Chapter 7

It was in the morning after Soojung had taken light breakfast with a simple toast and an orange juice she rode a cab heading towards where Mijoo’s ashes were located. Arriving in front of the compartment, Soojung stared at her late girlfriend’s picture before smiling bitterly.

“Hi, Mijoo,” she began to speak. “How are you doing?”

Soojung tried to start a casual conversation although she’s aware that she wouldn’t get any reply from Mijoo, but like the awkward cheese ball she was, the talk was getting blurry and had no direction. Since she’s literally not good with any intro, might as well she just said straight up to the point that she wanted to say.

“M-Mijoo-yah,” she called softly, her lips quivered. Biting her lips in the process, Soojung battled with herself to say or not to further her words. After a brief moment, she decided with the former option.

“I did the right thing, right?” she inquired. Of course, there was no reply or else she might not be able to sleep for the night.

“Meeting Jihyo, be close with her, protect her, date her, it was only the right thing I did, right?” The tears that she was holding back from earlier started to run down on her face. She wiped them away just as quick as the tears landed on her cheek.

“After meeting her frequently, I can’t help but seeing her similarity with you. The way she made the people around her happy like you did around us, the way her picture captured in my camera made me smile unknowingly like you did, I keep seeing them.” The sound of her cry could be heard harder. It was just about time she would burst out wailing later.

“How can I just ignore her existence?” Soojung started to sob as she knelt down on her knees.

“When she appeared, Jiae and Jisoo kept on telling me maybe it’s the cue for me to start moving on, telling me maybe Jihyo was the person for me. When she confessed that she liked me when she barely even knew the real me, it was just like you!” There was no use to wipe her tears further as she cried more than what she thought she would. The feeling inside her was eating her up too much that she was suffocated. She needed to let it out now or never.

“When I recalled how I failed in protecting you, she existed in front of me and intrigued me to protect her. So I told her I will…” She began to recollect her composure.

However, it seemed like she broke down even more. “Tell me I did the right thing, Mijoo-ya…” Soojung wailed and there was no stop to it. Turning around, she leaned her back on the rack and buried her face in her palms. Fortunately for her, the place was free of people so Soojung could cry to her heart’s content without any other mixed feelings.

“Please tell me I did the right thing by falling in love with her…” Soojung pleaded.

*
*

The night after her first kiss, Jihyo couldn’t get any sleep. It was nothing like the kiss was bad (which wasn’t the case at all since she enjoyed it so much), but she still couldn’t find herself to close her eyes, enjoy for the night and get a nice sleep. It wasn’t even close to that.

She didn’t know what exactly she was worrying about, but it’s absolutely bothering her to the maximum. Jihyo wondered if Soojung went through the same night like her.

When the kiss was so wonderful, supposed to make Jihyo feel better and drive her to sleep peacefully and dream of the kiss once more even, it didn’t happen. Something about the incident told her to not be at ease yet since Soojung didn’t even say anything afterwards.

No text message, no phone call. Jihyo was dying silently with the wait.

Next couple of days after, Jihyo found herself at work in the meeting room with Nayeon, Jungyeon (who was just killing her time in the office to bother them), Mina, Momo and also Tzuyu. They were discussing about Tzuyu’s busy schedule after she had become famous since the pictorials from Baby Soul’s blog went viral. They had to arrange her schedule and that young girl was about to become a full time model at this rate.

Chaeyoung was dying to join the meeting but was prohibited persistently by Nayeon and Jihyo saying that the girl would only oppose any schedules that include Tzuyu has to work with male models. The other time when she did it with Mingyu, the couple had a big argument and almost broke up with each other because Chaeyoung was deadly jealous. Tzuyu had fun seeing that side of her girlfriend though.

It was only times like that had Jihyo forgotten about the incidents the other night; the kiss she meant. Although the night of the incident Soojung didn’t say anything, the older girl had called her two days after and even sent text messages to her. But Jihyo refused to respond anything because she was in fear.

