✧˖° may °˖✧

logically, manon knows yoonchae has seen a city before. she’s not sure why she keeps looking over at yoonchae to gauge her reactions to things—a flock of pigeons taking off, a woman busking on the corner, metro steam rising out of the grates in the street. 

every time someone brushes a little too close to them on the sidewalk, yoonchae falters until manon tugs gently at her jacket sleeve to urge her forward again. she keeps looking up like she expects something to fall out of the sky and onto her head. 

“i figured we could get some food,” manon tells her quietly as they’re waiting for the light to change at a crosswalk. “and then maybe pop into a store to check out some new clothes.”

right now, the only thing in yoonchae’s tiny closet is hybe-issued training gear. she looks a little out of place in her black tactical pants and windbreaker, but then again, they’re in new york. she could probably walk around in her mission suit without getting too many second glances. 

“okay,” yoonchae replies.

she has her chin tilted back again, gazing up. 

despite her skyward fixation, she doesn’t trip once as they walk, weaving easily around scaffolding and wonky sidewalk tiles. it’s only when they draw up to the hot pot place manon had picked out the night before that she tips her gaze back down, settling somewhere just beyond manon’s eyes. 

her mouth opens once, twice before it clamps shut. she trails manon inside silently, hovering awkwardly beside the table they’re led to by the hostess, waiting until manon sits to follow suit. when she sits, it’s on the very edge of the chair like she’s prepping herself to take off. 

“breathe, pal,” manon hums, playful as she squints at the menu. 

yoonchae takes it like an order. her nail taps against the table as she inhales deeply. she doesn’t reach for her own menu. when someone comes by to ask if they want drinks, manon orders for them both. 

“i got you water too, in case you don’t like soda,” she tells yoonchae, “but i figured it couldn’t hurt to try.” 

she watches yoonchae watch everyone else. it shifts, slowly, from strictly analytical to quietly curious. her eyes linger for a long time on a giggling toddler in a high chair, fingers curled tight at the corner of the table. 

manon keeps quiet until their plates of food show up, letting yoonchae take everything in. 

“i thought this would be a good choice,” she explains as she passes a small pair of metal tongs across the table.  “because you can make your own food. no one else really handles it. and, you know, the booths are pretty private, but if it’s too much we can go somewhere else—”

“here is good,” yoonchae says, sudden. she looks a little stunned, like she didn’t expect anything to fire out of her mouth like that, but she doesn’t try to bolt or hide. she copies manon as she places strips of meat into the simmering pot of broth, brow furrowed in concentration. 

they eat quietly. they do most things quietly. yoonchae isn’t exactly talkative, and manon is a little too busy shoveling food into her mouth to take up her usual banter with herself. she’s learned how to tell when yoonchae likes something, though, and she’s not not pleased with herself when she catches the tiny smile on yoonchae’s face as she watches her food cook. 

...

manon can tell right away that the thrift shop wasn’t the best idea. 

the music pumping through the speakers is bass-boosted, there’s barely any empty floor space with how tightly packed the racks of clothing are, and the noise of metal hangers scraping back and forth is abrasive even to manon’s ears. yoonchae’s whole face scrunches up the second they step through the door, and manon gently taps at her shoulder to get her attention. 

“we can leave,” she says. “dani will take you somewhere else another time.” 

“you made a plan,” yoonchae replies, shaking her head. “this was the plan.”

“plans can change,” manon shrugs. “i literally change my plans all the time.”

stubbornness, she’s learning, is a bit of a thing for yoonchae. 

they end up in the rows of clothes—which all smell oppressively floral, even to manon’s non-enhanced nose—sifting aimlessly through various bins and racks. she’s not really sure what exactly they’re looking for, so she hunts for comfort. baggy jeans, soft hoodies. 

yoonchae looks hopelessly lost, copying manon’s motions blankly. she doesn’t reach for anything on her own, clearly overwhelmed by all the choices. manon thinks, privately, they’d be better off just leaving now, but she also knows yoonchae will probably argue unless they come away with at least one purchase. manon couldn’t care less if they don’t check the box of find yoonchae non-hybe-issued clothing today, but she won’t be able to convince yoonchae of that now. 

“why don’t we try this on?” she prompts as gently as she can, holding up a plain hoodie. it’s navy, heavyweight cotton. 

yoonchae nods robotically, and they end up at the back of the store. a bored-looking teenager waves them forward, and manon tries to nudge yoonchae behind the curtain with the hoodie, but she feels the girl freeze halfway in. 

