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merryfuture2023-07-11 04:50 pm
staygame) wrote in merryfuture2023-07-11 04:50 pm
Entry tags:
fromis_9: the sun was in my eyes (the sun was in her smile) (2018)
the sun was in my eyes (the sun was in her smile) (ao3 link, see original work for author's notes) | fromis_9, saerom/hayoung (side saerom/gyuri), mature, 6.3k words
tags: fake/pretend relationship, alternate universe - office, no archive warnings apply
written for: nuguseyo 2018
---
In a roundabout way, it's Chaeyoung Lee's fault. It's Chaeyoung who introduces Saerom to Gyuri Jang, an advertising coordinator in a different department, at the staff holiday party. It's also Chaeyoung who leans over Saerom's shoulder at the punch bowl and whispers, "She's gay, you know."
"This office is, like, 75% women. I'm going to need you to be more specific," Saerom says, ladling herself a cup of punch. The concoction in the bowl is so neon red that it's practically glowing.
"Gyuri," Chaeyoung says. Her voice has a conspiratorial edge to it. "We had a discussion about her ex-girlfriend in the line for the bathroom. I just thought you should know. Single and only moved here a month ago"
Saerom takes a sip of punch. It smells strongly of vodka, but the taste isn't so bad going down. Across the room, Saerom spots Gyuri talking to an intern. She's pretty in a soft, sort of dopey way that feels entirely un-LA. "Must've been a long line," Saerom says.
"You know me," Chaeyoung says. "Natural conversationalist."
"Well, thank you for the heads up," Saerom says, ready to brush Chaeyoung's hints off.
Except later, she runs into Gyuri at the snack table. Gyuri looks up at Saerom with a face like she's been caught red-handed, at which point Saerom realizes that Gyuri is sneaking a napkin-wrapped cookie into her sequined clutch. "Don't judge me," she says. "These are really good cookies."
Her sheepish expression makes Saerom laugh. "I won't tell anyone," Saerom says, and then, egged on by the vodka and the voice in her head saying she's gay, you know, she adds, "unless you give me a reason to blackmail you in the future."
"Remind me to stay on your good side then," Gyuri says.
"So, I haven't seen you around before," Saerom says, taking a cookie of her own. She doesn't normally like sweets, but it really is a good cookie.
Gyuri nods. "I work in the sales department. Noh Jisun—do you know her?—she invited me. Though I haven't seen her in a while."
"She's probably trying to track down this cookie recipe," Saerom jokes. "So, is this your first time in the building then?"
"No, they gave me a quick tour on my first day but it was mostly like, 'here's where the video production teams work, hi, bye', you know?"
"Here," Saerom says, extending her hand in an invitation. Gyuri takes it, her palm warm against Saerom's. "I'll take you on a real tour. I've been here since I was an intern so I have the real scoop."
Gyuri beams at Saerom. Her front teeth are slightly crooked, turning in toward each other and giving her the appearance of a bunny. It's really cute. "Lead the way."
As they walk, Saerom gets Gyuri's brief life story. She's the same age as Saerom, from Richmond but grew up all over including South Korea. She tells Saerom about trying out for an idol audition show when she was 20. Saerom stops Gyuri in the canteen. "Oh my God. Show me a dance or something."
"No way," Gyuri protests. "Absolutely not."
Saerom sticks her bottom lip out in a pout and tugs on Gyuri's arm. "Please? Really really please?"
"I don't know why I'm giving you more ammunition for blackmail," Gyuri says, shaking her head.
Right there in the canteen between the LaCroix fridge and a coffee cart, she launches into the choreography of some girl group song that Saerom doesn't recognize. Gyuri is only half-singing, more mumbling under her breath than anything, but her voice is pleasant enough. Her expression is as sweet as can be and Saerom finds herself thoroughly charmed. She even winks at the end of a line.
When Gyuri finishes, Saerom launches into a round of applause. "I totally would've voted for you."
"Thank you," Gyuri says. Her cheeks are flushed pink with exertion. "20-year-old Gyuri appreciates your support."
After the canteen, Saerom shows Gyuri her desk ("Real talk? It's normally a lot messier."), the desk where she sat when she was an intern (now occupied by Nakyung), and the desk belonging to her closest coworker, Seoyeon. "And this is the desk where Sakura finally asked out one of the junior editors after six months of having to watch them make eyes at each other for six months."
Gyuri raises an eyebrow. "There's nothing like that happening in advertising, as far as I can tell."
"Video production is known for being kind of—" Saerom shrugs. "Incestuous."
"I see."
They continue the tour, sneaking into one of the project manager's offices before fleeing at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Saerom tells Gyuri about the time she had to try gross cocktails for someone's video concept and Gyuri forces her to pull it up on her phone. By the end of the four minutes, Gyuri is doubled over in laughter after watching Saerom's queasy expressions.
It's been almost an hour since they left the party. "And this is a conference room," Saerom says, stepping through the doorway. She feels loose and giddy, just this side of tipsy as she pulls herself up onto the conference table.
"Very conference-y," Gyuri observes.
It only takes two steps for Gyuri to reach Saerom. She places her hands on Saerom's thighs, where the hem of her dress has ridden up. Saerom parts her legs without even thinking, letting Gyuri step between them, close enough for Saerom to feel the heat radiating from her body.
"You're really cute," Saerom says, watching Gyuri's lips give way to a sweet smile. It's not like Saerom usually does these kinds of things, but she's not trying to fight it.
"That's high praise coming from someone who looks like you," Gyuri says.
Saerom bumps the back of Gyuri's thigh with her heel. "Shut up."
"Make me," Gyuri says, and Saerom tilts her head up to kiss her.
Gyuri is easy to kiss. She has a soft, warm mouth that tastes faintly of the cocktail she'd been sipping on earlier and Saerom wants to suck it off her tongue. Gyuri's hands come up around Saerom's waist, touching the bare skin where the hem of Saerom's crop top ends. In response, Saerom hooks her legs around Gyuri, pulling her in even closer.
This is not how Saerom expected her night to go. They spend a while just kissing, long enough for the motion detecting lights to go off and plunge them into darkness. Gyuri leans away to laugh and Saerom follows her movement, kissing down Gyuri's neck to her exposed collarbones.
"I wanna touch you," Saerom says.
"Yeah?" Gyuri asks.
"Yeah," Saerom says. "If you want."
Gyuri tilts her head up, giving a sly little nod that sends a shiver down Saerom's spine. "I want."
It's still dark in the room, but the hallway provides enough light for Gyuri and Saerom to change positions, with Gyuri sitting on the table and Saerom kneeling between her thighs. Saerom has just pushed the hem of Gyuri's dress up when the door to the conference room opens and the lights flicker on one at a time, like a spotlight over the table.
At once, Saerom stands while Gyuri adjusts herself, sitting up. In her scramble, Saerom's hair falls in her face and she doesn't notice who it is at the door until a familiar voice says, "I'm so sorry! I thought I left my laptop charger in here earlier."
It's Hayoung Song.
At the end of fall, Saerom had been called into a meeting with one of the higher-ups, Heechul Kim. Saerom was the last one to arrive courtesy of a traffic jam a mile from the offices and she's panting when she reaches the door of the meeting room.
"Saerom!" Heechul said, with the same kind of reckless enthusiasm he gets whenever there's a new project on the horizon. "Come on in. I believe you know everyone."
Around the table, there were a few more higher ups and three girls. Jiwon and Seoyeon both made the kind of content that got easy clicks—people eating international snacks, couples trying tantric therapy—but they were also fan favorites when they made appearances in videos. Seoyeon for her infectious laugh and Jiwon for her inherent Jiwon-ness.
