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When she had expressed a desire to break out of her routine, and Ryujin had suggested a trip, Chaeryeong had expected her to bring herself along and offer some of her conversational Japanese skills. Skills that Chaeryeong sorely lacks, skills that have clearly gotten her nowhere in her earlier conversation with the receptionist for her chosen abode. Chaeryeong thinks it’s a wonder that a guesthouse in such a rural part of the island would be overbooked. But perhaps even more wondrous is the fact that they had only decided to tell her that after her booking had gone through, and after she had shown up at their door. 

Her fingers tap an anxious beat on the countertop, playing out a few scenarios in her mind of what kind of magical solution the receptionist could possibly be conjuring in the back. She has half a mind to leave and find someplace else, but the thought of returning to the outdoors felt more intimidating than it had any right to be. Quaint old town, one; Chaeryeong, zero. So far, at least. 

Footsteps patter into earshot, and by the sounds of it, the receptionist is pleased to be bringing her good news. For a second, Chaeryeong lets herself feel hopeful, until she hears the dreadful sound of what is clearly Korean-accented Japanese, while in quite the nightmare circumstance to be recognised by a fellow countryman. Until, of course, she looks up to the sound of—

“Sunbaenim?”  

Haewon must find this situation equally distressing, Chaeryeong has to assume. Basically forced to take an acquaintance (at best; and a colleague, at worst) for the night. Although, there are worse things she could be enduring besides sitting across from Haewon as they pick at their breakfasts silently. 

“Like I said last night, unnie is just fine.” 

Haewon barely moves from where she’s stuck in her train of thought. Her eyes shift just a little under those comically big glasses to make eye contact. 

“I know.”

“Oh, okay.” 

“Sorry, I’m not trying to be rude.” Her eyebrows furrow as she examines Chaeryeong back. “I’m just thinking.”

“Okay.” Chaeryeong tries not to move too much herself. Discomfort is not a good look on her. “About…?”

“Whether or not you want me to invite you along on my day. But I guess I just asked you that.”

“Oh.” Chaeryeong can’t help the relief in her voice, but dear God has this trip been testing her so far. Earlier in the morning she had woken up to her facial cleanser half-open and leaking all over the shorts she wanted to wear. Instead of indignant crying, she’d settled for tossing it in the trash and stealing some of Haewon’s without asking. Real big girl solutions. “Um. I wasn’t going to ask, in case you felt obliged. But, that’s something you’re open to?”

“I think so. But I think I’m gonna get really irritated if all you do all day is thank me and try to pay for things.”

“Hm.”

“Mmhmm.” 

“You’re annoyingly perceptive.”

“Oh, thank you! I try to be,” Haewon chirps, her voice much brighter now that the two cups of coffee have settled in. Chaeryeong had turned her nose when she started making her second cup, half filled with Kanu and half filled with water. Not even a splash of milk to break that dreary mess up. “Do you have good internet?”

“So far, yeah.”

“Ok, great.” She does some quick taps on her phone where Chaeryeong can’t see. And then: “I’ve just deleted the eSIM in my phone.”

“What?”

“Yeah. So now, I’m officially in your debt. You’re helping me with my day by being my navigator. What’s your idea of a perfect day?”

“Um, I don’t think I know, exactly— Did you just say that you deleted your eSIM?” 

“Never mind then,” Haewon mumbles, like she’s checking off some mental list. The questions burn through Chaeryeong’s mind, surging through her like she’s the medium and not the messenger. What if a scandal breaks? A typhoon? Earthquake alert? Are you crazy?

It comes out surprisingly measured: “What if someone tries to contact you?” 

Haewon waves her off like that suffices for an answer. “Kyujin has power of attorney. She’ll make the decisions for me.” 

A stretch, even for the illustrious Jang Kyujin. Chaeryeong's heard all about her. And the incredibly frustrating position she’s constantly put in, where none of her member unnies are ever thinking beyond the current day and the next, never striving for anything more than the first good idea that spontaneously appears in their heads, as if it were their life mission to just go with the flow. She sighs, much like she imagines Kyujin would in this situation, and tells Haewon plainly, “That doesn’t sound right.” 

“Do you want to explore this place with me or not?”

“Oh, so, you have a plan?”

Haewon scoffs, as if to say, as if, her glasses sliding just a tad down her nose bridge. Like her being chronically short-sighted also translated to the metaphorical sense. 

Chaeryeong realises she’s in for a long day. 

“...and this was from Sydney. Oh, and this one was when we were in the Gold Coast.”

Chaeryeong lets her eyes skim through the album full of the same deep warm blue colours, coastlines drawn like chalk against a backboard, smooth and jagged and in-between. Evidence of Haewon’s globetrotting during her world tour, vlogs and wide-shot selfies and whatnot. “So,” Chaeryeong observes, “you like Australia.” 

Haewon furrows her eyebrows at the supposition, finally looking up from her phone. Chaeryeong lets her eyes linger over the ‘No Service’ tag before the girl clicks it shut. “I think this means I like the ocean,” she corrects. 

Right. “Hae, as in the sun; hae, as in the ocean,” Chaeryeong repeats, a phrase learned from one too many videos of Haewon’s self-introduction inserting themselves into her YouTube Shorts algorithm. The girl doesn’t appear to question how Chaeryeong has come to be familiar with her line. Then again, also-chronically-online Haewon probably also knows that’s the exact reason why. 

“Won, as in, source. That’s why I’ve always said a burial at sea will be like returning to sender for me.” Haewon spreads her arms out to face the winds blowing inland. Suddenly, Chaeryeong has to worry about her leaping off the cliff edge and prophesying her own death. “Ooh, or shark attack. Way less of a logistical nightmare.”

“Those are morbid things to say for someone as young as you are.” 

Haewon shrugs, lifting the ends of her hairs with her shoulders. Some of it whips back onto her face. 

“Just trying to live up to my name.” Hae-won. A seafarer; also, a synonym for sea. “What about you?”

“Ryeong, to lead. Maybe you should have gotten my name.” 

“I know what your name means.” Haewon laughs. “I mean, do you like the sea?” 

Chaeryeong opens her mouth to answer, but finds nothing that immediately suffices. She decides, after a long good look at the scenery in front of her: “I guess I do, though probably not as much as you.” 

“And you chose to come to vacation here.”

“Why not?” Chaeryeong shrugs. There are many reasons to go on vacation to a quiet island off the southwestern coast of Japan, but none as embarrassing as the real reason she did. She shifts Haewon’s gaze into the distance, to the small patch of white stained against green, out of place. “Look, baekhab.” 

