Chapter Text
Their friends have a sort of fascination with Gunil in short hair.
They thought it’d suit her, would hug her round cheeks and skim her wide shoulders. Sometimes, Seungmin talks about it like it would save Gunil, free her.
It isn't until this moment that Jiseok realizes she doesn't share the same opinion.
Gunil’s general self-care was subpar at best, worrisome at worst, but there was a level of care she only ever afforded her hair. It was always silky and smooth, a never-ending spill of ink that hung to the small of her back. So long, so very long, reflecting water mist white under direct sunlight.
At once, Jiseok can recall every moment Gunil’s hair had draped over her own shoulder. How it veiled Jiseok’s cheeks when she pulled Jiseok into one of her frequent, all-consuming hugs. How, whenever they studied side by side, Gunil apologizes repeatedly for her hair finding its way curled over Jiseok’s notebook when she tilted her head to the side, caught up in concentration.
Presently, Gunil stands between Jiseok’s legs, arm raised, holding the pole of the bus, swaying with every bump in the road.
She’d just showered, her shampoo and conditioner, the oil she dabbed carefully on her fingers through her roots, clouding Jiseok’s nose and mind in a particularly cloying manner.
It fell in a curtain around her shoulders, barely concealing the way her sweater slips with each movement, revealing the way her bra strap digs into her skin.
There are a lot of things Jiseok feels at once. The rumbling of the train’s engine along her spine, Jooyeon’s needlepoint elbow digging into her side, the prickling memories of having Hyeongjun beneath her some hours ago, kissing her, and Gunil’s bare calves between her knees.
It could be the faulty brakes or overtired wheels, but there's a faint ringing to Jiseok’s ears. Her heart is heavy, sinking into her stomach already wrought with an untameable fluttering.
Gunil is speaking, rambling about something or another, and Jiseok can do nothing but stare blankly up at her. Lips parted and going dry, chapping by the second. Something is blatantly wrong with her. Maybe Hyeongjun got her sick. Maybe she’s simply sick in the head, always been.
The train comes to a sudden stop. Gunil’s knuckles go white, clinging to the bar; still she stumbles. The soles of her sneakers squeaking against the floor.
Like a rubber band, Jiseok’s mind snaps back into place. Her arms shoot out, hands finding Gunil’s waist, holding her steady in place. Gunil lets go of the bar, trusting Jiseok more. She balances herself using Jiseok’s shoulders, and Jiseok couldn’t mind the stab of Gunil’s nails in the meat of her back less.
An embarrassed flush tinting her cheeks, Gunil laughs softly. “Sorry,” she murmurs. The small disturbance has caused the sleeve of her cardigan to slip further, the crease of her arm and chest almost visible.
Her words are almost tangible, a breath that laps at Jiseok’s cheeks in a flame. Her mind slyly betrays her, taking the image of Gunil leaning over her and rearranging the circumstance.
She sees Gunil short of breath and pink-faced, her cardigan all the way slipped off. The green bra strap belongs to a greener bra, hemmed with lace and flustered skin.
Biting her tongue, Jiseok swiftly reaches up, adjusting Gunil’s cardigan. Hiding the lethal pine green strip of fabric.
Standing straight, Gunil beams down at her. “Aw, thank you, Jiseokie.” Jiseok’s absence of voice is fortunately drowned out by the chatter of legs standing straight, forcing their way through the bus doors.
Picking up her bag, Gunil slips out from between Jiseok’s legs, eager for solid ground. Jiseok sits frozen, unable to even scold herself in her confusion.
“C’mon, get up.” Jungsu swoops in, grabbing her hand and pulling her up off the bus. Jiseok barely gains her footing on the sidewalk when Jungsu peers curiously at her face.
She moves Jiseok’s hair from her eyes, frowning. “Are you feeling okay?” She lifts her hand to feel Jiseok’s forehead, loudly warm and damp. Jiseok grabs it, stops it. Hiding a secret she doesn’t know yet, written along her temple.
Regaining her wits in a split second, Jiseok shakes her head. Mustering a subpar smile. “Not anymore,” she offers, “Just a little carsick. It was busy.” Jungsu grimaces, humming in agreement.
“I really thought Unnie was going to go flying,” she snickers. She shakes Jiseok’s wrist, freeing her own. “Good thing you caught her.”
“Yeah,” Jiseok rasps, “Good thing.”
The bus leaves with a roar, and the loading crowd dissipates. They manage to form back together in their group of six. Jiseok looks round for Hyeongjun’s gaze desperately, and catches Jooyeon’s instead. Her friend looks upon Jiseok strangely, deeply.
Feeling caught, Jiseok turns away, suppressing a reflexive shrug. She doesn’t know either. She simply really hopes she and Hyeongjun hadn’t royally fucked up.
Hyeongjun sits on her floor, bare skin pressed to her rug. A fiery red and softer than silk. Closet doors thrown open before her, baring nothing of her soul. Just all the things she wore. Bras scattered across the entirety of it.
