First things first, they have to figure out how to be together.

Ryujin has a few concerns. Well, several, really. The first one off the top of her head is the fact that she has never dated a girl before, and thus, does not know how to. Who pays for the dates? Who is supposed to open the door, and hold it for the other to walk through?

("We can split the bill," Lia says patiently. "I can open the doors for you, if you want."

"Okay, but what if I want to pay for your food?"

"If you let me pay on our next date."

"Deal.")

Lia assures her that the mechanics of dating a girl is no different than dating a boy, but also not to worry about the typical customs of dating. She says, "We can just be together however way we want. It's our relationship, after all," with a smile that melts the entirety of Ryujin's heart to the floor. Ryujin admits that when they agreed to actually date for real, she'd expected herself to be the smooth one, the one who gets Lia blushing and flustered, the cool, calm and collected one—after all, it's her damn persona—but Lia's pretty much been doing nothing but shatter that expectation so far. Which is not great and also great at the same time. Ryujin wants to be the smooth one, dammit.

(She'll figure out a way to be that way. She just has to stop blushing every time Lia refers to something as belonging to them. Both. Ours.)

But beyond the customs of dating, there's the more pressing issue of how to date. They are, after all, still two girls, members of an internationally recognized group from one of the biggest K-Pop agencies in South Korea. As such, it's imperative that it stays a secret.

("At least for now," Lia says with a tight smile, and Ryujin nods sagely.

Another fact that Ryujin finds while Googling her uality crisis: there's almost no way she can be out and proud while staying in the industry. The only out idol that she knows is named Holland, a gay soloist, but the searches for his name in Korean SNS turn up nothing but immense hatred, and that tells Ryujin everything about her own chances.

(But that's okay. She tells herself it's okay. Isn't love a private thing?)

Telling their manager is a big no. The thought of even facing JYP to talk about this is nauseating. There are consequences that feel too massive to comprehend; best case scenario, they're told to break up, citing concerns for dynamics of the band, inner circle conflicts risking the band, but worst case scenario? They could be kicked out. JYP doesn't have to specify exactly why, and for the rest of their lives, they'd be hounded with questions from netizens, wondering and speculating and gossiping and lying. And their relationship is so new; telling the higher ups only mean trouble for now, and so they cross off that list.

Which leaves: the other girls.

It's not like Charyeong doesn't already know. The morning after their first kiss, the brown-haired girl took one look at Ryujin and congratulated her. Ryujin didn't even say anything. It feels counterproductive to try to hide it from Yeji and Yuna afterwards—Ryujin knows Chaeryeong will slip, and besides, didn't the rest of the group know about her embarrassing crush even before she herself did? They live together, too—it'd be hard to try to find some alone time in the house they share if they also have to keep it secret from everyone.

("Alone time?" Lia raises her eyebrows, wiggling them, and Ryujin slaps a pillow over her head in retaliation for making her blush, again.)

But more than that, Ryujin thinks it's about trust. The girls are the only ones who Ryujin has let see her at her worst—when she had a breakdown, or felt too overwhelmed about everything around her, before she met the girls, she used to just lock herself in her bedroom and force herself to feel better by watching mindless dramas and variety shows. Her mother wouldn't even know that Ryujin had been crying once she emerged from her bedroom.

(While we're still on that topic: Ryujin would rather eat a shoe than tell her mother, so no telling her. Maybe ever.)

But the girls held her hand, buoyed her back up with their gentle words and support, and when Ryujin was at her best, they continued to hype her up. It's a sign of trust, for Ryujin, to let people in during vulnerable moments, and she feels fooling around behind their backs would be a betrayal of some sort. The girls deserve to know. Yeji would certainly not appreciate being kept out of the loop.

So, they tell the girls, and it goes a little like this:

Yuna is cooking dinner that day. Ryujin remembers it's kimchi-jjigae because she's so nervous about telling the other girls that her hands shake as she's holding the spoon, and the broth spills onto her favorite sweatpants. Lia, noticing this, immediately grabs a tissue and wipes it down, and the gesture of this casual domesticity—and Lia's hand on her thigh—makes Ryujin blush really hard and choke on her next spoonful of soup, and Yeji, ever the observant, starts to look concerned.

"Are you okay, Ryujin?" she asks.

Ryujin exchanges looks with Lia. Lia, through all this, has been the calmer one between the two of them. It's kind of unfair, because, again, Ryujin's supposed to be the smooth one.

