and she rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she grumbled and turned, trailing a hand down Jeongyeon’s forearm while the other girl’s arm brushed around her side to her stomach. She remained a second longer before reluctantly pulling away to find the remote lost in the mess, her fingers ghosting across Jeongyeon’s wrist in parting.

Jihyo glanced down at Sana and they met eyes briefly, both victim to the blatantly obvious flirting, but while Jihyo was mostly exasperated, Sana’s face was slightly flushed and her grip on the pillow Jeongyeon had thrown at her had tightened. Briefly, Jihyo wondered what she would sense if she touched Sana’s shoulder. What was she thinking? What was she imagining?

Yet…part of her already knew the answer.

Jeongyeon watched Nayeon with unbearably gentle eyes, something raw and vulnerable simmering inside, then there was a noise in the kitchen – a crash of ceramic on the tiled floor – and Jeongyeon shook herself out of her thoughts, tearing her gaze away from Nayeon to send a frown towards the kitchen.

“What was that?” she asked loudly.

“Nothing!” Chaeyoung’s head popped up on the other side of the kitchen island. She smiled back nervously and gave a thumbs up gesture in response. “Everything’s fine!”

Jeongyeon’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “It didn’t sound like nothing,” she grouched and went to investigate before the telekinetic could hide whatever it was they had broken.

“Have family days always been this stressful?” Nayeon sighed.

“Oh, absolutely!” Sana giggled. “It’s part of the fun!”

Family days began with a tiny amount of order that very quickly dissolved into absolute chaos. It had never not been stressful, but a movie day was easily the best option.

Board games were out of the question. There was simply too much that could go wrong when nine powered individuals played them.

Nayeon would rewind time to ensure she always knew what moves to play, Sana would create some excuse of going to the bathroom before turning invisible to whisper winning advice into Tzuyu’s ear until Tzuyu accidentally broke the table in celebration if Chaeyoung didn’t flip it over in frustration first. Momo could glimpse their cards and be back in her seat with little more than a gust of wind to give her away, Mina could sweet-talk her way out of any penalties, Jihyo could read the room – literally, and Dahyun could trick them all into seeing different cards.

It always ended badly.

And Jeongyeon always ended up leaving them in stasis until her ability drained so she could clean up the inevitable mess.

“Aha!” Nayeon plucked the remote up from the side of the displaced coffee table and set about the easy process of starting the streaming site. It was never setting things up that took long. It was deciding what to watch that all nine of them would enjoy, but arguing, Jihyo had come to learn, was part of being a family.

She had been blessed enough that all of their previous arguments had rarely held any real anger in them. The topics were usually silly and hardly worth the argument, but Jihyo preferred that to the very physical fights that used to break out at the very beginning.

Jihyo’s hair whipped across her face, thrown by a sudden gust of wind, and Momo appeared beside her with an armful of junk food contraband.

“We should watch something scary!” she declared.

“No!” Sana threw her pillow at Momo and shifted into a more comfortable position, leaning against the couch in front of Jihyo. “Besides,” she tipped her head back to glare at Momo, “you got first pick last weekend.”

“Yeah, because by the time you decide on something it’ll be next Saturday,” Momo countered.

“Neither of you are choosing,” Jihyo intervened, spotting the small crease forming between Sana’s eyebrows. “It’s Dahyun’s turn.”

Sana slouched, sighing loudly. “Dahyun will pick whatever you want,” she muttered to Momo.

“Like Tzuyu picks whatever you suggest,” Momo retorted.

“What do I do?” Tzuyu was steered into the living room by Dahyun’s hands on her shoulders, guided away from whatever mess Chaeyoung had created in the kitchen, and Jihyo felt a sudden spark of jealousy jolt out of the beings beside her and in front of her.

“Nothing, Chewy,” Sana patted the empty space beside her, “I saved you a seat.”

Not to be outdone, Momo cast aside her snacks to do the same. “You can sit beside me, Dubu.”

Dahyun smiled and stretched up onto her toes to whisper into Tzuyu’s ear, hiding her lips with her hand, and the jealousy grew to a stifling degree when a small blush dusted the super soldier’s cheeks.

Jihyo nudged Sana’s shoulder with her foot. “Tone it down a little, guys,” she muttered loud enough for Momo and Sana to hear, and received two apologetic glances in response as they tried to mute their feelings a little.

Dahyun stepped back with a secretive smile and waited until Tzuyu gave a jerky little nod in response to whatever she had said before she hopped over Jihyo to settle beside Momo.

“What was the noise?” Jihyo asked to break the tension.

Dahyun’s eyes danced with laughter. “She was trying to levitate things and threw a glass across the room by mistake.”

“I don’t understand why,” Tzuyu said, sitting down beside Sana with a small frown, “I could reach everything just fine.”

“I know why,” Momo chuckled. “She was trying to show off to–” A box of choco pies hit the back of her head, thrown by the irritated telekinetic stomping over to take up half of the other couch.

“It’s a height thing,” said Dahyun.

“Wha– you’re literally shorter than me, Dahyun!” Chaeyoung protested indignantly.

“Hush,” Mina admonished quietly and settled the argument by sitting next to Chaeyoung, unbothered by the slight static in the air around her. “Your height is fine.”

Jeongyeon flopped down on the other half of the couch, reserving a space that Nayeon happily claimed. “So what are we watching?” she asked.

Nayeon swung her legs over Jeongyeon’s lap and tucked herself into the other girl’s side. “It’s Dahyun’s choice this week,” she replied.

“Oh, great,” Chaeyoung grumbled, “so it’s Momo’s choice again.”

Jihyo settled back against the couch with a soft sigh, long used to the bickering that constantly surrounded her. She sunk into the familiarity of it, able to feel each and every one of the other eight lives burning brightly around her. They were the only family she had known and the only family she would claim.

Something beneath her skin always seemed to itch when they were apart, a strange prickle that left her feeling incomplete. Some of it may have stemmed from growing up in the same row of observation chambers but it had grown into something stronger with the passing of time.

Nine or none.

That was how it had always been.

Sana sighed sharply in front of her, pulling Jihyo’s attention and startling Tzuyu with the noise, and shifted to lie down so that her head was resting on the younger girl’s lap.

“Better?” Jihyo asked bemusedly.

“Absolutely,” Sana hummed happily.

Tzuyu’s hesitated, her fingers lowering to just barely brush the hair at Sana’s temple, and Sana stiffened in anticipation, waiting to see what would happen.

Jihyo waited alongside her, watching Tzuyu’s internal confliction out the corner of her eye. It felt a little like she was spying on a private moment, yet she couldn’t ignore it. Tzuyu avoided contact with everyone else, but with Sana she was willing to try.

Nervousness surrounded the girl like a cloud of fog, heavy and clinging, and ever so slowly, Tzuyu’s fingers rested against the top of Sana’s scalp, stalling for a moment before they trailed down through the older girl’s hair. Her eyebrows were knitted together at the foreign sensation, unused to the sensation. Sana’s hair was so soft and the simple touch made Sana sink deeper into her lap with a fluttered sigh.

Jihyo’s heart warmed at the exchange missed by the others, all too busy arguing about what to watch. None of it mattered. She cherished every moment spent with her found family, no matter how infuriating they could be at times.

Yet… There was a tiny prickle that drifted across her skin, not completely unlike the sensation she felt when they were on missions – an alertness that kept her wary of potential dangers.

They'd had so many Saturdays exactly the same, huddled together in a mess of blankets to heal and relax. Everything was as it should be, but Jihyo couldn't shake the niggling whisper at the back of her mind that it felt suspiciously like the calm before the storm.

Chapter Text

Chaeyoung had a plan.

It wasn’t a very good plan and the likelihood of things going terribly wrong seriously outweighed the chance of success, but that had never stopped her before.

All she had to do was convince Dahyun and Tzuyu to help – so really she only needed to get Tzuyu on board because Dahyun would never let the two of them charge into danger without her. She wouldn’t snitch on them either. They just didn’t do that in the School Meal Club.

She found Tzuyu at the kitchen table, scowling at her unfinished homework like it had offended her to the highest degree, and Chaeyoung’s spirits lifted. She was alone.

“Good morning, my favorite giant!” Chaeyoung chirped as she leant on the other side, smirking when Tzuyu startled upright with a small cry of fright that made the pencil between her fingers snap clean in two.

“Chaeng,” Tzuyu whined, gazing forlornly at yet another pencil destroyed by her own strength, “you’re not supposed to sneak up on me like that.”

“Sorry,” Chaeyoung said lightly, “but I have a favor to ask you. I’ll write your history paper for you. I know you’re struggling with it.”

Tzuyu's eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Momo taught me about this," she said slowly. "You're trying to bribe me."

“Okay, again – slightly upset that you went to Momo for life lessons, but I’ll let it slide if you help me,” Chaeyoung bargained.

Tzuyu still didn’t look convinced. “Help you with what?” she asked. “And will it get me in trouble?”

Yes. “No.”

Tzuyu shifted uncomfortably on her seat, eyes darting around quickly in search of another member to come to her rescue, but she was out of luck. Jeongyeon had dragged Sana and Momo to redo the grocery shopping with Mina tagging along to oversee the refresher course on what qualified as healthy food, Nayeon was working a full-day shift, Dahyun was upstairs lamenting over her study material, and Jihyo was enjoying the silence while it lasted, sitting in the backyard simply listening to the world around her.

Tzuyu didn’t have anyone to deflect Chaeyoung’s request onto and her growing anxiousness was obvious in the way her fingers started to tap against the table.

"Okay," Chaeyoung relented and explained her plan, "I need you to potentially bust down a few doors for me while I break into a high security facility and steal information that may or may not be there because my lead came from an anonymous tip and a couple of contacts I don’t really trust, but I have a hunch that it’s legit and it’s too valuable to pass up, then I want to blow the building up.” She inhaled again. “Make sense?"

"Uh..." Tzuyu blinked at her. "No,” she said, “no, not really."

Chaeyoung chewed the inside of her cheek. Maybe she needed to simplify it. “Remember the stuff I hid under the rug?” she prompted.

“The Company cheat-sheet that Dahyun wants to set on fire?”

“I mean...it’s not really a cheat-sheet exactly, but sure.” Chaeyoung decided to roll with it and made a mental note to keep all forms of fire away from Dahyun. “Tzuyu, I think that I’ve found a Company outpost here in Seoul.”

Honesty was the best approach. Tzuyu would appreciate it.

“I don’t know, Chaeng,” Tzuyu mumbled uneasily. “Jihyo said that we should leave the Company in the past.”

“But we can’t–!” Chaeyoung caught herself when her voice rose in volume and Tzuyu flinched slightly, forcing herself to calm down. It wasn’t fair to get upset with Tzuyu for following their leader’s guidance. Chaeyoung knew how important the structure of rules was to her. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to raise my voice, but Jihyo is wrong about this, Tzuyu.”

Tzuyu blinked into a frown, wincing the same way she did when Momo flicked her ear, and Chaeyoung realized in slight surprise that Tzuyu was insulted. That was a new one for her. “Jihyo’s never wrong,” she voiced quietly. “That’s why she’s our leader.”

Chaeyoung needed a different approach. She had failed to realize just how high the pedestal that Tzuyu had placed Jihyo on really was.

Arguing that Jihyo didn’t always know what was best was an argument that would take up far too much time and draw attention.

What would get Tzuyu to agree?

Chaeyoung already knew but it was a dirty move.

She’ll forgive me if it means we take down the Company.

Chaeyoung rested her palms flat on the table. “What if I intended to destroy the Company?” she bartered. “I want them to hurt like we did. I want...” She swallowed down her growing anger and took another deep breath. “Don’t you want that too? Don’t you want to hurt them for what they did to you?”

Tzuyu’s fingers had curled into tight fists and a spark of raw, unfiltered hate ignited in her eyes. “Jihyo said I’m not allowed to act on those feelings,” she whispered.

“Screw what Jihyo said, Tzuyu,” Chaeyoung leant forward, “What do you want?”

Tzuyu’s feet were tapping frantically beneath the table, deliberating the consequences of going against their leader’s word, but Chaeyoung knew that she had tapped into the unresolved childhood trauma they all carried. The Company had hurt them in various ways, leaving them damaged, but for the super soldier that could take as much damage as she could deal they had been particularly cruel.

It had been a game to see how much Tzuyu could ensure before she broke.

Tzuyu’s feet stilled and the flicker of hate vanished when she whispered her answer, “I want to hurt them back.”

Chaeyoung smiled warmly in response, trying to reassure Tzuyu that what she wanted was valid, that it wasn’t wrong to want a little payback. “Good.” Chaeyoung stepped back and clapped her hands, leaving her confused friend behind as she strode towards the stairs. “Now we just need Dahyun.”

*********

“No.”

“I haven’t even said anything yet.”

Dahyun lifted her eyes from her study notes and adjusted the glasses that had slipped down her nose, looking every bit like a librarian about to banish them for being too loud. It was times like these that Chaeyoung was reminded why Dahyun was the voted leader of their small club.

“I already know that I’m not going to like it.” Dahyun’s gaze shifted to Tzuyu who was stood a few paces away, fidgeting restlessly. “Tzuyu looks guilty so I’m going to guess that you’ve already roped her into it.”

“Tzuyu can consent to things like everyone else,” Chaeyoung said in her own defense.

“She can,” Dahyun agreed, “but you have this really annoying way of convincing people that your dumb ideas will actually work.”

Chaeyoung smirked. “You have a weird way of complimenting people, Dubu.”

“I don’t think that was a compliment,” Tzuyu mumbled.

Dahyun closed her textbooks with a loud sigh and flicked her wrist. “Lay it on me then,” she said. “What brilliantly stupid plan have you come up with now?”

“I’m so glad you asked.” Chaeyoung grabbed the edge of the rug and flipped it back just enough to reveal most of her hidden work. “With the help of the internet and a few slightly shady contacts, I think that I’ve managed to locate a Company outpost in the city,” she said. “I want to ransack it, beat up and interrogate whoever we find inside, and then blow it up.”

Dahyun blinked back at her in disbelief, at a loss for words for several long minutes before she shook herself out of her own thoughts. “Ignoring the assault and explosives – I don’t even want to know if you’ve actually procured some,” she said. “Have you considered that this is potentially just bait? It wouldn’t be out of character for them."

“It’s not,” Chaeyoung dismissed immediately, then doubled back, “well, it could be, but it’s not.”

“You’re not convincing me so far.”

“Dahyun, this is our chance to end this,” Chaeyoung said. “This outpost could lead us to others. We actually have a chance to fight back this time. Aren’t you tired of running?”

Dahyun deliberated on her words for a moment. “I don’t like running,” she said, “but if it keeps us out of a lab then I’ll choose that option every time.”

“But that’s exactly my point.” Chaeyoung let the rug fall back over her information and moved to sit beside Dahyun, turned to face her. “What if there was another option?” she urged. “What if we never had to run away ever again?”

Dahyun hesitated, doubt creeping in at the edges, and she bit down on her lip worriedly. She glanced at Chaeyoung. “And your lead is good?” she clarified. “We’re not going to end up breaking into a children’s hospital or anything, are we?”

“Dahyun,” Chaeyoung caught her hand, “I’ve had a couple contacts following Miss A and Rain. They all visited this location before the contract went to hell. It has to be something. It can’t be coincidental.”

Dahyun sighed heavily, fed up of that word, and slumped forward wearily. “I’m totally going to regret this later,” she muttered, "but I’m assuming that this isn’t a team mission with how cagey you’re being, so we’ll need an alibi.”

Chaeyoung grinned and squeezed Dahyun’s hand gratefully.

Tzuyu dragged the nail of her thumb across her lower lip nervously. "We will?"

“Yes!” Chaeyoung scratched her jaw in thought, looking between her friends while her mind whirred away. She was the mastermind for a reason. "Okay,” she said, “I have an idea!” She pointed at Tzuyu. “Tzuyu – you can say that you're going to study at the library with Elkie–”

"But I'm not–"

"And Dahyun! You can say that you're meeting some classmates for lunch in the city–"

"Chaeyoung, I meant that we need a group–"

“And I will be meeting Somi to work on an art project! We can all meet outside the library.”

Alibis made, Chaeyoung looked expectantly at her friends, waiting for their praise on coming up with an idea on the spot, but she was met with similar looks of confusion.

Dahyun was still frowning at her, unhappy with the plan as a whole. “You’re making this so much more complicated than it needs to be, Chaeyoung.”

"Wait." Tzuyu raised her hand. "Who am I meeting for lunch?"

"You’re not meeting anyone for lunch, Tzu,” Chaeyoung reminded her. “Elkie's tutoring you at the library. Dahyun is having lunch."

"Oh, okay." Tzuyu raised her hand again. "Elkie's visiting her grandparents this weekend,” she told them.

"That doesn't matter,” Chaeyoung explained. “You're not actually studying with her. It's just an alibi, remember? It’s not true."

“Do I need to tell Elkie?"

"What?” Chaeyoung frowned at her. “No. Tzuyu, it’s a lie. I thought that Sana was corrupting you."

“I thought that Sana liked me,” Tzuyu said quietly. “Why would she do that?”

“You’re making things too complicated,” Dahyun repeated her earlier complaint, putting her foot down on the matter. If she was going to join in on Chaeyoung’s latest spontaneous idea, then she was going to have a little say on how they went about it. "What about we just make up something about a school project at the library?" she suggested. "You're both in the same biology class, right? Just say that you need to go to the library to work on it and I’ll come along to help,”–her face creased with despair–“and why am I even suggesting a better lie?”

Ignoring Dahyun’s conflict of conscience, Chaeyoung latched on to the new alibi – not because it was better than hers, it was just simpler, her idea was great – and leapt to her feet again, more than ready to get on the move before the others got back.

“Great,” she said, “so now that you’ve both agreed–”

“Been coerced,” Dahyun muttered.

Tzuyu lifted a finger. “I didn’t actually–”

“–to my brilliant plan,” Chaeyoung finished. “We can finally get going.”

“You haven’t even explained the rest of the plan!” Dahyun cried. “All you’ve mentioned is potential terrorism! What do we do if your information is wrong?”

“Improvisation!” Chaeyoung cheered, enthusiastic enough that Tzuyu threw up her fist too with a small cheer of her own.

Dahyun could only slap her palm against her forehead, resigned to a potential early death. “Great,” she sighed. “So if Jihyo doesn’t find out about this and kill us then we’ll probably die on the mission anyway.”

“That’s the spirit!”

Dahyun’s hand slid down to cover her mouth as she let out a long, pained sigh. “We’re going to die,” she lamented.

Chaeyoung ushered Tzuyu out of the door, moving quickly before either of them could change their mind and back out. “Come along, Captain!” she called over her shoulder. “We’re wasting daylight!”

It was time for the plan to be put in action. All they needed to do was convince Jihyo, which was a feat of itself given that their leader could read them even at a distance.

Maybe she would leave Tzuyu and Dahyun by the front door. Tzuyu was too honest and too devoted to Jihyo, and Dahyun crumpled under pressure. No, Chaeyoung would have to do it alone. She was the better liar, after all.

Chapter Text

“I don’t feel good,” Tzuyu fretted quietly, anxiously twisting her hands in the sleeves of her sweater. “Lying to Jihyo didn’t feel good.”

“Lying isn’t supposed to feel good.” Dahyun fidgeted with the strap of her messenger bag, having insisted on taking the bare minimum of some food and money in case they got stranded on the other side of the city again.

“We didn’t lie,” Chaeyoung attempted to reassure Tzuyu, “we just didn’t tell her the truth.”

“Chaeyoung!” Dahyun threw her hands up in the air and glowered at the back of Chaeyoung’s head. “That is the exact definition of lying!”

“Okay,” Chaeyoung stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stretched out her arms, ignoring the disgruntled pedestrians steering around them, “you both need to chill out a little. Jihyo doesn’t need to know everything we do. We are more than capable of pulling off a mission on our own.”

“Jihyo says we’re stronger as a team,” Tzuyu mumbled.

“We’re our own team.” Chaeyoung latched on that reasoning. “We’re the School Meal Club. Besides, Jihyo let Mina, Sana, and Momo do that contract alone last month.”

“It was a stealth mission,” Dahyun reminded her. “Sana can turn invisible and Momo is literally faster than the speed of light. Mina went as backup in case they were spotted. We don’t have stealth powers.”

Tzuyu nodded in agreement, looking between them nervously when she started to pick up on the animosity between her friends. “I could try to be quiet,” she offered.

“That’s not my point, Tzuyu.” Dahyun softened a little when she glanced at their younger member. “My point is that this little idiot,”–she cast a withering glare towards Chaeyoung–“is being driven by pride.”

“You didn’t have to come with me,” Chaeyoung countered tightly, the short fuse of her temper sparking. “What is up with you, Dahyun? Lately all you seem to do is criticize everything I suggest.”

“Guys,” Tzuyu scratched anxiously at her wrist, glancing around when strangers started to stare, “please don’t fight.”

“Oh, get over yourself, Chaeyoung.” Dahyun glitched slightly, copies of herself flickering at the edges, not enough to be noticed by the distracted public, but enough that she needed to collect herself. “You act like your plans are so great but everything we’ve done recently has only made things worse! The Company wasn’t a problem until you started to look for them!”

“Then why are you here?” Chaeyoung challenged. “If you hate my ideas then why even bother coming? Run home and tell Jihyo if you’re so against it. I don’t need your help.”

Tzuyu exhaled sharply. She couldn’t count when they were at each other’s throats. Dahyun was usually the pacifist amongst them, but sometimes Tzuyu needed to be the mediator, especially as of lately. Chaeyoung was on edge and easier to irritate than usual, and Dahyun was struggling to stay levelheaded when Chaeyoung was constantly challenging her command.

Jihyo always knew exactly what to do when there was tension amongst the members. Tzuyu didn’t. She found it far easier to hit something when the counting failed but she was in public and denting the nearest streetlight wasn’t an option.

“I’m here because I care about you!”

Chaeyoung flinched back, blinking in surprise at the intensity behind the statement, and fell silent, waiting for Dahyun to take it back and call her an idiot again.

“I’m here,” Dahyun said, calming as grief overtook her initial frustration, “because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if the one time I said no was when you didn’t come home again.”

And just like that, the anger was gone, replaced by a gnawing uneasiness that settled deep in her gut.

Tzuyu glanced between them silently, scared to speak in case it reignited their simmering tempers.

Dahyun looked at Chaeyoung in dismay, something in her eyes so desperate and terrified that Chaeyoung had to turn away, especially when they started to fill with water. She didn’t mean to upset her, yet she was too proud to apologize.

Her gaze shifted instead to Tzuyu, loyal enough to follow them to the ends of the universe. Chaeyoung reminded herself that Tzuyu had agreed to join her. She wasn’t forcing either of them to do it.

“I’m doing this to fix everything,” Chaeyoung said quietly. “You’ll see.”

Tzuyu stepped back with a small frown gracing her features, unsure what to say to that, so she tipped her head back to stare at the dark clouds above them. “I think it’s going to rain,” she said softly and with a tiny smile reserved just for her best friends, she turned and continued down the sidewalk without waiting for them to follow.

Dahyun sighed loudly and moved close enough to catch Chaeyoung’s sleeve between her fingers. “I know that you have good intentions, Chaeyoung,” she murmured. “But that’s not always enough.”

With those parting words for Chaeyoung to think upon, Dahyun let go and jogged ahead to catch up with Tzuyu. Chaeyoung stared after them for a moment longer, unable to shift the heaviness in her chest as she tried to tell herself that what they were doing was necessary.

She was going to get rid of the Company.

Then they would see.

They would see that she was right.

*********

Jeongyeon was beginning to regret insisting that Momo and Sana join her to go grocery shopping. It was always a disaster. She could handle Momo and Sana separately but together? Together they were a nightmare.

“Ew,” Sana pulled a face at the list gripped in Jeongyeon’s hand, stretched on her toes to lean over Jeongyeon’s shoulder, “why are there so many vegetables?”

Jeongyeon shrugged her off. “Because they’re healthy.”

“Hey, Jeong?” Momo approached with an armful of heart attacks in a bottle. “Can I get these?”

“No–”

“Okay, great. Thanks.” Momo dropped the energy drinks into the shopping cart and disappeared around the corner again.

Jeongyeon stared down at the cart in dismay, seeing nothing that was actually on the list. Momo had filled it with everything she had seen and wanted, and Sana kept trying to sneak items in when Jeongyeon wasn’t looking.

It wasn’t like Mina was helping either. The quiet girl was content enough to trail alongside her, offering little more than a raised eyebrow at each new addition.

“Hey,” Sana appeared by her shoulder again, lacking any sense of personal space as she reached up to tug on Jeongyeon’s hair, “does Chewy like coffee?” she asked. “Or is she more of an iced tea person?” She wrinkled her nose. “Is she allowed caffeine? She is, isn’t she?”

Jeongyeon closed her eyes and exhaled deeply through her nose. No. She was absolutely not discussing potential date ideas with Sana. Tzuyu was still just a kid…her kid…and Jeongyeon knew that she needed to let her grow up eventually, of course, but…not yet.

“Can I get this?” Momo came from behind, dropping an obscenely large box of choco pies in amongst her collection of junk food. “Thanks–”

Jeongyeon grabbed a fistful of Momo’s jacket and hauled her back, plucking the box back out of the cart to shove it back in her arms. “Put that back,” she ordered. “We’re only buying what is on the list.” She gestured irritably to the full shopping cart. “And none of this is on the damn list!”

Mina laughed softly, perusing the ramen selection disinterestedly.

“You could help,” Jeongyeon said tightly.

Mina glanced over her shoulder as her eyes sparkled with mild bemusement. “You brought this on yourself, you know,” she teased softly, not intending to annoy Jeongyeon further, yet it had that effect anyway because she was right.

Jeongyeon could have gone alone, like Nayeon and Jihyo had suggested. It could have been a nice, calm, stress-free day, but she just had to insist on reminding her teammates – who never listened anyway – about the importance of a healthy diet.

“But Dahyun likes choco pies,” Momo protested. “We don’t have any at home.”

“Yes, we do.” Jeongyeon turned her by the shoulders and gave her a shove to get moving. “We have plenty at home. Put. It. Back.”

Momo threw her head back, sighing loudly like the oversized child she was, and stomped away to do as she was told.

Sana lifted a box of brownie mixture from one of the shelves and squinted at the instructions. “Does Chewy like baking?” she asked. “She used to do that with you and Nay, right? This seems easy enough to do.”

“You aren’t allowed to use anything in my kitchen, Minatozaki,” Jeongyeon growled.

Sana looked at her, wide eyed and a little offended. “Why not?”

“Uh,” Momo returned empty handed and bumped her shoulder against Sana’s, “because you set the kitchen on fire trying to make cereal.”

“That was five years ago!” Sana whined.

“And a total mystery considering all you needed was milk and Almond Flakes,” Mina commented.

It wasn’t really a mystery. Sana had left her bowl too close to the stove, despite ample countertop space, not realizing that it was still on and the plastic bowl had quickly melted. The situation had escalated when Sana tried to move the melted plastic with an oven glove that caught fire and woke the rest of the house when the fire alarm started blaring.

It might have been five years ago, but Jeongyeon had found it easier to keep Sana away from kitchen appliances altogether.

“Chewy wouldn’t insult my cooking,” Sana grumbled petulantly.

“Chewy doesn’t know how to insult people on purpose,” Momo countered, then grinned, “but we’re working on that.”

Jeongyeon pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbing to ease the growing ache behind her eyes that signaled an impending headache.

“No, it’s because Chewy likes me,” Sana argued and stepped around Jeongyeon, “and she’ll like baking with me too.”

"Stop!" Jeongyeon caught Sana's wrist before she could drop the box in the cart and returned it to the right shelf. "No!" She intercepted Momo making a beeline for the ramen shelves and caught her bicep, towing both of them to the end of the aisle. "Get out!" she demanded.

Momo squirmed in her grip. "But we're supposed to help you–"

"I'll do it myself!" Jeongyeon declared. "You're causing me stress so go away."

She released them with an encouraging push towards the exit and returned to the shopping cart to begin the task of returning everything they had collected before buying what they actually needed which was the whole purpose of the list.

“Mina,” she said, “I don’t care where you go, please just take them away.”

Mina nodded with a sympathetic smile and patted Jeongyeon’s shoulder in parting. She caught Momo and Sana by the hand and pulled them towards the door, keen to get away before they caused Jeongyeon to have a mental breakdown in the middle of the store.

Mina did warn her against the educational trip, but she was wise enough to not bring that particular fact up.

They stepped out into the street, all three of them shivering at the chill in the air. The sky was overcast, leaving them shrouded in dark clouds that refused to let any sunlight through.

Momo beamed. "Well, that was successful," she said lightly.

Sana smirked back at her. “She’s so easy to annoy.”

Mina shook her head, scoffing in disbelief. They had tormented Jeongyeon on purpose. "You're both terrible," she muttered, though there was a hint of a smile tugging at her lips.

“I know!” Sana giggled.

“We’re now free for the afternoon,” Momo slung her an arm around their shoulders, “what should we do with our newfound free…” Momo trailed off, squinting at something across the street and they followed her gaze to three familiar faces weaving through the crowd. “…dom? Hey, was that...?"

Sana tilted her head. "I think it was."

Mina looked between them in dismay, already knowing that her Sunday wasn't going to be as relaxed as she first thought.

"I mean..." Sana raised an eyebrow. "We should make sure they're not up to anything, right?"

Momo nodded enthusiastically. "It would be irresponsible to not check at least."

They both looked at her hopefully.

"Fine," Mina relented before they had the chance to ask, "let's follow them."

She wouldn't admit that she was a little curious herself. The last she knew was that the SMC were supposed to be at the library to complete a school project. Jihyo had texted Mina to ask her to collect them in a few hours, yet they definitely weren't walking in the right direction.

“Yes!” Sana jumped happily and darted off down the street to follow their suspicious teammates, dragging Momo and Mina along while Momo’s arm was still wrapped around her shoulder.

Mina glanced across at their younger members and felt her stomach knot with dread. Whatever they were up to, it couldn’t be anything good.

Jihyo didn't know. That was always a bad sign.

*********

Jihyo shuffled inside the warm coffee shop and sighed in relief as the overhead heater blasted some warmth back into her skin. It was getting late into the year and soon enough the first snow would be upon them. She would need to remember to look out the stored winter clothes for everyone.

She didn’t mind the colder months. Snow days were some of the fondest memories she had, from battles in snow forts to the pillow forts that followed while everyone tried to warm up. They were a competitive family, it was a natural part of being pitted against one another as children, but now their drive to outdo one another was lighthearted.

They didn’t need to perform for anyone anymore.

Jihyo rubbed her stinging palms together, trying to warm them again. She had been gifted with a free afternoon for a change. The kids had a school project to work on and Jeongyeon had dragged the others on a shopping lesson. The peace was nice but Jihyo still found it strange to be alone in the house that had become a home, so she had decided to visit Nayeon at work.

The café Nayeon worked in was a quaint little place by the Han River, tucked away and hidden from everyone except those that either stumbled upon it or knew where to look. It made it a perfect spot for Jihyo and her team to use as a meeting spot.

It was owned by an elderly couple with no children of their own, so Nayeon, as unforgettable as she was, had left a lasting impression on them and become one of the favored employees.

Jihyo didn’t doubt that the aging owners would try to convince Nayeon to take over the business when they retired.

It was a nice thought to dwell on, Nayeon running a coffee shop. It was an honest living – more honest than anything they’d tried before – and it would give them another reason to stay.

Roots.

It would give them roots and roots could grow if they were given the chance.

Jihyo quite liked the idea of that.

“Jihyo, hey!” Nayeon spotted her immediately and waved her over, grinning from ear to ear at the surprise visit. “And with no stragglers.” She gasped dramatically. “Did you ditch the kids?”

Jihyo rolled her eyes playfully and cast a glance up at the menu habitually. She already knew every item listed and had her favorites memorized. “Last minute school project,” she explained.

It was Nayeon’s turn to roll her eyes at that. “Of course,” she deadpanned and brightened again. “And you chose to spend your free time visiting little old me? Jihyo,” Nayeon placed a hand over her heart, “I’m touched.”

The door swung open behind Jihyo, causing a gust of wind to blow in around her, icing her limbs all over again.

“Could I get something warm before I freeze to death?” she requested.

Nayeon’s forming smirk froze on her face when her eyes drifted over Jihyo’s shoulder to the newcomers, darkening at the obnoxious laughter that squawked loudly. “Two seconds, Ji,” Nayeon muttered, “I need to take out the trash.”

Jihyo raised an eyebrow, watching as Nayeon rounded the counter with a thunderous expression directed at a group of young men crowding the door. She was about to intervene until they noticed Nayeon and started to catcall her and make crude comments about her uniform.

“We reserve the right to refuse service to assholes like them.”

Her senses sparked at the voice, a small prickle dancing across her skin, almost familiar, ghosting around her like a memory, and Jihyo turned back to the cash register, surprised to find a girl wearing the same uniform as Nayeon.

She smiled warmly and went on to explain, “They think that’s an appropriate way to tell Nayeon that they find her attractive. Luckily our boss doesn’t tolerate customers like them so Nayeon gets to scare them off however she likes.”

Jihyo bit her tongue, barely holding back a comment about how she already knew that Nayeon was more than capable of chasing off a few inappropriate fans when she had seen her take down more frightening foes before.

They were supposed to be acting normal. Nayeon’s colleagues didn’t know what she did outside of work hours.

The barista held her gaze and the tingling beneath her skin increased tenfold. “I’m Sunmi,” she said.

Sunmi. Jihyo remembered Nayeon mentioning her before. She was the newest employee and Nayeon had taken a liking to her, enough that she mentioned inviting her out for drinks.

“I’m Jihyo,” Jihyo introduced herself. “Nayeon is my…” Jihyo glanced over her shoulder and winced at the pale faces of the young men, unwilling to listen in on whatever horror Nayeon was threatening them with. “She’s my sister…kind of.”

Sunmi nodded to herself. “Jihyo,” she echoed. “Nayeon’s mentioned your name a few times. You’re the one that keeps everything together, right?”

Jihyo shrugged. She didn’t consider it to be quite like that. Everyone in their family did their own bit, but she did have extra responsibilities as the team leader. “I try to.”

“Well,” Sunmi’s smile flickered into a smirk, “if you can handle Nayeon then you’ve got my respect.” She lifted a notepad from the pocket of her apron and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “So what can I get you?”

“Whatever you’re best at,” Jihyo answered lightly. “As long as it’s warm.”

“I’m best at everything here.” Sunmi winked at her and Jihyo felt those damn butterflies that Tzuyu kept asking about flutter in her own chest. “I’ll surprise you.”

Jihyo tilted her head curiously, watching the other girl move about the small kitchen with ease.

There was something about her that Jihyo couldn’t quite place, almost as if Jihyo knew her from somewhere else. It felt like she had met her before, something at the back of her mind grasping for a memory just out of reach. Then again, Seoul was a big city. It was highly probable that they had passed one another in the busy streets before.

The buzz beneath her skin started to settle the longer they spoke, passing time by talking about nothing in particular, continuing even when Nayeon returned victorious, and soon the strange feeling was forgotten about completely.

Jihyo found that she liked Sunmi’s company, so when the other girl asked for her number, Jihyo gave it gladly with the request of another coffee.

It was Sunmi who suggested that they go for coffee the following weekend to a place she didn’t work at.

Chapter Text

“This is a trap. One hundred percent.”

Chaeyoung grimaced, reluctant to agree with Dahyun. The office block in front of them was silent, seemingly abandoned with no sign of life at all. It wasn’t anything like she had expected a Company outpost to be. She had expected armed guards, security drones, maybe even a hidden mine or two, not an empty shell of a building.

“Maybe your friends gave you the wrong address,” Tzuyu suggested helpfully.

“No way,” Chaeyoung muttered. “They wouldn’t screw me over like that.”

“Maybe someone paid them to.” Dahyun reached up to shield her eyes from the lowering sun, squinting to try and see through the fogged windows. “Money tends to change loyalties.”

“I would still be loyal,” Tzuyu said decisively. She paused to think on it a little longer and then nodded assuredly. “No matter how much anyone offered, I would stay loyal to this team.”

The corners of Dahyun’s eyes creased with a hidden smile and Chaeyoung bit back a comment that money was meaningless to Tzuyu, not willing to ruin the reassurance Tzuyu had been trying to provide. It was sweet of her to try.

“Unless it was enough that we never have to work with any bad people ever again,” Tzuyu continued. “Then I’d take the deal and come rescue you.”

Chaeyoung coughed into her elbow to hide her own laugh, tickled by the blank expression Dahyun gave in return. Trust Tzuyu to take a beautifully sentimental admission and turn it into something savage. Tzuyu wouldn’t even see the flaw in her explanation. It was practical and Chaeyoung could see the logic behind it, but it was still funny to have the sweet moment ruined as quickly as it had been.

“Uh…thanks…Tzu…” Dahyun patted Tzuyu’s shoulder, her smile a little more strained than before. “Let’s make sure we never end up in that hypothetical position though.”

Tzuyu nodded in agreement, happy enough, and gestured vaguely towards the building. “So are we going to go inside?” she asked.

Were they? That was a good question.

There was every possibility that Dahyun was correct about it being a trap, yet the lure had been far too obvious for what Chaeyoung had come to expect from the Company. What had she been expecting anyway? Of course it would be something hidden in plain sight, something so blatantly obvious about being a trap that only an idiot would walk into it willingly…

Trap or not, they were beyond the point of no return.

“Come on,” Chaeyoung said, “we’ve only got a few hours before Jihyo wants us home.”

She approached the looming office block, stuffing her hands into her jacket pockets to fend off the cooling weather, and sighed quietly in relief when she heard two sets of footsteps following. They were still with her, still on her side. They still had enough faith in her to trust that she had a vague idea of what she was doing.

Do I though?

Chaeyoung shook any lingering doubt away when they reached the main entrance, peering inside at the darkened interior. It didn’t look like anyone was in the building, not even cleaning staff. Was that strange? It seemed a little strange. Maybe she was just being paranoid.

Without even being asked, Tzuyu stepped up beside her and gave the door a sudden push, forcing it open.

“Tzuyu!” Dahyun hissed, wincing along with Chaeyoung as they waited for the sudden blare of alarms.

Nothing happened.

That was odd. Wasn’t it? There should be a door alarm. There was always a door alarm.

“I didn’t even push it that hard,” Tzuyu said, sporting a proud little grin that eased some of Chaeyoung’s growing anxiety.

Maybe the lock was broken?

Dahyun’s hand snapped around Chaeyoung’s wrist, tugging her back when she was about to enter. “This doesn’t feel right,” she said quietly. “We should just go home. Let’s just go. Please.”

Chaeyoung shook her hand off. They could leave. They could return to the house and pretend like nothing had happened. They could continue the lie of a school project and the others wouldn’t even question it.

But Chaeyoung needed to push ahead. She needed to get rid of their lingering nightmare once and for all.

Everything would be worth it in the end. It had to be.

“Let’s go,” Chaeyoung said and stepped over the threshold.

She waited a moment, tense and ready to fight, but there were no unseen tripwires or hidden agents, just the unending silence that claimed the entire building.

Tzuyu was the next to follow, always keen to follow their lead, and Dahyun reluctantly entered last.

No matter what happened, Chaeyoung told herself, everything would be okay so long as she had the other two members of her club.

She looked around, taking in the flaking paint on the walls and the layers of dust that had settled on every surface. It seemed completely abandoned, uninhabited by anything other than mice and bugs.

“Can I ask you both a question?” Tzuyu’s voice startled her out of her thoughts, vibrating loudly in the empty building despite the quiet tone she spoke in. “A serious question?”

“Always,” Dahyun answered instinctively and Chaeyoung echoed the sentiment.

“I’ve thought on it a lot recently,” Tzuyu elaborated quietly, taking her time as they wandered through the deserted reception. “And…well…” She stopped just short of the desk lacking a secretary and brushed her finger over the dusty surface, leaving a dark line behind. “How would I show Sana that I like her back?”

Chaeyoung’s breath caught in her throat.

Tzuyu was asking them for dating advice.

“What?” Chaeyoung couldn’t resist teasing her and maybe a small part of her was still a little bitter – so small though. She wasn’t jealous. “Momo wouldn’t tell you?”

“I wanted to ask you both,” Tzuyu answered honestly. “Should I ask Momo instead?”

“No! No. You don’t need to ask Momo,” Chaeyoung said quickly, “I was just joking. It was a joke. Ask us. In fact, I would prefer that you always come to us because we have the best advice.”

Tzuyu squinted dubiously. “Jeongyeon says that you have terrible advice.”

“Jeongyeon is biased,” Chaeyoung countered. “Don’t listen to her. Let’s go back to that bit about wanting to show Sana that you like her.”

Dahyun stopped in front of the elevators, looking at the multitude of levels and named offices on a large faded sign. “Compliment her, Tzu," she suggested. "Tell her that you like her hair or something."

"Lame!" Chaeyoung jumped to hook her arm around Tzuyu's neck, dragging the taller girl down to her height. "That's so middle school, Dubu. Tzu wants to be an adult, yeah? She should give adult compliments."

"Chaeyoung," Dahyun cautioned. “Be serious, please.”

“I am being serious.” Chaeyoung dragged her knuckles across Tzuyu’s skull, messing her hair playfully. “Women are beautiful and they deserve better compliments than simply having nice hair. Besides, Sana’s hot and she knows that she’s hot. Compliments don’t work on her.”

“So what should I do?” Tzuyu asked, bent awkwardly in Chaeyoung’s hold.

“You could just tell her,” Chaeyoung offered. “Catch her alone and admit that you like her.” Dahyun scoffed at her suggestion, drawing a scowl from Chaeyoung. “What’s funny about that? I’m being serious.”

“Nothing,” Dahyun shrugged. “I just…” She turned away from the sign, sporting a teasing grin. “You’re telling Tzuyu to confess her feelings but you can’t even look at Mina without freaking out.” She leant back against the dividing wall between the two elevators. “It’s a little hypocritical.”

“Oh, like you’re any better,” Chaeyoung sneered. “Momo only needs to be near you and you start blushing.”

Dahyun’s mouth snapped shut, her eyes narrowing, and she folded her arms across her chest, visibly agitated by her comment. "You've just been demoted," Dahyun declared. "Tzuyu, you're the vice-captain now."

"What?” Chaeyoung gasped, accidentally tugging Tzuyu down further. “You can’t just demote me!”

“I just did.”

Tzuyu frowned and pulled gently on Chaeyoung’s arms to free herself. "What was I before?"

"Uh...” Dahyun cleared her throat and scoured her brain for a position, “the vice-vice-captain?" she offered.

"Third-in-command,” Chaeyoung simplified.

"Oh…" Tzuyu's frown deepened. "Wait…” She squinted in thought. “But if there are only three of us, who was I in command of?"

Dahyun’s mouth opened and closed, struggling to find a way to ghost over the structure of command within their club without offending her. Luckily, that was Chaeyoung’s specialty.

“You are in command of keeping us together,” Chaeyoung said. “You have the very important job of acting as our glue. You help us stick together.”

Tzuyu froze midway through fixing her hair to gaze down at her with wide eyes. “I do?”

“Yeah,” Chaeyoung tapped her fist against Tzuyu’s bicep, “you do.” When Tzuyu’s resulting smile became too bright, Chaeyoung left her side to hit the call button beside Dahyun. “So I was thinking that we could start from the top and work our way down the floors. This place seems abandoned but you never know when–”

The overhead lights flickered and the doors they had just walked through sealed shut with a loud snap of electric locks clicking in place.

Chaeyoung’s fingers fell away from the button and she glared at it, ultimately betrayed by something so un-trap-like. “Well, shit.”

Dahyun jolted upright, flickering at the edges as she scoured their surroundings for any sign of danger. “I told you that this was a trap,” she hissed.

“Gloat about it later,” Chaeyoung bit back. “Maybe I just shorted the power.”

“Shorting the power wouldn’t make the front door bolt shut, Chaeyoung.”

“Is this bad?” Tzuyu asked, lowering her voice to a concerned whisper. “I think that I could break the glass.” She examined the sealed doors. “I’m going to break the glass.”

“Tzuyu–”

“Watch this!” Tzuyu took off at a sprint before Dahyun could stop her, tearing towards the fogged glass as fast as she could, and struck one of the panes with the left hand side of her body, but while most surfaces would have crumpled beneath her, Tzuyu ricocheted.

“Oh, my god,” Dahyun ran after her, leaving Chaeyoung frozen in shock, and stumbled to a halt when Tzuyu turned back to them.

Her arm was hanging at an odd angle, likely broken in several places while her shoulder hung limply out of its socket.

“I...I don’t think I can break the glass,” Tzuyu rasped.

“You broke your arm,” Dahyun gasped, crossing the rest of the distance to check the injury. “You broke your arm!” She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and tugged at Tzuyu’s jacket. “Take this off. We need to make a sling until Mina can look at it.”

Chaeyoung glanced up when the lights flickered again and clenched her fists, dividing her attention between the two stairwells on either side of the reception in wait of an army. The silence was almost worse, leaving her in unending suspense.

“Chaeyoung?” Dahyun looped Tzuyu’s jacket around the broken limb and tied the sleeves behind her neck, creating a makeshift sling. “Please tell me that there’s another way out of here.”

“I don’t...” Chaeyoung swallowed down the rest of her admission. She couldn’t admit to not knowing the floor plan, not when she had convinced her best friends to follow her, not when they trusted her with their lives.

She looked around, searching for any sort of fire exit or a sign indicating the direction of the nearest one, but everything was shrouded in darkness. Chaeyoung turned back to the elevator, searching through the long list of offices for a way out. Everything led up, meaning roof access was probable, but that would leave them stranded on top of the building and the rest of the team thought that they were at the library. There wasn’t going to be a rescue.

“Chaeyoung!” Dahyun raised her voice. “We need a way out!”

“I...” There had to be something. There was always another way. Jihyo always found one, why couldn’t she?

The sudden screech of feedback echoed around them from the speakers tucked in the top corners of the room, deafeningly loud, followed by a burst of static and a monotonous voice;

“Subjects Seven, Eight, and Nine. Remain where you are. Our agents are on route to apprehend you. Escape is impossible.”

Chaeyoung’s mouth dried out, her throat tearing against sandpaper when she tried to swallow. She looked at Dahyun and Tzuyu, both looking as ill as she felt. It had been a long time since they had been referred to as test subjects.

“Enough of this.” Dahyun dragged her phone from her back pocket, the device shaking in her hand. “Tzuyu, sit down if you start to feel lightheaded,” she instructed. “I’m calling Jihyo.”

“No!” Chaeyoung leapt forward to catch her wrist, effectively stopping her. “You were right, okay? You were right! This is a trap but you can’t call the others–”

Dahyun’s eyes flashed with fury. “Chaeyoung–”

“They’ll use us as bait!” Chaeyoung caught Dahyun’s other hand, pleading her to listen. “You call Jihyo and all of us are in trouble.”

The anger in Dahyun’s eyes began to fade, replaced by the helplessness that had held them captive as children.

"Dubu?" Tzuyu slumped back against the door, cradling her broken arm tightly against her chest. "I'm starting to feel a little bit woozy now."

Dahyun blinked back panicked tears and forced a smile for their younger friend, trying to hide her overwhelming fear as their club captain. “Does it hurt?” she asked softly.

“No, not really,” Tzuyu mumbled. She looked tired, unused to experiencing broken bones. “It’s mostly numb, I think…” She bumped the back of her skull against the door. “This is the same glass they kept us in.”

Chaeyoung felt Dahyun tremble in her grip, remembering the same glass chambers she was. “How do you know?” she asked.

Tzuyu’s jaw clenched and her eyes rolled back into her head briefly, a wave of nausea drawing a sheen of sweat across her skin. “I couldn’t break it either,” she divulged hoarsely. “I shattered every bone in my hands trying to get out.”

Chaeyoung recalled soundless screaming in the cells around her. Nine chambers occupied by powered individuals rendered powerless. She had tried to break the glass too.

She looked around and strode towards one of the stairwells, perturbed when she couldn’t find a handle on the door. The whole room was a cage, encased in the same glass as the doors, the same unbreakable material they had been imprisoned in as children.

“I was smaller then.” Tzuyu forced herself to stand upright and contemplated her unbroken limb. “I can try again.”

“No,” Dahyun disagreed. “We need a plan.” She met Chaeyoung’s eyes with determination. “No more improvising. We need an actual plan.”

Chaeyoung nodded. “The voice said that they were sending agents, right?” Her attention snapped to the elevators. They looked real enough. “Tzu, do you think that you could wedge one of those open? Assuming they’ll come in the same way we did, we could use it as cover for the initial assault.”

Tzuyu swallowed down rising bile when she started to move, likely downplaying the pain of her broken limb, and tilted her head at the sealed doors. “Do either of you have anything I can wedge between them? Just enough to get my hand in?”