“you too,” she says, a little urgent, looking just past manon’s ear. “please.” 

“look, i don’t—” manon glances behind them, but the employee is already engrossed in their phone again. “alright, alright.”

the changing room is garishly decorated, quilting fabric stapled to the walls and too many oddly shaped mirrors propped in the corners. yoonchae blinks at herself in one of them for a few seconds. one hand fumbles at the zipper of her coat, tugging it down to reveal her shirt, boldly labeled across the chest with hybe’s logo. 

manon passes the hoodie over and watches her tug it over her head methodically. 

yoonchae’s hair ends up hopelessly mussed, and manon resists the urge to reach out to smooth the flyaways down. the hoodie fits well—better than she’d really been expecting. in the few months she’s known yoonchae, the kid has already gotten taller. her shoulders are broad with hidden muscle. as she examines herself in the mirror, she keeps tugging at the cuffs of the sleeves, pulling them further down on her wrists. 

“if you don’t like it, that’s okay,” manon murmurs. 

yoonchae shakes her head immediately. 

“i like it,” she insists softly. she meets manon’s eyes in the mirror. “i do.” 

she wears it out of the store, tugging absently at one of the fraying strings as they step back out into the street. for a few seconds, in the watery autumn sunlight, manon almost doesn’t recognize her. 

she doesn’t think she’s ever seen yoonchae look casual before. 

…

she almost misses the little stutter-step yoonchae does when they catch their ride back to the helicarrier, hesitant into the landing bay. 

around them, agents shuffle about in flight gear, climbing on and off of smaller ships. manon closes a hand around the back of yoonchae’s jacket, careful not to touch as she guides them through the chaos. 

“you good?”

the corridor outside is quieter, but yoonchae doesn’t respond, hands stuffed deep into the kangaroo pocket of her new hoodie. manon gives her until they reach the residential sector of the ship before she says anything else.

“you gotta wash that, okay? i can put it in with my stuff, if you want. i’m doing laundry tonight.” 

she can hear yoonchae’s temporary handler approaching and puts out a hand to stop him. she knows they’re both about to be interrogated by their respective superiors. the last time yoonchae had been allowed to step foot off the helicarrier, she’d given her handler and son himself the slip. 

not that manon can really blame her. she knows firsthand how hard yoonchae’s first couple of months at hybe were.

yoonchae worries at her lip, side-eyeing the man. she looks back at manon, catching her eyes for a small, surprising moment. 

“you will give it back?”

“yeah,” manon nods seriously. “i promise, yoonchae.” 

she leaves yoonchae with her handler, clutching the blue hoodie in one hand and her pager in the other. 

…

by the time yoonchae gets her blue hoodie back, she’s been assigned a new handler—courtesy of a (possibly needlessly) intense meeting between dani and son—and manon gets to break the news.

“it’s me,” she says, excitement barely contained as she places the folded article of clothing on yoonchae’s desk. “and dani, technically. but mostly me.” 

she watches yoonchae assess her, checking for tells. manon isn’t even sure what her own tells are, but she’d bet yoonchae knows. regardless, she isn’t lying, which means no tells. ideally. 

“you are my handler?” 

“yeah,” she affirms. “but like, i’m cool about it, you know? i don’t wear suits. and i’m pretty hands off.”

yoonchae’s gaze darts down to manon’s hands. 

“okay.”

she steps closer, one hand ghosting over the fabric of the hoodie on her desk. it’ll be the only piece of clothing in her closet that isn’t black or grey. manon makes a mental note to fork over some of own unworn clothes when she gets the chance. 

“and dani?”

manon isn’t jealous of the way yoonchae sounds a little hopeful and a little more excited at the prospect than she had before.

“yeah, and dani.”

yoonchae squeezes her eyes shut for a long moment, which manon’s learned is something apropos of a smile for her. kind of like a cat.

“okay.”

…

“you need to tell me where you got that thing,” dani drawls, watching yoonchae scramble up the rock wall across the empty gym from them. “so i can get her three more in different colors.”

“we thrifted it,” manon sighs. 

in all honesty, she hadn’t been expecting yoonchae to wear the navy hoodie as much as she has been. the sleeves are a hair away from being too short, and she’s constantly tugging them down, but pretty much any time she isn’t expected to be in mission or training gear, she’s wearing the hoodie. 

