"Byuh-ah? Byul-ah?"

Byulyi opened her eyes in the shadow of their bedroom, taking a few seconds to realize that her girlfriend was shaking her and calling her.

"Byul-ah?"

"I'm -," Byulyi barely managed to get out, doughy from sleep. "Mmh?"

"You were asleep," Yongsun chuckled, her eyes wandering unfocused across the room. "I need help with my zipper. I love you." Yongsun's eyes returned to Byulyi as she put a hand on her girlfriend's head. "Your head is so big."

Byulyi wanted to be annoyed at having been woken up, but couldn't suppress her laughter realizing how drunk Yongsun was. "Alright, alright, give me one second," she said as got up to help her girlfriend. The contrast between Byulyi's bare face, sweatpants and bare feet and Yongsun's full make-up, party dress and heels couldn't have been greater. "Steady, princess. Let's get you ready for bed," she soothed Yongsun as she worked the zipper of her dress down her girlfriend's back.

When the dress was finally off, Byulyi sat a still chuckling Yongsun on their bed and put a make-up wipe in her hand. "Can I trust you to use this and kick your shoes off while I go get your pjs and a barf bag?" 

Yongsun rubbed the make-up wipe on Byulyi's face, immediately exploding in laughter at her own silly antics. Byulyi rolled her eyes. "What? You told me to use it!" 

"Wipe your face, babe. You'll hate yourself tomorrow if you ruin your silk pillowcase. I'll be right back." 

"I'll hate myself for getting so drunk regardless!" Yongsun yelled, laughing, when Byulyi's footsteps were already in the corridor.

"Sounds about right," Byulyi said softly, returning with Yongsun's button-down pjs, fresh from the laundry, and a bucket that she placed on Yongsun's side of the bed.

"All set?" Byulyi asked as she fastened the last button on Yongsun's  pj top.

Yongsun's mood had subtly but suddenly shifted while being dressed, the fatigue of a long day finally catching up with her. "I'm tired," she whimpered.

"I know, love. Get under the covers."

"You come too. Please?" Yongsun whined, her eyes earnestly pleading. 

Byulyi chuckled. "Why, did you think I was gonna sleep on the couch? Of course I'm coming," she said as she got her girlfriend into bed, joining her a moment later.

"I love you so so so so so so so so so much," Yongsun proclaimed, adjusting her head on Byulyi's chest. "I missed you at the wedding." 

"I missed being there with you too," Byulyi placed a soft kiss on Yongsun's head. "How was it, by the way?"

"So much fun - nine courses, and they had white doves, and there was a guy with a camel making mint tea, and there was an ice cream truck, and there was an open bar -"

"You don't say", Byulyi chuckled, holding her girlfriend close despite the smell of alcohol coming from every pore of Yongsun's body.

"And everyone from high school was there! Everyone, Byul-ah. Yu-bin was so happy, and we played games and talked about our teachers, and Dong-hyun kept asking me to sing, and I had a drink off with Na-rae, and I even slow danced with... uh. Never mind."

"Yong?" Byulyi's body tensed. She tilted her head to the side to look at her girlfriend. "You slow danced with...?"

"With myself! I slow danced with myself," Yongsun muttered, not realizing in her drunken incoherence how unlikely it was that Byulyi would believe her rushed defense.

"You slow danced with Ji-hoon, didn't you?" Byulyi asked calmly, the muscles in her chest and stomach contracting so hard that Yongson could feel it under her head and arm. 

Yongsun held her closer. "I love you - don't be mad?" She said in the small voice that only came out when she was drunk and feeling pitiful.

"I love you too. And I'm not mad," Byulyi said gently, extricating herself from Yongsun's hold and placing her girlfriend's head on the silk pillowcase. "But I want to sleep now. And you should too."

Yongsun's small voice reappeared again. "I'm sorry," she said, drunken tears flowing freely from her eyes.

"There's nothing to be sorry about," Byulyi said softly, her hand caressing Yongsun's head in an effort to be soothing. Byulyi couldn't deal with an emotional outburst right now. "I'm here if you need me. Now, go to sleep." 

Yongsun nodded, weariness winning over tears. "Mmhkay. I love you," she mumbled, her heavy eyelids starting to droop. 

"Yeah," was the only thing Byulyi could manage to reply after a few seconds of silence, but Yongsun was already fast asleep.

.

Yongsun woke up many hours later with a full bladder and an unbearable, throbbing headache. 

", damn, ," were the first words that came out of when she dared to open her eyes, and felt a pulsing pain in her temples as a reward.

