homesick (for a place that doesn't exist)
amber/sulli/luna, pg-13, 6.4k
because i miss f(x), i miss writing, and their comeback is so great. inspired by the length wherein they had no comeback. roadtrip!au.
amber looks for home.
“Home, let me come home, home is wherever I’m with you.”
- Home, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros
The f(x) dorm felt empty without the smell of Victoria’s cooking and the constant drone of the television speakers when Krystal would come over. Nowadays, Amber, Jinri, and Sunyoung would only turn on the microwave to heat some leftovers and the television set to watch Music shows from Thursday to Sunday and Krystal’s new drama just when they felt guilty that they weren’t supportive enough.
Between Sunyoung opting to studying almost everyday and Jinri lazily waiting for phone calls consisting of modeling gig proposals, Amber had preferred going out with her friends; after all, she had a whole contacts list in her phone full of people, celebrities and civilians alike, just sitting there, waiting to be called. She took the idle time as time to hang out with friends she wouldn’t be able to see during f(x)’s promotion cycles.
But with nothing to do, being taken off the cast of Invincible Youth and waiting for album recording, and with her friends seemingly getting busier and busier, there was a sense of contemplation Amber felt - and this particular sense of contemplation always led to homesickness.
“I don’t really know,” Amber said and pouted as she wrestled a slice of pizza from its box. Western food with Henry always made her feel better. “I mean, I’m lucky I got to go home for such a long time last year, but I feel like I’m doing nothing here. I miss those days.”
“I get you,” Henry replied, voice muffled by his chewing, eyes crossed and concentrated on the cheese falling from the side of the crust. “But thinking about going back to LA is just hurting you, y’know. Just hang with the people here that you know you’d miss when you go back there.”
“I already hang out with everyone though. I hang out with Min and Jia, and I went out with Hyuna last week. Key always brings me when he wants to watch plays…” Amber continued while counting on her fingers. She dropped her pizza on the cardboard and started looking through her phone contacts and said aloud what she’s done with them the last few weeks. “…I made friends with some Chinese trainees, I would go out with Nicole but she’s busy, and I’m always with you that I’m nearly sick of your face.”
Henry stuffed the remainder of his fourth pizza into his mouth, grease staining the corners of his mouth. “The more you stare at me, the more handsome I get,” he huffed.
“Am I missing somebody or something?” Amber looked at the cracks on the ceiling of the training room and furrowed her eyebrows in silent reflection.
Henry shrugged his shoulders and reached out for a fifth slice.
Amber realized it when she woke up to Sunyoung attempting to cook breakfast again.
“Unnie, you can’t let the shell fall in…” Jinri’s voice trailed off when she saw that it was impossible to fish out the small cracked egg shell out of the soggy pancake mix. Sunyoung panicked slightly and beat the already-soupy mix even further.
“Family meeting,” Amber had suddenly said in English from the doorway of her and Sunyoung’s room.
Sunyoung dropped the wooden spoon in surprise and raised her eyebrows. Jinri watched the spoon sink into pancake mix oblivion.
“Erm, family meeting,” she translated in Korean.
“Victoria unnie’s still in Taiwan and Soojung’s at filming. I don’t think they’d be able to get here soon,” Sunyoung said, recovering quickly.
Amber walked to the table and sat on the floor across Jinri. “Then just the three of us, then. Breakfast at the café?”
“I’m making pancakes.” Sunyoung stated, slightly offended and with a small frown. Jinri gave her a weak smile.
“Breakfast at the café,” Jinri agreed.
Sunyoung sighed, rolled her eyes, and drained the bowl of pancake mix into the trash can. She gave her watery mix a look of hopelessness and then raised her head. “Yeah, breakfast at the café,” she accepted solemnly.
After a sip of sugar-drowned coffee, Amber cleared her throat. “We need to do something. Band bonding, team building, whatever you call it - as long as we spend time together. Talking and stuff. Knowing how we all are.”
Jinri nodded as she took a dainty bite of her egg tart.
“Keep ourselves busy and all. People will notice if we’ve become closer. That will make us better, somehow,” she continued. “It’ll make us stronger.”
Sunyoung nodded too, and smiled.
Amber’s expression softened and she let out a small sigh. “I just noticed that I’m hanging out with my other friends so much more than you guys. I know we’re co-workers and all…don’t call me a sap, but I miss when we were all training together and stuff.”
“Sounds like something Sunyoung would say,” Jinri said quietly with a smile on her face. Sunyoung slapped her hand but laughed anyway.
“…Sap,” Sunyoung grinned as she wiped whipped cream on Amber’s nose. Amber tried catching it with her tongue but ended up wiping it off with the back of her hand. “So what do you suggest we do, Amber?”
“Like, should we go on a picnic or something?” Jinri asked absentmindedly while stirring her hot chocolate.
Amber sucked a breath in and looked outside the window. “This is gonna sound crazy, but…” she gave them a wide, hopeful grin. “Let’s go on a roadtrip.”
“I can’t believe we got away with it,” Sunyoung whispered into the dark night air, checking the illuminated face of her watch, which blared two thirty in the morning. She had just thrown her gym bag into the trunk of their manager’s car and was headed to the passenger’s seat.
“Didn’t think our lame excuses would get us anywhere,” Jinri giggled sleepily from the back, curled up with three large pillows and a blanket. (“Make space for Mr. Fluffy,” she pushed away Amber’s backpack to the floor and placed a stuffed hippopotamus on where it previously was.)
Amber feigned hurt. “As if you could think of anything,” she replied indignantly. She had told their managers that Sunyoung wanted to stay at her parent’s house for a week and so would Jinri at her aunt’s house in Ilsan, so Amber would sleepover at a friend’s house for a few days and use the car. As safe and boring as the excuses were, they worked like a charm. “The hardest part was the car. Oppa thought I couldn’t handle driving an automatic since I haven’t really used one.”
“Are you sure you still remember how to drive -“ Sunyoung cringed a bit as Amber stuck the key in the ignition and made the engine whine.
“This car’s just a bit old,” Amber reassured as she revved it up, slowly turning to the deserted roads of Seoul.
Jinri clung to Amber’s seat as they lurched forward. “Unnie, don’t kill us -“
Amber reminded them to fasten their seatbelts. They both complied.
Amber was fine with the silence, with only the rumble of the engine to accompany her. She only noticed that Sunyoung and Jinri were finally asleep when she noticed the lack of poor Korean-accented singing while they were jamming to Moves Like Jagger on the radio. Amber turned down the volume and let Sunyoung’s quiet snores from beside her on the passenger seat be the substitute music to her ears.
The dark turned into dawn and the wide roads they were passing were getting less and less crowded. Fields of green started popping up at the corners of Amber’s eyes more often. She was so accustomed to the quiet that she noticed a small rustle from the backseat and averted her eyes quickly to the rearview mirror. Jinri was looking out the window in what seemed to be quiet contemplation; her eyes were slightly wet and Amber watched as her lip trembled.
“Sulli-yah,” Amber called out softly. She met eyes with Jinri. “Jinri-yah.”
Jinri just smiled at her with tired eyes, slightly red, and Amber can tell from how she looked that she had been awake for much longer than Amber had noticed.
“Are you okay?” Amber asked, flicking her eyes from the rearview mirror and the road. Jinri nodded and kept staring. Amber knew Jinri was the type that would rather tell you herself what she felt rather than having to be asked. She liked to keep things to herself. Amber usually wouldn’t bother her about these things.
But Jinri had this helpless look in her face and Amber knew she had to do something.
“…Are you hungry?” Amber smiled, hoping Jinri would lighten up. When she looked up, Jinri gave her a soft grin and nodded.
“Food would be good,” Jinri yawned.
“We’ll go at the next rest stop. Sleep some more,” Amber said.
“Mmmm, nah, it’s okay, I’m pretty awake. Turn up the volume a bit,” Jinri said as she rested her chin on the shoulder of the driver’s seat.
They started humming to The Boys and one minute into the song, they were singing their hearts out, Amber tapping her fingers on the steering wheel and Jinri flailing her arms halfheartedly to the dance. Sunyoung didn’t move an inch, but Amber swore she saw a glimpse of a lopsided smile on her lips.
Their table at the rest stop was a mess of plates of more hotteok than their managers would probably allow them to eat and half-empty bottles of water.
Amber and Sunyoung were wolfing down on the pancakes, gulping down water, not realizing how dry their throats were from singing and sleeping three hours into their trip. Amber was almost sure that Jinri was doing the same, but when she looked up, Jinri was just playing with her chopsticks, food hardly touched, which was unusual.