Chaeyoung and Dahyun hurried towards the reception desk and the two of them looked through the multitude of drawers for anything that could help. They found a paperweight that Dahyun kept a hold of to use as a projectile and an empty stapler that would serve the same purpose.

“Here!” Dahyun held up a metal ruler and scurried over to give it to Tzuyu while Chaeyoung searched the rest of the area.

“Okay…” Tzuyu tested the strength of it in her good hand and glanced at their club captain gingerly. “Don’t be mad,” she said as she wedged the ruler between the doors, prying them open carefully.

“Why would I be mad?” Dahyun asked, watching as the doors started to give. The ruler started to bend slightly, threatening to break, and Tzuyu quickly thrust the fingers of her injured limb in the gap before the doors could close again. “Tzuyu! Are you insane?!”

Tzuyu groaned quietly and dropped the ruler to wedge her other hand in the small space, pulling until the doors opened wide enough for Dahyun to inspect the other side.

It was a simple elevator, lacking power, but the glass that encased everything else was missing. There was a floor, a roof with no escape hatch, and three mirrored walls that were cracked and as filthy as the rest of the reception. There would be no point in sealing it off if it didn’t lead anywhere.

Chaeyoung shoved Dahyun inside and took the paperweight from her, setting it between the doors when Tzuyu followed to prevent them from shutting fully.

“I’m gonna sit down now,” Tzuyu mumbled, already sliding down the back wall to settle in a heap on the ground. “Dubu, you’re not using your power, are you?” She blinked up at Dahyun deliriously. “I can see six of you.”

The speakers crackled to life again.

“Subjects Seven, Eight, and Nine. Do not resist. Escape is impossible.”

“Fuck off!” Chaeyoung yelled, hoping that whoever was on the other end could hear her. “We escaped once! We can do it again!”

“Chaeng…” Dahyun tugged on her sleeve, crouched with her other hand circling Tzuyu’s forearm. “Give me your hand.” Chaeyoung complied and Dahyun guided it to the same point, holding firmly when Chaeyoung instinctively tried to pull her hand away again.

She could feel the bone moving.

“What the hell…” Chaeyoung leant over Dahyun to get a better and blinked at Tzuyu’s shoulder. It should have been dislocated. She had seen the moment the bone had popped out of its socket, but it looked untouched. "Well, that's new."

“Healing,” Dahyun breathed, completely in awe. “Her body is healing injuries that should take weeks in minutes.”

It could work in their favor.

Chaeyoung looked at Tzuyu’s face, trying to tell how coherent she was. “Think you have any Hulk left in you, buddy?”

“Mm…” Tzuyu flexed her left hand experimentally, gazing at it with hooded eyes. She looked ready to drop, but that had never stopped her before. “Give me five minutes.”

“I don’t think that we have five minutes.” Dahyun pointed at the main entrance visible through the gap where several dark silhouettes were waiting on the other side. “We’ve got five seconds.”

“Subjects Seven, Eight, and Nine. Do not resist. Escape is impossible. Capture is inevitable.”

Chaeyoung moved to stand in front of her friends and curled her fingers into tight fists, drawing in as much energy as she could. She slowed her breathing, trying to calm the maddening pace of her heart.

“This is fine,” she whispered to herself. “We’ve got this.”

The lights flickered once more and the locked bolts that caged were released.

Chapter Text

Tzuyu clawed one of the elevator doors back, tucked behind cover while Dahyun created a dozen clones of herself to act as a distraction, both of them straining under the overuse of their abilities.

Several armed soldiers poured into the building, hiding their identities with black riot gear, not that it mattered. Chaeyoung didn’t care who they were. It was easier not knowing who they were fighting. It was survival, nothing more. They were the enemy, coming to drag them back to the Company’s clutches and Chaeyoung wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

She thrust her arms out and sent the first wave skittering back into the others, toppling most of them while a few stragglers went after Dahyun’s clones in search of the real version. Several bullets whizzed past her – rubber, she guessed from the lack of gunpowder in the air – and she repelled another round with a blast of energy that stopped them midair, acting like an invisible barrier.

“We can’t keep this up,” Dahyun said, hiding opposite Tzuyu. “Tzuyu isn’t in any shape to fight and I know that you’re getting tired too.”

"I could charge them," Tzuyu offered weakly. “If I can heal now then I should be okay.”

“No,” said Dahyun. “That could have just been a fluke, Tzuyu.”

Chaeyoung noticed the stapler by her feet and sent it soaring towards an approaching soldier. “We just need to get to the door,” she told them. “It’s unlocked again. We can get out.”

“Through an army of armed guards,” Dahyun said flatly. “They’re shooting at us.”

“Let me charge them,” Tzuyu insisted. “I can do it.”

“No.” Dahyun sent the youngest a scathing glare. “Stop running into things, Tzuyu. It’s not good for your health.”

“Subjects Seven, Eight and Nine. Do not resist. Escape is–”

Chaeyoung yelled and tore the speakers from the wall, throwing them at their assailants. They just needed to get to the door. It was so damn simple yet completely out of reach!

“At least your contacts weren’t lying,” Tzuyu said, trying to lighten the mood. “We found the Company…or some of them, at least…”

Chaeyoung appreciated what Tzuyu was trying to do, but it didn’t soothe the ache of being led into a trap. She was getting them out of it and then she was going to hunt down her sources.

When there’s one agent, there’s another dozen in disguise.

“My illusions are starting to flicker,” Dahyun rasped, doubled over under the exertion of her own ability.

Tzuyu’s fingers slipped on the door, a pained hiss escaping her lips when it pulled on her healing arm.

Chaeyoung looked between them, both barely conscious and fading fast, then out at the soldiers already regaining their footing. Everything she threw at them only lasted a few seconds before they were advancing again.

She needed to do something and quickly.

Chaeyoung took a deep breath and pulled more energy into her body from the air around her, reaching into the static that always followed her and stirred it into something stronger. She coiled the electricity tighter and tighter with each breath, holding everything inward even though her ability demanded that she cast it out.

She tapped into the power that fueled her telekinesis and let it build until it threatened to tear her apart. Her heart seized under the pressure, her lungs barely able to expand, and her head ached almost as much as the ringing in her ears.

It was too much and she could feel herself falling apart beneath the raw power, but the need to protect her friends was stronger.

Then, like an elastic band, it snapped.

Her fists burst open and a wave of energy spiraled out of her palms, curving out in all directions. The walls shook around them and she felt the ground shift beneath her feet, but the power that she had been tempering fizzled out and died where she stood.

Useless. You can’t even protect them.

"Chaengie?" Tzuyu appeared in her vision, fuzzy and distorted around the edges. "Are you okay?"

Chaeyoung tried to reply, tried to reassure Tzuyu that she just needed a minute to catch her breath, but then Tzuyu started to tilt sideways and Chaeyoung reached out to catch her, only to realize that it wasn’t Tzuyu who was falling.

She felt herself plummeting towards the ground, an echo of her best friends' panic breaking through the static before everything went dark.

*********

Tzuyu yelped and leapt forward to catch Chaeyoung before her head cracked against the ground, causing the elevator doors to slam shut around the paperweight. A rubber bullet whistled through the gap and she kicked the paperweight out of the way, leaving them encased in the small elevator.

Dahyun dropped to her knees with a loud gasp, severing her own ability. “Why do I let her talk us into these kinds of things?” she wheezed. “It never ends well. Never.”

Tzuyu chewed on her lower lip anxiously, listening intently to the movement on the other side. She could hear the soldiers who were still standing. They were moving around, making noise, looking for a way to get inside.

“What do we do?” she whispered, rapidly tapping her knuckles against her knees. “Dahyun, what do we do?”

“I don’t know, Tzu,” Dahyun breathed. “Give me a moment.”

"We should call Jihyo," Tzuyu insisted. "Jihyo will know what to do."

“No, as much as it pains me to admit it, Chaeyoung’s right.” Dahyun looked over at her with a pained expression. “We have no idea what we’d be luring them into.”

“I want to go home,” Tzuyu whimpered. She scratched at her wrist until her skin started to break, clawing until it was all she could feel. She wanted to go home and hide in a nest of blankets until everything felt better. She wanted the rest of their team.

“I can get us out of this,” Dahyun whispered. “I can…There must be something I can do.” She clawed at her temples, curling her fingers into her skin hard enough to leave indents behind. “I just need to think…”

They didn’t have time for Dahyun to think.

Tzuyu flexed out her hands, testing the strength of both. She could still feel a slight strain in the left, but it would be good enough to fight with. Her gaze flickered down to Chaeyoung, her chest barely rising at all. Tzuyu could take a few bullets if it got the others to safety.

Her shoulder pulsated, radiating a constant ache as if she had been training for hours on end, but she could probably ignore it long enough to carry Chaeyoung. She had lifted far heavier things before than a small unconscious telekinetic.  

"I just need some more time to think!" Dahyun yelled and the room was suddenly cast into darkness.

“Dahyun?” Tzuyu looked around, unable to see anything beyond her own hands, and felt blindly for Chaeyoung, panicking when she couldn’t find her body. “Chaeyoung? Dahyun? Where are you?”

She reached out, stretching her fingers out into the endless dark, and crawled forward, trying to feel her way in the strange blindness. She felt the threshold of the elevator beneath her palm and followed the indent to the side of the door, using it as a guide to stand up.

“Dahyun!” she called without an answer.

Tzuyu blinked hard and squinted, trying to force her eyes to adjust. She couldn’t see and the familiar frostbite was seeping back into her body. She couldn’t see and she couldn’t feel anything. She remembered so many sleepless nights as a child, being trapped in the dark when she wasn’t good. She had simply existed, left to drift in a plane of consciousness unsure of what was real and what wasn’t, forced to be numb until she was reconditioned again.

She needed to get the lights back on. Everything would be fine once she could see again. She didn’t like the dark and that was okay. It didn’t make her weak. Nayeon had promised that it didn’t make her weak.

 ‘Let’s see just how much you can endure before you break, Subject Nine.’

Tzuyu doubled over with an agonized scream, crouching where she stood as phantom pain washed over her in a tidal wave, echoed voices floating around her – her trainers, the scientists, the guards, and him.

‘Interesting. Your bones do break after all.’

A new way to break her skin, a new method to snap bones, drugs to weaken, drugs to enhance. A perfect soldier. That was why they had been training her. She was supposed to be perfect. That was why the Doctor had hurt her. He wanted her to be perfect – but what they did to her was wrong. Her team – her family – had helped her to understand that.

‘But that was only one. Do you know that the adult human body has two-hundred-and-six bones, Subject Nine? That gives us so much more to experiment on. Shall we begin?’

“No!” Tzuyu clamped her hands over her ears, pushing until she couldn’t hear the voice. Her bones ached, trapped beneath skin that felt uncomfortably tight, remembering how far the scientists had pushed until her bones had snapped, remembering…

Warmth.

Tzuyu followed the sensation to her hands and gasped at the crimson coating that covered them. She cast her eyes down, searching herself for a wound she couldn't feel, and stumbled back with a panicked cry at the corpse in front of her.

“No…” Tzuyu collapsed on her knees, ignoring the way they collided roughly against the concrete. Her breath caught in her throat, quickening rapidly until she could barely breathe at all. “No, no, no – Sana? You’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to…”

She grasped the girl's shoulders and shook her, whimpering as empty eyes stared back at her. The blood on her hands was already drying, stealing the warmth and leaving the bitter chill behind. Her heart ached in her chest, threatening to shatter in a way she had never experienced before.

"Wake up…” She shook Sana’s shoulder again. “Please wake up…Sana…"

A droplet of water spilt down her cheek and dripped from her chin to splash against her knuckle, diluting the crimson that stained it. She swiped at her face with her other hand, inhaling sharply when more droplets started to fall.

"Chewy?"

Tzuyu's head snapped up, vision blurred by tears that refused to stop, and gaped at the figure in front of her.

Sana.

She looked back down at the body by her knees and scrambled back, heart hammering erratically at the face staring back. It was one of the masked militants, limbs broken and bloodied, face twisted in terror beneath a broken visor, but not Sana.

Not Sana.

“Are you hurt?”

Tzuyu looked around, taking in her surroundings as the darkness faded. She was standing in the middle of the reception, surrounded by several bodies that were quite clearly deceased. Did she do that? She couldn’t remember fighting anyone. “Ch-Chaeyoung–”

“Mina’s got her,” Sana said softly. “Dahyun’s okay too. Are you hurt, Chewy?”

“I–” Tzuyu stepped back from the dead soldier, only for her heel to bump against another. “I – did I…I didn’t–”

“Hey…” Sana followed her, unbothered by the bodies, and caught her bloodstained hand without hesitation. “You're crying," Sana whispered, brave enough to catch those tears with gentle fingers.

Warmth.

Tzuyu sank into her touch, selfishly stealing as much of that warmth as she could. "I'm sorry,” she whispered, unsure of what else to say.

Sana tilted her head, smiling fondly despite the visible concern in her eyes. “Why are you apologizing, silly?” she said lightly. “You’re allowed to cry.”

Tzuyu inhaled sharply, curling in on herself as the feelings amounted. It was too much. More than anything she'd ever felt before. "I'm…I’m supposed to be strong."

Sana’s hands fell away, taking the warmth, only for arms to wrap around her, gentle yet firm, providing so much more warmth than Tzuyu had thought possible. “That doesn’t mean that you have to bottle everything up inside.”

Slowly – hesitantly – Tzuyu reached up to touch Sana’s jacket, feeling the rough denim beneath her fingertips. Her fingers curled in the fabric and she could breathe again. Real. Sana was real.

She was alive.

"I thought it was you," Tzuyu croaked against her shoulder, holding on for dear life. "I thought that I...Sana, I thought..."

"It's okay," was whispered back as gentle fingers trailed through her hair, "I'm okay, angel. It wasn’t real. I’ve got you."

Sana turned her gaze to Dahyun, unconscious and cradled in Momo’s arms, the catalyst of the massacre they had walked into. She looked between her oldest friends, wondering what Momo and Mina had seen that was the cause for the sheer terror in their eyes, but she knew that she would see the same agony reflected back.

She felt Tzuyu shake in her arms, battling with emotions she didn’t understand, and tightened her embrace, trying to fend off the chill she knew Tzuyu was falling into.

The hug in itself would have been concerning enough even without the sobbing that was being stifled against her shoulder.

Tzuyu was never the one to initiate contact.

She held back, terrified that she would accidentally cause harm, yet she was clinging to Sana as if her very life depended on it.

“What the hell was that?” Mina rasped, keeping a tight grip on Chaeyoung’s wrist to monitor her pulse. “How did Dahyun…How did she do that?”

Momo’s eyes flickered up, blinking through the tears that were creeping down her face, but she wasn’t seeing Sana. She was still caught in the claws of whatever nightmarish hallucination she had been thrown into the moment they entered the building.

“I don’t know,” Momo whispered back as she drew Dahyun closer, gripping her like a lifeline. “I really don’t know.”

Chapter Text

Chaeyoung woke up alone in the warmth of her own bed. She turned her head to the left, expecting to see Tzuyu, but found her bed empty and tidy. It was nothing out of the normal, yet something felt off about it. Something had happened. Something she was forgetting.

Everything hurt and…the static was worse than usual, humming uncomfortably beneath her skin. It buzzed in her fingertips, accumulating there, like it was trying to get out.

Her gaze was drawn to the window, curtains drawn back and the edges of the glass panes already decorated with frost. It was dark outside, the evenings growing shorter as winter approached which made it difficult to tell morning from night, and the room was illuminated by the gentle glow of the nightlight Tzuyu had never grown out of.

It was night then, she decided. The nightlight was on a timer. So where was Tzuyu? Dahyun was missing too, evident by the lack of squeaking from the bunk-bed frame while their club captain tossed and turned in her sleep.

Had Chaeyoung fallen asleep? No, that didn’t seem right. Someone would have woken her up by now. Was she sick? Maybe that was it.

It certainly didn’t feel like the reason when the bedroom door swung open and her team leader stormed inside with an expression like thunder. She had likely sensed the very moment Chaeyoung first stirred. Pulling a sick day was exceptionally difficult around someone who could sense their feelings.

"Of all the reckless things you've done over the years, this definitely tops the list," Jihyo said, her voice low and trembling with barely tempered rage. "Risking your own life is one thing, but you knowingly put Dahyun and Tzuyu in danger too."

Dahyun and Tzuyu?

Chaeyoung felt like she’d been plunged in ice water. The Company outpost. They had followed her lead right into a trap, but that didn’t explain how she got home again. She couldn’t remember anything beyond hiding in the elevator.

“You are so damn lucky that the others found you when they did,” Jihyo continued furiously. “The only comfort is that Mina has assured me that you’re all going to be fine.”

The other members of the SMC were okay then. That was a huge relief…though Jihyo’s deepening scowl was a little concerning.

“You’re mad,” Chaeyoung croaked, the words scraping and clawing out of an achingly dry throat.

"Mad?" Jihyo echoed incredulously. "Chaeyoung, what I am right now is so far beyond mad." Her anger was evident, yet she didn’t hesitate to pass Chaeyoung the glass of water left on the bedside table.

Chaeyoung’s heart sank at the kindness she didn’t feel like she deserved in the slightest. Dahyun was right. Every plan she had concocted and enacted had only caused more harm than good. Every action she took against the Company brought them closer to being captured again.

"What the hell am I supposed to do?" Jihyo asked. It was rhetorical. "Ground you? You'll just sneak out. Confiscate your phone? You'll steal it back. I tell you 'no' and you just go and do it anyway!"

“I’m not a child anymore,” Chaeyoung voiced weakly.

“Really?” Jihyo exhaled deeply and retreated a few steps, sensing too much. “I’ve yet to see you act like the adult you claim to be.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to ease the impending headache she could feel approaching. “I am at my wit’s end, Chaeyoung. You don't listen to me."

"I do–"

"And you have never respected my position as leader."

"Jihyo, I do–"

“I was voted in to keep everyone safe,” Jihyo powered on, “but how am I supposed to protect you when you fight me every step of the way?”

“I just wanted to help.” Chaeyoung sank down in the bed, trying to hide from Jihyo’s displeasure beneath the blanket Mina had knitted for her. “If I get rid of the Company then we don’t have to hide anymore.”

“It’s not that simple!” Jihyo’s voice rose to a desperate cry, pleading Chaeyoung to understand a whole array of emotions that were buzzing beneath their leader’s skin. “It has never been that simple! You can’t charge against them. They’re too big and too hidden and too connected for us to ever stand a chance at taking them down.”

“But you’re not even willing to try,” Chaeyoung argued.

“Because I know that we would fail!”

Chaeyoung swallowed down the rest of her argument, unused to seeing Jihyo so upset, especially with her. It was unnerving, to say the least, and she had no idea how to talk her way out of it.

Jeongyeon was placated with an exchange of physical blows that soothed both of their tempers and Nayeon could often be calmed with little more than a heartfelt apology, but Jihyo took everything personally.

She was their leader so anything they did against her word had to be a disagreement with the way she was leading them. It was never seen as anything less.

“The Company want us alive,” Jihyo spoke through gritted teeth, “and do you know why? Do you?” She scrubbed at her eyes before looking down at the bedridden telekinetic and Chaeyoung shrank in on herself at the amount of agonized fury blinking back at her. “Have you ever stopped to think?”

Chaeyoung swallowed thickly. It was rhetorical again.

“They want us alive because they’re not finished with their sick experiments. We are nothing but property to them and they want their property back,” Jihyo said when Chaeyoung remained silent. “Think about that the next time you decide to disregard everything I have done to keep us safe.”

“Jihyo...” There was something she could do, the bare minimum of what was needed to mend their frayed relationship. “I’m sorry.”

Jihyo’s shoulders shook when she inhaled, a wet noise caught in her throat, and she turned away, but not before Chaeyoung saw the tears in her eyes.

“You’re not,” Jihyo said quietly. “Not in the way that you want me to believe you are.” She cleared her throat and took meaningful steps towards the door. “Mina’s on her way to check on you. Jeongyeon kept you some dinner if you’re hungry.”

Chaeyoung bit down on her tongue, refusing to say anything else that could deepen the hole she had dug herself, and watched Jihyo leave with a growing pit of guilt in her stomach. She didn’t mean to hurt their leader. She just wanted to help.

She had only ever wanted to help.

Just as their leader had foretold, Mina entered almost as soon as Jihyo was gone, looking no less angry than Jihyo had been.

“You’re awake,” Mina observed tightly.

"You told Jihyo," Chaeyoung accused quietly, unable to stop herself when her own temper rose to meet Mina’s obvious displeasure.

"You were unconscious, Chaeyoung," Mina fired back. "You needed medical attention. What was I supposed to do? Wait for you to wake up? Sneak you back in the house?” Mina sat on the side of the bed, taking a moment to compose herself. “I had no idea what state you were in and I couldn't get any information from Tzuyu beyond what we walked into. Dahyun still hasn’t woken up either."

Chaeyoung tried to sit up. “What happened to Dahyun?” she asked. “Is she okay?”

“Momo’s watching her,” Mina replied. “We think that she overused her abilities like you did and…did something new.”

“New?” Chaeyoung echoed numbly.

“She cast an illusion,” Mina tried to explain. “I saw…” She shuddered and shook her head, unwilling to share. “It doesn’t matter what I saw. The fact is that it wasn’t real and it stopped the moment Dahyun lost consciousness. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots.”

“An illusion?” Chaeyoung scratched at her skin, the buzzing growing like a spreading itch beneath her skin. “Other than the duplication she does?”

“It was like a hallucination of sorts,” Mina expanded. “We heard the gunshots and entered through the front door, but it wasn’t the reception, at least not for me. I was in the training room back at Jeju facility.” She folded her hands on her lap, twisting her fingers together as a distraction. “Sana and Momo confirmed my theory. Whatever Dahyun did…it dug up suppressed memories and twisted them into a nightmare. It was like self-defense, warping our perception to scare us away. I don’t think that she intended for it to affect us or Tzuyu.”

Tzuyu. Something in her expression must have given her away because Mina merely raised a stern eyebrow.

“Yes, Tzuyu has told me about her arm,” Mina told her. “If I didn’t know that she had fractured the bones and dislocated her shoulder, then I would have no reason to think she had ever been injured at all. It’s completely healed.”

Good. That was good.

Mina exhaled deeply, her shoulders sinking. “I was so worried,” she admitted quietly. “You were barely alive, Chaeyoung. Your pulse was so weak.”

Chaeyoung reached for her hands, despite how much it hurt to move, and curled her fingers around Mina’s. She pushed down until she could feel her pulse beating, knowing that Mina would feel it to – an apology that she meant wholeheartedly.

“I’m sorry,” Chaeyoung said softly.

Mina pulled her hand away, but not without giving Chaeyoung a gentle smile in response, parting with less pain between them. “How are you feeling?” she asked with genuine concern. “I’ll get you some painkillers. I’ll be back in a moment.”

Chaeyoung sighed when Mina slipped out of reach, hurrying away while her doctor-counterpart overrode the feelings they had been dancing around for several months.

What was it she had told Tzuyu? Oh yeah…

‘You could just tell her. Catch her alone and admit that you like her.’

Chaeyoung slumped back against the pillows. Dahyun was right. She was a hypocrite. How could she give Tzuyu advice on pursuing her crush when Chaeyoung couldn’t find it in herself to tell Mina how she felt.

What was she so worried about anyway? The worst thing that could happen was finding out that Mina didn’t feel the same way, but they lived and worked together. Sure, it would hurt, but they would be okay. It wouldn’t completely ruin the last decade of friendship they had tenderly formed.

Mina wasn’t the kind of person to let that happen.

“Hello?”

The door creaked open and a familiar face peeked around the edge.

Tzuyu.

"Hi," Tzuyu shuffled into the room, fidgeting with the sleeves of her sweater and looking every bit like a kicked puppy, "Mina said you were awake."

“You don’t have to look so sad about it,” Chaeyoung teased lightly.

“Oh, I’m not – I’m glad you’re awake,” Tzuyu said quickly. “I just…Well…Everyone’s a little upset right now.”

Dahyun was still unconscious and Chaeyoung had only recently rejoined the land of the living. Tzuyu had been the only one in a conscious state which likely meant that she had been on the receiving end of any anger that couldn’t be directed at her partners in crime.

Tzuyu wouldn’t have held up very well in any interrogations.

Chaeyoung glanced at Tzuyu’s arm, uninjured despite the vivid memory of bones breaking. "Is your arm definitely okay?" she asked. "It doesn't hurt?"

"Not even a little," Tzuyu confirmed happily. "Mina checked it. She thinks I might be able to heal injuries."

“I hope that Doctor Myoui was being nice,” Chaeyoung said. “This whole mess is my fault. The others shouldn’t take it out on you.”

Tzuyu regarded her strangely, seeing something Chaeyoung couldn’t. "She's not mad at you," she said, "and neither is Jihyo."

Chaeyoung scrubbed at her eyes, scoffing quietly. "They seemed pretty mad to me." She deflated with a sigh. “I’ve never seen Jihyo like that before.”

Tzuyu shook her head, disagreeing. "Jihyo was scared," she explained simply. "She loves us and not having us around would hurt forever."

It was such a childlike explanation, parroted words heard from one of the others while Jihyo hid away until her own ability calmed, but it helped – and it made sense.

Chaeyoung would hurt forever too if any of the team died.

"How's Dahyun?" she asked quietly.

Tzuyu shrugged, glancing away quickly while her whole demeanor changed, and began to tug at the frayed edges of her sleeves. “She’s still sleeping.”

Chaeyoung tried to catch her eyes again. “Tzuyu?” Something had happened between them. Something she had missed. "What happened while I was unconscious?"

Tzuyu’s eyebrows pulled down into a frown. “What did Mina tell you?” she asked quietly.

“Only that Dahyun cast an illusion that affected everyone.”

Tzuyu shifted where she stood, tapping her knuckles against the palm of her other hand, counting in her head. “Did you…see anything?”

Chaeyoung tilted her head curiously. It was rare for Tzuyu to be vague. She was usually so forthcoming with information, the go-to when any of them had been left out of the loop. “Like what?” she pressed.

“I…” Tzuyu looked down at her hands, turning them around in search of something. They were shaking. “Momo said that I took down the people that wanted to catch us,” she said, “but I don’t remember fighting them. I wasn’t there in my mind.”

“You took them out?” Chaeyoung asked in surprise. “But there were, like, thirty of them – and I don’t doubt your abilities, Tzu, but you were pretty beat after healing yourself. How did you manage that?”

“I just said that I don’t remember.”

Chaeyoung blinked in surprise at the terse tone Tzuyu spoke with. In fact, she couldn’t recall a time Tzuyu had snapped back at her ever.

“But you remember something, don’t you?” Chaeyoung tried to dig for whatever Tzuyu was hiding behind her defensiveness. “You saw something that scared you, didn’t you?”

Tzuyu recoiled. Violently. She staggered back with a rattled intake of breath, blinking rapidly, and tucked her hands beneath her arms. “I–” Her voice hitched, words dying on the tip of her tongue, and Chaeyoung felt her throat constrict. “I don’t remember.”

“Tzuyu?” Chaeyoung scrambled to sit upright and ignored the way the room spun. Tzuyu was lying to her. Something had spooked her, something that she didn’t want to talk about, which only made Chaeyoung worry more. "What happened?"

“I told you,” Tzuyu spat, her fear switching to aggression, a tactic she had developed as a kid to scare them away when her own feelings overwhelmed her, but Chaeyoung knew her too well now for that to work, “I don’t remember.”

“Tzu…you know that you can tell me anything, right? I would never judge you. It’s okay to feel scared–”

“I’m not scared!” Tzuyu’s voice rose and her back straightened as she drew herself up to her full height, another tactic to ward them off. “I don’t remember what I saw so just let it go, Sana!”

Chaeyoung’s eyebrows flew up to her hairline at the slip and saw the exact moment Tzuyu noticed it too. Her expression slackened and she blinked once, twice, until a lone tear spilt down her cheek.

She swiped it away only for another to fall in its place.

“Tzu?” Chaeyoung lowered her voice to a gentle whisper. “What–?”

"You should rest,” Tzuyu rasped and made a beeline for the door, barely catching herself from colliding into Mina. She whispered a broken apology and disappeared around the frame, the quickened thud of her footsteps on the stairs being the only indication of where she was going.

Mina watched her go, worrying away at her lower lip, then entered the bedroom with a soft sigh.

"Mina," Chaeyoung sat up as much as her aching body would allow, "she was–”

“Take two now and another two after dinner,” Mina spoke over her, approaching with the promised painkillers and a cold compress, a glint in her eyes telling her not to push any further on the fact that their emotionally-challenged teammate was crying.

Chaeyoung couldn’t recall a time she had seen Tzuyu cry before, not even when they were kids, but she would trust that the others had it covered. She needed to try to trust them.

So she let it go and swallowed down the doctor’s prescribed dosage without complaint.

"I'm fine, you know," Chaeyoung said. "You don’t need to do all this."

"You're not fine, Chaeyoung." Mina sat beside her and pressed the cold compress to Chaeyoung’s forehead, barely biting back a quiet hiss at the static charge that crackled into her own skin. "You overused your powers to the point that you collapsed."

“We all overuse our powers,” Chaeyoung couldn’t help but argue anyway, unsure why she couldn’t just accept Mina’s care. “It’s hardly something new.”

“Yes, but we don’t always drop in the middle of a fight,” Mina countered calmly and Chaeyoung realized that it was the calmness that irked her.

She wanted Mina to be angry. She wanted her to shout like Jihyo had, to get out any remaining anger that she felt towards her, to rant until the calmness was less forced. Chaeyoung deserved that, not the gentle touches and concerned glances.

“I’m fine, Mina.”

Mina sighed and guided Chaeyoung’s hand to hold the compress in place. “Why won't you let me take care of you?" Mina asked quietly, desperation and frustration set deep into her distressed expression. “Why do you always have to be so independent?”

Chaeyoung knew exactly why and she said as much, “Because I don’t want to rely on anyone but myself.”

“Chaeyoung…” Mina rested a comforting hand on Chaeyoung’s knee over the blanket, smiling sympathetically. It was the kind of smile that, from anyone else, would have had Chaeyoung’s hackles up, but from Mina…it had the opposite effect.

The static beneath her skin eased at the point of Mina’s contact and her guard lowered. She didn’t need to defend herself against Mina.

"Do you think that Momo's weak whenever she faints?" Mina took another approach, one Chaeyoung knew well.

"No, of course not."

"Or whenever Tzuyu needs one of us to simplify explanations?"

Chaeyoung sank down with a sigh. "No."

“And when Jihyo gets overwhelmed with our emotions? When she needs to step back from being our leader? Is she weak?”

“Never.”

“So why is it different for you?” Mina’s smile softened, her eyes holding so much warmth when the frustration melted away. "It is never weak to ask for help,” she said. “Our gentle giant was right. You should get some rest.” Her smile shifted into a smirk. “You’ll need your energy for all of the lectures coming your way.”

She stood, careful not to jostle the bed too much, and waited, deliberating silently before she bent down to leave a tender kiss against Chaeyoung’s temple.

“I’m so glad that you’re okay,” she whispered and parted with a rising blush, her fingers pressed against her lips in memory.

Chaeyoung collapsed completely as soon as the door clicked shut, buzzing for another reason entirely. Her skin tingled almost pleasantly where the memory of Mina's kiss remained, warm and welcome, lighting up all of the heightened nerve endings in her body.

 ‘You could just tell her. Catch her alone and admit that you like her.’

Chaeyoung closed her eyes and settled into the cool touch of the compress, focusing on it instead of the burning spot on her left temple.

“That was your chance, idiot.” She draped her hand over her eyes and kicked her heel against the mattress. “I’m in love with you,” Chaeyoung whispered aloud, speaking what she couldn’t voice in Mina’s presence. “I am so in love with you.”

Chapter Text

‘Subject Six, I want you to make Subject Three cooperate.’

Mina met Momo’s frightened gaze across the training room, looking back at her in desperation, hoping to find an ally in a room of lab coats and needles, but Mina couldn’t disobey. Refusing an order meant that they would have a reason to make her cry. Momo knew that.

‘Subject Six. Make Subject Three obey my command.’

‘Minari,’ Momo whispered, speaking in a whisper they were all attuned to, something so quiet that the adults wouldn’t hear, ‘please don’t. I can’t run anymore. I feel like I’m going to die.’

If Mina didn’t make her obey then they would both be in trouble.

She tugged on her power and saw a flash of silver reflected back at her in Momo’s wounded expression–

Mina pulled herself from her thoughts and opened the door to Momo and Jeongyeon’s bedroom, smiling sadly at the sight of the speedster sleeping upright on their desk chair beside her occupied bed, her eyelids twitching with a dream as she guarded Dahyun.

Momo had refused to leave her side and it would have only taken one word to get her to listen, but Mina couldn’t bring herself to do it, not after Momo’s panic when Dahyun wouldn’t wake up, and especially not after what Dahyun had unintentionally made her see.

She had promised to never use her ability like that ever again.

Mina sighed softly and quietly checked over Dahyun, pressing her thumb against the inside of the illusionist’s wrist to monitor her pulse. She wasn’t a trained medic, but self-taught. A life on the run and even their life inside the Company facility had given Mina enough time to practice.

Chaeyoung might have found an inkling of control in rebelling, but Mina had found control in being able to heal the damage the Company caused. The few times they were allowed within the same space as one another, Mina had found comfort in tending to the others’ injuries.

She didn’t mind being the designated doctor. All she had ever requested was that her teammates didn’t purposely put themselves in harm’s way, which was easier said than done most of the time.

Hospital trips were out of the question. They would perform blood work and then there was the further issue, beyond the fact that they weren’t normal, that they weren’t on record anywhere, even the school records were fabricated.

“She’s hardly moved since you last checked.”

Mina glanced up at Momo’s hoarse voice and bit back the instinctive response to tell her to stop sleeping in the chair before she hurt her neck because there was still panic lingering in her hooded eyes, a vulnerability they all tried to hide.

“She’ll be okay,” Mina said softly, providing reassurance where it was needed.

Momo shifted and winced when it pulled on stiff muscles. “And Chaeng?”

“Alive and well.”

“Jihyo didn’t kill her, I take it,” Momo muttered. “I might.”

Mina smirked, recognizing that there was no real threat, and gently rested Dahyun’s hand back on the bed. She touched her lips in memory again, warming at just how close she had been to saying more.

It had been a coward’s kiss, she knew that, but anything more was still too terrifying.

‘If Chaeyoung doesn’t like you back, you can just make her forget that you told her.’

Mina couldn’t do that, not even if she was held at gunpoint. She wasn’t the same scared little girl anymore, blindly obeying orders to save her own skin. She would deal with it like she would if she didn’t possess the ability to make the world bow to her.

"Have you spoken to Tzuyu?" Momo asked quietly. "Kid seemed pretty shaken up."

"Briefly when I checked her arm. She won't come near Dahyun and Sana can't seem to get her to talk about what she saw," Mina said softly. "Sana thinks that Tzuyu saw her, but..."

"The kid's not being very forthcoming with information," Momo finished. "I heard her pacing outside earlier but she didn’t come in. Kid’s probably scared that Dahyun will do her nightmare voodoo again."

Mina nodded and they fell into silence, listening to Dahyun's gentle breathing. Mina wondered if the illusionist was even aware of what she had done. Sana had managed to get some details from Tzuyu before she clamped up on them. It went dark and she lost everyone until Sana appeared.

They had walked into a bloodbath and amongst it all was Tzuyu, cradling a corpse and calling out for Sana. She had been clingy right up until Sana tried to claw more information from her. Now she was avoiding the question entirely, refusing to elaborate on what she had seen in the dark.

Mina’s hand drifted to her throat, remembering the tightness of a collar that could steal her voice with the push of a button, suffocating her until she was too afraid to even try to use her powers against their captors.

‘You are very special, Subject Six. You can make the world listen, but do not forget that you obey us. Do not forget that you belong to us.’

"Momo..." Mina looked at the speedster. "What did you see?"

Momo glanced at her, heavy eyes surrounded by dark shadows. “I know that it wasn’t real,” she muttered.

"But it felt real enough."

Momo dropped her head into her hands. “Did you hear that Jihyo has a date?” she asked, offering another subject to talk about. “It’s the new girl at Nayeon’s work. I think her name is Sunmi. We totally need to vet her before our leader gets in too deep.”

Mina sat down on the edge of the bed and waited. She had learned not to push with Momo and, like clockwork, Momo sighed heavily and tugged at her hair in frustration.

“I wasn’t fast enough,” she said quietly. “It was like my feet were concrete blocks. There was a shooter behind Dahyun and I couldn’t get to her in time. It kept repeating over and over again, changing from Jeju, to Seoul, and everywhere we’ve stayed in between…” She exhaled deeply, as if it would take the nightmare away with the breath. “What about you?”

Mina clasped her hands on her lap and looked down at Dahyun curiously. Not all of the illusions were entirely warped memories like she had initially thought. Momo’s had been more of a subconscious fear – the fear that she wouldn’t be fast enough when it mattered, while Mina’s had been a twisted memory from childhood.

She would need to get Sana and Tzuyu’s recounts to know for sure.

But Momo had asked her a question and it would be unfair to not answer.

“I was back in Jeju,” Mina told her, unable to look her in the eye. “We must have been eight or nine…We were training and you wouldn’t cooperate. You were tired and wanted to stop, but they wouldn’t let you, so they told me to…” She closed her eyes to stifle the memory of silver. “I made you do what they wanted," Mina whispered. "You begged me not to, but I did it anyway."

She heard the squeak of the desk chair when Momo shuffled forward. "Mina," Momo leant over to catch her hand, "we were kids. It was survival. I don't hold any of that against you."

“I know,” Mina breathed, “but I still regret it.”

Dahyun groaned quietly and stirred beneath the sheets, putting an end to their confessional talk. Mina knew that they would need to broach the subject of Dahyun’s new ability as a group eventually, but not yet. Momo had requested to be the one to fill Dahyun in on what she had missed so Mina would give her the time to do so.

“Let me know if she’s in any pain,” Mina murmured, slipping her hand free to leave her second patient of the day, and gave Momo a small smile. “You should get some rest too.”

“Later,” Momo agreed, mostly to placate her, but Mina appreciated it anyway. “Promise.”

Mina nodded and left them alone, closing the door behind her. She paused in the hallway, glancing at the door to the SMC’s bedroom, and resisted the urge to check on Chaeyoung again. She understood that the telekinetic would need some time alone to think on their words. There would be time to talk to her later.

Doctor duties over for the time being, she went downstairs, following the multitude of voices to the living room where the rest of the team were in deep discussion about what to do next.

"If the Company didn’t already know that we’re in Seoul, then they definitely do now," Nayeon was saying. “Maybe we really should consider moving.”

“I’m with Nayeon,” said Jeongyeon. “It’s too risky to stay here. Where did you say the outpost was, Sana?”

“North east of the library,” Sana answered. “Across the river.”

“It’s not even that far away,” Jeongyeon emphasized. “How do we know that they didn’t have anyone follow them home?”

Tzuyu was lurking in the archway, tucked out of the way but still listening intently to what was being said.

Mina took up the other side, mostly to keep an eye on their youngest member while also supervising the rest of their members. She would need to corner Tzuyu at some point. She was distressed about something, that fact obvious in the way she was keeping a distance. Mina had heard her slip-up with Chaeyoung, accidentally repeating an argument she had already had with Sana.

“We made sure that we weren’t followed,” Sana replied to Jeongyeon, constantly glancing at Tzuyu with a mixture of hurt and concern in her gentle gaze. “It was a little difficult when it looked like we were kidnapping Dahyun and Chaeyoung, but we took a longer route and looped a few blocks. We didn’t see any obvious tails.”

“But that doesn’t mean that they’re not watching us.” Jeongyeon’s pacing became faster as her anxious thoughts grew. “They just have to go to the high school and they’ll get our address. We need to leave the city.”

Tzuyu shifted out the corner of her eye, disagreeing with that solution, but didn’t speak out against it. She was so altruistic, reluctant to say anything that would cause a rift. Just once, Mina would have liked to see her argue back and hold her ground.

“We can’t go anywhere until we’re sure that our powers are stable,” Mina spoke up for her, drawing the attention of everyone else. “Dahyun's illusions extend beyond herself, Tzuyu is capable of healing, and it’s quite clear that Chaeyoung was trying to do something different too." Mina glanced at their leader, curled up on the couch with a mug of tea clasped tightly between her hands. She had to keep it simple, even if she didn’t truly understand it herself. "It’s almost like their powers evolved, forced by desperation, and the trap was the catalyst.”

“Dahyun’s illusion was scary,” Sana admitted, slumping down beside Jihyo. “It felt so real. I couldn’t find anyone. I was so alone in that damn glass tank and no one could see me. They forgot about me. They couldn’t hear me. And I couldn’t get out.”

Mina noted that away for investigation. Her illusion had been a memory, Momo’s had been a subconscious fear, and Sana’s seemed to be a combination of both. She was terrified of becoming trapped in her invisible state, frightened of being abandoned and forgotten. Sana had never been shy about it, partly sharing her fears to get the others to open up too. Then there was the ‘glass tank,’ which had to be the chambers they had been held in as kids, trapped with no escape.

“Then I heard Chewy calling for me,” Sana continued quietly, “and I was in the reception again and Chewy could see me.”

“And the Company soldiers were dead,” Mina added reluctantly.

“I don’t remember hurting them,” Tzuyu whispered, finally breaking her silence.

“We know,” Jihyo said softly. “We believe you.”

Tzuyu’s shoulders sagged, needing to hear that reassurance from their leader.

“Chaeyoung and Dahyun are both mostly conscious again,” Mina said, providing a change of subject. “We can find out who Chaeyoung’s contacts were and start from there. Maybe there’s a mole.” She looked to Tzuyu. “Chaeyoung didn’t happen to mention any names, did she?”

“No,” said Tzuyu. “She trusted them.”

“I was too harsh on her,” Jihyo sighed around her fingers. “I’ll talk to her later. Smooth things over. I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that.”

“From here on out, we can’t trust anyone outside of this team,” Jeongyeon said firmly.

Nayeon nodded, leaning back against the wall. “For now we need to assume that everyone in the city is against us,” she agreed. “And start looking at property prices again in the other cities. We should still have enough saved to find something relatively nice.”

Mina glanced around the house that had been their home for the last seven months, the only place that had pieces of them in sight. They had redecorated after the forth month and their bedrooms had their own personal touches added. She would miss it.

“I think that Chaeyoung’s right.”

All eyes snapped to Tzuyu in surprise, finding her scowling at the spot in front of her feet with both hands tucked beneath her arms.

“What?” Nayeon breathed.

“We can’t keep running from this.” Tzuyu’s head lifted, chewing on her lower lip. She was clearly nervous about speaking up, but Mina was thrilled to see her taking her own stance on the topic without immediately backing down. “This isn’t freedom,” Tzuyu said. “This is just another form of the Company controlling us.”

“Freedom always comes at a cost, kid,” Jeongyeon tried to placate her. “This is the cost for ours.”

“But it’s bullshit.”

“Tzuyu!” Nayeon gasped loudly, affronted by the expletive. “Who taught you that word?!”

“I can’t keep doing this,” Tzuyu continued, undeterred by Nayeon’s reaction. “We’ll just set up somewhere else and pretend to be a happy family until we have to leave again. You tell me to settle and make friends, but what’s the point?”

“We get to stay together,” Sana voiced quietly, on her feet again and taking a cautious step towards Tzuyu, and then another when the other girl didn’t recoil. “We lose friends, but we get to keep this family.”

Tzuyu sighed heavily, sinking down with the deep exhale, and looked at them imploringly. “But is it wrong to want more than that?”

“Of course not,” Jihyo murmured, “but our situation is–”

“Complicated, I know,” Tzuyu finished, frustrated yet accepting of the answer she was given. “So we’re not going to do anything?”

Jihyo scrubbed at her eyes, bearing the burden of leadership. “What we’re going to do is fly under the radar until the consequences for your little stunt reveal themselves.”

Tzuyu bristled, the dismissal prodding at sensitive nerves, and Mina caught the pleading glance from Sana. She needed to separate Tzuyu from the others before she said or did something she’d regret. Normally Sana would have suggested a walk, but she was still keeping her distance from Tzuyu after their earlier argument.

“Tzuyu,” so Mina created her own opportunity, “could I check your arm one last time please? In the kitchen?”

The super soldier held her ground for another second before she ultimately caved and followed without complaint, even sitting exactly where Mina indicated at the table. She was already calming down, settling into the familiarity of following orders without question, and while Mina would normally have advised her to follow her own intuition, she could see that the simplicity of obeying commands was exactly what Tzuyu needed.

“Ready to talk about what you saw yet?” Mina asked gently, sitting beside her to pretend to examine her arm again. “Or your fight with Sana?”

Tzuyu grimaced at the reminder. “I didn’t mean to hurt her,” she whispered and Mina heard a heaviness in her tone that suggested that Tzuyu meant that statement in more ways than one. “I didn’t want to talk about it and she kept asking.”

“Because she’s worried about you,” Mina explained. “We all are.”

“I…” Tzuyu swallowed thickly and looked away. “It wasn’t real,” she said quietly. “So it doesn’t matter what I saw.”

Mina looked skyward, inwardly cursing the stubbornness of her teammates. “You don’t have to talk about it, Tzuyu. We won’t force you to,” she said, “but it might help.”

“No,” Tzuyu disagreed. “If I talk about it then I’ll feel that way again and I didn’t like it.”

Mina touched exactly where Tzuyu had said she felt the bone break and as expected, it felt perfectly normal. “What did you feel?”

“Helpless,” Tzuyu mumbled, settling on the word with a frown. “Weak.” She sighed and slumped forward across the table, stretching out her arms. “Anything less than strong is a flaw and perfect things aren’t flawed.”

‘Perfect things aren’t flawed.’

She had heard that before, a long time ago when Tzuyu would reappear with track-marks on the insides of her elbows and bruises that took too long to heal. Drugs to make her stronger, drugs to make her weaker. What harm was there in experimenting on a kid that seemed unbreakable?

“There’s no such thing as ‘perfect.’” Mina looked out of the window, her attention drawn to small flakes of white falling from a darkened sky. “It’s the biggest illusion of all.”

Tzuyu’s eyes fluttered shut, but not before a droplet of water spilt from her eyes to splash down on the polished wood. “Did you know that the adult human body has two-hundred-and-six bones?” she asked in a small, shaky voice.

Mina tilted her head at the odd fact and patted Tzuyu on the head. It was clear that she didn’t want to talk about what she had witnessed in the illusion yet. Maybe Momo would have more luck in pulling information from their super soldier later – Tzuyu certainly seemed more comfortable talking to the speedster, but it was clear that Tzuyu wasn’t going to be very talkative on her own.

“I didn’t know that,” Mina replied softly and turned her gaze to the window again to watch the snowflakes.

Mina liked silence.

The absolute quietness that it brought didn’t bother her and it wouldn’t be the first time she had spent an evening in Tzuyu’s company without uttering another word. She was content enough to keep her youngest teammate company for however long Tzuyu needed while the others debated in the other room about how they were going to move forward from a past that refused to let them.

Her eyes followed the lazy dance of the snowflakes as they drifted to the ground and realized with a small pang in her chest that they had never experienced Christmas in a home before. Seoul was supposed to be their first.

It was a shame. She had always wanted to see the city during the winter season. She had wanted to visit the Christmas markets with Chaeyoung and enjoy the family holiday she had only ever read about.

Mina sighed and stretched out beside Tzuyu, gently hooking her pinkie around the other girl’s. “I think that Chaeyoung’s right too,” she whispered, causing Tzuyu’s eyes to open wide, still glistening with unshed tears. “I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives running.”

She wanted a life free from fear. She wanted to visit the Christmas markets with Chaeyoung. She wanted to take her on a date in the city, to the little bookshop she had found last month that she just knew Chaeyoung would love. She wanted to meet Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu’s friends from school, and see them graduate high school. She wanted to decorate their home and see her family carefree for once in their lives.

Mina wanted so much more, but she couldn’t have any of it if they kept running.

“This is our home,” she breathed, “and I think that it’s worth fighting for.”

Taking the upmost care, Tzuyu slowly gave her pinkie finger a tiny squeeze with her own, expressing so much more gratitude and solidarity in that one small gesture than words ever could, and Mina’s decision was sealed.

Mina didn’t want to run anymore.

Chapter Text

“So…” Dahyun pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, thinking on everything Momo had told her, “I created a massive illusion?”

“Yeah.”

“And it was different for everyone?”

“Mhm.”

“And Tzuyu took down the soldiers on her own but doesn’t remember doing it?”

“Yep.”

“And now she’s avoiding me because I accidentally forced you all into a nightmare?”

