A/N: hyunjin was so fun to write for, ngl; she really is hysterical. thanks to my beta readers for helping me, you guys are the best.

hansol i nabbed from woomanna, btw.

Title taken from autopilot - reese lansangan

EDIT: 7/3/18 - Minor grammatical/formatting/etc corrections.
EDIT: 8/4/18 - Changed all instances of Vivi to Kahei, and other minor corrections.
EDIT: 9/2/18 - Changed all instances of Kahei to Ara. I pinky promise this is her last name change. I also made my ao3/aff notes identical. :D

Hyunjin channels all of her despair through her eye sockets, praying that the message gets through to the other side.

“Look at how happy the cat is!” A parent gushes as his children run laps around her legs and shriek unrelentlessly.

Curses. The material of the costume is thick enough to insulate and trap all the anguish on the inside― the cute, fluffy mascot is all the ignorant masses see.

The only person that feels perhaps even more miserable than she does is the girl that she spies on a nearby mall table, sniffling into an ice cream swirl half the size of her head. Hyunjin wishes she had as much power as the girl had, crying in a public mall. She’s already doing that (crying) on the inside of the costume, but it takes a genuine hero to do so without a mask hiding her face.

Hyunjin can respect that― respect that immensely even. The other guests at the mall clearly don’t, with how they walk around her in a circle, five feet away from her at all times.

Some people are just less appreciative, she supposes.

“Say goodbye to the nice cat!” The mother peels off the child glued to her leg, scooping him up in her arms as the father wrestles with the other two. Hyunjin brings up her paws to wave in a way she knows is adorable, watching as the children finally (finally!) left.

Once they turn the corner, her attention is immediately drawn back to the girl, curious and intrigued for all the wrong reasons. She’s terribly pretty, even with snot dripping into her vanilla swirl; sharp eyes, button nose and perfect lips―

Hyunjin makes a quick and rash decision.

She takes two large strides towards the girl’s table. Stops. Does a 180. And enters the Build-A-Bear Workshop where she works.

The bell above chimes to the tune of her sharp entrance. Ara, her coworker, doesn’t even lift her head from where she’s collapsed on the countertop; she just lolls her head up to look at Hyunjin who starts running through the aisles, picking up random stuffed animals before dropping them back down arbitrarily.

“I’m the one who has to straighten everything you know,” Ara deadpans. “What on earth are you doing this time?”

Aha! Hyunjin jumps and spins towards Ara, triumphantly holding up a pink bunny that reminds her of the other girl. Ara has barely enough energy to quirk a brow.

“Words, Hyunjin. Use your words.”

Her voice is a little muffled from the helmet, as she starts shuffling towards the clothing section of the store. “There’s a girl crying outside. I want to let her know that I’m grateful she’s crying for everyone who wants to cry in public but can’t.” A pause. “And I want her to feel better.”

“I― okay.” A longer pause. “Okay. You do that.”

“Do you think this thing needs clothes? It’s probably fine as is, right?” When there’s no answer she turns back around to find Ara facedown on the counter, dead to the world. Poor Ara, they had a lot more kids today than usual, their coworkers getting off their shift early and leaving her alone for the late crowd. Hyunjin ultimately interprets her silence as a yes, skipping along to the stuffing machine.

She hesitates for a moment when she’s in front of it, looking down at her massive paws, bigger than the bunny itself, then back at the machine. She shakes her head, nodding in resolution.

This is just going to require some surgical precision, is all. She’s seen Ara do this a bunch of times through the window; it can’t be that hard, right? Delicately, she pushes the back of the bunny onto the machine, turns it on, and stomps on the pump.

It comes to life with a roar, the deflated bunny filling in faster than Hyunjin thought it would.

It’s the racket that wakes Ara up from her impromptu nap. She jerks up from the countertop, head whirling towards the mascot menace. Her eyes widen when she realizes what’s going on, leaping from her seat and practically running towards Hyunjin.

“Wait, no no no, Hyunjin, you have to―”

It’s too late. With a sound like a rush of wind, the bunny’s arm overfills: bursting at the seams, sending stuffing shooting out of the arm, and flying everywhere.

