Work Text:
Ding Dong.
Sana looked around nervously. This wasn’t even step one and she was already doubting herself, but come on! A doorbell, seriously? This was a hotel not someone’s house, how fancy did this place have to be? She was desperately hoping she didn’t just call for room service or some other ridiculous thing like that, as if it wasn’t clear enough that she does not belong in this five star hotel. God, what was she even thinking. If she couldn’t even announce her presence adequately, how well was the rest of this completely insane plan of hers going to go down? The occasional nervous tug and pat down of her (her being used very liberally in this case) dress had escalated to a constant nervous tic to the point she was getting slightly worried somewhere in the back of her mind she would ruin the gorgeous garment somehow and wouldn’t be able to return it and then where would she be? Embarrassed and unsuccessful seemed a given at this point, but three months rent in the red was an addition she very much wanted to avoid. Honestly, she should just turn around and leave now before-
‘Ugh, I said I don’t need anything why did father send you guys aga-. Oh. Sana?’ Somewhere in the middle of her three overlapping paranoid inner monologues, Sana had clearly missed the door opening to reveal a somewhat disgruntled but still painfully gorgeous looking woman in a fluffy bathrobe (dear Lord, a bathrobe!?). That woman had now been staring at her quizzically for a solid minute when Sana’s brain finally decided to kick in and rejoin the picture.
‘Yes, hi, hello, it’s me!’ Real smooth, Minatozaki. ‘Uh, yeah, I mean, hm. Hi, Eunbi.’
‘Hi, Sana.’ Yep, there it is, that’s the barely contained laughter in her eyes that Sana had been both dreading and craving. How can something so humiliating be so devastatingly endearing? She was ready to become a professional fool if it meant seeing those little lights dance in Eunbi’s eyes like that every day. Oh my god, you useless lesbian can we FOCUS, you still haven’t said literally anything useful. Right, yes. Explanations to give, plans to set in motion. Be a real adult now, fantasize about your crush later. It’s all about time management.
‘Hi. I already said that, shit, wait.’ Deep breath. ‘I’m here to ask if you would do me the honour of accompanying me to the ball. No, the gala. Ball? Um, the event. Tonight. Here. Please?’
Would room service be able to just carry her off in one of those luggage carrier cages? Like a big dumb gay chicken? Or would that be the doorman’s job? Honestly, she’d be happy to go with the garbage man, anyone to just put her out of her misery ASAP.
Eunbi’s shoulders were visibly shaking now, and if this were anyone else who actually had a mean bone in their body, Sana was sure this little exchange would have become the local millionaire golf club’s favorite laughing stock by tomorrow’s brunch. As it were, she faced only Eunbi’s personal judgement which was infinitely worse somehow. Can she just turn her down already so she can go home and tell Jihyo to shove her romantic advice up her-
‘Yeah? I thought you hated the ball-gala-event-tonight-here.’
‘I don’t hate it! I never said I hated it…’
‘No, I’m pretty sure you said the ninth circle of hell seemed more appealing than a night of dull conversation about the latest yachts and fifth homes all the old racist selfish pricks in the city have bought since the last gala. And that’s not even including your take on the wearing heels all night aspect of it.’ This was followed by an incredibly unsubtle and ever so slightly dragged out, in Sana’s humble opinion, up-and-down of her body. ‘Although, I will say, I’m not at all upset you changed your mind on that last one. You look dazzling, Sana.’
Every time she thought she’d reached the deepest blush she was capable of, Eunbi came out and called her something absolutely insane like dazzling and what was she supposed to do? Not flush a positively aubergine shade of purple all the way down to her toes? Un-bloody-likely. Sticking to her preferred method of handling these heart-stopping interactions - ignoring them completely, she plowed on with The Plan.
‘Yes, well, I was speaking generally. And it’s not like I changed my mind on the guests as a whole, I changed my mind because I wanted… I wanted to go with you.’ Suddenly brave, now that the terrifying hurdle of starting was behind her, she squared her shoulders and looked Eunbi directly in the eyes. From above for once, because of the heels, but she would have time to consider the implications of a fabricated height difference later. This was important and she was committed. ‘I’m here for you. Because I like you, really really like you and I don’t give a rat’s ass where we go or what we do. As long as you agree to go with me I would go anywhere. And I want you to know I’m not just saying that so I figured doing something so incredibly out of my comfort zone and frankly terrifying was as good an example as I would get. So, yeah. I would hate to be there on my own. But with you, it would be the best night of my life.’
Well, it was safe to say no one was laughing now. Eunbi looked a little stricken, even. Sana would admit, she was feeling quite smug. In the months they’d danced around each other, Eunbi had always been the composed one, the flirty one, the one with the upper hand and the solutions. She always seemed to know all the steps to their dance and graciously look past Sana’s clumsy blunders and flushed cheeks. So this, for once, was immensely satisfying. Who knew all it took to shake the great Jung Eunbi was stating some blatantly obvious truth. Not too bad for a part-time college student with two jobs.
‘Oh……. I, um. I s-see.’ Oh, this was too good, she was blushing! A real life Jung Eunbi blush. Perhaps she should’ve let Jihyo come and watch like she wanted, then maybe she could’ve gotten a picture. Not that there was a chance in hell she’d ever forget the peachy rosiness of those adorable round cheeks. Maybe this would turn out to be a good idea after all.
Sana suddenly realised they’d spent a good ten minutes just standing in the hallway and cleared her throat.
‘Can I come in? If you don’t mind?’
