It started when, as they were heading back home after a long day of schedules, one of her extensions fell clean off her head, dried and dead hair still attached to the clip-on.

A part of her registered the sight with horror, the larger more tired part, picked up said offending extension and held it up for Byulyi to see.

The other girl squinted at her from her seat and then her jaw dropped open and her hand instantly flew to to stifle her laughter. Behind them, Hyejin and Wheein were fast asleep.

"What happened?" Byulyi's voice was twice as attractive when it was husky with exhaustion. Yongsun found that completely and utterly unfair.

"It just fell off! I didn't even do anything!"

Byul chuckled again, the sound of it sending a jolt of warmth through her, "Your hair is so dead, Unnie, you should really do something about it."

Yongsun nodded absently, twirling the detached hair strands between her fingers, "I'll call Manager-unnie tomorrow." A beat, and then "good thing this didn't fall off during the performance, huh?"

Byul smiled, leaning back and closing her eyes, "that would have been hilarious."

"Right," Yongsun said, finding she couldn't quite keep a smile on her face. "Hilarious."

--

The next day, she stared at herself in the mirror, all her extensions carefully removed less they break off more hair in the process. Sometimes, in the madness of walking around as Solar, she forgets what Yongsun looks like.

Yongsun with the perpetually baggy eyes and lips so pale that they practically matched her skin tone. Yongsun, with the short, chin-length hair that was so dry, she never bothered to wash or brush it herself lest she started pulling fistfuls of it away in the bath.

Right now, as Yongsun, she felt a familiar pang of insecurity as she gently touched the ends of her dying hair. Solar was beautiful, Yongsun wasn't. The corners of pulled down and she hated herself for feeling bad about it.

Her phone screen lit up and she welcomed the distraction. She stared at the name and smiled, Byulyi was already waiting outside. Purposefully ignoring her reflection, she grabbed her cap and walked out the door.

When she walked out of her apartment complex, her cap was secured firmly on her head and she put her hood up for good measure.

"You cold?" Byulyi's tone was teasing even through the face mask. Yongsun ignored the comment, instead she rolled her eyes as she reached out for the other girl's hand.

"Don't worry, you're still the prettiest fool around, even if you look like a burrito." Byul laced their fingers together, eyes sparkling mischievously.

"Ah," she nudged Byul's side with enough force that both of them teetered slightly, "Where are we going today?"

Byul shrugged, fingers tightening around hers, "There's a new place down the street, apparently they have good jjajang rice. You hungry?"

Yongsun grinned, leaning in to leech off of her girlfriend's body warmth. "Now I am."

--

"Ah, Yongsun-ssi, you didn't say your hair had gotten this bad!" The hairstylist continued to sift through her hair with the pointy end of a wide tooth comb, her face going from concerned to aghast in a manner of seconds. She resisted the urge to pull away and duck deeper into her jacket.

"What should we do?" Their manager appeared in the mirror's reflection, eyes also trained on the top of Yongsun's head.

"Shave it off!" Hyejin's voice came somewhere to the far left and Yongsun whined loud enough to voice exactly how she felt about that idea. Somewhere behind her, Wheein and Byul were chuckling to themselves.

"We could try a treatment," their hairstylist said, carefully combing through Yongsun's hair, "Keratin, lots of it, just to see if it will get rid of the dryness, but personally I would just cut it off, crop it closer to her head."

Yongsun looked at their Manager's face through the mirror, the disappointment was quite plain. She chewed at her lower lip, her insiders turning cold at the thought of having short hair. She hadn't seen herself with short hair since she was a child.

"They still have performances this week and their next comeback wont be for another couple of months. We can't just change her hair yet."

Their hairstylist shrugged, spreading some form of hair cream in her hands and carefully applying it to Yongsun's hair. "You're the boss."

She didn't look at the mirror for the rest of the makeover.

--

From where she was lying down, she had a pretty good view of Byul as the other girl tied up her hair so she could wash her face in her bathroom. She liked Byul with longer hair, she told her herself many times, but even without extensions the other girl's natural hair length suited her so well.

In contrast, she felt the rough ends of her own hair scratching at her nape against the pillow. After their Manager had told their CEO about the situation, he had given the official instruction to cut her hair short before the week was up. She sighed out loud enough that Byul peered over her shoulder at her.

"You okay?"

Without meaning to, she pouted her lips, eyes looking at anything and everything except Byulyi.

"Hey," the other girl sat on the edge of her bed and poked at her side until she looked at her. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," she purposefully pitched her voice a little higher, just so it sounded like she meant it.

