Chapter Text
Jinsol woke badly with a groan. The flat gray morning pressed at the curtain, and for a long moment she could not place it. Hotel gray. She had seen it in Seoul, Tokyo, Atlanta, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and many other cities across four continents. The names blurred. Her body was tired from the travel, and the thinking came slow.
She turned her head to the right. Her suitcase stood open beside the bed. Inside: a folded sweater, the adapter from Incheon still in its plastic, a hairbrush, the tangle of charging cables she traveled with. The airport tag was still looped through the handle, paper and barcode, the destination printed in black.
BER.
Berlin. BER was Berlin.
The tour, their Europe Tour, their third city after London and Paris. Right, she thought. She remembered.
Now that her worry had eased, she let herself sink back into the bed. She breathed in slowly, eager to go back to sleep. But the cold had found the gap between the duvet and her shoulder, and pulling the duvet tighter did not help. She sighed, and rolled until she stared at the ceiling again, and instinctively she rolled to her left because she felt that it was warmer in that direction.
Yoona was asleep beside her, hair loose, long and brown, spread over the pillow and half over her own mouth. A strand lifted and settled and lifted again with her breath. One hand tucked under her cheek. The other open on the sheet between them, palm up, fingers slightly curled.
For about four seconds it was the most ordinary thing in the world for Jinsol. She and Yoona after a travel day. Jinsol had woken up next to Yoona a hundred times in eight years. The shared room in JYPE, where they usually spent the weekend after the Saturday training class. Then their shared dorm room after debuting. Then vans, airport floors, the practice room couch that smelled of everyone. This was nothing.
Then the heat came to it. Too much of it, and too even, skin to skin along her arm and her hip and her thigh. Jinsol looked down. She was bare under the duvet. She lifted the edge with one finger, carefully, and confirmed the obvious. Then confirmed the same was true of Yoona. Then she let the duvet down again, gently.
The night came back in pieces, out of order, to Jinsol's mind. Pajama buttons, pulled with urgency. Yoona laughing into her shoulder to keep it quiet. The double bed. Her own voice, saying something. She couldn't remember what she had said, only that Yoona had answered it by kissing her, which had stopped the talking, and then there was no more talking for a while.
Warmth, still. Her first feeling, before the panic could reach her: this felt right. Her body had settled into a shape it remembered. She could go back to sleep.
The panic arrived in waves, late and useless. She was already awake and the damage was already counted. They had done it again. In Berlin, on the tour, in a hotel with the whole staff two floors up and Seojin-unnie's call sheet already deciding what time they had to be themselves again. She and Yoona had a whole vocabulary for not doing this, an entire mature agreement, and here was the agreement on the floor: Yoona's shirt, one of Jinsol's socks, and snagged on the little swivel wheel of the open suitcase, swaying in the draft from the vent, a pair of Jinsol's underwear.
She looked at it for a while. The fabric swayed again for a little bit by the swing of the air.
Yoona's phone was face-down on the nightstand between the beds. It buzzed once, silently, the screen throwing a brief pale glow up against the lamp base, and went dark.
-oOo-
Berlin Brandenburg Airport was glass and gray steel and long, empty, echoing spaces. The cold found the gap between collar and scarf, autumn coming through the sliding doors. Their third country. They had done London and then Paris. Yoona had walked to the automated coffee counter and worked the German interface until the whole display turned to English, then bought hot coffee for everyone, staff included. It helped, tremendously. They let the warmth seep through the thin plastic cups into their hands.
"Passports," Seojin-unnie said, holding out one hand with her phone in the other. Six passports arrived in her palm in a small avalanche. Everyone had been holding them ready, because everyone had learned to hold them ready.
"Two carts," a staff member, Jiho-oppa said. "Help me count, please? Check if they are--ah, thank you, Haewon-ssi."
Outside, fans were behind a barricade past the arrivals rail, a bright cluster of them, coats and phone lights and a banner showing the faces of the six of them. When Lily lifted her hand, they made a sound so loud, screaming and crying, yelling. One of them started a chant, and it turned out to be a full-blown Heavy Serenade chant. Lily looked at Jinsol, their jaws dropped, and Jiwoo pressed her hand flat to her chest.
"They waited," Jinsol said. "It's so cold and they waited." She turned to the group with her eyes shining.
Behind her, Kyujin stretched, and even despite the loud chant from outside, the fans yelling, they could hear the cracks and snaps of her back. "Is anyone else starving?" she asked. "I feel like I could eat one of the carts."
"Eat Jiwoo," Haewon said, moving past with a bag in each hand and her eyes doing the count, helping Jiho-oppa and Seojin-unnie checking the spreadsheet. "She's the one closest to you."
"I am too tender," Jiwoo announced, draping herself over the nearest luggage cart so that it rolled and she rode it, delighted, until it hit another cart and stopped. She stayed draped there. "I'm going to sleep here. Tell my mom I loved touring. Tell NSWERs I was normal."
"You were never normal," Kyujin said, without looking down. She had three of the bags by their tags already, reading the little paper loops, and she reached past Jiwoo's collapsed body to pull a fourth off the belt before its owner had noticed it going by. "Unnie, this is not yours. Our green cart is there. Don't sleep on the black cart, the black one is staff's."
"I know which cart is ours," Jiwoo said.
"Really? Tell me, what colour is our cart?" asked Kyujin.
"Blue," Jiwoo replied, going slack again.
Jinsol let it wash over her, Kyujin and Jiwoo bickering, Haewon helping the staff and manager, Lily doing a little hand-choreo that the NSWERs outside had started copying, the whole ordinary loud of it, and next to her Yoona was doing the same. For a moment their tiredness lined up. Yoona had her chin tucked into her scarf and her eyes half shut, smiling at everything. Jinsol felt the smile more than saw it.
