Work Text:
“Y’know,” Jooyeon says over the sound of Jiseok mumbling about covalent bonds or whatever, “I probably shouldn’t be here.”
“What the hell are you talking about,” Jiseok grumbles over the blue glitter gel pen stuck in her mouth, and then turns back to her desk. It’s absolutely shrouded in papers and textbooks—as usual—due to Jiseok’s hurricane-esque studying habits. The door is only a couple feet to the right of the desk, and the general aura of stress radiating from it is strong enough to make Jooyeon slink awkwardly on her tip-toes to avoid its bad vibes every time she enters.
“You have that chemistry test coming up,” she mutters, and slinks further under the warmth of Jiseok’s pink-and-green striped comforter. The A/C is always on blast in Jiseok’s house, and when ten-year-old Jooyeon came over for the first time, she had to sit in front of the living room fireplace the entire time so her icy toes didn’t freeze together. Jiseok is always telling her she’ll get used to it, but it’s been eight and a half years, and Jiseok is wearing a tank top and shorts while Jooyeon is curled up under Jiseok’s striped comforter, still wearing her varsity sweatshirt, donned in Jiseok’s biggest flannel pajama pants and wearing the fluffy socks that Jiseok’s grandma gave her for Christmas last year.
Jiseok looks and raises an eyebrow at her, so as to say ‘what’s your point’.
“So…” Jooyeon drags out, and absentmindedly chews her lip, “why am I here?”
“...What do you mean?” Jiseok squints at Jooyeon, who is slowly disappearing under her comforter.
“I mean– You could’ve asked Seungmin to come over, or Jungsu –”
“Why the hell would I ask Jungsu ?”
“She’s good at chemistry!”
“ I’m good at chemistry. I don’t need Jungsu here to help me study; I can do it myself.”
“Then why do you need me here,” she almost whines , which is so fucking embarrassing.
Jiseok’s face does a funny thing; her eyebrows furrow, and her eyes widen just a smidge until they catch the orange light from her desk lamp in the corners. “You’re…different, I guess,” she starts, turning back to her work, and Jooyeon sees the tips of her ears gradually turn from tan to peach to pink. “Sometimes I just don’t want to hang out with Seungmin or Jungsu, or anyone else. Not that I don’t like them, obviously. We’re friends , I just–” she pauses in the middle of writing, hand stalled in the air. “Sometimes, I just want you here.”
“Oh,” Jooyeon mumbles into her collar, pulling at the blonde locks of hair around her face and crossing them over her nose. “Even when I keep annoying you while you work?”
“Even then,” Jiseok snickers, glances at Jooyeon once, gaze lingering on where Jooyeon’s head pokes out of the blankets, and then takes a hard look at the mess covering her desk. “Actually—” she starts, and rolls her chair back to stand and stretch her arms up to the ceiling. “—I think I could afford to take a break.”
The periwinkle lace hem of her tank rides up just a bit to sit above her hipbone, exposing the soft skin of her stomach. As Jiseok’s best friend of over a decade, Jooyeon decides that it would be weirder not to look, so her eyes linger on that strip of skin as Jiseok tidies the papers on her desk and stacks her textbooks. She smiles up at Jiseok when she steps up to the bed.
“Hi,” she says, grinning. “Welcome to—” she awkwardly shuffles backwards until her back nearly hits the wall, and then lifts up the corner of her mass of blankets, “—my cocoon.” Jiseok slides in next to her, and Jooyeon sticks her fluffy-socked feet in the space between her shins. “Hi,” she repeats.
“ Hello ,” Jiseok sing-songs, leaning into her space and tucking Jooyeon’s hair behind her ear.
She stays there, running her hands through Jooyeon’s hair, for a long time; long enough that Jooyeon’s eyes drift shut, and her hand reaches Jiseok’s stomach, taking the hem of her tank between her fingers. The hand in her hair strays from its repetition, lingers around the shell of her ear before it comes to rest on her jaw. Jooyeon’s heartbeat stutters. Her eyes shoot open.
“Woah,” she says, pressing her hand to her chest, “that was weird.”
“What was weird?” Jiseok replies softly, thumb stroking the edge of Jooyeon’s jaw over and over again. Jooyeon’s heart skips another beat.
“I think I’m sick,” she says pitifully. “I think I have arrhythmias.”
Jiseok raises an eyebrow.
“My heart started beating like crazy . I thought I was going to die .”
“Oh,” Jiseok says, and her hand stills. “It did that just now?”
Jooyeon nods, and some strands of hair escape from behind her ear. Jiseok tucks them back again, slowly, feather-light. There’s a bird beating its wings in Jooyeon’s chest. “It did it again!” she shrieks, and snatches Jiseok’s other hand from the mattress to rest over the logo on her sweatshirt, to rest over her heart. “Jiseok, be honest,” she says gravely, “am I going to die young.”