Haewon turns. Sees the lilies, pristine white against a clear blue sky. “I didn’t know they grew right by the sea.” And then, like she has to think about it, “They’re so pretty.”

“Your favourite flower?”

“Why would they be?”

“Oh, I just thought because of your perfume”—Chaeryeong realises now, what the thread she’s pulling on threatens to unravel—“it’s lily-scented.”

Haewon takes in a sharp punch of air, turning away before Chaeryeong can dwell too long on her expression. “Come on, unnie. Let’s go down to the beach.” 

It’s not like Chaeryeong didn’t have her suspicions about the less-than-platonic transgressions that tend to happen behind the scenes. For the average JYP group, at least. It’s also not like Chaeryeong hasn’t been hearing about Haewon, and by extension, Lily, in that context. 

But then again, she’s been struggling all morning to reconcile the model student she remembers from when they were teenagers, to the restless, underprepared adult that looks like Haewon but carries none of the gravitas of her younger self. She wouldn’t dare to assume to know Haewon anymore. Not even if the girl makes up half of her algorithm on a good day. 

To make matters worse—or to distract Chaeryeong rather successfully from reading too much into her psyche, who knows—Haewon behaves on the beach like she has never been on a stroll in her life. What she’s doing hardly constitutes acceptable etiquette when strolling with other people. Stopping to look at crabs every few seconds. Oscillating between putting on and taking off her sandals because she can’t decide if it feels better to have them on or not. Thinking she’s spotted a critter of some kind on the water when it mostly turns out to be trash. 

The beach is nice. Chaeryeong read all about it before the trip. Chaeryeong is also used to slow walkers and distracted walkers. Deals with them on the daily, her members. She would usually have something to say at this point, but Haewon is supposed to be her benefactor, so she holds her tongue as best as she can.

The next time Haewon tries to kick off the stupid rubber on her feet, Chaeryeong asks, “Do you know how to stroll?”

What a question. Haewon giggles incredulously. “What the hell? I guess not, if you have something to say about it.” 

“It’s just, it doesn’t seem like you’ve ever taken a stroll in your life. A big part of it is walking.”

“Point taken.” Haewon stands. She has two fingers on one hand each looped around one sandal. Decision made, for now. “But we’ve literally been on a stroll together.”

“When have we ever been on a stroll together?”

“2018. My second year at JYP. We had a late night because someone from the dongsaeng team got really upset about being promoted to Girls Team 2, and you took us all out to the 7-Eleven with the secret crying spot.”

Right, Yuna. Chaeryeong does a double take, having taped over that memory with less gloomy ones over the years. The pinch in her chest resurfaces with a duller edge than it used to carry. “Don’t think I would consider that a stroll. Damage control, maybe.”

It strikes her again, how lonely it must have been for the two same-aged friends, lulled into a sense of security—of having a long career with your companion, your peer—only to be separated at the very last second. Neither of them saw it coming. 

Haewon snaps her wrist rhythmically, helicoptering her footwear around and distracting them both from the topic at hand. It gets sand all over her periphery. Chaeryeong stays a suitable five feet behind, letting her lead the way, satisfied with the arrangement now that she can focus on the sensation of fine sand between her toes.

Until Haewon starts kicking water everywhere. 

“Are you not even going to get your feet wet? The water is nice and warm.”

A rhetorical question, considering how Chaeryeong’s feet were already victimised in her brief tussle with the sea. Of all things to pick a fight with. Chaeryeong’s teeth grind down against their pairs, setting her jaw. It scares Haewon a little, she can tell, the way she goes silent and looks positively murderous having fallen prey to someone’s spontaneity. 

Chaeryeong decides to test a theory the same time Haewon starts to speak.

“Sorry—” is all Haewon can get out, before she loses her footing in the shallow water, going butt-first and causing a ruckus of a splash. Chaeryeong feels her own eyes go saucer-wide at how well her plan has unfolded, and sees the exact expression mirrored on Haewon’s face. Bewilderment: “What the hell?”

Shock: “I didn’t think you were that weak!”

“I’m standing on sand!”

“I thought you were going to be steadier than that!”

“Oh, you’re gonna get it—you don’t get to run away, unnie! Not after what you’ve done!”

A tackle into her side pushes a yelp straight out of her diaphragm. The last thing Chaeryeong feels before brisk seawater envelopes her in an eager embrace, is the rumble of her own chest as she sends a laugh off into the skies. 

Lunch is an onigiri each, picked out by Haewon herself. Chaeryeong drips like a wet dog even after wringing herself off as best as possible. The rice hits her mouth in a mush, salty from seawater. Tuna and mayo that she chases with a hit of ice cold water. 

It’s an adequate meal, even with Haewon’s coffee stinging the air with its bitterness. BLACK, the label reads upright when the can is tipped towards her mouth. She drinks it all in one motion, even with her mouth still full of rice. 

It’s almost animalistic—it’s Ryujin-like. And if this were Ryujin, she would have gotten an earful already. Chaeryeong stops chewing to ask if they’d stopped the etiquette classes at JYP. Haewon’s reply is to stare right into her eyes when she downs the rest of her coffee. Then again, Chaeryeong should have known. The jeans for a day at the beach should have been a huge red flag, notwithstanding the fact that she went into the water with them anyway. Haewon knows the rules of the world and subverts them out of pure spite, it seems. 

And that’s all fine, really, with Chaeryeong, until it becomes infectious. When Haewon shuffles her heavy jeans into the store for seconds and comes back out with half of a fruit cocktail sando—that she shoves into Chaeryeong’s hand—she takes it. And forgets all she’s learnt about eating too much carbohydrates and blood sugar spikes and such. 

A few frantic knocks on the door shake Chaeryeong out of the bad fashion-induced stupor she’s been in for the past minute. She still can’t understand why they couldn’t just get back to their guesthouse to change. Haewon had insisted, something about wanting to get the full authentic, countryside experience. 

“One second!” She calls back, pulling at the embroidered rose that sits above her chest, the statement piece on her brand new, oversized yellow t-shirt. That’s not even to mention the floral pants she has on, a kaleidoscopic mess not even Jackson Pollock could dare to dream up. There are at least three colours she’s never seen in her life, and five that her closet has protective orders against. 

Whatever. Vacation Chaeryeong is different and doesn’t care too much what strangers think of her. Vacation Chaeryeong agreed to visit a boutique that looks like it runs primarily on the pity and goodwill of its surrounding residents. Vacation Chaeryeong is being worn down at every turn today. She exits the stall, carrying herself with a confidence that only someone resigned to her fate could.