"Everyone," Lia starts, putting her spoon down on the table. "Ryujin and I have something to tell you guys."

And though the girls look like they can guess what it's about already, Lia continues on, "We're dating."

Ryujin glances at the girls, tries to gauge their reactions one by one. Visibly, she gets nothing, as they all wear the same plain, neutral expressions. Even Chaeryeong, who actually knows. Ryujin's hands start to get clammy—they can't possibly disapprove, right? Yeji, especially, is uncharacteristically silent.

"Are you guys sure?" Yeji is the first one who speaks

Ryujin blinks. "What kind of question is that? Of course we're sure about each other."

"You know what this means, right?" Yeji says again. "I mean, dating as idols, that's already a big issue for a rookie group like us. Dating within the group? That's another scandal waiting to happen."

Ryujin can't believe what she's hearing. She had been expecting maybe a little resistance, especially from Yeji, who always wants to keep them out of trouble's way, but to hear it laid out like that is another thing entirely. She loses her appetite.

"Lia-ya, we talked about this, right?" Yeji looks at Lia, her voice taking on a gentler note. Lia glances back at Yeji, then at Ryujin, and sighs, sinking back to her chair.

"I know," Lia says. "This is why we want to tell you all upfront. We promise you we will be discreet, no hand-holdings, kissing, or anything like that outside the house, we will even sit as far away as we can during interviews—"

"I think that'll just make the fans notice it even more," Chaeryeong pipes up. Yuna nods in agreement. "You guys have always been weirdly close."

"We can always figure out the mechanics later," Lia says. "We're just—asking for—permission? Of sorts. We know dating within the band is risky, not to mention we're two girls. I barely got away unscathed from the last scandal, and I stepped into one right after. But you guys—out of everyone, and even Ryujin herself—know how long I've liked Ryujin. And I'd really, really like Ryujin to be my girlfriend."

Lia blushes, finally. Ryujin can at least feel a little better about how embarrassing she is about her crush. Lia bows a little, and Ryujin follows suit. "So please, let us have this," Lia says.

Yeji looks at them, heartfelt, and exchanges looks with Chaeryeong and Lia. Finally, she reaches out, and Lia and Ryujin both straighten up.

(Ha, no pun intended.)

(God, does being bi come with a side of wanting to make not-straight jokes at every opportunity?)

"Of course we know how much you like each other," Yeji says. "Which is why we're even more scared for you."

Oh.

"If anyone ever finds out, you guys..." Yeji shakes her head. "We don't want you guys to be torn down by hate. Especially for something as harmless as being in love."

"Love is love!" Yuna quips in English.

"Exactly," Yeji nods sagely. "You don't need permission, not from us. We will never stand in the way of your guys' happiness. And this is a promise, not some kind of meaningless adlib. Seriously—Lia, you know I want nothing but joy for you, after everything you've been through."

Lia's eyes are teary. "Yeah," she agrees. "We promise to be careful."

"You better be," Yeji nods. "Thank you for telling us."

And just like that, a weight that Ryujin didn't know have been holding her down lifts, and she breathes easier, after. This is what coming out is like, then. Just a huge weight off her chest. She thinks about the future conversations that she'll have, ones just like this, with her brother, mother, childhood best friends, ones that won't have a similar outcome. What she will do if instead of the tentative acceptance like what she gets from the girls—her best friends—she receives instead rejection.

Suddenly, her eyes are teary, too.

"Ryujin?" Yuna calls softly.

Ryujin looks up, faces of concern and support in front of her, Lia's hand snaking up the table to tangle with hers. She exhales slowly, but it catches on a sob on the way out, and her "thank you" comes out garbled and distorted, and Yuna is saying, "aww, Ryujin," in a way that means a hug attack is coming.

Chaeryeong gets to her first, then Yuna, then Yeji, and Lia, the closest to her, and on that dinner table, Ryujin cries in relief, happy and sad and so many things at once, but loved fiercely.

*

The obvious out of the way, they're now navigating around what it means to be together. Ryujin's still grey on a lot of the answers, but she's learning faster about what it doesn't mean to be in a relationship with Lia.

It doesn't mean that things change, not so drastically. The other girls don’t treat them any different; it makes Ryujin wonder if it means that them gravitating towards one another is something so normal, that the sight of them kissing—discreetly, only in the safety and privacy of their shared house—barely warrants them to bat an eye. It doesn’t mean that it gets any easier, though, being with Lia.

