'it wasn't exactly love at first sight,' wendy thought to herself. she vaguely remembers her first day at sm, clutching her papers all too tightly that they wrinkled, keeping her head low as she walked into the building as quickly as she could.

she cornered the closest girl she saw to ask for directions, effectively scaring the living daylights out of her. wendy couldn’t trust her ability to speak in her mother tongue quite well yet, the shock of actually making it and being one step closer to the stage still loomed over her. hesitantly, in the simplest words she thought anyone would know, she asked,”hey, do you know where the dance studio is?”

the girl she had cornered took a surprised step back resulting in a hard hit to the wall, her face contorting into an expression of pure panic. “d-dance studio?” she repeated with her broken (‘but awfully adorable’, wendy mused) english.

"yes, dance studio. I-I’m a new trainee, and I was told to go to the dance studio when i first come." wendy says in korean this time, cracking a small smile when the girl visibly calms down, sighing in relief. "that makes so much sense now, i’m so sorry! i’m not very good with english." the girl dipped into a quick bow, flashing her an apologetic smile. "i’m joohyun, and i’m a trainee as well. it’s nice to meet you…?"

"s-seungwan. son seungwan. it’s nice to meet you, joohyun." she stutters in reply, bowing in return and offering her hand out to her.

joohyun eagerly shakes it, and wendy feels herself smiling.

'joohyun', she repeats the name in her head. 'that's a pretty name.'

-

wendy felt fat.

a few of their instructors would make small jokes about her weight, and she loved seulgi and taeyong to death, really, but they needed to stop pinching her cheeks, saying they resembled steamed buns and that they could just ‘eat them right up’.

every time she got out of the shower or before she would put on clothing, she would look at herself in the mirror, poking and prodding at her stomach, thighs and arms with disdain.

she didn’t want to admit that all of those comments, even if they weren’t supposed to be taken seriously, hurt.

she coped the best way she could; by laughing it off. the company had eventually placed her on a strict exercise and diet regime, leaving her unsatisfied with the lack of fulfilled cravings and sore, aching muscles that lasted all week.

some days it got too hard to handle that she had crying episodes in the empty practice room some nights, curling up into a ball in a corner of the room until the early hours in the morning until joohyun had found her and embraced her tightly, taking her to the dorms and tucking her in, humming children’s songs until she fell asleep.

it was always joohyun that would attempt to exercise with her and prepare a guilty pleasure meal for wendy religiously at the end of every week.

months passed her by, and on a chilly day in february she had stepped onto the scale and the numbers that appeared made her feel overjoyed.

"i reached my goal weight!" she announced to the people in the practice room first thing in the morning, embarrassing herself when she was face to face with shinee, who were practicing their choreography, but gladly congratulated her before she apologized for disturbing them and hastily closing the door.

she had eventually found all of the trainees, then repeating her good news to them. they had all congratulated her, proud of her progress. joohyun smiled brighter than all of the people in the room combined, she could tell that the older was truly proud of her, but joohyun’s next words threw her off a little.

"you look amazing now, but even then you were beautiful, even when you, yourself thought otherwise."

tears were threatening to fall from wendy’s eyes, her heart quickly pounding against her chest.

all she could offer in response was a quivering smile before she broke into tears on joohyun’s shoulder, the latter pulling her into a tight embrace and patting her back until wendy calmed down.

no matter how much she tried, wendy couldn’t stop her heartbeat from speeding up whenever she had even the simplest thought of joohyun, and she didn’t know why.

-

when they had announced that seulgi, joohyun (who they had given the stage name irene to, in which wendy felt fit hervery well), sooyoung and wendy were to debut together, they were all elated.

seulgi had been waiting for her debut for seven restless years.

joohyun had been waiting for awhile herself, though not as long as seulgi had.

sooyoung, the young and ambitious teenager she was, wasn’t any less excited. 

wendy was excited too, but instead of being solely happy because she was again, another step closer to the stage, she was thankful that she would be able to share it with joohyun.

she wasn’t stupid nor oblivious to what others had to say about it though, she would read the comments to all of the smrookies videos on the company’s youtube channel secretly. 

there was an abundance of comments telling the company to not debut her under a group and make her into a solo artist, or that her talents were wasted in sm.

wendy vowed that she would show them that her talents were being used well, even if she was in a group instead of by herself. 

for many years, wendy always imagined being by herself on stage, singing her heart out to the audience, capturing their hearts with her lyrics.

it’s kind of ironic to her now that whenever she imagines being on stage, she sees seulgi, joohyun and sooyoung there too, singing and dancing energetically, and with that thought, she felt complete. 

she briefly wondered if joohyun was happy that they would share the stage together too.

