Work Text:
I wanna know how you feel
우리 사이 정적이 흐를 때
Do you wanna hold my hand?
On a sudden, sudden
네 생각에 또 심장이
요동쳐 like a drum
귓가에 맴돌아
자꾸 커지는 마음Crush On You, NMIXX
The blue makeup itches where it meets Haewon's skin. Thick. Goopy. Her pores haven't breathed in over five hours. She resists scratching. Half a second of relief traded for another round of touch-ups she doesn't have patience for. Time has gone shapeless under lights that never sleep. All she knows is: it's late.
Across the room, Yoona slouches before the mirror. Phone glued to her hand, neck bent in her regular pose. Same spot she claimed two hours ago. Same posture: shoulders curved inward, spine bent like a fisherman's hook.
Haewon watches. She tells herself she’s not looking, exactly. Just aware. It's passive. A leader keeps track of her members, notes when someone’s been awake too long, when the fatigue starts showing in the spaces between blinks.
Yoona straightens suddenly, like she’s remembered herself. The sleep falls away from her expression: eyes sharpening, lips settling into something composed. That look, honed over a lifetime of analyzing her own reflection. The look she wears for the camera, for strangers. For the audience.
Haewon already knows what this is.
Yoona puffs out her cheeks, studies her mirrored self, adjusts the angle of her jaw. Then she raises her iPhone, adorned in a childish case, to eye level. The flash goes off once, harsh and white in the dim room. Then again. Mirror selfies. Flash on. Of course.
She's probably taking them for Bubble. They will hit the fan inbox, along with 100 other messages, once they get greenlit by her bandmates, friends, family, the company social media team. Not that Haewon keeps track of how many photos Yoona sends to their fans every day. It’s just known. Common knowledge. Yoona never lets a day pass without leaving something behind for the people who wait for her. A daily offering.
The leader part of Haewon notes a quiet swell of pride in her chest. People notice effort. Fans always do. And Yoona never leaves them empty-handed, never phones it in even when she’s running on fumes. Haewon keeps her expression loose, eyes unfocused, like she’s half-asleep herself. Observing too intentionally would seem strange.
Yoona rotates her head in several directions, then tilts it, face suddenly coy. Blue paint dripping artistically down the side of one cheek in a way cake batter usually does not. She frowns at the screen, deletes one photo with a quick jab, takes three more. This time, the flash is off. Her mouth twists, lower lip caught between her teeth, then softens when she sees something she likes.
Something turns over in Haewon’s stomach, neat as a page.
She doesn’t want to give it a name. But her mind works on autopilot—categorizes, labels, files away. She labels the emotion: envy. A manageable feeling. Safe, not loaded with implication. One she can justify to herself, to others who would ask if they could read her thoughts. I wish I could give so much, so freely.
“Haewon-unnie…are you okay?”
The quiet voice comes from her right. It's Jinsol, standing slightly hunched over, the whites of her eyes rimmed red. Her face looks serious with her thick brows drawn together, choppy bangs falling into her eyes in a way that would usually make Haewon reach out to fix them. The darker hair makes her look more mature now.
Haewon blinks, refocuses. “I think I have indigestion.”
Jinsol grimaces. “That keto gimbap. I told you it looked weird.”
“You say that about everything.”
“No,” Jinsol says firmly, pointing for emphasis. “This time I was being serious. It looked like something you would regret! You kept it outside for five hours.” Her tone is matter-of-fact, but sympathetic. She sits down next to Haewon, picking up a sketchpad from the table in front of them, and starts to doodle.
Haewon turns her body toward her, grateful for the interruption. Even so, she can still see Yoona at the edge of her vision, phone lifting again. The sight makes Haewon exhale through her nose. That girl is tireless when it comes to documenting herself. For the sake of perfection, of course.
“It wasn’t outside for that long, stop exaggerating. Anyway, are your solo shots done?” Haewon asks. Jinsol nods absently, busy with her drawing of something that looks like a clown car. It's an interesting subject, but Haewon's attention is elsewhere.
She adds praise that she knows isn't necessary but important: “Good job today, too. Director-nim said our scenes came out really nicely. Don’t forget to take some selfies for the staff before your makeup is ruined. For the bonus photocards.”
