The world is ending in 3 months and Chaeyoung looks forward to it, so she takes her time to take a stroll to her favorite bookstore.

“Hi.”

The girl behind the desk smiles at her, “Hello. How can I help you?”

It’s a lovely Monday afternoon and all her classes are done. Chaeyoung had initially wanted to waste it in bed, like she always does, but here she is, taking chances.

“Hello. How can I help you?”

“I was wondering if you have this book.” Chaeyoung shows her a crumpled piece of paper. Advanced Calculus Exercises for College Students.

“Okay. I’ll take a look in our system, if you have a minute.” The girl behind the desk stands up and walks to the desktop beside her, and wow, she’s tall.

“Sure.”

The girl sits back down after a few moments. She glances down at the piece of paper just to make sure, “Yes, we do have the book. It’s at the shelf at the left-most corner of the room.”

“Thanks.”

Chaeyoung walks to the corner of the room, taking her time to look through each shelf.

Chaeyoung comes back with the thick book in her arms and pays for it. The coins are still warm from the clutch of her palm because she had held onto them the entire time she was in the bookstore.

The girl behind the desk looks slightly appalled like all cashiers do when you pay solely with coins, but Chaeyoung ignores it. She refuses a plastic bag that she’d have to pay a cent for because she ran out of them paying for the textbook. It’s something she’d usually find pathetic, but now it’s just funny. Almost everything becomes comedic when you know the world is about to end.

Chaeyoung holds the textbook to her chest the entire walk going back to the dormitory.

Chaeyoung realizes that Mathematics is an impassable wall she cannot break into. (This roughly translates to: she at math, and she can’t do this anymore.) She decides to return it the next day.  

“Hello again,” Chaeyoung greets the girl behind the desk.

“Hi. How can I help you? ...again?” The girl smiles at her this time, recognizing her.

“Do you do refunds?”

The girl’s face slightly falls. “No, I’m sorry. It’s against the rules,” She points to a tiny sign on the table: NO RETURNS & REFUNDS. She looks at Chaeyoung’s ID and says, seemingly pitiful because the book had been quite expensive, “You can talk to my manager if you’d like, maybe they could make exceptions for students?”

Chaeyoung stares at her. “What’s your name?” She asks, not even showing the slightest hint of disappointment about the book because she had forgotten about it already.

“Okay.” She deadpans, frowning. She pulls out a paper from underneath the desk. “Please fill out this form. My name is Chou Tzuyu. Your feedback can definitely help in improving our services.” She hands Chaeyoung the piece of paper back, along with the form and a pen, and sits back down, diverting her attention from Chaeyoung now.

Chaeyoung nods and looks at the girl, until she grows uncomfortable under her gaze.

“Alright, Chou Tzuyu.”

It’s exactly one week later when Chaeyoung comes back to the bookstore again, because she realizes she had left the textbook on the counter while she was filling up the form.

“Oh, hi.” Tzuyu smiles. It’s strained, Chaeyoung can tell, but she doesn’t really care because they’re all going to die in three months. They’re always showing it on the news. The television behind the desk is showing it right now, in fact, and Tzuyu just must have been watching it before Chaeyoung had come in.

“It really is ending, huh?” Chaeyoung whispers, more to herself than Tzuyu. But by the look of Tzuyu’s face, it seems like she’s aware, too.

“What is?” Tzuyu looks at the television behind her where Chaeyoung is staring. “Oh. You mean, the world?” Chaeyoung can tell she’s relaxing.

“Yeah,” Chaeyoung sighs. “Everybody’s so sad…”

She looks out of the window. There’s a middle-aged man reading the newspaper sitting on the bench, and a toddler- probably his child- clinging onto him. They look happy, but Chaeyoung still feels sorry somehow, because they’re also going to die.

