She ignores the warnings and dares to fly too close to the sun.

[Based on the MV for "New" by Yves.]

---

Sooyoung tries not to huff in front of customers, but the computer beeps incessantly. She takes a deep breath. Dull pain ripples across her back as she hunches over the table. She swipes her keycard again. The computer reboots for the third time. The screens above flash on. A minute passes without an error message. Instead, they loop the bowling alley’s advertisements. Black light bowling from 10PM to midnight every Friday and Saturday! Buffalo wings and a large drink combo, only $9.99! Sooyoung sighs in relief, already reaching into her back pocket for a crumpled slip of paper.

“I apologize for the inconvenience. I’ll set up your new game, no extra charge. Please accept this coupon for your next visit.”

The wheels of the rolling chair groan in protest when Sooyoung plops into it behind the main counter. Her shift doesn’t end for another two hours and she’s closing tonight. She blinks only to see a blob on her laptop where the neat lines of her literature essay should be. Her elbow pops when she reaches for a cloth to wipe her glasses.

“Excuse me.”

Sooyoung glances up. This person sounds like a grown woman, carries herself like one, but even by Sooyoung’s horribly impaired vision there’s no hiding that short stature. Sooyoung slides the weighted, thick frames back up her nose. A squeak almost escapes . It’s suddenly harder to breathe with a ridiculously cute girl leaning over the counter. Sooyoung tugs at the collar of her striped polo.

“W-what can I help you with? Is your lane n-not working?”

If only the ground would swallow her up. The girl’s smile is nothing less than angelic. And Sooyoung looks like a bumbling fool, stuttering, her lanky limbs curled into an old office chair with the foam falling out of holes in the seat.

The customer shakes her head. “I’m actually here for the arcade. Do you have change for a twenty?”

“Of course! Right away!”

Sooyoung’s hand darts from her collar to the cash register. She flinches when her name tag unhinges and clatters along the ground, sliding under the partition at their feet.

“S-sorry!” she mumbles. The crisp bills crunch in her trembling hands. She lays them out as she counts aloud. “Five. Ten. Fifteen. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.”

“Thanks, Sooyoung.” The employee freezes. The girl winks, handing her a twenty dollar bill and the plastic name tag. “You have a beautiful name, by the way. I’ll see you around?”

“See you…” Sooyoung waves awkwardly. Nobody’s there. Her stomach sinks when she realizes she never got a name in return.

~|~|~|~

“Sunwon.”

“It’s… Sooyoung, actually.”

“Whatever. I need another pair of shoes. These have gum on the bottom! Disgusting! Don’t you guys ever clean these?”

Sooyoung grits her teeth. From the corner of her eye, she spots an upperclassman giggling into a guy’s arms at Lane Seven. The girl flicks open a pack of gum and unwraps a new stick. She sneers back as if Sooyoung had spit in her food. Sooyoung takes the shoes without a word. She tosses them to the side and reaches for a new pair from a high shelf.

“I’m sorry for the inconven—”

The bully from calculus snatches the shoes before Sooyoung finishes the scripted apology. Sooyoung’s more than glad to see her back than those scrutinizing eyes.

“Poor thing, working on a Friday night,” says someone in the clique, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I hope that loser doesn’t show up at the Spring Fling. What an eyesore.”

Mr. Linebacker chuckles as he debates between a nine and ten-pound bowling ball. “As if any guy would ask her.”

It makes Sooyoung nauseous. The whispers that are too loud. The critical side-eyes. The poorly concealed snickers. Her knuckles turn white when she fails to block it out.

His friend nudges him in the gut. “Dude, do you think she’s…”

The entire group laughs, earning them some glares from the other customers.

A ball thuds against the oiled wooden tracks, pulling Sooyoung back to earth. Bitterness coats her tongue as she realizes she was staring too. Staring too long to be truly vengeful or irritated. The pretty ones get it all, even her attention, no matter how vile. Sooyoung hates herself for it.

She slaps on a neutral smile when someone approaches the counter.

“Hey there!”

“H-hey,” Sooyoung says in surprise. It’s the short girl who, for some unfathomable reason, loves the rigged claw machines.

“When do you go on break?”

Sooyoung narrows her eyes. Nobody shows interest in her schedule. Not even her parents. “Why?”

The girl shrugs. She picks at the corner of the waitlist clipboard and nods at the fast food joint by the far right lanes. “Thought we could grab a bite. Sounds like you’re hungry.”

