Chapter Text
It’s a typical Friday night and Momo is late even by her usual standards.
She's been on her feet all day and really doesn't want to be in heels right now, but once she gets past the landing to where everyone else is, she knows she's made the right choice.
“Moguri,” a slim arm comes around her shoulder, squeezing once, “glad you could make it. Still gay?”
She pushes the broad chest it belongs to, but doesn’t shake him off completely. “Fuck off,” she greets, friendly as she tilts her head up to look at him. In an alternate universe, maybe, if he were a little more lucky and she a little less. “I’m surprised you aren’t already in the bedroom.”
“I’ve been waiting for you, obviously,” Mark says, and this time she does shove him off.
“I need a bathroom, you’re testing my gag reflex.”
The boy grins. “The closest one is occupied, I was just in there,” he wipes under his nose, sniffling, eyes shiny under the lights. Mark raises his eyebrows. “Do you…?”
Momo thinks about it. Mark always does have the best at his parties — the good stuff that isn’t cut with additives, from a dealer he knows via his older sister — but she decides against it, shaking her head. Not tonight. “Show me the drinks?”
He gestures her toward the kitchen, no less busy than the main room, or the outside pool by the looks of it. Momo glances out the glass sliding panels that overlook the Tuan estate, perched on the tallest point of a hill so that the city landscape is viewable. It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before, but it doesn’t take away from its beauty.
People were like that, too.
“Looking for someone?” Mark asks, heavy handed with the alcohol as he mixes her drink, and she looks away from the blue glow of the poolside to him. There’s a reason they’re friends outside the overlapping social circles they're in.
“Momo.”
Her eyes flicker toward ash gray hair and a pouty smile. Momo swallows the mouthful of rum and coke she’d taken and straightens. The color is new; the last time she’d seen the other girl it had been a deep chestnut brown, soft every time she’d threaded it through her fingers. She wonders if the dye did any damage, if it still feels the way it used to.
“Sana-yah,” Momo greets her ex with a nod. “How was Paris?”
“Just right. The holiday villa was exactly what I needed before the school year starts,” she pauses for a bit, reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I feel bad about missing our summer practices, though. I hope it won’t be that big a problem.”
“Shouldn't be,” Momo wants to assure her better than that, but she's only co-captain and her word isn't the one that's final. She and Sana both know that. “Everyone has to try out again first week anyway, so as long as you're still able to tumble and do the lifts, you'll be fine.”
Sana kinks an eyebrow and gives her a look. “You don’t need to doubt that I’m still flexible enough.” There’s a glimpse of something playful behind her eyes, something Momo’s not sure she should still be able to recognize so quickly.
But Mark coughs by her side, spilling beer down his front and Momo is half-glad for the interruption. She turns to him, amused. “What are you, twelve?” she teases, “I should be the one blushing, but you look like you're about to bust a nut.”
“Who’s blushing?”
Momo stares down at the red solo cup in her hands, polishing it off to give her a few seconds before facing the owner of the voice. Her body is already turning before she even sets her drink down by the counter all the same, however, and Momo lifts her eyebrows at her best friend and the boy following behind her.
“Jackson-ah,” Momo decides to say hi to him first, “you have Nayeon’s lipstick on you.”
A few more people gather around to join them, and Momo looks over them each one by one. Her ears perk at Nayeon’s soft sigh and her eyes snap to the girl’s. Rose blooms against the apples of her cheeks and Momo can see her breathing is a little uneven.
“You, by the way,” she answers, a little late, taking the shot because she can. She doesn't want Sana to annoy Nayeon any more than her presence already has, and if anyone can make jabs at the raven haired girl and come out of it alive, it's her. “I guess Jackson figured out his little problem.”
“Yah,” complains Jackson, and Momo adds: “Sorry. I meant premature. ”
“Cold,” Mark laughs, earning a glare from his own best friend as Nayeon reaches back to squeeze his hand consolingly, eyes not leaving Momo’s face.
“You should've texted me when you got here,” Nayeon frowns a little.
“I got caught up,” Momo tells her, a white lie that isn't I was waiting for you. It's worth it when she sees Nayeon glance briefly in Sana’s direction. Her knees feel a little weak when something in her expression darkens.
Nayeon announces: “Let’s play a game.”
“King's Cup,” Mark casts his vote first, slapping his palms against the counter.
