"What are you doing here?"

"I just-- Sooyoung and I," Vivi started to explain, still trying to catch her breath from running to catch up to her. "We weren't doing anything."

At that, Haseul looked relieved - but the expression fell off her face soon enough.

"Why are you even explaining yourself? Who cares? I don't care? Why would I care?" Haseul asked, with forced indifference, voice so high-pitched and unnatural that it sounded painful to Vivi's ears. "It's not like-- it's not like we're together or anything."

Haseul's face betrayed her real emotions though, her disappointment and envy clear from her furrowed eyebrows and flared nostrils. Her actions gave her away too, her hands clenched into small fists.

"You don't owe me an explanation," she continued, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself rather than Vivi, "Sooyoung's your girlfriend and it isn't any of my business what you do with her."

"She isn't--" Vivi immediately refuted, "my girlfriend, I mean."

"Oh."

There was something about the way Haseul looked at her. It was more than just a stare. Her eyes peered so deeply and intensely that Vivi was half-convinced Haseul could see right through her, could see every thought and feeling she had been trying to hide. 

Vivi couldn't handle it. She couldn't handle how sweet, how soft Haseul's gaze was, especially when she was looking at her. Vivi couldn't handle the silent question in those eyes. 

Those eyes. Vivi had never noticed it before, had never let herself notice it before, but oh.

When the moonlight peering through the window hit Haseul's eyes just right, Vivi could feel her heart almost stop in her chest. Such a beautiful colour. Haseul's eyes were unfairly pretty, the sort of deep brown that Vivi associated with love and warmth.

It was the first time Vivi had been close enough to notice just how similar Haseul looked to the girl she had envisioned all those years ago. The girl of her dreams. That realisation was unnerving and exciting at the same time.

Because somehow the girl of her dreams was even more perfect than Vivi could ever have imagined. Apparently, the girl of her dreams had a tendency to fiddle with strands of her hair when she was nervous, had a smile that shone like the sun on a summer day and eyes that were an unfairly pretty shade of brown. 

Apparently, the girl of her dreams was named Jo Haseul.

Somehow, in the time spent in silent staring, Haseul collected enough courage to voice that silent question. "Can you feel it too?" Haseul's voice was small and unconfident, and it made Vivi want to reach over and hold her in her arms, to assure her that yes, she had felt it. She had felt it a thousand, no, a million times.

It was a simple question, one that only really asked for a short yes or no, but it still pierced Vivi's heart like an arrow. Because either answer - a yes or no - would mean more than a single word should be allowed to mean.

Sooyoung made her feel wanted, and for a time that had been enough. But Haseul made her feel needed. Made her feel like forever could be possible. No, she made her feel like forever was certain, was inevitable.

"Yeah, I can," Vivi answered honestly. 

Because even though she didn't know Haseul, not for long anyway, she couldn't be anything but honest around her. Because even though she had been trying not to, she had fallen in love. Because she couldn't lie to her soulmate.

Vivi turned her arm a little, letting the greyed words meet Haseul's gaze. Haseul reached out to touch it, but hesitated, as if waiting for Vivi to give her permission. When Vivi nodded, she traced the lettering lightly - her touch excessively soft, as if she thought that if her fingertips pressed too hard Vivi would somehow disappear.

Throughout her lifetime, Vivi had experienced all sorts of responses to her mark. Some good, some bad -- no, mostly bad. Pity, disgust, and if she was lucky, mere indifference. Vivi used to think that Sooyoung's mild interest (sans judgment) was the best response she was ever going to get. But Haseul surpassed all of them with one fell swoop.

Vivi's breath hitched as Haseul broke into the most captivating smile she had ever seen, the kind of smile that could light up the whole world with its effortless brightness, so contagious that Vivi didn't realise that she was smiling too. 

"So I'm your soulmate?" Haseul said, almost as if she didn't believe it was real. The corners of Haseul's eyes crinkled as she looked up at Vivi in amazement, making Vivi's heart swell with pride that she could make her that happy. "And you're…"

"I'm yours," Vivi breathed out, "if you want me to be."

Haseul took hold of Vivi's hand, clasping it with hers so that the heat of her palm was pressed Vivi's. "I do want that. More than anything." Her other hand - busy touching the grey mark on Vivi's wrist - slowed its actions, Haseul it with her thumb one last time before stopping completely.

They stood there, just staring at each other - matching small smiles on their faces - before Haseul spoke up again. "Don't look at me like that…" she muttered, embarrassment evident in the way she blushed and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

"How am I looking at you?"

"Like…" she gulped, working through her fluster to answer Vivi's question, "like you want me."

Vivi wasn't quite sure how to stop when that was the truth. And it seemed like Haseul wanted her back, Haseul's eyes not once leaving her lips. So she told her as much.

"But I do," Vivi admitted, a breathless quality to her voice. "And I know you want me back."

At Vivi's words, Haseul's eyes came to a close. 

"Vivi," Haseul said, almost urging, more determined than the older girl had ever heard her before, "kiss me."

And who was Vivi to deny a request like that?

Gently, as gently as was possible, Vivi held Haseul's face in her hands and leaned in. She pressed a soft kiss onto Haseul's waiting mouth, deepening it as Haseul's hands found themselves in Vivi's hair. Vivi didn't want to take it too far too quickly, knowing that she probably had the rest of her life to spend with this flawless girl. Still, she couldn't help it. The second their lips made contact, a switch was flipped inside of her - and she lost herself in Haseul's touch.

She pushed a little further, adding a little tease of tongue which made Haseul pull away to giggle into her neck. "That tickled."

Vivi just couldn't open her eyes, still caught up in the life-changing kiss they had shared.

"I do want you," Haseul told her, confirming Vivi's previous words. "I always have. But I never thought you could want me back. Not when you had Sooyoung. So I lied to myself, to you, and to a lot of people close to me. And it hurt. But I did it because I thought you'd be happier that way."

Vivi's eyes fluttered open upon hearing Haseul's voice waver. 

"But the truth is," Haseul continued, "I've always been yours."

"Mine, huh?" Grabbing hold of Haseul's wrist, Vivi tenderly pressed a kiss into the skin which should have had the ink of her soulmark. "I like the sound of that."