If Hitomi has to pick a moment of the past that struck her the most, there were aplenty. They have to still be fresh in your memory, you might add, and that will narrow it down to several, yes, but still more than a few.

Then, you might try to say further, what about the one you can’t help but think of, at this point in time?

Well, that. Good job for asking that, because that requirement officially eliminates all but one.

And it goes a little like this:

It was a day like any other, the biting heat of the sun overhead accompanying Hitomi’s movements as she boarded off from the bus, her bag bobbing ever so slightly on her back with every spring of her steps. Club activities was cut off early, allowing her to come home before the sun set, for once, and she was met with the sight her mother ironing the piles of dry clothes in the living room.

That, too, was just a sight like any other.

The day being only halfway from done meant that her mother still had the energy to usher her to take a bath, and then to get some lunch she’s left on top of the stove in the kitchen, and then to chat while Hitomi chewed every spoonful slowly, savouring the break. Her mother talked about a lot of things: their neighbours, some of them ever so kind, especially to a family who had only recently moved into the country from Japan; and then about the pet shelter down the block, toying with the idea of adopting a pup; and then about her conversations through phone with the mothers of Hitomi’s friends, the things they chatted to catch up.

Everything seemed to be a topic like any other,

except the last one had made her mother pause. The briefest halt of chatters, before she went on and mentioned that among those she managed to contact was Nako’s mother.

“Oh dear,” her mother then said, ironing the dark formal shirt her father would wear to work tomorrow, “she said the girl was—involved. With another girl! Imagine my surprise… isn’t she a little old for that?”

The concerned chatter continued, and the next swallow Hitomi attempted to do tasted horribly bitter. There was disapproval imbued in her mother’s tone, as she went on about how ‘she should’ve straightened herself out… she’s just your age isn’t she, almost out of highschool, I’d understand first year but this… what’s one to do if it extended past graduation—' while the iron ventured to smoothen the area around the hem of the shirt.

And the bitterness remained. Remained, remained, and carried on—to the present, two years later, as Hitomi swallows and all she tastes is the same unpleasant kick to her gut.

The spoken words are etched clear on her mind, the displeased tone, the concerned lilt of her mother’s voice. Should’ve straightened herself out… The sentence plays endlessly in her head and with them an image of Chaewon, all warm and close and beautiful and—

—frightening.

Hitomi shudders out an exhale, and it’s only then that she’s made aware of the whitening knuckles of her fist, nails digging deep into her palms as she tries to regulate her breathing. It hurts, but the unseen ache hurts even more. Her heart is beating way too fast inside her chest, way too fast for her to try and fool herself into thinking that nothing is out of ordinary, that Chaewon is just like what Yuri is to her, that she would be able to bring up her fondness of the older girl to her mother without gaining the chilling disappointment she can already imagine inside her head.

Her phone is stationary on the table before her, the scheduled call she regularly does—to inform her family once every two weeks of how she has been doing ever since she started to attend college a prefecture away—long overdue.

But, the littlest voice inside her mind that’s the opposite of bravery muses, you can still try, you know. To will this to stop. It’s not like Chaewon-unnie likes you like that—

And she would have preferred walking on a road made out of thorns over the crushing ache currently engulfing her heart, no matter how true it is. Still, she reaches out and takes her phone, a poor semblance of a plan formulating inside her mind. Tries, as hard as she can, to ignore the other voice inside her mind that starts to speak of what ifs, of the unbelievable tale.

(Because why would Chaewon like her back, when she’s just—her, while Chaewon is everything?)

***

I wish I could tell you what’s happening, but I don’t understand it myself. Neither does Tablo, and he tends to know more than me when it comes to the not-couple couple residing on me. If he knows jack , then I’m even less, I’m afraid.

It’s not a drastic change, you see, that’s why it’s so hard to explain. But—there’s a slight difference. One you won’t be able to detect in a passing glance, but it’s enough to pull Yena out from behind the bookshelves, her usual hiding spot, as she goes to hunch near Tablo, squinting carefully at our subjects of curiosity.

There’s a shift in the air.

Not the end of the world, wouldn’t you say? I wish I could say with the same confidence that no, it is not. But. But I have known of stories that spiralled down from the littlest moment of vulnerability. I have seen friendships fading before me from a mere space that wasn’t there previously, I have seen a pair of close people taking a step back from each other and having that step a start of a lot more.

Call me paranoid, if you want. Tablo certainly has done so.

But Hitomi is hiding something.

I just can’t explain, or pinpoint exactly, what is it that she’s hiding. Chaewon doesn’t seem to notice these things, smiles still as vibrant and touches still as easy as breathing, and I don’t know if it’s a bad or a good thing. I can only hope it’s the latter. I can only hope it would blow over.

(Please let it blow over.)

***

It should be somewhere in the books, right?

That the higher you fly up, the harder you will fall…

Chaewon wishes she had remembered this every time she looks into Hitomi’s eyes.

Wishes she had remembered this before she drowns in the songs composed of what-ifs and the quickening pace of her heartbeat.

Wishes she had remembered this before she’s in too deep,

before she’s too far under.

“A guy?” she repeats, in the middle of a silent Tuesday, a space present between them—wide enough to fit a map and the entire universe. The questioning tone in her voice sounds weak, even to her own ears, and—perhaps she should’ve seen it coming, really. When Hitomi shifts a little away from her, when Hitomi maintains a careful air within her gestures, perhaps she should’ve seen it coming.

But…

“A son of my father’s friend,” Hitomi softly elaborates, head angled carefully to avoid meeting Chaewon’s gaze. There’s a small smile on her lips, one Chaewon can’t mirror. “I’ve had a crush on him during—junior high school. And he contacted me last week, asking to meet up. Asking for—” a cough, “a date.”

“That’s… nice,” Chaewon exhales, nails digging deep into her thighs. Something inside her is turning cold, and she fleetingly wonders if it’s her heart breaking. Numbing. Trying to abandon feeling.

“How is he?” she hears herself ask.

Hitomi turns to look at her, too fast for it to be anything but out of surprise, and for a split second a part of Chaewon has the urge to laugh—because does she really think Chaewon won’t ask? She can’t not ask, not when she cares, but—

The other part of her also resents that, resents the fact that she cares, enough to receive hurt. Enough to open herself for more scars, as if the hot blade piercing through her heart right now isn’t painful enough.

When she refocuses back to the conversation, Hitomi has started to tell her about the guy she doesn’t bother to remember the name of, and along with the ache pulsating inside her, she maintains an artificial smile on her lips. Shifts her gaze and lets it drop on the ground, because she can’t bear to see the sparks in Hitomi’s eyes. Tries to focus on Hitomi’s voice, a voice she has long determined to be her favourite, really—

But for today, just for today,

she wants to hate it. Wants to cover her ears and block the words from registering into her mind. Wants to stay deaf, because Hitomi is softly describing him, her lovely tone pausing occasionally to recall old memories with him, and all Chaewon wants to do is to throw herself against a wall.

Repeatedly.

Anything to make the scalding ache inside her chest stop.

“—and, Chaewon-unnie?”

She blinks rapidly, feeling out of breath. She’s barely holding herself together, barely anchoring herself to the present, but it’s Hitomi. Whenever Hitomi calls, she answers.

“Yes?”

