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She doesn't think about it, not really; after all, Yujin has always had this bad habit of being low-key in love with all the nice people in her life, few and far in between as they are. Certainly, Wonyoung wouldn't be an exception -- Wonyoung, who has been there since forever. What's not to be low-key in love with? Wonyoung's a great listener, an okay singer, and a passable cook. She lets herself be dragged out of bed in the middle of the night for a philosophical conversation about what it means to be present and she doesn't mind hanging out with Yujin on weekends even when she clearly has better things to do, other than be ignored by Yujin for most of the afternoon.
It's easy -- Wonyoung's easy -- and so unlike their other friends, who practically disappeared when their respective boyfriends came along. Not Wonyoung -- but then again, she and Yejun have been joined at the hip for forever and a half , and Yejun doesn't mind that Wonyoung has friends. Who text at godawful hours and host a ridiculous number of sleepovers and weekend stay-ins and all-girl movie nights.
Yejun doesn't mind that Wonyoung has Yujin. Some days Yujin wonders if one day, he should.
* * * * * * * * * *Wonyoung was fifteen when they first met. Her bike broke down while biking around the neighborhood, and Yujin happened to pass by. It’s a greasy affair, and Wonyoung offers to let Yujin clean up in their garage, where Wonyoung hoses the dirt from Yujin’s legs. Yujin remembers that day quite clearly – after all, it’s not every day that a pretty girl moves into the neighborhood and hoses her legs down before sunset.
Yujin thinks there are worse ways to make new friends.
* * * * * * * * * *Wonyoung likes biking during weekends, and Yujin soon finds herself tagging along on Saturday afternoons. Yujin lives further down the street, so she usually bikes up to Wonyoung’s and waits for her to come out. Yujin likes being early; moreover, she likes watching Wonyoung as she readies her bike and puts her helmet on. She thinks it’s rather cute, though she’ll never admit it to Wonyoung’s face.
Their weekend route starts off on the concrete Jang lawn and winds through an unpaved path through the forest just beyond the last house on their street. Yujin likes it better when the sun is out – it’s easier to ride through a dusty path than a muddy one. She remembers the first time she joined Wonyoung on this ride – Wonyoung had been so secretive about their destination, it made Yujin’s palms sweat, her hand slipping occasionally while gripping the handlebars. Despite living in the area for longer, Yujin never thought to stray this far – no point in doing it alone.
But now, Wonyoung is here and suddenly, getting lost is somewhat quite worth it.
That first time, Wonyoung skids to a stop with a small laugh and Yujin tries to brake a little more softly. Her legs are itchy with the dirt caked around the hem of her socks, but when she sees what Wonyoung is staring at, Yujin feels her jaw drop slightly.
This is how Yujin first meets the lake – with her mouth slightly parted and a soft drizzle threatening overhead. Wonyoung laughs louder this time, dropping her bike to the ground before scampering toward the shore.
“What—where are you going, Wonyoung?”
Wonyoung stops for a bit to look back at her over her shoulder, face filled with disbelief. “The lake won’t come to you, Yujin!” she just says back, running on.
It rains that afternoon, and they spend the entire ride back home in their wet, dripping clothes.
* * * * * * * * * *Yujin starts looking forward to the weekends. The first few weeks, she only goes on Saturdays, but after a while, Wonyoung is able to convince her to ride with her on Sundays as well. It’s exhausting but it’s worth it; Yujin brings a change of clothes, while Wonyoung brings her mat and her art materials.
Wonyoung loves painting in the forest, sitting on the shore as Yujin stayed in the water, treading until her calves hurt; she doesn’t want to cramp Wonyoung’s style and space, so she keeps her distance until Wonyoung calls on her to look at her latest piece. She gets better week after week, Yujin always says, though Wonyoung always dismisses it as Yujin simply being kind.
“Seriously, Wonyoung,” says Yujin. “I saw last week’s painting, and that was already amazing. This one though.”
Wonyoung covers her face with her hands, but her cheeks are pink with blush. Yujin pokes her side with the blunt end of an abandoned paintbrush. “ Yujin, ” she groans, though a half-giggle makes it out anyhow. “Be honest with me, for once.”
“I am.”
This conversation never really ends, and Wonyoung never really accepts Yujin’s compliments, so Yujin just insists on keeping every piece that Wonyoung wants to throw away.
By the end of the month, Yujin’s room is already filled with various portraits of the same lake, and she doesn’t quite know what to make of them.
* * * * * * * * * *When it rains, Yujin complains about the mud, so Wonyoung just bikes to Yujin’s and they hang out in the living room, watching repetitive television and eating day-old pizza. Yujin’s parents are often out on weekends, so Wonyoung’s presence is always welcome; at least, Yujin isn’t alone, especially in the downpour.
“Summer’s ending,” says Wonyoung, looking out the window. She’s sitting on the couch with her legs lazily thrown on Yujin’s lap. “What are your plans?”
“I think this question is backwards,” says Yujin, thumb lightly grazing Wonyoung’s ankle. “You’re supposed to have plans for the summer. Not after it.”
“Why not?”
Yujin shrugs. “It just is.”
“Can we still bike on weekends?”
Yujin looks at her like she’s just suggested they both shave their heads before school starts. “We’ll have homework on weekends when school starts, Wonyoung.”
Wonyoung makes a face before letting her head fall back onto the couch. She knows Yujin is right. “Maybe Sunday afternoon? Just a quick ride?”
Thunder rumbles in the distance and Yujin finds herself scooting closer to Wonyoung, hand still around Wonyoung’s ankle. When she looks out, she sees the rain as it comes down in white opaque sheets, the water rapping against the glass steadily.
“Maybe,” Yujin just says, keeping her eyes on the window.
* * * * * * * * * * If it’s not a promise, then I’m not breaking anything, Yujin just thinks.
* * * * * * * * * *She doesn’t bike with Wonyoung for months, but every now and then, they drop by each other’s houses with snacks and homework. Yujin remembers the first time she enters the Jang household, marveling at how different it is from her own – like everything’s warm and more rounded in the corners.
Wonyoung likes doing her homework in their dining room, books open on the table. Yujin takes the far corner and tries her best not to be distracted by the way Wonyoung chews on the end of her pen as she thinks.
Yujin figures it out really early on, but she tries not to think too much about it: Wonyoung’s this lovely thing, and maybe there are worse ways to feel about your best friend.
* * * * * * * * * *By the time the following summer rolls around, Yujin sees Wonyoung riding with Yejun. He’s an old friend of Wonyoung’s, from her old neighborhood; Yujin remembers every single time Wonyoung tells her about him, but only because of the way his name feels like a really blunt instrument digging into Yujin’s ribs.
How is it possible for someone to know Wonyoung better – for Wonyoung to have had a life before this? The question sits uncomfortably in Yujin’s gut.
How is that possible, when Yujin’s life actually began that afternoon she found Wonyoung with her broken bike?
(As with everything, Yujin tries not to think about it; not too much.)
That summer, their weekend rides became a three not two anymore.
Eventually, Yujin does not mind.
Instead, she learns just when to look away whenever Wonyoung starts getting this all too fond look when she looks at Yejun and whenever Yejun starts murmuring low at Wonyoung. These moments are private, Yujin knows, and in those moments she is glad the shore is wide, or that the lake is there.
Wonyoung doesn’t even paint anymore; she pays attention to Yejun instead. Yujin tries not to think about Wonyoung’s pieces in her bedroom from last summer.
Later, as she walks Yujin to her door, Wonyoung says softly, “Yejun’s only visiting for the summer.”
Yujin looks at her, confused. “You don’t have to explain anything,” she just says, closing the door after her gently.
