"Hak," Yona asks, setting down her makeup sponge, "do we have the same type?"
His bed creaks behind her as he shifts. "What."
Turning in her seat, she can't seem to keep herself from pushing the subject, even if it really is none of her business. "I mean. Ayame's so pretty."
Hak's laying in such a way that his head hangs off of the mattress upside down. He raises a brow at her but doesn't respond right away, instead electing to look at her and make her feel stupid for even going there.
Stupid. He's the stupid one. Yona huffs and turns back to face his mirror instead, busying herself with finishing her makeup. Contour next, then she should probably skip the blush, if she wants to look rough and tough, hm. "She's pretty," she says, insistently. "And she's blonde! And she has blueish eyes, like-"
Hak grunts and Yona hears his booted foot hit the wall. Stretching his legs? "Don't make it weird."
"You have good taste," she says anyways, smiling. If she's not careful, her contour might be uneven, because she can't seem to keep an even expression when she's talking to him lately. "And she's so nice! And she doesn't take your shit!"
"If I wanted to date my mom I'd be hitting on Yoon already," Hak says sleepily. "Ayame and I aren't like that."
"But if you were."
"Stop making it weird, Princess."
Yona huffs and moves on to her eyebrows instead. Holds her face steady with one hand and draws the pencil in short strokes across her brow bone.
Fine. If he doesn't want to talk about his feelings then he doesn't have to. No matter how frustrating it is - he's already doing her such a huge favor that it feels needlessly pushy, to pry into his private life.
But still. She can't help the burning curiosity, curling in her gut like liquid fire. It ignites something unignorable in her veins, frantic and frustrating, and she has to assume it's glee for him, that he's managed to find companionship - or at the very least, mutual fondness - with such a nice girl. Sometimes Yona worries about him, the big lug. He never goes out! And when he does, it's to dark, shady venues to mosh or… whatever it is Hak does when he embraces his inner vampire and disappears into the night.
And it's not that she wants to change him. If Hak likes loud music and feeling like the bassline might stop his heart, cool, good for him. Those are parts of him that make up the whole - what she does want is for Hak to be able to function normally in society. And also not be alone.
Which. Oh. Yona lowers her eyebrow pencil and looks back to him again. "I'm not getting in the way of anything, am I?"
Hak snorts. "If you were I wouldn't be helping you."
"Because if I am, we can call this off," she says, shifting more fully now, in order to face him. "I mean it! She seemed really cool with helping me out yesterday, but if it's too weird, or if it's putting a strain on your relationship-"
Her stand-in boyfriend grunts and rolls onto his stomach. Blankets his arms in front of himself and plops his chin there, right on his forearm, and stares back at her. "Ayame is not my girlfriend."
That's not what she's asking. "Soo-Won isn't my boyfriend, technically."
"I'm not planning on marrying anyone anytime soon," Hak deadpans. "I'm not impulsive."
"I'm not impulsive!" Yona huffs, pointing her pencil at him threateningly. "It's love! Oh, you must not be into her, nevermind - if you were you'd understand! Love just… it makes you crazy sometimes," she finishes, nodding sagely.
Hak stares at her. Raises an eyebrow again.
God, she ought to shake that look off of his face. Mr. Know it all. What does he know about love anyway? Out of the two of them she's the expert on this topic, and that's not something that happens very often. It sort of inflates her head. Makes her smug enough to lean over and flick his nose.
"Crazy in a good way," Yona says serenely. Crazy in a heart racing, blood pumping sort of way. It's not something she's sure she can explain to someone who's probably never had a crush in his life. "I just… want to spend as much time with him as I can. And the rest of my life is the most I can offer."
There's a lopsided smile now, curling at his lips. "What, you don't think Soo-Won just wants your body?"
"He gets body and soul!" Yona blurts, blushing, swatting at him now. "He gets everything, you punk-"
"More goth, but okay."
"Snot nosed brat," she says, sticking her tongue. "The least cute person I know."
"Now now." He's smiling far more crookedly now. "You and I both know you own a mirror, Princess."
How any one human can be so good at pushing her buttons is beyond her. It's like she's a damn television remote and he's a lazy couch potato, she thinks, standing at once, fully intending to march over there and pile drive him. Whether or not she'll hurt herself on the surprising layer of muscle hidden beneath his worn black t-shirt isn't even a thought in her head - for Yona, there is only righteous fury, and his heart looks particularly ruffleable. If he thinks he can play with fire without getting burned, well, he has another thing coming, and this new version of Yona wears combat boots now. All the better for kicking with.
