suzywoo - 6/?
Title: Fight fire with fire
Author: kanintallrik
Pairing: Wooyoung x Suzy, (onesided Suzy x Minho)
Rating: pg-13
Genre: highschool!au
Summary: For Suzy, winning the school dance competition marks the start of her new, amazing life. When she's given an opportunity to perfect her performance, she's certainly not just going to let it slip through her fingers; too bad if the consequences also affects Wooyoung. The question is; will he be there to pick up the pieces or will he, in a moment of spite, make everything worse?
Suzy receives her first evil eye already on the bus to school on Monday morning.
It’s a pair of freshmen girls wearing frowns their inert faces can’t really complement, and at first Suzy feels like laughing. Who do they think they are?
Then she makes the connection, and something ice cold seeps down into her stomach.
By lunch-time she feels like throwing up.
She thinks it over as she’s skipping fourth period locked up in the girls’ bathroom. What started as a conflict between two individuals quickly becomes a neat text-book scenario of bullying, not as much by the offendee’s tactic of letting her entire social network know of the offence in order to exclude the offender, but by non-related teenaged boys’ tendencies to catch up on anything involving opportunity to vent their sadistic tendencies for temporary entertainment, especially when the prey in question is that awkward, snobby bitch in sophomore year who suddenly doesn’t seem so self-assured. Henceforth; snickering, name-calling and the occasional shove is due to ensue, usually in the hallways which are so sacredly void of teachers’ watching gazes.
Objectively speaking, Suzy’s disappointed. Years of social incompetence has drilled her into not giving a damn what her peers think of her and she has practically perfected the art of groundless self-confidence. So why is she suddenly so affected?
Around two-thirty she decides to call it a day and sneak out early while everybody’s still in class. When she arrives at the sophomores floor to find her locker broken up and books, papers and pens scattered all over the corridor, she can really only sigh. After seriously considering just leaving it all, she takes a deep breath and starts jumping around on her haunches, stuffing as much she can fit into her backpack, and then leaves with a couple of textbooks tucked under her arm.
Still, Suzy manages all the way till Thursday. She has to carry all the books she needs to every class, she can’t get herself to eat lunch in the cafeteria, and she skips P.E, but other than that, she’s a bit proud of herself. Be it because of that, or despite that, doesn’t really matter, but on Friday morning she calls the administration office and dutifully lets them know that she’s coming down with something foul and won’t be going to school today, and probably not on Monday or Tuesday either, just in case. The secretary wishes her to get better, and that’s that.
(She sees Wooyoung only once; on Wednesday. He sees her walking by in the hall, but doesn’t even wave, just sends her a quick look and then turns back to his friends. She forces herself to not feel disappointed, and she’s not going over to talk to him herself. No way in hell.)
-
Wooyoung feels bad.
Having become quite a master at spotting Suzy in the crowd over the course of the latest months, he has definitely seen her, and he isn’t the least bit surprised when she doesn’t show up in school on Friday.
It’s however not until she’s absent both Monday, Tuesday and, ultimately, Wednesday that he gathers up the courage to send her a text, not sure if he’ll get any response.
- Hey, how are you doing?
He debates whether to sign with his name, but decides against it. She has his number, he reminds himself, and hopes she hasn’t erased it or anything.
The response doesn’t come until two hours later, when Wooyoung is on his way home.
- Fine, why?
Wooyoung scoffs to himself.
- They said you’re sick
It takes about ten minutes before his phone buzzes again;
- I’m cutting
He hesitates for a minute, then types in;
- Can I come over?
and skips the first bus home to wait for an answer. Another ten minutes or so, it comes;
- I’m not home though
But Wooyoung can’t really tell what that means.
- If you don’t wanna see me, just say so
The reply comes quicker this time;
- But I’m really not home. Meet you downtown in half an hour?
Wooyoung’s heart skips a beat and he hurries to reply to specify the location.
-
They walk around for over half an hour before Suzy finds a café worthy of stepping into. She does this with her same remorseless ways as always, and Wooyoung feels a little sheepish for worrying about her. But when they’ve sat down in a corner, she suddenly has something vulnerable in her eyes.
“I haven’t eaten all day.” She shares, almost sounding embarrassed, before taking a big bite of the gigantic sandwich she bought.
“Why?” he asks, but she doesn’t even look at him, just chews and sips her drink.
“What have you done these days?” he tries instead.
