thirteenone | Recent Entries

cross-posted to tumblr

title: sleepless nights (are warmer in your arms)
word count: 9,899
pairings: hsu nientzu/yoon seoyeon
link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77173131

background

notice the date! it's jan31 aka 0131 aka the second sunnyz day of the year! even though i finished this on christmas eve, i saved it until today (and when i realized i finished it on christmas eve i almost scrapped my plan and posted it On Christmas—luckily, i didn't and instead made a different one shot specifically for christmas so that this one could go up on 0131). also notice the end of the ao3 link Haha 131 mention.. i love sunnyz let's get into it 👇

even though i said i wouldn't have multiple open wips at the same time, i do make exceptions for one shots that i intend to finish within a couple hours, which was what this was supposed to be. instead, it took me several days to finish, which meant several days of not working on my then-current wip haha (now published as unsent letters). in any case! this idea came to me because i was thinking that nien's hugs look sooo comfy, especially since it seems that seoyeon has come around to them as of late (aya 햄복(행복) lyric reel im looking at you).

writing this was different from my other works, though, because it's technically set in real life. which makes it fun, yes, but it also makes it a bit hard? because then i Really have to worry about not mischaracterizing anyone and make it a bit more realistic, too (i've realized that i tend to write seoyeon as a lovesick sap for nien like All The Time even from the start, which isn't exactly super feasible in real life? if you know what i mean). in any case, i tried to keep it as close to their real personalities as possible 😅

260124 edit: so literally yesterday seoyeon was talking about her dynamic with nien in her 260123 cosmo live and basically said "sometimes i get clingy and nien takes it well because she understands me well" (among other things she said about nien but that's for me to crash out about on twitter not in this reflection) which is SO this work like omfg. thank you for bringing this work one step closer to canon seoyeon Girl Who is Going To Be Okay gif

plot

at first, i was split between two options: the first was to have it be a college au, where seoyeon is a sleep deprived college student and nien is a friend of a friend? or something like that. the second option was to keep it in the idolverse, and as i chose this option and started writing i realized this was the Better option. there's nothing wrong with a college au, of course, but i kind of had the sense that the well of ideas would run dry? meanwhile if i kept it close to reality, then there were Many instances i could draw from, as in the following 👇

1. them being roommates during the come true tour

i have so much to say about this. i mean, to start, being roommates already sets up very well for this prompt, and then when seoyeon said that there was actually Only One Bed when they were in thailand i was like Huh. I See.. and then seoyeon's 250201 fromm saying "i ate nien's love" and then 250215(iirc) fromm talking about how she woke nien up to help her open the ice cream after they had breakfast together in the hotel.. i am Observing everything. (also, i was worried that my description of the ice cream is hard to follow but i really tried my bestㅠ this is the video i referenced). and based on the date, this Confirmed happened in tempe, arizona
also, the fact that seoyeon literally confirmed in the 260114 signal that she considers this tour as when they got close and their "love burned bright" Uh Huh. Yep.

2. the "seoyeon touched my lips while i was sleeping in the car" incident

if my math isn't wrong nien sent this fromm on 250111 at 2am kst, which was twenty minutes after midnight in bangkok on january 11 Aka the day of their first concert of the tour. and i initially wasn't going to include this moment because it didn't relate directly to the main plot but then i thought Hold On. given the proximity to the tour it's not a stretch to think they had been in the car with other cometruez members, which includes hayeon. and this would lead perfectly into her starting to suspect their relationship, something i decided to add in later as i was writing, so it actually worked out quite well

3. nien wanting to get pho during the tour

so during the 250313 03z signal live, seoyeon mentioned that she and nien went on a date during the tour where only the two of them went out because nien wanted to eat pho (which, by the way, how come No One said anything about this until i watched the live myself? it makes me feel like im the only one clocking in at the sunnyz cornplating factory). now, considering that their last american stop was in LA (after tempe), i figured it was perfect to include it after the ice cream bit. like, the concept of them going out late at night alone and ordering all the food they like and that's the moment when seoyeon nearly-imperceptibly falls in love? so good

now, to talk about other parts. the portion about seoyeon's "team bonding" Hugging Experiment that ultimately results in her realizing that only nien's hugs make her feel at ease in front of everybody else was not only hilarious but absolutely necessary. it also kind of reflects how seoyeon seemed initially averse to physical touch irl, though she's since loosened up after being in tripleS for so long (and again, the whole "nien takes [my clinginess] well" thing like Dude...). speaking of seoyeon, i didn't expect to incorporate her internal worries about being s1/leader but at the same time, it makes sense yk? and it sets up well for nien's hugs to be what rests her constantly-running mind for a bit, which i love.