And her gaze is still on the ground, but she’s able to see Hitomi from the corner of her eye. She’s still able to see the younger’s smile, and she’s still able to see one hand reaching out towards her, seemingly aiming for a few strands of hair near her ear—

Her heart jumps into , and Chaewon flinches away from the touch. It’s all happening so fast, and when she turns to take a look on Hitomi, a pair of timid eyes are staring back at her with a confusion, sadness, and pleading look all swirled into one. She mentally curses herself, tries to get an apology out of her breaking self—

“Hitomi,” she starts, “I’m sorry—you—too fast, startled—I—” and she gives up explaining; it’s not working. She takes Hitomi’s outstretched hand instead, holding back from immediately entwining their fingers together, but she wraps her palm across her digits, squeezing them gently, hoping it’s enough to convey that she’s sorry. For flinching. For acting like this. For everything, for wishing that she could bring her hand to her lips and kiss it softly in the midst of uttered apologies.

Hitomi smiles, but there’s a hint of sadness in it, and Chaewon really, really wants to ask—but she’s also deathly afraid that she’s the cause.

So instead she murmurs,

“The question you wanted to ask just now… what was it?”

The younger’s gaze travels downwards, settling at the sight of Chaewon’s hand wrapped around hers. Chaewon holds in her breath, but Hitomi doesn’t pull away—

“How do you know… that it’s not a crush anymore?”

Her breath catches in , and Chaewon wonders if this is her fate, to die choking from her own inhaled air because God apparently wants her to live a tragedy in a library.

“Crush?” she barely manages to choke out.

“Yes,” Hitomi says, voice as low as a whisper. “How do you know… that you’re in love with him?”

Him. The previous urge to laugh is coming back, only this time coupled with a devastating hysteria. Him. How would I know? She doesn’t. She doesn’t know because—I’m falling for you, Hitomi. You. A girl. A her. How am I supposed to answer this? How am I supposed to—

“I don’t know,” she whispers back, trying her best to not let the crumbling pieces of herself be heard. She closes her eyes briefly, urgently recalling anything she can—the silly article Yena showed her way back, surely that would help—she needs a sound answer, anything—

“Maybe… maybe when I keep thinking of them whenever I heard a song. Even if it’s—”

“A nursery song?” Hitomi’s curious voice quips.

She allows herself a small smile, forces herself to nod as she opens her eyes to look at the younger girl. “Yeah,” she breathes out, “even if it’s a nursery song.”

Hitomi’s face lights up, and all Chaewon can think of is the butterfly song. Butterfly, butterfly, come fly, fly. Yellow butterfly, white butterfly—she remembers a certain Friday, when it was raining heavily outside and she arrived in front of the library building at the same time as Hitomi did. With Hitomi’s white top drenched in the rain, one could fleetingly make out the outline of a yellow bra underneath, a fact the younger only discovered when Chaewon pointed it out. She remembers that Friday, because it’s the day she came home without the leather jacket she had just recently started to wear—

, Chaewon thinks as Hitomi’s gaze turns curious, I really could think of her even when it’s just nursery rhymes.

“And then,” she hurriedly continues before the younger girl can ask about her sudden silence, “I—start developing the same interests as theirs.”

Hitomi purses her lips thoughtfully, and Chaewon’s tireless mind dutifully fills in her silence with unvoiced examples. Like how I’ve started to like cheese more because of you. Like how I’m beginning to love reading books because of you—

“And then,” she forces herself to say, putting all of those thoughts into an immediate stop before it can spiral down into a list of the things Kim Chaewon finds interesting after meeting Honda Hitomi, “…I guess, with them by my side, mundane activities become special.”

Like sitting around in a library, with piles of works or even just a single book in her hold. Or just spending the spare time she has in-between her classes to see Hitomi and talk with her, or merely watching the younger drift into sleep next to her when she’s too tired to stay awake.

Well, a voice inside her mind tiredly says, now you’re just listing off the reasons as to why you’re possibly in love with her.

That does it.

She nearly stops breathing when she fully registers the extent of her thought. She hasn’t—, she hasn’t thought it would be to that extent, isn’t aware that she’s been standing on the edge of a cliff and today is the day she loses her footing. The quiet realization feels like a bucket of cold water sloshing her down, but at the same time, it’s burning. It’s burning and the smoke is filling up her chest, suffocating her lungs—

She instantly lets go of Hitomi’s hand, almost as if the warm fingers are scalding her, causing the younger to snap out of her own thoughts, and she shakily draws up a smile to ward off the concern in Hitomi’s eyes.

“Unnie—”

“I’m okay,” she lies, the words tasting like sandpaper in . She tries to remember if she’s brought anything with her today—books? No. Laptop? No, it’s in the library locker, within her bag. She breathes in and hurriedly says, “Hitomi, I’m so sorry, but I just remembered that I’ve something to do at home in, like, half an hour—”

She watches as the light in Hitomi’s eyes dims down, a slow nod the only reply to her explanation. Chaewon stands up, fingers twitching at her sides to once again take Hitomi’s hand in hers, if only to—what?

Fool.

What a fool.

“I will… see you around?” Hitomi softly queries, eyes searching Chaewon’s for reassurance. And she wants to nod, wants to say sure, wants to be able to give her a grin and a resounding yes if only to erase the hesitancy in those eyes, but all she can pull off is a weak smile. She lifts her hand, reaching out towards the crown of Hitomi’s hair, and she catches herself just a distance away from ruffling the younger’s hair, a gesture she’s done countless of times.

Foolish. You are foolish—

Something tugs on her outstretched fingers, and then dark, long locks are warm under her palm. Hitomi looks up at her, meeting her gaze, and the curl of her hand around Chaewon’s wrist seems brittle.

“You seem to have trouble reaching my head,” the younger weakly jokes, “so I helped.”

Chaewon smiles, smiles, smiles—even as something inside her breaks. She takes a step back, Hitomi’s hold around her loosening until their hands fall apart almost at the same time, away from each other, empty now more than ever. She smiles when she whispers her quietest goodbye, she’s still smiling when she turns around, taking aching steps, pace slowly quickening the further she gets from Hitomi’s sight.

And then, after she retrieves her bag from the locker, she runs.

She lets her smile fall, then, lets the curve of her lips contort into a silent pain. She swallows down the bile in as she nearly stumbles over a small rock on the side of the road. She runs, even when she’s supposed to stop and wait for the bus, she runs and runs and runs.

She’s in love.

She’s falling in love with her.

Over the weeks and months, even with her heart shattering under her feet like this—

When she reaches home, her cousin is asking questions and her mother worries endlessly at her red-rimmed eyes, but Chaewon shuts the world out, locks her room up and turns the lamps off.

(If only feelings were that easy to turn off, too.)

***

Okay, so there’s something I feel like I need to admit.

As a wooden table who has never seen the outside world except for that one time young me got transported from the manufacture building straight into this library, I have never directly seen someone riding a bike uphill. Because this college isn’t actually located in a hill or a mountain, and the nearest window is facing the river running at the side of the building. This library isn’t really a place for people to try to bike indoor, upwards or otherwise, either, so.

The closest I’ve ever gotten to witnessing it was through a girl who sat cross-legged on the floor, next to me, an open laptop balanced on her thigh as she searched up videos about affordable sports to strengthen your leg muscles.

One of those recommended biking, and the video two clicks after proposed to take it a step further: biking steep hills, aiming for the top. She chattered to the friend lazily slouching half of her weight on top of me, while her fingers clicked and clicked and played the videos, watching an animated man cycling his way up a slanted road, defying gravitation.

And the reason I’m reminded of that whole ordeal is because I can’t help but think that that’s what Hitomi is doing right now.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hitomi says, expression carefully impassive.

“Hitomi.” Not Hii-chan, or Hii. Just Hitomi, which means that Yuri’s not in the mood to beat around the bush, not in the mood to play the game of talking in vague words. She narrows her eyes, and continues, “I have heard everything from Nako-chan.”

