It was almost laughable how funny life was sometimes. Never passing up an opportunity to humble those that got too ahead of themselves.

Ups and downs. That’s all life was. Love, fun, happiness, death, taxes, whatever — it all boiled down to ups and downs. A simple concept. The challenge, though, came in anticipating when each would strike. It was impossible to predict. Even more impossible was accurately assessing how up an up was and, likewise, how down a down was. The worst were downs disguised as ups. And boy did Byulyi find herself in one hell of a down disguised as an up.

The absurdity of the situation dumped on her was laughable. It was a skill, the athlete thought, to constantly wind up in positions that were more believably part of a stand-up comic’s set of jokes than reality.

A young woman has a crush on her best friend for over a year. She’s pining, pining, pining in silence until one day she works up enough courage to confess. To her surprise, her best friend confesses back! They decide to be friends with benefits even though there are no benefits. Also — an important point — the young woman hasn’t had in almost 9 months. That’s important because, on her best friend’s birthday, the other woman initiates y times out of nowhere. This is the life, right? Knocking out two birds with one stone: have for the first time in almost a year and have with her best friend. They’re kissing, they’re touching, her friend’s getting . They’re setting the mood. This is it. It’s what she’s been hoping for. She’s foaming at the mouth, imagining every which way to her friend. It’s the moment.

Then her friend confesses that she’s a ! Just like that!

An audience would laugh at that, right? It was absurd enough to inspire a loud chorus of laughter. Because that’s what this situation deserved. Laughter. To stave off the crippling despair numbing Byulyi’s every sense.

Cold showers were not foreign to her — the world of youth club basketball came with its fair share of subpar locker rooms, including showers with no hot water. The news Yongsun dropped on her minutes ago, though, sent stronger shockwaves rippling through every fiber of her being than any of the cold showers she’d experienced. Some of the effects were the same: momentary paralysis, dread, the biting back of expletives for fear of others hearing. However, what set the bucket of frigid water metaphorically dumped on her just now apart from her cold showers of the past was the time to prepare.

The first victim on her youth teams subjected to the sudden shift in water would trudge out and mumble through shivers an irritated “the hot water’s done.” Everyone else lucky enough to have avoided such a cruel fate would then use the time to mentally prepare their plan of attack. Some would use their hands to carefully collect drops of water from the showerhead, pressing the liquid to their skin limb by limb before lathering up and collecting droplets in their palms once again to rinse off. The more daring chose to bite the proverbial bullet, dousing themselves in the stream of icicles and getting their shower over with as quickly as possible. The remaining would bear their dried sweat and stale stench until they could shower in the privacy of their shared hotel or dorm rooms.

With her back against the headboard of Yongsun’s bed, Byulyi stared off despondently, lamenting both the lack of time to prepare and the lack of a game plan for acknowledging Yongsun’s news. Mind moving miles per second, her lips were rendered ineffective, clamped shut by the announcement that, even though uttered at least 10 minutes ago, was still fresh and shocking.

“I said it’s my first time with anyone.”

“With anyone? It’s your first time? Like . . . with anyone? Anyone anyone?”

“Seriously, Byulyi. You heard me.”

“I did, I’m just . . . surprised? That’s . . . not what I expected. I’m trying to understand.”

“What is there to understand? It’s pretty straightforward.”

“Yes, I get that. But that’s a lot to process so suddenly.”

“Whatever.”

“Please don’t be upset.”

“I’m not.”

She was.

Yongsun lay within arm’s reach to Byulyi’s right, but as a stone-still silence permeated the room, and with Yongsun’s back to her, Byulyi knew her chance to fix things was dwindling. The longer they remained in silence, the wider the chasm between them would grow.

And still, she could not open .

With all her might, the young woman pleaded with any deity listening to place on the tip of her tongue the words that would make this better.

None came. They must all have been busy.

Left to her own devices, Byulyi brainstormed how to best handle her massive up. Because at this point, fixing it was impossible. The best she could hope for was a waterproof band-aid that would withstand her stress-sweat and, judging by the sound of things, Yongsun’s tears.

What was there to say?

Yongsun was a . That in itself felt blasphemous to even think. It made no sense.