Jinsol scoffs, pausing to look up with a pout, offended on principle. “What do you take me for? A rookie? I already sent them like sixteen options.”
The petulance is fake, performed. The humor underneath isn’t. Jinsol’s eyes shine at her, giving her an opportunity to lighten the mood.
Haewon smiles despite herself. “I know how hard you all work.” Her eyes flick automatically toward Yoona—now finally lowering her phone, satisfied, standing up. “But reminding you is my job.”
“Wow. Some leader,” Jinsol says, mirth buried beneath her teasing cadence. “Where were you when my alarm didn’t go off for English class yesterday?”
“I’m your leader,” Haewon shoots back, starting to get into it now. “Not your mother.” She’s about to tack on something sillier to extend this inane conversation, but she’s preempted by another voice.
“Don't you start bickering,” Yoona calls as she crosses the room, heading towards their spot in the corner. Her tone is as light as theirs, soft with exhaustion. Edged with barely hidden fondness. “You are so loud. It's too late for that.” The complaint dips lower as she gets closer, syllables elongated. “How do you even have the strength to talk right now? All I want is my bed.”
She materializes on Haewon’s left, suddenly close.
Haewon flinches—a tiny, involuntary thing—and covers it by shifting slightly, reaching for her phone. She checks the time like it matters, like she doesn’t have the shooting schedule memorized to the second. “Forty-five minutes,” she says. “Your scenes with Jiwoo are still pending.” Lily and Kyujin are occupied with their shots on a separate set. Jiwoo is busy with her own solo footage.
The rest of them, waiting. The dressing room, their purgatory.
Yoona drops onto the couch beside her, sprawling, legs wide, taking up space in ways Haewon hopes she's never forced to change. She digs through her sponsored bag and pulls out a large gaming console the size of her torso, the name of which Haewon cannot recall, although she recalls it being something nerdy. The more familiar Switch already lies discarded on the table beside food containers. Two gaming devices for someone with a phone addiction. Haewon doesn't understand it.
Her bare knee knocks into Haewon’s thigh.
And stays there.
Haewon keeps her eyes on her phone. Bandmates touch each other all the time. Choreography demands it, variety show challenges almost always require it, the cramped vans on the way to music shows make it inevitable. This is nothing. This is normal.
Yoona seems unworried, unaware of the contact, head bowed, hair falling forward to shield her face. Her expression is hidden from Haewon’s prying gaze as she waits for the screen to load. Her hands move across the controller, thumbs working the buttons with practiced rhythm.
As Yoona warms up, Haewon's gaze catches on the movement of her hand: the small bones joining wrist to knuckle, rising and falling beneath skin, shadows rippling like seawater at dusk.
Yoona’s hands are always in motion like this: signing albums with her neat scrawl, fiddling with interview notes during recordings, grasping her crocheting needles when she’s in the middle of a new hobby.
The way Yoona’s pinkies bend slightly inward when she holds her hot mocha, steaming from the company cafeteria. The tiny callous on the middle finger of her left hand, a gift from signing countless albums. The furious bend of her arms as she begins to get into her competitive mode, the console's plastic creaking under her grip. The light catching the knob of bone at her wrist jutting out as her sinews flex.
Haewon has started cataloging these movements without meaning to.
Professional data, she tells herself. That’s all. As an idol, physical features organize themselves neatly in her brain. For research.
“Sol-ah, still have that bottle of barley tea in your bag?” Haewon forces the words out. Her throat has gone papery.
The warmth pressing against her thigh is just body heat. Human temperature creating stimuli. Nothing special about it.
Haewon drops her eyes to her phone, jaw set, and lets the contact linger; unremarked, unacknowledged.
“Can you please get it for me?” She doesn’t like to ask for things, doesn't share snacks, but the memes she's blindly scrolling past on her feed are not engaging enough to silence her thoughts. And she cannot get up herself. For reasons she pushes to the back of her mind.
Haewon turns to face Jinsol fully, arranging her expression into something blank. "I'll owe you! I have some TenTen in my purse you can steal," she offers. Belatedly, she smiles. And prays it doesn’t look cartoonish.
Jinsol gives her a look, one of those searching ones she sparingly uses. Her gaze slants in Yoona’s direction for a split second. Then she’s back, attention refocused with the speed of someone choosing not to intervene.