“Talking to her was a bad idea,” Hitomi mumbles under her breath, but we all hear it. Yuri pinches the bridge of her nose and exhales slowly through , eyes closing briefly as though consulting the depth of her mind about what to say next.

“Did you heed Nako-chan’s advice?” Yuri asks. “Have you talked to your parents?”

“There’s no need for that.” The words come off monotonous, deepening the creases between Yuri’s eyebrows. “These feelings will fade in time, no need to worry my parents over nothing.”

“That’s bull,” Yuri says, leaning forward and placing her palms on Hitomi’s kneecaps. “How are you planning to make it fade, exactly? By putting Chaewon-unnie at arm’s distance? By avoiding her forever?”

There is a long pause instead of an automatic reply, for once. And when an answer comes, it’s accompanied with a subtle waver, a small tremble in Hitomi’s voice that one can easily miss,

“If it works.”

Yuri expels a loud breath, the sound akin to a short, disbelieving laugh. She stares at her best friend, at the hunch of her shoulders and the way her eyes don’t shine as brightly as they usually would, and,

“That’s funny.” She calmly folds her hands in her lap, waiting for Hitomi to look at her, but it never happens. So she continues, “That’s funny, you know that? It’s funny that you think you’re capable of doing that when we’re literally right here. Sitting at her table. Because she hasn’t been around for, like, three days, and you miss her—”

And the passive mask cracks. Just a tad, enough to allow a flurry of pain to flash across Hitomi’s expression at the reminder of Chaewon’s absence.

“Hitomi,” Yuri says, tone softer as she reaches out to touch the other’s arm, “it’s not wrong to like her, you know.”

“But—” the word is spoken brokenly, choked out through a painful squeeze of a throat, and if I had a literal heart it would have shattered into unrecognizable pieces, would have burst and scattered all over the place—

“But my parents…”

“It’s been a few years,” Yuri reminds her, squeezing her arm. “People can learn and change their mind… I’ll accompany you to talk, if you want. Have my second coming out of the closet or something.” The joke falls flat, and Yuri takes a deep breath, ”No one should be afraid of admitting where their heart lies, not me, and certainly not you.”

“I’ve—” Hitomi squeezes her eyes shut, “I’ve only known her for a short while, Yuri—”

“A short while, my . You’ve known her for a few months, Hitomi.”

“That’s not a long time—”

“But have you ever felt this strongly about anyone who’ve stayed longer in your life?” Yuri shakes her head, heaving a sigh. “Do you even feel as strongly about that guy?”

There is no reply but a tiny shake of her head. An amount of tension leaves Yuri’s shoulders at that, and with it the metaphorical breath I have unconsciously held. It’s the first honest answer we’ve managed to gain from Hitomi, after seconds and minutes of non-answers and deflections.

A tiny step, but a step nonetheless.

“You know,” Yuri murmurs, releasing her hold on Hitomi’s arm and leaning back against her chair, “right now you’re just stubbornly trying to ride your bike uphill.”

That gives Hitomi and I a pause. Hitomi because the remark comes out of nowhere, and me because that’s what I thought, too, holy, this is getting kind of scary, I didn’t sign up for some telepathic network when I got myself into this shipper life—

Yuri is oblivious of my inner turmoil, of course, but she notices the confusion in Hitomi’s eyes, and smiles.

“You force yourself through soreness and pain, pushing yourself to cycle upwards even when all you want—truly want—is to give in and let gravity to pull you back down.”

“Maybe because my place is on top,” Hitomi argues, eyes flickering away.

“Or that’s what people tell you,” Yuri calmly counters. “They would say, oh, surely your house is on top of the hill, just like your parents. Hang on and keep cycling, you’ll make it someday—”

“Wouldn’t that be nice, making it?”

Yuri pins her down with a meaningful look. “You’ll get a house,” she allows, watching as Hitomi’s brows furrow at the easy agreement. And then she delivers the catch:

“But you’ll never be home.”

Hitomi goes very still.

You can track her breathing from the rise and fall of her chest. You can taste her silence from her lips, tightly pressed, every hum of life from her body muted into only the sound of her breaths.

You can see from her eyes, the emotions flashing across the dark pools,

can see it clearly in her eyes when she finally splinters and burns.

Yuri sees this, too, because she takes a deep breath and pulls Hitomi into a hug, lets her cling onto her like she’s in the middle of drowning and Yuri is the only rope life ever throws at her to hold onto.

“Nako-chan said your parents are nice,” she soothingly murmurs, “we’ll talk to them, yeah? You know they wouldn’t… like it, seeing you so hurt and bruised, Hii-chan. We’ll talk to them, and then you can stop trying to bike uphill, okay? Stop pretending the place you’d ever want to be is not at the bottom of the slanted road.”

Hitomi just holds her tighter, mumbling something unintelligible to my metaphorical ears. Yuri listens, and shakes her head, sighing out,

“The top wouldn’t be a concept so vague to you if it was home.” There are soothing circles rubbed onto her back and a lot more words, softly spoken, almost sung, to fill the air and the cracks in Hitomi’s surface as well as the rapidly breaking heart I try to ignore because a wooden table doesn’t have a literal heart, no we don’t, so it doesn’t make sense that it scalds this bad,

doesn’t make sense that it hurts this much.

“Your climb,” Yuri continues to murmur, “wouldn’t be filled with only pain and a sense of unrewarded struggles if it was home.”

And for the first time in years, I retreat into myself, dulling out my senses because this ache is too big when you’re but a table without any means to cry out the throbbing pain. Old couch is snoring away meters from us, and I refrain from calling out, choosing instead to numb my surroundings down until I can barely feel the best friends’ presence near me.

For the briefest moment, I wish I truly had a telepathic connection with Yuri, if only to ask her about the things humans do when they are heartbroken—not for themselves, but for someone else.

(Because that’s what I am, right now, I realized—heartbroken for them.)

***

Books are Hitomi’s safe place.

Outside of her books is the bustling world full of expectations; on her, of her, for her. And Hitomi genuinely tries to meet those endless wishes, she does, but sometimes she’s very tired and doesn’t want to be looked at as Honda Hitomi for a while. She wants to be seen as nothing but a tired person seeking comfort, an exhausted soul looking for a place to unwind, and only books are willing to give her the luxury.

Well, books, Yuri, and Chaewon.

Usually, books and Yuri don’t negate each other. Ever. Yuri never disturbs her book-reading, and books never prevent her from hanging out with Yuri.

But Chaewon.

It’s been days since Chaewon was last around—since that day they talked about crush and love. And although Hitomi manages to find some new books she hasn’t ever read, she can barely immerse herself because every rustle causes her to look up, a fragile wish for it to be the older girl’s shadow lurking in the corner of her eyes. Every time she manages to finish a page and her phone rings, she quickly scrambles to open her inbox, wishing that it’s a reply to her many sent messages.

It never is, and when she finally brings herself back to the book in her lap, she’s forgotten every bit of what she reads.

Chaewon makes her feel like she’s thrown off-balance—Chaewon’s absence makes her feel like she’s thrown off-balance, and she doesn’t know how to deal with it.

A week.

By a week, she seeks out Yena, feeling worried and stressed (and a great deal of hurt) at the lack of news.

She wouldn’t have thought that she matters only this much, to be left in radio silence. To have Chaewon suddenly disappearing on her like this, as though she won’t worry, as though—

Yuri texts her to meet up at the canteen, and in hindsight Hitomi isn’t really surprised that Yena is there with her. The older girl has a puzzled expression on, staring at her with a glint akin to calculating when Hitomi finally asks.

