Chapter Text
When Jiyeon slinks back into the dorm at a little past 3am, she doesn’t expect anyone to still be up. She had texted, of course, to say that she was coming home, but as far as she knows, some of the others have a schedule tomorrow so they shouldn’t be waiting up anyway.
To Jiyeon’s comfort — because she’s too exhausted to feel delight at the moment — Dawon’s still up. She’s sitting in the dark, watching some drama play on mute. If she notices the opening of the front door, she gives no indication. Jiyeon doesn’t think twice before planting herself in the other girl’s lap.
“Unnie,” Dawon exhales, sounding surprised. “You’re home,” she murmurs, wrapping one arm around Jiyeon’s waist.
Dawon is warm, and she smells good, so Jiyeon snuggles against her, feeling the tension seep out of her body. Dawon accommodates her quietly, resting her chin on the crown of her head, not saying much, as always. Questions of what are you watching? why are you still up? flit across Jiyeon’s mind, but she’s too tired to vocalise them. Were you waiting for me?
The answer comes a moment later when she hears the bathroom door open. Luda steps into the living room, drying damp hands against her shorts. There’s a flicker of an expression across her face, one too quick for Jiyeon to decipher in this low light before she says, “Hi, unnie, you’re back. I missed you.”
It takes Jiyeon’s lethargic mind a moment to process the situation, but once she realises, a wave of awkwardness floods through her. “Oh,” she tries to extricate herself from Dawon’s grasp, “I was just going…”
Except Dawon gently tightens her grip, holding her in place.
Luda’s tail is wagging, swishing back and forth in broad, happy strokes, as she lopes over. Then, she settles next to them, tucking into Dawon’s side, with Dawon shifting her other arm to accommodate her, and it’s kind of obvious that she’s taken Luda’s spot. But the haze of sleep has already settled over her and it’s not like Dawon wants her to go, right?
Luda’s lighter, sweeter scent intertwines with Dawon’s comfortingly, settling over the three of them. So Jiyeon stays, only breaking up the silence to say she’ll go shower in a minute.
Luda sniffs before saying, teasingly — or at least Jiyeon hopes so, “Yeah, you should.”
“Yah, Lee Luda, what’s that supposed to mean?”
Dawon is the one who answers instead, the two of them working perfectly in tandem. There’s a thread of unhappiness in her tone, one that Jiyeon can’t pinpoint the cause of, when she says, “You’ve been away for too long.”
Jiyeon eventually finds enough willpower to pull herself away from her two members before she falls asleep. She showers quickly, not wanting to remain standing upright for longer than she has to. Still, being able to wash the dirt of the outside world away and being enveloped by the warm water and scent of a familiar body wash is comforting. They were right, she’s home now. She’ll have to leave again soon, but it’s nice to return even for the moment.
When Jiyeon returns to the living room, wearing an old oversized shirt and not much else, towelling her damp hair dry the best she can, the sight before her stops her in her tracks. She doesn’t really know why she came back to the living room, maybe just to say goodnight, because she wanted to see her members as much as possible before she is rushed off again for more filming, but she probably shouldn’t have.
Luda and Dawon are two intertwined figures on the sofa. In the dark, it is impossible to tell where one person ends and the other begins. Until lightning flashes in the drama and the sudden brightness of the television screen illuminates the living room just enough for Jiyeon to see how Luda is straddling Dawon’s lap as she sits in the corner of the sofa, hands in Dawon’s hair as they make out lazily. One of Dawon’s hands, wedged between the two of them, is somewhere under Luda’s shirt and it makes heat rush to Jiyeon’s cheeks.
They’re– well, she suspected that they were… closer. So, she’d definitely been intruding earlier. Of course, there’s a question of why they’re out here since they literally share a room–
Jiyeon knows she should tear her eyes away, but she can’t stop looking. Which is why she slams into the wall while trying to back into the corridor.
The two of them pull apart at the noise, heads turning in tandem to look at her.