Momo nodded. "That about sums it up, yeah."

Dahyun sank down with a heavy sigh. That wasn’t good. She didn’t mean to trap everyone in an illusion. She had just needed some more time to come up with an escape plan and her ability had responded in kind.

The power had spilt from deep inside her and Dahyun didn’t even try to stop it.

Evidently it had worked. They were home. They were safe. They weren’t dead or being carted back to Jeju.

But she had forced four of her friends to endure the nightmare she had created and now her own roommate wouldn’t come within ten-feet of her…

"Hey," Momo reached for her hand, "don't stress about Tzuyu. She'll come around. She always does."

That wasn’t even half of her worries. How could Momo sit there when Dahyun had created such a horrible hallucination? How could she touch her when Dahyun was capable of that kind of mental manipulation?

“So what did everyone see?” Dahyun dared to ask, not even sure that she wanted to know.

Momo glanced away and back again, a gesture Dahyun knew well enough to know that Momo was deliberating the consequences of lying or telling the truth.

“Nothing too horrible,” Momo said lightly. “Sana was permanently invisible, Mina had to use her power when she didn’t want to, Tzuyu saw something that made her beat the shit out of the Company’s private army, and I…wasn’t fast enough.”

It was a brief enough summary, yet it felt unfinished. Dahyun knew that Momo had kept it purposely vague so as not to cause her more stress, but she wanted to know. It had to have been worse than what Momo had described so flippantly.

Why else would Tzuyu be avoiding her? The very same person who had been following her without question since they were children. It was entirely out of character in their life of limited freedoms. There had to be a reason. It had to have been something she had seen.

“Tzuyu really didn’t tell you what she saw?” Dahyun challenged.

“No.” Momo squeezed her hand. “But Sana’s working on that, don’t worry.”

That brought up her next concern regarding their youngest friend.

“And they had a fight?” Dahyun still couldn’t quite believe it herself. Sana adored Tzuyu and Dahyun knew that Tzuyu admired Sana just the same.

“A real couple spat, yeah,” Momo’s smile reappeared, though it was more strained than usual, “It would’ve been entertaining had the circumstances been different.”

The whole situation felt so surreal. First Chaeyoung had unknowingly led them into a trap, then Tzuyu had miraculously healed her own wounds, their telekinetic friend had shorted out in the middle of a fight where they were trapped in an elevator of all things, and then Dahyun had created an illusion unlike anything before.

“I’m sure that they’ll sort it out between themselves, though,” Momo said to fill the silence. “Tzu’s a big softie. She’s probably stewing in guilt right now, and Sana can’t stand seeing her sad. They’ll be okay.”

Dahyun really hoped so. It had been nice trying to encourage Tzuyu to tell Sana how she felt while also totally ignoring her own feelings for the girl in front of her, one who had charged into a Company trap without a single thought for her own safety the moment she heard the sounds of a fight.

A small smile tugged at her lips. “You came to rescue us,” she declared smugly. “And you gave all the glory to Tzuyu. You could have lied and said you took out at least one soldier.”

“Really?” Momo lifted an eyebrow in response, her eyes glittering at the lightheartedness of her comment. “You’re going to criticize how I rescued you?”

“It just doesn’t make for a very good retelling, Momo,” Dahyun teased and cleared her throat, changing her tone to a poor imitation of Momo, “’And then I swooped in, ready to take down whoever had harmed my beloved Dubu,”–she swung up a fist and slammed it down on the mattress dramatically–“but alas! The enemies were already vanquished by our self-healing battering ram!’”

“Hey, I don’t sound like that!” Momo swatted her knee, barely able to stifle the laughter threatening to bubble out of her chest. “And that’s not even close to how I described it! It was way more dramatic than that!”

Dahyun was less successful in her attempt to not laugh and quickly dissolved into a fit of giggling, and how wonderful it felt to laugh after the chaos she had been swept up in. The warmth radiated from a singular spot in her chest that she soon realized was her heart, beating with more life than it ever had before.

She might have created a nightmare for her friends, but it felt like a barrier in her mind had fallen away and timid curiosity had her wondering what else she was capable of. What else could she do? How else could she warp reality?

How could she use it to keep them safe?

“You’re so beautiful when you smile.”

Dahyun’s attention snapped to Momo as blood rushed to her head, warming further when she saw the lovesick smile Momo was giving her. Surely she had misheard her. Perhaps she had hit her head and Mina had overlooked the head injury. “What?” she whispered.

Momo blinked in surprise, once, twice, then gasped in realization. “I said that out loud, didn’t I?” Momo covered her mouth with her hands, trying and failing to hide her own blush. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

Dahyun’s heart leapt into her throat. She didn’t mishear her.

Say something back.

Momo searched her gaze before her eyes darted down to Dahyun’s lips. “But I meant it,” she said quietly. “You’re beautiful.”

Dahyun inhaled sharply and all coherent thoughts fled her brain in an instant – and how dare Momo throw a curveball like that! How dare she deliver a compliment that Dahyun was utterly unprepared to receive! How dare she–!

Momo suddenly tipped forward and Dahyun’s eyes blew wide in surprise when their lips touched, tentatively at first before her brain finally registered what was happening.

Dahyun released the blanket to rest her hands on Momo’s shoulders while the hand on her knee slid up to rest just above her hip and she sank into the kiss, returning it just as desperately. Her head felt fuzzy, lightheaded in disbelief that she wasn’t hallucinating, or currently trapped in an illusion herself, but then Momo’s other hand touched her cheek and Dahyun knew that it was real.

She uncrossed her legs and pulled Momo closer, lacing her fingers at the top of Momo’s spine to keep her there. She exhaled deeply and they settled into a calmer exchange of gentle kisses, chaste and whisper-sweet, that managed to set every nerve ending alight, her skin buzzing with warmth and desire.

It was perfect and everything Dahyun had imagined kissing Momo to be – not that she had been imagining it a lot though, because that would be creepy and possibly a little obsessive. She had just imagined it a considerable amount of times...a sane amount of times...a perfectly reasonable amount of–

A sudden knock on the door had Momo springing away, breathing as heavily as Dahyun was.  

“Come in!” Momo called, quickly fixing her shirt before the door opened, only for her demeanor to darken when Chaeyoung peeked inside.

"Hey," Chaeyoung tried and failed an attempt at a smile, wilting beneath Momo's glower. "I wanted to see how you were doing."

Dahyun softened in an instant, her own smile far more genuine until Momo leapt to her feet and stalked around the bed on a warpath towards the telekinetic. “Momo, don’t–” Dahyun reached for her arm but Momo was already out of reach.

Chaeyoung squeaked in fright and threw up both palms in surrender. “Momo, wait! I can explain!” she stammered. “I didn’t know that it was a trap! I swear–”

“You,” Momo seized the front of Chaeyoung’s shirt and tugged her into a tight embrace, “are such an idiot.”

Chaeyoung hesitated only for a moment before she sank into the embrace, hugging Momo back just as tightly, soaking up every inch of affection that Momo was offering. Beneath her reckless bravado and carefree attitude was a damaged soul just as frightened as the rest of them.

Dahyun had been terrified through their ordeal. She could only image how scared her friends had been. Especially Chaeyoung, who was the very cause for them being there. She couldn’t have possibly known what would happen and while she often acted on impulse, Chaeyoung would never purposely endanger them to that degree.

“So...which one of your oh-so-trustworthy contacts sold us out?” Dahyun asked when no one said anything. “No offense, Chaeng, but it’s hard to believe that we weren’t purposefully led there.”

Chaeyoung sighed heavily against Momo’s shoulder, worn out and tired, emotionally and physically. “I don’t know,” she said wearily. “I trusted them.”

“It’s okay, little tiger,” Momo told her, reassuring her the same way she did when they were ten years younger and being tormented by cruel trainers and callous scientists. “We’ll figure it out,”–her tone lowered, taking on a darker edge to it–“and then I’m going to kill them.”

Dahyun believed her wholeheartedly and for once she didn't try to be the mediator and dissuade Momo from her rather violent declaration. Chaeyoung had trusted her contacts, something she struggled greatly to do even with her own family, and Tzuyu had been left to deal with the fallout of a plan gone wrong, petrified enough of whatever Dahyun's power meltdown had tricked her brain into seeing that she was hiding away.

They were her sisters, her little sisters, and no one was allowed to hurt them.

No one.

Not while she still drew breath.

Chapter Text

The house had been quiet. Uncomfortably so.

In the days after what was dubbed as the ‘elevator-trap,’ the team had divided into groups with different opinions on how they should proceed. The clear cut and dry was that there were two clear options. Either they run or they stay, but within those two options were even more variations.

Momo, Mina, and the youngest three wanted to stay despite their multitude of debates, choosing to fight instead of run, while Jeongyeon, Nayeon, Jihyo and Sana saw the sense of remaining free.

Jeongyeon had listened to them and she understood where they were coming from, but she couldn’t risk anything that would potentially take away their freedom. She had already started looking at properties for sale in the surrounding cities. The problem with constant running over the past seven years was that they had already travelled across the vast majority of South Korea already, but cities were large, densely populated, and ever-changing.

Moving to another city was the safest option.

It would be a burden off of Jihyo’s shoulders too. Their leader wouldn’t dare say anything, but Jeongyeon knew that the division was taking its toll on her. It was precisely why she had urged her to accept Sunmi’s spontaneous coffee date offer. A few hours out of the house with company that wasn’t her immediate family would do her some good.

And Jihyo’s eyes lit up when she spoke about the barista, her smile always a little brighter when her phone chimed with a new message. Jihyo deserved happiness.

“What do you think about Busan?” Nayeon asked, stretched out across the couch with her legs over Jeongyeon’s lap. Her laptop was propped up on her thighs and an array of browser tabs were open when she turned it to Jeongyeon, a multitude of properties still to be compared. “It’s practically the other side of the country and it’s been about five years since we were there. The kids are all grown up now. I doubt anyone would recognize them.”

Jeongyeon looked at the property Nayeon had sourced. It was a rather large apartment in an upscale area of the city with plenty of space for all them. It would be pushing their budget but Jeongyeon would gladly choose comfort over cost any time after some of the less favorable places they had lived in over the years.

“What do you think?” Nayeon smiled at her, all toothy and bright, and Jeongyeon felt her heart flutter at the sight. “This one has four bedrooms.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “I wouldn’t mind sharing with you.”

Jeongyeon rolled her eyes fondly and patted Nayeon’s knee. “As if Jihyo would let that happen,” she countered.

“If we give Jihyo her own room then she’ll let us do whatever we want,” said Nayeon.

“Oh, come on. That’s hardly fair on the others.”

Nayeon smirked and sank deeper into her comfortable position. “Yeah, well, I’m the oldest and what I say goes.”

As charming as she was, Jeongyeon knew that letting Nayeon control the roommate layout wouldn’t end well. She was also well aware that while no one minded sharing bedrooms, the need for space was apparent.

Who knew that trying to pretend to be normal while taking on increasingly more dangerous contracts without getting caught by the authorities would be a difficult balance to maintain?

“Okay, I’m sold,” Nayeon kicked her feet in excitement, “this one has a whirlpool bath.”

“Don’t be so materialistic,” Jeongyeon scoffed.

“Excuse me. I haven’t spent half my life being an unqualified parent to not want a little pampering,” Nayeon fired back. “Buy me a whirlpool bath,”–she winked at Jeongyeon–“and maybe I’ll let you join me.”

Blood surged to Jeongyeon’s face while she tried to keep that particular imagery out of her mind. “Would you stop that?” she hissed.

“Why?” Nayeon reached out to brush her fingers across Jeongyeon’s shoulder. “You’re so cute when you get flustered.”

Jeongyeon’s eyes narrowed and even though her internal panic wanted her to run she managed to stay put. There were a dozen retorts she could have said, but only one thing left her lips. “You are qualified,” she mumbled.

“Hm?”

“As a parent,” Jeongyeon clarified. “You’re a good mom to these kids.”

Nayeon’s eyes widened in surprise and it was her turn to blush, but before she could dismiss the praise or even counter it, their attention was drawn to the hallway behind them when Tzuyu barreled down the stairs with Sana hot on her heels.

“Chewy!” Sana called after her, chasing with an expression caught somewhere between furious and heartbroken at the same time. “Can you please just talk to me?”

Jeongyeon started to rise instinctively, recognizing the terror in Tzuyu’s eyes, but a gentle hand on her wrist kept her down.

Sana managed to catch a couple of Tzuyu’s fingers just as the younger girl reached the door, practically tearing it from the top hinge, and the pair flickered in front of Jeongyeon’s eyes, invisible for a split second before Tzuyu slipped free and they both disappeared out the front door.

As quickly as their silence had been interrupted, it fell over them again.

“Did you see that?” Jeongyeon looked down at Nayeon, peeking over the couch with a conflicted expression. “Sana’s ability doesn’t work on the rest of us.”

Nayeon hummed thoughtfully and settled back down, reopening her laptop as if nothing had happened. “I guess I’ll be putting the whirlpool bath on a wish list for now,” she murmured with a pointed glance at their broken front door.

Jeongyeon frowned. Two of their teammates had just swept past, clearly in the middle of another disagreement, and Nayeon was more concerned with finding a new door? That wasn’t like her. “You’re really going to pretend that didn’t happen?”

“No.” Nayeon didn’t even look at her. “They’ve been walking on eggshells around each other ever since our little rebels were recovered,” she said. “Let them go, Jeongie.”

“But–”

“We need to trust that they can sort this out between themselves,” Nayeon told her. “As much as I love coddling the kids, we need let them handle some things on their own.” She looked at Jeongyeon with a soft smile. “But I will always be there to catch them when they fall.”

‘We jumped straight to marriage and adopted seven little heathens.’

Nayeon turned her laptop to Jeongyeon again. “You never answered my question,” she accused. “What do you think of this apartment?”

‘We have a house, a soccer-mom-minivan – legally we all share my surname–’

“It’s big enough that we won’t be breathing down each others’ necks all the time. I think that’s pretty important after the last few months.”

‘All I’m missing is a ring.’

Jeongyeon swallowed thickly and glanced at Nayeon’s right hand, wondering what it would look like with a silver band, something that would bind them together further than their foundation of friendship and unending devotion to one another.

“Oh, and look at the view you get, Jeongie!”

Nayeon would no doubt make a fuss about the ring not being materialistic enough but it would all be part of an act. Nayeon had never cared about money. She had given everything she had and more to the team. To their family.

The thought of having Nayeon forever in a different sense was a beautiful one. There would be no more secret kisses or whispered admissions when they were sure that no one else would hear.

"I wouldn't mind it, you know,” Jeongyeon mumbled.

Nayeon barely glanced up from her laptop, still flicking through the slideshow of images. "Mind what?" she asked.

Nayeon’s friendship was so important to her and perhaps the only reason why she still had a shred of sanity left, but she was overcomplicating things. Nothing she did could possibly ruin what had formed between them.

It was so simple really.

"Marriage."

Nayeon’s laptop tumbled to the ground, undamaged from the quick look Jeongyeon glimpsed before her vision was obscured and warmth flooded her body. It took only a second for Jeongyeon to register that Nayeon was kissing her and that she was kissing her back.

Hands twisted in the front of her shirt, tugging her closer, and Jeongyeon obliged willingly, kissing deeper and deeper until her lungs started to spasm and she needed to pull away to breathe.

Nayeon’s eyes were wet when Jeongyeon saw them, unbridled relief and delight hugging her pupils. She was so beautiful, inside and out.

“Shouldn’t we try the girlfriend part first?” Nayeon whispered teasingly.

Jeongyeon reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear and let her fingers linger on Nayeon’s cheek, brushing across the soft skin. “You want to?”

Nayeon bit her lower lip as more tears gathered in her eyes and she nodded earnestly. “More than anything,” she breathed.

“Then let’s try it,” Jeongyeon said. “Forget the rules we agreed on. I don’t want to date if I’m not dating you.”

Nayeon leant over to kiss her again, gentler the second time, savoring every moment they could, and Jeongyeon had her answer.

“And if we ever do get married,” Jeongyeon pulled back to look up into her eyes, enamored as always by her beauty, “the first thing I’ll get you is that whirlpool bath.”

Nayeon laughed wetly and nudged her shoulder with her knuckles. “I’m going to hold you to that, Yoo.”

Jeongyeon grinned and brushed their noses gently. “I’m counting on it.”

Chapter Text

Sana loved with her entire being. Her passions were all consuming, her desires encompassing, her feelings heightened in the same way that Jihyo’s senses were always hyper-aware.

Sana was used to being invisible. It was her ability amongst others. She was used to going unseen so she made a point of being heard, of making herself be seen, which was why it hurt as much as it did that her Chewy was ignoring her.

She had given Tzuyu a few days, thinking that maybe she just needed space, but Tzuyu was still avoiding her and not even trying to pretend that she wasn’t.

Sana knew that it had something to do with Dahyun’s illusion and she had tried to get Tzuyu to talk about it – oh, she had tried, but Tzuyu was reverting back to her old defense mechanism and instead chose to shut them out.

She regretted their fight immensely, knowing that she had thrown out words intended to hurt in the way that Tzuyu was hurting her, knowing that she had pushed when she should have left her in peace.

Sana glanced at Tzuyu, both of them walking slower while Mina and Momo struggled with Dahyun and Chaeyoung. They had opted to giving their unconscious teammates what looked like a piggyback to any onlookers that didn’t look too closely, yet their hurried pace had to be causing them difficulty, and while Sana knew she should probably offer to help…her Chewy wasn’t herself.

‘Chewy?’ Sana reached for her hand like she always did and tried to lace their fingers together but Tzuyu snatched her limb back and cradled it against her chest, breathing frantically. ‘Chewy, what did you see?’

Tzuyu glanced at her sharply, fear shielded behind a false bravado. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘It was just dark.’ She looked away again, staring intently at the ground ahead of her own feet. ‘I don’t like the dark.’

‘I know when you’re lying, Chewy,’ Sana countered softly. ‘You can’t deceive me when I’ve taught you everything you know.’

Tzuyu exhaled, the sound coming out wet and rough, and the fingers of her cradled hand started to tap against her shoulder. ‘I don’t remember what I saw,’ she said, producing another lie.

‘I think it would help you to talk about it.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

Sana raised an eyebrow. So she did remember. ‘Come on. It can’t possibly be that bad that you can’t tell me.’

Tzuyu glanced at her again and shook her head in disagreement. ‘I can’t.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Sana,’ Momo looked back at them, a warning in her eyes, leading them down another empty side street on their extended path home, ‘she doesn’t want to talk about it.’

Sana scowled at her back. How many times had Momo pulled information from their youngest member when she clearly didn’t want to talk? Her intentions were different. She needed to make sure that Tzuyu was okay because Tzuyu meant everything to her.

Tzuyu had been crying and Sana had heard her name spill from the girl’s lips in a warbled sob, pleading and desperate.

Sana had been part of Tzuyu’s illusion. She didn’t know how or to what extent, but Sana had been part of Tzuyu’s nightmare and she needed to know why.

‘Chewy,’ she tried to touch her again and her fingertips just barely brushed Tzuyu’s elbow before she jerked away, ‘what happened to me?’

Panic flashed in Tzuyu’s expression, indicating that she was on the right line of questioning, but Sana was once again shut out.

‘I don’t want to talk about it, Sana.’

Sana bit down on her lip, digging her teeth down until the pain was worse than her bleeding heart. ‘You can trust me, Chewy,” she whispered. ‘Whatever it was – it doesn’t matter. Nothing could ever change how much I–'

Tzuyu turned on her with a feral gleam in her eyes, both fists trembling by her sides, and Sana fell silent when those eyes snapped to each of her limbs routinely, exactly as they had back in the reception.  Tzuyu rarely had that expression and it was even rarer that Sana experienced the full brunt of it, but Tzuyu was feeling cornered and Sana knew that she should have stopped five minutes ago.

‘I killed them – all of those people,’ Tzuyu hissed through gritted teeth, her tone sounding aggressive even though Sana knew that she was frightened, ‘and I could just as easily kill you.’

Sana stopped abruptly, stunned by the violence coming from Tzuyu – from her sweet Chewy who was always so frightened of her own strength, terrified that she would hurt them without meaning to.

Tzuyu had never threatened her like that before – only it wasn’t a threat. It was a warning. Tzuyu was trying to scare her away.

‘Chewy,’ she croaked. ‘I just want to help.’

‘Well, I don’t want your help!’ Tzuyu snapped back. ‘You should stay away!’

How could Sana ever possibly comply with that demand? How could she possibly leave when Tzuyu’s eyes begged her to stay even while she tried to frighten her away with words?

How could Sana stay away when each day of separation made her heart break a little more?

On and on they had argued until eventually they reached the house and Tzuyu had been able to escape with the excuse of Mina checking her injuries and then relaying every second before the rescue to the leading trio.

Sana had given her space. Sana had given her time. She had tried to be patient and wait, but she couldn’t let it continue when Tzuyu could barely look her in the eye anymore.

“Chewy!” Sana quickened her pace, cursing Tzuyu’s long legs for perhaps the first time in her life as she slipped and stumbled in the snow.

She had tried to corner her upstairs, catching her just outside her bedroom, but Tzuyu, unlike some of the team, actually took Jeongyeon’s cardio regime seriously and could easily power walk while Sana sprinted just to keep up.

Realizing that Tzuyu was already starting to create distance between them, Sana delved deep for her final move – her own personal checkmate that always worked when she needed it to.

“Tzuyu.”

Tzuyu stopped immediately, forced to oblige her when the sweet moniker of her name vanished.

“You’re avoiding me,” Sana stated, striding the rest of the way to where Tzuyu was standing at the end of their street, “and I have no idea why so please, Chewy, could you just talk to me?”

Tzuyu kept her back to her, refusing to look at her and it was enough to sting until Sana noticed her shoulders shake suddenly.

She was crying.

“Hey…” Sana edged forward to gently touch her bicep, letting Tzuyu adjust to the sensation before she slid her hand down to curl around Tzuyu’s. “Please don’t shut me out," Sana pleaded, clinging to the cold, cold hand, trying to force some of her own warmth into the other girl. “We’ve been through too much to go back to that, Chewy. Please talk to me.”

Tzuyu’s shoulders shook again, the uncontrolled movement forcing a contorted sob from her chest, and Sana felt herself flicker again, her heartbeat quickening when Tzuyu flickered with her.

“I don't know how," Tzuyu whispered, speaking her first words to Sana since the ‘elevator-trap.’

“Just try,” Sana pulled just enough that Tzuyu turned, an urge to see her face overpowering everything else. “It’s okay if it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t have to make sense. Just try.”

Tzuyu sniffled, breaking under the pressure of her own forced solitude while frustrated tears pooled in pained eyes, a look of confused mourning finding itself onto her face.

“I lied,” she said eventually.

It was a starting point at least.

“What did you lie about?” Sana prodded gently.

Tzuyu’s free hand lifted to scrub at her eyes. “Not remembering.”

Sana caught the scrubbing hand, preventing the rough treatment to Tzuyu’s face, and brushed her thumb across the girl’s knuckles, providing a grounding touch through the comforting contact she had been willing to give ever since Tzuyu let her.

“About what you saw?” Sana clarified, to which Tzuyu nodded with another sniffle.

“It was dark and I couldn’t find Dahyun or Chaeyoung,” Tzuyu began quietly. “I was alone and I couldn’t feel anything...then…” Tzuyu pulled against her grip, not to get away, but to express her struggle. “Sana.”

“It’s okay,” Sana ducked to catch panicked eyes, trying to communicate that Tzuyu was safe with her, that Sana would never let anything hurt her, “It wasn’t real, Chewy, remember? It’s okay. Take your time.”

Tzuyu nodded, remembering to breathe, and tried again to explain. “It hurt,” she said. “They hurt me just to see what would happen and I couldn’t stop them. I didn’t have the words to tell them to stop.”

‘They.’ Sana already had an inkling that Tzuyu’s repressed memories had manifested themselves, but that still didn’t explain the distance. Sana knew that the Company had hurt her. She was still trying to repair the damage a decade on, but it wasn’t an easy task. Their wounds had healed but the scars ran deeper than skin.

“They always wanted me to hurt you too,” Tzuyu continued, shifting in her grasp until Sana started to rub her knuckles again. “They made me fight everyone in training. I was always so scared of hurting you.”

‘You still are,’ Sana thought internally, but she didn’t dare voice it. Sana had never been scared of Tzuyu’s ability, had never shied away from strength capable of so much harm, because it was Tzuyu and her Chewy was so gentle.

“I thought that I could just forget, like I forgot how it felt when they broke my bones.” Tzuyu looked back at her, the fear more prevalent. “But I can’t get rid of it.”

“Get rid of what?” Sana asked softly.

“The blood on my hands.”

Sana blinked back at her, the words taking a moment to register. “What?”

“Their faces kept changing – the soldiers,” Tzuyu whimpered, barely able to get the words out around the stifled sobs that were making her shake. “One moment they were the soldiers and the next they were our family…and you.” Tzuyu looked one wrong word from shattering, staring back at Sana in fright. “I killed you – and the blood–” Her free hand wedged itself underneath her other arm, shaking violently. “I couldn’t get the blood off. I couldn’t wake you up. I – I hurt you. Don’t you understand? I killed you.”

“Chewy, it wasn’t real,” Sana told her. “You would never hurt me.”

“But I could.” Tzuyu inhaled sharply. “I could and…and that’s why you should stay away.” Yet she didn’t pull away. If anything, she moved closer. “I’m dangerous.”

“Chewy,” Sana squeezed her hands, “you are not the monster that you think you are.”

Tzuyu blinked back at her, her throat bobbing when she swallowed thickly, and those sad eyes darted down to her lips. “I’m not?”

“No, angel,” Sana said firmly. “It’s not in your nature and the Company couldn’t change that. They tried but they couldn’t. You’re too hard on yourself.”

She could see that Tzuyu still didn’t quite believe her, but that was okay. So long as they were talking and Tzuyu wasn’t running, everything in Sana’s world was okay.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Sana suggested kindly. “Down by the river. We can visit your favorite spot. It’s always pretty this time of year.”

Tzuyu’s eyes brightened a little, always in awe that Sana remembered everything, and Sana began leading her in that very direction before Tzuyu’s own crippling self-doubt crept back in. She made sure to keep a tight hold on Tzuyu’s hand, trying to express without explicitly stating that she wasn’t frightened of Tzuyu’s strength, or what she had seen in her vision.

Sana glanced at her every step of the way, trying to decipher every tiny twitch in her expression. She often wondered what was going on inside that beautiful mind, what worries were making Tzuyu's lips pull down at the corners. Tzuyu had so much she wanted to say and not enough words to say it, yet Sana heard every unspoken word.

Tzuyu shivered beside her as the wind picked up, lacking her usual abundance of layers after fleeing the house in a hurry. They wouldn’t stay out for long.

Sana knew that Tzuyu struggled with winter. The icy temperatures sunk in deep, adding to the unending cold Tzuyu couldn't warm up from. The team had guessed that it had something to do with her ability of sustaining damage – to take the pain, Tzuyu would therefore have to be less able to feel it.

Sana felt too much and Tzuyu felt too little.

What a perfect disaster they were.

The named streets drifted by with no real meaning, the path to Tzuyu’s favorite place in the city etched into her mind. She had walked it often enough to know the route.

A tug on her hand made her stumble to a halt and her head turned to Tzuyu again, stopped and staring ahead with wide eyes.

“Chewy?” she questioned softly.

“It’s Jihyo,” was the answer breathed in response and Tzuyu was moving forward again, never releasing Sana’s hand.

Sana followed her gaze to the unmistakable face of their leader, bright-eyed and laughing as another girl reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind Jihyo’s ear. Sana recognized the stranger a moment later and tried to pull back on Tzuyu’s hold, not keen on interrupting Jihyo’s date, but Tzuyu didn’t realize. She had only seen their leader and instinct drove her to greet her.

“Chewy, wait.”

Tzuyu reached out to touch Jihyo’s shoulder, a smile firmly in place, and Sana’s stomach plummeted when Sunmi’s attention snapped to the gentle giant.

Sunmi looked at Tzuyu’s hand, misreading the situation because why wouldn't she? It was dark even with the street lights and Tzuyu was an unknown variant, striding towards Jihyo with an unreadable expression, her intentions not clear. It only took a second for Sunmi to tear a small aerosol can from her handbag, forcing her thumb down on the pressure button to spray a ghastly smelling liquid in Tzuyu’s face.

Pepper spray, Sana realized, just as Tzuyu yelped in response and wrenched her hand free to claw at her eyes.

“My eyes!” Tzuyu wailed. “I can’t see!”

Jihyo had turned and took in the scene of chaos with a look of despair. "Tzuyu?"

“You know them?” Sunmi asked, pepper spray still at the ready.

Sana caught Tzuyu before she stumbled onto the road and glowered at Jihyo’s date vehemently.

“This is Tzuyu and Sana,” Jihyo sighed, pushing Sunmi’s hand down while she pulled a bottle of water from her own bag. “Tilt your head back, sweetheart. What are you doing out here dressed like that? It’s freezing.”

“Kid, I’m so sorry. I should’ve recognized you.” Sunmi stepped in to help, but Sana warned her back with a glare as she snatched the bottle from Jihyo, pointing an accusing finger at the barista.

“You can stay right there, trigger-finger,” Sana said and ushered Tzuyu to the nearest bench, quick to begin rinsing her eyes of the spray. “Don't rub." Sana caught a wandering fist. "You'll just irritate them."

"They’re already irritated!" Tzuyu whined, bouncing her foot to try and fend off the urge to scrub at her eyes again. “Am I blind?”

“No, angel,” Sana glanced at Sunmi, making sure she was out of earshot before adding, “I’m sure that your body will heal any damage soon.”

Jihyo sighed behind her and spoke quietly to Sunmi, probably reassuring her date that Tzuyu would be fine, which didn’t sit right with Sana. She didn’t care that Tzuyu was capable of healing. It was just plain rude to pepper spray people.

Maybe she was more than a little biased, but she wasn’t overly fond of Jihyo’s new friend. She’d met Sunmi before, spoken to her even, though Sana had always been...preoccupied with Tzuyu’s company.

A hand touched Sana’s lower back. "Did you follow me?" Jihyo asked quietly. “Did Jeongyeon or Nayeon send you?”

"Of course not," Sana murmured, pouring more water when Tzuyu gestured. It was a practiced strategy that Nayeon and Jeongyeon had taken up early on, sending their younger members as a rescue or a way to interrupt any meetings they didn’t like, but Sana had no idea she would be crossing Jihyo’s path. "I was out with Chewy and we saw you. The giant idiot wanted to say hi."

"Sunmi seems very nice," Tzuyu croaked, her voice still a little hoarse from earlier. "And I'm sure that she's very pretty but I can't really see right now."

"Nice?!'" Sana echoed incredulously. "She pepper sprayed you!"

"She thought that I was a creep."

Sana pursed her lips tightly, knowing that nothing she said would change Tzuyu’s mind. Her only comfort was that Tzuyu’s eyes were visibly growing less bloodshot, meaning that the new healing element was kicking in.

“I’m going to walk Sunmi home,” Jihyo said, noticing the same effect. “Are you both going to be okay?”

Sana managed a tiny smile, hearing Jihyo’s unspoken concern. She wasn’t just worried about Tzuyu’s poor eyes. “We’re working on it,” she replied softly.

Jihyo patted her back and brushed the fingers of her other hand across Tzuyu’s cheek. “Good,” she breathed, looking between them tenderly. “I’ll see you at home, then. Don’t stay out too long, okay? You’ll get sick.”

“You know this one doesn’t get sick,” Sana quipped, slinging an arm around Tzuyu’s shoulder as she sat beside her. “Don’t worry. I’ll get her home before she turns into an ice sculpture.”

Jihyo smirked and reached over to flick her forehead. “I worry about you too, dummy,” she said lightly, hesitating only for a second before she returned to Sunmi, leading her away before Tzuyu healed completely.

“It was nice to meet you!” Tzuyu called after them and Sana elbowed her sharply in the side. “We should be supportive, Sana.”

“She hurt you,” Sana said sullenly. “I’ll never support that.”

“She didn’t mean to hurt me,” Tzuyu protested. “Well…I mean, she did, but she didn’t mean to hurt me. She was protecting Jihyo.” Tzuyu smiled and nodded at her own conclusion. “I approve.”

Sana sighed softly and cupped Tzuyu’s face between her hands, looking into her watering eyes. “Does it still hurt?” she asked.

“Not really,” Tzuyu answered honestly. “I can mostly see again. It’s more like an itch now.” She blinked back at Sana, her face flushed from the cold, and her smile started to fade.

“What’s wrong?” Sana questioned softly.

“I’m sorry for avoiding you,” Tzuyu said quietly. Her finger started to tap against her thigh, quickening along with her breathing. “I…I got overwhelmed and I…Sana, I’m sorry.”

Sana sighed softly and caught the counting hand in her own, brushing her thumb over Tzuyu’s knuckles until the limb relaxed in her own. “I shouldn’t have pushed,” she replied. “You weren’t ready to talk about it and I should have respected that. I just…I want you to be happy, Chewy.”

“I am happy,” Tzuyu insisted. “I’m happy here.”

With you. It was wishful thinking on Sana’s part, yet her heart fluttered all the same and her palms started to sweat. The effect Tzuyu had on her was baffling. She could wrap anyone she liked around her finger with a mere look, but Tzuyu…

"You make me feel nervous, Tzuyu," Sana murmured. "I don't feel like that with anyone else."

Bloodshot eyes squinted in thought. “Like butterflies?” she asked.

Sana laughed softly. “Exactly like butterflies.”

Tzuyu visibly softened at the sound, leaning into Sana’s touch, and her eyebrows pulled down in thought. “I like your hair,” she voiced quietly.

Sana tilted her head, thrown by the odd admission. “Thanks?” She lifted a hand to tug lightly on a strand of Tzuyu’s hair. “I like your hair too.”

“No, that’s not…” Tzuyu tapped her knuckles against her forehead, chewing on her lower lip as she searched for the right words. "I practiced what I was going to say with Momo," she mumbled to herself. "This was supposed to be easy. What did Chaeyoung say again?”

She sighed heavily and sank down, her shoulders dropping in mild defeat as she gazed back at Sana imploringly, struggling to express herself again.

“You make me feel warm, Sana,” she said quietly.

Sana swallowed as her heartbeat quickened. “’Warm?’” she echoed hopefully.

Tzuyu nodded. “I think…that maybe…” She exhaled sharply and glanced away, but only for a moment before those eyes flickered back, bright with fear. “I think that I love you, Sana.”

Sana ceased to function for a long few seconds, repeating those words over and over again in her head, terrified that she might have fallen and hit her head when she was chasing after Tzuyu and had imagined the entire confession.

She had come up with over a dozen ways to tell Tzuyu that she loved her, a dozen situations where she would just blurt it out and finally get it off her chest, but there had been no situation where Tzuyu had been the one to confess first.

“But I don't know how to love you like you deserve, Sana," Tzuyu breathed.

Her brain kicked back into gear again, refusing to let this chance slip through her fingers because of Tzuyu’s doubt. Sana wore her heart on her sleeve. She knew that she did. But Tzuyu? Tzuyu’s heart was visible in her eyes, and Sana could see that she was terrified.

It was new and unfamiliar territory for her, after all.

“I don't know what to do," Tzuyu admitted in a timid whisper, glancing away almost shamefully. “I didn’t plan anything beyond telling you.”

Her sweet Chewy.

"Do you trust me?" Sana asked softly.

Tzuyu blanched at the question. "Of course I do."

She almost sounded offended and Sana was helpless against the smile that tugged at her lips. “Okay,” she said, taking the lead again. “And you would tell me the moment you don't like something, wouldn’t you?"

“Yes,” Tzuyu answered immediately.

Sana kept one hand on Tzuyu’s cheek, brushing her thumb across Tzuyu’s cheek as the other slid down to rest on her hip. "Promise?"

Tzuyu swallowed audibly, her eyes darting down to Sana’s wandering hand, then to Sana’s lips all in the span of a second, before finally meeting her eyes again. "Promise."

Sana leant in closer, her heart in her throat. "Chewy,” she whispered, “I'm going to kiss you now."

Her breath ghosted across Tzuyu's lips, waiting just long enough for Tzuyu to back out before she dipped forward to kiss her, soft and gentle compared to how desperately she kissed everyone else.

She didn’t need to chase away any feelings, not when every other kiss had been to rid her mind of the very scenario she was finally acting out.

Sana felt the moment Tzuyu let go of her own restraint, breathing out deeply through her nose as she returned the kiss, timidly at first until she found her footing and established a pattern.

‘I think that I love you, Sana.’

Sana had come up with over a dozen ways to confess, but none of them were as perfect as the real one – and how simple it had been.

‘I think that I love you, Sana.’

There had been no romantic dinner, no fireworks display, no spontaneous dance in the rain, just her and Tzuyu, both terribly underdressed for the winter weather, sat on an obscure bench in the middle of the city.

It was unplanned – and that was its perfection.

Tzuyu's eyes were closed when she pulled back and a tiny crease appeared between her eyebrows, eyelids fluttering open to stare questioningly at her.

"Why did you stop?"

Sana blinked at the moisture gathering in her eyes, overcome with a sudden surge of emotions, and she dove forward to grapple Tzuyu in a tight hug, curling into the space of her shoulder that fit so perfectly. She could hear Tzuyu’s heartbeat fluttering nervously, stronger when Sana pressed her ear to Tzuyu’s neck, and she felt Tzuyu shift awkwardly to accommodate her.

“You’re crying,” Tzuyu noted with concern. “Did I do it wrong?”

“It was perfect, Chewy,” Sana croaked against her shoulder, curling her fingers in Tzuyu’s shirt to anchor herself. “I’m crying because I’m happy.” Her lips still tingled from the kiss, the butterflies creating a storm in her chest. “I love you too.”

Sana heard Tzuyu’s breath catch and then fingertips touched the base of her spine timidly, slowly applying pressure until there was a whole palm touching her, followed by a second.

“’Perfect?’” Tzuyu whispered, clinging to the one thing she had always been pushed to be yet could never quite reach.

Sana nodded, nuzzling closer. “You are so, so perfect,” she told her.

Tzuyu’s arms tightened around her carefully, swallowing down her fear to try and reciprocate the embrace as best she could, and Sana felt her tears spill over. She could still remember the little girl Tzuyu used to be, unable and unwilling to let anyone near.

Sana had never expected anything from Tzuyu. She had been content enough just to be in her company, but Tzuyu was hugging her, and Sana’s heart felt like it was about to burst with pride.

“Sana?”

Sana felt the way Tzuyu’s voice vibrated in her throat, mixing with the gentle thud of her heartbeat. “Yes, Chewy?”

“Can we kiss again please?”

Sana pulled back just enough to see Tzuyu’s face, grinning impulsively at the adoration blinking back at her and the blush that had nothing to do with the cold. “How could I say no when you asked so politely?” she teased, and leant in to kiss her again, not missing that Tzuyu had pulled her closer.

Sana had so many people wrapped around her finger, but Tzuyu was the only person in the world who had Sana wrapped around hers.

Chapter Text

"I can’t believe I pepper sprayed your sister.”

"You're lucky, you know," Jihyo commented. "Out of all of them, Tzuyu's the least likely to hold a grudge. She's very forgiving."

Jihyo wisely kept her youngest member's healing capabilities to herself. Tzuyu would be fine, that one thing was certain. She would heal and she had Sana’s company. Jihyo was relieved that they were on speaking terms again.

"Still," Sunmi grimaced, "I'm paying for all of her meals at the cafe for the next three years, at least."

"You don't have to do that," Jihyo reassured her. "I'm serious. Tzuyu's probably already over it."

"But she said that it was nice to meet me," Sunmi stressed.

"She's a strange kid," Jihyo said with a small shrug. "They're all rather strange, actually."

They were odd, but they were hers and Jihyo wouldn’t trade them for anything, not even when they totally disregarded her position and went behind her back to plot their own acts of rebellion against her orders. They could be idiots, but they were hers.

"It must be tough,” said Sunmi.

Jihyo blinked at her. "What?"

"Being in charge," Sunmi elaborated. "Keeping them under control all of the time."

“Oh, yeah,” Jihyo agreed, “but it’s not so bad. Jeongyeon and Nayeon help me look after everyone.”

Sunmi raised an eyebrow. “Nayeon?” she repeated in disbelief. “No offense, I know that she can hold her own, but I don’t really see her as the maternal type.”

Indignation stung her heart on Nayeon’s behalf. “Nayeon’s actually very motherly,” Jihyo said in her defense. “When we were all still in school Nayeon would wake up at the crack of dawn to make sure everyone had lunch. She loves the kids.”

“That’s the youngest three, right?” Sunmi asked. “Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and the one I pepper sprayed – Tzuyu.”

Jihyo nodded, fondness overpowering the insult. Sunmi likely already knew their names given that the SMC stopped by to visit Nayeon – and peddle her for free food – after school, but it was endearing that she was making a point of remembering.

"So how long have you lived in the city?"

Jihyo glanced at her. “You’re asking a lot of questions,” she noticed.

“Isn’t that what people do on a first date?” asked Sunmi. “Get to know each other?”

First date. Right. She was being far too cynical about the whole thing.

“Sorry,” Jihyo sighed. “I’m not used to opening up to people…I have to be strong for my family.”

“Tell me about them?” Sunmi requested with a timid smile. “Nayeon loves herself but trying to get her to talk about her personal life is like pulling out teeth. I don’t know anything about you guys and I feel like I should.” Sunmi reached for her hand, squeezing gently. “They’re so important to you, so they’re important to me too.”

Jihyo could do that one simple request. “We haven’t lived here long,” she told her. "Definitely under a year. What about you?"

Sunmi shrugged. "Hard to know," she said. "I travel a lot, but I have friends here that I visit, so I guess I know the city quite well. Seoul is a lot nicer than Suwon, though, isn't it?"

Jihyo paused mid-step. "Suwon?"

"That's where you stayed before coming to Seoul, right?" Sunmi looked at her with an easy smile, either unbothered or not noticing Jihyo’s surprise. “I think that Nayeon mentioned it once.”

Jihyo had never mentioned any of their previous stops and her team knew not to reveal much about their past beyond the false back-story they created for every new beginning. Though, maybe one of the others had let something slip. Maybe there had been a flippant comment made in the café without realizing they had company.

Nayeon loved to talk about herself, Sana had a bad habit of talking loudly when she got excited, and Tzuyu was terrible for talking to strangers. It could have been any one of them.

It was a general rule to not mention previous stops, but maybe one of them had forgotten. They’d created enough false lives for the details to get mixed up.

“I like Seoul,” Jihyo answered carefully. “It’s been good for us.”

Sunmi laughed softly beside her, her eyes crinkled with warmth when she looked at Jihyo. “You’re almost as bad as Nayeon,” she teased, squeezing her hand to reaffirm the lightheartedness of her jibe.

“Sorry,” Jihyo apologized again. “I’m just…not used to this.” She gestured between them with her free hand. “I’ve never really taken time to date before.”

“Always busy making sure the rest of them are happy, right?” Sunmi concluded. “Well, I aim to change that.” She stopped when they reached the next set of lights, the spot marked as a halfway point between Sunmi’s apartment and Jihyo’s home. “This weekend,” she said, “are you free?”

“I’d need to check with–”

“You’re free,” Sunmi interrupted quickly. “I’m taking you out and you are going to forget about your responsibilities for a whole day. How does that sound?”

A whole day where she didn’t have to worry about everyone else?

“It sounds heavenly,” Jihyo was reluctant to admit, “but–”

“Nope!” Sunmi beamed and ducked down to kiss her cheek. “I won’t hear a word about it!” Her hand slipped out of Jihyo’s and she darted across the crossing as soon as it turned green. “I’ll meet you at yours on Saturday. Nine AM sharp!”

Jihyo watched her go, feeling a tiny flutter of joy in her chest and let that feeling carry her home, never once touching the spot Sunmi had kissed lest she ruin the warmth that radiated from it. One day where she could pretend to be completely normal and not worry about the other eight inhabitants of her house.

It was a strange prospect. She had only ever known how to look out for herself and then the eight test subjects that had become her entire world. To treat herself and relax wasn’t something she had ever thought about.

She’d never had the luxury of time before and even if things with Sunmi didn’t last, even if they had to pack up and leave again, Jihyo would have one day that had been hers and hers alone.

Jihyo reached her house all too soon, her phone buzzing with a text message from Sunmi asking for a reply when she was home, so she fired back a response before opening the front door, unsure what she was going home to.

“Welcome home, Boss!” Dahyun chirped from the living room, back to her usual cheery self after what looked to be a surplus of sugary goods. “How was your date?” The illusionist waggled her eyebrows suggestively. “Only hand holding, I hope?”

Jeongyeon rose from the other couch and flicked the back of Dahyun’s head in passing, approaching Jihyo with a soft smile. “Did you have a nice time?” she asked softly.

“Where is everyone?” Jihyo asked.

Dahyun gestured to the floor above them flippantly. “Plotting the Company’s demise,” she said lightly. “You know, just a typical Thursday evening.”

“Jihyo!” Nayeon thundered down the stairs and tackled her in a tight embrace. “Please tell me that Sunmi was a gentlewoman and didn’t make any moves on the first date because I think that killing my coworker would get me fired.”

“It was lovely,” Jihyo assured them. “I even ran into Sana and Tzuyu.”

“You did?” Jeongyeon’s smile faltered slightly. “Did they seem…okay?”

The door opened behind her and a gentle hand brushed her elbow, the touch enough to know that it was Sana even before she slipped past with Tzuyu in tow – holding her hand.

Sana’s eyes were bright with glee, the girl happier than Jihyo had ever seen her, and Tzuyu seemed a little more alive than usual, comfortable with the contact.

Jihyo raised an eyebrow, asking without words, and Sana’s resulting grin was enough of an answer.

“Sunmi has Chewy’s approval,” Sana announced.

Tzuyu nodded earnestly, her smile warm and so human. “Sunmi pepper sprayed me,” she told them.

“Excuse me, what?” Nayeon released Jihyo to give Tzuyu her full attention. “What do mean she ‘pepper sprayed’ you?”

“She did it to protect Jihyo,” Tzuyu explained obediently.

“Oh, and that makes it perfectly okay,” Nayeon responded dryly, only realizing her mistake when the sarcasm flew over Tzuyu’s head and her smile widened.

Jihyo caught Jeongyeon’s gaze, seeing the worry hidden beneath the shared excitement of Jihyo stepping out of her comfort zone, and tried to express that her day had been perfect, even with Sana and Tzuyu’s interruption.

“I’m going on another date next weekend,” she said to whoever was listening, and her face started to hurt from the strength of her own smile when her family responded with support and enthusiasm.

Her announcement had also conveniently distracted Tzuyu’s surrogate parents from the fact that Sana was being more touchy than usual.

Jihyo figured that it was the least she could do after the kid had been such a good sport about essentially being assaulted by her date.

Chapter Text

"Jihyo seems to really like Sunmi.”

Dahyun tried to sink deeper into her hat and scarf, wondering how her friend didn’t have frostbite as she stomped through the snow beside her without either.

"You don't sound too thrilled about it," Dahyun noted.

"I just find it a bit too convenient, you know?"

"No, Chaeyoung,” Dahyun glanced ahead of them at Tzuyu, striding through the snowfall with purpose. She was still avoiding Dahyun after the illusion incident, respectful enough not to ignore her completely, but cautious enough to keep a safe distance between them. “I don't know. You’re over thinking this like always."

"But seriously – think about it. Sunmi shows up out of nowhere, gets a job at Nayeon's work, and just so happens to bump into Jihyo the one day we're all busy?” Chaeyoung flung her arms out, her point apparently made. “Call me paranoid, but it's all a little strange."

"You're paranoid,” Dahyun quipped. “Besides, Tzuyu likes her."

"Oh, please,” Chaeyoung rolled her eyes, “Tzuyu likes everyone."

Dahyun shook her head, sighing quietly, and didn’t bother arguing back. Chaeyoung was in one of her more difficult moods again, finding an issue with everything the team was and wasn’t doing – currently it was Jihyo’s blossoming relationship with Sunmi.

“Jihyo’s happy, Chaeng,” Dahyun said softly. “Don’t ruin this for her.”

“But you know what she’s like,” Chaeyoung argued back, her breath puffing out in a white cloud. “Someone shows a modicum of affection, she falls in love, it doesn’t work out, and we have to deal with the fallout.”

They took a turn into a park, everything a winter wonderland after the recent snowfall that just kept coming. Chaeyoung had been very vocal about holding hope in their school closing for a snow day soon, but Dahyun wasn’t quite as sure. There wasn’t much that halted the city they had found a home in.

“That was once and the only reason it ended was because we had to move after you flipped the minivan in front of our neighbors.”

