▶  (please listen to this song as you're reading)

“,” Joohyun curses quietly through gritted teeth. Here she is on a Tuesday morning pacing at a laundromat in front of her apartment, and she stubbed her toe against the wheel of a cart just when she reaches for the washing machine door. Briefly, she looks up—despite not wearing her glasses—to check if anyone has caught the graceless incident before looking back down.

A lady’s exposed stomach is what Joohyun’s eyes first land on, but immediately a wrinkly clothing blocks the sight. She mentally scans through the pea-sized filing cabinet that is her memory, trying to match the lady in her peripheral vision with a name. The woman's side profile looks a bit too familiar, but Joohyun is unsure until time tiptoes to a sudden halt—because quickly, her face reveals, a subtle angle turning to a full fore. The lady grabs the last set of damp clothes from the washer before the strands of her bangs. All the neurons in Joohyun's veins fire both mercilessly and warmly.

eventually becomes dry and so does the opening of her lips, although her brain enunciates every syllable of her name.

Son Seungwan. 
The one who questioned her uality so much during senior year that she falsely called in sick for two occasions. One on Valentines’ Day, and the other during graduation rehearsal.

Joohyun’s last year of high school not only qualified to be the most strenuous in terms of maintaining a stable academic reputation, but it also stood as the most dubious— to her identity, her thoughts, her truth.

Seungwan somehow unravels all of that layered complexity in one lop-sided charming grin. She meets Joohyun’s eyes and looks at her expectantly.

“Hey there, klutz.”

Just then, Paul Anka's Put Your Head On My Shoulder begins to play around the whole building from the owner's speakers. Joohyun opens lightly, cheeks flushing crimson, and fingers starting to numb from tingling.

Hold me in your arms, baby;
Squeeze me oh-so-tight—

Boy has she never felt so teased before.

She grips tightly on the handle of her basket and lets out a small smile because she knew waving a hand was too awkward to pull off. “Wow, oh, hi, it's been–”—relax—“what are you doing here?”

Seungwan then gestures her arms towards the washing machine that just started to spin and Joohyun lets out a chuckle, hoping her lack of common sense won't begin to consume the living hell out of her. She thinks of many ways their conversation can lead to and the number of possibilities clouds her head. Joohyun hasn't seen this woman in six years, and when she believes she has more than one thing to say, her lips betray her shut. Her brain is too packed and busy to timely react; it's continuously absorbing all of Seungwan’s presence.

White crop top shirt, navy blue sweats, blonde hair, and everything...

gay.

"I hear you're living on your own now," Seungwan begins, her voice unruffled and natural.
Joohyun hums a short nod, glancing at the exit doors of the laundromat. And I heard you were planning to stay in Canada, too. I’m so confused. An idea intrudes her head to just walk out and come back some other day but she immediately dismisses the thought with a strong gulp.
“Yeah," she finally manages to say, while wetting her bottom lip. "I had to move out or else I wouldn’t be able to adopt a cat.”

The blonde-haired flashes one of her smiles once more, a gradual shine of light radiating through her eyes.

Although Joohyun prefers Seungwan's looks back then, with more weight and rounder cheeks, she is, without effort, still as astonishing. Christ, she really could be doing something ordinary like fixing the hem of her shirt and Joohyun would be rattled. 

Seungwan walks over to her, pushing a basket cart with one hand. “What's your cat's name?”

“I named him after that astrological sign. Pisces.”
Seungwan's eyes widen subtly in excitement. “That's cute, it's actually my zodiac sign too.”
Joohyun sneers softly, acting as if she hadn't known. She doesn't know whether to label herself as the most non-discreet person in the world or the town's most hopeless romantic. It takes a bit of energy out of her to sound as if the names had been coincidental. “Pisces is known to have a divine connection with Aphrodite and Vishnu, so it became a favourite sign of mine.”

Impressive, Joohyun. Do you also want to bore her about your favourite Greek myth?

“And how are you?” Seungwan asks, looking for the missing match for one of her socks.

