'cause I'm a beautiful wreck

 

 

 

Looming dread filled the morning. They were silent when they packed their things, silent when they put out the remaining small embers of the campfire and silent when they began their journey home. Sooyoung insisted that she wanted to sit beside Yeri through the way home so she could catch some sleep. That made Joohyun sit beside the designated driver—and awkwardness reached a new peak.

 

She wondered what Wendy was thinking about.

 

The tension that built up between all of them was easy to detect and uncomfortable. Joohyun glanced back to the backseats often, to see whether Sooyoung was watching them or she was truly sleeping. Joohyun was worried she might have overheard them talking—and then all the careful planning she had done for the happiness of the two of them would mean nothing.

 

Not like they meant anything now that Wendy was planning to leave.

 

But she couldn’t stop her, right? She didn’t possess any claim over the woman, she could say ‘don’t go’ but would it have any effect? Probably not. Certainly not.

 

And what would happen if Wendy stayed? Joohyun would have to keep up with her act for a long time, risking of her best friends to hate her when the truth gets out. Or maybe Sooyoung and Wendy would break up—they were in love now, that was very clear but it was also clear that they were fundamentally different. And however familiar was Wendy to Seulgi, she’ll never be her. She will never replace Seulgi in Sooyoung’s heart.

 

And Wendy deserved that, Joohyun thought selfishly, to be someone’s first.

 

But the thing that was between them, unnamed and heavily hanging in the air between them was doomed from the start. This was just another sick joke from the universe and exactly what she was afraid of in her whole life. The universe could give you a soulmate—but it can take it as easily. And the universe already did that.

 

She watched Wendy as she was concentrating on the road, fingertips white as she held into the stirring wheel. Joohyun wanted to pry them off and soothe them with butterfly kisses on every knuckle. She thought bitterly, it was not the time to think of these things. It was the time to cry, scream and show her anger; that she was part of this clownery that was her fate and life—that why her soulmate was in love with another woman? And out of everyone, her own best friend? This was ridiculous and every sense in her was yelling that it must be only a bad dream and nothing else—life cannot pull schemes like this.

 

And yet, she was still there: heart wishing she could only do as much as to hold her soulmate’s hands, mind telling this would only hurt so much more if she did.

 

So she clenched her hands in a tight fist, nails digging small crescents into the soft skin of her palms to endure just a bit more. She took her time to count back from ten, eyes fluttering from Wendy to the road.

 

But Wendy was so devastatingly beautiful, she had a hard time taking her eyes off her. From her big, brown eyes that comically popped out whenever someone said something remotely surprising; from her fluffy cheeks that Joohyun wanted to pepper with kisses, that puffed up and made her even softer when she smiled; her lopsided smile that was permanent on her lips and somehow always meant something else; from her short hair that framed her face softly, highlighting her features so well, she wanted to run her fingers through the soft tips.

 

All in all, she just wanted to worship Wendy with everything she had.

 

But life worked in other ways.

 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Wendy asked, voice low so she could not disturb the others sleeping on the backseats. Her voice broke Joohyun’s thoughts and she realized she was no longer pretending that she wasn’t staring at Wendy—she was just plainly marvelling her like she was a masterpiece in the museum.

 

“Like what?” She was afraid of the answer but she braced herself.

 

“Like I broke your heart.”

 

The air felt heavy around Joohyun. It was one thing, getting your heart broken by your soulmate with nothing between you. It was another when the said soulmate know she’d broken your heart.

 

When the silence stretched between them a heartbeat longer than it was still in the safe zone, Wendy’s fingertips turned even paler around the steering wheel and Joohyun had a dismissive thought that she was about the break the wheels off.

 

“It was a joke, you know. It’s polite to laugh.” There was an awkward smile on Wendy’s lips like she was aware she ed up. Like it was never meant to be a joke but the truth was too harsh so that she changed her mind.

 

Am I a joke to you, she wanted to ask. Rather, she decided, she stayed silent for a moment, not wanting to get into this conversation. She worried her lip between her teeth, searching for something to say.

