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Donghyuck is not upset.
Sure, she spent four and a half hours getting ready for this stupid New Year's party to impress a girl only to find out she’s straight, but so what? She’s a lesbian, that’s pretty par for the course. Who cares that she’s wearing matching underwear (baby blue and lacy, cute as fuck) or that she drew a hundred tiny white freckles on her face? Who cares that she plucked her fucking eyebrows?
Kim Doyoung certainly doesn’t.
Kim Doyoung is sitting at the other end of the room, half perched on some guy’s lap. She's surrounded by other beautiful people, and they're all laughing, probably at how sad Donghyuck's life is. Doyoung's hair is styled perfectly, a beautiful wave of black that falls over her shoulders, showing just a hint of her undercut. She’s wearing a light blue denim blazer set with a silky white shift dress underneath, sans bra, and her collarbones are on full display. They’re pierced, because of course they are. The universe loves to fuck with lesbians.
Donghyuck takes a long sip of her shitty, warm, budget sangria only to almost choke on it when Doyoung looks up from her own cup. They make awkward eye contact for a moment or so before Doyoung sends her a small smile. Donghyuck looks away.
The only thing worse than having a crush on a straight girl is having a crush on a straight girl who pities you.
“What’s got your panties in a twist?” Renjun breathes against her ear, slinging an arm over her shoulder.
Donghyuck sniffs and takes another sip of her drink. “None of your business, Junnie.”
“Aww, don’t be like that, baby,” Slender fingers reach out and pluck the cup out of her hand to take a sip. “You know you’ll tell me eventually anyway.”
It’s true, and they both know it. Donghyuck and Renjun tell each other everything. It’s a fact that makes everyone else — namely, Renjun’s girlfriend Jisung — absolutely despair. They have no secrets and they never have.
Across the room, Doyoung leans into the guy’s shoulder, laughing, and Donghyuck reaches back for her glass. Renjun holds it up in the air, away from her. She's wearing sparkly flared trousers and her lucky bralette, and she looks like fifteen-year-old Donghyuck's wet dream. Too bad she’s acting like twenty-three-year-old Donghyuck’s nightmare. “Tell me what’s wrong!”
“Tell me I’m pretty,” Donghyuck says instead.
“You’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. You’re easily the prettiest person in this room. You have an open invitation into mine and Jisung’s bed.”
It’s roughly the same thing Renjun says every time she feels this way, and she's taken them up on that offer once or twice, but it still fills her with warmth. Still, her eyes are trained on Doyoung’s bare collarbones. “Not quite the prettiest, but thanks.”
Renjun presses their cheeks together and looks where she’s looking. “Ahh,” She says, “I see the problem.”
“You don’t see anything.”
“I see you glaring hard enough to burn a hole straight through her! Stop it, or she’s gonna think you’re some kind of phobic.”
Donghyuck pouts but looks away. “I just don’t get it. I’m the one who invited her! Why’s she hanging out with them?”
“Did you actually invite her? Or did you just make lots of meaningful eye contact,” Renjun makes air quotes around the words, “While you asked her if she’d be here?”
Donghyuck cringes inwardly. She's known Doyoung for roughly a year now, but she can count the number of conversations they’ve had on one hand. They are firmly in friend-of-a-friend territory. So when Donghyuck had chanced upon the other woman at a cafe the week before, she’d taken the rare opportunity to flirt. She'd thought it had gone well - until now.
“That is inviting her!” She insists.
Renjun throws her head back and laughs. Her laugh is joyful and magnetic, the kind of sound that people flock towards, and it’s no surprise when someone does.
“Hi, I’m sorry to interrupt,” The man says, and Donghyuck recognises him instantly as the man that Doyoung was playing tonsil tennis with not even two minutes ago, “I was just wondering if you’d like to dance?” He doesn’t look like the usual stream of guys who are after Renjun, desperate and unsure of themselves. He smiles with his dimples showing and practically oozes confidence. Even Donghyuck, bitter lesbian extraordinaire, has to admit that he’s handsome.
Renjun smiles at him, the same smile she gives small children. Patient and placating. “Well, I suppose that depends?”
“On?”
“I have a girlfriend. I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”
The man smiles even more, dimples and all. “Oh, no, nothing like that. I just thought you might want to dance.”
"You any good?"
"I've had some positive reviews."
