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Like many people, Yuna can’t really remember her early childhood. Maybe in undefined forms like wispy wonder at how pretty the sky is after a storm, but nothing clear like where and what she’s doing.
Except a memory in preschool: it’s probably playtime; she’s on a mattress, tumbling around, the foam sighing beneath her. Then she bumped into another kid, knocking her onto her back. When the kid scrambled back upright, Yuna held her hand out for an apology shake, the way her teachers have taught her —
the kid leaned in and bit Yuna’s hand.
It wasn’t a hard or long bite, but the foreign sensation dragged Yuna’s eyes to the pale red skin on the base of her thumb and didn’t let go.
“Now we’re even.”
Yuna barely heard her. She rubbed that area with two fingers, feeling out faint indents. Indents, made by teeth. Teeth, in a mouth. A mouth, for biting.
She looked up and could only see the kid’s teeth — small white blocks. They did look very good for biting.
Her own teeth suddenly felt prominent, a solid mass in her own mouth, jutting out from gums that’ll bleed if she floss her teeth too hard. Huh. She has teeth too.
That day, when her mom picked her up, she asked if the pale red patches on Yuna’s hands and forearms were mosquito bites. Yuna nodded, sliding her tongue over her upper teeth, remembering the squish of her skin, just like the mattress.
From then on, she starts looking at people’s teeth. It’s easy because they’re right there on a person’s face, and when they smile — which people often do if they’re talking to her — their lips peel back like a present and she sees even more teeth.
Her friends are in various stages of growing permanent teeth: a wink in the front teeth; a gap in the lower teeth that helps with whistling; metallic silver braces locked into place. And the adults: overbites; misalignments; teeth so white she has to blink twice.
She thinks of how it’ll feel if those teeth are on her skin, especially on the base of her thumbs and the bulge of muscle in her forearm, where her mouth wraps perfectly around and the imprints are easy to be traced.
It’s biting but it’s not really biting either. It’s just teeth on skin, a body part on another. She just likes creating something unique that can be touched, her fingertips curving in and out, trailing sticky saliva if she didn’t dry her teeth properly.
A few years more, and she’s looking at a person’s teeth when they first meet, a flick of her eyes. Now it’s less of thinking teeth on skin — primary school kids have gross hygiene — and more of just teeth. In a way, people’s teeth are honest. Nothing as revealing as the eyes, but it’s a lot harder to change your teeth on a whim.
Her dad has strong molars that he uses to crunch pig trotters enthusiastically; he laughs in a way that fills the room. Her mom and sister have neat teeth that they use to make a clean ‘tch’ sound when they’re irritated.
And as for herself, she likes her canines. They’re exactly the right length and curve against her other teeth that, standing before the mirror, she thinks her teeth look good for biting too. Like she can chomp chomp chomp her way through anything.
In primary six she joins the floorball team. It’s a non-contact sport where players are normally a stick-apart, but accidents do happen. This particular one is a freak.
It happens during training, as all season-ending accidents do. Things are going well: she feels light on her feet today; the friction of her shoes against the floor is just right; and she basically has the ball on a string to her stick. She dribbles it between two incoming defenders, pulls it back to lure in a third, then explodes forward with it, leaving them all behind.
At this range she could shoot it, but she knows she can get closer so why not?
With a defender running up, Yuna gets close enough then spins, keeping the ball skilfully behind her stick. She knocks into something hard enough to stumble back, clasping a hand to her mouth.
Blinking the pain away, she sees another defender, one of her batchmates, down on the ground and clutching her forehead. She hurries forward to help her up, her friend removes her hands to hold onto hers, and that’s when Yuna sees it.
On her friend’s forehead, almost perfectly in the middle of it, is an imprint. It’s deep enough that Yuna can look into it, and see how it’s dark because light can’t bend and fall into places they aren’t supposed to. And along the ribbed lines that she knows so well, something red is beginning to seep out.
Her friend covers it up again, then the captain pulls her away, probably to the infirmary. Yuna’s stick is scattered a few meters away from her; her knucklebones are tearing against skin. It takes her another long moment to realise, or remember: her front teeth are so painful they’re almost numb.
As she brings her hand to her mouth, the coach blows the whistle to resume the match, so she drops her hand and goes to pick up her stick.
Even with the anaesthetic effects of adrenaline, the pain lingers like an accusatory glance. The latter isn’t true, but her finger still hovers over the ‘send’ button a beat longer, before jamming it down and shoving her phone into her bag.
