Fic: High Heels & Combat Boots (Part I)
Aug. 6th, 2013 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boxxsaltzTitle: High Heels & Combat Boots
Author: boxxsaltz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Yoona/Yuri
Summary: Finder’s Keepers
AN: Done for the 3rd YoonYul FanFic Contest hosted on SSF. Check some others out!
High Heels & Combat Boots
Part I
“Yoona, let’s go!”
“Coming!”
Yanking the dry-cleaning bag out of the closet, Yoona threw it onto the bed amongst the sea of clothes she had thrown out in haste to get ready. Digging through it, she tossed aside dresses after coats after blouses none of which were the item she was looking for.
Pushing it to the floor, she dug through what was already on her bed for the fifth time that evening. As she reached the argyle pattern of her comforter, she didn’t find what she was looking for.
“Yoona,” the voice was closer. Turning over her shoulder, she saw Jessica standing at her bedroom door, freshly painted nails wrapping against the doorframe. “What’s taking you so long? Tiffany’s waiting for us downstairs.”
“I’m coming,” Yoona said through her teeth, feet taking her back to her closet where she shoved clothes around, eyes searching frantically. “I can’t find my jacket.”
“There are like twenty on your bed.”
“I just had it dry-cleaned.”
“Which one?” Jessica asked.
“The leather one.”
“Uh, Yoona?”
Yoona paused a moment to peer over at Jessica who stood by her bed holding up a sleek leather jacket in her fingers.
“That’s not it.”
Jessica sighed, rolling her eyes. “Wear it anyway.”
“It’s not the right one.”
“It’ll look fine,” Yoona flinched as the jacket was tossed into her face. She grabbed it just before it could fall to the floor. “Put it on. Let’s go. We’re already late.”
Slipping her arms though the sleeves, Yoona kept to herself that there was no set time to arrive at a club to make them late.
“Here. Wear these.” Yoona allowed Jessica to trade out the earrings she was wearing for a new pair and hung a necklace around her neck that dipped into the cleavage of her blouse that would lead any eyes down. “Shoes.”
Yoona slid her feet into a pair of heels at the foot of her bed.
“Purse.”
Snatching up her purse, Yoona headed for the door when Jessica stopped her again. “What now?”
With a smirk, Jessica held up a tube of lip-gloss and smoothed it over Yoona’s mouth. Rubbing her lips together, Yoona spread it around as Jessica dabbed a finger at the corners cleaning it up.
“Good?” Yoona asked, stepping back to present her outfit.
At the twirl of Jessica’s finger, she did a quick spin, getting a satisfied smile. “Perfect.”
-/-/-/-
Her ankles hurt, but another hand grabbed her, and Yoona found herself face-to-face and hip-to-hip with another pretty face in the crowd.
He was cute, lopsided smile, tossed about hair, and big ears that she knew her friends would find unattractive, but that was what made him so striking. He was different – a fresh face in the club. As he danced, Yoona wondered if he was using the advantage that Yoona didn’t know him to play a sort of charm that would one-up him on the totem pole.
Yoona nearly laughed. She wasn’t a stranger to the routine. The Im’s weren’t into giving out charity. They didn’t make people successes because they performed exceptionally beneath sheets with executives or wore the most expensive of clothing. They valued those who worked for what they wanted. The Hwang’s and the Jung’s just the same.
Yoona craned her neck back, catching sight of Tiffany who had one arm around a guy’s neck while the other slid down his chest. At the bar, she found Jessica playing coy with a new face amongst a set of drinks from others beside her.
Call it fate that brought them together, Yoona just called it luck. Like company attracted like company. Their circles intermingled all because of the amount of zeroes their families had in their bank accounts and the fame attached to their names.
Fashion, entertainment, journalism, corporate business, their backgrounds may have varied, but they bottlenecked into one that threw the three girls into an unlikely friendship.
People like them used one another only to help themselves. Yoona never held a friend because it was always competition. And though sometimes they held a competition on the dance floors of clubs and the number of innocent folk they could bring back home, their life of business was never one of those points.
“I’ve never seen you before.” Said Yoona as she slid into a booth away from the dance floor.
Across from her the boy dropped into his seat with a pair of drinks and slid one over to Yoona beneath the blue lamplight that shined down on them above the table.
“I’m new around here.” He answered, taking a drink.
Yoona traced her finger around the rim of hers. She never took a drink from the glasses offered to her by the hands that wanted to be on her. She did her own fishing, and he hadn’t proved to be a catch just yet.
“Where are you from?” He smiled something charming as he took another sip, washing away the question and swallowing the answer. Yoona let it slide. “What’s your name?”
“Junsu.”
“Junsu…” Yoona picked up her glass and brought it to her nose. She saw him watch her hopeful she’d take a drink. Instead, she sat it back down. “Did you order this yourself?”
He nodded. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“No, it’s just funny.” She dipped a finger into it, swirling it around. “That you’d think ordering my favorite drink would get you anywhere.”
He laughed. “First timer’s lucks?”
“With extra lime?” She pulled out the lime from the bottom of the glass and dropped it on the table. “Nice try.” Getting up, Yoona caught the tail end of his sneer as she made her way to the bar, waving away the boy still hovering over Jessica and sat beside her.
“We need to find a new club.” Yoona hissed over the music as she sucked the alcohol off her fingers.
“Why?” Asked Jessica, drinking out of one of the glasses ordered for her. “Doesn’t it feel good when people want you?”
“No, they don’t.” Not for who they really were. Yoona sighed, eyes following Tiffany who was leading the one she had been dancing with away by the belt buckle.
“Use your imagination,” Jessica dropped one glass to pick up another. By the gloss in her eyes, Yoona knew she was already drunk which would end in a night of heat she’d forget in the morning. “It’s easier that way.”
But the thing with pretending was that sometimes Yoona allowed herself to believe it.
The new guy was sweet. He was warm to the touch and he held Yoona like he would stay in the morning. But the laugh that came from her mouth as he tickled a path down her stomach was more due to her own illogical thoughts than the sensation he brought into her nerves.
But those pouty lips soon kissed away those things and the fingers tugging off her leather tights brought back the thought that maybe he did care about her and not how many of his friends he could go back and tell who he had bedded.
“Sing for me, babe.”
Yoona felt her laugh at the request turn into a breathy moan as she allowed herself to rise to the top of the mountain and hold onto the lie that said he was after her soul.
-/-/-/-
“I’m sorry, but it’s not here.”
“It’s on the receipt.” Yoona held up the slip.
The dry cleaner clerk frowned. “I am very sorry but we looked everywhere. It must’ve gotten mixed up with someone else’s.”
“Mixed up.” She scoffed, crumpling the receipt into her pocket.
The clerk winced. “All we can do is hope the person it was accidentally given to will bring it back.”
Yoona bit the inside of her lip. She highly doubted anyone would bring her jacket back. If she had found it in her bag, she would’ve kept it as soon as she saw the brand name on the tag and looked up just how many decimal places were attached to its worth.
“Thank you.” Yoona grumbled as she stormed out of the dry cleaners and over to her car where someone was propped up on the fender, talking adamantly to an incoming customer.
She wouldn’t have minded the person there if they didn’t look like they were cut out from some hippie, bohemian, seventies catalogue and their boots didn’t look as if they hadn’t been washed in years.
