Work Text:
for jo!
Anything Eunseok has ever wanted, Sungchan wants double.
With Chanyoung, the closest she’s been to talking about it had been pillow talk: necessarily insincere, talking shop, some metatextual acknowledgment of group’s dynamics for broadcast entertainment.
During those moments, Sungchan was participating as an idol, but she’d also been spectating Chanyoung’s interpretation. What they were doing, between themselves, and what Sungchan was doing to her. Oh, Eunseok-unnie and Sungchan-unnie raised Chanyoungie on tough love; they trapped her in the elevator and made fun of her and pulled that big useless body of hers between them like a silly game of tug of war.
Sungchan’s heard it all. It’s not like she wasn’t listening.
At the start of March, Chanyoung had been frowning out of the shower. Sungchan pulled Chanyoung’s socked feet onto her lap and waited until the complaints poured out.
“Unnie,” Chanyoung said. “Sometimes I feel like you don’t take me seriously at all.”
Sungchan searched Chanyoung’s eyes as she waited but couldn't think of an answer.
Curling a hand around her own neck, Chanyoung dropped her gaze to their overlapping knees. “I guess I don’t know what I expected. It’s silly. You can be too much sometimes, but then you’re not—”
Chanyoung stopped the sentence there, so Sungchan imagined it and felt the prospective hurt.
Sungchan, you’re too much and then not nearly enough.
“Are you sleepy?” Sungchan asked her.
“Kinda,” Chanyoung muttered.
“I just wish you would let me in,” she said finally. “Ah, that doesn’t make any sense, sorry.”
I. HOT Category
RIIZE’s Seongchan, Eunseok, and Anton witness photo, comeback hairstyles draw conversations — video
Anonymous TheQoo user | 04-13 | Views: 91,286
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original post: here
1. Why do they keep doing experiments on Anton?? 😭 Two-tone AGAIN???
2. It’s like the stylists have a favorite every comeback and everyone else gets scraps…
3. She has model-level proportions and they’re wasting it with patchy two-tone orange and beige dye. Why? For what? For whom??
4. Her bone structure is luxury. Her face is a drama lead. Her hair is… a mess
5. They really made Anton look like a backup dancer for her own group. I’m sending a truck tomorrow.
Clouds and tears in Tokyo, the city of dreams.
In 2024, during the fan-con tour, Sungchan saw the first article about RIIZE’s maknae that had grown up well. In the photo comparison: left, permed and fluffy in a sweater vest, right, cinched Boom Boom Bass styling.
The second headline was in her peripheral vision. Sungchan’s on-and-off bed partner started to say, “Is that girl’s—” but cut himself off. The phone on his belly was announcing RIIZE’s impending comeback.
“The tall one.”
“I’m tall,” Sungchan said, impeding.
He set the phone down and palmed her legs. “Shorter than you.” Well, that could be anyone. His calves were almost the length of Sohee’s body. The upkeep was dire and red-dotted.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about her. She’s puppyish, no?”
“Well,” Sungchan stated, deciding what to say.
“When I graduated high school, she was finishing middle school,” Sungchan explained. She rocked against his body unsubtly, hoping for a third answer.
“We wouldn’t have ever crossed paths, right? Even if we studied at the same school, in the same country, so I don’t know.”
She’s muttering against his mouth, scratching her chin on stubble.
“You guys think, uh, we are all the same, right, in girl groups. Carbon copies. I think you and I have more in common than, I don’t know, me and her. I can’t say.”
“That’s a hell of an answer,” he said. “So I take it that she’s not puppyish?”
“She’s a puppy, alright,” Sungchan scoffed, laughing, bracing onto his shoulders to shift her weight. He pulled her closer. “My puppy, though? Someone’s puppy. Not yours, either,” and his tongue is coarse as it stretches towards her.
On the way home, Sungchan hovered on the Block button while trying to remember whether he had anything on her. Fuck that, fuck those eyes, fuck whoever must’ve been on the other side of the line, waiting to see if Sungchan would set her youngest up.
That stubborn habit got old real fast. Sungchan had it coming. Talk of Sungchan’s sex life had been greatly exaggerated, mostly by Eunseok, wondering out loud if Sungchan called the guy hyung in bed, or if serendipity had it so he’d be really into pegging. The only thing that had mattered beyond that betrayal of herself was that he was The Guy. She was also The Guy, by getting him, like it had to be like this: an absolute alpha male, Sigma prince of Hallyu, lacking nothing. Sungchan’s shortcomings were mended, because before him no one had ever been man enough to make a woman out of her.
At the dorm, Sungchan cracked the dark of dawn with her boots. The bag slipped onto the shoe rack on top of Eunseok’s crusty outside sandals and Wonbin’s white trainers stark bright next to the Doc Martens.
In rare form, Eunseok was slurping cold noodles over the coffee table while the muted television played the latest League championship.
“Oh, you scared me,” Eunseok said. She didn’t pause chewing, the words coming out around it. “You’re early. Didn’t feel like staying over?”
“Would you piss off,” Sungchan replied. It lacked any strength. Eunseok smiled into a tropical energy drink. “You’re a poke in the eye, you know?”
“I know,” Eunseok said softly.
“Of course you do.”
Sungchan ruffled her head and fell to the couch unceremoniously. Eunseok was a small round circle in front of the television screen. Her hair was almost to the shoulders, but she usually kept it braided or tied up. Sungchan brought a knuckle and lifted a dark grey strand away from the mess of it.
“Is that Faker?”
“Oh my God,” Eunseok muttered. What, Sungchan grumbled. Eunseok slouched against the couch and then Sungchan could see into her neckline. “Don’t pretend you know anything.”
