Yein tried to focus on her essay that was due days ago but her eyes drift over to the place where a silver ring used to wrap comfortably around her finger. She had worn the ring for so long that when she had taken it off she felt very empty. The skin where the ring used to cover was a lighter shade of skin compared to the rest of Yein’s hand. She sets the pencil that was in her hand down and takes a deep breath, lightly touching the pale spot on her finger. She had taken the ring off as soon as she had gotten home that day.

Suddenly she missed Mijoo.

At that thought, Yein stood from her desk and blinked away the stinging tears that were starting to form at the back of her eyes.

No. She can’t think like that anymore. They had broken up weeks ago, she needed to start moving on. It finally sinks into her head that they had broken up. Slowly, she lowers her body back onto the chair and slumps down. Four years of friendship and one year of a relationship went down the drain with the simple words of “Let’s break up.” Yein runs a hand through her light brown hair and groans. She grips at the roots of her hair and closes her eyes, trying her best to think of anything but Mijoo.

It didn’t work. Everything— every single thought that appeared in Yein’s brain somehow always worked it’s way to include Mijoo in it. It was something that Yein was used to doing, always thinking about Mijoo. It was like second nature to her.

A tear slid down her cheek as her brain thinks about everything Mijoo related. How Mijoo smiles. The way Mijoo laughs. How Mijoo dances. How Mijoo always likes to act silly. The way Mijoo seems to brightens everything up, even if things weren’t doing well. Mijoo. Mijoo. Mijoo.

Yein breaths out shakily and picks up her pencil with a weak hand, staring down at the empty lined paper in front of her with blurry vision.

Mijoo.

-

    “You…” Yein frantically looked between Mijoo’s eyes, she’d never seen Mijoo so grim, “You’re kidding me, right?” The younger one lets out a humorless laugh, reaching out for Mijoo’s hands and holding both of them in her own. Mijoo pulls her hand back.

    “I’m serious.”

    “No.” Yein shakes her head, the tears filling up her eyes, “You can’t be serious.”

    “Yein.” Mijoo calls out sternly and her face was blank of any emotion. Yein takes a wobbly step away from Mijoo.

    “You’re serious.” Yein whispers and Mijoo nods.

    ‘Don’t make a big deal out of it. Don’t make a big deal out of it.’ Yein chants to herself in her head. She coughs weakly, “A- Alright. Then that’s.. that’s that.”

    “I’m moving away for college, Yein. You know we can’t make it work.” Mijoo reasons out.

    “Well, it doesn’t hurt to try, does it?”

    “Yein, think rationally.”

    “I am!” Yein snaps back, raising her voice. Mijoo frowns deeply, “It’d never work.” She says calmly and at the back of her mind, Yein thinks that Mijoo is right, but she doesn’t want to believe it.

    “Long distance relationships almost always end.”

    “We can be one of the few that works out.” Yein’s voice was barely above a whisper. She doesn’t dare look Mijoo in the eye.

    “I’ll drive you home.” Mijoo begins to walk to the front door but Yein pushes past her.

    “I’m walking home.”

    “It’s late.”

    “I don’t care.” Yein retorts, leaving the front door and walking with heavy steps away from Mijoo. The bitter cold did not help in calming her tears as she walked home to her house that was blocks away from Mijoo’s. Mijoo stood at her front door and watched Yein walk with her arms around herself, shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.

-

    Yein scrolls through her phone’s photos and she stares emotionlessly at all the photos that consisted of mainly just Mijoo and her together, smiling. With angry tears, she clicks the ‘Select’ button and goes to delete all of the photos but she gets even angrier when she realizes that she just can’t do it. She throws her phone towards the edge of her bed and chokes back a sob. She clamps a hand over to muffle the noise that came out of them, not wanting to alert her parents who were in the living room not too far from her bedroom.

    Her parents still think she’s dating Mijoo. Her parents still think she and Mjioo are the best of friends. Her parents still think she’s happy.

