Work Text:
It was a colder night than usual, the low temperature noticeable even indoors, but instead of adjusting the thermostat like a normal person, Soyeon chose to bundle up in sweatpants and a thick, oversized sweater. Then buried herself under a mountain of blankets to watch a new anime she'd stumbled upon a reel of.
Entirely too immersed in the plot, she failed to register the beeping noise that signaled the front door being opened, until a flash of red appeared in her peripheral vision.
Before she could even turn her head, that same flash briefly blocked her vision of the TV, and she was being pushed deeper into the couch cushions by the body now draped over her stomach and upper thighs. She didn't even have time to flinch before a familiar raspy voice reached her ears.
“Hi baby,” Yuqi crooned happily, a giggle following after when Soyeon took one look at her giddy expression before letting her head flop back heavily against the backrest with a drawn out groan.
“Yuqi, get ooofff~~ you're heavy,” Soyeon whined, only able to squirm in place just a little thanks to the weight pinning her arms to her sides under the blankets.
The offended gasp that echoed through the room surpassed the admittedly loud sounds coming from the TV.
“Are you calling me fat?”
“If it gets you to stop pinning me down so I can't hit you, then yes.”
Soyeon dropped her chin as she huffed, the two engaging in a sudden staredown as Soyeon glowered and Yuqi gaped at her.
“Rude,” Yuqi scoffed seconds later, breaking the intense eye contact to look at the TV. Though she made no effort to get up or even move away, “Oh hey, is this that new anime you were rambling about last week?”
It was Soyeon's turn to gape at the other woman, who was too busy taking in the characters on screen to notice her dumbfounded expression, her earlier protests forgotten.
“You were listening to me?” She asked quietly, eyes trained on the way Yuqi's irises were flickering over the screen subtly as the scenes changed.
“I'm always listening to you,” Yuqi mumbled distractedly as her gaze fixated on a specific corner of the large screen, “Ooh~ she's pretty. Is she a main character or is she just here for the plot?”
“I uh…I'm not sur-wait… you were actually listening? But you had headphones on and everything…” Soyeon tilted her head questioningly, vividly recalling Yuqi bopping her head and tapping away at her phone while she chatted aimlessly with Miyeon a few feet away.
“Yeah, but the song I was listening to ended and I heard you laugh at something Miyeon said. So I paused the next song to check if you were making fun of me, which you weren't, but you sounded so excited that I ended up evesdropping,” Yuqi explained, huffing out a laugh at herself before turning over to lay on her other side so she could look at Soyeon.
“Not everything is about you, you know” Soyeon tsked, rolling her eyes when Yuqi responded with a cheeky,
“Unfortunately.”
“Whatever. Why are you in my house at…eleven twenty-one pm?!” Soyeon exclaimed with a wide eyed stare at the clock on the wall to her right.
Last she checked it was only 9.
“You said to come over when I was done with work.”
Soyeon's eyebrows furrowed as she racked her brain to recall when exactly she'd uttered those words, but she came up empty, “When did I say that?”
“You didn't,” Yuqi supplied helpfully, with a bright grin and a shameless shrug.
Soyeon could only roll her eyes and avert them back to the TV, only to scowl when she had no idea what was happening on screen.
“Can I stay?”
The hopefulness in Yuqi's voice earned another- slightly more annoyed- eyeroll.
“You couldn't have asked me that before you invited yourself over?”
Yuqi giggled at the sarcastic tone and shrugged again, ”I thought you'd be asleep by now. I didn't want to wake you up but I missed you, so I came over.”
Soyeon just stared at her, completely unamused, even as Yuqi's grin widened so much that her eyes crinkled into slits. Though the corners of her mouth twitched upward briefly, unwillingly, when Yuqi shifted her head closer.
Not enough to bury her face in Soyeon's neck, but close enough that all she had to do was pucker her lips, just a little, to press a featherlight kiss to the older woman's chin.
“Can I please stay?” Yuqi pleaded quietly with another soft peck, a petulant whine already half formed in her throat.
The deadpan response that was on the tip of Soyeon's tongue turned into a defeated sigh, and that alone was enough of an answer for Yuqi. Besides, it was too late at night for Soyeon to feel comfortable with her girlfriend even thinking of making the trek home alone.
