Work Text:
Yunjin scrolls on her phone, taking a moment of reprieve hidden in the corner of the practice room. The night is nowhere near done, as much as her joints ached and her muscles begged her for it, but it’s fine. It’s not like this was anything new. Yunjin, like the rest of the girls, had become an expert in tuning out most everything related to her own desires.
Well, except for this one tiny thing. And she’s saying this quite ironically—by accident, she realizes—because the “tiny thing” in question has a toy she uses on Yunjin that is anything but tiny… fuck, it’s actually quite hu—
Alright. Snap out of it.
Yunjin shimmies her head to clear it and reset, grateful that they’re in the middle of practice so she has a valid excuse to be exceptionally red in the face. There’s an air of tired, heavy breathing and satisfaction before it veers into indifference. Some nights were tough; those nights where they’d been going nonstop all afternoon and evening, and had gotten to the point where they didn’t care about feeling proud of themselves anymore, but rather just wanting to get it right so they could be excused and finally get to clock out.
That’s something the fans don’t realize, Yunjin thinks. This is just a job. An amazing one, yes, where she was living the dream life, performing and traveling the world with her best friends, but still a job. And they were still just like any other friends. There were some days where they didn’t wanna come to work and debated calling out “sick”; there were times when they had disagreements or outright weren’t getting along all that great. This is true friendship and life. They are real people with normal dimension.
Work became even more of a drag when the weather started to change. The moon was coming earlier with the days getting colder, and the long sunsets made Yunjin feel like she was supposed to be in bed—or at the very least closing out her shift—at the perplexing hour of 6pm. It was a bit of a stunner; months of summertime had conditioned her to feel like when the sun went down, that meant it was around 10pm already. Imagine her surprise when she checks the time, and they still have around five hours left in the workday.
Oh man.
On this particular evening, Yunjin isn’t really vibing. She’s not in a bad mood or anything, and she’s still mildly goofing around with the members, but it’s muted. A little more dialed down, devoid of her usual enthusiasm and spark. She’s just tired, they can tell. Maybe from an insufficient night’s sleep or not enough lunch. It’s amazing how these basic, seemingly-simple things make that much of a difference. Things that we brush off without a second thought, but could change everything if fixed just for a moment. Yunjin remembers feeling like a true grown-up when they were on vacation and she started having a consistent bedtime of 11pm and a start time of 7:30am. Sleeping the recommended eight hours did wonders for her overall health and mood, and she swore to never ignore a doctor again.
That promise died all of a few days later, when they were back to it. But hey. The spirit was there.
These types of work days were, frankly, not some of Yunjin’s favorites. They weren’t really doing anything except attending company meetings and having dance practice, with a handful of short bathroom breaks and an hour for lunch. But again, they couldn’t leave the building. Again, they had to play the role of the well-behaved doll.
There was usually some sort of behind-the-scenes content filmed on these kinds of days, too. Nothing extravagant, like a full [EPISODE] or anything, but typically a short LE PLAY or something. Yunjin didn’t mind it, on any other day, but the times where she wasn’t exactly in the best mood made every little thing feel like a chore.
She doesn’t feel like putting on a fake smile or forcing herself to laugh extra hard at a joke that was only slightly funny. For now, she’ll just leave the shenanigans to Kazuha, Eunchae, and Chaewon, who are talking about some silly thing to the camera and getting plenty of minutes in. Yunjin is sure there’s some footage of her from earlier when she was more energized, so she doesn’t feel too bad or pressured to jump in and participate. She leans against the wall, her butt the tiniest bit uncomfortable from her spot sitting on the hard, glossy floor. She’s too tired to move to a spot on the couch where Sakura is sitting. All she wants to do is close her eyes and sleep. That one muscle in her lower back from her injury still pulls sometimes and hurts, and she makes a note to do some extra exercises the next time she has a session of physical therapy.
Yunjin sighs, clicking off her phone and tossing it onto the small table where she and the members placed them. Chaewon and Eunchae are still messing around, and Yunjin briefly sees Kazuha drinking some water, though it’s short-lived because Yunjin has to dig for her bag and take out some lipbalm. She has like five of them, truth be told, and the first one she digs out happens to be her tinted one. It’s not exactly her top choice right now, but she’s too lazy to look for another one, so she decides to just go with it. She applies a small coat of it, her lips a slight plum-red color as a result. Not too jarring or out of the ordinary, but just enough to be very pretty.
Kazuha thinks so, at least. But then again, everything her Yunjin-unnie does makes her a mushy disaster.
Yunjin throws the lipbalm back into her bag and pushes it away, sliding back into her designated spot on the floor and closing her eyes.
