Soojung doesn’t know why Jinri likes her.

Well, frankly, Soojung doesn’t know why anyone would like her.

She doesn’t even know why she has friends. (Even if there’s just literally five of them, Jinri, and her own sister included. And they’re always busy. Soojung doesn’t know what that says about her social life.)

Soojung thinks of herself similar to the rough seas; she’s constantly drowning in self-pity and her own lethargy never fails to stop her from floating away.

She thinks perhaps the reason Jinri likes her is because she’s gotten attractive facial features, and Jinri has always liked cute girls. (Like she would consider herself one.)

Soojung really doesn’t know why.

Anyhow, she laces her fingers with Jinri’s own - they look perfect, and Soojung giggles whilst she internally admits that their hands joint like this actually look good together.

“What was that for.” Jinri monotonously asks. They’re sitting down on the bleachers, watching a baseball game they don’t give three cents about. They're not pretending to be the enthusiastic teenagers they should be.

Soojung doesn’t even face Jinri when she speaks. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“Well I just wanted to hold your hand.”

Jinri frowns. “This is the first time you’ve done that.”

Soojung shrugs her shoulders.  “Come over later?”

.

Later that night, under the covers with Jinri where she feels completely safe, Soojung dares to ask Jinri, “Why do you like me?”

But when Jinri gives her a dead look (Soojung attempts to look into those irises and she finds nothing), Soojung isn’t offended at all - really. She asked, anyways.

“I don’t know. Maybe because we’re the same piece of scum.”

Honestly, Soojung doesn’t know what to say to that. There’s a foolish part of herself that had hoped that Jinri would have said something romantic, because maybe she could have asked Jinri out to breakfast the next day, but alas - she is degraded and compared to feces instead. Poor Soojung.

But her slight apprehension aside, she replies, “Touché.”

.

“I heard the world was going to end in three weeks.” Jinri says over lunch. She looks Soojung in the eye, “What do you feel about that?”

It’s only the two of them in the lunch table. They didn’t have to worry about anyone else sitting down with them, but Soojung doesn’t really wanna look further into that.

“I don’t know. We have a research project due in a month, so, I guess that’s good.” Soojung pauses to chew her greens. “That the world is ending. That is good.”

Jinri squints her eyes. “Well, you sound enthusiastic about it.”

“Yeah, as long as I get to spend it with you.” Soojung lightly laughs. This is the first she has genuinely laughed in a very, very, long time. “Ew.”

Jinri simply rolls her eyes. (Soojung doesn’t miss the way her lips had turned into a lopsided arch.)

.

Sometimes, Soojung feels kind of disgusting when she thinks about how reliant (and clingy) she is to Jinri.

Actually, ‘disgusting’ was just a silly word to cover up the real and internal foolishness she feels with herself. She doesn’t really feel disgusting, but she feels vulnerable, more so. And when you are vulnerable, you are subjected to all kinds of pain - to heartbreak, to suffering, to disappointment. And fear.

Soojung often wonders how so much pain and self-pity can reside within such a frail and lanky body (such as her own). Maybe that’s why she often cries at two o'clock in the morning on bad days. Maybe her body didn’t have enough storage to keep all those in, she thinks.

But Soojung feels pathetic either way.

Alas, we live in a world where you are looked down upon and projected weak for giving more love than you supposedly receive.

But under the covers, where Soojung is being completed by Jinri, she knows too damn well that she doesn’t need to worry about giving more than she is receiving. Soojung never really understood the rhetoric behind the touching of skin, and receiving love in other forms that she was not acquainted to confused her.

So when Jinri is fast asleep beside her, with the familiar, shushed and monorhythmic snoring occupying the quiet space of the room, Soojung wonders if it’s because she’s difficult to love.

.

“You’re kind of selfish, you know that.”

Soojung purses her lips. She hears that a lot, but it’s not her fault she’s too pre-occupied with self-pity that she fails to tend to anybody else’s needs, right?

Sorry; I don’t mean it, Soojung wants to say, (like she always does). But what comes out of her lips instead is, “Sorry, the world is ending, anyways. You only have to deal with me until then.”

