"Push and Pull"
Title: "Push and Pull"
Pairing: Sunny/Taeyeon
Genre: drama/romance
Warnings: So out of practice, it's not even funny.
Words: 2331
Summary: When violent thoughts become something a little sweeter.
It had still been there as they trooped off-stage in a flurry of clacking heels and damp curls; never underestimate the power of a fan-held camera, after all. Even while they were backstage, she'd nodded and bowed with the rest of them, appropriately thanking Oh Jungtae with a grin.
In the safety of their dressing room, Taeyeon hadn't cracked a single smile. The stage smile, as Sunny dubbed it, had been tucked away as quickly as it had graced her pretty face. Instead, she had brushed off the concern of the others with quietly uttered reassurances while she'd changed and then hefted her purse over her shoulder as she stood by the door.
Sunny had been the second last out of the room, turning back only to ensure the door was closed behind them. Her eyes had met Taeyeon's.
Taeyeon knew nothing of subtlety. It had been written all over the clench of her jaw, the careful blankness in her eyes, and her right arm, draped casually over her stomach, fingers hooked to the strap of the bag on her left.
She never wore her bag on her left.
A statement was released. Case closed. Days and weeks passed.
~*~*~
The door opened and Taeyeon came in, her head a mess of spikes pointing every which way. She eyed Sunny suspiciously. "Don't think I didn't see that."
Sunny slid another inch from her spot against the headboard of her bed, muffling a snort behind her book.
"Well why don't you help me?!"
She peeked over her book at Taeyeon's look of outrage and dissolved into laughter. "I don't think there's much I can do."
"Stop commenting then," she shot back as she pulled the hairdryer from the drawer of their vanity table.
"Hey!"
"What?"
Sunny wordlessly held up her book while shooting her a pointed look.
"I can't wait until Yuri's finished her shower! Do you know how much hair she has?" Before she could employ her pout and the accompanying whine, Taeyeon whipped around and aimed the hairdryer at her like a gun. "Don't even start, Lee Soonkyu. Five minutes!"
She rolled her eyes at Sunny's dirty look before she plugged it in, switched it on, and aimed it directly in front of her face, shutting her eyes as she waved it erratically over her head. She dug her other hand through each section of her hair, shaking off droplets of water.
As the noise filled her ears, Sunny's eyes could not help but trace the angle at which Taeyeon's wrist was bent - her left wrist. She never used to do that either.
Before she knew what she was doing, Sunny was across the room, the book lying face down on her bed. She wrenched the hairdryer from Taeyeon's left hand, eliciting a surprised squeak. "You're so slow," she said, and buried her left hand into Taeyeon's hair.
Taeyeon stuck her tongue out at her in the mirror but kept quiet as Sunny went from one side of her head to the other, leaving behind semi-dry hair. Then she grabbed a comb; with a flick of her wrist, she began aiming the hairdryer at the hair caught in the comb. As she carefully twisted the comb so that Taeyeon's hair framed her face, Sunny stole a glance at her lap, where Taeyeon's left hand was carefully cradling her right.
"There," she said after two minutes, setting both the hairdryer and the comb down.
Taeyeon blinked at the mirror. "I had no idea you could have had a stellar career in hairstyling."
Sunny shrugged and turned back towards the bed. "When you watch them do it often enough at the salon..."
A hand grabbed hers and tugged; Sunny turned instinctively. She looked down. Her eyes narrowed and her gut clenched.
Taeyeon drew Sunny closer with a grin. "Let's see if the stylists had the same effect on..." She trailed off when she noticed that Sunny had stopped moving, her eyes staring down at where their hands were joined. "What?"
Wordlessly, Sunny reached down and took her right hand, pulling her to her feet. Then she lifted Taeyeon's hand to her mouth (it certainly helped that they were eye level), and pressed a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist.
Taeyeon turned bright red.
She trailed her lips from Taeyeon's wrist to the inside of her elbow, before letting it drop. Taeyeon sat down with a thump, staring up at her with mouth moving silently. As if she couldn't think of any possible way to phrase the question she was dying to ask.