“Chaewon?” Yena tilts her head, her lips. “She’s sick. You didn’t know?”

No, she didn’t. Doesn’t.  Hitomi feels a mixture of frustration and disappointment rise within her, so much that she can’t help but let out a curse in front of them.

“Oh, I discovered that she’s sick through her cousin,” Yena quickly supplies, darting a quick glance at Yuri. “Chaewon hasn’t replied to my messages, either.”

The frustration ebbs away slightly, replaced with a concern that starts off a seed, then growing rapidly into a full-blown pine tree.

“Okay,” Hitomi says, slowly, “do you—what is her sickness?”

“Ah. Exhaustion, I think.” Yena scratches her nape, glancing at Yuri again—they do that a lot, huh. Hitomi wonders. Yena looks at her again and clears , “I don’t think it’ll be a good idea to visit her.”

Hitomi blinks, considering for a hot moment if she’s that transparent. Yena just gives her a lopsided smile,

“Chaewon doesn’t like showing her weakness to people.” A quiet mutter of that little , and a shake of head. “Please break down that high wall of hers later, okay?”

Hitomi nods weakly, not making promises. The Choi looks like she wants to say something, but then the foods arrive, and although they ask Hitomi to stay—"Just order something, let’s eat together,"—she shakes her head and bids them goodbye.

Two days.

Hitomi finally sees the older girl again two days after her talk with Yena. Grey scarf wrapped around her neck up to her nose, Chaewon steps into her view, hugging a laptop to her chest while her left arm curls around a stack of books. Hitomi unconsciously holds her breath in, waiting for the older girl to look her way and notice her presence—

The moment never comes.

Chaewon stops by the table she hasn’t visited for a long time, and pulls a chair to sit, her belongings spilling out of her arms onto the table. She sets up everything slowly, occasionally closing her eyes to cough or sneeze, and when everything’s finally in order, she takes a seat, opens her laptop, and powers it on.

And Hitomi doesn’t know what to make,

of the situation, of the distance between them,

of the pulsating ache inside her.

Before she knows it, she has left her book on the couch, and the swing of her feet is bringing her towards Chaewon. Her footsteps against the ground echo clearly in the rather quiet corner of the library, but Chaewon doesn’t look up from her keyboard.

“Unnie.”

The word comes out shaky, more brittle than she has intended, and Hitomi wishes she could tell her heartbeat to slow down because it hurts to fall, it will hurt when she falls—

“Hi, Hitomi,” Chaewon replies, the greeting slightly muffled by the scarf around . She pauses typing for a brief while and looks up, peering at her with clear eyes. Maybe beneath the scarf, Chaewon is smiling. A smile that isn’t wide enough for Hitomi to notice. “How have you been?”

“How have you been?” Hitomi returns, stepping closer, stopping by the edge of the table, an arm away from Chaewon’s shoulder. “Yena-unnie said that—you’re sick.” And I was worried, I still am, you wouldn’t imagine how bad—

“Only for three days,” Chaewon quietly says. “It’s not that bad.” Then the gaze averts away completely, settling back to her belongings. “I still cough, sometimes, so I decided to not go to sit with you yet…”

“You were gone for ten days,” Hitomi numbly says, fingertips turning cold in her clenched fists. And twenty hours, forty-five minutes, nineteen seconds. Not that anyone is counting. “What did you mean only three days—”

“The other days I still went,” Chaewon murmurs, turning her attention back to the laptop, resuming to type several words into the blank document. “I just didn’t come here. I was busy, and things kept popping up, so…”

“Is it that hard to answer one of my text messages?” she hoarsely asks. There’s a burning feeling squirming at the bottom of her stomach, ugly and suffocating, and she can’t do anything to quell it.

“Never received any.” The typing fingers halt into a pause, and Chaewon slowly looks at her again. An unnamed glint flickers behind her eyes as she says, “I’m really sorry. My phone’s broken, and I haven’t been able to buy a new one.”

The burn catches up in , and Hitomi feels her nose grow warmer, as though something is going to spill out the moment she speaks. Her eyes sting, for a moment, and then her sight is blurring, and she only barely notices Chaewon’s widened eyes beyond it.

“I—” Hitomi swallows heavily, hating the lump in , hating the fact that her voice is breaking, hating the fact that her heart is breaking, “—what should I do if you’re avoiding me like this, unnie?”

It gets Chaewon to stand up, calm façade for once cracking and falling away. “Hey,” the older girl breathes out, means it to be a soothing gesture, and Hitomi tries to wipe the warm tears cascading down her cheeks—but more comes, deeming her effort useless, and she starts to sob instead.

She has missed her.

She misses her so much. She has been worried, she has felt angry, she has felt frustrated at not being able to reach her, and she misses her so much. Yet now that Chaewon is in front of her, the only thing Hitomi can see is the invisible wall between them and the pained look in Chaewon’s eyes. Yet now, with warm palms cupping her cheeks gently, thumbs wiping her tears away, all Hitomi feels is the slow breath of the other and the sheen of hurt on the surface of brown pools, like being this close hurts her—

Have I hurt her?

Chaewon takes a step back and turns away to let out a series of coughs, fingers loosening her scarf as her shoulders shake with every rough exhale. Hitomi rubs her cheeks, sobs reducing into occasional hiccups, and when Chaewon has stopped coughing, it is with a slight smile on her lips that she faces Hitomi again. A sad smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, but still a smile—

Have I hurt you, unnie?

“I’m sorry.” Chaewon takes a deep breath, and reaches up, faltering slightly a beat before her palm touches the crown of Hitomi’s head. There is a lot more than a mere sorry in her gaze, so much more as she starts to thread her fingers down Hitomi’s hair, “I’m sorry. I don’t want to see you cry.”

Hitomi closes her eyes, willing the hiccups to go away, then opens them again along with , trying her best to sound firm, “If you don’t want to see me cry, then you shouldn’t have disappear—hic!”

She wants to strangle herself, but Chaewon doesn’t laugh at her hiccups. Her smile merely widens a little, head dipping in a slow nod.

“I will keep that in mind.”

But there’s still sadness lurking behind her eyes, holding back the bloom of her smiles, and Hitomi just wants to reach out, wants to touch her, ask her,

Why don’t you ever say anything about your heart?

But instead, she hiccups again, and this time she blinks at the hint of amusement in Chaewon’s smile.

“Unnie, don’t take enjoyment out of—hic!—other person’s misery,” she starts in dismay.

“Of course,” Chaewon easily replies, the corner of her lips twitching when Hitomi hiccups again. “I heard sipping ice-cold water can help you to stop hiccups.”

“You are not getting any ice-cold water,” Hitomi pointedly says. Then hiccups.

“It’s obviously for you, my lady,” Chaewon huffs, gently grabbing Hitomi’s shoulders to turn her around, then pushing her to walk. “Come on, let’s get your hiccups treated. I’ll pay.”

“Your laptop—”

“Won’t go anywhere, there’s CCTV, and we won’t take long—there’s a small beverage stand in front of the building.”

Hitomi relents at that, discovering that even though the older girl is supposedly still recovering from sickness, Chaewon is still strong enough when she wants to. She hiccups indignantly when Chaewon keeps pushing her from the back, and Chaewon gives in, releasing her hold on Hitomi’s shoulders and starting to walk next to her instead. Sometimes, with each step, their fingers brush fleetingly against each other’s—but on the fifth contact, Chaewon puts her hands inside her pockets and hums a low tune to herself.

