The same place

Present

There’s a pause that echoes through the hall of their apartment – even if nobody has said anything for a solid minute or two, it’s no question or doubt that their minds were wandering with words left unsaid hanging in the air.

Seulgi isn’t dumb, and she’s not going to act as if she doesn’t understand why her girlfriend is doubting her. Joohyun had in fact every right to misunderstand her friendship to Jisoo, even though she’s not sure what she can do to make her see otherwise.

Because, as she stands there with her coat halfway buttoned through and her boots on her feet, she can’t help but wonder what is really going on. Their relationship had been very ty the last few months, she’s pretty sure everyone can see that if they really pay attention. However, though she has her ideas as to why, she still feels like there’s something missing that they can’t explain. At least, she can’t explain it herself, but she doubts Joohyun knows any better.

The fact that Seulgi is sleeping in the living room most nights has nothing to do with her writing, though she likes to pretend that it’s the case. She does have her laptop with her, she does write, but it doesn’t mean she falls asleep while in the midst of her work. Intentionally, she has been avoiding their bedroom. At first it actually wasn’t that deep – she works to wee hours of the nights and felt rude waking up Joohyun before she had to. That was the first reason, to be considerate.

However, by time it had developed to something else. She’s not going to deny the facts that the moments she did come back to bed, the aura had been tense. Even if Joohyun was fast asleep, something about her body language seemed off. Even with her eyes closed and steady breathing, she managed to find it in her to turn completely around when another body laid down between the sheets. Even the few times Seulgi dared to wrap an arm around the other woman, a hand was quick to push it away.

Maybe she shouldn’t have taken it so personally – Joohyun only did that in her sleep as far as she was concerned. However, after weeks of the same thing happened, she felt as if it was better to just stop trying. To the point that the sofa became a better companion, because at least it didn’t turn away from her.

Then came the cold stares over the afternoon when Seulgi was either doing her work or trying to talk to Joohyun. Yes, her tone was polite, and she never directly said anything mean, but it was just the way her voice seemed to disguise hidden anger or how she would take one step back whenever Seulgi took one step forward.

Even now she’s confused, because Joohyun is stopping her from leaving when it always appeared as if she wanted her to cease to exist.

Why is love always so hard?

Seulgi doesn’t know. She hasn’t been in love before Joohyun – not even close. A crush or two? Yes, of course, but never anything more. She never even considered that she’d find somebody to love after everything she’d been through, her inability to find good friends or lovers being a strong reason as to why. She’s been so used to people not wanting her in the right way, just doing what they wanted because she was too scared to say no when somebody’s hands began touching her, and maybe that’s why she’s not sure what to do anymore. Expressing certain emotions or her own thoughts with words was always tough. With her laptop or a notebook, however, she could probably write page after page about everything running through her head. How she woke up in the morning looking at her dull eyes that were trying to emit some kind of spark, or how her skin began breaking out because of the sheer stress of writing and living and trying to make Joohyun not mad at her. How her feet had accustomed themselves to walk softly as if to not awake a furious wolf, how her fingers found it more comfortable to stick to themselves than to reach out and soothe the back of her girlfriend like she always did before.

Maybe Seulgi should’ve known better than to escape from her partner and talked to her about it, she does know that. However, she didn’t want to admit it for the longest time.

She’s not going to lie, she has spent more time with Jisoo, and it hasn’t been a coincidence. She's not even going to lie that she has considered if her feelings had been changing. Though she could never pinpoint if it was a mere rush from the sudden grant of attention or if it was something else. Maybe there wasn’t anything.

Jisoo isn’t in love with her. That much she knows. Because if she was, she probably would’ve said something by now. During their conversations it had been so easy being honest with each other – about love, dating, work, politics, opinions... even if they seemed to disagree, it was so easy just discussing it in a calm matter and being open to each other’s opinions. Besides, Jisoo is such an open-minded person, it honestly would seem weird if she didn’t confess to Seulgi that she had feelings if they were true.

They were two different people, just like that.

Seulgi is a writer who enjoys coffee and not wearing pants whenever she was alone, living day by day doing what she wanted and waiting for inspiration to strike her. Generally, she acts happy and carefree, despite her dark demons hiding behind the back of her mind, she tries to shove them away with a smile and light-hearted laugh. It’s easier than explaining what is going on in her mind, anyway.