also, dahyun being onto them since the very beginning is so 🥺 because 03z genuinely love each other so much and i love them so much and the concept of dahyun watching both of her close friends fall in love right in front of her was just too good to not write. even if that means she third wheels them (251031 signal live 251103 signal im looking at you). also, the nadaz is subtle but it is there! i love them (and nupnupz too if you really squint and then turn your head a little bit).

the game night was lowkey just an opportunity for hayeon to add to her files on sunnyz, but it also turned into How Many Members Can I Fit In This Scene At Once? LOL

in regards to the little scheme that 07z pull off, my original plan had it only be mochiz (i love them too.. they're so cute 😭💗) but then, when i was thinking of a plausible reason why chaewon would go into seoyeon's room during the hoodie scene, i realized that soomin lives in the same dorm and could therefore be used as a plausible excuse (also, i was on their haus' wiki pages Extensively to make sure what i was writing made sense in regards to dorming arrangements. the amount of times i opened their fandom wiki just to close the tab then open it again is diabolical.)

btw, the 07z gc name being super cool 07zzz 😎 is supposed to be 찐chill즈😎 in korean, meaning "real chillz" (the rhyme LOL) because 7 is 칠(chil), aka chill/cool. and, there are three ㅈ that correlate to the three z's. corny, i know, but it wouldn't be a meonghamm creation without it.

the 07z interactions were actually super fun to write, and i get why these four are often the base of a lot of squad shenanigans scenarios (haha see what i did there? SSS). in a somewhat similar vein—drawing back to the rooming accuracy thing—i know that dahyun and xinyu are roommates + dahyun was already incorporated in this as a fellow 03/cometruez member, so xinyu just seemed like a natural addition to the whole exposé. this is also where the nupnupz crumb comes in because i saw that hayeon is dormmates with nakyoung and kotone, meanwhile soomin and seoyeon are dormmates with (as mentioned) dahyun and xinyu, but also with jiyeon as well, and i couldn't resist the nupnupz temptation (i love them Too..) and the concept of them witnessing the sunnyz exposé? amazing.

one last thing about the dorms: i absolutely Adore nien and chaewon together my 1321 is so dear to me (ddalgi family.. please recognize each other...) so when i found out that they're roommates in the ultimate foreignerz room i was like Wow this is actually perfect for the 07z scheme. that's all i wanted to say, really, i love them so much.

final thoughts

originally, it was supposed to end right after the rooftop confession scene, though that felt just a little bit off to me. then, just mere hours before im supposed to post it, i was hit with the thought of them in an already-established relationship. specifically, where seoyeon seeks nien's hugs Just Because She Can. cue 45 minutes and 700 words later, and we're at the final piece! (im also a Big fan of their aya mv fits! unrelated, but it came to mind.)

im happy about how this came out (again, it was supposed to be a quick one shot and ended up being 9k words Oops). 131 cuddling is just so warm and dear to me so i really enjoyed this. and, of course, the 131 tag grows 🙌 let's All love sunnyz

260129 edit: notice how i'm writing this edit only two days before this thing is published. that's Because i was doing a final read-through to make sure i didn't have any glaring errors in this before i posted it Except right as i was reading the rooftop confession scene, my sibling was listening to payback by ive which is (to say the least) a song Very Dear to my heart (oh ive.. you do yearning so well) and i felt like the lyrics were kind of lowkey maybe applicable to the scene—which is to say, i was Moved. so yeah, if you wanted a song to listen to during that scene i would recomment payback by ive 🙂‍↕️

cross-posted to tumblr

title: unsent letters
word count: 28,769
pairings: hsu nientzu/yoon seoyeon
link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77610381/chapters/203262946

