pairing: Jihyo x Sana

summary: It has been the longest week of Sana’s life, except that it’s barely Monday afternoon.

After walking for five minutes it began to rain. Not the sort of little drizzle that would barely be felt on the skin, no, it was raining like it was never going to rain again: raindrops so heavy and large that she could have been diving into a lake. Someone upstairs must have been terribly sad.

All in all, it took her ten seconds to get soaking wet.

She bit her lower lip and tried to ignore the way her clothes began to stick to her skin, or how her hair felt like a great big mop on her head. After a while, she gave up on trying to circle around the worst puddles and walked straight ahead, knowing that her shoes made of suede would be ruined by the time she would get home. She had loved those shoes, but as the rain showed no sign of slowing down she began to mentally prepare for the moment she would have to throw her faithful servants into a trashcan.

Nothing great ever lasts for long, her aunt had always said. As much as she disliked her aunt’s rather bleak outlook on life, sometimes she was right.

As she was just about to reach home a large truck passed her by and as she was deep in her thoughts she had walked too close to the edge of the pavement, which cost her dearly as the wheels burst through a huge pool on the road, making the water splash on her instead.

For a moment, she just stood there, staring ahead letting the water drip from her hair and body, watching as an elderly woman walked past, looking like a mouse under her huge black umbrella. She was wearing sensible shoes (not made of suede) and as she came close enough Sana could see that she was trying not to laugh at her.

Well, it was good that at least someone was still finding her amusing.

After what felt like a walk through an ocean bottom she came to the door and fiddled with her keys far more than was necessary before she got the door open. Inside the corridor, it smelled heavily of cigarette smoke and as she waited for the lift to arrive from the top floor of the building the smell made her head ache. By the time the lift arrived she was feeling like she was inside a cloud.

In the lift, she stared at her own face reflected on the mirror on the opposite wall. She looked like she had been in a water park with all her clothes on while having had no fun at all (if such a thing was even possible). Mascara had clung to the corners of her eyes like bruises and she wiped at them angrily, hoping that it was because of the rain and not because of the tears that she had cried earlier that day. In that case, she’d been at work looking like a panda but not knowing that herself.

Stepping out of the lift she took a deep breath and closed her eyes in front of her own door. Relaxing her shoulders and rolling her head from side to side she tried to let go of all the things that had been weighing her down all day. There was no point carrying all that baggage inside and let it ruin everything. If she left it here, she could forget about it and enjoy the last hours of the day. Tomorrow couldn’t be any worse than today.

What was in the past should remain in the past.

She opened the door and stepped inside, breathing in the familiar scent. The apartment was quiet except for an alarm clock ticking in the bedroom and ventilation unit whirring drowsily. She headed for the bathroom and disregarded most of her wet clothes on the warm floor and let her bag drop on the floor.

With cold feet she padded into the shared living room/kitchen space in the hopes of slouching on the couch until she could find the energy to do something else. However, when she made it to the doorway, she stopped.

There on the couch Jihyo lay all curled up, under a huge fluffy blanket. She had both of her hands under her cheek and a book open on her hip, threatening to fall to the floor. Sana had forgotten that the girl had stayed while she had left in the morning, leaving the other girl to a lazy breakfast and her book.

Never had she been happier to see her girlfriend on her own couch.

Sana used the book as an excuse to get closer and she lifted it up, carefully laying it on the small table next to the couch, making sure that she put the bookmark on the right page – too often Jihyo lost the right page herself and muttered quiet curses under her breath while flicking through pages.

Even still Sana hovered, watching as the younger girl’s chest rose and fell steadily, air whizzing through her nose. Sana felt lighter than she had felt in what seemed like ages and knelt down, forgetting about her wet hair and lack of warm clothes.

In that instant, Jihyo began to stir and she opened her eyes slowly, blinking at the girl in front of her. She wasn’t at all startled and looked thoughtful.

“Babe, why is your hair wet?”

“It rained,” Sana said and smiled genuinely for the first time that day.

“Did something happen?” Jihyo asked and frowned, wiping a strand of hair away from Sana’s forehead. The Japanese girl closed her eyes at the touch – she was never good at hiding how she felt.

“Nothing important,” Sana whispered, opening her eyes again and kissing Jihyo on the cheek.

“Go get something warm and I’ll make some tea.”

