Work Text:
i. my dreaming is hopeless
“I can’t see you anymore.”
Yunjin stood in the alleyway between Chaewon’s agency and the next, breath gripping tightly in the air. Her face slowly crumbled. “What do you mean?”
Chaewon’s fading auburn hair stuck to her cheeks, eyes flitting against the cracked floor. Distantly she heard the sound of her group members laughing in one of the practice rooms. Her heart clenched.
She looked at Yunjin, fingers tightly clenching the ends of her shirt. “I just… can’t. I can’t.”
She wanted to understand. Desperately so. They’d been in the same show together, just not the same group. Right person, wrong time. She remembered her friends back in the States, always moping over their crushes, whittling away that saying until it was nothing but bare bones to grasp on.
Breathing in deeply, her eyes drifted upwards to the cloudy sky. “Please.”
“I’m sorry, Yunjin-ah.”
It wasn’t official between them. She’d been eliminated, and seeing each other got harder and harder. They’d kissed a few times between shaded hallways and streets, at night out of the way. Out of sight, out of mind.
Yunjin’s bottom lip trembled, inches away from her words overflowing from her chest, a dam exploding forward. She fisted her hands until the sting of her nails ebbed the pulsing anxiety in her mind away.
“It’s okay.” Yunjin managed, lips moving in that familiar pattern she’d forced herself to learn.
Chaewon would debut, and leave her behind. Then what? She’d left everyone behind to try and debut with her, and now she was back to being some nameless trainee whittling away for hours and hours to achieve something.
She felt a fleck of snow against her cheek and looked up, watching the first few fall.
“They say our comeback did really well,” Chaewon said slowly, palms of her hands messily wiping away snow like it was her own tears. “And the next one’s going to be even bigger and… they might extend our contract. I hope they do.”
“Oh.” She kept her eyes off her shorter figure, heart too sore in her chest to even think of that. “That’s great. I’m happy for you.”
“You’re not mad at me?” Chaewon’s voice softened.
Reluctantly, she met those same brown eyes she’d become familiar with and resented in the same thought. “No. I’m not. You’re busy now. I get it. You’re doing well.”
“I’ll miss you.” She said again, lips and tongue gouging the open wound in her heart wider and wider, until she had spilt everything and felt hollow. It wasn’t Chaewon’s fault, they were both young. Stupid and young. Busy and stupid and young and cruel to each other when the world couldn’t see what it was like.
And yet.
“It’s funny.” Yunjin sighed, the words feeling fake in her mouth, like chewing on cotton. “I care so much, and yet I can’t remember if you’ve ever even liked me at all.”
♡︎.ᐟજ⁀➴
ii. out of luck
Yunjin stared at her laptop screen.
Her dormmate near her was asleep and had been for hours. The hour wasn’t late but she wasn’t the only one feeling every ache and tear that reached through her body.
Instead of sleeping, she was watching the live stream unfold in front of her.
Her eyes focused on Chaewon, teary eyes glistening brightly underneath the stage lights. Hair cupping her cheeks and shoulders, hugging her despite the racking sobs she could see she was trying to hold on.
Yunjin felt devastated.
It was one thing being heartbroken and sour over another girl she had grown attached to leaving her like it was nothing. She had left to achieve her dreams and flourish under the stage lights.
It was another thing to watch and track the whole timeline of the group. All the broken records, the insane popularity. The scandal should have destroyed the group, and yet here they were, crying on stage with their last and final concert.
Yunjin hadn’t contacted Chaewon after they’d last spoken.
She felt petty in her distance and aching like every teenage girl did once. She missed her family and friends whom she now struggled to talk to with the time difference, and wasn’t clicking with her other trainees.
Heard rumours her branch was planning on forming a new girl group.
All things she should be worried over, and right now she was watching Chaewon through the screen, her sweet voice in her eardrums again.
“Living as a member of IZ*ONE over the last two years and a half, I was really happy. So loved.” Her voice crackled. “But there were also times where it was exhausting. Every time I could stand back up because of the members and WIZONE, I felt okay again.”
Yunjin bit down on her tongue, hard. Any focus on the ache through her body melted away hearing the way Chaewon struggled to breathe, face puffy and eyes red.
She’d held onto a grudge for long enough, just because she hadn’t done as well to achieve what Chaewon had, and how Chaewon had left her when it was the most real thing she would ever have to do in her career.
“Yunjin..?” A groggy voice split through her earphones.
She didn’t realise she had been crying, too.
