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our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own

There was always a certain formula for how the fairy tales went. An evil villain, a damsel in distress, a dashing prince that arrived at just the last moment to protect her. Predictable, but safe. Krystal always knew everything would be alright in the end.

After Sooyeon became Jessica, however, another story became one of Krystal’s favorites. Not a fairy tale, but a legend. Fa Mulan was a girl who fearlessly saved her country, and coincidentally just so happened to fall in love along the way.

That was what Krystal had decided for herself. To escape her fate, like Mulan had escaped her future as a housewife, she needed to be strong. She needed to be fearless. Mulan had cut her hair short and stole her father’s armor, and Krystal had leaned into Kai’s kiss before opening night. Mulan defeated the Huns, and Krystal would defeat fate. She was fearless.

And then Kai uttered those words.

And Soojung realized she really, really wasn’t.

“I’m glad you decided to visit early,” Jessica gushed as she flung her arms around her little sister to give her a tight hug. The Beijing airport was crowded; Krystal felt lost in a sea of Chinese she didn’t understand. It was better this way, she decided. A clean break, if only for a few weeks.

She’d requested to take her finals early and graduate ahead of the class, citing family reasons to her professors. She hadn’t even taken the time to submit any job applications. She felt bad for lying to her friends, as they reassured her to take as much time as she needed with her sister. She hadn’t been able to look Jinri in the eye – she always thought of her by her first name now, and each time she did, all she could hear was my Jinri, my Jinri, my Jinri until she her heart bled and she couldn’t breathe.

She’d told Kai face-to-face – he deserved that much from her, at least – that she was leaving, and that she needed time away from him. She’d made it sound like a break, but only she knew it would be permanent.

Not that it had stopped Kai from texting her and asking what he did wrong, from showing up at the apartment with flowers in hands, from drunk calling her and crying, begging her to come back. All it did was the impossible: break her heart even more. The pieces were shattered, but it didn’t stop him from stepping all over them.

Jessica was observant enough to not ask any questions about Krystal’s early arrival, or the lack of a certain boy she had been describing for the past two years. She took time off work to show Krystal around Beijing – and most importantly, the best Korean barbecue place closest to her apartment – and they laughed over ice cream and manicures.

It would never be quite like Sooyeon and Soojung; no, time had changed them too much for them to return to the two giggling girls whispering under the covers.

Even so, Krystal felt like she had her sister back.

Weeks turned into a month, and then two. Jessica stopped asking her when she planned on returning to Korea, and instead started suggesting MBA programs at Tsinghua and Peking University. She could start spring semester if she applied in the next few weeks.

The Seoul apartment was empty now – the girls had all graduated and moved out. Krystal realized that she really didn’t a home to return to. It was time to make a new one.

She found a job working at the Korean barbecue restaurant to make some extra cash before the spring semester started. It also meant that she often returned after the dinner rush completely exhausted, sprawled on the couch and slowly making sense of the Chinese the television was spewing at her.

This was exactly how Jessica found her, one particular Friday night. Krystal greeted her cheerily from her position on the sofa, before smiling slyly.

“So, you’re back late, unnie. Hot date?” she teased.

She hadn’t expected for her older sister to blush.

“Really? Oh my god! I mean, um…” Krystal mentally berated herself for making a big deal of it. Of course, Jessica could date after Jonghyun; she was young, outgoing, beautiful. It was just that… two years ago, she wouldn’t have expected her sister to ever recover from Jonghyun, let alone move on to another man.

Kai was still at the back her mind, every morning when she woke up and every night before she fell asleep. She couldn’t imagine what it was like for Jessica, to lose what had been rightfully hers.

“Can I… can I ask?” Krystal ventured.  

Jessica smiled, and for the first time in a long while, Krystal couldn’t see any pain behind it.

Winter was rapidly approaching and Krystal made a note to herself to buy a thicker coat as she walked home from her shift, her arms wrapped around herself. It was a little before 10, and although many shops had closed for the day, there were still people trickling out of restaurants with boxed leftovers and bright smiles. 

The sight of the food in their hands made Krystal a bit hungry herself. Instead of going straight home, she made an extra left turn, intent on the tiramisu from the café on the next block, when something caught her eye.

It was a dance studio.