“I’m proud I don’t know anything,” Sungchan clarified.
Eunseok’s black eyes narrowed coquettishly at Sungchan while she leaned into Sungchan’s personal space. “Is that right? I thought you were trying to get into my pants.”
Sungchan had no energy left. She said, “You’re a drive around the bend, Eunseokkie. Find someone else to do it.”
“I like when you do it.”
“Can’t Wonbin do it?” Sungchan asked, if only just to hear the answer.
Eunseok scoffed but then she was back in place, doubling over dinner. “You know Wonbin can’t top a Tupperware, get out of here.”
Eunseok’s horrified frown twisted when Sungchan laughed. But she was laughing faintly too, switching between Twitch streams as it only got later and then lighter. Some months back, Sungchan had slept ear to bony knee with her, but it stopped being sensible when the wires started crossing. Blue led to Chanyoung’s cloudless light; red was aspartame, the connecting thread of licorice vines twisted between their mouths.
Red was the past, the future is all blue.
By January, Chanyoung’s waist-length hair coiled into nightmare ringlets. Sungchan had the mind to wait until Shotaro was back in Yokohama to wrestle Chanyoung to her haunches.
Chanyoung sat where she put her with slumped shoulders and hands clasped between the knees. Sungchan shoved Chanyoung’s thighs apart, gathering her hair in a ponytail when she tried to hide on Sungchan’s neck. Chanyoung’s thin eyelids reddened until her bright pupils were shining tearfully. Shoved her hand in until the webbing caught on the back of her throat. Chanyoung’s drool. Chanyoung’s uvula touching Sungchan’s fingertips and then Chanyoung’s gag reflex pushing out against the bulk of her.
Sungchan rushed the Q1 to make good on new-year resolutions: she bought a leather collar for the puppy and leashed her to the bed framing; rubbed some cold-on-contact relief cream from her ankle joint to the back of her knees; pushed Chanyoung soles-first until she opened up to Sungchan’s shoulders.
They parted for Seollal and Sungchan nearly forgot the sight of her.
That was until there had been a strange emptiness weighing her down when she saw Chanyoung at dinner. Sungchan only knew what was missing the moment it returned. Beyond the insularity of Sungchan’s single room, things had been more complicated than she’d predicted.
The manager picked through their orders. Chanyoung bent her wrist towards herself and rested her chin on the back of her hand. The twist—Sungchan grimaced. A loamy foot nudged the spread of her knees. Beneath Sungchan’s jeans, Chanyoung’s white skin sliced the upholstery of the chair.
By February, Chanyoung was getting pregnancy scares.
There were a lot of stupid ways to phrase it—none hotter, though. In truth, Chanyoung was off the antiandrogens, now actively ovulating. You could leave it at that, but Eunseok didn’t quite believe Sungchan’s stroke game was as good as to provide a hormonal meltdown. The big deal was that her hentai had been punctuated by people having sex next door.
“You aren’t even Catholic,” Eunseok told Sungchan in a fitful whisper over dinner. “What business do you have penetrating her Virgin Mary?”
The kids giggled. She scrubbed her face and tried to channel light and prosperity towards Chanyoung via mind link. Eunseok’s room was right next to hers to both of their detriment. Truce was a work-in-progress.
When their eyes met, Chanyoung was giggling too.
“Who knows?” Chanyoung started saying. Toothaches left her grumpy, verbal sparring led to terminal lucidity. Sungchan braced for impact. “Maybe I’m the one, ah, penetrating.”
Wonbin cackled. Sungchan looked her up and down, but that had stopped being threatening from the first month onwards. The trainees were the only ones still scared of her.
“Keep telling yourself that, kiddo,” Eunseok said to Chanyoung, smiling.
II. The dream has gone but the baby is real
By March, nothing else matters.
There’s a thing called: less is more. The comment section was on the downturn. There were a lot of peaks until bright red letterman jackets under L.A’s sweltering heat left Chanyoung rocking sandy bronde shag. The comeback starts with a team dinner to recoup their losses. Jiyeon-unnie is cutting steak for Sungchan like she’s an invalid and not just sleepy. It’s past her bedtime. Usually Chanyoung is the one getting this treatment, repaying their staff with snazzy handbags and matching sneakers, but Chanyoung’s worries can’t be buoyed this time, since they’re the cause or the main reason.
Their conversation is kept to a low volume, lulling Sungchan into the intoxication of a full stomach.
“Thank you, noona.”
Jiyeon tuts at Sungchan’s cheekiness, combing her bangs out of her face. Sungchan catches Eunseok watching the retreat of the movement and then Eunseok pretending to not have been caught.
To start, Chanyoung’s worries aren’t any of Sungchan’s business. This time Sungchan’s hair is a decent length, decently coloured moreover, and it’s out of the hideous perm so she counts her blessings, letting any misgivings pass through like a rainshower.
“It’s giving Faye Wong,” Wonbin finally says when Chanyoung keeps pushing her food around the plate; they aren’t even housemates anymore, so it must be true and not just good-intentioned lying, but Chanyoung’s beak is still out. “Like, uh. Nana. You’re just like Hanni, too. With that wig.”
“Are you saying she’s a copycat?” Sohee says, ever blunt. Chanyoung’s perky mouth corners in free fall.
Wonbin rambles on uncertainly since she’s usually the one being soothed and tranquilized by compliments. “No! Shut up, Sohee. I’m saying it’s modern, right. You look very cute; you’re a real-life princess, you know.”
“I know,” Chanyoung says thinly. When Eunseok messes with the clip of the yellow-blond extensions, she leans towards it like a sunflower.
