Characters/Ship: WJSN Soobin/Luda Tags: canon compliant, mutual pining to unrequited love, angst, luda-centric. mentions of one-sided exy/seola and exy/bona + pre-exy/luda? Permission to Remix: Yes
a/n: soobin to luda: we were once as close as soulmates. do you still remember? luda to soobin: you won’t forget, right? don’t throw me away. ++ ao3 link
-
Luda’s world ends on a Saturday.
It’s raining softly outside, the neighborhood is drowning in quietness, and Luda is drowning in Soobin— in her laugh, in the way she throws her head back, in how she tries to speak quietly but ends up getting too excited halfway through whatever story she chooses to tell next.
This is it, Luda thinks as she watches Soobin put her hair up in a ponytail, marvels at the way her fingers move through the loose strands, wishes it were hers doing the job instead. This is what people write about, this is what people sing about, this is what people cry about.
“Lee Luda!” Soobin calls, waving her hands in front of Luda’s face. “Are you listening to me?”
Luda startles, blinks once, twice. Tries not to burst out laughing once she takes in the offended look plastered on Soobin’s face. “Sorry, unnie. What were you saying?”
“I was saying, we should try to share a room,” Soobin explains again, stretching her body over the couch and leaving some space for Luda to join her. Luda gets up from the carpet and lies beside Soobin, heart constricting inside her chest when Soobin rests her head against her shoulder. “When we debut, I mean.”
Luda laughs, shaking her head. “You mean you, me, and at least three other people.”
Soobin grunts, head sinking further into Luda’s skin. Luda pats her head in an attempt to comfort her. “Yeah, I guess. But even if we end up having to share the bedroom with a thousand other girls, I’ll be satisfied as long as you’re with me. Since you’re my soulmate, and everything.”
Luda is pretty sure she’s never come across any articles about people dying from loving too much, nor has she heard anything of the sort on the news, but if the way her heart is threatening to jump out of her throat is any indicator, she might as well be the first. “I’m your soulmate?”
Soobin beams, in that sweet, disarming way that she always does when it’s just the two of them, then answers, “Of course you are. Who else would it be?”
—
Luda’s world ends again a month later.
It’s three in the morning and everyone in the dorm is asleep— everyone except her and Soobin, who are killing time in the kitchen as if they don’t have to practice in a few hours.
An IU song coming from Luda’s tablet fills the comfortable silence between them, both content to sit next to each other and split an orange without saying a word. Then the song switches to an upbeat one, and before Luda can register what’s happening, Soobin opens the refrigerator door and offers Luda her hand, staring at her with a mischievous smile on her face.
“It’s a homemade dance floor,” Soobin explains and rolls her eyes, as if it’s obvious and Luda is stupid for remaining at the same place, not moving an inch. “Come on,” she urges, tugging at Luda’s wrist. “Dance with me.”
Luda is unsure at first, arguing that it’s late and what if we end up waking up someone and Juyeon spends the entire morning complaining about it, but Soobin is stubborn and careless won’t stop pestering her until she gets what she wants, so Luda throws caution out of the window and decides to join her, struggling not to melt at how beautiful Soobin looks like that, smiling from ear to ear as her skin glows, golden under the yellow refrigerator light.
It all starts as a simple dance. They spin around, let their arms fly in all the wrong directions and whip their hairs once the beat drops. Then Soobin comes closer, wraps her arms around Luda’s waist, sways them side by side, and then, and then—
Luda is being pressed against the counter, Soobin’s cold hands slip under her hoodie, and their lips find each other in a searing, passionate kiss.
Luda clings onto the hem of Soobin’s sweater like a lifeline and brings their bodies closer, chest filling with desire when Soobin moans against her mouth, and Luda knows she has been kissed before, but never like this. God, she swears on her life, never like this. Maybe because they were bad kisses, or because they didn’t mean anything to her, or simply because the people kissing her weren’t Park Soobin— they could never compare to the holy taste of her glossy lips and her soft palms losing themselves along the extension of back, leaving a trace of fire wherever they could reach.