Haewon takes one look and breaks out into the loudest laughter the island has ever heard, Chaeryeong guesses. “You said you wouldn’t laugh!” She complains, retreating back into the stall. 

A hand wraps around her wrist before she can fully disappear. Haewon looks just as tragic, deep red and fifty years late to modern fashion sensibilities. She muffles her own laughter, just to patronise Chaeryeong with, “No, you look fine, I promise.”

Chaeryeong sets her mouth into a firm thin line. Haewon concedes, “You look like a pencil that fell into a box of crayons.” 

The honesty is appreciated, though it causes a laugh to stumble out of her, punching its way out of her so suddenly and continuously until it starts sounding like a wheeze. Haewon mirrors her form, doubled over and unrestrained.

Chaeryeong learns there are a few conversational fallbacks she can rely on when with Haewon. Her members, for one. Somehow the grocery store a few blocks away from the boutique is a goldmine to learn about NMIXX. Before anything is even in her shopping basket, Chaeryeong learns how Jiwoo used to cry if she had to eat vegetables. Yoona can’t drink tap water. Lily can’t stand onions. Kyujin eats like she’s married to a dietician or is one herself. Haewon doesn’t really get to Jinsol, she notices, but that’s probably a good thing. 

As excited as she was to uncover all that about her teammates, Haewon dissociates just as quickly from their shared plane of existence. Maybe it’s one of those quirky leader traits—she’s seen Yeji do the same, feeling a maternal sense of guilt for not only being away from her sworn children but enjoying it too. Not wanting to lose her to the produce, Chaeryeong chimes in: “Jisu unnie. She thinks cucumbers taste like electricity.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t figured that out in the ten years I’ve known her.”

“Ten years. That’s such a long time.”

“You’ve known me for just as long.” 

“Right but, come on, unnie, it’s not like we ever hung out. This is like, more talking than we ever did in those two years before you debuted.”

That’s true. “I really was in my own world back then. Sorry.”

“No, don’t be, I think we all were.” She shrugs, throws up her hands like, what are we going to do. Kids will be kids. Chaeryeong remembers the way Haewon, at the tail end of her training, would lead practice among the new Girls Team. Harsh and determined, hardly a kid anymore. Anyway, “What do you want as a snack, Pringles?” 

The change in subject is so stark, Chaeryeong almost misses the jab. She gives Haewon a deadpan look. Pushes her eyebrows up into her head and says, “Fruits might be nice.”

Haewon laughs. “This looks like it could be good. Not sure what it is though.”

A box of red, small cherry-like fruits is held up to her face, shaken lightly in their container. Chaeryeong remembers reading about them in her trip preparation but hadn’t thought to try them. Haewon looks at her expectantly, clearly waiting for an affirmation of some kind. Her first reaction, if this were anybody else, would be to ask if she looked like a guinea pig. As in, do you take pleasure in putting me through hell, where I have to venture outside and have new experiences thrust upon me? 

She doesn’t know why, maybe because this is Haewon, Chaeryeong finds herself taking the box from her hands and placing it in their frivolously empty cart. 

“You have to pull it—”

“What do you think I’m trying to do—”

“Give it here,” Haewon yells finally, exasperated. Basically snatches over the spool of string from Chaeryeong’s half-outstretched hand. She starts with a hopeful jog, holding her arm high behind herself. After ten paces, the kite turns to fall flat to the grass, plummeting anticlimactically to its doom. Just as it had in their past ten tries. Haewon’s arms fall to her side, utterly defeated. 

“I’m telling you,” Chaeryeong argues, “we’re not getting anywhere with this cheap plastic thing from a grocery store.” In the distance, the pink carp flutters, twitching with a small gust of air, before laying itself to rest again. A fate befitting of its quality. How Haewon didn’t pick up on that when she’d asked “Sugoi?” repeatedly and gotten only the store clerk’s placating nods in return, Chaeryeong has no idea. 

“Do you like being a wet blanket?”

“No,” she insists. “I just hate wasting my time on things I know are not going to work.”

A hand goes to her chin. Haewon appears to think about that statement for a second, before she asks again: “Do you enjoy giving up?”

Chaeryeong rolls her eyes. “We can go get a real kite if you really want to fly one.” 

“But,” Haewon whines, voice going up an octave, “that’s not the poooooint.” 

“What’s the point, then?” Chaeryeong asks through a laugh, caught off guard by the aegyo on display all of a sudden. Surely, Haewon isn’t like this with her members. Chaeryeong watches her next moves, amused at how much of a wet cat Haewon is like when she doesn’t get her way. Hears her loud, guttural sigh she lets out into the stuffy summer air. Watches, as she closes the distance between them, resolute with each step that puts her right in Chaeryeong’s face. 

“To try to get it to fly.” She pleads, “One more time?”

It’s hot out, and the late afternoon sun has beaten exhaustion into them for the past hour now. And however much Haewon tries to look unaffected, her hair is tousled and there are dark patches around her collar. 

“Fine, but after that, we’re leaving.” Chaeryeong tracks the bead of sweat that runs down the side of her temple, and feels hard plastic carving into her open palm. Haewon, more encouraged now, fits Chaeryeong’s fingers around the cheap spool and nylon. 

“I think you need to run. Actually, sprint.”

“What? No, you’re running.”

“My feet are sore.”

“So are mine.”

“No offense, but you don’t have a concert to perform in three days.” Haewon is right, but Chaeryeong shoots her a stare dead in the eye anyway. “I’ll hold the kite!”

“I can’t get over it. What kind of rural restaurant uses a QR order system? When we had to use cash at the grocery store? This country makes no sense.”

“Technically, it’s a karaoke bar, but madness, I know,” Chaeryeong replies, unfazed. Haewon scrunches her nose at her in mock contempt, which makes her laugh a little. “Eat your tofu. It’s what they’re known for over here.”

“Can you order a beer for me?” At Chaeryeong’s tight stare, Haewon doubles down, “What? They’re known for beer too.”

Reluctantly, Chaeryeong picks up her phone to reopen the menu. Haewon surges forward a little, excited at the prospect of alcohol and Chaeryeong’s concurrence. Her knees knock against Chaeryeong’s own under the table. 

“You’ve barely had any food. After all that running, too.”

Haewon shakes her head, elbows propped on the table to lift her chin up. Her cheeks are marked by the day’s events, dewy and warm under the orange light of the establishment. She evaluates Chaeryeong plainly and asks, “Do you get off on telling me what to do?”

“I wish,” Chaeryeong says, as normally as she can after food almost goes down the wrong pipe. “I’m just concerned, that’s all.”