"Ah, no it's not. Talk to me, unnie."

Yongsun, huffed out another loud sigh, turning to her side so she wouldn't have to look at Byulyi. "It's stupid and shallow. Don't worry about it."

There was a beat of silence, and then she felt the bed shift underneath her, the mattress giving way slightly before Byulyi was right there, her warmth a solid presence.

"You'd still be the prettiest girl around, even if you were bald."

She elbowed her girlfriend in the ribs, purposefully ignoring Byul's soft chuckles. "No one would like it. Our moomoos wont like it."

"How do you know? Aren't those pixie cuts all the rage now?"

"Not for people like us!" Her voice cracked a bit on the last word, so she bit the inside of her cheek and focused all her energy into not crying. She felt Byul card her fingers softly through the dried ends of her hair, brushing the strands away from her nape to place a soft kiss on the skin there before letting the hair fall back into place, hiding the kiss. Their long-running secret.

"You'd be beautiful no matter what." The words came as a soft whisper against her cheek.

Yongsun clenched her eyes shut and gripped Byul's arm tight against her. Nodding her head slowly, she tried to make herself believe it too.

--

As she sat on the chair, she looked at the mirror to where Byul was texting on her phone. The picture of perfect ease as she lounged about on the sofa. She must have felt her eyes on her because she looked up suddenly and offered her a quick thumbs up. She smiled back.

"Okay Yongsun-ssi, you ready?" Their hairstylist placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, the other was holding a pair of scissors.

She took a deep breath and one last look at herself before nodding. "Go ahead."

When it was over, she couldn't stop touching the sides of her head, unused to the prickle of shorter hair beneath her fingertips. From the mirror she could see Byul walking over, smirking plainly at her.

"It looks good, Unnie."

She smiled, everything not quite sinking in yet. "I haven't had hair this short in years. Decades even."

Byul laughed, reaching out a hand to twirl her fingers around Yongsun's longer, asymmetrical side bangs. "Ah, where will I hide my kisses now?" Her eyebrows waggled suggestively and Yongsun felt her neck flush, where Byul had hidden thousands of kisses over the years, always beneath her hair.

"Ah," She playfully swatted her girlfriend's hand away, "None of your grease now. I want an honest opinion."

Byul's face turned serious then. She turned around so she was facing her full-on, closing the distance between them until their hips were touching. Yongsun suddenly felt self conscious, an unwarranted blush rising from her neck up to the tips of her ears.

"Yongsun," Byul pitched her voice lower, the timber of it sending another chill down her spine. So unfair. "You look beautiful."

"And if no one else thinks so?" She could barely speak louder than a whisper but there it was, the fear that had been eating at her for the last few days. Solar was beautiful, but only when she had her long and beautiful hair, without it, she was just Yongsun.

Byul made a show of thinking it over carefully before chuckling softly, a hand coming up to cup her cheek, Yongsun leaned into the touch. "I'd fight them all with my bare hands until everyone sees how pretty you are."

She smiled brightly, closing the gap between them so she could hug her girlfriend tightly. "Thank you."

Behind them came a squeal. They pulled apart to see Wheein and Hyejin barging into the room. Without meaning to, Yongsun felt herself tense, already anticipating what the other two girls might say.

"Yongsun-unnie! You look so cool!" Wheein rushed forward, hands already reaching out to grip the sides of her head, eyes wide with amazement.

"So mature." Hyejin agreed, her long nails briefly at the bangs on her forehead. "I'm kind of jealous, unnie! You're going to look so good when we perform at the Golden Disk Awards."

She smiled at all of them, her members. She wouldn't trade them for anyone in the world. "Thanks, everyone."

--

After Golden Disk, after everything, it's her and Byulyi in her apartment again. This time, the younger girl is the one lying down, eyes following her as she paced from the bathroom to the bedroom and back, applying toner and serums and moisturizer, all the time catching glimpses of her new hair.

"You keep looking at yourself as if your hair is going to change. Stop fussing, yeba."

She laughed as she crawled on the bed toward her girlfriend, plopping down beside her with sigh. "It's been a while since Yongsun looked as pretty as Solar. Let me have this."

Byul scoffed, turning around to drape her arm over Yongsun's waist. "Yongsun-unnie's always been the prettiest." Her voice is muffled against Yong's neck and she could feel Byul's warmth tickle the downy hairs there.

Yong sighed, something warm spreading from her stomach to the ends of her short hair finally letting her believe it. It felt like relief, it felt like love.