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menichoi · 9 months ago

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#000. PART ONE TEASER

𝓘.──── . . . 𝑀𝗂𝗅𝖺, 𝗈𝗇 𝖻𝖾𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗇 𝗅𝗈𝗏𝖾 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝖻𝖺𝗇𝖽𝗆𝖺𝗍𝖾𝗌.

꒰ NOTE ✦ Sorry for the wait but the teaser is finally here! Also, for the sake of the Milaverse, we’re pretending that the COVID lockdown either doesn’t exist, or is over by the beginning of 2022. (It’s up to you which one it is.)

✉️ XO ⸝ MiLA ❪ TEASER ❫ ໒꒰ྀིᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ꒱ྀི১ EVENTUAL POLY!OT⑧ 𓈃 TEASER WORD COUNT : 3.4k (FiNAL WORD COUNT : 5-10k) ꗃ ❛ KOR, ENG, JP, CHi ❜ 𝅄CONTAINS. alcohol, jealousy, minor angst, mila is a brat and a bitch (she gets better i promise)

𝓵etters to you. 𓆩♡𓆪 i ⋆ ii ⋆ iii ⋆ iv . . ,

IF FALLING IN LOVE IS SUPPOSED TO HURT, Mila wishes that cupid would have just shot her in the head and not the heart.

All of Mila’s childhood crushes feel like child’s play compared to this. This ache in the centre of her chest—the tight squeeze around her heart, as if someone’s hand is her ribcage and has their fist wrapped around it. And what did she expect? It’s such a foolish thing to do—falling in love. She knows this.

But like a fool, she fell anyway.

The night has no life left to it—or at least none that Mila can find anyway. The alcohol tastes bitter and even the sound of her upbeat girl group songs in the background doesn’t make it any sweeter.

Mila ignores a warning from Kiara beside her and drinks another glass of soju. The older female has been on her case the entire dinner, and—to spare Mila the impending hangover tomorrow morning, and the embarrassment of anything she may do in her drunken state—has been valiantly attempting to limit the amount of alcohol she consumes.

A difficult undertaking when Mila is determined to drink until she can’t even remember her own name.

Tonight was supposed to be a good one. The collaboration she and Kiara participated in with a senior girl group, Lumine, is sure to bring fresh eyes to their group, and the dinner they were invited to by the said girl group was meant as a friendly way to celebrate their joint success.

She should have known there would be ulterior motives involved.

Mila had eagerly invited her male co-members (the legal ones, anyway, considering there were drinks involved) upon their suggestion, and realised too late that it had been for their own interests rather than Mila and Kiara’s, like they originally said. The Lumine members were all too happy to latch on to them, giggling and batting their eyelashes at them like they were innocent schoolgirls acting coy around their crush.

Well, they’re much too old to be schoolgirls—and much too old for her members. Not that it stopped them from eyeing them like candy.

“You didn’t mention how handsome your members are,” one of them had said upon their arrival. As if Enhypen aren’t idols whose photos are all over the internet, and as if they didn’t suggest inviting them to this dinner so they could have a chance to talk to them.

But that doesn’t seem to matter too much, since most of her male co-members were flattered enough by their extra attention to indulge their flirting more than they’re obligated to.

Well, good for them. At least they’re having fun.

Mila flips a piece of pork on the ignored grill in front of her, and stuffs it into her mouth without caring if it will burn her tongue or not. It tastes burnt, but it’s not like she’s eating for the flavour anymore. Any reminders her manager might have given her about maintaining her diet are lost to her right now.

She can always burn it off in the gym later, just as she always has. This thing she’s feeling in her chest, however, is a different kind of burn than she’s used to.

“You must like going to the gym often,” Mila hears Yerin, the visual of the group, say. “I can tell.”

Mila braves a glance in the older woman’s direction and sees her looking Sunghoon up and down appreciatively. And she can’t blame her. The gains from his hours in the gym can’t be hidden even by the jacket he wears.

Mila has to say, though, that she does envy Yerin in a way. She may not be a traditional visual, but her siren-like gaze is nothing short of hypnotic. The confidence which she can voice her appreciation is something Mila wishes she could have.

Sunghoon clears his throat to mutter a shy, “Thanks.”

Mila doesn’t realise she’s staring so intently until he looks up and catches her gaze, the small smile on his face freezing slightly at whatever expression she’s wearing. She quickly looks down at her cup again, avoiding the questioning look he sends. Instead she eats a small piece of kimchi, chewing on it longer than it needs to be as a weak attempt to seem busy.

