6/?

6th January 2016, 02:51am

“Just…say what comes to mind.” She squeezed her hand gently.

With one last look in Jessica’s brown eyes, Yoona began her story. Well, tried to, anyway. A sudden vibration of nervousness coursed through her insides, so she laughed uneasily and continued to play with Jessica’s fingers. “I’m sorry…this is just a little awkward.”

“It’s fine.” Jessica assured, and if it’d been anyone else who said it, maybe Yoona would’ve scoffed or waved them away. But this was Jessica. And, , Jessica had the ability to really tear her apart if she wanted to and Yoona knew this – like if Jessica were to turn around tomorrow and tell Yoona that they should stop seeing each other, Yoona was unsure of the kind of devastation it would cause, but she just knew it would be devastation.

But she’d lived a strange life, had seen a myriad of strange things and been to a myriad of strange, wonderful places, but she could only count the amount of wonderful, trustworthy people she had encountered on four fingers. Uncle Joon, Sooyoung, Hyuna – and now Jessica. And that wasn’t something she could simply overlook.

“So, uh,” She cleared after a moment, pressing her touch harder into the back of Jessica’s hand. “the reason I quit my job and kind of disappeared is because well…I got a call at work…from my mother.”

Jessica looked at her, long and confused, but Yoona thought that she’d probably already kind of worked it out; from the lack of family photos around the house, her never talking in depth about her parents, not going home for Christmas. “…okay?”

“I know that sounds like a weird thing to quit your job over but…uh…what I’ve never told you is that…I haven’t spoken to either of my parents for nearly 10 years. They disowned me when I was eighteen.”

The words seemed to hang in the air between them, large and ugly.

“.” Jessica whispered into the quiet, searching Yoona’s eyes and then looking away, but tightening her grip. “, Yoona.” It came out as a sigh, a sad one. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” was dry. She swallowed down and smiled wryly as best she could. “Me too.”

She watched silently as Jessica seemed to digest this sour titbit of information. The feeling was strange - like she wasn’t really in her own body and the words that she had said weren’t hers. It was the same kind of feeling she got when she’d lay in bed at night and she’d think back to her past and all the things she’d been through and the question would come to mind: ‘Did I really live that?’. Her life sometimes didn’t feel entirely real, didn’t feel like it belonged to her, like a projection on a screen, like she was a spectator to her own existence.

“Do you know why she called?” Jessica asked after a moment.

Yoona shook her head. “When I realised it was her, I panicked and hung up. I didn’t listen to what she had to say.”

“Did you want to?”

Her automatic response would’ve been a firm ‘no’. But she stopped herself and reconsidered. “I don’t know,” she said with an honesty she didn’t think she was capable of. “On one hand, I want to know why she’d try and get in contact after all this time. On the other hand…her and my dad…they hurt me pretty bad. Rejection from your parents,” she wet her lips, “that’s not something you ever really get over.”

It would’ve been easier if they’d both just died, she’d often thought. While death was an enigma all on its own, it came with a finality – a kind of resolution. But only being metaphorically dead to each other, now that, that came with a little less finality. If they were dead Yoona wouldn’t have to wonder what they were doing, how they were doing, if they still thought about her like she thought about them. Her connection to them couldn’t truly be severed from them if they were still breathing.

Jessica was nodding again, which was better than no response, she figured. “Are you gonna try and call her back?” She asked carefully, as if she were stepping onto a minefield.

Yoona cleared and shook her head. “I…I don’t think so. I’m not sure what I’d even say to her, or if I want to hear anything she has to say.” Things had just been left too long. When things had been fresh, a few months, or even a year after she was banished from her parents’ home, she would often find herself standing in the mirror, rehearsing what exactly she wanted to say to her parents if she ever saw them again. Back then, she had it all mapped out. She used to imagine going back, breaking down the door, confronting them with a monologue about how they’d failed her. She knew the exact tone she’d use and what words she’d emphasise and which parts she’d yell and which parts she’d whisper and which parent she’d be looking at when she delivered which lines and how their faces would contort into expressions of remorse as they’d beg for her forgiveness.