Then, as fast as she ascended to heaven, she was dragged back to the real world when Soobin placed both hands on her shoulders and pulled away as if she had been burnt, leaving Luda confused, anxious, heartbroken.
Little did she know, that was the beginning of the end— the beginning of her demise, the end of something that never was.
“Luda-yah,” Soobin sniffs, barely audible, as hot tears cascade through her red cheeks. Luda wants to reach out, to wipe them off, but she’s terrified of what might happen if she acts on her urges one more time. She doesn’t think she can handle being pushed away again. “We can’t do it.”
“Unnie,” Luda calls, voice cracking, then pleads pitifully, “Don’t say that.”
“We can’t,” Soobin shakes her head, crossing her arms under her chest as she stares at the floor. Then she looks up at Luda, her eyes red, wet, and covered in pain, and murmurs, “Luda, please. You know we can’t.”
The thing is, Luda’s brain knows they can’t. Her heart, slow and naive, struggles to come to terms with it.
Luda looks away, struggling to keep her tears at bay. Her teeth sinks on the inside of her cheeks, and the blood she tastes on her tongue might as well be the only thing reminding her she’s still alive. That and the overwhelming urge she gets to be held, the urge to have someone else’s hands on both sides of her face, telling her that it’s okay, you’re okay, you’ll survive.
What she gets, instead, is Soobin’s hand pressing on top of hers, a hesitant squeeze, and then a broken goodnight, don’t sleep too late, before she’s left all alone in the kitchen, sweeping the cracks of her soul off the floor for the rest of the night.
—
Luda’s world keeps ending, little by little, once Soobin starts getting closer to Hyunjung.
It takes some time for Luda to get used to the new dynamic, to not feel like she’s going to be physically sick when she catches Soobin spending all of her time— time that used to be, for the most part, Luda’s— with a member she barely acknowledged before.
Soobin and Hyunjung sit together in the car, share earbuds, have their own inside jokes, spend the holidays with each other’s families and find their way towards each other during every single variety show shooting— almost as if there was a magnet bringing them together, as if the stars needed them to, as if they couldn’t help it.
It’s obvious. It’s undeniable. It’s love.
And it’s a slow death, to watch their romance blossom from such a proximity. It’s a slow death, to have it confirmed that, to Soobin, Hyunjung is worth the fight— but she wasn’t, not even for a second.
Then, as if the universe decided that witnessing the two of them fall for each other wasn’t enough of a punishment, the scene that greets her once she steps into the living room pulls the ground from under her feet, makes her insides crumple and bleed and burn and, at last, sends her straight to hell like the worst of sinners.
She’s pretty sure she hears Soobin calling out her name, but the ringing in her ears and the voices in her brain urging her to run, leave, go to the end of the world but don’t stay here are loud and insistent, so she puts one foot after the other and, before she can process what she saw, she’s in the rooftop of their building, lungs burning and legs aching.
“Don’t cry,” Luda tells herself, hugging her sides and attempting to take deep, calming breaths. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t fucking cry—”
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” Sojung comments, materializing beside Luda by the railing. The night is cold and unforgiving, the wind causing the tree branches to shake violently and the teenagers coming home from school to find shelter inside the nearest stores they can find. Sojung hands Luda the coat she was wearing to stop her from shivering, and Luda doesn’t have it in her to deny it, not after everything.
Had it been anyone else seeing her this broken, she would’ve glared at them and told them to leave her alone because she’s completely fine, thank you very much, but Sojung is the only person who genuinely understands what Luda is going through. She’s been in love with Hyunjung since they were in that awkward pre-teen phase, innocent and lost but still full of hope, training together at another agency.
The only person other than Jiyeon, of course, who’s been silently in love with Sojung for three years now, but made Luda promise to keep the information a secret.
And so she did.
It’s a depressing sight to see, Luda thinks bitterly, the trail of bloody bodies left in the wake of someone else’s happy ending.
“That’s rich coming for you,” Luda retorts, stroking her wet cheeks with the sleeves of the coat as she raises an accusatory eyebrow. “Didn’t you spend, like, fifteen hours stuck inside the studio yesterday?”
