Two Slow Dancers

Chaeyoung woke up with a sharp and sore pain on her neck. Maybe sleeping on the chair wasn’t the best idea she had.

“I should have slept on the floor.”

“Or you could have slept on my bed?” A soft voice jolted her awake. She saw Mina standing in front of her with a glass of water in hand and offered it to Chaeyoung.

“Oh.” She tried to blink, trying to look at the woman in front of her clearly. She rubbed the blur off, grabbed her glasses where she left them and gently took the glass of water from Mina. “Thank you.”

Mina watched her drink and sat on the bed, her head hung low. “I’m sorry.”

Chaeyoung furrowed her brows and swallowed the last of the water from the glass. “Why are you apologizing?”

The older woman still looked down and was fiddling with her fingers, refusing to meet Chaeyoung’s eyes. “Because I was being embarrassing last night.” She finally lifted her head and gave a weak smile. “But thank you. I’m glad you were there and that I’m here safe.”

Chaeyoung could only smile at the statement, before she could say something she paused when she noticed the shirt that Mina was still wearing. It made her heart beat even more knowing that her shirt was still on Mina’s delicate body. Her scent was probably all over Mina at this point. Or the other way around.

She couldn’t help but admire how adorable Mina looked in it. Like they were an actual couple. She waved off the thought, which made the other girl confused with the sudden gesture.

“It’s fine,” she said, trying to wave off the weird thoughts she had. “I’m just relieved you called me—”

Suddenly they heard the door open, and a loud noise came from the outside.

“Minaaaaa!” Sana’s voice boomed through and she barged through the bedroom door but stopped when she saw Chaeyoung inside. “Oh! Chaeyoung!” She blinked at the both of them. Dahyun and Nayeon came from behind and also gasped at the situation.

“Why are you here?” Nayeon asked, obviously she tried to not sound rude but the words just left her mouth that way. The brunette was eyeing Chaeyoung then to the shirt that Mina was wearing. “And where did you get that? You never wear flannel.”

Mina then panicked for a bit. “Chaeyoung helped me last night! I-I was really out of it, and I called her since no one was answering.”

Chaeyoung felt her shoulders drop. Of course she wasn’t the first choice in Mina’s head. This was why she had to do this with zero expectations in her head. “Yeah, I rushed over as soon as I could, and I brought her here,” she added.

Sana could only squeal at how cute that was for her and rushed to wrap Chaeyoung in a tight squeeze. “Thank you, Chaengie!” she said and gave her one more squeeze before letting go. Chaeyoung smiled awkwardly and tried to ignore the feeling of a blush on her cheeks. “Well that’s why we came by to visit, we just saw your calls from last night.”

“Yeah but we got kinda caught up and we weren’t able to answer them,” Dahyun said, feeling a bit flushed as she looked at Sana, who gave her a wink in response.

Nayeon couldn’t help but roll her eyes at the comment. “Gross, guys.”

“Ugh, I shouldn’t have called you guys if I knew you were busy doing couple things then,” Mina said, standing up from her spot on the bed and pushing them out of her room. “Okay, I gotta freshen up, so can you please wait for me outside?”

Chaeyoung’s gears were starting to crank. Feeling a great wave of relief now that she didn't pursue the idea of hitting on Dahyun the night they all met, that would have been a great mistake. She had no idea that Dahyun and Sana were dating all this time. But she was still thankful. Because if she did gave in to the silly idea, she wouldn’t have the chance to talk to Mina. Thank the gods for this extreme luck, she thought to herself.

She couldn’t help but feel slightly uncomfortable with the way Nayeon was just staring at her the entire time and the fact the friend immediately noticed that Mina was wearing someone else’s clothes.

But she could only shake the feeling off, it wasn't like Chaeyoung did something bad. So, she stood up from her seat to follow the couple outside and hoped that Nayeon wouldn't stare her to death when they leave the apartment, but before she could exit the room, Mina grabbed her shirt to stop her.

“Chaeng,” she said, trailing off and suddenly pulled her in for a hug again. This time, this was a real hug. She wasn’t drunk and was in the right state of mind. Chaeyoung could only worry that Mina might feel her heart beating faster as their bodies were this close to each other. “Thank you.”

Chaeyoung couldn’t hold it in, she gently slid her hands around Mina’s waist, wrapping her arms around the delicate figure and returned the embrace; making Mina hug her tighter. This was nice. If only this moment could last longer. “You can call me anytime you’re in a pinch,” she said under her breath.

They finally break off from the hug and Chaeyoung reached for the door and looked back at Mina, who finally realized that the shirt she was wearing wasn’t hers.

“Oh no,” she suddenly said as she looked down at the shirt. “I’ll get this washed for you. I’m sorry for being so much trouble.”