Sunny sighed. They were going to talk about this so her gut would stop clenching. She really couldn’t take the physical strain anymore. "Let me put it this way. When I saw him pull you, I was so angry I would have killed him if I hadn't been in fucking high heels."
The reaction was instantaneous. The back of Taeyeon's chair hit the table behind her and she was hugging her right arm to her chest. She stared at the floor, then at the door next to them.
Sunny knelt down so that she was eye level with her. "All I could think about was how worthless all of this would be," 'this' was self-explanatory, she was sure, "if we couldn't even stand on that stage and feel safe anymore."
Taeyeon suddenly clapped a hand on her shoulder (with her left hand, Sunny noted), and flashed a quick smile. "It's not that big a deal, you know? It happened so fast I barely remember it."
"Liar."
She laughed. "See this face?" She fluttered her lashes and grinned widely. "This is not my lying face."
Sunny stared at her searchingly, and then grabbed Taeyeon's right arm, hard. Her fingers dug into soft, pale skin and Taeyeon flinched so hard that it was clear it took every ounce of self-control not to shove her away. "First of all, you don’t have a lying face because you can’t lie at all. Second, you're not lying, so you just suddenly decided to practice ambidexterity," she said flatly.
"I - what?" To her credit, Taeyeon did look genuinely confused, although that familiar blank expression was clawing its way back onto her face.
"You've been doing everything left-handed. Short of eating and writing, and that's probably because you would've been a little too obvious about it."
Taeyeon glared at her, tight-lipped.
"Taeyeon, I just want to know why."
She swallowed visibly. "There's no reason; maybe I am trying to practice ambidexterity. Hyoyeon said it would be easy!" A corner of her mouth turned up and she looked at Sunny hopefully.
Sunny almost sighed in relief. It was easy to make assumptions and draw all kinds of conclusions regarding some odd behaviour she had noticed for weeks now. It was much harder to confront Kim Taeyeon about anything, let alone those assumptions and conclusions, without drawing her ire. The more Taeyeon tried to deflect, however, the more likely it was she wanted to talk about it.
She waited a full minute, letting the silence speak for itself, before Taeyeon's shoulders slumped and she closed her eyes in defeat. Sunny reached up to rub her shoulder and she leaned into her touch.
"Hyoyeon lied, by the way," Taeyeon murmured.
"Hm?"
"It's hard as hell." Sunny could hear the pout in her voice and she laughed quietly. Finally, Taeyeon straightened up with a sigh. "I was angry too."
"I know." Taeyeon raised an eyebrow. "When you think you're being really subtle, Kim Taeyeon, you're really not."
Taeyeon looked sheepish. "I guess. Should've learned my lesson after that day at Music Bank." Sunny smiled and squeezed her hand; Taeyeon squeezed back and relaxed another inch. "It's not that I was scared, Soonkyu. I mean, it was a little scary at the moment, but it was really the logistics of the situation that got to me."
The confusion must have shown on her face, because Taeyeon frowned darkly. "How did he get past security, what could've been done to prevent it from happening, how many cameras caught me being, well, dragged off-stage..."
"And you - "
"I feel angry." Taeyeon's voice grew stronger as she continued, "I feel like I let myself down, to let myself get dragged like that. Why didn't I kick him? Why didn't I hit him? I hate him. I don't even know him." Sunny stared at her. "You're right. I hate him because I don't feel safe sometimes. I look at all those happy faces and I think, 'who's next?' And I hate that too!" She took a deep breath. Sunny wrapped her arms around her silently and tugged her forward until Taeyeon's forehead rested on her shoulder. She groaned. "I'm so tired. But I keep thinking about it. It's hard not to when the one reminder I have is a part of me."
Sometimes, Sunny thought, life could be such a funny thing. They had everything they could have ever wanted. She knew without looking that pictures of their fortune dotted their walls, that fan letters lay scattered on Taeyeon's bedside table (the content of at least several late night reading sessions), that purses and shoes and electronics costing thousands filled their closet. Her hair was light brown and she was wearing expensive lingerie and Taeyeon's arms were circling her waist, pulling her close.
