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I suppose love just doesn’t come easily, Bora thinks to herself.
She’s been a go-getter from birth, crawling walking running forever towards something she didn’t fully comprehend but wanted so badly anyways; and even though she hasn’t got it (yet), she thinks she finally sees it for what it really is.
When she joined Happyface, it was because she wanted to be a singer. When she decided to stay for the second year it was because she’d found someone who she wanted to be a singer with. Her voice was honey and her laugh was soft and at first she couldn’t get enough of it - and even now, she thinks she’s still hung up over that girl.
It’s impossible not to now that they’re in the same group, fully-fledged, growing every day; Bora has seen how it’s changed her, and how it’s changed herself, but it strikes her that even though their leader gets more and more mature, and confident, day-by-day - she still smiles the same.
Lately, Minij has been dyeing her hair these light, airy colours. And it just makes her look even more like royalty. She went blonde for the MV and when she put on that white dress Bora damn well lost her breath. Looking at all the comments by Somnias, reading tweets about how the majority would willingly die by Miniji’s glove-clad hand; it made everyone laugh, and it made roses bloom on Minij’s cheeks, and Bora reflected that she’d never felt closer to their fans than now.
Bora’s shade of blonde was just close enough that she could claim they matched; and so they took way too many selcas with each other, of each other. Bora loves taking pictures, especially of Minji, especially of Minji and her blonde hair fanned out behind her, looking like a literal angel with her blue contacts and glimmering make-up.
But when she sees Minji early in the morning, fringe puffed up in the front like she’s a little bird, Bora’s heart flutters in a way she can’t describe. It’s this pull of comfort, the kind that cooking at home gives you, like you’ve just run a hot bath and you’ve put in the bath bomb and you’re breathing in the vanilla-scented steam and warmth is infusing through your limbs.
Minji always smells like vanilla.
They say that the spice might go extinct and prices are already through the roof; and Bora can’t imagine Minij without vanilla, and so sometimes she just can’t help but hug her for a beat too long, taking a slow breath in and memorising how it makes her feel.
“You smell good,” she always says to Minji.
“You can use my body wash next time if you want.”
That’s not exactly what Bora wants but she thanks Minji anyways.
Still, when her own shower gel inevitably runs out, she decides to try it. The first thing that hits her is how close Minji instantly feels; like she’s hanging just out of sight, but Bora still knows she’s there, and will always be there. It makes Bora shiver even in the hot water stream, and when she closes her eyes - she gets goosebumps, her mind slipping, her fingertips tingling.
“Are you done?”
“Ah - soon! Sorry!” Bora snaps out of her vanilla - or Minij? - induced stupor and snaps straight to attention at their leader’s voice.
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
Bora doesn’t mind it.
It seems that Minji is just permeating through her day and Bora doesn’t mind at all. She’s always been insatiable and driven and the more she can get, the better. She dries herself quickly and doesn’t bother to wrap her hair in a towel. The scent infuses through the tank top and shorts she pulls on. When she opens the door, she sees Minij standing there, with her pink bathtub by her side.
“Thanks -” Minij takes a breath. “Oh, you used my body wash.”
It’s not a question and Bora isn’t surprised, because she probably overdid it - and she doesn’t regret it.
“Yeah, it smelt way too good.”
“And yours ran out, right?”
“Yeah - but - seriously, yours is amazing.”
Minji smiles. “Glad you liked it.”
Bora nods and is about to go into her own room when Minji’s voice once again beckons her.
“Your hair’s still wet.”
“It’s not cold though.” Bora embraces the whiny child role as Minji raises an eyebrow at her.
“Come here. You can’t be catching a cold right now.”
Pulling Bora by the hand, Minji shuts the both of them back into the bathroom. Bora knows that she could pull out of Minji’s grip if she wanted to but they both know that won’t happen, even if Bora is strong enough to lift Minji up as she always finds an excuse to do. Vanilla paradise; it’s grown in the tropics, she remembers, and right now the steam makes Bora feels like she’s in South East Asia somewhere on a rainforest honeymoon. And of course Minji is with her.
“Sit down.” Minji turns her bathtub over and Bora obeys. Now Minji is behind her, hands clad in a towel that only makes her movements feel softer.
“You don’t need to do this for me,” Bora says, her voice quiet. “We’ve got to get up early tomorrow.”
Minji hums and continues drying Bora’s hair.
“Minji.”
“Bora.”
Her hands stop and even though Bora would’ve been glad to let it go on forever, soaking in the feeling of Minji’s fingers across her scalp - she shakes her head and is about to stand up when Minji’s hands slide down her neck, past her collarbones and stops at her shoulders.
Bora is rendered speechless. Her head spins and the steam doesn’t help because she’s already blushing so hard and she might just be overheating. Minji can definitely see Bora’s ears go warm.
And then, Minji starts massaging Bora’s shoulders.
Bora exhales. “That feels so good…”
Minji’s chuckle is so, so close to Bora’s ears - and it’s this juxtaposition, of her heart beating at ten thousand miles per hour and her brain paralysed by Minji’s careful unravelling of the tenseness in Bora’s muscles and that vanilla steam surrounding her, surrounding them, that confuses Bora the most. She’s always been so sure of things - so sure of what she wanted, of what she felt. But Minji is a whole new puzzle that Bora desperately wants to solve, but when she’s wholly incapacitated by such simple things it’s impossible to even get to grips with her.
