Chapter Text
In hindsight, this was an absolutely awful idea.
She eyed the messy, turbulent crowd of rambunctious teens in front of her, gyrating off-time to ignition (which in her opinion was honestly criminal), leaning back against the wall and feeling every kick of the snare as the music thrummed through the entire building.
She made a mental note to bake an entire batch of cookies for old Mrs Kim four doors down, it was the least that poor little lady deserved after putting up with this and not reporting them to their landlord.
She was also going to make sure that Chaeyoung, who had been talking to the tall, pretty girl Momo had seen a few times in the other dance studios on the other side of the room for the better part of half an hour now, would come over with her and apologise herself to Mrs Kim. This party had been her idea after all.
She’d looked at Momo with those big, child-like eyes, and her hands clasped in front of her pleading oh so desperately for her approval for this party. She had begged and whined about how her new ( just a friend!) ‘friend’ had just moved over here from Taiwan for an exchange year and she wanted to host a party to make her feel welcomed and introduce her to new people and there wouldn’t be that many people, honest!
Momo looked up from the half-empty red cup in her hand to look at the throng of people milling about between her kitchen and the living room, sat up on the counters flirting with their chosen conquest for the night, or cheering on their friends as they downed another crack-pot concoction (she was too scared to ask what their red cups contained at this point). She saw a boy from Chaeyoung’s art class, BangBang or some other obnoxious nickname like that, throwing up in their recycling bin.
She had said yes to this , she admits with a drawn out weary sigh, watching the boy dry heave repeatedly. She tips back the rest of her cup down her throat (coca cola, before anyone gets any ideas) crushing the plastic in her fist and tossing it back somewhere behind the couch. She’d have to clean this all in the morning anyway, so what was one more tiny crushed red cup?
She makes her way over to the boy, wincing at the sight and placing her hand on his back, giving him a pat or two in what she hoped was somewhat soothing. He barely looked up, head swaying haphazardly above the bin (and she had just sorted their recycling out this week) but he did give her a weak grunt of recognition, so that was something at least.
Chaeyoung better end up married to her ‘definitely just a friend!’ crush for all the trouble she’d put Momo through for this.
Momo sighs (her new favourite habit, it seemed), and rifled through the information in her head. She thinks she’s seen BoomBoom hanging out with Jackson from her mandatory Korean elective once or twice, and she remembers seeing Jackson hanging out near the bathroom with Youngjae about five minutes ago. Hopefully he was good enough friends with the ailing boy crying ( oh god he was crying now ) into her soiled recycling bin to take care of him so she wouldn’t have to.
She reluctantly wraps an arm around his waist, securing him against her side and ignoring the overwhelming scent of vodka skating along her neck as his head flopped against her shoulder. She cursed his parents for his tall genetics as she heaved his body down the hallway, practically heaving him onto her back and dragging his semi-lifeless body towards her hopeful saviour, also cursing them for giving him shitty alcohol tolerance.
She spies a very handsy couple spill out of the bathroom, giggling and correcting their clothes whilst falling over the line of people glaring daggers waiting against the wall (and she makes a mental note to check that the locks on the bedrooms and Chaeyoung’s art room are still indeed locked) including - yes, Jackson. She heaves what could be a sigh of relief or overexertion at carrying this dimwit, and straight up throws him at Jackson as soon as she gets close enough. He barely even looks phased at their arrival, just slinging an arm around the boy who seemed almost miniscule in comparison to his muscular frame, and shot Momo a salute. Thank God for that.
“Take care of BinBin.” Momo shouted over the music, and she thinks Jackson shouted something back at her but she’d already began meandering around the sweaty bodies in every nook of her home. She sees some people she knows, and other people that must be Chaeyoung’s friends or fanciful hopefuls that saw an open party and made their way in - at this point she doesn’t really care - and she shoots obligatory greetings and head nods in their direction as she makes her way to her room.
