Merry Christmas, bananarapper17!!!
Title: I Read the Book of Love (But I Still Don’t Understand)
Recipient: BananaRapper17
Group(s)/Pairing(s): SNSD Seohyun/Hyoyeon
Word count: 1900
Rating: PG
Warning(s): none
Summary: Seohyun knows school can’t teach you everything, but she never knew that love would be something it could.
Notes: secret santa is an intimidating idea itself, pinch-hitting even more so, but hopefully this brings some (belated) holiday cheer to you!
Year One
Seohyun spends her first year of high school in the library, her nose in a book. It’s actually not all that different from middle school except now she’s competing with close to a thousand more students for the top spot rather than the measly hundred or so from last year. She’s also not the smartest student anymore, or the teacher’s favorite, or even the most responsible.
She doesn’t really know how to handle it.
While intelligent, she’s not as naturally smart as some of her peers; she earns her grades by spending nearly all her waking hours studying rather than going shopping or to noraebang or even doing club activities.
During sign ups week, she’s approached by three upperclassmen keen on making her an addition to their respective clubs. Seohyun forgets for a moment that her mother had only allowed her to take piano lessons because classical instruments were positive additions to resumes.
Hip-hop dance wasn’t.
The upperclassman that had approached her only frowns, obviously put off by Seohyun’s near immediate rejection, but leaves smiling, blonde hair swishing around her back and a promise of ‘next year, I’ll ask again’.
Seohyun resolutely ignores the hopeful feeling she gets in her chest as she returns to the library. Freud’s theories aren’t going to explain themselves after all.
Year Two
Despite being called ‘Seohyun’ for an entire year, she still looks up when the name ‘Joohyun’ is called out. It doesn’t happen often, and she never directly responds to the name, but when she’s tired after a long day of school or after she talks to the few friends she remains in contact with from middle school, she finds herself wishing there wasn’t six Joohyun’s in her year, let alone one in her class.
Other than that, her second year of high school passes much as the first did. She spends an inordinate amount of time in the library, and manages to alienate herself from even the most studious of her classmates who coolly tell her that electing to spend as much time as she does studying is odd. They study so hard because their parents force them to and they’ve got the top three spots in their year to show for it while she barely made it into the top ten.
It goes without saying that Kim Jungah coming down with a severe case of food poisoning was the only reason Seohyun had made it.
Seohyun acknowledges the scrutiny, if only because she knows it’s true. She had only just managed to reach as high as she had and there wasn’t any use to her trying to compete with her classmates that had aggressive parents behind them. Her parents might have wanted her to do well, but they were nowhere near the level of Park Sungmin’s parents.
Nevertheless, Seohyun altogether skips club sign ups week. If she was going to make it in the top five of her year, the minutes she spent rejecting club offers was minutes wasted remembering the atomic weights of all the elements.
She’s breaking the elements down by size when a colorful flyer is slammed down onto the table she’s sitting at. Her first instinct is to shush the loud offender, but she glances up and freezes. Even though it’s been a year and she hadn’t seen the other girl since, Seohyun instantly recognizes the upperclassman in front of her.
“I said I’d be back, didn’t I?”
Before Seohyun can protest, the older girl pulls out a chair and turns it around, sitting in it backwards and Seohyun can’t help herself at what she says next.
“You should sit in the chair properly. At our age, our spines are still developing and sitting straight up when seated is the best course of action to prevent conditions like scoliosis.”
Mortification spreads across her as soon as she’s done; not only was she weird for spouting off medical advice, she was also rude to correct an upperclassmen. She’s ready to apologize when the other girl laughs; head thrown back and hands smacking together loudly.
Seohyun is sure she’s never seen anyone laugh so emphatically.
“Eh, you’re cute~ Seohyun, isn’t it?” She nods and suddenly finds the flyer deposited onto her notebook, the artsy lettering making it difficult to read the printed lines, but she manages.
“Kim Hyoyeon, third year. You declined my offer to join the dance club last year, but this year, I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer. At least, not an immediate one.”
Hyoyeon speaks carefully, but not timidly. She obviously knows what outcome she wants from this conversation and is planning on receiving it. She leans across the table as much as possible and Seohyun meets her gaze, hoping the sound of her heart beating isn’t as loud to Hyoyeon as it is in her ears.
“Tell me, why won’t you join dance club this year?”
Seohyun lists the reasons in her head: first, she doesn’t dance, doesn’t know how and never really had an interest in it (she hadn’t had interest in math either but four hour drilling sessions changed that), she’s too busy with academic work, her parents would never let her. It goes on.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to reject your offer. Again. I only just made it into the top 10 of my year last year, and with addition of a club…I’d rather not take that chance.”