“Technicalities. You know I’m right. I don’t trust her.”

“You don’t trust anyone,” Dahyun countered. “And reel in the mistrust a little please. Nayeon wants us to visit her at work. Don’t cause a scene if Sunmi’s there.”

“She just doesn’t want to feed us,” Chaeyoung said, bending to scoop up a handful of snow.

“Duh,” Dahyun said. “Do you ever listen to her? Nayeon’s exact words were, ‘Come by the café after school so you brats can have some food on the house.’”

Chaeyoung grinned at her, laughter bursting from her lips in another white puff. “Nice impression of Nayeon.”

Dahyun beamed back at her, warming at the praise. “Thanks–”

A handful of snow was shoved into her face and Chaeyoung took off at a sprint, cackling in delight.

Dahyun recovered quickly, her smile still firmly in place, and she hurriedly collected her own handful of snow, compacting it into a ball before hurtling it in Chaeyoung’s direction.

It slammed into the telekinetic’s back and made her stumble, but Chaeyoung used to momentum to snatch up another snowball that she flung back at Dahyun without really looking, though Dahyun felt the energy in the air as Chaeyoung used a tiny amount of her power to steer it back on course.

“That’s cheating!” Dahyun accused, throwing a quick glance around for any suspicious onlookers, but no one was paying them any attention. They were just a couple of school kids messing around in the snow.

“You don’t have any proof!” Chaeyoung yelled back.

And if that was how she wanted to play…

Dahyun focused her mind, staring daggers into Chaeyoung’s back, and carefully conjured a targeted illusion that would confuse the telekinetic’s sense of direction.

It worked and Chaeyoung took a sharp left, straight into her aim, and Dahyun threw the snowball just as the illusion ended, but it missed her intended target and they both watched in horror as Tzuyu's head was knocked forward by an explosion of snow against the back of her skull, tiny snowflakes seeping into her hair and trickling down the back of her jacket.

Their human tank stumbled to a halt, her shoulders drawn up to her ears when the cold started to seep in, and she slowly turned to face them with a darkening expression.

"Tzu..." Chaeyoung raised her hands with a strained smile, worried by the dark storm swirling in their tall friend's eyes, and began to back away. “That was an accident.”

Tzuyu’s glare shifted down to Dahyun’s snow covered gloves and she crouched to collect her own ammunition in absolute silence. With an unreadable expression, Tzuyu straightened again and rolled her shoulder back.

"No...Tzuyu, put it down..." Dahyun looked at the snowball in fear. "Tzuyu, I'm commanding you as captain of the School Meal Club to drop the snowball."

That would do it. Tzuyu would have to cave to the hierarchy of their club. It had always worked before.

Tzuyu's eyes sparked with mischief and a quick flick of her wrist sent the snowball hurtling towards them at a deadly speed, already reaching for a second before the first could strike anything.

Dahyun shrieked and darted for cover while Chaeyoung employed her trusted 'zig-zag' maneuver, adamant that she was a harder target to hit when she twisted across the battlefield.

"Code Red!" Dahyun bellowed, finding shelter behind a park bench.

"Abandon ship! Take cover!” Chaeyoung cried. “Hide your wives! Run for your lives!"

Dahyun peeked over the top of the bench to get her bearings on her friends and spied Chaeyoung zig-zagging in the opposite direction.

Shit.

A heavy weight cracked against the space between her shoulder blades, the snow-bullet thrown by her younger teammate who had managed to flank her with far too much ease, but there was no malice in Tzuyu’s eyes and the pain was minimal, so Dahyun chose to be a good sport and play along in the best way.

"I've been hit!" Dahyun rasped, clutching her chest dramatically while snow slid from her back. She flopped down in the snow, careful not to get another face full of it. “Go on without me!”

"I'll avenge you, Dubu!" Chaeyoung promised.

Tzuyu doubled over in Dahyun’s line of sight, laughing loudly as she gathered up more snow, and Dahyun forgot that she was supposed to be playing dead momentarily when the sound touched fond memories of snowball fights when they had been five years younger, all of them finding comfort in finally being able to be children.

The language barrier that had been prevalent when they were kids suddenly didn’t matter, not when they could speak through actions and laughter.

A sudden flurry of snowballs assaulted Tzuyu, several striking skin, and the super soldier recoiled with a hiss moments before an almighty war cry was bellowed and a tiny telekinetic leapt at her. It was hardly effective, but it gave Dahyun an opening.

She swept up an armful of snow and scrambled to her feet, charging at the duo while they were distracted.

Tzuyu managed to catch Chaeyoung and tossed her into an embankment of snow that cushioned her fall, spotting Dahyun before she could land her retaliation, and quickly flung another snowball. The strength was controlled, yet still enough to knock Dahyun off of her feet, and then the giant’s shadow was looming over her, ready to throw another.

"Okay, okay!” Dahyun squeaked, shifting to her knees. “You win! I yield!"

Tzuyu hesitated, her arm still wound back, and blinked down at her, clarity returning to the soft gaze they were used to.

It was humbling how much Tzuyu trusted them by their word.

Especially when they employed dirty tactics.

Dahyun belted out a loud battle cry and tackled the distracted girl to the ground, laughing as Tzuyu landed face first in the snow. "Never let your guard down!" she reminded their gentle giant.

Tzuyu spat out a mouthful of snow, wheezing at the weight on her back, and Chaeyoung cheered, still stuck in the pile of snow.

“Nice try, Goliath,” the telekinetic laughed. “The tiny are mighty!”

“Whatever, dwarf,” Tzuyu huffed, though an impulsive smile tugged at her lips and dispelled any illusion that she had been mad. “Dubu, can you move? I can’t feel my shoulder.”

“Sorry!” Dahyun rolled to the side to release her, a moment too late in spotting the smirk that could rival Sana’s before the hand beneath Tzuyu’s chest sprang out to cover her face with melting snow.

“Never let your guard down!” Tzuyu crowed in delight, quick to dissolve into another fit of giggling that Chaeyoung joined in on. “You should’ve seen your face, unnie!”

Dahyun softened at the endearment that had been sorely lacking the last few days and used the rare height difference to tousle Tzuyu's hair affectionately, shaking free the small snowflakes that clung to her damp hair.

“Yeah, you got me,” she said fondly. “But I totally let you win.”

Tzuyu scoffed at that and brushed some snow from her cheek. “Of course,” she conceded.  

“Hey, guys? We should probably get going,” Chaeyoung announced, trying to dig the snow from her ear. “Nayeon’s blowing up my phone. She’s asking if we’ve been kidnapped and are being held for ransom. She will – and I quote – ‘stab a bitch if that’s the case.’”

Dahyun extended her hand to Tzuyu, an unspoken question of trust, and felt an immeasurable amount of relief when Tzuyu accepted it with a gentle smile, her teeth chattering from the cold. Dahyun helped her upright and dusted the snow from her soaked clothes, knowing that she wouldn’t be much better, but she treasured  the moments Chaeyoung and Tzuyu let her take care of them.

“That was fun,” Tzuyu admitted quietly.

“We should totally build a snowman later!” Chaeyoung chirped as she hopped over to them. “Then we can make a pillow fort like we used to as kids!”

“Oh…” Tzuyu glanced between them ruefully. “I already have plans with Sana.”

“Aw, seriously?” Chaeyoung pouted as she slung an arm around Tzuyu’s shoulders, tugging her down to her height like usual. “Hanging out with us will be more fun.”

Tzuyu cleared her throat, blushing slightly, and looked to Dahyun for help. She didn’t want to hurt Chaeyoung’s feelings, but she quite clearly didn’t want to cancel her plans with Sana.

“I thought that we were your best friends,” Chaeyoung whined, opting to guilt her into it when Tzuyu didn’t answer.

“You are,” Tzuyu replied, shifting in Chaeyoung’s grip until the strain on her neck was eased slightly. “But...” Her blush deepened. “We…um…kissed.”

“What?” Dahyun breathed. Part of her was happy for Tzuyu and happier still that her youngest friend’s first kiss was from someone they knew, but the other side of her – the side that would ‘stab a bitch’ as Nayeon had so eloquently said herself, was being driven by her overprotection of the two humans in front of her. “When?”

“Um…” Tzuyu tapped her hand against her thigh. “Last night?”

“Last–!” Chaeyoung hooked her foot behind Tzuyu’s knee and pushed her off balance, causing her to tumble back down into the snow with a tiny yelp. She glared down at their younger friend. “How the hell did you manage that?”

Tzuyu blinked up at them, flopped on her back as the sky darkened with another impending snow shower. “I told her that I liked her hair,” she said, answering honestly as expected. “But you were right. A compliment didn’t work…so I just told her.”

“You just–and she–” Chaeyoung flung her arms out in outrage. “I can’t believe that Tzuyu got a kiss before I did!” Chaeyoung exclaimed. “Unbelievable!” She jabbed a finger at Dahyun. “Next you’ll be telling me that you’ve confessed to Momo too!”

Dahyun bit her tongue, sensing that her own admission might just push her over the edge, and stepped over to Tzuyu as the tiny telekinetic stomped off, muttering and grumbling under her breath about the irony of her advice actually working as well as it did.

“Chaengie!” Tzuyu called after her. “I’ll build a snowman with you tomorrow! I promise!”

“Come on,” Dahyun laughed and offered her hand again to Tzuyu. “She’s happy for you really. She’s just mad that you can get the ladies better than she can.”

“No, just Sana,” Tzuyu murmured sweetly, covered in snow once again. “I don’t want anyone else.” She paused, frowning in consideration. “Does Chaeyoung like Sana too? Is that the problem?”

“Chaeyoung likes Mina,” Dahyun reassured her. “She’s annoyed because she’s too scared to actually tell her.”

“Oh,” Tzuyu breathed. “Well, I suppose that makes sense. I used to think I was allergic to Sana, but it turns out my heart was just getting excited.” Tzuyu smiled thoughtfully, her eyes crinkled with warmth. “She makes me happy.”

Dahyun sighed softly and forced down her protective instincts, smiling when Chaeyoung was out of earshot. “Momo makes me happy too,” she whispered and Tzuyu lit up at the realization.

“So…” Tzuyu glanced after their sulking friend. “How do we help Chaeyoung be happy?”

Dahyun pondered on it for a moment, wondering what they could do without causing any accidental damage, then it hit her. “We just need them to be alone,” she breathed.

She could already feel a plan coming on.

Chapter Text

Dahyun and Tzuyu were both busy. Was Chaeyoung a little peeved that they had abandoned her for two thirds of their Japanese teammates? Maybe. Was she slightly envious that their crushes had evolved into dating? Most probably.

But that wasn’t going to stop her from building a snowman anyway…even though it was always better with the other two thirds of the SMC…and Tzuyu’s strength and height meant that their snowpeople were always the best on the street…and Dahyun was the best at ensuring their pillow fort stayed upright…

They had plans and that was fine.

What wasn’t fine was the fact that the most emotionally challenged of her teammates had managed to beat her to the milestone of a first kiss. The real kicker was that it had been some of Chaeyoung’s own advice that had led to it.

Chaeyoung sighed loudly and flopped over the ball of snow she had managed to compact, sweating beneath the hat Jeongyeon had insisted on. It was so much easier with three people.

She’d had time to dwell on everything recently, especially her insistence that she could take on the Company by herself, and had come to realize that it would be a death sentence. The recent evolution of Tzuyu and Dahyun’s powers had brought that into perspective. She couldn’t heal like Tzuyu could and she couldn’t cause life saving illusions like Dahyun.

All Chaeyoung had was a temper and a power to match. It wouldn’t hold up against a full frontal assault.

She needed to be careful, needed to be a bit more cautious, but their time was running out. The Company were close and growing closer with each passing day…

But even she had to admit that it felt really nice to just be a kid again.

Maybe she could convince Dahyun and Tzuyu to help her later. They could do it all like they used to when they were younger, even right up to the full team snowball fight when they refused to answer Jeongyeon and Nayeon’s calls to go inside before they froze to death.

“Chaengie?”

Chaeyoung’s head snapped up at the familiar voice and warmth flooded her chest at the sight of Mina, lingering in the open doorway with a mug in each hand. She was greeted with a timid smile and a curious nod towards her half-constructed snowman.

“Need a hand?” Mina asked, tentative and hopeful, as keen for Chaeyoung to say yes as she was.

She sat up quickly and nodded, waving her over. “Sure,” she said, trying not to sound too excited, but Mina’s resulting smile was positively radiant and she swooned all over again. “Usually I have a snow giant and a magician to help.”

Mina hummed softly in acknowledgement. “They didn’t want to join you?” she asked.

“They had other plans,” Chaeyoung answered.

“So did Sana and Momo,” Mina murmured in approach, then paused with a look of realization. “Wait…” She looked at Chaeyoung curiously, trying to gauge how much she knew through Dahyun and Tzuyu.

So Mina had been abandoned too, it seemed.

“They’re totally on a date,” Chaeyoung agreed.

Mina crouched beside her and offered one of the mugs, some of Jeongyeon’s hot cocoa when Chaeyoung caught a glimpse. “I’m happy for them,” Mina said softly, her eyes bright with the same emotion. “Sana and Momo will finally stop sulking.”

Chaeyoung smiled despite her own envy. “And I’ve never seen Dubu or Tzu this happy before,” she admitted.

Mina nodded and looked around at the mess of trails Chaeyoung had left behind during her snowman construction, quickly being covered with more snow as it fell from the darkening sky above them, and Chaeyoung found herself captivated as always by Mina’s beauty.

She was so quiet and serene, so at peace with the chaos of the world they lived in. She was like Chaeyoung’s own personal breath of fresh air whenever things seemed too crazy.

“Chaeyoung?” Mina’s eyes returned to her with hidden caution, an underlying fear tucked just beneath the surface. It would have been easily missed by anyone except Chaeyoung. “Would you…?”

Chaeyoung raised an eyebrow, curiosity peaked, and took the offered mug as well as a long sip to give Mina time to reconstruct her question. Her sad attempt at a snowman could wait. Chaeyoung wasn’t patient, but she would wait forever for Mina.

“There’s going to be a Christmas market in the city soon,” Mina said softly, “and I…” She inhaled deeply, doubt creeping in at the edges. “I wanted to ask if you would visit it with me.”

Christmas market. With Mina. Just Mina.

“Yes!” Chaeyoung blurted, causing Mina to startle and spill some of her drink. It sloshed over the side of the mug, spilling quickly towards Mina’s uncovered hands, and Chaeyoung halted it with a sudden raise of her palm. “I mean…yes. I would love to go with you, Mina.”

Mina’s eyebrows lifted in pleasant surprise and she used a dusting of snow to clean the side of her mug. “I was hoping you’d say that,” she admitted meekly, gummy smile on show. “It’ll be fun.”

Anything would be fun with you.

Chaeyoung found herself smiling back, something soft and gentle slipping into place in her chest. The static that set her teeth on edge became background noise around Mina, forgotten entirely when she was the reason for that beautiful smile.

“So,” Mina gestured with her free hand to the ball of snow, “want to see how tall we can make it?”

Chaeyoung grinned toothily and nodded eagerly. “Hell yes.”

Snowflakes landed in Mina’s hair and melted away, taking longer and longer each time as the cold started to set in. Her hands were currently being warmed by the mug, but they would soon get cold too.

Chaeyoung removed her scarf and wrapped it around Mina’s neck, then pulled up the hood of her jacket, blushing at the curious smile her actions caused. “You’ll get sick,” she murmured.

Mina exhaled softly, her eyes darting all over Chaeyoung’s face, and she leant over to leave a kiss on her cheek. “You’re sweet.”

This is your chance. Don’t ruin it. Don’t lose it.

Chaeyoung tipped forward before Mina could back away entirely, her heart in her throat the moment their lips connected. She could taste Mina’s surprise and confusion beneath the top layer of chocolate, then Mina sank into it with a gentle sigh and Chaeyoung’s fear vanished.

Mina wanted it too.

Mina wanted her.

The mugs were placed aside, balanced precariously in the snow, and cooling hands cupped Chaeyoung’s face, pulling her closer still. Her heart felt so full, everything warm and bright. She felt untouchable – Mina made her feel invincible, like she could take on the world and win.

She felt capable of anything and everything, stronger than ever before in the absence of fear.

There was a crackle beneath Mina’s fingertips and she flinched away with a small gasp, staring at her fingers in surprise before her attention shifted back to Chaeyoung and her eyes widened further.

“Chaeyoung…” Mina cautiously reached out with a finger and Chaeyoung saw the tiny spark of electricity that leapt from her skin to meet it like lightening to a lightening rod. “Amazing,” Mina breathed in wonder, unbothered by the sting that must have occurred.

The static that surrounded Chaeyoung was now flooding through her, working with her rather than against her, and the silence that she found, alone in Mina’s company, was breathtaking.

Tears pricked her eyes, stinging stronger when Mina touched her cheek without fear, and she reached for her abandoned mug. “Let’s finish these and build that snowman, yeah?”

If Mina noticed that her voice broke she certainly didn’t show it, only nodding and doing exactly that, leaving the two of them in silence in the snow with another barrier broken down between them, and Chaeyoung could see the appeal of silence.

It was like a blanket of warmth, keeping Chaeyoung and Mina wrapped up in a moment of time that was theirs to keep.

They sat in silence, at peace with one another and the blissful moment shared between them. Her powers had shifted and changed, adapting as needed. It made sense that she would be able to harness the endless energy around them and use it as needed. Maybe that was what her body had tried to do in the elevator.

It was a thought for later though because Mina’s fingers had laced through hers, sensing that contact was needed, and Mina kept her electrical charge grounded, sharing the power between them instead.

Then their moment was gone, stolen by a commotion inside the house, and Chaeyoung’s breath caught in her throat.

The snowflakes had stopped, frozen in time along with the noise of the city around them.

Her head turned towards the house, Mina’s hand squeezing hers, and she swallowed down her own fear.

Something had happened and it was something different.

Chapter Text

“Do you think it worked?” Dahyun asked quietly.

Momo tilted her head to gaze down at her, a gentle smile lifting the corners of her mouth. “Leaving Chaeyoung and Mina alone together? Two idiots who are so obviously in love with each other?” She nodded, sure of that one fact. “Yeah. I’m pretty hopeful that they’ll figure it out.”

Dahyun exhaled and shrunk deeper into her winter clothes, glad that she had changed before leaving the house. The temperate was dropping quickly, cooling rapidly after the sun had vanished, and the snow was growing heavier by the minute. She squinted ahead of them, just about able to make out Sana and Tzuyu, the former towing the latter by the decorated shop windows.

Momo squeezed her hand, their fingers interlaced. “Don’t stress over it,” she murmured. “We’re supposed to be having fun, not worrying about our oblivious friends.”

“Right,” Dahyun looked down at their hands and blushed, the warmth flooding through her chilled limbs, “you’re right.” She returned Momo’s smile tentatively. “Just us.”

“And our tagalongs,” Momo said lightly, nodding towards their friends.

Dahyun laughed softly and shuffled closer to Momo. They didn’t plan on accidentally trailing Sana and Tzuyu. It had just been chance that they had chosen to wander the same streets, all of them beginning their task of getting ideas for Christmas presents…if they even got to have a Christmas. The Company’s looming presence had complicated things and Dahyun was well aware that they were on borrowed time.

“I’m happy for them,” Momo admitted, soft and gentle, opening herself up in a way that only Dahyun got to see. “I was worried that Tzuyu wouldn’t get the chance to fall in love and that Sana would continue to spiral with her hundreds of admirers…” She nodded, clarity appearing in her irises. “They’re good for each other – and Chaeyoung will be good for Mina, and vice versa.”

Dahyun smiled at the thought. They balanced one another out. Mina’s rationalism balanced Chaeyoung’s impulsiveness, and Tzuyu’s impassiveness countered Sana’s overindulgence of emotions.

She paused, curious at the pattern, and wondered what her balance was with Momo.

Perhaps it was how easygoing she was. Dahyun was used to leading her small group, always looking out for them as the big sister, whereas Momo tended to go with the flow of things, never trying to fight where it would inevitably take her.

Momo’s ability was speed. She saw the world in a different way, experienced it differently – yet so did Dahyun. She could use her mind to change how the rest of the population perceived it, and maybe that was their balance – having a different view of reality.

“Got any ideas for presents?” Momo asked. “I know you want to get something for the rest of your secret club.”

Dahyun blinked out of her thoughts and blushed when she realized that Momo was staring at her. “We’ve agreed not to do gifts this year,” she told her. “We’ve spent most of our money on Chaeyoung’s bright ideas.”

Momo smirked, laughter in her eyes that she was kind enough to keep under control. “The hoodies were a good purchase,” she commented with a subtle gesture ahead of them, referring to Sana and Tzuyu’s permanently borrowed hoodie – an insult to Chaeyoung initially trying to sabotage their taller friend with the oversized attire.

“We were supposed to get rid of them,” Dahyun disagreed. “It was a wasted purchase.”

“It was pretty entertaining when you three showed up looking like masked robbers,” Momo quipped.

Dahyun grimaced, remembering the enforced workout that had followed their excursion, Jeongyeon’s consequence for skipping school to do their own investigation.

Chaeyoung always went in with good intentions, but it rarely worked out in her favor, and Dahyun was foolish enough to trail along every single time.

“I can’t believe that Miss A were working with the Company,” Dahyun murmured. “I thought that I’d been thorough enough.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Momo replied. “It all worked out okay.”

“We didn’t get paid,” Dahyun reminded her.

Momo shrugged and shook her hand free to drape the same arm around Dahyun’s shoulders, pulling her in closer. “Hey, shit happens sometimes. None of that mess was your fault, okay?”

“Okay,” Dahyun agreed quietly.

Logically she knew that it wasn’t her fault. She had been thorough in her recon of Miss A, but she was a leader too – not to the same extent as Jihyo was – and she had a responsibility to keep her small team safe.

“Besides,” Momo leant over to kiss her temple, “you totally saved our asses.”

Dahyun’s blush deepened and she reached up to hold the hand hanging over her shoulder. “I didn’t really do anything,” she said. “Tzuyu’s the one who got the door open and Chaeyoung took out the external security.”

“And you shepherded our human-sized lock-pick and our walking hurricane right to us,” Momo countered. “And let’s not forget that you literally saved their lives during the elevator-trap.”

Dahyun frowned in memory. She had never felt as powerful as she had in that moment, warping the world into a nightmarish alteration of reality. Tzuyu had experienced the worst of it and Momo had been trapped in it too, but Tzuyu had forgiven her – had never really held a grudge to begin with – and Momo had assured her that it didn’t change anything.

Momo still loved her, no matter what.

“The Company can throw as many curveballs as they want,” Momo said confidently. “We’ll just keep batting them back.”

She was right. They had been free for seven years and the Company still hadn’t caught them. They’d come close. Dahyun could recall so many close calls, but they were still free. They were still living their lives as they should, out in the world to leave their own mark.

Everything was going to be fine. Jihyo would have a plan because Jihyo always had a plan, and it would all work out in the end.

“Do you think I have another power?” Momo asked quietly, prompting Dahyun to look up at her again. “Tzu can heal and you can create hallucinations…” Doubt lingered in her gaze, a self-perceived inadequacy on her part. “All I can do is run fast.”

“I think that we’re all capable of more,” Dahyun answered honestly. “Our abilities were still only just developing when we ran and most of our powers were triggered because the Company forced them to.”

She grimaced, remembering the grueling sessions where she had been forced to create more clones of herself, constantly being pushed to her limit and then well beyond. It had been no better for the others. She’d spent many nights discussing their extensive training with her roommates.

“Like Mina said, my new power was set off because we were in danger,” Dahyun continued insightfully. “And Tzuyu healed because she needed to protect us.” She gave Momo a comforting smile. “We’re all capable of so much more, but you’re already perfect to me.”

Momo rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t hide the blush that was spreading across her cheeks, ultimately touched by the simple comment. “Sap,” she muttered with no short amount of fondness.

“Seriously, though,” Dahyun squeezed her hand, “you are.”

Momo cleared her throat and kissed her temple again. “Thank you,” she mumbled against her skin. “I love you.”

Dahyun’s heart fluttered at the admission and she sank into Momo’s side, content enough that all thoughts of the Company fled her mind. “I love you too.”

They settled into silence after that, both wandering the festive streets as time began to slip away. At one point Dahyun became aware that she could no longer find Sana or Tzuyu in the crowd around them, but she tried to ignore the worry swelling inside. She needed to stop fretting about them all of the time. Tzuyu and Chaeyoung weren’t children anymore. They didn’t need Dahyun fussing over them every minute of the day. That’s what Nayeon and Jeongyeon did.

“Hey,” Momo stopped and pulled to get Dahyun to stop too. “Isn’t that…?”

Dahyun followed her gaze across the street to a bench and frowned, her mind compiling a hundred and one reasons for why Jihyo’s girlfriend would be talking to Rosé, but her mind remained blank. They didn’t run in the same circles – and as far as Dahyun knew, from what Jihyo had told them, Sunmi had only recently moved to the city.

Her stomach dropped as a few puzzle pieces slipped into place. “Chaeyoung’s contacts screwed us over with the outpost leak,” Dahyun said quietly. “Rosé is a contact she would trust with her life and Sunmi…” Dahyun’s heart stuttered to a halt, dread overwhelming her. “She started at Nayeon’s work just after we accepted the Miss A contract. It has to be a coincidence…” She looked at Momo, concerned by the anger that was accumulating in her darkening glower. “It has to…right?”

And it could have very well been explained away as just that, until the Company agent who had been hunting them for months emerged from the crowd with an envelope that he handed to Rosé, and Dahyun’s residual hope was scorched.

“We’ve been played,” Momo growled beside her. “The Company have fucking played us!” Her arm disappeared from Dahyun’s shoulders and a trembling hand curled around her wrist. “They know where we live. They know where we work. They know where we study. Fuck!” Wild eyes darted down to her. “We need to go,” Momo said lowly and began to pull Dahyun through the waves of people.

“Wait,” Dahyun pulled back weakly, scouring the sea of people. “Wait – what about Sana and Tzuyu?”

“Call them,” Momo said as she quickened their pace to a jog. “Tell them to go home immediately.”

“Okay,” Dahyun whispered and wrestled her phone from her pocket to do just that, fumbling through her list of contacts for Sana’s name and hit call.

Momo towed her across a road, ignoring the horns that blared at them, and they took another sudden left, charging through the oblivious shoppers as they rushed home.

“Hi–“

“Sana–!”

“–you’ve reached Sana. Sorry I can’t answer your call–”

Dahyun cursed under her breath and ended the call. “Sana’s not answering her phone,” she said, struggling to get enough breath in her lungs.

“She’s probably too busy kissing Tzuyu,” Momo reassured her. “They’ll find their own way home. Send her a text. Tell her to quit flirting and head back.”

“Okay,” Dahyun agreed. “Okay.” She opened her messages and sent a quick and brief text to Sana, and just prayed that Sana wouldn’t ignore it like she had ignored her call.

Sana :)

Come home. It’s an emergency.

(sent 7.13pm)

It remained unread.

Chapter Text

"What do we do when one of them wants to move out?" Nayeon whispered. "That's what kids do when they grow up."

Jeongyeon reached over to touch Nayeon’s hand, the two folded around one another on the couch while Jihyo paced a few feet away, fretting over everything.

"That's what non-powered kids do," Jeongyeon whispered back, "and we'll deal with it if it happens. They might never move out."

Nayeon sighed and turned to curl into Jeongyeon's side. "The parenting books didn't mention how much it would hurt," she breathed. "I'm so proud to see them growing, but it's also breaking my heart."

"Tell me about it," Jeongyeon mumbled. “Tzuyu’s taller than me now.”

Nayeon laughed quietly and smacked her knee. “Tzuyu was always going to be taller.”

“Yeah,” Jeongyeon quipped, “because you didn’t let me amputate her legs after her first growth spurt.”

Her comment earned her an elbow in the ribs. “Jeongyeon.”

“I didn’t do it, so you can’t be mad.”

“You know what I mean, though.” Nayeon rested her head on Jeongyeon’s shoulder. “They’re our kids, Jeongie.”

"I know." Jeongyeon kissed her temple gently. "They'll always be our kids. Even when they’re old and wrinkly.”

They wouldn't be able to conceive children anyway. The Company had made sure of that – another cruel show of their control.

It had hurt once, to know that she would never be able to have her own family, but that pain had healed and faded over the years spent with her found family.

Jeongyeon turned her attention to Jihyo, concern gripping her heart. She knew that there was a lot on their leader’s mind, more than usual, and Jeongyeon had no idea how to help her. Nayeon had already showcased all of the properties she had found scattered across the country, all of them providing an escape to an everlasting problem, but not everyone wanted to leave.

Jeongyeon had already walked in on the School Meal Club deliberating the logistics of using Tzuyu as a literal battering ram to breach the Company’s main facility in Jeju. The conclusion had been that the resulting headache wouldn’t be worth it if it took their human tank out of the fight.

Then there was Momo and Mina, helping them with their half-spun ideas of a rebellion while Sana remained on the fence, worried that they would make things worse than they already were. It wasn’t going well, to say the least, and Jihyo – able to pick up on heightened emotions – was feeling the division.

"It's just not feasible," Jihyo murmured, voicing her thoughts aloud. "A dozen different plans and none of them end in all nine of us surviving. We can't win if we take the fight to the Company. Not without losing someone."

“So let’s move,” Nayeon prompted. “Yes, the kids will be upset, but they’ll be alive to hate us.”

“So that the Company can track us down in another six months?” Jihyo fired back, digging her nails into her temples. “It isn’t a long term solution.”

Jeongyeon tilted her head, noticing the signs of Jihyo being overwhelmed by everyone else’s emotions, and bumped Nayeon’s elbow, giving her a questioning look to which Nayeon nodded, having noticed the tells too.

All Jeongyeon had ever wanted was to keep everyone safe, to make sure that they never felt the fear and hopelessness they had felt during their time with the Company, but fear came in many forms and presented itself in different ways.

Losing control was Jihyo’s variation, losing themselves was Nayeon’s, and losing everything was Jeongyeon’s.

Fear wasn’t something they could escape, no matter how hard Chaeyoung fought or how much Tzuyu repressed. It followed them like a sickness, festering and growing over time until it infected all of them.

Jeongyeon had tried to help them recover from their traumatic childhood, had tried to be the parental figure that the younger ones had never known, but Jihyo had never let Jeongyeon fuss over her, always so insistent on leading them into a new life, grown up before she could even really be a kid.

Jihyo was their leader. She didn’t have the luxury of being clouded by emotion. Jeongyeon had thought that Sunmi would help, that time away from their powered family would do some good, but Jihyo seemed incapable of taking a break.

"Can you both be quiet?" Jihyo growled through gritted teeth. "I can't think with you two talking!”

What?

"Hyo..." Jeongyeon exchanged a worried glance with Nayeon. "We didn't say anything."

Jihyo stopped pacing and spun to face them, looking at their unmoving lips with a furrowed brow. “But I can…” Her eyes shifted up to their foreheads where their minds were tucked away, internal thoughts unfiltered as they tumbled out to smother her. “I can hear you.”

“What?” Nayeon breathed. “You mean feel us, right?” She shifted away from Jeongyeon. “I thought that your talent works through touch for thoughts.”

“But I can hear you,” Jihyo said faintly and looked out of the window where Mina and Chaeyoung were playing in the snow. “All of you…”

Jeongyeon’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “You…Jihyo,” she breathed, unsure of what else to say. With Dahyun and Tzuyu’s powers manifesting into something more, it wasn’t all that shocking that the rest of them would have the capacity to change as well, but Jeongyeon had never stopped to ponder on what they might all be capable of.

Dahyun could cast larger illusions and Tzuyu could heal her wounds. It made sense that Jihyo, the closest they had to a telepath would evolve to be able to hear thoughts as well as feel emotions, but what did that mean for the rest of them?

Jeongyeon could slow down time. What more could she potentially do?

She looked at Nayeon, her counterpart who could reverse time. How powerful could they become?

“Stop – Stop thinking!” Jihyo pleaded, clamping her hands over her ears. “It’s too much!”

“Jihyo…” Jeongyeon inhaled sharply when a younger version of Jihyo flickered in front of her, feeling the ripple of time around them, and looked at Nayeon again only to be met with a mirrored look of panic. “Nayeon?”

“I feel strange,” Nayeon murmured.

The room jolted, their furniture vanishing as the room became the empty space they had walked into seven months ago, before everything returned to its place again.

“What the hell…?”

The front door swung open, Dahyun and Momo stumbling inside with ashen faces and terror in their eyes.

“We need to leave Seoul!” Momo blurted in a panic. “The Company know where we live! Sunmi and Rosé–”

“Quiet!” Jihyo cried, slamming her palms against her ears. “It’s too much!”

Jeongyeon’s eyes whipped back to Momo and Dahyun, and the pair flickered in front of her eyes, becoming children in the blink of an eye before returning to their current age. She blinked hard and shook her head, trying to combat Nayeon’s spiraling powers.

“I can’t contact Sana or Tzuyu,” Dahyun fretted, showing them her phone screen with a record of unanswered calls and texts.

“We saw Sunmi and Rosé talking to Rain,” Momo explained. “Fuck, guys. They know where we live. They’ve been to our house!”

Jeongyeon rested her hand over her heart, able to feel the rapid increase of her own heartbeat, and took a few steadying breaths as she tried to take everything in.

“Wait. Let’s handle this one thing at a time,” Nayeon raised her hand, taking over as leader while Jihyo tried to cancel out everyone else’s thoughts. “You can’t contact Sana or Tzuyu? Where the hell are they?”

“I don’t know!” Dahyun said, her voice creeping an octave higher. “That’s why I’m telling you!”

“And…” Jeongyeon looked at Momo. “You’re sure that you saw Sunmi and Rosé?”

“Rosé?”

Chaeyoung was standing in the hallway behind them, looking so small as the snow on her clothes started to melt in the warmth of the house. She looked at Momo with wounded eyes. “What about Rosé?”

“Guys,” Mina appeared beside her, gesturing back the way they had come. “The snow outside stopped falling.”

“The – what?” Nayeon exhaled sharply, causing the room to ripple again, past and present clashing. “What do you mean ‘the snow stopped falling?’”

“I don’t know,” Mina answered calmly. “It’s almost as if…” She looked between Nayeon and Jeongyeon as she drew her own conclusion. “It’s you.”

“Enough about the weather!” Momo snapped. “We need to get the hell out of Seoul right now! Her girlfriend,”–she pointed at Jihyo–“and your oh-so-trustworthy contact,”–she pointed at Chaeyoung–“have been working with the Company agent!”

“No,” Chaeyoung disagreed quietly. “No, Rosé wouldn’t…She wouldn’t do that to us.”

“I saw it with my own eyes, Chaeyoung!”

“Guys,” Jeongyeon could feel the pressure building in her head as the little control they had started to slip away, “we have to be rational–”

“You’re wrong!” Chaeyoung said, denying the simple truth of it all. “And I told you not to trust Sunmi but you all said that I was being paranoid!”

“Stop fighting,” Jeongyeon pleaded. “This is what they want. They want us to be scared.”

“I’m not scared, Jeongyeon, I’m terrified!” Momo said, throwing her arms out wide. “Two of our friends are missing and two people we trusted have been spilling all of her secrets with the place we’ve spent nearly half of our lives running from!”

Nayeon glowered at her. “If we’d left a couple months ago like I suggested–”

“We’d still be in the same situation!” Jihyo thundered, drawing all of their attention to their exhausted leader. Her stormy gaze raked across each of them, her mind open to their inner thoughts. “Because that’s the hand we were dealt! We would still meet people we considered friends and we would still let our guard down enough for them to betray us!” She pressed a hand over her mouth as her distress bubbled over the edge, tears pooling in her eyes. “This is all my fault.”

Jeongyeon reached for her, feeling time beginning to fray at the edges. “Jihyo,” she murmured, “none of this is your fault.”

“It is,” Jihyo croaked, the heartbreak  of knowing her relationship had been forced hitting her hard. “Sunmi asked so many questions, but I was foolish enough to ignore it because she showed an interest in me.”

“It’s not,” Chaeyoung said quietly, “because if this is your fault, then it’s my fault too.” She bit her lower lip. “Rosé was my friend and I trusted her.”

“What is wrong with all of you?!” Dahyun erupted, scowling at them. “Sana and Tzuyu are missing and all you can care about is whose fault it is?!” She shook her head, scoffing in disbelief. “You can continue to bicker like children, but I am going to go and find our sisters.”

The illusionist raised her chin, looking at them with a scathing amount of disappointment, and turned to leave when a broken figure pushed between her and Momo, and collapsed to the floor in an exhausted heap without a sound other than rattled breathing in a collecting pool of blood.

Jeongyeon’s heart stopped in that moment.

It was Tzuyu.

Chapter Text

“Here.”

Jihyo looked up from the limp hand gripped in her own to see a mug of coffee being offered to her by a grim-faced Jeongyeon. “Thank you,” she muttered, accepting it without resistance. She was still overwhelmed by everyone else’s thoughts and emotions, the fear and anger suffocating her.

Jeongyeon nodded and rocked back on her heels, unable to lift her eyes from her feet, unwilling to look at the battered body lying on their kitchen table. "How is she?" she asked quietly.

Jeongyeon shifted again and Jihyo’s mind opened to hers. ’Have to stay calm. I have to stay calm. I can’t show that I’m scared too.’ The other girl’s dread flooded into her, stronger than it would have been before Jihyo started to hear their thoughts.

Mina sighed across from them, using her limited medical knowledge to check over their unconscious friend. "Not good," she said. “Ignoring her ability to heal, her body should have been able to withstand this kind of force without it.”

‘I have no idea how to fix this. I don’t even know what’s wrong with her. Damn it, Tzuyu. You should be healing.’

Jihyo turned her attention from Mina’s doubt to Tzuyu’s bruised face and squeezed her hand tighter, trying to feel the younger girl’s presence, but Tzuyu had retreated deep into herself – not dead, but also not present.

Mina had guessed it to be self-defense – that Tzuyu’s body was trying to protect her by invoking a kind of medical coma of its own.

"Whoever attacked her must have injected her with something," Mina murmured uneasily. "Some sort of sedative that's been altered to hinder her powers, perhaps. It would also explain why she is completely unresponsive."

“Think it was the Company?” Jeongyeon asked.

“Most likely.” Mina pressed two fingers against Tzuyu’s neck. “It's a miracle she even made it home."

“But not with Sana,” Momo muttered, leaning against the fridge to keep a close eye on everyone. Her gaze shifted to Jihyo, dark with contempt. “Jihyo, we have to retaliate. Look at her. Look at what they did to her.”

“We don’t know what happened yet,” Jihyo rationalized. “There’s no point charging in blindly if it’s going to get the rest of us hurt too.”

“You can’t be serious!” Momo snapped. “Sana is missing, Jihyo!”

‘What if she’s dead? What the hell do we do if she’s dead?’

“I know!” Jihyo snapped back, glowering back at her. “Getting Sana back is our main priority but we don’t even know where she is!”

“I think I might know.” Chaeyoung entered the room with a collection of paper that was taped together and connected with lots of pins and red string. “I’ve been keeping tabs on the Company ever since we escaped.”

‘If you guys had just listened to me in the first place…’

“Where the hell have you been hiding all of that?” Jeongyeon asked in surprise.

“Under our rug,” said Dahyun, following behind with shadowed eyes and a permanent downward turn to her lips. “I never thought that I’d be grateful to be bunked with a paranoid jerk.”

Dahyun’s eyes drifted to Tzuyu and then quickly diverted to Chaeyoung’s notes. ‘I shouldn’t have let you and Sana out of my sight.’

Chaeyoung slipped past them to lay her notes out on the island counter, patting Tzuyu’s foot in passing, finding comfort in her own way as she sank into the need to find their missing member.

‘Come on, gentle giant. You can pull through.’

“Dahyun found out that Rain booked transport to Jeju Island this morning,” she told them. “At the same time, several Company outposts in Seoul ceased to exist. They’re erasing all evidence that they were here, just like they did in Daegu.”

Nayeon lifted her head, her eyes bloodshot and swollen, and shifted her chair closer to Tzuyu, one hand resting on the girl’s chest to make sure that she was still breathing. “You think that they took Sana back to the facility.”

‘I’m never letting any of you out of my sight again.’

“Tzuyu looks like she was in a fight,” Chaeyoung said, grimacing when she looked at her friend’s wounds. “Anyone else and she would’ve destroyed them. It had to be the Company. They’re the only ones who know about her powers.”

“But why not take her too?” Jeongyeon asked. “Why leave her behind?”

“Maybe they ran out of time,” Nayeon suggested quietly. “Or maybe the drugs didn’t affect her like they had hoped. She could’ve been too difficult to capture.”

“They used to drug her all the time when we were kids,” Chaeyoung said. “They wanted to see how much she could endure.”

‘I wanted to hurt them. I wanted to kill them for what they did to you.’ Jihyo glanced at Nayeon, feeling the rage that was festering inside her.

“Kid was smaller then,” said Momo. “Maybe she built up a resistance to them.”

“Maybe,” Chaeyoung agreed.

Jihyo pursed her lips and looked over Tzuyu, pleased to see that the worst of her injuries had started to heal. Her fractured leg was already back in place and the large bruise on her side was already fading. Come on, kiddo, she willed her, wake up.

“So Jeju,” Jeongyeon walked over to the island counter and looked across Chaeyoung’s notes, “do you still have that floor plan?”

“Of course,” Chaeyoung found it amongst her organized mess and slid it over to Jeongyeon. “I kept all of our notes about Jeju.”

“You little paranoid genius.” Jeongyeon tousled her hair affectionately, all previous transgressions forgotten as the two set about remembering everything they had spent years trying to forget. “Never thought I’d be glad that you refused to let this go.”

“I’ll hold back from telling you ‘I told you so,’ this time,” Chaeyoung muttered.

‘I totally told you so, though.’

“Yeah, yeah.” Jeongyeon picked up one of the pages and held it to the light, their record of guard routines showing through the thin material. "You used to think that reading comics under your covers after bedtime was your own little rebellion," she murmured, "but not once did you ever question why your flashlight batteries never died."

Chaeyoung looked up from her notes in surprise, looking at Jeongyeon with the dawning realization that Jeongyeon had willingly aided in her younger rebellion.

Jihyo sighed and bowed her head, remembering the time it had taken to plan everything, the lengths that they had gone to in order to escape and remain hidden. She had been so sure that they had done enough to be safe, that all of their precautions were enough to keep the Company off of their trail, yet here they were, one member missing and another one injured.

She had been voted in as their leader, the most reliable and responsible, the one everyone trusted to keep them safe.

Some leader she had turned out to be.

‘Sa…na…?’

The whispered internal voice had her head snapping up again, attention on Tzuyu’s face where her eyebrows had fused together as consciousness began to creep in. She turned, looking for Mina, and suddenly Tzuyu surged upwards with a loud groan, twisting and turning as her last conscious moments returned.

‘Sana. Sana? Where–?’

“Easy, easy,” Jihyo pushed Tzuyu back down, catching her quick enough for Nayeon to grab her other shoulder and pin her to the table, “you’re okay. It’s okay.”

“Tzuyu.” Mina reappeared with a glass of water and leant over the younger girl, peering into her eyes. “How do you feel? Any headaches? Aches that hurt more than usual?”

“Sana,” Tzuyu rasped, looking around at their faces quickly before her expression crumbled and grief flooded into Jihyo’s palm. “I…I couldn’t…”

‘I’m sorry. Forgive me. Sana, forgive me.’

“Tzuyu,” Mina passed the glass to Nayeon and gently cupped the girl’s face between her hands, “I need to know if there’s anything that isn’t healing properly.”

“I…” Tzuyu’s eyes welled with tears and a broken sob burst from her lips. “I–I tried,” she whimpered. “I tried.”

‘I couldn’t stop the van. I couldn’t stop them. I failed you.’

“Van,” Jihyo breathed, hearing her tangled thoughts, and looked over Tzuyu’s injuries again, noting that most of them were on her left side. “You used yourself.”

Tzuyu’s eyes closed tightly as she tried to keep her tears inside. “Th-they took Sana,” she whispered. “My fault. I–I wasn’t strong enough.”

‘Imperfect. Flawed.’

“Hey. Hey.” Momo was by her side in an instant, gripping her shoulders tightly and giving a small shake to make her open her eyes again. “None of this is on you, kid, okay? Not a damn thing.” She glanced at Jihyo, an apology flickering in her eyes. “None of us are to blame. This is the Company’s fault.”

Tzuyu sniffled and nodded to appease Momo though her heart wasn’t in it, and Jihyo squeezed the hand that gripped hers, ignoring how much it hurt because that ache was nothing compared to the agony spilling out from Tzuyu’s heart.

“W-We’re going to get her back,” Tzuyu whispered pleadingly. “We have to get her back.”

‘I can’t…Need Sana. Can’t live without Sana.’

“We will.” Nayeon looked at each of them with steady resolve, giving Jihyo a glimpse of the fire burning inside. “We’ll tear the world apart if we have to. We are nine or none. Nothing will ever change that.”

Jihyo settled into the fury that filled the room, taking it all in instead of trying to fight it. She focused on each of them, feeling every inch of their being, and found strength in that. Sana was missing, but they were still eight. They could still get Sana back.

They would get Sana back.

Jihyo exhaled deeply, breathing until it was only her heartbeat that sounded in her ears and only her thoughts that echoed in her mind. She knew what their next step was, what their first move against the Company would be.

“We need to have a little talk with Sunmi.”

*********

"Subject Four," the monotonous tone washed over them, "defend yourself from Subject Nine."

Sana looked across at Tzuyu, clawing at the inside of her elbow where a dozen track marks lay. She looked dazed and confused, verging on feral as bloodshot eyes flitted about in search of danger.

She just needed to get to her, just needed to hold her and promise that everything would be okay. There was a plan and they only needed a few more weeks before they would be free. Just a little more time and the tests would stop for good.

"Begin."

The cuffs that had held Tzuyu back fell to the floor with a loud clatter, released by a button beyond the confines of the training room.

It would be so much easier if Mina was allowed to speak. She would only need to give a single command for Tzuyu to stop, but Mina was collared and they were separated from the others.

"Go on, whelp," the guard behind Tzuyu shoved her forward, "I bet a month's salary on you winning."

A bet.

Sana could taste the bitterness of that fact on her tongue.

They were nothing more than entertainment.

Tzuyu’s eyes settled on Sana, wide and frightened. She didn’t want to hurt Sana. She didn’t want to perform, but Sana already knew that what they wanted was irrelevant. They didn’t get a choice.

"Subject Nine," said the faceless voice, "are you in need of some persuasion?"

Persuasion. Drugs.

“N–No,” Tzuyu whispered, voicing the first Korean word Jeongyeon and Nayeon had taught her, but she would be ignored. It didn’t matter what they wanted.

The doors opened behind Tzuyu and the Doctor entered with a syringe and a malicious smile, his intent clear as he advanced upon his favorite test subject.

Sana bit down on her tongue, hard enough to draw blood. She couldn’t do anything to stop them, couldn’t do anything to save Tzuyu, except watch as the Doctor stabbed the needle in the side of Tzuyu's neck and syringed the blue liquid, forcing it into her bloodstream.

Tzuyu’s eyes glazed over at the same time Sana felt herself start to flicker. She knew what came next.

“Subject Four,” the voice said again. “Defend yourself from Subject Nine.”

“Chewy!”

Sana bolted upright, her hands searching around for her girlfriend, but she only found cold tiles. She turned, expecting to see Tzuyu’s body a few feet away, crumpled from the impact with the van, but she was alone, locked inside a glass box from her nightmares.

“Chewy?” She rose unsteadily, her limbs still aching from the rough hands that had grabbed her, and lifted her hand to the glass barrier, remembering how hard she had tried to escape, remembering the sight of Tzuyu’s hands, broken and bloody, yet the girl had kept trying and so had Sana.

But now she was alone.

The glass chambers around her were all empty save for hers, where a number four was marked on the white tiles in front of her. Her eyes followed the numbers, three and five closing her in, until they settled on number nine, directly across from her, empty, yet Sana could still see the child she had befriended, tucked in the far corner trying to hide from everyone.

Her sweet Chewy.

She was alone, yet she found some comfort in that. It meant that Tzuyu had escaped. Tzuyu would make it home and the others would come. Sana had no doubt that they would…but what if they took too long?

What if Tzuyu was still lying in the street, being ignored by the rest of the world who were too consumed by their own lives to help? What if Tzuyu was somewhere else in the facility?

Her heart dropped and her blood turned to ice.

What if the Doctor had gotten his hands on her Chewy again?            

No. Sana couldn’t wait for a rescue. She couldn’t just sit around and do nothing. She needed to get back to her family, needed to make sure that her Chewy was okay, needed to hurt the people who had ruined her perfectly wonderful date.