background

it's jan13 (0113), aka sunnyz day! this idea came to me much earlier, though, because of this clip of sunnyz in the 251103 signal. and then, just as i was on the brink of finishing this, they dropped the best couple gravity and used their fcos for their pictures which just filled me with so much cuteness aggression for babies!131 and spurred me further to finish this. blame them for being so cutieful

plot

when this plot was in its very seed stages all i knew was that i wanted to see them as babies together, which led to them growing up together, which led me to a high school au (again). specifically, tapping on the concept of a (vaguely toxic) codependent friendship (although not Really that toxic)(i feel like if i ever wanted to go for an Actual toxic codependent friendship it'd be 1921 idk). just, the way seoyeon is nien's first friend when she moves from taiwan and nien, in turn, is seoyeon's first friend In General and the two of them have this lasting best friendship that teeters into a relationship before they even realize.. well yes!

in regards to the making friends without nien's help scheme, that was done completely on the fly—it wasn't in the outline at all. but, as i was writing it, i felt like seoyeon's totally the type of person to assignment-ify something like social interaction, to make it a goal for herself. i also ended up really appreciating dahyun and yooyeon for their help of seoyeon (they were also not in the outline). i felt it was especially moving that seoyeon could observe yooyeon and mayu's relationship and kind of realize what she needs to do with her own relationship with nien. a word about pairings: my last longfic had twotenz so i wanted to let nadaz have their moment, and tokkiz came along naturally after that. im so glad i did, though, because both pairings are so cute 😭 and, soxinz canon.

also, i didn't realize i made seoyeon cry so often (does anyone else hear cry baby playing...) and i do feel kind of bad for that. but she is happy in the end! which is another thing—i didn't really expect this to go into a character introspection (was supposed to be self-indulgent once again) but i think it's quite interesting.. it's also funny because the clip that inspired all of this is seoyeon asking nien if she's a baby. which segues into the references i put into here!

references

before we get into the tripleS references, something else that's interesting is that, upon proofreading, i realized that seoyeon's character may have drawn some elements from yeon sieun from weak hero class, which is funny because i've never watched the show nor read the novel—it'd have all been from my irl getting Really into it and telling me all about it. it's funny to see that influence here, if it is noticeable.

another thing that was inspired by an outside media was the exchange of letters. in the original outline, it was supposed to stay as written letters and mail, but then i thought that fax machines might have been cool. if this sounds familiar, that's because i drew some inspiration from twinkling watermelon, which i did watch a while ago (and the same irl got into it too alongside weak hero At the Same Time i was writing this, so again, it infiltrated this work).

back to the character introspection bit, i did not expect to incorporate all of unnie line into this. it was only supposed to be xinyu with mentions of sohyun, max. that's not to say i didn't like it, though—i actually think it's very heartwarming that they all take seoyeon under their wing/she brings the group together while she struggles with nien being away, which ultimately strengthens her character in the end (from my limited knowledge of whc, i believe sieun goes through something similar).

now, for tripleS references

of course, seoyeon asking nien "are you a baby?" in the 251103 signal ✅
in her 251204 fromm, seoyeon's said that she likes the snow, and always wished for it to snow on her birthday ✅ this also led me to think that, being that she was born in august, the summer heat takes the snow away, which parallels nien also leaving in the summers
in her 250804 fromm, nien said she went out to eat with seoyeon after landing in korea and they got bungeoppang ice cream afterwards, which is seoyeon's favorite ✅
seoyeon's fax number is 84-502-1321. the 84 comes from korea's area code, while 502 is may 2, chaewon's birthday. likewise, the 1321 is nien and chaewon! i can't resist 13121 strawberry family sorry..
the ppeongtwigi is in reference to the fact that nien's called the "rice puff designer" inspired by this assemble24 behind video and this assemble25 behind video ✅
when seoyeon says "don't talk to me about nien" that is a Direct Reference to seoyeon's 251026 cosmo live where she talked about the fight she had with nien ✅
a minor one, but at the end when nien grabs seoyeon's wrist because the gang was putting their hands together for a chant, it parallels this reel of them during the come true tour (although their roles are switched) ✅

evidently, this fic was another opportunity for me to play the game How Many References Can I Put In This? because i can't help inserting real events in the things i write

misc

i also could not resist the various jokes i put in here, and it's kind of a real shame because some of them are extra funny(corny) if you understand korean

“I think the popularity’s gotten to your head.”

