Seulgi/Joy, rv training days based, 1656 words

When Park Sooyoung was blossoming through the early years of being very petite, persuaded and innocently fragile, her dad enjoyed leading her to the nearby riverbed on his few days off. Memories like this could so easily fade and dapple, blink in an undecipherable flash while looking upon a lake and natter at only the corners of her mind, and this memory had; but something significant to her had brought it back, in all of its luscious simplicity.

She always loved to watch the swans. Their necks craned like cool waves, and the elegance of dampened feathers featuring all over their crystal bodies washed over her with youthful awe. She loved to see them glide, glide in unison, glide solo – ever majestic and ever peaceful. The way a soft breeze gently ruffled their snowy, smooth heads and white tail plumes, and the way the throbbing sun sashayed down their backs. She loved nothing more than to watch the swans.

And alike the birds in her home-like fairytales and childish memories, Kang Seulgi entered her life, a spitting image of the aura those splendid swans possessed. Yet, this time, she conducted even more sudden awe.

--

Joy didn’t want to be the ugly duckling. She wasn’t, but from the second a girl with the strongest of narrow, but somewhat large and thickly lashed eyes and the most branding of stunning smiles swayed forth into the practise room, she had the urge to believe she was.

“H-hello.” At the click of a door latch, Joy rose from her mangled bench-position, eyes swollen red, hair unwashed, oversized hoodie sticking to her back – then bowing in a way that flowed. You know? It was fluid, compensating. Her sincerity oozed out of her; every positive impression poured from the way she folded her body. Seulgi felt an ember (overwhelming, bitter, strongly moved) in a way she had never experienced so suddenly, and she quickly hated it.

She was already smitten. Already incredibly touched.

“Good morning,” Seulgi shuffled her knees together uncomfortably yet angelically – checking the clock – last time she flushed a breath through her nose, the short clock hand painted over the 3, and now it was at the 6. Morning. “I’m Kang Seulgi.” Her tone was stricter than it had ever been. She was usually so over-bly warm and keen to attach to, while never lacking a bear-like smile whatever the tumbled situation. But this tone… It was due to the ember; the fear of the ember, the realisation of what the already existing ember meant to her.

As she bowed, her neck craned in a superb arch, and Joy’s eyes glazed over with images of white, gliding pond birds.

“Joy.” The younger forced slightly out of her lips, breathless and overly gazing.

The older furrowed her well-kept brows, itching at her elbow with such warm eyes yet such an unusually fierce expression. Joy shook her head abruptly, expanding upon her single word, “I’m Park Sooyoung, but please feel free to call me Joy.”

Like a flurry of light ink came the smile on Joy’s face, so very genuine and so very wide. Seulgi found it lovable and adorable to the extent where it corrupted and garbled her stomach; she pursed her lips, desperately trying to halt this ember, knowing all too well that it wouldn’t ever go away.

From then on, for a heavily saddened reason, distance felt like the best way forward.

--

A swan and two merry birds, all older than the duckling, rammed themselves in a corner and giggled ferociously, splendidly, ferociously. The duckling wanted to approach them, as she wanted to share within the warmth and the confinement bonds could give her. Very understandably so.

But the swan’s eyes were beading at her in a funny way, a way that made her feel unwanted, so she pawed at her ugly feeling feathers and drank down bitter wisps of coffee, either side of her blowing cold with solitude.

--

It had been known to the members for an elongated while that Seulgi slept very well. Well, it had been thought to the members – what was known to Seulgi, however, was that she furled herself in a slumbered cocoon, imitated a snore, and rammed her eyes shut very well.

“Wendy-unnie?” Came the gentlest of mature whispers, when Seulgi’s echoingly dark-flooded wrist watch danced over the 3am mark, and a tall maknae-shaped roll of duvet inched towards the bed beside her.

As always, Wendy was surprisingly fresh and generously alert, even considering the exhaustion and sudden awakening. “Sooyoung-ah?” Her pillow tilted upwards, and Seulgi subtly overheard the shuffling ripple of a mattress cover.

“Do you…” Joy hissed delicately, probably picking at her little cuticles or directing all eye contact beneath her. “I feel like Seulgi-unnie doesn’t like me.”

