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Chaewon cracks the bedroom door open, just enough for her to slink inside, and the hallway light floods in with her.
Yunjin lowers the phone in her hand, and her sleepy, puffy face shines in the fluorescent glow. Without saying a word, she naturally shifts deeper into the bed, and Chaewon makes a happy sound as she burrows into the warm spot Yunjin made for her.
She stretches, and she physically feels the exhaustion of the plane ride back from Jeju Island run off into the night. It was dark by the time they boarded off, and even though they warned Eunchae, she fell asleep the moment she sat in their manager’s car. It took a joint effort between Chaewon and Yunjin to carry Eunchae up the stairs and into her own room.
“Can’t sleep?” Yunjin asks, going back to scrolling through her phone.
Chaewon hums in confirmation. “Felt too restless,” she mumbles through a yawn. “Thought I’d come bother you instead.”
“Oh no,” Yunjin mock-gasps, scooting closer. “I’m, like, so bothered right now.”
“Now you’ve made it too easy. I don’t like achieving my goals that fast.”
Yunjin chuckles under her breath. “Weirdo.” She scrolls past another video, her eyes scanning across whatever caption there is so fast that Chaewon’s not even sure if she’s reading it. “But I guess that’s what I like about you.”
Chaewon swallows hard, and it hurts. She takes the pain in stride. “Zuha’s the official weirdo,” she retorts, a weak response.
“Unnie,” Yunjin sternly puts down her phone and looks Chaewon in the eyes for the first time since she came into the room. “What were the house rules again?”
Chaewon rolls her eyes. “‘No shit-talking someone else unless it’s to their face.’ I know. I made that one up myself.”
“I can’t stand to see the day you become a hypocrite, leader-nim.”
Chaewon whines, rubbing her face in her hands. “Not leader-nim.” Not here, at least. “Just Chaewon.”
“Just Chaewon?”
Her exhausted brain thinks about it for a second longer. She whines again. “Just Chaewon-unnie.”
“Okay, just Chaewon-unnie,” Yunjin snorts. “Go to sleep.”
“Nooo,” she pouts, just to be difficult. She curls up against Yunjin’s body heat, feeling soft and warm, safe like a child. “We have tomorrow off. I can sleep in.”
“Don’t you want to rest? Promotions were brutal this time around.”
Yunjin will learn soon enough, how brutality never stops. “They always are.”
The exhaustion from the last month finally registers in the cracks down her spine. She can pretend that it’s that good kind of pain, the kind she experienced when she debuted the first time around. It was—is—a high she can’t stop chasing, that feeling that she was something. Someone. Maybe it’s not so good anymore, but she’ll keep breaking herself to feel it. She feels it right now. Every muscle she can name is sore, the ones she can’t even more so, and she can’t take her mind off the ever-present ache in her left knee. It all hurts so much.
Then, as if reading her mind, Yunjin shifts, bringing an arm around to guide Chaewon’s head onto her shoulder. There’s something special about this spot, she sleepily thinks. It’s as though this corner of the world was made just for her.
It’s a silly thought, and maybe she’ll tell Yunjin about it tomorrow, like it’s a joke. Yunjin will laugh, and Chaewon will smile, because a joke is all it can be. As if anything she feels about Yunjin could ever be something to laugh at.
Chaewon tucks her face into the crook of Yunjin’s neck, and her head goes quiet. It’s nice when it’s quiet.
“Sleep,” Yunjin whispers, gentle. Chaewon would do whatever Yunjin wanted.
There’s skin on skin, and Yunjin unwittingly leeches all the poison from Chaewon’s veins. The rot momentarily dissipates, and she’s weightless.
Eunchae wakes Chaewon up less than five hours later because she’d forgotten to turn the hallway light off and Electricity is expensive in this economy, unnie. The sun’s hardly up and Chaewon’s already cranky, so she decides that Yunjin shouldn’t be left out of their little early morning club.
The both of them start stomping across the floor like they’re in a rush, and when Yunjin doesn’t budge at them exclaiming that they were going to be late for work, Eunchae gestures at Chaewon to up the stakes.
“Taylor Swift-sunbaenim is visiting the company today!” Chaewon might not even be lying.
“Wuh?” Yunjin shoots straight up, already jumping out of bed to change her clothes. “Wait, wait, don’t leave without me! Give me two minutes.”