“So, I make you worry.” 

Does she? Chaeryeong doesn’t think it’s that, either. She searches her heart for something close to the truth and lands on: “I treat you like I would treat Yuna, I think.”

“That explains the nagging.” Haewon crosses her arms. “I’m not a kid anymore. I’m not the young, snotty trainee you’d find crying in the bathroom after a monthly evaluation. And I’m not Yuna.”

“You’re not,” says Chaeryeong, fighting back the urge to walk down memory lane. To recall that once-familiar look of desperation on Haewon’s face. So single-minded about her desires in that time, so preoccupied with being perceived as bigger and better than she actually was. Just like Chaeryeong, just like the rest of them. Yuna, too. “She’s much taller.”

Haewon frowns. Announces to Chaeryeong, “I’ll show you how tall I can be.” It tears a laugh right out of her throat, the way Haewon scrambles to stand, leaning into the table to tower over her menacingly. 

It happens fast. Haewon bumps the table with her hip, and jolts her phone to life. It lights up, disclosing the barrage of messages received throughout the day, notifications dormant till now. Inadvertently, it seems, connected to the internet. 

Chaeryeong notices immediately. How most of them are from one person, the seemingly innocuous contact name being a single, koala emoji. How Haewon freezes solid, not knowing what to do next. 

They share performance directors, vocal trainers, hair stylists, and make-up artists. It’s inevitable, hearing about these things. Almost as inevitable as having to put some distance between yourself and your closest friend, and mistaking that as heartbreak. 

It’s instinct speaking, when Haewon reaches out to her like a lifeline. It’s just a phone, Chaeryeong thinks. Wires enclosed in metal and glass. Haewon holds it out to her across the table like it’s Pandora’s box, and barely has to speak her request.

Chaeryeong shakes her head, though she feels neither disapproval nor pity. Takes it from her anyway. 

“You know, you can look at the messages,” Chaeryeong encourages, “if you want to.”

“I don’t think I do, right now.” 

“Is that really the best idea?”

“Probably not.” Haewon shrugs a little too loosely, like she’s unaffected when she’s not. “Drink with me?”

“Haewon,” Chaeryeong tries, a warning.

“Unnie.” Again, knees knocking against hers under the table, buzzing a low hum against the nerves on her skin. “Just one beer, and then let’s sing together. Please? It’s my wish.”

She’s three beers in when Haewon picks a fight with her about girl groups, of all things. Chaeryeong is a professional when it comes to many things, but considers herself a singular expert at this.

“Okay, K-pop Professor,” Haewon sneers, “so tell me, if 4 Walls isn’t f(x)’s best song, then what is?”

Chaeryeong makes a face, huffy, still playing with Haewon’s phone in her hand. “Airplane,” she says. “There’s no debate.” 

It has a weight to it, the hard plastic case enclosing memories and parts of Haewon’s personality. The polaroid picture of her and Jinsol stares back at her, stashed between a thousand yen bill and a Haengmani sticker. The edges are frayed by use, the protective glass cover shattered at the bottom left edge. Haewon reaches her hand over her not-so-prized possession, her touch cool as snow, forcing Chaeryeong to look her in the eyes. 

“I hate to tell you this, unnie, but you’re dead wrong. Now I’m scared to ask what you think our best song is.”

Haewon is starting to look fuzzy around the edges. She’s had as many beers but doesn’t look nearly as shaky as Chaeryeong feels, heartbeat thumping against her temples, bright red heat flushing down her neck. She puts the phone away, aligns it to the edge of the table, and covers it with hers. 

“I know what it is,” she starts, still making sure the corners are lined up with one another. “Do you know what it is?” 

“Hm, Blue Valentine?” Haewon crosses her arms, in thought. “No, you wouldn’t choose something that obvious. Papillon. Shape of Love. Spinnin’ On It.” With Chaeryeong’s impassable smile at each passing title, Haewon grows desperate. She reaches into the troughs and comes up with: “Hey, Gabby?”

“As if,” Chaeryeong says plainly. “High Horse.”

“God. I should have known.” Haewon throws a palm against her forehead, genuinely mournful to not have gotten it right. Frown lines imprint themselves between her brows even after she’s finished with her deep contemplation. “Why?”

Chaeryeong shorts a laugh. The answer is obvious, even if Haewon pretends it isn’t. “Why do you think?”

“Fair. There’s a lot to like about that song.” Her arms wrap tighter around her chest. Chaeryeong’s vision zeroes in on the hand that Haewon has clutching her own bicep, thumb rubbing in absentminded circles. “We took it out of the tour setlist recently. Is it bad that I don’t miss performing it?”

Chaeryeong raises her eyebrows, lightly pushing for an explanation. Haewon picks up her glass to finish off her beer instead, puffing out her cheeks and leaning back into her chair. Every question that floats to the tip of Chaeryeong’s tongue dissolves into nothing. 

“You’re allowed to have opinions, even as an idol,” she manages to get out. Doesn’t tell her the obvious—your whole job is to perform, even if you hate it. Even if you can’t stand the look of yourself in the mirror, or the sound of your own voice. 

“How dreadful.”

“Haha,” Chaeryeong echoes drily.

“You know I’m kidding. I love my job. I should love it.”

“You can love your job and still complain about it.” Her members do that all the time. Even if Yeji thinks they shouldn’t.

“What kind of person would I be, if I’m complaining about making a living doing the thing I love most in the world?”

“The kind that we all are,” Chaeryeong replies after a beat. “Human.” 

“Corny,” Haewon bites back, muted and toothless. She taps a foreign rhythm with her fingernails against the empty mug. Tilts her head when she asks, slowly, “Do you ever feel like people look at you, but they’re not really seeing you?”

Chaeryeong ventures a nod. Haewon barely seems to register it when she continues:

“Like, Yoona always needs us to tell her she’s a good singer. Even though she knows it. Even though it’s obvious that she’s not just a pretty face. It’s almost as if it’s not true, unless someone else sees that in her, too.

“Kyujin is chronically responsible, so she needs someone else to recognise the work that needs to be done. To share the burden of knowledge, to remember even the smallest of things. Someone to convince her that the weight of the world isn’t just on her shoulders. 

“Jinsol has so much inside that heart of hers that she has to look for it in others too, someone to be on the same page as her. Jiwoo, usually. And Jiwoo needs Jinsol the way Jinsol needs her.”

Haewon falls silent, the omission glaringly loud. 

“And Lily?”

“What about her.”

“You were just so excited to talk about your members.” 

