Such Wonderful Things Surround You
Title: Such Wonderful Things Surround You
Pairing: Irene/Wendy
Rating: PG
Length: 7,207
Summary: If Irene is a mermaid then Wendy is a far less majestic sea creature. At least they can live in the same ocean. (A very vague college musical!AU)
Warnings: brief exo and snsd appearances
A/N: Originally written for redeuvelvet.
“I’m dying. I’m so sorry to go like this. Tell my parents that I love them.”
“Seungwan, stop. It doesn’t even look like a sprain.”
“I hate to die like this. I had so much more of my life to give.”
“Seungwan, come on, it doesn’t look that bad, you’re not going to die.”
Considering Seungwan’s position on the floor, sprawled out on her back, in intense pain and with most likely every bone in her body broken, she imagines that it’s easy for Chanyeol to say that while he’s standing and uninjured.
About two minutes ago, when Seungwan was standing on the part of the ladder where it says ‘do not stand’, she was attempting to figure out why some of the lower light fixtures wouldn’t move when lighting production was working with them. She never got around to figuring out the issue because when Chanyeol moved from his spot at the base of the ladder Seungwan went flying. It was almost comical, except for the part when she landed too hard, rolling her ankle in the process.
“Honestly, Chanyeol, I think I’m already dead.” Seungwan groans. “No thanks to you, either. You’re taller than that stupid ladder anyway, why did you make me do climb up there?”
“Just get up already. People are starting to walk over here.”
Even though Chanyeol and Seungwan are in one of the corners of the stage, hidden by the huge red curtains that trail across the floor, their voices carry and now a few people are beginning to come over to where they are out of curiosity. Seungwan rolls over to her stomach and pushes herself off the ground, dusting off her clothes and trying to put her hair back in place as fast as possible.
“Is everything alright back here?” It’s Joohyun. She pops her head past the curtains and looks genuinely concerned. Seungwan hates herself. Of all the people who could’ve walked over, of course it has to be Joohyun.
In the year and a half that Seungwan has spent at this school, Bae Joohyun has been in at least one of her classes each semester and in every single theatre production that Seungwan has worked on. Seungwan has no problem with Joohyun. It's just that Joohyun is really pretty and talented and nice, but the problem is that she’s all of those things. It’s complicated. Not to mention the unfortunate fact that she seems to be everywhere Seungwan turns and Seungwan has yet to have an actual conversation with her that doesn’t leave her a flustered mess. They could be really good friends, they have a lot of mutual ones, but they never seem to be in the same place for longer than a few fleeting moments.
When the theatre department announced the next project they would be working on was The Little Mermaid, Seungwan was thrilled. Even if she doesn’t sing on stage ever since she had that vocal nodule scare, knowing how talented the cast is kept her in high hopes of an exciting production. She worked as stage manager on the last production, Othello, so her job was already claimed and allowed her to be part of the casting judges. The moment Joohyun auditioned Seungwan knew she would be the perfect Ariel. What she didn’t realize was how much time would be consumed trying to dodge one of the leads of the musical.
"It’s fine. We're fine. Thanks," Seungwan waves her hands around for a second, "We're all good. Totally, completely fine." Seungwan looks to Chanyeol for some help, but to no avail since he's busy looking at his phone. Seungwan walks farther away from Joohyun and closer to Chanyeol, grabbing his bicep and tugging him to her side. “Actually, everything is so fine that we’re just gonna go now.”
“But we still have to-” Chanyeol starts to say something about the light fixtures but before he can finish his sentence Seungwan grips his arm harder and pulls on him, cutting him off and pulling him away with as much strength she can.
Once Suengwan has dragged them off of the stage and through a doorway that leads into an adjoining hallway, Chanyeol tugs his arm back and gives her a strange look that she can’t really read. It looks kind of like he’s judging her but Seungwan passes it off as one of confusion.
“Before you ask,” Seungwan starts talking before Chanyeol can, “I was only saving us from getting in trouble with the ladder. You know any kind of incident makes Yixing and Hyoyeon think we’re taking the entire production as a joke.” She smiles widely, innocent and very forced, hoping Chanyeol will just drop the topic. He shoots her another unreadable look but doesn’t push it, simply rolling his eyes and pulling his phone back out, heading back in the direction of the stage doors. Seungwan almost reaches for his arm to make him stay, but decides that it’s better to let him go so that she can minimize any future embarrassment for the moment.
Seungwan walks down the hallway to the bathroom, meaning to spend a few minutes staring in the mirror and giving herself a pep talk, but she stops short when she opens the door and Joohyun is right in front of her. Joohyun’s hand is on the handle of the door from the inside, nails painted a pastel blue, and Seungwan’s hand is parallel to it on the other side, and technically they’re not even that close in proximity but Seungwan jerks her hand back, rushing past Joohyun as quickly as possible without making any contact, sliding into a bathroom stall and locking the door. If she can’t make it past this theatre production in one piece maybe she can ask if the track team needs a new addition. She’s safe in the stall now, but she hasn’t heard the bathroom door close yet. If Joohyun is still in the bathroom then-
“Are you alright?” Joohyun’s voice is soft and concerned. She’s probably genuine about it too, Seungwan thinks as she scoots further away from the stall door. Seungwan doesn’t deserve concern right now. With all the embarrassing stuff she’s done today all she deserves is to flush herself down the toilet she’s standing in front of right now.
Seungwan debates for a quick second. She could answer back and say, ‘oh yeah, I’m great! It’s just that you make me nervous and I don’t even know why and I can’t speak to you without melting into the floor, but thanks for the concern!’. Or she could stay completely silent even though Joohyun knows she’s there.
“I’m fine,” Seungwan chokes out, “I just gotta. You know. Bathroom.” She isn’t sure if she just heard Joohyun laugh or if she’s just imagining sounds, but every second is making her sweat.
“Oh, okay. Just making sure you’re okay.” Joohyun pauses like she’s unsure or something. “I’ll see you tomorrow at rehearsal, then?” It’s a question. Joohyun is asking Seungwan a question. Seungwan is hiding in a toilet stall. Optimal conditions.
“Sure,” squeaks out Seungwan. Sure is safe. Sure is basically half of a yes, leaving the possibility of not seeing her at all an option. It’s quiet for only a little bit longer, until Seungwan finally hears the bathroom door shut, meaning that Joohyun has left for good. Seungwan lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. There’s a whole month before the entire production ends. Three months before the semester is over. She’s guaranteed to encounter Joohyun a minimum of once more before then. Fantastic. She can make it out alive.
✿✿✿
Seungwan isn’t shy at all.
She’s confident, never second guessing herself or worrying about things after she’s done them. She’s a people pleaser at heart, and she can make just about anyone join her in conversation. Socializing isn’t just easy, it’s a specialty.
Seungwan could probably make a speech on the spot in front of everyone at the school, student body and staff included, but for some reason it’s different around Joohyun. If Seungwan is witty remarks and smooth conversations with everyone else, she’s broken sentences and blank thoughts with Joohyun. It’s an odd feeling. Seungwan blames it on the fact that Joohyun is so perfect she’s intimidating.
It’s definitely not a feeling she knows well, but there was a brief period of time when Seungwan had felt almost the same way about Chanyeol. When they first met in junior year of high school, she’d get butterflies whenever he said her name. It turned out that she only felt that way because Chanyeol was generally overwhelming, crowding into her space and finding a permanent spot in her life in a short time.
If she really thinks about it, the way she felt about Chanyeol is nothing in comparison to how she feels about Joohyun now. It was easy to get accustomed to Chanyeol once he toned down enough for Seungwan to see how friendly he was, but Joohyun is an anomaly compared to Chanyeol. Chanyeol is just her stupid best friend, and Seungwan isn’t sure that the relationship between her and Joohyun could ever transform into something close to that. She’s not even sure what she wants from Joohyun.
A good start would be the power to stop sweating whenever Joohyun gets within a 50 foot radius.
✿✿✿
“Isn't this great? The salty sea air, the wind blowing in your face---”
"Cut," Yixing swings his hands up dramatically, letting whatever paper he had in his hands drop to the floor. "This won't cut it, Baekhyun. I need to see some feeling." Yixing stomps over to Baekhyun and points to his chest, jabbing at him with his pointer finger. "Give me tear-jerking emotion."
“Honestly, Yixing,” Baekhyun swats at the finger in the middle of his chest, “I’ve said this same line over fifteen times today and there’s only so much emotion I can give when it comes to talking about the sea.”
“This is a production about the sea, Baekhyun.”
From the back of the auditorium when Seungwan is, she can hear Baekhyun and Yixing bickering over the stage directions, but she pays them no mind. Her job is to make sure the set built around the actors is in good condition, not to babysit Baekhyun and keep him out of trouble with anyone who disagrees with him.