Ryujin still feels her heart beat faster every time she sees Lia all dolled-up before a performance—she has a type of favorite outfits, she realizes, and it's whenever Lia is in a top that's tight-fitting and a pair of pants, and after seeing Lia wear leather pants for the first time, a strip of skin just barely visible along her stomach under a crop-top, Ryujin considers very seriously to petition for their stylist's raise. Lia hasn't seemed to notice this particular preference of Ryujin, and she keeps looking all innocent, sitting with her legs propped up, as if looking at the curves of her lean legs isn't driving Ryujin crazy.

So—yeah, not so different. Except this time, Ryujin has a name for everything that she's feeling, and it's making it harder to ignore this. This time, Ryujin knows she's allowed to jump Lia's bones, and that's... not a good thought to have, not when they're at backstage with so many hidden crevices she can make out with Lia in. Thankfully, Ryujin hasn't lost all of her sanity yet, and still manages to practice restraint, even when Lia unthinkingly bends down to fetch a paper cup she's knocked from the table.

Unfair.

Another unfair thing: neither Yuna nor Yeji would let either of them switch rooms. Yeji gives her a withering look the moment Ryujin brings up the idea, whispered next to the vending machine in the same floor as their practice room.

“Don’t think that just because you’re both girls and can’t get pregnant, I’m going easy on you two,” Yeji says.

“Oh my God,” Ryujin says. “I just want to sleep with her!”

“Ew, Ryujin!”

“I mean literal sleeping together! Get your head out of the gutter!”

“Why did you say it like that, then? It’s not my fault my head went to the gutter!” Yeji slaps her across the bicep. “Whatever. You two are not sleeping in the same room.”

Ryujin deflates. “Ever?”

“You’re not even legally allowed to drink, and you want to sleep in the same bed as your girlfriend?” Yeji glares. Ryujin sputters, because, well, and something about it must’ve softened Yeji, because the leader sighs, crosses her arms on her chest. “Why are you moving so fast, Ryujin?”

“Who’s moving so fast?” Ryujin says.

“Relationships are not a race, you know,” Yeji says, with all the wisdom of someone whose relationship count is no different than Ryujin’s. Ryujin’s about to retort with that, but she reconsiders: ever since they got together, Ryujin has been thinking about everything in terms of progress. What to do, how to tell the people that matter, what their next steps are, counting the things that are different, the things that they’re supposed to do. She flushes—okay, so, there is a chance that she kind of is treating this like a race. But it’s also her first relationship with someone she really, really likes.

Relationships with the boys from high school didn’t matter this much because Ryujin was never really invested, anyway, treated them like a fun thing to fill her pastime with, but with Lia, Ryujin wants to try. And it’s possible her urgency to do everything right may have caused her to rush, just a little.

(Also, she was the first one to suggest alone time to Lia. She can’t chicken out after that fact.)

Yeji eyes her knowingly.

“Fine, okay,” Ryujin says. She feels gradually uncool the more she tries to be cool. “I might be rushing a little.”

“Take your time,” Yeji advises, touching her hand. “There are other things that you can do if you want to step up your romantic game.”

“Like what?”

Yeji shrugs, wistful. She hums as she slips in a coin, punches in the code for a yuzu drink. “A picnic? Lia loves the outdoors, you know.”

Which is how, in the meager free hours they have in between performing and promoting, Ryujin finds herself sitting on a red checkered blanket on their apartment’s rooftop, a selection of Lia’s favorite crackers, fried chicken, homemade gimbap (thanks, Yuna!), and other nibbling food spread out before her artfully. It’s meant to be a surprise, but Lia catches Yuna making way too many gimbaps in the kitchen some time ago and figures out what Ryujin’s planning immediately. Still, when Lia finally comes up to the rooftop, she pretends to be shocked, and it’s the thought that counts, all things considered.

“You look beautiful,” Ryujin tells Lia. The other girl, matching the picnic theme, is in a flowery blue sundress with puffed up sleeves, looking entirely like she’s supposed to be on a fashion magazine spread. The wind blows and messes up her hair, and Ryujin laughs, slides her emergency hair tie off her wrist and offers to tie up her hair.

