Something like this only happens every few lifetimes.

Confetti fell all around her as the cheers from the crowd rang out through the stadium. Yongsun laid on her back with a gold medal around her neck as she watched the fireworks set off above the stadiums roof. The sights, the sounds, even the smells were glorious. She felt an immense pride in her chest as she closed her eyes and allowed the atmosphere to swallow her whole. 

She wasn’t used to this. This was all new to her. She didn’t know how to react nor did she know what to do once the fans left the stadium. All she could do was wait for some guidance from the one person who made this all happen. 

The medal wasn’t hers, but it was placed around her neck as though it was. The real champion was lying next to her, covered in fallen confetti with a daft smile upon her face. Yongsun doesn’t remember how long they were there for, but she can pinpoint the exact moment that their hands became intertwined. 

She turned her head to the side and blushed as the intense gaze from the other woman caught her slightly off guard. Again, she wasn’t used to this. All of the other woman’s teammates were crowded around a trophy, drinking champagne and dancing along to whatever IU song was playing. But not her. She only had eyes for Yongsun, and it made her melt into the artificial grass. 

A wonder often hit her over how she ended up like this. A year ago she wasn’t allowed anywhere near the stadium her ex was playing in - he called it bad luck but Yongsun knew the truth. But everything changed once she met and fell for the woman next to her. She felt more confidence in herself and her relationship - something she never felt with him. 

Even as they laid beside one another in the grass, Yongsun was gazed at like she was the only person there. The trophy was long forgotten, as was the other woman’s family, because all her attention was on Yongsun and Yongsun alone. The world could end and as long as the two were with one another, it didn’t matter in the slightest to them. 

It felt a world and several lifetimes away from what it used to be like. Staying at home, watching through the tv or through illegal streams. Never leaving Yongsun’s or his apartment. Date nights being a movie in their living room and take out from the one place they both liked. 

Yongsun closed her eyes and laid her head back down against the grass. She knew how lucky she was. She knew chances like this only came one every few lifetimes. A love as strong as theirs could withhold anything and everything. A bond so powerful that even being apart from one another for a few seconds was agonising. 

How did she get so lucky?

___________________________________________

Artificial light filtered through the window from a street lamp as an alarm rang obnoxiously in the bedroom. It took Yongsun a few seconds to realise where she was before she lightly tapped on the snoring man next to her. His alarm kept going off every nine minutes and it took all of her strength not to throw it against the wall and watch it smash into a million pieces. 

He finally took the hint to wake up by the sixth time and threw his legs over the side of his bed. A yawn fell from his lips as he stood up and quickly put on a pair of boxers he discarded the previous night. With his phone in one hand and rubbing his tired eyes with his other, he sauntered to the bathroom without even a good morning greeting to the angry woman in his bed. 

Yongsun, peeved at being awoken so many times in the early hours of the morning, glared at his back as he left his bedroom. She wanted to turn over and go back to sleep, but knew she couldn’t. Instead she got up, pulled on her own nightwear which was also discarded during the nights activities and headed into the kitchen. 

A huge canvas hung over the couch in the living room of her boyfriend. Lee Jungin was a right back for FC Seoul and the picture depicted him tackling some unknown Australian player in a preseason friendly almost four years ago. She smiled at it as she walked by and into the open planned kitchen beside it. 

She quickly got to work making both herself and her boyfriend some breakfast. His good luck breakfast was avocado and eggs on toast. Yongsun didn’t understand the current infatuation the world had with avocados but shrugged her shoulder and plated the food up just as he vacated the bathroom with a clean pair of boxers on. 

“Thanks.” Jungin mumbled sleepily as he began eating. 

“What time is your flight?” Yongsun asked as she poured herself some cereal and sat opposite her boyfriend. 

He shrugged as he looked up the schedule on his phone. He was so disorganised it irked Yongsun so much, but it also made him adorable and endearing. She often referred to him as her golden retriever boyfriend, but her friends disagreed and called him annoying. They just didn’t understand. 

“I have to be at the training ground in an hour and then we’re getting the team bus to the airport at nine.” His voice was hoarse and clearly sleep deprived. Yongsun knew it was a bad idea to engage in any kind of relations before an early morning flight, but once he took off his shirt and flexed his muscles, Yongsun was a goner. 

