Yu Jimin stands in front of the lens of Minjeong’s digital camera, and she is failing, miserably, at repressing her chortles while she watches Minjeong struggle to keep her ugly, polka-dotted umbrella upright and take Jimin’s picture at the same time. “Do you need help?” Jimin asks, and she smiles widely Minjeong’s way, seemingly endeared by her friend’s clumsy attempts at multitasking.
Minjeong shakes her head, frowning deeply. She is going to capture the moment before her, because Yu Jimin looks incandescently beautiful, and Minjeong is stubborn. Rain, be damned.
“Just strike a pose.”
Minjeong rests the handle of her umbrella between her shoulder and her neck, taking hold of the camera with both of her hands freely, focusing it on Jimin.
The shot is perfect. Jimin’s long, long jet black hair tangles in the tall shrub of drooping, fuschia-colored azaleas behind her, and she’s practising how to smile. Trying out a wider, then a slighter quirk of her pink, petal pink mouth until they droop, much as the flowers around her, into a faint frown. She is going to find a special, pretty frame for the special, pretty girl once she goes to develop the photos.
“Do you really have to take a picture now?” Jimin asks Minjeong, in lieu of listening to Minjeong’s simple instructions. “You are going to get soaked.”
“Yes, I do and no, I won’t. It will only take a second,” Minjeong says, speaking over Jimin when she mumbles that seconds have passed already, because her balance is thinning. “The lighting is good and you look very pretty.”
Minjeong shuts her mouth when Jimin widens her big, big eyes, a bemused expression passing over her porcelain face. Her filter is seemingly thinning out, too. A grave mistake was made, and Minjeong is certain she will wish she’d bitten her tongue faster, sooner.
Jimin’s momentary nonplussed expression melts into something taunting, but nonetheless beguiling. Minjeong supposes she has gone completely nuts, when she finds Jimin’s, admittedly adorable, menacing squint attractive.
What was Minjeong going to do, anyway?
“I look very pretty, huh?” Jimin smirks.
Minjeong sighs, painting a disgruntled façade over her lovestruck face. If she can hide her heart under the sleeve she so proudly wears it on, even for a moment. “If I catch a cold because I wanted to take a nice picture of you, you are going to take care of me, Yu Jimin–ssi,” Minjeong barks.
Jimin’s grin sharpens, her canine teeth protruding the flesh of her bottom lip, turning her into a sexy vampire. (Something is seriously wrong with Minjeong. She is messed up.)
“Won’t mind if I do,” Jimin retorts readily.
Minjeong blushes behind her camera, nearly instantly. What heart, what sleeve? Minjeong should rip out the jackrabbiting muscle from her rib cage, and hand it to Yu Jimin, let it squirm and quiver where it belongs.
She snaps a series of pictures once Jimin settles into a satisfactory pose, looking into Minjeong’s camera over her bare shoulder, strands of jet black caught in fuschia, a subdued grin curling up her lips.
But, forever restless, Jimin turns around after a beat of rapid clicking, stalking to Minjeong, and she pushes the small camera down to subject Minjeong’s face to a pair of masterful puppy dog eyes. “Can we go eat now?” Jimin asks, looping her arm through Minjeong’s arm, as she tugs her gently. “I need you to warm up quickly.”
Stumbling forward, the tip of her shoe touching Jimin’s own, Minjeong nods. “Okay.”
They head along the narrow, quiet alleway. Jimin hides under the polka-dotted umbrella, and she holds onto Minjeong tightly. Her digital camera swings from Jimin’s wrist. Minjeong wonders how lovely the pictures must look, hopeful that she’d taken one good shot to frame. Then, Jimin interrupts the easy, comfortable silence they have fallen into to speak softly in the minimal space between them.
“Show me the photos when we sit down, okay?”
Minjeong nods, and she smiles shyly, a pink flush pricking her face.
♡
Photography is a newfound hobby of Minjeong’s. She’d bought her camera for cheap money off of a website Jimin still insists seemed seedy, but she won’t complain, no matter how battered the box it’d been shipped in arrived at her door. It works, the pictures come out good and, despite her skepticism, Jimin enjoys being Minjeong’s model. Her memory card’s imprinted with Jimin’s face, after all.