For some people, repeating a word or phrase over and over results in those very words sounding awkward.

No repetition was needed in this case. ‘Yongsun is a ’ tasted sour from the get-go.

Yes, for the duration of the time they knew each other, the graduate student had stressed her lack of experience, but Byulyi thought Yongsun meant relationship experience, not ual experience. She’d figured there was someone throughout her 25 years of life that things would have escalated with. And if not, Yongsun had two relationships during her time at SNU. Jinyoung was Yongsun’s first official partner, her first relationship. As boring as Byulyi found the man to be, it was no secret he liked Yongsun a fair bit. Their relationship, however, never seemed to be enough of a two-way street as would be needed for anything close to to happen. Byulyi operated under the impression, then, that even though it wouldn’t be farfetched to imagine something happening between Yongsun and Jinyoung, it wasn’t very likely.

Now, Seungyeon. That was another story. Another book entirely.

The way she popped up out of nowhere was annoying, the way Yongsun never gave additional details on what went on with Seungyeon was shady, and the way Seungyeon had clearly been hung up on Yongsun left only one logical conclusion — they were having . Very good . Very, very good . That was the only reason for someone to make as much of a show on social media as Seungyeon always did after she and Yongsun “hung out”.

Did Byulyi happen upon the other woman’s Instagram and Twitter pages now and then? Yes. And the dates always added up. If Yongsun and Seungyeon hung out, there would be something documenting that. A photo, a tweet, an @, something. That girl was not slick. Yongsun clearly fell for her antics because her go-to justification if anyone brought it up — usually Wheein or Hyejin — was always, “She has all her friends on her social media accounts.” But Byulyi knew better. She picked up on the crumbs Seungyeon intentionally dropped. It was annoying. Seungyeon was annoying.

Soft sniffles coming from the woman beside her reminded Byulyi of what was most important now. Pushing aside the remnants of bitterness towards Seungyeon that remained, Byulyi focused on the reason Seungyeon came to mind in the first place: if asked to do so, the senior would have bet money on the fact that Yongsun and Seungyeon had . That’s how certain she was. This entire time, the thought rubbed her the wrong way, enough so that Byulyi tried to stealthily bring it up to Heeyeon a couple of weeks ago.

“Yongsun’s hanging out with Seungyeon tonight,” Byulyi mentioned unprompted.

She and Heeyeon coordinated their busy schedules, ensuring they could share this late dinner tonight. When originally making these plans, Byulyi didn’t expect to be in the middle of a cold war with Yongsun. The evening before, she and the older woman were having a lot of fun laughing at their own stupidity when a text message from Seungyeon interrupted and derailed the good mood. That dark cloud rolled over into today, making any communication with Yongsun unpleasant, and turning Byulyi into an unbearable sourpuss.

‘Going out tonight so I’ll be back late.’ That was one of the messages Yongsun sent her earlier. The only ‘friend’ Yongsun never mentioned was Seungyeon. She’d even mention Chorong by name if the two were hanging out, so Byulyi quickly learned to read between the lines. Any time the graduate student purposely didn’t mention someone by name, it meant she was going out with Seungyeon.

“Okay,” her roommate responded, fully unenthused and uninterested as she picked at the food in her bowl.

“Yeah,” the athlete drawled, spinning all wheels for a way to get Heeyeon to indulge her. Her friend had become more adamant recently about Byulyi keeping any issues with Yongsun between her and Yongsun. “Wonder what they’re up to,” she skittishly chanced glances at the woman beside her.

“Only they would know. You could always message Yongsun-unnie to find out.”

“I don’t know. Yongsun never talks about what they do.”

“Do you ever ask?”

“Why would I?”

“Okay, then why would she tell you?”

“Whatever.”

Sighing, Heeyeon softened some. “Stop coming up with scenarios in your head that are probably not happening.”

“But what if they are happening?”

“Then you need to come to terms with the fact that Yongsun-unnie’s a grown woman that’s lived a life before you.”

