#17 [Big Bang/Kara, Seungri/Hara]
Fandom: Big Bang/Kara
Title: don’t hesitate (you know you love me)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Seungri/Hara
Length: 3025 words
Summary: they’re dancing around the inevitable.
Original Story: that’s not how you do it by firequakes
Notes: i really loved the original fic so i hope i did it justice. i'm also a bit unsure about how seungri and hara's activities match up time-wise, so please excuse any inconsistencies. if there are any, please let me know.
The first time he sees her her hair is plastered to her cheeks, sweat beaded on her neck as she drags herself through the last few dance moves. Seunghyun’s finished with practice for today but he leans against the mirror, watching the girls slow and finally stop as the music dies.
This girl is pretty, he thinks, cute in the way he likes: big eyes in a pale face. Sweet-looking. Only when he catches her eye and grins, she turns away, pushing her bangs to the side as she gathers her things. He adjusts lanky limbs and moves towards where she’s standing, in the middle of a clump of four girls. Their eyes dart towards him and away as he approaches.
“Hi,” he says. His chest goes jittery as they say nothing, just giggle. Think positive, think positive. “I’m Seunghyun, you guys were good today. I should know, I’m in a dance group.”
A couple of them break out into smiles and Seunghyun chalks that up as a victory, only the girl with the big eyes just reaches for her water bottle and crosses her arms. When she trains those eyes on him again he stumbles on the “want to go get something to drink?” line and she says something about her parents coming to pick her up.
One hour later he’s surrounded by three girls drinking sodas at the convenience store and he’s found out her name is Hara.
After he pushes himself into their group he buys her strawberry milks and teases her about missed dance steps, reveling in how bright her eyes are when she snaps back.
---
One day she finally comes to a show. Hara tilts her head, tossing it back when he jogs down the stage’s stairs to where she stands.
“I’m glad you made it,” he pants, wiping sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his t-shirt.
“I’m just here shopping.”
“Oh.” Seunghyun looks at her hands, empty of bags or food court sodas. “But you didn’t buy anything.”
“Not yet,” she admits, but there’s a blush of pink in her cheeks, so faint that he swears she’s willing it down. “I haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
“So you thought you’d come watch us and find it, right?” Seunghyun waggles his eyebrows. “Right?”
“Dream on,” she says. She licks at the corner of her lip, catching it between her teeth.
Seunghyun thinks maybe she’ll talk to him again when a couple of girls come up for a picture, only one of them has long hair that tickles his arm when she moves. She’s holding the camera but he gestures her in and takes the shot himself, her giggle feather-like against his ear when he snaps the photo. They introduce each other and she admits she’s not a very good dancer, but he says he could teach her sometime if she wants and she nods.
“I study a lot,” she murmurs, and Seunghyun tilts his head to catch the last bit.
When he looks up Hara is gone.
---
He doesn’t want to come home after Battle Shinhwa.
It’s not that he’d bragged or anything. It’s just. Seunghyun knows he’s good. People have told him so all of his life, and he’d gotten in in the first place, right? They’d accepted him and trained him a bit, or at least enough to make him think that maybe this was the right place for him. He was just beginning to get used to how the skyscrapers in Seoul blocked out the sun sometimes when he was eliminated. Now, in Gwangju, people pat his shoulder and talk about how unfair it was, everything in past tense like his life is already over and he just can’t stand it.
Keep your chin up. Want to meet?
Hara’s text message is short, devoid of emoticons or hearts, but it makes him get off of the bus in front of his old school, take the long way to the convenience store on the corner.
“Hi,” he hears.
Hara is pretty even under the fluorescent lights. There’s no smirk or frown or anything on her face, and he can almost trace out pity, so he steps back, past the Pocari Sweat display and towards the magazine rack near the entrance.
“Seunghyun, wait.”
He turns. There’s a barrel of strawberry milk in her hands and she shifts from foot to foot, sighing as she holds the bottle up.
