“Do you think that it’s weird that Byulyi hasn’t answered my text even though she’s already read it?”

Solar snuggles closer to Jaehyuk, her eyes glued to the television screen in front of her, the phone in her hand showing the blue-ticked message she’d sent to Byulyi. She knows she’s probably being really petty, but it isn’t normal for the psychologist to read her messages and not reply immediately. It makes her question herself. Did she do something wrong?

“What?” Jaehyuk glances down at her, and Solar repeats her question. He touches her cheek. “Byulyi’s probably just busy, love. She has work to do too, even on Sunday nights. I don’t think you can expect her to always reply you after reading your texts. Or maybe she’s thinking of a proper way to reply you, or something.”

Solar sighs. “Yeah, that's probably it. It isn't like this text is that important, anyway. I was texting her asking if she thinks my hair would look nicer down or in a fishtail braid during our wedding.”

Jaehyuk laughs softly, his dark brown eyes alight with amusement. “You're worrying because she hasn't replied to this kind of text? Why does it bother you so much?”

Yeah, it doesn't really matter if she replies quickly or not.

“I guess I'm just being weird. Maybe it's PMS or something?” Solar glances at the screen, at the blue-ticked message, and exhales before pressing the power button on her phone. The screen goes black. She places the phone aside and looks back up at the television screen. “Alright. Let's concentrate on the movie. What did I miss?”

“Uh, like thirty seconds of frog Naveen singing to frog Tiana.”

“Fair enough. Gods, every time I watch this movie I want to eat beignets. How does a two dimensional animation of a beignet make me feel hungry?”

“Because it's a two dimensional animation of choux pastry coated in powdered sugar,” Jaehyuk smiles, “This part doesn't even have beignets though. Just frogs.”

“Naveen is so adorable.” Solar says.

“As a frog.”

“Both ways work fine.” Solar nudges Jaehyuk playfully, and he squeezes her shoulder in response, tugging her closer to him. She rests her head on his chest, inhaling the smell of his cologne.

It takes another fifty minutes before the movie ends, and needless to say, Solar's phone retains its mournful silence throughout the whole thing.

-

Byulyi’s beginning to suspect that she’s going slightly insane.

She’s the type to always reply messages promptly. She’s never really understood all the sourness over the whole ‘ugh, he/she/whoever blue-ticked me, I’m so pissed’ thing, because she can’t care less if people didn’t reply, but she knows that it does affect the human psyche. And she’s always careful about the human psyche, so she makes it a point to reply, especially when it’s a text from one of her clients. No point making them feel upset or anything.

But the clearly blue-ticked and ignored text from Solar violates everything on her list of psychologist to-dos. Byulyi’s more experienced in the study of the human mind, not the heart - and it’s pretty pathetic that she didn't expect her feelings to affect her in such a strong way.

She has the gall to text me asking about whether her hair should be braided or left down at her wedding? Does she have any sense? She’d initially felt so much resentment that it frightened her, until she realised - Solar couldn’t possibly know about Byulyi being in love with her and whatever, so the text actually is not uncalled for.

Gods, this is getting worse than I thought. And I’ve only realised this for a day. Huh. Where’s the rational side of love?

Even as that thought pops up in her brain she knows that there’s not much rationality where feelings are involved, which a ton.

Just text back. She looks nice with braids. But her fingers won’t move, and she scowls deeply before ing her phone onto the couch, grabbing her sketchbook from under the coffee table and flipping it open to a clean page. She picks a 3b graphite pencil from her mishmash of stationary in a Mickey Mouse cup at the corner of the table. I’ll just reply later.

She leans over the sketchbook, the paper smooth under her fingertips, and touches the tip of the pencil to the page. Once she starts, it’s hard to stop.

It takes an hour of just pure, focused drawing before she finally casts her blunt pencil aside and rubs her eyes, careful not to smudge the dark graphite onto her face from her grimy fingers. She blinks to moisten her dry eyes, then looks at the sketch she’s done, pressing into a thin line.   

The drawing looks like a very crude approximation of Solar’s face - the jaw is too sharp, nose too thin - and Byulyi wonders if she should even bother keeping this in her sketchbook. But she signs at the bottom anyway, shutting the sketchbook with a snap. She shoves it back under the coffee table and leans back, studying her fingertips, smudged with a thin layer of graphite.

Gods, I’ve never felt this...this pathetic in my life. Byulyi thinks blankly. Falling in love with an engaged woman...ha, you’re really something else, Moon Byulyi.

She just sits and stares until her eyelids feel kind of heavy, and she drags herself to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her hands before going to bed.

Needless to say, she didn’t reply Solar’s message.

-

It’s Tuesday evening, the evening of Solar’s rescheduled appointment. Byulyi has mixed feelings about it, but it doesn’t stop her from eating a bowl of delivery black bean noodles, drinking a cup of black coffee and watching Mean Girls on her laptop with whatever grains of wifi signal she can get. The mixed feelings ordeal just kind of makes her stomach feel like it’s turning inside out.

She’s dressed comfortably in a sweater with the word ‘Nutella’ printed over the chest, ripped mom jeans, and black socks. Thankfully, black socks are kind of hard to mismatch. Thankfully. She finishes up with her hasty dinner and throws the styrofoam bowl away into the trash.