Jisoo is a smart and creative woman who was stuck in an office job that Seulgi always thought wasn’t good for her. She’s a woman who enjoys singing and listening to music more than writing reports or attending meetings to convince old men that their dated ideas needed to change. She works in the same company as Joohyun, however her division was in a different part, so they rarely met. The only reason they ever crossed paths was because of Joohyun during the office party a while ago.

It’s almost funny – what they initially had in common was Joohyun. Yet, Seulgi was the one hanging out with Jisoo – her partner’s coworker. She wondered then, if Seulgi never joined Joohyun’s party many months ago, would things be different? Would they be happier than ever or would Seulgi grow bored of loneliness and run away like she always did?

“Are you in love with her?” Joohyun had asked in the midst of the silence, waking Seulgi up from her previous train of thought. For a moment she had almost forgot the last few minutes that went by. Maybe her mind wanted to shut out everything that was happening. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d do that.

Was Seulgi in love with Jisoo?

She takes a deep breath, wondering what to say. She’s not sure of the answer herself. “I’m not in love with her,” she replies then, because it’s not a lie. She can’t say that she feels the same way about Jisoo as with Joohyun. In fact, it’s not even close, and that much she knows.

Joohyun looks down a little, but she doesn’t say anything for a moment. A shaky breath is heard, maybe she’s about to cry. However, Joohyun begins to look at her again, and nothing comes out from her eyes in the form of tears, but there’s something sad about them either way. “But?” she asks then, almost as if she senses something is off.

Seulgi begins thinking then. She feels safe, she feels comfortable and appreciated by Jisoo, but not to the extent that she’d call it love. A prelude, maybe, but not fully-grown love. Even if it was, it wouldn’t be reciprocated. And to be honest, Jisoo not having those feelings for her doesn’t hurt Seulgi all that much.

However, even if she tells herself that, she couldn’t help but wonder if it really was something else hidden there. Maybe not love, but maybe just escape. Escape from feeling ignored and being in the way. Ever since the company Jisoo and Joohyun worked for began firing people and giving them more work, Joohyun had been stressed. She didn’t want to be intimate, understandable, but at the same time she just wanted to sleep or focus on work more than doing things together.

It came to the point that Seulgi was so used to being rejected to do stuff together, that she forgot Joohyun even said yes to going on a date. And that incident was probably her own fault- However, Joohyun never gave her time to explain anything. It’s as if she doesn’t want to listen anymore. Maybe she had painted this image of Seulgi of being the bad guy – and Seulgi wasn’t in the mood to change that image at the time.

So, she tells her that in the best way she can muster. How she has felt rejected for a while and found the attention she needed from her friend, and that it probably had grew into something more than she intended from her own side. “I don’t love her in that way, Joohyun,” she confirms then. “If I could in the future, I don’t know,” she replies honestly then as she adjusts the scarf around her neck to cool her down. “But nothing is going on between us, it never has, and if you could just let me explain that instead of jumping into conclusions, we’d probably not even have this fight,” Seulgi says after a moment of trying to collect her thoughts. It’s never easy, telling her own thoughts and feelings like this. On paper it was not a problem, but with her own mouth, she thought it could be a challenge. Maybe that’s why she struggled to explain herself, but she wasn’t too sure.

Silence swallows up the entire apartment, at least so it feels like it does. Seulgi can hear the sound of people walking on heavy snow outside and cars honking, the clock on the wall ticking, the neighbors above dropping something is heard loud and clear. The silence is not comfortable. Not when Joohyun’s eyes seem to shift more from anger to pure sadness, maybe deep into her own thoughts trying to figure out what went wrong. Seulgi didn’t want to put any blame on her, they were both at fault, but she had to make sure that Joohyun knew how she had been behaving recently. How she seemed to have more bad days than good. How every little thing seemed to annoy her and make Seulgi feel unwanted at times, only for some days to see Joohyun smile and be all perfect. She knows relationships have their ups and downs, but this was getting a bit too much.

