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I wonder who my first kiss will be.
The thought has only come once before into Sayeon's mind, unbidden, unwanted, unfortunate. Once? Perhaps twice. Only ever when it was a late night at some run-down corner restaurant, textbooks splayed across the table between two. Her and Jaeil Kim. Him and Sayeon Lee. A dynamic duo; an inseparable pair of opposing twins; two friends who'd often been asked if they planned to get married. Jaeil, as easy as ever, would always brush the questions off with a grin, polishing off yet another excuse from his bottomless supply.
Sayeon would look up at him from her seat at the table. The smell of grease and the warmth of the lampposts outside used to envelop every moment in a brightness she's been unable to grasp since. Sometimes, from lower ground than the throne she'd grown used to sitting atop, Jaeil never seemed like such a bad option. He was always there. Always waiting.
Play, pause, rewind. But if a first has never really happened, undermined by the hands of the clock, then the point of wondering diminishes.
The first time she’s offered the cigarette, Sayeon decides she should walk away.
Smoke filters from Ryujin’s parted lips, cutting greyish stripes into the cold air. One hand is tucked away into her pocket, the other extended toward Sayeon, a singular, slightly bent cigarette held loose in its grasp. Ryujin holds the cigarette out, waving it like she’s offering bait to a fish. The fish, in this scenario, wrinkles her nose at the acrid smell.
Who has time for smoking? Sayeon only looks away. It’s answer enough.
“Mm, whatever. It was worth a shot,” the other grumbles, angling herself away from Sayeon. She takes a drag. Slowly. Then, a little louder, she begins, “I’m bored, Glasses. Got any—”
“Save it for tomorrow.” Sayeon checks her watch. “We should be getting back to the cell soon. Or Juni’ll have something to say.”
She looks back to Ryujin. First and last answer is no. Brows pinched together, teeth tight on the cigarette, Ryujin’s clearly aggrieved by the sudden intervention. But, as always, Sayeon finds herself right. A word or two cut off won’t mean much in the face of whatever other punishments Juni has under her belt.
”That’s really it?” Ryujin asks drily.
A laugh, sharp and incredulous, bubbles in Sayeon’s throat. Look at you, so disappointed.
”Why? Don’t tell me you expected more,” Sayeon replies simply, cocking her head.
Ryujin scoffs under her breath, the sound brimming with barely-concealed disdain. Sayeon turns before anything more can be said; before she can watch Ryujin’s expression sour like a petulant child’s.
But as she steps away, the heels of her shoes clicking against the pavement underfoot, Sayeon falters.
”Psycho,” Ryujin mutters behind her. She hears the scrape of a boot against the ground as, predictably, she extinguishes the cigarette she offered.
After all, it’s a pretty anti-climatic end to Ryujin’s attempt at conversation. Maybe it would make more sense — no, it would be more useful — if Sayeon used simple small talk as leverage for the future. Talking won’t hurt: if she says the right things, Sayeon might actually be able to incline Ryujin’s favour toward her.
Hm.
Well, fine. I don’t mind trying again.
With a resigned sigh, Sayeon snaps her fingers.
What a waste of essence. Not that it should matter. She has enough to run through another two or three iterations of this scenario, if she so pleases. Hm. Doubtful. As if a useless exchange like this should take up so much energy. One talk, then she’ll be home free.
“Hey. Hello? Hello?” Ryujin echoes incessantly, brow knit at Sayeon’s blank gaze.
“…Sorry?” she asks.
An apologetic smile appears reflexively on her face. Then it dissipates at the unimpressed look on Ryujin’s face.
“What?” Sayeon says instead.
Blinking slowly, Ryujin leans back against the wall, her tousled tufts of hair pressing back against the brick. “What’s got you all silent?”
Sayeon exhales disinterestedly, beginning, “I was just—”
“Actually, no. Don’t try it. It was way nicer when you were all clammed-up,” says Ryujin.
Her voice is flat. Sayeon tries to repress yet another aggravated sigh, before her eyes flick down and find what’s held out before her. Same thing as always. Ryujin looks back to her, waving the cigarette in a way she must think is enticing. Her lips have curved into a smirk: in all honesty, that look in her eyes is only deterring Sayeon.
Even still. Sayeon looks down to her own fingers. Two or three tries. Once won’t hurt.
