Under the Same Sky

(Angst)

“Happy 3^rd anniversary.” Sowon whispered to Eunha’s ear while both sitting side by side with their body touched on the rooftop, looking at the vast dark sky and its countless stars. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

A memory that will be forever in Eunha’s mind.

A memory.

“Hey, so we got some work to do this afternoon.” Said Sinb her best friend, her class mate and her partner for the drama show their university theater team will held in 3 months. “We got to send this proposal to potential sponsor…are you listening to me” she asked, knowing that Eunha hadn’t move a bit since she sat down in the chair next to smaller girl.

“Ah, sorry what did you say?”

“What is it?” Sinb glanced at Eunha’s phone.

Eunha didn’t want to answer it at first.

“Sowon?” Sinb guessed.

“Someone tagged me in a post with her.”

“Who’s that mothefcking insensitive bastard?” Sinb took the phone from Eunha’s hand and check it herself. It was her girlfriend, Yerin. “Oh…umm…I’ll tell her later if I meet her.”

Eunha just shook her head lightly.

“She looks happy now.” Eunha said.

A silent crept between the two girls for a while.

“Well, you are happy too, aren’t you?”

“Yes. It’s just…it’s nice to see her achieving her dreams.”

That was what Eunha said, but Sinb could see clearly the emptiness in her best friend’s eyes.

Eunha suddenly changed the topic to the drama show. Sinb explained about it once again without questioning or mentioning anything about it again and they went to finish their duty after eating.

***

Yerin visited Sinb in her apartment late in the night. She also had quite a lot of things that day but she wanted to eat some late-night snack with Sinb so, she came.

“Why did you tag Eunha and Sowon together? You know how Eunha feels about the breakup still, right?” Sinb confronted Yerin when they were sitting face to face in front of the chicken feet, Sinb’s favorite food, and the pasta, Yerin’s favorite.

“I know. But Sowon is my friend just as Eunha is your friend.”

Sinb looked at Yerin confused.

“I know how she feels.” Yerin added.

“You got me lost here.”

 “Sowon did it all for Eunha.”

It had been 2 years or so since Eunha and Sowon broke up. It was not a nice one if one had to say. Sowon had betrayed Eunha. At least that was how Eunha knew it. Then, Sowon went away, far away to the place that she always wanted. Eunha didn’t really know about this because there were no more ‘they’ for them. It had been Sowon or Eunha since.

Eunha’s heart was broken, that is for sure.

She never heard anything about Sowon after. For the longest time, her life felt empty. But as people always say, time is the cure. Slowly but sure, Eunha felt okay. Terribly okay, in fact.

But she never thought that it would feel like a lightning struck when she saw or heard her name again. She didn’t know why. It was just like that.

And what about Sowon?

Sowon betrayed Eunha, it was true. She made it that way. Because she realized that if she kept being with Eunha that time, they could never achieve their dream. With a bit of a selfish thought, she decided to make as if she didn’t love Eunha anymore. So, she could get away. Just a few months after their third anniversary.

She made it.  

There was this sort of relieve at first. Then she felt sad. Eunha was everything to her. The sadness, she couldn’t explain. But she had decided and she determined. She thought that she’ll comeback after she settled herself. Although she was not sure if Eunha will be alone by that time, but she thought that she needed to take the risk. For both of them.

Yerin knew about this, even though not from the start. Sowon only told a fragment of her side of story to Yerin after they ended up having a conversation where Sowon had no other choice but to tell her best friend about it.

***

Sowon was playing a mobile game while lying on her couch when Eunha came and bring some foods for her. Something that she did sometimes when Sowon’s parents were not home. Eunha put the big plastic bag with two meals for their dinner on the table.

She approached the older girl and sat at the space beside Sowon’s leg. She looked at her girlfriend who was still focused on her phone.

“Am I just gonna be here watching you for hours?” she asked.

“What? Of course, no.” Answered Sowon quick. She let her right hand off of her phone so that she could see Eunha’s face. “Come here.” she grinned and tapped the small space left beside her body telling Eunha to lie down with her.  

Eunha moved her body heavily as if she didn’t want to do it. Meanwhile Sowon getting her right arm ready as Eunha’s arm pillow. She then pulled the smaller girl closed to her body. Wrapped her tight.

