TITLE: Pick Up
SUMMARY: Zim forgot her favorite jacket at the Got7 dorm the night she threw up in their toilet. She goes to pick it up and accidentally develops a crush on Jackson Wang.
GENRE: mild comedy / budding romance?
PAIRING: zim x jackson wang
WORD COUNT: 0.6k
WARNINGS: mentions of being drunk?
FALL 2015
“Okay, Eunha, calm down.” Zim sighed to herself, walking up to the back steps of the dorm complex, her manager, Jang Hyunjung, in tow. If Hyunjung could hear her talking to herself, she didn’t say anything. Even though Zim knew having her manager with her was necessary for safety reasons, she really didn’t feel like having an eye-witness around when she awkwardly asked for her jacket back. She felt bad making her manager add this into their schedule, but she loved that jacket. She hadn’t seen it since the night she spilled her guts in the bathroom and met Jessi. She was starting to miss seeing the flash of red fabric in her closet.
“Jessi did call, didn’t she?” Hyunjung asked as the two entered the dorm building and headed to the elevator. Eunha nodded.
“She told Jackson I’d be on my way. This will be quick.” The rookie promised.
“It’s not like you have a photoshoot to get to or anything…” Her manager responded passive-aggressively, checking her phone for messages. Eunha sighed.
“You’re still not going to tell anyone, right?” Eunha asked anxiously, glancing sideways. Hyunjung looked over at Eunha accusingly.
“And risk getting fired? No, I won’t. If Hak Bonghwa finds out that I let you go out and get drunk with a bunch of strangers, I’ll be in the unemployment line faster than you can get to a toilet.” The corners of Hyunjung’s lips quirked at the end. Eunha tried to suppress her own grin.
The elevator opened up on Got7’s floor. The two women rounded the corner, located the dorm room and approached it together.
Eunha’s hand hesitated over the door, ready to knock. At the last second she pulled her hand away and faced Hyunjung.
“Wait, do I look ugly?” She asked quickly. Hyunjung gave a fussy sigh before reaching around Eunha and knocking on the door loudly. Eunha covered her mouth in shock. Before she could recover, the door flew open, revealing Jackson Wang.
Eunha blinked a few times, her jaw slowly relaxing. She didn’t have the chance to meet him the night she was here, but in person he was much more handsome than photographs.
“Zim, right?” Jackson smiled, showing off his perfectly straight teeth.
“Ye.” Was all Zim could make out. Jackson let out a breath of a chuckle before opening the door wider.
“Here, I got your jacket… The red one, right?” He arched an eyebrow. Zim nodded, not trusting herself to talk again.
“Yeah, found it behind the couch… I have to say, you went pretty hard that night. I wish we had more time to talk instead of… You know.” Jackson gave Eunha a knowing wink. Hyunjung arched her eyebrows. Jackson’s expression melted into a slightly bashful one, remembering that they had company.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to keep you guys up. Here,” Jackson handed over the jacket. Zim accepted it, a smile on her face.
“Thank you.” She thanked him.
“No problem. I’ll uh, see you around.” Jackson bowed his head to Eunha before bowing politely to Hyunjung, closing the door behind him.
“More time to talk?” Hyunjung asked Eunha as they walked to the elevator.
Eunha shook her head. “Honestly, Manager-nim, I don’t know what he’s talking about… I don’t think I was that drunk that I blacked out…”
“I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised.” Hyunjung teased. “But I’d check the pockets of that jacket.”
“What, why?” Eunha furrowed her eyebrows.
“He said he wished you talked, didn’t he?” Hyunjung reminded her. Eunha rolled her eyes and fished in both pockets of her jacket. Her hand brushed up against a slip of paper, causing her eyes to widen. She pulled her hand out, surprised at the slip of paper with a number sprawled across it.
Hyunjung gave her client a satisfied smile. “I’m never wrong.”
TITLE: Your Name
SUMMARY: Zim finds herself in the toilet bowl of a party. She’s rescued by one of her favorite celebrities.
