"Y-Yona," Kija sputters.
A weird sort of pride surges through her as Kija frets, adorably, over her hair. She supposes the concern is warranted - it's a stark difference to the image she'd worked so hard to portray only a week prior, the good little heiress, long curls meticulously maintained, decorated with ribbons and delicate hairpins alike - but still, the pride is surprising. She's not sure exactly where it stems from. Kija isn't who she'd been aiming to scare.
Well, whatever, Yona thinks, tucking a chopped curl behind her ear. Motivation is motivation, and if Kija's big blue eyes glittering wistfully at her is enough to fill her with satisfaction then so be it. She'll take it.
"Don't worry so much!" she chirps, grinning. "I never liked my hair very much anyway, you know that. Sometimes a girl just needs a change!"
He places his hands very gently on her shoulders. "You weren't pressured into this, were you?"
From behind, Hak chokes on a laugh. For his part, he does his best to appear the bad boyfriend she's strong-armed him into being, keeping a watchful eye out for any of her father's employees, in case he needs to sling an arm around her waist and get playfully handsy. Or… as playfully handsy as Hak can get, anyway; there's only so much acting a guy like Hak can do, and it's not like he hasn't made it abundantly clear that she isn't his type (read: sexy).
But there's not as much for them to prove for Kija. Hak only looms behind her, eyeliner smudged, one brow quirked - he's amused.
It makes her feel a little less bad about bullying him into helping her.
And then he opens his mouth. "You should've seen her before Yoon gave her a trim. Now that was scary."
"I take back every nice thing I've ever said about you," Yona hisses, spinning on her toes to face him. Her infuriating arm candy grins at her. "It wasn't that bad!"
"Like one of those little troll dolls you used to be afraid of."
"That doesn't even make sense! My hair was not sticking up like that, it just- there was one cowlick, okay, but it wasn't that bad!"
"Sure."
What does he know, anyway? Yona's not convinced Hak even brushes his hair most days. He just rolls out of bed with that stupid bedhead of his and leaves legions of girls sighing over him and how misunderstood and lonely he is. It's weird. And gross. And the more it keeps happening the more it pisses her off.
"ANYWAY," she says cuttingly, shoving him a good foot away from her before turning to Kija instead. "The point is I chose to cut my hair, and it was on my own terms, so you don't have to worry about it! Besides, I think I kind of like it better this way. It's so much less work, and I use so much less product when I wash it…"
It's clear he's still caught on a ledge, teetering between concern and indignance at Hak's proximity. And, well, she supposes that's fair, too — she's always been close to the guy, but it's been a constant companionship lately, and for Kija, who's interning at her father's company, to watch Yona gallivant around with the big lug and show him off like some sort of muscle car, well. All of the change is probably concerning.
Rightfully so. She hopes it is. She hopes her father finally notices.
But stressing Kija out isn't any fun. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and his eyes are far too honest to be crinkled so. If he gets early wrinkles because of this, Yona will never forgive herself. And she will also never hear the end of it.
"Really," she insists, grabbing his hands and holding them in her own. "This is what I wanted. Please don't worry so much over me."
A sunburn she hadn't realized he had glows pink as he bows his head. Poor Kija; she knows exactly what it's like to be fair skinned, but he practically glows white in the sunlight, and it must be hell to have to constantly lather himself in aloe.
"I-If you say so!" he stutters, hands trembling, just a little. "But if he— if at any point you regret it, let me know and I'll—"
"I cut my hair myself," she says, smiling. "If I regret it then it's my own fault!"
Hak snorts from behind her. "Never thought I'd see the day."
Nobody asked him! Oh, what she wouldn't give to turn around and clobber him for his sharp tongue. They're supposed to be living on honeymoon avenue, for goodness sake, not grilling one another like an old married couple. Sure, there's not a lot they have to prove to Kija, of all people — or Jae-Ha, whose grinning is becoming increasingly infuriating, too — but still! There's probably a certain level of professionalism they should maintain, since this is sort of a business deal or… something. At the very least, Hak could keep his ribbing to a medium. He could at least pretend that he thinks she looks hot. Like he had the other night at the show!
Yes. That'd been excellent work on his part. He'd loomed like the big bad boyfriend he was supposed to be, and had lead her through crowds with a hand between her shoulder blades and steely eyes, cutting through potential suitors and blabbermouths alike. When he wants to, Yona knows he can play the part well. When push comes to shove, Hak's the most intimidating man in the room.
But he's so darn lazy. And easy going! Would it kill him to pretend like he's attracted to her?
So she turns to pout at him. Sticks out her tongue, too. "I'm trying to protect your face, sweetheart."
His lips press together and he makes a face, as if he'd just tasted something sour. "Sweetheart."
