Chapter Text
As the members of NMIXX were getting back onto the university bus after their first performance together, Jiwoo pulled Bae aside. “Unnie, can you sit with me on the bus?” she asked. “I need your advice.”
Bae raised an eyebrow. “My advice? Why me?”
Jiwoo shrugged. “I don’t know, unnie,” she said quietly, looking down. “I just. . . feel like I can trust you, and I need help. Please?”
Bae sighed. She liked Jiwoo, but she just. . . Jiwoo had three unnies in NMIXX who were older than Bae, and she wished that Jiwoo had gone to one of them with her problem, but she didn’t, so Bae guessed she had to do it. “Sure,” she said. “I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll try.”
“Thanks unnie!” Jiwoo said, jumping up and down and giving Bae a hug. Bae put her arm around Jiwoo’s shoulders and locked a smile onto her face. They were all in their first week at university, and the members of NMIXX were the closest friends any of them had on campus, so she felt like she had to be there for Jiwoo, regardless of how she felt about it.
Once they were all on the bus, the faculty supervisor had to do a headcount to be sure they were all there before they got underway. ”There are only six of us,” Bae thought grumpily. “How difficult can it be to not lose one?”
Once the bus was rolling, Bae leaned over to Jiwoo and asked “Okay, so what’s going on that you need my advice?”
“Well,” Jiwoo said, leaning closer to Bae so she could talk more quietly, “there this girl that I like, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to tell her.”
Bae nodded. “And have you tried talking to her?” she asked with an impish smile.
Jiwoo laughed and rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ve tried talking to her, unnie! We talk all the time! But somehow I can’t manage to talk to her about this!”
Bae smiled. She’d been through this same situation so many times. She was in the same place right now, in fact. “All right,” she said. “Maybe we can work you through this. But you have to tell me who it is if I’m going to be able to help.”
Jiwoo slumped further down and leaned closer to Bae. “Do I have to tell you, unnie?” she asked. “Can’t you just. . . I don’t know. . .”
“Wave my magic wand?” Bae asked. “I’m not your fairy god-unnie. If I don’t know who we’re dealing with, I won’t be able to help you plan a strategy to talk to her.”
Jiwoo signed. She stared out the window for a moment, the looked back at Bae. “But if I tell you, you won’t tell anyone, right unnie?”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” Bae said.
Jiwoo closed her eyes, sighed, took a deep breath, the opened her eyes and said, so quietly that Bae could barely hear her “It’s Lily.”
Bae’s heart did a back flip, then a front flip, then slammed into her lungs and knocked the breath out of her. When she could finally breathe again, she looked over at Jiwoo and said “I’m really not the one to help you with this.”
“But why not, unnie?” Jiwoo asked, apparently not seeing what was going on.
Recognizing she was going to have to spell it out, regardless of the consequences, Bae leaned closed to Jiwoo and said “Because I’ve got a crush on Lily too.”
“Oh unnie, no!” Jiwoo protested. “No! Don’t do that!”
Bae hurried to shush Jiwoo before any of the others heard her and asked what was going on. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t help how I feel. But I really don’t think it matters, because look. . .” She gestured toward the front of the bus where Lily was sitting next to Sullyoon, their heads leaned together as they talked.
Jiwoo scowled. Of course Lily would be with Sullyoon, because Sullyoon was the sweetest and the prettiest and she could have anyone she wanted.
“I don’t know what drama you’re thinking of starting,” Bae said softly, startling Jiwoo and causing her to jump in her seat, “but you shouldn’t.”
“I’m not planning any drama, unnie,” Jiwoo said.
Bae didn’t believe her, but more to the point, she didn’t care: She’d done her duty as an unnie by telling Jiwoo not to start any drama and, well, if Jiwoo did manage to break up Sullyoon and Lily, that didn’t necessarily mean that Lily would end up with Jiwoo. And Bae had to admit that she liked her odds against Jiwoo better than her odds against Sullyoon.
“Please unnie?” Sullyoon pleaded, turning on all the aegyo. “She’s your roommate. Surely you can do something to help!”
“Why can’t you just ask her out?” Lily asked. “It’s not difficult. It’s like seven words: Jiwoo, would you go out with me?”
“It’s easy for you to say that, because you wouldn’t be the one asking her out,” Sullyoon said. “You’re not the one who’d be hurt. What if she says no? What if she thinks I’m weird?” Sullyoon paused, and a horrified look came over her face. “What if she’s straight?”
Lily laughed. “Well, after having been in the room while Jiwoo was watching dramas and gushing over the various actresses who caught her eye, I can pretty much assure you that she’s not straight,” she said.
