High heels really were the invention of a very sadistic person. Unfortunately, they weren’t exactly optional in some cases, especially for someone as short as Seungwan. Not that they changed much in that department; she’d need some outrageously impractical footwear to ever look anything but tiny. But at least with the heels she didn’t need to crane her neck quite as much.

Of course, it didn’t stop with the heels. Winter was slowly approaching and on nights like these she really wished it was appropriate to go out with her warmest fluffiest coat, instead of having to worry that she’d look like a shapeless lump, and whether or not the coat went with her dress. Even the short walk from the taxi to her building had been enough to leave her blowing into her hands for warmth once her date had rounded the corner.

Dating was such a hassle. Meeting new people was hard enough, let alone new people with romantic intentions. Then on top of that she had to get dressed up and put on her I’m-making-an-effort makeup, all for what usually ended up to be a disappointing first date that would definitely never lead to a second one.

At least she’d gotten through the entire meal this time. She’d made it all the way to dessert before making a complete fool of herself. Oh well, it wasn’t like she’d have gone on a second date with him anyway. He was nice enough but he didn’t have her eyes, or her crooked smile, or her easy laugh.

It was probably unfair to compare her dates to Joohyun. After all, it wasn’t reasonable to expect someone like Joohyun in the pool of people willing to interact romantically with Seungwan. The comparison was also probably unwise, since getting over her beautiful neighbour was the driving force behind her dating in the first place. But she couldn’t help seeing Joohyun everywhere she went, like a constant presence in the back of her mind.

Even now, she saw Joohyun enter the building and greet her with a wide smile of recognition, eyes brightening with the simple happiness of seeing her friend.

It was only as Joohyun’s smile became uncertain that Seungwan realized that she’d been zoning out by the elevator. She awkwardly raised her hand in greeting, like she hadn’t been staring at her neighbour with unseeing eyes for an embarrassingly long time.

“Hi, sorry, I was a little distracted,” she admitted sheepishly, still making her way back to reality. Joohyun’s smile returned in full force, now tinged with amusement, and she reached past Seungwan to push the elevator button. She smelled really nice. Well, she always smelled nice, but this was a different nice from the usual nice.

“You look good.” Joohyun’s voice pulled Seungwan’s drifting mind back to the present and she finally blinked away the last of her daze. “Did you go on another date?”, she asked, and Seungwan suddenly remembered that she was still in her heels, thin coat and full face of makeup.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I’m giving the whole blind dating thing another chance. Seulgi kept trying to get me to do it and…” She trailed off, opting instead to finish the sentence with a shrug. It was a blatant lie, but somehow the idea of having gone on a blind date of her own volition seemed extremely embarrassing.

The elevator finally arrived and they stepped inside. She was reminded of the last time they’d made such a trip, Seungwan back from her terrible date and Joohyun in her casual clothes, holding onto a stack of pizza boxes. She’d looked so cute in glasses, especially with the way Seungwan’s high heels made Joohyun look tiny by comparison.

Except she didn’t look tiny now, because, as Seungwan noticed once she finally paid attention to her present company, she was also wearing heels. And dress pants. And an elegant dark blazer over a white shirt. When Seungwan finally managed to drag her eyes up to Joohyun’s face, which became a difficult task as her mind was suddenly very sluggish and uncooperative, she found that the hair framing it had been styled into wavy locks that reminded her dangerously of the Joohyun in her dreams. And then she looked at Joohyun’s eyes, which looked even wider, darker and deeper than usual in their carefully applied makeup.

“Wow,” she breathed out before she could stop herself. The immediate impulse to cover her face with her hands and retreat in shame was checked by the sight of those captivating eyes shrinking into crescents as a pleased smile grew on Joohyun’s face. “You, uh, you look good too,” she added quickly, sighing in relief as the elevator doors opened on their floor and she was freed from the forced proximity of their ride up.

Finally breathing air that wasn’t heavy with Joohyun’s dizzying perfume, Seungwan managed to follow a thought process to its conclusion. She realized at once that her neighbour had probably been on a date of her own and her giddy mood was brought to a sudden halt. The safety of home was within sight, and it would only take a few steps down the hallway for her to be finally alone and free to furiously avoid thinking of her neighbour on a date with someone else, someone probably much better looking and more well-adjusted than Seungwan. But she should probably say something, right?