In a few moments, she feels a pretty warmth next to her and smells the faint scent of a lovely perfume she adores so much, and she can’t bring herself to open her eyes, because she knows who’s there, and how they make her heart flutter and put her extra at ease.
Kazuha settles into place next to her, kissing the top of Yunjin’s head and smiling.
“Hi, unnie.” She whispers.
Yunjin swoons, a tired but also lovestruck grin melting onto her face.
She leans her head on Kazuha’s shoulder, feeling even warmer when Kazuha lays her head on top of it.
“Hi, Zuzu.” She whispers back.
Kazuha reaches out to hold her hand, lacing their fingers together and doing the little thumb thing.
Yunjin swoons again. Something about Kazuha always taking initiative in the small ways made her want to smush her face into a pillow and scream while kicking her feet and giggling. The Kazuha from four years ago would have never, but love changes you. And true love made you so weak you got stronger.
Kazuha nuzzles her nose into the crown of Yunjin's head.
“You okay, baby?” She asks softly. The cameras are still rolling, so they can’t be too loud. Not that they really were anyway, especially in these tender moments, but still. They know they’re already toeing the line of being in massive trouble. They don’t need any more dictatorship.
Yunjin blushes at the pet name, always going weak in the knees as if it’s the first time all over again. Though it certainly feels that way when Kazuha’s voice is that raspy, deeper one she tended to get when it started to become a little late in the nighttime.
“Mhm.” Yunjin replies. “Just sleepy.”
She cracks an eye open, peeking to make sure the cameras are far away from them and aiming away.
She leans up and presses a light kiss to Kazuha’s face, sunny brown doe eyes looking into starry puppy ones.
“I wanna go home and cuddle with my princess.” She frowns softly, whining a little.
Kazuha laughs quietly, those puppy eyes becoming mini moons.
“Me too, Yunnie. But don’t worry. I think we’re almost done.” She steals a kiss on Yunjin’s nose and the two of them share giggles before they see the camera crew wrapping up, signaling they’ll have to start practicing again soon.
Yunjin sighs, looking at Kazuha with her pretty please eyes.
“Almost, baby. I promise.” Kazuha reassures her, helping her unnie stand up.
She snatches Yunjin’s iced americano and holds the straw up to her lips, encouraging her to take a sip for some energy before they start dancing.
Yunjin gives her an appreciative little smile, taking a long drink and then joining Chaewon in some stretches. Kazuha takes a sip herself while the cameras start rolling again for some last-minute goodbye wishes. The members gesture for her to hurry up and join them, and Kazuha quickly puts the coffee down and scurries over to get in the frame.
The camera crew thanks them and leaves, after which the girls get into place and continue on with their practice.
“Hey, Zuha-ya.” Sakura perks up in between takes, looking confused and gesturing to Kazuha’s face. “What happened to your lips? It looks like a scrape or something.”
“Oh woah, it does.” Eunchae agrees.
“Did you accidentally bite it?” Chaewon asks.
“Huh?” Kazuha tilts her head in question, walking over to the closest mirror and looking at herself.
Her eyes widen. She has a smudge of Yunjin’s lipstick from when she’d drank some of the iced americano.
She turns slowly and walks back to the girls, feeling her face turning scarlet and casting a guilty look towards Yunjin.
“I have no idea how that got there…” She murmurs.
Sakura notices the glances, and she puts two and two together.
“Oh my god.” Eunchae facepalms, realizing also.
Chaewon belts a laugh, clapping with amusement and pointing and laughing at Yunjin.
Yunjin turns around and presses herself into the wall, wanting to hide.
Kazuha can’t help but smile, loving the blonde’s playfulness returning, even in small doses.
The rest of the night is quite perfect: short, filled with laughs, and ending with Yunjin and Kazuha going home together.
“Wash that off please, before you send anything on Weverse.” Chaewon tells Kazuha. “We don’t need any scandals.”
Yunjin laughs, shoving her arm.
“Okay okay,” Kazuha accepts. “Don’t worry unnie, I will.”
And she does!
So crisis averted.
1 WEEK LATER
NEW VIDEO: Manduz takeover made our night ✨🥟| LE PLAY
(twitter)
user : did anyone see the new le play??? zuha disappearing and then when she came back she suddenly had a smear of lipstick the same color as yunjin’s????? | 1.1k likes
user : SHINEZ MAKEOUT???? | 2.3k likes
user : shinez kissing shinez sharing lipstick shinez making love shinez REAL | 1k likes
user : [screenshot of kazuha and yunjin standing next to each other with the suspicious lips] ???????? | 5.8k likes
Fuck. It’s only been three hours.