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Jeongyeon is mid-sentence when she notices Nayeon reaching for her. She doesn’t think much of the way Nayeon’s hand moves to cup the back of her neck, because Nayeon is nothing if not affectionate. But when she notices Nayeon is leading with her lips, Jeongyeon jerks away as quickly as she can.
It’s instinct as this point. She’s used to this nonsense. It’s been happening for as long as she can remember, and she hates it. But Nayeon loves it. Loves the way it riles her up, loves her squeals of protest, the way she desperately squirms away and tries to get her hands between them to hold her at bay. She loves the way Jeongyeon pushes helplessly at Nayeon’s arms. And she loves all this because she loves, more than anything in the world, to annoy Jeongyeon.
“Dude, get off me, I’m trying to talk,” she says, elbowing Nayeon lightly until she retreats.
“You just look so pretty right now,” Nayeon replies, eyes wide, sparkling and very clearly teasing.
“Don’t be fucking weird,” Jeongyeon replies.
Momo’s eyes dart between them, highly entertained by the circus she’s witnessing.
Jeongyeon just rolls her eyes and curses her luck that her best friend from birth’s favorite pass time seems to be to find new ways to get a rise out of her. Well, not just her. Nayeon likes to annoy Jihyo too, though that usually involves less kissing and more acting cute - puffing out her cheeks and speaking in a baby voice until the younger girl is cringing and pretending to gag. And Nayeon enjoys annoying Tzuyu, clinging to her and whining until she finally gets the attention she wants. She likes teasing Momo, taking advantage of how easy it is to startle her and using every opportunity to sneak up on her. In fact, Nayeon seems to love annoying everyone except Mina, who she claims is too sweet to mess with.
And while Jeongyeon seems to be Nayeon’s favorite target for the play kisses, she isn’t the only one. Jeongyeon knows for a fact that Dahyun has been threatened with it more than once, that Sana likes to make a game of chicken out of it, and even Mina has gotten a kiss on the lips at one point when she hadn’t seen it coming well enough to react. So Jeongyeon isn’t really that special.
“If Jeongie won’t kiss you, you can kiss me instead,” Sana says, batting her eyes at Nayeon.
Her over-the-top flirting makes everyone at the table laugh, especially Nayeon. And the cuddly Japanese girl gets what she wants: a fat kiss pressed to her cheek from Nayeon who seems to have too much energy to burn.
Jeongyeon rolls her eyes away from the scene, annoyance welling up inside her.
“She does it because you react so much. If you didn’t, she would probably stop,” Jihyo says quietly so Nayeon can’t hear.
“What am I supposed to do? Just let her kiss me? If I ignore her, she’s just going to get more persistent.”
At that, Jihyo can’t argue. Nayeon is more than capable of rising to a challenge.
It shouldn’t bother Jeongyeon this much. Over the years, it’s almost become routine. At random times Nayeon will try to kiss Jeongyeon - on the cheek, on the forehead, on the lips - and Jeongyeon fights it as if her life is on the line. And then they all laugh and move on. It’s just… a thing they do. Their friends don’t even blink anymore.
But recently… recently it’s felt different. Or rather Jeongyeon has felt different. They’re sixteen now, Nayeon will be seventeen soon and things are changing. Because now Jeongyeon is starting to feel things past just annoyance. There are things about Nayeon that she’s only starting to notice now despite being friends with her for her whole life: how smooth her skin looks, how she smells nice, and how her smile is so, so beautiful. There are times when the feeling of Nayeon’s skin makes Jeongyeon feel like she’s on fire and when Nayeon looks at her, she sometimes loses her train of thought entirely. These days, when they’re cuddling on a movie night (always initiated by Nayeon, who all but smothers Jeongyeon) she feels her heart beating a little faster in her chest and prays to every god that exists that Nayeon won’t notice it.
She doesn’t want to think about these changes, doesn’t want to consider what they might mean. But they’re hard to ignore. And the kisses, the attempted kisses rather, get more and more annoying because they’re a reminder of something Jeongyeon doesn’t want to think about. Mostly because it’s embarrassing. Falling for her best friend is such a gay cliche. And falling for Nayeon in particular, is laughable. Jihyo would never let Jeongyeon live it down.
