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fic: we are golden
2/3 of this has been sitting in my drafts for well over a year now, so I decided to finish it up today.
Title: we are golden
Fandom: Shut Up! Flower Boy Band
Characters/Pairing: Im Su Ah, Kim Ye Rim, Bang Woo Kyung (Im Su Ah/Kwon Ji Hyuk, Kim Ye Rim/Lee Hyun Soo, Bang Woo Kyung/Jang Do Il)
Rating: PG
A/N: This is fluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuff. Fluffy fluffy fluff. Sorry!
Summary: And maybe they have more in common than just the fact that the boys they love are best friends.
Su Ah’s thankful that the band decided to break up. She doesn’t say that, of course, because that isn’t her way, though she suspects Ji Hyuk knows (sometimes when he looks at her she thinks that he knows every single thing about her. It should be scary, but it’s Ji Hyuk and so it’s sometimes comforting and other times thrilling and most of the time it’s both). It isn’t the band itself she’s glad is gone; it’s the contract and the managers and the TV spots and everything that comes along with the manufacturing of fame. She’s glad, so glad, that Ji Hyuk isn’t going to be famous anymore. Mostly it’s because she knows Ji Hyuk would be miserable playing according to the rules of the idol industry, that he just wasn’t cut out for that life (he was so bad at it, and she found that endearing, his sullen looks and monosyllabic answers to questions he clearly thought were a waste of time when he could be playing actual music). But also because she knows that she would be miserable dating an idol (the idea of Ji Hyuk as an idol, a real one, makes her giggle: he looks good in eyeliner, but he’s a terrible dancer, all gangly and long-limbed). She knows what it’s like to have people stare at you, whisper behind their hands and think they know everything about you that counts when really they know nothing at all. She hated it when it was just at Jungsang High School; she can’t imagine how terrible it would be if it were the whole country treating her like that (she has nightmares sometimes).
She’s happy with how life is now, working hard at school, phone calls from Appa, spending time with her boyfriend. She’s even happier for Ji Hyuk: going to Rock Kim’s club and getting fed and yelled at (he pretends like he doesn’t love it, pretends like it isn’t what he’s wanted all along, to have someone actually care if he shows up, to be able to go to a place that’s alive and warm with people. She thinks of him growing up in that rooftop room all alone, and sometimes she wants to cry). Ji Hyuk plays at the club, and his audiences are just the right size, and his music is whatever he feels like playing that day. Life is quiet, really, and that’s the way Su Ah likes it (she thinks of all the girls, all over the world, dreaming of what it would be like to be famous, to date a rock star, and she feels sorry for them, because there’s no reality in their dreams).
But just because Ji Hyuk isn’t famous anymore (almost: he still gets recognized sometimes on the street, mostly by teenagers, and he shifts his shoulders awkwardly and rubs at his nose and can’t wait to escape) doesn’t mean that there aren’t still idols in Su Ah’s life. Some nights when she leaves her homework behind in her rooftop apartment (Appa offered to move her to a nicer place in a better part of town, but she’s fine right where she is) and crosses over to Ji Hyuk’s, Hyun Soo is there, sitting on Ji Hyuk’s bed and eating ramyun and making fun of Ha Jin’s latest acting role (Ha Jin’s still only getting one-line parts, but at least they can see his face now). And sometimes Ye Rim is there, too, still looking as cool and beautiful in her jeans and black hoodie as she does all made-up on TV (she has to sneak out, she says with a grin, and Director Yoo gets very, very angry with her, but it’s worth it).
Su Ah knows that Hyun Soo used to hate her. She tells herself that it wasn’t personal, that it was just that Hyun Soo thought that she threatened the band and his future and his friendship with Ji Hyuk and so he focused his hate on her. But sometimes he would just look at her, and she could almost believe what Deo Mi used to say about him freezing people with his eyes. He doesn’t look at her like that anymore, now that she’s not a threat—really, he doesn’t pay attention to her at all. She feels more uncomfortable with him than she does with any of Ji Hyuk’s other friends—Do Il is the kindest, most calming presence she knows, and Kyung Jong is adorable and sweet and makes her laugh all the time, and Ha Jin is friendly (when he isn’t flirting. He flirts most of the time, like it’s second-nature to him and he can’t help it, but there’s no threat in it). But Hyun Soo is still so aloof with anybody who wasn’t in Eye Candy, and she finds herself staring at him while he laughs about Ha Jin’s two lines in his latest drama and wondering how he can be one way with his friends and another with everyone else. And how he can be a completely different person altogether with Ye Rim.
Su Ah figures out pretty early on that Hyun Soo feels things very deeply but doesn’t like that about himself, and so he fights it, and most of that fighting comes across as anger wrapped in a thin layer of coldness. But Ye Rim seems to counteract all of that, making it dissolve away and melting his constructed icy exterior until Hyun Soo’s just a boy with a crush on a girl who’s way cooler than he is. He becomes clumsy and awkward around her, and he scowls more than usual to cover for it, but he doesn’t convince anyone. The other boys tease him and then he scowls even more, and Ye Rim sits with her ankles crossed (looking as comfortable in Ji Hyuk’s run-down apartment as she does anywhere else) and smiles. Sometimes, in the split second between Hyun Soo doing something awkward and remembering to scowl, Su Ah can almost see what Ye Rim sees in him (he’s very pretty, of course, though Su Ah likes guys who aren’t quite so polished. Or at least she does now that she has Ji Hyuk).
Su Ah’s not used to being around such big, loud groups of people, but she likes it when Ji Hyuk’s room is filled to overflowing with the Eye Candy boys and Woo Kyung (who she’s starting to get along with now). She likes it best when it’s just her and Ji Hyuk, of course (he’s the only person she’s ever felt totally comfortable with, as comfortable as she feels when she’s alone, and she suspects he feels the same way about her, that she’s the only one he feels that way about now that Byung Hee is gone), but there’s something about the laughter and the warmth that the Eye Candy boys take with them wherever they go that’s winning her over. She doesn’t talk much, just sits tucked up under Ji Hyuk’s arm and mostly listens and laughs along, except when Kyung Jong teases her into conversation. But she’s content to watch and absorb. This is how she’s most comfortable.
She’s least comfortable on the couple of nights when Hyun Soo is there and then Ye Rim shows up, too. When it’s just Hyun Soon, Su Ah goes back to her room or out with Deo Mi or takes a walk around the neighborhood (friends need time alone, she knows that). But when Ye Rim is there, too, she doesn’t feel like it’s right to escape, so she stays. None of the four of them are talkers, each fairly silent in their own way. Without Kyung Jong and Ha Jin and Woo Kyung to goad them all into laughter, things become a little awkward. Su Ah doesn’t have anything to say to Hyun Soo, and though Ye Rim doesn’t intimidate her, not really (Su Ah never been very impressed by fame, and she’s even less impressed by it now that she’s actually seen it up close), she’s unsure of how to interact with the other girl. Ye Rim seems older, and different, and belonging to another world (one that Su Ah’s caught a glimpse of and has no interest in visiting further). But Ye Rim is also nice, and she really tries to make everyone comfortable in a way that doesn’t seem like trying at all. Su Ah likes her, even if she doesn’t feel like she knows her. Still, she’s part of the landscape now, and maybe Su Ah wouldn’t have chosen her to be there, but she doesn’t mind that she’s here.
This is Su Ah’s world now: school and drawing and Rock Kim’s club and the Eye Candy boys and their girlfriends stuffed into a little rooftop apartment or sprawled out on top of green felt at the pool hall (she likes it).
--
It’s a Sunday afternoon, warm and mellow late autumn, and she tilts her head back to let the sunlight slide across her face as she climbs the stairs up to Ji Hyuk’s room. She always knocks, because that’s what you do when you’re entering a teenage boy’s room (there are some things she doesn’t want to see), but the person who opens the door this time isn’t Ji Hyuk, it’s Hyun Soo.
She blinks, because she wasn’t expecting him. Probably she should have reached the point where she’s no longer surprised to see any of the Eye Candy boys open this door—they all treat this apartment like another home. But she’d only been thinking of spending the afternoon with Ji Hyuk, of taking a walk and enjoying the sunshine and maybe sitting on that bench down by the river that’s been theirs since the day he first played black knight and dragged her away from the thugs that were looking for her.
Hyun Soo just looks at her for a moment in that unreadable way of his, then jerks the door open to let her in. “You’re here?”
“If you want to spend time with Ji Hyuk, I can leave,” she says, even as she takes a step through the door. She knows that it’s been a while since the boys have seen each other; Hyun Soo is busy all the time with his practices and CFs and interviews.
“No. Stay.” Then, as if he just then remembers that he’s supposed to, he adds, “Are you well?” Somehow, when Hyun Soo talks to her, he manages to make banmal sound like jondaemal.
But she nods. “I saw your performance on TV last week. You were very good.” She and Ji Hyuk had watched it on his little TV and Ji Hyuk had pretended not to smile proudly at his friend.
“Thank you.” He jerks his shoulder awkwardly, but a smile seems to slip onto his face despite himself (Hyun Soo loves the idol life and he’s proud of what he’s accomplished, and he should be), and she smiles back. He stares at her for a moment, blankly, and then the smile is back, but this time it seems genuine, and she’s pretty sure it’s the first time he’s ever smiled at her. She can’t keep from beaming.
“What are you doing? Trying to steal my girlfriend right in front of your girlfriend and me? When we’re in the room? This one doesn’t have any shame.” It’s Ji Hyuk, leaning around the corner to see them in the little entry hall. He’s got that look on his face like he’s trying to be tough, but his eyes are smiling (he’s always had such kind eyes, and all his gruffness can’t hide that), and she thinks maybe his shoulders relax a little bit at seeing her and Hyun Soo be civil to each other. She remembers suddenly that he told her once that Hyun Soo is his oldest friend, that they were little boys together before they met Byung Hee and the others. She thinks that probably their relationship is the most complicated of any between the Eye Candy boys, but she also knows they love each other more than they’re comfortable admitting. Of course he’s glad to see his friend and his girlfriend get along.
“If he dumps me, I’ll date you, Ji Hyuk, all right? We can elope together.” It’s Ye Rim now. Her hair is black again, with those bangs cut across her forehead, and Su Ah wonders how much control she gets over her style—it seems to change all the time.
Hyun Soo scowls as Su Ah follows him into the room. He flops down—looking decidedly ungraceful for a boy who is always conscious of his image—on the bed beside Ye Rim. “Who said I wanted to date you anyway?” he grumbles. “You wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Ye Rim nudges his shoulder with her own. “Just because you were stubborn and wouldn’t ask me out yourself.” She looks up at Su Ah and shakes her head. “I had to do all the work with this one.”
Su Ah laughs, because she can guess how true that is.