Sana stepped up to the glass wall, flickering as she fought to stay upright and conscious, and lifted her hand, reaching out with trembling fingers.

Her hand went straight through the glass.

Chapter Text

Nayeon fidgeted restlessly as they waited for Sunmi to finish her shift. Mina was sat beside her, waiting for their chance to spring so that she could coerce Sunmi into going home with them involuntarily and Tzuyu was counting under her breath in the backseat, tapping anxiously against her bouncing leg.

Nayeon had tried to convince Tzuyu to stay at the house, tried to convey that Mina was more than enough with her ability, but the girl was inconsolable, refusing to sit at the house while Sana was missing, stressing that Sunmi might be aware of their powers and her strength could come in handy.

But she still wasn’t fully healed. It was as if the emotional distress was affecting her ability and though Nayeon had tried to be firm, seeing someone who had never cried as a kid break down into tears was enough to make her cave.

The others were no better and Nayeon was barely keeping it together herself. They had been through a lot, but they’d never lost a teammate before and even though Chaeyoung was insistent that the Company wanted them alive, doubt still managed to creep in and plant its roots deep.

What if they were more trouble than they were worth or the Company wanted to erase Project Signal entirely?

“O-One, t-two,” Tzuyu’s stuttered whisper breached her thoughts and brought her back to the present, to the counting that was supposed to supposed to calm her down, to the tactic that wasn’t helping in the slightest. “One, t-two, th-th-three…”

Nayeon looked at her in the rearview mirror, perturbed by the murderous expression focused on the café door, and caught Mina’s bloodshot gaze, seeing a similar worry burrowed inside. Tzuyu hadn’t stuttered since she was a child learning a whole new language, stumbling over her words and creating new ones entirely in place of words she couldn’t remember.

The eldest was more than aware that her formed family was falling apart with Sana’s absence, their tempers shortened and set off quicker than usual. Contracts had gone wrong and injuries had been severe on more than a few occasions, but they had always arrived home as nine, always together.

To have one of them missing had left their world tilted on the wrong axis.

“Chaeyoung can manipulate electricity,” Mina voiced quietly, providing noise in an overwhelming silence.

“Makes sense,” Nayeon said. “She’s a little ball of energy.”

“Nayeon,” Mina turned to her, worrying away at her lower lip, “I think that you and Jeongyeon made the snow stop falling.” She twisted her hands together, weary eyes drifting to their distant passenger in the backseat and back again. “Your abilities have always clashed, past and present refusing to cooperate, but never like that.” The hypnotist sank back in her seat with a soft sigh. “This business with the Company is sending us all into overdrive.”

Nayeon bit the inside of her cheek, thinking back on the moment everything had fallen apart. In the blink of an eye Momo and Dahyun had appeared as they had all those years ago, frightened children struggling to survive. She had known that Jeongyeon had seen it too, known the moment she started to hyperventilate while they argued.

Time had always been her greatest enemy and her greatest ally, fighting and aiding her at the most inconvenient of times. She was capable of reversing time, yet Jeongyeon’s ability to slow time never allowed her more than a few seconds, but if they were all capable of more, then maybe – just maybe…

What if she could have minutes or even hours? What if she could reverse time further?

“One, t-two–” Tzuyu’s quiet counting stopped abruptly and Nayeon’s attention snapped to the café door when a low growl came from behind them, her adrenaline firing up as Sunmi stepped out into the fading light.

“Mina,” Nayeon prompted.

Mina twisted around in her seat and reached out to grab Tzuyu’s shoulder as her eyes turned to liquid silver. “Stay here,” she murmured when Tzuyu met her gaze and the super soldier sank back down obediently, silver flickering when she blinked.

With Tzuyu placated, Nayeon flung the door open and leapt from the vehicle, trusting Mina to keep up.

“Sunmi, hey!” Nayeon broke into a jog, desperate to reach the other girl before she flagged down a cab. “Sunmi!”

The girl turned, surprise clouding her features before she molded her expression into a friendly smile, all of it an act to keep them unsuspecting, all of it a lie meant to lure them in.

“Hello,” Sunmi greeted politely, looking between Nayeon and Mina with that kind smile. “What are you doing here? You don’t have any shifts this week.”

“What am I doing here?” Nayeon echoed, disbelief coating her words. “Seriously? I think that you know why I’m here.”

Recognition flickered in Sunmi’s eyes, quick enough that Nayeon would have missed it had she not known the truth.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sunmi said, already beginning to back away. “I’m meeting Jihyo later. I should really go home and get ready–”

“Enough of this.” Mina stepped up beside Nayeon, glowering at the agent. “You have one chance to tell us where they took Sana.”

“Sana?” Sunmi frowned at the hypnotist, a look of genuine confusion passing over her face. “Has something happened?”

Nayeon scowled at her, more than ready to throw a punch, but then Sunmi’s expression slackened and she stepped between them, walking towards their minivan without another word. She turned her gaze to Mina who stood silently, her narrowed gaze locked on Sunmi and flickering with silver.

“Mina,” Nayeon whispered, touching Mina’s arm when blood started to fall from her nose.

Mina reached up to touch beneath her nostrils and lifted her hand up, staring at the blood on her fingertips passively, and a shuddered exhale rattled between her teeth as she drew her shoulders back. “We don’t have the luxury of time,” she said quietly. “It was taking too long and Tzuyu wasn’t going to stay in the van forever.”

Nayeon watched her go as dread pooled in her gut. It was no coincidence that their powers were evolving, no small chance that they were simply maturing. The Company’s presence had triggered most, but their desperation to find their missing member had hastened the process.

Mind control.

Mina could control people without saying anything at all.

*********

Sana hurried down the winding hallways while the alarms blared overhead, keeping to the shadows and staying out of sight. Some of the facility clawed at well-kept memories, triggering a faint recollection of walked paths, but the building was designed with the intention to confuse them.

Everything looked the same, from the masked staff members to the large rooms, all of them painted white to stimulate daylight. There was no night, no passing of time, merely an everlasting nightmare that they had tried their hardest to run from.

The doors were locked, sealed shut while the lockdown continued. They knew that she was missing, knew that she was somewhere in the facility, but their cages could no longer hold her. She moved through the doors with ease, phasing through as if no barrier existed.

On and on she went, running as fast as she could. She could only mask her body heat for so long, could only hide until her energy ran out, and it was depleting quickly.

Room by room passed and yet there was still no sign of Tzuyu, no sign of her Chewy or any indication that she had been captured too.

She needed to go, needed to leave, needed to find her Chewy and make sure that she was okay. Sana kept reminding herself that she would heal, that her collision with the agents’ van wouldn’t kill her, couldn’t kill her, but Tzuyu’s healing was temperamental and the agents had managed to inject the super soldier with an unknown liquid during the fight.

As invincible as she claimed to be, Mina was right. Tzuyu was only impenetrable to a point and that point was fast approaching the more she threw herself at danger.

Sana moved through another wall and doubled over with a gasp, unable to hold up her powers any longer. She landed heavily on her knees and fought back tears, lost in the labyrinth of their childhood. She couldn’t find the exit, couldn’t find a way out, couldn’t find her Chewy.

She needed out, needed to see the sky and feel the wind on her face, needed a glimpse of the freedom she had grown accustomed to, but there was nothing except the vast emptiness of the facility where the ghosts of her past remained.

“Ah, Subject Four. I was wondering when you would arrive.”

Sana’s breath fled her lungs in a fluttered gasp as she forced herself to look up at the faceless man, yet even with the featureless mask, Sana could sense the maliciousness hidden behind it.

It was the man who haunted all of their nightmares, the one who pushed them until they could go no further, the man who named them Subjects One through Nine, his collection of experiments.

The Doctor.

*********

"We should kill her," Momo growled.

"We are not killing her,” Jihyo said tersely.

Nayeon set her glare on the young woman tied to their chair and hoped that Sunmi could feel the contempt in the room. “We need her to tell us where Sana is,” she said, “then you can kill her.”

“Nayeon,” Jihyo gave her a cutting look, desperately trying to cling to whatever sense remained. “We’re not monsters. We’re not like them.”

“Morals don’t really come into this anymore, Boss,” Momo said lowly. “All sense of that went out the window when they kidnapped Sana and mowed Tzuyu down with a truck.”

“Van,” Dahyun corrected absently, typing away furiously on her laptop as she scoured all of their files for anything that could pinpoint Sana’s location.

“It was doesn’t matter what kind of vehicle it was,” Chaeyoung seethed and stalked forward to stand in front of Sunmi, a fizzing ball of anger. “Where did they take Sana?”

Sunmi blinked up at them, confusion laced with fear visible in her wide-eyed stare. “Where did who take Sana?” she asked hoarsely.

“You know who,” Chaeyoung growled. “The people you work for!”

“The café?” Sunmi croaked as her tongue darted out to wet her cracked lips. “Could I get some water, please?”

“Absolutely not,” said Jeongyeon.

“I can make her talk,” Mina piped up from the kitchen table, wrapped up in a blanket with a towel pressed against her nose.

“No,” Nayeon said firmly. “You can continue to sit there and rest.”

“Resting won’t help us find Sana,” Mina murmured.

“Neither will injuring yourself by overusing your powers,” Nayeon countered.

Tzuyu shuffled on her feet, ordered to stay by the window furthest from the agent, and Nayeon gave her a forced smile, trying to provide comfort where she could. The super soldier didn’t remember being told to stay in the minivan, though there was still suspicion in her wounded gaze, unable to piece together how they had captured the agent.

“She’s not going to tell us,” Momo huffed. “I say we kill her.”

“Momo,” Jihyo cautioned her.

“She’s no use to us if she won’t talk,” Momo shrugged.

“I mean, she’s not wrong,” Jeongyeon agreed, moving to assess their mess of notes still scattered across the island counter. “We can’t let her go either. She might go back to the Company.”

“The Company?” Sunmi echoed.

“Yes,” Chaeyoung said, “the people you work for.”

“Have they…done something?” Sunmi asked quietly.

Footsteps thundered as Tzuyu shoved past them and hauled the agent up by the front of her shirt, her grip trembling as furious tears pooled in her eyes.

"Where. Is. She?!" she demanded hoarsely.

Sunmi cried out in pain, her wrists still bound through the back of the chair that was weighing her down. “I don’t know! I swear!”

A furious growl tore from Tzuyu’s throat, not believing her. “You’re lying!”

“I’m not! I’m not!” Sunmi cried as her limbs started to ache. “I swear I don’t know! I was just supposed to report to him – to Rain! That’s all. He wanted information. That’s what I do. I gather information, nothing more!”

“Sounds an awful lot like a sleeper agent to me,” said Chaeyoung. “You infiltrate and you feed back information.”

“I didn’t have a choice!” Sunmi said in her own defense. “Do you think any of us chose to work for them?”

“Everyone has a choice,” Jeongyeon seethed.

“You weren’t the only kids they kept in there,” the agent spat. “The only difference is that you had powers and we didn’t.”

“Chaeyoung,” Dahyun whispered, just loud enough to draw the telekinetic’s attention, and the illusionist nodded towards the giant beside her, her request clear.

Chaeyoung looked up at her taller friend and her anger wavered at the tremor in Tzuyu’s arms. “You can put her down now, buddy,” she said in softer tones, “I think she’ll cooperate.”

Tzuyu complied and released her grip mechanically, causing the agent to land heavily and off kilter, causing her to tip backwards with a cry of fright.

"Tzu..." Jihyo touched her bicep and gasped loudly, nearly doubling over at the magnitude of agony that was spilling out of Tzuyu like a leaky faucet, and the girl flinched out of reach, bloodshot eyes snapping to Jihyo’s.

“I need Sana,” Tzuyu rasped.

“We’ll get her back, kiddo,” Momo spoke, catching her gaze with a solemn promise in her own. “Nine or none, remember?”

Tzuyu nodded and retreated back to her previous spot as she tapped her fingers against her thigh to distract herself, muttering the mantra on repeat that their family was never complete with one member missing.

Jihyo sighed and approached the struggling agent to loom over her as a foreboding shadow. "You're partly at fault for this," she said, "and I am still so pissed at you..." She exhaled deeply, letting go of a combined anger as she reached down to drag the girl upright again. "But I need your help."

Sunmi nodded earnestly, glancing between each of them fearfully, and Jihyo could see a reflection of herself and her family, terrified children forced to perform. Perhaps they weren’t so different after all.

Jihyo had never even considered the possibility that they weren’t the only children the Company had tormented. Their agents had to come from somewhere and what better than children raised to obey without question.

But the past was history and Sana was still missing, and the only path forward was one Jihyo had spent the entirety of their free lives trying to avoid. They needed to go back to where everything began.

“I need you to get us back into the facility on Jeju Island.”

Chapter Text

Getting to Jeju Island was far easier than it had been to escape. The Company would never expect them to return, of course. All of the security measures had been to keep them inside, not from going back.

Several hours on the road, careening up the highways in the middle of the night, and they had managed to catch the early morning ferry across. It had been a long journey with the nine of them crammed into the worn minivan, around eight hours going by Jeongyeon’s frantic time-keeping and the lack of breaks, but they had made it and now they were stood on the doorstep of their own personal hell.

Chaeyoung looked up at the building and fought hard not to shudder. It looked the same as it had seven years ago, a prison in disguise. To anyone else, it would appear like a hotel, yet no guests ever walked through the main doors.

Deep beneath the surface was where they had been kept, locked behind glass walls like a collection on display.

She felt electricity sparking inside her clenched fists. Sana was in there somewhere, alone.

“Never thought we’d come back here,” Jeongyeon said uneasily. “Not willingly.”

“We need to be cautious,” Jihyo advised them, pacing in front like a drill sergeant, restless and terrified, but forever keeping a brave face on for everyone else. “We can’t be reckless.”

“I’ll go in first,” Sunmi said as she pulled a cable tie out of her pocket and stepped up to Dahyun, “Don’t follow right away.”

Dahyun laughed nervously while her wrists were bound together, the obvious unwilling volunteer for their infiltration mission. She could hide in plain sight, creating illusions to distract and confuse. Anyone else would be a mistake.

“This feels wrong,” Momo grouched, pressed up against the illusionist’s side and glowering at the agent. She wasn’t allowed to go in with her and that had not gone over very well. “I’m not comfortable with Dahyun going in alone.”

“She’ll be with Sunmi,” Jihyo reassured her.

“No offence, Ji,” said Momo, “but that doesn’t help.”

“If anyone should go inside, it should be Tzuyu,” Chaeyoung reasoned as she joined the others in their huddle. “She’s the strongest.”

“No,” Jeongyeon disagreed. “They know what she’s capable of now. They’d sedate her the moment she walked through the door.”

“And she still hasn’t healed properly from the abduction,” Mina pointed out. “Whatever they drugged her with is still in her system.”

Chaeyoung glanced towards her quiet friend, silent as she scowled at the building that held their friend captive. She had not spoken a word since they left the city, opting to battle her brewing storm of emotions alone. As far as Tzuyu was concerned, she had failed to protect the team and therefore had let everyone down.

She saw herself as a failure and nothing Chaeyoung said would change that. She didn’t have Sana’s gift with words.

“Besides,” said Nayeon, “we’re going in the back. Dahyun’s the distraction.”

“Lucky me,” Dahyun mumbled, still sporting her nervous smile.

“If anything happens to her,” Momo growled at the agent, “you’ll regret it.”

“I’m trying to–” Sunmi met the speedster’s glare steadily. “I’m trying to make this right. What would I gain from turning on you now?”

“A promotion?” Nayeon quipped darkly.

“I want out,” Sunmi told her solemnly. “This is how I can escape.”

‘Escape.’ Chaeyoung grimaced, finding the comparisons too easy when she wanted to hate the other girl. It was hard to despise someone who was just as trapped as she had been.

“Okay,” Momo breathed and leant forward to kiss the corner of Dahyun’s mouth, imprinting every inch of her to memory just in case, “be safe.”

“You too,” Dahyun whispered as she glanced around, water gathering in the corners of her eyes at the implications of what they were about to do, “all of you.”

“Nine or none,” Mina murmured.

They had a plan, like always when under Jihyo’s command, but their plans had gone wrong before and more commonly in the past year. Once they entered, there was no guarantee that they would walk back out.

‘But isn’t this what you wanted?’ a tiny voice at the back of her mind whispered. ‘This is your chance to get rid of the Company for good.’

Yet a louder voice, the one she knew as her neglected voice of reason, wondered what the cost would be, because nothing was ever simple. Not for them. Simple was something so far out of their reach that it remained an idea instead of a possibility.

One mistake was all it took for everything to fall apart.

“Are we doing this then?” Jeongyeon asked, watching their leader carefully like always.

And for the first time in seven years, Chaeyoung witnessed their leader falter. There had been moments of doubt, times when Jihyo had needed to step back from leadership and hand it over to Jeongyeon and Nayeon, but she had never seemed frightened.

Jihyo had never had the luxury of sharing how she truly felt, not when she needed to keep them all together. Chaeyoung knew that she definitely had not been helping with that lately either. Her own schemes, as good intentioned as they were, had neglected Jihyo’s concerns.

“Yes,” Chaeyoung said, stepping up when no one else would, and even Tzuyu inclined her head to listen, “we’re doing this. We didn’t come all of this way not to.”

“Dahyun,” Jihyo looked at their volunteered tribute, doubting the success of their operation, “are you ready?”

And Dahyun, ever the optimist, answered with a wobbly smile and a jerky nod of confirmation. “As ready as I’ll ever be, Boss.”

“Then we’re going in,” Jihyo announced.

Chaeyoung nudged the leader of her smaller club, trying to convey everything through her eyes. “See you soon, Dubu,” she promised.

“Yeah…” Dahyun nudged her back. “Hey,” she murmured, loud enough for Chaeyoung’s ears only, “do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Keep an eye on Tzu?” Dahyun requested quietly. “I’m worried about her. I’m worried about what she’ll do.”

“Of course,” Chaeyoung answered.

“And don’t do anything stupid until I’m back?”

“No promises,” Chaeyoung quipped lightly.

“Dahyun and I will go in the front,” Sunmi said as she gripped Dahyun’s forearm. “In exactly five minutes, you will enter through the fire escape located on the opposite side and aim to meet us at the security checkpoint.” The agent nodded to Jihyo. “Jihyo will be able to track us with her powers. They’re low on guards but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be expecting a rescue mission.”

“So no risks,” Jihyo added. “Nothing that puts your lives at more risk than they already are.”

“I will do whatever it takes,” Tzuyu voiced from the sidelines, hatred creeping in with Sana’s absence of love. “I don’t care about the risks.”

“Hey, dumbass,” Momo called to catch her attention, glowering at their youngest member, “I want Sana back too, but being an idiot won’t help.” She narrowed her eyes and played her best underhand move. “How would Sana feel if you got hurt, hm?”

Tzuyu’s anger faltered, giving Chaeyoung a glimpse of her gentle friend she knew as well as her own reflection, but Chaeyoung also knew her devotion to the group and the unmovable guilt that she didn’t do enough for them.

“It’s okay,” Tzuyu said softly. “I’m invincible.”

“Impenetrable,” Mina corrected, “to a point, Tzuyu.”

The super soldier frowned, clearly in disagreement, especially when Sana’s safety was involved, and broke the chain of command she followed so religiously by abandoning the group in favor of heading for the other side of the building.

“See you soon?” Dahyun said, though the pitch of her voice posed it as a question.

“See you soon,” Momo breathed, hesitating for a moment before she cupped Dahyun’s face between her palms and pressed their lips together, not in a desperate farewell, but a promise of seeing one another again.

“Remember,” Sunmi said when the two parted, casting a worried glance across them, “they studied you and we were taught how to fight you. You have to be smarter.”

Jihyo nodded firmly and gestured for the rest of them to follow Tzuyu while Sunmi marched Dahyun towards the main entrance to begin the distraction of a false capture.

“Jihyo,” Momo huffed, constantly glancing back at her disappearing girlfriend, “I swear–”

“Dahyun will be okay,” Chaeyoung said as she jogged to walk alongside her, all of them keeping to the shadows and in the blind spots of memorized security cameras. “She’s tougher than you know.” She nodded towards Tzuyu. “It’s why we voted her in as our club captain.”

Momo rewarded her efforts with a tiny smile, though the concern in her eyes lingered and likely would remain there until they met back up with their illusionist inside.

Jeongyeon and Nayeon had hurried forward to trap Tzuyu between them and simultaneously take the lead, speaking in hushed tones with their stubborn oaf of a friend about thinking before she acted, especially during their current mission, but Chaeyoung already knew that their words were falling on deaf ears.

Had the situation been reversed and it was Mina who had been taken instead of Sana, Chaeyoung would stop at nothing to get her back, no matter the risks.

Chaeyoung felt Mina’s presence beside her when the energy in the air changed, her nerve endings settling. “This feels different to other missions, doesn’t it?” she voiced quietly. “Like it might be the last.”

“I never imagined that we would be back here,” Mina replied. “It was naïve to think that our freedom wasn’t just an extension of their control.”

Chaeyoung looked at her, perturbed by the grief that haunted her gaze, already accepting defeat before they had even set foot inside.

“Our freedom was ours,” Chaeyoung disagreed. “That’s why they hunted us down. We were beyond their control.”

Mina sighed and extended her hand, her request unspoken yet obvious, and Chaeyoung tangled their fingers together, tightening until she could feel Mina’s heartbeat.

They reached the back of the building too fast, all seven of them hesitating at the fire exit door from Chaeyoung’s memorized floor plan. It had been the point of their escape, the moment they had set foot outside and tasted freedom, and now it was their point of entry. Now they had to go back inside.

Jihyo stepped up to the door and pressed her ear against it, silent as she listened to the world hidden from them. “The alarm has been triggered,” she breathed when she pulled back, frowning in concern. “Sana must have set it off.”

“Do you think she got out?” Mina asked.

“This changes the plan,” Momo said tersely. “Any security will be on alert. We need to get inside and find Dahyun. Now.”

“Agreed.” Jeongyeon moved to try and open the door. “It won’t budge,” she said irritably, giving up with a sigh. "Tzuyu, could you–?"

Tzuyu stormed through them and drove her foot into the door, sending it crashing onto the ground, and they were immediately hit by the blare of alarms and flashing overhead lights.  

"Sana!" Tzuyu called above the noise and entered without hesitation. “Sana? Can you hear me?”

Momo swore under her breath and vanished to reappear by her side in a flash, catching her sleeve between trembling fingers. “Maybe we should be quiet, kiddo,” she suggested. “We have to be careful about this.”

Chaeyoung let go of Mina’s hand as she followed behind, bracing both of her palms with static energy in the event of a surprise attack, but there were no soldiers anywhere. The stairwell was silent and Jihyo shook her head when Jeongyeon gestured to the room beyond.

They were alone.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Jihyo murmured. “I can’t hear anything. Voices, footsteps, thoughts – nothing.”

“Maybe Sana took them out?” Chaeyoung suggested half-heartedly.

“Or maybe they–” Jeongyeon caught herself quickly before she could finish her spoken thought, though the damage was already done.

Tzuyu’s mind had latched on to the idea of Sana being anything other than okay and the girl kicked down the next door, stomping through without a care.

“Tzuyu!” Chaeyoung hissed and darted after her. She had made a promise to Dahyun and she was technically second-in-command of their club, after all. Her voice meant something – or it usually did…when Sana wasn’t missing.

Her feet crossed the threshold into another room, large and empty – near the reception area they were supposed to meet Dahyun at, yet there was no sight of their illusionist or their reformed Company spy.

“What if Sunmi betrayed us?” Mina asked tentatively.

“She wouldn’t,” Jihyo assured her. “It would be seven against one.”

“She’d have the Company on her side,” Momo growled. “A literal army.”

“We beat them as kids,” Jeongyeon reminded them. “We can beat them again.”

Chaeyoung’s breath fled her lungs when a heavy weight knocked into her side, telekinetic energy sparking out to alleviate it, and she blinked at Tzuyu who was on unsteady footing with heavy eyelids.

“Tzu?” she questioned whisper-softly. “Are you okay?” Her gaze fell upon a red droplet that was dripping from one nostril. “You don’t look so good, buddy.”

Tzuyu glanced at her sharply, pain tucked behind a false bravado. “I’m fine,” she grumbled, even as a hand crept down to cradle her ribs. “Just feels weird being back.”

Chaeyoung frowned at the blatant lie and opened her mouth to call bullshit on her feeble excuse, but was cut off when a rubber bullet ricocheted off of the wall behind her, revealing a layer of metal hidden beneath plaster and paint.

Her hand flung out forward and sent an arc of lightening towards the soldier in the far doorway, forcing them back. Gunfire reached her ears a moment later and the pit of dread grew heavier.

“Dahyun,” Momo rasped, and was gone in the next blink of an eye.

Chaeyoung’s stomach twisted and she ran towards the fighting without hesitation, pulling Tzuyu along by her wrist, but the moment she set foot in the main reception, she was plunged into darkness.

Dahyun. It had to be.

“No, no, no. Not the dark. I don’t like the dark,” Tzuyu whispered and her wrist slipped free from Chaeyoung’s fingers, which only further confirmed her suspicion.

Dahyun was using her illusions.

The ground ahead of her was cracked and worn, the walls curling in on top of her, but Chaeyoung wasn’t afraid. She knew how the illusion worked, understood that it wasn’t real after many late-night discussions with Dahyun and Tzuyu while she tried to help them heal their friendship.

The hallucinations could work to their benefit.

She took a deep breath and focused, straining to make out the reality hidden beyond Dahyun’s tricks. She could hear the cries of fright from the Company’s soldiers and Jeongyeon and Nayeon calling out for everyone else.

Chaeyoung exhaled and focused even harder, reaching out into the energy she could so easily use until she felt the disturbance, and then she began to walk towards it.

There, in the middle of it all, was the cause of the disturbance, appearing as little more than a shimmer of air.

Chaeyoung lifted her hand to touch it and exhaled in relief when the illusion broke and revealed the captain of their special club. “Dahyun.”

“Chae?” Dahyun gasped loudly and folded around her, hugging her desperately. “I thought–”

“That we wouldn’t get here in time?” Chaeyoung finished softly. “Hey, we’re the School Meal Club, Dubs. Brains, brawn, and bad ideas.”

Dahyun laughed wetly against her shoulder. “I can guess which of those three is you,” she teased.

“Yeah, well, that’s why you’re the voice of reason,” Chaeyoung commented.

“The alarm,” Dahyun breathed. “Sana must have…It wasn’t Sunmi, Chaeng. She told me to hide so I did.”

“In your illusion,” Chaeyoung murmured. “Dahyun, that’s genius.”

The illusion was starting to fade, revealing the other members of their team scattered around the reception. Sunmi was already firing back at the other soldiers and pleading them to lay down their weapons, shouting that they could win their own freedom by helping Jihyo’s team, and to Chaeyoung’s immediate surprise, a few of them did.

Perhaps not everyone associated with the Company were as evil as Chaeyoung had once believed, but that was the cruel beauty of the masks. Everyone looked the same, even the Company employees there by force.

Everything was beginning to calm down. Their plan was almost back on track. Until a scream echoed around them, carried by the ghosts of their past, and Chaeyoung’s heart stopped.

“Sana!” Tzuyu took off at a sprint, charging through the barrier of soldiers in the direction of the cry.

“Tzuyu! Tzuyu, stop!” Nayeon yelled after her, but she was ignored. “Damn it!”

“Follow her!” Jihyo bellowed, busy grappling with a masked assailant.

Chaeyoung cleared a path for herself, trying to keep sight of her tall friend, but she was already out of sight, swallowed by the teargas and residual smoke. Tzuyu was gone, both unwilling and unable to listen to reason.

“I’ll get her!” Jeongyeon shouted, already vanishing into another stairwell after Tzuyu with Nayeon quickly following.

The soldiers who had been at the point of surrender saw their chance as eight became five and the bullets started to fly again, one striking Dahyun’s shoulder with enough force to sever the illusion completely and knock her off of her feet.

"No!" Momo forced herself to move faster, tearing against the confines of time and space until everything ruptured.

Her body rippled and Chaeyoung felt the air tear apart as Momo surged forward, traveling faster than she ever had before, to reemerge beside Dahyun.

“What was that?” Chaeyoung asked, gasping as the atoms and molecules repaired themselves once more. It felt different to Momo’s usual fast-paced travel, different to when she simply moved through the air. It was jarring and violent, like a pop of a balloon.

“I…I don’t know…” Momo shook her head and turned her attention to Dahyun who was gripping her shoulder in agony. “I think that I just teleported.”

A bullet sailed past Chaeyoung’s ear, whistling as it went, and she flung a sparking line of electricity at the offending weapon, barely reacting when the soldier yelped and dropped their gun. She didn’t have time to fight them, not while three of her teammates were headed deeper into the facility after their missing friend.

And then, just as suddenly as the violence had started, the opposing soldiers stopped, frozen as they were, and Chaeyoung’s gaze turned to Mina, glowering at them all with silver flickering in her irises, demanding them to cease their assault without uttering a single command.

“We don’t have the luxury of time,” Mina said lowly and gestured to the door their friends had ventured through. “Come on. Desperation causes mistakes and I’m not willing to lose anyone to recklessness.”

Chaeyoung nodded and helped tow Dahyun back to her feet, giving Momo privacy when she all but grappled the girl into a tight embrace as she planted kisses all over face with muttered nonsense of comfort.

“Which way do you think they went?” Chaeyoung asked. “Up or down?”

All eyes turned to Jihyo, their member capable of sensing life and hearing the unspoken. “I…” Jihyo’s eyes darted around desperately, seeing beyond walls and floors as they filled with panic. “I can’t feel them. I can’t – I can’t feel them. It’s this place! I can’t–”

“I think I know,” Sunmi interrupted and rested a calming hand on Jihyo’s shoulder, their unlikely ally after everything. “Down. To the very bottom.”

Chaeyoung inhaled sharply and curled her hands into fists to hide the tremor that settled in. Down meant that they had to go back to where it all began, deep in the depths of a prison hidden underground, where adults in suits had experimented on nine powered individuals.

Down was where their glass cages remained, unbreakable and inescapable.

“We never expected it to be easy, did we?” Dahyun voiced quietly, haggard and beaten down after her extended illusion.

“No,” Chaeyoung murmured. “Not for one second.”

As a broken group of five and their rebel Company spy, they began their descent down the three-hundred-and-seventy-four steps, all of which Chaeyoung had counted during their escape all those years ago, to memorize how many it had taken to be free.

Chapter Text

Gunfire echoed above them, bouncing down the levels to thunder in Sana’s ears. Relief had been her initial response, soothed to know that her family had come to save her, but then that relief had turned to dread, petrified of the implications.

All she could see when she closed her eyes was her teammates riddled with bullet holes, her sweet Chewy fighting until she couldn’t, always pushing herself too far, so persistent to go one step further than she should.

“It would appear that the rest of our missing experiments have come home.”

Sana tugged at the constraints around her wrists as the Doctor approached from behind, flicking the needle head of a particularly large syringe, one holding the unknown blue liquid she had witnessed them inject into Tzuyu so many times.

He set it down on the metal table in front of her and tapped it with a wicked smile. “Just in case,” he murmured.

Their assailants had injected Tzuyu with something during Sana’s capture, a concoction that had made her slow and sluggish, weak enough to be taken out by a van that her body should have crumpled, but Sana realized now that they had never intended to take Tzuyu as well.

Sana was the target because she was the ideal bait.

She inhaled sharply when shouting ricocheted in the stairwell, voices that she knew better than her own heartbeat. Her teammates were coming. She just had to be brave for a little longer. She just had to wait.

She looked towards the guarding soldiers, standing in wait by the locked doors with rifles full of rubber bullets meant to incapacitate them. They were more valuable alive, but Sana knew without a shadow of doubt that they would be exterminated if they couldn’t be contained.

“Who do you think will get here first?” the Doctor asked lowly. “Subjects One and Two? The heroic duo? Or maybe Subject Five? Your diligent leader who told you that we were a nightmare left behind?” He turned and leant down into her face, leering at her behind a cowardly mask. “Or perhaps your little infatuation? You were always particularly fond of Subject Nine.”

Sana’s heart sank. He knew – and of course he knew, because the Doctor had known all of their weaknesses, but hearing him voice it was far worse than his silent conclusions.

The lights overhead flickered simultaneously with the ruckus above them and Sana lifted her gaze to the ceiling, wondering where in the building the fighting was, fretting about what injuries her team had sustained during their rescue.

And it was all for her. Sana had never doubted that they would try to get her back, but any and all damage was her fault. She should have grabbed Tzuyu the moment the van had appeared and made them both disappear.

Realistically, she knew that it had all happened far too quickly for any sort of logical reaction, yet the guilt remained and continued to fester inside. She had let her guard down, so wrapped up in her time spent with Tzuyu and not simply alongside her, that an attack had immobilised them both without any real struggle.

“You hid from her when you trained,” the Doctor mused. “At first I suspected that you were frightened of her, but then I watched you on the cameras. You comforted her, and that was when I realised that you were not hiding out of fear.” He grinned wickedly. “But because you didn’t want her to feel guilt for causing you pain.”

“Chewy didn’t want to hurt us,” Sana bit back furiously. “You forced her to, you psychopath! She didn’t have a choice!”

“And she speaks.” The Doctor tilted his head. “How predictable you are, Subject Four. You have always been the most sensitive – the easiest to break down.” He gestured to her with a flick of his wrist. “You were the key to our lost subjects returning and now you will be what shackles them here once more.”

Sana inhaled sharply at the revelation, cursing herself for letting him get to her. Every training session, every pairing for pitted fights, every invasive test…it had all been part of a grander plan. The monsters in white lab coats had seen them bonding and had used that against them.

Sana had been made to fight Tzuyu, just like how Nayeon and Jeongyeon had been forced to fight one another, and how Chaeyoung was bullied into fighting Mina, Dahyun against Momo, Jihyo against each of them.

The Company had been trying to cause a divide long before now and their pointed talons kept clawing it deeper. They had infiltrated every aspect of their lives and ensured that they would feel the impact for years without even knowing.

She had seen it firsthand in Tzuyu, the Doctor’s preferred test subject for her ability to endure the most and a language barrier that meant she couldn’t understand anything he said. Tzuyu followed every order without question, taught to obey commands, and she was convinced that everything she did was less than perfect, never reaching the impossible expectations drilled into her mind.

And Sana had seen it in herself. She had felt it every time they had argued, that pit of dread that grew ever deeper with the thought of their group fracturing apart. She knew that without her family she would be cast adrift and left to drown in loneliness.

Sana needed them together – and if that made her clingy or overbearing, she didn’t care. Her team was the only thing keeping her sane. They weren’t considered normal by society’s standards, but they were her normal.

She closed her eyes and pulled against her restraints, trying desperately to repeat her earlier miracle, trying to push her limbs through the bindings as she had done with the glass, but her effort were in vain.

Her ability wouldn’t happen on command like her invisibility. She didn’t know how her intangibility worked.

Sana’s eyes snapped open as the doors slammed open, blinking in disbelief as her Chewy stormed into the basement level with both fists swinging, blinded by her own rage, and took down the two waiting guards without any real struggle.

Her gaze snapped around the darkened level, searching for Sana until their eyes met, and Sana saw the change in her expression, saw when the fury was dampened by guilt – guilt that Tzuyu had no right to feel.

Sana tried to open her mouth, tried to chase that guilt away, but Tzuyu beat her to it with an agonized whisper that shattered her already aching heart into a thousand tiny shards.

“Sana.”

“Chewy,” Sana sobbed.

Tzuyu stumbled forward a step, haggard and unkempt, an older reflection of the feral child tucked deep in Sana’s memory, only to be forced to a sudden jarring halt when she collided with an invisible barrier.

“That is glass that even you cannot break, Subject Nine,” the Doctor crooned, and Tzuyu froze, staring at Sana in terror. “Now,” the man turned to Sana, his intent to cause pain glaringly clear, “where were we? Ah, yes.” He moved to a console a few paces away and reached for a dial. “I won’t lie. This is going to hurt, Subject Four.”

Sana screamed in agony, flickering in and out of sight as the current jolted through her. It ruptured through her body, fizzling horribly beneath her skin, yet her reaction only spurred the Doctor on. He twisted the dial further to increase the power, documenting everything with his beady little eyes.

"Stop!" Tzuyu yelled, pounding her fists against glass that wouldn’t break. "You’re hurting her!"

Sana's head rolled towards her, tearful eyes hidden beneath heavy eyelids. She was in pain, but Tzuyu was more important.

“Chewy…”

Tzuyu's fists were already bruising from how hard she was fighting, sweat making her hair stick to her forehead. Tears were cascading down her face and Sana knew from the feral gleam in her eyes that everything Tzuyu was feeling was far too much.

"I was on a breakthrough before Subjects One and Two singlehandedly destroyed the program,” the Doctor informed them. “I knew that your powers were still forming. I knew that you were capable of more.” He looked at Sana. “Do you want to know how I figured that out, Subject Four?”

Sana bit down on her tongue, fighting back the urge to tell him exactly what she thought, but she couldn’t risk anything that would make him hurt her more, not when her team couldn’t reach her.

"It was Subject Nine," the Doctor said when Sana didn't answer. "The more pain she suffered, the harder her body fought to recover. It was then that I discovered that I could lower the antibodies in her body and hinder the process – a marvelous form of control, might I add.” He gestured flippantly to his notes. “Accelerated healing was just the tip of the iceberg."

“We were just children,” Sana whispered.

“No, Subject Four, you were never just children,” the Doctor parried. “You are a biological anomaly that science cannot explain and once I have my subjects back under control, my experiments can resume.”

“I’ll kill you!” Tzuyu screamed. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

Her outburst was acknowledged with a disappointed sigh as the Doctor’s attention deviated to the super soldier.

“You were supposed to be perfect, Subject Nine,” said the Doctor, as callous as he had been when they were children, and Sana saw Tzuyu falter. “But you are flawed and perfect things aren’t flawed.” He turned to her, beady dark eyes searing her where she stood. “But I can fix you. I can fix all of you.”

“Don’t listen to him, Chewy,” Sana pleaded weakly. “He’s wrong. You don’t need to be fixed!”

Tzuyu’s chest heaved frantically, hyperventilating from the stress, and Sana spied the doubt lingering at the edges. Tzuyu didn’t believe her, not completely. The Doctor had found the wounds that had never healed properly and had lit the kindling with twisted fabrications, stemming from a nightmare of his own making.

Sana hated him. She hated him more than she had ever hated anyone or anything.

How many times had she comforted Tzuyu when they were his test subjects? How many nights had she sat awake, watching the glass chamber in front of her in wait of her younger friend’s return, worrying about what she was being subjected to?

“We will resume your training momentarily, Subject Nine,” said the Doctor. “I am not yet finished documenting Subject Four’s change.”

“No!” Tzuyu cried, unable to do anything as he reached for the machine again, knowing better than anyone how the current felt.

“It’s okay, Chewy,” Sana mumbled, falling back on the only form of comfort she could offer, just as she had when they were children, when the thought of physical comfort had been simply that – wishful thinking. “It’s okay. It’s–”

Her mouth fell open in a soundless scream as the charge surged through every part of her body and she felt herself beginning to change, felt herself sinking into the chair, and she screamed when her hand rematerialized inside the metal, her bones being crushed as both fought for space.

On the other side of the glass, Tzuyu rose up with a newfound strength as tears flooded from her eyes, winding her fist back to deliver a vicious blow to the one thing between her and Sana, but unlike every time before, there was a change.

The glass cracked.

*********

 “Where the hell is she?” Jeongyeon hissed as she barreled back into the stairwell with Nayeon hot on her heels. “She’s not Momo. How the hell did she vanish that fast?”

Nayeon squinted at the floor number and swore under her breath. They had searched through every door on their way down, delving deeper and deeper into the disguised prison, but their youngest member was still missing.

“She can’t have gone far,” Nayeon fretted. “Surely she would do what we’re doing.”

“Check every floor?” Jeongyeon threw open the next door on the level below and cast a quick glance down the endless hallway before going further down. “The kid is running blind, Nay. She isn’t thinking straight.”

Nayeon clawed at the permeating ache nestled behind her eyes, certain that the headache was a permanent fixture in her life. “We’re almost at the bottom,” she reassured Jeongyeon. “We’ll find her – and then we’ll find Sana. The others can manage without us for a little longer.”

“Five plus a defective spy,” Jeongyeon grumbled. “Tzuyu is our strong hitter.”

“And Chaeyoung can take up the mantle for a while,” Nayeon countered. “They’re all stronger now. You need to trust that they can handle it.”

Jeongyeon shouldered open another door, one that lead into what looked to be a utility level, and shook her head, certain that Tzuyu wasn’t there. “They shouldn’t have to handle it. They shouldn’t have to deal with any of this.”

“Hey – hey.” Nayeon caught her wrist and tugged her to a stop as she cradled her face with the other. “It’s going to be okay, Jeongie,” she murmured. “We’re going to find our kids and then we’re going to get the hell out of Seoul. We’ll start over somewhere new, just like always.”

“I don’t know if that’s going to be enough this time,” Jeongyeon disagreed. “Our powers are changing. It’s all different now.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” said Nayeon. “We could go – catch a flight to Japan. Sana, Momo, and Mina’s Japanese will be a little rusty, but it should be enough to get by.”

They could. It would be so easy to pick up and leave. They had done it enough times before for it to come as second nature. Yes, Dahyun would likely miss her high school graduation, and Sana, Momo, and Mina would have to drop out of their night classes, but it was all trivial in the grand scale of things.

Their survival came first and Nayeon refused to see her family wither and fade in captivity again.

“Something’s happening, Nayeon,” Jeongyeon whispered. “Don’t you feel it? It’s like past and present are colliding. I first noticed it the night Sana vanished – when everyone was arguing.” She reached up to grasp Nayeon’s hands, savoring the touch. “I think it’s us. I think that we’re causing it.”

Nayeon inhaled sharply. She had been convinced that it had been in her head – that the stress of everything was making her ability react strangely. “You’ve seen it too?” she breathed.

Jeongyeon nodded. “First it was Jihyo,” she voiced quietly. “She looked so much younger. Then the living room looked like it did when we first moved in, and then–”

“Momo and Dahyun were children,” Nayeon finished.

“What if…What if we can change time?” Jeongyeon proposed hesitantly, afraid of the possibilities. “We were seeing remnants of the past. Maybe you can reverse time further than a few seconds.”

Nayeon pulled her head back, blinking at the thought. There was certainly enough logic to it, but practicing the idea was another thing entirely. Messing with time didn’t seem like it would end well – and she didn’t even know that she was capable of such a feat anyway.

It was something to dwell on later, when they weren’t inside the childhood prison and hunting for missing members.

“We could change things,” Jeongyeon pushed. “Make it so that none of this ever happened.”

But erasing their trauma would change them as people. Changing the past had the consequences of altering the future, and Nayeon wasn’t sure that she wanted a present without her family exactly as they were, flaws and all.

“Jeongyeon,” she began softly, “time isn’t something to be messed with. We can’t lecture the kids on the consequences of abusing their abilities and then try to push ourselves beyond our own known limitations.”

“I – I know,” Jeongyeon’s voice hitched with barely suppressed emotion, “but I’m at a complete loss of a way forward. If we could just claw back a little bit of time then–”

There was a scream further down that interrupted her train of thought, one unlike anything they had heard before, at the very end of the stairwell, and the pair shared a similar look of fear before they charged down, down to the very bottom.

*********

Sana stared at the crack in the glass, both entranced and terrified at the significance of it. The Doctor had yet to see it, nor did he see the human bulldozer on the other size taking several measured steps back in preparation.

She shook her head minutely, trying desperately to communicate that it was a bad idea and that they should wait for the rest of their team, but Tzuyu was beyond reasoning.

Tzuyu stopped and set her glare on the cracked glass, heaving a sharp exhale before she charged and drove her shoulder into the barrier.

There was a moment where time seemed to slow as the glass fractured apart and Sana had milliseconds to close her eyes and turn her head when the tiny shards exploded towards them.

The Doctor turned and scrambled for the syringe he had left on the metal table, managing to grasp it just as Tzuyu’s hand clamped around his throat and lifted him from the ground.

Tzuyu looked positively feral as her lips peeled back into a snarl, squeezing her fingers tighter around his neck. She was going to kill him, Sana realized. Tzuyu was going to kill him.

“Chewy,” Sana croaked, trying to get her attention. “Chewy, don’t. He deserves it, but you don’t need his blood on your hands. Our hands are stained enough, angel.”

“But he hurt us,” Tzuyu hissed. “He made me hurt you.”

“Tzuyu.” Sana’s tone drew a hesitant glance. “He doesn’t have that power over you anymore. Our team will be here soon. I’m sure that they’re already on their way. You don’t have to kill him.”

“But I want to.”

Sana flinched back at the growl, unable to see anything other than the little girl in the glass cage with the number ‘9’ painted on the tile in front of it. That version of Tzuyu had never had control over the damage she caused, but this one – this Tzuyu did. This Tzuyu had a sliver of control and the rage that went with it.

“Angel–” Sana caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eyes. “Tzuyu!”

The Doctor swung his hand up and pierced Tzuyu’s skin with the needle, lodging it deep in the skin beneath her ribcage. The girl yelped and grabbed the offending limb, breaking every bone trapped in her tight grip, but the damage had already been done. The syringe was empty and the blue liquid was already taking effect.

Bruises started to appear, littering her skin with dark stains of blue and purple, and fatigue set in quickly, though not quick enough for Tzuyu to toss the gangly little man across the room.

She turned to Sana, knowing herself that time was running out, and used her last reserves of strength to pry open the metal cuffs that kept Sana bound to the chair.

“The more pain she suffered, the harder her body fought to recover. It was then that I discovered that I could lower the antibodies in her body and hinder the process – a marvelous form of control, might I add.”

The Doctor had done something to her. He had injected something that was stopping Tzuyu from healing as she should, something that made her weak, something that terrified her.

“Chewy,” Sana couldn’t disguise her whimper and she could see a reflection of her own fear in Tzuyu’s eyes. “Are you–?”

“Come on,” Tzuyu helped her stand, breathing heavier than usual, practically panting. “We need to go.”

“Chewy,” Sana tried again, weakly grabbing Tzuyu’s hands in her own, frightened by how much colder they were than usual, “you’re not well. Just – sit down and – the others – we can wait. They’lll be here soon. Jihyo will know what to do.”

Because Jihyo always knew what to do, and Sana had no idea what was even happening to her girlfriend, only that she was getting weaker and weaker with each passing second.

A broken cry came from across the room, somewhere behind Sana, and they stared as the Doctor clambered to his feet with a hidden sidearm pointed at them.

“If you cannot be contained, then I will put you down like the abominations you are!” the man thundered.

“Chewy–”

He pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The explosion erupted around them, breaking the silence that had fallen with a frightening roar, but Sana felt no pain, because Tzuyu – her sweet Chewy, had become her shield once again. Driven by instinct, Tzuyu had turned them quickly so that she was between the gun and Sana, taking a bullet that her body couldn’t deflect.

Her eyes bulged, unable to comprehend the level of pain she was in, and Sana felt the warm splatter of blood on her forearms, her gaze drawn down to the crimson seeping through Tzuyu's shirt.

Tzuyu's lips parted with a spluttered cough, a mix of blood and saliva staining the front of Sana's blouse, and her grip slackened.

Sana fell down with her, unable to bear her weight, and the girl convulsed in her arms, choking on breath before she went completely still.

Three months prior and Tzuyu would have shrugged it off. Three months ago and the bullet wouldn't have caused anything more than a bruise.

But it was the present and they were all overworked from three months of constant missions, constant assault, constant fear.

"Chewy?" Sana shook the girl by her shoulders, tears gathering on her lower lashes when Tzuyu didn't respond. "Chewy? Stay awake, okay? Don't leave me, angel. Don't go."

She patted her cheeks, taking care to wipe away the blood on her chin, and cradled Tzuyu’s head on her lap, rocking back and forth as warm liquid started to soak through her socks.

“Come on, baby,” she pleaded weakly. “Come on. Wake up. You need to – you need to be awake. You can’t sleep now.”

Her watering eyes drifted down to the crimson stain that clung to Tzuyu’s skin from a bullet that had torn straight through her body. She paid no mind to the Doctor, deaf to his rambling about having no choice and how it was a waste of his life’s work, his weapon of choice abandoned on the floor as he scrambled to gather what he could and flee.

Her hands slid down to the oozing wound and pushed down, trying to feel a heartbeat, but there was nothing, not even a twitch of muscle to express pain. A choked sob clawed its way out of her throat and grew into a heartbroken cry.

“You can heal,” Sana wailed. “Chewy, you can heal! Why aren’t you healing?! Tzuyu!”

Her chest felt so tight that she couldn’t breathe, heaving with frantic spasms as her body fought for air, because Tzuyu was becoming colder with each passing second and the blood kept spilling between her fingers no matter how hard she tried to stop it.