Hyeongjun sinks forward, catching her face between her knees. Lousily, she kicks her closet shut, hugging herself close and guarding herself against its contents and the cold.
Briefly, she imagines throwing them all away. All the gifts and clothes and trinkets placed in her silent, desperate palms. Charity to a beggar.
It could help. It would help. If she could, at the very least, erase Seungmin from the threads woven around her chest and the chainlets around her neck. The reminder of Hyeongjun’s devotion and its difference from Seungmin’s, constantly at the beck and call.
But it makes her hurt. Seungmin is her friend, as much as Jiseok is, and if Hyeongjun wasn’t going to damn what had happened between her and Jiseok, she can’t damn what happens from her to Seungmin. Plus, she’s used to it. Used to it like lungs are used to air.
Except that can’t be right. She was just weak. It was Hyeongjun who had suggested the kiss, it was Jiseok who had followed through, and it was Hyeongjun who had said yes. All in all, Hyeongjun had hardly done anything worth noting.
And she plans to uphold that same passivity in regards to the hurting, aching love she holds for her other—not Jiseok—best friend. Better to stay weak, still, than collapse the foundation entirely.
Pushing herself onto her feet, she stands away from the closet doors, swinging with the force of her shove. Facing her drawer and pulling out an old, faded t-shirt from middle school. Worn soft and ridden with holes along the seams. Familiar and unassuming against her skin.
She stands there still for a while, staring into her halfheartedly folded and arranged shirts. A voice breaks through her haze, loud and unapologetic. “Hyeongjunnie! Get out here!” Brows rising, Hyeongjun raises her head and ambles out of her room.
It’s Gunil she lives with, but that hadn’t been Gunil’s voice, nor Gunil’s preferred volume. It's Jooyeon's, waiting for her in the kitchen with Gunil, an unsteady smile on her face. Hyeongjun’s already tentative gait falters. She cocks her head, “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?” Jooyeon laughs nervously, “What do you mean?”
Sharing a glance with Hyeongjun, Gunil sits Jooyeon down at the island, preparing her a glass of water. Hyeongjun steps beside Jooyeon, examining her face. She doesn’t say anything, just purses her lips at Jooyeon’s wan, wavering expression. “What’s up, Joo?”
Gunil is trying her hardest to keep her mouth shut. It’s amusing as much as it is pitiful. Her sense of affection for Jooyeon can overbear the younger quite easily. Her tongue peeking out between her teeth, her shoulders hunched, and her arms crossed.
She even tries her hardest not to glance their way, eyes steadfastly trained on the ugly grey of their kitchen counter. It would be great entertainment if Hyeongjun weren’t keenly aware of why she was so strung up.
It’s not often, if Hyeongjun has ever even seen it at all, that Jooyeon is reduced to such uncertainty. Yet here she sits now, in Hyeongjun and Gunil’s apartment. Leant against their island with her teeth in her lip and a thread between her brows.
“You’re making everybody nervous like that,” Hyeongjun relays calmly, draping her arms over the back of an island chair. She examines her nails, the matte black already chipping away, though Seungmin had only redone them a couple of nights ago. The same night that Hyeongjun and Jiseok had…Hyeongjun lets her hands fall away from sight.
Hyeongjun turns to her, the full weight of her stare boring into Jooyeon. She doesn’t have to say anything. Jooyeon squirms, tapping her fingers relentlessly against her thigh, her foot against the chair leg.
Finally, Gunil glances over her shoulder, hair parting for her eye to pierce Jooyeon gently.
Jooyeon bursts, voice cracking and barely there, “I think Jungsu-unnie is cheating on Seungmin.” She swallows, gripping onto her sweats, unable to comprehend her own words. She meets Hyeongjun’s gaze almost with a tremble. “With Jiseok.”
Gunil goes very still, mouth parting. Hyeongjun tenses, likely not for the same reason. She almost knows what Jooyeon is going to say next. Sitting up straight, fingers curling into her palms. “I stopped by home the other night before we went out,” Jooyeon starts after a breath, shoulders rising to her ears, “And I heard…It was Jiseok, and she was saying Jungsu-unnie’s name.”
Gunil turns round, pushing the water glass into Jooyeon’s fingers, not without a shake in her own. “Maybe she was just—” She bites her tongue, the tips of her ears turning a furious red. Hyeongjun can barely parse her reaction over her own rising apprehension.
Jooyeon shakes her head, twirling the water until it makes a whirlpool. Watching the strain of water conflicted. “She wasn’t alone. I just—” She looks off in a direction opposite to them both, almost sad. “Everyone knows Jiseok has feelings for Unnie. But…I can’t…” She throws her head back with a groan of frustration. Robotically, Gunil pats her wrist in some semblance of assurance.
An eerie, not foreign, calm washes over Gunil. Her face betrays nothing, not like the quake of her fingers or the dimness of her eyes.
Hyeongjun’s teeth seem to weld shut, though she knows she needs horrifically to speak up very soon.
