Drabble based on the winning prompt for the Ninth Drabble Giveaway I held on Twitter (link): wenrene playgirl x bestfriend au (when wendy had enough of irene bringing girls to their shared apartment)

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A harsh, slamming sound pulls Seungwan from sleep, allowing her a moment of disorientation before reality comes into focus and she slumps back against the pillow with a groan.

She doesn't have to look at the blinking red numbers of the alarm clock on her nightstand to know that it's the middle of the night, but she does anyway, because knowing the exact time of her rude awakening always makes her indignation feel so much more legitimate.

The numbers blink back at her, almost mocking. It's 2:09 AM.

She's going to have to talk to Joohyun again, isn't she?

(...)

Seungwan met Joohyun a couple of years ago, a friend of a friend of a friend, and they hit it off from the start. They'd known each other for a few months when Joohyun found herself in need of a roommate, and Seungwan had been looking for a new place from the moment she'd set foot in her current one, so the opportunity was too perfect to pass off.

Her friends had been worried at first, warning her that the budding friendship could quickly wilt under the pressure of sharing a place, but they were all proved wrong. Joohyun was, and still is – for the most part – the perfect roommate. Easy-going but neat, empties the dishwasher whenever it's full, doesn't mind doing Seungwan's laundry along with her own, happy to share cooking duties.

There's only one thing about being Joohyun's roommate that is less than ideal: the girls.

It isn't quite a constant stream of girls passing through the apartment, but Seungwan would be lying if she said it was far from it.

The thing is, Joohyun doesn't really do girlfriends. It's like she's drawn a line in her mind, a very strict one that leaves no room for bargaining. On one side are her friends. These are the ones she spends time with, hanging out at the park with a few bottles of beer, horsing around and making easy jokes. With them, she's rowdy, rough around the edges, loud with her laughter and quick to elbow anyone who crosses her.

One the other side are the girls. The ones she picks up at bars, with a wink and a crooked smirk and a quiet, languid way of speaking that brings them close into her personal space. With them, she's impossibly smooth, like velvet, and her touches are just soft enough to leave them wanting more.

There is no middle ground. No transition. There is only rough friendship and smooth seduction, those are the two sides of Joohyun on which one can land.

And that is why it's so utterly confusing for Seungwan to be stuck there. In that nonexistent middle. In there, everything is awkward and confusing and uncertain. They're friends, but when they sit down for dinner, curled into opposite sides of the sofa as something plays quietly on the TV, Joohyun is gentle. Her voice is clear but light, her touches are soft but not pressing. Just a hand on Seungwan's wrist, to catch her attention before pointing something out, fingers straightening the collar of her shirt before she leaves in the morning.

They're friends. They're roommates. Maybe even best friends? It's possible. It feels like Joohyun is reaching out to her, trying out something frightening and new, and sometimes she seems so unsure, hesitant in her gestures of affection, that Seungwan feels something catch in , wants nothing more than to reassure her, to return her kindness.

Seungwan wants to repay her love with love, but she worries that the love each of them expresses is too different. She worries that if she lets all the affection swelling inside of her free, she'll be stepping outside of a boundary that she set for her own protection, yielding something she can't give back. She's already fallen too deeply, for the Joohyun who is rough, for the Joohyun who is smooth, for the Joohyun who is gentle and tentative and hers, only hers.

And those girls she picks up seem to always be around, a pointed reminder of where she fits in Joohyun's world.

She doesn't mean to, but she pulls back. She returns all of Joohyun's attentions, but a part of her is kept away, and she knows it shows, a sort of artficial casualness that she uses to distance herself. But what else can she do?

(...)

With a long sigh, she slides out of bed and grabs the robe she left on a nearby chair.

She's running out of options, she muses to herself as she wraps herself in the fabric and tries to make something of her wild hair.

She's already managed to talk her way out of having the girls at the apartment during the day: she doesn't want to be afraid of walking into her own living room at the end of the day, she's argued logically, and Joohyun started bringing them over later, after dinner. She's uncomfortable having strangers at her breakfast table every morning, she pointed out reasonably, and Joohyun started having them leave earlier.

But now the girls come late at night, and leave before dawn, and it would be perfect, just perfect for Seungwan to be able to convince herself that they were never there, except that they live in an old building, and that stupid door catches. It catches, and people pull, and it slams.

And now she wakes up in the middle of the night, startled a little less each time by the deep slam of their old apartment door, and she gets to lie in bed, under the deep cover of darkness, and know exactly what has just happened.

