The city itself seems to waver as you make your way over the feverishly hot asphalt, your lazy, purposeful steps bringing you ever-closer to your destination as you walk the path next to the Han River. Around you, the world revolves in slow motion, the sluggish nature of the summer heat having its effect on everyone who dared brave the outdoors— you included.

Pause.

A weekend. You sigh, tipping your head back, the tip of your ponytail pressing irritatingly at the back of your neck. You rub at the sweat forming on your brow with the back of your forearm, you surrender to the heat and stumble onto the nearby park bench. You close your eyes, remembering the cool of your family’s apartment.

Somewhere in the distance, there’s the faint honking of cars in traffic. A nearby pigeon pecks at the ground near your feet before hopping away.

You blink through bleary eyes.

“Seul!”

Play.

“Took you long enough, unnie!” You groan playfully, forcing your eyes open and you watch her bike draw closer. “And you weren’t even walking.”

Joohyun chuckles, dismounting her bike and coming to stand in front of you. Sticking her hand out, she looks at you in a motion to help you up, but when you lazily make way to grasp it, she swiftly pulls away and lands a swift flick to your forehead.

You yelp and motion to hit her, but you’re Kang Seulgi, Awkward Eighteen-Year-Old Extraordinaire, and maybe you’ve got a slight soft spot for the girl laughing her heart out in front of you, so there’s not much that you can actually do but lean back onto the bench and smile.

A refreshing gust of wind blows by, and your heart tightens as the purple flowers on Joohyun’s one-piece dress whirl up in the breeze. She’s too beautiful for her own good.

“Get up, you lazy bear,” she says through giggles, and you nod hastily, all tiredness suddenly gone. You place a hand down on the arm of the bench to get up, only to whip your hand back a microsecond later to wince at the burning heat of the dark metal.

“Ouch,” you hiss in annoyance, only to warily glance at Joohyun’s hand, once again outstretched.

“Oh please!” Joohyun pouts, rolls her eyes like her life depends on it. “I won’t trick you again, promise! Now come on, Seul, I didn’t rent a two-seater bike for nothing! And you were the one who wanted to do this!”

Muttering playfully under your breath, you allow yourself to be tugged up.

“I see you got the purple helmet to match your purple dress,” you tease. You liking joking with Joohyun; she may be older than you, but you don’t really have any other options for potential victims other than Joohyun— most of your old trainee friends either debuted already or left SM Entertainment as a whole.

“Well it’s my favorite color for a reason,” she says to you with a lilt in her voice. You your head as she hands you the orange rental helmet she’s picked out for you. It hasn’t occurred to you until now that while Joohyun says for a reason quite often, you’ve never learned what exactly that reason is.

You shrug it off as you clamber onto the bike behind Joohyun, and off you go.

The remainder of August rolls by on the back of that two-seater bike with Joohyun, and you wish it would never end as the heat slowly but surely drifts out and the cooler air swings in to take its place.

--

Autumn comes, and you start noticing the light purple hoodie that Joohyun wears every other day.

“Why do you wear purple so much?” You finally ask her one day, as the two of you walk back to your shared dorm room. “You always say that there’s a reason why it’s your favorite color, but I’ve known you for three years and I still don’t know the reason.”

“Oh.” You don’t expect Joohyun to get quiet. “Um… well, it’s a long story.”

That makes you equally interested and cautious. Joohyun’s called you her best friend on many occasions, having sung and danced together for the past there years. But for her resurrect a wall that you’ve sworn you’d overcome so long ago?

So you let an indulgent grin take its place on your lips. Your hands go to your pockets, and you try to look as laid back and nonchalant as you can get. “We’ve got a while, unnie.”

Joohyun chuckles. “Okay, maybe not that long. Basically, back in the 11^th grade, there was this girl in the class next door. I don’t know what it was about her, but something just made me want to get to know her. You know me, Seul. I don’t really like borrowing clothes from people I don’t know, but this girl let me borrow her gym clothes, and she was so kind…

“Her favorite color was purple. At the time, I didn’t have a favorite color, so I decided that purple would be my favorite color too. So since then it’s…” Joohyun trails off. You try to keep your expression neutral, but it’s hard when you’ve been friends with Joohyun for the past three years, when you’ve learned to read her silence and delve between the lines. It’s hard when you realize the gravity that Joohyun means to you. “...It’s been a very special color to me.”

Sometimes, you wish you couldn’t read Joohyun so well, because now there’s this strange feeling in the pit of your stomach and you can’t put your finger on it.

--

To you, it seems like that one day was the start of it all, or perhaps a continuation of what had been put on pause? It’s unclear which is worse.

Regardless, you start to notice things more and more. Like the way Joohyun checks her phone far too often. Or the way she remains infatuated with the color purple.

One day during rehearsal, you have to shake Joohyun out of a reverie, the older girl staring at her phone with an unreadable expression.

And your world shifts, breaks with the rumble of an earthquake.

“Unnie? Did you hear me? I’m right here.” You don’t know much about the desperation seeping into your tone. “Unnie?”

It takes another moment of prodding for you to finally get a reaction, and Joohyun smiles apologetically at you, saying that she’d gotten a bit too lost in thought.