Jinri had always been one for eating a lot. She had one of the loosest diets, not because her metabolism was fast, but because the soft look matched her anyways; that was the way she was marketed. She didn’t have toothpick legs like Krystal did but her pretty face made up for it.
Jinri was looking out the window when Amber decided to finally speak up.
"S-ssul...Jinri-yah," she called out, poking Jinri's hand lightly with her wooden chopsticks, "are you okay?"
Jinri looked at her with tired eyes and bit her lip. Her eyes watered up a bit and Amber felt something tighten in her stomach. Jinri tried so hard to hide her tears sometimes.
"You can tell us, you know," Sunyoung urged. Jinri gave her a broken, close-lipped smile, as if it were any wider her tears would spill out from her eyes.
“I was just thinking…I know that we’re supposed to be going nowhere right now. No direction or anything. But since we’re already on the highway, on the road…do you think we could stop by Busan for a bit?” Jinri asked, all with a hopeful glint in her eyes. “I miss my mom and dad…” Her voice trailed off with a quiver of her lips.
“I think that’s fair,” Sunyoung said. She put her hand over Jinri’s hesitantly, but gave them a squeeze. “…And well-deserved.”
“We can get there by tonight, if you want. It’d be great to go to Busan. I’ve never been there,” Amber said.
Jinri wiped her eyes before she could even start crying. “Thanks,” she muttered. Amber could tell she felt a little silly for being so emotional- it was obvious from the start that she missed her home a lot, but she was always the type to hide it, in comparison to Sunyoung, who’d burst into tears when she felt homesick, and Victoria, who would just bust out in Mandarin. “Tonight would be nice.”
Amber could tell that Jinri was concerned for her from the look on her face in the rearview mirror.
“Are you sure you’re not tired yet, unnie?” she asked, her tone worried and giddy.
“I’m fine, besides, I like driving,” Amber answered her with a small reassuring smile. “I’m just a bit sore, but I’ll be okay.”
Sunyoung grinned at her. “You should let me drive -“
“No thanks,” Amber snorted. “I’d rather not be caught.”
“I brought my student’s permit,” Sunyoung insisted. “Just be in the passenger seat so you could be my supervisor or something.”
Amber stared at Sunyoung. “Maybe next time.”
Sunyoung responded by changing the song on Jinri’s iPod to Hate You. Amber laughed and sang along goodheartedly.
The song ended with Amber’s perfect English trailing off and Luna pressing the pause button, looking for another song to play. It was quiet when Jinri decided to whisper, hardly audible enough to hear.
“I’m sorry I’m so useless,” she said lamely, her back slumped over and her head between the two front seats.
Amber quirked an eyebrow at her in the rearview mirror and shared a worried glance with Sunyoung. “What are you talking about?”
Jinri bit her lip. “I don’t know, I can’t really do anything to help us get to Busan, and we’re going there because I wanted to, and I feel a bit selfish. And I don’t know…” Her voice suddenly shook, and she let out a small, humorless laugh. “…Even in f(x)…I’m pretty useless.”
“Oh, Jinri…” Sunyoung turned around and started crawling to the backseat, Amber slowing down the car to be safe. Sunyoung sat down on Jinri’s right, arms around her. “You’re not useless at all.”
Amber nodded. “You think we’d be f(x) without Choi Sulli?”
“You can use without my voice,” Jinri admitted dryly, slightly bitter.
Sunyoung bit her lip and shook her head. Her grip tightened on Jinri’s shoulder. “Your voice is lovely and your dancing is fine.”
“Not extraordinary -“
“That’s not the point, though,” Amber said. “It’s just…you. Your personality. You think f(x) would be f(x) without charming Sulli, pretty Sulli? Bright young Sulli?”
Jinri closed her eyes and kept silent.
“You’re never a burden, Sulli, Jinri. We want to go to Busan too. It’s a big help for us to have somewhere to go. In any other situation, you’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?”
Jinri’s lip twitched, then she cracked a smile. “You sound like my mom.”
“Well, I’m worried!” Amber cried, half relieved, half faux-annoyed. “I’ve never really heard you sound so…insecure.”
“Me neither,” Sunyoung said. Amber watched her grip tighten on Jinri’s shoulder in the mirror. “…I have to admit though, it’s pretty nice to know you, of all people, get insecure too.” Sunyoung smiled up at Jinri, who gave her a confused look.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sunyoung sighed and leaned back. “You seem so perfect all the time, you know? Like you know everyone likes you and those who don’t, don’t matter much to you. Confident. Self-aware.” Amber smiled.
Jinri crinkled her nose. “Nah, I think I’m just too lazy to react sometimes.”
They all burst into laughter and Amber pressed shuffle on Jinri’s K-Pop playlist for the fourth time that day, eyeing the way Jinri relaxed against Sunyoung’s loose grip around her waist.
As expected, Jinri was the first one out of the car, her finger trembling above the doorbell beside the gate of her parents’ house. She waited anxiously, eyes tearing up at her pounding heart.
A woman, plump, short, and pale like a porcelain doll, opened the gate. Jinri’s sobs grew louder when she threw her arms around the woman. “Mom! I miss you so much,” she screeched into her mother’s hair voice shaking.
Mrs. Choi’s eyes were wide, disbelieving and watery. “J-Jinri? Is this really you?”
Jinri let go and laughed lightly while wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Why didn’t you call or anything? I didn’t make enough dinner!” Mrs. Choi cried out while shuffling towards where Amber and Sunyoung were standing to hug them as well, as if they were her own children. Amber was slightly taken aback but felt like it was a nice reminder of her own mother. “Well, let’s not stay out here. Come on in girls! Yah, Jinsoo, we have company!”
Mrs. Choi made more of her homemade bulgogi for dinner while the girls sat around Jinri’s dad, who was talking to them about the industry and his new favorite actresses. After dinner, Amber and Sunyoung excused themselves and headed towards Jinri’s room, where Mrs. Choi told them they could stay in for the night and they all had thrown their bags into. Amber watched Mr. Choi tickle Jinri from the corner of her eye and grinned, disappearing into the bedroom.
After setting out the flat mattresses and blankets despite Mrs. Choi insisting that she’d do it after cleaning the dishes, Amber and Sunyoung collapsed onto their pillows. When Amber put her head to the side, she was only six inches away from Sunyoung’s profile.
Her red hair was splayed on the white pillowcase, roots in need of a retouch, her eyes bright and shining under the warm light of a bright lamp at the corner of the room. She was such a nice shade of lightly tanned, her skin dewey and clear and perfect. Sunyoung looked way better without makeup, without the harshness of eyeliner and paleness of foundation. Amber liked the way her lips were curved, liked the way her short lashes stuck upwards.
Some people said that Sunyoung looked ordinary. Amber thought that among all the people she’s met, among the people who had the most perfect v-lines and the highest cheekbones, none of them looked so beautiful and bright with nothing but a small hint of a tired smile on their face.
Amber smiled to herself and forced herself to stand up.
“Let’s wash up first,” she said, watching Luna’s smile widen. Her heart did a little thing where she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
They played Monopoly Deal until they collapsed with their feet tangled among stray cards, Jinri still outside with her parents.
The sun was high up in the sky when Amber had awoken, streams of sunlight falling on her makeshift mattress beside the window of Jinri’s bedroom.
She could tell that Sunyoung and Jinri were already awake - there were giggles and soft whispers coming from the bed. It was surprising considering Sunyoung and Jinri weren’t exactly the closest in their group - most of the time it was Luna with her or Victoria and Jinri with Krystal. But it was kind of touching. At the same time, something churned in her stomach and she wasn’t sure what. She thought it might have been jealousy, since usually, she was the bridge that filled the gap between Sunyoung and Jinri - keeper of their secrets, respectively. But then she realized that she didn’t really feel left out, per say, and shrugged the feeling off.
She felt a surge of curiosity and listened in to their conversation.
“I think Joonmyun oppa’s really cute,” Sunyoung confessed. Amber watched her sigh and lean against the bed’s headboard. She smirked and sniggered into her pillow.
“But have you seen Jongin and Sehun dance together?” Jinri exclaimed, her voice a little muffled from half her head being under her comforter. “They’re really…really…um, good - really talented.”
Sunyoung nodded solemnly. “I can’t believe they’re younger than me.”
Jinri rolled around in her sheets, held Sunyoung’s hand absentmindedly, and asked, “Is it weird, though, that I haven’t had a crush on any guy in such a long time?”
Amber was unable to hide a snort.