Because of the spur of the moment purchase, Minjeong has developed a habit of never leaving her house without her compact, digital camera. She takes photos of the Seoulite scenery when she is commuting to, and from, college. When she goes out with her friends, the flicker of her lens is ever-present. At the park, on Han, in the quaint café Jimin found accidentally one day after her classes, and she’d rushed to Minjeong to let her know they will be returning to it together.
This rainy April day was chosen as the ideal day to visit the café together, at last.
Minjeong focuses her camera on their neatly served desserts — a slice of tiramisu cake for herself and a slice of strawberry cheesecake for Jimin — as well as their drinks, one lemonade, and one iced coffee. Jimin helps Minjeong, the sweet girl she is, arranging the oddly shaped, ceramic plates and colorful glasses, until she is satisfied with how the shot looks when she peers at the screen of Minjeong’s camera. “That’s good,” Jimin mumbles under her breath.
Minjeong snorts before she takes the picture. Jimin’s right, it’s a good one.
“Thank you.”
Jimin smiles winningly. “You’re welcome,” she croons in a gentle lilt and bats her peacock-tail eyelashes coyly at Minjeong. They sit side by side, Jimin’s leg pressing into her own, her arm resting behind Minjeong’s back, and their proximity allows Minjeong to see how Jimin’s eyelashes fan out, how perky her mouth is.
Plump, heavenly pink, her lips remind Minjeong of a small, shallow well. Stupidly, Minjeong imagines herself as a bird, thirsty for water, and the pinched flesh of Jimin’s Cupid’s bow her reprieve. It is mouth-watering, and Jimin is so close to Minjeong, she could drink her up with the slightest twist to her head. Their proximity allows Minjeong to feel, more than she hears, Jimin’s rasped, playful command. “Give it.”
And, Jimin is snatching the digital camera out of Minjeong’s limp, trembling hands, and her warmth leaves Minjeong’s side for a blink of an eye, before Minjeong feels it swarm her again, pressed snugly against her side.
Jimin breathes a quiet noise as she sifts through Minjeong’s gallery of photos, a brilliant smile spreading over her face. “These are beautiful, Minjeong-ah,” she gushes.
That’s all you, Minjeong’d say, but she’d run her mouth foolishly once already. “Don’t flatter me, Jimin-ssi. You’re treating, unnie.” Minjeong utters the honorific tauntingly, almost coquettishly, and she smirks when Jimin rolls her eyes.
“Between flattery and admiration there often flows a river of contempt,” Jimin remarks as she flicks Minjeong’s forehead. “Your pictures are amazing.”
“Where’d you get that from?” Minjeong asks as she slaps Jimin’s hand away from beneath her chin.
“An American author,” Jimin says, and she tickles Minjeong’s neck, nonetheless. “When are you going to let me take pictures of you?” Jimin switches the subject easily, leaving the camera on the table to turn to her awaiting strawberry cheesecake. “You are always behind the camera. The lens should see you, too.”
“Shouldn’t I pose for a portrait first?” Minjeong curls her eyebrow questioningly when she asks. Jimin looks away from Minjeong purposely, busying herself with a sip of her iced coffee. Minjeong bites her spoon to suppress her grin. “I remember being promised a canvas of my face, as tall as my bedroom wall.”
Jimin scoffs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Minjeong-ah.”
Minjeong laughs. “I can jog your memory, unnie.”
Jimin snorts, glaring at Minjeong playfully from her peripheral. “Wouldn’t you like that, sweetheart?”
She wipes Minjeong’s smug grin off her face momentarily. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, seriously.” Minjeong grumbles under her breath as she bashes her spoon into the tiramisu cake, like Jimin’s fist continuously bashes into her heart.
“Snappy,” Jimin mumbles fondly as she wipes off a crumb from the corner of Minjeong’s mouth with her thumb. “And, messy.” Jimin clicks her tongue, shaking her head, as the pad of her finger disappears between her cherubic lips before Minjeong’s desirous eyes.
A crude, wet pop resounds in Minjeong’s ears, like thunder. Jimin’s thumb, painted crimson, comes out clean. Minjeong feels aflame as she stares numbly at her friend. Her face must be as crimson as Jimin’s nails.
“Eat up, Minjeong-ah.”
She devours a slice of tiramisu cake, pretending the bitterly sweet aftertaste matches the one coating Jimin’s tongue.