Right about time the meeting ended, Dahyun who waited patiently outside finally entered the meeting room to join the team. “Jihyo unnie, someone is looking for you outside.”

Jihyo looked up, confusion hit her. The frown was evident on her forehead. “Who is it?” She asked the younger girl. Dahyun smiled teasingly. “You’ll know it once you see her. That person is waiting for you in your office.”

Excusing herself, Jihyo made her way out of the room and headed towards her office. From the way Dahyun smiled slyly rose suspicion in Nayeon and Jungyeon’s selves, thus making them followed Jihyo suit silently. Mina who was also curious couldn’t help but tag along, leaving her girlfriend Momo and Tuzyu dumbfounded while Dahyun just sat helplessly and chuckled slightly at her curious friends’ behavior.

When Jihyo was close to open the door to her office, she heard her name was called from behind by a familiar, slow speaking voice, the voice that she had memorized unnecessarily. Turning her head, she found Soojung standing not far from the exit door to where the stairs which would lead her down to where the store was. She saw Soojung sheepishly scratching her head and smiled, showing her dimples. Jihyo almost squealed upon seeing them. How cute!

“I’m afraid your meeting will take too long so I was about to leave. Since you’re done now, can I talk to you for a while? Let’s talk downstairs!” Soojung asked and Jihyo agreed nonetheless. Her heart beat faster at the thought that the person she had thought about for the past few nights, heck even for the past few weeks since her confession, the girl that she shared her first kiss with, was asking to see and talk to her in private.

Jihyo wondered what Soojung wanted to talk about. Maybe telling her that the night of the kiss was supposed to be a mistake and Jihyo should forget about it…?

Soojung led the younger girl outside of the clothing store and brought her to the corner of the shop lots, where people wouldn’t see them. Soojung was sure that the spot was no way would be passed by some random people or car, and nobody would see them anyway. But one thing she missed was that Nayeon and Jungyeon were following them like the playful investigators wannabe they were, leaving Mina too shy to follow them childishly.

The fact that Soojung was asking to meet Jihyo in private, maybe to confront her about the confession, was enough for Mina to witness. If there’s anything more about them both that Mina didn’t know about, she was sure Jihyo would tell her anyway. Mina just wouldn’t pressure if the girl decided not to.

When Jihyo and Soojung were alone in their dreams, the former nervously fidgeted on her spot. “What is it that you want to say to me?” she asked, purposely not adding any sort of intonation like she was annoyed or thrilled or any others.

Soojung blinked her eyes several times before putting on a serious face, staring at the girl in front of her. “Why you didn’t answer any of my calls?” she began to ask. Truthfully, she was worrying about the girl in front of her no picking up her phone calls nor replying to any of her messages. Hence, that made what she was doing there.

“I…” Jihyo couldn’t find the right words to explain in her defense. She’s scared she might choose and put on the wrong words, and Soojung might have viewed her as the jerk. Nayeon and Jungyeon were still busy spying on them and hiding from the blind spot. They were surprised to find Jihyo was seeing someone behind their backs, but they weren’t sure if both of them were a thing in the first place.

“In all due respect, may I ask you something?” Jungyeon asked innocently, knowing that Nayeon would be annoyed because she was making a noise and bothering her girlfriend to listen to the other pair’s conversation. And she was right when she saw Nayeon rolling her eyes. “What?” she hissed as she hit Jungyeon’s ribcage using her elbow. The taller girl yelped silently in pain.

“Who’s that girl with Jihyo, if you know her?”

Nayeon sighed and glared at Jungyeon. “That’s Lee Soojung, aka Baby Soul the photographer I was fangirl-ing on. How dense are you, Jungyeonie?” The said girl scratched her head sheepishly. How she was supposed to know that girl was Baby Soul when Jungyeon barely knew anything about her and never met her unlike the oth