“Do you want to keep me company while I drink this?”
“Did you watch me on tv?”
Hara fixes him with a look.
“I’m just asking,” he insists.
She rests her chin on her knees; they’re tucked up against her body as they sit on the cool concrete. “Sure I did. Everyone did.” She takes a long sip of milk before she speaks again. “You deserved to go on.”
Seunghyun says nothing.
“I mean, you weren’t the worst one there and you’re really good at dancing, so, you know. I thought maybe they would’ve kicked you out towards the middle.”
When Seunghyun meets her eyes there’s something soft there, and she throws the now-empty bottle at his shoulder. “Thanks,” he scoffs, “that makes me feel so much better.”
“I’m sure it does,” she replies, and really, it does, sitting in the shade with a pretty girl who’s said something not-mean to him for once in her life. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Thanks for the company.”
He adjusts the collar of his shirt, winking. “It’s the least I could do.”
“What, get me a strawberry milk?”
“It’s sweet, just like you.”
“Oh, god,” she groans, and maybe the inflection’s a little too exaggerated to be real, because she lets him walk her home and even waves goodbye when he closes her gate.
---
When Seunghyun becomes Little Seunghyun, his girlfriend gets into college and he shadows her in between training sessions, watches the smudges under her eyes grow dark. Sometimes he feels as if she’s gone somewhere far, staring at a space beyond him when they’re at libraries or coffee shops, her books spread over the table. Then he’ll joke about something, maybe about how they don’t need couple shirts since they have the same eyebags, and she’ll laugh. By the time he becomes Seungri, though, she has her fingers around his wrist and on his cheek and her voice shakes. “I can’t see you anymore, I look around for you and you aren’t even here. It’s too hard, Seunghyun.”
So Seungri throws himself into work, variety shows and musicals and concerts, running errands for his hyungs and he can’t help but feel a little lonely, because they only get free time at night now. Watching slivers of moon through the skyscrapers isn’t the same as the sun in the morning, even though Jiyong or Youngbae will sit with him sometimes, the former prodding at him until he smiles and the latter waiting for him to speak, sometimes rubbing circles into the small of his back.
When he gets the text message he asks Jiyong what it means.
“She wants to see the musical.”
Jiyong frowns over his food and Seunghyun takes a long sip of water, eyes resting thoughtfully on Seungri’s own.
“Be careful,” he says. “She might be using you.”
But Seungri knows her better than that. It’d always been them, and Seunghyun didn’t know her and neither did Youngbae or Daesung or even Jiyong, who shakes his head at Seunghyun and knocks Seungri in the side.
“Maybe,” he says, “you can meet up and give them to her in person.”
“She wants them through the mail.”
Jiyong and Seunghyun exchange looks.
“I’m telling you, she--”
“I’m giving them to her,” Seungri insists. “She’s bringing a friend.”
It was a stupid idea to ask them, anyway.
Seungri wants every note to be pitch perfect this time and he nails it; the thought carries him through the first half, at least until he sees her face, free of eyebags, a faint smile etched along her lips. Then the actress whispering into his ear is hers at the mall that day, the same sort of feathering. Something pricks at his eyes, sharp and heavy and he has to look away.
He can’t find her afterwards, but when he goes backstage to gather his things there’s a message on his phone. His chest hitches and he ignores the congratulatory slaps to the back to check it.
You haven’t changed at all. Goodbye.
The wind slaps him in the face when he leaves out the back door. Seungri zips his parka up and pulls the hood over his head, his manager clearing a path through the screaming girls to where the van waits. They claw at his arms and sob his name and isn’t this everything he’d ever wanted?
“Thank you,” he chokes out, “thank you for coming.”