He has enough time to brace himself, though. Hak catches her as she plummets her dead weight onto him and wrestles her into a pretzel in about five seconds flat, and moony-eyed goth or not, Hak is still a jock, physically.
"Ooof, hey-!"
"What was the goal, Princess," Hak asks, chortling.
She squirms and tries to knee him in the side. Instead, her leg manages to get hooked around his hip. There's a moment where he falters and Yona takes the chance and runs with it.
Hak grunts. Yona manages to get on top of him and press her knees on either side of his hips. Panics, realizes that his arms are stronger than hers, and just sort of… plants her palms on his chest. Presses down, as if her kitten strength will be enough to stop him.
It's surprisingly not enough to encourage an immediate retaliation. Hak lets out a breath and blinks up at her, and it's almost cute, how wide his eyes are. The dumbstruck expression is a nice change. It's refreshing, to wipe that smug grin off his face every now and again. Maybe she should work harder to keep Hak on his toes.
He gapes at her for another moment. His chest rises and falls with his breath, and the worn cotton of his shirt is a flimsy layer between her hands and the heat of his skin.
Her wrists wobble as she leans forward, resting her weight on her hands. "Who's the boss now, huh?"
His adam's apple bobs as he swallows. It's weirdly distracting.
"... You, your highness," Hak says, without a hint of irony.
It makes her cheeks burn. Indignant, she huffs and shakes her head - now he's the one who's making things weird! Here she'd been, just trying to have a friendly conversation with her good friend come stand-in boyfriend Hak, and he has to go and look at her as if she'd stripped him naked or something. God. It's like the guy has never been conquered before, like he's never had anyone challenge him, just because of his towering height and admittedly fantastic build.
What's so weird about talking about their mutual crushes anyway? Isn't that what friends do? Have years of chick flicks lied to her?
"I don't know why you keep calling me that." Yona pouts. "It's not my name. And I'm not that bossy."
"With all due respect," Hak starts, "you are sitting on me."
"You started it!"
"Did I."
"You're not wording that like a question. Why aren't you wording it like a question?"
Hak raises an eyebrow at her but doesn't say anything. Doesn't move, either. For all of his surprise, it seems he doesn't actually have a problem with her sitting on him like this - and Yona thinks perhaps it'd been just the shock of someone actually having the guts to shove him over that had him momentarily tongue tied. There's not another reason she can think of that could possibly shut him up like that. God knows she's been trying for years to get him to cut the teasing.
"Whoaaaa," comes a voice from behind, and though Hak jolts beneath her, Yona takes the adult approach and instead looks over her shoulder before she reacts.
Sure enough, Hak's kid brother Tae-Yeon stands in the doorway, adorable baby-blue baseball hat turned backwards, Pokeball in hand. "Are you guys wrestling?"
Nothing to worry about. "Your big brother tapped out," Yona says, gleefully.
"You cut your hair!" Tae-Yeon gasps, dropping the Pokeball at his side. He scampers over and pats her knee in awe, and Yona swings herself off of Hak's lap before their grandfather has a chance to come in and catch her straddling his oldest grandson, too. "Whoaaaaa!"
He's probably the cutest kid in the entire world. Yona cannot begin to fathom how the two of them are related, even if it's via adoption; they'd been raised by the same wonderful old man, and somehow Hak had turned into a complete gremlin and Tae-Yeon a little angel.
The duality of man, she supposes. For every Hak of the world, there must surely be a Tae-Yeon. Or a Soo-won.
"And new clothes!" He pokes a finger at her fishnet tights. "Issat Hak's shirt?"
"You know your big brother's shirts?"
Tae-Yeon shrugs a little and hops up to sit beside her on the mattress. "Kinda," he says, kicking his feet in the air. "I like wearing them for pajamas a lot. But I can tell because it's really big on you! You're not going to sleep yet, are you?"
"It's too big on you, too," Hak says, turning his hat back around.
"But Yona's a grown up like you," he says, pouting.
See, she thinks, far too smugly. She even shoots Hak a satisfied grin and he shakes his head at her.
"Speaking of pajamas." Hak hefts his little brother into the air and sets him on his shoulders. "Isn't it about time you start washing up for bed, little man?"
"But Yona's here!"
She swears her heart grows three sizes. "But I'm hereeee," she finds herself whining too, reaching out.
Hak shoves her face away with ease, a single palm to her forehead and a light shove. She tumbles back onto the mattress as Hak stands, baby brother giggling as he's suddenly raised several feet into the air. From where he sits on Hak's shoulders, Tae-Yeon can easily reach the ceiling, and proves so with a victorious slap as his big brother crooks that cute half-smile and begins carrying him out into the hall.