Eunchae giggles into Chaewon’s shoulder when Yunjin comes out fully dressed, with mis-matched socks and her bangs in hair curlers, and becomes a living statue at the sight of them still in their pajamas.
Yun audibly blinks as she double, then triple-checks the date on her phone. Then she goes into an Olympic sprinter’s starting position.
“Kim Chaewon, I’m going to turn that bob on your head into a wig.”
Their gracious two-day vacation slips away as though it didn’t even happen, and Chaewon’s back to wearing short skirts in the late-autumn weather. She shivers, the way she knows she will all winter long. Yunjin loops an arm around her. Chaewon hasn’t gotten to tell her her joke yet. She keeps her mouth shut and leans against Yunjin’s shoulder.
While they all wait as the staff finish setting up the set for their magazine shoot, Yunjin decides that the two of them should play chak cha goong to keep their blood circulation going.
Before Chaewon can protest, Yunjin pulls Chaewon’s hands out from where they were safely hidden in her jacket sleeves. Her grin drops from her face.
“You need to take better care of yourself,” Yunjin scolds her. Soft fingertips press against Chaewon’s knuckles, and she flinches. “Your hands are so dry.”
Chaewon pulls away. “No one can see that on camera.”
Not yet, anyway. Her knuckles have started to bleed from the cracking.
Yunjin frowns. “But I can.”
“My skin is just like that. It’s fine.”
Yunjin doesn’t push it. And it’s uncomfortable, the way she goes silent. Chaewon knows it’s her fault, and she has half the mind to just apologize, but Yunjin gets called over for a hair touch up, and Chaewon’s nerve leaves with her.
Yunjin returns just a minute later, though, with heat packs in hand. She aggressively shakes one before slipping it into Chaewon’s pocket, and she firmly laces their fingers together over it.
Chaewon lets out a shaky breath. “Thanks.”
Yunjin shrugs like it’s no big deal. She turns her head to the side, but Chaewon can see how her mouth quivers as she attempts to tamp down her mirth. “Our combined sweat production can start moistening up those dry scales of yours.”
Chaewon tries to rip their hands apart, but Yunjin’s grip is stronger. “You’re disgusting.”
Yunjin only laughs harder.
little dragon, with an accompanying fire emoji, was what Yunjin set Chaewon’s nickname to in her phone contacts the day they met for a second time. Yunjin breezed through all the basic identity icebreakers, wanting to know everything about her.
Horoscope?
Leo.
Oh, yeah. Definitely. Blood type?
B. Are you trying to steal my identity?
Maybe. Chinese zodiac?
Dragon.
That makes so much sense. You’re feisty.
“I’ll show you feisty.”
Chaewon playfully pretended to bite her, like they were already friends rather than tentative co-workers, and set Yunjin’s name to little snake, with the complementary emoji.
Chaewon would never admit this, but when Yunjin first walked into that practice room, her jaw dropping at the sight of her old Produce competitors, Chaewon almost didn’t recognize her. She’d left Yunjin behind already, forever seventeen in a team photo buried deep within her photo gallery, long forgotten.
But suddenly, that old, blurry image turned into solid muscles, dark eyebrows, and the loudest pair of lungs Chaewon’s ever encountered. It only took an hour of awkward reacquainting before the three of them were laughing into each other’s shoulders again, as though four years and a lifetime hadn’t already passed.
The snake took the dragon by surprise when it crossed over the finish line of the Great Race. Maybe Chaewon should’ve expected this from the start.
As they’re shuffled from lessons to a recording for their Japanese comeback, Yunjin naturally pulls Chaewon into the car seat next to her.
Chaewon’s busy taking note of everyone’s lunch orders when Yunjin slips their hands together. Chaewon gives her a squeeze of acknowledgement. She already knows the two of them will be getting the same salad bowls as usual, with an extra helping of carrots for Yunjin.
A soft thumb soothes over the ridges of her knuckles, and it’s comfortable, but—
Chaewon snaps her head down to look on in horror as Yunjin begins applying healing ointment onto the dry skin.
“Yah—” Chaewon tries to pry her hand away. “What are you doing?”
“Looking after you,” Yunjin responds, “since you won’t do it yourself.”