Jihyo sat up from where she had been lying down, a picture of efficiency and let’s-do-something-about-this mentality. She pushed the still crouching Sana playfully with her hip and swaggered off, leaving the older girl to lose her balance and fall to a sitting position on the floor - her girlfriend was the perfect combination of caring and cheeky.

Grinning, Sana got up. She would get her revenge sooner or later.

-

Sana sat in the kitchen with a big towel around her small shoulders, smiling a little to herself. Outside the window, a heavy rain was still melting the colors of the world into a pale grey mush, making the lights inside glow brighter. Jihyo padded in the small space, taking out cups and a jar of cookies and placing them on the table. She was wearing a black t-shirt with a band logo that Sana couldn’t recognize. She often wondered whether Jihyo knew the band either, but even if she didn’t it wouldn’t have mattered. Jihyo could always pull off things like that and somehow remain cool. It was infuriating.

“I got yelled at again,” she said quietly, gaze still moving with the other girl. Jihyo stopped then, looking a little worried under her fuzzy bangs that Sana loved so much. Now that she was looking at the Korean girl, the events of the day seemed so meaningless, just a little joke to tell at a party. Or, maybe she did feel a little vulnerable even now. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether she was actually okay or whether she was just pretending to be.

“Wish I wasn’t so clumsy,” she added as an afterthought, looking past Jihyo and out of the window again. Was the rain getting less intense or was she just imagining things?

“There are worse things than being clumsy,” Jihyo said, a kettle in one hand and a kind glint in her eyes. She poured the water into two mugs, comforting steam rising up and evaporating like day dreams.

Sana took her own and let a tea bag drop into the liquid, watching as the water rose higher and higher, soaking the leaves inside like she had just been soaked outside. She pulled the towel tighter around herself, enjoying the warmth.

“So, what happened?” Jihyo asked, once they had both settled down, two pairs of hands curled around two warm cups.

Sana saw the broken shards again on the grey floor, one of the curved ones still swinging from side to side. She could hear the deafening silence again after the crash when all the noise in the café died down, making her the center of the universe for one long moment – for all the wrong reasons. Then the sharp intake of breath before her boss would start screaming at her as if she had just lost his child in a park or crashed his new car. He was good at making others feel like roaches.

The worst thing was that she sort of deserved it.

“I broke some plates,” Sana said matter-of-factly, her nose disappearing into the towel as she hid deeper, feeling a little like an embarrassed hedgehog. “He’ll take the expenses from my paycheck.”

She looked at anywhere except Jihyo, afraid that she would see judgement in her eyes. No matter what she did, she just couldn’t help it, she had always been an elephant among china cups. Just because she was growing up didn’t change the fact. As a kid, she had had an image of herself as someone elegant and confident, not a waitress tripping over her own shoes. She wished she was more like her good friend Mina.

During her darkest moments, she wondered if Jihyo would have been better off with someone like Mina.

Her ears registered as a chair leg scraped against the floor, but it wasn’t until she could see Jihyo’s eyes peeking from below that she realized that the other girl had moved. She was crouching on the floor in front of her, placing her hands on Sana’s own.

“It’ll get easier, I promise,” Jihyo said and rubbed soothing circles on her palms. Sana looked into her big, dark eyes and from somewhere deep down a wave began rising. In a matter of seconds, she was already blinking back persistent tears.

Before she could answer or do anything about the tears she felt arms around her, fixing her in place against the emotions.

“I’m sorry,” the words come out rushing, muffled by Jihyo’s shoulder. “I always mess things up.”

“Shh.”

“I shouldn’t have taken the job at all,” she said and hated how pathetic she sounded. She was usually more optimistic about setbacks but the new job in the café had begun to eat away some of the confidence she had. She had thought that she was good with people, hard-working and responsible, but lately she had messed up so much that she wasn’t sure anymore. Maybe she had fooled herself all along?

“First weeks are always hard, no matter what the job is,” Jihyo reasoned, holding the other girl steadily. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“I know,” Sana said and felt already a lot better. Something about Jihyo always made her believe in the good things in the world. That it was just a matter of getting up again and trying one more time and then everything would work itself out. And she was right.

Sana pulled away just enough to see the brunette’s face better and smiled at her.

“End of pity party,” she joked, making a cute face.

Jihyo snorted, rolling her eyes as if the trick didn’t work on her like it always did.

Sana buried her face in Jihyo’s shoulder once more and inhaled deeply. It was ridiculous how good the other girl had to smell and feel, and if Sana wasn’t careful she could get addicted and then she wouldn’t ever let her go again.