* * * * * * * * * *She stops biking with Wonyoung and Yejun altogether; she thinks it’s for the best. She thinks about how there is nothing low-key about the way Wonyoung and Yejun feel about each other, so there’s that. Yujin knows this for a fact: Wonyoung deserves more than just the muted feeling in Yujin’s chest.
Yujin spends her weekends putting together wooden frames for Wonyoung’s paintings instead.
* * * * * * * * * *When it starts raining toward the end of that summer, Wonyoung shows up at her door with Combos and ice cream. Yujin lets her in with a smile and a lump in her throat.
“Hi,” says Yujin, shuffling into the living room, barefoot. She looks around and regrets the mess of the house; had she known Wonyoung was coming, she would have at least cleaned up. “I wasn’t exactly expecting visitors.”
Wonyoung walks into their kitchen with familiar ease, putting the ice cream into the freezer. “You’ve been busy,” she says. “Yejun’s been asking about you.”
“What? About the girl who used to third wheel on you during your biking dates?” asks Yujin lightly, trying to lace the bitter comment with a laugh. “Come on Wonyoung.”
“Come on Yujinnie ,” Wonyoung says, tugging Yujin back to the couch. “Yejun knows you’re my best friend.” The term lodges in Yujin’s chest – she doesn’t quite know how to feel about it. “He’s leaving in a couple of days. We’re having a bit of a goodbye party.”
“A party,” Yujin repeats, narrowing her eyes at Wonyoung as she plops down on the couch, legs on Yujin’s lap again, easy and familiar.
“The lake. You and me. And, well – Yejun would be there,” Wonyoung says with a smile. And then, off the solemn look on Yujin’s face: “Hey. I miss you, okay.”
Yujin sighs. Wonyoung’s legs on her lap feel heavy like lead. “You’re only here because it’s raining,” she says. She doesn’t mean for it to come out the way it does – bitter and painful. Yujin looks away and hopes Wonyoung doesn’t notice.
“I’m here because you’re here,” Wonyoung says. “Where’s your bike?”
“It’s broken,” Yujin says.
Wonyoung sees right through the lie. “You fixed my bike. Why can’t you fix yours?”
Yujin shrugs. “Maybe I can’t,” she says. Or maybe I won’t.
“Yujin.”
“Wonyoung.”
Wonyoung looks at her for a moment, before carefully lifting her legs off Yujin’s lap and gathering her knees to her chest. It stings, but Yujin breathes in and says nothing further. “You don’t like Yejun.”
“Do I have to?” asks Yujin, and Wonyoung visibly pales, like Yujin had just slapped her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I’m sorry I spent all summer hanging out with my boyfriend who’s only here on vacation—”
What? Yujin shuts the rest of the words out, and lets boyfriend ring in her head loudly, like a siren blaring. Yujin closes her eyes and sinks into the couch further.
“Yujin.”
“I’m sorry,” Yujin says, after a while. She feels so shrunk and small, and she wonders how Wonyoung still sees her right now. “As I’ve said, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Come out to the lake with us,” Wonyoung says. She reaches over to wrap a hand around Yujin’s arm; Wonyoung’s hand is still soft, like rainwater. It’s exactly as Yujin remembers. “Please.”
Yujin does not say anything more that afternoon, and Wonyoung lets her be, staying on the sofa eating her Combos, silently offering Yujin in between. Yujin accepts – it’s just Combos – and when they’re done, Wonyoung goes back into the kitchen and starts with the ice cream. Yujin does not even have to help – Wonyoung knows her way around Yujin’s kitchen, and she comes back quietly with two half-filled mugs. They eat in silence with their legs tucked under them, sitting on the opposite sides of the couch.
Yujin tries not to fall in love, just a little bit harder. (Of course, it’s never enough.)
* * * * * * * * * *Yujin comes out to the lake and Yejun smiles at her in greeting, hands shoved into his pockets. “Wonyoung would be glad,” he tells her, and Yujin tries a soft tentative smile herself in response.
The skies are overcast on the day Wonyoung decides to have Yejun’s going-away party, and Yujin looks up nervously, thinking about rain. She leaves her bike steady against a tree before sliding down toward the lakeshore, and there Wonyoung is, fussing with cake and a bottle of wine.
“Can I help?”
Wonyoung lets out an excited squeal, pushing herself off the mat and flinging herself into Yujin’s arms, and Yujin receives her with a loud, surprised laugh. “You’re here!” Wonyoung says, hands on Yujin’s shoulder.
“You said there would be food.”
“And there is, ” Wonyoung says, motioning to the food spread. “I mean. Cake is food, right.”
“Right.” Yujin rolls her eyes but there’s a smile on her lips. Behind her, she can hear Yejun walking up to them, leaves crunching under his boots.
“Over here,” says Yejun, and when Wonyoung tugs Yujin around, Yejun brandishes the thing in his hand. “One for Wonyoung’s books,” he says, clicking once on his Polaroid.
Wonyoung presses her cheek against Yujin’s, pulling her in with her shoulder. Like this, Yujin can feel the smile stretching Wonyoung’s face, and Yejun laughs as the small flash goes off and the print slides out. Wonyoung snatches it with two fingers, and Yujin watches her as she shakes it out, staring as their faces slowly form on the surface.
“One more?” Yejun asks, and this time, Yujin initiates the hug herself.
* * * * * * * * * *It rained on the way back. Yujin tucks their photo further into her bra to keep it dry.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Yejun takes the last bus out and Wonyoung spends the night at Yujin’s, staring at her room’s ceiling. Yujin lies on her side, mindful of the small space between them, staring at Wonyoung’s face.
“I think I did something I shouldn’t have,” Wonyoung says, after a long silence. Yujin’s stomach fills with
stones
, just listening to the rasp of Wonyoung’s voice; the way it breaks toward the end.
“What is it?”
Wonyoung sighs, turning to her side to face Yujin. Like this, she’s so close, and Yujin flinches. Her breath is warm on Yujin’s face and Yujin has to bite down on her tongue to keep from leaning in; from leaning
closer
.
“I slept with Yejun.”
Yujin screws her eyes shut at the words.
Of course. You knew this was coming.
Yujin tells herself to keep breathing. “And?”
“And he’s my boyfriend. So this was supposed to happen, right?”
Right.
“I’m not sure I’m the right person to ask.”
“You’re my best friend. I’m pretty sure you’re always the right person to ask.”
“Not this time,” Yujin just says. Wonyoung opens her mouth as if to say something else, only to close it again, hesitating. They spend the rest of the night like that, staring at each other wordlessly; their lips half-parted in the dark.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Wonyoung figures it out eventually: Yujin doesn’t like hearing about Yejun. Summer ends and Wonyoung still comes by with snacks and homework, but eventually, Yujin notes that Wonyoung has stopped updating her about Yejun entirely.
Yujin is thankful. And maybe – just
maybe --
a little more smitten than before. (But mostly thankful.)
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When Yujin meets Gaeul, it’s already their second week in university. Gaeul fills in for the professor’s sick TA and the first thing that Yujin notes about her is her hair. (She tries not to see Wonyoung in her smile;
don’t we always fall for semblances.
)
Yujin makes it a point to submit her paper last so she can linger. Gaeul takes it with a smile, and reads out her name, written across the top of the page.
Her first words to her are: “Hello, Yujin.” And then: “See you next meeting.”
Yujin smiles harder than she’s supposed to, and Gaeul laughs before turning away. Yujin tries not to think about the blush she thinks she saw.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Gaeul is not Wonyoung. If anything, she is more like Yujin than anything else: Reserved and awkward. In class though, she is different: She is stern and outspoken, always ready to shut smartasses down, but Yujin knows, at the end of the day, much of that effort takes its toll on her.
“It’s like a muscle, and it feels like I’m flexing
,” she tells Yujin once, over coffee. They bump into each other a lot, and Yujin makes it a point to offer coffee with the conversation. Perhaps none of it is an accident, not technically, though Yujin will never admit following Gaeul around whenever she spots her on campus, because that is just
creepy,
but well.