But they – she – did look like that and she was getting dust on her car from a pair of jeans with rips so large Yoona could clearly see her tattoo tights from mid-thigh down to the middle of her shins.
“Off the car.” Yoona snapped.
“Sorry,” the woman quickly stood up, pushing herself up with a hand that left prints on the hood. "Foreign made?”
Yoona ignored her question, bright smile and her dumb acoustic guitar wearing self and climbed into her car.
Before she pulled out, she put the car into drive and jerked forward, causing the woman and the customer to jump back on the sidewalk before she cranked it into reverse and peeled out.
-/-/-/-
The new leather felt stuffy on her arms. It didn’t form right to her body. Not to mention the sleeves were a centimeter and half too short for her liking because her regular tailor was out on vacation and the one left in their place couldn’t measure to save their life.
“It looks better than your old one,” said Tiffany, placing down her menu on the table. “The elbows were scuffed.”
“It was an original.”
“God forbid you wear a replica.” Tiffany joked as she glanced at her watch. Jessica was late as always and they had already drunk through half a bottle of wine.
“That isn’t the point.”
“Sorry, I’m late.” Jessica came clicking over in her heels and fell into the seat at their table. “Problem at the studio. Dad fired half the models and I had to clean up the mess.”
Tiffany hummed into her glass of wine. “Poor man.”
“The divorce really took it out of him.” Jessica added. By her tone, Yoona knew she could hardly give a care. It was no secret she was waiting for him to completely break down so she could take over his throne. “Where’s the waiter?”
Tiffany flagged him down and Yoona sounded off her order as usual.
The restaurant was their one place to get away. It sat on the edge of town and away from their usual haunts.
Yoona had found it one night when she left the apartment of a club fling with heels on her fingers and exhaustion in her bones. It took convincing to get Jessica to step off her pedestal and come and a few weeks before Tiffany found time in her schedule from the production company to even pencil them in. But when they did, it became their monthly routine.
Food coming out, Yoona picked up her chopsticks to eat when she heard a wave of music come through the restaurant doors that just opened.
Turning around, she saw a few of the workers crowded together, whispering to each other and pointing.
Following their attention, Yoona looked through the large, glass front of the restaurant where she saw the restaurant manager approach a pair brandishing guitars and playing loudly on the sidewalk.
The manager’s face was stern as he spoke to them, but neither of the two women he fussed at seemed to care. They continued to play, the tallest of the two dancing a circle around him, mouth opened loud as she sang at the top of her lungs while the other laughed, playing along.
It was when the second one turned toward the restaurant, giving a wave to the occupants inside that Yoona froze.
It was that woman who had smeared her dirty self on her car.
“And this is why we shouldn’t come to this part of town.” Jessica muttered, dabbing her face with a napkin.
Yoona narrowed her eyes, watching as the tallest one stuck out her tongue to the manager who had pulled out his phone.
“Hey, Yoona…” Tiffany squinted. Yoona followed her eyes to the second one who was now tapping on the window with one hand and making a scooping motion to her mouth, begging for food. “Isn’t that your jacket?”
“What?” She let her eyes wash over the leather draped on the woman’s shoulders.
It couldn’t be her jacket. Her jacket had sleeves, not cut off, frayed holes and a line of safety pins tacked into the collar. But the spiral stitching along the back that was presented to her as the woman turned around, hands up in surrender to an officer who had just come on the scene, was unmistakably hers.
“Yoona!”
She ignored the call of her name as she stormed through the restaurant and out the door. Outside, she could hear the lame excuses the two women were giving.
“We’re very sorry, sir. We didn’t know this was private property, sir.”
“We didn’t mean to cause a disturbance.” The taller added on. “It wasn’t my idea, officer.”
“Hey!”
“What? It wasn’t.”
The one in her mutilated jacket rolled her eyes. “We’ll take our things and go. We’re very sorry.”
“Sorry,” the other bowed. “Very sorry.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry, very sorry.”
Yoona waited until they were far enough away, laughing with one another before she hurried after them.
“Excuse me,” she called.
“Jackass,” the woman in her jacket hissed through a laugh.
The other shrugged, slapping her on the back. “You said if the cops come, every man for himself.”
“Hey!” Yoona snarled. Both glanced behind them but only one gave a double take and stopped walking, eyebrow lifting.
“Hey,” the woman grinned, moving her guitar from in front of her to hang off her back by the strap. "Foreign made, right?”
Yoona ignored her. “Where did you get that jacket?”
“This old thing?” She looked down at the scuffed leather. “Had it forever.”
Yoona’s hand found place on her hip. “I think you stole it.”
“Says who?”
“The owner.”
“Who’s that?”
“I am.”
“Oh,” she scratched her head. “This is awkward. Want it back?”
“Why would I want it back? Look what you did to it.”
“Sweet, huh?” The other added in. Yoona only glared up at her. She took a step back.
“Uh,” the woman looked around, hands patting around her body before she stuffed one into her pocket and pulled out a set of crumbled pieces of paper. “Trade off?”
“Yuri, no-“
“We can get more.” Yuri said to her friend and held the papers over to Yoona. Looking down at them, she noticed they were concert tickets. “Here. Took us months to get those. Have’em. It’s all I got. Sorry.”
With a swipe of her hand, Yoona knocked them away and watched Yuri’s friend chase after them before they could be taken by the wind.
“That wasn’t nice.”
“Says the thief.”
Yuri’s jaw set as she pulled off her guitar and handed it over to her friend. Shrugging off the jacket, she tossed it onto the ground at Yoona’s feet and turned, walking away.
Yoona’s eyes stayed on the retreating back, body boiling the further away she drew.
“If you’re not going to take that…” the friend looked from Yoona to the jacket.
Yoona scoffed. “It belongs to trash now anyway.”
With that, she walked away.
-/-/-/-
“File a police report.”
“Hire a detective to hunt her down and have her put in jail.”
“Hire a hitman.”
Yoona laughed at the last one despite herself as she sorted through the dresses in her closet and pulled one out to wear. Family dinners were always a pain in the ass, but family business dinners took on a whole new form of hatred for her. Too many flashy people with flashy smiles and flashy, empty words.
Tiffany sighed. “I can’t believe you left it there. She gave it back.”
“She destroyed it!” Yoona snapped, fingers running over the light curls in her hair and looked in the mirror. Her make-up would just have to do for the night. “And that’s gross.”
“She could be diseased.” Jessica added. “Even people can have rabies. My cousin did.”
“Your cousin was an epileptic.”
“It’s all the same.”
Yoona massaged her forehead. “I have to go. The car is almost here.”
“Try and have fun tonight.” Tiffany encouraged.
Jessica seconded it. “We’ll have more fun later.”
Tossing her phone aside, Yoona shimmed on her dress and tightened the ribbons behind her neck. One more look in the mirror, she headed out the door.
-/-/-/-
Yoona hated being drunk, but tonight was an exception. Anything to get over the bad taste that dinner left on her, she accepted the drink bought for her and gave into the mouth that smothered hers.
Somewhere around her, she could just feel Jessica’s haughty smirk at her and knew Tiffany was nodding in approval as she allowed someone to easily attach themselves to her and show a little promise of giving their Yoona a good time.
She hadn’t always been the boring of the three. She had been the one to lead them to these night outs in the beginning. But after some time, Yoona lost the fire, while the others combusted into wild flames.
