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"I mean, everyone's thought about kissing a girl," Hayoon is saying on the other side of the room. "It doesn't have to mean anything."
And suddenly the conversation Hyebin's supposed to be having with Jaehwa and Sanghee is white noise, drowned out by the wave that starts in Hyebin's stomach and crashes through her body.
Hyebin has historically liked it when Hayoon has a little too much to drink and starts speaking before she thinks – it evens the playing field, because Hyebin has never been able to compose her words like Hayoon can – but not if she's going to do this, going to say things like that too loudly in a too-small Japanese hotel room while they celebrate the end of a string of tour dates.
Because Hyebin had never thought much, one way or the other, on the topic of kissing girls. She was obviously aware that there were girls out there thinking about kissing girls, but it was a distant notion. Now all of a sudden it's tangible, and Hyebin feels dizzy in a way she hasn't had enough alcohol to justify.
Whatever Jaehwa had been talking about, she's gone into an exaggerated huff, hands on her hips and lips in a pout that makes it too easy to think about her kissing a girl.
"Why aren't you laughing at my joke?" Jaehwa demands.
"Because it wasn't funny," Hyebin replies as if she'd even heard it.
Sanghee stifles a laugh at that, pressing a hand over her mouth so as not to betray her favorite unnie, and Hyebin can't help but wonder if she's thought about it, too.
Hyebin takes another drink. It doesn't have to mean anything.
-
It's fine.
It has to be fine, because there isn't time to not be fine. There's only a few weeks left before the comeback. The album's already recorded but there's a photo shoot to shoot and a music video to film and endless hours of practice to be done and they haven't even "bleached the shit out of" Jaehwa's hair yet (Jaehwa's words, not Hyebin's).
And there's a lot of pressure this time around. Sex does in fact sell, evidently, because their last comeback put more eyes on them than they've ever had before, and then they went away for five long months just to return with a concept completely unlike what any of those eyes are expecting from them.
Dynamite has to be perfect. Hyebin can't afford to waste time thinking about kissing girls.
-
"Why do I always get paired up with you?" Hyebin whines, batting Hayoon's hand away.
"Because they know how much you love me," Hayoon says, voice incongruously serene as she bats back at Hyebin twice as hard. Hyebin hisses at the sting of the slap and resigns herself to her fate, lets Hayoon futz with Hyebin's collar and hair and resists commenting that their stylists won't appreciate Hayoon interfering with their jobs.
They work well together from both a marketing and an aesthetic standpoint: the leader and the visual, round features against sharp, tan skin against pale. Hyebin supposes that's the real reason, although she begrudgingly admits Hayoon is a little bit right, too – their personalities work well together, similar enough to get along and dissimilar enough to fill in each other's gaps. Back when they were trainees people said they seemed like sisters, even though they look nothing alike.
Bratty little sister that she is, Hyebin gets in one final swat at Hayoon's hand, drawing a tired sigh from their manager that forces them both to stop.
"So, what do you think about this photo shoot?" Hayoon asks, absently running her hands down the front of her dress to straighten out the wrinkles.
"It's..." Hyebin thinks about all the people who worked very hard to put this photo shoot together and swallows the word "garish." "...interesting."
The backdrop is a plain expanse of red that's far harsher than anything Hyebin would want to be staring at this early in the morning. She's wearing a dress with colorful vertical stripes over a blouse with a smaller version of the same pattern; Hayoon is in a long-sleeved black and white dress patterned similarly to houndstooth but somehow even louder. Being one of the main characters of the concept, Hayoon gets the extra adornments of odd-eyed contacts and the evil eye symbol painted on the back of her hand.
Visually, it's a lot to take in.
"It's bright," Hayoon says, which seems like another polite alternative to "garish." "I'm a little nervous that this concept is so different from what we've been doing, but if anyone can pull it off, we can."
The photographer interrupts to start guiding them into poses before Hyebin can chide her for being corny.
