wip graveyard II

[onetenths]

everything shelved from the last idk year~ ૮₍ ˶• ༝ •˶ ₎ა˖ ࣪⭑

parable of the crow, genshin yae miko/kujou sara | 4.7k, modern alternate universe

The tail end of spring sees Sara with her phone against her neck as she shoulders in the door of her apartment, Takayuki in her ear saying something or other about the company. It wasn't often he called and even rarer for him to discuss business through any means other than terse emails once a day or clipped messages passed to her from her reluctant brothers, so Sara knows she should really be paying attention, but there's a strange crick in her neck and she is so, unfathomably, tired. The feeling of an inconvenience she would rather not deal with. Takayuki is still talking to her.

Something like impropriety nags at the back of her head. Long aged and instilled. In high school, university, she would've recoiled at the idea of not hanging onto his every word, but the sky is dark and the city glows neon outside her windows and she's yet to make dinner. She toes off her shoes and hangs her blazer over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, exhales long and slow as she tunes him back in.

"The estate," he is saying. Sara slips into one of the chairs and pries open her laptop. "It will be empty over the summer."

Yoimiya has sent her an email — Sara blinks once in muted surprise at the name before clicking it open. The subject line only reads: Have you seen????? Then a beat. She tries to place the feeling trembling beneath her sternum as she scrolls, but its name is old and unused, carries the taste of dust.

It comes together in fragments, Narukami News, Tuesday, Police. Raiden, missing.

"... I'll handle it," she finally says. And all Takayuki says is, good, good, and then he's hanging up to leave Sara in her silence.

 

It takes two and a half hours to get to Narukami by train and one by express — she considers paying for the latter, but it's been years since she last made the trip and there's a part of her that roils at the anticipation. She sits with her spine straight and her shoulders rolled back, her fingers drumming an absent beat on her thigh. Through the window she watches the city turn green, before the country fields blur into the vine covered stone of the mountains. Back out into openness.

The last time she'd been driven down by Masahito in the car, Kamaji in the passenger seat. She'd been halfway through her undergraduate. It was for Makoto's funeral.

 

The Kujou Estate is not exactly a sprawling thing, but by Japanese standards it still manages to be too big for its own good. While Takayuki likely pays lofty sums to have it maintained to near immaculacy the age still shows, both in architecture and the sporadic patches of inescapable erosion. The place occupies a stretch of land just before the outskirts of Narukami, imposing in its old Edo Period stature.

It's not the only one. Nor are the Kujou's alone in maintaining Narukami's longstanding tradition of clan lineages. The Kamisatos, too, have their own estate, albeit much further out, all while Tenshukaku looms over the town from its seat at the head. Then the Hiiragis, the Mikoshis, the Sangonomiyas on Watatsumi Island, just off the coast.

Sara's not so far removed from it all, back in the city where the name Kujou only incites mild recollection of Takayuki, for there not to be a chafing thrum under her skin as she stands in front of her childhood home. Nothing much has changed.

Nothing much has changed, except for the vast, yawning emptiness. She'd missed the part of the call where Takayuki told her why he'd sent all the staff home, or maybe she hadn't, and it just didn't occur to him to tell her at all, but none of that changes the silence. It was a sensation strange to the estate. Sara had grown around muffled footsteps of the housekeepers and the low timbre of her brothers' voices from the kitchen, the office, Takayuki always and forever at the center. Now all she hears as she traces the dust off the wall with her fingertips is the perpetual sound of distant cicadas. Japanese summer soundtrack.

 

Sara's walking back from the general store with a cheap bottle of sake and a plastic bag filled with vaguely fresh groceries when she sees Yae Miko for the first time in eight years.

She's not sure why it surprises her, of course Miko would be back. She runs her mind over the words — Raiden Ei, missing, but even though everything starts and ends in Narukami, she'd half expected Miko to still be in the city at her publishing house terrorizing all her staff, or whatever it is she does there. Still. Sara comes to a halt at the edge of the park and watches how the hazy spill of the sunset frames Miko's silhouette gold.

There's something tired pulling at her shoulders. It's so incongruous to the Miko she knows she wants to pry it away, if only to restore natural order.

The thought lodges strange in Sara's brain, makes her blink, and before she can really process what she's doing she finds herself stepping past the threshold, feet on warm rubber, stilling paces away from Miko. She's dressed in reds and whites and looks the same as she always has. Pink hair, violet eyes; Sara imagines Miko to have a ten step skincare routine that takes an hour and is filled with products Sara couldn't begin to sound out.

She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it again, tries to find the words when Miko beats her to the punch, turns from where she's perched on the swings with a coy smile to ask, "Is that Kujou Sara?"

Miko says her name the same way she had back in high school. Syllables split: Ku-jou Sa-ra. Like a joke she wasn't in on, amusement lilting across the tones.

"Yes." Sara clears her throat. "... You're back."

"Oh? Shouldn't I be the one saying that?" Miko gives her a grin, feet scuffing at the ground as she pushes, light, nothing more than a sway. "After all, I haven't really gone anywhere. Not like you, little birdie. Right?"

Sara frowns. Absentmindedly she taps one of her fingers wrapped around the sake bottle, sees Miko's eyes dart to it curiously. "You seem successful enough to me."

"Ah, but of course! Yae Publishing House provides nothing more than the highest quality literature Japan can offer."

"Right," Sara says warily. Despite the shadows cast by the trees and the gentle late day breeze, there's a bead of sweat trailing behind the slip of her ear. Down the side of her neck and into the collar of her shirt. Sara thinks she should probably leave, but there's something keeping her rooted.

As always, Miko knows. When has she ever not? Sara watches as her face smooths back out into what could only be described as Yae Miko's approximation of polite, something fraught flickering just once through her eyes. Says, "So what can I help you with, my favourite little crow?"

"Don't call me that," Sara grunts, instinctual, before clicking her jaw closed. Miko's resulting smile is winsome. "I just— I'm sorry."

The thing is, Sara knows too. An old, terrible beast that lingers, sometimes, in the tense hold of her muscles. Ei is missing, words that have grooved themselves into the folds of her brain, and Miko is back in Narukami, sitting at the playground between their high school and Tenshukaku.

Miko inclines her head. Sara drums against the sake again. A new habit, she thinks, and files it away to be inspected later. "There's room, at the estate," she finally gets out. "If you—want. If you want. It's just me this summer."

What expression Miko makes, if she makes one at all, Sara misses; she's already turned on her heels, back out the park, back down the road to the high school, to the estate.

 

When she returns she beelines to the kitchen. The vegetables and meat go in the fridge, fruit in the bowl. She checks the pantry even though she checked it earlier just to make sure the rice is really there and then she turns, movements awkward and halted, to stand next to the kitchen island. The cicadas chirp, and the sake stares at her from where she left it on the counter. There's a feeling of wrongness hiding in the corners that Sara doesn't know how to contend with. It's really not so different from her apartment, but there's something in her, stiffening, expecting.

From the cabinet she pulls out a glass, traces the rim of it with her forefinger. It sits cold and heavy in her palm. The sake doesn't, bottle turning warm in the humidity, and Sara moves to put it in the fridge.

 

It's only the two of them around the estate and yet Miko has managed to find a way to fill every room. She wakes up every day at noon and floats around, peering past doors and gliding the pads of her fingers over everything, anything, casting Sara curious glances, but it's less for the object and more for her reaction.

She'd arrived mid-afternoon three days ago with a single suitcase and her signature smile; Sara was surprised she'd even come at all. When she'd stared blankly at her appearance Miko had only quirked a brow and said, You offered. And Sara had said, Yes, and let her inside.

A part of her, the weary part, already regretted the decision.

Every morning Sara wakes at 5:05 and goes for a run around the borders of the estate. After that it's a shower, a dust of the shelves in her room, then across the hallways into the kitchen to make breakfast. The first day she'd returned it came back to her as easy as breathing. Her hands, hovering over an instinctive mise en place she'd prepared every day, now three people short. She'd sucked in a breath, before exhaling and returning everything to the fridge. Now she makes Miko lunch.

Well isn't this sweet of you, Miko said, eyes still sharp with mirth despite the grogginess in her voice.

Today nothing changes. She wakes up at five past five, tugs on her sneakers and ties the grown out scruff of her hair into a rough bun, half up half down. She needs to get a trim, she thinks absently. Her bangs like to sit over her eyes now and tickle her nose. Outside the cicadas remain as present as ever and the air is crisp in her lungs, free yet from the blanket heaviness of the summer sun. Her feet pound against the grass. She counts her strides in fives.

In high school the only other people awake with her would be the help, but by the time she'd make it around and back home Kamaji would too have risen, sitting at the dining table with his hair slightly askew and a newspaper, or documents, or his phone in hand. He would never quite greet her, but she became familiar over time with his gentle nod good morning.

She's still not quite used to it, the pervasive quiet. There should be — more. Something. She doesn't know. Settles for tangling her fingers through the slightly damp fall of her hair, combing through it slowly, moving on autopilot to pass through the dining room. She's halfway out the room when she stutters to a stop, turns.

"Good morning," Miko says, clearly alight with amusement. She's perched at the dining table with her chin on the bone of her knee, hands wrapped around a mug. Coffee, likely. "I see you're as fond as ever of all your cute routines."

"Yes. Good morning. You're awake early."

Miko hums. "Well, what can I say, it seems lately I find my sleep disturbed by a certain birdie stomping around. And at a time far too early for any sane person, no less."

"I do not stomp." Sara scowls.

