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Cheers! This is for us!

Chapter 10:
There's No Way That Isn't Going There, Right?

Yuri fidgets with the blanket, devising ways to move out of the bed without having to tug at the blanket her and Yoona shared. To say this was a disaster waiting to happen was truly, truly and understatement. For underneath the sheets, was one Im Yoona quietly tucked in, sleeping… and probably covered in nothing but that towel she had on last night.

Oh, dear God.

Yuri may work in a coffee shop, but she decided upon realizing Yoona was (probably) still in just that towel that coffee espresso had nothing on her. They probably both fell asleep at one point, and the scary part was she really wasn’t sure who moved to cover them in a blanket. She would really hate it if it was any of her roommates. Those two had so much on her already. She couldn’t risk them calling her a byun now.

That morning, Yuri woke up with an arm draped over her side. You see, that wasn’t new. However, the moment she trailed her gaze up that arm and noticed the bare shoulders, she immediately regretted it. She fell asleep apparently facing the other girl, and now she was fully awake and beet red. 

Somewhere at the back of her head, she remembers her brother and how they would play chess as children. This was very much like a dead end in chess. Any movement might misplace the blanket covering Yoona’s chest, and she wasn’t sure if the girl was still covered in a towel underneath. She could close her eyes and quickly move away, but that might wake the other girl. She really did not want to be accused with anything. 

Or…

Yuri blinked, suddenly thinking of a desperate move. 

Or she could wake the other girl very, very subtly and pretend to still be asleep. Yes, yes this was good. This was genius. It was the weekend anyway, yes? Yes. Alright. Here goes.

Very, very slowly, Yuri takes in a breath of courage, and very, very slowly, she moves her hand from underneath the pillow she realized they were also sharing. All she had to do was turn around first, then when that’s done she could pretend to stretch out in her sleep or snore. Whatever, she just needed to be facing the other way first.

You got this, Kwon. She thought to herself.

Yuri’s hand was now at least a few inches out of the pillow when Yoona suddenly stirred.

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Yuri wanted to shut her eyes close and just jump right into pretending she was asleep, but Yoona’s eyes had already opened and were squinting at her. She sure hoped she didn’t look like she was caught red-handed. Yoona groans, pulls most of the blanket to her (like the little blanket hogger that she is) and tucks her head under Yuri’s chin and warmly resting on latter’s chest.

‘Don’t get up yet,’ came her disgruntled command.

. Major .

Yuri now wondered if the other girl even knew she was probably under those sheets, or maybe she knew. She was Yoona after all. She could be really evil sometimes—or most of the time. Yuri could only stiffen with the contact.

Yoona probably felt it. Because she was moving again, and now she was looking up at Yuri with an expression that could only probably be suspicious or just super irritated. Yuri really wasn’t sure which one. It could be both.

‘Why are you not hugging me?’

Seriously?

‘Um—’ came Yuri’s (stupid) response.

Yoona’s eyes narrowed.

‘It’s cold,’ Yoona says, sounding like she was justifying why Yuri had to hug her in the first place.

‘Um—I,’ Yuri was now internally scolding herself to say actual words. ‘I’m not—sure. I—should I?’

Yoona blinks, and blinks again. Yuri could swear that with every blink she was glaring more and more daggers at her. 

The actress huffs and tugs at Yuri’s shirt, pulling her even closer.

‘Hug me,’ Yoona practically hisses out, ‘now.’

Yuri was already between contemplating her life choices and concluding that all this was a dream. She gulps and brings a very stiff arm around Yoona like she put a fork on top of a piece of waffle very awkwardly the first time she worked at the café. She got scolded for that, but this time, this was her arm, and this was Yoona.

Yoona was muttering now—something about sleeping next to each other for almost two weeks now and how this shouldn’t be new anymore. Seriously, she hisses and Yuri heard it clear enough to emotionally prepare her for what was happening next. The actress, being unsatisfied with Yuri’s awkward arm, decided she will further take matters into her own hands. She huffs like a child throwing a tantrum, presses herself deeper into the other girl’s warmth and secures a firm embrace around Yuri’s waist.

Yuri sharply breathes in the air left within her immediate vicinity as Yoona had already invaded her personal space more than she thought was already possible. She was completely unmoving now. She didn’t even want to try and figure out if Yoona was actually still wrapped in a towel underneath the sheets.

She gulps.

And gulps again.

Oh—

Wait.

Yuri’s eyes narrow very, very dangerously at the realization that Yoona was suddenly shaking. Her face contorts into a confronting frown, and forcefully tugs at the blanket, revealing that two very sudden suspicions were actually correct. 

