In which Dahyun tries, but she doesn't know if she's doing it right.

Meaning: She just has to go for it.

Love of my life, you've hurt me

You've broken my heart and now you leave me

Love of my life, can't you see?

Bring it back, bring it back

Don't take it away from me, because you don't know

What it means to me

The phone rings.

Dahyun glances at the table, taking a few seconds to think, before she turns her head and ignores the ringing. It's annoying, way too annoying. She knows who's calling, and she doesn't even want to think of answering it, because then it would mean she's giving in, and she’ll always give in to her.

But it keeps ringing and Dahyun takes the initiative to turn it off, throwing it back on the table with a few thuds after she's done.

Good.

But she hears the knocks on the door.

//

(There are red streaks upon the table, remnants of the spaghetti sauce Dahyun managed to spill when she got scared just a few moments ago. The waiters come, equipped with mops and new coverings for the table, and Dahyun shoots them apologetic looks which are only met with tiredness, as if they've been dealing with this the whole day and couldn't give a anymore.

“Don't worry about it.” A hand covers her own and Dahyun instantly relaxes. Jihyo always had this effect on her, for some odd reason. Maybe it's her voice, velvety, a sort of sedative mixed with her words. Dahyun chooses to ignore it (it doesn't work).

It was a text, one she got from the roof when she was with Sana, and they agreed to meet up the next day for dinner, a sort of preliminary scan to see if they're right for each other. A first date; Jihyo called it a first date. Dahyun thinks otherwise, but she doesn't correct her (maybe it is, she thinks).

“Sorry, I've been clumsy lately. I think I'm getting it from somebody,” Dahyun replies, taking her other hand and covering Jihyo’s. Then Jihyo smiles and Dahyun has second thoughts.

It's Sana, that brown-haired brunette that put her number in, that brunette who just smiles like the world doesn't owe her anything but she does it anyway for the good of it. Because that's exactly it, Sana’s smile is good, too good. Anyone with eyes could see, probably even Mina would ing drop her pants when she sees Sana’s smile.

Mina. Dahyun frowns at the thought, then her mind wanders to Chaeyoung, and it becomes too much.

“Hey, are you okay?” Jihyo worries, then she takes Dahyun’s hand in hers, squeezing it for comfort, filling Dahyun with warmth she's never felt in such a long while (not counting Momo’s homemade meal last night or Sana’s bright smile).

“Yeah yeah, just thinking.”

“What are you thinking about?” Jihyo asks and Dahyun stares into those eyes, those big pools of brown that she could get lost in for forever. She finds only worry and care, and Dahyun doesn't have the heart in her to deny such a request. What is happening to her?

“My ex. We just-uhh-we broke up recently. I was just reminded of something.”

Jihyo frowns in response, but she doesn't break her hold on Dahyun’s hand, instead squeezing it tighter. She shifts in her seat, as if second guessing in asking Dahyun to dinner, but she settles soon enough, planting herself, seemingly made her decision.

Jihyo’s staying (Good).

“Is she…”

“Here still? Her stuff’s still at home. Honestly, I don't know when she’ll come get them. I don't even think she even cares if she gets them. Her girlfriend would…” No. She can't dwell on them any further. She's strong, so much so that a break up is light. All the drinking and the crying has been done. This is the moment to rise again, find herself again, learn how to live a life without Mina. Mina isn't going to consume her, nor is Chaeyoung.

She grits her teeth and her eyes steel.

“Her girlfriend? You mean-”

“She cheated?” Dahyun nods solemnly. “Yeah, with my best friend too. Well, my former best friend. I should've seen it coming. The signs were right in front of me.”

“Tell me.” Jihyo leans forward, inching closer like a seductress. It's tempting for Dahyun to just catch those luscious lips with hers, but she refrains. They barely know each other. Maybe later.

She hasn't noticed that she's been staring at those lips for far too long, and she gets jolted out of her daze by a light chuckle.

Jihyo. She's chuckling, amused. She thumbs over the back of Dahyun’s hand, a motion that calms the heartbroken girl just a little. Maybe not alleviating all the stress, but at least some. Then she speaks.

“You're so distracted. Maybe if you spent less time eyeing my lips then maybe you wouldn't be knocking over plates of spaghetti.”