In the light of morning Miko tilts her head back, laughs bright and airy, pink hair still loose and untied and spilling back over her shoulders. The sun breathes silver past the windows and catches the curve of her throat. It's hard for Sara's mouth not to dry up, the wrongness of the estate back and encroaching and for one, brief moment, she exposes both stills onto the same picture. Kamaji, Miko. They're sitting in the same chair.

Blinking, she swallows, then clears her throat. Says, "I'm going to take a shower. I'll be back to make breakfast. If you want some, that is."

"Oh of course! I would never turn down a homemade meal. Especially one made by my lovely, neurotic little host." Miko winks at her, and all at once Sara is snapping back into her body, her scowl returning firm.

"I should just let you fend for yourself," Sara huffs. Miko's laughter follows her out the room, down, down, down the hallway. Sara does not listen.

 

"Back then, was this what it was like for you?" Miko asks. They're in the dining room again, Miko back in her spot. Sara watches her chopsticks move between her rice and her tamagoyaki.

It was not often Miko asked without want. The years have passed, yes, but Sara doubts the woman could ever get any less disingenuous with her lines of questioning. "I'm not sure what you're asking, Yae-san," Sara eventually says.

"High school, little birdie. When else? Oh, junior high too, I suppose. Why not."

"I still don't— " Sara starts, until Miko levels her with a blank look and she settles instead for placing her chopsticks over her rice bowl. Parallel, perfectly straight. "Then, yes. I haven't... I've had no reason to adjust my routine. It works for me. Allows me to do what's expected."

Miko only sighs in response. Leans forward to place her chin in her palm, her gaze flitting out towards the fields past the window. Says, "You still talk the same, Kujou. Like the whole world rests on those wings of yours."

 

Someone had said something similar to her long ago. A different voice, a different tone, softer in its execution. Told her, "You need not bear so much of the burden, Sara. It is not yours to carry."

And she'd been so tired at the time that it was hard not to lean into the comfort, the opened arms from an upperclassman only being kind. She remembers the feeling of fingers combing through her hair, just once. Just once. Wanted to say, Do I not? Is it not my responsibility, my duty? My grateful recompense? And had instead chosen silence, pressed on a bruise on her inner wrist until her pulse thrummed heavy under her thumb, embarrassed, queasy.

She'd curled into herself, then. Want licking at her chest like a ravaged beast even though she didn't know, what it was, what it meant, something unnamed and void to her. And then the moment was broken — pink skipping into the room, all mischief and saccharine sweet smiles.

 

Sara does not really garden, but it's only her around — other than Miko, of course, who'd taken one look at Sara's outfit and barked, Absolutely not! — and she feels a fatigued sense of responsibility to not have the help's efforts go to waste.

The groundskeeper still comes around to trim the hedges and mow the lawn, but the garden with all its vegetables and flowers and carefully curated herbage was left to her. She's wrist deep in the dirt hunting for the neglected, dead roots, and Miko's lounging somewhere behind her. Sunbathing, or something. The sun splits the sky and beats down on her exposed shoulders and she can feel eyes on her. The cicadas are still going.

"Do you still shoot?" Miko says, voice floating between the buzz in the air.

Sara turns back to squint at her. "Shoot?"

"Yes. You know." Miko tilts her shades back onto her forehead, stretches her arms out straight towards Sara, one dramatically reaching back towards her ear, before snapping her fingers open. "Pew."

"Ah," Sara says, straightening. "No, it's been a while. There aren't really places in the city, and I lack the time, anyway."

"Aren't there? They say the city has everything, I'm sure you could find something suitable. Thought you would've kept up with that one hobby of yours."

The dirt clings to the sweat on her palms when she goes to brush them on her trousers. She tilts back onto her heels, crouched, forearms leaning on her thighs as she gazes at Miko. Her shades are back on, and her legs are crossed where she lays. She has — acquired a parasol from somewhere to settle on her shoulder, a respectable sheaf of paper in her lap she languidly taps the cap of a pen against. She is terribly beautiful, Sara thinks, and her mind settles around the known fact.

"You were quite good at it, I have to say," Miko continues, unperturbed by Sara's silence. "Ei... Ha. Ei often mentioned it. She respected the sport, though I couldn't care less."

Sara hums. "She was more a kendo person, if I recall correctly? She asked to spar, once."

"Oh, yes. And that was a bore too. Marginally better than watching you shoot arrows, though." Miko tilts her head. "No offense."

Sara only stares, asks, "You watched?"

"Once or twice," Miko says, and Sara can't help but try to rifle through her memories, past all the stony monotony of those days long past. And she can't, can't quite remember anything like what Miko is saying, but she can imagine it. The gym and the targets and Miko sitting quiet, for once, against the wall, slipping out just before Sara could ever notice her.

She wonders how often she did so. If she watched her for Ei, in lieu of Ei.

"I was curious, I suppose. Whether you joined because you liked it or if it was all because daddy dearest signed you up."

It's involuntary, as it always is with Miko. The flush of hot anger ripping up her spine and the clench of her jaw. Irritance swarming in her ears, cicadas now too loud, overwhelming, and the insides of her body seem to itch against the outside. "Don't— call him that," Sara snaps. "Just don't."

Miko raises her arms in smug, satisfied surrender, and Sara returns to the weeds.

 

"But did you, though?" Miko asks later, when they're back inside and in the laundry where Sara can track dirt around consequence free. She's running a small towel under the tap. "Enjoy archery."

For the first time Sara thinks there might be something genuine in the question. Miko is watching her, violet eyes strangely soft where she stands in the slat of the sun. Still, she cannot bring herself to answer. Cannot. Will not.

Miko sighs. Turns off the tap before facing her, curling her hand around the bone of Sara's shoulder to push her lightly towards one of the stools next to the door. She sits, obedient, and allows for Miko to plaster the towel around the back of her neck. Her thumb pressing to the dip between Sara's jaw and neck. Pulse singing.

 

So the days pass. Sun heavy and warm as the season comes into itself and sometimes Sara catches herself trying to keep it, cradle it against her chest. The notion of peace is something indescribable to her, but when she turns the flavour of summer rain and Miko's upturned pout at the frizz of her hair over her tongue, she imagines this could be a feasible enough definition.

The rain falls now, a soft patter against the roof. Sara stands between the open shoji screens in the sitting room and breathes it all in. Holds it in her lungs, petrichor and earth dense air.

"Your hair is getting long," she hears Miko say behind her, a half second given to prepare for the hand that tangles itself in the strands behind her neck. "Unexpected, but it's not so horrible a look."

"I didn't have time to see a hairdresser before I left, and the housekeeper who often trimmed it for me is no longer here."

Miko makes a thoughtful noise, running her fingers through the unkempt wisps at the back, before reaching up to ruffle her bangs before Sara can duck out of reach. "You should let me cut it for you. I've heard I'm rather good."

"No, thank you," Sara grunts.

"Oh you're so terrible to me, Kujou," Miko huffs. Sara chances a glance at her face and immediately averts her gaze back towards the garden; Miko's starting to pout. "I'm so dreadfully bored here."

Wearily, Sara says, "My hair is not a sacrifice for your entertainment," but Miko only waves Sara's words away before curling her hand around her wrist and tugging her in the direction of the bathroom.

In the week and a half Miko's so far stayed she's managed to turn the guest bathroom into her own; when she guides Sara in front of the mirror she can see the neat spread of Miko's belongings, the sakura scented shampoo in the shower. Sara only feels a little vindicated at the fold out toiletry bag being filled with nearly countless skincare products.

"Stay," Miko orders, before slipping out the door. When she returns a minute later, a pair of hairdressing scissors in her hand and a towel folded over her arm, Sara has not budged an inch. Miko clicks her tongue. "What are you, a dog? I said stay, not turn into a statue. You could've at least sat down."

Sara only responds, "Where?"

"This is your house, Kujou. Go fetch a chair."

A minute and a stool hauled in from the kitchen later, Sara's re-positioned back in front of the mirror with the towel clipped firmly around her shoulders and Miko's fingers back in her hair. She has a gentler touch than expected. Her hands tilt Sara's head when needed with nothing more than a light pressure, and occasionally Sara hears a quiet murmur of a thought spoken out loud, or an apology when her nails scrape along her scalp. It reminds Sara, achingly, of when she was a child, when Takayuki had first brought her in and ordered one of the staff to make her visage more presentable: the countenance befitting of a Kujou. Her name had been Yamagishi, and much like Miko she'd been awfully gentle about the whole affair.

At the first slice of her then thigh-length hair, she did not cry. But Yamagishi had squeezed her shoulder in comfort anyway.

Sara watches her hair drift onto the bathroom floor. Navy blue in clumps, a bird in moult. When Miko finally steps away with a final ruffle and a pleased hum it hangs just above her shoulders.

"Not quite how I remember," Miko says, "but it'll do."

 

Yamagishi had a habit of making it so one side of Sara's hair tapered out longer than the other. A slightly asymmetrical bob favouring the right side of her face. In the one year of senior high she shared with Miko she remembers, distantly, a moment near the end of the year when she'd stayed late with the archery club and found Miko lounging on one of the benches facing the sports field. It'd been warm, that day. Miko's ribbon discarded somewhere and the top two buttons of her shirt undone.

"Doing chores, little birdie?" Miko had said, one eye opening languidly as Sara crouched down to wash her hands at the outside tap. "If you want, feel free to help clean 3-2. I'm sure that Kamisato rascal would appreciate it."

