Work Text:
“Unnie?” Seungmin calls as she steps out of her bedroom. “You out here?”
She scours the apartment with one hand pinned firmly against her chest to hold her flimsy top up.
“Unnie,” she calls, singsong, and finds Minhee in the kitchen.
“Mm,” Minhee answers. She’s the only one ready to go out, of course, because she’s effortlessly beautiful and doesn’t need to change anything about the way she looks to turn heads and make Seungmin lose her train of thought at the sight of her. Also, she’s already dressed from work. She’s pouring herself a cup of tea right now, long brown hair pulled carelessly into a claw clip, looking more stunning than anyone Seungmin’s ever seen in her life.
“I need help,” Seungmin says, feeling a little childish, and petulant. She’d spent all day working from home and therefore lounging around in her pajamas, and now she and the others are scrambling around getting ready while Minhee waits for them, doubtlessly bored.
“When don’t you need my help?” Minhee says, all bark and no bite. She’s already setting the kettle down, wiping her hands on a towel so she can attend to Seungmin. When she finally turns toward Seungmin, her cool blank expression cracks just a hair and she lifts an eyebrow.
Seungmin flushes.
“Can you tie this for me?”
The ribbon lacing together the front of her corset top was hard to maneuver, and Seungmin tied it lopsided about six times before asking for help. By that point, Jeongin was perched in Jiseon’s lap, diligently doing her makeup, and Lix was busy helping Chan do her hair. Seungmin had wandered out in her skirt and with the shirt half done, half falling off of her.
Minhee is silent for a long moment before she nods.
“Sure, sweetheart,” she says, and Seungmin bites back a gasp. Minhee only calls her that every now and then, and it’s almost always in a teasing way but it makes Seungmin shudder every time. Now, there’s not a hint of mockery on her face or in her silken voice, and Seungmin feels weak in the knees.
“Thanks,” she barely manages, before Minhee is pulling Seungmin closer by the ribbon of her shirt, and Seungmin stumbles over her feet trying to oblige her.
When ambushed by the others with their Friday night going out plans, Minhee had simply shrugged off her work purse and agreed. They’d all just agreed to meet at Jiseon’s and Lix’s place after work before a simple dinner, but when one girl suggested going out, it was easy to convince the rest.
“Do you want to change or anything? Not that you have to, unnie, you look amazing,” Lix had added dreamily, and Minhee tapped the underside of her chin adoringly like Lix was one of her cats.
“Thanks, Boks. No, I’m okay.” And then she had stripped off her blazer, unbuttoned about four too many buttons for Seungmin’s sanity, and then folded up her sleeves to her elbows.
She’d gone into the kitchen to kill time, and Seungmin had disappeared back into her bedroom to get ready with ten times the fervor she’d had before.
Now, Minhee’s perfume is faint, her lip gloss long gone after a long day of work with no time to reapply. She’s still breathtaking, commanding the room and Seungmin’s attention like it takes nothing, like it comes naturally to her.
“This is pretty,” Minhee says, as she takes the two ends of the ribbon in her hands. “Who’s it for?”
“What?” Seungmin breathes. She can count Minhee’s eyelashes when they’re this close together. She can barely think.
“This top, sweetheart,” Minhee says, using that infuriating word again, like it doesn’t make Seungmin’s fingertips prickle with the need to touch, or her lips ache with the urge to beg.
“Um,” she mumbles. “Bought it for myself. A long time ago.”
“And never wore it?”
“How do you know I never wore it?” Seungmin asks. Bratty without really thinking about it, because that’s what comes easiest when it comes to Minhee and Seungmin.
“Because I’d remember,” Minhee says simply. She’s just tied the ribbon once, loosely, and her eyes haven’t left Seungmin’s once. “How tight?”
“Um, a little more,” Seungmin says. When the fabric around her tightens, the walls around her threaten to cave. Her heart slams rapidly in her ribcage. “More.”