“I’m done talking about my members.”

“Yourself, then?”

“I wanna hear about you, now.”

“Haewon.” 

“Unnie,” Haewon coos. 

Annoyance is starting to bubble up within Chaeryeong with this cat-and-mouse game. Haewon doesn’t give under her irritable expression. 

Chaeryeong takes a moment to oblige her with an answer. Something good.

To her credit, Haewon waits, patiently, for what Chaeryeong has to say:

It’s one thing to have eyes on you and another to be seen, she thinks. 

Oftentimes, she looks out into a crowd and sees only dazzled, glazed eyes staring back at her. So taken in by her public self, so convinced that the idol and the person are one singular, unbroken thing. So concerned about their own pleasure—of being perceived, looked at, noticed—that they don’t stop to consider the individual on the other end. 

Everyday, she has to take out the garbage. Report harassers and block trolls. It’s easy enough to ignore the rest of the noise, what with the barrage of messages she sifts through daily in her chatroom, a dumping ground where the decency to not tell someone “you’ve gained weight” goes to die. But the occasional message still pricks at her, against her dire wishes to be nonchalant. There’s only so much she can take when her character comes under question, despite her best efforts. 

Sometimes, she hears her name echoed back at her, voices in the crowd piecing together the characters Lee, Chae, and Ryeong. Rarely, but a few times now, she feels them in their fractured, individual bits. Lee, from the Jeonju Yi clan, her family name. Chae, her bounding string to her sisters. And Ryeong—

“It’s pretty,” interrupts Haewon, “your name.”

Chaeryeong feels the blood pooling to the tip of her ears, lightness mixing with dizziness, beer and conversation clouding her mind. “Thank you,” she mumbles. “It’s mine.” 

“Yes, your name is yours.” Haewon’s reply is conciliatory. Placating. “No one’s taking it from you.”

That’s not what she means. “Ryeong is mine.”

“Really? Not when the daetong-ryeong exists.”

The President? Chaeryeong narrows her eyes at the provocation. 

Haewon backtracks through a laugh, “I’m kidding, there are no other Chaeryeongs around for a reason. No one can hold a candle to you.”

Well. “No Haewons too.”

“Plenty of Hyewons to confuse me with, though, so. Isn’t that nice.” 

“It is nice,” Chaeryeong asserts. There’s a blessing in having a crowd to blend into, however ill-fitting. Chaeyoung, Chaeyeon, Chaehyun, Chaekyung, Chaewon, she rattles off in her head. Hyewon and Yewon and Haewon and, look, Chaewon, again. “Korean names are so funny sometimes.”

Haewon breaks into a lopsided smile, finding her amusing, apparently. She puts up four fingers, folds her middle and ring fingers, then turns her hand over to split the legs on her fingerperson open. A series of elaborate, practiced signs later, Haewon tells her, “That’s how you say Bae Jinsol in Korean Sign Language.”

Disarmed once again, Chaeryeong softens her form to lay her head in her open, propped palm. Haewon leans forward, elbows folding her arms on the edge of the table, hands tucked into herself. 

This close, Chaeryeong is reminded: notes of lily, sweet and peppery, grounded with woody undertones. Haewon looks far and past her, scrunching her nose in rumination. 

“Jinsol needs to feel seen, more than any of us, I think. When you feel so much just from everyday life, I guess it’s hard not to wonder if anyone else is experiencing the same emotions. Or thinking the same thoughts. Or, even, tasting the same flavours.”

“And you chose to learn KSL instead of just listening to the poor girl.” Chaeryeong repeats the gestures crudely, clumsy and unpracticed fingers drawing odd shapes into the air. It makes Haewon huff out a small laugh, just what she wanted. “Real leader solutions,” she comments.

“She’s been learning KSL to communicate with fans! I thought it would be validating.” 

“It is,” Chaeryeong has to admit eventually. Haewon falters to meet her eyes, dipping her head to toy with the handle of the mug a few inches from her chin. Chaeryeong, possessed by a woman braver and drunker than she, picks up her head with two hands to force eye contact. “You’re a good leader, Haewon.”

“What the—”

“Say it, say you’re a good leader.”

Under Chaeryeong’s grip, Haewon’s complaints muffle and deflate into half-hearted pleas: “Let go of me!”

“Say it, it’s an order,” she repeats, not backing down, “my myeong-ryeong to you.”

“What are you, the President for real?” Haewon spits out through a curious chuckle. When she seems to finally realise how dead serious Chaeryeong is, she relents, “I’m a good leader.”

“Good.” Chaeryeong lets go of her, finally, the imprint of Haewon’s pale, icy skin pressed into her palms. “Good,” she lets out, as a charming smile cracks open, right back at her.  

Under the obnoxious pink strobe of the stage is where Chaeryeong realises Haewon might be a bit dramatic with these things. Ten minutes in, and they haven’t found a song to sing yet. Always too boring or too unbefitting of the mood, whatever that constitutes, considering they’re in an empty bar somewhere nowhere in the Pacific Ocean. 

Chaeryeong ignores the heavy breathing down her neck when she attempts to put in ‘NMIXX’ into the search bar again, just to get the same huffing and puffing whenever her finger hovers over a song Haewon doesn’t want to sing. Which seems like most of her own discography, really. 

“You literally asked me to choose a song for you.”

“How’d I know you were going to be so bad at this? Your grandma ran a noraebang.”

Chaeryeong barely stops to consider how Haewon knows or remembers this factoid. All this whole day has proven to her is that she, too, knows and remembers things about Haewon she probably shouldn’t. “Yeah, I’m the crazy one for wanting to hear you sing High Horse.”

“I’m on vacation, come to my concert if you want to hear my songs.” Fair enough. Chaeryeong backtracks once again to the homepage on the karaoke machine just as Haewon says, “Besides, I can’t sing that by myself.”

“I don’t know if you know this,” Chaeryeong starts, amused, “but I sing for a living, too.”

“It’s not about your skills. It’s just—it’s the song. Trust me, you don’t want me to get all High Horse in here.” 

“Okay.” Chaeryeong raises her eyebrows, basically a part of their secret code now, as in, I’m not going to ask you what that means. Though she suspects it’s how emotionally invested Haewon gets singing a song about running away with your person. Tearing yourselves out of this ‘suffocating frame.’ To the end of the line, no less. Their words, not hers. 

“Into the New World, then. I’ll even let you take all the adlibs.”

Chaeryeong decides any protest she hears will be ignored, if Haewon is ever going to get her wish tonight. On that thought, she barely catches the mumble about how this is Yoona’s song, usually. And Chaeryeong has to hold her tongue to say, yeah, duh, it’s Im Yoona’s song—though that’s neither helpful nor constructive.