 

“It was a really bad one,” she said, facing to the side window so she didn’t have to look at the other. She concentrated on the scenery, trying to wish her thoughts away. She concentrated on the green freshness of the woods, on the slight greyish tingle of the sky, on how she was not allowed to love the person who was made for her.

 

It is time to let go, huh? she thought before it even started.

 

She felt like a hypocrite. All these times, she was hiding her soul mark before anyone could see so she didn’t have to confront anyone. So she didn’t have to break Sooyoung’s heart. So she could keep her friends and Wendy close. She was withering away in the hiding, as her love for Wendy was growing and strengthening—but she went too far to even consider, to tell the truth. And now, Wendy offered her a solution. What she thought to be the best solution. It was a clean-cut, easy and quick. Leaving the country, meant that they might never meet again. Sooyoung would still get her heartbroken. As would Joohyun, too.

 

There was just no good solution to this mess. It would end, every single time, with someone’s heartbreak.

 

She was aware. She was aware that this was a logical decision, something Wendy had spent probably hours to decide and accept—but Joohyun, just, for now, wanted to be angry. She didn’t want to understand, didn’t want to accept this.

 

She just… She just wanted Wendy.

 

Suddenly, there was a hand on her own, thumb caressing her knuckles. She snapped her head to look at Wendy, who was still concentrating on the road but instead having her signature little smile on her lips, instead there is a frown itching on her face. While she secretly enjoyed the warm touch, she pulled away from Wendy’s touch. That made the lines on Wendy’s face deepen.

 

“Hey, look. I’m sorry,” Wendy said, voice still barely above a whisper. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. You know how I feel—I would never want to deliberately hurt you.”

 

The way she talked made Joohyun nauseous. How freely she admitted that she was starting to fall in love with Joohyun, how she kept flaunting it even now. Wendy was never afraid to show her love—Sooyoung was the prime example.

 

But Joohyun was always afraid to do it. It made her feel too vulnerable.

 

“Can we not talk about it right now?” she asked, her voice strainer to even her ears than she intended.

 

Wendy straightened up in the seat, making her whole appearance artificially poised. “Of course,” she said, eyes trained on the road, knuckles white around the stirring wheel. The little quirk of her lips, the one Joohyun liked so much on her, were gone.

 

Joohyun took in the sight and felt her heart withering away with a love that needed to be tended, needed to be reciprocated, needed to be put out for everyone to see but was ignored instead and she sighed. Her eyes stayed a moment too long on the soul mark, that little flower, on Wendy’s skin, so demandingly dark against the pale skin. She wondered if their marks were dandelions because their love was never meant to be long-lived. To be so delicate and fragile that even a slight wind could destroy it.

 

But jokes on the universe, their love had no chance to bloom. It was the work of the destruction herself, Bae Joohyun.

 

There was a moment when Joohyun just wanted to reach out. Not to hold back Wendy, not to tell her to stay—just to tell her everything will be okay. She wanted to hold her hand as Wendy did just a moment ago, thumb caressing the soft skin just to communicate through the touch everything she was too cowardly to say aloud. Before she realized, her hand was half-way to Wendy’s—but she stopped. It wasn’t right. She was not in the position to hold her.

 

She looked up at the rear-view mirror and her eyes met with Sooyoung’s.

 

For a moment, Joohyun’s heart stopped beating.

 

How much could she overhear? Did she know? Was she angry? Was she sad? Did she want to leave Joohyun for being a bad friend that she knew she was? Did she think she was a liar? The gears in her mind were working as fast as they could, overthinking and overanalysing every aspect of the last few minutes and coming up with the conclusion that Sooyoung knew. She knew and Joohyun was finally, irrevocably damned.

 

Her face was composed in a careful mask of contentment. She had no malice in her eyes, neither did she seem sad. When she noticed that Joohyun was looking at her, she offered a sweet smile—which might have fooled someone else but she knew her better than that. It was melancholic and bittersweet and while Joohyun didn’t know the extent Sooyoung had overheard them, she wanted to apologize and explain and beg—anything just for her to stay close to Joohyun.

 

Losing Wendy was hard. But losing Sooyoung with her would be deadly.

