Archive of Our Own

Here is a thing that Sakai Moka knows to be true: being an idol will never allow her to feel unseen. She might be misunderstood, maligned, or even dismissed outright by a hot-and-cold public that refuses to let them ever feel truly safe, but she'll do it all with eyes on her. That's been true since she was 19, bright-eyed and debuting, and it will continue to be true for as long as the group performs. Longer, even.

People have asked her what it's like. They ask all the time, actually, friends from home and distant family, a cousin she barely remembers suddenly popping up to say, oh, hey, I got your number from your senpai, that's okay right? Anyway, if you're having a concert soon I was wondering if I could get tickets for me and my new boyfrie— oh, sorry, of course, just let me know if that changes! Moka can get away with a lot, considering her sharp-tongued reputation, the anger she lets shine when she needs it most as long as she can frame it like a joke afterwards, but the truth is that she never really knows what to say. What's it like? Being "famous", practicing your body into the ground, going on diets and finding new and more creative ways to cheat on them, cameras in your face, cameras trying to find their way up your skirt, a meme of your face, a meme of your voice, a crying face outside your car window— what's it like, really?

It's easy to get lost in these thoughts in the van on the way back to the dorm, heading home from the venue where they'd just performed. Comebacks are fun but draining, this one especially. Doing something different is great when people love it, but the public has never loved ILLIT all the way. The way they tell it, the girls are too much of one thing and not enough of something else, and no concept in the universe will ever be the right thing to strike a balance. Moka's legs are sore. She's been favoring her left ankle, and she's not sure how long it'll be before netizens notice and start making speculation posts. On the other side of the window, the streetlights smear together.

The truth is that it's lonely.

Next to her, Yunah sniffs, pretending not to. She's been dabbing at her eyes with the same tissue for 15 minutes, as if either Moka or the two staff members up front haven't noticed.
"Yunah," says Moka quietly, and holds out a dry one. Yunah huffs a little laugh, sounding exhausted. "Thanks."

She’d stumbled during the performance, a crack in her voice at one point, and a misstep during the bridge choreo, but it was only noticeable to Moka because she was so used to looking for imperfections to buff out in their performances. The audience had fun, had jumped to their feet to applaud. They didn’t care about Yunah’s mistakes, but telling her that isn’t going to change anything right now.

If Moka were one of the others, maybe Wonhee or Iroha, she might follow the tissue up with, Are you okay? But it's hard to tell whether Yunah wants to talk about it, and Moka isn't much for comfort anyway. She's good for a shy laugh or a mug of soup, but she's made a habit of cringing from hugs and kisses, of giggling nervously through any genuine displays of sentiment, and the blurry line between her true self and her reputation makes these conversations a minefield.

If Yunah was waiting for her to ask, though, she doesn't let on, just going back to trying to keep her makeup intact. For whom, Moka doesn't know. It's an early call time tomorrow, and it's already past one in the morning now. The second they get home, she's scrubbing this shit off her skin and face-planting directly into her bed.

/

The first thing to clue her into the fact that it's going to be a tough day is that she wakes up not to her sunrise alarm gently rousing her with gradual light, but to pounding on her door. "Sakai Moka-chan! We have fifteen minutes, come on!"

In the dorm, doors are sacred. If a door is shut, regardless of whether the member is in there or not, it does not open without express permission, which is rarely asked for. This yelling is normal, but the circumstances around it are less so. If Moka doesn’t show a sign of life, she’s a little concerned someone will come in and belly-flop onto her prone body, and she’s not sure how many more hits her ankle can take before it becomes a genuine issue.

"Fifteen?" she tries to shout back, and hears her voice croak with the strain of it. When she opens her eyes, she realizes that the light had in fact started to turn on when it was supposed to. It just hadn't woken her up.

"Yes! I'm making you kimbap!" Minju yells back.
Moka groans in appreciation and hauls herself up. Today is packed: a variety show appearance followed by a radio interview, and then a photoshoot until early evening. After that, Moka has a night shoot with another clothing brand—she's not sure modeling is the thing for her, but she's enjoyed it so far, and she wouldn't be an idol if she didn't like it when people think she's pretty or hot or both, so.
She does her best to stuff her aching body into something cute, tossing her hair into a little bun and praying that the makeup unnies don't kill her when she gets to the set.

Prays again that they won't be photographed on the way, because—

"Oh," Minju says, once Moka gets downstairs, "you look like death warmed over." She hands Moka a triangle kimbap, two more sitting on a plate on the counter. "Quickly, you have like three minutes."
"Thank you, Minju," says Moka, only half-sarcastic, mumbled around a bite of rice and vegetables.
Minju smiles at her, way too tender for six in the morning, and kisses her on the temple so quickly Moka doesn't have time to duck away from it.

Moka sighs and wrinkles her nose, at least. Even when she’s feeling unwell, she knows the importance of keeping up appearances, especially with Minju. You give her an inch, she’ll take a mile, and Moka has never been good at managing the waterfall of affection that comes when she shows any amount of weakness to it. She’ll only take what she needs from Minju, and maintain the rest of those boundaries while she’s feeling clingy.

The others are all already waiting by the door, and soon after the text from their manager comes that the car is waiting downstairs, so they make their way down together. Minju loops her arm with Moka's, staying close.

They do this, when one of them is sick. It started around debut, when Minju was struggling to keep up physically with the demands of practice on top of a diet. Moka had found her alone in the practice room late one night, face set in determination, sweat dampening her shirt on the chest, under the arms. She took a spin too hard, almost stumbling, and that was when she noticed Moka hovering in the doorway.

"Oh," Minju had said.

"Hi." Moka had been so awkward then, surly and overconfident to cover up her fear that all of this would be for nothing. "Do you need help?"
"Ha," Minju had answered, "um, well—"

And then she'd burst into messy, unchoreographed tears. They screwed up her face, turning it redder, and came trickling steadily down her cheeks. She half-collapsed, then, bracing herself on a hand as she sank to her knees, and then she began apologizing.

"I'm sorry, I didn't— I didn't think anyone was here, and I don't want to let you all—"

Down, was how that sentence ended, which Moka knew because she had the same fear, but she didn't let Minju finish. She went to her, to where she was crouched miserably in the middle of the room, knees pinkening against the hard floor, and grabbed her ridiculous face in her hands. She brushed away the tears. She tucked the hair behind Minju's ear that had gotten loose in the vigor of her dancing. She did all of the things she swore she was terrible at, and she did them without blinking.

"You need to go home and rest," Moka had said, direct and determined to someone two years her senior. She wasn't thinking about ages, she was thinking about how dark it was outside, and how earlier that day the dance teacher had been harder on Minju than any of them because of the way she was laughing and cheering everyone up during their breaks instead of silently sipping water with her head down.

Minju was still crying, too distraught to respond, so Moka sat with her for half an hour. The dance teachers never really yelled at the members, but imagining how it might feel on top of being confronted with Minju's overflowing devastation was enough to soften her in an instant.

They ate convenience store ramen while shivering in their clothes, and then they got chewed out together when they came back to the dorm late. But even while their manager was yelling about the delay, Moka wanted to smile. And when she smirked at Minju while they were led to their room, Minju smiled back, tearstained face and all.

They've been a little weird about each other ever since. Or— maybe Moka is just weird about Minju. Minju acts the same with her as she does with anyone else, all overbearing affection and emotions always spreading across her face like paint spills. It's Moka that melts, Moka's whose hands itch to reach out and touch even when it's uncharacteristic. Minju makes it easy. Minju loves making it easy.
In the car, the big van where they all pile into the back for busy days that don't have them splitting off, Minju bundles Moka into a window seat and sits next to her.

Their hands tangle together, and Moka stares down at the glint of Minju's rings. At her own neat nail beds.

"I don't feel good," Moka pouts, quiet enough that only Minju can hear. Minju indulges her, rubbing a thumb over the back of her hand. "Ah, our poor Moka."

"I didn't sleep well."
"Mmm, I could hear you snoring."
Moka scoffs. "We don't even live on the same floor."
"I know," answers Minju, pretending to be shocked. Her round eyes shine like coins. "I was amazed at how loud you were. Like a chainsaw."
"I hate you," Moka answers.

Minju nudges her until her head is on Minju's shoulder, and then she stacks her cheek over Moka's hair. "You looove me," she sing-songs back.
They're just a few minutes away, so Moka allows it, doesn't bother to fight. This is nice, anyway; Minju had picked a particularly soft sweater for today's schedule, and she's always the warm counterpart to Moka's perpetual chill. Plus, when it comes to making fun of someone for taking comfort from physical contact, Minju doesn't have a single leg to stand on. Made daring by her tiredness, Moka pulls Minju's arm around her, snuggling closer into her collarbone.

She can feel Minju's cheeks pull with a smile. /
The variety show is fun, if taxing. The urge to be loud, bright, and charming is there as it always is, but they've gotten better at reading each other and filling in the gaps over the years. Thinking of being a solo artist makes Moka shudder sometimes. It’s a regular feature in her more anxiety- fueled nightmares.

"We have a challenge," one of the hosts is saying. "You have another comeback happening soon, right?"
"Yes," Wonhee answers, "in about two months."
The host grins. His teeth are the same unnatural white of most people in the industry. "Well, we need a special volunteer for this. You won't have to do anything today, but we'll need you to report back later about it. That’s very important, that you report back about how it went."

"You'll come back on the show, won't you?" simpers the other host, as if that schedule hasn't been confirmed for weeks already.
They all nod and smile, agreeing for the sake of the show.

The first host speaks again. "Which one of you is up for a challenge? The one who volunteers will
be exempt from the next game, which will have a reward and a punishment."

By this point, despite the medicine she'd taken, Moka is practically seeing double, and her throat hurts. She’s not sure she’ll survive a punishment, or even the game itself at this point. "Me," she says quickly, and hops off of her stool, only dizzying herself for a couple of seconds with the sudden movement and ensuing head rush.

The other girls coo their approval, clapping for her, and Moka shoots them a cocky little grin and a finger heart gun, shooting love-bullets. Yunah pretends to faint, hands clutching her chest, and Moka spends a moment cackling at her before she turns back to face the hosts properly.

"Moka! The bravest member of ILLIT, I see." "That's right," she answers.

The other host begins reading a cue card. "For this challenge, we are hoping to help make the members of your group closer than ever! That's important for a comeback, right? You have to have chemistry."
"Chemistry," the first host agrees emphatically. "It's essential. So this challenge is easy: you have to pick someone you want to be closer to, and then you have to find five different ways to show your appreciation for her in the next two months. But none of this, I gave her a hug nonsense. It has to be something you wouldn't do otherwise, okay?"
"Like make her seaweed soup?" she offers.

The room explodes into a brief shout of approval, both from the hosts and from the members.
"Okay, okay, settle down," says host number two. His orange shirt is so bright as to be distracting. "We're going to have you pick a member you want to get closer to. You can take some videos to show that you're doing the missions, and then we'll have you do a quiz at the next filming to make sure you're closer, okay?"

Moka nods. "And if I do well, do I get a prize?"
The first host throws her head back in laughter. "Ah, you're ambitious! Good, good. Yes, there will be a prize. If you succeed in getting closer to one of your members, we will give you a three-course meal that you can enjoy with the member you’ve gotten close to, to celebrate your hard work. You can pick any foods you want, even expensive ones."

“Meat?” asks Moka hopefully. “As much meat as you want.”

There's an appropriate amount of ooh-ing and aah-ing over the prize, and then they readjust the cameras and gesture to Moka to choose the member she wants to participate with.

On a normal day, maybe, she'd have gone for Wonhee—thoughtful, easy to dote on, generally laid back about things—but Moka is exhausted, sick and tired of her sickness and tiredness, and no matter how much she lies to herself, there's really only one person she reaches for in moments like this.
It’s like she blacks out, honestly.

She hears herself say, "Minju," before she's even decided for sure. Or— before she's consciously decided to pick her. Before her head has caught up with... well.

Minju pretends to be shocked, hands covering her mouth, eyes widened into perfect circles. "Me?" she demands, standing slowly. "No, the other Minju," snipes Moka, just because she can.

Minju gasps, affronted. "Yah, you have to be nice to me! You picked me to be closer to and now you're insulting me?" She turns to the hosts. "Isn’t this against the rules? She should be nice, seriously."

"Maybe she'll learn to be nicer to you over the next weeks," one of the host suggests diplomatically.
Moka sticks her tongue out at Minju, who returns it with a face so ridiculous that Moka can't help but break into laughter.

"Ah," intones the other host in an all-knowing voice, "they'll be just fine, I think."
Minju pulls Moka into a dramatic hug, less forcefully than she otherwise might, and Moka allows herself a moment to latch onto the warmth before wrenching herself away.

"I'm going to woo you," she declares, batting her eyelashes. Minju laughs, and Moka shoves at her. "Believe me!"

The blinking red light of the camera follows the movement, and Moka’s gaze can’t help but catch on it throughout the rest of the episode as the other girls speed through choreo, as they crown Iroha the champion, as Yunah dejectedly records an embarrassing voicemail for any fans that might want to use it. It watches, and Moka watches it right back.

/

It takes three more days for Moka to shake her cold, and on those three days she thinks about the challenge set out for her hardly at all. They're too busy running around, stripping and being dressed, getting their makeup done and then, exhausted at the end of the day, scrubbing it off in the mirror and confronting their own tired faces.

"I'm so ugly," Moka laments, shoulder to shoulder with Yunah.

Yunah rolls her eyes with a huff, tugging off a string of false lashes. "Shut up, obviously you're not."
"Did you see there was a poll last week?"
"Why are you reading that?" Yunah responds. "Moka-chan, you know better."

Moka does know better. Yunah knows her arguably the best of any of them, being roommates with her for so long that’s quite ambitious it floated off of her in waves like desperation, couldn't believe that no one had seen through her false confidence. Knows so many pieces of her that Moka would rather hide from the world, and still looks at her with patient kindness, even when it’s goofy or harsh at the edges.

"I know," she says, finally. "I shouldn't have. But I did, and I was sick this week, and they were basing it all off of content that came out forever ago where I was healthy. This stuff isn't even going to air for a while. I'll be so embarrassed when it does."
Yunah steps on her foot. Moka yelps a little, more out of shock than pain. "Where is your confidence? You're an idol, you wouldn't be an idol if you weren't pretty."

"I know, I know. I just worry I don't fit our concept." Yunah levels her with a flat look this time.
Okay, okay. Their new concept is a departure from aegyo, a cooler, flashier concept that highlights dance style and sex appeal. Moka can concede that one.

There are a lot of other thoughts in Moka's mind right now, but the clearest is one she can't speak aloud to her members. What kinds of looks would they give her if she, surrounded by them, living with them, promoting with them, talked about how scared she is of being alone? It’s embarrassing. It swells in her chest when she thinks about it, this ugly, dark thing inside of her. She refuses to give it a voice.

"Sorry," she mumbles instead. "I must still be sick."
Yunah pauses, meeting her gaze in the mirror. Objectively, Yunah looks ridiculous, half made up and half bare-faced, but when her protectiveness flares they all know to step out of the way and let her do what she wants. What she wants to do right now, apparently, is to stare Moka into submission.
Moka lasts five seconds before she breaks. "Okay, okay, I'm beautiful, sorry for complaining."
Yunah nudges their hips together, just gently, before starting to cleanse the other side of her face. "Don't be sorry, just be a little happier, Moka. You're doing well." Her countenance brightens, and she pulls her hands away from her face just to make two little peace signs at her cheeks. It's disgustingly cute. "Cheer up! You're not supposed to be the mopey introspective one, come on."

Iroha has that job covered, for sure. It would be rude of Moka to try to intrude, especially around the change of the seasons; Moka makes a note to check in on her tomorrow—she's been quiet lately.
"Ugh, I'm fine," complains Moka when Yunah goes to peck her on the cheek.