But time had made her bury all that. She’d flattened the earth on top of it like a casket. Somewhere, somehow, along the way she’d managed to talk herself out of it. And now, 10 years later, she’d forgotten her monologue, forgotten what had been so important to her, numbed all that emotional pain by distracting herself with drinking and job hopping and sleeping with women who she’d never be able to love. It was just too late.

She regarded the glazed look in Jessica’s eye silently as she stared down into the space between them. She was holding Yoona’s hand tightly, tighter than she ever had before.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Yoona nodded through an exhale, bracing herself. “Go ahead.”

“Your parents, did they disown you because you’re…”

“Gay? A lesbian?” Yoona supplied. “Yeah. They did.” Part of her wanted to just end the conversation here. The basic details had been given, but she knew that there was still so much unanswered.

“And…what happened? You came out to them and then they threw you out or?”

“Yup.” She took a breath, “That was kind of it. Except they didn’t quite kick me out. I ran.”

“You ran?”

Yoona pondered on how she should retell this part of the story without making Jessica pity her immensely. “Yeah. Well. I came out to them when I went home for Christmas break, during my second year of university. We were sitting at the dining table when I told them. They laughed, at first. Told me to stop joking. To stop being stupid.” She paused, remembering how the tears had tracked themselves down her cheeks as her parents’ faces went from laughing to staring gravely at her. “When they realised I was serious, that’s when the hysterics started. My mum was crying, my dad was yelling. It’s all a bit of a blur, honestly.” She broke off to clear uneasily. Jessica was looking at her, eyebrows drawn together in the utmost concern, holding her breath. “I don’t know how it happened but we ended up in the living room. And I must’ve said something like ‘There’s nothing wrong with me, it’s you guys.’ And before I really knew what was going on, my dad had his hands round my neck.” The feeling of his fingers encased over her windpipe, even after all these years, it was as if it was still here – pressing down with the heel of his palm, robbing her of air, asphyxiating her, pulling her back no matter how far she ran.

She heard Jessica’s breath hitch in shock.

“He might’ve killed me if I hadn’t kicked him in the balls and pushed him away.” She chuckled darkly to herself and wondered when her sense of humour had gotten so grim. “And then I just grabbed my coat, my shoes, whatever, while my dad was screaming at me to never come back. And I ran. Ran and never looked back.”

Jessica’s face was so troubled that Yoona almost found it amusing. When she had told Sooyoung, all those years ago, there hadn’t been such horror. Sooyoung had been through something similar, or worse, and thus only listened to Yoona with an understanding, a deep, empathetic understanding. But this, all of this, was probably foreign to Jessica. Being physically assaulted by a parent because you were gay, a plight that was much too common for young queer people, had probably never even crossed Jessica’s mind, and if it had, it’d only been in relation to others and not herself.

“Where did you go?” Jessica asked after a moment. Her voice had shrunk to a much quieter volume, as if had narrowed in width.

“My Uncle Joon.” She replied, feeling simultaneously lighter and heavier at mentioning his name. “He was my dad’s younger brother. Lived in Busan where he worked as a mechanic in his own shop.” She smiled to herself briefly, the image of his tanned face, smudged with grease, flitting past her mind. “We had always been really close. I used to spend summers staying with him, helping him out with fixing up the cars. He taught me a lot. It was like he just knew how to talk to me. My dad never liked him, for reasons that I’ll never know but,” she let out a breathy laugh as the memories suddenly overcame her, “God, Jess, he was really something. Imagine the tallest, broadest guy with a skull tattoo on his shoulder and trucker cap on his head. But super funny and sensitive and kind. And gay.”

Jessica let out surprised laugh. “He was gay too?”

She nodded, suppressing the grin that was trying to fight its way onto her lips. “Super gay. That’s probably why we bonded so well. Probably also why my dad never liked him. But, I don’t know. When I showed up at his place that Christmas and told him what had happened, he took me in without question – as if I was his own daughter. He was the kind of person who’s smile looked like sunshine or something.”