“I’m surprised you’re not chugging another Americano,” Jinsol says, already getting to her feet. “You must be feeling it, too.”
“I need to hydrate, not caffeinate,” Haewon starts to over-explain. Anything to keep herself from thinking. Feeling. “Gotta get through my close-ups next, and you know I like to sing through my lip syncs. But after that, hair and makeup is off in twenty, tops. If I drink coffee now, I won't make it to the next schedule.”
“What about your indigestion?”
“I think the tea will help.”
Jinsol looks towards the dressing table, eyes scanning the items haphazardly thrown around by the team. “I may have left it in the staff fridge. No problem, I’ll go get it real quick. I'm sure no one stole it.” She crosses her fingers for luck, and heads towards the door.
The conversation has almost done the trick at pulling Haewon back to reality.
Then Yoona’s knee presses more firmly into her thigh. Once, then twice, then repeatedly as she gets animated beside her, absorbed in whatever she’s playing. The console emits tinny noises, beeps and bloops. Yoona starts making soft sounds along with it—excited hums and gasps of frustration—as she stabs at the buttons so hard the clicking resonates inside Haewon’s head.
She is glad that Jinsol has already left the room.
Because Haewon’s jaw has locked. Her free hand has balled into a fist against her right leg. She is so still she’s afraid the other person in the room will think she’s turned to stone. But Yoona is enveloped in a sphere of her own concentration, thankfully ignorant of the fact that Haewon is wound as tight as a mouse-trap poised for prey.
“Seol Yoona,” she says, voice coming out sharper than intended. She charges ahead, uncaring. “Shouldn’t you be getting some sleep? You’ve been up for over twenty hours.” Twenty hours and thirty-five minutes. Not that she’s keeping track. The information is a mere byproduct of her internal clock. A side effect of a regimented trainee life.
Yoona doesn’t respond, too caught up in her game. Her tongue pokes out slightly between her lips. The knee is still there, firm pressure lodged against the side of Haewon’s leg, moving as Yoona moves. Twenty square centimeters of contact, maybe. Perhaps less. Five thin layers of cotton between the heat of their bodies. The thicker space suit pants from their last title track would've provided better armor.
Haewon’s leg has been motionless for seven minutes now. She is beginning to feel light headed, because deep breaths make her ribcage expand and she doesn’t want to shift a millimeter. The point of contact has become the only part of her body she has awareness of. Everything else has receded. The makeup itching on her face: gone. The fluorescent hum: gone. Just this: the warm coin of Yoona’s kneecap pressed into the meat of her thigh.
She knows if she moves even slightly, Yoona will notice, will apologize, will remove the intrusion.
And Haewon doesn’t want her to apologize. It would make it awkward. Better to just let it be. Don’t rock a steady boat. That’s why she’s not moving.
Not because the warmth feels like anything other than warmth. Not because she wants to press back.
“Yah!” Haewon is louder this time, tone raised with authority. Its pitch doesn't waver, but Haewon feels like she can hear a difference anyway. “How can you ignore your unnie—no, your leader—like this? You must've left your manners at home today.”
If her words sound robotic, she hopes Yoona chalks it up to the late hour and exasperation at a bandmate who’s too locked in to respond properly. Her brain doesn’t have the capacity to force any more normalcy.
Yoona startles at the volume. Fingers that just flickered like insects over water freeze mid-motion. The console announces failure in simple, dejected tones. She looks up. Her hair curtains away, revealing the face Haewon studies when she thinks herself unnoticed.
Deer in headlights. All wide eyes and genuine surprise.
The fluorescent lights usually wash Haewon out, bleach her as transparent as a spirit that could float away without the mundane anchors of her phone, her hairbrush, her diary. But the same harsh illumination catches in Yoona's wide irises and fills them with glitter that should be reserved for grander venues. Honestly unfair.
A quiet apology is written across Yoona’s features, muddled with confusion.
"I wasn't ignoring you on purpose," Yoona says, eyelids hooded but pupils still lamp-bright with the adrenaline of almost-victory. "I was just—I was so close. Almost had it."
“Had what?” Haewon doesn't try to guess what she's talking about.
“Three stars on this level. Overcooked.” She tilts the screen to show Haewon: a cartoon kitchen in chaos, orders piling up, a timer that reads 00:00. “I just needed five more seconds, but—”
She cuts herself off, looks at Haewon with mock accusation.