“My friend from high school – the one I told you about, remember – is getting her results back in order to become an air hostess today,” Joohyun explains as you make yourself comfortable, leaning against the mirrored-wall right next to her. Her phone is off, she taps the screen expectantly. Off, on. Off, on. “She promised me that I’d be the first person she’d text once she receives the email.”

“Wow,” you reply, not really knowing what else to say. “You two must be really close.” It’s a truth; you just hate acknowledging it. How can you compare with that? “I’m sure she’ll receive good results.”

“I know she will,” Joohyun says with a soft smile, the utmost confidence behind her conviction. Your heart throbs, wondering when the last time Joohyun’s ever been so confident like that around you. Your lives are filled with uncertainty— will I debut? Will I get cut? There’s hardly any room for one hundred percents, and here Joohyun is. “She’s a smart girl, she’ll be accepted for sure.”

You can’t help but notice her wistful tone, and you feel your insides get all tangled up; intestines and kidney all over the place and whatnot. You pretend that there’s nothing wrong.

“Why do you sound sad, unnie?” How can I fix you?

“Do I?” Joohyun chuckles. “I didn’t realize.”

Yes, you want to say. You do. You look tired, like you’ve spent your nights in your room staring up at the ceiling instead of sleeping.

You still look beautiful, you want to say.

“I guess I’m just feeling a little nostalgic,” Joohyun sighs. She looks exhausted, and you act like your heart doesn’t do little flipflops in place as she leans over to rest her head on your right shoulder. “Did you know that I also wanted to be an air hostess, Seul? We had wanted to do it together, so I used to attend classes with her. The plan was to travel around the world together.”

The tangled mess in your stomach tights, like the ends of the ropes have been found and they’re being tugged. The knot worsens, and you question whether you’ll ever manage to get yourself unwound. More questions, more uncertainty.

What’s it like, you silently ask Joohyun, wishing that she could hear your thoughts, to have that kind of one hundred percent? That one steady rock?

“Of course,” Joohyun continues with another chuckle, “that plan fell through the moment I got accepted into SM. Besides, I don’t know if I could’ve handled being up in the air for that long either.”

“So now you’re stuck here on the ground with me,” you say, trying for a joke, and you hope that Joohyun can’t read the conflict in your eyes, doesn’t notice the way your voice falters on the words with me. Is Joohyun really with you? You’re not too sure. Because while it sometimes feels like Joohyun’s dancing right next to you, other times, it feels like she’s dancing a dangerous duet with the past.

You just hope that you’re not the one keeping her chained down.

--

You feel as though something in you is missing the day you wake up on a Saturday morning to Joohyun having already left the dorm. The night before, Joohyun had spent hours in her room, staring at the many framed pictures on her desk in what can only be described as melancholic reverence. You’re not quite sure what to think of that.

You get a text from Joohyun around 10AM— she’s out with friends, one of which being a certain girl donning Joohyun’s favorite shade of purple. Of course she is.

Pouring yourself a glass of juice in the kitchen, you swallow down the ugly taste that rises from the back of your throat before telling Joohyun to have a good time and don’t come home too late (why you tell her this, you don’t know. Joohyun’s an adult, she can take care of herself. But perhaps you do it because you know it’s something that she would do, had it been you out with your childhood friends).

Thank goodness for Seungwan and Sooyoung’s new refreshing presences. They, along with Yerim, decide to drag you outside for fresh air.

Ten minutes into your walk, Yerim steers you all into a movie theater, and you blissfully forget about the lack of Joohyun for two hours and thirty minutes.

--

You always walk on Joohyun’s left. Joohyun always glances over her right shoulder.

--

You spend Christmas with your family in Seoul, Seungwan accompanying you because her family is back in Canada.

You steal away from Christmas dinner after getting a text from Joohyun, who’s spending her Christmas all the way back in Daegu. You’d been sad to see her off the morning prior, but it’s good to see that she’s having a good time.

Attached to the text is a picture of Joohyun in the midst of her friends and family, smack dab in the center of the photo. Your best friend wears a purple woolen hat. Then you notice the way her arms loop around the girl next to Joohyun, and you don’t even need to ask to know who it is.

You can tell just fine by the purple Christmas sweater the other girl dawns, as well as by the wide, beaming smile on Joohyun’s face.

You end up deleting the photo “by accident,” not that you ever end up telling Joohyun that. You just tell her that she looks beautiful, even amongst her admittedly beautiful group of acquaintances, and you wish her a Merry Christmas.

Upon returning to the dinner table, your mother pushes more food to your plate, but you politely decline, suddenly without appetite.

--

You don’t know when it happened, but suddenly it’s February 10^th and you’re turning nineteen-years-old.

Truth be told, you almost forget that it’s your birthday, sleeping through your alarm on a seemingly normal Sunday.

Normal, that is, until Yerim dashes into your room and tackles you on your bed, successfully waking you up with a shriek.

“Yerim!” You yelp as Yerim hugs you tight and doesn’t let go, and it’s not until you hear chiming laughter from the doorway of your bedroom that you realize that today might actually be something special (you should’ve known right away, really. Your fellow trainees hardly ever let you sleep in, even on the weekends).

“I thought I told you to let her sleep in for another thirty minutes,” Joohyun scolds Yerim playfully, a twinkle in her eyes. You perk up at her presence as the older girl draws near, sitting on the edge of your bed and patting your arm affectionately. You’re absolutely glowing at the affection. “We all know how our resident bear loves her sleep.”