“What popularity? The only popularity I care about is from you,” Nien says, head propped on her hand as she winks at Seoyeon.

the original was A: "너 인기 좀 많이 있는데?" | B: "나 인기 너만이 있는데~" where 좀 많이("a bit of") rhymes with 너만이("only you") and means roughly the same as the english translation

“Well, Cooligans isn’t bad, but I was thinking of something a little bit more… creative?” She pauses. “Maybe something like… FIGHTINGZ (화이팅즈)?”

now, this one.. 😭 this was definitely a bit more of a stretch, but in my defense i was running out of ideas. i mean, i was trying to think of a vaguely corny squad name for unnie line and was drawing blanks until i looked at their names, and suddenly 화이팅 was the only thing that i came to mind. and, it makes for a slightly cheesy but still nice ending to seoyeon's character development, so ultimately im not too mad about it

final thoughts

lowkey this timeline was hard to keep up 😭😭😭 which shouldn't have been the case because it's a linear timeline but still, making sure the dates aligned/were realistic was surprisingly difficult. also, i started this under the impression that korea follows the same academic calendar as the rest of the world by having summer breaks between years. this is not the case 😭😭😭 luckily this didn't change anything major, i just had to rewrite some things to make it clear that it's a mid-year break rather than a break between years. i'll just say im glad i don't have to keep thinking about it!

for the parts in mandarin i used papago so my apologies if it came out stiff 🙏 this was definitely a hefty one (28k words!) and Much longer than i intended. unfortunately, i didn't realize this until i was already in too deep (and i wouldn't abandon a wip anyway, so i saw it through).

initially, i was intending to have this be a multi-chapter work but then i started getting in my head about the chapters being the same size (preferably 3k words+) and it kind of became a pain in the butt, so i decided to keep it all as one continuous work.

also, a more minor detail, the datestamps are written dd.mm.yyyy, and if you look at their letters you'll see that that's how seoyeon writes her dates, while nien does dd-mm-yyyy. perhaps indicating that seoyeon may be writing this Whole thing? or, at least i hope it comes across that way.

songs i listened to while writing this

heart raider
friend zone
detective soseol
love soseol (heavy on this)

finally, follow my twitter! that's where i talk about my wips and other 131 happenings.. and let's all love sunnyz 🙏

cross-posted to tumblr

title: it didn't hurt (when i fell out of heaven)
word count: 2,885
pairings: kamimoto kotone/ji seoyeon, hsu nientzu/yoon seoyeon
link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76960361

i can't seem to put google docs down. i had already finished two wips and i told myself that i would take a break from writing, because i didn't want to burn out. but then, since i'm currently on break, i thought that i wouldn't have this much time to write when i return to school, so i shouldn't try to resist the Itch when it comes. cue me sitting on a blank document as i try to figure out What exactly i wanted to write.

plot

the basic idea i had for this was "nien tries to flirt with seoyeon using kotone's help and leads to her meeting jiyeon" and initially, i was considering using a hagwon setting (unrelated, but i recently started watching friendly rivalry and it is So Good) but then i remembered that i've been beating hsaus like a dead horse. so my next thought was college, and honestly words just started showing up on the screen.

i was also toying with the idea of 1124, and actually my next longfic in the drafts is for them, but the idea of writing a small oneshot for them before that one releases was too hard to resist (also because that draft is literally Bones like i only have the outline done it is nowhere near finished). and, of course, i need my 131. and i actually think that the concept of 1311 and 241 being two pairs of best friends who get together.. well yes! i enjoy that Very much

i do have worries about if i characterized them well, so i'll definitely have to look further into them before writing anything else (why is the international nupnupz community Dust and korean community Nonexistent we need to wake up people!!!) and yes, the "are you alive?" part is a direct reference to the 1124 at the beginning of aya Girl Who Is Going To Be Okay dot gif.

