( exokawa © ) : smau 𖤐 | written ᝰ | both ✦  ⇢ yuki ishikawa: i do & the extras [ ✦ ] like popcorn [ 𖤐 ] fancy (you) [ ✦ ] ojitos lindos [ ✦ ]  ⇢ kento miyaura: starry night [ 𖤐 ]  ⇢ headcanons: 1 2

hey guys! sorry for the delay. i know i ghosted y'all after saying i had a ton of ideas for smaus & one-shots, i got no excuse, so pls accept this smau as a peace offering. thanks for waiting, to those still here:(, ik it’s been a tough time for the rjn nippon girlies but we can’t give up!!

i love this guy so much, he's very dear to me<3

it was about time i wrote something for rjn nippon’s heart of the attack, don’t you think?

[Pann Post Trending #3]: "So TWICE's Y/N is dating a Japanese man…?"

(+6,187 / -3,921)

— [+2.638, -826]

A Japanese idol dating a Japanese athlete while working in Korea and enjoying Korean money and love? She couldn’t date someone here instead? I feel betrayed.

— [+817, -19]

Honestly… I’m Korean and I love Y/N as an artist. She’s sweet and talented. I don’t love the news, but if she’s been dating quietly for years and still gave her best to the group, I don’t think she deserves hate.

— [+262, -3]

She’s not even part of MISAMO and barely promotes in Japan… but ends up dating a Japanese athlete. I feel like she used Korea until she didn’t need any of us anymore.

— [+193, -282]

Never understood her hype anyway. Looks like she was too busy being in love with a japanese man to actually promote like the rest of TWICE. Waste of talent.

↳ [+1,294, -279]

She trained the hardest to learn Korean. She sings all her lines in Korean. She skipped MISAMO to prepare for her own album and STILL stayed active on Korean shows. You don’t get to question her loyalty just because she’s in love.

— [+910, -56]

She's been with TWICE for almost 10 years, gave her 20s to K-pop. Let her have a boyfriend. Yuki isn’t even controversial in Japan — he's just an athlete. Calm down.

Maybe the hardest part about being an idol is waiting for the public’s reaction to anything you do (or don’t do). You’re used to staying out of the storm’s eye, so it’s only natural that anxiety kicks in while you wait for the moment to publicly announce the relationship you’ve hidden for three years.

Yuki doesn’t say anything, but he can feel your nerves. He patiently waits for the scheduled time with JYP Entertainment’s legal team to make the announcement. And even though it’s been a long, exhausting day for him, he doesn’t have the heart to go to bed (like you already told him to), not when that means leaving you alone and at the mercy of online opinions.

You pace back and forth through his living room, waiting for the clock to strike midnight. He walks over and wraps you in a comforting hug. With your head against his chest, listening to the rhythm of his heart and his hand gently stroking your hair, the stress slowly starts to leave your body, even if just for a moment.

“Are you scared?” you ask, more to yourself than to him, barely a whisper.

He doesn’t lie. “Mm, a little.”

“Me too,” you reply, sighing.

Yuki can’t stand seeing you this vulnerable. Without warning, he scoops you up and carries you to his bedroom so you can curl up in his bed. Your phone —which hasn’t stopped buzzing with notifications since the end of his match— is switched to airplane mode, sparing you what little peace you both have left. When he returns to the room, he curls up beside you, continuing to gently massage your scalp, shielding you even from the glowing time on the nightstand clock.

Before you even realize it, the weight of the day and your lover’s soft touch pull you into sleep. The last thought you have before surrendering to it is: tomorrow will be hell.

—୨ৎ—

Returning to Korea to continue your group activities feels like going to war. Even though your bandmates jokingly promised Yuki they’d protect you from evil netizens, you know there’s only so much they can do without risking the group’s image.

After a full day trying to look at your phone (that your boyfriend hid for the sake of your mental health), you realize it’s time to face the storm head-on. But before that, you spend your last free day in a secret place, far from the city, a hideout Yuki showed you to help clear your head.

Your flight leaves early the next morning. And even though you know Yuki would give everything to take you to the airport himself, you’re well aware he needs rest to be at 100% for training and prove to his coach he deserves to start in the next match. So you leave quietly without waking him, taking advantage of how deeply he sleeps.

