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HERE COMES THE BOOM!
#LIKE
402w; g (brian/nayeon)
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Brian squints at his phone screen and then clicks on the notification. He guesses he never turned off alerts on his old Instagram account even after setting it on private, waking him up from his – he checks the time at the top of the display – fourteen minute nap. He looks over to check if Wonpil's still around. The person isn't, but the laptop is, and the door's cracked open a bit. He probably went to the bathroom.
When Brian looks back at his phone, there's one of his old selfies staring back at him. To be fair, Brian has a lot of old selfies, but he's talking old, like 2013-trainee-showcase-fetus-Brian old. Well, that's an unwelcome blast from the past.
Someone's footsteps are thundering down the hallway. "IT WAS NAYEON UNNIE!" Jeongyeon yells, peeking her head through the open door before cackling and running off again.
"Yoo Jeongyeon! You better get back here you little – " And then Nayeon, apparently the culprit, passes by, happening to turn her head and make eye contact with Brian at the same time. She trips just as Brian blinks. Luckily, the hallway's still carpet.
"Are you okay?" Brian says, walking over to her after she doesn't stand back up. Nayeon doesn't move from where she's splat on the floor, hair covering her face.
She buries her head in her arms. "This isn't happening right now," she groans.
Brian laughs, crouching down next to her. "What's not happening right now?" he teases. Something about this is kind of hilarious.
"You weren't supposed to know," Nayeon mumbles. She tilts her head to the side, glances at Brian's grin, and scowls. She pushes herself up so she's sitting cross-legged on the floor, cheeks still slightly red. "But I guess I just had to have clumsy fingers..."
"Well," Brian starts. "If it makes you feel any better, this is super embarrassing for me." He pulls up the picture that she liked on his phone screen. "I bet someone's going to comment on it now that it's been pushed back up the feed."
Nayeon finally laughs at that, bunny teeth and all, scrunching up her face. "Don't say that," she tells him. "I thought it was cute."
"You think I'm cute?"
Nayeon falls over to her side, covering her face with her hands again. "I'm gonna kill Jeongyeon," she says. Brian can't stop laughing.
WE'RE ON EACH OTHER'S TEAM
752w; g (seungkwan/vernon)
"i can't believe i lost to chwe hansol!"
"I can't believe I lost to Chwe Hansol!"
Chan gives Seungkwan a look from across the table they're sitting at in the Pokemon Center, the Axew that he caught a week ago chewing on the sleeve of his denim jacket. "I can," he snorts. He puts the Axew in his lap after it tries to run after an Aipom's tail. Trainer-Pokemon bonding, Seungkwan's ass. "You always lose to Hansol."
"No, I don't," Seungkwan insists.
Chan rolls his eyes. "Trainer School doesn't count. That was like," he does some mental math, "Seven years ago. You guys are twenty now."
"Heyyyyyy." Seungkwan won't let him minimize the importance of the moment. He'd been top of his class, and Hansol had been this country boy whose family owned a Pikachu farm. He'll never forget his Jigglypuff double slapping Hansol's Growlithe to victory, them being thirteen at the time or not. "I still have that battle on my VS Recorder."
"Dude, you've gotta move on," Chan tells him. He throws up his arms at Seungkwan's affronted glare and his Axew takes the chance to beeline for the Aipom. "Hansol's the Champion now. And you're here, complaining to me. Shouldn't you be training if you want to beat him that badly?"
"Hansol's the champion now," Seungkwan repeats in his best impression (he pointedly ignores Chan's that sounds nothing like me). "Yeah, and Hansol's soooooo cool, and Hansol's got a bunch of fangirls, swooning every time his battles air on TV, and Hansol's got these huge, sparkly eyes and gorgeous wavy hair that you wanna run your fingers through and the most beautiful smile that he gives me, even if I lose every time..." Seungkwan cuts himself off. Shit, that didn't come out like he thought it would.
Chan whistles. "No offense," he says before standing up to go retrieve his Axew. "But I think you've got a bigger problem on hand."
Chan thinks Seungkwan likes Chwe Hansol. Chan also thinks that the reason why the Viridian Gym is always closed is because the Gym leader runs Team Rocket. What Seungkwan's trying to say is: Chan thinks wrong.