This is probably the earliest she's ever been awoken, though. She's barely been in bed for two hours, and although she usually just rolls over and tries her best to clear her mind and fall back into deep sleep, tonight she feels wide awake as she steps into her slippers and leaves her bedroom.

She expected darkness, maybe a sliver of light from behind Joohyun's door, but instead the small lamp by the sofa is on, and there's a small hunched figure sitting there with her legs curled under her, covered with their fuzziest blanket and sipping on a warm cup of tea.

Fueled by frustration and the unreality of late-night encounters, Seungwan sits across from Joohyun, eyes gazing off towards the dark TV.

“So...” she begins casually, and the corner of her eye catches the motion of Joohyun wordlessly setting her mug on the coffee table. “We sure have a particular door, don't we?” She feels like an idiot saying it, but she's never been good at tactfully approaching this topic, and she keeps running out of ways to do it.

“I barely noticed it during the day, since we're all so busy anyway, just, uh, rushing off to work and stuff.” Joohyun still faces her silently, mug steaming away unnoticed. “But it really shows at night, huh? It's like a... It really catches halfway through. You and I already know the trick, you have to sort of... jam it a little.” She turns to face Joohyun as she mimics the gesture, hands gripping an invisible set of keys and twisting against the imagined resistance. “But, uh, the, uh... Well, any guests we might- Joohyun, are you alright?”

Now facing the girl, she can see the way her features look a little hollow, her gaze a little distant. At her question, Joohyun offers a little half-hearted smile and hugs the blanket a little closer.

“Sorry about the door. I'll let them know about the jamming thing.”

“That's not important right now,” Seungwan quickly brushes off, moving a little closer. She reaches for whatever part of Joohyun is nearer, which happens to be a foot, and squeezes it reassuringly. “What's wrong? You don't look like someone who just got laid,” she adds playfully, ignoring the little twinge of jealousy that stirs at her words.

“I didn't,” Joohyun replies in a very quiet voice, barely audible even in the silence. “I thought I wanted to, but then we got to the apartment, and I just felt... stupid. And lonely. And then I just wanted to be alone.”

Seungwan doesn't know how to respond. She's too confused by the situation, by Joohyun's confession, and all she can do is lean in closer, pull her into a one-armed hug that Joohyun eventually adjusts to accept.

“I'm sorry,” she mumbles into the top of her head, lips brushing it in a gentle kiss. She wants to make her feel better, but she isn't sure how to, when she doesn't even understand what's wrong.

“I'm bad at this,” Joohyun murmurs, and Seungwan hums in response. “I know this isn't the way to do it, but I don't know how else to do it. It's scary. It's scary to just say it.” Her voice is still even, but a hint of vulnerability has seeped into it, a fragility that Seungwan isn't used to. “So I keep trying the wrong way. And I brought that girl over, but then I the light and you'd left your laundry on the kitchen table.”

Seungwan looks back towards the table, where the basket of clean clothes sits, and she isn't sure why she looks. Maybe because that's the only part of Joohyun's speech that is easy to understand. Because the rest is growing into a jumble, a mess that somehow digs into her chest and sits there, startles her heart out of place.

She thinks of Joohyun crouched down by their washing machine, shoving their clothes inside.

“Are you sure you don't mind mixing them?” she asked, not wanting to impose on her new roommate's good will. Joohyun smiled up at her, shoving the door shut.

“Not at all. Now your clothes will smell like mine.”

Joohyun has escaped her grasp in her momentary distraction, leaned forward to recover her cup of tea. Now she holds it protectively to her chest and gazes at it intently, devoting all her attention to the cooling liquid.

Seungwan is stuck in that awkward middle ground. That unexplored space in Joohyun's heart, the part that's gentle and tentative and unsure. That part that never existed before Seungwan came along and carved herself a space inside.

And it's all new for her. And it's scary, and she's trying all wrong. But she's trying.

“Joohyun?” Her touch is light as she tries to pull Joohyun in again, an offer that the girl is free to refuse, but instead she lets herself be guided back into her arms. “Can you stop bringing girls over to the apartment?”

Joohyun gazes down into her tea, a tiny little smile lining her lips as she focuses on nothing in particular.

“Why?” she asks in a soft voice.

This would be the time when Seungwan comes up with another new lie, when she claims a need for privacy, for quiet, for a clean and empty apartment. When she covers up for the real, very simple reason why she asks.

“Because I don't want you to.”

Joohyun's smile grows a little wider. She nods as she curls into her side.

“Then I won't.”