"truth." joy smirks as their gathering erupts into oohs and ahs. they sit, nearly cooking, in irene's hot tub. would they rather freeze in the cold of november? no. "the juxtaposition of the extreme temperatures is comforting" as yeri said was… an interesting take, but not exactly true. the temperature difference would probably give them pneumonia or something. wendy's not really concerned with that. 

her shoulders are cold. and she can't imagine how cold joy's upper torso must be. she remembers that she had better stop staring at joy's blue lips a little late. eyes flicking up to joy's, wendy watches as joy smirks. joy's eyes lazily trace an arc from wendy's face to seulgi's. 

"well?" 

"who's your favorite best friend?" seulgi asks with a big smile. everyone else pretends not to notice her fingers laced between irene's under the surface of the bubbling water. joy eyes their hands, and looks at wendy for a moment before settling on,

"you, seulgi-bear." the tension between the five of them dissolves, and maybe that was the right answer. so what if it's a little lie, they all know it. the truth is right there in front of them. if joy had said the truth? who knows what would've gone down next. it's different when the truth comes out and they're skin on skin sharing the last of the four built in hot tub seating spots. 

but seulgi celebrates with an arm in the air and a quick "eat it, yerim!" 

"are you cold?"

"no." wendy lies straight through her chattering teeth and purple lips. joy floats out of her place, telling yeri to turn the temperature up 2 degrees higher before being told to do it herself. then she returns to wendy's side.

"right. neither am i." she slouches into the water, submerging everything except her head which she leaves on wendy's shoulder. 

wendy dove too deep with this one, didn't she? this girl is never letting wendy climb out of these deep blue pools of smooth skinned hugs and brown eyed longing. but it'd be a lie for wendy to say she didn't like it. 

she didn't mind the water. she liked wading sooyoung's water.