Work Text:
Yuqi has always been a very touchy person.
She’s been like that for as long as Soyeon has known her, if she really thinks about it, and not just with her but also with everyone else. Touchy in a way that feels pretty instinctive. It’s like Yuqi’s body will gravitate to the nearest heat source, moth-like; she’ll grab your elbow if your arm hangs loose, or drop her head on your shoulder if there’s space for it. That’s Yuqi’s nature. To fill an empty room with her booming voice, and her empty hands with anything in easy reach.
Disruptive, Soyeon might call it, in one of her darker moods. But mostly just entertaining.
In contrast, Soyeon has never considered herself as physically affectionate. A little awkward, really, with anyone but her parents and her sister pre-debut. It doesn’t stop her making friends, but when the offers start trickling in, and the whole “idol” thing becomes a real, viable career path, there’s a steep learning curve just over the horizon.
Nobody wants an awkward idol on stage. Soyeon has to acclimatise, and fast.
Yuqi actually makes that a lot easier to begin with. She’s so used to grabbing people that Soyeon gets pulled along in her stride. And there’s no need for Soyeon to play mood-maker with that kind of energy around; she can just ride the wave and deliver a punchline straight. During variety shows, it often feels like she and Soojin are two sailors in a boat with one ineffective oar between them, letting the wild and unpredictable ocean do most of the work.
For a while anyway. Man overboard, as far as that metaphor is concerned.
Windy promotions help her adjust to the interviews after that, and the successful release of their first full album gives her a certain level of security in their future. Or maybe it’s just the relief hitting, after such a tumultuous few months’ work. In any case, it feels like something has sharpened up in all of them.
Even Yuqi, it seems, has changed in unexpected ways.
She’s always been a loudmouth, their bluffing queen, but as time goes on she’s developed a more mature affect. Still boastful, but now it’s almost like you could believe at least some of the wild stories coming out of her mouth, whether or not they have any stake in reality. Maybe she really did train circus lions at the ripe old age of three.
This Yuqi has reached new heights in her display of easy confidence, and with that comes a real uptick in popularity. Though she’ll never admit it, a part of Soyeon kind of misses the cute girl concept of their early debut years. This version is cute too, but… different. The scales have tipped and now she sometimes feels like more of a maknae than Shuhua.
Because yes, Yuqi is still Yuqi, and she’s still as touchy as ever. But the way she’s touching Soyeon these days is getting a little out of hand.
-
With their world tour on the near horizon, it feels like the company has been layering interviews on top of interviews at a growing rate, just to stack as much exposure into their schedule as humanly possible. Soyeon is starting to feel like she can’t turn a corner at Cube without finding someone’s camera up her nose. How is she feeling? What has she eaten today? Any “TMI” worth sharing?
The group interviews are less intense, with most of the attention shared five ways. Soyeon being the leader means she usually gets the centre seat. Yuqi being Yuqi means she gets to glue herself to Soyeon’s left side and steal focus.
“And Yuqi,” the interviewer might say, frequently an older comedian they’re all too young to recognise, but Soyeon has thoroughly researched in advance to make a good impression. “What would you say is the deeper message of this next song?”
Soyeon turns placidly in her seat, on these occasions, both hands clasped in her lap as Yuqi straightens up to speak. A flower blooming under the spotlight, as always. Her blonde ponytail flicks once, strands of it tickling the bare skin of Soyeon’s shoulder.
“I think, you know, it’s about me,” she says eagerly. And after a brief pause for contemplation, long enough for Minnie to groan disgustedly from Soyeon’s right, she continues on this track. “We talked about this before actually, and Soyeon – our captain here – told me it’s about how hard I’ve been working for this comeback.”
Soyeon herself has no memory of that particular conversation, and assumes it’s a total fabrication. The song she wrote stemmed from a touching scene in one of her comics. She raises an eyebrow at the camera, smiling vaguely, but lets Yuqi have her moment.
“And the message, really, is about how special that bond is between us,” Yuqi continues. There’s a snort from somewhere behind. “Hey, Cho Miyeon, why are you laughing?”
Unprompted, Yuqi throws an arm around the back of Soyeon’s chair, grabbing at her shoulder. And that by itself is fine, but in the act of leaning over she’s also planted her other hand directly into Soyeon’s lap. Soyeon who is wearing a short denim skirt today, and the touch of warm fingers pressed to her upper thigh spark a feeling not dissimilar to old TV static in the back of her head.
“You tell them, Soyeon.” Yuqi looks at her beseechingly, her hand left there stranded between Soyeon’s clenched fists and the edge of her skirt.
“Right, the team’s bond,” Soyeon agrees partially, trying to salvage a meaningful answer to the original question. “We’ve all worked really hard on this one.”
Yuqi’s eyes narrow minutely, but she doesn’t seem inclined to move. When the moment drags on, Soyeon pushes the hand out of her lap for propriety’s sake and hopes for a generous edit.
-
Sharing a room with Yuqi overnight is a bit like – Soyeon assumes, having had no practical experience as a kid – a little girl’s sleepover party. A lot of aimless conversation, a lot of navel-gazing on a total myriad of nonsense topics. And when Yuqi isn’t talking, she’s singing, loudly. It isn’t always her best work.