But all these things, sometimes, was the cause of all their misery.
Sometimes all they wanted to do was kick and scream their way out of the spotlight.
Sometimes Sunny watched Kim Taeyeon out of the corner of her eye and fell a little bit more each time she grinned and snickered and frowned and cried, under harsh stage lights and with cheers rising all around them and sometimes she wanted her all to herself.
Sunny pressed her forehead to Taeyeon's. "Hate him." Something in her voice must have given her away because Taeyeon stared at her, and the same blush from earlier stained her cheeks. "Hate him because he tried to take something away, something he had no right to." She tried for a more lighthearted tone. "Don't feel guilty for hating him."
Taeyeon sighed a little. "You're not going to tell me that hate doesn't solve anything and that I should try to get over it?"
"Nah, that would be hypocritical."
She laughed and fell silent. Then she took a deep breath, exhaling through her nose. "Hey, did I ever thank you for rescuing me that day?"
"Did I ever ask you to?"
"Yah!" Taeyeon pinched her cheeks and pulled. "Stop trying to sound cool!"
"Ow! I'm not trying to, I already am!"
"And so modest too!"
They stared at each other, and then laughed.
"Look," Sunny began, growing serious again, "acknowledge it first. Once you do that, it loses its power. That's why you should hate him. Hate him for as long as you need to. Maybe someday you'll forgive him."
Taeyeon stared at her right hand. "And if I don't?"
Sunny shrugged. "That's okay too." Taeyeon looked up; Sunny stared back at her. "We'll still love you. All our fans will still love you," she stuttered to a finish. Then she stood up and stretched.
Taeyeon made a grab for her hands and she pulled back; too late, she fell and promptly landed on Taeyeon's lap, her right knee digging into Taeyeon's left thigh. She grunted in pain.
"Taeng - !"
"Hey hey hey," she whispered and Sunny shut her mouth, allowing herself to be embraced, pitching forward until her knees were braced against the chair, until she straddled Taeyeon's lap.
Her lips were soft, and a shudder wracked through her as Taeyeon pulled her closer. Warmth seemed to blossom from every point of contact. They were thigh to thigh, breasts to breasts, and Taeyeon's mouth opened right under hers, her tongue meeting her with zero hesitation. She swallowed a moan as Taeyeon rubbed the back of her neck, and shifted to angle her mouth better. Sunny sucked on her bottom lip; Taeyeon's breath hitched. She exhaled loudly as Taeyeon's hand trailed below her collar bone, stopping right where a low-cut top might have cut off.
Sunny pulled away - had to tear herself away, really - and stared with huge eyes. "You - I - "
Taeyeon leaned closer. "Lee Soonkyu," she said, low and throaty - it was that voice she used to sing, and Sunny trembled, just a little - "if I can’t do subtle, you do it too well. You know that?"
Sunny looked helplessly at her. “Is your thigh going to bruise?”
“Are you gonna kiss it better?” There was a challenge there. Her smile was shy.
This was so familiar that Sunny grinned widely and met her halfway with a laugh.
So there were some things left unsaid, after all.
But for her, whose hands were determined to utterly destroy the pretty curls she'd set in Taeyeon's hair and whose mouth pressed determinedly to the corner of Taeyeon's and whose left hand clutched Taeyeon's right possessively to her chest, she was sure Taeyeon understood.
She got her proof later that night, drenched in darkness. Taeyeon’s head tucked under her chin, the smell of strawberry shampoo and clean sweat clinging to the air, evened breathing.
“Hold onto me like you did that day, and don’t let go.”
We’ll keep each other safe.
~*~*~
When she stepped out of their room the next morning, she saw Taeyeon leaning against the countertop, collarbone peeking out from her open collar. She stared. Taeyeon looked up.
"Wow, sleepyhead, you broke Sooyeon's record!" Sooyoung exclaimed from across the room.
"I had help!" Sunny shouted back, her eyes never moving.
Taeyeon laughed, before she lifted up her cup in greeting.
Sunny almost sagged against the door in relief, the sight of Taeyeon's right hand wrapped around the cup handle perhaps the brightest sight she'd seem in awhile.