"What would you rather be called? Dear? Babe? Pookie?"
Jae-Ha nearly howls with laughter. "Oh! Yona dear, please keep calling him 'pookie'. Nothing would make me happier."
Kija's hands continue to tremble. Yona squeezes them placatingly and rolls her eyes, turning back to face him. He's always so skittish — sometimes, she thinks he might have a Thing about people touching him - but then whenever she does close the distance between them, he always ends up smiling at her, however timidly. It's not unlike having a pet chihuahua.
Only he's much, much larger than one, and his jawline is too handsome for that. Yona squeezes his hands again and he does smile this time, a little more confidently. "I know he's kind of irritating sometimes but he listens to me. And I like him."
Jae-Ha's simpering only gets worse. Hak exhales through his nose and Kija's smile twitches.
No matter; they only have to think she's serious, not like it.
"Come on, pookie," Yona says then, dropping Kija's hands to instead grab the leather of Hak's jacket and give him a hearty tug. "I want something to eat."
.
Hak doesn't seem to like being called 'pookie' very much.
Admittedly, it's a little cutesy. Yona dithers on it while sipping on her smoothie, legs dangling over the trunk of his car as she watches him fetch the hotdog she'd ordered. If she's being honest, it doesn't suit him; Hak isn't a pookie, and he's not a pumpkin, and certainly not a darling, but the more she thinks on it the more frustrated she gets.
There's just not a good pet name for him. He's composed of too many contradictions, handsome but devilish, kind but conniving, broad but one of the least threatening men she knows. He's as athletic as he is brooding, as hardworking — and muscular, god — as he is lazy and nap-loving. It's hard to pin just one trait on him. Harder, even, to romanticize and sugarcoat one thing and lovingly refer to him as such.
With Soo-Won it's easy. Soo-Won is so many things; he's honey, he's sweetheart, he's dear. Soo-Won is prince charming, and happily ever after, and the beginning of her storybook romance.
Hak is different.
And maybe she's going about this wrong anyway. Maybe she shouldn't be trying to think of a name for him that suits him and instead should be brainstorming pet names that would instead bother other people.
Namely her father.
"Maybe I should call you Daddy," Yona says thoughtfully.
Hak very nearly trips and dumps her hot dog on the faded black paint of his trunk. "Excuse me?"
"I keep trying to think of something cutesy to call you," she says, blinking, watching as he gathers his bearings again and hands her the food. "Because I thought it'd be obnoxious and smothering and my father would get sick of it. But maybe I'm going about it wrong. Maybe I should be trying to gross him out instead. Or make him mad!"
Hak's expression is exhausted. "Do I get a say in this."
"Yes. I mean..." She hands him her smoothie and then takes a bite of her hot dog, chewing slowly. Hak hops up to sit beside her and takes a long, noisy slurp of her drink. "Hey!"
"I paid for it. And I'm holding it for you, your highness."
Yona pouts and nudges him with her elbow. "I said you didn't have to. I tried to pay for it, remember?"
He chuffs and takes another long sip before sitting it carefully beside them. Hak cracks his neck and leans back, arms stretching behind his neck. "Losers let their girlfriends pay for their dates. Even if they're fake girlfriends."
"Sometimes the fake girlfriend is rich and has her father's credit card," Yona says, setting the hot dog down onto her lap long enough to poke his thigh playfully. "And sometimes the goal is to piss her dad off anyway. I could've paid for it."
"Whatever," he says, squinting into the sun. "I don't backwash. It's fine. Anyway. Do I get to pick my own nickname or are you just going to call me whatever you want."
He never seems to phrase these things as questions. Feeling both lenient and also a little guilty, Yona offers him a bite of her hot dog. While he accepts it and chews noisily, Yona looks to the sun, too, and wonders aloud, "Maybe Daddy's the right answer, though."
"God I hope not."
"You don't like it when I call you Daddy?"
The swallowing almost looks painful. Hak's face screws together into something of a grimace and he says, very seriously, "It feels weird."
"It's supposed to be weird! It's like, the whole 'sorry, your daughter calls ME Daddy now' thing." Yona nods very sagely, then stops looking at Hak to look into the sun thoughtfully again. Then she stops, because her eyes hurt and now she's kind of seeing dark spots.
"Please stop saying that."
It's a little cruel, because he's clearly uncomfortable with it, but at the same time it is sort of funny, watching him be so visibly turned off by the idea. Which is good, if she's being honest — Yona doesn't like calling him Daddy very much either, but still, she's pretty sure she's on to something here. If parading Hak around like a black stallion and making mock kissy faces at him whenever her father's around isn't working, and if trending on Twitter for 10 hours because she'd been spotted moshing wasn't the ticket, then surely something so weirdly sexual and uncomfortable will do the trick.