The gap between them stayed the correct size. Almost two years ago the distance had felt like a wound. Then it felt like a discipline. Now their bodies followed a rule their minds had stopped enforcing. Jinsol drifted a half step toward Kyujin and Jiwoo. Yoona drifted toward Lily and the fans who were still chanting. Nobody had to manage it.
The vans were black, warm, and smelled of someone else's air freshener. They waved to the fans, who waved back, many of them, and they went.
Berlin passed by in the windows, wet and handsome, brick and construction cranes against a darkening sky. Yoona sat in the row ahead of Jinsol and fell asleep against the window within four minutes, which Jinsol knew because she had been watching all five of them, everyone laying their heads to the window or to the headrest and sleeping. Then her own phone vibrated, and she pulled it out of her hoodie's pocket and unlocked it, seeing a message had just arrived.
A LINE message, with a familiar emoticon. She tapped the notification.
🎸: Have you landed?
Jinsol took a breath. She typed a reply.
🐤: Yes.
She waited. Then a heart reaction arrived to her message. She smiled at that before locking her phone again. And, copying Yoona, she laid her head on the window and slept.
-oOo-
The hotel lobby had a stone floor that turned every roll of suitcase wheel into a loud grinding sound, and a long counter where a clerk with excellent posture was already being very German and very kind about the fact that a touring party of this size was, certainly, a problem, but one that they would manage, don't anyone worry about it.
Seojin-unnie stood at the counter with her reading glasses pushed up and her phone open. The keycards came out of the machine in their little paper sleeves, and she read the names off the list fast and flat.
"Haewon, Jiwoo. Seven-oh-four." Two cards given by Seojin-unnie. "Lily, Kyujin, seven-oh-six." Two more cards. "Yoona." Seojin-unnie's eyes went down the column and something in her paused for one beat. "Yoona and Jinsol. Seven-oh-nine."
The lobby stayed loud: a working lobby, staff crossing it, the espresso machine going, someone's suitcase singing across the stone. But something small changed in the middle of the group. A stillness, lasting for about a second.
Kyujin's eyes went to the two cards in Seojin-unnie's hand and then to Haewon's face. Haewon's face did nothing, which was itself a kind of doing.
"Oh, I'm jealous," Jiwoo said, bright, already grinning, breaking the tension. "I wanted to be roommates with Jinsol-unnie. Haewon-unnie was too strict with me last time in London."
Haewon looked at her. One look, playful, pointed. Jiwoo glanced at the others and kept going. "I'm serious. You made me organize the call sheet for an hour!"
"Unnie, I thought we'd have individual rooms in here," Jinsol said, half-joking, half-firm.
"Well," Seojin-unnie said, pushing her glasses up, "There was a booking mistake. It's just three nights. This one's bigger anyway, better bathroom. I'm not fighting the front desk about it tonight, not this late. Three nights. It's fine."
"It's three nights," Yoona said to Jinsol, slowly. It came out a half beat too late to be casual, and they all heard it. "We're adults."
"You're an adult," Kyujin said. "Allegedly." Yoona narrowed her eyes at her, and Kyujin grinned.
"Okay, everyone go to your rooms," Seojin-unnie said. "Dinner in forty minutes, wear shoes and a jacket, it'll be cold." She then glanced at Yoona, looking like she wanted to say something, but finally decided to let it go. "Forty minutes," she repeated.
In the elevator, the mirror showed six tired faces and a lot of thick coats. Yoona and Jinsol stood at opposite ends. Between them Lily leaned her head on Kyujin's shoulder and Jiwoo already teasing Haewon about the bathroom. Nobody looked at anybody in the mirror on purpose. Jinsol looked at the number climbing.
Deciding to be normal about it required them not to think the obvious thought, but Jinsol was thinking it anyway. She was fairly sure, from the way Yoona was studying the elevator ceiling, that Yoona was thinking it too. Same direction, same volume, familiar pattern.
-oOo-
Room 709 had one bed. A double bed, more precisely. The kind that would have been romantic for a couple who had chosen it. They had not chosen it. White duvet folded across the foot, two pillows side by side, and a single nightstand with a lamp, and a laminated card about breakfast hours.
Yoona stopped just inside the door with her suitcase and looked at the bed. Jinsol came in behind her and looked at the bed.
Shit, they both thought. The door swung shut on its slow arm and the lock engaged with a small mechanical sound.
"I'll take the entire window side," Jinsol said, too fast.
"Wait. Why the entire part?"
"Because you always steal the outlet wherever you want and then I can't charge my phone and I have to walk around the bed just to charge and then you'd say, 'Oh! You should have told me if you want to charge here' as if I didn't sleep on that side the whole night," Jinsol said, moving quick to the window side, "so I claim it from now. Whole side, outlet included. Clean and fair."
"I have never stolen an outlet in my life," Yoona said, wheeling her suitcase to the other side. "Seol Yoona does not steal. Unlike Bae Jinsol."
"Okay, first, don't talk in the third person, you know I hate it so much. Second." Jinsol pointed at the single nightstand. "There's only one. One nightstand. For two people. Who thought of this."
"A man," Yoona said. "A man in an office who probably never slept in a room like this."
They unpacked, chargers claiming outlets, a toiletry bag colonizing exactly half the bathroom shelf and then, when they both weren't looking, a little more than half.
The bathroom had a mirror lit like an operating theater and one sink, one, and when they both went to brush their teeth before dinner they ended up at it shoulder to shoulder, Jinsol spitting and Yoona rinsing, reaching for the same corner of the sink at the same time, and their hands touched many times. Yoona said, around her toothbrush, "You've got," and reached up and wiped a fleck of foam from the corner of Jinsol's mouth with her thumb.
