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“Oh, it tastes good,” Na says as she finishes up the brownie. Leemhai leans back against the table and watches her, sets the plate of brownies next to her. “It tastes better. Did you—” Her eyes flick up to look at her. She still looks shy and bashful, which Leemhai can’t help but find very sweet. “Did you do something to them?”
“Do something?” She asks, raising her eyebrows as Na flushes and duck her head down. “Yes,” she says, taking pity on her after watching her struggle for a few moments. “I made new ones, actually. With a different recipe. Seeing as the last ones were apparently so bad you thought I’d put something weird in them.”
Na coughs and somehow manages to get redder. Leemhai swallows back a grin and raises her eyebrows again, puts on a stern expression. “I didn’t!” Na says, and huffs. “I mean, I didn’t think they were that bad that you put…” She swallows, and lowers her voice to a whisper. “You know.”
“Know what?” Leemhai asks, blinking back at her, and Na lets out a frustrated breath, pressing her free hand against her forehead. She mutters something Leemhai can’t quite catch. Leemhai leans forward, into Na’s space, where she can smell the coconut of her shampoo, the scent of her perfume. She tries very hard not to think of last night, her face buried in Na’s neck, her fingers tangled in Na’s hair. Friends. They’re supposed to be friends now. “Sorry, what was that?”
The tips of Na’s ears are red. “It just seems like something you would do,” Na repeats, like the words have been dragged out of her.
“Weed seems like something I would do?” Leemhai asks, drawing back with a scandalized gasp. She doesn’t know whether to be amused or offended. Na seems to get even more embarrassed at her own admission, which makes her smirk. She resumes her serious expression when Na looks up at her.
“No! Just— all the cool kids do it,” she says. She huffs. “You know what I mean.”
“The cool kids?” Leemhai echoes, pretending to puzzle over it just to watch Na turn even redder. She has to actively hold back a grin. “Do you think I’m cool?”
Na buries her head in her hand. She gives a muffled yelp into it, which is so cute Leemhai can’t bear it any longer and breaks into a laugh. Na spreads her fingers and looks at her through the gaps, mouth wide open. “Are you laughing at me?” She asks.
“No,” Leemhai says, and pulls Na’s hand away from her face with her own and holds it. “But do you?” she asks, leaning forward teasingly.
Na groans. “You are laughing at me,” she accuses. Leemhai laughs softly and squeezes her hand.
“Not at all,” she says. “And I have done weed, but just once. I didn’t really like it. And it wasn’t in a brownie, either.” She gives Na a pointed look. Na brings their joined hands up to her face and groans very dramatically into them. Leemhai laughs harder and ignores the way her heart flutters. “Does that make me more or less cool in your eyes?”
Na rolls her eyes. “You,” she says, but can’t finish her sentence, and the more Leemhai laughs at her, the more flustered she gets. “You are very cool,” she sighs, like she’s very resigned about it. Leemhai snorts. “And you know that.”
Leemhai leans back into the table, pleased. “Well, thank you, Na,” she says, which makes Na scoff and toss her hand at her, as if to say, it’s no big deal. “I think you’re very cool too,” she says.
Na looks up. There is something about her face— it reminds her of the expression she wore, just before she kissed her last night, soft and sweet, a hand on her thigh. Leemhai couldn’t look away from her even if she tried. Na says, “Really?” Her voice is small.
Leemhai gives her a look. She says, “Really.” And, “You know I think that.” She thinks, I’ve thought that since I saw you across the room sitting at my table. And she wants to say it, because she’s not the type of person to keep things bottled inside. But Na has a boyfriend now, and it is like a rush of bitterness to the back of her throat.
“I know,” Na says, and she’s frowning now, brows knit together. “I mean—” She shrugs, but it looks more helpless rather than uncaring. “You’ve always shown me that. It’s me who’s—” She waves a hand through the air. “A mess,” she finishes.
Leemhai just looks at her. She reaches forward and takes Na’s glass out of her hand, sets it down on the table behind her and takes both of Na’s hands in her own. Na looks at her, warm and questioning, and Leemhai wishes she were hers to hold. “I don’t think you’re a mess,” she says gently. “It’s okay, you know. To not know things.”
“I know,” Na says. Her eyes are so wide and it makes Leemhai feel foolish, it makes her want to lean forward and kiss her again even though she can’t— she shouldn’t, because Na is with Nine now, and not with her. Na wants to be with Nine instead of her.
She clears her throat. “Like, for example, the fact you should probably never, ever do weed, if you’re blaming my perfectly edible brownies.”
The moment breaks successfully— Na lets out a breath of laughter and looks away from her, steps away. Leemhai lets go of her hands, ignoring the way they tingle in Na’s absence. “Leemhai,” Na groans.