 

“You two are boring. You’re not even talking,” she said loudly, breaking the deep silence of the car. Yeri started to stir at her booming voice but Sooyoung didn’t seem to care at all. She pushed herself between Wendy and Joohyun to start the radio, “But luckily for you, I’m here to spice things up.”

 

Her cheerful voice sounded a bit strained for Joohyun, yet there was still a relieved smile that spread over her lips. She seemed okay, not at her very best but—okay. If she was angry with Joohyun, then she would’ve already called her out on her bull. Instead, she was there to cheer them up, hands threw around them, yelling the lyrics of some bubble gum pop coming from the radio, making them click back to their old dynamics so easily, it was almost seamless. Almost.

 

“Yeah, luckily you’re here,” Joohyun said softly, mostly for herself but Sooyoung caught it. She turned to Joohyun with wide eyes and words frozen in , and Joohyun really wasn’t about to repeat herself, it was corny enough for once, when the arm around her tightened into a hug, pushing their faces together into an uncomfortable mass.

 

Joohyun thought for a moment, soulmates and marks forgotten, that she was indeed lucky.

 

 

***

 

After getting back from the trip, everything seemed easier. It was easier to pretend she had nothing to hide, easier to just lie to Sooyoung continuously while agreeing to go on dates with girls organized by Yeri. She thought that she was being miserable because she was lonely. She was not entirely wrong. Even with the bumpy conversation during the trip, she could risk saying but it seemed like she and Wendy also got along better.

 

Not like Joohyun had a choice, the girl was basically living with them now. Sooyoung decided that she would die if she didn’t have Wendy in a five-meter radius, therefore she was stuck in their already shared apartment.

 

And surprisingly, Joohyun didn’t mind.

 

She didn’t mind waking up early in the morning, finding Wendy in their kitchen with a cup of green tea in her hand, handing another mug for Joohyun. She didn’t mind finding her on the couch, swapping between trashy dramas in the TV while Joohyun typed away on her laptop. She didn’t mind listening to her singing in the shower or while she was doing the laundry or while she was cooking—she never grew tired of her voice. Falling into this dynamic was easy. Way too easy. Wendy suddenly felt like a constant in her life that she needed—but couldn’t have, couldn’t afford.

 

Them, almost living together also had its downsides.

 

Joohyun caught the small, nervous glances from Wendy whenever Sooyoung kissed her, looking for any sign that it made her uncomfortable or sad. Wendy cared too much for her and Joohyun was afraid that Sooyoung noticed that—that Wendy froze for a second before she melted into the kiss or that her eyes always fluttered to Joohyun.

 

But Joohyun didn’t mind. Of course, the jealous churn in her stomach was still ever-present – but she didn’t mind. It was already so much more than she had ever let herself imagine with Wendy. This domesticity—this was what she was longing for. She liked the warmth that Wendy radiated even when she sat an arm's length away to her on the couch. She liked how Wendy always cut her some fruits when she was too into writing that she forgot to eat. She liked how whenever Wendy came back from the bar after a long night singing her soul out, and she found Joohyun awake, staring at the laptop screen, she always offered a kind smile and asked ‘Want to talk about it?’.

 

It was too easy to fall into this ocean of emotions that swirled inside of her.

 

But Joohyun was afraid she was drowning.

 

 

***

 

Joohyun was typing on her laptop while Wendy was looking through the whole repertoire of Netflix. Seemingly nothing satisfied her needs, skipping from category to category, from animation movies to thrillers. She didn’t seem to notice Joohyun watching her. Wendy worried her lips between her teeth, eyes not perceiving what was going on on the screen. Joohyun’s gaze slid lower, where Wendy’s hand grasped the remote tightly in her fist and there was a peek of the dandelion under of her hoodie.

 

“You can watch Glee for the thousandth time, I won’t judge you,” Joohyun said finally. Wendy winced. “If that’s your coping mechanism, you do you.”

 

“I don’t watch Glee that much,” Wendy mumbled and rolled her eyes. She leaned back on the fluffy pillows Yeri got them on a sale. Joohyun heart clenched on how soft she looked, her face surrounded by the white feathery pillows, dark eyelashes shocking against the light beige. She turned back to her laptop before she did something she would regret later.

