Small Note!

Thank you very much for those who have read and subscribed and commented. I didn't expect the story to be liked by many! I was planning to update once a week but I don't know if I can do it regularly since I'm currently handling a pretty big project outside the town (and I don't know if the signal will be supportive there). So, here's an update I sneakily wrote during work today xD 

“Are you sure we’re doing this right?” Byulyi glanced at a cylindrical glass tube that Wheein was holding. A bright green liquid was filling half of the tube after Wheein dropped an unknown chemical substance inside. That day, they were having a project together in the lab. Something about chemical reaction. Byulyi was sure their current tube was showing a chemical reaction indeed. But she had looked around the lab and every other student had their tube filled with blood red liquid. Definitely not green.

“Is the result supposed to be green?” Byulyi asked again, now checking her textbook that was previously neglected on the table.

Wheein let out a satisfied hum, carefully examining whatever chemical substance she had produced.

“Maybe not.” She replied. “What is it supposed to be?”

Byulyi took a look at the green substance. She decided the color was actually nice to look at, especially under the light.

“I don’t know… But everyone else has theirs in red.”

Wheein walked toward the corner of the lab and came back with a little round sponge and then placed it at the top of the tube, just enough to fit as a lid.

“What do you think the color red means?” Wheein had asked Byulyi.

She didn’t know.

“Err… Love? People color hearts in red.”

“It also could be violence… Something creepy. Like the blood?”

Byulyi had never known any actual meaning of colors. She could only associate things and the colors they had and she wondered if Wheein, whose world was defined by colors, actually knew what they meant. Maybe Byulyi could ask her about it later.

“Love is not red, Byul.” Wheein said, voice softer than she expected it to be.

“Heat is red. Passion is red. But love, is not red.”

Wheein handed the glass tube, filled with bright green liquid, to Byulyi.

“Love is green.”

Byulyi had taken Wheein to their old high school, where everything had begun for the both of them. It was summer holiday and the school was not supposed to be opened, but Byulyi’s years of maintaining good acquaintanceship with the school’s guard — and also the principal, some old teachers, canteen’s owner, and almost everyone who worked there — paid off. He was more than glad to let the two alumni in and even handed the keys to Byulyi.

That was one thing Wheein had always envied — or likely, adored — from Byulyi. Not how she could easily gain access to the school she didn’t even attend anymore, but how she was always genuine to people around her. People who might seem trivial, but that was just Byulyi. That was just how she was so easily loved.

And that was probably why Wheein adored the blonde-haired girl who was sitting down on the chemistry lab’s table, eyes scanning the room and legs crossed. Byulyi was so easily loved and Wheein was exactly the opposite. She tended to seclude herself in her personal bubble, only allowing very few people in. She had gotten used to the cold that sometimes, Byulyi’s warmth made her shiver.

“Do you remember that time when we failed the lab project?” Byulyi asked, eyes slowly moving from the shelves of tubes and cups to find Wheein’s.

Wheein nodded.

“Whatever substance you made that day, it lasted longer than I expected.”

Wheein only stared at Byulyi, not replying anything. Without Byulyi telling her, she knew she would have still kept the green liquid Wheein had given her that day. And she knew that Byulyi would always keep her love. On the top of her bookshelf. In her life.

Wheein wondered if she had ever left at all.

They then headed toward their class. The second class from the most corner at the 2nd floor. The classroom where they had chemistry together during their freshman year, history together when they were a junior, and Chinese during their senior year. The very back seat at the left corner was their throne. And when Byulyi looked at it when they entered, her breath hitched. It was as if she was dragged back in time. When her teenage-self, backpack on one shoulder, pulling the seat next to Wheein, who had waited for her with eyes crescent moon shaped and cheeks adorned with dimples.

During the years, they had been inseparable. Especially in classes where Wheein didn’t take with Hyejin. Before they happened, Wheein would always sit alone at the very back, excluding herself and became the audience of the still-life around her. And Byulyi, she was always there in the middle. Not always the center, but she always fit in so easily. Gathering friends around her. Sometimes Wheein wondered if she had been selfish by pulling Byulyi back from the spotlight to join her little fort at the corner.

“I like it better there,” Wheein had heard Byulyi answered to one of her male friends when he asked why Byulyi had been so persistent in taking the back seat with Wheein lately.

Wheein thought that Byulyi could’ve liked it better because it was at the very back and she could probably sleep with lesser chance of getting caught. She could’ve liked it better because it was near the window and she could sight-see if she was bored. But the possibility that she liked it better because of Wheein made her cheeks flushed in different shades of pink.

“We always sit here,” Wheein said, making her way toward the back and sat down. She stared blankly at the whiteboard, memories of high school came rushing down like tidal wave. It took a moment before Byulyi joined in, taking a seat beside her – like she used to – and there they were, eighteen years old, in uniforms, pens scratching against paper. Byulyi took notes. Wheein drew sketches.

Byulyi carefully traced her finger against the wooden surface of the table, letting her mind trail back to everything they went through together. There was only one time when they didn't sit together. When some childish mean adolescents wrote down “A freak sits here” on Wheein’s sat. When Byulyi, boiling in anger, stood up for her and confronted the kids. When Byulyi ended up in a fist fight and a bruised cheek. When Wheein, had told Byulyi to mind her own business and never to hurt herself on her behalf. When they fought because one didn’t want someone to get hurt because of her, and the other just wanted to protect someone she loved with her life.

“Remember that time when we sat apart for 4 days?”

Byulyi had asked. Her gaze was still locked at the table, finger absent-mindedly drawing random patterns. “You sat here alone and it killed me so bad not to turn around to steal glances at you.”

Wheein chuckled. “The longest 4 days in my life, really.”

Hearing that, Byulyi’s gaze slowly made its way to Wheein.

“You left for 8 years.”

And Byulyi wondered if it felt like eternity for Wheein, the way it was for her.

It was 5 PM when they left the school. They visited almost every room, even the famous haunted toilet at the 3rd floor. They had to stop a couple times, spending some times longer than they had expected because certain spots would remind them of a certain string of memory. And it was hard, really, because almost every corner of the place hid something they once shared together.

“This still feels bizarre.” Byulyi said. They were strolling around the Han River. The sunlight was golden ray, nearing orange, and Wheein