Hyun Soo’s muttering under his breath now about how crazy Ye Rim drives him, but his girlfriend ignores him. “I think the boys want some alone time,” she says to Su Ah. “Can you call Woo Kyung? Unless Hyun Soo dumps me for you, we’ll see a lot of each other. We should be friends, don’t you think? Today, we should go shopping,” Ye Rim says. She doesn’t squeal it or aegyo like a lot of other girls would. She just suggests it with a smile.
Su Ah doesn’t quite know what to say. She has a little bit more money now—Appa’s doing fine in China—but not enough to shop at the places Ye Rim probably likes. And Woo Kyung probably has even less than she does. She’s suddenly glad that Woo Kyung isn’t here, because she knows how sharp the other girl can be when her pride is hurt, and it probably would be by this invitation, even if Ye Rim’s only trying to be friendly.
Su Ah doesn’t think her face has given what she’s thinking away, but Ye Rim must have sharp eyes, because she says, “Window shopping. And to get some ice cream.”
The boys exchange looks they try to pretend aren’t anxious, but Su Ah smiles and agrees.
--
An hour and a half later, Su Ah finds herself walking down the sidewalk with Ye Rim on one side and Woo Kyung on the other, eating ice cream and looking into shop windows at dresses she’d never be able to afford (not that she’s sad about that—she also wouldn’t ever have any place to wear them). Woo Kyung had seemed a bit flustered (and maybe a little bit suspicious—she is very protective of her group and it takes a while to get her to trust people) at first, but she’d agreed and showed up in an outfit that Su Ah personally thought was trying a little too hard, especially when Su Ah and Ye Rim were both in sweatshirts (but Su Ah would never mock Woo Kyung for that—you really are treated differently when you’re poor, she knows that from experience now, and the pride that Woo Kyung has developed is a reaction to that. Su Ah can respect it). Ye Rim’s got a hat on and glasses, too, and nobody’s recognized her yet, though Su Ah thinks it’s just a matter of time.
But for now, it’s okay like this, the three of them walking along, mostly in silence. Woo Kyung seems a little twitchy, but that’s because she isn’t as comfortable with silence as Su Ah and Ye Rim are. She’s one of those people who needs to talk about everything she’s feeling, and while Su Ah doesn’t really understand that, she doesn’t hate it in other people.
Ye Rim swallows a spoonful of ice cream and says, “Woo Kyung, you style hair, right? Do you want to style for idols? Maybe one day you’ll do my hair.”
Woo Kyung looks away from the emerald green dress she’d been staring at in the nearest window. “I was going to be Eye Candy’s stylist forever.” Her words come out kind of sharp and bitter, and Su Ah thinks, not for the first time, that Woo Kyung took the Eye Candy breakup harder than any of the boys did. Woo Kyung seems to realize a little too late how she sounded and flushes. “I liked to experiment with the boys,” she says and now her tone is much less harsh. “Girls’ fashion is so easy to be creative with. But with guys you really have to try.”
She’s trying, Su Ah realizes. That was her olive branch, to the girl who’s intimidatingly beautiful and famous. Woo Kyung has never seemed to know what to make of Ye Rim, eying her with the same suspicion she does any interloper into Eye Candy’s world, but compounded because of Ye Rim’s celebrity. Su Ah isn’t sure they’ve ever really talked.
“Will you ever cut Do Il’s hair?” Su Ah asks suddenly.
“No!” Woo Kyung looks horrified. “He should never cut his hair short.”
Both of the other girls laugh. “The long hair looks good on him,” Ye Rim admits, and Su Ah nods in agreement. “Lots of boys would look silly.”
“Do Il is the most beautiful person alive,” Woo Kyung announces stoutly, then immediately flushes, like she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. But Su Ah and Ye Rim are both grinning, and when they catch each other’s’ eyes, it doesn’t feel awkward at all. They’re just three girls, talking about their boyfriends. They could be any girls in the world.
--
They end up on a park bench down by the river (not the one Su Ah shares only with Ji Hyuk, of course. That one belongs to them alone, and she isn’t ever going to want to share it with anyone), finishing the last of their ice cream and watching the sunlight on the water.
“So I sing, and Woo Kyung styles hair,” Ye Rim says, dragging the toes of her (brand name) tennis shoes along the ground like she’s on a swing. “What do you do, Su Ah?”
“I draw,” Su Ah says, and it feels good to say it. She doesn’t talk much about art, about how much she loves it, but she knows Ji Hyuk knows how hard it was for her when she had to drop out of the class because she didn’t have the money for supplies. Now she’s back in it again, and she’s falling in love with it all over again, with colors and textures and the same feeling she got when she was a little girl scribbling in coloring books: like she’s filling the black-line-boundary-boring world up with beautiful things. She’s in love with the challenge, too, with the battle to transfer the picture in her head onto the page; it’s never as good as she wants it to be, but each day she gets a little bit closer.
“I didn’t know that,” Woo Kyung says, sounding surprised and a little impressed. Su Ah smiles at her.
Ye Rim looks excited, too. “We’re all artists,” she says, grin widening. “Do you paint and things too or do you only draw?”
“I like to paint, too, but I don’t do it as much because the oils are so expensive. I’m going to take a graphic design class next year, too,” she adds on a whim. She hasn’t told anyone else about that except Ji Hyuk. She’s been thinking seriously about her future; she knows that even though he wants to be able to provide for her, she might not always be able to rely on Appa, and while she doesn’t ever want to do anything else but art, she knows it’s not always the most lucrative of jobs. She’s not going to stop drawing—and painting, too; she’s planning on getting a part-time job soon to pay for oils and brushes and canvases—she really couldn’t if she tried, and her plan is to study art more in college, but she needs a back-up plan, something to pay the bills while she establishes her reputation, and graphic design is something she thinks she’d be good at. When she told him all that, Ji Hyuk’s mouth had twitched in that way it does when he’s trying not to smile, and she’d known he’d thought her plan was a good one. Ji Hyuk thinks she can do anything, but he wants her to find what makes her happy. Maybe that’s what growing up is: figuring out what makes you happy and what you are and aren’t willing to do to get it and also how to compromise around the edges to make your life livable.
“That’s amazing,” Ye Rim says. “Maybe one day you can design the cover for one of my albums and all my posters and Woo Kyung-unnie can take care of my style and we can all work together.”
Woo Kyung looks a little shell-shocked at the suggestion, but after a moment she gives a wobbly sort of smile, like she’s finding her footing, and even if it’s not as wide as it is when she smiles at Do Il, it’s real. “I’d like that,” she says, and Ye Rim and Su Ah exchange grins. It doesn’t really matter if that ever happens. Like with Eye Candy dreaming of playing at Glastonbury, the thought of it is enough.
--
Ye Rim is really good at guiding conversation without seeming like she’s doing it at all. They end up eating kimbap at a little restaurant run by one of Woo Kyung’s aunts, and Ye Rim tells them all about how she decided she wanted to be a singer as a little girl and how she made it happen. Ye Rim doesn’t brag, but Su Ah can read between the lines enough to figure out how hard she’s worked and how much she’s sacrificed—anything like a normal life—to get to where she is. It might be a little overwhelming to hear, honestly, except that Ye Rim is so matter-of-fact about it and also manages to get Woo Kyung to talk about watching her mom cut hair when she was a little girl and how she first started working at the salon and how got her cosmetology license and how hard she’s working at learning English (and along the way, how much it hurt her when her dad left and how scared her mom was for a while that she’d lose the salon). And Su Ah ends up talking more herself than she ever would have expected; she wouldn’t have ever been able to imagine talking to an idol and Woo Kyung about what it’s like going from a comfortable life to having nothing and having everyone in your world turn their back on you. But Ye Rim doesn’t make her feel inferior for her fall from grace at all, and Woo Kyung seems to know what it’s like not to have heat in the winter, and it occurs to Su Ah that all of them have been through really hard things in their lives, and just because Su Ah started out higher than Woo Kyung and Ye Rim’s struggles have been in a world of glitz and money, that doesn’t mean they can’t understand each other.
By the time they head back to Ji Hyuk’s apartment, things have eased between them. They haven’t become best friends or anything, but Su Ah feels like she understands both of the other girls better and that maybe they have more in common than just the fact that the boys they love are best friends. Like Ye Rim says, they’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Su Ah thinks she might just enjoy it.
Three sets of eyes—Do Il has joined the other two guys—look up anxiously at them as they walk through the door, laughing at one of Woo Kyung’s stories about her most demanding customer, and Su Ah giggles at how their shoulders all slump in relief when they see the girls together.
Woo Kyung must notice, too, because she stomps over and smacks Ji Hyuk on the head. Su Ah thinks that might once have bothered her, knowing how long Woo Kyung had a crush on him, but she’s seen the way the older girl looks at Do Il now; Woo Kyung is just like Ji Hyuk’s older sister now, and he can use all the family he can get. “Did you think we were going to kill each other? Yah, girls can be friends, too!”
“It wouldn’t be the first fight we’ve had to drag you out of,” Hyun Soo says sarcastically, and Woo Kyung glares at him and looks like she’s going to hit him too, but Ye Rim reaches him first and kicks him on the knee. He wails and clutches his leg dramatically, and Ye Rim ignores him, settling down beside him.
“If you need someone to fight with you, unnie, don’t bother with these punks,” Ye Rim says, shaking her ponytail out and tying it back again. “My fake nails are hard as steel—I’ll scratch their eyes out. And Su Ah looks like a hair-puller.”
Su Ah laughs, sitting beside Ji Hyuk and resting her nose against his shoulder, breathing in his scent that clings to the warm fabric of his t-shirt. “I used to take Tae Kwon Do.”
“What?” Everyone turns to stare at her with wide eyes, except for Do Il, who smiles quietly, but it’s Ji Hyuk who looks most shocked. “You never told me that.”
She shrugs, grinning at their surprised faces. “It was just a class for little kids. I stopped in middle school.”
She’s still mentally grinning at the thought of her and Ye Rim and Woo Kyung in a fight when the door opens and Kyung Jong and Ha Jin tumble in arm-in-arm—which looks particularly funny because of the height difference.
“Oh, the ladies all are here! Hello, ladies!” Kyung Jong says with a smile and a bow.
“Hello, ladies,” Ha Jin echoes, his smile significantly more flirtatious. “But none of you are single,” he adds woefully. “Next time bring some friends with you who aren’t dating anyone, okay?”
“Like that would do any good,” Hyun Soo scoffs. “For someone who always seems to be chatting someone up, you can’t seem to find a girl of your own.”
“Why would he need one when he has Kyung Jong and they’re already married?” Ye Rim says with a mischievous little grin, leaving Hyun Soo looking gobsmacked and everyone else laughing. Ji Hyuk slips his fingers into Su Ah’s and she squeezes them tight, leaning against him and feeling so, so glad that she didn’t go with Appa to China when he asked her to.