♡︎.ᐟજ⁀➴
iii. my heart sits there
Of all her luck, of course, Chaewon was there.
Finally, finally. Four years of waiting and she was in the lineup for the company’s next planned group.
The news was like a wave of fresh air, the type only smelt in the far, far countryside away from everything.
A staff member guided her through, cameras following her while she approached the door. She took a moment, hands lingering on the handle before slowly pushing it forward.
Yunjin saw Sakura standing there first, all the way back from her Produce days. They hadn’t spoken much, but it was rewarding seeing someone she knew, especially an IZ*ONE member standing there in the practice room.
Chaewon stood beside her.
Despite the heavy mix of emotions in her chest - dread and excitement blended - she walked in. She laughed and smiled, clumsily greeting them. Claimed how good it was to see them again, years and years after Produce.
How much she had changed.
The cameras clicked off, producers and cameramen droning on in the background. Sakura - bless her heart - slowly edged back towards her belongings, leaving her alone with Chaewon.
Yunjin managed a gentle smile. “Welcome back.”
She laughed lightly. “I’m happy to be back, Yunjin-ah.”
How her name between her lips ached the same way it did four years ago.
She dragged in cold air, frigid as the snowflakes managed to sear against her brain. “I guess this is it, huh? The universe’s cruel way of putting us back together again.”
“Yunjin.” Chaewon’s face crumbled.
“I know.” She didn’t. She just knew that childish grievances wouldn’t do her good when being one of the best girl groups, fuck up the industry as a whole, and set new standards, that would do her good. Do them good. “I forgive you. I want another chance, with you. With us. With this. We’ll make it work.”
Glassy-eyed, Chaewon smiled slowly. “You are too confident, it’ll kill you someday.”
She grinned wider than she had in years. “Oh I know it, I plan on it.”
♡︎.ᐟજ⁀➴
iv. into the roads, its open
Yunjin met Chaewon in the hallway.
She watched the older girl sniffle, hands clumsily dragging across her puffy face to smear away the tears.
“Chaewon…” she whispered and reached forward hesitantly. Knocking her hands back she stepped closer, hands cupping against her face to allow her to wipe the tears for her.
“I-I just…” she hiccuped. “I don’t know what else the- they want from m-me… haven’t I… haven’t I done enough? I-I’ve pushed myself over and over again and I can’t get this- these stupid steps anymore. I don’t know what I’m doing… Yunjin-ah. I’m not good e-enough for this.”
“Unnie.” The words slipped without a second thought. She squeezed her cheeks, feeling a touch thinner than they needed to, worry lurching sharply in her gut. “Unnie, you’re okay… we all take our time. She’s being harsh because she cares about us… yeah? And in no time, it’ll feel just like breathing, and you will be amazing again. Better than before.”
Yunjin reached for her clammy hand, carefully pressing it over her chest where she knew her heart was.
Here she was, willingly giving away a piece of herself again for Chaewon.
“Try and copy me. Copy the way I’m breathing.”
Chaewon bit her swollen lip, her head wobbling. She closed her eyes, letting the last few tears escape. With her hand clenching Yunjin’s shirt, she slowly managed to ease her breathing down. Deeply in, and out again. Minutes passed and slowly she could breathe again, even with the occasional stutter.
Yunjin smiled. “There we go. Easy peezy, lemon squeezy.”
A surprised laugh burst from Chaewon’s lips, eyes widening an inch. “Easy… peasy, lemon squeasy?” She hiccuped through her broken English. “What do you mean?”
Another laugh, louder eased out of her, hands grasping to pull her body against hers. She felt Chaewon’s hair tickle her neck, the same perfume she still wore years later cementing itself back in every nook she had forgotten about. “It’s getting easier. Soon you’ll make it look so easy, that none of this will matter anymore.”
♡︎.ᐟજ⁀➴
v. the bed i lay in
Yunjin couldn’t sleep.
She stared at the ceiling, fingers anxiously clenching and unclenching around the sheets, heart rate static and high like the choreography they’d spent all day long drilling into their heads.
“Yunjin-ah?”
There she was.
Without thinking, she shuffled over in her bed, lifting the sheets until she felt Chaewon’s warm form press up against her side slowly. She sighed and closed her eyes, desperately not wanting to let her thoughts stray too hard.
“Are you worried?” Yunjin asked the bundle next to her, eyes adjusting to the light from the hallway spilling in.
“I’m always worried now.” She sighed, breath fluttering against her skin. Yunjin felt the way her face scrunched against her shoulder - eyebrows tightening, lips pouting, fist clawing at the sheets.