Hyoyeon immediately leans away, folding her arms across the back of the chair and gives Seohyun a long gaze before standing, putting the chair back in place noisily. The older girl is silent until she walks all the way around the table, slipping Seohyun’s pen from her limp hold and scribbling something against a blank space on the flyer.
“No one’s ever told you have they? That you can only get so far with books?”
Seohyun stares blankly ahead as Hyoyeon leaves the library, the sensation of the older girl’s breath against her cheek still lingers, and the faint scent that had drifted from her hair still brings a tingle to her nose.
Seohyun glances down at the flyer before carefully, methodically folding it and storing it in the recesses of her school bag for her to forget.
Later, she promises herself that she isn’t going to go inside, only to look through the window.
Year Three
Unlike years before, Seohyun doesn’t drive herself ragged studying or creep out her classmates by critiquing their actions with the help of medical journals and self-help books. She doesn’t make it in the top 10 of her year, but she does get a letter of recognition from the principle after organizing a charity drive that put a year’s store of rice into a local halfway home’s pantry.
She doesn’t return Hyoyeon’s greetings with anything other than politeness no matter how fast her breathing speeds up in the presence of the older girl.
Before she realizes, club signups have come around and she’s not hold up in the library with a textbook. In fact, she signs up for a guitar club run by handsome, if endearingly bashful, fourth year without even worrying that she doesn’t own a guitar and is pretty sure the her mother is going to throw the largest fit since the year she decided to give up rice.
Seohyun doesn’t realize she’s anticipating a visit from Hyoyeon until the week of signups ends and she doesn’t have another luridly designed poster to add to the two she still has (they’re pressed between to self-help books in the back of her closet).
It isn’t until she’s made to watch the debut of a new girl group that she realizes the blonde in green overalls is the same blonde that’s been a reoccurring figure in her dreams for three years.
Year Four
Seohyun’s last year of high school is also the year she joins the hip-hop dance club.
The club is no longer headed by the upperclassmen she’s come to expect. Now, she recognizes the co-presidents as two students in her year that are popular enough without even adding their exchange student status to America.
She wonders if they actually understand the English they use, or if they’re just like everyone else in that they know it enough to use it in a sentence with a vague level of accuracy.
It’s halfway through the club cycle when the school is overrun with rumors of an idol in the building. Without thinking, Seohyun’s heart beats harder in her chest and she’s sure her lungs have stopped working properly if the way her breathing comes out shuddery and uneven is anything to go by.
She ignores the fact that she has a study group in five minutes and turns on her heel to run down the hall, breaking three of her life rules in the process (four if she counts the fact she didn’t stretch before doing an effortful task).
The room that’s been in use as the dance club room comes into view quicker than she’s expecting and she slides past it before grabbing hold of the handle, pulling the door open without a care, the bass-heavy music spilling out into the once quiet hallway.
“I joined the club but you weren’t here to see.”
She speaks over a lull in the beat and the only other occupant freezes mid move, arms slowly sinking until she’s standing straight, but not rigid.
Hyoyeon’s never been the rigid type.
“Last year you were gone before club signups. I had to get a flyer for myself.”
Seohyun drops her bag down onto the floor, the books inside hitting with a thud; the echoes they cause make her heart jump.
“I joined this year on the first day of signups. I thought…” she pauses, feeling heat rush to her face at the prospect of revealing her reasoning to the older girl.
Hyoyeon turns languidly. They’re face to face now and even though there’s more than a couple feet between them, Seohyun wants to tell Hyoyeon to back up from her personal space; that she can’t take the older girl being so close to her.
There’s an odd little smile on her face; partly amusement, partly something else. Seohyun’s never been able to read people’s faces. It’s the only thing she couldn’t learn from a book.
“What was it, Seohyun? What did you think would happen when you signed up?”
Hyoyeon steps closer until there’s barely a foot of space between their bodies. Seohyun doesn’t say anything, but her fingers clench on themselves, nails scratching against the skin of her palms.
That’s another rule.
“Seohyun, tell me. I didn’t bother you for two years about joining, but you still did. Why?”
Seohyun swallows hard and realizes, unlike years before, Hyoyeon’s will is stronger than hers. She bites her bottom lip before answering, “I thought that if I joined, you’d come back to me.”
Hyoyeon’s small smile widens until her cheeks start to resemble little apples and her eyes have become crescent moons. She closes the last amount of space between them and Seohyun blinks down at her, once again wondering if her heart is beating as loudly in Hyoyeon’s ears as it is in hers.
“Didn’t I tell you? I don’t take ‘no’ for an answer?”
Any response Seohyun could’ve imagined to give is interrupted by Hyoyeon pressing their lips together, one hand pressed against her cheek and the other bracing against her shoulder as she stretches on her toes to match their heights.
Seohyun’s fingers unclench themselves as the last beats of music still coming from the stereo fade away and her heartbeat slows back.