haorua

One hour before the new year, Yubin cracks a party popper straight into Hayeon’s face. By accident, she’s to claim. Hayeon splutters, coughs a few streamers out of her mouth, shoots Yubin a vengeful look and says something that she can’t hear over the noise. Yubin shrugs and arranges her expression into something she hopes is apologetic enough, then she slips away into the throng of girls in the living room before Hayeon can retaliate.

Not that there’s anywhere to go. Fitting all twenty-four of them into one apartment is a miracle in itself; she barely manages to squeeze to the other side of the room, onto the couch, to sit half on the armrest and half on Lynn’s lap. Lynn doesn’t even blink from where she’s talking to a drowsy Shion, only shifting into a more comfortable position.

Someone else slips a drink into her hands, lightning quick. Yubin sniffs it suspiciously, but it smells sweet enough, and there’s a label pasted on that says FOR THE KIDS!! in Seoyeon’s handwriting. She downs it in one big swig.

Jiwoo sidles up to her and replaces the glass. This one is obvious; still-bubbly champagne in what she recognizes to be Yeonji’s ceramic Crayon Shin-chan cup. It’s near barbaric. Yubin raises an eyebrow, but Jiwoo only grins back.

She says, loud enough to Yubin to hear, “You know, some of the kids would love to drink if they were in your position.”

“I wouldn’t put it past them to be doing it now.”

Jiwoo makes a scandalized noise, but her gaze follows Yubin’s to where Hyerin’s red-faced and leaning against the wall of the hallway, listening to an animated Soomin with a placid smile on her face. “Hyerin-ie? Really? That’s surprising.”

“Soomin probably coerced her. Surely that’s illegal.”

“It’ll be legal in,” They both look up at the clock. Mirrored motions. For a while, Jiwoo’s been the biggest constant in her life. “Forty-eight minutes. Cut them some slack.”

That’s a wild thought. Hyerin and Soomin were fifteen when Yubin met them; and that they’ll be, probably, for eternity in her mind. It’s getting harder to comprehend how fast time has been passing. Jiwoo makes a face at her and she looks the same as when she was thirteen.

“Soomin doesn’t look drunk, though,” Yubin responds; meaningless conversation. There are reasons she could come up with herself, if she thought just a little harder, but with Jiwoo, it’s always more about the back and forth rally. Yubin says the silly things off the top of her head and Jiwoo gives back silly answers and they're good together, like that.

“I think Seoyeon-unnie’s keeping an eye out. Apparently she trusts Hyerin more.”

“That’s turned out well,” Yubin says, and Jiwoo laughs, loud and unrestrained. She swoops closer to steer the cup that Yubin’s holding up to her lips, unrelenting until Yubin takes a sip. It’s crisp, and tastes vaguely like peach. Mindlessly, Yubin thinks of Chaeyeon.

“Are you gonna be the one to tell Yeonji why her cup smells like champagne tomorrow?”

“Nah, I’ll just ask Chaeyeon-unnie,” Jiwoo says, which, okay, maybe they really are spending too much time together. “She’s the one who poured it anyways.”

That’s—random. “Chaeyeon-unnie poured it for you?”

Jiwoo raises an eyebrow. “For you.” She puts emphasis on the you like it’s supposed to mean something. The alcohol’s probably getting to her; Yubin feels her face heat up.

She laughs it off and takes another sip. It gets sweeter the more she drinks. “And she got you to bring it over instead? Typical.”

Jiwoo squints at her like what does that mean? and, honestly, Yubin’s not even sure either. Something about her mind gets muddled when it comes to things like this. But, whatever, it’s Jiwoo, she can say all the confusing things she wants and not care about giving an explanation. Maybe it’s similar for Chaeyeon too, Yubin thinks suddenly, with a sort of new clarity that makes her feel wise.

“You should finish that,” Jiwoo nods towards the cup. “It’s really high-end. Kaede stole the rest of the bottle, so you can’t get any more.”

Yubin had a conversation with Chaeyeon, once, about this. She’d been freshly nineteen and somehow the topic of drinking was brought up. The New Year’s Eve prior, Yubin had gone to a friend’s party for the countdown. Her first taste of alcohol—other than the few glasses her mother used to sneak her at bigger events—was of this cheap, shitty soju that tasted like artificial sour grape juice.

“No can do,” Chaeyeon said, apparently offended on her behalf. “You have to try some of the good stuff.”

The good stuff. She said it like she wasn’t almost exactly three months older than Yubin. But then again, the age gap between them has always felt more sporadic—appearing when it matters. Like that, then: Chaeyeon speaking with an extra year of experience under her belt.

Yubin had been sprawled like a starfish on Yeonji’s upper bunk. “You really sound like an unnie, now.”

“Yah, Gong Yubin. I'm always your unnie.”

“Barely!”

“I just let it slide because you’re cute,” Chaeyeon said. Yubin wished she could see her face, to tell whether the note of honesty in her voice was, well, genuine. It’s hard to tell when it’s Chaeyeon. “Don’t make me take it back.”

“I’m not worried. You can’t resist me.”

“Come down so I can hit you. Yeonji’s going to kill me if we break her bed.”

There’s a joke about breaking the bed sitting pretty on her tongue, but Yubin swallowed it back and climbed down the ladder instead. Chaeyeon was lying on her own bed, hair fanned out on the pillow, and she let out an oof when Yubin took a flying leap to plaster her body over Chaeyeon’s.

“Like, seriously, though. You have to try better alcohol than soju.”

“Where am I going to get the money?”

Chaeyeon eyed her incredulously. “You’re an idol, Yubin-ie.”

Yubin laughed. She curled closer to Chaeyeon, fitting her head into the space between her shoulder and jaw. In this position, skin-to-skin, she’s privy to the rhythm of Chaeyeon’s steady pulse. “Will unnie buy it for me?”

