hii! how about writing little!kimlip missing chuu since they don't live together anymore, and then jinsoul notices and calls chuu to ask her to come over for lippie :(
Oh, this is precious! Thank you so much for this first ask!
little!Kim Lip and Chuu with cg!Jinsoul and Choerry
Moving out of the dorms had been an adjustment for everyone. While ARTMS and Loossemble were shaping up to be very different as groups, the members each understood that LOONA was still family.
That said, splitting up and taking different locations was always going to be difficult, what with nearly five years of all living together shaping the structure of their day-to-day lives. Additionally, new dorm arrangements (new building arrangements) meant new delegations among the group’s caregivers.
As a natural consequence of both groups re-debuting, delivering a comeback, and touring back to back, the ARTMS girls were less in contact with the Loossemble members lately. Meanwhile, their two lone soloists had been just as busy, and often hush-hush about it at that.
Everyone in Odd Eye Circle was feeling some sort of loss. Jinsol was newly separated from Sooyoung and her unnies. Yerim had been cut off from the rest of the maknae line. Jungeun, ever the intro-extravert, had been missing a little bit of everyone.
And so far, Jungeun had been showing it the most.
One comfort of being in Odd Eye Circle was the group’s balance. Each of the three were just as likely to favor a caregiver role one day as they were to regress. Any day that one or two in the group felt the need to be little, they could usually count on the third to stay big. They had managed as much while going through the tour and back.
But after returning to their new home, Jungeun had started slipping more and more without meaning to, and had gotten more irritable with every accidental regression. As such, Yerim wasn’t getting as much out of her regression days, worried for or else antagonized by little Jungie, while Jinsol herself had gone a precariously long time without feeling allowed to slip.
It came to a head one night between little Jungie and baby Yerim, an argument over rights to a ducky toy nearly leading to hair pulling from Jungie’s end.
So Jinsol put both to bed early and slept in an armchair, overseeing both in the pseudo-nursery they sometimes made of the living room at night.
She brought it up with Jungeun the next day, who listened well as ever, but took it to heart hard. All too willing to address her own mistakes, a stressed out Jungeun bit her nails for the length of the conversation and ended up wallowing past a point of anything constructive.
“I don’t mean to be a brat,” Jungeun said to her the next morning, her eyes shining for the memory of a recent tantrum. “I just… I didn’t know it would be so hard, switching it up.”
The problem, Jinsol later found, was that they had all assumed Jungie missed an equal bit of everyone, and no one in particular. Even if Jungeun would never admit it, Jinsol came to notice a pattern. There was the specific cache of borrowed sweatshirts Jungie insisted on being dressed in before bed, her sudden penchant for the color peach, and the odd drawing of her and a certain pigtailed playmate sticking out within her art supplies, all of which gave her away in time.
So Jinsol made a phone call. That night, she coaxed an agitated Jungie to sleep with the promise of a big surprise tomorrow.
When Jungeun blinks herself awake, she’s groggy. She had taken an impromptu nap on the couch to try and shake off her little state, but she still fails to feel refreshed, and she knows she’s teetering on that precipice.
Yerim looks up at her from her phone, gently rocking in the armchair next to her.
“You’re just in time,” she says with a knowing smile.
She really is. Jungeun’s feet have only just touched the floor when the front door clicks open.
And Jungeun can’t believe her own excitement. There, the sight of her favorite playmate standing hand-in-hand with Jinsol in the doorway drops Jungeun instantly into her toddler headspace.
“Ji’oo!” she shrieks, all but tackling her dear friend in an enthusiastic squeeze. Jiwoo hugs her back just as tight, keening in delight at being reunited. Jungie strokes her pigtails and refuses to let her go, even as Jinsol laughs and laughs and guides the two of them gently to the couch.
The littles spend an hour just embracing. Yerim puts Care Bears, a household favorite, on the TV at some point (slyly snapping a few pictures of their girls for safekeeping while she does), but the two are both so caught up in cooing at and stroking each other that they don’t even seem to notice.
In time, the duo takes things to the floor. Jiwoo runs circles around Jungie, whirling around on the carpet while Jungie claps her hands and howls with laughter. It evolves quickly into a game of tag, the two littles chasing each other all over the living room in an effort to boop the other’s nose.
“Careful!” Jinsol warns, knowing that Jiwoo especially can be rowdy. But she’s already removed all of the hard-edged furniture this morning and cleared the space for the littles to do exactly this.
When Jungie tuckers out, Jiwoo stays committed to entertaining her. Jiwoo can be a handful when she’s little, but she’s also one of the only known forces in the world who can keep Jungie’s attention for longer than a few minutes at a time. Both regress to their toddler ages when they’re together for a reason.