“Sleep is for the weak!” Yerim chirps, and Joohyun stifles a giggle as you choke on your own shock.

“Yah!” You grunt, making way to swat at Yerim’s head. The middle schooler easily ducks out of the way. “Excuse you, sleep makes you grow! Who told you such lies?”

“Sooyoung-unnie!” Yerim says happily as she skips out towards the kitchen area, not caring for the ratting out of the second-youngest. “Happy birthday, Seulgi-unnie!”

“I think we might need to sit our maknaes down and have a talk,” Joohyun muses moving closer to you now that Yerim has left. You prop yourself up on an arm and motion for her to lie down, which she does with a smile. It’s not an unfamiliar position for you; Joohyun’s often snuck into your room during particularly noisy thunderstorms as well.

“Getting them to sit down for long enough might be our first problem,” you joke, and she laughs. Your smile quirks as you notice your orange sweater that Joohyun currently wears. “I see you went through my wardrobe.”

“It fit the occasion,” Joohyun defends herself, and you laugh. “Besides, you have more than enough orange or yellow sweaters.”

“I should buy you one sometime,” you comment. “So that you don’t have to keep on stealing mine.”

“What if I like yours?” Joohyun immediately asks, and you blink, surprised. You didn’t expect that one. “Yours are soft, and they smell nice.”

“I-I could give you it then?”

Joohyun pouts. “Then it wouldn’t smell like you anymore. Your sweaters smell nice because they smell like you.”

Your eyes widen and you gulp nervously. If Joohyun notices, she doesn’t say anything.

“Well, I guess you can keep borrowing them then,” you mumble shyly. The grin that overtakes Joohyun’s features is bright enough to overtake the sun.

“Thanks, Seul,” she says to you, and for some reason, the words feel weighty, like they mean more than what lies on the surface. You push it to the back of your mind. Maybe some other time. “Anyway, do want to get up now? I don’t think Seungwan’s done making the pancakes yet, since Yerim woke you up early.”

“Just lie here with me?” You ask hopefully. Joohyun smiles like you just handed her an early birthday present and relaxes, inching closer to you.

“Who am I to deny the birthday girl?”

You spend the rest of your birthday with your friends, walking around Seoul, doing some shopping and going ice skating— you’re so very glad that your birthday fell on a Sunday this year.

Joohyun links her arm with yours throughout the entire outing, only looking at her phone to check the time every hour or so before returning her attention back to you.

When it’s time to blow out your candles, you almost wish, selfishly, that things would stay this way. Because then, maybe your stomach would stop dropping every time Joohyun checks her phone. Maybe you’d stop avoiding the color purple on every occasion. Maybe Joohyun would actually see you more.

But you can’t do that. Not to Joohyun, not even to her friend. So you blow out the candles and wish for those new sneakers you saw on display the other day.

But for a single day, it felt like she was yours.

(The next day, you wake up to Joohyun animatedly talking with her friend on the phone. Something tells you that a wish on some candles wouldn’t have been enough to grab Joohyun’s attention anyways.)

(Joohyun keeps glancing over her right shoulder for someone she will not find there).

--

March rolls around faster than you can anticipate, and then you’re realizing that it’s only three weeks to Joohyun’s birthday, and you still have no idea what to get her.

Your fellow trainee friends are of virtually no help either— Seungwan’s simply baking Joohyun some of Joohyun’s favorite strawberry cheesecake, lacking more ideas herself. Meanwhile, Yerim had already called giving the obvious gift of expensive stationary material (it’s a well-known that Joohyun loves journaling). On the other hand, it’s Sooyoung who declares that she’s going to get Joohyun Downy Fabric Softener, and you’re forbidden from taking it.

“Honestly though,” Sooyoung adds, “It’s not that hard to get Joohyun-unnie a present, Seulgi-unnie. Just get her anything purple and she’ll love you for the rest of her life.”

Yeah, I know, you think to yourself sullenly, mind drifting to The Girl in Purple, standing next to Joohyun in that purple Christmas sweater. Certainly, Joohyun’s mind has been on That Girl ever since they’d first met in the 11th grade.

You don’t say that out loud though.

“I’ll probably do that,” is what you say instead, although the words taste bitter against your own tongue and you immediately wish you could take them back, maybe even wash the aftertaste away with Joohyun’s favorite strawberry latte that she orders from SM’s cafe every so often.

What other choice do you have?

--

You frown, scanning the aisles of the All in Bloom flower shop. How can this be? All around you, there are flowers of the whole rainbow. Beautiful hues of reds, blues, yellows, oranges litter every row of green; all except—

“Excuse me?” You ask a young lady working tending to a few petunias. Upon being called, the worker turns around and smiles at you, a kind how can I help you? expression. “Do you happen to have any purple flowers? I can’t seem to find any in the aisles.”

“Ah, I’m sorry,” the smile turns apologetic, and you can feel your somewhat hopeful spirits start to lower, like you’re being cranked down by chains into a pit. “Almost all of our purple flowers have been sold out as decorations for a wedding reception this weekend— we do flower catering.” She pauses, turning around to seemingly scan the shop briefly. “All we have left are hyacinths, and I’m not sure how much you’d want those.”

