Touch you (Summerz)

1

Kazuha's lived through three step siblings and none of them were as annoyingly present as Chaewon Kim. Probably due to the fact that none of them insisted on having unapologetically loud sex at six in the morning on a Wednesday. This girl baffles Kazuha as much as she annoys her. Chaewon despises waking up for school, looks half-dead when she does show up to classes, and stares at Kazuha with accusation and muted resentment when she returns from her morning jogs. Yet she has no problem enthusiastically participating in such physically demanding activities. At six in the morning. On a Wednesday. Waking Kazuha ten precious minutes earlier than she has to be up. Chaewon is lucky the semester has just started and there were no tests given yet. Kazuha would probably kill her and her 'friend' in cold blood if she dared to wake her up this way on a quiz day.

(It's her senior year. She can't afford to screw it up. Nuisances like her almost step-sister won't deter her from her goals.)

Besides, if she's lucky her father will get bored with Chaewon's mother long before he actually marries her and they will move out the same way they moved in, arms full of boxes on a Saturday morning. Ms Kim Narae will officially get married to her father in six months. She knows they won't, though, not really. Things usually start to fall apart after the ceremony is done and over with. She went through her father's routine precisely three times. If she were Ms Narae, she'd be wary of becoming the fourth. It always goes the same way.

Except this time, Chaewon is brought into the equation, and she's already throwing Kazuha off balance. Two weeks of living - co-existing, really - with this girl, and she has come to a conclusion that her so-called step-sibling bond with Minho was much better than this. She may have landed him in a hospital that one time, but at least she's never had the displeasure of knowing what he sounds like when he comes.

(As infuriating as it is, she doubts he'd sound as good as Chaewon.)

The thought makes her shudder - she's not sure which one, and she has no desire to dwell on it - so it gets shaken off. Kazuha rises from the bed, cringing as Chaewon happily lets her know how great her newest fuckboy is by releasing more obscene sounds. She has to admit that Chaewon does sound gorgeous, though she'd rather not use that word to describe her step-sister's moans. Chaewon isn't annoyingly high-pitched, isn't sweet or shy like Kazuha's occasional (rare) bed partners are. She's sinfully rich, or richly sinful, or both, really.

(Yet another thought that Kazuha forces out of her head.)

Something crashes in Chaewon's room, and Kazuha half-hopes it was someone finally passing out, but Chaewon's loud cry reassures her both parties are still very much awake and very much still going at it.

This is so unfair. Kazuha can't keep blasting her music on maximum through her headphones and foolishly hope it won't leave her with hearing impairment. Maybe she could try talking to her father about soundproofing either her room or Chaewon's. As soon as - if ever, she thinks impassively - her father and Chaewon's mother come back from yet another trip she'll approach the subject with him. Make something up about needing to concentrate on her studies. It isn't even really a lie. She does need to work harder in some of her AP classes. Or maybe she could persuade him and Chaewon's mother to switch rooms with Chaewon. All of the second-floor bedrooms are equally spacious and her father's room is further down the hall. It won't get rid of Chaewon's sounds completely, but at least they will be somewhat muffled and won't be coming from right across the hall. It's not like they use their bedroom. Her father is almost always gone, and all of his wives are almost always with him, be it a business trip or a Caribbean cruise.

Her routine is familiar and calculated: brush teeth, get dressed, go for a run, shower, light breakfast, change, off to school. She goes through the steps in her head, throwing her hair up in a ponytail and hurriedly grabbing her phone from a nightstand, sighing with relief when she puts headphones in her ears and presses play. Kazuha hasn't listened to music this much in her entire life. She always found comfort in the silent emptiness of her house. She likes her thoughts. She likes being left alone with them. But, as Chaewon's headboard starts rhythmically tapping against the wall in time with the song beat in Kazuha's ear, she's reminded once again that it's not an option anymore. Not as long as Chaewon is in the house with her.