"Hey," someone calls over the roaring of the water as Seungkwan's training his Dragonite with flying drills. "Didn't think I'd see you here." Lo and behold, Chwe Hansol is waving at him from the other side of the river on the back of his Arcanine.
Seungkwan sniffs. "Everyone knows that the waterfall on Route 24 is where the good trainers go to practice."
Hansol laughs. And is that the sun or are Hansol's teeth really just that brilliantly white? "I told you that," he says.
"What do you want, Hansol?" Seungkwan groans. His Dragonite lands next to him. "This is a private training session, by the way."
Hansol doesn't stop smiling. "Can't I say hi to one of my old classmates?" He hops off his Arcanine and crosses the path of stones to Seungkwan's side of the river. "And I'm not gonna lie, I'm looking forward to you challenging me at the League again."
Seungkwan frowns. "You mean so you can utterly crush me again?" Chan's words, not his. How was he supposed to know that Hansol had been training up a Lapras, and that he'd use it instead of his Golduck?
"No." Hansol looks a little confused, but still happy. God, he had the face of a freakin' Quagsire. If Quagsires were, you know, extremely attractive with smiles so wide that they'd light up their entire faces. "I mean: I really like battling you. It's always interesting, you know? There's always something new you bring and it catches me off-guard."
"Oh," Seungkwan echoes. He hadn't expected Hansol to be so earnest or humble. Or handsome up close. "I really like you too," he says in his daze. Stops. "I meant, I really like battling you too!"
Hansol laughs at that. "Okay," he grins, allowing Seungkwan's face a few seconds to cool down. He holds out a hand. "You're coming by next week then?"
Seungkwan looks at Hansol's outstretched fingers for a moment before taking them. "Next week," he promises. Miracles do happen: not everyone is Chan, who would never let him live down his accidental tumble of a confession.
"You can ask me out after you beat me," Hansol says over his shoulder as he's crossing the river again.
Seungkwan chokes. “See you, Seungkwan!” Hansol waves before bounding off on his Arcanine like some prince. Even Seungkwan’s own Dragonite's laughing at him.
Yeah, Seungkwan definitely does not like Chwe Hansol.
SAY MY NAME (WEAR IT OUT LIKE A SWEATER THAT YOU LOVE 'CUZ YOU CAN'T GET ENOUGH)
1224w; pg-13 (brian/nayeon)
brian remembers tripping over his own feet like a lovesick fool and asking her out.
They settle things fair and square with a good ol' game of rock-paper-scissors, best two out of three, even when Nayeon reminds him she's got a sleeping bag in the trunk and Brian outright offers to use it despite being half a head taller than her and old enough that "back problems" are a concern (her words, not his).
Nayeon takes the open-handed paper she last threw, turns around and opens the trunk of his old Sonata she'd been leaning against in the heat of their battle. "Exactly the way it was supposed to be," she scoffs, rolling her eyes. Brian shakes his head as she digs for her things, emerging with a duffel and her unrolled sleeping bag slipping around in her arms. "You'd wake up with knots in your back if you took the floor."
When Sungjin had suggested that he drive Nayeon down to Busan for Dowoon's birthday party – on the grounds that they were the only two out of their old university friend group still in Seoul attending graduate school ("And because you like," Dowoon mumbled over the static when Sungjin'd handed him the phone to endorse his idea. "Her," he'd added when Brian had replied with a I like what? Brian hung up just as Sungjin got back on the line) – Brian hadn't anticipated the traffic, the torrential rain that forced them to find the nearest hotel instead of red-eyeing it all the way ("Doesn't this remind you of Psycho?" Brian had asked when they pulled off the highway, to which Nayeon said unconvincingly, face illuminated by the map on her phone screen, I'll protect you from the serial killers), and the current jabs at his age. "Hey," he reminds her, elbowing her in the side. "I'm less than two years older than you."
Nayeon jiggles the keys the lady at the front desk had handed them into the lock. "Old enough for early-onset arthritis," she singsongs, using her shoulder to get the door open. The sound of wood scraping against wood before it finally gives vaguely makes Brian think of the snapping of bones.
He turns on the lights as Nayeon scurries to put her duffel down on the floor. Unsurprisingly, the room's small, the wallpaper yellowing at the corners, and the carpet the kind of green that hides stains well. Oh, and there's the one bed that's now Brian's for the night.