But just because she won’t acknowledge it, doesn’t mean that things haven’t been changing. It’s getting harder and harder to just be normal around her best friend. It would be easier if it were someone like Mina or Chaeyoung or Tzuyu. She can sit and talk to them and have a good time and there will be minimal physical contact. They won’t try to kiss her or hook their chins over her shoulder as she talks or curl up against her chest when they get sleepy. Jeongyeon thinks that if Nayeon were like that she could handle it. But she’s not.
She’s Nayeon. She’s clingy, whiny, and very loud in her affections.
And it’s not like Nayeon is trying to hurt her on purpose. She just doesn’t realize that every time she leans in to kiss Jeongyeon, it’s a tease of the highest order. It hurts, because Nayeon has never given any indication that the kisses go anywhere beyond just teasing. It never seems like she would ever actually want to kiss her like Jeongyeon so desperately wants. She seems just as content to press kisses to Sana’s or Dahyun’s cheeks. In the end, it’s all a game to her.
What would you do? Jeongyeon thinks as she tries to fight off another one of Nayeon’s bouts of affection. What would you do if I just… let you? If I didn’t fight back.
The thought comes out of nowhere and she immediately tries to stuff it back into the depths of her mind, but it sticks with her. It’s persistent and as much as Jeongyeon tries to dispel it, it crops up at the worst times. More than once Jeongyeon finds her eyes drifting to Nayeon’s heart-shaped lips when she thinks the other girl isn’t paying attention. They really are pretty. Pink and full and they look so nice to kiss.
Jeongyeon has to shake herself out of it. This isn’t how you’re supposed to feel about your straight best friend. It’ll only end in heartache.
Jeongyeon has always been known for having a high pain tolerance, for being able to stick it through difficult situations. But there’s only so much a person can stand, only so much teasing and wanting before it all boils over. When she does occasionally give herself the license to think about the future, she knows that the current situation is… untenable at best. She’ll have to face it, face Nayeon, eventually but she just pretends that it'll be okay and tries not to think about it.
It all comes to a head sooner than she thought it would.
Momo was supposed to come to movie night, but she isn’t answering her text messages. She probably fell asleep again. Jeongyeon had asked Nayeon if she wanted to cancel (hoping the answer would be 'yes' because being alone with Nayeon is torture these days), but Nayeon had rolled her eyes and told her to shut up.
So, they’re alone in Jeongyeon’s room, on her bed, and Nayeon has been brushing her arm against Jeongyeon’s the whole night and their hands have met in the popcorn bowl three times and the main characters in this stupid rom-com keep kissing. Jeongyeon feels like she’s going to go crazy. After the fourth on-screen kiss, Nayeon mirrors the move with a giggle, leaning in playfully. It’s a joke, like it always it, evidenced by the smile that she has despite the puckered lips, and the twinkling in her eyes. And despite how absolutely ridiculous she looks, despite how annoyed Jeongyeon is that she’s being toyed around with, despite the fact that this is Im Nayeon, her best friend of sixteen years, Jeongyeon still has the thought, What would you do if I let you?
The urge to just give in, to be able to find out what Nayeon’s lips taste like, is overwhelming and Jeongyeon is tired of fighting. So she doesn’t. She lets Nayeon close the distance between them, lets her fall into Jeongyeon just a little. And, because she knows Nayeon will never actually go the full way and kiss her, Jeongyeon leans in just the last couple of inches to catch her lips.
Nayeon freezes.
Ha, I knew it. Jeongyeon thinks in the split second it happens. She starts to pull away, her heart breaking in her chest. It’s all fun and games. All fun and games until it’s real. Fuck… I’ve really messed this up.
And mentally, Jeongyeon is already having to pick up the pieces of a heart broken by someone who didn’t even know they were holding it.
But then Nayeon gasps against her lips and it’s a sound so pretty that Jeongyeon’s whole body flushes in response and the next thing she knows, Nayeon has thrown her leg over Jeongyeon’s lap to straddle her, her hands are in Jeongyeon’s collar pulling her closer, her mouth moving against hers desperately.