“That isn’t the point.” Jinri closes her eyes, inhales a deep breath, and counts to three. Her personal and favorite technique when it comes to Jung Soojung. Jinri cuts her eyes at her, and speaks lightly, “You see, I care about you, Soojung. I don’t care if the world is ending. I want to be with you, I want to deal with you, so please don’t say that ever again. I . . . don’t want to lose you, okay?” Jinri bites her lips.

Soojung knows there’s much more she wants to convey, but Jinri has never been good with words. Soojung knows that. She simply replies, “Okay. I understand. I’m sorry, Jinri.”

Jinri gives her a small smile.

.

Tonight, Soojung cries again.

But she cries for a different reason - she’s not crying at the intangible and incoherent mess in the recesses of her mind. She’s not crying at the vile and intrusive thoughts either. (Often she thinks of snaking her arms around Sooyeon’s neck whenever she doesn’t get what she wants. She cries about it when she gets home.)

If the world were to end in two weeks, (it’s been precisely a week since Jinri had brought the prospect up), then what would happen to her? What would happen to Jinri?

Just how tragic is it of a story, for Soojung and Jinri to die without even having said to each other goodbye, for two emotionally incoherent teenagers to take their apathy and self-pity to the grave.

Soojung really does love Jinri, she really does, she can absolutely swear to He who exists up there. But does Jinri know that? How can she let Jinri know when Soojung can barely tell Jinri what she really thinks of herself?

She really is incompetent, she thinks to herself, wails to herself, and she’s frustrated and angry at the world because she feels as if she’s stuck in a chamber in the middle of the ocean that is Jinri. She wants, so desperately to get out - but she cannot. The prospect of the world ending further triggers her anxiety, too.

Love is a long, vile, experience no one should ever experience, for their own sake, Soojung thinks.

She decides to let Jinri know she loves her next week.

.

“Jinri,” Soojung calls out one day. It’s the wee hours of the morning already, and they’re sprawled on her bed. Their thighs drape across each other’s and their feet are tangled in Soojung’s white covers. “Did you know that I love you very, very much?”

Jinri, whose eyes are closed in temptation to retreat to slumber, lets out a small smile. She feels for Soojung’s hand beneath the covers and raises it to her lips, giving it a small kiss. Her eyes remain closed. She whispers, “You didn’t have to tell me.”

“But I wanted to.” Soojung’s brows are furrowed in concentration, “What if the world ends tomorrow? What if I wasn’t able to let you know? Wouldn’t that just be the worst?”

Jinri lightly hums. She pulls Soojung in by the back of the neck, and snakes her tongue past Soojung’s lips.

.

Later that night, when her back is sweaty against her sheets and she is shaking beneath Jinri, Jinri’s s pressed against her own, Soojung tightens her hold on Jinri and thinks about this may be the last time that Jinri would complete her underneath these white sheets.

She closes her eyes, bites around Soojung’s ear, and ironically, she also apologizes to Him, and how sorry she is for being in love with a girl.

.

Soojung and Jinri wake up the next day. (Unfortunately.)

The first thing that happens is that Soojung yawns, and she asks, Jinri, who is draped in nothing but her white covers, “Is this heaven yet?”

Jinri muffles her laugh into one of Soojung’s pillows, because like hell they’re ever going to heaven. “No.”

Soojung remains seated on the edge of the bed. She doesn’t know what to feel about this whole ordeal, if ever there was even one, and she stares outside her window and the hustle-bustle of the city. It’s like nothing ever happened. She hears the same, familiar honks of cars outside her window, and it’s probably the same people walking through outside her apartment. Oh well.

But if she remains living like this, with Jinri, Soojung thinks she can continue to manage living. Her other three friends can continue living the busy lives they lead (and ignoring her because she’s not worthy of their time), she can continue wondering if she had ever lived a real life, why she even has friends, and why that existential being above her remains giving her life even if she thinks she doesn’t deserve it. But she wouldn’t need to wonder anymore why Jinri loved her.

Soojung sighs in contentment, for the first time in years.

Yep, she can live with that.