"Are you sure you're good on the floor?" Brian asks as he watches her rummage through her things. "The bed's pretty big, you know."
Nayeon narrows her eyes. It could be intimidating, but Brian's seen Nayeon through numerous exam seasons, subsisting on the bare minimum of caffeine. "Are you suggesting we," she makes a vague gesture with her hands, "Sleep together?"
There's a beat of awkward silence as both of them let it marinate that that statement was worded poorly. "I mean!" Nayeon squeaks when Brian doesn't say anything. "That we sleep in the same bed?"
"Yes," Brian agrees quickly to save them from further embarrassment. "That."
Nayeon fiddles through her bag some more. Brian looks away as something that looks suspiciously like a bra falls onto the floor. She cusses under her breath. "It's fine," she says, sounding a little desperate. "You gotta respect rock-paper-scissors decision-making, right?"
"Right," Brian laughs along forcefully, staring at the ceiling. Well, this has been an incredibly awkward test of their five-year acquantainceship-turned-friendship. "You know, I think I'm gonna go to bed now."
Nayeon lets out a sigh of relief. "You do that."
When Sungjin had suggested that he drive Nayeon down to Busan for Dowoon's birthday party, Brian hadn't anticipated Sungjin calling him back two days later, telling him to "stop tripping over his own feet like a lovesick fool and take the chance to ask her out."
Which brings us back to less than two years ago: when Brian and Nayeon had gotten a little drunk, and, as they walked home, Brian remembers tripping over his own feet like lovesick fool and asking her out.
If Brian had anticipated she'd throw up all over his shoes in reply, then maybe he would've brought another pair.
"Brian." Someone's shaking his shoulder. He screws his eyes shut.
"Brian. Brian. Briannnnn." The shaking intensifies. He grunts in response. And then he hears a you know what, who cares and then Nayeon's sliding into the other side of the bed that Brian, in his slumber-like-the-dead, left unoccupied. That makes his eyes fly open.
It takes a moment for his vision to adjust to the dark after he turns his head to look at her. "Nayeon?" he mumbles sleepily. She's lying on her back as far as she can possibly get from him but still be on the bed, frowning.
"I think there's a rat," she whispers. "And now I'm too scared to sleep on the floor."
"Oh." For some reason, it reminds Brian of the time Nayeon wouldn't stop talking as they were walking home from studying with Wonpil at a coffee shop, and after Wonpil got on his bus and Brian started down the direction to his, Sungjin, and Jae's apartment, she'd blurted out that she was too scared to walk back alone in the dark. "Okay."
The mattress shifts as Nayeon turns onto her side to look at him. "This is okay, right?" she asks, still cautious like she'd been that time, asking him if he would be okay walking with her even when she lived on the opposite side of campus.
"Of course," fully awake Brian had said.
Half-asleep Brian thinks he tries to say it. But next thing he knows, he's waking up to the sound of Nayeon's phone alarm, and the feeling of someone trying to untangle their legs from his.
As soon as he cracks his eyes open, Nayeon freezes, mortified. And then her mouth doesn't stop moving as she launches into, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I move a lot in my sleep and I think I took some of your space on the bed, which I recognize as a huge invasion of privacy, I just – we can just forget this happened! Did I say I was sorry?!"
Brian can't help but laugh. There's something funny about the whole thing, like there's something funny about how when he'd asked Nayeon out less than two years ago and she's thrown up on his shoes instead. "Don't worry about it," he says, moving to get up.
Nayeon's cheeks are cherry tomato red as she narrows her eyes at him in thought. She hadn't managed to pull her legs from his completely since he'd woken up, her toes still icy cold against his shin. And then she undoes all the work she did to extract them, catching one of Brian's legs in an awkward bend. Brian stops trying to stand up. He looks at her.
And then she finally gets it. "Oh," Nayeon says purposefully as he lays back down, facing her. Brian half-expects her to move away from him now, tell him she's not interested, or throw up on his shoes again. But she doesn't.
What she does do: "Um, you know you, uh," her eyes shift nervously but the smile on her face doesn't move. "You snore a little."