“Strip poker,” one of the girls on the squad, Jeongyeon, suggests, nudging her way to the front of the small crowd they've amassed. She flips her fringe out of her eyes. “Nayeon didn’t make us do all that core work during the summer for any of us not to show it off.”
“Truth or dare,” Nayeon declares instead, Momo’s stomach fluttering in anticipation. It feels like a frenzy of butterflies, but there’s a buzzing, too, that begins flowing through her veins. She nudges Mark and gestures to him to make her another drink.
“I change my mind,” she mumbles just loud enough for Nayeon to hear, “you're the twelve year old here.”
Nayeon only smiles. “I’ll start,” she says, and without preamble, “Momo. Truth or dare?”
And looking at her, Momo just can’t tell what's going to come out of her mouth either way. She can feel Sana beside her, pressed against her shoulder with the excuse of how crowded the party is, and looks at Nayeon across the counter.
“Truth,” she ends up saying, waiting for the sword to fall because Nayeon has always been greedy ever since they were children. Since Momo’s mother and Nayeon’s father invested in the same start up company only to tear it down from the inside, liquidizing the assets and buying the core innovative ideas in their name. It made for a good platform to set up their co-venture together later. Momo remembers Nayeon taking her by the hand even then, always getting them both in trouble.
She has never complained. But still, still, when Nayeon delivers her next words with a cunningness that could outsmart the devil, Momo squirms.
“Truth - when was the last time you had sex? And how many times did you come?”
That's two questions, she wants to argue, but it doesn’t really matter. Momo knows she’s screwed - literally and figuratively, exactly where Nayeon wants her.
“Two days ago,” mutters Momo.
“Sorry, you need to be a bit louder.”
“Two days ago,” Momo reveals to the group, raising her voice, keeping her eyes trained on Nayeon and the way her mouth curls. She crosses one ankle over the other, ignoring the heat that begins to build low in her belly. Embers, for now. “And three times.”
It works. Among the catcalls and wolf whistles, Momo feels Sana step back, distancing herself. There’s a twinge of guilt - Momo is fond of Sana, she really is - but when they had broken up before summer vacation, there had been no promises to getting back together. Her fingers flex against her cup, now full again, and she takes a long pull before she starts.
“My turn,” Momo says coolly, evenly, “Truth or dare, Nayeon-ssi?”
“Truth,” the cheer captain replies, and Momo nods.
“How many times did Jackson make you come just now?” she asks, because for all the ways Momo will bend backwards for her best friend, pliant and willing and needy, if she's honest, she knows how to push back.
Nayeon breaks out into a smile, more radiant than the sun and Momo grins back.
“Just once. Sort of," she admits amongst the laughter that bursts out between all their friends as her boyfriend's squawks. Momo holds her arms out open for a hug and Nayeon slugs her in the shoulder before receiving it, laughing, too.
The game continues from there. It never really stops, even when it does for everyone else. Not between them.
—
“Did you mean it?”
The question comes out more breathless than Momo meant for it to, labored under the fault of the hands pressing against her sides, over the flat planes of her stomach. She can barely see anything in the dark, can barely see Nayeon other than the pink of her lips and the brown of her eyes. She’s glad Mark has more than one spare bedroom.
“What?” Nayeon is out of breath, too, and she tastes like those mint candies she keeps stocked in her purse, and scotch, a blend of sweet and bitter that make Momo’s lips tingle every time they kiss.
“Earlier,” Momo says, voice trembling when Nayeon lowers her mouth and swirls her tongue over a nipple. She pulls at the button on Nayeon’s shorts, but the girl bats her hands away and she makes a frustrated noise at the back of her throat. Nayeon doesn’t have to ask for an explanation for Momo to know she needs one.
That doesn’t make it any less difficult, considering her thoughts are hazy at best and honestly, even Momo has to concentrate for a second to remember what she was trying to get at.
“During truth or dare,” sighs Momo, weak when Nayeon latches onto the spot below her ear next, a silent thank you for clarification , “when Mark asked us to kiss and you said you’d had better afterwards.”
It had barely been more than a peck - their peers wonder about the two of them, of course, though no one wants to risk their lives enough to gossip, at least in front of them - but Nayeon had pulled away first after sucking on her lower lip, eyes dark and promising.
They’re here now, together, away from everyone else with nothing to distract Nayeon from making her feel good and vice versa, but Momo is more sensitive with these things. Soft, Nayeon had called her before, teasing but truthful, too.
