March 2019

Ryujin had mentioned wanting a cat once. It’s an unconscious decision, but Minjoo somehow finds herself standing in front of the pet shop across the street, half hidden in the March mist, fingers a bit hesitant in pushing the door open, eyes gazing more in memory than at the entrance in front of her.

“May I help you?”

The girl behind the counter looks about her age, attractive even, but Minjoo doesn’t notice things like that anymore. “Yeah,” she says listlessly, in an almost subdued whisper, staring at the section marker in front of her marked in bright, curly letters. KITTENS. “I’m looking for a pet.”

“What kind of pet?”

“A cat. Or a kitten. Something fluffy.” Something fluffy doesn’t describe Ryujin at all, Minjoo thinks. It’s too colorful, too bright, too warm.

“Kittens? Yeah, we’ve got some.” The girl walks over to the cages lined up against the wall and unlocks the one at the top, looking at Minjoo for approval. “Snow is the friendliest of the bunch. She’s still young, but she’ll grow in time.” She takes out a tiny white kitten and hands her over to Minjoo.

It’s surprising how warm the furry little creature is in her arms, and Minjoo almost drops her in surprise. She’s so frail and adorable, nothing like Ryujin at all. “I’ll take her.”

“Is this your first kitten? Do you know how to take care of her?” They move back to the counter, where Minjoo cuddles the kitten and watches as the girl fills out papers and lists down all the materials Minjoo needs to buy. “I can give you a manual, but you should come over every once in a while and the vet can give her checkups. She has to get shots and all that.”

“Snow isn’t a name that fits her.”

“Really.” The girl stares at her in curiosity, before jotting down a few more notes on the paper. “Do you want to rename her?”

Minjoo the kitten’s back and she purrs slightly. Names bring back too many memories for her liking, memories she would rather avoid. “No. It’s fine.”

The girl pauses for a moment, then ventures, “Why don’t you think the name fits?”

Ryujin, Minjoo thinks, then smiles humorlessly. She’s just another reminder of a ghost and misty, foggy blue days. Somehow jazz fits in because jazz and blue—they’re just reminders of memories she wants to but can’t—won’t let herself— forget. Snow is too pure, too uncomplicated, but maybe it’s better to let go of certain memories before they haunt her too much. “Just because. She doesn’t remind me of snow. But it’s all right. How much will it be?”

The girl has a nice smile, Minjoo is forced to admit. Her nametag says Chaewon with a little pawprint stamped to edge of the characters, and she gets flustered when Minjoo tells her her name and ends up messing it up twice before Minjoo gently pries the pen out of her fingers and writes it for her instead.
 

It’s cute.
 

♡

January 2019

It is quiet, too quiet. The silence is overwhelming, even when Minjoo can see Ryujin’s lips enunciating words. They vibrate in her ears, but somehow, everything seems to pass by as nothing more than a barely audible whisper.

“Let’s break up.”

It takes her a few, long moments for Ryujin’s words to fully register. “What?”

“I said, let’s break up.” Ryujin stares back at her, challenging Minjoo with her icy gaze, something flat about her expression, just like the unspoken words that have been lurking around them for the past few weeks. Minjoo had noticed, but not said anything about it. “This entire thing isn’t working out. We’re not a good match. So let’s break up.”
 

Thing, she says.

Ryujin has always been the one who refused the smallest display of affection in public, the one shying away whenever Minjoo reached for her hand. Ryujin knew this was coming, although arguably, so had Minjoo. The difference is, Minjoo has always preferred drifting away from reality, if only for a moment, just to forget the things that make her uncomfortable.

“Is it because of me?” The whisper is soft and leaves Minjoo’s lips almost inaudibly, and she suddenly doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know if she’s in love with Ryujin but she’s probably pretty close to it—maybe it’s not love, but obsession. Ryujin is her everything— doesn’t she understand?
 

“It’s because of us,” Ryujin replies coolly, turning away, and Minjoo doesn’t understand if she’s talking about the two of them or the concept of us, of being together.
 

Perhaps it’s the cold look in Ryujin’s eyes that freezes Minjoo in place and renders her immobile, watching helplessly as Ryujin walks away. Maybe Ryujin’s slipping through her fingers like sand and shadows because she doesn't know if this is love.
 

Maybe it’s because she knows Ryujin will never love her as much as she does.



 

♡

April 2019

It takes about two weeks for Minjoo to give up on figuring out how to take care of Snow, so she finds herself passing the threshold of the pet shop yet again. Chaewon is still standing behind the counter, head bent over a stack of papers, when Minjoo clears lightly.

