Aphrodite's Spell

Falling flowers

It's one thing to hear that someone loves you, another thing to experience that love. Nayeon isn't sure she's deserving of such devotion. She often questions herself what she's done to receive such reverent touches, tender words and unbridled affection in the simplest of gestures.

Mina is carefully folding up her sleeves and icing the bruised bicep, eyes swimming with concern and worry - so she blurts it out, unable to keep the words in her chest, interrupting the comfortable silence that has settled between them.

"Why do you even love me?"

The worry disappears, giving way to something close to amusement. "Is that a rhetorical question?"

Blushing, she shrugs. "It's just that, I'm me." Loud, immature, childish, a lot of adjectives springs to her mind.

The younger girl slides her hand up her arm, stroking the skin on the back of her neck, tugging her closer to lay her head on her shoulder. "Which is perfect."

Nayeon breathes her in deeply. The rational part of her which is tethered to truth and facts doesn't want to believe it. But when Mina is in her arms, holding Nayeon like she really is perfect, a small part of her indulges happily in the belief that maybe, she is perfect, in Mina's eyes.

It's as if her mind has a mental switch that turns automatically on around the Japanese girl. It doesn't miss a single word she says, has memorised everything with an unwavering sincerity. It's probably why when she looks at the calendar before the recording, and smiles to herself that she's been with Mina for a whole month without fucking anything up, her mind decides to randomly supply an incident from their trainee days,

"Omg that's so romantic." Dahyun gushes when the male lead hires a flight to declare his love to the female lead with an I love you banner.

"Dramatic." Joengyeon comments dryly.

"Yes, this one's a bit dramatic." Mina begins softly, looking away when Nayeon turns to her, "It doesn't have to be grand gestures, just simple thoughtful gestures that tells us that someone thinks the world of us, imagine having that."

"I'm sure you can have that." Chaeyoung reasons, "I mean look at you, who wouldn't want to give you the world?"

Mina gives a smile that's playful on the surface but Nayeon notices it doesn't really reach her eyes. "I can think of a name or two."

Nayeon makes a mental note to rip them a new limb when she finds their names.

She definitely needs her limb. It's a fact.  Because how else is she going to hold Mina, caress her cheeks that flushes so prettily when she cups them or explore her smooth skin that gets heated at the touch of her fingers. It won't do.

So when Jihyo looks at her, with very little patience and a lot of annoyance the next day, she crosses her arms, and mutters defensively, "I needed my limbs."

"All she asked was why you broke our neighbour's window at midnight." Jeongyeon guffaws loudly, "Carrying a bag of chocolates and flowers. I mean were you trying for hate sex or something with Mrs. Chin?"

Nayeon snarls at the taller girl and only stops when Jihyo narrows her eyes in dry amusement. "Thank god our manager paid the grumpy woman off and stopped a story from reaching the media. The least you could do is tell us why you did what you did."

She ignores the heat climbing up to the tip of her ears, ignores Mina's eyes on her, as she admits quietly, "I was aiming the pebble for Mina's window."

The studio goes silent for an embarrassingly few seconds.

Jihyo and Jeongyeon soften. Dahyun looks at her proudly. Tzuyu shakes her head with a smile. Sana gives her a peck on her cheek. Momo and Chaeyoung chuckle.