Jeongyeon might have felt confused. She might have wondered what the hell was going on, might have questioned everything, if Nayeon’s lips weren’t so perfect at wiping every thought from her brain. The only thing she can focus on is how soft her lips are, how their breaths mingle as Nayeon opens her mouth and runs her tongue along Jeongyeon’s lower lip. How their chests are pressing together as Nayeon bears down on her as if trying to get closer, closer, closer.
Jeongyeon moves on autopilot, too busy feeling to think at all. Her hands have a mind of their own as they travel up Nayeon’s legs to her waist and then grip, pulling her impossibly closer and then they slip under Nayeon’s shirt to run along the expanse of her back. Nayeon gasps again at that and then kisses her harder, tongue properly licking into Jeongyeon’s mouth now and Jeongyeon thinks she might faint.
It’s all getting to be too much, too fast, but Jeongyeon cannot for the life of her find the willpower to pull away. Eventually, it’s Nayeon who does, but only by about a centimeter, enough to catch her breath and Jeongyeon is still flustered, still lost in the feeling of Nayeon’s breath against her lips.
There’s a split second where Jeongyeon feels the insecurities start to come in but before they can fully materialize Nayeon is kissing her again, softly this time. Her hands come up to cradle Jeongyeon’s face, fingers oh so very gentle along her jawline and thumbs brushing at her cheekbones. It’s mind-numbing in a different way because this has Jeongyeon feeling tingly all the way into her fingertips and Nayeon is softer than Jeongyeon thought possible. It feels very much like being loved and Jeongyeon isn’t sure what to do with that.
Nayeon keeps kissing her, in that same soft way as if she can’t quite pull away. Every time their lips part, she comes right back in, like she’s indulging in this as much as she can and Jeongyeon lets her. Doesn’t just let her but responds in kind, running her hands gently up Nayeon’s spine to cup the back of her neck and play with the baby hairs curling under her ponytail.
Eventually they separate again, and Jeongyeon’s mind has gone so fuzzy that she isn’t even sure who pulled away first this time, but Nayeon is shifting so that she can sit with her legs across Jeongyeon’s lap and tuck her face into the crook of her neck and nuzzle there. It tickles and it would have normally annoyed Jeongyeon or at least she would have pretended to be annoyed but even as Nayeon’s nose makes her squirm a little, she just pulls Nayeon closer. Nayeon presses a kiss to the hinge of her jaw and Jeongyeon’s breath stutters.
She doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t know what to say. She’s happy but confused and still a little bit dazed. What does it mean that Nayeon kissed her back? Does she like Jeongyeon? Or is she just happy to kiss anyone who would kiss her? She is a very affectionate person after all, and it’s been a while since she last went on a date. Maybe she just had some energy to burn. Are they friends with benefits? Or more? Is Jeongyeon ready for more? Is Nayeon?
All of these questions swirl in her head but are cut to an abrupt stop when Nayeon starts kissing her neck in earnest and then trails her lips along her jaw until they meet Jeongyeon’s again. It’s like she can’t keep her mouth off of Jeongyeon for even a second now that she’s gotten a taste. Jeongyeon understands the sentiment.
Nayeon has her hand resting on Jeongyeon’s stomach, tracing the lines of her sweatshirt over and over in a gesture so soothing that Jeongyeon slowly starts to relax. She thinks that she wouldn’t disturb this moment for all the money in the world. And so Jeongyeon doesn’t say anything, keeping her lips on Nayeon’s, and thinks to herself - we’ll figure this out later.
Later, it turns out, will be much later because they kiss, just exchanging small pecks mixed in with the occasional swipe of a tongue, until they’re too tired to keep their eyes open and as they slide down together to properly lie on the bed, Nayeon kisses her three, four more times, gentle pecks in place of a ‘good night’. Jeongyeon falls asleep with Nayeon’s breath on her lips.