And Brian, every bit still a lovesick fool, grins back. "I know.”
DEATH OF A BACHELORETTE
720w; pg-13 (chaeyeon/sakura)
heaven is already proving to be a lot weirder than she thought it'd be.
In the twenty minutes that've passed since Chaeyeon woke up in The Good Place she'd: been handed a cup of banana-flavored frozen yogurt, introduced to her soulmate – a wide-eyed, big-eared, very pretty girl named Sakura, and, in the middle of eating aforementioned frozen yogurt in the middle of her new humble abode (with a popcorn ceiling, blegh), learned that she'd died from a banana allergy in the first place. (“Chaeryeong tried to save you,” Eunbi had informed her, appropriately sympathetic. “Except she thought you'd choked on the bananas foster after seeing your ex from across the room and gave you the Heimlich instead.”) Chaeyeon promptly put the yogurt cup down. Heaven is already proving to be a lot weirder than she thought it'd be.
What's also weird: after Eunbi had left with an even smile and a I'll let you two catch up, Chaeyeon wasn't really sure what to do with herself. And in what she assumed was true soulmate fashion, Sakura didn't say anything either, and the silence stretched uncomfortably between them like an old pair of pants you're forced to wear because the others no longer pass the sniff test.
“Uh, hey there,” Chaeyeon starts, smiling nervously. Sakura just stares at her. When Eunbi had mentioned soulmates, Chaeyeon had envisioned someone she'd find easy to talk to. And less outwardly her type, not that she's complaining. “So, uh, how'd you die?”
Sakura keeps staring at her with her enormous, gorgeous eyes, blinking once. “Shirt, is it okay to ask that?” Chaeyeon blurts, backpedaling. She wonders if she should've called Hyewon, the main frame and basically search engine of the neighborhood, and asked her how to start conversations with dead people when you're dead too??? before proceeding and embarrassing herself for the rest of her eternal existence with the person she's supposed to eternally exist with. Fork, who knew social interactions were still going to be hell in the afterlife? “I'm sorry, I –”
“Chaeyeon,” Sakura cuts in. Apparently, Sakura had been some amazing child philanthropist who'd already raised billions of dollars for charity at the age of nine, while Chaeyeon had probably been failing her multiplication tables and, even though she'd end up passing fourth grade,was unworthy of standing in her presence. “Can I tell you something? You know, soulmate-to-soulmate?”
“I, uh,” Chaeyeon stutters. “Uh – anything! Of course! I'm here for you. I mean, our souls are like,” she gestures with a hand around her heart, “connected, or some shirt like that. Haha.” God, millennia could pass and Lee Chaeyeon would still be horrible at talking to pretty girls.
“You have to promise me not to tell Eunbi,” says Sakura. “Or Hyewon, or, like. Anyone.”
“Umm.” Sakura's still looking at her intently. “Sure.”
And then Sakura starts talking like a dam's broken open. “Oh my forking god, I'm not supposed to be here! Are you supposed to be here? They got my name right but I'm not a philanthropist! I made a living by selling pirated games and scamming people with bishoujo figurines!!” She reaches up and grabs Chaeyeon's hands. Despite the desperation in her voice, Sakura's hands are soft and smooth, and whatever shampoo she's been using in the afterlife (wait, do dead people take showers?) smells like flowers. “You've got to help me. You're going to help me, right?”
Chaeyeon feels her brain short-circuiting from everything Sakura's just said and holding her pretty hands in her own. “Umm,” she echoes. “Sure.”
“Thank goodness!” Sakura cries before throwing her arms around her. And now it's slowly coming to Chaeyeon in pieces: Sakura, not supposed to be here. Not a philanthropist. They're hugging. Bishoujo figurines? “I thought I was going to have to go through eternal damnation all by myself if Eunbi found out,” she steps back for a moment, arms on Chaeyeon's shoulders and eyes glittering like she's hung all the stars in the sky for her, “but now you're here, and I don't have to suffer alone! And I used to think this soulmate thing was stupid!”
Eternal damnation. “Oh,” says Chaeyeon. She didn't realize those were the stakes. “So, about that…” Sakura interrupts her again by squealing and smushing her back into a hug.
Chaeyeon hates that she kind of loves it. Chaeyeon also kind of wants to die all over again.