Embers could be tamed, and embers could rave towards rhythm like a sparkling decoration within her heart, but these embers painfully burned. They singed and twisted and flourished in full order, pitting her stomach with accepted guilt and bringing a sourness back in . Seulgi’s chest itched and her eyes stung, and she desperately wanted to move, but that would shatter any possible redeeming words Seungwan could offer the dear, dear maknae.

“Of course she likes you – loves you.” Wendy cooed, voice ever so slightly unstable, “I’ve noticed that with you, she doesn’t convey it so much – God knows why – but everyone here dearly adores you.”

“I can’t really feel it.” Joy put harshly, the way Seulgi knew too well that came punitively in an attempt to cover up any of her over flowing, sensitive feelings. She had oh, too many. “I really don’t think she likes me.”

Wendy mumbled something in a fresh string, which is what ejected from her when she felt at a loss of words at the most crucial of times, then whispering, “You’re beautiful, maknae. You know that, right?” Everlastingly sincere.

Joy’s mattress rippled and shook again: she had probably shrugged, cautiously coming off as nonchalant, glad that the darkness poured so thickly around them that the dampness of her cheeks was invisible. “I’m the ugly duckling.”

“You’re not.” Wendy bled out of her voice, without a fraction of it faltering. She really isn’t.

“Hardly a swan, though,” came a reluctant sigh and a bitten lip. This is when Joohyun’s petite snores receding to mere exhales, and Joy repositioned her little nest. “Hardly Kang Seulgi.”

--

I see her shuffle her lean arms and make a painting out of her body, sweat caressing every curve and glinting at every bone. I see her powerfully eye the 4 swinging across the shorter clock hand. With a straightening back, smooth crane intact, snowy feathers smoothed, I see her accept it as a challenge. I see her tame a bear-like grin.

--

“Thank you for teaching me to dance, unnie.” A swallowed breath and a heaving chest. The taller girl, dear maknae Park Sooyoung, ached in every single possible sense and echo of the blatant word, yet her spine had never been so streamline, and her aura had never seemed so authoritative.

Seulgi averted her eyes. Embers tickled her. Embers lashed at her.

“Any time, Sooyoung.
- I mean, Joy.” Usually she would let the tingling smile break over her complexion and glow through her skin, but now she could only furrow, she could only trace circles over the floor. “You really can dance. And you finally mastered the difficult move.”

Joy felt at a hinge. She felt as if her entire being was being perilously balanced over a crater; Kang Seulgi never forced interaction with her and strangely kept her distance – not a trace of her understood why – and now here she let herself flow, alongside her group’s maknae, breaking into morning with a sore back and a need for giving.
All for one move that Joy only very slightly tripped over.

The flushing of her cheeks drew dark crimsons, so the maknae felt bold, as bold as her face. As bold as crisp feathers. As bold as cool waves.

“Do you even like me?” Fully platonic in meaning. Fully anxious. It stung to cross her teeth, and it definitely stung Seulgi. Sheepishness could be allowed to clasp over her forevermore as she always padded aimlessly after the older, slightly shorter girl, or it could be broken in an instance with five burningly careless words. Heavily, drastically, wonderfully meaningful words.

“I really like you.” Seulgi blurted out all of a sudden as her heels subconsciously skidded over to the younger girl’s side. Apparently, she had also warmly seized her wrist, palms slightly clammy with all of her dancing effort, and colourful embers flying out of her. Noticeably. Maybe it was noticeable that her heart had practically fallen out of her chest, too.

Joy had only seen Seulgi glide, she could only concentrate on how awe-inspiring it was, and she felt as if she had imagined what Seulgi had said so forcefully and so amazingly passionately. “What?” she breathed, eyes darting to-and-fro what with the unfamiliar, long fingers coating her wrist.

Harsh steam blew through Seulgi’s elegant nose, and she mentally retraced her steps.

“I really, really like you.” Not at all fully platonic in meaning. Though yes, indeed, fully anxious. Seulgi’s ember tinged words flew a new turn over the heated conversation, so that her palm continued to sweat and eyes continued to bore into the younger girls’. “And, I-I… I really hope you understand how I mean that.” Nothing but the strongest throb of adoration, and nothing but unleashing love, swept from a year-confined cage in all of its overwhelming density.

Perhaps, it now all made clear and obvious sense.

Joy had always wanted to box Seulgi’s smile, to keep it treasured amongst glued-on construction paper swans and battered old teddy bears; she had always wanted it; but it was a good many hundred times nicer to witness it in front of her.

For her.