    She gasps for air and brings her knees up to her chest, hugging them together tightly and burying her face into her arms, attempting to calm herself down. Eventually, she had fallen asleep.

-

    It was her mom’s birthday that day and when Yein came home from school, there were already visitors at her house. She hears her mom call out to her to go put her stuff away in her bedroom but everything blanks out when she sees a familiar face sitting on the couch of her living room, making silly faces to a younger child. When her mom finishes her sentence, Mijoo looks up and sees Yein. She smiles to the younger girl as if she hadn’t caused her the biggest heartbreak of her life, as if she hadn’t practically walked out of her life for the past two months.

    Yein doesn’t reciprocate the smile. She turns on her heel and disregards her heart thumping against her chest rapidly the way it always used to do when Mijoo would smile at her. She enters her bedroom with a heavy chest and sets her bag down on her bed. She yelps when one of her little cousins crawls out from under her bed.

    “Shh! I’m playing hide and seek!” The child says and switches to a different hiding spot, running out of Yein’s bedroom. Yein makes a face and takes a seat on her swivel chair, wondering if she should change out of her school uniform. Yein exhales and stands, walking back out to the living room to meet with the rest of her family.

    Just as she had begun to get over Mijoo, she suddenly falls back to step one again.

    After greeting most of the family, her mother speaks, “You and Mijoo don’t have to stay out here with the children. You two can go into your room.”

    “As long as you keep the door open.” Mijoo’s father chuckles. Yein tries her best not to show her discomfort and smiles, walking back to her room. The fake smile on her face drops immediately and she pauses mid-way in the hall, causing Mijoo to bump into her.

    “Woah.” Mijoo lets out, placing a hand on Yein’s waist to steady the both of them. Yein could feel the skin underneath her uniform burning at the touch of Mijoo. She moves away from Mjioo instantly and keeps walking.

    She sits on her bed and watches as Mijoo takes a seat on her swivel chair.

    “Long time no see.” Mijoo starts off.

    Yein doesn’t reply. The silence was deafening and the tension between the two was so thick it was suffocating. Yein glances over at Mijoo and looks down towards her hand, seeing the silver band still wrapped around her ring finger. Her eyes widen for a second and she goes to look at her own hand where no traces of the ring was left.

    Mijoo notices and speaks, “You took it off.”

    “We broke up.” Yein states, ping her bag and taking out her folder, “I didn’t see the point of keeping it on.” She takes out her homework even though she knows she won’t get anything done with the presence of the other girl.

    “Makes sense.”

    Yein plainly hummed. Mijoo’s eyes scanned the girl’s blank white walls where polaroids of the two of them used to hang, “And you also cleaned your walls.”

    The mechanical pencil in Yein’s hand dropped and she looked up at Mijoo, “What are you trying to do here?” She asks, “Are you trying to make me feel guilty for moving on when you were the one who wanted to end the relationship? Is that what it is?” Mijoo seems taken aback because she doesn’t reply for a while.

    “That’s not.. I just..” She stumbles over her words and Yein could feel the regret building up in her chest. She hates herself for being so weak when it came to Mijoo.

    The walls seemed to close in on Yein and she stood from the bed, “Let’s go hang out with the others.” which, in other words, means, “Let’s not stay alone together because I can’t deal with the thought of not being able to hug and kiss you anymore.” Mijoo watches Yein walk out of the room and she looks at the ground. She notices a small cardboard shoebox poking out from beneath Yein’s bed. She bends down and picks it up, opening it.

    Inside was every photo she’s ever had of the two of them and every gift Mijoo had ever given her. Mijoo is surprised when the box is snatched from her hand and she looks up to see an angry Yein.

    “What are you doing?” She asks irritatedly, closing the box and shoving it under her bed.

    “You kept everything?”