Jinri instantly sat up and threw the pillow behind her head at the mattress at the foot of her bed. “You’re awake!” she screeched, a bit embarrassed, though Amber wasn’t really sure why. Jinri hopped off the bed and wrestled Amber, tickling her neck and sides.
Amber squealed uncharacteristically high. “Haven’t had a crush in a while? You point out basically every trainee and go ‘oh look he’s so cute’ -“ Jinri dug her fingers under Amber’s arms and Amber exploded into painful laughter.
Amber scrambled to the top of the bed and hugged Sunyoung frantically, fending off Jinri with her feet. Jinri finally captured Amber in her arms and they ended up in a giggly tangled mess of limbs and dyed hair.
Amber was still panting heavily when she faced Jinri. “We don’t have to leave tonight, you know, if you want to spend more time with your parents. We could always leave tomorrow or the day after that. We have more or less a week, anyway.”
Jinri smiled and shook her head - as much as she could with Sunyoung’s hand still buried in the crook above her shoulder. “We went on a roadtrip to travel, right? This was just a sleeping rest stop,” she said jokingly. “But no, really, I’m fine now. I’ve done what I wanted to come here for. We can go after lunch. My mom’s grilling some pork right now, and you don’t want to miss that.”
They left at four in the afternoon, car stocked up with packed dinner and a few boxes of soap.
“In case the soap in the hotels don’t smell good,” Mrs. Choi had said. Jinri looked at them with eyes that urged that it was better not to argue.
Jinri insisted to sit in the passenger seat with the window open, so her hair could go streaming behind her. She only closed it when they passed by a field full of cows.
“Cow shit,” she said as she crinkled her nose, giggling immaturely, matching the sweet sound of instrumental music from the radio. She was in a good mood.
She yawned and smiled. “I was only asleep for an hour,” she admitted to Amber, since Sunyoung was dead asleep in the backseat after trying to read her Bible on the moving vehicle. “I stayed up until five am talking to my parents and woke up at around seven to eat breakfast. Couldn’t help it - I missed that house so much.”
She fell asleep after complaining that the music on the radio was making her sleepy. Amber woke Sunyoung up by pulling a pillow from under her head to put under Jinri’s. She intended it - she wanted company.
“Stay up with me,” she said, pouting slightly.
Sunyoung laughed and her voice was a bit raw from just being woken up. Amber grinned a bit. She liked it when voices sounded like that. Sunyoung put her chin on the shoulder of the driver’s seat.
“What do you want to sing to?” she asked as she took her iPod out of the back pocket of her shorts.
At the rest stop, they woke Jinri up by spraying water on her via Amber’s mouth.
“Ngggh, gross,” Jinri whined sleepily, covering her face with her arms. Sunyoung was laughing to her heart’s content, voice a little raspy from singing too much.
“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” Amber poked her side, other arm wiping her mouth with her jacket sleeve. “time for dinner.”
“Dinner at nine pm?” Jinri complained.
“We couldn’t find any rest stops,” Sunyoung replied.
Dinner was homemade kimbap and soggy, cold bibimbap in plastic containers made by Jinri’s mother, which they ate huddled in the car. All they did at the actual rest stop was pee, and Amber bought some stuff from the convenience store. She handed out water bottles and lowered the rest of the plastic bag to under her seat, grinning to herself slightly.
When they finally found a hotel, Jinri instantly complained. “Why didn’t we just eat dinner here?”
“It’s eleven. I was starving,” Amber said, exhausted. Their hotel was expensive for just an overnight stay, but there were no others around except for some really questionable looking motels with aged, creepy looking men milling about.
“It’s better safe than sorry,” Sunyoung said gratefully while eyeing their hotel room’s mini chandelier. Amber mourned for their remaining allowance and Jinri bounced happily to the bathroom. Amber volunteered to be the last to shower.
“I’m a really nice friend,” she muttered under her breath when she finally got her turn, towel slung over her shoulder.
When she came out of the bathroom, Jinri was in the middle of Sunyoung’s legs, back facing Sunyoung, painting her toenails in horribly bright colors. Sunyoung was braiding Jinri’s thick hair into two fat French plaits. Something in Amber’s stomach did a little jig.
“Amber, put some clothes on,” Jinri laughed at her. She looked down at her sports bra and underwear and continued toweling her hair dry.
“As if you haven’t seen me naked,” she said and stuck her tongue out, using her toes to pick up a shirt from her open bag. After she settled into an old jersey and boxer shorts, she grabbed the plastic bag from the convenience store and jumped onto the bed, making the nail polish bottles nearly topple over.
Jinri shrieked at her. “Don’t bounce!”
Amber grinned and stuck her hand in the bag, ignoring Jinri who was poking her arm with her foot while putting the bottles on the nightstand. “You’ll never guess what I bought.”
Sunyoung looked at her, confused, snapping on the ties to the end of Jinri’s hair and letting go. Jinri snorted.
“Ice cream.”
“Better.”
“…Alcohol?”
Sunyoung looked scandalized as Amber nodded and pulled three bottle of soju out of the bag, along with three plastic shot glasses.
“H-how’d you buy that?” Sunyoung whispered loudly with her eyes wide. “You’re not even legal yet!”
Amber shrugged. “I look old. Either that or the cashier didn’t really care. I don’t know.” Amber could tell Sunyoung was put-off and hesitated. “Well, we don’t have to drink if you don’t want to -“
Sunyoung frowned. “Y-you guys go ahead -“
“It’s either you drink with us or we don’t drink at all,” Jinri said calmly, smiling, but not in a very intimidating way. “But if you don’t want to, we could always do other things. We can play cards and watch TV and talk and sleep.”
Amber was surprised at how sensitive Jinri was being, but didn’t let it show, and smiled instead. “She’s right, you know. We’re not doing it because it’s cool or anything. It’s just good ol’ fun,” she said while pulling away the shotglasses.
“No, it’s okay, really, don’t let me stop you or anything!”
“We insist,” Jinri urged, nudging Amber with her toe to put the bottle on the floor.
Sunyoung sighed and lowered her face into her pillow. Amber and Jinri shared a concerned glance.
When Sunyoung finally lifted her head, she looked bothered.
“Are you okay?” Amber asked, wondering if she should place a comforting hand on Sunyoung’s shoulder. She decided against it.
“It’s just…” she stammered, seeming frustrated with herself. She seemed to be looking for the right words. “I don’t know - I don’t mean to be such a goody two shoes,” she released a sigh and drooped her shoulders. “I hate how I care so much about things, you know? I would rather watch a movie than go out to a club. I can’t swear. I’ve never been interested in doing drugs, and I’ve never kissed anyone, much less hold their hand. The most I’ve rebelled was wanting to sing instead of becoming a doctor, and my parents were even supportive of that. I’ve never skinny-dipped, I’ve never smoked a cigarette. I live for good feedback and pats on my head and I’m called a teacher’s pet just because I like being liked.
“And I hate it, because I don’t feel like a normal teenager…like I’m backwards. I’m boring. I’m never going to live my life to the fullest, because I’m too scared to do things that would give me trouble, but isn’t that life? When you risk things? I don’t like risks.”
Amber gaped at Sunyoung’s flushed face, not really knowing what to say. She never really knew Sunyoung felt that way. She was constructing a feel good speech in her head about Sunyoung being a great person, but Jinri started talking first.
“You know,” Jinri said while reaching over to Amber, snatching a shot glass and one soju bottle out of her hold, “you shouldn’t care if people think you’re a good girl. Just be who you want to be, do the stuff you want to do.”
Sunyoung sighed and slowly nodded.
“So you know what you should do?” Jinri grinned at her, then screwed the top of the soju bottle off, pouring some into a glass. “You should drink to that.”
Amber widened her eyes and was about to slap Jinri’s arm (so much for sensitive, Amber thought) but stopped when Sunyoung actually nodded, grabbed it, and downed it in one go. Amber stared at Jinri, incredulous, and Jinri grinned at her widely in return.
Sunyoung was the first one to pass out, sprawled tightly against the headboard, shot glass still loose in her hand.
“Never knew she had it in her,” Amber hiccupped solemnly, pleasantly buzzed.
“You’re already tipsy! You and Sunyoung unnie are so weak,” Jinri laughed. Surprisingly, she had the highest tolerance out of the three of them.
Amber laughed along with her while putting her head on Sunyoung’s exposed thigh. “What you said to Sunyoung a while ago - that was really nice,” she slurred with a small smile. “Until you said we should drink - didn’t know you had it in you, either.”
“You know, hyung,” she smiled at the nickname, “Sunyoung unnie is a really great person. I just realized.”
Amber made a face in between a smirk and a grimace, not sure how to respond.