402w; g (brian/nayeon)
twicetagram liked your post (1m ago).
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Brian squints at his phone screen and then clicks on the notification. He guesses he never turned off alerts on his old Instagram account even after setting it on private, waking him up from his – he checks the time at the top of the display – fourteen minute nap. He looks over to check if Wonpil's still around. The person isn't, but the laptop is, and the door's cracked open a bit. He probably went to the bathroom.
When Brian looks back at his phone, there's one of his old selfies staring back at him. To be fair, Brian has a lot of old selfies, but he's talking old, like 2013-trainee-showcase-fetus-Brian old. Well, that's an unwelcome blast from the past.
Someone's footsteps are thundering down the hallway. "IT WAS NAYEON UNNIE!" Jeongyeon yells, peeking her head through the open door before cackling and running off again.
"Yoo Jeongyeon! You better get back here you little – " And then Nayeon, apparently the culprit, passes by, happening to turn her head and make eye contact with Brian at the same time. She trips just as Brian blinks. Luckily, the hallway's still carpet.
"Are you okay?" Brian says, walking over to her after she doesn't stand back up. Nayeon doesn't move from where she's splat on the floor, hair covering her face.
She buries her head in her arms. "This isn't happening right now," she groans.
Brian laughs, crouching down next to her. "What's not happening right now?" he teases. Something about this is kind of hilarious.
"You weren't supposed to know," Nayeon mumbles. She tilts her head to the side, glances at Brian's grin, and scowls. She pushes herself up so she's sitting cross-legged on the floor, cheeks still slightly red. "But I guess I just had to have clumsy fingers..."
"Well," Brian starts. "If it makes you feel any better, this is super embarrassing for me." He pulls up the picture that she liked on his phone screen. "I bet someone's going to comment on it now that it's been pushed back up the feed."
Nayeon finally laughs at that, bunny teeth and all, scrunching up her face. "Don't say that," she tells him. "I thought it was cute."
"You think I'm cute?"
Nayeon falls over to her side, covering her face with her hands again. "I'm gonna kill Jeongyeon," she says. Brian can't stop laughing.
WE'RE ON EACH OTHER'S TEAM
752w; g (seungkwan/vernon)
"i can't believe i lost to chwe hansol!"
"I can't believe I lost to Chwe Hansol!"
Chan gives Seungkwan a look from across the table they're sitting at in the Pokemon Center, the Axew that he caught a week ago chewing on the sleeve of his denim jacket. "I can," he snorts. He puts the Axew in his lap after it tries to run after an Aipom's tail. Trainer-Pokemon bonding, Seungkwan's ass. "You always lose to Hansol."
"No, I don't," Seungkwan insists.
Chan rolls his eyes. "Trainer School doesn't count. That was like," he does some mental math, "Seven years ago. You guys are twenty now."
"Heyyyyyy." Seungkwan won't let him minimize the importance of the moment. He'd been top of his class, and Hansol had been this country boy whose family owned a Pikachu farm. He'll never forget his Jigglypuff double slapping Hansol's Growlithe to victory, them being thirteen at the time or not. "I still have that battle on my VS Recorder."
"Dude, you've gotta move on," Chan tells him. He throws up his arms at Seungkwan's affronted glare and his Axew takes the chance to beeline for the Aipom. "Hansol's the Champion now. And you're here, complaining to me. Shouldn't you be training if you want to beat him that badly?"
"Hansol's the champion now," Seungkwan repeats in his best impression (he pointedly ignores Chan's that sounds nothing like me). "Yeah, and Hansol's soooooo cool, and Hansol's got a bunch of fangirls, swooning every time his battles air on TV, and Hansol's got these huge, sparkly eyes and gorgeous wavy hair that you wanna run your fingers through and the most beautiful smile that he gives me, even if I lose every time..." Seungkwan cuts himself off. Shit, that didn't come out like he thought it would.
Chan whistles. "No offense," he says before standing up to go retrieve his Axew. "But I think you've got a bigger problem on hand."
Chan thinks Seungkwan likes Chwe Hansol. Chan also thinks that the reason why the Viridian Gym is always closed is because the Gym leader runs Team Rocket. What Seungkwan's trying to say is: Chan thinks wrong.