The water had been cool over the scrubbed red of her palms. She'd lingered there briefly, mind drifting in its late day haze, before she'd turned to ask, "Why do you call me that? Little birdie. Little crow."

"Hm? Oh, it's not nearly as deep as you probably think it is, Kujou," Miko responded, losing interest all at once. "Your hair merely reminds me of feathers, that's all."

 

("That cage of yours isn't even gilded, Kujou. Do you know that? Do you? Or will you live the rest of your life prostrating at his feet in some sort of sick sense of fealty even after all those times he laid his—")

 

"Say, Kujou," Miko begins one morning, lifting a hand to pull down the iPad Sara's frowning at. She prefers working on her laptop, but lately, in what Sara imagines has arisen from restless boredom, Miko's taken to impeding as much of Sara's personal space as she can. Currently she finds herself on the sitting room tatami with pink hair sprawled over her lap. "What is it you do for fun around here?"

"Did you not grow up here too?" Sara replies, tilting backwards out of reach so she can return to reading all the reports Kamaji has been sending her. "You would know better than I."

"I'm talking about you specifically." Miko leans up to pluck the device entirely out of Sara's hands, before settling back down despite Sara's scowl. "We are on the grand Kujou Estate. Surely, there must be something around here that's fun? Or is it truly all work and no play?"

"It's an estate," Sara says automatically. "It is a place for living. Fun is inconsequential."

"Oh, alright, I get it." Miko huffs, before she puffs up her chest, something haughty affecting her tone, and saying, "One must always do as told and dedicate themselves to that of the Kujou Family's long-lasting prosperity and success, et cetera, and so forth, ad nauseum, or whatever it is you lot all tell yourselves." When Sara doesn't respond, Miko only sighs. "Throw me a bone here, Kujou. You have two brothers, surely there must've been something you all did to stave off the effects of your father's ridiculous perennial ceremony."

Unthinkingly Sara goes to open her mouth, something inside her quick to pounce at Miko's insultingly veiled diatribe against her clan, but she hesitates. It is true, what she said: fun is inconsequential. Takayuki has long since made this clear to her. But — Miko's not so far off the mark. There was a time when they were all young, the three of them, Masahito and Kamaji and Sara, where the folly of youth still lingered in their bones and the newness of being siblings, of having a brother and having a sister, still persisted at the forefront of their interactions. They had sobered up quick, to be sure, but nonetheless.

"In Mt. Yougou," Sara says, giving in and leaning backwards onto her palms. "As I'm sure you know, there's a place in the mountains where, if you walk the right path, you can find a lake."

"It's more a pond than anything," Miko interjects, though she quiets again with a simpering smile at Sara's grunt.

"In any case. There was one day where Masahito and Kamaji and I trekked up there. It was... late summer, I believe. Takayuki was gone on business, and we were young. I was no older than seven or eight. We spent hours there."

Speckled sunlight through the trees. A mossed over statue of a bake-danuki. Water drops on her shoulder and the feel of Masahito's arms around her as he tossed her over his shoulder, flung her into the crisp center of the not-lake. Weightless beneath the surface, her fingers splayed open as she sunk, eyes open in a squint despite the sting so she could watch the world through the water's muffled lens. The last time, Sara thinks, she ever laughed so freely around them.

At Miko's questioning look, Sara clears her throat, embarrassed at having zoned out. "Well, there. That is what we did for fun."

"Truly, I don't think you would know what fun is even if it hit you over the head with a bat," Miko says before standing, her train of thought resuming as she brushes off invisible dust from her skirt. "I rather hate the idea of going swimming, it makes my hair frizz. But at least the weather is pleasant today."

"What?" Sara says, lost, but Miko only rolls her eyes and offers a palm in implicit invitation, and really, Sara is loathe to do anything but follow along.

an absence of breath, genshin arlecchino/sandrone | 3.8k, canon divergence

It's strange, how easily it had all slipped out. Sandrone is not one to talk freely, let alone at all, about things buried so far back in her past that in the space afterwards, just her and Pulonia and the quiet hum of the Bureau, Sandrone had felt something akin to a twinge in her stomach. Or what constituted a stomach for her, anyway.

Arlecchino had mentioned once that the Traveler had a way like that. A penchant for sticking her nose into people's business, whether intentional or not. Perhaps that was where she'd gotten the thought to present this unraveling as simply stories straight from The Knave's mouth, rather than—well.

Wryly Sandrone thinks: perhaps she should drop by with those gifts for the Hearth. Arlecchino would hate it, the idea alone of her pressed lips, the inevitable twitch in her jaw, making Sandrone snicker lightly.

It's a shame she has so much work left to do, the corpses of her machines still piled in a heap inside the center of the Bureau, a glaring, vicious reminder of her failure. Victims to that stupid Sinner. How embarrassing, that in the end she'd done nothing, really, except serve as a mild distraction. An irritant.

Her jaw clicks. Again, that twinge. How annoying. Her hands dig into Pulonia's innards as a heat simmers out from her core, and her thoughts circle back to her conversation with the Traveler, how very incredulous it all was. Fontaine was a dead memory for her. Alain should've been too. Still, she'd known about the Traveler's involvement in shutting down Rene's... what, resurrection? Sandrone wasn't sure, but she wondered about it. A nagging curiosity borne from a ghost sensation of fealty. She never really knew him, what happened to him. Yet she was thinking about it, circles and circles as she roots aimlessly through Pulonia's circuits, thinking about the Sinner, thinking about the Wild Hunt, Columbina—Alain.

A hum slips out her mouth. For a beat she narrows into the sensation of her key, the repetitive turn of it clicking through her gears, pressing her forehead into the expanse of Pulonia's back, before she shuts down all that thinking in favour of reworking Pulonia's weapons system.

In the end she blames Columbina.

It's an unfair copout, Sandrone knows, to place fault on the Moon Goddess who'd done no wrong except yearn so openly for a truth she could not have. Heart wilting in a world that rejects her very presence. It's also unfair, that in a way Sandrone is working towards Columbina's undoing, even if she really wants no part in it, even if she thinks the Edict is a pointless, frivolous waste of money. Columbina might've regained some of her power back, but the Bureau still exists, and Dottore still lingers on the horizon.

Columbina had asked her, once, during one of Sandrone's rare visits to her ridiculous hovel buried beneath the cliffs—asked her about Fontaine, said something like, do you ever miss it?

No, Sandrone had snapped. That was not what she was there for.

I do, had been Columbina's annoying, unnecessary reply. The moon. Even though I've never been.

And what was Sandrone supposed to say to that? She was a robot, an engineer, a doll in the hands of the Tsaritsa, Marionette, and her presence in Nod-Krai went against everything Columbina wanted. Sandrone had no intention of enacting the retrieve part of the Edict, but still she siphons the Kuuvahki from the land. Poisons the well.

In bed Sandrone curls into herself, splays a palm over the space where a pair of lungs should be. How strange she's felt since that third encounter with the Rächer of Solnari, and all of Columbina's talk of belonging.

When her boat finally lands it doesn't take Sandrone long to spot Arlecchino's shadowy, ominous figure waiting for her by the docks.

She should've expected this, really, but for half a second she still considers the urge to fling herself overboard into the sea while she has the chance. It's a shame she has one of those stupid visions keeping her from doing anything except get a little soggy.

"Marionette," Arlecchino greets when Pulonia strides down the ramp, Sandrone perched upon his palm as per usual. "I received your letter. I have to say, I found myself disbelieving regarding your... return."

Sandrone sniffs. Arlecchino's hands are clasped behind her back, her spine ramrod straight, and it's always so very difficult to not be irritated by her colleagues. "I'm not sure I asked for a welcoming ceremony in my letter, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, Knave."

Around them is the bustle of other Fatui moving off the ship, cargo being loaded and unloaded and loaded again, and between the movement Sandrone is forced to watch Arlecchino's lips flicker up into smirk. Her hand twitches. Curls into a tight fist in her lap, before she exhales, brows pinching together.

"Fine. Here. Save me the diplomatic speech, Knave," Sandrone starts sharply. "I'm here in a personal capacity. I have no intention of visiting The Court, or the Palais, or the Hearth. I understand you've brokered some sort of peace with the Iudex, so whatever concerns you have about my presence as another Harbinger, you can forget it. Fontaine is still yours."

Arlecchino's lips only twitch. "I didn't come by to discuss that, Sandrone, but I appreciate the forethought."

"Somehow I find that disbelieving. So why are you here, then?"

"I was merely curious," Arlecchino says. "I thought you possessed no love for our homeland. I wondered what could possibly have brought you back, when there's business still to be done in Nod-Krai."

Archons, does it chafe to talk to her. Our homeland, Arlecchino says, knowing it would tick her off. Sandrone was created in this land centuries ago; her Fontaine is very different to the mere blip of the Fontaine in Arlecchino's lifespan, nevermind that Arlecchino doesn't consider herself Fontainian at all.

Grinding her teeth she peers over Arlecchino's shoulder at a spot in the distance, before saying, pointedly, dryly, "Merde."

"How vulgar. Are you really not going to indulge me?"

"Dottore's back in Nod-Krai," Sandrone sighs. "Columbina's safe. There's some issue with the Sinner. The Traveler is there, and all her lovely band of heroes, and I wanted away from Dottore. He's irritating and getting in my way." For a second Sandrone purses her lips before adding, "and I really do have personal business here. Happy?"

Humming, Arlecchino says, "it was easier than I anticipated, getting that out of you," and Sandrone smothers the sudden desire to kill herself via an attempt to strangle Arlecchino's neck.

