Last Light

MINHO

"- and that." Giselle spread her hands. "Is how I ended up deepthroating a microphone by accident."

The fire popped. Everyone lost it at once.

"So yeah," she continued, picking her drink back up. "That's networking for you."

Ryujin came up onto her knees with both hands already in the air while Yunjin got to the whistle first, two fingers jammed in her mouth as the pair of them screamed loud enough to turn a sand pit into the back end of an encore while Ryujin clapped with her whole arms.

"That," Yunjin shouted, throwing both arms wide enough to claim broadcast rights, "was CINEMA."

Ryujin pressed a hand to her chest and bowed her head. "Director's cut with unpaid staff overtime."

They kept lobbing it back and forth because they'd been at it all night, getting loud and finding each other across the gap between two groups before silently agreeing the rest of us were just the audience at a music-show prerecording who should clap when prompted, so Giselle dipped her chin to take the praise.

But Chaeryeong scrunched her whole face up and chewed her lip while replaying the story, desperately hunting for the part where it became a romance.

"But after," she pressed, leaning in. "Was there - a moment?"

Giselle gave her one slow blink.

"I gave him our manager's contact."

Chaeryeong slumped forward into Sunwoo's side. Sunwoo doubled over and pushed his face into her shoulder to muffle it, one arm hauling her close. He kissed the top of her head between laughs. She let him reel her in, scowling into his collarbone.

Ningning reached over and smacked Giselle's palm without lifting her eyes off her marshmallow. "Queen." She rotated the skewer with great seriousness.

Winter had spent the whole story at war with a marshmallow. I'd watched it sideways the entire time. The marshmallow slid off the skewer. Winter pushed it back on. It caught fire. Winter blew it out. It slumped off the stick into the coals. She'd lost three of them this way. She came up from the latest drop with her cheeks stuffed full of sugar, holding the empty skewer out.

"Wait." Winter looked from Giselle to Ningning, chewing fast now that the group had apparently moved on. "What happened?"

"I'll tell you later." Ningning reached over and turned Winter's skewer away from the fire before it could claim a fourth victim.

Winter swallowed with visible effort. "But I was here! I only looked away because it was burning."

"It's over, unnie. Just eat the evidence."

"That doesn't count." Winter waved the empty skewer at Ningning, then at the coals. "It was on fire. I fixed it."

Over at the edge of the blanket, Karina smiled at the marshmallow disaster until Giselle flicked her a look and Karina met it, both their smiles dropping as they stared flat at each other and then coming right back up for the group, so even if I had no idea what actually happened in the unedited version of Giselle's night, I'd lay bets her leader already had the full report.

I stood behind Yeji, my thumbs working the knot at the top of her spine, watching the firelight hit her face. I didn't plan on letting any of this go.

"Okay, we need a photo."

Chaeryeong recovered from her grief and popped up on her knees. "We HAVE to. Everyone's here, everyone looks good, the fire's perfect. Lia-ya, you have your phone."

Lia picked up her phone from the sand.

"Okay, group shot." Lia woke the screen, the blue light washing up over her face. "Hold on. I'll prop it. The timer's in here somewhere."

She frowned at the phone as her thumb moved across two screens and the frown got worse.

"Why do they move this every update," Lia grumbled. "There's a guy in California getting promoted for ruining eomeoni photo time." She tilted the phone, then tilted her head without taking her eyes off the screen. "Minho-oppa, come help me with this?"

I blinked, mostly because there were over a dozen people around this fire and half of them could've set a phone timer in their sleep while Yuna had probably done a fancam tutorial on it while eating gimbap in a van, but before I could point any of this out Yeji's hand came down flat on my thigh and shoved.

"Go help her." Yeji shoved my thigh again. "You're standing there doing nothing."

I went while Ryujin watched with filth tucked behind her grin, but since Lia was already patting the sand beside her I let Ryujin's comment wait and crouched next to her where I could see her phone sitting open on the home screen with no camera app in sight.

"I'm always the one taking the pictures," Lia muttered, turning the phone sideways, then upside down, then back again. "I never actually have to set the timer to be in the shot, so you hold it landscape, right, and then..."

"Lia."

"...and then the little icon, it used to be on the left..."

"Lia."

She stopped and leaned in close enough that the firelight left most of her face dark.

"I saw what happened on the pool deck." Lia whispered.

My jaw locked as I stared at the side of her head, remembering how days ago I'd heard her mention footage and how I'd carried that panic through every meal and every laugh and every time Yeji touched me in front of people since one video could turn this beach into Dispatch bait before breakfast.

"I know," I said quietly. "I know there's a video."

Her eyebrows climbed.

"Oh?" Lia's fingers rubbed the edge of the phone case.

I kept my mouth shut while she kept looking at me until she finally shrugged.

"Well, it's gone." Her mouth tipped up at the corner. "Some things you watch once and let go."

I sat there with my hands empty and made myself nod because some things didn't need saying, and she watched the nod and plucked the phone back before her thumb tapped the screen and the camera opened with the timer in the center.

"Good luck figuring it out!" Lia gave my shoulder a suspiciously fake pat before moving back towards the assembled group.

She barely made it into the fray before Yuna's arm shot out of the hoodie to hook her round the waist while Chaeryeong grabbed her sleeve from the other side, making Lia stumble into the knot of her own members with a surprised laugh.

I stood up with the phone and let my shoulders drop along with my jaw unclenching.

I wedged the phone into the neck of an empty soju bottle stuck in the sand, pointed it at everyone, and started herding a dozen drunk bodies into one frame.

Everyone sorted themselves out fast. Yeji and Ryujin folded into each other in the middle, Ryujin's arm slung heavy over Yeji's shoulders and Yeji's hand fisted in the back of Ryujin's sleeveless hoodie. Chaeryeong tucked under Sunwoo's arm with her palm flat on his chest, and he turned his whole body toward her. Lia let Minjun pull her back against him at the edge of the shot, his chin at her temple, both of them grinning.

aespa clumped into their own corner. Karina sat low and central. Winter dropped in right beside her, using the borrowed time to cram a whole s'more into her mouth. The camera was about to catch their leader next to a girl with both cheeks stuffed with marshmallow. Giselle and Ningning boxed them in, still bickering, Ningning's hands up, Giselle's eyebrow up higher.