With a quiet laugh that was more breath than sound, and a firmer kiss to her chin, she was nudging Soyeon's head upward so she could nuzzle into her neck at long last.
“You reek of coffee,” Soyeon scrunched her nose, ignoring Yuqi's content sigh, before another faint scent registered in her brain, “and Chinese–”
Yuqi was interrupting her before she could finish,
“That's racist.”
“--Food, Yuqi. Chinese. Food.”
“...Still feels racist.”
The annoyed grunt from Soyeon was met with a snort of laughter.
“How do you go from admitting that you're always listening when I talk, to interrupting me when I am talking?”
“Annoying you is my fifth favourite pastime."
Soyeon could only roll her eyes again as she felt Yuqi's lips curl into a smirk against her throat, but she couldn't brush off her curiosity, “What're the first four then? Aside from making me want to smack you. Literally.”
She had to bite back her laugh when she felt Yuqi subtly shift her weight to intentionally stop her arms from moving to carry out the aforementioned action.
“Hmm? Oh that's number three actually,” Yuqi giggled, feigning nonchalance in an attempt to distract her from the movement, before stilling to continue matter of factly, “First is, of course, admiring myself…”
“Not surprising,” Soyeon grumbled under her breath, though considering Yuqi's current position, each word had been heard loud and clear, and consequently ignored.
“Third is, as I said, annoying you...and fourth is making you moan my name. Or just the sound of you moaning in general.”
Soyeon couldn't stop the snort of laughter that escaped her, though she tried to inject as much venom as she could into the curse that dropped from her lips immediately after.
Yuqi just snickered to herself before tilting her head to press a firm, lingering kiss to her pulse point.
She was just about to pull away from Soyeon's neck entirely when impulse kicked in, and she let her lips part to latch onto the patch of skin, cheeks hollowing as she suckled lightly at the area that she'd lovingly mapped in her brain to be one of the older woman's sensitive spots.
The way Soyeon's breathing hitched at the sensation didn't go unnoticed. By either of them. Neither did the quiet sound that escaped from her throat a beat later.
“Shut up,” Soyeon huffed petulantly, pointedly not reciprocating when Yuqi finally left her now faintly marked neck and sat up in one single motion to swoop in for a kiss.
It did nothing to tamp down the smug grin splitting Yuqi's face.
“I haven't finished my list yet,” she reminded her after a quiet moment, grin melting into a gentle smile when Soyeon reluctantly tipped her head in a gesture for her to go on, “Number two is admiring you.”
Soyeon hated to admit that that one made her heart flutter. Just a little bit.
“Or if you want me to be more specific, then I like looking at you. Hearing your voice. Making you laugh. Or smile. Smelling you. Not in a creepy way, but also not not in a creepy way…”
They shared a laugh at that, but Yuqi, being Yuqi, just couldn't let the sincere moment linger for too long,
“...and also doing–”
“Don't. Finish. That sentence,” Soyeon gritted through clenched teeth, her softening demeanor flipping in the blink of an eye.
Yuqi pursed her lips tightly to hold back her laugh, but her slight dimples making an appearance incited an unwilling uptick to the corners of Soyeon's lips, and she said it anyway, “Doing you. Or you doing me, I'm not picky.”
“You're such an asshole!” Soyeon groaned through laughter, hurriedly freeing her arms to actually smack her girlfriend who was currently dying of laughter beside her.
Unfortunately for Soyeon, the cackling woman still possessed enough situational awareness to grab her hands and intertwine their fingers before a single hit could land, leaving Soyeon no other option but to glare halfheartedly at her.
It took a good minute for Yuqi to calm down, though she let out another short bark of laughter upon seeing Soyeon's expression.
“Have you eaten?” Yuqi asked, still grinning as Soyeon's eyebrows immediately furrowed in bewilderment at the suddenness of the question.
“Eh?”
“Eloquent response, my love,” Yuqi teased, before rewording her question, “What did you have for dinner? Wait, no, better question, did you even eat dinner?”
“It's...it's a little too late for dinner though…” Soyeon mumbled almost dumbly, trailing off with a brief glance at the clock.
