Title: Easy like Monday morning
Recipient:
frailspellsGroup(s)/Artist(s): miss A, f(x)
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Amber/Min, Jia/Ilhoon (BTOB)
Rating: PG
Warning(s):
Summary: Min has a way of bringing Amber home in ways she doesn’t expect.
Note(s): Happy New Year,
frailspells! I hope this is something like what you had in mind. ♥
Amber knows it’s Min’s hand around her wrist before she even has to look. It’s the sort of thing that follows when you have a habit of staring too long at your best friend: suddenly you know all the little things, without knowing how or when that happened. Why is a little easier, but Amber doesn’t tend to let herself think about why.
Tonight, Min is wearing silver rings on the index and ring fingers of her right hand. If Amber knew anything about fashion, she’d probably try to say something nice about how well they go with the tight sequin dress Min’s wearing. That they complement her necklace, maybe, or that they shine just right when offset by the black of the dress. Krystal would know just what to say, but she actually gets this stuff. Amber showed up to the party in a Rudolph Christmas sweater her mom gave her in the eighth grade and a pair of old jeans with a hole worn right through the left knee.
Min looks beautiful. That isn’t anything new, but somehow Amber always experiences taking it in like it’s hitting her for the first time. She feels suddenly silly as Min’s hand nudges the knit of her too long sleeve up farther along her wrist. Her mom had made the sweater intending for her to grow into it, but then she never did.
Min is taller than she is in five-inch heels. She feels steady and solid as she drags her away from Kibum before she can get a word in edgewise.
“What’s-” Amber starts, as Min pulls her through the people gathered in the kitchen and towards the bathroom. Min ignores her, knocking once on the door before she pushes it open with her free hand. The door bangs open against the wall, but no one else seems to notice over the bass of the music pounding through from the living room.
Min clears her throat. Amber can’t decide if she should pay attention to the couple currently pressed close together against the counter, or if she should avert her eyes towards the geometric fish scattered across the translucent plastic shower curtain. When Jia detaches with a loud sucking sound, she settles for the tile on the wall just beyond her shoulder.
“Hey,” Jia says, turning towards them. The streaks in her hair are Christmas-ready in emerald green and primary red today. Dark red lipstick is smudged up around her mouth, and it would look incriminating if her smirk weren’t so entirely unapologetic. The boy under her stills, trying to look unaffected by the intrusion. Jia notices and smiles at him, all teeth, before she presses down with the thigh she has worked between his legs. He hisses in a breath, sharp. “Need the bathroom?”
Min chokes back a snort. Amber bites her tongue so that she doesn’t lose a smile to the way Min’s mouth curves, shining with gloss.
“We’re good,” Min says. She eyes the boy up against the sink. He stares back at her, trying valiantly to keep his face perfectly straight. Jia takes it as an opportunity to lean down and whisper something in his ear that has his cheeks flushing brilliantly as she pulls her mouth away again. “God, Jia, wasn’t he like sixteen? And what, did you ask him for his number after the show?”
“I’m eighteen,” he says, but no one pays him any attention.
“He was cute,” Jia says, shrugging. She presses up with her thigh again when he smiles like he’s been attempting to get that out of her all night. He gasps, wiggling oddly against the sink. “But if you don’t need it, if you don’t mind-”
“You’re terrible,” Min says, but she’s grinning. She turns away, raising an eyebrow at Amber like she’s in on some private joke. Amber feels her stomach flip somewhere around the vicinity of Rudolph’s nose. “Have fun, use protection, etcetera.”
Jia laughs at the thunderstruck look on the kid’s face, pulling away for a moment to shut the door again. “Careful, before long you’ll start sounding like Fei Fei’s lectures on personal responsibility.” She smiles from the last crack of the room they can see, and the door clicks softly closed.
“Do I want to know?” Amber asks. Min’s fingers are loose around her wrist now, but somehow just as heavy.
“I’ll tell you later,” Min says. “I need to talk to you first. Come on. We can still use Suzy’s room.”
She lets go as she turns. Amber can feel the ring of her fingers still etched against the skin of her wrist like a charm.
--
Min keeps the lights off after she shuts the door to Suzy’s room. Amber can hear the twist of the lock, and it sounds far more definitive than it has any right to. The bed is pushed into the corner of the room. In any other situation, it would be completely innocuous; as it is, Amber swallows around the weight of too many late night fantasies that creep up too easily, unasked.
The curtains are pulled back from the window, letting in a wash of light from the city below that draws everything out into contours of pale blues and deep greys. It would be easy to imagine this into something it isn’t-a setting, maybe, or a starting line. The plushies piled high on Suzy’s bed prevent that much; they’re anything but sexy.
The click of Min’s heels is softer against the carpet. Before Amber can protest, Min pushes her over towards the bed. Amber sits easily, taking the spot closer to the wall and leaning back against an overly large Rilakkuma. Min sits next to her, crossing her legs over her knee. She pulls an alpaca with a bowtie towards her, smoothing her thumb over the crown of its head. Amber tries hard to fight back a blush.
“So are you going to tell me what’s up, or am I going to have to hit you with this thing until you talk?”
“Think of its feelings,” Amber says, trying to put humour into it. She just sounds flat, and Min raises an eyebrow at her, pulling the alpaca in towards her chest.
“She’s cool right now,” Min says. “But you’re not. You had that look again out there… like you used to get.”
Amber doesn’t have to ask what she means. She forces out a laugh, but it’s dry and sounds oddly choked in ways she doesn’t want to dwell on. She coughs. “You didn’t know me back then.”
“Answer the question.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“Stop it,” Min says, flipping around fast so that her legs rest on top of Amber’s before she can react. The heels of her stilettos dig into a Hello Kitty holding viciously pink heart. “You know what I mean.”
She rests back on her hands, letting the alpaca settle into her lap. Amber tries to look anywhere but the skin of her thighs as her dress shifts backwards with the motion. Her hands are trapped under the back of Min’s knees, and she wants to keep them there as much as she wants to pull them away.
“Move and the kitty gets it,” Min says, twisting her ankle in a circle above Hello Kitty’s face. It’s not much of a threat at all, but Amber keeps her hands where they are. This feels like permission, and Min’s skin is just as soft and warm as she’s always imagined it. The inside of her thighs would probably feel just the same, against her fingers, against her mouth. She wants, but she keeps still.
“So spill,” Min prompts. She presses her heel in deeper above Hello Kitty’s nose. Amber takes a deep breath and thinks of the way Min’s hand had felt around her wrist, solid and strong.
“I talked to Jackie on the phone before I came here,” she says. “She… told me about their plans for Christmas.” She pauses, staring out the window at the lights of the passing cars far below. “Sometimes it’s just hard not being there, you know?”
Min nods, just taking it in. Amber is strangely thankful, even though she doesn’t think she could form the reason why into words.
“You have me,” Min says, after a moment. The room feels oddly still, even with the pulse of the bass still passing through from the living room. Min nudges Amber’s stomach with her knee, and Amber can’t fight back a smile despite herself.
“Yeah,” she says, “I know.”
“Come on then, llama,” Min says, flipping her legs off of Amber and onto the floor again. Amber wants them back, under hands this time, but she isn’t ready to deal with what that means. “Everyone’s missing out on your stupid jokes.” Min is smiling as she says it, and she holds out her hand for Amber to take.
Amber grabs hold and hauls herself up from the bed. Min’s rings are as warm against her skin as the rest of her had been. “Can’t deprive anyone of that,” she says.
“No,” Min says. She laces their fingers together, calm and easy, like it’s nothing. “Better not.”