Long fingers just barely touching her, dragging sweetly up the raised flesh of her arm.  Though the air was cold, her body was hot and drawn to the intimate breath by her neck.  Behind the mood-appropriate music, there was some kind of grumbling.  She reached out for the other body, holding a familiar waist that shivered under her touch.  Grumbling.  “Hyoeun,” Jeonyul gasped and suddenly Hyoeun was looking directly at Jeonyul, but she was six feet away, on her own bed, staring back at her with a pathetically plaintive look on her face, just visible in the darkness.

“Hyo unnie, it’s so hot,” She whined, raising one leg and then flopping it back on top of her blankets in irritation.

Herself covered in sweat, abruptly out of a dream in which the AC worked properly and Jeonyul moaned more than she whined and grumbled, Hyoeun was so ruffled and irritated she sat straight up, swinging her legs over her bed as if she had real energy.  Elbows on her knees, the blonde rubbed her eyes and tried to recall how to think like a normal person, one who lived in humane temperatures with humane roommates and didn’t have erse dreams (She was an innocent girl, in truth, this Hyoeun.).

“I thought you were awake...you were mumbling to yourself.  Was I wrong?”

There was clear worry and already a tinge of regret in Jeonyul’s question and Hyoeun sighed and looked at her.  “Yes.”  

As the other girl mumbled a sincere though very tired herself apology, Hyoeun wondered colorfully why she had not lied like she should have.  It would save Jeonyul the apology—this apology which was only necessary because Hyoeun was talking in her sleep, but surely about Jeonyul.  It was the blonde who should apologize but instead she sighed and tried to smile through the guilt and stuffy heat.  “It’s okay.  I’ll...check the AC.”  She rose and quickly stumbled out of the shared room, eager to get away.

Two minutes later, the blonde shuffled back in and closed the door again.  “It says it’s working.”  She explained dully.  It was understood that keeping the door open for air flow was pointless.  Hyoeun started back towards her bed but Jeonyul, who had sat up and was leaning against her headboard, patted the space in front of her, so, mindlessly, Hyoeun swung in that direction and sat down where instructed.

“What time is it?”  She asked, having not glanced at any of the clocks in the main room.

For a moment the room shone with the light of Yul’s phone screen before going dark again.  Jeonyul answered, “4:37.” and whined, sticking out her legs over Hyoeun’s which hung off the bed and kicking them gently in irritation.  In response, Hyoeun nodded.  It was only recently the dorm’s AC had been taking breaks from its duty, and only once before at night.  When morning came, all four members concurred they hadn’t been able to sleep in the subsequent stifling heat.  Opening windows wasn’t an option because there were no screens but many bugs, and it was barely if at all cooler outside anyway.  Dropping a hand restfully on Jeonyul’s ankle, Hyoeun leant back on her other hand and stared at the dark ceiling.

Then, Jeonyul’s voice, throatier at night, “What were you dreaming of?”

A half second where she considered lying, but then, “You.”  Hyoeun didn’t take her eyes off the ceiling.

“Me?  Was I pretty?”

The blonde laughed shortly and slapped the ankle under her hand very gently.  “Yeahh, you were pretty.”  

Jeonyul rubbed her ankles together in a dainty sort of way and her calves rubbed against Hyoeun’s thighs.  Gently, Hyoeun the smooth, tan skin and glanced sidelong at her friend’s face.  The other girl was looking away to the side at nothing, probably still pleased with the compliment.  There was a small smile on her lips.

On her shoulders were spaghetti straps, connected to a baby blue, feather light camisole.  It was barely longer than some of Jeonyul’s stage crop tops and so thin Hyoeun could see the curve of a through the fabric.  Her shorts were cotton and had thin blue and pink stripes.

Suddenly Hyoeun was being dragged in a rightwards direction, towards Jeonyul, by Jeonyul’s insistently pulling and nudging legs.  With a half laugh and half snort, Hyoeun acquiesced, drawing her own legs onto the bed and sitting cross-legged, facing her friend.  Jeonyul replaced her restless limbs in the blonde’s lap at what seemed to Hyoeun an uncomfortable angle.  

“You’re still hot?” Hyoeun asked, just barely Jeonyul’s knee.  Of course the room was still hot and with the added contact, of course they were both still hot.

“Yeah.”  Jeonyul answered, shifting her legs again.

“I dream about you a lot.”  The words came out almost like a sigh, or a groan so ground down with dread it was as soft as a breath.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

In her dream, Jeonyul had called her just “Hyoeun” without any honorific.  Yet it was important to Hyoeun to be a good unnie, to care for her junior well and not lie to her about things which concerned her, even if they were insane.  Insane things that also, were it not hellaciously hot and she had gotten more than three hours of restless sleep, she would realize Jeonyul would be grateful to be lied to about.  All of the members teased their youngest, but Hyoeun couldn’t tolerate it without reassuring Jeonyul that teasing is all it is; it was of critical personal importance to her that Jeonyul smiled.  She had to take care of her little sister, as her unnie..  Yes, her little sister with the great legs…

Abruptly, Hyoeun: “Yuri,”

The brunette looked up, alert, still sweaty.  “Yeah?”

Exhaling shakily, Hyoeun rose up on her knees, carefully lifting and setting Jeonyul’s legs down beside her.  “Yuri,”  She repeated, reaching out and almost cupping Jeonyul’s cheek but instead her hand somehow just fell and sort of awkwardly touched her neck and just stayed there while the blonde shuffled so they were closer together.

“What is it?”  There was amusement and something else in the brunette’s quiet voice, something like nervousness or bewilderment?

“Um, Yuri.”  Stated Hyoeun very quietly, her knees touching Jeonyul’s hip, her right hand resting on the space where Jeonyul’s neck met her shoulder.  The blonde was trying to be tactful.  She wanted to warn her friend about what she was going to do and calling her name somehow was the only way she could conceive of how to attempt that.  Their faces were quite close and Hyoeun looked seriously into Jeonyul’s eyes.  Surely she had some idea?  Though whether it was the darkness that obscured reliable reading of her friend’s thoughts or something else—effort on Jeonyul’s part; blindness on Hyoeun’s?—the blonde wasn’t sure.  Her heart was pounding.

“Yuri.”  Jeonyul began to respond but at that moment Hyoeun kissed her.  She kissed her and her right hand stayed where it was, curled against itself, while her left was held with paralyzed nervousness against her tank top-clad torso that hovered in front of and slightly above Jeonyul’s.  Again she kissed her and Yuri kissed her back, tentatively, slowly, as though with great thought and shyness, hesitantly.  There was a small “chu” as Hyoeun pulled away, taking her hand as well off her friend as she did.

Hyoeun had to wait for Jeonyul to open her eyes.  When she did, the blonde spoke, all her fears floating in the warm quiet that made the air sting.  “I like you.”  It was almost exactly the truth.  Not yet did Hyoeun dare be completely honest, to confess her feelings she knew were even more than that.  She wanted to be honest, but she wanted to protect her.  She was being selfish, she wanted her more than anything.

A very quiet, throaty voice answered, “I see.  Yes.”  And while this answer would baffle Hyoeun in the morning when she was capable of thinking thoughts again, the moment after it was spoken the blonde did not question the arms that pulled her close, or how collided softly with Jeonyul’s.