“Not in a million years,” Chaeyeon answered, and this time it’s pretty obvious that she’s lying. They played this game often. Denial of affection and whatnot. Chaeyeon combed her fingers into Yubin’s hair, through the tangled strands, a whiplash from her words. “Maybe if you had spent New Year’s with us. You should’ve watched Jiwoo drink, her face was so red.”

“And Kaede?”

“Halfway on the road to alcoholism,” Chaeyeon said very seriously. “Stop laughing, I’m serious! She drank even more than me. Almost as much as Sohyun-unnie. She wasn’t even that out of it after.”

“I can imagine,” Yubin said, and she turned to bury her face into Chaeyeon’s hair. She smelled the same as always; her fresh, fruity conditioner. Sometimes Yubin would borrow it to mess with her, but Chaeyeon never seemed to mind.

“Well,” Yeonji starts, in the split second in which Soomin pauses for breath, “Want to come with me to Gwangju?”

Soomin blinks. Says—unnecessarily, in hindsight, but that’s never been a problem with Yeonji—“Aren’t you going to see your family?”

“Yeah,” Yeonji says. She’s swirling her straw around her clear glass cup, eyes fixed to the surface, where the last dregs of powder float around. Not that she’d ever admit it, but Soomin had watched her, five minutes prior, take a sip and wrinkle her nose in that very Kwak Yeonji manner of hers. Recently, without warning or reason, Yeonji’s been honed in, obsessed—every synonym in the book—with the idea of growing up. In particular, following Chaeyeon-unnie around like a duckling; Chaeyeon-unnie drinks coffee, so she’s drinking coffee.

“I’m hardly one to leave you alone in the dorms, am I? Can’t leave my title of your favorite dongsaeng hanging.”

“You’re one of three. That can’t mean for much,” Soomin points out. “And I won’t be alone. Surely there are members staying behind.”

Yeonji frowns. “If you don’t want to go, just say that.”

Oops. Again, that accidental apathy that Seoyeon-unnie always tells her off for. She swears that it’s not deliberate—some part of her nature, a T in the most straightforward sense. Yeonji has been her best friend for almost three years now; they’re alike, as the members agree, fitting together like puzzle pieces, matching and drawing off each other’s energy. But then there’ll be moments like this. Maybe it’s part of her growing up regime, that Yeonji has been more sensitive recently. Or Soomin’s T-blindness is increasing. Either way, nowadays, it’s getting more destabilizing to be with Yeonji.

She goes with the habitual reaction. Drags out a “Nooooo,” and lunges at Yeonji, pulling her in and wrestling her onto the bed, until Yeonji’s laughing, helpless. The cup of coffee is knocked over at some point; it spills slowly onto the table, staining the papers atop.

“You idiot, that’s my homework.”

“You can’t go calling your unnie an idiot,” Soomin responds, in mock offense. It really is gratifying to be able to use that to her power; where she’s younger than most people at her side, there’s exactly three others that she can lord her age over. And one of them is in her arms right now, giggling.

Yeonji sits up. Under the shadows cast by the bunk bed, the white room light illuminates her from behind. If Soomin squints hard enough, she can catch the growing pink patches on Yeonji’s cheeks.

“So? Are you coming?”

And that’s that. Kim Soomin is going to Gwangju for Chuseok.

-

Mayu-unnie sees them off. It’s a sweet gesture, except that right as the train arrives, she kisses Yeonji’s cheek, ruffles Soomin’s hair, and coos, “Take care of Soominie, won’t you?”

She takes great offense in that. “I’m older than her!”

“Yeonji’s more mature than you,” Mayu just shrugs. She smiles a sunbeam smile, says, “Seriously, though, have fun together. I want to see Yeonji’s neighborhood too.”

“Maybe next time, unnie,” Yeonji replies. She runs her hand through her hair, letting her bangs drift over her forehead. Her hair’s freshly cut and dyed; a shade of green that Soomin still can’t quite pick out. She thinks turquoise, but Yeonji swears it’s teal. In any case, it suits her to an unfair degree—since debut, Yeonji has been playing around with the color of her hair, back and forth, and it’s fitting every time. Soomin’s—not quite jealous, she’s sure she could look good in different colors if she tried. Something close, though.

Yeonji turns away from Mayu, catches Soomin’s eye before she has the sense to stop staring. She grins and combs her hair behind her ear—another Chaeyeon-unnie habit—well, not specific to her, but Chaeyeon’s long mastered the art of her every motion looking effortlessly pretty, and Yeonji seems to be following along rather skillfully—before she hooks her arm with Soomin’s.

“Soomin-unnie’s been to Chowol-eup before, though. I’m sure she could find her own way around.”

What? Oh, right. She has to physically shake herself back to reality.

“That was one time, and our staff basically drove me straight to your school, anyways.”

“Sure,” Yeonji says. She still has that wide, brilliant grin on her face. It’s the same expression she carries onto stage all the time—looking out into the audience, looking at their members, looking at Soomin. Sweet and genuine.

Across the platform, the train whistles its first warning. Yeonji takes her hand; fits her fingers into the gaps between her own. They bid a final goodbye to Mayu, and then they’re off.

-

As much as she’d talked about being excited to spend more time with Soomin, Yeonji falls asleep on the train within ten minutes. She’s leaning her head against the window, fast asleep, mouth slightly open. It’s a hilariously cute sight, and Soomin snaps a few quick pictures on her phone to send to their group chat.

Jeong Hayeon kisses Kim Chaeyeon during a fan-meeting. The fact of it is that Mayu learns of this later—not when it happened, though she’d been standing only a few feet away—but after: back in their dormitory, scrolling through her phone, she watches as the video opens onto her feed without her prompting.

Out loud, to nobody in particular, she asks, “Did you know that Hayeonie kissed Chaeyeon earlier?”

