Sejeong kissed Chungha on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Chungha showed up on Sejeong’s doorstep. There were two sharp raps on the door, and Sejeong opened it wide, to let her in.  But Chungha didn’t enter.

“Did you mean it?” Her voice was stern, almost scolding. 

Sejeong knew Chungha meant business, and so she stepped outside and closed the door behind her. It was clear Chungha had no intention of coming in.

“Are you mad at me? I’m sorry I ran,” Sejeong confessed meekly, folding her arms against her chest in the all-too-familiar cold.

“Did you mean it?” Chungha repeated. “Because I know that you’ve changed and you’re different, and it felt different too, but I need to know where you stand on this and what you expect of me.”

Sejeong gulped, feeling a sharp and instant pressure in her lungs. She knew the answer to this question. She’d known it from the second she felt Chungha’s hair between her fingers when they kissed, and it had circled over and over in her head as she surged through her neighborhood, hands wringing and brain reeling.

Her heart knew the answer. But Sejeong had never been good at listening to her heart, and this time it was hard to ignore. She didn’t really have the energy - or will - to bury it. It was the first time in a while she’d truly meant anything, except for all those times she’d said sorry.

“I… yes.”

Chungha pursed her lips, and Sejeong tried not to notice the fact that she deflated a little at her response. But then she looked up at Sejeong, as if she were maybe seeing her for the first time.  “You’re not really what I ever had in mind,” she said quietly, almost as if to herself.

Sejeong just shook her head, laughing a harsh laugh at the blunt truth in such a ridiculous statement. “I’m sorry to ruin your plans.  If it makes you feel any better, I ruined mine too.”

Chungha sighed, brows knit across her forehead. “That’s hardly a comfort, Sejeong.” She pulled her arms over her chest as well, and to anyone watching, it would probably have looked like they were having a fight: both girls staring at each other, arms squarely folded in a silent standoff. 

Finally, Chungha spoke. “I’m going to go. I need… time. To think about this.” And she her heel, got in her car, and drove away without a single glance back.

Sejeong hadn’t spoken to Chungha since that Thursday after the Wednesday she decided it’d be a great idea to make out with her unannounced. She let Chungha be, to have time to think, and in general they avoided each other, taking different paths in the hallways, and distancing themselves in their classes.

Sejeong didn’t really know what Chungha was thinking about. All she’d told her was that she’d meant it when she kissed her, and Chungha was probably operating on the assumption that that meant that Sejeong wanted to spend the rest of her life with her or something, which…

Well. Which was 100% accurate.

But it’s not like that thought didn’t terrify Sejeong, and so she felt some relief at not having Chungha in her immediate proximity, even though it was also making her miserable. She wanted Chungha to be done thinking, so they could be friends again, but she also wanted Chungha to go on thinking forever so that Sejeong would never have to know and she could just go back to her unblinking life on the couch.

But even that delusion was unwanted.
The summer days had not been good.

The summer days had gotten better when they became fall afternoons, and Kim Chungha was snuggled under an afghan with her.

Truthfully, Sejeong wanted Chungha to swoop back into her life, as she had done before, and help hold her up again. But she didn’t know how to ask for that, and she didn’t know if it was even possible anymore. This was Kim Chungha, and she could either show up on Sejeong’s doorstep with a restraining order or a marriage license. Sejeong did not really mind the latter. And so she waited, with hopeful apprehension and tortured patience.

In the end, it turned out that kim Chungha showed up on Sejeong’s doorstep with a pizza.

“Hi, Sejeong,” she said, almost embarrassedly, as she held an extra large pizza box in her arms.

“How did you…?” Sejeong stepped back and let Chungha inside, and then followed her to the kitchen, Chungha explaining as they went.

“Well, it’s Tuesday, and this was the night that Chaeyeon was bringing you takeout over the summer, so I know this is the night you order pizza. So I camped out at the pizza place, and waited for your order to come in, and then convinced the manager to change half the toppings and let me deliver it.”

Sejeong blinked at her. “You did… what?”

“It’s half bacon, half veggies. There's some dried mangoes, too. It’s how I knew it was yours. You’re the only person in Seoul who orders bacon on their pizza, Sejeong,” Chungha said pointedly, lifting the lid on the box.

Sure enough, four slices were covered in bacon shreds, and the other four had dried mangoes and green peppers and tomatoes and onions and olives, without cheese.

“I can pay you back for this,” Sejeong said dumbly, as she realized that for Chungha to have hijacked her pizza order meant that she also had to have paid for it.