"You could call me something funny too. Fair's fair," she says, then takes the last bite of her hot dog and dots at her mouth politely with a napkin.
Hak snorts and drops his arms beside him. "What. Like Baby?"
Something jumps in her chest. Yona can't place it. Maybe she's getting sunburnt now, too, because her face feels hot, and maybe she needs to up the SPF in her cc cream, because that's just not normal. She shouldn't have any reaction to that at all. Huh.
When she doesn't immediately respond he looks at her suspiciously. Yona wipes her face more aggressively with her napkin.
"Hey," he says, reaching out to grab her wrist, "your lipstick."
Oh. Shoot. Yona pinks from actual embarrassment this time and lowers her hand guiltily. "Oops."
"Idiot," Hak mutters, but it's far too affectionate for him to really mean it.
It's weird; baby had felt a little uncomfortable and had turned something in her chest, but idiot feels so fond and familiar that she smiles a little. If Hak notices, he doesn't say anything, and instead busies himself with taking the napkin from her hands and cleaning the mess she's made on her face in her flustering. All things considered, idiot should be an insult, and baby, though debatably condescending and infantilizing, is a normal term of endearment between consenting partners.
She blames it on the weather. The heat makes her slow on the uptake.
"There," he says, crumpling the napkin in his hand. "Better. Mostly."
"Do I look hot and ravaged?"
Hak raises a brow and shrugs a shoulder.
Well, what is she supposed to make of that? Yona ruffles her hair for good measure and then whips out her phone. "Because if I do, this is the perfect moment to add something to my Instagram story, and maybe someone will leak it to Twitter and we can get trending again—"
"Clout chaser."
"Social media is news these days. Stay with the times!" she demands, then grabs her smoothie and sucks down what's left of it. "Here. Sit still."
Yona scoots closer until their legs are pressed together. The warmth of his black jeans almost burns the bare skin of her thigh, but she persists, still, holding her phone up and testing the lighting and angle until it's at least a little bit flattering. Natural light is the best, but with where the sun is in the sky right now, and the angle they're sitting at — it just washes them out. And beyond that, it's difficult to get them both in the same shot with their height difference; Yona's not tall, but what little height she does have is in her legs, truly, and Hak is just a tank of a man.
"Darn," she mutters. "No good. You're too big."
He doesn't say anything, but she can see the shit-eating grin in her front-facing camera.
Ugh. Boys.
"Here," she says, "actually, I have a better idea—"
"Wh— Princess," Hak grunts, as Yona clambers her way onto his leg, sitting daintily.
Better. This way, she can bring the camera in closer, and the lighting's far less harsh. True to form, Hak had done a bang-up job of cleaning up her lipstick, but it's still undeniably faded and smudged in places, and that does the job, that's for sure.
"Maybe I should kiss your face or something," she mumbles, squinting into the camera. "Or… your neck. For evidence."
Hak's expression betrays nothing. "If you think that'll work."
"You're okay with it?"
"If I wasn't used to you doing whatever you wanted I wouldn't have lasted this long already."
Yona wipes her thumb over her lip and then presses it to his neck, smudging the vampy red there, effectively branding him. His expression still betrays nothing, but his skin is warm, and a little sweaty from the heat, and smearing her lipstick right under his jaw is a little too easy. And it's hard to really shape it like her mouth with her thumb.
Finally, his mask cracks, and Hak can't hide his crooked smile. "You are the worst artist I've ever met."
"Hey! I've never— you try it then, if you're so talented—"
"Just." He sighs, clearly defeated. "... Use your mouth if it's that important. It's fine. Don't worry, I won't do anything."
That's not what she's worried about. Yona trusts Hak not to try anything with her, and knows in her heart that despite his teasing, he really does have her best interests at heart. And he's not even a little bit attracted to her, and he's made such clear to her many, many times — but still, it feels invasive, even if he gives his permission. These are things he's supposed to cherish with someone special.
… But he hadn't had a problem dancing close to her at that rock show, and he's let her kiss his face before. Perhaps Yona should do a better job taking his word for it. What's the difference? If he says it's fine then it's fine.
The phone drops to her lap. Yona plants a hand on his face to hold him steady and does not think on how sharp his jaw is, nor does she focus on the stubble beneath the palm. It's scratchy, and he must've forgone shaving this morning — a faux pas Soo-Won would never commit — but it feels sort of… nice on her cheek. And when she's this close, she can smell his deodorant, something simple and clean and warm, and even warmer than that is his skin, thin beneath her lips.
