NOTE:  For any kind soul that’s still wanting to read this haha sorry it's been months.....lol life got difficult. And I ended up putting this on hold. I didn't really start this story thinking it'd be this long, and because it’s a non-AU fic I didn’t really know where to appropriately take it or how far I would go. But…I didn’t really want the story hanging so I wrote this chapter to wrap it up! I am going to write other things!, please do check those out when I get around to it, thanks for any comments and love!!!! As always, let me know what you think :)

The air is humid, sticks to their skin like film and makes every movement less desirable than the last. Between getting off the van and walking into the airport is a frenzy of people hollering for them, taking pictures of them. They try not to take it for granted, drawing on a sense of elation that never truly dissipates, and wave politely, stalking through the doors as fast as the crowd allows them to. It’s hard to relinquish the freedom they once had, even with the gratitude for their success. Byul snakes her hand around Yongsun’s arm, pulling them ahead of security, a protective eminence that naturally comes to her.

Byul slips her passport from her back pocket to display, pulling down her mask momentarily for the agent and disappears behind the wall into the line for security. She could feel the fatigue setting in, the lack of sleep from the schedules for the last couple days catching up with her. She leans her weight back as she feels and hears Yongsun roll up closely behind her. Yongsun catches most of Byul’s weight with her body and slides a free hand onto her back to steady the both of them. Byul’s drops her head back and spins around, making eye contact before she closes her eyes wearily.

“You can sleep on the plane.” Yongsun murmurs. Her fingers slip around to Byul’s shoulder, squeezing gently then letting go.

Byul hums in agreement, shuffling backwards as they move ahead in line. They stand in silence for a while, waiting, when suddenly Byul breaks out with a small laugh. Her head drops a little with that same smile then leans over to Yongsun’s right ear to whisper, “you’ve got to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” Yongsun hushes back.

“Staring at my lips.”

Yongsun blushes, the sudden statement throwing her off. Was she even doing that?

“Tell me that when your hands stop wandering.” Yongsun cracks back at her. Two can play that game.

“Oh. I can’t promise that.” Byul retorts, her hand reaching for Yongsun’s abdomen.

Yongsun pushes her off and laughs. “Turn around. The line’s moving.”

Byul grins and turns back another time before Yongsun swivels her forward again.

The flight to Japan is silent with the exception of the rumble in the aircraft. Byul blinks her eyes open at landing; they’re dry and still saturated with fatigue. And when they finally arrive at the hotel, the sun was beginning to drop on the horizon, the orange backdrop of the sunset feeding a temptation to stay in the room and order room service.

She tugs weakly on Yongsun’s jacket when they enter their room.

“Can we stay in?” Byul’s voice is soft and suddenly reminds Yongsun of how subdued she could be when they were alone.

“Yeah, I'll text Wheein,” Yongsun smiles reassuringly, mirroring remnants of the same fatigue. “I’ll order food?”

“Whatever you’re having.” Byul concedes happily. She tugs a little harder on Yongsun’s jacket to turn her slightly and pecks her on the cheek, striding past her with her suitcase in hand.

After sleeping less in their own homes than hotel rooms for the last couple months, they flow into a pattern that’s become second nature to them. It’s routine and robotic to unpack their things and they quickly lay sprawled out on the hotel bed waiting for food.

Byul rests her head on Yongsun’s thigh, half-twisted horizontally on the bed, dozing in and out to whatever local television has on. Yongsun tends to emails on her tablet, propped up on pillows against the headboard. Between their insane schedules, moments like these makes it worth it, makes it work.

When the tell-tale knock comes at the door, Yongsun almost hesitates to wake Byul, but decides against it, knowing they haven’t had a proper meal since that morning. Byul groans as Yongsun tucks the hairs in front of her eyes behind her ears to wake her, leaning towards the touch then rolling herself off Yongsun.  

Not long after they eat Byul lays wrapped up in blankets watching TV mindlessly when a phone buzzes on the side-table. Lights blaze up reading “KDH CEO” on Yongsun’s phone.

“Unnie.” Byul states. “Phone.”

Yongsun’s head peaks out from the washroom. Her hair is held in a high bun with stray strands slipped free from the sides, and a toothbrush hangs from .

“Who?” She murmurs, eyes open quizzically.

“CEO.” Byul calls out.

“Uh…Le-- it ring.” She gargles. “I’ll call –im –ba.”

Byul snickers, baffled at her how she finds things like this about Yongsun endearing. “Okay, if you’re sure.”

It wasn’t even several minutes before Yongsun comes out and redials the number, moving to crouch by her suitcase as she returns CEO’s call. Byul wasn’t concerned, barely paying attention until Yongsun turned back towards the bed. She prides herself at how well she can read Yongsun, but anyone could pick up that she was upset, maybe a little flustered and frustrated. 

“Hey…” Byul inquires and scoots over on the bed. “Hey. What happened?” She pats on the space next to her, telling her to sit.

“No, it’s nothing. I…uh… just talked to our CEO.” Yongsun stammers and crawls into the bed. She’s hesitating. Sheets curl up next to her after she settles cross-legged next to Byul.

Byul’s reaches over, lightly prying Yongsun’s hand free from the grip she had on her own thigh. She grazes her fingers over Yongun’s repetitively, as if she was physically trying to draw out what was bothering her.

“And…?” Byul pushes.

“Uh… he was calling back because I went to talk to him. Before we left. I…gave him my song.”

That was enough for it to click. This wasn’t something Byul could fix.

“Oh. You finally showed it to him. What did he say…?” Byul holds her breath, already anticipating what Yongsun would say from her reaction, her hand reflexively gripping a little harder.