Dahyun turns a deep shade of red, the blush spreading throughout her cheeks so much that she looks like a tomato. Her eyes become fidgety, focusing on useless things like how the waiters look at her with so much disdain or how the purse Jihyo is carrying seems to be from Gucci. They focus on a million different things, but they all settle into one when Jihyo says…

“Look at me.”

Dahyun looks and sees Jihyo’s calming face sporting a fond smile.

And Dahyun relaxes.

Jihyo always makes her relax.)

//

Had Dahyun always been this smart? She always asks herself if she’s some sort of relative to Einstein or something, because really, she is so damn smart. That was sarcastic. Very much so. She isn’t smart, far from it. She’s so dumb that jumping out from a three story apartment was such a good idea. She’s so dumb that she thought she wouldn’t get that hurt from it. She’s so dumb that she’s not even gonna call for an ambulance because she’s sure her collar bone is pretty much shattered.

She’s so dumb.

Dahyun glances back, eyeing her open window, the curtains swaying wildly from the wind. She turns and focuses her attention back to the road, the eyes of curious pedestrians judging her crooked walk or her pained grimace whenever her feet hits the ground too hard. It’s not until she rounds the corner that a bout of reality hits her.

She’s running away...again, from her problems, from the pain. Instead of confronting it, she’s here, with a broken collarbone and her pride lost, in a sidewalk that seems too small for two people.

“This sidewalk is way too small for two people.”  She remembers.

//

(The first date with Sana is far less than grand, but Sana doesn’t seem to mind. She seems to thrive on this sort of casualness. She must be used to it, Dahyun surmises. Not everyone in this neighborhood must be rolling in the dough. It’s not all that bad. When you’re on the bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up. Somehow Dahyun holds on to that with all her heart and she won’t forget it. Maybe one day she’ll take Sana to a better place, maybe in a car or something, but a café and a ride on the bus would have to do this time.

There's something she likes about being poor. Well, she's not poor, but certainly not rich either. She's somewhere in between, in limbo between comfort and pain. She's not sure she'd like to be in either; she wants some goal to shoot for, something to keep her going. Because when you already have everything, what else would you need?

Sana seems to have a clue.

“Don't blame Mina. She's in love,” Sana says, a hint of a smile on her face as she looks out the window. Just five more minutes, maybe four now, until they're at the café, one where Dahyun used to frequent in her University days. For nostalgia’s sake she reasoned and Sana didn't have any complaints.

Dahyun frowns, doing a once over Sana's side profile, eyeing that prominent nose and that jawline that could probably cut her with a touch, then she pans over to the lips and that's when she stops.

She has got to stop eyeing the lips.

“I don't think I can. It was her choice.”

Dahyun freezes when Sana turns, a glower on her face as her body leans over, resting when she meets Dahyun’s smaller frame. They snuggle close, like they're already a couple, and Dahyun tenses up, her heart pounding so loud Sana could probably feel it. Even if Sana does feel it, she makes no show of it, but a slight smirk on her face tells Dahyun she does feel it, and she's left red again, almost as red as the spaghetti sauce she spilled the other day.

“She's in love. People do stupid things when they are. Love is one of the things you can't get with money.”

Dahyun sighs. She doesn’t like talking about Mina nor think about her. She’s tired; she’s done. She wants to forget about her already. Strip away the good times and it’ll be easier. Strip away Chaeyoung’s face whenever they visited her penthouse and it’ll be easier. Strip it all away and it’ll just be a gap in her memories. Dahyun doesn’t think they would care if she leaves.

“Do you think she was in love with me?”

“Perhaps, but some people find themselves out of it. The heart-” Sana points at Dahyun’s chest. “-is very fickle. Feelings change, sometimes we don’t even notice it.”

“Is your heart fickle?” Dahyun questions, resting her chin at the crown of Sana’s head. It takes a second and she expects an answer but it doesn’t come. Dahyun knows why.

She’s always been…

“This is our stop,” Sana says, quickly hopping off Dahyun’s embrace. She makes her way to the exit before she turns back to Dahyun. “Come on. Try for me.”)

