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They meet again at a wedding.
Well. Of course it’s a wedding. It’s the only way Mark would have ever come back to Korea — she hasn’t exactly been in regular contact with the ex-Dream Run members. Their group had folded in on itself, gone out with a whimper — and only Donghyuck had emerged from the ashes as anything more than burnt. Her best friends — her members, reduced to a simple ‘we were just co-workers’ and filed away in the draw marked memories in her mind.
It’s an Autumn wedding. From the window of her hotel room Seoul looks on fire — flames of the orange painted leaves sticking up between concrete buildings and powered down neon lights. The traffic is gridlocked as always and the footpaths swarm with smartly dressed people in peacoats who clutch their phones to their ears and their umbrellas to their sides, glancing warily at the fickle grey skies and dodging stagnant puddles filled with cigarette butts. She sits on the edge of her bed, watching the crowd move, the change of the lights and stop-start traffic, buses weaving in and out of lanes and taxis sending water spraying into the air as each of them runs through the same puddle in their attempts to pull up to the kerb. Flicks her phone on, then off.
She’s restless. She thought she’d gotten all this out of her system but she’s still nervous, like she’s about to go on stage, like she’s about to face the cameras again — which is nonsense, because it’s a private wedding and it’s about Jisung today. With any luck Mark will just fade into the distance, drink some champagne, fumble her Korean and then go home.
Someone should have reminded Mark Lee that she was a flop — and that she was never lucky.
*
Case and point — Renjun is at the hotel bar. She sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the well dressed guests — everyone else is business casual compared to what looks like her gym gear: sweats and a singlet under a faded blue sports jacket, sneakers scuffed and more brown than white. She throws back a shot and looks down at her phone, a loose strand of hair coming untucked and falling across her face, before she looks up and locks eyes with Mark. Smiles.
Mark sits down beside her. It would be rude otherwise.
“You look good,” Renjun says. Mark smiles at her, small.
“You do too.”
“Do I?” Renjun lifts an empty glass towards the bartender and signals for two more. “I slept on the plane but I feel like I’ve been pulled out of a trash can. Not exactly the appropriate outfit for an idol, is this?”
“You dressed like this in every V LIVE we ever did.”
She looks Renjun up and down and feels a flash of something in her stomach when she realises that Renjun has had work done — her nose looks smaller and her boobs are definitely bigger. Not that Mark has been paying that much attention. Why would she? She’d just spent a good part of her twenties with her hands on said boobs (or her face buried between them). She was familiar with them. And they were definitely bigger.
If Renjun notices her embarrassment, she doesn’t mention it. Just pushes a shot across the bar at her and holds her own up.
“Yeah, well. To Dream Run, then?” she says.
“To Dream Run.”
Mark throws back the shot and tries not to wince.
*
They end up in Renjun’s hotel room, drinking from the mini bar because ‘there’s not that many chances in my life to get wasted on someone else’s money’. Renjun’s cheeks are flushed and red and she’s let her hair down — it falls almost to her waist, the ends bleached blonde and fading to dark roots. When she was an idol it was always cut short — part of the designated butch role she’d had since predebut — and this is the first time Mark can remember ever seeing it this long.
Renjun slams back another shot and burps, starts to laugh when she catches Mark’s face. Mark — not to be outdone — matches her, lets out a hiccuping burp that would impress no-one.
“You used to be such a good drinker,” Renjun says. She unscrews the cap of the travel sized wine bottle she’d grabbed and drinks straight from the neck, moisture lingering on her lips. “What happened?”
“Fuck you,” Mark says. Renjun grins, all teeth, her eyes sparkling. “I stopped going to galas where I had to be drunk to deal with all the fucking seniors who had too much control over my career trajectory and were far too touchy.”
“Ugh,” Renjun nods. “I’ll drink to that. I miss a lot about being an idol but — ” she throws her head back again and another mouthful goes straight down her throat. It takes her waving the bottle in front of Mark’s face for Mark to get the hint and she grabs it, takes a swig of solidarity and tries not to think about the fact that she's just kissed Renjun in some weird way. If this was a fansign — if this was a concert, a variety show, just a V LIVE — there would have been videos of it all over the internet within the hour.