It’s one thing to share what she and Jiseok shared, without it bearing consequence. Sharing it with others is a whole other thing. It having consequences…a whole other thing. Can Hyeongjun make any sort of decision like that without Jiseok? It doesn’t feel like her right. But then again, neither does making Jungsu and Jiseok look horrible.
A sickness turns her stomach, and she doubts Gunil and Jooyeon are faring any better, if not entirely worse. The scenario in their minds was infinitely more awful. Hyeongjun reaches over the chair, grabs Gunil’s forearm. “It’s not what you think. I—there’s an explanation.”
The gears turn behind Gunil’s eyes. “Hyeongjun…”
“Maybe Seungmin’s open,” Jooyeon grumbles in consideration, unexpectedly. Gunil snorts, almost choking on it, backing up and covering her mouth. She smacks Jooyeon’s hand, shaking her head fondly, still not without worry.
But Jooyeon finds Hyeongjun’s eye, sitting up straight. “You know something.”
Hyeongjun’s mind is a tumble of debris. She sighs, dragging her face into her hand. It was bound to come out. Officially. Not teasing Jungsu and Seungmin for sadistic sake. Secrets don’t exist among friends like this. And Hyeongjun knows Jiseok will forgive her.
“Well, yeah. It was Jiseok and I that you heard…Sorry.”
Jooyeon’s reaction is anticlimactic, nothing but a raised brow. If anything, the tension leaves her with a breath. “Thank god. I would’ve had to beat their asses or something.”
It isn’t appropriate, so Hyeongjun doesn’t smile, but she feels it. “You don’t care?”
Hopping off the seat, Jooyeon shrugs plainly. “I don’t wanna know anything about that, honestly. I’m gonna order takeout.” She heads down the hallway, completely recovered from the ordeal in seconds. A mere inconvenient blip in her day.
Rolling her eyes, Gunil shouts, “No crumbs on my bed!”
Expectedly, unlike Jooyeon, it’s clear Gunil cares. She swivels her head to face Hyeongjun, taking Jooyeon’s untouched water for her own, sipping away at it. Hyeongjun doesn’t owe her any explanation, but Gunil has a way with her stare of making Hyeongjun feel like she does.
She can’t say it didn’t mean anything, because of course it meant something. Anything between Jiseok and her means everything. And beyond that… “We were doing something a little stupid,” she says honestly.
Gunil allows herself only a moment, a solitary second, of being flustered. Smoothing down her hair as if to wipe away the red stain to her ears, eyes only a bit faraway.
Then she settles into calm. A patient, unbudging calm that she doesn’t just wear, but becomes. Whenever and wherever the situation calls for it. Hyeongjun has been at the end of that calm only a handful of times.
“So what did you two do? Y’know, besides…” She spreads her fingers out in the air, cocking her head. This conversation is going to be chock-full of implication.
Hyeongjun badly doesn’t want to take her unnie seriously, not when her earnestness comes across so silly, the same way a coach's does when they preach abstinence. But she does, but she has to. She inhales, bracing herself and maybe Gunil too. “I mean…nothing besides. We had sex—only once and never again.”
Gunil stands up straight, nodding seriously. She gives Hyeongjun a second’s recuperation. A brief relent. “…But if there wasn’t more to that, you would have walked away with Jooyeon already.” As hard as Hyeongjun is to read, Gunil has dutifully dedicated herself to learning her language fluently. “If that’s all you want to tell me, I won’t pry,” she hums. Though it would pain her immensely, she would.
Unfortunately, she’s right. Hyeongjun purses her lips, mouth twisted, sour surrender puckering her tongue. She hesitates, for no other reason than the sheer possibility that Gunil might judge her. More than judge her—dislike her. But Gunil’s kind eyes remain adjacent to Hyeongjun, steady and all forgiving.
So, Hyeongjun arranges the words in her head, if there were any best way to deliver them. “I’m sure you know,” she starts slowly, “I have feelings for Seungmin, and…” She might be breaching an unspoken boundary.
She doesn’t have to. “And Jiseok has feelings for Jungsu.” She smiles small, sheepish and something else. “Sorry. I can usually tell. At least with you and Jiseok. I have to watch out for you two.” She drums her fingers against the glass, staring at her reflection in the trembling water’s surface.
Hyeongjun feels certain she’s stumbled onto uneven ground, and hopes she doesn’t trip and skin her knees. She tries to meet Gunil’s gaze again, but can’t find it. She chews her lip. Not looking up, Gunil softly asks, “Is that too much?”
Defeated, Hyeongjun shakes her head. “You can’t be the only one who knows. I don’t exactly hide it, and Jiseok is…loud.” That prompts a genuine, not apologetic, smile from Gunil. It lures Hyeongjun to safety. “We were pretending to be them for each other…That’s why Jooyeon got confused.”
Unable to help herself, Hyeongjun doesn’t blame her, Gunil’s eyes widen, fingers tightening. Hyeongjun stifles a grimace, Gunil’s prior pensiveness becoming a full frown. “Can’t say I expected that.” She takes a long sip.
“You’re treating that like a beer,” Hyeongjun observes wryly.
