"sleepless nights (are warmer in your arms)" reflection

[thirteenone]

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 🙂‍↕️