Chapter 1
Reaching out a hand, sana gently feels the space beside her but she sighs and turns on her back when she realises the spot is cold and empty. With a slight peek to the time displayed by the bed, she groans at the 7:00am she sees and decides to get up at once before she drifts off to sleep again. Slowly but surely, she puts on her (jihyo’s) hoodie and the fluffy socks she doesn’t need at night because her girlfriend is like a furnace, and carefully waddles to the living room with half closed eyes.
If the times she bumps on the door frames are discounted, she successfully makes it into the open space with zero injuries (jihyo would be very proud) and calls out for the girl whom she can hear typing on her laptop’s keyboard.
“hyo…?” rubbing her eyes, sana stops just behind the sofa where jihyo was sitting.
“b– baby??” away from the girl’s view, jihyo tenses up when she hears sana’s voice, immediately rushing to close her laptop and quickly gather all the stuff occupying the sofa and coffee table “you’re up already?” she asks confused when she looks at the time on her phone after dropping the stuff down by the TV and then runs towards sana who’s standing with a pout adorning her lips.
“I woke up, but you weren’t— in bed” sana opens her arms mid yawn as jihyo gets close enough to gather the girl between her own. She takes in the warmth, melts into it for a while as she runs her hand up and down sana’s back, kneading at her waist for a bit before she slowly guides her to sit on the sofa with her, making sure no air gets in between them during the process.
“well— you know once I wake up, I can’t get myself back to sleep, so…” jihyo laughs dismissively, and although she tries her best not to sound unnatural, she fails miserably. Luckily, sana is very much in a trance of her own to even notice that anything is off.
“mmm” replies the girl with a small nod as she continues fighting off the sleep but soon her own body gives up and her head ends up dropping onto her partner’s lap.
“still sleepy?” jihyo carefully moves to sit at the far end of the sofa so sana has space to lay down properly “wanna go back to bed?” she reaches to pinch her cheek and takes the chance to give it a kiss, but sana starts whining and wiggling until she’s turned to face jihyo’s tummy, snuggling into it as she curls into a ball “I guess that’s a no” she chuckles as one hand begins to brush sana’s hair, while the other grabs a throw blanket to cover the baby up.
Sometimes sana will get out of bed and look for jihyo because “it’s not the same without you”, but they both know that’s a lie. Sana is someone that prioritizes sleep above any other need, which means that she will stay in bed for as long as she can until jihyo has to force her up. If sana is truly tired, she will sleep like a log with or without jihyo. Which in their case, works perfectly because jihyo’s more of a ‘getting out of bed as soon as she’s up’ kind of person and likes being productive in the mornings to catch up on assignments, although she does appreciate chilling in bed in the morning when the planets align, and they’re given the opportunity to.
With the way sana is out of bed and still in need of more rest, jihyo can only guess that the girl’s a little under the weather, which was not a surprise knowing the toll her anaemia had on her. Jihyo has tried everything in her power to get sana to take her iron supplements, but she’s so reluctant she has given up. Sana has never given her a reasonable explanation but now jihyo understands better the whole ‘happy wife, happy life’ thing (no, they are not married yet your honour), so she has chosen to respect the girl’s decision and not press any further—although it still kills her to see her suffer.
“feeling sick?” jihyo checks her forehead for a fever, and is relieved to find her temperature is normal.
“jus’ a headache” says sana, her speech muffled because she has her face completely stuck against jihyo “ ‘m sorry, I know you’re busy” she continues and jihyo feels a kiss being left over her tummy, which she tries not to squirm at because she’s ticklish.
“I’m sorry about your headache baby” jihyo leans down to give sana’s head a kiss too “and don’t worry about it, I was finishing up anyway” she glances over to her stuff on the TV stand and wonders if she even managed to save her work—she was so worried sana would see what she was up to that she put everything away without double checking.
“wanna sleep more” mumbles sana, and jihyo’s surprised she’s still even awake.