Soyeon has taken great pains to dodge this rooming arrangement for years. She doesn’t like sharing to begin with, but compromise is key in a team like theirs. If she claims the single room to herself every time, there might be hell to pay later. Word gets around too easily. But she’s had an easy time slipping out of the Yuqi-net so far with half-truths and flat out refusals.
Yuqi herself never seems too bothered, as long as she isn’t left to her own devices.
But then during the American leg of their world tour, Soyeon makes the grand mistake of rejecting her on a public livestream. All of a sudden the chat is alight with speculation; does Soyeon hate Yuqi? Did they have a falling out?
“It’s because we talk too much,” Miyeon explains very reasonably, trying to smooth things over, but the crack has already revealed itself.
They really can’t take another scandal.
“It’s fine,” Soyeon says, thinking fast. “I was kidding. Yuqi, let’s share a room this time.”
Yuqi’s face gives nothing away, her eyes glancing curiously in Soyeon’s direction before she shrugs the whole thing off. “Well, if that’s what you want. We can stay up all night, you know, just shooting the breeze. Making beautiful music together.”
“Don’t push it.”
So there she is. In Yuqi’s defense, she ends up being a lot more reserved than Soyeon expected once they reach the hotel. They even manage lights-off before midnight, though Yuqi’s phone screen stays lit a good while longer. Soyeon turns her face into the pillow and tries to switch her very over-active brain off for a while.
“Soyeon.”
Yuqi’s voice is hoarse but always loud, enough to prod Soyeon out of her peaceful drowsing. The lights are still off, blackout curtains walling off any light from outside the large double windows. It’s still very late.
“Unh”, Soyeon responds, before deciding it might have been better to fake being asleep a little longer. But who knows how long she’s been calling Soyeon’s name?
“I can’t sleep like this.” There’s a noisy rustling from the bed across their room, the sound of sheets getting thrown off in the dark.
“Hm?” Soyeon keeps her eyes closed, only half listening. The beds feel perfectly comfortable to her, if only she could rest.
“I hate these big hotel rooms, you know, just the same everywhere we go. The mattress is so stiff, and… I need another pillow or something. And… I left Gigi in my other case before we changed flights. It gets so confusing when they’re all screaming at the airport, crowding around. And it’s like…”
Yuqi keeps going like this, her voice steady and very awake considering the long day behind them and the likelihood of another one looming ahead. Almost immediately Soyeon’s ears begin to tune her out, right up to the point where Yuqi’s long list of complaints become white noise lulling her back into sleep. She is so very close to passing out.
But then something draws the cover off Soyeon’s shoulder, letting a cool draft up underneath that chills her awake. The air conditioning has been left on full pelt, and so the room outside her small pocket of body heat is like a freezer box.
Soyeon twitches once in annoyance, and suddenly finds a warm body settling on the mattress beside her. Face to face, and so close that she can feel her body temperature shoot up like a cartoon thermometer.
Her natural instincts kick in. She slams her palm into the centre of Yuqi’s face and forces her back over the side of the bed. The shameless interloper steals half of Soyeon’s bedsheets on her way to the floor.
“Ow,” Yuqi says, and then laughs to herself in disbelief. “I think you broke my nose.”
Soyeon rubs her bare arms aggressively, sitting up to lean over the mattress and glare at her. Well, that and inspect the damage. “What the fuck are you doing?”
That is what comes out of her mouth, even though she’s actually pretty worried about the state of Yuqi’s face. She can’t go on stage with a black eye. Maybe sunglasses in a pinch.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Yeah, I got that,” Soyeon says dryly.
“Not by myself.”
“Don’t be childish. You’re not a baby.”
Yuqi sits up abruptly, making Soyeon jump back a little despite herself. In the dark, half wrapped in white sheets, Yuqi looks like some strange apparition watching her from the floor. Soyeon hates horror movies, can’t watch them, but at a young age she got exposed to one eerie scene with a girl crawling out of the television set. At least Yuqi has golden blonde hair these days instead of her natural darker colour.
“That’s right, I’m not a baby,” Yuqi says quietly. Her stare is intense; Soyeon might hit her again if she gets any closer, just out of pure instinct. “Thank you for noticing.”
Whatever that comment is supposed to mean, Soyeon is far too exhausted to care. She yanks on her half of the sheets, trying to pull them back up onto the bed without any dead weight tangled in the other side.
Not to be dissuaded, Yuqi holds her ground. “Please, Captain. I’m really tired.”
Soyeon ignores her, giving another hard pull on the sheets until Yuqi finally releases them and sits cross-legged on the carpet. Her red giraffe-print pyjama set make her look too cute for an evil spirit. If anything she just looks forlorn, like a puppy left out in the rain.
“And I need to rest my back now, or I won’t be able to dance right tomorrow. Since you pushed me so hard.”
This weak attempt at guilt-tripping Soyeon into surrender is too much. In a better state of mind, she might have chewed Yuqi out and sent her packing through the door and away to Minnie or Shuhua, who usually have a lot more patience for this kind of thing. But in some twisted way, Soyeon does feel guilty for throwing her off the bed.
As a leader, she should be able to control her temper. She’s working on it, really, and she’s never had a serious physical altercation because of it. But Soyeon gets so angry sometimes. Yuqi’s talent is important to the group, and it needs protecting. Her talent and also her face.
“Okay,” Soyeon mumbles, dropping to her side in resignation. She flattens the sheets out to cover her legs. “Fine, okay.”