Her smirk lifts higher as, tentatively, Sayeon takes the cigarette between her fingers.
“I’m bored, Glasses. Got anything to talk about?”
Sayeon clears her throat. “Er…”
She balances the cigarette strangely in her hand, trying to appear more relaxed than she is. Ryujin sighs contentedly beside her. Her eyes glint at Sayeon’s stiff form.
“Pfft. Look at that. Hey, let me guess— Never done this before?” she muses.
Sayeon’s eyes narrow. “Why don’t you decide that for me?”
As if to make a point, she brings the cigarette up to her lips, and—
“Wrong way, jackass.”
Sayeon glances at Ryujin, takes in the stupid, shit-eating grin spread across those lips. She only raises her brows coaxingly, before gesturing to the cigarette.
Ah.
A jeering laugh, short and sharp, sounds beside her. She received it the other way around: shredded tobacco peeks out from the end facing her, the brown filter posed on the opposite side.
Sayeon sighs.
Snap!
Whatever. Once won’t hurt; twice won’t, either. This time, after she’s taken the cigarette, Sayeon ensures the filter is facing her mouth. She swallows quietly. Tch, really? Having pushed through a large multitude of conflicts and threats and fights by now, the challenge that one white-brown stick is presenting is, to say the least, embarassing. Ryujin was right to laugh.
Not that Sayeon should care. That first try is over and done with. Having taken a few steps back, the path ahead seems more easily paced than before.
Ryujin cocks a brow. “Yeah, go ahead. Take all the time in the world.”
Sayeon grits her teeth into a placated smile. Then she brings the cigarette to her lips, and inhales deeply.
Rather than the practiced streams of blue-grey Ryujin has been blowing out, the smoke escapes Sayeon in a choked cough. Cigarette now fully, awkwardly bent in her fingers, she rams the heel of her palm against her chest. Smoke comes and goes in eccentric bursts, patterning the air with its thick whispers.
Ah… Sayeon shudders. Colour high in her cheeks, face bright with it; Ryujin is laughing exultantly. Her delight at Sayeon’s clear suffering is unabashed, reaching up to crinkle at the corner of her eyes. Ugh. Even as Ryujin presses a hand to her mouth, brows creased, Sayeon can feel heat crawling down the back of her neck.
“Don’t be such a child,” Sayeon mutters, turning away.
“Yeah, says you,” Ryujin cackles. “Who smokes a cigarette like that? God, Sayeon. You’re really one in a million.”
Sayeon tries not to roll her eyes. This isn’t at all the way she’d have preferred the conversation to go: yet another admonition from someone who doesn’t know much is the last thing she needs.
Enough of this. Sayeon frustratedly throws the cigarette onto the ground, then snaps her fingers.
“You know I don’t smoke.”
Unsurprised, Ryujin’s brows still raise. She retracts the cigarette without much protest.
“Mm, whatever. It was worth a shot,” she says. Again, Ryujin, shifts further from Sayeon.
This time, she watches the motion play out. The black fabric of Ryujin’s sleeves, now fraying at the edges, creases with and moulds to the movement of her arm. One appears, at the crook of her elbow; another smooths itself out. All the while, the orange-red sputter of light emitting from Ryujin’s little cigarette flickers in her pale grey eyes. The colours dance carelessly on those ringlets in her irises, testing the borderline, before burning out as she brings the cigarette upward.
“I’m bored, Glasses. Got anything to talk about?” Ryujin asks.
Then the filter is sliding into her mouth. She takes one long, rehearsed drag; a pull of air, lips pursing into a small circle; then lets the smoke spill out and over her teeth. Admittedly, it’s elegant. Or— it’s elegant in comparison to whatever Sayeon had tried earlier.
Earlier? If we’re adhering to the rules of her gift, then that first, clumsy smoke never happened at all. Technicalities, technicalities.
As Ryujin turns back to Sayeon, brows raising expectantly, her eyes flick up from the girl’s mouth to meet her gaze. Her skin is warmer than she remembers. Overheated against the cold of the breeze, lit up with intrigue.
So that’s how you do it.
Sayeon’s mouth moves before she can stop it.
”What was your first kiss like?”
That makes Ryujin’s brows shoot up, cigarette twisted against the knuckles of her fingers. Their eyes cut into one another’s recklessly.