Yuqi followed her line of sight and squinted at the circular object, “It's only…eleven thirty-two…and that wasn't an answer.”
They blinked at one another a few times, before Soyeon bit her lip, giggling guiltily when Yuqi's head dropped back with an exasperated, “Soyeoonn-ahhh~~”
Soyeon couldn't even attempt to defend herself when Yuqi all but jumped to her feet and walked off, only to return with two plastic bags dangling from her hand, which she carefully set down on the coffee table before beginning to unpack.
“Is that–”
“Food? Why yes, Chinese food to be exact, good job picking up on that by the way. While I may have expected you to already be passed out in bed when I got here, I still ordered things you like. Just in case.”
The complete silence that followed halted Yuqi in her task of putting down the last styrofoam container, and she straightened up to look at Soyeon inquisitively with it still in her hand.
“Soyeon-ah?”
Soyeon's head immediately shot up at the call of her name, blinking at her slowly.
“Oh that's right! I somehow always forget that you think I look hot in this outfit…until I put it on,” Yuqi smirked, taking a second to put the food down before turning to fully face Soyeon.
If feeling her own cheeks heating up wasn't enough of an indicator, the high pitched noise Yuqi sometimes liked to emit when she found her particularly adorable, told Soyeon that any attempt she could make to refute that statement, would be a waste of effort.
So she resigned herself to her fate and let her gaze roam appreciatively slowly.
Yuqi extended her foot and put her weight on her back leg, playfully making a show of flipping back the tail of her blazer, and tucking her hands into the front pockets of her matching waist-high pants. The blazer dropped forward, bunching up just so as her wrists blocked it from settling into its natural position, and showing more of her white, slightly wrinkled button-up shirt.
They both burst out laughing once Soyeon's now subtly lidded gaze flickered back up to Yuqi's delighted expression. Soyeon’s tinged with just a hint of shyness.
The younger woman then watched adoringly as Soyeon tugged the blankets up to cover her flushed cheeks, and finally shrugged the blazer off with a fond head shake, folding it neatly before draping it over the back of the couch.
She'd just untucked her white shirt and begun rolling her sleeves up when Soyeon emerged from her hiding place, a huff making Yuqi look up to find her staring with equal parts admiration and exasperation.
“Okay, now you're just milking it,” Soyeon grumbled, even as she watched with rapt attention as Yuqi's other forearm slowly came into view.
“I'll stop when you stop drooling,” Yuqi crooned playfully with a taunting shoulder shimmy of sorts before she dropped down onto the carpeted floor. Leaning back just a little to pull her phone out of her pants pocket, she turned her head just enough to address Soyeon, “Come eat while the food's still warm.”
Soyeon chuckled under her breath before slipping out from under her multitude of blankets, shivering viciously when she was hit full force by the change in temperature.
“How are you not cold?” She asked incredulously as she sank onto the floor beside Yuqi, facing her, jaw already dropping open to accept the piece of meat Yuqi had just cut and was holding up with her chopsticks for her to bite into.
“Oh I'm fucking freezing actually. But I wanted to watch you react to my outfit first, ” Yuqi smirked, snickering at the light smack on her arm as she pulled her chopsticks back, “and I also adjusted the thermostat a little, I hope you don't mind. I can change it back before we go to bed.”
“Oh okay. No, that's fine… So you came here to stroke your ego huh?” Soyeon asked rhetorically once she'd swallowed the delicious beef.
“No, I wanted to be near you. The ego boost is just an added bonus. I expected you to be sleeping, remember?”
Soyeon chuckled quietly at her needy nature, thankful Yuqi hadn't turned her words into an innuendo this time. Though upon closer inspection, there was a familiar glint present in her eyes as she kept them trained on the bowl of rice before her.
“Don't.”
“I wasn't going to.”
Soyeon's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she ultimately let it go in favor of being fed more meat.
“You have hands, stop eating my food,” Yuqi grunted, after giving Soyeon her fifth or sixth bite of meat, and a second spoonful of rice.
“Nooo~~, my hands are cold,” Soyeon pouted, freeing her hands from where she'd tucked them under her thighs to slip them under Yuqi's shirt to feel her body heat, warmed from the walk up from the car.