It really is all everybody can talk about now. Her own mother had visited her yesterday, obviously grief-stricken from the news, but she had still tried her best to put on a smile for her daughter. But Chaeyoung just couldn’t push herself to do the same; once she had felt the tears in her eyes well up, she had asked her mother to leave, telling her she had class in a while, lying to her. Her mother kissed her forehead before leaving, and Chaeyoung had cried in the bathroom for at least half an hour afterwards.  

“They are,” Tzuyu follows her gaze, “But you seem fine, though.”

Well, there’s a lot to say to that, but Chaeyoung doesn’t really know what to say, so she just nods, because it’s true anyway. Despite the tears, she’s fine. Everything’s fine. Or maybe not- actually, she doesn’t know for sure if she’s fine, but it doesn’t really matter, because the world ending will make everything so.

“What about you?” she asks.

“It’s whatever,” Tzuyu rolls her eyes and chuckles, “I wouldn’t say this job , I’m just sick of everything. I don’t want it anymore.” She bites her lip. “So...”

“So… this is good, then.” Chaeyoung finishes Tzuyu’s sentence for her. “That the world is ending.”

“Yes.” Tzuyu’s smile grows a bit bigger this time.

Chaeyoung stares at the wall, past Tzuyu’s left ear. “Sorry if I made your job ty, I didn’t mean it.” She said awkwardly.

Tzuyu gives her a weird look, although still smiling. “It’s okay.”

“Can I buy you cookies to apologize?” 



 

“How long have you been working here?” Chaeyoung asks.

Tzuyu nibbles at the Nutella cookie Chaeyoung had just bought her, but Chaeyoung still looks at her expectantly, standing up, with her arms rested on the counter a bit too tall for her.

“Almost a year, I think.”

“You like books?”

Tzuyu nods nonchalantly. “I love reading. I forget everything when I do.”

“I like reading too,” Chaeyoung says. “I finally feel like I’m alone when I do.”

“Do you like being alone?” Tzuyu asks.

“Yeah. I mean, not that I hate people, I think I’m just tired of it all, too, meeting all their expectations. It’s… hard, I guess... ” What is hard? “Working so hard,”

“Working so hard? You have a job?” Tzuyu raises an eyebrow.

“No- I mean, okay, I’m in a Computer Science course, which is super weird, because all I ever really wanted was to go to art school. But my parents… they didn’t really force me out of it, but I guess you could say they discouraged me. But they didn’t necessarily encourage me to take anything else, so now I’m stuck with… this. And it feels empty. But I don’t say anything, because they both work so hard for me.”

Tzuyu finally finishes the cookies Chaeyoung had bought her. She faces Chaeyoung with an unreadable look on her face. “Do you still love them?”

“Of course. But I don’t think they love me, even if they think they do. There are a lot of things they don’t know.”

“I think everybody hides things from their parents.” Tzuyu doesn’t ask why. “Well, at least I do. My parents are all the way in Taiwan.”

But you don’t understand , Chaeyoung wants to say, but she decides not to. “Lol.”

Tzuyu grimaces. “Did you just actually say ‘lol’?”

Chaeyoung playfully sticks her tongue out at Tzuyu when they meet. Tzuyu raises a brow because Chaeyoung is smiling so widely.

“What are you so happy about today?”

“Nothing in particular. Today seems like a good day.” It’s true. It hasn’t been raining and it’s not that cold anymore. And Tzuyu is fun to talk to… even if it’s mostly Chaeyoung doing the talking.

“You really think it’s true, don’t you?”

“I hope so.” Chaeyoung’s smile can’t get any more wider than this. She can’t wait.

It’s raining really, really hard, and Chaeyoung is stuck in Tzuyu’s apartment. She’s tired and all she wants to do is go home, but the streets are too flooded to do so.

Chaeyoung is in the middle of a story about her brother quitting med school when a loud strike of thunder pierces through the sky. Chaeyoung swears she felt the room shake. Suddenly, the lights are turned off and Chaeyoung can barely make out the silhouette of Tzuyu’s face.

“Uh, does this really happen a lot?”