Back thudding against the train seat, her tongue seeks out the part of her gums where her front teeth are attached to, pushing, testing. She doesn’t know if she wants them to fall or remain. Either way, they don’t budge.
When she gets home, she flicks the bathroom lights on and opens her mouth. She brings her hand to her front teeth, and touches them. There’s no pain. In her mind, the sound of teeth through skin tears through briefly.
She touches them again, but louder.
That night, she has a very predictable dream: without any resistance, like her gums simply decided to surrender to gravity, all her upper teeth fall out soundlessly. They do so one-by-one, almost seeming to melt off with the ease of giving up. She cups her hands beneath her chin but catches nothing.
Her friend needed eight stitches. Before training, Yuna buys a large hamper with all the money she saved up that month. Then the coach announces her friend can’t train for a month as sweat mustn’t get into the stitches. Their semi-finals is next week, and finals the week after that.
Outside ward 32 in hospital block B, Yuna scraps her shoes against the polished floor, re-adjusting her grip on the faux twine handle of the hamper. It is what it is, she tells herself. Her front teeth should have fallen out along.
She knocks before entering, going to place the hamper on the bedside table. She doesn’t let herself see her friend’s face and instead holds her head low. “I’m sorry.”
She’ll bend into a bow if there’s no reply after ten seconds, she tells herself.
The ac whirrs a steady rhythm, mocking. As she starts bending her back, the bedsheets crinkle out a sigh. “Ahh, it’s alright. Go win finals, ace. I want the shiny gold medal.”
So Yuna does, smashing a path straight to a dominating 7-2 scoreline in the finals. She dribbles the ball, winding down the last seconds on the shot clock, the opponents already gathering to give each other gentle high-fives, holding their sticks like an afterthought.
When the final buzzer sounds, she flicks the ball to the referee, then turns to the bench, anxiety blooming suffocatingly in her chest — her friend’s smile is clear even across the court.
Back home, a new MVP trophy resting in the display cabinet, she heads to the bathroom and brings her fingers to her teeth for the first time in two weeks. She runs them over the familiar ridges, and hears only the oxygen filters of the fish tank in the living room.
So she opens her mouth, wider, wider, and wraps them around her hand. She presses down to that habitual degree, holds, holds, and lets go.
In the imprints, her front teeth are marginally further away from the others. Not inwards, but outwards. She stares at her reflection, a bewildered laugh splintering out.
(✧ڡ✧)
She joins JYP in middle school. Throughout the rigorous screening process, she didn’t really think of it as something she’ll break herself for, like how she’ll fling her body out without care to chase down a stray ball. She’s just in for a unique experience that’ll shake up her youth.
But she meets Yeji on her first day. More specifically, Yeji brings her to join the the evening dance class — Yuna shuffling into the last line, Yeji striding to the front, the trainees almost seeming to part before her. Yuna is tall enough to see the first row’s reflection in the mirror, so she naturally fixes her eyes on this girl with the most animal-like teeth she’s seen.
The music booms out a quick beat, and Yeji starts dancing.
Over the past year, Yuna has replayed that accident so many times she’s half-convinced she did manage to see a flash of white in the dark. Bone on bone, a spark of heat. How would having someone bite till your bones feel like?
The most she’s done to herself was a bruise, tender to touch and remaining long after the imprints vanished. She’s only bitten the fleshy parts of her arms; there’re too many crucial nerves humming beneath the thin skin over bones that she doesn’t dare touch.
But right now, watching Yeji’s reflection for the entire song, watching Yeji finish, arms falling to her side in a casual way that belies the deliberation —
she feels like Yeji’s dance has stripped her down to her bones.
A bite a beat, those rows of small neat sharp orderly teeth latching onto her, until she breathes in and the air falls right through her ribcage. There’s no pain, but her lungs are going to slip through next.
She’s in dance room 4 of JYP building, two hours away from home, and she’s horribly, terribly bare. That was entirely invasive and unasked for. That was —
Someone’s shoulder bumps into hers, and her skin rematerialises back. In her shuddering mind, she remembers it takes about two months for a hairline fracture to heal. This feeling is more like etchings in her bones, safe beneath her skin, indestructible.
Parting her mouth, she runs her tongue from left canine to right. She can’t leave anymore. She’s never backed down from a match, even if her opponent is three years older — she’ll have to get even with this girl.
Her daily commutes double in time, and her homework is done in jerky writings on transport. She makes friends among the trainees and always has someone to run for the last train with.