She almost tripped on the unused barf bucket when she tried to get out of bed, and cursed once more, this time internally. Her walk to the bathroom was unsteady. Sitting down on the toilet was hard; getting up again was harder. Everything was spininng. Carefully avoiding glancing at the mirror above the sink to prevent herself from seeing the dark bags under her eyes that she just knew would be there, Yongsun managed to open the bathroom cabinet, looking for some Advil, and cursing once more when she didn't find any.

Parched, she the faucet and drank from it, the idea of walking all the way to the kitchen to get water from the fridge completely unreasonable in her current physical state. When her thirst was quenched, Yongsun began the arduous walk back to the bedroom. 

Where is Byulyi?, she thought, walking back into the empty room. Did she have an early schedule today? No, she doesn't have anything until 4pm. Where did she... oh. Yongsun suddenly remembered the conversation from the night before. Oh, . .

Sitting still on the edge of Byulyi's side of the bed, Yongsun pondered what to do for a few seconds, her thoughts slow and foggy from the hangover. I need to find her. She knew her girlfriend too well to not be aware of how the idea of her slow dancing with her high school sweetheart must have affected Byulyi, despite her reassurances from yesterday night. I need to call her. I need to talk to her.

Yongsun turned her head to grab her phone from her own nightstand, but the movement was too fast and had her wince loudly from the throbbing pain and the violent wave of nausea. 

"There's Advil and water on your nightstand. Wait," Yongsun heard Byulyi's voice from somewhere in the room. At first, she thought she had imagined it - hangover hallucinations? -, until, a few seconds later, she saw Byulyi's hand appear from under the bed, outstretched towards her and holding a water bottle and a blister pack. 

"Thank you," Yongsun replied without missing a beat, grabbing the objects from Byulyi, whose hand then disappeared again under the bed frame.

Yongsun administered herself a couple of pills and took long gulps from the water bottle. Already feeling a bit better just from the thought of the Advil soon taking effect, she carefully stood up and then even more carefully lowered herself until she was laying on the cool wooden floor. She used her elbows to move until she was under the bed too, face to face with Byulyi.

"Hey."

"Hey."

The first time it happened, it was still during their trainee days. It was on the day their CEO had broken the news to Byulyi - either you take on the rapper role in the group, or you won't debut. Byulyi came out of his office hiding her face in her hands, and then later, for long hours, she was nowhere to be found. Wheein and Hyejin had given up looking after a while, mercifully granting her the right to have some time alone if she wanted to. 

But Yongsun had gone straight back to the minuscule one-bedroom apartment they all shared, because Byulyi just had to be home - where else could she be? - and, on a hunch, just because the apartment was too tiny to offer any other hiding places, she looked under the bottom bunk bed, and there she was. On that day too, Yongsun had lied down on the floor and joined Byulyi, drying her tears, whispering endlessly that you can do it, you really can, the group just wouldn't work without you - I'll help you, we'll do this - together, Byul-ah.  

It had been years since Byulyi had last done this. Hell, the last time it happened, they still lived in their old, separate apartments. Because this, Yongsun had realized over their many years together, wasn't Byulyi's hiding place when she felt sad or angry or overwhelmed. Her coping strategies when she was feeling any of those emotions were different - this wasn't it, Yongsun knew it. Byulyi hid under the bed in one specific situation: when she was feeling unworthy. Less than. And luckily, as Byulyi's self esteemed improved, in the past few years, Yongsun only had to look under their bed to clean the dust bunnies hiding there.

But now... Yongsun knew better than to try and coax Byulyi out. "What are you doing?" She asked gently, glancing at the pad of paper Byulyi was clutching to her chest.

"I... writing a song. How are you feeling?" Byulyi's voice was hoarse, Yongsun noticed. She had been crying.

"Like boiled . Show me? Please?" Yongsun tapped Byulyi's collarbone gently, in a familiar gesture.

Byulyi extended the pad in a shy motion.

Slow dancing, slow dancing with him,
under a bright moonlight.
So beautiful and shining,
even the moon wants you.
But the moon can give you nothing,
and he can give you the moon. 

As Yongsun read the hangeul text, she was torn between admiring the word play and suppressing the urge to laugh at Byulyi's very dramatic lyrics. Not wanting to hurt her girlfriend even further by ridiculing her feelings, she waited until all traces of amusement had left her eyes before she met Byulyi's.

"Byul-ah... talk to me."

Looking into Byulyi's eyes, she saw Byulyi slowly losing it, her expression going from shy to stone to sadness to grief. Tears started running on Byulyi's cheeks. 