 

“You’re using my account, I know what you watch,” she said unimpressed.

 

“You’re just picking on me because I said Glee was better than High School Musical,” Wendy grunted out and wiggled closer.

 

Joohyun snorted. “Firstly, you are wrong. I pick on you because you’re easy to hype up. Secondly, you’re also wrong. Name a bop that hits you stronger than ‘Fabolous’.”

 

“Now, I won’t start defending Glee because the both of us know I’m the one who’s right here, you just like the hype HSM got and—” Wendy stopped when she saw Joohyun’s smile. She sighed, scooting even closer to Joohyun, leaning her head on her shoulder. “I walked into your trap, didn’t I?”

 

“You did and I didn’t even have to try hard,” Joohyun snorted. The familiar weight on her shoulder was nice – Wendy, as turned out, was rather a clingy person. Once they got through the awkward phase when they sat as far of each other as was possible, Wendy no longer held any respect for anyone’s private sphere. But it was good because Joohyun was mutually clingy and Wendy was warm and soft, pushed against her arm. She smelled like the detergent they use in the apartment but mixed with something that is unquestionably Wendy.

 

“You – and the other two, too – are just my bullies and I willingly came here to live with you. What does that make me?”

 

“A fool.”

 

“That was a rhetoric question,” Wendy whined.

 

Joohyun cackled and typed in a few words. Sometimes she got too caught up by just the presence of Wendy beside her that she forgot to do her actual work – but she didn’t care. She could just stay up and write the rest of the article when Wendy went out to sing. Wendy watched silently as her fingers flew on the keyboard, then furrowed her eyebrows when she deleted the sentence.

 

“That thought was nice,” she said. “But I still can’t believe you’re wasting your talent on writing articles like ‘How to lose weight in 10 easy steps’.”

 

“Didn’t follow the logic. And I do what I have to do to earn money,” Joohyun answered. She wiggled the shoulder Wendy was laying on. “And why I’m the one who babysits you? Where’s your caretaker?”

 

“Don’t call her like that, that’s just gross,” Wendy sent her a dirty look. “And I’m not a baby. But Sooyoung is doing a study group – I think she likes doing that because then she has a lot of people paying attention to her while she explains things. And she can play as a leader. As for Yeri, isn’t she on a date?”

 

“Ah, no she calls them dates but it’s just her giving a hard time for her friends. They go to cute cafés, though,” Joohyun said and wondered just how did Yeri find a) that many cute cafés and b) that many friends. She couldn’t keep track just how many friends she had.

 

Wendy hummed and she buried her face into Joohyun’s hoodie.

 

Joohyun still felt awkward. She still felt afraid that Sooyoung or Yeri could step suddenly into the apartment and find them together like that – and however her mind tried to reason that they were doing nothing wrong, both of them clung to the other two as well – her paranoia of getting busted was all-time high. Being close to Wendy still felt like playing with fire.

 

Wendy didn’t seem to share the sentiment. She took Joohyun’s hand into hers, slowly pushed up the sleeve of her hoodie to reveal their shared soulmark. The careful touch of her fingertips made goosebumps run up on her spine. It was too intimate – while they were far from the awkward mess they had been – this was off-limit. Joohyun had half a mind pulling her arms away but looking at Wendy changed her mind. She looked troubled and seemingly she tried to find solace in touching Joohyun.

 

“I was thinking,” she began but hesitated a bit.

 

“About?” Joohyun prompted.

 

“About my life. About my relationship with Sooyoung. About you. About us.” Wendy’s fingers stilled on the soulmark.

 

Please don’t say anything, Joohyun thought. She wanted to backpedal. Wanted to get up and leave because it was dangerous. She heard enough during the road trip. She didn’t need Wendy to break her heart twice in a row.

 

“There is no us,” Joohyun said, hoping her voice is final enough for Wendy to stop. She pulled back her hand, unrolling the sleeve of her hoodie to hide the mark.

 

“I know.”

 

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