“Back again?” The girl asks, a look of pleasant surprise on her face.

“Yeah.” Minjoo stuffs her hands into her pockets and tries not to look extremely incapable. She’s slightly embarrassed by this visit—one would think that she’d be able to figure out how to take care of a kitten by herself. She can’t decide if she’s glad he can see Chaewon again (but she pushes the thought away out of her mind because she can’t think of anyone in that way, not after Ryujin), or if she’s feeling embarrassed because she needs help. “Um, I’m having some trouble taking care of my kitten.”
 

“Snow?” Chaewon asks, and when Minjoo nods reluctantly, she laughs softly, but without any malice. “It’s all right. It’s nothing to feel awkward about. People never figure out how to take care of their first pets.”
Chaewon is distracting, too distracting, and the red flare of an alarm sounds in Minjoo’s mind because she’s paying far too much attention to those fingers and eyes, voice and smile, even her cute boop-able nose. But she tells herself that it’s nothing, because there’s a limit she can take, and Minjoo hasn’t crossed the line yet. Maybe.

Two streets and a steaming cup of green tea later, Minjoo realizes that Chaewon somehow remembered all the tiny details of their conversation from weeks ago. She should have forgotten them already.

♡

February 2019
 

Ryujin’s absence leaves a gaping hole, a massive crater in Minjoo’s life and she can’t quite figure out how to get out of the seemingly bottomless abyss. It’s too deep for her to climb out of and too wide for her to skirt, as reflected by the overbearing silence in the apartment when it gets late at night and Minjoo turns around to tell Ryujin something, only to realize that Ryujin isn’t there.

So she clings on instead of letting go. It starts with the small things, little details that remind her of Ryujin. An old photo she finds in the drawer. The texts Ryujin used to send her. A discarded envelope with Ryujin’s messy penmanship. It becomes an obsession, clouding her eyes and thoughts until Minjoo isn’t sure if she’s holding onto the memory of Ryujin because she truly misses her, or if she just needs someone to pine after.

There's this one memory that has left the greatest impression on Minjoo. It was their first night, sitting back-to-back on the floor, gazing at the ceiling as if they could see the twinkling sky right through the plaster, speaking softly about some fantastical future together. Ryujin had mentioned having a family, and Minjoo had let herself be swept up in a dream of living the rest of her life with Ryujin. They were fresh, just starting out, and in the rush of something new, Minjoo thinks both of them believed in true love and something like the childish ideal of finding soulmates.

“We could adopt children and get a cat,” Ryujin had whispered, threading their fingers together and closing her eyes. She had felt warm and comforting against Minjoo, and Minjoo hadn’t wanted to move. They could have sat there forever. “That would be nice.”
 

They had kissed then, Ryujin turning around to capture Minjoo’s lips with her own and soothing the quiet of the night into their touches. Minjoo kept the thought of getting a cat in her mind, and Ryujin never mentioned it again afterwards, but it swirled around Minjoo’s mind all the same.

Ryujin’s gone now and Minjoo is left with nothing but the fragments of her memory and a scrunched-up piece of note paper with the address of the local pet store scrawled on it. She decides to get a kitten. Partly in the memory of Ryujin, and partly because it's another reminder of what was once (perhaps never) her.

♡
 

July 2019

July is stifling hot, too warm to stay outside for extended periods of time. Air conditioners only last for so long before the smell reminds Minjoo too much of offices and enclosed spaces, driving her outside to escape the artificial cool of her apartment. Being alone for too long still reminds her too much of Ryujin. Snow, on the other hand, likes to disappears for hours at a time, only for Minjoo to find her sleeping in the cool shade of the closet. Minjoo would actually like to join her there when the air conditioner can’t keep up with the heat, but unfortunately, the closet is too small for Minjoo to fit in.

Chaewon doesn’t look surprised when Minjoo walks into the pet shop anymore.

Minjoo attributes that to visiting the store several times a week. She's not actually looking for things to buy for Snow, but rather she just wants to be somewhere with someone. Someone to talk to, someone to drive her loneliness away. By someone, she means Chaewon, but that’s something Minjoo would rather Chaewon not know about. She still hasn’t forgotten the invisible line she’s drawn in her mind between intrigue and danger. Chaewon is intriguing, fascinating, and nothing like Ryujin, but Minjoo knows the moment she thinks of Chaewon as someone like Ryujin, the danger begins.

“Are you guys hiring?” she asks one afternoon. The heat is making her drowsy; Chaewon’s almost done with her shift and currently cleaning up. The girl looks up at her and shrugs as she sweeps the floor.