“But?” Mark says, after the alcohol is sitting warm and comforting in her stomach.
“But that shit fucking sucked! C’mon Mark, what do you think I was gonna say? ‘But the thing I miss most is the creepy old dudes’?”
“I dunno what I thought you were gonna say, okay. Christ. I’m tired. This wine is so fucking weak.”
“Tell me about it,” Renjun says. “I wish there was something stronger. What’s the point of being back in Korea if we don’t get stupid drunk, right?” She jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “I got vodka but I dunno if there’s any mixers. Probably the most appropriate drink for memory lane though, right? When did you start swearing so much?”
She gets up, wobbling slightly, bends over and peers into the fridge. Mark can’t take her eyes off the outline of her ass in her pants — remembering how nicely it fit in her hands.
Maybe she’s drunk. Maybe being back in Korea has made her inexplicably horny. Maybe — and this is the most likely — it’s got something to do with the unresolved feelings she thought she’d buried a good six years ago that are suddenly rearing their heads. Feelings that were supposed to go away post disbandment when the pretty sheen of showbiz and the myth of sisterhood had fallen away.
Well, fat luck with that one. Renjun is still hot, and Renjun still makes her hot. She might be living within the confines of compulsory heterosexuality now but Mark is very much still gay, and she is very much still attracted to Renjun.
“Mark?” Renjun is staring at her, curious, bottle of Sprite on one hand and Reyka in the other. Not a tiny one — a full size bottle she must have surely bought from the airport. The ratio of mixer to alcohol is poor but — Mark’s no stranger to getting white girl wasted.
“Huh?” She blinks. Renjun laughs.
“Welcome back to Earth. What’s on your mind?” She pulls a mug from the draw and starts to pour them out drinks, squinting as she tries to get the ratio of Sprite to vodka correct.
“Nothing. Just thinking about how drunk you’re about to get me.”
“Yeah baby!” Renjun says, cheery as ever. “Bet you don’t drink like this in Canada, huh?”
“You have no fucking idea,” Mark laughs. She gets wasted in Canada — though it’s a little less alcohol and more weed — and coke — at all the stupid industry parties. “Koreans know how to drink. But we know how to party in the far north.”
“Ah, legal weed,” Renjun says. “The promised land of North America. Is it true there's drugs everywhere there?"
"If you're a girl, sure.”
“A hot girl! Which you are.”
Mark stutters, blush creeping across her cheeks. “Shut up.”
“What, it’s true? C’mon unnie, you’re hot as hell! Always were.”
“Stop it, Renjun.”
Renjun giggles and trots over with a mug in each hand to hand one to Mark. She takes a sip and winces — it’s definitely more vodka than soft drink, but — fuck it. It’s a Friday. They’re reminiscing, and if she fucks up she can erase the past few days. Her life in Canada is not connected with her life in Korea anymore, and there’s no camera to record this. Just her and Renjun.
“So what have you been up to?” Mark asks. Renjun crosses her legs and swirls her drink around, makes a gesture with her free hand. Little bit of this, little bit of that.
“Acting, mostly. Doing commercials. Far less music than I’d like, but it is what it is. Not bad for a girl pushing thirty.”
“You like it?”
She shrugs. “It pays the bills. What about you, eh? How’s my Canada bear going?”
Mark’s stomach drops at the old nickname. After the drop comes a giddiness, rising up within her like soda bubbles. She takes a drink. “It’s fine. I’m behind the scenes doing production now.”
“Must be nice to turn up to work in your pajamas eh?”
Another drink. “No more safety shorts and boob windows? No more everyone scrutinising your every move? Four am rides to music shows? Seeing your ass on twitter because you bent over on stage to pick up a water bottle? Feeling like my entire worth as a woman is defined by whatever makes the general public horny? Yeah, it’s nice.”
There’s a pause of silence that Mark covers with another drink — she’s aware that she’s ingesting far too much alcohol far too fast, but it’s like she’s suddenly decided that she’s not going to hold back. She’s here to have fun — and if fun involves getting drunk with the woman who was responsible for her gay awakening at the tender age of twenty two. Well. Then that’s what it is.