“I– Just wanted to say goodnight,” Jiyeon hurries out, flustered. “I’m–”
“Unnie,” Luda calls out, voice just a little rougher than it normally is. “Come here.”
Jiyeon can’t. She’s rooted to the spot.
Luda huffs out a little sigh, then bounds over to pull her back to the living room. Jiyeon catches sight of a darkened mark on her neck, one she doubts was there earlier, before her hair falls over it.
Dawon hasn’t moved this whole time from where she’s sprawled out on the sofa, seated perpendicular to the backrest with one leg dangling off, looking at Jiyeon with dark eyes.
During the day, Dawon doesn’t take up much space. She’s fluid-like, flexible in her dimensions as she accommodates or matches others, often curling to lean on a shorter member’s shoulder.
This Dawon is different. Her lazy, self-assured posture reminds Jiyeon of her feline nature. Her chest is rising and falling more heavily than it was before, lips gently parted. Her scent hangs heavily in the air, causing Jiyeon’s sensitive nose to twitch at the sudden invasion. Under Dawon’s gaze, she fights the urge to tremble.
“Unnie,” Dawon murmurs, raising a hand out towards her, “come here.” Jiyeon isn’t sure if she’s ever heard Dawon speak like this before, commandingly. Normally, if any younger member spoke to her in this way, she would chide at them for insolence. But, Dawon isn’t forceful or demanding about it. And Jiyeon is tired.
It’s obvious what Dawon wants, but Jiyeon only settles lightly on her knee, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt. She’s only too aware of how Luda is looking at the both of them.
“Come here,” Dawon repeats, soothingly this time. She tugs Jiyeon towards her, nose scrunching happily when Jiyeon curls in her arms again. Dawon’s scent envelops her, familiar and comforting, and it strikes Jiyeon how much she’s missed her.
Luda settles next to them again, this time turned towards Jiyeon. For a moment, Jiyeon thinks they’re going to resume cuddling like they did before she went to shower, like she didn’t walk in on them at all, but then Luda places a warm hand on the bare expanse of her thigh.
“You didn’t come back just to be alone, did you, unnie?” She asks, sliding closer. “You missed us, right?”
“Luda…” Jiyeon breathes out shakily, trembling in anticipation as the younger girl nears. She doesn’t know what either of them want with her, but something’s shifted.
She feels Dawon bump her nose against her jaw. There’s an arm curled around her, one hand splayed across her stomach over her shirt and maybe it’s because Jiyeon’s waist is small but she can’t help but gulp at how large Dawon’s hands are compared to her. “Mm,” Dawon hums, “this is better.” She rubs their cheeks together, blatantly possessive but also tender in the action. Sometimes, when she’s away for too long, when she’s mingling with strange people, the members get jealous. But she’s never seen it from Dawon before.
“When you came back,” Luda says, so close to her face that she can’t help but flinch, “you smelled like other people.”
“I– ah–” Jiyeon gasps, feeling Luda nose at one of her ears. It’s not like her to apologise, but Luda’s tone makes her feel like she’s done something wrong.
Jiyeon can only squirm, overwhelmed, from where she is, sandwiched between the two of them. They’re drenching her in their scents, hers still dampened the blockers she took while on set, such that all she can smell, all she can process is just them and it makes her dizzy.
Luda moves down, much to Jiyeon’s relief. She mouths instead at her jaw, her neck, raising streaks of heat on her skin as she does, teasing her teeth but never clamping down. It’s still enough for Jiyeon to feel her sharper canines though, the ones that could easily tear through her skin.
“Wait–” Jiyeon struggles out, although she tilts her head, granting Luda easier access. Zero survival instincts, she thinks faintly, fleetingly, as Luda’s teeth scrape over her neck, followed by the flat of her tongue.
The action makes her press more into Dawon, who is grasping her shirt now, twisting it around her hand to pull her closer to her. Their combined heat flanking her makes her burn up, each hungry touch pulling strength from her limbs, and all Jiyeon can do is whine and writhe between them.