as for the sudden nien-love-life-backstory.. well is it really my story if i don't involve a flashback/mental consideration? which is to say, i didn't plan to include that part, but it made for a tender glimpse into 1311's friendship, which i liked. get yourself a best friend who will climb trees so you can woo your crush for you!

also, the part in the library came to me because i remembered that my nye fic mentions 131 meeting in a library, so i thought Hey. why don't i make this like a prequel to that story? which came out fun

final thoughts

all in all, this was just something fun for me to write just because i could. and i do like how it came out, so yay! happy reading friends and happy new year (hoping for a 131ful and 1124ful 2026 🤞)

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title: christmas (not) alone
word count: 2,057
pairings: hsu nientzu/yoon seoyeon
link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76319201

background

like many of my works, this one wasn't planned at all. however, unlike my other wips, this one wasn't even preceded by concepts of a plan. the only reason this happened was because yesterday (12/22 pst, 12/23 kst) my friend was like Huh christmas is in three days. and that set a sense of foreboding in my stomach that was kind of groundless because i never planned to put anything out for christmas in the first place. and so, when i happened to finish my side wip today i thought Hey! maybe i could post this one for christmas and think of another one for 0131 (what it was originally planned for).

but this also didn't sit right with me because if i was going to make something for christmas, i wanted it to be christmas-related (which the side wip wasn't) and i definitely Did want to put at least Something out for the holiday, so my next thought was "i'll just Make a new wip in the next 12 hours specifically so i can post it on christmas." three hours later (two hours of writing) and it was finished. but it wasn't really done, because i was unsatisfied with the word count being under 2k, so another half hour later we pulled it up from its original 1.7k to its current 2,048 (like the game LOL). and that's how this one shot was born

plot

going in, all i knew about this was that i needed it done in 12 hours and i needed it to be christmas/holiday-themed. my thoughts went to those mall santas, and suddenly nien had a beard.

and that was another thing: this was the first time i wrote primarily in nien's POV, not just as supplementary or bonus. i like to think it came out well, and it's also interesting to see her humor straight from the source (her brain)(in case it wasn't already obvious, nien [+as a person/idol] really connects to me—especially her humor—so the things that she says is basically what i would say irl, except maybe with some more leaning into the cheesiness).

about yubin, at first i was going to go the safe/typical route of nien's friend who ropes her into it being nakyoung or tone, but then i remembered her recent cosmo live (the one where she blows air[???] into yubin's mouth cause the tteok was too hot and all the while yubin's on a phone call [with jiwoo i think, but idk for sure] and they're both ctfu) which was hilarious to me, and it made me want to see more of their dynamic. they're like a somewhat odd, kind of bro-ey pair? also, i've been rewatching the sunnyz/jjinchinz radio appearances which were just PEAK!!! and i've often found that people who like sunnyz also happen to like jjinchinz (me included) so it just fell together really naturally. we love you yubin 🫰

with chaewon and soomin—well, most people seem to regard soomin as seoyeon's child, so that's the rationale for her. and you know i adore my 13121 family so i had to have chaewon in there, too. and even unrelated to sunnyz, i've always thought that the two of them are so sibling-coded, so this was just perfect. the concept of nien being good with both of them while seoyeon watches fondly Wow this is true peak.

final thoughts

i even wrote this at a normal time, too, at 7pm instead of 11pm. i think i can be satisfied with it, especially since the word count's been bumped up (i have a habit of changing miniscule things even after publishing that ends up shifting the wc slight, but since this one's at 2048 words i'd probably edit it less than my other ones unless it really needs it). it would appear that my short ones tend to hover around 2k words, while the longer ones get closer to 20k (stay tuned for Two more...!).

