A/N: Remember how I said you wouldn't know it was set in America unless you squinted? Okay, that's a lie now, forget I said anything and please just embrace the AU, thank you T3T AND ZOMG YASSSSS CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR QUEENS COZ BAAM REACHED 100M VIEWS!!!!!. Let’s keep on voting for them over at AAA :*

Jane lay in her bed, and gave her ceiling a long blank stare. She knew suddenly leaving L at her exhibit after just seeing him again was rude and maybe a little unnecessary, but she couldn’t take any more of his biting observations. His words felt like sharp knives that pierced and twisted to gut her stomach. She felt an intangible heaviness pressing against her chest just from replaying everything her old senior had said to her. It made her sick...it was almost as if her heart needed to jump out of . She noticed her vision blur as she continued to stare at her dark ceiling.

‘...was he wrong though?’ Jane mentally asked herself as she started blinking away the hot tears that had formed at the corner of her eyes. She threw her arms over the upper half of her face as the tears rolled down her temples. She hadn’t felt this pathetic since the night she found out about L’s enlistment a decade earlier; and at least then she had more of a right to feel the way she did. Her mind screamed at her ‘But she’s Yeonwoo’s girlfriend!’

“As if I didn’t already know that!” She groaned out to the empty silence of her bedroom.

She reached to grab the Doraemon plush seated by her headboard, and held it over herself with both her hands. She gave the ‘closed’ eyes of the animated blue robotic cat a worried look.

Yeonwoo gave her this stuffed animal in elementary school. The dark-haired girl was the very first friend Jane made when she flew from Garak-Dong to Palisades Park in the third grade. It was funny, because despite the high concentration of Koreans in the area, she used to be bullied – although it wasn’t because of her ethnicity.

Jane knew she didn’t exactly look like the rest of her family. Her parents and younger sister were tanned, plump, and possessed typical East Asian eyes. In contrast she was fair, slender and had eyes that were big & round. Many kids didn’t just make fun of her because of her limited grasp over the English language at the time; they also used to taunt her about how different she looked from her family. She lost count of the number of times she was called an adoptee or nicknamed ‘the foster kid’.

All the bullying she got suddenly came to a halt when one day Dabin Lee, her grade school’s most popular girl, punched the boy who tried to cut one of Jane’s twin braids square in the nose. Nobody messed with her since. After that, she kept on hanging around Dabin, where they developed a friendship over their natural messiness, their mutual adoration of Japanese animated cartoons and shared passion for the arts.

Jane would forever be grateful for Dabin’s heroic gesture towards her. She incessantly thanked the raven-haired girl when they were children, and savior for being such a ‘young prince’...which is why she (and eventually, everyone else) started calling the fox-like beauty ‘Yeonwoo’.

Jane and Yeonwoo had been inseparable since, and had always been there to be the other’s support through trying times. Jane remembered when her best friend helped her piece herself back together after L bid her goodbye to leave for basic training in Fort Jackson. How Yeonwoo was the one who pushed her to apply for a scholarship to NYU-Tisch’s Photography & Imaging Program, to which she was ultimately successful. Jane recognized that her time at university helped her develop a portfolio and build a network that became crucial in the success she currently enjoyed.

Jane brought Doraemon to her chest and buried her face in the plush’s head. She was very well aware she owed Yeonwoo the world, and she swore she would do anything to keep her best friend happy...but her feelings just had to start getting muddled after that one fateful subway ride three years ago.

**********

– 3 years ago –

Jane let out a heavy sigh as she descended on the steps of Cortlandt Street Station. While she was extremely grateful that she got the opportunity to work with Vogue, her first meeting with the editorial staff was dreadful. She really liked having full reign over her work, and did not appreciate having her artistic vision compromised. But it was her first big break in fashion photography, and she understood that this could open a lot of doors for her if she did well. She couldn’t blow her chance to become a better known and respected photographer all because of her dumb pride, so she had to grin and bear the nightmare for a good portion of the day. She gave what was left of her view of the concrete jungle’s skyline a long hard look ‘Everything in the city feels a little suffocating…I think I should head to Central Park for a breather.’ She quietly thought to herself before going in the Broadway Line’s platform entrance.

She walked towards the platform and scrunched up her nose as she took in the sight of the dingy tiled walls and the grimy floor. The foul stench that invaded her nostrils was much worse. She really wished the subway could be cleaner, even if just a little bit. She quickly boarded her service after it arrived. Jane really wanted to avoid seeing the big, fat subway rats. Even if Yeonwoo kept on insisting that she resembled Remy the rat from Ratatouille. She was a firm believer that rodents were cute enough as cartoons, seeing them in real life however was just another story entirely. She shuddered at her memory of seeing pizza rat in the flesh a couple of months back.

She walked towards the middle of the railcar to take an empty seat by the window, and flung her bag on her lap. She stuck her hand in her bag, blindly trying to reach for her earphones to pass the time by listening to some music. ‘Aha!’ she triumphantly exclaimed in her head as she pulled it by the cord. Jane was just about to put one of her earbuds in when she heard a saccharine voice answer a phone call.

“Mommy?”

She turned her head to see the owner of the sweet voice on a seat by the railcar doors. Jane clenched her eyes tightly before opening them as wide as she could. She couldn’t believe her eyes

“…an angel” Jane’s thoughts escaped her lips in a whisper as she accidentally dropped her earphones on her lap, which she then scrambled to retrieve. She gulped down the lump she didn’t know she had in and took a deep breath to calm her erratic heartbeat ‘Okay. Okay. Like…WOW! Girl crush alert!’ she mulled to herself. She knew it might’ve been a little vulgar to do so, but she couldn’t help but stop and stare at the striking belle whose fair face was framed with brilliant bronze waves and sprinkled with bright eyes the color of hazelnuts ‘…plus, that nose is to die for’ the photographer quietly finished her train of thought.

“I’m doing fine, mommy. How about you? How’re dad and Brenda? Oh, really? That’s good to hear” the brunette said to her phone, absentmindedly tilting her head to face Jane’s direction. Jane scurried to look away and started staring intently at the earphones in her hands instead. “Yeah, I just dropped by the French market today to grab some wine and cheese. I’m on my way home, but I might take the scenic route today. I think I miss seeing the trees.” The girl informed the person on the other line.

The captivating young woman started giggling at whatever she heard and responded “I know Central Park is essentially my backyard, but school’s just been a little busy lately and I think I’m a little high strung. Why do you think I went all the way downtown just to grab some Brie and a bottle of Sauternes?”

‘Great, we’re both going down the same stop. I hope she won’t think I’m a stalker or something’ the strawberry blonde internally bemoaned. She then snuck another glance at the brunette beauty as she bid her collocutor adieu “Yes, I will, mommy. You guys take care over there as well. I love you too!”

The photographer tried to mind her own business for the rest of the trip by cancelling everything out with her earphones. When the service reached Fifth Avenue-59th Street, the entrancing stranger took hold of a brown paper bag, and quickly exited the railcar. Jane noticed a green and white folding umbrella drop out of the young woman’s paper bag. She picked the item up in a hurry and tried to return it to the owner as soon as she could, but she noticed the girl already proceeding to exit the station. She dashed out the train before its doors closed, and tried to follow the direction the girl was headed towards.

She wanted to call her out, to tell her to wait up…but she remembered that she wasn’t always the best at talking to people she di