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Curtains from an ajar window permit a breeze in. An inhale from shivering emotions dwindling in each exhale. Each gust was frigid, draining the aching limbs from warmth.
The light was scarce from the outside, but being accustomed to the darkness, it was enough illumination to witness the details where the half-conscious owner dwells.
Hilariously enough, she would think the owner could have bought a penthouse with how much they can earn in a week. Her feet touched a fallen doll near the foot of the holder of the mattress, and her imagination was swept by the reality of a humbled studio apartment.
She tightens the grip on a limping wrist and a heavy body attached to her hip.
Three steps forward. Finally, she releases her hold and lays the owner on their respective bed.
At least, she expects it that way. But instead, she got pulled in by a tipsy force and their faces were suddenly centimeters apart.
Usually, she'd scream. Push her away even. It was mutual on most occasions. However, she remains silent, a breathless gasp escapes from her lungs as beauty sculpted with compelling innocence ravages her senses.
"Tell me something nice about me."
"Soobin-ah…"
"Sojung-ah. Please."
Sojung bites the insides of her cheek, unable to retaliate with the plea.
"You're drunk." Sojung pulls the fist fastened against her shirt to release her, but the clutch only tightens and tugs her back into their tiny space.
"Just a little."
"Doesn't make a difference."
Soobin pouts and whines. Her legs now wrapped around Sojung's lower torso to keep the older in place.
"Can't you just indulge me this once?"
"Maybe when you're sober."
Soobin snorts.
"That will make things too awkward and too weird. At least when I have alcohol in my system, I can take it less abhorrent."
"More of the reason why."
"Do you enjoy that much of our banters? Doesn't it torture you? Kinky." Soobin chuckles. Her alcoholic breath reaches Sojung's nose, but its smell was not even nearly similar to what borderline retch-worthy ones are. Soobin's were – if Sojung wants to be frank for once – laced with mint that spices her lungs to take a whiff.
It was tolerable. Maybe it is also because sentimental factors were a part of the lingering scent.
And it was downright addicting.
If Sojung doesn't bear much self-restraint, she'd bury her nose in the crook of Soobin's exposed collarbone, taking not only the intoxication but all fragrances, into account.
Okay, and maybe Sojung feels the low thrums of the shots she had lulling in her veins. Pushing her to lean on to the impulses she'd usually rein to a halt.
Sojung hardened a blink. "It'd be like talking to a wall with you."
"Can't you see I'm still awake?" Soobin waves a hand in front of her, backhand facing Sojung's as if it will sustain her credibility.
Sojung rolls her eyes. She ultimately yanks Soobin's hand from her shirt while pushing the other to the owner's face. The ends of Sojung's heels meet the carpeted floor and use the freedom to release tension from her muscles.
"Yah!"
“You’re still so loud even in such a state.” Sojung grits her teeth.
Crouching, she removes Soobin's heels with difficulty. Stupid heels. Why does Soobin need to wear these kinds of things? Other than for height means. But then again, Sojung has no complaint about this matter, considering she has a sufficient height to go by.
After getting the last buckle off the footwear, she casts the pair aside and tosses Soobin’s lower legs to her bed so her body’s entirely on it. Soobin gave nothing else but a grunt to let Sojung know she was nevertheless conscious despite her current silence.
“I’ll get some water for you.”
Sojung turns, a foot already pathing itself towards the door.
“Sojung-ah.”
She pauses. Disapproval rises from her throat, the lack of honorifics becoming her reason for nagging.
“Don’t leave me.”
A weak hand searches for her presence. She sees it, at the end of her peripheral. Almost against her will. Her heart aches at the movement.
“I won’t be gone for too long.” Another step.
The sigh was heavy. Sojung’s senses were heightened by the silence which is becoming overwhelming, ceasing her advances. Soobin was almost mumbling nonsense if she were a bit farther, but she strains her ears for coherency.
Then she really hears it.
“This takes me back.”
Sojung pivots and trudge back near the edge of Soobin’s bed. Close enough that she can sit beside Soobin, but also far enough she can retreat if ever things go south. At the back of Sojung’s mind, she chuckles at the latter, because why is she so caught up with her own cautionary tendencies around Soobin? Is it because she can see herself in quite a similar eerie state of affairs once several months ago? Or Sojung just can’t brush off the tormenting clutches of anguish gripping its qualms around her neck and its proximate whispers evoking what she had once lost and has never recovered through a dearth of commitment?
“It’s funny, y’know.” Soobin utters. Sojung wasn’t sure if it was for her, or anyone in particular, or perhaps Soobin just wanted to aurally sculpt the realization she never speaks out loud. Scared that she would hex herself into misfortune, in any case, verbalizing mere remnants from memories can conceive it into existence.
And the spectator can only offer her muted company. Partly due to the fact she can’t come up with the appropriate words abiding by the foreboding, she can feel seeping into her skin and how her intuition coaxes her to remain by Soobin’s vulnerability.
Nevertheless, it has rooted Sojung from where she’s lingered motionless.
“Hyunjung has never once told me ‘I love you’.” Soobin sniffs, ignoring the dull pain throbbing at the base of her lungs, “And even though I do joke about it, saying how it’s too cringey and cheesy that it’s just not in our gesture of affection to allow such absurdity…”
Soobin slowly shifts, from facing the wall to settling her sights on fulvous strands reflected by meagered light.
“I sometimes long for those words to bear fruition.”
Lips, amidst the painful memory, tries lifting itself from the phantom wounds of surrender. Tears prickle at the edges of Soobin’s vision, tampering with clarity – with what she currently sees, and fails to notice Sojung’s fists balling.