Minhee hums obligingly, and pulls the ribbon even tighter.
“More,” Seungmin hears herself say.
“In what world is this ‘a little more?’” Minhee asks, a teasing smile on her lips. When Seungmin glances down, she sees Minhee’s fingertips pinkened by the ribbon wrapped around them and the force of the pulling.
“I want it tight,” Seungmin manages. “Like that. It’s, um, good.”
“Yeah?” Minhee asks.
Her voice, low and breathy, warms Seungmin from the inside out. She resists the urge to hide her face in her hands.
“Just like that,” Seungmin whispers.
Minhee finally looks down with a small shake of her head, a little furrow in her brow when she begins to tie the bow.
“You don’t know what you do to me, do you?” Minhee asks. Her hands brush against Seungmin’s chest as she works on the ribbon, light touches teasing bare skin like sparks dancing from a fire. “Do you even know what you look like?”
It’s asked quietly, almost to herself, but Minhee’s question still makes Seungmin oddly insecure.
“Would look better on Jiseonie,” she admits. “Th—the top, I mean. More flattering. With her little waist, and her, um, chest.”
Minhee’s gaze flickers back up to meet Seungmin’s.
“It would look good on Jiseonie,” she says after a moment. “And it looks good on you, too. You’re not pretty like Jiseonie, sweetheart. You’re pretty like you.”
She finishes tying the bow, and it’s perfectly symmetrical, dainty and enticingly feminine, and a flash of something like pride flits through Seungmin’s belly. She feels pretty.
“You’re beautiful,” Minhee says, dropping her hands from the now completed bow, to rest on Seungmin’s waist. She presses a quick kiss to Seungmin’s cheek.
“Thank you, unnie,” Seungmin whispers. Her hands hesitate on their way up, and then she musters the courage to put them on the nape of Minhee’s neck, folded loosely while her arms encircle her pretty face.
Minhee tilts her head slightly in acknowledgement of Seungmin’s thanks, like it’s not a big deal, like she can’t hear Seungmin’s voice shake, like she can’t feel her shudder when they’re intertwined like this.
“Is she who you were thinking about, when you chose this outfit?” One of Minhee’s hands drags itself downwards, and disappears behind Seungmin’s back to cup her ass over her soft pleated skirt, just above where the hem lays. “Pretty Jiseon and her little waist? Or her cute tits?”
Seungmin bites her lip hard.
“I don’t blame you,” Minhee giggles. “She wears the hell out of a corset. Her and Lixie both. And Chaebinnie put on one of Hyunjinnie’s once, just out of curiosity, she said, and nearly gave poor Hyunjin a nosebleed. I don’t blame her, either, she looked hot. I mean, can you imagine?”
There are suddenly too many mental images floating around Seungmin’s head, combined with Minhee’s sultry voice and the mean way she’s teasing Seungmin, practically backing her into a corner of their kitchen. She feels exposed, flayed open and helpless. Like prey. She wants to be pounced on, devoured. She wants Minhee to tug open the bow she just tied so prettily.
“Fuck,” Seungmin says.
“That’s what I said,” Minhee laughs. “Oh, you pretty thing. Who knows which one of our friends was on your mind when you picked this naughty little outfit?” Seungmin swallows, nervous. “Which of them did you want to impress? Whose eyes did you want on your body? Who did you want to undo the ribbon at the end of the night?”
“You, unnie,” Seungmin gasps, and is rewarded by the pretty pink smile on Minhee’s lips that blooms like tulip petals. “Wanted you. Once I saw you—couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
Minhee’s smile is sharper than a blade. “Just me?”
Seungmin has to look away. She notes absently that her own chest is flushed light pink in embarrassment. “You and the others. Always.”
“The others.”
“The girls.”
Minhee nods sagely. “All our girls.”
