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Wendy’s not much of a drinker. She’s not one for big parties in general, but that goes double when Seulgi isn’t around. Normally, Seulgi’s the one dragging Wendy out to events– movie nights, shopping trips, or noisy house parties with dozens of people Wendy doesn’t know – but this one was all Wendy’s fault. For once. She was on friendly enough terms with Sejeong that she’d accepted an invite to her 18th birthday for the both of them, before bothering to check if Seulgi was available.
And, of course, she wasn’t. Sejeong’s party just happened to take place the night Seulgi had an overnight soccer game two hours away. Because the universe likes to conspire against Wendy and make all her attempts at socialization as awkward as possible.
So now she has to stand all by herself in front of Sejeong’s door on a Friday night. Wendy clenches her fist nervously, and cautiously begins to knock on the front door. She barely makes a sound, but decides to strengthen her knocks once she realizes how cold it is outside. Wendy had already spent some time in the cold by stalling in the driveway, re-coaching herself on how to socialize at big parties without Seulgi’s presence acting as a life preserver. Maybe she just couldn’t do this without Seulgi.
Maybe she just really missed Seulgi.
After some time, the door opens, and Wendy is welcomed in by the comforting warmth of the house and Sejeong’s friendly smile. Wendy hopes her grin back is just as enthusiastic, and not at all awkward.
She doesn’t know Sejeong super well, but she’s always been sweet and funny, and they stop to chat when they see each other in the halls. Already, she’s pressing a solo cup into Wendy’s hand and pointing out people hanging out in the living room – listing off any mutual friends or classmates Wendy might know. There are crowds of people coming in and out, but Wendy’s eyes scan the horizon looking for someone she knows won’t be there.
They make their way to the kitchen where some actually familiar faces are milling around. With a look of uncertainty plastered on her face, Wendy takes a sip from her red plastic cup and — fuck, that burns. Not that she’d know a good rum and coke, but she didn’t think it’d make her feel so sticky… and horrible.
As Sejeong continues to lead Wendy past the kitchen island where the impromptu bar has been set up, Sejeong asks her, “Is Seulgi coming by later?”
Wendy frowns but covers it behind another sip. “Seulgi… is at a soccer game.”
Sejeong smiles sympathetically, and Wendy shifts uncomfortably at the look of pity. Do people really think the two of them can’t possibly function apart?
“That’s too bad, I would have loved for her to come too. I know you two are really a package deal. But, come on – we’re trying to get a game of King’s Cup going,” Sejeong says as she leads them into another room.
Wendy is far too sober, and inexperienced, to understand the appeal of drinking games. She’s not even sure she understands the mechanics of King’s Cup. But she’s at a party and this is apparently what teenagers at parties do, so she settles into the couch and throws a quick glance at her phone. She swears she might have received a text message earlier, but it might have just been a hopeful wish for a phantom buzz. Seulgi’s probably too busy to text now anyways. Knowing Seulgi, she’s busy chattering away with her teammates and opponents and maybe even talking to some new pretty girl. Who knows what Seulgi could be doing right now. Wendy certainly doesn’t.
She throws a few greetings to her peers and decides to play just a few rounds, at least, before bowing out. It’s close to 11pm by now, and Wendy did plan to unwind by watching youtube covers at some point tonight.
The game ends up going by quicker than she thought. She soon realizes that she’s actually pretty good at this. The rounds pass and her cup refills and she nurses her sloppy drink. She joins the table in some good-natured heckling whenever someone draws a 3, or fucks up a waterfall.
All in all, no big awkward social horrors so far. Wendy’s actually feeling pretty good. Who says she needs Seulgi to have a fun time? Though, she’s sure it’d be even more fun if Seulgi were here.
Then suddenly, Irene draws a Jack.
Everyone except her and Wendy groans .
“We may as well bottom out now,” Yeri grumbles.“Who’s sober enough to bring the tequila over here?”
“I am.” Joy starts to get up before letting out a string of drunken giggles.
“Bullshit!” Yeri yanks her back down, spilling her drink and snickering.
“I don’t get it?” Wendy turns to Sejeong. She can feel her own eyebrows flexing a mess as Irene grins obnoxiously across the table.