Jinsol held still for it. Yoona had been doing that since they were trainees.
"Thanks," she said.
"Mm-hm."
"We should go down," Jinsol said. "Jacket and shoes. Seojin-unnie said a jacket and shoes."
"I know."
"Do you, though?"
"I do. You were the one wearing slippers the whole way from the airport, though. In this weather."
"I'm going to change. I'm a professional. Watch me." Jinsol put her toothbrush in the cup next to Yoona's toothbrush, where the two of them leaned together at the top, and went to find her shoes. Dinner with everyone, in the light, where nothing could happen.
-oOo-
The restaurant was ten minutes away on foot, and Seojin-unnie decided the walk would do them good. They spilled out into the Berlin evening in a loose, tired row: six members in sweaters and coats, Seojin-unnie ahead with her phone, two male staff at the rear. The rain had stopped. Their breath fogged, and the streetlights floated in the puddles.
Yoona slowed after a couple of minutes and lifted her phone.
"Are we being documented?" Haewon asked, without turning.
"Berlin is," Yoona said.
"Good," Lily said. She tucked her chin into her scarf. "Berlin looks better than this freezing face. brrr."
Yoona chuckled. On the screen, the street slid by. Five-storey stone buildings rose on both sides, their ornate lintels dark from rain, their windows lit yellow in tall columns. Plane trees lined the pavement with the last of their leaves caught in the lamp glow. The old iron lamps made warm circles on the wet stones, and a late-night corner shop glowed at the end of the block, green neon slipping across a stretch of cobble.
Jinsol was in the lower half of the frame, walking between Lily and Haewon, hands in her hoodie pocket, head down against the cold, laughing at something Haewon just said. The back of her neck was bare above her collar. Yoona took the picture before she could look too long, pocketed the phone, and caught up.
Cold wind blew through the street. Yoona pulled her scarf up over her chin and, beside her, Jiwoo made a sound of pure suffering.
"Are you okay?" Yoona asked.
"Yes," Jiwoo said, burying her face deeper in her thick scarf and coat. "German air feels very sharp. Like it has grudges about something."
"It's just cold," Kyujin said, walking lightly on Jiwoo's right side. "Honestly, Paris air was cold too."
"No, it's different. Paris air was flirting with us. Berlin air is all about angst and drama."
Kyujin snorted. "Unnie. What drama? We're in Germany, the country where everything is strict and straight. There's no drama here, only rules, people say."
"Pabo. Have you already forgotten that German movie on the plane?" Jiwoo asked. "The one about the couple who were separated by the Berlin Wall. Or did you sleep through it?"
"...I was resting my eyes."
"You really--" Jiwoo took a deep breath. "I watched the entire thing. It was so dramatic. And amazing. So. They both really wanted to meet each other again, right? And again and again they tried to cross, but they kept getting caught. The guy even got thrown into prison!"
"Twice, right? I think I remember watching that part and I was like, 'Oh, not again.'"
"Exactly! And at the end, after both sides chased them through the streets of Berlin, they finally got out. Not crossing side, but just--out of the city, and then out of the country! But the thing is that, well, neither of them knew if the other made it. But they both still ran to the same place they'd promised. A town in Switzerland. An old train station. On the day they'd promised each other, and they finally met there."
Kyujin looked at her. "That sounds actually... sweet."
"I know, right?"
They kept discussing the movie. Their voices turned slowly, steadily into droning noise in Yoona's ears, and she began to think of something else.
Run away. Promised day.
The words sat in her chest, distant and forbidden. A language she wasn't used to speaking, or even thinking.
Jinsol was ahead with Haewon and Lily. They had her by both arms, each pulling her to their respective sides, and Jinsol let herself be yanked between them, stumbling and laughing, her head tipped back, her breath fogging in the cold streetlight.
"Unnie-deul," she called out, still laughing, "you're going to pull me in half then you'll each have half of me and neither of you will be satisfied!"
Yoona watched the back of her head, the bare curve of her neck above her collar.
Then Jinsol looked back. Quick, straight into Yoona's stare. Yoona looked down at her phone. Dodging.
They kept walking. The cold had settled deeper. Even Jiwoo had gone quiet, her chin buried in her scarf.
Seojin-unnie stopped at a building that looked closed. The windows were dark. Above the dark-red door, there was a small wooden sign with gold lettering. She pushed the handle and the door gave onto warmth and low light and the smell of bread and something roasted.
Inside, the restaurant smelled of old wood. Lantern lights fixed along the walls. There were long tables, heavy curtains, and a room that felt fifty years old and proud of it.
Once they all came in, a man came out of the door at the end of the room. He walked towards them while speaking rapid German. Seojin-unnie said, in her careful English, "Reservation for twelve. Park." She held up her phone with the QR code.
The man's face cracked into a smile. "Ah, Miss Park! Yes, yes, welcome! This way, please."
He led them past tables of late diners to a private room with a long table at the back. Water glasses were already set, and there were also bread baskets. The candles on the table flickered together with the lanterns on the walls and threw soft shadows across everyone's faces.
Lily sat down and looked around warily. She turned and said, "Seojin-unnie," while lowering her voice, "isn't this expensive?"
"Well," said Seojin-unnie, already draping her coat over the back of her chair, "you guys deserve it."
"No, wait, I mean it. Like, isn't this actually expensive?"
Seojin looked at her. Sighed. "Lily-ssi," she started, "do you know how much this group generated in the past three months alone? With the comeback, the ambassadorships, the merch sales and now the tour?"
Lily blinked. "Uh... no," she said. "Is it that much?"
"Make a guess."