“I need it when it comes to you guys,” Gunil quips, only half-joking. Hyeongjun opens her mouth, face a millimeter from fallen. Gunil holds a hand up. “I’m not judging. They just don’t tell you how to respond to that in your psych classes.”
Hyeongjun shrugs. “What about the human sexuality ones?”
Sinking against the counter, Gunil groans. “I didn’t sign up to hear about your guys’ sex life.” Her face in her arms, Hyeongjun is beginning to suspect Gunil is hiding a growing blush. It would take away from her assumed austerity.
Hyeongjun smirks at Gunil’s suffering beyond her own. “C’mon, Unnie. It’s not awkward. We’re too close for that now.” When Gunil doesn’t rise, Hyeongjun reaches forward, tentatively brushing the back of Gunil’s hand. “Do you think we messed up?”
Bit by bit, Gunil looks up, the shine of her eyes barely visible beneath the veil of her bangs and over the shield of her arm. Hyeongjun seeks it with the grace of a fawn. “Do you think we did something wrong?” she asks, voice feeble.
In answer, Gunil twists her hand, grabs Hyeongjun’s hesitant fingers with her own, holding them tight. She won’t easily let go. “It’s not for me to say,” she offers tenderly.
Squeezing back, Hyeongjun pulls at Gunil, forcing her to lean over the table, to uncover her expression. She wishes Gunil would cut her hair, just so she could stop hiding in its darkness. “In this group,” she states matter-of-factly, “Everything is for you to say.” She knows it’s a lot of pressure, she knows it's not untrue and not unknown.
Gunil isn’t so afraid to show it, the corner of her mouth curling down, displeased. But she pulls her hair over one shoulder, tracing her eyes along the slender curve of Hyeongjun’s finger against her knuckles. “I think you guys did something stupid—stupid with a lot of love.” She pushes Hyeongjun’s hand away, giving it back to Hyeongjun.
“It’s almost like…” She looks up, rolling her lip between her teeth. “It’s almost like we’re too close now for it not to be awkward. You know?” Her eyes pierce through Hyeongjun, sudden and imploring. Hyeongjun almost retreats from them.
Too close. It’s the same too close that had brought Hyeongjun in Jiseok’s bed. The same too close that had led Hyeongjun’s fingers beyond Jiseok’s spine. The same too close that had crossed their lips in names that didn’t belong to them.
As close as Hyeongjun’s bras against her sternum, pressed to her chest.
They’re practically suffocating each other. Sometimes it’s nice, that perfumed breath of shared air. Sometimes…sometimes Hyeongjun can’t tell herself apart from Jiseok, from Jungsu. Sometimes, she wonders if she feels too much for all of them all at once.
Hyeongjun can see why Gunil can’t judge, why Gunil doesn’t think it’s wrong. It’s just love, and it’s stupid. Hyeongjun knew that when it came to Jiseok, but not much else, apparently. “Yeah,” she mutters back, “I think I know.”
Gunil carefully tilts Hyeongjun’s head up. Her touch is featherlight. She brushes Hyeongjun’s hair from her face completely in all its untameability. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You and Jiseok are allowed to be stupid. You haven’t hurt anybody.”
Feeling stable between Gunil’s hands, Hyeongjun sees clear. “Yet.”
Gunil drops her hands flat to the counter. “Hm…yet.” Her face goes blank, mind elsewhere. It clears with a small shake of her shoulders.
She rounds the counter, dumping the water in the sink quickly. “Don’t worry too much, Junnie-ah. No matter what, we’re by your side.” She comes up to Hyeongjun’s side, gripping her arm.
She’s about to make off in Jooyeon’s direction but Hyeongjun stops her, spinning and tugging on Gunil’s sleeve. “Just…let me speak to Jiseok before you do.” Gunil’s brows rise. “I know you’re gonna, Unnie.”
Gunil smiles, guilty, but not remorseful. “Alright. C’mon. Jooyeon is messing up my bed as we speak.”
“We have a problem.”
Hyeongjun glances up from her laptop, cradled by the head of her bed, surrounded by notes and pens and books. Her mind has been busy lately, but her planner can be busier.
She tugs her headphones over her ears. “How did you get in here? Is Unnie home?”
Dropping her bag against Hyeongjun’s wall, Jiseok somewhat shuts Hyeongjun’s door with a socked foot. “No, she’s got that night class, remember?” She leaps onto the foot of Hyeongjun’s bed, Hyeongjun lunging forward in desperate attempt to keep all her writing utensils from careening off her bed.
“I would hope to remember.” She carefully rearranges her things a good distance away from any of Jiseok’s limbs. “I live with her after all.” She sends a look to the work she’d been begrudgingly making progress on, wondering if it was any use now that Jiseok was here.
Jiseok sighs wistfully. “She gave us all fobs in case of emergencies. Didn’t you know?”
Mournfully, Hyeongjun shuts her laptop, shoving it aside along with everything else. “And what constitutes this visit as an emergency?” she asks drily. She doesn’t even want to know the money Gunil spent getting their friends those copies.