Tzuyu laughs, because she realizes that no matter how strong Chaeyoung makes herself look, she is just as weak, and she wants to tell her how much of a baby she actually is.

“No, let me just get the power back on.” Tzuyu disappears and now Chaeyoung can’t see a thing.

“Okay,” Chaeyoung doesn’t move from where she’s sitting. She stares at the little moonlight coming from the window, wincing everytime thunder strikes.

And just when Chaeyoung starts to fall asleep on the couch because Tzuyu hasn’t come back, the lights suddenly flicker, but they’re not turning on yet. Still, Tzuyu isn’t anywhere to be seen.

“Tzuyu?” Chaeyoung shouts into the darkness, “Hello?”

The rain has been getting harder and harder, and Chaeyoung’s really afraid. She just wants to go home now.

“Hello? Tzuyu? This isn’t funny anymore,” Chaeyoung shouts again, “You won’t like me when I’m mad!”

And now the lights are and Tzuyu is behind her. Chaeyoung is so startled that she lets out a quiet scream. “Hey, you,” She hisses. “What was that for?”

“I just wanted to show you,” Tzuyu smiles behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder, almost possessively that it’s scary, “What it feels like to be completely alone. It can feel good, but it’ll never feel right.”

Chaeyoung doesn’t say anything to that, because she knows Tzuyu would know. And embarrassedly, she admits to herself that in those ten minutes, all she had thought about was Tzuyu more than anything else.

One night, Chaeyoung is wrapped in Tzuyu’s arms under her covers. She’s thinking about how her parents will never know about this as well; now, Tzuyu is her secret.

She Tzuyu’s resting hand on her stomach and she feels electricity, and it’s something she’s never felt before. She doesn’t know what it is, but it’s powerful enough to confuse her, even when Chaeyoung’s pretty sure about a lot of things.

It doesn’t matter what it is anymore; it’s irrelevant, just as a lot of things are now,  because the world is ending. 

 

Chaeyoung visits Tzuyu in the bookstore again today.

She likes it here. Sometimes she studies behind the counter where Tzuyu works, beside her. She finds it funny when their arms bump when they’re both studying and Tzuyu tells her to go away; it’s really cheeky.

“What are you doing here?” Tzuyu asks.

“Can I not buy books? Just because I study harder than you do,”

Tzuyu rolls her eyes. “Shut up,”

“It’s true! I had a Math exam last Wednesday and it was all I could think about,” Besides you, of course, but Chaeyoung doesn’t let that part slip out of . “Do you not believe me?”

“Prove it.” Tzuyu teases. She actually believes Chaeyoung, it’s just fun getting her so worked up.

Chaeyoung decides one afternoon that she wants to ask Tzuyu out, when she realizes that the world is ending in a month. The thought that it’s getting closer and closer excites her. She smiles at the ground during the entire walk to her dorm after class that day.

Chaeyoung’s idea of a date is to go out for a drive with Tzuyu. It’s uncharacteristically romantic until she finds out that Tzuyu’s car scent reeks of artificial strawberries.

Chaeyoung does like strawberries though, just not… this.

“What the hell, did you get that for only like, fifty cents?” Chaeyoung asked. She stretched all the way to the passenger’s seat to grab the other air fresheners to ask. Apparently Tzuyu was a bulk-buyer.

“What?” Tzuyu continued to drive, keeping her eyes on the road.

“The car scent, I meant.”

“I thought you liked strawberries!” Tzuyu retorts.

“Yeah, but not… this! It smells like shi-”

“Oh my god, Chaeyoung, you . Just be glad I’m not killing you yet. And I mean it.”

Chaeyoung’s in the middle of a hearty laugh when Tzuyu suddenly steps on the gas pedal, hard, and now they’re speeding up way too fast that it’s out of Chaeyoung’s comprehension.

Tzuyu’s driving so fast in the highway right now that Chaeyoung legitimately thinks she might die. It isn’t a bad thing, really, but she’d prefer to end it all with everybody else. Her pride could not possibly imagine being cried upon while she remained cold and unmoving inside a casket in display that her parents would pay thousands for.