“I know you have to be close to them, I know it’s just acting,” Dawon murmurs, her other hand toying with one of Jiyeon’s soft ears. Jiyeon tenses momentarily, although all Dawon does is rub her ear between her thumb and forefinger. “But a little bunny like you, all alone…”
The loose collar of Jiyeon’s shirt has slidden down under their assault, exposing a pale shoulder. This time, Luda bites, gnawing at her shoulder. It’s not a hard bite, but Jiyeon still shudders, choking on a whimper.
“People might get the wrong idea, unnie,” Luda pulls away, pouting. The cute expression makes her mouth look innocent, like it hadn’t just been ravaging Jiyeon just before.
Jiyeon wants to look away, to bury her face in her hands and avoid Luda’s sharp eyes, but Luda’s hand catches her chin, forcing her to keep their gazes on one another. It’s ridiculous because she knows that Luda should be half-blind in this dark without her glasses, but there’s something so piercing about her gaze that makes Jiyeon think otherwise. At least the darkened room helps hide the redness that has stolen onto her cheeks.
Her members have scented her many times before, especially before solo schedules, but never this aggressively. She can feel the dampness on her shoulder cooling quickly in the night air, the sensation reminding her that, well– they’ve scented her in the way Dawon currently is doing before, with rubbing of cheeks, releasing pheromones, through skin-to-skin contact, but Luda took it further this time, smearing saliva over her body, uncharted territory.
Yet, Jiyeon doesn’t say anything. She lies there, pliant in their arms, out of it. She turns off the instinct in the back of her mind, the one telling her to stay on guard around predators like them, indulging instead in the haze of her mind. Her muscles are finally loosening, for the first time in a while, and there’s no safer place than with her members.
It had been awful, honestly, being away from her members for so long, surrounded by strange people. For the sake of the script, their characters had to be close, had to be intimate. Luda was right. People might get the wrong idea, her wearing a fellow cast member’s scent like that when she already belongs to her members and them to her.
And then Luda slides her hand further up Jiyeon’s thigh, using the leverage to press closer and any coherent thought flees her mind as she leans into it.
“What if someone takes advantage of you, unnie?” Luda asks, eyes never tearing away from hers as her fingers creep higher, touch burning.
The nerve, Jiyeon thinks. The angle is wrong for her to kick a leg out in Luda’s direction, so she settles for trying to nip the hand that’s nearer her mouth. Luda jerks her hand away, although her mouth curls into a mischievous smile. “Are you sure you can do anything with those little teeth of yours?” And then she bares her own, canine and sharp.
“Ah, Luda–” Jiyeon falters through her scolding as she feels one of Dawon’s hands tilt her head down, a thumb brushing against the scent gland on the back of her neck. “Wait–”
“Unnie,” Dawon says, unhappy again. “Your neck…”
Jiyeon squirms in place as Luda leans over to scrutinise the spot in question. She knows what it looks like, a flaking, irritated patch of skin. “I had to wear an inhibitor patch,” she tries to explain, able to collect her thoughts now that they’ve both slowed down. “It reacted badly, I don’t know why– so I ended up taking the blockers instead.”
“Does it hurt?” Jiyeon can’t see Dawon’s expression, but she can imagine her with her eyebrows knitted together in concern.
“It’s fine now…” Jiyeon mumbles, opting not to tell them that it’s not healing properly because they have to keep putting bandaids and concealer over it.
Dawon hums, before pressing her lips to her scent gland. Heat ripples down Jiyeon’s spine. Then, she feels Dawon lick at the spot, searing heat against her sensitive skin, and she can’t suppress the way she shivers, eyes fluttering shut.
When she opens her eyes again, Luda is staring straight at her, one hand cupping her cheek. “Your heat came,” she says, and it’s not a question.
“We were– ah– we were behind schedule already,” Jiyeon tries to explain, between increasingly heavy breaths as Dawon continues to soothe her neck — or at least that’s what she thinks she’s doing. Under Dawon’s ministrations, her scent begins to leak out, mixing with the other two in the air like it belongs, blanketing the three of them comfortingly.