Renjun slides her eyes over to Donghyuck. She very obviously does want to dance, Donghyuck knows this for a fact. Most nights, it's more of a hassle getting her to stop than to start, and if Jisung was here instead of at home with her family, they’d be twirling around the room together. But here Renjun is, staying to keep a friend company. Donghyuck laughs. Her crush might be straight, but she has the best friend in the world, and that’s good enough for her. “Go on, go have fun, babe. Don’t stick around with me just because you think you have to.”
Renjun presses a soft kiss against her cheek, "I love you! Let me know if you get bored and I'll come right back over, alright?"
Donghyuck nods and looks over at Dimples McStraightMan. His face has… not shuttered, but lost some of its open friendliness. He looks disappointed, almost. So much for not being into Renjun. Now the mask has fallen, he looks just like every other guy who tries and fails to score with Renjun.
Donghyuck doesn't stick around to watch them. Instead, she wanders around the edge of the room and slinks into the kitchen. It’s a huge room — it’s a huge house, really — but it makes sense based on Taeil’s paycheck. Donghyuck has been going to Taeil’s New Year’s parties since her first year of secondary school, when she would trail in after her cousin Taeyong. Now, a decade later, Taeil is a successful interior designer with rich and famous clients, and Donghyuck has upgraded from reluctant plus one to actually on the guest list. It’s a feat she’s very proud of.
It’s surprisingly empty in the kitchen. There’s normally at least one couple milling about, a few plus-ones taking a break from an influx of small talk with strangers. Not tonight. Unlike the rest of the house that’s decked out in fairy lights and electric candles, in the kitchen, the main light is on.
It’s like a tiny piece of reality in the middle of the New Year’s haze. Donghyuck is self-aware enough to recognise that she’s a homebody who likes her own company, but she’s never been the kind of person to hide alone in the kitchen at a house party. Feelings bring out the worst in her.
The french windows leading out into the back garden are closed tight, keeping the winter chill from creeping in. Donghyuck peers at her reflection in the glass, at her flushed cheeks and curled hair. Her dress is cute but warm, made from thick silver velvet with long sleeves and a turtleneck. It matches her glittery heels perfectly. She’s pretty and well-dressed, and she knows it, but no one is pretty enough to convert a straight girl. She'd learnt that lesson in university, with Chou Tzuyu, and it had stuck more than anything else she’d learnt in those three years.
Still… there is a flicker of hope licking at the back of her neck. She’ll take a moment in the kitchen, pour herself a drink, and calm down. Then, when she’s ready, she’ll march right back in there and show stupid Doyoung Kim exactly what she’s missing!
Taeil’s new year’s parties are classy enough to have actual fancy glasses instead of the shitty plastic cups Donghyuck is used to. She left her drink with Renjun, so she plucks a new one off of the stack on the table and runs it under the tap for a second, then she goes to find a drink.
Other than the sangria, there's a lot of beer and wine, and a huge bottle of vodka surrounded by orange juice and lemonade. She opens a bottle of Malibu just to smell it, then pours herself some Bailey’s. Maybe if she finishes the whole thing, Taeil will let her take the empty bottle home. It would make an excellent vase, and flower arrangement will be a great way to distract her from the straight girl sadness.
“Would you mind pouring me a glass?” A familiar voice says from behind her, and Donghyuck freezes. Speak of the devil, and she will appear— in what smells like a cloud of DS & Durga. Fuck the plan, she is not prepared to be stuck in a room alone with Doyoung yet.
“Sure,” She says instead of freaking out the way she wants to. She can feel her heart beating sharply in her throat.
Doyoung is even prettier up close. Her blue silk dress stops at the mid-thigh, denim blazer draped around her elbows. Her casual outfit is entirely at odds with her five-inch stilettos, and even though they’re almost the same height, with these heels, it feels like she towers over Donghyuck.
“Here,” Donghyuck says, handing over the glass she just poured. “You can have this one.”
Doyoung smiles, perfectly shaped teeth peeking between her lips. “Thanks.”
When she reaches out to take the glass, their fingers brush, and a thrill goes up Donghyuck’s spine. Doyoung’s fingers wrap delicately around the glass, perfectly pointed nails glinting in the fluorescent lights. Donghyuck can feel her ears burning up.
She looks away before Doyoung can clock her for staring. “I, uh, I like your dress.”
“Aw, thanks, it’s one of my favourites! No pockets, but it’s so soft. Not as festive as your outfit, though.”