“You’re great too, don’t be jealous,” Jinri laughed again and suddenly, her face was inches away from Amber’s, lying on Sunyoung’s stomach. “And so am I, I think. We should just stick together.” Amber could smell the alcohol on her breath as she spoke.
“We should,” Amber said sleepily as she smiled. “We really should.”
She didn’t know if it was because she was partially drunk, but with Jinri’s breathing through her mouth against her cheek, so near her own lips while they were lying their heads on Sunyoung, life felt right, back on track. It felt like home.
Amber dreamt of Jinri’s face being close to hers, dreamt of Jinri’s voice humming in the background. She fell for her soft lips, her delicate, pretty face. But she fell for her blunt words and charming lethargy first. Fell for the way she rolled her eyes, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, the way she would laugh without bothering to cover her mouth.
And when Amber was jolted into consciousness by that feeling of falling, there was Jinri, skin stark white against the tan of Sunyoung’s legs, hair coming out of their braids and making her look effortlessly beautiful.
Amber looked at the clock. It blared six thirty in the morning in large red numbers. She could sleep in for a bit. She slung an arm over Jinri’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
They left the hotel before eleven because twelve hours in the hotel room was expensive enough. “Then you should’ve just bought the seedy three hour room if you were going to be so cheap,” Jinri teased, and Sunyoung clicked her tongue at how inappropriate it sounded.
“You’re just hungover,” Amber said as she ruffled Sunyoung’s hair. Sunyoung groaned a bit and cradled her head in her hands in the passenger’s seat.”You should probably switch with Sulli, sit at the back.”
Jinri hummed lazily. “Nah, we can just both sit here,” she said as Sunyoung slammed the front door shut and stepped into the backseat. Jinri pulled Sunyoung closer and let her put her head on her shoulder. Amber felt a soft smile dawn on her lips and a somersault be done by her insides as she started up the engine.
They arrived at Seoul in four and a half hours.
“Let’s go to my house,” Sunyoung said after sleeping for a bit and taking some aspirin. “It’s just a few blocks from here and my parents are in Japan.”
Amber and Jinri agreed, and Amber drove according to the directions that Sunyoung dictated.
The car finally stopped in front of a fairly average-sized house, the gate only a head taller than Jinri. They rang the doorbell and the door was opened by a black-haired version of Sunyoung in baggy sweatpants and with a popsicle stick dangling from her lips.
“Jinyoung!” Sunyoung said as she threw her arms around her twin sister. Her sister’s eyes went wide in surprise and the stick that was in her mouth dropped to the floor.
“Sunyoung?” Jinyoung said in surprise, her arms tightening around her sister. “You’re here!”
After the twins’ small reunion, they all entered the small house. “I was actually going to sleep over at my, er, friend’s house today, but if you want me to stay -“
“It’s fine,” Sunyoung said and smiled softly. “You can go, I know you really want to. You can call him your boyfriend now, you know, I won’t tell mom and dad.”
Jinyoung released a sigh of relief and clapped a hand to Sunyoung’s back. “Thanks, they’d kill me.”
“You owe me one,” Sunyoung reminded her with a poke. Jinyoung rolled her eyes but nodded as she prepared a pot for dinner-making. Amber and Jinri shared a small awkward glance at just watching the sisters’ interaction and ended up bursting in shy giggles.
“What’s so funny?” Jinyoung asked them over her shoulder. The face she was making reminded Amber exactly of Sunyoung’s face when she once tried biting a sour lemon. She couldn’t stop laughing.
“Your face,” Sunyoung replied, grinning as she sat herself down at the dinner table.
“We have the same one,” Jinyoung said grimly. Jinri hugged Amber from behind to try to stop her shaking laughter.
It didn’t work.
Their night was filled with popcorn, barbeque-flavored Cheetos, and old cheesy drama movies. The three of them rolled around Sunyoung’s parents’ king-sized bed among crumbs and tears, the only source of illumination from the large screen in front of them.
“Make it stop,” Jinri bawled as Sunyoung pressed pause on the DVD player, the credits frozen on screen. Their tear-streaked faces were shining against the glow of the television screen.
“She just did,” Amber said while popping another Cheeto into her mouth.
“How,” Jinri said shakily as she wiped her eyes on the blankets, “are you not crying.”
Sunyoung shook her head amongst sniffles. “You sad, dead robot.”
“Hey, in my defense, my tears were all used up in the first movie,” Amber said with a frown.
Jinri rolled to her back and looked at Amber with a sigh, her swollen eyes striking against her makeup-free face. Amber frowned again because she felt something like indigestion stir in her stomach.
“How do you stay so…secure?” Jinri asked her all of a sudden, her eyes soft with curiosity. Amber furrowed her eyebrows while licking her fingers clean of flavored powder.
“What’re you talking about?”
Jinri shrugged and Sunyoung rolled onto her stomach, exactly the opposite of Jinri.
“You’re always so…contented,” Sunyoung answered for Jinri, her face in her hands. “You never really get angry at yourself or anything. Like you never get jealous. No issues at all.”
It was Amber’s turn to shrug. “I don’t really know. I don’t like getting jealous. I don’t like comparing myself to people. I don’t like comparing other people to each other, either.
“Like the two of you, for example,” Amber said as she sat up, deep in thought, “you’re both so different, you know? But you’re both really great. In totally different ways that not everyone might agree on, but there will always be people who appreciate it. Like, I appreciate you two, but for totally separate reasons. And I don’t want to like you because you’re better than someone else. I love you because you’re you.”
After a few seconds’ pause of Amber just staring into mid-air, she groaned to herself.
“These movies are making me a sap,” she complained as Sunyoung threaded her arms around her torso, pulling her down with them. Amber yelped at she landed right in between Sunyoung and Jinri, Sunyoung giving her a tight backhug and Jinri’s hair serving as a pillow for her head.
“That was sweet,” Jinri said dreamily, yawning near Amber’s face. Her smile was serene, her breathe smelling of cheese flavoring. When Amber squirmed, Jinri only threw an arm around her shoulder. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Sunyoung mumbled incoherent, her lips behind Amber’s ear. Amber felt cramped and hot, but she ignored it and whispered in reply instead.
“Good night.”
When they were about to leave Sunyoung’s house, Sunyoung made a detour around the car and pushed her way into the driver’s seat, insisting she needed practice. “Our dorm is literally fifteen minutes away,” she insisted. Amber finally let her when she promised to buy her bubble tea when she wanted it.
Sunyoung’s driving wasn’t as bad as Amber expected, maybe even better than Amber herself (but Amber disregarded it and just told Sunyoung she had done a fair job). She parked diagonal perfectly and just grinned at Amber as she stepped out of the car.
“We’re home,” Jinri singsang as she stepped out as well, stretching her arms upwards and yawning.
As Sunyoung pulled up Jinri’s backpack out of the car’s trunk and slung it around Jinri’s shoulder, Amber felt a pang of realization.
She pulled her gym bag by the strap, bumping up their apartment building stairs behind her, as she watched the two laugh and tease each other about things she wasn’t sure she understood. But it was obvious from the way their eyes glittered with tears from laughing a bit too hard and the way their hands were loosely interlaced, Sunyoung’s short fingers with Jinri’s only-slightly-longer, pale ones, that they were happy, and she literally had to choke back the want to throw her arms around them and kiss their cheeks in turn.
Comfort was Sunyoung and Jinri, with the large height difference, Sunyoung and Jinri, with the voices that don’t quite match, Sunyoung and Jinri, with their priceless smiles and giggles.
The dorm was quiet when Sunyoung pushed the door open, everything in the way they had left it. Not even the position of the remote control on the tabletop in front of the television had changed.
“Well,” Jinri snorted as she jumped on the couch. Sunyoung bounced beside her since their hands were still clasped around one another’s. “That was uneventful.”
“I thought that was fun,” Sunyoung said as she leaned her head on Jinri’s shoulder. Amber realized she should start expecting the unexpected from now on.
“I think we accomplished something,” Amber said as she watched Jinri lean her head down on top of Sunyoung’s, her cheek cushioned by Sunyoung’s hair. She felt her heart beat quick in her ears and her mind remind her that she was home.
a/n: because avages is an enabler and i love f(x) a lot, and i miss femslash.
and please forgive my word vomit because this is legit what this is.
i should start studying for college entrance exams but i did this instead. no regrets. i am obviously a bad student.
i made a playlist for this fic, maybe i will post it one of these days.