She manages to barely avoid it, darting back at the last second and getting a hand between them. "Goodnight," Yunah, trills.
"You haven't even moisturized!" Moka calls after her, but the cause is lost. She'll probably go do that in her own room, rather than continue to terrorize Moka in her en-suite.

All she gets in return is laughter.
It's quiet in her room after Yunah leaves. Even quieter after Moka finished her skincare, shutting off the water and putting the jars back into their little fridge.

She changes slowly, shoulder now sore on top of her ankle, and takes a moment to appreciate the fact that she can breathe through her nose. The diffuser in the corner is nearly silent, but she can tell it's working because of the faint jasmine scent in the air. By the time she's dressed for bed and curled up under the duvet, her clock had been telling her to go to sleep for over an hour. But sleep doesn't come easily.

She doesn't know why she's so restless. Why this comeback, of all of them, is so much harder. They've been a group for few years. Maybe that's what it is—the listlessness that creeps in when their sales stagnate, the fear that their greatest song will forever be the first comeback, popular only because their pain and humiliation were captured and broadcasted across the nation. Do people like them, or do they just keep an eye on them to see if they'll fall again?

Two years ago, Iroha had a panic attack before a fanmeeting. She was sucking in these little gulps of air, hand to her chest, tears in her eyes, and she'd begged the staff to just give her a minute, she was fine, she could do it. And she did, eventually, only walking out a minute late and laughing through an excuse about getting caught up putting her admittedly very complicated strappy sandals on.

Yunah had hovered both during and after the event, to the point that Iroha eventually waved her off with gentle resignation. "I'm fine," Iroha promised them all, with an earnestness that demanded trust. "I just got a little nervous."

It was impossible for Moka to imagine that kind of anxiety in the face of their own fanbase at the time. If anyone was supposed to love them, to be kind to them, it was this smiling, grasping group of people who worked so hard to be there and tell the group about their love. Moka could laugh at fan meetings, could pout and grouse, and she’d still get cheers and fond teasing by the end. Even when the internet was at its worst, the human connection didn’t fail them. What was there to be nervous about?

The soft fabric of her pillow brushes against her cheek as she snuggles further into it, pulling her duvet closer over her aching shoulder. Outside, a faint argument crescendos against the night sky and its blanket of stars, then fades slowly, slowly.
Moka thinks she gets it now.

/

Unsurprisingly, Minju is the one to remind her of the challenge, after Moka has been avoiding thinking about it for a while. She knows she's been weird, morose and awkward, and it didn't pass with her sickness the way she hoped it would.

Minju comes to find her at lunch, grabbing her food from the spread set up in the green room and plopping her chin right on Moka's good shoulder. "Moka-channn," she draws out, far too loudly for her proximity to Moka's ear. "There’s only two months left for this challenge before we go back onto that show. You said you were going to woo me, but I don't feel wooed at all."

"I'm busy scheming," lies Moka. “It’s going to be great.”

Minju sighs, a little gust of air. It sends the barest of shivers down Moka's spine. "Scheme faster, then."
"Okay, okay." Moka had honestly been planning on mostly pranking Minju for this and then hoping for the best with winging whatever quiz they decide to do, but Minju seemed so excited, and her continued needling means that this probably means more to her than she’s willing to actually let on. Also, that she’s not going to just let it go. “We’ll talk later, okay?”

Minju pulls back and points at her accusatorily. “I’m holding you to that.” Moka doesn’t doubt it.
She’s distracted through the rest of the filming, a short music video for a goofy song promoting a new skincare line with a brand name Moka, embarrassingly, keeps forgetting and mispronouncing. Minju’s hair is brown, and her dress is black, and when they tell her to stop joking around and look at the camera prettily, Moka’s breath catches in her throat. God. Embarrassing.

Minju isn’t the face of the group for nothing, and part of Moka can’t even blame herself for falling into this orbit and again and again, but it doesn’t mean the rest of her is going to be proud of herself for it.
And she’s going to have to woo this girl. What does Moka know about wooing? She fell into the spotlight when she was a kid, and by the time she was old enough to figure out that her dating pool might be bigger than she thought, it was too late.

She was on camera, she had a no-dating clause, she was in a group whose whole concept was to be someone’s, well. Girlfriend. Moka has been dating her fanbase for as long as she’s even wanted to date.

She shakes off the distraction for long enough to get her own part down, at least. The song is catchy as hell, and the dance is just silly enough to have her laughing at herself as she goes, which the directors seem to like. After that, it’s just another half an hour or so of glamour shots and resetting the cameras before she’s done.

Most of the members still have pickups (or, in Yunah’s case, pretty much the whole shoot left ahead of them since she’d gotten to sleep in that morning), but Minju had apparently been waiting for someone to be done, lounging on the couch and occasionally yelling encouragement.

“Ready?” she asks when Moka walks over.
“Yeah, you wanna go back to the dorm?”
Minju nods. “I want to hang out, though, I don’t want to just go sit by myself in my room.” Despite herself, Moka smiles. “Okay.”
“What?” asks Minju.

Moka just shakes her head. “Nothing, nothing. We’ll hang out.”

Minju looks at her for another moment, suspicious, but eventually lets it go. In the car on the way back, their shoulders are pressed together, knees bumping with every swerve of the road. Minju asks the driver to put on the chart-toppers playlist she likes so she can stay up to date with what’s happening in the industry, and she goads Moka into singing along to all of the songs she knows, and even some of the ones she doesn’t.

Moka thinks again about wooing her. About how little she knows about it.

And slowly but surely, the idea she refused to let herself entertain the night before takes shape in her head, more strongly for being crystallized in daylight. Maybe this doesn’t have to be embarrassing, or pathetic. Maybe it doesn’t have to be anything other than exactly what Moka wants it to be.

/

They end up in Minju’s bedroom. It’s messy in the way they all get during busy promotions, rejected outfits strewn around and a couple of bags on the floor, but Moka has seen worse here, and worse from herself, too. She plops down in the beanbag chair in the corner, and Minju lets herself fall haphazardly onto the bed, kicking her feet up behind her and cupping her face in her palms.

Her room gets the most natural light, so the sunset is particularly gorgeous across the rose-colored duvet and sheets. Across Minju’s dark brown hair and the apples of her cheeks.

“Minju,” says Moka, her heart in her throat, “I have a proposition for you.”

“Ooh,” answers Minju delightedly. “Are you finally wooing me? Is the proposition a bike ride? Because I love bike rides, but I’m so tired I could fall asleep right here.”

Moka shakes her head. “Not that, not right now. Or— a little. But no bike riding.” “Yah,” says Minju, laughing a little, “what do you sound so nervous for?”

“I’m not nervous.”
Minju raises an eyebrow.

Moka refuses to be cowed by her, even if she is extremely nervous. She takes a breath, trying to gather herself, and nearly sneezes when the plasticky scent coming from the beanbag abruptly strengthens with her slight movement. “It’s just,” she starts, trying to maintain her dignity, “that this whole variety show thing where I’m supposed to do things for you could be a chance to, um.”
“To what?” asks Minju.

Moka’s next words come out all in a desperate rush, because if she doesn’t get it all out now then she knows she never will. “To know what it’s like to date someone. To have someone that’s special and to treat them well and do things for them and— we can’t date other people, but what if when I stop being an idol I try to find someone and I’m just bad at all of it? And I embarrass myself, and no one ever wants to date me, and I’m alone for the rest of my life? I just think this is a chance to get good at it before it really matters, and maybe... maybe we could practice. Together. We could be practice girlfriends.”

Minju is silent.

Moka feels a hot, mortified blush color her ears and creep up her neck. “Please don’t ask me to repeat that.”

“Wow,” says Minju finally, slow, teasing grin working its way onto her face, “I didn’t know you felt like that, Sakai Moka.”

“Oh, shut up,” says Moka, tacking on a belated, “Minju.”

Minju is still smiling though, infuriatingly unflappable. There had been something inscrutable in her expression while she was listening, but whatever it was is gone now, replaced by her mischievous joy at having someone to needle at in front of her. “You want to be my girlfriend,” she sing-songs.

“Practice girlfriend,” corrects Moka. “I know you haven’t dated anyone in forever, I bet you would love having someone that you’re very comfortable with. Letting out all your weirdness..”

“Can I even imagine if there would be no awkwardness from Moka-chan? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

It’s a joke, but it still stings a little. Moka lets that sting morph instead into indignance and propel her forward. “Get ready to believe it, then. I’ll be the best fake girlfriend you’ve ever had.”

“Hold on, hold on, what does this even mean, though? You’re just doing the challenge, right?”
“I mean, we could say we’re doing the challenge.” The flush hasn’t left her face, and she’s hyper- aware of it even as she tries to bluff confidence. “But we could do some extra things too, that are more, I don’t know, date-like? Ah, Minju, this is so embarrassing.”

“You’re embarrassed?” screeches Minju. “I’m embarrassed!” Moka rolls her eyes. “You are not, you’re loving this.”

There’s a moment then, where Minju might deny it, but then she’s laughing, that big, full-bodied laugh she can never help, and Moka smacks her in the arm.

“What would all of this even entail?” Minju asks.
Moka shrugs as if she hadn’t been up half the night dreaming about it. “Dates. Saving each other seats, or giving compliments. Pet names, or—”

“Kissing?” challenges Minju.
“If you want, then yeah.”
Minju winks outrageously in response, which isn’t a yes or a no.

Moka’s heart is still fluttering dangerously in her chest, but she didn’t make a career out of bluff and risk without learning some things. “Well, do you want to pretend date me or not, Minju?”

At the direct question, Minju finally sobers. Funny, how much more her age she looks when she’s not smiling. “Why me?”

“Why you?”

“Yeah,” says Minju. “The challenge, I know, but people would be lining up outside the dorm for a chance to date you. And you want to do a practice run with me?”

Moka could say a lot of things in response. She could talk about the urge to take care of Minju, to keep her safe and protect her soft heart. She could talk, too, about how easy it is to just hang out with Minju. They have fun together. They laugh, and they like similar things. Hell, she could just make a joke about Minju’s leather pants at a recent photo shoot and leave it at that. They know she’s gay, and that Minju is too, and Moka knows that she’s not the only one that’s stolen more glances than she needed to. Moka knows Minju finds her very pretty. Mutual attraction wouldn’t have to mean anything more. It wouldn’t be a lie. None of this is a lie.

“I trust you,” she says finally, plain and true.
Another beat of silence, and then Minju softens. “Can we start tomorrow, though? I really just wanted to watch some anime and eat some ramyun tonight.”

Girlfriends could do that too, thinks Moka stubbornly, but she doesn’t dwell on it. She’s still a little lightheaded from the adrenaline, and Minju looks so casual. She’s already pulling on a pair of sweatpants, faded gray, and yanking off her shirt. They’ve all changed in front of each other a million times before, so there’s nothing new about Minju standing over her t-shirt drawer, hands on her hips, in a lacy strapless bra.

Moka still averts her gaze. Her face is still hot. This has been one of the most embarrassing conversations of her life, but the buzz of anticipation undercuts all of it. Moka wasn’t scheming before, but she certainly is now.

“I’m gonna go change,” she says. It’s too loud in the quiet room, like it has an echo. Minju doesn’t even look up, waving her off. “Wear something comfy.” “Obviously,” says Moka, and then she’s scampering away.

/
They meet back up on the couch in the living room, piled under the big crocheted blanket that was a housewarming gift from the company, when Wonhee walks in. She’s already scrubbing at her eyes with a makeup wipe.

“You’ll give yourself wrinkles,” chides Moka.
Wonhee sticks her tongue out, then laughs at herself. “Ah, I’m so exhausted. Did you make
ramyun?”

“Yeah, go grab some,” says Minju. They’d put enough on for all five members, a practiced ritual when they have staggered end times. Inevitably one of them will end up elsewhere this evening, either out to dinner with a friend or staying the night with family, but they’ve always managed to eat six packages between five of them just fine.

Wonhee makes a happy little noise and tosses the makeup wipe in the trash on her way into the kitchen. Her pleased humming is background music to the way Minju’s legs are slung over Moka’s lap. They’re a comforting weight. This is girlfriend behavior, Moka thinks, unbidden, but that could be true of so many things. Iroha braiding her hair isn’t girlfriend behavior. Yunah fixing her eyeliner isn’t girlfriend behavior. It’s different when it’s Park Minju. Moka is scared she’s about to make a lot of the careful lines she’d held for herself blurry beyond recognition, but it’s too late now. She flung herself off of the high dive. Now it’s all about twisting herself through the dizzy fall before she hits the water.

“Ha!” barks Minju, slapping her own thigh as a character on the screen hits a wall face-first.
Moka laughs with her, even without context. She’s so stuck in her own head, it’s terrible. Maybe what she needs is a chance to relax.

Wonhee comes back out then with a bare face and a bowl, chopsticks precariously balanced on top. “Can I join?” she asks sweetly.

“Sit, sit,” says Moka, making room. The couch is huge, but it would be weird for Moka and Minju to be so close to each other with Wonhee so far away, wouldn’t it? Or is that what they’re going to be doing soon? They should tell the others, shouldn’t they?

She’s going to give herself a headache if she keeps pushing down this path.

The show is fun, but Moka hasn’t watched most of it, and the characters are strangers to her. She keeps time by the number of times she can feel Minju’s laugh through her body. By the amount of hair Wonhee keeps accidentally flipping into her face as she adjusts.

Their manager called, bringing news that Yunah is going to dinner with a friend and won’t be back that night at all.

Over two hours later, a tired-looking Iroha finally gets back, and Minju makes grabby hands at her until she comes over and lets herself be hugged. “I’m gonna sleep,” Iroha says to the three of them and their vague puppy pile. “You should too, we start early tomorrow.”

“God,” Wonhee says, “is that really the time?”
It’s nearly midnight, somehow. Moka doesn’t remember the time passing. Just remembers the low rumble of Minju’s laughter under her legs, and how it felt to be so attuned to it, like time was water, was easy, could be gentle if Moka didn’t have to spend it alone.

/

The first thing she does the next morning is wake up half an hour before her usual alarm and make breakfast. It’s basic, just rice, stew, and some meat that they had marinated and cooked a couple days prior, but it smells amazing, and it’s worth it for the look on Minju’s face as she walks out into the kitchen.

“Your message said to come down early, but I didn’t realize it was for this. Ah, our Moka-chan, so considerate and cute.” She walks over to wrap Moka in a warm hug, pressing a kiss to her hair for good measure.

Moka makes a cursory effort to squirm away, mostly out of instinct, but Minju tuts. “If we’re going to be girlfriends, you have to let me be affectionate towards you.”

Maybe a bit ridiculously, Moka wasn’t sure if they would talk about it. Minju seems perfectly comfortable about it, still holding Moka in a loose embrace. “Okay, okay. But Minju, sit down. I’m almost done.”

Minju kisses her again, right on the temple, and Moka lets her. It’s soft, just a quick press of her lips. Moka is going to lose all of her hard-earned street cred if she starts blushing at things like this, so she sets about putting the food in bowls to bring over.
Minju makes appropriately impressed sounds as Moka sets the food in front of her, and digs in immediately with a cheerful thank you. Moka almost presses a kiss to her head, too, but decides against it. She can work up to it.

She makes plates for herself as well, then sits at the table next to Minju. The silence stretches just long enough to be awkward when Iroha walks in.
“Oh, who cooked?”

“Guess,” drawls Minju, happily munching away.
Iroha laughs, looking at Moka. “Fair. Thank you, then. Is there enough for everyone?”

Moka nods. It would be a dick move to cook only for Minju, and they’ve all been working hard. She’s exhausted, but it gives her some energy to see the others enjoying a good meal instead of a piece of fruit grabbed hastily on the way out, or whatever lettuce-based, sad looking meal they’re handed at the set. It’s day two of music video filming in an entirely new location, and it will likely be a long day. Moka has been wracking her mind for more ways to be a good girlfriend, but she’s coming up short.
It’s fine. They have time.