In a way, dancing is a sport too: she can improve through wringing her body dry, again and again. This kind of pain is familiar to her, so she habitually rubs out tight muscles during breaks, watching recordings of herself.
Due to her age, she isn’t in the seniors team with Yeji, but she still sees her in the building. It’s a little jarring. Under the white lights of the hallway, Yeji’s blazer is a quiet blue, her hair loose from its usual ponytail, one hand fumbling with her locker, the other clutching onto a file and water bottle.
Feet turned to walk the other way, Yuna stills. Noticing her there, Yeji looks over. “Oh, Yuna! Are you going to level 4 too?”
She nods, and Yeji clicks the lock into place, then walks over. “Me too, c’mon, let’s go together.”
In the lift, she watches Yeji pull her hair up, then asks. “Were you in a rush?”
Yeji’s face immediately falls into a pout. “Yeah! I’d left school already when I realised my bus card wasn’t in my wallet, so I ran back to my classroom to look for it. I couldn’t find it at all, and I was gonna be late, so I gave up and went to the train station. Then I realised it was in the back pocket of my PE pants,” she sighs, tightening her ponytail. “I basically jogged the way here from the train station. Talk about careless, huh?”
When their path splits, Yeji gives her a quick grin, lifting a fist. “Fighting today too!”
Yuna enters her dance room, the cold air and echoes of Yeji’s voice rippling over her skin. She warms up and thinks of Yeji doing the same, the gentle lines of her body serrating into savagery.
During monthly evaluations, everyone gathered in a single room, she gets to watch Yeji again. Before the music plays, she leans against the wall, trying to trap as much of her skin in place.
Yeji picked a slower contemporary piece this time, but she starts moving from her beginning pose — a kneel, hands on her head like a restless prayer — and Yuna has craned her whole body forward to see better. This time it wasn’t unasked for.
Afterwards, they have the evening off. Yeji is learning a viral dance with Chaeryeong in a corner of the room, and Yuna is thinking she should be leaving.
“Yuna, wanna learn this with us? It’s quite fun.” Chaeryeong turns back with a smile.
It’s rude to reject two seniors, she tells herself. Not because Yeji has raised a hand to beckon her over.
She’s a beat slower trying to follow, but the dance is easy enough and the song catchy. When they’re done and cooling down on the floor, Yeji suddenly taps her shoulder. “You did super well today! I thought the piece you chose really suits your strengths.”
Beside her, Chaeryeong nods along. “Yeah, it’s hard to believe it’s only been a month since you joined.”
Yuna can’t quite say she’s rewiring her muscles to a 4/4 beat because of a one-sided grudge. “Ah, umm, thank you.”
Elbowing Chaeryeong, “see, that’s an athlete for you, she’s just naturally explosive like that,” Yeji looks over. “You play floorball, right?”
“You know about that?”
“Of course! You’re my cute and cool junior who joined only three months after me, so I’m trying to be a reliable senior you can depend on!”
Chaeryeong scoffing good-naturedly, Yuna looks at Yeji’s eyes, crinkled into sincerity, and swallows a joke about Yeji’s earlier carelessness. She nods, teeth sore with something like shame.
The days pile on like snow. Yuna replaces sleep with later practices, and learns to hold back her dry heaves of hunger. Yeji sneaks sweets to the trainees for energy sometimes, and splurges on hot chocolate other times. Yeji pulls her aside to teach a complex move, breaking it down with a precision that makes Yuna clench her teeth with ache.
On some winter nights, too dark and deserted, Yeji calls her over to walk with the older girls to the train station, and she finds herself next to Yeji. She can’t remember replying but they’ve fallen into step and she realises she likes the sound of their footsteps in sync. Jamming her hands deeper into her coat’s pockets, she bows her head to the inescapable conclusion: she never stood a chance.
Even if Yeji has started dancing before Yuna has held a floorball stick, even if dance is the thing Yeji will break herself without care for, the closest she’s felt to this was getting thrashed 0-10 in the first official floorball match she played. When they shook hands at the end, their opponents’ smiles were so kind that Yuna wanted to snap her stick in humiliation.
She glances over and Yeji smiles back, and she thinks she’s positively glaring at Yeji’s teeth but it’s winter and everything white reminds her of Yeji’s teeth and if she can’t get even then she wants to be picked clean by something physical. Something she can reach out and drag her fingers over, in awe.
It’s too late to back out. She’s thrown herself into this with a ribful of pettiness and two handfuls of recklessness — she’ll have to debut now.