Silent, Jiseok sits up, meeting Hyeongjun’s gaze with an uncharacteristic wariness. Frankly, Hyeongjun’s stomach turns. She’s tired of all the new things, all these foreign situations to navigate. She can’t be too upset. She brought it on herself. “I’d say we do have a problem,” she sighs.
Brows furrowing, Jiseok faces her, crossing her legs and clasping her hands together in her lap. “We can’t both have a problem.”
Doubtful, Jiseok fills her cheeks with air. Hyeongjun waits patiently, newly intimated with this inevitable hesitance. Not quite nervous, simply overwhelming.
There are lots of difficult feelings and situations that they are suddenly having to put into words, instead of being able just to show each other. She takes her planner in her lap, idly planning out her next week in pen.
With an exaggerated exhale of frustration, Jiseok splays out her hands, capturing Hyeongjun’s full attention with a single movement. “Okay, so,” she begins, her eyes moving about in a way that conveys she’s winging it, and Hyeongjun scrunches her nose in sympathy. “You know how we fucked?”
“No, I don’t,” Hyeongjun mutters, “Tell me again.”
Jiseok glares without any venom, crossing her arms. “We did that, right? Then right after, we went out with our friends.” She frowns, thinking. “Why did we do that? Like, of all times.”
Hyeongjun sighs, dropping her head against her pillow. “Are we going to analyze all the things we did wrong here, or…” She scribbles nonsensical shapes on the to-do list of her paper. “Because, clearly, we weren’t thinking too deeply about it at the time.”
Lips jutting in a sort of pout, Jiseok’s shoulders drop. “Yeah, okay, you’re right—”
“Always am.”
“—That’s not what I really wanted to talk about, though. I don’t regret it, I don’t think you regret it.” Hyeongjun peers up at her, intrigued only now. “But that doesn’t mean things…happen.”
Curiously, Jiseok starts fidgeting. Her whole body seems to fall into a variety of twitches. From the knock of her knee against Hyeongjun’s quilt to the slide of her thumb over her index finger. And her cheeks, they bloom familiarly pink.
Hyeongjun tilts her head, narrowing her eyes. “Do you mean consequences? Or something else.”
Jiseok sends her a dying, pleading look, digging her fingers into her soft arms. Hyeongjun gets the message, sealing her mouth shut, furrowing her brows. “Anyways,” she rasps, “So…we met up with our friends right after. We hung out, went to dinner.” Hyeongjun nods slowly, wondering exactly where Jiseok was going with this. Has Jooyeon confronted her already?
Hyeongjun lowers her planner, her legs, letting go the act of being productive entirely. Jiseok can’t seem to meet her imploring gaze anymore, stare stubbornly trained on the hem of her green shorts. “On the bus, Unnie—Gunil-unnie, was standing in front of me, and she fell, and I caught her and…” She swallows hard, the blush of her face gone from blooming to blazing.
Jerkily, she looks up, nervously meeting Hyeongjun’s eyes. “I was imagining doing for her…what you did…for me.”
Blinking, Hyeongjun tries to process that. She can’t really. Somehow, it was anything but what she expected.
“And now I can’t stop thinking about it,” Jiseok whines, falling forward, planting her face in the bedding, going limp and still.
After a moment, Hyeongjun pats her hair jerkily. She turns her head to the side, her voice carrying to Hyeongjun muffled. “Am I doomed to keep thinking about fucking my friends or…Are you dealing with that?”
Grimacing, Hyeongjun sucks her teeth in a slow letdown. Jiseok clambers back up to her knees, giving Hyeongjun a puzzled, lost expression. Despite sharing nearly the same woes, Hyeongjun feels bad for her, like you would feel bad for a bathed cat. “Um, not at all, actually.” Jiseok squawks.
She drags her hands down her face. “Oh my god, then something is just seriously wrong with me.”
Briefly, Hyeongjun lets her wallow in her despair. She taps the end of her pen against the flat of her planner. Gently, she poses the question, “Are you thinking about any of the others like that or just…just Unnie?”
Jiseok goes very still, her wide eyes not moving from Hyeongjun’s face, but not quite seeing it either. Hyeongjun clears her throat, drawing her legs close to herself, feeling as if she were intruding a bubble of some progressing important realization. “Did you think of Jungsu-unnie like that? For a long time?” Dumbly, Jiseok nods. Of course. “So?”
Deflating, Jiseok holds her face in her palms, keeping her jaw perhaps from falling off it. “No. Just…just her, and now…Not Seungmin, or Jooyeon.” She runs her fingers through her hair, halting them at the nape of her neck. “They don’t even look alike, man.” Hyeongjun swallows a laugh, shaking her head with pity.
Seeing as Jiseok was going to be stuck on this for some time, Hyeongjun decides it best to tell her now, “As for a problem we both actually have, Jooyeon heard us the other day.” Barely able to handle much more, Jiseok just gapes at her, the bright colors leeching from her cheeks.