Ugh. Chaewon should’ve known this would happen. She’s an expert at not giving Yunjin a chance to pay her back for anything—Yunjin almost broke her phone once trying to sneak cash into Chaewon’s back pocket—and she knows that Yunjin knows that Chaewon would act the same way about this, too. If Yunjin tried to sneak a new tube of ointment into Chaewon’s bag, it would be returned to Yunjin’s bag by the end of the day.
Too bad the both of them have hardhats for skulls. “It’s for your own good,” Yunjin reiterates with finality, as if Chaewon can’t take care of herself.
A strangled noise of frustration claws its way out of her throat. It’s not that she’s ungrateful or wants pity, but—it’s—
I need a trophy for all of the pain, because that’ll mean everything I’ve been through was worth it. It hurts, so here I am.
Yunjin gently applies a thin layer over Chaewon’s knuckles, and the blistering edges of infection begin to subside.
Those are mine, Chaewon frantically thinks. Don’t take them away from me.
But she watches as Yunjin carefully begins applying the ointment to her other hand, and Chaewon can’t bring herself to truly be upset when someone clearly cares for her this much. Yunjin’s brows are knit together, looking far too concentrated for the situation at hand, and the thumping in Chaewon’s chest is so loud it scares her. She curls into herself to drown out the noise. She can’t tell from the expression on Yunjin’s face if she’s successful.
Yunjin wipes her own hands with a wet wipe as she looks at Chaewon’s in satisfaction. “Goodbye, dragon scales.”
“I will slap you,” Chaewon fake-seethes.
“Do it with your mouth,” Yunjin grin morphs into a smirk, leaning in with her cheek.
At that, all of Chaewon’s irritation melts away and she laughs, because it’s a joke. What else could it be?
“You wish,” she bites back, her teeth dulled and harmless.
Yunjin knocks their foreheads together in retaliation. Hardhats for skulls. They both groan as their brains reverberate in their heads, and Eunchae points and laughs at their misery.
After practice that first day, they’d snuck back out into Yongsan for a late-night hang out, just the two of them. A feeble attempt at reclaiming a youth they’d already signed away. Only, it suddenly began raining in random and heavy intervals, forcing them to tug their hoods over their heads as they ran to the nearest street food stall for shelter.
They huddled together for warmth as they shared a cup of eomuk they’d bought from the stall. When they each took a skewer of fish cake, Chaewon jokingly looped her arm around Yunjin’s and pretended to feed her. The way couples do in the movies. Except Yunjin raised her arm to do the exact same thing, and she looked at Chaewon like she had met her match.
Yunjin’s brows raised in surprise and her eyes widened with excitement and her mouth dropped open in joy, and everything about her seemed to expand into an all-encompassing force. Chaewon leaned in closer, already pulled in.
“How are we only getting to know each other now?” Yunjin asked, looking awestruck. Few are so lucky to get a second chance to learn each other. “I wish I’d known you, like, yesterday.”
I wish I’d known you all my life. Chaewon pressed a cork into the core of her chest. It overflowed anyway.
“Ditto,” was all she could choke out. She couldn't afford to say any more. She pressed the skewer of eomuk to Yunjin’s lips. “Now eat.”
As they ate, the air turned more frigid, and a single snowflake landed on Yunjin’s nose.
“Make a wish,” Yunjin whispered conspiratorially.
Chaewon wiped it away with the brush of her thumb.
Kazuha shrieks at Chaewon as she chases her down one of the company hallways. Apparently, Sakura already knows because Eunchae told her, which means that Yunjin’s the only one that doesn’t know yet. Chaewon looks around, out of breath. Where is she? She must be done with her solo livestream now. Chaewon hurriedly rounds the hallway corner to where she should be, and crashes into Yunjin just as she exits one of the many private rooms in the building.
Chaewon’s lying on top of her, their faces less than five centimeters away from each other, but Chaewon doesn’t have time to think about that now, not when she hears Kazuha’s footsteps coming closer. Her and her stupid long legs. Tall people don’t deserve rights. Yunjin makes a confused noise under her. Chaewon changes her mind.
“Come on, get up, get up.” Chaewon drags Yunjin back into the room she’d just left and securely shuts the door behind them. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
“No, never. I’m fine. What’s going on?”
Kazuha calls out for Chaewon then, only a frosted glass door separating her from then, and Chaewon presses a finger to her lips. They go silent, and after a moment, Kazuha’s off looking for Chaewon somewhere else.