Nayeon’s hands pause against her thighs after hiking Momo’s skirt up. She noses her jaw and covers Momo’s mouth with her own, gentle.
“No,” Nayeon tells her in the dark where Momo can barely see her but can feel her everywhere. And she believes her, believes in her because they’re two sides of the same coin and Momo is a romantic who can’t think of anything greater than sharing everything she has with her best friend, with Nayeon.
“No, baby,” and Nayeon’s fingers are sliding inside, her head falling back against the mattress and Momo just thinks about how didn’t even have to say please this time. She cries out a decibel too loud even given with music still playing outside when Nayeon touches her clit with her thumb, bringing her fist to her mouth to bite down.
Nayeon looks at Momo like a painting, like a work of art made by her own hands with careful strokes and brushes. There is poetry, Momo swears, in how Nayeon worships her like this despite all the jokes she makes about the other girl being a queen.
“You’re so pretty,” mutters Nayeon, always adoring even in dirty talk that has Momo's hips jerking to match her movements, “God, Momo.”
“It’s Hirai, actually,” Momo teases through her fist, muffling another moan when Nayeon curves her fingers.
“Smartass,” she chastises. Momo is about to make another comment but Nayeon speeds up and instead she starts whimpering the other girl’s name. “Next time,” Nayeon promises, circling a bundle of nerves that has Momo thanking every deity that Nayeon is making this quick, or at the very least not bringing her to the edge before holding back, only to do it again until Momo is begging for release. It’s high on the list of ways Nayeon likes to screw her.
“Next time I’ll fuck you somewhere you can say my name as loud as you want,” Nayeon hums against her mouth and Momo’s back arches as she comes, chasing her kiss as white flashes behind her eyes. Nayeon strokes her through it, murmuring sweet words until Momo pushes her hand away and Nayeon is sliding over her body until the heat of her is hovering over her face. She’s soaking.
She’ll die this way, one day, she’s sure, but Momo doesn’t care. Nayeon has always been fatal when others are bold enough to come close. Momo has always been closest, Icarus on a path to destruction the closer she gets, but she’s flying and if this is the way she goes, she has no regrets.
—
They only have the weekend until the first day of school and the start to their last year, and Momo has mixed feelings about the summer drawing to a close. Momo likes summer - likes that the sun rises earlier and sets later, the days longer and everything that comes with it from sugary, fried fair food to trips to the beach that make her find sand in the pockets of her clothes even after they've been washed.
Nayeon spends Saturday with Jackson so Momo spends hers at home, working out in their personal gym and reading from a dog eared anthology that her sister had nearly thrown out after finishing her literature course at university. Enough elaborate meals to feed a small army weighs down the table in the dining room come dinner time - an annual Hirai special occasion, before Momo begins school and her sister jets off to another country because studying abroad is infinitely better than studying at home, the older girl says.
She tries on her new uniform to see if it fits, and then her cheer one just because. She’ll miss summer for another reason - being able to spend her days in cut off shorts and muscle tees or really, anything, instead of starched collars and ties.
By Sunday, Nayeon has gotten her driver to take her to Momo’s before she's even gotten out of bed, so she sees no point in pretending to want to be anywhere else.
“Momo-yah,” whines Nayeon, when Momo is sprawled on her stomach reading on her bed instead of paying attention to her. In truth, Momo isn’t ignoring her - she’s happy just to be next to her, to feel her warmth beside her and occasionally look up from a page to see her bathed in a glow from the sunlight coming in from her windows. “You have the whole year to read.”
“A piece by J. D. Salinger, to be controversial,” Momo deadpans, the exact words her junior English teacher used to introduce The Catcher in the Rye last year, “or Neruda, who was actually a huge asshole, did you know that?”
Nayeon matches her look. “No, but I'm sure you could tell me,” she reaches for the backpack she’d brought with her, unzipping it and digging through the contents. “Take your shirt off.”
“Can it wait until — ” All Nayeon does is lift an eyebrow and Momo sighs a little, but she’s not complaining as she complies. She tugs her top over her head and follows when the dark haired girl adds, “Bra, too.”
“Lie down,” she instructs, pressing a hand lightly into Momo’s back before swinging a leg over, straddling her from behind. “Relax, nerd, you can keep reading,” she teases, fingers skimming along her back, kneading after she tucks Momo's hair over her shoulder. Her thumbs rub circles into the tension that’s built up along her spine, massaging until her muscles go from stiff to relaxed.