Lia kneels in front of her, and gingerly, Ryujin begins gathering her hair in her palm. Her hair’s soft—the agency makes sure to take care of it thoroughly, and though Ryujin’s been subjected to many salon appointments for her own upkeep, the many times it’s gone through bleaching and dyeing process make her hair a little too coarse to the touch. It’s thinner now without the extension, but her tie wraps twice over around Lia’s soft locks, and Ryujin’s kind of breathless as the ponytail falls perfectly without Lia trying. She forgets what they’re supposed to do for a hot minute.

Lia tilts her head, meeting Ryujin’s eyes with question visible in her brown irises. “Ryujin?”

Ryujin blinks, pulled back down to earth, and scrambles to look like she hasn’t spent the last minute thinking about Lia’s hair spread out between her fingers, on her pillow. She goes for the pitcher of lemonade (thanks, Chaeryeong!) and pours two whole glasses for the both of them. The vestiges of winter melt away to give way for spring, and thus makes lemonade too cold to drink in the windy hours, but Ryujin’s thinking it’s kind of the point. When she sees Lia shiver, she pulls off her own jacket to drape it over Lia’s shoulder.

Lia smirks up at her. This is it: the same Lia who grins wickedly at her and jokes about the kiss cam. She’s back. “You wanted it to be on the roof on purpose, huh?”

“What purpose?” Ryujin asks innocently, and pops a salted cracker into . Lia pinches her cheeks.

“You’re not as smooth as you think,” Lia declares. “But I’m going to let you pretend that you are.”

Lia goes for Yuna’s homemade gimbap. Ryujin tries not to show how happy she is that Lia’s eating. She keeps a regular schedule when it comes to her visits to the corporate-approved therapist, and though Lia still hasn’t talked about it, it seems to be going well. She still plays with her food, sometimes, but she always eats it in the end, though nowhere as ravenous as the rest of the girls are after a hard practice, but that’s progress, and it’s slow and kind of painstaking, but Ryujin’s willing to be there for every step of it, even when Lia falters.

They take turns feeding each other, and Ryujin has a mini heart attack the moment Lia’s tongue, whether by accident or completely on purpose, grazes for a split second along her fingers. But it’s fine. Ryujin’s holding up just fine. Her heart is probably suffering, but she’ll live. When another strong gust of wind blows and Ryujin fails to conceal her shiver, Lia laughs, and they end up sharing Ryujin’s jacket between the two of them, their shoulders knocking sweetly against one another as they devour the last of the fried chicken.

In the middle of arguing about the best chicken flavor (it’s obviously lemon pepper, it goes so well with their favorite brand of gochujang aioli), Lia vouching passionately for mango habanero—“Hot and sour is the ideal flavor profile, do not even try to disprove this, Ryujin”—Ryujin realizes that she really, really wants to kiss Lia.

Because she can, she does.

It’s quick, the most chaste of their kisses so far, but it catches Lia off-guard. Lia’s surprised face is just irresistible, and so Ryujin cradles her soft jaw in her hand, brushing her thumb along her the apple of her cheek, and kisses her again, deep enough that Lia tilts her back, nearly on the floor with Ryujin on top of her when they’re done.

Lia’s flushed up to her ears. Her nose is red even without blush.

“You can’t win every argument that way,” Lia admonishes, but her hands are clutched at Ryujin’s back. Ryujin deems her point obsolete.

“I win when I get you, though,” Ryujin says, the kind of cheesy thing that she knows will get Lia to slap her on the arm, but instead Lia gets all quiet, like she’s really letting the words sink in.

“You really think that?” Lia asks in a whisper, like she doesn’t want to break some kind of illusion between them.

Yeah, it’s cheesy, but Ryujin’s not in the habit of lying. She tells Lia, “I do. I know I’ve been an idiot all along, but now I’ve come to my senses I can’t stop thinking about it.” She drops her head on Lia’s neck, says to the soft skin on the delicate curve that gives way to her collarbones, “I really am lucky.”

Lia’s hands tighten on the fabric at Ryujin’s back. She breathes out a shaky sigh, as if she’s waiting for bad news and receiving the complete opposite, and is too scared to believe in it. “Me too,” she mutters quietly, so this close, only Ryujin can hear. “I’m so lucky I have you.”

*

Yeji may not have had her first kiss, but she knows smug when she sees it.

It’s all over Ryujin. If they’re not in the car on the way to their last televised show for WANNABE, she would’ve boinked her over the head.

It’s so ridiculous that it makes her want to roll her eyes. Unfortunately for her, she’s too fond of her bandmate to feel anything other than relief. She shares a look with Chaeryeong over her shoulder, and the younger girl sighs in solidarity.

