Archive of Our Own ^beta

Happy birthday to the best little sister I could ask for.

Yoonchae reads the post over and over again. Her eyes start to sting after a minute or two, so she lowers her phone’s brightness, and then reads it four more times.

It isn’t a big deal. Her members dote on her in that way all the time. When Dani paraded her around the Miu Miu outlet downtown and bought her her first designer piece, she had told her again and again like a mantra, I always wanted a sister.

She likes being the youngest sometimes; really, she does. It used to mean easy ways out of awkward interviews (labor laws and such) and now, it’s bribing Sophia to watch romcoms and order in when she feels like her emotions are too large to fit inside her without spilling out.

So, it isn’t a big deal— at least, it shouldn’t be. But it is when it comes to Megan.

Yoonchae is fine with being Manon’s little sister. She really likes being Daniela’s hermana, and her contact name in Lara’s phone as Baby Sis with about ten spammed emoticons will always make her laugh.

With Megan, it’s different. The word is bitter on her tongue. Unpleasant. She just can’t seem to put her finger on why.

Yoonchae loves Megan. She likes being around her, gaming until their ribs are sore from laughter and the sun is rising, going out at 2AM for fast food when neither of them can sleep, lying her head on her shoulder after a particularly demanding rehearsal— things siblings would do. Why does the thought make her feel sick?

“Chip.” Sophia’s quick calling pulls her from her spiral before she can descend too far. Ever so helpful, she is. “Where am I getting reservations for tonight? Oh, and Manon wants to know if she can bring Sophie.”

Yoonchae clicks her phone off and lays it face-down atop her exposed belly. She’s been wearing more cropped tops, jeans that don’t rise as high. “Maturing into her femininity” is what Lara had called it, but really, she just does it because she can; because she’s old enough to be attractive now, rather than adorable.

“Hotpot? Sophie can come. I like her.”

The older smiles rather than verbally acknowledges, as she’s curling her hair oh so delicately in front of their vanity mirror, each ringlet falling flawlessly from the iron.

Yoonchae has never liked to do much with her hair. She straightens it or ties it into the occasional ponytail, and that’s the extent of her creativity. Megan braided it once, into two modest plaits that flowed and tickled her lower back. That night was fun. She reminds herself to ask when they can have their next sleepover.

“Okay.” Sophia is blindingly cheerful, sometimes too much so. She pats Yoonchae’s thigh before heading into their shared walk-in, voice following behind her, “Get up, we have to go soon!”

She suppresses a groan and tosses her feet off the bed. Doesn’t moving away from home at fifteen mean you’re not supposed to be bossed around by parents anymore? Yoonchae wouldn’t know— she thinks Sophia was a mother to, like, eight kids in a past life.

Dinner is fine. She is definitely not getting suddenly hit out of thin air with the fact that her childhood is over as she submerges the thin piece of beef twisted around her chopsticks into the boiling broth. Manon, Sophie, and Lara talk loudly to one another while Sophia hums along to the song playing overhead, and Yoonchae is fine. Everything is perfectly, flawlessly fine.

Megan’s thigh is squished against hers. The only booth they had open to reserve was small, and Yoonchae really likes this restaurant, so they had to make do. She’s doing an okay job at keeping collected, she thinks, and plops the meat into her mouth.

“We should’ve gotten you a big cake, or something.” Megan is chewing on her own piece of pork belly, palm concealing the sight of it in her mouth as she talks. “Have you ever had your face shoved in your cake on your birthday?”

“No. Maybe it’s American thing?”

She doesn’t tell Megan the closest she ever got was when her father dropped one of her cupcakes on her dress. It was one of those princess costume dresses, the tacky kind made of scratchy polyester and tulle that you can get from the dollar store, but little freshly seven-year-old Yoonchae sobbed for an hour nonetheless. The memory makes her already sore chest ache.

When the employees bring out the small bowl of ice cream and meager slice of cake, singing and clapping, Yoonchae’s lower lip begins to tremble as her friends chime in too. The tears crest in the corners of her eyes and it frustrates her even further, because why is she crying? It’s dramatic, she’s being dramatic, exactly like she was that day of her seventh birthday.

Daniela notices first. The staff have vanished and her bowl sits on the table space in front of her, no move made to touch it. “Aren’t you gonna eat your cake, Yoonchae?”