And then there's Hayoung. She'd been in the next class of interns after Saerom, which means they rarely interacted. She was cute with her signature bangs and plucky smile, but Saerom probably wouldn't have even noticed her if it wasn't for the coming out video she'd taken part in. From there, Saerom couldn't stop noticing Hayoung. The way she laughed when someone made a joke, the extra bag of sweet potato chips she'd always steal from the canteen. By the time she became a junior producer last year and they ended up on the same team, Saerom's infatuation had only gotten stronger.
Not that she'd told Hayoung any of this.
The plan that Heechul shared was for their new spin-off channel, content exclusively for the lady-identified young adult.
"We want a show based on trying things out, testing new products, but driven by you as individuals," one of the seniors explains.
"We're thinking of calling it Refined," Heechul says. "Like, you know, courteous, ladylike."
"And you want the four of us?" Seoyeon asks.
Jiwon leans back in her chair, grinning. "I'm down for anything."
The day after the holiday party, Saerom wakes up feeling hungover. It's not a hangover, because as low as her tolerance is, it's not two cocktails in the span of a few hours low. It's more of a regret hangover, the image of Hayoung stumbling back through the doorway with eyes wide before rushing off playing on loop in Saerom's brain.
At work, Chaeyoung is actually hungover, slumped against the fridge when Saerom finds her in the canteen. "Who decided to have a party on a Thursday night? Can we fire them?"
"I am pretty sure you, as an intern, cannot fire anyone," Saerom says, pulling down a coffee mug. It's a French vanilla kind of morning, she decides.
"I'm writing a strongly worded letter," Chaeyoung says. "After I take a nap standing up."
While Saerom is fiddling with the coffee machine, Hayoung comes in, carrying a guitar case on her back and a stack of folders in her arms. She stops when she sees Saerom, making a little gasping noise that sounds all too familiar after last night.
"I am so, so sorry," Hayoung says, setting her folders down so she can hug Saerom's arm. "I didn't mean to walk in on you guys."
"I know you didn't mean to," Saerom says. Her face is hot and she can't look up from her coffee. "I'm sorry that you had to see it."
Hayoung gives Saerom's arm another squeeze then lets go. "I didn't know you and Gyuri were dating. How long have you been seeing each other?"
Behind them, Chaeyoung barks out a laugh.
See, the worst part about Hayoung being the one to walk in Saerom about to go down on Gyuri (on top of a table, in a public place no less) isn't just Saerom's crush. It's the conversation that the Refined team had just a week ago where Hayoung had said, very decisively, "I'm not into hookup culture."
"Man, if it wasn't for Tinder, I'd never get laid," Jiwon had replied. She looked between the other girls at the table. "Does that sound ho-ish?"
"No!" Hayoung said quickly, waving both of her hands. "It's not like I judge other people for it. I'm just kind of an old-school romantic, I guess. I want to get to know someone and like them before we get intimate. And I want someone to feel the same way about me, you know? I guess that makes me sound prude-ish."
Standing in the kitchen, with Hayoung's innocent gaze directed at her, Saerom panics. "Just a few weeks. It's a pretty new relationship."
Hayoung smiles. "Well, I hope we see her around more! By the way, team meeting in ten minutes?"
"See you there," Saerom says, making an awkward saluting gesture.
There are ten seconds of silence as Hayoung walks off and then Chaeyoung downright shrieks with laughter. Saerom grabs her by the arm and places a hand over her mouth. "Do not say a word."
🎥
"Can I speak to Gyuri Jang?"
"She's in a meeting right now," the receptionist says, "Can I take a message?"
"It's an emergency," Saerom says. Chaeyoung laughs silently, biting down on her fist.
Gyuri is out of breath when she answers the phone. "This is Gyuri Jang. Is everything okay?"
"Hi, it's Saerom."
They hadn't talked about it last night. After Hayoung had scurried away, Gyuri just fixed her mussed hair and apologized for being careless. Then they went in separate directions, Gyuri presumably back to the party and Saerom to her desk, where she waited 30 minutes to avoid potentially seeing Hayoung before calling a ride home. Saerom doesn't even have Gyuri's cell phone number.
"Saerom, are you okay? Are you in trouble or anything?" Gyuri asks, the concern in her voice audible.
"Everything is fine," Saerom says. She clenches her teeth together before speaking. "I just have a really big favor to ask you. Also, Chaeyoung is in here, because she was a witness."
Saerom presents her knee-jerk idea to salvage Hayoung's impression of her. She and Gyuri will pretend like they are dating, just long enough for it to seem like a respectable relationship for the both of them before they break up. "A couple weeks tops," Saerom says. "All you have to do is take some Instagram photos with me and meet me over here for lunch sometimes. Would you be willing to do that?"
"You know, this is really kind of a bad idea," Chaeyoung whispers to Saerom.
"You must really like this girl," says Gyuri. "Why haven't you asked her out yet?"
Saerom twirls the phone's cord between her fingers, sighing. "At first, I was just shy and we were getting to know each other. I didn't think she would like me. Now we're working on the same project and there just. Hasn't been a good time. But I don't want her to write me off completely."
"A few weeks?" Gyuri repeats. "I can do a few weeks."
"You're my hero," Saerom says. "You're the wind beneath my wings, seriously."
She barely makes it to the meeting on time, settling into her seat right at the 10:00 AM mark. When Saerom catches Hayoung's eye across the table, it's hard to ignore the rush of guilt in her stomach. This a temporary solution, she thinks. What Hayoung doesn't know won't hurt her.
Saerom Lee: do you have a preferred pet name for my phone?
Gyuri Jang: "gyuri"
Saerom Lee: too late, i'm already changing it to puppy eyes
Gyuri Jang: puppy eyes??
Saerom Lee: haven't you ever seen the meme?
Saerom Lee: [image attached]
Saerom Lee: you look just like that
Gyuri Jang: ...
Refined's first project ("Our debut," Soyeon prefers to call it, always accompanied by a hair flip) is given the working title Women Try a Team Building Ropes Course. At the planning meeting, the team had thrown out various ideas, ranging from learning to sew their own clothes to discussing their first kisses. "So the series can be about anything, really?" Saerom had asked. "'Ladies do whatever.'"
"Exactly," Heechul said. "It's not a unified video concept that will get people to watch. We want people to keep tuning in for your personalities."
For the first episode, they decide on something with some action. One of the producers, Jisun, pulls up the webpage for a high ropes course aimed at corporate retreats and church groups, more team building than actual challenge. Saerom can easily envision the clickbait thumbnail of one of them wearing a scared impression, but she hopes there will be less cheap thrills in the actual video. At the very least, nothing gets viewers interested like being able to watch someone freak the fuck out. The place they've picked out is more than a two-hour drive out of Los Angeles and will require as much daylight as possible for shooting, which means it's going to be a long day.
Saerom watches the promotional video for the course with her hands covering her eyes. "Did I mention I am afraid of heights?"
"I don't think I'm strong enough for that," Seoyeon says.
Chaeyoung informs them that she will quit if they make her assist in this shoot.
But Saerom has tried the world's spiciest curry, had snakes give her a massage, and shared a secret with her mother, all for the sake of videos. Nothing can be worse than ugly-sobbing into her glass of milk in front of half a dozen people. Probably.
They leave Los Angeles at six in the morning, split between Natasha's Prius and Jiwon's sedan. Saerom falls asleep twenty minutes after departing and doesn't wake up again until Natasha honks her horn at an SUV trying to cut her off. Next to Saerom, Hayoung has her headphones in and she's singing under her breath, head resting against the window.
"What are you listening to?" Saerom asks. Her throat is scratchy with disuse and the question comes out mumbled.
Hayoung tilts her head in Saerom's direction. "Is it vain to say that it's my own song? I'm still working on it."
"Can I hear it?" Saerom asks.
"Not yet," Hayoung says. "It's not ready for public consumption."
Saerom leans across the empty middle seat, blinking her lashes at Hayoung. "I promise I give excellent feedback."
"Ask me again in two weeks," Hayoung says.