Finally dragging her tongue out of the others mouth, Yoona wiped her hand along her mouth and stared up into his eyes so dark they looked nearly black.
“I’ll be right back,” she slurred, hands batting at the ones wandering over her body. “Wait for me at the bar?”
He smiled, licking his bruised lips. “Your place or mine?”
“Yours.” She allowed one more sloppy kiss before pulling away.
Someplace between the restroom and the dance floor, her mind caught up with her and her lungs screamed for something more than intoxicated air and fog machine smoke.
Placing the drink on a table, Yoona stumbled her way outside of the club. Air smacked into her in a chilly breeze that swam into her veins and sobered her enough to gather her bearings if only a moment to find a trashcan and rid her stomach of what it consumed.
“Hair,” someone said behind her and Yoona felt hands pull back her hair, holding it out of the way as she vomited again. “You’re really gonna feel it in the morning.”
Yoona groaned, picking her face from the trash and swatted the hands away. She couldn’t take any more people touching her for the night. And she especially couldn’t take the hands that belonged to that dumb woman with the stunning, concerned eyes who had the nerve to take something that wasn’t hers.
“Don’t touch me.” Yoona hissed.
Yuri’s hands went up, foot taking her a step away. Yoona gave her one more long look to keep her in place before she started to walk back toward the club.
Three steps away and she stumbled. The hands she just told not to touch her were on her again, catching her before she could eat pavement.
Yoona shoved her away. “I said, don’t touch me!”
“Okay.”
With a screech, Yoona braced herself as Yuri dropped her, wrists aching as she caught all her weight on them.
“What is your problem?” Yoona snarled, head whipping around.
Yuri shrugged. “You said not to touch you.”
“You dropped me.”
“I can’t hold you up if I can’t touch you.” She reasoned.
Yoona whined, head dropping as she felt another wave of nausea roll through her. She pinched her eyes shut, teeth clenched. Her night was going downhill fast “Why are you even here? What do you want?”
“It’s a public place.”
“Like you could afford it here.” Yoona taunted. When she looked up, Yuri was smiling at her. “What are you looking at?”
Yuri shrugged, the guitar strapped across her shoulders moving with it. “A mess.”
Yoona could only hold her glare for only a moment before the vomit shot up her throat and she turned her head just in time to plaster it along the sidewalk.
“Up.”
Yoona fought against the hands that hooked under her arms and picked her off the ground.
“Let me go.” Her request fell on deaf ears and her feet dragged as she was taken to the curb.
For a moment Yoona thought Yuri was about to throw her into the street when she saw a cab pull up to the sidewalk and the door opened. The protest in her throat never reached her lips as she was shoved inside and the door slammed on her.
There was a strange sort of relief with being inside the cab knowing it was taking her away from the predators inside the club after her, but it quickly went away when she saw the other door open and Yuri fell in beside her with an address Yoona didn’t know.
“If you kidnap me, the authorities will find out.” Yoona slurred, head lolling over to Yuri against the back headrest. She had no more fight left.
Yuri coughed out some sort of mocking laugh as if to challenge Yoona’s words.
As they rode in silence the rest of the way to wherever, a part of Yoona hoped she could actually be taken up on it.
-/-/-/-
Cup of coffee landing in front of her, Yoona eyed it skeptically before looking up at Yuri sitting in the booth across from her.
“What is this?”
Because the last place Yoona wanted to be was a diner on the opposite side of Seoul from her apartment and probably further away from the friends she left at the club.
Glancing at her phone, she noted the lack of messages. Of course. Jessica was probably at the bottom of her fifth glass and Tiffany most likely had a tie wrapped around her hand and her back pressed against a wall. She had the best of friends, she really did.
“What are we doing here?”
“Coffee,” Yuri stated plainly. “It’s on me.”
“Do you even have any money?”
Yuri shrugged, cracking open a menu and turned her attention toward it. She said nothing more while Yoona wanted to say a hundred and one things at her but couldn’t pick which one to spew first.
Her frustration over this woman rammed into the annoying throb in her skull and the churning in her stomach that had yet to let up. It all exploded into a sort of rage at the fact she had left the one thing that night she was going to use to wash away her tension and was instead left in a cranky, deflated mess of disappointment that she had let herself go.
“Are you crying?”
Yoona shook her head, using her fingers to dab the corners of her eyes. “No.”
Unrolling her silverware, Yuri handed Yoona the napkin but dropped it a few seconds later when Yoona didn’t take it.
“You’re so stubborn.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a-“ Yoona cut herself off, hand slapping against her head that pulsed. “I want to go home.”
Yuri pushed the coffee towards her along with a packet of sugar. “Drink first. Then home.”
Sneering through her lashes, Yoona examined the face across from her. The sincerity and concern it held made Yoona angrier than she already was because she didn’t get it. People in this town didn’t look at her like the twenty something year old woman she was. They looked at her with expectation and reward. They looked at her with dollar signs in their eyes, not a glisten to them that said they were seeing the bareness that she was.
Turning away, Yoona stared at the coffee. “Why are you doing this?”
“Nothing better to do.”
“I don't forgive you for stealing my jacket.”
“Take tonight as an apology?”
“Not accepted.” Yuri shrugged and Yoona wished she didn’t do that. People don’t shrug to her. It showed a disinterest. “You shrug a lot.”
“You complain a lot.”
“You’re insulting.”
“You have puke in your hair.”
“You have split ends!” Yoona shot lamely, knowing just how childish it sounded.
Yuri shrugged again and this time Yoona knew it was to spite her. It made her own shoulders tense and her nerves seize in an anger she didn’t exactly know where it was coming from. Not like this woman ever did anything to her – aside from steal her jacket and cut it up into some poor imitation of an eighties, hair band costume.
She was being nice. She was trying to help. She was staring at Yoona with those pretty, worrying eyes, chewing on her bottom lip in a nervous way as if she was expecting Yoona to pass out from alcohol poisoning or throw up again.
Dropping her gaze, Yoona snatched the mug on the table to give her hands something to do. What was her problem anyway?
“What’s your name?”
“Im Yoona.” She waited for that light bulb to go off in Yuri’s eyes at the mention of it.
“Cool name.” Yuri picked up her menu again, light bulb not igniting whatsoever. Yoona wasn’t sure if she liked the fact she seemed ignorant of who she was or was a little ticked that she didn’t. Either way, it made her curious.
“Is it?”
“Not really,” Yuri shrugged, “but I didn’t know what else to say.”
Yoona brought the coffee to her lips, taking a sip. Her eyes narrowed. “Who are you anyway?”
“Kwon Yuri.”
“I know your name.”
Eyebrow lifting, Yuri eyed her over the rim of her menu. “Why’d you ask?”
“I didn’t actually.”
Yuri shrugged. That dumb shrug again, dismissing her like she was cheap and easy. Yoona bristled.
“Drink your coffee,” and Yoona did, if only because she needed something to keep her busy and the bitterness of it on her tongue distracted.
It distracted her away from the way the lights made Yuri’s skin shine some warm shade of golden that made her look like more of a somebody than Yoona felt in that moment half drunk and smelling of vomit.
But even as she finished the coffee, and Yuri kept her promise with allowing her to catch a cab home, she couldn’t shake the fact that, as much as she wanted to keep hating that dumb woman, Yuri made her feel things she hadn’t in God knew how long.
What bothered her the most about that? She didn’t know if she liked it or not.