“She thought Unnie was cheating on Seungmin with you at first, so…” Hyeongjun does her best to keep her voice blase. Maybe if she remains unperturbed, there will be less chance of Jiseok having a heart attack in the next hour. “I corrected her. She doesn’t care. Oh, and Gunil-unnie was there as well.”
Jiseok simply deigns to curl up in a ball at Hyeongjun’s feet, rocking back and forth. “Hyeongjun, Hyeongjun, I think we need to just kill ourselves. Or fake our deaths and move far, far away and never show our faces again.”
“I hardly think these things are that uncommon among friends like us,” Hyeongjun tries at assurance, knowing, not really caring, that it won’t land. Stupid with a lot of love. Once Gunil gets her hands on Jiseok, she’ll worry less.
Well…maybe not anymore.
Faking a sob, Jiseok sits half up, gripping Hyeongjun’s ankle like a manacle. “Next time we do something, it’s going to be in an isolated hotel with nobody else around for miles.”
Hyeongjun snorts, “There isn’t going to be a next time, Jiseokie.” She kicks Jiseok away, and Jiseok cries out, fake-wounded, falling on her back and clutching her arm. Jiseok quite likes it, playing pretend. Hyeongjun watches her, wondering.
Faintly, footsteps ring through the hallway. Through her dramatics, Jiseok doesn’t hear, only Hyeongjun. She looks up, surprised to see the door being nudged open by Gunil’s hip. Jiseok sits up suddenly.
Gunil doesn’t see any of it, pulling her hoodie up over her head, struggling to speak through it. “Hyeongjunnie, I was thinking—ugh—” She wrestles with the fabric, in turn revealing her midriff for all the world, for all of Jiseok, to see. “—for dinner, we reheat that…”
Finally getting the hoodie off, wearing underneath a thin white tank top that just barely conceals the bright color of her sports bra, Gunil spots Jiseok. “Oh! Hey, Jiseokie, what’re you doing here?”
To which Jiseok splutters out something completely nonsensical, snapping her legs together around her wrists. Gunil looks between them, too many ideas springing to her mind, and she flushes calmly, at least in comparison to the incogitable mess that Jiseok is. Hyeongjun bites back a sigh.
“Whatever you want, Unnie. I already ate.” She sends one last solemn glance to her abandoned work. None of it she can hope to finish tonight. Not at this rate. After this, she doubts Jiseok is going to be in any condition to leave her room until late into the night. She kicks it off onto the floor, startling her friends into coherence.
“Alright,” Gunil says, voice just a single pitch too high to be usual. Then she blinks, some flick of worry hitting her. She subjects Jiseok to the full of her concern, leaning against Hyeongjun’s doorway. “You alright, Jiseokie? I didn’t know you were coming over.”
“Neither did I,” Hyeongjun scoffs, words falling on deaf ears.
Just barely, Jiseok manages to remember how to say real words, nodding emphatically. “I’m great. Was just bored. Nothing to worry about.” She pastes on a wobbly smile that Hyeongjun might find pitifully cute if she were in any way at all endeared with this situation.
Evidently, Jiseok isn’t telling the entire truth, and Gunil isn’t oblivious to it. Frowning lightly, she steps into Hyeongjun’s room, towards Jiseok. In Jiseok’s general direction. Hyeongjun doesn’t know if they register that she’s there. In her room. The one she pays for.
Adjusting her hoodie over the crook of her elbow, Gunil reminds, “If something’s up, let me know, okay? I’m here, Jiseokie. Always here.” She places her hand atop Jiseok’s head, ruffling Jiseok’s short mussed layers.
Unimpressed, Hyeongjun slides from her bed, standing over the two. “You know what’s up, Unnie. I was telling her about what Jooyeon was saying.” She crosses her arms, regards the two’s imploding reactions. They back away from each other quickly, various shades of a strawberry.
“Ah,” Gunil says simply. “That.”
Jiseok regains enough wit about her to shoot a deadly glare Hyeongjun’s way. “I told you she knew,” Hyeongjun offers, “What’s the big deal?” It’s a rhetorical question. If answered, Hyeongjun just might be crushed beneath the weight of Jiseok’s feeling.
Chuckling softly, Gunil plays with the string of her sweats. Jiseok turns a peculiar shade of red that verges on purple. If Gunil doesn’t leave the room soon, Hyeongjun may promptly be putting her best friend to rest.
She tries to convey that, blocking Gunil’s line of sight, giving her a meaningful look that says something along the lines of, I’ve talked to her. You can too, later.
To some supernatural capacity, Gunil understands swiftly. Pouting a bit indignantly. “I’ll go make dinner, then. If you want any, Ji, let me know.” She throws her hoodie over her shoulder and walks out, letting the door click closed, unlike Jiseok had.
Hyeongjun allows, if anything relishes in, the lasting silence that follows. Simply to make sure the blood hadn’t rushed to her head and she’d helplessly passed out, Hyeongjun turns back to her friend. She was awake, alive, and nearly well. Just quiet, reflecting on something Hyeongjun is close to guessing.