“I can’t stay at home.” She says simply, and he’s not sure if she’s answering his question or starting up a new conversation entirely.
“Okay…?” he probes.
“I just… I can’t. I get sick.” She sends him a serious look over the glass and adds; “Really sick.”
He doesn’t know what to say, but after a minute she speaks up again.
“I go out in the morning. Walk into town and find someplace warm. I sit there…” she pauses to think; “maybe five or six hours. Then maybe I buy something to eat. Breakfast.”
Wooyoung just stares, not sure if he’s more astounded by the fact that she’s willingly opening up to him or by the bizarre things she’s saying.
“But today I didn’t. Sat by the river all day. It’s nice, you know. People walk their dogs there. I like that.”
“Why?” Wooyoung manages.
She sends him a short look. “I just like dogs.”
“No, not that. The other part.”
She’s not so quick to answer now, instead turns her attention back to her food for a bit, before;
“I told you. I get sick from that place.”
“Home?”
She just nods to confirm. After a while the silence starts to feel uncomfortable, and Wooyoung says, mostly to just have something to say;
“I saw what they did to your locker.”
“Uh-huh.” She says shortly, again without looking at him, and cringes at how sour her own voice comes out sounding.
“I…” he starts, but trails off.
“You what?” she snaps, and sends him a glare that startles him in his seat. “You did what?”
“Nothing.” He says, voice smaller than he intended.
“Exactly. Going bananas on my locker wasn’t the only thing, you know.”
“I know.”
“Still. Nothing.”
“I just…” he tries, fighting to put words to what held him back in the hallways, words to why he feels so much like shit. “I actually. Was afraid.”
Although listening intently, she says nothing, so he continues, equally staggering.
“Was afraid that… they’d go after me as well. I was chicken.”
“Or.” Suzy says in a small voice; suddenly finding her empty glass incredibly interesting. “You thought I deserved it.”
Wooyoung narrows his eyes and studies her face intently, but it won’t give anything away.
“You did take those shoes, didn’t you?”
She answers calmly; “You know I did.”
“Well. Yeah.”
But she doesn’t say any more, just keeps playing with her straw. Wooyoung sighs.
“You have to apologize.”
“No.”
“No?”
“…I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Suzy pictures Krystal; Krystal screaming in her face, Krystal with cold eyes and smeared make-up. And then she pictures Minho (<3CMH<3); big, brown eyes gone hard and soft lips pursed.
“Not only is it the right thing to do…” Wooyoung says harshly when she won’t reply. She reluctantly looks up, to narrowed eyes and a raised eyebrow. “But what are you, Suzy? Five?”
The sob shakes through her before she even can react; hitching breath and quivering lip and the whole shebang, and she brings up a knee to her chest to shield herself from his piercing gaze.
“I just can’t…” she whines into the fabric of her jeans, before her body un-tenses and the first tears starts flowing.
Next, she feels Wooyoung sliding into her side of the booth and put an arm around her shoulders that she doesn’t even bother shaking off.
“I’m sorry, okay?” he whispers, just by her ear. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
She sniffles and spitefully meets his, now significantly softened, gaze.
“Of course you did!” she wails weakly. “And you’re right! I’m horrible and immature, but I just can't... I'm too deep in this shit for it to be fixed with a simple apology!”
“I’m sure that if you just returned the shoes…”
“It’s not about the fucking shoes!” she cuts him off. “It’s not even about Krystal anymore!”
“Okay.” Wooyoung argues softly. “People at school are gonna tire and forget about it soon enough, but are you ever gonna get over it if you don’t set things straight?”
His words strike her hard, and she’s afraid that he’s partly right.
“I just couldn’t…” she says pleadingly and looks into his eyes. “Couldn’t stand the look on her face. It would mean she won. And… that all my chances with Choi Minho are officially screwed.”
“Choi Minho?” Wooyoung repeats blankly while subconsciously browsing through his mental library of acquaintances, soon coming to a vague halt at a red waistcoat.
Oh. Oh.
“I-- You…”
“I just… I really love him.” (And boy, was she going to be embarrassed about that comment for the next five years.)
-
Wooyoung feels strangely detached when seeing Suzy off at the bus.
Okay, so. Choi Minho. Okay, cool. Or something.
He digs out the yearbook when he gets home; flipping past the dog-eared sophomore years and scans through the senior pages, and…
Dear lord, the guy’s a friggin’ Adonis.