The swelling of the music starts slow, as it always does with songs that only keep building on their own momentum. It’s a song that’s pulled off well only when it comes off as practised ease; when the notes aren’t strained and the movements flow and flex with your body. 

Though, Chaeryeong is singing with a voice that isn’t warmed up and a body unable to conjure choreography she’s supposed to have committed to muscle memory. 

And all while so painfully aware of the audience she has. Perhaps worse than having a crowd that doesn’t see her, she realises, is having one that watches her closely, evaluates quietly, and remembers intimately.

Haewon has her gaze trained on her lips, harmonising with her pitchy, breathy lines, voice clear as crystal. Chaeryeong hears the vocalisations leaving her lips and the foundation laid right below it, solid and strong, and relishes how easy it is to like the sound of her own voice, for once. 

The awe that seizes into her is all-consuming. Haewon closes her eyes, trying to reach a note just out of her comfortable range, hand suspended in the air as if it is close enough to touch and feel. 

Right around the bridge is when Chaeryeong starts to freeze. When the growing pitter-patter she had felt starting on the song's first beat, starts to transform into something starstricken. Debilitating. 

The perfectionist in her takes over like it does in front of crowds far exceeding the might and reach of this one. Her audience notices; there is no way she doesn’t. The choking, the staring. Haewon’s eyes drift between the look on Chaeryeong’s face and the mic that never drops further past her chest, but yet hangs in the balance of them, waiting to be used. 

For now, Chaeryeong prefers to just use her ears. 

For her, Haewon does what she does best, and loves most. And performs. 

By Haewon’s incessant behest, their final stop of the day is the Lawson two blocks away from their guesthouse, the only other business in the vicinity that is open past sundown. 

Three meals in a day with beer and ice cream just to top it all off. Chaeryeong still doesn’t think she has a dictionary definition for a perfect day, but this might be a prerequisite from now on. Haewon looks at her quietly—sore from repeatedly belting the last verse of Into the New World the whole way here, Chaeryeong is sure—like she’s thinking the exact same thing. 

“Yoghurt ice cream,” observes Haewon after a while, patronising. “How indulgent.”

“Shut up. It actually is my favourite.”

“Sure, keep lying to yourself.” 

Pot, kettle. “Black coffee,” Chaeryeong retorts, the subject speaking for itself.

“It’s to counteract the alcohol,” Haewon explains, unconvincingly. “It might be stacking the highs, though. Like an espresso martini.”

Ridiculous. Chaeryeong shakes her head in chagrin, to the staccato tune of Haewon’s guiltless pleasure. The teetering lip of the sunshade hinders the street lamps, painting their faces with shadowy, orange halos, their backs lit by the fluorescent white of the convenience store.

Haewon should look the picture of content, with Chaeryeong having been on her whim all day. But she sits on the curb with her knees close to her chest, and all Chaeryeong can wonder is if she does that to guard the secrets closer to her heart. That poor, overworked thing. 

Chaeryeong pointedly looks at the caffeinated beverage in question and asks, “Do you really need five of those in a day?”

“I don’t sleep very well usually, so yes.”

Maybe because you’re drinking so much coffee. “Do you know how to relax?”

“Of course,” comes Haewon’s unconvincing reply, an offended scoff tagged at the end to boot. 

Chaeryeong studies her with a stare. “How many livestreams did you do on this trip?” 

“Zero, I’ve been told it’s a security risk if I try to go live while abroad alone,” Haewon answers easily. “Besides, I know how to relax. Theoretically.” 

“Theoretically?”

“Theoretically.” 

“I think that just tells me you don’t know how to relax in practice.” 

Haewon sighs dramatically, like it’s not the first time she’s had to explain this. Chaeryeong drops the hand holding the ice cream, angling to face her, all ears. 

“Theoretically,” she starts, eyes closing, “after a long day, I’d go home to someone.”

Chaeryeong waits for the punchline. What she gets instead is the uncanny realisation that Haewon is, well, serious about this. “So,” she urges gently, “what would you do?”

“We’d cook together, I think. Rice and side dishes courtesy of my parents. We’d eat dinner while watching something on the couch, probably YouTube. Something funny.”

“No love for K-dramas in this household? Not even a romcom?”

“It’s all romance,” Haewon says after a while. “Even when it’s not.” 

Exhaustion and relief slip out of her when her head comes to a rest against the tip of Chaeryeong’s shoulder, taut from the shock of skin. With another soft sigh, Haewon slides her cheek, a nuzzle at most, that pushes her fine hairs into the crook of Chaeryeong’s neck. Something angular—her nose, Chaeryeong realises—draws a soft line into her, like a finger through sand. It takes a second to work its magic, soothing Chaeryeong’s tight form and persuading it to give under the shape of her.

“And then, I’ll lie in their lap. Maybe fall asleep eventually with an arm around me.” 

Chaeryeong breathes out, imagining the scene for herself. For too long she’s gotten used to the idea of being alone in her own home. The faceless warmth envelopes her and ghosts a kiss against her shoulder. 

“That sounds nice.”

“I know,” says Haewon, cocky, satisfied. “I can relax when I’m dead.”

“I can’t encourage that. You’re not going to be much fun when you’re dead.”

“I’d be ghastly, I think.” The laugh punches out of Chaeryeong suddenly, though not enough force to displace the wintry shadow draping off the side of her. The ice cream, lukewarm and half-melted down her fingers, provides a sticky contrast. She hears Haewon swallow a chuckle of her own, just to say, “Thank you.”

“For what?” 

A hum. A beat. Chaeryeong draws in a deep inhale, intending to go still with the night air for as long as she can. Haewon smiles against the skin of her shoulder, and breathes.

The lights in their guesthouse are a shade harsher than Chaeryeong remembers them being the night earlier. Superfluous, almost, with how brightly they illuminate the room. Chaeryeong puts a hand across her face to block the light, the weight a comfort against her tired eyes.

“Don’t fall asleep yet,” she hears Haewon’s voice call from up high, “we still have to try the fruits we got.”

Chaeryeong tears her hand away and squints her eyes to adjust. Haewon is sitting on her mat a few feet away. She smiles to answer, “Might be too much adventuring today, sorry.”

“That’s fair, I figured that was a big ask, anyway,” Haewon says good-naturedly. The dusty pink hasn’t come off her cheeks even while the alcohol has petered out. “Thanks for coming out with me.”

“I’m sorry if this wasn’t the trip you expected.”