Yujin tries.
Nothing wrong with trying to be nice.
The first time, Yujin walks up to her from across the corridor and just flat out
asks.
Maybe it was the cold, but apart from that, Yujin doesn’t know why exactly Gaeul says yes to coffee with a first-year student who later asks for her number, but then again, perhaps there are always worse ways to meet new friends.
“Is that how it’s going to be then?” Yujin asks carefully. “A lifetime of
flexing?”
Gaeul tilts her head, coffee hovering before her lips; Yujin tries not to stare as Gaeul purses them as she thinks about what to say next.
Christ.
Yujin sips from her coffee to drown out her own thoughts.
“Is that a bad thing?” asks Gaeul.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you feel yourself flexing a lot?”
“Not when I’m with you.” It’s out so quickly that Yujin barely has time to register that she has even spoken, and Gaeul’s eyes widen slightly with a pleased surprise that makes Yujin’s breath hitch in her throat.
Gaeul recovers, after a while, lowering her cup and leaning in. “Well,” she says, breathing out. Yujin keeps herself very, very still. “I’m glad the feeling goes both ways, then.”
When Yujin lets go of the breath she’d been holding all along, her chest feels like it’s about to give out. Something changes that day, she knows, but it isn’t until that term ends when Gaeul finally comes up to her and asks her
asks her
out. “To a proper dinner,” Gaeul explains. “We could still get coffee, afterwards.”
And they do, that morning after, after crawling into Gaeul’s bed.
“You are what mornings are made for,” Yujin just says.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Yujin does not go home for term break and Wonyoung has to call at odd hours, just to get hold of her.
“Wonyoung, it’s three in the morning.”
“It’s term break, Yujin. Where are you?”
Yujin rubs her eyes and tries to slip out of bed carefully, trying not to wake Gaeul.
In my girlfriend’s apartment, where else?
she almost says, but she’s been putting this call off and she’s not entirely sure this is how Wonyoung wants their first proper conversation
in a long time
to go.
“Sleeping in the dorms on campus,” says Yujin, closing the bedroom door behind her softly. The rest of Gaeul’s apartment is dark, but she’s learned how to navigate it seamlessly without having to hit the lights. “You?”
“I’m at home. Like, home. I was hoping you’d be home, too.”
“Wonyoung.”
“Yujinnie.
Come on. Are you telling me you’re staying there for the break?” Yujin groans. She hadn’t considered that Wonyoung would actually go home herself. “
Yujin.”
“Term break’s, like, only a couple of weeks. Why did you even—”
“Well, because I was hoping
to hang out with my best friend who has been unavailable for the past handful of weeks,” says Wonyoung, and Yujin feels the guilt blooming in her chest. “And, as it turns out, will continue to be unavailable for the
next handful of weeks.”
“Wonyoung.” Yujin pours herself a glass of water and starts massaging at her temple.
It’s too early for this conversation.
“Listen. I met someone and we’re spending term break together, okay?”
The quiet that follows is tense; at least, for Yujin, it is. She listens to Wonyoung breathing on the other end until the silence becomes unbearable.
“Still there?”
Wonyoung clears her throat. “Oh,” she ends up saying. “Sorry, Yujinnie. I mean – I didn’t know. I—you should have told me. When did this happen?” Wonyoung lifts her tone toward the end, and Yujin feels her gut turn at the effort it seems to have taken.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” says Yujin. “It’s all quite new.”
“I understand.”
“Maybe we can talk about her some other time.” Yujin just lets it drop like that, hoping Wonyoung manages to catch it and doesn’t ask further – at least for now. Yujin looks at the clock hanging over the fridge: 3:24 a.m.
“Right.” Wonyoung swallows audibly from her end and Yujin bites down on her lip at the sound she makes. “Can I—when can I call again?”
Yujin almost says,
Whenever you want,
but then again she knows this is no longer true. “I’ll call you,” she says instead. “Tell you all about her.”
Wonyoung lets out a small laugh. Yujin tries not to imagine her in her room, huddled under the sheets, phone to her ear in the dark.
My favorite Wonyoung,
she thinks briefly before shoving the thought out.
“Tell me all about her,” Wonyoung just repeats, and Yujin just thinks about how the last word rolls off Wonyoung’s tongue.
She gets it.
“Good night, Wonyoung.”
“Good night.”
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Wonyoung doesn’t call again, and neither does she.
Yujin spends the rest of term break learning all there is to know about Gaeul instead.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Wonyoung’s next phone call comes in the middle of a Halloween party Gaeul’s sorority is hosting, and Yujin accidentally answers her cell while still in the thick of the thing.
“Hello?”
“Wonyoung, wait a sec,” she says, weaving through the crowd, beer in hand. She looks around for Gaeul and finds her eye across the room; she gestures to her phone and Gaeul smiles at her, blowing her a kiss. Yujin sticks her tongue out at her and mouths
Later
before heading out the door.
“Hello? Yujin?”
“Hey.” With the door closed behind her, the party quiets down and Yujin is suddenly hyper-aware of Wonyoung’s voice in her ear. How long has it been since she last heard it? Yujin tries to shake that last phone call out of her head; that time, she’d promised to call Wonyoung and
tell her.
Why hadn’t she, anyway? She could always say:
Term break had been busy.
She could always say:
Things had a way of getting in the way.
She could always say:
I want Gaeul to be something that was only mine.
Yujin feels horrible the moment the sentiment solidifies in her brain. She’d been thinking about that for a while – about her reluctance to share Gaeul with Wonyoung, the one person with whom she shared
everything,
once.
The one person who also shared everything with me.
Yujin remembers Yejun, that familiar bitter taste threatening at the back of her throat all over again, and when she closes her eyes, she sees the lake.
Our lake of summers past.
“Hey,” says Wonyoung, her voice but a drawn-out sigh. Yujin drains her cup at that, trying to brush off that note of heavy
longing
that she hears in such a small word. “Where are you?”
“At a party,” says Yujin, looking into her now-empty cup. “At Gaeul’s. It’s Halloween.”
Wonyoung lets out a little laugh. “Of course,” she says. “What are you coming as?”
“Excuse me?”
“I meant, is it a costume kind of party, or—”
“Oh,” Yujin says, laughing herself. “Sorry. I—I’m not in a costume. I guess it’s not really that sort of a party.”
“A boring one then.” Wonyoung slips from tense to
teasing,
just like that, and Yujin feels something shift inside her chest. “What would you have come as, if required?”
“I wouldn’t have come in the first place, had a costume been required.”
“Even if Gaeul insisted?”
“I—” Yujin trails off. Gaeul wouldn’t have insisted on anything, but if she had, Yujin would have come as
anything.
“Gaeul’s not that
into Halloween,” she says instead.
“I would have wanted you to go as some sort of furry animal,” says Wonyoung in a mock-serious tone. “Maybe a raccoon. Eye makeup, the works.”
“I wouldn’t,
” Yujin says, though the image of Wonyoung applying her eye makeup for her sticks in her mind, and it isn’t exactly an unpleasant thought. “And you would have come as?”
“Maybe a sci-fi post-apocalyptic heroine,” says Wonyoung. “Tattered leather jackets and a long firearm. The works.”
“And I
have to go as a raccoon,” Yujin says drily. “This is unfair.”
Wonyoung laughs. “I miss your grumpy face,” she says. It’s out so
easily
and it takes the breath out of Yujin’s lungs. Wonyoung drops her voice to a whisper. “You never called.”
Yujin bites the inside of her cheek, hard. “Things just… sort of got in the way, I guess,” she says. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you even—” Wonyoung inhales, cutting herself off mid-way, like she’s thinking of better ways to put her next question. “Where are you spending New Year’s?”
