You were woken up by the sunlight coming in from the window and hitting your eyes. You grumbled at the disturbance, only to soften moments later when your girlfriend cuddled closer to you, hiding her face in your shoulder as she too was awoken by the light. “Turn it off”, she whined into your shoulder, making you chuckle at her adorableness. “I can’t turn the sun off, baby. It doesn’t work like that”, you explained with a small laugh.
She whined unintelligibly, her face scrunching up adorably. I’ll make us breakfast”, you said as you made to get off the bed, but Sana’s arm shot out, holding on to your wrist and stopping you. “Not so fast”, she mumbled as she pulled you back into bed, wrapping her arms around your waist and dragging you closer until your back met her front.
“Stay”, she mumbled sleepily. “Let’s cuddle”. You gave in easily, knowing days like this were rare and far apart. With Sana’s schedule as an idol and your demanding job, it wasn’t normal for both of you to get off days on the same days so you tended to take advantage of them when it happened, usually by spending the whole day in bed relaxing or by having some kind of spontaneous date, having a picnic in the park or going to a carnival or arcade.
Today, it seemed, was going to be one of those days spent in bed. Not that you would complain, loving the feeling of being wrapped in the arms of the woman you loved. You felt Sana’s breathing slowing down as she went back to sleep and decided that breakfast could wait a while longer, closing your eyes and falling to sleep with the feeling of Sana’s warm breath on the back of your neck.
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You woke up again a few hours later to the feeling of Sana’s hand drawing circles on your stomach. You turned to lie on your back, meeting her eyes as she looked down at you from her propped-up position. “Good morning Jagi”, she said, a soft smile on her face as her hand continued its motions on your stomach.
“Any morning that starts like this is definitely a good morning”, you responded, a smile forming on your face as she blushed red at your cheesy words. “shut up”, she muttered, hiding her face in your neck as her hand stopped its ministrations and laid flat on your stomach.
You chuckled softly, wondering what great thing you must have done in another life to deserve calling such an amazing person the love of your life. You and Sana were kind of a cliché. The typical, best friends turned lovers.
You had known each other your whole lives as both your mothers were the best of friends. You had basically been stuck to the hip since you were babies, inseparable all through your teenage years. It wasn’t until one day, right before your Junior year of high school, that Sana broke the news that she was leaving Japan to go follow her dreams of stardom in Korea.
You were heartbroken, to say the least. In all your years of life, you guys hadn’t gone without seeing each other for longer than a week, and that was from the time you went to the states to visit some old friends of your fathers. And even then, there hadn’t been one day without at least five phone calls and hundreds of messages exchanged between the two of you.
And now, to hear that she would be leaving for another country for an indefinite amount of time, where she wouldn’t be able to have access to her phone all the time, to know that it could be years before you saw her again. You could feel your heart breaking at the news but you forced yourself to smile anyways, for her sake. You told her how proud you were of her, promising to be first in line for every one of her concerts once she made it big.
And only once you dropped her off at the airport, only after feeling her clinging to you for the last time before making her way through security, only once she was gone, did you allow yourself to break down.
Your separation was as hard as you had imagined it to be. You spent all your time looking up stories of former trainees at JYP, wondering if the horror stories you read about how the trainees were treated were true, praying to a God you didn’t believe in that Sana wasn’t living through that right now.
Because of her hectic schedule and the lack of phone privileges that new trainees had initially, your daily phone calls soon started decreasing, going from once a day to maybe once a week. Soon, you were used to getting maybe one quick phone call a month and a few messages in between.
It felt as thought you had lost a part of yourself. You were so used to always being with her, that you suddenly didn’t know what to do now that, for the first time in forever, you were by yourself.
The next few years were the most difficult in your life and you could still remember the pure happiness when the sound of your phone ringing woke you up one day at two in the morning and your groggy voice was met with a shout of elation as she told you she had been selected to participate in some kind of survival show called sixteen for the chance to finally debut.
Unfortunately, thanks to the rules, she couldn’t contact you at all but you made sure to watch every single episode the second it came out, tirelessly rooting for her. You remembered the heartache you felt as you watched her cry on tv when her friend Momo was eliminated, wanting nothing more than to be there with her so you could pull her into a hug and wipe her tears away.
You also remembered shouting at the tv and jumping up in joy, waking up everyone in the house, when the final lineup for twice was finally revealed. You waited anxiously for her call and packed your bag a few months later when she sent you a ticket for Twice’s first concert.
You were there up-front during the whole concert, screaming yourself hoarse as you sang along to their songs and you quickly made your way backstage to meet up with her afterwards. You reasoned that you should probably be more nervous, considering you were going to be seeing Sana in person for the first time in years, but you didn’t. It simply felt right.
The moment she saw you, she ran into your arms and for the first time in so long, you felt as though you were back home. To this day, you have no idea who started it first but the second she pulled away, your lips met in a scorching kiss.
You never really had a conversation afterwards about what it meant or about liking each other as more than friends. It simply felt natural and you went along with it. It wasn’t that long after that you packed your bags, said goodbye to your family and got a one-way ticket for Korea.
You were pulled back into the present by a pair of hands tickling your sides. You let out a loud laugh, pushing her hands away. “What were you thinking about that had you frowning so hard?” she questioned. You hadn’t even realized it but you had started frowning as you thought back on all the lonely years you’d spent wondering if you’d ever see your best friend again. “It’s nothing”, you assured her, a smile replacing your frown.
Sana, however, knew you better than you even knew yourself, and like always, she knew exactly what you were thinking about. She leaned down to kiss you softly, her lips moving against your own as the familiar smell of apples filled your senses. You were filled with the sensation of being home. Because truly, home wasn’t Japan or Korea. Home was wherever Sana was. Because she was your home.
She pulled away from you after a few moments, moving up to kiss your forehead gently. She then moved back behind you, wrapping her arms around your waist and pulling you towards her, back to your former position. “I’ll always come back to you”, she whispered, and a smile blossomed on your face as you realized the truth behind her words.