Not all days are created equal. Sometimes they favor the sun and stretch the daylight in too many hours and too noisy customers in the café. Other times they favor the night and loom in long painful silences. Garbled words wrapped in a hazy blur of scotch and vodka until today blends with tomorrow, one day to the next. A seamless transition for a broken mind. 

When the nights and days argue in a heated discourse, Hyunjung finds herself staring at the needle that breaks her skin, counting the pills in her brightly-colored pill container. Seven separations for the number of days in a week. 

It takes her half an hour to wake up, one to get ready, six to work her shift in the cafe, three in the garage, two for the scheduled check ups at the hospital, one to shove the results at the back of the medicine cabinet, half to deny traces of pills with letters too many and the rest spent trying to sleep.

On weekday afternoons, Kim Jiyeon drops by at their cafe. One caramel macchiato and varied orders for her multitude of friends and their pristine white scrubs— Namjoo, Xuan Yi, Sungjae, Jisoo, Sowon, Taeyong and Nayoung. On weekends, she stands behind the sponsor banners along the track sidelines only to disappear for her hospital shift. 

Hyunjung notices Jiyeon doesn’t talk to her just for the sake of talking. While they have nothing to say to each other, they acknowledge each other’s presence through bold stares and affirmative nods. Jiyeon paints the monochromatic conversations with streaks of color, and makes everyone happier, even Luda and Yeonjung, the hardest ones to please. 

A smile brighter, a voice louder. A more beautiful, more expressive face. 

One weekend in the grasslands of Goryeong, Hyunjung’s shock comes from her lack of surprise at Jiyeon showing up out of nowhere, looking tinier than she remembers with Sojung’s old jersey hanging on her shoulders. And Hyunjung realizes this is it. She has given up the struggle for having Jiyeon around. Another new addition to their ever-growing family welcomed with open arms.

“Unnie, they all said they needed to take a break,” Jiyeon approaches Hyunjung after taking turns riding behind Sojung, Juyeon and Yeonjung across the meadow, helmet tucked under her arm. She skips on every step as she approaches, “Let me ride behind you.”

Out of instinct, Hyunjung immediately holds her arms up in an X, “You can’t.”

“Why not?” Jiyeon pouts, “I’m not even doing anything. I’m just going to sit behind you. Besides, nobody said about anything going fast.”

Hyunjung turns to Sojung for help, but Sojung juts her bandaged middle finger out, as if her entire hand being wrapped in gauze doesn't make it anymore obvious. “She can get very persuasive." Sojung says. "Just go twenty or even just fifteen. Drive straight and back for a couple of times like I did.”

Hyunjung reasons out that she didn’t agree to any of it. Gods forbid she’d do some damage to someone as impeccable as Jiyeon and her flawless everything, “You’re taking her side, Sojung, really?” she taps on her temple, harder each time for emphasis, “one moment you... then now you want me to—”

Sojung shrugs, “You know you want to.”

Jiyeon marches up to Hyunjung with a glint in her eyes, arms swaying in her loose jersey, and rolls her sleeves. Hyunjung leans away, brows creased in preparation for a banter, but Jiyeon’s determined expression melts into a pout and puppy eyes and a voice that instantly melts Hyunjung in a pile of goo. 

“Unnie~”

Hyunjung glares but Jiyeon leans closer and smiles brighter and her eyes look so warm and endearing, and Hyunjung cringes whenever Sojung does it but Jiyeon’s aegyo is exactly the way how aegyo should be done. When Hyunjung gives in with a nod, Jiyeon breaks into a smile like she just won the lottery.

Sojung excuses herself because Juyeon and Yeonjung are bickering by the Hummer and Luda’s too busy with her phone to be bothered by anything.

“It must be fun all the time riding with your friends,” Jiyeon looks over her shoulder before slipping her helmet, “but looking after them seems like quite a chore.” 

“It’s kind of funny. I’m the eldest but Sojung takes care of all of us better than I ever will,” Hyunjung replies absentmindedly, eyes trained on the mismatched straps of Jiyeon’s helmet, “you got the... wrong,” her fingers itch and before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s helping Jiyeon with her helmet, combing her hair with her fingers and tucking strands behind her ears. 

“Here, let me,” she slips the helmet again over Jiyeon’s head, properly this time, “lift your chin,” and secures the straps in place and gently knocks on either side when she’s done, “how does it fit?”

“Good,” Jiyeon’s voice is muffled, “unnie, you looked really cool just now.”

Hyunjung tries her best to look at anywhere but her because Jiyeon hasn’t stopped smiling. Pushing back the warmth creeping from her neck, she adjusts the pads on her arms, “Aren’t you against racing or something?”

“I’m not against racing. I’m against your excessive recklessness. Like the thing you did in Cheongju. It was unnecessary and highly dangerous.”

“Riding behind me is unnecessary and highly dangerous, too,” and maybe Jiyeon would see it as a half-joke with Hyunjung’s huge smile but she really means it. She isn’t supposed to be riding in the first place. 