She turned to Joohyun, who looked at her expectantly. Apparently, she’d forgotten to move again, and they were both standing awkwardly by the elevator. She cleared and started walking, determinedly avoiding Joohyun’s eyes.

“So, were you on a date too?” she finally asked, trying to keep the reluctance from her voice. In her peripheral vision, she saw Joohyun nodding in confirmation, but she didn’t volunteer any more information. It might have seemed like she didn’t want to discuss the topic, but Seungwan was pretty sure it was just Joohyun being Joohyun. “How was it?” she prodded, already used to her position as the driver of conversations.

“It was alright, she was nice,” Joohyun replied simply. They were standing by her door, but she had made no effort to go inside, opting instead to lean against the wall and fix her bewitching eyes on Seungwan. “We had ice cream,” she added after a pause, sounding a lot more excited about the food than she had been about the date herself.

Even though she was only a couple of steps away from freedom, Seungwan suddenly felt no interest in ending the conversation. “Do you think you’ll see her again?” she inquired further.

“I don’t know. If she wants to,” Joohyun replied with a shrug.

“Do you want to?”

Joohyun looked away thoughtfully at that, seeming to ponder the issue. Seungwan sighed, partly in relief and partly in gentle disbelief at how Joohyun didn’t really seem to know what she was doing. “I think maybe you’re not very interested,” she pointed out with a small smile.

Joohyun only nodded, ready to accept her friend’s wisdom. Then she perked up as she stepped away from the wall to approach Seungwan. “What about you? Do you want to come inside and tell me how your date went?” she suddenly suggested, catching Seungwan entirely by surprise. She cast a longing glance at her own door, but she already knew that as soon as she turned back and looked into Joohyun’s eyes she’d be unable to resist.

“Sure,” she said instead. Joohyun’s face lit up with a wide smile and she quickly opened the door. Once inside, Seungwan wasted no time in taking off her shoes, gently massaging the soles of her feet. It was okay to succumb to her weakness every once in a while, right? After all, she and Joohyun were friends. She couldn’t avoid her entirely.

“I’m just going to take off my makeup,” Joohyun threw over her shoulder, already making her way to the bathroom. “You can use my things, if you want to take yours off too.”

Seungwan agreed easily and they stood side by side in front of the bathroom mirror, their attention focused on a familiar routine. Seungwan couldn’t help stealing glances at Joohyun, whose face evidently changed as the heavy makeup was removed, but managed to maintain its inhuman beauty. Meanwhile, Seungwan ended the process looking like a potato and she longed to put some distance between her face and Joohyun’s eyes to make the change a little less evident.

Walking out of the bathroom, Seungwan headed straight for the sofa, her aching feet begging for relief. Joohyun didn’t join her and she looked up to find that her neighbour had removed her blazer and was already ing her shirt. She walked into the bedroom to finish changing and came back soon afterwards wearing loose pants and a comfy sweater. She held something in her arms which turned out to be a matching sweater, and she held it out to Seungwan, who quickly exchanged it for her coat.

“So, your date,” Joohyun finally said, picking up the conversation where she’d left off. They locked eyes for a moment as she stood in front of Seungwan, then she turned around and entered the kitchen. “Hold on, I’m making tea, do you want some? So, how was your date?” she fired off in quick succession, repeating the question.

“Yes, please. And it was okay, I guess.” She burrowed deeper into the sweater under the pretence of warming up, running her fingers over the soft folds that smelled so wonderfully familiar. “I don’t think we’ll be going out again, though,” she added as an afterthought.

Joohyun must have picked up on something in her tone, because her response was almost immediate. “Did something happen?”

“No, no, just the usual,” Seungwan quickly reassured her. “I made a fool of myself.” She’d dug her head into the sweater like a turtle, so that everything below the nose was hidden in the fabric, and her voice came out slightly muffled.

“How is that the usual?” Joohyun asked earnestly as she walked out of the kitchen with two steaming mugs. She paused halfway there and Seungwan quickly pulled the sweater back into place, blushing slightly at being caught. “Do you want a blanket?”

Before Seungwan could answer, she set down the mugs and stepped into the bedroom, returning with a large bundle of fabric which she set over the both of them after sitting down. “The tea will warm you up,” she said as she tucked the blanket tighter around Seungwan. “So, what happened exactly?”