She sees Joohyun taking a shaky breath, suddenly sitting down on the floor of their apartment. For a moment, Seulgi almost believed she was going to have a panic attack, but instead she just sits there. She keeps fiddling with the hem of her shirt, deep in thought. Hadn’t they been in this situation, Seulgi would ask why she was on the floor, but maybe she didn’t want to stand anymore after Seulgi literally told her everything she did and how much she might have unknowingly hurt her too. “But how do I know it can’t happen in the future?” Joohyun had asked back after a while, but Seulgi doesn’t reply to that. She waits for Joohyun to continue to speak. Her eyes cast away from her, and her small hands move up to cover as if to hold something back, but she removes it quickly. “I mean, imagine if I just told you I might be in love with somebody else if I spend a lot of time with them?” she continues to ask, still not crying, just staring nearly blankly into her.

Seulgi tries to put herself into Joohyun’s shoes. Trying to imagine how it would feel if Joohyun began blowing her off to hang out with this girl she remembered called Jennie. And she’s not going to lie, it hurts somewhere inside. It’s not as if she wants to hear her partner maybe wanting someone else, and maybe she regrets saying that out loud, but at this point Joohyun probably has better of knowing the probable truth then thinking something worse happened.

Seulgi hasn’t touched Jisoo in any way that is inappropriate. They have never kissed, never expressed romantic feelings for each other, never shared the same bed. Nothing between them was more than friends in that sense.

When Seulgi doesn’t reply, Joohyun doesn’t seem to have much to say either from the way her lips open and close and how her body has been sitting in the same place. Maybe she’s stuck between yelling at her and telling her to go to hell or crying. She’s not sure, her expression doesn’t show much more than a big cluster of different emotions. There’s not really anything she can expect from this moment. “Can you at least honestly tell me,” Joohyun begins then after a moment, the volume of her voice altering between normal to soft. “Why I saw that text from her?” she asks then.

Seulgi isn’t sure what she’s talking about, but she doesn’t feel like making anything worse and just gives her phone to her. It shouldn’t have to come to it, because she has a feeling Joohyun doesn’t trust her at all anymore, but it’s probably the least Seulgi could do.

However, Joohyun’s hands don’t grab the phone. Maybe because she’s thinking the same thing. How if she does check her messages, she probably will feel stupid for invading her privacy even if it has been given to her.

She sighs then before unlocking her phone and opening up the texts between Jisoo and her, sitting in front of Joohyun so they can see eye to eye. “You can search for whatever text you’re looking for,” Seulgi says before handing the phone to her, waiting for Joohyun to grab it. “I’ll explain everything if you just ask what you’re talking about,” she continues.

Joohyun still doesn’t take the phone, however. “I saw her looking like she just had ,” she says explicitly enough, explaining it was the night when she got home intoxicated and had been at Jennie’s apartment. “And when I got home you got a text from her saying she had a good time, and I couldn’t help but think you were...” she pauses and doesn’t seem to say anything more.

For some reason, Seulgi wants to laugh although it’s inappropriate when Joohyun is probably on the verge to breaking down.

She tries to stop it, only letting a faint smile escape before scrolling through her phone to the said day. Then, she shows the illuminated screen to Joohyun. “She meant to send it to somebody else,” she explains and waits for Joohyun to read the messages.

Her eyes dart to the screen then, and she doesn’t show much of an expression to begin with. She remembers getting that message then, but Jisoo had quickly replied that it was a mistake because she was texting Seulgi and this guy at the same time, so she got the orders mixed up. She had sent that message to Seulgi, while at the same time texting the guy a message intended to Seulgi. Something about how she shouldn’t drink and text at the same time because it makes her do dumb stuff – like sleep with her ex and send the texts in wrong order.

Joohyun then stops reading, probably understanding enough. Her eyes dart down, and Seulgi can’t read her expression very well. A small cough escapes her lips. Then, she looks back at her. “Well, that’s that then,” she says after a while as Seulgi puts her phone away. It’s not exactly awkward, but it’s close enough.

“Why don’t you trust me?” Seulgi asks then, thinking she might as well take the opportunity to understand better. Though Joohyun had all reason not to, she wanted to hear it from the other woman herself.

A moment passes, both just sitting there in the middle of their otherwise cramped hallway. The thought that they sometimes used to be in one another’s pants on this exact same floor almost bewilders her. Now, they are both just sitting there with many questions that need answers, and they won’t be lighthearted or comfortable to listen to.