“We couldn’t postpone filming, so I just took suppressants. It was– ngh–” her voice breaks off. Jiyeon squirms uncontrollably as Dawon begins to suck on her neck, trying to draw more of her scent out, “it was okay.”
She can tell Luda doesn’t believe her — even though it really was, mostly, okay and all she’s left with is the feeling of an unscratched itch now that it’s passed — but the younger girl doesn’t press. Instead, she leans forward. For a moment, Jiyeon thinks that she’s going to kiss her, and she squeezes her eyes shut. But then she feels Luda’s lips press against her cheek instead.
“Thank you for working hard, unnie,” Luda whispers, lips brushing her skin. “I’m sorry for biting you.”
She looks so adorable staring up at her like this, ears pulled back just enough to show apology, that Jiyeon can’t help but raise a hand to stroke her head. “It’s okay.” Then, after a pause, remembering that it might mean something different to Luda, she adds, “You can bite, but don’t leave marks.”
“I wouldn’t!” Luda says indignantly, causing Dawon to let out a low laugh against Jiyeon’s skin.
“Yeah, you wouldn’t,” Jiyeon scoffs, moving her hand down to pull at Luda’s lip, revealing her sharp teeth. Luda’s mouth falls open pliantly, letting Jiyeon brush a thumb across the tip of one of her canines. It’s hard to believe that this is the same girl who was all over her earlier with how obediently she sits there, tail thumping against the cushions.
“I wouldn’t,” she insists, once Jiyeon removes her hand from her mouth. “I wouldn’t hurt you.”
Jiyeon knows it’s true, given how gentle both she and Dawon have been with her. They’re not as tame with each other, the marks that they both sport being evidence of that, but despite how easily they could sink their teeth into her — or maybe because of that — they’ve both been exceedingly careful, albeit greedy. Still, she can’t help but tease, “What was that about taking advantage of me?”
“That’s– I was just saying– other people could take advantage of you,” Luda struggles for words, brows furrowed. “I should protect you, right?”
“Mm,” Jiyeon hums, considering, “other people.” She grabs one of Dawon’s hands, sliding it under her shirt, as she leans more into the other girl, wanting to be closer. The action comes naturally to her, inhibitions gone from the combination of their dizzying scents and touches. It feels like all the lines have already been crossed. “Little rabbit like me all alone with predators like you, would be a shame if anything happened…”
“Ah, s–” Luda bites back a curse, before pouncing forward, pressing her snugly between the two of them. “You’re the one who wants it, you’re the one who forced me,” she says, a growl slipping into her voice, before pressing her mouth against Jiyeon’s. “This is what you want, isn’t it?” Luda asks, pulling away for a moment, only to press back, nibbling on Jiyeon’s lower lip, then licking at her lips and teeth. Luda lets out a happy little sigh against her when Jiyeon’s mouth falls open, granting her access.
All Jiyeon can do is moan helplessly as her breath is stolen out. Dawon’s hand is hot against her skin, inching upwards yet almost humorously polite in her exploration. Luda’s mouth burns against hers, and Jiyeon genuinely thinks that Luda would devour her, given the opportunity — that she has just served to her on a silver platter. She doesn’t know how they got this far, but she doesn’t want it to stop.
If she was already dizzy before from the scent and touch of them both, the lack of oxygen now makes her head spin further. It’s almost like she’s slipping in and out of consciousness, melting into a boneless mess between their bodies, defenceless against their attack in exactly the way that she wants.
“Stop moving, unnie,” Dawon mutters, the fingers of her other hand digging into her thigh just enough for the pain to jolt her back to the present. “Don’t move so much...”
But Jiyeon’s neck, which Dawon is currently mouthing at, is sensitive, and she can’t stop squirming whenever Dawon’s hot breath hits her.
“Unnie,” Dawon repeats, warning this time, or maybe something else.
Jiyeon whines, pulling away from Luda so she can catch her breath, trying to still herself. Her access to air doesn’t last for long, however, because Luda’s pressing in again and, oh, it’s so hot, pressed between the two of them, that it’s hard to think about anything else.