"Why are you here, Knave?" Sandrone stresses again. She always feels weird when it comes to Fontaine, so much that simply being there has her hackles raised higher than normal, the landscape too familiar and completely unknown to her altogether. She doesn't want to bother with Arlecchino and her bizarre conversations, body wound too taut from the journey.

Arlecchino seems to notice this, her head tilting slightly, before her palm raises in peace. "Calm down, Sandrone. You're more on edge than usual. As I said, I was merely curious." Sandrone narrows her eyes as Arlecchino re-clasps her hands. "That aside, I was going to offer you a room at the Hearth, if need be. Last I was aware, it has been a long time since you've stepped foot in Fontaine. Physically, at least. It would be poor manners of me not to at least provide accommodation to my colleague."

"I can sort out my own lodgings, thank you, Knave," Sandrone mutters, taken aback. In the arising silence she studies the taper of Arlecchino's shoulders, posture square and impeccable, the flutter of her silver bangs in the breeze. Nothing out of place. Sandrone thinks: Arlecchino is never usually this courteous with her. Thinks: "You've been spending too much time with Columbina. I sure hope this wasn't put up by her."

At that, something like a laugh titters out of Arlecchino's mouth, and that's it, Sandrone's had enough of this song and dance. Arlecchino is being weird and Sandrone has work she needs to do, for Archons sake, and so she snaps, orders Pulonia and her goons to move, before yelling something like, Don't come bothering me! over her shoulder, into the wind.

Really, the fact she was even in Fontaine was a moronic decision. If she were human she'd reduce it to stress, muddled reasoning caused by sleep deprivation from the last few weeks of ceaseless, around the clock work, first rebuilding what was left of her robots, then her unwilling collaboration with Dottore regarding what all the Kuuvahki she's been sucking the land dry of is to be used for. It's unfortunate, then, that she isn't human, and these are not things that affect her.

Hah. She blames Columbina. Blames the Traveler. This business with the moon has buried into her head and forced something she never wanted unlocked.

Standing in the empty, abandoned ruin of a workshop in the mountains of Liffey, Sandrone roughly drags her nails over the skin of her chest and wonders if she'll ever get over it. That ghost thrum of a heartbeat that shouldn't exist.

Arlecchino does not listen to her, which, in hindsight, should've been enough to clue her into how impossibly terrible an idea this homecoming was.

In fairness it's partially her fault; Arlecchino finds her early one morning in the Quartier Lyonnais, chin buried beneath a scarf as she stares at her Katheryne.

"I believe I recall you saying you had no intention to visit The Court, Marionette," Sandrone hears her say. Voice irritatingly smooth as she comes to a stop. Pointedly, Sandrone does not look at her.

"My Katheryne is acting up. I thought I may as well do maintenance, while I'm here."

The thing about being a machine, is that Sandrone doesn't need to look, to see. She has a million sensors all over her body for any number of minute things: to know the weather, the temperature, a constant, ticking number in the back of her head measuring the humidity in the air; decibel meters, sensors to measure input, output, of anything. It was, in a way, her creator's attempt at approximating being human: overload her systems with the sense of everything. Not that it made any difference. She can piece apart one thing from another with terrifying accuracy, and as far as she knew, average humans didn't possess the ability to compute differential equations in the blink of an eye.

Briefly, she wonders who would do it quicker. Her or the robot girl in Nod-Krai.

The point is that she doesn't need to look at Arlecchino to know she's studying the profile of her face and the clothes she's wearing. Her normal dress swapped out for something simpler. A coat hugging her small frame, all things that screamed Seventh Harbinger hidden away. She'd even changed her key out for something more discrete, though she misses the heaviness of her usual one.

"I was not aware you did so in person," Arlecchino says.

"I don't," Sandrone snips. "That would be inefficient. Have some common sense, Knave. I cannot be in seven nations at once. I'm not a freak like he is."

Again. She doesn't need to turn to know Arlecchino's raising an eyebrow at her outburst.

"Has Dottore done something in particular?" She asks, inclining her head slightly. Calculating. "You seem tense."

Sandrone clicks her tongue. "Am I not always uptight, to you? You and Columbina both enjoy bothering me about that."

"Uptight, yes." Arlecchino raises a palm, horizontal, facing the sky. "Stressed, no. You dislike the Second, and after he returns to Nod-Krai, you visit Fontaine. A place I distinctly remember you holding no shortage of distaste for."

"No one likes the Second. He's a creep."

Arlecchino only makes an agreeing noise in the back of her throat. Inside her booth her Katheryne is looking at the two of them, Sandrone's creation, her own approximation of humanity, face rather confused. In the quiet she wonders if her Katheryne wonders, if she's debating cutting in, saying something to the person who made her, to ask why.

"Relax, Arlecchino," Sandrone eventually grumbles back, blinking out of her musing. "You can let go any ideas of slaughtering Dottore in his sleep. He's awful, yes, but no more than he usually is."

"I didn't ask out of concern for you. Though, I do find it rather difficult to let go ideas of, as you put it, slaughtering Dottore in his sleep."

Sandrone huffs out a laugh at that, before crossing her arms. For a beat she thinks, staring back at her Katheryne, before sighing and reaching up to rub at her temples. A symbolic gesture more than anything—Sandrone doesn't feel pain.

It was always off-putting to hold conversations with Arlecchino with no one else around. Rarely did they meet for business, given that Arlecchino's work largely hinged on diplomatic relations where Sandrone's did not, and if she for whatever reason needed something made she'd simply go to that mechanic kid of hers. The last time had been in Nod-Krai, brief, and fleeting. The only times they ever really did interact were at Sandrone's tea parties.

At these Columbina—and Rosalyne—had been their buffer; Arlecchino did not care for the rest of the Fatui. Neither did Sandrone for that matter, but she had her own personal hangups. Fontainian ceremony was etched into her very core.

Of course, then Rosalyne had to up and die. Columbina disappeared not long after, and then it was just Arlecchino, and herself, and all the nauseating diplomats they'd had to entertain. Why Arlecchino kept agreeing to join her whenever she was in Snezhnaya, Sandrone had no clue. Regardless—

She sighs again. Digs around in her pocket before slipping out a key and walking towards the side door of Katheryne's little Adventurer's Guild booth.

To Arlecchino she simply turns to ask, "Would you like to watch?"

The room hidden behind the booth is awkwardly cramped, humid, almost, in its smallness, designed only really for Sandrone to use if she was around to tinker with Katheryne. Spare parts sat littered on the singular shelf, Katheryne shut down and limp in the center.

In the corner Arlecchino leans against the wall with her arms folded together across her torso, unnaturally still. Sandrone wonders if this is who people seem to find so intimidating. She considers it for a moment, Arlecchino's unflinching poise in tandem with the simple physicality of herself, broad shoulders, lean muscle, her unnerving red-crossed eyes, et cetera, and so forth, and finds she doesn't understand all the dread that surrounds The Knave.

Then again, it's not as if she doesn't have her own collection of terrifying rumors in circulation. The Seventh, they say, has a temper, and a short fuse. The Seventh, they say, will not hesitate to turn her own creations onto someone whose tongue simply slipped at the wrong time. In some ways they were alike, she supposes.

Turning back to Katheryne she fishes out a second, thinner key, slipping it into the small keyhole below the nape of her neck. She twists it, listens for that telltale click, before sliding her hands down Katheryne's back. Unlaces her dress until she's able to press open the panel leading to her puppet's operating core. Power thrumming beneath her fingers as she slides them across gear teeth, feeling the metal out until she unearths whatever problem has lodged its way into Katheryne's system.

In the dim, Arlecchino does as she was offered, and only watches. Sandrone's surprised she agreed at all.

Walking down the slowly waking streets of Quartier Lyonnais, Arlecchino says, "I have to admit, it was rather... uncanny, to watch you undress Katheryne like that."

"I hardly undressed her." Sandrone frowns. "Besides, she's not real. Why would you care? Don't go telling me I've gone and awoken some strange fetish in you. If I have, I don't want to hear it."

"No. You have not," Arlecchino says, giving her a mild look before returning to the road. Tilting her nose into the morning chill, she seems to mull over something. "I suppose to me she's as real as you or I. Is it intentional, that she nearly looks like you?"

Sandrone purses her lips. "Does she," she responds dryly, hedging around the topic. It's annoying the way Arlecchino has managed to accidentally tread into the very territory that brought her back to Fontaine in the first place. "Katheryne is my most successful creation—aside from Pulonia, that is. I have built more versions of her than the Adventurer's Guild, the world, has ever seen."

"Mm. Do you consider yourself real, Sandrone?"

Sandrone stops short, her eyes narrowing at the back of Arlecchino's stupid head as she wrestles with the spike of irritation rippling through her systems. "What are you playing at, Knave?" She snaps. "Don't ask ridiculous questions. Did opening that Abyss portal make you even duller?"

Arlecchino's mouth only quirks in response, amused, before she pauses to let Sandrone catch up. To her credit, she doesn't press further. Opts instead to simply say, "Not quite an Abyss portal."

"Abyss—whatever! I don't care!"

Fontaine likes to wake slowly, and then all at once. Arlecchino chuckles low under her breath as she pauses by one of the fruit stalls, a blackened hand wrapping around one of the Bulle Fruits placed on display, testing its weight, prodding at the softness of its flesh while Sandrone hovers behind her. Saying nothing she methodically appraises the stock, picking out the ones she deems suitable before passing over a handful of mora.

On her way out, she tosses a fruit in Sandrone's direction. "It was only a question. No need for hysterics."