Yuqi is grinning broadly as she gets up and kneels on the edge of the mattress. Shuffling back from where it dips, Soyeon rolls over to face the other way and shuts her eyes tight. Yuqi isn’t the type to settle easily, so for a while Soyeon can hear her tossing and turning, breathing too loud in the silent room. And then she stops moving, and it’s like nobody is lying there at all.
Soyeon still keeps her body huddled at the far end of the bed. She tries to find her peaceful mindset again, first by thinking about her music, and then an old episode of Kaleido Star, Sora, the circus and the sky.
She thinks a bit about Yuqi too, up until she stops thinking altogether.
-
An alarm blares unkindly from Soyeon’s phone and punches reality back into place. Like clockwork, she unfurls one arm from under the pillow and catches it on the first few rings, tilting the screen down so her bleary eyes can check the time.
Unusually, as she reaches for the side table, there’s a strange weight around her middle, loose but very present. A belt? She hadn’t been wearing one last night. Something is pressed against her back as well.
When Soyeon’s brain finally connects the red and blue wires of thought simultaneously, a lightbulb flashes on. And cracks. Yuqi’s face is buried in Soyeon’s hair, open mouth breathing steadily down the back of her neck. Yuqi’s arms are hugging her close like a stuffed animal, her forearm scooped around Soyeon’s waist so that they’re glued from chest to hips in a very distracting way.
If the alarm makes any impression at all on Yuqi’s sleeping state, there is nothing obvious to show for it. She’s still as the dead but very, very warm.
Soyeon lies there, one hand lifting the phone and the other pressed palm-up to her mouth as she considers her options. She has to push Yuqi away. Yuqi’s forearm is touching her stomach, moulded to the bared strip of skin where her shirt has hiked up overnight. Soyeon has to use the bathroom soon as well. But Yuqi is warming her back like a heated blanket in the winter.
She feels so comfortable. It’s been a while since anyone held her like this.
No, it will be mortifying if Yuqi wakes up now, with Soyeon awake and lingering in her arms. She’ll laugh it off, sure. They’ve hugged before. She might bring it up later though, in front of the others. In front of the camera.
That’s the hard line. Soyeon rolls over until she can slide indelicately off the side of the bed, letting Yuqi’s arm droop behind her, slumped on the mattress. She’s across the room and halfway to the bathroom when Yuqi finally kicks the sheets back and grunts sleepily behind her.
“What time is it?”
“You should get up, they’ll be calling any minute,” Soyeon tells her in an even voice before escaping behind a locked door. She feels cold and uneasy, but at least she can breathe again.
As Soyeon grips the sink and stares at herself balefully in the bathroom mirror, she swears this will never happen again. Yuqi can sleep in the tub next time.
-
The next few days are complicated. Because she can’t ignore Yuqi outright in the middle of their schedule, but speaking to her is more gruelling than it ever was before. Even something trivial like asking her to pass a water bottle feels layered now, in a new and discomforting way.
Soyeon’s mind becomes a springboard for all kinds of nonsense. Like: what if our hands touch, and I react too obviously? What if she drank from it earlier, and our lips touch the same side of the bottle?
Ridiculous things.
Meanwhile, it’s like Yuqi’s more oblivious than ever. She doesn’t mention the bed-sharing, and maybe it’s something so natural to her that it doesn’t warrant talking about. Maybe she crawls into Minnie’s bed like that every week.
When this thought lands, suddenly Soyeon becomes twice as frustrated. What kind of leader is she, that she has to deal with this? She’s nobody’s mother, they’re almost the same age; Yuqi doesn’t even address her with honorifics these days, unless there’s a camera hovering nearby. But she needs babying from the nearest warm body? Any body? It’s so stupid.
This mood, spread across several weeks, is not a great one to take into practice once they’re finally back home in Korea, moving back into their usual down-time schedule. There’s a cloud hanging low over her head, and while they’re warming up it hangs over everybody else too.
Minnie and Shuhua are quieter than usual, and Miyeon seems to keep a wary eye on Soyeon like she has something to say. Soyeon offers her a bared grin that probably looks too manic to be a smile, but Miyeon smiles back anyway. Because she’s Miyeon.
Yuqi slacks off. She teases Shuhua into barking at her. She pours a gas canister of energy into every dance move until she’s kicking so hard that her shoe comes loose and slingshots across the studio. They all pause in motion, watching it hit one of the mirrors and flop briskly to the floor.
“Oops,” Yuqi says after a beat, her leg still raised, and Minnie cracks up like it’s the funniest thing she’s seen all week. She hangs off Shuhua’s shoulder, stumbling, and the laughing fit spreads between them.
“Learn to tie your shoelaces,” Miyeon says, but she’s grinning too.
Soyeon puts a hand over her eyes, resigned, but the cloud seems to dissipate just a little.
“Hey, I’ve been working out so much lately, it’s like my feet are shrinking,” Yuqi responds, finally hobbling over to retrieve her shoe. “I must have gone down a size.”
“That’s not how it works!”
“Or if it is, you can keep working out and shop with Soyeon in the kids’ section next time,” Minnie chokes out, and then freezes up like she might have overstepped. They all turn as one to see Soyeon’s reaction, even Yuqi as she bends down to put her shoe back on.
Soyeon hates it when people tiptoe around her more than anything. She wants to say something funny here, something playful at her own expense, but the way Yuqi’s looking up at her now, blonde hair falling over one eye, leaves her mind a blank slate she can’t draw from.