Chaewon and Yunjin are still crouched on the floor, their backs pressed against the wall as they catch their breaths. It’s almost like they’re classmates at school, exchanging gossip in hurried secrecy, and Chaewon wants to laugh from the absurdity of it all. She turns to Yunjin to catch her up to speed, and her breath catches in her throat.
Yunjin’s hair is a mess from the fall, and she’s bare-faced today, and she’s gorgeous. She’s smiling at her, her cheeks full and eyes bright, and misplaced nostalgia aches under Chaewon’s skin.
“What’s got you smiling like that?” Yunjin teases.
Chaewon didn’t even realize, how much it aches. “Maybe I’m just happy to see you. Is that a crime?”
“Never,” Yunjin whispers, secretive. Like this was a secret.
Suddenly, whatever Chaewon wanted to tell her before doesn’t matter anymore, not when there’s something far more important she should know.
“Yunjin-ah, do you want to hear something funny?”
Chaewon’s first kiss was with a girl, Song Yerim. It happened when they were seven, behind the bushes during recess because Yerim wanted to know what it felt like. Chaewon couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards, about her. But they never talked about it again—they never talked again—and Yerim would go on to make a big deal about having her first kiss with a boy from another class.
But she was Chaewon’s, and Chaewon was her’s. Not that she could tell anyone, of course.
Chaewon couldn’t admit that she might actually like girls until after her first debut. She knew that she liked boys, having had to scrub her own fair share of pictures with ex-boyfriends before joining Woolim.
But girls—liking girls was so easy it was terrifying, and Chaewon doesn’t know what to do with herself when things are easy. Finding a goal to bite her teeth into is how she got onto the roster of Produce, it’s how she got a second chance at debuting, and it’s how she’s going to turn the group’s fake wings into real ones. If she lets herself accept the comfortable, the wax might just melt off. She’s not ready for the fall down to earth yet.
Yunjin looks at her expectantly, ready to receive whatever Chaewon gave her. “What is it?”
It would be so simple, so easy to say I like you, I like you, and I think about you even when you’re next to me. It’s been the truth since the moment she met her.
Chaewon likes Yunjin, and it’s a scary thought, so she might not tell Yunjin about it tomorrow, or next year, or maybe ever. Because if she does, then Yunjin will laugh, like it’s a joke. And suddenly everything she feels about Yunjin will be something to laugh about.
Yunjin’s still waiting for her to speak, so Chaewon scrambles to divert the conversation back to the original topic at hand.
“Zuha,” she whispers, because this is a secret. “She’s been talking to—” Chaewon pauses for dramatic effect, pretending to check for any hidden eavesdroppers “—a boy.”
Even before Eunchae leaked the news, Chaewon had already noticed Kazuha going to the gym whenever the little figure skater was there, but she’ll let Kazuha tell Yunjin about that herself.
Laughter bursts out of Yunjin unbidden, like it couldn’t be contained, because she was never meant to withhold brightness. Chaewon belatedly realizes that Yunjin probably already knows, she’s probably the first person Kazuha told. But to entertain Chaewon, she pretends to act scandalized, gasping loudly and covering her mouth with her hand. “How could she?”
“I know right? The peril, Yunjin-ah, oh the peril.”
“Unnie,” Yunjin playfully shoves her shoulder, teasing, “As if you don’t know the dangers of running around with a boy.”
The smile drops off of Chaewon’s face. She tries to glue it back on. “That’s—that was different.”
“How so?”
Because the only person I want to run with is you. “It just is.”
Chaewon’s grateful when Kazuha finally finds them. There’s no anger when she pretends to strangle Chaewon into a chokehold, and Yunjin films them in delight.
When Eunchae was introduced and their group was finally set in stone, Chaewon called it off with Yeonjun.
There was nothing official between them but, somewhere in the depths of creating herself from scratch again, Yeonjun found her. That had to be worth something.
And as much as she wanted to pretend otherwise, even she knew that she was breaking his heart, if just a little bit. He would say her name like it held a precious weight. Chae-won-ie. There’s someone out there who will love him, surely.
“We’ll still be friends,” he said, confident.
“Get your own friends,” she responded, shaky.
The corners of Yeonjun’s lips quirked up. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, until it did. “What we had was over before it even began.”
There’s no way Yeonjun knew about Yunjin back then, but maybe he didn’t have to. The cracks in Chaewon’s skin had already started to form.