[FILL] aftertaste, afterthought (afterglow exists)
Tags: repressed, kept back by yearning, ambiguous/open ending
Permission to Remix: Yes
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ao3 link
Yu Jimin stands in front of the lens of Minjeong’s digital camera, and she is failing, miserably, at repressing her chortles while she watches Minjeong struggle to keep her ugly, polka-dotted umbrella upright and take Jimin’s picture at the same time. “Do you need help?” Jimin asks, and she smiles widely Minjeong’s way, seemingly endeared by her friend’s clumsy attempts at multitasking.
Minjeong shakes her head, frowning deeply. She is going to capture the moment before her, because Yu Jimin looks incandescently beautiful, and Minjeong is stubborn. Rain, be damned.
“Just strike a pose.”
Minjeong rests the handle of her umbrella between her shoulder and her neck, taking hold of the camera with both of her hands freely, focusing it on Jimin.
The shot is perfect. Jimin’s long, long jet black hair tangles in the tall shrub of drooping, fuschia-colored azaleas behind her, and she’s practising how to smile. Trying out a wider, then a slighter quirk of her pink, petal pink mouth until they droop, much as the flowers around her, into a faint frown. She is going to find a special, pretty frame for the special, pretty girl once she goes to develop the photos.
“Do you really have to take a picture now?” Jimin asks Minjeong, in lieu of listening to Minjeong’s simple instructions. “You are going to get soaked.”
“Yes, I do and no, I won’t. It will only take a second,” Minjeong says, speaking over Jimin when she mumbles that seconds have passed already, because her balance is thinning. “The lighting is good and you look very pretty.”
Minjeong shuts her mouth when Jimin widens her big, big eyes, a bemused expression passing over her porcelain face. Her filter is seemingly thinning out, too. A grave mistake was made, and Minjeong is certain she will wish she’d bitten her tongue faster, sooner.
Jimin’s momentary nonplussed expression melts into something taunting, but nonetheless beguiling. Minjeong supposes she has gone completely nuts, when she finds Jimin’s, admittedly adorable, menacing squint attractive.
What was Minjeong going to do, anyway?
“I look very pretty, huh?” Jimin smirks.
Minjeong sighs, painting a disgruntled façade over her lovestruck face. If she can hide her heart under the sleeve she so proudly wears it on, even for a moment. “If I catch a cold because I wanted to take a nice picture of you, you are going to take care of me, Yu Jimin–ssi,” Minjeong barks.
Jimin’s grin sharpens, her canine teeth protruding the flesh of her bottom lip, turning her into a sexy vampire. (Something is seriously wrong with Minjeong. She is messed up.)
“Won’t mind if I do,” Jimin retorts readily.
Minjeong blushes behind her camera, nearly instantly. What heart, what sleeve? Minjeong should rip out the jackrabbiting muscle from her rib cage, and hand it to Yu Jimin, let it squirm and quiver where it belongs.
She snaps a series of pictures once Jimin settles into a satisfactory pose, looking into Minjeong’s camera over her bare shoulder, strands of jet black caught in fuschia, a subdued grin curling up her lips.
But, forever restless, Jimin turns around after a beat of rapid clicking, stalking to Minjeong, and she pushes the small camera down to subject Minjeong’s face to a pair of masterful puppy dog eyes. “Can we go eat now?” Jimin asks, looping her arm through Minjeong’s arm, as she tugs her gently. “I need you to warm up quickly.”
Stumbling forward, the tip of her shoe touching Jimin’s own, Minjeong nods. “Okay.”
They head along the narrow, quiet alleway. Jimin hides under the polka-dotted umbrella, and she holds onto Minjeong tightly. Her digital camera swings from Jimin’s wrist. Minjeong wonders how lovely the pictures must look, hopeful that she’d taken one good shot to frame. Then, Jimin interrupts the easy, comfortable silence they have fallen into to speak softly in the minimal space between them.
“Show me the photos when we sit down, okay?”
Minjeong nods, and she smiles shyly, a pink flush pricking her face.
♡
Photography is a newfound hobby of Minjeong’s. She’d bought her camera for cheap money off of a website Jimin still insists seemed seedy, but she won’t complain, no matter how battered the box it’d been shipped in arrived at her door. It works, the pictures come out good and, despite her skepticism, Jimin enjoys being Minjeong’s model. Her memory card’s imprinted with Jimin’s face, after all.