Hitomi hiccups again, and this time, it sounds oddly sad.

At least Chaewon is finally here, with her, physical and not just a metaphorical pocket-sized Chaewon running inside her mind from time to time. Even though she feels like there’re miles and miles of distance between them, even though she feels like something has changed, something she will have to approach carefully. Something Hitomi knows she has pretended to not notice for far longer than she should, with little to no effect, at that—if her little fluster at Chaewon’s offhanded my lady is anything to go by.

“Please break down that high wall of hers later.”

Hitomi sighs forlornly—she wishes she could.

Chaewon goes to purchase their drinks, and comes back with a cup of ice-cold water and a steaming hot chocolate, smiling at her as she hands over the cup with ice cubes floating inside. Hitomi fixes her a glare for a long second before accepting the cup, curling her fingers around it and, in a slow move, downing everything in one go.

She ends up coughing like mad a beat later, of course.

“What is this, alcohol?” Chaewon rolls her eyes, patting Hitomi’s back with a little force.

“Well!” Hitomi beams brightly when her cough subsides, hiccups cured like magic. “Because I’ve successfully drunk everything in one shot, now you have to grant me a wish, unnie!”

“What!” Chaewon balks. “There’s—we have no deal about that!”

Yeah but there’s no deal about Chaewon making Hitomi think of her, either.

There’s no deal about Hitomi getting attached to the older girl, either.

Yet she thinks of her anyway.

She’s attached anyway.

(She falls anyway.)

***

Hello, everyone, I’m the old couch and I’m frustrated.

After the conversation (that Tablo relayed to me with a dejected air), I keep having this urge to catapult Chaewon with a faulty spring in my cushion every time she visits our corner again. Tablo always talks me out of it, but I still hold a grudge because she has made Hitomi cry. I’m biased, I admit that, but Hitomi has secured a soft spot in my anatomically-a-myth heart, and I don’t want to see her sad.

Which finds me growing more and more frustrated because even days after, Chaewon keeps a distance between them, a distance that makes Hitomi pause and smile a smile that bears sadness.

God, are you listening to me? I want a happy ending for this k-drama unravelling before my eyes, I beg of you. I’m going to die from heartache just by witnessing their interactions, I swear to Couch Heavens—not that I’m ever deemed as a living being, per se. But seeing the ever-present space between them when they sit together makes me twitch. There are times where Hitomi is asleep, and Chaewon lifts her hand quietly, moving like she’s about to fix the younger’s hair—but she would stop an inch away, breathing deeply, and then refraining from doing it altogether, retreating back to herself.

Sometimes Hitomi is not really asleep, and she is aware of situation, because whenever Chaewon turns back to her book, she will shift to face the other direction, expression pinched with pain.

It breaks my metaphorical heart, God damn it, they’re driving me crazy—

“—I bring a phone like you asked.”

Ah, speak of the devils, there they are.

“Yeah, thank you for bringing one, unnie,” Hitomi softly says, settling on me. Chaewon follows, sitting a little away from the younger girl, and I suppress a groan, wanting to shake Chaewon’s side to make her scoot closer.

“No problem.” Chaewon produces a phone out of her pocket, pausing slightly, “Ah, it’s not my phone, by the way. I borrowed one from my cousin—little has two.”

“You haven’t bought a new one?”

“Haven’t had the time to,” Chaewon shrugs. She unlocks the phone in her hand, gaze flickering to see Hitomi’s hesitant expression, and she smiles. “I still use my last phone number, so you can message me and I’m able to reply now.”

Hitomi lets out a soft oh, nodding and moving to unlock her own. “Well, I—I asked you to bring your phone because I want to play a game.”

Oooh, a bonding session. Sounds excellent, let’s get it.

“Candy rush?” Chaewon asks without looking up. “Pou? Disney Tsum-Tsum? I’ll need to download the app first, so—”

“It’s truth or dare, actually,” Hitomi quietly replies, eyes carefully observing Chaewon’s reaction. The latter only raises her eyebrows, and Hitomi lets out a breath she doesn’t know she was holding. “Yuri found an app for it. The screen will show a bottle we can spin by swiping it clockwise or the other way around, and if it’s pointing at you, you will need to choose between truth or dare.”

“If I chose truth?” Chaewon asks, watching as Hitomi opens the application in her phone.

“The opponent will ask you a question you need to give a truthful answer to,” Hitomi explains. “If you chose dare, then a dare will be generated by the application, and you’ll have to do it.”

“Ah.”

“I need you to bring your phone just in case here’s a dare that requires it.”

“Right...”

I have to admit, I know jack about this game, so I dutifully listen as Tablo explains the game along with Hitomi. I think I get the gist of it now, kind of—would there be a dare to kiss?

I swear there’s a blush rising up Hitomi’s cheeks as she unnecessarily adds,

“Yuri said the dares aren’t too forward! So I think it will be okay for us to do it…”

“Alright,” Chaewon replies, shifting to face Hitomi fully and propping an elbow on me, head resting lightly on her palm. Her legs are crossed on top of my cushion, her other hand holding the phone lying lightly in her lap. “Let’s do this.”

You know what, a dare to hold hands for a minute doesn’t sound bad, actually, and very much family-friendly in the grand scheme of things. They’ve been avoiding each other’s hand too much lately, and in my professional opinion that kind of dare is exactly the one they need. Now, if only I knew who to contact to make sure this dare is included in the application—

“Older person first,” Hitomi says, placing the phone between them, smiling slightly.

“Are you calling me old?” Chaewon replies, feigning offense. Hitomi just snorts, and Chaewon touches the screen, and spins the bottle clockwise, letting go halfway and watching as it rotates. Ten seconds and a bated breath later, the both of them squint at the screen.

“Well, it’s, like, around thirty degrees closer to you,” Chaewon points out.

Hitomi’s eyes narrow, a grumble of it’s not supposed to be like this escaping her lips, but when she looks up Chaewon is smiling in amusement at her, and she relents with a sigh. “Fine,” she says, straightening up and tilting her head as she looks at the two options: truth or dare.

I cross my mythical fingers, please be dare, please be dare—

“Truth,” Hitomi mutters, tapping the first option.

Darn.

“Well,” Chaewon says, making a show of her chin, “what’s there to ask…”

Hitomi visibly gulps.

Chaewon closes her eyes briefly, as though considering, and when her eyes open, so does .

“If you can choose between traveling five years into the future, or going back in time to your past five years ago,” Chaewon slowly says, “which one would you choose?”

Hitomi blinks.

I blink.

Chaewon snorts at the dumbfounded expression on the younger girl’s face.

No but seriously, where does that come from?

“I will… choose to go back in time,” Hitomi quietly replies. I blink again, but meters from us, Tablo produces an understanding hum as though he knows the reason behind it. Maybe he does.

Hitomi takes a deep breath, and lets a smile to curve her lips. “I want to go back because—I have a lot of regrets. I want to fix them. I want to change several things I wish I hadn’t done before.” Then, in a joking tone, she adds, “Besides, if I chose to go into the future, I might wake up inside a coffin or something.”

Chaewon hums. “True, I didn’t think about that one.”

Hitomi tilts her head, words halting as her lips part. Hesitant, and then softly:

“But among everything… I’ll make sure that I’m still going to meet you again.”

Chaewon takes in the words in silence, nodding slowly as she shifts her gaze, breaking their eye contact. I feel like I’m going to combust. Where’s Yuri and Yena when you need them, I need my fellow shippers to have a meltdown together, and—

“Your turn to spin it,” Chaewon murmurs.