Sejeong just shrugs, looking amused. “Irene’s really, really good at never-have-I-ever. Always seems to know exactly what will knock everyone down to zero.”
“That’s because Irene just can’t bear to lose,” sighs Joy.
“Hey, are you sure these are the rules?” Yeri imitates Irene’s squeaky-bossy lilt, and Joy stuffs her hand over her mouth and blows a raspberry. They both knock shoulders as they lean into each other, snickering.
“Looks like you two won't be in the running much longer, anyway,” Irene muses in that I’m about to win sort of way. She’s just so cocky. And pretty enough to get away with it too. Wendy has never had many conversations with Irene, with her being an upperclassman and all. But she’s heard the passing rumors that when Irene plays games, any games, she plays to win. No matter who she destroys in her warpath.
“House rules say I get all the asks?” Irene raises her eyebrows at Sejeong, who just grins in answer. “So first… let’s see…” She taps a fingertip to her needly chin and lifts up one of her perfect eyebrows.
The pause stretches onward. Wendy drums her fingers on the table while Yeri groans.
“And they were never heard from again,” Joy sighs, woebegone. “They all died of old age, waiting for one drunk chick to pick a fucking ask.”
Yeri splutters her drink and wobbles in her seat, leaning back into Joy’s shoulder and snorting.
“You two are both gone ,” Sejeong sighs. She’s still grinning, though. Apparently, this is their party par for the course.
“I know you’re both drunk when you laugh at something unfunny as that.” Irene’s tapping a finger against her lips, now, like some weird school teacher scolding her students. “It is an inspiration, though. Never have I ever…”
They all lean in.
“… kissed someone while drunk.”
The entire table groans . Joy and Yeri make a dramatic show of putting one finger down along with the other handful of people Wendy doesn’t know.
Everyone except for Irene and Wendy.
Joy is sulking so intensely that her chin is propped on the table, making her voice oddly choppy when she grumbles, “Wan-puppy, you’re supposed to put a finger down.”
She glances around again – literally everyone else but Irene has four fingers up. She adds, muttering, “And… well uh, I haven’t.”
Yeri’s jaw drops as Irene gives a bemused “Really?” and Joy springs precariously to her feet. She jabs a pointed finger at the space ten inches from Irene and bellows, “OOOH, TAKE THAT, IRENE!”
Irene’s eyes roll. “That doesn’t negatively affect me at all. Joy, are you too drunk to remember how this game works?”
It doesn’t seem to matter to Joy. She settles sloppily back into her seat (almost sitting in Yeri’s lap, first), looking at all of them like she’s somehow duped Irene and won the game. “Sure I do. Rule number one: Irene fuckin’ eats it.”
“For real though,” Yeri’s eyes are unfocused as she struggles to give Wendy a suspicious look. “You’ve honestly never kissed someone after a few drinks?”
Wendy feels her shoulders hike up protectively. “No?”
“No, you’re not sure?”
“No, I haven’t done it.”
“Wow.” Yeri sounds oddly impressed. She brings her drink back up, almost missing her mouth. “Didn’t think there could be two of you.”
“Two of what?” Wendy’s ears burn. She nurses another sip of her too-sweet drink, just for something to do, so she doesn’t feel so awkward. “I-I’ve kissed before just not at a party.”
Joy giggles and her crescent eyes are filled with mirth. “Does Seulgi know that?”
Huh?
“Well anyways, Irene has never properly let loose at a party either,” Yeri has her elbows propped up on the table as she leans in towards Wendy. A smile is spreading – no, snaking across her face in a sneaky, Cheshire cat grin. Shit. This means trouble. “So you two should totally kiss each other.“
They both yelp. “What?! ” as rum and coke sloshes down Wendy’s front and Irene lets an rare flustered expression flush over her face.
“HAH! It’ll be hot!” Joy half-chortles, half-coos. “Just get it out of your systems! You two have nothing to lose!”
Yeri perks up. “Yeah, it’ll be totally hot! Watching two nerds mack on each other!”
They collapse into snorts and laughter once again, dealing each other shoulder-thumps so loud that Wendy can almost feel the buzz in her ribs.
“ Whaaat. ” Wendy narrows her eyes at the two across the table. “You guys are completely out of it.”