All she can manage is an awkward laugh as she turns away, shaking off that strange, almost adolescent feeling. She gets back into position for the next dance. “Let’s keep going. Everyone tighten up so we don’t lose another one.”
Practice continues on a more relaxed note after that, as if someone let the air out of an over-swelled balloon. They move in tandem, as synced as they’re ever going to be if their instructor is to be believed. A patient staff member is parked in the corner to play their music back as many times as it takes until they’re ready to move on.
Most of these routines are fairly locked down already, to the point of muscle memory from all the stages.
Villain Dies, that one’s a little more fresh. The pace isn’t too intense, so it’s not a routine they struggle with, but Soyeon is distracted even now. She’s forcing it, throwing too much power into the arm movements.
When it comes time for the rap verse, the point where she leans in close for that brief tease with Yuqi, she’s trying so hard to play it cool that she totally misjudges the distance. Her lips stamp hard against Yuqi’s, just for a second, and then she’s reeling back. The next move is to reach for Miyeon, then turn back to Minnie, but Soyeon flinches like a wounded animal and almost veers into a spin.
It’s a complete mess; she wants to cover her face, but the music plays on, and so she has to keep her nerve. Yuqi doesn’t even react, and the staff member has eyes on his phone when Soyeon glances over. It’s like nothing happened. And nothing did, just like nothing happened in that hotel room weeks ago.
They run through a few more tracks until things wind down for the morning. Shuhua and Miyeon have recordings in the afternoon, so the rest of them have a rare block of time for their own activities. Soyeon takes a moment to message her sister about dinner plans, and then gets distracted by a stream of unrelated tasks like checking her email, Instagram, and Twitter (which she doesn’t have, officially).
When she falls out of that Matrix, it’s to find most of the team already retreating down the hall. Soyeon thrusts her phone into the pocket of her sweatpants and makes a beeline for the door.
After three steps a hand closes tight around her wrist, forcing her to a dead stop. Soyeon already knows who caught her.
“Hey, I want to talk about something.”
She keeps her eyes fixed on the door and tries to pull her arm forward, but it’s really no use against Yuqi’s manacle fingers. They’re always dragging her in some direction or other. “We can talk later, I have a meeting.”
“There’s no meeting,” Yuqi says firmly. She can’t possibly know that, but as usual she’s deciding things by herself. The world can’t rotate if Song Yuqi wants it standing still.
“Yes, there is,” Soyeon argues, because she can be just as stubborn. With some straining of muscles she manages to steal a few steps forward, until Yuqi plants her feet again and they hit another deadlock. “I can’t talk right now, so just message me on Kakao or something.”
Even without looking back, Soyeon can tell Yuqi’s temper is on the rise, and as usual her voice control slips accordingly. “Jeon Soyeon! Why won’t you talk to me? I don’t get it!”
“Keep your voice down!” Soyeon snaps at her, finally turning on her heel to better shut Yuqi up before her voice penetrates half the building and rumours spread. Scandals have broken out for less.
But as she turns to shut down the argument, Yuqi’s fingers disappear from her wrist and Soyeon finds herself enclosed in a full body hug around the shoulders. Her face is pressed to the base of Yuqi’s neck, close enough to smell the perfume she carries everywhere and the sweat from their practice underneath. Close enough to feel her pulse jump a little faster.
“Yuqi, please get off me.” Soyeon tries for a patient tone now, because her limbs feel very stiff all of a sudden and her throat is closing up.
The perfume smells familiar, something sweet like vanilla.
“Ah, I can’t hear you though, since we’re not talking right now.”
Soyeon leans away with her upper body, but the hug is airtight and she just ends up walking them both backwards a step. Yuqi’s bare arms are crossed behind Soyeon’s neck. “I’m listening now, so let go before I hit you.”
Slowly, as if the threat hasn’t registered, Yuqi pulls away until her hands settle on each of Soyeon’s shoulders instead. Her face, when it comes into view, looks uncertain, her nose pinched cutely as she peers down to meet Soyeon’s eyes.
With some effort, Soyeon keeps her jaw set and tries to look self-assured. She’s pretty good at glowering on cue as a stage skill, and she hopes her current expression reflects that, rather than the anxious jittering in her stomach.
“I really want to rap again, for the next comeback. Like My Bag, you know? I’ve been practicing a lot.”
Soyeon has shortlisted a lot of different directions this conversation could take in the last two minutes. This wasn’t up there, but realistically, it should have been top five at the very least. She still manages to feel caught off guard.
Nothing about the accidental kiss, her skittishness after, just business as usual. Grubbing for lines on an album Soyeon’s barely begun to conceptualise. Yuqi is really something.
“Practicing,” Soyeon repeats carefully, just to fill the space while her brain recircuits. Yuqi’s big brown eyes glitter with innocent expectation, and her hands start to sway Soyeon back and forth by the shoulders when she fails to keep talking. “Right, yeah, I’ll think about it.”
“Maybe I could write it,” Yuqi says.
“You can write it, and we’ll see if it fits,” Soyeon agrees with some relief. This is a much easier conversation to navigate. “If you want to be a rapper, then you should definitely write your own lines eventually.”
“And I could write yours, too.”
Soyeon’s eyebrows furrow, her mouth opening some in consternation, but Yuqi grins wolfishly to show she’s kidding. It’s not always clear when she’s being ridiculous. The air between them feels lighter now, even with Yuqi’s hands still grounding her in place, so Soyeon offers her a weak smile in return.