-/-/-/-
Yoona spent her week detoxifying from her last club experience.
Taking a sip from her water bottle, she waited for Tiffany to finish rolling up her yoga mat and walk over to where they left their bags by the wall.
“Drink,” Tiffany held her hand out for the bottle.
Yoona handed it over and picked up her gym bag, tossing it over her shoulder and tucked her own yoga mat beneath her arm. She used to think the calming power of yoga was a myth until she started going with Tiffany at least twice a week (which became everyday of the week since the club).
She couldn’t deny that she was feeling better as she hugged Tiffany goodbye and climbed into her car. Whatever all that tense anger she had been harboring that night was gone and she could breathe a little easier.
But as much as the one-legged king pigeon had done wonders to erase the demon she had become that night, Yoona felt it sneak back up on her when she walked into the dry cleaner’s for her clothes.
“Is this it?” Yoona blinked at the jacket hanging off the hanger in the clerk’s hand. “Someone brought it in a couple days ago. I wasn’t sure if it was yours or not.”
“No, it’s-“ Yoona stopped, teeth grinding as she observed the poor stitching that was used to reattach the sleeves where they had been cut off.
The safety pins were still in place, with a few more added along the pockets and along the spiral pattern on the back so the silver metal reflected the light when it hit just right.
She had half a mind to take the thing and toss it in the dumpster. Or burn it. Or something. Anything.
“That’s it,” she sighed, taking it from the clerk’s fingers along with her other things. “Thanks.”
Tossing the thing into the backseat of the car, Yoona pulled out of the lot.
She’d have to have her own personal yoga session when she got home.
-/-/-/-
“We want you to scout a few locations for a possible project.”
Yoona gladly accepted the task. She wasn’t working for her dad’s company at the moment. Since the fallout – the one where she lost inspiration causing a project to go under and her dad to lose a large sum of money – Yoona had tucked her script books and hid her screenwriting programs away until further notice.
But few phone calls came to her because, even though she had let her father down, he trusted her and hoped something would snap her out of her slump. If only because she was living off his account, no job, and wasting the money on rounds of alcohol and overpriced clubs.
Pulling into a parking place, Yoona got out, pushing up her sunglasses as she eyed the record store in front of her.
The place was underdeveloped, vintage, and looked as if it had once been a take-out restaurant that had gone under and bought out by some music junkies. It was just the style the project was looking for.
Walking up the steps, Yoona tugged open the door and was plunged into a strange clash of rock mixed with the flares of techno and eccentric pop.
Wooden racks, all painted a different color, were flooded with CDs. Shelves along the walls were stocked full of records with labels written in sharpie marker on slabs of paper to indicate which genre was where.
Along a far wall was a line of music booths, all makeshift and labeled with signs warning customers of only twenty minutes of usage, no food, drink, or sexual acts permitted inside.
“Hi, welcome to The Record,“ how creative, “how may I– whoa.”
Yoona blinked at the same time the woman in a tacky acid washed jean vest over a tank did before her. A glance down at her nametag lanyard (also written in marker on a piece of paper), Yoona learned her name was Sooyoung. But it was her face that told her she was the annoying, loud-mouthed friend of Kwon Yuri.
Pretending like she didn’t have a clue as to who she was, Yoona went on. “Hi, may I speak to the manager please?”
Sooyoung scratched the back of her head of short hair styled in a way it stuck every which way. “Is there a problem?”
“No…” Yoona glanced over her shoulder in attempts to locate anyone who looked official enough to be a manager. “I’m here on business and I’d like to speak to the manager.”
“They’re, uh, they’re not in right now.”
Failing to locate anyone not wearing some sort of ugly denim, Yoona turned back up to Sooyoung. “Do you know when they will be? It’s important.”
“Sorry, I don’t– Oh!” Sooyoung suddenly perked up. “There she is.”
Spinning around, Yoona’s jaw nearly hit the floor when she saw Yuri along with some blonde come walking through the door with a set of broken down cardboard boxes in hand.
“Hey!” Sooyoung called out, arm waving for their attention. “Someone’s here to see you.” Yuri’s eyes found Yoona’s from across the store, holding onto her gaze as the two made their way over to where she stood.
“What’s up?” Asked Yuri.
“You’re the manager?” Yoona deadpanned.
“Manager?”
“No, she’s a homeless woman in need of a shower,” spoke the blonde next to Yuri. “I, on the other hand, am Sunny – manager – and, if you give me a minute, I can be right with you. Deal?”
“Sure?”
Sunny flashed a smile bright enough to match her name. “Yul, entertain our guest. Soo, if you’re going to pretend like you work here, do something before pops bans you for good.”
“Your dad loves me,” she heard Sooyoung say as she stripped off the lanyard and tucked it in her pocket to carry the boxes out of Yuri’s hand and walked off with Sunny.
“This is awkward…” Yuri’s voice brought Yoona’s attention back to her, erasing the entire reason for why she was at the record store off her mind.
“What kind of joke were you trying to pull?”
“Huh?” Yuri ran a hand through her hair. It looked extra black and glossy in the record store, framing her face so her smooth cheekbones stood out. Why did Yoona even notice that?
“The jacket.”
“I returned it.”
“You call that returning?”
Yuri shrugged. “Did you make it home okay?”
The change in subject was like whiplash. “Yes?”
Yuri’s hands buried into her tattered jean pockets. “I tried following you to make sure, but I got lost once you got off the interstate.”
“You…followed me?”
Another shrug, a bite of the lip, and a nod.
“That was unnecessary,” and stalkerish, a little nice, and thoughtful, and something no one had ever done for her but that was beside the point.
"What’re you doing at The Record?”
“I-“
“Yul!” She was cut off by Sooyoung’s loud voice and the appearance of her once again that wedged between them. “Did you know Sunny scored us new tickets?”
“Big mouth,” Sunny muttered coming up to join them and slapped Sooyoug on the back of the head. “It was supposed to be a surprise for your birthday but this doofus can’t keep a secret.”
“What?” Yoona leaned over enough to see Yuri’s wide eyes.
“Now I can forgive you for washing the others.” Sooyoung swung to Yuri’s side, slinging an arm over her shoulder. “So, we’re going, right? It’s next weekend. Not like you’re doing anything.”
“Well-“
“Of course she’s coming,” Sunny rolled her eyes. “I didn’t waste my money for them to sit. Which reminds me, there are four.”
Yoona watched Sooyoung count them on her fingers. “We’re only three.”
“One of you has to have friends.”
“You!”
Yoona could only take one step back before Sooyoung was in her personal space and her arm was around her neck. “You like alternative?”
“I-“
“Metal, acid, indie, any type of rock?”
Yoona floundered. “Not really. I like-“
“She’s in.” Sooyoung said before Yoona could finish.
“Wait!” Yoona ducked from under Sooyoung’s arm. “I’m not going to some concert with…” she eyed Yuri who hadn’t said a thing. Instead, she stood there, playing with the end of her hair with her fingers watching Yoona with those piercing eyes. She looked away. “I’m not going.”
“Too late,” Sunny sighed, picking up Yoona’s hand and shoved a ticket from her pocket into it. “You’re locked in.”
“Guys-“
“I’m not-“
“Yes!” Sooyoung shouted above both her and Yuri’s words.
It wasn’t until Yoona was home, staring baffled at the ticket on her nightstand that she realized the reason she had gone to the record store had completely slipped her mind.