“Yeah. We’re always hiring. If you haven’t noticed, we’re rather short on staff.”

Minjoo has noticed, due to the fact that the only person she ever sees behind the counter is Chaewon. Granted, the pet shop is slightly small, but she imagines Chaewon working there all by herself every day, taking care of all the animals, and shudders. Loneliness is a terrible thing, clawing at every drop of joy until it everything away. Perhaps that’s why she likes talking to Chaewon. The lonely seek each other.

“I should apply.”

“Hmm?” Chaewon’s voice is nonchalant, and a look of mild interest only briefly crosses her face, but she accidentally knocks the broom over when she bends over to retrieve the dustpan. “Why?”

“I’ve got nothing else to do.” It’s true. All Minjoo has done for the past few months is show up for class and walk out of the university campus at the end of the day with nothing to do but talk to Chaewon at the pet shop or sit on the sofa with Snow on her lap and watch television. “And I could keep you some company.”
 

“Are you suggesting something?” Chaewon laughs, and Minjoo freezes, because now that she thinks about it, she’s only getting a job at the pet store to be with Chaewon. Her toes are teetering at the edge of the line, a hair's breadth from crossing it.
 

“What do you think?” she responds, and if Chaewon notices the tremor in her voice, she doesn’t say anything about it.

“Go apply,” Chaewon says offhandedly, and Minjoo gives a mock bow before walking over to fill out an application form. She realizes she's trembling, maybe because she’s not sure if she’s just crossed the line or not.

Maybe she’s already in too deep.



 

♡

June 2019

On her way home, Minjoo catches sight of a familiar head and ducks on instinct, heart racing. She’s run her fingers through that bright pink hair enough times to recognize it anywhere. It’s silly—of course she knew Ryujin would still be in the city, and that they would cross paths every once in a while, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t panic and hide because seeing Ryujin is too painful, a wound still too raw.
 

She waits for a few minutes, absolutely sure that people are tossing strange looks her way. She figures the coast is clear and that the worst has come to pass, but then suddenly she realizes there’s a pair of shoes approaching her, and she holds her breath in fear because she knows those shoes too.

The shoes come to a halt before her. Minjoo, still crouched on the ground, slowly tilts her head upward to meet Shin Ryujin’s piercing, icy glare.

“What are you doing here?” Ryujin’s voice is smooth, stoic.

Bland.

No hint of I missed you or I regret leaving.

The only thing is, her face is still as beautiful to Minjoo as it was before, all flawless lips, twinkling eyes and a pale expanse of snowy skin.
 

“What are you doing here?” Even to her own ears, Minjoo hears the emotion in her voice, trembling and toeing the brink of cracking. Definitely hinting at I missed you but I don’t want to see, much less talk to, you because you’re drilling a goddamn hole in my heart.

Ryujin doesn’t answer, merely looks down at her, so Minjoo shuffles around rather awkwardly until she’s managed to stand up again and look into Ryujin’s eyes.

“Well,” she says as nonchalantly and cheerfully as she can, but everything sounds so painfully fake in her ears, “I guess there’s no need for me to stay if there’s nothing to talk about.” She half-waves and starts to walk away, trembling and breathing irregularly because she’s been talking to Ryujin and it’s almost too painful to bear.

“Minjoo,” Ryujin begins, and Minjoo decides that now would be a very good time to spring off into the distance, hands clamped over her ears to avoid hearing anything else.

She doesn’t need Ryujin, she tells herself, but she doubts she’s doing a good job kidding herself, much less everyone else, when her tears blur her vision and she can’t stop shaking no matter how many deep breaths she takes to calm herself.
 

♡

May 2019

Chaewon has this very nice smile, in which her lips turn up halfway and her eyes crinkle at the edges as if she’s too shy to let anyone know how truly happy she is. She has a habit of talking too much when there’s nothing else to do, flitting around the cages and carriers of the pet shop, rambling on and on about different species of birds and how the gender of a parakeet can be told by the color of its beak.

Sometimes Minjoo brings Snow over and the kitten plods along as Chaewon circles the store, towing Minjoo behind her as they talk. It feels almost natural to spend her afternoons walking with Chaewon, as if Minjoo has been doing this for years and years. Chaewon surprisingly talks a lot, and Minjoo’s a good listener, so they fit well together.

Minjoo starts to keep a mental list after a while, one tentatively titled Things I Like About Chaewon —tentatively because she doesn’t want to like Chaewon, but it’s like some subconscious thought bothering at her all day long because Chaewon … she can be just friends with Chaewon, right? It's not like there's anythin