“You distracted me. I was in the zone and then you yelled. I could’ve cleared this easily.”
“I didn’t yell.” Haewon isn't sure how she's suddenly on the backfoot.
“You definitely yelled at me,” Yoona insists, but her scoff has lopsided into a smirk, soft curves appearing around her mouth like they do when she’s teasing. “You sounded quite leader-like. Very stern.” Her voice is no longer sleepy, has taken on that playground tone she uses around children. She pulls a sheepish look, clearly trying not to laugh. "I apologize for leaving my manners at home."
Her right hand—suddenly, not holding the console—reaches out and wraps around Haewon's wrist.
"Next time, please don't interrupt when I'm about to win." But she doesn't pull back. Instead, her grip shifts—fingers sliding lower until they're circling just above the crook of her elbow. "Actually, you should try this. It's not that hard. Here."
Before Haewon can process the touch—the trace of it across her bare arm, the hesitation that she must be projecting onto it—Yoona has pressed the console into open palms, adjusting Haewon's fingers on the controller with small, precise touches.
"This button is for chopping," Yoona says, tapping Haewon's index finger down. "This one's for grabbing." Another tap, ring finger this time. "And you move with this." Her voice has lost its bite, patient in a way that makes Haewon's chest warm again. Yoona shifts closer until Haewon can feel the line of heat radiating from her shoulder, her arm, the length of her side.
It's already turning to winter. The room's climate control is switched off because it makes their skin too chapped for the foundation to stay on without caking. That must be why she's noticing the warmth of another person inviting themselves into her personal space.
"Okay," Haewon says. The word comes out mostly air.
"I'll help you." Yoona's hands come to rest over Haewon's on the controller. Covering them completely, larger than Haewon's by quite a bit. The length of her fingers outmeasures her own shorter digits. Haewon feels that hastily categorized emotion again. "Just follow my lead."
Haewon's brain whites out for a second.
Yoona's hands are cool—they're always cool—but against Haewon's overheated ones they feel like relief, a balm. They press down gently, guiding Haewon's through the movements. Chop. Grab. Move. The console beeps cheerfully, oblivious. The pixels dance in front of her vision, the edges of her sight blurring.
"See? You're getting it." Yoona's voice is closer. Much too close. When did she lean in like this? Haewon can smell her perfume—she's traded the musk for florals—the scent crowding her senses, along with the physical proximity.
On screen, a cartoon chef runs around a kitchen. Haewon isn't watching. She's focused on not focusing on the weight of Yoona's hands on hers, the way their fingers tangle together, the occasional brush of Yoona's thumb against her knuckle.
"Unnie, you're tense." Yoona's laugh is small, private, like she didn't mean to let it out. "It's just a game. I keep telling you. Winning doesn't always matter. It's the thrill of trying." Her voice deepens. "Even when you know you could lose."
Right. Because the game is what's twisted Haewon's stomach into knots.
Haewon tries to breathe normally and fails. She feels clumsy, uncoordinated under Yoona's guidance. She presses a button too hard and the cartoon chef drops a plate. "Ah, not that one, that does the opposite of what you want," Yoona's hands tighten over hers, correcting. "You need to time it just right. Like this. Gentle."
The way she says gentle does something damaging to Haewon's nervous system. But she isn't given a chance to catch her breath.
Yoona guides her through another sequence: chop, plate, serve. Their hands move in tandem, Yoona's fingers guiding, Haewon's following. The motion is almost hypnotic—or would be, if Haewon could think past the texture of skin on skin, the sudden realization of the fact that Haewon possesses hands too. Hands that can hold. That can grasp.
"You're actually not bad at this," Yoona murmurs, and Haewon feels the words more than hears them, a buzz somewhere near her ear. The breath fanning her coiffed hair is not a distraction from the task at hand, because that would imply she cares about the game at all.
The door opens noisily to announce Jinsol's arrival.
Yoona jerks back at the sound. Like Haewon is a hot pan, and she forgot to wear gloves before reaching for dinner.
The movement is abrupt enough that the console nearly slips from Haewon's hands. Yoona catches it reflexively, but there's a beat—maybe half a second—where her eyes go wide, startled. She seems to be processing her own reaction, and its consequences.