The sun goes down and she’s still with Renjun, the sky faded to a muted orange and the lights of the city coming out. She’s well and truly in her cups and everything seems to sparkle a little bit, the same way it does when you’re allowed to go into the sunlight after being stuck in a room working for the entire day.
“Hey,” Mark says, the thought popping into her head as Renjun reaches to top up her mug with vodka. “Did you get a boob job?”
Renjun lets out a pure laugh and glances down at her chest. “Is that why you’ve been staring all night?”
Mark blushes, though she’s not actually sure she can get redder. The asian glow is hitting hard and her cheeks are absolutely rosy right now. “I have?”
“Yes,” Renjun says. Laughing, again. “I did. Put on weight too since they weren’t starving me anymore. You wanna see?”
Oh.
She’s drunk. Mark’s drunk. Renjun’s eyes are sparkling, and she’s tapping her fingers against the side of her mug. Mark is absolutely still attracted to her, just as she was when she was twenty-something, making out in their dressing room. Just as she was when they parted, and just as she was in all those years in between.
“Sure,” Mark says. It absolutely doesn’t come out casual, but she’s almost certain Renjun doesn’t offer it as a little ‘just between girls’ thing. ‘Haha, do you want to see my new boobs?’. Who asks that, really?
Renjun sheds her jacket onto the floor with a shrug of her shoulders and pulls her shirt over her head. There's a moment where the hem catches on her breasts and then they drop.
Fuck.
Renjun was practically flat chested before, but now — if Mark was in the market for a plastic surgeon, she knows who she'd ask for a recommendation. Renjun's tits are — perky.
And Mark is gay. Good god, is she gay.
“They look good,” Mark says. It's a code word for 'I'm suddenly kind of horny because I've always been a tits kind of girl and holy shit Renjun your tits are really nice.' She tries not to stare, but it’s a pretty shitty effort.
Renjun cups her breasts and jiggles them, laughing. They're stupid perky and kind of fucking perfect. “Right? Korean plastic surgeons are on another level. Do you think we wouldn’t have flopped if I had these back then?”
“Dunno,” Mark says. Mouth dry. “Donghyuck might have been jealous.”
“You’re still on about that, huh?” Renjun says. Her face falls for a second and Mark scrunches her nose.
“What do you mean ‘that’?”
“The two of you and that weird... complex you had? Like I didn’t have to deal with being the unsexy one, too. Like we all didn’t have to live in her shadow. It’s not her fault. Dealing with you two was miserable, you know that? All that weird sexual tension too.”
“Sexual tension?” Mark says. She almost spits out her drink. “Really?”
“Sure. You guys looked like you were seconds away from tearing each other’s clothes off half the time.”
“Fuck you.”
Renjun laughs. “Potty mouth.”
She’s still topless. Oh god. Wicked grin, the Renjun special. She plants herself in Mark’s lap, straddling her. “What have you been doing without me, unnie?”
Mark has the grace to blush — having a shirtless Renjun dumped in your lap does that to a person. “Not much. Tinder. Her.”
“Hookups?”
“I don’t exactly have time for a girlfriend,” she mumbles.
Renjun pouts. “Why not?”
Because I’m terrible at relationships. Ten years in this industry does that to you.
Mark shrugs. She’s not exactly subtle right now.
“Can’t a girl just aspire to be a spinster with two cats and a house in the Canadian wilderness?”
“You live in the wilderness?”
“No, I live in Vancouver."
Renjun rolls her eyes and kisses her.
Fuck, Mark thinks. Oh fuck. It’s not an entirely unexpected outcome. Renjun Isn't exactly a subtle kind of woman — if she wants something she’ll pursue it, and her sitting in Mark’s lap was enough of a clear hint to drop that even Mark understood it.
It’s entirely expected but damn if Mark isn’t surprised — it wasn’t exactly a good sentence to lead in on. Donghyuck’s voice pops into her head — the ghost of her knuckles rapping against her forehead — ‘you really are oblivious, aren’t you Mark ?’