One, Yoona was already dressed in a tube top and shorts. 

Two, she was laughing.

‘Damn it!’

Yoona was cackling now. It dawned upon the poor older girl that Yoona probably chose that tube top on purpose while she was asleep.

Yoona was still laughing though. Oh, she was having the time of her life.

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Breakfast was pretty uneventful. Or wait, Yuri shouldn’t even conclude such things, especially that Sunny and Seohyun were her roommates. She tried her best to be nonchalant about the looks they were throwing her as Yoona shared her chair and fed her like she was incapable of lifting her own hands.

However, Sunny and Seohyun were starting to whisper stuff in each other’s ears now. An eye was twitching now. After all, she wasn’t Yoona who didn’t seem to care.

They seemed far too happy about this.

‘So,’ Yuri started, ‘any plans today, Sunny-unnie?’

‘Oh, nothing,’ Sunny said with a dreamy sigh. ‘Just going to bask in my dongsaeng’s happiness.’

Yuri brings a palm straight to her forehead with a resounding smack.

‘Actually,’ now there’s Seohyun who seemed equally happy, ‘Sunny-unnie and I are planning to go to the movies today. So, you have the apartment to yourselves.’

Seohyun sticking around with Sunny too long wasn’t a very good idea. Since when did she start thinking like this? Or maybe it’s just Yuri making conclusions about the two. Paranoia, perhaps.

Then the two nitwits started giggling.

No, definitely evil.

‘I have stuff to do in the afternoon,’ Yoona says, looking at Yuri like she was waiting for her to say something she was expected to say.

‘Um—okay?’ Yuri says albeit mentally kicking herself, and she doesn’t miss the slight twitch in Yoona’s gaze.

‘I’ll text you,’ Yoona says finally as she excuses herself and heads for the room to get dressed.

Sunny grunts as soon as they heard Yuri’s door room shut.

‘You’re so dumb, Yuri. Even Seohyun can do a better job at this.’

‘What?’ Yuri says, almost sounding like a child whining under accusations.

‘There are things you should already know by now.’

‘Things?’

‘Like the right words and the little things, you know.’

You see, that’s the problem. Yuri never had anyone else apart from herself to share little things with. All the little things she did or knew she only had with herself—

—or maybe that’s just it.

Maybe at a certain level, she could actually share those little things.

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Kim Taeyeon’s recording studio was probably one of the comfiest places on earth. Yoona ended up burrowing deeper into the couch behind the controls as she studied the notes given to her by Taeyeon.

Yoona was in a sour mood, and that did not surprise any of the three people in the studio with her—

Nor did it bother them either.

On normal days, they would be on edge about her hanging on the edge between giving them an eternal cold shoulder or a fit. They seemed rather relaxed (or relatively) these days.

Yoona huffs at the words underneath the musical notes. It didn’t take long for her to learn how to be capable in a music theory stance. Today was one of those when she had to actually apply what she learned and she always found great difficulty in singing. Not because she was incapable, but because she couldn’t nail her own internal standards.

And of course, there was the Yuri ordeal. 

Sometimes she wouldn’t blame the other girl for her seeming endless cluelessness for she herself never gave Yuri the time to digest things. Being the brat that she was, she’d jump unto supposed stages whilst tugging Yuri along with her.

She groans at the mere thought of the other girl’s name.

Jessica, Taeyeon and Sooyoung were goofing off on the other side of the glass. The booth was large enough to house fifteen people with instruments each anyway.

‘Can she hear us?’ Sooyoung asks Taeyeon.

‘Well the doors open so—ow!’

Taeyeon rubs the back of her head, worried she might be bleeding internally from Sooyoung’s unnecessary violence.

‘Why do you need to know anyway?’

Sooyoung deadpan directly at Taeyeon who know had her attention clearly ripped away from Jessica. The other girl was too lazy to get the conversation back anyway.

‘She’s in one of those moods,’ Sooyoung says it like it was the most obvious thing on earth.

‘Those moods?’ Taeyeon was still clueless.

‘Remember that night? When we suddenly came to you demanding for a vocal lesson?’ Jessica decided she will be the one to push this conversation through with her impatience. ‘We came here because a girl ignored her.’

Taeyeon’s brows shot up, eyes tentatively moving as if looking for answers from Sooyoung to Jessica, then Jessica to Sooyoung.

‘A girl?’

The two other girls nod.

‘So—’ Taeyeon’s eyes move to the ceiling in an unsure realization ‘—this is about nailing attention?’

