TW: homophobia

I will mark where it starts with a singular bold letter and end it with another singular bold.

 

~.~.~

 

Dahyun believed in fairy tales—the singing birds, the Prince Charming, the happy ending. She treasured the magic—the bright and light hope for something good.

 

At three, she would shout at birds to hear their response. They would chirp back and flutter towards the branch near her window.

 

At five, she dresses in her mother’s dress, pats her cheeks with blush and paints her lips a pretty pink, and dances around her room with an invisible prince, humming “So This Is Love.”

 

Innocence and optimism are victims of time and growing up.

 

When she is fifteen, her boyfriend of five months breaks up with her three weeks before Winter Formal. The small composed piano piece sitting in her room asking for him to be her partner ends up balled up and thrown in her trash bin the night he tells her it’s over. He claims that basketball practice takes up all of his time. Turns out, she learns that the girl in her English class is “basketball practice” when she catches them kissing at his locker.

 

Her heart hurts.

 

It hurts to see a boy that she likes with another. But more than that, it hurts her heart to be confronted with the fact that her life is not a fairy tale. Her Prince Charming turned out to be a monster coveting what she treasured so dearly.

 

Fairy tales stay the same. The world does not. Dahyun sees how the world turns its eyes when injustice plagues society. She feels her heart break when she first learns that some families abandon their children who come out as gay.

 

Dahyun learns she likes girls when she is seventeen.

 

She overhears her parents talk in fiery hate about the out girl in her school making headlines in the local newspaper.

 

God, she fears for her life. She fears abandonment, being unloved.

 

At eighteen, all she had under her name was her pet dog, Ahri. Her house, her belongings, the food provided for her, are all by the hands of her parents. She cannot afford to feel the cold slap of air at night with no home to go to.

 

If her parents wouldn’t love her, who would?

 

Fairy tales aren’t supposed to be like this. Sleeping Beauty’s parents loved her, Belle’s father loved her dearly.

 

Dahyun fears that her parents will cast her out of their hearts if she were to be herself in front of them.

 

From there on, she represses how she feels, despite the cute girl in her art class, despite how bubbly her dimpled smile made her feel.

 

Dahyun doesn’t see how she starts looking at herself as an enemy, how she villianizes herself. When Dahyun sees Cute Art Girl, Chaeyoung, she smiles politely and turns away from her. She plugs her earphones in and forces her eyes away from her.

 

Chaeyoung’s dimpled smile fades.

 

It isn’t until halfway in the semester that Dahyun needs help with an art piece when she asks Chaeyoung for help. Wide-eyed and attentive, Chaeyoung graciously helps her with a genuine smile on her lips.

 

The mole that charms her face makes Dahyun’s heart smile. She considers Hedonism when Chaeyoung giggles at the smudge of paint on Dahyun’s cheeks.

 

It takes Dahyun months to realize that liking a girl and accepting it is far from Hedonism and rather, just a part of who she is.

 

When Dahyun decides to confess to Chaeyoung a couple of months before summer vacation breaks out, she sees her at senior prom slow dancing with a girl a head taller than her. The sight of Chaeyoung kissing her partner doesn’t hurt her the way she thought it would. Rather, it makes her heart feel light. Dahyun considers that, maybe, people like her can have a fairy tale.

 

Chaeyoung’s smile when her partner twirls her around makes Dahyun believe in fairy tales again.

 

(Dahyun is quick to revise her fairy tale. Singing birds, Princess Charming, and happy endings, it is.)

 

~.~.~

 

Dahyun leaves home for college. For once, she feels like she can breathe.

 

She buys a pencil case with rainbows decorated haphazardly on them and a small rainbow flag to hang in her room.

 

She has a ball of energy and happiness as her roommate, Sana, as she so affectionately introduced with her arms wrapped around Dahyun’s small frame, high pitched giggle whistling past her ear.

 

She feels at home when Sana throws a compliment at her before rushing out of the dorm for her class.

 

“Cute flag, Dahyunie.”

 

Sana’s smile is coy, yet, warm.

 

Dahyun doesn’t know entirely if Sana was sending some sort of gay-beacon-signal or if she was just an ally. When Dahyun returns to her room after heating up water for her bowl of ramen the next day, she sees Sana kiss a girl goodbye before she turns inside their room.

 

So it was a gay-beacon-signal Sana was sending after all.

 

Dahyun eventually learns that the girl kissing Sana goodbye was named Jihyo. She had met her whilst biking around campus. Jihyo clarifies that she met Sana only because she ate in front of her. Sana is quick to refute, “if you weren’t so damn pretty, I wouldn’t have gotten distracted and swerved!”

 

Jihyo’s smile is smug when Sana pouts further at her.

 

~.~.~

 

Dahyun really wants her Princess Charming.