PS YOU SHOULD ALL ADD ME ON TWITTER I AM MORE ACTIVE ON THERE OBVS. @scarredknees_ hehe.
because i miss f(x), i miss writing, and their comeback is so great. inspired by the length wherein they had no comeback. roadtrip!au.
amber looks for home.
“Home, let me come home, home is wherever I’m with you.”
- Home, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros
The f(x) dorm felt empty without the smell of Victoria’s cooking and the constant drone of the television speakers when Krystal would come over. Nowadays, Amber, Jinri, and Sunyoung would only turn on the microwave to heat some leftovers and the television set to watch Music shows from Thursday to Sunday and Krystal’s new drama just when they felt guilty that they weren’t supportive enough.
Between Sunyoung opting to studying almost everyday and Jinri lazily waiting for phone calls consisting of modeling gig proposals, Amber had preferred going out with her friends; after all, she had a whole contacts list in her phone full of people, celebrities and civilians alike, just sitting there, waiting to be called. She took the idle time as time to hang out with friends she wouldn’t be able to see during f(x)’s promotion cycles.
But with nothing to do, being taken off the cast of Invincible Youth and waiting for album recording, and with her friends seemingly getting busier and busier, there was a sense of contemplation Amber felt - and this particular sense of contemplation always led to homesickness.
“I don’t really know,” Amber said and pouted as she wrestled a slice of pizza from its box. Western food with Henry always made her feel better. “I mean, I’m lucky I got to go home for such a long time last year, but I feel like I’m doing nothing here. I miss those days.”
“I get you,” Henry replied, voice muffled by his chewing, eyes crossed and concentrated on the cheese falling from the side of the crust. “But thinking about going back to LA is just hurting you, y’know. Just hang with the people here that you know you’d miss when you go back there.”
“I already hang out with everyone though. I hang out with Min and Jia, and I went out with Hyuna last week. Key always brings me when he wants to watch plays…” Amber continued while counting on her fingers. She dropped her pizza on the cardboard and started looking through her phone contacts and said aloud what she’s done with them the last few weeks. “…I made friends with some Chinese trainees, I would go out with Nicole but she’s busy, and I’m always with you that I’m nearly sick of your face.”
Henry stuffed the remainder of his fourth pizza into his mouth, grease staining the corners of his mouth. “The more you stare at me, the more handsome I get,” he huffed.
“Am I missing somebody or something?” Amber looked at the cracks on the ceiling of the training room and furrowed her eyebrows in silent reflection.
Henry shrugged his shoulders and reached out for a fifth slice.
Amber realized it when she woke up to Sunyoung attempting to cook breakfast again.
“Unnie, you can’t let the shell fall in…” Jinri’s voice trailed off when she saw that it was impossible to fish out the small cracked egg shell out of the soggy pancake mix. Sunyoung panicked slightly and beat the already-soupy mix even further.
“Family meeting,” Amber had suddenly said in English from the doorway of her and Sunyoung’s room.
Sunyoung dropped the wooden spoon in surprise and raised her eyebrows. Jinri watched the spoon sink into pancake mix oblivion.
“Erm, family meeting,” she translated in Korean.
“Victoria unnie’s still in Taiwan and Soojung’s at filming. I don’t think they’d be able to get here soon,” Sunyoung said, recovering quickly.
Amber walked to the table and sat on the floor across Jinri. “Then just the three of us, then. Breakfast at the café?”
“I’m making pancakes.” Sunyoung stated, slightly offended and with a small frown. Jinri gave her a weak smile.
“Breakfast at the café,” Jinri agreed.
Sunyoung sighed, rolled her eyes, and drained the bowl of pancake mix into the trash can. She gave her watery mix a look of hopelessness and then raised her head. “Yeah, breakfast at the café,” she accepted solemnly.
After a sip of sugar-drowned coffee, Amber cleared her throat. “We need to do something. Band bonding, team building, whatever you call it - as long as we spend time together. Talking and stuff. Knowing how we all are.”
Jinri nodded as she took a dainty bite of her egg tart.
“Keep ourselves busy and all. People will notice if we’ve become closer. That will make us better, somehow,” she continued. “It’ll make us stronger.”
Sunyoung nodded too, and smiled.
Amber’s expression softened and she let out a small sigh. “I just noticed that I’m hanging out with my other friends so much more than you guys. I know we’re co-workers and all…don’t call me a sap, but I miss when we were all training together and stuff.”
“Sounds like something Sunyoung would say,” Jinri said quietly with a smile on her face. Sunyoung slapped her hand but laughed anyway.
“…Sap,” Sunyoung grinned as she wiped whipped cream on Amber’s nose. Amber tried catching it with her tongue but ended up wiping it off with the back of her hand. “So what do you suggest we do, Amber?”
“Like, should we go on a picnic or something?” Jinri asked absentmindedly while stirring her hot chocolate.
Amber sucked a breath in and looked outside the window. “This is gonna sound crazy, but…” she gave them a wide, hopeful grin. “Let’s go on a roadtrip.”
“I can’t believe we got away with it,” Sunyoung whispered into the dark night air, checking the illuminated face of her watch, which blared two thirty in the morning. She had just thrown her gym bag into the trunk of their manager’s car and was headed to the passenger’s seat.
“Didn’t think our lame excuses would get us anywhere,” Jinri giggled sleepily from the back, curled up with three large pillows and a blanket. (“Make space for Mr. Fluffy,” she pushed away Amber’s backpack to the floor and placed a stuffed hippopotamus on where it previously was.)
Amber feigned hurt. “As if you could think of anything,” she replied indignantly. She had told their managers that Sunyoung wanted to stay at her parent’s house for a week and so would Jinri at her aunt’s house in Ilsan, so Amber would sleepover at a friend’s house for a few days and use the car. As safe and boring as the excuses were, they worked like a charm. “The hardest part was the car. Oppa thought I couldn’t handle driving an automatic since I haven’t really used one.”
“Are you sure you still remember how to drive -“ Sunyoung cringed a bit as Amber stuck the key in the ignition and made the engine whine.
“This car’s just a bit old,” Amber reassured as she revved it up, slowly turning to the deserted roads of Seoul.
Jinri clung to Amber’s seat as they lurched forward. “Unnie, don’t kill us -“
Amber reminded them to fasten their seatbelts. They both complied.
Amber was fine with the silence, with only the rumble of the engine to accompany her. She only noticed that Sunyoung and Jinri were finally asleep when she noticed the lack of poor Korean-accented singing while they were jamming to Moves Like Jagger on the radio. Amber turned down the volume and let Sunyoung’s quiet snores from beside her on the passenger seat be the substitute music to her ears.
The dark turned into dawn and the wide roads they were passing were getting less and less crowded. Fields of green started popping up at the corners of Amber’s eyes more often. She was so accustomed to the quiet that she noticed a small rustle from the backseat and averted her eyes quickly to the rearview mirror. Jinri was looking out the window in what seemed to be quiet contemplation; her eyes were slightly wet and Amber watched as her lip trembled.
“Sulli-yah,” Amber called out softly. She met eyes with Jinri. “Jinri-yah.”
Jinri just smiled at her with tired eyes, slightly red, and Amber can tell from how she looked that she had been awake for much longer than Amber had noticed.
“Are you okay?” Amber asked, flicking her eyes from the rearview mirror and the road. Jinri nodded and kept staring. Amber knew Jinri was the type that would rather tell you herself what she felt rather than having to be asked. She liked to keep things to herself. Amber usually wouldn’t bother her about these things.
But Jinri had this helpless look in her face and Amber knew she had to do something.
“…Are you hungry?” Amber smiled, hoping Jinri would lighten up. When she looked up, Jinri gave her a soft grin and nodded.
“Food would be good,” Jinri yawned.
“We’ll go at the next rest stop. Sleep some more,” Amber said.
“Mmmm, nah, it’s okay, I’m pretty awake. Turn up the volume a bit,” Jinri said as she rested her chin on the shoulder of the driver’s seat.
They started humming to The Boys and one minute into the song, they were singing their hearts out, Amber tapping her fingers on the steering wheel and Jinri flailing her arms halfheartedly to the dance. Sunyoung didn’t move an inch, but Amber swore she saw a glimpse of a lopsided smile on her lips.
Their table at the rest stop was a mess of plates of more hotteok than their managers would probably allow them to eat and half-empty bottles of water.
Amber and Sunyoung were wolfing down on the pancakes, gulping down water, not realizing how dry their throats were from singing and sleeping three hours into their trip. Amber was almost sure that Jinri was doing the same, but when she looked up, Jinri was just playing with her chopsticks, food hardly touched, which was unusual.