They talk about music for the next twenty miles, with Natasha and an intern, Nakyung, weighing in occasionally from the front seat. Hayoung puts out songs on YouTube, mostly covers but some of her own creations. She's even done a few songs for some of the original dramatic content other producers have created. As it turns out, Saerom is the only non-musical outlier on the Refined team.
"So, how did you and Gyuri meet?" Hayoung asks.
The turn in conversation catches Saerom by surprise and she stumbles over her words. "Um, through a friend?"
Saerom should be more prepared than this. She has an email in her outbox sent to gyuljang@gmail.com with the subject line important backstory details for a reason. She adds, "Through Chaeyoung, the intern?"
"Well, you guys look cute together," Hayoung says, giving Saerom an enthusiastic nod.
Saerom can only respond with a smile and a nod. She turns her head to the window, watching the scenery pass.
🎥
"Our producer and Hayoung are the only ones looking forward to going up in the air," Seoyeon says, turning the camera toward Hayoung and Jisun, who each give an enthusiastic thumbs up as ropes course crew fit them into harnesses.
Jiwon pretends to hold a microphone up to Hayoung. "Hayoung Song, I heard a rumor that you once cried when you had to kill a spider."
Hayoung stomps her foot down against the dirt. "That's different! He might have had a family or something. I'm not scared right now. I want to win more than anything else."
"Ya, it's not a competition," Seoyeon points out. "It's team building. There's no winners."
"There's always a winner," Hayoung says with such resolve that it makes the staff member clipping on her harness laugh.
To get up to the ropes course, they have to start with a ladder made from wooden logs. Each step gets further apart, to the point that, at the top, the gap between is taller than any of the girls. "The Giant's Ladder requires you to work together to make it to the top. You must rely on each other's strengths and communicate well to make it work," their instructor explains.
They all make it up the first few steps alone. The logs are held together by only thin wires and the structure wobbles precariously with every movement, which makes even the first climb feel more difficult than it has any right to be. Seoyeon grumbles about her lack of muscles the entire time, but they make it up halfway before they're faced with a rung of the ladder none of them can reach on their own.
Maybe it's because she's the oldest or she's the one who's been at the company the longest, but Saerom finds herself calling the shots. "Jiwon can go up first. We need someone to help pull Seoyeon up." She looks at Seoyeon. "No offense."
"None taken. I know that I have the arm strength of a wet noodle."
"Then Hayoung can go up, then you'll all help me up?"
"Aye, captain!" Hayoung says, saluting.
It takes more than 20 minutes to get to the top. In all of the chaos, Saerom didn't think to be scared or look down at the ground, but when she has to cross over to the platform for the next activity, it's hard to miss the distance to the ground. Her knees go weak instantly, but Hayoung is suddenly right there behind her, as though she sensed the change in Saerom's composure even before it happened.
"You got this," she says. The words steady her.
Over the next few hours, they make it through a variety of obstacles. The hardest requires two of them to stand across from each other on thin ropes, with only their joined hands for balance as they make it to the other side. Saerom is paired with Seoyeon and they almost go down at least three times, so stretched out by the distance between the ropes that they're nearly parallel with the ground. When they reach the end, Saerom squeezes Seoyeon so tight that she lifts her off the platform.
"You're amazing, Romsae," Seoyeon says.
In that moment, Saerom feels like she could accomplish anything. All of that courage leaves her not long after, when they're faced with the final activity.
"This is the Leap of Faith," the instructor explains. They're on the ground now, which should make Saerom feel better, but she's looking up at a telephone pole that goes straight up in the air with only hand and foot holds to support the climb. The whole structure is more narrow around than a tree trunk and there's nowhere to turn around when you reach the top. To get down, they'll somehow have to get onto the top of the pole and jump toward a trapeze bar in the center of this clearing. It seems impossible.
Even Hayoung is scared. They send her up first and Saerom can hear the whimpering sounds she makes until she's out of earshot. But she does it, pulling herself onto the top of the pole one foot at a time, gripping her rope for balance. "Refined team, I love you!" she shouts before she jumps.
Watching Seoyeon and Jiwon go before her should make Saerom feel better, but by the time it's her turn, Saerom is holding back tears. "I'm sorry," she tells the other girls. Jiwon, fresh from her own jump, is still breathing hard when she pulls Saerom into a hug.
"You don't have to do it," she tells Saerom. "But we'll be down here rooting for you the whole time if you do."
"Me crying is going to be the thumbnail, isn't it?" Saerom asks.
Jisun nods solemnly.
Saerom takes a shaky breath, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Fuck it," she says. "Let's do it."
For the first 20 feet, Saerom doesn't focus on anything beyond the movements of her hands and feet, the repetition carrying her up the pole. It's when her foot misses a step, just a tiny bit more to the left than she's expecting, that the climb starts to go awry. Saerom starts to fall, the change in balance getting to her, but the grip of her hands on the holds is strong enough to keep her from falling. The dizzying height seems more obvious now that Saerom isn't focused and it feels like she's misplaced gravity. She tries to breathe through it.
From the ground, she can hear Jiwon's shrieks of encouragement, Seoyeon's raspy cheers, the male instructor's deep voice shouting at her to just keep moving. Natasha, Hayoung, and the other team member are chanting, "Saerom Lee! Saerom Lee!"
One step after another, Saerom reaches the top. It takes some maneuvering to get herself from the pole to the top of it, having to host herself over it in a strange kind of straddle, but after a while, she makes it. This presents a new challenge. The leap of faith. The trapeze bar seems impossibly far from her, more than an arm's length away. If she misses, Saerom rationalizes, it's not as though she'll hit the ground—either way, she's got to get down—but she would much rather it be on her own terms than falling through the air until her harness catches her.
"I'm doing it!" she shouts. "Refined team, I love you guys."
The jump itself is a blur, but in that instant, the only thing Saerom can hear through the chorus of cheers is Hayoung, loud and clear.
The advantage of pretending to date Gyuri is that she's a pretty cool person. She's upbeat and naturally charming, already on a first name basis with the receptionists after just a few lunchtime visits to the media building. Despite her cheerful personality, Gyuri is tougher than she looks. When they're out for coffee one afternoon and a fratty looking man yells out something obscene at them, Gyuri responds so sternly that Saerom can practically feel the guy shrinking back into his snapback.
Gyuri rolls with the punches. When Saerom suggests they take a picture for Instagram, Gyuri dutifully poses until Saerom selects the best one. When Saerom sees Hayoung coming around the corner and reaches for Gyuri's hand, Gyuri strokes a thumb over Saerom's knuckles. It's not hard for Saerom to act as though she likes Gyuri, which only makes Saerom feel worse about her lies.
"Why are you putting up with all of this?" she asks when Gyuri brings her fresh plums at lunch, a surprise treat. "You're being way too nice to me."
"Honestly? I haven't really made that many friends since I moved here," Gyuri says, shrugging.
Saerom shares the plums with the rest of her team, but the ones she takes home sit on her kitchen counter for the rest of the week. Every time she looks at them, she can feel their weight like the heavy weight of shame.
"Am I an asshole?" she asks Chaeyoung the next day.
"Yeah, kind of," Chaeyoung says, and coming from her, the girl who doesn't sugarcoat anything, Saerom knows it must be true.
After a half-dozen published videos, it might be too early to call Refined a total success, but the response is good. Their views are better than expected and each video has gotten close to a thousand comments (mostly positive, with a few scattered complaints, probably from teenage boys who resent the idea of four women doing something without any men). The team building seems to have done its job, because they work well together. Their group chat is constantly being updated with new ideas and they have a backlog of plans for easier videos to keep their update schedule consistent.
This is how Hayoung and Jiwon end up on the couch in one of the available stages, Jiwon holding Hayoung's phone. "Today," Jiwon announces, "we're going through Hayoung's search history. Is she as innocent as she looks? Stay tuned to find out."
