oh my stars (nana/nicole)
oh my stars
nana/nicole; pg; 1,762 words
college!au-niverse
na: my second of three ambigirl entries!
Nicole had never fancied science, astronomy or astronautics like her best friend did. The stars were nothing more than that to her: stars, a four letter word for something sprinkled across a velvet galaxy above that most never gave a second thought to.
They were pretty, sure, but there were plenty of other pretty things out there - Im Jin Ah being one of them.
Come to think of it, Jin Ah was not unlike the stars herself. She easily could have fit up there with Orion the Hunter, Canis Major the Great Dog or even outshone the Orion Nebula if she really wanted to - which, knowing her, she never would have dared.
The petite brunette drug her spoon idly against the bottom of her coffee cup, a heavy sigh escaping her lips. She was surprised with herself for actually remembering the name of any constellations, let alone three. She had her friend to thank for that one - her friend who, at any moment, was due to arrive back home - with a heavy heart in tow.
Nicole had known that something wasn't quite right when Jin Ah had neglected to respond cordially to their usual lunch time texts. She never missed a beat, usually; they took every opportunity that they could to talk to each other when they weren't in the same room. She would have ended the day filled to the brim with concern if she hadn't eventually answered her - her response as solemn as the mood Nicole was sure she was in.
"I bombed my Astrophysics exam, I actually failed it. It's over, I don't know what I'm going to do."
Jin Ah had come to terms with the fact long ago that she'd never be an astronaut - something that she'd wanted so desperately as a child. Nicole could recount the letters she'd received from her back in her native Los Angeles where the girl would go on for two entire pages about her dreams for the future. She wanted to go to space someday! She wanted to save the world like Ben Affleck had in Armageddon! (A quotation that she had ended up recanting and bowing in shame for at a later date.)
And Nicole had always believed it her, always known she'd had it in her - because, why not? Jin Ah could accomplish anything she set her mind to; she'd just had so many petty little obstacles tossed in front of her along the way. The mere thought of it sent the corners of Nicole's lips skyrocketed downward.
God, she needed to find a way to rein that in because, God forbid, Jin Ah needed to see her frowning on top of everything else.
So, she had to make her happy. She had to make her smile - something genuine, and not that plasticine countenance Jin Ah put up with her to keep the mood in the room warm and comfortable.
The sentiment had started off easily enough; a quick trip to her favorite bakery after classes finished off to pick up chocolate cupcakes for her (white was always too boring), and a detour to the small market down the street from their apartment to check for those little star sprinkles she loved so much. She'd wondered if buying anything embellished in stars would just be rubbing salt into the wound - but this was Jin Ah, she highly doubted she'd go postal on her for buying some sprinkles.
The final step wasn't something that she could find in any run of the mill store, though. No, she'd had to dig far and deep into the trenches of her colossally overcrowded closet to get her hands on what she really needed. The cherry on top of the sundae, the icing on top of the cake - and even though she'd almost cost herself her life not once, but twice, before the finalizing her task? It was well worth it.
Small, lime green pieces of plastic - in various sizes and shapes ranging from a simple star to Venus and Mars - hovered above her, ready to light Jin Ah's way toward a warm cup of coffee and impressive snack bar when she arrived home. (And a bonus prize if everything else went according to plan.)
… maybe actually turning off the lights would help with the overall illusion, though.
… and was someone breathing on the other end of the door?
She swore to god, she heard breathing.
A small strangled noise escaped Nicole's throat at this realization, her legs springing out of their crossed position onto the floor below her, her feet barely managing to stick to cold wooden carpeting before her dash begun. It wasn't that far of a travel - twenty feet, at most - but there was a lot at risk here. A good surprise, and…
"Nicole?"
Freezing in her tracks, Nicole threw an upward, hand in "stop" motion. "No, no, no," she begun to mutter to herself, opting out for a few final steps toward the doorway and diving forward inside, fingers just barely missing the light switch at the side of the doorway before hitting the carpeting below her. "Close your eyes! You can't see yet!"
Though her eyes were locked on a small piece of fuzz now stuck to the center of her bangs, she could feel the presence of the other hovering above her - no, what if Jin Ah had saw it? It was over before it'd even started. This sucked.