‘Oh, shit, yeah, god, I’m sorry I didn’t even realise I had you standing out there like a weirdo, that’s so rude of me I’m so sorry, I was just so shocked to see you and then you looked so good I kind of lost the plot for a minute there, sorry, uh, yes.’ She was rambling. Actual Jung Eunbi, socialite extraordinaire, high society icon, three-time Vogue cover girl Jung Eunbi, actually rambling. Because of Sana. No one would even believe her if she told them, but she was still absolutely going to tell every single person she met from here until her last breath on this earth. Rambling! ‘Here, just stand over there for a bit while I, uh, clean out this mess. I’m really so sorry, my mom had these dresses shipped in from god knows where because some so-and-so french men would be there tonight and his sister’s husband’s cousin’s brother-in-law is Coco Channel’s something or other so we have to orchestrate some casual coincidence.’
Eunbi was running around, frantically tossing clothing into messy piles and carelessly stuffing it all into random bags like it didn’t cost more than every house Sana has ever lived in put together. It was adorable, absolutely adorable. She kept rambling (rambling!) as she went, tripped over her complimentary hotel slipper at one point even, rambled some more about that, and it was all Sana could do to stand perfectly still in her assigned corner (by the solid gold fireplace mantle and dear god how is this a hotel room) and not propose on the spot. She thought she was a goner before when Eunbi was all poised smiles and calculated coy looks under eyelashes but this? This was unprecedented. Completely unchartered territory of appeal. She was so in love in this moment she could barely see straight. Luckily, it seemed to take her exactly as much time to get over her sudden realisation of life changing adoration as it did Eunbi to get her rambling done with and deem the room organised.
Which meant, they were now both standing there, staring at each other expectantly as if the other one had all the answers. Whoever did have them did not seem eager to come forward, however. Then Sana vaguely remembered this was her plan and she had steps and checkpoints to tick off and Eunbi technically still hadn’t answered her invitation. Crap, Eunbi hadn’t answered her invitation. Suddenly she was nervous all over again. It’s all well and good to make the love of your life break her composure but that didn’t actually mean anything and soul-crushing rejection was still on the table.
She cleared her throat.
‘Well?’
Eunbi blinked. A little confused, extremely adorable. God damn it.
‘Well what?’
The dress tugging was back with a vengeance. She forced herself to clasp her hands together behind her back to stop from messing with it even if it did make her feel like a chastised elementary student. She really couldn’t afford to ruin this dress.
‘Well. Will you come to the, uh, thing with me?’
Eunbi blinked one more time and suddenly cool and composed fairy tale princess Jung was back. A slow smile spread across her face like the sunrise and she plopped gracefully into the chair behind her. (Could you even call that thing a chair with its golden armrests carved into dancing cherubs and its rich velvet cushions? A throne perhaps.) She simply sat there, openly staring at Sana for a moment with that same soft smile. If Sana weren’t busy shitting herself she might have even called it admiring. She knew better than to ask her question again, though, Eunbi always gave an answer in her own time and it was usually more than worth the wait. She could only hope this case would be no different, despite how much bigger the question seemed than their usual flirty but vague interactions. She licked her lips nervously.
Eunbi’s smile got just a tiny impossible bit fonder as she started speaking.
‘I would love nothing more.’ Surely, her heart was out of her chest and halfway to China by now. ‘I don’t think anyone’s ever done something so… romantic for me before. You bought that entire outfit just for this, didn’t you? That’s why you’re so nervous?’ Sana could only nod, not trusting her brain to produce even a word of sense. ‘Oh, sweetheart, trust me. There is nothing to be nervous about. I’m certain no one has ever looked this good before in recorded human history.’ She was smirking now, the little demon. ‘Why are you just standing there anyway, come over here.’
Making her way over, Sana mumbled ‘Well you told me to, I didn’t wanna break anything or sit on some ten million dollar glove or something.’
Eunbi giggled. The butterflies in Sana’s stomach suddenly remembered they were in the Cirque du Soleil.
‘Sana, you could trash this entire room and all I’d care about is if you broke a nail.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yeah.’ Slowly, glacially, nerve-wrackingly slowly, Eunbi reached over and slid her hand under Sana’s palm and gently arranged each of her tiny fingers inbetween Sana’s trembling ones until their hands were fully slotted together and she could give her a slight squeeze to calm her nerves. It was lovely but also so exhilarating, Sana was starting to worry she’d burst an aneurism. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to be honest with you the way you were with me just now,’ she whispered.
Sana was dead. She was dead and she was in heaven and heaven was just a person’s wildest fantasies on loop. There was no other explanation. It certainly couldn’t be that her and Jihyo’s drunken three am sob fest about their tragic love lives had birthed a silly plan to spend all the money she had and a lot more she didn’t have just to knock on the door of the prettiest girl in the country and shoot her shot like it was nothing and then that plan had actually worked. That certainly made less sense than a premature death and a lesbian dream afterlife. Surely.
‘Oh.’
Apparently, that was all Sana had to say at this time. Although, if Eunbi didn’t mind, neither did she. And judging by the twinkle in her eye (so much better than the suppressed laughter one by the way, clearly a charting of the Eunbi Twinkles was in order. Hot Debut at number one - Happy fond twinkle) and the big sloppy kisses she promptly deposited on each of her cheeks, her forehead, her nose (three times) and finally her massive grin, Eunbi most deffinitely did not mind. This was fine. They could communicate in gobsmacked monosyllables forever, if need be. Sana was more than fine with that.