Because of the spur of the moment purchase, Minjeong has developed a habit of never leaving her house without her compact, digital camera. She takes photos of the Seoulite scenery when she is commuting to, and from, college. When she goes out with her friends, the flicker of her lens is ever-present. At the park, on Han, in the quaint café Jimin found accidentally one day after her classes, and she’d rushed to Minjeong to let her know they will be returning to it together.
This rainy April day was chosen as the ideal day to visit the café together, at last.
Minjeong focuses her camera on their neatly served desserts — a slice of tiramisu cake for herself and a slice of strawberry cheesecake for Jimin — as well as their drinks, one lemonade, and one iced coffee. Jimin helps Minjeong, the sweet girl she is, arranging the oddly shaped, ceramic plates and colorful glasses, until she is satisfied with how the shot looks when she peers at the screen of Minjeong’s camera. “That’s good,” Jimin mumbles under her breath.
Minjeong snorts before she takes the picture. Jimin’s right, it’s a good one.
“Thank you.”
Jimin smiles winningly. “You’re welcome,” she croons in a gentle lilt and bats her peacock-tail eyelashes coyly at Minjeong. They sit side by side, Jimin’s leg pressing into her own, her arm resting behind Minjeong’s back, and their proximity allows Minjeong to see how Jimin’s eyelashes fan out, how perky her mouth is.
Plump, heavenly pink, her lips remind Minjeong of a small, shallow well. Stupidly, Minjeong imagines herself as a bird, thirsty for water, and the pinched flesh of Jimin’s Cupid’s bow her reprieve. It is mouth-watering, and Jimin is so close to Minjeong, she could drink her up with the slightest twist to her head. Their proximity allows Minjeong to feel, more than she hears, Jimin’s rasped, playful command. “Give it.”
And, Jimin is snatching the digital camera out of Minjeong’s limp, trembling hands, and her warmth leaves Minjeong’s side for a blink of an eye, before Minjeong feels it swarm her again, pressed snugly against her side.
Jimin breathes a quiet noise as she sifts through Minjeong’s gallery of photos, a brilliant smile spreading over her face. “These are beautiful, Minjeong-ah,” she gushes.
That’s all you, Minjeong’d say, but she’d run her mouth foolishly once already. “Don’t flatter me, Jimin-ssi. You’re treating, unnie.” Minjeong utters the honorific tauntingly, almost coquettishly, and she smirks when Jimin rolls her eyes.
“Between flattery and admiration there often flows a river of contempt,” Jimin remarks as she flicks Minjeong’s forehead. “Your pictures are amazing.”
“Where’d you get that from?” Minjeong asks as she slaps Jimin’s hand away from beneath her chin.
“An American author,” Jimin says, and she tickles Minjeong’s neck, nonetheless. “When are you going to let me take pictures of you?” Jimin switches the subject easily, leaving the camera on the table to turn to her awaiting strawberry cheesecake. “You are always behind the camera. The lens should see you, too.”
“Shouldn’t I pose for a portrait first?” Minjeong curls her eyebrow questioningly when she asks. Jimin looks away from Minjeong purposely, busying herself with a sip of her iced coffee. Minjeong bites her spoon to suppress her grin. “I remember being promised a canvas of my face, as tall as my bedroom wall.”
Jimin scoffs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Minjeong-ah.”
Minjeong laughs. “I can jog your memory, unnie.”
Jimin snorts, glaring at Minjeong playfully from her peripheral. “Wouldn’t you like that, sweetheart?”
She wipes Minjeong’s smug grin off her face momentarily. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, seriously.” Minjeong grumbles under her breath as she bashes her spoon into the tiramisu cake, like Jimin’s fist continuously bashes into her heart.
“Snappy,” Jimin mumbles fondly as she wipes off a crumb from the corner of Minjeong’s mouth with her thumb. “And, messy.” Jimin clicks her tongue, shaking her head, as the pad of her finger disappears between her cherubic lips before Minjeong’s desirous eyes.
A crude, wet pop resounds in Minjeong’s ears, like thunder. Jimin’s thumb, painted crimson, comes out clean. Minjeong feels aflame as she stares numbly at her friend. Her face must be as crimson as Jimin’s nails.
“Eat up, Minjeong-ah.”
She devours a slice of tiramisu cake, pretending the bitterly sweet aftertaste matches the one coating Jimin’s tongue.
♡