Mila decides to tune out of that conversation, before she overhears something she doesn’t want to.

Mila can see Jake stand from the corner of her eye. His seat is between her and Jay, but despite being close, they haven’t had much conversation tonight. So she certainly doesn’t expect him to suddenly lean in close, overwhelming her senses with the scent of his cologne and the feeling of his warm breath on her cheek.

“Did you want anything?” he asks in a whisper.

Mila can feel the way her cheeks start to warm, and shakes her head rapidly to hide them from him. “I’m good.”

She hadn’t even registered his question. Not until there are other voices piping up.

“Thanks again, Jaeyun-ah,” Yui says with a smile. It’s clear that she’s the youngest because she has no difficulty adding a cutesy lilt to her voice. Even more impressive, she actually manages to make it sound natural, and not at all cringey or forced.

Mila almost flinches at the casual use of Jake’s name. It’s been a long time since she’s called him that herself, but only because no one else did, and she didn’t want to be too familiar. Even now that they’re in the same group, she still doesn’t dare call him ‘Jaeyun.’ She didn’t realise he had allowed their seniors to call him that.

“No problem,” he replies. He turns to Mila. “I’ll be back.”

“Mkay,” she mutters.

He’s wearing that smile that never fails to make her stomach twist into knots, and then he’s gone, leaving to do whatever it is that Yui and her unnies convinced him to do. At the same time, Kiara is standing up as well, before leaning down to Mila.

“I’m getting a call, so I’ll just be outside, okay?” Mila nods. Then Kiara is gone, and she’s all alone, feeling like a child at the adult’s table as she looks around her.

Heeseung’s seat is empty, since he left to go to the bathroom not long ago. The others have gone back to conversing as if she’s not there, and then Mila is back to looking down at her bowl of rice in front of her, wondering why she’s even here to begin with.

Being the Gen-Z’er that she is, Mila’s first instinct is to reach for her phone. As if by god’s timing, the screen lights up and she sees a text from Sunoo, who had to pass on her invitation because of prior arrangements with family.

(Thank goodness for it. Mila is already struggling as things are; she doesn’t think she’d be able to handle any of the Lumine members making moves on her soulmate, too.)

心肝☀️: how’s the dinner going?

Mila can’t bring herself to tell the truth, so she lies instead.

You: it’s okay You: all the adults are talking so i just left for a bit 心肝☀️: sorry byeol-ah 心肝☀️: i wish i could be there You: it’s okay You: hope you had a good night with your family ^.^ 心肝☀️: it was good! i’ll tell you more about it later 心肝☀️: i’m in the taxi now 心肝☀️: apparently we’re going to go past the restaurant you’re at

Mila perks up at this.

You: if that’s the case do you want to go home together??

It may be selfish and rude, but it’s better than being here.

心肝☀️: of course!!! 心肝☀️: but don’t you want to go stay back? 心肝☀️: i thought you liked lumine-sunbaenim ㅇㅁㅇ

Right. Mila mentally scoffs. That was before the disaster of tonight.

You: i’m just feeling a bit tired ㅠㅠ You: i’ll ask kiara-unnie as well You: she looked like she wanted to go home the whole time ㅋㅋ

That at least is true. Kiara was much quicker to realise the Lumine members’ intentions and acted accordingly, checking her phone every five minutes to see how much time would pass.

心肝☀️: okay sounds good 心肝☀️: i should be there around five minutes You: see you soon! ^.^

Mila pockets her phone.

She jolts when she feels a hand on her knee. When she looks up, those dark eyes of Jay’s hold a glimmer of concern. Mila instantly relaxes.

“You haven’t eaten much,” he observes—which Mila finds strange, since she feels like she’s eaten more than she should have, considering the weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Are you okay? Do you not like the food?”

Mila shakes her head strongly. She musters a smile, though it must seem pathetic. “No, it’s good! I think I’m just not that hungry…”

“Well, that won’t do at all!” Jingyi, the only Chinese member of Lumine, perks up and places a piece of meat in Mila’s bowl. “Growing girls like you should eat more.”

Mila blinks at the piece of meat, which feels like it's looking back at her tauntingly. “Thanks, Jingyi-jie,” she mutters. Even though I stopped growing a year ago…

“You’ve been drinking a lot, too,” Sara, the oldest Lumine member, continues. “You’re still young, you shouldn’t overdo it.”

Mila feels her lip twitch. Just how young do they think she is?