-
Hyebin's kissed boys, obviously.
She had a few boyfriends throughout high school, but as far as she remembers the kissing was nothing to write home about. Certainly nothing worth spending time reminiscing about. It wasn't even worth spending time on when it was happening; she usually just wanted to get it over with and go hang out with her other friends.
Then she became an idol and idols don't even get to kissing; whether it's because they're all too busy or too afraid of the repercussions, the closest she gets to a relationship these days is inconsequential flirting, mostly conducted via KakaoTalk.
Hyebin doesn't mind it. It's not like she was getting much more out of the experience of real dating, and this is a lot less effort. She doesn't have to partake in any more nothing-to-write-home-about kissing, for starters; she's never even thought about kissing any of them.
So if she's not particularly interested in kissing boys, of course she hasn't thought about kissing girls.
-
Making a music video involves many long stretches of sitting around doing nothing, and filming VIXX TV can only fill so much time before even Jaehwa is begging Hyebin to put the camera down.
So Hyebin finds herself alone in the dressing room, ostensibly for a water break but mostly just to sit around doing nothing in a different place than she'd been sitting around doing nothing before, and her mind can't help but wander.
No matter how much she wills it to, the memory of what Hayoon said in the hotel room won't go away.
It's not bad. It doesn't bother Hyebin, to know that Hayoon thinks about kissing girls. It's just there, a constant nagging – fitting for Hayoon – like finding a loose thread on your sleeve. Harmless, but once you know it's there you can't keep yourself from futzing with it, even when you know you're just making it worse.
It's unfair that Hayoon can say something like that so casually and move on from it, while Hyebin is left fighting the urge to pull the thread and unravel the whole thing.
Their manager enters the room with a camera, because apparently the 500 hours of VIXX TV they've already recorded today weren't enough, so the stitching will live to see another day.
-
Hyebin isn't all the way there yet. It's T-minus-three days to the comeback, so Hyebin needs to be there, and she isn't. They've been practicing for so long that her thighs burn and it hurts to breathe too deeply and the other members have gone back to the dorm to get the precious little sleep they've been afforded, and Hyebin is still tripping over her own feet by the time even staff is bidding them farewell.
But Hayoon stays.
Hayoon is already there and is clearly fraying at the edges from the work it's taken to get there herself and then drag everyone else up with her, but she stays, and it makes Hyebin feel even worse when it becomes increasingly clear that she's not getting there tonight.
"Why can't I just steal some of your talent? Suck it out of you like a leech." Hyebin means it as a joke, but it comes out as more of a huff as she nearly collapses to sit on the floor.
"You want to make me worse? That doesn't seem very nice," Hayoon replies with a little pout, and Hyebin must be deliriously tired because she finds it cute instead of gross.
"I'd only take a little bit," Hyebin reasons. "You have more than enough."
Hayoon hums in contemplation, and then kneels down and presses the heels of her palms to Hyebin's temples. They're hot and sticky, enough to register as hot and sticky when Hyebin is already hot and sticky herself.
"Bzzt!" Hayoon exclaims, jostling Hyebin a bit as she does. "There, I just transferred some of my talent to you. You're very lucky you have such a generous unnie. Now let's do another run-through to see if it worked."
-
The night before the comeback, Hyebin dreams about Hayoon.
She dreams about seeing Hayoon for the first time in months. Hayoon's eyes wet with tears that she refuses to let fall, features steeled with frustration and determination and an attempt to mask fear that she hasn't quite mastered yet, that Hyebin can see right through.
Hayoon begging, saying things like "we've already come so far" and "we're going to make it" and "I can't do this without you." Hayoon hugging Hyebin when she agrees to come back, squeezing her like she's afraid Hyebin will run away again if she lets go.
Hyebin's alarm blares and she feels oddly like she's still being squeezed.
-
They arrive at their first music show and find their fans look much the same as they always have.