“If they keep arguing over what to do, I’ll never get to practice my lines on stage.”
At the sound of a new voice, Seungwan whips her head to the direction of the noise, unaware that anyone was even near her.
“I mean, maybe if they both knew what they were doing this wouldn’t take so long,” Seungwan’s stomach flips and she can’t think of anything to say, suddenly drawing a blank on all thoughts she’s ever had.
“Uh, yeah, I know,” Seungwan grips the edge of her seat, struggling to form a coherent sentence that has even a semblance of meaning. “You’re, uh, totally right.”
If Seungwan lived in a world that was fair to her, she would not be embarrassing herself like the way she is now. Since nothing is fair and the world is out to get her, she’s not only embarrassing herself, but embarrassing herself in front of Joohyun. ‘
Seungwan is so busy sweating and scrambling for something else to say that she doesn’t even notice as Joohyun scurries away, probably to get on stage and intervene in Baekhyun and Yixing’s argument.
Normally, Seungwan isn’t like this. She’s cool. She’s collected. But. It’s always been… different with Joohyun. Seungwan has never managed to speak more than one solid sentence to Joohyun without forgetting how to speak. And it’s not like she hasn’t tried. She spent most of her first year trying, and failing, to be friends with Joohyun. Joohyun has always been quiet and reserved, only talking to people she’s been close with.
“Did I just see you talking to Joohyun?” Another new voice startles Seungwan again, but this time it’s only Seulgi, who’s got a pack of candy in one hand, and a bottle of water in the other. “Scoot over, I wanna sit.”
“Not like it matters anyway, I don’t even know what I said to her.” Seungwan is whining, but she can’t help it. She’s still getting over her embarrassment. “And isn’t candy and water counterproductive?” She scoots over, giving Seulgi less than half of the seat but enough for her to fit.
“You’re only saying that because you want me to share.”
Seungwan isn’t facing Seulgi head on but she knows that the girl next to her is pouting. Unfair. She should be the only one allowed to pout right now. She lets the conversation hang for a second before blurting out, “OK. Keep asking me about her.” She elbows Seulgi in the ribs, softly jabbing at her a few times to really get the point across but to also give the faint allusion of someone dejected
“If we weren’t both a part of the drama club there would be no possible excuse for you to be this dramatic in my presence, you know.” Seulgi hands over the candy, with only a few pieces left in the pack, clearly the ones she doesn’t like. “So what exactly is the deal with you and her? Are you like arch enemies? Or am I completely wrong on this? Is there a reason you all have the same friends but never talk to each other?”
“We’re not arch enemies.”
“Okay. So you’re....?”
Seungwan knows the obvious answer to that is ‘nothing’, but she wants it to not be nothing so badly that she can’t even say it out loud. “It’s complicated.” The look Seulgi gives her in response to that shows that she does know that they aren’t enemies at all, but Seungwan doesn’t have the heart in her to say anything else.
✿✿✿
When Seungwan walks into the drama room, the atmosphere is tense and she can almost see a cloud of guilt over Baekhyun’s head making its way around the room to rain on everyone else. Knowing Baekhyun, this probably means he’s sick again. If there’s anything Baekhyun can do without failure, it’s getting sick whenever he’s directly needed for a rehearsal. If he wore a coat out in the cold, played less video games and spent less time shouting through a microphone at other homebodies over the internet, maybe his voice would be in better condition.
Even though Baekhyun is sending off gloomy vibes on one side of the room, Seulgi and Sooyoung are in a corner talking animatedly, probably going through some of their respective lines as Sebastian and Flounder. Seungwan slips in past everyone shooting death glares through Baekhyun and makes her way over to the two girls. “Hey, fish folk. What’s the deal with Baekhyun?”
Seulgi makes a face and scrunches up her nose. “First of all, the name is Horatio Thelonious Ignatius Crustaceous Sebastian. Second of all, our amazing lead has gone and lost his voice again. Big surprise.”
“It’s really bad this time, too. I have no idea how it’s possible to get so bad in just a few days. It was only a bit scratchy the other day.” Sooyoung is still talking in her Flounder voice, but realizes it and switches out of it mid-sentence.
"How does Yixing expect him to run lines today if all that's coming out of his mouth are various tones of frog croaks? I thought Ariel was supposed to be the one to lose her voice, not Prince Eric." Seulgi and Sooyoung laugh at the joke, but Seungwan is more occupied with the current problem. Hyoyeon will probably end up asking her to fix this, even though a situation like this has nothing to do with Seungwan's title as stage manager.
Hyoyeon walks over a second later with a grin on her face that can't be anything other than trouble. "Seungwan! Just the person I've been looking for."
"Listen. Hyoyeon, I know you think I can fix this but I have nothing to do with Baekhyun's lack of self-preservation."
"I want you to run Baekhyun's lines for the day," Hyoyeon says without missing a beat. Her bright grin has turned into a pleading face. Next step is puppy eyes.
"Uh. I can't do that." Obviously Seungwan knows the lines, anything Disney is kind of her thing and she may or may not have been pouring over the script as if she was part of the cast. But. There's no way she's standing in Baekhyun's place to run lines with Joohyun. It's not going to happen.
“Great!” Hyoyeon claps her hands together and her pleading face turns back into an even wider grin in a split second like she knows she’s already won. “Grab a script and head out to the stage. All I want you to do is read off his lines so that Joohyun has someone to work with. She’s not even talking for these, so I just need you to work together to get all the timing right. You can do that, right?”
Obviously not. “Sure. I’ll manage.” She’s not going to manage this very well at all, but if there’s one thing she can do as part of the theatre department, it’s acting like she’s got in under control. Past experiences have proved against that, but this is more serious. The rest of the crew and cast will be watching her, scrutinizing her every move even if she’s only a temporary fill in.
As soon as Hyoyeon walks away Sooyoung and Seulgi are standing next to Seungwan. Sooyoung places a hand on Seungwan’s forearm, looking at her with something resembling pity. Bless Sooyoung’s heart. She probably thinks the reason Seungwan is so reluctant to read lines is because she hasn’t read them before.
“It’s okay, Seungwan, you’ll do perfectly fine,” Sooyoung gives her an encouraging smile and uses the hand that isn’t on Seungwan’s arm to pat her on the back.
Seulgi shoots her two thumbs up. “Sooyoung is right. Plus, if anything goes wrong Joohyun will be there to help you.”
After this, Seungwan is terminating her friendship with Seulgi. But first, she needs to make it out of this alive. She’s got this.
Exiting the drama room and going out onto the stage, Seungwan sees that Joohyun is already out in the auditorium. She’s talking to Hyoyeon and Yixing off to one of the sides of the stage and has the script in her hands, probably clarifying something again because it’s in her nature to be as meticulous as possible. The way she’s leaning over the book has her hair falling to the side in soft waves, gleaming under the strong stage lights. Seungwan is trying to focus on Joohyun’s hair and not drift her eyes any lower to the pretty pale pink skirt she’s wearing.
Some of the other actors are sitting around in the auditorium seats, noses buried in their scripts or scrolling through their phones. Seungwan spots Chanyeol in the audience chatting with animated hand gestures to Taeyeon and Kyungsoo. They’re not paying much attention to him, and only nodding along occasionally to appease how eager he is about whatever story he’s telling. Seungwan figures it’s best to make a move while Chanyeol is distracted so that she can avoid him shouting out her name and turning her into a deer in headlights.
She walks across the stage and down the little steps that lead off the stage over to where Joohyun is standing with Hyoyeon and Yixing, being careful to maneuver her way around Joohyun so that they aren’t standing close together, but close enough so it doesn’t look like she’s awkwardly lingering around their little circle. They all move their attention from the book Joohyun is holding to look at Seungwan. Joohyun has a small smile on her face that makes her look like an angel and Seungwan has to will herself to look at Hyoyeon and Yixing’s stony faces to calm her heart.
“Are you ready now? It’s not a lot of work, really. You don’t even have to put emotion into it. It’s not like Baekhyun does it when he’s meant to, either.” Yixing cuts his eyes at Baekhyun, who rolls his eyes and mumbles something to himself.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Seungwan answers back, holding up the script she picked up and waving it a little in the air. “What part are we doing, by the way?”
“We’re doing the dinner scene so Kibum can work singing ‘Les poissons’ and Seulgi can work on not laughing while he’s singing it. You’ll mostly just be reading lines so that Joohyun can get a better feel for the timing of things.” Hyoyeon and Yixing look a little more relaxed now that things seem to be under their control.
In order to make set crew’s lives a little easier, the scene they’re about to do has the stage cut in half, one side for Ariel, Eric, and Grimsby at dinner, and the other side for Chef Louis and Sebastian. Joohyun and Seungwan walk up and over to the side of the stage they need to be on to join Minseok, who’s playing Grimsby, by the makeshift dinner table until the real one is brought in. The short walk there doesn’t feel too awkward, even though it should because Seungwan is keeping a careful 3 feet between them as they walk.