“Well, he didn’t really get any of my jokes, but he was nice enough,” Seungwan began, wishing the tea wasn’t too hot to drink, because then she’d at least have something to hide her face. “So I got a little too comfortable and gave a giant monologue on how tiramisu ice cream is better than regular tiramisu and he kind of looked at me like I’d grown a second head.”

“That was insensitive of him.”

“Oh, it wasn’t judgmental staring, more like what-have-I-gotten-myself-into staring,” she replied casually. It really wasn’t his fault that she was like this.

“Well,”, Joohyun started slowly as she reached for her tea. “I don’t think you made a fool of yourself. What did he want, a person without opinions?”

“Maybe just not about tiramisu ice cream.”

“It’s as valid a topic as any,” Joohyun stated firmly. She took an experimental sip and seemed pleased with the results, because she motioned for Seungwan to grab her own mug. They drank in their usual silence, but Seungwan couldn’t help but notice the small furrow in Joohyun’s brow. She was about to ask if everything was alright when she spoke up. “Is it that good?” Seungwan stared at her in confusion. “The ice cream.”

“Oh.” Right. Sounded like Joohyun. “Yeah, it’s pretty good, I’ll bring you some next time I buy it.”

“I don’t really like coffee, though,” Joohyun admitted with some concern.

“You’ll like it anyway, I promise. And if you don’t, I’ll just eat it myself,” Seungwan said with a chuckle. Joohyun smiled softly in response.

The silence returned, now more comfortable. Seungwan was almost reluctant to drink, as the hot mug was doing such a wonderful job of warming up her hands. Still, the sooner she finished it, the sooner she could hide her arms under the blanket and pull it up to her chin, so she continued to sip at the warm liquid.

Finally, she finished her tea and placed the mug back on the coffee table. She started her diligent cocooning, careful not to displace Joohyun’s end of the blanket. Her neighbour watched the manoeuvre with absent-minded amusement, then reached out a hand to smooth out a corner of the blanket, tucking it closer around Seungwan’s neck.

“So why did you go back to blind dates?” she asked, suddenly serious. The cocoon, which had previously seemed so appealing, now felt the tiniest bit like a prison.

“I, uh, I’m not sure. Just wanted to give it another chance,” Seungwan said, trying not to sound defensive. She couldn’t even shrug because it would dislodge the blanket.

“Did you ask your friend out yet?” Joohyun continued to prod, her head slightly tilted. Then her eyes widened momentarily and she shifted backwards slightly. “You don’t have to answer that, if you don’t want to.”

Right. They were still walking on eggshells around that. “It’s okay,” Seungwan quickly reassured her. “Actually, I…” She paused, her lips nervously. If she could pull this off, it would be one less worry on her mind.

Joohyun’s eyes were still on her. Even though all the makeup was gone, they managed to look even more dangerous than earlier. Seungwan smiled, trying her best to look natural. She could tell right away that she’d failed, so she changed her approach.

“Actually, she’s seeing someone else,” she said quickly, trying to sound casual. It wasn’t a complete lie, and that was usually the safest way to go with these things. The closer she crept to the truth, the more legitimate her reactions would be.

“Oh no, did you miss your chance?” Joohyun breathed out, looking truly concerned. She really was a good friend. Better than Seungwan deserved. Her hand reached out, but paused once she realized that Seungwan’s arms were hidden away under the blanket. She settled for patting her leg.

“I think it might be a good thing,” Seungwan considered with a shrug which left one of her shoulders exposed as the cocoon fell apart. She smiled slightly as she considered that she’d finally joined the ranks of Sooyoung and Seulgi. Joohyun dating was a good thing, even if they all thought so for different reasons.

Joohyun still studied her with wide eyes. She hated it, just a little. That friendly pity. Why couldn’t she just erase the whole thing from their past? It hung between them like a constant reminder of her failings. That ridiculous misunderstanding.

She nodded to reinforce her point. She smiled again, but this time it felt a little more real. More believable. “It was never going to work out between us,” she reasoned, more to herself than anything. “And now I have the perfect motivation to move on.”

She sighed, let her head fall back until it was staring at the ceiling. The blanket slid down further and she rearranged it so it was back to its original position, neatly covering her legs. She was warm enough now, anyway. “I just want to put it all behind me, you know?”