She returns to the sofa to watch as much Mean Girls as she can squeeze in before Solar arrives. It goes something like:

Karen: I can’t go out. (fake coughs)

Karen: I’m sick.

Regina: Boo, you .

before a knock sounds on the door and Byulyi slams her laptop shut with uncharacteristic aggressiveness, startling even herself with the movement. She places the laptop aside more carefully, her heart thumping against her ribcage. She hopes her palms aren’t as sweaty as she thinks they are. They probably are as sweaty as she thinks they are, though.

The door opens, and Byulyi feels her body go rigid when she sees a pair of luminous acid yellow eyes staring right at her.

“Ah, Psych.”

Yongsun shuts the door easily, her smile every shade of creepy. She’s in a plain white shirt tucked into a pair of faded skinny jeans, sock-clad feet making muffled shuffling sounds as she moves. Byulyi despises herself so thinking it, but Yongsun looks beautiful. But because she’s also Solar, not because she’s Yongsun.

Gods, what am I even thinking right now? I can’t even string a coherent sentence!

“Yongsun,” Byulyi says, tone clipped.

“Aw, you don’t seem happy to see me, Psych. Did I do something to wrong you?” Yongsun’s voice is mocking, her yellow eyes intense but burning with what looks like cruel amusement. Byulyi presses back into the sofa.

Yongsun makes her way to the recliner and drops her bag onto the ground, sitting with her legs crossed and her hands behind her head. She fishes a compact mirror from her bag and holds it up to eye-level, blinking her lightly made-up eyes at the mirror. She puckers her coral-tinted lips, and Byulyi squeezes her hands together tightly.

“You know what, I think I’d look a load better with thicker eyeliner, you feel? Maybe a smokey eye and dark red eyeshadow. Solar’s too timid with her makeup.” She lets the mirror fall back into her bag and runs a hand through her hair. Byulyi tries not to look. She fails.

“I like Solar’s makeup. Don’t insult her.” Byulyi doesn’t know why she sounds so cold.

Yongsun’s eyes flick to her so fast she wonders if she’s said something wrong. But Yongsun just smiles easily. “Seems like someone got out of the wrong side of the bed today. Why so snappy, Psych? Did you sleep late yesterday?”  

“I slept nice and early, thank you very much. Just - you don’t exactly have the right to say anything about Solar. It’s not like you’re better than her.” Byulyi can’t keep the venom from her voice. She shakes her head slightly and presses a hand to her temple. Yongsun looks at her until it begins to feel uncomfortable, her slender fingers tapping a slow rhythm on her chin.

“No need to get so defensive of her, Moon Byulyi. I’m not insulting her, I’m merely stating the truth. Is it a lie if I say that she’s timid with her makeup? All the times I seized control of this body, she’s never gone over two millimetres of eyeliner and has certainly never tried anything bold.” Yongsun sounds slightly curious, as though she were wondering why Byulyi is being so strange. “With this face I’m sure she, or I, can pull off something better.”

“I - yeah, I know. You would look nice.”

Yongsun’s yellow irises seem to glow slightly, as though they are like those glow-in-the-dark stickers Byulyi would get as a kid and paste them all over her wall. Her white smile grows wider. “Did you just compliment me, Moon Byulyi?”

“What?” Byulyi stops looking at her glowing eyes. Her eyebrows dip. “No! I meant it about Solar, but technically - um, you two share the same body-”

“Oh, I get it, I get it. Never any compliments for poor old Yongsun here, all compliments are only meant for your precious Solar.” Is that a sneer? Yongsun blinks her eyes and studies her neatly trimmed nails, devoid of coloured polish or any sort of girly designs. “Hm, she does like keeping her nails awfully short...almost like yours.” There’s a wicked glint in her eyes.

Byulyi feels her face go hot. “What do you mean by that? You mean women can’t have short nails?”

“Once again, I am just making an observation, Moon Byulyi. No need to get your knickers in a twist. I just find it interesting that she doesn’t want to keep her nails long and paint it every colour of the rainbow like other women.” Yongsun raises her hand up, clean fingernails hovering at eye-level. “And I’m not complaining. I like how her nails are short.”

Byulyi feels a flash of heat strike her cheeks when Yongsun looks at her, luminescent yellow eyes glittering suggestively. She doesn’t know what to think anymore - it’s Yongsun in Solar’s body, she thinks, it’s not actually Solar - she curses herself.  

So I fell in love with Solar’s personality and her physical appearance as well. Isn’t this distinctly unfair?

“Another psychotherapy session wasted on you.” Byulyi mumbles.

“What was that, sweetie?”

“Don’t call me sweetie.”

“I didn’t hear what you said about me, sweetie. It’s to talk behind someone’s back, you know. Or rather, talk right in front of someone.” Yongsun wags a finger reprovingly, her lips forming a Gods-adorable pout that makes Byulyi want to stab herself in the eyeball with a blunt pencil, especially because Yongsun sounds like she’s talking to a five-year-old.

“I said, another psychotherapy session is wasted on you today,” Byulyi snaps frostily, hoping to Gods that her cheeks aren’t red.

“You’re blushing, Psych. I don’t think you detest me as much as you seem to.”

Damn it! Is she a mind reader or something?

“I’m not blushing. Or maybe I am, but it’s an angry flush and not a wow-I’m-attracted-to-you flush. Please don’t be mistaken.”