“Aigoo,” Eunseok says. Chanyoung frowns but allows the mollycoddling, snug under Eunseok’s arm. “Hush, don’t sulk, it’s only for that one scene, gosh.” Sungchan knows she’s staring.
The youngest’s necessarily the weakest, even stretching past 5’10 and triple-D cups. Teased, doted on, and treated like a baby. Their frames are what’s eye-catching: thin rib cages, knobbly shoulders. Eunseok’s a willowy cicada on Chanyoung’s bark. Eunseok’s tan hide. It’s true that young trees can’t sustain the damage for very long. It’s true that the pair of them have something on Sungchan, maybe a well-placed knife in her guts.
Shotaro chooses that moment to say: “Now who wants to play some cards?”
Breathing exercises start from below the diaphragm and make their way upwards, towards the sinuses, inhaling and exhaling. Sungchan counts every notch in her throat as the air leaves her. The oxygen mask is on stand-by as a frozen piece of equipment standing upright in the flurry of assistant producers.
The last leg of their Japanese hall tour had been taxing, hollowing Sungchan out of strength, physical or otherwise. The shared Google Calendar details what went on in specific detail, only what she remembers is not what actually happened; it’s what she felt, her brain retrieving the inert data as it sees fit. The past year’s recollection divides large periods of time into hair colors.
An entire year goes past—Eunseok is, somehow, once again, blonde as fuck.
K-Style Party is packed tight. Supposedly better than last year’s, but it’s worse, and they don’t look as pretty. In truth, Sungchan hates the costume coordination for oversea schedules. She has to wear pants sagging at the hips and boots the house down; the trousers have a stretched band sewn in a different fabric, like built-in Calvin’s. Her abs are dehydrated to readiness since she skipped breakfast and lunch. Hunger pains tear through her stomach. What makes it OK, a little bit doable, is that Wonbin’s suffering: red front-lace wig installed, sweating off white foundation.
On the other hand, you can’t fake Eunseok’s white platinum; it’s real hair, frayed beyond Olaplex, bringing out her skin color. The coordis are still getting the hang of blending make-up into her neck. She’s relegated to fuzzy, gaudy sweaters and whitening cream on her wrists. It’s OK because Eunseok’s charming like SISTAR and Lee Hyori. It’s sexy.
She looks away from their reflection and Jiyeon-unnie clicks her teeth at her.
“What do we have here?” Jiyeon holds Sungchan’s hand in a loose grip, turning it over. “This habit of yours is alarming, kid.”
She rubs her thumb along Sungchan’s torn cuticles.
“But I’m getting press-ons anyway,” Sungchan says. Jiyeon sighs, knocking her knuckle against Sungchan’s pouting chin, and unlocks the train case.
Jiyeon-unnie pities her; she puts ointment on the worst of it and wraps skin-coloured bandages around the bruises. By the end of Sungchan’s turn, her nails are round and sky-blue, not too long. There’s a Fly Up decal on her ring finger, jewelry covering up the plasters.
“All done, baby,” Jiyeon tells her. She messes with Sungchan’s fringe, as if there’s a strand out of place. “Now hush. Next one up, please.”
Eunseok takes Sungchan’s place on the makeup chair. She’s in ratty sweatpants, a beanie, and Adidas slides that match her silver windbreaker. The real stage outfit won’t be much different. Jiyeon-unnie puts a hand out, beckoning, and Eunseok obliges, placing her hand on top. Featherlight, dainty. Eunseok’s almond-shaped nails are neat and kept to a manageable size. Eunseok’s palm is small like a child’s.
Some vinyl seats are unoccupied besides the pile of their luggage. Sungchan tries to get comfortable between the wall and Chanyoung’s sleeping form. She’s careful but still bigger than Chanyoung; they’re bound to knock knees until they fit together and she can doze off.
Chanyoung’s nails have been painted jelly-pink, bare of heavy jewelry. Sungchan’s comparing the both of them, their hands a similar size but everything else different, when she feels the shift of the padding. Soft, bare skin resting on her uncovered shoulder. Chanyoung’s warm cheek, mouthing, almost mutely:
“Unnie.”
She twists her mouth around the word, swallowing saliva. The sound if it leaves the image indented on the surface of Sungchan’s memory.
“If you’re avoiding me, don’t avoid me forever.”
“Huh? I wouldn’t, baby,” Sungchan says, unsure if Chanyoung had already fallen asleep again. T-minus thirty until they have to be in position and ready. “I’m not, though.”
She’s repeating herself but the thought of it makes her smile. Your parents loved you too much, Sungchan decides.
It’s all she thinks about when she sees Chanyoung. Every unfair action is met with righteous indignation. It makes you want to push more, right? Chanyoung’s an I-love-you teddy bear that only protests when squeezed too tightly.
At the hotel, Sungchan lets go of the suppressed anger she’s been accumulating since ICN. It’s a fairly easy task elsewhere or for anyone else, but this is a recent book chapter. Don’t let it overflow. What’s behind anger? What’s behind thinking about anger? Where can’t mindfulness and compassion lead her? The root, the cycle, the negativity, the resentment, the worry, it’s fuel and not the end result. Anger makes anger. For some reason, all the answers involve Eunseok.
“Where‘ve you been?” Sohee asks when she catches up to Sungchan in the hotel hallway.
“The gym, why?”
“For three hours?” Sohee looks her up and down. Sungchan wasn’t in gym clothes.
“Then dinner,” Sungchan says slowly, shaking her bag where it rests on her shoulder. “Is everything okay, Mom? Am I late for curfew?”