From her bed, Chaewon comes around to peer at her screen. “Oh, yeah. Hayeon was telling me about it earlier.”

“No, but, did you see it happen?” Mayu presses. Uncertain on why it means so much to her. It’s a new, unfounded feeling—the way the matter seems to shape in her chest, bubbling with its own pulse.

Chaewon shrugs, casual, uninhibited motion. “No? Even Soomin didn’t, and she was right next to them.” Curiosity settled, she slides back into bed, curling up easily. “Good night, unnie.”

“Good night,” Mayu echoes.

But she doesn't follow suit, like she should, what with their early-morning schedule tomorrow. Instead, almost unconsciously, she lets the video play over and over again, repeating in on itself, a cycle: Chaeyeon turns her head, Hayeon leans in, Hayeon kisses Chaeyeon, Chaeyeon jerks back, restart. What was she doing then? Zoning out, probably, or taking pictures with Yeonji. On screen: Chaeyeon jerks away again. Her expression is practiced, angled—she looks pretty, like she always does for a camera. Hayeon kisses her again.

Briefly Mayu thinks about it—settles herself into Hayeon’s position. Imagines herself leaning in, all the same, to kiss Chaeyeon. She’s never kissed a girl before.

It’s hard to imagine. She shuts off her phone, moves to switch off the lights, and resolves to ask Chaeyeon about it tomorrow.

-

A truth: both directly and not, Chaeyeon was where Mayu ultimately learned what it is to be an idol. Idolship was a concept entirely new to her—to Chaeyeon, decidedly not. And that in itself settled it, really: she trained herself in stride to fit into the already-formed sphere of tripleS, with Kim Chaeyeon as a standing model.

So, like everything else coagulated into the responsibility of being an idol, Mayu learned fanservice from Chaeyeon. The basics came easily—saying the right things, posing at the right moments; her persona on-screen is close enough that she can be genuine for this.

This is new. This is something from a distance. Kissing a member for fanservice? She’s thought about it, of course, the unavoidable aspect of a twenty-four member girl group in this century. If Chaeyeon does it, idol of a decade, there has to be some significance behind it.

The next day: after their photoshoot, she walks into Chaeyeon’s room as casually as she can intentionally be. Yeonji’s gone for a fansign, so it’s just Chaeyeon sitting on the floor, tapping onto her phone. She gives Mayu a cursory glance, raises her eyebrows.

“Unnie, do you need something?”

“No,” Mayu responds, more of reflex than anything. Sounds kind of weird, though, and she hurries to ask, “Can I sit in here for a bit?”

Chaeyeon’s looking at her strangely now. But she’s polite, as always, and says, “Of course.”

Give her a few moments: Mayu acts on impulse, far too much, and now she’s here. In Chaeyeon’s room, taking up space, only now thinking about what she wants to ask. The video plays in her head, again, frame-by-frame etched into her mind.

“Chaeyeon-ah,” she starts to say. She watches Chaeyeon switch off her phone like she’d been expecting it, turns to her with a tilt of her head. Even now, subconsciously—poised, graceful; genuine all the same. A little bit debilitating, if Mayu has to admit it.

She goes with what’s familiar. Tips her head onto Chaeyeon’s shoulder, blonde hair drifting over Chaeyeon’s neck; smiles an easy smile, and asks, “You kissed Hayeon yesterday, right?”

Here, if Mayu tilts her head at a certain angle, she can watch Chaeyeon’s face with only slight discomfort in her neck. Small price to pay; it's entertaining to watch Chaeyeon’s expression shift.

Youngjae washes in with the rain, quite literally.

It’s mid-summer, cloud-darkened moonlight reflected on the ocean’s surface, when Jihoon feels the barest drops of rain on his too-warm skin. He revels in the feeling—one drop, two. Then with a sound of thunder it begins to pour.

The lovely thing about his lighthouse standing some miles away from the closest civilization is that there is no one to hear the unceremonious yelp he lets out. He scrambles to retreat back into shelter, back down into the house, shaking rain out of his hair with all the grace of a wet dog. Damn Kyungmin, who’d falsely informed him over the telephone just this morning that it wasn’t slated to rain any time soon, well, look how that’s turned out. The temperature in the house drops unbelievably fast, goosebumps erupting all over his skin, until he’s shivering, freezing, rushing to light the fireplace. Starting a fire mid-summer—some sort of mystical higher-up has to be messing with him.

There’s a flash of lightning that briefly illuminates the surroundings, and through the window, Jihoon catches a glimpse of the ocean—roiling waves, almost blurry through the rain thrashing at the glass. He’ll have to move back up later to turn on the lamps, pitying any sailor who has to brave the waters in this weather. For now, though, he finds a towel to bundle up in, wobbling towards the bathroom for a hot shower.

He wears his thickest pajamas—cotton-warm, latest birthday gift from Hanjin, heads up to the lantern room to let the lamp flicker on. The light is barely visible with the crashing rain. Maybe someone will find their way by it, anyways. He hopes.

Outside: another flash of lightning, muffled thunder that sounds through the walls and windows. Jihoon makes his way back into his house and curls back up in bed without a second thought.

-

There is a man unconscious on his shore.

Really, given his life’s work, he’d be likely to have experience in this sort of endeavor already. As is—when he wakes up in the morning, rubbing grit out of his eyes, sweating through his pajamas, he stops in his tracks. Jaw open. Frozen in shock—then, slowly, abject, dawning horror. Hell, a man on his shore. His father hadn’t had a guide on this when he had to painstakingly learn every mode of operation of this lighthouse himself—not everything, clearly, he can see that now. What to do about a man on his shore?