He thinks there’s something weird about finding comfort in a store that sells ninety-nine cent lighters and Korean flag magnets, but when he steps inside, makeup scrubbed from his face and his hair a wet tangle, no one recognizes him as anything, maybe a college student taking a break from an all-night study session. Seungri slides open the glass door, more enamoured by the mist seeping out from its depths than the drinks it’s keeping cool. He doesn’t turn around when the door chimes, but the light tap on his shoulder has him freezing a smile into place. When he looks over he blinks.
“Hi,” Hara says. Her hair is pulled back into a bun and she’s got a thick turtleneck on, a coat bundled over her clothes. It makes her look tiny. “Weird seeing you here.”
“Same,” he says. “Is something wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
He taps his nose. “Did you break your nose or something?”
Hara shrugs one shoulder, a frown marring her face. She doesn’t look him in the eye. “I just got a shot.”
“In the nose?”
“Yeah.”
“But why would you--oh.”
“It’s not permanent.”
“I see.”
“And it wasn’t surgery or anything, just a filler.” Her voice is quiet. When she reaches for the strawberry milk he pulls it from her fingers.
“You know,” he says, “these have a lot of calories.”
She glances up at him, shocked.
“Not that it’ll matter for you, you’ll always look great.”
A smile breaks onto her face then, smaller and warmer than he’s ever seen before. It makes the night a little better, he thinks as he carries her drink and Seunghyun’s cigarettes to the register.
“You smoke?”
“No, my hyung does.”
“Mmm.” As they step out he hands her the bottle and he can’t help but watch her face. There aren’t any snappy comebacks, none of the bright scorn in her eyes or her mouth. It bothers him.
“Hey,” he says, “do you have time?”
“Time for what?”
He gestures to the pavement. It’s wider and cleaner, the roof longer than the one in Gwangju, but Hara’s mouth softens in recognition. “Wait,” she replies, “don’t you have stuff to do? The cigarettes?”
“Oh,” he bluffs, “it’ll be fine.”
When they sit down Hara tucks her chin into her sweater, rolling the drink between her palms. She’s quiet for a long time. “I just wanted to be prettier,” she blurts.
Seungri turns the Marlboro box over in his hands.
“That’s what celebrities are supposed to be right? Handsome and beautiful.”
“You already were,” he coughs, “beautiful, I mean.”
Hara chews on her lip. “You’re just saying that so I’ll call you handsome, aren’t you.”
“No, I...” What he wants to say is you always have been but it’s a chance he doesn’t want to take just yet, so he trails off. Hara looks at him and away again before she checks her watch, brushing the backs of her thighs.
“I have to go,” she says, “they’re going to be looking for me. I’ve been training,” she adds faintly.
When he stands he frowns before leaning down again, picking up the untouched bottle. Seungri turns it over in his hands before exhaling hard, flinging it into the trash.
---
He finds out Hara’s about to debut, even though he has to ask ten people and endure a week straight of teasing to get it. When their first video plays on TV, Jiyong says she’s cute and Seungri nods. She’s almost impossibly pretty, the same features in a different face. His chest twinges at the thought.
Seungri remembers the bandages swathed over her face and imagines a surgeon cutting into that soft skin, molding and shaping and it makes his stomach turn. She’d sent him a text message afterwards; when he’d called her there was a little tremor in her voice that made his eyes close. “Come see me when you’re not swollen,” he’d said, and her laughter was raspy and incredulous but it was there. If she texted him making fun of his awkward rapping on television at two in the morning he never complained about it.
---
Now they’re sitting in a radio station and Seungri is talking about crushes and she can’t look at him. Nicole is laughing and so is Eunhyuk. Seungri says “she totally had one on me” and laughs as her voice goes higher and louder, waits for the wrinkle to show up between her eyes, but her face just goes blank and everything clicks into place. He can’t help but smirk now, even though she rolls her eyes and insists he was the one hitting on her.
Then she begins to talk about strawberry milk and he chokes.
“He got me one when I was with my friends,” she lies, and it’s not a lie, really, only that the stories have weaved together and Seungri’s mouth slips a little, “and he said they were sweet, just like me.”