"Hey," someone calls over the roaring of the water as Seungkwan's training his Dragonite with flying drills. "Didn't think I'd see you here." Lo and behold, Chwe Hansol is waving at him from the other side of the river on the back of his Arcanine.
Seungkwan sniffs. "Everyone knows that the waterfall on Route 24 is where the good trainers go to practice."
Hansol laughs. And is that the sun or are Hansol's teeth really just that brilliantly white? "I told you that," he says.
"What do you want, Hansol?" Seungkwan groans. His Dragonite lands next to him. "This is a private training session, by the way."
Hansol doesn't stop smiling. "Can't I say hi to one of my old classmates?" He hops off his Arcanine and crosses the path of stones to Seungkwan's side of the river. "And I'm not gonna lie, I'm looking forward to you challenging me at the League again."
Seungkwan frowns. "You mean so you can utterly crush me again?" Chan's words, not his. How was he supposed to know that Hansol had been training up a Lapras, and that he'd use it instead of his Golduck?
"No." Hansol looks a little confused, but still happy. God, he had the face of a freakin' Quagsire. If Quagsires were, you know, extremely attractive with smiles so wide that they'd light up their entire faces. "I mean: I really like battling you. It's always interesting, you know? There's always something new you bring and it catches me off-guard."
"Oh," Seungkwan echoes. He hadn't expected Hansol to be so earnest or humble. Or handsome up close. "I really like you too," he says in his daze. Stops. "I meant, I really like battling you too!"
Hansol laughs at that. "Okay," he grins, allowing Seungkwan's face a few seconds to cool down. He holds out a hand. "You're coming by next week then?"
Seungkwan looks at Hansol's outstretched fingers for a moment before taking them. "Next week," he promises. Miracles do happen: not everyone is Chan, who would never let him live down his accidental tumble of a confession.
"You can ask me out after you beat me," Hansol says over his shoulder as he's crossing the river again.
Seungkwan chokes. “See you, Seungkwan!” Hansol waves before bounding off on his Arcanine like some prince. Even Seungkwan’s own Dragonite's laughing at him.
Yeah, Seungkwan definitely does not like Chwe Hansol.
SAY MY NAME (WEAR IT OUT LIKE A SWEATER THAT YOU LOVE 'CUZ YOU CAN'T GET ENOUGH)
1224w; pg-13 (brian/nayeon)
brian remembers tripping over his own feet like a lovesick fool and asking her out.
They settle things fair and square with a good ol' game of rock-paper-scissors, best two out of three, even when Nayeon reminds him she's got a sleeping bag in the trunk and Brian outright offers to use it despite being half a head taller than her and old enough that "back problems" are a concern (her words, not his).
Nayeon takes the open-handed paper she last threw, turns around and opens the trunk of his old Sonata she'd been leaning against in the heat of their battle. "Exactly the way it was supposed to be," she scoffs, rolling her eyes. Brian shakes his head as she digs for her things, emerging with a duffel and her unrolled sleeping bag slipping around in her arms. "You'd wake up with knots in your back if you took the floor."
When Sungjin had suggested that he drive Nayeon down to Busan for Dowoon's birthday party – on the grounds that they were the only two out of their old university friend group still in Seoul attending graduate school ("And because you like," Dowoon mumbled over the static when Sungjin'd handed him the phone to endorse his idea. "Her," he'd added when Brian had replied with a I like what? Brian hung up just as Sungjin got back on the line) – Brian hadn't anticipated the traffic, the torrential rain that forced them to find the nearest hotel instead of red-eyeing it all the way ("Doesn't this remind you of Psycho?" Brian had asked when they pulled off the highway, to which Nayeon said unconvincingly, face illuminated by the map on her phone screen, I'll protect you from the serial killers), and the current jabs at his age. "Hey," he reminds her, elbowing her in the side. "I'm less than two years older than you."
Nayeon jiggles the keys the lady at the front desk had handed them into the lock. "Old enough for early-onset arthritis," she singsongs, using her shoulder to get the door open. The sound of wood scraping against wood before it finally gives vaguely makes Brian think of the snapping of bones.
He turns on the lights as Nayeon scurries to put her duffel down on the floor. Unsurprisingly, the room's small, the wallpaper yellowing at the corners, and the carpet the kind of green that hides stains well. Oh, and there's the one bed that's now Brian's for the night.