To his credit, it was only a little bit awkward when they reunited a few months later, after their debut. They were backstage, in one of the waiting rooms waiting for their turn to film a dance video. Yeonjun tried to make quiet small talk and, to Chaewon’s own credit, she played along.
They got into a heated debate about whose mother’s home cooking was better, and when Yeonjun was in the middle of asking her for her mom’s yukgaejang recipe, Yunjin appeared in the doorway with Sakura in tow.
Fighting, Yunjin mouthed as she raised up an encouraging fist. Chaewon’s cheeks hurt when she returned the gesture.
Yeonjun looked contemplative when she focused her attention back on him.
“What is it?”
“You look at her the way I used to wish you looked at me.”
Funny. Chaewon used to think the same thing, how Yeonjun looked at her the way she wished Yunjin did. She tried to not let it show on her face. The eyebrow raise he gave her told her she was unsuccessful.
The staff came in to get them when it was their turn to film.
“I’ll text you the recipe later,” Chaewon said as she got up. “Because we’re friends.”
Yeonjun winked at her. “I already have my own.”
Even amidst new album cover shoots and new music video recordings, Yunjin still manages to find time to video call with her friends in the States despite the thirteen-hour time difference. Chaewon’s not sure how she has the energy for it, but that’s her excuse for staying up with her. To give Yunjin energy, so she doesn’t have to be alone in her own room. So Yunjin’s not alone. Chaewon doesn’t want to be alone.
Of course, she fell asleep almost immediately anyway, but when she wakes up around midnight, they’re still talking. Yunjin’s hunched over her laptop as she laughs about something Chaewon can’t understand, and Chaewon lazily drapes herself over Yunjin’s back. Safety blanket. It’s just barely spring, and Yunjin’s only wearing a thin sleeping shirt. She must be cold. Chaewon will be Yunjin’s safety blanket.
She almost dozes off again when she hears Yunjin mention her name. She blinks her eyes open despite the heavy weight, and it looks like Yunjin’s introducing her to the group. Chaewon waves at them in greeting. There’s four other people on the call, two boys and two girls.
“We did musical theater together,” Yunjin explains.
So they must have attended high school together. They’ve known Yunjin for longer, known a past version of her that Chaewon does not get to. Suddenly, Chaewon’s sick with heartache and envy.
That should’ve been me, Chaewon thinks, nearly feverish. I wish I could have known you all this time. I wish I got to know you without the world watching. I wish I could’ve made sure you were eating properly when you were busy studying between classes. I wish I could’ve listened to you talk about how your opera program was. I wish I could’ve picked you up afterwards and brought you home. I wish I could’ve seen where you grew up. I wish I could’ve been with you as we grew up.
Then a small, triumphant voice creeps into the back of her mind. But I’m the one who gets to be with you as we grow old.
A hand brushes against her leg and brings her back to reality. She hadn’t realized that the call was already over, the room now dark without the laptop screen illuminating it. Yunjin’s massaging Chaewon’s bad knee, digging her thumb right into where it hurts the most. Relief floods after, and her mind is quiet again.
“What did you think of them?” Yunjin asks.
“They were nice. Have you been friends for a long time?”
“Kind of? I moved around a lot, but they’re my most long standing friendships.”
The envy burns too blue for her to stop herself from being honest. “I wish I knew you earlier,” she admits. “The way they did.”
“They don’t know me the way you do,” Yunjin answers immediately. Even in the darkness, she can make out the fond look Yunjin gives her. “And—who knows? Maybe I was just waiting for you to find me in the future.”
(Chaewon can’t help but think that the fall down to earth wouldn’t be so bad if someone was waiting there to catch her.)
Yunjin and the babies have gone out to pick up their lunch, leaving just Chaewon and Sakura in the outdoor filming site as they take a break.
When one of the camera crew comes over to record behind-the-scenes footage, Sakura makes an X with her hands. And for good measure, she drags Chaewon out on a walk with her. They leave their mic packs behind.
The gravel crunches underneath their shoes. “So, what’s going on with you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Chaewon really doesn’t.
“Yes, you do,” Sakura responds, unconvinced. “You’ve been blowing up over small things lately.”