The silence in the aftermath is telling. Both of them stare at the mess on the ground.

“...I’ll help you clean up when I’m done,” Hyunjin says. Ara pinches the bridge of her nose in between her forefinger and thumb, looking up at the ceiling.

“Get a new bunny. I’ll help you just this once.” She plucks the broken bunny out of Hyunjin’s hands and moves to toss it in the bin. The younger girl tiptoes past the heap of stuffing, picking up another pink rabbit and handing it to Ara when she sits down at the machine again.

The second session goes without a hitch, Ara squeezing it critically when she’s done. Apparently satisfied, she nearly hands it to Hyunjin before she stops herself. She grabs a heart from the container attached to the stuffing machine and hands it to Hyunjin instead.

“Are you sure you should be harassing people trying to cry in peace? Is this what you’re getting paid to do?”

“I’m contractually obligated to give people joy, yes.”

Ara snorts despite of herself.

“And what if she just wants to be left alone?”

Hyunjin shrugs loosely. “Then she can tell me after I hand her the bunny.”

A sigh passes through Ara’s lips, before she suddenly straightens her posture and smiles so wide and sparkling it makes Hyunjin recoil.

“Now~!” Ara says, voice fake, bright, and bubbly. “You want to give the nice bunny a heartbeat right?”

Hyunjin shrinks back further, feeling like she let loose something from Pandora’s Box. She nods slowly.

“Rub the heart in between your hands~.”

Hyunjin does so.

“Rub the heart on your cheeks~.”

It takes a little more maneuvering, but she does so.

“Now blow on the heart!”

Hyunjin blows, belatedly realizing that she has a helmet on when Ara bites her bottom lip to restrain her laughter.

“N―Now give the nice bunny a big smile!”

The costume looks utterly dead and defeated from the outside.

“Fantastic!” Ara finally takes the heart from Hyunjin and sews up the back of the bunny, and hands it to Hyunjin.

“Please... please don’t ever do that again…” Hyunjin mutters, hugging the bunny close to her chest, “That was so creepy.” Ara waves her off, expression instantly defaulting to the overworked and tired college student Hyunjin knew her as.

“If you get reported and fired for harassment, I won’t miss you. I’ll be watching from the sides to see if the security comes for you again.”

“Why are you so mean to me,” Hyunjin finds herself muttering when she walks out the door.

“The bunny’s coming out of your paycheck!” Ara calls out after her.

The door closes shut in time with Hyunjin’s sigh. Thankfully, the girl is still there despite the time she had spent inside the store. Hyunjin doesn’t think she’s crying anymore, but she might as well be with how she sulks finishing up her ice cream.

Okay, take two. A nervousness enters Hyunjin’s system, making her palms itch and heart pound just a little bit faster. But she’s got this! She can talk to the girl, and cheer her up. She just has to walk towards her: one step, two step in front of the other. Like a fancy waltz except she’s only ever going forward.

Forward, she repeats, waltzing right back into the shop.

“Welcome back to Build-a-Bear,” Ara says dryly, not bothering to drag her eyes away from her phone.

Hyunjin ignores her, hugging the rabbit close to her chest and closing her eyes, one open palm in front of her face. She breathes in… And breathes out.

She pulls her hand away from her face, touching her fingers together inside her costume.

Zen mode, on.

She steps back outside.

Ok. Third time’s the charm.

Hyunjin takes stiff, large, and robotic strides towards her― approaching and approaching and sitting down before she has the chance to talk herself out of it.

The mystery girl jumps when she hears the chair screech, eyes blinking in utter confusion. Hyunjin’s breath catches in now that she’s face-to-mask with the other girl.

She’s... gorgeous. One of the prettiest girl’s Hyunjin’s ever seen. Even with the red-rimmed eyes and Rudolph-red nose, makeup wiped clean with the mountain of tissues on the table, she’s gorgeous.

“...Uhm,” she says.

Oh, right.

Hyunjin waves from across the table, inexplicably happy when the other girl returns the wave through her bemusement.

