Work Text:
the first thing she does, is sit. it’s more of a stumble, really, collapsing head first into her satin sheets. but she’s there. smothering her head in between the pillows, slowly seeing the floaters and galaxies of stars setting in.
and then, she counts. prime numbers were her favorite — her highest that one time was two hundred and fifty one, although that was the time she stayed in the bathtub too long ‘til her skin pruned. she remembers emerging face-up, lungs devoid of oxygen as she scrambled for air. although, her first thought was the mirror. it’s a little comedic, the speed she traced her cheekbones with trembling fingers, examining the newly-wrinkled skin covering every inch of her face.
yeji thinks a lot about wrinkles. getting older. she spent her twenty-third birthday surreptitiously googling retinol serums and anti-aging cream after the company-obligated live stream and seeing the familiar hate comments that she would chastise chaeryeong for reading.
the dreams came next. they were a little horrifying, in some kind of fucked lovecraftian way. each layer of skin peeling off, raw and grazed as she pulled the skin off inch by inch in desperation, only greeted by blood pouring from every gash. it was the last time she fell asleep watching those cheaply-produced netflix true crime documentaries again.
yeji couldn’t dwell on that. she was the oldest. the ace . and their leader.
the first and last team of my life .
sure, the statement was borne out of loyalty. fidelity. for midzy, the believers. they gave her everything, of course, they sang a whole song about it, so she was grateful. she had to be grateful, portray the indentured servant for the fans, their mere marionette for the low-budget university shows and impromptu fansignings to appease the greasy unshowered men.
she despised everything else. how could she not? despising everything and near everyone else, bar the four other girls she could hear singing queencard in the adjourning corridor of their dorm.
“yeji?”
her voice is dewy when she enters the room, honey-like skin still bronzed with the remnants of make-up tinting her cheeks.
“i need to borrow your cleanser.” she states matter-of-factly, wandering the room with a stray hand fanning her hair. “yuna finished mine.”
she’s dressed in an oversized drifloon-shirt and boyshorts, fluffy slippers to match the faint grin on her face. adorable, yeji thinks. jisu was adorable. the tableau of innocence and unbridled optimism, dunkin’ mocha in hand to prove it.
“it’s on the vanity table.”
“thanks babe.” jisu murmurs, unscrewing the cap as she absent-mindedly examines herself in the vanity mirror. “had a good time tonight?”
a great time, yeji thinks. missing out on the award and unceremoniously accepting second place, to the black ocean from bemused fans, and then, before she knows it, it’s tomorrow. the same exact shit on loop.
“y-yeah, was fun. nice catching up with jimin and minjeong, i guess.” yeji mumbles under her breath, wandering hands subconsciously tightening their grip on the peony floral sheets.
“jimin? don’t you have a huge crush on her?”
“maybe like three years ago, yeah.” the older feigns nonchalance as she moves awkwardly to twirl her hair, her cadence unknowingly betraying her. “isn’t it your bedtime?”
“you can’t do this with me, yeji.”
yeji swallows the stone lump in her throat. “what am i doing, jisu?”
there’s a faint smirk on jisu’s face as she gravitates to the bed, graciously placing herself on the sheets and mere inches away from the younger, sitting almost directly parallel to her.
“you can try that shit with yuna, chaeryeong, even ryujin… i know you better than that, unnie.”
“n-nothing’s wrong, jisu, i’m j-just tired. haven’t been sleeping properly.” yeji croaks, averting her gaze from the younger as she tries to focus on something, anything other than the perfect girl three feet away from her.
jisu flashes a timid grin, her voice remaining barely audible. “our beloved leader, yeah? the main dancer, lead vocalist, what can’t you do, unnie?” she coos, faintly tracing yeji’s right cheekbone with a lone fingertip. “our unnie works so hard for us, doesn’t she?”
yeji’s instinctive response is to shiver, a wave of electricity running down her spine as an innate shudder passes right through her. the mere fragment of jisu’s touch — anyone’s touch at this point — was exhilarating, as much as she frantically tried to conceal it. “s-stop, ji, i’m just tired, okay?”
“does it feel good, unnie?” jisu whispers, making the hairs on the back of yeji’s neck stand as she inches closer to the older girl. yeji is captivated — peering directly into the doe eyes of the effortlessly seductive person jisu was. “when was the last time someone touched you like this, hm?”
jisu’s shit-eating grin grows even wider as she uses her other hand to trace the older’s thigh, though weirdly enough, maybe it wasn’t sexual. maybe yeji was delusional — isn’t patting someone’s thigh inherently sexual? but maybe it just… wasn’t hot. or seductive. just comforting. weirdly soothing, in some odd way.
“i really worry about you, yeji.” jisu’s tone quickly changes, a more somber, solemn expression accompanying her voice. she turns her back to yeji as she rummages around in the bureau, chuckling as she finally fishes out a matching set of nightclothes. “fortnite pajamas, unnie? really?”
“my sister bought them for me.” yeji gruffs, feigning frustration even if she knew she could never truly be mad at the girl rustling in her drawers right now. “jisu, i still have to finish writi—”
a firm palm stops to halter yeji in her tracks, with jisu raising an eyebrow for good measure.
“do you want me to dress you, unnie?”
“n-no!” yeji exclaims, terrified that she was momentarily considering jisu’s offer as she stumbles to her feet. “i c-can do it myself…” she stammers, desperately trying to sound convincing as she fights to get the words out, crimson tinting her cheeks.
“alright…” jisu mutters, although perhaps the older girl was imagining a drop of disappointment in her voice. she makes a point of theatrically turning around, comically placing her hands over her eyes as yeji wrestles with putting the clothes on, painfully distracted by the indecipherable girl standing parallel to her.
a few minutes pass — though seemingly stretching to hours — but yeji and jisu are there — tangled under the sheets with only a few layers demarcating them.
“are you comfortable like this, babe?”
yeji’s ears redden upon hearing the mostly-platonic pet name, as jisu clung tightly to her back, the oddly-comforting sensation of her warm breath faintly hitting the back of yeji’s neck. it was a soothing metronome to quell the noise of yeji’s mind, the faint press of the younger’s chest against her upper back simply only a bonus, of course.
“y-yeah, jisu. t-thank you… for all of this.”
there’s a few proctrated moments of silence in the darkness, but yeji swears she can feel jisu smiling against her. she shuffles slightly before adjusting her position to place herself even closer to the older girl, bodies caressing tightly against each other as jisu stretches her arm around her torso, body heat directly emanating against yeji.
yeji swears this should be uncomfortable, given that her only previous spooning experience only consisted of yuna, the unapologetic duvet-stealer, and chaeryeong as the chronic sleeptalker. this should be uncomfortable, if it was any other person.
but it wasn’t any other person.
it was her . jisu. her savior.
“jisu?” yeji speaks into the void, a forlorn voice in the abyss. “will you be here when i wake up?”
there’s another excruciating moment of silence as yeji silently berates herself for even asking such a ridiculous question when jisu was probably sound asleep by now.
“pabo.”
jisu’s honey voice perks up suddenly, yeji distinctively hearing the smile in her tone as she chuckles. her grip momentarily slackens on the older girl’s abdomen before she brings herself even closer to the other girl, a faint kiss on her head as their bodies remain firmly planted against each other, in their crafted sanctuary of home.
“where else would i be, silly?”