Bora loses herself. She’s lost her foothold a long time ago, when Minji first showed up in her periphery, young, innocent, but speaking like she’d gone through a lifetime already. Bora never found herself so content to stay in one place, with the same people, doing the same things.
Over and over again, Minji kneads circles just above Bora’s shoulder blades and pinches the skin just below her neck, gentle as always. Bora doesn’t know how long the moment lasts; she only knows when it ends, like emerging from a dream, or finally releasing the breath you didn’t know you’ve been holding.
Minji’s wrapped her arms around Bora from behind, in a half-backhug.
“Minji, are you tired?”
There’s an affirmative hum and a sigh that makes Bora’s neck tingle.
“You don’t need to shower, do you?”
No reply. Bora tilts her head back to rest on Minji’s head, and she raises her arm to seek Minji’s hand; they meet halfway, and there’s no fumbling before their fingers are entwined.
Rarely does Minji get like this, and it puts Bora in a strange mood. Usually it’s Minji who makes them laugh, who gives them praises and shoulder rubs and something in the fridge for when they come back too late; and when Bora comes to her all whiny, after a long day at the studio, it’s Minji who cuddles up with her under a purple blanket on the bottom bunk.
Bora sees Minji giving away the good things and keeping the bad things, so when Minji gets needy, Bora makes sure to notice first. Being born in the same year helps Minji come to her easier. Bora’s not sure how good she is at being Minji’s lady-in-waiting, but Minji deserves to be treated like a princess. So she holds Minji’s hand tight.
Their breathing synchronises. The steam has settled and the mirror has cleared but the scent of vanilla still envelops them. Bora sees that Minji’s eyes are closed. She stares at this serene image, this girl that keeps her coming back again and again, asking the same questions, getting different responses every time but never an answer - Bora’s lips are so close to Minji’s face, Minji is breathing down her neck, and Bora can smell something that isn’t vanilla, the smell that always comes with wearing Minji’s t-shirts and jumpers even if they look oversized on Bora
And she’s quietly addicted to this, to whatever this means. Bora knows what it feels like to want something. And although Bora is only sure of her own feelings, she’s a go-getter, she starts things and wills them to end well.
“Thank you,” she breathes, and god - Minji’s eyelashes flutter with Bora’s exhale, and they’re only this far apart, and it would be so, so easy.
“You’re welcome.” Minji’s voice is impossibly soft but Bora feels her words vibrate through her bones. It’s never been this quiet inside their dorm, she hears the water dripping and the pipes creak, and even the sound of cars outside. But all she pays attention to is the sound of her own pulse in her ears, and faintly - the pound of Minji’s heart that she hopes she can make out.
“I owe you one,” she begins, “and I -”
The sound stops in her throat. She knows fully well what she wants to say but for the first time in her life it’s stuck inside her chest and she can’t verbalise it. Like forgetting the lyrics onstage, like blanking in the middle of a routine - but this time, the panic came before, not after.
“I - whoever marries you is going to be so lucky.”
It’s cheesy and she doesn’t believe in Minji’s laugh, but her mind is askew and scrambling - she keeps looking at Minji until she opens her eyes, sits up, and then the warmth floods out of Bora’s chest.
“You can be my maid of honour.”
Bora would rather not, but she stands up and bows. “It would be my honour, princess.”
Minji smiles. “I’m not royalty, Bora.”
She doesn’t take the hand Bora offers her, and Bora is so dumb that she only takes her cue to leave when Minji turns her bathtub over. Bora goes back to her room, drapes the towel drearily over a clothes hanger to dry, and sits down, wondering how it got so cold all of a sudden.
When she wakes up the next morning, she can’t even smell the vanilla anymore.
Over the next month, life continues as usual; Bora still pesters Minji and Minji still gives her the same smile, but Bora doesn’t linger as long as she dared to before. She compensates by being boisterous but worries that might be worse than before, so sometimes, she meets Minji’s gaze and looks away.
Minji still uses the same body wash but Bora tries to ignore it in the shower - there was one time when Minji came out the shower, Bora was waiting, and Bora saw Minji’s hair was wet - and Bora could’ve so easily called out as Minji disappeared into her room to wait, and say that she’d pay back the favour now; but maybe it was the vanilla that reminded Bora of her fear, and it didn’t happen.
Love doesn’t come easily, especially from the one who seems to have so much to give, Bora thinks to herself.
One day, Minji dyes her hair cotton-candy pink; and Bora considers dyeing her hair back to black so they can be like Princess Bubblegum and Marceline, but that’s part of all the wishful thinking Bora’s been doing up till now, and anyways Minji isn’t a princess to be beheld in glass slippers.
So who is Minji to her?
The question falls upon Bora late at night, when she’s re-watching the Deja Vu MV; if Minji isn’t her princess, and Bora can’t be her knight, then what happens?