“Tzuyu! Why the  are you driving so fast?”

Tzuyu doesn’t answer, and she just keeps speeding up. Chaeyoung knows this highway wouldn’t go on much longer, and she’s afraid of the incoming mess, how Tzuyu wouldn’t be able to slow down in time just for traffic.

Still, Tzuyu doesn’t answer, and her face is unreadable. “Hey! You’re scaring me, Tzuyu! Again, this isn’t funny anymore!”

Unpredictably, Tzuyu slows down just in time. Chaeyoung is still gripping the car handle as tightly as she can, panting, and there’s an unreadable look on Tzuyu’s face.

“God, what was that for? You have to cut it out!”

“This time, I just wanted to show you what it would feel like when that day comes,”

Chaeyoung genuinely thinks that Tzuyu is crazy, but she just laughs. She leaves her hand on the joystick in relief, and Tzuyu places her hand on top of Chaeyoung’s.

The world is ending in less than a month and they’re all going to die, but admittedly, this is the most alive Chaeyoung has felt.

Chaeyoung and Tzuyu often catch each other’s glances, but it’s something they don’t talk about. There’s a doubt lingering in the air, whether it will hurt once that day comes, or whether they’ll still be able to see each other.

“We have two weeks left,” Chaeyoung whispers. This time, Tzuyu is in Chaeyoung’s dorm. Both of them are staring at the ceiling from Chaeyoung’s bed. Chaeyoung lies at her side, facing Tzuyu. “Can you promise me something?”

“What?” Tzuyu replies half-heartedly. She’s still staring into the ceiling, and Chaeyoung can only wonder what she’s thinking of exactly.

“Can we still continue seeing each other when we’re in heaven?”

Tzuyu laughs at the word heaven. “How sure are you we’re going to heaven?”

“Okay, fine– or hell. ”

“Okay, yes.” Tzuyu closes her eyes. “I promise.”

If they can’t see each other, now Chaeyoung’s pretty sure it’s going to hurt when that day comes. 




 

It’s been a week since Chaeyoung’s near-death experience when she visits Tzuyu in the bookstore again after class.

But this time, Chaeyoung wants do so much more than just study. She’s finally going to ask Tzuyu out. It gives her tingles, imagining kissing Tzuyu in the corner of the shop, bounded by paper and nothing else. And nobody would know.

Chaeyoung walks directly to the counter, facing Tzuyu. “Tzuyu, I love you.” She says with a straight face. Tzuyu has not only taught Chaeyoung love, but she has taught her courage as well.

But the admission is so absurd and sudden that Tzuyu laughs. She looks at Chaeyoung in endearment and she reaches out for her hand on the table.

Determinedly, Chaeyoung places her hand on Tzuyu’s and she laces their fingers together. Tzuyu’s hand is warm and it’s making Chaeyoung feel… things, despite the lack of a response. Her heart is beating faster and she can feel the blood in her face rushing. She wonders where all of this passion came from.

She purses her lips. “I’ve never felt this way with anybody.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Chaeyoung replies. There’s a rush of adrenaline in her body, restless. She feels like there’s a quick-flowing sandglass above her head, but mostly when she’s with Tzuyu. It’s ripping her apart: the doubt whether she’ll still be with Tzuyu when that day comes; or otherwise: knowing that she only has a few weeks left with Tzuyu, but in the same time, she can’t wait for that moment to come.

“Can I kiss you?” Chaeyoung asks.

Tzuyu smiles. “No.”

“Why not?” Chaeyoung frowns.

“Because can’t you see? I’m working. Just because I work harder than you,” Tzuyu mocks Chaeyoung because she can’t help it. “Ask me again. Nicer this time.”