Then it's gone. Yoona's face smooths into something neutral, almost sleepy again, and she's settling back into her corner of the couch like she's been there the whole time. Like she wasn't just pressed against Haewon's side, hands covering hers, whispers cooling the surface of her neck.
The space where warmth used to be goes immediately, aggressively empty. Cold rushes in. Air. Nothing.
Haewon sits there, wrist tingling where Yoona’s fingers were, and tries to remember how she lost the upper hand so quickly despite being the one who started the conversation. She even used the voice she reserves for emergencies. One Yoona usually obeys.
When did things change so much?
Jinsol is back at her side, holding out a bottle beaded with condensation. “There you go. You should be grateful I remembered to put it in the fridge for later, you know. Hopefully it’ll help calm your tummy ache. Good thing I didn’t need it today.”
She doesn't seem to notice anything amiss. Or if she does, she doesn't comment.
Haewon takes the bottle, hands still aflame from where Yoona's covered them a moment ago. "Thanks," she manages to say. "You really are the best. What would any of us do without our Jinsol-i?" Her voice sounds more like herself, now, the flimsiness of her enthusiasm barely concealed. She's getting better at acting.
But her mind is filled with static, trying to parse what just happened in the background. The way Yoona pulled back, more severely than when Haewon had aborted her earlier game. The shift of her expression, before her gaze shuttered. The careful distance she's maintaining now, legs closed neatly, pointedly not looking at any of them.
The glass of the bottle is cold enough to hurt. Not the sensation that had just graced her—she should just drink the tea. She should say something else to fill the silence. She should leave the building, run some laps in the freezing night to clear her head.
The last thought reads too close to the drama scenes she sometimes pictures herself in, a vice she only indulges when she's alone, roommate visiting family. Haewon stands abruptly, nearly fumbling the bottle.
Jinsol immediately drops into the spot Haewon just vacated, sprawling sideways across the couch with a bonelessness that betrays her depleted energy reserves. Even golden retrievers need naps. Her head lands directly in Yoona’s lap.
“Finally,” Jinsol sighs, closing her eyes. “Been waiting for you to move. You were hogging the good spot.”
“Who invited you here? You're crumpling my dress.” Yoona puts on displeased face at being disturbed, but she’s already adjusting, setting the console aside so she can look down at Jinsol properly. “That hairspray is not gonna hold if you sleep this way. You know that. Didn’t you just finish your shots?”
“Don’t care, I aced them,” Jinsol mumbles. “So. Tired.” Her arm hooks over her face to shield her eyes from the light.
Yoona’s hands come up automatically, one resting on Jinsol’s shoulder, the other hovering near her hair like she’s considering whether to fix it or just let her be.
Haewon watches this. All of it. The disregard with which Jinsol settled into Yoona’s space. The unthinking way Yoona welcomed her, despite her words to the contrary. The casual intimacy of it—unforced, comfortable, natural in a way that makes something in Haewon’s chest constrict. She swallows past her dry throat.
“Sol-ah,” Haewon says, and her voice comes out clipped. Professional. “They always want a few reshoots after they review the footage. Your butt will be sore for another twenty minutes in that damn chair.”
Jinsol cracks one eye open. “Now you really sound like a mom.”
“I sound like your leader,” Haewon corrects. “Who doesn’t want to wait around an extra hour because you couldn’t stay upright.”
“So strict, always worrying about us,” Jinsol says, tone echoing Yoona's from earlier, lips splitting into a grin. She doesn’t move. “It’ll be fine. Weren’t you thirsty?”
Yoona is looking at Haewon, expression slightly amused. There's still a shadow of something else, but Haewon doesn't examine closely. Her hand is still resting on Jinsol’s shoulder. The other moves to Jinsol’s hair, fingers carding through it gently, carefully, like she’s checking for tangles.
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she looks presentable.” Yoona says, playing the defense attorney as always. Their silent camaraderie. Jinsol's grin widens, and Haewon watches her lean slightly into where Yoona's hands cradle her.
Those hands again, sifting through the blunt strands with the same thoughtless precision as before. Habitual grace in the way her palms curve against the shape of Jinsol’s head, delicate. Haewon’s own fingers tighten around the cold bottle.