When Eeteuk and Gyuri groan he palms the back of his neck and shrugs, at least until he catches her eye and sees she’s stolen his smirk, shoulders up and eyebrow cocked.
Later he texts her about Jiyoung until DREAM ON FOREVER flashes on his phone screen. He chuckles until Daesung accidentally-on-purpose shifts on the bed beside him, yawning exaggeratedly.
“Sorry,” he whispers, and fires off a ^^;;;;; and a request for lunch sometime, his treat.
---
“I heard you’re doing well in college,” Hara says, and Seungri puffs up at that. They’re in a Japanese restaurant and he makes sure to order in the language, even though Hara seems unimpressed. She even shields her face when the waitress comes back with their food, refilling their waters before she disappears.
“I’m pretty good, right?”
“Sure,” she says, eyes focused resolutely on the sashimi she’s dissecting with her chopsticks.
“If you need help, you can always ask me. I’m great at it.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Her cheek blooms pink as she laughs and she rests it on her chin as she looks up at him. “You know, I thought you’d stop being like this once you actually became famous.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like...” Hara shrugs. “I don’t know, you’re so...shameless.”
“Girls seem to like it.”
“This girl doesn’t.”
Seungri thinks of the radio station and how the pieces seemed to fit together, but now he’s not so sure, because she’s frowning down at her food, the color drained from her cheeks.
“What did I do now?” he asks.
“Nothing, never mind.” Her lips twist and he can’t help but feel like they’ve dropped ten steps back, like he’s the kid in the Gwangju dance studio again. “Let’s just eat,” she says, and he remembers only belatedly that she doesn’t like sushi.
---
Do you have schedules? he sends, can I call you?
As soon as the phone buzzes Jiyong’s grabbing at his arms and Youngbae is laughing on the studio floor, Boss stepping over his knees.
“Let’s see,” Jiyong crows as he unlocks the iPhone screen, “let’s see what--”
Seungri snatches the phone back and tries his best to keep his face from falling. “She said, ‘whatever.’”
He shoots Daesung a dirty look as he snorts, but Seunghyun hangs over the edge of the couch, eyes thoughtful.
“I think that means you should call her. Not too soon,” he adds, “you should wait...” Seungri’s got the phone to his ear and he stands, ignoring the catcalls. “Fuck it,” Seunghyun says. The door swings shut.
“What was up with you at lunch?”
“It’s three in the morning.”
“An idol never sleeps.”
Hara is silent. Seungri can almost hear her rolling her eyes over the phone.
“Anyway, you weren’t being yourself, I just. Are you okay?”
“I’m tired,” she grumbles.
“From what?”
“An idol never sleeps.”
“Hara,” Seungri says, because her voice is getting faint and Nicole’s voice is somewhere in the background, “I always liked you.”
It’s quiet again. Seungri presses the phone to his ear and listens to the crackle of breath. Nicole’s voice is gone, now.
“You were always pretty, and now you’re even more pretty. I mean, uh...”
“Smooth.”
“I mean, you look good whatever you do.” He takes a breath. “I’ve always wanted to tell you that.”
“Thanks.”
“And I’ve always liked you.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“But you always shrug me off, or get sarcastic like you are now.”
“I’m not being sarcastic,” she protests, but when he laughs she does too, long and relieved. “Maybe sometimes. As long as we’re being honest, it’s because I don’t know how else to deal with you.”
---
The day before KARA leaves for Japan Seungri dials her number, fully expecting to hear the voicemail. When Hara picks up he sputters a little before speaking.
“So,” he says, “you’re going to debut here, right? Maybe I can show you around once you get there.”
“Since you know so much Japanese, right.”
“Yeah, sure, Hara-chan.”
“Please do not go there,” she cries.
“You know, they say you kind of look like Namie Amuro, so maybe if we go out in public--”
“Don’t even finish that thought.”