“You know,” Yongsun began as she flicked through her phone, “there’s a flight to Jeju scheduled soon.” She gazed at him for a moment to see how he would react and continued when his eyes locked onto hers, “I was thinking I’d book a flight, do some sunbathing on the beach and maybe spend an hour or two surfing and then come and watch your match after? I could book a hotel for us-“

“No.” He cut her off immediately as he stood to put his empty plate in the sink. “You know I have superstitions and when you come to games I have bad luck.”

Yongsun resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She wasn’t bad luck at all. Jungin was just not that good of a player. Even during his breakout season, he was a fringe player that only got a chance because the clubs starter suffered an ACL injury and Seoul couldn’t afford to buy a new right back as well as new midfield options and an out and out striker. He was a preseason kind of player. Only shined in games that didn’t matter. 

She was allowed to only one game and that was five years ago against the reigning champions and Derby rivals Incheon United. They ate seven goals that day with her boyfriend being the cause of four, giving away a penalty due to a stupid challenge in the box and inadvertently getting one of his own teammates sent off. Ever since that, he banned her from entering the stadium. 

“I’ll call you an Uber to get you home safely.” He muttered as he watched her get changed and pack her stuff. Even after almost six years of dating, he hadn’t proposed nor did he ask her to live with him. She felt as though she was his dirty secret. Something that must be hidden and never talked about. She never really knew why. 

A cap was placed on her head and a mask over as she left his apartment. Again, she had no idea why. He wasn’t famous. Barely a few thousand turned up to see FC Seoul play and she was pretty sure she was the only person who wasn’t related to him to have his name on her shirt. It wasn’t as though dispatch was going to be huddled around his apartment at five in the morning desperate to take pictures of every girl that leaves. 

As she sat in the back of the Uber, she wondered to herself if this was all worth it. Was he worth the disgust she felt at herself as she left his apartment? 

____________________________________________________

The wailing sounds of an alarm awoke both women from slumber. A groan left Yongsun’s throat as one of her eyes peered open. The clock on the bedside table proudly boasted that it was six in the morning causing Yongsun to grumble and turn away from the obnoxious machine. A hand flew from under the sheets and immediately silenced the alarm before wrapping itself across Yongsun’s torso and pulling her against her. 

“You need to get up.” Yongsun whispered as a front was pressed against her equally back. 

“Don’t wanna.” It was said so childishly that Yongsun giggled before turning in her arms and facing the other woman. 

The younger woman nestled her head between Yongsun’s s and sighed lovingly as though she had died and this was her eternal heaven. Yongsun shook her head, chuckled and placed a tender kiss on the younger woman’s hair before repeating her previous words. 

“You expect me to get up whilst shoving your s in my face?” It came out a little muffled, but Yongsun understood the younger woman quite clearly. She was about to retort when a hot tongue and mischievous teeth began an attack against her chest. 

For the fourth time since the previous morning, Yongsun succumbed to the younger woman’s touch as moans filled the warm summer air. The only thing that broke them apart was a phone call to the younger woman’s phone by an irate sounding teammate. 

Yongsun chuckled as she watched her run around the apartment . Her bathroom was next to the living room and in their pre- bliss the previous morning, they had forgotten to close the curtains. Yongsun just hoped no one saw the woman running here, there and everywhere to ensure she made the carpool to the training ground. 

Just like her ex’s house, a canvas of the woman was hung over the couch in the living room, but it was accompanied by another. The first was of the younger woman, star striker for Incheon United’s women’s team and Korean National Team captain Moon Byulyi with the Asian Cup trophy in her hands, and the second one was of the two of them right after they met. 

Yongsun used to hate that picture of them. It was taken after she was wrongfully arrested on suspicion of stalking Byul, but in reality the footballer had left her wallet at a restaurant and Yongsun only wanted to return it to her. She ran after her and even tried calling out to her before Byul ran into police asking for assistance. Before Yongsun knew it she was placed in handcuffs with a B.O ridden cop asking her why she was stalking one of Korea’s finest athletes. 

After explaining what happened and finally returning the younger woman’s wallet, Byul cockily asked the police officer to take a picture of the two of them. Yongsun cringed as the flash blinded her with her hands bound in front of her in the handcuffs and hoped to never see Byul or that picture again. But she couldn’t help but give the annoying grinning woman her phone number. 