“so we’ll check the tags,” dani reasons. 

neither of them are particularly experienced with handling, whatever that’s supposed to mean. dani’s taken it to mean making sure yoonchae eats her vegetables and has enough clothes in her closet. manon’s been stopping by her room every night to tell her sleep well and sweet dreams. 

they’re doing pretty well, she thinks. yoonchae sat so close to dani once that their knees brushed without moving away. she lets manon check her for sprains when she falls during training now without cringing away. 

“i guarantee you that it has none,” she replies, tearing her gaze off the rock wall to lift a brow at dani. “if it wasn’t already missing them, she definitely tore them out. those things itch.”

dani hums thoughtfully.

“i wonder if it still smells like thrift store.”

“not a chance,” manon chuckles. “if anything, it just smells like my detergent. she doesn’t have enough clothes to do a full load here. it always goes in with my stuff.” 

the mats thud as yoonchae lets go mid-climb, falling halfway down the wall, and still somehow landing neatly on her feet. just watching it makes manon’s knees ache in sympathy. 

she brushes chalk off the front of the hoodie and manon can already hear the mechanical beeping that will accompany the load of laundry she’ll definitely have to do later. 

…

manon has a mission. like, very low profile. run of the mill. a little unexpected, but nothing particularly dangerous or time-consuming. 

she knows this. she knows yoonchae knows this too, so it’s not making a whole lot of sense that the younger girl has been hovering an anxious half-step beside manon for the past few hours, seemingly unwilling to let her out of her sight. 

manon passes her a quiver of arrows. 

“put that in my bag, please?”

yoonchae obeys immediately, but her movements are stiff, like she’d much rather take the extra arrows and snap them all into pieces to keep manon from going anywhere at all. 

“where are you going?”

manon answers like she hasn’t answered this question three times already. 

“frankfurt. it’s just overnight.”

“why?”

she stands and turns, small smile curling at the edge of her mouth. she wags her finger playfully in yoonchae’s direction. 

“that’s classified, kid.”

she’s never seen yoonchae roll her eyes before, so the sight of it nearly makes her burst out laughing. she manages to contain herself, just for fear that if she reacts too strongly, she might never see that amount of sass on yoonchae’s face again. 

as they’re stepping out of manon’s quarters, yoonchae shifts awkwardly from foot to foot. she waits just long enough for manon to lock the door behind her before leaning closer, wrapping an arm around manon’s shoulders for one long moment. 

the hug—if it can even qualify as that—lasts no more than three seconds before yoonchae’s pulling away and bolting down the hallway. 

manon watches the navy blue of her hoodie as she rounds the corner and wonders, half-serious, if it’s too late to get son to reassign her mission. 

…

dani tells manon that yoonchae asked about her seven times while she was away, faux-casual. they were both waiting in the landing bay when manon got back, dani’s arms looped through one of yoonchae’s like she was keeping her from tearing away from her side the second they caught sight of manon stepping off the quinjet. 

when she and dani had hugged, manon had caught the curious flare in yoonchae’s eyes over her shoulder. she opened her arms to the younger girl too after she pulled away from dani, and was more than a little surprised when yoonchae stepped right into them. 

“so now,” dani continues through a mouthful of pizza, “when you go on missions, i’m here with an anxious yoonchae. and when she’s on missions, i’m here with an absolutely panicked you. the only time no one is freaking out is when i’m on missions.”

“i’m chill,” manon protests. “she’s grown. i’m chill.”

and like, she knows she’s lying. she just doesn’t realize how much. 

a week later, yoonchae gets sent out on a two-day search and rescue. again, low-level. son doesn’t seem at all worried as he lays out the plan for her, sliding a copy of the mission file down the table to manon. she pages through it—standard stuff, nothing crazy. 

still, she can’t help the pit that grows in her stomach as she helps yoonchae put together her things. 

“you sure you want to bring this?” she asks, poking at the navy blue mass in yoonchae’s bag. “it might get ripped or something.”

or covered in blood. that’s what she’s more worried about. especially if the blood is yoonchae’s. she swallows hard. she likes purple, but maybe not on yoonchae. maybe not like that. 

“i want it,” yoonchae replies, eyes narrowed defiantly like she expects manon to argue.

she doesn’t. she zips up the duffel and puts it over her own shoulder, and doesn’t think about paging son for an emergency meeting with the topic of no more solo missions for yoonchae. 

not because she doesn’t think yoonchae can handle it. more so because she’s questioning her own ability to handle it. 