"This sucks," Nicole projected her thought outward as she rose to her feet, eyes turned downward, attempting to adjust to the sudden darkness. "I wanted to plan something special for you, but I spaced out and completely forgot to turn off the li-…"
"Why did you turn off the lights?" Jin Ah questioned. Eyebrow quirking at the question, Nicole finally allowed herself to look back upward - a small chuckle falling from her lips as she took in the scene in front of her.
Jin Ah, hands cupped over her eyes, face contorted in confusion.
"Can I open up my eyes?"
Taking a step forward, slender fingers wrapped around a sturdy wrist, drawing one arm downward as the other remained in it's previous position. "Just give me… two more seconds," Nicole let out as her fingers traveled further upward, lacing with the others.
"Okay, but whatever you have planned, I can't guarantee that I'm going to be down for it tonight, alright? Especially if it's another marathon of the Legally Blonde movies. You know how much I hate the one with the twins." Another chuckle escaped as Nicole begun to drag Jin Ah in the direction of their love seat.
"I promise, it has nothing to do with that," Nicole let out as she turned her back to her favorite piece of furniture, dropping back onto the cushions, hand still gripped around Jin Ah's. Leaning back to look at the ceiling one last time, she gave a firm nod of her head - it looked as good as it was going to. "Okay," she started back up, using all the strength she could muster up from one arm alone to yank Jin Ah down toward the cushion next to her. "You can open up your eyes now."
Focusing on the Jin Ah, who was now struggling to get herself into a comfortable position, next to her, she waited patiently for a reaction. Any sort of reaction; good, bad, lackluster. "Nicole, I can't even se-…," her friend started before finally managing to set herself properly, her neck craning upward to lock gaze on whatever she was so interested in. "… Oh."
Oh? Was that a good or bad "oh"?
Gulping back as a tide of apprehension washed over her, "You totally hate it."
"Hate it?" The voice from the girl next to her, which was usually so strong and bellowing, seemed to have been kicked down a notch, taking on that same wonderment she hadn't caught wind of since the last time they'd been able to get access to an astronomy tower. "How could I hate something like this? It's so… cool," she paused. "Cool to me, at least, and… thoughtful? Where'd you even find these things, I thought they stopped making them."
"They didn't stop but I remember that I had some laying in my closest somewhere, so…" Nicole trailed off, her free hand beginning to make nervous circles across the top of her thigh.
"I hope you didn't go to too much trouble."
"Trouble? No, it wasn't trouble at all, and… anyway…, I wanted to make your night a good one, after what happened earlier and all." And what made a fanatic of galaxies and constellations more giddy than glow-in-the-dark stars, right?
"You did all of this because… I failed my test? That's it? Just because of that?"
"Well…, yeah. It meant a lot to you, I didn't like the idea of you being so ups-…" Nicole begun to further her explanation; readying herself to spew out an entire spiel on how Jin Ah's happiness was most important to her, above anything else, when something halted her attempt.
One second was all it took for her lips to go from bare and clattering, to warm and enveloped with those of another. Eyes instinctively closing, she felt a hand wrap around her side, fingers splaying under the material of her shirt across the small of her back. A small shudder escaped her lips - "cold," she mumbled against the other's lips, causing Jin Ah to chuckle back in reply.
Eyes fluttering back open as Jin Ah pulled back from her, Nicole couldn't help but raise a hand upward - resting her fingers against the area that her friend had just dominated.
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No!" Nicole let out, hand falling back at her side. "I just… I didn't expect that and I have… c-cupcakes, and…," she trailed off nervously. "I bought… cupcakes."
"You bought cupcakes," Jin Ah repeated back to her with a smile, scooting herself closer to Nicole, pecking her lightly on the cheek. "I guess we can't let those go to waste then," she finished off - dropping Nicole's hand back to her side and beginning to stand back upward - only to be halted by a firm, and suddenly bold, grasp at her waist.
"No," Nicole started. "They can wait."
The small, almost sweet, smile that had played across the other's lips moments before took a turn for something more devious. "I thought you'd say as much."