Donghyuck’s theatre kid hindbrain takes over and she spins quickly on one foot, letting her dress flare out. “Thanks, silver is my colour!”
Doyoung smiles even wider, and takes a long sip of her drink, never dropping eye contact. “I can see that.”
If Donghyuck were a weaker woman, she’d be convinced that Doyoung was flirting with her. Thankfully, a lifetime of being friends with John Suh, of all people, has hardened her heart to anything but the frankest, most literal of romance. So, instead of taking this as an opportunity to bat her eyelashes and show off her thighs, she just smiles. “Thanks.”
They stand there for a moment, just making eye contact, and then Doyoung turns and gestures to the table. “Aren’t you going to get yourself a drink?”
Donghyuck runs a quick pros-cons list in the back of her mind. Pro: something to do with her hands to distract her from wanting to stroke Doyoung’s face. Con: it doesn’t take much to get her tipsy, and there's nothing on the table that tastes good and has a low alcohol content. Pro: she gave Doyoung her drink and if she doesn't take another she’ll look pretty weird. Con: she is a really sloppy drunk.
Doyoung pushes a wine glass into her hands, breaking her out of the spiral she's sliding down. Her fingers press against Donghyuck’s for a half-second longer than necessary. “Here, it’s a riesling, one of my favourites.”
Donghyuck wouldn’t consider herself much of a wine girl, but she takes a sip. It's surprisingly good, fruity and not too dry. Nothing like the chianti her mother always orders when they go out for dinner. “I like it,” she says over the rim of her glass. “It’s sweet. You’ve got good taste.”
Doyoung takes another sip of her own drink. “Yeah, I do.”
They stare at each other for a moment. Flirting, the lesbian part of Donghyuck’s brain sings. Self-centred, the rational part rebuffs. But she can still feel Donghyuck’s fingers against hers and every time they make eye contact, the lesbian part of her brain hits the rational part with a very large stick.
A peal of laughter echoes through the kitchen from somewhere outside of this little bubble they've created, a shareholders reminder that the world exists outside of this moment, and Doyoung's attention snaps away.
“I’d have thought you would be dancing,” Doyoung says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not dancing at a party.”
Donghyuck thinks about Doyoung sprawled across some guy's lap, head thrown back in laughter. It’s not that Donghyuck has never made Doyoung laugh — their first conversation had her doubled over, tears in her eyes from how hard she'd been laughing. Still, she remembers how the hot burn of jealousy had coursed through her. “I guess I just wasn't in the mood tonight.”
“And what about you?”
Doyoung peers down at her feet, mournfully. “Ahh, I'm not dressed for anything other than a small shuffle. I went for style over comfort today, I suppose.”
Oh yeah, those shoes look like they're agonising, I think I would break my neck if I tried to wear anything that tall. Super cute though!
“I guess they kind of ruin the whole casual look I was going for,” Doyoung pouts.
Donghyuck coos at her. “They’re super cute, though.”
“Not as cute as your outfit! I’m loving the silvery, glittery vibe. You look like stardust.”
The flush spills from Donghyuck’s ears, and down over her cheekbones, and she leans further into Doyoung’s space. “Do you really think so?” Doyoung nods, and Donghyuck preens, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I think that’s the best compliment I’ve ever had! Maybe I should dress like this all the time.”
Doyoung laughs, wholly and fully. She has a gorgeous laugh, light, airy and contagious, and Donghyuck can’t help but giggle along with her.
“Hm, you could pull it off,” Doyoung muses, brushing her fingers across Donghyuck’s cheeks. “These are cute, I wouldn’t mind seeing them more often. I’d miss the moles, though.”
It takes Donghyuck a moment to realise Doyoung is talking about the freckles she painted on with white eyeliner that afternoon. It took the better part of half an hour, but she's proud of the finished look. Her breath catches in the back of her throat. She wants Doyoung to stop touching her. She wants Doyoung to touch her forever.
There’s something here. There has to be. Doyoung isn’t desperate, she likes Doyoung a lot but she still has standards. This is not normal friend behaviour. If she took the leap… she’s pretty sure Doyoung would catch her.
Someone in the living room shouts out that there are only two minutes left until the New Year, and a hubbub of noise carries through to the kitchen. Typical New Year’s clamouring around, getting into position or grabbing partners. Doyoung side-eyes her.