Wendy turns to Sejeong and tosses up her free hand in a ‘Can you believe this?’ kind of way, but Sejeong’s grinning, too. She’s been grinning all night, really… at least the birthday girl’s having a good time. She’s a little pink in the cheeks, and it looks good on her.
“Welllll…” Sejeong seems to be weighing her words carefully. But then she must figure ‘fuck it’ because she just repeats exactly what Yeri and Joy have said: “Maybe you two should get it out of your systems? Try something new?”
Wendy tries not to let the sense of betrayal get the better of her as Yeri and Joy both light up in glee and start up a chant (“Kiss-the-nerd, KISS-THE-NERD–”) as they stumble to their feet. The two cackle drunkenly, trying to rearrange and shuffle people around so Wendy and Irene are closer together on the kitchen bench.
Wendy shrugs them off – she can do it herself, thanks very much – even if she comes in a little rough on the landing. Slams the shit out of her knee on the table, actually. Fuck. Why is it always so hard to tell how drunk you are until you try moving?
“You guys are completely fucked up,” she grumbles again, reaching down to rub her knee.
Irene has been successfully corralled into position, too, almost hip-to-hip with her. Her leg brushes against Wendy’s hand as she massages her banged knee, so Wendy jerks back upright to level her with an adequate glare as everyone in the room hoots their approval. Or are they saying something that’s just similar to hoots?
Fuck. Sounds sound weird drunk.
Irene’s…extremely pretty. Way too pretty actually. Like ‘no one should look like that in real life’ pretty. She has such pretty eyes, and her hair’s such a lush, silky texture always kept neat. Her lips are full, and such a pretty pink. They’re always sort of lopsided when she grins, and something about that is unfairly charming.
And Wendy must be staring a bit too obviously because Irene’s cheeks flush even more, and she does this eyebrow wiggle that makes Wendy’s heart hammer loudly. At least Irene seems to be having fun.
“You’re taking this way too well,” Wendy mumbles. As if she’s lamenting in front of Irene about bombing a difficult math test, instead of worrying about drunkenly kissing her in front of all their classmates.
Irene half-shrugs. Her lopsided grin’s a little nervous. “Birthday girl’s orders?”
She looks buzzed; Wendy knows she looks the same. When Irene brushes a glance down at Wendy’s lips it comes with an almost physical register – like she’s instead traced them with the pad of her thumb – and Wendy’s belly rolls in a way it absolutely should not be doing.
God, just. Fuck it.
She throws back the rest of her shitty, cheap rum and coke concoction, grumbling – “Please don’t hate me for this tomorrow” – before she leans in: head heavy, and spinning, and warm….
…
“… and… yeah.” She stuffs the rest of her pepero stick in her mouth with a crunch.
Silence stretches between them on the bedroom floor.
Seulgi stares.
Wendy stares back.
Seulgi glares. “‘’And yeah’ ?”
“Yeah.” Wendy reaches for another chocolate-covered pepero stick from the box they’re sharing. “It was pretty boring, honestl – Seulgi, c’mon –”
Seulgi yanks the box even farther out of reach. She’s caught between glaring daggers and taking up her most winning, persuasive pout. “Please! Wendy, finish the story!”
“We got a little drunk on Friday and kissed. Once. That’s literally it.” Wendy dodges around her, successfully wrestling a handful of peperos out of the box. She plugs a few into her scowl and gnaws on them, flopping to the carpet on her side. Just to emphasize exactly how not-interesting the whole thing is, she even props herself up with an elbow and rests her head in her palm. “It was a thousand percent boring.”
“Wendy.”
“Boring.”
“ Wendy.”
“It was the most boring thing you could possibly think of.”
“You only overemphasize when you’re trying to hide something, Wendy. ” Seulgi flops onto her belly in front of Wendy, nearly coming nose-to-nose with her. (Wendy tries not to flinch at the close proximity.) “If it really was so boring, Wan-puppy, then why are you blushing? ”
She rolls her eyes so hard they might bruise. “I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned that part.” Wendy stuffs her remaining pepero sticks into her mouth and flattens onto her back, using her hands as a pillow – super duper nonchalant. She’s totally chill about this whole situation. Absolutely, unbelievably, totally chill about the whole situation.