--
This is her world now: school and drawing and Rock Kim’s club and the Eye Candy boys and their girlfriends stuffed into a little rooftop apartment or sprawled out on top of green felt at the pool hall (she likes it).
Su Ah’s thankful that the band decided to break up. She doesn’t say that, of course, because that isn’t her way, though she suspects Ji Hyuk knows (sometimes when he looks at her she thinks that he knows every single thing about her. It should be scary, but it’s Ji Hyuk and so it’s sometimes comforting and other times thrilling and most of the time it’s both). It isn’t the band itself she’s glad is gone; it’s the contract and the managers and the TV spots and everything that comes along with the manufacturing of fame. She’s glad, so glad, that Ji Hyuk isn’t going to be famous anymore. Mostly it’s because she knows Ji Hyuk would be miserable playing according to the rules of the idol industry, that he just wasn’t cut out for that life (he was so bad at it, and she found that endearing, his sullen looks and monosyllabic answers to questions he clearly thought were a waste of time when he could be playing actual music). But also because she knows that she would be miserable dating an idol (the idea of Ji Hyuk as an idol, a real one, makes her giggle: he looks good in eyeliner, but he’s a terrible dancer, all gangly and long-limbed). She knows what it’s like to have people stare at you, whisper behind their hands and think they know everything about you that counts when really they know nothing at all. She hated it when it was just at Jungsang High School; she can’t imagine how terrible it would be if it were the whole country treating her like that (she has nightmares sometimes).
She’s happy with how life is now, working hard at school, phone calls from Appa, spending time with her boyfriend. She’s even happier for Ji Hyuk: going to Rock Kim’s club and getting fed and yelled at (he pretends like he doesn’t love it, pretends like it isn’t what he’s wanted all along, to have someone actually care if he shows up, to be able to go to a place that’s alive and warm with people. She thinks of him growing up in that rooftop room all alone, and sometimes she wants to cry). Ji Hyuk plays at the club, and his audiences are just the right size, and his music is whatever he feels like playing that day. Life is quiet, really, and that’s the way Su Ah likes it (she thinks of all the girls, all over the world, dreaming of what it would be like to be famous, to date a rock star, and she feels sorry for them, because there’s no reality in their dreams).
But just because Ji Hyuk isn’t famous anymore (almost: he still gets recognized sometimes on the street, mostly by teenagers, and he shifts his shoulders awkwardly and rubs at his nose and can’t wait to escape) doesn’t mean that there aren’t still idols in Su Ah’s life. Some nights when she leaves her homework behind in her rooftop apartment (Appa offered to move her to a nicer place in a better part of town, but she’s fine right where she is) and crosses over to Ji Hyuk’s, Hyun Soo is there, sitting on Ji Hyuk’s bed and eating ramyun and making fun of Ha Jin’s latest acting role (Ha Jin’s still only getting one-line parts, but at least they can see his face now). And sometimes Ye Rim is there, too, still looking as cool and beautiful in her jeans and black hoodie as she does all made-up on TV (she has to sneak out, she says with a grin, and Director Yoo gets very, very angry with her, but it’s worth it).
Su Ah knows that Hyun Soo used to hate her. She tells herself that it wasn’t personal, that it was just that Hyun Soo thought that she threatened the band and his future and his friendship with Ji Hyuk and so he focused his hate on her. But sometimes he would just look at her, and she could almost believe what Deo Mi used to say about him freezing people with his eyes. He doesn’t look at her like that anymore, now that she’s not a threat—really, he doesn’t pay attention to her at all. She feels more uncomfortable with him than she does with any of Ji Hyuk’s other friends—Do Il is the kindest, most calming presence she knows, and Kyung Jong is adorable and sweet and makes her laugh all the time, and Ha Jin is friendly (when he isn’t flirting. He flirts most of the time, like it’s second-nature to him and he can’t help it, but there’s no threat in it). But Hyun Soo is still so aloof with anybody who wasn’t in Eye Candy, and she finds herself staring at him while he laughs about Ha Jin’s two lines in his latest drama and wondering how he can be one way with his friends and another with everyone else. And how he can be a completely different person altogether with Ye Rim.
Su Ah figures out pretty early on that Hyun Soo feels things very deeply but doesn’t like that about himself, and so he fights it, and most of that fighting comes across as anger wrapped in a thin layer of coldness. But Ye Rim seems to counteract all of that, making it dissolve away and melting his constructed icy exterior until Hyun Soo’s just a boy with a crush on a girl who’s way cooler than he is. He becomes clumsy and awkward around her, and he scowls more than usual to cover for it, but he doesn’t convince anyone. The other boys tease him and then he scowls even more, and Ye Rim sits with her ankles crossed (looking as comfortable in Ji Hyuk’s run-down apartment as she does anywhere else) and smiles. Sometimes, in the split second between Hyun Soo doing something awkward and remembering to scowl, Su Ah can almost see what Ye Rim sees in him (he’s very pretty, of course, though Su Ah likes guys who aren’t quite so polished. Or at least she does now that she has Ji Hyuk).
Su Ah’s not used to being around such big, loud groups of people, but she likes it when Ji Hyuk’s room is filled to overflowing with the Eye Candy boys and Woo Kyung (who she’s starting to get along with now). She likes it best when it’s just her and Ji Hyuk, of course (he’s the only person she’s ever felt totally comfortable with, as comfortable as she feels when she’s alone, and she suspects he feels the same way about her, that she’s the only one he feels that way about now that Byung Hee is gone), but there’s something about the laughter and the warmth that the Eye Candy boys take with them wherever they go that’s winning her over. She doesn’t talk much, just sits tucked up under Ji Hyuk’s arm and mostly listens and laughs along, except when Kyung Jong teases her into conversation. But she’s content to watch and absorb. This is how she’s most comfortable.
She’s least comfortable on the couple of nights when Hyun Soo is there and then Ye Rim shows up, too. When it’s just Hyun Soon, Su Ah goes back to her room or out with Deo Mi or takes a walk around the neighborhood (friends need time alone, she knows that). But when Ye Rim is there, too, she doesn’t feel like it’s right to escape, so she stays. None of the four of them are talkers, each fairly silent in their own way. Without Kyung Jong and Ha Jin and Woo Kyung to goad them all into laughter, things become a little awkward. Su Ah doesn’t have anything to say to Hyun Soo, and though Ye Rim doesn’t intimidate her, not really (Su Ah never been very impressed by fame, and she’s even less impressed by it now that she’s actually seen it up close), she’s unsure of how to interact with the other girl. Ye Rim seems older, and different, and belonging to another world (one that Su Ah’s caught a glimpse of and has no interest in visiting further). But Ye Rim is also nice, and she really tries to make everyone comfortable in a way that doesn’t seem like trying at all. Su Ah likes her, even if she doesn’t feel like she knows her. Still, she’s part of the landscape now, and maybe Su Ah wouldn’t have chosen her to be there, but she doesn’t mind that she’s here.
This is Su Ah’s world now: school and drawing and Rock Kim’s club and the Eye Candy boys and their girlfriends stuffed into a little rooftop apartment or sprawled out on top of green felt at the pool hall (she likes it).
--
It’s a Sunday afternoon, warm and mellow late autumn, and she tilts her head back to let the sunlight slide across her face as she climbs the stairs up to Ji Hyuk’s room. She always knocks, because that’s what you do when you’re entering a teenage boy’s room (there are some things she doesn’t want to see), but the person who opens the door this time isn’t Ji Hyuk, it’s Hyun Soo.
She blinks, because she wasn’t expecting him. Probably she should have reached the point where she’s no longer surprised to see any of the Eye Candy boys open this door—they all treat this apartment like another home. But she’d only been thinking of spending the afternoon with Ji Hyuk, of taking a walk and enjoying the sunshine and maybe sitting on that bench down by the river that’s been theirs since the day he first played black knight and dragged her away from the thugs that were looking for her.
Hyun Soo just looks at her for a moment in that unreadable way of his, then jerks the door open to let her in. “You’re here?”
“If you want to spend time with Ji Hyuk, I can leave,” she says, even as she takes a step through the door. She knows that it’s been a while since the boys have seen each other; Hyun Soo is busy all the time with his practices and CFs and interviews.
“No. Stay.” Then, as if he just then remembers that he’s supposed to, he adds, “Are you well?” Somehow, when Hyun Soo talks to her, he manages to make banmal sound like jondaemal.
But she nods. “I saw your performance on TV last week. You were very good.” She and Ji Hyuk had watched it on his little TV and Ji Hyuk had pretended not to smile proudly at his friend.
“Thank you.” He jerks his shoulder awkwardly, but a smile seems to slip onto his face despite himself (Hyun Soo loves the idol life and he’s proud of what he’s accomplished, and he should be), and she smiles back. He stares at her for a moment, blankly, and then the smile is back, but this time it seems genuine, and she’s pretty sure it’s the first time he’s ever smiled at her. She can’t keep from beaming.
“What are you doing? Trying to steal my girlfriend right in front of your girlfriend and me? When we’re in the room? This one doesn’t have any shame.” It’s Ji Hyuk, leaning around the corner to see them in the little entry hall. He’s got that look on his face like he’s trying to be tough, but his eyes are smiling (he’s always had such kind eyes, and all his gruffness can’t hide that), and she thinks maybe his shoulders relax a little bit at seeing her and Hyun Soo be civil to each other. She remembers suddenly that he told her once that Hyun Soo is his oldest friend, that they were little boys together before they met Byung Hee and the others. She thinks that probably their relationship is the most complicated of any between the Eye Candy boys, but she also knows they love each other more than they’re comfortable admitting. Of course he’s glad to see his friend and his girlfriend get along.
“If he dumps me, I’ll date you, Ji Hyuk, all right? We can elope together.” It’s Ye Rim now. Her hair is black again, with those bangs cut across her forehead, and Su Ah wonders how much control she gets over her style—it seems to change all the time.
Hyun Soo scowls as Su Ah follows him into the room. He flops down—looking decidedly ungraceful for a boy who is always conscious of his image—on the bed beside Ye Rim. “Who said I wanted to date you anyway?” he grumbles. “You wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Ye Rim nudges his shoulder with her own. “Just because you were stubborn and wouldn’t ask me out yourself.” She looks up at Su Ah and shakes her head. “I had to do all the work with this one.”
Su Ah laughs, because she can guess how true that is.
Hyun Soo’s muttering under his breath now about how crazy Ye Rim drives him, but his girlfriend ignores him. “I think the boys want some alone time,” she says to Su Ah. “Can you call Woo Kyung? Unless Hyun Soo dumps me for you, we’ll see a lot of each other. We should be friends, don’t you think? Today, we should go shopping,” Ye Rim says. She doesn’t squeal it or aegyo like a lot of other girls would. She just suggests it with a smile.