-

their first day at the salon as ‘red velvet’ could be described as the worst and the best day of wendy’s life. 

the worst because not one of them was informed about the horror that their hair was going to suffer through, and she didn’t even want the colour blue. 

she figured that if she was going to accept this, she might as well have gotten orange since when it would fade, it would at least look like a half-decent ombre, but the stylists thought otherwise. 

son seungwan was never so horrified of the colour blue in her whole life.

she was stuck with the most obnoxiously bright shade of blue they had.

wendy was left to glare daggers at seulgi’s orange hair in jealousy and meticulously look at every strand of her own hair angrily. 

a while later, the blue haired girl was put out of her misery as she was met with a face full of pink hair. 

"yah park sooyoung, get your stupid pink hair out of my face-"

"i’m not sooyoung, silly." 

wendy froze.

.

.

.

"i’m sorry, oh my god. i didn’t know that was you!" wendy hollered, earning a soft, lighthearted laugh from the other. "i didn’t mean that your pink hair was stupid, i was trying to-"

"it’s okay, i know." 

there was an awkward silence that followed it.

wendy tentatively looked up to get a better view of joohyun and she regretted it immediately. 

if joohyun was beautiful, she looked almost goddess-like standing in front of her right now. 

'man,' she concluded, 'the stylists did it right this time.'

wendy was in love.

(well, not like she probably wasn’t before nor would she admit she was, but damn did joohyun look good.)

"can i touch your hair?" wendy blurted out, before realizing that she had said her thoughts out loud.

a light shade of pink tints joohyun’s cheeks, and as a weak attempt to cover them she puts her hands over them before uttering out a small “yes”. 

wendy laced her fingers into joohyun’s pink strands, admiring the contrast between the chocolate brown and bright pink.

joohyun looked perfect like this.

she tugs slightly on the pink locks to get their faces closer, earning a wince from the other.

they made eye contact, wendy moving her face closer to joohyun, making the blush on her face more prominent.

wendy places a quick peck on the side of , making the elder of the two run away shortly after. though the reaction wasn’t exactly what she wanted, her cheeks still flushed pink; pure bliss, flying on the clouds of sweet, sweet love.

they didn’t talk for a while after that incident, and it left wendy more blue than she ever was before.

-

no, wendy wasn’t envious, not at all.

okay, maybe she was, just a little bit. or as seulgi would describe, ‘green with envy. sooyoung and joohyun had decided to link arms on the way to their first recording, which left wendy to do so with seulgi.

it’s not that she didn’t like seulgi, she adored her and thought of her as one of her closest friends, but she didn’t quite exactly make her heart flutter or be at a loss for words like how joohyun would.

after their first performance, all of them were feeling the after effects of the stage. they all huddled together in one big group hug, with all of them shedding a few tears.

it all felt so surreal.

wendy was browsing her news feed when she feels someone press themselves onto her, familiar pink hair in view.

"we made it." was all she uttered.

the younger turns around, enveloping her into a tight embrace, the older putting her head on her shoulder.”

"unnie, I think I like you." wendy whispers out of the blue, even surprising herself with her bold choice of words.

she’s setting herself out there, and there’s a chance she could get hurt, but wendy was more than willing to take the gamble.

joohyun looks at her, a shy smile on her face and she’s perfectly fine with that, she’s just glad she made the girl smile. at least she didn’t scare her away again.

"well seungwan, I don’t think I need to think to confirm if I like you, though."

if wendy were to describe how she felt at that moment with a colour, it would be yellow, like the bright shining sun.

-

weeks of endless promotion pass them by, and fortunately they manage to get on a radio show for the first time.

being on the radio was always something wendy wanted to try for a while now, something about the fact that many people tune in and listen, reaching such a wide audience made her want to try harder so that maybe their music could be heard in every radio station. 

wendy was thankful to whatever entity that lived above that she was able to snag the seat beside joohyun before sooyoung had (sooyoung had later pouted and wendy had only offered an unapologetic mehrong in return) which gave her the opportunity to get a better view of the older and just simply enjoy being with her.

(even better when joohyun had held onto her hand at random intervals during the radio show.)

one thing that had surprised her lately was how joohyun was opening herself up slowly but surely.

ever since their debut stage, she had only been getting bolder at her displays of affection. normally joohyun was so reserved she could barely get a reaction out of her much less expect her to make the first move, but she found joohyun embracing her more than wendy herself would, opting to link hands with her instead of sooyoung or seulgi a few times and cuddling with her in the dorms.

it was unexpected, but definitely welcomed.

but when joohyun had cornered her that same day in the dorms, breathing out a ‘kiss me properly this time you idiot’, wendy gladly obliged. 

lips pressed against each other, hearts racing, wendy would never want to forget this feeling, this sensation that joohyun can only give her, and what she can only describe as red.

hello, hello! my apologizies for the long wait, i've been really busy and went through quite a bit of writer's block and just one day it popped up in my head and boom, here it is. i'm actually quite pleased since with this since it's been the best i've written for a while, though i feel some parts were awkwardly written but it's all good to me. i hope you enjoyed though, thank you so much for reading!