 

She is all for Sana and Jihyo’s relationship. Except, they were teeth-rotteningly sweet and cute and clingy. Third wheeling is only fun the first couple of times. It gets a bit tiring to be the only one watching a movie and hearing scattered giggles behind her. (God forbid the amount of times she has accidentally walked into them making out in her room.)

 

When Dahyun settles herself at the school cafeteria with her belly-warming bowl of ramen in front of her, she sees a girl rushing into the line for grilled beef and soup. The girl clutches at her backpack behind her as she runs so that it wouldn’t bang against her back for every step she made. The girl proceeds to take out all of her belongings in the first pocket of her bag to reach for her wallet.

 

Dahyun can’t help but to laugh at the mess the girl creates all for a bowl of soup. When the girl collects her soup, she sits the bowl on a table one away from her and walks away towards the fried chicken line.

 

Dahyun stares a bit miffed between the lonely bowl of soup and the girl walking away from it. It isn’t until the girl has settled down with her plate of fried chicken across from the bowl of soup and another girl emerges with a cute gummy smile on her lips that her confusion clears.

 

Girl With Cute Gummy Smile pecks Fried Chicken Girl with a sweet kiss before digging in.

 

Dahyun wonders if she has some sort of pull towards women who were already taken. Dahyun wishes it would pull her towards a girl who wasn’t taken, and preferably, liked girls too.

 

Fried Chicken Girl clears her platter and kisses Girl With Cute Gummy Smile before throwing a wave behind her and leaving and , Dahyun has ten minutes before her next class.

 

She stares at her half-eaten bowl of ramen and apologizes to whatever is left over as she dumps it away and power walks towards her next class.

 

Walking through the door and looking down the lecture hall, Dahyun finds Fried Chicken Girl sat in the middle of the room scrolling on her phone. Dahyun chooses to sit a seat over one to the left of her.

 

Dahyun wants to make friends. It would really help if the thought of saying “hi” didn’t make her heart go in overdrive. As class starts, the professor assigns students to introduce themselves to one another, the usual tiring: name, three fun facts, and “what’s your major” spiel. Fried Chicken Girl turns to Dahyun with a smile and comfortably introduces herself.

 

“Hi I’m Momo, I have a dog allergy but I own three dogs, and I can blow through ten plates of food at a buffet. I’m majoring in Kinesiology with a minor in Dance.”

 

Something about Momo makes Dahyun feel brave.

 

“I’m Dahyun. I’m deathly afraid of heights, nicknamed Dubu like tofu, and I’m gay. And I’m undecided because the future is scary and I barely know what I’m going to eat tomorrow, nonetheless, know what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

 

The laugh that leaves Momo’s lips is bubbly and sweet. Momo offers Dahyun a snack halfway through the syllabus run through. Dahyun sees ten digits scribbled on the wrapper. It takes her two minutes to realize that Momo gave her her number.

 

Scrawled and half lost due to the plastic’s wrapping, Dahyun sees a note.

 

“Ur funny. Friends? ”

 

When Dahyun turns to look at Momo, Momo points between Dahyun and herself and writes “friends?” in the air with her finger, her lips slowing mouthing it.

 

Dahyun’s chittering giggle and excited nod brings light to Momo’s eyes.

 

When Dahyun agrees to meet up with Momo for food, Dahyun meets two new people. She learns that Girl With Cute Gummy Smile was named Mina and that the two have been together since junior year of high school.

 

The glimpse of a fairy tale is starting to look clearer.

 

Through Momo, who by through Mina, Dahyun meets Jeongyeon.

 

Tall and gorgeous with kind eyes and a teasing smile, Dahyun thinks Jeongyeon might be one of the prettiest girls she has ever seen. Within an hour of meeting her, Jeongyeon has for how she eats, how she smiles, to how she talks. But, Jeongyeon playfully bumps her shoulders with hers and smiles genuinely, her eyes turning into crescents and Dahyun knows that Jeongyeon’s playful heart means well.

 

As the year goes on, Dahyun finds solace in Jeongyeon. She is not third-wheeling anymore if Jeongyeon is there to giggle along with her in front of Sana and Jihyo.

 

~.~.~

 

After winter break, a new quarter arises and Dahyun decides to take Japanese for her language requirement.

 

She comes twenty minutes earlier to claim her usual middle seat in the middle of the lecture hall. Some minutes later, there is a tap on her shoulder and Dahyun looks up to find a girl with a halo of light glowing behind her. Long black hair, glasses sitting on her nose, and an earphone in her ear, Dahyun swears she accidentally sat in front of the gates of heaven.

 

“You’re in my seat.”

 

The girl points to the floor on the left of Dahyun’s seat.

 

The halo of light moves as the girl shifts her weight to the other leg. The whiteboard in front of the class and the uncomfortable seat welcomes her back from heaven. Dahyun’s eyes follow the girl’s finger and she finds a black backpack sitting beside her. Clumsily, Dahyun gathers her notebook and phone and forces out an apology. Before she can slide out of the chair, the girl pushes back at her shoulder and rests her hand on it.