Saerom is sitting against the wall in the back of the set with her laptop propped up on an abandoned crate. She'll be using the space with Seoyeon to film a Hogwarts sorting quiz video later, so for now she's working on the loose odds and ends of another project.
"How to twerk," Jiwon reads off, barely getting through the last word before she and Hayoung both collapse in laughter. Behind the camera, Nakyung struggles to keep her amusement quiet, slapping an arm against Jisun.
"I can explain," Hayoung says breathlessly. "I was practicing this dance choreography with my friend and neither of us could get—stop laughing at me!"
"You have to show us!" Seoyeon shouts from the other side of the room.
Hayoung immediately puts her hands up, shaking her head. "I can't! I really can't!"
When the entire room joins in chanting Do it! Do it! Do it!, Hayoung gives in and performs a brief attempt a twerk before falling to the floor, hysterical.
Some of the other highlights from Hayoung's phone include searching about Constance Wu's potential husband ("I just wanted to know!"), pictures of kittens, and hairstyles without bangs. Saerom has mostly tuned out the conversation at this point, but when she hears Jiwon ask, incredulously, "You searched 'how to tell if you like someone?'"
Saerom looks up to see Hayoung covering her face with a pillow, shrieking into the fabric. When she lowers it, her face is bright red. "You don't know how hard queer women have it," she insists. "It's not easy to tell if you like someone as a friend or because you want to date them."
Jiwon grabs Hayoung around the arm, jostling her with such force that Hayoung's brain is probably rattling around in her skull. "Hayoungie has a crush."
"Maybe," Hayoung says, "but she's taken, anyway."
"It doesn't matter, we're going to get you a woman," Jiwon says.
Next to Saerom, Seoyeon nudges her with an elbow. Saerom has frozen with her fingers poised over the home row keys, cursor on her screen blinking at her from the end of a half-typed email subject line. "Are you okay?" Seoyeon asks.
Saerom shakes her head, as if she can physically shake out the words looping around in her mind. "I'm fine," she says, "just lost my train of thought."
"Hayoung said she has a crush on someone who is taken, what do you think that means?"
Chaeyoung looks up from her yogurt and spoon, narrowing her eyes at Saerom as though she is confused by the question. This is, of course, an act. "It means she has a crush on someone who is taken."
Saerom drops her down onto her keyboard. "But do you think that means she likes me? I feel like we've been getting closer lately. Have you noticed?"
"I don't know, it's not like I'm only paying attention to you two when I'm working."
"I'm going to ask Gyuri," Saerom says. "Maybe she'll be more help than you."
Chaeyoung's laugh is short and obnoxious. "Good idea. Ask your fake girlfriend whether your crush likes you back."
"It's not like that," Saerom says, but it is. She'd never thought of herself as a particularly selfish person, but she'd been only thinking of herself when she came up with this plan. "I think I fucked up."
"I told you it was a bad plan," Chaeyoung says.
Saerom groans into her keyboard.
Gyuri has already ordered a coffee by the time that Saerom arrives, shoes wet and squelching loudly on the tile from a rare Southern California rain. It fits the mood.
"I want to break up," Saerom spits out. "I mean, fake break up. You know."
"I kind of gathered that from your text. 'Can we talk?' is never a good thing," Gyuri says. She smiles, all crooked front teeth and half-moon eyes. There's a part of Saerom that wants to take it back, even if it isn't real, because the idea of hurting Gyuri feels a lot like kicking a puppy.
Still, Saerom is happy that Gyuri isn't just walking out. "I shouldn't have even asked you, I just panicked and it seemed like a good idea at the time. It seriously wasn't fair for me to use you for "
"It's fine," Gyuri says. She reaches across the table for Saerom's hand, just like she'd done the week before. "It wasn't my shortest or fakest relationship." When Saerom raises an eyebrow, she explains, "I had a beard in college for, like, a week before I gave up on the idea."
"Well, I'm glad we made it to three weeks at least." Saerom squeezes Gyuri's hand, fingers warm in her grasp "We're still going to be friends. You can't get rid of me that easily."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
They share a slice of cheesecake, because Saerom insists that just because it's not a real breakup doesn't mean they don't get to binge on sweets. At the door, Gyuri stops Saerom before she can make a run for it in the rain. "I am rooting for you. With Hayoung. Just so you know."
Faking a breakup is the easy part. There's no Facebook status to change, no tokens of affection to purge from her desk. Saerom passes the word to Chaeyoung and Nakyung and between the two of them, it should reach the rest of the office before lunch.
The hard part is figuring out how to tell Hayoung. Because Saerom has to tell her, even if they're never more than friends. Saerom can't just pretend as though the lie is over and done with now.
She doesn't see Hayoung for most of the day. Hayoung is filming on location for a project that Haein is working on and Saerom is still catching up on overdue editing at her desk. It's not until the afternoon that Hayoung returns, arms full of props for an upcoming Refined video. When she asks if someone would be willing to help her carry them down to the stage, Saerom jumps at the opportunity to be alone with her.
Even being off campus, the day's gossip has still made it around to Hayoung. "Are you okay?" she asks when they're out of earshot of the desks.
"I'm fine," Saerom says. "How was your shoot?"
It takes the entire five minute walk for Hayoung to get through her recap of the day and how Jina looked like she was going to die when the specialist brought out the first snake. When they reach the stage, Saerom cuts her off.
"Actually, I have something to talk to you about."
Hayoung's face falls from pleasant to concerned almost immediately. "Is it about the breakup?"
"Yeah," Saerom says. "But not for the reasons you think. Should we sit?"
Except someone has taken the couch in the last 12 hours. They sit on two overturned crates, knees touching, and Saerom lets her words spill out before she can lose her courage. "We weren't really dating. Gyuri and I. We were just pretending to date."
There is a pause. Saerom watches Hayoung's eyebrows pinch together, the understanding dawning in her expression. Hayoung asks, "I don't understand, why would you pretend?"
"Remember when you walked in on us?" Saerom asks. She's focusing on her fingers twisting around a loose string on her ripped jeans, anything to avoid Hayoung. "I didn't want you to judge me, so I thought that if I said we were dating, you would understand and you wouldn't think less of me."
"Saerom, I would never think less of you. What made you think that?"
"You remember that conversation we had with Jiwon about Tinder, like, two months ago?"
Hayoung stands up, her crate toppling over behind her. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry I made you feel bad. I was only talking about me! I didn't mean it like that."
"I know you didn't." Saerom looks up at Hayoung now. She's done this before. Her first ever confession, back in her senior year of high school, that was tinged with its own flavor of guilt. The girl she dated for a year and a half in college. Her first fling in LA. And those weren't the only leaps of faith—she's jumped off a fucking ledge. "I just really wanted to be the kind of girl you said you liked. I didn't think far enough ahead to realize that I was being a jerk to be that girl."
Saerom has taken the leap, but she doesn't know where she's landed. Not when Hayoung's mouth rounds into a perfect 'o' of surprise, not even when her lips stretch into a smile, her teeth too big for her mouth. It's when Hayoung says, "You like me?" that Saerom's feet touch the ground.
"I have for a while," Saerom admits. She stands so that they are at eye level again. "I know I fucked up and I know you said you have a crush so-"
Hayoung smacks her hand against Saerom's shoulder, not any harder than Seoyeon or Jiwon when they're laughing, but it's not the kind of reaction that Saerom is expecting. "Why did you lie to me? If you had just told me this would have been so much easier!"
"What would've been easier? Are you crying?"
"Shut up," Hayoung says. "I'm trying to tell you that I like you."
"You should have told me!" Saerom says. God, now she's tearing up too.
"No, you should've told me first!" Hayoung says.
This time when Hayoung shoves her, Saerom catches her arm, pulling Hayoung in close to her chest. It's easy, as though they're meant to fit together like this. Hayoung with her face tucked against Saerom and Saerom with her arms around Hayoung's shoulders. "Just to clarify, this is a real dating situation, right?" Hayoung asks.