“Nah, it just sucks to be you,” Sohee tells her. She pats Sungchan’s shoulder when she passes by, already on her way out. Sungchan notices where she came from.
“Eunseok sweet talked Jiyeon-unnie into switching rooms. She’s in a whole mood.”
Sohee leaves her there, then the whole floor’s quiet. Sungchan unlocks the door and sees the mess Eunseok made of it.
A colorful and foamy spillage on the table. They’re all playing cards in Sungchan's room. Jiyeon-unnie isn’t around.
Not strip poker; whenever Eunseok suggests that, Wonbin calls her weird, threatening to leave, and Eunseok generally acquiesces. Vingt-un and Shotaro is playing dealer, beer bottle in hand. She’s wearing sunglasses on her head for some reason and her other hand is draped over Wonbin’s chair.
Across from them, Eunseok pulls her cap backwards. One knee is pressed to her chest, shorts sliding up to show bare thigh.
As Sungchan takes it in, Eunseok notices the door and says, “Oh, you’re here already?”
Sungchan zeroes in on Chanyoung, who skillfully avoids her gaze. This isn’t a hallucination.
“What are you doing?” Sungchan asks. She meant Eunseok but Shotaro is the one who answers.
“Blackjack,” Shotaro says.
“God, you’re infuriating,” Sungchan says. “Not you, unnie. Eunseok…I can’t deal with you right now. Guys, I need to change.”
“You can still change,” Wonbin mutters, making Shotaro laugh.
“Bathroom’s over there,” Eunseok tells her helpfully.
Jiyeon-unnie’s luggage is gone. Right below Sungchan’s scalp, there’s a headache itching to take over. Of course Chanyoung follows her while she unpacks her shower caddy.
Sungchan pretends there isn’t a shadow clinging to the back of her feet but needs to turn her down by the shoulder when they reach the the doorway.
“Anton-ah,” she sighs. Sungchan can’t tell Chanyoung to fuck off the same way she can Eunseok. “Just give me a minute.”
Shutting the door on her, Sungchan sets her dirty clothes on the hamper and undresses completely.
Being naked while hearing other people’s voices through the wall would usually titillate except she’s too angry— she can’t even make sense of any extremities. There’s no hot water; the bathroom’s perfumed by Eunseok’s dermatological shampoo, verbena and eucalyptus. She hasn’t tossed her dirty panties properly and they hang over the edge of the basket.
Sungchan doesn’t bother washing her hair again. She mouths FUCK to the mirror and tries to push down all defilements, imperfections, and earthly undesirables.
III. That dog won't hunt
Two cards, face up, face down, then the total. Losing if you get to 21, or Shotaro gets there before you, or if there’s a tie, push, hit, draw, stay. Aces can be 11 or 1, face cards are 10, jacks, queens and kings. Sungchan can’t count cards, she only scrapes by because she’s dead sober. A soft 17 would be made by an ace, so it could also be 7, so what’s important is that Chanyoung keeps losing.
“You’re cheating,” she says to Eunseok.
Eunseok shrugs. “You can’t prove that, can you?” The sleaziness tickles Wonbin’s fancy and she giggles, already past her tolerance.
“Like you’re any better,” Chanyoung says.
“I’m better than you,” Wonbin says, smirking. Shotaro oohs right on cue. Eunseok’s snickering against her cards, bright red. Her wine glass hasn’t been empty for long.
“Maybe there’s a game you’ll win at,” Eunseok says and startles Sungchan when she calls, “Chanyoungie, come here.”
She kneels on the chair, reaching for Chanyoung. Sungchan is right next to Wonbin and across the division. There’s no else on that side of the table. Chanyoung obliges with Eunseok's hand around her nape, tilting towards her.
Eunseok picks up a card from the deck in her small hand and tells Chanyoung, “Don’t fumble this, kid,” pressing the card to her lips and inhaling. They tip towards each other, a breath away. The card wobbles. Eunseok blowing air out of her hollowed cheeks, but Chanyoung licks her lips and inhales to catch it. She smiles triumphantly after receiving it.
The jack falls towards their lap and to the floor.
Sungchan says, “OK, that’s it.”
Eunseok shrieks when Sungchan wraps an arm around her and pulls her away. She flails her skinny legs around but can’t make a break for it. In the audience Wonbin’s flushed pink, still giggling bashfully, and Shotaro’s laughing her ass off because it’s all so silly. Sungchan can’t look at Chanyoung when all of this intersects.
“It’s called suck and blow,” Eunseok protests. “You’re such a wet blanket.”
Sungchan lets Eunseok’s feet touch the ground when Eunseok shoves her elbow back, right into her stomach.
“Guys,” Sungchan says, heaving meaningfully. “Eunseok and I need to talk for a bit. Do you mind heading out first?”
Shotaro is having the time of her life but she reins it in. “Your room, buddy.”
She taps Wonbin’s shoulder and picks up their things. Wonbin’s ambivalent horniness always makes Sungchan uncomfortable. It’s directed at Eunseok’s antics, but doesn’t that mean Sungchan’s included? The shape of her participating in the fantasy they make. Chanyoung is the only one that stays. Sungchan lets Eunseok go but clasps a hand around her wrist before she goes any further.
“Man, you’re power tripping,” Eunseok tells her. “Throwing me around, kicking out our teammates. This is my hotel room too.”
“Whatever the fuck you’re talking about,” Sungchan says, “whatever punchline, will have to wait until we’re alone.”
The room gets quiet and it’s Chanyoung who’s stopped breathing, already pouting.
“You’re scaring our daughter,” Eunseok accuses her.