“Are you ready?” Joohyun is whispering to her. Seungwan takes a second to notice since she’s sure that not only a second ago Minseok was telling Joohyun a joke that had her laughing so hard she had to cover her mouth. Minseok isn’t even that funny. But. Seungwan finds a surprising bit of courage and turns to face Joohyun. The stage lights seem brighter than they were a moment ago, and the brightness of Joohyun’s smile is ten times stronger than how it usually looks. Seungwan coughs. “Ready if you are.”
It doesn’t go as badly as Seungwan thinks it will. When Soonkyu-as-Carlotta ushers Joohyun-as-Ariel into the makeshift dining room and the first words Seungwan has to say are ‘you look wonderful’, she doesn’t even choke on her spit or stumble on her words. When the three of them are sat at the table and Joohyun mimes combing her hair with a fork, she looks directly at Seungwan, crossing her eyes and making a squeak of laughter escape from her.
When the lights on their side of stage dim so that Chef Louis can sing, Joohyun taps Seungwan’s shoe with hers, trying to get her attention. She shoots her two thumbs up and it looks like she’s mouthing something close to, “not bad at all”. Seungwan wishes that they didn’t have to finish the scene after this because this is a moment she needs to file into the notes section of her phone. She gives Joohyun a smile that doesn’t show any teeth because if she opened her mouth right now she’d probably smile wide enough for her jaw to pop.
They finish the whole scene without anything exploding or being set on fire, which is ten times better than Seungwan expected. It’s almost amazing, how in a single rehearsal she’s managed to look Joohyun in the eye and actually speak to her, even if more than ninety-five percent of it was spent acting as a character. It’s progress. Seungwan is on top of the world, feeling like she’s finally getting somewhere. When she gets off the stage to go and talk to Sooyoung and Seulgi, Joohyun is standing there with them. As Seungwan gets closer she catches the tail end of their conversation.
“Yeah, it’s rough for him. It’s pretty bad for me too, to be honest. I feel like we’re only going backwards at this point. Only a miracle could fix this.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Seulgi says. “Maybe Seungwan could help you out since she knows so much.” Seulgi reaches for one of Seungwan’s hands, trying to tug her closer so it looks less like she’s eavesdropping and more like she is a participant in the conversation. The conversation which she has no clue is about. A second ago it almost sounded like Joohyun was talking about a boy problem. If Seulgi has just pulled her into a situation like this right after her first successful Joohyun interaction, there will be a real problem.
Joohyun flips her hands up from her sides to shake them in unison; shaking her head as well and making her hair swish from side to side but never lose hold. “I couldn’t ask of that. I don’t want to make it any harder on the rest of the cast and crew. Baekhyun and I will figure it out.”
Are Baekhyun and Joohyun dating or something? Seungwan still has no idea what’s going on. If Baekhyun is dating Joohyun and didn’t say anything she’s never going to speak to him again. Then again, he was trying to get Taeyeon to go on a date with him last week. Maybe Joohyun is in a tragic love triangle with Baekhyun and Taeyeon. Maybe Seungwan should tune back into what they’re all saying.
“Our Seungwan would help anybody with anything, it’s really not a bother,” Sooyoung chimes in. Seungwan hasn’t said a word yet, but she’s thinking about helping Joohyun even if she doesn’t know what with. She’d help her even if it was to salvage love between her and Baekhyun.
She finds herself speaking without meaning to, blurting out the first thing to come to mind. “I can help you.”
“Really?” Joohyun looks shocked.
“Absolutely! The closer we get to the end of this production the more Hyoyeon says I should offer my services to all in need.” If this all goes wrong, Seungwan is blaming Hyoyeon.
“You really don’t have to help me. I’m sure I’ll manage, but I just really need to go over the scenes I have with Baekhyun and his voice is so gone right now I don’t want to bother him.” So it’s definitely not a romance issue. Seungwan can deal with that, except now she’s set herself up for failure again.
It’s not like she’s going to refuse now, either. It’s just overwhelming. The entire time she spent being afraid of trying to befriend Joohyun was clearly wasted, because there’s nothing frightening about her. She’s constantly sweet and sincere, so Seungwan isn’t too sure what it was she was afraid of in the first place. Maybe it was the fear of not being good enough to be friends with her. Then again, Seulgi and Sooyoung are doing it well enough.
“Yeah, I can do that. I’m always up for reading over the script. I probably know it better than Baekhyun, too.”
Joohyun smiles, “I really appreciate it. Do you think you could come over to mine later and help me?”
“Uh,” Seungwan stammers out. “I could-"
“Great! Here, put your number in my phone and I’ll text you later,” Joohyun reaches into her bag and pulls out her phone, handing it over to Seungwan. “I have to tutor someone right now, but it shouldn’t take too long.”
Moving on autopilot, Seungwan types her number into her phone, handing it back without even realizing the weight of this. Not too long ago, she wouldn’t have been able to look in Joohyun’s direction for fear of making accidental eye contact. And here she is now, a new member of Joohyun’s phone contacts. Joohyun says a quick bye to Sooyoung and Seulgi, and then she’s gone.
✿✿✿
Seungwan pushes it out of her mind until she gets a text from an unknown number.
‘i’m free now! just knock three times so i know it’s you :) :)’
Seungwan expected Joohyun’s texts to be perfect, with a lot of punctuation and no smiley faces, but this is even better. Everything Joohyun does manages to be cute. She’s obviously noticed it before, in small things like how Joohyun taps at the side of her head when she’s thinking hard, or how she’s never late, even if that means arriving on the minute.
Seungwan rolls out of her comfy, safe sanctuary of a bed and searches for some shoes so that she can go over to Joohyun’s. She’s not sure if she should bring something other than her script, but that just seems unnecessarily presumptive so she only shoves her phone in one of her back pockets, grabs the script, and leaves the room. Walking to the other room is a challenge because it’s in another building and she only vaguely remembers where Joohyun told her to go. She’d gotten too excited and accidentally deleted the text, but there was no way she was going to ask for her to resend it. She gets to where she thinks the room is and knocks exactly three times.
Thankfully, when the door opens Joohyun is the one standing in front of her. She’s not wearing the pink skirt she was earlier, instead in worn in sweatpants. Her hair is in a messy ponytail and Seungwan isn’t staring or anything, but she can see her eyeliner smudged a little at the corner of her eyes. She looks so cozy and cute that Seungwan almost tells her. She doesn’t, but chokes out a, “Hey.”
“Hey, you found the room without any trouble, right? I always forget which hall to turn down when I get off the elevator.” Joohyun is leaning on the frame of her doorway but suddenly moves off of it, reaching for Seungwan’s wrist. “Come inside, there’s no need to stay out in the hall.” She tugs on Seungwan’s arm and it’s not a hard pull but Seungwan finds herself moving forward automatically like they do friendly things like this all the time. She rarely lets Chanyeol or Seulgi get away with pulling at her arms and they’re her closest friends, but it somehow it doesn’t bother her when Joohyun does it.
The room is clean, as expected. The idea of mess doesn’t seem to be something thought of in this room so Seungwan wonders how she’s standing in it. One corner of the room has a desk and she assumes that’s where they’ll be going because Joohyun’s script is sat open along with a few other books. She stops herself from squeaking out an unflattering noise when Joohyun leads her over to her bed and motions for her to sit down.
“Is it okay if we don’t read the script right now? I know that’s basically why you’re here but I wanted a second opinion on something.”
“Uh,” Seungwan articulates. “Go ahead. I’m all ears.” And probably all red like a ripe tomato.
“Don’t laugh at me, but I was hoping you’d tell me how I sound singing ‘Part of Your World’? I just feel like I’ve been practicing it so much it doesn’t even sound like how it should.”
“I would never laugh at you,” Seungwan says. Joohyun probably doesn’t understand how true that statement is. She can’t believe Joohyun is worried about Seungwan laughing at her when she thinks everything that she does is amazing.
Joohyun sings and Seungwan may be biased, but it sounds flawless. She has a soft talking voice, and her singing voice shows that but it’s exactly right for the song. She’s the perfect Ariel. Her voice never strains nor does it waver when she holds out a note. Seungwan can only imagine how many times she’s sung this for her to think that it doesn’t sound right. When she finishes Seungwan claps, hoping that’s good enough to be the approval Joohyun wanted.
“You sound amazing,” Seungwan says.
“Thank you,” Joohyun replies with her hands covering her eyes. She can’t possibly be embarrassed at the compliment. Seungwan is the one who is supposed to be perpetually mortified, not her. “Don’t you think there’s something weird with it, though?”