Saerom cranes her head back far enough for Hayoung to see her roll her eyes. "I think I've had enough fake dating. Only real dating from here on out."
"Just checking," Hayoung says, then she tilts her head up to kiss Saerom.
🎥
tags: fake/pretend relationship, alternate universe - office, no archive warnings apply
written for: nuguseyo 2018
---
In a roundabout way, it's Chaeyoung Lee's fault. It's Chaeyoung who introduces Saerom to Gyuri Jang, an advertising coordinator in a different department, at the staff holiday party. It's also Chaeyoung who leans over Saerom's shoulder at the punch bowl and whispers, "She's gay, you know."
"This office is, like, 75% women. I'm going to need you to be more specific," Saerom says, ladling herself a cup of punch. The concoction in the bowl is so neon red that it's practically glowing.
"Gyuri," Chaeyoung says. Her voice has a conspiratorial edge to it. "We had a discussion about her ex-girlfriend in the line for the bathroom. I just thought you should know. Single and only moved here a month ago"
Saerom takes a sip of punch. It smells strongly of vodka, but the taste isn't so bad going down. Across the room, Saerom spots Gyuri talking to an intern. She's pretty in a soft, sort of dopey way that feels entirely un-LA. "Must've been a long line," Saerom says.
"You know me," Chaeyoung says. "Natural conversationalist."
"Well, thank you for the heads up," Saerom says, ready to brush Chaeyoung's hints off.
Except later, she runs into Gyuri at the snack table. Gyuri looks up at Saerom with a face like she's been caught red-handed, at which point Saerom realizes that Gyuri is sneaking a napkin-wrapped cookie into her sequined clutch. "Don't judge me," she says. "These are really good cookies."
Her sheepish expression makes Saerom laugh. "I won't tell anyone," Saerom says, and then, egged on by the vodka and the voice in her head saying she's gay, you know, she adds, "unless you give me a reason to blackmail you in the future."
"Remind me to stay on your good side then," Gyuri says.
"So, I haven't seen you around before," Saerom says, taking a cookie of her own. She doesn't normally like sweets, but it really is a good cookie.
Gyuri nods. "I work in the sales department. Noh Jisun—do you know her?—she invited me. Though I haven't seen her in a while."
"She's probably trying to track down this cookie recipe," Saerom jokes. "So, is this your first time in the building then?"
"No, they gave me a quick tour on my first day but it was mostly like, 'here's where the video production teams work, hi, bye', you know?"
"Here," Saerom says, extending her hand in an invitation. Gyuri takes it, her palm warm against Saerom's. "I'll take you on a real tour. I've been here since I was an intern so I have the real scoop."
Gyuri beams at Saerom. Her front teeth are slightly crooked, turning in toward each other and giving her the appearance of a bunny. It's really cute. "Lead the way."
As they walk, Saerom gets Gyuri's brief life story. She's the same age as Saerom, from Richmond but grew up all over including South Korea. She tells Saerom about trying out for an idol audition show when she was 20. Saerom stops Gyuri in the canteen. "Oh my God. Show me a dance or something."
"No way," Gyuri protests. "Absolutely not."
Saerom sticks her bottom lip out in a pout and tugs on Gyuri's arm. "Please? Really really please?"
"I don't know why I'm giving you more ammunition for blackmail," Gyuri says, shaking her head.
Right there in the canteen between the LaCroix fridge and a coffee cart, she launches into the choreography of some girl group song that Saerom doesn't recognize. Gyuri is only half-singing, more mumbling under her breath than anything, but her voice is pleasant enough. Her expression is as sweet as can be and Saerom finds herself thoroughly charmed. She even winks at the end of a line.
When Gyuri finishes, Saerom launches into a round of applause. "I totally would've voted for you."
"Thank you," Gyuri says. Her cheeks are flushed pink with exertion. "20-year-old Gyuri appreciates your support."
After the canteen, Saerom shows Gyuri her desk ("Real talk? It's normally a lot messier."), the desk where she sat when she was an intern (now occupied by Nakyung), and the desk belonging to her closest coworker, Seoyeon. "And this is the desk where Sakura finally asked out one of the junior editors after six months of having to watch them make eyes at each other for six months."
Gyuri raises an eyebrow. "There's nothing like that happening in advertising, as far as I can tell."
"Video production is known for being kind of—" Saerom shrugs. "Incestuous."
"I see."
They continue the tour, sneaking into one of the project manager's offices before fleeing at the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Saerom tells Gyuri about the time she had to try gross cocktails for someone's video concept and Gyuri forces her to pull it up on her phone. By the end of the four minutes, Gyuri is doubled over in laughter after watching Saerom's queasy expressions.
It's been almost an hour since they left the party. "And this is a conference room," Saerom says, stepping through the doorway. She feels loose and giddy, just this side of tipsy as she pulls herself up onto the conference table.
"Very conference-y," Gyuri observes.
It only takes two steps for Gyuri to reach Saerom. She places her hands on Saerom's thighs, where the hem of her dress has ridden up. Saerom parts her legs without even thinking, letting Gyuri step between them, close enough for Saerom to feel the heat radiating from her body.
"You're really cute," Saerom says, watching Gyuri's lips give way to a sweet smile. It's not like Saerom usually does these kinds of things, but she's not trying to fight it.
"That's high praise coming from someone who looks like you," Gyuri says.
Saerom bumps the back of Gyuri's thigh with her heel. "Shut up."
"Make me," Gyuri says, and Saerom tilts her head up to kiss her.
Gyuri is easy to kiss. She has a soft, warm mouth that tastes faintly of the cocktail she'd been sipping on earlier and Saerom wants to suck it off her tongue. Gyuri's hands come up around Saerom's waist, touching the bare skin where the hem of Saerom's crop top ends. In response, Saerom hooks her legs around Gyuri, pulling her in even closer.
This is not how Saerom expected her night to go. They spend a while just kissing, long enough for the motion detecting lights to go off and plunge them into darkness. Gyuri leans away to laugh and Saerom follows her movement, kissing down Gyuri's neck to her exposed collarbones.
"I wanna touch you," Saerom says.
"Yeah?" Gyuri asks.
"Yeah," Saerom says. "If you want."
Gyuri tilts her head up, giving a sly little nod that sends a shiver down Saerom's spine. "I want."
It's still dark in the room, but the hallway provides enough light for Gyuri and Saerom to change positions, with Gyuri sitting on the table and Saerom kneeling between her thighs. Saerom has just pushed the hem of Gyuri's dress up when the door to the conference room opens and the lights flicker on one at a time, like a spotlight over the table.
At once, Saerom stands while Gyuri adjusts herself, sitting up. In her scramble, Saerom's hair falls in her face and she doesn't notice who it is at the door until a familiar voice says, "I'm so sorry! I thought I left my laptop charger in here earlier."
It's Hayoung Song.
At the end of fall, Saerom had been called into a meeting with one of the higher-ups, Heechul Kim. Saerom was the last one to arrive courtesy of a traffic jam a mile from the offices and she's panting when she reaches the door of the meeting room.
"Saerom!" Heechul said, with the same kind of reckless enthusiasm he gets whenever there's a new project on the horizon. "Come on in. I believe you know everyone."
Around the table, there were a few more higher ups and three girls. Jiwon and Seoyeon both made the kind of content that got easy clicks—people eating international snacks, couples trying tantric therapy—but they were also fan favorites when they made appearances in videos. Seoyeon for her infectious laugh and Jiwon for her inherent Jiwon-ness.
And then there's Hayoung. She'd been in the next class of interns after Saerom, which means they rarely interacted. She was cute with her signature bangs and plucky smile, but Saerom probably wouldn't have even noticed her if it wasn't for the coming out video she'd taken part in. From there, Saerom couldn't stop noticing Hayoung. The way she laughed when someone made a joke, the extra bag of sweet potato chips she'd always steal from the canteen. By the time she became a junior producer last year and they ended up on the same team, Saerom's infatuation had only gotten stronger.