She parts her mouth to reply, to say something like I don’t know, I’ve never known anything, I want my mom and all that comes out is a sob. It startles her as much as it does the rest of them. Wetness begins to stain her cheeks, and she’s sniffling and trembling like a child, and nobody is really making any attempt to comfort her or ask any questions. Humiliating, is the word that she searches for.

It’s all quiet for a minute and Yoonchae wants to disappear, to sink into the floor and even further into the Earth until she’s all alone at its center and she never has to have another birthday again.

But then Megan moves. She begins to push Manon and Lara over, making a path out of the booth. “Come on. Let her out.”

Yoonchae uses the heel of her palm to rub at one of her eyes and she’s certain that she’s streaked her eyeliner all along her skin as she shuffles from behind the table.

“Bathroom.” Is all she says, half-hearted and quiet. “Sorry.”

She tries to ignore the prying eyes that stick to her as she walks past full tables and passing waitresses. She pushes open the single-stall bathroom door and nearly collapses into the sink, grasping onto the porcelain edge to find some balance. Yoonchae steels herself to look up, into the mirror.

A sad reflection glares back at her. Her eyes have flared up into a red color and her makeup reduced to messy rings of black around them, some of it dripping onto her cheeks. Her cheeks, that are still round, still adolescent.

She wants to scream until her throat is raw. She wants to grow up. She wants to be younger again. She wants, and wants, and somehow still isn’t the slightest bit sure what exactly she’s wanting for.

The girl that she gazes into now looks like she did when she was smaller, with her mother’s makeup smeared all over her childlike features. Lipstick under her eyebrow, eyeliner on her chin.

Desperately trying to look mature. She can’t shake the feeling that she continues to do the exact same thing, even now. She wishes she could go back all that time to tell little Yoonchae how draining it is, growing up. She wishes she could tell her a lot of things.

The door creaks open; she didn’t lock it, she didn’t think to. Megan looks at her in the glass, as it shuts loudly behind her.

“They’re not mad that you ran off, or anything. They’re just worried about you.”

Yoonchae wipes furiously at her face. It undoubtedly makes her makeup situation worse, but she’s too worked up to notice. “I’m fine. You can go back.”

She can see Megan’s reflection frowning as the girl draws closer. “Yoonchae, stop.”

She doesn’t listen. She can’t even hear her over the roar of her own voice ringing in her ears. Yoonchae only pauses because there’s a sudden grip on her shoulder that turns her around and holds onto her wrists, stills them.

The light above the mirror casts a soft glow over her features, and even though Megan’s concern is etching deep lines into her face, she’s still mesmerizing. Yoonchae almost forgets all about her dilemma until she opens her mouth.

“What’s wrong?”

Her throat is all scratchy from crying. Her mind wanders to her cup of water still sitting out there at their booth. Running away was so ridiculous. She’s ridiculous.

“I don’t know.” Yoonchae meets her eyes after fixating on the gems studded onto her belt for a moment. “Do I have to know?”

Megan releases her hold and instead brings her own hand to her mouth, tongue touching to the pad of her thumb. She smooths it along Yoonchae’s lash line, tidying the running mascara and tears.

(If Megan feels her shudder at the intimate gesture, she keeps it to herself.)

“No.” She says. Gentle. She moves to cup her cheek when she’s finished wiping. “I’ll tell them you don’t feel well. I can drive you home.”

Yoonchae sniffs, leans into the warmth of Megan’s palm despite her volition. “Not home. I want to go somewhere else. I don’t want to think about anything.”

Megan stares at her. Her gaze is affectionate, a small smile meeting her eyes. Yoonchae’s pulse thuds dramatically in her ears and she ponders whether she’s allowed to feel this way towards someone like her. Someone she’s meant to view as sisterlike.

“Okay. I can do that.”

She thinks (she knows) the answer is no.

Yoonchae likes it when Megan drives. She cracks the back windows and opens the sunroof, fresh air blowing in the space all around them. Her hair whips back and forth and she’s a bit frustrated that she doesn’t have the rubber band she typically does to tie it back, but the feeling is easily overpowered by the thrill coursing through her body.

Megan hits the vape in her hand and Yoonchae can smell artificial watermelon and bubblegum for a split second, until it disappears into the wind. She wonders how it would feel— to be something and then to dissolve into nothing at all. It’s likely less peaceful than it sounds.