“That’s cute.” Jessica rubbed on Yoona’s arm affectionately. “So, you moved in with him and then that was it?”

“I wish.” Yoona scoffed. Jesus, she did really wish that was it, and that she’d spent the last eight years visiting her uncle in Busan every couple of weeks with home baked goodies. “I dropped out of university and for the next two or so years, I helped my uncle out in the garage. I was kind of like his apprentice. And on top of that, I got a part time job in a restaurant. That’s where I met Sooyoung. And, for a while, everything was…amazing. I mean, it was hard working two jobs, and dealing with all the my parents put me through but…my uncle Joon, he made me feel safe, made me realise that it’s not all doom and gloom for people like us. You can make a life. You can be happy.”

The grip that Jessica had on her arm seemed to stiffen, as if she already knew the ending to the story. Yoona smiled fleetingly because she knew, too. Knew it all too well; sad endings don’t really have an end. Sadness tends to echo, ripple, effecting things far off in the distance. There was no definitive end, because it had permeated into her adult life, and followed her around like a lingering stench.

“But it didn’t last long,” She continued through a sigh. “One night, Joon and I were doing our usual checks of the garage. Packing things away, tidying things up, getting things ready for the next day. He went up to the office with the tray from the till that had all our earnings from that day like he always did. As I was putting on my jacket, I just heard this thud, and then I heard all the coins falling to…the floor.” And she could still see it, still hear it sometimes. She clenched her teeth because she didn’t want to cry, not again. She swallowed down all the emotions that had attempted to rise inside of her like a spew of vomit she didn’t want to spray everywhere. “I must’ve called his name a couple of times. And when he didn’t respond, I ran up there as fast as I could. He was just laying there, face down.”

When she looked up, there were stray tears tracking themselves down Jessica’s cheeks. She wiped them away hastily, but Yoona had seen them still. “I’m so sorry.”

She tried to offer Jessica a small smile to let her know that it was okay, but she knew it wasn’t. Things hadn’t been okay in a long time. Yoona hadn’t been okay in a long time, and she was only realising it now.

“I called an ambulance.” She continued with a shaky exhale. “Paramedics came. By the time we got to the hospital, he’d slipped into a coma. They tried to resuscitate him but…it was no good.” Her vision became blurred suddenly, but she tried to blink back the tears and hold it all back before it came spilling out. “He was gone. Heart attack, they said it was. I shouldn’t have been surprised, honestly. He had a really ty diet and avoided cardio like the plague so…” She forced out a small chuckle, anything to alleviate the heaviness that had grown inside her chest.

“What did you do?” Jessica sniffled, wiping at her wet cheeks again.

“I don’t really know. After he died…that’s when things get blurry.” She swallowed. “Death is kinda weird in that it makes everything else seem so pointless. It was like I was searching and searching for an answer but the outcome was right there in front of me but I just…I couldn’t process it. I still don’t think I’ve processed it.” She ran a hand through her hair. “He left everything to me in his will. All his money, his business, the house. But I didn’t know what to do with it. After the funeral, Sooyoung tried to help me sort things out, but I just, I knew I couldn’t stay there. It was beginning to feel suffocating, so I put everything up for sale, put Sooyoung in charge and let the solicitors do their thing. I jumped on a flight to Tokyo, and from there I went to Thailand, and from there to Beijing, and then came Europe. Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Glasgow, Rome, Athens…Paris…a bunch of other places. It should’ve been amazing, but it was…aimless. It was nights of drinking, taking drugs, hanging out with strangers in cities that I was lost in. It was days of wandering the streets, trying to sightsee, but not really seeing anything. The thing was, I wasn’t travelling because I wanted to explore the world. I was travelling because I wanted to be as far away from here as possible.”

“How long were you gone for?” Jessica’s voice had become small.

“I came back once after 4 months to sign the garage and the house over to the new owners,” She recalled, “but after that, I didn’t come back for another 2 and a half years maybe. Not until the money started running out.”

She watched as the shock registered on Jessica’s face. “That’s…longer than what I expected.”