Jinri had always been one for eating a lot. She had one of the loosest diets, not because her metabolism was fast, but because the soft look matched her anyways; that was the way she was marketed. She didn’t have toothpick legs like Krystal did but her pretty face made up for it.
Jinri was looking out the window when Amber decided to finally speak up.
"S-ssul...Jinri-yah," she called out, poking Jinri's hand lightly with her wooden chopsticks, "are you okay?"
Jinri looked at her with tired eyes and bit her lip. Her eyes watered up a bit and Amber felt something tighten in her stomach. Jinri tried so hard to hide her tears sometimes.
"You can tell us, you know," Sunyoung urged. Jinri gave her a broken, close-lipped smile, as if it were any wider her tears would spill out from her eyes.
“I was just thinking…I know that we’re supposed to be going nowhere right now. No direction or anything. But since we’re already on the highway, on the road…do you think we could stop by Busan for a bit?” Jinri asked, all with a hopeful glint in her eyes. “I miss my mom and dad…” Her voice trailed off with a quiver of her lips.
“I think that’s fair,” Sunyoung said. She put her hand over Jinri’s hesitantly, but gave them a squeeze. “…And well-deserved.”
“We can get there by tonight, if you want. It’d be great to go to Busan. I’ve never been there,” Amber said.
Jinri wiped her eyes before she could even start crying. “Thanks,” she muttered. Amber could tell she felt a little silly for being so emotional- it was obvious from the start that she missed her home a lot, but she was always the type to hide it, in comparison to Sunyoung, who’d burst into tears when she felt homesick, and Victoria, who would just bust out in Mandarin. “Tonight would be nice.”
Amber could tell that Jinri was concerned for her from the look on her face in the rearview mirror.
“Are you sure you’re not tired yet, unnie?” she asked, her tone worried and giddy.
“I’m fine, besides, I like driving,” Amber answered her with a small reassuring smile. “I’m just a bit sore, but I’ll be okay.”
Sunyoung grinned at her. “You should let me drive -“
“No thanks,” Amber snorted. “I’d rather not be caught.”
“I brought my student’s permit,” Sunyoung insisted. “Just be in the passenger seat so you could be my supervisor or something.”
Amber stared at Sunyoung. “Maybe next time.”
Sunyoung responded by changing the song on Jinri’s iPod to Hate You. Amber laughed and sang along goodheartedly.
The song ended with Amber’s perfect English trailing off and Luna pressing the pause button, looking for another song to play. It was quiet when Jinri decided to whisper, hardly audible enough to hear.
“I’m sorry I’m so useless,” she said lamely, her back slumped over and her head between the two front seats.
Amber quirked an eyebrow at her in the rearview mirror and shared a worried glance with Sunyoung. “What are you talking about?”
Jinri bit her lip. “I don’t know, I can’t really do anything to help us get to Busan, and we’re going there because I wanted to, and I feel a bit selfish. And I don’t know…” Her voice suddenly shook, and she let out a small, humorless laugh. “…Even in f(x)…I’m pretty useless.”
“Oh, Jinri…” Sunyoung turned around and started crawling to the backseat, Amber slowing down the car to be safe. Sunyoung sat down on Jinri’s right, arms around her. “You’re not useless at all.”
Amber nodded. “You think we’d be f(x) without Choi Sulli?”
“You can use without my voice,” Jinri admitted dryly, slightly bitter.
Sunyoung bit her lip and shook her head. Her grip tightened on Jinri’s shoulder. “Your voice is lovely and your dancing is fine.”
“Not extraordinary -“
“That’s not the point, though,” Amber said. “It’s just…you. Your personality. You think f(x) would be f(x) without charming Sulli, pretty Sulli? Bright young Sulli?”
Jinri closed her eyes and kept silent.
“You’re never a burden, Sulli, Jinri. We want to go to Busan too. It’s a big help for us to have somewhere to go. In any other situation, you’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?”
Jinri’s lip twitched, then she cracked a smile. “You sound like my mom.”
“Well, I’m worried!” Amber cried, half relieved, half faux-annoyed. “I’ve never really heard you sound so…insecure.”
“Me neither,” Sunyoung said. Amber watched her grip tighten on Jinri’s shoulder in the mirror. “…I have to admit though, it’s pretty nice to know you, of all people, get insecure too.” Sunyoung smiled up at Jinri, who gave her a confused look.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sunyoung sighed and leaned back. “You seem so perfect all the time, you know? Like you know everyone likes you and those who don’t, don’t matter much to you. Confident. Self-aware.” Amber smiled.
Jinri crinkled her nose. “Nah, I think I’m just too lazy to react sometimes.”
They all burst into laughter and Amber pressed shuffle on Jinri’s K-Pop playlist for the fourth time that day, eyeing the way Jinri relaxed against Sunyoung’s loose grip around her waist.
As expected, Jinri was the first one out of the car, her finger trembling above the doorbell beside the gate of her parents’ house. She waited anxiously, eyes tearing up at her pounding heart.
A woman, plump, short, and pale like a porcelain doll, opened the gate. Jinri’s sobs grew louder when she threw her arms around the woman. “Mom! I miss you so much,” she screeched into her mother’s hair voice shaking.
Mrs. Choi’s eyes were wide, disbelieving and watery. “J-Jinri? Is this really you?”
Jinri let go and laughed lightly while wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.
“Why didn’t you call or anything? I didn’t make enough dinner!” Mrs. Choi cried out while shuffling towards where Amber and Sunyoung were standing to hug them as well, as if they were her own children. Amber was slightly taken aback but felt like it was a nice reminder of her own mother. “Well, let’s not stay out here. Come on in girls! Yah, Jinsoo, we have company!”
Mrs. Choi made more of her homemade bulgogi for dinner while the girls sat around Jinri’s dad, who was talking to them about the industry and his new favorite actresses. After dinner, Amber and Sunyoung excused themselves and headed towards Jinri’s room, where Mrs. Choi told them they could stay in for the night and they all had thrown their bags into. Amber watched Mr. Choi tickle Jinri from the corner of her eye and grinned, disappearing into the bedroom.
After setting out the flat mattresses and blankets despite Mrs. Choi insisting that she’d do it after cleaning the dishes, Amber and Sunyoung collapsed onto their pillows. When Amber put her head to the side, she was only six inches away from Sunyoung’s profile.
Her red hair was splayed on the white pillowcase, roots in need of a retouch, her eyes bright and shining under the warm light of a bright lamp at the corner of the room. She was such a nice shade of lightly tanned, her skin dewey and clear and perfect. Sunyoung looked way better without makeup, without the harshness of eyeliner and paleness of foundation. Amber liked the way her lips were curved, liked the way her short lashes stuck upwards.
Some people said that Sunyoung looked ordinary. Amber thought that among all the people she’s met, among the people who had the most perfect v-lines and the highest cheekbones, none of them looked so beautiful and bright with nothing but a small hint of a tired smile on their face.
Amber smiled to herself and forced herself to stand up.
“Let’s wash up first,” she said, watching Luna’s smile widen. Her heart did a little thing where she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
They played Monopoly Deal until they collapsed with their feet tangled among stray cards, Jinri still outside with her parents.
The sun was high up in the sky when Amber had awoken, streams of sunlight falling on her makeshift mattress beside the window of Jinri’s bedroom.
She could tell that Sunyoung and Jinri were already awake - there were giggles and soft whispers coming from the bed. It was surprising considering Sunyoung and Jinri weren’t exactly the closest in their group - most of the time it was Luna with her or Victoria and Jinri with Krystal. But it was kind of touching. At the same time, something churned in her stomach and she wasn’t sure what. She thought it might have been jealousy, since usually, she was the bridge that filled the gap between Sunyoung and Jinri - keeper of their secrets, respectively. But then she realized that she didn’t really feel left out, per say, and shrugged the feeling off.
She felt a surge of curiosity and listened in to their conversation.
“I think Joonmyun oppa’s really cute,” Sunyoung confessed. Amber watched her sigh and lean against the bed’s headboard. She smirked and sniggered into her pillow.
“But have you seen Jongin and Sehun dance together?” Jinri exclaimed, her voice a little muffled from half her head being under her comforter. “They’re really…really…um, good - really talented.”
Sunyoung nodded solemnly. “I can’t believe they’re younger than me.”
Jinri rolled around in her sheets, held Sunyoung’s hand absentmindedly, and asked, “Is it weird, though, that I haven’t had a crush on any guy in such a long time?”
Amber was unable to hide a snort.
Jinri instantly sat up and threw the pillow behind her head at the mattress at the foot of her bed. “You’re awake!” she screeched, a bit embarrassed, though Amber wasn’t really sure why. Jinri hopped off the bed and wrestled Amber, tickling her neck and sides.