"Are you sure you're good on the floor?" Brian asks as he watches her rummage through her things. "The bed's pretty big, you know."
Nayeon narrows her eyes. It could be intimidating, but Brian's seen Nayeon through numerous exam seasons, subsisting on the bare minimum of caffeine. "Are you suggesting we," she makes a vague gesture with her hands, "Sleep together?"
There's a beat of awkward silence as both of them let it marinate that that statement was worded poorly. "I mean!" Nayeon squeaks when Brian doesn't say anything. "That we sleep in the same bed?"
"Yes," Brian agrees quickly to save them from further embarrassment. "That."
Nayeon fiddles through her bag some more. Brian looks away as something that looks suspiciously like a bra falls onto the floor. She cusses under her breath. "It's fine," she says, sounding a little desperate. "You gotta respect rock-paper-scissors decision-making, right?"
"Right," Brian laughs along forcefully, staring at the ceiling. Well, this has been an incredibly awkward test of their five-year acquantainceship-turned-friendship. "You know, I think I'm gonna go to bed now."
Nayeon lets out a sigh of relief. "You do that."
When Sungjin had suggested that he drive Nayeon down to Busan for Dowoon's birthday party, Brian hadn't anticipated Sungjin calling him back two days later, telling him to "stop tripping over his own feet like a lovesick fool and take the chance to ask her out."
Which brings us back to less than two years ago: when Brian and Nayeon had gotten a little drunk, and, as they walked home, Brian remembers tripping over his own feet like lovesick fool and asking her out.
If Brian had anticipated she'd throw up all over his shoes in reply, then maybe he would've brought another pair.
"Brian." Someone's shaking his shoulder. He screws his eyes shut.
"Brian. Brian. Briannnnn." The shaking intensifies. He grunts in response. And then he hears a you know what, who cares and then Nayeon's sliding into the other side of the bed that Brian, in his slumber-like-the-dead, left unoccupied. That makes his eyes fly open.
It takes a moment for his vision to adjust to the dark after he turns his head to look at her. "Nayeon?" he mumbles sleepily. She's lying on her back as far as she can possibly get from him but still be on the bed, frowning.
"I think there's a rat," she whispers. "And now I'm too scared to sleep on the floor."
"Oh." For some reason, it reminds Brian of the time Nayeon wouldn't stop talking as they were walking home from studying with Wonpil at a coffee shop, and after Wonpil got on his bus and Brian started down the direction to his, Sungjin, and Jae's apartment, she'd blurted out that she was too scared to walk back alone in the dark. "Okay."
The mattress shifts as Nayeon turns onto her side to look at him. "This is okay, right?" she asks, still cautious like she'd been that time, asking him if he would be okay walking with her even when she lived on the opposite side of campus.
"Of course," fully awake Brian had said.
Half-asleep Brian thinks he tries to say it. But next thing he knows, he's waking up to the sound of Nayeon's phone alarm, and the feeling of someone trying to untangle their legs from his.
As soon as he cracks his eyes open, Nayeon freezes, mortified. And then her mouth doesn't stop moving as she launches into, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I move a lot in my sleep and I think I took some of your space on the bed, which I recognize as a huge invasion of privacy, I just – we can just forget this happened! Did I say I was sorry?!"
Brian can't help but laugh. There's something funny about the whole thing, like there's something funny about how when he'd asked Nayeon out less than two years ago and she's thrown up on his shoes instead. "Don't worry about it," he says, moving to get up.
Nayeon's cheeks are cherry tomato red as she narrows her eyes at him in thought. She hadn't managed to pull her legs from his completely since he'd woken up, her toes still icy cold against his shin. And then she undoes all the work she did to extract them, catching one of Brian's legs in an awkward bend. Brian stops trying to stand up. He looks at her.
And then she finally gets it. "Oh," Nayeon says purposefully as he lays back down, facing her. Brian half-expects her to move away from him now, tell him she's not interested, or throw up on his shoes again. But she doesn't.
What she does do: "Um, you know you, uh," her eyes shift nervously but the smile on her face doesn't move. "You snore a little."
And Brian, every bit still a lovesick fool, grins back. "I know.”