“Okay.”

Hitomi spins it counter-clockwise, and watches with fingers clasped in her lap. If the world is just, then the bottle should stop in front of Chaewon—

“It’s still closer to you,” Chaewon announces with a hint of laughter in her voice.

“Now that’s just not fair!” Hitomi says, agape. “I just—I have—”

Chaewon grins at her. “Well, if you don’t want to, I will go this round, then.”

Hitomi huffs, her face clearly showing that she thinks very little of the world for conspiring against her like this, but alas.

“Dare.”

“Oh?” Chaewon arches an eyebrow, surprised.

Hitomi proceeds to tap on the second option. It doesn’t take long for the application to show the dare, and Chaewon leans in, reading it out loud, Hitomi going rigid on her seat as she listens.

“Call the last person who’s made your heart flutter,” Chaewon slowly articulates. “And say hello.”

She leans back from the screen, a bland smile on her lips. Hitomi swallows, picking up her phone and closing the application to go to the contact list. Chaewon looks away, trying to focus elsewhere, and it’s hard to ignore Tablo’s rant about how this game is bad news and we’re about to witness another episode of angst—someone please shut him up—

The phone in Chaewon’s hold vibrates, and the world comes into a pause.

(What?)

***

Breathe, she tells herself, the passing time crawling painfully around her as her hold around the vibrating phone tightens.

The numbers plastered across the screen isn’t saved as anyone, because it’s her cousin’s phone, but they don’t have to. Chaewon memorizes them, remembers them all too clearly. She doesn’t need a gadget to tell her to know who it is.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees Hitomi bringing her phone to her ear, the weight of a gaze settling on Chaewon’s unmoving hand.

She still hasn’t taken the call.

“Why,” she asks instead. And when she glances at Hitomi, the younger isn’t replying, just looking at her with a pleading look, wordlessly asking for her to pick up. She takes in a shuddering breath, invisible hands squeezing her chest, “I know this is just a game, Hitomi, but you shouldn’t—”

Gently, Hitomi takes the phone, taps the green icon, and presses the gadget against Chaewon’s left ear. Whispers, when Chaewon looks at her with questions and wounds,

“Hello.”

The word reaches Chaewon twice—from the close distance they have, and from the phone Hitomi is still stubbornly holding to her ear. She closes her eyes, hand reaching up to envelop the fingers curling around the phone and pulling them down, thumb tapping on the red icon to end the call.

Hitomi hasn’t lowered her own phone, gaze resting on Chaewon’s hand around hers, and Chaewon parts her lips, intending to speak—

“You did make me flutter,” Hitomi quietly says, and Chaewon presses shut. The younger girl takes a deep breath, “When I saw you this morning, you were laughing with Yena-unnie, walking towards your class, and then you noticed me. Your laughter slowly turned into a smile when our eyes met, and—” she finally pulls her phone down, a small smile on her lips, “it made me flutter.”

Chaewon mentally counts from one to five, before squaring her shoulders and unclasping her hold, moving away from Hitomi, gathering herself back into her shell again.

“I see.” And she sees it, sees the slight fall of Hitomi’s smile, but she pointedly ignores it. “I guess the excitement of seeing a friend in the hallway can make your heart flutter, too.” She nods to herself, trying to mask the coldness within her fingertips, because no, she can’t give in and hold Hitomi again, can’t bring herself to seek for the warm hand and entangle their fingers together—

There was a time when she barely had to hesitate, a time that seems so far away, now, a time she isn’t sure she’ll ever get to live again.

“Well, it’s your turn to spin again, I suppose,” she smiles, and the taste of a lie is familiar. How bitter, smiling a smile you don’t really feel. She takes in a breath, gesturing to the phone Hitomi’s holding, and the younger just nods, opening the application again. She stares at the bottle on the screen, swallowing once, and spins it with a flick of her finger.

For once, the bottle stops spinning with its mouth pointing a little to Chaewon’s left, and she hums.

“Truth,” she says, tapping the first option. For if the rest of the dares are in the same vein with the last one, she isn’t sure she’ll make through this game alive. She looks up at Hitomi, waiting for a question—

“What did I do to have hurt you, unnie?”

The question is swift, a little too quick, a little too serious for a game of truth or dare. Chaewon freezes, and forces herself to relax as she formulates an automatic answer, “I don’t think you have ever—”

“Don’t lie to me,” Hitomi pleads, and the formulated answer crumbles apart. Chaewon swallows, trying to grasp any semblance of control, only Hitomi isn’t yet finished. “I saw it, unnie. I saw your pain. I saw the hesitance, I felt it every time you held back from—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chaewon monotonously says, back into crafting a calm façade on her face.

“Yeah?” Hitomi lets out a brief laugh, disbelieving, “What about the way you avoided me for eleven days—”

“It’s ten days,” she corrects before she can help herself, a wave of cold loneliness crashing back down at the memory. And then she can’t keep the tremor out of her voice as she continues, “It’s ten days, twenty hours, forty-five minutes. Not that I was counting—and I was sick during three days of it.”

Hitomi looks at her and Chaewon can glimpse the frustrated glint in her eyes. “Unnie, please,” her voice cracks, and with it Chaewon’s heart but she just doesn’t understand, doesn’t know why Hitomi insists on this—

“Please, tell me what I’ve done so I can stop hurting you.”

But it’s not her fault. It’s not Hitomi’s fault, none of this is Hitomi’s fault, Chaewon just wants to run. “No,” she hears herself say, feels the shake of her own head, and—

“Stop avoiding everything!”

 Chaewon reels back, staring in surprise. In front of her, Hitomi bites her bottom lip, fists tightening on top of her knees.

Voice rising as she says,

“I’m tired.” A shuddering breath, “I’m—I’m tired of seeing you flinch away every time I scoot near. I’m tired of trying to hold your hand or tuck a strand of hair behind your ear because—you will just move away, and smile a smile that doesn’t even reach your eyes! I’d be okay if you’re still smiling and laughing happily with—with this, unnie, but you aren’t. You aren’t okay, and you always—look so sad whenever we have to tiptoe the line and pretend to be something we don’t—”

“But what are we?” Chaewon whispers, guts clenching painfully inside her because this is cruel. Laying everything like this is cruel, and she wishes she could accuse Hitomi of being cruel to her except there’s a hurting gleam in the younger’s eyes, too and she just wants to—to—

To disappear, to dig a hole and hide there forever, to vanish completely from the surface of the Earth.

(To stop hurting Hitomi and herself.)

***

In this time of need, I have gathered at least three important facts:

1. Old couch tends to ramble and forgoes necessary pauses altogether whenever old couch is worked up, like now, it’s almost impossible to accurately discern the sentences holy someone help,
2. Yena and Yuri continue to be our unsung heroes for quickly making a diversion—by loudly singing Hakuna Matata loudly several bookshelves away from old couch, yes, really—and thereby distracting the librarian from the raised voices coming from Chaewon and Hitomi,
3. Movable legs are a luxury that I don’t have and if I could have a wish granted at this moment it would be for movable legs, please, I need to be near my girls if only so I can be broken in real time, deciphering old couch’s ramble gets painful after a while and my anatomically-absent-heart is in pain enough as it is, I don’t need my metaphorical brain to combust too—

***

Hitomi doesn’t know how everything has come to this. She only wants—she was hoping the game can help them to at least be a little closer to the untouchable days of the past. She suggested this with a fragile wish that she’d come to know more things about Chaewon, and perhaps make her smile or laugh throughout silly dares or humorous question—

Not this, never this.