One time, Yoonchae asked Megan why she vapes. She blinked at her with a practiced blankness and said Why not? From then on, she assumed that must be the answer to why people do most things in life, if Megan says so.

“You can try it, if you want.” She says now, holding the device out towards Yoonchae while keeping her other hand on the wheel; it’s a gradient reddish color, and a bit of smoke is still pluming from the mouthpiece.

There are some things Megan does that Yoonchae just doesn’t do. She doesn’t party, while Megan is out until the sun comes up. She doesn’t drink or smoke weed, but she’s caught Lara and Megan red-eyed and reeking of it more than once.

Yoonchae is realizing that she doesn’t do much of anything that Megan does, really.

They simply hang out, play stupid, childish games when they’re together. She wonders now if Megan only does these things to appease her. If she would have rather been anywhere else on those nights than playing Roblox until 2AM and watching reruns of foreign cartoons.

There are things that Yoonchae doesn’t do, but she thinks she wants to— because maybe, just maybe, if she does, Megan would start to take her seriously after all this time.

Maybe she would drag Yoonchae along to house parties and dance while pressed into her, and slot her glossy mouth against hers when they get too drunk and the room starts to spin. Maybe she can finally shed her title of little sister and become something more. Something she wants to be.

She takes the vape. Megan watches with wide eyes as Yoonchae wraps her lips around it and draws a large breath in. She holds it, a technique she held onto from watching Lara, and blows it back out again.

Her lungs are ablaze with the need to cough and she denies herself the relief in favor of impressing Megan. She feels like she needs to prove something— mostly to her, and a little to herself.

“Damn, girl. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

Yoonchae hopes Megan won’t notice how blood fills her cheeks, flushing them rosy and warm. She’s saved by the fact that they’re turning into the parking lot of some place unknown to her, and Megan has to swivel away from her to back up into the space.

When she gets out and shoves the car door shut behind her, the breath is all but knocked out of her at the sight that lies ahead of them. The sky has paled to a milky pinkish-orange and the clouds are hazy strokes along it. She can see the whole valley from here, the twinkle of each and every light glowing along streets and windows in a dozen mile radius.

“Wow.” Is really all she can manage to utter.

Megan’s giggle is a sweet harmony that Yoonchae thinks she would be fine with hearing for the rest of her life. “C’mon, let’s sit.”

The blanket Megan keeps in her trunk smells faintly like marijuana layered over a comforting floral scent that reminds Yoonchae of the magnolias that grew at the far end of her halmeoni’s garden.

Her knee is digging into Yoonchae’s thigh at an odd angle, but she doesn’t have any desire to move it. She’s too absorbed in the moment. Megan is entirely animated in her ways— she’s, like, talking with her hands, retelling some tall tale from their days as trainees. Yoonchae couldn’t care less about whatever it is she’s saying. It’s likely something she doesn’t remember, anyway.

No, she’s watching the sparkle that comes and goes in Megan’s irises as she speaks. Her hands, that squeeze themselves in and out of fists and gesticulate frantically. In her element, she’s beautiful. She’s always beautiful, but in this moment, there must be something in the air.

Maybe it’s some kind of hallucinogen that is altering Yoonchae’s mental state and putting absurdities into her head. It has to be, because her heart is dripping into her belly as it melts and her whole face is certainly four different shades of maroon. Admiration rings mercilessly in her ears and she’s coming to the peak of this epiphany that she really, truly might be in love with Megan Skiendiel.

It washes over her in a way that isn’t at all alarming. Yoonchae doesn’t gasp, or make a face (to her knowledge, anyway) or even say anything. She sits quietly with the fact warming in the pit of her stomach, and she lets Megan talk.

She supposes she knew all this time, really. She tried to ignore the sour feelings that curdled beneath the surface when Megan called for her little sister, or the fuzziness in her chest if she scrolled upon those fanmade compilations of moments between them, the ones with the gooey love songs in the background and hearts bordered around the frame.

It was always Megan— it was always going to be, even if she didn’t want it to. Fate doesn’t bargain.

“And Lexie was totally in the wrong, but I took her side anyway, and–” Megan’s rambling comes to a stop all of the sudden. When Yoonchae cranes her neck to the side to look at her, there’s worry collecting in her features. “Are you okay? You’re not talking.”

She grins soft and small and her tone is surprisingly even when it comes out, “I’m… happy.”

