Olymfics AmNa

[coinlocker]

Honest and innocent, dreaming beyond her means. She had just wanted to taste lips. Lick away the beads of water and sweat that were caught in the corners of an awkward smile. The smile of a foreign girl not quite yet used to the group of girls or language around her. Sunyoung couldn’t help herself. Honest and innocent, sweet and gentle. Though while her hand with its want to wander thought to caress the other girls cheek and across her jaw and hold it there as a mutual submission to curiosity, perhaps it was anything but.

Her eyes squeezed shut tight, the fantasy dancing on her eyelids with stars.

It was forgotten moments later, cut short with jagged edges in her mind with repulsion as she woke up, tired and confused and half twisted off the edge of her bunk, two bare hours after she had fallen asleep. The liquid surge that was no longer relief now told her in no uncertain terms that this was wrong. That she should not want this.

The dorms were still quiet. It would be at least an hour until Victoria would wake up, two before schedules. In the silence, Sunyoung padded towards the bathroom and slipped into the shower to wash the dream and arousal away.

Although it was mostly forgotten by the end of the long day of preparations, she wouldn't look Amber in the eyes for days after.

Sunyoung was fourteen when she was scouted. She was short, not exceptionally pretty either. Not in that usual way, not like Soojung or Jinri, but they liked the way she danced and then they heard her sing and two out of three is never too bad. The rest were what diets, stylists and Photoshop could fix. Her dark skin, the chubby cheeks and a strength about her that girls shouldn't have, but one way or another those things could be fixed.

She's reminded daily of her faults, but she won't (can't) take it to heart because, if she did she would prove every one right when they say she hasn't got what it takes. So if she cried at night (and she did), that's one less time she's ever going to cry again, she told herself holding her head up high, forcing a smile and blinking her tears away.
It's just to say that she's strong. Determined. A sheer force of nature. She could do anything. She's proved that.

But she can't make sense of this.



Sunyoung watched her little family for a while in the mirror as they caused mischief at the scene of a photo shoot, silliness under the bright, headache inducing fluorescent light.

"You know dreams come true if you tell someone about them, right." Amber whispered in her ear in surer Korean with a bolt of laughter; leaving Sunyoung blinking. Amber had come over to her when she noticed Sunyoung only absently pulling her belongings together, lips curled with reckless abandon.

"My mom told me that." She grabbed at Sunyoung's hands, pulling her up from the chair and spinning her around until Sunyoung squealed and feigned dizzy collapse into Amber's arms. Amber held onto her with a loose arm wrapped around her waist and nudged Sunyoung with her shoulder repeatedly, laughing.

“Puppy. Wake up. Stop dreaming. Pizza time! Vic's sneaking us out."

Sunyoung’s heart flipped, and flopped in her chest, leaving her with the feeling that maybe she would tremble into pieces just for the way Amber's hands made her pulse race.

Look what you do to me.

Instead Sunyoung laughed without missing a beat and pushed Amber away. Then she drew her back and tucked herself into the warmth of Amber's side.

“Okay, okay! Escort me then. Let's sneak together?”

Sunyoung was caught staring, often at awkward interludes. She couldn't help it half the time, and the other she barely realised she was even doing it. Compulsion, like a magnet turned her head almost always to have Amber in her line of sight. Then when Amber started to stare back at her, their eyes meeting with question and curiosity, Sunyoung would yelp and turn pink and hurriedly busy herself, chastise herself mentally and wring her hands under the table before laughing it off with a joke or a little bit of teasing.

It terrified her, where her thoughts drifted when she had a moment to let them be free. She didn't know, when they had stopped simply being dreams in the night to weaving into her head at the worst possible moments.

More than kisses, it was soft flesh that yielded under the same hands with their want to wander pressing hard against ribs and sliding down to grab hips and curling around finally to firmly pull her closer. 'I like you, Amber.' In her mind there was no hesitance. 'I like you.' They pushed and pulled between them until Sunyoung was panting with her face pressed against the wall and Amber's hands between her legs making her supplicant, almost, 'I like you too.'

It's not right. Sunyoung scowled and hid her face in her hands, screaming silently into her palms whenever she was alone. It's wrong.

“What should I do?” she whispered, curling herself away. It wasn't a question she could ask anyone, not even God.



Sunyoung and Amber prayed sitting side by side before they could catch a few small hours of sleep. It had quickly become almost a ritual after debut, when Sunyoung had found herself in doubt and Amber had offered a mutual faith as solace.
Their hands and fingers laced together tight in mutual communion and Sunyoung felt that this was one place where her imagination wouldn't catch her. She prayed for the clarity of her mind, and forgiveness for the state of it. As Amber squeezed her hand, she felt much more at peace. Then she prayed for a little moment longer, just to keep on holding Amber's hand.

Amber opened her eyes as the silent 'amen' left their lips and with a laugh, pushed Sunyoung, who still had her eyes closed, over onto her side with a thud.

“Yah!” Sunyoung cried, kicking out with her legs to connect with Amber's hip. “YAH!” Amber grabbed her ankles and tickled her feet while Sunyoung wheezed and squeaked for mercy upon her poor sensitive soles. They rolled around on the floor until a grumpy faced manager told them shortly to go to bed. They dropped body parts, grinned at each other then at their manager with quick half sincere apologies and swiftly climbed into their respective bunks.