“Oh my God. She’s fine,” Sungchan says. Chanyoung perks up dutifully—long eyelashes clumped together, wine-sleepy. “You’re fine. Stay. I’ll be with you in a second.”
Sungchan shoves Eunseok almost gently into the bathroom and locks the door behind them. She’s looking between the dirty panties and the toothpaste trace on the edge of the sink when Eunseok starts talking without preamble.
“Chanyoung already knows about your thing.”
Sungchan sighs through the lattice of her own fingers. “What exactly is my thing, Eunseok?”
“Ah, you’re not playing dumb.” Eunseok frowns. She looks Sungchan up and down derisively. “You actually are dumb. Huh, so you did get me alone for a beating?”
“Huh? You’re the one switching rooms,” Sungchan says. “Let’s turn in. Tomorrow you’ll switch back.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Heaven forbid I should ask, why?”
“Because Chanyoung thinks you’re fucking the manager,” Eunseok states, matter of fact.
Sungchan slouches against the door. The lifeforce leaves her body for real this time.
Eunseok bulldozes onwards. “Calling her noona is some stratospherically gay shit, even for you.”
Sungchan has to close her eyes due to the Eunseok-shaped migraine metastasizing: the bathroom’s too small for the pair of them, their legs intertwine, there’s no peace to be found if Sungchan’s touching Eunseok. That’s been true for all the years she’s known her.
“You’re full of shit,” Sungchan says very weakly—mortification spreads through every fiber, vein, limb.
“Trust me, I heard all about it. Poor thing bought a pair of SB dunks for unnie’s birthday. I don’t even know who she's jealous of. And then you haven’t even…” Eunseok says, but stops right there. She looks awkward now, as opposed to basking in Sungchan’s programmed deference.
“I haven’t even what?” Sungchan cues her.
“You know,” Eunseok mutters. She eyes Sungchan’s lower body meaningfully and it scrapes through the pajamas.
“Chanyoung’s saying—” Eunseok says in lieu of the real thing, shoving Sungchan's knees apart as she gets closer to the door, and the length of her. “—that you’re a swindler. Initiating her into everything only to give it to someone else. That you like older women. Or that she’s too big for you. It’s grating, man.”
Eunseok lays it on thick. “You have to do something.”
“I have to do something?” Sungchan asks to Eunseok’s mouth, she’s leaning in. That joker card had lip balm on one side and nothing on the other. It figures that Eunseok’s lips are chapped and raw.
“Or, well, let her go,” Eunseok allows. She leans back, shifting her weight on her ankles. “Like, take responsibility or let her go. To summarize. I think my job here is done.” She dusts her hands off and reaches for the doorknob.
Sungchan reaches for it at the same time. Eunseok pulls a face, like she’ll insist on an invitation, but that’s a joke and will always be a joke, no matter the exact order.
Chanyoung has her arms crossed over herself as they step out of the bathroom. She’d taken the time to organize the mess of packaging, sorting it into the recycling bins. Sungchan wonders, for the first time, whether she’s been played. The itch hadn’t been a headache but a premonition; Chanyoung is guilelessly sweet, the number one thing wrong with her.
Eunseok strides past them to sit on the bed. At the same time, Chanyoung uncrosses her arms and waits very obviously. Sungchan had been doing—albeit muzzled—awful, unspeakable things to the pretty girl and treating it like a heavenly mandate. She had previously compartmentalized the wrongness somewhere far away. Elsewhere is Eunseok during the present moment, leaning back on her elbows.
“Well then?” Eunseok prompts Sungchan, making her sigh and get the toiletries bag.
Chanyoung looks between them. Her back’s to the table in sight of any exit or entry. Sungchan ignores her easily; the stuff is at the bottom of her gym bag and it means a fate worse than a tobacco pouch or rolling papers. She drags it to the table and doesn’t let anyone see into it. That’s when Chanyoung asks over her shoulder, “What are you doing?”
“What you wanted,” Sungchan says, simple as that.
“Right now,” Chanyoung clarifies.
Her toiletries aren’t in prime shape; she hadn’t expected anything. Before leaving Korea, maybe even before L.A., Chanyoung had given her an ultimatum and Sungchan saw it through. Things had cooled off by then. It would’ve been a very silly fight if not for Sungchan’s personality.
Par exemple, Chanyoung’s mouth is twisting into itself. “Your way or the highway, right?”
Her voice’s very faint under the air-conditioning. Besides that, Sungchan keeps searching for sound, the flow of hot water pipes over and around her, permeating the structure of these kinds of places. Hundred floors of patrons pissing into the drain covers. Today she searches for peace of mind and there isn’t any since Eunseok’s not a loud breather.
“Chanyoung,” Sungchan says. She’s zipping the gym bag closed, pushing her sleeves past her elbows. Her wrists are as white as Chanyoung’s, meaning a watery salmon shade. Eunseok’s are golden brown and too small to grasp right. She can take Chanyoung’s hands into hers and it fits, mirroring each other. “What did you want, huh? What did you ask me on New Year’s Eve?”
“I was drunk on champagne,” Chanyoung protests.
“But you didn’t take it back,” Sungchan counters. “You keep asking for things. I’m not saying you can’t.”
“Isn’t that exactly what you’re saying? I do, and then you take it back, so I’m left there alone. Can’t you forget about it? Can’t things be normal again? I’ll forget about it too, but it’s not right, unnie.”
“What’s not?” Sungchan interrupts her rambling gently. She brings Chanyoung’s arms around her, and Chanyoung goes, melting into her neck, the heated core of her pressing into Sungchan’s belly. Chanyoung wavers like moonlit shore, smelling like strawberry milk and sake.