“My baby.” Sowon said.

Eunha also wrapped her arms around her girlfriend’s body and felt her warmth as she hugged her.

“I told you to just come here first then we can order from here.”

“It will cost us a delivery fee while I can just get the food on my way here.”

Sowon gave her small girlfriend a peck on her forehead.

“Let’s play together. You tap this button when I tell you, okay?”

Eunha didn’t say yes, but she played along.

“Tap! Tap! No, no, no.”

Sowon screamed and they were laughing together.

They lost the game.

“Did you tap it wrongly on purpose? Huh? Answer me honestly miss.”

Eunha smirked and sticked her tongue out a little.

“You…you have to give me a kiss as punishment.” Sowon pushed her lips to Eunha’s direction.

“Aaaa….” Eunha looked away and tried to hold her girlfriend’s body with all of her strength from getting closer. But Sowon was strong and managed to kiss Eunha slightly on the cheek.

“Next time, I’m gonna aim for your lips.” Sowon teased. She fixed her position.

Eunha did the same.

“Anyway, what are going to do after this? After school, I mean.” Sowon asked when they were already in a comfortable position.

That question got Eunha think a little. She didn’t really know what she wanted to be but there was one thing she always sure about. She wanted to go far away from home to continue her study. She wanted to know how it feels to miss home.

“Let’s go together.” Sowon said.

***

“Hey, Eunha...Are you listening to me?”

That brought Eunha back to her sense.

“Oh, sorry. What is it, Umji?”

Years passed and they were all graduated from university. Eunha got her job, so did Sowon. She got a pretty good position in the place she lived.

“Are you spacing out again? I see that you do that a lot lately.” Umji, Eunha’s co-worker, was seriously concerned about her.  

“I just, I got some stuffs in my mind now.” She replied. “What is it?”

“There’s a company dinner this evening.”

“Can I skip it? I feel a little bit dizzy.”

Eunha naturally hated crowd, but that day her head felt heavier than usual indeed. She just wanted to go home early and sleep. Umji understood and she told their boss that Eunha might have to skip it this time.

Meanwhile, on the other side, Sowon was back in town.  She called Yerin for a meet up. Yerin was with Sinb by the time Sowon called her. That evening, the three ended up having coffee together in a café near Yerin’s workplace.

They were talking and talking. Mostly the two best friends, catching up things.

“So, how’s Eunha?” Sowon looked at Sinb all of sudden.

“She’s…” in her mind, Sinb wanted to be angry at Sowon. She wanted to ask her a bunch of questions about why she did what she did. “She’s great!” she said at last.

“Is she with someone right now?”

“Are you?”

“I’m coming back for her.”

Sinb just couldn’t believe what she heard. Although she knew quite a bit of it from Yerin, but hearing that sentence coming out from Sowon herself, she couldn’t help but wondering how it seemed so easy for her. Like, there was nothing wrong and there’s never a heart that’s broken.

“I personally prefer that you never comeback.” Sinb voiced out her opinion without thinking about what Sowon would think of her. By that time, her phone rang.

A call from Eunha.

“Sinb, can you pick me up? I’m not feeling good.” Eunha said over the phone.

“What happened? Where are you?”

“I just feel a little dizzy. I’m outside my office now.”

“Okay, just stay where you are. Don’t go anywhere.”

Sowon and Yerin knew that it was from Eunha. The tall girl asked about what happened but Sinb refused to say it. Sinb packed her belonging. Just when she was about to leave her seat, Sowon grabbed her hand.

“Where is she?” She gave Sinb a serious look. “Let me pick her up.”

“Are you kidding me?” Sinb took turn to look at Sowon and Yerin. She was kind of hoping that her girlfriend would be on her side and say something to Sowon to get rid of that idea, but Yerin didn’t say anything. “Woah” She looked away in disbelief.

Sowon didn’t let go of her grip.

“I’m gonna punch you if you don’t let go of my hand.”

“Do it. Punch me. As long as you let me pick her up.”

“You crazy bi…”

Sowon strengthened her grip to Sinb’s hand.