“You’re right,” Chaewon exhales harshly, “I’m not happy avoiding you—” and Hitomi’s heart crumbles at that, “—and it hurts, but I have no other way of—of punishing myself. It hurts but what else can I do, what do you want me to do?”

Hitomi forces herself to breathe through the ache, through the prickling pain squeezing her lungs. “I want you to—” her lips quiver, “I want you to stop punishing yourself.” She only wants Chaewon to smile, to mean her smile, to be happy without the forced lines on her face—“What is it that you’re punishing yourself for, unnie? Tell me, and I’m sure we can find a way to—”

“No,” Chaewon shakes her head, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand and—oh. “No, I can’t. How am I supposed to tell you that I like you?” A wet laugh, the sound achingly false and hollow. “I like you, but I shouldn’t.”

Hitomi stops breathing.

“I was—trying,” Chaewon continues, gripping the phone in her hold, “I am trying—to let you go. To like you less. I want you to be happy and I want myself to be able to—be happy for you, even though it’s with someone else—” she lets out a shuddering breath, unknowingly wrenching out Hitomi’s heart,

“But I can’t. I can’t, alright? Even after—days, days of not seeing you, I still—it still hurts to imagine you with someone, leaving the world behind, leaving me behind—I can’t hide my heart in front of you and I’m scared that if I touch you longer than a brush of our hands I won’t be able to stop everything from spilling out.”

It ends with a sob wrecked out of the older girl’s mouth, and Hitomi finally stops being stunned. She moves in urgently, scooting close and setting their phones aside, before gently pulling Chaewon into a hug. She closes her eyes when Chaewon doesn’t fight her, a relieved breath escaping her, and she wonders, wonders, wonders.

What has happened to them to have them ending up like this, so scarred and bruised even with the same feeling inside their hearts—

The same feeling.

Chaewon likes her.

Chaewon likes her.

Chaewon likes her.

She holds that thought tightly, letting it linger, willing it to stay forever.

“I like you too,” she whispers faintly, feeling Chaewon tensing inside her embrace. The older girl attempts to pull away, but Hitomi only holds her even more. She’s afraid that if she lets her go, this time Chaewon won’t ever come back.

So she hugs her tighter and repeats,

“I like you too, so please—don’t try to change your feelings for me.”

She thinks back to the day they talked about crush and love, the day she told Chaewon about a guy, a guy she deliberately agreed to go on a date with because it confused her. The constant butterflies inside her every time they exchanged glances, smiling or laughing in sync—they confused her. The squeeze in her lungs whenever Chaewon leaned in too close, or when a touch lingered and neither of them pulled away—everything confused her, plaguing her along with the memories of the past, threatening to drown her in their waves.

Her shoulder feels like a bucket of water has been dumped over it, but the sobs have been reduced into sniffles. Chaewon weakly tugs on her shirt, wordlessly asking to be let go, but—she can’t do that. She doesn’t want to do that. If Chaewon moves away right at this second, Hitomi feels like she’d cry.

So she burrows her head to the crook of Chaewon’s neck, breathing in the older girl’s scent, shaking her head when Chaewon tugs at her again.

“Hitomi—” she has never heard her name uttered so hoarsely like this, and she wants to apologise, wants to make this right—

“Don’t joke about this, please.”

She shakes her head again, saying with words muffled by Chaewon’s shoulder,

“I’m not joking.”

“But what about the guy?”

Her guts clench.

The guy. Her attempt to find normalcy. Her attempt at refuting her heart, trying to insist that she wasn’t falling. And if Yuri wasn’t there to smack some sense into her—she inhales deeply, mentally shaking those thoughts away,

“I called it off.”

It’s not as if she had the time to focus on some guys, not when Chaewon hadn’t replied to her thirty-sixth message, and the days crawled painfully slow around her with every second spent without any news on the older girl.

Chaewon swallows, puzzlement clear in her voice when she asks,

“Was the guy ugly?”

A burst of light chuckle escapes her at the remark, and she braces herself to finally loosen her hold, pulling away from Chaewon’s shoulder, the latter quietly mirroring her action. Their gazes meet, red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked cheeks, and Hitomi shakes her head. Smiling as she admits,

“I just realized that I kept thinking about you.”

And because Yuri had helped her to have a talk with her parents, a talk that relieved her of the ghosts of her past, a talk that made her hug her parents and promise to be more open with them from thereon, a talk that changed a lot—if not everything all at once—

Chaewon rubs her eyes with her palms, exhaling slowly, “Hitomi, I—”

“I just want you to know,” Hitomi murmurs, reaching out to peel Chaewon’s fingers away from her face, entwining them together, “that I do. Like you, a lot.”

There’s a pleasant ache when Chaewon squeezes her fingers, for once not untangling away, a shaky smile working its way across her beautiful face. Her lips part, and then—

Hitomi’s phone beeps.

(No, really.)

***

In this time of need, I, your resident old couch, have gathered three important facts:

1. Convenient ers with impeccable timing do not exist only in k-dramas,
2. The truth or dare application apparently gives out a beep if the players have gone on ten minutes of inactivity since the last spin, and three minutes of no response after said beep will deem the game to be over,
3. I want to ing catapult Hitomi’s phone to the outer space, and Tablo, for once, agrees.

***

Chaewon chuckles at the betrayed look Hitomi’s giving to her phone.

“I hate this thing,” Hitomi decides. “I’ll break it into two.”

“And makes it hard for us to exchange messages?”

Hitomi halts. A quick dart of eyes towards Chaewon, and then they’re back on her phone again.

“…just messages?”

Shyness. There’s shyness underlying those two words, preciously, and the wounds inside her are starting to heal. Slowly. Soothingly.

“And some calls, too, I guess.” She tries to sound nonchalant, but she can’t really keep the flicker of happiness from trickling in. With a tilt of her head, she can glimpse a smile on Hitomi’s lips, too and—that’s fine, she thinks. This is fine.

They feel the same.

“You’re driving a hard bargain,” Hitomi makes to sigh, and the corner of Chaewon’s lips curl up. She pries the endangered phone away from its owner’s claws, gaze softening at the pout Hitomi makes as she lets it happen. She sets the gadget aside, takes a deep breath, and brush her fingers across Hitomi’s hand again.

Staying, this time around, movements slowing into a stop.

Gingerly holding the unmoving hand.

Then the fingers under her palm turns, moving around to latch with hers.

Warmth unfurls. Spreads. Engulfing every inch of her nerves, and the days spent avoiding this contact—Chaewon doesn’t want to remember them, or maybe she does, if only so she will always remember to never take this for granted.

“Choose truth,” she hears herself say.

Hitomi blinks, a confused ‘eh?’ slipping past her lips.

“Choose truth,” she repeats, with a small smile. “Trust me.”

And Hitomi could have argued. Could have pointed out that she’s done her turn twice, while Chaewon has only done it once. But there’s only amusement in her eyes, a slight tilt of her head as if she’s pondering about what Chaewon is thinking.

Then, with a squeeze to their linked hands, she says,

“Truth.”

For a fleeting second, Chaewon wonders if this was her moving too fast. But she has spent months waiting, standing still, holding back, stepping back—

“May I kiss you?” she quietly asks.

And Hitomi turns a shade of red, mouth falling open in surprise. Chaewon swallows, hurriedly adding,

“It’s okay to say no, if it’s too fast—I just, I really—”

But then Hitomi quietly says,

“Yes.”