Sojung bumps her shoulder against Luda’s. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Luda shakes her head, her first genuine smile of the day appearing on her face. “You’re ridiculous.”
Sojung nods, opening her arms as an invitation for Luda fall into them. “Yeah, but so are you.”
Luda hesitates for a second, then her lips quiver, the corner of her eyes start to water, and before she can come up with an excuse to deny the affection Sojung’s offering her, she’s being pulled into a warm, comforting embrace.
She’s being held. It’s not Soobin there with her, reminding her that things will be okay with time, but she’s being held, kept from falling apart. And there, trapped between Sojung’s strong arms, she allows herself to sob the pain out of her chest, allows herself to feel.
Sojung hums a soothing melody under her breath, still holding Luda close, refusing to let her go until there’s not a single tear covering her skin anymore. She’ll probably never admit it out loud, but Luda doesn’t know what she would do without a friend like Sojung by her side. The thought alone makes her feel weird, helpless, a little all over the place.
Sojung pokes Luda’s cheek, chuckling to herself when her hand gets swatted away by a mildly annoyed Luda, then asks. “Feeling better?”
“I don’t know,” Luda answers honestly, closing her eyes and sinking further into Sojung. “I can breathe now, at least.”
“Come on, let’s get you inside,” Sojung whispers against Luda’s hair, patting her back before she breaks the contact between their bodies, taking Luda’s small hand in hers instead.
—
Later that night, when Luda finally lies down on her bed after spending countless hours in front of the computer to numb her mind, Soobin’s laugh echoes throughout the quiet dorm. Luda can tell she’s on the phone with Hyunjung, the giddiness in her tone and the word soulmate slipping so easily from her mouth leaving no room for wrong assumptions, and her heart shatters all over again.
Luda swallows the lump forming inside her throat, hides her entire body under the covers, and attempts to slip into a dreamless, painless sleep.
—
It didn’t work, Luda comes to realize the next morning as the tears running down her face remind her of the river where she was swimming with Soobin in her dreams, it never does.
[FILL] i’ll be getting over you my whole life
Tags: canon compliant, mutual pining to unrequited love, angst, luda-centric. mentions of one-sided exy/seola and exy/bona + pre-exy/luda?
Permission to Remix: Yes
a/n: soobin to luda: we were once as close as soulmates. do you still remember?
luda to soobin: you won’t forget, right? don’t throw me away.
++ ao3 link
-
Luda’s world ends on a Saturday.
It’s raining softly outside, the neighborhood is drowning in quietness, and Luda is drowning in Soobin— in her laugh, in the way she throws her head back, in how she tries to speak quietly but ends up getting too excited halfway through whatever story she chooses to tell next.
This is it, Luda thinks as she watches Soobin put her hair up in a ponytail, marvels at the way her fingers move through the loose strands, wishes it were hers doing the job instead. This is what people write about, this is what people sing about, this is what people cry about.
“Lee Luda!” Soobin calls, waving her hands in front of Luda’s face. “Are you listening to me?”
Luda startles, blinks once, twice. Tries not to burst out laughing once she takes in the offended look plastered on Soobin’s face. “Sorry, unnie. What were you saying?”
“I was saying, we should try to share a room,” Soobin explains again, stretching her body over the couch and leaving some space for Luda to join her. Luda gets up from the carpet and lies beside Soobin, heart constricting inside her chest when Soobin rests her head against her shoulder. “When we debut, I mean.”
Luda laughs, shaking her head. “You mean you, me, and at least three other people.”
Soobin grunts, head sinking further into Luda’s skin. Luda pats her head in an attempt to comfort her. “Yeah, I guess. But even if we end up having to share the bedroom with a thousand other girls, I’ll be satisfied as long as you’re with me. Since you’re my soulmate, and everything.”
Luda is pretty sure she’s never come across any articles about people dying from loving too much, nor has she heard anything of the sort on the news, but if the way her heart is threatening to jump out of her throat is any indicator, she might as well be the first. “I’m your soulmate?”
