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i am sorry. i am grateful.
i just want us to be friends now, forever.
take this bowl of blackberries from the garden.
the sun has made them warm.
i picked them just for you. i promise
i will try to stay on my side of the couch.
i have known her almost half my life. most of my memories at the company had her beside me, and those memories at the first dorm were filled with her too. ever constant, always there - like some guardian angel, i guess. she said i was like the sun and she was the moon. rising as the other sets.
i found it romantic, even though it was just a passing comment. i’ve long known that my heart stutters when i’m around her, especially when she says things like that. things like, i don’t know, how i have the characteristics of her favorite season. how she wishes she could become a cushion for me. what a flirt, right? worst things is that she doesn’t even realize that. she’s just being herself.
and it’s awful, the way it makes my heart beat. because ryujin will never feel this - this aching thing in the core of my being that calls for her. this thing that moves across my chest and into my arms and asks me to hold her, and it takes every effort just so i can stop myself midway. always. ryujin will never know what it is that crawls across my brain when it’s dark, telling me to kiss her or touch her beyond what we have. the sleepless nights i spent in the bed above her, wondering if she’d let me stay beside her for a while. i never had the courage to come down.
when we stay in the van, we have no seating arrangement. everyone comes in, first come first serve, into the seat they feel like using for that day. sometimes, if one of us is moody, that person stays in the passenger seat as a switch with our manager. likewise, if you want to be closer to someone, the back seats are the best. no spaces in between. i have always preferred the back seats (probably my personality of wanting to always be with people, as jisu mentioned once before). ryujin likes to alternate everywhere else, between needing space and needing warmth. i notice it only because some days i hope she’d choose the back, just so i have some dumb excuse to be closer. a little closer. sometimes, i ask her to join me, but most times, i don’t. i can’t handle very well the sinking feeling when she rejects me, no matter how kindly she does it. (i wish she’d want to be with me as much as i do with her. it is weirdly painful.)
but if that girl is anything, she’s confusing. some moments, i am sure her heart must be palpitating in the same way mine is when she looks at me in the waiting room. it is easy for me to blame it on the nerves before a stage, but i know deep down that probably isn’t it. it’s just ryujin. that infuriatingly gorgeous girl who has unceremoniously situated herself at the center of the universe (or, well, at least mine). i hate her for being there some days.
“yeji-unnie, could you help me with this?” she asked me once, holding up a silver necklace behind her exposed neck. i had wanted to run my hand across the skin.
“unnie?” she asked me again. my stupor was only halfway broken as i held the jewelry, my palms suddenly sweating. i don’t know why i was nervous. the clasp won’t close. why won’t it close? my mind was running miles. i was then fumbling like a fool in front of her. my fingers refused to follow me, instead choosing to shake and make me drop the necklace. i picked it up from the floor and i know ryujin must have felt my nervousness because i was being painfully obvious, but she didn’t comment on it. she is always like that. the first to tease me about everything, and still the first to be patient when i’m troubled. another reason why she makes my chest hurt so badly. then she looked back at me, her short blonde hair swaying like liquid light, smiling lightly. my heart tumbled over with the familiar ache.
“thanks, yeddeong.” she says to me then, before i even realize i had successfully clipped it on. then she smiles again (god, since when did she smile so much?) like someone out of a dream, dips in her cheeks like valleys. she pats my hip on her way out the door as i stand there, helplessly turned into stone from her look. they said medusa was a gorgeous woman before athena cursed her with a head full of snakes. it must be true.
another time, we turned on vlive, just the two of us. if i’m honest, i rarely do them with ryujin (on purpose). i am scared of how clear it will be to the world how taken i am with her. when i’m alone with ryujin, every single part of my body goes on some kind of hyper mode, like not a single one of my senses want to calm down. all of them feeling all of her in the highest possible intensity.
anyway, i was distracted the whole time - talking about whatever came to mind, just to shake off the pressing need to be under her skin in our closeness. it almost feels like a performance; my own self a marionette moving rigidly with uneven strings because ryujin’s long, delicate fingers are looped around them. if she was a little farther, maybe i’d function somehow. except this bunk bed is so high up that the top of our heads touch the ceiling, and the mattress itself is small. i’m scared she will fall off if i move.
