Sleepless In September

6 - PIẞWASSER

Minji's glasses, Back to the Future t-shirt, black skinny jeans, black Converse, black socks and studded belt from Hot Topic are in the back of the van in a pile. The dock on the lake's edge is greying, the planks are misaligned, falling apart, barnacles are climbing its legs and Minji is running off of it to cannonball into the lake, in her black bra and—

"MINECRAFT BOXERS!" Winter yells. Everyone breaks down laughing, with crying eyes and weak arms hitting one another to calm down. Bro's wearing Minecraft boxers, Chaewon says. Hanni and Sakura are grabbing each other's shoulders to catch their breath, and neither can see through their own tears. Hanni can't wipe her eyes because the water is salty, it's frustrating because all she wants to do is eat Minji's half-naked body up with her eyes.

Minji's beyond embarrassed, she isn't even laughing along. If she was expecting anyone other than her four best friends to be seeing her in underwear tonight, she would've worn her Calvins. She takes a big breath and disappears under the inky water like an alligator. Barely a moment later, Winter is screaming and thrashing against the surface as Minji drags her to the lake bed.

"KIM MINJI!" everyone else but Hanni screams, like they're scolding a cat for trying to eat from a fishbowl. When they both resurface, Winter's choking up water and she's so dizzy she feels like she's falling upwards into the sky. Her eyes and nostrils sting, she forces one eye open and uses her burning vision to wade towards Minji and strangle her.

"Unnie, chill! I'm sorry!" Minji begs in Korean, prying the angry hands off her neck to restrain them at Winter's side. Minji wraps her in a hug and to Winter, this feels too much like gentle parenting but it's working. Winter's got an upset look on her face, yet she isn't protesting being held in Minji's arms, getting gently swayed left and right and having sweet apologies whispered in her ear.

Hanni killed Winter a thousand times in her mind within the last minute. She can see Winter's limbs and organs floating down a creek when she blinks. She wasn't strong enough to stop staring at Minji embracing another woman and it felt like her skull was getting bashed in. Minji was making her sick. The way her lips move when she speaks, the way they curl up to show her gums when she laughs—she either needed to kiss her or hit her with a baseball bat full of nails until she stops moving. Hanni adored the way Minji's smile was sometimes higher on one side, those smiles would always show her sharp canines. She wonders how much Minji's bite hurts.

"I knew you didn't want to get in the water because your underwear was ugly. I think it looks hot on you." Hanni tells Minji. Her tone was so forcefully chill, Minji couldn't tell if it was sarcasm or flirting.

Minji decides it's flirting and blushes, pulling her face into her own shoulder and Hanni finds it so wonderfully vomit-inducing that her lungs immediately hurt and she needs to get rid of Minji to breathe again—she dashes water at Minji's stupid gay face in rapid succession like she's putting out a fire. Minji, are you a faggot, OMG?! Hanni screams in her mind. There's laughter from the other girls behind and Hanni realises she's still killing Minji. She stops and Minji slowly unhides her face from behind her forearms.

"Um, rude!" Minji wipes her eyes and catches her breath. Hanni wonders why Minji didn't fight back, since she's the same person that tried to drown Winter a few minutes ago.

The next half hour comes fast, the Kesha playlist Kazuha left playing has already looped, and Sakura thinks they should do a piggyback race to the shore before they get out of the water. Just for the bright idea, Hanni promises herself if she ever gets rich she'll wire 500 grand to Sakura's bank account. The race lineup was Sakura carrying Chaewon, Kazuha carrying Winter and Minji carrying Hanni. Everyone lined up where the water was waist level, and they ran when Chaewon yelled GO! Kazuha won by a stretch and with ease. She even carried Winter bridal style back to the van so her feet wouldn't get dirty in the sand. Showoff much? No, not really. That's just Kazuha being herself, silly and strong. Winter was much more excited about winning and shouted that the others were suckers.