Soft Spot

Sporadic sighs and consistent taps of pen against table. All of that coming from Moonbyul, who looked like crumpled mess plonked heavily on the floor. Writer’s block. She tapped the keys of her laptop, her mind a jumbled mess of unimpressive ideas for her rap parts.

What a disaster.

She sighed again. Hwasa had gone grocery shopping with Solar for a change, and she had thought that this peace and quiet would dissolve the dreaded block.

“Eeeeeniiiieee meeeen-”

Negative. Only half an hour had gone by before Wheein strolled out of her room and settled down beside Moonbyul. She had became restless after a short while, poking Moonbyul’s arm to the beat of that chant despite promises of staying quiet. It was cutely typical of Wheein.

“Wheein, stop disturbing me! I’m trying to write!” Moonbyul snapped up from her sprawled out position on their coffee table and frowned at the younger girl.

Wheein didn't look all that apologetic when she mouthed an "oops". Maybe a little hurt. and Moonbyul immediately softened at the assault of her conscience.

"Sorry, Wheeinnie," Moonbyul mumbled patting the back of Wheein's hand. "Spare me this once, okay?"

Without waiting for a response, Moonbyul turned back to her laptop.

Usually, Moonbyul dote on Wheein excessively, but today the frustration frayed her nerves. Her easygoing personality had gone up in a puff of smoke and, suddenly, she could find a fault in everything. Her laptop’s brightness was too glaring, the words are too small, the apartment was stuffy and-

A poke on her back.

“Wheein!” Moonbyul turned, fully ready to shoo the girl away in anger.

“Byulyi unnie~” Wheein’s whined, her face sheepish for a split second before it lit up.

Sincerity sparkling in her eyes. Dimples.

Too cute.

“Uh, y-yeah?” Moonbyul couldn’t comprehend why she stammered, it was reflex, as though her voice had a will of its own.

Wheein twirled on the spot before leaning down and tapping her head twice, beaming. “Fairy Wheein has blessed you, smile~”

Her hands slid down from the top of Moonbyul's head, landing on her cheeks and gave them another cheeky poke.

Instantly, Moonbyul forgot what she was annoyed about. There was no good reason to ever get annoyed with Wheein. Her goofy grin grew wider when Wheein plopped down on the floor, resting her head on Moonbyul's lap. She fought against the urge to tackle the younger girl, or throw her on the bed or… maybe kiss her. 

Kicking away those thoughts, Moonbyul tickled her instead. Wheein's infectious squeals and laughter rang out until Solar and Hwasa came back home, looking bemusedly at the scene.
 

“Stop eating, seriously,” Hwasa seethed. Beside her, Wheein was nestled on the couch, eating happily.

“Gra? Oomph. Poot.”

Hwasa rolled her eyes at the unintelligible words, and glared at the ceiling. She was trying her best to ignore the crunch of whatever Wheein was eating. Existence of snacks was a curse. Hwasa rolled her eyes again, while moving several inches away from Wheein.

She sighed. A simmering desire to get away from Wheein was building up. She was extremely distracting to someone on a diet. Hwasa tapped a finger on the leathery material of their couch, contemplating her options.

She could stop the diet, of course. It was self-imposed, not really necessary and stemmed from that one morning where she woke up hungover and confused, finding Wheein asleep in her bed. Solar's bed had appeared untouched to her, but that wasn’t anything alarming. There were two choices, either she was passed out on the couch or passed out on Moonbyul.

Knowing her unnies' behaviour well enough, Hwasa had stifled a chortle, taking care not to wake the sleeping Wheein up.

It was then, she suddenly felt the warmth of Wheein's hand on her thigh. Frowning, she had taken a glance at her close friend.

Asleep, definitely.

Unperturbed by Wheein’s hand, she had been more concerned about the chain of questions that remained unanswered. Whatever the hell happened last night, after Moonbyul did her self-proclaimed cocktail jig and fed them the ensuing concoction, eluded Hwasa. This blank in her memory had annoyed her.

Frustrated and not really in a clear state of mind, she cursed incoherently about how her felt too tight.

Surprisingly, Wheein had mumbled a timely word in her sleep, “Diet.”

Now, the very person who sparked off this debacle was snacking without a care in the world. Wheein, the mega troll.

The sound of food munching was getting to Hwasa and, really, her patience was the thinnest in this diet campaign.

“Jung Wheein, I ing swear to the higher forces of snacks addiction, that you’ll lose your appetite fo-” Hwasa spun around, reaching out to snatch and dump the contents of the bag on the girl, but she paused mid-sentence.

Wheein was grinning, cheeks puffy from chips.

Hwasa was lost for words at that adorable creature. The idea of kicking Wheein away wriggled out of her plans.

“Gup?” Wheein shoved the bag of snacks at Hwasa.

She forgot that dieting was a thing. New of a slightly bigger size and in different shades of pink were for sale anyway.
 

“HIIIIIIK EEEEEK!”