 

“You’re lucky you’re cute. You can have it.”

 

The girl, or as Dahyun subconsciously dubs, Angel, picks up her backpack and sits two seats over to her right.

 

Dahyun doesn’t think her cheeks have burned any hotter. She sinks in her seat and covers her face with her hair.

 

In the face of an angel, she, of course, had to make a fool out of herself.

 

The class ends and Dahyun rushes out of her seat faster than Sana running towards Jihyo to plant kisses all over her face.

 

The girl with the black backpack smiles fondly at the flash of blonde hair disappearing in front of her.

 

~

 

It takes two class sessions for Dahyun to gather the courage to ask Angel With The Black Backpack for her number...just in case she misses any notes in the future.

 

Dahyun is a mess of nerves and adrenaline as she quietly stammers to the girl.

 

“I-in case I have to miss class for any reason, which I shouldn’t because I have no life and I take perfect care of my health, I shouldn’t get sick, can I please have your number so that I can get the notes, please?”

 

Angel With The Black Backpack takes out the earphone sitting in her ear and looks at Dahyun with a glimmer in her eyes.

 

“You know you said please twice?”

 

She takes Dahyun’s phone in her hand and fills out the contact information on the screen. She returns her phone, places her earphone back in, and smirks at her before turning away.

 

At the front of her blinking cursor, “Im Nayeon” sits staring at her.

 

All Dahyun can think is, “Oh my God, Oh my God, I got an angel’s number.”

 

She hears Nayeon muffle a laugh behind the back of her hand.

 

Dear . She didn’t just think it, did she?

 

With bright red cheeks, Dahyun feels her cheeks burn as she adds an angel emoji after Nayeon’s name.

 

She texts Nayeon seven minutes later.

 

Dahyun: hi!! it’s Dahyun from Japanese class!

 

Dahyun adds a cowboy emoji and the dancing salsa lady in red after her message so that it doesn’t look so dry and plain.

 

Nayeon replies a minute later.

 

Nayeon: Hi Yeehaw, it’s the angel.

 

Dahyun thinks her cheeks might like its pink hue as she’s been blushing for the past couple of minutes.

 

Twenty seconds later, Nayeon replies again.

 

Nayeon: :)

 

Dahyun quickly replies back.

 

Dahyun: :-)

 

Dahyun cannot help but to think of Nayeon as her Princess Charming. Whether or not this could hurt her in the future, Dahyun allows for her mind to run wild.

 

~.~.~

 

As it turns out, Dahyun has an excellent grasp on Japanese. (She has Momo, Sana, and Mina to thank for that.) Nayeon, however, can barely grasp at the threads of the language. On the fifth day of the week, Dahyun’s phone buzzes in the middle of the movie she is watching with Sana, Jihyo, Momo, Mina, and Jeongyeon.

 

Nayeon: Yeehaw, I need help with homework. Please, help me?

 

Her heart should not race as quickly as it does when she replies back.

 

Dahyun: what do you need help with? do you want to meet up?

 

The three dots flashing in the grey bubble follow the pattern of her heart as she awaits her reply.

 

Nayeon: Everything. And yes. Are you free tomorrow at 12?

 

Dahyun: yes :-)

 

Nayeon: See you tomorrow, yeehaw :)

 

Wait. She told Sana that she would go with her for lunch tomorrow.

 

She scrolls through her phone until she can find her individual chat with Sana.

 

Dahyunie: Sana unnie, can I raincheck on lunch with you tomorrow?? a girl in my Japanese class needs my help with homework.

 

Sanananananananana: is the girl cute?

 

The two eyes emoji follows after.

 

Dahyun questions herself, “ must I really blush at the simple thought of Nayeon?”

 

She replies reluctantly.

 

Dahyunie: ….yes.. . ..

 

Dahyun hears Sana squeak behind her.

 

Sanananananananana: Dahyunie!! Of Course you can help the cute girl with Japanese!! as long as you tell me who she is, what she looks like, and what you do on your date!!

 

She cannot stop herself from sighing.

 

Dahyunie: Sana unnie. .. .it’s not a date

 

Sanananananananana: But it could be!! just tell her you like girls and specifically, her!!

 

Dahyunie: . . .. it’s not that simple, unnie! just because it worked on Jihyo unnie, it doesn’t mean it’ll work on Nayeon unnie!! and don’t forget!!! i’m not you!! i don’t have the ~gay confidence~ to do that !!! ! !

 

Sana just pats Dahyun’s hair in response and smiles to herself.

 

Sana hopes that the universe will be on Dahyun’s side. Sana figures that Dahyun looks beautiful when she carries hope on her sleeve and happiness in her pocket.

 

~.~.~

 

Nayeon is a disaster at Japanese. She struggles with the pronun