Hyebin hadn't even realized how worried she was about it until the relief swoops through her. One successful sexy comeback hasn't appreciably altered the composition of their fanbase, hasn't caused horny men to descend on them like locusts.
She spots one of her fansite masters, a girl around her age, and smiles at her. It tempers the comeback jitters a bit, which is nice both for her own sanity and because it seems like the comeback jitters are hitting the rest of the group hard.
In the dressing room, Jaehwa is damn near bouncing off the walls, and at such an early hour with everyone else on edge even her biggest enablers aren't having it – Wonseok can only manage a half-hearted smile at her antics; Sanghee tells her to save some energy for the performance and very pointedly puts in her earbuds. Hyebin is fairly certain the only words Taewon has said all morning were "shut the fuck up."
This is all bog standard for a nervous VIXX. What troubles Hyebin is that Hayoon is quiet – two words that don't belong in a sentence together unless "not" is between them. Hayoon should be buzzing around right now getting up in everyone's business, delivering platitudes and "reminding" everyone of things that are obvious and generally playing overbearing mother to a group of adults she's barely older than. She should be a nuisance, but instead she's being pleasant and cordial with staff but otherwise unobtrusive.
As much as Hyebin complains about the standard, what's happening now is just not right.
"If you were any quieter over here, I'd think Taewon was trapped in your body," Hyebin says as she sits down next to Hayoon.
Hayoon does a little once-over of everyone in the room, as if a member being trapped in another's body is a real concern. "Can you imagine what a disaster that would be? Comeback stage in less than an hour and she has to learn my parts."
"She's not used to being short; she'd be tripping over your feet just trying to get on stage," Hyebin replies.
Hayoon takes a moment to digest that comment and then squawks, shouting about glass houses and prodding at Hyebin's sides until Hyebin nearly tumbles off the couch to get away from her.
-
Something magical happens on stage.
It always catches Hyebin by surprise, as if all the blood, sweat, and tears leach the memory right out of her. Comeback preparations mean working until she's worn to the bone and dieting until she forgets what a full stomach feels like and all of her shortcomings and insecurities bubbling up to the surface. It means getting too little sleep to recover from any of it and wondering if anything is worth putting herself through this.
And then she steps on stage, hears the music kick in and the fanchants start, and of course it's worth it.
A heady mix of emotions swells in her chest, adrenaline and joy and pride, more than her body can contain – it spills out of her, radiates from her and mingles with the energy of the other members. The air is thick with it as they head down the dark corridor off stage and back to their dressing room.
Sanghee skips and spins down the hall, Jaehwa tumbling after her; Wonseok stumbles into Taewon like she's drunk off it. Giggles and shouts echo off the walls.
Hayoon slips an arm over Hyebin's shoulders and presses their bodies together. Hyebin lets herself bask in it for once, puts an arm around Hayoon's waist in return and keeps chasing the high.
She will, of course, be yanked back down to earth by the hectic grind of promotions soon enough, and she'll be sore and hungry and tired again, but it'll be a satisfied pain – the pain of fighting and winning.
"I'm so proud of you," Hayoon says, her voice low, lips brushing the shell of Hyebin's ear. "I'm so proud of us."
It courses through Hyebin like electricity, tingles down to her fingertips, and she squeezes Hayoon tighter.
-
This style of choreography suits Hyebin. It's bouncy and energetic, full of big movements and constant action. It plays well to Hyebin's strengths – her vocals never flag despite how active the choreography is, and she hits every motion precisely – and masks her weaknesses – her usual lack of flow isn't as obvious when the choreography jumps from one thing to the next like this. She's satisfied with her performance.
Until she watches a second time, at least.
The same choreography looks completely different on Hayoon: just as precise but so much more fluid, smooth and natural and sophisticated and fun and sensual, and it's not even a sensual song. She bends songs to her will instead of bending to their will, and Hyebin knows how hard Hayoon works for it, but she makes it look so effortless.