She takes it that the picnic is a success, then.

It’s good seeing them both happy like this. She can’t remember the last time she saw Lia smiling this much—for Lia, everything’s been at a steady decline in terms of mental health since they debuted, and Yeji knows that Lia beats herself up about it more than anyone else in the group, thinking she isn’t strong enough to have let the mean comments got to her. It’s always been Yeji’s job as the leader to ground Lia, but this genuine joy, this subtle spring in her steps—Yeji’s missed seeing it, and as wary as she is about their relationship, she only wishes them the best.

And it’s why, the second her phone starts pinging with incessant notifications, she feels her stomach drop down so fast. It’s getting so loud and frequent that Yuna rips out her earbud, curious.

“Someone must’ve missed you so much to send so many texts in under one minute,” Yuna teases.

Yeji punches in her pass code, swipes her phone unlocked. Her parents are at work, her friends are at school. Who could be blowing up her phone?

She scrolls down her notification tab. It’s going away so fast as more and more pour in, going too rapidly for her to catch the entirety of the sentence, but one word is always consistent: ITZY. Right—she doesn’t have social media, but she sets Google alerts for their band, just to be kept inside the loop.

DISPATCH: NEWSMEDIA GROUP – ITZY’S LIA AND RYUJIN – TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT?

Koreaboo – New Photos Reveal Real Nature of ITZY’s Lia and Ryujin’s Relationship. 

ALL K-POP – 7 HOT PHOTOS TO PROVE THAT #RYUJISU IS REAL! BONUS: EXCLUSIVE SCOOP FROM SECRET INSIDER!!!

Oh.

Oh.

“Yeji?” Yuna leans in, concerned now. Her shock must’ve showed on her face. “What’s wrong?”

Even if Yeji has the words to communicate just how grave their situation is, she wouldn’t have the chance to say them. Their phones all lit up in that same moment with a group call invitation from—

“JYP?” Ryujin asks from the front seat. “Why is he calling us?”

Yeji’s head spins. Oh, God. This is why she almost wants to say no when Ryujin and Lia came forward the other day. This is why.

They’re two minutes away from their venue. If it’s reached Dispatch, there’s no running from it any more. The entrance could be packed to the brim with paparazzi, journalists (or the sad excuse that the gossip blog writers call themselves), and fans. Perhaps angry ones.

Yeji makes a split-second decision, and hopes to all heavens that this is the right move.

“Don’t answer,” she says, too loud to come off as calm. “Turn off your phones.”

“Yeji?” It’s Lia now, peering from the far end of the middle seat. “What’s wrong?”

“Just do it!” Yeji snaps forcefully. Lia’s eyebrows crease, and she can feel tension building up insanely inside the car, but her mind races too fast for her to care. To the driver, she barks, “Turn the car around.”

“Excuse me?” the driver says. “No. We’re almost there already.”

“Turn. The. Car. Around.”

“Yeji?” Chaeryeong calls her. “Hey, can you please calm down—”

Yeji can’t take this. “Turn the car around!”

She slips off her seat belt, because desperate times call for desperate measures, and lunges forward, grips the steering wheel in both hands. The car swerves dangerously, and she hears panicked shouts and maybe someone hitting the window hard. A faint voice in her head tells her that she should check on her girls—being a leader doesn’t just mean keeping them in line, it also means keeping them safe from any sort of harm—

But she’s failed in doing that. The fact is out there, the pictures laid bare for all to see, and no matter which way they spin this story, the people will know.

“Okay, okay—I’m turning the car around!”

With great momentum, at the nearest U-turn, their car jolts around, sending Yeji careening back into her seat. She thinks she may have knocked her upper arm on something, but she can’t really bring herself to care.

“Yeji,” Yuna whispers, and her lips are wobbly, scared, and oh, Yeji has failed so, so spectacularly. “You’re scaring me.”

Yeji stares up at her girls, Chaeryeong pushing herself forward so she can hold Yeji by the arm, as if trying to stop her from doing something rash again, at Yuna and Lia, wide eyes full of fear, and Ryujin, her smug smile nowhere to be found, straining to catch her eyes from where she’s seated. Yeji wants to preserve this moment, keep it solidified in ice so she’ll never have to break them the news.

God, she thinks. Not when Lia’s the happiest.

But there’s nowhere to run. With her data and GPS switched off, she wordlessly hands over the articles on her phone, and helplessly watches the world crumble all around them.