I don't want to stay away from you
Title: I don't want to stay away from you
Pairing: Jungli
Rating: PG-15
Genre: Drama~
Warning: Girl/Girl love! Very sliiiiiiight homophobia and some language.
Summary: Krystal doesn't understand why Sulli won't back off when she tells her to, but maybe Sulli knows more about her than she thinks.
Wordcount: 2,349
A/N: For kakis49, because she's a Jungli addict <3
Krystal wonders why it's always so dark backstage. Always, without fail, no matter where they are, there are plastic lights on, but they don't seem to be there to light up the rooms. Instead it seems they merely exist to show you where you're going, to keep you from falling over.
Despite them, it always seems so dark.
It's not their time to go on yet, it's still another three or four songs left before their turn. Amber, Luna, Victoria and Sulli are off somewhere else, probably getting ready. Krystal doesn't know. She's only standing at the side of the stage to watch her sister perform, to admire, to worry, to pray that everything goes okay. She knows her sister is so used to this by now and really there's nothing to be worried about, but it's always the same.
Krystal sighs when she song is over and Jessica holds out the last note. She waits for Jessica and the girls to come over to her side, but instead they walk towards the other side of the stage.
Leaning her back against a cold wall, Krystal wonders if she should go to find Jessica or just stay where she is until it's their turn to go on. She's not sure if she wants to find the other members right now, there's so much love among them. And that would be fine, amazing even, if it wasn't for one girl, the looks she gives and the touches she pretends never happen. There's only so much Krystal can do to pretend it doesn't affect her.
So maybe it's better to stay away.
She looks out at the stage again when a boyband takes the stage - she knows them, she likes them a lot, but she'll never pray for them like she prays for Jessica.
Or for... her.
"Krystal?"
Krystal waits a second before she slowly turns around. She already knows who's behind her. As if she could ever mistake that voice...
"Why are you here already? We're not up until in 20 minutes. Don't you want to come back and drink or eat something?"
Krystal lets her dark hair fall in front of her face as she looks down and smiles.
"Thanks, Sulli, but I just wanna get on stage. It's okay."
Sulli smiles a crooked smile and tilts her head.
"Okay, well, I'll stay and keep your company" she says joyfully. She's always like that, Krystal thinks, like a little child, like a litte puppy, like a carebear on drugs.
"You don't have to" Krystal says, but she makes sure to keep her smile on to not seem hostile.
"It's okay." And suddenly Sulli has one of her hands in Krystal's hair, pulling her fingers through it, stroking the sensitive scalp. "The others seem way too hyped for me right now anyway."
Krystal closes her eyes cause as much as she hates to admit it, Sulli's touch feels so good. She wants to pull the other girl closer and return the favor, but she can't.
Even if Sulli's heart beats the same as Krystal's, there would be no point in ever exploring it.
Because Krystal is...
"Sulli, stop" she whispers and pushes Sulli's hand away. Sulli tilts her head again and puffs one of her cheeks.
"Why?" she asks, and Krystal can't believe how cute someone can be.
"You know why" Krystal mumbles back, flipping her hair to her side and throwing fleeting glances at the girl in front of her. She doesn't really dare to look her in the eye. "Stop playing with me like this."
"I'm not playing with you." Sulli immediately withdraws her hand and shakes her head, her eyes wide. Krystal knows and sees how the older girl doesn't want to hurt her.
"But you know I don't want you to do that" she says, trying to make her voice a bit firmer, but she ends up sounding like she's choking back tears. Maybe she is.
Sulli leans against the wall.
"But I..." she begins, but Krystal cuts her off.
"You need to start listening to me."
"...don't want to stay away from you."
Krystal sighs. No matter what she does, no matter what she says, Sulli just doesn't seem to get it. It has been years of secret touches and subtle hints, and sometimes when she is alone, Krystal would cry from how much she craves it.
She straightens her back and looks Sulli right in the eyes.
"Your place... is not with me."
The older girl stares at her and Krystal feels like she's breaking in two, because Sulli is just standing there apathetically when really she should be walking away, and Krystal doesn't want her to...stay. No, go.
Sulli smiles again, a crooked, unimpressed, disbelieving smile, and she doesn't seem bothered by Krystal's rejection at all.
"Only because you keep pushing me away."
The words send a shock through Krystal's stomach and she doesn't know where to fix her gaze. It wanders crazily over Sulli's face, to the wall, up the ceiling, looking but not really seeing. Her face burns.
Probably because she knows Sulli is right and she hates it so much. She feels as if she has lost her ability to speak, but she knows she has to say something.
"I..."
Two laughing figures appear, running through the flourescent darkness. Both Krystal and Sulli's bodies jerk in surprise and they both watch Luna and Victoria approach them as the moment slips away.
"There you guys are" Luna says, smiling and hanging onto Victoria's arm. "We're on soon!"
"Yeah" Krystal nods, and her smile is back again. God, how she hates to feel the corners of her mouth pull upwards without her permission; it feels just like a mask. She wants to know what her lips feel like pressed against...
But no, she sighs, snaps out of it, returns to reality where feelings are fragile and hard to control, and this is where she needs to remember that Sulli is her bandmate, her best friend, like a sister...
a girl.
The rain is pouring down harder than Krystal can remember feeling, hearing or seeing in a very long time.
She loves rain. She loves it when the sky is gray, cloudy, misty, cold, how the drops cover up tears and gasps everything else she might want to hide. She doesn't particularly like standing under an umbrella when she could be out getting soaked, like she wants to.
But the girl walking beside her is making it all worth it.
"I think our new song is sort of..."
The girl falls silent while a car passes by, splashing water on the sidewalk beside them.
"...odd." The car disappears into the distance.
"Odd?" Krystal repeats with a laugh, and Sulli smiles.