The words are spoken into Sungchan: “I let you do all these things to me. And then I can’t even do anything back.” She grumbles through months of justified resentment. “It’s like playing dollhouse.”
“It’s unfair, huh, I won’t let you do anything,” Sungchan agrees. “But I do it that way because that’s how I like it.” Sungchan turns Chanyoung into the trim of Eunseok’s legs; she keeps Chanyoung in her arms and her head against the curve of her shoulders. “That’s all.”
Chanyoung rolls her eyes. She’s not pouting, just squeezing Sungchan’s arms around herself. “I know,” she says, a bit out of it. “But you can do something. In your way, I don’t know.”
Sungchan ends up saying, lamely, “It’s fine, I know what you mean.”
Chanyoung’s shoulders shoot up to her ears, and she’s out of the play—Sungchan licked the length of her nape before swiping Chanyoung’s legs under her. Chanyoung buckles down clumsily until she’s on her knees and ends up having to balance on the mattress.
“Charming,” Eunseok notes, Sungchan had forgotten her. “Can we move on?”
Sungchan sighs. “Right. Eunseok’s a bit of a one, isn’t she?”
She takes Chanyoung’s hands in her own, guiding it to the waistband of Eunseok’s pajama shorts. Eunseok isn't wearing any underwear, so she hisses as Sungchan’s rough cuticles skim her hips to ankles.
“But she blushes easily,” Sungchan explains to Chanyoung. “See? Her knees, her elbows. And you haven’t even done anything yet.”
Sungchan combs her fingers through Chanyoung’s soft, bleached mess of hair, and pushes her nape in until she’s leaning into the cradle of Eunseok. Sungchan gropes Eunseok’s thigh with her other hand. Their conjoined palms push it outwards and open her up.
“Just start slow,” Sungchan says. Eunseok repositions herself at the first lick, frowning. “No teeth, no hurry. Okay?”
Chanyoung breathes the word into Eunseok, the exhalation of a yeah. Eunseok’s gooseflesh legs twitch but Chanyoung blocks the movement with her torso.
Sungchan steps back and watches it like she’s outside of her own body, like she’s watching herself when she was younger, all the greener iterations of Jung Sungchan culminating in a better version, a love born out of job stability.
The stuff on the table is sterilized, but she still wipes it down. Realistic and veiny nude-colored dicks were kind of awkward, an appendage painted in the wrong foundation shade. Sungchan’s is jelly lilac, made of glassy PVC; it’s not quite headless, or properly double-ended, lacking glans et al., but it’s smooth, almost cute. Like Chanyoung, exactly.
Sungchan turns back to the bed and isn’t surprised to find, under the bulk of Chanyoung’s frame, that Eunseok is bright-red, biting her lips. All fur coat and no knickers when anyone got down to it. Chanyoung clenches her jaw and the bed shifts, Eunseok’s hips lifting off.
“Is she nice?” Sungchan asks, closing the distance. She strokes Chanyoung’s hair, her knuckles brushing the skin on Eunseok’s thighs. Eunseok starts to tremble more noticeably.
“Don’t twist my arm about it,” Eunseok grits out. Sungchan tries to pet her, but Eunseok snaps her teeth at her fingers.
If anything, if not experience, it’s due to Chanyoung’s ear training, out for Eunseok’s reactions and doubling down on what seems to work. The effectiveness can be attributed to tonal memory, adapting and waiting, until she nails it. Eunseok’s belly is swollen, over her womb; the sweat is dripping down her iliac fossa and streaming into the estuary of spit and lubrication.
Sungchan brings Chanyoung back onto herself, swiping her chin clean and wiping it on the mattress cover. It’s Eunseok’s bed now, anyway. On her lap, Chanyoung is misty-eyed from arousal.
“Do you want to try it, for real?” Sungchan asks, and Chanyoung nods before the end of the question, whatever it may be.
It’s still the year of the snake, bringing transformation, mystery, plasticity. Redefining themselves in limberness. The raw brevity, Sungchan sways with the weight of Chanyoung, the body that she is never getting over, which she keeps thinking about, even when it’s there. The one that had moved her most because it had the most of her life inside it.
The body wash is undermined by the scent of her skin. Chanyoung has always smelled like a well-loved stuffed animal, like freshly-dried cotton and glycerin soap, then chlorinated sweat, powder-blue. Here, in this case, like Eunseok’s musky wetness, dominating.
It’s like Chanyoung had left Sungchan’s body, like she never was inside it, but it wasn’t a dollhouse.
“Okay, baby,” Sungchan says. She pushes Chanyoung down again and gets to work on buckling her up.
Eunseok’s first time getting strapped was Sungchan. In the lower bunk of a cleaned out dorm room. Chanyoung’s first time was—the same, basically, four years and two buildings later. Memories stop holding weight as they go on with their lives. Most people don’t remember their first kiss. Most people don’t work with their body count. Most people aren’t—necessarily codependent, by means of profession. Rather than a sex god, Sungchan had the favor of convenience and insularity. Who else would they have sex with? Don’t answer that. Rite or not, the experiences differ insignificantly: Sungchan sought to make them feel good and mostly succeeded by physical means. Matters of the heart were graded on a different curve. See: Sungchan’s first time getting strapped was three years older and about to debut.
Strangely enough, Chanyoung is the one whining, her voice trembles in a way that’s distinct from the usual cool-headedness when Sungchan fits the strap into her. One end’s against her G-spot; she’s molten-hot on Sungchan’s fingertips.