Not that she'd told Hayoung any of this.
The plan that Heechul shared was for their new spin-off channel, content exclusively for the lady-identified young adult.
"We want a show based on trying things out, testing new products, but driven by you as individuals," one of the seniors explains.
"We're thinking of calling it Refined," Heechul says. "Like, you know, courteous, ladylike."
"And you want the four of us?" Seoyeon asks.
Jiwon leans back in her chair, grinning. "I'm down for anything."
The day after the holiday party, Saerom wakes up feeling hungover. It's not a hangover, because as low as her tolerance is, it's not two cocktails in the span of a few hours low. It's more of a regret hangover, the image of Hayoung stumbling back through the doorway with eyes wide before rushing off playing on loop in Saerom's brain.
At work, Chaeyoung is actually hungover, slumped against the fridge when Saerom finds her in the canteen. "Who decided to have a party on a Thursday night? Can we fire them?"
"I am pretty sure you, as an intern, cannot fire anyone," Saerom says, pulling down a coffee mug. It's a French vanilla kind of morning, she decides.
"I'm writing a strongly worded letter," Chaeyoung says. "After I take a nap standing up."
While Saerom is fiddling with the coffee machine, Hayoung comes in, carrying a guitar case on her back and a stack of folders in her arms. She stops when she sees Saerom, making a little gasping noise that sounds all too familiar after last night.
"I am so, so sorry," Hayoung says, setting her folders down so she can hug Saerom's arm. "I didn't mean to walk in on you guys."
"I know you didn't mean to," Saerom says. Her face is hot and she can't look up from her coffee. "I'm sorry that you had to see it."
Hayoung gives Saerom's arm another squeeze then lets go. "I didn't know you and Gyuri were dating. How long have you been seeing each other?"
Behind them, Chaeyoung barks out a laugh.
See, the worst part about Hayoung being the one to walk in Saerom about to go down on Gyuri (on top of a table, in a public place no less) isn't just Saerom's crush. It's the conversation that the Refined team had just a week ago where Hayoung had said, very decisively, "I'm not into hookup culture."
"Man, if it wasn't for Tinder, I'd never get laid," Jiwon had replied. She looked between the other girls at the table. "Does that sound ho-ish?"
"No!" Hayoung said quickly, waving both of her hands. "It's not like I judge other people for it. I'm just kind of an old-school romantic, I guess. I want to get to know someone and like them before we get intimate. And I want someone to feel the same way about me, you know? I guess that makes me sound prude-ish."
Standing in the kitchen, with Hayoung's innocent gaze directed at her, Saerom panics. "Just a few weeks. It's a pretty new relationship."
Hayoung smiles. "Well, I hope we see her around more! By the way, team meeting in ten minutes?"
"See you there," Saerom says, making an awkward saluting gesture.
There are ten seconds of silence as Hayoung walks off and then Chaeyoung downright shrieks with laughter. Saerom grabs her by the arm and places a hand over her mouth. "Do not say a word."
🎥
"Can I speak to Gyuri Jang?"
"She's in a meeting right now," the receptionist says, "Can I take a message?"
"It's an emergency," Saerom says. Chaeyoung laughs silently, biting down on her fist.
Gyuri is out of breath when she answers the phone. "This is Gyuri Jang. Is everything okay?"
"Hi, it's Saerom."
They hadn't talked about it last night. After Hayoung had scurried away, Gyuri just fixed her mussed hair and apologized for being careless. Then they went in separate directions, Gyuri presumably back to the party and Saerom to her desk, where she waited 30 minutes to avoid potentially seeing Hayoung before calling a ride home. Saerom doesn't even have Gyuri's cell phone number.
"Saerom, are you okay? Are you in trouble or anything?" Gyuri asks, the concern in her voice audible.
"Everything is fine," Saerom says. She clenches her teeth together before speaking. "I just have a really big favor to ask you. Also, Chaeyoung is in here, because she was a witness."
Saerom presents her knee-jerk idea to salvage Hayoung's impression of her. She and Gyuri will pretend like they are dating, just long enough for it to seem like a respectable relationship for the both of them before they break up. "A couple weeks tops," Saerom says. "All you have to do is take some Instagram photos with me and meet me over here for lunch sometimes. Would you be willing to do that?"
"You know, this is really kind of a bad idea," Chaeyoung whispers to Saerom.
"You must really like this girl," says Gyuri. "Why haven't you asked her out yet?"
Saerom twirls the phone's cord between her fingers, sighing. "At first, I was just shy and we were getting to know each other. I didn't think she would like me. Now we're working on the same project and there just. Hasn't been a good time. But I don't want her to write me off completely."
"A few weeks?" Gyuri repeats. "I can do a few weeks."
"You're my hero," Saerom says. "You're the wind beneath my wings, seriously."
She barely makes it to the meeting on time, settling into her seat right at the 10:00 AM mark. When Saerom catches Hayoung's eye across the table, it's hard to ignore the rush of guilt in her stomach. This a temporary solution, she thinks. What Hayoung doesn't know won't hurt her.
Saerom Lee: do you have a preferred pet name for my phone?
Gyuri Jang: "gyuri"
Saerom Lee: too late, i'm already changing it to puppy eyes
Gyuri Jang: puppy eyes??
Saerom Lee: haven't you ever seen the meme?
Saerom Lee: [image attached]
Saerom Lee: you look just like that
Gyuri Jang: ...
Refined's first project ("Our debut," Soyeon prefers to call it, always accompanied by a hair flip) is given the working title Women Try a Team Building Ropes Course. At the planning meeting, the team had thrown out various ideas, ranging from learning to sew their own clothes to discussing their first kisses. "So the series can be about anything, really?" Saerom had asked. "'Ladies do whatever.'"
"Exactly," Heechul said. "It's not a unified video concept that will get people to watch. We want people to keep tuning in for your personalities."
For the first episode, they decide on something with some action. One of the producers, Jisun, pulls up the webpage for a high ropes course aimed at corporate retreats and church groups, more team building than actual challenge. Saerom can easily envision the clickbait thumbnail of one of them wearing a scared impression, but she hopes there will be less cheap thrills in the actual video. At the very least, nothing gets viewers interested like being able to watch someone freak the fuck out. The place they've picked out is more than a two-hour drive out of Los Angeles and will require as much daylight as possible for shooting, which means it's going to be a long day.
Saerom watches the promotional video for the course with her hands covering her eyes. "Did I mention I am afraid of heights?"
"I don't think I'm strong enough for that," Seoyeon says.
Chaeyoung informs them that she will quit if they make her assist in this shoot.
But Saerom has tried the world's spiciest curry, had snakes give her a massage, and shared a secret with her mother, all for the sake of videos. Nothing can be worse than ugly-sobbing into her glass of milk in front of half a dozen people. Probably.
They leave Los Angeles at six in the morning, split between Natasha's Prius and Jiwon's sedan. Saerom falls asleep twenty minutes after departing and doesn't wake up again until Natasha honks her horn at an SUV trying to cut her off. Next to Saerom, Hayoung has her headphones in and she's singing under her breath, head resting against the window.
"What are you listening to?" Saerom asks. Her throat is scratchy with disuse and the question comes out mumbled.
Hayoung tilts her head in Saerom's direction. "Is it vain to say that it's my own song? I'm still working on it."
"Can I hear it?" Saerom asks.
"Not yet," Hayoung says. "It's not ready for public consumption."
Saerom leans across the empty middle seat, blinking her lashes at Hayoung. "I promise I give excellent feedback."
"Ask me again in two weeks," Hayoung says.
They talk about music for the next twenty miles, with Natasha and an intern, Nakyung, weighing in occasionally from the front seat. Hayoung puts out songs on YouTube, mostly covers but some of her own creations. She's even done a few songs for some of the original dramatic content other producers have created. As it turns out, Saerom is the only non-musical outlier on the Refined team.