(as it turns out—in google docs the word count is 2,048. on ao3, though, it's 2,057. bummer 😕)

of course, i always love seeing the 131 tag grow, which is a big motivation for me to write in the first place, so im pretty good with this one!

cross-posted to tumblr

title: safe spot
word count: 2,530
pairings: hsu nientzu/yoon seoyeon
link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75641096

another fluff one shot came to mind and suddenly i was writing this instead of continuing my wip LOL. but honestly, this idea was so cute! and it was written in ~3.5 hours, give or take (i did fall asleep on it at some points...). like my other one shot, this was written starting at like 10 pm and i wouldn't go to sleep until i finished it. so, tada! another creation of my 3AM-brain

plot

im not sure how prominent this is in other countries, but from my experience in the us, people (especially high schoolers) wear pajamas like a second daily uniform, especially the single color flannel pants. red, in particular, is pretty popular, but i've seen decent amounts of green, blue, and yellow as well. in any case, i thought it was hilarious to imagine the two of them wearing these pants, which is what put this idea in my head. im starting to realize a lot of one shot prompts just come from daily life, which is nice when you don't have inspiration but not so nice when the idea hits you like a truck and you're typing away at 2am.

i think class president x jock captain is a popular characterization for 131, so this dynamic makes an appearance once again here. in regards to it being seoyeon's POV again, i just wanted to explore how she'd feel about having strong Feelings for nien even after they've already started dating. (also, i think some of my own biases are slipping through—nien has been so lethal this entire msnz promotional period, it's crazy. also, slightly unrelated, during one of the breaks i took i saw this clip of sunnyz from the school attack thing they did. Woah Guys.) i also knew i wanted a bonus part in nien's POV, so when it got to the end i just started writing.

nien's thoughts about wanting to be a safe place for seoyeon so that she doesn't have to worry so much about bearing responsibility when she's with her—unintentional, but beautiful. i think you could also see it apply to real life, with how seoyeon bears the responsibility of being the leader/S1 yet seems to relax when she's with nien, whom she's described as "her energizer" (im still not over that moment BTW that was just so amazing). not to mention also how seoyeon has said that nien was a big support to her during lovelution era and that she helped her a lot, even though they weren't close yet at that point. just tear-jerking to me.

final

overall, this was super fun to write and im also glad the word count was a bit higher here (i think im just that type of person who thinks more = better even though it's just a one shot LOL). my second HS au i know... and my wip is also an HS au too mian there's just so many possibilities (fitting for the idol of possibilities). also, like i said, i wrote this in the wee hours of the night/morning so i may make revisions when i come back to it later (or maybe not. who knows?). thank you for reading this one shot and also for reading this reflection!

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title: i ordered an XL why is this so tight
word count: 1,270
pairings: hsu nientzu/yoon seoyeon
link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75322611

i wrote this in like two hours 😭 it's inspired by this image below ⬇️ i was already feeling the Writing Itch by the afternoon earlier so when i remembered this image exists i was like Omg. this is the One. given the Multiple clips that exist of seoyeon touching nien's ab/bicep muscles i thought it was perfect that she'd be the one get in a pickle like this and trip over herself seeing nien's abs. also, the concept of them sharing clothes... i think they'd both get Much enjoyment out of that (and me too... i've now got more ideas for a fluffy wip next Aurgh)

being that it's only 1.2k words i had to fight with myself to not save this prompt for a longer work (although i might add a second chapter We'll See) but i also just wanted to put out something small to see if i could stand to write that little. and i did!

another hesitation i had about this was that i would—in trying to do more with it than needed—take longer than necessary to finish (which is probably why i fought to finish this so quickly even though i fell asleep on it a couple times LOL) and i did Not want to do this because i already have another wip in the drafts and i don't want to have multiple open wips like that. thankfully i did finish this! since it's also 2am as i write this i might make some more revisions to it in the morning, but for now that's the version that's out here. more than anything i just want to keep contributing to sunnyzville 131ville Let's All love sunnyz 💙🧡

miscellaneous thoughts: i've never used depop or played clash royale so if those are inaccurate mian.. and these are the outfits im imagining them wearing

image of a one-star review that reads "i ordered 2XL why is this so tight" above an image of someone wearing a tank top with an exposed midriff. below the review reads "From seller: oh my god"

cross-posted to tumblr

title: tutor your heart
word count: 17,704
pairings: hsu nientzu/yoon seoyeon
link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74628746

so this was my first attempt ever at creative writing (outside of a class i took to fulfill my gen ed requirement—clearly doesn't count) and i finished it in less than two weeks (loona days to be exact haha) so Woah? i didn't think i'd write so much but soon after i started i found myself itching to reach for my phone and open the notes app to continue it. and yes this was originally written in my notes app up until a little after part I where i moved it to google docs.