“Seriously? What are you, fourteen?” Ryujin asks wryly.
Sayeon pauses. The spell of that careful pull-and-inhale, purse-lips-and-breathe-out is abruptly broken, Ryujin’s idiocy quickly exhausting what Sayeon had mislabelled as elegance. But even as she pries her gaze away from Ryujin’s, she can feel the slight elevation of her pulse in her veins.
At the lack of a response, Ryujin just sighs unhappily. “Some random girl in the clink made out with me once. Got bored: that’s it.”
Sayeon’s body stills. It’s not much of a revelation, sure, but the suddenness of it still throws her off somewhat. Perhaps it shouldn’t particularly surprise her. She straightens out, adjusting her posture and regaining some semblance of balance over the course of this conversation.
Ryujin’s eyes track her face. “Surprised? Don’t tell me you don’t like that.”
Clearing her throat, Sayeon looks away.
“It’s not my problem.”
A moment of silence passes between them.
”Well. What about you, then, Team Leader?”
Sayeon doesn’t suppose this is something that needs to be made known. She checks the time on her watch. Sixty seconds: if she gets this over with quick, then gauges Ryujin’s reaction, it’ll be pretty easy to just pretend it never happened. One click of her fingers.
“Haven’t had it.”
A snicker.
“Woah, woah, woah. Real surprising, considering it’s you,” Ryujin replies drily.
Sayeon leans her head back against the wall, feeling the breeze against her face. Intolerable as always, Ryujin. “Ha ha.”
Her jaw shifts. A fragment of her wouldn’t mind indulging in such a pointless discussion. She started it, after all. But either way — Sayeon is still contemplating chewing the words down, swallowing her tongue with them, and forgetting that her first kiss is something she’d ever thought about at all.
“I had a friend. Who I’d wondered might have…” she trails off. “But no. It never happened.”
Ryujin exhales quietly. As her lips part, clearly registering what the other has said, Sayeon wonders briefly if something more forgiving will finally come out. But Ryujin kicks it back, bringing the cigarette up for another smoke instead.
“Lucky guy. Bet you’re one hell of a shit kisser, right?” she says. Smoke curls around the bodies of her words.
“I doubt there’s much of a difference between us.”
Sayeon hugs her arms around her body, collar upturned against the cold wind.
When her eyes find Ryujin, she falters.
The cigarette is uplifted again toward its home. Brow furrowed, Sayeon’s eyes follow the dip in Ryujin’s cupids bow, the way her lips slightly sheen where they’ve gripped the paper. Ryujin exhales. A slow, lazy ghost of breath mingling with smoke that brushes against Sayeon’s cheek. It’s warm. Underlaid with the scent of ash. Sayeon does not recoil. Rather, she finds herself leaning a fraction of an inch closer, chasing the heat just slightly before it dies soft in the cold air.
Ryujin turns. There’s a quick beat of silence, of consideration of where Sayeon’s eyes have landed. Then her lips are turning up into a smile. A real one: eyes crinkled and glittering. And when Sayeon’s eyes rip away from the sight of her mouth once more, heart kicking up all over again, that glint in Ryujin’s eyes only sharpens.
”Wanna test that theory out, Four-Eyes?”
That’s…
At the heat rising through Sayeon’s body, her fingers almost instinctually press together.
She must have been joking.
Sayeon tries to focus on anything but the inconsistent thump-thump-thump of her pulse in her throat, trying to straighten out her sleeves instead. Pause, play, rewind.
The words come automatically. What was your first kiss like? It’s not my problem. Haven’t had it.
Something about Jaeil. Something that never happened.
Sayeon turns to Ryujin. Such an idiot. Tossing childish jokes around like that. First the smoking; now the kissing. Next time, Sayeon will just walk away.
Her train of thought stumbles. Next time? Since when was the future an assured variable? She’s using up her essence for no reason — Juni’ll seriously be a pain if this drags on any longer.
Wanna test that theory out, Four-Eyes?
Sayeon stares forward.
Ryujin’s body is warm beside her: a lighthouse in the sea of biting air. What’s one try? One go, one mistake, erasable. Her gaze carefully slides over to Ryujin. The cigarette is still clasped in her fingers, lips wrapping themselves around every word that leaves her mouth. Pull, inhale, purse lips, breathe out. Would she taste like smoke? Like skin? Like nothing at all?