Well, shit.
When he sees Suzy at the school yard the next morning, Wooyoung is mildly surprised. He is, however, really surprised when she walks straight up to where he’s standing with his friends with a gaze so burning that it would have freaked him out if he hadn’t been on the receiving end of it so many times over the last months.
“Oh, you came.” He states blankly when she arrives, but she ignores him at first. Only after quickly sweeping her gaze over Chansung’s, Junho’s and Taecyeon’s faces does she turn to Wooyoung with narrowed eyes.
“Come with me.” She demands, already turning around to leave.
“Why?” Wooyoung argues, and realizes he sounds very much like a pissed-off preschooler.
She swirls around just enough to give him a liquidizing glare. “Just come!”
He sends a last look at his friends, tiredly ignoring Taecyeon’s greasy grin and elevated thumb before hurrying off after Suzy who just disappears behind the corner of the school building.
She waits for him there, leaned against the brick wall, but is suddenly strangely quiet. Not until his brows have quirked to unbelievable heights does she fidget and speak up.
“You have to help me.” She pleads, and looks into Wooyoung’s eyes.
“With what?”
Her body jerks and she exhales heavily with frustration. “You know. This. Everything.”
Wooyoung can’t help rolling his eyes. “…Fine. You got the shoes?”
She nods silently, and points to her bag.
“Gimme.”
She just stares at him. Not until he sticks out his hand does she sink down on her haunches and produces them from the backpack, wrapped neatly in a plastic shopping bag. When he hooks two fingers under the heel caps and gives the bag back her eyes widen, but he resolutely turns around to leave, ignoring her hushed, frantic protests. The red ribbons twirl weakly behind him as he marches across the school yard.
Krystal just stares at Wooyoung when he slams the shoes down on her desk.
“Suzy says she’s sorry.” He announces offhandedly.
Krystal blinks. “What?”
“Suzy says she’s sorry she took your shoes. I’m returning them now.”
After a quite pregnant pause, Sulli walks up to Krystal’s side and scoffs.
“What is this shit? Why isn’t she returning them herself?”
“Because she’s chicken.” He says, equally detached, and when Sulli opens her mouth again he hurries to continue; “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, okay. I have to get to class.”
He leaves without looking back.
Author: kanintallrik
Pairing: Wooyoung x Suzy, (onesided Suzy x Minho)
Rating: pg-13
Genre: highschool!au
Summary: For Suzy, winning the school dance competition marks the start of her new, amazing life. When she's given an opportunity to perfect her performance, she's certainly not just going to let it slip through her fingers; too bad if the consequences also affects Wooyoung. The question is; will he be there to pick up the pieces or will he, in a moment of spite, make everything worse?
Suzy receives her first evil eye already on the bus to school on Monday morning.
It’s a pair of freshmen girls wearing frowns their inert faces can’t really complement, and at first Suzy feels like laughing. Who do they think they are?
Then she makes the connection, and something ice cold seeps down into her stomach.
By lunch-time she feels like throwing up.
She thinks it over as she’s skipping fourth period locked up in the girls’ bathroom. What started as a conflict between two individuals quickly becomes a neat text-book scenario of bullying, not as much by the offendee’s tactic of letting her entire social network know of the offence in order to exclude the offender, but by non-related teenaged boys’ tendencies to catch up on anything involving opportunity to vent their sadistic tendencies for temporary entertainment, especially when the prey in question is that awkward, snobby bitch in sophomore year who suddenly doesn’t seem so self-assured. Henceforth; snickering, name-calling and the occasional shove is due to ensue, usually in the hallways which are so sacredly void of teachers’ watching gazes.
Objectively speaking, Suzy’s disappointed. Years of social incompetence has drilled her into not giving a damn what her peers think of her and she has practically perfected the art of groundless self-confidence. So why is she suddenly so affected?
Around two-thirty she decides to call it a day and sneak out early while everybody’s still in class. When she arrives at the sophomores floor to find her locker broken up and books, papers and pens scattered all over the corridor, she can really only sigh. After seriously considering just leaving it all, she takes a deep breath and starts jumping around on her haunches, stuffing as much she can fit into her backpack, and then leaves with a couple of textbooks tucked under her arm.