She hides the bunny in her lap as she mimes tears running down her face through the costume, hoping the mask can pout for her. She puts her arms out and shrugs once.

Why were you crying?

“Oh,” the other girl flusters, as if she’s just now embarrassed for sobbing in the middle of the mall. “It’s actually super dumb. Just some stuff that happened with my job, and I got in a fight with my boyfriend.”

Hyunjin squashes the mild disappointment at the ‘boyfriend’ part. (So maybe she also wanted to say hi because she thought the girl was cute. Not the purest of intentions, sure, but Hyunjin was going to see this through.) She beckons the other girl to keep on talking.

It was like a dam burst, a fire igniting in the other girl’s eyes quick as a match.

“I was late to a recording session for my job because I was on a date with him, and even though I was only a couple of minutes late, and apologized a lot, the older artists kept on excluding me and making these snide comments! Even though they never come in on time anyways!”

Hyunjin blinks, leaning back in her seat when the woman slaps her palm on the table. Holy crap. The bunny has claws.

“And then my boyfriend had the nerve to say that ‘Oh, well maybe we shouldn’t have met up today,’ like we haven’t been telling each other we miss each other and want to see each other every day. And that just opened up the floodgates for some of our other issues and I... I just yelled at you about all of my problems.” Her volume gets smaller and smaller, and by the end of her rant she’s hiding away her face in her hands.

Hyunjin shakes her head rapidly, flails her arms to try to communicate that ‘It’s okay! You sounded like you need to talk to someone,’ but then her shoulders start to shake and Hyunjin panics even more until she hears... laughter?

For once Hyunjin’s glad she has the mask on. She probably looks ridiculous with how she’s mesmerized with the other.

"I’m so sorry,” she says, breathless from laughter. “I really didn’t mean to rant so much. This was really weird, but thank you for listening.” She’s actually smiling now, the force of it making her eyes crinkle.

“I’m Heejin. And you?”

Hyunjin gestures to her nametag. ‘Whiskers’. The face Heejin makes, the scrunched up, appalled looking expression is a sight to behold.

“No, your real name, not that one.”

With a frown, Hyunjin makes an ‘X’ with her arms, shaking her head.

“You can’t tell me?”

A nod.

“Afraid it’ll ruin the magic?” Heejin teases. The tilt of her head and the lilt of her voice has Hyunjin’s palms sweating all over again. “Is that why you’re not talking?”

She barely has time to nod in return when there’s a voice calling for Heejin from the distance. The smile falters from Heejin’s face, brightness dimming from her eyes; a frown is tugging at Hyunjin’s lips before she knows it.

This must be the boyfriend, Hyunjin thinks, when he runs up to the table. He’s tall. His hair the perfect amount of disheveled; his grin, cute and boyish. And, most importantly, everything about him screams apologetic.

Reluctantly, she can at least admit to the appeal, just from a quick glance over. Though Heejin’s smile does drop, her eyes soften at his appearance, and it has Hyunjin biting her lip and gripping at the stuffed bunny still in her lap.

This is dumb. Getting attached to the pretty face was dumb.

He walks past Hyunjin with barely a nod, propping himself up on the table, swinging one foot off the ground― the definition of cool. There’s a nervous energy that buzzes off of him however that softens the initial impression.

“Hey, you,” he says, voice subdued under the weight of his guilt. Hyunjin has to straighten her back and lean over to see Heejin’s reaction past his annoyingly massive frame. She catches the puff of Heejin’s cheeks from her pout when she turns her head away from him.

“Don’t ‘hey, you’, me, Hansol. You were being a jerk.” The hand reaching towards Heejin flinches back, running through his hair instead.

“I’m really, really sorry. It was a hard week for me, but that’s not really an excuse. I’m sorry I was being cold.”

He tries again, hand reaching out to brush away a strand of Heejin’s hair. The other girl just turns away from him further, a new flush to her cheeks. She grabs a napkin from the table and dabs at her eyes. Her other hand grips his shirt loosely.

“How did you even find me?”