All that anger and jealousy for what? Wasting all that time and energy fretting over what Yongsun and Seungyeon were doing for what? That same night she looked to Heeyeon for reassurance, Yongsun was ending things with Seungyeon. And the “very, very good ” she assumed the two were having was a figment of her imagination. A mirage. But still potent enough in its nonexistence to challenge, tickle, and wound Byulyi’s ego. If the young woman were honest with herself, that had been a strong driving force behind a lot of the irritation at the Seungyeon situation. Yongsun, she thought, was doing things with the other woman that she wasn’t doing with Byulyi, the person she claimed to trust the most and feel most at ease with.

For the life of her, the basketball star couldn’t understand the disconnect between Yongsun’s words and her assumed actions. Until moments ago when Yongsun’s actions confirmed that she did, in fact, trust Byulyi with a lot. Trusted her enough to vulnerably admit, even in the face of audible nerves, that this was her first time. In return, Byulyi put her through a truncated inquisition, making Yongsun repeat and explain herself.

It was sick.

Embarrassing and shameful on Byulyi’s part, really. A breach of the faith Yongsun placed in her. There was a look in the older woman’s eyes when she shared her secret, a look that spoke volumes about how nervous announcing her ity made her. A look that Byulyi only caught by chance because she was too wrapped up in salivating over having Yongsun laid bare before her, teeming with lust and at Yongsun being shaved and wet, bursting at the seams to Kim Yongsun. Byulyi gnawed at her bottom lip as the shame gnawed at her from within.

Possibly a byproduct of her drought, maybe excitement from finally being in that position with her best friend, the eagerness with which Byulyi was ready to have with Yongsun made her dizzy. Only after moments of admiring the view before her did the odd, prolonged silence hit her. That is what made her look up at the last second to catch one of Yongsun’s eyes screwed shut while the other nervously followed Byulyi’s every move. That is what belatedly motivated her to ask if Yongsun was okay, and that is what opened the door for the bomb Yongsun eventually dropped.

Byulyi felt gross.

She was supposed to be better than that. Especially with Yongsun. The realization singed the words in desperately attempting to be vocalized—she was sorry. Whether Yongsun was a or not, it was going to be their first time having . Such a moment was supposed to be special, not whatever hormone-driven Byulyi was about to do. More embarrassment and shame overwhelmed her.

Meanwhile, the athlete had yet to say or do anything to comfort and reassure Yongsun that things were okay. That was her only job in the aftermath of this mess and she’d failed at it thus far. The only thing offering an inkling of hope was the fact that Yongsun hadn’t yet told her to leave. Was she also too stunned to say anything? Did she actually prefer having Byulyi around, even right now? Whatever the reason, Moonbyul was grateful. The hope was fleeting, but it was there. It’s what eventually stirred the younger woman from her thoughts and urged her to climb underneath the comforter. Gingerly, she slipped an arm around Yongsun’s bare waist, pulling the older’s back against her chest. Yongsun didn’t fight the egregiously delayed action, but she remained silent, leaving the burden of communication on Byulyi’s shoulders, once again begging the question — what was she supposed to say?

For all the thinking she’d spent the past 10 minutes doing, the athlete’s well of inspiration ran as dry as was.

“I’m sorry.” The words were only barely louder than the echoes of her heart ramming against her chest. Apologizing wasn’t what caused the erratic beating, realizing that Yongsun could choose to not accept her contrition caused it. The prospect of facing yet another setback caused it.

Using the left arm around Yongsun’s waist to sweep the older woman’s hair to the side, Byulyi craned her neck enough to timidly press her lips against the blonde’s exposed neck. “I’m so sorry, Yong.” The whispered words were met with a nerve-racking stretch of silence. Heaving a heavy sigh, she hugged Yongsun closer to her chest, the physical closeness mostly to help steel herself for the emotional waters she and Yongsun needed to tread. “Can we talk?”

“What’s there to talk about?” The words were hard, sending Byulyi’s mind into overdrive. The woman in her arms was upset. Quickly scanning their friendship’s timeline, Byulyi sought other instances in which a similar level of anger existed and mentally patted herself on the back for remembering that Yongsun was only ever this understated, deadly type of angry when something had seriously hurt her. Then Byulyi immediately stopped mentally patting herself on the back because it fully dawned on her that Yongsun was hurt.

.