Amber squealed uncharacteristically high. “Haven’t had a crush in a while? You point out basically every trainee and go ‘oh look he’s so cute’ -“ Jinri dug her fingers under Amber’s arms and Amber exploded into painful laughter.
Amber scrambled to the top of the bed and hugged Sunyoung frantically, fending off Jinri with her feet. Jinri finally captured Amber in her arms and they ended up in a giggly tangled mess of limbs and dyed hair.
Amber was still panting heavily when she faced Jinri. “We don’t have to leave tonight, you know, if you want to spend more time with your parents. We could always leave tomorrow or the day after that. We have more or less a week, anyway.”
Jinri smiled and shook her head - as much as she could with Sunyoung’s hand still buried in the crook above her shoulder. “We went on a roadtrip to travel, right? This was just a sleeping rest stop,” she said jokingly. “But no, really, I’m fine now. I’ve done what I wanted to come here for. We can go after lunch. My mom’s grilling some pork right now, and you don’t want to miss that.”
They left at four in the afternoon, car stocked up with packed dinner and a few boxes of soap.
“In case the soap in the hotels don’t smell good,” Mrs. Choi had said. Jinri looked at them with eyes that urged that it was better not to argue.
Jinri insisted to sit in the passenger seat with the window open, so her hair could go streaming behind her. She only closed it when they passed by a field full of cows.
“Cow shit,” she said as she crinkled her nose, giggling immaturely, matching the sweet sound of instrumental music from the radio. She was in a good mood.
She yawned and smiled. “I was only asleep for an hour,” she admitted to Amber, since Sunyoung was dead asleep in the backseat after trying to read her Bible on the moving vehicle. “I stayed up until five am talking to my parents and woke up at around seven to eat breakfast. Couldn’t help it - I missed that house so much.”
She fell asleep after complaining that the music on the radio was making her sleepy. Amber woke Sunyoung up by pulling a pillow from under her head to put under Jinri’s. She intended it - she wanted company.
“Stay up with me,” she said, pouting slightly.
Sunyoung laughed and her voice was a bit raw from just being woken up. Amber grinned a bit. She liked it when voices sounded like that. Sunyoung put her chin on the shoulder of the driver’s seat.
“What do you want to sing to?” she asked as she took her iPod out of the back pocket of her shorts.
At the rest stop, they woke Jinri up by spraying water on her via Amber’s mouth.
“Ngggh, gross,” Jinri whined sleepily, covering her face with her arms. Sunyoung was laughing to her heart’s content, voice a little raspy from singing too much.
“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” Amber poked her side, other arm wiping her mouth with her jacket sleeve. “time for dinner.”
“Dinner at nine pm?” Jinri complained.
“We couldn’t find any rest stops,” Sunyoung replied.
Dinner was homemade kimbap and soggy, cold bibimbap in plastic containers made by Jinri’s mother, which they ate huddled in the car. All they did at the actual rest stop was pee, and Amber bought some stuff from the convenience store. She handed out water bottles and lowered the rest of the plastic bag to under her seat, grinning to herself slightly.
When they finally found a hotel, Jinri instantly complained. “Why didn’t we just eat dinner here?”
“It’s eleven. I was starving,” Amber said, exhausted. Their hotel was expensive for just an overnight stay, but there were no others around except for some really questionable looking motels with aged, creepy looking men milling about.
“It’s better safe than sorry,” Sunyoung said gratefully while eyeing their hotel room’s mini chandelier. Amber mourned for their remaining allowance and Jinri bounced happily to the bathroom. Amber volunteered to be the last to shower.
“I’m a really nice friend,” she muttered under her breath when she finally got her turn, towel slung over her shoulder.
When she came out of the bathroom, Jinri was in the middle of Sunyoung’s legs, back facing Sunyoung, painting her toenails in horribly bright colors. Sunyoung was braiding Jinri’s thick hair into two fat French plaits. Something in Amber’s stomach did a little jig.
“Amber, put some clothes on,” Jinri laughed at her. She looked down at her sports bra and underwear and continued toweling her hair dry.
“As if you haven’t seen me naked,” she said and stuck her tongue out, using her toes to pick up a shirt from her open bag. After she settled into an old jersey and boxer shorts, she grabbed the plastic bag from the convenience store and jumped onto the bed, making the nail polish bottles nearly topple over.
Jinri shrieked at her. “Don’t bounce!”
Amber grinned and stuck her hand in the bag, ignoring Jinri who was poking her arm with her foot while putting the bottles on the nightstand. “You’ll never guess what I bought.”
Sunyoung looked at her, confused, snapping on the ties to the end of Jinri’s hair and letting go. Jinri snorted.
“Ice cream.”
“Better.”
“…Alcohol?”
Sunyoung looked scandalized as Amber nodded and pulled three bottle of soju out of the bag, along with three plastic shot glasses.
“H-how’d you buy that?” Sunyoung whispered loudly with her eyes wide. “You’re not even legal yet!”
Amber shrugged. “I look old. Either that or the cashier didn’t really care. I don’t know.” Amber could tell Sunyoung was put-off and hesitated. “Well, we don’t have to drink if you don’t want to -“
Sunyoung frowned. “Y-you guys go ahead -“
“It’s either you drink with us or we don’t drink at all,” Jinri said calmly, smiling, but not in a very intimidating way. “But if you don’t want to, we could always do other things. We can play cards and watch TV and talk and sleep.”
Amber was surprised at how sensitive Jinri was being, but didn’t let it show, and smiled instead. “She’s right, you know. We’re not doing it because it’s cool or anything. It’s just good ol’ fun,” she said while pulling away the shotglasses.
“No, it’s okay, really, don’t let me stop you or anything!”
“We insist,” Jinri urged, nudging Amber with her toe to put the bottle on the floor.
Sunyoung sighed and lowered her face into her pillow. Amber and Jinri shared a concerned glance.
When Sunyoung finally lifted her head, she looked bothered.
“Are you okay?” Amber asked, wondering if she should place a comforting hand on Sunyoung’s shoulder. She decided against it.
“It’s just…” she stammered, seeming frustrated with herself. She seemed to be looking for the right words. “I don’t know - I don’t mean to be such a goody two shoes,” she released a sigh and drooped her shoulders. “I hate how I care so much about things, you know? I would rather watch a movie than go out to a club. I can’t swear. I’ve never been interested in doing drugs, and I’ve never kissed anyone, much less hold their hand. The most I’ve rebelled was wanting to sing instead of becoming a doctor, and my parents were even supportive of that. I’ve never skinny-dipped, I’ve never smoked a cigarette. I live for good feedback and pats on my head and I’m called a teacher’s pet just because I like being liked.
“And I hate it, because I don’t feel like a normal teenager…like I’m backwards. I’m boring. I’m never going to live my life to the fullest, because I’m too scared to do things that would give me trouble, but isn’t that life? When you risk things? I don’t like risks.”
Amber gaped at Sunyoung’s flushed face, not really knowing what to say. She never really knew Sunyoung felt that way. She was constructing a feel good speech in her head about Sunyoung being a great person, but Jinri started talking first.
“You know,” Jinri said while reaching over to Amber, snatching a shot glass and one soju bottle out of her hold, “you shouldn’t care if people think you’re a good girl. Just be who you want to be, do the stuff you want to do.”
Sunyoung sighed and slowly nodded.
“So you know what you should do?” Jinri grinned at her, then screwed the top of the soju bottle off, pouring some into a glass. “You should drink to that.”
Amber widened her eyes and was about to slap Jinri’s arm (so much for sensitive, Amber thought) but stopped when Sunyoung actually nodded, grabbed it, and downed it in one go. Amber stared at Jinri, incredulous, and Jinri grinned at her widely in return.
Sunyoung was the first one to pass out, sprawled tightly against the headboard, shot glass still loose in her hand.
“Never knew she had it in her,” Amber hiccupped solemnly, pleasantly buzzed.
“You’re already tipsy! You and Sunyoung unnie are so weak,” Jinri laughed. Surprisingly, she had the highest tolerance out of the three of them.
Amber laughed along with her while putting her head on Sunyoung’s exposed thigh. “What you said to Sunyoung a while ago - that was really nice,” she slurred with a small smile. “Until you said we should drink - didn’t know you had it in you, either.”
“You know, hyung,” she smiled at the nickname, “Sunyoung unnie is a really great person. I just realized.”
Amber made a face in between a smirk and a grimace, not sure how to respond.
