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chapter prompt: secretly holding hands under the table whenever one of them [or both] gets nervous

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The room doesn’t spin as much the next time Byul knocks her head back with another shot, her eyebrows meeting in the middle when it lacks the usual burn that she’s come to know well from soju. She raises an eyebrow at Wheein and the younger woman just shrugs.

“I was giving you water for your past three shots, you only notice now,” she snickers, picking another chicken leg and there’s a suddenly noticeable lack of soju bottles in their table.

Byul strangely wonders just how drunk she got right now.

“What time is it?” She reaches for a chicken too. Since her friend already cut her off on the alcohol, it’s better to let food soak up what’s left inside her stomach so she won’t be as hungover tomorrow.

“A few minutes after one in the morning,” Wheein says, scrunching her nose as she looks at her schedule.

They’re at the place that could care less about Wheein’s celebrity status and Byul’s fame in the photo industry, as long as they keep their usual noise to a tolerable volume and they pay before they order their fourth bottle of soju. It doesn’t have the best food, but it tastes like familiarity and they don’t mind when Byul pays them extra to keep the oil to a minimum.

Byul hums, studying the people milling outside, the city looking alive as it can be in one in the morning, when her phone rings with an incoming call.

Yongddunnie is calling…

Huh.

“Yong?” She gestures to the phone, Wheein giving her a nod that translates that she doesn’t mind, going back to eating.

“Are you still out with Wheein?”

Byul nods, belatedly realizing that her best friend can’t see her, replying two beats late. “Yeah, we’re at that place near Hongdae, why’d you ask?”

The other line is silent for a moment, Byul looking at her wristwatch and wonders if it will be alright to cut their drink short. “Just come home soon, okay? Be safe.”

Yongsun hangs up before Byul has a chance to reply, and she fishes enough bills inside her wallet to pay for her half of the bill, Wheein watching her in amusement.

“Your wife called you?” She teases, pushing the empty dish away from herself and pulling out money herself.

Byul glares but softens when she sees the other woman pack up her things, too. “Sorry to cut our drinking short, Wheenie. It’s just that—“

“No I get it,” Wheein laughs at the other woman, waggles her eyebrows as she says: “, it’s Yongsunnie.” She says it as if Yongsun being weird at 1AM is enough acceptable reason to cut short their always-pushed-back-drinking because of their schedules. “I mean,” Wheein continues when their server leaves with their payment, pushing an arm through her coat sleeve. “, if I was dating Yongsunnie and living with her, I’d rush home, too.”

“Yah! Jung Wheein!”

::

They’re not dating.

Despite being best friends for years, living together, being inseparable, going to different public outings as each other’s dates, despite Byul being an openly panual individual, despite Yongsun being an active advocate of every human right especially LGBT+ rights, despite them knowing each other’s dirty secret, despite Yongsun not failing to bring up her best friend in every other interview or radio broadcast ever—

They’re not dating.

But when Yongsun opens their door to Byul drunken knocking—the full glass of water Wheein made her drink before they part ways doing little in diluting the alcohol inside of her—hair in a messy bun with wisps loose and framing her face, the inside of their apartment smelling like fabric conditioners, and Yongsun coddling over her like an overgrown child instead of a drunk adult, Byul lets her mind wander.

Just for a bit.