“Um, there’s a lot to talk about. We could start by addressing what happened... Maybe?... If you want?” She knew that they needed to discuss it, but something about Yongsun’s tone scared Byulyi, made her second-guess and triple-check everything she knew and said.

“Byulyi, please. Just leave it alone.”

“Yong, we should talk about it.”

“What is there to say? I said what I said, you shut down. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Byulyi tried to speak firmly. If she let Yongsun dictate things, this fiasco would be buried along with all the other uncomfortable conversations they’d stashed away. This seemed to be the time to remember all of their past partners because Byulyi wistfully remembered Haena and how well she initiated and navigated conversations about their relationship. Expectations and concerns. The older woman never hesitated to speak candidly about those. Byulyi remembered how cool she found Haena for that. She was so good at communicating, making Byulyi want to be better, herself. For the duration of the relationship, though, Byulyi never had to flex those muscles too much as Haena always took the lead. It seemed the opportunity to step into that leadership position was suddenly presenting itself. “Not . . . you being a . That part’s fine. It is,” she stammered. “I meant the me shutting down part. That’s . . . not fine. I’m sorry.”

“You said that already.”

“And I’ll say it a million more times because I am really sorry.”

“Whatever. It’s in the past.”

“It won’t stay there unless we discuss it properly. Can we please?”

The seconds dripped by like molasses, but Yongsun eventually to her other side, facing Byulyi and leveling her with a questioning gaze. It was intimidating, as most things were when Yongsun got like this, but the athlete’s attention traitorously shifted to the s pressing against her chest.

Yongsun was still very , and Byulyi was still a child that couldn’t focus.

“Um . . . before we say anything else, do you want me to get your clothes for you? I want you to feel comfortable.” She didn’t wait for confirmation before hopping off the bed and retrieving Yongsun’s articles of clothing that were thrown about earlier. “Here you go,” she offered the clothes to the graduate student, throwing in a small smile after Yongsun rolled her eyes and sighed deeply.

Once the older woman was clothed and both sat across from each other on the bed — Yongsun with her arms crossed —, Byulyi started. “Okay . . . so . . . yeah . . . you’re a .” The more she spoke, the more she wanted to choke herself. How did people willingly enter conversations like this all the time? It was unnerving.

“Okay. I think we’re done here.”

“No, no! Let’s talk about it.”

“I don’t ing want to talk about it, Byulyi. It’s embarrassing! Is that what you wanted to hear? This entire thing is embarrassing, and I’d prefer not to go through a play-by-play.”

The outburst stunned her into another bout of silence before falling back onto her go-to phrase. “I’m sorry.” Reaching across to hold Yongsun’s chin between her thumb and index finger, she looked into the eyes trying to avoid hers and poured all possible sincerity into her next words. “I’m sorry, Yong. My reaction was not about you. Well, not fully. I was surprised by the news. That’s all. We’d never discussed it, and I assumed that you had done . . . that before, so when you said you hadn’t, it was like . . . oh!”

“Whatever.”

“It’s not whatever. Look,” Byulyi sighed and dropped her hand from Yongsun’s face, “this is new for me, okay?”

“What? Being with someone that’s never had ?”

“No. Yes! That . . . is new, but I meant talking about this stuff. I’ve never been in a relationship like this before.”

“A relationship like what?” Yongsun was being so defensive, ready to bark and bite at a moment’s notice.

“A relationship like this, where we talk about and stuff. So I apologize, again, for not taking or making the time to do that with you.” Even with Haena, a discussion about never happened. They just . . . had , Byulyi keeping a mental list of things the older woman responded positively to as they went. “I care a lot about you, Yongsun. I care about this thing that we’re trying to figure out. But I can’t give you what you need if I don’t know what that is.” Yongsun’s mouth opened with a quickness, likely ready to rip into Byulyi, prompting the athlete to quickly raise her hands and hurriedly add, “And vice versa! I need to communicate that, too! I could tell you were ready to jump on me.”

“I was,” Yongsun rolled her eyes, arms still crossed. It wasn’t the same ‘ you, stop talking to me’ eye-roll from before, though. No, this one was the much milder ‘you’re so annoying’ eye-roll that Yongsun used when Byulyi did or said stupid Yongsun found cute. Using that to her advantage, the athlete leaned into her overbearing playfulness schtick.