Just as they’re finishing up, others starting to trickle in one by one, Minju nudges Moka in the side. “Let’s take a picture.”

Moka blinks at her. Neither of them are wearing makeup, and Moka hasn’t even brushed her hair. “What?”

“For the show! This can be one of the things you do for me. You mentioned cooking, remember? Don’t you need proof?”

“Proof,” repeats Moka. She might still be closer to asleep than she thought. “Right, yeah. Take a picture of the food.”

“You have to be in it!”
Moka sighs gustily. “Here,” she says, and makes a peace sign next to Yunah’s setting, which she hasn’t eaten hardly any of yet. It’s the most appealing of the bunch in terms of appearances; Moka’s own cleared plates aren’t lookers.

Minju sighs right back, but takes the picture with her phone anyway. She must immediately message it to Moka by the way she feels her phone buzz in the pocket of her pajama pants.

“One down,” Minju chirps happily.
“One down,” echoes Moka, and then she goes to put on her face for the day.

/

The filming is as exhausting as they expected it to be. They only have one more full day tomorrow, and then a half day after that to do some pickups for day one after it’s come together more, but it’s a cold comfort as they stand shivering in the outdoor location. In between shots, they’re given blankets, big jackets, and warm drinks, but the tops of Moka’s feet feel like they’re frozen in her pumps. Her legs have started to shake as well—if she gets any more uncomfortable, she’s going to have to see if one of the stylists has an extra pair of shoes for her to wear between shots so she doesn’t snap an ankle.
Moka has a unit shot with Iroha this time around. They’re doing separate units between the japanese and the koreans, a hot trend going around and it’s fun to be allowed to be a little sexy.

“We’re hot,” she yells at one point over the wind, one hand on the electric guitar they’re holding together.

Iroha laughs like she thinks Moka is joking. Moka narrows her eyes. “Yah! Say it back!”

“We’re hot,” yells Iroha, throwing her head back, laughing, and Moka can’t help but join her, the two of them light and happy.

That’s the shot they use, in the end. As they huddle around the monitor afterwards and play it back, Moka thinks that with moments like this, she never wants to do anything else for the rest of her life.
Minju comes up behind her, hooking her head over Moka’s shoulder. “Pretty, Daarin,” she murmurs, and Moka feels herself stiffen, the thought of Minju calling her nicknames in japanese makes her feel some sort of strange feeling that she wouldn’t know how to figure it out all herself.

“Ha ha,” she nervously replies, less of a laugh and more of a panic response. Minju sneaks a kiss right under her ear, and then pulls away, leaves her be.
They hadn’t discussed when this thing was supposed to start, but Minju seems to be firing on all cylinders today, and Moka spares a moment to think that if this is how it’s starting, she might be in over her head a little. Iroha shoots her a funny look, and Moka realizes she’s been zoned out staring into space for the last thirty seconds while a director tried to talk to her.

“Sorry,” she says, flustered, “could you repeat that?”
“You’re good for today,” the director says. “You two did well. Thank you for your hard work.”
“Thank you for your hard work,” Moka replies immediately, an echo, and hopes that it sounds sincere even as her head is halfway across the room.

They’re dismissed soon after, and Moka decides to do some shopping, going home to take a shower before dragging a manager out with her to a few stores just before they close. It’s fun to

skip through them when they’re nearly empty, a couple of store associates tripping over themselves to help her in a way that she thinks should make her feel guilter than she does.
By the time she gets home, she’s thoroughly wiped out, and limping a little, but she’s carrying two fairly full bags, and she’s smiling.

/

The next morning, her ankle flares up so badly that she can barely dance. The other girls keep sending her anxious glances, but if she needs to collapse against a chair or a person in between takes, so be it. They’re almost finished, and then they have almost three full days of time off, practically unheard of but valiantly fought for by Yunah in meetings with management. Moka sometimes wonders what any of them would do without her, and then decides to stop wondering, because it’s a bleak future to imagine.

They finish another full take of the dance portion, and immediately their physical therapist runs over to massage the inflamed tissue around her ankle. Moka scrunches her face in pain before forcing a few deep breaths. Breathe into the pain, she remembers being told over and over. Stay relaxed, and let it pass over you.

“Let’s do one more?” she asks once she finds her voice again.

“Moka...” says Yunah. “Are you sure? That was good, wasn’t it?” She turns her wide-eyed gaze to the directors.

Moka sighs. “I’m sure, I’m sure. I was slow on that last turn, it’ll be obvious.” “You’ll hurt yourself,” says Yunah.

But Moka knows, and anyway, “I’m already hurt. It’s fine, we need to get this done. Let’s do it well.”
There’s a long, stubborn beat of silence, and then Minju sighs, coming over to help Moka stand. “You heard her,” she tells the group, looping an arm firmly around Moka’s waist. “One more, and we’ll all do it perfectly. This is the last one.”

“Last one,” agrees Yunah sharply. She looks stressed the way she always gets when she can’t make sure everything goes exactly the way she thinks it should, and Moka sighs, feeling bad that she’s pushing like this even as she knows it’s necessary. She’ll be fine; she’s had worse; if she does this right then no one will ever have to know she was hurt at all. And she’s not stupid—she’ll rest when they get home, wear whatever stabilizer they give her and be careful not to overexert herself.

Minju’s arm around her waist is warm, supportive. Moka lets herself lean on it for another moment, limping over to her mark, before taking her own weight back.

The directors look concerned, too, but Moka tunes it out. Tunes it all out until the music starts again.
Her ankle is hot pain, her shoulder hasn’t stopped being sore, it’s still so goddamn cold out she can feel her lungs burning. It’s amazing how easy it is to tune all of that out in favor of focusing on the shot. It’s like she steps away from her body, but better. Stronger. Not dissociation but collaboration, as if every part of her is in tune with what needs to get done and how. Her smile is brighter. The camera’s red light blinks once, twice, three times, four.
This time, her turns are perfect.

/

She ends up in a clinic immediately after the shooting once the physical therapist on site assesses her and they both realize at the same time that she can’t carry any weight on her ankle. With the adrenaline rush of performance waning, the pain has returned more strongly than before, and worry shoots through Moka like ice.

It’s nearly two hours of waiting, being seen, being evaluated, and being chastised before she’s given a brace and some serious painkillers and sent on her way. She won’t be dancing on any stages for the next two weeks at least, which feels like a death sentence considering dancing favours her the most and it’s comeback season, and the brace is itchy and uncomfortable, already digging into the top of her ankle where it ends and meets her skin more directly at its edge. She gets into street clothes, but the only ones she’d brought were a breezy blouse and painted-on skinny jeans, and it’s a nightmare to change into them from her dress with her ankle feeling the way it does.

The rain has started back up by the time she makes it out, and instead of being a comforting sound against her windowpane, the wind pushes it into her face and hair, and she splutters as she makes her way into the car. By the time she’s most of the way home, deeply unflattering pictures of that moment are already on the internet.

Suffice to say it is not Moka’s day, no matter how beautifully the music video came out earlier.
The others are all home when she arrives except for Wonhee, who had a recording session for a cover she’s been working on. They’re all currently out in the kitchen and dining area, arguing about dinner.
“Just order chicken,” Moka says, throwing her purse on the counter and limping to a stool. Yunah rushes to help her, and together they manage to get Moka seated without any additional shooting pains.

“I could go for chicken,” Minju says, and the others agree readily. Some of them are supposed to be dieting right now, Moka included, but it’s a fuck it kind of day, and they’ve been working so hard. Sometimes it feels like it’s all they can do to keep themselves fueled enough with all of the practice they have. Filling up on fruits and vegetables alone is a recipe for dizzy spells and poor performances, so they’ve eased up on themselves—having continued support from fans helps, too, and Yunah tirelessly campaigning on their behalf to management linked all sides of the gradual shift toward health and support rather than running ragged for a chance at a spotlight.

Moka drops her forehead onto the table. She’s been holding back tears for so long now it’s given her a headache, and she knows she should drink some water and take one of these painkillers when the food arrives. What she wants is not to take care of herself well, though, it’s to be coddled.

She feels Yunah pat her arm. “Any special requests?” she asks, already lifting the phone to her ear. Moka shakes her head without looking up.
There’s a fond laugh from above her, and then Yunah switches to a quicker, more professional tone to order their dinner. It’s funny, the way she does the same thing in an interview as she does on the phone with a restaurant. Funny how all of them are the same but different from these personas they’ve created. Moka’s persona is funny, doesn’t get hurt by big emotions, laughs as easily at her own expense as she does at anyone else’s.

But she isn’t laughing now. She takes a few long breaths before starting to sit up, and finds Minju sitting next to hear, peering at her awkwardly bent form with concern.

“Hi,” Moka says, senseless, exhausted.
Minju smiles at that. “You look so sad,” she says, in a way that gives Moka an out if she wants it. It could be a joke.

But Moka doesn’t have it in her. Just shrugs. “I can’t dance for two weeks.”
“Just that?”

Moka sighs. “Maybe more, depending on how it heals. I don’t know. It still feels like forever.”
Minju tucks a piece of Moka’s still-damp hair behind her ear, and watches with dark, careful eyes as Moka just leans into it, eyes fluttering shut. Between being sick the week before and now dealing with the injury and everything else that came with today, she doesn’t have the energy left to pretend to hate this, and Minju seems to get it.

“Come sit on the couch, food should be here soon.”
Moka lets Minju help her to the couch, and lets her tuck a blanket over Moka, too. The next twenty minutes pass in a haze of staring blankly at the television, and then delicious-smelling food is being placed in front of her.

“Thank you, Minju,” she mumbles, and then digs in.
After she finishes eating, wiping grease from her mouth onto the back of her hand and then blotting at it listlessly with a napkin, she’s helped back to her room by Yunah and Minju, one on each side.
“I need to shower,” Moka says, gaze landing on her bathroom door. “Can you do it by yourself?” asks Yunah. “Or do you need help?”

Moka feels herself flush. “Yunah,” she whines, and she pouts when she realizes she might genuinely struggle to stay upright on her own. “I don’t know. Maybe a bath? So I can be lying down, or sitting. I might need help getting out, though.”

Yunah nods, all business. “Okay, we can put some towels in the dryer and then—”

Minju waves Yunah off. “I’ve got it, Yunah-yah. You were on set longer than any of us, go rest.”
Yunah looks at Moka then, something inscrutable in her expression. Moka doesn’t know what she’s looking for, but she tries to convey reassurance, agreement. In reality, she’s too tired to care, and Minju seems like she has things under control. “It’s fine.”

“Just yell if you need anything,” says Yunah. She grabs one of Moka’s towels on the way out, bundling it in her arms, and the door shuts gently behind her.
“Do you need help undressing?” asks Minju, completely shamelessly. “No!” Moka practically shrieks. “No, oh my god. I’m fine.”

Minju frowns. “Yah, Sakai Moka, let me help you with your pants, at least. They’re so tight, how are you going to get them off without hurting yourself?”
Moka’s pants are, admittedly, very tight. They’re scrunched up above the brace on one leg, material creating little indentations in her skin. Keeping them on for much longer would likely result in bruises, but Minju is already kneeling down, deftly undoing the straps on Moka’s brace.

Her fingers are gentle, fingertips cool against Moka’s heated skin. She slowly rolls down the bunched jeans, then looks up at Moka, a question in her eyes. It feels like it matters, when Moka nods at her, just a small movement, so small Minju could have missed it altogether. But Minju doesn’t miss it. She lets Moka unbutton the jeans, peeling them down her body, and once they reach the knees Minju takes over, pulling gently, careful to stabilize Moka’s ankle. They’ve all picked up habits from their trainers over the years, especially when it comes to temporary injuries around the joints from overexertion or plain unluckiness, and it’s evident here.

Eventually, after a few tricky maneuvers, Moka is undressed from the waist down, and she closes her eyes. “Can you help me to the bathroom?”
“Yeah, of course.” Minju gets an arm around her waist and leads here there, and even turns the tap on for her, asking if she needs anything.
“No thank you,” she answers. “I’m okay. I’ll— I’ll let you know when I need help getting out?”
“Sure! I’ll just hang out in your room. Iroha got me hooked on a phone game and I think I’m going to be able to finally beat level seventy-nine.”
Moka smiles tiredly. “Good luck.”

Minju grins at her and leaves, shutting the door behind her. The mirror fogs up quickly, but the glimpse of her own face that Moka caught before it was obscured is wan, pale. She undresses the rest of the way and then sinks into the hot water. She’d considered throwing in a bath bomb, but she’s nervous about potential reactions with her skin, so she opts for some essential oil spray instead. She just soaks for a few moments, and then starts actually washing herself off. She won’t be able to do her hair properly by herself, but that’s a problem for future Moka, especially since they’ll be at radio interviews almost all day tomorrow. A beanie and an apologetic bow for not being able to dance will be enough to cover up any lingering grossness. Right now, she just wants to feel less terrible, and it helps to uncap the body wash and use it liberally.

Distantly, she hears the door of her bedroom open and close a couple of times, but it’s peaceful in here. She has a vague thought that it would be nice to just sleep in the bath; unfortunately, drowning would really throw a wrench in her long term goals.
Finally, she takes a deep breath, swirling the bubbles in the bath around with her fingers, before calling out. “Minju! Can you come?”

Minju walks in a few moments later, holding a fluffy towel up in front of her. “I brought a towel!”
“I see that,” replies Moka. She’d sunk a bit further into the water, nervous and self-conscious in a way she hasn’t felt in a long time. “Um. Help?”
“Yeah, yeah, here.” She steps closer and holds out her hand, keeping eye contact with Moka.
Part of Moka wants to ask her not to look while she helps, but most of her feels grounded by that gaze, by her dark eyes, and it’s enough to keep her from saying anything.

They manage it slowly, painfully. Minju’s own hip has been bothering her a bit as of late, so Moka tries not to rely on her entirely, but it’s hard when she accidentally steps on the wrong foot and yelps, splashing a little bit of water outside of the tub. “Sorry, sorry,” she says.

Minju laughs. “It’s fine, it's just water.” Once Moka is out of the tub, standing on the bath mat with all of her weight on one leg, Minju wraps the towel around her. It’s warm. Even warmer is the way Minju then rubs the outside of her arms and pulls her into a gentle hug.

Moka sighs into it, resting her forehead on Minju’s shoulder and breathing slowly. She’s not in so much pain anymore.

“Thank you, Minju,” she murmurs.
Minju kisses the top of her head. “What are girlfriends for?” she asks. It’s almost a joke, but not quite.

Moka doesn’t laugh. “Mm,” she answers instead.
“Do you need help drying off?” Minju asks. “Getting dressed?”

“No,” says Moka. And then, after a pause: “But— after, would you sleep in here?”
If Minju is taken aback, she doesn’t show it. “Sure. Just send me a message when I can come in, okay?”
Moka agrees easily, and Minju leaves her there to get herself together.

She takes her time, drying off every inch of her body and combing her hair, running through her skin care routine and limping over to where she keeps her softest pajamas. These are easier to navigate alone, and she even gets on a pair of fuzzy socks with little cat faces on them.

Okay, she sends Minju, and just that.
Minju replies with several overly enthusiastic stickers, all of which spill hearts all over their
conversation, and then there’s a knock at the door.
“Come in,” calls Moka. She’s already in bed, just the side table lamp on. The golden light frames Minju generously, resting upon her dark brown hair and casting shadow across her mouth, the bridge of her nose.

Minju is ready for bed, too. Her nightdress has vertical stripes and bows on it. Moka usually opts for an oversized t-shirt and compression shorts at most, considering tonight an exception for comfort’s sake, but Minju has always favored the feminine, and insists that dresses are the most comfortable thing to sleep in.

This is the moment where she should say something, Moka thinks, but she can’t find the right words, so she just peels up the side of the duvet.
Minju crawls in carefully, and then they’re lying down face to face. “How are you feeling?” she whispers.