For the longest time, she almost doesn’t make it. She’s too young and unpolished, so the team is formed without her. She’ll still debut, just years later with friends her age. It should be fine.
But she catches a glimpse of Yeji rounding the corner with Lia, heading somewhere she can’t go, and she can’t remember when she last spoke with Yeji. She slows her steps by the lockers, suddenly realising it’s been about a year since then. What has she accomplished?
What’s the point of skin if it can’t be devastated?
She slices her tongue against her teeth to a 3/4 beat of panic, faster, faster. Maybe she’ll do the devastating herself.
It doesn’t come to that, ultimately. A vacancy appears and she’s slid into the team smoothly, like that’s the plan all along. She enters the dance room to find it empty, then four girls jump out from the couches and pull party poppers.
Amidst the frenzied paper streamers and cheers, she fixes her eyes on Yeji, the whole of Yeji, relaxed into an easy joy. Later, when Ryujin cracks a joke and she responds in kind, Yeji laughs, shoving her lightly.
This touch is devoid of everything mandatory. It isn’t to guide her through a dance move or to pull her off the street sides. She just told a stupid joke and Yeji just found it funny so she laughed.
Beneath the skin that Yeji touched, her bones tremble, a cascade of many small seismic quakes, into an abrupt understanding: it’s never been about getting even with Yeji.
It’s just, simply, scrambling for a reason to stay by Yeji’s side. She’s been trying to be someone Yeji’s gaze will rest on and it’ll stay and it’ll stay and stay. Something lasting.
(✧ڡ✧)
Dancing with Yeji is like this: Yeji just an arm’s length away, the room ripped into jagged edges, pressing against Yuna’s ribcage. At first, she glances at Yeji’s reflection and the edges dig in more, taunting, angling up to the space between her bones. She looks anyway, until she learns to breathe around them.
They move into a dorm and her roommate isn’t Yeji, but that’s fine. She’s been talking to Yeji with a solid barrier of three other people between them. She won’t know what to do if it’s just the two of them within four walls, Yeji within striking distance.
To do what?
She has no time to think about that. They debut and find success instantly so they’re booked for months, gulping down meals in vans travelling between cities. They film variety shows where Yeji trips up her words, and music shows where Yeji treats the stage like their dance room — with soundless ferocity.
This routine is snapped only when her electric toothbrush whirrs silent one night. She stares at it, trying to realise what’s wrong. Then the taste of toothpaste makes her remember her teeth. She replaces the batteries, finishes brushing, and bares her teeth at the mirror.
It’s been awhile so the difference is obvious: her front teeth are slightly larger. Logically it’s because she took off her braces too early, with debut coming. But she can’t help thinking of this as a long-overdue payback. If they grow bigger it’ll definitely affect her pronunciation.
Rusty from no practice, she leaves a sloppy imprint on her hand to double-check: they aren’t growing fast. She can still keep them in check by wearing retainers during their breaks, something for the future. She flicks the water heater switch on and starts recalling tomorrow’s schedules.
Which isn’t to say she forgot. But it’s hard to remember when her mom cooks all her favourite dishes and she’s trying to get Sarang to remember her scent. Her dad is saying he’ll drive to the seafood market tomorrow to buy a snow crab, and her sister actually scoots over on the couch.
Then they're filming their first comeback in the US: Yeji in a fluorescent coat, strolling through a market, biting into an apple in slow-mo. Her teeth aren’t shown clearly and the lighting is too strong, but she's biting with deliberation. Biting just for the act itself, teeth puncturing defenceless skin, cracking flesh, ruination.
Yeji definitely finished that apple, so Yuna thinks it's a pity there wasn't a dramatic slow-mo of the apple core, straggly and bare and fragile, gnawed clean meticulously.
Has Yeji seen the ruins she leaves behind?
Then the year-end stages, and she’s suddenly in a backstage room, counting down with everyone. Her arm is slung around Yeji and they’re yelling probably a little too loud but there’re no cameras and it’s the end of the year.
It’s the end of the year. She’s 16. She’s figured out she wants to show Yeji her bones without actually showing her her bones. But she doesn’t know how to and that’s a bad idea, so she lets her hand dangle vacantly off Yeji’s shoulder, shouting out the last number loud enough to deafen her teeth’s unrest.