“Oh! Is that a smile?” There was no smile. “I think I saw a smile! Let me see?” Moving closer to Yongsun’s face, she continued, “is that a–, a smile?”

“Stop,” Yongsun whined, mushing Byulyi’s face away. “Everything’s a joke to you.” There was genuine annoyance in her tone, but it was a manageable, much less lethal than Yongsun’s earlier frustration.

“It’s not a joke to me, I just don’t know how to fix this. It’s awkward and I feel like that things went as poorly as they did.”

“Mmm.”

The words of honesty softened Yongsun’s gaze on her, encouraging Byulyi to continue.

“I’m so, so, so sorry. The shock and pressure got to me. I made things about me when they should’ve been about you. I’m really sorry.”

“Pressure? What pressure could possibly be on you? You’ve had ,” her voice lowered at that word; it was kind of cute, “plenty of times, I’m sure.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let’s slow down. Not that many times. And yes, there’s pressure. Even if I weren’t your first, there’d be pressure to make sure things were good for you and to make sure you got to where you needed to get. Now that I know I’ll be your first time, I definitely have to make sure everything is special.”

“Oh my goodness, I don’t need a parade, Byulyi,” Yongsun flopped back onto her pillow.

“Okay. I’ll cancel the parade. No problem,” she joked, laying her body atop Yongsun’s and tucking her head between the older woman’s neck and shoulder. “It still needs to be special for you and I have to make sure that happens. Whatever messy I was going to do today would not have been that.”

They lay there for several beats, Byulyi leaving tender kisses to Yongsun’s neck every now and then.

“How many people have you been with?” Yongsun whispered.

“Today is about you, not me.”

“I told you how many people I’ve been with. Isn’t it fair that you tell me how many you’ve been with?”

“You told me in the middle of us about to have , so I’ll save my number for the next time things heat up between us.”

“12?”

“Huh?”

“12 people? That you’ve had with?”

“What the ?” Byulyi laughed, lifting her head to look at Yongsun head-on.

“15?”

“Stop going higher! When would I have found time to have with 15 people?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“6. Only 6.” Goeun was the first. There was a girl at her junior college that Byulyi saw steadily after she and Goeun broke up. She was a little wild when arriving at SNU the following year—there were the soccer girls during the summer, and a senior she saw on and off throughout the year. Last year was Haena. The only “real” relationships were with Goeun and Haena.

“Only 6,” Yongsun scoffed.

Sensing the regression in Yongsun’s voice, Byulyi realized she probably shouldn’t have shared her actual number. “It doesn’t even matter, Yong. It’s different with each person. The most important thing is learning what your partner likes. That’s it. And we’ll figure that out together. Okay?” The subsequent head nod was shaky, but it was better than nothing. “Can I have a kiss, please?”

“No,” Yongsun turned her head away.

“Please?” A small smirk on her face, Yongsun gave another ‘you’re annoying’ roll of the eyes before obliging and letting Byulyi in for a chaste kiss. “I’m seriously so sorry, Yong.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”

“Okay,” the blonde whispered.

The remaining hours of Yongsun’s birthday were spent napping, eating, and watching movies of the birthday girl’s choice. Although things between them became infinitely more pleasant, Byulyi wasn’t naïve. The root causes of their conflict earlier were nowhere near being fully resolved. Acknowledging that didn’t even rattle her anymore. It had been their normal for far too long — proud of themselves for blowing out candles while ignoring the more significant fires around them that threatened to damage all the good.

Note: In while it's still Wednesday!

The response to the last chapter was unreal! I said it in a few responses, but wow! Writing this thing is a lot of fun, but I enjoy reading all of the comments so much! You all know these characters so well and are able to pick up on the smallest details. Truly, thank you all for taking the time to leave the comments that you do! And to those who don’t leave comments, that’s okay, too! Thank you for reading!

Several of you informed me that a year has (almost?) passed since this story started. That’s wild. Let me go marathon write some chapters so that we’re not stuck in another one of Byulyi and Yongsun’s fights a year from now. Wishing everyone well :)