Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The problem with being right, Kyujin had realized, was that being right meant living with the consequences.

She had been right about everything. Haewon staring at Lily like she was a sentence she couldn't read. Lily pretending to nod off so she could rest her head on Haewon's shoulder.

Obvious. So obvious.

Kyujin had been right, and now, three months later, Haewon and Lily were dating. And Kyujin had to live in a dorm with them.

It was, she felt, an unjust reward from the universe for having emotional intelligence.

.

The specific issue today — Thursday, 10:47 PM, the dorm settling into its pre-bedtime routines — was that Kyujin was trying very hard to practice writing lyrics and Lily had left her door open.

Three months ago, Lily did not leave her door open. Lily had books to read and movies to finish and she didn't appreciate people barging in on her when she was doing those things. But now, Lily left her door open as a matter of course, because a specific someone might want to come in, and that specific someone was currently in the dorm bathroom brushing her teeth. Which Kyujin could also hear because she had trained for a decade to hear minute changes in volume, and now that skill was betraying her.

Kyujin looked at her Muji notebook. She had written a single line tonight:

the sound doesn't stop when you leave the room

It was a good lyric. She liked the lyric. The problem was that the lyric was currently reminding her of Haewon and Lily, and it wasn't supposed to be about Haewon and Lily. It was about the way someone stayed in your head long after they were gone, like a good song, which Kyujin had noticed with someone she couldn't afford to think about at this moment.

It was not supposed to be about how she could hear Haewon shuffle through the hallway and stop before knocking on Lily's clearly open door. It was not supposed to be about how she could hear Haewon say something to Lily, in a voice that was both low and soft, which was different from her loud, broadcast leader voice, which was different from her "bibimbap" voice, which Kyujin had overheard once, causing her to nearly choke to death from secondhand embarrassment.

The line wasn't about them.

Kyujin circled the line and tried to write a second one.

"You left your book on the counter," she heard Haewon say from outside.

"Oh, thanks. I was looking for that.”

"And I was looking for you."

Kill me, Kyujin thought, face in her hands.

She tried to focus on her writing. The sound doesn't stop when you leave the room. God, what was — she'd been on a roll. She'd been writing something good and then Haewon started brushing her teeth and she couldn't find her headphones and — were they in the kitchen? She should go to the kitchen. Noise cancellation, that's what she needed, so she wouldn't need to —

"Anyway, good night," Haewon said outside.

"Good night," Lily said.

Kyujin froze, halfway to the doorframe. She needed her headphones, but the closer she got to the hallway, the more she needed to puke. It wasn't like she didn't love them. She was happy for them. But did they have to —

"You're still there," Lily said.

"I know."

"Go to bed, Haewon."

"I'm going."

"Or stay. I like looking at you."

Kyujin felt the bile rise in her throat.

She went back to her notebook and wrote a second line.

i am going to lose my mind

Not a lyric. A cry for help.

.

Another problem with being right was that this meant Haewon and Lily were not doing anything wrong or unexpected. They made sure to close the door if they were spending the night together, although Kyujin rushed to her headphones, just in case. They didn't hold hands in public or do anything beyond the scope of the Haely baiting they'd always done on social media. Kyujin couldn't even say anything about Haewon and Lily talking to each other in the hallway. How were they to know Kyujin could hear every word?

Which meant Haewon and Lily were merely normal. Which was worse. Because Kyujin could not complain about normal.

She could not say, for instance, "Unnie, please stop staring at Lily, you need to eat your lunch." She could not say, "Unnie, please stop smiling so big every time you see your lockscreen photo, it's scaring Jiwoo." She could not say "Unnie, I held your hand at 5 in the morning. I didn't tell anyone about how you looked at Lily. And my compensation for this service is hearing you say 'good night' in a hallway for six minutes."

She could not complain about normal because it was normal. But also because it would prove that she had been paying attention. Which she had been, because she loved them both enormously, and wanted the best for them. But she was not prepared to talk about that on a Thursday at 10:47 PM.

Kyujin needed to write lyrics. She'd harbored ambitions of writing a song, after Jinsol and Lily and Haewon had paved the way with "Different Girl" and "Reality Hurts" and "Podium." So she was practicing.

She just needed a second line. Something about persistence, maybe. About the way a song sticks in your head, even if you didn't choose it. About how sometimes, the only way to release that song was to scream it out loud.

She picked up her pen again just as she heard Haewon's door closing. Then, four seconds later, opening again. Then footsteps. Then Lily's door opening.

"I forgot my phone."

"Your phone is in your hand."

"Oh. You're right. Thanks."

A pause. Kyujin resisted the urge to scream.

"Good night, Lily."

"You said that already." She could hear Lily smiling.

"I'm saying it again."