Jihoon comes back to himself too late. Blinks back into life. The man on the shore is face-down and unmoving—unconscious, yes, definitely—dead? Possibly. Even worse than having an unconscious man on his shore is having a dead man on his shore. In his head: Dohoon's voice screams at him, resounding, calling him an idiot—eventually, he manages to spur himself out of the daze. Jolts to action and runs out onto the beach. It’s still too hot, too-uncomfortable cottonwear clinging to his skin, sweat beading onto his temple.

Black hair sticks to the man’s nape, curling and unruly around his neck. He’s naked. Is that weird? No, the storm must have washed his clothes off somehow. It takes a frankly embarrassing amount of effort for Jihoon to redirect his attention from the nakedness to the rise and fall of his chest—back, really. Not dead. A relief.


(..)


Turns out that mermaids (merpeople?) are carnivores. Involuntarily, at least, is what Youngjae tells him. Raw seaweed and sea-grass: too tough to chew—and Youngjae looks horrifyingly appalled when Jihoon mentions coral so he dares not bring it up again. They mainly eat fish; the occasional whale that the hunters manage. Shark, which has the sweetest meat, on even rarer occasions.

“I’m not much of a good hunter, myself,” Youngjae says, cheeks dusted pink. “Blood makes me squeamish.”

Jihoon thinks about it. He proposes, “There's an orchard nearby.”

-

The trees are laden with oranges. They fill up their basket to carry back home. Jihoon manages, for the first time, to remove the peel in a continuous spiral. He shows Youngjae how, and Youngjae succeeds on the first try, unusually adept with his fingers.

Around a mouthful of orange flesh, Youngjae explains, “I used to be assigned to removing scales off of fish.” He swallows and Jihoon tries not to stare at the way his Adam’s apple bobs, or the length of his throat, or the droplet of juice trickling down from the corner of his lips. He ends up staring at Youngjae’s hands instead—quick, nimble motions working the flesh away from the pithy skin. “Horribly tedious. We had to pluck off individual scales one by one, you’ll never believe how small they are.

“Is that so,” Jihoon says, numbly.

“Yeah. Catch,” and he’s tossing the peeled orange at Jihoon, laughing as he scrambles to save it. Hops onto the kitchen counter and picks up another orange to work at. Youngjae’s peeling more than he’s eating, seeming to enjoy the process more than its taste. Jihoon splits his orange apart into sections, then pops it all into his mouth in one bite.

It's worth it to hear Youngjae laugh again, clear and bright and crystalline. His hair gleams under the sunlight crowding through glass windows. “You’re insane. And your mouth is crazy big.”

Jihoon dares to say, “I can show you how big it really is,” only because one, his words come out garbled from the sheer volume of flesh and juice obstructing his mouth, and two, Youngjae most likely wouldn't understand. True enough, he’s arching an eyebrow towards Jihoon, one part disgusted and three parts amused. A coward that Jihoon is.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, ew.”

“Prude,” Jihoon responds, but he does swallow the mouthful of orange down. In the middle of summer, the oranges are sun-soaked and ripened—almost sickeningly sweet. He watches as Youngjae brings an orange slice to his lips and sucks the juice out slowly. If he has as much confidence as he has the hunger carving a place between his ribs, near physical and sharp and stealing his breath away, he’d walk over and press his lips with Youngjae’s, lap the juice out of his mouth.

He wants so much. The desire threatens to swallow him whole. Peeled orange and widened maw.

“I don't think I’m quite a fan of oranges, though,” Youngjae says. He grins, sharklike, catching Jihoon’s gaze. “What’s next?”

(..)

He starts, unconsciously, “I’ve never,” before cutting himself off, before realizing how stupid he sounds, feeling warmth flood his cheeks. Beneath him Youngjae’s eyes sparkle with humor, and he wraps his arms around Jihoon’s neck, thumbing the mullet he’s unintentionally let himself grow.

“Well,” Youngjae sighs, pulling Jihoon impossibly close, breathing gently onto the line of Jihoon’s jaw, “You’re lucky I’ve never, either, aren't you?”

Despite, Youngjae opens up easily, maybe some unknown aspect of mermaid biology that Jihoon really shouldn’t be focusing on, not now, not when he has Youngjae sweet and pliant beneath him, making soft noises and spasming around his fingers, the summer warmth turning their skin tacky. A crook of his fingers: Youngjae lets out another drawn out whimper.

It’s almost unbearable; the feeling of possession that grows and grows to meet Jihoon’s chasm of hunger. He has the power. He can do anything. He can kiss Youngjae, slow and sticky and slightly salty with drool and sweat and memorize the sensation of Youngjae kissing back. He can ream the creeks of Youngjae’s body, spread his fingers apart and wide to hear Youngjae’s breath hitch. He can map out a voyage from sensitive spot to sensitive spot on Youngjae’s throat, he can bear his teeth down to bruise skin, he can mark Youngjae as his, he can, he can.

Avarice that Jihoon can barely keep from spilling over. A dizzying wild-animal sort of desire. Youngjae makes a sound, a half-hearted whine.

Jihoon leans back in to kiss him again. When they separate, Youngjae says, breathless, wanting in the same stark intensity, “Jihoon.”

Getting hold of Hiyyih is harder than Hikaru had imagined. They’re always together on paper; attached at the hip, their own little duo: Hiyyih and Hikaru, one after another, and whenever she turns around Hiyyih is always there, expectant. But, well, recently—

It’s not that Hiyyih really disappears. She’s always there, long hair and bright smile, and when they’re burrowed deep in the middle of comeback season Hikaru sees the members at every waking moment. But it’s also like this: whenever she turns around, Hiyyih seems to slip away faster than Hikaru can register it.

Which feels kind of crazy. She does remember talking to Hiyyih, small talk here and there, the little anecdotes they always share. But when she tries to remember—

Xiaoting is her first go-to, because she’s least likely to laugh, which grants her the highest privileges almost immediately. The official operation begins, when Hikaru sprawls out onto Chaehyun’s bed, and asks, casually, “Unnie, have you talked to Hiyyih recently?”