Pairing: Sunny/Taeyeon
Genre: drama/romance
Warnings: So out of practice, it's not even funny.
Words: 2331
Summary: When violent thoughts become something a little sweeter.
It had still been there as they trooped off-stage in a flurry of clacking heels and damp curls; never underestimate the power of a fan-held camera, after all. Even while they were backstage, she'd nodded and bowed with the rest of them, appropriately thanking Oh Jungtae with a grin.
In the safety of their dressing room, Taeyeon hadn't cracked a single smile. The stage smile, as Sunny dubbed it, had been tucked away as quickly as it had graced her pretty face. Instead, she had brushed off the concern of the others with quietly uttered reassurances while she'd changed and then hefted her purse over her shoulder as she stood by the door.
Sunny had been the second last out of the room, turning back only to ensure the door was closed behind them. Her eyes had met Taeyeon's.
Taeyeon knew nothing of subtlety. It had been written all over the clench of her jaw, the careful blankness in her eyes, and her right arm, draped casually over her stomach, fingers hooked to the strap of the bag on her left.
She never wore her bag on her left.
A statement was released. Case closed. Days and weeks passed.
~*~*~
The door opened and Taeyeon came in, her head a mess of spikes pointing every which way. She eyed Sunny suspiciously. "Don't think I didn't see that."
Sunny slid another inch from her spot against the headboard of her bed, muffling a snort behind her book.
"Well why don't you help me?!"
She peeked over her book at Taeyeon's look of outrage and dissolved into laughter. "I don't think there's much I can do."
"Stop commenting then," she shot back as she pulled the hairdryer from the drawer of their vanity table.
"Hey!"
"What?"
Sunny wordlessly held up her book while shooting her a pointed look.
"I can't wait until Yuri's finished her shower! Do you know how much hair she has?" Before she could employ her pout and the accompanying whine, Taeyeon whipped around and aimed the hairdryer at her like a gun. "Don't even start, Lee Soonkyu. Five minutes!"
She rolled her eyes at Sunny's dirty look before she plugged it in, switched it on, and aimed it directly in front of her face, shutting her eyes as she waved it erratically over her head. She dug her other hand through each section of her hair, shaking off droplets of water.
As the noise filled her ears, Sunny's eyes could not help but trace the angle at which Taeyeon's wrist was bent - her left wrist. She never used to do that either.
Before she knew what she was doing, Sunny was across the room, the book lying face down on her bed. She wrenched the hairdryer from Taeyeon's left hand, eliciting a surprised squeak. "You're so slow," she said, and buried her left hand into Taeyeon's hair.
Taeyeon stuck her tongue out at her in the mirror but kept quiet as Sunny went from one side of her head to the other, leaving behind semi-dry hair. Then she grabbed a comb; with a flick of her wrist, she began aiming the hairdryer at the hair caught in the comb. As she carefully twisted the comb so that Taeyeon's hair framed her face, Sunny stole a glance at her lap, where Taeyeon's left hand was carefully cradling her right.
"There," she said after two minutes, setting both the hairdryer and the comb down.
Taeyeon blinked at the mirror. "I had no idea you could have had a stellar career in hairstyling."
Sunny shrugged and turned back towards the bed. "When you watch them do it often enough at the salon..."
A hand grabbed hers and tugged; Sunny turned instinctively. She looked down. Her eyes narrowed and her gut clenched.
Taeyeon drew Sunny closer with a grin. "Let's see if the stylists had the same effect on..." She trailed off when she noticed that Sunny had stopped moving, her eyes staring down at where their hands were joined. "What?"
Wordlessly, Sunny reached down and took her right hand, pulling her to her feet. Then she lifted Taeyeon's hand to her mouth (it certainly helped that they were eye level), and pressed a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist.
Taeyeon turned bright red.
She trailed her lips from Taeyeon's wrist to the inside of her elbow, before letting it drop. Taeyeon sat down with a thump, staring up at her with mouth moving silently. As if she couldn't think of any possible way to phrase the question she was dying to ask.