"Hysterics," Sandrone splutters, aghast, before stomping after Arlecchino's form to level insults at her, or to attempt to smack the backside of that infuriating head, or whatever—but the damage had already been done.

Do you consider yourself real?

When Sandrone had first left Fontaine she was something like fifty years old and was yet to go by Sandrone. What she remembers most from that time was the water, how it had yet to rise, how she could walk out onto the front porch of Alain's hidden workshop in the mountains and peer out and out over all the green hills, down into the blue of Fontaine's sea, untouched yet by the primordial waters.

Sometimes, if Alain was in one of his better moods, he would talk to her about it, the prophecy foretelling the supposed doom of all Fontainians. One day, he told her, gazing into the ocean much like her, they say the oceans will rise, and all the sin in Fontaine will be washed away. Every Fontainian dissolved, until only our Archon remains, seated upon her throne.

Mulling over his words, she'd asked, Do you believe that?

Wrong question, my little doll, he'd responded, one of his hands coming down to ruffle the top of her hair. Young as she was she'd only blinked her cold, empty eyes in response, still fixated on the blue. Blue, blue, blue, for miles and miles, until the shapes of mountains in the horizon from a different nation an ocean and a prophecy away.

Sandrone never worked out what the question he'd wanted her to ask was. For all her childish efforts, core and system and circuits still trying to learn how to navigate the logic of a world so illogical, she'd been too slow—Alain was human, after all. If what she remembers the most is the water, then the second was the day she found Alain dead. Sandrone shrugging her coat off her shoulders, a paper bag of tea and cakes from The Court, and Alain, upright and still at his desk in the corner.

If it weren't for all those sensors in her skin she'd have thought him simply asleep.

It was methodical what followed after. A machine she was, after all. A trip to all his other workshops, his papers read and re-read and memorised in her systems, before hefted into piles and returned to Liffey. The plume of smoke in the air behind the house, and then her hand clasped over her chest, the shape of something starting to form behind her fingers.

Was she real? A question contended with over and over as she drifted around the mountains, trying to work out what it was Alain wanted her to do next. Shut herself down? Let herself rot alongside the flowers in the garden and the waters rising along the ground? She was a machine alone—aimless, without her brother, her creator, herself. Yes, she was real. That was obvious. She was artificial skin and metal bones and organs made of wires, stomach made of teeth. but more than that, she was inimitable, Alain's greatest and final creation.

Do you consider yourself real, Sandrone?

Wrong question, Knave, she'd wanted to respond. That's the wrong question entirely.

For a week Sandrone shuts herself in the old house, doing something, doing nothing at all, really.

The oceans really did rise, as per the prophecy. From her spot on the porch the waters have crawled so far up the hill that the old farmhouses now sit abandoned beneath the clear blue, and it takes Sandrone less than ten minutes to descend to the new shoreline. Alain's house is in no danger. The waters have stopped climbing—Focalors and Furina's masterful gambit coming to fruition. The Hydro Sovereign with his power reclaimed, and a nation free of sin. Now she sits on the crumbling stone of the front steps, Arlecchino's decaying Bulle Fruit heavy in her hands, an echo of herself from centuries ago.

Her thumbs dig into the skin, flesh splitting between artificial nails and staining them orange. She slides a forefinger under the resulting tear and separates rind from the meat. An echo, a ghost, herself overlapped with herself four hundred years apart. If she could expose both versions onto the same picture, she wonders if she'd be able to tell herself apart, if age shows on her immutable skin. The last time she did this, she thinks, ripping away a slice of Bulle Fruit and placing it onto her tongue, she was still not Sandrone. A child, with fruit blood on her hands and that something forming into a shape so tangible it bled from the force of her hunt. Anger, she remembers finally being able to place, and loneliness. So much of it.

I'll show you, Alain, she'd thought. Crushed juice dripping between her fingers returning to the ground. You created me and left me and I am you and you are me and I am Mary-Anne and I am not. I will outdo you. I will become what you couldn't, show you what a genius without the limitations of humanity can create.

Sandrone was guilt and grief made physical. She'd known that then and knows it now, metal carved from the legacy of a woman she's never met and yet knows so intimately.

The Bulle Fruit is sweet on her tongue. She places another sliver alongside the last. Bites down. Eats. And does not swallow.”

permutations of burning, katseye megan/daniela | canon(???) 500w scrap

and you wonder,

given the poverty of your memory, which road had the

most color last year, but it doesn't matter since

you're probably too late anyway, or too early—

whichever road you take will be the wrong one.

and you've probably come all this way for nothing.

Somewhere between dragging Lara out their apartment and making it to LAX, Megan loses her airpods; in the lounge she has to basically tip everything out her purse so she can dig past two different hairbrushes and a million hairties to pull out her wired headphones.

It's an eleven hour flight between LA and Milan, and then, like, a two hour drive to the place they rented. Walking through duty free she'd briefly considered buying a new pair of airpods, but then Sophia had physically wrangled her out the electronics section, lecturing about responsible spending or whatever, so that battle was over before it began.

Tediously she untangles the wires. Right crossed over left and then back over, looped around again. Et cetera. Daniela gives her a curious look from where she's set up in the leather seat opposite Megan. For a moment Megan thinks she's going to say something, but then Sophia skips over with a bowl of crackers and a water while Manon trails behind with a glass of wine that makes her pull a face, so everyone gets distracted and Megan goes back to detangling.

Left looped through right. Around and around. Eventually all the wires unravel and she's able to sink back into the black leather and jam the connector into her charger socket.

It takes her a minute to scroll through her liked music, and then she's tapping on one of the albums she'd downloaded a month ago while trying to prepare the vibes for this trip, or whatever. André Laplante; Ravel. Jeux D'Eau, Pavane for a Dead Princess. Miroirs. Lara had stalked Megan's Airbuds one evening and messaged with a screenshot saying some shit like, Wowwww on ur CLassical grind 💪💪💪

They're taking a red-eye. Through the windows behind her she can tell the sun is starting to dip below the horizon line, knows from the way the light is beginning to leak wide and golden onto the table, across Daniela's skin.

She's played this before. On her thighs her fingers twitch, briefly, before she closes her eyes and lets the quiet notes of Prélude float through her ear.

Megan has no idea whose idea it really was, just that one day she'd walked back into practice after lunch and was greeted with Sophia staring intently at her phone while Daniela and Lara hovered around her shoulders. She'd squinted her eyes at them for, like, a second, before her FOMO kicked in and she'd ambled her way over to also peer over Sophia's shoulder.

"Hi," Lara said, not looking up at her once. Daniela only shifted over slightly so Megan could slot herself between them. On Sophia's phone, the American Airlines website was pulled up, with a list of flights between LAX and FCO.

"Hi. Italy?" Megan had asked, to Sophia's confirming hum. "Why?"

"Because," Lara responded, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It's Italy. And I want to go on holiday."

Megan just blinked. "Okay."

"Where in Italy are we going?" Daniela asked, propping her chin onto Megan's newly available shoulder.

The answer to that was, apparently, completely undecided.

Anyway, whatever. Megan didn't know shit about Italy. She was halfway to removing herself from the conversation entirely when Manon had tilted her head backwards on the couch and chimed in, "Como is kinda close to Lucerne."

Sophia had paused, once, just briefly. Her eyes flicking sideways to Manon's lazy sprawl. "Okay," she'd eventually said. "North Italy. We should do that."

Manon only hummed, while Daniela had perked up and said, "Oh, like that movie!"

"I still think we should've gone to Sardinia," Lara is saying.

party mode, katseye megan/daniela | 1.8k, formula one au

“But while Ferrari have made it clear it was them that made the first successful offer, it didn’t take

long for other teams to come sniffing. Rumors are that Mercedes had also tossed their hat into the ring.

But it was McLaren—having too kept a watchful eye on the young talent—who made the final, quiet

offer to Skiendiel; Ferrari’s bitter rival playing the underhanded game just one more time— and winning.”

 

- How McLaren Are Moulding America’s Next Formula 1 Champion, The New York Times, July 8, 2022.

 

——————

 

Q. And just one final question for you, Daniela. News has broken that McLaren have committed to

their project and are bringing in Megan Skiendiel for the 2025 season. As someone familiar with

Skiendiel, what are your thoughts on the decision? McLaren seem to view her as their own personal

Verstappen.

 

A. My thoughts? Um, I’m—not sure. I don’t have any comment on her being like Max. I guess I’d say

that she’s always been fast. Yeah. Megan is fast. That I can promise you. I would know better than anyone.

 

——————

 

 

 

The first time Megan sits in the McLaren, it feels like coming alive.

It’s not the first time Megan’s driven a Formula One car. Last year Andrea had her driving laps in one of their old cars under the guise of testing, over and over and over again until she’d netted more miles than the rest of the Formula Two grid combined, until she’d gotten used to all the different little intricacies spider-webbing out from every twitch on the wheel.

But it’s the first time the McLaren is hers. Not Ricciardo’s. Not Norris’. Not Piastri’s. Hers, with the shiny new 2025 livery and the number 45 adorning the nose.

When the engine roars to life underneath her feet she clamps her eyes shut, squeezes her hand around the wheel grips as she tries to etch into her brain the way her bones rattle beneath her skin, how her nerves jolt to life for what feels like the very first time.

“How’s it feel?” Her engineer crackles over the radio.