Kyujin threw her pen across the room and picked up her phone.

.

haely monitoring unit 4

Thursday, May 7, 2026

Kyujin

10:58 PM

they said goodnight twice

Jinsol

Jinsol

they're made for each other.

10:58 PM

Yoona

Yoona

hahahahahahahahaha

Yoona

i think that's

Yoona

fewer times than yesterday at least?

Yoona

hahahahahaha

10:58 PM

Jiwoo

Jiwoo

yesterday was six

Jiwoo

i counted

10:58 PM

Kyujin

10:58 PM

you counted too??

Jiwoo

Jiwoo

is this not everyone else's nightly soap opera

Jiwoo

it's mine

10:59 PM

Kyujin

also she came back for her phone

Kyujin

which she ALREADY HAD

Kyujin

10:59 PM

obvious.

Jinsol

Jinsol

she wanted to go back.

Jinsol

she was just using the phone as an excuse.

11:00 PM

Kyujin

UNNIE I KNOW THAT

Kyujin

11:00 PM

WE ALL KNOW THAT

Jinsol

Jinsol

im just documenting it.

11:00 PM

Kyujin

11:00 PM

the question is how long do we have to LIVE LIKE THIS

Jiwoo

Jiwoo

probably forever

Jiwoo

hopefully forever

11:01 PM

Yoona

Yoona

hahahahahahahahahaha

Yoona

i think it's cute

11:01 PM

Kyujin

it IS cute

Kyujin

that's the WORST PART

Kyujin

you can't even be mad about it because it's so sweet and cute

Kyujin

11:01 PM

you feel like a monster for being mad about it

Jinsol

Jinsol

you'll survive.

11:02 PM

Kyujin

i was trying to write lyrics!!!!!

Kyujin

11:02 PM

how did you do this jinsol-unnie

Jinsol

Jinsol

impeccable focus.

11:02 PM

Yoona

Yoona

hahahahhaah

Yoona

kyujin-ah

Yoona

write about this

11:02 PM

Kyujin

11:02 PM

write about hearing my unnies saying goodnight in a hallway for six minutes???

Yoona

Yoona

yeah

Yoona

about how you feel when you can't help but listen to something

Yoona

something you can't pull away from

11:02 PM

Kyujin

…

Kyujin

11:02 PM

i hate that that's good

Jinsol

Jinsol

yoona, never change. 💙

11:02 PM

.

Kyujin put her phone down. She walked to her bed and reached underneath for her pen.

She looked at her notebook.

the sound doesn't stop when you leave the room

i am going to lose my mind

She crossed out the second line and thought about the feeling of being so close to something that she couldn't help but listen to it. Which was annoying because it was exactly what she had been trying to write about before Haewon shuffled out into the hallway, which meant Yoona had, in an offhand text at 11:02 PM, written the thesis of Kyujin's lyrics without even trying.

Yoona did this. Yoona said sentences that derailed conversations and then moved on as though she had simply been talking about the weather. Everyone else was left hearing sentences that didn't stop when she left the room.

Kyujin wrote:

the sound doesn't stop when you leave the room

i am going to lose my mind

i hold it even if i don't really want to

She looked at the line. She crossed out "hold" and wrote "want." She crossed out "want to" and wrote "choose to." She drew a small arrow and wrote "is this anything??" in the margin.

Through the wall, Kyujin heard nothing. Haewon's room, quiet. The hallway, quiet. Lily's room, quiet. The quiet of two people in separate rooms who would rather be in one room but had done the work of saying goodnight, twice, and were now lying in their respective beds thinking about each other in a way that Kyujin understood because Kyujin thought about someone like that, too, sometimes.

Kyujin wrote another line, looked at it, and put the cap on her pen.

She would finish tomorrow. Friday was better for lyrics anyway. Fridays she came home from practice and sat on the couch and wrote in a room that smelled like ramyeon and coffee, and Jiwoo would sit next to her and lean into her the way she did when it was just them. And they would talk about nothing, and straighten up when Jinsol got home from the CU, and while Kyujin might not write any lyrics, Jiwoo would make her feel the way she needed to feel to write them.

She turned off her lamp and got into bed.

From the hallway, she heard a door open.

She heard footsteps. Haewon's, obviously, because Kyujin could identify footsteps in her sleep at this point, which was an ability she was gifted against her will and would like to return.

The footsteps stopped at a door.

A very long pause.

"I can't sleep," Haewon said, very quietly.

A shorter pause. The door opened.

"Come in," Lily said.

The door closed.

Kyujin lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling and thought: I am happy for them. I am genuinely, completely happy for them. I held unnie's hand in the kitchen and I meant it and I would do it again.

She also thought: I'm moving into Jiwoo's room.