GENRE: Drama
PAIRING: platonic! zim x jessi
WORD COUNT: 0.9k
WARNINGS: Mentions of throwing up, over-consumption of alcohol, and calorie counting. Maybe some swearing as well. If I forgot something, please let me know!!!
FALL 2015
The sting of bile in her throat made Eunha’s eyes water. She braced herself for another wave of vomit, gripping the edge of the toilet bowl until her knuckles were white. She lost track of how long she’s been puking, but it’s felt like hours. No one came with her into the bathroom, and that fact alone made her want to cry all over again. She’s never felt so alone and pathetic as she did right now. What was she thinking, drinking that much?
The exhaustion from the alcohol and the constant vomiting was catching up to her. Eunha, being too drunk to care about hygiene, rested her head on the edge of the toilet bowl and felt her eyes grow heavier and heavier.
“Hey! Hey, you can’t sleep here.” A hand shook Eunha’s shoulder. In her intoxicated state, Eunha felt like she was being sloshed around in a washing machine. Her head spun and her vision swam as Eunha opened her eyes a little bit, trying to see who was hovering above her. All she could make out was a silhouette of a woman.
“Huh?” Zim mumbled in confusion.
“People are waiting in line for the bathroom. C’mon, sweetheart, let’s go get some air.” The voice consoled. Drunkenly, Zim nodded her head and started to raise herself to her feet. The kind stranger wrapped an arm around Zim’s waist to support her, heaving her out of the bathroom and back into the party.
Blurred visions of the party around them danced in front of Eunha’s vision as she allowed the stranger to lead her out onto the back balcony. The cool air made Eunha feel a little less nauseous.
“Here, let’s sit you down.” The woman suggested. Eunha blinked a few times, trying to focus on her face properly. Something about the woman was so familiar...
“Wait… are you Jessi?” Eunha asked, her eyes wide.
The soloist gave a small smile. “You’re Zim, right? From that new rookie group?”
Zim looked at Jessi with wide eyes, nodding her head. She would have spoken, but the fact that Jessi knew her name was overwhelming. If she opened her mouth again, she was afraid more vomit would come out.
“Yeah, I thought I recognized you.” Jessi sat next to Eunha, wrapping her arms over her knees. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Eunha looked across the horizon, just able to make out the point where the city met the sky.
“Being an idol is harder than I thought. Just needed some fun.” Eunha shrugged, a little bashfully.
“Did you come here alone?” Jessi asked, concern lacing every word.
“Yeah. It’s not my friend’s scene.”
“Shouldn’t be yours either.” Jessi shook her head. “Not to scare you, but you’re lucky I found you and not some pervert. You gotta be careful, even at a party like this.”
Eunha bowed her head. She’s heard that warning so many times from teachers and parents that they grew to be just that. A warning. Nothing serious, nothing real. Now she realized that the only thing separating her from being a statistic was Jessica Ho.
“You don’t party much, do you?” The soloist wondered aloud, holding Eunha under an analyzing gaze.
“During my trainee days I would drink sometimes, but not a whole lot… Calories, you know?” Eunha chuckled, a slightly sad undertone slipping into her drunken words. Jessi seemed to understand, nodding her head and humming in sad agreement.
“Are you okay? Like, I know we just met, but you seem to be going through some shit.” Jessi queried, leaning back on her palms.
Eunha hesitated. Even though she was beyond drunk, she still wasn’t sure if Jessi would appreciate the emotional dump she was about to release. She licked her lips, trying to plan out her words before speaking.
“Can I tell you something?” Eunha asked, hoping this would preface whatever was going to come out of her mouth next.
“Of course.” Jessi nodded.
Eunha let a small smile tug at her lips. “I’m already so fed up with people. I really am. Strangers talk about me online all the time. They talk about my body. My hair. My attitude. I hate it. I hate it so much. I’ve only been an idol for a month, but look at me.” Eunha extended her hands. “I’m drunk as fuck in who knows who’s house-”
“It’s Got7’s dorm.” Jessi informed.
“What?” Eunha blinked.