Sooyoung raises an eyebrow. “I’m not—” Her stomach grumbles. Her cheeks flush red. The girl attempts, and fails, to hold back a snort. It sounds so goofy with a feminine drawl. Sooyoung rolls her eyes and cracks a smile, playing off how her pulse drums in her ears. “Fine, I’m starving. My break’s in fifteen minutes—”

“Sooyoung, mind watching the place for an hour? I’m really sorry, but I just got a call from the babysitter. I’ll pay you for your break!” The manager wedges his phone between his chin and shoulder while struggling to pull on a jacket. He’s out the door before Sooyoung can respond.

The girl knocks on the counter weakly. “Raincheck?” She bites her lip.

It should be illegal, looking the way she does. The leather jacket alone throws a wrench in Sooyoung’s nervous system. Her round, hopeful eyes melt Sooyoung into a puddle of goo. All Sooyoung can do is nod dumbly. Hey eyes follow the girl through the neon lights of the arcade. Something tugs in her chest.

“H-hey!”

The girl turns, hands in her pockets, walking backwards.

“W-what’s your name?”

The girl grins and dips her head. Perhaps it’s the glow of the machines that give her cheeks a rosy hue. She cups her hands around . Sooyoung catches a “HA—” Then the racing simulator triggers a booming crash animation with the words WIPE OUT! She’s gone.

Scraping the gum off the shoes takes nearly ten minutes. It’s quite elastic; she’s sure her lovely schoolmates took the extra effort to smear it across the sole. She asks the guy at the arcade counter to watch the front. Once she’s in the bathroom, she scrubs her skin raw. It doesn’t feel clean enough.

When she returns, there’s a whole party waiting at the counter. They insist they have a reservation. Sooyoung doesn’t find one. Regardless, she works her magic while the bar distracts the parents. Soon the entire two bottom shelves of the shoe rack are empty. She glances at the door. Her manager isn’t back yet. The long billboard screen above the lanes bursts with color, signaling the start of Black Light Bowling. Sooyoung jams her key into a slot and flicks the switches. The kids go crazy. She can finally grumble in peace without anyone complaining about her attitude.

She gears up for a hearty dinner of two granola bars. She must be ravenous because the cloud of frying oil drifting from the in-house diner has never smelled so delicious. The strobe lights in the venue flash in time with the remix blasting through the speakers. When the beat drops, the whole place lights up before dousing the bowlers in darkness again. Sooyoung stares at the end of the counter in disbelief. She tentatively scoots over and bends down. She vaguely makes out the shape of fluffy, golden-crisp bacon cheese fries piled into a basket with a cup of barbecue ketchup. The steam fogs up her glasses. Her head whips around, but she can’t see anyone not wearing a white shirt. She grins and takes a fry. The crunch is music to her ears.

~|~|~|~

School is for mastering practical skills. For example: spatial mapping, time management, and mitigating unsavory social interactions. Sooyoung learns to put all three to use very quickly. It’s her last final before the sweet relief of summer break and hopefully the teenagers she’s been avoiding will take a cross-country vacation. She’s up an hour earlier than usual. Two extra staircases and a back hallway allow her to circumvent the morning crowds. Thankfully, she’s the first in her calculus class because coming any later means an aisle of feet waiting to trip her.

Except she’s not the first one.

Sooyoung cautiously approaches her desk in the back corner and reaches out. The soft, short caramel fur brings her comfort. The small bear’s head is perfectly round and trimmed, its ears merely nubs sticking out. It’s one of the only good prizes stuffed into the claw machines at work. She unfolds the note wedged between its tummy and the rose in its paws.

Good luck!

Her absence at the bowling alley dampened Sooyoung’s mood the past month. Sooyoung lays her head on the desk, wondering how two simple words can lift her mood. She closes her eyes. Recalling every detail of the girl’s face proves difficult, but Sooyoung’s never wanted anything more. Then she hears footsteps from down the hall. Her head shoots up. Hands swipe the bear off the desk and nestle it deep into her backpack. She flips through her binder as students trickle in, shoving her earphones in to drown out the world.

My miserable appearances. Only then I learnt my new days.

The last ditch efforts at ego-wrecking jibes build around her. Sooyoung cranks up the volume on her music player and flips to the page on the Taylor Series.

All my life. By my life.

~|~|~|~

The bowling alley provides a welcome blast of air conditioning to combat the late July heat. By the time her shift ends, it feels too cold. She watches the front doors obsessively. A raincheck seems indefinite. Sooyoung doesn’t like it.

She ensures the bathrooms and restaurant are empty. The arcade is a ghost town. The last of the customers kindly clean up their bench and return their shoes. Sooyoung peeks into the cramped office nearby. Her boss is scribbling the month’s expenses in the sacred, and poorly Christened, Bi-Bowl.

Halfway through wiping the spare bowling balls on the racks, the manager waddles out of his cave and bids Sooyoung goodnight. It’s creepy with only the sudden digital spurs and zings of the arcade to keep her company. She plugs an aux cord into her music player. The speakers crackle to life. The open space in front of the lanes looks inviting rather than deserted. The song picks up and the lingering insults fade out.

