After buying their respective drinks, the best friends headed to Jooyeon’s apartment for a heart-to-heart.  It surprised the older girl how calm she could be at such a situation.  She did not feel awkward as well.  And Uee, well, she always looked cool no matter what.  One of the things that make her so attractive- thought Jooyeon as she parked her car.

Their ascent to the room was also shared in silence.  Uee held the paper bag filled with two kinds of booze.  From time to time, she would glance at her unnie.  Jooyeon saw those stares through her peripheral vision.  She relished at the charms of the younger girl for it was not very often that one saw Uee’s blushing and shy face.

Once they were inside, she told Uee to sit on the couch in the living room and just wait for her there as she put her things down and get a couple of glasses and some chips for them.  Having done as quickly as she could those things, she sat beside Uee and quickly drank her whiskey which Uee had poured for her.  “So~” said Jooyeon as she set her glass on the table.  Uee watched her every move intently.  “Aigoo~ I don’t know how to start this.”  Jooyeon muttered, only now feeling the intensity of the situation they were in.  ‘Fifteen minutes,’ she thought, ‘it takes fifteen minutes to feel the effect.’  But will she be able to wait that long?  Can she bear the atmosphere where unresolved cases float by?  She hoped that Uee would speak to break the admittedly unbearable silence.  In her mind she was urging the girl, ‘Uee-yah, say something!  Unnie will give you 2000 won, if you do.’  She glanced rather nervously at the younger girl and saw her staring at her empty glass.  Her eyes were a bit dazed which Jooyeon blamed to the rum.  A tinge of relief flourished to older girl’s heart… but it was short lived.

“Unnie… Lee Jooyeon” Jooyeon gulped at the mention of her whole name.  ‘Here we go.’  She quickly reverted her stare back to the drinks on the table, “Yeah?”  For some reason, Jooyeon could not hold her head high to meet Uee’s eyes which she knew were set on her.  “Can’t you look at me at least, unnie?”  But Jooyeon still did not budge.  Running out of patience, Uee cupped Jooyeon’s cheeks, forced her head upwards, and crashed her lips on Jooyeon’s.  Unintentionally, Jooyeon parted her lips for Uee’s tongue to enter .  Her mind crashed.  She was stunned and stiff.  Still, the sweet sensation ran through her whole body and she liked that feeling.  She always felt it whenever Nana would kiss her or just touch her even.  ‘Nana!’

Jooyeon broke the kiss by pushing Uee’s shoulders.  She was gasping for air but her breathlessness did not bother her a bit as much as the image of Nana flashing in her mind.  Every single moment they shared played back again and she felt like crying.  “I’m sorry.”  She said softly and a tear escaped from her eye.

“So it’s a ‘no’, huh?”  Jooyeon shot Uee a confused look.  The apology, you see, was not meant for Uee and the fact that Jooyeon carelessly released it to the air made her feel even worse, so she apologized again.

“It’ll always be Nana, won’t it?”  A bittersweet forced smile formed on Uee’s face.

“Yes.”

“Then, I guess, I should go now.”

“Yeah~” and at that moment, Jooyeon felt it.  ‘Damn!  Why now?’  She cursed at the whiskey in front of her.  Her world was spinning and things were starting to become inaudible.  ‘Strange,’ she thought as her body was starting to become numb as well.

“Unnie?”  Uee was standing next to Jooyeon who had one hand on the table and the other on the couch to support herself.  Uee called on Jooyeon again.  The older girl tried her best to say something, but it was fading: her life.  So much so that she did not feel Uee her hair.  Most of all, she did not hear Uee’s farewell to her.  Finally – having given up on struggling to remain conscious – Jooyeon’s legs buckled and her hands lost force causing her head to bang on the table.

Uee pressed her ear next to Jooyeon’s face to check if she was still breathing; she was not.  She searched for a pulse and could not find a beating one.  Lastly, she checked the heart; it had stopped.  She paused for a while staring at her unnie before she grabbed the hair and pulled on it, hissing as she did so.  “Whatever did Nana see on you that I didn’t have!?  I’m better than you in every way!  So, why?  Why did she go to you instead of me!?”  She was worked up, and that would not do; Kim Uee always has to be contained, calm and sly.  “Well, none of that matter now, right unnie?”  And she laughed hysterically and uncontrollably with her hands clapping and her legs kicking until she knocked the bottles on the table.  The sound got Uee back to business.  It was time to put the bartender to prison.