But you push on, shaking your head and insisting on asking about the flowers. You listen half-heartedly as the young woman informs you about how flowers each have their own meaning, and even through you murky, muddled thoughts, you notice the way she beats around the bush— you didn’t need her to explain the meaning of red roses, you could have inferred the meaning yourself. It’s halfway through her explanations on the different colors of tulips when you finally manage to politely chime in on what purple hyacinths mean.

A minute later, you feel like laughing out loud. Maybe you’re thinking too much into this, but it’s honestly too funny, as you feel yourself get slapped in the face of reality. Is the age of eighteen still too young to feel this kind of ache in your chest? Like someone has wrapped a coil around your heart and is just squeezing, constricting.

“They’re perfect.” Your voice nearly breaks by the word perfect. You think it’s ironic. “I’ll take a bouquet of them.”

--

You walk out of All in Bloom playing absently with the petals of one of the hyacinth flowers, the velvety feeling of the blossoms pressing and releasing between the tips of her thumb and index finger.

As you place them in a vase in the corner of your desk, you wonder if these will finally catch her attention (as well as pray that Joohyun doesn’t randomly enter your and Sooyoung’s shared room).

--

Joohyun takes a day of leave from training one day, saying that her friend is going on her very first flight as an air hostess today, and Joohyun had been asked there at the sendoff with their other friends from Daegu.

You’re already expecting another text from Joohyun with a picture like the Christmas one you received. Without a doubt, Joohyun is definitely going to be beside a newcomer air hostess with a purple ribbon around her neck, and you already know that Joohyun’s wearing her favorite purple blouse— you saw her getting ready this morning.

On the other hand, you head to the SM building after school with Seungwan, Sooyoung, and Yerim, and your day carries out like usual.

It’s 7:30PM and your dance instructor turns off the music. You breathe heavily and nod as he praises you for your precision today, and the second he leaves the room, you finally allow yourself to collapse against a nearby wall. You tip your head back, staring up at the lights.

It’s been a while since you’ve been exhausted like this. It’s just you today.

You check the clock. You could go home right now.

There’s the brief thought of maybe working on that dance that you and Joohyun started choreographing the other day, but Joohyun’s not here, and it’s not the same.

So with a sigh, you throw your hoodie over your shoulder and head over to the locker rooms, stopping by the vocal training rooms to tell Seungwan that you’re turning in early.

(It’s the first time in three years, since Joohyun first arrived, that you’ve left the SM building before 8PM, but Seungwan doesn’t need to know that.)

(The thing is, though, that Yerim does know, having been around since 2010. She looks at you in concern as you pass her in the hall, but a moment later, she grabs your arm and drops a bag of gummy bears into your hands.

“Eat them on the walk back, unnie,” Yerim tell you, completely serious. You smile and ruffle her hair.

“I will. Thank you, Yerim-ie.”)

--

You think you’re going insane, lying down on your bed in the dark. It’s not even that late yet, only 8:30PM. Normally, you’d be over at SM dancing your heart out for another few hours, but you don’t feel like dancing today; your mind restless but your body wanting rest.

With a groan, you force yourself into a sitting position, pulling your laptop over from where it rests at the edge of your bed. You twiddle your fingers as it powers on, and you squint and shield your eyes at the sudden bright light that powers through the dark room.

You click open a browser, and for a moment, you throw your head back at look up, past your dormitory building and up to the sky.

Are you really about to do this?

“You probably look pretty pathetic right now, Kang Seulgi,” you chuckle to yourself, more annoyed that you’ve actually gotten to this point than anything.

You end up typing, “How to get over a crush” into the Google search bar nevertheless, clicking on the first thing that pops up.

Easiest Ways to Get Over a Crush—

Step 1: Find people who know what you’re feeling.

You scoff. Yeah, that’s kind of out of the question.

More scrolling.

Step 4: Acknowledge defeat.

You bark out a laugh, hitting the page down key. Well that’s something you’ve already done, thank goodness.

Step 10: Make a list of bad things about your crush.

You raise eyebrow. Excuse me? That seems a bit mean, not that you’d be able to write any bad things about Joohyun anyway.

For a moment, you actually pick up the pad of paper and pencil sitting innocently on your side table. You pause for a moment, thinking of what you could possibly write about someone as perfect as Joohyun. You manage to scribble down, so pretty that it’s infuriating before you realize that this activity is as counterintuitive as things get, and you toss the attempt away to the corner of your room.

You groan, muffling the noise into your pillow.

Yeah, in conclusion, you’re hopeless.

--

You can’t help but question how what has already started out as a steep downhill slope can manage to get even steeper in such a short period of time.

“Seulgi?” Joohyun steps into the kitchen one night, as you’re nursing a mug of hot chocolate.

So that’s how it can get worse.

“Can I ask you about something?”

“Sure thing,” you say, following the older girl back into her room. Oh no, she probably found your search history.

“I saw these flowers in your room.”

Oh, so not your search history. Thank god. You prepare your answer of, I saw the pretty purple flowers, and I thought of you, which isn’t false per say, but—

“These are purple hyacinths, right? I looked up their meaning, and they’re apology flowers. Seulgi, are you okay?”

Shoot. No, never mind. You gulp. This is worse. Much worse. You’d readily hand over your laptop on a silver platter if it meant being able to avoid this confrontation. At least if it was your search history, you could’ve passed it off as some new drama fascination or whatever.