“It honestly sounded perfect to me. Your voice is beautiful.” Since Seungwan made it over here without falling into a dark abyss, she might as well take advantage of the moment. Who knows the next time she’ll feel this courageous.
“And what about me?” Joohyun says it so fast and quiet that Seungwan isn’t sure if she heard correctly. Her hands are still over her eyes so Seungwan can’t gauge the level of seriousness. Joohyun probably means her emoting and gestures, which are just as important as voice quality.
“I mean, your eyes were closed so it was hard to tell. But, you seem to do fine when you’re on stage so I don’t think you need to worry.” Stage Manager Seungwan is in full force right now.
“No, I mean,” Joohyun is worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “I mean about me in general.”
She can go two ways with this. She can tell Joohyun that she thinks she’s practically in love with everything she does, or she could tell her constructive criticism as professional Stage Manager Seungwan. She chooses the latter option. “I think you’ll do fine on stage. There’s no need to worry, you’re one of the best we have for this.”
Joohyun looks exasperated and flustered and she lets out a sigh expressing that. “No, I mean like. Not in a theatre way. Just me.”
Seungwan isn’t prepared for this. She prepared herself to answer a million different questions, and not a single one has her ready to answer this. Maybe this is a joke set up by Seulgi, but Seungwan doesn’t think she’d be cruel enough to do something like this to her. This is real life and Joohyun is expecting an answer and she’s not even sure if she knows the answer herself.
“I think you’re pretty cool?” Seungwan says. It comes out as a question and it’s not a very convincing one.
“Okay,” Joohyun replies. She moves to sit on the bed next to Seungwan, but they’re not sitting very close and for the first time since Seungwan has been there it feels awkward. Joohyun has her hands in her lap and she’s twisting the ring on her pinky finger around. “Just ‘pretty cool?’”
It’s now or never, Seungwan supposes. “I think you’re more than pretty cool. Like. The coolest.” Cool isn’t the word she wants to say but it would probably be too forward to say that she thinks she’s beautiful and sweet and charming and a real life doll. She’s trying not to make it weird in case she’s reading this wrong. It feels like Joohyun is trying to get her to confess which makes no sense. Why would she just bring it up out of nowhere?
“Do you like me?”
Well. If Seungwan was worried about being too forward, there’s no way she can beat this. She gulps, and says softly, “I do like you. Everyone likes you. You’re very likeable.”
“Seungwan,” Joohyun cuts her off. Her voice is even softer than it was just now even though it’s just them in the room. In the moments before she speaks the room feels too hot, like there’s no air and if Seungwan takes a breath then it’ll make the room explode. “I’m being serious right now.” She takes one of her hands out of her lap and places it on the bed in the space between where they’re sitting. It’s like she’s reaching out to her but it’s such a shy move Seungwan can’t tell. Seungwan looks at her and she’s staring at the lone hand in her lap, but then she looks up and makes eye contact with her.
Usually, she would do whatever possible to avoid any eye contact with Joohyun, but it’s hard to look away from her now. She’s as serious as she’s ever seen her, their eyes are locked, and it’s just a waiting game to see who speaks first. Seungwan bites the bullet. “I like you more than most people. And not in the same way I like most people either.” She gulps, moves one of her own hands closer to where Joohyun’s is sitting still on the bed.
“Don’t get mad,” Joohyun starts to say, “But Seulgi may have mentioned it to me.” Seungwan winces. She knew Seulgi had something to do with this. “I like you too.” Seungwan’s eyes widen comically and Joohyun laughs, dissipating the tense mood. “I think you’re pretty cool, too.”
It feels surreal, how she’s here in Joohyun’s room, on her bed, and seconds away from holding her hand. It’s blowing her mind how Joohyun is reciprocating these confusing feelings. She’s still not sure if she knows exactly how she feels about her yet, but the feelings are all good ones that make her want to hold on to Joohyun and never let her go.
Joohyun makes the next move and holds onto her hand, clasping it in hers and using the grip to scoot herself closer to Seungwan. “I think it’s adorable how you think I’m intimidating when I’ve always been too shy to talk to you,” Joohyun says. She’s intertwining her fingers with Seungwan’s, and because the room is a little cold it feels so much nicer to have their hands touching like this. “I wish we spent less time avoiding each other and more time holding hands.”
“Same,” Seungwan breathes out. She’s still getting used to this. She thinks that she could really get used to this. She feels herself getting closer to Joohyun and it’s like autopilot for her, the way it seems to always be when they’re near each other. “I feel like an idiot for hiding from you,” Seungwan laughs.
“Then we should make up for all the lost time, right?” Joohyun says, her eyes flicking down to Seungwan’s mouth and then back up to her eyes. It seems to be inevitable, the way they keep gravitating closer, moving in accordance to each other. They’re so close now that Seungwan can see Joohyun’s separate eyelashes and all the places where her makeup has smudged from wearing it all day. It’s nerve wracking to be so close, but there’s no way she’s going to jerk away.
She can’t tell who closes the gap, but suddenly they’re kissing, and it’s so soft and tentative that she feels her heart tug. Of course Joohyun would approach kissing the way she does everything else, treading lightly with a bit of unsureness until she can do it confidently. As she becomes surer of herself, Joohyun takes her free hand and places it on Seungwan’s neck, bringing them even closer and intensifying the kiss. Seungwan’s heart is racing and she wants to keep this moment forever, drowning in the feeling of affection she feels surging for Joohyun.
It’s Joohyun who pulls away first, but she doesn’t move far, staying close enough that their foreheads are touching and the hand on Seungwan’s neck doesn’t move. Seungwan can see that she’s smiling and it makes her smile, too. It feels so satisfying for this to be mutual. She would have never imagined the day would end like this. She should send Seulgi a thank you fruit basket.
Now really isn’t the time to think about Seulgi, because in front of her is a smiling Joohyun whose mouth is red from kissing and face is flushed from their recent escapade. She’s still figuring out what it is she feels for Joohyun, but all of the words she can think of are positive, ranging from happy, to protective, and even enamored. She’s got Joohyun in her arms and she doesn’t plan on letting go anytime soon.
She moves her head back when she sees that Joohyun is giggling. “Why are you laughing? Am I a bad kisser?”
“No,” Joohyun laughs out. “This is so inappropriate right now, but I can’t stop thinking about how you’re ten times better than Baekhyun”
Well. It’s better than what she was expecting her to say. Baekhyun might as well hand his role as Prince Eric over to her.
Then again, she doesn’t want anything other than what she has right now. Everything is perfect.
✿✿✿
~Bonus~
Everyone is rushing around them, shouting out last minute demands and asking for the location of missing items, but it doesn’t disturb them. Opening day is always chaos behind the scenes, but the chaos is a necessity to make things run in harmony. Seungwan reaches up to straighten out the red wig Joohyun has on. She’s dressed in full costume now, and it looks great on her. It may be because the costume director Tiffany has a soft spot for Joohyun, but the outfit looks like it’s tailored for her every single move.
“You look like better than any other Ariel I’ve ever seen,” Seungwan tells her.
“Of course you think that, silly, you’re her girlfriend,” a voice chirps from behind her. It’s Sooyoung, who’s fumbling with the fin on top of her head that is designed to make her look more authentic as a fish.
“No,” Seungwan counters, “I’m saying that because it’s true. She looks like the model mermaid.”
The goofy grin and slight red of Joohyun’s cheeks makes Seungwan want to shower her with a million more compliments, but she should probably stop distracting her before she has to go on stage. Seungwan holds one of Joohyun’s hands in hers, tangling their fingers together and giving it a squeeze, hoping that can convey how happy she is for her right now.
“You’re gonna kill it out there,” Seungwan whispers in her ear so that Sooyoung doesn’t make fun of her for continuing to give pep talks.
Before Joohyun can reply, Hyoyeon appears out of thin air, ready to collect Joohyun so that she can get ready to go onstage. They both know it’s best not to test Hyoyeon’s patience so Joohyun gives Seungwan a quick kiss on the cheek and squeezes her hand back before she follows Hyoyeon’s waving arms. She never has to say much for Seungwan to know what feelings she’s trying to convey. Lately a lot of the unspoken words have felt a lot like love, but neither of them has said it yet.
Seeing Joohyun out on stage and doing her best in front of hundreds of people has her heart swelling up with the fondest of feelings. It does feel a lot like love.
Seungwan does have an actual job as stage manager, so she can’t stand around and monitor all of Joohyun’s scenes, but she catches whatever she can. The moment that gets her to stop in her tracks and ignore the crew around her is when Joohyun sings ‘Part of Your World’. It brings her back to that night in Joohyun’s room when they didn’t even know each other well enough to consider themselves friends. Off to her side, she hears Chanyeol stumble into a low sitting set piece and swear loudly, but she’s entranced by Joohyun on stage to pay him any attention.
The only thing she can think of as she watches Joohyun sing her heart out is how glad she is that she’s part of her world now.