After checking in and boarding without being recognized, you finally gather the courage to open your group chat with the TWICE girls and your friends from the 97' line. Your teary eyes reflect the nerves still consuming you, but also the warmth in your chest when you see how fiercely the people you love are trying to defend you.

And speaking of hateful comments… even though you promised yourself you wouldn’t look to avoid a nervous breakdown, curiosity wins. Your heart sinks slowly as you read the majority of K-netizens' reactions — calling you a traitor, criticizing your “poor” performance in the group, and pointing out how this scandal damages the group’s reputation right as a comeback is announced.

In the middle of your deep dive through Korean forums, you get a message from Italy’s earliest bird.

The public's opinions still buzz in your head, but this interaction with your comfort person lightens your heart. It makes the hell ahead feel just a little more worth it.

As the plane hums beneath your feet and the warmth of Yuki still lingers in your thoughts, your fingers instinctively open your phone’s Notes app. You scroll through drafts and demo lyrics until you find a folder labeled "maybelater_2" It was never meant to be anything serious. But suddenly… you’re not so sure.

—୨ৎ—

Songwriting was never your strong suit. Even though you spent hours in Christopher’s studio learning a few things here and there, occasionally helping him with ideas, you never felt truly inspired to write on your own.

Then 2020 hit, and everything stopped. TWICE’s packed schedule vanished overnight. No more music shows, no more fan meetings, no more tours. Working nonstop for your dream had drowned out your thoughts, but when the music stopped, the silence made you anxious. Then came curiosity, and finally, creativity.

With a journal in your hands, you began to write every day. Not with a goal, but just to feel everything you’d suppressed for so long. Eventually, those writings became verses, rhymes, melodies. You hadn’t meant to write songs, but your pencil never left the page.

Around that same time, Yuki’s name started showing up more often on your screen. What began as friendly chats —updates, jokes, quiet moments— turned into something softer. With both your careers on pause, you finally had time to really listen. And he had time to be more than just a passing thought.

At first, you didn’t notice your lyrics were getting tainted with romanticism. But a certain devilish roommate who made a habit of reading your journal definitely did.

“Who’s turning you into such a sap? Should I be worried?” Momo asks, flipping through your notebook as you prep lunch.

“Just watched a Gong Yoo drama and got emotional. Leave me alone,” liar.

She doesn’t push, but she doesn’t quite believe you either, especially when thirty minutes later you’re smiling at your phone like an idiot because of a message from a certain volleyball player.

“I didn’t know Gong Yoo texts you every night now,” she says. You blush.

After a couple weeks of quarantine, with more than one journal already filled with lyrics of every kind, you and the members were called back to continue preparations for More & More. Once again, you started spending more time at the company building, hiding in Chan’s studio. Chan, who after hearing Momo complain that you refused to say who your songs were about, decided he needed a peek at the now-famous diary you guarded with your life.

The only condition your friend gave you to enter his sanctuary was that you help him polish up his lyrics. You ignore that and settle into his favorite chair, texting Yuki. While Chan finishes —or tries to finish—songs for GO生, he gets distracted watching you open your journal.

“Still writing?” he asks.

“Yeah, but nothing worth sharing,” you answer distractedly.

Sure. His curiosity wins, and he sneaks a peek at your journal. 보내지 못한 편지들 (letters i'll never send) is all he manages to decipher before you snap it shut and playfully scold him.

“This isn’t the lyrics for Another Day, Christopher Bang,” you say. He pouts and turns back to his work —in his least favorite chair—.

A call from one of the producers for your group’s 9th mini album forces you to rush out of the studio, promising to come back with snacks as an apology for not helping with his songs. What you didn’t know was that the best payoff for your betrayal was leaving your journal behind, which ended up in the hands of none other than JYP himself when he visited Chan and caught him reading your lyrics like fanfics instead of finishing his own work.

When you return two hours later, you find both of them arguing with your diary open between them. With your nerves in your throat, you endure an hour-long speech from your boss and your gremlin friend trying to convince you to write the next group album (and maybe for other groups if you feel confident enough). You give in, obviously, partly because Chan won’t leave you alone, and partly because JYP asked you nicely (which is still terrifying).