“I’m fine,” you try to laugh, the intended lighthearted noise coming out forced and grating against even your own ears.

Joohyun looks at you in concern, “Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

She bites her lip, as though she’s unsure of whether to push on or not.

You don’t know where the surge of courage comes from. You open your mouth to make the decision for her when—

Her phone dings, and perhaps the boulder rolling down the hill suddenly falls into the abyss.

Joohyun immediately picks up the device, in its lavender purple phone case, and begins typing, small smile on her lips. You don’t realize that you’ve started trembling until after she’s sent back a message.

“Why don’t you look at me?” Your voice shakes from the weight of your own words. The world stops turning, time stops, and you’re frozen. Your hands clench into fists at your sides, your fingernails digging into the skin of your palms and leaving crescent moon imprints in their wake.

Meanwhile, Joohyun stares at you like something alien just left your mouth— and perhaps that’s not completely wrong. You’ve never said anything like this before, never given her the warning. You’ve never complained to Joohyun about Joohyun before. Because until now, Joohyun has always been perfect in your eyes. Because until now, you thought that you were meant to shoulder the hurt and the pain.

She places her phone back down.

“Seulgi, what are you talking about—”

You cut her off with a knife-edged sharpness. “You keep looking at your phone, or at the pictures on your desk, but you never look at me.”

“Seul—”

“You keep looking back! Looking into the past!” Your voice rises in volume, and you hear the trembling, the rawness. You wonder if Joohyun can hear it— your open, chafing heart that you’re laying bare, out in the open for the very first time. And it’s throbbing, aching and bleeding, and you fleetingly ponder how it looks to Joohyun, who has seen you at your best, and now, what may be a new record for the worst.

“You keep looking over your right shoulder as if you expect someone to be there!” Your voice rises to a shout, and Joohyun does nothing but look at you with tears in her eyes, shaking her head silently but no words leaving her slightly parted lips. “As if there should be someone there!”

“But I’m right here!” You finally yell, eyes wide, pleading, begging. It’s then that you realize you’re crying, as one of your tears make contact with the wooden floor beneath with a quiet patter. The sound resonates through your otherwise empty dorm room, and Joohyun stares back, stunned. “I’ve always been right here.”

And you let yourself die down, suddenly feeling tired, like you’d just crossed mountains in order to get to this point, only to find yourself staring at a stormy sea, and you’re afraid to jump into that large, deep, scary expanse.

“If only you just looked over your left shoulder,” you whisper, but Joohyun flinches like you’d just screamed. It hurts; she’s making the same scared expression that you’ve seen when there’s a thunderstorm outside and she has to run to your bed for comfort. Except this time, there’s no tucking Joohyun into your arms and telling her that everything will be okay, probably because you don’t know that for sure, and because maybe, for once in your life, you don’t want just okay.

“I never,” Joohyun shakes her head, bottom lip trembling. “I— oh god, Seul, I never knew you felt that way, I—”

She inhales helplessly, words failing.

And then—

“Did you love her?” You ask lowly, about The Girl in Purple whose name you don’t even know; whose name you don’t even want to know.

Joohyun’s silence speaks volumes; maybe even an entire novel series. You should’ve prepared yourself, but something tells you that nothing could have prepared you for the weight that slams down on your chest at Joohyun’s small, resolute nod.

Just like that, the wind is knocked out of you. You can’t breathe; it’s like you’re in a vacuum and all the air has been out. The walls are closing in, and all of a sudden, you feel small— so, so small.

You can’t stay here.

So you run.

You hear Joohyun yelling your name but you don’t even register it as you whip open the door to your dormitory and tear down the hallways, down the stairs, and into the street. You run a few blocks down and don’t look back.

--

You stay in f(x)’s dormitory that night— you’re still really close friends with Soojung and Jinri. You only have to ring the doorbell once for Jinri to open it, having seen you in the CCTV. The taller girl takes in your ragged appearance and bloodshot eyes before immediately calling for Soojung.

Your own heartbreak is reflected back at you in Soojung’s eyes, and she pulls you into her arms, where you quietly cry into her shoulder. She brings you to her bed, where she squeezes your waist as Jinri rubs circles into your back, both of your same-aged friends whispering comforting words into your ears.

“It’ll be okay, Seul. You know how much Joohyun-unnie cares for you.”

But does she love me?

“Give it time. She’ll come around. She can’t be without you.”

Could she ever love me the way I love her?

Somehow, it feels like you’re thirteen-years-old again, when you first roomed with Soojung and Jinri and they held you to sleep after you’d whispered that you missed your family.

Somehow, it feels like tonight isn’t that different.

--

You don’t know why you chose to go in for training the next day. You feel awful, you had minimal sleep, and Soojung had tried to convince you to call in sick. It’s not until you’re halfway through your walk to the SM building that you start regretting your decision, and you mutter curses to your work ethic under your breath.

(You’ve also been dreading having to see Joohyun after your little blowout from the night before.)

Thankfully, it appears that Joohyun had decided to stay in the dorms today, and you discreetly sigh in relief when Seungwan tells you.

“She said she was feeling ill… Something about a headache?” Seungwan explains, concern etched onto her face, furrowed in her brow. You bite your lip, feeling slightly guilty. You’d probably been too loud. You probably shouldn’t have yelled at her— it’s a known fact that Joohyun is afraid of loud noises, and you’d often been the one to shield her away from such scares.