“Better,” Moka whispers back.

“Good.” Minju smiles then, her eyes scrunching into crescent moons, and her hand finds Moka’s wrist under the duvet. Her cool fingers wrap around it. They rest on Moka’s quickening pulse.

This is far from the first time Moka has shared a bed with Minju or any of her members, but she can’t stop thinking about what Minju had said earlier, about being girlfriends. The game has already started, but Moka feels like she’s being left behind even though she’s the one who set it into motion in the first place. Minju makes it look so easy. Moka wants it to be easy, too.

It’s despite that, or maybe because of it, that she tilts her head up a little on the pillow to look at Minju and asks, in a small voice, “Minju, kiss me?”

Minju blinks. Blinks again. Then raises her eyebrows. “Now?”

“Yes, now,” hisses Moka. “What, did you think I meant tomorrow? How about an hour from—”
Her mini-tirade is cut off with a muffled sound as Minju presses their lips together. It’s just a small thing, dry and warm as their lips brush against each other, but it has Moka’s voice sticking in her throat, has her eyes fluttering shut. Oh, she thinks, because she was just kissed so tenderly she felt it all the way down to the dull throb in her ankle. Oh, because even in her wildest imaginings she couldn’t have predicted the way her heart is absolutely rabbiting in her chest, or the curl to her fingers like her body wants to reach out and touch, to pull Minju closer and not let her go.

This is not Moka’s first kiss, but it’s close. May as well be, for how nervous she feels.

It’s nothing like Sato after school next to the dango stand a few blocks from the company, how he messed up her hair so badly she got chewed out for unprofessional dress at practice. It’s nothing like Sakura and her shy doe eyes, so anxious about getting caught that she burst into tears as soon as their lips touched. Moka knows how to look like someone who is both innocent and a vixen, knows that the public wants her to simultaneously be a virgin and a whore in the exact ways they would prescribe for her, but her experience ends there, and she wonders how she did. If it was okay. If Minju is embarrassed of her now. If Minju will do it again.
“Okay?” Minju asks. The fact of her gaze is so heavy, pinning Moka down. It makes her want to reach over and turn the lamp off, but she doesn’t.
She nods. “Yeah.”

Minju bats her eyelashes, all aegyo, and the spell isn’t broken but it’s not as suffocating as it was before. “I can’t let my girlfriend go to sleep sad,” she insists, saccharine. She leans forward, and for a heart-stopping moment Moka thinks she’ll kiss her again, but Minju pecks her nose. Right on her mole and Moka feels like falling.
Moka groans.

That makes Minju laugh, and then that sets Moka off, and they two of them are giggling at each other for no discernible reason except that they kissed, and it was good, and the world hasn’t stopped turning. They say the word girlfriend all the time.

It’s a constant in their lives: Hi, we are— and yet something here is different each time, like the barest building blocks of something entirely new.
When they debuted, Moka was so nervous she almost threw up all over her stiff, uncomfortable shoes. It didn’t feel real that all of their practice, their hard work, the facial surgery consultations and exercise routines... it had led to this. A stage with a shouting crowd and hot lights. A group that would fuse so closely with her identity that in just a few short months she would stop responding automatically to her own name. It’s easier, sometimes, to listen for Moka. ILLIT Moka is even better, and almost as frequent.

Moka is cool. She’s powerful and ambitious, beautiful and effortless, whip-sharp and unselfconscious in every imaginable manner. She’s hot in an accessible way, just un-graceful enough to work perfectly as a stand-in in any random guy’s mind when it comes to love. The praises, the criticisms, they all go to Moka, and she likes it that way, but it’s hard to go home and see her family and remember that the version of her they know might not even exist anymore.

Moka doesn’t really know who she is these days. Is that the loneliness? Is that the fear?

Her laughter has trailed off by now, and Minju follows close behind, quietening. Her fingers are still wrapped around Moka’s wrist, and they tap in a little pattern.

“Sakai Moka,” Minju says, holding the name in her mouth like it matters, “light of my life, my girlfriend. Go to sleep now.”

Moka’s ankle barely hurts. She musters a small smile, tucking a piece of hair behind her own ear, and leans back.

It’s easy to shut her eyes, and much harder to fall asleep, but Moka has made a life of doing hard things, and it only takes a few minutes before the exhaustion of the day catches up with her and she’s out like a light.

/

The two weeks of recovery are exhausting primarily because she follows the doctor’s orders to the letter. No dragging herself anywhere she doesn’t need to, no dancing, no overexerting herself. No less than six hours of sleep a night whenever possible, and drinking plenty of water. The members are helpful but overbearing, constantly asking her what she needs.

Moka needs a break, mostly, and for her ankle to heal, but neither of those things are happening unless decreed by the powers that be, so she does her best to be patient, to smile. She tries not to snap. She’s not very good at not snapping, but hopefully it’s the thought that counts.
The dance teachers are kind, at least, congratulating them on Instagram and texting her to wish her a speedy recovery. She gets a lot of hugs.
Minju keeps an arm around her waist, lingering, supportive.

They haven’t told the members anything. Moka wonders if they’re seeing anything different when Minju kisses her temple and Moka doesn’t pull away. Or when they make eye contact and it lingers for more than 10 seconds. If they do, they don’t mention it. If they don’t, it must not be particularly remarkable. Moka doesn’t know which option is better and which is worse, and she tries not to twist herself into knots thinking too closely about it.

“Tea,” Minju says, bringing it over on Moka’s last day wearing the brace full time. It’s itchy, and Moka had to stay home for an hour and a half while they recorded a relay dance. Apparently it couldn’t wait, public already clamoring for their next comeback that’s still a month out, their star rising. Moka knows better than to get her hopes up; they say this every time, and even if it does feel like more people are paying attention... Moka knows how to have eyes on her. Knows that fame is not a kindness, or a gift. If this is the thing that blows them up, that broadens their reach, that connects them to more people, so be it, but Moka won’t hold her breath.

Moka nods, reaching for it. The mug is warm in her hands, which are cold even as the last of the winter snow melts away outside. “Thanks,” she murmurs.
Minju kisses the top of her head and then sits next to her on the loveseat, hand draping possessively over Moka’s thigh.

This is their normal, now. It will be until their next appearance on the same variety show that started this whole thing, and then— well, after that, Moka supposes they’ll go back to normal, whatever that is. Whatever that was.

Speaking of, actually: “Minju,” she says, “what are you doing on Sunday?”

It’s their first full day off in a while, not counting the early morning photoshoot they have for some promotional things. Minju taps her chin as she thinks, which is disgustingly endearing, and then she

shrugs. “Nothing really. I was going to do some emails and call my mom back, maybe see a movie. You have a better offer?”
“Maybe,” Moka says, when she really means yes. The more of Minju’s attention she has, the greedier she is for it, and so far there’s no upper bound that she can find. Just more, and more, and more in turn. “I was wondering if you wanted to go to the beach with me, actually.”

“On a date?” Minju’s eyes light up.
Moka shrugs. “I mean, I’ll definitely be taking pictures. I still have three instances of wooing you to record as proof.”

The first being the breakfast she’d made a few weeks ago, and the second being a simple screenshot of a text message she’d sent a few days ago that said, embarrassingly, Have a good day at your set, Minju—you’ll be amazing like you always are, so no need to worry. Sakai Moka is cheering you on! Fighting! It’s only embarrassing because she hadn’t even thought of using it as proof; Minju had been nervous that day, self-conscious about a breakout at her jaw when the photoshoot was mostly about closeups and natural beauty, and Moka only screenshotted it after Minju got home and coddled her into submission on the couch.

“When you put it so romantically...” starts Minju, but she can’t finish before breaking out into a loud, honking laugh.

Moka grins. “So that’s a yes?”
“It’s a yes,” Minju says, so Moka adds a couple more bullets to the note she’s made about the next day.
If this is practice dating—as she keeps needing to remind herself—then she’s going to be damn good at it.

/

They get done with the photoshoot early, miracle of miracles, and Moka’s hair and makeup are already cute enough that she doesn’t even need to touch them up before the date. She’s promised her doctor that she won’t push it even though the brace is only on part-time now. It’s feeling way better, but she is in no place to risk anything, and the date she has planned has minimal walking.

Minju is bouncing on her toes outside of the car as she waits for Moka to limp her way over, hands clasped in front of her. “Brunch?” she asks.
Moka laughs. The first point on her date agenda is, Food, or Minju will get tetchy with me . “Yes, food. We have reservations.”

As soon as they get into the car, both of them piled into the backseat, Minju twines their fingers together. “You know how to take care of your Daarin” she sing-songs to Moka.

Moka snaps her teeth at her, as if to bite. All at the same time she hopes Minju doesn’t notice her burning ears.

Minju gasps with a hand over her heart. “I’m being sweet to you and you’re being like this?” “Mmhm,” Moka sing-songs back at her.

They hadn’t kissed since that first time, and the memory is still delicate like spun sugar in Moka’s mind. In some ways it’s embarrassing to reflect on, the sheer vulnerability that she’d projected in the moment, the way her voice had nearly cracked when she spoke her desire into the tremulous air. So maybe she wants to provoke Minju into kissing her again without having to ask.

Minju seems oblivious, though, switching to playing with Moka’s fingers, spinning the ring around her middle finger around a few times before putting it back into place, little green gemstone facing up and perfectly centered. Her hands are so gentle with Moka, a far cry from dramatic play slap- fights or affronted shoves.

She keeps going like that until they arrive at the restaurant, and then they have to readjust their masks and put their hats and sunglasses back on. Better to be undisturbed for at least most of today —Moka hopes the universe is on their side for this one.

And it is, for brunch at least. The host seats them by the water, obviously a little starstruck after reading the name on the reservation, but she doesn’t push or ask for anything, just bows in a little rush and ducks away. The table is pale wood, fancy lighting fixture above them in the shape of a seashell, and the seats are comfortable, cushioned with light blue and angled just slightly towards the view.

“Wow,” Minju murmurs appreciatively. It’s clear out today after a heavy rain the night before, and the water is bluer than Moka remembers seeing it in the last year or two, when they’ve only been able to sneak away to the beach in their moments off or for a particular work commitment, usually in the evening when the waves are rougher and the light is worse.

Moka has always loved the beach, especially at her homeland japan and finds herself missing it often. Going as a child was a special memory, a long bus drive with her parents that inevitably ended in her receiving more snacks than she was supposed to have and then a long, loud romp in the ocean with her brother while her parents mostly lounged and yelled at them to be careful. The smell of sunscreen brings her back, even now.

They order fancy mocktails, cute drinks with long bendy straws that are perfect for photographing, and Moka takes a few pictures, both for the variety show and for her Instagram to post later. Minju busies herself doing the same, and then they order real food, seafood prepared in a fusion of trendy and traditional methods.

Brunch is finished soon, and then it’s time for a short walk. Minju protests, but Moka can walk, and it’s good to get a little bit of movement in now that her ankle is on the mend for real. It’s such a gorgeous day out, anyway, that Minju doesn’t protest for very long. The fine mist brushes against their skin in waves, their hands are intertwined, and they’re both smiley, laughing, bright.

Moka is happy.

Funny, how deep that resonates. Everything about this moment is uncomplicated.

“You’re a good date,” Minju tells her, swinging their hands between them. “I thought you needed practice.”

“I did,” Moka insists. The validation warms her against the cool breeze. “It takes two to have a good date, anyway.”

Minju puts her free hand over her heart. “Ah, and now you’re complimenting me. You’ve been so nice to me lately, wah.”

“Aren’t girlfriends supposed to be nice?” Moka asks.

There’s a pause, just slight enough that Moka wouldn’t have noticed if she wasn’t listening for it, and then Minju looks at her properly, so much so that Moka has to focus on the path ahead to make sure neither of them runs into anything. “Well, yeah,” says Minju, “but that’s so generic. Every girlfriend can’t be exactly the same as another, otherwise how would you even decide who to date?”
“That’s about the person, though, not— not the dating.” “Is it?”

Moka doesn’t know when they started arguing semantics, but she’d rather like to stop. “I just meant that I want to be nice to you, if I’m your girlfriend.” A breath. “Your practice girlfriend,” she corrects. “You know what I meant.”

“Yeah,” says Minju, still too thoughtful for Moka to fully let her guard down.

But the moment is miraculously interrupted by what they see when they turn the corner.

“Ice cream!” yells Minju, pointing with her free hand at the little shop a couple of doors down. It’s crowded, tourists and locals alike waiting in line for their turn, but Minju looks so delighted, and Moka had dessert down on her list anyway.

“I’ll treat,” she says, tugging Minju over in that direction. It'll give her a chance to get off of her feet once they sit down. There have been a couple of managers tailing them from a distance, just keeping an eye out, and Moka turns to catch one of their eyes now.

"Oppa," she calls, and points. He sighs and nods. She can't blame him for being hesitant, but Moka can't worry about risk right now. There's no room in her head for anything outside of fun, and brightness, and Minju's dark curious eyes.

The line moves quickly, Moka spending most of it taking goofy pictures of Minju. They’re almost to the front when she notices that people are taking pictures of her.

“Ah,” she murmurs to Minju, “I think we’re being recognized.”

Minju pouts and turns to their managers, who are creating a bit of a shield around them now. “Do we need to leave?”

“Can we get our ice cream first?” asks Moka.
“Moka—,” starts the manager from before, but Minju interrupts him, pulling down her sunglasses and looking up from where she’d been aggressively tapping on her phone.

“It’s fine. They haven’t posted anything yet, and I’ll ask them not to.” She disappears quickly.
“You’re the best!” Minju calls after her, and Moka nods in agreement.

It’s a bit harrowing by the time they’re leaving, cameras in their faces and some shouting, but it’s nothing they haven’t dealt with before—and that’s another reason the words big break inspire such a mixed reaction in Moka. She can’t imagine more of this: more pushing, more scrutiny, more hands that reach out as if to touch. As if touching would be the greatest honor, and not another thing making Moka feel dirty.

But it’s fine, and they’re grateful, and Moka wouldn’t be Moka without these people, would she?
“We love you,” she calls as the door to the car is shutting behind her, ice cream cone in one hand and Minju’s hand clutched in the other, and the resulting shriek is— fanatical, evangelical, adrenaline-inducing.

Minju laughs once they start pulling away, knocks on the window disappearing as the car begins to move. “Whew, that was fun. Haven’t done that in a while, huh?”

“I’m glad they like the new song,” Moka says diplomatically.

Minju laughs harder, like Moka has told a joke, and extricates her hand. She tucks into her ice cream happily, making a little noise of appreciation when the taste hits her tongue. She’d gone for green tea, while Moka had chosen the decidedly sweeter strawberry.

They’re listening to the radio, and Moka isn’t really paying attention, instead watching the road spool out on the other side of the window. The ocean gets smaller and then smaller again. When they get home, it won’t smell like salt at all.
“Hey,” Minju says, smacking her arm and tugging her out of her thoughts. “It’s us.”

“What?” asks Moka, a moment before she processes the music coming from the radio. It’s Magnetic, whimsical and innocent and new like an echo of the people they wished to be and aren’t anymore. “Ah, yes. The pinnacle of ILLIT, it’s like it was yesterday.”

During the filming of the Magnetic video, Moka stuck close to Yunah and Iroha, mostly, the two people she was most comfortable with at the time. Iroha knows well about her, knew her too well to be a soft place to land. Wonhee was too busy working herself to the bone, and it was hard to watch it without either feeling pity or self-reproach. And Minju...

Minju was growing into her face. Was jumping in a white long sleeve top with a bright smile and braided hair and hands that were pure music. Regardless all the members wore the same outiff and had the same hairstyles, Minju was so bright Moka didn’t know how to look at her head on. Moka laughs with her whole body, sometimes to the point that it brings tears to her eyes, but she doesn’t feel the way Minju does.