Yunjin would remark on how it made her look like a tiger cub if her heart wasn’t clawing itself apart twice the time now. “Our debut tomorrow will be perfect.”
“You can’t know that.” She huffed. “It was a miracle IZ*ONE was successful. We’ve never had a girl group.”
“Unnie.” Yunjin huffed, using the weight on her elbow to push herself up and over Chaewon. Her eyes traced her gentle face and pouty plump lips, the way her hair fell across her eyes messily. “Please. We will be okay. Maybe not insanely successful, but okay.”
Chaewon stared, slowly stretching out limb by limb to unlock herself. “Since when did you like calling me unnie, Yunjin-ah? You didn’t back then. What’s changed?”
Yunjin recognised this - the snarky attempts of lashing out, biting her words. She breathed in deeply, fingers ever so gently moving the loose strands of hair off of her forehead. “Chaewon.” She sighed, letting the words fall before her thoughts could count twice. It shouldn’t be weird to use that with her, she had days ago and it didn’t seem to matter then. Why now? “I want to call you Unnie… because you are someone I care for. Deeply. And- and I know we… didn’t leave on a good foot last time. But we’re older now. I care for you, let me call you Unnie.”
The girl underneath her tightened her lips like she was ready to bare teeth and growl at her. Instead, she slowly relaxed, preening into the way Yunjin moved her bangs off her forehead and smoothed it down.
“You annoy me.”
“You love it.”
“Hah.” Chaewon smiled, baring her teeth. “Yeoja, then. I’ll call you Yeoja if you’re so desperate to talk to me like that.
Pabo.
Jagi.
The words drowned in the thunder of her heartbeat in her head all while she willingly let Chaewon tear her raw open, again and again.
♡︎.ᐟજ⁀➴
vi. love will only take you there
Despite the scandals against their former group member, their debut was explosive. Just like Yunjin had promised.
Awards left and right, music show wins, hundreds and hundreds of views on their music video.
And right back to square one, Yunjin stretched her legs out against the floor of the practice room. She groaned, leaning back to flop onto her back, dragging her eyes away from where they had been locked on Chaewon through the mirror.
Eunchae’s gentle, smiling face came into view. “You like Chaewonnie.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Eunchae rolled over, struggling to hide a wide smile behind her hand as she curled up. “Come on, I see the way you go all… goo-goo eyes around her. You don’t even care when she’s always pretending to bite you.”
Yunjin struggled to feign ignorance. The fresh wounds of her heart slowly unthreaded with nothing to hide that ugliness again.
“I can’t explain it, Eunchae.” She admitted. “She broke my heart once. I liked her a lot after Produce, and she left me. And… it’s wrong. It is so… so wrong. The company will hate us, the fans… and she doesn’t even think of me that way. I know it.”
Eunchae stayed silent, lifting her head to watch the other three girls still warming down before they’d all shuffled home. She cupped her hands and scooted forward to whisper in her ear.
“Love doesn’t matter like that. You like her, she probably likes you too, and it’ll be worth it all if you really, really like them. Isn’t it?”
Yunjin catches her bottom lip between her teeth. She sits up, dragging the maknae up with her. “It’s a shame she doesn’t like me that way, otherwise you should be my life coach.”
Sakura’s head snapped in their direction, eyes wide. “Like who?”
Yunjin smiled as she leaned back, watching Eunchae dissolve in a fit of giggles on the floor, Sakura’s waning worry over her.
She met Chaewon’s eyes over their heads and smiled.
This was easy and good. Why fuck it up?
♡︎.ᐟજ⁀➴
vii. claim me loud enough to hear
Yunjin fucked up.
Staring at the dark ceiling of her room was a new habit. She hadn’t been sleeping, not since Chaewon made an active habit of coming into her room.
She turned her head to stare at the bare shoulder peeking underneath the sheets, black messy hair everywhere.
“Unnie?”
She answered with a grunt.
Yunjin knew this was wrong. Getting drunk after the end of a successful promotion wasn’t smart. Letting Chaewon flirt was a bad idea.
Willingly letting her into her bed was far, far worse.
Her fingers reached out to trace the faint contours along her back she could see through the faint lights that spilled in.
Despite the flickering moonlight and city roaring, Yunjin moved her finger slowly along the faint muscles along Chaewon’s skin. Her finger dipped from her shoulder blade, curling around the beauty marks she rarely saw.
Like a small boat on an ocean far too big to handle her, she traced over Chaewon’s story. Between the trainee days, the competition show she flunked out on - the group she wasn’t a part of.