Sinb shook her hand off hard and swung the other hand to punch Sowon. She didn’t hold back. Sowon got pushed back and probably would already fall if she didn’t grab her chair. The sound was so loud that everyone inside the café was looking at them. Sowon got the end of her lips bleeding. She wiped it as she stood straight back up to face Sinb.   

“Thank you.”

The tall girl packed her bag and walked out soon as Sinb told her the address.

“Now Eunha is gonna hate me forever.” Sinb muttered.

Yerin grabbed her girlfriend’s hand but she shook it off.

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore today.”

***

Eunha waited patiently for Sinb to come and get her. She was checking her phone when a white fancy car stopped in front of her. The door opened and she was so shocked to see Sowon coming out of the car. Her heart beat so fast. Memories started to flash in her head. She almost couldn’t breathe at that moment but she tried not to show it.

Sowon with bleeding lips and the skin around it that started to getting darker was only inches away from Eunha. The smaller girl was quite sure that Sowon said something to greet her, but she couldn’t hear it.

The she saw Sowon smiled at her.

“What are you doing here?” suddenly Eunha’s heart filled with rage.

“I came to pick you up.”

“No, I’m waiting for Sinb.”

“I get this from Sinb so that I can pick you up instead.” Sowon pointing at her lips.

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to let me to take you home and maybe say a few words on the way.”

Eunha wanted to say something but her headache was getting worse.

“Are you okay?” Sowon grabbed Eunha’s body that was getting weaker. She guided Eunha to her car and took her bag. The smaller girl didn’t have any other choice but to let Sowon did it.

“Should I take you to the hospital instead?” The taller girl asked when she sat on the seat opposite of her.

Eunha told her that she just wanted to go home. Sowon complied.

Then she remembered she had some medicine for headache in her bag and insisted Eunha to take it. It made Eunha feel a little better.

There was a silent between them for a moment after that. Before Sowon broke it by saying sorry. She knew that Eunha wouldn’t going to forgive her as easily but she wanted Eunha to know her true intention. Hoping that at least she would understand.

“You ing said that we’ll go together!! But you left me!!!” Eunha wanted to scream those words in front of her ex-lover, but she didn’t. Instead, she looked outside the window. It felt like she stayed still while the people, the building and the trees were moving past by her.

“I want to be a successful person for you. And I realized back then if I kept being with you, I would only get distracted and I wouldn’t achieve this.” She paused. “I know that a lot of things could happened. That includes you probably found someone better than me. But I’ll risk it all cause I think you deserve someone great.”

Eunha only reciprocated after a while.

“Have you ever thought that you’re using ‘I’ so much?”

Sowon was surprised. She never really paid attention on her speech.

“If you have to be away from me to be successful, then you don’t need me in the first place.” Eunha continued. “You don’t have to comeback.”

Those words cut deep into Sowon’s heart. Eunha was the only thing she could think of when she was away. Or maybe she was wrong? Maybe she only thinks about herself all the time.

“I don’t want to be in your way…”

“No, that’s not what I…”

“I don’t want to reap something that you worked on so hard all by yourself while I was not even there to cheer you up.”

Sowon wanted to say a lot of things, but she couldn’t get herself to say anything.

“You can drop me here.” Eunha said.

The car stopped. Eunha took her bag at the back seat and opened the door. Sowon wanted to reach her ex-lover’s hand. She wanted to tell her to not go. She felt like she did, but she didn’t. Her hands tied tight where they were. She stared blankly at the empty seat while Eunha closed the door and faded away.

Where did all go wrong? Sowon asked herself. When did all go wrong? Maybe from the start? Maybe somewhere in between? It’s not important. She knew the consequences. Eunha’s gone. Sowon couldn’t fix it.

***

Eunha walked back to her house carrying her bag that felt heavier all of sudden. She loved Sowon. She did. She never cared about what Sowon would become. She thought that whatever it would be, they could get through it together.  So, the moment the taller girl explained everything in the car, she knew that they were not meant to be together. Sowon was better without her.

She was happy for Sowon though, it was also true. She just thought that they had a future together.

Maybe in another life.

If I miss you which I am sure I will, I’ll look up and remember that at least, at the very least, we’re living under the same sky