It’s already bad enough that fans still don’t see her as the adult that she is now. (She’ll forever be their baby, according to them.) But if others continue to treat her like she’s still a child, then won’t her members do the same? And that’s the last thing she wants.

Mila already has to sit here and watch the Lumine members flirt with them, she’d rather choke on the meat Jingyi gave her than endure mothering from the men she’s literally head over heels in love with.

“Sara-sunbae is right.” Jay frowns, and Mila gets the foreboding feeling that he’ll do that thing he does where he frets over her. It had been cute once, but that was before she realised she wanted him to see her as a woman, and not the same fifteen-year-old girl he’s looked out for four years now.

Sara chuckles. “You can just call me ‘Noona.’ ‘Sunbae’ sounds too formal. And Mila here is like a little sister to me, it’s only right I get along with her oppas.”

Sara then lays a hand on Jay’s shoulder, looking too friendly to be wanting to just ‘get along,’ and the sight of it has Mila clenching a first under the table.

Heeseung chooses that exact moment to return, and slips into his seat next to Ria, the leader of Lumine. He spares a smile at the older woman, before looking at the empty spots next to Mila.

“Where are Jaeyun and Kyunghee?” he asks Jay. But habit, he uses both Jake and Kiara’s Korean names.

“Noona went to answer a phone call, and Jake went to grab something for Yui-sunbae—”

“Ah-ah-ah,” Yui tuts. “It’s ‘Noona’ to you, remember?”

She then laughs in the way that shows just how tipsy she is, and almost falls over if not for Sunghoon reaching out to steady her by placing an arm around her bicep.

“Please be careful,” he says politely, before retracting his hand. But then she topples over and ends up leaning on his shoulder.

“Yah, Yui,” Ria scolds, “Don’t be embarrassing. Sunghoon, please don’t mind her. If she makes you uncomfortable just push her off.”

Sunghoon chuckles. “No, no, it’s okay—I don’t mind.”

Mila bits her lip. She quickly looks away and catches Heeseung’s gaze instead. Or at least tries to. He doesn’t really spare her any looks during this dinner—or at all, really.

It’s one of those things that Mila has just learnt to deal with. The kind and caring Heeseung she’s known since trainee days is still there, but into in the way she’s used to. She doesn’t know exactly what’s changed, but there’s definitely something different in their relationship. It’s much more awkward, much more distant.

“Mila, do you want some of the pork?” Jingyi asks, just as Mila hastily eats the meat she gave her before.

Heeseung replies before Mila can. “You should eat some, too. Here.”

Heeseung piles a piece of pork onto Jingyi’s bowl, and Mila pettily thinks that he didn’t do anything of the sort for her. But then, she’s the one who wants them to treat her less like a dongsaeng, isn’t she? Perhaps she’s getting what she wanted, after all.

“Ah, thank you.” Jingyi gives a stunning smile, and Mila has a sudden thought that she resembles someone very familiar.

Then it clicks. Of course.

One would think Heeseung would be over his ex-girlfriend by now, but considering how long they had been together, she supposes it’s not too far fetched to think he would look for her in everything he does, even two years after they’ve broken up. It was no secret that the man’s entire world revolved around her.

Mila is willing to bet he still has the bracelet she gave him, too.

She reaches for a drink before the soju bottle is taken away from her sight. She blinks as she looks at Sara.

“Mila, you should slow down a bit,” she chides. “Here have some water.”

Mila feigns a smile. She doesn’t want water, she wants alcohol, damn it! “It’s fi—!”

“No, she’s right.” Mila looks at Heeseung in surprise. He’s looking at her sternly. A huge contrast to how he’s been looking at the Lumine members—or anyone for that matter—since the dinner started. “Don’t overdo it. You have a schedule tomorrow.”

No, because what the hell is his problem? He’s been giving her hot and cold treatment for the past month or so, and has been doing fine at pretending she’s not here tonight. But when he does decide to address her, it’s to chastise her in front of everyone?

Mila frowns. “I know my limits. I’ll be fine.”

Is this really the right time and place to be giving into her pent-up frustrations and showing attitude? No. But she’s not exactly in the right mind to be rational.

“It’s not a good look if you turn up with a hangover,” Heeseung says, firmer.

“I’ve been fine without you supervising me in the past,” Mila snaps. “I don't need your advice.”

There’s a tense silence. Heeseung rolls his jaw, and gives her The Look. Mila glares back like the petulant brat she knows she’s being, and ignores his face to call the staff over for another drink.