Something brews in Hyebin's stomach, acidic jealousy sputtering up against a wall of admiration, some other feeling she can't place churning them all together. Hayoon looks amazing and Hyebin looks awful in her shadow, stiff and jerky and forceful and everything Hayoon isn't.
Hayoon is in this group because she's one of the best dancers in the industry. Hyebin is in this group because she's pretty.
"Are you monitoring the performance?" Hayoon's voice cuts in. "Can I watch with you?"
Hyebin wants to say no, but she swallows it down and hands Hayoon an earbud as she restarts the video. Hayoon settles down next to her and watches so attentively that it makes Hyebin's skin crawl.
At the end of the song, Hayoon takes a moment for thought. "You look uncomfortable," she says bluntly. "You're too in your head – you're thinking the performance instead of just doing it."
Hyebin is used to being criticized, has learned how to take it objectively for the most part, but it still hurts when it comes from Hayoon. Hayoon means her criticism, expects to see the problem fixed not just because it's her job to expect that, but because she really does want the best for VIXX. Guilt floods Hyebin when she tries to give Hayoon her best and still disappoints her, when the problem is something Hyebin isn't sure she can fix.
"You're going to get past that, though; you've already improved so much over the years. This song is perfect for you, too, your energy matches it really well," Hayoon continues. She hums softly and takes the tablet out of Hyebin's hands, scrubbing back to one of the parts focused on herself.
Hyebin hopes Hayoon means that, too.
-
Hyebin hasn't thought about anyone kissing any gender in days. She hasn't even thought about the fact that she hasn't thought about it, too caught up in the whirlwind of the comeback to think anything about anything.
But the whirlwind slows and spits her back out in her bed, and she tosses and turns and doesn't sleep.
A mess of emotions has been tangling up inside of her over the past few days and she can't help picking at it now that she has the chance. Some of them are ones she's come to expect from comeback season; some of them are new ones she can't identify, muddled and bleeding into each other. Alarmingly, a large number of both seem to be Hayoon-related.
She thinks about that, and she thinks about Hayoon thinking about kissing girls.
And she rolls over, pulls the covers up closer to her chin, and thinks maybe she has some things she needs to think about.
-
They have to film some clips for the show they're on today, promoting the other groups performing. They're split off into pairs and handed scripts and Hyebin is paired with Hayoon, which is typical, and the script requires Hayoon to pet Hyebin and tell her how pretty she is, which is typical.
Hyebin's job, to steel her face into a pained grimace at the affair, is typical, too. Natural, even – she'll resist Hayoon's displays of affection regardless of any script, and she's always hated being told she's pretty, anyways; it'll be refreshing to get to be openly miserable about it this time.
What isn't typical is when Hayoon's hand meets her head and it sends heat rushing to her cheeks, and that awful suspicion Hyebin had formed and resolutely shoved to the back of her mind the other night is suddenly dragged back up, front and center.
Hyebin wants to kiss Hayoon.
It's crystal clear, no longer a suspicion at all. She wants to kiss Hayoon.
Unfortunate that this realization would happen in front of a camera, the rest of the group, and an assortment of staff.
Hyebin valiantly forces herself through the experience. She must do a good job of it, too, because the production staff is – thankfully – happy with the first take. She takes the time to act the way she thinks she normally would: makes a show of extricating herself from Hayoon's hold, shaking her head and shoulders like a dog getting in from the rain and drawing giggles from the rest of the group. She smiles pleasantly at the staff, thanking them for their time, and she politely excuses herself to the bathroom.
-
Hyebin laughs.
She starts pacing the bathroom so she isn't just staring at herself in the mirror while she does it, but she can't help laughing. Something that could either be a temporary curiosity or a life-changing revelation has just happened to her, and she doesn't even have time to figure out which it is before she has to be back out there filming something else.
Just off the top of her completely frazzled head she can think of seven or eight moments in her life that would have been a perfectly fitting time to decide she wants to kiss Hayoon, and she decided it while doing a skit in service of getting people to watch Seventeen perform. What can she do about it but laugh?