It seemed as soon as Ambers head hit the pillow she was taken by sleep, leaving Sunyoung alone in the silent dark and at the mercy to her racing heart and tingling skin where Amber's hands had marked her.

Sunyoung tipped her head back, and blinked her eyes rapidly, forced herself to smile though her guilt.



There came one morning that Amber wasn't there any more. Goodbyes passed quietly in the early morning and over cellphones and text messages. It was an absence that echoed throughout the week, a fortnight, a month and even longer. Sunyoung bit her lip and stared into the blank spot beside her on the floor where she should have been, building a ghost of her shape and warmth and reached instead to the table, dropping her bible in her lap.

If she prayed. Between God and distance she would climb out the other side of this unscathed with clarity of mind.



“I like you.” Sunyoung breathed over the phone as their conversation lulled, spilling the truth through the receiver. It came out before she could help herself and it sounded so sincere. Amber was silent at the other end until Sunyoung laughed, back tracking as fast as she could in the moment. “I mean you're okay, I guess. Not the worst person in the world. I won't forgive you for making Jinri my room mate though. You owe me for that.” Sunyoung looked towards the empty doorway balling her fingers up into a fist, she doesn't give Amber the chance to reply.

“She wants to talk to you by the way, I'll get her. Don't believe a word she says.” Sunyoung pulled the phone away from her ear and shouted for Jinri, giving the phone away to her with a too wide grin. Jinri gave her a strange look before walking off the way she had came and Sunyoung retreated to their shared room.

Sunyoung dropped her head to face the floor and pressed her palms hard against her eyes. A yearning prayer not to cry though her shoulders shook for shame.

“What is wrong with me.”



There's still an adjustment period when Amber returns home. That awkward hovering around one extra body in the space that had just grudgingly become accustomed to having one less. It felt like forever, but there she was, warm and beating and more than Sunyoung remembered. Her heart felt like it was shaking on her tongue, wanting to vomit forward and gift itself to Amber without no mind to Sunyoung's terror.

Sunyoung acted like she hadn't said the words and grinned warm and guarded at Amber when she flickered a curious look towards her. Half the time she wanted to say something, the words burning on the tip of her tongue beside her heart. An apology maybe. But more than anything she hoped simply that Amber had forgotten what had been said.

Before long that sense of things unsaid disappeared between them. They were too busy and all talk was of practice and training and gym. Sunyoung's mind wandered less and less until it was just the flash of a kiss and the heavy hold of held hands.

They eased back into old habits as schedules evened out, though now within the small pillow and stuffed toy kingdom they had built on Sunyoung's bed they would hold reflection. Shoulder to shoulder with their hands held between them in prayer. Sunyoung rejoiced in this, her faith bolstered by having someone by her side once more but with it's return she found her heart still raced and hurt with Amber's breath warm on her cheek more and more with each prayer. She couldn't focus on her own any longer as the weeks stretched on.

Amber sighed a quiet Amen and Sunyoung didn't want to let go of her hands, didn't want to move.

"Sunyoungie?"

Sunyoung released Amber's hands quickly, ducking her head with embarrassed laughter.
"Sorry. An extra long prayer for us to do well tomorrow!"

Amber looked sheepish and Sunyoung felt the guilt bearing down on her shoulders, her own wrath until Amber leant forward while Sunyoung wasn't thinking and kissed the corner of her mouth. Once, twice. Her breath soft on Sunyoung's lips.

"I like you too."

Their night times long after become full of prayer. There are the ones they whisper for the other girls, the ones they whisper for their families. Then there are the ones they whisper for each other, into ears, embraces and the spaces built between.



"Wake up, puppy."

Sunyoung grimaced, peering bleary eyed from the corner of one eye, grunted and turned her head away.

"Puppy. Luna puppy. You really couldn't make it to bed, huh?" Amber started poking her in the ribs and back, to coax Sunyoung awake. "Guess you got in late last night."

"Huh? Oh." The realisation made Sunyoung want to cry.

"Good dreams?"

Sunyoung grunted at her, a scowl creasing her forehead as she pushed past Amber, heading with stomping feet and a growing fury towards the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Under the shower, she washed her sleep and anger and sadness away. It was almost cruel.

Sunyoung finally crawled out, looking and feeling wet and pitiful and ambled towards the bedroom to get dressed, hoping routine would ease her mood. A different kind of guilt wriggled in her chest too,as she worked herself up to get back out there and apologise.

“I'm sorry.” Sunyoung said as Amber passed by her room and smiled at her as best she could.
"No worries, puppy." Amber replied carelessly over her shoulder, about to walk away.
Sunyoung tripped over her feet to catch Amber around the waist before she went too far. To hold her from going anywhere.

There's no anger as Amber turned in the surprise embrace.

Amber only reached her hand up and brushed her hand over the top of Sunyoung's damp hair, her fingers sliding down to the curve of her neck and shoulder. Amber pushed the hair back behind her ear and leant down to whisper something that made Sunyoung's smile widen, features softening.

Amber nudged Sunyoung with her shoulder and grinned back at her, hand held out to her to take.

"C'mon."