“You could have asked me this later,” she points out.
“Well yeah, but it’s like you’re barely around anymore. Your schedule must be crazy, huh?”
Apparently Soyeon’s absences haven’t gone completely under the radar. All of a sudden she feels guilty for acting like such a kid over nothing, avoiding her friend to this extent. “Sorry, I must be working too hard.”
Yuqi’s fingers are warm through the thin cotton of Soyeon’s t-shirt. Warmer still as she pulls on her shoulders to bring their faces closer.
“Don’t be sorry,” Yuqi says, and then she ducks down to press her lips against Soyeon’s in a lingering kiss. When she pulls away, there’s nothing but easy confidence in her expression. “Just spend some time with me.”
The studio door swings closed behind her long before Soyeon’s shoulders ease, and even longer before the hot flush of embarrassment fades from every corner of her face. She turns to the mirror, noting in a daze just how shiny her mouth is from Yuqi’s lip gloss. The moment feels unreal.
Because Yuqi’s always been a touchy person… but never like that.
-
And if they’d drawn a line under just that one incident, Soyeon might have brushed the whole thing off eventually. There’s too much on her mind as it is for petty interpersonal dramas, or crushes, or whatever this is between herself and Yuqi.
She’s got so much work to do, a next comeback to prepare, that she has no time in the day to consider the inner machinations of Yuqi’s brain. How she feels, or what she thinks there could possibly be to gain from putting hands on Soyeon so much.
Because she does it – so much.
Recently, Soyeon finds herself being used as Yuqi’s own personal furniture piece, fit for multi-purpose. She’s an arm rest during meetings and a stool for Yuqi’s feet when they’re both sharing a couch; her shoulders now typically bear the weight of two heads instead of one, because Yuqi won’t stay upright for the duration of half their interviews.
When there’s time enough for a meal with the whole group, which by itself is rare because Soyeon values work over most basic necessities like food and bathroom breaks – she’ll often find Yuqi planted directly across from her at the table. And for no rhyme or reason, Soyeon will end up with Yuqi’s chopsticks aimed at her two, three times throughout a meal, offering some bite of food that she’s expected to open up and eat while Yuqi’s spit still glistens on the eating utensils.
Well, she might be imaging that last part. But it all still feels very intimate when her lips close around a dumpling, especially if they’re making eye contact.
Soyeon’s space these days is only really her own when she’s at home by herself in the evenings. With the make-up wiped clean from her face, and the bags under each eye a little more accentuated by the day. She can sit in her house clothes and eat a late dinner at the low table in her living room, flicking through a book like she hasn’t read it three times over.
She likes this quiet time, and her social battery is desperate for it by the time she gets to the house.
So when her doorbell rings shrilly on a night like this, she’s not overly pleased to hear it.
It’s late already, the sun having set hours ago, and Soyeon is very certain nobody warned her that they’d be coming over today. Not one of her friends, and definitely not one of the agency workers. They’ve never called this late.
She sets her chopsticks down and stands from the table, padding carefully across the hardwood floor to pick up her phone. The buzzer sounds again, briefly, stopping and then starting up a third time for a drawn out wailing that pisses Soyeon off. Nobody this impatient should be dropping by unannounced. It’s definitely not her parents, at least.
She unplugs her phone from where it’s been charging and checks the live camera feed from her front courtyard. If Soyeon was expecting some kind of stalker in a shady disguise, or maybe an overly dogged reporter, the reality leaves her even more perturbed.
Yuqi is easily recognisable even under the dim lights outside her door. She’s standing there in her casual clothes, hands bunched in the pockets of a denim jacket as she peers back down the empty street. Her short blonde hair, released from extensions, swishes every which way, but not frantically; she’s probably more concerned about a fan encounter than any of the very real threats a young woman might face out by herself this late.
Soyeon watches her squirm for a while, but when Yuqi makes for the doorbell again she decides to show mercy on both of them and open up.
“What took you so long?” Yuqi asks abruptly, after Soyeon pulls the front door shut behind her. “I thought maybe you’d gone out to a bar or something. I was getting worried.”
Unsure why this would be something to worry about, Soyeon just looks at her sceptically. “I was having dinner, and you should have called first if you wanted to come over. What is it?”
“Why? You’re home, so it’s fine, right?” Yuqi kicks her shoes off and makes no attempt to answer the only real question she’s been asked.
Soyeon lets out a frustrated breath and lets it be for now. She heads back up the stairs, knowing Yuqi will be close behind. “I’m still eating, so whatever you want better be quick.”
“I don’t want anything in particular.”
“Then what?” Soyeon makes straight for her kitchen area when they top the stairs, stacking her unwashed pans into the sink so they’re not so easily visible. She’s not untidy by any means, but it feels like a good distraction piece. Meanwhile, Yuqi makes herself comfortable by flopping down onto the couch, sprawled against the cushion and the arm like she owns the place. Her jacket has already been draped carelessly over a waist-high stack of comics in the corner.
“I just came to hang out for a while, that’s all. See how you’re doing lately. Living by yourself is pretty quiet, right? Ever get lonely?” Yuqi says all of this in a single breath.
“I don’t,” Soyeon says truthfully – mostly truthful.
“I’d hate it.”