“No, it wasn’t. But it was fun, so don’t be sorry.”

“Well, I’m sorry that you’re flying back to the main island tomorrow.”

Haewon gives a short sigh. “It is a shame, I liked this place.”

“This room will feel a lot emptier.”

It’s offhanded, the comment. But something inside Haewon shifts. Chaeryeong watches the gears behind her delicate eyes turn, drawing desperately from the well of wit that has served her so well all this time. 

The result—Haewon snaps into standing, and then frantically drags her entire tatami mat to the space right by Chaeryeong’s side. Finally, she lays herself down to match Chaeryeong’s eye level, before looking over to ask, “There, better?”

“Quite,” Chaeryeong says through an easy laugh, charmed once more. The urge to reach into the space between them starts and stops in her throat, her hand slumped limply within the inch of wood separating their mats. Chaeryeong listens to the air between them, rising and falling with their bated, shallow breaths. 

Haewon looks away first, her confession coming when she turns her gaze to the ceiling. “I’m glad it was you,” she says, in that same matter-of-fact tone she uses for everything between a joke and a critique, so afraid of letting any hint of her true feelings slip. Her teeth catch on her bottom lip. When she turns her head back, the nervousness is apparent. 

Pretty. The word arises with the thought, inking itself in the space between Chaeryeong’s knuckles, where an ache starts. “I am, too,” she tells Haewon honestly. 

There’s a split second where the ghost of a smile flashes across the younger girl’s face, bashful and innocent, reminiscent of the Haewon she trained with all those years ago. Chaeryeong smiles back, trying to catch her, but she flutters away just as Haewon returns to herself. 

“Have you heard? They’re debuting a new girl group soon.” Chaeryeong nods, already knowing what she’ll hear from Haewon: “They sat us all in a room and told us all about them, and asked us for feedback. Feedback, for a bunch of teenagers they’re grooming to take our place. Can you imagine?” 

Chaeryeong chokes out a laugh at the memory of Haewon in a red muscle tee and Lily in a beanie. Making Destiny’s Child their own to make their own destiny. 

“I literally don’t have to.”

“Yeah, but you never had to worry if we were going to catch you right out of the gate.” 

She shrugs. “I knew it was a matter of time.” The circle of life moves on, and the life-cycle of a girl group begins to end with the birth of a new one. 

“But you were lightyears ahead of us! You were literally everywhere back then.” At the implication, Haewon tones down. Eeks out, “Sorry.”

Chaeryeong shakes her head and waves her off. Deflects with, “Is it, and I’m just thinking aloud here, maybe worse to have Twice as your glass ceiling from even before you debuted?”

“Unnie. For your information, we still have the same glass ceiling.” 

“I’m sorry, really wished I—we—could have broken through that for you.” 

“No, maybe this is better. You think any of the Twice unnies will be able to waltz through a guesthouse in rural Japan, unnoticed?”

Hah. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

“I’ve been nothing but good to you all day, and this is how you repay me.”

“It’s just an innocent question.”

“You know it isn’t,” Haewon tuts, not all that peeved, “and you’re here too.”

“It was the first tile on the airline’s website when I was looking up flights.” Chaeryeong ventures a calculated guess: “You’re running away.”

“I’m not.” 

“You’re not giving me anything to work with. Meet me in the middle here, Haewon.”

Maybe it’s her fault. Haewon intentionally misinterprets her words, shuffling her weight with her whole body such that her mat now sits flush against Chaeryeong’s. She beams with pride when she gestures to their new, shared bed: “Middle, met.”

“You’re never going to tell me about you and Lily, are you?” Chaeryeong asks, hearing a pained groan emerge to overpower the smile on Haewon’s face.

“You’re going to have to wear me down a lot more to get that out of me.”

“You’re saying I wear you down?”

Chaeryeong starts shuffling her mat away in her attempt at humour. Haewon sits up, pulls her back to her side in one strong motion, mat and person. Chaeryeong yelps, looking up slack-jawed at the form casting a shadow over her, and is surprised to find nothing less than a determined strength staring right back at her.  

“I’m not running away from her,” Haewon insists. “That’s not what I do.”

I believe you, Chaeryeong means to say. Haewon averts her eyes, continues:

“Do you know what I mean when I say, Seoul just does something to you? Everything sucks and everybody runs on empty. I needed to escape myself. I needed time away from myself, my body, that thing that takes over whenever a camera turns on.

“When I used to feel that way, I would just go home. Incheon used to be different. Easier. I could just be Oh Haewon who went to Incheon Nonhyeon Middle and High School. Going home used to feel like...”

“Like being pulled out of the water.” 

“And that’s all gone now,” she says, finality in her voice. Though, there’s no relief to be had in Chaeryeong’s shared understanding. The cost of a meteoric rise to the top of pop culture relevancy. 

Haewon is exhausted. In every sense. Chaeryeong sees it in her eyes, in the sunken lines that frame them. Not the kind of fatigue that is accumulated in a day. Or goes away after a long night’s rest. Her head falls onto her pillow with a thud. She closes her eyes, but restfulness seems to escape her, still. 

“I will reply to her, eventually,” Haewon starts again after a while. “I know you think it’s avoidant or, or terrible of me to do this to her.”

I don’t, Chaeryeong means to say. Haewon opens her eyes, turns over to look at her, and continues: 

“But this is it—all we’ve ever done is wait for each other. All we’ll ever do is wait for each other. So, she can wait.” 

“Okay,” Chaeryeong says, letting that be the end of it. She’s demanded too much acquiescence from Haewon in the past hour. “You should sleep. You’ve had a long day.”

“So have you.” 

“You’re not falling asleep if your eyes are opened like that.”

“I can’t sleep because you’re too pretty.”

Chaeryeong rolls her eyes, though the compliment settles like a hand running down her back, prompting a small shiver. “It’s almost midnight.”

“The coffee is just starting to work.” 

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I don’t have a single bone in my body capable of a lie that big, unnie.” Haewon lets a hand idle across her cheek—Chaeryeong almost instinctively wants to recoil, remembering the coolness of her touch. But this Haewon radiates heat like a hotteok store on a winter’s day, steaming with sweetness. She smiles, soft yet serious when she tells Chaeryeong, “I’ve always thought you were beautiful. I’ve always wanted to...”

Haewon’s breath finds hers in the stiff air between them, warm and inviting. Chaeryeong’s urge to lean into it is crowded out by her hairs standing on their ends, screaming to her that this is wrong. 

She backs away first, a small movement as her deflated protest. Haewon stops in her tracks immediately, her gaze piercing yet patient.