On her bed opposite, Xiaoting looks up from her phone to give her a strange look. “We had dinner together half an hour ago.”

“I mean, like, actual talk. Not group dinner or music show waiting room conversation. Like, has she told you anything that’s been going on recently?”

“Um,” Xiaoting says, slowly, carefully, still looking at her like she’s grown an extra head. “She said she’d talked to her sister recently?”

Hikaru groans, flopping down onto Chaehyun’s bed with a force that sends a few plushies over the edge. Tough. “So you really have no clue? Anything that she’s been dealing with?”

“Karu, you’re her best friend. Wouldn’t you be the one to know?”

Unconsciously, Hikaru purses her lips. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Hiyyih is her Best Friend, capitalized initials and all, and part of this sense that there’s something wrong comes from her best friend intuition itself; they’ve known everything about each other, over the past four years, and now, when there’s something Hikaru can tell she doesn’t know—it’s more than a little bit debilitating. Pushes and overtakes her mind.

“Well,” she says, haltingly, strangely unwilling to express all of this out loud, “Yes, but—if there was something Hiyyih was, I don’t know, keeping from me, maybe. Hypothetically.”

“Huh,” Xiaoting says, sounding dubious, still. Hikaru opens her mouth, ready to defend herself, but then Xiaoting’s expression takes on a strange quality. Hikaru can almost see the understanding rippling through; her mouth opens in a small o, cheeks flushing slightly, eyebrows knitting together. “Oh,” she says.

“What?” Hikaru asks, and when Xiaoting doesn’t reply, “What?”

“I think,” Xiaoting says, eventually, and her lips curl into a small, knowing smile, her brows lifting, and Hikaru thinks, vaguely and grouchily, that she really is incredibly pretty, “You’ll have to ask Hiyyih that, herself.”

-

Well, thank you, Xiaoting unnie, easier said than done. Their schedule goes like this: music show, variety show, filming challenges left and right, group dinners sometimes, and at the end of it Hikaru can do nothing but collapse back onto her bed. The frustrating thing, though: she does talk to Hiyyih, quite a lot. Hears about her phone call with her sister; the necklace she almost bought; tripleS’ Nien, whom she’d met recently. And at the end of it, Hikaru still has nothing.

Not nothing, per se, just nothing of essence. Which is partially her fault; for all her ruminating over it, Hikaru can’t quite voice the question she wants to ask: What’s going on with you? (Too vague; easily evaded.) Have you been avoiding me? (The answer is objectively no, even if it seems so to her.) Why did you kiss me, that day?

In the end, her saving grace is Yeseo, who asks them both out to lunch on a day off. She hasn’t seen Yeseo in a while, so it’s lovely. They go out for sukiyaki, pay for Yeseo’s food in secret, watch Yeseo laugh with a bright delight



“Whydidyoukissmethatday,” Hikaru blurts out, all at once, fidgeting with the wool of her sleeve.



“Do we have to talk about it?” Hiyyih asks, and her hand moves to cup Hikaru’s cheek, and she shifts even closer, the scent of her perfume wreathing ribbons around them, and Hikaru is a weak, weak woman. She lets her eyelids slip shut, tastes the warmth in the air—jasmine, sandalwood, something else that escapes her—feels the brush of Hiyyih’s lips against her ear. “We can always just…”

Okay, Hikaru thinks, humiliatingly, okay.

-

So maybe she failed that time. It doesn’t matter—one time is nothing. They’re in this for the long run, the seven of them, and Hiyyih can’t avoid this forever. She’ll keep trying, and eventually she has to break.

The trajectory of her plan changes, though, and it becomes incredibly evident; after a week, every time Hikaru looks back, and Hiyyih—Hiyyih is everywhere.

In their room, on Yujin’s bed; on stage, sneaking her a quick, secret smile; sitting beside her in dark cars and fitting her head effortlessly in the crook of Hikaru’s neck; mouthing at Hikaru’s collarbones in a dark corner backstage; her most recent pastime: pressing Hikaru up against any available surface to kiss her breathless.

Hikaru may very well be going insane. Losing her mind. She spends all her time thinking about it—dancing TIPI-TAP, watching the flip of orange hair in the mirror; running on the treadmill, feeling the ghost of Hiyyih’s lips against hers—so on, until, ironically, the only time her mind empties is when Hiyyih’s body is against her own, chasing all stray thoughts from her head.





Before everything, when they were whole, Mashiro used to pinch her cheeks at times, and say, motherly tone and all, our Hikaru, so perfect at everything. And—well.

It’s some sort of paradox, now. XG was everything, once, and when it wasn’t, she put her focus on all else instead. Studied Korean like her life depended on it, relearned how to rap in the new language, practiced until her voice gave out or her body collapsed. Then Girls Planet, and perfect became success, and perfect became Hikaru, until she wasn’t sure herself if the idea was chasing her, or if she was running after it, anymore.

It’s the only constant she knows, anyways, so she consciously tries to latch onto it as much as possible. Ezaki Hikaru, Kep1er’s dancer and rapper. Yujin calls her their moodmaker. Hiyyih calls her: my solace.

She tries not to think about that last one too much, less she bursts into a bunch of sparks and burns herself out, dying star. It’s a wild source of pride, anyhow: Hiyyih, who’s had the most difficult idol journey of all of them, by far—her solace is Hikaru.


-

Chaehyun—second on the list, hearing it all—blinks, sits up with a jolt, and says, “Hiyyih kissed you?”

Hikaru pulls a face of offense at her incredulous tone. “Um, yeah. Keep up, unnie.”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” Chaehyun retorts. “You’re, arguably, the most stereotypical raging lesbian in this group. And your straight-passing best friend of four years kissed you?”