“Get some rest, the two of you,” she says. “See, even Jinsol's stopped fidgeting. We still have a long night.”
“Where are you going?” It’s Yoona’s voice—laced with concern—following her as Haewon is already halfway to exit.
Haewon doesn’t look back. “I need to use the bathroom.” It sounds like a lie, an excuse to escape. Although it’s an innocuous statement, she feels the need to add: “My stomach still feels weird.” It isn’t an outright lie. She is out the door before either of them can respond, but she thinks she hears the same voice echo after her.
Take care of yourself.
In the hallway, she leans against the wall for three seconds. Counts them. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. It doesn't help. She pushes off the wall and heads toward the private bathroom for the artists, at the end of a long corridor.
Most of the time she can navigate unexpected situations with grace, can think on her feet. It’s one of her strengths as a leader—that ability to assess and adapt. But in times like this, with people involved, people she cares about, she can't trust herself. Or her own reactions. The way her body has started betraying her over something as simple and meaningless as incidental contact.
Haewon reaches the bathroom. It is blessedly empty. She locks the door, then stands there with her back pressed against the hard metal, clutching the cold bottle Jinsol handed her. Her pulse is doing something arrhythmic.
She keeps seeing it: Jinsol dropping into Yoona’s lap like it was nothing. Her head falling back as simple as gravity. Like it was following the arc decided by nature. Yoona’s hands coming up automatically to support her head, her shoulder, as she lay down. The routine simplicity of it.
That’s what gets her. The ease. When Yoona sat next to Haewon, there was nothing easy about it. The knee pressing into her thigh felt significant, weighted, impossible to ignore.
She sets the bottle on the counter with care, then braces both hands on the sink’s edge. The granite digs into her palms, and she welcomes the sensation, erasing the memory. Her face in the mirror looks absurd up close, the overhead lighting making caricatures out of the drooping lines of her face. But her eyes are bright, alive, pupils blown wide like she's been navigating in pitch dark. Her heart pounds in her chest, rabbit-quick.
She looks unanchored.
Ridiculous, she tells herself. You’re being ridiculous. Jinsol is a naturally physical person, much more close to Yoona than you are. That’s expected, and totally fine. They have history. You’re her coworker, a hall monitor in some ways, a caretaker maybe, not her—
She doesn’t finish the thought. But then she glances down.
There: on her left thigh, in full view now that her skirt has bunched up under nervous hands that moved without her notice. Not a bruise. No, that would signal motive. Just a slight depression in the muscle, a faint heat-flush where Yoona’s knee rested for seven minutes. The shape is nearly geometric: the round plateau of kneecap, the slight give where bone met flesh and flesh gave way, accommodated, made room.
Her hand moves without permission, fingers hovering over the mark. As if it is an open wound, and she could infect it.
She picks up the bottle, presses its damp surface against the mark on her thigh—harder than necessary, until the artificial chill bites and her skin goes white around the circumference. The cold helps nothing. The cold is just cold.
She closes her eyes and she’s back in that room: Yoona’s knee against her thigh, warm and solid. Yoona’s fingers around her wrist, cool and loose and thoughtless. And then Jinsol, moving into Yoona's space like she belonged there, and Yoona’s hands moving to caress her hair—
The way those hands had moved, fingers fluid like molten lava against rock. Taking charge, spread wide over Haewon's, careful but intentional. Haewon feels every detail of the touch autographed like she was collecting evidence. Evidence she wants to burn in the same fire that has its tendrils wrapped around her internal organs.
But it’s impossible. Unbidden thoughts of deliberate hands pressing against her face. Resting against her throat. Fingers soothing overheated skin. The way they stroked Jinsol’s hair just several moments ago—gentle, careful, easy. Yoona’s icy fingertips against the tender skin behind her ear, counting the metal adorning her lobes, drifting against her collarbone, exploring—
Stop.
But she doesn’t stop.
The bottle is starting to warm against the ghost of Yoona’s presence, stealing heat from her body instead of offering comfort. It'll do. Haewon opens her eyes. She forces herself to straighten, to set down the bottle, to splash cold water on the back of her neck where the makeup artist won’t notice.
But as she dries her hands on the scratchy paper towels and prepares to face the world again, the feeling persists.
The mark on her thigh is already fading.
Everything else remains.