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sieun hates how sappy suho is. how she’ll send her stupid couple posts on instagram, how she’ll text her stupidly long and lovely paragraphs on valentine’s day, or sieun’s birthday, or just when she’s feeling extra lovey dovey.
sieun hates how it makes her gut twist, how it makes her heart clench and her face warm.
sieun hates how suho cares, too. how she goes out of her way to do things for sieun, saves up money to buy her gifts and take her places. she says it’s what best friends should do for each other, or at least what suho should do for her best friend.
because that’s all they are. best friends.
“sieun-ah,” suho grins at her one day, “i wanna try something on you.”
sieun blinks slowly. “what?” she asks.
“just some makeup. you never wear it, i think you’d look pretty with it on.”
sieun’s brain stops. rewinds. pretty . rewind. pretty. rewind.
suho thinks sieun would look pretty?
“okay,” sieun says, just as surprised by her own lack of stubbornness as suho is.
———
this is a very strange way to do someone’s makeup, sieun thinks distantly. her head suddenly feels far, far away, floating on some distant cloud out of reach.
she’s laid down on the bed, against suho’s pillows that smell like her shampoo, her perfume, her cigarettes. suho’s sat on her lap, legs on either side of sieun, leaning down to dust powders and smear gloss and dab glitter.
her weight on sieun’s body is one the girl never wants to forget. she doesn’t want suho to move. she could stay this way forever. the yellow light of suho’s ceiling light casts sieun in shadow, looking up at suho, lit from behind. like an angel.
do those exist?
suho twists the cap on a glittery lipgloss.
“there,” she says. she sounds proud of herself. proud of her work. sieun’s still trying to get her head to work.
when she’s finished, sieun can feel the sticky lipgloss on her lips, the way the mascara sticks to itself on her eyelashes, the foundation on her face. all of it. it’s a nightmare to her senses, but somehow, she tolerates it.
because suho did it for her.
“do i look pretty?” sieun asks softly. suho’s eyes widen a fraction as she scans her friend’s face. a smile forms on her own lips. sieun wonders if her lipgloss tastes as fruity as hers does.
“of course you’re pretty, yeonsi. you’re the prettiest.”
sieun just stares.
suho moves to get off of her. sieun stops her.
“huh? what’s up?” suho asks, tilting her head. she thinks something’s wrong.
sieun’s mouth feels glued shut. he licks at his own lips. “don’t move. please.”
suho’s quiet this time, and sieun is afraid she’s broken her. the words ‘suho’ and ‘quiet’ aren’t words she’d ever put together before. her heart thumps in her chest, so forcefully it’s almost painful. she’s about to deflect her comment, play it off as a joke even though it’s out of character for her, but suho speaks again.
“ah, you wanna cuddle, sieun-ah?” she grins, and sieun wonders if that bout of silence was something she’d imagined.
“no..” sieun mutters, embarrassed at herself.
suho leans down closer, so they’re just a hair, or breath, away from each other. she smells good, really good. like spices and fall leaves. sieun’s head swims.
“i’m not opposed to it,” she says, quieter this time. “i’ve been waiting for the day my sieunnie would finally let down her fortified walls of galvanized steel and let me in.”
sieun huffs. “don’t be ridiculous.”
suho’s hair is falling like a curtain around their faces. sieun feels a strange lump in his throat, and an inexplicable urge to get up and run away.
suho makes a petulant expression.
“ridiculous? what’s ridiculous? if you don’t want to, i’ll just get up then-“
again, sieun stops her. she smiles down at her again.
“you’re more warm-hearted than you think you are, sieun-ah. you won’t admit that you wanna be taken care of, but you really do. don’t think i don’t know you.”
sieun can feel her face warm. stupid suho, with her stupid words. her grades in korean are so bad, yet she can make sieun feel weak with just a few sentences.
tentatively, sieun reaches up to hold suho by the back of her head. she’s surprised by how soft her hair is.
suho doesn’t do anything, just looking down at sieun expectantly. sieun can feel it, the urge to just do something. but he’s not sure what. his brain has completely left him now, and he’s acting on instinct.
she’s conducting an experiment. that’s what it is.
her hypothesis: suho’s lipgloss is red, so it must taste like strawberry. or maybe even apple. apples are red, aren’t they?
her findings: it’s cherry.
when their lips meet, suho freezes, even though it seems as though she’d been expecting this. she warms up to it soon enough though, and sieun thinks she might die. she can’t breathe, suho’s stealing her air.
sieun’s clumsy, she can’t kiss back, so she just lies there, letting suho take the reins. she can feel suho everywhere, all around her. like a force of nature, a hurricane. she’s being lifted up, up, up. far away.
when suho finally pulls back, both their makeup is smudged. their chests rise and fall in tandem, catching their breath.
suho’s thumb swipes over sieun’s bottom lip, shiny and kiss-swollen.
“man, i worked so hard just to mess it all up again, huh?” she says, and she finally rolls off of sieun. she misses the weight, just a bit. like a heavy blanket.
“but you know what?” suho says.
“what?” sieun asks, voice still hoarse and mind still a hundred miles behind the current moment.
“you still look just as pretty, even with your makeup messed up. you know that, sieun-ah? you’re so pretty.”
rewind. pretty .
sieun wants to die. hasn’t suho had enough of embarrassing her? she curls up against suho, huffing.
“stop..” she complains. “you’re embarrassing me.”
suho just holds her closer.
“just don’t be embarrassed. it’s nothing embarrassing.”
sieun sighs. like it’s that simple. she would complain, but she doesn’t have it in her, not after that .
“that was my first kiss,” sieun murmurs.
suho smiles down at her.
“it was mine, too,” she says, and sieun is surprised. she would have thought suho was more experienced, what with how popular she was. people pulled her over to ask her out between classes constantly.
“hmm..” sieun hums thoughtfully. she’s a little embarrassed, she should have a bit more to say. but her mouth refuses to form words. the two of them just lie there in pleasant silence.
sieun thinks they might not just be best friends.