Jackpot.
Yujin almost laughs out loud at how
accurately
she predicts Wonyoung’s next question, but still, she is thrown. She and Gaeul talked about visiting family over the holidays, actually – both hers and Gaeul’s – and she isn’t sure if she’s ready to tell Wonyoung about it, despite the fact that the plans are good as final.
“We’re still thinking about it,” Yujin says instead. “I’ll let you know, okay?”
Wonyoung is quiet for a bit, and Yujin’s chest fills with words, words, words.
“Okay,” Wonyoung says after a while. “I should probably let you get back to that party.”
“Wonyoung.”
“Go,
” Wonyoung says. “Have fun tonight.” There’s that cheery tone again that Yujin recognizes as Wonyoung trying, and it tears at Yujin inexplicably.
“Good night, Wonyoung.”
“Good night.”
It is only after she hangs up the phone that Yujin realizes she didn’t even ask Wonyoung how she was, or how she and Yejun had been, at the very least.
The safest question,
Yujin tells herself, crushing the cup in her hand.
“Hey Yujinnie.”
“Yeah?” Yujin looks over her shoulder to find Gaeul by the door.
“You are coming back in?”
Yujin pockets her phone and tosses her crushed cup aside before turning around, wiping her hand against her jeans. Gaeul simply tilts her head and looks at her amusedly.
“Yeah, sure. Sorry, was I out long?”
“Not really,” says Gaeul, smiling. “Who was that?”
Yujin shrugs, shoving her hands into her pockets. “An old friend just checking in,” she just says.
“Oooh,” Gaeul says, tugging Yujin back into the party, hand warm around her wrist. “Will we see them when we visit?”
Yujin tries to ignore the knots in her stomach. “Of course,” she says instead, distracted. “Whatever we want, right?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Wonyoung suggests a backyard poolside cookout, instead of a trip to the lake; after all, the Jang's had already built a pool, and it would be a waste not to use it. For the most part, Yujin is thankful she does not have to take her bike out; she’s not even sure it’s still in good shape.
Gaeul picks up some wine and brings the salad. Yujin watches her fidget at the door before knocking, so she reaches out to take Gaeul’s hand, planting a soft kiss on her knuckles. “You’ll be fine,” says Yujin, though she wonders if she’s also saying that to herself.
“What if they don’t like me?”
It’s the first time that Yujin hears Gaeul like this – nervous and jittery and
insecure.
“They’d love
you,” says Yujin, rubbing at Gaeul’s arm before pulling her in. “Besides – it’s just Wonyoung and her boyfriend. They’re practically
family.”
Gaeul pauses to breathe in. “Okay.” She closes her eyes as Yujin raps at the door once, and this time, it’s Yujin’s turn to inhale deeply, listening in for the familiar footsteps that rush toward the door. Yujin feels Gaeul’s grip around her hand tightening.
Wonyoung opens the door with a squeal and a laugh. “You’re here!” she says, throwing her arms haphazardly around Yujin. She’s wearing an apron and Yujin notes a small stain on her cheek, possibly from barbecue sauce. She takes a moment too long to stare at Yujin before turning to the woman beside her. “You must be Gaeul.”
“Hello, Wonyoung,” says Gaeul, grinning as she exhales.
“I have heard so much about you,” Wonyoung says, glancing at Yujin briefly before reaching for Gaeul’s hands. “Let me take these. Come on in. Yejun’s just getting started.”
Wonyoung leads Gaeul by the hand into the kitchen, and Yujin lets herself hang back, looking around. The Jang house has changed a lot since she was last here – lots of now empty spaces on the walls, for instance, which remind Yujin of Wonyoung’s paintings of the lake, still kept inside her drawers all these years.
“Hey, Yujin.” When she looks up, she sees Yejun coming out of the kitchen, handing her an open bottle of beer. “Glad you’re finally here.”
Yujin smiles, taking the bottle. “Likewise,” she says, taking a tentative sip. “You met Gaeul?”
Yejun nods. “Wonyoung’s with her washing the greens,” he says. “I think Wonyoung’s a bit jealous.”
“Yejun.
” They’re not really close, but she knows he won’t lie about these things – if there’s something they share, it’s an uncanny ability to connect with Wonyoung, despite her occasional walls. “Please don’t joke about that.”
“I’m not,” says Yejun, in a serious tone that is completely alien to Yujin. “If I didn’t know better, it really looked like you broke her heart when you didn’t come home during term break.”
Yujin takes a long swig from her beer bottle before shaking her head and going into the kitchen.
What is Yejun even talking about?
She pauses by the doorway to watch the scene unfolding before her: Wonyoung and Gaeul talking side-by-side, their shoulders touching. At some point, Wonyoung laughs at something Gaeul says, her hand in the air, gesturing. The sight seizes Yujin’s chest.
“At least they’re getting along,” says Yejun, quietly settling beside her. “Our favorite girls.”
Yujin watches as Gaeul laughs this time, as Wonyoung steals a grape from Gaeul’s pile. Yujin feels her heart lodged in her throat.
What is this place?
she asks herself, looking at the way Wonyoung seems to relax around Gaeul so instantly.
“You all right there?”
Yujin swallows. “I think,” she begins, licking her lips. “I think I need more to drink.”
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Yejun offers to do the dishes and Gaeul stands to join him, leaving Yujin at the table with Wonyoung.
“You two should catch up,” Gaeul says, planting a kiss on Yujin’s cheek before moving toward Wonyoung and touching her shoulder briefly. “Thanks for dinner, Wonyoung.”
Wonyoung looks up and just smiles at her. Yujin listens to the sound of the door closing after Gaeul before breathing out.
“She’s lovely,” Wonyoung ventures first, refilling her glass of wine before tipping the bottle over Yujin’s. “I’m glad we finally met.”
Yujin looks up at the sky. Night is falling and out here, beside the Jang's’ pool, Yujin can think of worse places to be. She blinks twice and waits for the stars to come out, one by one. “I’m sorry it took so long,” she says finally. And then: “I’m sorry about term break.”
Wonyoung is quiet for a while, like she’s thinking of how to respond. Yujin stares hard into her wine glass; anywhere but Wonyoung. Truth be told, the whole afternoon was an exercise in finding neutral places to rest her eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” Wonyoung says. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”
Yujin breathes out, allowing herself to be relieved, however slight. “Thanks.” And then, softer: “Nice work on the renovations.”
“I guess Dad wanted me to stop going to the lake,” says Wonyoung, and for the first time that night, Yujin allows herself to
look
at Wonyoung the way she has avoided all this time – soft and clear-eyed, and for a split-second there Yujin thinks she sees Wonyoung with one knee on the ground, tinkering with her bike helplessly.
It makes her laugh, a little.
“What’s funny?” asks Wonyoung.
Yujin shakes her head. “Nothing,” she says. “I just remember the first time we met. Your bike was broken.”
“It was,” Wonyoung says, nodding and laughing lightly herself. “I would have invited you and Gaeul to the lake, but I wasn’t sure you were up for a bike ride.”
“I’m not even sure if my bike still works,” says Yujin. “Besides, I don’t have an extra, and I don’t think that old bike can carry both Gaeul and I.”
“We would have looked cute trying.”
“We would have looked like ridiculous overgrown teenagers about to have an accident,” says Yujin, smiling more easily now. “More wine?”
Wonyoung takes the bottle and pours Yujin another. “We should see the lake sometime before you leave.”
Yujin feels the blood freeze in her veins. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“We could borrow Yejun’s bike,” Wonyoung adds. “It would be quick. I’ll talk to Gaeul, we’ll be back after an hour.”
“Wonyoung.”
