a misty gashed aperture

couture and the nightclub

A/N: So, it's sad that ao3's still down and I'm sending a lot of love to their team of volunteers helping sort things out. I will post this chapter there as soon as it's back. I just wanted to update this fic to cheer myself (hopefully you too) up. 

Also, I wrote this listening to Joji so it's his fault. And I'm obsessed.

Really. His fault.

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The Paris Haute Couture show would be streamed live late at night in Seoul. On Sunday midnight, Lisa texted Jisoo and Bam to bring party cups because they would watch the show at Vinyl, a small, quirky bar in Hongdae that they frequent for late-night drinking when everyone else had gone clubbing.

The bar could only sit about 12 people inside where low, wooden tables were painted in multiple colors while post-modern artwork and vintage posters were pasted on its rustic, orange walls. They reserved their usual spot which had the best view of the flat TV screen mounted on the wall.

It was already two forty-six AM and Lisa had not yet arrived when the show was in transmission to Valentino, where The Big Trio would walk the runway.

Jisoo, wearing a cream-colored beanie and a one-button brown plaid jacket, checked her watch. "Now where's that cheekful, buttless sister of yours?"

In a black Half Shadow baseball cap and black blazer, Bam poured their party cups with the third refill of Paper Plane cocktail and spoke sullenly, "Dunno. Maybe stuck in the middle of another art call and we're just proxies here to watch her girlfriend walk the runway."

Jisoo eyed the guy beside her perplexedly. "Quit sulking! I thought you were the one who wanted Lisa and Roseanne to, like, happen? What's with the grey mood now?"

Distress was apparent in the way Bam stared intensely at the TV screen. "I didn't know it would escalate this fast. I thought it was cute but then I realized, sis was serious."

"Since when was she unserious?" Jisoo raised her cup midway. "I think this is good. After what happened to her last year..." She took a sip of her drink and leaned back on the wall. "I thought she won't be able to recover but look at her now, painting every day."

"The panic attacks? Yeah, I'm pretty sure you lied to me about that." Bam threw Jisoo a suspicious look.

The black-haired woman sat up straight, jaw dropped. "Shit. You really are a doctor now, huh."

"That's not it, Jisoo." It was Bam's turn to lean back on the wall. He shoved one hand inside his Amiri Marled Tweed wide-leg trousers while the other reached for his cup. "We may not be blood siblings, but I always knew there was something else that happened, and it wasn't merely accidentally slipping on the floor."

Wordless, Jisoo's eyes darted to the screen where the camera panned out at the front-row seaters.

"Something doesn't tie up."

Heaving a short, shallow sigh, Jisoo wished she did not have to keep the truth from Bam, but it was Lisa's ask. It was what Top thought to be best. "Bam..."

"And no, I don't buy that bullshit reason that I needed to focus on my studies because when it's family, I'd drop anything." Tightened lips, Bam swung one leg over the other. "I was ready to fly back home."