When Jeongyeon wakes up with daylight now streaming through the windows she is immediately disconcerted by the fact that her chest feels heavy. It becomes very clear, very quickly that the root cause of this issue is Nayeon, who has sprawled herself across Jeongyeon’s body so thoroughly that she may as well be a blanket. It’s suffocating in more ways than one. Jeongyeon tries to wriggle her way out.
It does not work. Nayeon is much too deep a sleeper and she’s heavy. So Jeongyeon tries the second route of trying to wake her up by any means necessary. She shakes Nayeon’s shoulder, pokes her forehead over and over and even tries tickling her but she’s dead to the world.
“Yah! Im Nayeon!” she finally resorts to yelling. Nayeon stirs. “Im Nayeon! Wake up! You’re heavy and you’re crushing me. I can’t breathe.”
Nayeon slowly blinks her way to wakefulness.
“Get your fat ass off of me,” Jeongyeon wheezes once she’s gotten Nayeon’s attention.
Nayeon’s expression breaks into an annoyed frown all at once.
“Yoo Jeongyeon! Is that any way to start a relationship? You’re really setting the tone right now.”
Despite the fact that Jeongyeon still can’t breathe quite right and now that Nayeon has shifted a little, her elbow is pressing into Jeongyeon’s ribs very painfully, she can only focus on one thing.
“Relationship?” she asks, and she knows that her expression must be completely dumbfounded. She certainly feels completely dumbfounded.
And normally Nayeon makes fun of her when she makes this face, says it looks stupid. But instead, she gives Jeongyeon a look as if she’s being the weird one. She isn’t. Is she? Because they never really talked about what happened last night. They just… went to sleep after kissing for hours. Kissing for hours doesn’t mean you’re automatically dating… does it? Is Jeongyeon missing something?
“Why do you look so confused?” Nayeon asks, and her tone is all fiery like it usually is except Jeongyeon knows her well enough to see a small break in the mask. “We are dating now, right?”
“I- I don’t know,” Jeongyeon answers honestly. “I… I didn’t think you would want to.”
Nayeon sits up now, finally, and she’s no longer crushing Jeongyeon’s chest but the expression on Nayeon’s face is making it hard to breathe in a different way. She looks hurt. A tinge of anger and something else.
“What do you mean by that?” she asks. “I know I didn’t hallucinate last night. Or did that just not mean anything to you?”
“I… you kiss people all the time. I thought that maybe you just…” Jeongyeon trails off as Nayeon’s eyes get darker. She senses that she’s treading into dangerous waters so she stops herself before she can really stuff her foot into her mouth.
“What do you mean I kiss people all the time? Is that how you think of me? As someone who just goes around making out with random people? Is that why you kissed me?”
“No! No,” Jeongyeon says, quickly raising her hands in a placating gesture. It doesn’t work. She’s very aware that she’s very quickly losing control of this conversation.
“So what?” Nayeon says, now fully angry and moving to get up from the bed. “You just thought you’d have some fun with me and then move on as if nothing happened.”
“No! Wait,” Jeongyeon says, now fully panicking and she gets up as well to grab Nayeon’s wrist and stop her from marching out of the room. “No, of course not. I could never think of you like that.”
“Then what, Yoo Jeongyeon?” Nayeon hisses, tugging against Jeongyeon’s grip. “Because I’m pretty sure we kissed last night but now you’re acting like that was a one time thing and it didn’t mean anything and I-“
“It did mean something,” Jeongyeon says, pulling Nayeon closer by her wrist until they’re breathing the same air. “It meant everything.”
Nayeon stills. She looks up at Jeongyeon and there is very clear vulnerability in her wide brown eyes. She looks like she’s on the verge of tears.
“I just didn’t think you would feel the same way about me,” Jeongyeon confesses.
Nayeon’s lips part in surprise and then she’s sliding her wrist out of Jeongyeon’s grip so that she can slide their fingers together instead.
“And what way do you feel about me?” she asks.
Jeongyeon looks at her best friend of sixteen years, her whole life, and the weight of the words that she’s holding terrifies her, but she knows she has to say them. Still, it takes her a second, maybe a full minute even to muster the courage. She's scared. Of dating her best friend. Of the consequences if it doesn’t work out. Of the intensity of what she’s feeling already. But Nayeon is looking at her so pleadingly and Jeongyeon has never been the type to let Nayeon down.