“no wonder, it’s still super early” jihyo chuckles as she makes sure the blanket is covering sana’s back.
“you?” sana turns her head up as much as she can to look at jihyo.
“me?” jihyo asks back, not sure what the girl is referring to.
“you’re not tired?” sana looks at her with those big, brown, boba eyes and jihyo has already simped over them enough times that she can almost restrain the cute aggression now.
“nah, not really” jihyo gathers sana’s face between her hands and leaves a loud smooch against her lips “I’ll just watch some youtube” she picks up her phone and headphones to show sana and helps her get comfortable on her lap again “you just sleep some more and I’ll wake you up in a while, okay?”
“ ‘kay” sana sighs comfortably as she feels jihyo begin to run a hand through her hair, soon drifting off to dreamland where her cool girl in a leather jacket awaits her on a white motorcycle.
---------
When jihyo’s halfway through her fifth video—which makes her realise how behind on new content she was—she feels sana stir more than she usually does when asleep, so she peeks down and finds the girl her on her back, staring directly into her eyes with her own puffed-up ones. Jihyo immediately drops the phone and entertains her with some funny faces till she’s over the post-nap clarity.
“good sleep?” jihyo reaches to brush the hair off sana’s face, leaving a kiss on her forehead.
“mhm” sana smiles and stretches wide while jihyo circles a hand over her tummy.
“how’s the headache?”
“much better actually, must be because of you” sana tries to trace jihyo’s jaw seductively but ends up poking her nose when she sneezes half way into the bit.
“and then you say I’m the silly one” jihyo laughs fondly at the girl and can’t help leaving scattered kisses all over her face.
What were a few kisses turn into too many as sana sneaks her arms around jihyo’s neck and keeps her locked in place to give her a fair share of her own. After the kissing arena turns into a tickle battle, however, jihyo realises it’s getting quite late and neither of them have had the chance to eat any breakfast yet.
“right, I think it’s about time we get up—” sana whines and kicks her legs to share that she did not agree with that decision, but she soon gets over it and sits up to finally give jihyo some room to move. Jihyo takes the chance to also stretch because while she loves their sofa, the old thing has probably been around for longer than she’s been on earth and her back’s been taking its toll.
“damn jihyo…” the younger girl sits back up and her eyes land on sana to try understand what she was saying.
“what was that—” before she even has the chance to finish her sentence, sana’s already claimed her lap back, only this time she is straddling her and jihyo’s mind shuts off for a second “wha—”
“when was the last time I was blessed with a view like this?” jihyo sits back in silence as sana takes control over her arms, feeling them up and slowly dragging her nails over the lines that mark up their muscles. Jihyo can only gulp and try her best to not whimper while the other girl continues to admire her hard work at the gym.
In sana’s defence, jihyo has been coming back home pretty late and leaving too early, times at which she would be unconscious in bed, and if they saw each other, jihyo would be fully dressed because she had just come back, or was about to leave, or they had seen each other around campus. Due to the cold weather now, jihyo didn’t wear her infamous sleeveless shirts much, unless she was at the gym or in bed about to sleep. Around the apartment she tended to wear a hoodie or a sweatshirt because they are university students living in a one room apartment, which is expensive enough on its own to also have the heating on. It’s a bit of a struggle for sana who’s always cold, but jihyo tends to run warm easily, so because of sana laying on her lap earlier, she got hot and took off the extra layer, hence leaving her gains exposed for the predators nearby (i.e. sana, her babygirl).
“I see the extra hours have been paying off, hm?” sana directs her a look she’s all too familiar with and jihyo finds herself nodding along in a daze. She then sees naughty hands sneak past her tank top, making her shiver at the cold intrusion as sana continues feeling along her marked abdomen. Just as jihyo thought the girl was done, her shirt gets lifted enough to let a rush of crisp air reach her and she swears she sees sana biting her lip with the widest grin “what a feast—” jihyo’s eyes blow up three times in size,
“OKAY— woah, woah, woah!” with an embarrassing shade of red covering her cheeks and her heart feeling like it’s about to burst off her ear, jihyo circles her hands over sana’s waist to stop any advances and closes her eyes to ignore the pout she sees incoming “baby, I love you but you know I’m nothing but a weak, starving victorian child before breakfast. My heart can’t handle this right now” she fumbles for a bit longer until she realises that the other girl hasn’t said a single thing. When she opens her eyes again, however, she finds something she wasn’t expecting—sana covering her mouth while trying so hard not to laugh that her face is almost as red as jihyo’s.