Pairing: Irene/Wendy
Rating: PG
Length: 7,207
Summary: If Irene is a mermaid then Wendy is a far less majestic sea creature. At least they can live in the same ocean. (A very vague college musical!AU)
Warnings: brief exo and snsd appearances
A/N: Originally written for redeuvelvet.
“I’m dying. I’m so sorry to go like this. Tell my parents that I love them.”
“Seungwan, stop. It doesn’t even look like a sprain.”
“I hate to die like this. I had so much more of my life to give.”
“Seungwan, come on, it doesn’t look that bad, you’re not going to die.”
Considering Seungwan’s position on the floor, sprawled out on her back, in intense pain and with most likely every bone in her body broken, she imagines that it’s easy for Chanyeol to say that while he’s standing and uninjured.
About two minutes ago, when Seungwan was standing on the part of the ladder where it says ‘do not stand’, she was attempting to figure out why some of the lower light fixtures wouldn’t move when lighting production was working with them. She never got around to figuring out the issue because when Chanyeol moved from his spot at the base of the ladder Seungwan went flying. It was almost comical, except for the part when she landed too hard, rolling her ankle in the process.
“Honestly, Chanyeol, I think I’m already dead.” Seungwan groans. “No thanks to you, either. You’re taller than that stupid ladder anyway, why did you make me do climb up there?”
“Just get up already. People are starting to walk over here.”
Even though Chanyeol and Seungwan are in one of the corners of the stage, hidden by the huge red curtains that trail across the floor, their voices carry and now a few people are beginning to come over to where they are out of curiosity. Seungwan rolls over to her stomach and pushes herself off the ground, dusting off her clothes and trying to put her hair back in place as fast as possible.
“Is everything alright back here?” It’s Joohyun. She pops her head past the curtains and looks genuinely concerned. Seungwan hates herself. Of all the people who could’ve walked over, of course it has to be Joohyun.
In the year and a half that Seungwan has spent at this school, Bae Joohyun has been in at least one of her classes each semester and in every single theatre production that Seungwan has worked on. Seungwan has no problem with Joohyun. It's just that Joohyun is really pretty and talented and nice, but the problem is that she’s all of those things. It’s complicated. Not to mention the unfortunate fact that she seems to be everywhere Seungwan turns and Seungwan has yet to have an actual conversation with her that doesn’t leave her a flustered mess. They could be really good friends, they have a lot of mutual ones, but they never seem to be in the same place for longer than a few fleeting moments.
When the theatre department announced the next project they would be working on was The Little Mermaid, Seungwan was thrilled. Even if she doesn’t sing on stage ever since she had that vocal nodule scare, knowing how talented the cast is kept her in high hopes of an exciting production. She worked as stage manager on the last production, Othello, so her job was already claimed and allowed her to be part of the casting judges. The moment Joohyun auditioned Seungwan knew she would be the perfect Ariel. What she didn’t realize was how much time would be consumed trying to dodge one of the leads of the musical.
"It’s fine. We're fine. Thanks," Seungwan waves her hands around for a second, "We're all good. Totally, completely fine." Seungwan looks to Chanyeol for some help, but to no avail since he's busy looking at his phone. Seungwan walks farther away from Joohyun and closer to Chanyeol, grabbing his bicep and tugging him to her side. “Actually, everything is so fine that we’re just gonna go now.”
“But we still have to-” Chanyeol starts to say something about the light fixtures but before he can finish his sentence Seungwan grips his arm harder and pulls on him, cutting him off and pulling him away with as much strength she can.
Once Suengwan has dragged them off of the stage and through a doorway that leads into an adjoining hallway, Chanyeol tugs his arm back and gives her a strange look that she can’t really read. It looks kind of like he’s judging her but Seungwan passes it off as one of confusion.
“Before you ask,” Seungwan starts talking before Chanyeol can, “I was only saving us from getting in trouble with the ladder. You know any kind of incident makes Yixing and Hyoyeon think we’re taking the entire production as a joke.” She smiles widely, innocent and very forced, hoping Chanyeol will just drop the topic. He shoots her another unreadable look but doesn’t push it, simply rolling his eyes and pulling his phone back out, heading back in the direction of the stage doors. Seungwan almost reaches for his arm to make him stay, but decides that it’s better to let him go so that she can minimize any future embarrassment for the moment.
Seungwan walks down the hallway to the bathroom, meaning to spend a few minutes staring in the mirror and giving herself a pep talk, but she stops short when she opens the door and Joohyun is right in front of her. Joohyun’s hand is on the handle of the door from the inside, nails painted a pastel blue, and Seungwan’s hand is parallel to it on the other side, and technically they’re not even that close in proximity but Seungwan jerks her hand back, rushing past Joohyun as quickly as possible without making any contact, sliding into a bathroom stall and locking the door. If she can’t make it past this theatre production in one piece maybe she can ask if the track team needs a new addition. She’s safe in the stall now, but she hasn’t heard the bathroom door close yet. If Joohyun is still in the bathroom then-
“Are you alright?” Joohyun’s voice is soft and concerned. She’s probably genuine about it too, Seungwan thinks as she scoots further away from the stall door. Seungwan doesn’t deserve concern right now. With all the embarrassing stuff she’s done today all she deserves is to flush herself down the toilet she’s standing in front of right now.
Seungwan debates for a quick second. She could answer back and say, ‘oh yeah, I’m great! It’s just that you make me nervous and I don’t even know why and I can’t speak to you without melting into the floor, but thanks for the concern!’. Or she could stay completely silent even though Joohyun knows she’s there.
“I’m fine,” Seungwan chokes out, “I just gotta. You know. Bathroom.” She isn’t sure if she just heard Joohyun laugh or if she’s just imagining sounds, but every second is making her sweat.
“Oh, okay. Just making sure you’re okay.” Joohyun pauses like she’s unsure or something. “I’ll see you tomorrow at rehearsal, then?” It’s a question. Joohyun is asking Seungwan a question. Seungwan is hiding in a toilet stall. Optimal conditions.
“Sure,” squeaks out Seungwan. Sure is safe. Sure is basically half of a yes, leaving the possibility of not seeing her at all an option. It’s quiet for only a little bit longer, until Seungwan finally hears the bathroom door shut, meaning that Joohyun has left for good. Seungwan lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. There’s a whole month before the entire production ends. Three months before the semester is over. She’s guaranteed to encounter Joohyun a minimum of once more before then. Fantastic. She can make it out alive.
✿✿✿
Seungwan isn’t shy at all.
She’s confident, never second guessing herself or worrying about things after she’s done them. She’s a people pleaser at heart, and she can make just about anyone join her in conversation. Socializing isn’t just easy, it’s a specialty.
Seungwan could probably make a speech on the spot in front of everyone at the school, student body and staff included, but for some reason it’s different around Joohyun. If Seungwan is witty remarks and smooth conversations with everyone else, she’s broken sentences and blank thoughts with Joohyun. It’s an odd feeling. Seungwan blames it on the fact that Joohyun is so perfect she’s intimidating.
It’s definitely not a feeling she knows well, but there was a brief period of time when Seungwan had felt almost the same way about Chanyeol. When they first met in junior year of high school, she’d get butterflies whenever he said her name. It turned out that she only felt that way because Chanyeol was generally overwhelming, crowding into her space and finding a permanent spot in her life in a short time.
If she really thinks about it, the way she felt about Chanyeol is nothing in comparison to how she feels about Joohyun now. It was easy to get accustomed to Chanyeol once he toned down enough for Seungwan to see how friendly he was, but Joohyun is an anomaly compared to Chanyeol. Chanyeol is just her stupid best friend, and Seungwan isn’t sure that the relationship between her and Joohyun could ever transform into something close to that. She’s not even sure what she wants from Joohyun.
A good start would be the power to stop sweating whenever Joohyun gets within a 50 foot radius.
✿✿✿
“Isn't this great? The salty sea air, the wind blowing in your face---”
"Cut," Yixing swings his hands up dramatically, letting whatever paper he had in his hands drop to the floor. "This won't cut it, Baekhyun. I need to see some feeling." Yixing stomps over to Baekhyun and points to his chest, jabbing at him with his pointer finger. "Give me tear-jerking emotion."
“Honestly, Yixing,” Baekhyun swats at the finger in the middle of his chest, “I’ve said this same line over fifteen times today and there’s only so much emotion I can give when it comes to talking about the sea.”
“This is a production about the sea, Baekhyun.”
From the back of the auditorium when Seungwan is, she can hear Baekhyun and Yixing bickering over the stage directions, but she pays them no mind. Her job is to make sure the set built around the actors is in good condition, not to babysit Baekhyun and keep him out of trouble with anyone who disagrees with him.
“If they keep arguing over what to do, I’ll never get to practice my lines on stage.”