Momo does just what Nayeon says, content even as her eyes droop and she can no longer focus on the writing in front of her. She tries to reread the same line three times when something cold and wet drops onto her spine. She jumps and, expectedly, Nayeon laughs at her, but she also stops her from rising up from her lying position, the warmth of the flat side of her palm keeping her in place.
“Stay still,” Nayeon scolds her, but she’s amused. Momo resettles, but she can't concentrate anymore on her reading and just trusts her. She closes her eyes, smile tugging at her lips when something soft glides against her back and she realizes. She gets it now. It tickles a little but Momo does her best not to squirm.
“Since when was I,” she wonders out loud, “a walking canvas?” And then: “Are you going to get paint on my new sheets?”
“Yah,” laughs Nayeon, pinching her side to make her yelp and just to be a brat, probably. “I won’t! And yes, as a matter of fact, you are.” Her brush dips along smooth skin, dotted with the occasional freckle but otherwise clear. She’s careful not to get paint on her hair when she leans down for a moment, just to press a kiss against Momo’s shoulder.
“Inspire me,” she requests softly, dropping the you that’s meant to be at the beginning of the sentence. She thinks Momo understands anyway.
She hums, giving it thought. Momo knows she could quote anything - Finding Dory, even - and Nayeon would be fine, laugh, and make art of it. That’s the kind of person her best friend is. Nayeon paints and she does her best to find the words that describe what her art makes her feel - what Nayeon makes her feel. Momo releases a breath.
"I made / this place for you. A place for you to love me. / If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is."
She gets paint on the sheets, but Momo doesn’t mind because Nayeon gives her summer on her skin, gives her a sunrise with oranges and yellows over a grassy field of sunflowers - they've always reminded her of Momo.
—
She is so late.
Honestly, if Momo texts her ??? where r u? second bell just rang and jackson told me you didn’t meet him for breakfast, she's undeniably fucked on being punctual. And on the first day of school, no less.
Her phone vibrates in her lap again.
also, we have a couple new kids. and a new ap lit teacher, apparently. im jinah. i want to have her children
Nayeon texts her boyfriend first, a quick i’m sorry, overslept ): <3 before replying to Momo.
doesn’t sound familiar but i’ll take your word for it. did you save me a seat?
assigned seating rip
She sighs, and her driver looks at her in the rear view mirror. She waves him off, and he probably thinks she’s just irritated to be late, because Nayeon notices the lines against the pavement blur by a little faster and before she knows it they’ve pulled up to the academy gates.
Nayeon hurries off with a thank you thrown over her shoulder, ducking inside and hurrying down the halls until she’s at classroom B-19 and pulls at the handle, opening the door to enter inside.
“Sorry,” Nayeon bows low to the teacher - a gorgeous brunette that more than warranted Momo’s admiration - before scanning the class.
Momo sits at the front - something she’s probably pleased with - and notes a girl with long, deep red hair seated next to her. One of the new meat, Nayeon figures before turning back to their teacher, indifferent.
She apologizes again, just to show she’s genuinely remorseful about it, and Ms. Jinah (unmarried, she notes — Momo must love that) directs her to her seat. Nayeon is placed in the middle, almost toward the back. Someone passes her a syllabus and she flips through it idly, only half paying attention to the grading scale and required reading.
She looks up only when Ms. Jinah informs the class they're doing an icebreaker for the first day for the remainder of the period.
“Pair up with two other people,” she announces, stepping back to rest against her desk. Nayeon thinks she can hear Momo’s brain short circuit from here. “At least one that you don't know, and learn something about them. After a few minutes, we’ll all go around and you’ll introduce each other.”
The classroom soon erupts into noise when she dismisses them, and Nayeon is already out of her seat and slinging her bag over the back of the desk chair closest to Momo, dragging it over. They form a triangle with a third, the red haired girl Momo sits next to. Her friend shoots her a smile.
“Hey,” grins Momo, gesturing to the stranger, “I was telling new girl here the boring stuff. Hirai Industries, older sister, co-captain of the cheer squad and often found being bullied by you .”
The girl furrows her eyebrows, politely confused as Nayeon sits down, snorting at the introduction she’s been given.
“Im Nayeon,” she greets, “Im Enterprises, only child, captain of the cheer squad.” She sticks out her hand, and the girl accepts. Her handshake is firm. Good, Nayeon thinks. She hates lazy handshakes.