“So,” Hyeongjun teases, “What did you imagine this time? Taking her pants off?”
Jiseok doesn’t even color again, and that’s how Hyeongjun knows it’s bad. “I really am starting to strongly dislike you, Han Hyeongjun.”
Then, frantic, “You saw it! The—the tie of her—oh, I’m fucked.” She drops her face in her hands, all sorts of disgruntled sounds caught in her palms.
Wincing, Hyeongjun agrees, sitting beside Jiseok and patting her shoulder in condolence. “We’ll figure it out.” Which does seem to calm Jiseok, pacify her. Hyeongjun understands it. They got into this mess together; Hyeongjun doesn’t mind getting out of it the same plural way.
When it feels like danger has passed, when the sound of the stove and Gunil’s music travels through the hall from the kitchen, Hyeongjun brushes her fingers along the tips of Jiseok’s hair. They’re starting to reach down Jiseok’s back, the longest strands trailing midway down her spine. “Are you growing it out?”
Jiseok thinks, eyes flicking to the hair about to grow over her eyes. She shakes her head. Hyeongjun smiles. “Wanna cut it?”
Jiseok grins. “Hell yeah.”
Feeling the new blunt edges of her hair, Jiseok wanders out of Hyeongjun’s room. She’d waited until Hyeongjun was practically asleep, if not only responding to Jiseok between shallow cat naps.
By then, she knew Hyeongjun was wordlessly kicking her out. Bookbag slung over her shoulder, Jiseok readies to go back home. The apartment where Jooyeon waits.
Jooyeon, who knows, and now Jiseok knows she knows. Jiseok squeezes her eyes shut, letting out a long, weary breath. It’s as scary as it isn’t. She’s learning that there was a lot more weight to Hyeongjun and her than she’d cared to consider before. But it was still almost nothing to the strength of her friends. The strength of Jooyeon and Gunil.
She doesn’t know yet about the other two.
Halfway down the hall, ready to leave through the front door and not come back for a short while, Jiseok is stopped. Seeing the light slipping beneath Gunil’s door, wavering and too bright for the hour.
She tries resisting it, but the urge to just see Gunil is too overwhelming.
Regardless of her newfound disruptive desire, Jiseok has always basked in Gunil’s presence. Being near Gunil was a little bit like dipping your fingers into the lake when you’re burning, or your tongue in cocoa when you’re freezing. A balm to any and all fever.
Weakly, Jiseok pushes at the door, hoping futilely that, like Hyeongjun, Gunil was steadily giving way to sleep.
At least, bent over her desk, a lonely half-eaten bowl abandoned behind her blinding laptop screen, Gunil had changed into one of her plenty large tees, and a soft pair of fleece shirts. At the creak of hinges, Gunil peers up at Jiseok, wordless in her greeting.
Jiseok feels like a great fool, seeing Gunil like this, blanketed softly by midnight and exhaustion. No crude images come to mind, other than this, what’s right before her. She should never be afraid to face Gunil. Not when it was perhaps the easiest, kindest thing she could bear.
Her voice comes out softer than she means to, than she knew she was capable of. “Why are you still working?”
She doesn't dare cross the threshold into Gunil’s room. It feels different, bathed in darkness and holding nobody but Gunil, than when the six, or four, or three of their group is piled atop Gunil’s firm full bed, shrouded in noise and light.
She doesn't dare, until Gunil tells her to.
“Come here,” Gunil requests, words just as wispy as Jiseok’s. You would think they were speaking through the flow of air and nothing else.
So Jiseok sets her bag down once more and comes on in through the cracked door. Standing beside Gunil’s desk chair with a cursory glance at Gunil’s notebook, full to the brim with notes Jiseok was well familiar with.
Wrapping a hand around Jiseok’s wrist, as if holding her in place, Gunil runs her hand through Jiseok’s hair. Jiseok shivers. “I didn’t think you needed a haircut.”
“You didn’t?”
Gunil smiles, “No. Your hair always seems to suit you. No matter what. It’s almost unfair. It’s that pretty face.”
She shuts her notebook easily, and Jiseok is caught between the embarrassing keening at the compliment, and the triumphant pride at getting Gunil away from her studies, even if for a few minutes. All she can do is hum in reply, unsure if it comes across doubtful or vain.
She catches Gunil’s hand, pulling it away from her head. “You didn’t answer me. You should be asleep. Hyeongjun is—and before you say anything, I’m heading home so I can also sleep.” She rests her hip against Gunil’s desk, reaching to shut Gunil’s laptop halfway. The harsh blue light shines faintly beneath it, and everything is illuminated much more tranquil.
“I’m staying up now, so I don’t have to stay up tomorrow. Doesn’t that sound like a fair trade?” But she doesn’t move to reopen her laptop or her notes, head kept tilted back, eyes full of nothing but Jiseok, pupils large trying to capture all that they can in the shadows. Jiseok thinks she’s winning, if there’s any sort of game they’re playing.