“Got7. That JYP boy group-”
“No, I know who they are, but I didn’t think they actually like….” Eunha looked back over her shoulder at the party raging on behind her. “They really pull these kinda parties? They legit live like this? That wasn’t just a meme on the internet?”
Jessi gave a shrug, nodding her head. “I mean, it’s super rare. JYP would beat their asses if they were acting like this all the time. I honestly don’t know how you got in, there was only supposed to be a few of us here.”
“Damn.” Eunha sighed in amazement. “I feel like I’ve crossed over into an alternate universe.”
“Someone’s been on Wattpad.” Jessi smirked, poking fun at Eunha.
“Hey, lemme have this.” Eunha chuckled. “I just wanna live like Your Name for a minute.”
That joke had Jessi cackling and clapping her hands together.
“Damn, you crack me up.” Jessi complimented.
Maybe it was the alcohol, but Zim suddenly felt a wave of confidence flow through her. “We should hang out when I’m not totally drunk. I promise I’m still funny.”
“I don’t doubt that.” Jessi smiled.
SUMMARY: now that promotions are over, the girls finally have some down time. nia remains oblivious to her affect on the other girls, so zim and yen make a power point presentation explaining what’s wrong.
GENRE: comedy
PAIRING: ot3
WORD COUNT: 1.2k
WARNINGS: mentions of slut shaming and watching ones weight.
AUGUST 2015
Eunha couldn’t tell if this was the most adult thing she’s ever done or the most juvenile. Last night, she had pulled Micha aside and came up with a game plan to get their feelings across to Nia about her tyrant-like rule. Even though a simple discussion would probably have been sufficient enough, Yen felt like a power point displaying everything that Nia has done wrong in the past month was the best route.
So now here they were, trying to connect Micha’s laptop to the television while Yerin sat on the sofa, clearly unamused.
“Guys, we can huddle around the laptop,” Nia rolled her eyes. “Or, you know, you could just talk to me without the power point.”
“No, no, I’ve almost got it!” Micha grunted, tapping a few keys on her keyboard. After a few moments, the screen finally came to life, showcasing Eunha and Micha’s power point bluntly titled “IT’S TIME TO TALK”.
“Oh boy.” Nia sighed, but sat up a little straighter, ready to see what her group mates had in store.
“Alright.” Micha stood up, standing on the other side of the TV while Eunha stood opposite to her. “The past week you have been a little bit psycho. Like, more so than usual, which is kinda brutal. We need to discuss how you’re managing our team. Next slide.”
Micha pressed the space button on her keyboard, causing the screen to transition using the ripple effect. When the ripples smoothed out, a black and white picture of Adolf Hitler was on the screen.
“You think I’m like Hitler?” Nia arched an eyebrow.
“No. We think you’re a dictator.” Yen explained. “You don’t listen to us during practice, you don’t allow us to express ourselves in anyway, you have problems with who we hang out with, and you gave us a curfew.”
“That’s some dictator behavior.” Zim nodded in agreement. “And we know you’re stressed about our image as a rookie group, but we have the company and our managers to tell us what we can and can’t do, not our friend. You’re supposed to support us as a leader, but instead you’ve been pulling us down. Next slide.”
Micha pressed the space bar again, and this time the transition pattern was triangles. When the power point stopped moving, a clip art picture of a trash can was on the screen.
“Okay, that’s subtle.” Nia said dryly, crossing her arms. “Just tell me how you really feel.”
“Here are some things that need to go in the trash.” Micha powered on, ignoring her leader’s displeased face. With another tap to the space bar, the words “shaming”, “micromanaging”, and “stress” tumbled onto the trashcan using animations.
“Shaming.” Zim pointed to the word. “You shame us a lot in general. Not only slut shaming, which seems to be the biggest issue, but you’ve made several side-comments about what I eat as of late.” The rapper frowned. “Shit’s not cool, Yerin. You know what I’ve been through. Let the company be the ones to tell me if I need to watch my weight. Not you. You’re supposed to be my friend.”