Suddenly a huge yawn broke out from , surprising herself.

“You should go take a nap,” Jihyo said and patted her on the back, before untangling from the embrace.

Sana pouted at the loss of touch and at the idea – why should she sleep now that Jihyo was around?

“Don’t do that,” Jihyo said mock sternly and waved a hand at the direction of her face. “Go now, and I’ll wake you up later.”

Sana was about to protest again when another yawn stole the argument out of . She groaned, got up to leave but not before she showed her tongue to the other girl.

“Very mature, Sana!”

-

Just as she had closed her eyes (or that’s how it felt) and had gotten comfortable, a voice invaded her drowsy thoughts about nothing. She lifted a hand to wave at the irritating sound, as if it was a particularly insistent fly buzzing around her nose.

“You’re impossible,” the voice said warmly and then a pair of hands began pulling at the blanket that kept her warm and covered. Who was the impossible one, huh?

“Babe, I have to go home,” the voice whined and finally Sana managed to wake up enough to open her eyes and squint at the intruder. It was dark in the bedroom, but a light coming from the corridor was enough to highlight every line of the most perfect woman in the universe.

“You’re not going anywhere!”

Before Jihyo could react to such a determined remark, Sana grabbed her by the waist and pulled the other girl so hard that she stumbled and fell into the bed, and on top of the assaulter. The brunette squealed into Sana’s neck and Sana finished her attack with trapping the other girl with her arms and legs, draping them over her small frame.

She might have been asleep just a moment ago, but she could move quickly if there was an emergency like this one right now.

“Sana!” was all Jihyo could say, as if it was a strong enough objection.

“You are not going.”

“I’ve been wearing the same clothes for-“

“It’s not my fault you didn’t bring enough spare clothes.”

“But I have to study for the exam and-“

“You can study here,” Sana said with finality and made her point by squeezing the other girl so tight that Jihyo let out a groan. Enjoying the effect that she was having and being pleased with the fact that she could have silenced the notorious Park Jihyo for a moment, Sana pressed her lips on her girlfriend’s neck and began peppering the warm skin with silky kisses.

Jihyo let out another groan but this time it sounded far more distracted and a lot less disapproving.

“I pay rent for that place. I should at least try to go there once in a while,” Jihyo whispered, trying to press her body closer than it already was as Sana kept on going like it was the last day on earth.

“Move in with me,” she muttered between kisses that were getting more heated by each passing second.

“What?” Jihyo said and pulled away sharply, leaving an extremely disappointed Sana to feel nothing but air on her lips.

“Are you serious?”

“Of course,” she said, forcing herself to be serious for a moment. She looked into Jihyo’s eyes, hoping that her gaze could convey just how much she wanted this. “You basically live here already and… I can’t stand sleeping alone anymore.”

Jihyo looked confused for some unknown reason so Sana went on: “I know, it’s cheesy but you’re the best thing that has happened to me and it’s a waste being apart all the time. Plus, there would be less housework with just one place. We would save money. Besides, I can’t cook for one. Hell, I can hardly cook at all. I mean, I know it’s not going to be easy all the time but I think it’s worth a try. I just love you so much and I think that-“

She hadn’t realized that she had embarked on a lengthy soliloquy or that the resident romantic lying next to her had begun to look at her with burning eyes somewhere around the “you’re the best thing that has happened to me.” In fact, she had been so deep in imagining their life together in the same apartment that she didn’t notice Jihyo’s movements until she felt hungry lips on her own.

She gasped and turned into a quivering mess. By the time that Jihyo stopped worshipping her lips with her own, Sana had nearly forgotten her own existence and whatever it had been that she had been talking about.

“Yes,” Jihyo said and rested her head on one arm, looking down at spellbound Sana who was currently blinking very slowly.

“What?”

“I’ll move in with you.”

When the sentence finally explained itself inside Sana’s brain, she grinned and surprised her girlfriend with a second attack of the day by pulling her into her arms and tickling her on the sides.

As breathless Jihyo squealed and trashed about in her sure grip, Sana thought of two things: one, it was just too easy to surprise her girlfriend and two, this had been the best day of her life.

Pretty good for Monday, right?

A/N: I don't update for almost 2 months and then I update twice in a weekend. Gotta keep you people on your toes. ;^) Anyways, this was an attempt to write something warm and to honor the fact that Sana has been kissing Jihyo like every other day lately.