“Can you at least resist reusing joy’s weird nicknames for me?”
“Hey, Joy stole that one from me .”
That means Seulgi has been using weird nicknames without Wendy there to defend herself. Great.
“Wendy. Wendy, you’re blushing. You’re blushing, Wendy.” Seulgi army crawls closer to Wendy and begins to poke at her squishy cheeks. She looms over, scrutinizing – maybe trying to look this casual was a mistake – so Wendy tries hard to ignore her as she goes on. “I can’t leave you alone for a single night because the ladies just wanna crawl all over you and then when I get back you blush about it! ”
Wendy splutters. “You’re making this a weird thing!”
Shit. She’d cracked. Wendy eyes her from the floor, wary, as Seulgi grins in triumph and hovers even closer over Wendy.
“Wendy.”
“What.”
“ Wendy.”
“What, Seulgi!”
“Tell me what the kiss was like.”
Wendy buries her palms over her face, muffling her groan. “Oh, my god.” The only reason she doesn’t sink into the floor is because she’s already lying flat. But if the earth could swallow her whole right now, she wouldn’t be opposed to it.
“Waaaaaaaaaaannie –” Seulgi whines as she settles next to her on the floor. It puts them close enough for their hips and shoulders to knock. Cuddling, practically. “You have to tellllllllll –”
Wendy rubs at her face – willing her blush to quiet down. If only she could forget all this and enjoy Seulgi’s warmth pressed against her. Seulgi smells familiar, and comforting. And Wendy really missed her during her away game! Now if they could just change the subject. “You’re making this way weirder than it has any right to be.”
“It’s not, though!” Seulgi leans away just long enough to grab at the remaining box of pepero. Nearly spills it. She plucks out a few, and hands one to Wendy as well.
“Kissing at parties is totally normal. It’s only as weird as you make it.”
“You’ve done a lot of kissing at parties, huh.”
Seulgi rolls onto her front so they can lock eyes. Her look is pure mischief. She doesn’t answer right away – just smiles happily with a goofy grin and pretty crescent eyes. “I could tell you about one, if you tell me ‘bout yours~”
Something in Wendy’s stomach twists, hot. Unpleasant. It’s not like she was unaware of Seulgi’s popularity with, well, people of any gender. But it’s also something Wendy actively tried not to think about.
“Yeah, well. Feel free to relive one of those.”
Seulgi groans at the failure, and brings her hand to the floor with a dramatic thump .
“Really, Wendy, It’s not so weird! People party-kiss all the time .” She sounds entirely too cheerful around her mouthful of chocolate pepero. After chewing a bit more, Seulgi swallows – licks the corner of her mouth – and taps another pepero stick against her lips as she cranes her head back to look up at the ceiling.
… uh oh. She looks suddenly… contemplative.
Wendy does not like it.
“I mean, we’ve done it before –” she starts, and Wendy’s belly does some sort of clenching feeling and she turns onto her side away from Seulgi before she’s even finished her thought: “We could kiss right now, so you feel less weird about it –”
“Yeah, I’m ignoring you for the rest of the night.”
Undeterred, Seulgi crawls closer. “Think about how often we shared food! Those are basically indirect kisses!” Seulgi does fake kissy noises in order to annoy her. Ugh.
“Still ignoring you.”
“Seriously, it’s nothing we haven’t done before!”
“Okay, whatever, you big goofy bear.”
Seulgi lets out the biggest groan. “And what do you have against bears! This is animal cruelty!”
Wendy looks at her exasperated. “How in the world could this be considered animal cruelty.”
“Because I’m not getting what I want!” Seulgi says in a cheeky voice. And Wendy begins to elbow her with as much strength as she can muster.
Seulgi dodges an elbow, smirking. “For real, Wendy, we’ve kissed once or twice for practice . It’s the same thing. Why are you so squeamish over just telling me about a kiss?”
Fine. Maybe if Wendy just gave her one obvious detail, she’d drop it.
“It was… wet. Kinda soft.”
“So she used her tongue?”
“Well, yeah. Duh.” She feels her face heating. “We weren’t, like, frenching, but… yeah.”