“You always get sweets here after your recording sessions; I thought I’d at least walk around before dropping by your dorm.” He runs his hand through her hair, pushing the strands behind her ear.

Hyunjin shifts a little in her seat, hearing the intimacy in both their voices and seeing the grip Heejin has on his shirt tighten. She holds the bunny closer at their affection. His offshoot lucky guess led to this awkward situation.

Hyunjin watches Heejin look at Hanjerk with a half-hearted glare that melts away into something gentler at his apology.

“I’m still mad at you,” Heejin says, blowing her nose for a final time into her tissue.

“I know. But you know I only care about my girlfriend, right?”

Oh gag me. Hyunjin mimes gagging from behind him. She doesn’t mean for Heejin to catch the gesture, but she does so anyway, and gifts Hyunjin with a small and sly grin. Childishly, she claims it as her victory.

“C’mon, I’ll walk you home,” he says as he carefully scoops up the pile of used napkins, dumping them into the empty ice cream cup. “I’ll even buy you more dessert.”

“...You’re buying me churros on the way ba― HANSOL, LOOK OUT!”

Before that instance, a series of events born from perfectly tactless coordination occurred, and it had Hyunjin swearing up and down that it wasn’t entirely her fault, Ara!

It played out as such in the following sequence:

1. Hyunjin drops the rabbit from her lap accidentally, fist pumping to herself at Heejin’s smile... And accidentally kicking it away.

2. Naturally, she slides out of her seat to pick it up, having to bend down and crouch over so she could try to grip at it with the costume that doesn’t have properly functioning fingers.

3. Hyunjin finds out from the recording Ara took that, at the same time, Hansol hops down from the table. Cool Guy McGee is too entranced in whatever he’s saying to Heejin and starts walking backwards and talking to her at the same time.

4. And like a scene from a B-rated comedy movie, he trips over the obnoxiously large cat that he somehow doesn’t see, and with a yelp, is sent right into the mall fountain.

―Hyunjin hears the belated scream of caution and feels Hansol’s leg and body colliding into her. Then a body slam into the water and the water crashing onto her back.

Hyunjin slowly drags herself up off the ground in the aftermath, costume uncomfortably burdened and damp. Heejin’s hands are covering , eyes wide, looking back and forth between Hansol, a metaphorical wet dog in the fountain, to a literal wet cat, pulling at the soaked parts of her costume.

Heejin starts laughing, and in the resounding silence as onlooking passerbys realize the scene before them, she just points a finger at Hansol and cackles until she’s doubling over, wheezing and breathless. She laughs even harder when she glances at Hansol, still looking dazed and lost, then to the mall guests, blinking owlishly at the travesty.

It’s… the most adorable thing Hyunjin’s ever seen or heard, and it’s the only thing that almost pierces through her horror when she realizes that she just knocked the pretty girl’s boyfriend into the mall fountain.

Oh my god.

She just knocked the pretty girl’s boyfriend into the fountain.

Oh my god.

This is it, she realizes with a fountain-water cold clarity, this is what Ara feels like on a daily basis. She has both paws on either side of the Whiskers head, looking up at the mall lights and praying to whatever deity up there for strength to help her through this humiliating experience.

Abort, abort! I have to leave immediately. She nearly slips on the fountain water when she tries taking a step back.

“Here let― let me help you,” Heejin wheezes, moving towards Hansol, stepping past the large puddles of water on the ground. He raises an arm up gratefully, but...

Heejin stops a good three feet away from the fountain, sinking down to the ground and picking something up. She spins away from Hansol with a neat twirl, leaving him spluttering and splashing at the water, and she walks back towards Hyunjin―

“This is yours, right?” Heejin holds out the magically unharmed bunny, and the roaring heat that colors Hyunjin’s face is unreal. Out of her peripheral she sees Hansol drag himself out of the fountain, soaked and defeated.

She waves her hands in front of her frantically, shaking her head and then rapidly making crosses with her arms.

It’s not― I want you to have it. It was for you in the first place―

Heejin’s brows furrow in befuddlement, before she gestures to Hyunjin again with the bunny.