“You don’t have to,” Chungha said with a casual wave of her hand. “I wanted to find the right way to talk to you, and this seemed like a good idea at the time. It’s kind of… an apology for being so harsh last time I saw you.” Her lips formed a tight line. “Although, after sitting for over an hour in the restaurant, I smell like Italian food and the manager hates me, and I think maybe I should have just come over and talked to you without the pizza.”

Sejeong bit her lip, trying to squash down the smile at Chungha’s basically needless tenacity.  She was like a little hamster on a wheel.

“But I like pizza,” Sejeong said reassuringly, and grabbed for a piece.  She let the cheese stretch out long as she pulled it away from the rest of the pie, and Chungha wrinkled her nose and broke it off. Sejeong just laughed, and got them plates.

They ate in silence, because they knew there was something to talk about. It was a comforting and torturous silence for Sejeong, and she didn’t know if she welcomed it or reviled it. Looking at Chungha and having Chungha look at her made it both better and worse simultaneously.

Finally, when eating was no longer a viable option for distraction, and they were simply just avoiding each other’s glances, Chungha plunged them into talking without any preamble whatsoever. 

“I still don’t know what you could want from me.”  It was barely above a whisper, and Chungha said it in such a small, pathetic voice that Sejeong felt her heart, which was already vulnerable to anything Chungha did or said, swell painfully, like it was going to tear from trying to be bigger than it actually was. Reminders that no matter how confident Chungha seemed, she had her insecurities—like her thinking it was impossible for someone to come along and love her. Sejeong just wanted to give her all the happiness that was in this world.

“I don’t want anything from you.” Sejeong knew her voice was as small and fractured as Chungha’s. “I just… want half my pizza to always have dried mangoes on it,” she finished, lamely.

It looked like a smile was going to form at the corners of Chungha’s lips, but it fell away almost instantly, and was replaced only with confusion. “Why?”

Sejeong knew the answer to this question too.  But she couldn’t say it. The path from her heart to had long been abandoned, and only when Chungha was around did she ever begin to find it again. And even then, it had always been an accident. She never looked for the truth with Chungha; it just had a habit of finding her.  The things she’d said to her always slipped out because she was too tired to lie.

She wasn’t tired, now. And yet, she still had to find a way to tell the truth. Chungha would accept nothing else.

So they sat in silence again, Chungha’s unanswered question hanging heavy in the air between them. After a full minute of suffocatingly quiet stillness, Chungha let out a little disappointed sigh, and pushed her chair back.

“If you don’t have anything to say, Sejeong, I—”

Sejeong’s brain kicked into panic mode at the prospect of Chungha leaving, and her body reacted before her voice could. Her hand shot out and covered Chungha’s, pinning it to the table. Chungha looked up at her quizzically, because Sejeong was even half-out of her chair, and Chungha hadn’t even managed to actually get up.

“Please don’t go,” Sejeong pleaded. She knew she was looking at Chungha like a crazy person, but she desperately wanted Chungha to stay.  She just needed time, and courage. But she could do this. She could find a way.

Chungha seemed to understand, as she always did, and she sat back again. Slowly, Sejeong lowered herself into her chair, but she kept a firm grip on Chungha’s hand, and steadily, the warmth began to trickle under her skin, through her veins, and towards her heart.

Finally, she opened , and sounded out the words that had been swirling in her head for the past six minutes. She’d chased them over and over, hoping her vocal cords would kick in and actually say them aloud, without fear of repercussion. 

It took her six minutes. But she said them. 

“Everything I thought I knew about myself goes away when I’m with you, and everything I wanted to be suddenly becomes a possibility.” 

Chungha snapped to attention, staring Sejeong in the eye with an expression of suspicion, and disbelief. It was an utterly romantic thing to say, except Sejeong had said it in the flattest and most desperate monotone and Sejeong knew it was probably more pitiable than anything else.  She took her hand off Chungha’s, awkwardly, and both girls returned them to their laps.

Chungha frowned. “I don’t want you to be with me because I make you feel better about yourself. I can’t do that again. I… deserve more than that.”  Her voice broke. “I want you to want to be with me because you like me.”

“I do like you,” Sejeong mumbled.

“You sometimes like me. Sejeong. You talk to me when I come over to your house. You watch American movies when I leave it here for you. You share a blanket with me because no one else is offering. You’ve never even been to my house. You’ve never met my parents. You don’t walk with me in the halls, or talk to me in school.  You just wait for me to subject myself to you.”