Your stomach churns as you realize that while last night has changed plenty, some things remain the same. You should have known that you’d always put Joohyun first and foremost— you’ve spent the past 3 years putting her first, and that’s not going to change any time soon.

But still, if Joohyun isn’t here right now, well—

Maybe today will be okay.

--

It all crashes and burns by 8PM.

Because 8PM is their time. It’s Seulgi and Joohyun time, when the two of you usually dance together for the next two hours, improving your technique, perfecting your accuracy, and even goofing off and just being Seulgi and Joohyun.

It’s been like that for the past three years.

You should’ve known that SM isn’t SM without Joohyun. You love Seungwan, Sooyoung, and Yerim deeply, but Joohyun as a presence itself is just something necessary, and that “something necessary” is not there.

“Something I need,” you mutter to yourself, and it echoes through the empty practice room, the words bouncing off the mirrored walls and throwing themselves at you. The barraged you right through the chest, and that clenching feeling is back; the tightening coil around your heart is back.

Your vision is blurry, you can’t even see. There might be something clogged in your ears, because you don’t even acknowledge the music to the song that you’d started choreographing a routine for last – with Joohyun, of course – blaring through the practice room.

You’ve got something I need

In this world full of people, there’s one killing me

And if we only die once

I wanna die with you

“!” You grunt, dropping your iPod and pounding a fist onto the wooden floor. “!”

You stay in that crouching position for who-knows-how long, shaking, sobbing, and you must’ve been making quite a noise. Because somehow, Seungwan, Sooyoung, and Yerim manage to find you in your vulnerable state, and they barge through the door and surround you, their hands automatically coming to caress and embrace you.

“Seulgi,” Seungwan murmurs, wiping at your tears with the pads of her thumb. She smooths out your creased forehead with the other hand. “Seulgi, why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,” you blubber through tears, even worse than last night when you were crying into Soojung. “I don’t know.” You’ve never felt more pathetic, more hopeless. “I don’t know.”

“Seulgi-unnie,” it’s Yerim’s turn to ask now, her own voice shaking and scared, because she’s never seen her unnie like this, never seen you falter in front of her, not once. And here you are, completely broken and in pieces.

“Are you alright?” She asks as if she knows she’s asking you a question she already knows the answer to. She just doesn’t know what else she can say.

“I don’t know.” You also don’t know what else to say.

--

Much to your surprise, it’s Sooyoung who volunteers to bring you back to the dorm while Seungwan and Yerim stay back to talk to some of the staff.

The next thing you know, you’re crammed into the back of a taxi, smushed against Sooyoung's side even though there's plenty of space for you to distance yourself. Sooyoung doesn't allow you to move away, only presses you closer to her, rubs circles into your arm.

You close your eyes and fall asleep into Sooyoung’s comforting touch.

--

“Fix her,” Sooyoung demands, shoving you through the dormitory door and into Joohyun’s arms. “You’re the reason why she’s like this, right? Seungwan, Yerim, and I are staying at f(x)-sunbaenim's dorms tonight, so please, just fix her, unnie.”

--

You finally come to your senses, and you quickly push yourself away from the older girl.

“I’m sorry about this,” you mutter, trying to create as much distance as possible as you back away. “I’m really sorry about this, unnie.”

Joohyun’s bottom lip trembles and she looks like she wants to cry. You don’t want to be around for that, don’t think your heart can take seeing something like that.

“Seulgi—”

“I don’t want to cause you any trouble, unnie—”

“Seulgi, please listen to me—”

“I’ll just head over to my room now—” You turn on your tail to run.

“Kang Seulgi, stop right there!”

You’re turning the handle to your room, shaking your head. You can’t do this— not now, not ever. You ask yourself if you’ll ever be able to move on, if you’ll ever be able to debut with this on your chest. Oh, but you don’t want Joohyun to leave, not after she’s worked so hard. Maybe, just maybe, it should be your turn. Just like all the rest that had tried and failed, like all the others you’ve seen come and go—

“Kang Seulgi, I see you!” Joohyun shouts, and that gets your attention.

Slowly, you turn around, only to find Joohyun with her shoulders squared, her eyes shining with unshed tears as she looks at you as though she has the intent of restoring meaning to your life. (You’ve come so far, dealt with so much, and here you are, still trying to feel some semblance of hope).

“I see you,” Joohyun repeats, softer now, but with more conviction. She takes a step closer, and this isn’t going according to plan. You should’ve taken a step back, should’ve proven that you’re still something even without Joohyun. What you do is the exact opposite, letting out a weak whimper as she draws near.

“I’ve always seen you,” the older girl says, and it’s like the tables have turned. Was this the same girl who said close to nothing last night? Why are you speechless? “I’ve seen you since 2009, Seulgi! The only reason why I couldn’t say anything last night was because I was in so much shock that you couldn’t see how much I look at you.

“All this time,” she shakes her head, in a breath. “I thought you knew. I thought you— Seul, do you know what I see in you? I see my present, and I see my future. Seul, I don’t have to look over my left shoulder for you when – as you said yourself – you’re right there, tangible, obtainable, beautiful, and right beside me.”