That picture hung proudly in Byul’s living room as though it was a trophy. Yongsun hated it at first, yes, but she grew to love it the more she saw it. 

Byul emerged from the bathroom with a toothbrush in as she wrapped a towel around her soaking body. Her training gear was neatly placed atop her bed by Yongsun making getting changed quick and easy. It was a routine they had almost every morning. Byul would wake, sleep in with her body entwined with Yongsun or they’d be physical with one another. It always made Byul ridiculously late for practise and games and caused the coach to joke about banning Yongsun from staying at Byul’s. So Yongsun prepared Byul’s clothes, overnight bag and snacks as Byul ran around like a headless chicken trying to clean herself and eat breakfast. 

“Are you coming today?” Byul asked as she slung her Inchon United branded bag over her shoulder and grabbed the mini suitcase. 

“To Jeju?” Yongsun asked with her eyebrows raised. 

“Yeah.” Byul nodded. “If you’re not busy I can buy you a plane ticket and we could stay over night?”

Yongsun was taken aback slightly. was opened as though she wanted to say something and her eyebrows were pushed together in confusion. She went to Incheon United games all the time as Byul’s plus one, but going to Jeju and spending a night there just sounded so strange to her. 

“You don’t have to.” Byul was quick to reply to fill the silence around them. “If you have plans with your sister or friends you can just watch me kick on tv.”

“No.” Yongsun shook her head. “I just didn’t think you’d want me to go.”

Now it was Byul’s time to be taken aback. She too tilted her head at the woman in front of her before chucking and shaking her head at her. Byul knew the stories of Yongsun’s ex and knew how hard it was going to be for Yongsun to snap out of the way he made her feel. She did all she could to reassure the older woman. 

“I always want you there.” Byul grinned. 

Something clicked inside Yongsun’s head the moment the words left Byul’s mouth. She wanted Yongsun there. Yongsun wasn’t a burden on Byul’s ability to play and win games. She wanted Yongsun to come with her, to cheer her on and to stay overnight on Jeju Island. It was what normal couples did together. That want and desire for Yongsun’s company was an alien concept to her. But it was something she craved more than ever. 

A single tear fell from her eye as she nodded enthusiastically at her girlfriend and began searching for flights and hotels on her phone. To feel wanted was something she had always craved when she was with Jungin and something she had never been without with Byul. 

___________________________________________

Yongsun was a teenager when she met Lee Jungin for the first time. Their schools were rivals but after major funding cuts, his school was forced to merge with hers. At first, the clash of uniforms caused so many fights within the schools walls, but after a few months and many police visits, the students began to get along. 

There was still some hatred and malice between the two different sets of students as Yongsun’s school considered the other to be scum and Jungin’s school considered the other to be stuck up snobs. It cause Jungin to keep his relationship with Yongsun a secret. He didn’t want anyone to find out about them. 

They met at night when it was dark and had date nights at a movie theatre in Bucheon. Jungin was so desperate for people to not find out about them that he made her take a separate bus journey to Bucheon’s main bus station just in case anyone from school happened to be heading to Bucheon that day. 

Yongsun didn’t mind at first. Her school considered his to be like the main family from Parasite. They lived in basements of apartments filled with cockroaches whilst Yongsun’s were living in high rise apartments or luxurious mansions. 

He wore a mask, sunglasses and a baseball cap on their first date as though he was a boy group member on a date with a fan. Yongsun showed her face off as she walked into the theatre and spotted him like a poorly hidden secret agent in the corner with a small bag of popcorn and a drink. Under his sunglasses, his eyes widened. He tossed a mask at Yongsun and refused to acknowledge her until she placed it over . 

Jungin walked in front of Yongsun as they headed towards their designated film. A sigh fell from her lips as she instantly regretted coming here with him. But under the darkness of the theatre, he was different. They sat in the corner at the back, but he took his mask, hat and glasses. He held her hand throughout the movie and even giggled at comedic parts whilst looking over at her. 

They kissed at the back of the theatre with Yongsun’s back against the brick wall. His lips were soft and his hair was silky as she ran her fingers through his locks. For a moment, she forgot how ashamed he seemed to be with her. For a moment she thought everything was going to be okay.  

Until the following Monday at school when he refused to even smile at her from across the canteen. Her heart broke for the first time that day.