"You... you deserve someone you can slow dance with at weddings." No sooner than these words had left her, Byulyi's tears turned into heavy, desperate sobs. Yongsun moved her body impossibly close to her girlfriend's, holding her in silence, trying to ignore her own head throbbing at the sound of Byulyi's loud weeping. 

"I can't... I can't give you that," Byulyi continued between sobs. "I can't marry you. I can't give you a child. I can't even tell the world how much I love you." Byulyi's crying got even more intense. Yongsun just held her, rubbing her back soothingly, waiting for the worst to be over. 

Byulyi cried and cried in Yongsun's arms until the worst was, indeed, over. A soft kiss was placed on her cheek.

"Byul-ah, listen to me. You tell the world how much you love me a million different ways, practically every single day," Yongsun tore away a page from the pad and used it to dry her girlfriend's tears. "You wouldn't be able to hide it even if I really wanted you to," she scolded her jokingly.

"That's true," Byulyi sniffled, with a hint of a smile.

"We will have a child one day. I don't know how yet, but we will. Trust me on this." Yongsun continued, in her leader voice, so resolutely and authoritatively that Byulyi couldn't help but trust her.

"And, I don't care if we ever get to get married for real."

"You don't?"

"No. We could have a four-people cerimony with a drunk Wheein officiating and rings made out of foil paper and I'll be happy anyway." Yongsun's words made Byulyi chuckle. "Marriage is a commitment, Byul-ah, not a piece of paper or a big party." Byulyi nodded.

"Last but not least," Yongsun's arms returned to their previous place around Byulyi's neck, her forearm providing a pillow for her girlfriend to rest her head on. "We might not be able to slow dance at weddings yet, but we can do it here, and that's really all I need." 

Yongsun kissed Byulyi's lips softly, and started quietly singing in English, a song that Byulyi didn't recognize. 

Fly me to the moon
Let me play up there with those stars
Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, baby, kiss me
Fill my heart with song
And let me sing forever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore
In other words, please be true
In other words, I love you.

Even without fully understanding the lyrics, the meaning of the song couldn't be clearer to Byulyi from the way Yongsun was singing it, and from the way she swayed her head from side to side ever so slightly, rubbing her feet against Byulyi's. Their position and location didn't allow them to slow dance for real, but this was enough for them. 

"I'm sorry I was such a drama queen," Byulyi finally spoke.

"You're good. Our situation isn't easy. My heart hurts too."

"More than your head?" Byulyi cracked a joke.

"Honestly, no." Yongsun stuck her tongue out with a naughty smile before her gaze became soft again, as she tucked Byulyi's hair behind her ear. "Do you want to know what Ji-hoon and I talked about when we were slow dancing?"

"Do I have to?" 

"I think you might."

"Alright, then."

"We talked about you. I apologized to him from breaking up with him and disappearing so suddenly, after so many years togeter. He still thought it was because I had gotten too busy with trainee life. I told him it was because I knew I had met the love of my life, and it wasn't fair to be with him when I knew I had feelings for someone else."

Byulyi's smile brightened. "Poor guy."

"Well, he's got a wife and kids now, so he's fine."

"You are special, Yong, but not that special - it's been more than ten years - enough to get over even you." Byulyi teased.

Yongsun hit the back of her neck playfully as punishment. "Anyway. He hugged me really hard and asked if I was happy. 'Happiest I've ever been', I replied. Wanna know what he said to that? 'Whoever he is, he's a lucky man.'" Yongsun laughed. 

Byulyi rolled her eyes. "Straight people."

"I know. Anyway, I told him that I'm the lucky one. And then I went to do more shots with the girls."

"You were so drunk when you came home last night."

"Yeah. And now I have a huge hangover and you're making me lie down on the floor under the bed."

"Sorry." Byulyi placed a light kiss on Yongsun's nose. "Come on, let's get out. I'll make you something to eat."

"You go first and then come help me. I'm not sure I can get up unsupported."

Byulyi nodded and did as she was told. When she approached the other side of the bed, she saw that Yongsun had gotten out from under there on her own, and was now sitting on the floor with trembling knees and a pale face. "Byul-ah?" She asked in a shaky voice.

"Yeah?" Byulyi replied, concerned.

"Get me that barf bucket."

.

Byulyi sat beside Yongsun, holding her hair back with one hand and rubbing her back with the other. "I bet Ji-hoon would have never done this for you," she remarked, trying to make poor Yongsun laugh. Yongsun's elbow hit her side in response. "Ouch!" Byulyi complained. "Yeah, not a chance."

Author's note: sometimes the fluff I write is so extra saccharine that it takes me several visits to the dentist to recover. I am sorry, you guys. Thank you for the prompt, smolbyunchae! I hope you like the chapter.