"One million dollars?"
Seojin-unnie didn't even look up. "Don't be modest."
"Two million? Three?"
She rolled her eyes, almost smiling. "Honestly. Eat the appetizer."
The table was long enough for all of them. Lily and Haewon claimed one end, already arguing over the water glasses. Jiwoo slid in beside Kyujin, and the two of them grabbed the stack of menus and started passing them down.
Jiwoo held one out to the staff members hovering near the end of the table. But they shook their heads. "No, we'll eat after--"
Jiwoo pushed the menu into his hands. Kyujin was already handing one to the second staff member, who was also refusing. The refusals went back and forth on both sides, until Seojin-unnie looked up from her phone and gave the staff members one flat look.
The staff quickly took the menus. Kyujin glanced at Seojin-unnie and giggled into her palm.
At the other end of the table, Haewon had been staring at her menu for a solid minute. She turned it sideways. Frowned. Turned it the other way.
"I can't read this," she announced.
"It's in German," Lily said.
"I know it's in German." Haewon thrust the menu toward Jinsol. "Sol-ah. Read this."
"Why me."
"You were great in Paris. You saved us all from getting lost in the city."
"In Paris they speak French. I know French," Jinsol said. "I don't know German."
Still, she took the menu from Haewon. Squinted. Brought it closer. Held it at arm's length. Haewon watched her like she was in the middle of defusing a bomb.
"Rindfleisch..." Jinsol stopped. "Rindfleisch something. Rouladen?"
"Is that a word or a sentence?" Haewon asked.
"I don't know." She turned to Yoona. "Yah. Do you know what this is?"
Yoona leaned over and glanced at the menu. "Rindfleischrouladen," she said, smooth, without hesitation. "It's beef roulades. Thin slices of beef rolled up with bacon, onion, and pickles. Braised in gravy. Usually served with red cabbage and potato dumplings."
Jinsol stared at her. Haewon stared at her. Neither of them said anything for a second.
"What?" Yoona said. "I learned it on Duolingo last week."
Down the table, Lily was getting ready to order. It was coming: the deep breath, the shoulders going back, the clearing of the throat. When the server reached her, she sat up straight and said, clear and confident, "Dankeschön, wir hätten gern..." She hesitated a bit but finally finished in English, gently, "The, um. The chicken one. This one." She pointed on the menu.
"Sehr gut," the server said kindly.
"She said sehr gut," Lily reported to the table, after the server had gone. "That means very good. I'm fluent!"
"Unnie, you said thank you before you ordered," Kyujin said. "You thanked her for food you don't have yet."
"Well it's called manners! I was being polite!"
Afterwards, Haewon got the bread distributed and a water order in. Jiwoo stole a piece of schnitzel off Yoona's plate the instant it landed. Yoona's hand shot out and caught her wrist mid-air, the fork suspended, the piece quivering.
"Stop it. I haven't even tried it," Yoona said, low and deadly, before letting go.
Jiwoo looked at her straight in the eyes, then grinned, and ate it anyway, triumphant. The whole thing ended with both of them trying to headlock each other over the tiny space between their chairs.
"Don't eat the fruit plate yet!" Kyujin was halfway out of her seat, phone in both hands. "I'm filming this! Nobody--Jiwoo-unnie. Yoona-unnie. Stop wrestling, you two--"
Lily reached over and took a bread from Jinsol's hand. "Give me that." She buttered it carefully, evenly, and held it up to Jinsol's mouth.
Jinsol blinked at her.
"Eat," Lily said.
Jinsol ate. Her eyes went wide. "Lily-unnie. You butter the bread like an angel."
"I know."
"Have I told you I love you a lot?"
"Many times."
Jinsol wrapped both arms around Lily's shoulders, pressing her face into Lily's hair, rubbing her head against Lily's. "I mean it. You're my favorite koala."
Lily snorted. "I am your only koala."
"Then it's an easy contest."
Haewon looked up from buttering her own bread slowly, corner to corner. "You're being dramatic about a piece of bread."
"It's not just the bread. It's the butter. It's great!" Jinsol said, still half-draped over Lily. Haewon rolled her eyes. "No, I swear, ask the others. Everyone. Tell Haewon-unnie."
Kyujin tried the butter. "It's butter."
Jiwoo tried it. "It's fine."
"Betrayal from both of you." Jinsol turned. "Yoona-yah. You're my only hope now. Back me up here."
Yoona picked up a piece of bread. Butter. Bit. Chewed. Considered.
"It's butter," she said.
"Yah," Jinsol protested.
"It's a good butter, I admit. But it's still butter."
They looked at each other across the bread basket. Yoona was smiling, teasing. Jinsol had seen that smile a thousand times.
Lily looked between the two of them. She waved a hand in front of Yoona's face. "Hello? Earth to Yoona?"
Yoona blinked. "Um. Sorry, I was distracted."
"By what?"
"By..." Yoona looked at Jinsol, the entirety of her, and for a second something passed between them. The whole table was watching. Yoona thought something quick and answered, "Jinsol's hair."
Everyone at the table turned to look. Jinsol's hair was already cut again for this tour: short, cropped close at the sides, longer on top, pushed back. Blonde again; the same color she'd gone for the last comeback. It made her look like a boygroup member, sharp and handsome.
"Bae-unnie went blonde again," Jiwoo said.
"I am blonde again."
"It suits you," Kyujin added.
"Thanks. Lily-unnie picked the color." Jinsol tapped Lily's shoulder, and Lily beamed at her and at everyone, looking proud.
Haewon listened to it all. She put down her bread and leaned back in her chair. A half-smirk came onto her mouth.
"If you were a guy," she said, "I'd date you."
