“You’re taking a taxi back to the city? The fare must be outrageous!” Yongsun says after they finish drying off. The hotel gladly borrowed them accommodations to clean up with when Byulyi casually mentioned that some really good customer service could push her review to five stars.

“It’s all covered by my company, no big deal.” Byulyi shrugs.

“Still, sitting in a taxi for two hours, I’d be bored out of my mind.” Yongsun bites her lip, she keeps glancing at Byulyi but never looking directly at her, which makes the other woman smirk.

“Kim Yongsun, are you possibly offering me a ride?”

Byulyi can see Yongsun sigh in relief but she still tries to play it off casual. Cute. “It’s the least I could do after, well,” Yongsun pauses and looks surprised at herself, “After all the, um…”

“After you saved my life? You’re offering me a ride back with you. Yongsun-sshi, my debts to you are piling up.”

Yongsun fully smiles at her as she walks them towards her car. Byulyi can’t help but notice the two perfectly matched dimples that appear and it makes her lips twitch upward. “You’ll have to stick around to pay them off then.”

Byulyi chuckles and slides in to the passenger seat. “Guess I’ll be indebted forever.”

Yongsun gives her a confused look as she’s buckling her seatbelt.

“Because my interest rate in you happens to be 100 percent.” And for added measure, she winks.

Yongsun groans at her line and contemplates telling Byulyi to get out of her car. “Byulyi-sshi, is it possible that you’re incredibly greasy?”

Byulyi is smiling at her, grossly proud still. “Like an American breakfast.”

-

Byulyi, Yongsun realizes, is incredibly special and it makes her feel ecstatic. She’s one of those rare personalities that Yongsun can instantly click with. Conversation flows easily between them, from who they are to what they do to common interests, like begging their dogs to listen to them. The silences in between are charged, and Yongsun feels antsy, because she wants to keep talking to this familiar stranger but she doesn’t want to scare her off or overshare. They’ve been talking about little things up until now, but Yongsun’s thoughts are as heavy as her heart and she feels like bursting again.

Byulyi however, is very attentive, and just when Yongsun’s brain is about to fry from overthinking she asks

“So…what exactly happened with that guy?”

The traffic light is red. Yongsun take a moment to close her eyes, and it stings. “Honestly? I don’t know. We were together for two years. It was any normal relationship. Maybe I was too boring for him.”

Byulyi’s face pulls into a grimace. “How wild is this guy exactly if someone as captivating as you is boring?” Yongsun cracks a small smile at the compliment, even if it just seems like pretty words. Byulyi makes a contemplative sound. “Did you try jumping into the ocean with him?”

Yongsun lets out a bark of laughter. “No, he’s never seen me angry, I’ve never had a reason to be when I was with him. Now that I think back on it, maybe our relationship was a little boring.” Byulyi remains silent while Yongsun tries to think of what to say next.

“I think…I think I wasn’t mad because I loved him. I was mad because I had trusted him.” Two years. Of course she loved him. But Yongsun was old enough to know that some people just fell out of love. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so painful if he’d just come out and talked to her about, well, whatever was going on in his head. But instead he’d gone and changed and hidden and cheated on her. And maybe he genuinely loved the other woman, but Yongsun doubts how the pitiful sight of his anxious eyes can ever feel genuinely again. She’d fallen in love with a person. The one who dumped her was someone she’d never known before. She gets a bitter taste in when she thinks about how she’d wasted her time, she doesn’t even know how long, loving a man that didn’t exist anymore.

“I won’t miss him.” Yongsun grips the steering wheel. She has her eyes set on the road but she can feel Byulyi’s thoughtful stare.

“But it still hurts.” Byulyi says gently.

Yongsun bites her lip and after a while, nods in acquiescence. “Yeah, it does.”

A pause. The traffic light turns from red to green.

“I’ll miss that necklace though.” She mutters. This makes Byulyi burst out laughing and Yongsun finds it easy to laugh along with her. She sighs again after they quiet down. She’s been doing that a lot today. “I’m thankful to you for listening to me, Byulyi-sshi. My friends never liked him so if I’d told them what happened today I’d only be getting an earful of ‘I told you so’s.”

