Ship/Member: Seokmin/Jeonghan
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: rule 63, high school au, the sapphic urge to fall in love with your best friend
Permission to remix: Yes!!
Word count: 874

hello... not entirely sure this is what you're going for, but! here! i've also added some references to actual sappho if you enjoy that kind of thing

***

As always, Seokmin and Jeonghan spend their lunch break perched on the windowsill of an abandoned classroom. Jeonghan swings her legs a little as she eats, eyes occasionally drifting to Seokmin’s lunchbox, as if she wants to make sure she’s eating too.

They always spend their lunch breaks like this. What with Jeonghan being a grade above Seokmin, they don’t actually get to see each other much within school. The fact that they spend almost all their time outside school together? Irrelevant. What’s important is that Seokmin offers Jeonghan some of her kimbap, which Jeonghan makes a big show of taking and stuffing into her mouth, and Seokmin pretends not to notice Jeonghan put a dumpling in her lunchbox, a silent and unacknowledged thank-you.

This is the only chance they get during the school day to talk. Usually it’s Seokmin dominating the conversation, talking about her teachers, her family, that idiotic boy Mingyu in her Physics class who always tries to act smarter than her. Today, though, it’s Jeonghan’s turn to talk. She’s talking about boys - her main topic of conversation these days.

“I just don’t know what to do, Seokminnie,” she declares, with a soft sigh. “I mean, Joshua’s nice and all, and it’s very sweet that he asked me out, but I just don’t know whether I see myself with him… like that.”

“So you don’t want to be his girlfriend?” Seokmin asks.

“I want to be someone’s girlfriend, don’t get me wrong. I’m just not sure I want to be his.”

“Then say no. Easy as that,” Seokmin decides through a mouthful of kimbap.

“I wish it were that easy.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because if I don’t say yes to Joshua, then five million other nobodies are going to come up to me and ask me out. I don’t have the time or the energy to say no to all of them. It’s tiring.”

“Wow, it’s so difficult being popular and pretty. Glad I don’t have to deal with that problem,” Seokmin mutters, trying not to sound too bitter about it.

Jeonghan laughs. Not the one she uses around ‘nobodies’, but the one she uses around Seokmin, genuine and awkward and a little toothy. It does make Seokmin feel a bit better, as her heart flutters in her chest.

“Oh Seokmin,” Jeonghan replies, tucking a loose strand of hair behind Seokmin’s ear, “who says you’re not pretty?”

“How come nobody wants to ask me out then?”

Seokmin isn’t seriously asking, it’s all part of the bit, but then Jeonghan replies,

“I don’t know, babe. They’re missing out, that’s for sure.”

Seokmin’s tongue feels thick in her mouth, and she can’t say anything. She hates the way her skin sparks when Jeonghan calls her babe. It’s a silly little pet name, really. Jeonghan has one for all her close friends - she calls Soonyoung honey all the time, and Soonyoung doesn’t get all twisted up inside like this. Soonyoung doesn’t want to feel the word on her skin, or reply baby, baby, baby until her lips wear thin. Or maybe she does; maybe everyone who has the honour of being given a secret name by Jeonghan has to bear the common burden of liking her.

Because it is a common burden. Jeonghan is exceptionally pretty, with smooth gorgeous skin and silky black hair and rosebud lips that she carefully puts Chapstick on every morning. Everybody - boy, girl, everyone in between - everybody likes Jeonghan. It’s impossible not to. Jeonghan’s sick of it. Seokmin knows that Jeonghan is sick of it. She makes it clear enough every time some poor soul is so ensnared by her haughty smile that they make the mistake of stuttering out some bumbled confession. To Jeonghan, all these people, with all their admiration and ardent want, are nobodies.

Is Seokmin a nobody too? That’s what she feels like. A nobody, destined to like her best friend who probably doesn’t even like girls. A nobody, who sees Jeonghan like everyone else sees her - even though nobody else knows about the teddy bear she’s had since she was three, or how sensitive a sleeper she is, or about her stupid toothy laugh. A nobody, who follows Jeonghan around like a dutiful little puppy, giving her kimbap and sharing her secrets and hoping that Jeonghan takes just enough pity on her to keep her around.

So far, it seems like it’s worked. Jeonghan’s humoured her for this long. But Seokmin knows that if she were to ever tell Jeonghan how much she wants to hold her hand while they walk to the bus stop, or how much she wants Jeonghan’s dainty fingers to roam from the base of her neck to the roots of her hair, or how much she needs to taste Jeonghan’s cherry Chapstick off her lips, then all that pity would vanish. Seokmin would just be another nobody. And she has fought too hard to be somebody to Jeonghan. She resolves herself to stay strong and to ignore the blood rushing in her ears, to stop herself confessing in some sickeningly pathetic way. She can’t risk losing her somebody-ness in a fleeting lunch break where she’s trying not to look at Jeonghan’s swinging legs.