Doesn’t think she ever has, and wonders if she ever will. What she remembers about the shoot is the dappled sunlight on Minju’s back, and the shrieks of laughter as they attempted the stunt over, and over, and over.

“Mm,” agrees Minju. “Wonheenie was so small.”
Moka snorts. Wonhee would hit them for it if she were here, but she really had such a baby face. “She was cute.”

“You were cute too Moka-chan.” “What? It was a long time ago.”

“But it was like yesterday, wasn’t it?”
Moka sighs. “Okay, okay.” In the background, the song begins to taper out, and Moka exhales in relief. The road is clear. Minju is just about finished with her ice cream, and Moka’s is starting to melt.

“This was a nice date,” Minju says after a moment, in a clear, earnest voice. “Thank you for bringing me, Daarin. I can’t wait for the next one.”
The japanese pet name sends a fresh flush careening up Moka’s chest, coloring her neck, her ears, her

cheeks. “I’m glad you had fun,” she replies, and tries not to sound too embarrassed. She wills the ride to pass quickly after that, and the remaining thirty minutes are thankfully not awkward as she rides side by side with her girlfriend, who had fun on their date, who told her that she had fun and wants to do it again twice more.

It’s practice, it’s pretend, it was never going to be anything more than that. So what is there to be embarrassed about?

/

When they get home, she beelines for Iroha’s room and knocks: two long, three short, and one more long at the end, familiarly sounded like that one famous japanese nursery rhyme. Their very own S.O.S. signal, developed just weeks into being roommates together after Youngseo left. Iroha used it the first time when one of the producers had tried to hit on her, and Moka broke it in with a classic breakdown about the pressure of impending debut. Ever since, it’s been a mainstay in their friendship, not only as members going through the trials and tribulations of RUNEXT together, but as the only japanese member in the group.

“Come in!” comes Iroha’s voice, signalling Moka that she’s free to whatever Moka will come complain her to, with their own mother tongue.

Moka pushes her way through the door, leading with her shoulder and collapsing tiredly against it once it closes behind her. She’s only been home from the beach for about two minutes, long enough to put on house shoes and grab a glass of water, but she’s so emotionally worn out she could fall onto the floor and just... sleep. She’s also agitated enough to practically be bouncing out of her skin, though, thoughts racing too quickly to keep up with, and that’s where Iroha comes in. Regardless of their age difference, the two has its own connection. And Moka thinks because probably they’re both japanese.

“What’s the emergency?” Iroha asks interestedly. She puts her phone down and places the book that was face down on her lap on the nightstand next to her.

Moka comes to sit next to her, cross-legged on the bed. “Minju and I are dating.” Moka says in her thick fukuoka accent. “What?” demands Iroha.

“It’s not real,” Moka says immediately. “I’m so stupid, oh my god.”

“Back up,” Iroha says, tucking a lock of jet black hair behind her ear. Her eyes have gone as round as coins. “What does that mean, that it’s not real? You’re pretending? Is this about that variety show game?”

Moka fidgets for a moment before uncrossing her legs and folding them out in front of her, dropping her hands unceremoniously into her lap. “Kind of. After I picked her, I just... I don’t know. I was thinking about dating, and how I’ve never dated anyone, and I kind of panicked about it. I kept thinking, what happens after this group? If someone wants to date me and I’m terrible at it, and no one loves me because I don’t know what to do, or how to kiss, or—”

“You kissed?” Iroha interrupts, voice shooting up an octave.

Moka shushes her quickly, waving her hands. “Stop, stop freaking out. I didn’t come to you so you would freak out.”

“Sorry,” Iroha apologizes in Korean, “I was just surprised. I knew you guys had been closer lately, but— unnie is always trying to get closer to you. I just figured you decided to let her, and that you’d stopped... I don’t know, being weird about it.”

“Weird? I’m not weird.”

Iroha laughs at that. “Sure.” “What?”
“You’re weird about her. You kind of always have been. It’s fine, it’s not anything.” Iroha waves a dismissive hand. “I didn’t notice you two were acting weird because I feel like you’re always kind of awkward, and this was just an evolution of that strangeness instead of something completely new. But it sounds like I was pretty off base.”

Iroha has a way of prettying her words when she needs to, pausing thoughtfully before turning the world into a slightly more manageable place simply by sharing her perspective. She has a way of sharing hard truths too, though. Of staring a challenge in the face and calling it exactly what it is.

Moka takes a deep breath and tries to give Iroha what she needs to make sense of this. “I thought it would be easier, since I like spending time with her. She makes things less scary, and she pulls me out of my head. When she wants something, she reaches for it, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a success or an object or— or a person. When she wants me, she reaches for me. And I guess I just thought that it might be easy to reach back. And we could be girlfriends for a while, until I got the hang of it for whoever I date in the future. And yes, that included kissing, but not a lot. Just the once.”

“Just the once,” Iroha repeats, sounding kind of overwhelmed. “Okay, wait, this is obviously weird, but why is it an emergency? You SOS knocked, that’s serious.”

Moka gets the sense that Iroha is teasing, just gently, but she ignores it. “How is it not an emergency?”

Iroha just arches a brow at her, waiting for a further explanation.

“Fine, fine. It’s kind of overwhelming. We’ve been holding hands and cuddling a lot, I keep cooking her food, and she’s been taking care of me so much. I wanted to return the favor so I took her on a date today—well, I also just wanted to plan a date to see if I could do it well—and it was really nice even though we got a little mobbed. I hate getting mobbed. But she was laughing, and it was like it was okay. If I was there with her, I didn’t have to worry about it so much. I could laugh too.”

“Okay—”

“And Magnetic came on the radio, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how it felt when we were filming it. Do you remember? We were so nervous, it was our debut and we needed it to be so good. But she seemed so happy on the set.”

Iroha opens her mouth to speak again, but Moka steamrolls right over her, needing to get all of this out before it ends up locked inside of her forever. “And the times she’s been so upset during practice, or off on her own, and she needed me to be there for her. She really needed me. I think I get scared sometimes that she doesn’t anymore, or that it’s unbalanced because I rely on her so much. I pretend I don’t want people to be soft with me but it’s only because I— I’m scared.” She blinks hard, a single tear dropping down her face. She scrubs it away with an impatient hand. “Roha-yah, what happens after all of this? What if we get more famous? What if we don’t, and then we have to disband, and everyone forgets about us? I don’t know how to do this. I think I pretended I did for a really long time, but pretending more is just— it’s just hurting me, more than I thought it would, and I really, really don’t know what to do.”

“Whoa,” Iroha says gently, hand on Moka’s arm,
“you don’t have to have it all figured out.”

“I wish I did,” Moka whispers back.
Iroha makes a little sound, sympathetic, and scoots closer. She nudges up against Moka’s side and rests her head against Moka’s shoulder. “Come on, breathe. You’re freaking yourself out. Have you been thinking about this a lot?”

Moka sniffles, nods.

“Well, I have great news for you.”
“What?” asks Moka, only a little wetly.
Iroha shifts her face so it’s halfway mashed into Moka’s shoulder. “You’re in love with Minju- unnie, so that makes one thing easier, at least.”
Moka’s entire body flashes cold and then hot so fast it almost makes her dizzy. “What?” she asks, and this time it doesn’t wobble at all.

Iroha sounds infuriatingly unbothered when she responds, “Did you seriously not know?”
“You— you’re— that’s ridiculous. I might think she’s hot and like it when she takes care of me, but in love? You’re joking. And even if I was, how would that make anything easier? That’s like, a million times more complicated.”

“Doesn’t have to be,” answers Iroha with a shrug.
“Don’t say this to me,” says Moka, and it sounds like a plea. Like begging.

Iroha sighs. “Moka-unnie, you can’t just run away when someone tells you the truth. Minju has been trying to tell you something for a really long time, I think. From the outside, I thought you finally heard her, but even if you didn’t... think about it.”

Moka lets herself collapse back against the headboard, taking Iroha with her until they’re more or less cuddling, Iroha half on top of her and Moka feeling grounded by the smothering weight of another body. When she speaks, her voice sounds small and vulnerable even to her own ears. “Do you really think she loves me?”

“Yeah,” says Iroha, quiet, soft.

“Oh.”

“You should think about it.”
“I will, but I kind of just want to sleep right now,” Moka says.

Iroha huffs a little laugh against Moka’s neck. “It’s barely evening.”

“We have a fifteen hour day tomorrow,” Moka shoots back, and Iroha groans.

“Don’t remind me.”
“We can both sleep,” Moka says. “Maybe I’ll just sleep here right now. Will you tell on me if I don’t wash my face?”

“Your zits will tell on you.”
“Yah,” whines Moka, but she pushes Iroha off so she can get up. “Fine, I’ll sleep in my room.” She sticks her tongue out for good measure. Whatever it takes to keep the mood light like this.

But Iroha has always seen through her, and this is no different. “Think about it, seriously. You need to talk to her for real at some point.” “We talk,” Moka defends weakly.

“Uh huh.” Iroha’s sharp expression belies her caring. It’s her concern and her willingness to push here that most assure Moka that there’s something visible from the outside, even if it wasn’t the thing she thought it was.

Moka runs a hand over her hair and winces when she feels how rough it is from all of the oceanside wind she’d pushed it through earlier today. Maybe a shower, too, before bed, she amends, even if she’d taken one that morning. “I’m leaving,” she says, and then, just before she shuts the door, “Thanks.”

’You’re welcome! comes Iroha’s voice from the other side of the door, and Moka laughs, exhausted, as she returns to her room to sort herself and turn in for the night.

/

Her dreams that night are strange. It’s a mishmash of normal and fantastical, a scene where she dances their choreography from inside of a cage, her energy harnessed to power a city, immediately followed by a moment where she goes to push hair out of Minju’s face only to find that her hands have been replaced by lobster claws, and in her clumsiness she accidentally hits Minju in the cheek. Despite the absurdity, the immediate guilt Moka feels in the dream is real, and only deepens when dream Minju yells at her.

“Be careful!” she’s shouting. “God, you never think about anyone but yourself.” “I didn’t mean to,” Moka stutters back, but it’s not enough.

By the time she wakes, she can’t remember anything else that was yelled in the dream, but it had been a tirade, and the shame sticks to her like an oil spill, covering her skin, her hair, her nails. She’s gasping a little, and feels that her temple is wet with tears on the side she’d slept on.
“Ha,” she tries to laugh, because that had been absurd, weird, but this is the kind of thing that lingers.

She feels it in the car on the way to their first interview of the day on a radio show, slipping quietly into the empty seat next to Jeemininstead of her usual spot in the back rabble-rousing with Minju.
Yunah, for her part, doesn’t seem confused or surprised, and she’s gracious when Moka doesn’t really respond to her attempts at conversation. It just makes Moka feel worse.

“You okay?” Wonhee finally asks, five minutes from the station’s building. “Weird dreams,” Moka responds. “I’m fine. I’m still waking up a little bit.”

Wonhee coos a little, rubbing at Moka’s shoulder. “Poor baby. You could’ve come slept with me.”
If Moka had woken Wonhee up in the middle of the night by crawling into her bed, she’d likely have gotten punched in the neck thanks to Yunah’s terrifying reflexes. She doesn’t say that. “Thanks, Won.”

“Drink a lot of water when we get there.”
Moka nods. She’s not sure how that will help, but hydrating never hurts.

From behind them, Minju’s head pokes up between the headrests, forehead creased in near-comical concern. “You slept badly?”

“Yeah,” Moka answers.

“I’m sorry,” says Minju, and she genuinely sounds it. “I hope you feel better! Fighting!”

Hearing her sweet tone directed at Moka so kindly does, actually, knock loose some of the tightness in Moka’s chest. It’s easier not to fixate on the lingering negative emotions when the real Park Minju is looking at her with big tragic eyes with a fist raised in the air in a gesture of support.

Moka chuckles. “You look ridiculous.”

Minju pouts, but her eyes light up a bit. “Rude.” “I’m just being honest.”

Minju gasps, and then they’re off, bickering for the remaining few minutes before the car stops. Something falls into place inside of Moka that she hadn’t even realized was off, and she hears Wonhee’s voice in her head, chiding, worrying, encouraging.

There’s something to look at here, she thinks.
They get inside, accepting offers of water and mints and bracing against the cold of the air- conditioned interior. They’re led to their seats, and Yunah begins speaking animatedly with one of the hosts as they wait for the other. Wonhee joins the conversation, and Moka sighs, exhausted. She rests her head against the headrest and closes her eyes.

/

The days pass in a busy rush after that, until nearly a week has passed and between videos for their fans, upcoming award show style consultations, and dance and vocal practices, Moka is feeling overloaded and like she very much does not have time to think about the bright-laughed, cheerful, clingy elephant in the room.

Minju seems as unbothered as ever, continuing to annoy Moka between obligations with a smile on her face. They have been closer than ever since the fake girlfriend arrangement and Moka isn’t sure on how to calm herself down everytime she thinks their awkwardness has died down, and so is their affection has been over the hill. Moka bears it as she has for the last month—gratefully, and with little true annoyance.

“You two have gotten really close,” Yunah murmurs at one point after Minju kisses Moka’s forehead on the way to the bathroom.
Moka shrugs. “Yeah.”

Yunah nods like she’s approving of something, and then says, “You took that variety show assignment seriously. It’s nice, I wasn’t sure you would.”

“You weren’t?”
Yunah levels her with a look.
“Okay, fine, I get why. I don’t know, it’s been nice. We already spent a lot of time together, but it’s nice when we both know we want to be doing it.”
“Even when the schedule is busy?” “Yeah,” says Moka.

Yunah nods again, and then smiles. Her smile is a lot more genuine when she’s not onstage, and it has the effect of making her seem startled every time it happens, like happiness without an audience is something that needs to be surprised out of her for her to show it. “Our fans will love it if you ace the quiz at the end.”

Right, the quiz. Moka had forgotten about it entirely in her quest to get great pictures to show off. “We will,” she says anyway, all confidence, and then Yunah is being tugged off by a makeup noona to touch up her foundation and Moka is alone on the couch again with ten minutes left to finish eating her sad-looking salad.

Minju comes back a few moments later with fresh lipstick and a smile flirting with the edges of her mouth. “Moka-chan, I think I lost my phone in there, will you help me look?” She’s holding a packet of makeup wipes, but no phone.

Moka is suspicious of her, but she’s way more interesting than the remnants of lettuce she’s been shifting around the plastic tray for the better part of twenty minutes, so she gets up and goes.
As soon as they get into the bathroom, an open area with two stalls and a few sinks, Minju bends down to check if anyone is inside.

“Minju?,” Moka questions,, but she’s ignored.
Minju spins around to lock the door, and then pushes Moka up against the sink. Moka’s lower back digs into the counter, and she’s sure her eyes must be wide.

“I don’t think your phone is over here,” she says.
Minju’s smile grows bigger, shows her teeth. “No,” she agrees. Her hands find Moka’s waist. “Oh well, it’s probably in my purse. But we have five minutes to kill before this filming, and I just had this crazy idea for what we could do.” Her gaze rakes up Moka’s body and lands on her mouth.

“Scandalous, M-minju..” “Only if we get caught.”
Moka has to concede that point, and she only has time to raise an eyebrow before Minju is on her, crowding up against her, hips flush against Moka’s, lipstick easing the slide of their lips. This time, Minju kisses her like she wants to fuck her up, and Moka gets lost in it. When Minju’s teeth start to tug against Moka’s bottom lip, it pulls a little sound out of her, and Minju’s responding low chuckle sings up Moka’s spine.

Everything Moka knows for the next hazy stretch of minutes is Minju. Minju’s thumb rubbing over her shirt, Minju’s leg nudging just gently between hers, Minju’s hot mouth and the way she uses it. If this is what it is to kiss your girlfriend, Moka thinks dizzily, then she never wants to be single again.

A loud pounding on the door startles them apart. “Minju-ah! Moka-yah!”