“Hiyyih’s not straight,” Hikaru objects weakly, which, theoretically, isn’t wrong, given newly discovered evidence. But it’s not like she has ever explicitly come out either, when Hikaru thinks about it, and is also not something she’s considered previously. So—okay, yeah, kind of weird.

“Yeah, I’d hope not,” Chaehyun says dryly. She runs a hand through her hair, newly brown and lustrous. Hikaru envies her, sometimes—two weeks ago she was pink, and red before that, and once black; she looks good, effortless, and her hair remains smooth as ever. Hikaru has always had to fight for everything that makes her—the length, the colors, and even now when she tries to comb out her hair she’s stopped by a hundred knots here and there. Painstaking effort into self autonomy.

“Yujin unnie is a bigger lesbian than me.”

“Yeah, probably,” Chaehyun agrees, easily. It’s kind of infuriating, the way she balances between provoking and amenable like it’s nothing. “Same same. The difference is that you two play it up to high heavens. Hiyyih has never even mentioned liking girls before, that I can remember. That fansign thing with Ting unnie—”

“Oh my god, right? It surprised me.”

Chaehyun shrugs. “I mean, there was the whole rumor issue before. I don’t blame her.”

Ah. Right.

They don’t talk about it anymore—which, truthfully, applies to a lot of things, starting with Kawaguchi Yurina and ending with Queendom—but even before Hikaru has met her, in that little time period when she knew Hiyyih as Huening Bahiyyih and not much else, there’d been this rumor going around. Common among survival shows, but this one in particular had caught Hikaru’s attention: Huening Bahiyyih was a lesbian.

Hikaru, seventeen, then, had watched her from afar. Nothing wrong with being curious about it; Huening Bahiyyih was a mystery. An idol for a sister, idol for a brother, but she seemed to keep herself in a small circle. So she’d watched, and used to imagine herself approaching her, saying I like girls, too. I kissed a girl. I like a girl right now.

But it’d died down, then, without Hiyyih saying a thing about it; denying, admitting, whatever. Maybe if she’d denied it, it would’ve been better—probably a selfish thought for Hikaru to have, but really.

“Hiyyih kissed you? She kissed you, and you didn’t initiate, or anything?”

Hikaru huffs. “Girls very much want to kiss me, unnie, thank you for the vote of confidence.”

She waves a hand dismissively. “I didn’t say that. Did you want her to kiss you, though?”

A pause. Chaehyun waits patiently in silence. “...Well. I’m not against it.”

“I’m sure,” Chaehyun arches her eyebrows pointedly. Hikaru doesn’t even need her Best Friend intuition for this to know that she’s hinting at something—a small fragment of her mind is nodding along, seemingly clued in, but the rest—okay, she has no idea.

“This conversation would go by so much faster if you could just say what you want to say, unnie.”

“You’re an idiot, Karu,” Chaehyun rolls her eyes. “She kissed you. You want her to kiss you. You’ve spent almost every waking moment of the past four years together. She’s your best friend, your person. You’re literally here because of some sense you have that something’s wrong about her. Oh my god, you want to kiss her.”

“I do not!” Hikaru says, on instinct, then she covers her mouth, horrified. For all that she is, a liar isn’t one of them, and she’s realizing—slowly, before, then all at once now—that she does want to kiss Hiyyih, more than anything—she wants the feeling of her lips, the scent of her perfume, Hiyyih crowding around her, towering over her, leaning down to kiss her—

“But,” she flounders for a response, “you and Dayeon unnie— you do that. All of it.”

“Dayeon and I,” Chaehyun says, slowly, every word drawn out like it’s almost painful, “have been dating for three years, Karu.”

Hikaru’s jaw is well and truly agape. She’s thinking about it but also not thinking about it and doesn’t quite want to think about it, but her cheeks are rapidly heating up against her control, and she puts her hands to them, lets the cold of her fingertips draw little shocks on her face.

“Oh my god,” she whispers. “I’m in love with Hiyyih.”

Chaehyun sighs, contentedly, and pats her head in commiseration. Hikaru can’t even protest at that, because her mind is still reeling, her cheeks too warm, her hands freezing, she’s in love with Hiyyih?

-

And the fact of it, Hikaru had reasoned, is that it probably didn’t mean much. They’re bandmates, best friends, and if she’s heard anything from Kamimoto Kotone, bandmates kiss each other all the time. Rite of passage, four years in the industry, it should be expected. There was just something else—something strange, a little different, about Hiyyih, that she couldn’t quite figure out. So she had tried, as she always does, to see it through; only to have Hiyyih vanish around every corner when she did. And the rest is history.

But then Hiyyih had kissed her again, and again, and again, and then Chaehyun had said maybe you like her, and then she’d had her head in her hands, and thought, admitted, to herself, oh my god, I’m in love with Hiyyih, and then after that—

The prologue of Odyssey begins like this: O divine poesy…

“No, it doesn't,” Vernon interrupts, one raised eyebrow. He shifts his cap slightly to the right. “It isn't that complex. I would have remembered it.”

Joshua is sitting on his apartment’s couch, book open in one hand. The leather cover is buttery-smooth under his touch. Vernon stares at him from where he’s perched on a stool at the dining table.

“I'm reading it as is. Here,” and he tilts the book over for Vernon to squint at. It’s a rather funny sight: Vernon leaned forward, arms folded, face scrunched with that nonunderstanding pout. No matter how many times he's seen this, how long they've known each other, Vernon is inexorably amusing. Joshua snorts.

“You’re right,” Vernon says easily as he sits back. He’s never had the same barrier in admitting so. “But I’m right too. I’ve never read it like that, and I’ve read the prologue, like, twenty times, because I never got past it.”

