Chaerin felt it too.

When Dara looked at her, it was with a gentle kindness, so genuine and so very unlike the patronizing looks she got from everyone else.

She was well aware what went through everyone’s minds when they worked with her, thought of her, and spoke of her. She was a failure, a flop, an Instagram model. No group and no solo career. She was old news.

Every day she rose from her cold bed in her hotel room, she felt herself being swallowed up by the unrelenting tides of expectations that she could never hope to fulfill, both her own and the standards of others. Her limbs were always heavy with the weight of disappointment, sour, an imminent depression permanently settled in the pit of her stomach. She was not herself, and she hadn’t been for years.

But when she was around Dara, everything faded to the background. Dara listened her. Dara held her. Dara her hair as Chaerin layed on her lap, silent tears stuck to her cheeks as Dara hummed songs Chaerin’s never heard of. Dara made her feel like a leader again, like the star that she dreamed to be. But most importantly, Dara made her feel wanted when everyone else in her life treated her as an inconvenience.

When she was with Dara, she was home.

She knew the older woman was in love with her, too. She had known ever since they’d first shared a hotel bed together, despite Dara insisting otherwise. Chaerin could feel her eyes on her as she rested with her back to her, and when she turned to meet her gaze Dara had whispered in the softest tones:

“You’re beautiful.”

Chaerin’s heart still swelled when she thought about it. It was a time when Chaerin had felt so very ugly, approached to get plastic surgery by her own CEO and the victim of harsh criticisms from netizens. But when Dara, the unnie whom Chaerin thought was an immaculate goddess, told her she was beautiful, she could only see stars.

She had smiled, drinking in the sincerity in Dara’s eyes, the gentleness in her warm fingertips as she brushed Chaerin’s bangs out of her face. Chaerin inched closer, her breath caught in as she reached out to trace Dara’s jawline with her own fingers.

“You’re perfect.”

Dara’s cheeks had reddened instantly, a spontaneous dumbstruck smile on her lips before scooting away upon meeting Chaerin’s eyes again, almost as if she’d broken the spell that had befallen them. But Chaerin had lightly taken hold of her wrist, pulling her even closer.

“Be close to me. I need you.”

She had said those words to Dara in the dark of the night, her tone hushed and breathless as she closed her eyes, pressing her forehead to Dara’s. She savored the feeling of Dara’s body heat, of the feeling of Dara’s lips being just a whisper away from her own.

She remembered falling asleep that way, but when she woke up, Dara had already gone.

That was how it usually went with them, in their quiet, intimate moments. Chaerin found it hard to speak, instead choosing to revel in the pure and intrinsic connection the two shared. In their everyday lives they never spoke of those moments, keeping them as a secret for the two of them only.

Chaerin often thought that Dara was her soul mate, and in her passionate youth thought that maybe one day it would be nice to live with her unnie forever, thought that maybe it would be nice to kiss Dara’s lips instead of barely brushing them with her own.

But as she grew older she lost more of her innocence, exposed to the rigid ideals of society and the smothering expectations that were put on people to placate the masses. She was grateful to rebel with 2NE1 and their music, to present a fresh and bold image to contrast the usual concepts of the other idols.

But off stage, she learned that going against the flow could cost you not only your career but your entire name. She found it odd, why other’s personal lives mattered so much to other people. She wondered if she was more idealistic than most because she had traveled the world more than the average person, because she had lived her young life outside of Korea. But the more she meditated, the more she realized it didn’t matter. It was impossible to change people and their minds unless they were open to change in the first place. So she began to be less jealous every time Dara talked about her ideal type of TV or danced with Taeyang, because she saw the necessity in it. She began to let go of the idea of loving Dara as more than a friend, because it was self-preservation, and suicide not to.  

She’d adapted, just like she did in every area of her life. She played the game, dated a few men, some of the relationships short-lived, others not. She experienced heartbreak, but Chaerin never experienced love.

She already knew what love was. Love was 2NE1, the group she poured her soul into, the group that made her who she was today and gave meaning to her life. Love was Dara, the woman she could laugh freely with, cry freely with, and cling to as if they were the last two people on earth. Chaerin had no more room in her heart for anyone else, society be damned.

She wanted all of Dara, and nothing else, and she knew Dara felt the same way deep down. But she also knew that the feelings would have to stay dormant as long as they still lived a life that belonged to the public. As long as they were in the spotlight, their lives were not their own and they could never risk all they had built for their own selfish love. Though Chaerin wished she wasn’t, she knew that Dara was right. She always was.

Chaerin wondered if it would be different one day. If twenty years from now Dara would take her hand and call her beautiful like she did so long ago and run away with her with not a care in the world. She would wait till then. She’d wait forever, because she believed in chances.  

Maybe one day they’d get theirs.