Sayeon’s breath is hollow in her throat. Tinny in her ears.
“Lucky guy. Bet you’re one hell of a shit kisser, right?” Ryujin ribs, taking another drag.
A scoff leaves Sayeon’s mouth, thicker than she’d expected. Well, Ryujin. Wouldn’t you rather find out for yourself? A glint of something unreadable flickers in Ryujin’s eyes.
“What?” she asks.
The teasing intonation is gradually leaking from her mouth, losing itself to the air alongside the smoke, as Ryujin’s lips purse. The corner of her mouth twitches once. Not in amusement, but plain discomfort.
“God, Sayeon. Why’re you staring at me like I just spat on you?”
Sayeon says nothing. Her eyes move back down to Ryujin’s mouth, for a series of seconds long enough to imply there’s more. More. You’re insatiable, Sayeon Lee, she chides herself, fists clenched at her side. But she can’t tear her gaze from the last few tendrils of smoke leaving Ryujin’s mouth.
Within those last few moments of Sayeon’s self-control slipping, something in Ryujin’s expression seems to change. Stretched out by the seconds. The baseline contempt in her eyes slowly dwindles, dissolving slightly, making way for something else. Something bright, something that shines just softly in Ryujin’s face.
“I just don’t understand you sometimes.”
It falls out her mouth as a murmur. Partly to herself, partly to the girl staring with hooded eyes in front of her; who barely hears it over the thundering of her pulse in her ears.
Sayeon steps forward and brings her face to Ryujin’s.
Tap!
As she’s leaning in, the rim of Ryujin’s cap blocks Sayeon’s face. Her eyes reopen, face hot with what must be bewilderment. Ah. The cap. Should’ve thought about that. There are goosebumps across the back of her neck. She miscalculated, after all. What other reason should she have to be unsettled besides that?
Ryujin’s breath is hot against her lips, eyes blown wide in mingling shock and disgust. Sayeon begs her body to move back, to pull away, but her hands are locked in place around Ryujin’s jaw. Welcomingly, her lips are parted. Sayeon can’t even retort: her tongue sits like lead between her teeth, eyes unable to move away from the other’s mouth.
Because Ryujin’s pupils are dilated; her hand tucked around Sayeon’s between them. And even with the feigned disgust tangled into her expression, something else is concealed between the lines. Just barely. Marginalised in favour of the hatred Sayeon thought reined free over their relationship.
Trust.
”Sayeon,” Ryujin begins, breathless. Her eyes are crinkled, even as they track the curve of Sayeon’s lip. “You fuckin’… You idiot, I thought you—”
Snap!
And yet again, her eyes open to a blurred landscape. Apparently her gift’s limitations are beginning to settle over her as a haze of exhaustion. A figure of warmth beside Sayeon is saying something, consonants and vowels colliding as words roll off the tongue. Sayeon steadies one clammy palm to her head. She’s burning up.
Ryujin is asking the same question. “Got anything to talk about?”
Sayeon curses under her breath. Then she slowly turns to look at Ryujin, trying to swallow the uncharacteristic bout of apprehension in her throat. Her heart jackhammers against her ribs.
Ryujin’s eyes narrow. As her tongue runs across her teeth, feeling the loss of the cigarette she’s pulled out, Sayeon’s gaze abruptly follows.
”What?”
Somehow, it’s a sharp laugh that’s choked from Sayeon’s throat. She slides her hand down to suppress it, brows furrowed at the barely-contained contempt on Ryujin’s face. But, oh, if only she could see that expression change once more. So that’s how you really felt.
Stepping closer, Sayeon sweeps the cap off of Ryujin’s head.
"Hey, what the hell—"
Then she snatches the cigarette from Ryujin's hand. With a spark, it skitters onto the floor, but Sayeon doesn’t see where it lands. She’s too focused on the sound Ryujin makes against her mouth.
Both of Sayeon’s hands come up to thread into Ryujin’s hair, bracing against her head as her body crowds the other’s against the brick wall. She grazes her lips against Ryujin’s, exhaling slightly, tongue darting out to test the seam of her lips. Ryujin says something — her name, maybe — but Sayeon doesn’t hear. She presses her lips to Ryujin’s, swallowing whatever word that escaped with a desperate kiss.