A new source of warmth covered her body, catching her by surprise. She looked back down to see that Joohyun had wrapped her arms around her. Hesitantly, she returned the embrace.

“You looked like you needed a hug,” Joohyun explained in a voice muffled by its owner’s close proximity to the sofa cushion.

Seungwan laughed at the words. “It’s because I’m not wearing any makeup,” she replied jokingly. “It makes my face look very serious.”

“Your face looks fine,” Joohyun protested while she pulled away, slapping Seungwan’s shoulder gently.

“Anyway, now that I’ve had my heartfelt confession, I need to go home before I fall asleep on your couch,” Seungwan said between laughs.

Joohyun was already getting up, but she paused to look at her earnestly. “You’re always free to sleep here, if you want.”

Oh no she wasn’t, not after last time. “I have to feed my cat,” she said easily, the practiced lie rolling off her tongue without hesitation. It was her go-to excuse whenever escaping social interactions.

She got up with a small groan, her feet immediately protesting the action. Joohyun reached for the blanket, folding it haphazardly on the sofa. Then she followed Seungwan to the front door, where she was unhappily stepping into her heels.

A hand pulled her back just as she was walking out. She turned around to see Joohyun studying her seriously.

“So you’re really going to give up on your friend?” she asked, her tone free of judgment. She sounded more like she was trying to understand the situation fully.

Seungwan nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think it’s time to move on.” The smile felt even more natural this time, maybe because she was getting more practice. Maybe that hug really had helped. Maybe she was more confident in her decision. It was anyone’s pick.

“Well, I’m sad that you won’t be able to be together with someone you care about. But if it wasn’t going to work out, then I’m glad you’re making the choice to walk away and find your happiness elsewhere,” she finished with what looked like a proud smile.

Seungwan fidgeted uncertainly. It felt weird to hear this from the object of her affections. But it also sounded like Joohyun was going to take her decision to heart and not try to push it anymore. There was definitely some humour to the fact that she was the only one willing to drop the subject. Still, after all the pressure from her other friends, Seungwan felt an almost overwhelming flood of relief at Joohyun’s support.

Her eyes grew warmer and she quickly threw herself in Joohyun’s arms before they became bright with unshed tears. She blinked rapidly, willing the sudden emotion away, and swallowed around the roughness in . “I’ll tell you all about my terrible blind dates,” she said cheerily, still hiding in Joohyun’s embrace.

Finally, she pulled away shyly and turned towards her own apartment. Joohyun stood by her opened door, smiling widely and waving at her. “I’m looking forward to it,” she said happily before walking back inside.

It was only as Mr. Fluffers looked up curiously in the middle of his usual greeting, stretching up with his front paws on her legs to sniff at her top, that Seungwan remembered she’d never taken off Joohyun’s sweater.

(…)  

(Sooyoung POV)

“I’ve decided to stop dating,” Joohyun announced grandly. She stood in front of the sofa, where Sooyoung and Yerim sat side by side.

She’d never wanted this. She was a simple woman with simple wishes. She wanted her next-door neighbour to stop having so loudly. She wanted the typography teacher to disappear under mysterious circumstances. She wanted that hot guy in her Friday morning lectures to notice her and throw himself at her feet. She certainly didn’t want to have to deal with the pure embodiment of chaos that was SeungHyun. And more importantly, she didn’t deserve it.

And yet Joohyun stood before them like she was about to deliver a sermon and Seungwan was nowhere to be found. And Sooyoung was just so tired.

“Oh god, it’s another couch monologue,” Yerim groaned, helpfully sparing Sooyoung the effort of saying it herself. Instead, she settled for slumping deeper into the pillows that surrounded her and stared at Joohyun with pained eyes.

“Why,” she said flatly, not even bothering to make it sound like a question. Yerim snorted and reached for a pillow, which she placed on her lap.

“As I mentioned, I started dating in order to help Seungwan with her romantic troubles,” Joohyun continued once she’d received the minimal input required from her audience. Yerim snorted again and Sooyoung rolled her eyes at the sound. If Yerim intended to do that every time Joohyun said something unintentionally ironic, then she’d swiftly rise the ranks to become the most annoying thing happening in the room.

“However, it has recently come to my attention that Seungwan is going on blind dates again,” Joohyun said, then fell silent once more and gazed at the sofa. Yerim was devoting her full attention to her pillow, so the eye contact fell to Sooyoung.