Her eyes turn sad as she reaches out for you, pulls you in close. This time, in your stunned silence, you allow her to rest her head against yours, and she closes your eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Joohyun whispers, and you’re so close to her that you can feel her breath on your lips. “I’m so, so sorry, Seulgi. You didn’t allow me to finish last night. I did love her— wait,” she doesn’t let you leave as you jolt as if you’d been electrocuted. “I did fall in love with her, Seul, but she’s my past. The moment I entered SM, I knew that I could never be with her— I knew that our paths would diverge too much. So I let her go and moved on.”

“I’m sorry I’m not purple,” is all you say, and your voice cracks.

“Oh, Seulgi!” Joohyun cries, and she cups your cheek and presses a kiss on your nose. You try to ignore the warmth that floods throughout your body at the small amount of contact alone. “Oh, Seulgi! You don’t need to be purple for me to love you! There are so many other things I love about you! Your smile, your hugs, your warmth, your eyes, and more! I could go on for days, Kang Seulgi! And your orange— it’s so beautiful. You are so beautiful, Kang Seulgi. And you don't have to be anyone else for me to love you. I love you, Kang Seulgi. I’m just sorry that I haven’t been properly showing it, and that’s all my fault."

You gulp, ears straining to hear those words again, as if those three words I love you linger in the air, and if you listen hard enough, you can hear them echoing throughout this space, yours and Joohyun.

"...You love me?" You ask shyly, hesitantly. You can't believe it, that Joohyun could possibly love someone like you. She pulls back to release a wet laugh, the melodious noise permeating and swirling around the two of you, and you whine through your teeth because you don't want to lose contact. "Unnie, I'm serious!"

“I am too,” Joohyun says, closing the distance and hugging you so tight you think you’ll mold together. It feels right, like she’s been made specifically for you. “I really am serious, Seul. I love you. And from now on, I’ll do everything I can to show it. I nearly lost you yesterday. I’m not letting that happen ever again.”

You close your eyes to stop even more tears of happiness from falling, bury your face into her shoulder, and she peppers kisses all over your cheek.

“I love you too, Joohyun-unnie. And I’m going to show you too.”

--

An hour later, and you’re on the couch, a movie playing on the TV, though neither of you are really listening, too engrossed in each other to truly pay attention.

“Looks like I have to find a new birthday present for you now,” you joke as Joohyun rests her head on your right shoulder, and you laugh as she exclaims so those flowers were for me! I knew it! “I’m going to throw out those hyacinths first thing in the morning, maybe even ditch the whole flower concept in general. It’s too cold outside, anyway—”

“I want orange flowers,” Joohyun interrupts. She doesn’t look up at you, just down at your intertwined hands, and you feel The Galaxy expanding in your chest, those four words enough to rearrange the entire line-up of planets.

Have my whole heart, you had told her last night, handing her something bleeding, broken, raw. Do what you want with it. I don’t want it anymore.

But I want you, she had said tonight instead, pressing it back into your hands, but not removing her own. So we’ll take care of it together, okay?

And she had cradled your heart in her arms, pressing herself into the warmth of your body, and you’d encircled your arms around her waist and taken her in.

“Okay,” you say with a smile. “The calendar says it’s spring, but the weather outside says otherwise. Regardless, I think I can do that.”

“So orange flowers?”

“Anything for you.” You mean it.

“Great!” Joohyun beams up at you, and you think that she looks more beautiful than usual today, even while underneath the white lights of their dormitory, even while she’s lacking in sleep and you’re so sure that you’re a Total Mess, but Joohyun looks like she came out of a GQ Korea magazine, with her tussled hair and doe eyes.

“We’ll make our own spring,” she says. “No matter the weather.”

--

“You’re back!” The young woman exclaims jovially from behind the counter as you walk into All in Bloom, still clad in your school uniform. She welcomes you like she’s been expecting you, her twinkling eyes keen with amusement as you bite your lip to hide a smile.

“I get the feeling you knew I would be back,” you say, rubbing the back of your head with an uplift of your shoulders. “You also gave me All in Bloom’s business card with the opening and closing hours on it last time I was here.”

“Well,” the woman chuckles and winks at you. “We’ll just say that those who leave this place with purple hyacinths more often than not end up coming back here a few days later.”

You gape.

“So!” She continues cheerily, steps out from behind the cash register. You’re alone with her in the shop, yet you somehow find yourself embarrassed at the grand gestures she makes, motioning to all the flowers surrounding you. “What can I help you with today? We’ve restocked on purple flowers, if you’re still looking for something up that alley.”

You try to hide your grimace at the mention of the color, but you fail, obviously. The young woman smirks, and you cough into your fist.

“Yeah, nothing purple,” you say sheepishly. “At least not any time soon.”

A wider smirk. “I figured.”

“I was actually looking for some orange flowers, possibly with a more hopeful message behind them?”

“I’ve got just the thing for you.”

--

The walk to the SM building the next day consists of Joohyun, donning your favorite yellow oversized sweater, clinging to your arm the whole time. She pouts when you have to separate for your different lessons, but she squeezes your hand and makes you promise to meet you after practice so she can take you out to dinner.

“It’s your birthday soon,” you tell her hours later, as you walk arm-in-arm to your favorite sushi restaurant. “Shouldn’t I be the one treating you?”

“It’s not my birthday yet,” she laughs, reaching over to tussle your hair. “Plus, I’m your unnie, and since we’re doing this, I’m going to do this right.”