“It didn’t feel that long. I probably wouldn’t have come back if I’d had enough money.” Even to her own ears, it sounded a little crazy; a young grieving woman taking her inheritance and jetting across the globe, drifting from place to place like a rogue ship atop a level sea. “Sooyoung said when I came back, I was a shell of the person I used to be. And, , that’s sure as hell what I felt like. She let me move in with her, got me a job back at the restaurant. Helped me find a way back into normality.” She decided to omit the parts where Sooyoung was mad at her, and how they had to spend months rebuilding their trust, their friendship. “The both of us saved and saved and saved, and once we’d saved enough I said that I couldn’t stay in Busan anymore and that I wanted to come to Seoul. I thought she was gonna blow her lid, but instead, she just came with me. Moved into another tiny apartment, continued working, eventually got better jobs, started making better money. And then, we decided to get our own places. Now…here I am.” Her voice seemed to ring out in the small space between them.

Jessica was gazing at her. Her eyes looked so dark and bottomless in the lamplight, that Yoona almost wished she could fall into them. “Here you are.”

“I told you it was a long story.” She shifted and noticed just how warm her face felt, right to the tip of her ears, she was burning.

Wordlessly, Jessica moved forward, and wrapped her arms around Yoona’s neck. She pushed Yoona back until she was flat on the mattress. After a moment, she returned the embrace and held Jessica close, understanding that this was her way of letting Yoona know she was here; she was grateful it was wordless. She tried to let herself relax into the heat of Jessica’s body, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she was panicking. She had told Jessica everything, she’d let it all out, and had let Jessica in. And there would be no painless solution should she have to remove Jessica from her life one day.

“Do you feel sorry for me?” Yoona questioned.

“No.” Jessica mumbled out against the skin of her neck. “I’m just sorry you had to go through all that. I wish things had been easier.”

“Me too.” She squeezed her, as if she were the only thing left to hold onto.

Jessica pulled back, and looked down at Yoona with vehemence, tracing a tender finger from her hairline, down the slope of her forehead, from the dip to the tip of her nose, over her lips and the curve of her chin. “You deserve to be loved, Im Yoona. Especially by you.”

“I know.” Her eyes were beginning to weigh heavy. The heat of a body atop hers was drawing her closer to sleep. She was tired. She was so tired.

Jessica helped her under the covers and slipped in next to her. She let herself be enveloped. And as her lids fell shut, the last thought to cross her mind was her mother. She imagined what she might’ve looked like on the other end of that telephone.

* * *

11th November 2016, 07:34am (Present)

Jessica’s cheek is squashed against the pillow. Yoona smiles faintly, moving a piece of fallen hair from her face. Judging from the rhythmic pattern of her breathing and the position of her arm, up next to her head, she’s sleeping heavily.

She considers how she’s had the privilege of watching Jessica Jung sleep at least a hundred or so times since they met. There’s something reassuring about watching someone you care about be lost in slumber. She’s just there and unmoving – peaceful and unguarded. It’s an intimate thing that Yoona has indulged herself in over the years. While she would never want to romanticise voyeurism - witnessing the existence of a person, in their most candid state is probably the most effective method of falling in love.

Usually, she would wonder what Jessica was dreaming of, or the kinds of worries she kept locked up in that brain of hers. But on this particular morning she finds that she can only think of Theo.

Does he watch Jessica sleep like this before he goes to work? Does he make tea for her and leave it waiting for her in the kitchen? She wonders what kind of kisser he is, if he’s romantic or dense or caring or kind, if he showers her with gifts. Is he gentle or rough? Do they have a lot? Does he treat her right? Is he better than Yoona? Is he the same as Yoona? Does he love her and does she love him and if so, why isn’t it enough for Jessica?

She’s always tried to avoid such musings. Imagining Jessica with him makes her chest feel heavy. The more she thinks about it, the more she realises that she’s always let Jessica cloud her immediate vision – and so anything in her peripheral, things like Theo, became nothing more than an afterthought. She thinks herself selfish, she thinks herself horrible.