Megan pries open her eyes. Takes three very careful, deep breaths. Licks her lips beneath her helmet. “Good,” she replies. “It feels good.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

When McLaren finally revealed to the media that they’d signed Megan as Norris’ replacement, Daniela was one of the first to text her. It was short and to the point but a text nonetheless, something Megan hadn’t even really expected. Not after 2023.

Hey, it’d said, I saw the news. Just wanted to say congrats. I know you’ll do great.

Megan had responded with something equally as polite and they’d left it at that.

She wasn’t entirely sure how her interactions with Daniela were going to go that year—a part of her wanted to reach out again, to ask Daniela for advice, tips, another congratulations, or just anything, really. A different part wanted simply to move on from their time as teammates entirely.

 

So maybe it surprises her a little when Daniela approaches her for the first time at the end of testing, just before Megan enters the media pen.

“Megan,” Daniela says softly, wrapping a hand around her bicep quickly to stop her from walking any further. “Hey, listen. I just wanted to congratulate you again. And to say good job.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Megan’s a third of the way through trying to towel off the remaining drops of champagne sticking to her neck when she hears it: a rapid string of knocks against the glass door separating the drivers rooms from the rest of the team hub, the hushed hiss of her name.

For a beat she pauses, twisting the towel around her hands in thought; most of the team are still trackside at the garage taking photos with the car, doing interviews and PR or whatever else they need to do after a win, and Oscar, as far she’s concerned, hasn’t come back to his driver’s room yet. She has literally zero idea who would need to sneak around the team hub.

Megan purses her lips, attempts to go back to rubbing at her champagne coated skin. She’s mostly just determined to ignore whoever it is until she picks up, this time louder, the bang of a fist against the glass and the familiar cadence of a voice going, “Megan, oh my god, let me in,” and, ah. Well.

“Um,” she says, letting Daniela shoulder her way inside. “Okay. What—are you doing here?”

Daniela simply shrugs, spinning lightly on her heel so she can stalk towards Megan, forcing her to slink backwards. It’s—Daniela’s looking at her like she’s some animal, eyes dark and teeth sharp. Neither of them have taken their suits off, their fireproofs, Daniela’s bright rosso corsa against Megan’s black and papaya.

“Dani,” she tries. But it’s futile, really. She’d known it would be the moment she’d resigned herself to letting Daniela through the door.

“That overtake,” Daniela hums, all gravel in her voice as she slinks into Megan’s personal space, crowding her against the door. Megan’s forced to suck in a quiet, tight breath, head knocking lightly against the wood. Nerves on edge. She’s been keyed up since the chequered flag, the podium. “Against Piastri.”

Lap fourty. Twelve lap old hard tyres and a chase for position, for first. Megan knows what Daniela’s talking about. But it’s hard to get a word in when Daniela’s suddenly wrapped her hands around Megan’s waist, her fingers digging into the skin beneath Megan’s ribs, breath hot against her neck. The words catch behind Megan’s teeth as she wrenches her eyes shut.

“What,” she eventually rasps, “what about it?”

“Tell me,” Daniela says, and it’s a demand, really. Against her muscle she can feel the buzz of Daniela’s lips, the way the feeling licks down her spine like flame to oil.

“It was—we pitted,” Megan starts on an inhale, Daniela’s fingers moving with her voice. Dragging down along her side. “Second. I was behind. I had to—get past Verstappen, first. Russell was on a different strategy. Hadn’t pitted yet. You were—” Megan grits her teeth slightly, tilts her head back further as Daniela starts trailing her lips down Megan’s skin.

The nip of teeth against her jugular. Fingers teasing at the hem of her fireproofs. “Keep going.”

“You were behind me, we pitted on the same lap. My outlap was better.” Megan licks her lips. “Lap fourty I got to Oscar. Up La Source, he was, um, four-tenths ahead of me. Flat through Eau Rouge and Raidillon. I could smell his tyres, they were—they were too hot.”

Megan can imagine it perfectly in her minds eye, feels her fingers mimic the upshifts and downshifts at her side, the flex of her thighs as she relives the braking zones, the spring of the accelerator coiling up beneath her foot. Dani, now, slipping a palm under the thin nomex of her top and rucking it upwards.

“Kemmel Straight,” Megan spits out. Her heart jack hammering against her chest. She feels electrified, like loose wire ends left to spark helplessly, endlessly, nerves jacked up from the adrenaline of racing, from winning. Top step of the podium leaving her taut and running high. “I had DRS. He was too far ahead to catch in the middle. I feinted—outside line, took the inside right before Les Combes. It was stupid. He should’ve known.”

Daniela drags her mouth along Megan’s jaw before hovering over her ear. Says, “And then?”

“And then—It was mine. The position. The race.”

“Good girl,” Daniela finally murmurs, one of her hands reaching up to curl around Megan’s jaw, her thumb pressing into her lips. Megan’s easy, is the problem. It doesn’t take much for her to split her lips, to let Daniela run the pad of her thumb over the grooves of her front teeth, to slip two fingers inside her mouth. Megan’s hands twitch uselessly as Daniela presses down on her tongue and she can still taste it, the bitter citrus of the Ferrari Trento.

The thing about racing, when you cut through the fat and really get down to it, is that it’s a sport about hunting. Absently Megan thinks this as Daniela pulls her hand away and finally kisses her, Megan’s own hands coming up to fist at the material of her fireproofs, tugging her closer, desperate.

Predator and prey, simultaneously. Megan flinches into the light scrape of Daniela’s nails across the bones of her ribs, lets her fall open at the feel of Daniela licking at her bottom lip. Predator and prey. It’s bad form, really, to roll over and leave your stomach bare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

it's only for us, billlie tsuki/suhyeon | 3.3k, semi-canon compliant

That the radio always plays

what would have been your favorite

songs. That there’s always coffee

if you want it. That you’re

there. That it’s real.

 

- neil hilborn, things that i hope are true about heaven

 

 

 

 

 

Tsuki’s not sure why it’s there, on the steep weed-lined path down to the closest Family Mart, that the memory decides to rear it’s head, but it does.

“Do you know what this reminds me of,” she announces, more to herself than anything. Suhyeon and Siyoon are next to her, squished three-aside on a path designed for maybe two people, max, but neither of them are paying any real attention. Suhyeon’s been walking backwards practically since the moment they’d left the house, when Haruna had announced that she was hungry and wanted some ice cream and the rest of them had all decided to give up fan-cooled rooms for the salt-sticky air blanketing them down the street.

Haram is the one that eventually gives. “What, Tsuki,” she drones, sounding theatrically bored.

Because Tsuki can never do anything without dramatics, because Suhyeon is still next to her, trying to trick Haruna into losing a game of cham cham cham, instead of responding she only sniffs and says, “never mind, then.”

“You are so—” Suyeon grouses from where she’s rounding up the back, before giving up entirely.

In front of them the path is spattered with the evening light. Wide slats of sunset gold slotting between the croaking gaps of old wooden seaside houses. The heat this time of the year has already begun to seep into every cranny it can find, sweat that itches at the nape of Tsuki’s neck, wobbling orange sun that blazes long and slow.

It’s summer, in Kamakura.

“Alright, Tsuki-yah,” Suhyeon eventually says, turning back around to knock their elbows together. Behind her Haruna’s putting on a fake show, lips pouted and eyebrows creased after falling victim to three rapid bouts of rock paper scissors, and Tsuki can’t help the twitch in her smile. “Go on. What does this remind you of?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Across the street a cat darts out from underneath a parked car. Matte grey all over, except for its beady black eyes that judge them from where it’s decided to settle in front of someone’s gate.

From beside Tsuki, Suhyeon breathes out a loud gasp, falling back to tiptoe across the road and crouch a small distance away with futile hope that maybe it’ll let her give it a scratch. Sua pauses to frame her increasingly pathetic attempts inside the viewing lens of her camera; Suyeon and Siyoon both coo at the small creature a respectable distance away, all the while Haram’s laugh rises gentle and bright through the noise.

Tsuki thinks that she might’ve had something to say, but she’s forgotten, now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside the Family Mart Tsuki makes a beeline to the cold section. Slams open the freezer with all the ice cream and half-buries her head inside of it, shutting her eyes to better feel the prickle of frosty air. Distantly she can hear the quiet flow of conversation from her members. Almost a world away, muffled and unintelligible, whilst the flicking fluorescent light of the convenience store bleeds into her vision.

When she was younger, her mom used to tell her off for doing this exact thing. At the time she was still short enough that the process of trying to get the sweat stained length of her neck close enough to the ice involved having to stand on her tiptoes, hip bones jammed into the plastic sides of the cooler from where she’d folded over herself. Back then, she’d only get a few minutes amongst the cool, if she was lucky.

“Tsuki-yah!” She hears now, faux irritation laced in the low timbre of Sua’s voice. “Ah, really. Didn’t I tell you to stop doing that?”

“Seriously, Kim-Tsu-ki,” Suhyeon’s follows. Airy and light and irritating all at once.

When she emerges from the cooler, the world rushes back in waves. Like surfacing from water. The harsh white walls that make her squint, Haram’s trembling folded lips from where she’s desperately trying, and failing, to keep herself from laughing, the quiet electronic ding of the sliding doors marking the entrance of some poor, unsuspecting Kamakura resident, as Suyeon innocently pretends like she hasn’t just taken a thousand photos of Tsuki’s head inside an ice cream freezer.

“Did you—find anything interesting down there?” Haram attempts, before crumpling into a heap on the floor to the pained sound of Siyoon’s groan.

“Unnie, did you even try with that one?”