--

Joohyun gets a call halfway through dinner, and you notice how she hesitates, hand hovering over her phone, conflicted. She briefly glances up at you before appearing to make up her mind. She sets her hand down and lets the call continue to ring, though she turns the volume down to vibrate.

You roll your eyes, smiling softly at her. This unnie...

“Aren’t you going to pick it up?” You ask, tilting your head and pointing your chopsticks towards the vibrating phone. “It could be something important.”

“I—” Joohyun frowns, brow furrowing. She taps the table anxiously, and you sigh dramatically. Standing up, you reach over the table, stilling the tapping hand with your left, and swiping at the answer button with your right.

You pick up the phone with a steady hand, press it up to Joohyun’s ear.

“Tell her I say hi?” You offer with a giggle that for once, isn’t forced. Your chest feels lighter at the surprise that washes over Joohyun’s face. It doesn’t feel bad, you figure. After all, even if you and Joohyun are Whatever This Is, it’s not like you’re not allowed to have other friends. Joohyun has already picked you, and you’re not allowing yourself to stay as the jealous maybe-girlfriend.

And it turns out to be funny, to watch Joohyun answer the phone with that annoyed voice that you rarely get to hear.

“Yah, what do you want?!” Joohyun finally answers her friend, rolls her eyes, but you know she’s only being playful. She winks at you and you laugh. “Yes, you interrupted something! I’m on a date, pabo. I—” You raise an eyebrow at the way the older girl’s face gets red. “Yeah, it’s with the girl I— what do you mean finally?! I do not— okay, maybe I talk about her too much, but that’s beside the point!”

Laughter bubbles from your lips, spilling over the brim and Joohyun pouts, deftly picking up a piece of sushi with her chopsticks and shoving it into your mouth.

--

On March 29, 2013, you present Joohyun with a bouquet of orange flowers after training, in front of a practice room full of trainees who cheer and whoop after the older girl blows out the candles atop of the strawberry cheesecake Seungwan had baked a few days prior.

Just by their teasing gazes, you can already tell that everyone knows – as in, all of them, male and female trainees alike – especially as Joohyun pulls you into the right-most corner of the room, right next to where you’ve put your water bottle besides hers, and the other occupants pointedly turn away to socialize with each other above the blaring party music.

“Thank you,” Joohyun whispers low into your ear, and you feel shivers run down your spine. She holds the flowers delicately in her arms, but that doesn’t stop her from drawing into your space, as close as she can get without crushing the marigold blossoms. “This means everything to me, Seul. You mean everything.”

“My world,” she whispers as she pulls you down by the nape of your neck, steady like the earth, breathes you in like the atmosphere, eyelashes soft against your cheeks like the clouds, twists her fingers into your orange-and-white woolen sweater like you are her sun.

You kiss her like she is the sky you’re seeing after being in the dark for days, and it tastes like a sunrise.

--

I kissed a purple butterfly on my right shoulder in the corner of this room.

--

Things start buzzing when there’s talk at SM Entertainment about your potential debut— what’s better? You’re debuting with your family.

“It feels like the beginning of something,” Seungwan mentions after your final evaluation and you all sit, panting, in the practice room that’s become much too familiar over your trainee period. “Ever since that meeting where they called us down to the offices, I feel like I have to stand up straighter or something.”

“I’m sorry, you just said the word straighter,” Sooyoung says from where she’s laying down next to the air conditioner, “and that makes everything else you should said invalid.”

Yerim cackles and high-fives the older girl while Joohyun barks out a laugh and you snort.

“They mentioned something about assigning colors to us,” you remark a moment later, after you’ve calmed down. “Does anyone have any preferences?”

“Not really,” Sooyoung says with a shrug. “So long as they can come up with a justification for them all. You’re probably going to be yellow or orange, Seulgi-unnie.”

You crack a grin at that. “You think?”

“It’s all you wear,” Seungwan deadpans, and you throw your shoe at her.

“I want the color pink,” Joohyun suddenly says, and right then, all attention is on her as four other mouths gape at her.

“Did I just hear that right?” Sooyoung asks quietly. “Did Joohyun-unnie just relinquish her stronghold on the color purple?”

“I think I might still be a bit dazed,” Seungwan agrees.

“If you get pink, then I want purple,” Yerim challenges. No one is expecting the blasé way Joohyun nods, a firm smirk on her lips.

“Go right ahead, Yerim.”

“Wait, now I want purple,” Sooyoung interjects, and Yerim yelps, lunging towards the slightly older girl in an attempt to lock her in a chokehold.

“No way! It’s mine!”

“We’re not even assigning our own colors, it’s the company,” Seungwan tries to reason helplessly, verbally diving into the middle of the fray.

Meanwhile, you turn to your girlfriend, surprise still visibly all over your expression.

“Hyun, are you sure? Where did this come from?”

Joohyun laughs, settling down in your arms and resting her head on your chest.

“It’s simple, Seul. If you are orange, then I wish to be the pink in your sunset.”

 

End.

A/N: Hiya hummingbirds! I hope you enjoyed this fic for Irene's birthday! Fun fact! The flower shop that Seulgi visits, called All in Bloom, is a shout out to the wonderful smiley-seulgi’s fic, Bloom and Grow! It’s an amazing fic and one of my favorite ongoing right now, and you all should totally go and read it! Thank you~