“Then stay in the dorms until you’re forty.” Soyeon rolls her eyes, but the effect is lost on Yuqi when she’s facing away.
“That wouldn’t be so bad.”
“And when Shuhua retires, you can bunk with the trainees and debut all over again.”
“Gross,” Yuqi wails, as Soyeon moves back into the living area. When Soyeon grins at her, she wrinkles her nose and says, “Ah, they’d still make me do aegyo even then, wouldn’t they?
They share a look of mutual distaste at the idea.
“Anyway,” Soyeon says, clearing her throat and sitting cross-legged in front of the table, her back to the couch. She takes up her chopsticks from earlier in one hand, and the TV remote in the other. Her book will have to wait, as there’s no chance of getting through a paragraph with Yuqi nearby. “You can stay a while, but I won’t feed you. The rice cakes are all mine.”
“Whatever, Jeon Soyeon, I’ve seen your cooking.”
Paying no mind to this jibe, except to make a small tch sound under her breath, Soyeon powers on the television and picks a channel at random. The truth is that she just needs background noise right now, something to distract her from the extra body in the room. Yuqi’s body.
This late in the evening, there’s not a whole lot on the local channels except comedy panel shows and cyclic news broadcasts. She settles on the former, something dated that her parents might watch before retiring for the evening.
“You like this show?” Yuqi asks, and Soyeon makes a noncommittal noise between bites of food. She can measure Yuqi’s waning attention span by the amount of idle chatter reaching her ear as she eats. “I’ve met that guy, he’s got a bad personality,” she says at one point. And then, “We should do a show like this, but more current.” Later, “She looks like an aubergine in that dress,” and then, “I heard your armpits turn yellow if you eat those.”
Soyeon doesn’t so much as nibble at this weak bait into a more extensive conversation about the show. She’s barely watching it really, because she can see Yuqi’s outline moving in the screen every time a scene cuts away to some place darker.
Eventually Yuqi’s running commentary peters out into silence. Soyeon finishes her meal and pushes the plate aside, leaning her head back against the couch cushion without thinking about it, only to bump lightly into Yuqi’s knee. Without a word, she jerks her head the other way.
The silence feels heavier now, even as two panellists bicker away on TV. Soyeon thinks about starting up a conversation, like people are supposed to when there’s someone over. They could talk about inane things like the weather, or recount some happy memories from the tour.
They should talk about other things, but Soyeon’s not sure how to raise that without blurting out something harsh or too emotionally charged. She’s never had this kind of trouble being honest before, and it’s making her heated again. Words are her livelihood, and she can’t get them straight. Why is it so hard?
Just when she’s on the brink of digging her acrylics into the table just to ease some tension, a warm hand settles against the nape of Soyeon’s neck. She almost jumps out of her skin, and then Yuqi scratches lightly with her blunt nails, as if trying to ease the tension out of her. It’s soothing, but Soyeon has never felt less relaxed in her life.
“Soyeon,” she hears from right over her shoulder. A husky voice, even deeper than usual. “It’s okay.”
This doesn’t feel okay, from the way her throat is constricting. They’re on a steep cliff here, scaling impulsively without the proper safety gear; if something goes wrong, or if Soyeon has misjudged an entirely innocent series of events, then she’s about to drop from dangerous heights before the night is out.
But she hasn’t made it this far without taking risks.
The table legs scrape her floor a little as she pushes herself up on one foot and into a crouch. Soyeon turns against the hand on her neck, grabbing it with her own and almost head-butting Yuqi on her way to kissing her.
It’s messy, and outright demanding how she grabs Yuqi’s shoulder with her free hand and propels them both down onto the couch cushion, landing half on top of her.
Yuqi’s lets out a surprised grunt, releasing her breath into Soyeon’s open mouth, but when she’s on her back there’s nothing restrained about the way she splays her hand over Soyeon’s waist. She kisses back with an eager burst of energy, hauling Soyeon the rest of the way over until she’s actually straddling her hips.
Soyeon lets go of Yuqi’s hand and shoulder to grasp her face instead, mindful of the damage her nails could do without proper care. But from here she can better control the angle and kiss Yuqi the way she deserves.
Yuqi’s eyes are bright, even half-lidded, when Soyeon pulls back to breathe. “Even like this, you’re kind of forceful, huh?”
“Shut up,” Soyeon mutters, unfazed.
She drops down to kiss her again, meeting Yuqi’s tongue just briefly behind her teeth, before those canines close around Soyeon’s bottom lip in a playful bite. Her reactive yelp is muffled between them, but Soyeon can’t help the way her hips press down a little more insistently.
When Yuqi finally lets go, her lip feels tender as she sucks it back into her own mouth for soothing. Yuqi’s head drops back against the couch’s arm, and her smile is lazy and confident even as her eyes stay fixed on Soyeon’s mouth.
“Good, right?” she asks, brazen as always. “Or we can practice some more. I’m a quick study…”
“Yuqi,” Soyeon says intently. There’s a hand toying dangerously with the edge of her t-shirt, so she grabs it and pins Yuqi’s wrist to the chair to keep her focused, right beside her head. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
The easy-going smile flattens down a bit, and they enter a staring contest for all of five seconds before Soyeon loses patience and pinches her cheek between two fingers. Yuqi flinches from the nails more than anything, making an exaggerated hissing noise and blinking rapidly. “Be serious.”
“Now you want to talk about it?”