“If there’s a tongue involved, it’s frenching.” Seulgi says sternly. “That’s just the basic rules of kissing.”
“It’s not! Frenching is tongue-on-tongue. This was like… tongue-on-lips.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Don’t be stupid. It feels completely different.”
“What are you, some kind of makeout master now?”
“Oh, whatever. You’ve probably kissed way more than I have,” she grumbles. Popular soccer team captain. It only made sense, right?
“Sorry, mom. ”
“Knew you were into that weird shit. Ow.”
Seulgi jabs again with a pepero stick, successfully stuffing it into Wendy’s mouth this time. And, Wendy spits it right back onto her face without a moment's hesitation.
“H-hey!” She tries to wipe her cheek off on Wendy’s shirt. “Don’t waste food , Wendy!”
“You’re a waste. Of oxygen.”
“You’ve wasted an endless amount of oxygen not telling me about this kiss. Remember when we used to share chopsticks? Yet another kiss. And we’ve tried out like, actual, for real kissing on each other.“ Seulgi widens her eyes into dinner plates at the revelation. “We practically live in perpetual makeouts!”
“We were kids when we did that.” Sort of. Wendy bites the inside of her cheek. Technically it was only a couple years since ‘experimenting,’ but still. “And it’s weird because I kissed, like, one of the prettiest girls in school. So if I get all embarrassed about it, people will think it was some big ploy to get Miss popular Bae Irene to kiss me,” she pauses to grimace, “but we were all a little drunk and it happened anyway, and it – it’s, like… “
Seulgi blinks up at her when she trails off. “And it’s?”
Wendy’s mouth opens. Closes.
“What,” Seulgi laughs, “It’s not like that was your only kiss besides me, right?”
Halfway through the sentence her face tightens, like she knows it’s the wrong thing to say.
Too late.
“Would you just leave me alone already?” Wendy mutters. She curls up on her side. “For once, Seulgi, just drop it. Please. ”
Of course loveable teddy bear Kang Seulgi wouldn’t get it. Wendy pretends to be digging around on her phone but really she’s keeping her eyes from getting hot and itchy. Her stomach roils.
She can hear Seulgi shifting around behind her – preparing to say something snappy – but Seulgi doesn’t say anything. She just settles herself in a comfortable curl behind Wendy. Cuddles up so their knees notch together, spooned. There’s pressure and warmth on Wendy’s waist as Seulgi's arm wraps around, and for a moment she thinks about shrugging it off. It should feel nice, but Wendy resists relaxing into the hold.
(It kind of feels nice anyway.)
They’re quiet for a moment. Then Seulgi asks, low, ”Am I making you feel weird?”
Wendy scoffs. ”Have you been listening to anything I said in the past ten minutes?”
”But like… am I upsetting you?”
“… no.” Wendy licks her lips. “It’s not you.”
“But you’re upset?”
Wendy doesn’t say anything.
Seulgi’s arm around her tightens. Wendy feels small and safe in Seulgi’s arms. It feels nice. But, a new kind of iron slips into Seulgi’s voice, red-sounding. “Did she do anything bad?”
“Huh?” Wendy almost turns, but shakes her head instead. Her chin knocks against the floor a bit. “No, nothing… nothing like that.”
“Wasn’t pushy? Didn’t bite or yank, or anything? Or pick on you?”
“No.” She can feel the buzz from Seulgi's chest against her back when she talks. It’s… distracting. “It was like…a little messy, but she didn’t chew my face off, or… whatever. Or try to pull my hair out.” Her lips twist at the thought. “Or shit-talk me, that I know of.”
A sigh: it spills warmth along the back of Wendy’s neck. She can smell the chocolate from the pepero.
“Good.” Seulgi relaxes a little. She nuzzles deeper against her shoulder, making a goofy humming noise. She really is just a cuddly teddy bear.
She grins, hidden.
“Sorry.” Seulgi’s voice is muffled by the cloth of Wendy’s shirt. “Didn’t mean to give you shit about it.”
Wendy makes an agreeing sound.
“I like playing around, but like…” Her voice softens. Wendy can feel her jaw move as her mouth opens; closes; tries again. “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
Oh, well – Wendy starts to shift around. “Well, like I said, you aren’t really… what…”
Oh.