Jessica had spent the night. Yoona wants to say it was habit or muscle memory – and it could be both or neither. She doesn’t know anymore. She just knows that the had felt desperate – as though they were frantically trying to keep a grip on one another, as if they both knew that the other was slipping away like a sheet of fabric in the wind.

She doesn’t know what to think and she doesn’t know what to feel and really, she’d love it if someone would come along and just tell her what to do. She wants to cry and she wants to scream. She wants someone to blame.

Part of her feels guilty and another part feels guilty for not feeling guilty enough.

Whose fault is it? Her mind says Theo, and then it says Jessica, and then it says Mr and Mrs Jung and then it says her own parents, and then it says Uncle Joon – maybe if he hadn’t decided to drop dead you wouldn’t be in this position.

But really, it’s no one’s fault. Just her own. And one of them, if not all of them, will find themselves nursing a broken heart, and Yoona has to contend with the fact she’s played a hand in breaking each one.

It’s messy. She readies herself for the mending.

* * *

6th January 2016, 13:20pm

It was the smash of a plate that awoke her from sleep. She blinked the disorientation away from her crusting eyes as she sat up. With a hoarse groan, she acknowledged the dull pounding in her head, before downing the painkillers and water that had been left on her bedside table, presumably by Jessica.

She forced herself onto her feet and pulled on a hoodie and slippers. As she opened her bedroom door, she heard Jessica’s voice, speaking distractedly.

She descended the stairs with a yawn, noticing how her body was still aching from her weeklong bender, squinting against the harsh rays of sunlight. She found Jessica in the kitchen, squatting down on the floor picking up the broken pieces of china with her phone pressed to her ear.

“I understand that, dad, but I…” She glanced up, noticing Yoona’s presence.

Yoona offered her a small smile before joining her on the floor, gesturing Jessica to leave it and focus on whomever she was talking to. Jessica gave her an apologetic look before sauntering away.

Yoona collected the large pieces of porcelain, listening idly to Jessica’s half of the conversation. As she swept, the previous night, in all its horrid, emotional detail, came pushing its way to the forefront of her mind.

. Jessica. Knows. Everything.

She suddenly wished that she’d never gotten out of bed.

She dumped the shattered plate into the bin with an ugly, clattering thud. The urge to pull her hood over her head, curl up on the floor and shrink into a non-existent speck overcame her. Would she ever be able to look Jessica in the eye again?

She was dumb. I’m so dumb.

She might as well have gotten a kitchen knife, cut her gut open and let Jessica take a peek, right? Okay, maybe not - but her dramatic feelings on the matter felt justified, either way. She had word-vomited her ty past all over Jessica’s pretty face and there was nothing she could do about it. The words had already been spoken, already been listened to, and she wouldn’t ever be able to take it back.

Dumb. She shook her head and poured herself a cup of coffee, watching the steam rise from its blackened surface.

No, there was no taking it back, so, she supposed, turning her head to watch Jessica’s lithe frame wandering around her living room, talking, maybe she should just embrace it? She was embarrassed – definitely - but she could pretend that she wasn’t.

When she went into the living room, Jessica was still on the phone. She was staring pensively out of the window into the unkempt space that was Yoona’s small, overgrown back garden, biting down on her lower lip in annoyance.

“I told you before - I don’t want to work for you again. I’ve already got a job and- no…I get it, dad, I do, but…” There was a deep crease between her eyebrows, and a tightness in her voice that was most foreign to Yoona. Never had she seen this mixture of anger and sadness poised on Jessica’s face before and it touched something inside of her that made her sad too.

She flopped herself down onto the sofa and turned the TV on, volume low. She hadn’t watched daytime television properly in years, and as the talk show host began to dance the robot with the crowd, she was suddenly reminded why. While her eyes were trained on the screen, her ears were keenly tuned to Jessica’s voice, which was now coming from the kitchen again.

“Look, I gotta go, okay Dad? I can’t be bothered talking about this anymore. I’ve got work to do. Bye.” She heard Jessica put her phone down with a little too much force.