"I'm Aries. ”
A sudden laugh. It's been a little over one minute of talking and this is the first time in a long while that Joohyun hears Seungwan snort once again.

"Let me rephrase, Joohyun. How have you been? It's been a minute, I wanna hear about you."

Joohyun repeats the lovely voice in her head. How have I been?
How have I truly been?

“Well,” she answers with a feeble sigh, playing with the strings of her sweater. “Moving out was a definite pain in the , but it really isn’t the hardest compared to the rest that's happened. I'm handling the stressful parts better than I used to.”
"Which stressful part?"
"Proving to my father that I won't end up like my mother."
Seungwan hauls herself up to sit on the counter without a word and Joohyun immediately winces at herself for bringing that up. It sounded too heavy of a subject, even if it was realistically true. It isn't that she was uncomfortable openning up to her, but she also didn't want to poison the energy of the conversation with news that sounded too much like misery. She turns to look at Seungwan to detect any physical signs of uneasiness on her face.

There are none.  
Instead she's just looking right back, waiting for her to continue talking. 

The look on Seungwan's face urges Joohyun to think about the few times of intimate conversation they had together in high school. Throughout those four years, she was aware of the fact that Seungwan had never been a difficult person to talk to, but the reality of her sitting an inch away after such a long time is just... really, too paralyzing. 

Just when Joohyun was about to change the topic, the sound of the washing machine tune coming from the dryer startles her, temporarily cutting off the conversation’s momentum. She reaches to get a basket cart before she remembers the content inside—her dried underwear and the rest of her whites. Joohyun decides not to get them out just yet and sits on the counter with her.

“I can't believe I haven’t seen you in forever,” the blonde-haired Seungwan speaks after a while. The lack of customers in the building makes Joohyun feel grateful, but something also didn't feel quite natural. It was awkward; the tips of  her fingers won't stop tingling.  
“Forever?" Joohyun tips her head to the side, slowly grinning. "Then someone who looks exactly like you must have gone to the same high school I went to.”

Another chuckle comes out of Seungwan. It supplied Joohyun's lungs with pleasure.

I missed that sound, Wan. 

“You tell me, then.”
Joohyun raises her eyebrows at the woman's reply. "Tell what exactly?"
“You know, since I flew back to Canada after high school and then now I'm here agai-”
“Right, right—” she rubs the tip of her finger on her temple before her lips, “what’s the plan? Visiting? Is this a break from the foreign land?”

“I was getting really sick of missing you,” Seungwan answers with the kind of grin that was hard to tell if it was genuine or playful. “So, whatever, I figured I should pay you a prompt visit to cure myself.”

Joohyun makes herself jump, because her hips suddenly press some of the buttons of the dryer. Seungwan deliberately grins at the sight of Joohyun being stressed before she places a palm on her knee, patting it. “Relax, I’m teasing. I’m staying here for good. Actually, it's for the best, since I already said that once when I was returning to Canada.”

Joohyun sarcastically exaggerates a sigh, as if disappointed. For some reason she lets the lack of verbal response fall on her side because she had a feeling that Seungwan isn't quite finished with the teasing yet.

The blonde-haired's voice turns into a soft murmur and it makes Joohyun want to act cheeky. 

“...I really was, you know, getting sick of missing you, was the other thing I’m trying to say.”

- - - 

They talk about it all. A thousand words pour out in a stampede as the clocks tick. Reminiscing, of course, was inevitably the prevalent topic. Joohyun couldn't get herself to stop looking at the littlest details. It's impossible not to analyze what one hasn't seen throughout the years. 

Seungwan, being Seungwan, brings up the most disastrous memory of them together. On April 2012,  the two of them ended up staying overnight in a standard single room during camp because of the misunderstanding with the advanced reservations.

Seungwan laughs with a look of mocking disapproval.
“I was asking myself - is this girl for real? Sleeping with a thumb in and a leg draped over the entire frickin' blanket?” 
Joohyun sighs, lazily pointing a finger at herself, "All I'm hearing is that you're confessing to watching me sleep. Huh, weren’t you?”
“I watched us get excluded from the activities that morning, yeah. You got me.”
“You were totally watching, like in those vampire movies that are supposed to be romantic but just comes out creepy.”
“Yeah? Who in here binge-watched the Twilight series and ended up liking it?”
Joohyun avoids her gaze and doesn't answer, her lips pursed tightly to prevent herself from laughing.