“I like you,” she says quietly. “I really, really like you.”
“Yeah?” Nayeon asks the word coming out like a sigh of relief before a sly smile spreads across her features. “How much?”
Annoyance prickles because Jeongyeon knows she’s being teased now, and this is how she’ll always respond to Nayeon’s teasing. But at the same time… at the same time… there’s this warmth behind the annoyance that stops her from feeling the full brunt of it. It’s affection, Jeongyeon realizes, and it’s always been there. But now, with Nayeon holding her hand and looking up at her it’s impossible to ignore.
“A lot,” Jeongyeon replies honestly. “Too much.”
The teasing look vanishes and is replaced by a wide, genuine smile that makes Jeongyeon’s chest flutter a little.
“Do you… do you also…” Jeongyeon trails off. She's still having trouble coming to terms with the reality that Nayeon actually might want her.
“Of course, I like you, Yoo Jeongyeon,” Nayeon says, punctuating her words with a tight squeeze to Jeongyeon’s hands. “You are so dense, I swear. I’ve been flirting with you for years.”
There are a number of things in that sentence that Jeongyeon needs to address (she is not dense! Also… years?) but what ends up coming out of her mouth is, “You have?”
“Of course! I always try to kiss you and hug you and hold your hand and-“
“You do that with everyone though,” Jeongyeon says, genuinely confused.
“What? No, I don’t!”
“You do,” Jeongyeon replies, “You kissed Mina that one time, and you kiss Sana all the time! Hell, you tried to kiss Momo yesterday at brunch just because she said that your hair looked nice.”
“That’s different!” Nayeon argues back.
And this is familiar. This back and forth between them, arguing about pointless things, Nayeon sticking to her guns even though she is absolutely 100% wrong. Surprisingly, this makes Jeongyeon relax more than anything else would.
“How is that different? Literally, explain one way how.”
“It’s just- They aren’t- It just is, okay?”
“Not a good enough answer and you know it! You can imagine why I’ve been so confused this whole time!”
Nayeon, who had very clearly been gearing up for a snappy response, stops in her tracks.
“Confused?”
“Yeah!” Jeongyeon replies. “Of course, I was confused. I liked you so much and you would be so affectionate with me but then turn around and act the same with everyone else and I figured that that was just how you were. And yes, we kissed yesterday but I know you were only teasing. You probably didn’t mean it. At least not at first. But now you’re saying that you’ve liked me years and it's all just a little confusing to me.”
Jeongyeon really didn’t mean to say all that and she's still busy processing everything that’s happening. Nayeon looks at her, frozen in place but then she melts all at once and pulls Jeongyeon into a hug. It’s familiar and at the same time not. They’ve hugged a million times but there’s something incredibly intimate about this time that manages to both soothe and make Jeongyeon nervous at the same time.
“I’m sorry,” Nayeon says as she pulls back, sliding her hands down Jeongyeon’s arms to hold her hands again. “I… I’ve liked you for so long. I didn’t want… I didn’t think you felt the same. You would always push me away and act so annoyed when I would make moves on you that I didn’t think you could feel the same. I wanted to flirt with you for real but I would get scared and never fully commit. But the truth is… I haven’t wanted to kiss anyone other than you since that middle school dance.”
Jeongyeon blinks. Once, twice, three times. She’s stunned. Fully, completely stunned. She can’t think of a single word to say. Of course she remembers the eighth-grade dance. They had gone as friends, like many of their classmates. They were still young enough that most of them weren’t dating and most boys still seemed gross. So Nayeon had asked Jeongyeon to go with her. Well, not asked so much as stated that they were going together. But that was fine. Jeongyeon had assumed that they would be anyway.