Su Ah doesn’t quite know what to say. She has a little bit more money now—Appa’s doing fine in China—but not enough to shop at the places Ye Rim probably likes. And Woo Kyung probably has even less than she does. She’s suddenly glad that Woo Kyung isn’t here, because she knows how sharp the other girl can be when her pride is hurt, and it probably would be by this invitation, even if Ye Rim’s only trying to be friendly.
Su Ah doesn’t think her face has given what she’s thinking away, but Ye Rim must have sharp eyes, because she says, “Window shopping. And to get some ice cream.”
The boys exchange looks they try to pretend aren’t anxious, but Su Ah smiles and agrees.
--
An hour and a half later, Su Ah finds herself walking down the sidewalk with Ye Rim on one side and Woo Kyung on the other, eating ice cream and looking into shop windows at dresses she’d never be able to afford (not that she’s sad about that—she also wouldn’t ever have any place to wear them). Woo Kyung had seemed a bit flustered (and maybe a little bit suspicious—she is very protective of her group and it takes a while to get her to trust people) at first, but she’d agreed and showed up in an outfit that Su Ah personally thought was trying a little too hard, especially when Su Ah and Ye Rim were both in sweatshirts (but Su Ah would never mock Woo Kyung for that—you really are treated differently when you’re poor, she knows that from experience now, and the pride that Woo Kyung has developed is a reaction to that. Su Ah can respect it). Ye Rim’s got a hat on and glasses, too, and nobody’s recognized her yet, though Su Ah thinks it’s just a matter of time.
But for now, it’s okay like this, the three of them walking along, mostly in silence. Woo Kyung seems a little twitchy, but that’s because she isn’t as comfortable with silence as Su Ah and Ye Rim are. She’s one of those people who needs to talk about everything she’s feeling, and while Su Ah doesn’t really understand that, she doesn’t hate it in other people.
Ye Rim swallows a spoonful of ice cream and says, “Woo Kyung, you style hair, right? Do you want to style for idols? Maybe one day you’ll do my hair.”
Woo Kyung looks away from the emerald green dress she’d been staring at in the nearest window. “I was going to be Eye Candy’s stylist forever.” Her words come out kind of sharp and bitter, and Su Ah thinks, not for the first time, that Woo Kyung took the Eye Candy breakup harder than any of the boys did. Woo Kyung seems to realize a little too late how she sounded and flushes. “I liked to experiment with the boys,” she says and now her tone is much less harsh. “Girls’ fashion is so easy to be creative with. But with guys you really have to try.”
She’s trying, Su Ah realizes. That was her olive branch, to the girl who’s intimidatingly beautiful and famous. Woo Kyung has never seemed to know what to make of Ye Rim, eying her with the same suspicion she does any interloper into Eye Candy’s world, but compounded because of Ye Rim’s celebrity. Su Ah isn’t sure they’ve ever really talked.
“Will you ever cut Do Il’s hair?” Su Ah asks suddenly.
“No!” Woo Kyung looks horrified. “He should never cut his hair short.”
Both of the other girls laugh. “The long hair looks good on him,” Ye Rim admits, and Su Ah nods in agreement. “Lots of boys would look silly.”
“Do Il is the most beautiful person alive,” Woo Kyung announces stoutly, then immediately flushes, like she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. But Su Ah and Ye Rim are both grinning, and when they catch each other’s’ eyes, it doesn’t feel awkward at all. They’re just three girls, talking about their boyfriends. They could be any girls in the world.
--
They end up on a park bench down by the river (not the one Su Ah shares only with Ji Hyuk, of course. That one belongs to them alone, and she isn’t ever going to want to share it with anyone), finishing the last of their ice cream and watching the sunlight on the water.
“So I sing, and Woo Kyung styles hair,” Ye Rim says, dragging the toes of her (brand name) tennis shoes along the ground like she’s on a swing. “What do you do, Su Ah?”
“I draw,” Su Ah says, and it feels good to say it. She doesn’t talk much about art, about how much she loves it, but she knows Ji Hyuk knows how hard it was for her when she had to drop out of the class because she didn’t have the money for supplies. Now she’s back in it again, and she’s falling in love with it all over again, with colors and textures and the same feeling she got when she was a little girl scribbling in coloring books: like she’s filling the black-line-boundary-boring world up with beautiful things. She’s in love with the challenge, too, with the battle to transfer the picture in her head onto the page; it’s never as good as she wants it to be, but each day she gets a little bit closer.
“I didn’t know that,” Woo Kyung says, sounding surprised and a little impressed. Su Ah smiles at her.
Ye Rim looks excited, too. “We’re all artists,” she says, grin widening. “Do you paint and things too or do you only draw?”
“I like to paint, too, but I don’t do it as much because the oils are so expensive. I’m going to take a graphic design class next year, too,” she adds on a whim. She hasn’t told anyone else about that except Ji Hyuk. She’s been thinking seriously about her future; she knows that even though he wants to be able to provide for her, she might not always be able to rely on Appa, and while she doesn’t ever want to do anything else but art, she knows it’s not always the most lucrative of jobs. She’s not going to stop drawing—and painting, too; she’s planning on getting a part-time job soon to pay for oils and brushes and canvases—she really couldn’t if she tried, and her plan is to study art more in college, but she needs a back-up plan, something to pay the bills while she establishes her reputation, and graphic design is something she thinks she’d be good at. When she told him all that, Ji Hyuk’s mouth had twitched in that way it does when he’s trying not to smile, and she’d known he’d thought her plan was a good one. Ji Hyuk thinks she can do anything, but he wants her to find what makes her happy. Maybe that’s what growing up is: figuring out what makes you happy and what you are and aren’t willing to do to get it and also how to compromise around the edges to make your life livable.
“That’s amazing,” Ye Rim says. “Maybe one day you can design the cover for one of my albums and all my posters and Woo Kyung-unnie can take care of my style and we can all work together.”
Woo Kyung looks a little shell-shocked at the suggestion, but after a moment she gives a wobbly sort of smile, like she’s finding her footing, and even if it’s not as wide as it is when she smiles at Do Il, it’s real. “I’d like that,” she says, and Ye Rim and Su Ah exchange grins. It doesn’t really matter if that ever happens. Like with Eye Candy dreaming of playing at Glastonbury, the thought of it is enough.
--
Ye Rim is really good at guiding conversation without seeming like she’s doing it at all. They end up eating kimbap at a little restaurant run by one of Woo Kyung’s aunts, and Ye Rim tells them all about how she decided she wanted to be a singer as a little girl and how she made it happen. Ye Rim doesn’t brag, but Su Ah can read between the lines enough to figure out how hard she’s worked and how much she’s sacrificed—anything like a normal life—to get to where she is. It might be a little overwhelming to hear, honestly, except that Ye Rim is so matter-of-fact about it and also manages to get Woo Kyung to talk about watching her mom cut hair when she was a little girl and how she first started working at the salon and how got her cosmetology license and how hard she’s working at learning English (and along the way, how much it hurt her when her dad left and how scared her mom was for a while that she’d lose the salon). And Su Ah ends up talking more herself than she ever would have expected; she wouldn’t have ever been able to imagine talking to an idol and Woo Kyung about what it’s like going from a comfortable life to having nothing and having everyone in your world turn their back on you. But Ye Rim doesn’t make her feel inferior for her fall from grace at all, and Woo Kyung seems to know what it’s like not to have heat in the winter, and it occurs to Su Ah that all of them have been through really hard things in their lives, and just because Su Ah started out higher than Woo Kyung and Ye Rim’s struggles have been in a world of glitz and money, that doesn’t mean they can’t understand each other.
By the time they head back to Ji Hyuk’s apartment, things have eased between them. They haven’t become best friends or anything, but Su Ah feels like she understands both of the other girls better and that maybe they have more in common than just the fact that the boys they love are best friends. Like Ye Rim says, they’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Su Ah thinks she might just enjoy it.
Three sets of eyes—Do Il has joined the other two guys—look up anxiously at them as they walk through the door, laughing at one of Woo Kyung’s stories about her most demanding customer, and Su Ah giggles at how their shoulders all slump in relief when they see the girls together.
Woo Kyung must notice, too, because she stomps over and smacks Ji Hyuk on the head. Su Ah thinks that might once have bothered her, knowing how long Woo Kyung had a crush on him, but she’s seen the way the older girl looks at Do Il now; Woo Kyung is just like Ji Hyuk’s older sister now, and he can use all the family he can get. “Did you think we were going to kill each other? Yah, girls can be friends, too!”
“It wouldn’t be the first fight we’ve had to drag you out of,” Hyun Soo says sarcastically, and Woo Kyung glares at him and looks like she’s going to hit him too, but Ye Rim reaches him first and kicks him on the knee. He wails and clutches his leg dramatically, and Ye Rim ignores him, settling down beside him.
“If you need someone to fight with you, unnie, don’t bother with these punks,” Ye Rim says, shaking her ponytail out and tying it back again. “My fake nails are hard as steel—I’ll scratch their eyes out. And Su Ah looks like a hair-puller.”
Su Ah laughs, sitting beside Ji Hyuk and resting her nose against his shoulder, breathing in his scent that clings to the warm fabric of his t-shirt. “I used to take Tae Kwon Do.”
“What?” Everyone turns to stare at her with wide eyes, except for Do Il, who smiles quietly, but it’s Ji Hyuk who looks most shocked. “You never told me that.”
She shrugs, grinning at their surprised faces. “It was just a class for little kids. I stopped in middle school.”
She’s still mentally grinning at the thought of her and Ye Rim and Woo Kyung in a fight when the door opens and Kyung Jong and Ha Jin tumble in arm-in-arm—which looks particularly funny because of the height difference.
“Oh, the ladies all are here! Hello, ladies!” Kyung Jong says with a smile and a bow.
“Hello, ladies,” Ha Jin echoes, his smile significantly more flirtatious. “But none of you are single,” he adds woefully. “Next time bring some friends with you who aren’t dating anyone, okay?”
“Like that would do any good,” Hyun Soo scoffs. “For someone who always seems to be chatting someone up, you can’t seem to find a girl of your own.”
“Why would he need one when he and Kyung Jong are already married?” Ye Rim says with a mischievous little grin, leaving Hyun Soo looking gobsmacked and everyone else laughing. Ji Hyuk slips his fingers into Su Ah’s and she squeezes them tight, leaning against him and feeling so, so glad that she didn’t go with Appa to China when he asked her to.
--
This is her world now: school and drawing and Rock Kim’s club and the Eye Candy boys and their girlfriends stuffed into a little rooftop apartment or sprawled out on top of green felt at the pool hall (she likes it).
Title: we are golden
Fandom: Shut Up! Flower Boy Band
Characters/Pairing: Im Su Ah, Kim Ye Rim, Bang Woo Kyung (Im Su Ah/Kwon Ji Hyuk, Kim Ye Rim/Lee Hyun Soo, Bang Woo Kyung/Jang Do Il)
Rating: PG
A/N: This is fluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuff. Fluffy fluffy fluff. Sorry!