“Myoui Mina,” she introduces herself, “I moved here from Kobe, Japan. I have an older brother and a dog.”
“Myoui,” repeats Nayeon, mentally tracing back into the recesses of her head to see if the family name rings any bells. Her father owns the chain of hotels Chou Tzuyu's father manages. “Is that from — ”
“No,” Mina interrupts her, clearly bemused, “whatever company or firm you're thinking of, no. My father’s a police officer and my mother teaches ballet.”
Momo perks up. “You dance?”
Mina looks startled, but pleased. “Sort of,” she admits, hair falling into her face. Messy. Nayeon doesn’t like messy. “I did ballet for awhile growing up, but it’s nothing special.”
“So you're on scholarship then?” presses Nayeon, and Mina gives her a look at that, not quite a glare but not friendly, either. There’s an unspoken meaning to her words easily translated in a place where tuition costs as much as most universities.
“That's right,” answers Mina, a little stiffly. “I suppose most people at this school have probably had a trust fund since birth?”
“Only the ones that amount to anything,” Nayeon shoots back, sugar sweet in her smile. It’s a lie — she’d all but adopted Son Chaeyoung last year when the girl was a freshman, and she didn’t have two pennies to rub together. But Mina doesn’t have to know that.
“Her voice is full of money.... The inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it,” Mina recites softly, fixing Nayeon with a look she can't describe as anything else but searching. “High in a white palace, the king's daughter, the golden girl.”
“F. Scott Fitzgerald,” Momo appraises.
“Yes,” Nayeon snaps, “we all read The Great Gatsby.”
“Okay, everyone,” Ms. Jinah calls them to attention, and the stare off between them is mutually broken. The air, however, remains heavy and tense, with Momo glancing at the two with curious consideration. “Who would like to go first? Any volunteers?”
Mina’s hand shoots up in the air at the same time as Nayeon’s.
“Great,” she gestures the three forward to the front of the class. Momo moves to stand between them.
“Hirai Momo,” Mina begins, before either of them can and Nayeon is actually rendered speechless for a moment, “is the heir to Hirai Industries. She has an older sister and is on the cheer squad here as co-captain.” She looks beside her at Momo, good natured as she finishes. “And she knows her novelists from the Jazz Age.”
The class claps courteously, Momo included. She clears her throat and glances at Nayeon.
“Im Nayeon is my best worst friend,” she jokes, and the class chuckles after her. Ms. Jinah motions for her to continue and Momo nods, grinning. “Her dad runs Im Enterprises and the world couldn’t handle another one of her, so she’s an only child. She’s cheer captain and kicks ass at it.”
Applause for Momo’s introduction of her gets a louder response, and Nayeon waits for it to subside before she steps forward and plasters a smile on her face, forcing the other two out of her periphery.
“Myoui Mina is one of our transfers this year. She’s from Kobe, Japan and she has an older brother and a pet dog,” Nayeon waits a beat, “and she’s trying out for the cheer squad today during auditions, which are being held every day this week after school in the gym.” She smiles. “I encourage anyone else who wants to try out to come out and do so. Auditions are open to the public, so feel free to watch, too.”
She turns, hands clasped at the front of her pleated skirt and stares directly at Mina head on. The girl has the appearance of a deer in headlights, but she recovers quickly and smiles shyly at their reception as Ms. Jinah attempts to pluck another trio out from the class to go next.
To her credit, Mina doesn’t approach her again until the bell rings, signaling them to second period, and the red haired girl leans over her desk, eyes solemn and jaw set.
“What was that about?” she demands.
Nayeon picks up her bag and pushes a hand through her hair before looking her way.
“What's wrong, new kid?” asks Nayeon in response, “You dance, right?” Without waiting for an answer, she leans in, fastening the second to last button of Mina’s collared shirt and sliding her tie upwards. She can see the girl’s throat bob as she swallows, but Mina doesn’t step back. She’s stubborn, even if Nayeon’s got her on edge. Good to know.
“You were breaking dress code,” she informs her, stepping back and smirking.
“Happy first day of school, Myoui Mina.”
—
“Music?”
Momo keeps her eyes trained on the sign up sheet in front of her. She feels more than sees the sigh and subsequent look that’s being thrown her way from the girl in front of them.
“Heartburn,” she says, turning from the iPod dock set up that connects to the speakers.