Heeseung lets out a deep sigh, and Jingyi looks at him from the corner of her eye, not sure what to make of the sudden shift in mood. Yerin has a hesitant smile on her face. But the older woman quickly regains composure and clears her throat. “Well, it looks like we’re running low on meat—I’ll call over the staff to get us some more.”

Sunghoon furrows his eyebrows and nudges Mila’s foot discreetly. He mouths, ‘What’s with you?’

What’s with her?

Mila doesn’t even know how to begin to answer that question. She can feel her blood start to rush beneath her skin, and she doesn’t even know the reason why.

She’s annoyed, she’s mad—but she feels like crying at the same time.

Maybe there really is something wrong with her. But, well, she should have realised that after falling for not one, not two, but seven people at the same time.

Jay furrows his eyebrows. He opens his mouth to say something, but Jake returns at that very second, holding a woman’s jacket in his hand. “I got your jacket, Yui-sunbae.”

The said woman beams up at Jake and receives it gratefully. “Thank you, Jaeyun. Sorry to bother you.”

“That’s okay—woah!” Jaeyun sweeps in with a heroic catch as Yui stumbles on her feet in an attempt to put her jacket on. “Be careful!”

Yui simply giggles drunkenly and pats Jaeyun on the chest. “You’re so strong, wahhh...”

Mila’s lips are pressed into a thin line. Now this is getting too much for her liking. She doesn’t hear anything else that’s being said, because she’s trying to calm down the emotions that poke and prod at her from the inside, begging to be let out in the ugliest way possible.

Mila doesn’t care. She can’t be in this room anymore.

She suddenly stands from her seat, drawing all eyes at the table to her. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

She storms off. She almost bumps into a woman leaving the bathroom and spares a thin, but hopefully friendly, smile before she goes right to the stall at the very end, and locks herself inside.

The alcohol does not pair well with the boiling jealousy in her gut, and she finds herself hunched over the toilet seat, throwing up every bit of food she’s had in the last hour. It’s not a pretty sight. She’s lurching, her shoulders shaking and her eyes watery as bile burns the back of her throat.

Mila may be dramatic, but this might possibly be the worst night ever.

She has to drag herself out of the stall and towards the sink, where she grimaces at her reflection. So much for being a visual, she thinks. She looks like the average college student after a night of no sleep, three cans of coffee, and a simmering desire to just quit everything and work on a remote farm for nothing more than sleeping quarters and food.

She takes a deep breath as she observes her reflection. Her visuals have always been praised by netizens for seeming so youthful and refreshing, yet she can’t help but feel that everything about her feels too…girlish. The baby fat on her cheeks, the roundness of her eyes, and just her look in general.

Mila reaches up to the back of her head and plucks the white satin bow that she used to pin up half her hair. She shakes her head, allowing the black strands to fall in waves around her face. She turns the bow over in her hands and bites the inside of her cheek.

She sighs. It’s not like getting rid of the bow will make her look any more mature, considering she’s been acting like a brat. As she thinks back to her petty remarks, she starts to feel belated embarrassment creep under her skin.

I’m so pathetic, Mila bemoans as she shakes her hands dry at the sink. Why did I say that?

Mila is so caught up in her thoughts she doesn’t notice Kira until she almost bumps into her on the way out of the bathroom. She decides to tell the older female about her conversation with Sunoo over text, only to find that Kiara already had a similar idea.

“Apparently the Lumine manager had to go home all of a sudden for an emergency and asked our manager to help drop them back off to their dorms.”

Well, Mila can’t be upset over that. She’s aware of just how dangerous the world is for women. As much as she was annoyed by the Lumine members tonight, she wouldn’t wish any harm on them.

Their manager, Juri, finds the girls and discusses a quick plan away from the others.

“Okay, if Mila goes with Sunoo I’ll worry less,” Juri says. “Then I can take Kiara and the Lumine members, and the boys can take taxis home when they’re done.”

“Okay, then that settles it.” Kiara gestures to Mila. “When will Sunoo get here?”

Mila quickly takes her phone out of her pocket. She opens the most recent message from Sunoo. “He said he’s pulling up now.” She types a quick reply and turns to leave. “I’ll go meet up with him—you tell the others about the plan.”

“Yah!” Kiara reprimands as she speeds off. “You should say goodbye to the others, first!”

Mila waves a hand in dismissal over her head. “It’s fine. They won’t even notice I’m gone.”

She doesn’t know whether to be grateful or sad about that.

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