"So, how did you and Gyuri meet?" Hayoung asks.
The turn in conversation catches Saerom by surprise and she stumbles over her words. "Um, through a friend?"
Saerom should be more prepared than this. She has an email in her outbox sent to gyuljang@gmail.com with the subject line important backstory details for a reason. She adds, "Through Chaeyoung, the intern?"
"Well, you guys look cute together," Hayoung says, giving Saerom an enthusiastic nod.
Saerom can only respond with a smile and a nod. She turns her head to the window, watching the scenery pass.
🎥
"Our producer and Hayoung are the only ones looking forward to going up in the air," Seoyeon says, turning the camera toward Hayoung and Jisun, who each give an enthusiastic thumbs up as ropes course crew fit them into harnesses.
Jiwon pretends to hold a microphone up to Hayoung. "Hayoung Song, I heard a rumor that you once cried when you had to kill a spider."
Hayoung stomps her foot down against the dirt. "That's different! He might have had a family or something. I'm not scared right now. I want to win more than anything else."
"Ya, it's not a competition," Seoyeon points out. "It's team building. There's no winners."
"There's always a winner," Hayoung says with such resolve that it makes the staff member clipping on her harness laugh.
To get up to the ropes course, they have to start with a ladder made from wooden logs. Each step gets further apart, to the point that, at the top, the gap between is taller than any of the girls. "The Giant's Ladder requires you to work together to make it to the top. You must rely on each other's strengths and communicate well to make it work," their instructor explains.
They all make it up the first few steps alone. The logs are held together by only thin wires and the structure wobbles precariously with every movement, which makes even the first climb feel more difficult than it has any right to be. Seoyeon grumbles about her lack of muscles the entire time, but they make it up halfway before they're faced with a rung of the ladder none of them can reach on their own.
Maybe it's because she's the oldest or she's the one who's been at the company the longest, but Saerom finds herself calling the shots. "Jiwon can go up first. We need someone to help pull Seoyeon up." She looks at Seoyeon. "No offense."
"None taken. I know that I have the arm strength of a wet noodle."
"Then Hayoung can go up, then you'll all help me up?"
"Aye, captain!" Hayoung says, saluting.
It takes more than 20 minutes to get to the top. In all of the chaos, Saerom didn't think to be scared or look down at the ground, but when she has to cross over to the platform for the next activity, it's hard to miss the distance to the ground. Her knees go weak instantly, but Hayoung is suddenly right there behind her, as though she sensed the change in Saerom's composure even before it happened.
"You got this," she says. The words steady her.
Over the next few hours, they make it through a variety of obstacles. The hardest requires two of them to stand across from each other on thin ropes, with only their joined hands for balance as they make it to the other side. Saerom is paired with Seoyeon and they almost go down at least three times, so stretched out by the distance between the ropes that they're nearly parallel with the ground. When they reach the end, Saerom squeezes Seoyeon so tight that she lifts her off the platform.
"You're amazing, Romsae," Seoyeon says.
In that moment, Saerom feels like she could accomplish anything. All of that courage leaves her not long after, when they're faced with the final activity.
"This is the Leap of Faith," the instructor explains. They're on the ground now, which should make Saerom feel better, but she's looking up at a telephone pole that goes straight up in the air with only hand and foot holds to support the climb. The whole structure is more narrow around than a tree trunk and there's nowhere to turn around when you reach the top. To get down, they'll somehow have to get onto the top of the pole and jump toward a trapeze bar in the center of this clearing. It seems impossible.
Even Hayoung is scared. They send her up first and Saerom can hear the whimpering sounds she makes until she's out of earshot. But she does it, pulling herself onto the top of the pole one foot at a time, gripping her rope for balance. "Refined team, I love you!" she shouts before she jumps.
Watching Seoyeon and Jiwon go before her should make Saerom feel better, but by the time it's her turn, Saerom is holding back tears. "I'm sorry," she tells the other girls. Jiwon, fresh from her own jump, is still breathing hard when she pulls Saerom into a hug.
"You don't have to do it," she tells Saerom. "But we'll be down here rooting for you the whole time if you do."
"Me crying is going to be the thumbnail, isn't it?" Saerom asks.
Jisun nods solemnly.
Saerom takes a shaky breath, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Fuck it," she says. "Let's do it."
For the first 20 feet, Saerom doesn't focus on anything beyond the movements of her hands and feet, the repetition carrying her up the pole. It's when her foot misses a step, just a tiny bit more to the left than she's expecting, that the climb starts to go awry. Saerom starts to fall, the change in balance getting to her, but the grip of her hands on the holds is strong enough to keep her from falling. The dizzying height seems more obvious now that Saerom isn't focused and it feels like she's misplaced gravity. She tries to breathe through it.
From the ground, she can hear Jiwon's shrieks of encouragement, Seoyeon's raspy cheers, the male instructor's deep voice shouting at her to just keep moving. Natasha, Hayoung, and the other team member are chanting, "Saerom Lee! Saerom Lee!"
One step after another, Saerom reaches the top. It takes some maneuvering to get herself from the pole to the top of it, having to host herself over it in a strange kind of straddle, but after a while, she makes it. This presents a new challenge. The leap of faith. The trapeze bar seems impossibly far from her, more than an arm's length away. If she misses, Saerom rationalizes, it's not as though she'll hit the ground—either way, she's got to get down—but she would much rather it be on her own terms than falling through the air until her harness catches her.
"I'm doing it!" she shouts. "Refined team, I love you guys."
The jump itself is a blur, but in that instant, the only thing Saerom can hear through the chorus of cheers is Hayoung, loud and clear.
The advantage of pretending to date Gyuri is that she's a pretty cool person. She's upbeat and naturally charming, already on a first name basis with the receptionists after just a few lunchtime visits to the media building. Despite her cheerful personality, Gyuri is tougher than she looks. When they're out for coffee one afternoon and a fratty looking man yells out something obscene at them, Gyuri responds so sternly that Saerom can practically feel the guy shrinking back into his snapback.
Gyuri rolls with the punches. When Saerom suggests they take a picture for Instagram, Gyuri dutifully poses until Saerom selects the best one. When Saerom sees Hayoung coming around the corner and reaches for Gyuri's hand, Gyuri strokes a thumb over Saerom's knuckles. It's not hard for Saerom to act as though she likes Gyuri, which only makes Saerom feel worse about her lies.
"Why are you putting up with all of this?" she asks when Gyuri brings her fresh plums at lunch, a surprise treat. "You're being way too nice to me."
"Honestly? I haven't really made that many friends since I moved here," Gyuri says, shrugging.
Saerom shares the plums with the rest of her team, but the ones she takes home sit on her kitchen counter for the rest of the week. Every time she looks at them, she can feel their weight like the heavy weight of shame.
"Am I an asshole?" she asks Chaeyoung the next day.
"Yeah, kind of," Chaeyoung says, and coming from her, the girl who doesn't sugarcoat anything, Saerom knows it must be true.
After a half-dozen published videos, it might be too early to call Refined a total success, but the response is good. Their views are better than expected and each video has gotten close to a thousand comments (mostly positive, with a few scattered complaints, probably from teenage boys who resent the idea of four women doing something without any men). The team building seems to have done its job, because they work well together. Their group chat is constantly being updated with new ideas and they have a backlog of plans for easier videos to keep their update schedule consistent.
This is how Hayoung and Jiwon end up on the couch in one of the available stages, Jiwon holding Hayoung's phone. "Today," Jiwon announces, "we're going through Hayoung's search history. Is she as innocent as she looks? Stay tuned to find out."
Saerom is sitting against the wall in the back of the set with her laptop propped up on an abandoned crate. She'll be using the space with Seoyeon to film a Hogwarts sorting quiz video later, so for now she's working on the loose odds and ends of another project.