Sana started to scream.

Chapter Text

Jeongyeon fell inside the basement level, quickly followed by Nayeon, led by the screaming, and she blanched at what they had entered.

The room was in chaos. Shattered glass littered the floor, the few remaining pieces held in place by an invisible frame, and the few metal tables were toppled with their contents spilled everywhere.

And there, in the middle of it all, was Sana, cradling Tzuyu’s limp body in her arms, trailing fingers through her hair as she continued to plead for the younger girl to return.

“Sana?” Jeongyeon stepped forward, her hand outstretched towards their member who was flickering weakly like a dying star.

Sana shifted and one of Tzuyu’s hands flopped lifelessly to the ground, her knuckles bruised and bloodied. “Where were you?” Sana demanded of them as heartbroken eyes snapped towards them, full to the brim with agonized fury. “Why did you let her come alone?”

“I will do whatever it takes. I don’t care about the risks.”

Tzuyu’s earlier declaration had proven to be more than a bluffed attempt at bravery.

Footsteps thundered in the stairwell and Jeongyeon was numb to the shoulder that hit hers as Jihyo tumbled into the room with the others filtering in behind her.

“Oh, my god – Tzuyu!” Jihyo pushed through them and landed on her knees beside the two of them, grabbing blindly for Tzuyu’s hand. “Mina!”

“I’m here!” Mina broke through their line to go to Jihyo’s aid, trembling hands fluttering above Sana’s as she tried to recall all of her medical knowledge to help. “Sana, Sana,” she prompted quietly. “What happened?”

A shuffle of movement caught Jeongyeon’s attention and pulled her gaze to a scrawny little man trying to sneak out of the fire escape on the opposite side of the room. She recognized him immediately, matching the mask and the beady eyes to the man who had caused them so much grief as children.

“You!” Chaeyoung flung out her arm and sent the Doctor crashing into the tiled wall, hard enough to wind him. “What the fuck did you do to her?!” she snarled.

“She isn’t healing,” Sana whispered hoarsely.

Jihyo wrenched her hand back and cradled it against her chest, staring at Tzuyu with wide, horrified eyes. Lips tinged blue, skin ghostly pale, chest hauntingly still. Her worst nightmare had come to fruition.

Death.

"I can't hear her," their leader rasped.

“What do you mean?” Momo asked, teleporting over, and her eyes widened with fear. “Is that– she’s bleeding!” Momo collapsed beside Mina and ushered Sana’s hands out of the way to hike up the girl’s shirt. “Oh, fuck! Help me turn her over.”

“No, no! Don’t touch her!” Sana clawed to get her back, blinded by her desperation. “You’ll make it worse!”

“’Worse?’” Momo echoed incredulously. “She’s bleeding out, Sana! I need to see how bad it is.”

“No! She just needs to heal,” Sana whimpered. “She just – she won’t – Why did you let her come alone?”

Dread started to pool in Jeongyeon’s gut, accompanied by the crippling sensation that she was going to vomit. The air felt horribly thin, like no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t catch her breath again.

“Oh, my god,” Nayeon croaked, paling as she realized what Jihyo meant. “Oh, my god – Tzuyu. No, no, no…”

“Can we shoot her with adrenaline?” Dahyun threw out as a suggestion, fluttering anxiously by Chaeyoung’s side. “It’s worked before. There has to be something in here that would work.” Her eyes flicked over to the Doctor, held still by Chaeyoung’s ability, and hardened with hatred. “He’ll know.”

"No, there’s no point. It won't work when she's–!" Mina cut herself off, her face contorting with grief as the reality settled in, and she clamped a trembling hand over her mouth to stifle the sobs bubbling to the surface.

“Fix her,” Sana pleaded. “Mina, you have to fix her.”

“I – I don’t know how,” Mina croaked. “I’m not a doctor.”

“Hey!” Momo shouted at the Doctor as he strained against Chaeyoung’s invincible grip. “Where do you keep the shit you used to fix us after you hurt us?”

“Talk quickly,” Chaeyoung snarled as she forced him harder against the wall, pushing until he started to gasp for air.

Jeongyeon’s ears started to ring, the high pitch drowning everything else out, and she was vaguely aware of the thundering of her own heart, quickening the longer she stared at Tzuyu’s lifeless body, unable to tear her gaze away.

The room changed in the blink of an eye for a millisecond, shifting from the destruction to an empty chamber, and she was vaguely aware of Nayeon trying to rewind time beside her, trying to claw back enough to prevent the current outcome – but Nayeon had never been able to reverse time for more than a few seconds.

“Nayeon,” she mumbled, perturbed by how distant her own voice sounded. “Nayeon, you have to stop.”

The walls warped in around them, bending as Jeongyeon’s own powers started to manifest in reaction to Nayeon’s, the two powers of time clashing once again.

Reverse and stop.

A changing past and an eternal present.

“How do we heal her?” Chaeyoung demanded, a thunderstorm of fury as sparks of electricity started to snap and crackle around her. “Tell me!”

“Chaeyoung, he’s no use to us dead,” Dahyun said as she reached for her friend’s hand to try and calm her down, only to be repelled by the stinging burn of electric shock. “Ouch!” She cradled her fingers against her chest and the room momentarily was plunged into darkness before the hypnotist got a grip on her own powers again.

“Watch it!” Momo snapped at the telekinetic and reappeared beside her smaller girlfriend. “Dahyun isn’t the enemy here.”

Jeongyeon could feel the fabric of the world rupturing the longer all nine of them continued to spiral out of control. “Nayeon,” Jeongyeon reached for her as she gasped for breath.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think with all of the noise or the overbearing pressure of too many powers being used at once, all of them losing control at a rapid rate.

She just needed time, just a few seconds to catch her breath and think.

How ironic it was that she could slow time, yet could never grasp enough time to fix things. Her powers were useless when it really mattered. She could only slow time, never stop it completely, just as Nayeon could never claw back more than a few seconds, never enough to truly make a difference to the outcome.

“She’s so cold,” Sana whispered deliriously. “We should get her a blanket.”

Jihyo was holding Tzuyu’s hand again, her grip trembling as her lips moved wordlessly, silently begging the girl to have a heartbeat, no matter how faint, and Mina was inconsolable, tugging at her hair while she searched through all of her limited medical knowledge for a way to help the impossible.

Everything was happening too quickly and she just – she needed time.

"Would you all just stop?!" Jeongyeon thundered and the world came to a stop.

The silence that enveloped her was deafening.

She turned to look behind her, recoiling in fear when she came face to face with a mirror image of herself, still reaching for Nayeon, frozen in time.

“What the hell?” Jeongyeon breathed and looked down at her hands, frowning at the wispy way they moved through the air, transparent and quivering like disturbed water.

“Jeongyeon?”

Jeongyeon whipped around, taking in the flickering snapshot of time, a moment of misery brought to a sudden and abrupt halt, and saw Nayeon in a similar situation, staring in horror at the body she no longer existed inside.

“Jeongyeon,” Nayeon breathed her name again, looking around the frozen scene in terror. “What did we do?”

Past and present, push and pull. They were a ticking time bomb. Their current outcome was inevitable.

“Nayeon,” Jeongyeon reached for her again, mirroring her last moments in a moving timeline, and cried out in surprise when she pitched forward. “Nayeon!”

Her call went unanswered and Jeongyeon was unable to do anything as she fell out of time.

Down and down she fell, slipping further from her body and the traumatic scene where her team would remain, until the sensation of falling overwhelmed her and forced Jeongyeon to close her eyes.

Slowly, noise reached her ears, growing louder than the silence, and her feet found solid ground again. Gunfire echoed around her, followed by the shouting of their assailants from another time.

"Where the hell is Chaeyoung?!"

Jeongyeon frowned when she heard her own voice and opened her eyes again just as she felt herself pull against time, trying to slow the bullets that were flying.

"She said she had something important to do!" Dahyun answered in an echo while her mirror images started to disappear one by one.

"Something more important than the–?" Jeongyeon stopped midsentence and blinked at her surroundings. Everything was familiar, like it had happened…before.

It had.

The fight at the warehouse, three months ago.

"There's too much going on!" Jihyo called back, taking shelter with Mina on the far side of the room. "I can't hear her!"

Momo appeared out of thin air to tackle Nayeon out of the way, timing it well as Nayeon’s shield of crates splintered apart.

"What the hell, Momo!" Nayeon yelled, untangling herself from Momo as a masked assailant wielding a lead pipe set their sight on Sana. “What–?” She sought out Jeongyeon and her eyes widened with fear. “Did we…?”

Jeongyeon turned, trying to remember what she had done the first time. She had tried to slow time while Nayeon had tried to undo it, both of their powers fighting one another, but this time neither of them moved, too stunned by the repetition of time to do either.

A pained cry caught their attention and drew their gaze to Tzuyu, clutching at her temple after blocking the blow meant for Sana.

“Tzuyu,” Jeongyeon whispered, staring at the girl in disbelief because there she was, alive and breathing, not dead, not dead, not dead. “Tzuyu!”

Tzuyu turned at the sound of her voice, at the same moment she should have struck her assailant in the chest, and the timeline changed.

Instead of defending herself, she was left open to another attack.

The metal pipe struck her again, cracking loudly against her waist which sent her tumbling into Sana, and the two fell in a heap.

Across the room, Dahyun’s final duplicate vanished and Momo wasn’t there to get the real version to safety, caught up in trying to help Sana and Tzuyu.

Jeongyeon was left to watch as everything unraveled from her change, her heart in her throat as the members of her team fell one by one, until she met eyes with Nayeon.

They needed to go back again.

Nayeon nodded her head, thinking the same, and their powers began to conflict once again. Jeongyeon fought to stop time while Nayeon fought to reverse it, until the confines of time collapsed once more.

The inside of the warehouse flickered in front of her very eyes, tearing at the edges as if time itself was malfunctioning, and Jeongyeon felt herself pitching forward once more, falling out of time once again.

“I’m going to kill them.”

Jeongyeon swallowed down the nausea as she reached another moment from her past, immediately seeking out Nayeon. She knew where they were in an instant, matching the faded wallpaper to their tiny apartment in Daegu.

“They haven’t been gone long,” a younger Mina said softly.

“They’ve been gone long enough,” Jeongyeon found herself saying. “Idiots.”

“They’re just kids, Jeong,” Momo mumbled, glancing over from her place by the window. “They think that they’re helping.”

Jeongyeon’s smile was strained at the irony of Momo’s statement. If her guess was right, Daegu had been five years ago, meaning that Chaeyoung and Tzuyu were only twelve, Dahyun was barely thirteen, and the rest of them weren’t much older. They were all just kids, but playing protector and parent to the youngest trio had caused Jeongyeon to grow up very quickly.

They had never had the luxury of being ‘just kids.’

“Right idea, wrong execution,” Sana huffed around her fingers. “I hope they’re okay.”

“Do you think Chaeyoung’s right?” Mina asked quietly.

“Chaeyoung can’t even tie her own shoes yet,” Momo commented, trying to lighten the mood. “She’s probably just paranoid. You know what she’s like.”

Determined and headstrong. She was an idealistic fool, but Jeongyeon would be the first to admit that Chaeyoung had been right all along about the Company trailing them.

Jeongyeon looked at Jihyo, remembering how the rest of the evening unfolded, and pursed her lips when she found their leader staring curiously at the fire escape. She turned and waited, smirking when a familiar face appeared on the other side, struggling to swim in air as Dahyun was lifted by Chaeyoung’s powers. Unstable and pushed too far, Dahyun landed on their level with a sharp yelp when Chaeyoung couldn’t levitate her any longer, and sure enough, a moment later, Tzuyu appeared in view with Chaeyoung clinging to her back as the super soldier scaled the rusted fire escape.

Nayeon spotted them too and strode over to throw the window upwards just as little fingers started to pry, knowing that if memory served them correctly that the fire escape wouldn’t hold and the three youngest team members would be left clinging to the mangled remnants of the most unsafe fire escape Jeongyeon had ever seen.

The eldest seized Dahyun and Tzuyu by the scruff of their jackets and yanked them inside, changing the timeline once more.

The rest of their team seemed to hesitate, as if buffering to adapt to the change in the past, and Jeongyeon stepped back as Momo flew past her to tackle the youngest trio in a tight embrace, kissing the tops of their heads before promptly flicking each of their ears.

“Idiots!” Momo cried. “Why didn’t you use the door?”

Almost immediately, all three children started to talk over one another, retelling their own version of the night’s events, growing louder and louder as questions were interjected, until it was nothing more than noise.

And how desperately Jeongyeon wanted to stay and listen to the chaos, how dearly she had missed the precious time when her little family had been clueless kids just trying to get by, how much she missed the innocence that had shined so brightly in their eyes, despite their difficult beginning.

But time had other plans.

With a sudden shudder and an unsettling blip in her heartbeat, Jeongyeon was forced from her body again and left to drift as a shadow in time, falling over and over again, until she found another vision of her past.

"Subject Eight."

Jeongyeon’s heart stuttered at the voice she had tried to forget and she followed it to the dark glass windows, another show of power in their prison of glass. She didn’t know how many souls hid behind the tinted panes but she knew that she would happily kill every last one of them if she ever got the chance.

"I want you to use your power against Subject Nine."

Her attention snapped down to the two youngest, pitted against one another in the middle of the training room. Chaeyoung looked hesitant, staring at her quieter counterpart in horror at the order. She didn’t want to obey it, but they all knew what would happen if she didn’t.

“What the hell is going on?” Nayeon gasped beside her. “Are we – Are we stuck in the past?”

“I don’t know,” Jeongyeon whispered back. “We keep going back in time. How do we get back to our present?”

“I…” Nayeon turned her palms and rubbed her fingers together, trying to figure out how to undo their uncontrolled powers. “I have no idea.”

Tzuyu looked to the rest of them for direction, unsure what had been said with her limited vocabulary, and Jeongyeon felt her heart break just as it had seven years ago. They were both barely ten years of age, and already the Company were trying to tear them apart.

“Give Subject Nine some encouragement,” the faceless voice boomed.

“No,” Sana hissed, shifting beside them, but they were helpless to stop them. One wrong move and they would be worse off than their friends.

The armored guard behind Tzuyu seized her by her wrist and stabbed the inside of her elbow with a syringe needle before the girl could even defend herself, and quickly fled the training arena as the serum started to take effect.

“Tzuyu?” Chaeyoung questioned in a gentle whisper, concern still there even though Tzuyu was already being replaced by a version Jeongyeon was ashamed to admit she had once feared. “Tzu?”

Tzuyu's upper lip twitched back in a snarl as a feral gleam flickered in her eyes and she surged forward for a deadly blow, fueled by the bloodlust that the scientists had managed to infuse.

Chaeyoung reacted quickly and stopped it with a burst of energy that made the hair on the back of their necks stand on edge. Her fingers curled around Tzuyu’s fist as her power grew, and Jeongyeon felt her stomach twist.

She knew what happened next.

Nayeon knew too. “The first time Chaeyoung hurt Tzuyu,” she breathed.

"Chaeyoung, stop!" Jeongyeon shouted, but she was too late.

They heard the exact moment Tzuyu's fist shattered, the effect rippling up the length of her arm, and everything seemed to halt.

Tzuyu looked down at her misshapen limb, panting heavily, and didn't even get the chance to scream in pain before her eyes rolled back into her skull.

Chaeyoung came to her senses a moment later and stared at her fallen friend in terror, sickened that she had been the one to cause the damage. “I – I didn’t mean to,” the child gasped frantically, looking at the rest of them with wide, watering eyes. “I – I didn’t – I’m sorry!”

"Very good, Subject Eight," the faceless voice praised. "We will continue this lesson once Subject Nine has recovered."

Jeongyeon's heart dropped. They wanted to do it again. They wanted Chaeyoung to hurt Tzuyu again, but Chaeyoung, their brave little rebel, looked up at the dark glass with contempt leaking from her tearful glare and dared to defy them.

“I won’t!”

Jeongyeon knew the events that followed. She knew that the guard would come back under a command to beat Chaeyoung into submission, so she intervened with time again and leapt to her feet as the far door opened.

The armored soldier entered with a baton in hand, raising it high as they approached Chaeyoung, and Jeongyeon fought to grasp a few more seconds while Nayeon fought to reverse the damage that was already done.

Jeongyeon’s shoulder connected with the guard, but instead of tackling them to the ground, she was separated from her physical form once more and tumbled into the tangled strings on time, lurching when she found her body a moment later, rejoining just as her past self slammed into a glass wall.

Alarms blared all around them and the long hallway was illuminated by the pulsing red glow of the security lights. She knew where she was immediately and felt Nayeon grab her bicep as they stared at the panicked faces on the opposite side.

It was the night they escaped, but more precisely, it was the moment that they were split apart and funneled down different paths.

"No!" Chaeyoung slammed her fist against the indestructible wall between them, trapped on the right side. "What now?"

Chaeyoung, Dahyun, and Tzuyu were the only ones who had made it through before their exit had been sealed, leaving the rest of them on the wrong side of freedom.

“There has to be a way to open this, right?” Sana questioned, on the verge of disappearing from sight. “Chewy?”

Clarity returned to Tzuyu’s eyes at Sana’s voice and she promptly tried to break the barrier with her fists, growling in frustration when nothing happened.

“If the tiny bulldozer can’t bust it, I’m not sure what we can do,” Momo breathed, trying to be brave when the rest of them couldn’t, and flashed over to the control panel. “What if we try to find a key card?”

“No, that’s too risky. Every guard we’ve met has been armed,” Mina murmured, doubled over to try and catch her breath as she clutched at her head, struggling with the persistent migraines that used to cripple her in the past. “There has to be another way out.”

There was.

The youngest three had disregarded Jihyo’s orders and had staged their own assault on the security centre to override the lockdown which had given them enough time to get back on track with their escape plan, beginning with the unplanned rescue of their unexpected heroes.

“This doesn’t make any sense!” Nayeon hissed in Jeongyeon’s ear. “The jumps don’t have any pattern to them. The warehouse was ten months ago, Daegu was five years ago, the fight was seven years ago, and now–”

“We’re going forward in time,” Jeongyeon finished breathlessly. “So we could, in theory, get back to our time.”

Jihyo pushed between them and pressed her palm against the glass. “Keep moving," she ordered the trio. "Keep each other safe. We’ll meet up with you, I promise."

Dahyun nodded, falling into a leadership role as the eldest and most levelheaded of the three, and caught Tzuyu's wrist before she could strike the wall again, holding the trembling limb tightly in her own.

“It’s okay,” Jihyo reassured them. “We’ll be there shortly. Go on now. Quickly.”

Chaeyoung stomped her foot with an angry growl, unable to release her frustration with any level of maturity. “You’d better be,” she forced through gritted teeth as she tried not to cry, and reinforced Dahyun’s hold on Tzuyu as she towed her friends away.

Nayeon’s hand slid down to intertwine their fingers together, holding on tightly as she closed her eyes with a fluttered breath. “We need to work together, Jeongyeon,” she said quietly. “Push and pull – we keep conflicting, but there has to be a way back.”

Stop and reverse. They had always conflicted with one another, but maybe Nayeon was right. It had been the push and pull that had caused them to spiral in their own timeline. If Jeongyeon could stop time and Nayeon could rewind it, then maybe together they could repair it.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Momo said with a disapproving frown once the kids were out of earshot.

Jihyo turned, listening carefully to the noises around them. “Do what?” she asked absently.

“Make promises you can’t keep,” the speedster replied. “What if we can’t get out, huh? What happens to them then? They’ll be waiting and we won’t show up.”

“We need to have hope,” Sana said softly. “We’ve gotten this far on blind belief.”

“No,” Momo countered. “We’ve gotten this far through diligent planning and improvisation.”

“So I should have told them that we’re probably all going to die?” Jihyo countered bitterly.  “Is that what you would have preferred?”

“Jihyo,” Mina murmured uneasily.

Jeongyeon copied Nayeon and closed her eyes, focusing on the gentle hum and haw of their emanating powers. Push and pull, stop and reverse, a constant battle that neither of them could win – and then she felt it, a faint tug that urged her forward.

“No!” Momo retaliated. “Of course not. That’s not what I meant. I just don’t want three little kids waiting for a rescue that isn’t coming.”

“They don’t need to be rescued, Momo,” Sana murmured. “You shouldn’t underestimate them.”

“Guys,” Mina hissed. “Someone’s coming.”

Jeongyeon squeezed her eyelids together as the shouting began, wincing as the rubber bullets started to ricochet around them, and focused on Nayeon’s hand in hers and the way their powers were raveling together.

The frightened voices of the past started to merge together in a thunderstorm of noise, swirling around them in a deafening roar as past and present collided.

They jolted forward, to a mission three years ago that had gone so wrong so quickly. A tip from Chaeyoung’s friends about a drug deal, one that they were supposed to stop and dispose of the goods, one that they weren’t prepared for.

“Let her go!” Tzuyu shouted at the thug strangling Mina to silence her voice.

Jeongyeon winced when footsteps thundered by her, still able to see Tzuyu being tackled through the rusted railing even with her eyes closed.

“Chewy!” Sana screamed, only to be rivaled by the cry that came from Momo as her shoulder was impaled by a screwdriver, and every moment of their past started to come flooding back in high definition.

Every injury, every failed mission, every argument of the last three months – all of it, all at once, so vivid that Jeongyeon started to fear that her head was going to explode.

“Where the hell have you been?!”  “I think that the Company is looking for us.” “I don’t…I don’t want to move again.” “Sounds simple. Simpler than other contracts we’ve done.” “You are short of a few members.” “This was a set-up! The whole damn thing!” “Don’t they deserve some sort of attempt at a normal life?” “Why is it so damn hard for you to just admit that I helped you?!” “What I need is for the little idiot to actually follow instructions for once in her damn life!” “Pleasure doing business with you, Park. Chaeyoung has my number if you need us again.” “If the Company didn’t already know that we’re in Seoul, then they definitely do now.” “We can’t go anywhere until we’re sure that our powers are stable.” “We can’t keep running from this.” “I don’t want to date if I’m not dating you.” “It’s just not feasible. A dozen different plans and none of them end in all nine of us surviving.” “Stop – Stop thinking! It’s too much!” “Guys. The snow outside stopped falling.” “I’m not scared, Jeongyeon, I’m terrified!” “It’s a miracle she even made it home.” “Th-they took Sana. My fault. I–I wasn’t strong enough.” “We should kill her.” “I didn’t have a choice! Do you think any of us chose to work for them?” “It’s okay. I’m invincible.” “The alarm has been triggered.” “This doesn’t feel right. I can’t hear anything. Voices, footsteps, thoughts – nothing.” “Sana!” “What if…What if we can change time?” “What the fuck did you do to her?!” “I can’t hear her.” “Is that – she’s bleeding! Oh, fuck! Help me turn her over.” “Would you all just stop?!”

And then, like the snap of an elastic band, Jeongyeon was thrust back in the present, where she stood in the middle of the frozen snapshot of chaos.

Her eyes snapped open and she was face to face with her present self, still trapped as an astral projection, but they were back, back in the tragically right moment.

“Jeongyeon,” Nayeon was kneeling beside Tzuyu when she turned to look, staring back at her with wide eyes. “I…I think that I can save her.” She flexed out her fingers. “If I could just…turn back time for Tzuyu and Tzuyu alone…maybe I could…maybe…”

Nayeon reached out to rest her hand over the wound, fingers pushing down into blood that never managed to clot, and pressed until she felt the hole left behind.

“Nayeon,” Jeongyeon cautioned, hurrying forward to grasp her shoulder. “W-What if we tried to go back again? Back further? We could go back to when this all started? Find another path?”

“We can’t risk that, Jeongyeon,” Nayeon whispered. “We barely managed to get back. If we get stuck then Tzuyu…she’ll stay dead.”

Jeongyeon swallowed around the lump in her throat and strode over to kneel beside her. “Okay,” she breathed. “What do you need me to do?”

“I can’t believe that I’m saying this,” Nayeon said, “but I need you to try and stop time while I try to reverse it. We might be able to charge up enough power – or whatever the hell that was – to bring her back.”

Jeongyeon nodded and pressed her own palms over Nayeon’s, pushing to slow time while Nayeon started to pull to reverse it, and blinked in surprise when she felt the strength of their combined powers coursing through her veins.

Her fingers slipped between Nayeon’s and she gasped as the torn flesh beneath started to close slowly, skin knitting itself back together under their careful guidance, and Jeongyeon felt her stomach twist uneasily at the sickening sensation.

She chose to focus instead on Nayeon’s face, watching intently while all of her facial muscles twitched in concentration. Even in the face of death, Nayeon was still the most beautiful person Jeongyeon had ever seen.

“I had it planned, you know.”

Nayeon’s eyes focused on her. “What?” she asked as beads of sweat started to gather across her forehead.

“My proposal,” Jeongyeon told her. “I was going to treat you to some food from that street market you love,”–Nayeon’s fingers twitched amongst hers–“and then we would walk along the Cheonggyecheon Stream…” She frowned and lowered her gaze. “Then I was going to ask you to marry me. I–I know it’s still not something that we can do legally, not yet anyway, but the ring would have been enough for me…”

The silence that followed her declaration was awful and almost worse than the fact that she was touching their very dead sister’s bullet wound, but Jeongyeon could live with the rejection. She would live with it, so long as Nayeon stayed. She could be heartbroken so long as Nayeon didn’t leave her.

“Yoo Jeongyeon,” Nayeon whispered, and there were tears when Jeongyeon dared to look, coupled with an elated grin, “I would have said yes in a heartbeat.”

A heartbeat.

A heartbeat.

Nayeon’s eyes widened and they both looked down, feeling the faint pulse, and like the snap of elastic again, Jeongyeon felt the change.

Tzuyu's eyes fluttered open as past and present intertwined, two souls fighting for one body, and a shuddered exhale slipped from her lips at the exact same moment that Jeongyeon was forced back into her body.

She collapsed on her hands and knees, panting for breath as she readjusted to the change, and shook her head until her vision cleared, unable to do anything more than listen as time resumed, and then she heard it.

"S'na?" The voice was so quiet, so hoarse, and Sana doubled over, crying loudly in relief as she pulled Tzuyu closer. "Cold..."

It would have been comical how quickly everyone shed layers for their youngest member had the situation been any different.

She listened to the chorus of shock and relief, glancing over as Mina lifted Tzuyu's bloodied shirt in bewilderment, gaping at the ragged scar left behind as the only evidence that Tzuyu had ever been gone.

“What…?” Jihyo looked around, still cradling Tzuyu’s hand in her lap, and met Jeongyeon’s gaze as realization started to dawn on her. “How?”

But her question would remain unanswered when Tzuyu let out the agonized scream that had died in empty lungs a few minutes prior and the Doctor was forgotten entirely in favor of their previously deceased member.

“Hey, hey!” Chaeyoung dropped her prisoner and ran over to join Mina’s side, quickly joined by Dahyun and Momo. “Tzuyu – what’s happening to her?”

“I–I don’t know,” Mina rasped. “This should be impossible. She…She was dead. She was…”

“Baby steps, doc,” Momo prompted her, providing a direction to follow. “Tell her to calm down.”

“No.” Jihyo chose their path, warning them against the truth with a dangerous glint in her eyes. "Tell her to forget this."

Sana tightened her hold on Tzuyu’s head, still weeping silent tears. “To forget?” she questioned. “You can’t just make her forget being shot.”

“We need to do something!” Dahyun cried. “She’s in pain!”

Jeongyeon sat back on her heels and looked at the seven of them, at the six frightened children fussing over the seventh. “Mina,” she muttered and waited until the hypnotist looked at her, “we managed to undo the dead part of this. You have you undo the dying part.”

“Right,” Momo agreed. “All she remembers right now is dying.”

“This is wrong,” Sana seethed.

Chaeyoung pounced when Tzuyu started to claw at her chest and pinned a flailing hand to the ground, silently communicating with Mina until the older girl caved.

“Okay,” Mina whispered, blinking back tears, and she gently cradled Tzuyu's face between her hands, swallowing thickly as she forced herself to use her ability. "It’s okay, Tzuyu. You won't remember any of this." Her eyes sparkled with the telltale glint of silver. "Forget everything that has happened in the last week."

Sana flinched back, pain flashing across her face and lingering while Tzuyu went limp in her arms again. “The last week?” she echoed quietly. “Then she’ll forget…” Her eyes widened. “Change the command,” she begged Mina. “She’ll forget our time together. Change it, Mina.”

“I can’t,” Mina croaked brokenly. “It’s already done.”

Jeongyeon grimaced and tore her gaze away from the group as the heartbreak started to topple over, half tempted to ask Mina to make her forget too, but for some reason, she couldn’t. For some strange, selfish reason, she wanted to remember how it felt to lose a member of her family and the consequent fight to get them back, because there was no stronger incentive than fear.

“Hey.” A gentle hand touched her hand. “Where’s Nayeon?” Jihyo asked quietly, listening to her inner turmoil with her own powers.

Nayeon?

Jeongyeon looked to her left, where Nayeon should have been before the time change, but where an empty space resided instead. Her head whipped around, panicked eyes searching blindly for her intended life partner.

Jeongyeon had been forced back into her body when time resumed, but Nayeon…

“I…I don’t know,” Jeongyeon whispered, helpless to the tears that were pouring from her eyes. “I was with her when we – I don’t know, time-jumped, I guess?” She had never known pain quite like the ache that had settled in her heart, growing stronger the longer Nayeon’s presence was missing. “She was right here.”

Jihyo covered her mouth and tucked in against her side, trying to hide her own grief from the rest of their team. “We’ll find her,” she promised hoarsely.

“Yeah,” Jeongyeon croaked back weakly, but if the past had taught her anything, it was that it hurt more to hold onto hope.

Resurrecting the dead wasn’t a power that could come without some sort of consequence. Tzuyu wasn’t dead, but Nayeon was missing, lost in time.

Chapter Text

The days that followed Sana’s rescue and Nayeon’s disappearance were a blur. At some point they had packed up and moved in to an empty apartment Jennie had been kind enough to give them the use of on the south side of the city. It was far enough away from their current home that they would have time to find something else in another city, but they were all reluctant to leave.

Leaving meant accepting that Nayeon was lost to them. Leaving meant that the Company had succeeded again in scaring them away.

Currently, they were huddled around the small table in the even smaller kitchen, trying to come up with a way forward, but none of them could find a way out of their current situation.

“So what now?” Momo whispered.

Jihyo bit her lip tightly and shrugged as a single tear spilled down her face. “I don’t know,” she croaked. “I…I can’t sense Nayeon.”

Dahyun shifted uneasily. “Do you think–?”

“No,” Jeongyeon said sharply. “Don’t even finish that sentence. She’s alive.”

Jihyo’s gaze flickered over to Tzuyu, silent as she prepared tea for the rest of them, as still as a statue while she waited for the kettle to boil. Erasing the memory of dying was the obvious choice, but something had changed. Tzuyu was different – had been ever since she woke up again. She rarely spoke and when she did her words were monotonous and lacked all emotion.

Tzuyu didn’t know why Nayeon was missing, but she seemed to have believed the less detailed truth that a mission had gone wrong and Nayeon had vanished. Jihyo had chosen to leave out the part where Jeongyeon and Nayeon had used time travel, blaming the Company rather than an unpracticed power for her disappearance.

The leader had to keep reminding herself that Tzuyu had died and there was no plausible way that bringing her back couldn’t have some sort of side effects.

“But what if she isn’t?” Chaeyoung voiced quietly. “We…we have to be realistic, Jeongyeon. We can’t travel through time and if you can’t do it without her…”

How can she find her way back?

Jihyo closed her eyes tightly, sick to her stomach. Losing someone had been her biggest fear ever since she considered the eight other abnormal humans as her family and now it had come to fruition. She had lost Tzuyu for a few, heartbreaking minutes, and then she had lost Nayeon completely.

They had no way to locate her, no idea of how to move forward, as they always did, and no beginnings of a plan.

They were stuck and Jihyo didn’t know how to fix any of it.

“Nayeon risked her own life so that–” Jeongyeon caught herself before she voiced the memory Mina had erased and curled her hands around the edge of the table, fear spreading through her with every thud of her broken heart. “She’s not gone. She can’t be.”

Jeongyeon’s heartache echoed in Jihyo’s mind as her thoughts started to project, a chorus of grief that grew louder and louder the longer Nayeon remained lost to them, and while part of Jihyo desperately hoped that Nayeon would return, she knew realistically that it wasn’t entirely possible.

Nayeon had only just uncovered a new side of her powers, a piece that was incomplete without Jeongyeon, so how could Nayeon find her way back if Jeongyeon couldn’t work alone either?

“Chewy, Chewy!” Sana’s chair scraped back across the floor and the girl flew over to Tzuyu’s side, snatching up the towel from the countertop and quickly wrapping it around Tzuyu’s hand to collect the spilled liquid.

The rest of the team burst into action. Momo teleported over to catch the falling kettle and yelped when her fingers touched the searing sides, which led to Chaeyoung stopping its descent with her own power, returning the kettle to the countertop with telekinesis.

Jihyo stood, as helpless as Jeongyeon, while Mina stepped into her role of medic and guided Tzuyu to the table with Sana’s help, only at a loss for a moment before Dahyun ran back into the room with the first aid kit.

“Why did we even have her making the tea?” Momo breathed, calm enough to clear up the rest of the mess with Tzuyu safely out of the way. “She’s not in the right mindset.”

"Didn't you feel it?" Mina scolded gently, so, so gently as she set about fixing the wound as best she could.

Tzuyu stared down at blistered skin with a small frown, confused, almost as if she didn't know what had caused the damage. "No," she whispered in answer to Mina's question, eyelids fluttering, "I didn't."

Mina clicked her tongue disapprovingly and looked at Chaeyoung. “Can you get her a blanket please?” she requested softly. “She’s freezing.”

Chaeyoung nodded and darted down the hall towards one of the two tiny bedrooms.

Dahyun bit her lower lip, looking at the burned skin with no small amount of concern. “That looks like a bad burn,” she mumbled. “Shouldn’t she be healing by now?”

Mina pursed her lips, assessing the blistered skin. “She should be, yes,” she murmured and looked at Tzuyu. “Do you know why you’re not healing?”

Jihyo looked at Sana when Tzuyu remained silent, wondering if she knew more, and managed to catch her eye. She motioned her over with a nod of her head and Sana left with a gentle kiss pressed to the crown of Tzuyu’s head, shuffling over with bloodshot eyes.

“Do you know why she’s not healing?” Jihyo asked quietly, and Sana nodded.

“The, um…the Doctor,” Sana said as she glanced at Tzuyu. “He injected her with something – beneath her ribs. I…I don’t know what it was. It was blue, I think. Then…th–the gun…”

"Sana..." Jihyo's fingers brushed against the silent girl's arm and she stopped breathing momentarily.

Pain flooded through her, a scream echoed in her ears. Panic, desperation, an unheard plea, begging someone to stay, crying out into the darkness where no one would hear.

Sana blinked at her, eyes watering quickly, and the tremor in her hands was obvious when she pointed an accusing finger at Jihyo.

"You have no idea what I went through," she hissed. "What I'm going through. Chewy was the only one who understood but you–” Sana swallowed thickly, struggling when the lump in her throat only continued to grow. “You made her forget.”

Mina approached them, soft and gentle. "I can make you forget too," she offered quietly.

Sana flinched out of reach, wide eyes warning them back, full to the brim with contempt. “Why? So that I can be as empty as she is?” she accused. “Chewy was finally starting to feel things and now she’s back to being a husk again.”

Mina flinched back, wounded by Sana’s hostility, but she didn’t argue back. They had all noticed the change in Tzuyu’s behavior since Mina had made her forget dying.

“It was a necessary evil, Sana,” Jihyo murmured. “You saw the state of her. She–”

"You can't heal trauma by erasing it!" Sana snapped. "Magicking it away doesn't mean that it didn't happen! Look at her now, Jihyo. Look at her and tell me that she’s alive.”

Jihyo couldn’t.

"I feel invisible but she always..." Sana trailed off, clawing at her chest as if removing her heart would make it hurt less. "Chewy sees me..."

And while Jihyo could have argued that the rest of them saw Sana too, she knew that Sana didn’t mean it in a literal sense. What Tzuyu saw went beneath the skin. Tzuyu had always loved Sana, even when Sana had tried to pretend that she was in love with everyone else, and that mattered.

"She died," Sana whispered. "I felt the moment that she was gone...and I felt my – my heart..." She lifted her eyes, bloodshot and filling with tears. "I can't do this anymore, Jihyo."

“Sana,” Jihyo knew that she could never talk Sana out of anything she had her heart set on, but she had already lost two of their family in a day, and while one had returned, she had returned broken, “we’re stronger together.”

Sana shook her head, no longer believing blindly. "I believe in fate," she said quietly. "I believe that everything happens for a reason." Her eyes turned to Tzuyu, seeing a version she would never be able to forget. “But I can’t see the reason for this.”

“Here!” Chaeyoung tumbled around the corner with several blankets in hand and hurriedly wrapped them around Tzuyu’s shoulders, pulling them tightly until Tzuyu could barely move.

“Careful,” Momo chastised her and stepped over to loosen the woolen straightjacket.

“What do we do about her hand?” Dahyun asked, restless when she didn’t know how to help.

Mina bit her lower lip and returned to her patient. “I…I guess we should treat it like a burn for any of us,” she suggested. “So…cold water and painkillers. Momo, you should run your fingers under cold water too, just in case.”

“I’m fine, Mina,” Momo waved away her concern with a weary smile. “Focus on the kid.”

Jihyo’s heart stuttered when Tzuyu’s vacant stare settled on her, perturbed by the lack of familiarity in her gaze. Tzuyu was looking at them as if they were strangers, but she knew who they were. They had quizzed the girl thoroughly on every aspect of their shared life and Tzuyu had known every answer except the gap that had been erased from memory.

“She said that she loved me.”

Jihyo’s head snapped around to Sana at the broken whisper, stood in the doorway with a crestfallen expression, and Jihyo felt her own heart break all over again. “What?” she breathed.

Sana swallowed around the lump in her throat, though she was unable to stop the lone tear that spilled down her cheek. “Chewy told me that she loved me,” she whispered. “But you made her forget.”

And then Sana was gone, vanishing entirely from sight, and Jihyo knew that they wouldn’t see her again for a while, but she was comforted slightly by the fact that she would be able to sense whether Sana remained in the apartment or not.

She understood Sana’s resentment, just as she understood why Jeongyeon couldn’t bring herself to look at Tzuyu, and why she herself wasn’t ready to speak with Sunmi and figure out where they stood.

A lot had happened in one week, too much to truly comprehend, and part of her longed for the blissful ignorance Tzuyu held – but not at the cost of her own memories.

Jihyo looked across the room at Jeongyeon while Tzuyu was tended to and worried about the anguish that was tormenting her friend. Nayeon might have been missing, but Jeongyeon was lost entirely without her, drowning with no land in sight.

And Jihyo didn’t know how to fix it. Any of it.

Everything had gone so wrong so quickly – and they had been in bad situations before, but it had never been like that. They had always known that death was a possibility, but for it to actually happen…and then to have death be reversed…

It shouldn’t have been possible.

“How did you spill the water, Tzu?” Dahyun asked. “Did you miss the mug?”

“I don’t know,” Tzuyu answered monotonously. “It hurt here.” She touched her stomach, where only a scar remained, one that Tzuyu had no knowledge of, or any inclination to check it apparently. “I’m sorry about the tea.”

“Don’t apologize for that, idiot,” Chaeyoung grouched affectionately. “We’re more worried about you than tea.”

Jihyo forced a smile when Tzuyu glanced at her and nodded, reaffirming Chaeyoung’s point. “We just want you to be okay,” she said softly, and she felt a surge of confusion from Tzuyu as she grasped at an empty space in her memories.

Their super soldier sat in silence as Mina bandaged her blistered hand and gave her some painkillers with strict instructions on how many to take.

“Something’s wrong.”

Jihyo inclined her head towards Jeongyeon as the older girl reached her side, looking at Tzuyu with sunken eyes. “With her?” Jihyo asked.

“She’s different.” Jeongyeon’s bloodshot gaze shifted to Jihyo, burdened by the disappearance of her partner in life. “Can you…Can you touch her? Listen to her thoughts maybe?”

It was a good idea, better than anything Jihyo could come up with, so she approached Tzuyu, cautious and careful, and touched the girl’s shoulder as she tuned out everything else.

She ignored Mina’s fear that she had altered Tzuyu’s personality with a merciful command, ignored Momo’s despair that she would never be fast enough, Dahyun’s grief that she had failed as the leader of her small group, Chaeyoung’s thirst for vengeance, Jeongyeon’s bleeding heart – all of it.

Jihyo separated the strands until she could only sense Tzuyu…

And – nothing.

She felt nothing.

Everything that Tzuyu had once been was gone and all that remained was a chilling, biting cold.

Testing further, Jihyo asked the simplest question she could. “What do you feel when you think of Sana?”

“Sana?” Tzuyu thought on it, and where there should have been a growing warmth, the coldness remained, but Tzuyu knew that she should have felt something – Jihyo could see it in her eyes. “I…I don’t.”

“You don’t?” Jihyo held on tighter, searching for something, anything other than the freezing static that echoed in her mind. “You don’t what?”

“Feel,” Tzuyu answered faintly. “I…” She frowned and a hand drifted to her abdomen, scratching at the wound she didn’t even know she had, recognition flickering briefly in her eyes – and then the moment passed. “Would anyone like some tea?”

Jihyo swallowed down the forming lump in her throat and withdrew her hand as she forced a tearful smile. “No, yoda,” she said softly. “Thank you for offering.”

Huddled in her blanket, Tzuyu seemed to forget the offer, and returned to drawing small circles on the surface of the table with her finger, tapping occasionally, but not frequently enough for it to be her usual counting tactic.

“Remember,” Mina said in a shaky voice, “two now and two later.” She nudged Tzuyu’s arm when the girl didn’t acknowledge her words. “Repeat that back to me please.”

Bang!

Tzuyu leaped to her feet with a panicked cry, moving so quickly and suddenly that her chair toppled, and all eyes flew around to Momo, stood at the sink with an apologetic expression.

“Sorry, kid,” the speedster said. “I dropped a mug in the sink.”

The reaction was concerning for more than one reason. Ignoring the fact that being shot had been erased from Tzuyu’s mind, Tzuyu had never been one to be frightened by loud noises, not even when they were kids.

Then the confusion crept in again, unsure why she had reacted the way she had, and Dahyun swept in to distract her with a half-truth of showing Tzuyu how her powers had evolved, while Momo set about Tzuyu-proofing the kitchen appliances that could cause her harm.

With the super soldier distracted, Jihyo returned to Jeongyeon with Mina following, and she shook her head, conveying without words that she didn’t hear anything from Tzuyu’s mind that would help explain the change.

“What the hell was that?” Chaeyoung hissed as she joined them. Her frown shifted to Mina. “I thought that you made her forget.”

“I – I did,” Mina croaked. “I don't know. It's almost as if she's having side effects."

"She doesn't remember anything," Jeongyeon confirmed quietly, "but her body does."

“And she isn’t healing,” Jihyo added. “Not since she was attacked by the Doctor.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Chaeyoung asked. “Anything at all?” She turned to her girlfriend, insistent that Mina could help. “Can you undo the command, or…or change it? Reword it so that she remembers loving Sana and – and our snowball fight?”

“We’ve already been over this. I can’t change the command,” Mina sighed.

“Then can we give her medicine?” Chaeyoung was starting to become upset, Jihyo could feel it in the way that the air started to thicken as her electric charge powered up. “Something that can jog her memory?”

"I can't answer your questions, Chaeyoung. I'm not a trained doctor," Mina said, a little sharper than intended. "She was dead and then Nayeon and Jeongyeon brought her back. There is no explaining that."

“I can’t explain it either,” Jeongyeon told them. “I don’t know what we did or how we did it…only that Nayeon isn’t here anymore.”

Jihyo looked over at Tzuyu, checking that she wasn’t listening, and was reassured by a quick nod from Dahyun. Tzuyu was currently in a targeted illusion, one that was making her smile, and one that made her oblivious to the world around her. She looked back at Chaeyoung, concerned by the hatred that was festering inside her. “Chaeyoung,” she said lowly, “whatever you’re planning, you can forget it.”

But Chaeyoung was Chaeyoung and she would do it anyway, with or without Jihyo’s blessing.

"I'm going to find the asshole that blew a hole in Tzuyu," Chaeyoung muttered, hatred spilling out of her in smothering waves. “And then I’m going to hunt down the rest of them until there is nothing left. No more running.”

“Oh, would you listen to yourself, Chaeyoung?” Mina hissed. “Tzuyu died! Tzuyu! Not me, not you – the one member of our team who was practically bulletproof! How do you expect to survive?”

“They stole my sister!” Chaeyoung thundered, her temper snapping like elastic, and the furniture rattled, some of the lighter items rising as her telekinesis grew uncontrolled. “We lost her the moment they took Sana and Tzuyu doesn’t even remember! She doesn’t know that she’s the reason why Nayeon’s missing. If I have to die to ensure the Company are finished then so be it–”

“Hey!” Jeongyeon seized Chaeyoung by the front of her shirt and forced her up against the wall. “I won’t allow you to become a martyr. We’ve already lost Nayeon and Tzuyu isn’t the same, so quit being an idiot and use your damn brain! You will die if you go after the Company or even worse, they’ll keep you captive like they did to Sana.”

With tears in her eyes, Jeongyeon released Chaeyoung and left the room, clearly wanting some time to herself like Sana, so Jihyo let her go, though she made a mental note to check in on both of her heartbroken teammates before they settled for the night.

Chaeyoung scoffed loudly and bared her teeth. “We’re the most powerful beings in the world,” she sneered. “And this is what we’ve been reduced to. Well, I’m not giving up.”

“Chae,” Mina was fighting back tears as the telekinetic stormed towards the front door and they all collectively flinched when it slammed shut. Mina sniffled as she scrubbed at her eyes, worn down and weary after the hardest week of their lives. “What’s happening to us?”

Jihyo thought back to just after the warehouse incident, to the thought that had sat and festered that something bad was about to happen – and it had. For the first time in her life, Jihyo had ignored that internal thought that had kept them on the right path and everything had spiraled out of control faster than she could try to stop it.

Now Nayeon was missing and completely untraceable, Tzuyu was a fragmented version of her past self, Sana and Jeongyeon were beyond heartbroken, and the rest of her team were just as wounded by the aftermath.

“Is Chaeyoung okay?” Tzuyu asked quietly, hunched awkwardly in her seat, as if her body didn’t quite fit.

Mina forced a smile for their youngest friend, always gentle when it came to Tzuyu. “She’s fine,” she lied to reassure her. “Just give her some space.”

Jihyo wondered when Tzuyu’s expression became vacant again, sure that she didn’t see any silver, but cautious when the girl backed down almost immediately.

“Okay,” Tzuyu said, and smiled again as she came full circle and repeated the first words she had spoken since they had settled in the apartment, “Would anyone like some tea?”

“No, sweetheart,” Mina’s false smile wobbled, “thank you.”

Yet, Tzuyu made no attempt at actually making more tea. She stayed sitting, listening while Dahyun and Momo cautioned her on the dangers of boiled water, but not really hearing anything they were saying.

Making her forget had been the only possible path forward.

‘Chewy told me that she loved me.’

It was the only thing they could have done in that moment.

‘But you made her forget.’

Wasn’t it?

“What did I do to her, Jihyo?” Mina whispered, her fingers splayed across her lips as she fought back tears. “What did I do?”

Jihyo couldn’t answer her, not even sure that she could explain it if she could find the words, because she didn’t know. “She’s alive,” Jihyo said softly, “and that’s all that matters. Right now we need to focus on finding Nayeon.”

“It’s an impossible task,” Mina replied. “If she’s not in the present…”

“We’ll find her,” Jihyo reassured her. “Or maybe she’ll find us.” She looked at her friend, hearing all of the guilt and regret in her mind. “Bringing Tzuyu back should have been impossible too.”

A flicker of hope was gone as suddenly as it had appeared, snuffed out by the stronger negative emotions, but it was enough for Jihyo – it had to be.

Nayeon had risked everything to bring Tzuyu back to life and she had paid the price, so Jihyo would risk everything to get Nayeon back, just as she knew the rest of them would.

‘You made her forget.’

Chaeyoung had called them 'superheroes' when she was younger, before the idolized notion of being heroes wore off. They weren't heroes. Not even close.

They were just kids playing pretend and Jihyo truly had no idea how to lead them anymore.

Chapter Text

Tzuyu rolled over with a sigh and looked over at Dahyun and Chaeyoung, wondering how they were able to sleep soundly when it was so cold. She was buried beneath three blankets and had acquired another one from Momo before everyone had turned in for the night, but her fingertips were still ice.