Chaeyoung doesn’t say anything at first, getting a lunch paper-bag from her backpack. She had bought Tzuyu a bottle of chocolate milk with her measly allowance, a ribbon tied on its neck, along with an envelope. Inside the envelope were a few drawings. Chaeyoung actually doesn’t know what to do; this is hard. Liking somebody for the first time is hard.

She puts her gift on the counter. “Here, miss, do you accept donations? Specifically to the cashier?”

Tzuyu laughs out loud, and she looks glad, Chaeyoung can tell. Chaeyoung smiles, feeling that Tzuyu’s happiness is now her own. She puts the bottle down to her desk. As grim as their relationship was, Tzuyu has now taught her empathy.

“Can I kiss you now?”

“Yes. And you can’t call me your girlfriend unless you do,”

Chaeyoung smiles as widely as she can, her heart feeling like it wants to jump out of her chest. The thought that Tzuyu will be hers seems unreal.

She doesn’t join Tzuyu inside the counter. She skips to the corner of the bookstore where there are no shelves, just uneven pillars and pillars of books stacked against each other. She turns around and sees that Tzuyu is following her from behind.

And it is Chaeyoung who walks to Tzuyu first. She kisses Tzuyu on the lips on her tiptoes without any hesitation. It’s Chaeyoung’s first kiss, Tzuyu’s lips are moving on hers, and she’s so sure about everything because she’s had it all planned out, until Tzuyu roams her hands on her back and Chaeyoung now feels like collapsing. Her knees feel like jelly and all she wants to do is melt in Tzuyu’s embrace.

Tzuyu is now inside and it’s nothing she’s ever felt before. And by the end of it all, Chaeyoung is panting and all she can do is stare at Tzuyu’s face, her arms still gripping Tzuyu’s.

“This is what people do when they are in love, right?”

Tzuyu smiles. “Yes.”

Today’s date is a walk through the woods.

“Are you excited?” Chaeyoung asks.

“Yeah,” Tzuyu replies. She tightens her grip on Chaeyoung’s hand, and Chaeyoung’s palm with her thumb. “And I saw the news about the world ending again today, and I got so excited I almost choked on my food.”

Chaeyoung laughs because she feels the same. 


 

It’s been weeks since the weather has been great, which is contradicting, because the news says a typhoon would follow the end of the world. Chaeyoung is skeptical about it.

“Do you still think the world is going to end?”

Tzuyu looks at the window, and there’s a beautiful ray of sunshine that enters the room just right.

“I doubt it, honestly.”

The answer makes Chaeyoung legitimately want to cry.

She can still hear the vague sounds of traffic outside, and there’s a pool of dread in her stomach because Tzuyu’s usually right. All they had looked forward to was a faux. She feels betrayed, for some reason, and helpless. She closes her eyes as tight as she can, but still, she’s alive. And it’s still a new day.

“Maybe next month, it’ll end. Maybe God is late.” She whispers and covers her face with her palms, her eyes still ridiculously shut tight.

Yes, Tzuyu had made her feel what being alive really meant. And although Tzuyu had loved her, and taught her how to love, she could not, and had not, taken away Chaeyoung’s pain. After all, no amount of love can take away pain. Suffering is only divided when it is shared, in love, just as Chaeyoung’s sadness was Tzuyu’s sadness. But Chaeyoung’s pain was still wholly her own.

Tzuyu firmly takes Chaeyoung’s palms off of her face, and the force startles Chaeyoung so that she’s now looking at Tzuyu with wide eyes.

“The world isn’t going to end, and you have to face it. It’s not going to end today, and it’s not going to end tomorrow. You’re going to have to live it, Chaeng,”

“But it’s not fair,” Chaeyoung whispers.

“What’s not fair? The world doesn’t owe us anything.”

Chaeyoung can feel tears forming in her eyes, and she buries her face in Tzuyu’s chest. She starts to quietly sob into her hands slowly. She wraps her arms around Tzuyu’s back, tangling their legs together, whispering, “Please,”

There’s an entitled part of Tzuyu that pains her to see Chaeyoung still so eager to see the world end despite everything they’ve been through, but she still whispers words of comfort into Chaeyoung’s ear, Chaeyoung’s hair until she feels her collarbones wet with Chaeyoung’s tears. The world is not fair, and it never has been. The world does not treat little girls well.