High pitched screams pierced the air. Following the sound, Solar hurriedly burst into the room, expecting a disaster. But Wheein seemed perfectly fine, lying in bed and phone in hand.

“What was that?”

“Huh?” Wheein tore her eyes away from her phone to meet Solar’s confused expression. “What was what?”

“The scream? Your screams?”

“Screams? What screams?”

Solar gestured, but failed to explain anything, leaving Wheein even more confused. “I heard you scream. Just a minute ago!”

“Nope?” Wheein shook her head and gave Solar a typical judgey ‘are you crazy, unnie’ look.

“No?”

Solar tilted her head, a huge question mark was plastered to her face. She was pretty sure that she didn’t hear wrong. The shriek was too loud and too urgent for her to have made a mistake.

Wheein, though, was still staring her with that ‘you nutty’ look.

She hesitated. Maybe, Wheein was right. Maybe she had been imagining things. She conceded, the younger girl looked fine anyway.

With a shrug, she closed the door and went back to the variety show she was watching.

Not even a minute later, another shriek rang out.

Solar burst in once more in a panic. This time, Wheein was peacefully asleep.

“Wheein?” No response.

Solar observed the sleeping girl, suspicious. She tried calling out again.

Zilch.

The bloodcurdling screams still rang in her head. Paranoia crept up on her. She thought about the weird shadows she had seen on when she woke up suddenly one night. Just the other day, Wheein was talking about foreign noises and some kind of… apparitions. Moonbyul had said she heard footsteps in the dead of the night and-

A shriek cut through the air.

“Ahhhhhh!” Solar gasped and screamed along, covering her eyes with one palm and a ear with the other. Both perfectly ineffective in overcoming any sort of fear. “Go away go away i don’t see you i don’t, just go away! You aren’t my friend, no no! Go! Nooooooooo!”

It was then she heard a laughter explosion. Really familiar and distinctive.

Jung Wheein.

She was rolling around in bed and clutching her stomach from the excessive laughing. Belatedly realising the situation, Solar marched up to her, ready to unleash hell on the prankster.

“Yes, unnie?” Wheein smiled sweetly, lacing her words with a silver of aegyo. “I’m so bored… Play with me?”

Bright, clear eyes looked up at Solar from the bed, and she forgot about hell. She flopped down beside Wheein and smiled mischievously.

"So... What do you wanna play?"
 

“Someone needs to wake us up,” Moonbyul grumbled, burying her head into Solar’s neck. “Wheein has cast a spell on us.”

Solar nodded absentmindedly; Hwasa was on the floor, eating. There was an obnoxious smiley face on the post-it note stuck to the bag of snacks, accompanying the words ‘Eat me!’.

Very subtle.

No signs of Wheein tonight, though. She had left their dorm to meet some friends, yet, her presence still lingered. Intentionally or not, she had asked Moonbyul to check out her outfit, casually mentioning that it was the one ‘Byulyi unnie likes the most’ before leaving. And Solar could vaguely feel the peck Wheein left on her cheek as well.

“I’m serious,” Moonbyul mumbled, hot air tickled Solar’s neck. She giggled and slid a hand onto Moonbyul’s thigh.

“Voodoo badahdoo,” Hwasa proclaimed with a sweep of her hand, aptly sprinkling some chips on the older girls. “Spell lifted? Nah?”

Hwasa shrugged, Moonbyul mumbled something and Solar simply laughed and patted her thigh.

All of them, consciously or not, had that little crush on Jung Wheein.

“Is this war?” Solar grinned, hinting heavily on their collective weakness to Wheein.

Hwasa shook a particularly large piece of cheddar flavoured chips between her fingers, expression serious.

“Uh-uh. You stay in your touchy-feely gay bubble with her. Wheein’s mine.” Hwasa drew an imaginary line with the junk food, clearly setting boundaries and claiming her favourite girl.

“Yep, this is war,” Moonbyul stated lazily, head resting snugly on Solar’s shoulder and one arm slung over her stomach. Hwasa quirked up an eyebrow, practically scoffing at the older pair’s position. Ignoring Hwasa’s unspoken mocking, Moonbyul went on, “I have the roommate advantage.”

“Wow, amazing.” Hwasa smothered her words with sarcasm, clapping two pieces of chips together dramatically. “And I have the friends since middle ages advantage.”

“Friendzoned.” Solar waved her hand to dismiss Hwasa. However, a sudden awareness dawned on her. “. I need to find an advantage of my own!”

The fight for Wheein raged on and more rebuttals were on the way. Hwasa was itching to use her food as weapon but it was a dreadful waste of chips.

The Wheein induced scuffle was silenced by the opening door, and Jung Wheein bounded in, cheerful.

“Everyoneeee, missed me?”

The three exchanged looks, before letting out defeated sighs.

For now, war got shelved for another day. Plenty of Wheein brand antics to spare, afterall.

end

A/N: This got published sooner than expected, it was just sitting there waiting for more edits until... wheein's accident at the moo party happened. Let's all hope our dear presh puppy will be alright!