They’ve moved further up the bed: Sungchan’s sat against the headboard with Eunseok on her lap, pressing against the forearm on her throat, the pair of them cradled like teacups. Sungchan’s other hand is under Eunseok’s thigh, she’s skin and bones except where it matters.
“You’re fine,” Sungchan says. Chanyoung lowers her head until her chin is to her clavicle. “Take it easy, she’s tiny.”
Chanyoung holds onto the dildo as it breaches Eunseok’s cunt, taking it very easy. Sungchan pulls Eunseok back by the throat so she can watch as it goes into her. She parts easily, already drooling and drooled on, but Sungchan helps along by raising her towards the angle, making it fit. She slides her hand along the seam of them, silicone splitting the thin labia.
“Keep going, baby,” Sungchan says, shushing Eunseok’s keens when Chanyoung is doing too much, too fast. “Don’t worry, baby, she’d rather bend than break.”
Eunseok has always been narrow, in every corner; an object of envy during weekly weigh-ins and leaving Sungchan hot and bothered, thinking about how to mould the tightness around her fist to try to leave it gaping.
Sungchan lets go of Eunseok’s legs so Chanyoung can pick up the slack. She shuffles under the weight, folding Eunseok until Eunseok is clawing at her nape. “You, ah, have more charm than sense, you crazy kid.” Chanyoung rubs her lips on Eunseok’s t-shirt, smiling secretly.
Chanyoung’s bra is damp from all the sweat, rubbing Eunseok raw, darker under her armpits. Her belly is defined by hunger rather than strength for now, but it’s still hot; everything Chanyoung does will always be hot as long as she’s herself. Sungchan lifts Eunseok’s t-shirt, even if it won’t be in view. Her breasts are smaller than a handful, even tinier than the width of Sungchan’s palm.
Chanyoung picks up the pace, and Sungchan waits until she bottoms out to pinch Eunseok’s nipples. When Chanyoung presses in, Sungchan rolls the nubs between her nails, and Eunseok clenches and convulses, her body breaking down from pain and pleasure. She still hasn’t come; and for a girl like her, porn addiction withstanding, that’s way too long to go without a clear release. The early days involved even more chafing, impatience, Vaseline and panthenol cream to soothe the rush of Eunseok’s self-indulgence, but she should know better now. Sungchan should know better too.
She kisses Eunseok’s temple anyway.
“You’re acting funny,” Sungchan murmurs into Eunseok’s ear, in her hair. Eunseok thrashes when Sungchan pulls the thin skin of her breasts, the areolas swelling into purple, already sensitive-looking.
Eunseok breathes out slowly, but her belly is twitching, and she’s not going to last. “Not an act, been a really long time.”
That surprises Sungchan, a bit. “Oh, I didn’t know.”
“You weren’t, uh, supposed to know, you big doofus,” Eunseok says, clearly put out.
Rather than try to change the subject, Eunseok kicks Chanyoung’s backside like she’s an unruly horse, but it makes her yield to them, flattening Eunseok into a more manageable shape. Eunseok moans at the change in angle, crossing her legs behind Chanyoung and demanding every bit of strength. Chanyoung opens her mouth onto Eunseok’s; she licks Eunseok’s lips until they open, and swallows her tongue. Their bodies compound and coalesce right on top of Sungchan. Eunseok’s pointy elbows rest over her thighs, Chanyoung’s forearms wedged on their shared pillow, circumscribing both frames. It steals all of Sungchan’s breath out of her lungs and siphons the oxygen from her brain, into their breathing.
Sungchan wedges her arm between them to drag her hand down ribs to mound, feeling the twitch in Eunseok’s stomach like heartbeats, skimming Chanyoung as she grinds the strap in, her fingertips reaching Eunseok’s clit. She measures their breathing as she starts to apply pressure, finding the rhythm, until Eunseok lets go of the tension and melts; high-pitched, the way she speaks on television, narrow, from the back of the throat. Chanyoung keens; Sungchan’s bony knuckles give her leverage, the necessary stability to work herself there and use Eunseok as the harbour.
It’s the highest you can be, and then it fizzles out as they finally get there. So much sweat they’re dripping with it, they might as well have done it in the shower. Chanyoung’s clean underwear and nice bra. No make-up, freshly scrubbed while Sungchan was at the gym; when her breath was over Sungchan’s face, it didn’t smell like alcohol, not at all. The entire chronology boils down to this end result: the specific climax they were after.
Chanyoung’s nose drips down Eunseok’s collarbone. Sungchan thinks to ask, as she combs Chanyoung’s hair back, mindful of wet sideburns, “Was it okay?”
She’s flushing to her chest, all pink. Chanyoung breathes in and out until it’s even again. “Yeah,” she says, smiling wildly and beautifully. “Thanks.”
It sounds sticky when they untangle. Sungchan grabs some tissues to wipe them down, but Chanyoung dives in for a kiss. Her mouth is pain-hot, the one biting but also the one moaning. Sungchan pecks the tenderized flesh of her lips but bites the tip of Chanyoung’s tongue when she presses in. “Wait, stay,” Sungchan says. She’s kneeling on the bed to take care of the fluid congealing over Eunseok, but Eunseok is getting up too.
Eunseok grabs Sungchan by the face, and hers is a little cold from the drying saliva, but her tongue is smaller than Chanyoung’s, like every part of her body is smaller than Sungchan’s. That’s most noticeable when Eunseok’s arms are loose around Sungchan’s waist, lulling her into pliancy.