Joohyun looks back at her then, a shrug coming from her shoulders. “I was so used to you spending time with me, only us in our apartment, that maybe when I saw her coming so suddenly into your life that I felt threatened,” she goes on while placing some of her long hair behind her ears.

Seulgi decides just to listen and not interject, thinking it’s the best to let Joohyun express everything that has been going on.

“But I don’t know, I never felt like you did anything to stop those thoughts either,” she tells her then. Seulgi gets that in a way, though it did make everything more complicated. Maybe Joohyun wasn’t perfect, but at least they both knew Seulgi wasn’t either.

The thing is that Seulgi has no idea what was going to happen now. It wasn’t as if everything could just go back to normal after this conversation. It’s a start to getting some sort of resolution to the problem, but at the end of the day they had both been neglecting their relationship so much that it was sooner than later going to fall apart if they didn’t do something.

Seulgi is still at a loss for what to tell her. After all this time, she hasn’t really thought about what she was going to say when it came to it. She wants to apologize, but she feels like the words “I’m sorry” doesn’t really help in this situation. “What should we do?” she asks Joohyun after a while, feeling dumb by retorting with such a complicated question.

Joohyun doesn’t seem to react to it however, only shrugs as they sit on the floor at the hallway. “I want to say that everything is going to be fine, I really do,” Joohyun says then after putting her hair back from her face. It’s only then when Seulgi noticed dry streaks of tears reflecting from the poor light in the hall. New ones didn’t seem to form, however. “But at the same time, I don’t know anymore,” she says later.

It goes silent again. Another car passes by their apartment with an engine so loud that Seulgi almost reacted to it. Sometimes she forgets that the world doesn’t stop, even though it feels like everything is at a pause. Another sigh escapes her lips, she looks at Joohyun who simply looks back. She’s leaning onto the wooden door; her makeup had begun to fade after a long day with creases underneath her eyes and her natural lip color poking through. However, in a way she still looked so effortlessly put together. Something Seulgi always admired about her.

Joohyun suddenly calls out her name, waking Seulgi up from her thoughts and towards her. The look in her eyes seems rather dull, but she knows there is pent up emotions hiding beneath that stare. Maybe they’re trying to break out, maybe they’re trying to stay contained. All she knows is that the chills running down her spine aren’t pleasant by the words that follow.

“It feels as if I’m just stuck in the same place while you keep moving further away,” Joohyun confesses to Seulgi then, it seems. Her small hands hug her knees into her body then, she seems to be wandering into her own thoughts for a minute. “I don’t want to be stuck like this anymore,” she says after a while.

Seulgi feels something drop to the pit of her stomach, not entirely sure of what Joohyun’s point is, but knowing it’s not a good sign. Even if Seulgi was the one trying to leave now and should be colder, less emotional, she can’t deny the symptoms of sudden tears welling up even if she tries to swallow them. “I don’t want you to feel like that either,” Seulgi replies then.

The other woman only nods slightly then, still holding onto her knees like a small child not knowing what to do anymore. Seulgi feels her hands rest on her own lap, the heat from her clothes making her skin look slightly red. She knows she should say something more, but she’s at loss of words to say. Should they just end it?

“If you want to leave, I won’t stop you,” Joohyun says then. It comes out as a shaky voice through Seulgi’s ears. She looks towards Joohyun, wondering what else she has to say. “But when, or if, you come back I might not be here anymore,” she continues throughout the hall, the ticking clock echoing through minutes that can’t be regained.

Seulgi feels her muscles tense up a little by that. She tries to swallow away the sting forming into her neck as her eyes feel wetter. “But if I stay?” she asks then.

Joohyun leans her head back then, letting out a deep breath. “I don’t know then,” she says after a moment. She stays silent for another while. “Maybe we can make this work, maybe we can’t,” she says rather ominously to Seulgi’s disappointment, though she knows she’s not in the right to expect anything else.

They sit on the floor that night, until one of them gets up on their feet, making the final decision for them both. The weight of the world on their shoulders, the aching realization that nothing may ever be the same again between them. Standing in the same place where they used to feel like one, everything was different now. What felt like a blisfull place felt strange. But whatever happened... there was no going back.