“You’re great too, don’t be jealous,” Jinri laughed again and suddenly, her face was inches away from Amber’s, lying on Sunyoung’s stomach. “And so am I, I think. We should just stick together.” Amber could smell the alcohol on her breath as she spoke.
“We should,” Amber said sleepily as she smiled. “We really should.”
She didn’t know if it was because she was partially drunk, but with Jinri’s breathing through her mouth against her cheek, so near her own lips while they were lying their heads on Sunyoung, life felt right, back on track. It felt like home.
Amber dreamt of Jinri’s face being close to hers, dreamt of Jinri’s voice humming in the background. She fell for her soft lips, her delicate, pretty face. But she fell for her blunt words and charming lethargy first. Fell for the way she rolled her eyes, the way she tucked her hair behind her ear, the way she would laugh without bothering to cover her mouth.
And when Amber was jolted into consciousness by that feeling of falling, there was Jinri, skin stark white against the tan of Sunyoung’s legs, hair coming out of their braids and making her look effortlessly beautiful.
Amber looked at the clock. It blared six thirty in the morning in large red numbers. She could sleep in for a bit. She slung an arm over Jinri’s shoulder and closed her eyes.
They left the hotel before eleven because twelve hours in the hotel room was expensive enough. “Then you should’ve just bought the seedy three hour room if you were going to be so cheap,” Jinri teased, and Sunyoung clicked her tongue at how inappropriate it sounded.
“You’re just hungover,” Amber said as she ruffled Sunyoung’s hair. Sunyoung groaned a bit and cradled her head in her hands in the passenger’s seat.”You should probably switch with Sulli, sit at the back.”
Jinri hummed lazily. “Nah, we can just both sit here,” she said as Sunyoung slammed the front door shut and stepped into the backseat. Jinri pulled Sunyoung closer and let her put her head on her shoulder. Amber felt a soft smile dawn on her lips and a somersault be done by her insides as she started up the engine.
They arrived at Seoul in four and a half hours.
“Let’s go to my house,” Sunyoung said after sleeping for a bit and taking some aspirin. “It’s just a few blocks from here and my parents are in Japan.”
Amber and Jinri agreed, and Amber drove according to the directions that Sunyoung dictated.
The car finally stopped in front of a fairly average-sized house, the gate only a head taller than Jinri. They rang the doorbell and the door was opened by a black-haired version of Sunyoung in baggy sweatpants and with a popsicle stick dangling from her lips.
“Jinyoung!” Sunyoung said as she threw her arms around her twin sister. Her sister’s eyes went wide in surprise and the stick that was in her mouth dropped to the floor.
“Sunyoung?” Jinyoung said in surprise, her arms tightening around her sister. “You’re here!”
After the twins’ small reunion, they all entered the small house. “I was actually going to sleep over at my, er, friend’s house today, but if you want me to stay -“
“It’s fine,” Sunyoung said and smiled softly. “You can go, I know you really want to. You can call him your boyfriend now, you know, I won’t tell mom and dad.”
Jinyoung released a sigh of relief and clapped a hand to Sunyoung’s back. “Thanks, they’d kill me.”
“You owe me one,” Sunyoung reminded her with a poke. Jinyoung rolled her eyes but nodded as she prepared a pot for dinner-making. Amber and Jinri shared a small awkward glance at just watching the sisters’ interaction and ended up bursting in shy giggles.
“What’s so funny?” Jinyoung asked them over her shoulder. The face she was making reminded Amber exactly of Sunyoung’s face when she once tried biting a sour lemon. She couldn’t stop laughing.
“Your face,” Sunyoung replied, grinning as she sat herself down at the dinner table.
“We have the same one,” Jinyoung said grimly. Jinri hugged Amber from behind to try to stop her shaking laughter.
It didn’t work.
Their night was filled with popcorn, barbeque-flavored Cheetos, and old cheesy drama movies. The three of them rolled around Sunyoung’s parents’ king-sized bed among crumbs and tears, the only source of illumination from the large screen in front of them.
“Make it stop,” Jinri bawled as Sunyoung pressed pause on the DVD player, the credits frozen on screen. Their tear-streaked faces were shining against the glow of the television screen.
“She just did,” Amber said while popping another Cheeto into her mouth.
“How,” Jinri said shakily as she wiped her eyes on the blankets, “are you not crying.”
Sunyoung shook her head amongst sniffles. “You sad, dead robot.”
“Hey, in my defense, my tears were all used up in the first movie,” Amber said with a frown.
Jinri rolled to her back and looked at Amber with a sigh, her swollen eyes striking against her makeup-free face. Amber frowned again because she felt something like indigestion stir in her stomach.
“How do you stay so…secure?” Jinri asked her all of a sudden, her eyes soft with curiosity. Amber furrowed her eyebrows while licking her fingers clean of flavored powder.
“What’re you talking about?”
Jinri shrugged and Sunyoung rolled onto her stomach, exactly the opposite of Jinri.
“You’re always so…contented,” Sunyoung answered for Jinri, her face in her hands. “You never really get angry at yourself or anything. Like you never get jealous. No issues at all.”
It was Amber’s turn to shrug. “I don’t really know. I don’t like getting jealous. I don’t like comparing myself to people. I don’t like comparing other people to each other, either.
“Like the two of you, for example,” Amber said as she sat up, deep in thought, “you’re both so different, you know? But you’re both really great. In totally different ways that not everyone might agree on, but there will always be people who appreciate it. Like, I appreciate you two, but for totally separate reasons. And I don’t want to like you because you’re better than someone else. I love you because you’re you.”
After a few seconds’ pause of Amber just staring into mid-air, she groaned to herself.
“These movies are making me a sap,” she complained as Sunyoung threaded her arms around her torso, pulling her down with them. Amber yelped at she landed right in between Sunyoung and Jinri, Sunyoung giving her a tight backhug and Jinri’s hair serving as a pillow for her head.
“That was sweet,” Jinri said dreamily, yawning near Amber’s face. Her smile was serene, her breathe smelling of cheese flavoring. When Amber squirmed, Jinri only threw an arm around her shoulder. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Sunyoung mumbled incoherent, her lips behind Amber’s ear. Amber felt cramped and hot, but she ignored it and whispered in reply instead.
“Good night.”
When they were about to leave Sunyoung’s house, Sunyoung made a detour around the car and pushed her way into the driver’s seat, insisting she needed practice. “Our dorm is literally fifteen minutes away,” she insisted. Amber finally let her when she promised to buy her bubble tea when she wanted it.
Sunyoung’s driving wasn’t as bad as Amber expected, maybe even better than Amber herself (but Amber disregarded it and just told Sunyoung she had done a fair job). She parked diagonal perfectly and just grinned at Amber as she stepped out of the car.
“We’re home,” Jinri singsang as she stepped out as well, stretching her arms upwards and yawning.
As Sunyoung pulled up Jinri’s backpack out of the car’s trunk and slung it around Jinri’s shoulder, Amber felt a pang of realization.
She pulled her gym bag by the strap, bumping up their apartment building stairs behind her, as she watched the two laugh and tease each other about things she wasn’t sure she understood. But it was obvious from the way their eyes glittered with tears from laughing a bit too hard and the way their hands were loosely interlaced, Sunyoung’s short fingers with Jinri’s only-slightly-longer, pale ones, that they were happy, and she literally had to choke back the want to throw her arms around them and kiss their cheeks in turn.
Comfort was Sunyoung and Jinri, with the large height difference, Sunyoung and Jinri, with the voices that don’t quite match, Sunyoung and Jinri, with their priceless smiles and giggles.
The dorm was quiet when Sunyoung pushed the door open, everything in the way they had left it. Not even the position of the remote control on the tabletop in front of the television had changed.
“Well,” Jinri snorted as she jumped on the couch. Sunyoung bounced beside her since their hands were still clasped around one another’s. “That was uneventful.”
“I thought that was fun,” Sunyoung said as she leaned her head on Jinri’s shoulder. Amber realized she should start expecting the unexpected from now on.
“I think we accomplished something,” Amber said as she watched Jinri lean her head down on top of Sunyoung’s, her cheek cushioned by Sunyoung’s hair. She felt her heart beat quick in her ears and her mind remind her that she was home.
a/n: because avages is an enabler and i love f(x) a lot, and i miss femslash.
and please forgive my word vomit because this is legit what this is.
i should start studying for college entrance exams but i did this instead. no regrets. i am obviously a bad student.
i made a playlist for this fic, maybe i will post it one of these days.
PS YOU SHOULD ALL ADD ME ON TWITTER I AM MORE ACTIVE ON THERE OBVS. @scarredknees_ hehe.