Still, Suzy manages all the way till Thursday. She has to carry all the books she needs to every class, she can’t get herself to eat lunch in the cafeteria, and she skips P.E, but other than that, she’s a bit proud of herself. Be it because of that, or despite that, doesn’t really matter, but on Friday morning she calls the administration office and dutifully lets them know that she’s coming down with something foul and won’t be going to school today, and probably not on Monday or Tuesday either, just in case. The secretary wishes her to get better, and that’s that.
(She sees Wooyoung only once; on Wednesday. He sees her walking by in the hall, but doesn’t even wave, just sends her a quick look and then turns back to his friends. She forces herself to not feel disappointed, and she’s not going over to talk to him herself. No way in hell.)
-
Wooyoung feels bad.
Having become quite a master at spotting Suzy in the crowd over the course of the latest months, he has definitely seen her, and he isn’t the least bit surprised when she doesn’t show up in school on Friday.
It’s however not until she’s absent both Monday, Tuesday and, ultimately, Wednesday that he gathers up the courage to send her a text, not sure if he’ll get any response.
- Hey, how are you doing?
He debates whether to sign with his name, but decides against it. She has his number, he reminds himself, and hopes she hasn’t erased it or anything.
The response doesn’t come until two hours later, when Wooyoung is on his way home.
- Fine, why?
Wooyoung scoffs to himself.
- They said you’re sick
It takes about ten minutes before his phone buzzes again;
- I’m cutting
He hesitates for a minute, then types in;
- Can I come over?
and skips the first bus home to wait for an answer. Another ten minutes or so, it comes;
- I’m not home though
But Wooyoung can’t really tell what that means.
- If you don’t wanna see me, just say so
The reply comes quicker this time;
- But I’m really not home. Meet you downtown in half an hour?
Wooyoung’s heart skips a beat and he hurries to reply to specify the location.
-
They walk around for over half an hour before Suzy finds a café worthy of stepping into. She does this with her same remorseless ways as always, and Wooyoung feels a little sheepish for worrying about her. But when they’ve sat down in a corner, she suddenly has something vulnerable in her eyes.
“I haven’t eaten all day.” She shares, almost sounding embarrassed, before taking a big bite of the gigantic sandwich she bought.
“Why?” he asks, but she doesn’t even look at him, just chews and sips her drink.
“What have you done these days?” he tries instead.
“I can’t stay at home.” She says simply, and he’s not sure if she’s answering his question or starting up a new conversation entirely.
“Okay…?” he probes.
“I just… I can’t. I get sick.” She sends him a serious look over the glass and adds; “Really sick.”
He doesn’t know what to say, but after a minute she speaks up again.
“I go out in the morning. Walk into town and find someplace warm. I sit there…” she pauses to think; “maybe five or six hours. Then maybe I buy something to eat. Breakfast.”
Wooyoung just stares, not sure if he’s more astounded by the fact that she’s willingly opening up to him or by the bizarre things she’s saying.
“But today I didn’t. Sat by the river all day. It’s nice, you know. People walk their dogs there. I like that.”
“Why?” Wooyoung manages.
She sends him a short look. “I just like dogs.”
“No, not that. The other part.”
She’s not so quick to answer now, instead turns her attention back to her food for a bit, before;
“I told you. I get sick from that place.”
“Home?”
She just nods to confirm. After a while the silence starts to feel uncomfortable, and Wooyoung says, mostly to just have something to say;
“I saw what they did to your locker.”
“Uh-huh.” She says shortly, again without looking at him, and cringes at how sour her own voice comes out sounding.
“I…” he starts, but trails off.
“You what?” she snaps, and sends him a glare that startles him in his seat. “You did what?”
“Nothing.” He says, voice smaller than he intended.
“Exactly. Going bananas on my locker wasn’t the only thing, you know.”
“I know.”
“Still. Nothing.”
“I just…” he tries, fighting to put words to what held him back in the hallways, words to why he feels so much like shit. “I actually. Was afraid.”
Although listening intently, she says nothing, so he continues, equally staggering.
“Was afraid that… they’d go after me as well. I was chicken.”
“Or.” Suzy says in a small voice; suddenly finding her empty glass incredibly interesting. “You thought I deserved it.”
Wooyoung narrows his eyes and studies her face intently, but it won’t give anything away.
“You did take those shoes, didn’t you?”
She answers calmly; “You know I did.”
“Well. Yeah.”
But she doesn’t say any more, just keeps playing with her straw. Wooyoung sighs.
“You have to apologize.”
“No.”
“No?”