They’d danced most of the night with Jihyo and Momo and Sana, all five of them shouting with the music, jumping in place and hyping Momo up to show off some of her cooler moves. But when a slow song had some on, some boy had asked Jihyo for a slow dance and Sana had dragged Momo off to dance with her and Jeongyeon had been left with Nayeon. She’d made some joke about not wanting to dance with her. She doesn’t remember the joke itself, but she does remember Nayeon’s eye roll and then her insistent tug on her wrist.
“Who else are you going to dance with?” Nayeon had asked.
“Touché,” was all Jeongyeon could respond and then they were swaying in place together.
It hadn’t felt weird at all. She was used to proximity to Nayeon, and the slow music was a nice, calming break from the constant high energy pop that had been playing for most of the night. Jeongyeon had taken the opportunity to just be close with her best friend. Her feelings hadn’t started that night. It had taken two more years for Jeongyeon to really start to feel anything for Nayeon like that. The fact that Nayeon has felt something for her for so long… she wonders if she really is dense for never noticing.
“That long?” she asks, voice full of wonder. “I didn’t… I didn’t know.”
“I know,” Nayeon says quietly. “I tried to hide it. I didn’t want you to… I don’t know. You’re so selfless sometimes. I was afraid that you would try to date me because you felt like you had to and that it would end badly. So I held myself back. But then last night you kissed me and-“
Nayeon’s voice cuts off with a crack, altering Jeongyeon that she’s about to cry.
“I was so excited,” Nayeon continues, her voice wavering. “Because then maybe you felt the same. I’ve been wanting this for so long Jeongie. I’m sorry if I’m going to fast but … if you don’t want this for real, I need you to tell me right now because if I get my hopes up and you don’t want to-“
Jeongyeon kisses Nayeon. She does it because Nayeon is rambling and she sounds like she’s going to cry and Jeongyeon hates dealing with Nayeon when she cries. She does it as an answer as well, a reassurance that she’s in this for real (still reeling from everything, still confused, but definitely here to stay). And she does it because ultimately, she just wants to.
“I want this,” Jeongyeon says confidently. “I’m… processing still. But I want this. I promise. But you have to ask properly.”
“Huh?”
“Ask me, Nayeon. It’s not nice to assume.”
Nayeon stares up at her dumbfounded for a second and then rolls her eyes.
“Wow, are you going to be this difficult for our entire relationship?”
“Probably, yes,” Jeongyeon replies. “It’s a real possibility. But we aren’t in a relationship yet. I still haven’t been asked.”
“Oh, so you’re the type to just go around kissing people you’re not in a relationship with? Is that it?”
Jeongyeon grins.
“Only if they’re as pretty as you.”
That shuts Nayeon up well and good and has her blushing all the way to her ears in a way that fascinates Jeongyeon. Nayeon has never been the bashful type, always brash and bold and unashamed of everything she is. But a single cheesy line from Jeongyeon has her red and ducking her chin and stuttering and if this is what flirting with Nayeon is going to be like, Jeongyeon hopes she can do it every day.
“Shut up,” Nayeon mumbles.
“I will if you ask me out,” Jeongyeon replies, allowing a pout to form. “You still haven’t asked me.”
Nayeon sighs deeply and groans.
“Fine,” she says. “Yoo Jeongyeon. Will you be my girlfriend?”
These are words that Jeongyeon had never thought she’d hear even in her dreams, and she should respond to them nicely and clearly and put Nayeon out of her misery. But teasing Nayeon has always been second nature to her, and she will always default to that.
“What’s the magic word?”
Nayeon’s jaw drops, affronted, annoyed and clearly wanting to punch the smirk that Jeongyeon is wearing right off her face.
“Oh my god. Say yes right now so that I can dump you and never speak to you again. What the fuck is wrong with you? I asked you out nicely and you’re just-“
Jeongyeon kisses Nayeon, a longer kiss, with just a hint of tongue because she can and because it’s super effective in shutting Nayeon up. It’s nice to know that she has an off switch for her now, something that she’s been trying to find for years. And such an enjoyable one too. Jeongyeon smiles into the kiss.
“You’re so annoying, Nayeon,” she says against Nayeon’s lips, and before the other girl can get mad, she adds. “And yes, I’ll be your girlfriend, you loser.”