Nothing's gonna hurt you, baby
As long as you're with me, you'll be just fine
Nothing's gonna hurt you, baby
Nothing's gonna take you from my side

-Cigarettes After

I highly recommend listening to the song that inspired this ficlet to set the mood <3: Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby- CAS ♡♡♡

TW for homophobia and homophobic slurs!

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"Coming!" Junghee announced at the ring of the doorbell. 

Gwiboon was 10 minutes early, which ruined Junghee's plan to welcome her with a ready lunch- simple pasta, because she didn't have Gwiboon's cooking skills.

She let the wooden spoon drop in the pot and ran to open the door. 

The moment she saw her girlfriend still in her gym clothes and with a very distressed expression warping her face, she knew something was wrong. 

"Are you okay?" she asked. 

Gwiboon threw herself in Junghee's arms, a throng of long-held sobs bursting into her ear.

She wrapped her hands around the girl's trembling waist, the crook of her neck hot with the steam of her simmering tears, and slowly guided her towards the couch, careful as to not separate their bodies until she finished crying. 

She cupped Gwiboon's jaw and pulled her face in front of her own.

Her heart ached to see her eyes swollen and red, and the pained frown on her eyebrows soon appeared on Junghee's too. 

Had it been a rare sight, it could've been even appreciable- Gwiboon looked pretty when she cried: her cheeks heated up to a warm shade of rose, colouring those splendid high cheekbones of hers with a mellow, sollen glow; the glisten of tears cast sparkles in her sweet brown eyes, but above all, it was pleasurable to see her bitter, phlegmatic armour crumble to pieces and reveal her vulnerable heart. 

But it occurred way, way too often. 

"You want to talk about it?" Junghee suggested, thumbs her tears dry.  

"They ing spat on me." she blurted, looking away in shame. "Because I was in the changing room with them." 

Normally, knowing she was persona non grata in the girls' locker room, she'd wait for everyone to leave before entering. She would've kept that habit up, hadn't it been for the insistent complaints from her professor for having to start the lesson late because of her. 

"What?" Junghee gasped. "You should've kicked their flat asses!"

"It's five of them , what do you expect my little bird arms to do?"

"Boonie..." she murmured, afflicted by how powerless they both were. "I'm so sorry."

"I try not to let it get to me. I'm not that affected when they call me a , but gosh, this was so...humiliating." Gwiboon confessed, voice heavy, and started twiddling her pendant.

 "Now they're targeting Eunsook too for being my friend. She stopped talking to me," she continued, "No one talks to me anymore."

Junghee freed the necklace from her nervous grip and grabbed her hand instead. "It's your last year, hold on a little longer."  

The younger hummed passively.

"Also, a ing creep on the bus kept asking for my number. I wanted to tell him I'm into girls so he'd give up, but I was scared he'd react violently or spread even more rumours. I-" she stopped, the bubbled-up anger stammering her words. "I hate that I can't say it. Like when you come to my place and I have to tell my parents we're friends."

"Why don't you tell them you're gay?"

"No, ugh. I'd never." 

"I mean, I think they got the hint."

"Let's leave it like that. I don't know how they'd react. What if they kick me out?"

"You could always come here," she tilted her head and smiled, "my mom loves you."

"I know, and I love her more." 

She suddenly remembered that the previous day Junghee's mom had driven Taemin to the hospital. He'd been beaten up- again-  because his classmates had decided he looked 'faggy' in his ripped jeans.

"Is Taemin okay?" 

The older nodded. "He even exchanged numbers with a cute nurse at the ER. Minjung? Something like that."

"I'm glad..." she sighed. "This is so stupid. He's not even gay." 

Frustrated, she threw her back on the sofa, their clasped hands dragging Junghee along.

They were lying next to each other, fingers and legs tied up in knots, their foreheads and noses touching lightly.

"Sometimes I think that...maybe it's true that we're the wrong ones..." 

"Don't let them get to you." Junghee spoke in a tone soft but assertive as she played with Gwiboon's chestnut pigtails. 

"Even if we're wrong, why can't they just accept that we're like this?"

"There's nothing wrong with us. We're just different. People are scared of things that are different."

"Oh, they are scared? What are we supposed to be then? I get bullied. You got called names at your previous job and let's not forget about that lunatic beating you up at the club."

"I actually beat him up harder."

"Yeah, and you spent half an hour crying after that."

"I'm such a girl~"

"Stupid." she flicked her forehead, not as strong as Junghee's dramatic reaction would've suggested. "Why am I the only one upset about this? You're the touchy crybaby here."

" off, you cry as much as I do. You cried at a car commercial."

"You did too! And I only cry at sad or moving things, you cry when someone raises their voice at you."

"Big talk for someone with no ."

"How dare you?" she shrieked, visibly offended. "We're almost the same size."

Junghee promptly grabbed her - rather, she d it, with a fake pondering gaze as she pretended to compare it to hers. "Nah. I'm much bigger."

"ert." Gwiboon said between giggles. "You never miss a chance, do you?" 

"I hear you complain but I don't see you moving my hand away?" 

"You grab my so much I can barely feel it at this point," she clawed her hand over Junghee's, her bent knuckles caressing her spread-out fingers.

Only with Junghee, she felt like she belonged somewhere. 

She could wash away the shame, the estranging sensation of living her own life as an outcast and suppressing such a big part of herself.

She could finally be...Gwiboon.

And she wasn't 'loved despite'- she was simply, genuinely 'loved'. 

No matter how vicious the rumours spread about her were or how judgemental the stares they got when holding hands in public, nothing worried her in her arms.

She could bear it as long as they had each other.

"One day, I'll take you away from this country." In Gwiboon's ear, Junghee's dulcet voice melted in a wave of shivers that reached down her spine.

"Where?"

"Mhh...what about Italy?"

"Aren't they just as homophobic there? And super racist against asian- what was that sound?" Gwiboon asked. It sounded like...water pouring? or steaming?

"! ! !" Junghee jumped on her feet and made a dart for the door. "The pasta!"

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