Sooyoung saunters down the steps to Lane Nine, each step more confident than the last. She tosses her jacket and glasses onto a bench. Hair ties drop in her wake. Brown tresses flow down her back, free from the tight bun it’s been confined to for the past eleven hours.

The energetic beat pulses along the wooden floorboards. Sooyoung runs her hands through her hair. Tension shoots out from her fingertips when she flings out an arm, a leg pointed the other way. She twirls mid-step and folds into herself. She’s perfectly balanced in a crouch. A grin stretches across her face as she whips her hair back. The chorus winds up. She struts backward feeling courage course through her veins. She shifts from one foot to the other like gravity is a hoax.

She grasps at the air wistfully, steps back, an imaginary spotlight shining down on her. Her, the hero of her story. She reaches for the stars and spins on her heels. The melody cuts out; a clear voice rings through the speakers. Sooyoung breathes in, sings at the top of her lungs.

“Always. Always, all my life.”

Her limbs transition into hard-hitting moves on their own. A chest pop blends smoothly into a sway of her hips. The song tapers off into the last echoes of the chorus. She side-steps light as a feather. Lost in the music, her heel dips into a gutter.

Eyes squeeze shut and she braces for impact. Instead, a soft grunt comes from underneath. Sooyoung breathes heavily and the pants an inch from her ear don’t match hers. Small, strong arms wrap around her waist.

“Are you alright?”

Those sharp eyes Sooyoung had dreamt of stare into hers with concern. A warmth so intense it rivals the summer heat, with a comfort that banishes the harshest winter chill. A grin that’s goofy in the way her straight white teeth shine through, but feminine in how the corners of her lips curl.

“You took your time.”

Guilt flashes across the girl’s face before her grin morphs into a teasing smirk. “Were you waiting for me?”

“Yes.”

It must be the adrenaline talking. Deep down Sooyoung’s trembling. The strength in her voice impresses her. If there’s one thing she can decipher in her mess of emotions, it’s that she doesn’t want this girl to disappear. Not again. Not ever.

“Why?” There’s a shadow in the girl’s question. Something dark and hidden. Something so complex, it transcends them both.

Sooyoung’s tired of mind games. She’ll chase one thing at a time. She’ll be honest about that now.

“Tell me your name.”

The girl laughs so freely, Sooyoung can feel the vibrations against her palm on the girl’s chest. She drinks in the light that graces the girl’s features. How she embodies happiness and self-love. Sooyoung stares long and hard. After months, she wants an answer.

The girl concedes. Her tone is clear and cheery. “Haseul.”

“Haseul.” Sooyoung tests it out. It rolls off her tongue like silken water. She watches Haseul’s eyes shift down. Sooyoung calls out to her again, slow and purposeful. “Haseul.”

“Don’t… Don’t say it like that.”

Pride swells in Sooyoung’s chest at the raspiness of Haseul’s voice. She’d never held this kind of power before.

“Or what?” she challenges.

Sooyoung never thought the need for oxygen could feel so blissful. She gasps Haseul’s name over and over as Haseul whimpers prayers against her lips. Her fingers thread through Haseul’s soft hair. When she breaks the kiss, she almost laughs at how Haseul stares up at her with glossy, pleading eyes. What holds her back is how she must look the same, desperate and longing and vulnerable. Haseul leans up again, pulls Sooyoung impossibly closer by the waist, but Sooyoung turns her head. She kisses Haseul’s jaw instead, allowing herself that much. Her heart clenches at Haseul’s hurt expression.

“We should stop.”

“Why?” Haseul sounds tiny and exposed.

“It’s… wrong?” Sooyoung’s voice rises into a question. She doesn’t believe it, but everyone else does.

Silence befalls them. Sooyoung prepares herself to lose Haseul forever. But Haseul never lets go. She whispers in Sooyoung’s ear.

“There are other places, you know. Places where it’s right. You. All of you. And me. Us.” She inhales when Sooyoung clings to her shirt. “Escape with me.”

Instead of floating away, Sooyoung feels herself tethered. From the way Haseul’s cheeks round up and she gently pulls Sooyoung in for one last peck, Sooyoung knows she mirrors that grin. Finally, she has no regrets. No doubts about herself. This foreign sensation of joy and freedom spreads through her like liquid gold, beneath Haseul’s fingertips dancing across her skin.

Haseul leads her out the doors for the last time. The city lights blaze past as they sprint hand in hand. The purple sky fades into streaks of pink. Faster, stories above the pavement, faster. Orange light bursts from the horizon, ripping open a new world.

It burns.

Sooyoung laughs.

They jump.