Summary: And maybe they have more in common than just the fact that the boys they love are best friends.
Su Ah’s thankful that the band decided to break up. She doesn’t say that, of course, because that isn’t her way, though she suspects Ji Hyuk knows (sometimes when he looks at her she thinks that he knows every single thing about her. It should be scary, but it’s Ji Hyuk and so it’s sometimes comforting and other times thrilling and most of the time it’s both). It isn’t the band itself she’s glad is gone; it’s the contract and the managers and the TV spots and everything that comes along with the manufacturing of fame. She’s glad, so glad, that Ji Hyuk isn’t going to be famous anymore. Mostly it’s because she knows Ji Hyuk would be miserable playing according to the rules of the idol industry, that he just wasn’t cut out for that life (he was so bad at it, and she found that endearing, his sullen looks and monosyllabic answers to questions he clearly thought were a waste of time when he could be playing actual music). But also because she knows that she would be miserable dating an idol (the idea of Ji Hyuk as an idol, a real one, makes her giggle: he looks good in eyeliner, but he’s a terrible dancer, all gangly and long-limbed). She knows what it’s like to have people stare at you, whisper behind their hands and think they know everything about you that counts when really they know nothing at all. She hated it when it was just at Jungsang High School; she can’t imagine how terrible it would be if it were the whole country treating her like that (she has nightmares sometimes).
She’s happy with how life is now, working hard at school, phone calls from Appa, spending time with her boyfriend. She’s even happier for Ji Hyuk: going to Rock Kim’s club and getting fed and yelled at (he pretends like he doesn’t love it, pretends like it isn’t what he’s wanted all along, to have someone actually care if he shows up, to be able to go to a place that’s alive and warm with people. She thinks of him growing up in that rooftop room all alone, and sometimes she wants to cry). Ji Hyuk plays at the club, and his audiences are just the right size, and his music is whatever he feels like playing that day. Life is quiet, really, and that’s the way Su Ah likes it (she thinks of all the girls, all over the world, dreaming of what it would be like to be famous, to date a rock star, and she feels sorry for them, because there’s no reality in their dreams).
But just because Ji Hyuk isn’t famous anymore (almost: he still gets recognized sometimes on the street, mostly by teenagers, and he shifts his shoulders awkwardly and rubs at his nose and can’t wait to escape) doesn’t mean that there aren’t still idols in Su Ah’s life. Some nights when she leaves her homework behind in her rooftop apartment (Appa offered to move her to a nicer place in a better part of town, but she’s fine right where she is) and crosses over to Ji Hyuk’s, Hyun Soo is there, sitting on Ji Hyuk’s bed and eating ramyun and making fun of Ha Jin’s latest acting role (Ha Jin’s still only getting one-line parts, but at least they can see his face now). And sometimes Ye Rim is there, too, still looking as cool and beautiful in her jeans and black hoodie as she does all made-up on TV (she has to sneak out, she says with a grin, and Director Yoo gets very, very angry with her, but it’s worth it).
Su Ah knows that Hyun Soo used to hate her. She tells herself that it wasn’t personal, that it was just that Hyun Soo thought that she threatened the band and his future and his friendship with Ji Hyuk and so he focused his hate on her. But sometimes he would just look at her, and she could almost believe what Deo Mi used to say about him freezing people with his eyes. He doesn’t look at her like that anymore, now that she’s not a threat—really, he doesn’t pay attention to her at all. She feels more uncomfortable with him than she does with any of Ji Hyuk’s other friends—Do Il is the kindest, most calming presence she knows, and Kyung Jong is adorable and sweet and makes her laugh all the time, and Ha Jin is friendly (when he isn’t flirting. He flirts most of the time, like it’s second-nature to him and he can’t help it, but there’s no threat in it). But Hyun Soo is still so aloof with anybody who wasn’t in Eye Candy, and she finds herself staring at him while he laughs about Ha Jin’s two lines in his latest drama and wondering how he can be one way with his friends and another with everyone else. And how he can be a completely different person altogether with Ye Rim.
Su Ah figures out pretty early on that Hyun Soo feels things very deeply but doesn’t like that about himself, and so he fights it, and most of that fighting comes across as anger wrapped in a thin layer of coldness. But Ye Rim seems to counteract all of that, making it dissolve away and melting his constructed icy exterior until Hyun Soo’s just a boy with a crush on a girl who’s way cooler than he is. He becomes clumsy and awkward around her, and he scowls more than usual to cover for it, but he doesn’t convince anyone. The other boys tease him and then he scowls even more, and Ye Rim sits with her ankles crossed (looking as comfortable in Ji Hyuk’s run-down apartment as she does anywhere else) and smiles. Sometimes, in the split second between Hyun Soo doing something awkward and remembering to scowl, Su Ah can almost see what Ye Rim sees in him (he’s very pretty, of course, though Su Ah likes guys who aren’t quite so polished. Or at least she does now that she has Ji Hyuk).
Su Ah’s not used to being around such big, loud groups of people, but she likes it when Ji Hyuk’s room is filled to overflowing with the Eye Candy boys and Woo Kyung (who she’s starting to get along with now). She likes it best when it’s just her and Ji Hyuk, of course (he’s the only person she’s ever felt totally comfortable with, as comfortable as she feels when she’s alone, and she suspects he feels the same way about her, that she’s the only one he feels that way about now that Byung Hee is gone), but there’s something about the laughter and the warmth that the Eye Candy boys take with them wherever they go that’s winning her over. She doesn’t talk much, just sits tucked up under Ji Hyuk’s arm and mostly listens and laughs along, except when Kyung Jong teases her into conversation. But she’s content to watch and absorb. This is how she’s most comfortable.
She’s least comfortable on the couple of nights when Hyun Soo is there and then Ye Rim shows up, too. When it’s just Hyun Soon, Su Ah goes back to her room or out with Deo Mi or takes a walk around the neighborhood (friends need time alone, she knows that). But when Ye Rim is there, too, she doesn’t feel like it’s right to escape, so she stays. None of the four of them are talkers, each fairly silent in their own way. Without Kyung Jong and Ha Jin and Woo Kyung to goad them all into laughter, things become a little awkward. Su Ah doesn’t have anything to say to Hyun Soo, and though Ye Rim doesn’t intimidate her, not really (Su Ah never been very impressed by fame, and she’s even less impressed by it now that she’s actually seen it up close), she’s unsure of how to interact with the other girl. Ye Rim seems older, and different, and belonging to another world (one that Su Ah’s caught a glimpse of and has no interest in visiting further). But Ye Rim is also nice, and she really tries to make everyone comfortable in a way that doesn’t seem like trying at all. Su Ah likes her, even if she doesn’t feel like she knows her. Still, she’s part of the landscape now, and maybe Su Ah wouldn’t have chosen her to be there, but she doesn’t mind that she’s here.
This is Su Ah’s world now: school and drawing and Rock Kim’s club and the Eye Candy boys and their girlfriends stuffed into a little rooftop apartment or sprawled out on top of green felt at the pool hall (she likes it).
--
It’s a Sunday afternoon, warm and mellow late autumn, and she tilts her head back to let the sunlight slide across her face as she climbs the stairs up to Ji Hyuk’s room. She always knocks, because that’s what you do when you’re entering a teenage boy’s room (there are some things she doesn’t want to see), but the person who opens the door this time isn’t Ji Hyuk, it’s Hyun Soo.
She blinks, because she wasn’t expecting him. Probably she should have reached the point where she’s no longer surprised to see any of the Eye Candy boys open this door—they all treat this apartment like another home. But she’d only been thinking of spending the afternoon with Ji Hyuk, of taking a walk and enjoying the sunshine and maybe sitting on that bench down by the river that’s been theirs since the day he first played black knight and dragged her away from the thugs that were looking for her.
Hyun Soo just looks at her for a moment in that unreadable way of his, then jerks the door open to let her in. “You’re here?”
“If you want to spend time with Ji Hyuk, I can leave,” she says, even as she takes a step through the door. She knows that it’s been a while since the boys have seen each other; Hyun Soo is busy all the time with his practices and CFs and interviews.
“No. Stay.” Then, as if he just then remembers that he’s supposed to, he adds, “Are you well?” Somehow, when Hyun Soo talks to her, he manages to make banmal sound like jondaemal.
But she nods. “I saw your performance on TV last week. You were very good.” She and Ji Hyuk had watched it on his little TV and Ji Hyuk had pretended not to smile proudly at his friend.
“Thank you.” He jerks his shoulder awkwardly, but a smile seems to slip onto his face despite himself (Hyun Soo loves the idol life and he’s proud of what he’s accomplished, and he should be), and she smiles back. He stares at her for a moment, blankly, and then the smile is back, but this time it seems genuine, and she’s pretty sure it’s the first time he’s ever smiled at her. She can’t keep from beaming.
“What are you doing? Trying to steal my girlfriend right in front of your girlfriend and me? When we’re in the room? This one doesn’t have any shame.” It’s Ji Hyuk, leaning around the corner to see them in the little entry hall. He’s got that look on his face like he’s trying to be tough, but his eyes are smiling (he’s always had such kind eyes, and all his gruffness can’t hide that), and she thinks maybe his shoulders relax a little bit at seeing her and Hyun Soo be civil to each other. She remembers suddenly that he told her once that Hyun Soo is his oldest friend, that they were little boys together before they met Byung Hee and the others. She thinks that probably their relationship is the most complicated of any between the Eye Candy boys, but she also knows they love each other more than they’re comfortable admitting. Of course he’s glad to see his friend and his girlfriend get along.
“If he dumps me, I’ll date you, Ji Hyuk, all right? We can elope together.” It’s Ye Rim now. Her hair is black again, with those bangs cut across her forehead, and Su Ah wonders how much control she gets over her style—it seems to change all the time.
Hyun Soo scowls as Su Ah follows him into the room. He flops down—looking decidedly ungraceful for a boy who is always conscious of his image—on the bed beside Ye Rim. “Who said I wanted to date you anyway?” he grumbles. “You wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Ye Rim nudges his shoulder with her own. “Just because you were stubborn and wouldn’t ask me out yourself.” She looks up at Su Ah and shakes her head. “I had to do all the work with this one.”
Su Ah laughs, because she can guess how true that is.
Hyun Soo’s muttering under his breath now about how crazy Ye Rim drives him, but his girlfriend ignores him. “I think the boys want some alone time,” she says to Su Ah. “Can you call Woo Kyung? Unless Hyun Soo dumps me for you, we’ll see a lot of each other. We should be friends, don’t you think? Today, we should go shopping,” Ye Rim says. She doesn’t squeal it or aegyo like a lot of other girls would. She just suggests it with a smile.