Chaewon kicks a particularly large rock. Okay, fine. Maybe she’s been too strict during dance practice, getting frustrated when they all memorize the choreography in just an hour. Too fast. Or when all of their schedules go exactly as planned. Too smooth-sailing. None of it makes sense, she knows it doesn’t, but—
“Everything has been too easy, lately.”
Sakura looks at her like she’s grown another head. “In what world is any of this too easy?”
“Yeah,” Chaewon faintly laughs. “I guess it’s not.”
“But it has been easier to deal with, you’re right.” Sakura always knows the right words to use. “Is that.. a bad thing?”
Chaewon fervently shakes her head. “No. No, it shouldn’t be—”
“But it is.”
Chaewon sighs. “But it is. I can’t help but feel like I don’t deserve to deal with things easier. That it was always meant to hurt. I’m scared that my hunger, my drive will disappear when it’s too easy. I’m scared that the comfortable won’t last.”
“When has something like that ever stopped you?”
Chaewon scoffs. “Easy for you to say.” The world was already Sakura’s oyster by the time she realized she was only a child.
“Yah, don’t try to pick a fight.”
“Why not?” Chaewon bites back, now agitated. Maybe she wants a fight, maybe she—
Sakura brushes Chaewon’s bangs out of her eyes. “You’re just looking for a direct source of pain, and I’m not going to give that to you.”
Chaewon frowns even more. Sakura’s supposed to make her feel better, even if it meant verbally jousting her until her lungs filled with blood. It’s an unofficial part of her unofficial mat-unnie responsibilities.
“Maybe you’re still running on that survival mentality.”
“You think so?”
“I’m not you,” Sakura lightheartedly pokes Chaewon’s forehead. “But you seem to treat hardship like they’re coupons. You can cash them in and get a discount, but instead you hoard them. You don’t know where else to put them.”
Chaewon’s throat tightens up. She ducks her head down and looks at her hands. She doesn’t let them dry out anymore, and the scabs of the cracks flake off like chips of paint. Sakura takes her hand and squeezes it tightly in hers. “I don’t know if I’m capable of putting them anywhere.”
“You don’t have to create unnecessary pain for yourself. You wouldn’t have gotten this far if you didn’t have that hunger. It’ll come back to you—it always does.”
The trail they’ve been walking along loops back around to their filming location, and they walk in just as the other three return. Yunjin’s holding up two large bags that contain their lunches while Kazuha and Eunchae walk in front of her, pretending to be her bodyguards as she holds their precious cargo.
“It’s time to feast, dear peasants!”
Chaewon catches herself smiling before she can suppress it. Yunjin catches her eye and sends her a flying kiss.
“Yeah,” Chaewon agrees. “It always does.”
Chaewon gnaws on her bottom lip, shuffling around in her own bed for once. She presses call, and Yena picks up on the second ring.
“Unnie—”
“Are you crazy? It’s three in the morning, Chaewon-ah, and unless you’re dying or being roasted alive like a shawarma spit, I swear to god—”
“I think I like her.”
Silence. Then, “Like-like her?”
“Yes, like-like her. Why would I call to tell you that I just tolerate my coworker?”
Yena lets out a dramatic sigh. “Why you’re even calling me about it is a mystery.”
Yena was the first person she told about her bisexuality, even if she didn’t use so many words. They’d gone out drinking together when Chaewon became of age, and neither of them expected Chaewon’s tolerance to be so high until it was too late. Chaewon ended up spilling everything out, metaphorically, before sobbing her eyes out. Then Yena started crying because she didn’t want her to cry alone, and then Chaewon cried even more because she felt so loved, and suddenly their dire levels of dehydration became more pressing than Chaewon’s liking of girls was.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Yena presses on.
“Do I have to do something about it?” So many words die on her tongue, it’s a graveyard. She’s not ready to resurrect the dead yet.
Something that sounds like a smack echoes from Yena’s end of the call. Wait, did she—
“Did you just smack me through your phone?” Chaewon squawks.
“Yeah, because you do not sound like the Kim Chaewon I know right now,” Yena retorts. “You want to do something about it. And you will, because that’s what you’ve always done. So do what you always do.”
Yena falls asleep immediately after finishing her sentence, and Chaewon hangs up on her snores, though not before whispering a quiet, “Thank you, unnie.”
Do what you always do, like it was that easy.
Maybe it always was.
Chaewon muffles her laughter into Yunjin’s shoulder as Yunjin performs an operatic version of the song currently playing on her playlist, dramatic hand gestures and all.