i started it mainly because i was frustrated that 131 was such an underrated ship among wav writers despite how much content they've been giving us (Everything about isac, the most recent moment being nien playing with her lips on live and saying offhandedly "yeah seoyeon does this all the time" Girl.)(at the time of writing this that was the most recent moment but then they dropped the pair dance in fly up. WOAH.) and i love them so much so i was like Fine. i'll have to take matters into my own hands.

this idea had been sitting in my brain for a while before i even considered writing it but i didn't think i'd ever bring it into fruition; it was more so just something i would think about as a bedtime story of sorts for myself. i think the version in my head was only up until they met as seatmates? not very fleshed out, clearly.

i actually finished this a little while before i posted it (the timeline was 11.10–11.22) but i saved it for today because it's what i consider to be the third 131 day (1130) which also happens to be sullin's birthday! if she likes rpf this could be a present for her LOL (im joking. i hope none of them ever read this). also, i posted it on ao3 so that i could post about it on my twitter at a very specific time (11:30 KST on 1130) except this translates to 6:30 AM for me.. and my solution was to just wake up early on a sunday morning to post in time so i planned on going to sleep early—i would have done so if it weren't for the fact that 131 then posted this reel like Okay. now i can't sleep. which is to say im writing my last edit to this reflection running on like six hours of sleep.. anything for 131 🧡💙🧡

now to talk about the actual story 👇

background

like i said, this story started out as a treat for me in my head so i already knew a little bit about how i wanted to characterize them: nien being playful and silly and seoyeon trying to be serious but easily flustered. enter wall-climbing-gate (get it? cause she was jumping the gate but also like watergate LOL).

i chose to do an HS au because i like the possibilities it possesses as a backdrop for really falling in love for the first time + it's closer to my actual experience (and i say closer in terms of age—in reality none of this has ever happened to me). i also set the story in korea so that things like class presidents, break periods, and and rotating teachers actually have some significance, even though i wouldn't be writing from experience in that regard. i just didn't think it'd be realistic for all of them to be in some random american high school, yknow?

especially because american high schools don't really care for class presidents (in my experience), don't have break periods/rotating teachers, and care more sports/extracurriculars, which wasn't really the type of story i wanted to write. shouldn't this mean i should've included hagwons in here somehow? maybe. but then that would be taking this simple one-shot and doing more with it than it was originally supposed to be, so in the end i left it as it was.

i also made the 02z + yooyeon third-years and 03z second-years in mixed-grade homerooms. in reality i know korea keeps the different grades distinct but i wanted to preserve the slight age difference dynamics, especially between seoyeon and xinyu, without having to pull in random other 2003 idols to have as classmates. also, maybe no one else caught this but their teachers' names do come from the loona members LOL specifically artms and yves. we still love you chuussemble. i also feel bad because yooyeon/dahyun/mayu only get brief appearances and the younger members are straight up not mentioned at all but again, the story was mainly centered around seoyeon/nien as second-years. i am interested in writing about them in the future though!

another slight mishap: in the conversation about age systems sohyun says that korea's already abolished that system two years ago, which is technically true for today. in this work though, Technically since they're still in high school it'd be set in ~2020ish, aka before the change in 2023. however, since it was a funny conversation and also set the groundwork for the more significant seoyeon-xinyu dynamic, i left it in. let's pretend the system already changed at that point!

xinyu

given the spontaneity of this fic i was just making things up as i go, so i didn't plan for xinyu to be an instrumental character but i'm So glad she was. i think some people characterize her as just being flirty and hot (which she is, to be fair) but she is also sooo much more than that. especially being seoyeon's unnie i think she has a lot of valuable wisdom and advice to give to seoyeon, and their dynamic might have been my second favorite to write—the first being seoyeon and nien, obviously.

nien

like i said, i had no plans going into this—it was kind of just supposed to be self-indulgent, so i did not expect the emotional depth that nien's character ended up having. nien :( i need to protect her from anyone who tries to hurt this ray of sunshine because she really just brightens everyone's day, mine included. i really wanted to lean into the concept of nien being a foreigner in korea while also being mixed taiwanese-vietnamese. she's said before that she can't read or write vietnamese as well as she can speak/understand it (and she does have an accent there too), but i was curious about how that would affect her native language (chinese).