“Please forgive me,” Chaeyoung whispers, muffled. She doesn’t know what to do with herself. “I love you Tzuyu, I love you, I love you, please, please, please-”

Tzuyu tilts Chaeyoung’s face up and kisses her, salty from her tears. All Chaeyoung can do is kiss her back helplessly.

“You never know what’s in store for you,” Tzuyu whispers in between kisses. They kiss like it’s going to come anytime soon.

Chaeyoung says she wants to tell Tzuyu so much more things, wants Tzuyu closer to her more than ever. Despite the lack of time, Tzuyu says it can happen. 


 

Chaeyoung and Tzuyu prepare for their last night in the world together. This time, they’re in Tzuyu’s apartment again.

Chaeyoung had said her goodbyes to her friends and family alike. It was awkward, despite her family’s apparent grief, and even if she had practiced saying goodbye to them for months. But Chaeyoung didn’t care much anymore; the world was going to end.

Chaeyoung looks at Tzuyu, bidding her own farewells while looking outside the window, and thinking about how her family would never find out that she’s in love with a girl.

But it was probably so much easier for Tzuyu because she hadn’t seen her family in so long that she was used to it. She had just put the phone down when she had noticed Chaeyoung staring at her. Tzuyu smiles at her knowingly, slightly melancholic; it was so overwhelming, after all. The day they had been waiting for was finally here.

Chaeyoung gets into the bed first. She has no idea what she’s doing, but she tries to get comfortable. Tzuyu follows, and she’s looking at Chaeyoung like she has so much to say; it’s unreal, but it’s probably the moonlight gleaming on her face that makes everything look so surreal.

“Does it really feel like this?” Chaeyoung dares to ask.

“Yes.” Tzuyu replies. She kisses Chaeyoung first. She’s kissing her just like last time, but it feels so different in the same time. It’s something more sensual, physical, and by the feel of it, Tzuyu seems like she knows what she’s doing already.

It’s kind of upsetting to know this isn’t Tzuyu’s first time, but Chaeyoung smiles in between the kisses knowing that at least this is Tzuyu’s last.

She clumsily asks if she should take her clothes off, but Tzuyu does it for her anyway. Now her wish is granted, and Tzuyu is closer to her than ever. And it occurs to Chaeyoung that Tzuyu is all she wants.

Tzuyu, strong and independent to the average eye, who only allows herself to suffer behind closed doors.

Tzuyu, who has asked her first out of everybody, that’s what other people want you to do, but what do you want?

Tzuyu, who represents everything that Chaeyoung has locked inside herself for the longest time; the curve of her waist, the plumpness of her lips, the perfect cut of her eyes.

And now she wants it all. This is what she wants.

Tzuyu kisses her where she’s most sensitive, and Chaeyoung tries her best to do the same, moments later when Tzuyu says it’s her turn. She doesn’t know how she does it, but it’s the first time she makes Tzuyu weak. Tzuyu is clinging onto her and whimpering, and it’s the first time Chaeyoung has done this but she’s already addicted. She does it again, as Tzuyu does, and the entire cycle goes on as if that moment is coming anytime soon.

The next day, Chaeyoung still wakes up.

The first thing she sees is Tzuyu’s sleeping face next to hers. Chaeyoung looks at her until she wakes up from the staring, and it occurs to Chaeyoung that it’s still a new day, that they’re both still alive, and her heart almost drops from the realization, because everything she had looked forward to was a faux. But somehow she’s really not that upset anymore.

Tzuyu, on the other hand, doesn’t look surprised at all.

“Is this heaven yet?” Chaeyoung asks as if Tzuyu would know.

Tzuyu opens her eyes. She sees Chaeyoung, still alive, and smiles.

"Yes, it is."