“It’s the least I could do for all the extra trouble I’ve caused.” Byulyi dips her head a little in an apologetic way. Yongsun really can’t take how considerate this woman has been since the moment they met, and she briefly wonders how exactly this Moon Byulyi character is real, and not some angel she manifested in her mind to make herself feel better.

Byulyi starts laughing again and Yongsun gives herself a moment to be confused before she realizes she had just said that last part out loud. “Ah! I’m not – you weren’t supposed to hear that, I’m sorry.” She manages to sputter out after some incoherent squawking.

Byulyi leans her head back and lets it roll on the cushion to face the driver. “It’s not hard to be kind to someone as beautiful as you.”

She says it with a different cadence than her past lines and Yongsun somehow senses that it wasn’t something she was supposed to argue. She changes the subject to avoid another blush. They’ve just reached the inner city now.

“You said you live near Dongdaemun right? I live around there too, I can drop you off at your place.”

“Don’t worry about it, I can walk home, you’ve had a long day and you should get some rest.” Byulyi gives her shoulder a pat and her hand lingers. Before Yongsun can protest she gives her shoulder a squeeze, effectively stopping her. “I enjoy the occasional walk during autumn. It’s a nice evening.”

Yongsun wants to push more, but she suddenly feels all the fatigue of leaping into the ocean hit her. She says okay to Byulyi, even though she doesn’t actually feel okay about making her companion walk home, but there wasn’t enough point to argue about it.

As she turns towards her apartment complex, she suddenly feels grateful that she wasn’t alone. From a breakup like that, she would have spiraled into misery for certain. Even if Byulyi hadn’t said much, her mere presence was a salve on her wounded heart. Inexplicably, this recent stranger had made her feel stronger. She parks her car and turns to her side, eyeing the other woman, who for some reason looks really caught off guard.

“Byulyi-sshi.” She stops looking around outside the window to turn her attention to Yongsun. “I want to thank you again for jumping into the ocean. Wait, that didn’t come out right, I mean, I want to thank you for reaching out to me today, and keeping me company, and listening to me. I think meeting you was probably the only good thing that happened today.” Yongsun’s blushing hard now, and under the dim streetlight she can see a blush forming on Byulyi’s cheeks too. “I don’t want to impose but, I would like it if we could become, um, friends?”

Byulyi face starts twitching in a weird way and Yongsun is about to ask if she’s okay before Byulyi hides herself behind her hands and just starts laughing. Byulyi had found out that Yongsun was older than her early on in their car ride, but there were so many moments when she just couldn’t believe it. This woman was so adorable, so genuine and slightly-airheaded that Byulyi was reminded of one of her juniors, bright-eyed and energetic as puppies.

“Oh my god,” she manages to exclaim between peals. “Yongsun…unnie.”

Byulyi looks up from her hands and grins at Yongsun and her expression and the way ‘unnie’ had floated out like a lazy summer cloud made Yongsun’s ears burn.

“Unnie,” Byulyi starts again, “You’re kind of embarrassing.”

“Yah!” Byulyi feels a smack on her shoulder than has no real power behind it. “So what if I am? You are a good person Byul. I, uh, feel like we really got to know each other today. And you saw one of my most embarrassing moments.” Yongsun purses her lips. “Also you are indebted to me.”

Byulyi pokes her cheek to deflate her pout. She takes a moment to note that it’s just as soft as she expected it to be. No, softer actually, completely fluffy. “Staying in your company would make me very happy Yongsun-unnie. I’ll take you up on your offer.” They smile at each other for a few beats before the curious itch comes back to Byulyi.

“By the way Unnie, how did you know I lived here? I said you could just drop me off at your place.”

Yongsun blinks at her confusedly and points a finger at Byulyi. “You live here?” She points at herself. “I live here.”

Byulyi gapes at her. “Wow, must be fate. Looks like we’ve always been close.” She crosses her fingers like a promise and winks.

Yongsun shakes her head and laughs. She starts getting out of the car. “You know Byulyi, the more I find out about you, the more I wonder if I really just made you up to heal my heart.”