Then it’s Ryujin’s hands that are on Sayeon, fisting in the back of her blazer and pressing her closer. Her mouth opens, welcoming Sayeon in, practically shuddering as their tongues meet in a hot slide against one another. Ryujin’s hair might as well be tangled around Sayeon’s knuckles now. But she doesn’t seem to protest: rather, Ryujin’s breath only hitches as Sayeon’s grip tightens further, lapping up the taste of smoke from her mouth.
“Sayeon—” Ryujin says between the kiss, before almost mindlessly slanting their lips together again. She inhales sharply against Sayeon’s mouth. Then— “Sayeon,” she repeats, breathless this time.
Sayeon doesn’t want to — God, she doesn’t want to — but she breaks the contact and pulls back just enough to look.
Ryujin’s breath is hot and heavy, her chest rising and falling to its hurried rhythm. Their saliva mingles on her tongue. Brows pressed together, she shifts against her restlessly, one hand coming up to wrap around Sayeon’s wrist. The other slides up her arm, meeting with Sayeon’s cheek, thumb grazing the curve of her bottom lip. Ryujin looks like she’s not sure whether she wants to die or press her lips to Sayeon’s neck and breathe in.
Either way, her cheeks are flushed, and if the expression of her half-lidded eyes is any indication, she wants to go again.
Sayeon leans into that sight almost instinctively, pausing just halfway. Her arm twitches to check her watch — but Ryujin’s holding her wrist steady. Sixty seconds: the hard limit on her choice to backslide. How long has it been since she first got that cigarette out of Ryujin's grasp? If she just waits a little longer, she could replay this moment over, and over—
Sayeon snaps her fingers.
The first thing she does is press the flat back of her hand to her mouth.
Her breath is knocked from her inconsistently, pulse stammering. The taste of smoke lingers; curling down her spine, sparking heat as she feels its now-familiar smell trickling into her nose. Here we go again.
If anything, Sayeon believes it’s pretty pathetic of her. Of who? Of both of them. All it takes to gain a little bit of trust is something like that? Then do it, a fragment of her hisses. Why are you hesitating?
Slowly, Sayeon turns to look at Ryujin, her own breath hot against her hand. Do it. Isn’t this what you need? Haven’t you grown used to taking what you want?
Do it, Sayeon.
But is it the foothold she’s asking for, or the girl?
“I’m bored, Glasses. Got anything to talk about?” Ryujin is saying once more, smoke still billowing from her mouth.
No reply.
Still sneering to herself, Ryujin turns to see Sayeon’s unchanging expression: her brows lift slightly, before snapping back into that signature frown. She clears her throat.
"What's up with the nosebleed, Four-Eyes?" she mutters, puzzled.
Sayeon isn’t looking at her, pulse still thrumming hard and heavy in her veins. Nosebleed? Sayeon brings her hand up to her nose, the brush of slick skin against knuckles evidence enough. Her jaw tightens at the smear of crimson that appears. Well, then. She's depleted enough of her essence already. On nothing but a simple conversation.
And this is her last go.
Beside her, Ryujin’s eyes have awkwardly turned away, the air now swallowed in silence. Sayeon exhales quietly. Without a word, she holds out her hand in question, blood still fresh on her knuckles. Ryujin only cocks a brow. The cigarette is twisted in her fingers.
"You know, I'm pretty sure it was you who said you don't smoke. Cancer and stuff, right?"
Sayeon waits. With an expectant raise of her brows, she splays her fingers out a little further.
“…’Kay, whatever.”
In that brief pass of skin on skin: their hands are warm. Given from Ryujin, that pathetic stick of paper goes between Sayeon’s thumb and index finger. She turns it over appraisingly. Quarter-gone. Ryujin’s lips have touched it, have closed around the edge. A few times now. Sayeon only feels that phantom press of her lips, having never really come close to that exchange after all. Perks of her gift. She never has to wonder what a first is really like.
The thought comes into her mind, unbidden, unwanted, unfortunate.
Jaeil used to smoke this brand.
Sayeon drops the cigarette to the ground, watching those final few vermillion sparks spit out across the gravel. The conversation's brilliant last breath. Then she brings the sole of her loafer up to the mess on the floor. No take-backs.
“Sayeon, the fuck are you--”
Play, pause, rewind. With a grind of her heel against the cigarette, that first something is extinguished.