‘But you only live once,’ her brother Hoseok had said.

Jiyeon sits behind her, locking her arms around her waist. The natural intimacy takes Hyunjung by suprise because she doesn’t let anyone ride behind her. Not really. Sojung had, maybe once or twice, but that was five years ago when Hyunjung was on her peak and when Sojung was just Sojung. 

Hyunjung drives through the meadow at a manageable speed. After several back-and-forths, suddenly there’s Juyeon on her right, with Luda riding behind her on a green Kawasaki, and Yeonjung on a white Husqvarna, and on her left there’s Sojung on a blue Yamaha. Open-mouthed laughter against the endless green and dome of sky blue. Hyunjung lets Sojung overtake her, while Juyeon slows down and Yeonjung goes even slower. 

Juyeon asks Yeonjung to do a wheelie like how she’s been teaching her. Yeonjung tries but keeps failing to lift her front wheels so Sojung has to demonstrate and Hyunjung has to bark orders for her to follow. Luda snakes her arms up around Juyeon for a chokehold because apparently Juyeon’s trying to do a wheelie, too, even with Luda behind her.

“Don’t even think about it,” Jiyeon warns Hyunjung.

“The only thing I’m thinking about is getting you across the clearing safely,” Hyunjung sighs.

Unlike the last time they were so close to each other, when all she paid attention to were the wisps of white smoke and the droll of their conversation, she notices it now. Jiyeon smells really nice. Not like iodine or sterile bleach or old band aids coated in layers of perfume but just fresh and nice and sweet. Like flowers. Or all the good things in the world combined.

“You’re different, aren’t you,” Jiyeon mutters on her back, “you’re not like them.”

“Like who?”

“Like everyone else,” Jiyeon squeezes her waist lightly and begins to laugh. 

And the thing about Jiyeon’s laugh is that it casts the shadows of misery away, and fills all the missing pieces of an abandoned puzzle. A combination of Yeonjung’s eagerness, Juyeon’s confidence, and Sojung’s smugness. Like Luda on a good day. Carefree. 

Cheeks flushed with excitement, sun-kissed hair tumbled by the breeze, her lips curled on the ends and her nose crinkled. The spaces between words are weighed carefully, like she's always waiting to say something more after the beats of their pulse.

Like Hyunjung on a good day, too.

 

 

-

 

 

“Juyeon is at Eunbi’s, Luda has exams and Yeonjung went to Andong to visit a friend.”

“I know about them. I’m asking about Jiyeon.”

It’s a rainy morning on their way back from Daejeon when Sojung’s grin breaks. It throws her out of focus, surprise clear on the fingers that suddenly grip and curl around the steering wheel, “What do you mean ‘where is Jiyeon’? She’s busy all the time.”

“I haven’t seen her since Goryeong,” Hyunjung grabs the handful of pills marked for Saturday on her container and downs the bitterness with a mouthful of soda, “Strange that no one else asks about her when I’m around.” 

There are shadows of Jiyeon and her friends in the cafe but lately she’s missing out on several practices and spontaneous trips around the mountains. Two weeks. Maybe three, or a month.

Hyunjung doesn’t like it because she could still feel Jiyeon’s arms around her waist and hear her laughter on her back.

“I thought you wanted her gone?” Sojung asks, “Now you’re looking for her?”

“Answer me before I assume you befriended her just because she’s a nurse and not because you genuinely like her.”

Sojung glances at Hyunjung from the driver’s seat and throws her cigarette stub out the open window, “She said she’s going to med school.” 

“So?”

“She’s not a nurse anymore.”

“So she’s no use anymore.”

“It was a bad idea. You were right,” Sojung’s words are quiet, “I shouldn’t have invited her again after Cheongju. I thought if she was around then she could help. I didn’t know that she’s already— I just— I was doing it for you.”

Hyunjung groans, “Stop trying to do everything for me.”

“You make everything sound so easy,” Sojung keeps her eyes on the road. 

They remain quiet until they reach the cafe, the garage behind it and their closely-linked apartments. The worst part is when Hyunjung realizes that Sojung isn’t even sorry for anything. She has pushed Sojung past the brink of desperation and into the prejudiced beliefs of what she believes is heroism.

Wretched misery driving a poisoned mind, bereft of a moral compass, missing a north, a healthy breath of air. Missing a home. 

Chu Sojung, lost. 

 

 

-

 

 

The coffee shop on a Thursday afternoon is the gentle hum of indie music over vintage speakers. An intoxicating blanket of something warm and pleasant. Endless costumer chit-chat, cappuccino tipped with golden foam under Sojung’s deft hands, Juyeon and Yeonjung taking orders behind the counter and Luda zigzagging around the tables.

Hyunjung catches Jiyeon sitting alone for the first time, hunched over a book and a steaming mug of coffee instead of being at the center of a small crowd. She sits opposite her, “Sojung told me you’re not a nurse anymore.” 