“Sorry,” she says, grinning and pushing her hair back. She folds her hands around the table’s edge so she won’t be tempted to lean forward and touch her again. “You’re just too fun to mess with. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Yes,” Na says, and continues to look like the most adorably put-out person ever. Leemhai doesn’t think it’s actually possible to stay mad at her for long. “My friends say that all the time. That’s probably why I was so unlucky.” She looks up and catches Leemhai’s eye. “Before.”
Leemhai feels her heart give another traitorous little flutter and immediately squashes it. Na is with Nine, she thinks, but she can’t make the thought stick. Anyway, Na can’t be talking about her when she means her luck changed, because she doesn’t think of her like that. She shakes her head and picks up a brownie. Eats it. They really are much better this time, which is a surprise, considering she made them in a daze after seeing Nine’s Instagram story.
“You said you saw the fortune teller before and didn’t get the number,” she says. Na nods back at her, head cocked to the side. It’s terrible how much Leemhai wants to pull her into her arms when she looks like that. “But you did get another number? Was it for love?”
Na chokes on literally nothing, and Leemhai blinks back at her, startled, leaning forward and thumping her on the back. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Na wheezes, holding her hands up for Leemhai to stop. “Just— I didn’t think you would ask me that.”
“Why not?” she asks, and is amused at the way Na averts her gaze from hers. “You did, didn’t you? Get a number for love?”
“Yes,” Na mutters.
“Aha!” Leemhai says, and doesn’t let herself think about what that might mean, for herself. And the fact that Nine only noticed Na after Leemhai gave Na her lucky number, not the number Na chose specially for love. “Well, good.” Na still won’t look at her. Maybe she’s thinking about that too. “Na,” she says gently, which earns her a quick darting look. She can tell she’s feeling overwhelmed and puts a hand on her shoulder, tries to make the touch as friendly as she can. “There’s no need to be embarrassed,” she says. “I mean, it looked nice, what he did. Wasn’t it nice?”
Na makes a face, like she can’t understand why Leemhai would ask her this, and Leemhai doesn’t know why herself. Maybe she’s just trying to hurt herself. “It was nice,” she says, but the words come out a little hollow.
Leehmai cocks her head. “Did you not like it?” she asks. She does not let herself think, I could do so much better. Na has chosen who she wants, and it isn’t her.
Na leans into her touch, and Leemhai holds her breath. “I don’t know,” she says, and sighs. “It was— a lot. It all happened very quickly, that’s why I—” She looks up at her, and then away again, just as quick.
“That’s why you said yes?” She asks, quieter. Na flinches a little. Leemhai lets her go of her, reluctantly. Pulls back.
“I don’t—” She says, and blows out a long, heavy breath. Her eyes are squeezed shut. “I don’t know. I didn’t—” She looks up, catches Leemhai’s eyes. She looks determined. Leemhai wonders if this is the look her patients get, during a difficult procedure. She’s not an accident-prone person, and usually fairly lucky, but she wouldn’t mind if she ended up there with Na as her doctor. “I didn’t ask him to do all of that. I didn’t want him to post it either.”
Leemhai shrugs, unintentionally mimicking Na’s own movement. She feels uncomfortable, in her shoulders and her back, in a way she never has been with Na. She recognizes that it’s not her fault— that Na herself isn’t the one doing it. She can’t help feeling the ache, when she thinks of the two of them together. “It’s fine,” she says quickly. “It’s none of my business.” Na gives a little relieved sigh at that, which makes her lips quirk into a small smile. “It’s not like we’re together, or anything like that.”
As soon as she says it, she wishes she hadn’t— Na looks like she’s swallowed two more of her brownies whole. She twists her lips together in regret. Sorry, she wants to say. I don’t mean that. But she does mean it. She wished, desperately, that when she woke up Na would still be in her arms and she could press close and inhale the scent of her shampoo and make her breakfast and ask her if she would be hers. But when she did open her eyes, the bed was empty and Na wasn’t there.
“Forget I said that,” she says instead. But Na just looks at her like she can’t. She closes her eyes. Opens them again. Na is still looking at her, open anxious expression that tears at her heart. Something closes in Leemhai’s throat. She takes a breath to try to steady herself. “Do you regret it?” She asks, quiet, and is surprised at the vehemence of Na’s head shaking, her hands balling into fists.
“No,” she says, breathless, her eyes burning into hers. “No, I couldn’t— how could I? It was— you were—” And then she drops her head, and Leemhai knows she’s thinking about it, last night and Na’s shaky exhale against her lips, hands moving haltingly up her body and Leemhai taking her hands, stopping her, saying Have you ever? and Na meeting her eyes, saying no, could you and Leemhai kissing her, a hand at the back of her neck, her waist, pulling her in. Yes, yes, anything yes.