Well, Renjun knows that just as good as any of them — making the first move always the surest way to get Mark on board. She’s grateful for it because fuck yes , Renjun is hot and has great tits and she really did want to kiss her. She tastes a hell of a lot like alcohol but she there’s also a wonderful undercurrent of girl — lip balm, maybe, she always did have dry lips in the winter — the smell of her conditioner, her hand coming up to cup Mark’s cheek.
It isn’t hesitant — Mark isn’t here to be hesitant, not now that she knows that Renjun wants her. Her tongue is in Renjun’s mouth and her tits are in her hands and fucking hell, this is not what Mark had expected when she’d boarded a flight to Incheon, but it’s what she wants now.
Renjun rakes her fingers through Mark’s hair and kisses her deeper. Her hips thrust against the air and Mark regretfully (in that second) removes a hand from Renjun’s breast to run it down the line of her body, pausing at her waistband and then — when Renjun physically grabs her hand and pushes it down — gets the message. Slips her hand inside her panties and between her legs, warm heat enveloping her. Renjun moans and bucks her hips again and Mark presses a finger against her clit, reaches down to swipe at the wetness leaking from her and then back up to rub her again.
She’s so fucking responsive, bites at Mark’s lips, pushes against her, lets out hisses and whines and half-syllable utterances of her name as Mark rolls a nipple between her fingers. Kisses her jaw, hair tickling her skin.
“Don’t bite,” Mark says. “We have a wedding to attend, remember.”
Renjun lets out a whine but — for once in her stubborn life — actually listens. She resumes attacking Mark’s mouth, much less finesse now, more panting than technique, gasps of encouragement. A few babes that roll off her tongue, and Mark is searing, pushing against her, the heat coming off her skin like steam from a sauna.
“Oh fuck,” Renjun says, “c’mon babe. C’mon unnie.” She shudders and moans , raspy, and it’s such a familiar sound that Mark feels it melt through her, arousal in the pit of her stomach, a flash of heat between her legs as Renjun comes, her thighs shaking, touch quivering, spit smeared across her cheek where she broke the kiss midway through.
There’s barely time for Mark to process — Renjun grabs her wrist and pulls Mark’s hand out of her pants, drops to her knees and pulls at Mark’s jeans. Button undone, zipper down, pulled off her legs with a shimmy and a lifting of her ass off the seat. She’s ridiculously wet — ridiculously aroused — and Renjun doesn’t help at all, kneeling shirtless between her legs, all grins. It’s a familiar sight, but they’re older now. Their own people — not idols — and Mark still wants her. She still wants this so badly.
Renjun presses kisses to the insides of her thighs and follows them with her hands, touching her, smoothing along her skin. That wicked fucking smile. A kiss to the skin of her hip. Fingers brushing over her clit, followed by the ghost of her breath. Exploring, like they haven’t been here a hundred times before. Like Renjun didn’t used to eat her out in her bunk bed, Mark’s hands in her hair. In closets and backstage, all these secret places, the two of them insatiable. Now they’re older. Now they’re older — Mark can’t stop thinking about it. Dream Run is gone, their past lives are gone but Renjun is still here and Mark still wants her. It didn’t end when they did. It doesn’t end now. Renjun had just gotten off on her hand and now she was between Mark’s legs and Mark wants her so fucking badly she thinks she’s going to go mad.
Renjun presses a kiss to her clit and Mark whimpers, a sound that turns into a whine as it’s followed by a kitten-like lick. Another kiss, another lick, alternating, slow, Renjun obviously savouring the experience.
“You’re so wet,” Renjun says, fingers dipping down experimentally. Mark knows. She can feel it, that heat between her legs, that flush crawling all over her skin. That insatiable itch to be touched made all the worse by how close Renjun is to her, the way her tongue looks when it darts out to wet her lips.
“Shut up,” Mark mumbles. Renjun smiles up at her, knowing, as Mark squirms and tries not to thrust against her hand. “Shut up shut up.”