And then Dawon pulls her hand away.
“Luda,” she hears Dawon say, commanding and low, between the slick sounds of the other girl’s mouth against hers. Luda pulls away with some reluctance, but falls back with surprising speed and obedience. The air between them is still charged, and Luda is panting.
She looks like a puppy, Jiyeon thinks, looking at the younger girl’s perked ears and her tail that fails to hide her excitement.
“We’re keeping you up, aren’t we, unnie?” Dawon asks, clearly working on restraint with how her fingers flex and clench in Jiyeon’s lap. “You came home to rest,” her lips brush against Jiyeon’s jaw, unwilling to be away for long, “you should rest.”
Jiyeon pokes her tongue into her cheek, trying to catch her own breath, a little miffed that they wound her up just to pull away. But, it’s because they care, she knows. They always do.
“With you?” She tries her luck, because they’ve already claimed her so thoroughly that the thought of Luda and Dawon going back to their room without her stings a little.
Dawon manoeuvres her to face her, Jiyeon’s body complying only too easily. “Sojung unnie was so excited that you’d come back tonight,” she sneaks a kiss onto Jiyeon’s mouth, “shouldn’t steal you from her,” she murmurs, although her hand still toying with the hem of Jiyeon’s shirt suggests that she would very much like to. “This is okay, right?” She asks, before kissing Jiyeon again, slowly.
It’s a far cry from the way that Luda kisses, with hunger and desperation. What does this mean? Jiyeon wants to ask, but the answer comes to her as Luda clings to her from behind, nosing at her neck with a contented sigh. It’s just an extension of the care and interdependence that their mismatched group displays, making up for all the time she spent away.
It’s nice here, sandwiched between the two of them, but Dawon is right, there’s somewhere else she needs to be. With great reluctance, she extricates herself from between the two of them.
“Goodnight, unnie,” Dawon says, hand lingering.
“Will I see you before you leave tomorrow?” Luda asks, settling against Dawon now.
They look comfortable, domestic. Jiyeon is glad that they had shared that with her.
“You’re not going to wake up in time,” Jiyeon teases, patting Luda’s head, brushing a fingertip against the edge of one of Luda’s ears which twitches.
“But, I’ll come back as much as I can,” Jiyeon promises, just as Dawon says, “I’d wake you up, but you’re so grumpy.”
“Nooo,” Luda protests, albeit half-heartedly. Then, more seriously, she says, “I missed you, unnie. Don’t work so hard.”
“I’ll do my best,” she says vaguely, bending down to sniff at Luda one more time, rubbing her chin against her forehead as she does. “Be good.”
When Jiyeon finally makes it back into her shared room with Sojung, she does her best to be as quiet as possible. But, Sojung still stirs.
Her voice is rough with sleep, as she says into the darkened room, “You stink.”
“Thanks,” Jiyeon says, more of a reflex than anything. “Not the first time I’ve heard that tonight.”
“Come here,” Sojung says, stretching out an arm.
Jiyeon knows what she smells like, Luda and Dawon and things better not talked about right now, but Sojung still presses her flush against her under the covers, throwing one arm over her torso, grunting quietly in greeting. Her tail brushes against Jiyeon’s calf and normally she would kick it off, complaining that she’s ticklish, but this time she lets it stay. This time, Jiyeon stays.
Sojung’s bed is warm. It smells like her, and it smells like home.
“The kids got to you,” Sojung comments, not sounding any particular way about it.
“So badly,” Jiyeon sighs. “They–”
“Don’t tell me,” Sojung mumbles, pressing her nose to Jiyeon’s ear, “don’t wanna know… more than I already do…”
Jiyeon clicks her tongue in faux annoyance, although she pulls Sojung’s arm tighter around her. “You’re the one who invited me into your bed.”
“‘Cause I missed you,” Sojung replies, her words lingering in the quietness of their room, painfully honest.
“Me too.”