Outside the cicadas sing their summer song. The foam splits across the sand. Inside the fridges hum quietly and Suhyeon’s sandals squeak against the tiles as she comes to prop her head over Tsuki’s shoulder, peering into the freezer. “Is there anything good in there?”

“I want a coolish,” Haruna joins in, as Sua drifts towards the drinks section, asking, “does anyone want any beer to bring back with us? Soju? Chūhai?”

Something about this feels fleetingly familiar and unfamiliar all at once, strikes at a cord within Tsuki’s chest that has her blinking at the sight. She can’t put her finger on it. In front of her Haruna’s holding up different ice creams to show Suhyeon, who hasn’t moved from her perch atop Tsuki’s shoulder, and the baby hairs that curl around the tip of her ear tickle at the feeling of Suhyeon’s soft breaths as she oohs and ahs at the selections.

“You, Tsuki-yah?” Suhyeon waves a hand in front of her eyes. “If you keep staring at me like that I’m just going to choose for you.”

“Okay,” she says easily.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They take the long, scenic way back, along the path that runs parallel to the beach. Families crowd the sand in groups, bright, ringing laughter and shouts floating through the air amidst the sounds of cars trundling, bike bells resonating as they zip past their little group.

“Tsu-chan,” Suhyeon sings from behind Tsuki, arm reaching over the top of her shoulder. Pinched between her fingers an offering.

Tsuki has to hold Suhyeon’s wrist to steady her hand, and can feel the slow, steady pulse of her veins underneath her thumb. Opens her mouth to wrap her lips around the small ice cream balancing precariously at the end of the blue plastic toothpick.

Next to them the ocean yawns endlessly wide. The sun still burning across the calm waves, so vivid it almost hurts her eyes. In her mouth, the pino melts against her tongue, chocolate sticky sweet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Europe stint of their tour had been the catalyst for this. Their begrudgingly given but given all the same five day respite at the seaside in Japan, after the company had taken a look at their deteriorating health, the way they would come back to the hotels at the end of the night mindless, distant in a place half-out their bodies, and probably thought a little too hard about the ten months Suhyeon and Sua were gone. 

They’re just overcompensating, Suhyeon had said, but made it clear that she held no reservations about a free holiday.

They still have concerts, after this. One in Yokohama; one in Osaka, where Tsuki and Haruna will both get a day or two off to see their families before they’re packed into a plane and flown back to Korea, because the schedule only permits so much free time. There’s a comeback they have to knock out before they’re off again. A music video to film, songs to record, some festivals. Then a month flitting between cities in the Americas, where they’ll crowd together backstage in the dark of tiny venues and wish sometimes that they were back here— sweet summer.

Kamakura isn’t Osaka, isn’t home, but they’d wanted the beach and the wooden house with the tiny patch of backyard and the quiet nights where the only sound comes from the whirr of the ceiling fan and Suhyeon muttering in her sleep.

So—given, all the same.

“You lose if you don’t play, rock paper scissors!”

The Airbnb they’re staying in is tucked away in a quiet stretch of neighbourhood, parked not far from the crest of the hill that gives the top floor windows their sprawling view, stretching out and out into the endless blue. It ticks all the boxes they’d wanted, for some reason: flaky wooden pillars, narrow staircase that has them banging their knees against the steps, dusty tatami rooms with shōji that open out to a creaky verandah and a tiny kitchen where they keep crashing into each other trying to get water.

“Shit,” Haram grumbles, flopping backwards onto the tatami. “Ah, shit! I’m gonna get stuck with all the babies again!”

“That’s what you get for losing,” Suhyeon chortles. Reclined next to Tsuki with her palms stretched out behind her, the wind ruffles her loose hair, makes strands stick to the sweat dotting the line of her scalp. Tsuki fixates on it, the way the light brown dye has faded into something more ashy, before reaching over to hook the brown with her forefinger, nail dragging lightly against Suhyeon’s skin as she tucks the hair behind her ear.

The shōji screens were slid open a while ago, after Suhyeon and Sua and Haram had knocked back two six-packs between the three of them and started complaining about how hot they were. It hadn’t really helped, only a feeble breeze here and there floating in through the backyard, but Tsuki’s made her way through enough chūhai by now that she’d had to relocate from where Suyeon was using her as a pillow to the verandah, grateful for the occasional hit of cool air. 

Suhyeon blinks at her, first, before the curves of her eyes quietly turn up into her signature crescent moons. Tsuki’s head spins. She thinks it’s from the alcohol.

“Okay,” Sua starts delegating, half asleep in the corner, “Haram and Haruna lost first so they’ll stay in the downstairs room with, um—”

“Suyeon-ie,” Tsuki supplies. Suyeon, who was hoping that everyone would forget she’d also lost early, lets out a long-suffering groan.

Sua throws a weak thumbs up. “Sheon-ie. Then… there’s two rooms upstairs for the rest of us. Or you can squish in with Haram.”

“Absolutely not,” Haram squawks. “The downstairs room isn’t that big. Three is enough.”

“’Runa will probably end up with Tsuki-unnie, anyway.” Siyoon yawns, cheeks still dusted pink from the few chūhai her and Haruna had successfully begged off Tsuki. “I don’t really mind who I’m with.” 

“I want to go with Sua-unnie,” Haruna finally contributes. Tsuki pouts at her, but doesn’t make any actual complaints, because Haruna’s always been gentle and if she does she knows in the morning she’ll wake to all of Haruna’s hair in her mouth.

“Then—” Suhyeon claps, sitting up. Tsuki startles, yelps, and hears Haram and Suyeon both snort at her. “Haram, Siyoon-ie, and Sheon in here, Sua and ‘Runa in one room upstairs, Tsuki and I in the other. How does that sound?” 

“Good,” Siyoon and Sua both say, the same time Haram indignantly demands, “what was the point of playing rock paper scissors then!”

“I don’t know,” Suyeon grunts. Rolls over onto her face.

The last time they did this, crowded all seven of themselves into one house away from their dorms and the stage without a company of cameras following them—well. Tsuki’s not sure they even have. They’re too young, to be this tired. To be folding their bodies over in the thick, muggy backstage air, desperately biting back any breath they can while their managers give Suhyeon and Sua fleeting glances, company reports on standby.

Tsuki feels a soft palm on the skin of her bicep. Thumb that digs in lightly, comforting pressure, and when Tsuki turns to look she’s met with Suhyeon’s tilted head. Brown eyes searching.

“You okay?” She asks. “I don’t mind sleeping downstairs, if you want to room with Siyoon-ie.”

Tsuki’s not drunk but she knows she’s damn on her way near it; blames that for the stuttering in her chest. It’s been months, but—still. There are moments when she sees Suhyeon and feels unused to it, moments when she expects to gaze out over a room and see just the five of them, trying to find enough laughter to fill in an aching gap where there should be seven.

In front of them Sua’s managed to conjure up enough strength to crawl over to the table to start organising all the cans and bottles into tidy groups. Haram’s crouched in front of Haruna, trying to urge their bleary-eyed youngest up off the tatami so she can brush her teeth, all the while Suyeon remains face down next to them. Tsuki thinks she might have fallen asleep.

“No,” she says, fighting back a yawn in the process, before shifting herself closer so she can slump her head into the crook of Suhyeon’s neck. “I’m okay with you, unnie.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, the thought she’d been trying to smother since they’d all thrown their fists together in a circle like children to decide roommates rises unbidden in the middle of the night. Suhyeon’s in the flower-patterned futon next to her, curled into herself. The moonlight bleeds through the blinds in shards and halos the small rise-and-fall of her chest silver.

A year ago, Tsuki thinks she would’ve taken Suhyeon up on that deal; would’ve welcomed Siyoon into the top floor room with welcome arms.

But a lot changes in a year. A year ago the idea of this combination would’ve been unfeasible. Back in the dorms, when they first moved in, Tsuki remembers the way they’d sometimes find themselves together in the kitchen when all the lights had gone out and it was only the shadowed, hazy shapes of their bodies navigating around each other in the dark.

Most of the time, Suhyeon left without saying anything. But there were times where she’d glance at Tsuki across the kitchen island, the line of her shoulders tense and unwilling, and Tsuki would be struck down unmoving by the coldness in her eyes.

Above them they’ve put the ceiling fan on full crank. Tsuki stares at it as it spins and lets the soft sound of Suhyeon’s breaths lull her to sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Komachi-dori is teeming with people, at this time of day. At all times of day Tsuki probably guesses, but it’s warm and the air is nice and the sky is a splitting bright cloudless blue above them all, so it makes sense everyone’s out and about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning Tsuki wakes up to the sound of voices floating up the stairs—hushed and quiet—but spilling into the room all the same. It takes her a moment to process and she has to squint at the bright flash of her phone when she checks the time. It’s 6:42.

When she gingerly makes her way down the steps she pauses. Settles herself two thirds of the way down and feels like a little kid, again, trying to listen in to her parents murmured conversations through the crack in her bedroom door. This time it’s through the ancient wooden bannister, and when she trails her finger down the length of one of the balustrades a piece splinters out, jams into her skin.

“No, I know. I just—sometimes I get worried,” Sua’s voice filters out the door. “About Haram-ie. About all of them, really.”

There’s a sound of cutlery clattering against each other, water splashing in the sink. Then, Suhyeon’s voice. Calm but stern, in that way of hers. “Sua-yah,” she starts over the sound of running water. “They can take care of themselves. They’ve been taking care of themselves.”

“Come on, Suhyeon. Don’t do that.”