The other three had gone to a variety shoot while the two of them were supposed to promote at another, but their shoot got canceled last minute, so they got a free night off instead. Eunchae made sure to let her displeasure be known through her relentless spamming of their group chat with angry bunny stickers. The two of them sent her a selfie of them in their pajamas in return.
They lounge on the couch as they wait for their food delivery to arrive. Chaewon’s lying her legs on top of Yunjin’s, and Yunjin rubs her knee. Yunjin shuffles through movie rentals they can watch, and she pauses at the sight of an American-looking one, set in high school.
“I never got to go to prom,” Yunjin says, sounding wistful. “I had a moodboard prepared for my outfit and everything when I was a sophomore.”
“What’s a sophomore?”
“That’s the grade before a junior.”
Chaewon lightly slaps Yunjin’s hand, the one on her knee. She just ends up laying her own hand on top of her’s. Yunjin plays with her thumb. “You’re the actual worst.”
Yunjin laughs. “And you like me anyway.”
“I would like you in any way.” There’s silence, and Chaewon musters up the courage to glance at her. Yunjin looks a bit stunned, and Chaewon clears her throat. “Besides, what’s there to prom?” she asks. “Pretty dresses, loud music, shitty food? We have all of that here now. Or well, we’re going to.”
Chaewon’s never seen Yunjin look so excited before. That’s a lie, Yunjin is easily excited, but maybe it feels different because she’s looking at Chaewon this way. “Are you saying—”
“Let’s have your overdue prom.”
Yunjin giddily drags them to their joint closet and they shuffle through what they have on hand. They have limited options from their everyday wear, but they make do. Yunjin puts on an emerald green dress, one with sleeves that drapes onto her arms and has ruffles at the edge of the skirt. Chaewon wears a simple maroon spaghetti strap dress, which has a sheer layer of black mesh overlaying it. Yunjin twirls around to show off the fabric, and Chaewon’s so, so dizzy.
Their manager gives them a blank stare when he drops off their food. “You guys get weirder everyday,” he says before handing them their bag of chimaek.
They run downstairs to grab some of their leftover party decorations from Sakura’s birthday a few weeks earlier. They tape party garlands around the living room ceiling and blow up about two Happy 25th Birthday! balloons before they give up on that venture. They blast Yunjin’s playlist without a care in the world because they already have soundproof foam panels littered around the apartment to contain Yunjin’s singing. They feed each other the fried chicken, one arm looped around the other, and drain their cans of beer by the second song.
When Taylor Swift comes on, Chaewon isn’t surprised when Yunjin drags her back onto her feet to dance. They trip over each other’s feet and bicker about who made the fatal error. Yunjin’s hand on Chaewon’s shoulder, Chaewon’s hand on Yunjin’s hip. Chaewon’s heart in Yunjin’s chest, Chaewon wishing that Yunjin’s heart was in her’s. If Chaewon just tilted her head forward, she could kiss the mole on Yunjin's nose. She doesn't.
They’re hardly even tipsy, but they end up on the living room floor anyway, lying side by side on their backs. Yunjin’s eyes track the movement of the multi-colored lights from the mini-LED strobe light that Kazuha bought. Chaewon’s eyes are on her.
“I’m glad you didn’t go to business school. I’m glad you came back.”
Yunjin turns to face her, and she’s enveloped in color, blue blending into red blending into purple. “I’m glad you were still here.”
Oh, Chaewon likes her so much. Is she allowed to? Can she allow herself to be happy like this? To be happy like it was easy? A sharp ache is already settling behind her eyes. It’s like her and Yena all over again. She looks away in embarrassment.
“Oh, Pupu,” Yunjin soothes her, rolling over to cup Chaewon’s face in her hands. “My little dragon. What’s wrong?”
“Coupons,” Chaewon mumbles. “Yunjinie-yah. I have hardship coupons.” This must not make any sense to Yunjin. It still doesn’t make sense to Chaewon, so she doesn’t know why her voice wavers. “And I don’t know where to put them.”
“I’ll take them,” Yunjin says so easily. She sits up and holds out her hands. “Put them right here.”
“Won’t they hurt you?”
“Never. You could never hurt me.”
Chaewon wants to sob. “You put so much blind faith in me.”
“You put that faith in me too. You trust me too.”