Luckily, Jihyo joins you in the process, since she had also been working on getting into the songwriting process for the group. The two of you spend time together when the filming of the Fanfare MV and preparations for More & More allows it, usually in your friend’s —new— studio, surrounded by scribbled notebooks, half-finished iced coffees, and secret chocolate bars stashes (purely for inspiration, of course). Some days she helps you untangle your thoughts. Other days, you help her turn hers into melodies. It’s exhausting, vulnerable, and somehow the most fun you’ve had in a long time.

As soon as More & More is finally released, your schedule explodes. Promotions, performances, fan content. It all piles up. Still, you find stolen moments—between music shows, on rides home, under blankets in Chan’s studio— to polish drafts and send songs to producers. You don’t have faith in all of them, so you skip over some and quietly archive them in a folder called maybelater_2 on your phone, right where your heart has lived lately.

By the time you get feedback from the band's producers, you're not disappointed to learn that your work didn’t make it onto the final version of the songs for the second full album, you knew it was a long shot. What you didn’t expect was being pulled aside and told that the Japanese label’s producers loved your lyrics. They believed your writing would shine in Japanese and wanted your help shaping a sound that reflected the group’s evolving identity.

Your work with them began by translating some group songs for #TWICE3, the Japanese mini-album set to release after Fanfare. The label had handled that job for previous albums, but it made you happy to be part of their team. Doing this didn’t just mean tweaking lyrics, it meant reconnecting with your native language. It felt new and nostalgic all at once, like revisiting the 15-year-old version of yourself who left everything behind in your homeland to chase a dream. Even if you weren’t leading the projects, your voice was being heard, and slowly, the producers started seeking your input on more than just translations.

That’s how the chance to write a song from scratch in your native language arrived, a moment that felt like a warm coat you didn’t know you needed. For the first time in ages, words flowed freely. Better came out of you in a single session with the producers, without overthinking or rewriting, just honesty disguised as metaphors. You never said that your inspiration was a tall volleyball player who made your heart race every time he spoke, but more than one of them suspected a thing. When your company and label gave their approval, you felt dizzy. You never thought you’d make such a bold move.

Then came the time to record the songs —amid dozens of other pending projects— and chaos ensued. Inside the studio booth, you try to focus on vocal layering, sounding so soft and radiant that even the sound engineer asks if something good happened. You mutter something about "good lighting," making Jihyo nearly choke on her —yours actually— coffee. The girls become merciless. Especially Momo, who leans into the talkback mic and whispers, "Did that good lighting send you another good morning selfie?" just low enough for only the booth to hear. You glare at her through the glass. She blows you a kiss.

What happens after that day becomes a blur. Not intentionally, just one that settles after weeks of having your head focused on more than one thing. One day you’re recording a sweet love song, the next you’re thrown into the chaos of Eyes Wide Open prep. Meanwhile, #TWICE3 crushes your calendar like a second heartbeat, and suddenly, you're counting down the days to TWICE: World in A Day with more panic than excitement. Days blend together. One of your members quietly pulls back from rehearsals due to health issues, and you make it your mission to check in with her; sharing snacks, music drafts, anything to lift her spirits, though the worry ties knots in your stomach. You're also working overtime on lyrics that you hope will be picked —still under review, say the producers—. In the haze of it all, Better’s MV gets filmed, and you barely know what day it is, let alone when the single will drop. Not until after the whirlwind of Eyes Wide Open promotions do you hear anything about the song again, and not from your company.

After the umpteenth variety show appearance promoting the group’s second full album, you finally let yourself collapse face-down on Chan’s couch, mumbling a dramatic "tell my fans I loved them" as he hands you his melted iced coffee, laughing. To help you relax —or more like sedate— he puts on some soft background music, which is interrupted by your phone vibrating with a third new message from Yuki. You haven’t answered his last two because you had no idea what they meant. They’re vague: something about "training felt a little better today 🏐" and "good rhythm, probably from the lyrics stuck in my head." You’d be flattered if you weren’t half-dead. You toss your phone face-down and groan into a pillow.