‘Yes, the right kind of attention,’ Jessica nods with an expression that was more judgmental than it was attentive, ‘especially that the girl is a species of socially dumb.’

‘That’s mean,’ Taeyeon says with a pout.

‘That’s Jessica,’ Sooyoung nonchalantly replies for Jessica as she tinkered with the nearby piano.

‘Okay,’ Taeyeon claps her hands together with a very determined look on her face, ‘I have just the guy to sing with her. They can nail that right kind of attention.’

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‘Deoksugung Stonewall Walkway?’

Sooyoung had both brows raised at Taeyeon who was starting to get uncomfortable with how much the younger girl was asserting most of her sarcastic force through their height difference.

Taeyeon rolls up the music sheet and smacks Sooyoung with it.

‘Have some respect, you tree.’

‘A fabulous one,’ Sooyoung retorts.

‘Trust me on this one.’

As soon as the music started playing, all three unnies were now fully focused on Yoona for in their dongsaeng, they had trust, but the girl they weren’t so sure about. They felt like all three of them were trying to win something for their dongsaeng, and it was especially difficult because they knew nothing about the other girl other than Yoona seems to be fixated on her—

Which by the way hasn’t happened in a while—the fixation, that is.

The moment Yoona started singing her parts, the three unnies were rather worried. For a musical expert like Taeyeon, the actress sounded just fine, there was something lacking however—

Like she was singing with zero heart like the last time she was here.

‘This won’t do,’ Taeyeon decides as she pushes a button that ceased the instrumental. 

Yoona, from inside the booth, looked up at Taeyeon with a tinge of worry in her eyes.

‘Hold on one sec,’ Taeyeon signals Yoona to wait. ‘Okay you people have to call the girl.’

‘Can we stop referring to her as the girl?’ Jessica sounded even more flat than she did hours ago. ‘The girl has name, and how many girls are honestly in Korea?’

‘Okay, then. Jessica-sshi, Sooyoung-sshi,’ Taeyeon began with extra emphasis on the honorifics on their names, ‘call—the giiiiiiiiiiiiirl.’

‘Damn it,’ Sooyoung rubs her ears in irritation and dials fishes for her phone in her pocket. ‘Thank God for Shin Dong then.’

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‘Little things—’ Yuri repeated to herself for probably the umpteenth time today.

She decided to work the afternoon off in the café despite Sunny and Seohyun’s protests. She doesn’t really have any other outlet other than drowning herself with work, and today, she had a lot on her mind—

Scratch that.

Lately, she had a lot on her mind.

She sighs at the impossibility of things sometimes. She thought about sharing the little things with Yoona, but that was Yoona. She really wasn’t sure which things she’d appreciate. She thought about food, activities, memories, places, and she ended up thinking only about one thing—uncertainty.

She sighs as she stared at her suddenly very quiet phone. Strange how everything was linked to Yoona now. The thought of sharing certain things she keeps to herself with Yoona seemed impossible and scary at the same time. Bringing her there would mean taking this invasive force to places in her mind that she would consider her fortresses of solitude.

Then again, why was she thinking about it?

‘Gah!’ Yuri drops her forehead on the counter in frustration.

And that was probably fate’s cue, at that very moment, her phone begins to shudder and she couldn’t bring it to her ear quick enough.

‘H—hello?’ 

‘Hey, kid,’ came a rather grumpy voice.

That definitely isn’t Yoona. She almost felt disappointed if it weren’t for the realization that she had been receiving a lot of messages from exactly three unknown numbers—one she already intended to save as Yoona’s.

Was it that tall one Sooyoung?

‘I know my voice isn’t as hot as that chick’s you bed with every night—’ Yuri cringes at the lack of restraint in Sooyoung’s speech and choice of words ‘—but Kim Taeyeon has a bit of an emergency.’

Now what does she have to do with Kim Taeyeon?

‘You do know Kim Taeyeon, right?’

‘Yes—yes of course.’

‘Good, but don’t tell Yoona. She’ll throw a bigger fit if she found out you knew Kim Taeyeon and not her,’ Sooyoung said the last part rather quickly, but Yuri caught it anyway. ‘Okay, here’s the deal kid. Kim Taeyeon is Yoona’s vocal coach, and she thinks Yoona isn’t doing very well.’

‘Is she alright?’ Yuri probably sounded too worried, because she could hear two other people practically rejoicing on the other end of the line. ‘Did something happen?’

‘Nothing is happening and that’s a problem,’ Sooyoung said that as if the world was probably going to start corroding but she could care less.