Su Ah doesn’t quite know what to say. She has a little bit more money now—Appa’s doing fine in China—but not enough to shop at the places Ye Rim probably likes. And Woo Kyung probably has even less than she does. She’s suddenly glad that Woo Kyung isn’t here, because she knows how sharp the other girl can be when her pride is hurt, and it probably would be by this invitation, even if Ye Rim’s only trying to be friendly.
Su Ah doesn’t think her face has given what she’s thinking away, but Ye Rim must have sharp eyes, because she says, “Window shopping. And to get some ice cream.”
The boys exchange looks they try to pretend aren’t anxious, but Su Ah smiles and agrees.
--
An hour and a half later, Su Ah finds herself walking down the sidewalk with Ye Rim on one side and Woo Kyung on the other, eating ice cream and looking into shop windows at dresses she’d never be able to afford (not that she’s sad about that—she also wouldn’t ever have any place to wear them). Woo Kyung had seemed a bit flustered (and maybe a little bit suspicious—she is very protective of her group and it takes a while to get her to trust people) at first, but she’d agreed and showed up in an outfit that Su Ah personally thought was trying a little too hard, especially when Su Ah and Ye Rim were both in sweatshirts (but Su Ah would never mock Woo Kyung for that—you really are treated differently when you’re poor, she knows that from experience now, and the pride that Woo Kyung has developed is a reaction to that. Su Ah can respect it). Ye Rim’s got a hat on and glasses, too, and nobody’s recognized her yet, though Su Ah thinks it’s just a matter of time.
But for now, it’s okay like this, the three of them walking along, mostly in silence. Woo Kyung seems a little twitchy, but that’s because she isn’t as comfortable with silence as Su Ah and Ye Rim are. She’s one of those people who needs to talk about everything she’s feeling, and while Su Ah doesn’t really understand that, she doesn’t hate it in other people.
Ye Rim swallows a spoonful of ice cream and says, “Woo Kyung, you style hair, right? Do you want to style for idols? Maybe one day you’ll do my hair.”
Woo Kyung looks away from the emerald green dress she’d been staring at in the nearest window. “I was going to be Eye Candy’s stylist forever.” Her words come out kind of sharp and bitter, and Su Ah thinks, not for the first time, that Woo Kyung took the Eye Candy breakup harder than any of the boys did. Woo Kyung seems to realize a little too late how she sounded and flushes. “I liked to experiment with the boys,” she says and now her tone is much less harsh. “Girls’ fashion is so easy to be creative with. But with guys you really have to try.”
She’s trying, Su Ah realizes. That was her olive branch, to the girl who’s intimidatingly beautiful and famous. Woo Kyung has never seemed to know what to make of Ye Rim, eying her with the same suspicion she does any interloper into Eye Candy’s world, but compounded because of Ye Rim’s celebrity. Su Ah isn’t sure they’ve ever really talked.
“Will you ever cut Do Il’s hair?” Su Ah asks suddenly.
“No!” Woo Kyung looks horrified. “He should never cut his hair short.”
Both of the other girls laugh. “The long hair looks good on him,” Ye Rim admits, and Su Ah nods in agreement. “Lots of boys would look silly.”
“Do Il is the most beautiful person alive,” Woo Kyung announces stoutly, then immediately flushes, like she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. But Su Ah and Ye Rim are both grinning, and when they catch each other’s’ eyes, it doesn’t feel awkward at all. They’re just three girls, talking about their boyfriends. They could be any girls in the world.
--
They end up on a park bench down by the river (not the one Su Ah shares only with Ji Hyuk, of course. That one belongs to them alone, and she isn’t ever going to want to share it with anyone), finishing the last of their ice cream and watching the sunlight on the water.
“So I sing, and Woo Kyung styles hair,” Ye Rim says, dragging the toes of her (brand name) tennis shoes along the ground like she’s on a swing. “What do you do, Su Ah?”
“I draw,” Su Ah says, and it feels good to say it. She doesn’t talk much about art, about how much she loves it, but she knows Ji Hyuk knows how hard it was for her when she had to drop out of the class because she didn’t have the money for supplies. Now she’s back in it again, and she’s falling in love with it all over again, with colors and textures and the same feeling she got when she was a little girl scribbling in coloring books: like she’s filling the black-line-boundary-boring world up with beautiful things. She’s in love with the challenge, too, with the battle to transfer the picture in her head onto the page; it’s never as good as she wants it to be, but each day she gets a little bit closer.
“I didn’t know that,” Woo Kyung says, sounding surprised and a little impressed. Su Ah smiles at her.
Ye Rim looks excited, too. “We’re all artists,” she says, grin widening. “Do you paint and things too or do you only draw?”
“I like to paint, too, but I don’t do it as much because the oils are so expensive. I’m going to take a graphic design class next year, too,” she adds on a whim. She hasn’t told anyone else about that except Ji Hyuk. She’s been thinking seriously about her future; she knows that even though he wants to be able to provide for her, she might not always be able to rely on Appa, and while she doesn’t ever want to do anything else but art, she knows it’s not always the most lucrative of jobs. She’s not going to stop drawing—and painting, too; she’s planning on getting a part-time job soon to pay for oils and brushes and canvases—she really couldn’t if she tried, and her plan is to study art more in college, but she needs a back-up plan, something to pay the bills while she establishes her reputation, and graphic design is something she thinks she’d be good at. When she told him all that, Ji Hyuk’s mouth had twitched in that way it does when he’s trying not to smile, and she’d known he’d thought her plan was a good one. Ji Hyuk thinks she can do anything, but he wants her to find what makes her happy. Maybe that’s what growing up is: figuring out what makes you happy and what you are and aren’t willing to do to get it and also how to compromise around the edges to make your life livable.
“That’s amazing,” Ye Rim says. “Maybe one day you can design the cover for one of my albums and all my posters and Woo Kyung-unnie can take care of my style and we can all work together.”
Woo Kyung looks a little shell-shocked at the suggestion, but after a moment she gives a wobbly sort of smile, like she’s finding her footing, and even if it’s not as wide as it is when she smiles at Do Il, it’s real. “I’d like that,” she says, and Ye Rim and Su Ah exchange grins. It doesn’t really matter if that ever happens. Like with Eye Candy dreaming of playing at Glastonbury, the thought of it is enough.
--
Ye Rim is really good at guiding conversation without seeming like she’s doing it at all. They end up eating kimbap at a little restaurant run by one of Woo Kyung’s aunts, and Ye Rim tells them all about how she decided she wanted to be a singer as a little girl and how she made it happen. Ye Rim doesn’t brag, but Su Ah can read between the lines enough to figure out how hard she’s worked and how much she’s sacrificed—anything like a normal life—to get to where she is. It might be a little overwhelming to hear, honestly, except that Ye Rim is so matter-of-fact about it and also manages to get Woo Kyung to talk about watching her mom cut hair when she was a little girl and how she first started working at the salon and how got her cosmetology license and how hard she’s working at learning English (and along the way, how much it hurt her when her dad left and how scared her mom was for a while that she’d lose the salon). And Su Ah ends up talking more herself than she ever would have expected; she wouldn’t have ever been able to imagine talking to an idol and Woo Kyung about what it’s like going from a comfortable life to having nothing and having everyone in your world turn their back on you. But Ye Rim doesn’t make her feel inferior for her fall from grace at all, and Woo Kyung seems to know what it’s like not to have heat in the winter, and it occurs to Su Ah that all of them have been through really hard things in their lives, and just because Su Ah started out higher than Woo Kyung and Ye Rim’s struggles have been in a world of glitz and money, that doesn’t mean they can’t understand each other.
By the time they head back to Ji Hyuk’s apartment, things have eased between them. They haven’t become best friends or anything, but Su Ah feels like she understands both of the other girls better and that maybe they have more in common than just the fact that the boys they love are best friends. Like Ye Rim says, they’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Su Ah thinks she might just enjoy it.
Three sets of eyes—Do Il has joined the other two guys—look up anxiously at them as they walk through the door, laughing at one of Woo Kyung’s stories about her most demanding customer, and Su Ah giggles at how their shoulders all slump in relief when they see the girls together.
Woo Kyung must notice, too, because she stomps over and smacks Ji Hyuk on the head. Su Ah thinks that might once have bothered her, knowing how long Woo Kyung had a crush on him, but she’s seen the way the older girl looks at Do Il now; Woo Kyung is just like Ji Hyuk’s older sister now, and he can use all the family he can get. “Did you think we were going to kill each other? Yah, girls can be friends, too!”
“It wouldn’t be the first fight we’ve had to drag you out of,” Hyun Soo says sarcastically, and Woo Kyung glares at him and looks like she’s going to hit him too, but Ye Rim reaches him first and kicks him on the knee. He wails and clutches his leg dramatically, and Ye Rim ignores him, settling down beside him.
“If you need someone to fight with you, unnie, don’t bother with these punks,” Ye Rim says, shaking her ponytail out and tying it back again. “My fake nails are hard as steel—I’ll scratch their eyes out. And Su Ah looks like a hair-puller.”
Su Ah laughs, sitting beside Ji Hyuk and resting her nose against his shoulder, breathing in his scent that clings to the warm fabric of his t-shirt. “I used to take Tae Kwon Do.”
“What?” Everyone turns to stare at her with wide eyes, except for Do Il, who smiles quietly, but it’s Ji Hyuk who looks most shocked. “You never told me that.”
She shrugs, grinning at their surprised faces. “It was just a class for little kids. I stopped in middle school.”
She’s still mentally grinning at the thought of her and Ye Rim and Woo Kyung in a fight when the door opens and Kyung Jong and Ha Jin tumble in arm-in-arm—which looks particularly funny because of the height difference.
“Oh, the ladies all are here! Hello, ladies!” Kyung Jong says with a smile and a bow.
“Hello, ladies,” Ha Jin echoes, his smile significantly more flirtatious. “But none of you are single,” he adds woefully. “Next time bring some friends with you who aren’t dating anyone, okay?”
“Like that would do any good,” Hyun Soo scoffs. “For someone who always seems to be chatting someone up, you can’t seem to find a girl of your own.”
“Why would he need one when he has Kyung Jong and they’re already married?” Ye Rim says with a mischievous little grin, leaving Hyun Soo looking gobsmacked and everyone else laughing. Ji Hyuk slips his fingers into Su Ah’s and she squeezes them tight, leaning against him and feeling so, so glad that she didn’t go with Appa to China when he asked her to.
--
This is her world now: school and drawing and Rock Kim’s club and the Eye Candy boys and their girlfriends stuffed into a little rooftop apartment or sprawled out on top of green felt at the pool hall (she likes it).