It seems to make Megan’s own lips curl up in turn. She flattens her palm against the girl’s knee, and the warmth from her skin seems to spread throughout Yoonchae’s body like a contagion.

“I’m really glad. I was hoping to cheer you up.” The shine in Megan’s eyes dims only momentarily. “I didn’t want the memory of the most important birthday of your life to be a bad one.”

“It won’t. Not now.”

Comfortable silence swirls along with the breeze between them. The city lights seem twice as bright as they usually are, and regardless of how much life she has to live, Yoonchae is sure she could die in this very moment and still, she would be wholly and completely satisfied.

“It’s beautiful from here, isn’t it?”

Yoonchae’s head bobs in display of her agreement. “Yeah. It is all the time, though. Everywhere.”

She’s only a fraction worried that her tongue had outsmarted her brain until Megan’s expression softens in understanding, and it dispels just as quickly.

It’s then that she leans in and her head finds itself a home in the valley of her neck. Her breath caresses the flesh there like that of a ghastly hand, and Yoonchae prays to a higher power that Megan doesn’t feel her tremble involuntarily with each exhale.

“Happy Birthday, Yoonchae.” She feels Megan’s words against the underside of her jaw more than she hears them. “Sorry I didn’t get you anything. Maybe we can go to the mall before rehearsal tomorrow.”

Yoonchae only hums in lieu of a response. What she doesn’t say is that a gift wouldn’t be necessary— all she truly wanted is already right here, anyway.

Sophia likes to use made up words as descriptors sometimes, especially when she’s utterly worn and stressed out. Normally, Yoonchae just laughs in dismissal and doesn’t think twice about it again.

She figures their leader may have been on to something now. Megan’s pink-and-black checkered fingertips drum against the flesh of her inner thigh and the only word that comes forth in her mind at the situation is fucking bambleboozlemented.

Yoonchae isn’t even sure what context the elder had spat the creation out for the first place. Granted, it’s hard to form any kind of thought at all currently, as Megan goes from tapping to scratching lightly. All she knows is that she has an itching desire to throw the nearest heavy object at Sophia when they get home for implanting the ridiculous thing in her head.

“You’re so jittery, girl, calm down.” Megan jests when they come to a stop at a red light.

A response falls just short of her. Her mouth is begging to drop open and tumble out the first words that it can assemble— she thinks it would sound something like I feel like I was a child twelve hours ago and I’ve never even kissed anyone and I really really love you please don’t let my adolescence scare you away. Yeah. Somewhere in that realm.

Their destination comes quicker than she would’ve preferred, but it may be for the better. She might have burst and painted the inside of Megan’s M3 red if she had to maintain her composure any longer.

And when the car comes to a halt, Megan is looking at her, and Yoonchae is looking back as if she’s staring into the whole universe.

The Milky Way houses over a hundred billion stars and countless planets, and Megan is… Megan. They are both barred and spiraled and possibly a hundred thousand lightyears away, despite being right here.

Megan opens her mouth to say something and Yoonchae doesn’t realize she swallows every word until a little noise of surprise reverberates off of her inner cheeks. They part at the same time, scarily so, and she barely opens her eyes before Megan has her by the back of her neck and she’s kissing her all over again.

She tastes like fruity bubblegum nicotine and minty lip balm, tastes like the stars and the sea and anything Yoonchae could ever desire. She never really grasped the obsession with love that most people had; the desire to kiss and wed and intertwine.

She thinks she understands now. She thinks she needs Megan to have her like this for the rest of her life, to hold her hand and wipe her tears when she’s crying and—

Megan draws back. Yoonchae’s chest is heaving, heartbeat erratic, and she wants to pull her back in all over again when the girl’s quivering tone pierces through to her heart.

“Yoonchae… we can’t.”

She lets her eyes come open slowly. Megan’s lips are pink and swollen with saliva streaked from their corners. Her pupils are still blown with arousal, even more so than their usual large circumference, and she’s saying they can’t?

Yoonchae blinks. “But… we did already?”

“I know, I know.” She runs an exasperated hand through her hair, fingers threading through where pink used to be that is now black. “It’s just, you’re like my– we’re family. The girls wouldn’t… yeah. And things with me and Jonah, they’re good right now. We should just stay the way we are. We can forget this ever happened, right?”