"Make me," Renjun grins. Mark’s brain breaks for a second — a thousand images flashing through her mind like a flipbook of memories — and then Renjun slips a finger inside of her.
Mark lets out a soft gasp, hand flying up to tangle in her hair, then releasing, smoothing it back from her forehead. She’s so fucking pretty it’s unfair — maybe they weren’t the sexy ones, but Renjun always had a shine to her, a kind of impish attractiveness that made Mark consider that one day Renjun might ask her to burn down a building — and that Mark would absolutely say yes.
“Unnie?” she asks, eyes wide, innocence of the devil. Confirmation, her words playing on old knowledge. The unfortunate case of Renjun’s tendency to whine ‘unnie’ while she was being eaten out had lead to Mark developing a Pavlovian reaction to honorifics. Not a good thing when you were the oldest member of your all female pop group — though on camera horniness was something none of them were foreign to. A rite of passage, almost.
Renjun slides another finger in and crooks them, presses a kiss to the inside of Mark’s thigh. “What’re you thinking about unnie?”
“You,” she says, clenching involuntarily as Renjun’s tongue brushes over her clit. A moan falls from her lips and Renjun presses another kiss to her, sending heat cascading all over her skin.
“Did you miss me?”
It feels like a low blow, but Mark indulges. Having Renjun’s fingers (and a fair quantity of alcohol) inside of her is like a really shitty truth serum.
“I thought about you,” Mark says. She lets out another moan as Renjun starts licking , applying some kind of actual pressure to her clit, alternating occasionally with a kiss.
“Keep going,” Renjun says. Praise junkie.
“I think about you when I touch myself,” Mark gasps. Memories, sweet memories. Mostly it’s the two of them, the night after their first concert, when Renjun had been insatiable, burning forever and ever until Mark was almost too weak to say her own name, until she’d come so many times her throat was hoarse and their sheets were soaked in sweat. The feeling of fame — thousands of people saying her name — and the effect it had on them both. Mark misses it sometimes.
Renjun has a lot of talents — talking, singing, looking like her limbs are made of water when she dances — but Mark thinks it's kind of sad her greatest talent is something she never got to show on a variety show: eating pussy.
“Me too,” Renjun says.
Mark’s admission is apparently the switch that needed to be flicked, because suddenly Renjun’s face is buried between her legs, hot mouth, soft tongue, friction and suction that’s so fucking intense, especially after Mark’s had nothing but her own hand and her vibrator for god knows how long.
Especially since it’s Renjun, stupid fucking Renjun. Mark gasps, her breath stuttering, and Renjun just keeps going, her free hand pressing against Mark’s navel, wet sound of Renjun fingerfucking her almost a rhythm between her ragged gasps.
"God you taste good," Renjun says, surfacing for air, then going down again, eyes still on Mark’s, tongue lapping at her clit. Mark whimpers. It's far too much all at once. Having Renjun back here, having Renjun touching her — her mouth on her. The heat that flashes all through her, pleasure and warmth, something that often felt insatiable. It’s too much and Renjun knows it — they know each other’s bodies. She knows before it happens that Mark’s about to come and she doesn’t stop, keeps her mouth on her, her fingers inside of her as Mark’s orgasm hits her. Body shuddering and clenching around her, thighs squeezing her head, all tension flowing out of her limbs and dissipating into the heavy air.
Renjun presses a kiss to her lips, again, keeps her fingers away from Mark but still feeds her her own taste, smirks when she pulls back.
“Unnie,” she says, and Mark feels it stir in her stomach. Groans. “You did miss me, didn’t you?”
“Fuck you,” Mark says. Renjun cocks an eyebrow and runs her palm over Mark’s breast through the thin fabric of her shirt.
“You offering?”
Mark pulls her down for a kiss as an answer, spent as she is, winds her hand in Renjun’s hair and holds her close, brow sticky with sweat.
She might be a flop, an ex-idol who reached little more than the barest whisper of recognition, too old for this life now — but that was an advantage, surely. She might be here in a country she never wanted to return to for someone else’s wedding, but Mark thinks that maybe she’s a little bit more lucky than she likes to give herself credit for.