They had been gifted one of the two bedrooms by their older teammates, while Mina, Sana and Jihyo took the other bedroom, and Jeongyeon and Momo slept on the couches in the living room.

Tzuyu had tried to protest that it would be better if she slept in the living room because she would be able to stop any would-be intruders, but her family had been rather insistent that she sleep in one of the three available beds.

They had told her that it would be warmer, yet she had never felt colder, and she couldn’t sleep.

Dahyun and Chaeyoung looked terribly uncomfortable on the floor, but they had refused to swap, almost demanding that Tzuyu took the bed.

‘You’ll feel better after some proper sleep, buddy,’ Chaeyoung had said.

‘The bed will be warmer. You’ll probably be out like a light,’ Dahyun had added.

But Tzuyu couldn’t sleep.

Her mind felt fuzzy, almost like brain fog but not quite, and her team was acting strangely. They had told her that Nayeon was missing, lost on a mission against their previous captors, yet they didn’t seem in any hurry to storm the Company and get her back. That wasn’t normal. They had always been willing to risk anything for one another.

Tzuyu could easily break down the front door and lead the charge, they knew that she could, but all that they kept telling her was that she had to rest and she had no idea why.

Tzuyu sat up on the bed and contemplated waking her friends before ultimately deciding against it. They had seemed exhausted earlier – everyone had – so she left them to sleep while she picked at the fraying edges of the bandage wrapped around her hand. It had been such a clumsy mistake, the kind she had never experienced before, yet one that she was told not to worry about. It happened to everyone, it was the result of exhaustion, but Tzuyu had never witnessed her family pour a kettle of boiling water over their skin.

She never did get that cup of tea…

Tea.

Her teeth chattered at the thought. Tea would warm her up.

She slipped out of bed and stepped over the tangled limbs of her best friends to sneak out of the bedroom, pausing in the doorway to listen for any noise, but the apartment was silent apart from a few distant snores from her teammates.

Tzuyu had been forbidden from being in the kitchen alone after she had burned her hand, but that had been an accident and surely if she was very careful then it would be okay. It would only matter if she got caught anyway and the only teammate she really had to worry about waking was Jihyo, so she needed to be quiet. Their leader was a very light sleeper and always the first choice when up in the middle of the night feeling unwell.

Tzuyu had never felt unwell though, not like Chaeyoung and Dahyun had. Mina had told her that her immune system was tough. The only reason Tzuyu had ever had for waking up their leader was nightmares.

‘Nightmares don’t make you any less brave,’ Jihyo would whisper in the dark as she set about making chamomile tea to settle her nerves. ‘There’s no shame in feeling scared.’

Yet no matter how many times Jihyo told her that there was nothing wrong with what she felt, Tzuyu could never feel contented because she had been told long before Jihyo’s comforting words that ‘perfect things aren’t flawed.’

Tzuyu tip-toed her way to the kitchen, pausing to make sure that Jeongyeon and Momo were out for the count before she navigated the darkness towards the kettle. It wouldn’t be too loud, she hoped as she filled it with enough water for one mug and set it to boil.

The seconds ticked by painfully slowly and she had to shuffle from foot to foot to try and ward off the biting chill that had seeped deep into her bones.

She lifted down the herbal packet from the overhead shelf and got herself a mug ready to use, careful not to bother her injured palm – Tzuyu suddenly doubled over with an agonized gasp as a blinding pain erupted halfway down her spine and spread through to her stomach.

The tea was forgotten and she stumbled blindly to the bathroom, fumbling to lock the door while she tore her sleeping shirt over her head.

Her hand flew back to find the center of the pain and her fingertips brushed across uneven skin. She twisted to see the expanse of her back in the small mirror above the sink, expecting smooth skin, and balked at the ragged scar, circular in appearance and too similar to the bruises she earned from bullets for her to think that it was anything but a wound from gunfire.

But Tzuyu didn’t remember being shot – and bullets had never gone beneath her skin before.

She looked down at her stomach, at the point where it hurt, and gasped at the matching scar. Had she been shot twice? Or…or had it gone straight through? No – she would remember something as severe as that. How could she forget?

Panicking, Tzuyu threw open the medicine cabinet and rifled through their collection of pills, grabbing anything that she vaguely recognized as painkillers while the rest clattered to the floor. Pills to be stronger. Pills to be weaker. Medicine to fix her. She should have healed the damage – her hand–

Tzuyu peeled the bandage from her palm and blinked at the blister that remained, a wound that should have healed, a wound that should have hurt. She should have–

“Chewy?”

Tzuyu remembered to breathe when the soft voice met her ears, turning instinctively to look at Sana – Sana who should have been in bed.

Had she forgotten to lock the door? No. No, Tzuyu remembered locking the bathroom door, and that was confirmed when she looked, so how had Sana gotten in the room? Why wasn’t anything making sense?

“What are you doing?” Sana asked quietly, looking at the mess of scattered pill boxes and bottles. “Are you sore?”

“I…” The lie died on the tip of her tongue, words withering away, because it was Sana and she had never lied to Sana, never would, and Sana wouldn’t lie to her, and – and why did Sana look so sad when she looked at her? Had Tzuyu hurt her? Had she said something that had been misinterpreted? No. Sana never misunderstood. Sana always knew what Tzuyu wanted to say, even when she couldn’t say it.

“You know that you’re not supposed to get medicine unless Mina gives it to you,” Sana scolded her in a gentle voice.

“I locked the door,” Tzuyu croaked, incapable of saying anything else quite yet as she tried to cover herself, scrambling for what little dignity remained.

Sana bit her lower lip and moved her hand to the nearest wall, hesitating only for a moment before her fingers disappeared through it. “New trick,” she said with a wilted smile as her eyes darted to Tzuyu’s exposed skin, seeing the scar and flickering away in shame. “I forgot to show you.”

That was a lie.

But Sana wouldn’t lie to her.

“Did I get hurt on the mission?” Tzuyu asked.

“We didn’t take you,” Sana answered too quickly, opting instead to pick up Tzuyu’s abandoned shirt. She handed it back to her and politely diverted her gaze when Tzuyu hurried to slip it back on. “I’ll walk you back to your room.”

“Sana,” Tzuyu pleaded, her voice strained, “you would tell me the truth, wouldn’t you?”

“Always.” Sana smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes – and Sana wouldn’t lie to her.

“Promise?” Tzuyu whispered, and for the first time since their ritual of always promising the other everything, Sana didn’t answer with her expected, ‘Promise.’

Instead she stepped back and reached out her hand, waiting for Tzuyu to take it. “Come on,” she said. “It’s late.”

Sana would never lie to her.

Tzuyu looked at her, the wound forgotten as she took in the grief that haunted the other girl’s eyes. Was she upset about Nayeon? She remembered a past conversation with Jihyo about offering comfort when her teammates were upset, and though she wasn’t particularly good at it, Jihyo always said that trying was what mattered most.

Chaeyoung would tell her to compliment Sana, so Tzuyu reached out to tuck a strand of loose hair behind Sana’s ear and did exactly that. “I like your hair,” she whispered.

Sana’s eyes widened at her soft words and promptly filled with tears as she stumbled forward to collapse against Tzuyu’s torso. “Oh, Chewy,” Sana whimpered against her chest. “I miss you.”

Tzuyu looked down at the top of her head with a small frown. “But I’m right here,” she replied.

“I know,” Sana whispered. “But everything’s different now.”

Because Nayeon was missing.

“We’ll get Nayeon back,” Tzuyu reassured her.

“That’s not–” Sana bit her tongue and pulled back and away, more pain there than there was before. Her fingertips rested on Tzuyu’s chest, just over her beating heart. “You don’t understand.”

Tzuyu stared at Sana’s hand, willing herself to feel the warmth of her fingers through her shirt, but there was nothing.

She was so cold, touched by an unending frost that had seeped deep into her bones. Nothing could warm her up. Not blankets, or hugs, or even warm water. She couldn't escape the bitter chill that made her teeth chatter and her fingers tingle.

“I’m a good listener,” Tzuyu commented weakly.

“I can’t tell you, Chewy,” Sana sniffled.

Tzuyu understood well enough what that meant. Sana wasn’t allowed to tell her, but Tzuyu wasn’t a kid anymore, surely she was privy to the same information as her teammates. She brushed down her shirt, wincing when her fingers grazed the unexplained wound, and she noticed that Sana was watching her.

“But you want to,” Tzuyu noted.

Sana scrubbed at her eyes, clearing all evidence that she had been upset to begin with, but Tzuyu saw beyond that. There was something deeper in Sana’s gaze now whenever she looked at her, the kind of emotion that Tzuyu saw between Nayeon and Jeongyeon, and in Chaeyoung whenever she looked at Mina when she thought that no one was looking, but Tzuyu saw it all because that was how she had learned how to express herself.

And the way that Sana was looking at her…

Tzuyu knew that it was heartbreak.

But Tzuyu would never do anything to hurt Sana – and Sana wouldn’t lie to her.

“Sana,” Tzuyu pleaded. “I – I don’t remember getting hurt, but I did. I know that I did because I can see it, but I don’t remember getting hurt–”

“Chewy, I can’t tell you,” Sana lamented. “Let’s just go back to bed. Please…Please just go back to bed. We can talk in the morning when–”

“No – no! Tell me!” Tzuyu begged. “Don’t make me feel like I’m crazy because I – I know that something happened. Please, Sana, I…I just don’t know what it was.”

Sana swallowed thickly and held her gaze for a few seconds of stony silence, battling with herself, and Tzuyu had to be patient, she had to wait, because Sana wouldn’t…

“What’s the last thing that you remember before today?” Sana asked quietly. “Before you burned your hand?”

“The fake elevator,” Tzuyu answered. “Chaeyoung thought that we – that we could end it all, but it was a trap.”

Sana’s gaze hardened and she swallowed thickly, defiance burning brightly in her watering eyes. “That was a week ago, Chewy,” Sana told her.

“A…a week?”  Tzuyu repeated faintly. “N–No, it was yesterday and Nayeon…”

Tzuyu thought back on it – she really thought about it, and her heart stuttered to a halt. Nayeon wasn’t there when they had been trapped. Tzuyu had gone in with Dahyun and Chaeyoung, and it had been Sana, Mina, and Momo who came to their rescue.

Nayeon had never been there.

There was a whole week missing from her memory.

She inhaled sharply, on the verge of another panic attack, remembering coveted glances and guilty expressions. Something had happened in the week she couldn't remember, something that she was supposed to forget.

But how could she have forgotten an entire week? And…and why had no one told her? Why wouldn’t they…?

Her chest tightened painfully.

“You know, don’t you?” Sana was still there, looking at her with…was it pain in her eyes? Anger? Both? Tzuyu couldn’t tell for sure. “Please, Chewy,” Sana pleaded. “Tell me that you know.”

Tzuyu didn’t answer her, terrified of what it implied, because there was only one plausible explanation for why she couldn’t remember the week that everyone else could. There was only one reason that made sense for her selective amnesia about her bullet wound.

Sana nodded with a soft sniffle, accepting her silence as an answer. “You don’t remember what happened,” she croaked, “but I do and I – I can’t look at you without feeling my heart break.”

Then Sana was leaving, withdrawing further, and Tzuyu reached for her, desperate for Sana to stay, “Sana–” but Sana was gone, disappearing through the door, and Tzuyu had to let her go, instead turning back to the mirror.

She lifted her shirt again, twisting around to see the wound she didn’t remember receiving, and felt a shift in her chest, like the gears of time moving again. She felt cold, but somewhere deep inside, buried beneath the icy chill, was a growing warmth, something dark, and angry, and hateful.

Comtempt because her family had made her forget something important, something that made Sana upset, something that she should remember, and there was only one way that she could forget something so critical.

Mina.

Tzuyu frowned at her reflection and left the bathroom, intending on finding Sana again, but where would she even look? Sana could evade her easily and the older girl had made it abundantly clear that being around Tzuyu was causing her nothing but pain, so maybe it would be best if Tzuyu left her alone for the time being.

Maybe Sana would come to her again – or maybe she wouldn’t.

Tzuyu blinked, surprised to find herself standing in the hallway again right outside the kitchen. She didn’t remember walking, though forgetting things had become a frequent issue as of late.

Movement by the door caught her attention and Tzuyu spotted Chaeyoung dressed in her hoodie from their excursion months ago to the warehouse where they had been ambushed, and her schoolbag full to the brim with everything except her school books.

“Chaeng?” she whispered, careful not to wake Jeongyeon or Momo. “Where are you going?”

Chaeyoung stopped by the door and looked back with a watery smile. “Out for a bit,” she answered. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

And then her best friend was gone, leaving Tzuyu alone with only the company of sleeping friends. “Chaeng,” Tzuyu hissed, but she didn’t follow.

Her feet remained rooted because she was supposed to give Chaeyoung some space, and even if she had wanted to follow, she couldn’t. Every time she sought to go after her, Tzuyu’s feet felt heavier, weighted to the floor, bound by a flippant command of giving Chaeyoung some space.

She shivered, struck by the permeating cold again, and a faint whisper of someone crying echoed somewhere in her memory, but it was distant and hidden away.

‘Chewy? Stay awake, okay? Don't leave me, angel. Don't go.’

Tzuyu shook her head, clearing the voice from her mind.

Tea.

Tzuyu turned back to the kitchen, where a mug remained and a box of herbal teabags had been dropped, left to sit on the floor in wait.

Tea would warm her up.

*********

Dahyun woke up to an empty room. Chaeyoung was no longer beside her and the bed where they had tucked in Tzuyu was missing its most recent occupant.

Trying not to resort to panicking before she actually made a decent attempt at locating her friends, Dahyun kicked off the thin blanket and crept into the hallway, listening carefully for any indication as to where her roommates had disappeared to, but the apartment was silent.

She knew that Tzuyu was partial to wandering when she couldn’t rest, but it had been years since she had caught the super soldier in the act, and Chaeyoung had become a worry with her declarations of violence against their previous captors.

Dahyun had hoped that it was just Chaeyoung’s way of diverting her anger at the hopelessness of their situation elsewhere, but she knew it was never that simple with the telekinetic. Even if Chaeyoung didn’t openly wage war against the Company, she would find some other way to wound them.

“Hey,” Dahyun spotted Sana as she waited by her door, concern etched into her soft features. “Have you seen Tzuyu? Her bed is empty and–”

Sana grabbed Dahyun's arm and dragged her into the dimly lit hallway, hands pushing and pulling, and suddenly her lips were against lips with the same sloppy desperation.

And Dahyun would have enjoyed it once upon a time. She had craved Sana's attention, back when she was young and naïve, confused by how cruel the world was, because Sana had always, always been so full of love and so ready to give it to everyone else. Dahyun had wanted the attention Sana so freely gave to Tzuyu, but this felt so wrong, so twisted, so cruel – and Dahyun had Momo. Dahyun had moved on a long time ago, finding love with someone who gave her everything and more.

Momo gave her all the attention she could ever desire. Momo gave Dahyun her heart.

Dahyun fought to push her away, scrambling to free herself. “What the hell are you doing?” she hissed. “Have you lost your mind?!”

Sana collapsed against her, mewling like a wounded kitten. “You’re not Chewy,” Sana whimpered against Dahyun’s skin. “But she isn’t either. My Chewy’s gone. My Chewy…”

Dahyun froze, unable to hug Sana back after the unexpected and unwanted kiss, but recognizing that Sana was unable to find a way to move on with Tzuyu being different. Sana had admitted her feelings of love and had them returned, and now Tzuyu didn’t remember any of that. Sana had started to plan a new life with Tzuyu, Dahyun knew that because Tzuyu had whispered to her late at night about the idea of adopting a dog and finding their own place, but now all of that had been stolen away from them.

Tzuyu had forgotten loving Sana and Dahyun worried that Tzuyu had forgotten how to feel anything at all.

“I’m sorry,” Sana sobbed. “I’m sorry.” She touched her lips, wiping away the kiss. “I shouldn’t have – I’m sorry, Dahyun.” Sana ducked to the right, vanishing through the wall into the room she was sharing with Jihyo and Mina.

Dahyun swallowed thickly. How would she have coped had it been her? What would she have done if it had been Momo lying on the floor, bleeding to death from a bullet meant for Dahyun instead?

She truly didn’t know. If Momo died…Dahyun knew that she would have fallen apart just as Sana was. She knew that her heart would never recover if Momo–

“Dahyun…”

Dahyun’s stomach knotted as her gaze snapped to Momo, standing in wait at the end of the hallway, looking back at her with so much pain. Momo had seen the kiss.

“Momo, Momo, I can explain,” she pleaded softly.

"I don't want to hear it,” Momo husked. “Not…not right now.”

“I–I didn’t kiss her,” Dahyun croaked. “I didn’t want her to do that. She kissed me.”

Then it occurred to her that Momo had not heard any of their conversation. Momo had not heard Sana begging for forgiveness or crying that her ‘Chewy’ was gone, never to return.

“Sana’s heartbroken, Momo,” Dahyun said, pleading the speedster to understand. “Tzuyu’s changed – she forgot the relationship she was building with Sana and Sana…” Dahyun swallowed thickly, her eyes burning furiously. “Momo, it didn’t mean anything. Sana just wanted to feel love, but I don’t – I don’t love her like that, Momo. I love you. I love you.”

“I…I believe you,” Momo mumbled, “and I won’t tell Tzuyu.” Her sad eyes glistened with unshed tears. “But I…need some space…I think…” She shrugged, trying to smile though her lips barely lifted at all. “It sucks to see your girlfriend being kissed by someone else.”

Dahyun understood her request, would willingly comply with it, but it still stung, despite Momo saying she believed her.

“Okay,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’ll be here…whenever you’re ready.”

“I know,” Momo rocked back on her heels and dipped her head towards the bathroom door. “That’s where I was headed before…”

Dahyun cleared her throat and stepped out of the way. “Of course.”

Momo stopped at the door, sighed softly, and doubled back to lean down and kiss Dahyun’s forehead. “We’ll be okay, Dubu,” she murmured. “Just give me some time to fight the urge to knock Sana’s teeth out for kissing you…especially without permission.”

And then she was gone, flicking the bathroom lock to keep her privacy from any sleepy housemates.

Dahyun exhaled deeply, relief coursing through her. Momo didn’t hate her. That was all that mattered. Momo knew that the kiss had been unwanted, knew that it had been the absolute last thing on Dahyun’s mind.

Sana. Dahyun would talk to Sana in the morning, check in and see how badly she was falling apart, and like Momo, Dahyun had no intentions of telling Tzuyu about the kiss. There was no reason to, not really.

It was bad enough that Tzuyu didn’t remember admitting her love without adding more insult to injury.

The sound of cuterly in the kitchen drew Dahyun down the hallway to the kitchen, where she found Tzuyu making a seventh cup of tea whilst the other six remained untouched, still piping hot. She knew that she should have stopped her, knew that the logical thing to do would be to walk her back to their room and make sure that she got some rest, but Dahyun couldn’t talk to her.

Dahyun couldn’t face her, not even when the kiss had been Sana’s doing, not even when she didn’t feel anything except disgust after it, not when she knew that it was something Tzuyu should have felt anger over but never would…because Tzuyu didn’t remember that she loved Sana enough to care about that in the first place.

So Dahyun returned to her empty bedroom and fought to fall asleep without the comforting company of her two best friend’s, and the lingering sensation of Sana’s lips on her own.

But Momo didn’t hate her.

That was all that mattered.

Chapter Text

Mina’s eyes cracked open just shy of dawn and, knowing that it would be impossible to fall asleep again, she slipped out of bed and made her way to the kitchen. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well make herself useful and make a start on breakfast before the rest of her motley crew stirred.

It would be strange, she realized, only making enough for eight people instead of the usual nine. They had been a group of nine for as long as she could remember and none of them had anything worth remembering before the Company took them in.

Their abilities made them something to be feared and Mina knew without a shadow of doubt that the Company had erased all record of their existence the moment they set foot inside the facility that had become their prison.

They didn’t exist outside of their found family, not to the rest of the world.

A soft snore caught Mina’s attention and she caught sight of Jeongyeon and Momo just before she entered the kitchen. She grimaced at the sore necks that they would undoubtedly wake up to and made a small mental note to find her ointment for aching muscles after she was finished cooking.

All of their belongings were still divided between the apartment and their old home. It had been a sudden rush to leave and they had only managed to grab the bare essentials with the promise of returning for anything more at a later date, but the need to get further away from the Company’s grasp loomed over them, and Mina had no doubt that they wouldn’t be able to go back any time soon.

Despite all of that, she was certain that she had grabbed most of her medical supplies during the panicked departure.

"Chaeyoung's gone."

Mina turned with a startled gasp and stared at the girl slouched at the breakfast table with several stale mugs of tea dotted around the room which beggared the question as to just how long Tzuyu had been sitting there, alone and quiet.

Empty eyes lifted, lacking any of the warmth Mina had known months ago, and she was struck by a wave of heartache at just how empty Tzuyu seemed.

She was looking at Mina but not really seeing her, not recognizing her, not acknowledging that they had been friends for close to a decade.

Tzuyu was a shell of her former self, drifting through life without truly experiencing any of it. How long had it been that way? Had Tzuyu always been like that? And if so, how had Mina never noticed? Mina was the one who tended to their injuries and while Tzuyu had always been a special case with her hardened exterior, there were emotional and mental injuries that Mina had helped ease.

Mina had always enjoyed silence and Tzuyu had always been equally as quiet, so it wasn’t uncommon for Mina to have ended up with Tzuyu’s company. Surely she would have noticed if something had been off before now.

Then Tzuyu’s whispered words finally registered and panic seized her.

"What do you mean Chaeyoung’s ‘gone?'"

Tzuyu's shoulders heaved with a sigh and her arm rose to rest on the table, the movement causing her to she wince in pain without knowing the cause of it. "She left," Tzuyu said monotonously.

"What?" Mina stepped forward. "When?"

"A few hours ago. When she thought everyone would still be asleep."

Mina frowned and moved to sit across from her youngest friend. "And you didn't think to tell anyone? You didn't try to stop her?"

Tzuyu blinked, her eyebrows pulling down into a frown. "You told me to give her some space."

"I–" Mina's eyes widened, remembering the very words she had spoken the day prior to ease a worried heart and felt her stomach coil with trepidation. “I did tell you that, but it was just advice, Tzuyu. I didn’t mean that you couldn’t stop her from doing something foolish.”

She had indeed told Tzuyu to give Chaeyoung some space, but it had just been advice, had it not? She didn't use her ability...did she?

“Mina…” Tzuyu reached for the mug in front of her, looking confused when she noticed that the liquid was cold. “Why does everyone seem so sad when you all look at me?”

Mina flinched back at the question. She had been so certain that they were being careful around Tzuyu, so sure that they had been good enough at pretending like everything wasn’t falling apart, but evidently it wasn’t enough.

“What do you mean?” she questioned softly, but Tzuyu had moved on.

“And…why do loud noises scare me?" Tzuyu asked.

"You've always been scared of loud noises,” Mina lied.

Wide eyes gazed back at her, lacking their usual trust. “I have?”

How awful it felt to lie to someone so trusting. “Yes, Tzuyu,” Mina said, sick to her stomach with guilt, “you have.”

Tzuyu rested her hands on the table and slowly lifted her index finger. “I’m scared of loud noises?” she muttered to herself, dropping the finger to tap the table surface. “But I’ve forgotten something more. Sana said so.”

“Sana said…?” Mina’s mouth dried up and she struggled to find the words. “What…What did Sana say to you? What did she tell you?”

They had agreed not to mention the missing week. They had agreed as a team. It had been for Tzuyu’s benefit and Mina had obeyed Jihyo because she had only ever wanted what was best for her family.

She would never have done it had she known that Tzuyu would end up so dysfunctional.

“And I…I can hear things – memories, I think,” Tzuyu said, “but I can’t remember what they are. They come and go and I can’t catch them enough to know what they are.”

“What ‘things,’ Tzuyu?” Mina asked. “What do you mean?”

Tzuyu didn’t have time to answer.

“Good morning,” Momo appeared from behind her and did a doubletake at the state of the kitchen, but she still managed to force a smile for Tzuyu. "How are you holding up, tiny bulldozer?"

Tzuyu perked up ever so slightly at the sight of the speedster. “Momo,” she said, “what did Mina make me forget?”

Mina’s heart ached. Tzuyu was asking Momo because Momo was always the one who answered questions the rest of them sugarcoated, but Momo couldn’t answer that one. Tzuyu wasn’t supposed to know the truth and Momo wasn’t allowed to give anything away, but Tzuyu suspected. Tzuyu knew that foul play was at work and Sana had sowed the seeds of doubt.

It was only logical that Tzuyu would come to the conclusion that her amnesia was Mina’s doing.

And she wasn’t wrong. It was Mina’s doing.

Momo swallowed, visibly uncomfortable, and gestured to the fridge. “Are you hungry, kid?” she asked. “I’m starving! I’ll make you some scrambled eggs. How does that sound?”

“Like you’re avoiding my question,” Tzuyu answered and tapped her finger again.

Mina watched the action curiously. For as long as she had known Tzuyu as Tzuyu, not Subject Nine or whatever else she had been called inside the Company, the girl had a very distinct rhythm to her nervous tick, and that rhythm had been lacking ever since she had been returned to the land of the living.

Tzuyu tapped again, twice with her index finger, and then they rested still. That was the first part of the pattern.

“I’m not avoiding your question, kid,” Momo said to calm her. “We can talk properly after some breakfast.”

Now there were three taps with her middle finger, followed by another short pause.

“You are avoiding my question,” Tzuyu grumbled and rolled her fingers, tapping all of them in succession to finish the rhythmic pattern.

Mina stared at her in astonishment. The tick was subconscious, so if she was able to remember the tapping rhythm without any prompt, perhaps she could still be returned to them in whole after all.

“Momo, look,” she breathed, but she wasn’t loud enough. Momo was trapped in a confrontation.

“I’m not, kiddo,” Momo replied. “Mina didn’t make you forget anything, okay? You haven’t been sleeping well. Maybe it’s causing a little bit of paranoia.”

Tzuyu stood suddenly and sent her chair skidding back across the floor with an awful shriek against the worn wood, and her fingers curled into a tight fist. “I am not paranoid!”

"Hey!" Jihyo appeared in the archway, quite clearly only just awake, but jarred from slumber by the cluster of raging emotions collected in one room, and pointed a threatening finger at Tzuyu, an eyebrow lifting at the half-raised fist. "Break that table and you'll be buying a new one."

Tzuyu scowled back at her, deliberating the consequences, and promptly left the room, stepping widely around all of them as she headed straight for the door – the door which was practically pulled from its hinges and Tzuyu was gone before Jihyo could stop her, muttering something about clearing her head before the broken door slammed behind her.

“Shit,” Momo muttered and trailed her fingers through her tangled hair with a heavy sigh. “She knows something’s up.”

“She mentioned that Sana said that she’s forgotten something. Momo, Tzuyu asked you what I made her forget,” Mina murmured uneasily, unable to shake the nausea that had settled deep in her stomach. “Sana wouldn’t have told her what I did, would she?”

“Even if she did, it’s not your fault,” Jihyo appeased her, always so quick to take the fall for them and she would continue to do so if it kept the rest of them at peace with one another. “I gave the command, Mina. You were just following orders.”

“It’s not your fault either, Ji,” Momo said. “There’s no guide for ‘what to do when your dead friend comes back to life’ and your other time travelling friend vanishing.”

“I could have refused,” Mina disagreed. “I could have – maybe there was another way…something that didn’t involve erasing an entire week from Tzuyu’s memory.”

“Even if there was, we were pretty freaking short on time, Minari,” Momo said, searching the fridge for breakfast ingredients, but they were running low on supplies and a trip into the city for groceries now posed a risk to their wellbing. “Guess we’re having toast then.”

Mina looked at the table, frowning at the mugs left behind, and she started to clear them all away. “She did her counting technique,” she said softly.

Momo spun around from the toaster with a hopeful expression. “She did?” Her face lit up with a smile. “That’s – holy shit, that’s Tzuyu – that’s our Tzuyu. That’s good, right?”

“I’m not sure what it is.” Mina leant against the sink and turned to Jihyo with a curious thought. "What happened when you held Tzuyu’s hand yesterday?" she asked quietly. “What did you feel?”

Jihyo frowned as she stepped over to tuck Tzuyu’s abandoned seat under the table again, thinking back on the events of the previous. “I couldn't feel anything,” she murmured. “It felt like she was..." Jihyo paled in realization. “Like she was dead. It felt the same as it did when she was dead.”

Mina sighed and folded her arms, pondering on what to do. “She let Chaeyoung slip away without even trying to stop her,” she told the two. “She said that I told her to give Chaeyoung some space.”

“She treated it like a command?” Momo flinched when her toast popped back up and loaded it with more bread. She would need several servings to feel full. “You didn’t use your ability though, did you?”

“I didn’t think so at first,” Mina replied. “But now I’m wondering if it’s a side effect of making her forget that she died.”

“I think being murdered and then revived would mess anyone up,” said Momo.

“We’ll figure it out,” Jihyo reassured them. “And Chaeyoung…well, I suppose we’ll just have to trust that she’s not going to do anything stupid.”

“It’s Chaeyoung,” Momo breathed. “Charging blindly into danger is her thing.”

“We’ve never lost a teammate before,” Jihyo reminded her. “And for it to be Tzuyu…”

Momo smiled fondly. “Our invincible gentle giant.”

“Impenetrable to a point,” Mina corrected habitually, and paused. “She still has a scar.” Her heart dropped. “Her body still remembers the attack.”

“And her mind doesn’t,” Momo added softly. “Mina, even if she does remember what happened one day, Tzuyu could never hate you.”

And there it was – her worst fear laid out before them.

Mina was terrified that in the eventuality that Tzuyu did remember being shot, she would resent Mina for making her forget it all. Even if it had been Jihyo’s order and realistically the only way to ensure that Tzuyu didn’t die again from shock, Mina couldn’t shake the guilt of stealing memories from her friend.

“But Sana does,” said Mina. “She hates what I did.”

“Sana is mourning the loss still,” Jihyo told her. “It’s easier to be angry at you than the person that shot Tzuyu.” Her expression darkened. “He got away.”

“And anyway–” Momo’s face lit up. “Morning, Dubu.”

“Good morning,” Dahyun greeted softly, looking absolutely exhausted as she entered the kitchen. “Where is everyone?”

Everyone? Mina frowned. As far as she was aware, only Chaeyoung and Tzuyu had left the apartment. “Who else is missing?” she asked dubiously.

Dahyun scrubbed her eyes with a tired fist and shrugged her shoulders. “Tzu and Chaeng were missing when I woke up during the night. I figured that they just couldn’t sleep,” she said. “And Sana left a few minutes ago. Said she had something to do. And I haven’t bumped into Jeongyeon yet.”

So that was four members, two gone without being noticed and all of them missing with no idea of where they had wandered off too.

Mina glanced at Jihyo, curious as to why their leader had not said anything. Jihyo’s powers granted her the ability to sense the rest of them. Surely she would have sensed that certain teammates were missing.

Dahyun sighed softly and sat down at the breakfast table. “Sana wasn’t in a good place last night,” she murmured, and glanced around the kitchen. “I assume you found Tzuyu’s creations.”

Mina noticed the way that Momo’s expression darkened at Sana’s name, wondering what had happened to have caused such a reaction. Normally the two were attached at the hip – blood sisters without the blood.

“The multitude of untouched tea?” Momo deadpanned. “Oh, yeah. We found them. Tzuyu too, but she needed some space.” She offered a slice of toast. “I think the kid is having a bit of an identity crisis.”

“Maybe…” Jihyo trailed her fingers across the back of the chair, sighing quietly. “Maybe we should consider our options.”

“You mean moving?” Momo asked.

“Well, yes, but…no,” Jihyo lowered her gaze, quiet as she listened to their thoughts. “I mean…disbanding the team.”

Silence fell over the room and Momo dropped her toast, not even reacting when it landed with the buttered side on the ground. “You’re kidding, right?” the speedster asked.

“No,” Jihyo said. “Look, the past few months have been awful and – and we lost people. Tzuyu died and Nayeon disappeared when they brought her back and it turns out that the Company was two steps ahead of us like always, so no, Momo, I’m not kidding.” She twisted her fingers together anxiously. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while now and…maybe we would all be safer…if we weren’t together.”

“And where the hell would we go?” Momo fired back. “We don’t have enough money for that. We don’t even have enough to get us through the next few months!”

“Jihyo…has a point,” Dahyun said softly, barely flinching when Momo’s outrage turned to her instead. “We’re an easier target like this. This isn’t something I would have even considered two weeks ago, but we lost a teammate, Momo.”

Momo swallowed around the lump in her throat as her eyes started to water. “She came back.”

“Only because of Jeongyeon and Nayeon,” Mina murmured. “And whatever they did made Nayeon disappear.” She hugged herself and part of her longed for Chaeyoung’s company, knowing that the telekinetic would have something more inspiring to say. “Tzuyu’s not the same, Momo.”

“I don’t think that any of us are the same,” Dahyun added quietly.

“So we just split up?” Momo questioned. “We just leave?” She shook her head, strongly against the idea. “We are a family. We don’t just abandon each other.”

“It’s just an option,” Jihyo appeased her. “But I would really like to see my family live to see their thirties.” She reached up to rub at her eyes and Mina just knew that their leader was battling a headache to top all headaches. “Dahyun didn’t even get to graduate high school.”

“I can always repeat the year,” Dahyun offered, but there was a hidden sadness in her eyes. She had always been so proud and excited to be the first of their family to finish high school, but there was no feasible way for the three youngest teammates to return to their current school, not when the Company knew about it.

“We need to move either way,” Jihyo said firmly.

“And you honestly think that we would survive any better alone?” Momo asked. “Tzuyu relies on us daily for social cues and you know that Chaeyoung would be lost without us. That’s why she’s a danger-seeking idiot! She wants to protect us.” She picked up her abandoned toast and dropped it in the trash. “I am not splitting up.”

“Momo,” Dahyun sighed, seeing the tears before Mina and Jihyo did, and followed the older girl to the living room, giving their leader a sympthatic smile that promised to try and help calm Momo’s temper.

Jihyo sighed softly and scuffed her toe against the chair leg. “What do you think?”

Mina looked at their leader, concerned by the unshared burdens that weighed down on her shoulders, and took a deep, steadying breath.

“I think that you’re both right,” she murmured. “Splitting up lowers the attention on each of us, but we’ve always been a family of nine and I’m not sure how well we would cope without each other.”

Jihyo nodded. “I’m not sure that we would,” she said softly. “But survival comes above everything.”

“What would be the point in being miserable on our own?” Mina propsed. “So maybe none of us make it to thirty…” She walked over to hold Jihyo’s hand, providing what little comfort she could. “We’ve had a brilliant seven years of freedom and I have cherished every second of it, but I’m not willing to part with any of you.”

Jihyo’s eyes began to water, a vulnerability shared between just the two of them. Mina had always been able to coax Jihyo into saying more than her leader-mindset would allow her to. “Mina–”

“We will find another way, Jihyo,” Mina promised her. “Because that’s what we do. We keep moving forward. Together.”

Jihyo’s shoulders finally drooped entirely as the burden of being their leader was lightened momentarily and Mina squeezed her hands in reassurance. Even she didn’t fully believe that there was another way, but Mina was confident enough in the fact that they could return to what they once were.

A family of nine.

“Okay…” Jihyo nodded, cleared her throat, and then stood a little taller. “Go and get Momo and Dahyun,” she instructed. “Before we can even consider finding Nayeon, we need the rest of our team back.”

The hunt for the missing four had begun and then – then – they would figure out what to do next, and Mina had no doubt that her family would move planets if it returned Nayeon to them.

They would never abandon one of their own.

“So we’ll find Tzuyu first,” Mina proposed. “Sana will no doubt be with her, even if she’s not visible.” She bit the inside of her cheek. “Jeongyeon and Chaeyoung will be harder to locate.”

“Not necessarily,” a soft voice said, and they found Dahyun standing with her phone in hand. “Momo’s fine, by the way – but I can help you find Chaeyoung.” She turned the screen to face them and smiled warmly. “She told me where she’s going.”

Mina squinted at the message in a group chat titled ‘School Meal Club’ and she felt her heart warm at the knowledge that the youngest three had their own group aside from the team’s, but even more so at the most recent messages from the member nicknamed as ‘Cub.’

Cub: I’m going to talk to Rosé. She knows more than I realized.

Sorry for sneaking off, Dubs.

I hope you went back to bed, Tzu.

(sent at 4.19am)

“So we know when she left and where she’s going,” Jihyo murmured. “That’s good. Get ready to leave. I’ll try calling the other three.” She paused alongside Dahyun and rested a caring hand on the illusionist’s shoulder. “Thank you, Dahyun. You’re a brilliant captain to them.”

Mina knew that Jihyo’s praise would mean the world to Dahyun and she pretended not to see the way the illusionist’s throat bobbed as she fought her own torrent of emotions. Their leader was right though. Dahyun was the only one who could wrangle in the telekinetic and the stone human.

“Tzuyu doesn’t have a cell phone,” Dahyun mumbled. “And I don’t think that Sana will answer.”

“That’s a concern for later,” Mina reassured her. “They’ll keep each other safe.”

Dahyun’s lips twitched with a smile. “You think they’re together?”

Mina’s chest ached. “When are they ever apart?” she countered as she followed after Jihyo in search of her own sneakers.

They had a team to reunite.

Chapter Text

For the first time in her life Chaeyoung was being careful.

She had intended on being cautious at the very least when her plan had kicked into action, but that had been before she had seen Tzuyu when she was caught in the process of trying to sneak away without being noticed.

Seeing the confused hurt in her younger friend’s eyes and the haunted glint that was just visible at the edges had made Chaeyoung want to be careful.

She had seen how everyone had fallen apart when they thought that Tzuyu was lost to them forever – had felt that agonising ache herself – still felt it when she blinked and saw Tzuyu bleeding out in Sana's arms. And now with Nayeon missing...

Chaeyoung wouldn't cause her family any more pain. Not intentionally.

She was going to be careful this time and she was going to return home again…but not yet.

While her former contacts had given them the use of an apartment they no longer needed, Chaeyoung had not forgotten that Dahyun and Momo had seen Sunmi and Rosé speaking with Rain. She knew that a conversation was needed with both of them.

Chaeyoung had been betrayed by someone, though she didn’t know who, and she knew better than to throw around accusations blindly, but sometimes she allowed her emotions to override logic, and Chaeyoung had recently experienced the awful, excrutiating pain of losing her best friend and then having her returned.

Logic was going to be difficult to cling to and perhaps it was a mistake to go alone, but there was no way that Chaeyoung could have asked any of her team to join her.

They were still recovering from the past week of blow after blow. No, it wouldn’t have been fair to ask them to come.

She could manage this one small thing on her own, and it would begin with the double agent waiting for her arrival outside the ice cream parlour Chaeyoung had visited with the other two members of her small club during their deceitful visit to the warehouse.

“You’re early,” she called out.

Sunmi pushed away from the wall she had been leaning against and greeted Chaeyoung with a polite bow, still unable to meet her gaze after her betrayal. "I don’t have much to do now that I’m unemployed,” Sunmi muttered. “Does anyone know you're here?"

"No," Chaeyoung forged ahead, beyond the agent and further, leaving Sunmi with no other option than to follow, "Tzuyu saw me leave, but..." She frowned. "Well, Tzuyu doesn't remember much these days."

“That’s a real shame,” Sunmi replied. “She’s a very sweet kid…cares a lot about Jihyo.”

“We’re a family,” Chaeyoung said tersely. “We look after each other.”

Sunmi nodded and wisely didn’t say anything more on the issue. “You know where Blackpink operate from?”

Chaeyoung rolled her shoulders back to ease some of the tension that had started to hurt. “Yeah,” she said. “They’ve fixed our minivan for us. They have a repair shop near Hanam.”

“That’s on the other side of the city,” Sunmi pointed out with a frown.

Chaeyoung forced a smile. “I didn’t want to meet you anywhere near my family’s current accommodation,” she replied.

Sunmi grunted in acknowledgement, aware that while she may have helped them rescue Sana, she had ultimately betrayed them by having anything to do with the Company. Being a double agent didn’t mean shit to Chaeyoung, not when it had led to the death of her best friend and the disappearance of another.

Chaeyoung knew that Jihyo would forgive the agent, because Jihyo had always preached about giving everyone a second chance, but Chaeyoung was not as trusting. She would be civil if Sunmi was welcomed back into the fold, but she would never forgive her, not entirely.

She was still haunted by Sana’s wails as she cradled their gentle giant in her arms, pleading a corpse to return to life – and Tzuyu had. Tzuyu had, but not by any small miracle.

"How…How is Jihyo?" Sunmi asked quietly. "Is she well?"

Chaeyoung spun around, fortunate enough to find that they were in an abandoned alleyway, and threw the agent against the wall with a burst of telekinetic power. “Like you give a fuck about her!” she snarled. “I’m here to ask you questions, not the other way around.”

Sunmi didn’t even flinch. "I do care about her," she said. "That wasn't a lie."

“You were spying on my family!” Chaeyoung snapped. “You–! Jihyo loves so deeply and you broke her heart. Tzuyu–” Chaeyoung blinked hard, trying to clear the image of her only little sister bleeding out. “Tzuyu vouched for you!” She pushed harder, feeling a cruel satisfaction when Sunmi yelped in pain. “I was going to go to the Christmas market with Mina! We – we were going to have Christmas as a family for the first time in our lives and you…” Her eyes started to sting. “You ruined everything.”

“I’m sorry!” Sunmi cried, gasping for breath as Chaeyoung continued to push. “I didn’t know what they were going to do. If – If I’d known – Chaeyoung, I never meant for anyone to get hurt!”

“But people did get hurt!” Chaeyoung tried to swallow around the lump in her throat, but it was to no avail. She released her hold on the other girl and doubled over to catch her breath, fighting down the tears that threatened to fall. “My people got hurt,” she said, weaker as her anger gave way to grief. “And I don’t know how to help them.”

Sunmi didn’t run like Chaeyoung might have expected her to, nor did she fight back. The older girl merely staggered over, sore from her collision with the wall, and rested a comforting hand on Chaeyoung’s back.

“I’m not helping you to find forgiveness,” Sunmi reiterated. “I’m helping you because it’s the right thing to do.”

And Chaeyoung couldn’t help but sink into the touch, seeking validation that she was in fact doing the right thing, desperate to know that she wasn’t making a mistake. She had been avoiding Mina since the incident, unable to look her almost-girlfriend in the eye without worrying that she would see the hatred in her own – not for Mina, never for Mina – but for the people who had caused them so much heartache in their short lives.

She still had a list hidden beneath her pillow at their old house of present ideas for each of her family members.

None of the presents were anything special, but Chaeyoung had given them all a lot of thought.

She was going to get some new gloves and maybe a hat for Tzuyu since she was always complaining about the cold, and she was going to get new sneakers for Momo who had worn through all of hers with her excessive speed.

Chaeyoung had caught Dahyun pausing by the music shop on the way home, glancing at the keyboards with a sad glint in her eyes, and the telekinetic had conspired with their gentle giant to split their collected funds to treat their club leader with the one thing she was too selfless to ask for.

She had gifts planned for everyone except Mina because Mina’s present had to be perfect, but none of that mattered anymore.

“Come on,” Sunmi prompted. “You said they live on the other side of the city. We can get there before the rush hour if we go now.”

Chaeyoung nodded and took the lead again, guiding the agent at a hurried pace towards the subway station. Time was of the essence and the longer she was gone from the apartment, the more concern she would cause her family.

They managed to catch the subway car just before it left and found a darkened corner where they would go unnoticed. Traffic at such an early hour in the morning was always minimal, but never zero, so caution was still a priority.

“Is there still no sign of Nayeon?” Sunmi asked quietly.

“No,” Chaeyoung muttered. “She’s just…gone.” She twisted her hands together, glad to be out of the cold again. “Jeongyeon doesn’t know how to find her again, so we’ve reached an impass.” She shrugged her shoulders and sniffed. “Half the team wants to leave, but no one wants to leave without Nayeon.”

“Understandable,” Sunmi said. “Nayeon loves to talk about herself, but she loved you guys a lot.” The agent scratched at her cheek where a bruising cut was hidden beneath make-up and her hair from their ambush at the Company. “Always grumbled about how you were giving her grey hairs, but she was all bark and no bite.”

“Nayeon was like a mom to a lot of us,” Chaeyoung said, and wilted at the memory of confused eyes. “Tzuyu doesn’t even remember what happened and Jihyo decided that it would be better not to tell her.” She exhaled sharply. “Sana will probably tell her before the end of the week.”

Sunmi shifted on her feet, still sporting hidden injuries that were causing her grief. “Sana was very protective of her after I…pepper-sprayed her,” she mumbled. “Maybe knowing the truth would–”

“Enough small-talk,” Chaeyoung said curtly. “Why were you talking to Rain? Why was Rosé?”

“Rain isn’t the bad guy you believe him to be,” Sunmi murmured, “neither is Rosé.” She rolled out her shoulders to try and dispel the ache that resided there. “Rosé was trying to lead us astray. She’s been feeding us false information for months.”

“And Rain?” Chaeyoung asked.

Sunmi looked down at her with a soft smile. “He was trying to help me get out of the Company,” she answered. “And I believe that he was trying to help you too.”

“Yeah, I don’t buy that,” Chaeyoung grumbled. “I heard his whole ‘the Company thanks you for your service’ shtick at the warehouse before he wielded a freaking gun.”

“I’m not the only double agent in the Company, Chaeyoung,” Sunmi said. “Rain is one of their best. If he wanted to capture you or kill you, he would’ve done so months ago.”

The shuttle came to a shuddered halt at their stop as the worn wheels ground against the rusting rails and Chaeyoung followed a few stragglers through the door. She glanced down at her watch, a late birthday gift from their missing member to try and help with her time keeping, and also spare her from Jeongyeon’s lack of patience.

4.19am

She sighed at the time that greeted her, already feeling the weariness that clung to her bones, and guilt caused her to take out her cell phone and send a message to her own special group. 

I’m going to talk to Rosé. She knows more than I realized.

Not entirely pleased at leaving it so impersonal and blunt, Chaeyoung typed out a bit more, apologizing to their club captain and offering kinder words still for their damaged gentle giant.

Sorry for sneaking off, Dubs.

I hope you went back to bed, Tzu.

She didn’t wait to see if the messages would be seen, hopeful that Dahyun was still asleep, and Tzuyu didn’t own a phone so she was safe in that regard. Dahyun would pass on her concern by asking Tzuyu why she was up in the first place.

Her tiny team of three would be okay without her for a while. She knew that they would, and Chaeyoung was going to be careful. She was going to return home once she was finished, alive and unharmed.

“Everything okay?” Sunmi queried, glancing down at her with poorly disguised worry.

“Fine,” Chaeyoung answered bluntly. “I’m texting my sisters.”

It almost felt weird to say it out loud, to call her best friends her sisters, but they were. That was exactly what Dahyun and Tzuyu were to her, and they both deserved the honor of that title for putting up with her antics for so many years.

Sunmi nodded, accepting it without question, and pointed ahead. “I’m guessing that’s their place?”

Chaeyoung followed her finger to a building with a collection of vehicles in various states of repair out front, all cast in a pink light from the overhead sign ‘BLACKPINK.’ Tucked away in the shadow of an open garage was the van that had rolled up after they had taken over the weapons exchange a while ago.

“Yeah,” Chaeyoung breathed. “This is it.” Yet her feet could take her no further.

It felt as though they were rooted to the ground, sinking beneath setting concrete the longer she stared at the building. She had visited so many times in the past – had considered the group to be her friends for as long as they had lived in the city.

They had given Chaeyoung’s team their very first contract and had begun a longterm business relationship that had extended into something more amicable than a mere pccassional transaction of funds. The small group of four were the only people Chaeyoung had ever wanted to admit her powers to.

Now she had lost two friends and only had the shell of one returned.

Chaeyoung forced her feet to move forward, propelled forward by the echoed screams of Sana. She wouldn’t see another member of her family disappear. She wouldn’t risk losing anyone else. Never again.

The front door was locked when she tried it, but Chaeyoung had expected as such at half four in the morning. She didn’t have Mina around, but Chaeyoung wasn’t leaving without answers.

She lifted her palm and rested it against the side that was locked. Focusing all of her might, she gave just enough of an encouraging shove accompanied by a small blast of telekinesis to pop it open.

“Nice one,” Sunmi praised under her breath.

Chaeyoung smirked, pleased with herself, and pushed the door open further, greeted immediately by warmth and the scent of engine oil. It was familiar, yet it still made her insides churn. She had never liked the smell. It didn’t have the same sweetness that Mina did.