Yerin bit her lower lip, her heart breaking at the betrayal in Eunha’s voice. She nodded, knowing that there wasn’t anything she could say in her defense. She was wrong for being all up in her friend’s business like that.
“I’m sorry, guys.” Nia started to say. Micha held her hand up.
“We appreciate that, but please keep all comments until the end. Eunha forgives too easily and won’t continue with the power point if you start apologizing now.” Micha stated.
Eunha nodded. “She’s right. I’m a sucker.”
Nia held her hands up in surrender, but didn’t speak again.
“Next, micromanaging.” Micha gestured to the word. “We understand that you have the need to take control of everything, and that’s a decent trait to have as a leader, however, it’s starting to become suffocating. You literally told me not to look at GOT7 the other day because you think people will assume I’m sleeping with a member. You sound like a mormon.”
“But, we do understand that the root of all these problems are stress.” Eunha pointed to the word ‘stress’. “So the last and biggest thing that needs to be thrown out is stress.”
“We’re all in this together, Yerin. We’re all under a lot of stress too, and we all have our ways of coping. I think your coping mechanism is controlling everything around you.” Micha hypothesized. “And that’s not healthy for you or anyone involved, so we came up with a list of things that we can all do together that will relieve stress and build our bonds as a team. Next slide!”
Another tap of the space bar and the slide changed via cube transition. On screen was a stock photo of a beach with palm trees and crystal blue water. Another tap and a mug appeared on screen.
“When you’re feeling stressed, we should go on a coffee date! Just us three!” Eunha offered brightly. “We can grab a coffee and talk things out. We don’t really have communication between us anymore, and we think this will be a cute way to reinstate conversation about what is working for our team and what isn’t.”
Another tap and a clip art painting palette appeared on the screen.
“If you don’t feel like talking, we can do something else to take your mind off of whatever is stressing you out.” Micha gestured to her leader. “You used to love painting a few years ago, but you haven’t done it in a while. I think you should take it up again. We can all paint together and maybe have one of the boys judge who did the best? It can be fun and relaxing at the same time.”
“Another thing we can do if you don’t feel like talking,” Eunha pressed the space key again, cuing a bike to slide onto the screen. “We can go take a bike ride. It’ll get us out of the dorm and exploring. Our manager totally would come with us too, so we wouldn’t be out in the open without protection.”
“We don’t have any other suggestions, as we made this at three in the morning and our brains weren’t on, but if you have anything else you’d like to add, we can talk about that later.” Micha explained before pressing the space bar one last time.
A big red love heart was on the screen. The two girls turned to their leader.
“We still love you, Yerin.” Micha expressed. “We just think things have been hard on you and you’ve been taking it out on us. We wanna work with you to make things better.”
“This is the part where you apologize and we group hug.” Eunha clasped her hands together.
Yerin let out a small chuckle before standing up from the couch.
“I’m sorry guys. I’ve been a terrible friend and I haven’t been thinking about your mental health as much as I have been thinking about mine. I promise from now on to make you aware of what’s bothering me before I go and try to control everything.” Yerin vowed. “I love you guys for being honest with me. I hope you can someday forgive me for everything I’ve done.”
Eunha grinned. “Apology accepted.”
Micha huffed in amusement. “See, she’s so eager to forgive you. I’m gonna need to see some proof of your changed ways before I fully accept your apology.”
Yerin couldn’t help but quirk her lips into a grin. “How about we go for a cup of coffee, like you said? I’ll pay.”
Micha bit her lower lip, trying not to smile. “That’ll be a good start.”
TITLE: Coping Mechanisms
SUMMARY: Nia feels stressed again. Instead of taking it out on her friends, she offers them to come paint with her on the living room floor.
GENRE: Friendship ??? Wholesomeness.
PAIRING: S.O.T OT3
WORD COUNT: 0.8k
WARNINGS: none? if you notice something that may be triggering please please please let me know!
WINTER 2015
Nia pulled the doors of her closet open, her eyes scanning the boxes on the top shelf. She had to put it in there somewhere…
Her eyes caught the white plastic carrier. She reached up and heaved down the heavy paint set. She grabbed a tarp from the corner of her closet and exited her bedroom, the tools she needed tucked under her arm.