Sunny sighed. They were going to talk about this so her gut would stop clenching. She really couldn’t take the physical strain anymore. "Let me put it this way. When I saw him pull you, I was so angry I would have killed him if I hadn't been in fucking high heels."
The reaction was instantaneous. The back of Taeyeon's chair hit the table behind her and she was hugging her right arm to her chest. She stared at the floor, then at the door next to them.
Sunny knelt down so that she was eye level with her. "All I could think about was how worthless all of this would be," 'this' was self-explanatory, she was sure, "if we couldn't even stand on that stage and feel safe anymore."
Taeyeon suddenly clapped a hand on her shoulder (with her left hand, Sunny noted), and flashed a quick smile. "It's not that big a deal, you know? It happened so fast I barely remember it."
"Liar."
She laughed. "See this face?" She fluttered her lashes and grinned widely. "This is not my lying face."
Sunny stared at her searchingly, and then grabbed Taeyeon's right arm, hard. Her fingers dug into soft, pale skin and Taeyeon flinched so hard that it was clear it took every ounce of self-control not to shove her away. "First of all, you don’t have a lying face because you can’t lie at all. Second, you're not lying, so you just suddenly decided to practice ambidexterity," she said flatly.
"I - what?" To her credit, Taeyeon did look genuinely confused, although that familiar blank expression was clawing its way back onto her face.
"You've been doing everything left-handed. Short of eating and writing, and that's probably because you would've been a little too obvious about it."
Taeyeon glared at her, tight-lipped.
"Taeyeon, I just want to know why."
She swallowed visibly. "There's no reason; maybe I am trying to practice ambidexterity. Hyoyeon said it would be easy!" A corner of her mouth turned up and she looked at Sunny hopefully.
Sunny almost sighed in relief. It was easy to make assumptions and draw all kinds of conclusions regarding some odd behaviour she had noticed for weeks now. It was much harder to confront Kim Taeyeon about anything, let alone those assumptions and conclusions, without drawing her ire. The more Taeyeon tried to deflect, however, the more likely it was she wanted to talk about it.
She waited a full minute, letting the silence speak for itself, before Taeyeon's shoulders slumped and she closed her eyes in defeat. Sunny reached up to rub her shoulder and she leaned into her touch.
"Hyoyeon lied, by the way," Taeyeon murmured.
"Hm?"
"It's hard as hell." Sunny could hear the pout in her voice and she laughed quietly. Finally, Taeyeon straightened up with a sigh. "I was angry too."
"I know." Taeyeon raised an eyebrow. "When you think you're being really subtle, Kim Taeyeon, you're really not."
Taeyeon looked sheepish. "I guess. Should've learned my lesson after that day at Music Bank." Sunny smiled and squeezed her hand; Taeyeon squeezed back and relaxed another inch. "It's not that I was scared, Soonkyu. I mean, it was a little scary at the moment, but it was really the logistics of the situation that got to me."
The confusion must have shown on her face, because Taeyeon frowned darkly. "How did he get past security, what could've been done to prevent it from happening, how many cameras caught me being, well, dragged off-stage..."
"And you - "
"I feel angry." Taeyeon's voice grew stronger as she continued, "I feel like I let myself down, to let myself get dragged like that. Why didn't I kick him? Why didn't I hit him? I hate him. I don't even know him." Sunny stared at her. "You're right. I hate him because I don't feel safe sometimes. I look at all those happy faces and I think, 'who's next?' And I hate that too!" She took a deep breath. Sunny wrapped her arms around her silently and tugged her forward until Taeyeon's forehead rested on her shoulder. She groaned. "I'm so tired. But I keep thinking about it. It's hard not to when the one reminder I have is a part of me."
Sometimes, Sunny thought, life could be such a funny thing. They had everything they could have ever wanted. She knew without looking that pictures of their fortune dotted their walls, that fan letters lay scattered on Taeyeon's bedside table (the content of at least several late night reading sessions), that purses and shoes and electronics costing thousands filled their closet. Her hair was light brown and she was wearing expensive lingerie and Taeyeon's arms were circling her waist, pulling her close.
But all these things, sometimes, was the cause of all their misery.