“A translation thing, maybe. Google it,” Joshua reasons. There’s a short few-second interval where Vernon types and the search loads and he really has to fix the Wi-Fi in his apartment. But it shows up anyways. And, as it turns out, both of them were right after all. Ninety percent of other translations have it down as something different—Tell me, Muse—Sing to me—Sing, Goddess—etcetera. Vernon gets sick of reading them out after a while.

“What does poesy mean, anyways? Sounds like a disease.”

“No clue,” Joshua says casually. Vernon laughs. “I don't know, search it up, you literally have the app open.”

So he does, he Googles it and tilts his phone over and now Joshua’s the one having to lean over, craning his neck and squinting against the white glow of the screen. Vernon’s perfect face survives being lit from below. It’s maddening and almost distracting.

“Art and… composition… of poetry,” Joshua reads, still squinting. He'd forgone his contacts for comfort’s sake today. “That makes, like, zero sense.”



“Hey, look,” Joshua says minutes later, freshly manicured finger tapping at the pages, “That’s your name. Vernal dawn.”

Vernon looks mildly affronted. “That's nowhere close to my name.”

“Prefix. It’s close.”




Vernon hums. A quiet “Hmm,” and a split second later he slams Joshua against the closest wall in an almost hilariously drama-esque motion.

Joshua doesn’t squeak—he’d never live with himself, or at the very least admit it—but it’s a damn near thing; enclosed by Vernon’s arms, nowhere left to run, he’s met with the frightening urge to flee. “Whoa.” He shrinks back. Vernon comes closer. They’re eye-to-eye. Joshua averts his gaze. Panic claws around his organs, his stomach, the tendons of his muscles. His heart throbs around his ears. “What are you—”

“Shhh,” Vernon mutters, and Joshua snaps his mouth shut with a clattering of teeth. Whisper of a breath. Shhh. A wild feeling of fascination overtakes him. He purses his lips slightly and lets the air from his mouth, mimicking. Shhh. Under the sound, “—shua. Joshua.”

Yes. That's him. He has the vague sense that he should respond to his name. Between a thumping heartbeat and Vernon's emanating warmth, Joshua reconnects himself to physicality. He nods, slightly confused.

“I can help you,” Vernon says, plainly as ever. “Would you let me?”

A silly question. Joshua would— Joshua would do a lot of things. He would work all kinds of fanservice without batting an eye if it was requested of him. He would read out five hundred pages of translated Greek if Vernon asked. He would—will—shoot off a probably incomprehensible text to Jeonghan later when he’s alone. He would drop to his knees right now beneath the burn of Vernon’s gaze.

He doesn't say any of it. Or, if he did, maybe that last inconsolable desire’s escaped through his traitorously slack mouth; Vernon holds his shoulders and pushes him down to the ground. All at once: the hardwood floor, the cold air cinching to his exposed skin, Vernon’s calloused fingers brushing down his arms as he leans over. His eyelids flutter shut.

I can help you, Vernon had said. Somehow graciously, Vernon dips his fingers past Joshua’s waistband to take him in the hand. In the shadow of Vernon hovering over him, blocking out the light, Joshua throws his head back.




So they fuck, that first time, if that could be considered fucking. Vernon gets him off and cleans him up and washes his hands and sends him to bed with a sweet good night. He hadn't even— he hadn't gone anywhere close to touching himself, Joshua reflects with a sort of post-orgasm sleepy clarity. He’s slowly drifting off and rousing himself anew thinking about it: Vernon’s expression. Even with his hand wrapped around Joshua’s dick, he remained stoic and composed as ever. It’s honestly a little offending. Joshua’s the closest to falling asleep than he’s been over the past week, and he’s dreaming into the memory of Vernon jerking him off.

Jeonghan, the next day: “Maybe he’s celibate.”

Joshua considers it. “With that fuckboy face? I’d hope not.”

“You can’t just say that about our groupmate,” Jeonghan says demurely. He’s talking over background chatter, in what suspiciously sounds like a photo-shoot setting. Joshua can’t even hit him or flip him off through voice call. It’s the worst.

“You’ve said worse. And besides, doesn’t celibate usually mean he won’t partake in sexual acts? Fisting my dick feels like, I don’t know, a sexual act.”

“Self-celibate. Is that a term?”

Joshua’s pretty sure it isn't. He tells him as much.



He’s about to retort something sarcastic, but Jeonghan’s tone suddenly takes on a sweeter compliance. “Wait. Hang on. Yes, noona, I’ll be done in a while. I’m on call with Joshuji.”

Which, what the fuck. Joshua lowers his voice to a hiss. “Are you legitimately talking about this while getting your makeup done?”

“Yeseul-noona is my closest confidant. I don’t like your otherwise implication,” and there’s a wet sound of Jeonghan blowing a kiss, and Yeseul-noona’s barking laugh. To be fair, Joshua’s had worse conversations sitting in her chair, and they all know it.

“Okay, but, like, does discretion mean nothing to you.”

“No,” Jeonghan says.

“Sure, I expected that.” Joshua rolls his shoulders out with a sigh. The hours of restful sleep he’d gotten were immensely satisfying in relieving the tension that had built up over the past weeks, which is just irritating in principle. It’ll last him a few days, if he’s lucky. Then he’ll be all strung up again, and maybe—maybe Vernon would notice it again, and maybe he’ll—

“So you’re, what, fuckbuddies now?”

It’s lovely seeing how his efforts in learning the Korean dictionary front-to-back have culminated into this. “No. Maybe. I don’t know, it might have been a one-off thing. Oh God, what if it was?”

“Never use the name of your Lord in vain,” Jeonghan recites immediately. He’s been doing that for years. “Hansol-ie isn’t like that. He doesn’t seem like the fuckbuddy type either, though. Maybe he’s been secretly in love with you for the past eight years. Have you considered that?”

“Be serious.”

“I am serious.” There's a clattering noise over the line. “Either that or—ow, noona, you’re poking into my eye—he’s just nice and does want to help you get some sleep. Have you considered that?”