It occurs to Wendy that Seulgi feels protective. Of her. That right now, she’s trying to figure out if she needs to kick the shit out of anyone – hell, she’s that way most of the time. She’s always the one steering Wendy through parties like her personal minesweeper, maneuvering her around and away (and sometimes into ) trouble, holding her close whenever she’s uncomfortable. Now that she thinks about it, Wendy can’t even count the times she’s looked up from her phone or a round of Smash with strangers, only to find Seulgi studying her from a conversation across the room – checking up on her.
It occurs to her that Seulgi feels guilty that she hadn’t been there.
Something in her chest warms. Tightens, too.
“… ot?”
“Huh?”
She feels Seulgi sit up a bit, angling to get a look at her face, so Wendy tugs her back down. “Nnn, don’t – I’m all comfy.”
“You zoned out.”
Oh. “Yeah… ‘cause I’m comfy.”
It’s true. Shit. This feels really good. Even on the floor, covered with lint and cookie crumbs and Seulgi’s laundry, she feels cozy. Feels safe.
Seulgi settles back down. Secures her arm around her waist. They lie there, sleepy and quiet. Wendy knows she shouldn’t doze off without brushing her teeth first, though, so she just sort of… lists. Makes a measure of Seulgi's breathing, feels it fall into pace with her own. Brings her hand, curled by her chest, a little closer to her face – traces an idle shape over her own lips.
“She was nice about it,” Wendy begins to murmur. It doesn’t break the silence so much as fold it away from the two of them. “Like… gentle. She was probably just as weirded out as I was.” She wets her lips, as the memory brings back a watered down version of the nerves. “We were both drunk and it still… felt weird.”
Seulgi doesn’t say anything. Just nods a little to show she’s listening.
“I thought it would be just a really short one so I actually held my breath, at first.” Her throat feels thick with sleepiness. She tries to clear it as she searches for the words stuck in her throat. “Seemed like if I held my breath it wouldn’t count. Or count less. Something. You know? Five-second rule.”
Seulgi laughs. “That’s a food rule, Wannie”.
Seulgi’s laugh is so soft. Wendy thinks she has a really, really nice laugh. It might be the gentlest sound she’s ever heard.
“But she did everything so slow it actually took a lot longer. I got light-headed from holding my breath and made this horrible, I don’t know, snorting sound? Just trying to breathe. It was weird. I’m not sure kissing should be that weird.” She makes a more dignified version of the noise and wrinkles her nose.
All of this comes out in this… hazy, relaxed mumble. The kiss already happened; she was already embarrassed; people were probably going to talk about it at school next week. Nothing to be done about that now. So when she’s here curled with Seulgi on the floor, here – wrapped warm, Seulgi's breath brushing the back of her neck – all of those things seem very small. Most things do.
But Wendy has a talent for sweating the small stuff. She sighs, then turns her head to groan into the floor. ”God, school’s gonna be sooo awkward tomorrow.”
Seulgi doesn’t take her arm from Wendy’s waist but she does start wiggling. “I’m gonna turn you over,” she says, tugging her flat with a palm on her shoulder. Wendy lets her. That’s how she knows the serious mood has well and truly passed: Seulgi wants to look her in the face again. ”Listen, Wannie, I wouldn’t stress –” She settles her chin on the notch between Wendy’s chest and shoulder. “I don’t think there’s anyone in our year who hasn’t gotten drunk and frenched someone at a party.”
Wendy puffs a laugh, too relaxed for a proper scoff. “Seulgi, we didn’t French. ”
She’s warm, and kind of giddy, and way too comfortable looking into the face mere inches from hers.
Seulgi always looks like a sleepy bear. But right now she seems… wary, inches away from Wendy, and… a little excited.
“Show me,” Seulgi murmurs. The sound is barely audible.
A beat.
Then Wendy wiggles forward before she can talk herself out of it.
Their noses bump – Seulgi giggles – before their lips even touch, and once they do, Wendy immediately registers how familiar this all feels. A memory from her childhood neatly tucked away in her brain, now being pushed to the forefront. And slowly, the two of them lean in even closer.
