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youngeun is choking on her ramen, tears streaming down her face and hiyyih tries her best to shush her, failing miserably. they should’ve never gone out in the first place—her knee hurts from when she fell off her bike merely minutes ago and her vision is blurred but she thinks she may have never been happier.
“you seriously need to be quiet,” she mumbles, closing her eyes but immediately opening them again once she realizes that makes it worse.
it’s their first time drinking: hikaru turned 18 today—well, yesterday. it’s long past midnight and youngeun and hiyyih are wasted.
“but it’s so funny,” youngeun whisper-yells back, mouth full of soggy noodles, and it isn’t that funny, but hiyyih starts laughing as well, hands gripping the edge of the table tightly.
the night began like any other, their entire friend group waiting for xiaoting because she’s chronically late, drinking sodas and eating sour candy until their tongues were numb. they watched bad romcoms (like seriously bad, the wow, that was so bad it was kinda good kind) until youngeun leaned back and groaned something about straight people disappointing her yet again and they decided to break into hikaru’s parents’ liquor cabinet, which hiyyih didn’t even know people actually had.
alcohol tastes bad and everyone who thinks otherwise is a liar. hiyyih is glad she’s a proper lightweight because it only took her two shots of some clear, absolutely rotten-tasting liquid sufficed to make it impossible for her to walk straight.
“give me some of that.” she makes her way over to youngeun who immediately offers her her fork.
“it’s, like, way less hot when you’re drunk,” youngeun giggles and her breath smells like shin ramen, something hiyyih would mind a lot more if she were sober. her friend is right—the noodles aren’t spicy at all and the slight stinging that is there makes the numbness go down a bit.
she chews slowly, finally managing to close her eyes for a few seconds before the dizziness sets in again. “so good,” she hums and youngeun breaks into another, albeit softer fit of laughter.
“c’mon, you can finish it. want me to prepare your tooth brush?”
without waiting for a reply, she leaves the kitchen, palms tracing the patters of the wallpaper like always, although now it looks more like she’s scared she’ll need to steady herself. hiyyih’s too exhausted to smile now, so she swallows her giddy feelings at the sight of it, thoughtlessly shoveling down the rest of the food.
it’s nothing unusual for youngeun to sleep over at hers after their entire friend group hangs out, something that seems to happen less regularly overtime. youngeun lives twenty minutes away from her by car and she doesn’t have a license yet—not that she’d be able to drive tonight anyway.
it’s just more convenient.
they’ve never been the closest out of the five of them—hiyyih usually coupled up with hikaru since they lived only a couple streets apart, youngeun mostly hanging out with dayeon and chaehyun due to their shared hobbies and xiaoting just tagging along with whomever she pleased. she just knew hikaru because they used to be neighbors and youngeun, the unofficial leader of their group, thought she was pretty, so she decided to keep her around.
hiyyih does enjoy her alone-time with youngeun—she hasn’t told anybody this, but she thinks she might have the tiniest crush on the slightly younger. she doesn’t even know when it started, her innocent day dreams about youngeun holding her hands or kissing her cheek, but it’s been like this for a while, and knowing youngeun is definitely into girls too didn’t help one bit.
before she knows it, the cup is empty and she feels much better, even able to throw it out without spilling any of the residue.
she copies youngeun’s wall-holding as she trots down the hall, into the downstairs bathroom, where youngeun is doing her very best applying tooth paste on hiyyih’s pink brush, her own yellow one already hanging out the corner of her mouth.
“can’t do it,” she whines, words muffled by the liquid now threatening to spill over her lips.
hiyyih holds out her fingers, wiggling them and youngeun gives her the brush, immediately spitting into the sink. gross. hiyyih giggles, gaining some of her energy back the second they are together again.
she squeezes a way too big dollop of tooth paste on her brush and holds it under a way too strong stream, the water and paste splashing over the edge of the sink. youngeun only laughs and hiyyih lets out an eek sound, but doesn’t bother cleaning it yet.