It’s answered sooner than she expects. At one fateful fansign, the answer appears, and it’s the only one so far that’s been so obvious. Like any other fan-meeting, they’re given props and flower crowns and fluffy animals and in front of Minji is a wedding veil.
You’d think that with their royal blue suits that it wouldn’t match, but once Minji puts it on, Bora’s eyes never leave her.
The mesh drapes over her; the garland of roses matches her hair perfectly. And Bora - the instant she sees Minji, so elegantly presented, Bora knows what she wants.
Bora understands in that moment that Minji isn’t a princess like in those story books, no matter how well a tiara and pearls suit her. In fairytales, the love story ends satisfyingly and there are no hitches in the relationship, only external threats like poison or curses, things that can be gotten rid of entirely to give a perfect wedding and a perfect ending.
Bora wanted to be Minji’s prince, but she’s probably not tall enough to pull off that costume. Bora wanted to always be there to rescue Minji, to be the shoulder to lean on. But Bora didn’t see that the princesses in the stories always needed to be saved - and Minji is perfectly fine on her own.
If Bora only loves to lift her up, doesn’t that mean she only loves Minji when she’s down? Bora realises that she’s got to look and see what Minji wants as well. She doesn’t have to treat Minji like a crystal rose, she doesn’t have to protect her because Minji has her own thorns. Bora just has to be careful and navigate better, find her way through the labyrinth to finally stumble upon what she knows she herself wants.
It’s easy to step closer to Minji but it isn’t easy to put this newfound feeling into words, so she links her arm with Minji’s and tells her she looks good.
Minji smiles like she already knew that, but thanks Bora; and Bora reaches up (on her tiptoes) and pills at the petals of the roses, sorts out Minji’s cotton-candy hair, and resists the urge to leave her lipstick on Minji’s cheeks.
But she can’t stop herself from saying, too quickly and too lightly: “Marry me.”
It slips out in a rush, in the most unexpected place; Minji’s eyes widen and her cheeks turn the same shade as her hair, the colour that Bora instantly decides is her favourite from now on. Bora knows she looks too earnest (and has too many damn hearts in her eyes) for Bora to play it off as a joke - and anyways, it’s not a joke, unlike last time.
心花怒放 - a Chinese proverb, which Handong explained to her, that describes her emotions right now perfectly.
Flowers, blooming in your heart, uncontrollably.
Bora said it sounded like the flower-in-your-chest, unrequited love story but Handong rolled her eyes with a laugh and replied: “Only if you let it.”
So Bora lets herself fall. And she tries as hard as she can to let Minji know. In front of Somnias, in front of everyone - she drops all of her fear and lets the flowers take over. By giving herself up, by recognising that her desires won’t always lead to the best outcomes, she finally succeeds in rendering Minji speechless.
It’s adorable; Bora’s heartbeat skyrockets and she gives Minji a cheeky smile. The twinkle returns to Minji’s eyes as she huffs and turns away. Bora doesn’t leave her side. And Minji doesn’t pull away.
One week later, after a movie night (which Bora spent inching ever closer to Minji and then actually tucked away in Minji’s arms) and several silly karaoke sessions, Bora wakes up to the smell of eggs.
Minji. Must be her, in the kitchen at such an early hour.
She strolls up behind her (pink hair delightfully messy) and slips her arm around Minji’s waist. Minji doesn’t react, at all, and there’s an eternity contained in the second Bora breathes in and smells vanilla shampoo and finds herself no longer cold.
“Morning,” she murmurs into her shoulder. “Smells good.”
“The eggs?”
“You.”
Bora’s answered by a soft laugh that warms her up even more. Minji moves the eggs around. “You’re early today.”
Bora just smiles and thinks, how could she resist Minji and her pink bunny-patterned apron and being part of this domestic perfection?
“I’m hungry,” is what she says instead.
Minji gets it. She lets Bora hang onto her as she moves around, and grins when Bora drools at the eggs. Soon she presents Bora with the simplest breakfast - and Bora can imagine herself doing this, with Minji, every morning, for the rest of her life; Bora pays her compliments to the well-deserving chef and digs in and through a mouthful of yolk says: “Be my wife. Marry me.”
Minji averts her eyes and tells her to stop joking but Bora just repeats it clearer after swallowing.
“Marry me.”
“You have a bit of egg here.” Minji replies and brushes her thumb ever so close to Bora’s lips. And Bora, still hungry, takes the damn bait.
Always a do-er, not a talker; she looks Minji in the eyes and sees a cloudless sky. Minji blinks, and then Bora’s kissing her, tasting of egg and warmth.
There’s nothing on Minji’s thumb.
Minji smiles into the kiss, the spatchel forgotten. It’s been a long time coming, but at the same time it’s unexpected and exhilarating and they both can’t get enough of it.
What they do know is that they’ve got time; they’ve got time to explore, they’ve got time to sit in the bathroom after a shower and wait for the steam to settle, they’ve got time to have a lie-in or breakfast in bed together - and right now, they’ve got more than enough time before anyone else wakes up.
After all, with Minji’s resolve (who wakes up that early?) and Bora’s impulsivity; they’ll always get there, together, sooner rather than later. And it won’t be fate. They don’t need fate.