She’s never been shot before, but she’s seen it in movies. How your body jerks and sort of folds in on itself as you go down. Yoonchae imagines the feeling must be incredibly comparable to what her insides are doing now.

Megan’s face is contorted all funny in concern. “Will you say something? Please?”

And it’s ironic to Yoonchae, that she’s pleading for anything. Megan gets everything she wants with ease— to go out, get drunk, buy a new car, get a new boyfriend. Yoonchae has never gotten anything she wanted without feeling like she had to die for it. It’s blaringly obvious now, as her only desire stares back at her with woeful eyes.

“Goodnight.”

She steps out of the car and slams the door shut behind her. When she walks toward the house, she doesn’t glance back once.

Yoonchae doesn’t like showers. She’s always much preferred warm baths, despite the backlash it gets online and the disagreement of her members.

(It’s basically like, a skin-cell-and-dirt soup that you’re just laying in. Lara had said once when the topic arose. Manon gagged so hard it started a chorus of laughter amongst all of them.)

She turns the overhead faucet on anyway. Adults don’t take baths routinely, it’s something children do. Grow up, sneers the voice in her mind as Yoonchae slips her jeans off and pulls her shirt over her head.

It lands on the floor and she gets a good look at the design plastered across the front of it. She hadn’t put much thought into it this morning while dressing; she wears a baggy zip-up over her tees anyway, it didn’t cross her mind when she tugged it on.

It’s one of those crop tops with the cheap flaky plastic on the front that peels when you wash it, the kind that you can buy anywhere— the particular one she wore today has My Little Ponys over the chest, rainbow colored and bright and childish. It feels like a harsh slap to the face.

Yoonchae twists the knob all the way to the left and when she steps under the flow of water, it scalds her skin. It hurts. It stings, and it’s not unlike anything else that has happened today. She feels the heat seeping into her flesh and disregards the searing pain that blooms with every drop that hits.

She has mastered the practice of selective ignorance, which is basically a preliminary when going into this field. Yoonchae can ignore the sharp eyes on her during interviews when she takes too long to string together her thoughts, and the cruel words she sees of those on the internet about her and her members.

Most importantly, she can ignore thoughts of doe eyes and faded pink hair and watermelon gum, feelings that are perpetually growing and will one day gut her from the inside out.

Yoonchae steps out of the shower without washing. Her hair will likely be oily when she wakes, and she’ll put it up into a bun and greet it with not even the littlest bit of concern. She’s grown too exhausted to care about anything, as of tonight.

In the mirror, every bit of her skin is blotched bright red and burns to the touch. She presses her fingers into her forearm, numb to the pain, watching the flesh go white until she stops and the blood rushes back.

She doesn’t pick out any pajamas or go through her usual extensive routine of skincare. Yoonchae climbs beneath her duvet, naked, aching— and she cries. Distantly, she remembers what Megan said earlier in the evening.

I didn’t want the memory of the most important birthday of your life to be a bad one.

Clearly, Megan doesn’t know anything. She isn’t aware that the universe takes every given opportunity to work against her. Yoonchae traces it back to a day years upon years ago, when she got the flu two days before her parents were going to take her to Lotte World; her luck has only gone downhill since then, she thinks. This day was always going to be a bad one.

The buzz of her phone is what pulls her from emotions. Yoonchae holds it close to her face when she opens the notification because her vision is cloudy with tears and she can’t make out the screen all that well.

It’s a post on Megan’s story from her second, more private Instagram account— expression hazy, that tinge of red in her eyes, and a disposable cup in her hand. Yoonchae doesn’t have to guess what’s in it.

She’s pressed into the side of an influencer Yoonchae has definitely scrolled upon on her TikTok before. His lips are smushed against Megan’s cheek and her tongue is sticking out between her teeth. Her lipgloss is still smudged around her mouth from where Yoonchae’s own met it.

Yoonchae doesn’t realize that she’s laughing until the bitter sound is cutting through the silence and the tears on her face are coming down harder than before. Her chest feels like it's filling slowly with a boiling vitriol and she's half-sobbing-half-cackling so violently that she can hardly take a breath.

Tomorrow they will see each other, and on the exterior, they will be the same as they ever were. Childhood, maturity, Megan— internally, Yoonchae will come to accept that she will never get the things she longs for in this life.

She will learn to live with the immutable fact that fate is a gun pointed blind. Yoonchae was always bound to be caught in the crossfire.