“What’s that?” Micha asked as Yerin passed her in the kitchen, munching on some apple slices. Nia fought the urge to scold Micha for dirtying another dish when she had just put away clean bowls this morning, but she took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to get mad at Micha for feeding herself. That was the old Yerin. This was the new Yerin.
“Stressed. Going to paint.” Yerin said simply, walking past her youngest member. She hesitated before back tracking, reentering the kitchen. “If you want… You can join me.”
Micha shrugged, taking the bowl of apples with her. The two girls sat cross-legged on the wooden floor of the living room. The maknae munched on the fruit while she watched Nia set up her things.
“Can I just watch? I’m not really much of a painter.” Yen wrinkled her nose. Nia nodded, silently starting to sketch the outline of her painting.
“So… This stress…” Yen questioned, watching her leader’s pencil dance over the canvas in front of her. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Not really.” Nia responded. “To be honest, I think I’m just overthinking again.”
Micha nodded in understanding, humming in response. “Well, if you ever want to vent to me, you know I got your back.”
Nia looked up from her drawing and gave Micha a small appreciative smile. “Thanks. That’s really nice of you.”
“That’s what friends are for.” Yen shrugged.
The two girls sat in silence while Nia started painting. Yerin didn’t mind having Micha there. In fact, she was glad that the girl agreed to watch her paint. She felt like she never really spent time with Micha anymore.
Zim had returned from Jackson’s house when Nia had just started the first layer of her painting.
“Woah, what’s going on here?” Eunha asked, breaking the silence that had fallen over the apartment.
“Yerin’s stressed, so she’s painting. I’m bored, so I’m watching.” Micha explained briefly.
“Everything okay?” Zim asked, furrowing her eyebrows in concern.
Yerin nodded, dipping her paintbrush into red acrylic paint. She looked up from her work to gesture to her bag full of art supplies.
“I have a few spare canvases in there, if you wanted to make something yourself.” Yerin offered. Eunha bent down, picking up a small canvas and a paintbrush before sitting down next to her group mates.
Micha was studying Eunha’s face, chewing on an apple slice thoughtfully. “Something’s wrong with you, isn’t there?”
Eunha widened her eyes in surprise. Yerin looked up from her work. Now that Micha had pointed it out, something seemed off about Zim.
“I mean… I don’t know.” Zim frowned, picking her paintbrush up and starting to apply paint to the canvas. “I don’t know if Jackson and I can continue, you know?”
The two other girls nodded in silent understanding.
“Anything you wanna talk about?” Yerin offered.
“Not yet.” Eunha sighed. “But maybe another time.”
The three girls sat in peaceful quiet, working individually. When Micha finished off her apple slices, she dusted her fingers off and cleared her throat.
“Uh, not to be all, like, sappy and cheesy,” Micha started. “But I’m, like, proud of you two right now.”
The older girls looked up with questioning looks on their faces.
“Like,” Micha wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling them close to her chest. “Usually when you guys are stressed or things aren’t going your way, you resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms. But you guys are doing something good for yourself right now. I think you both are doing really well.”
Yerin couldn’t help but smile at that. Despite Micha’s usual sarcastic and teasing manner, she knew how to be a good friend.
“Group hug?” Eunha asked.
“Group hug.” Yerin confirmed. The three girls sat up on their knees and formed a makeshift circle, wrapping their arms around each other.
The sweet moment was broken when Nia heard a snapping noise. She realized that she had just placed her knee on her palette, crushing the plastic in half and causing paint to leak on the floor.
“Oh shit!” She exclaimed with a laugh, jumping to her feet.
The girls worked together to try to mop up as much of the red paint as they could, but a faint pink stain remained on the floor. The three girls stood around the stain, looking down at the blob in disappointment.
“I’ve always wanted a rug in here anyways.” Yerin shrugged.
“Shopping trip tomorrow?” Micha posed.
“Retail therapy can be a healthy coping mechanism, right?” Zim asked with a chuckle.