Sorry, dad.
-
Author: boxxsaltz
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Yoona/Yuri
Summary: Finder’s Keepers
AN: Done for the 3rd YoonYul FanFic Contest hosted on SSF. Check some others out!
High Heels & Combat Boots
Part I
“Yoona, let’s go!”
“Coming!”
Yanking the dry-cleaning bag out of the closet, Yoona threw it onto the bed amongst the sea of clothes she had thrown out in haste to get ready. Digging through it, she tossed aside dresses after coats after blouses none of which were the item she was looking for.
Pushing it to the floor, she dug through what was already on her bed for the fifth time that evening. As she reached the argyle pattern of her comforter, she didn’t find what she was looking for.
“Yoona,” the voice was closer. Turning over her shoulder, she saw Jessica standing at her bedroom door, freshly painted nails wrapping against the doorframe. “What’s taking you so long? Tiffany’s waiting for us downstairs.”
“I’m coming,” Yoona said through her teeth, feet taking her back to her closet where she shoved clothes around, eyes searching frantically. “I can’t find my jacket.”
“There are like twenty on your bed.”
“I just had it dry-cleaned.”
“Which one?” Jessica asked.
“The leather one.”
“Uh, Yoona?”
Yoona paused a moment to peer over at Jessica who stood by her bed holding up a sleek leather jacket in her fingers.
“That’s not it.”
Jessica sighed, rolling her eyes. “Wear it anyway.”
“It’s not the right one.”
“It’ll look fine,” Yoona flinched as the jacket was tossed into her face. She grabbed it just before it could fall to the floor. “Put it on. Let’s go. We’re already late.”
Slipping her arms though the sleeves, Yoona kept to herself that there was no set time to arrive at a club to make them late.
“Here. Wear these.” Yoona allowed Jessica to trade out the earrings she was wearing for a new pair and hung a necklace around her neck that dipped into the cleavage of her blouse that would lead any eyes down. “Shoes.”
Yoona slid her feet into a pair of heels at the foot of her bed.
“Purse.”
Snatching up her purse, Yoona headed for the door when Jessica stopped her again. “What now?”
With a smirk, Jessica held up a tube of lip-gloss and smoothed it over Yoona’s mouth. Rubbing her lips together, Yoona spread it around as Jessica dabbed a finger at the corners cleaning it up.
“Good?” Yoona asked, stepping back to present her outfit.
At the twirl of Jessica’s finger, she did a quick spin, getting a satisfied smile. “Perfect.”
-/-/-/-
Her ankles hurt, but another hand grabbed her, and Yoona found herself face-to-face and hip-to-hip with another pretty face in the crowd.
He was cute, lopsided smile, tossed about hair, and big ears that she knew her friends would find unattractive, but that was what made him so striking. He was different – a fresh face in the club. As he danced, Yoona wondered if he was using the advantage that Yoona didn’t know him to play a sort of charm that would one-up him on the totem pole.
Yoona nearly laughed. She wasn’t a stranger to the routine. The Im’s weren’t into giving out charity. They didn’t make people successes because they performed exceptionally beneath sheets with executives or wore the most expensive of clothing. They valued those who worked for what they wanted. The Hwang’s and the Jung’s just the same.
Yoona craned her neck back, catching sight of Tiffany who had one arm around a guy’s neck while the other slid down his chest. At the bar, she found Jessica playing coy with a new face amongst a set of drinks from others beside her.
Call it fate that brought them together, Yoona just called it luck. Like company attracted like company. Their circles intermingled all because of the amount of zeroes their families had in their bank accounts and the fame attached to their names.
Fashion, entertainment, journalism, corporate business, their backgrounds may have varied, but they bottlenecked into one that threw the three girls into an unlikely friendship.
People like them used one another only to help themselves. Yoona never held a friend because it was always competition. And though sometimes they held a competition on the dance floors of clubs and the number of innocent folk they could bring back home, their life of business was never one of those points.
“I’ve never seen you before.” Said Yoona as she slid into a booth away from the dance floor.
Across from her the boy dropped into his seat with a pair of drinks and slid one over to Yoona beneath the blue lamplight that shined down on them above the table.
“I’m new around here.” He answered, taking a drink.
Yoona traced her finger around the rim of hers. She never took a drink from the glasses offered to her by the hands that wanted to be on her. She did her own fishing, and he hadn’t proved to be a catch just yet.
“Where are you from?” He smiled something charming as he took another sip, washing away the question and swallowing the answer. Yoona let it slide. “What’s your name?”
“Junsu.”
“Junsu…” Yoona picked up her glass and brought it to her nose. She saw him watch her hopeful she’d take a drink. Instead, she sat it back down. “Did you order this yourself?”
He nodded. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“No, it’s just funny.” She dipped a finger into it, swirling it around. “That you’d think ordering my favorite drink would get you anywhere.”
He laughed. “First timer’s lucks?”
“With extra lime?” She pulled out the lime from the bottom of the glass and dropped it on the table. “Nice try.” Getting up, Yoona caught the tail end of his sneer as she made her way to the bar, waving away the boy still hovering over Jessica and sat beside her.
“We need to find a new club.” Yoona hissed over the music as she sucked the alcohol off her fingers.
“Why?” Asked Jessica, drinking out of one of the glasses ordered for her. “Doesn’t it feel good when people want you?”
“No, they don’t.” Not for who they really were. Yoona sighed, eyes following Tiffany who was leading the one she had been dancing with away by the belt buckle.
“Use your imagination,” Jessica dropped one glass to pick up another. By the gloss in her eyes, Yoona knew she was already drunk which would end in a night of heat she’d forget in the morning. “It’s easier that way.”
But the thing with pretending was that sometimes Yoona allowed herself to believe it.
The new guy was sweet. He was warm to the touch and he held Yoona like he would stay in the morning. But the laugh that came from her mouth as he tickled a path down her stomach was more due to her own illogical thoughts than the sensation he brought into her nerves.
But those pouty lips soon kissed away those things and the fingers tugging off her leather tights brought back the thought that maybe he did care about her and not how many of his friends he could go back and tell who he had bedded.
“Sing for me, babe.”
Yoona felt her laugh at the request turn into a breathy moan as she allowed herself to rise to the top of the mountain and hold onto the lie that said he was after her soul.
-/-/-/-
“I’m sorry, but it’s not here.”
“It’s on the receipt.” Yoona held up the slip.
The dry cleaner clerk frowned. “I am very sorry but we looked everywhere. It must’ve gotten mixed up with someone else’s.”
“Mixed up.” She scoffed, crumpling the receipt into her pocket.
The clerk winced. “All we can do is hope the person it was accidentally given to will bring it back.”
Yoona bit the inside of her lip. She highly doubted anyone would bring her jacket back. If she had found it in her bag, she would’ve kept it as soon as she saw the brand name on the tag and looked up just how many decimal places were attached to its worth.
“Thank you.” Yoona grumbled as she stormed out of the dry cleaners and over to her car where someone was propped up on the fender, talking adamantly to an incoming customer.
She wouldn’t have minded the person there if they didn’t look like they were cut out from some hippie, bohemian, seventies catalogue and their boots didn’t look as if they hadn’t been washed in years.
But they – she – did look like that and she was getting dust on her car from a pair of jeans with rips so large Yoona could clearly see her tattoo tights from mid-thigh down to the middle of her shins.
