Work Text:
“Are you kidding?” Joohyun exclaimed, frantically sweeping at the shirt, “this is Valentino for fuck’s sake!”
Seulgi blinked, a hint of her distaste for rich people coloring her voice, “How do you even afford that?”
“It’s second hand obviously!” Joohyun whined, “Now, can we get back to the problem at hand?”
“I’m really sorry, but why are you even wearing luxury brands during art class?”
“I’m gay I can’t help wearing incredibly impractical clothes in a dangerous working environment. And nothing ever happened before!”, Joohyun narrowed her eyes, “maybe if you watched your paints instead of lecturing me.”
Seulgi held up her hands, “Please don’t pull an Angie on me. I will pay for the cleaning of your unnecessarily expensive art lab clothes.”
“Please don’t what? Is this about that game again?”
“If by that game you mean the single third best game in existence after Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, then yes, absolutely.”
Joohyun furrowed her eyebrows. “Art students… I will never understand.”
“Well maybe if you didn’t take art only as an elective class you would wear old, throwaway clothes like the rest of us,” Seulgi scoffed.
Joohyun huffed. “Not like that’s gonna change anything now. I just hope the paint can be washed out.. or I might seriously cry.”
And to think that the day had started out so good… Joohyun had put on her white Valentino shirt with the black bow, styled her hair back in a ponytail and put on the new red lipstick she had bought the day before. Before leaving the dorms, she had put the Pride and Prejudice edition she had been reading back on her bookshelf and called goodbye to her roommate Wendy.
On the way to the art labs, located outside of the other campus buildings, she had made a stop at the coffee shop Sooyoung worked at to get her daily dose of sweet caramel caffeine. Humming to Feel Special playing over her earbuds, she had felt ready to face the cute art student she had been partnered up with.
“Then I’ll give you back the money you spent on the shirt,” Seulgi answered softly, “I know you probably won’t be able to replace it but… let’s just go and see if the Dry Cleaner around the block is open right now.”
As she began packing up her utensils, Joohyun called out, “Wait! What about the project? We have to hand it in tomorrow!”
“We still have the whole day left,” Seulgi replied easily, closing her brush case, “and I basically have everything we need in my room anyways, we can go there after checking out the Dry Cleaner.”
It was probably smart to get the stains checked out as soon as possible but Joohyun still knew next to nothing about art and she really needed a good grade for this project… She was startled out of her thoughts as Seulgi reached for her hand and pulled her along. “C’mon, I don’t want to make you cry. We can worry about our art piece later.”
“Okay,” Joohyun nodded hesitantly, “let’s go.”
The lady at the Dry Cleaner had been very kind and understanding, worrying her lip when she realized that Joohyun didn’t have a shirt to change into while she inspected the stains. Seulgi had been quick to protest and pull off the jacket she had thrown over before leaving the art lab and offer it to Joohyun, remarking that it was the least she could do.
Now that they were sitting next to each other on the subway, Seulgi couldn’t help but feel a rush of warmth as she observed Joohyun, head leaning against the window and clad in her varsity jacket.
“I’m sorry that I messed up your time schedule,” Joohyun said quietly.
“Don’t worry about it,” Seulgi laughed, “my only other appointment today is finally finishing chapter 4 of danganronpa 3. Besides, I can imagine worse things than showing a pretty girl my dorm room.” She lightly nudged her, grinning.
Joohyun rolled her eyes, but had a fond smile on her lips “Do you always flirt with the girls you spill paint on?”
“Nah, only the cute ones with expensive shirts,” she replied cheekily.
“Is this your attempt at making me forget that we still have an art project to finish?” Joohyun asked, laughing.
“Don’t worry about that. It’ll be super easy, I promise. Professor Song is always really vague with her prompts and accepts almost every submission,” her gaze found Joohyun’s, “I mean ‘eternal beauty’, really? If all goes wrong we’ll just submit a photo of you.”