Her eyes flicker open before she can stop them to see Seulgi's big goobery brown staring at her.
Wendy jerks back. “Wh – what? ” Self-consciousness pours, tacky-warm and nagging. “You’re supposed to close your eyes!”
Seulgi looks ready to laugh, but her cheeks are flushed pink. “And you’re supposed to ask! ”
“You just spent like twenty minutes telling me all the reasons we should kiss! And you just said ‘show me’!” Wendy’s voice cracks along the edges. “That was you asking me! ”
“But I wasn’t ready!” Seulgi is outright giggling now – her chin bobs, presses into the meat of her shoulder as her arm tightens around Wendy’s waist. “You have to give a signal, Wendy!”
“Oh my god. Okay.”
“Okay, okay! Do-over.”
“What?”
“Do-over!” Obnoxious, squeaky smooch noises.
“Holy shit,” she grouses, shifting closer again, “You’re the worst.”
…
It’s nothing they haven’t done before. It’s not.
It’s nothing we haven’t done before. Seulgi ricochets the thought around her head, trying to cool her doubled blood pressure.
Maybe she has gotten the definition of Frenching confused. Because what they’re doing isn’t that, and it’s infinitely better. But whether it’s from the technique or the lips of choice, she wouldn’t know. Wendy’s lips are softer than anyone else’s she’s ever kissed. It’s actually a little strange to remember how they line up, for a moment – it’s not quite like kissing Sunmi or Jisoo – but once they nestle into a cautious symmetry, her brain is furious to jot down notes for next time.
(Well, she hopes there’s a next time.)
“Breathe,” she giggles into the kiss, when she realizes Wendy hasn’t been. She’s worried Wendy will forget to breathe and all together pass out.
She finally does, shaky, and makes this delicious little shiver as her breath whooshes past Seulgi's cheek (chocolate-pepero breath, fuck, that’s cute) – and the harder Seulgi's heart hammers the more her brain swirls around these ideas – like pinning those scrawny wrists and throwing a leg over her hips and kissing her flat into the floor – because Wendy’s tongue is really soft, and sweet, and shy, and as soon as it brushes against Seulgi's bottom lip it’s gone again.
Seulgi's presses – wanting to draw it back – and lets her own tongue test along the nervous curve of Wendy’s mouth. Instinct urges her to press inside and demand, to escalate this small sweet circuit between them into a hungry, heated coil – something more weighty and pleasantly overwhelming, and – well – it’d be a lie to say Seulgi doesn’t savor the idea.
It’d be a lie to say it’s the first time she’s thought it.
(Her throat sticks when she swallows.)
She resists, though. Keeps the kiss gentle: nestles the rare divot of Wendy’s bottom lip between hers to tease, to toy. Hoping to coax her tongue into play.
But it’s then that Wendy finally pulls back, full-flushing red. And Seulgi can’t fail to notice how carefully they’re trying to breathe.
They’re both quiet, a moment. It should be anxious – it should be a nervous, awkward silence – but mostly Seulgi is just sated. She’s comfy. Something’s been won that she’s not sure she wants, but feels good to have. Some quiet inch of distance between them has closed.
“… kinda… like that…” Wendy whispers. Her eyes flicker up – just a moment – and flicker away again. She licks her lips for something to do and Seulgi watches.
Seulgi opens her mouth: for something goofy and lighthearted to say. But nothing comes out.
She closes it again. Rests her chin on Wendy’s shoulder, again. Listens to the both of them breathing.
It’s quiet, for a little while.
“I wish I hadn’t kissed her,” Wendy mumbles. “Shouldn’t kiss people I don’t like.”
Something like relief washes over Seulgi. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
There’s this gross little hopeful thing that’s trying to crawl into her mouth when she opens it to talk. Seulgi squelches it, though, with a tiny grumbling noise that she covers by asking, “What about me?”
Wendy’s mouth opens, ready with a sneer, but her gaze flickers back to Seulgi's lips – Seulgi can actually see her eyes soften – and Wendy’s mouth closes again.
“Well.” She turns over. Scoots her butt backwards – makes Seulgi the big spoon, again. “It’s nothing we haven’t done before.”
Seulgi buries a grin against Wendy’s shoulder.