Title: don’t hesitate (you know you love me)
Rating: PG
Pairing: Seungri/Hara
Length: 3025 words
Summary: they’re dancing around the inevitable.
Original Story: that’s not how you do it by firequakes
Notes: i really loved the original fic so i hope i did it justice. i'm also a bit unsure about how seungri and hara's activities match up time-wise, so please excuse any inconsistencies. if there are any, please let me know.
The first time he sees her her hair is plastered to her cheeks, sweat beaded on her neck as she drags herself through the last few dance moves. Seunghyun’s finished with practice for today but he leans against the mirror, watching the girls slow and finally stop as the music dies.
This girl is pretty, he thinks, cute in the way he likes: big eyes in a pale face. Sweet-looking. Only when he catches her eye and grins, she turns away, pushing her bangs to the side as she gathers her things. He adjusts lanky limbs and moves towards where she’s standing, in the middle of a clump of four girls. Their eyes dart towards him and away as he approaches.
“Hi,” he says. His chest goes jittery as they say nothing, just giggle. Think positive, think positive. “I’m Seunghyun, you guys were good today. I should know, I’m in a dance group.”
A couple of them break out into smiles and Seunghyun chalks that up as a victory, only the girl with the big eyes just reaches for her water bottle and crosses her arms. When she trains those eyes on him again he stumbles on the “want to go get something to drink?” line and she says something about her parents coming to pick her up.
One hour later he’s surrounded by three girls drinking sodas at the convenience store and he’s found out her name is Hara.
After he pushes himself into their group he buys her strawberry milks and teases her about missed dance steps, reveling in how bright her eyes are when she snaps back.
---
One day she finally comes to a show. Hara tilts her head, tossing it back when he jogs down the stage’s stairs to where she stands.
“I’m glad you made it,” he pants, wiping sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his t-shirt.
“I’m just here shopping.”
“Oh.” Seunghyun looks at her hands, empty of bags or food court sodas. “But you didn’t buy anything.”
“Not yet,” she admits, but there’s a blush of pink in her cheeks, so faint that he swears she’s willing it down. “I haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
“So you thought you’d come watch us and find it, right?” Seunghyun waggles his eyebrows. “Right?”
“Dream on,” she says. She licks at the corner of her lip, catching it between her teeth.
Seunghyun thinks maybe she’ll talk to him again when a couple of girls come up for a picture, only one of them has long hair that tickles his arm when she moves. She’s holding the camera but he gestures her in and takes the shot himself, her giggle feather-like against his ear when he snaps the photo. They introduce each other and she admits she’s not a very good dancer, but he says he could teach her sometime if she wants and she nods.
“I study a lot,” she murmurs, and Seunghyun tilts his head to catch the last bit.
When he looks up Hara is gone.
---
He doesn’t want to come home after Battle Shinhwa.
It’s not that he’d bragged or anything. It’s just. Seunghyun knows he’s good. People have told him so all of his life, and he’d gotten in in the first place, right? They’d accepted him and trained him a bit, or at least enough to make him think that maybe this was the right place for him. He was just beginning to get used to how the skyscrapers in Seoul blocked out the sun sometimes when he was eliminated. Now, in Gwangju, people pat his shoulder and talk about how unfair it was, everything in past tense like his life is already over and he just can’t stand it.
Keep your chin up. Want to meet?
Hara’s text message is short, devoid of emoticons or hearts, but it makes him get off of the bus in front of his old school, take the long way to the convenience store on the corner.
“Hi,” he hears.
Hara is pretty even under the fluorescent lights. There’s no smirk or frown or anything on her face, and he can almost trace out pity, so he steps back, past the Pocari Sweat display and towards the magazine rack near the entrance.
“Seunghyun, wait.”
He turns. There’s a barrel of strawberry milk in her hands and she shifts from foot to foot, sighing as she holds the bottle up.