Seungmin nods. As if she has any ownership or right to possessiveness at all, when all they are is friends. Just a big group of friends, only a handful of whom she’s kissed. Just friends, but every one of them has fooled around with at least one other person in the group. Just friends, but the idea of going out with them and coming home with anyone else makes Seungmin’s stomach turn. The idea of someone else helping her into or out of her clothing makes her sick.
“Well,” Minhee says, both hands now resting on Seungmin’s ass. “I don’t think you need to worry. You’ll have one of us by the end of the night, dressed like that.”
“Promise?” Seungmin asks.
“I just might snatch you up before the night has the chance to start,” Minhee says, casual, like her words don’t set Seungmin on fire. Seungmin buries her face in her hands, and Minhee laughs at her, melodic and dangerously sweet.
“Unnie,” she whines, “you can’t just say that.”
Minhee encircles Seungmin’s wrists with gentle fingers, pulls her hands away from her face. “Baby,” she coaxes her gently, “I thought you dressed up so prettily for me.”
“I did, I did, but it’s—I’m—” Seungmin cuts herself off, biting her own words back, desperately avoiding eye contact but Minhee leans in so close it’s impossible not to see her. It’s impossible not to feel her, her embrace hot and comforting and so tempting to sink into.
“You’re what?” Minhee’s still holding onto Seungmin’s wrists, tugging them towards her body so that Seungmin’s hands rest on Minho’s chest.
“I’m… embarrassed,” Seungmin sighs.
“Poor thing,” Minhee says. Earlier, she’d been staring into Seungmin’s eyes when she should have been watching the ribbon she was tying. Now, they’re talking, and she has no interest in making eye contact, instead staring intently at Seungmin’s lips. “Want unnie to kiss you all better?”
“Please,” Seungmin gasps, and Minhee’s mouth is on her, soothing the sweet ache of humiliation from being teased, like Minhee is a big cat playing with her food before eating it and Seungmin is at her mercy. She folds in her grasp.
Minhee hums when Seungmin nips desperately at her bottom lip, the noise like a balm to Seungmin’s soul, dizzying yet anchoring, and Seungmin is beyond the point of caring how she sounds. She whimpers when Minhee cups her jaw with soft hands, moaning low when her fingertips dance against Seungmin’s pulsepoint. Minhee pulls reverence out of Seungmin’s mouth with every intoxicating lock of their lips, and she’s never surrendered anything more easily.
Seungmin is only dully aware of the music playing in Lix’s bedroom suddenly getting louder, like someone opened the door and came wandering out into the living room, and the footsteps she hears just barely registers in her mind. It’s only when voices start to exclaim, and Minhee gasps softly, that she manages to pull away from their kiss.
“Don’t let us interrupt,” Lix giggles, leaning back comfortably into Jeongin’s back like she’s settling in to watch a show.
“Don’t embarrass them, Lixie,” Chan chastises.
“Well, this has been a long time coming,” Jiseon says, arms crossed as she watches blatantly.
Seungmin is staring mortified at her friends, and doesn’t notice the way Minhee glares at Jiseon. What she does see is Chaebin and Hyunjin finally arriving, letting themselves in the front door with their spare key, their interlocked hands quickly falling away from one another when they see that everyone else is gathered in the living room.
“What’s up, guys?” Hyunjin asks, a little stilted, like the sight of Seungmin and Minhee wrapped up in each other isn’t a dead giveaway.
“You two look nice,” Minhee says. For some reason, it’s outrageously funny, and Seungmin has to bite her tongue to stop from laughing.
“We should head out,” Chan says.
“Yes, mommy,” Jiseon says obediently, which makes Lix guffaw in laughter, and Chan turns bright red. Seungmin obliges Jiseon with a high five as she walks by.
She steps out of Minhee’s arms to take Lix’s hand and loop her arm through Jeongin’s as the eight girls start to go out the door in a flurry of pink and chatter. Seungmin meets Minhee’s eyes one last time before the eight of them go, and Minhee scrunches her nose up at her a little, her smirk playful and teasing.
To be continued, it says.
Seungmin can’t wait.