She stopped in her tracks, squinting at the bright light filtering through the windows as a man and a woman, oblivious to their new audience, danced around each other in the lobby. The choreography was sensual but not distasteful - in fact, the slight brushes of skin could have been described as innocent, if not for the way their gazes held each other. Even standing from a distance, Krystal felt it – the electricity, the spark. This wasn’t lust; this wasn’t even love.

This was a soul bond.

What had she and Kai looked like, dancing on stage with their eyes only on each other? Had it been the same? Could have it been the same? She (had, had, had)loved him, she knew – but did the fact that they weren’t meant for each other mean their love wasn’t as deep? Wasn’t as real?

The couple’s routine ended and the two dancers were breathing heavily as they stood in place. The man’s mouth moved quickly before he quickly grinned, and his counterpart laughed and reached over to smack him upside on the head. The banter made Krystal smile – it was nice to see a couple that, for once, didn’t stick to the romance and sweetness like every other.

Suddenly, the woman turned her head and spotted her outside of the studio, still frozen in place. Krystal barely noticed that she seemed to have rainbow hair – she’d been so absorbed in the routine and the atmosphere that she hadn’t realized the blonde strands were streaked with color, bright and demanding her attention.

The dancer smiled widely and beckoned for her to come inside.

Krystal knew it was time for her to run. She wasn’t ready to dance again, not after him; she wondered if she really would ever be. Maybe it was something she would have to sacrifice for the sake of moving on. Without the distraction of the couple in the window, memories of tanned skin, wild hair, glistening sweat and late night coffees drifted to the surface. Bruised knees, shining floors, a garden of mirrors. Stage lights, hair and makeup, an empty dressing room –

“Jonghyun was my everything, and I’m glad I made those memories with him.”

Jessica’s words from that late Friday night, weeks before, resounded in her mind. Happy memories, she’d said, had given her a reason to move on. Time had healed wounds – not all of them, but some – and it was her own duty to finish the process.

It had been half a year since she’d arrived in Beijing.

Maybe it was time for her to do the rest.

Hyoyeon and Eunhyuk – high school sweethearts, although the difference from Taemin and Naeun couldn’t have been larger, in her opinion – seemed to take pity her and offered her a discounted rate to rent one of the rooms in the studio.

Her first practice alone had consisted of about fifteen minutes of dancing, and about an hour of lying on the cool hardwood floor and staring at the ceiling. It had been cathartic, in a way; the solid, pure white of the ceiling seemed to have a calming effect.

That was how Hyoyeon found her, sprawled on the floor and eyes searching for nothing. Instead of questioning or even kicking her out, she’d offered ice cream.

The neighboring room was often used by teenaged boy, maybe 18 years old or so, with way too much time on his hands. He was always in when she arrived, and was always still there when she left. More than once, she peered in through the window, watching him practice a move over and over again until it was absolutely perfect. He was a natural; it burned to see him move so fluidly, so reminiscent of the one dancer who still held her in her dreams.

Much of her winter was spent in the warmth of the small, bright studio. Spring arrived and her classes started, but she always made sure to drop by at least twice a week, waving a cheery hello to whoever was at the front desk with one hand, while carting her duffel bag with the other.

After a few chance meetings (or, when Krystal not-so-accidentally managed to leave at the exact times as he did; the walls were thin, and when the music stopped he was bound to come out), Lay warmed up to her, enough for her to learn about him. He was eighteen, still in his last year of high school; he had applied for pre-law as his college major, but his parents didn’t know he planned on making it to the Korean music industry, one way or another.

Lay was very quiet and more than a little strange, but Krystal found a friend who was, if not quite in the same way, just as lost as she was. He taught her Beijing slang and she taught him Korean in return (“Your pronunciation is horrible.” “Talk to me when you stop mixing up hyung and oppa.”). Soon, Hyoyeon and Eunhyuk joined in, ruffling Lay’s hair and doing their best to translate for Krystal when she didn’t quite understand.

It wasn’t until one particular night, when the four of them were joking around and showing off their skills in the lobby, that she thought of her suitemates without the hurt crashing in waves.

The way they had become family, and how she had now found a new one.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

The line was silent for a few moments – she didn’t know if it was shock, or disgust. She wouldn’t have been surprised if It was the latter.

“Krystal,” the relief was evident, “God, I haven’t heard from you in forever! It’s been, like what, more than a year?”

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