She can feel the strumming of his pulse. Yona knows she ought to make it good, to make this uncomfortable situation worth it, and so she braves more than just a simple peck. She might use her teeth if she knew how to properly leave a hickey, but she's too inexperienced and cowardly to try. Instead, she moves her mouth further north, until her lips are pressed to the crook of his neck, where throat meets jaw, and that stubble drags across her cheek in the process, a little rough, a lot interesting, a texture she's not quite used to.
His breath catches, and Yona jerks back instinctively, guiltily, as if she'd been burned.
She sort of feels burned. Her face must be on fire. Swallowing hurts.
"... Sorry," he says, but his voice is rougher than it had been before, hm. "Your lashes tickle."
Yona forces out a laugh and smiles, though she suspects it doesn't quite meet her eyes. "Sorry. Um."
Eyeing her handiwork feels weird, too. Her blood runs hot in her veins, and her hands feet sweatier than they had before; holding her phone in her hand is difficult, and so Hak has to take over, holding their camera steady.
Can't have the photo be blurry, after all. Not after all of that. Now they really need to make this good.
"Cheese," she says, in a voice that almost sounds like her own.
Yona is both herself and not, as she cradles Hak's jaw in her hands and cozies up to him for the camera. It's alarmingly easy to play it up for the 'gram, and Yona doesn't think about the mark she's left on him, the damning, almost bloody looking mouth-shaped smear along his throat.
It's for Soo-Won, she tells herself. This rush of her blood, the way she presses herself against Hak's chest and flutters her lashes purposefully — it's for happily ever after. It's for her independence. He will understand. It's not like she's doing anything wrong. All of this is just for show anyway.
Hak links his arm around her waist and holds her closer. It must be to steady her, because she's balanced so precariously on one of his legs, but it's warm in his embrace, and it's difficult for her to think about anything else but the way his pulse had jumped beneath her mouth. The way his skin had tasted salty beneath her tongue, in the brief half-second her lips had parted.
"There," he says, and he's found his mask again. He doesn't look even half as ruined as she feels. "These good?"
Yona can't even focus on them right now. Yona clicks her phone and shoves it into her pocket, feeling jittery and too hot and weirdly clammy. Stupid. Of course it's nothing to get worked up over. Hak really had just been ticklish, and she has lash extensions, so of course — of course. Nothing happened. There's nothing to get flustered over.
Besides. He'd said it was fine. She needs to trust him.
"Yeah," she says, but her voice still feels miles away. "Thanks. I'll go through them later. Um. Can we go home? It's hot out here."
He pats her back placatingly and helps her down from their perch atop his trunk. God. Once she's on her feet it's like she's been out at sea for years, and Yona struggles, stubbornly to find her land legs again. There's no reason for her to be so jelly legged over something so minuscule. So what, she hasn't kissed a lot of boys, so what. It's just Hak. And he doesn't seem even a little bit bothered by it.
She'll have to call Soo-Won tonight and talk it over. It's been a while since she's heard from him. That's gotta be it.
"Can't wait for summer to be over," he says, spinning his keys around his finger. "Hate feeling so sweaty."
Yona takes three deep breaths and reminds herself who she is, and what she's doing this for. The picture will be great. It will go viral. Her father will see it and crack, and Yona can stop cozying up to her good friend and making things weird. At least Hak has the maturity to be cool about it.
At least Hak has the maturity to be honest about it. She lets out a breath and marches her way over to his passenger seat; if nothing else, at least she has confirmation that he's really, truly not attracted to her. And it should be comforting, knowing that he will never try anything with her, and that she's picked the right man to play this game of theatrical chicken with. Soo-Won could find comfort in that, surely; Hak's hands never stray to places she's told him are off limits. He lets her kiss his neck without getting weird about it. Hak glowers for the camera and lets her test pet names on him.
And it's comforting for her. It is. Really.
.
"I won't call you Daddy if you don't like it," she says, after he's started the car and pulled out of the parking lot.
Hak keeps his eyes on the road. "Whatever you think's best. I'm just along for the ride."
Yona stares out the passenger seat window. Rolls the crank down and lets the wind trash her curls. Ah. That's better. Maybe what she'd needed all along was some fresh air. It's kind of stuffy in here, in Hak's old car, with the broken air conditioner and fuzzy radio reception. Maybe what she'd needed was just to get out of her own head.
She really is an idiot.
"Thank you," she says into the wind.
He doesn't say anything for a long time. Yona thinks maybe he hasn't heard her, and so she says it again, a little more clearly this time, just a breath more bravely, bangs fluttering around her face. But he sighs, just barely audibly, and says, "Sure," and turns up the radio.
A bass line buzzes to life. It plucks something out of her chest. Yona hopes it's not her heart. The poor thing's too desperate for her own good.