It’s their manager, and she sounds angry. Moka catches her own reflection in the mirror and boggles—there’s lipstick everywhere, smeared across her mouth and over her cheek, and her hair is all kinds of a mess. “Shit,” she says.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” answers Minju, sounding just a little bit breathless. She opens the pack of makeup wipes and steps back into Moka’s space. “Can I?”
“Be quick,” Moka says, because she can’t bring herself to say now. “We’re coming!” Minju calls. “Woman emergency!”

It will, hopefully, buy them enough time to get decent. Minju’s expression is devastatingly focused as she swipes over Moka’s skin with firm, deliberate movements. The wipe gets progressively pinker, and the cold of it makes Moka’s lips tingle. It’s nearly as electrifying as it was to be kissed, especially when Minju is towering over her.

“All done,” says Minju, quiet.

Moka blinks up at her, and then straightens. She hadn’t even realized she’d been slouching back against the counter. “Thanks, Minju.”

“Fix your hair while I redo my lipstick,” Minju says.
Moka does as she’s told. Her hair is all over the place, but it had been curled earlier while she sat in the chair smelling all of the products they’d put in, so it’s not hard to rearrange when she has the leeway to fold some pieces under each other, tucking pieces back into bigger curls. When she’s finally satisfied, she turns to see Minju doing more or less the same, fixing her hair with her now perfect makeup. When she catches Moka’s gaze in the mirror, she grins and waggles her eyebrows.
“I can’t believe you,” Moka says in japanese.

It’s a lie. She can absolutely believe that Minju would do something like this. It’s the fact that she wanted to, though. That she wanted to with Moka.
Moka thinks, when she wants me, she reaches for me. And then she thinks, what about the girl standing in front of you who loves you? and has to push the entire matter from her mind.

Minju just shrugs happily, bumping their hips.
“We should face the music,” Moka says.
Minju sighs then, gusty and dramatic. “I guess. At least we’re warmed up.”

Moka splutters over her laughter. “Warmed up?” she demands, and feels her face start to flush at the implications.

“To show our love to GLITTS, obviously,” Minju replies.

“Obviously,” echoes Moka, droll, and she takes one more steadying breath before they walk out together to the unimpressed glares from staff and members alike.

Minju pretends to bow, and Iroha laughs and starts cheering for her while Yunah and Wonhee both boo.
“Okay, enough,” says their manager, “you needed to have started filming about five minutes ago. Get on set, watch the teleprompter, and remember: smile.”

/

By the end of the day, Moka’s cheeks are aching. They take some pictures at golden hour, and she’s not sure the expression on her face is attractive at all. It feels like a grimace. Almost hurts. She’s in a strange, avant-garde dress with inordinately puffy sleeves for a magazine spread, and she’s already forgotten the direction she was given a few moments before. She tries to smile even more brightly, widening her eyes a little despite the sun in her face. She has a few seconds before they start to water, and she looks directly at the camera where it covers the photographer’s face.

“Beautiful!” he shouts from behind the lens. “Try a few with your eyes shut, big smile, there you go.”
Like anything, this is a muscle.

“Two more, just like that— perfect, perfect, you’re done!”

There is some light applause on set as she bows, thanking the staff for their time and making her way back toward the refreshment table to grab some snacks and a bottle of juice.

She finds Iroha there in an equally fluffy dress, makeup done so that her lips look like a literal heart, all pursed and delicate.

“I look like a doll,” Iroha says, spinning around.
Moka can’t tell if she’s pleased or disappointed by her tone, so she nods in solidarity. “Me too Roha-ya.”

“Let’s eat carbonara tonight,” Iroha says.
It’s not in their diets, but few things are these days, and ever since the company lightened up on them they’ve had an easier time taking risks and messing around. And honestly, Moka is way more likely to make it through a day without complaining if there are noodles waiting at the end of it. She has one more big obligation to get through before she can get home, so “tonight” is still at least two hours away, but the prospect has her grinning anyway, in a way that hurts a little.

“Yes,” she replies. “Absolutely. You’re a genius.”
Iroha smiles peacefully at her, eyes shutting like she’s communing with the air. “I know.”
“Pfft. Well, good luck with the shoot. Fighting.”
“Thanks, Moka-unnie, good luck with your...”
“Interview,” she supplies. “Print, though. The company wanted me to talk more about potential choreographing for our next comeback, inspirations and stuff.”

Iroha nods appreciatively. “Nice. You’re excited?” “I think it’ll be fine. The interviewer—”

“Not about the interview, about the choreographing.”

Moka frowns. “I mean, yeah. Of course. It’s a big opportunity.”

Iroha frowns back, a mirror. “And you’re excited for yourself too, as Sakai Moka?”

That tugs a small huff of laughter from Moka, the sudden informality. “Since when does Sakai Moka have opinions about work things like this?”
“She should,” Iroha says. “Hokazono Iroha does.”
“I’ll get back to you on that one,” Moka promises. Before long she’ll have things to report back to every member with the way she’s been going lately. This one feels easy, though. If Moka is excited, Moka is excited. Why wouldn’t she be? It’s the next step as a dancer, something that can set her apart from others in similar groups, and it could set her up for work outside of idoldom in the future. It’s a place where her passion intersects with her talent and skill. It should make her happy.

Iroha beams at her, chin tucking forward just a bit as she does, before waving at her as she flounces up to the set.
Moka watches her for a moment, and then she turns to leave.

/

It’s another two hours before she makes it home to eat carbonara. The interviewer had been nice, if a bit wooden, either too new to be willing to take chances during the conversation or too set in her ways to deviate from a script. It was a fine interview. It didn’t make Moka think too hard, and it stayed firmly in the realm of professionalism.
“How was it?” Yunah asks, mouth already full. They’d ordered without Moka but saved her some food.

Moka starts making herself a plate. “Good,” she says. “How was your stuff?” Yunah had a phone meeting with a potential new manager earlier, the last step in a long interview process. She’d had to fight even for that.

“Good,” Yunah echoes. “He seemed nice, professional. I think they’re going to hire him.” Moka nods.

She doesn’t know why she’s so tired. Some distant part of her thinks that days this long were easier when she was a teenager, but she’s still young, theoretically in her physical prime. Their schedule was almost 15 hours today, but they’ve had longer. They will have longer again someday, and that someday is more likely than not in their near future, maybe multiple times. The somedays stretch ahead of her, and Moka takes a deep breath and then a big bite of carbonara, and the panic recedes.
“Where’s Minju?” she asks.

Iroha shoots her a knowing look, which Moka ignores. “In her room,” answers Yunah.
Moka nods and goes to find her, bringing her plate along. It’s poor etiquette to stand in someone’s doorway eating noodles, but it’s not like she hasn’t done it before, and some part of her just—

wants to see Minju and know she’s there. Wants to be near her, even after the chaos of today. Minju is her own brand of chaos, but it is a kind that Moka can bear.

She knocks with her free hand. “Minju?”
“Yeah! Come in!”

Moka opens the door, nudging her way in with her hip. “Minju,” she immediately drawls, “I’m tired.”
“Aww, Daarin, you’re tired?” Minju’s voice is syrup, and nothing about it should make Moka feel safe.
There’s just something about her. The combination of every piece of her put together: her messy brown hair, roots just barely starting to peek through; her dancing lips that always seem on the verge of pulling into a smile; her unmatched socks. Moka wants to crawl into her lap and stay there. She could. She might, even, if she wasn’t holding this plate of food.

Instead of planting herself atop Minju’s thighs, she leans against the doorframe. “Yeah. Today was so long. We barely have time to do anything before tomorrow.”

“We can eat, shower, and sleep,” offers Minju, “but I know what you mean. I’m pretty exhausted too.”
“Imagine having another afternoon free,” sighs Moka wistfully. “We could go to a cafe and drink coffee and eat cake, and then we could go shopping and get matching hats, and—”

Minju sounds amused when she interrupts. “Is this another date you’re planning?”

Moka takes a bite of food so quickly she almost chokes on it, and then has to pause for a moment to calm down before she can speak. “Yeah. Whenever we have time, I thought it might be nice.”
“And the last one?” asks Minju. “Do you have that planned too?”

Moka does, but she doesn’t think it’s a plan she can use unless she wants to show more of her cards than she already has. “Maybe,” she says, playing it coy for now. “Why, did you want to plan one?”
Minju laughs. “Last I checked, you’re the one who’s supposed to be wooing me. By the way—did you ever get the questions for that quiz?”
“No, do you think I will?”

“Potentially,” Minju says. “They want it to feel unplanned, but it would be pretty awkward if we did poorly, right? The whole point is to show that you succeeded. It would be easier to do if you had the questions. Maybe a manager will have them soon to give to you.”

It’s a good thought, and it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve been prepared for interviews or appearances, especially ones where they’ll be put on the spot. She’s not sure, though... this show seems to really value off the cuff thinking, and Moka thinks the audience might be just as satisfied watching her flounder. “We could practice a few possible questions, just in case they don’t.”

Minju cocks her head with interest. “Like what?”
Moka casts her memory back, trying to recall past events like this that she’s watched as a viewer rather than as an idol. “Like, what is a hobby you’ve been into lately? And you would write down your answer, and I would say, games, because you’ve been playing so many games.”
“I do like games,” muses Minju. She’s lounging atop her duvet, legs long in her sleep shorts, and Moka’s eyes keep catching on the soft skin of her thighs. “Okay, how about a harder one? How often do I call my oppa?”

“Once a week?” guesses Moka, waving her hand around a little to indicate the give or take of a day or two.

Minju’s eyes light up. “Wah, you’re good at this. What were you even worried about?” “That was just two questions!”

“You worry too much,” Minju shoots back. “Finish your food and then come lay with me.”

And with such a tempting offer, how can Moka say no? She eats the rest of her carbonara right there in Minju’s doorway, listening to the music Minju put on in the background and zoning out. She’s been staring at the wall for a good minute or two when she realizes that her chopsticks are just hitting the plate, and she departs to wash her dish and pack away the rest of the carbonara on the counter. When she’s done with that, she takes a quick shower, puts on comfortable clothes, and makes her way back to Minju’s room.

This time, she enters without knocking, and Minju looks up with a soft, sleepy smile. She’s under the duvet, hair in a loose braid, and she reaches out a hand.

Moka tucks herself into Minju’s bed. “Hi,” she says quietly. “Hiii,” Minju murmurs back, candy-sweet.
They’re silent for a little while, adjusting to get comfortable. Moka flips over the pillow, which makes Minju laugh, and tugs the duvet up until it’s pulled tight to her chin. A little shiver runs through her body, but after that it’s all warmth.

Minju hums a little, eyes drooping. She looks tired. She looks happy. “Girlfriend,” she murmurs, tracing a finger over Moka’s cheek. Moka goes very, very still. “My girlfriend.”

“Yeah,” whispers Moka, and wishes she could find a way to feel nonchalant enough about it all to say it back.

Minju doesn’t seem to mind, making a path across Moka’s face. One cheek to the other, down her nose, poking her mole then moving to across her forehead. In the back of her head, Moka is thinking about potential breakouts and how she just moisturized, but it’s distant, buried under the way her heart has lodged itself in her throat. Minju touches them all a lot. She’s handsy, affectionate, easy with a kiss to the cheek or an arm linked in yours. It’s not about being deliberate or delicate, it’s about sharing her love with people as loudly as possible, and she’s made an art of it. Maybe that’s why Moka is holding her breath. Maybe that’s why her skin feels like it’s heating under every brush of Minju’s gentle fingers.

Minju doesn’t touch the others like this. /
They go on the next date—with the coffee and cake and matching hats—on a rainy Saturday morning. Moka has to go in to record voiceover for a commercial the company had booked her in the evening, but the morning and early afternoon are free for them both, so they tug their hoods

over their heads and set out to have a nice day. And it is nice, genuinely. Moka has realized over these last weeks that dating doesn’t have to be terrifying, and also that she is pretty good at planning dates. It didn’t hurt that Kaede had finally answered her text asking for cafe recommendations, and replied with a numbered list and a teasing sticker complete with hearts and an evil smirk.

Leave me alone!! she had sent her in response.
Her only reply had been the infuriating Have fun on your date ;)

She’d thanked her anyway, sticky sweet to annoy her, and then thanked her again more sincerely after the first place on her list had been discreet, delicious, and had a table reserved for them before they had even arrived.

Minju is busy making eyes at her chocolate cake when Moka looks up from her phone. “Minju, it’s good?”

“Oh my god,” moans Minju, halfway to indecent. “It’s amazing.”

Moka laughs, tucking her hand over her mouth so as not to draw too much attention. It’s not particularly of use, since she knows she can get loud when she’s truly amused by something, but the instinct has been drilled into her well. “I’m glad.”

“Seriously, I could kiss you.”

“Maybe when we get home,” replies Moka, a flirt and a half, and nearly flushes at her own boldness. Moka wouldn’t know where it came from, and it still baffles her on how much have they gone closer. She holds steady, though, and is rewarded by a pleased giggle from Minju.

She points at Moka, eyebrows raised. “You owe me the rest of this date first.”

“Of course, Minju.”

“As long as you know. I didn’t come out here in the rain just for cake.”

Moka rolls her eyes, smiling. “You would, though, if that had been the only plan.” “If it was you inviting me, sure.”

“And if it was Sana-sunbaenim?”
The question startles a laugh out of Minju. “Probably, yeah.” She shakes her shoulders in a teasing little shimmy, ridiculous, over-the-top. “Does that make you jealous?”

“No,” says Moka, too quickly.
“It totally does! Ah, Moka-chan, you know you’re the only girl for me.”

Moka whines, avoiding answering by returning to her coffee, which is mostly caramel and milk. It had come with cute sprinkles atop the whipped cream, but the topping has long since melted, and it’s just a warm brown color now.

Minju is still laughing at her a little, but it’s not mean-spirited, and Moka can laugh, too. Maybe she was a little jealous, especially the past few times Minju and Sana have gone out and posted about it on their social media pages, but an Instagram post does not a girlfriend make. Moka knows that, when she’s being rational. She thinks she can be rational about it now.

A fake relationship does not a real girlfriend make, either, but they’re too deep in it now. Moka wouldn’t know how to go back to whatever they had before. It’s inevitable that the shift will come, but if she can push it off. If she can enjoy it while it lasts and cross that bridge when she gets to it.
Minju’s eyes are glittering over the edge of her mug.
“Minju,” says Moka, ankle stronger every day, “let’s go for a walk.”

/

The walk ends up being a shopping spree. Minju giggles, poses, stacks sweaters in her arms and then puts them all back when they don’t feel soft enough against the skin of her wrists. She crowds up against Moka in mirrors, taking pictures of them two of them and the way their bodies line up so well, and she sneaks a little kiss, even through her mask, against the soft skin just under Moka’s ear.
This is a date, thumps Moka’s heart. A date, a date, a date.

They buy each other matching hats, and Moka wears hers the whole way home.

/

Their next comeback officially comes just under three months after the one before, and the combination of stress from overworking and pride in the final single are at war in all of them. Moka is exhausted, worn out, and yearning for a longer break, but the executives seem convinced that this is their chance. It’s an opportunity to break big, crack new markets, sell more than ever before, etc. ad nauseum, and their enthusiasm was always going to be louder than the lived experience of the members of the group being managed. Moka is used to being commodified in such a blatant fashion, so it doesn’t anger her the way it used to, but it doesn’t feel good, either.

Still... the music is strong. The choreo is exciting. She centers a lot in their performances, one after another until they start blurring together, and the styling is comfortable, fun. Interviewers start asking them about the production process, Moka get to talk about her songwriting. Wonhee discusses vocal training, Yunah and Minju discuss the concept, and Iroha is asked mostly about the choreography and the spins they got to put on it. There’s a lightness that comes with knowing they had their hands on this one.