Yuqi hissed at the iciness of her palms but didn't ask her to take her hands out, so Soyeon smiled to herself and shuffled a little closer to throw her legs over Yuqi's lap, then let her head drop to rest on Yuqi's shoulder.
She broke the near silence after Yuqi nudged her head back up for another bite, “Besides, don't act like you don't enjoy feeding me.”
“Spoilt brat,” Yuqi scoffed, even as she picked up a fish ball to put in her mouth when she glanced over to find Soyeon staring longingly at the small container of them.
Soyeon giggled around her mouthful and surged forward to press a firm kiss to her cheek, before resting her head again.
“Should I restart the episode for you?” Yuqi asked after a moment, her hand already reaching for the remote.
Soyeon slowly blinked her eyes open at her voice, having begun to fall asleep on Yuqi's shoulder, and shook her head.
“No? Okay. I'll just turn it off then.”
Soyeon mustered the strength to pick her head back up to just look at Yuqi, who was already looking back at her.
They stared at one another for a moment longer, before Soyeon glanced over to the food pointedly. Yuqi chuckled and gave her what she wanted.
“Can we go to bed?” Soyeon asked quietly once she'd swallowed the bite.
“Yeah… you sure you don't want to eat some more? Yuqi asked back, voice softening as Soyeon let her head drop again with a grunt, “Okay. Let me go put the leftovers in the fridge and we can go upstairs. I need to shower too.”
Soyeon made a noise of agreement before letting her body flop sideways so she was leaning against the couch, curling her legs under herself to give Yuqi space to get up.
She watched lazily as Yuqi packed everything up, placed them back in the plastic bags and got to her feet with a barely audible grunt.
“Ow my back,” Yuqi whined under her breath, taking a second to massage the area before grabbing the bags and padding off.
Soyeon watched her until she disappeared from her line of sight, not wanting to move even an inch just yet.
Rustling noises came from the kitchen, and the steady sounds of running water reached her ears, almost lulling her to sleep right then and there. She'd just let her eyes close again when footsteps approached, and she craned her neck slightly to look up at Yuqi.
“Want me to carry you to bed?” Yuqi asked softly, crouching down so they were face to face.
Soyeon nodded after a moment of letting her eyes roam over Yuqi's fond expression, a lazy grin tugging at her lips when Yuqi quickly leaned in to steal a kiss.
"Is your phone somewhere under the blanket?" Yuqi asked, staring reluctantly at the abandoned pile.
"Mhm...should be where my head was."
Yuqi nodded and stepped over Soyeon's legs with a quiet excuse me.
Too tired to fold everything properly, she grabbed the edges on one side and just flipped them up to meet the opposite ends. After two repetitions, the blankets took on the shape of a horribly drawn rectangle, but Soyeon's phone was visible, and that was enough for her.
Crouching back down, Yuqi reached over her for her phone aswell and placed them in Soyeon's lap, "Hold them, please," then she was hooking one arm under her knees and one around her back, lifting Soyeon with only a minor grunt.
“‘m not heavy,” Soyeon pouted into her neck, voice coming out just whiny enough for Yuqi to chuckle and squeeze her as best as she could as she took them down the hall.
“No, you're not… my back just hurts a little. I think I sat in my chair for too long.”
“Oh… ‘m sorry…you can just put me dow–”
“Nope.”
“But--”
Yuqi shook her head, “No. We're already here anyway. Can you open the door?”
Soyeon peeked out from her neck to see that they were indeed in front of the bedroom door, and she reached out to turn the handle.
Yuqi nudged it open with her foot before stepping in sideways, not wanting to risk knocking Soyeon's legs against the door frame, and padded over to deposit her on top of the duvet, where Soyeon just let her body go slack as she went back to a staring at Yuqi.
Yuqi began looking around the room, before her eyes brightened at the sight of something on the dressing table.
Soyeon watched with growing confusion as Yuqi made her way over to whatever it was. The sound of plastic crinkling echoed quietly through the room for a second or two, before she was spinning on her heel and walking back toward Soyeon with a wet wipe in hand.
“Just cleaning you up a little,” she mumbled distractedly, grabbing their phones and placing them on the table before folding the wipe in half and gently wiping at the faint sheen of grease at the corners of Soyeon's lips. Lips that parted into a grin before a soft laugh was tumbling from between them.