“Ah, why would you say that? Seriously..” Joohyun whined but Seulgi clearly noted her ears turning a shade of pink. Pleased but also a bit shocked at her own confidence, Seulgi cleared her throat. Thankfully, before her own honesty could embarrass her, the announcer spelled out the letters of their stop.
With wide-eyes, Joohyun took in the room in front of her. There just was something so precious about getting to see the living space of someone for the first time. It was easy to make out Seulgi’s side of the room – various sketches and watercolor drawings taped on the wall above her bed, a cup full of brushes sitting on her nightstand, several video games that Joohyun had never heard of before next to a stack of journals on the drawer next to her bed.
The room was almost perfectly neat, except for a laptop and folders carelessly thrown on Seulgi’s bed and a pile of clothes still lying on her roommate’s desk. There were magazine cutouts on the wall opposite Seulgi’s and picture frames next to perfume bottles on her roommate’s drawer.
Joohyun briefly glanced at the pictures as she moved over to Seulgi’s desk only to stop short at one particular photo.
“Wait… Your roommate is Kim Yerim?” she asked, “Like Fashion Major Kim Yerim? Park Sooyoung’s girlfriend Kim Yerim?”
“Yes..?”, Seulgi answered bewildered, “do you know her?”
“Do I know her?” Joohyun laughed, “Oh, I know her, alright. I can’t believe she never properly introduced me to her roommate. I’m never taking a freshman under my wings again.”
Seulgi giggled “So, you’re the senior she talked about.”
“What? Hopefully only good things,” Joohyun huffed.
“She talked a lot about how Irene and Wendy helped her with her confession to Sooyoung.”
“Well, someone had to help out,” Joohyun shrugged, “the two of them were hopeless. Cute but hopeless.”
“So what’s the Irene thing about?” Seulgi asked, laughing.
“Oh, that’s a long story...”
It was about 11 pm, as Seulgi confirmed after looking up from the painting she had been bent over for the last hours. The easy chatter she had been keeping up with Joohyun had slowly fizzled out and they had instead taken charge of the Spotify playlist to promote their music recommendations. Despite not talking, the atmosphere had been very comfortable as they lay down on the carpet to start drawing on the canvas before them – the only sound the brushing against the canvas and the music quietly playing in the background.
But now, as Seulgi looked over at Joohyun she noticed that the girl kept yawning and blinking hard in the struggle to keep her eyes open.
“Hey,” she said quietly, smiling, “how about we take a short refreshment break? I’m sure we can find something to eat.”
Joohyun stretched her stiff joints, “Yeah, I think that’s a good idea,” she stopped to yawn again, “Sorry again for keeping you so late.”
Seulgi shook her head, “I’m glad I could spend so much time with you.”
“You’re just saying that so I don’t feel bad,” Joohyun complained.
“No, not all,” Seulgi smiled fondly, “I really like you, Joohyun. I asked Professor Song to be partnered up with you despite the fact that you’re not an art major.”
A silent ‘oh’ left Joohyun’s mouth.
Suddenly feeling her words catch up to her, Seulgi could feel her face heating up. Why did her brain-to-mouth filter always have to fail around her crush?
“I’m sorry- You probably don’t want to hear this- Why am I so embarrassing myself in front of my crush-” she stammered.
Before she could any other words out, Joohyun closed the short distance between them and leaned her forehead against Seulgi’s.
“Luckily,” she breathed against her lips, “I really like you too, Kang Seulgi.” Before tilting her head and pressing their lips together.
Seulgi froze for a second before eagerly responding to the kiss, wrapping her arms around Joohyun’s neck. Joohyun sighed into the kiss – to think that it was so easy to feel pure bliss spread through her body, all the stress of the day melting away.
She shortly pulled away to say “I’m so glad it’s you, Seulgi. Imagine if someone else had spilled paint on my shirt. It wouldn’t have ended this happily.”
Seulgi laughed, her breath tickling against Joohyun’s cheeks, “I’m glad too. Can we go back to kissing now?”
Joohyun didn’t need to be asked twice.