The table erupted. Someone whistled. Someone else slapped the table.
"Sorry, sorry." Haewon held up her hands. "Let me rephrase. I'd date you as you are now."
The noise doubled. Jiwoo howled. Kyujin was rolling. Lily's mouth dropped open.
"Sol-ah," Lily said, grabbing Jinsol by both shoulders. "You have to choose. Haewonnie or me?"
"Both," Jinsol said, laughing. "I choose both. I got two arms. I can take you both!"
The noise tripled. Everyone laughed. One of the waiters peeked to their private room, checking everything was okay, and smiled and left again.
Through it all, through the window, above the rooftops, the moon hung. Three or four days off full, a lopsided coin, more than half and less than whole.
-oOo-
It was the tiredness that did it, or that was the story Jinsol would have told if anyone had asked. They walked back to the hotel, and they went back to each of their assigned rooms. Both her and Yoona were loose with fatigue and full of dinner and warm from the walk, and the door shut, and the lock did its small mechanical thing, and the room felt like it got smaller.
They brushed their teeth again, side by side, and it was fun this time in a way it hadn't been at seven. Yoona did an impression of Lily thanking the server that made Jinsol laugh so hard she had to spit early. Then Jinsol did an impression of Yoona's "I learned it on Duolingo last week," and Yoona laughed the loud laugh, the one Jinsol had not heard in a long time, not since Paris in the spring, when they had walked with their fingers intertwined.
The laugh thinned. Then it was just the two of them at a sink in a hotel, close, hair damp, and Yoona was still smiling but the smile had changed.
"We should sleep," Yoona said. "We have the concert tomorrow. Stage and all."
"Yeah."
"Sol-ah."
"Yoona-yah."
Neither of them moved toward the bed. A double bed, one taking up most of the room, that they had not insisted on, that had neither gap nor any built-in excuse at all.
Jinsol understood, looking at Yoona under the light of the bathroom mirror, that they should stop. She could see the same understanding in Yoona's face.
Then Yoona stepped forward and kissed her.
Or Jinsol stepped forward and kissed Yoona. Afterward neither of them could have testified to which. They had both been leaning toward it for months. Their mouths knew each other. Their whole bodies knew each other. No awkwardness to slow it down, to give the sensible part of the brain time to file an objection.
Their feet knocked Yoona's suitcase. They laughed, and shushed each other, and laughed at the shushing. Yoona's hands were already under the hem of Jinsol's shirt and Jinsol got the top button of Yoona's pajama shirt and then could not, for the life of her, manage the second one, her fingers suddenly stupid. Yoona breathed a laugh against her jaw and said "you've never once," and Jinsol said "shut up, they're small, you're supposed to be helping." Then Jinsol gave up and pulled the whole thing over Yoona's head instead, and it went sailing, and something else went sailing, and the suitcase by the wall took a small hit from some of the sailing clothes.
The double bed was the room's centerpiece. They pushed and pulled until they fell toward it sideways, still kissing, still shedding clothes, and Jinsol's foot hit the edge so hard the frame knocked against the wall.
"Our neighbours," Yoona breathed.
"I don't know them."
The mattress was enormous, a field of white duvet. They ended up in the center of it. The lamp on the nightstand threw everything into warm colour, their bodies making shadows on the wall.
There was a moment, once, that the guilt got in. Jinsol felt it come like a cold air blowing from a crack in the window: a face she didn't say the name of, a message she answered with only one word. Above her, Yoona also went still for a heartbeat, another person behind her eyes. But their gaze met in the low light, their eyes fixed on each other, and then Yoona lowered her head and kissed Jinsol again, slow and deliberate.
The guilt stayed, but it thinned. It would come back. In the morning, or in the next couple of days, but not now. The room had narrowed to the lamp, the bed, and the heat they were making in it.
Yoona's hand went to the place below Jinsol's ribs that had always made her squirm, even back when touching there had been a joke, a threat, a way to win dorm arguments without admitting what else it was. Jinsol's mouth found the line of Yoona's throat without looking. The last time had been Paris, months ago, a night stolen between schedules before the tour pulled them both back into line.
And suddenly, Jinsol paused. The warmth of Yoona's skin under her mouth finally hit her. The plain fact of her, after almost two years of the careful gap between their hips in van rows. Jinsol pressed her face to Yoona's neck and stayed there, breathing her in, and Yoona's hand came to the back of her head and held her there, and for a few seconds neither of them moved except to breathe.
"I miss you," Jinsol whispered.
"I miss you too."
Yoona's hips rolled against Jinsol's thigh and Jinsol's breath broke, and one of them laughed, short and surprised. Yoona's hair fell forward and caught against Jinsol's mouth. Jinsol pushed it back without thinking, the same gesture from a hundred rooms before this one. Yoona went still for half a second at the familiarity. Then she kissed Jinsol again, slower, and the laugh went out of both of them.
What came after was quieter. Jinsol's breathing had changed faster than Yoona expected, and Yoona realized hers too had raced to match Jinsol's.
They found the rhythm by feel. They moved and rolled, and then Jinsol was half on top, fingers where Yoona's breath told her to go. Yoona's hand closed over Jinsol's, adjusting the pressure, then let go because Jinsol already knew. Yoona's fingers dug into Jinsol's shoulder. Jinsol's thumb traced the line of Yoona's hip, down to between her thighs, and Yoona's back arched off the mattress a half inch, pressing into Jinsol's hand.
"Like this?" Jinsol asked. "Here?"
Yoona's breath caught. "There... and there."
Jinsol's fingers followed where Yoona's breath sent her. Yoona's hand closed around Jinsol's wrist. Her breathing went thin, then broke, and her body tightened once against Jinsol's hand and went still.