“baaahhhh…” when she realises she’s been discovered, sana let’s go of her mouth and finally laughs to her heart’s content “hah, hyo… you’re so funny” she wipes the tears that escape her eyes and when she locks her gaze with jihyo again, she can’t help but awe at the way she resembles an angry puppy.
“you’re an evil, evil woman. I hope you know that” sana just giggles at her girlfriend and throws her arms over her shoulders to pull her in for a hug.
“you’re just so cute. I can’t help but tease you” sana knows that if she holds the embrace long enough, jihyo will give up and hug her back “and just so you know I was being very truthful, you look so good I could eat you up in one bite” as soon as that’s out, jihyo groans loudly but still wraps her own arms around the girl’s waist, squeezing hard enough to let sana know that she’s really reached her limit “okay, okay…” she chuckles by jihyo’s ear and leaves a scatter of kisses just below it.
Jihyo’s able to deal with wholesome sana when she demands cuddles and kisses and hugs, and all she can do is let her teeth rot at the sweetness of it all. She can also handle evil sana when she’s in the mood for teasing and making her miserably needy. But when both meet in the centre of the spectrum, all jihyo can do is sit back and take it like a big girl.
“sana, pleaseeee” jihyo stomps her legs on the floor in complain (well, she tries to take it like a big girl). Sana comes back up for air after she leaves an array of smooches along jihyo’s jaw and neck, grinning proudly like she’s just accomplished a world record.
“this is also partly your fault for being so hot” says sana, lifting jihyo’s chin with a finger before dropping a kiss on her nose and finally—finally, getting off the girl to let her breathe in peace as she skips away.
Jihyo feels her limbs go weak as she’s sprawled on the sofa, trying to regain the parts of her soul that left every time sana would look at her with those vixen eyes, only to follow it with her boba ones.
“how about I make breakfast as an apology?” says sana from the kitchen.
“I think that’s the least you could do…” jihyo says, and she hears the girl laugh. She was about to check some messages on her phone when she suddenly remembers something “oh wait! I don’t think we have anything to cook”
“was about to say that…” sana trails off as she picks up a brown green onion from the fridge and shows jihyo. Looking at the girl on the sofa, she finds her grimacing as she takes out some other things that are well past their expiration date “we really have been busy” sana throws the last of it in the bin, washes her hands, and returns next to jihyo.
“what should we do?” asks the younger girl.
“wanna order something?” asks sana in return, already looking for her phone which she spots by the TV. She walks to it and picks up the device to open the delivery app.
Instead, jihyo feels a lightbulb turn on in her mind and she smirks “I have a better idea” she waits until sana looks at her to stand up and get closer to the girl “what if we go raid momo’s fridg—” but just as she reaches to hold sana’s arms, she accidently knocks up the studying material she had left by the TV stand, and slowly watches in shock how the sheets scatter all over the floor.
“oh no, your notes!” sana, like the sweetheart she is, immediately bends down to help gather the stuff, escaping jihyo’s attempt to hold her back. The first few seconds are silent, but jihyo sees how the girl eventually picks up on what is written on the papers and slowly looks up to question her on the matter “why is this… written in japanese?” sana asks confused.
“um…” the younger girl looks away as she fidgets with her shirt, her eyes soon landing back on sana’s puzzled face. Jihyo’s mouth goes dry and her mind blank as she runs out of ways to salvage the moment—instead she just raises her shoulders and pulls out a half-assed grin to say, “surprise…?”