Haseul stares at the paper, its blankness practically taunting her. 

 

With her pen in her hand and ink staining her fingers, Haseul knows she could easily write pages and pages of lyrics. In fact, she already has. But for the sake of the source of inspiration for those songs, she has already tucked those pages away - folded them up nicely and safely left them in her poetry books that she knows her members won’t touch. Those lyrics hold too much truth to ever be revealed, bare too much of Haseul’s heart and soul to ever see the light of day.

 

The world falls right into place

When my eyes meet your tender gaze,

I can finally start to breathe

 

As soon as Haseul’s hand speeds up its writing, she stops herself. She crosses the words out - first with straight lines, then scribbling over them to make sure that they could never be read. 

 

Not for the first time, Haseul considers what would happen if she left it. If she had continued on - written about the kind eyes and soft voice that Haseul could never get out of her head. As much as Haseul would like to think that she could one day muster up enough courage to record it in the studio, she knows she couldn’t. After all, how could she proudly show it off to the world when she can’t even tell Vivi herself?

 

Vivi, who has never judged anything Haseul’s done. Vivi, with the most compassionate heart Haseul’s ever seen. Vivi, who all of Haseul’s songs are for. 

 

Haseul knows that she shouldn’t, but her hand starts writing again anyway. Against her better judgement, countless thoughts about the captivating way Vivi’s cheeks push up whenever she smiles widely spill onto the page. Haseul finds that she doesn’t want to stop her newfound inspiration.

 

Haseul tries to convince herself that’s there’s nothing wrong with having a muse - that taking inspiration from her members was completely ordinary and nothing to worry about. She’s right, to a certain extent. All of her members are beautiful, hardworking, and genuinely awesome people. She could easily write a song about any of them, given enough time. If that were all it was, just simple appreciation for the people Haseul cares about, then that would be fine. 

 

The problem lies in the fact that Haseul doesn’t want to write a song about anyone but Vivi. 

 

Somewhere along the way, Vivi had become more than a member to her. Sometime between the late night conversations - when Vivi would clamber up to Haseul’s bunk and they’d talk for hours about their dreams, their homes, their families, about anything that came to mind - and now, Haseul had fallen in deep.

 

The door creaks open slowly, the sound startling Haseul and making her rush to hide the paper now filled with scribblings. 

 

“Haseul?” calls out the voice that Haseul’s been wanting to hear all night, “you in here?”

 

“Yeah, unnie,” Haseul replies as soon as she’s situated a small stack of books above the page, “come in.”

 

Vivi’s sleepy yawn and the way she softly smiles at her makes Haseul melt, and Haseul resists the urge to squeal over how adorable the older girl was when she was tired. Or well, how adorable the older girl was anytime.

 

The sleeves of Vivi’s oversized sweater easily fall past her dainty fingers, and Haseul can’t help but think of how cozy she looks in it, mentally tucking it away for another song. 

 

“Tired?” she asks, just as Vivi yawns a second time, the timing making both girls laugh.

 

“Mm,” Vivi lets out as she nods. 

 

Haseul can tell that Vivi must have been sleepy for a while, her slouched shoulders and unfixed gaze betraying her tiredness. Instead of making her way to the beds, however, Vivi walks towards the desk and makes herself comfortable right beside Haseul.

 

Something about Vivi’s presence makes the air smell a little sweeter - Haseul makes a note to ask about what perfume she’s wearing sometime in the future. She’s smelt it before, of course, had these exact thoughts during every hug Vivi’s given her, but she always forgets to ask. Haseul always found it hard to keep her thoughts in line around the older girl.

 

“You should’ve come here earlier,” Haseul tells her, trying to pretend like the close proximity isn’t affecting her, isn’t making a slowly-growing warmth spread in her chest. “We all need to rest for tomorrow.”

 

“I thought you were writing - I didn’t want to disturb you,” Vivi explains. “You seemed busy.”

 

“I’m never too busy for you,” Haseul says, her words truthful but delivered as if she were only teasing the older girl. 

 

Vivi’s lips purse into a cute little pout and Haseul’s heart aches knowing she’ll never get to kiss them. Ignoring the heartache, Haseul tries to continue the conversation casually.

 

“To be honest, I’ve been having trouble with writing lately.” At least, writing anything that isn’t about you.

 

“Well, I don’t really know anything about writing but--” Vivi peers up at her, almost lovingly (or did Haseul just imagine that?) “if there’s anyone that can get over a slump, it’s you.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Mhm,” Vivi says. “You’re Jo Haseul. You can do anything.” She says it so resolutely that it makes a blush slowly rise to Haseul’s cheeks. She just seems so sure about it, so firm in her faith in Haseul, that it makes Haseul feel like she can do anything. 

 

“Speaking of your writing, am I ever going to hear one?”

 

Haseul feels like she can do anything, except for that.

 

She has poured her feelings too deep in every lyric - and Vivi is the one person that knows her best. If Vivi ever heard one, or even so much as glanced at the words, she’d know instantaneously that it was for her. 

 

And there was no way that Haseul could ever let that happen. For the sake of the group, of their fans, but most importantly for their own sakes. For everyone’s sakes, Haseul’s songs and her love must always be in secret.

 

“If I ever get the courage to show them,” Haseul starts to say, “I promise you’ll be the first.”

An empty promise, sure, but it’s true. Haseul wants Vivi to be the first audience member to songs just as much as Vivi wants to hear them. 

 

Vivi seems satisfied with that answer, her smile returning. 

 

She smiles so brightly that Haseul’s almost blinded by it - as if the sun itself resides inside of Vivi, only to be shown whenever Vivi’s eyes crinkle and lips curve like that. Haseul can’t help but stare, but to drink her in. Everything about Vivi captivates Haseul, makes her heart pound impossibly hard in her chest and takes her breath away, but Vivi’s smile had to be her favourite.

 

Haseul’s speechless for a few seconds, dumbstruck by the effortless beauty that Vivi holds, and it’s then that Vivi lets her head loll down to Haseul’s shoulder. 

 

“You don’t need to be so embarrassed about them, you know,” Vivi murmurs, “I’m sure I’ll love anything you’ve written.”

 

In her heart, she knows Vivi is right. Vivi would love to read these words, would no doubt smile at every syllable, would applaud Haseul the second that it was over. And while a small part of Haseul wants to show her, wants to do anything to make Vivi happy, wants to shower Vivi in all the love she deserves. Haseul knows that it’s impossible.

 

Still, Haseul makes a note to one day show Vivi a heavily-revised version of one. One with its pronouns changed to male, with every mention of something too obviously Vivi rewritten into something more generic and bland.

 

Haseul tilts her head and finds that the older girl is already asleep, her eyes shut tightly with her head still on Haseul’s shoulder. Without moving too much, Haseul takes the blanket beside her and bundles Vivi in it. 

 

It’s hard to describe the feeling in her chest as she watches Vivi’s sleeping figure. 

 

Desire claws at her the way it’s always done, but it’s somehow more muted than usual. As always, she feels the urge to run up to their rooftop and yell her love out for all the world to hear, but… she also feels content with the way things are. Having Vivi this close to her, even though it isn’t in any special way, it feels like enough. 

 

After all, even though Haseul’s heart aches so, so badly, but there’s nothing she can do. She’s already made her choice to love Vivi in secret.