“Off the car.” Yoona snapped.
“Sorry,” the woman quickly stood up, pushing herself up with a hand that left prints on the hood. "Foreign made?”
Yoona ignored her question, bright smile and her dumb acoustic guitar wearing self and climbed into her car.
Before she pulled out, she put the car into drive and jerked forward, causing the woman and the customer to jump back on the sidewalk before she cranked it into reverse and peeled out.
-/-/-/-
The new leather felt stuffy on her arms. It didn’t form right to her body. Not to mention the sleeves were a centimeter and half too short for her liking because her regular tailor was out on vacation and the one left in their place couldn’t measure to save their life.
“It looks better than your old one,” said Tiffany, placing down her menu on the table. “The elbows were scuffed.”
“It was an original.”
“God forbid you wear a replica.” Tiffany joked as she glanced at her watch. Jessica was late as always and they had already drunk through half a bottle of wine.
“That isn’t the point.”
“Sorry, I’m late.” Jessica came clicking over in her heels and fell into the seat at their table. “Problem at the studio. Dad fired half the models and I had to clean up the mess.”
Tiffany hummed into her glass of wine. “Poor man.”
“The divorce really took it out of him.” Jessica added. By her tone, Yoona knew she could hardly give a care. It was no secret she was waiting for him to completely break down so she could take over his throne. “Where’s the waiter?”
Tiffany flagged him down and Yoona sounded off her order as usual.
The restaurant was their one place to get away. It sat on the edge of town and away from their usual haunts.
Yoona had found it one night when she left the apartment of a club fling with heels on her fingers and exhaustion in her bones. It took convincing to get Jessica to step off her pedestal and come and a few weeks before Tiffany found time in her schedule from the production company to even pencil them in. But when they did, it became their monthly routine.
Food coming out, Yoona picked up her chopsticks to eat when she heard a wave of music come through the restaurant doors that just opened.
Turning around, she saw a few of the workers crowded together, whispering to each other and pointing.
Following their attention, Yoona looked through the large, glass front of the restaurant where she saw the restaurant manager approach a pair brandishing guitars and playing loudly on the sidewalk.
The manager’s face was stern as he spoke to them, but neither of the two women he fussed at seemed to care. They continued to play, the tallest of the two dancing a circle around him, mouth opened loud as she sang at the top of her lungs while the other laughed, playing along.
It was when the second one turned toward the restaurant, giving a wave to the occupants inside that Yoona froze.
It was that woman who had smeared her dirty self on her car.
“And this is why we shouldn’t come to this part of town.” Jessica muttered, dabbing her face with a napkin.
Yoona narrowed her eyes, watching as the tallest one stuck out her tongue to the manager who had pulled out his phone.
“Hey, Yoona…” Tiffany squinted. Yoona followed her eyes to the second one who was now tapping on the window with one hand and making a scooping motion to her mouth, begging for food. “Isn’t that your jacket?”
“What?” She let her eyes wash over the leather draped on the woman’s shoulders.
It couldn’t be her jacket. Her jacket had sleeves, not cut off, frayed holes and a line of safety pins tacked into the collar. But the spiral stitching along the back that was presented to her as the woman turned around, hands up in surrender to an officer who had just come on the scene, was unmistakably hers.
“Yoona!”
She ignored the call of her name as she stormed through the restaurant and out the door. Outside, she could hear the lame excuses the two women were giving.
“We’re very sorry, sir. We didn’t know this was private property, sir.”
“We didn’t mean to cause a disturbance.” The taller added on. “It wasn’t my idea, officer.”
“Hey!”
“What? It wasn’t.”
The one in her mutilated jacket rolled her eyes. “We’ll take our things and go. We’re very sorry.”
“Sorry,” the other bowed. “Very sorry.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry, very sorry.”
Yoona waited until they were far enough away, laughing with one another before she hurried after them.
“Excuse me,” she called.
“Jackass,” the woman in her jacket hissed through a laugh.
The other shrugged, slapping her on the back. “You said if the cops come, every man for himself.”
“Hey!” Yoona snarled. Both glanced behind them but only one gave a double take and stopped walking, eyebrow lifting.
“Hey,” the woman grinned, moving her guitar from in front of her to hang off her back by the strap. "Foreign made, right?”
Yoona ignored her. “Where did you get that jacket?”
“This old thing?” She looked down at the scuffed leather. “Had it forever.”
Yoona’s hand found place on her hip. “I think you stole it.”
“Says who?”
“The owner.”
“Who’s that?”
“I am.”
“Oh,” she scratched her head. “This is awkward. Want it back?”
“Why would I want it back? Look what you did to it.”
“Sweet, huh?” The other added in. Yoona only glared up at her. She took a step back.
“Uh,” the woman looked around, hands patting around her body before she stuffed one into her pocket and pulled out a set of crumbled pieces of paper. “Trade off?”
“Yuri, no-“
“We can get more.” Yuri said to her friend and held the papers over to Yoona. Looking down at them, she noticed they were concert tickets. “Here. Took us months to get those. Have’em. It’s all I got. Sorry.”
With a swipe of her hand, Yoona knocked them away and watched Yuri’s friend chase after them before they could be taken by the wind.
“That wasn’t nice.”
“Says the thief.”
Yuri’s jaw set as she pulled off her guitar and handed it over to her friend. Shrugging off the jacket, she tossed it onto the ground at Yoona’s feet and turned, walking away.
Yoona’s eyes stayed on the retreating back, body boiling the further away she drew.
“If you’re not going to take that…” the friend looked from Yoona to the jacket.
Yoona scoffed. “It belongs to trash now anyway.”
With that, she walked away.
-/-/-/-
“File a police report.”
“Hire a detective to hunt her down and have her put in jail.”
“Hire a hitman.”
Yoona laughed at the last one despite herself as she sorted through the dresses in her closet and pulled one out to wear. Family dinners were always a pain in the ass, but family business dinners took on a whole new form of hatred for her. Too many flashy people with flashy smiles and flashy, empty words.
Tiffany sighed. “I can’t believe you left it there. She gave it back.”
“She destroyed it!” Yoona snapped, fingers running over the light curls in her hair and looked in the mirror. Her make-up would just have to do for the night. “And that’s gross.”
“She could be diseased.” Jessica added. “Even people can have rabies. My cousin did.”
“Your cousin was an epileptic.”
“It’s all the same.”
Yoona massaged her forehead. “I have to go. The car is almost here.”
“Try and have fun tonight.” Tiffany encouraged.
Jessica seconded it. “We’ll have more fun later.”
Tossing her phone aside, Yoona shimmed on her dress and tightened the ribbons behind her neck. One more look in the mirror, she headed out the door.
-/-/-/-
Yoona hated being drunk, but tonight was an exception. Anything to get over the bad taste that dinner left on her, she accepted the drink bought for her and gave into the mouth that smothered hers.
Somewhere around her, she could just feel Jessica’s haughty smirk at her and knew Tiffany was nodding in approval as she allowed someone to easily attach themselves to her and show a little promise of giving their Yoona a good time.
She hadn’t always been the boring of the three. She had been the one to lead them to these night outs in the beginning. But after some time, Yoona lost the fire, while the others combusted into wild flames.
Finally dragging her tongue out of the others mouth, Yoona wiped her hand along her mouth and stared up into his eyes so dark they looked nearly black.