Eventually, it comes back to bite her. She's in the dance room, preparing for their third promotion. Tired from the tough practice, they’re sprawled on the couches. Then Ryujin calls Lia over to help take some photos, and Yuna rests her head onto her arms, closing her eyes to the phone clicks.
Dimly, she hears muffled laughter, getting louder and clearer, until Ryujin is shaking her and telling her to smile. She does, Ryujin squints at something, and collapses against her. “You’re right, Lia. They are bigger.”
“And here she was, saying how she wants to be a cat than a rabbit,” Lia comes giggling over. “Those front teeth are tooo cute.”
She shuts her mouth on the urge to grab her teeth, shooting them a questioning look, trying to buy time.
“Look,” Ryujin shows her phone screen, “I randomly saw this photo of you while scrolling through my gallery, taken awhile back, and I thought something was different. So I showed Lia and we were thinking your front teeth were smaller back then. And we were right!”
That’s a photo from only a few months ago. If it’s gotten to such an extent other people are noticing — no, it’s just she didn’t notice — no — she forgot —
Her tongue recoils in annoyance. She’s entirely at fault and being hypocritical but for all her observations, she’s never commented on someone else’s teeth. It isn’t something that can be changed overnight, so why?
Ryujin and Lia meant no harm, but there’s that trite rabbit joke and they’re smiling at her like she’s harmless, not someone trying to find a reversible way of devastating her skin.
This is no place to explain that, and the barrier suddenly feels solidly stifling. So she stays silent long enough for them to notice something is up, drifting away.
Back in their dorm, she opens eight tabs on nearby dental clinics, narrowing it down by good reviews. She eventually settles on one, but they only have a phone number. There’re no sounds from Lia’s lower bunk.
She sneaks out to find the living room empty, so she settles into the couch’s corner and dials the number. Halfway through her hushed conversation with the receptionist, a door clicks open.
Yeji pads over and plops onto the other corner. A question is repeated twice before Yuna answers, fixing her gaze back on the wall. When the receptionist is finding something, she murmurs. “What are you doing here?”
“For some fresh air.”
Yeji can’t lie and that also makes no sense, but she’s sitting close enough for Yuna’s legs to hit hers if she stretches it out carelessly, and maybe Yuna is in the mood for carelessness. She finishes the call, certain Yeji has already guessed what it’s about.
It’s only a little past ten. Their fridge hums a low tune, and the living room’s lights join in a soundless murmur. She puts her phone down, glad for the noise. It’s really just the two of them within four walls now, but she’s not deathly careless.
“I think your front teeth are fine.”
Holding back a laugh, Yuna sighs. “They are big. It’s fine. You can say that.”
“So? It’s still your teeth, so it’s fine.”
She glances over to find Yeji has angled her body to partially face her, so she does the same, their knees bumping together. “Mmhm. But I don’t like it.”
“Is this about the rabbit joke, or do you just like having neat teeth?”
“Who doesn’t? Especially idols like us.”
“So you were irritated at it being pointed out?”
She nods, and Yeji is silent for a few moments, before tilting her head. “You like looking at other people’s teeth, don’t you?”
An instinctual denial is on Yuna’s tongue before she curls it back. That alone is a little weird but nothing shameful, and Yeji’s tone is quietly certain. “How did you know?”
“When we were still trainees, there was a period I thought you disliked me or something, because you kept glaring at me when we’re together. But your gaze was too low. So I thought I had something between my teeth, but no, and it just kept happening for awhile,” Yeji grins. “Is it fun?”
“Ah, yeah, kinda. It’s quite interesting.”
“So how’s mine?” Yeji leans in.
Of course Yuna has seen this before. But Yeji has peeled back her lips and bared her teeth especially for her. Just the act of showing, two rows of teeth a little apart, the jagged lines a perfect fit of destruction.
Tonight the members are in bed and the walls are blind. What’s the worst that can happen?
Either she dies or she gets to show Yeji her bones, even if Yeji has to get her teeth dirty. So her mouth spits out the words she’s chewed around countless times. “They look good for biting.”
“Oh, ah? Like for biting food?”
Yuna shakes her head steadily. Yeji blinks, then breathes in. “To bite what, Yuna?”
There’s no way to explain it. Yuna reaches out, fingertips touching Yeji’s hand on the couch, and glances up. Yeji is unmoving, staring right back at her. This is definitely overstepping everything but Yuna’s teeth are matches in winter, seeking heat.
So she takes Yeji’s hand lightly and brings it up, bowing her head. She licks her teeth dry and opens her mouth, hovering above Yeji’s hand. It’s warm and slightly stiff, jerking when her breath ghosts over, but remains still. So she closes her mouth around the base of Yeji’s right thumb.