Su Ah’s thankful that the band decided to break up. She doesn’t say that, of course, because that isn’t her way, though she suspects Ji Hyuk knows (sometimes when he looks at her she thinks that he knows every single thing about her. It should be scary, but it’s Ji Hyuk and so it’s sometimes comforting and other times thrilling and most of the time it’s both). It isn’t the band itself she’s glad is gone; it’s the contract and the managers and the TV spots and everything that comes along with the manufacturing of fame. She’s glad, so glad, that Ji Hyuk isn’t going to be famous anymore. Mostly it’s because she knows Ji Hyuk would be miserable playing according to the rules of the idol industry, that he just wasn’t cut out for that life (he was so bad at it, and she found that endearing, his sullen looks and monosyllabic answers to questions he clearly thought were a waste of time when he could be playing actual music). But also because she knows that she would be miserable dating an idol (the idea of Ji Hyuk as an idol, a real one, makes her giggle: he looks good in eyeliner, but he’s a terrible dancer, all gangly and long-limbed). She knows what it’s like to have people stare at you, whisper behind their hands and think they know everything about you that counts when really they know nothing at all. She hated it when it was just at Jungsang High School; she can’t imagine how terrible it would be if it were the whole country treating her like that (she has nightmares sometimes).
She’s happy with how life is now, working hard at school, phone calls from Appa, spending time with her boyfriend. She’s even happier for Ji Hyuk: going to Rock Kim’s club and getting fed and yelled at (he pretends like he doesn’t love it, pretends like it isn’t what he’s wanted all along, to have someone actually care if he shows up, to be able to go to a place that’s alive and warm with people. She thinks of him growing up in that rooftop room all alone, and sometimes she wants to cry). Ji Hyuk plays at the club, and his audiences are just the right size, and his music is whatever he feels like playing that day. Life is quiet, really, and that’s the way Su Ah likes it (she thinks of all the girls, all over the world, dreaming of what it would be like to be famous, to date a rock star, and she feels sorry for them, because there’s no reality in their dreams).
But just because Ji Hyuk isn’t famous anymore (almost: he still gets recognized sometimes on the street, mostly by teenagers, and he shifts his shoulders awkwardly and rubs at his nose and can’t wait to escape) doesn’t mean that there aren’t still idols in Su Ah’s life. Some nights when she leaves her homework behind in her rooftop apartment (Appa offered to move her to a nicer place in a better part of town, but she’s fine right where she is) and crosses over to Ji Hyuk’s, Hyun Soo is there, sitting on Ji Hyuk’s bed and eating ramyun and making fun of Ha Jin’s latest acting role (Ha Jin’s still only getting one-line parts, but at least they can see his face now). And sometimes Ye Rim is there, too, still looking as cool and beautiful in her jeans and black hoodie as she does all made-up on TV (she has to sneak out, she says with a grin, and Director Yoo gets very, very angry with her, but it’s worth it).
Su Ah knows that Hyun Soo used to hate her. She tells herself that it wasn’t personal, that it was just that Hyun Soo thought that she threatened the band and his future and his friendship with Ji Hyuk and so he focused his hate on her. But sometimes he would just look at her, and she could almost believe what Deo Mi used to say about him freezing people with his eyes. He doesn’t look at her like that anymore, now that she’s not a threat—really, he doesn’t pay attention to her at all. She feels more uncomfortable with him than she does with any of Ji Hyuk’s other friends—Do Il is the kindest, most calming presence she knows, and Kyung Jong is adorable and sweet and makes her laugh all the time, and Ha Jin is friendly (when he isn’t flirting. He flirts most of the time, like it’s second-nature to him and he can’t help it, but there’s no threat in it). But Hyun Soo is still so aloof with anybody who wasn’t in Eye Candy, and she finds herself staring at him while he laughs about Ha Jin’s two lines in his latest drama and wondering how he can be one way with his friends and another with everyone else. And how he can be a completely different person altogether with Ye Rim.
Su Ah figures out pretty early on that Hyun Soo feels things very deeply but doesn’t like that about himself, and so he fights it, and most of that fighting comes across as anger wrapped in a thin layer of coldness. But Ye Rim seems to counteract all of that, making it dissolve away and melting his constructed icy exterior until Hyun Soo’s just a boy with a crush on a girl who’s way cooler than he is. He becomes clumsy and awkward around her, and he scowls more than usual to cover for it, but he doesn’t convince anyone. The other boys tease him and then he scowls even more, and Ye Rim sits with her ankles crossed (looking as comfortable in Ji Hyuk’s run-down apartment as she does anywhere else) and smiles. Sometimes, in the split second between Hyun Soo doing something awkward and remembering to scowl, Su Ah can almost see what Ye Rim sees in him (he’s very pretty, of course, though Su Ah likes guys who aren’t quite so polished. Or at least she does now that she has Ji Hyuk).
Su Ah’s not used to being around such big, loud groups of people, but she likes it when Ji Hyuk’s room is filled to overflowing with the Eye Candy boys and Woo Kyung (who she’s starting to get along with now). She likes it best when it’s just her and Ji Hyuk, of course (he’s the only person she’s ever felt totally comfortable with, as comfortable as she feels when she’s alone, and she suspects he feels the same way about her, that she’s the only one he feels that way about now that Byung Hee is gone), but there’s something about the laughter and the warmth that the Eye Candy boys take with them wherever they go that’s winning her over. She doesn’t talk much, just sits tucked up under Ji Hyuk’s arm and mostly listens and laughs along, except when Kyung Jong teases her into conversation. But she’s content to watch and absorb. This is how she’s most comfortable.
She’s least comfortable on the couple of nights when Hyun Soo is there and then Ye Rim shows up, too. When it’s just Hyun Soon, Su Ah goes back to her room or out with Deo Mi or takes a walk around the neighborhood (friends need time alone, she knows that). But when Ye Rim is there, too, she doesn’t feel like it’s right to escape, so she stays. None of the four of them are talkers, each fairly silent in their own way. Without Kyung Jong and Ha Jin and Woo Kyung to goad them all into laughter, things become a little awkward. Su Ah doesn’t have anything to say to Hyun Soo, and though Ye Rim doesn’t intimidate her, not really (Su Ah never been very impressed by fame, and she’s even less impressed by it now that she’s actually seen it up close), she’s unsure of how to interact with the other girl. Ye Rim seems older, and different, and belonging to another world (one that Su Ah’s caught a glimpse of and has no interest in visiting further). But Ye Rim is also nice, and she really tries to make everyone comfortable in a way that doesn’t seem like trying at all. Su Ah likes her, even if she doesn’t feel like she knows her. Still, she’s part of the landscape now, and maybe Su Ah wouldn’t have chosen her to be there, but she doesn’t mind that she’s here.
This is Su Ah’s world now: school and drawing and Rock Kim’s club and the Eye Candy boys and their girlfriends stuffed into a little rooftop apartment or sprawled out on top of green felt at the pool hall (she likes it).
--
It’s a Sunday afternoon, warm and mellow late autumn, and she tilts her head back to let the sunlight slide across her face as she climbs the stairs up to Ji Hyuk’s room. She always knocks, because that’s what you do when you’re entering a teenage boy’s room (there are some things she doesn’t want to see), but the person who opens the door this time isn’t Ji Hyuk, it’s Hyun Soo.
She blinks, because she wasn’t expecting him. Probably she should have reached the point where she’s no longer surprised to see any of the Eye Candy boys open this door—they all treat this apartment like another home. But she’d only been thinking of spending the afternoon with Ji Hyuk, of taking a walk and enjoying the sunshine and maybe sitting on that bench down by the river that’s been theirs since the day he first played black knight and dragged her away from the thugs that were looking for her.
Hyun Soo just looks at her for a moment in that unreadable way of his, then jerks the door open to let her in. “You’re here?”
“If you want to spend time with Ji Hyuk, I can leave,” she says, even as she takes a step through the door. She knows that it’s been a while since the boys have seen each other; Hyun Soo is busy all the time with his practices and CFs and interviews.
“No. Stay.” Then, as if he just then remembers that he’s supposed to, he adds, “Are you well?” Somehow, when Hyun Soo talks to her, he manages to make banmal sound like jondaemal.
But she nods. “I saw your performance on TV last week. You were very good.” She and Ji Hyuk had watched it on his little TV and Ji Hyuk had pretended not to smile proudly at his friend.
“Thank you.” He jerks his shoulder awkwardly, but a smile seems to slip onto his face despite himself (Hyun Soo loves the idol life and he’s proud of what he’s accomplished, and he should be), and she smiles back. He stares at her for a moment, blankly, and then the smile is back, but this time it seems genuine, and she’s pretty sure it’s the first time he’s ever smiled at her. She can’t keep from beaming.
“What are you doing? Trying to steal my girlfriend right in front of your girlfriend and me? When we’re in the room? This one doesn’t have any shame.” It’s Ji Hyuk, leaning around the corner to see them in the little entry hall. He’s got that look on his face like he’s trying to be tough, but his eyes are smiling (he’s always had such kind eyes, and all his gruffness can’t hide that), and she thinks maybe his shoulders relax a little bit at seeing her and Hyun Soo be civil to each other. She remembers suddenly that he told her once that Hyun Soo is his oldest friend, that they were little boys together before they met Byung Hee and the others. She thinks that probably their relationship is the most complicated of any between the Eye Candy boys, but she also knows they love each other more than they’re comfortable admitting. Of course he’s glad to see his friend and his girlfriend get along.
“If he dumps me, I’ll date you, Ji Hyuk, all right? We can elope together.” It’s Ye Rim now. Her hair is black again, with those bangs cut across her forehead, and Su Ah wonders how much control she gets over her style—it seems to change all the time.
Hyun Soo scowls as Su Ah follows him into the room. He flops down—looking decidedly ungraceful for a boy who is always conscious of his image—on the bed beside Ye Rim. “Who said I wanted to date you anyway?” he grumbles. “You wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Ye Rim nudges his shoulder with her own. “Just because you were stubborn and wouldn’t ask me out yourself.” She looks up at Su Ah and shakes her head. “I had to do all the work with this one.”
Su Ah laughs, because she can guess how true that is.
Hyun Soo’s muttering under his breath now about how crazy Ye Rim drives him, but his girlfriend ignores him. “I think the boys want some alone time,” she says to Su Ah. “Can you call Woo Kyung? Unless Hyun Soo dumps me for you, we’ll see a lot of each other. We should be friends, don’t you think? Today, we should go shopping,” Ye Rim says. She doesn’t squeal it or aegyo like a lot of other girls would. She just suggests it with a smile.
Su Ah doesn’t quite know what to say. She has a little bit more money now—Appa’s doing fine in China—but not enough to shop at the places Ye Rim probably likes. And Woo Kyung probably has even less than she does. She’s suddenly glad that Woo Kyung isn’t here, because she knows how sharp the other girl can be when her pride is hurt, and it probably would be by this invitation, even if Ye Rim’s only trying to be friendly.
Su Ah doesn’t think her face has given what she’s thinking away, but Ye Rim must have sharp eyes, because she says, “Window shopping. And to get some ice cream.”
The boys exchange looks they try to pretend aren’t anxious, but Su Ah smiles and agrees.