There’s a guy leaning on her door, but Momo points out to him that there’s a bottle of premium vodka hidden under the sink if he wants it (Chaeyoung’s just going to have to suck it up) and he leaves and Momo can finally breathe easy for the first time of the night. She jiggles the handle, and sure enough the door is locked and there’s at least one reassurance that everything’s not going so badly. She resists the urge to let her head fall against the door and makes her way to Chaeyoung’s room, relief spreading through her once again at finding her lock still intact.
Well, she did have to prise Nayeon away from the door with a bent bobby pin clasped in her one hand and Jeongyeon’s in her other. She had the good grace to look a little sheepish, which is an improvement because usually Nayeon is shameless. At least they hadn’t tried to break into her room. She thinks.
The two stumble off, hopefully somewhere not her apartment to continue their hopeful night, and honestly at least someone was getting something out of this party.
A stray ping pong ball comes whizzing down the hall, narrowly missing heads as it hits the generic family portrait Momo had cut and pasted hers and Chaeyoung’s heads onto when they moved it. It still made her laugh every time she saw it, and frankly was a great opener every time she brought home someone new, which was, like, never. She shoots a glare at the boys who had turned their dining table into their beer pong arena, launching the ball back at them and revelling in the satisfaction when it hit one of them in the head. She straightened the portrait on the wall, and looking at Chaeyoung’s grinning face made her remember.
She’d forgotten to check the lock on Chae’s art room.
They were fortunate really, Momo knew this. Chaeyoung’s parents were kind (and rich) enough to fund a bigger apartment for their daughter’s needs, which included a separate room for her artistic capabilities. It didn’t stop Momo from finding brushes scattered everywhere, or even a stray streak of paint on the couch every now and then, but it certainly limited the chances. The room was her sanctuary, her private abode that only a few select people had ever been granted access to, and also contained all of Chaeyoung’s expensive supplies.
Ah shit.
Momo barrelled through the crowd, voice rising above the music as she shouted at the crowd to move the fuck aside and there must have been something authoritative in her voice because the condensed bodies packed tightly in the hallway parted like the red sea.
Jihyo would be proud, honestly.
Chaeyoung’s art room was the furthest room in the apartment from the kitchen, and so by the time she got there and saw the hastily strewn up “DO NOT ENTER” signs still intact with not a single hormonal body in sight, she could almost feel relief re-enter her body.
Until she noticed the door was slightly open.
Ah fuck.
The music down the hallway had changed to something much faster now, seemingly matching the racing pace Momo’s heart had set in her chest. She ducked under the signs and the barrier, pushing open the door to see everything pretty much the same as she could remember it. Chaeyoung liked to keep everything out, referring to it as a designated mess, so she honestly wouldn’t have been able to tell if something was where it shouldn’t. Half finished sketches were strewn up all over the room, sketches of landscapes and inanimate objects and friends (lots of Momo, that made her happy) littered all over the room.
“These are really good.”
Momo whirled around at the soft voice, heart set at a frightening rate and a hand on her chest for dramatic measure. She squinted at the figure in the doorway, light from the hall spilling in behind her and basking her in an almost angelic glow.
Alright, maybe it hadn’t just been coca-cola in her cup, but she swore the girl looked like something straight out of one of Chaeyoung’s paintings.
The figure stepped in and flicked on the light, and Momo thought that maybe she was talking to an angel. She realised she hadn’t actually responded, and her mother didn’t raise her without manners.
“Ah, yeah. Chaeyoung’s...really good.”
The girl walked around the room, each footstep careful and deliberate as she surveyed each piece of work on display. She stopped on a piece of Momo, looking at it for a while before looking directly at the subject.
“These aren’t yours?” Her voice was high and whimsical, and Momo conveniently forgets that she should have technically kicked the girl out by now. She snorts instead.
(Real attractive, Hirai.)
“Oh no, I could never do something like,” she stopped, waving her hand far more enthusiastically than she had to, “this. Y’know?”
The girl frowned. Momo thought she looked ever cuter, somehow.
“Well that sucks.” She pursed her lips and crossed her arms, sighing softly as she looked again at the sketch of Momo laughing into a bowl of cereal. Momo wished Chaeyoung wasn’t as talented as she was because that one was a little embarrassing. The girl gasped, like a light bulb had gone off in her head, and Momo found herself ready to agree with whatever she had to say before she even opened her mouth.