“I’ll be right back,” she slurred, hands batting at the ones wandering over her body. “Wait for me at the bar?”
He smiled, licking his bruised lips. “Your place or mine?”
“Yours.” She allowed one more sloppy kiss before pulling away.
Someplace between the restroom and the dance floor, her mind caught up with her and her lungs screamed for something more than intoxicated air and fog machine smoke.
Placing the drink on a table, Yoona stumbled her way outside of the club. Air smacked into her in a chilly breeze that swam into her veins and sobered her enough to gather her bearings if only a moment to find a trashcan and rid her stomach of what it consumed.
“Hair,” someone said behind her and Yoona felt hands pull back her hair, holding it out of the way as she vomited again. “You’re really gonna feel it in the morning.”
Yoona groaned, picking her face from the trash and swatted the hands away. She couldn’t take any more people touching her for the night. And she especially couldn’t take the hands that belonged to that dumb woman with the stunning, concerned eyes who had the nerve to take something that wasn’t hers.
“Don’t touch me.” Yoona hissed.
Yuri’s hands went up, foot taking her a step away. Yoona gave her one more long look to keep her in place before she started to walk back toward the club.
Three steps away and she stumbled. The hands she just told not to touch her were on her again, catching her before she could eat pavement.
Yoona shoved her away. “I said, don’t touch me!”
“Okay.”
With a screech, Yoona braced herself as Yuri dropped her, wrists aching as she caught all her weight on them.
“What is your problem?” Yoona snarled, head whipping around.
Yuri shrugged. “You said not to touch you.”
“You dropped me.”
“I can’t hold you up if I can’t touch you.” She reasoned.
Yoona whined, head dropping as she felt another wave of nausea roll through her. She pinched her eyes shut, teeth clenched. Her night was going downhill fast “Why are you even here? What do you want?”
“It’s a public place.”
“Like you could afford it here.” Yoona taunted. When she looked up, Yuri was smiling at her. “What are you looking at?”
Yuri shrugged, the guitar strapped across her shoulders moving with it. “A mess.”
Yoona could only hold her glare for only a moment before the vomit shot up her throat and she turned her head just in time to plaster it along the sidewalk.
“Up.”
Yoona fought against the hands that hooked under her arms and picked her off the ground.
“Let me go.” Her request fell on deaf ears and her feet dragged as she was taken to the curb.
For a moment Yoona thought Yuri was about to throw her into the street when she saw a cab pull up to the sidewalk and the door opened. The protest in her throat never reached her lips as she was shoved inside and the door slammed on her.
There was a strange sort of relief with being inside the cab knowing it was taking her away from the predators inside the club after her, but it quickly went away when she saw the other door open and Yuri fell in beside her with an address Yoona didn’t know.
“If you kidnap me, the authorities will find out.” Yoona slurred, head lolling over to Yuri against the back headrest. She had no more fight left.
Yuri coughed out some sort of mocking laugh as if to challenge Yoona’s words.
As they rode in silence the rest of the way to wherever, a part of Yoona hoped she could actually be taken up on it.
-/-/-/-
Cup of coffee landing in front of her, Yoona eyed it skeptically before looking up at Yuri sitting in the booth across from her.
“What is this?”
Because the last place Yoona wanted to be was a diner on the opposite side of Seoul from her apartment and probably further away from the friends she left at the club.
Glancing at her phone, she noted the lack of messages. Of course. Jessica was probably at the bottom of her fifth glass and Tiffany most likely had a tie wrapped around her hand and her back pressed against a wall. She had the best of friends, she really did.
“What are we doing here?”
“Coffee,” Yuri stated plainly. “It’s on me.”
“Do you even have any money?”
Yuri shrugged, cracking open a menu and turned her attention toward it. She said nothing more while Yoona wanted to say a hundred and one things at her but couldn’t pick which one to spew first.
Her frustration over this woman rammed into the annoying throb in her skull and the churning in her stomach that had yet to let up. It all exploded into a sort of rage at the fact she had left the one thing that night she was going to use to wash away her tension and was instead left in a cranky, deflated mess of disappointment that she had let herself go.
“Are you crying?”
Yoona shook her head, using her fingers to dab the corners of her eyes. “No.”
Unrolling her silverware, Yuri handed Yoona the napkin but dropped it a few seconds later when Yoona didn’t take it.
“You’re so stubborn.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a-“ Yoona cut herself off, hand slapping against her head that pulsed. “I want to go home.”
Yuri pushed the coffee towards her along with a packet of sugar. “Drink first. Then home.”
Sneering through her lashes, Yoona examined the face across from her. The sincerity and concern it held made Yoona angrier than she already was because she didn’t get it. People in this town didn’t look at her like the twenty something year old woman she was. They looked at her with expectation and reward. They looked at her with dollar signs in their eyes, not a glisten to them that said they were seeing the bareness that she was.
Turning away, Yoona stared at the coffee. “Why are you doing this?”
“Nothing better to do.”
“I don't forgive you for stealing my jacket.”
“Take tonight as an apology?”
“Not accepted.” Yuri shrugged and Yoona wished she didn’t do that. People don’t shrug to her. It showed a disinterest. “You shrug a lot.”
“You complain a lot.”
“You’re insulting.”
“You have puke in your hair.”
“You have split ends!” Yoona shot lamely, knowing just how childish it sounded.
Yuri shrugged again and this time Yoona knew it was to spite her. It made her own shoulders tense and her nerves seize in an anger she didn’t exactly know where it was coming from. Not like this woman ever did anything to her – aside from steal her jacket and cut it up into some poor imitation of an eighties, hair band costume.
She was being nice. She was trying to help. She was staring at Yoona with those pretty, worrying eyes, chewing on her bottom lip in a nervous way as if she was expecting Yoona to pass out from alcohol poisoning or throw up again.
Dropping her gaze, Yoona snatched the mug on the table to give her hands something to do. What was her problem anyway?
“What’s your name?”
“Im Yoona.” She waited for that light bulb to go off in Yuri’s eyes at the mention of it.
“Cool name.” Yuri picked up her menu again, light bulb not igniting whatsoever. Yoona wasn’t sure if she liked the fact she seemed ignorant of who she was or was a little ticked that she didn’t. Either way, it made her curious.
“Is it?”
“Not really,” Yuri shrugged, “but I didn’t know what else to say.”
Yoona brought the coffee to her lips, taking a sip. Her eyes narrowed. “Who are you anyway?”
“Kwon Yuri.”
“I know your name.”
Eyebrow lifting, Yuri eyed her over the rim of her menu. “Why’d you ask?”
“I didn’t actually.”
Yuri shrugged. That dumb shrug again, dismissing her like she was cheap and easy. Yoona bristled.
“Drink your coffee,” and Yoona did, if only because she needed something to keep her busy and the bitterness of it on her tongue distracted.
It distracted her away from the way the lights made Yuri’s skin shine some warm shade of golden that made her look like more of a somebody than Yoona felt in that moment half drunk and smelling of vomit.
But even as she finished the coffee, and Yuri kept her promise with allowing her to catch a cab home, she couldn’t shake the fact that, as much as she wanted to keep hating that dumb woman, Yuri made her feel things she hadn’t in God knew how long.
What bothered her the most about that? She didn’t know if she liked it or not.
-/-/-/-
Yoona spent her week detoxifying from her last club experience.