Chuu is a racecar, then a turtle, and then a waddling little penguin. Jungie squeals and kicks her feet through it all. They bring Jinsol into it, insisting on riding on her back as a play pony, and spurring her with their heels to carry them across the living room and back.
When even Jiwoo succumbs to her physical limits, she has Jinsol find her penguin plushie in her backpack. Jungie goes and gets her beloved Moomin plush. Their stuffed animals each have a teary reunion with the other before they’re locked in conversation. Jungie babbles out everything on her mind about how hard they’ve been working and the excitement of the tour. Jiwoo, Jiwoo’s penguin, and Moomin all prompt her enthusiastically as she does.
With the littles having worked up an appetite, Yerim puts an order in for delivery dinner: their favorite shrimp sushi. When it arrives, she manages to slip some steamed broccoli with diced carrots into a bowl on the side for each, and both eat their vegetables without giving complaint (though she knows Jungie would very much like to).
Jinsol sits, exhausted and fanning herself on the couch, while Yerim fetches them juice (in sippy cups, because anything open-topped with these two would be and has been disastrous in the past). Eventually, Yerim goads her into giving them some extra sugar. While Jinsol was saving them for her own rainy day, she coughs up the chocolate covered strawberries she’s been keeping in the back of the fridge.
Naturally, both manage to smear the chocolate all over their adorable faces. Jinsol wipes them down with a napkin while Yerim sneaks a few more pictures.
The girls have one more burst of energy to burn before bed. This time, it’s Yerim’s turn to chase them around, and she embraces her tickle monster role with natural aplomb.
Jinsol is ready with the onesies, knowing the girls are bound to crash soon. Jiwoo’s is baby pink with yellow daisies, and Jungie’s is red with quizzical, googly-eyed owls. Neither can sit still in their haste to be dressed in jammies for the night, so Jinsol and Yerim be sure to be quick with it so neither girl can feel left out.
Blessedly, both girls agree to brush their teeth without issue. Yerim eases the pigtails out of Jiwoo's hair, and they tuck them into bed in Jungie’s room. Given the way that the two have always clung to each other during the night there’s enough room in one bed to share.
Yerim doesn’t even have to offer up a bedtime story before they’re both asleep, Jungie snoring softly, her arm hanging off the bed, with Jiwoo hugging fiercely against her side.
Since Yerim paid for last night’s dinner, Jinsol assumes the morning pancake duty. Jungeun and Jiwoo flank her like little gargoyles, watching with fascination as she mixes the batter, and both pacified today by last night’s rest.
After she makes them swear up and down that they won’t try to swipe any from the mixing bowl, Jinsol lets them help mix the batter. Jiwoo holds the bowl steady while Jungeun furiously mixes, both cheering each other on.
When she accidentally flings a little onto the counter, Jinsol embraces the mess. She bops both of them on the nose with a fingertip of batter, feeling triumphant from the ensuing squeals of laughter.
After breakfast, and after an allotted final hour of hugging, it’s finally time for the two to say their goodbyes.
Yerim double-checks that Jiwoo has everything in her backpack. Jiwoo peppers Jungie’s face and hair with kisses. And then, as Yerim readies herself to walk Jiwoo back, Jungie allows her to leave.
She thinks of Jiwoo taking the elevator down and then walking all the way out of the building. Back, far away, to where she’s living for the time being.
Later in the day, Jungeun gradually eases back into her adult headspace. After some time to herself in her room, she joins Jinsol on the couch, a placated smile on her face.
“Better?” Jinsol asks, yawning and scratching her side.
Jungeun pops her sockfoot against Jinsol’s on the newly reinstated coffee table.
“Better,” she says, with mellow happiness painting her features. “Thank you, unnie.”
Days pass in the Odd Eye Circle dorms. Sollie is craving sweets. And Sollie has no sweets.
Sollie’s unnies have been doting on her awfully much lately, but she can’t remember why.
They even let her act up a little extra. They don’t scold her too hard when she wears her shoes to play soccer inside, and Yerim even let her stay up past her bedtime yesterday.
Whatever good it does her. Sollie is sitting glumly on the couch. Yerim is in her room, but Sollie is happy to leave her there for now, preferring to wallow in some big feelings she can’t quite name in her current state.
When Jungeun returns to the dorm with a big cardboard box, Sollie rolls over on her side to acknowledge her.
“Good news, kiddo,” she says with a knowing smile.
She holds out the package. It has her and Yerim’s names on it, but she lets Sollie be the one to tear into it anyways.
Sitting atop the contents is a baby pink card, covered in hearts and smileys, and obviously from Jiwoo.
Have a sweet day! it reads.
Below, at the bottom of the box, is an extra-large assortment of chocolate covered strawberries.