people have said that she speaks the standard dialect in taiwan with little/no vietnamese accent, which is why i made it more of a childhood occurrence for her that eventually wears off when she gets older, especially because she also said she would visit her grandparents in vietnam when she was younger. all of these things, in combination with her also living in korea, makes for a complex character who still smiles throughout it all :') this is also why i love the fact that her chemi name with seoyeon is sunnyz—it really encapsulates how lovely and bright they are, especially because sunny days are my favorite type of days (which reminds me of an edit i saw of them that used w2e's sunny days as bgm. peak.)

seoyeon

drawing back on what i said about seoyeon being easily flustered, her perspective was fun to write because i wanted to explore her thoughts and feelings every time nien flirts with her (lots of inspiration from this clip: https://x.com/sszlitz/status/1946736327065817208?s=20. the sunnyz pill y'all. it's potent). i was worried that i may have been writing too much from her POV and not enough from nien's, but i think it balances out (somewhat) by the end (and even if it doesn't, nien's parts are still impactful as they are so i'm not too torn up over it).

i also wanted to emulate how humble and selfless she is in real life, how she doesn't let the role of S1/class president get to her head (too much) to the point where it kind of contributes to the main conflict. i can totally see her thinking that she can't bring herself to ask nien to stay for her—as much as both she and nien want her to—which becomes a point of conflict between the two of them. that's why she needs that push from xinyu to go get her girl! (did i consider a dramatic airport scene? yes. but the swings were more sentimental). also, i don't know if anyone caught this but the first couple of times they meet seoyeon references the warmth of the lingering summer (representing their blooming relationship) but the night of the "fight" (not really a fight but feelings were hurt) she hugs the pompompurin plush that nien gave her and notices the cold (representing how they've hit a cold patch in their relationship).

misc

about sohyun having a car—i know high schoolers in korea usually take the bus or walk instead of driving their own car, so i probably told on myself as being american for that one. but, at the same time, it's not impossible that sohyun could have a car, and just imagine her picking xinyu up and driving away like the power couple they are. i had to keep it in.

another thing i didn't intend was the part where dahyun says she'd be 131's unnie if korea still followed the lunar calendar for age reckoning—turns out she actually said this in real life! in the 03z signal (251103) and i didn't know before i wrote it i just naturally included that part out of my own volition which was kind of sick to see when i did actually watch that signal in full

Seoyeon's eyes shoot open and she looks at Nien, affronted. “Hey! What's that supposed to mean? We only have like, eight centimeters of height difference, maximum.”

this part was hilarious to me. eight centimeters is a lot, seoyeon.

also, the scene with the ice cream sticks was inspired by a tweet i saw where someone said the person holding the ice cream would be seoyeon and the person biting and running away would be nien—when i saw it i was like That's perfect. (https://x.com/ppoint_021325/status/1958029846782833057?s=20).

there were also two 67 references in here. i'm sorry. but in my defense i'm not actually brainrotted like that (i don't even have tiktok) it's because people around me IRL kept saying it so when the opportunity came up i couldn't resist.

final thoughts

and that's it! overall this was super fun to write and i'm satisfied with how it came out (though i think if i reread it any more times i'll start creating problems for myself haha). i know i technically left nien's arcade wish unfulfilled (what does she make seoyeon do?) but maybe that will be explored in an epilogue 🤔 i'm also already thinking of new plots to try out, which i kind of can't believe. also, when i was writing xinyu's parts i was thinking that it sets up perfectly for a soxinz-centered prequel, so that might be something to look forward to! no promises though. i was also intrigued by an HS au with the 03–05 members or the 06z and younger, probably with 1124 or 38 as the main focus. maybe. and of course, 131 is always on the brain.. we'll see when i have time.

thank you for reading the story and this long-winded reflection! i have nothing to plug but my twitter (be my friend!)

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meonghamm

January 2026

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"sleepless nights (are warmer in your arms)" reflection
"unsent letters" reflection
"it didn't hurt (when i fell out of heaven)" reflection
"christmas (not) alone" reflection
"safe spot" reflection
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