The bathroom door opens and she abruptly stops both the pacing and the laughing, stands awkwardly in the middle of the room when the absolute last person she wants to see right now walks in.
"Are you alright? You've been in here a while," Hayoon asks, her brow crinkled. Her worried face is cute. This is a nightmare.
"I'm fine, sorry. I was just checking my makeup," Hyebin says. She's not confident she is fine, but they still have about a thousand things to do today, so anything short of "literally on the brink of death" counts as "fine" for the purposes of the question.
"Good," Hayoon says simply and then, because she can never just leave something at simple, reaches out and strokes Hyebin's hair again. "My pretty Hyebinnie."
Hyebin's sure Hayoon only does it because she knows it'll chase Hyebin out of the bathroom and back to work, but she probably underestimated the speed at which Hyebin would duck away from her touch and rush out of the room.
-
The only reasonable course of action is to ignore the problem and hope it goes away.
That course of action did not work before, but she doesn't see what other option she has. She's not going to be able to iron out what these newfound feelings for Hayoon mean in the span of a car ride to a fansign, and that's the longest amount of time she's going to have to herself for the next few weeks.
Hayoon turns around in the front seat, smiles and makes brief eye contact with Hyebin before asking Jaehwa a question, and Hyebin's heart honest to god flutters.
Ugh.
-
Things are not going according to plan.
In her defense, she did not account for the fact that they'd have to film for another show which, of all things, would pull the paper kiss game out of the archives.
It's so on-the-nose Hyebin almost can't feel anything about it.
She almost doesn't. Having Sanghee running commentary never helps with introspection, and they use a full-size sheet of paper that should make transfers easy without even having to go mouth-to-mouth.
It should, but Hyebin tries to press her lips to Taewon's chin and just can't get purchase, the two of them struggling against each other and Hyebin's lips slipping further and further up until they end up one sheet of paper away from more intimate open-mouthed kissing than at least half the actual kisses Hyebin's had in her life.
By the time they finally succeed, Taewon flailing with embarrassment in the moment's wake, Hyebin has almost forgotten Hayoon is next.
Her heart pounds hard against her rib cage one, two times – then Hayoon grabs the top of the sheet in one shot without so much as brushing against Hyebin's face.
For being so scared of it happening, Hyebin feels oddly deflated when it doesn't.
-
She can't shake the phantom feeling of Taewon's mouth against hers.
When this whole thing started Hyebin's last memories of being kissed were hazy. Now she's got this vivid new memory of soft warmth on her lips, even if it was through a piece of paper, and she can't help that her mind wanders in the shower.
It's so easy now to imagine Hayoon pulling Hyebin into her lap, Hyebin tangling her fingers up in Hayoon's hair. So close to Hayoon she can smell the sweat on her skin, can feel the heat radiating off of her. Hayoon holding Hyebin's face in her hands and kissing her, gentle at first, then-
Then someone pounds on the bathroom door.
"I'm gonna kick your ass if you don't hurry up!" Sanghee shouts.
The bubble pops, and Hyebin is reminded that Hayoon is only a few thin walls and a shower curtain away from her.
"Fuck off!" she calls back, and she scrubs herself a little harder.
-
They haven't even played the game yet, and this is somehow already the worst one.
After all she's done for The Show, it's cruel for them to be the ones to put her in this situation, for it to be their fault that she's been paired up with Hayoon for yet another passing things mouth-to-mouth fanservice game, and now the other members are singing stock romantic music at them while Hayoon prods her for not looking enthusiastic enough about being tested by the universe.
Hyebin plasters a smile on her face for the camera and thanks every deity she can think of for the industrial-strength foundation hiding how red her face must be.
The game – one member doing sit-ups to pass biscuits from their mouth to another member's – goes as poorly for Taewon and Wonseok as games always seem to go for them. It's not particularly effective as fanservice, either, what with Taewon choking on one of the biscuits and Wonseok physically recoiling at it.