“i don’t know if i’m gonna be able to sleep,” she speaks and begins to brush, “whenever i close my eyes, i feel like i might just barf.”
youngeun spits again and hiyyih takes a step back. brushing teeth with someone else is so weird. she hates it especially with her sister.
their reflections stare back at them—hiyyih’s hair was so perfectly styled earlier, but now her curls have straightened out and her face is shiny and she looks honestly a little dead, lids heavy and eye-movement slowed down. youngeun’s brown hair is now up in a terribly done bun and hiyyih feels her heart do a jump.
“you may throw up on me.” youngeun shrugs, before beginning to lazily brush her tongue but immediately stopping when she begins looking a little green. “nope. this won’t do.” she shudders and spits one last time, rinsing off her brush and washing off her face, leaving her eyes all panda-y and smudged.
hiyyih splutters, tooth paste flying on the floor. she’s still so drunk. she just wants to be…not-drunk. as quick as possible.
her reply is too muffled to understand and she almost drools. she shoves youngeun aside to spit herself. “that was supposed to mean you may not throw up on me.” youngeun glares at her and it looks ridiculous so hiyyih laughs halfheartedly, still feeling too sick to commit to it.
“you don’t even love me enough to let me barf on you a little bit? unbelievable.”
“that has nothing to do with my love for you, youngeun-ssi. and if it does, i suppose i do not love you enough.” she wipes over some residue tooth paste on the corner of her mouth. “what am i even saying?” she adds, “i don’t like this feeling anymore.”
“you barely drank anything, stupid. you’re just weak.”
youngeun chuckles and hiyyih lets her take a wet wipe and attempt to remove both of their eye makeup. closing her eyes is so bad—it’s like the room is literally spinning, in every direction at once. and like the floor is liquid. youngeun’s gentle finger steadying her head by holding her cheek is helping, however.
hiyyih lets youngeun burrow a shirt and sweatpants because her stuff is so deep in her overnight bag and she’s too tired to get them out.
“also your clothes smell like baby,” youngeun mumbles, which doesn’t make sense but still makes hiyyih sober for a tiny moment.
lying down is hell—she can’t close her eyes at all and even blinking is hell, so she does her best to not do that. youngeun sleeps in her bed and they’re both on their sides, facing each other. looking at each other.
“can we turn off the lights?” youngeun asks and hiyyih nods but then shakes her head.
“actually, we can’t. i might close my eyes and throw up.”
“okay.”
“okay.”
they spend what feels like hours just staring at one another, youngeun’s eyes tracing every crease of hiyyih’s face, though seemingly not deliberately, just fighting off sleep for what appears to be hiyyih’s sake.
“youngeun-ah?” she asks, not knowing what she wants to say.
“yes, bahiyyih?”
before youngeun can properly mutter her name, hiyyih closes the gap between them, pressing her lips onto her friend’s, capturing them in a quick peck. as if struck by lightning, youngeun tenses up and they part as quickly as it happened.
“sorry, should’ve asked before,” hiyyih whispers. “i think we can turn off the lights now.”
but she doesn’t, unable to move. youngeun keeps staring at her, so she stares back.
“what’d you do that for?” youngeun asks after a moment of silence.
hiyyih shrugs. “i have really bad timing. i’m glad you’re here.” youngeun doesn’t seem satisfied with the answer, so she decides to keep talking. “i think i like you.”
the house is so quiet—her parents’ room is upstairs and her siblings are either out still or asleep or they just don’t care enough to check on her in the middle of the night.
youngeun blinks. “you like girls?”
hiyyih considers that for a moment. “i like you,” she then says, shrugging again, feeling more certain this time.
“okay. let’s talk about this tomorrow.”
“okay.”
she leans back, finally turning off the light. after a couple of seconds, she feels youngeun shifting closer, reaching over her, and turning the lights back on. they’re so close—she can feel youngeun’s tooth paste breath on her face, her eyes bright with purpose.
“caught me off-guard before,” she whispers before kissing her again, this time deeper, but just as short. the light goes off with another click and youngeun scooches back onto her side of the bed.
hiyyih’s lips tingle.
“i like you too, by the way,” youngeun whispers into the dark.