“What does ‘good rhythm’ even mean?” you mumble.

“You’re the songwriter, you tell me” Chan laughs from his desk.

You ignore him. Or try to, until he casually adds, “Oh, by the way, congrats. ‘Better’ sounds amazing. I listened to it when it dropped.”

Your brain short-circuits.

“What?”

“The song you wrote? It’s out. You didn’t know?” he glances over his shoulder, amused. “Should’ve guessed. You look like a million trucks hit you.”

Oh

You sit up so fast the iced coffee nearly spills. Your phone’s in your hands in seconds, burning with realization. Yuki’s not being cryptic on purpose; he’s quoting your lyrics. The ones you wrote for him.

The most recent message shines on your screen:

yu🏐: It was a good day. One of those that reminds me why I waited... Didn’t know it could feel like this. Thank you.

Your heart clenches. For a second, you forget where you are, until the door swings open and in come Sana, Tzuyu, and Nayeon with snacks and suspicious energy.

“Why do you look like you saw a ghost?” Sana asks immediately.

“Or like you are the ghost,” Tzuyu mutters.

Casually (not really), you look down from your phone and smile. “What? Me? Nothing. Just... had too much caffeine.”

Four pairs of eyes stare. You’re definitely not convincing anyone.

You flip your phone over and reply before your courage runs out:

yn: Didn’t think you’d hear it. I’m glad you did.

You hit send. Lock the screen. And do everything in your power to keep the shy smile tugging at your lips from giving you away.

Nayeon throws a chip at your head “You’re hiding something.”

You don’t deny it. This time, maybe you don’t want to.

The days race by after that. Rehearsals, recordings, award shows, stages. You sing your heart out to millions, but the voice in your head always drifts back to one person.

So, when the year finally winds down and your schedule clears just enough to take a breath, you go home.

Not the dorm. Not the studio.

Home.

You barely get your bags in the door before your mother is handing you your coat again, muttering something about "last-minute errands" and "fresh air." You grumble, but obey, pulling on gloves and stepping outside...

...and you freeze.

There, on the porch, brushing snow off his sleeves like it’s just another day, is him.

“You’re early,” you say before your brain catches up.

He smiles. “You’re late.”

Your heart stumbles. You haven’t seen him in so long.

“I couldn’t wait anymore,” he says, stepping closer. “Not knowing you’d be here.”

You both smile shyly. And suddenly, everything feels... better.

—୨ৎ—

You didn’t write about him out of obligation. You wrote about him because he kept showing up. In melodies, in metaphors, in your margins.

Words persist long after they’re thought. Like lyrics without a song. You exhale softly through your nose, quiet and steady, as the seatbelt sign dings above. The plane descends, and below you, Seoul glows in the morning fog, blurred like watercolor. Everything looks calm from above. Calm. Almost manageable.

Your phone screen has gone dark from inactivity, but it’s still open to the folder.

maybelater_2 • [...] • gravity_finalmaybe.wav • sayitback_v2.txt • overdue_donttouchyet.lyrics • glittertheory_jpnref.wav • [...] • letters_unsent.zip • [...] • etis_final_demo.wav • pretty_eyes.txt • prettysong_forhim_butnotreally.txt • ohno_thisisrealnow.txt • [...]

The folder is ugly. The name is lowercase, unstyled. It started as a graveyard of lyrics that didn’t fit: too sappy, too raw, a little too weird for TWICE’s bright sound. It was where your emotions went when they didn’t match the choreos.

Now, it’s the one thing that feels truly yours. You scroll through each file, and your eyes land on the one that shouldn’t even exist.

pretty_eyes.txt

You wrote it on the fateful night of august 5th, the day Japan lost to Italy in the Olympic semifinals. Yuki cried on the court. Millions saw it. What no one saw was the hotel room after, where he clung to you in silence, eyes red, shoulders trembling like the weight of the whole country was still on his back. You remember thinking he had never looked more human. More real. More beautiful.

You didn’t sleep that night. Not much, anyway. While he lay curled up beside you, finally breathing easier, you sat by the window and scribbled the first line.

"Just look at me with those pretty eyes, because with that I'm fine, today I was born again..."

