haely ver of "a much needed distraction" !!
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It hadn't occurred to Haewon that, in the back-and-forth of her relationship with Lily — once friendship solely and now something more — she would ever need to be the voice encouraging fun and impulsivity.
Yet that was precisely what Haewon had found herself having to be.
After a remarkably tense meeting regarding the new song, Lily had taken the — initially — rather sensible decision to redirect her anger from where it might once had exploded into temper into her writing instead.
Except, that seemed to be no more of a healthy directing of her temper than lashing out in rage.
Lily had spent three hours on both Thursday and Friday after practice working on rewriting parts of the song, screwing up and throwing multiple pages into the bin with barely constrained frustration. Haewon had barely seen her outside of practice, on Friday she had even missed most of dinner. Now Saturday, Lily had disappeared into her room two hours earlier and Haewon knew that without her intervention, Lily would spend that time there at least once more over.
Which was how Haewon found herself headed to Lily's room, determined that one way or another she would coax Lily away from her work.
Sitting at her table in the corner of the room, away from easy disturbances, she found Lily. Lily absent-mindedly pulled at her hair as she read over something she had written with a deep, unsatisfied frown. She didn't even seem to hear Haewon's approach.
Haewon whipped the papers from in front of Lily and held them away from her.
"What the..." Lily spun around, a flash of temper obvious in the glint in her eyes before it disappeared just as quickly, replaced by confused amusement. "Haewon? What are you doing?"
"You're coming with me to do something other than work," Haewon said.
Lily was eyeing the pieces of paper in Haewon's hand so Haewon put them behind her back and stepped away. Lily gave her a bewildered look.
"I need those," she said.
"Not for the rest of the day, you don't," Haewon said.
"I'm nearly done."
As Lily got up, Haewon took a step back. "You said that yesterday. You'll do none of us any good if you make yourself ill. You look exhausted. It'll do you good to have a few hours far away from writing."
It was quite apparent that Haewon was well on her way to convincing Lily, for there was that glimmer of joy in her face that had been absent for the past few days. Haewon took another step away, smiling back at Lily when the grin finally flooded the girl's face. It brushed away some of the exhaustion, restored some of the warmth.
"You," Haewon said, "are going to spend the rest of the day with me and we are not going to talk about the song once."
Haewon had let her guard down as she spoke and when Lily darted forward, she didn't have time to move away. Lily took the pages from her with a single swift motion, looking very pleased at outmaneuvering Haewon so promptly. Sometimes Haewon forgot just how quick Lily could be.
"Not like you to have a plan so easily derailed," Lily said, keeping the papers away from Haewon's half-hearted efforts to retrieve them.
"I have a reserve plan," Haewon said.
When Lily raised her eyebrows in question, Haewon took the pause to surprise her by leaning in and kissing her.
When she pulled away a few moments later, Lily, who was so rarely speechless, could only stare back at her with a delighted and shy look on her face. Haewon felt rather giddy with pride at getting such a reaction.
"What if someone had..." Lily asked eventually, glancing towards the door.
"No one is trying to look in your room, I promise you," Haewon said, though she knew from their warmth that her cheeks were as flushed as Lily's. "But, you're right. If you want me to do that again, we should probably find somewhere else. Do you want to go for a walk with me?"
"Let me just go throw this somewhere," Lily said, gathering up the rest of her work. "I'll meet you outside."
Haewon couldn't help smiling as she went outside to wait; that hadn't taken all that much convincing at all.