Jiseok hardly remembers she’s supposed to respond, somewhat lost along the single curve of Gunil’s cheek that’s lit. Gunil is content with it, or seems to be, staring. Jiseok sees her lips move before she hears it. “Are you okay?”
Softening, ice cream and putty, Jiseok shakes her head. “You’ve got to stop asking me that, Unnie. What are you gonna do if I say no?” She moves her hand from Gunil’s wrist, linking their fingers between them instead.
Her smile so very sweet and shy, Gunil manages to look away, only to stare instead at the back of Jiseok’s hand. Slender, thin, and just the very same length as hers. “Cry, maybe. But…About what Hyeongjun told me…” Jiseok’s grip unconsciously tightens, and Gunil’s smile saddens.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask for…details.” She coughs lightly, turning her head towards the wall. “I just…” She pulls on Jiseok’s arm, grabbing Jiseok’s hand with both of hers. Somehow, Jiseok’s fingers fall along Gunil’s thigh.
“I wanna make sure they’re not…hurting you, your feelings for—for Jungsu.” Her hesitance makes her words slow, landing with an impact upon Jiseok’s chest. For some reason, the question rises on the back of her tongue: Are they hurting you? Jiseok swallows it down, perplexed.
It comes out instead as some staggered breath. “Hurting me? Un—No. Course not. I…”
The expression Gunil wears is genuinely distressed, and any and all of Jiseok’s confusion and stale bitterness melt away. She quirks the corner of her mouth up, stilted.
“I’m used to them, Unnie. You really don’t have to worry about it. What happened between Hyeongjun and me was impulsive. And not because it hurt.” She squeezes Gunil’s hand in assurance.
Pouting, Gunil pulls Jiseok all the way in, Jiseok unable to stop it, not entirely desiring to, her voice caught at her throat as Gunil’s arms wrap around her now bare neck. The skin of her arm warm at Jiseok’s collar. She could choke on it. She would.
And Gunil’s hair. It falls down Jiseok’s own back when Gunil fits her face to Jiseok’s shoulder, slipping between Jiseok’s shirt and skin. Strands coil around her ear, and the top of Gunil’s head presses just under Jiseok’s bottom lip. Jiseok inhales, eyes falling shut. Her nerves sing all pleasant and pleased. She wants to hold Gunil tighter, closer.
“I promise, Gunillie,” she murmurs faintly.
With a satisfied hum, “I believe you.”
Deciding she’s allowed, Jiseok indulges her every whim, returning the hug, pressing her nose into Gunil’s hair. Finding herself a place in Gunil’s arms, a home that’s always kind of there. They stay like that for maybe too long, nothing spoken, nothing else done, and Jiseok doesn’t care, and Gunil doesn’t complain.
The warmth of it makes Jiseok lethargic. Her eyes wanting to stay shut, her limbs infirm where they rest against Gunil. “What if I just stay here, and sleep in your bed?” she yawns, turning her head away, Gunil’s arms tightening with the movement, as if Jiseok might flee or fall.
“You can,” Gunil whispers, “I wouldn’t mind.” And there’s lots of ways Gunil never minds. She’d offer her bed to any of them; they wouldn’t even have to ask. But Gunil isn’t letting go, and Jiseok thinks if she went into Gunil’s bed, Gunil would go with.
It would be just them two, curled into each other without anybody else even ever having to know. And that’s different. That makes Jiseok special.
As if her mind has some limit, Jiseok realizes her thoughts are soon going to start encroaching on the inappropriate. She pulls away reluctantly, pulling Gunil’s hair back over her shoulder neatly, though for once Gunil doesn’t seem to mind the state of it, starry attention only for Jiseok.
“I should get going then, before I really fall asleep.” Gunil pouts, and it’s the greatest test to Jiseok’s resolve that there ever was.
“Okay. I’ll drive you?”
For whatever reason, to Jiseok’s current mind, in a malleable, impressionable state, Jiseok doesn’t think that’s a good idea. “Nah, I know there’s a bus coming soon, I’ll make sure to catch it.”
Gunil holds onto her hand until she physically can’t, the distance between her and where Jiseok stands in her doorway just a little bit too great for her reach. Jiseok prides herself on being able to resist such a great temptation. She’s resisting more than sleeping over, and she doesn’t know if Gunil knows it.
Ever the gentleman, Gunil stands and takes Jiseok’s bag, walking her at the very least to the front door. “Be safe,” she hums, voice still the same hue of midnight as it was in the dimly lit room.
Jiseok digs her nails into her palms with the effort it takes not to once again wrap her arms around her, and maybe do more than return an embrace.
“I will.”
She’s about to step out when she turns back, Gunil watching her attentively. “Thank you. For everything, as always, Unnie. You’re really the best.”
Gunil’s soft smile grows into something beaming and blinding, her eyes crescents and her cheeks kissed by the sun in the dead of night. She lifts her hand in an appreciative, bashful wave, and Jiseok practically stumbles off her doorstep.
She’s back at the bus stop, the cold air biting her skin and ears. Wishing for nothing more than Gunil’s warmth. She glances up at the moon, and curses.