Seulgi didn't expect her members to be so determined to get the first issues of her exclusive pictorial with SURE, even though it's no different to her and Seungwan being meticulous with streaming everyone else's variety activities right on time, but they still were and it still surprised her. She hadn't as much as got back home from the gym to find streams of texts of praise from the maknae calling her "y~ hahhahahhahah" and two missed phone calls from Seungwan.

Anticipation settles in her heart. She heaves her gym bag closer to her shoulder and taps her cap of disguise further down on her head, their dorm only a few blocks away.

"Sooyoung unnie didn't even go out for a walk this evening because she wanted to see it straight away." Yerim chirps sooner than she can say 'Hello', so they go without a 'Hello', instead go with Seulgi swallowing flowery compliments while still sandwiched up against the front door. It's all a bit unexpected.

Sooyoung mocks her but then ends it with a wet, not-really-asked-for kiss on the cheek. Yerim's flamboyantly poking at her favourite pages and Seungwan's yelling some sort of thoughtful feedback from the kitchen unit.

"Why are you all so excited?" Seulgi asks, releasing a sweaty grip on the doorknob and sitting down next to Joohyun, who so far hasn't said a word. The others all hurry to reply about how big a deal it is! How their Seulgi is a real-life model! How good she looks in autumnal light! How much they appreciate her saying more in interviews! And she tries to listen and respond as kindly as ever but she's a little exhausted; it all unintentionally fades into background noise.

She doesn't let herself linger on wondering why Joohyun is still so quiet and leans over to start flipping over her own photographs. She's genuinely curious because she hasn't seen how they turned out either. And after looking at them she feels proud of herself because she likes looking at magazines and pictures and even having the opportunity to be in the pictures - but she's also confused. Did she say something very complimentary about the members that she doesn't remember? She stares at Joohyun in blank contemplation. Joohyun just averts her eyes.

Did she say something especially bad about Joohyun that she doesn't remember either?

Seulgi excuses herself to have a shower and walks towards the room the three oldest share. Seungwan detaches herself from the stove she's partially glued to and follows her there, decides a good time to back-hug Seulgi is when she's trying to wriggle out of her jeans.

"Ew, but I smell." She groans. Seungwan laughs lightly.

"We've all been to enough dance practices with you to not care about B.O. anymore. I'm personally kind of immune."

"Well, thanks." Seulgi snorts, eying the Seungwan grinning into the crook of her neck and lazily pushes her off. "What was that hug for?"

Seulgi should've anticipated this. She must've accidentally flipped some sort of ON switch on Seungwan's face because she's gone into a rant of praise and her eyebrows are dancing all the way up her forehead. She's so amused by them that she doesn't hear half of what she's saying.

She ends with "I'm just really proud of you. Our beautiful Seulgi. Yeah." And grins at her sheepishly. Seulgi's so flattered by her best friend and doesn't know how else to respond so she gives her another smelly hug.

Seungwan is so genuine, so articulate in what she says and so endlessly expressive. She smiles at the thought in the shower. She's her best friend forever and this sort of response from her especially should make her feel complete, good - she didn't expect so much praise to come from this schedule anyway - but she's missing some sort of feeling of validation.

The water streaming down her back gets gradually colder. She begins to question whether her pictorial really meant anything and if she really did look good, and if anything she said actually was interesting to read. She carries this groggy feeling into the night.

She carries this groggy feeling until the maknaes are asleep, Seungwan's in the main part of the dorm Skyping her parents into probably a stupid hour of the morning, and Joohyun walks into their room in a purple dressing gown.

This is one of the times Seulgi wishes she was more of a sensitive person so she could connect the dots to why Joohyun was acting so - not entirely off, but definitely quiet. If it was her fault, she has no idea why.

Seulgi hazards a small smile, which actually comes received, finally in the calm isolation of just the two of them in a room.

"It felt weird gushing over you like that, with everyone." Joohyun says, crisply in comparison to the initial silence. Seulgi thinks someone would usually get offended by this but she knows her unnie doesn't have bad intentions. Her eyes are still soft.

Joohyun's arms unfold from behind her back and bring the magazine forward. "I haven't even looked at it yet."

"It's pretty dark, I-I'm not sure you'll be able to see the pictures very well."

Their leader comes to sit at the foot of her bed, careful not to smash her skull against her own bunk and grins with just her eyes. "Seungwan's fairy light Christmas tree should be enough."

Seulgi watches Joohyun's long fingers ghost against the glossy cover of SURE, releasing a suffocating intake of breath she didn't realise she was holding when Joohyun dips into the right starting page. She runs her fingers over her printed face in silence, her face unreadable.

Seulgi swears she was proud of this a few hours ago. The amount of doubt she's had about something even so backed up by the younger members' praise in one evening is remarkable. And she's glad it's dark so Joohyun doesn't notice her red face, her body sweating under the covers like a used mop.

"Seulgi," Joohyun looks up with half-lidded eyes and a face of determination. It's pretty, it's enchanting. Seulgi swallows to make sure her voice doesn't come out sounding like a pre-pubescent boy.

"Yes?" It still comes out sounding like a pre-pubescent boy. Croaky and awkward.

Joohyun breaks into a real, proper, gummy smile in an instant, reaching over to cup her cheek. "You're beautiful," she whispers as if she's still worried someone will hear, only though it's just the two of them. And it's exactly what Seungwan called her, but it feels so different.

Seulgi's lost control over how much she's smiling back at her and realises the fifteen year old trainee - having only just met this beautiful unnie - is still very much inside of her. She's still filled with this determination to make her proud and impress her and this confusing, rapid-heartbeat, breathless feeling whenever she'd done just that.

"You're so beautiful." Joohyun repeats and presses her soft lips to Seulgi's (probably embarrassingly damp) forehead. She breaks away for a moment to stare at Seulgi's flushed face, then smirks for a second, and crawls her way up to her own bunk.

Seulgi's left, again, with too many feelings and wondering what all of them mean.