It’s a different mouthful, an unfamiliar fit. But this is Yeji’s hand in her mouth, Yeji’s, so she presses down, canines pushing in softly, holds, holds, then unlocks her jaws and pulls away.
She looks back at Yeji, mouth still parted, teeth not wanting to close on thin air after that. Not while they’re still tingling from wonder.
Yeji’s eyes are wide and sunken in, staring at her hand, and only then did Yuna dare to look at what she’s done.
Not one of her best works — too shallow — but the outline is distinct enough. It’s the imprint of her own teeth on Yeji. The etchings in her bones flare to life at that sight, cracking in deeper, till she doesn’t know who bit who.
Yeji brings her left hand over, extending her index finger, and runs it over the imprint slowly, “wow, your canines really are sharp as they look.” Then she holds her hands out. “See? Your front teeth are fine. The imprint is neat enough.”
Those hands are a little unstable and she can’t tell if Yeji’s smile is forced. There has to be a limit to Yeji’s kindness, but she feels stupidly like a child who’d gotten praised —
Yeji suddenly tilts her head back, half-covering her face with a hand, and laughs without malice. “Ahh, I knew it. I knew it!”
It’s Yuna turn to blink and breathe in. “Knew what?”
“I knew you weren’t watching me just to watch me. Sometimes you looked like you didn’t know what to do with yourself when you’re around me,” Yeji runs a hand through her hair, then lets it fall. “How long have you been wanting to do this?"
“No, I — “ She stops. Does it matter who does the biting? Before those animal-like eyes, she might always have been exposed. “For awhile.”
Yeji lifts an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything. Then she starts. “Oh right, you did say my teeth look good for biting. Wanna put that to the test?”
On set and in private, they’ve teased Yeji so often that she’s sure her first impression of Yeji was wrong. But Yeji leans in and she might’ve been right after all.
Lips in a natural pout, keen eyes narrowed in mirth, two rows of playful teeth — Yeji as a mischievous spirit in old tales that’ll act human enough to lure travellers further into the woods.
Yuna can’t move and she doesn’t have to, because Yeji has already taken her hand and brought it to her mouth. Yeji has always learnt dance moves the fastest — she mimics almost perfectly: the same spot, the same slow way of wrapping her mouth around, and press —
Yeji is never going to reach her bone with this gentleness, Yuna thinks. But her skin has surrendered the moment Yeji breathed over it, so maybe it’s still possible.
Or maybe it’s not needed anymore. Showing Yeji her bones was just a non-verbal way of telling Yeji she wants to know how her teeth on her skin feels like. Now Yeji’s lips are on her skin, white peeking out, a pressure digging in and hurling out unseen fissures along her skin.
When Yeji lets go, the imprint’s only flaw is that it’s a little wet. She touches it urgently anyway, fingertip weaving a sticky path over ridges, the blueprint of a casual weapon of destruction. It’s not helpful.
She thought she’s just curious but she’s still breathing to a beat of hunger. She still has her skin but it wants to be grasped by Yeji's teeth again, maybe with less care this time.
And now she's marked both ways: on and underneath her skin. The imprint will fade but her skin has already re-knit itself around ground zero, changed.
“So, how’s it?” Yeji’s voice is slightly scratchy, eyes liquid with amusement.
Yuna swallows a you’ve thoroughly ruined me, and scoffs. “You suck at this.”
Yeji laughs with her mouth open, and Yuna suddenly, easily, for the first time, thinks of teeth on teeth. Scrapping, crashing, a heatflare that engulfs everything. How would mutual destruction feel like?
So, bones banging out a war song, she sharpens her teeth and grins. “But they really are good for biting.”
(✧ڡ✧)
A few days later, Ryujin storms into the living room, towel draped around her shoulders.
Lia looks up. "What's wrong?"
"Recently Yeji keeps taking sooo long in the bathroom!"
"Doing what, showering?"
"No! I'll hear her electric toothbrush, then she'll stop for awhile, then resume, then stop, then — ugh!"
"Huh, weird. Want me to go yell at her?"
"No, it's fine," Ryujin plops onto the couch with a sigh. "I'll talk to her later."
Beside them, Yuna tears into a cookie with a thoughtful look, teeth puncturing straight through.
Later, Yeji comes out with red patches on her hands. Yuna’s mind snaps into carnage.