Another cross of the arm and head shake of refusal from Hyunjin.

Not mine.

Heejin mimics the gesture, and it has Hyunjin nodding this time, arms opening up and gesturing towards Heejin instead, then towards Hansol once he finally arrives at the duo.

I want you to have it. To say sorry.

Heejin’s eyes light up, bright, sparkling, and brilliant, smiling so wide that it knocks the air right out of Hyunjin’s lungs. Hugging the rabbit close to her chest, she gestures to herself.

Really???

Hyunjin’s cheeks hurt at the force of her own smile when she nods vigorously.

Yes!

Another laugh bubbles out of Heejin. She bunny hops twice and does a little wriggle of excitement.

Hyunjin, baffled and endeared, does two little jumps of her own, and mimics the exact same wriggle that Heejin does. A playful glint enters the other girl’s eyes, then, and she does a different little dance. Hyunjin still copies her, trying so hard not to laugh so she doesn’t break character.

They go through several rounds of this, Hansol looking so lost as he watches them back and forth like a table tennis match. It’s only when Heejin does some strange arm movement, kind of like a weird ostrich dance, that Hyunjin stops, with the realization that wow they really got in deep with that game of charades. She’s breathless from exertion, and from something else that makes her lightheaded and her stomach twist with pure giddiness.

She would blame it on poor ventilation but that would be lying and Whiskers isn’t a liar.

Heejin stops almost immediately when Whiskers does, a pink hue to her cheeks from their game but most definitely also embarrassment. She coughs, fixing a messy lock of hair behind her ear as she regains her composure.

Hansol clears his throat.

There’s a minor flash of annoyance on his face, but it loses its intensity when Hyunjin bows fast and furious towards him and Heejin. Heejin shoots him a look, and he sighs, wringing water out of his shirt.

“No, it’s my fault for not watching where I was going. It’s okay. I’m more annoyed at myself.”

“We should really get you home. You’re going to get sick like this.” Hyunjin’s elation dips a little bit when she sees Heejin doting at him, but the smile she has makes it all worth it, especially when she turns to Hyunjin and still wears it.

“I’m really sorry for all of this, and thank you for making me feel better,” Heejin purses her lips, trying not to laugh again when she glances at Hansol from the side. She fools absolutely no one, but Hyunjin’s a little afraid of the swooping in her stomach, and the sudden weightlessness of her costume.

“I guess you can say… ” Hansol’s shoulders sagging and Heejin’s mouth curling mischievously around her words are Hyunjin’s only warnings.

“It was kind of a cat-astrophe.”

It was in that precise moment that Hyunjin knew she was done for― the ty pun escaping from Heejin’s lips that has Hansol groaning into his palms, but sends Heejin into another fit, laughing at her own joke (who does that???). Her heart suddenly feels stuffed with the same stuff as the bunny that got her into this mess, filled to the brim and fit for bursting.

She can’t help but laugh in disbelief, heart and tongue already curling around a word that starts with a large and capital L― before she cuts herself short with a gasp, hands coming up to cover .

Heejin’s brow raises but her million megawatt grin doesn’t lose its intensity.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep this a secret for the children,” Heejin puts one finger to her lips and winks, and, her heart definitely bursts, makes her feel like Mr. Bunny 1.0’s arm. Hyunjin finds herself spiraling very, very fast.

“I’ll see you around, maybe, Whiskers!” Hyunjin barely has enough presence of mind to wave goodbye at the retreating couple, heart hurting and maybe a little scared of the girl that just walked away.

She stands for a good minute, just waving at the couple’s backs.

Her body runs on autopilot when she returns to the store, heart just a little denser than what it was minutes prior.

When she reaches the store, she finally discards the stuffy cat head, tossing it to the side carelessly. Dropping down dramatically onto the counter, she burrows her head into the mascot’s arm and screams. One of her hand curls into a fist and pounds lightly on the table.

“That was somehow the most mortifying and most heartwarming moment of my life,” she says, once she lifts her head up and looks at Ara. The older girl nods sagely.