she came up unexpectedly, my lipstick on her lips, the vision of comfort in a black hoodie. i have the urge to show her off, like i always do. i show the camera our hair colors and tell them stories. mostly of her. of us. it makes me giddy to know we have so many of them, these little trinkets in our treasure chests that we bring out like trophies. the tales spin late into the night until i can feel her getting sleepy beside me as she slurs her words and blinks slower than usual. i shut off the camera. i wanted to ask her to stay, the nag in the back of my head extremely present.
turns out i don’t really have to. she tells me,
“i’m too lazy to go down. i can sleep with you tonight, right, yeddeong?”
it felt like all the air in my lungs disappeared. i didn’t trust myself with the words, so i nodded and let her sleep on the outer side of the bed. she let me hug her. my hands were on top of her stomach as i held her. soft and warm and breathing lightly, already drifting off to dreamland. that night, i barely slept. i kept wondering if she could feel the rhythm of my heart against her back or my sweating palms or the breaths i kept holding when the skin of her neck touched my lips.
it is a cage i’ve willingly put myself in, the distance between us. this bed, this room, this place, this job.
i should’ve told her to sleep in her own bed.
one day, i was so tired. too tired of the gripping against my chest at wanting. wanting to touch, wanting to feel, wanting to be seen. the words came out of my mouth like rancid vomit after a schedule we both had, once again, just the two of us. the other members rode a separate van. she was beside me, but there was a space in between our chairs; we occupied the middle seats. she was on her phone, like always. i wanted to snatch it and throw it out the window just for her to look at me.
“what is it, unnie?”
“huh?”
“you’re staring. you’ve been doing that a lot these days.”
so she’s noticed. why doesn’t she ever turn my way then?
“well?”
her impatience is irritating sometimes. it makes me want to grab her shoulders and shake her purely out of anger. i don’t know why she cannot bare to wait. i mean, i understand it a little, but i wish she’d be more understanding.
“if you’re not gonna talk—“
“ryujin, you’re pretty.”
“yeah, you tell me that all the time.”
“i mean… you’re pretty pretty. in a way i can’t explain.”
she stares at me, confused. at least her eyes aren’t on her phone anymore. i hadn’t really figured out my approach to this, so i started rambling whatever i felt.
“i dreamt about you. and, you know, not like normal dreams where you ride clouds and slide down rainbows or whatever. i dreamt about you. i—“
it suddenly dawned on me how ridiculous this was. i couldn’t possibly tell her i have dreamt of holding her on a bed and kissing her, of the hardened muscles on her torso and the bones of her hips. i cannot tell her of the bare flesh i had seen in that projected image in my mind, and say that that is something i’ve desired for so long. how do i tell her that i want to be molded into her very soul and dance in her blood and be looked at by her and know i am the thing that lives in her mind?
“you were on a bridge overlooking a river. i thought you looked so gorgeous, ryujin. you had tears running across your cheeks and i thought you were beautiful. you were crying and screaming and calling my name and i thought you were beautiful.”
is there any way to make her understand? she’s looking at me funny, as if her tongue is on the verge of teasing. i almost know what she’s gonna say, really. her lips are quirked upward like she’s gonna make fun of me and i want to cry. what would i do if she just laughs at me? i am going deaf with the silence.
“i don’t think there’s anybody else on this planet as great as you.” i say, because i’m blanked out and i don’t know any of the other words that could make any of this sound better. i’m no poet. and it is the truth. there is no one greater than her on this floating rock among all these people. no one. it must have dawned on her what i meant because her face shifts from joking to serious. and then furious.
“what? wait, unnie—“ she stops herself, a hand spread unevenly atop her mouth. the furrow of her eyebrows scare me. she is biting her lip.
“do you… like me?”
my heart drops into my stomach. she really knows this time. she really knows. i didn’t even have to say it. i want to be relieved to be understood, to know she can actually see me now as i am in the way i love her - but i am filled with nothing but dread because her look is saying ‘what the fuck?’ and i have to bite my tongue to keep from screaming. i bite it and taste metal, staining me red. i almost say ‘yes’ but she is looking at me disgustedly.