At the sound of a new voice, Seungwan whips her head to the direction of the noise, unaware that anyone was even near her.
“I mean, maybe if they both knew what they were doing this wouldn’t take so long,” Seungwan’s stomach flips and she can’t think of anything to say, suddenly drawing a blank on all thoughts she’s ever had.
“Uh, yeah, I know,” Seungwan grips the edge of her seat, struggling to form a coherent sentence that has even a semblance of meaning. “You’re, uh, totally right.”
If Seungwan lived in a world that was fair to her, she would not be embarrassing herself like the way she is now. Since nothing is fair and the world is out to get her, she’s not only embarrassing herself, but embarrassing herself in front of Joohyun. ‘
Seungwan is so busy sweating and scrambling for something else to say that she doesn’t even notice as Joohyun scurries away, probably to get on stage and intervene in Baekhyun and Yixing’s argument.
Normally, Seungwan isn’t like this. She’s cool. She’s collected. But. It’s always been… different with Joohyun. Seungwan has never managed to speak more than one solid sentence to Joohyun without forgetting how to speak. And it’s not like she hasn’t tried. She spent most of her first year trying, and failing, to be friends with Joohyun. Joohyun has always been quiet and reserved, only talking to people she’s been close with.
“Did I just see you talking to Joohyun?” Another new voice startles Seungwan again, but this time it’s only Seulgi, who’s got a pack of candy in one hand, and a bottle of water in the other. “Scoot over, I wanna sit.”
“Not like it matters anyway, I don’t even know what I said to her.” Seungwan is whining, but she can’t help it. She’s still getting over her embarrassment. “And isn’t candy and water counterproductive?” She scoots over, giving Seulgi less than half of the seat but enough for her to fit.
“You’re only saying that because you want me to share.”
Seungwan isn’t facing Seulgi head on but she knows that the girl next to her is pouting. Unfair. She should be the only one allowed to pout right now. She lets the conversation hang for a second before blurting out, “OK. Keep asking me about her.” She elbows Seulgi in the ribs, softly jabbing at her a few times to really get the point across but to also give the faint allusion of someone dejected
“If we weren’t both a part of the drama club there would be no possible excuse for you to be this dramatic in my presence, you know.” Seulgi hands over the candy, with only a few pieces left in the pack, clearly the ones she doesn’t like. “So what exactly is the deal with you and her? Are you like arch enemies? Or am I completely wrong on this? Is there a reason you all have the same friends but never talk to each other?”
“We’re not arch enemies.”
“Okay. So you’re....?”
Seungwan knows the obvious answer to that is ‘nothing’, but she wants it to not be nothing so badly that she can’t even say it out loud. “It’s complicated.” The look Seulgi gives her in response to that shows that she does know that they aren’t enemies at all, but Seungwan doesn’t have the heart in her to say anything else.
✿✿✿
When Seungwan walks into the drama room, the atmosphere is tense and she can almost see a cloud of guilt over Baekhyun’s head making its way around the room to rain on everyone else. Knowing Baekhyun, this probably means he’s sick again. If there’s anything Baekhyun can do without failure, it’s getting sick whenever he’s directly needed for a rehearsal. If he wore a coat out in the cold, played less video games and spent less time shouting through a microphone at other homebodies over the internet, maybe his voice would be in better condition.
Even though Baekhyun is sending off gloomy vibes on one side of the room, Seulgi and Sooyoung are in a corner talking animatedly, probably going through some of their respective lines as Sebastian and Flounder. Seungwan slips in past everyone shooting death glares through Baekhyun and makes her way over to the two girls. “Hey, fish folk. What’s the deal with Baekhyun?”
Seulgi makes a face and scrunches up her nose. “First of all, the name is Horatio Thelonious Ignatius Crustaceous Sebastian. Second of all, our amazing lead has gone and lost his voice again. Big surprise.”
“It’s really bad this time, too. I have no idea how it’s possible to get so bad in just a few days. It was only a bit scratchy the other day.” Sooyoung is still talking in her Flounder voice, but realizes it and switches out of it mid-sentence.
"How does Yixing expect him to run lines today if all that's coming out of his mouth are various tones of frog croaks? I thought Ariel was supposed to be the one to lose her voice, not Prince Eric." Seulgi and Sooyoung laugh at the joke, but Seungwan is more occupied with the current problem. Hyoyeon will probably end up asking her to fix this, even though a situation like this has nothing to do with Seungwan's title as stage manager.
Hyoyeon walks over a second later with a grin on her face that can't be anything other than trouble. "Seungwan! Just the person I've been looking for."
"Listen. Hyoyeon, I know you think I can fix this but I have nothing to do with Baekhyun's lack of self-preservation."
"I want you to run Baekhyun's lines for the day," Hyoyeon says without missing a beat. Her bright grin has turned into a pleading face. Next step is puppy eyes.
"Uh. I can't do that." Obviously Seungwan knows the lines, anything Disney is kind of her thing and she may or may not have been pouring over the script as if she was part of the cast. But. There's no way she's standing in Baekhyun's place to run lines with Joohyun. It's not going to happen.
“Great!” Hyoyeon claps her hands together and her pleading face turns back into an even wider grin in a split second like she knows she’s already won. “Grab a script and head out to the stage. All I want you to do is read off his lines so that Joohyun has someone to work with. She’s not even talking for these, so I just need you to work together to get all the timing right. You can do that, right?”
Obviously not. “Sure. I’ll manage.” She’s not going to manage this very well at all, but if there’s one thing she can do as part of the theatre department, it’s acting like she’s got in under control. Past experiences have proved against that, but this is more serious. The rest of the crew and cast will be watching her, scrutinizing her every move even if she’s only a temporary fill in.
As soon as Hyoyeon walks away Sooyoung and Seulgi are standing next to Seungwan. Sooyoung places a hand on Seungwan’s forearm, looking at her with something resembling pity. Bless Sooyoung’s heart. She probably thinks the reason Seungwan is so reluctant to read lines is because she hasn’t read them before.
“It’s okay, Seungwan, you’ll do perfectly fine,” Sooyoung gives her an encouraging smile and uses the hand that isn’t on Seungwan’s arm to pat her on the back.
Seulgi shoots her two thumbs up. “Sooyoung is right. Plus, if anything goes wrong Joohyun will be there to help you.”
After this, Seungwan is terminating her friendship with Seulgi. But first, she needs to make it out of this alive. She’s got this.
Exiting the drama room and going out onto the stage, Seungwan sees that Joohyun is already out in the auditorium. She’s talking to Hyoyeon and Yixing off to one of the sides of the stage and has the script in her hands, probably clarifying something again because it’s in her nature to be as meticulous as possible. The way she’s leaning over the book has her hair falling to the side in soft waves, gleaming under the strong stage lights. Seungwan is trying to focus on Joohyun’s hair and not drift her eyes any lower to the pretty pale pink skirt she’s wearing.
Some of the other actors are sitting around in the auditorium seats, noses buried in their scripts or scrolling through their phones. Seungwan spots Chanyeol in the audience chatting with animated hand gestures to Taeyeon and Kyungsoo. They’re not paying much attention to him, and only nodding along occasionally to appease how eager he is about whatever story he’s telling. Seungwan figures it’s best to make a move while Chanyeol is distracted so that she can avoid him shouting out her name and turning her into a deer in headlights.
She walks across the stage and down the little steps that lead off the stage over to where Joohyun is standing with Hyoyeon and Yixing, being careful to maneuver her way around Joohyun so that they aren’t standing close together, but close enough so it doesn’t look like she’s awkwardly lingering around their little circle. They all move their attention from the book Joohyun is holding to look at Seungwan. Joohyun has a small smile on her face that makes her look like an angel and Seungwan has to will herself to look at Hyoyeon and Yixing’s stony faces to calm her heart.
“Are you ready now? It’s not a lot of work, really. You don’t even have to put emotion into it. It’s not like Baekhyun does it when he’s meant to, either.” Yixing cuts his eyes at Baekhyun, who rolls his eyes and mumbles something to himself.
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Seungwan answers back, holding up the script she picked up and waving it a little in the air. “What part are we doing, by the way?”
“We’re doing the dinner scene so Kibum can work singing ‘Les poissons’ and Seulgi can work on not laughing while he’s singing it. You’ll mostly just be reading lines so that Joohyun can get a better feel for the timing of things.” Hyoyeon and Yixing look a little more relaxed now that things seem to be under their control.
In order to make set crew’s lives a little easier, the scene they’re about to do has the stage cut in half, one side for Ariel, Eric, and Grimsby at dinner, and the other side for Chef Louis and Sebastian. Joohyun and Seungwan walk up and over to the side of the stage they need to be on to join Minseok, who’s playing Grimsby, by the makeshift dinner table until the real one is brought in. The short walk there doesn’t feel too awkward, even though it should because Seungwan is keeping a careful 3 feet between them as they walk.