The younger’s cheeks are flushed, and Chaewon imagines that her own aren’t too far off. But she said—she said yes, oh my God—and Chaewon breathes out slowly, trying to not trip over the drumming heartbeat ringing loudly in her ears. She lets go of her hand, moving to gently cup Hitomi’s cheeks, trying not to melt when the younger leans into her touch.

Hitomi is warm, even warmer when Chaewon leans in. Their foreheads touch, first, and then the brush of their noses—

Eyes flutter close, warm breaths counting the passing seconds, and then the entire world is muted into a still background as their lips touch in a shy encounter.

Her heart soars. High, unrivalled, past the clouds and the stratosphere into the outer space—and the vacuum out there is warm, not at all cold—it’s warm and fluttering and when the burst of butterflies becomes too much, she draws away, falling, falling, falling—

She opens her eyes and the first thing she sees is Hitomi, breathless and flushed after their kiss, and oh, she doesn’t mind this kind of falling.

“Unnie?” Hitomi queries, her voice small, lilting with wonderment. She realises she hasn’t spoken at all, only looking at the younger—she doesn’t think she can stop looking—and she takes a deep breath,

says,

“I like you.”

And Hitomi’s smile is wide, relieved, like she’s thought that Chaewon would change her mind. They need to talk, have a lot to catch up on after the days spent walking on eggshells like a pair of dancers deliberately missing their timing, and they will do that. They will. For now, Chaewon wants to feel that warmth again, wants to show Hitomi that her relief shouldn’t be needed in the first place, wants to answer the unspoken questions the best way she knows.

And when Hitomi murmurs, “I’m sorry—for hurting you, for taking so long, for—”

Chaewon slides her hands from the younger’s cheeks, rests them on her shoulders. And instead of a reply, she leans in again.

Hitomi’s apologies stops.

And this time, she meets her halfway.

(They might have taken the long road home, but in the end, they still meet each other anyway.)

***

As an old wooden table fated to stay deep-rooted on my spot for years, I have no chance to be in love.

But I have all the time in the world to observe a lot of things. I have all the time in the world to see the dynamics happening around me, dissecting them as they happen, and sometimes, I get the chance to observe love.

Love is funny thing.

A crazy little thing, a visitor once muttered, watching a Thailand movie on the laptop she set up on me. Love makes whatever organs inside your chest tingle. Sometimes with warmth, sometimes anxiety, and other times fear. It drives you crazy to the point that you want to cry, but it also makes it easier for you to smile.

Love is a complex concept, and it’s why I want to understand what being in love with someone is like.

But no one stays around long enough for me to be able to observe deeply. No couple sticks around long enough, often enough, for me to take notes of the subtle things that make up the big picture.

Until they come.

Watching over them is like watching a movie you wish to never end. It started off slowly like a seed gathering strength to hold onto the foreign soils it landed on. And then, after time passed and interaction nurtured its growth, I watched its first leaf delicately greeting my view, shy but there.

Then came the storm, blowing over the land harshly, trying to destroy everything it passed by. And for a moment I thought the roots would give out, giving in, but the grey clouds parted slightly and a sliver of light shone through.

The plant preserved, until it saw the sun again.

And it grew, and grew, and grew...

Love is still complex to me, but I like to think that finding the simplicity of it in little things is enough sign that it’s there.

Like now.

I see love, sitting on an old couch in the library.

It’s in the way the first girl has her head resting snugly on the second girl’s shoulder as she sleeps, a book halfway open laid forgotten on her lap. It’s in the way the second girl has her head lightly leaning against the sleeping girl’s, fingers quietly turning a page of the old brown book she's engrossed in.

It’s in the way they hold hands, not the same way mere friends would.

It’s in the way their chests rise and fall at the same time, the way their worlds are weaved together, the way they’re still connected—despite doing two separate things from each other.

The reading girl has a smile on her face, one that widens into a silent chuckle when she reads a passage from the old book. The sleeping girl stirs, humming at the amused sound, eyes fluttering open to peek on the other.

“What is it?”

“Mm?” The reading girl’s thumb lightly the hand in hers, “Nothing. I’m on the part where you said that my fart doesn’t smell bad. And the tiny letters under it, saying that you wanted to brick your head for thinking that.”

The sleepy girl draws up a lazy smile, scoffing as she snuggles closer. “I felt crazy for being drawn to your fart, of all things. You have no right to laugh at me, Chaewon-unnie.”

“Of course,” the reading girl replies, shifting to press a kiss on the crown of the sleepy girl’s head. “Go back to sleep, Hitomi.”

“Mmm,” Hitomi hums. Her eyes are closed, but her fingers are moving to play with Chaewon’s idle hand. “Not so sleepy anymore.”

“Want to listen to some songs with me?” Chaewon whispers, releasing their linked hands to pull out her new phone and a set of earphones—the wicked thing surprisingly not bundled into a hot mess.

Hitomi raises her head obediently, letting Chaewon slip an earphone to her ear. She rests her head back against Chaewon’s shoulder a beat later, secretive glance trying to get a peek as the latter scrolls through the list of songs in her phone.

A string of piano tunes flows through their earpieces, and Hitomi’s lips break into a soft smile.

Honestly
right after I met you,
putting my thoughts into words
would be something easy to
say, but harder to do

Chaewon takes a glance at the girl next to her, noticing the glowing smile on Hitomi’s lips, even as her eyes are slowly closing.

But if
I keep holding back like this,
I’m afraid you’ll slip away
that’s why I sit and try to write but
the lines are never enough

Carefully, she puts the phone between their thighs, and picks up the old book filled with Hitomi’s handwritings.

That it hurts more,
the longer I look into your eyes
at these thoughts I hesitate,
but really I’m too late

As easily as breathing, she nudges Hitomi’s hand, and they move quietly to entwine their fingers again. She smiles, leaning against Hitomi, falling back into their previous position as though they’re never interrupted. The music flows between them, and as Hitomi slowly sinks back into slumber, Chaewon resumes to read.

‘Cause it’s you I’m waiting for,
you who I quietly treasure
forever,
there’s no one I wish for more—

And there you have it,

love.

In the way they look content, happy,

at peace, like there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.

And it’s with a smile that I watch them drift off again, to a world where there’s no one other than the two of them. I wish I could ask them to bring me over, to invite me to the beautiful space they have built together.

Then someone sighs, followed with a thump of a head against my wooden top.

“I know, Yena-unnie, I know,” Yuri mumbles, envious, but also so, so happy for her best friend. “I wish I’d find love like them, too.”

And I nod, silently agreeing.

Because even though their confessions haven’t moved past the world like, it’s love that I witnessed when Hitomi stopped reading and rested her head on her palm instead, watching Chaewon do her works. The older girl would stop several moment after, asking why the younger’s looking at her like that, and Hitomi would shake her head and say, I’m so lucky, or tell her honestly how beautiful she finds her whenever Chaewon was focused on something—causing the older girl to turn an unhealthy shade of red.

And it’s love that I heard singing when Hitomi muttered after their long talk that what they have isn’t going to be easy, and Chaewon held her in her arms, telling her in her soft voice that offered nothing but comfort, that no matter what happens, having her worth whatever misery ahead and so much more than that.

I sniff quietly through my metaphorical nose, getting sentimental all by myself. It’s probably because the old couch is singing Ra.D’s I’m in Love, the very song our girls are listening through their shared earphones. It’s a horrendous rendition of the beautiful song, but I can’t tell old couch to stop.

Because love is an apt word to describe what they have, what they hold, and what they are together.

They’re lucky, to find this and each other—that much, I know.

(And I’m lucky, too, to have witnessed such a beautiful story unravel before my own metaphorical eyes.)

END