“yeji-unnie, are you serious?” ryujin asks, incredulous and looking scandalized. i didn’t even think the reaction could be this bad. how could it be so bad? has she no control over her own face?
“ryujin—“
“no, unnie, hey… that’s not fair. that’s really not fair. why are you telling me this? do you want me to say i like you back or something? because this is really pressuring right now, and—” she says again, running a hand across her hair in frustration. the black strands fall forward and cover her face, for which i’m grateful. i cannot stand to look at her. i feel ashamed. i feel horrible, dirt-smeared and monstrous. what do i do? how do i take it back?
“no, ryujin-ah, you don’t have to take that so serious. i promise. it’s not that serious.” i try to say, but she already looks like she doesn’t believe me as soon as i say her name. my voice is much too shaky. my tears are barely at bay. what do i do? how do i take it back? how—
“unnie, i can’t… i don’t…” she is going to say it, those words i’ve dreamt of on darker nights. except this is reality now, real and tangible and in front of me. there’s no glass of water to throw like those horribly acted melodramas on tv; there is only that look that is much worse, coloring all of ryujin’s face.
i cannot tell if all the creases talk of hatred or disgust or contempt or anger. no, actually, maybe it is all of those things. i have ruined our friendship. i have ruined everything. she will tell the others and they will hate me and i know i won’t be able to ever get away. i should’ve waited until we disbanded or something, maybe that would’ve made the tears on my face fall slower. i never should’ve opened my goddamned mouth, should’ve kept the hunger in my chest, should’ve stopped as soon as i started.
she’s on the verge of talking again, and i am so scared that i turn away from her.
but then the van stutters and stops. the driver is awkwardly sitting there with his gear shifted to park. we must have been stopped for a while, actually, without me noticing. and i’ve kept this man who has nothing to do with us just uselessly waiting.
“we’re here.” he says from his seat, nervous voice quite obvious. ryujin takes a deep breath beside me, sighs like rocks have been hung with sacks on her shoulders. she opens the door and leaves. the man looks at me sympathetically from the rearview mirror, and i feel like i need to douse myself in hot water to clean myself from it once i get home.
the days that follow that are awkward. we’d been ordered to move to another dorm. bigger rooms and bigger spaces. more places to hide from her, really. the living room is filled with boxes of things, plastic bags of clothes and snacks. the members have noticed my silence, i think. chaeryeong and i share a room now and i feel so awfully relieved. if i was with ryujin, i wouldn’t be able to handle it.
thankfully, it’s promotion season. my hair is a new color. so is ryujin’s and some of the others. i remember not being able to take my eyes off her at the salon, even though we weren’t speaking. i guess some things don’t really change. the dirty blonde looked great on her, godly even. i wanted to tell her so, but nowadays whenever we make eye contact she turns back to her phone immediately. i want to fix things. it’s going to become deathly obvious once promotions start, and i hate when the company calls me back to that tiny conference room just to tell me all the things i’m doing wrong again and again. my manager has talked to me about it already. i promised i’d be good.
chaeryeong’s lying down on her bed, facing the ceiling, when she suddenly talks to me. i was folding clothes to place in the closet. there’s still piles of them left and i’m barely making a dent.
“you and ryujin aren’t talking.”
“i know.”
“why?”
“i said something stupid.”
she turns to me, her face propped up on her palm.
“ryujin could never hate you long enough, you know? i know you guys might not be on good terms right now but it’s a little concerning. you’ve never fought.” she tilts her head at me, smooth red hair falling to one side. chaeryeong keeps looking better every time we make a comeback. sometimes i wish i’d pay less attention to ryujin so i could compliment her too.
“we’ve never had reason to. i gave her a reason to. she can hate me, it’s okay. it was my fault.” i said, not looking up from the steady pile of clothes i’ve accumulated on my bed. the ones on the floor still need fixing. i don’t want to think about anything else that isn’t these clothes right now because the mess is frustrating and i’m definitely not trying to run away from my problems.
“still… it’s not like her to be so distant. i mean, you know her the most, of course. sometimes she is, but not for like 2 whole weeks. won’t you tell me?” she asks me, concern stamped on her face. it feels nice to be asked, but i don’t want to answer. i give her a smile and shake my head, “it’s fine. it won’t be a big deal. i’ll talk to her about it.”
i didn’t talk to her about it.
yuna came up to me on the morning of our first music bank, freshly showered and ready.