When she entered the kitchen, Jessica was standing by the counter, watching the toaster with an almost religious devotion. Her expression was hard, and her jaw was set.

“If you stare at that thing any harder its gonna catch alight.”

Jessica rolled her eyes at the joke, but Yoona could tell she appreciated it. “Good morning to you, too.”

“Morning.” Yoona chuckled.

Jessica pecked her on the lips, and it somehow let her know that despite everything, last night, all of it, they were going to be fine. “How’re you feeling?”

“Hungover, but not completely awful.”

“Interesting, because you kind of look like .”

“Must be some pretty nice if you’re still kissing me, huh?” She grinned and trapped Jessica in her arms. She was half-expecting Jessica to push her away playfully, or retaliate with another harmless insult, but instead, she just melted into the hug – as if she’d been waiting for it, as if she needed it.

“I mean, yeah,” Jessica began, her voice muffled against Yoona’s hoodie, arms looping around her waist. “As far as goes, you’re like kind of tolerable.”

Yoona could only chuckle as they swayed, embraced, in the middle of her kitchen. Being in Jessica’s presence somehow always made her feel better, hangover or otherwise. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

Jessica lifted her head, her lashes fluttering around her brown eyes. “I called in sick. I don’t trust you to look after yourself. Not after last night, anyway.” She poked Yoona firmly in the chest before pulling away. “What do you want on your toast?”

“I guess that’s fair.” She scratched at the back of her neck, suddenly cold with Jessica no longer close. “And I’ll have Nutella, if there’s any left.”

* * *

“Thank you,” She smiled as the plate was set in her lap. She was half-surprised the toast wasn’t entirely charred. “You’re not eating?”

Jessica shook her head as she rounded the couch and sunk down next to her. “I had some earlier.”

Yoona ate, and together they watched daytime television in a comfortably thick silence. Her eyes flickered away from the television when an insistent vibrating sounded. She observed from the corner of her eye as Jessica stared at her phone as it rang in her hand before declining the call. She placed the device on the armrest, face down.

Yoona frowned to herself, pondering over who it might be. Jessica rarely declined calls so pointedly. She could only assume it was her father. Their words had been less than pleasant and Yoona knew Jessica’s feelings toward her parents were less than pleasant in general anyway – even if she’d never explicitly said so.

Wordlessly, Jessica took Yoona’s empty plate to the kitchen and when she came back, she moved closer to Yoona, insisting to check the bruises on her face and the cuts on her hands and knees. Yoona could not find it in herself to complain.

“Does it hurt?” Jessica asked, pressing her fingers to Yoona’s face tentatively.

“A little.” Yoona admitted. “But it’ll go away soon enough. And some good concealer will stop me from looking like a punched-up mobster.”

“And what about these?” She took Yoona’s hands in hers, inspecting her knuckles closely. “Are they sore too?”

“Kind of. But they’ll heal.” She shrugged. “In a couple of days, it’ll hardly be noticeable.”

“Why does it sound like you’ve done this before?” Jessica raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her and somehow that look alone made Yoona squirm a little.

She blew some air through her lips loudly and laughed in embarrassment. “I guess…it’s not my first rodeo?”

“Yeah?” Jessica knocked her gently on the forehead. “Well, it better be your last.”

“Yes, captain.” She saluted.

“I’m serious, Yoong.” Jessica sighed, leaning her head onto her first. Her eyes looked like pools of honey in the sunlight. “You need to take better care of yourself. Getting into brawls and doing God-knows what drugs isn’t going to solve anything.”

“I know.” And she did know. She really did, but sometimes she felt like she didn’t know how to do anything else. Partying was easy, drinking was easy, drugs were easy, drunk fights with strangers were easy; it was distraction. Ruining herself was easier than putting herself back together again. “I’ll try and be on the straight and narrow from now on.”

“Don’t try. Just be. Okay?”

“Okay.” Yoona receded.

“Good.” She kissed Yoona’s nose affectionately. “That’s what I like to hear.” And just like that, she shifted back, grabbed the TV remote and began flicking through channels.

Yoona watched the screen for a moment before her eyes drifted back to Jessica’s face. She wet her lips. “Are we okay?”