Taking a sip from her water bottle, she waited for Tiffany to finish rolling up her yoga mat and walk over to where they left their bags by the wall.
“Drink,” Tiffany held her hand out for the bottle.
Yoona handed it over and picked up her gym bag, tossing it over her shoulder and tucked her own yoga mat beneath her arm. She used to think the calming power of yoga was a myth until she started going with Tiffany at least twice a week (which became everyday of the week since the club).
She couldn’t deny that she was feeling better as she hugged Tiffany goodbye and climbed into her car. Whatever all that tense anger she had been harboring that night was gone and she could breathe a little easier.
But as much as the one-legged king pigeon had done wonders to erase the demon she had become that night, Yoona felt it sneak back up on her when she walked into the dry cleaner’s for her clothes.
“Is this it?” Yoona blinked at the jacket hanging off the hanger in the clerk’s hand. “Someone brought it in a couple days ago. I wasn’t sure if it was yours or not.”
“No, it’s-“ Yoona stopped, teeth grinding as she observed the poor stitching that was used to reattach the sleeves where they had been cut off.
The safety pins were still in place, with a few more added along the pockets and along the spiral pattern on the back so the silver metal reflected the light when it hit just right.
She had half a mind to take the thing and toss it in the dumpster. Or burn it. Or something. Anything.
“That’s it,” she sighed, taking it from the clerk’s fingers along with her other things. “Thanks.”
Tossing the thing into the backseat of the car, Yoona pulled out of the lot.
She’d have to have her own personal yoga session when she got home.
-/-/-/-
“We want you to scout a few locations for a possible project.”
Yoona gladly accepted the task. She wasn’t working for her dad’s company at the moment. Since the fallout – the one where she lost inspiration causing a project to go under and her dad to lose a large sum of money – Yoona had tucked her script books and hid her screenwriting programs away until further notice.
But few phone calls came to her because, even though she had let her father down, he trusted her and hoped something would snap her out of her slump. If only because she was living off his account, no job, and wasting the money on rounds of alcohol and overpriced clubs.
Pulling into a parking place, Yoona got out, pushing up her sunglasses as she eyed the record store in front of her.
The place was underdeveloped, vintage, and looked as if it had once been a take-out restaurant that had gone under and bought out by some music junkies. It was just the style the project was looking for.
Walking up the steps, Yoona tugged open the door and was plunged into a strange clash of rock mixed with the flares of techno and eccentric pop.
Wooden racks, all painted a different color, were flooded with CDs. Shelves along the walls were stocked full of records with labels written in sharpie marker on slabs of paper to indicate which genre was where.
Along a far wall was a line of music booths, all makeshift and labeled with signs warning customers of only twenty minutes of usage, no food, drink, or sexual acts permitted inside.
“Hi, welcome to The Record,“ how creative, “how may I– whoa.”
Yoona blinked at the same time the woman in a tacky acid washed jean vest over a tank did before her. A glance down at her nametag lanyard (also written in marker on a piece of paper), Yoona learned her name was Sooyoung. But it was her face that told her she was the annoying, loud-mouthed friend of Kwon Yuri.
Pretending like she didn’t have a clue as to who she was, Yoona went on. “Hi, may I speak to the manager please?”
Sooyoung scratched the back of her head of short hair styled in a way it stuck every which way. “Is there a problem?”
“No…” Yoona glanced over her shoulder in attempts to locate anyone who looked official enough to be a manager. “I’m here on business and I’d like to speak to the manager.”
“They’re, uh, they’re not in right now.”
Failing to locate anyone not wearing some sort of ugly denim, Yoona turned back up to Sooyoung. “Do you know when they will be? It’s important.”
“Sorry, I don’t– Oh!” Sooyoung suddenly perked up. “There she is.”
Spinning around, Yoona’s jaw nearly hit the floor when she saw Yuri along with some blonde come walking through the door with a set of broken down cardboard boxes in hand.
“Hey!” Sooyoung called out, arm waving for their attention. “Someone’s here to see you.” Yuri’s eyes found Yoona’s from across the store, holding onto her gaze as the two made their way over to where she stood.
“What’s up?” Asked Yuri.
“You’re the manager?” Yoona deadpanned.
“Manager?”
“No, she’s a homeless woman in need of a shower,” spoke the blonde next to Yuri. “I, on the other hand, am Sunny – manager – and, if you give me a minute, I can be right with you. Deal?”
“Sure?”
Sunny flashed a smile bright enough to match her name. “Yul, entertain our guest. Soo, if you’re going to pretend like you work here, do something before pops bans you for good.”
“Your dad loves me,” she heard Sooyoung say as she stripped off the lanyard and tucked it in her pocket to carry the boxes out of Yuri’s hand and walked off with Sunny.
“This is awkward…” Yuri’s voice brought Yoona’s attention back to her, erasing the entire reason for why she was at the record store off her mind.
“What kind of joke were you trying to pull?”
“Huh?” Yuri ran a hand through her hair. It looked extra black and glossy in the record store, framing her face so her smooth cheekbones stood out. Why did Yoona even notice that?
“The jacket.”
“I returned it.”
“You call that returning?”
Yuri shrugged. “Did you make it home okay?”
The change in subject was like whiplash. “Yes?”
Yuri’s hands buried into her tattered jean pockets. “I tried following you to make sure, but I got lost once you got off the interstate.”
“You…followed me?”
Another shrug, a bite of the lip, and a nod.
“That was unnecessary,” and stalkerish, a little nice, and thoughtful, and something no one had ever done for her but that was beside the point.
"What’re you doing at The Record?”
“I-“
“Yul!” She was cut off by Sooyoung’s loud voice and the appearance of her once again that wedged between them. “Did you know Sunny scored us new tickets?”
“Big mouth,” Sunny muttered coming up to join them and slapped Sooyoug on the back of the head. “It was supposed to be a surprise for your birthday but this doofus can’t keep a secret.”
“What?” Yoona leaned over enough to see Yuri’s wide eyes.
“Now I can forgive you for washing the others.” Sooyoung swung to Yuri’s side, slinging an arm over her shoulder. “So, we’re going, right? It’s next weekend. Not like you’re doing anything.”
“Well-“
“Of course she’s coming,” Sunny rolled her eyes. “I didn’t waste my money for them to sit. Which reminds me, there are four.”
Yoona watched Sooyoung count them on her fingers. “We’re only three.”
“One of you has to have friends.”
“You!”
Yoona could only take one step back before Sooyoung was in her personal space and her arm was around her neck. “You like alternative?”
“I-“
“Metal, acid, indie, any type of rock?”
Yoona floundered. “Not really. I like-“
“She’s in.” Sooyoung said before Yoona could finish.
“Wait!” Yoona ducked from under Sooyoung’s arm. “I’m not going to some concert with…” she eyed Yuri who hadn’t said a thing. Instead, she stood there, playing with the end of her hair with her fingers watching Yoona with those piercing eyes. She looked away. “I’m not going.”
“Too late,” Sunny sighed, picking up Yoona’s hand and shoved a ticket from her pocket into it. “You’re locked in.”
“Guys-“
“I’m not-“
“Yes!” Sooyoung shouted above both her and Yuri’s words.
It wasn’t until Yoona was home, staring baffled at the ticket on her nightstand that she realized the reason she had gone to the record store had completely slipped her mind.
Sorry, dad.
-