She navigated the waves of her story like it was a blank new page. A little kid folding together paper to try and mimic someone’s paper boat. Trying to understand the steps taken to get to where they were.
What happened between them two to create two such different stories?
Yunjin dragged her finger down lower, across Chaewon’s spine.
She carved the present day into her body. Dug deeper to form the way that she knew Chaewon away from that mirrored, teenage self. That fury, that bite, the softened edges and curves. The gentler laugh she only heard when they were huddled off away from everyone. Rolling around on their practice floor.
Running through the streets late at night, just like they had as teenagers desperately clinging onto a dream.
“Unnie…”
“What, Yeoja?” Chaewon’s words slurred. Her head turned while her eyes struggled to find Yunjin in the dark. She frowned groggily and slowly reached out to grasp at her.
Yunjin clasped her fingers. “I don’t like you… calling me that.”
She blinked slowly, eyelids fluttering. “Why not? You’re… you are like a cute, little sister.” She mumbled.
“I don’t- I don’t want to be… just that. With you, Chaewon.”
The seams in her chest she’d slowly been picking apart and cutting raw bled over.
“What do you mean… Yunjin-ah? What’s… what’s happening.”
“I don’t know,” Yunjin whispered, slowly chewing on the inside of her cheek. She should be feeling like her - high off the buzz of alcohol and sex and celebration, lazing after a strong period. “I don’t know. I don’t want to- to be like this… anymore. Please.”
Chaewon stared silently. She wouldn’t remember this in the morning.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Yunjin frowned, squeezing those hands tighter. She closed her eyes and leaned forward until those same roughed-up fingers pressed against the flush of her cheeks.
“I don’t know either.”
♡︎.ᐟજ⁀➴
viii. your pain brings me such joy
Every morning, Yunjin would wake up, at the same time without fail. If they were travelling, it was earlier. But always the same.
Some mornings, Chaewon would be there next to her.
She woke up, washed her face, brushed her teeth and changed, and headed out for practice. Or rehearsal. Or recording. Or whatever was on their schedule.
The days blurred slightly.
Around lunch, if she was at practice, she’d stretch out and wind down. She’d eat, and talk with Sakura. Sit across the room, watch Chaewon laugh and squirm and talk to the other girls.
She’d lament to Sakura. She’d smile, insist good would come soon.
Her heart loosened and bled a little.
After their schedule, Yunjin would head back with the girls. Eat, own downtime. Shower, clean up. Bid goodnight.
Most nights, Chaewon would find her way into Yunjin’s bed.
Most nights, with her back turned, Yunjin would trace and try to make up stories in her head along the skin of Chaewon. Connecting the dots, creating reason, any explanation.
She’d sleep and wake up. Rinse and repeat.
Their comeback idea sprouted. Yunjin liked it.
Chaewon was back in her bed.
The director yelled behind the camera, instructing her to run along the cobbled beach with the group.
Chaewon would smile at her in that warm way that shattered her heart.
Yunjin prepared for their comeback stage.
Chaewon would be there backstage, holding all of their hands, brightly brimming and assuring how well it would go.
Their first win for the comeback.
Chaewon was there beaming to the crowd.
Every night, whenever the doors closed, whenever it was back to reality in their little shared dorm, Chaewon was there.
Her perfume had sewn itself into the ache of her head, the scars all over her. Her bed sheets, her clothes. She saw Chaewon in the city every time they were in the car together. Saw Chaewon in the vlogs and videos and challenges. Felt Chaewon in the empty spaces around the house. Backstage, practice rooms. Hallways, cars. Everywhere.
Every night Chaewon was there, Yunjin would lay with her head against the pillow, watching the slow rise and fall of Chaewon’s chest with each slow gentle breath, and try to match her breathing.
Slow.
Steady.
Dull.
Wrong.
♡︎.ᐟજ⁀➴
ix. pick me off the ground, to be found
“Yunjin-ah!”
She ran harder than she ever had.
The Han River blurred angrily with the last few lights that Seoul screamed to her.
Yunjin had no clue where she was running to directly. Anywhere but where she was. Where the dorm felt like she was drowning underwater. Where the company felt like she was a dog cornered and inches away from lashing out. Where her room felt like a cage.
Chaewon ran after her.
“Yunjin-” Her raspy voice gasped into the frozen night air. She struggled to keep up with her panicked pace. “Please. Please. Come on-”
“Fuck off!”
“What- what about-” Chaewon struggled to find her voice as she ran after Yunjin, trying to claw her way back into life like she had again, and again.
