According to the Big Bang theory, the universe came into being in one single moment—a cosmic cataclysm that gave birth to black holes, brown dwarfs, matter and dark matter, energy and dark energy. It gave birth to galaxies and stars and moons and suns and planets and oceans. It’s a hard concept to hold on to—the idea that there was a time before us. A time before time.

In the beginning there was nothing. And then there are everything, everything.

THIS TIME

We're still on the bed, Chaeyoung resting her body on the head of the bed back hugging me and I'm snuggle between her legs with the blankets covering our bodies. I move my back body to face her.

Chaeyoung smiles. She will not stop smiling. No, she won't stop. She's giving me every variation of smiles that exists and I have to shower a kisses to her smiling lips.

One kiss causes to another kiss and lead to ten and uncountable until our kissing got interrupted by the sound of Chaeyoung’s stomach growling.

I break our kiss by the chupping sounds of our lips.

“I guess we should eat something Chaeng.” I utter between our lips parted. Her nose touching mine and we're catching our breathe.

“What do we eat besides you?” She kiss my bottom lip with her full mouth and then bites it gently.

I groan a bit, by the bites. 

“You are delicious, but inedible.” Chaeyoung's cheesy words always caught me off guard. Sometimes that's one of the reason why I fall for her. She make me feels like I'm the most precious human on Earth and I do feel noteworthy.

I sit up, holding the blanket on my chest. I’m not quite ready to be again despite our intimacy earlier. Unlike me, Chaeyoung’s not feeling shy at all. She’s getting out of bed in a single movement and moves around the room with completely .

I lean back against the headboard and simply watch her move, all grace and light. No dark angel of death now.

After the lovemaking that we had earlier, there's nothing different and we're still the same. I’m still Mina. Chaeyoung’s still Chaeyoung. But we’re both more that that somehow. I know her in a new way. Chaeyoung's iness, gentleness, warmness and tenderness give me a thousand feelings and I don't know how to describe it. 

The thing is I am very happy by her side and I feel known and encourageable too.

The restaurant seats right on the beach and our table faces the ocean. It’s late—9 p.m.—so we can’t really see the blue of the sea water, just the whitecaps of the waves as they crash against the beach. We hear it just beneath the music and chatter all around us.

“Minari, do you think they have humuhumu on the menumenu?” Chaeyoung teases. She jokes that she wants to eat all the fish that we saw while snorkeling this afternoon.

“I’m going to guess that they don’t serve the stated fish,” I say.

We’re both starving from all the activities of the day, especially the heavy we had earlier. I smile again, remembering the hot moments. Eventhough I feel a little bit sore below there, it's still endurable as I see Chaeyoung's smiling continously. And even for now, I'm still feeling fine.

So we order every appetizer on the menu: poke (tuna marinated in soy sauce), crab cakes, coconut shrimp, and lobster pot stickers. We don’t stop touching, caressing and connecting skins for the entire meal.

We're touching each other between the bites of food and sips of pineapple juice. She touches the side of my neck, my cheek, my lips. Brushing my skin with her thumbs softly. I touch her fingers, her forearms, her chest and her broad shoulders. Now that we’ve touched so intimately, it's hard to stop.

Chaeyoung gettin' up from her seat, moving to the chair beside me so that we’re sitting right next to each other. She'd never losing her smiles. Holding my hands on her lap or I hold her on mine. As long as we're touching, there's no way to an end.

We're looking at each other and laugh for no reason. Or not for no reason, but because the world just then seems extraordinary. For us to met, to have fallen in love, to get to be together are beyond anything either of us had ever thought that it was possible.

Chaeyoung orders us a second helping of lobster pot stickers.

“You make me very hungry Minari,” she croons, eyebrows waggling. "But you know who is tastier than these foods," She whispers to my ear, touches my cheek and I blush my face into her palm. We eat the whole plate more slowly. It’s our last time to spend together. Maybe. If we just sit here, if we don’t acknowledge that time is passing, then this too-perfect day won’t have to end.

As we leave the waitress tells us to come back and visit again soon, and Chaeyoung promises that we will. Not to forgetting that she said we look good together and it does makes me proud and happy to have Chaeyoung.

We head away from the lights of the restaurant and toward the darkened beach. Above the clouds have hidden the moon. We slip off our sandals, walk close to the water’s edge, and sink our toes into the cooling sand. Nighttime waves crash mightier and louder than daytime ones.

The further we walk, the fewer people we see, until it begins to feel as though we’ve left civilization behind. Chaeyoung steers us to dry sand and we find a place to sit. The moon shining brightly, supporting the mood of us two.

She sit on the sand, and I  snuggle between the V of her legs and she's wrapping her hands around my body, back hugging. It's our favourite position, which making me feel safe in her arms. She takes my hand and kisses the palm.

“My dad apologized to us after he hit my mom for the first time.” She pushes the sentence out of a single breath. It takes me a second to realize what is she talking about. 

“And he was crying..”

The night is so dark that I feel rather than see she shake her head. 

“They sat us down together and he said he was so sorry. He said it would never happen again. I remember Tzuyu was so angry tht she wouldn’t even bother to look at him. She knew he was a liar, but I believed him. My mom did, too. She told us to forget all about it.

She said, ‘Your father has been through a lot.’ She said that she forgave him and that we should, too.”

She gives me my hand back.

“He didn’t hit her again for another year. He drank too much. He yelled at her. He yelled at all of us. But he