“One down, Bae Joohyun.”
 

Other memories take a turn into a rather personal direction, such as how Joohyun listened to Seungwan’s whispered rants in the library about her distressful relationship with her family at home, as well as how Joohyun stood up for Seungwan when someone framed her for plagiarism, and so on.

“Tell me something honest J," Seungwan softly calls out to Joohyun, clearing . "I looked weird and fat in high school, didn’t I?”

As fast as a bolt, Joohyun's face turns into a frown, thrown off guard. It didn't have anything to do with what she said, but rather with the way she said it. Seungwan notices her reaction and smiles abruptly to hide her embarrassment, shaking her head. "That's nonsense, don't feel as if you gotta answer that."

The silence fills the room for only a moment before Joohyun perks up restlessly. She doesn't know how to respond in a way that is genuinely believable to her, but she takes a shot at it anyway.

"I like how you look regardless, Wan."

Joohyun waits for any kind of reaction from her, but Seungwan only remains quiet and doesn't look at her for a while.

- - -

“Here, better late than never,” Seungwan says after finishing her laundry, holding a brown paper bag that was placed on top of her folded clothes.
Joohyun glances at her, both relieved and worried. “What’s this about?”
“There was this time when I spilled cranberry juice on your skirt on the last week of school. I'm not too sure if you remember—my memory haunts me on little things like that.”

Seungwan is right. The incident doesn't ring a bell in her head at all, but she takes her word for it anyway. It just pleased her that Seungwan even kept a piece of her in her head. She takes the clothing out of the bag and squints in fascination as it is purchased from Japan.

“And you just happen to have this with you today?” Joohyun teased.

The blonde-haired scratched her head with another one of her cheeky grins, failing to maintain eye contact. 
“I think we both know that someone may have done some research to make it seem as if they caught you doing your favourite hobby.”

Joohyun does not see that line coming. The way Seungwan’s voice subsides makes her ears heat up infinitely and she has no ing clue on what to do with herself. She grips on the skirt tighter to steady her breathing, becoming silent even though the beating of her heart continues to hasten. Growing up with a very masculine father was Joohyun's greatest influence in learning how to suppress her emotions at a young age. Instead of talking about her feelings and showing her affection, she gradually became used to the method of repression.

And it has been god damn exhausting.
Baffling.
Unnatural.
Isolating.
It makes her want to kick the mud out of her backyard and repent.

Joohyun was born in a kind of world where the accustomed idea of liking the opposite was morally correct and the only way out of exclusion. This, in exchange, has left her with a track record of failed relationships and many short-term friendships.

It has left her to believe that she deserved it.

It has left a head-aching Joohyun, often looking up at her ceiling at night with blank eyes, wondering and contemplating why she didn’t just become honest with her when it was so simple.

How she desired Seungwan to be her date for the graduation dance but she never acted upon it out of fear. How she sent Seungwan several cards on regular days just so she could get to witness more of her smiles. How the two of them were always in at least one class together every year and it instantly felt like they've always been best friends. How Seungwan partnered up with her to recite the script of Romeo and Juliet in English Literature class, with Seungwan eager to act as Romeo. How Seungwan gave her a copy of her graduation photo in 10th grade because she thought her smile looked vile in it when Joohyun thought, she looked her comeliest.

The engraved tension ascends all the way to the tip of her chin. She feels it physically sway her body, and she lets it.

It had been long overdue, but it's still necessary.

Joohyun plants a kiss on her cheek, delicately, near the lips. The rush of adrenaline flushing through her system motivates her to hold her hand, too. Seungwan's hand feels warm and sweaty, and this only causes Joohyun to smile. 

“Thank you for coming back, Seungwan."

pisces (ao3)
[06.15.18]
espressochoreom