“Uh– no,” Jiseok squeaks, eyes wide, cheeks darkening by the second. “No, I– I think I know what’s wrong.”
“Oh, really?”
Jiseok glances over Jooyeon’s face for a second, lingering around her chin before looking back up, and her eyes are so dark and shiny that they look like pools of oil. Jooyeon gets lost in them for a second before she comes back to Earth at the sound of Jiseok’s voice. “Yeah,” she says, soft and low in the space between them. “I’ll show you, but– but you have to close your eyes for a second, okay?”
“Hell yeah,” Jooyeon replies, just as soft, and she only catches a glimpse of Jiseok smiling and rolling her eyes before hers flutter shut.
“You ready?” Jiseok whispers.
Jooyeon’s eyes might not even be closed; she can imagine how Jiseok looks down to the very last detail. Her hair is the same color as the latte she always buys in the morning before school, and the choppy ends brush Jiseok’s collarbones in the rare moment that she takes out her tele-tie. Her skin is soft and warm-toned, especially when she sits and studies on the bleachers during soccer practice, and Jooyeon, breathing ragged and ponytail damp with sweat, shields her eyes with her hand to look at the sun glinting over her face. Her eyelashes are long and dark, and her cheeks turn this pretty pink color every time Jooyeon throws an arm around her shoulders in the hallway or interlaces their fingers while they watch re-runs of the X-Files , and her lips are the same color that she paints on her nails, light pink and pretty like a flower petal. Jooyeon thinks it might be her favorite color; she keeps thinking about it so often.
Jiseok’s fingertips are soft where they trace down her throat to thread into Jooyeon’s hair, and Jooyeon feels her other hand come up to hold her cheek.
“Okay,” she hears Jiseok whisper, “Okay.” And then she’s pulled closer, and there’s a sweet, soft pressure on Jooyeon’s mouth, warm like the bricks of the fireplace downstairs, like fluffy socks and flannel pajamas and glinting sunshine. Her heart beats like a million wings for the four seconds it lasts, before Jiseok pulls away. Jooyeon keeps her eyes shut for a second longer, to feel everything over again and commit it to memory.
She opens them after what feels like a million years, and Jiseok is looking wide-eyed at her, face blazing red, biting down hard on her lip until it blooms magenta. “So,” Jiseok says, voice wavering, “was that it?”
“Yeah,” Jooyeon squeaks back, and Jiseok’s house has never been so burning-hot. “Yeah, that was it, I think.”
They stare at each other. Jiseok’s hand twitches against Jooyeon’s cheek.
“So…” Jiseok drags out. “Wanna…do it again?”
Jooyeon nods so quickly that Jiseok’s hand nearly flies out of her hair. “Yes. Yeah. Can I–” she starts, and then pauses, hand poised between them.
“Yeah, totally,” Jiseok agrees before she can even finish her sentence, tugging on the roots of Jooyeon’s hair so that she leans even closer and has to rest her weight on her elbow.
Looking down at Jiseok is so nice. She gets to look at Jiseok’s hair splayed over the pillowcase, at her eyes sparkling, at her face growing more and more pink as Jooyeon places her hand on her waist and slides her fingers a little under the fabric of her top. Jooyeon quirks an eyebrow at her.
“Yeah, totally,” Jiseok repeats, a little breathless, before raking Jooyeon’s hair away from her face and wrenching her into another kiss.
Their noses bump, and Jooyeon, completely unprepared, accidentally knocks their teeth together on her way down, but then Jiseok pulls her hair to tilt her head to the right, and she parts her lips just enough for Jooyeon to taste the peach flavor of the RedBull that’s still dripping condensation onto her desk. Jooyeon hums into her mouth, and catches Jiseok’s bottom lip between her teeth before she pulls away. Jiseok lets out a frustrated noise and yanks Jooyeon’s hair.
“Sorry, sorry,” Jooyeon hisses. “I just– You know what this means , right?”
Jiseok furrows her eyebrows, and Jooyeon tries to fight the urge, but she is not God’s strongest soldier, so she leans down to press a chaste kiss to Jiseok’s mouth before repeating: “Do you know what this means?”
“Uh–” Jiseok says from under her, still confused, still blushing pretty pink, “...No. No, I do not.”
“This means ,” she starts, biting her lip to fight a laugh that ends up making it out anyway, “that I– ”
Jiseok squints at her.
“–was your first kiss .”
There’s a moment of silence, and then Jooyeon is made quick work of, kicked in the stomach and shoved onto the floor.