Sometimes all they wanted to do was kick and scream their way out of the spotlight.
Sometimes Sunny watched Kim Taeyeon out of the corner of her eye and fell a little bit more each time she grinned and snickered and frowned and cried, under harsh stage lights and with cheers rising all around them and sometimes she wanted her all to herself.
Sunny pressed her forehead to Taeyeon's. "Hate him." Something in her voice must have given her away because Taeyeon stared at her, and the same blush from earlier stained her cheeks. "Hate him because he tried to take something away, something he had no right to." She tried for a more lighthearted tone. "Don't feel guilty for hating him."
Taeyeon sighed a little. "You're not going to tell me that hate doesn't solve anything and that I should try to get over it?"
"Nah, that would be hypocritical."
She laughed and fell silent. Then she took a deep breath, exhaling through her nose. "Hey, did I ever thank you for rescuing me that day?"
"Did I ever ask you to?"
"Yah!" Taeyeon pinched her cheeks and pulled. "Stop trying to sound cool!"
"Ow! I'm not trying to, I already am!"
"And so modest too!"
They stared at each other, and then laughed.
"Look," Sunny began, growing serious again, "acknowledge it first. Once you do that, it loses its power. That's why you should hate him. Hate him for as long as you need to. Maybe someday you'll forgive him."
Taeyeon stared at her right hand. "And if I don't?"
Sunny shrugged. "That's okay too." Taeyeon looked up; Sunny stared back at her. "We'll still love you. All our fans will still love you," she stuttered to a finish. Then she stood up and stretched.
Taeyeon made a grab for her hands and she pulled back; too late, she fell and promptly landed on Taeyeon's lap, her right knee digging into Taeyeon's left thigh. She grunted in pain.
"Taeng - !"
"Hey hey hey," she whispered and Sunny shut her mouth, allowing herself to be embraced, pitching forward until her knees were braced against the chair, until she straddled Taeyeon's lap.
Her lips were soft, and a shudder wracked through her as Taeyeon pulled her closer. Warmth seemed to blossom from every point of contact. They were thigh to thigh, breasts to breasts, and Taeyeon's mouth opened right under hers, her tongue meeting her with zero hesitation. She swallowed a moan as Taeyeon rubbed the back of her neck, and shifted to angle her mouth better. Sunny sucked on her bottom lip; Taeyeon's breath hitched. She exhaled loudly as Taeyeon's hand trailed below her collar bone, stopping right where a low-cut top might have cut off.
Sunny pulled away - had to tear herself away, really - and stared with huge eyes. "You - I - "
Taeyeon leaned closer. "Lee Soonkyu," she said, low and throaty - it was that voice she used to sing, and Sunny trembled, just a little - "if I can’t do subtle, you do it too well. You know that?"
Sunny looked helplessly at her. “Is your thigh going to bruise?”
“Are you gonna kiss it better?” There was a challenge there. Her smile was shy.
This was so familiar that Sunny grinned widely and met her halfway with a laugh.
So there were some things left unsaid, after all.
But for her, whose hands were determined to utterly destroy the pretty curls she'd set in Taeyeon's hair and whose mouth pressed determinedly to the corner of Taeyeon's and whose left hand clutched Taeyeon's right possessively to her chest, she was sure Taeyeon understood.
She got her proof later that night, drenched in darkness. Taeyeon’s head tucked under her chin, the smell of strawberry shampoo and clean sweat clinging to the air, evened breathing.
“Hold onto me like you did that day, and don’t let go.”
We’ll keep each other safe.
~*~*~
When she stepped out of their room the next morning, she saw Taeyeon leaning against the countertop, collarbone peeking out from her open collar. She stared. Taeyeon looked up.
"Wow, sleepyhead, you broke Sooyeon's record!" Sooyoung exclaimed from across the room.
"I had help!" Sunny shouted back, her eyes never moving.
Taeyeon laughed, before she lifted up her cup in greeting.
Sunny almost sagged against the door in relief, the sight of Taeyeon's right hand wrapped around the cup handle perhaps the brightest sight she'd seem in awhile.