“One more,” Eunseok tells Sungchan. “Okay? Don’t be such a loser, not now.” Her rudeness punches a breathless laugh out of Sungchan. They do it through the looking glass: Chanyoung lies down against the headboard with her arms wide open for Sungchan’s body, all her soft and thin skin holding her weight easily. Choking doesn’t get Sungchan off, not as much as it does Wonbin, and Eunseok knows that—she kisses the line of Sungchan’s shoulder and sucks at the bony end. Her coarse tongue tickles Sungchan into laughing nervously.
Chanyoung is her puppy, yeah. Licking her face shallowly until Sungchan starts to gasp. Sungchan is fizzling with the first finger. Eunseok's knuckles are poking her inner walls, and it's a sore pleasure, dragging out through the unspecified shame. She closes her eyes under it. Eunseok is infinitely clingier when she's already had hers; her palm rubs the length of Sungchan's spine as her other hand breaches her cunt.
"Look at me," Chanyoung asks against her mouth. "Please? Just this once, unnie."
Sungchan blinks herself away from the haze and finds that her vision is blurry. Chanyoung is her stupid dog with a wrinkled face, dimpled by the touch of an angel. Her breasts are pillow-soft, less from the weight loss, but bigger than all of them put together. When Chanyoung was younger, her skin folded over more easily. Nowadays, she's a woman, a sexy ex-athlete, doing whatever in strange TikToks. There is very little she could ask that Sungchan wouldn't think to give her. That's more than Sungchan can say for almost everyone else.
Sungchan is blinking still when Chanyoung pushes her by the nape, squeezing so that Sungchan takes the hint to nuzzle the top of her chest. Chanyoung shivers when Sungchan mouths the thin hair stretching across her sternum. Eunseok picks up the pace when she quiets down. Two fingers turn into three; Eunseok lets go of her ass to rub her belly until the skin there becomes tender, the pressure on the inside burning her awake. She muzzles herself voluntarily, closing her mouth around a rosy nipple. Her front teeth pull until Chanyoung’s breasts stretch out. Sungchan’s drooling; the lights are on but nobody’s home, yet Chanyoung cups her cheek like she doesn’t mind a bit. They make eye contact, and Chanyoung parts her mouth when Sungchan bites the nub gently.
The burning is spreading outward from her groin. Sungchan never knows what to do with it. She bunches the sheets with a tight grip. Touching someone would scratch skin; stubbed nails are pretty dangerous. The sound of Eunseok kissing her ear jostles her out of it; she’s squirming around the hand inside and gasping into Chanyoung’s chest. It’s happening too fast. It picks up until she’s shaking involuntarily; her legs spasm. Eunseok likes to be held down, but Sungchan is too twitchy for it. Eunseok knows—treats Sungchan just within Sungchan’s principles of personal space and exit routes. She whines with her face pressed against Chanyoung’s neck, tuning out her own sounds and the sounds Eunseok’s hand makes on the push and pull.
“It’s not that she doesn’t feel it,” Eunseok whispers cartoonishly. “She feels it too much. See?”
The pain billows out when it crests; the highest high dissolves in her gut. Sungchan is razed down with it. She’s barely conscious as Eunseok, as gently as she can conceive to be, withdraws and lifts her hand to them. Without a second thought, Chanyoung licks the frothy mess off her fingers.
“Oh, God,” she says. She’s going to be sick.
They wipe her down better than she ever could. Her role as the aftercare taker was born from necessity rather than true aptitude. Her talents lie elsewhere, which is the eternal fate of the youngest child: the expectation of being the one taken care of. Years of working for and vying for the reliable unnie status were undone right then. She’s the first to shower because of a majority vote. It’s not even a sexy shower. She leans against the wall to shake out the numbness in her legs. Complete abstinence is a bust, obviously.
With sense, pleasure has to be responsible only for a cognizable conduct. Rational tangibles. Temporary satisfactions lead to suffering, attachment, rigidity, stratification, erosion, misguiding otherwise bright individuals from the path of spiritual pursuits. Into the arms of the stimulation of the senses and therefore the danger of them. The highest high can't be this.
With sense.
The room isn't as messy when she steps out. By the time she's fully dressed, Chanyoung is in new pajamas and smelling minty fresh. She loops her arm through the tired mess of Sungchan to guide her to the new sheets. The outside world is muffled by the rumble of the air conditioning until the silence is static. Falling in love again and again no matter how many times it restarts. They have a red-eye flight tomorrow night. New choreographies awaiting them in the same practice room. It washes out when Chanyoung starts petting her head. You can't drink a glass of cold water in front of a little kid. They'll repeat what they learned back to you.
The bathroom door opens and Eunseok gets out while toweling her hair dry. She slides the veranda door and the outside rush pours in for a second. Eunseok snaps her lighter open, the thin sound of flint catching fire, and doesn't close the door completely, leaving a hand's width of space.
Chanyoung smooths out the strands of Sungchan's hair until sleep eats at the edge of her vision. Smoke spreads out—the smell of cigarettes brings an incoming headache, which is why sex with Eunseok wears her down psychologically. On the bed, right now, Chanyoung is thumbing her eyebrows, where the hair has started to sprout again; she kisses what Sungchan guesses might be the mole on her nose.
Whoever made her so kind also made it so she was very resentful. Chanyoung glares at her, and her eyes are droopy-soft, but a glare is a glare.
"Just don't," Chanyoung says in lieu of a warning. Any attempt at sounding casual is painstakingly transparent. Forever and always.
"I'm not taking anything back," Sungchan says into her hair, the strands getting in her mouth. "And you didn't have to trick me into it, by the way."
"Good," Chanyoung mumbles, "And I did too," not letting go of Sungchan's nape. Her hands stay on Chanyoung's waist on the edge of clawing out — Sungchan has a bad habit of wrapping them around girls like a straightjacket.