And, okay, fine, Yona thinks, leaning back onto her hands and watching the two of them chatter and giggle like kids - maybe Hak is cute, in his own sort of sarcastic, annoying way. Or he's cute when he's with kids, at least - and especially his own kid brother.
Or maybe Tae-Yeon's shouldering all of the cute in the family, and Hak seems cuter just by proximity. Yeah. That's probably it.
.
It's not a limo, but there's a certain charm to Hak's old car; and for the job at hand, an old 90's… something vehicle certainly fits the bill. Besides, who cares if there are crank windows and the AC doesn't quite work the way it's supposed to - in all reality, Yona's just more impressed that her newly minted fake boytoy knows how to drive a stick shift than anything else.
Hak raises a brow at her when she expresses such awe. "It's a car."
"But!" Yona plops back in her seat and tucks her legs beneath her, hands pressed to her knees. There's something classy about driving a stick that she can't really put into words. And… well, she's not sure if classy is what she's looking for here in this transaction of a relationship they have currently, but still - it's charming, and it's fun, and it's a fact she hasn't fully been able to appreciate until this very moment.
The wheels whiz as Hak takes a right turn and pulls them onto the highway. "But?"
"But it's cool," she says, finally, begrudgingly.
His resulting smile makes her stomach burn. "Cool."
"Don't let it go to your head!" But she's smiling, too, and even if he's a gremlin sometimes, his satisfaction is infectious. Hak isn't one to showboat. Hak's not even one to brag about the little things - he's much more lowkey than she is about most things, really - but there's something deeply rewarding about making Hak feel good about himself.
Within reason. She really can't let him get to his head. If she's not careful, he'll get too used to her complimenting him, and then he'll just expect it from her. And the last thing Yona needs is to give Hak reason to tease her.
"Soo-Won doesn't know how to drive a stick," Yona continues.
Hak exhales through his nose, eyes still on the road. Hands on the wheel. "He doesn't need to know how to," he says, streetlights washing beams of yellowed-light over him as they speed down the empty highway. "He has drivers for that."
"I don't know how to drive a stick either."
"You don't know how to drive at all." He's not wrong, but Yona still sticks her tongue out at him and leans over to flick his shoulder. "And you'll probably never need to learn how."
"I still think it'd be a worthwhile skill to have," she says, pouting.
Hak grunts noncommittally.
Ugh. There he goes again. Yona simmers or a moment, pressing her back against the cool, worn leather of the passenger seat. "I'm sick of everyone babying me all of the time," she says, and there's something righteous burning in her gut now, stifled and angry. "You don't know what it's like, being told what to do and say all of the time - it's exhausting, you know! It's hardly living like a person at all. I'm just- It's like being a doll."
"Princess."
"And that!" She claps her hands back onto her knees. "Calling me that all of the time! It's like nobody sees me as a real person, they just see me as my father's daughter, or, or - like the next potential head of the company!"
Hak says nothing. His lips press together and he glances at her, taking his eyes off of the road for only a moment.
She could melt there. As if Hak had ever meant to put her in this box. As if he wasn't just following the status quo. "I want to be able to make my own choices," she admits, heat breaking in her stomach, fraying, spreading through her bloodstream. "And I want to be able to take care of myself. And do things."
"Like drive."
"Like drive." Yona nods to herself, even though Hak's got his eyes back on the road now.
It's silent, then. A good fifteen minutes of the trip is spent in silence, and the only noise is the staticy hum of his radio, questionable reception, broken antenna. Somewhere beneath the audio fuzz, Yona thinks she hears guitars racing toward a crescendo, and then that heat breaks fully in her, shattering like a balloon.
"If this is going to work," she starts, "you're going to have to stop handling me with kid gloves."
Hak doesn't say anything.
"I mean it." She is Yona, seventeen going on eighteen, princess going on queen. What good is adulthood if she's never allowed to embrace it? If the rest of her life is meant to be spent grasping at the coattails of the men in her life, well, then she doesn't want it.
The rumbling of the engine beneath them simmers to a quiet lull. Hak puts the vehicle into park and then turns to face her, old leather groaning beneath him as he sets a hand on the headrest of her seat. "Is that what this whole thing is about?"
Yona doesn't blink. "What?"
"Are you trying to get married because you want to feel independent?"
Those puzzle pieces don't quite match up in her heart. Trying to force those two together feels like shoving two magnets together - the same ends of two magnets. No attraction. No cohesion.
"I love Soo-Won," Yona says, very surely, staring Hak head on. She does, and it doesn't matter if he's prince charming, because being with him will still free her, surely, from this in-between she feels so lost in, this adolescent purgatory. "I've always wanted to marry him. Growing up hasn't changed that."