“Alicia Keys,” Nayeon comments came dryly, under her breath, "Original. Like the last three girls didn't pick Girl on Fire. " Momo shoots her a panicked look and her friend heaves a sigh that makes it seem like she’s exhausted at Momo’s incompetence at dealing with potentially awkward situations. Nayeon leans into her mic. The judges’ table, in theory, should include their coach, but the woman is on maternity leave and honestly, they’ve got it covered between the two of them.
“Whenever you're ready, Sana.”
The music takes a few seconds to begin playing, but when it does, Sana is ready. This isn’t one of their older routines, and it isn’t something she’s ever seen before anywhere else, either. The other girl must have been doing something in Paris outside vacationing, Nayeon observes.
She scribbles a note onto her clipboard. Beside her, Momo watches as though it physically hurts her.
“Manage your expression,” Nayeon reprimands out of the corner of her mouth, haughty as she tosses her hair over her shoulder. Despite what it seems like, she doesn’t have anything against Sana. The Osaka girl is hardworking and intelligent, sweet faced but sharp, too. She hasn’t forgotten the way Sana had torn into the freshmen recruits last year for not knowing their starting positions.
If Momo hadn’t fucked her first, she might have, truthfully speaking.
She allows Sana to finish — a good sign, considering Nayeon doesn't hesitate to raise a hand to stop auditions halfway when she doesn’t want to suffer through any more inadequacy than necessary. It's only the first round of tryouts. All hopefuls have to do is show they can keep a beat. The mechanics of cheering come later, during the second round. JYP International Academy’s cheer squad, more or less, doubles as a dance team.
Sana bows after she’s finished, already reaching to remove her phone at the dock connected to the speakers. Nayeon pulls the mic close.
“Sana-ssi?”
The senior looks up, eyes wide. Such an innocent face, Nayeon thinks, betrayed by all she's heard about her secondhand.
“I expect you to actually follow along to squad diets before Nats this year,” Nayeon arches a brow, “You and Moguri were always the worst culprits.”
Sana’s eyes flicker to Momo for a second, but she smiles, criticism rolling off her shoulders. Anyone who’s been on the squad with Nayeon knows to read between the lines for compliments, and Nayeon has all but guaranteed her spot back on the team.
“Isn't that against the rules?” a voice cuts in. Sana furrows her eyebrows at the girl approaching the floor next, but Nayeon waves her off and beckons Mina to take her place.
“You pretty much told her she had it,” Mina makes her point, squaring her jaw as she inspects them both — like she’s here to appraise them and not the other way around. “There’s a second round of auditions after this, isn’t there?”
“If you haven’t noticed, I make the rules around here,” remarks Nayeon swiftly, glancing down at the sign up sheet and then up at her. “And it looks like you’re not on the list. But we have an audience with us today and I’m feeling generous.” She inclines her head to the bleachers behind her, where the rest of auditioning students wait as well as observers.
Mina shrugs. “I thought my announcement to try out was pretty clear in Lit class this morning.”
Momo coughs into her fist, and Nayeon doesn't have to look sideways to know she's eyeing the all-black one piece Mina is wearing. There are slits cut into the sides, exposing milky white skin and it’s no ballerina outfit, that's for sure.
“Music?” she asks.
"Beyoncé," Mina answers with a smile before toeing off her flats, turning to the dock and plugging in her phone. Nayeon meets Momo’s eyes for a split second before cutting back to the floor, shifting in her seat.
And honestly, if Nayeon had thought Mina would audition — she half-expected she wouldn't show at all — with something that wasn’t a classic ballet piece, the last song she would guess is Drunk In Love.
“Holy shit,” Momo mutters, and Nayeon can’t exactly disagree. Not when Mina’s body curves the way it does in time with the music, or when she throws looks every so often back to the judges’ table between the two of them. Confidence exudes from her, but more than that — the reason Nayeon can’t look away other than the obvious — she has charisma. She has it in spades.
Nayeon swears when Mina gyrates against the floor.
She ends in a standing pose, arms crossed and staring up at them with messy hair and a shadow of a smirk on her mouth. The crowd has exploded with cheers — Mina’s audition is the most exciting thing to happen all day, probably — but she doesn't take her eyes off them, and neither they.
If Nayeon presented her with the board, Mina, she realizes, learns the game fast. She figures it out as soon as Mina picks up her shoes and her phone, giving a low, sweeping bow to the two of them before she walks out — but not before she directly looks to Nayeon, drowned out in the noise the rest of the audience is making. It doesn’t matter. Nayeon can read lips and Mina had only uttered a single word:
Check.