The only real challenge is that their appearance on the variety show that assigned her this challenge is in four days, and she still doesn’t have proof of the fifth act of love she was supposed to plan.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she complains to Yunah. They’re sitting side by side in makeup chairs before their fifth comeback performance, and Moka is speaking to her via the mirror.
“She was saying she wanted a soda from the vending machine earlier,” Yunah says, looking up while mascara is applied to her lashes.
Moka sighs. “That would be such a let-down, though.”

Yunah answers with a chiding little tch. “You could steal money from her wallet, and she’d be so happy to see you when you gave it back to her that she wouldn’t even care.”

“That’s a lie.”

“I’m just saying, it would take a lot to let her down. You know you’re her favorite now.”

Two months ago, Moka would have scoffed at the thought. Shes hyper aware that they both had always been awkward towards each other. Though, Minju likes Moka, needs her, puts up with her, but Moka has always believed that they would never have been friends without the group. If they were normal people with normal lives that weren’t forced to spend every waking hour together for years, their differences would overcome the ways they’re alike, and they would grow tired of each other, annoyed. They wouldn’t have had to put in the work to be what they are today. Even four weeks ago she might have felt the same, but the bed-sharing, the dates, the kissing—it’s getting to her head. Would Minju do this for anyone? With anyone? Or, like the rainy date, is it because it’s Moka that she’s willing to go to the trouble?

“Yunah,” Moka says after a moment, “I think I’m in over my head.”

Yunah’s expression creases into a frown, and the unnie doing Moka’s makeup pauses for a second before continuing with the blush, like she’s curious but doesn’t want to pry. “Do you want to talk about it?” Yunah asks.

“Later?” Moka asks. She tries for a little bit of aegyo, since later means the precious little time they’ll have to sleep before tomorrow’s packed schedule, but Yunah barely seems to notice it.
She just nods quickly, apologizing to the staff member doing her own makeup when she almost interferes with her eyeshadow application, and says, “Of course.”

“Thanks,” Moka says, and then, without planning to, “you’re a good leader.” Yunah looks briefly touched, then flaps a hand at her. “So sudden? but thanks Moka-chan.”

Moka smiles and flashes her a thumbs up, and then sinks back into her chair, shutting her eyes as a lip stain is painstakingly applied to her mouth. She wonders where Minju is, what she’s doing, if she really would like it if Moka got her a cola from the machine down the hall. Maybe she would. Maybe it would make her smile so big her eyes turned to happy moons.

She feels a tap on her shoulder and opens her eyes. “You’re done,” the makeup unnie tells her. “Look good?”

Moka looks at herself in the mirror.
It’s something to think about, maybe, that the first thing she wonders is whether Minju will see her makeup and want to kiss her.

/

Later comes sooner than Moka thought it would. She and Yunah take the same car, sleepy eyes gazing out the window and occasionally at each other, and Yunah talks through their performance. She’s like this sometimes, when things are particularly stressful. It reminds her of her own parents driving her home from dance performances when she was young—What did you do well, Moka- chan? And what do you need to improve?—except Yunah is talking about herself, too. She’s mostly talking about herself, actually, an incisive monologue that even Moka, who hates to get involved in

emotional conversations, feels the need to interrupt.
“And during the bridge,” Yunah is saying, eyes shut with her head tipped back against the headrest, “I missed three beats all in a row, it was so embarrassing. I should’ve practiced harder—”
“You practiced hard, Yunah,” Moka cuts in. Her voice was louder than she meant it to be, and she tones it down, takes a breath. “It wasn’t perfect—so what? It was still a good performance.”

Yunah’s eyes are open now, and she’s looking at Moka like Moka has grown a second head. “So what? You’re saying so what?”

Moka’s cheeks heat. “I know I can be a perfectionist. But I’m tired, Yunah.”
Yunah makes a little noise and reaches out to pet Moka’s hair. Her response is quiet. “I think we’re all tired.”

Moka doesn’t usually feel the three years between them, content to pout and whine and tease and push without fear that Yunah will snap. Yunah is kind. She’s gentle. There aren’t repercussions for messing with her the way Moka has heard horror stories of, the eldest/leader combination creating a massive ego or power trip. Yunah is just Yunah. She does her best and she wants good things for all of them. And sometimes, when they need it, she’ll pull one of them away from the group and talk them down from whatever it is that’s working them up. She’s defused fights when tensions were so high Moka felt sick, and did it all without knocking a hair out of place.

Right now, with her heart stuck in her throat, Moka leans into her, greedily accepting her support and steadiness. “Everything feels like it’s moving really fast.”

“Mm.”

“Like there’s not enough time.”
The car comes to a slow stop, and their manager turns around from where she’d been driving, expression soft. “We’re here. Remember, the start time is six thirty tomorrow. Call if you need anything.”

They thank her and walk out.

They end up in Yunah’s room, which is tidy as always. Her clothes for the morning are already folded on top of her dresser, and her makeup is organized on the vanity. This floor is always quieter, less chaotic energy between the three of them than can be said for the upper dorm, and Moka takes a deep breath, releases it. Does it again. When Yunah’s anxiety was getting particularly bad, they took a few group meditation classes, and Moka took to it in a way that surprised even herself.

When she opens her eyes, Yunah is watching her with a soft smile. “Feeling better?” Moka shrugs. “A little.”

Yunah strips off her shirt, twisting around to grab a pajama dress. “I’m so bad at that mindfulness stuff, I’m not sure how you do it.”

Moka shrugs again, even though Yunah can’t see her while she’s shoving the dress over her head. “It feels like— dancing, a little. When everything narrows down to the beat and you can just go with it, and you’re not thinking about anything.”

“Now that I definitely can’t relate to,” Yunah says with a snort. Her head pokes through the dress, and she sets about kicking off her pants. “My mind is never louder than when I’m dancing.”

“It’s different when I’m performing and I have to think about my face and singing and how I look. I meant more like... when I’m dancing in a practice room by myself, and it’s not for anything. I’m just doing it for me. You must have something like that, right?”

Yunah hums but doesn’t respond. In the low light of her bedroom, her makeup shimmers prettily, reflecting silver. Her lips are pursed, but the lines around her eyes are relaxed.
“Yunah?” prompts Moka when the silence stretches on.

Yunah blinks like she’d been lost in thought, and then sits down at the chair by her vanity and smiles. “Sorry, yeah.” When she looks back at Moka, her smile drops. “You look— what did you want to talk about?”

Moka isn’t sure how Yunah would’ve finished that sentence, but it’s concerning that this stuff must be written all over her face. She collects herself and sits as well, perching on a cushion on the floor by the door. “Oh, um.” It’s more embarrassing now that she’s not wrapped in the tense emotion she’d been processing before, and she loses her words, casting about for something to say that won’t be so completely vulnerable.

Yunah saves her the trouble. “Is this about Minju?”
Moka blinks. Runs a hand through her hair. A few beats too late, she tries a dismissive laugh. “What?”
“Minju told me,” Yunah says, “so you don’t have to...” she waves a hand vaguely, “...explain, or anything. Also, you two were kind of obvious.”
“Thank you,” bursts out Moka, feeling validated that something has changed between her and Minju.
“But,” continues Yunah, “I thought you guys were dating for real, so I asked Minju about it. She didn’t want to break your confidence, and she didn’t tell me everything. But I know some about what’s going on. Is that what’s been bugging you? If it’s too much and you need her to back off or something, I can talk to her.”

“No,” says Moka quickly. “No, no, please don’t. It’s— ah, Yunah, I don’t know how to say it.”
Yunah kicks a leg out, nudging her foot against Moka’s folded knee. “You said you were in over your head.”

“Yeah.” Moka sighs, glancing toward the ceiling. “She’s not too much. That’s kind of the problem.”
“What do you mean?”

Having talked this through with someone once before doesn’t make it easier this time, not even with Yunah’s steady patience, her determination to help them find the hurt and fix it. Moka wants to let her. She wants an easy answer. She wants a lot of things these days.

She takes another breath and pretends she’s dancing, trying to let the world fall away for a bit. “I like spending time with her. I like being around her. I like her so much, Yunah. This is all fake and I wish it wasn't. I don't know what to do."

And that's it. That's the crux of the matter. Wonhee used prettier words, but this is all Moka has. Her messy heart, beating in her hands.
"Ah," Yunah says.

"It's so dumb. I'm so dumb."

Yunah shakes her head immediately. "No, no. Moka... when did you realize?"

Moka sighs, running her hand through her hair messily. "Recently?" It's the closest to a true answer she's going to get right now, because the more she thinks about it the less sure she is. Recently, sure, but she's always gravitated toward Minju. "I just wish I had known earlier, you know? It would have been easier. I hate that I feel like I don't even—" she breaks off, sniffing and swiping at her eyes— "like I don't even know myself anymore."
"Moka-chan," Yunah calls, eyes gentle, "are you sure this is about Minju?"

Moka takes a moment to breathe, wiping at her tears and trying to slow them down. Her heart is beating so fast in her chest she feels sick. "What do you mean?"

"It just seems like there's other stuff going on."
Moka frowns, confused enough that the crying stops, and she's left sitting on the ground with damp sleeves and likely puffy eyes. "I guess," she say, but she's not sure. Think about it, says Iroha’s voice in her mind, but the context has shifted.
I want to know myself, she tries thinking, and it lands true. I want to be happy. I don't want to be lonely, and I don't want other people to decide who I am.

It all rings clear like a bell, so straightforward that her bones feel lighter. She can love Minju and want her, and she can also hold her own hand through the hard parts, can parse herself until she's not consumed entirely by ILLIT Moka. Moka can be her friend. An ally. Moka doesn't have to be her whole life.

Oh, she thinks. Oh.

Maybe she’s been coming to this particular realization for a long time now.
"Are you okay?" Yunah asks.

Moka nods slowly, testing it out. "Yeah," she says. "Yeah, sorry."

Yunah waves her off. "Do you know what you're going to do?"

"No," says Moka, and then she laughs. "I think I can figure it out, though. I just— I need to change."
"What?" Yunah's eyes have rounded in confusion.
Moka laughs again, picking herself up. She's going to put on different clothes, tie up her hair, scrub off her makeup, and dance until she can't feel her feet.
And then she's going to make a plan. And it's going to be brilliant.

/

The variety show will film on Thursday. On Wednesday, six hours before they had asked her to submit all of the pictures to their editing team, Moka takes Minju to Namsan Tower.

It’s been a long time since either of them have been here—it couldn’t have been their last fansign here, two years ago and their debut, but that’s the last time she remembers, cutesy makeup and loud cameras and goofing around with members and shy glances towards Minju. That was when fans were allowed to give them things directly during a fansign, and Moka remembers taking home a fuzzy headband and six letters, two of which had little drawings of her inside. It was nice, wholesome. They must have been so overworked that Moka wanted to cry, but her memories have been softened by time, and she’s always wanted to come back here outside of work with someone... important to her. Someone she’d have fun with.
Minju seems thrilled, for her part, all dazzled eyes and restless hands. “Are we going up? To the top?”
Moka shrugs, feeling a knowing smile dance around her lips. “You spoil me,” Minju insists.

The observation tickets literally cost 5,000 won, but Moka just laughs with another shrug. “Come on, we need to get in the elevator.”
“I knew it,” Minju says.

There are a lot of things to do here, not just the obvious cliches, but as the sun begins to slowly descend Moka feels terribly aware of the padlock weighing down her left pocket. It seemed like a funny idea at the time. She’s worried now that it might feel like sealing their fate, like an ending.
Whatever, she thinks. That’s not up first on their itinerary anyway. They jump into the elevator, crowding in alongside other couples and groups of friends, and begin to ascend. Moka watches the number climb, and then pulls Minju out on the seventh floor.

“Oh?” Minju asks.

Moka had stopped by the fifth floor to confirm the reservation just before Minju arrived, and there have been butterflies in her stomach ever since. “Mmhm,” she hums, trying to tamp them down.
They take off their masks and hats, tucking them away, and Moka feels a hysterical desire to touch up her makeup, to look in a mirror. She didn’t use to be like this, she thinks. Even when she was young and being beautiful felt like everything she had to offer the world, it wasn’t like this. But some things can’t be helped.

Her hand hovers in the air, en route to either check her lip tint or fix her hair, but Minju catches it, holds it. “For two?” she asks.

The host smiles graciously, seeming to immediately recognize them, and guides them to a table by the windows. The sunset has lit up a haze over the densest part of the city like a soft-focus filter. Minju’s smile is giddy as she takes it all in—she has a funny way about her sometimes, like she forgets she’s a celebrity. A naïve heart, a bright gaze, an easy laugh. Funny, how she seems so untainted by this industry. Unhurt.

But that’s not fair, either. Minju has been hurt a dozen times over, and she’s never hidden it. Maybe that’s what makes her stronger than Moka.
“Moka... wow,” Minju is saying, walking right up to the glass instead of sitting down. “You planned this?”

Moka rolls her eyes. “No, Yunah did.” Minju looks back at her in surprise, and Moka snorts a little laugh. “Yes, of course I planned it. Do you like it?”
“I’m going to eat really expensive meat,” Minju warns. Moka looks at her blankly. “I mean, yeah? Me too.”

Minju’s expression opens back up into a radiant smile. “It’s amazing. I’ve always wanted to come here, the pictures are so beautiful.”
“Good,” Moka answers, taking a seat.

They’re sitting diagonally, table angled to face the window, and Minju hooks her ankle around Moka’s under the tablecloth. It’s intimate, sweet in its simplicity. Like they really are on a date, with all of the glitz and glamour that comes with access to the finer things in life—but it's still Minju, swinging their intertwined ankles like a kid and chattering about the menu.

They end up ordering the special recommended by the waiter, along with a paired wine. Moka is happy to eat pretty much anything, and Minju seems content to be swept up in the dazzle of it all.
"You treat me so well," Minju gushes, looking out the window. She seems entranced with the view, which doesn't surprise Moka at all. "How did you even think of this?"

Moka snorts. "How did I think of the most obvious date location in Seoul? I don't know, it was pretty hard."

"Tch, you thought about this, it's obvious. The pictures are going to look so cool." "I guess," Moka answers.

Minju looks like she wants to keep poking, but the wine arrives, and they have to wait for a moment while it's poured. Moka takes the opportunity afterwards to take a boomerang on her phone of the two of them clinking their glasses together, sunset in the background. It is cool. It's extremely cool. It's so glamorous Moka hardly knows what to do with herself.

Once they're finished, proof recorded and wine sipped, Minju looks at Moka again with those wide beseeching eyes. "You're a good girlfriend," she says. "You know that, right? You've done well. Even when it wasn't fancy, I never felt like you were annoyed with me or tired of me. You must have worked hard." She waggles her eyebrows at the end, like a joke about Minju being too much to handle is one Moka would laugh along to.

But Moka doesn't want to laugh about that. "I would never get tired of you," she says instead, because she's sick of ducking behind insincerity. Last night, in the middle of dancing aggressively to Big Bang, she'd turned over her earlier realization in her mind. It was less scary when she was moving, ponytail swinging around embarrassingly, making faces she could never make on camera, like she could work all the way through it without letting the panic catch her. She spun so fast she dizzied herself, and nearly fell, and turned the music up higher. Wonhee had banged on the wall and yelled to ask what she was even doing, and Moka had thrown her head back and laughed through an apology.

Minju smiles like she doesn't believe it.
Moka wants to shake her a little because she’s been trying and trying to prove it, the last weeks a

testament to her determination, but she can’t change Minju’s mind for her. Instead of trying, she just asks, “How’s your family?”
Minju lights up and starts talking, and Moka hangs on her voice, smiles, thinks about the confession building in her lungs.

It wants to come out, bubbling up under the surface like carbonation, like laughter. Not yet, Moka tells herself.