“You’ve been playing around for months, and you know it. I don’t understand what you’re thinking,” Soyeon says, keeping Yuqi pinned down while leaning back to sit on her haunches. “If you’re just toying with me, or… I don’t even know.”
“You’re so—Hey! Who’s playing games?” Yuqi’s bark is so fierce she almost jolts upright, and Soyeon has to lean back down to keep her balance, weight pressed against the couch where she’s holding Yuqi’s wrist. “I’ve been really clear this whole time. You’re just so stubborn, or maybe you’re dense. Is that it?”
“I’m not,” Soyeon mutters defensively. She’ll take a hit about her personality, but not her brains.
“Eventually, I figured… well, maybe we could skip a step if you didn’t want to have the conversation.”
Soyeon absorbs this information, delivered with complete seriousness, and feels like she might laugh at any minute. “You can’t just skip ahead like that, there’s a proper way of doing things. Stupid.”
“I’m stupid?” Yuqi’s voice goes up a considerable octave.
Soyeon tries to put a hand over her mouth to quell the argument, but Yuqi is faster off the mark, grabbing her by the forearm. Now they’re on even ground, both holding onto each other. “You’re too impulsive, that’s what I meant.”
“I can’t help it, when you’re so cute right in front of me.”
The compliment makes her feel a little flustered, but Soyeon shakes her head dismissively. “Listen, I’m older than you.”
“So what about it?”
“So I don’t need you to call me cute. Puppies are cute,” she says. “And girls who look like puppies. I’m not.”
“Then you’re sexy,” Yuqi says immediately, just like that. “Especially when you’re stubborn. It drives me crazy, I’m not lying.”
She punctuates this with a sharp tug on Soyeon’s wrist, and Soyeon lets her pull it down to her lips so she can kiss the underside, right over her pulse.
“Yuqi,” Soyeon tries, swallowing the rest when Yuqi presses another kiss a little further up her arm. Instead, she asks quietly, “What do you want?”
“I want to kiss you again… I want to be closer to you,” Yuqi says with her eyes closed and her lips still nudging against Soyeon’s forearm. They’re already so close like this, locked together from the waist down. But it’s not enough for Soyeon either.
She takes her hands away, sitting up just long enough to free them and lay her palms flat on the couch arm at either side of Yuqi’s head. With her weight better distributed, she’s much more comfortable draping her upper body over Yuqi’s and slotting their mouths together once more.
She lets Yuqi set the pace this time, letting herself relax and feel everything all at once. Yuqi’s tongue against hers. Yuqi’s chest rising and falling, her hands spanning the better part of Soyeon’s waist. The way she’s guiding Soyeon’s hips back just a little at a time, until she’s straddling more of Yuqi’s leg than her hips.
Ah.
The loss of control doesn’t always come easy, but sometimes it really can be worth it. Soyeon keens into Yuqi’s mouth, her head tilting back and breaking the kiss, but Yuqi chases her lips until the trajectory leads them both into a sitting position.
Neither of them seems to mind, and Yuqi draws one knee up to better settle Soyeon in her lap. After a deep, steadying breath, Soyeon loops her arms around Yuqi’s neck and starts the kiss all over again.
Heat builds up quickly in the apartment, and Soyeon feels like she’s panting more than breathing at this point. After a while she turns her face away to re-compose herself, only to make a feeble noise of surprise when Yuqi’s hand sneaks slyly under the back of her shirt, hiking the material up until her bra is out in the open.
“Should I stop?” She hears the breathless note in Yuqi’s voice too, but not an ounce of uncertainty. When Soyeon lifts her head to look, Yuqi’s lips are smudged red but she’s smiling.
It might be fun to tease her, when she’s so clearly full of herself. But her hand is warm and splayed over Soyeon’s lower back, and she’d be punishing them both in the process.
“No,” she says, and it feels too sharp coming out of her mouth, even a little frantic. Worse still when Yuqi laughs at something in her expression, but very worth it for the hand tracing a line up her spine until it finds her bra strap.
Soyeon feels the band loosen around her ribcage when the clasp is undone, and she feels even more intensely how Yuqi’s fingers follow the path underneath it to her right breast. She clenches her thighs over Yuqi’s raised leg, kissing her fiercely just to wipe that grin off her face.
She can’t maintain it for long though, because Yuqi is pawing at her like every slight twitch in her body is something to map out. Her thumb works insistently until Soyeon is all but swearing blindly against the side of her face.
Soyeon can’t help turning her upper body into the exploratory touch. As soon as she breaks the kiss, Yuqi buries her face in Soyeon’s neck instead, kissing open-mouthed just to torture her a little more. Soyeon feels pure heat in every place Yuqi’s touching, and that same heat spreads even more urgently to places she’s yet to reach.
She already feels like an unruly mess when Yuqi noses affectionately at her ear, murmuring, “Jeon Soyeon.” The rich husk in her voice is almost too much to bear.
Yuqi has to say it twice before she grinds out a very distracted, “What?”
“You like me, right?”
This feels pretty far out of left field, coming from a woman whose hand is still fondling her chest. Soyeon blinks slowly, though her brain is like a fried machine, trying to understand the almost juvenile question. Yuqi’s face is deadly serious when she pulls away.
“I already know,” she explains, “but if you say it once… and maybe tomorrow too.” She tips her head down until her nose is pressed to the side of Soyeon’s, stealing her breath. “Say that you want me, okay?”