“Come on, Yujinnie.” The slight whimper that lines Wonyoung’s plea puts that familiar unease again in Yujin’s gut – something she’s tried to
unlearn
all these years. “
Yujin.”
Yujin drinks up and doesn’t answer, and Wonyoung smiles as she pushes away from the table. “Where are you going?” she asks, panic seeping slightly through her wine-soaked brain.
“Inside,” says Wonyoung. “Where
Gaeul is with Yejun.”
“Wonyoung.”
“Come on – are you telling me you’ve forgotten how to ride a bike?”
Yujin blinks.
Like I’d ever forget a thing like that.
She tries not to think about the other things she can’t: That lake, Wonyoung’s paintings, and the look on Wonyoung’s face when it starts to rain.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“This is a horrible idea,” Yujin calls out to Wonyoung, but it’s mostly a lie – Yujin loves it. The moon is out tonight, and it helps illuminate the path from the Jang's’ house to the lake. They navigate it by memory, mostly; Yujin marvels at how unchanged it all seems, at how the curves and dips are exactly where they were years ago, and it all feels like they’re only picking up where they left off.
Wonyoung cycles faster, squealing into the quiet night as soon as they get past the last house. “Yujin, come on,” she calls over her shoulder. “What’s taking you so long?”
Yujin growls; Yejun’s bike takes some getting used to. “This is
not
my bike, I am not about to break it,” she says, and Wonyoung just laughs back, the rasp at the end of it hitting Yujin in the chest like a hard, cold gust of wind.
Fuck,
Yujin thinks, pedaling harder.
How am I still feeling this?
She forces herself to blink as she takes the last sharp curve that leads to the lake, slowing down as they negotiate the rough slope toward the shore in the dark.
The lake is magnificent in the moonlight, and Yujin takes a moment to take it in. Wonyoung sets her bike aside not too far away from where Yujin’s rooted in place, unmoving. The lakeshore is quiet, save for the small sounds of the forest around it, and Yujin swears she can hear Wonyoung’s breath catch in her throat.
“I told you,” Wonyoung says, leaves rustling underfoot as she starts walking toward the water. “This was going to be worth it.”
Yujin tries not to think:
It’s always worth it.
Yujin tries not to think:
You always are.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Did you think I wouldn’t understand?”
Yujin turns her head at that, confused. They’re sitting on the shore, mostly in quiet until Wonyoung chooses to break the silence with
that
. “What?”
“Gaeul. Did you not think I would get it? The whole being in love with a girl thing,” says Wonyoung. Her voice is so small and
broken
and
Jesus,
Yujin doesn’t know what to do with it. She chews on her lip, uncertain of what to say. “Was that why you never called?”
Yujin lets out a shaky breath.
Christ. Are we really having this conversation right now?
“It’s more complicated than that,” she just says.
“So you did think I wouldn’t understand.”
“Wonyoung.”
“I don’t mean to come at you like this,” she says. The defeat in her voice is strange and unnerving, and Yujin simply hugs her knees closer to her chest. “But I want to understand, okay? And this is—university has been
lonely, and God, do you know how much I had looked forward to term break?”
“I—”
“No, listen, I don’t mean—I’m sorry, everything’s coming out wrong. I wonder how Yejun manages to put up with all this--”
“Yejun puts up with nothing
,” says Yujin, hand shooting out to grip at Wonyoung’s forearm, like she’s saying
How can you even think this?
You are lovely. Don’t you see what I see?
Yujin feels her grip soften, the feeling in her chest abating. “Listen,” Yujin begins. “I’m sorry, okay. Let’s do better at this…
us thing. Okay?”
Wonyoung sniffs and says nothing for a moment, until: “This
us thing.
” And then: “Okay.”
Yujin breathes in as Wonyoung scoots closer and rests her head on Yujin’s shoulder.
Clearly,
Yujin thinks, letting Wonyoung settle more comfortably against her.
There are worse ways to be.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On the day she and Gaeul leave to return to university, Yujin drops by the Jang's with a going away present.
“These are long overdue,” she says immediately as Wonyoung opens the door with a yawn, still clearly disheveled from sleep. Yujin looks away, trying not to blush at how
open
this Wonyoung looks.
“What
are long overdue?” Wonyoung asks, opening her door wider. “You, on the other hand, are just in time. Yejun’s just about finished with the pancakes.” And then, turning momentarily to call out to the general direction of the kitchen, “Hey babe, Yujin’s here.”
There’s a muffled “Hi Yujin” that comes from the inside, mixed with the sound of utensils and pans sizzling. “I think some of this is edible.”
Wonyoung laughs, leaning against the door, looking so hopeful. “You better not leave me alone to finish all of Yejun’s borderline edible cooking.”
“Actually,” Yujin breathes in, looking over her shoulder to look at her bike in the driveway. “I have to get back to Gaeul. We’re leaving in a few.”
Wonyoung’s face falls slightly, but she recovers with a pout, reaching over to finally get the giftwrapped thing that she has been ignoring since Yujin arrived at her doorstep. “What is this, anyway?”
“It’s just—” Yujin trails off as Wonyoung unwraps the package, holding her breath as Wonyoung lets out a small sound upon realizing what Yujin had just
done.
“Yujin,
” Wonyoung says, her voice hoarse. “How—you kept these?”
Yujin looks away and tries to conveniently ignore how Wonyoung seems to be on the verge of tears. “I thought maybe you’d want some of them back. Your new walls could use a view of the lake,” says Yujin. “How do you like the frames?”
“They’re lovely,” Wonyoung says, and when Yujin turns back to her, she sees Wonyoung running her fingers along the surface slowly. “Thank you.”
“They’re just—”
Wonyoung cuts that off with a sudden kiss upon Yujin’s cheek, and Yujin’s heart gets nearly dislodged by the gesture. Wonyoung wraps her arms around Yujin and pulls her in tight, burying her face into the crook of Yujin’s neck. “Call me when you get there?”
“I will,” says Yujin, clearing her throat.
We’re not about to cry, not about to cry.
“I really have to go.”
“Okay.” Wonyoung cradles her framed paintings close to her chest, leaning against the doorframe as she watches Yujin pick her bike off the lawn; waits until Yujin starts pedaling before going back in and closing the door.
*
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Things change after New Year’s; Yujin feels it in her bones. Gaeul takes on additional classes, just as Yujin’s academic load gets a bit heavier. They still see each other at the end of the day, as often as they can manage, but some days Gaeul feels so far away that Yujin gets exhausted, just thinking about reaching out to her.
On days like that, Yujin calls Wonyoung instead. Eventually, it becomes a regular once-a-week check-in thing that Yujin justifies to be the both of them just working harder on their
us thing,
as promised. After all, nothing wrong about calling your best friend regularly, right?
Absolutely nothing wrong, of course,
Yujin assures herself as much.
Just a low-key love thing that we all feel for friends.
Isn’t it?
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When it ends with Gaeul, it is almost summer. Gaeul comes to visit Yujin in her room and ends it herself. It all feels so surreal, despite the fact that Yujin’s seen this coming anyway – it doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere, is how Gaeul puts it, but then, Yujin knows better.
It ends with Gaeul because Gaeul deserves better; deserves more than just a girl who’d always be part-owned by somebody else. And Yujin knows she’s just being too kind by not saying it outright.
Will I ever be not fond of you? Yujin thinks as Gaeul kisses her goodbye.
“There will be better days,” Gaeul just says, before getting out.
Staring at the shut door, Yujin can’t decide which is more heartbreaking: That Gaeul doesn’t cry, or that they agree wholeheartedly not to beg each other for another shot.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It rains that first day of summer, but Yujin bikes out to Wonyoung’s anyway, bag of chips tucked under an arm. Wonyoung opens the door just as Yujin drops her bike on the lawn, calling out for Yujin to come in before it starts really pouring.