“Hmm?” Her eyes remained stuck to the television. “Why wouldn’t we be okay?”

“I just meant, after last night. I didn’t- I didn’t freak you out or anything did I?”

The hand holding the remote fell as Jessica’s eyes found hers. “What are you talking about? Of course not.” She turned the TV off suddenly and a different kind of silence blanketed itself over them. Jessica was in her space again and Yoona didn’t know whether to shrink away or be grateful.

Yoona shrugged. “I just mean-…you’ve never really seen me like that. And the things we talked about. I mean that’s heavy stuff and I just-…” She took a breath because her words were not conveying what it was that she was attempting to say. “I just don’t want to put my baggage on you or for you to look at me any different. You know?”

Jessica nodded in understanding, smoothing her fingers over all the little dents and scabs and scars decorating the skin on the back of Yoona’s hand. “Don’t worry. If you really scared me that bad, I wouldn’t be here right now, would I?”

“I don’t know. You are kind of crazy…”

“I’m serious, Yoong.” Jessica slapped her arm gently. “Don’t worry. If anything, I’m glad you told me.”

“Yeah?”

Jessica nodded. “I always wondered why you never really talked about your family, why didn’t you have any pictures of them up. And I did think it was a little strange that you spent Christmas with Sooyoung. But now…it all makes sense. I understand you better, and that can only be a good thing.”

“Yeah…I guess. I’m just a gay girl in a very mean world.”

Jessica gave a pained, yet ultimately amused expression. “You’re very brave. You know that?”

Was she? She had never felt brave. Even the word, brave, tasted strange on her tongue. Cowardice was a flavour that seemed much more familiar to her. “Thank you.” She said, anyway, as she brought Jessica’s hand to her lips gently. She had the idle thought, then, if bravery one day became the only route she could take, then maybe if Jessica was there, the weight of her hand heavy in Yoona’s, she’d be able to take the route and come out the other end unscathed.

She opened to say something when Jessica’s phone began to vibrate for what seemed like the thousandth time that morning. Jessica’s face fell upon looking at the screen. She declined the call almost immediately again before chucking the device onto the other sofa, as far away as possible.

“Was that your dad again?” Yoona asked after a moment.

“Uh, yeah.” Jessica’s fingers combed through her hair distractedly. “He’s been annoying me all morning.”

“You wanna talk about it?” She shifted closer, unable to help the genuine concern that surfaced in her tone.

Jessica shook her head but smiled gratefully. “Thank you. But it’s okay. It’s not a big deal.”

Yoona tilted her head, looking at her sceptically. “Are you sure? You seem pretty bothered.”

“Honestly,” Jessica’s hand found her forearm. “It’s fine. I can deal with it.”

“I’m sure you can but…” she scratched at the back of her head. “There’s no harm in venting, is there?”

“No, I know…” Jessica trailed off. Her eyes lowered to her lap. “It’s just…after all the stuff we talked about yesterday…it seems kind of silly to complain about-“

“Wow. Hey.” Yoona stopped her. “Just because my parents were exceptionally ty, doesn’t mean you can’t talk about your slightly less ty parents, okay? Every struggle is valid.” She gave an encouraging nudge.

“You’re gonna think it’s so stupid though-“

“Jess, my whole life is stupid. There’s nothing you could say that could trump my -ery,” she raised a challenging eyebrow.

Jessica rolled her eyes in mock annoyance. “I mean, you’re not wrong. You are a colossal .”

Yoona laughed lightly and curled an arm around her, giving her a level, steady look in the eyes. “Tell me.”

Jessica’s gaze lowered down to the space between them again. “He just…he does this thing. It’s hard to explain. But, basically, his assistant quit on him, again, and he wants me to go back and work for him. And this isn’t the first time he’s asked me to go back to the family business. It happens at least once every six months. It’s like he doesn’t understand that I have my own job, my own career, my own responsibilities. And when I explain that to him, he tries to turn it on me and make it as though I’m not helping him because I don’t appreciate everything he’s done f