Because even then —even at his lowest, most chaotic, most defeated— his eyes still shone. Not with pride or joy. But with the soft light of someone who gave it all. And you were already so in love.

You never wanted to show anyone. Not that song. Not that night. But here you are, a thousand decisions later, and the file still lives on, tucked between heartbreaks and maybe-somedays.

The plane lands with a soft jolt. You feel it in your chest.

Outside, Seoul is already moving.

You lock your screen, slip your phone into your bag, and rest your fingers for a brief second on the note Yuki left to lift your spirits.

You’re not ready yet, but you’re closer than you’ve ever been.

to be continued...

Hey guys, sorry for disappearing. Please accept this peace offering (it took me forever to write this😔). I have no excuses, just enjoy it before Yuki comes back with 736809 new fans who saw him playing during week 3 of the VNL.

hi guys!!

guess i disappeared again hehe. im really sorry :(, this semester has been hectic (i hate mycology and biochem), i have some requests that i'll be working on when i have time, but i can't promise i'll be consistent :c

hi guys!!

TWICE WIKI

PERSONAL INFORMATION Stage Name: Y/N Birth name: Iwasaki Sophie (岩崎ソフィー) Birth place: Aichi, Japan Birthday: February 14, 1997 Zodiac sign: Aquarius Official height: 171 cm (5'6") Weight: — kg Years active: 2015 — MBTI: (your mbti) Occupation: singer, dancer, songwriter.

TWICE Positions: Main vocalist and lead dancer Representative color: dark cyan Emoji: 🦔

SOCIAL MEDIA X (twitter): JYPETWICE Instagram: iwasyn

TRIVIA 1. She participated in the survival show sixteen and finished in 3rd place, hence becoming a member of the girlgroup TWICE (they're 10 here). 2. The audience fell in love with her powerful vocals, that's the reason she became one of the most loved members in the group. 3. Her best friends in the group are Jihyo and Momo. Outside twice, she's close with stray kids' bangchan, VIVIZ's eunha, GOT7's yugyeom and BLACKPINK's lisa. 4. She shares birth date with NCT's Jaehyun. They became good friends after learning that fact and are often seen going out together. 5. She was the fastest japanese member to learn korean —had to do it in order to finish her senior high school studies—. 6. Jinyoung Park spoils her and everybody knows it, but since she's a sweetheart no one really complains. 7. The biggest exo-l on the planet. One of her biggest dreams is to do a collab with Chen. 8. She really loves her fans and is forever grateful for their support, however, is quick to draw a line when her privacy is being threatened. 9. She is so transparent with her feelings that onces know she has been in love since 2021. However, with whom? No one knows for sure. 10. Momo often tries to give the fans clues about y/n's love life but stops when she notices how irritated y/n gets. 11. Her solo debut is yet to be confirmed, but fans are hoping for more slow romantic songs, compared to the energetic music of her bandmates.

Since you met Yuki in high school, you knew that his presence would have a significant impact on your life. Being a year older, it was fortunate that the two of you crossed paths, and despite his shyness, you engaged in the first of countless conversations.

His dream had always been volleyball; there was no one in school who didn’t know about the talented 13-year-old boy who was dominating all the teams in inter-school competitions, and there was no doubt he would go far. You, on the other hand, were always a die-hard fan of the musical groups and solo artists thriving in the neighboring country, and with a voice like yours, well-trained by your parents, it was impossible not to dream of being part of a group that's highly recognized on the continent.

Dreams so distant, yet they shared a common goal: to be known for doing what they were passionate about.

Perhaps that was why becoming friends with Yuki wasn’t so difficult. Both of you were ambitious, and discipline was what led you to achieve so much.

After finishing junior high school at 15, you decided to move to the heart of Han, after auditioning for many companies and being accepted by one of the biggest three: JYP Entertainment.

Of course, this meant a slight break in your friendship with him since both of your schedules became tight, leaving little time to catch up on each other's lives, but you managed to work with what little time you had.

The same year Yuki entered university and began his international career, you faced the toughest test of your career: the recording of Sixteen. Your dreams were in the hands of the Korean public, from whom you fortunately received great support. The internet users who voted were completely enamored with your voice, just as Yuki promised would happen.