“He said…that— uh… he would keep it but he won't use it. I mean I guess there’s time. He wants me to try again.” Byul hears the smallest break in Yongsun’s voice near the end and knows this was more rejection than she could handle with the stress they’ve been dealing with. It’s apparent how she tries to hide the stress from the rest of them. It’s also wildly apparent how much work she’s been putting into the song; she’s been waiting for this. She lifts Yongsun’s chin gently with her fingers.

“Hey. Look at me. It’s okay.” Byul whispers gently, her heart breaks a little when she sees Yongsun blink rapidly to hold her tears, struggling to hold Byul’s gaze. And yet the eyes won’t hold those tears and Yongun’s fingers flies to cover them, still trying to shield her vulnerability.

“God, I don’t even know why I’m crying. It’s not a big deal, I… this happens all the time. I didn’t think it was going to go through anyways,” Yongsun rambles.

“I know that, but it’s okay to feel like this,” Byul says.

Yongsun closes her eyes and takes a couple deep breaths.

Byul wraps her arms around Yongsun and kisses her on her head.

“You heard the song.” Yongsun’s voice quietens. “Was it that bad?”

“Yong.” Byul aches hearing the insecurity in her question, unable to even formulate something that she thinks could take that away.

She pulls back, holds Yongsun at arms-length, looks at the doubt circulating in her eyes.

“You’re special you know? Not just to me, because you already knew that. To everyone. You— how do I even put this?”

There’s a hint of bewilderment as she trails off and squeezes a little harder on her shoulders, “you…you see things that other people don’t see, seek a perfection that others don’t know exist. Work harder than what I thought was possible. You have talent, but it’s not just that...it grows because of what you do with it. You’re just…special. You’ll try again.” Byul laughs. “It’s what you do.”  

Yongsun drops her head down then looks up, her eyes struggling to stay open from the exhaustion and the crying. There are no words she could form to respond. Not to something like that. The way Byul laughed at the end, like it seemed so obvious, doubt never crossing her mind. Yongsun smiles lightly. Her eyes say everything Byul needs to know. There’s silence as she tells her thank you, that this was something she needed to hear.

Yongsun sits up and rests her forehead against Byul’s, breathing for a second before laughing hoarsely. “Well now you’re just feeding my ego.”

She tugs gently on Byul’s chin and kisses her sloppily.

“Thank you.” Yongsun murmurs against her lips, her hand dropping lazily from Byul’s chin to her chest, feeling her heartbeat against her palm.

“Always.” Byul whispers.

//

The alarm goes off at 6 and through the slits of the curtains they could tell the sun had barely risen. Yongsun pulls her arm from under Byul’s torso to smack the alarm quiet, groaning and settling back in the covers, a moment of silence as they try to wake. She sees Byul attempt to sit up and instead throws her arms against her waist pulling her back down. She falls clumsily against Yongsun with a humph.

“What are you trying to do?” Byul murmurs into the dark. Her voice is even deeper laced with sleep, and if something has changed between their relationship, it’s that Yongsun gets to hear that pleasant deep rumble more and more waking with her recently.

“It’s too early.” Yongsun mumbles against her neck.

Byul chuckles. “Sadly that does not preclude our responsibilities.”

“What responsibility? Maybe they’ll just go away for a day.” Yongsun’s words are muffled against Byul’s neck, small breaths hitting the same area and lips moving to brush there lightly after. Byul stills and closes her eyes with an open-mouthed inhale. They’ve gotten closer and closer recently. And it gets harder and harder every time for Byul to control that need; but she wasn’t sure if they were ready to take things any further.

“You can’t do that now.” Byul’s voice is husky. She turns in Yongsun’s arms and pecks her on the forehead instead. Yongsun frowns, a little oblivious to the effect she has then.

“Why?”

“Yong.” She warns. It tics her have so little control over something. “Come on.” Byul says softly. “Let’s get up, lazy.”

Byul untangles herself to Yongsun’s dismay; a small whine coming from Yongsun as she succumbs and reaches over to turn on the lights.

“I’d rather not hear manager unnie’s passive aggressive comments about punctuality when we need to use those comments for Hyejin later.” Byul says jokingly as she makes her way to the bathroom.

They wake and get dressed, preparing for an interview that precedes their performances. In the bathroom they stand next to each other, a scatter of make-up lying on the sink counter.

“Ugh. I look good in this bomber. I should wear these jackets more often.” Byul says as she finishes curling her eyelashes and drops the curler on the counter.

“Byul. Stop. It’s too early for all this cockiness.” Yongsun looks at her through the mirror, giving her a once-over that lingers a tad too long. She holds back a sarcastic eye-roll.

Byul winks back at her. “But you like it.” Her words are a little soft, a hint of shyness under it all.

She turns sideways and pulls at Yongsun’s hips to turn her so that they were looking at each other. A grin fills her face, her thumb slipping under the edge of Yongsun's shirt, grazing back and forth on skin right above the belt.

Yongsun scoffs, smiling, a little flustered by the sudden change in tone and still holding her foundation bottle in her hand. “What’s with you today?” She whispers, hands moving to hold onto Byul's arms, already leaning closer towards her lips.

“Nothing. Just thought I should point out the obvious.” Byul shrugs.

She stays unmoving, waiting for Yongsun to search for a kiss. And just before Yongsun makes contact, Byul releases her and pats her on the head instead, taking a step back as if she was unaware. “Unless you think I should change…” Byul trails teasingly, halting to smirk at Yongsun again.

“I don’t. You look good.” Yongsun states, her eyes steely with longing, looking at Byul with an intensity she could really never hide. And it’s always that intense look that gets her.

Byul laughs loudly, the sudden sincerity taking her by surprise.

“That’s what I thought.” She steps back in to brush a brief kiss on her lips, then turn