—
It’s Friday night again and Momo shuffles her papers, reading off the next name that appears in her notes.
“Kim Dahyun.” She looks up from her spot on Nayeon’s bed. “She’s new. Her mother is a Supreme Court Justice in Korea.”
Nayeon searches for her copy of the girl's transfer file. “Father?”
“Died of heart failure a couple years back,” replies Momo, “Rumor was he had just a little too much blow. Should warn Mark.”
“Mm,” offers Nayeon noncommittally, “I liked her. Good decision to choose Pentatonix’s cover of La La Latch, it went with the choreo. It shows she has an eye for what works.” She tilts her head. “What do you think?”
Her co-captain gives pause. “Decent,” she settles on, “okay execution, but she knows to play to her strengths. The audience went crazy when she smiled. We’re low on sophomores, too.”
“I want to see her again,” Nayeon decides, glancing over. “There’s enough potential. She’s a pass to the second round for me.”
“Me, too.”
They give passes to half of the next dozen names they read off the signup sheet, comparing school files to individual notes and putting it to a vote. When one of them disagrees with the other, they talk it out until they can come to a final decision. Momo knows Nayeon has final say, ultimately, but Nayeon’s never not taken her opinion into account when it matters.
She teases Momo when they reach Sana’s name, slyly suggesting opening up a second choreographer role since for the past couple years, it's all been mostly Momo’s work and Nayeon’s suggestions. It takes less than a minute for them to discuss her audition and add her name to the pass list for second rounds.
“Myoui Mina,” Momo reads next, lifting a brow and hmming a bit. “Well, you can’t say she doesn't know how to make an entrance.” She looks over her shoulder at Nayeon. “That plan backfired, didn’t it?”
Nayeon allows a scowl to paint itself on her lips. The new girl had become the talk of the day — the week, even — and had far from humiliated herself the moment she’d performed in front of the majority of the student body, and at minimum the entirety of their senior class. She’d impressed them. And her.
“She's good,” admits Nayeon grudgingly, “too good not to pass to the second round.”
Momo laughs. “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,” she taunts playfully, reaching over to scribble the girl’s name onto the list. “I'm sure it’ll be fine. She may not even pass,” adds Momo, but Nayeon knows she’s just trying to placate her. Apart from breaking her leg between now and then (she can only hope), Mina would be making it onto the cheer squad without a doubt.
Nayeon tosses her notebook aside and grabs Momo by the collar of her shirt, wrinkling the button down she wears the second she fists a hand into it to pull the other girl close.
“I take that as a no, we're not going to Bangchan's party tonight?” Momo only grins, tilting her head to give her access. Nayeon seems to change her mind at the last minute, flattening her palm against her abs and pushing her down, bracketing her hips with her legs.
Momo’s okay with this, too, hands wandering up and down the skin of Nayeon’s thighs. The girl is warm, and Momo can feel heat press over her and she sighs, dragging her nails lightly.
“That depends,” answers Nayeon coyly, voice low and husky like it gets whenever she wants something, when they both know Momo is willing to give her anything. “Can you do something for me?”
“I aim to please,” she says, and it must be the right answer because Nayeon lays over her, chest to chest, lips drawing a path from her jawline to her ear. Nayeon is wearing too many clothes, she decides, holds back the noise that builds in her throat when Nayeon tugs on an earlobe with her teeth.
“Get close to the new kid,” she hums into Momo’s ear, the close vibration making her shiver. “I haven’t decided what I want to do with her yet, but I want to play.”
Nayeon sounds like a child asking for a particular toy for Christmas, pouty and honey dripping from her tone, and it shoots a flare of heat into Momo's stomach, sparking, igniting.
“Why,” Momo angles her head slightly to look at her, witness the way Nayeon’s eyes are almost black with lust. It’s killing her, too, not to touch her yet where she wants, “would I want to skip out on Bangchan’s party again?” Nayeon'’s gaze intensifies, if possible.
“Because I have sound proof walls,” Nayeon answers her, loosening Momo’s tie with one swift movement and unfastening the buttons to her shirt. When Momo reaches up to help, she busies her hands with her own skirt, sliding down the zipper at the side. “And I vaguely remember making a promise about letting you scream as loud as you want the next time we were alone.”
It’s not an offer Momo knows how to refuse.
“Deal.”