A/N: based on the above picture. Title reads as "Galliyan", the word for alleyways in Hindi

They kept their heads bowed. In case someone was looking, in case someone was waiting for a slip-up, in case they got caught with just a look. They guarded themselves with a lot of care, treated their secret’s fragility like a child. Gwiboon would avoid the corridor outside Junghee’s classroom and Junghee would never eat at the canteen when Gwiboon was there with her friends. 

Their lanes were paved to meet a long time ago. It may have been an accident, but a head-on collision was unavoidable… and as they climbed out of the debris both girls knew this accident would do more damage than taking their lives.

Messages and call histories were cleared. Photographs were deleted moments after they were captured or received. Words were scribbled then erased before the paper was torn and chucked in the garbage. Because Gwiboon was more important than acceptance, Junghee meant more than approval. And because Gwiboon and Junghee were built for each other.

They’d rise and fall apart with only wispy chants of the other’s name to keep them company.

The immorality the wrongness the depravity was… was something they never saw. This was Gwiboon’s hair loosening out of her twin ponytails. This was Junghee’s skirt flipping up with a short gust of wind. This was Gwiboon’s laugh echoing through the empty stairwell. This was Junghee’s irises shining like golden discs when the sun caught them. This was afternoons spent thinking of each other, this was weekends cleverly planned months in advance. These were outings circumvented to sneak a quick meeting in between when friends weren’t paying attention. This was their breath hitching for the other with a simple touch or a soft whisper.

This wasn’t a mistake, never a mistake. How could it be wrong? How could it be sick? How could it be offensive? Why didn’t they see what they saw?

Because they only saw one another everywhere they turned. They looked for each other in every face. They only felt the roughness of each other’s hands or the wetness of each other’s tears. They only heard each other’s heartbeats race to be together. But they slept in each other’s dreams. They wept in each other’s eyes. They existed without being, and the pain twisted them around in wide merciless circles.

On a day like everyday Gwiboon noticed Junghee across the basketball court, and Junghee held Gwiboon’s gaze for the longest minute in their lives. And someone who watched from a distance pulled that string out of their yarn of secrecy. Someone snipped it away from them and threw it out for the wind to float through the school. So it did… for many weeks in the protected parenthesis of a rumor.

The friend circles thinned, the questions jabbed, the curfews were set, the eyebrows rose higher and higher till they finally dropped in judgmental spear-like frowns. Pull by pull their little yarn disappeared into a fluff nothingness. Piece by piece the crumbles of what they’d built together for months came falling down.

"It’s unnatural!" the Kims insisted. "It’s disgusting!" the Kims spat out. Together the Kims and the Kims snapped what little was left of a dream and replaced it with a nightmare.

So one day pills were contemplated. Blades were . Ropes were weighed. Rooftop doors were unlocked. One day stopped carrying any meaning at all. And then—

And then they walked into each other on the fourth floor staircase.

Junghee coiled their fingers together like she was about to go into battle. She made their gazes run into each other and blinked like this is where all their days would sink into oblivion. This is where the sun would rise and set, between their blinks and through their unmoving stare. This is where they would live out their lives, this is where they would die side-by-side. This was their sacred temple, this was where all their wishes would come true.

Gwiboon forgot her thoughts then. She stood up on tip-toes and let their lips meet. She let the other rest her hands on her shoulders. She let her palms cup the other’s face. She let time slip off like a length of silk in their joint hold. She let everything else disappear for a short while as the gasps and shouts and remarks drilled holes in the walls but failed to touch Junghee and Gwiboon.