“Are you ready?” Joohyun is whispering to her. Seungwan takes a second to notice since she’s sure that not only a second ago Minseok was telling Joohyun a joke that had her laughing so hard she had to cover her mouth. Minseok isn’t even that funny. But. Seungwan finds a surprising bit of courage and turns to face Joohyun. The stage lights seem brighter than they were a moment ago, and the brightness of Joohyun’s smile is ten times stronger than how it usually looks. Seungwan coughs. “Ready if you are.”
It doesn’t go as badly as Seungwan thinks it will. When Soonkyu-as-Carlotta ushers Joohyun-as-Ariel into the makeshift dining room and the first words Seungwan has to say are ‘you look wonderful’, she doesn’t even choke on her spit or stumble on her words. When the three of them are sat at the table and Joohyun mimes combing her hair with a fork, she looks directly at Seungwan, crossing her eyes and making a squeak of laughter escape from her.
When the lights on their side of stage dim so that Chef Louis can sing, Joohyun taps Seungwan’s shoe with hers, trying to get her attention. She shoots her two thumbs up and it looks like she’s mouthing something close to, “not bad at all”. Seungwan wishes that they didn’t have to finish the scene after this because this is a moment she needs to file into the notes section of her phone. She gives Joohyun a smile that doesn’t show any teeth because if she opened her mouth right now she’d probably smile wide enough for her jaw to pop.
They finish the whole scene without anything exploding or being set on fire, which is ten times better than Seungwan expected. It’s almost amazing, how in a single rehearsal she’s managed to look Joohyun in the eye and actually speak to her, even if more than ninety-five percent of it was spent acting as a character. It’s progress. Seungwan is on top of the world, feeling like she’s finally getting somewhere. When she gets off the stage to go and talk to Sooyoung and Seulgi, Joohyun is standing there with them. As Seungwan gets closer she catches the tail end of their conversation.
“Yeah, it’s rough for him. It’s pretty bad for me too, to be honest. I feel like we’re only going backwards at this point. Only a miracle could fix this.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Seulgi says. “Maybe Seungwan could help you out since she knows so much.” Seulgi reaches for one of Seungwan’s hands, trying to tug her closer so it looks less like she’s eavesdropping and more like she is a participant in the conversation. The conversation which she has no clue is about. A second ago it almost sounded like Joohyun was talking about a boy problem. If Seulgi has just pulled her into a situation like this right after her first successful Joohyun interaction, there will be a real problem.
Joohyun flips her hands up from her sides to shake them in unison; shaking her head as well and making her hair swish from side to side but never lose hold. “I couldn’t ask of that. I don’t want to make it any harder on the rest of the cast and crew. Baekhyun and I will figure it out.”
Are Baekhyun and Joohyun dating or something? Seungwan still has no idea what’s going on. If Baekhyun is dating Joohyun and didn’t say anything she’s never going to speak to him again. Then again, he was trying to get Taeyeon to go on a date with him last week. Maybe Joohyun is in a tragic love triangle with Baekhyun and Taeyeon. Maybe Seungwan should tune back into what they’re all saying.
“Our Seungwan would help anybody with anything, it’s really not a bother,” Sooyoung chimes in. Seungwan hasn’t said a word yet, but she’s thinking about helping Joohyun even if she doesn’t know what with. She’d help her even if it was to salvage love between her and Baekhyun.
She finds herself speaking without meaning to, blurting out the first thing to come to mind. “I can help you.”
“Really?” Joohyun looks shocked.
“Absolutely! The closer we get to the end of this production the more Hyoyeon says I should offer my services to all in need.” If this all goes wrong, Seungwan is blaming Hyoyeon.
“You really don’t have to help me. I’m sure I’ll manage, but I just really need to go over the scenes I have with Baekhyun and his voice is so gone right now I don’t want to bother him.” So it’s definitely not a romance issue. Seungwan can deal with that, except now she’s set herself up for failure again.
It’s not like she’s going to refuse now, either. It’s just overwhelming. The entire time she spent being afraid of trying to befriend Joohyun was clearly wasted, because there’s nothing frightening about her. She’s constantly sweet and sincere, so Seungwan isn’t too sure what it was she was afraid of in the first place. Maybe it was the fear of not being good enough to be friends with her. Then again, Seulgi and Sooyoung are doing it well enough.
“Yeah, I can do that. I’m always up for reading over the script. I probably know it better than Baekhyun, too.”
Joohyun smiles, “I really appreciate it. Do you think you could come over to mine later and help me?”
“Uh,” Seungwan stammers out. “I could-"
“Great! Here, put your number in my phone and I’ll text you later,” Joohyun reaches into her bag and pulls out her phone, handing it over to Seungwan. “I have to tutor someone right now, but it shouldn’t take too long.”
Moving on autopilot, Seungwan types her number into her phone, handing it back without even realizing the weight of this. Not too long ago, she wouldn’t have been able to look in Joohyun’s direction for fear of making accidental eye contact. And here she is now, a new member of Joohyun’s phone contacts. Joohyun says a quick bye to Sooyoung and Seulgi, and then she’s gone.
✿✿✿
Seungwan pushes it out of her mind until she gets a text from an unknown number.
‘i’m free now! just knock three times so i know it’s you :) :)’
Seungwan expected Joohyun’s texts to be perfect, with a lot of punctuation and no smiley faces, but this is even better. Everything Joohyun does manages to be cute. She’s obviously noticed it before, in small things like how Joohyun taps at the side of her head when she’s thinking hard, or how she’s never late, even if that means arriving on the minute.
Seungwan rolls out of her comfy, safe sanctuary of a bed and searches for some shoes so that she can go over to Joohyun’s. She’s not sure if she should bring something other than her script, but that just seems unnecessarily presumptive so she only shoves her phone in one of her back pockets, grabs the script, and leaves the room. Walking to the other room is a challenge because it’s in another building and she only vaguely remembers where Joohyun told her to go. She’d gotten too excited and accidentally deleted the text, but there was no way she was going to ask for her to resend it. She gets to where she thinks the room is and knocks exactly three times.
Thankfully, when the door opens Joohyun is the one standing in front of her. She’s not wearing the pink skirt she was earlier, instead in worn in sweatpants. Her hair is in a messy ponytail and Seungwan isn’t staring or anything, but she can see her eyeliner smudged a little at the corner of her eyes. She looks so cozy and cute that Seungwan almost tells her. She doesn’t, but chokes out a, “Hey.”
“Hey, you found the room without any trouble, right? I always forget which hall to turn down when I get off the elevator.” Joohyun is leaning on the frame of her doorway but suddenly moves off of it, reaching for Seungwan’s wrist. “Come inside, there’s no need to stay out in the hall.” She tugs on Seungwan’s arm and it’s not a hard pull but Seungwan finds herself moving forward automatically like they do friendly things like this all the time. She rarely lets Chanyeol or Seulgi get away with pulling at her arms and they’re her closest friends, but it somehow it doesn’t bother her when Joohyun does it.
The room is clean, as expected. The idea of mess doesn’t seem to be something thought of in this room so Seungwan wonders how she’s standing in it. One corner of the room has a desk and she assumes that’s where they’ll be going because Joohyun’s script is sat open along with a few other books. She stops herself from squeaking out an unflattering noise when Joohyun leads her over to her bed and motions for her to sit down.
“Is it okay if we don’t read the script right now? I know that’s basically why you’re here but I wanted a second opinion on something.”
“Uh,” Seungwan articulates. “Go ahead. I’m all ears.” And probably all red like a ripe tomato.
“Don’t laugh at me, but I was hoping you’d tell me how I sound singing ‘Part of Your World’? I just feel like I’ve been practicing it so much it doesn’t even sound like how it should.”
“I would never laugh at you,” Seungwan says. Joohyun probably doesn’t understand how true that statement is. She can’t believe Joohyun is worried about Seungwan laughing at her when she thinks everything that she does is amazing.
Joohyun sings and Seungwan may be biased, but it sounds flawless. She has a soft talking voice, and her singing voice shows that but it’s exactly right for the song. She’s the perfect Ariel. Her voice never strains nor does it waver when she holds out a note. Seungwan can only imagine how many times she’s sung this for her to think that it doesn’t sound right. When she finishes Seungwan claps, hoping that’s good enough to be the approval Joohyun wanted.
“You sound amazing,” Seungwan says.
“Thank you,” Joohyun replies with her hands covering her eyes. She can’t possibly be embarrassed at the compliment. Seungwan is the one who is supposed to be perpetually mortified, not her. “Don’t you think there’s something weird with it, though?”
“It honestly sounded perfect to me. Your voice is beautiful.” Since Seungwan made it over here without falling into a dark abyss, she might as well take advantage of the moment. Who knows the next time she’ll feel this courageous.