It makes Hyebin start to think this experience will actually be fine; they won't be the team that does the worst, which has always been a concern when paired up with Hayoon, and Hyebin won't have a heart attack and die, which has newly become a concern when paired up with Hayoon.
It quickly becomes clear this was a false sense of security. Half of it, at least: they're doing fine at the game. But the experience of it – the feeling of everyone's eyes on them as they lean in close to each other the same way they do when she imagines them kissing – has Hyebin's head spinning.
It starts to truly fall apart, literally and figuratively, when Hayoon bites too hard and the biscuit snaps. Hyebin stares at her and drops the half left in her mouth while Hayoon eats her half, laughing out an apology.
They try again and it happens again. Hyebin doesn't even get rid of the half-biscuit she's still biting, just lets Wonseok stick another one next to it and goes up for a third try.
This time Hayoon overcorrects, bites it so gently that it slips right out of her teeth and falls to the floor, and it sends them both into a fit of laughter. Hyebin goes from laughing at what actually happened to laughing at Hayoon laughing, and then at Hayoon physically pushing her to the ground in an attempt to continue the game, and eventually she's just laughing at the laughter itself.
Hayoon smacks the side of her knee to try to get her back in action, but it's a lost cause at that point. She's helpless with laughter, only vaguely aware of Sanghee saying "I've never seen you so happy with Hayoon" as Wonseok sticks another biscuit in her mouth.
Hayoon takes matters into her own hands, grabs Hyebin's wrist and hauls her back up, then puts a hand around the back of Hyebin's neck and drags her in close enough to get the biscuit.
And then the other members start singing the romantic music again.
It's all too much. Hayoon is laughing too, and Hyebin laughs harder, and by the time they admit defeat both of them can barely breathe.
At least they still did better than Taewon and Wonseok.
-
Jaehwa, evidently a strict adherent to the comedy rule of three, starts singing the romantic music at Hyebin and Hayoon again when they're back in the dorm that night.
Contrary to what the rule of three insists, it's not funny anymore.
It was funny in front of the cameras, legible as a tried-and-true VIXX joke: Hayoon annoys Hyebin, and therefore it's funny to joke about Hyebin actually secretly loving Hayoon. Part of the same grab bag as "Taewon is easily embarrassed" and "Sanghee is a menace," jokes they can always reach for and trust the audience to recognize.
But it reads differently when it's just them in the privacy of their dorm, when Jaehwa is doing this for seemingly no one but herself and maybe Sanghee. It reads as legitimate, and Hyebin feels caught, like Jaehwa has peeled her open and found her dirty little secret and is literally singing it from the rooftops.
Hayoon laughs and shakes her head and doesn't say anything, and Hyebin stands there and stares like a deer in headlights.
"Come on, leave the lovebirds alone," Sanghee intervenes, putting a hand at the small of Jaehwa's back and pushing her out of the room, and Hyebin feels even worse.
-
It doesn't have to mean anything.
Hyebin's been so caught up on the "everyone's thought about kissing a girl" thing, she'd almost forgotten there was a second part.
She's thought about kissing a girl now, can't seem to stop thinking about it. It doesn't have to mean anything. Does it mean anything anyways?
Does she want it to mean anything?
It'd be easy to say it doesn't. She's just curious, as anyone would be when confronted with something they've never considered before, and since Hayoon is the one who said it, wires got crossed in her brain. She's conflating normal feelings for Hayoon with something that just happens to be on her mind right now.
It's just that normal is feeling so strongly for Hayoon that she doesn't know what to do with it, feeling admiration and trust and comfort and annoyance and jealousy and confusion. Normal is feeling like Hayoon understands her better than anyone on earth and feeling deathly afraid of that fact.
Normal is kissing boys and feeling nothing about it.
Does it mean anything?
-
Hyebin doesn't feel anything about wins anymore.