Soobin beams, in that sweet, disarming way that she always does when it’s just the two of them, then answers, “Of course you are. Who else would it be?”
Luda’s world ends again a month later.
It’s three in the morning and everyone in the dorm is asleep— everyone except her and Soobin, who are killing time in the kitchen as if they don’t have to practice in a few hours.
An IU song coming from Luda’s tablet fills the comfortable silence between them, both content to sit next to each other and split an orange without saying a word. Then the song switches to an upbeat one, and before Luda can register what’s happening, Soobin opens the refrigerator door and offers Luda her hand, staring at her with a mischievous smile on her face.
“It’s a homemade dance floor,” Soobin explains and rolls her eyes, as if it’s obvious and Luda is stupid for remaining at the same place, not moving an inch. “Come on,” she urges, tugging at Luda’s wrist. “Dance with me.”
Luda is unsure at first, arguing that it’s late and what if we end up waking up someone and Juyeon spends the entire morning complaining about it, but Soobin is stubborn and careless won’t stop pestering her until she gets what she wants, so Luda throws caution out of the window and decides to join her, struggling not to melt at how beautiful Soobin looks like that, smiling from ear to ear as her skin glows, golden under the yellow refrigerator light.
It all starts as a simple dance. They spin around, let their arms fly in all the wrong directions and whip their hairs once the beat drops. Then Soobin comes closer, wraps her arms around Luda’s waist, sways them side by side, and then, and then—
Luda is being pressed against the counter, Soobin’s cold hands slip under her hoodie, and their lips find each other in a searing, passionate kiss.
Luda clings onto the hem of Soobin’s sweater like a lifeline and brings their bodies closer, chest filling with desire when Soobin moans against her mouth, and Luda knows she has been kissed before, but never like this. God, she swears on her life, never like this. Maybe because they were bad kisses, or because they didn’t mean anything to her, or simply because the people kissing her weren’t Park Soobin— they could never compare to the holy taste of her glossy lips and her soft palms losing themselves along the extension of back, leaving a trace of fire wherever they could reach.
Then, as fast as she ascended to heaven, she was dragged back to the real world when Soobin placed both hands on her shoulders and pulled away as if she had been burnt, leaving Luda confused, anxious, heartbroken.
Little did she know, that was the beginning of the end— the beginning of her demise, the end of something that never was.
“Luda-yah,” Soobin sniffs, barely audible, as hot tears cascade through her red cheeks. Luda wants to reach out, to wipe them off, but she’s terrified of what might happen if she acts on her urges one more time. She doesn’t think she can handle being pushed away again. “We can’t do it.”
“Unnie,” Luda calls, voice cracking, then pleads pitifully, “Don’t say that.”
“We can’t,” Soobin shakes her head, crossing her arms under her chest as she stares at the floor. Then she looks up at Luda, her eyes red, wet, and covered in pain, and murmurs, “Luda, please. You know we can’t.”
The thing is, Luda’s brain knows they can’t. Her heart, slow and naive, struggles to come to terms with it.
Luda looks away, struggling to keep her tears at bay. Her teeth sinks on the inside of her cheeks, and the blood she tastes on her tongue might as well be the only thing reminding her she’s still alive. That and the overwhelming urge she gets to be held, the urge to have someone else’s hands on both sides of her face, telling her that it’s okay, you’re okay, you’ll survive.
What she gets, instead, is Soobin’s hand pressing on top of hers, a hesitant squeeze, and then a broken goodnight, don’t sleep too late, before she’s left all alone in the kitchen, sweeping the cracks of her soul off the floor for the rest of the night.
Luda’s world keeps ending, little by little, once Soobin starts getting closer to Hyunjung.
It takes some time for Luda to get used to the new dynamic, to not feel like she’s going to be physically sick when she catches Soobin spending all of her time— time that used to be, for the most part, Luda’s— with a member she barely acknowledged before.
Soobin and Hyunjung sit together in the car, share earbuds, have their own inside jokes, spend the holidays with each other’s families and find their way towards each other during every single variety show shooting— almost as if there was a magnet bringing them together, as if the stars needed them to, as if they couldn’t help it.