Chaeyoung could only smile. “It’s fine.” Before she could finally leave the room, she looked at Mina one last time and smirked. “You look good in my shirt.” She then tried to wink and then exited the room, not waiting for Mina’s response and closed the door behind her.

She was finally back at her dorm room. Luckily, it was the weekend, so she didn’t have to worry about being late for class or anything. It was already past noon, and Sana and Dahyun were nice enough to invite her to join them for brunch. Unfortunately, Mina and Nayeon decided to pass on the invite since she wanted to rest from her weird adventure from last night and Nayeon wanted to accompany her friend as she did. Which was understandable. It was hard to get rid of a hangover so easily, even if they had no idea what she drank last night.

Chaeyoung decided to clean the mess in her room before getting ready to go to the records shop to do her shift. Hopefully she didn’t miss out on anything before she left last night.

As she grabbed all the discarded clothes on the floor, she placed them in her hamper and stared at it. Contemplating if she should do laundry before she regretted it. She went over to her small can of coins by one of the counters in her kitchen to see if she had enough for the washing machine and the dryer. She grabbed a handful, too lazy to get the exact amount and shoved it in her pocket. Before she could think of more chores, she decided to finish cleaning up first before heading down to do her laundry.

With a triumphant grunt, she looked back at her clean dorm room. She had to admit, she was a very lazy person, so cleaning it without Jeongyeon’s help felt like a great achievement in her books. Chaeyoung grabbed her keys before leaving the room, with her laundry basket in hand, she walked towards the elevator and pressed the button to go down.

The laundry room was on the ground floor, it was a bit far from where the elevator was, but it wasn’t a long one so she didn't mind the extra walking. As the elevator rang on her floor and the doors slid open, she was greeted by a familiar face who she just met hours ago.

“Nayeon?” This was awkward. Chaeyoung totally forgot that she was living in the same dorm.

Nayeon greeted her with a big toothy smile, removing the earphones from her ear. “Well, well. We meet again.” They stood next to each other in the lift. She noticed that they both had laundry baskets in hand. “Laundry day as well?”

Chaeyoung chuckled. “Yeah, it’s been a while since I did this,” she added, looking into the basket, realizing that some of them were Jeongyeon’s clothes. She scoffed and reminded herself to ask her best friend to refund her for the kind services.

Curiosity was eating her as silence filled the elevator, she wanted to ask Nayeon about Jeongyeon, remembering the fact they slept with each other a week ago and that Nayeon labelled her friend’s arm with her phone number.

“Hey,” Nayeon suddenly called to her, interrupting Chaeyoung from her thoughts, the elevator door opened, and they both exited while heading towards the laundry room. “I know we haven’t really talked but I wanted to ask something.”

This was probably about her spending the night at Mina's apartment, she started to panic. Hopefully it was going to be about Jeongyeon.

“Do you have feelings for Mina?”

Chaeyoung stopped, which Nayeon raised an eyebrow, looking back at her. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” she responded with a smirk on her face. “I guess with that reaction, I know the answer,” she said, then turned around and continued to walk.

This wasn’t good.

Chaeyoung tried to catch up with her. “Is that a bad thing?” She couldn’t lie, even to someone she just met. Maybe if it was a life-threatening situation, she might. But this was close.

Nayeon could only pout, thinking. She opened the door to the laundry room for both of them and they entered, placing their baskets next to each other. She looked at Chaeyoung and smiled again, it was more implying than friendly. “Well, for starters, she’s my best friend. I’ve known her long enough to see how people are when they like her.” She gave a pointed look at Chaeyoung. “Plus, you were so quiet during the drinking event. You didn’t talk to anyone but Jeongyeon. Then next thing I know, I see you talking to Mina the whole time and in a split second you’re leaving with her.”

“Right,” she admitted. It wasn't like she could tell Nayeon that she had serious anxiety and that she had a hard time making new friends. But then again, she had no good excuse as to why she was having such an easy time talking to Mina. However, what caught her off guard the most was when Nayeon said she was Mina’s best friend. Was this the turning point of the universe’s luck to her?

Nayeon giggled at her. “Look, I’m not gonna tell Mina, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She smiled at Chaeyoung and proceeded to put her laundry in the machine.

Chaeyoung gave an awkward chuckle and did the same thing. “Thank you,” she said quietly, thinking again.

“About you spending the night at her apartment last night, though.” She then brought up, seemed that Nayeon didn't want to let their encounter go by without talking about it.

The younger swallowed hard and stammered. “I-I promise, I didn’t do anything funny.” She surrendered, putting her hands up. Trying her best not to get on the best friend’s nerves.

Which made Nayeon laugh out loud, putting a hand over her mouth. “I know! I mean, when you guys left, Mina told me everything that she could remember,” she said as she added the last item of clothing inside and then poured in her fabric softener in the tiny slot on the washing machine. “Mina was very shy about it.”