Hak's resulting slow nod makes her blood itch. He pulls the key from the ignition and then cracks his neck. "As long as you're sure," he says, then reaches over to ruffle her hair. "Yona."
It's the first time he's called her by name in a long time. That itching in her blood becomes a full-blown storm, and she is Yona, soon to be crowned queen. She is Yona, and this boy before her with the moonlight eyes and dark, dark eyeliner takes nothing with him - he only crooks a half-smile at her, turns, and kicks the driver side door open.
.
"Earplugs," Hak says, holding an open palm out to her.
Even from outside the venue, Yona can already hear the screaming of electric guitars and feel the rumbling of the bassline in her very bones.
But that would be chickening out. Who would she be, if she went and babied herself, even after that spiel she'd given him in the car just now? Yona shakes her head and presses his hand shut. "No thanks. I'm a bad bitch now."
It catches him off guard. Certainly startles a laugh out of him. "If you say so."
But Hak still pockets the earplugs anyway. Whatever. She'll show him. One way or another, she'll get her guard dog to believe her. Part of her thinks that'd been the problem, why her father hadn't reacted the way she thought he should've - it's one thing, to think his daughter is simply settling for a bad boy. It's another thing altogether to think his daughter is right there with him, knee-deep in anarchy and loud, wailing guitars.
She has something to prove, now. Yona hardens her resolve and rubs her eyes.
"You're smudging your eyeliner," Hak says.
"Exactly."
He cracks that half smile again and ruffles her hair. It's more brotherly than romantic, and though it's comfortable, and strokes something nostalgic and safe in her chest, it's not what she needs right now. If this is going to work, if this whole fake relationship is going to mean something, Yona needs to up the ante.
So she grabs his arm and throws it around her shoulders. Slips her hand around his waist and rests it on his hip.
There's a pause in him. Yona takes the initiative again and hooks her finger in his belt loop.
"You can touch me," she mutters into his ribs. Presses her face against the side of his chest and nestles herself there, in the crook of his arm, and it's comfortable here, too, in a completely different way. Maybe it's just Hak and who he is that brings her comfort, no matter the position, no matter who is holding who, no matter how close they are - but it's different than before. It's new, and it's weirdly intimate.
But Hak settles into the role she's assigned him. Faithful, loyal Hak cups her shoulder and tugs her against him, and the two of them make their way in, welcomed by screaming guitars and the steady thumping of the drums. And this is the cadence of her heart now, she thinks, even as her ears ring - for the time being, this is who she is. And she might as well embrace it.
Is this okay, she wonders, but the thought is nearly drowned out by the rumbling of the bassline. It rumbles all the way through her chest, a brand new heartbeat, and it feels alien and distant.
It's hard to walk in this position, though. It could be easier, perhaps, if she was a foot taller, or if Hak was a foot shorter, but their height difference makes these things difficult, and instead of holding her around the shoulders, Hak decides to lead her through the crowd with a steady hand on her back. He has one hand hooked over her left shoulder and the other spread across her upper back, and there's a nagging, curious part of her that wishes he'd slip his hand down and rest that hand on her lower back, instead.
That's what boyfriends do, isn't it? And she'd given him permission. It's not like they'd be tongue kissing or anything - even if it sort of brings heat to her face, the longer she sits and thinks on it - they just have a point to prove.
"Do you want something to drink?"
"YES," Yona shouts.
She can feel his laughter through his touch. "Okay," he mutters, leaning down, so close to her ear that she can feel his breath in her hair.
The heat in her face refuses to quit. Stupid. How old is she, thirteen? This is just Hak. Hak, who's doing his best to both keep tabs on her in a crowd and also play the role she's appointed him.
"Water?" he asks, and he's close to her so that he doesn't have to shout too, she realizes.
Still, it's closer than he's been to her face in… well, ever, she thinks, and Yona pivots toward him, bravely, stubbornly. She won't turn away in the face of danger. No, she'll face the fire head on, will embrace this new life she leads, will prove herself unafraid. She is Yona, riot girl, bad bitch, or… whatever it is her father's most afraid of - she's Yona, adult, and intimacy doesn't frighten her. Nothing scares her anymore.
For Soo-Won, she thinks, standing on her toes.
"Thanks," she mumbles, taking his jaw into her hands and pulling him down toward her, and his cheek is warm beneath her lips. His skin is warm, and his jaw a little stubbly, but she finds the scruff isn't as uncomfortable as she always thought it might be.
His expression doesn't change. Hak swallows, and if Yona lets her hands slide down his throat on the way back down, well, then they're both just victims of circumstance.