//

As Dahyun said before, there are two people in this world: the ones who do and the ones who try to do. She should add something to that last part: and fail. It’s much more specific, covers the bases, and she doesn’t have to worry about inquisitive people like Momo pestering her about that phrase. Momo has always been the questioning sort, always asking with those big round eyes as she inches closer to you, that delicate voice infused with some sort of veritaserum, things that Dahyun really doesn’t want to answer (or care to).

Dahyun certainly doesn’t want Momo to ask how the hell in this bloody world she got her collarbone broken (but you don’t always get what you want in life).

“How in the bloody hell did you get your collarbone broken?” Momo questions, hand on Dahyun’s waist as she supports her as they walk to the hospital a mile or two away. They’re on the side of the road — the sidewalk way too small for two people. Momo’s car is in the shop, a stupid driver knocking the bumper out.

“It’s a long story and I don’t really want to talk about it.” Dahyun winces when Momo accidentally bumps into the shattered bone. “Please be more careful. I’m broken right now.”

Momo scoffs. “Yeah I could see that.” She sighs heavily, shaking her head in disapproval (which Dahyun is very much used to at this point). Then she turns her head, those inquisitive eyes boring holes in the side of Dahyun’s skull, like a magnifying glass to an ant mound, or a magnifying glass to a very small thing. Either way, it makes Dahyun uncomfortable, her body either on fire or under heavy scrutiny (she’s leaning on both).

“We have a while to go and the buses don’t stop here. You either tell me or I’m calling her.”

Dahyun rolls her eyes, not believing Momo would do such a thing, but when Momo doesn’t break that heavy stare, she knows that whatever Momo said is true, since Momo rarely finds things to be serious about (and it seems that this is very serious).

“She’s trying to find me and I’ve been…”

“Running away,” Momo finishes it off. A small smile appears on her lips, as if amused and as if she's seen it all before. Dahyun is certainly the type to run away. “Have you ever thought of just confronting your problems? Facing them head on like bulldozer?”

Dahyun chuckles lightly when she shakes her head. “The last time I did that, I lost a friend and a lover. I don’t think I want to do that ever again.”

“But you met me again. You met her again.”

Dahyun stops and she meets Momo’s eyes, and she lets everything bare, the ness of her thoughts and her feelings flowing out like majestic waterfall.

“And you think if I-” Dahyun sighs. “-you think that if I do it again, something good will happen.”

“Sure it will, but what other way can you go but up?”

There’s a saying that Dahyun learned in pre-school, back when her parents were still alive, back when Chaeyoung was still that kid in the corner crying about how her toy got stolen, back when Dahyun was trying to build up the courage to talk to that kid, and back when everything was simple. It’s a phrase she kept with her, in the back of her mind, tucked away between the memories of Momo and Sana, since they’re the ones who seem to be finding ways to remind her of it.

The darkest hour is just before dawn.

//

(“This sidewalk is way too small for two people,” Sana comments as they happen upon it as they walk back home. It has been a decent date so far, maybe even better than the one Dahyun had a few with Jihyo, albeit with less spaghetti on her clothes and her heart torn into shreds by a few well placed compliments. Being with Sana is nerve-racking, like the time she waited outside the conference room when she was about to present her thesis back in University. Back then, she had people to help her quell the butterflies, but she’s alone now — the two most important people in her life are gone now.

“Want to walk on the road? We just need to be careful bout’ the cars.”

Sana shakes her head and extends her arms out.

“Carry me.”

Dahyun stares, maybe a bit too long, but the unwavering look on Sana’s face makes it look like she’s not putting down those arms anytime soon. She scoffs in disbelief as she shakes her head.  She can’t believe she’s doing this. She turns around and crouches.

“Get on.”

It’s been a bizarre couple of days, some events she could see happening from a mile away but some, like this one, has been hidden from her instincts fairly well. She didn’t peg Sana as someone who would like to be carried like this, but now here she is, learning new things about a friend she’s known for a very long time. But now, it seems Sana’s no longer just a friend, maybe she never was in the first place. No, Sana’s something more, more important than a friend.

And it just took Dahyun years to figure it out.

“Your back is comfy,” Sana comments as she rests her chin on Dahyun’s shoulder.

“Thanks, I guess. Your front is comfy too.”

A