DEATH OF A BACHELORETTE
720w; pg-13 (chaeyeon/sakura)
heaven is already proving to be a lot weirder than she thought it'd be.
In the twenty minutes that've passed since Chaeyeon woke up in The Good Place she'd: been handed a cup of banana-flavored frozen yogurt, introduced to her soulmate – a wide-eyed, big-eared, very pretty girl named Sakura, and, in the middle of eating aforementioned frozen yogurt in the middle of her new humble abode (with a popcorn ceiling, blegh), learned that she'd died from a banana allergy in the first place. (“Chaeryeong tried to save you,” Eunbi had informed her, appropriately sympathetic. “Except she thought you'd choked on the bananas foster after seeing your ex from across the room and gave you the Heimlich instead.”) Chaeyeon promptly put the yogurt cup down. Heaven is already proving to be a lot weirder than she thought it'd be.
What's also weird: after Eunbi had left with an even smile and a I'll let you two catch up, Chaeyeon wasn't really sure what to do with herself. And in what she assumed was true soulmate fashion, Sakura didn't say anything either, and the silence stretched uncomfortably between them like an old pair of pants you're forced to wear because the others no longer pass the sniff test.
“Uh, hey there,” Chaeyeon starts, smiling nervously. Sakura just stares at her. When Eunbi had mentioned soulmates, Chaeyeon had envisioned someone she'd find easy to talk to. And less outwardly her type, not that she's complaining. “So, uh, how'd you die?”
Sakura keeps staring at her with her enormous, gorgeous eyes, blinking once. “Shirt, is it okay to ask that?” Chaeyeon blurts, backpedaling. She wonders if she should've called Hyewon, the main frame and basically search engine of the neighborhood, and asked her how to start conversations with dead people when you're dead too??? before proceeding and embarrassing herself for the rest of her eternal existence with the person she's supposed to eternally exist with. Fork, who knew social interactions were still going to be hell in the afterlife? “I'm sorry, I –”
“Chaeyeon,” Sakura cuts in. Apparently, Sakura had been some amazing child philanthropist who'd already raised billions of dollars for charity at the age of nine, while Chaeyeon had probably been failing her multiplication tables and, even though she'd end up passing fourth grade,was unworthy of standing in her presence. “Can I tell you something? You know, soulmate-to-soulmate?”
“I, uh,” Chaeyeon stutters. “Uh – anything! Of course! I'm here for you. I mean, our souls are like,” she gestures with a hand around her heart, “connected, or some shirt like that. Haha.” God, millennia could pass and Lee Chaeyeon would still be horrible at talking to pretty girls.
“You have to promise me not to tell Eunbi,” says Sakura. “Or Hyewon, or, like. Anyone.”
“Umm.” Sakura's still looking at her intently. “Sure.”
And then Sakura starts talking like a dam's broken open. “Oh my forking god, I'm not supposed to be here! Are you supposed to be here? They got my name right but I'm not a philanthropist! I made a living by selling pirated games and scamming people with bishoujo figurines!!” She reaches up and grabs Chaeyeon's hands. Despite the desperation in her voice, Sakura's hands are soft and smooth, and whatever shampoo she's been using in the afterlife (wait, do dead people take showers?) smells like flowers. “You've got to help me. You're going to help me, right?”
Chaeyeon feels her brain short-circuiting from everything Sakura's just said and holding her pretty hands in her own. “Umm,” she echoes. “Sure.”
“Thank goodness!” Sakura cries before throwing her arms around her. And now it's slowly coming to Chaeyeon in pieces: Sakura, not supposed to be here. Not a philanthropist. They're hugging. Bishoujo figurines? “I thought I was going to have to go through eternal damnation all by myself if Eunbi found out,” she steps back for a moment, arms on Chaeyeon's shoulders and eyes glittering like she's hung all the stars in the sky for her, “but now you're here, and I don't have to suffer alone! And I used to think this soulmate thing was stupid!”
Eternal damnation. “Oh,” says Chaeyeon. She didn't realize those were the stakes. “So, about that…” Sakura interrupts her again by squealing and smushing her back into a hug.
Chaeyeon hates that she kind of loves it. Chaeyeon also kind of wants to die all over again.