“unnie, can you ask ryujin-unnie if i can sit in the front seat today?” she asks me, eyes pleading. ryujin’s been taking the passenger seat for a while, ever since we had that fight. if you can call it that. i don’t know how to tell her it’s because of me that that ryujin’s been hogging it, so i can’t possibly ask her. yuna’s eyes are almost blinding with how puppy they look.
“ask jisu to ask her, yuna.” i say, apologetic. i feel bad. i feel so bad all the time. i want to fix it, but i don’t know how. i don’t know what to say, even if i confronted her. should i lie and say i was just joking? but that seems so sad. i had racked up so much courage just to tell her.
“aw, but… okay…”
yuna must have wanted to say something else, but chaeryeong had looked at her from across the room, her expressive eyes telling all.
that day was no different that any other day, except at least i’d been able to make more eye contact than i had the entire few months. mainly because of the choreography. i thought after confessing and getting rejected, some tiny portion of the electricity in my veins when she touches me would dissipate. it didn’t - not really. it just aches more now. because i have to pretend we’re okay as soon as a camera is pointed toward us, and there’s almost a secret agreement to do that because she rides onto my jokes and makes fun of me like normal. i’ve never wanted to be in front of a camera so badly, then. i wanted her to look at me like normal and not in that weird, distorted way she has been.
when we get home, it’s the same. we’re not roommates anymore so we don’t have to see each other. i went to jisu’s room because i needed someone to talk to and if it isn’t going to be ryujin, then it might as well be jisu.
“hey.”
“hey, yeji. what’s up?” she asks me, putting away her arts and crafts stuff. she’d been writing in this pink notebook decorated with stickers and ribbons. she has stashes of them on the desk near her bed; i helped her load them off the truck when we moved. the sheer amount is pretty shocking.
“when your friend hates you, what do you do?” i ask, lying down on her bed. her comforters are lighter than everybody else’s, gray and simple. yuna’s bed is just beside it, baby blue with some white. i always liked this room; you can see the two’s dynamic from every single corner of the place. yuna’s bright pillows and jisu’s record collection. it looks so nice. ryujin and i had something similar in the old dorm, i’m reminded, with her green pencils and my black lampshades.
“this is about ryu, isn’t it?” she sighs, plopping on the space beside me. we’re both facing the ceiling.
“yeah.”
“you won’t tell me what happened even if i asked?”
“i’m sorry, jisu.”
she places a hand in mine quietly, then puts it onto her stomach. she sighs,
“it’s okay, yej. it’s okay.” the words feel so warm, and her hand rubbing the back of mine is so nice. i want to tell her everything, really, i do. but if more people know, then it’ll get extra complicated and i’d hate for ryujin to feel uncomfortable around the others just because of me. it’s selfish.
“maybe give her some food? you don’t have to talk, i think. ryujin likes silence. and she also likes food, so when she’s hungry, try to tempt her out with it. she’ll cave in, i’m sure.” jisu says then, smiling as she faces me. it doesn’t really reach her eyes, and her lips are a little downturned too. i feel bad for burdening her suddenly. but instead of saying that, i just say,
“thanks, jisu.” and i pat her hand, the one holding mine. i fall asleep in her bed that day, though she doesn’t seem to mind. when i wake up, she’s cuddled next to yuna on the youngest’s bed. i step out quietly after taking a cute picture of them.
it’s been a month. in truth, i’ve been feeling very bad. and not just in the mental sense, but physically my body feels so ragged these days. like i have to drag every single limb off of bed in the morning. chaeryeong has to help me out sometimes. i’ve been so used to doing that for them that thinking about it displaces me, wondering how i’d come to this.
i’ve also decided, in my drowsy afternoon tiredness, that today was going to be the day i talk to ryujin. tell her what i feel. tell her everything.