After exhausting and stressful moments on the survival show, finishing third and securing a spot in the highly anticipated girl group from JYP was one of your greatest joys. You felt like finally all your hard work was paying off.

The rest was history.

With both of your careers established and the world returning to normal after a significant health crisis, reuniting in Japan to visit your families felt like a sign from fate that you couldn’t ignore. Confessing that you had longed to be together as more than friends was the cherry on top, and after three years, you felt it was the best decision you could have made.

Despite working in opposite corners of the world, you always do everything you can to spend time together during your free moments. This leads to the situation you find yourselves in now.

With your phone on do not disturb while watching his team’s match against Civitanova, you don’t realize the internet is going crazy after fans connected the dots about your love life (with the help of your best friend in the group, who confirmed their suspicions). When the match ends with Sir Safety Perugia's victory, someone from the team staff escorts you to meet your boyfriend. Once in the locker room and while waiting for the award ceremony to finish, you finally check your phone and find many calls from your bandmates, a few from friends of the '97 line, and even some from the CEO of your company. The messaging apps are also about to explode and the notifications of your social media keep rising—something unusual during downtime after a comeback and concerts.

When a call comes from JYP, you don’t hesitate to answer.

“Hello?” you asks with a nervous voice. You don’t understand what’s happening; your boss calling on a day off can only mean trouble.

“You finally decided to answer!” he replies in a relaxed tone. “How interesting can a volleyball match be that you don’t answer anyone and leave us all on edge?”

“Umh, I don’t understand what’s going on; I haven’t checked social media,” you respond nervously.

“It turns out there are not only rumors about you having a boyfriend but also that Momo took it upon herself to confirm them. The press is going wild, but it seems there’s plenty of support from the international fanbase.” You feel relieved. In three years of secret visits, these rumors had never surfaced before. You don’t understand what slip-up you both could have made this time. “I know it’s true; you’re old enough for me not to allow you to date someone. I called to ask what you wanted to do—are you going to confirm it or deny everything? The legal team is ready to take action.”

At that moment, there’s great commotion outside the locker room; you know it’s because the players are outside.

“Sir, I don’t think this is the best time to discuss this; can I call back later?” you ask softly, knowing he won’t say no.

“Sure, prioritize your relationship over your career,” you hear sarcastically before letting out an indignant gasp. “Just kidding! I’m here to help.”

You thank him, laughing softly and hang up just before the door opens and all the players come in to greet their families. Your boyfriend quickly approaches with a smile and greets you with a kiss. You try not to think about what’s happening so as not to worry him, but he already has a feeling something is bothering you.

“Don’t say anything; right now we’re happy because you won; we can worry about other things later,” you tell him before he can bring it up. He nods with an exhale while laughing at your expression.

When he leaves to take a shower, you stay talking with some of his teammates who already know you. Although it can be intimidating due to the height differences, most of them are like little kids once they win matches, so you don’t feel uncomfortable at all. You even forget for a moment that fans uncovered your best-kept secret.

When Yuki is ready, you say goodbye to your teammates and staff before heading to the parking lot. You talk about what you will eat when you arrive at your boyfriend's apartment (yes, just you because he makes no exceptions for his diet) until you get into the car.

“Now you're going to tell me what's bothering that pretty head of yours?” he asks while starting the car.

“Mmmh-mmmh,” you shake your head but give in when Yuki shoots you an incredulous look. “Okay! It may be that... um... byaccidentfanshavediscoveredourrelationshipandaregoingcrazyonsocialmedia.”

“Huh?” Yuki looks confused but gradually processes this information before chuckling “It was nice having privacy while it lasted.”

It’s now your turn to look confused.

“Aren't you upset?” you ask as Yuki fervently shakes his head.

“We should have seen this coming; it's not our first time letting our guard down but this time luck abandoned us,” Yuki says as he starts driving with one hand resting on your thigh for comfort. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want; whatever decision you make with the company, know that I support you.”

You can’t believe such a perfect man is yours. You nod at Yuki's words and intertwine your fingers with his hand resting on your thigh. Your decision is made.

part 2 here!!