“Yes, I agree.” Ara waves her phone in the air. “And I caught the entire thing on camera."

“Wait, what? Why did you― You caught it on camera? Isn’t that illegal? But can I see?” Hyunjin asks, perking up instantly. Ara rolls her eyes at the barrage of questions, but hands Hyunjin the phone.

“Just in case you did actually get arrested, I wanted to memorialize the occasion. But instead, I got something even funnier.”

Ara is mighty pleased for a person who only caught the action and didn’t participate in it, but Hyunjin will call her out on being a team slacker later.

Ara started filming ever since Hyunjin took two steps out the door. The weird gestures that she does on camera has her flushing again― she kind of wants to cover her eyes but seeing Heejin’s smile again, no matter how grainy or low quality it is, has Hyunjin smiling wide, too.

Ara on the recording is dead silent up until that point, making an interested noise in the back of at his appearance. Then the boyfriend trips over Whiskers and the camera shakes with the force of Ara’s laughter, going out of focus completely as Ara struggles for air.

“Ara!” Hyunjin squawks, “keep the camera focused on the goddess!” The older girl doesn’t even hear her when she starts laughing at the incident all over again, throwing her head back and turning away from her phone.

The camera does go back to the trio right before Heejin picks up the bunny. Hyunjin finds herself smiling stupidly all over again, watching their dumb antics. Her smile is still in place even after the recording shuts off, warming her to the point where she forgets her costume is wet.

“Ew, don’t make that face,” Ara says, eyeing the other girl critically. But Hyunjin sees the quirk of her lips― Ara’s a big softie, after all.

“I think I fell in love. Like, in five minutes, I think I fell in love.”

“You two... are of a similar breed,” Ara acquiesces, taking her phone back from Hyunjin’s hands.

“Okay, so I don’t think it’s actually love, of course, because I barely know her,” Hyunjin starts to ramble, “but I’ve seen her in the bakery around the corner, and I guess I sometimes see her walking around when I’m in costume? And I just saw her crying and wanted to make her feel better, and also just talk to her because I was always too nervous to. And she’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen and I never thought she was such a big nerd? Like I didn’t think she’d play charades with me but she did and it was really freaking cute, and―”

“She goes to our university.”

“And she goes to our― wait, what?”

Ara nods. “Yeah. She’s actually kind of famous at our school for being such a young indie artist under BlockBerry Creative.”

“I… what?” Hyunjin whispers, fingers resting against her temples. “She goes to our school? And I’ve never known?”

Ara snorts. “I’m a little surprised you haven’t heard of her, but at the same time, you’re only ever thinking of basketball or bread, aren’t you?”

Hyunjin ignores her, pounding against the counter again and a fire filling her eyes when she turns to the other.

“I have to talk to her again, Ara. Preferably out of costume.”

A slow but genuinely demonic grin starts tugging at Ara’s lips. “I’ll support you as long as you get me more hilarious recordings.”

Hyunjin doesn’t even think about her response. “Done and done. Do you know where I can find her?”

“She hangs around the arts building a lot with her friends. Her boyfriend and her really cute brunette friend in particular.” Ara enunciates the boyfriend part, but Hyunjin zeroes in on something else entirely.

“Her really cute brunette friend? Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”

Ara waves her hand dismissively. “Some other time, not today. She still does have a boyfriend though, are you going to do anything about him?”

Hyunjin frowns, heart tugging at the reminder. “I’m not going to break them up, if that’s what you’re asking. That’s really gross, and they seem happy.” Her heart tugs again. “And… she might be straight.”

“Could be bi?”

Hyunjin shrugs. “I don’t want to get my hopes up, and it’s not like it matters anyway when she already has someone.”

Ara makes a sympathetic noise, rubbing the top of Hyunjin’s head.

“I’m rooting for you, Whiskers.”

Hyunjin sighs. “Yeah. Me too.”

The hand rubbing her head suddenly tightens its grip.

“Now help me clean up the ing stuffing, you brat.”
 

A/N: vivi needs a cigarette break tbh

tysm for reading!