…

she gets the news during a recruit training session. her pager buzzes and her stomach drops out uncomfortably. no one is supposed to contact her while she’s working. her fingers loosen on her bowstring involuntarily and the arrow she’d nocked flies three inches off-center, which for her is practically just missing the target entirely. 

“agent bannerman?” 

she waves the concerned recruit off, already fumbling at the small device clipped to her hip. when she sees the number displayed on the screen, she swallows hard. 

“training’s over,” she calls, already backtracking out of the room. “paulson, neal, clean up the equipment, please.”

she breaks into a run by the time she gets into the corridor, which is not very dignified or chill, but the number blinking on her pager is from son and it means emergency. 

dani is hovering outside the door to son’s office when she gets there, and manon doesn’t bother with a greeting before she’s gripping the other woman’s hand and tugging her inside with her, forgoing the usual pleasantry of knocking. 

son doesn’t say anything about the intrusion, looking up from his computer calmly and waving them into the chairs in front of his desk. he makes them wait an infuriating twenty seconds before manon is on her feet again. 

“well? what happened? is she okay?”

dani tugs at the back of her shirt, trying to get her to sit, but she steps closer to son’s desk instead. 

“you pulled me out of training for this.”

“manon,” son says finally, putting a hand up in front of him. “sit, please.”

she only listens because she can sense dani getting nervous behind her—manon’s habit of blatantly disobeying authority figures tends to put her on edge. she tries not to do it very often in front of dani, but in manon’s opinion, she’s usually more than justified.

“ms. jueng missed her extraction.” he holds his hand up again when manon opens her mouth, and it takes dani’s hand on her knee to get her to clamp it shut again. “she’s fine. they’ll just be a day late getting back. i wanted to warn you so you wouldn’t worry.”

manon thinks she might sink through the chair and puddle up on the floor of son’s office. yoonchae’s fine. 

“paging me in the middle of my session isn’t the way to do that,” she breathes, focusing on dani’s hand patting soothingly at her knee. “you could have waited.”

son hums, turning back to his computer. he taps twice at the delete key. he lets the silence sit for another full minute before glancing pointedly at the door. 

“that will be all, agents.”

…

so, yoonchae does get back just fine. she doesn’t look shaken by the fact that she’d missed her extraction and had to hunker down in a foreign city for an extra day. she appears far more bothered by the fact that her blue hoodie is now sporting a small tear along the seam by the left cuff. 

“it got caught on something,” she tells dani sadly, like she expects the hole to just keep getting bigger and bigger until it eats her whole sweatshirt alive. 

“we can fix this, zayka,” dani murmurs, squinting at the fabric. “i have thread in this color.” 

at dinner, manon can’t help the way her eyes keep straying over to yoonchae as they eat. she’s checking that the bandage affixed to the top of yoonchae’s cheek isn’t peeling off, that she’s eating enough, that she’s sipping at her water. 

“manon,” yoonchae murmurs halfway through their meal, putting a hand over her brow self-consciously. “stop.” 

“sorry,” she says immediately, looking over at dani instead. the spy has yoonchae’s hoodie folded beside her, taken with the promise of a quick turnaround on the small sewing job needed to fix the torn seam. she smirks at manon knowingly. shut up, manon mouths, mostly because she knows dani probably won’t have any idea that’s what she’s saying. 

she manages not to hover too badly over the rest of their dinner, but she can’t keep herself from checking up on yoonchae more than she usually would over the next couple of days. she tries to be subtle about it—she’s accidentally grabbed an extra bottle of gatorade; she happens to be swinging by the medbay and could grab an extra bandage if needed; she’s done with her training early and does yoonchae want to go for a walk? 

“unnie,” yoonchae says, quiet as always as she nudges manon’s hand away from the bruise on her forehead. the bandage is gone now, but manon almost wishes it wasn’t so she wouldn’t have to look at the sickly bloom of color on yoonchae’s skin. “stop. i’m fine.” 

she normally hates when the kid calls her unnie. she’s not that old. but today it just sparks up something protective in her chest and she sighs. 

“i know. i’m just making sure.”

“make sure less,” yoonchae scolds, half-serious and half-joking. she steps back a little as she says it, eyes sweeping manon’s figure for any signs that she’ll react poorly. they’ve almost cracked yoonchae’s sense of humor. manon can feel it. 

she keeps her hands on her hips and doesn’t try to move any closer. 