“You’re as young as Yuna.” 

“I’m as old as Yuna. In fact, I’m older than her.” 

Chaeryeong feels the grip around her arm tighten when she tries to withdraw herself again, and gives up rather promptly on her quest to get away. If there was anything new she learnt about herself today, it was that she is utterly helpless to Haewon’s whim. She tries again, “I’m your senior.” 

“I was perfectly capable of making it into ITZY, and you know it.” 

Luck of the draw. Timing. Seven members or six instead of five. So many reasons for the way things panned out, or the way they didn’t. Chaeryeong thinks about that possibility. Of a life where Haewon and Yuna traded places, and the mantle of leader for NMIXX had fallen onto the shoulders of someone else. Lily, probably, and reluctantly. Kyujin, too young. And Haewon: ITZY’s star maknae, always punching above her weight class, achieving things beyond what’s expected of her. 

“You cried too. At the CU—it wasn’t a 7-Eleven. You hugged Yuna and you told her she was right where she was meant to be. With us.” 

That arrests Haewon. Chaeryeong feels the loss now, when she pulls back slightly and her eyes go distant. She realises she doesn’t like it when Haewon strays too far away.

“I was lying. I was jealous and I wanted it to be me. I even held it against her. It wasn’t even her fault.” She shakes her head, as though berating her younger self. “I was just childish.” 

“It was a tough thing to navigate at that age.”

“I couldn’t even look at her. Until I got my own team, I didn’t—” Haewon considers what she’s saying for a moment before she settles on, “Maybe if things were different, Yuna and I would be best friends. And instead…”

And instead, you got Lily. And four other people to call a second family. A complicated and boundary-pushing and creative and exhausting family, but one nonetheless.

“You were always meant for this, Haewon. And you know it too.” 

Haewon hums, a small noise of agreement. “You know something? Lily unnie never shuts up about how kind and funny you are. Even when we met your sister, recently.” 

Chaeryeong gasps with a surprised laugh. “Is that a complaint?”

“That she fucking adores you?” Haewon’s thumb presses into her waist when she tells her: “No, not really. Not when you basically tutored all of us for free. I might owe you my life.”

“Just your dancing skills.”

“You should feel proud.”

She hopes it comes across as sincere as she means it, when she says, “I’ve always been proud of you. I did watch you grow up, after all.”

Haewon’s eyes soften just a little to hear that. “You were growing up, too.”

“I had a lot of that to do.”

“It has to get better, right?”

Chaeryeong whispers, not so sure herself, “I imagine that it does.”

“It will.” 

It takes only a second for Chaeryeong to be convinced too, by Haewon’s statement. It takes another second for the space between them to close to nothing. Chaeryeong can’t tell at first if Haewon is the one taking her in, or vice versa. She leans in closer just to find out, pressing herself upwards, finding the lips above hers to be softer than she could have imagined. Haewon breathes her in like she’s the reprieve from life she’s been seeking out this whole trip. Like she’s something soft, something indulgent. Something to caress with both hands, one gentle against her cheek, and the other, firm behind her back. And all Chaeryeong can think of is:

Lilies. The scent of them. Provoking and close to her. 

Lily. She’s not here, but Haewon’s tongue pushes against hers like she is. Hot and desperate, sour with the taste of coffee, and deeply, deeply wanting. Chaeryeong knows not to get lost in the satisfying slide of their lips, not when she’s just the placeholder.

“Unnie.”

Chaeryeong opens her mouth to call her back. Ends up carving the shape of her name back into her lips. Haewon. Haewonnie. Haewon-ah. If this is an illusion for her, maybe Chaeryeong should try not to break it. It’s okay, she thinks, if she can do this for Haewon. It’s okay if Haewon doesn’t see her in that way. 

She slows them down and lets herself in. Lets her mind haze over with the taste of Haewon. Lets her hands find purchase on the solid, dependable frame of her junior who so desperately wants to be seen as her peer. Just this once, Chaeryeong thinks she could let that happen.

Time slows to a syrupy standstill. Chaeryeong calls it the next time she finds herself drifting to sleep, tucking herself into the warm nook of Haewon’s neck. She noses at the skin there, closing her eyes to breathe in the scent of her. The hand strokes a steady rhythm on the back of her head, as if intending to lull her right back into slumber.

Chaeryeong resists the urge to nod off, wanting to prolong the feeling of Haewon’s arm and weight around her. Finds the strength to tell her, “I like your perfume, by the way.”

“Thank you.” Chaeryeong thinks she might hear relief in Haewon’s dozy, deep voice. And then, “Sometimes I think I smell like a funeral.”

“No, you don’t,” she says back, laughing despite herself. “It’s warm, and a little spicy. It suits you.”

Haewon shifts. Tilts herself down and into Chaeryeong, where she then feels a kiss placed on the crown of her head. When she peers up, she finds nothing but gentle eyes looking back at her. 

She imagines for herself what it’s like to be in Haewon’s shoes. Where the desire you have for someone can be so unassuming and so visceral anyway. An inevitable yearning for even the most mundane. Nights at home curled up in each other. Wednesday evenings in the car riding out the Seoul traffic. Putting their drink order in without asking what it is. Brushing back their hair, or tying their shoelaces. And waiting. For a sign. For things to change. For feelings to fade. For each other. With each other.

Maybe she’s dreaming already. Chaeryeong feels the hand in her hair tighten, just to hold her a little closer. 

Chaeryeong wakes up with Haewon’s warm weight on her chest, her eyes already half open and following the sunrays tracking through the windows. 

“Good morning,” she greets. “What time is your flight?”

Haewon’s eyes have the nerve to look cheeky first thing in the morning, despite how puffy they are. 

“Does it matter?” 

“It matters if you’re going to be late for it, I think.”

“I’m sure there’s space on yours.”

“My row is booked out, I checked.”

“It’s fine, even if I’m not sitting next to you,” Haewon tells her, head shifting on her chest to now see her face-to-face. “I think I’d just like to go where you’re going.”

Chaeryeong feels a smile coming on. The smell of lilies has all but faded, replaced by the natural, earthy scent of their room. She takes a deep breath, and asks, rather needlessly: “Are you sure?” 

“Of course. I think I’d be blessed to be travelling anywhere with you. My very own sanshin-ryeong.” 

Mountain spirit. Chaeryeong hits her square on the arm, a hoarse laugh bubbling out of her against her will. “Haewon,” she whines.

“Chaeryeong,” Haewon calls back, a perfectly sweet and wondrous drawl of her name. Chaeryeong thinks she could get used to it.