In the drawn-out pause that follows, Yuqi’s hands divert to the small of Soyeon’s back, holding her in a loose embrace. She’s really going to wait.
Yuqi has always been a lot more sensitive than she lets on, bolstering herself with twice the bravado of a normal person as a way to shield it. Soyeon’s known that about her since she caught Yuqi crying in the bathroom as a trainee, full waterworks over very mild and warranted criticisms from the instructor.
She know that, and it starts to hit her that Yuqi’s heart might really be in her hands right now, whatever comes out of her mouth next. And that’s a scary thought. Soyeon has a very spotty track record on managing people’s feelings. She’s spent a long time raising a blockade around her own feelings, as a matter of face. It’s always been so much easier to rationalise things; what’s useful, and what’s slowing her down in the long run.
These feelings for Yuqi have been really inconvenient.
“When you first joined the company, I didn’t think you’d last more than a couple of weeks,” Soyeon broaches this slowly, and her hand flies up to cover Yuqi’s mouth when a moody retort seems forthcoming, pushing her back a little. “You dressed weird, and you never used honorifics. And most trainees back then didn’t stick around for long anyway, especially when they came from abroad. I guess it’s scary to be on your own like that.”
Yuqi offers a muffled sound of agreement under her palm.
“But you worked hard, right? And your evaluations were improving fast. I saw your ranking start to go up, and I thought… it might be good to debut with this girl. So I kept watching you.”
The words seem to roll out easier as Soyeon gains momentum; it feels like she’s unravelling something tangled, once the first knot has come loose. “And the more time went on, it became like… a habit, or something. Do you have any idea how distracting you are? I spent more time worrying about you than minding my own business.”
At the end of her tirade, she takes a deep breath and drops her hand from Yuqi’s mouth to her shoulder. It’s not what anyone would call a classic love confession, but it’s honest.
Yuqi’s face is all but glowing, which is the main thing. When she opens her mouth, Soyeon expects a joke, something utterly ridiculous, but instead she just says: “And?”
“And what?”
Her eyes are wide and beseeching as she stares Soyeon down, leaning very close all of a sudden. She asks again, this time softly, “And?”
“You talk too much, which is even more distracting.”
“And?”
Soyeon grits her teeth in annoyance at this new game, but then Yuqi’s arms are drawing her closer, and she’s brushing her lips against a tender spot below Soyeon’s ear. Yuqi hums expectantly, as if waiting for more.
“And,” Soyeon concedes, overpowered by the kisses Yuqi is trailing down her neck. “When you keep clinging to me in public, I really don’t know what to do with myself.”
She feels the hot, wet sensation of Yuqi’s tongue on her skin, just fleeting. “And?”
“And I don’t want it to stop.”
As if she’s landed on the answer Yuqi’s been holding out for, the arms around Soyeon’s waist tighten up until there’s no space left between them. Yuqi’s teeth sink into her neck, and even though the bite is shallow and painless, the pressure of her lips sealing over it feels intense; Soyeon grinds hard against Yuqi’s leg until her good sense returns.
Immediately, she pushes Yuqi’s shoulders back, extricating her mouth with a hard shove.
“Not—no marks. They’ll ask questions later,” Soyeon manages in a stern voice.
Yuqi scoffs at her defiantly. “I love questions.”
“You love your job, and you won’t if that rumour gets around. We’re not ready for any more damage control. You need to think about these things.” Soyeon rubs her thumb across Yuqi’s cheek to ease the rejection.
Yuqi being herself, she turns her head abruptly and catches Soyeon’s thumb between her teeth, nipping until it’s snatched out of her mouth. She grins like this is still a game they’re playing.
“I’ve thought about everything,” she says confidently. At the uncertain hitch of Soyeon’s eyebrows, she pouts her lips and continues, “For the past few years, and especially last year. All I do is think and work, and write a lot of songs about you, for the most part.”
Soyeon flushes and averts her eyes from the blunt confession. She could say the same thing, but it’s hard to get a word in edgeways when Yuqi’s on a roll.
“I’ll show you the demos tomorrow, I think you’ll like them. Maybe not the ones from when I was drinking, but they’re mostly good. If they make it on the album, I can come up with something to tell the others if you want. Oh, but Minnie heard them already. She knows a lot, but she won’t say anything unless you bring it up first.”
“Minnie knows,” Soyeon repeats, letting the rest of it wash over her.
“Well, she’s my roommate, you know? I’m not good at hiding things.”
“Uh-huh,” Soyeon says in a daze. Yuqi’s hand is stroking her back, up and down in a lazy rhythm as she talks, and it’s lulling her into a very forgiving mood.
“So I spent a lot of time thinking, that’s my point. And what I thought about the most, actually – do you want to know?” Yuqi’s smile is cocky now.
“You’re going to tell me.”
“That night at the hotel. In your bed, holding you like this…”
Soyeon’s head snaps up as she clocks on. “You planned that, you little—”
“Thank you, Neverland,” Yuqi crows to nobody but the two of them. She couldn’t possibly have known how Soyeon would corner herself on that livestream, but her whole show of needing someone in the bed with her. What a load of crap.
Soyeon grabs her by the head and kisses her again just to stifle the obnoxious laughter.
They’re going to have a serious conversation about discretion – tomorrow.
For now, Soyeon picks the remote up from the table and switches off her television.