“Why?” Na asks. Her voice is very small. “Do you?”
Leemhai shakes her head. Slow, so she can feel the gravity of the movement, the way it drags at her. “I could never regret it,” she says, and hears more than sees Na’s sharp inhale at her answer. She feels unsteady on her feet, like the ground is moving under her, except she hasn’t been drinking enough for that to be the reason why. There is something in the pit of her stomach that keeps squeezing and squeezing, tighter and tighter.
“Leemhai,” Na breathes, and when Leemhai looks up, Na is right there, hands hovering, like she’s unsure if her touch would be welcomed or not. She has to know— surely she must know how much she wants her, all of the time.
She says, “Na.” It comes out very soft and sweet, she can’t control it, and she watches the way Na’s eyes flutter at the sound of her voice. She dips her head down, looks down at the floor, and an inky strand of her hair breaks free, falls into her face. Carefully, Leemhai reaches forward and brushes it back, tucks it behind her ear. She lets her touch linger. Na looks up, meets her eyes. She brings one hand up and closes it over Leemhai’s hand, keeping it there, over her cheek. Now Leemhai is the one breathing in shakily.
Na sways into her, puts her other hand on her waist, over the thin fabric of her shirt. Even this simple touch feels so good, Leemhai’s eyes fall shut. She opens them again after a moment, looks deep into Na’s eyes, waiting to see if she will stop, if she will move away from her, remember her new boyfriend. She doesn’t. She tilts her head so her forehead is pressed against Leemhai’s. Leemhai lets out a sigh that is almost a sob and reaches for her, curls a hand around her waist and pulls, so they are pressed flush against each other.
Her voice is thick when she speaks. She says, “Have you thought this through?” And she’s half-joking, except it’s never been a joke to her, none of it, and Na just tilts her head and looks at her like she can see right through her.
“Yes,” she says, and kisses her.
Her lips are even softer than she remembered, and she has spent every waking moment thinking of them. Leemhai brushes her thumb across her cheek and tilts her head, and Na makes a warm sound into her mouth and presses harder against her, pushes Leemhai into the table. She grips Na’s waist, moves against her, and Na shudders, says Leemhai, breathless and wanting, and Leemhai strokes her hand into her hair, urging her closer, as close as she can get. Na tastes sweet, like her brownies, and she can taste the sips of alcohol she had under that, and something else that is wholly, undeniably her. She’s missed this, the taste of her. She missed her.
Na pushes her shirt up her stomach so she can splay her hand against her bare skin and Leemhai rocks into the movement, licks into her mouth. Na moves her hand up higher, exploring, puts the other one on the other side of her waist, and Leemhai catches her tongue with hers and sucks on it. Na lets out an unsteady breath against her. Her skin is warm underneath Leemhai’s fingertips.
She gentles the kiss, cradles the side of Na’s face, and feels Na bunch the fabric of her shirt in her fist, then release it. She kisses the corner of Na’s mouth, then her jaw, and presses her lips against her neck, where she can feel her pulse racing underneath the skin. She holds her mouth there. Na slips a hand into her hair, very gently. She brushes it away from her eyes. Leemhai can feel that she’s shaking a little.
She brushes her lips against Na’s collar and dots a trail of kisses to where her tank top starts. She looks up and catches Na’s gaze. Her head is tilted to the side. She’s smiling softly back at her, and Leemhai feels something twist and echo inside of her in response. She lifts her head and kisses her deeply, until they both run out of air.
She drops her forehead against Na’s. The only sound in the room is the sound of their breathing. She matches hers to Na’s, closes her eyes. Na runs a hand down her neck and holds it, her thumb pressed lightly over her pulse. Leemhai knows she can feel how fast it’s beating. They hold each other for a long moment, staring into the other’s eyes.
Leemhai takes a breath. She says, “Are you sure?”
And Na says, “Yes.”
She breathes in. Looks at her. Na smiles slightly. She looks back.
“Okay,” she breathes. “Okay.” She wraps her hand around Na’s and leads her to the bedroom.
- - -
In the morning she wakes up and Na is still there, sleeping soundly next to her, her back against Leemhai’s front. Leemhai had fallen asleep with an arm thrown over Na’s waist and it’s still there, curled around her, her nose almost brushing her shoulder. She takes a moment to revel in the moment, the way the sun shines down and makes Na’s dark hair glow. She breathes in. Na smells like her.
Leemhai sighs. She could get used to this— waking up with Na in her arms two days in a row. She snuggles in closer and curls her arm tighter around her waist. When Na gets up and slips out of bed, she sits up and looks after her for a moment. Then she picks up her robe and follows her out. There’s no way she’s letting her get away from her again.