Minju keeps talking, drawing patterns in the air as she goes. She finishes updating Moka about her family and launches into the new anime she started watching, describing the characters and then the plot with increasing excitability. She has a crush on the tsundere female lead, apparently, and Moka laughs with her and tucks away that piece of information where she can let it warm her from the inside

.
Their food comes after a bit, and it is, as expected, transcendent. The meat is tender and well- seasoned, practically melting in Moka’s mouth, and she’s never had a side salad quite this satisfying. Minju seems equally pleased by the meal, cheeks bulging a little when she smiles and shoots Moka a thumbs up, and they quiet for a bit while eating.
After a longer pause, Moka takes a sip of wine and then dabs at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “Minju,” she says.

“Mm?”

“Do you want to come with me to the fence outside and put a lock on it?”

Minju’s eyes shine with something Moka isn’t sure she’s seen before, a mix of joy and sadness that’s out of place next to Minju’s sweet smile. “With our names?”

“Our initials,” Moka says, trying for a smile back. “I’m not trying to start a scandal.” “Moka...” Minju says quietly.

But Moka planned this, and she’s not going to get tripped up now. “Come on, Minju. Come put this on the fence with me.”

For a single suspended moment, Minju looks like she wants to argue, but she sighs, nods. Moka looks at her and holds out her hand.

/

It’s cold on the platform, wind whipping on the mountaintop and ruffling their clothes. Moka thinks they’ve gotten away unrecognized so far, and endeavors to behave normally, pretending that she remembers what that means. It’s been a long time since she was a normal person. The company tells her they need more from her, better, to skyrocket to further fame, and the implication is that growing distance between Moka and Moka is the goal—but Moka hasn’t been nobody since she was 17. Younger, even. So it’s a little exhilarating to pretend. To carry herself more casually, slouching if she wants to.

Minju keeps glancing around, keeping an eye out for the manager that’s been casually tailing them from a distance all day. “We should be quick,” Minju says.
Moka hums, nods. “Do you want to pick a spot?”

“Okay.”

Minju walks a lap around the edge of the platform looking for space—it’s so full that parts of the metal look like they’re at risk of buckling under the weight, but eventually Minju makes a happy little sound and shoves a few locks aside to reveal a section of fence. “Here!” she says, and she looks so proud Moka wants to take a picture of her.

But she doesn’t need proof anymore, and this moment is just for the two of them. Moka looks at her, windswept, light-haired, grinning so big her eyes are half-moons, and commits it to memory.
“Minju,” she says, “here,” and holds out the lock. It’s light blue, and it matches Minju’s favorite coat. There are so many other words bubbling underneath the surface, but if there was ever a time for Moka to learn patience it’s now. Not yet, she tells herself again, and shivers a little when her numb fingertips brush against Minju’s.

Minju takes the lock and attaches it to the fence so gently, like it’s something precious. And it is.

/

They’re not quite halfway home when Moka asks the driver to pull over near the convenience store she used to guiltily buy ice cream at when they were trainees, since it’s between the company and the school she went to. The ahjussi was always kind to her, would tell her to eat more or recommend snacks. The memories are fond, but even more important than those are the alley next to it where a couple of chairs were haphazardly set up. She would eat all of her snacks there, embarrassed and anxious and a little lonely, and no one ever bothered her.

As expected, it’s a ghost town this late at night. The dim light from inside of the store only barely penetrates the dark by the chairs.
“Do you want dessert?” Moka asks.
Minju squints at her. “Is this part of the date?”
“Sort of,” says Moka. “I’ll explain. Let me buy you a little cake first, though.”

After a little more suspicious back and forth, Minju acquiesces, and chooses chocolate as expected. Moka buys herself a vanilla cream cake, pays quickly, and guides Minju out to the chairs and rickety table.

Minju seems skeptical of the rust on the chair, but gets over it quickly, plopping down and then grinning at Moka from under the ballcap she’d been handed by the driver. For a moment, the only sound is the crinkle of wrappers as they unpack their cakes, and then Minju takes a bite so big she ends up with chocolate smeared on the corner of her mouth.

“You have— here,” Moka says, and swipes it away with her thumb.

She’s met with Minju’s wide eyes, and then another smile, smaller this time, like a hot coal with a warm glow. “Thanks,” she says once she swallows.
Moka takes a bite too, nervous. The cake is sweet, significantly less complex in flavor profile than her dinner. The sugar is comforting.

“So Minju,” she starts, “I wanted to, um, talk to you about something.”

Minju giggles, eyes dancing. “And you had to do it here?”

In this grimy alley, Moka is the least glamorous she’s been in a long time. Her lipstick is probably completely messed up even after a touch-up post dinner, and her hair is all over the place. “Yes,” she says, and it’s not a joke. It isn’t anything except her heart in her hands, how she’s been extracting it for weeks now, and finally, finally—

Now, says the little voice in her head, and she takes a deep breath of the fresh, slightly tangy air. “Minju, I don’t want to pretend date you anymore.”
Minju furrows her brows, and a flash of hurt colors her features. “Oh. Tonight was the last date, wasn’t it? I figured we’d stop after the show tomorrow, but... ah, I don’t know what I thought.”

“No, no, it’s not— ugh, I started badly.” She’d practiced this speech upwards of a dozen times in her bedroom mirror, but it’s different with Minju looking at her with tragic eyes. With flushed cheeks. “I’ve liked dating you. It’s been... really good.”
But that’s not enough either, and Minju’s expression is closing off like she’s bracing for a letdown. Moka looks at the girl standing in front of her, the girl who loves her, and thinks, I’ll never forgive myself if I mess this up right now.

Moka isn’t good with words. She stands up, abandoning her cake on the table, and urges Minju to do the same. Minju stands slowly, suspicious, and brushes her hands off on her jeans. She leaves a tiny dark stain, and Moka feels the urge to press a kiss to it. To kiss Minju’s knees, the insides of her wrists, her pink nose.

“Moka-chan, if you brought me here to make fun of me, I’m going to be upset.” Moka wants her. Moka reaches for her.

Minju takes a hesitant step closer, and lets Moka grab onto both her hands. Moka’s heart is pounding double time in her chest, racing like it’s running for its life. Hysterically, Moka thinks that debuting had nothing on this.

“I love you,” she says finally, plainly. Her embarrassment at this sincerity has evaporated in the face of what she has to lose. “I want to say that pretending to date was a stupid idea, because I wanted to date you for real, but it was fun. You’re fun. I like being around you.”

“I’m fun,” echoes Minju. She sounds like she’s very far away.

Moka huffs. “Is that all you got out of that?”
“Yah,” Minju replies, hands tightening around Moka’s, “I’m processing. Give me a second.”
Moka waits, less anxious than she thought she’d be. It felt good to say those things. She thinks it might feel good to say more, too.

After a few more moments, Minju sighs and steps close enough to rest her forehead on Moka’s shoulder, sneaking her arms around Moka’s waist. “I thought you were breaking up with me,” she says finally, in a small, tight voice.

Moka laughs quietly, pressing a kiss to Minju’s temple like Minju has done for her so many times before. “Never, Minju-ya.”

“Don’t talk like you were a sure thing.”

“I am now.”

“Agh! Sakai Moka, what am I going to do with you?” Minju pulls back, breath warm against Moka’s neck as she moves. “Huh?” she asks, more quietly, almost hushed.

Their faces are so close together. Minju’s eyes are a little red like she’s been trying not to cry. Moka has always been so, so helpless for her.
“Can I kiss you?” Moka whispers.

Minju rolls her eyes, showy, big. “Can you kiss me? Can you kiss me? I’ve been in love with you for how long and you’re asking me if you can—”
Moka cuts her off, first with a palm to her cheek and then with her lips on Minju’s.

And it’s funny, because for all that she wishes they hadn’t wasted time pretending, she’s grateful for the practice. She knows how to kiss Minju. She knows when to suck on her lower lip, when to make it just a little hotter, a little deeper, and when to pull back and kiss her high on the cheekbone where she’s blushing hot.

“Minju, I like you a lot,” Moka says, low like it’s a secret.

Minju snorts unattractively, and then starts laughing so hard at herself that she bends at the waist and has to take a step back so she doesn’t brain Moka with her movements.

And fuck if Moka isn’t endeared by that, too. She laughs along, stabilizing Minju with a hand at her side, and waits. Eventually, Minju gets herself together enough to say, “I like you a lot, too,” but she’s still smiling.

Moka has seen a lot of Minju’s smiles. She’s seen the tense one that comes out when fans get a little too comfortable in her personal space, and she’s seen the cold one that only shows up during the worst of their meetings with management, especially when they were younger—the one that promises that as soon as Minju has more pull, she’ll work to destroy anyone who ever made any of them feel less than. Moka has seen the nervous smiles, the giddy smiles, the untethered joy that comes with the high of a performance and the mellow smiles that come out when Minju is too tired to muster anything bigger. Moka would consider herself a bit of a connoisseur of Minju smiles, actually, which is why her heart thuds so hard when she looks at Minju in this terrible lighting.

Because right now, Minju is just smiling like she’s happy.

“Date me, Minju,” Moka says, and it feels impulsive but she’s been planning it for days.

“Maybe you should date me,” Minju replies, combative to the last, shoving Moka a little before grabbing her arms and reeling her back in close. “Did you ever think about that?”

Moka nods, tries to smirk but can feel how soft she must look. “I thought about it a lot.” Minju kisses her again.

They lose some time like that, trading gentle kisses in this alley like they’re— like normal people. Like Park Minju and Sakai Moka.

Moka keeps her eyes shut and melts into it.
It’s only when there’s a cough from just around the corner from the alley that they break apart, and

Moka knows that this time she must be flushed, too.
“To be continued,” Minju says, pointing a finger at Moka.

Moka laughs, joy and relief lighting her up like adrenaline. “Okay, Minju.”

“I’m needy as a girlfriend,” Minju warns.
“I know,” says Moka. “I’m annoying, and I’m not always that affectionate.”

Minju sighs, ruffling Moka’s hair until she squeals and ducks away. “I know,” Minju says, “and okay, you made your point. Just don’t get tired of me, okay?”

She says it like a joke, but Minju is always saying things like they’re jokes. Moka tugs her into a hug, and laughs at Minju’s little oof. She buries her face in Minju’s neck, pressing her cold nose against skin, and Minju doesn’t even complain. “I told you,” Moka says. “I like being around you. I like spending time with you. I like it when you reach for me.”
“I like reaching for you,” Minju replies, muffled.
It takes another minute of greedily stealing each other’s heat, but when they do part Moka notices that her cheeks hurt from smiling so much.

Minju looks about the same, cheerful and light and eager. “We should go get some sleep,” she says.
“Mm.”

“And then tomorrow we can wipe the floor with the competition.”

They’re holding hands on the way back to the car, exiting the alley and ducking into the warmth of the backseat. “There’s no competition,” Moka comments belatedly. “It’s just us.”

“Well we have to get a perfect score then!”

“Okay, Minju.”

“Remember that I like spicy things even if I’m not good at eating them.” “Okay, Minju.”

Minju keeps peppering her with fun facts, and Moka melts back into the seat and listens to her, responding when she needs to and laughing at the particularly absurd ones, but generally content to let Minju’s voice wash over her. She learns some things, but she knew most of it already.

By the time they roll up to the dorm, Moka is thoroughly prepared for the quiz, and her lips have stopped tingling. The urge to touch them is still there, but it can wait until she’s safely in her own bedroom.

They walk up to the dorm together, and part in the stairwell, where Minju tucks her up against the wall and smiles into her mouth. “My girlfriend,” she says, the way she’s said it before, but nothing about Moka feels guilty now.

“Yeah,” Moka murmurs back.
She steals one more kiss before shoving Minju away. If she doesn’t, she’ll keep kissing her all

night, and they have a game to win tomorrow.
As they part, Minju turns back to Moka, hair a little mussed, one of her earrings tangled on itself. “Worth the practice?” she asks, smirk dancing along her lips.

Was it worth it? To question where she stood, to get close enough to Minju that she practically came back out the other side, to love and cherish and protect her without worrying about being read wrong? To cuddle in bed? To kiss her?
To end up here?

“Shut up,” says Moka, laughing at Minju’s answering scoff, but she means yes, and yes, and yes.

/

Moka is glad not to be sick for the filming of this show this time, because the kinds of questions they’re throwing at her mean she needs all of the brain capacity she has and then some. Her hopes of getting questions in advance at all had been dashed that morning when their manager gave her an apologetic shrug and wished her luck, and Minju had been significantly less helpful in the morning, directing most of her energy into keeping Moka on her lap during breakfast.

“Minju,” Moka had whined, but she’d given up eventually, sitting back against Minju’s chest and letting her feed Moka little bites of rice.
Iroha had raised her eyebrows at Moka, and Moka had smirked and nodded, answering the unspoken question.

Iroha’s answering smile had warmed Moka, and she’s carried the little glow of being taken care of and supported by the people around her with her into the quiz.
And thank god.

“Next question! What is Minju-ssi’s favorite song from ILLIT’s title tracks?”

Minju scribbles down her answer on her whiteboard, Yunah and Wonhee blatantly peeking over her shoulders, and Moka sighs.

There are a few answers that could work here, and there are different reasons for each. It’s a gamble, but, “Cherish my love?” she guesses. Maybe Moka’s biased, though, thinking about how pretty Minju’s red-brown hair was..

Minju flips around her board, and Cherish my love is written with a cheeky little wink emoji.

Another point. They’ve gotten every one so far, but there are still three questions left.

The camera blinks dispassionately at them, but Moka isn’t thinking about that right now. She’s not thinking about all of the eyes on her, or what it’s like to be famous, or what people will think of her when they watch this on the internet. She answers a question about Minju’s favorite snack easily, and then one about the last goal she accomplished, and then it’s time for the last question that will make or break her perfect streak.

“Moka-ssi,” the host says dramatically, “you’ve done so well so far, you worked hard, didn’t you?”
She replies, faux-offended, “Of course I did! You asked me to. I take these things very seriously, you know.”

Both hosts laugh, as do some of her members.
“Are you ready for the last question?”
“Yes,” she says firmly.

The other host smiles, straightening his cue cards before reading from the final one. “You showed us earlier how you wooed her, so you should know this one. What is Minju-ssi’s ideal date?”
Moka almost laughs.

And like the other questions, there are a few ways this could go, but there’s only one answer she wants to give.

“There’s an alley,” she says, “with a couple of chairs and a table. Really old, not very nice. And she and her date get cakes, the kind that just come wrapped in plastic. And it’s by a convenience store where the ahjussi used to give things for free, and there’s almost no light. But she’s having fun. That— I think that’s her ideal date.”

There’s a beat of total quiet before Minju starts cackling.

“Ah,” says one of the hosts, “that was so specific, I’m not sure—”

Minju flips her board around.

Convenience store alley. Little cakes. Poorly lit. With someone I love.

“We win,” Minju says, “right?” She sounds like she wants to be sitting primly, but she keeps bursting into little giggles, and Moka loves her so much her fucking chest hurts.

“You win,” the other host says, looking baffled. She looks at her partner, but he’s of no help, and they’re left boggling for another moment before she gets herself together. “Ah, congratulations Moka-ssi! You won! Do you think you got closer to Minju-ssi in this experience? Will that help your teamwork?”

“ILLIT’s teamwork has always been amazing,” Moka replies, “but yes, I think I got closer to her.”
The host smiles at her. “I’m so glad! That’s all we wanted to do here. You did well! Go rejoin your members, we’ll adjust the cameras really quickly and do some touch-ups and then we’ll get into the next game.”

Moka nods. The stool next to Minju is empty, Yunah having gracefully moved over to the seat Moka was originally in. Her members are looking at her with varying levels of fondness and pride, and for a moment Moka lets the rush of winning fill her, soothing the edges of her competitive nature, of the anxiety she’d been holding about this for so long. No more pretending. No more practice. The only thing that’s left is the real thing.

Minju has her legs crossed, and her hair is in one long braid down her back. They’d styled her cutely today, and her eyeshadow glimmers under the studio lights.

She beckons, and Moka goes to her.