“Some summer this is,” says Yujin, tossing the slightly-rained-upon bag of chips on the table as Wonyoung comes back out of the bathroom with a towel, which she drapes upon Yujin’s shoulder.
“Climate change,” says Wonyoung, plopping down in front of the television and channel-surfing. “Dry yourself, Yujinnie. You’ll get sick.”
Yujin lets out a small grunt, wiping at her brow as she sits beside Wonyoung. “What are you watching?”
“Whatever’s on, I’m not sure yet.”
“Okay.” Yujin settles into the couch a little more comfortably, and right on cue Wonyoung swings her legs over Yujin’s lap, and just like that, they’re young again and waiting out the rain.
Wonyoung says nothing as Yujin kneads her ankles absently. It’s the first afternoon that Gaeul hasn’t crossed Yujin’s mind in so many days.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Yujinnie?”
“Hm?”
“Can I ask you something?”
Yujin lifts her head slightly, pushing her sunglasses up. It’s mid-morning and they’re lying on the grass beside the Jang pool, post-breakfast. “Go ahead,” she says, though the way Wonyoung sounds so cautious already tips Yujin off as to where this conversation might go.
“You haven’t mentioned Gaeul. At all.”
Yujin lets her head drop back to the ground with a sigh. “That’s not a question.”
“I was just wondering if you’re okay.”
Yujin closes her eyes, trying to think about how best to break this to Wonyoung without breaking herself. “We’re done,” she says, after a while. No use sugarcoating it, eh. “Before the term finished. It ended amicably.”
Yujin opens one eye cautiously, if only to catch Wonyoung’s immediate reaction. Wonyoung pushes up on her elbows, removing her sunglasses entirely to show Yujin her completely confused face. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Yujin.”
“What?”
“Talk to me.” Wonyoung sits up fully, crossed-legged on the grass; Yujin tries to close her eyes and shut her out. It’s a perfect sunny day; no use ruining it with a sad story. “Get the fuck up, Yujin.”
Yujin does not budge and keeps her hands clasped on her stomach. “What’s your problem?” she asks, tone level.
Wonyoung lets out a small, frustrated sound. “Fine then, suit yourself. I’m going for a swim,” she says, getting up and walking toward the pool. Yujin tilts her head a little, if only to follow Wonyoung as she takes off her shirt and tosses it aside. Despite herself, Yujin pushes up on both elbows, a small smile on her face.
“How’s the water?” asks Yujin after watching Wonyoung swim a couple of laps.
Wonyoung rests her elbows upon the edge of the pool, wiping the droplets off her face as she looks up at Yujin. “Are we talking now?”
Yujin shrugs, slipping into the water beside Wonyoung. The water is warm from being under the sun, but Yujin shivers as their bare legs brush against each other underwater. “Maybe.” And then, “Seriously, Wonyoung. I don’t want to bore you with it.”
“Bore me?” asks Wonyoung, nudging Yujin with her hip. The water splashes between them and Yujin lets out a low laugh. “This is, like, our first break-up story. This is what best friends are specifically made for.”
Yujin rolls her eyes, trying to disguise the thunder in her chest. Best friends. Yujin slips herself fully into the water before re-emerging, like the water’s going to clear her head better. “Gaeul didn’t think it was going anywhere,” she says, wiping the water off her eyes. “It was for the best.”
“But you guys were so adorable together.”
“Not helping, Wonyoung.”
“Sorry.” Wonyoung reaches over to thumb away a stray drop of water from Yujin’s chin. Not helping either, Yujin almost says, looking away the instant their eyes meet. “How can I help?”
Let’s start by not touching me like that, Yujin thinks, breathing in and looking up. The sun is high now, perhaps already approaching noon. When she looks back at Wonyoung, she also has her face tipped upward, looking at the clouds.
“I mean. If you need my help,” Wonyoung adds.
“It’s just a broken heart; it’s not fatal,” Yujin says eventually.
“Actually, I read somewhere in the New York Times—”
“Wonyoung.” Under the water, Yujin feels Wonyoung reaching for her hand; she freezes for a moment before eventually relaxing into the hold. Wonyoung’s grip is warm; it feels like home. “I’ll be fine.”
“And I’ll be here.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Through the summer, they alternate between the pool and the lake.
Once, on the way home, Yujin’s bike skids through one of the corners and she scrapes her knee from a bad fall. Wonyoung laughs while dressing the wound, and Yujin scowls throughout, only to have her heart jolted when Wonyoung plants a kiss on top of the bandage as she whispers, “All fixed.”
Yujin’s knee stings all day, though she isn’t sure it’s just about the scrape.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Wonyoung.”
“It’s three in the morning, Yujin.”
“I know.” Some nights are harder than others, and on those nights, Yujin reaches for her phone and dials Wonyoung’s number. “Sorry, it’s just--”
“I know,” Wonyoung whispers. Yujin imagines Wonyoung speaking softly in the dark, huddled under the sheets. “Was it another dream?”
“Yeah.” Some nights, Yujin dreams about Gaeul; on particularly worse ones, she swears she could almost feel her ghost, curved against her body. When she wakes, she finds herself alone in bed and aching and Christ, some nights she thinks about crawling back to her and begging, begging—
“You okay?” Wonyoung asks softly in the dark.
Yujin thinks about it. “No.”
“You want me to bike over?”
“It’s three in the morning, Wonyoung.”
“Three-ten, actually,” says Wonyoung. There’s shuffling on the other end of the line, and Yujin wonders if she’s getting out of bed. “I’m serious, Yujin.”
Yujin swallows hard, one hand smoothing the empty space beside her. Is this purely about Gaeul? “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Hang on.” The line is cut before Yujin can say anything further, so she gets out of bed herself and tiptoes outside, opening the front door quietly. Yujin sits on their steps, tugging her jacket close as a chilly wind blows past. She stares at the bend in the road and waits for Wonyoung to appear from it, her eyes adjusting in the dark.
Wonyoung takes an eternity, but she gets there anyhow, wearing a hoodie and track pants and Yujin feels herself breathe out in relief. She stands to meet Wonyoung, who rides up to the door and throws her arms around Yujin right after discarding her bike.
“You’re here,” Yujin murmurs into her hair.
“I’m here.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That first morning-after, Yujin wakes first and finds Wonyoung pressed so closely against her, their limbs a tangled mess. They are fully clothed in Yujin’s bed, and Wonyoung is burrowed into her chest, an arm haphazardly thrown around Yujin’s waist, while Yujin’s hand is threaded through Wonyoung’s hair.
Calm down, Yujin tells herself, closing her eyes and trying not to be utterly overwhelmed by the smell of Wonyoung’s shampoo. Or you’ll wake her up with the drumming inside your chest.
When Wonyoung starts shifting inside her arms, Yujin freezes and holds her breath. Shit. Wonyoung stretches languorously, like a cat, their bare legs touching under the sheets. Yujin tries not to shiver; tries not to think about Gaeul.
Wonyoung inhales, breathing Yujin in. She’s waking up. Fuck. “What time is it?” she mumbles against Yujin sleepily.
Yujin swallows. “Six-thirty,” she says, trying to disentangle herself slowly. “Wonyoung—”
The apology’s almost out but Wonyoung holds on tight and pulls. “No, stay,” says Wonyoung. “You’re warm.”
Warm. No kidding. Yujin bites down on her lip as she feels herself relaxing back into Wonyoung. Permission granted, right? “Okay then,” whispers Yujin.
“Go back to sleep.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It’s not the last morning after. Wonyoung spends the night often and wakes up huddled close to Yujin every time. After a while, it almost feels ordinary, in that Yujin no longer has to hold her breath or overthink it; instead, Yujin holds on to the wonder for as long as she could, waking up in the small hours with Wonyoung spooned around her, reveling in her warmth.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
It’s not really a problem, Yujin tries telling herself once school starts up again and she is confronted with an empty bed. Just a low-key craving.