“Do you want to keep me company while I drink this?”
“Did you watch me on tv?”
Hara fixes him with a look.
“I’m just asking,” he insists.
She rests her chin on her knees; they’re tucked up against her body as they sit on the cool concrete. “Sure I did. Everyone did.” She takes a long sip of milk before she speaks again. “You deserved to go on.”
Seunghyun says nothing.
“I mean, you weren’t the worst one there and you’re really good at dancing, so, you know. I thought maybe they would’ve kicked you out towards the middle.”
When Seunghyun meets her eyes there’s something soft there, and she throws the now-empty bottle at his shoulder. “Thanks,” he scoffs, “that makes me feel so much better.”
“I’m sure it does,” she replies, and really, it does, sitting in the shade with a pretty girl who’s said something not-mean to him for once in her life. “Thanks for the drink.”
“Thanks for the company.”
He adjusts the collar of his shirt, winking. “It’s the least I could do.”
“What, get me a strawberry milk?”
“It’s sweet, just like you.”
“Oh, god,” she groans, and maybe the inflection’s a little too exaggerated to be real, because she lets him walk her home and even waves goodbye when he closes her gate.
---
When Seunghyun becomes Little Seunghyun, his girlfriend gets into college and he shadows her in between training sessions, watches the smudges under her eyes grow dark. Sometimes he feels as if she’s gone somewhere far, staring at a space beyond him when they’re at libraries or coffee shops, her books spread over the table. Then he’ll joke about something, maybe about how they don’t need couple shirts since they have the same eyebags, and she’ll laugh. By the time he becomes Seungri, though, she has her fingers around his wrist and on his cheek and her voice shakes. “I can’t see you anymore, I look around for you and you aren’t even here. It’s too hard, Seunghyun.”
So Seungri throws himself into work, variety shows and musicals and concerts, running errands for his hyungs and he can’t help but feel a little lonely, because they only get free time at night now. Watching slivers of moon through the skyscrapers isn’t the same as the sun in the morning, even though Jiyong or Youngbae will sit with him sometimes, the former prodding at him until he smiles and the latter waiting for him to speak, sometimes rubbing circles into the small of his back.
When he gets the text message he asks Jiyong what it means.
“She wants to see the musical.”
Jiyong frowns over his food and Seunghyun takes a long sip of water, eyes resting thoughtfully on Seungri’s own.
“Be careful,” he says. “She might be using you.”
But Seungri knows her better than that. It’d always been them, and Seunghyun didn’t know her and neither did Youngbae or Daesung or even Jiyong, who shakes his head at Seunghyun and knocks Seungri in the side.
“Maybe,” he says, “you can meet up and give them to her in person.”
“She wants them through the mail.”
Jiyong and Seunghyun exchange looks.
“I’m telling you, she--”
“I’m giving them to her,” Seungri insists. “She’s bringing a friend.”
It was a stupid idea to ask them, anyway.
Seungri wants every note to be pitch perfect this time and he nails it; the thought carries him through the first half, at least until he sees her face, free of eyebags, a faint smile etched along her lips. Then the actress whispering into his ear is hers at the mall that day, the same sort of feathering. Something pricks at his eyes, sharp and heavy and he has to look away.
He can’t find her afterwards, but when he goes backstage to gather his things there’s a message on his phone. His chest hitches and he ignores the congratulatory slaps to the back to check it.
You haven’t changed at all. Goodbye.
The wind slaps him in the face when he leaves out the back door. Seungri zips his parka up and pulls the hood over his head, his manager clearing a path through the screaming girls to where the van waits. They claw at his arms and sob his name and isn’t this everything he’d ever wanted?
“Thank you,” he chokes out, “thank you for coming.”