"You know, it's very..." she looks at Krystal, "...daring."
And suddenly Krystal is uncomfortable, like Sulli is suggesting something that she can't really determine, can't pick up on and can't laugh off.
"Don't you like it?" she asks, trying to regain the feeling of safety and stop her heart from beating so hard.
"Of course I do" Sulli says with a nod. Still something is so uncomfortable, because Sulli, the epitome of energy and cuteness, is so serious about something she's not saying out loud. Krystal hates having to guess.
"Krystal" Sulli suddenly says, her voice is dull and makes Krystal's name sound like a statement.
"Hmm?" Krystal replies, skipping over a puddle of water.
"I like you, you know."
Krystal stops, and so does Sulli. The older girl holds up Krystal's umbrella above them, and the rain pounds on it hard enough to block all other noise from reaching them.
"When are you gonna give up?" Krystal says. She hears herself and she sounds angry - and of course she is angry. She has every right to be, too, she thinks, cause Sulli knows how hard it is to hear those words. Sulli knows how much Krystal wishes she would be quiet.
But as usual, Sulli just looks at her, not really smiling, not frowning, just determined.
"When are you gonna stop hiding?" she asks back, and Krystal's eyes narrow.
"Stop..." she says firmly, her voice shooting daggers all around them. She trusts the rain to keep their voices from being heard. "Stop being like this!" she yells, and finally Sulli looks a little taken aback. Krystal's breathing speeds up and she feels so desperate, the time of repressed emotions and things of both love and anger she has wanted to say for so long swirl up against the surface, and she feels dizzy trying to keep them down a while longer. "You're... you're gonna destroy me if you keep doing this!" she yells, gesturing with her hands between them.
Sulli laughs.
Krystal feels herself start shaking.
"You don't get it, but I'm doing you a favor, Krystal" Sulli says, her voice still so full of joy and childishness. "When you wake up and realize how amazing we can be and how much time you have wasted on being scared, you'll see that too."
She takes her free hand and reaches out to take Krystal's shaking one in hers.
"You'll see it."
Krystal lets Sulli hold on to her hand for a while, because of the calming effect it always has on her, no matter what. But Sulli is right, she really is scared, and how perfect their hands fit together scares her even more.
She harshly pulls her hand away and storms off, the rain drenching her in a second.
"I'll see you at home" she says, but she's not sure if Sulli hears her through the pounding of the rain.
"Krystal!" she hears Sulli call after her. "Your umbrella..."
Krystal scoffs at the words while she feels the rain push through her jacket.
She cries. What good would an umbrella do when it pours as much under it as it does above it?
She doesn't know how it ended up this way.
She really, really doesn't.
She was doing very good with resisting temptations and repressing emotions, really, so this is a complete shock to her.
She doesn't even remember how it happened.
All she knows is that right now, she's lying on her back on Sulli's parents' bed, and Sulli herself is on top of her.
Kissing her.
And not just kissing kissing, but in a way Krystal hasn't experienced before: it's rough and raw and Sulli is completely devouring her and taking her over, and more importantly, Krystal lets her.
She wants her to.
Her mind flashes back to when they were introduced to each other as Jinri and Soojung - oh, how the times change. There's no Jinri and no Soojung - at least not in the way they used to be.
Sulli takes a hold of Krystal's hands and pulls them over her head, placing them on the pillow and holding them tight. Her long hair tickles Krystal's cheeks as she leans even closer, letting her tongue trace the younger girl's lower lip.
Krystal is so dazed she doesn't know what is up or down, all she knows is that she really, really needs to kiss Sulli back and let it last forever. Sulli's hands leave hers and trace their way down over her arms and shoulders, but Krystal leaves hers on the pillow. Her breathing is heavy and harsh between deep kisses and really, she doesn't think life can get any better or confusing than this.
Sulli places a knee between Krystal's thighs and Krystal gasps aloud against her will. She feels the other girls' hands travel lightly and fleetingly over her chest and that's when the voice in the back of her mind speaks up again - what in the name of hell is she doing?
Sulli is a girl... a girl and...
She grabs Sulli's shoulders and pushes her away, using force because she's so afraid to be weak. She sits up and leans against the headboard of the bed, panting heavily and seeing Sulli stare at her in shock. It hits her that Sulli probably thinks she was moving too fast - and in all honesty she was.
If it wasn't for the fact that Krystal wanted it more than anything in this world.
She tries to say something, but she's not sure what, because there's too much and too little to say. Nothing really makes sense. She's terrified and the need for Sulli to keep touching her still aches in her entire body.
"You..." she mumbles, "I... It's too hard."
Sulli looks down, her long hair sheilding her eyes.
"It doesn't have to be" she smiles, a shy smile. "I know you're scared. How much does it matter right now?" She moves closer again, putting a hand on Krystal's knee, looking deep into her eyes. "Right this very moment?"
Krystal opens her mouth but no words come out. Her heart starts beating harder again because Sulli's hand is on her.
She never noticed just how much she wants the other girl.
Sulli moves even closer and puts a finger under Krystal's chin, pulling her head up. Krystal tries to breathe. She closes her eyes and sinks into herself, feeling her heart pound.
It feels good.
So, so good.
And that's wrong. At least that's what she has always thought, she has always thought that the fact that it's wrong overshadows how good it feels.
But now for the first time, she asks herself, how can something that makes your heart beat faster and your blood boil hotter be wrong?
She can't even really explain to herself how it happens, but her hands curl against Sulli's back, and suddenly she's on top, pulling her fingers through long brown hair, massaging arms and kissing her neck, and she feels as if it was decided for her - screw it.
It's only wrong if that's what you want it to be, she thinks, and no matter, this is too good to go to waste because of other people's prejudices. They're not the ones who are gonna kiss Sulli.
And thank fuck for that.