Yujin registers that last word too late. Fuck. Of course, it’s a disaster.
The first few nights are a struggle, like there’s this pulsing right under Yujin’s skin that she can’t quite get to, and on those nights, she shifts restlessly in bed, looking for something she can’t quite put her finger on.
“You sound exhausted,” says Wonyoung during their first phone call. “You all right?”
Yujin stares at her ceiling for a quiet moment, wondering if there’s a way she could phrase her current situation without alarming Wonyoung, now miles away. “I haven’t been sleeping well,” she just says. “I suppose it’s just my body adjusting.”
Wonyoung sighs quietly on the other end of the line. “Mine, too.” Yujin closes her eyes at the sound of Wonyoung’s shuffling sheets; tries to ignore the heat steadily pooling in her gut. Fuck, no. “Guess the summer spoiled us.”
“Mhmm,” says Yujin, biting down hard on the tip of her tongue, fingers absently smoothing the waistband of her shorts, over and over, like any of this is about to soothe the tightening in her stomach. When did this happen, exactly? Yujin wonders, slight panic creeping into her chest as the pulsing gets stronger than that muted hum she’s been used to all these years.
I should have seen this coming.
“Wonyoung?”
“Yeah?”
Yujin swallows hard, eyes closed. “Just—keep talking?”
There’s a long silence, and Yujin could hear her own heart thudding in her throat. I’m going to fuck this up, fuck this up real fucking—
“Okay,” Wonyoung says finally and just like that, it is eerily quiet in Yujin’s chest. Her heart stops, and Yujin gets a little dizzy. “You, too?” The rasp at the end of Wonyoung’s question is ruinous through and through, and Yujin digs her fingers into the sheets. She wonders when exactly this happened – I’ve been so careful, this was going to be nothing, and now--
Yujin’s hands feel all too warm; fingertips too itchy. Just a craving. Yujin drops the whole low-key pretense altogether, seeing that there is nothing low-key about how she’s touching herself to her best friend’s voice on the phone.
Fuck.
Wonyoung’s in the middle of a rather breathy narration of her Art Appreciation class when Yujin feels it – that characteristic slip-slide, that erratic jerk of her hips – “You all right?” Wonyoung asks, and fuck, Yujin thinks, she knows, she knows, and still, “Can I keep going?”
Yujin tries to hold it, but her fingers are fucking shaking, and there’s no swallowing the sounds she’s already making in the dark. “Wonyoung.” Yujin isn’t even sure if she manages to say her name out loud through gritted teeth. “I—I have to go.” She hangs up, ending the call as she comes, white-hot on her hand; dimly, she remembers her phone slipping from her grasp and landing on the floor with a dull thud.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They don’t talk for weeks, and nothing does it for Yujin, not even the girl she casually sleeps with from Lit class every now and then.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
“Have you been avoiding my calls?”
Yujin chews on her lips. She contemplates saying: Maybe, but that would have only been true in the beginning, because things always had a way of getting in the way, conveniently. “We’re in the middle of midterms,” says Yujin, distractedly leafing through her textbook. “Besides, not like you were any better at taking my calls.”
Wonyoung lets out a small laugh at the other end of the line. “Point taken,” she says. And then, sobering up a little: “So. We are… okay here, right? And this is not—”
Yujin draws in a sharp breath at that. “Wonyoung,” she says curtly. “We’re in the middle of midterms.”
“I know,” Wonyoung says. “Just. I can’t focus, okay, I keep thinking about—”
Jesus. Is Wonyoung really saying what I think she’s saying? Yujin lets her breath out in slow, shaky bursts. “Wonyoung.” And then, lowering her voice: “Please. I need—”
“What?”
There’s that dull thrumming again, starting up slowly from the pit of her stomach. Focus, Yujin. She clears her throat and shuts her book briefly, if only to clear her head. “I need to finish studying for my exam.”
“Oh,” says Wonyoung, and the disappointment in her tone flashes for a moment before Yujin’s eyes. “I should leave you to it then.”
“Sorry, Wonyoung,” says Yujin. “Maybe—some other time? I’ll call you.”
“Okay.” And then: “Good luck on your midterms.”
“You, too.”
Wonyoung hangs up first, and Yujin tries to keep her hands where she can see them.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Yujin tries not to think about term break, which is altogether strange, since that is usually how she survives the post-midterm chunk of school, but thinking about seeing
Wonyoung
is doing things to her system that she’d rather
not
think about yet, so.
It’s pretty fucked, actually, and Yujin knows as much.
So when the term’s finally over, it does hit Yujin with some kind of surprise.
What now?
She considers the question as she files away her notes and readings and books. It’s only a couple of weeks long, but she thinks about Wonyoung and that return phone call she has yet to make, and her knees get weak.
I am so fucked. When did this happen?
She holds her phone in one hand, taking a full minute to consider whether she should call Wonyoung now.
“Hello?”
“You’re horrible at promising to call people,” says Wonyoung.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“I’ll only forgive you if you’re coming home for the term break.”
“Well.” Yujin pauses for a bit to fuss with her stack of papers. “That’s a pretty attractive incentive.”
“And since when has hanging out with your best friend been not an attractive enough incentive?”
Yujin sighs, though she is thankful for the light tone of this conversation. “Fine,” she says. “Might as well make a little vacation of it.”
Wonyoung’s laugh at the other end of the line takes Yujin back to the lake, and somewhere deep inside, Yujin wonders if she could ever really,
simply
go back to that.
*
* * * * * * * * * * *
It is chilly when she gets home. Wonyoung invites her to a post-dinner drink by their pool, and Yujin arrives in full gear – bicycle, hoodie, the works.
Wonyoung greets her at the door with a brief hug and an even briefer kiss on the cheek, and Yujin feels herself grow warm right away.
Trust Wonyoung to know exactly how to disarm upon sight.
“Cheers,” Wonyoung says, smiling as she hands Yujin a drink from the kitchen before leading her by the hand to the backyard.
They sit side-by-side on the pool edge, pants rolled up to their knees, legs dipped into the water, surprisingly warm. Yujin looks up, watching the cloudy night sky. “No stars tonight,” she muses, taking a sip from her beer.
“Takes a while lately,” says Wonyoung. “How was your trip?”
“Ass-numbing,” Yujin says lightly, catching Wonyoung’s eye. Wonyoung smiles, nudging Yujin’s foot with hers under the water.
Easy,
Yujin tells herself. “Yours?”
“Quick and painless. Asleep for most of it,” Wonyoung says and Yujin groans. How are some people able to sleep on buses, anyway?
“You’re clearly talented,” Yujin says, offering her beer for a toast. “Here’s to the next twelve days.” Wonyoung clinks her bottle against hers with a soft, “Indeed.”
They stay quiet like that – Yujin has missed the gentle comfort of Wonyoung’s silences, and she tries her best to hold on for as long as Wonyoung lets her.
“So,” Wonyoung says, after a while. “What are your plans?”
Yujin looks up, eyes twinkling as the clouds begin parting.
Stars, finally.
She takes a longer sip from her beer before answering. “I’m not sure,” she says. “I came back for you.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Wonyoung replies.
*
* * * * * * * * * * *
When it starts raining, sometime close to midnight, they practically trip all over themselves as they clumsily make their way back into the house. Yujin lets out a small drunken yelp as she stubs her toe against the edge of the couch, spilling a bit of her drink onto the carpet.
“Shit,” Yujin mutters, sinking right beside Wonyoung, who only giggles back just as drunkenly. “Sorry. Your carpet.”
“Fuck the carpet,” Wonyoung slurs.
“Language, miss.”
“Shit,” Wonyoung claps a hand upon her mouth. “Sorry.