But it’s different, Chaewon wants to argue back. Of course I’d trust you. It’s you. But I’m me.
Instead, Chaewon chooses to believe her. She digs her hands into her own chest, ripping through skin and muscle and bone, and she pulls out this unrecognizable, bloodied lump of a vessel she calls her heart. She places it where it belongs—where it’s belonged all this time.
Yunjin tears her teeth into it, gorging until there are two hearts beating in her chest.
She smiles, and Chaewon’s blood stains the corner of her mouth.
Chaewon wipes it off, and she smiles back at her.
Chaewon wakes up to a shove against her shoulder.
“Unnie,” she hears through the murkiness. “Unnie, wake up.”
She lets out a disgruntled noise, attempting to pull the blanket over her head, but it gets pulled away. She forces her eyes open and finds that she’s still on the living room floor. They must’ve fallen asleep without realizing, and Eunchae probably covered them in a blanket for the night once she returned to the dorm. Yunjin is hoarding said blanket right now, even though she’s already awake.
Oh. Yunjin’s already awake. She’s sitting upright, still in her prom dress, and she looks at Chaewon in a way that she can’t describe. It’s strange. It’s like she’s looking at Chaewon for the first time. It’s like—
“Hey,” Yunjin calls out, even though she’s right there. She wraps the blanket around Chaewon’s shoulders. She pulls her in closer. Chaewon lets herself be pulled in.
“Hey.”
Yunjin rolls out her words slowly. She never does that. “I need to tell you something.”
Chaewon gives her a soft smile. “What is it?”
“I like you,” Yunjin blurts out. “I kind of just realized it. Or technically like, thirty minutes ago? But I think—I think I have for a long time, since the eomuk, since the rain, since the snow.” Yunjin’s cheeks are turning red, and Chaewon can’t seem to move. She stares at her wide-eyed, scared that if she blinks, then this would all disappear.
“I planned out a whole speech in my notes app when I woke up,” Yunjin continues, babbling nervously, “but I don’t think I’m saying anything I wrote right. I woke up and—you were the first person I saw. I like you everyday. I want to see you everyday. I want you to be the first person I see everyday.”
Chaewon’s starstruck, silenting mouthing the word speech, because of course Yunjin would.
Yunjin laughs a little deliriously, then sucks in a breath. “Unnie, please say something. Even if it’s a ‘no, I hate you.’ God, especially if it’s that.”
Chaewon forces herself to breathe, and then does what she’s always done. She closes the distance between them and pretends to throttle Yunjin, shaking her back and forth. “What kind of stupid thought is that?”
“Not the kind of answer I was expecting, but I like where you’re going with this,” Yunjin chokes out.
“How could I ever not like you?” The cork in her heart has been entirely relinquished, and words have never come out easier than now. “It took me over a year to even muster the courage to want to say it, but you—”
“Over a year? Since..”
“Since the eomuk, the rain, the snow.” Chaewon stops with the play-fighting, settling her hands on Yunjin’s shoulders instead. She plays with the ends of Yunjin’s hair. “There was this, this shitty joke I’ve been meaning to tell you. It started with something about your shoulder being the perfect height for my cheek to rest on, and it ended with the feeling that I was always supposed to know you. But I lost the punchline along the way, because there never was one.”
“What was there, then?”
“The truth. I like you too.” I like you, I like you, I like you.
I might even love you. You’re not hard to love at all.
Yunjin looks at her in awe. “Please kiss me.”
Chaewon would do whatever Yunjin wanted.
Their noses bump and their teeth clank painfully against each other, but her lips are warm and plush and just right. Yunjin giggles into her mouth. This is what sunlight tastes like.
Yunjin clearly doesn’t agree. She pulls back, crinkling her nose. “You stink.”
Chaewon swats at her. “You’re an even bigger stinker.”
“And we can stay like that for a little bit longer,” Yunjin laughs, and she pulls Chaewon back onto the floor with her. It’s still early in the morning. Soft oranges wash over the pastel blue-green of the sky. Chaewon tucks her face into the crook of Yunjin’s neck. It would be easy to mistake this for a dream.
“Is this real?”
“Nothing is more real,” Yunjin confirms. “I just wish I realized earlier. Did I make you wait too long?”
Chaewon shakes her head. “I was just hoping you would find me in the future. And—guess what?”
“What?”
“I think you found me at just the right time.”