She's grateful for them, of course. Maybe a little relieved, if she really thinks about it, the trophy in her hands a tangible sign that she hasn't failed.
But she doesn't feel anything, especially not at their fourth win of this comeback, which is why she's surprised when Wonseok is giving her little speech and starts to sniffle.
It quickly becomes clear it's a question of when, not if, Wonseok starts crying, and Hyebin has already shuffled the trophy to one hand in preparation by the time Wonseok gives up mid-sentence and hands her the microphone.
Hayoon, half-occupied with tending to Wonseok and half-occupied with greeting the other idols around them, still finds a second to give Hyebin an appreciative smile.
Hyebin does feel something about that.
-
They're given a bouquet after a win on Music Bank, purple like Hayoon's hair. She looks like one of the flowers when she holds it, laughing fondly as Hyebin flaps a toy dove's wings in front of her.
They record a dance practice in costume: Greek gods, of course. Hayoon is wearing feathery wings and has rosy blush at the apples of her cheeks and she looks like an angel, feels like one when she hangs over Hyebin's shoulder and watches her talk to the camera.
They're trying to hit a ping pong ball into the Show Champion trophy with improper implements – a block of ramyun for Hyebin – and Hayoon pats her gently to calm her before her attempt, helps her cheat without being asked, and it feels like Hayoon is her true partner in crime.
Hyebin went on Hello Counselor a few months ago. She admitted to resorting to books for romantic advice, talked about being so annoyed by the sight of happy couples that she wanted to spray them with water. She thought there was something wrong with her, that even when she was in relationships she still couldn't figure out how to feel that happiness.
It's a little bit frightening but mostly a relief to finally come to the conclusion that she's not broken.
She just likes girls.
-
Hyebin goes on autopilot as promotions slow down.
They've settled into a less hectic routine: music show, fansign, practice, rinse and repeat. They start to have space for individual schedules or, even better, catching up on sleep. Hyebin appreciates the chance to take a breath, but time starts to feel weird at this point in the promotional cycle; fast when she wants it to be slow and slow when she wants it to be fast.
It's slow right now, backstage after a fansign. Hayoon sits down next to her with a camera in one hand – VIXX TV is constant – and pries her to discuss how she's felt about promotions so far. The words flow from Hyebin's mouth off a subconscious script. Hayoon puts a hand on her thigh when she's done talking, right where her skirt ends and skin begins.
Genuine annoyance flares in Hyebin for one bright moment. "Don't touch me!" she spits out, and is lucky her dynamic with Hayoon is the way it is so it seems like a joke. Hayoon takes it in stride, fighting back a smile and shooing her away.
Hyebin fidgets with the hem of her skirt, absently watches Jaehwa be put through the same rigmarole. The sparks of agitation fall to the floor.
It's just that she's had this big, momentous realization about herself and...the world has carried on as normal. Same as it ever was.
Dynamite era will be over soon and Hyebin feels no closer to anything than she was at the start, just fiddling with a loose thread in a dressing room.
-
It's not really the end of anything.
They're at a rental cottage to film videos for their fourth anniversary and are treating it as their "end of Dynamite era" party, but they're not even technically done with promotions yet – their last performance is tomorrow. Even after they're officially done with Dynamite, they've got overseas concerts coming up, a fanmeet, a Japanese single. August will be here sooner than it seems, and then they'll be promoting again.
It feels like an ending, though, and it has an ache settling in Hyebin's chest.
The other members are definitely acting more like people celebrating an ending than people who have to be up bright and early tomorrow; they've gotten gradually drunker and rowdier as the night has worn on. Sanghee is currently chasing Taewon around the bonfire with the threat of dangling her over it again, and Jaehwa and Wonseok are half-laughing and half-screaming unintelligibly at the affair.
Hyebin laughs along but frankly doesn't know where they're all getting the energy for this. Hayoon went inside, allegedly to go to the bathroom, about half an hour ago, so she's probably asleep on the couch. Hyebin is stuck halfway between the two extremes, bone-tired but restless, like momentum is still pushing while her body tries to stop.