“i’m chill,” she repeats, shaking her head. “i’m chill.”

she’s not. she’s, like, really not. not anymore. not since this clumsy, wide-eyed spider-kid stumbled into her life. well, swung in, guns ablaze. the feeling of yoonchae driving her fist into manon’s stomach defensively haunts her a little bit. 

still, she’s most definitely not chill about yoonchae or her self-assigned duty of keeping her safe. 

a few days after yoonchae’s mission-gone-awry-but-not-really, she’s standing at the back of manon’s class of recruits to participate in archery practice. manon’s already on edge about this. she’s not sure how she feels about yoonchae pretending to be a recruit for some extra practice. it’s a risk to her identity least of all, but her real concern is the fact that, to her knowledge, yoonchae’s never been surrounded by people close to her own age like this. 

“you don’t have to make friends,” dani had told her the night before. “you’re just there to get some reps in.”

“son wants me to be social,” yoonchae had told the table. “so i can blend in better.”

“son isn’t always right about stuff,” manon said carefully. “do what your gut tells you, okay?”

she’d had to explain what gut was after that, and the conversation had been derailed onto the topic of fishing and what was the worst thing everyone’s ever eaten?

now, she feels kind of frozen watching yoonchae get in line between a guy at least a foot taller than her and a girl who’s gotten written up twice for “pranking” her fellow recruits. she has her arms folded, eyes trained dutifully on the ground, and so far, no one has tried to talk to her. 

they get halfway through the session before anyone does. 

looking back, manon thinks she probably overreacted a bit. 

“hey, you’re really good at this,” a boy says to yoonchae, leaning over her shoulder a little to examine her arrows stuck in the target as the other three recruits up at the shooting line finish emptying their quivers. “where did you say you were from, again?”

“um,” yoonchae replies, scuffing the toe of her shoe against the ground. “kansas.”

“oh, no way! my dad’s from kansas? what part?”

manon is pretty sure that yoonchae has no idea what parts there are in kansas. she’s pretty sure yoonchae only said kansas because dani had been talking about it last night. 

“warner!” she barks the recruit's name, and he’s snapping to an awkward attention stance immediately. “two laps. i expect focus in my sessions.” 

he looks a little confused as he nods and trots off, because manon usually doesn’t really care what the recruits do in her training sessions as long as they aren’t shooting each other in the face. 

yoonchae scowls, and she’s looking manon right in the eyes as she does, so manon knows it’s directed at her and nothing else. 

she gets confirmation of this the second the gym empties out after the session, leaving only her and yoonchae to clean up the rest of the targets. 

“hey, look,” she reaches out to squeeze yoonchae’s shoulder—which is, of course, covered by the navy blue fabric of her hoodie—before thinking better of it. “i’m sorry for earlier.”

she likes to apologize where she can. especially to yoonchae. 

“he wasn’t doing anything bad,” yoonchae says, dropping a few loose arrows into the big plastic storage bucket a little too aggressively. “i was fine.”

“i know,” manon nods. “i just got worried he’d keep asking questions.”

“i can answer them. i know how to—” she waves a hand. 

manon thinks she might mean lie or pretend or hide. 

“you shouldn’t have to do that,” she says. “it’s my job to make sure you don’t accidentally expose yourself.”

yoonchae doesn’t reply, turning away to retrieve more arrows. 

manon bites back a sigh and hefts the first of the wooden target frames onto a shoulder, carrying it to the edge of the gym to be lined up for maintenance to bring back to storage later. on the third frame, she hears a gasp from behind her, and nearly drops the it onto her foot with how quickly she whirls around. 

yoonchae is holding her hand to her chest, wincing, and manon trips over herself a little trying to get to her. 

“let me see,” she orders gently, holding out her own hand. 

“it’s fine,” yoonchae shakes her head. she won’t look up at manon. 

“c’mon, chae,” she urges, not noticing the nickname that slips out. “what hurts?”

“i’m fine,” yoonchae repeats, firmer. she looks up at manon, finally, but she’s glaring, eyes narrowed accusatorily. she takes a step back. “what do you care?” 

manon’s breath catches in her throat. what does she care? she’s not that much taller than yoonchae, and she gets the sense that she won’t be for much longer, but the tiny amount of space between the top of yoonchae’s head and hers suddenly feels miles long. yoonchae’s eyes are kind of watery, or maybe it’s the light, but either way, manon wants to pull her into her arms. 

“because, yoonchae,” she says, reaching a hand out. she knows yoonchae’s probably fine—just nicked herself on the tip of an arrow or something—but she wants to make sure anyway. she wants to see for herself that she’s not in too much pain. 