The telekinetic and sleeper agent entered the building in silence, both reluctant to waken the inhabitants yet, and Sunmi ventured towards the reception space where Jennie and Jisoo kept their records.

Chaeyoung knew that in the second drawer closest to the wall, there were a collection of suspicious transactions hidden beneath a false bottom. The mechanics had another source of income and Chaeyoung’s family had quickly become one of their best partners.

They had interrupted plenty of criminal activity in the city and the mechanics had always been the reliable source of information, and the subsequent fence to peddle off the stolen goods before anyone even knew they were missing.

It had been a brilliant partnership, one that never failed to help her family when they were low on funds, but Momo and Dahyun had seen Rosé talking to Rain and that betrayal stung far more than being right about Sunmi – she had never wanted to be right about Sunmi, not really. Not after seeing Jihyo so happy.

Chaeyoung’s trusted friends had been leaking information to the Company, and she didn’t care if it was false as Sunmi had claimed, it had still been a breach of trust.

“Hello?”

Chaeyoung spun around to the stairs that led to the apartment above the store and she raised a hand in preparation of a fight, but she was stood her ground as sleepy eyes blinked at her.

Rosé’s frowned in confusion when she saw her until recognition dawned and the confusion turned to guilt, and it took all of Chaeyoung’s strength not to attack her.

“Ch-Chaeyoung,” Rosé stammered. “How did you get in?” Concern and sympathy settled in, a kindness that Chaeyoung didn’t want. “Nevermind that.” She flicked the lightswitch by her side and cast the office space in a warm glow. “Jennie said that Nayeon was missing?”

“And how would Jennie know that?” Chaeyoung asked coldly. “Are you spying on us?”

“We have eyes and ears everywhere,” another voice said, and Chaeyoung spotted Lisa wandering in from the garage. At her curious look, the other girl shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d be better working on the cars.”

“I suppose that you know that I’ve been talking to the Company, then,” Rosé said softly. “You brought Sunmi.”

“Apologies for the very early intrusion,” Sunmi drawled as she openly perused their private records. “Chaeyoung didn’t want to wait until a normal hour.”

“Sneaking around behind Jihyo’s back?” Lisa teased. “You’re brave.”

“I’m pissed, actually,” Chaeyoung countered sourly. “Yes, Nayeon is missing, Sana was tortured, Tzuyu got shot, and Dahyun and Momo saw Rosé talking to Sunmi and Rain, so excuse me for thinking you had something to do with our recent bad luck.”

“Tzu got shot?” Lisa asked quietly. She quickly wiped her oil-stained hands down the front of her boiler suit and closed the door to the garage. “Is she okay?”

“She’s alive,” Sunmi muttered.

“I want to know why the hell you,” Chaeyoung pointed at Rosé, “were talking to Company agents.”

Rosé shared a worried glance with Lisa, both conversing without words, like Chaeyoung had so often done with her little club.

“Tell her, Rosie,” Lisa murmured.

“Tell me what?” Chaeyoung asked, feeling the air begin to spark as her temper shortened.

Rosé swallowed and pulled her robe tighter around her body, glancing at Chaeyoung’s hands as if she knew what was happening and the danger that she was in.

“I…We,” Rosé corrected, “know about your…gifts.”

Chaeyoung’s breath fled her lungs in a hurry as panic gripped her heart. They had all been so careful, had all been given lecture upon lecture by Jihyo about the importance of remaining hidden, and yet there was Rosé, admitting that she knew.

“How?” Chaeyoung demanded.

“Wasn’t difficult to see that you guys were different,” Lisa commented. “Why do you think I want Tzu to work for us, Chae? I’ve seen how strong she is.”

“And how fast Momo is,” Rosé added, “and Mina…” She fidgeted restlessly. “We stayed behind during one of the first trades. I suppose we were curious.” Rosé gestured to Chaeyoung. “We saw what you can all do, but I promise you, Chaeyoung, we didn’t tell a soul.”

“Except Rain and Sunmi,” Chaeyoung countered.

“False information only,” said Jennie, appearing behind Rosé with Jisoo in tow, both looking equally exhausted. “We were trying to help. Get them off your tracks.”

“Because we’re friends,” Jisoo concluded.

“I can vouch for that,” Sunmi said, nodding when Chaeyoung glanced at her. “They were very clever with their lies, but that’s all they were. Lies.”

“I don’t care what it was. Your help got my family hurt!” Chaeyoung snapped at the group of four. “You–you–” She clamped her mouth shut when her voice broke, furious by the tears that were burning her eyes. She refused to cry. She was stronger than that.

“You’re looking for someone to blame,” Rosé said softly, approaching with both palms raised in a show of peace. “I understand that, Chaeyoung, but we aren’t your enemies.”

“How did you even get in contact with them?” Chaeyoung asked her tag-along.

“Hm?” Sunmi dropped a sheet of paper and scratched behind her ear. “Rain’s car broke down shortly after I’d secured the job at the café,” she answered. “We stumbled upon this place. It was after that when they approached us offering a deal of information.”

Chaeyoung looked at Rosé. “What did you get in return?”

“A transaction of business,” Rosé said. “We delivered information in exchange for cash.”

That left a bitter taste in her mouth. “So you were making a profit in the name of ‘help?’”

“Didn’t make sense not to,” Lisa said with a small shrug. “It had to seem legit. It would be suspicious if we offered information freely.”

“They were very good at deceiving us,” Sunmi told her. “Incorrect addresses, a slight alteration to licence plates, the wrong date of your meetings.” She poked at a small cat figurine that sat on the desk. “Rain figured it out eventually, which I think was when you saw him at the warehouse.”

Chaeyoung thought back on that very first interaction, when Jia exposed Miss A’s betrayal, and while Rain had mentioned the Company, at no point had he voiced what he intended to do with Chaeyoung’s team. He had only inquired if they had successfully been captured.

“Would these guys give your family a safe place to crash at if they didn’t care at least a little bit?” Sunmi became the voice of reason, further reaffirming why Jihyo had fallen so hard for her. She had sense about her and the levelheadedness that Chaeyoung lacked.

It wouldn’t be so bad, she supposed, if Sunmi helped her a little longer.

“Chaeyoung.” A gentle hand clasped hers and shorted the circuit that had been charged. “You and your family are extraordinary.” Rosé gave a little smile as her eyes watered. “The things that you can do aren’t exactly normal, but I don’t think that you deserve to be locked away for that.”

Chaeyoung gave Sunmi an irritated side glance to which the older girl shrugged.

“I didn’t tell them anything about your childhood.”

“She didn’t have to,” Jisoo said. “We filled in the blanks.”

Chaeyoung pulled her hand free and stepped back, causing the sleeper agent to do the same as she caught on to the indication that they were going to be leaving. “If I find out that you’re lying to me…” Chaeyoung let the threat hang in the air, but she was greeted by four friendly smiles.

“Yeah, yeah,” Lisa said with a wave of her hand, “you’ll kill us.”

Chaeyoung scowled at her. “I mean it.”

“We know,” said Rosé. “And Chaeng…if you ever need a place to go, our door is always open. For all of you.”

Jennie eyed the broken lock with slight dismay. “Quite literally, it seems.”

Chaeyoung blinked back more searing liquid, determined not to define them as tears, and nodded jerkily as she stumbled back outside. A broken door was enough payment for now for the crime of deception, no matter how good the intensions were.

She didn’t even know what she had wanted to achieve from her visit. Retribution? Revenge? Vengeance?

Chaeyoung had only had a hunch when she had set off, but to know that BLACKPINK had been trying to help instead of screwing them over like every other contact had been a breath of fresh air that she didn’t even know her lungs had been aching for.

“Chaeyoung!”

Chaeyoung froze at the voice and spun on her heel, gaping in shocked horror at the familiar face stomping towards her in the low morning light. “J-Jeongyeon,” she stammered nervously. “W-What are you–?”

“If you’re going to be an idiot,” Jeongyeon grumbled, cuffing Chaeyoung’s head with the heel of her palm once she was close enough, “at least let me help you.”

“I…” Chaeyoung scrubbed at the sore spot and pouted at her friend. “I thought you’d try to stop me.”

Jeongyeon scoffed. “Normally I would,” she croaked, “but I want Nayeon back. I want her back more than anything in the world.” She scrubbed at her face with her sleeve, pretending that she wasn’t close to crying. “And I can’t do that if I stay in that damned apartment.”

Chaeyoung blinked at her in shock, stunned into silence. She had been convinced that she would never quite see eye-to-eye with Jeongyeon, and she had been okay with that. Chaeyoung had made her peace with that.

‘Not once did you ever question why your flashlight batteries never died.’

But, then again, maybe Jeongyeon had been on her side all along and Chaeyoung had just been too stubborn to see it.

“So where do we go next?” Jeongyeon asked quietly, looking so lost without her missing half.

Chaeyoung pondered on that, wondering herself where to go, but BLACKPINK had already given her the answer she didn’t want to accept. “The agent that’s been following us,” she said. “Agent Rain. Sunmi thinks that he was a double agent too, so I suppose that’s our next stop.”

“Do we even know where this dude is?” asked Jeongyeon.

“No,” Chaeyoung said as she turned to Sunmi who was standing a few feet away with the expression of a kicked puppy, “but that’s why I brought her.” And then to Sunmi, she asked, “Do you know where he is?”

“I know where he might be,” Sunmi said. “But that’s a big emphasis on ‘might.’” She gestured behind them, to the rest of the city. “He’s staying at a cheap motel near Yongsan-Gu, or he was at least the last time we spoke.”

“Okay, then.” Chaeyoung straightened up and patted Jeongyeon’s arm, silently expressing gratitude for her company and support. “I guess that’s where we’ll start.”

Jeongyeon reached for her hand and held on tightly, squeezing her fingers in search of comfort, and Chaeyoung gave an even stronger squeeze back.

“We’ll get Nayeon back,” Chaeyoung voiced the promise she was determined to keep. “We will, Jeongyeon.”

Watering eyes blinked back at her as a couple of stray tears spilt down Jeongyeon’s cheeks, and she tried her damndest to smile. “I believe you.”

And Chaeyoung realized that Jeongyeon had never been against her like she had always perceived. Jeongyeon had only ever wanted her to succeed.

Chapter Text

Sana had struggled to sleep ever since she had felt her girlfriend die in her arms. Every time she closed her eyes all she could see was the fear in etched onto Tzuyu's face the moment she was shot and then the endless blood as she started to slip away.

The few minutes of sleep that she had scavenged had been plagued by nightmares of Tzuyu’s death playing over and over again, and while she knew that all it would take was a singular request and the trauma would be erased, Sana didn’t want to forget.

Tzuyu should never have been made to forget either.

Kissing Dahyun had been a mistake, one driven by loss and dread that her Chewy was gone forever, but it was fortunate in that she had been hidden from her family long enough to witness Tzuyu fleeing the apartment.

For as long as Sana could remember, she had never been apart from Tzuyu for very long, not since she had become the main teammate to mentor the younger girl on appropriate responses to social situations.

Even since developing her own feelings for Tzuyu, Sana had always remained as a constant presence, despite seeking out partners in the interim. She had been determined to be there as a friend and protector, because Sana knew better than most that Tzuyu, their unbreakable champion, needed to be protected from herself.

So Sana had done the only thing she could.

Sana had followed.

Tzuyu wasn’t aware of her presence, too clouded by her own thoughts, and Sana didn’t do anything to change that. Before Tzuyu had been revived, she would have noticed Sana immediately, the only member of the team that seemed to be able to sense her aside from Jihyo – but Tzuyu didn’t have the same powers as Jihyo, which made her ability of noticing Sana’s invisible form that much more perplexing.

Sana had once joked that it was because they were fated to end up together, polar opposites drawn together like a magnet, and Tzuyu would always frown at her, thinking deeper on it than anyone else would because maybe it did explain why she was able to see Sana when no one else could.

As a romantic, Sana adored the theory, but that was then and there was no time to ponder on it as Tzuyu led her through the city at a hurried pace.

It felt like it was below freezing and Sana was starting to sorely miss the hoodie she had stolen from Tzuyu, but it had been lost somewhere between her capture and subsequent rescue. She would mourn that particular loss for a while, but she still had Tzuyu and there would be plenty more pieces of clothing that she could pinch thanks to Jeongyeon and Nayeon because Tzuyu was alive.

She was alive and had no idea that she had even been gone to begin with.

On and on they went, to a familiar location, but on a different path, until Tzuyu disappeared through an unlocked back entrance, and Sana waited, debating whether she should follow or not, but the decision had been made the moment she had followed her from the apartment.

Sana would follow Tzuyu to the ends of the earth.

All she needed was another deep breath and she entered through the same door. Down the stairs she went, careful not to make a sound until she was standing in the basement that they had once used weekly for training, now empty and unlikely to ever be used again – not by them, at least.

Tzuyu was sitting on one of the benches, tracing the splintered wood from their last visit all those weeks ago, and barely reacted when Sana reappeared and cleared her throat.

The other hand was tapping out a rhythm that was familiar in the most comforting way and Sana spied the damaged knuckles almost immediately.

When had she done that? Had she punched a wall? Her skin would never have split like that before…well, before the lab and the serum meant to weaken her.

“Chewy,” Sana murmured as she moved to kneel in front of her.

Two taps, a pause, three taps, another pause, thena roll of her fingers.

Sana gently turned Tzuyu’s hands to the limited light spilling through the small window, clicking her tongue at the torn knuckles. “What did you do to your hands, angel?”

Tzuyu’s shoulders shook with a sob, an emotion that she was trying very much to hide, and the tapping continued, but Sana refused to ignore it. She refused because her Chewy had been heartbreakingly vacant of all emotion since she had returned from the dead and crying meant that Tzuyu felt sad – even if she didn’t understand why, Tzuyu felt sad.

The burn was still on her hand from the kettle, the red welts glaring back at Sana like an accusation of her failure to help.

Sana's fingers ghosted across Tzuyu's cheek, bending to try and catch her lowered gaze.  “Chewy?"

Tzuyu tried to pull away, pushing her walls higher to keep everyone else out, yet Sana refused to allow it. Her Chewy was still there. She was in there somewhere and Sana was going to find her.

“Chewy,” Sana whispered, “talk to me, angel. Please, please, just talk to me.”

“I don’t know how,” Tzuyu whispered.

The déjà-vu hit her like a tidal wave, taking Sana back to their first real talk of feelings in the week Tzuyu had been forced to forget. Sana fought back tears, pushing through her own grief as she held on to those cold, cold hands.

“Just try,” she whispered back, repeating her past advice like an echo. “It’s… It’s okay if it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t have to make sense. Just try, Chewy. You only need to try.”

Tzuyu sniffed angrily, frustrated with herself, and more tears spilled down her face. “I don’t even know why I’m crying!” she exclaimed. “I don’t feel sad, I don’t feel angry, I – I don’t feel…anything…” She scrubbed at her eyes again, tearing her hand from Sana’s to do so. “And my eyes won’t stop leaking!”

Sana caught her hand again, feeling her heart ache as it always did when Tzuyu left red marks behind. “Take a breath,” she coaxed. “Remember to breathe.”

They had made so much progress before Tzuyu had been forced to forget everything. Tzuyu had told Sana that she loved her and validated everything that Sana had been feeling. Now all of that was gone, but the damage was still there.

Mina had done Tzuyu a kindness – Sana understood that now – but it had left a hole behind, and Sana would be an ignorant fool to ever assume that Mina would intend for that to happen. It wasn’t in Mina’s nature and the hypnotic had only ever wanted to help.

“Talk to me,” Sana pleaded again. “What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours?”

Her compliment didn’t provoke a smile like it usually did. Tzuyu’s face was frozen with that same mournful scowl that had been set in place as soon as she had woken up from her final slumber.

“Chewy, please,” Sana murmured. “I want to help you, but I can’t help if you shut me out.”

It was still the dead of winter and Sana knew that Tzuyu struggled with the cold, so she held on tighter to her freezing fingers and tried to pass some of her own warmth to the other girl.

“We could go for a walk,” Sana suggested, remembering the special place where they had shared their first kiss. “Your favorite spot is very pretty in winter.”

But the one-sided conversation was broken when Tzuyu pulled away. “Sana," she whispered, ever so softly, "what did Mina make me forget?"

Sana wore her heart on her sleeve and Tzuyu’s heart was visible in her eyes.

They had always contradicted one another. Sana felt too much and Tzuyu felt too little, but Sana had witnessed the changes in Tzuyu before she had been made to forget. She knew that Tzuyu felt more than they believed.

Sana couldn’t deny her the truth that she deserved to know.

‘You can't heal trauma by erasing it!’ Her words. ‘Magicking it away doesn't mean that it didn't happen!’

Tzuyu should never have been made to forget. They could have overcome it together. Sana would have helped Tzuyu – she was going to help.

Oh, her sweet Chewy.

"Do you trust me?" Sana asked softly.

There was that déjà-vu again, but Tzuyu had forgotten their kiss.

All of it had been erased in an instant.

"Of course I do,” Tzuyu mumbled, affronted that Sana even had to ask. Her eyebrows pulled together in a frown. “Will you tell me the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

Sana looked into those wide eyes that gazed at her, desperate for an answer to the fog she couldn’t escape, and Sana sank into the comforting normality of their promise to one another. She had never given Tzuyu any other answer.

“Promise.”

A ragged breath fled Tzuyu's lungs, not quite a sigh of relief but close, and Sana took a steadying breath for herself for what would come next.

“Chewy,” Sana rested her palms on either side of the other girl’s face and stared into her eyes as her own vision started to blur, “you…you died.”

She watched as the tears started to pool again in her Chewy’s eyes, unable to stop her own heart from aching at the confusion that blinked back at her.

“W-What?” Tzuyu whispered unsteadily. "No, no, no, no, that's...that's impossible. If I died then I shouldn't be here. I'm not dead. I didn't – You said you wouldn't lie, Sana!"

"I'm not lying, Chewy," Sana promised. "Think about it. You don't feel anything and you bleed now. Since when have you bled, hm?" She cradled Tzuyu's face, forcing down her own grief in the face of Tzuyu's confusion. "You don't remember anything since the fake elevator, right? That's a whole week, Chewy. And this..." Sana rested one of her palms over the scarring wound. "This is my proof."

Tzuyu's eyes lowered and pinched at the corners with pain. “W-Why would they make me forget that?” Yet Tzuyu would have known exactly why they would have made her forget dying. Mina would have done the same for the rest of them. “Why did no one tell me?” Her confusion quickly switched to anger. “Why would you let them make me forget?”

“I didn’t want to!” Sana said in her own defense. “Chewy, you were in shock and looking back on it now, I think your heart might have given out again." The palm against Tzuyu's scar rose until she could feel a strong heartbeat; a reminder that her Chewy was alive. "We panicked and Jihyo made a decision as our leader."

Tzuyu's frustration faded at the mention of Jihyo. If there was one member of the team who treated Jihyo's word as law, it was Tzuyu. Sana knew that Tzuyu would find it reassuring to know that it had been Jihyo's call, rather than Mina's.

"I died?" Tzuyu swallowed thickly and bit her lower lip when another realisation dawned on her. "So where’s Nayeon?” Tzuyu croaked. “Where is she really?”

Sana couldn’t lie to her. “We don’t know,” she said. “Jeongyeon and Nayeon did something to time that brought you back, but Nayeon disappeared.”

"It's my fault?" Tzuyu blinked rapidly, trying to fight back tears. "You didn't go on a mission without me?"

That had been her first ever lie and Sana had already made an internal promise to ensure that was her last. Tzuyu deserved nothing but honesty and Sana was so relieved to finally be able to give her that.

"No, Tzu," Sana murmured. "You were on the mission. You–" Sana swallowed the whimper that threatened to spill from her lips when she remembered the blood on her hands and how quickly Tzuyu's eyes had lost their light. "You were coming to save me with the team and–and the Doctor–"

“He…He shot me,” Tzuyu whispered, so quiet that Sana almost didn’t hear her. “The Doctor…He aimed at you, but I…” More tears spilled from her eyes when she blinked. “I couldn’t lose you.”

Sana stared at her in horror. "You remember?" she gasped.

"I...I don't–" Tzuyu suddenly doubled over with a pained cry, clawing at her head as if tearing the skin would release some of the pressure.

"Chewy?"

Sana had no idea how to help, left kneeling on the ground when Tzuyu pulled away from her, struggling to cope with the pain. A second later it seemed to shift and she was clutching at the bullet wound, making the same awful noises she had that fateful day.

A guttural groan escaped her, one that quickly became breathless but didn't cut off like it did before. Tzuyu wasn't dying this time. She was experiencing the pain of the bullet without actually being shot.

Sana was witnessing a continuation of what would have happened had Tzuyu not passed away from the wound.

"Chewy," Sana stood slowly, watching helplessly. She didn't know what to do.

Her hands slid down to the oozing wound and pushed down, trying to feel a heartbeat, but there was nothing, not even a twitch of muscle to express pain.

"Chewy, just – sit down, please," Sana pleaded, closing her eyes tightly to chase away the memory that had plagued her every waking thought.

Her chest felt so tight that she couldn’t breathe, heaving with frantic spasms as her body fought for air, because Tzuyu was becoming colder with each passing second and the blood kept spilling between her fingers no matter how hard she tried to stop it.

Sana shook her head and swiped her fingers across her forehead to clear away the sweat that had started to bead. She couldn't freak out and slip back into that panicked headspace when Tzuyu was quite clearly having adverse side effects to her amnesiac resurrection.

‘You can't heal trauma by erasing it! Magicking it away doesn't mean that it didn't happen!’

Her words – her misdirected anger at Jihyo – how she wished she could take them back.

“Chewy,” Sana reached out with a trembling hand, trying to catch her, but her fingers slipped through Tzuyu’s body as her latest manifestation of power made itself known again. “Damn it! Chewy, you need to just sit for a moment.”

Sana was witnessing the after effects without Mina’s influence. She had gone against their leader’s wishes and guided Tzuyu towards the hidden truth, and now Sana was left with the fallout and no way to fix it.

She should have listened to Jihyo.

“Tzuyu,” pulling out her trump card, Sana used the girl’s name instead of her adored moniker, and almost caught Tzuyu’s gaze because of it. “Please listen to me and–”

A noise overhead made Sana freeze. She turned to the stairs and listened carefully, calming her own breathing as she focused. She felt herself disappear momentarily when she figured out what it was.

Someone was trying to open the door.

Sana reacted quickly and grabbed Tzuyu's hand despite the girl's protest. Two steps back and they both vanished from sight, the power distorting and stretching further in her panic, and the desperate desire to protect Tzuyu when she couldn’t before.

"Sana–?"

"Shh!" Sana clamped a hand over Tzuyu’s mouth and tugged her in closer just as the door creaked open.

Tzuyu stopped struggling immediately, focused again on the task at hand as her instincts kicked into action, and Sana kept a hold of her, refusing to break the contact. She couldn’t hide Tzuyu if she wasn’t touching her.

More sweat started to form at her hairline from the strain of focusing so much power and she wondered briefly if that was how Momo felt after outrunning everyone or Jihyo at the moment, able to hear everything on top of sensing it.

The footsteps grew closer, descending down the old concrete stairs, until the intruder stopped at the bottom, looking around with a modicum of curiosity, and Sana’s breath caught in her throat.

It was Rain, the agent who had been tracking them since the warehouse.

Tzuyu shifted beside her, protective instinct flaring, and her breath came out in angry puffs that tickled Sana’s hand.

“Come on out,” the agent said calmly. “I know you’re here.” He paced into the center of the room, observing their limited equipment for training. His eyes settled briefly on the broken bench, seeing the splintered wood, before he turned his gaze to the small window. “I’m here to help.”

“No–”

Tzuyu had pulled away and flickered back into view as she stormed towards the agent. She had the fortune of catching him off guard at least, and stalked towards him with a dangerous gleam in her eyes.

“Tzuyu!” Sana hissed, adopting a furious tone that she very rarely took with any of their team, let alone Tzuyu.

Tzuyu grabbed the agent by his neck and shoved him back against the wall, pinning him in place with ease, despite her lack of healing.

“Easy,” Rain said softly, raising both of his hands to show that he was unarmed. He didn’t look concerned by the vice grip on his throat, not even when Tzuyu started to squeeze. “I’ve been tracking you kids for some time now.” He looked beyond Tzuyu to smile at Sana and found his gaze promptly blocked by his current captor. “I’ll admit that you’ve been very good at hiding, but I know all of you well.”

“Know us well?” Sana echoed, genuinely confused. She approached and touched Tzuyu’s elbow, effectively providing enough comfort to make the younger girl loosen her hold slightly. “We don’t even know who you are. How would you know anything about us?”

“He’s part of the Company,” Tzuyu grouched. “They’re all the same.”

Sana knew that wasn’t true, not after hearing that Sunmi had been part of her rescue, but Tzuyu had forgotten that, and while the memories were returning slowly, Sana knew that Tzuyu needed to be allowed to feel angry.

It was an emotion and Sana was thrilled to see anything other than emptiness in those eyes she loved so dearly.

“Have you really forgotten me?” the agent asked, looking between them with an odd amount of fondness in his eyes. “I helped you escape.”

And in an instant, Sana was taken back to the past, back when she had been a frightened child unable to do anything against adults that wanted to hurt her.

‘You were very brave today, Subject Four.’

Sana looked up at the young agent, the only one who had shown a modicum of kindness to any of them in all the years that they had been in captivity.

‘You stood up for your friends,” he said. ‘Compassion is a very good quality to have.’

‘Chewy – S-Subject Nine,’ Sana whispered back, correcting the name she used when she remembered that no one else used their real names. ‘Is she–?’

‘She’ll be okay,’ the agent replied kindly, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. He reached up to touch the clip of his personalized security key card, pointedly loosening it enough that it slipped to the floor. ‘I’m always misplacing things, you know. That’s the third key card I’ve lost this month.’ His eyes sparked with warmth. ‘I’ll end up with a reputation.’

Sana looked down as the key card was nudged towards her by his boot and covered it with her own foot at a nod from the agent. He was providing her with the final puzzle piece of their planned escape.

‘The guards change shifts every hour,’ he informed her casually. ‘There’s maybe a ten minute gap at midnight.’ He glanced down at her foot pointedly. ‘The security codes never change because they have never anticipated that you would escape.’

He left her small containment cell and flicked his nail against the glass, pausing long enough between for Sana to figure out that it was a purposeful pattern.

‘Subject Nine will be back shortly.’ Six – four – nine – two – seven – eight.

Sana frowned as the agent gave her a final smile before he leant down to fix his boot directly above the number ‘four’ that marked her identity, subtly leaving a tiny piece of clear plastic that stopped the door from sealing shut.

‘Good luck, kiddo.’

She waited until he was gone before she crouched to collect the card and turned to her left, making eye contact with Jihyo who had been witness to the entire exchange, and she felt her heart flutter at the possibility that had presented itself to them.

They could finally get out.

Sana came back to the present when a pained wheeze came from Rain at the pressure Tzuyu was causing his airways, and she touched the girl’s elbow again.

“Let him go, Chewy,” Sana prompted softly. “Let him talk.” When her request was ignored due to hesitation, Sana gave a gentle squeeze. “Tzuyu.”

And like magic, Tzuyu released her hold and took a large step back, unwilling to be near the agent if she wasn’t allowed to detain him.

Rain rubbed at his neck and took a few steadying breaths until it was easier to breathe again. “I wouldn’t even be able to tell that you were affected by the doc’s kryptonite if I didn’t already know, kid,” he said to Tzuyu.

“Do you know what he injected her with?” Sana asked sharply.

The agent shook his head. “He never shared his recipes with the rest of us,” he replied, “but I do know from past experience that it will leave her system eventually.”

Sana exhaled in relief and noticed that Tzuyu’s shoulders had slumped, silently thankful to know that she wouldn’t be physically impaired indefinitely.

Rain stood up straight and flicked his gaze between them both. “Now,” he said, “would either of you mind telling me what happened in the lab?” He held up a silencing finger when Sana was about to deflect. “I know that you two were alone with the doctor.”

Sana glanced at her girlfriend – were they still girlfriends? She shook her head to chase away the thought. That could be dealt with at a later date.  It didn’t look like Tzuyu was remembering anything beyond dying yet.

“I don’t remember much,” Tzuyu voiced quietly, reluctant to share anything more. “But I…” Her expression fell as she was overcome by grief. “I…died…”

“It’s temporary amnesia, sweetness, nothing more,” Sana reassured her partner, while also providing an explanation for the newcomer. “Nayeon and Jeongyeon – Subjects One and Two,”–Tzuyu grunted unhappily at their old indetifiers–“brought her back, but Nay – Subject One – vanished in the process.”

Rain hummed in acknowledgement. “So your powers did need more time to mature,” he murmured.

“You,” Tzuyu glowered at him. “You had a gun at the warehouse.”

“You mean the whole ‘the Company thanks you for your service.’ Yes, well, I had to play my part so that it was a believable act,” Rain said lightly. “The Company needed to believe that I wasn’t actively working against them so that I could find you all first.”

Tzuyu’s eyes narrowed dubiously. “You wouldn’t have shot at us?”

Sana made a point of linking their fingers together. She had never been frightened of Tzuyu’s strength.

“No, kid,” Rain said. “I’ve spent the past seven years trying to keep you off the Company’s radar. You’ve certainly not helped by becoming vigilantes.”

“We needed an income,” Sana said in their defense. “And not all of us can work normal jobs.”

Rain tilted his head in consideration, eventually nodding when he came to the same conclusion, and he waved away Tzuyu’s concern. “Anyway, Subject – Nayeon isn’t lost, not completely,” Rain said, making a choice to use their chosen names. “Her abilities are simply still in effect.” His eyes lit up. “Subject Two? What name does she go by again?”

“Jeongyeon,” Sana supplied instantly and felt Tzuyu shift uneasily beside her, not pleased about Sana’s immediate honesty with a man she had last seen brandishing a firearm.

“Thank you,” said Rain. “It was suspected early on that Jeongyeon and Nayeon’s abilities both acted against and with one another. It’s entirely possible that Jeongyeon can bring her back.”

Tzuyu inhaled sharply as her free hand darted up to sit over the bullet scar and Sana noticed the way that Rain’s eyes pinched with remorse. “How do we trust you?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t know, kid,” Rain said. “That’s your decision to make. All I can tell you is that I’m here to help you again, just as I did seven years ago.”

Sana would never be able to truly know how genuine he was, the same way that she would never truly believe that Sunmi was as repentant as she said she was. It was their word against Sana’s intuition and she would forever be biased when Tzuyu was involved.

The Company had hurt her Chewy in the worst way possible and in that one moment, which had felt like a lifetime, when Tzuyu had slipped away in her own arms, Sana’s heart had shattered into a thousand tiny pieces of shrapnel that ached at each forced breath.

She didn’t know if they could trust Rain, but she did know, deep down, that he was their best shot at getting Nayeon back.

“Okay,” Sana agreed, going out on a whim and deciding to give the man from their past a chance, “but I need to call the others first.”

Going by Tzuyu’s initial reaction to Rain, Sana would need to make sure that Chaeyoung wasn’t the first to greet him.

Tzuyu fidgeted in her sightline at the reminder of their teammates, chewing on her lower lip anxiously. “They’ll be mad that I left,” she mumbled.

Sana glanced at the agent briefly but it was ultimately Tzuyu who received all of her attention. “Not mad, angel,” she reassured her, “just worried.”

If Jihyo and the others were going to be mad at anyone, it would be Sana for inadvertedly causing Tzuyu more trauma by trying to help – and also for entertaining the company of the agent they had believed was hunting them down for the Company.

Sana exhaled deeply as she fished her cell phone from her pocket, thankful that she had remembered to grab it before she followed Tzuyu from the apartment.

Tzuyu squeezed her hand back, taking care in doing so, and some of Sana’s stress was alleviated at the reminder that while everything else had fallen apart, Tzuyu had returned to her.

Her Chewy was still alive. Now they just had to get Nayeon back and Rain – trustworthy or not – seemed to have an idea of how to do that.

Chapter Text

It turned out that Chaeyoung didn’t need to trek halfway across the city after all when she received a notification from Sana about the location of Rain.

She met up with the rest of the team at their old gym, offering a sheepish smile at the frosty reception she was greeted with. It stung that Mina wouldn’t meet her eyes, but that was quelled slightly by the fleeting glance to make sure that Chaeyoung hadn’t ended up hurt on her brief excursion.

Jihyo didn’t have much else to say, appeased slightly by the fact that Jeongyeon had ended up joining Chaeyoung on her impromptu mission. Her attention was focused primarily on Tzuyu, sensing immediately that something was amiss, and Chaeyoung was thankful that it was Sana who was on the receiving end of the cutting glare that followed.

It seemed that Chaeyoung wasn’t the only one who had broken the rules recently.

Her relief didn’t last long though, not when she noticed the agent lounging on the bench.

“You,” she growled, and the man raised both hands with an amused smile.

“Easy now, I’ve already done all of this with your friends,” Rain told her. “I never aimed my gun at you, now, did I?”

Dahyun sidled over to stand beside her, conferring quietly as the leader of their subunit. “He didn’t actually make any attempt at killing us,” she muttered. “He’s only ever been tracking us.”

“That doesn’t mean that we can trust him,” Mina countered, standing on the side with those that didn’t trust the agent or his intentions, the side which included almost half of the team going by the mistrust that hung in the air.

“Agreed,” said Momo. “What if this is just another trick?”

Rain raised both palms in a placating gesture, unarmed and patient. “You don’t have to trust me to listen to what I have to say.”

Chaeyoung didn’t want to admit that he had a point because he did, but she still didn’t want to believe that the agent had been working in their best interests since he picked up on their trail. She was inclined to believe Sunmi, but what if Rain had been misleading her as well? What if he had paid off BLACKPINK to lie to her, knowing that she would stumble upon the truth eventually? What if she was causing more harm than good by trying to rectify all of the chaos of the past week?

“He helped us before,” Sana voiced quietly. “I didn’t recognize him until now.” She flickered in front of their eyes as her nerves triggered her powers. “He’s the agent who gave me the key card and the code.”

“Him?” Momo looked at the agent with no shortage of scrutiny. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Sana answered. “He said that he’s been trying to divert the Company’s attention.”

Tzuyu stumbled at the edge of her vision, promptly collapsing onto the nearest bench to disguise the moment of weakness as a purposeful action to sit, but Sana was by her side far too quickly for Chaeyoung to not be concerned.

She had noticed the way that Tzuyu kept shifting her shoulders, as if her abdomen was uncomfortable, and the way she kept reaching up to touch the exact same spot where the bullet had entered her body.

They had suspected as a group that the side effects of the drugs that had been injected into Tzuyu would wear off eventually, but her wounds weren’t healing quickly yet, nor were they healing completely. Her scar was proof of that.

She couldn’t be their shield anymore, that much was obvious.

Chaeyoung inclined her head towards Jeongyeon, conversing without a single word uttered, and pursed her lips at the agreement that was met.

“Okay,” Chaeyoung said, ignoring how wrong it felt to be trusting a shadow that had been chasing them for months, “so what would you suggest then?”

“Chaeyoung, you can’t seriously think that he knows how to get Nayeon back,” Momo hissed.

“Yeah, well, we’re all out of ideas,” Chaeyoung countered. “So what’s the harm in hearing him out?”

Momo pursed her lips, glowering at her before she shifted her attention to their leader. “Jihyo,” her expression softened at the worried lines that marked Jihyo’s face, “we can’t trust him.”

“I don’t think that we have much of a choice,” Jihyo sighed, addressing Momo’s concerns, “Chaeyoung’s right. We don’t know how to proceed from here.” She looked at the agent and flicked her wrist with a hint of irritance. “What’s your suggestion?”

“Returning to where she disappeared,” Rain said. “I can get you inside the facility, but then you’re on your own again, I’m afraid.” He shrugged his shoulders with a smile. “I can’t work alongside them if they know that I’m actively working against them.”

“You want us to go back to Jeju?” Dahyun queried. “Won’t they still be on high alert?”

“Quite the opposite, in fact,” Rain replied. “Sunmi was able to coerce more agents to my cause and the loyal ones are spread across the country searching for you.” He had a ghost of a smile as he stretched his arms out, rolling both palms towards them. “They barely have enough bodies to be classed as a skeleton crew.”

“I…I have to admit that I don’t really see any other way,” Mina murmured ruefully. “I’ve been thinking on what could have occurred to…remove Nayeon.”

“I don’t like that word,” Momo mumbled as she wrinkled her nose in distaste. “It makes it sound like she’s gone gone.”

Mina’s expression tightened and she gestured towards Jeongyeon. “When you and Nayeon messed around with time, you were leaping in and out of our past,” Mina surmised. “It’s entirely possible that by bringing Tzuyu back, you created a separate timeline and that Nayeon is trapped in the other one.”

The temperature in the room dropped another degree at the unspoken implication. It would be the best possible outcome to have Nayeon still alive, even if she existed elsewhere at the moment, but the timeline that she was potentially stuck in didn’t leave any of them feeling any sort of relief.

It wasn’t a timeline they wanted to relive.

“The one where Tzuyu stays dead,” Chaeyoung mumbled.

Mina attempted to swallow but her throat was painfully dry. “Yes,” she said quietly. “Which is why returning to the same space isn’t an entirely ridiculous notion.”

Sana stood quickly and placed herself in front of Tzuyu, becoming a wall of protection. “If it means losing Tzuyu again…” Sana shook her head as her mournful eyes pleaded them to reconsider. “I – I’m sorry, but I can’t – I won’t take that risk.”

“But I would.”

All eyes turned to Tzuyu and Chaeyoung felt her stomach churn at the first words she had heard her friend speak since they had all arrived. Tzuyu was willing to risk her second chance at life if it brought Nayeon back.

Chaeyoung wondered briefly if Tzuyu remembered dying. It seemed that she remembered the lead up to her demise, but morbid curiosity made Chaeyoung dwell on how it must have felt to slip away. Did Tzuyu know in those few seconds that she was going to die? Did she try to fight it? How did it feel knowing that there was nothing she could do to prevent it?

“No, Chewy,” Sana’s voice shook with fear as an equally trembling hand reached back to pat the top of Tzuyu’s head, “you’re not thinking clearly.”

“I am,” Tzuyu disagreed monotonously. “This is my fault. I didn’t mean to, but I’m the reason Nayeon is missing and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get her back.” Her hardened gaze settled on Sana and she scratched at her abdomen again. “Just like Nayon did for me.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Jeongyeon voiced softly, unable to lift her eyes from the ground. Shame surrounded her. She shouldn’t have been the one to return, not in her mind. “Nayeon and I had no idea what we were doing, but I know without a shadow of doubt that Nayeon would do it again.” Her gaze lifted briefly, long enough to see Tzuyu’s guilt-ridden expression. “And so would I.”

“I know,” Tzuyu said, grimacing when her nerves twinged again with phantom pain. “I’m prepared to deal with the consequences of bringing Nayeon back.”

Consequences…like dying again.

“Chewy, no,” Sana pleaded, trying desperately not to cry, and sob, and beg Tzuyu to reconsider. “We’ll – we’ll think of something else! Another way!”

“There isn’t another way,” Tzuyu disagreed. “I shouldn’t have gone down there alone. I should have been strong enough to stop them from taking you in the first place. All of this is my fault.”

“It’s not,” Jihyo spoke with the authority her position granted her, commanding the younger girl to listen. “If you hadn’t gone down, we might have lost Sana too. You followed your heart which is something the Company tried to stomp out of you.”

“Still…” Tzuyu shook her head, unable and unwilling to accept their forgiveness. “I caused this.” She turned shadowed eyes to Rain and started to tap her habitual rhythm against her knees. “What do we have to do?”

“For the plan, we need Sunmi.” The agent looked towards Chaeyoung with a small smile. “Bring the poor girl inside,” Rain said lightly. “She never once gave me information that could have led the Company towards you.”

Chaeyoung scowled at the man a moment longer before she turned and made her way back to the stairs, staring up at the closed door. She had tasked the double-agent with keeping an eye out in case they were ambushed again, but also to keep Sunmi clear of her rattled family until she was certain that they wouldn’t immediately turn on her again.

She heaved a small sighed and used just enough of her power to force the door open, biting back a smile when the agent peered around the door with one hand clearly reaching for the pistol at her hip.

“You can come in now,” Chaeyoung called up to her. “Lock the door behind you.”

Sunmi cast a final look behind her from her lookout position and hesitantly entered the darkened stairwell, obediently locking the door before she tread down the stairs, making sure to stay light on her feet.

She stopped a few steps from the bottom and squinted at Chaeyoung. “This isn’t a trap, is it?” she asked. “You haven’t killed Rain and are leading me to my own horrible death, are you?”

“We don’t kill people,” Chaeyoung replied instinctively before she remembered the incident with Dahyun’s hallucinations and the dead agents left in Tzuyu’s wake.

They had most definitely killed people before, but Chaeyoung wouldn’t class them as good people – not that it meant they deserved to die. Accidents had happened along the way. A misuse of power, a weapon grabbed in a panic, a super soldier experiencing a psychotic break…

Chaeyoung glanced towards Tzuyu. She wouldn’t ever bring up what had happened during the elevator incident. Tzuyu had been plagued by cursed hallucinations from Dahyun’s accidental attempt at rescuing them. That had been nothing more than self-defense.

Sunmi chewed her lower lip and walked the rest of the way, flexing her hands restlessly as she looked around the many faces. She had helped them before and Chaeyoung knew that she would again. Sunmi wasn’t working for the Company anymore, but she was working for Rain.

“Chaeyoung spoke to the mechanics,” Sunmi informed her former boss.

“Are they still alive?” Rain asked, though it lacked any real seriousness. He didn’t think that they were harmed at all and Chaeyoung didn’t know how to take that criticism.

“They might be,” Chaeyoung answered before Sunmi could, “but that doesn’t matter.” She looked at Sunmi. “He said we need to go back to Jeju Island.”

Sunmi grimaced. “Great,” she huffed. “I mean, it’s not like the Company know I’m a traitor or anything.”

“You have contacts on the inside,” Rain reassured her. “Friends who are loyal to you and disloyal to their employers. Your task is a fairly simple one this time compared to a frontal assault.”

“You’re not the one going there,” Sunmi grouched, but she only needed to glance at Jihyo before she caved. “Fine. I can probably get you in the same way and the last ambush allowed a lot of agents to go on the run.”

“Exactly,” said Rain. “Not all of the attention is on the nine of you right now.” He tapped the side of his head. “Some of those runaway agents know a lot of Company secrets.”

“So we have an actual advantage this time,” Jihyo murmured. “Better than last time, at least.”

“I wouldn’t agree to this if I didn’t think we had a chance at success,” Sunmi assured her. “Even if you don’t believe that I care about you guys, believe that I don’t want to be captured either. I’m an enemy of the Company now and unlike you and your powers, the Company has no reason to keep me alive.”

“I’m glad that’s sorted,” Rain said as his smile returned. “My hypothesis is that Nayeon’s abilities are still in effect essentially,”–he nodded to Jeongyeon–“and that’s where you come in.”

“Me?” Jeongyeon croaked, pointing at her chest as she returned his stare with wide eyes. “What can I do? I don’t even know what we did the first time.”

“You don’t need to know,” Rain replied. “The lab should still act as a focus point and Tzuyu is your conduit.”

Cause and effect. Nayeon had disappeared trying to bring back Tzuyu. It made some sense, though Chaeyoung still didn’t quite understand how they could trigger Jeongyeon’s powers without Nayeon present. Push and pull. That’s what had always happened between the first two test subjects.

Jeongyeon didn’t look appeased by his reassurance, not at the memory of why they had attempted to reverse time, and not by the knowledge that she had to do the next part alone. She had always had Nayeon’s support, always felt her ability to rewind time conflict with any attempt she made at slowing it.

“We have to try,” Tzuyu said quietly, pleading with the only team member who truly understood her guilt. “I’m prepared for whatever happens after.”

But were the rest of them? Were they prepared for the possibility that bringing back Nayeon would set the timeline back to the original outcome?

Chaeyoung certainly wasn’t. She wanted Nayeon back, but Chaeyoung wasn’t ready to lose another piece of her family in the process. What she wanted though didn’t matter because Tzuyu had already made up her mind and Chaeyoung knew that she wouldn’t be able to make her reconsider.

“What happens after is that we all come home,” Jeongyeon said decisively. “However I need to do this, you and Nayeon are coming back.”

Tzuyu’s shoulders sagged with a relieved exhale as the breath she had been holding finally escaped. She had been clinging to the hope that Jeongyeon would agree and she had in a way. It would be enough for the time being, enough until it wasn’t, but Tzuyu was prepared to make the choice the rest of them couldn’t.

Nayeon or Tzuyu, and the latter would choose the former every time.

Sana looked between Tzuyu and Jeongyeon, flickering more consistently as her worries grew. Chaeyoung could sympathise to a certain extent, but she hadn’t been the one to hold Tzuyu as she died. Chaeyoung had arrived after the damage had already happened and she remembered how useless she had felt in that moment.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Sana was going through.

“It’ll be okay,” Momo murmured, quick to drape an arm around Sana’s shoulders to ground her again. “That asshole with a gun won’t be there this time. It might be completely different.”

Chaeyoung sighed to herself as the older members all began to talk quietly amongst themselves, discussing the more complex details of the plan with Rain and Sunmi. Jihyo was taking point as usual, with Mina stepping up to provide further insight while Jeongyeon was unable to.

“Chaeng,” Dahyun nudged her elbow and nodded towards Tzuyu, prompting another weary sigh from the telekinetic.

With everyone else busy, Chaeyoung shuffled over to nudge Tzuyu’s foot with her sneaker. “You okay, buddy?”

Tzuyu blinked up at her, looking from Chaeyoung to Dahyun before her gaze inevitably returned to the floor. Her fingers pushed in harder around the bullet scar, scratching when it ached. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t think so.”

“That’s okay,” Dahyun replied with a gentle smile, always ready to step into her role as a leader for their small club. “That’s what the School Meal Club is for.”

“Yeah,” Chaeyoung chimed in, “we help each other.” She looked between them as her own heart lifted. They might never have a normal life but they had each other. No matter what happened, Chaeyoung would have her team of three.

Tzuyu shifted where she sat, taking a deep breath before she attempted to stand, but even that small action seemed to cause her pain.

“Hey,” Chaeyoung reached out to steady her with a caring hand on her shoulder, “we’re here if you ever want to talk about it.”

Sad eyes blinked back at her, mourning something that had happened and then been forcibly changed. “I…I remember how it felt,” Tzuyu murmured, taking a moment to assure herself that she was steady enough to stand on her own. “I remember dying.”

“You do?” Dahyun asked, hesitant to attempt to draw more information and reluctant to cause more unnecessary distress. “You remember how?”

“Mm,” Tzuyu nodded with the ghost of a smile when she attempted a breath of laughter. “That jackass shot me.” Her smile faded soon after. “Guess Mina was right after all.”

‘I’m invincible.’

‘Impenetrable to a point.’

Chaeyoung remembered the screaming, first when Sana had realized that Tzuyu was gone and she couldn’t do anything to bring her back, and then when Tzuyu had returned, forced to relive her last moment alive.

“I understand why Mina made me forget,” Tzuyu continued quietly. “This…It all hurts my mind even now...but the pain is better than feeling completely numb.”

“Mina was worried you’d hate her,” Dahyun admitted softly.

Tzuyu shook her head, horrified by the prospect. “I could never hate any of you,” she said. “Mina did what she had to in that moment, and so will I.”

There would be time to convince Tzuyu to be less flippant regarding her second chance at life, time to assure her that the guilt she felt was warranted but not a reason to sacrifice herself. It was nine or none as always.

They would get Nayeon back somehow, Chaeyoung just had to trust that Rain’s plan had some truth to it. It helped that Mina believed him because if there was someone that Chaeyoung would always trust, it was Mina.

“And we’ll help you,” Dahyun said. “Come on.” Dahyun beamed and saluted, calling out a bright, “School!” She looked at Chaeyoung expectantly, waiting for the shorter girl to do her bit.

Chaeyoung smiled warmly, spotting the way that Tzuyu brightened slightly at the familiar chant. “Meal,” she murmured.

“Club,” Tzuyu finished their group call a lot quieter than she normally would, but it brought warmth back to her eyes and chased away some of the clouding grief momentarily. That was enough.

Chaeyoung hooked her arm around Tzuyu’s and helped her stand up straighter, peering up into the gaze of a friend she had nearly lost forever.

“Okay, team,” Jihyo turned to address them, standing tall as their chosen leader. “Let’s get Nayeon back.”

They were headed back to Jeju Island after all, but this time would be different to their last visit.

Death was haunting them, taunting them of what could occur, but they had already lived through the worst case scenario.

Nayeon was still alive, just elsewhere, and Chaeyoung believed that this time would be different. No one else needed to get hurt. 

It was time to bring Nayeon back.