--
An hour and a half later, Su Ah finds herself walking down the sidewalk with Ye Rim on one side and Woo Kyung on the other, eating ice cream and looking into shop windows at dresses she’d never be able to afford (not that she’s sad about that—she also wouldn’t ever have any place to wear them). Woo Kyung had seemed a bit flustered (and maybe a little bit suspicious—she is very protective of her group and it takes a while to get her to trust people) at first, but she’d agreed and showed up in an outfit that Su Ah personally thought was trying a little too hard, especially when Su Ah and Ye Rim were both in sweatshirts (but Su Ah would never mock Woo Kyung for that—you really are treated differently when you’re poor, she knows that from experience now, and the pride that Woo Kyung has developed is a reaction to that. Su Ah can respect it). Ye Rim’s got a hat on and glasses, too, and nobody’s recognized her yet, though Su Ah thinks it’s just a matter of time.
But for now, it’s okay like this, the three of them walking along, mostly in silence. Woo Kyung seems a little twitchy, but that’s because she isn’t as comfortable with silence as Su Ah and Ye Rim are. She’s one of those people who needs to talk about everything she’s feeling, and while Su Ah doesn’t really understand that, she doesn’t hate it in other people.
Ye Rim swallows a spoonful of ice cream and says, “Woo Kyung, you style hair, right? Do you want to style for idols? Maybe one day you’ll do my hair.”
Woo Kyung looks away from the emerald green dress she’d been staring at in the nearest window. “I was going to be Eye Candy’s stylist forever.” Her words come out kind of sharp and bitter, and Su Ah thinks, not for the first time, that Woo Kyung took the Eye Candy breakup harder than any of the boys did. Woo Kyung seems to realize a little too late how she sounded and flushes. “I liked to experiment with the boys,” she says and now her tone is much less harsh. “Girls’ fashion is so easy to be creative with. But with guys you really have to try.”
She’s trying, Su Ah realizes. That was her olive branch, to the girl who’s intimidatingly beautiful and famous. Woo Kyung has never seemed to know what to make of Ye Rim, eying her with the same suspicion she does any interloper into Eye Candy’s world, but compounded because of Ye Rim’s celebrity. Su Ah isn’t sure they’ve ever really talked.
“Will you ever cut Do Il’s hair?” Su Ah asks suddenly.
“No!” Woo Kyung looks horrified. “He should never cut his hair short.”
Both of the other girls laugh. “The long hair looks good on him,” Ye Rim admits, and Su Ah nods in agreement. “Lots of boys would look silly.”
“Do Il is the most beautiful person alive,” Woo Kyung announces stoutly, then immediately flushes, like she hadn’t meant to say that out loud. But Su Ah and Ye Rim are both grinning, and when they catch each other’s’ eyes, it doesn’t feel awkward at all. They’re just three girls, talking about their boyfriends. They could be any girls in the world.
--
They end up on a park bench down by the river (not the one Su Ah shares only with Ji Hyuk, of course. That one belongs to them alone, and she isn’t ever going to want to share it with anyone), finishing the last of their ice cream and watching the sunlight on the water.
“So I sing, and Woo Kyung styles hair,” Ye Rim says, dragging the toes of her (brand name) tennis shoes along the ground like she’s on a swing. “What do you do, Su Ah?”
“I draw,” Su Ah says, and it feels good to say it. She doesn’t talk much about art, about how much she loves it, but she knows Ji Hyuk knows how hard it was for her when she had to drop out of the class because she didn’t have the money for supplies. Now she’s back in it again, and she’s falling in love with it all over again, with colors and textures and the same feeling she got when she was a little girl scribbling in coloring books: like she’s filling the black-line-boundary-boring world up with beautiful things. She’s in love with the challenge, too, with the battle to transfer the picture in her head onto the page; it’s never as good as she wants it to be, but each day she gets a little bit closer.
“I didn’t know that,” Woo Kyung says, sounding surprised and a little impressed. Su Ah smiles at her.
Ye Rim looks excited, too. “We’re all artists,” she says, grin widening. “Do you paint and things too or do you only draw?”
“I like to paint, too, but I don’t do it as much because the oils are so expensive. I’m going to take a graphic design class next year, too,” she adds on a whim. She hasn’t told anyone else about that except Ji Hyuk. She’s been thinking seriously about her future; she knows that even though he wants to be able to provide for her, she might not always be able to rely on Appa, and while she doesn’t ever want to do anything else but art, she knows it’s not always the most lucrative of jobs. She’s not going to stop drawing—and painting, too; she’s planning on getting a part-time job soon to pay for oils and brushes and canvases—she really couldn’t if she tried, and her plan is to study art more in college, but she needs a back-up plan, something to pay the bills while she establishes her reputation, and graphic design is something she thinks she’d be good at. When she told him all that, Ji Hyuk’s mouth had twitched in that way it does when he’s trying not to smile, and she’d known he’d thought her plan was a good one. Ji Hyuk thinks she can do anything, but he wants her to find what makes her happy. Maybe that’s what growing up is: figuring out what makes you happy and what you are and aren’t willing to do to get it and also how to compromise around the edges to make your life livable.
“That’s amazing,” Ye Rim says. “Maybe one day you can design the cover for one of my albums and all my posters and Woo Kyung-unnie can take care of my style and we can all work together.”
Woo Kyung looks a little shell-shocked at the suggestion, but after a moment she gives a wobbly sort of smile, like she’s finding her footing, and even if it’s not as wide as it is when she smiles at Do Il, it’s real. “I’d like that,” she says, and Ye Rim and Su Ah exchange grins. It doesn’t really matter if that ever happens. Like with Eye Candy dreaming of playing at Glastonbury, the thought of it is enough.
--
Ye Rim is really good at guiding conversation without seeming like she’s doing it at all. They end up eating kimbap at a little restaurant run by one of Woo Kyung’s aunts, and Ye Rim tells them all about how she decided she wanted to be a singer as a little girl and how she made it happen. Ye Rim doesn’t brag, but Su Ah can read between the lines enough to figure out how hard she’s worked and how much she’s sacrificed—anything like a normal life—to get to where she is. It might be a little overwhelming to hear, honestly, except that Ye Rim is so matter-of-fact about it and also manages to get Woo Kyung to talk about watching her mom cut hair when she was a little girl and how she first started working at the salon and how got her cosmetology license and how hard she’s working at learning English (and along the way, how much it hurt her when her dad left and how scared her mom was for a while that she’d lose the salon). And Su Ah ends up talking more herself than she ever would have expected; she wouldn’t have ever been able to imagine talking to an idol and Woo Kyung about what it’s like going from a comfortable life to having nothing and having everyone in your world turn their back on you. But Ye Rim doesn’t make her feel inferior for her fall from grace at all, and Woo Kyung seems to know what it’s like not to have heat in the winter, and it occurs to Su Ah that all of them have been through really hard things in their lives, and just because Su Ah started out higher than Woo Kyung and Ye Rim’s struggles have been in a world of glitz and money, that doesn’t mean they can’t understand each other.
By the time they head back to Ji Hyuk’s apartment, things have eased between them. They haven’t become best friends or anything, but Su Ah feels like she understands both of the other girls better and that maybe they have more in common than just the fact that the boys they love are best friends. Like Ye Rim says, they’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Su Ah thinks she might just enjoy it.
Three sets of eyes—Do Il has joined the other two guys—look up anxiously at them as they walk through the door, laughing at one of Woo Kyung’s stories about her most demanding customer, and Su Ah giggles at how their shoulders all slump in relief when they see the girls together.
Woo Kyung must notice, too, because she stomps over and smacks Ji Hyuk on the head. Su Ah thinks that might once have bothered her, knowing how long Woo Kyung had a crush on him, but she’s seen the way the older girl looks at Do Il now; Woo Kyung is just like Ji Hyuk’s older sister now, and he can use all the family he can get. “Did you think we were going to kill each other? Yah, girls can be friends, too!”
“It wouldn’t be the first fight we’ve had to drag you out of,” Hyun Soo says sarcastically, and Woo Kyung glares at him and looks like she’s going to hit him too, but Ye Rim reaches him first and kicks him on the knee. He wails and clutches his leg dramatically, and Ye Rim ignores him, settling down beside him.
“If you need someone to fight with you, unnie, don’t bother with these punks,” Ye Rim says, shaking her ponytail out and tying it back again. “My fake nails are hard as steel—I’ll scratch their eyes out. And Su Ah looks like a hair-puller.”
Su Ah laughs, sitting beside Ji Hyuk and resting her nose against his shoulder, breathing in his scent that clings to the warm fabric of his t-shirt. “I used to take Tae Kwon Do.”
“What?” Everyone turns to stare at her with wide eyes, except for Do Il, who smiles quietly, but it’s Ji Hyuk who looks most shocked. “You never told me that.”
She shrugs, grinning at their surprised faces. “It was just a class for little kids. I stopped in middle school.”
She’s still mentally grinning at the thought of her and Ye Rim and Woo Kyung in a fight when the door opens and Kyung Jong and Ha Jin tumble in arm-in-arm—which looks particularly funny because of the height difference.
“Oh, the ladies all are here! Hello, ladies!” Kyung Jong says with a smile and a bow.
“Hello, ladies,” Ha Jin echoes, his smile significantly more flirtatious. “But none of you are single,” he adds woefully. “Next time bring some friends with you who aren’t dating anyone, okay?”
“Like that would do any good,” Hyun Soo scoffs. “For someone who always seems to be chatting someone up, you can’t seem to find a girl of your own.”
“Why would he need one when he and Kyung Jong are already married?” Ye Rim says with a mischievous little grin, leaving Hyun Soo looking gobsmacked and everyone else laughing. Ji Hyuk slips his fingers into Su Ah’s and she squeezes them tight, leaning against him and feeling so, so glad that she didn’t go with Appa to China when he asked her to.
--
This is her world now: school and drawing and Rock Kim’s club and the Eye Candy boys and their girlfriends stuffed into a little rooftop apartment or sprawled out on top of green felt at the pool hall (she likes it).
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The feels I have for this drama are endless, but you always seem to remind me why I'm so emotionally invested in them. Your characterizations are always spot-on and you have a way with words that captures the feeling of the situation.
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Thank you for two awesome fics about an awesome drama. I was really bummed they didn't win any of the DramaFever awards, although they were nominated for many.
Its one of my favorite dramas for the music, the romance, the acting, the flower boys and the realness of the issues. I was really sorry we didn't get more of Lee Min Ki. He is one of my favorite actors and I thought Byung Hee was a fantastic and fascinating character. I sure did love the romance between Su Ah and Ji Hyuk. Their rooftop kiss is one of my all time favorites.
I didn't like the Ye Rim/ Hyun Su ship at all until I read your fics. ^_^ Basically, the few things I didn't like about the drama (and I REALLY didn't like them) you fixed with your fics!
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thanks :)