Jiyeon highlights an entire paragraph in neon yellow before snapping her book close, “Unnie, you should really start working on your introductions.”

“Hello.”

“Hi,” Jiyeon looks up, eyes darting from Sojung, Luda, Juyeon and Yeonjung, and then to her, “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“I’m exempt from a week of work since I won that last practice match in Cheongju, remember?” Hyunjung offers her a slice of sponge cake, “So what are you now?”

“A student again,” Jiyeon answers, a tinge of pink on her cheeks, “I decided I’m going to be a doctor.” 

Hyunjung’s jaw swings open, “Wow. Really? From a nurse to a doctor? That’s—”

“Stupid, I know,” Jiyeon interrupts, “It’ll take me almost a decade again. Four years all over again and a couple more. But I want this for myself, unnie.”

“I was going to say that’s great but you didn’t let me finish.”

“Oh. That’s new. Thank you,” Jiyeon beams for a second before her expression drops, “I filed my resignation right before you came to get yourselves checked in Daegu. I didn’t tell anyone until my official last day so I won’t jinx it but I should’ve told you sooner, I guess.”

“Your last day was a month ago,” Hyunjung recalls when she last saw her on the tracks. 

“A couple of days after we went to Goryeong. I’m getting used to seeing you wearing your working uniform instead of your racing jersey and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.” 

“Why not?”

“Just right when I was starting to see the kind of fun you’re all so hooked up on, everything suddenly stops,” Jiyeon idly slices the sponge cake in little cubes and pops them in , “and I can’t even talk to any of you properly since you’re all so busy working here.”

“Jiyeon, what are you talking about?”

“I thought you’d know since you’re her best friend,” Jiyeon shifts on her seat uncomfortably, and finally asks if Sojung’s angry with her because the invites to where they’re riding stopped right after she told Sojung she’s studying again, “I get that I’m the odd man out but I still like to see you riding out there.”

Hyunjung lets her gaze land behind the counter and on the back of a woman who’s been tirelessly working all day, and frowns, “I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea. She isn’t angry at you. Sojung is just being Sojung.”

“So you’ll tell me when and where you’re racing next and let me watch, unnie?”

“If you want.”

“Well, okay. That’s a relief,” Jiyeon’s face lights up with the world.

“Do you mind if I stay for a while?” Hyunjung asks, “I have nothing else to do and I’m not supposed to be in the garage before three.”

“I don’t mind. Besides, this is your cafe,” Jiyeon replies, “you can stay wherever you want.”

“Technically, this is registered under Sojung’s name.”

“Sojung’s cafe, then.”

Like all the dots they put on the last beats of their words, Jiyeon doesn’t say anything else. She flips her book open and resumes her study. Her lips mouth the same phrases, the of neon-yellow across the printed words steady against the restless background of the coffee shop. 

Hyunjung props her chin on the back of her hand and tries to read the words on Jiyeon’s books upside-down. The minutes pass by alternating sips of iced latte and cube slices of sponge cake. And maybe she hasn’t really been silent for a long while but oddly, she’s comfortable at the rarity of comfort that washes over their silence and the relief that pours over the nothings they don’t have to express. 

 

 

-

 

 

There’s a reason for nicotine-steeped hoodies and sweaters shoved under fresh dry-cleaned blankets and expensive peach air fresheners. It’s for occasions like this when Hyunjung lets someone in for the first of many times. She just has to make a damn good first impression no matter what.

Her dilapidated apartment stands still by Seongnam-gu, unfinished concrete floor and walls, exposed overhead pipes and ripped polyurethane sheets. Unpacked boxes gather dust behind the doorway, a disk rack of her old motocross races and framed family pictures stand idle on a desk. Beside a syntethic potted plant, an old computer set takes up a corner, its blue screen flickering on a dirty CRT monitor. A bar of text in white pixels reads 00:00:01.

“You really are an old soul. Nostalgic,” Jiyeon’s gaze flickers around the room slowly, as if deciding whether to like it or not.

“This place might look like a mess to you but I like it,” Hyunjung slumps into a couch, poking back the cotton and polyester that spills beside her knees. She frames Jiyeon with her fingers and looks through the shaky square with an eye shut, “I like it simple. Besides, I just go here to sleep since I’m always out working. Very convenient, too. It’s only a five-minute walk from the cafe and the garage,” she laughs, “What do you think?”

“What do I think of what?” Jiyeon eases herself on a beanbag, “You haven’t even told me why I’m here.”

“You look like you’re having trouble studying at the cafe and yet you never leave,” Hyunjung stares, “why?”

“I study better when you’re around.”

“’You’ as in me and the rest of us or ‘you’ as in just me?”

“You as in the Kim Hyunjung unnie ‘you’.”

Hyunjung tries to piece one and one together, thinks really hard how she could possibly make Jiyeon study better when all she’s done is alternate between messing orders up and wiping the tables.

“I think it would’ve been a lot easier if you told me your concerns before we went here and not after,”