“I tried to make hot chocolate for you once but you insisted I was doing it wrong,” Sejeong said crossly, folding her arms across her chest.

“I’m serious, Sejeong.”

“I know,” she relented quietly. “I know.”

The silence settled in again, and Sejeong searched around for the truth. She knew where it was. She just had to get there, and get it out.  She ran words through her brain, carefully trying to find the right ones. Slowly, surely, she found her footing and grabbed hold.

“I know you hate being told this, Chungha, but you’re wrong. I like you. And I want to like you.  And the times that I don’t always like you are smothered by the times I like you so much I want to curl up on the couch with you until the end of time and watch every movie ever made. And I know you’re too good to me half the time, because you’re always here. You’re always here.  And I know I’ve done nothing to deserve that, but…” she exhaled a breath. “I want to start trying. Because it’s good for me, and I want to like you.  I do like you. And I don’t want you to leave. If you go away, I’ll just… I’ll come with you. Because you feel like home, now, and all my life all I’ve ever wanted to do is go home.”

Everything poured out of her all at once, clumsily and without fanfare. Once again Kim Chungha had managed to get the pure, undiluted truth right out of Kim Sejeong’s forgotten heart. And once again, it caused her to stare at Sejeong with shock, sorrow, and pity in her eyes.

Sejeong felt her stomach drop out at this reaction. This was too much, too fast.  She was going to suffocate them both with the deluge of feelings that she couldn’t control. It was zero or sixty, and Sejeong was going a hundred. She slumped back in her chair, just waiting to hear the sound of Chungha’s chair scooting back as she decided to dodge this avalanche and save only herself.

But then, suddenly, she heard a soft thump on the table. She looked up, bracing herself for the sight of Chungha’s retreating back.

Instead, Chungha’s hand laid outstretched in front of her. Sejeong’s gaze traveled up the length of her arm and finally their eyes met.  Chungha’s lips were firmly pursed together, and a fire blazed in her eyes. The message was clear.

If Sejeong could be brave enough to take Chungha’s hand, then it was possible that her whole world could come together. If she took Chungha’s hand, she could get wrapped up in Chungha’s existence, letting it comfort her and free her and protect her and keep her.

All she had to do was take Chungha’s hand.

Five fingers, waiting. Five fingers, ready to grab hold and never let go.

Her heart thudded thickly through her body, making its allegiance abundantly clear. And slowly, Sejeong pulled her own hand off her lap and rested it on the edge of the table. It felt like it weighed five million pounds, and Sejeong knew Chungha was watching her expectantly, shrewdly, encouragingly. 

Even more slowly, Sejeong willed herself to push her hand towards Chungha’s, across the table.  Willed herself to be brave. Willed herself to tell the truth.

Because the truth was that Sejeong needed Chungha’s hand in hers. To feel home; to feel warm. To feel human, with hopes and dreams and acceptance and strength, with a chance, for herself and her life and her trodden-down love.

That thought resolved Sejeong, and it pushed her hand steadily across the table, towards Chungha’s.

And then, their fingers met. The tips of them brushed against one another, the slightest contact, and instantly, Sejeong pulled her hand up to Chungha’s, an invitation to tangle their fingers together. An invitation to tangle their existences together.

Chungha’s palm met Sejeong’s, and their fingers locked.

This was it.

Chungha smiled.

Sejeong was home.

The rest of the evening was spent curled up on Sejeong’s couch, underneath a blanket.  Chungha insisted Sejeong make her hot chocolate; but she also insisted that she make it Chungha’s way.

Sejeong hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry, and instead watched the cocoa powder swirl in the milk as the two came together.

(She also added cinnamon when Chungha wasn’t looking.)

And when Chungha finally disentangled her limbs from Sejeong’s and stood up to go home, Sejeong walked her to the door and reached out, pulling her into one last hug before she left. 

But before she could step in too closely, she felt Chungha’s hand on her sternum, pushing her back. 

Quizzically, Sejeong looked down at her.  Chungha just lifted herself onto her toes, and firmly brought her lips to Sejeong’s, shifting closer and closer until her hand was trapped between their bodies.

Sejeong felt her heart pounding as she wrapped her arms around Chungha, a reminder that it was there and that it also might break, because it was trying to love more than Sejeong was sure it could. But she also felt Chungha’s hand, right there, against the anchored beating, a reminder that she was still standing there, waiting for it to find its way.

-

Who the hell puts goguma on their pizza???? Chungha does apparently. Dont ask me why, I dont know either haha. Thank you for reading.