Meet Me in the Afterglow (Purinz/Chaewon x Yunjin)

McDonalds

THEN.

They first meet in the most cliché of ways: at a bar on a Friday night.

Yunjin's never really been a big drinker, but Sakura likes beer and dancing, and Minjeong likes vodka and flirting with cute girls, so Yunjin is regularly dragged out with them. Sometimes it's to the dance clubs in Itaewon or Hongdae, but most of the time Yunjin finds herself wedged in a booth at Midnight, a bar near their apartment with cheap drinks and good music.

Like she is now.

If Yunjin is being honest, she didn't really want to come out tonight. She has two papers due by the end of next week that she's been heavily procrastinating, a new episode of her favorite anime dropped an hour ago and she can't even check Twitter because she doesn't want to be spoiled, and Fridays are her longest day of classes so she's already a little tired and grouchy.

But on the other hand, it's Sakura's birthday, and that takes precedence over Yunjin's inability to balance her university workload with a healthy sleeping pattern, so that kind of makes the decision for her.

So she steals one of Sakura's crop tops, digs her tightest jeans out of the laundry, makes an effort with her hair and makeup, dutifully predrinks for a bit with Sakura and Minjeong in the apartment, and then ends up being the one to pay for the Uber to their favourite bar because oh my phone is still charging can't you do it I'll pay you back (Minjeong, lying through her teeth) and fuck off it's my birthday I'm not paying for shit (Sakura, who's just a cheap asshole but also the birthday girl).

Really, it could be worse. She could be out with just Sakura, who doesn't normally need babysitting but she views her birthday as a day to see how much tequila she can ingest without it actually being fatal, so at least Yunjin has Minjeong with her to share Sakura Duty, even if she's only marginally better behaved.

As it transpires, there's a whole group of them tonight to celebrate Sakura's birthday and aid her in her tequila quest; mostly members of the dance team and some of Sakura's slightly pretentious business student friends that Yunjin only sort of knows in passing. Kazuha, Sakura's not-quite-so-close-I'm-getting-there girlfriend, is also present, although she vanished ten minutes prior to go and meet some of her friends who are joining them and aren't familiar with the area.

The bar isn't crowded enough to feel claustrophobic, Yunjin has three drinks inside her and her two best friends with her, so there are worse ways to spend her Friday night. Even if she is missing the season finale.

Yunjin is at the bar with the birthday girl herself, waiting for the world's slowest pair of bartenders to finally get to them, when she sees her for the first time.

Over at the large booth they've taken over for the evening, Kazuha has reappeared with two newcomers. On one side of her is a girl who Yunjin recognises the face of but can't quite recall her name — Wonyoung or Wonyang or something like that — and on the other side is someone Yunjin has definitely never seen before, because this girl—

This girl she would remember.

Yunjin blinks, wondering if those three drinks hit her harder than she first thought, because even in the dim lighting of the bar, this girl might possibly be the most beautiful person Yunjin has ever seen in her life.

The mystery stranger is about the same height as Sakura, with slightly wavy brown hair just above her shoulders like rays of moonlight, and the slightly intimidating neutral look on her face gives way to a cute (very cute) smile when she laughs at something Kazuha says. She's wearing frayed black shorts, black boots with a silver buckle on them, a black sleeveless top and Yunjin is mesmerized.