“I'm just gonna brush my teeth anyway,” Soyeon informed her, laughing again when Yuqi's hand froze near her cheek.
“Oh. Right. Sorry, I forgot,” Yuqi mumbled sheepishly, her free hand lifting to scratch at her neck in embarrassment.
“It's okay,” Soyeon giggled as she turned her head to press a kiss to the palm of her frozen hand.
Yuqi stepped back when Soyeon sat up and slid off of the bed, and let herself be guided to the bathroom. She watched Soyeon grab her toothbrush and toothpaste, before her own reflection caught her eye, reminding her she still needed to shower.
She was vaguely aware of the eyes watching her as she unbuttoned her shirt but otherwise paid Soyeon no mind, simply focusing on stripping herself off and dropping the dirty clothes in the hamper before stepping into the shower.
A few minutes later, she stepped out of the steam-filled cubicle, humming under her breath as she reached for a towel, only to flinch at the sight of Soyeon perched on the bathroom counter, watching her.
“Shit. You scared me.”
Soyeon snorted out a laugh but didn't say anything, just turned to grab Yuqi's toothbrush and the toothpaste before holding them out to her.
Yuqi thanked her with a smile and got to work, rinsing her mouth and toothbrush out a few minutes later and dropping it in the holder beside the sink. Her head tipped over to look at Soyeon when fingers curled around her bicep, following dutifully when the same hand tugged her over gently.
"You said your back was hurting. Do you want me to massage you for a bit?"
Yuqi's eyes immediately crinkled into slits as she smiled adoringly at Soyeon, grateful for the concern since the woman looked like she was ten minutes away from falling asleep, "No, I'm okay. The hot water helped."
She wasn't expecting to be pulled into a kiss so suddenly, but she definitely wasn't complaining.
They alternated between a series of soft, lingering presses of lips against lips, and a minute, or two, of a slow, almost playful tangling of mint favoured tongues, before seperating with matching grins.
“Mmh… what was that for?” Yuqi sighed happily, her slightly hazy gaze focused intently on Soyeon's lips as they slowly curled into a small smile.
“Your reward for feeding me…and carrying me to bed.”
Yuqi turned her head to huff out a laugh before leaning in for another firm kiss, “Oh why thank you… Are you gonna walk to the bed or do you still need me to carry you, princess?”
She'd meant to call Soyeon that as a taunt, but the word came out a little too fondly instead. The light blush she was met with only urged her to lean in for another, slower kiss.
“Mm, enough. Go get dressed,” Soyeon smirked as she pushed Yuqi away gently with a hand on her chest, faintly aware of Yuqi's heart beating rapidly under her palm, much like her own.
Yuqi chuckled and left to do as told, shuffling out to the hallway closet and leaving Soyeon to hop off of the counter and follow her out of the bathroom herself. She stole another quick kiss when the shorter woman passed by her, grinning to herself as Soyeon giggled and continued toward her destination.
She shuffled out soon after, dressed in a mix of hers and Soyeon's clothes, and yawned as she shut off the overhead light. The table lamp Soyeon had switched on lit the room enough for her to make her way over to slide under the covers as well, an already half asleep Soyeon curled into a small ball under them.
Their phones were already plugged into chargers on the bedside table nearest to Soyeon, and Yuqi basked in the warmth that bloomed in her chest at the fact that the woman always had an extra charger on hand. Just for her.
After turning off the lamp, Yuqi gathered the human ball into her arms as best as she could, smiling to herself in the darkened room when Soyeon stretched out enough to burrow into her better.
“”G'night,” Soyeon mumbled into her chest- her words slurring together in her sleepy state- humming contently when Yuqi's warm palm started rubbing her back in an effort to warm her up further.
“Goodnight Soyeon-ah, sleep well.”
Soyeon's breathing quickly evened out.
Soft puffs of breath fanned soothingly over Yuqi's collarbone, and the subtle scent of Soyeon's shampoo filled her nostrils. Almost turning her brain to mush. With a quiet sigh, Yuqi tightened her hold just a little, and closed her eyes. The comfort of finally having her girlfriend in her arms- after such a long, exhausting day- quickly lulling her to sleep.