He thinks there’s something weird about finding comfort in a store that sells ninety-nine cent lighters and Korean flag magnets, but when he steps inside, makeup scrubbed from his face and his hair a wet tangle, no one recognizes him as anything, maybe a college student taking a break from an all-night study session. Seungri slides open the glass door, more enamoured by the mist seeping out from its depths than the drinks it’s keeping cool. He doesn’t turn around when the door chimes, but the light tap on his shoulder has him freezing a smile into place. When he looks over he blinks.
“Hi,” Hara says. Her hair is pulled back into a bun and she’s got a thick turtleneck on, a coat bundled over her clothes. It makes her look tiny. “Weird seeing you here.”
“Same,” he says. “Is something wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
He taps his nose. “Did you break your nose or something?”
Hara shrugs one shoulder, a frown marring her face. She doesn’t look him in the eye. “I just got a shot.”
“In the nose?”
“Yeah.”
“But why would you--oh.”
“It’s not permanent.”
“I see.”
“And it wasn’t surgery or anything, just a filler.” Her voice is quiet. When she reaches for the strawberry milk he pulls it from her fingers.
“You know,” he says, “these have a lot of calories.”
She glances up at him, shocked.
“Not that it’ll matter for you, you’ll always look great.”
A smile breaks onto her face then, smaller and warmer than he’s ever seen before. It makes the night a little better, he thinks as he carries her drink and Seunghyun’s cigarettes to the register.
“You smoke?”
“No, my hyung does.”
“Mmm.” As they step out he hands her the bottle and he can’t help but watch her face. There aren’t any snappy comebacks, none of the bright scorn in her eyes or her mouth. It bothers him.
“Hey,” he says, “do you have time?”
“Time for what?”
He gestures to the pavement. It’s wider and cleaner, the roof longer than the one in Gwangju, but Hara’s mouth softens in recognition. “Wait,” she replies, “don’t you have stuff to do? The cigarettes?”
“Oh,” he bluffs, “it’ll be fine.”
When they sit down Hara tucks her chin into her sweater, rolling the drink between her palms. She’s quiet for a long time. “I just wanted to be prettier,” she blurts.
Seungri turns the Marlboro box over in his hands.
“That’s what celebrities are supposed to be right? Handsome and beautiful.”
“You already were,” he coughs, “beautiful, I mean.”
Hara chews on her lip. “You’re just saying that so I’ll call you handsome, aren’t you.”
“No, I...” What he wants to say is you always have been but it’s a chance he doesn’t want to take just yet, so he trails off. Hara looks at him and away again before she checks her watch, brushing the backs of her thighs.
“I have to go,” she says, “they’re going to be looking for me. I’ve been training,” she adds faintly.
When he stands he frowns before leaning down again, picking up the untouched bottle. Seungri turns it over in his hands before exhaling hard, flinging it into the trash.
---
He finds out Hara’s about to debut, even though he has to ask ten people and endure a week straight of teasing to get it. When their first video plays on TV, Jiyong says she’s cute and Seungri nods. She’s almost impossibly pretty, the same features in a different face. His chest twinges at the thought.
Seungri remembers the bandages swathed over her face and imagines a surgeon cutting into that soft skin, molding and shaping and it makes his stomach turn. She’d sent him a text message afterwards; when he’d called her there was a little tremor in her voice that made his eyes close. “Come see me when you’re not swollen,” he’d said, and her laughter was raspy and incredulous but it was there. If she texted him making fun of his awkward rapping on television at two in the morning he never complained about it.
---
Now they’re sitting in a radio station and Seungri is talking about crushes and she can’t look at him. Nicole is laughing and so is Eunhyuk. Seungri says “she totally had one on me” and laughs as her voice goes higher and louder, waits for the wrinkle to show up between her eyes, but her face just goes blank and everything clicks into place. He can’t help but smirk now, even though she rolls her eyes and insists he was the one hitting on her.
Then she begins to talk about strawberry milk and he chokes.
“He got me one when I was with my friends,” she lies, and it’s not a lie, really, only that the stories have weaved together and Seungri’s mouth slips a little, “and he said they were sweet, just like me.”