It’s obvious. It’s undeniable. It’s love.
And it’s a slow death, to watch their romance blossom from such a proximity. It’s a slow death, to have it confirmed that, to Soobin, Hyunjung is worth the fight— but she wasn’t, not even for a second.
Then, as if the universe decided that witnessing the two of them fall for each other wasn’t enough of a punishment, the scene that greets her once she steps into the living room pulls the ground from under her feet, makes her insides crumple and bleed and burn and, at last, sends her straight to hell like the worst of sinners.
She’s pretty sure she hears Soobin calling out her name, but the ringing in her ears and the voices in her brain urging her to run, leave, go to the end of the world but don’t stay here are loud and insistent, so she puts one foot after the other and, before she can process what she saw, she’s in the rooftop of their building, lungs burning and legs aching.
“Don’t cry,” Luda tells herself, hugging her sides and attempting to take deep, calming breaths. “Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t fucking cry—”
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” Sojung comments, materializing beside Luda by the railing. The night is cold and unforgiving, the wind causing the tree branches to shake violently and the teenagers coming home from school to find shelter inside the nearest stores they can find. Sojung hands Luda the coat she was wearing to stop her from shivering, and Luda doesn’t have it in her to deny it, not after everything.
Had it been anyone else seeing her this broken, she would’ve glared at them and told them to leave her alone because she’s completely fine, thank you very much, but Sojung is the only person who genuinely understands what Luda is going through. She’s been in love with Hyunjung since they were in that awkward pre-teen phase, innocent and lost but still full of hope, training together at another agency.
The only person other than Jiyeon, of course, who’s been silently in love with Sojung for three years now, but made Luda promise to keep the information a secret.
And so she did.
It’s a depressing sight to see, Luda thinks bitterly, the trail of bloody bodies left in the wake of someone else’s happy ending.
“That’s rich coming for you,” Luda retorts, stroking her wet cheeks with the sleeves of the coat as she raises an accusatory eyebrow. “Didn’t you spend, like, fifteen hours stuck inside the studio yesterday?”
Sojung bumps her shoulder against Luda’s. “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Luda shakes her head, her first genuine smile of the day appearing on her face. “You’re ridiculous.”
Sojung nods, opening her arms as an invitation for Luda fall into them. “Yeah, but so are you.”
Luda hesitates for a second, then her lips quiver, the corner of her eyes start to water, and before she can come up with an excuse to deny the affection Sojung’s offering her, she’s being pulled into a warm, comforting embrace.
She’s being held. It’s not Soobin there with her, reminding her that things will be okay with time, but she’s being held, kept from falling apart. And there, trapped between Sojung’s strong arms, she allows herself to sob the pain out of her chest, allows herself to feel.
Sojung hums a soothing melody under her breath, still holding Luda close, refusing to let her go until there’s not a single tear covering her skin anymore. She’ll probably never admit it out loud, but Luda doesn’t know what she would do without a friend like Sojung by her side. The thought alone makes her feel weird, helpless, a little all over the place.
Sojung pokes Luda’s cheek, chuckling to herself when her hand gets swatted away by a mildly annoyed Luda, then asks. “Feeling better?”
“I don’t know,” Luda answers honestly, closing her eyes and sinking further into Sojung. “I can breathe now, at least.”
“Come on, let’s get you inside,” Sojung whispers against Luda’s hair, patting her back before she breaks the contact between their bodies, taking Luda’s small hand in hers instead.
Later that night, when Luda finally lies down on her bed after spending countless hours in front of the computer to numb her mind, Soobin’s laugh echoes throughout the quiet dorm. Luda can tell she’s on the phone with Hyunjung, the giddiness in her tone and the word soulmate slipping so easily from her mouth leaving no room for wrong assumptions, and her heart shatters all over again.
Luda swallows the lump forming inside her throat, hides her entire body under the covers, and attempts to slip into a dreamless, painless sleep.
It didn’t work, Luda comes to realize the next morning as the tears running down her face remind her of the river where she was swimming with Soobin in her dreams, it never does.