“How,” she sighed out quickly so Joohyun would return to her monologue. Hopefully she’d pick up speed soon enough and stop requiring audience participation.

“She told me.”

Sooyoung nodded. “Right.” Joohyun continued to stare. “Carry on,” she finally added awkwardly. Yerim provided absolutely no help, as she was still staring down into her lap.

Thankfully, Joohyun didn’t seem deterred by the passive reaction and carried on bravely. “Well, I asked her why she was dating and she told me that it was because she was moving on from her friend. The one she has feelings for,” she supplied helpfully, in case the two women sitting on the sofa had somehow succeeded in not following Seungwan’s love life for all of five minutes.

Joohyun looked more invested in her own narrative now, so Sooyoung risked a glance at her friend. Now that she was no longer using her peripheral vision, she finally noticed that Yerim wasn’t staring at her pillow, but rather at the phone she’d hidden behind it, tapping away happily at the screen.

“Are you seriously on your phone right now?” she whispered in annoyance, looking up at Joohyun for a moment to confirm that she was still monologuing away.

Yerim glanced her way shamelessly, then turned back to the device with a shrug. “I’m keeping Seulgi up to date.”

“We can just talk to her later,” Sooyoung pointed out in a low voice. Her friend looked up uncertainly, like she was trying to contest her logic but hadn’t come up with an argument yet. “You’re just texting your girlfriend, aren’t you?”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Yerim replied defensively, but at least taking the care to keep her voice down. Sooyoung raised her eyebrow and waited for her to finish her thought. “And I’m not texting her.”

“A little too late to be believable,” she pointed out, tilting her head. Yerim shrugged but didn’t contest it. Instead, she turned back to her phone and resumed her typing.

Ahead of them, Joohyun continued her speech, which had become more animated at some point. She was definitely at the stage where they could do anything short of leaving the room and she wouldn’t notice.

“It seemed like she was truly relieved to face her situation and put an end to it,” she carried on, deep in her own world. “When she left, she even hugged me. That’s never happened before.”

Sooyoung blinked in confusion. Yerim was smiling at her phone now, so the odds that she was paying any attention to Joohyun were quickly approaching zero.

“You know, I thought that she might not be comfortable with physical contact. She always seemed so uncomfortable when I hugged her, or the one time you did,” she added, looking straight at Sooyoung. Was this why she always took so long to get to the point? Was she about to embark on a long and unnecessary tangent?

“But she had no problem hugging her friend Seulgi. As you know, at the time I thought it might be because she had feelings for her. But then we discovered that she didn’t. The only possible conclusion was that their relationship must be closer than ours, so that she was only comfortable hugging Seulgi,” she carried on, her point becoming increasingly hard to determine. The whole situation started to feel like something out of The Twilight Zone, like Joohyun was going to keep talking about more and more bizarre things until they snapped back to reality and no one would believe Sooyoung when she talked about it later.

She elbowed Yerim discreetly, hoping to catch her attention and dispel her own worries, but she only got elbowed back by a grumbling Yerim, who apparently was very upset that her hand had slipped and she’d sent the wrong emoji.

“And that is why I was so touched when she hugged me before she left. I feel like a barrier between us has been brought down and we’re closer than ever.” Sooyoung elbowed Yerim more insistently. “My own experience with dating didn’t help in the way I’d hoped, but perhaps the same goal has been reached all the same,” Joohyun continued with a wistful smile.

Sooyoung elbowed Yerim so hard that she dropped her phone to rub at her arm, turning to Sooyoung with an unhappy pout. She gestured frantically to Joohyun, who stood in silence with a faraway look on her face, still bearing traces of the previous smile.

She sighed contentedly, then continued. “So I don’t see any reason to continue dating, given the new circumstances,” she said with a satisfied nod. “And I’ll have the entire weekend to myself again, that’ll be a pleasant change.”

“Did you seriously injure me for life just so I’d know her weekends are wide open?” Yerim asked in disbelief, dramatically clutching her arm.

Sooyoung considered arguing her case, but it was clear that the universe wanted her and her alone to listen to Joohyun’s extremely ambiguous confessions. She sighed and sank further into the sofa. Now that Joohyun had finished her speech, both women stared at Sooyoung expectantly. She was just so tired.