“Frankly, I have to admit, maybe I am just too petty for my own good,” Soobin sucks in a breath, trying to cease the damn trails it leaves dry against her cheeks by the time she swipes them away. Fragility sucks ass. “I do not bear any right to demand a type of language of affection when we express our own to our significant others.”
“And yet,” She exhales shakily, her palms kneading her eyes, momentarily halting the tears that persist on coming and infiltrating. “I can’t help it, I guess. And when I felt that the cons were now outweighing the pros. I had to end it. Somehow. Didn’t make it any less excruciating. That’s for sure.”
Silence engulfs them. While there is a lingering sentiment that eggs them to talk about it, there is also a fair share of understanding underlying all of the layers they keep building and showcasing to the world.
Maybe when they’re alone together, those walls built with counterfeit fortitude were easy to break down. It becomes easy, over time. Not necessarily. Not instantly. But the fissures were simple enough to unearth akin to a face they would trace under the evening sky, resounding the questions from their heads like a broken record.
Sojung then makes that thread work. Mending the pieces, bit by bit, albeit never completely so.
“Your ass.” Sojung abruptly cuts in. Which also derails Soobin’s train of thought.
“Huh?”
“That’s one thing nice about you. Your ass.” Sojung says like a statement from a constitution.
“Are you fucking with me right now?” The solemn mood shatters instantly like a supernova.
“Only if you’d want me to.” A smirk dances from Sojung’s alluring features.
“Yah! Chu Sojung!” Soobin screams, laughter bubbling from her mouth as she grabs a pillow and swings it at Sojung in retaliation.
Soobin’s cheeks were full for a fracture of a moment, before they sullen again, eyes softening. Her voice reverberates a somber tone, like a hand awaiting another to intertwine with, “More.”
“You’re kind.”
“More.”
“You’re lovely.”
Soobin doesn’t shy away from the compliments she’s receiving. The way her eyes lit up and the smile on her face, Sojung notes only to herself, it looks too good on Soobin. It swells something within her, something affiliated with pride in how she was able to procure it contrary to wonted odds.
She would never want it to fade ever again.
“Give me something else.” Soobin adjusts her position, and the right strap of her camisole falls off gently once she leans against her elbow, as if slithering down from her shoulder in tease.
Sojung takes it as a challenge.
So, she tested how far she could go on by testing the waters and their tides.
“Sexy.”
Soobin’s eyes widened for a split second. Her lips were unable to fight off the irresistible smirk now plastered, mirroring Sojung’s own like a taunt to provide her more .
“Cute.” Sojung tilts her head to the side. She moves from where she stands. Closer .
“Am I not pretty? Why won’t you say that one?” Soobin suggests, her brow rising in amusement.
“Pretty then.”
“More.”
Sojung by now has one of her knee supporting her weight, hands on the comforters as she sat. Her fingers brush against Soobin’s buzzing skin at an agonizing pace, her mind contending to keep up with the race they had been chasing.
The skin from one of Soobin’s arms dangling from her sides feels it prickle under Sojung’s touch, revels at the gentle treads.
“You have nice skin.” Sojung continues.
“More.” Soobin focuses her sight on Sojung’s bare nails grazing her exposed stomach, before the appendage leaves its attention there, and arrives at her face.
“You have big eyes,” Her forefinger draws a path along Soobin’s nose, “a high nose bridge.”
Sojung cups Soobin’s cheek, thumb brushing against soft ones. Soobin hitches a breath. Her complexion blooms warmth. “And your cheeks are like cherry.”
“More…” Soobin lost her momentum, her pupils suddenly veers to Sojung’s lips.
“You have cheekbones that make you look like full of luck.”
And, once again, the moment splinters. Signaling the end of yet another deliberate escalation. Boisterous laughter exhausts from Soobin’s brief trance.
“You’re so stupid.” Soobin half-cries, wiping off the lone tear from her eye.
Sojung frowns, the exhaustion from her muscles screaming in protest once the fatigue of carrying Soobin all the way to her apartment began notifying her. She gives in to the impulses of her own body and lay down beside Soobin’s minimal distance.
“I was serious though.” She admits this but is also confused about how Soobin receives it.
“Sure you were.” Soobin mocks, and pray-telling were out of the equation for Sojung.
Huh. Well, that becomes Sojung’s spare thought for the night. She thinks.
“Yah.” Soobin calls out to her. Rather, knocks Sojung’s forehead who’s facing Soobin to grab her attention.
“Can you tell your mind to shut up and wrap your arms around me now? We need none of that when there are dire matters at hand. Can’t you see I’m cold?” A whine fights its way out of the owner, her entire body already snuggling Sojung’s front to ward off the cold. And cuing Sojung to get. her. damn. wits. moving .
Sojung doesn’t stifle the urge to roll her eyes. A smile, nevertheless, quirks alive. “So demanding.”
“Hurry up!”
Sojung chuckles, grabbing the comforter and guiding it to their feet before pulling it overhead. She extends one end on Soobin’s shoulders and the other across hers. Once Sojung gets to lie down again, Soobin wasted no time in minimizing the space between them and latches onto Sojung’s torso. Her head nestles under Sojung’s chin, slumber immediately holding her hostage. Shortly, a waft of citrus pervaded her senses, soothing her to subconsciousness.
“Don’t blame me for your hangover tomorrow.”
No answer was returned, as the faint snores of the younger were the acknowledgment Sojung took instead.
Calloused hands guide Soobin closer to her, as Sojung dragged her final reserves of energy to leave a kiss on Soobin’s crown before drifting off to sail the same reverie.