“because why?”

yoonchae doesn’t take another step back, but she feels like she may as well be miles away.

“i just want to make sure you don’t need to go to the medbay,” manon lies, and she’s not entirely sure what she’s lying about, but she knows it’s not what she means to say. she can tell by the way it makes her tongue feel fuzzy and too-large. 

“i don’t,” yoonchae snaps. she drops her hand away from her chest, shaking it at her side. “no pain.” 

“yeah, that doesn’t always mean—” manon blinks hard. “just c’mere.”

“no! tell me what you want,” yoonchae demands. “why do you care? you are just my handler.”

manon can see where dani fixed the rip in yoonchae’s hoodie. the shade of blue wasn’t an exact match. the spy had confirmed, needle tucked between her teeth as she examined the hoodie: “this thing really does smell like you. all your clothes, i mean.”

“i’m not just your handler, yoonchae,” she tries. “we’re friends, right?”

yoonchae doesn’t answer. her eyes say are we? 

the truth of it all slams into manon kind of suddenly, in a way she thinks it really shouldn’t have. like, it should’ve come to her a lot sooner because she grew up with a big brother and she’d seen him shift his life around to make space for her in the same way she’s been doing for yoonchae since she met her. 

manon keeps clementines in her fridge now. she doesn’t even like clementines. 

she gets up early to get to the mess hall breakfast even though she hates the food and being up early, just because she knows yoonchae won’t eat if it’s not with her. she picks up children’s movies on dvd when she goes into the city and keeps her voice quiet after it gets dark and she knows, now, how to say things like thank you and it’s okay and sleep well in korean. 

she wonders what i love you would be and stuffs her hands in her pockets to keep herself from reaching out again. 

“look, kid, do i really have to spell it out for you?” 

she realizes, midway through her own sentence, that yeah, she probably does. no one’s ever told yoonchae that triple-checking her mission bag means i care, and walking her to bed after training means i’m here, and a double-thumbs up as she’s led away for a mission means stay safe. 

yoonchae looks a little less furious now, hands opening and closing rhythmically at her sides as she watches manon, waiting. she looks like she isn’t sure if she wants to turn and run or take several steps closer. 

“when your extraction got delayed,” manon starts, “i was so scared, yoonchae. i didn’t—i thought something had gone wrong. that maybe you had gotten hurt, or lost, and maybe you were out there all alone and you were scared, and that was—that was really scary. it was really fucking scary. i love you, you know? and i want you to be okay, all the time. that’s why i do stuff like this.”

she’s ready keep explaining herself, but she makes herself stop when she sees yoonchae’s face scrunching up. she wipes at her eyes hurriedly with the back of one hand, but it’s not quite enough to get rid of the wetness gathering at the corners. 

“you love me?”

manon hasn’t been able to go a day without freaking out a bit about how young yoonchae is, but she doesn’t think she’s ever looked more like a kid than she does now, rumpled from training and teary-eyed as she stares hopefully, hesitantly up at manon. 

all her air wooshes out of her at once and she doesn’t stop herself from reaching out this time.

“yeah, yoonchae, of course. c’mere, hey—”

she grunts a little as yoonchae collides with her chest, using every bit of strength she has not to let a superpowered teenager bowl her over, and wraps her arms tightly around yoonchae’s back. 

she can feel yoonche’s tears, hot against her shoulder, and it twists her chest a little to know that yoonchae cries soundlessly. she puts a hand on the back of yoonchae’s head and tries to come up with something good to say, something kind and tear-stopping, but all she can think to do is repeat the words into yoonchae’s hair. she tries it in german, just to see how it sounds coming out of her mouth for the first time since she was a kid, and she likes it so much that she she says it again. 

she doesn’t know how long it is before yoonchae pulls back a little, sniffling and embarrassed, ducking manon’s gaze. she swallows hard, jaw working for a long moment before: 

“사랑해요.” 

it comes out choked, like yoonchae had to force it out, but once it’s hanging between them, she pitches forward again, burying her face in manon’s shoulder in a way that reminds her of herself, two feet shorter and bidding her brother a goodbye she didn’t know yet would last forever. 

she doesn’t have to think too hard about what it means, either, because she’s pretty sure she knows, and now she has the answer to her question. 

she probably couldn’t repeat the symbols without messing them up, though, so she settles for swaying them side-to-side gently, content to wait until yoonchae pulls back first.