Yuri was socially slow, but logically speaking, she was better.

‘May I speak with Yoona?’

‘Atta girl,’ Sooyoung says, chuckling.

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Sooyoung handing her a phone wasn’t new, but it had not been part of her normal for a while. Yoona takes it anyway, being the professional that she was.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi—’ came the reply from the other end of the line and almost immediately, Yoona could feel her mood lift ‘—are you alright?’

Silly, silly, Yuri. With the number of phone calls they have been sharing since this whole Yoonyul arrangement entangled their fates, she should have known the answer to that question already, especially if it was her, Yuri, who would ask Yoona that question.

Yoona smiles and starts speaking. None of her unnies could hear what they were talking about. Taeyeon was tempted to raise the volume in the booth from the panel, but Jessica immediately swatted her hand away.

‘Let her be,’ was Jessica’s very flat and very commanding order.

Taeyeon was unfazed however. This was the first time she was the Im Yoona looking rather bashful on a phone call. Of course, outside a movie scene.

‘Look at her,’ Taeyeon breathlessly says.

‘I know—’ Sooyoung began, ‘—sickening, right?’

Both Jessica and Taeyeon turn their gazes at Sooyoung.

‘What?’

Minutes later, Yoona returns the phone to Sooyoung and beckons for her unnie to take the call. It would seem Yuri was still on the line.

Yoona returns to the booth, closing the door confidently now and with a ghost of a smile that was almost so contagious even Jessica was smiling.

Taeyeon already was however. For as soon as she plays the instrumental and Yoona began singing her parts, she was nothing short of proud. Yoona was no diva, but she sounded very sweet and angelic.

‘Hello?’ Sooyoung sounded almost surprised that Yuri wanted to speak with her.

‘Um—where is Kim Taeyeon’s studio?’

Sooyoung’s brow raised for the umpteenth time today. 

‘I’ll have the driver fetch you,’ came her answer.

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The moon was probably already dancing with the stars outside when Yoona finished recording the song. They had to wait for her duet partner to arrive and re-record some parts, and for Sooyoung, that could not have worked any better.

It was beyond perfect for her little package that had just arrived according to the receptionist who had just informed her through a call.

Yoona was bowing gratefully at her duet partner who leaves through the same door that opens mere minutes later and welcomes another being—one that none of the girls in the studio (except Sooyoung) knew was coming.

Yuri walks in bowing profusely at everyone and looked as red as the sweater Sooyoung never noticed Jessica was wearing. She looked like a little child brought in the principal's office for stealing cookies at the cafeteria.

Of course, it would be Sooyoung who broke the silence.

‘There you are!’ the tallest girl in the group exclaims as she tugs at Yuri’s jacket sleeve and pushes her towards Yoona the soonest moment she was close enough. ‘Now, didn’t you say you had something to tell her?’

Yuri had to stop her momentum as quickly as she could before she crashed right into Yoona who seemed rather speechless at the moment.

Taeyeon on the other hand, leans sideways into Jessica’s perimeter.

‘The girl?’ she queries with amusement in her eyes.

‘The girl—’ Jessica nods, ‘—with a name. Yuri.’

‘Ah, Yuri—’ Taeyeon nods, ‘—got it.’

‘Um—I—I got this—’ Yuri struggled to say as she handed Yoona a bag of food with their Café logo on it and a carton holder of four lattes she now realized she had to distribute to the other girls, ‘oh! Wait, I—’

Yuri bows profusely again as she gives each of Yoona’s unnies one latte. She gave Taeyeon’s latte last and noticeably lasted a second longer with the others. She gives the singer a sheepish smile as she handed the cup that had a little note on.

I’m a fan. 

Taeyeon didn’t need to wonder why Yuri had to put that in writing instead of saying it herself. Plus, she was too busy being amused at the fact that for once Im Yoona was speechless.

‘I hope your singing career does well,’ Yuri tells Yoona as she moves closer to the younger girl. ‘Um—I wasn’t sure if you like cookies. You probably have a diet to follow and—’

‘She loves them!’ Sooyoung answers for Yoona, earning her a glare from the other two older girls.

‘I—’ Yoona starts, still processing the fact that Yuri actually came to her this time, ‘—thank you.’

She smiles very freely at the other girl.

‘Thank you,’ she repeats, ‘I love them.’

Yoona ended up wondering now. If this is Yuri helping her clear a lot of her thoughts for her, or Yuri just being the innately kind person that she is. Her Sooyoung-unnie called after all.

Not that it mattered though. For right now, she knew she was happy.