“I'd rather he be in love with me,” Joshua says flatly.

Jeonghan snickers. “Yeah, I’d bet.”

Whatever that means. Joshua likes to think he’s not that transparent. He’s not, like, in love with Vernon, or anything. He knows the lines they have to toe as idols. Regardless of whatever homoerotic tensions flowering within their group, Joshua isn’t one to test the limits. Vernon’s smile is nice. His face is nice. His grip around Joshua’s dick, just as tight as he likes it, is also very nice. That isn’t love.

“Oh,” Something like horror dawns upon him. “What if I’m using him for sex? I’ll surely be a bad person then.”

“What? You aren't using him for sex. You haven't had sex.”

Joshua scowls down at his phone. “Technicalities. Sexual acts, if you want to be so uptight about it.”

“Vernon wouldn't let himself be used,” Jeonghan says placatingly. He pauses. “Well. Actually.”




It’s a damning contrast: Vernon, fully clothed, all around his naked skin. Vulnerability is ever so difficult; Joshua tries very hard not to shrink into himself. Vernon should be considerate enough to take his own clothes off, at the very least, to cut through some of the crawling humiliation coursing through his veins. Joshua leans forward.

“Let me,” Vernon’s hard, he can tell, the line of his cock defined in his sweatpants. It makes Joshua inhale, hard, his lungs squeezing. He extends a hand forward. There’s that ever-present hunger growling in his chest—except, now, he can, he can have—it’s within reach, it’s possible to—he can get what he wants—

Vernon’s grip is gentle when he reaches over to clasp Joshua’s wrist. His denial is gentle. His voice is gentle when he says, “No,” and he reaches down to hold Joshua’s shaking body. Chest-to-chest, Vernon’s fast but steady heartbeat asynchronous with Joshua’s own.

“Let me take care of you?” It lilts like a question.

“Please,” Joshua whispers. He’s not really sure what he’s asking for. What is it that he wants. He thinks that Vernon might not know either. Vernon mouths at his jaw and squeezes his cock and kisses him hot when Joshua flinches up into his embrace. Eyes closed, mouth dry, hunger clawing at the emptiness within him, Joshua exhales.




If anything, Vernon could be Joshua’s antithesis. He’s authentic and so outright genuine that it’s overwhelming. Joshua throws around little white lies that he doesn’t even think about until later. Now: Vernon’s asking, in that quietly unaffected voice, “That enough for you?”

Joshua is lying on his back. He blinks back black spots from his vision. Vernon’s brought him to the brink quick and easy, as always. Their fourth or fifth time sleeping together—if it could be considered that, sessions of Vernon getting him off and nicely rejecting Joshua’s continuous attempts to touch him in the same way—it’s become some sort of routine. Joshua’s limbs are loose and languid. Physically, it's been going great for him. Vernon’s question is new. A break from the regular formula.

“Yes,” Joshua answers. He stretches his back with a pop.

A frown materializes on Vernon’s face. “Are you lying?”

“What are you, a lie detector? I’m fine.”

“Hyung,” Vernon says. He never really calls him that; it's always Joshua, or Josh, or in the sweet occurrence when Joshua’s underneath him and out of his mind with pleasure, Shua. There’s no use for honorifics when they mostly speak in English anyways; but now Vernon switches to Korean so easily and effortlessly that Joshua’s sent off-kilter. “What do you need?”

“Nothing,” Joshua answers, exasperatedly. “I’m fine, seriously.”

Vernon has this unrelenting determination that he’d probably picked up from Seungkwan or someone else. It's cute, most of the time, except instances like now when Vernon presses forward and traps him against the bed, expression much too earnest. Joshua tries very hard not to squirm. His cock twitches, which is really fucking mortifying and he’s kind of glad that Vernon’s eyes are fixed onto his face and not any lower.

“Hyung,” Vernon enunciates the syllable, dragging it out like hyuuuuung. “You know I’ll always give you what you need.”

This is stupid. This is so stupid, and Joshua’s about to say so when Vernon lowers his head and exhales a hot breath over Joshua’s nipples and—oh, that’s positively unfair, when Vernon’s still fully fucking clothed and Joshua has no way of retaliating. He's much too powerless in this scenario. Vernon bites down on one bud, a lightning-shock of pleasure-pain that echoes through Joshua’s body and all the way down to his cock.

Joshua grits his teeth against the sensation. “You’re so—unfair.”

“Is it asking too much of you to be honest?”

Yes, Joshua wants to say, because it’s the answer that most comes off as a retort, but it also edges too close to something true and bloody and deep within his ribs. Instead he rolls his eyes with as much irritation as he can muster. “Is it asking too much of you to equalize our playing field?”

“Stop being abstract.” Vernon’s hand drifts down to palm Joshua’s still-too-sensitive cock. Joshua whines, involuntarily, and twists away. It doesn't work—Vernon’s punishing touch follows him like a brand—but he hadn't really expected it to. Against his own will, he’s starting to get hard again.

“Come on, I’ll let you come again if you tell me.”

Joshua is floored. Maybe a bit impressed by his nerve. “Let me?”

Vernon just shrugs and tugs at his dick. Joshua’s back arches—away or closer, he can't really tell. The spike of arousal spikes his cortisol levels in turn. Or whatever hormone triggers his flight response. He twitches shallowly and makes a conscious effort to relax.

“Is this what you need?” Vernon's breath ghosts over his ear. “Do you need more? Do you want more? Do you want to come again? We can stay here forever until you’re satisfied.”

What the hell. Vernon’s never this talkative—if Joshua wasn't inching closer to fuck-dumb, he'd be worried. As is, Vernon’s words send firework bursts of arousal underneath his skin. He gasps wetly. The warmth around his cock borders on unbearable. He's going to come again.