“…I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Suzy pictures Krystal; Krystal screaming in her face, Krystal with cold eyes and smeared make-up. And then she pictures Minho (<3CMH<3); big, brown eyes gone hard and soft lips pursed.
“Not only is it the right thing to do…” Wooyoung says harshly when she won’t reply. She reluctantly looks up, to narrowed eyes and a raised eyebrow. “But what are you, Suzy? Five?”
The sob shakes through her before she even can react; hitching breath and quivering lip and the whole shebang, and she brings up a knee to her chest to shield herself from his piercing gaze.
“I just can’t…” she whines into the fabric of her jeans, before her body un-tenses and the first tears starts flowing.
Next, she feels Wooyoung sliding into her side of the booth and put an arm around her shoulders that she doesn’t even bother shaking off.
“I’m sorry, okay?” he whispers, just by her ear. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
She sniffles and spitefully meets his, now significantly softened, gaze.
“Of course you did!” she wails weakly. “And you’re right! I’m horrible and immature, but I just can't... I'm too deep in this shit for it to be fixed with a simple apology!”
“I’m sure that if you just returned the shoes…”
“It’s not about the fucking shoes!” she cuts him off. “It’s not even about Krystal anymore!”
“Okay.” Wooyoung argues softly. “People at school are gonna tire and forget about it soon enough, but are you ever gonna get over it if you don’t set things straight?”
His words strike her hard, and she’s afraid that he’s partly right.
“I just couldn’t…” she says pleadingly and looks into his eyes. “Couldn’t stand the look on her face. It would mean she won. And… that all my chances with Choi Minho are officially screwed.”
“Choi Minho?” Wooyoung repeats blankly while subconsciously browsing through his mental library of acquaintances, soon coming to a vague halt at a red waistcoat.
Oh. Oh.
“I-- You…”
“I just… I really love him.” (And boy, was she going to be embarrassed about that comment for the next five years.)
-
Wooyoung feels strangely detached when seeing Suzy off at the bus.
Okay, so. Choi Minho. Okay, cool. Or something.
He digs out the yearbook when he gets home; flipping past the dog-eared sophomore years and scans through the senior pages, and…
Dear lord, the guy’s a friggin’ Adonis.
Well, shit.
When he sees Suzy at the school yard the next morning, Wooyoung is mildly surprised. He is, however, really surprised when she walks straight up to where he’s standing with his friends with a gaze so burning that it would have freaked him out if he hadn’t been on the receiving end of it so many times over the last months.
“Oh, you came.” He states blankly when she arrives, but she ignores him at first. Only after quickly sweeping her gaze over Chansung’s, Junho’s and Taecyeon’s faces does she turn to Wooyoung with narrowed eyes.
“Come with me.” She demands, already turning around to leave.
“Why?” Wooyoung argues, and realizes he sounds very much like a pissed-off preschooler.
She swirls around just enough to give him a liquidizing glare. “Just come!”
He sends a last look at his friends, tiredly ignoring Taecyeon’s greasy grin and elevated thumb before hurrying off after Suzy who just disappears behind the corner of the school building.
She waits for him there, leaned against the brick wall, but is suddenly strangely quiet. Not until his brows have quirked to unbelievable heights does she fidget and speak up.
“You have to help me.” She pleads, and looks into Wooyoung’s eyes.
“With what?”
Her body jerks and she exhales heavily with frustration. “You know. This. Everything.”
Wooyoung can’t help rolling his eyes. “…Fine. You got the shoes?”
She nods silently, and points to her bag.
“Gimme.”
She just stares at him. Not until he sticks out his hand does she sink down on her haunches and produces them from the backpack, wrapped neatly in a plastic shopping bag. When he hooks two fingers under the heel caps and gives the bag back her eyes widen, but he resolutely turns around to leave, ignoring her hushed, frantic protests. The red ribbons twirl weakly behind him as he marches across the school yard.
Krystal just stares at Wooyoung when he slams the shoes down on her desk.
“Suzy says she’s sorry.” He announces offhandedly.
Krystal blinks. “What?”
“Suzy says she’s sorry she took your shoes. I’m returning them now.”
After a quite pregnant pause, Sulli walks up to Krystal’s side and scoffs.
“What is this shit? Why isn’t she returning them herself?”
“Because she’s chicken.” He says, equally detached, and when Sulli opens her mouth again he hurries to continue; “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, okay. I have to get to class.”
He leaves without looking back.