“We should draw each other.”
Wait, what?
The girl was beaming at her, hands clasped together in a way that Momo really should have been used to by now. Maybe she was a bit of a pushover.
“Uhhhh, I’m not sure if you got the whole ‘I’m-bad-at-art’ vibe but uh, I’m definitely super bad at anything artistic.”
She rolled her eyes and stepped forward, making Momo realise this girl was a lot closer than she thought.
“And? Art isn’t about being good , it’s about just, being, you know?”
She could have told Momo that the sky was blue or that dogs bark, and Momo would have found herself thinking every word out of her pretty mouth was profound lyricism and gospel. Momo nodded and warm eyes practically glowed at her approval, grabbing Chaeyoung’s cup of pencils from the side and two sheets of paper. She thrusts one set towards Momo, before throwing herself down on the floor, closing an eye and pointing her thumb towards Momo.
“What are you doing?” Momo found herself asking, amusement evident as well as confusion.
“Shhh, I’m finding the best angle, for artistic purposes, y’know.”
The girl continued her dramatics, zooming in and out with her hand and playfully angling her hands until she nodded once, content with her chosen ‘angle’. She puts pencil to paper, and Momo finds herself mesmerised.
She can still hear the thumping music distorted from down the hallway, though it seemed quieter now as if everyone was beginning to wind down, and she was here at this god forsaken party in Chaeyoung’s art room with the prettiest girl she’d ever had the pleasure of seeing.
God was good, she decided.
She figured the girl was expecting something from her too, and so she set to work to attempt to do some sort of justice to the piece of art in front of her. If she squinted, and angled it just right in the light and turned it upside down, it could almost look like the beginning of a shaky Picasso.
If Picasso had both hands tied behind his back and had to use his mouth to sketch it. Whilst blindfolded. And possibly if he was a baby. She put a smiley face next to the haphazard figure on her paper, hoping the girl would be less offended by the monstrosity that was supposed to be herself.
The other girl still hadn’t finished, and she’d angled the paper so Momo couldn’t see her work in progress, so she ( totally not in a creepy way, she reasoned) took the time to really take in the girl in front of her.
She was pretty, that much was obvious. Momo wasn’t even sure pretty was enough to describe her, and she definitely wasn’t much of a poet or a wordsmith, so she settled on the term even though she knew the girl in front of her could have inspired entire sonnets or plays. The long, black hair that Momo was certain had been down when she came in the room had been swept up into a messy bun, held in place by one of Chaeyoung’s pencils (when did that even happen?) with a few strands brushing against her face. Her eyes were focused down, squinting in focus as she painstakingly traced every line.
Damn, she really seemed to be taking her time on this. Momo looked down at the wonky smiley face staring back at her and hoped the girl’s standards weren’t sky high.
The girl thrust her paper out suddenly, taking Momo back from the unexpected action. She held the paper up, looking back and forth between whatever she had drawn and Momo, comparing the two pieces. She nodded once, seemingly satisfied, and gave a content hum of approval. She stood up abruptly, and Momo found herself standing up along with her. She folded her paper and handed it to Momo, who stared at it blankly.
“Here.” She smiled gently. “I think you’ll really like it.”
Momo hastily folded her own drawing and handed it over.
“Uh yeah, I think you’ll like yours too.”
(Quite easily one of the top ten biggest lies she had ever told.)
She got another soft smile in response and then the girl was walking back towards the door, reaching up to turn out the light as she disappeared, leaving Momo standing there gaping like a moron basked in the light from the hallway. Chaeyoung would have found the whole scene very picturesque and artistic, she thinks absently, and she remembers the folded paper tucked loosely between her fingertips.
She unfolds the paper and holds it up to the light from the doorway, noting the multiple exaggerated winky faces and kissy faces drawn around the page. There was a small, very cute chibi drawing of Momo in the top corner, but that wasn’t what captured her attention the most.
She blinked. She blinked again.
In the very centre of the page, was a very decorated string of digits with small hearts and smirky faces drawn around them and a short message.
Call me ;)