Shit. There it goes again.”
Yujin laughs. “Are you—no, you
are
drunk,” she says. Sure, it takes her a while to get her eyes to
focus
on Wonyoung, but she is
definitely
not yet drunk – or, at least, not as drunk as Wonyoung is, if they were to judge solely by the things Wonyoung has been saying about Yejun just before the rain started pouring.
Yejun.
Every time she remembers the name, Yujin sobers up just a little bit more. “Anyway – I was saying,” Wonyoung says, waving her thankfully empty can of beer around. “
Yejun.”
“Yeah, you were saying—you said, you were on a break. Whatever that means.”
“That means exactly what I think it does,” says Wonyoung, leaning back against the opposite edge of the couch. “And I think.” Wonyoung trails off at that, fixing her gaze in the mid-distance, her eyes glazing over.
“Wonyoung.”
“What?” Wonyoung shakes her head like she’s waking up from a brief daydream, and Yujin laughs.
Is anything more adorable than a drunk Wonyoung on vacation?
“Oh. Right. So Yejun and I are taking a break. No big.”
“Yes
big,” Yujin insists, reaching for Wonyoung’s legs and placing them on her lap. Wonyoung lets out a sigh of relief as Yujin begins massaging lightly at her heel with one hand. “Seriously, though. I may not look like I enjoy your Yejun stories, but I do take comfort in the fact that there’s always
someone.”
Even if that someone is Yejun, not me.
Yujin keeps kneading at Wonyoung’s ankle as she tries to push that thought away.
“There is
always someone,” Wonyoung says, after a while. Yujin tries to ignore how Wonyoung’s voice quiets down as she says it; how Wonyoung sounds
incredibly
sober, even. Yujin’s gut starts that uncomfortable churning again; like she’s waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop. “Are you even paying attention?”
“What do you think?”
I’ve been here since we were fifteen.
Wonyoung sits up, drawing herself closer to Yujin – so close that she’s practically straddling her. Outside, rain begins pouring harder; the sound of the water against the roof drowning out the muffled pounding of Yujin’s heart inside her chest. Yujin looks at her in the low light of the living room, wide-eyed and confused. In the dark, Wonyoung’s eyes are bright and curious.
“Sometimes, I think you’re fucking blind,” Wonyoung says, leaning close. Yujin is stunned –
Just how much have we had to drink, really? Are we even drunk enough for this? –
so she just lets Wonyoung close the gap between them with a kiss. She presses the first one chastely against the corner of Yujin’s mouth, before pulling away briefly and leaning back in, kissing her mouth full on the second time, all purpose and promise.
Sitting there pinned under Wonyoung against the back of the couch, Yujin remembers all their days together -- all those bright-lit afternoons they spent at the lake and those rainy ones they spent on this very couch; all the midnights she spent waiting for Wonyoung on their front porch; the mornings she spent waking up to Wonyoung’s arms around her.
The memories come rushing to the fore, like an angry tide, and after a while, Yujin remembers to actually kiss back, licking at Wonyoung’s bottom lip and running her hand under Wonyoung’s shirt.
Wonyoung breaks away first to catch her breath. “
Fuck.”
A flash of lightning illuminates the room, and Yujin keeps her eyes open long enough to see the look on Wonyoung’s face: Hopeful and
severely
turned-on. Yujin finds herself smirking, wondering if Wonyoung sees the same thing.
Her breathing is still shallow as she presses her forehead against Yujin’s.
“Language, miss,” Yujin just says, leaning in for another kiss.
*
* * * * * * * * * * *
“Are you dating anyone?”
Yujin turns to her side, letting the sheets fall from her shoulder. The rain has stopped, and Yujin stares at the shadows the droplets on the window are making on Wonyoung’s skin. “Why are you asking?” she asks, rubbing at the bare skin of Wonyoung’s hip absently.
“Just curious.”
Yujin raises her brow at that.
Curious?
“Well. Not counting the girl from lit class that I was on-and-off sleeping with—”
“Yujin.”
“What?”
“What do you mean, what? So Gaeul left you broken-hearted. Now you’re breaking hearts of random Lit classmates?”
“Don’t be so dramatic. She’s not some random Lit classmate. Besides, we made it clear it was just… a thing.”
“A thing?”
“She said she didn’t want to date,” says Yujin. “I said I just needed to take the edge off—”
“Who
are you even?” Wonyoung says, swatting Yujin’s arm. Yujin laughs lightly, tucking Wonyoung’s hair behind her ear. “No, seriously, Yujinnie. Are you seeing anyone?”
Yujin smiles. “Well, there’s this girl—”
“She better not be in this Lit class—”
“She’s not,” Yujin says. “In fact, we go to different unis—”
“Oh, long distance? That’s going to be a bitch,” Wonyoung says, casually draping her leg around Yujin’s hip and Yujin feels herself gasping at the heat she finds there. “However will you manage?”
“I don’t know,” Yujin singsongs, letting her fingers graze the inside of Wonyoung’s thigh. She trembles around her, and Yujin’s laugh rumbles low in her throat. “There’s always the phone.”
“Interesting,” Wonyoung says. “Phone calls, or—”
“Phone calls, definitely.” It’s out so instantaneously that Yujin barely has time to process what she’d just said, and when she realizes as much, she feels a deep blush crawl up her neck.
Wonyoung narrows her eyes at her. “Real talk: That time on the phone—”
“You kept
talking,” Yujin says, the last word but a whine as Wonyoung shifts her leg to press her thigh against her, rolling her hips. “I mean—have you
heard yourself?”
“Ah, so that was what it was,” says Wonyoung, amused. And then, lowering her voice: “
Can I keep going?”
“Fuck.
” Yujin momentarily loses her rhythm, sliding against Wonyoung erratically, the friction there equal parts shocking and sweet.
“Language,
miss,” Wonyoung says, a light laughs toward the end. She braces her hands around Yujin’s waist and
grips,
setting her still
.
“Jesus. What took you so long, Yujinnie?”
Yujin bites down on her lip, trying to look at Wonyoung through the haze in her brain.
What took
you
so long?
“I could ask you the same thing,” she just says, putting her hands over Wonyoung’s and squeezing.
*
* * * * * * * * * * *
On the day before their vacation ends, they take a brief trip to the lake.
“Old times’ sake,” Wonyoung just says, crawling over to Yujin and kissing her on the lakeshore.
They kiss under the sun, and over the earth, and in the water, until their lips are sore and they’re shivering in the cold, and in the end, Yujin just says, “You have no idea how long I have waited to do that.”
As Yujin's words hung in the air, a gentle breeze rustled the leaves around them, creating a soft symphony that echoed the warmth of their moment. Wonyoung smiled, her heart racing with a mix of joy and relief. “You really mean that?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, as if afraid to break the spell. Yujin nodded, her eyes sparkling like the sunlit water behind them. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment, and I think this is it.”
The tension between them crackled like electricity, each heartbeat amplifying the unspoken feelings they had kept buried for so long. They leaned in again, this time with a newfound urgency. The kiss deepened, a blend of sweetness and longing that felt like coming home after a long journey. The world around them faded into a blur; all that existed was the warmth of their bodies and the soft lapping of the lake’s waves against the shore.
Suddenly, Wonyoung pulled back slightly, her brow furrowed in thought. “What happens after this? What do we do now?” The question hung heavy in the air, laden with both hope and uncertainty. Yujin took a moment to gather her thoughts, glancing at the horizon where the sun began to dip below the trees. “We take it one step at a time,” she replied, her voice steady. “Let’s not rush into anything. We’ve waited this long; we can afford to savor it.” Wonyoung smiled again, feeling reassured by Yujin’s words. They settled back against the warm sand, side by side, fingers intertwined as they watched the sky transform into shades of orange and pink.