"How to twerk," Jiwon reads off, barely getting through the last word before she and Hayoung both collapse in laughter. Behind the camera, Nakyung struggles to keep her amusement quiet, slapping an arm against Jisun.
"I can explain," Hayoung says breathlessly. "I was practicing this dance choreography with my friend and neither of us could get—stop laughing at me!"
"You have to show us!" Seoyeon shouts from the other side of the room.
Hayoung immediately puts her hands up, shaking her head. "I can't! I really can't!"
When the entire room joins in chanting Do it! Do it! Do it!, Hayoung gives in and performs a brief attempt a twerk before falling to the floor, hysterical.
Some of the other highlights from Hayoung's phone include searching about Constance Wu's potential husband ("I just wanted to know!"), pictures of kittens, and hairstyles without bangs. Saerom has mostly tuned out the conversation at this point, but when she hears Jiwon ask, incredulously, "You searched 'how to tell if you like someone?'"
Saerom looks up to see Hayoung covering her face with a pillow, shrieking into the fabric. When she lowers it, her face is bright red. "You don't know how hard queer women have it," she insists. "It's not easy to tell if you like someone as a friend or because you want to date them."
Jiwon grabs Hayoung around the arm, jostling her with such force that Hayoung's brain is probably rattling around in her skull. "Hayoungie has a crush."
"Maybe," Hayoung says, "but she's taken, anyway."
"It doesn't matter, we're going to get you a woman," Jiwon says.
Next to Saerom, Seoyeon nudges her with an elbow. Saerom has frozen with her fingers poised over the home row keys, cursor on her screen blinking at her from the end of a half-typed email subject line. "Are you okay?" Seoyeon asks.
Saerom shakes her head, as if she can physically shake out the words looping around in her mind. "I'm fine," she says, "just lost my train of thought."
"Hayoung said she has a crush on someone who is taken, what do you think that means?"
Chaeyoung looks up from her yogurt and spoon, narrowing her eyes at Saerom as though she is confused by the question. This is, of course, an act. "It means she has a crush on someone who is taken."
Saerom drops her down onto her keyboard. "But do you think that means she likes me? I feel like we've been getting closer lately. Have you noticed?"
"I don't know, it's not like I'm only paying attention to you two when I'm working."
"I'm going to ask Gyuri," Saerom says. "Maybe she'll be more help than you."
Chaeyoung's laugh is short and obnoxious. "Good idea. Ask your fake girlfriend whether your crush likes you back."
"It's not like that," Saerom says, but it is. She'd never thought of herself as a particularly selfish person, but she'd been only thinking of herself when she came up with this plan. "I think I fucked up."
"I told you it was a bad plan," Chaeyoung says.
Saerom groans into her keyboard.
Gyuri has already ordered a coffee by the time that Saerom arrives, shoes wet and squelching loudly on the tile from a rare Southern California rain. It fits the mood.
"I want to break up," Saerom spits out. "I mean, fake break up. You know."
"I kind of gathered that from your text. 'Can we talk?' is never a good thing," Gyuri says. She smiles, all crooked front teeth and half-moon eyes. There's a part of Saerom that wants to take it back, even if it isn't real, because the idea of hurting Gyuri feels a lot like kicking a puppy.
Still, Saerom is happy that Gyuri isn't just walking out. "I shouldn't have even asked you, I just panicked and it seemed like a good idea at the time. It seriously wasn't fair for me to use you for "
"It's fine," Gyuri says. She reaches across the table for Saerom's hand, just like she'd done the week before. "It wasn't my shortest or fakest relationship." When Saerom raises an eyebrow, she explains, "I had a beard in college for, like, a week before I gave up on the idea."
"Well, I'm glad we made it to three weeks at least." Saerom squeezes Gyuri's hand, fingers warm in her grasp "We're still going to be friends. You can't get rid of me that easily."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
They share a slice of cheesecake, because Saerom insists that just because it's not a real breakup doesn't mean they don't get to binge on sweets. At the door, Gyuri stops Saerom before she can make a run for it in the rain. "I am rooting for you. With Hayoung. Just so you know."
Faking a breakup is the easy part. There's no Facebook status to change, no tokens of affection to purge from her desk. Saerom passes the word to Chaeyoung and Nakyung and between the two of them, it should reach the rest of the office before lunch.
The hard part is figuring out how to tell Hayoung. Because Saerom has to tell her, even if they're never more than friends. Saerom can't just pretend as though the lie is over and done with now.
She doesn't see Hayoung for most of the day. Hayoung is filming on location for a project that Haein is working on and Saerom is still catching up on overdue editing at her desk. It's not until the afternoon that Hayoung returns, arms full of props for an upcoming Refined video. When she asks if someone would be willing to help her carry them down to the stage, Saerom jumps at the opportunity to be alone with her.
Even being off campus, the day's gossip has still made it around to Hayoung. "Are you okay?" she asks when they're out of earshot of the desks.
"I'm fine," Saerom says. "How was your shoot?"
It takes the entire five minute walk for Hayoung to get through her recap of the day and how Jina looked like she was going to die when the specialist brought out the first snake. When they reach the stage, Saerom cuts her off.
"Actually, I have something to talk to you about."
Hayoung's face falls from pleasant to concerned almost immediately. "Is it about the breakup?"
"Yeah," Saerom says. "But not for the reasons you think. Should we sit?"
Except someone has taken the couch in the last 12 hours. They sit on two overturned crates, knees touching, and Saerom lets her words spill out before she can lose her courage. "We weren't really dating. Gyuri and I. We were just pretending to date."
There is a pause. Saerom watches Hayoung's eyebrows pinch together, the understanding dawning in her expression. Hayoung asks, "I don't understand, why would you pretend?"
"Remember when you walked in on us?" Saerom asks. She's focusing on her fingers twisting around a loose string on her ripped jeans, anything to avoid Hayoung. "I didn't want you to judge me, so I thought that if I said we were dating, you would understand and you wouldn't think less of me."
"Saerom, I would never think less of you. What made you think that?"
"You remember that conversation we had with Jiwon about Tinder, like, two months ago?"
Hayoung stands up, her crate toppling over behind her. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry I made you feel bad. I was only talking about me! I didn't mean it like that."
"I know you didn't." Saerom looks up at Hayoung now. She's done this before. Her first ever confession, back in her senior year of high school, that was tinged with its own flavor of guilt. The girl she dated for a year and a half in college. Her first fling in LA. And those weren't the only leaps of faith—she's jumped off a fucking ledge. "I just really wanted to be the kind of girl you said you liked. I didn't think far enough ahead to realize that I was being a jerk to be that girl."
Saerom has taken the leap, but she doesn't know where she's landed. Not when Hayoung's mouth rounds into a perfect 'o' of surprise, not even when her lips stretch into a smile, her teeth too big for her mouth. It's when Hayoung says, "You like me?" that Saerom's feet touch the ground.
"I have for a while," Saerom admits. She stands so that they are at eye level again. "I know I fucked up and I know you said you have a crush so-"
Hayoung smacks her hand against Saerom's shoulder, not any harder than Seoyeon or Jiwon when they're laughing, but it's not the kind of reaction that Saerom is expecting. "Why did you lie to me? If you had just told me this would have been so much easier!"
"What would've been easier? Are you crying?"
"Shut up," Hayoung says. "I'm trying to tell you that I like you."
"You should have told me!" Saerom says. God, now she's tearing up too.
"No, you should've told me first!" Hayoung says.
This time when Hayoung shoves her, Saerom catches her arm, pulling Hayoung in close to her chest. It's easy, as though they're meant to fit together like this. Hayoung with her face tucked against Saerom and Saerom with her arms around Hayoung's shoulders. "Just to clarify, this is a real dating situation, right?" Hayoung asks.
Saerom cranes her head back far enough for Hayoung to see her roll her eyes. "I think I've had enough fake dating. Only real dating from here on out."
"Just checking," Hayoung says, then she tilts her head up to kiss Saerom.
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