Yunjin squinted her eyes, barely focusing on the path before her. “Stop it! Just-”
Her voice shattered as her knees gave in, scraping against cobblestone and dragging her world to a complete halt.
“Oh-” Chaewon slowed, sliding against the icy ground before she finally caught the girl. She collapsed down beside her, unable to miss the sounds of her heavy ragged sobs. “Oh… Yeoja.”
“Stop it!” Yunjin gasped, hands pressed tightly against her eyes. Her bottom lip wobbled with each sob that stabbed her throat. “You don’t- fucking… don’t fucking call me Yeoja anymore. P-Please? What else d-do I have to do to get you to just see me?”
Chaewon frowned, hands fretting over her shoulders and up into her hair. “I don’t-...”
“You don’t get it because y-you don’t… you don’t see me. I want you to see me. I-Is that… is that so hard to want?” Yunjin lifted her head, eyes rimmed red, black hair sticking to her cheeks and forehead. “Is it so bad that I want you? Not just- just the sex… anymore. I want you s-so… so bad Chaewon. E-Even after all these stupid goddamn years my brain is broken e-enough to want you.”
“Yunjin-ah…”
“I want and I-I want and I ache and I crave… and I want.” She cried the nails she was digging into her palms digging blood up, digging the blood out of that scarred mash that had formed in her chest. Digging it up like a little tiger cub starving for a feed.
“I want you- in… in every way. A-And why can’t I? Why can’t I… I want you to call me yours. Jagi? Pabo? Why don’t you act like you- you care? You act like nothing fucking matters anymore when you have always mattered to me- and will always fucking matter to me!”
Chaewon bit her lip, tears racing down her cheeks. She felt flecks of snow slowly start to scatter over them like the snow had fallen on them both five years ago.
How they’d both changed in five years since this last happened.
“Yunjin-ah,” Chaewon whispered. Shakily she retracted her claws, pressed paws against rosy soaked cheeks cold to the touch. She wrapped cub arms around her shaky figure, drawing that cold body into her warmer one.
The younger girl melted instantly, water puddling the moment fire glittered inches away from that frigid ice.
“I- don’t know how… to express it to you. Explain it.” Chaewon slowly started, voice wobbly as she attempted to try and settle herself. “I care about you. I’ve always cared about you. I didn’t… want to always care for you.” She pressed her cheek against Yunjin’s, hand desperate to cling to the back of her head. “I miss you… all the time. I missed you- when I was in IZ*ONE. I- missed you when… when we debuted. Together. Like- like we were meant to. I… I miss you still. I don’t want to just-... lay in your bed. I don’t want just the sex from you.”
Yunjin shuddered, lungs struggling for air. “You’re insane.”
Despite it all, Chaewon managed a laugh. She hugged the younger girl's body tighter. “I feel like I’m always… fighting. Something. I don’t know what I’m fighting. Well… I do. I’m fighting for better- for us to be better… for us to be the best. For you all to be the best. For everyone to be happy. I’m… I’m fighting for you too, Yunjin-ah. For your second chance and my second life and- and I’d really like… to make this work for us.”
“I want to work.” Yunjin insisted, her head dropping to rest against Chaewon’s warmer shoulder. No one was out, stupid enough besides her to run this early in the morning during winter. “I want us to work. I want you… I want everything about you. I want you… to consume me whole. I want you to eat me alive- tear into my heart like you’ve never been this hungry before.”
Chaewon breathed in tighter, arms securing her body against hers. Slowly, she rocked them back onto their feet, blood dribbling down Yunjin’s scuffed knees and hands.
“I want to make you all mine. I think I always have.”
♡︎.ᐟજ⁀➴
x. kille come
Chaewon smiled up at Yunjin.
She beamed, brown eyes staring through long eyelashes. Fingers darted around her face and bleached hair, flattening over the final touches.
“You feel ready?”
“I do, Unnie,” Yunjin remarked. She stood straighter, fingers fiddling with her shirt. “You feel ready?”
She bared her teeth in a sharp grin, scrunching her cheeks. “As the best leader, I am always ready. You make this easy. I make this easy. We can make this easy. Can’t we, pabo?”
The buzz with everyone fussing over the set, and other members getting touched up. Directors and producers yell over each other to get cameras set up.
Yunjin waited until their stylists had left them alone. She smiled wider, slowly breathing in and leaning down to peck her forehead slightly. Her thumb smudged away the tint of her lipstick.
“We will make it easy. Always.”
“Always.”