“Well, at least that’s something,” Sullyoon said, somewhat pacified. “But why, unnie? Why can’t you help me out? At least put in a good word for me?”
“Because I don’t like drama,” Lily said. “More to the point, I can’t afford to have any drama. The members of NMIXX are all the friends I have in Korea, so if any drama breaks out in NMIXX, there goes my whole life.”
“But why would there be any drama?” Sullyoon asked. “If I ask her out and she says no, I’ll be heartbroken, but there won’t be any drama.” She pouted, the looked through her eyelashes at Lily. “But if you were to help me out, she’d be more likely to say yes.”
“Exactly,” Lily said. “Because I’m her roommate and her unnie, she might be afraid to say no if I’m urging her to go out with you, and that’s pretty much guaranteed to lead to drama.”
Sullyoon pondered this for a moment, nervously chewing her bottom lip. Finally, she relented. “Okay, you could be right,” she said. “But if you won’t help me directly, you can at least give me some pointers, right? If I do ask—”
“When,” Lily interrupted.
“Fine,” Sullyoon said, “when I do ask her out, where should I ask her out to?”
“She likes getting her nails done,” Lily said. “You know, the fancy painted nails? Maybe the two of you could go get manicures together.”
“That would be great!” Sullyoon exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “And maybe then we could go get something to eat after. She likes kimchi stew, right?”
Lily nodded. “Especially with ham.”
“Yes!” Sullyoon said. “I can do this! I’ll ask her tonight!”
“That’s the spirit!” Lily said, inwardly rejoicing that she wouldn’t have to get involved with this.
“I do not talk in my sleep!” Kyujin exclaimed.
Haewon laughed. “Oh yes you do,” she said. “And you say the most interesting things.”
“What did I say?” Kyujin asked.
“That you have a crush on Lily,” Haewon said.
Kyujin fell silent after this, and Haewon grimly looked out the window, watching the countryside roll by as the bus took them back to the university from their performance in the city. She had hoped that Kyujin would immediately deny having a crush on Lily. But she didn’t, which made Haewon’s life that much more difficult. It was hard enough being the leader of the group and having the maknae as her roommate, but to add in the fact that apparently they both had a crush on the same girl, it just was too much to even think about. Haewon’s brooding was interrupted by Kyujin saying something. She shook herself to snap out of her deep thoughs and turned to Kyujin. “What was that?”
“I said,” Kyujin said, acting for all the world as if there hadn’t been a 10-minute gap in their conversation, “that since you know who I have a crush on, that now you have to tell me who you have a crush on.”
Haewon laughed and shook her head. “No I don’t,” she said. “That’s not how it works.”
“But I can’t help it that I talk in my sleep!” Kyujin said. She paused for a minute, nervously chewing her bottom lip, apparently deep in thought. “Come on, unnie! Tell you what, you don’t have to tell me outright. I can phrase it as ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill,’ and you can act like it’s just a game. So: Jiwoo, Bae, Sullyoon: fuck, marry, kill?”
Haewon breathed a sigh of relief that Kyujin hadn’t included Lily in the choices — apparently the idea that her unnie would have a crush on the same girl that she did had never occurred to her. “Well, since it’s just a game, I guess it can’t hurt to answer,” Haewon said. Kyujin giggled at this. Haewon thought for a moment — even for being strictly hypothetical, this was more difficult than she’d imagined. Finally, she settled on her choices. “Well, of course I’d marry Sullyoon, and I guess I’d fuck Bae, so then I’d have to kill Jiwoo — though I’d really rather not kill any of members, even those that talk in their sleep.” She pretended she was going to choke Kyujin and they both laughed.
Haewon thought she’d dodged a bullet, until she realized that Kyujin had started talking again. “I’d try to help you out, unnie,” she said, “but it looks like it’s hopeless. Sullyoon appears to be taken already.”
Haewon looked where Kyujin was pointing, and sure enough, Sullyoon was sitting close to Lily, their heads together as they talked and laughed. Haewon sighed. Of course. Not that she could blame Lily. Sullyoon was pretty, and she was so sweet — who wouldn’t want to go out with her? So why was Sullyoon with Lily? Haewoon looked around the bus, checking out all the members in the group, her eyes finally settling on Jiwoo. Jiwoo looked more like the type to date Sullyoon. Haewon smiled as she looked out the window. If she could get Sullyoon and Jiwoo together, then her only competition for Lily would be Kyujin, so she was feeling pretty confident.