Afterward, Jinsol gathered her up. Yoona's arms went around her neck, and they were holding each other, skin damp and warm everywhere they pressed together. They kissed, slower. Yoona's hand slid into Jinsol's hair and stayed.
"Your hair's really," Yoona whispered, fingers going through the strands. "It's really," she paused.
Jinsol smirked. "What?"
"Making me crazy," Yoona finally finished.
Another kiss, their mouths parting and meeting again. Yoona could feel the remnants of smirk on Jinsol's lips.
"Come here."
Yoona pulled Jinsol against her chest, one arm firm across Jinsol's stomach, the other sliding up to her breast. Jinsol's back pressed warm against Yoona's front, skin to skin, and Yoona's mouth found the curve of Jinsol's shoulder. Her head tipped back against Yoona's temple, and Yoona's hand moved lower, and Jinsol said her name, once, then again, and the second time it broke.
Her body tightened against Yoona's, once, hard, and then she shuddered, and Yoona held on tighter. The sheet slid. The frame creaked once. Jinsol called Yoona's name, again, this time a whisper.
They stayed there. Yoona's arm still firm across Jinsol's stomach, Jinsol's head still resting against Yoona's shoulder, both breathing hard. The lamp buzzed. Jinsol turned her head and Yoona's mouth was right there, and they kissed, softer, moans and breath between them.
-oOo-
Later, they lay tangled in the middle of the double bed with Yoona's head on Jinsol's chest and Jinsol's hand in Yoona's hair, and the lamp buzzed faintly. Outside, a tram went by below with a long electric whine.
"Sol-ah."
"Mm."
Whatever it was Yoona wanted to say, she didn't say it. Her breathing changed and evened and she was asleep. Jinsol lay there listening to it, one arm gone numb under Yoona's shoulder, unwilling to move it, and thought that the guilt would arrive, and she already could feel it arriving.
She reached over to the nightstand and turned off the lamp, and then she slept too.
-oOo-
In the morning, when Jinsol had been awake maybe twenty minutes, watching the light change at the curtain and not moving her numb arm, Yoona woke up.
It happened bit by bit. Her breathing changed first. Then her hand on the sheet closed and opened. Then Yoona made a sound into the pillow, a small groan. She turned her face up, opened her eyes, and found Jinsol already looking at her.
For a second she didn't do anything. Then her mouth curved, sleep-slow.
"Morning," Yoona said.
"Morning."
"How long have you been awake?"
"Long enough."
"Creep." Yoona's eyes closed again. She burrowed. Her forehead came to rest against Jinsol's shoulder and stayed there, and neither of them said anything about the fact that they were both still very much not wearing anything, or about the bed, or about last night, because saying anything would require choosing a tone. Because officially this should not happen anymore.
"It's cold in here," Yoona said, muffled, against her shoulder.
"That's your first thought? We did," Jinsol gestured vaguely at the entire room, the flung clothes, the suitcase, "all of that, bed-shaking and earth-shattering kind of night, and your first sentence of the day is about the temperature?"
"You want to know my second thought?"
"What?"
"The schedule."
Jinsol groaned.
"Soundcheck's at two," Yoona said, her voice still muffled against Jinsol's shoulder. "Which means hair and makeup starts at twelve. Which means if we want to eat lunch before that, we eat at eleven. Which means we need to be downstairs, functioning, looking like humans, by ten."
Jinsol's face was half-buried, but Yoona could feel the expression changing under her. "You're doing the math."
"I'm doing the math."
"At seven in the morning."
"Someone has to do the math, Sol-ah."
Jinsol groaned again, longer.
Yoona lifted her head. Her hair was flat on one side, wild on the other, her eyes barely open. But she was staring at Jinsol's hair, and her eyes were slowly becoming wide awake.
"Oh my God, your hair." She sat up a little. "It's so unfair."
Jinsol blinked. "What?"
"It just does that. You wake up and it does that." Yoona reached over and pushed a hand through Jinsol's short hair, front to back, ruining it, which was what she really wanted to do. "Makes you look so handsome."
"Oh." Jinsol said, trying hard to not smirk. Failed. "You really like it, huh?"
"I really like it."
"You hadn't shown this in London. Or in Paris."
Yoona's hand stilled for a second. "There were too many people."
Jinsol watched her face. Yoona was smiling, but underneath it was the old habit: she remembered the cities, the distance, the gap between them in the van, all the rooms full of staff and cameras where she had kept her hands to herself. Jinsol's chest pulled tight. It always did.
"Thank Lily-unnie for the color," Jinsol said.
Yoona rolled and looked up at the ceiling. She clasped her hands together, face reverent, eyes closed, and said, "Oh Lily-unnie, thank you so much."
Jinsol snorted. Then Yoona laughed too.
"Shower," Jinsol said, when the laugh settled. "You go first. Your hair needs more time."
"What about you?"
"I'm going to lie here for five more minutes."
Yoona smacked her arm. But she got up.
The bathroom door shut. The water started. Jinsol lay there for a few minutes, just staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound of Yoona showering. She had heard this sound in a hundred rooms before this one.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and finally got up.
-oOo-
Under daylight, the bathroom looked smaller. Yoona was in the shower stall behind frosted glass, a vague shape under the water. Jinsol went to the sink, turned the tap on, splashed her face, reached for her toothbrush.
Normal things. Both of them were doing normal things.
Through the glass, Yoona's shape turned. The water stopped. The stall door opened a few inches, and Yoona's face appeared, wet, flushed, her hair dark and slicked back.
"Wanna shower together?"
They both knew they shouldn't. Yoona knew too. The question had arrived before she could stop it.
Jinsol turned towards her, stood straighter. "Yes. Saving water. One of those actions for saving the world, right?"