When Eeteuk and Gyuri groan he palms the back of his neck and shrugs, at least until he catches her eye and sees she’s stolen his smirk, shoulders up and eyebrow cocked.
Later he texts her about Jiyoung until DREAM ON FOREVER flashes on his phone screen. He chuckles until Daesung accidentally-on-purpose shifts on the bed beside him, yawning exaggeratedly.
“Sorry,” he whispers, and fires off a ^^;;;;; and a request for lunch sometime, his treat.
---
“I heard you’re doing well in college,” Hara says, and Seungri puffs up at that. They’re in a Japanese restaurant and he makes sure to order in the language, even though Hara seems unimpressed. She even shields her face when the waitress comes back with their food, refilling their waters before she disappears.
“I’m pretty good, right?”
“Sure,” she says, eyes focused resolutely on the sashimi she’s dissecting with her chopsticks.
“If you need help, you can always ask me. I’m great at it.”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Her cheek blooms pink as she laughs and she rests it on her chin as she looks up at him. “You know, I thought you’d stop being like this once you actually became famous.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like...” Hara shrugs. “I don’t know, you’re so...shameless.”
“Girls seem to like it.”
“This girl doesn’t.”
Seungri thinks of the radio station and how the pieces seemed to fit together, but now he’s not so sure, because she’s frowning down at her food, the color drained from her cheeks.
“What did I do now?” he asks.
“Nothing, never mind.” Her lips twist and he can’t help but feel like they’ve dropped ten steps back, like he’s the kid in the Gwangju dance studio again. “Let’s just eat,” she says, and he remembers only belatedly that she doesn’t like sushi.
---
Do you have schedules? he sends, can I call you?
As soon as the phone buzzes Jiyong’s grabbing at his arms and Youngbae is laughing on the studio floor, Boss stepping over his knees.
“Let’s see,” Jiyong crows as he unlocks the iPhone screen, “let’s see what--”
Seungri snatches the phone back and tries his best to keep his face from falling. “She said, ‘whatever.’”
He shoots Daesung a dirty look as he snorts, but Seunghyun hangs over the edge of the couch, eyes thoughtful.
“I think that means you should call her. Not too soon,” he adds, “you should wait...” Seungri’s got the phone to his ear and he stands, ignoring the catcalls. “Fuck it,” Seunghyun says. The door swings shut.
“What was up with you at lunch?”
“It’s three in the morning.”
“An idol never sleeps.”
Hara is silent. Seungri can almost hear her rolling her eyes over the phone.
“Anyway, you weren’t being yourself, I just. Are you okay?”
“I’m tired,” she grumbles.
“From what?”
“An idol never sleeps.”
“Hara,” Seungri says, because her voice is getting faint and Nicole’s voice is somewhere in the background, “I always liked you.”
It’s quiet again. Seungri presses the phone to his ear and listens to the crackle of breath. Nicole’s voice is gone, now.
“You were always pretty, and now you’re even more pretty. I mean, uh...”
“Smooth.”
“I mean, you look good whatever you do.” He takes a breath. “I’ve always wanted to tell you that.”
“Thanks.”
“And I’ve always liked you.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“But you always shrug me off, or get sarcastic like you are now.”
“I’m not being sarcastic,” she protests, but when he laughs she does too, long and relieved. “Maybe sometimes. As long as we’re being honest, it’s because I don’t know how else to deal with you.”
---
The day before KARA leaves for Japan Seungri dials her number, fully expecting to hear the voicemail. When Hara picks up he sputters a little before speaking.
“So,” he says, “you’re going to debut here, right? Maybe I can show you around once you get there.”
“Since you know so much Japanese, right.”
“Yeah, sure, Hara-chan.”
“Please do not go there,” she cries.
“You know, they say you kind of look like Namie Amuro, so maybe if we go out in public--”
“Don’t even finish that thought.”