"I'm going to go find our leader," Hyebin says to no one in particular; she's not sure anyone even heard her, but she's itching to do something, even if it's just confirming her suspicion that Hayoon's tapped out for the night.
She trudges back up to the house and opens the back door to find she was half-right – Hayoon is curled up on the couch but awake, watching videos on her phone. As Hyebin gets closer, she realizes the video Hayoon's watching is from one of their recent fansigns, and that ache in her chest throbs a little.
"You know if you want to see VIXX you could just go outside?" Hyebin teases.
Hayoon perks up at the sound of her voice, sits up straighter and pats the spot next to her on the couch. "And risk Sanghee barbecuing me?"
No clever response comes to mind, so Hyebin just makes an affirmative noise and sits, peering over Hayoon's shoulder. Naturally, the video's from one of Hayoon's fansites, so the focus is mostly on her, but Hyebin can see herself in the background laughing.
It was only a week ago, but Hyebin feels nostalgic anyways seeing her own face smiling at her. Like the end of a long day in the summer sun – spent and satisfied and already wanting more.
Mostly satisfied, at least, because she looks back at Hayoon and feels restless again. And maybe it's just because her emotions are high, the weird mood this not-ending ending has her in, but she just thinks...
That she knows Hayoon thinks about kissing girls and doesn't know if it means anything, and that she spent so long thinking she wouldn't ever fall in love but sees the chance shimmering in front of her now, and that she doesn't want to find herself at their next comeback still wondering what it'd be like to kiss a girl. Not if she doesn't have to, at least.
"Something's on your mind," Hayoon says, setting the phone down so she can reach out and grab Hyebin's wrist. She lets that statement sit instead of prodding – shockingly restrained by her standards, and leaving Hyebin too little time to stop herself from saying it.
"I want to kiss you."
Hayoon is silent for a long moment. Long enough for Hyebin to think about all the things she could have – should have – said instead of the truth, and then start assembling an elaborate explanation of everything she's gone through since that hotel in Japan, and then register that the grip Hayoon still has on her wrist is loose and it would be easy to just run out of the room and go let Sanghee sacrifice her to the bonfire.
"I...I really like you," Hyebin says quietly, feebly, stupidly, when Hayoon still hasn't said anything by the time she's flipped through all her options.
Then a little smile hits Hayoon's lips and she tugs at Hyebin's wrist, pulls her forward and kisses her.
And suddenly it all makes sense, everything settling into place like it's all been tucked into bed. That's what the kiss is – not the sparks she's always heard about or the emptiness she's felt before.
Just a warm blanket. Comfort. Home.
"Don't go back outside," Hayoon says afterwards, and doesn't leave Hyebin much of a choice; she wraps her arms around Hyebin and pulls her down on top of her. "I don't want you to get barbecued, either."
Hyebin laughs into her shoulder, the ache in her chest floating out with it.
-
"What are you doing?" Hyebin hisses as Hayoon drags her out of the dressing room, around the corner to an empty hallway. "We have to be on stage..." She reaches for her pocket and remembers she doesn't have her phone with her to check the time, because they're already in their stage outfits, because they have to be on stage- "...probably now."
Considering the not-ending ending Dynamite had, it's fitting that Fantasy is getting a not-beginning beginning. The album is out but the music video isn't for another couple of days, their first music show stage is another day after that, and they're having a whole entire concert right now.
"I'm doing this," Hayoon says, and pulls Hyebin in close to her, knocking their foreheads together. "I love you, I love you, I love you," she near-whispers against Hyebin's lips. "I'm so grateful I get to do this with you."
She kisses Hyebin once, quick and chaste, and then hugs her with all the might of a boa constrictor. Hyebin squirms with all the might of a boa constrictor's prey. The crowd buzzes out in the arena.
Everything has changed, but nothing has really changed at all.