Yoona smacked her arm, playfully, with a wet hand, and pulled her in.
The shower was small and too hot, then too cold, then hot again. It started reasonable, genuinely reasonable. Yoona was reaching for the little hotel shampoo and Jinsol was taking the soap because it was there, because Yoona had turned her back to her without thinking, because scrubbing someone's back was a normal thing people did when they shared a shower and were pretending hard enough.
"You're missing the middle," Yoona said, over her shoulder.
"Wait. Why are you bossy?"
"Why are you scrubbing my shoulder?"
"Because you put your back against me."
Yoona made a sound that was almost a laugh, and Jinsol's hand slid lower, soap warm between her palm and Yoona's skin. Practical, still. Barely. Then Yoona went quiet. Jinsol's thumb followed the line of her spine once, slowly.
"Sol-ah," Yoona said.
Jinsol put her mouth against Yoona's neck, just under the hairline. She kissed it once, and then again, slower, and felt Yoona's breath catch and hold. Yoona's hand went flat against the tile. Then she turned round.
Their breasts met, and they gasped. Yoona bit her lip and kissed Jinsol, hard, and her hand went up into Jinsol's wet hair and held her there. The stall was hot and small, and the spray took every sound they made. Then the last of the gap between them went, and Jinsol's forehead came down on Yoona's shoulder.
It had started again, in the daylight this time, with no dinner and no tiredness and no lock-click to blame, just the two of them choosing it wide awake.
Then their phones suddenly went off on the nightstand.
It was the schedule alarm, from the company-mandated app, which signaled thirty minutes before the next schedule point. It sounded ugly, one ascending tone, flat and institutional.
They stopped immediately. The water still ran. They stood there, chins on each other's shoulders in the little cube of steam, both breathing hard, and Jinsol started, helplessly, to laugh, because it was so exactly, precisely, on schedule. It had simply gone off at the time it always went off, and they had come apart because of it.
"Saved by the bell," Yoona said into Jinsol's shoulder.
"That's the ugliest bell in the world."
"I know." Yoona reached behind her and shut off the water. She was already done. "Finish your shower."
"Bossy," said Jinsol, grinning. Yoona slapped her shoulder again, the she got out of the stall.
-oOo-
The room was cooler. Yoona crossed it barefoot, still smiling despite herself. The alarm had already gone into auto-snooze on both of their phones. She tapped Jinsol's phone screen, unlocked it because she knew the locking pattern, and turned off the alarm. Then she unlocked her own phone screen to turn off hers.
Below the schedule notification, though, there were two messages from Sana-unnie. It had arrived hours ago, sometime past midnight.
Yoona bit her lip. Guilt arrived, finally. She unlocked the phone and opened the KakaoTalk.
🐹: Yoona-chan!!! Did you land safely? Tell me when you can.
🐹: Did you bring a jacket? I read Germany is very cold these days.
Yoona sat on the edge of the bed, towel tucked under one arm, hair dripping onto her shoulder, and smiled before she could think about it.
🦌: unnie
🦌: i landed safe
She looked toward the bathroom door. Water started again, Jinsol actually showering now, humming two wrong notes of something from the setlist.
🦌: i brought the thick jacket
The reply came almost immediately.
🐹: Good. I'm glad.
🐹: Did you eat?
🐹: Bread does not count unless you eat it with something else.
Yoona snorted. She typed the reply.
🦌: dinner had beef
🦌: and bread with butter
🦌: someone said the butter was great
🦌: i honestly think you gonna like it
🐹: I would've liked anything that makes you eat properly.
🐹: Wait. Did you just send three messages in a row?
🐹: Germany has changed you.
🐹: Or maybe you love me now?
Yoona laughed. The bathroom water hid it. The whole room felt strange with Jinsol behind one door and Sana in the phone, steam in the air and sunlight in her hands.
🦌: dont be dramatic
🐹: I am never dramatic. I am a serious person with facts.
🐹: Fact one, you ate.
🐹: Fact two, you wore a jacket in cold weather.
🐹: Fact three, I miss you.
The warmth in Yoona's chest shifted, soft and helpless. Outside the window, Berlin was still grey.
🦌: miss you too
She stared at the screen. Her thumb hovered. Then, before she could talk herself out of it:
🦌: i do love you though
The typing dots appeared, vanished, appeared again. The pause went long.
🐹: I love you too, Yoona-yah.
Yoona held the phone against her chest. The warmth stayed.
Her mind went to the summer before last. The Chagee Japan promotion where Sana had asked the company to get Yoona to join her. "Ask Yoona too. People already ask about her there." And someone had approved it, and Yoona had flown to Japan with a passport wallet fat with print-out tickets and a feeling in her chest she had not been brave enough to name.
Tokyo first. The opening was bright, loud, and full of people who had brought Yoona and Sana photocards and held them up against the Chagee signage and laughed. Sana was working the crowd, warm and everywhere at once, one hand on a cup, the other waving, beaming at someone who had waited three hours in line. Yoona watched her and thought: she makes the room her living room. During the event, Sana touched Yoona's elbow. Many times. It felt quick, practical at first; she touched everyone that way, Yoona thought, and she didn't realize how wrong she was until they arrived in their next city.
Kamakura. A day off.
It was mostly Sana's idea. "We have one free day, Yoona-chan. One. The sea is right there." It was late August, past the summer rush, warm enough for the beach but empty enough that the sand belonged to them.
They had bought ice cream from a stall near the station. Melon and strawberry. Then they walked along the water with their shoes in their hands and the foam of the sea catching their toes.
