Work Text:
Chiquita nurses a frappe as she sits in the cafe in the lobby of Ahyeon’s workplace. It’s hard not to look around wide-eyed at the classy, polished office building.
One of the elevators dings, releasing a group of salarymen and women, and Chiquita lights up to see her girlfriend among them. She’s about to lift her hand in an excited wave but Ahyeon is in conversation with somebody, brow furrowed. As they get closer Chiquita can’t help noticing that somebody is attractive and male, but she tries to ignore that and focuses on how princessly Ahyeon looks, the way she carries herself.
She’s so confident, so sure of everything she does. So unapologetically herself, it inspires Chiquita. Not for the first time, she feels pride that such an outstanding woman is hers.
Her pulse misses a beat when Ahyeon catches sight of her, an impatient twinkle in her eye. Chiquita sits up straighter but Ahyeon doesn’t stop talking to her colleague.
Chiquita tries to contain her own impatience and thinks about where they should go for their date this late afternoon. It’s friday and Ahyeon was getting off work around the time her classes finished so she asked if Chiquita cared to pick her up.
As they’re wrapping up their conversation, the man puts a hand on Ahyeon’s shoulder when she glances in Chiquita’s direction again. Chiquita flushes as she looks over, releasing the bitten straw from her lips.
“Is that your kid sister?” she vaguely hears. “How cute.”
Chiquita snorts, expecting Ahyeon to correct him, but she doesn’t. Just smiles and excuses herself and finally heads towards Chiquita, eyebrows raised. Chiquita squints up at Ahyeon with the setting sun behind her head, towering over her with her sitting down.
Ahyeon lifts Chiquita’s baseball cap off. Chiquita gets lost in the gentle affection in her dark gaze.
“Hi,” Ahyeon murmurs. “What’re you thinking about?”
“You,” Chiquita replies with a sheepish smile and she laughs in disbelief. Chiquita gets to her feet and Ahyeon slings an arm around her shoulders as they head to the exit, Ahyeon nodding a greeting to the cafe staff.
She must be popular at work, Chiquita thinks. She recently started a permanent position at the company she’d been interning at for the past year, and works hard.
Chiquita tries not to think of what the scene she just witnessed makes her suspect — of course she already knew that guys must throw themselves at Ahyeon all the time. She’s head-turningly gorgeous. For some sadistic reason, Chiquita had asked to see pictures of her exes. Almost all of Ahyeon’s past girl- and boyfriends looked like models, as sophisticated as her. Chiquita suddenly felt dowdy as she looked at the photos which Ahyeon whisked into hiding.
“Did you eat?” Ahyeon asks, pulling her closer into her side.
Chiquita shakes her head. “Who was that guy?” she asks casually.
Ahyeon chuckles, giving her a squeeze. “Jealous, Canny-ah?”
“Ha! You wish, sis,” Chiquita retorts but pulls her forcefully into an emergency stairwell they pass. Presses her against the door with both hands on her shoulders, surging up. Ahyeon surfaces from the messy kiss breathless and red-faced, wiping her lips.
“Wow,” she breathes. “Missed you too.”
She pulls Chiquita’s Supreme cap over her own hair, relieves her of her backpack heavy with textbooks and weekend assignments as they shiftily reemerge. She looks much younger despite the suit. Chiquita can imagine how Ahyeon looked when she was Chiquita’s age. She’ll have to ask Dain if she has pictures from back then.
“You’re really hot,” she mutters under her breath, the words she wanted to say at the moment they first met. Though she can freely speak them now, it still feels mortifying.
“What was that? Speak up, unnie didn’t catch it,” Ahyeon teases, leaning in with a shit-eating grin. Chiquita tries to deck her and she dodges, giggling hysterically.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” Ahyeon whispers sweetly in her ear as they step out into the sun and stroll to the nearby mall. She messes up Chiquita’s ponytail again and Chiquita hides her laugh behind an offended noise, shrugging her girlfriend's frame off.
They have a wonderful date, as usual. It always feels like a relief whenever they come back to each other. Even the most desultory of conversations sparkle with magic. That’s just how it is when they’re together.
At the mall, Ahyeon says she just got her paycheck if there’s anything Chiquita needs. She isn’t rich, but spoils Chiquita egregiously. And Chiquita suspects she’d do so even if they were just friends.
She’s the most supportive partner Chiquita’s had — since they started dating and she learned Chiquita does her own music on the side outside of her major at university, Ahyeon’s listened to all her work with great interest.
After a restaurant dinner they cab to Ahyeon’s apartment, which Chiquita moved into a while back. Ahyeon had asked so hopefully, she couldn’t say no. It’s been great fun adjusting to living together.
Ahyeon pours them a nightcap and they lean against each other’s backs on the living room couch, Chiquita working on her homework and composition in turns and Ahyeon typing away on her laptop behind distractingly attractive glasses.
These laidback cozy nights, when they just vibe in each other’s company and Chiquita plays a quiet warm riff in the dim light of the standing lamp, make her chest swell sizes bigger.
Today she strums Ahyeon a snatch of a new tune — inspired by her, but Chiquita doesn’t let on — and Ahyeon smiles, taking off her glasses.
“It’s beautiful,” she says, piercing eyes flickering up to lock with Chiquita’s. Chiquita’s fingers freeze on the guitar frets, unwilling smile creeping onto her lips at Ahyeon's next words. “You’re beautiful.”
“And you’re a cornball.”
Chiquita rests her guitar on the couch and gets up, but Ahyeon pulls her into her lap with a smooth motion. She holds Chiquita down easily when she squirms.
After some more flirtatious play, Ahyeon carries her to bed where they spend the rest of the weekend between the sheets with their phones and each other, only emerging to eat and shuffle to the bathroom.
On sunday evening, Chiquita has the decency to feel ashamed of their utter indolence and drags Ahyeon to the nearby gym to work out together. She tries not to ogle her girlfriend’s toned physique as Chiquita helps her bench press.
Ahyeon pushes her up against the kitchen counter the moment they tumble back into the house.
“Babe,” Chiquita coughs on her water. “We’re all sweaty and gross.”
“Don’t care.” Ahyeon gently kisses the drying perspiration off her neck, making her lose her last thread of coherence.