“Shouldn't you be getting back to your girlfriend?”
And just like that, Donghyuck is confused again. Because sapphics don't use that word to talk about friends, and she’s pretty sure that Doyoung is looking across the room at Renjun, of all people.
“My girlfriend?”
“Yeah. Renjun, right? It seems like she’s looking for you."
It’s true. If she peers through the half-open doorway, she can see Renjun scanning the room, probably for her. “Yeah, I guess — wouldn’t want to leave a friend waiting.” She says the last part with a pointed look in Doyoung’s direction.
“...Friend?”
“Mmhm, friend. Best friend, to get specific.”
Doyoung frowns and pushes her hair away from her face. “But Jaehyun said — he came up and asked her to dance and she said only if her girlfriend was okay with it?”
“No, her girlfriend is Jisungie, the cute tall girl with the pixie cut.”
That doesn’t seem to ring any bells for Doyoung but she seems to accept it. “Damn. Last time I ask Jaehyun to figure anything out.”
Several different puzzle pieces click together in Donghyuck's head. It’s possible, more than possible, that maybe Doyoung wants her too.
Well. you never know until you try.
“Wow,” Donghyuck giggles, “You were trying to figure out if I was single, huh? That’s cute, but you could have just asked.”
Doyoung pouts. “You don’t make it easy, you know. You‘re pretty intimidating when you want to be, and no one likes a homewrecker. And don’t act like you haven’t been pouting at me all night! I don’t know what I did to make you mad, but I’d rather you just told me.”
“Aw baby. I wasn’t pouting because I was angry, I was pouting because I thought you were straight. You were draped all over a man when I got here! I’m the one who invited you, you should be draped all over me!”
The countdown starts before Doyoung can say anything else, all of the roughly forty people in the house screaming out ten.
“So, Doyoung says, leaning closer still. They’re an inch apart, at most. “You don't have a New Year's kiss?”
A shudder runs up Donghyuck’s spine, the thrill of a desire denied finally being fulfilled. "I was just gonna ask the prettiest girl in the room."
Doyoung cocks an eyebrow, “Isn't that you?”
Donghyuck drapes her arms over Doyoung’s shoulders, delighting in how Doyoung adjusts her stance to accommodate Donghyuck’s weight. She’s always been a sucker for girls who bend to her will without complaining, it's the Gemini in her. “Don't be coy, baby, you know exactly who I mean.”
“Hmm,” Doyoung says, “Well I'm sure if you ran, you could catch Renjun in time.” Donghyuck isn’t worried. She can see how the tips of Doyoung’s ears are tinged red.
“Three!” the crowd outside cheers, and Donghyuck smiles.
“Two!” As Donghyuck leans in, Doyoung does the same.
“One!” All across the country, people start cheering. The sky lights up as fireworks explode. Donghyuck gets her New Year's kiss.
“Wait,” Doyoung pulls back sometime later, and her lips are spit slick. “Can we circle back to how you thought I was straight?” The confusion — and distaste — on Doyoung’s face is almost laughable, but Donghyuck is too kiss-drunk to make fun of her.
"It made sense! When I got to the party you were making out with that guy!" She definitely knows Jaehyun's name, but at her core, Donghyuck is a petty bitch, and she is going to exclusively refer to him as 'that guy' until he proves he isn't a love rival.
"Baby, I'm wearing a denim blazer. I have a dermal piercing. I have a fucking undercut. Even if I hadn’t been flirting with you for the last few months, it wouldn't make me straight! Besides, Jae and I make out at every party we go to. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Donghyuck pouts, and watches as Doyoung’s eyes lock onto her lips. “Not anymore though, right? You’ve kissed him enough, it’s my turn now.”
“That depends,” Doyoung cocks an eyebrow. “Are you and Renjun going to be fucking in the bathroom anytime soon?”
Donghyuck flushes pink. The party Doyoung is referencing had been an enjoyable decision, but not a smart one. “You heard about that?” She squeaks.
“Who hasn’t?” Doyoung asks and pinches her cheek softly. She doesn’t seem judgemental though, just fondly exasperated. Well, Donghyuck thinks, we’ve made it this far…
“Clearly you have a bad source, because it wasn’t Renjun.”
Doyoung cocks an eyebrow, “Oh?”
“Mm,” Donghyuck smiles. “It was Renjun’s girlfriend.”