“And what about me?” Joohyun says it so fast and quiet that Seungwan isn’t sure if she heard correctly. Her hands are still over her eyes so Seungwan can’t gauge the level of seriousness. Joohyun probably means her emoting and gestures, which are just as important as voice quality.
“I mean, your eyes were closed so it was hard to tell. But, you seem to do fine when you’re on stage so I don’t think you need to worry.” Stage Manager Seungwan is in full force right now.
“No, I mean,” Joohyun is worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “I mean about me in general.”
She can go two ways with this. She can tell Joohyun that she thinks she’s practically in love with everything she does, or she could tell her constructive criticism as professional Stage Manager Seungwan. She chooses the latter option. “I think you’ll do fine on stage. There’s no need to worry, you’re one of the best we have for this.”
Joohyun looks exasperated and flustered and she lets out a sigh expressing that. “No, I mean like. Not in a theatre way. Just me.”
Seungwan isn’t prepared for this. She prepared herself to answer a million different questions, and not a single one has her ready to answer this. Maybe this is a joke set up by Seulgi, but Seungwan doesn’t think she’d be cruel enough to do something like this to her. This is real life and Joohyun is expecting an answer and she’s not even sure if she knows the answer herself.
“I think you’re pretty cool?” Seungwan says. It comes out as a question and it’s not a very convincing one.
“Okay,” Joohyun replies. She moves to sit on the bed next to Seungwan, but they’re not sitting very close and for the first time since Seungwan has been there it feels awkward. Joohyun has her hands in her lap and she’s twisting the ring on her pinky finger around. “Just ‘pretty cool?’”
It’s now or never, Seungwan supposes. “I think you’re more than pretty cool. Like. The coolest.” Cool isn’t the word she wants to say but it would probably be too forward to say that she thinks she’s beautiful and sweet and charming and a real life doll. She’s trying not to make it weird in case she’s reading this wrong. It feels like Joohyun is trying to get her to confess which makes no sense. Why would she just bring it up out of nowhere?
“Do you like me?”
Well. If Seungwan was worried about being too forward, there’s no way she can beat this. She gulps, and says softly, “I do like you. Everyone likes you. You’re very likeable.”
“Seungwan,” Joohyun cuts her off. Her voice is even softer than it was just now even though it’s just them in the room. In the moments before she speaks the room feels too hot, like there’s no air and if Seungwan takes a breath then it’ll make the room explode. “I’m being serious right now.” She takes one of her hands out of her lap and places it on the bed in the space between where they’re sitting. It’s like she’s reaching out to her but it’s such a shy move Seungwan can’t tell. Seungwan looks at her and she’s staring at the lone hand in her lap, but then she looks up and makes eye contact with her.
Usually, she would do whatever possible to avoid any eye contact with Joohyun, but it’s hard to look away from her now. She’s as serious as she’s ever seen her, their eyes are locked, and it’s just a waiting game to see who speaks first. Seungwan bites the bullet. “I like you more than most people. And not in the same way I like most people either.” She gulps, moves one of her own hands closer to where Joohyun’s is sitting still on the bed.
“Don’t get mad,” Joohyun starts to say, “But Seulgi may have mentioned it to me.” Seungwan winces. She knew Seulgi had something to do with this. “I like you too.” Seungwan’s eyes widen comically and Joohyun laughs, dissipating the tense mood. “I think you’re pretty cool, too.”
It feels surreal, how she’s here in Joohyun’s room, on her bed, and seconds away from holding her hand. It’s blowing her mind how Joohyun is reciprocating these confusing feelings. She’s still not sure if she knows exactly how she feels about her yet, but the feelings are all good ones that make her want to hold on to Joohyun and never let her go.
Joohyun makes the next move and holds onto her hand, clasping it in hers and using the grip to scoot herself closer to Seungwan. “I think it’s adorable how you think I’m intimidating when I’ve always been too shy to talk to you,” Joohyun says. She’s intertwining her fingers with Seungwan’s, and because the room is a little cold it feels so much nicer to have their hands touching like this. “I wish we spent less time avoiding each other and more time holding hands.”
“Same,” Seungwan breathes out. She’s still getting used to this. She thinks that she could really get used to this. She feels herself getting closer to Joohyun and it’s like autopilot for her, the way it seems to always be when they’re near each other. “I feel like an idiot for hiding from you,” Seungwan laughs.
“Then we should make up for all the lost time, right?” Joohyun says, her eyes flicking down to Seungwan’s mouth and then back up to her eyes. It seems to be inevitable, the way they keep gravitating closer, moving in accordance to each other. They’re so close now that Seungwan can see Joohyun’s separate eyelashes and all the places where her makeup has smudged from wearing it all day. It’s nerve wracking to be so close, but there’s no way she’s going to jerk away.
She can’t tell who closes the gap, but suddenly they’re kissing, and it’s so soft and tentative that she feels her heart tug. Of course Joohyun would approach kissing the way she does everything else, treading lightly with a bit of unsureness until she can do it confidently. As she becomes surer of herself, Joohyun takes her free hand and places it on Seungwan’s neck, bringing them even closer and intensifying the kiss. Seungwan’s heart is racing and she wants to keep this moment forever, drowning in the feeling of affection she feels surging for Joohyun.
It’s Joohyun who pulls away first, but she doesn’t move far, staying close enough that their foreheads are touching and the hand on Seungwan’s neck doesn’t move. Seungwan can see that she’s smiling and it makes her smile, too. It feels so satisfying for this to be mutual. She would have never imagined the day would end like this. She should send Seulgi a thank you fruit basket.
Now really isn’t the time to think about Seulgi, because in front of her is a smiling Joohyun whose mouth is red from kissing and face is flushed from their recent escapade. She’s still figuring out what it is she feels for Joohyun, but all of the words she can think of are positive, ranging from happy, to protective, and even enamored. She’s got Joohyun in her arms and she doesn’t plan on letting go anytime soon.
She moves her head back when she sees that Joohyun is giggling. “Why are you laughing? Am I a bad kisser?”
“No,” Joohyun laughs out. “This is so inappropriate right now, but I can’t stop thinking about how you’re ten times better than Baekhyun”
Well. It’s better than what she was expecting her to say. Baekhyun might as well hand his role as Prince Eric over to her.
Then again, she doesn’t want anything other than what she has right now. Everything is perfect.
✿✿✿
~Bonus~
Everyone is rushing around them, shouting out last minute demands and asking for the location of missing items, but it doesn’t disturb them. Opening day is always chaos behind the scenes, but the chaos is a necessity to make things run in harmony. Seungwan reaches up to straighten out the red wig Joohyun has on. She’s dressed in full costume now, and it looks great on her. It may be because the costume director Tiffany has a soft spot for Joohyun, but the outfit looks like it’s tailored for her every single move.
“You look like better than any other Ariel I’ve ever seen,” Seungwan tells her.
“Of course you think that, silly, you’re her girlfriend,” a voice chirps from behind her. It’s Sooyoung, who’s fumbling with the fin on top of her head that is designed to make her look more authentic as a fish.
“No,” Seungwan counters, “I’m saying that because it’s true. She looks like the model mermaid.”
The goofy grin and slight red of Joohyun’s cheeks makes Seungwan want to shower her with a million more compliments, but she should probably stop distracting her before she has to go on stage. Seungwan holds one of Joohyun’s hands in hers, tangling their fingers together and giving it a squeeze, hoping that can convey how happy she is for her right now.
“You’re gonna kill it out there,” Seungwan whispers in her ear so that Sooyoung doesn’t make fun of her for continuing to give pep talks.
Before Joohyun can reply, Hyoyeon appears out of thin air, ready to collect Joohyun so that she can get ready to go onstage. They both know it’s best not to test Hyoyeon’s patience so Joohyun gives Seungwan a quick kiss on the cheek and squeezes her hand back before she follows Hyoyeon’s waving arms. She never has to say much for Seungwan to know what feelings she’s trying to convey. Lately a lot of the unspoken words have felt a lot like love, but neither of them has said it yet.
Seeing Joohyun out on stage and doing her best in front of hundreds of people has her heart swelling up with the fondest of feelings. It does feel a lot like love.
Seungwan does have an actual job as stage manager, so she can’t stand around and monitor all of Joohyun’s scenes, but she catches whatever she can. The moment that gets her to stop in her tracks and ignore the crew around her is when Joohyun sings ‘Part of Your World’. It brings her back to that night in Joohyun’s room when they didn’t even know each other well enough to consider themselves friends. Off to her side, she hears Chanyeol stumble into a low sitting set piece and swear loudly, but she’s entranced by Joohyun on stage to pay him any attention.
The only thing she can think of as she watches Joohyun sing her heart out is how glad she is that she’s part of her world now.