    Yein’s cheeks turned bright red, “So what?” She mumbled. She quickly adds in, “It doesn’t matter anyways. I.. We.. We already broke up so…” She trailed off, not knowing where she was going with it. She scolds herself for still acting like a lovesick puppy around Mijoo despite their breakup months ago.

    “Can we just forget you ever saw that?”

    “I’m not good at forgetting things.”

    “Well, try.” Yein orders weakly, “Now, come on. My mom’s gonna cut the cake soon.” Yein takes hold of Mijoo’s wrist and drags her out the bedroom. Her grip never loosens even when they take a seat on the couch, watching their close friends and family laugh together. It’s a few minutes later that Yein realizes she’s still holding onto Mijoo and she lets go suddenly, scootching away from Mijoo. Mijoo stares at her for and Yein tries her best not to return the stare.

    The cake was cut and the sun started to go down. The party was starting to unwind and people began to leave. Yein escaped to her bedroom alone and laid on her bed, closing her eyes to stop her mind from going crazy. Yein hears her door close and footsteps but she doesn’t move. Her bed dips and her eyes flutter open, seeing Mijoo sitting not too far from her laying body.

    “I was wondering where you were.”

    “Oh.”

    Mijoo sits and stares at the younger one for a moment, “You didn’t tell your parents we broke up?”

    Yein shakes her head, “You didn’t either.”

    “I figured it’d make things awkward between our parents.”

    A scoff escapes from Yein’s mouth and she sits up, leaning her back against her headboard, “It’s already awkward enough between us, I can’t imagine our parents being awkward with each other.”

    “Yeah…” Mijoo agrees, nodding her head, “But when do you plan on telling them?”

    “Maybe when I get a new girlfriend.” Yein shrugs dismissively and Mijoo doesn’t look too happy about that answer.

    “Ah, that makes sense, I guess.” She replies, smiling weakly, “My parents kept asking me how you were doing over the phone even though I was at the dorms.”

    “And what did you say to them?” Yein asks curiously, playing with her skirt.

    “I just said you were doing fine. I didn’t know what else to say. They’d probably kill me if I told them that I broke up with you.”

    Yein’s eyes flicker down to her lap, she doesn’t say anything. Mijoo sighs, “I miss you.”

    The younger girl clenches her hand into a fist and shakes her head, “You can’t break up with me, avoid me for two months, then tell me you miss me. You can’t do that.” She tried hard to keep her voice steady, “Not after I’ve been through hell and back trying to get over you.” She speaks softly.

    “Besides, you’re gonna go back to dorm anyways and you’re gonna meet new people and I’m gonna have to pretend everything doesn’t remind me of you and..” Her voice cracks at the end. Mijoo moves closer and Yein stiffens.

    “I’m sorry.”

    “‘I’m sorry’ isn’t going to bring us back together, is it?” Yein asks bitterly, “I was already starting to get over you. My mind stopped thinking about you all the time and I started smiling again but now I have to do it all over again.” Tears flowed down her cheeks, “All because you came here tod—”

    She’s cut off when Mijoo kisses her on the lips. A sob wracks Yein’s body and Mijoo pulls the girl close, wrapping her arms around Yein’s shoulders.

    “I hate you.” Yein cries, punching Mijoo weakly on the shoulder. Mijoo’s bottom lip trembles as she smiles, “That stinks, because I love you.” She kisses Yein’s forehead.

    Yein’s sobs died down. Mijoo spoke quietly, “I was dumb and scared when we broke up. I thought that we might have grown apart and we would end up breaking up over some stupid Skype call instead of in person. I’m sorry.” Yein looks up at the girl who was practically sitting in her lap.

    “We can make this work.” Yein murmurs determinedly. Mijoo smiles and nods, leaning down and capturing Yein’s lips with her own. Yein interlocks her hand with Mijoo’s and feels the coldness of the ring on Mijoo’s finger.

    She made a mental note to put her own ring back on that night.