i get out of bed at 1:30 pm, an uncharacteristically late hour to wake, fumbling around for my phone on the bedside drawer. there’s a text from yuna greeting me:
‘hi unnie! u were sleeping so i didn’t wake u up, but jisu-unnie left to go to her parents, and i’m out with chaeryeong-unnie, so don’t be worried if u don’t see us at home :)’
and right after is a cute sleeping penguin sticker, and a picture of myself - obviously taken while i was sleeping seeing as my legs and arms are in knots within the blanket. at least there, i don’t look as stressed as i do now.
my legs bring me to the kitchen, my hands bring a cup of water to my lips, and my eyes scan the room for any other sign of life that isn’t mine. and then it lands, slow and blurry, on a figure sitting at the couch in the living room.
my subconscious knows who it is before i do, too accustomed to looking for her presence in any room for years. it is ryujin, just as she always is, in a black tank top and long light brown pants. a vision in my eyes with the sun bearing down lightly on her skin. even now, i think she is the single greatest being in the universe.
maybe it’s the blankness of my mind or the numbness of my nose bridge from the cold i had yesterday, but i just decide to stop thinking and do what i hope would work best. i take some mixed berries from the fridge, blueberries and raspberries and strawberries (all fruits that i know ryujin likes), and place them on the kitchen counter top. i stare at it, wondering what to say, then settling for nothing at all. i grab the clear glass bowl and make a beeline for the couch, scared to lose my will halfway.
ryujin doesn’t move at all, seated on the farthest right side edge. i sit on the farthest left, a whole space away from her. there aren’t any words that come to mind. i grab a strawberry and bite onto it, relishing the coldness on my tongue. my teeth must be stained a little red now. it’s sweet, the strawberry, and delicious. i move the bowl from my lap onto the space between us, the moisture on its sides dripping onto the couch.
ryujin continues to scroll on her phone, nonchalant. i almost lose hope. maybe jisu was wrong. maybe silence and fruits weren’t going to work out for us (but i really, really do not want to talk). just when i start debating about whether to just stand and hide in my room all day, ryujin’s arm comes into my peripheral vision. i try not to move my head sideways, using my eyes to glance at which fruit she picked.
blueberries.
i knew she’d choose that one. i’m glad. overwhelming relief courses through me as she finishes one, then takes another, then another. my eyeballs feel strained from having to glance to the right. it doesn’t matter.
there’s a placid, undisturbed silence. only the sounds of her chewing and my breathing. my senses are once again fired up, overheating and making my palms sweat. she must notice, because she sighs, placing one more blueberry into her mouth and swallowing before clearing her throat.
i talk first,
“you don’t have to say anything, ryujin. nothing at all. i just want us to be friends now, forever. if you’d have me, i mean.”
she looks at me, really looks at me, her eyes boring into mine. she knows i love her, the way i do and not the way i’ve made it out to be. i know she’s looking at me and wondering how she can let me down easy or how to accept any of it. her eyes are so telling of every emotion on the edge of her tongue; it is so easy to read her after so many years.
and then, she nods. she puts another blueberry onto her mouth. then she holds up a strawberry and puts it in mine. she looks at me and smiles a little.
i stare at her, wondering what’s going on inside her head. what she must think. but i guess it doesn’t matter, really. as long as she’s here and i can be beside her, it’d all be fine.
“i’m thankful you’re my friend, yeji.” she says to me then.
“i’m sorry.” i reply, my heart sunken in the acids of my stomach.
ryujin’s eyes speak of sympathy. i wish she would look away. i wish i had the courage to say more, everything that burdens my heart. i want to make her carry all these things in my chest instead.
she picks up the tv remote and plays a movie, one we both like. she moves the bowl to the table, moving to sit beside me. i think then that her legs must feel cold from the water left by the bowl on the couch.
my heart bangs wildly in my chest, our proximity still sending goosebumps across my arms.
halfway through the film, she yawns then moves again, her head now on my lap. her legs, covered in soft cloth, are stretched out onto the couch. i don’t dare move. her eyes drift close easily, like all of this meant nothing, like those weeks of not talking was just a scuffle. it might have been. maybe i was the only one putting so much meaning in it. she looks peaceful, like she did that day in the top bunk on my bed.
i can settle for this. even though the years that follow will not dwindle the affection in my heart for her or make the ache burn a little less. even though i do not know yet that i will still always find myself looking for reciprocation in her touch. i can settle for this.