They sat down and talked. Actually talked. Sana had laughed hard at one of Yoona's jokes, which she couldn't remember what it was, only the sound of Sana's laugh, how it carried over the water. They leaned into each other, shoulder to shoulder, watching the lights on the opposite shore. No cameras. No schedule for hours. Nobody who know them enough to care. Just Sana's arm warm against hers and the taste of salt and sugar and the small thought, already forming even then.
This was what happiness felt like when I wasn't performing it.
Then Kyoto. The second opening, a smaller venue in the old part of the city. Less people, but the same intensity. Afterwards, they slipped out in caps and masks and walked along the Kamo River in the late afternoon, the light going gold on the water, and sat on the bank where the stones were flat and warm.
A few people passed. Nobody looked twice. Sana kicked her shoes off and put her feet in the grass.
"I miss this," she said, quietly. Yoona thought Sana was talking about the river. She would be corrected again much, much later, in Sana's apartment late at night. But her mind went back to that river, to Sana sitting there, and how it felt warm and cold.
Sana talked about Osaka, about her family, about the particular sound of a train crossing a bridge in the rain. Yoona listened and did not say much, because she realized that Sana talking was a thing she could rest inside.
They sat there as the afternoon turned to evening and the river went from gold to grey to the blue-dark of a city settling into the night. Then Sana said, "Yoona-chan." Her voice had gone careful. "I could stay here forever."
Yoona said nothing. Saying me too would have been saying too much, and they both knew it. Sana put her head on Yoona's shoulder. Yoona felt the weight of it, the trust of it, and did not move. The river kept going. They stayed like that for an hour.
A new notification pinged. Yoona broke her thoughts and unlocked her phone again. It was a photo of Sana on her sofa in her apartment in Seoul, no makeup, her hair loose, her face soft in the low living-room light. She was smiling, tired.
Below it, a message.
🐹: Your turn.
The bathroom door opened.
Jinsol came out with wet hair, a hotel towel wrapped around her. "I hope the company uninstalls that alarm app. Seriously," she grumbled, walking into the bedroom.
Yoona looked up with the smile still on her mouth. A small, good thing. Jinsol stopped for half a beat by the side of the bed.
"Is that Sana-unnie?" Jinsol said. She kept her voice easy. It cost her something, and Yoona could hear it.
"She saw we landed." Yoona's thumb was still resting on the last message. "She asked me about my jacket. And about the food."
Jinsol's eyes flicked to the phone, then away before she could read anything. "That sounds like her."
"She says bread is okay if eaten with something else."
"She's right. Eating just bread alone is sad."
"And I told her she'd like the butter. She said she probably would."
"Good. That means I'll go look for it in the supermarket later and buy it for her too. It was so good!"
Yoona looked down at the screen. Sana's face was still there: the photo, the sofa, the tired smile. Your turn. She smiled a second time, smaller than the first, and private.
Then she did another thing. Sana had asked for a picture, so Yoona lifted the phone and turned her face toward the gray window light, damp hair and no makeup and the soft morning on her, and took a photo of herself. A small private one, for Sana-unnie.
Yoona looked at it. She almost sent it immediately. Then she paused, and turned, and there was a beat where Jinsol watched the idea arrive in her.
"We could take one together," Yoona said. Light and teasing, half a joke. "Us. Berlin morning. You could show your handsome hair."
And they both knew, in the same breath, that it was the worst idea either of them had ever had.
Their selfie would be dangerous. Months of the company lowering the temperature, undone in one soft square of pixels. But that was the company's problem, and they both knew the company's problem was not the real problem.
The real problem was Sana.
Sana, who had been giving Yoona warm little loves for over a year now. Sana, who had spent months finding reasons to be near her. Sana, who everyone knew about, because Sana loved Yoona out loud and in daylight, and nobody had ever told her to stop. It was the one thing about Yoona's life the company didn't put a ruler on: it was Sana, a sunbaenim, in a different group, safe, the math on it looked clean.
Yoona was allowed to have this. Everyone agreed she was allowed to have this.
And they would send her a photograph of the two of them. Damp, bare-faced, flushed, in a hotel room in Berlin, in a double bed, belonging to each other in a way that needed no word. They would send it from the same screen that had just been filled with small warmths for Yoona.
It would hurt her. Or it wouldn't, which was worse. Sana would look at it and be happy for Yoona, genuinely happy, because Sana could be happy for someone else even when it cut her, and she would say something warm and generous, and the warmth would be real, and the cut would be real, and Yoona would have to live with both in the same sentence.
Sana would just keep being the sun, and Yoona would have to stand in it knowing what she had done in the dark.
"No," Yoona said quietly, answering the whole thoughts neither of them had said.
"No," Jinsol agreed.
The word sat between them. Yoona's hand was still on the phone, Sana's photo still on the screen. She looked at Jinsol and something in her face shifted.
"Sol-ah," Yoona said. "I'm sorry."
Jinsol shook her head. "No. It's not--" She stopped. Found it. "You don't need to be sorry."
"Sol--"
"Send it." Jinsol smiled. "Send Sana-unnie your picture. The one you just took."
Yoona stared at her. "Sol-ah."
"She asked for it." Jinsol's voice came out easy, light. Sounding almost like her usual self. "And you want to send it to her. What else to wait about?"
Something passed between them then. Jinsol looked at Yoona in the gray Berlin light and saw what mattered: Sana-unnie on a sofa sending a photo without makeup, Yoona smiling at it, two people choosing each other in the daylight. It made something ache inside her, and underneath the ache she found that she could try to be happy. Happy that Yoona had this. Happy that someone was kind to her in the open, instead of hiding around in the dark.
Yoona looked at Jinsol for one more long moment. Then she looked down at her own face on the screen, damp hair, no makeup, the gray morning light, and pressed send.