Tsuki watches the dust motes drifting around in the mist of light streaming through the slat of glass in the entrance door. Tilts her head so it leans on the bannister, and thinks about how long it’s been since she last woke up to the sound of Sua and Suhyeon fighting.

“I’m not doing anything,” Suhyeon grumbles back. The water shuts off. Tsuki sucks at the splinter lodged into the pad of her forefinger.

“No you—” The sound of a chair scraping lightly against the tiles. A sigh. Upstairs someone’s woken up, Tsuki can hear the pad of footfalls into the bathroom. “You and I are always going to be the ones looking out for them.”

There’s quiet, from the kitchen. Tsuki can imagine it in her mind; Suhyeon’s palms curled around the sink’s edge, her eyes shut, the bubbling water of the dishes.

“I know,” she hears, eventually. Softly. “I know.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Aigo.” Suhyeon jumps when Tsuki pokes her head through the kitchen doorway. Mentally she has to rearrange the scene; Suhyeon still at the sink, holding a dish towel wrapped around the now almost spit-shine white of a plate. Sua with one knee pulled up to her chin at the table and her fingers tapping a pen against her open diary. Her hair’s grown in recent months, and she has it pulled back with one of Suhyeon’s hair clips so that it doesn’t fall into her eyes.

“It’s Tsuki-chan,” Sua hums brightly.

“Tsu-chan,” Suhyeon echoes. Places the plate in the dish rack and holds out an arm, flapping her hand so that Tsuki will come stand by her, fingers brushing against the bone of her hip as she wraps them around Tsuki’s waist. “Sorry, we didn’t wake you up, did we?”

Sua’s pen scratches away behind them. “Tsuki’s a light sleeper. We probably did.”

“It’s okay,” Tsuki says, garbled around her finger. Suhyeon squints at her before forcibly grabbing it so she can inspect the damage. The pad of it now wrinkled and red, the wood a thin sliver of brown amongst it all. “Ow,” Tsuki splutters out. “Stop squeezing it—unnie!”

“Stay still,” Suhyeon huffs.

“It hurts,” Tsuki complains, trying to snatch her hand back, to no avail. Suhyeon’s got the skin pinched tight, trying to urge the splinter out as gently as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“They were talking about us, this morning,” Tsuki says later that afternoon. It’s just her, Haram, and Suyeon in the kitchen; Sua, Suhyeon, and Siyoon taking it upon themselves to bring back snacks from the convenience store; Haruna napping.

Haram’s on the other side of the table, only briefly glances up at Tsuki from her phone before going back to scrolling through whatever it is she’s looking at. “They talk about us all the time,” she says, dry. “They don’t mean anything by it.”

“Sua-unnie said she was worried.”

Suyeon snorts. She’s got a poor attempt at a solitaire game going, cards scattered across the entire table that Tsuki has to keep bending down to pick up off the floor. “Are we really the ones they should be worrying about?”

Tsuki hums. Stares at the trickle of yellow light reflecting onto the cutlery in the sink rack while attempting to tilt her chair onto its two back legs. That was something Sua always told her off for doing in the dorm, rattling off the same story teachers would about pencils and gouged out eyes.

“Hey, Tsuki-yah. Don’t do that,” Haram grumbles, but Haram’s scolding has never really soured in her stomach the same way Sua and Suhyeon’s would. “Sua-unnie and Suhyeon-unnie just feel responsible because they’re the oldest. I used to be worried about you lot all the time when they were gone. It’s just how it is, for them. They’ve always been like this.”

“Suhyeon-unnie isn’t even the oldest,” Suyeon contributes unhelpfully. When Tsuki glances over at her cards, all she can see is Suyeon’s furrowed brows as she tries to figure how she’s managed to lose again.

Haram gives her a blank look over the top of her phone. “They’re casual with each other—you know what I meant. And anyway, Suhyeon-unnie needs to feel the responsibilty. Everyone knows she has a complex about that sort of thing.”

 

 

 

 

 

food matters, wjsn eunseo/yeoreum | 1k, canon compliant

Laughing. I’ll order
already. I’ll order seven helpings, some
dumplings, those cold yam noodles that you
like. You can come in your light
body or skeleton or be invisible I don’t even
care.

 

- Gabrielle Calvocoressi

 

 

pork belly. pork jowl. sirloin. short rib. button mushrooms. sausage. all grilled. banchan, rice, etc.

Summer sets in quick that year, seeping its sickly humid limbs into every notch and void it can find. Yeoreum walks Yeolmu in the bleak hours of the morning before the heat sets in and spends the first twenty minutes of her day wrestling tiny shoes onto her tiny dog. There hasn’t been much for her to do, nowadays, so she entertains herself with wiping beads of sweat trailing down the back of her neck as she works through the movements of a fifteen-second dance, watching the gentle dazzle of heatwaves wobbling over the tarmac outside her apartment building.

“Yeoreum-ah,” Sojung says, sticking her neck out the sliding doors of the dorm balcony. Yeoreum snorts at the face she pulls as the wall of gross heat separating the balcony and the air-conditioned living room hits her. “Are you drinking?”

There isn’t much for her to do, but there’s plenty for the rest of the members: Yeonjung saddled with her musicals, Hyunjung with her radio, her solo schedules. Yeoreum lost track of Dayoung back when she was still active and Jiyeon continues to be Jiyeon, ruthlessly successful by her merit alone.

Over Sojung’s shoulder, distantly, Juyeon’s voice calls out. “She drove here, unnie.”

“So?” Sojung yells back. Yeoreum groans at the volume. Clacks the tongs at her in retribution, to no real avail. “She can just crash here tonight. Right, Yeoreum-ah?”

“Yeoreumie drove?” A third voice chimes in, Jiyeon’s head poking over Sojung’s, and Yeoreum can only snip out, annoyed, “ah seriously, only come out here if you want to help grill! It’s too hot for this.”

It really is too hot. July is sticky in the way it always is, permeating across the fifth floor balcony and settling over Yeoreum’s shoulders like a damp blanket as she battles the flames of the small grill they’d dug out of some closet, pork and mushroom and sausage neatly crowding the center. It’s Sojung’s fault, really, that she’s the one out here at all. Though Yeoreum holds no genuine qualm with her. WJSN’s silent hiatus might have left her a little aimless, but it’s Sojung’s solo release that has them all finally gathered in their old dorm, something like a blessing that they’d all managed to scratch an afternoon out on their calendar— dinner w/ members (???)

It’s not Sojung’s alone, of course. They’d been meaning to catch up like this for a long time now, so much that it’d turned into a joint celebration, Hyunjung’s own solo, Jiyeon’s newest drama, Juyeon’s movie— Yeoreum, even, with her small but precious success. El7z Up and Queendom held in the palms of her hands a glimmering jewel.

Leaning on the balcony door, Sojung only scratches at the slip of skin beneath her ear. “Sorry, Yeoreum-ah,” she says without a hint of shame.

“Just go,” Yeoreum grunts with no real heat behind it. Waves the tongs and her hands and her slowly disappearing patience in Sojung and Jiyeon’s direction, before turning back to the meat. Meticulously she flips each piece, scrunches her face up as the smoke rips free of the grate, pricks at her eyes. When she’d arrived it was Sojung out on the balcony, all bravado and blustery determination as the other members looked on, poked fun, laughter that filtered incandescent towards the entrance. Yeoreum had taken one look at Sojung and the pathetically sputtering grill and promptly shoved her off.

So, again. It’s Sojung’s fault Yeoreum’s out here at all.

Behind her she hears the glass doors slide open again, and hums at the feeling of something cool splaying across the back of her neck a beat later, fingers that gently comb through the messy length of the hair spilling down her back. “Do you want me to tie it up?” Juyeon asks her, setting down a small stack of paper bowls on the table next to the grill.

“It’s okay,” Yeoreum says, but closes her eyes anyway when she feels the soft tug of Juyeon’s hands at the base of her scalp, fingers tangling in the strands of her hair as it’s pulled up into a bun.

Sorry, Juyeon had said not long earlier, afternoon sun spilling golden across the pale skin of her shoulders as she’d butted her way out to the balcony. Yeoreum breathing a quiet sigh of relief. Class ran overtime. I can take over here if you want to go inside?

“Sorry,” she says again, now, pressing the lingering coolness of hand back against Yeoreum’s neck. “It’s so hot today.”

Juyeon looks something lovely, still. Everything golden. Light that leaks yolk yellow across glass and tiles to settle across the rumpled raven black of her hair, soft pink cheeks, soft eyes. “It’s not so bad,” Yeoreum finally responds, turning her gaze back towards the grill.

“Don’t lie to me,” Juyeon huffs. Not unkindly, just—in that Juyeon way of hers. She flips her hand so that the palm of it now rests against the prickling expanse of Yeoreum’s skin, and she thinks about how it would take two hands, now, to count how long they’ve known each other for. Sometimes it shocks her. The knowing.

Juyeon’s hand starts to grow warm, soft heat joining damp heat, and Yeoreum decides simply that she doesn’t particularly care. There’s a thumb pressing lightly into the space just below her ear, and Yeoreum knows that in that Juyeon way of hers, if she asked her to keep it there, she would. All gentle touch and heart.

“Can you hands me one of the bowls?” She says instead, flipping the strips of pork belly back over one more time. From inside the apartment music spills out muffled and bright and Yeoreum knows its Dayoung that’s commandeered the speaker. “Has everyone arrived?”

Diligently, Juyeon does what she’s asked; hands over a bowl while she hums in thought. “I think Hyunjung-unnie and Soobin-unnie are still on the way. Luda-unnie got here not long after me.”