Tzuyu’s unadulterated smile is comparable only to the pure and awed wonder of a child. Chaeyoung sees this, knows this, and has never regretted deciding on Tzuyu as her muse.

But there’s a hitch. Portraits aren’t her style. She’s always been drawn to abstracts, to caricatures of objects and people that can’t capture the way that Tzuyu grins as though nothing can ever ruin it. So, instead, Chaeyoung draws things that remind her of Tzuyu, of that expression that threatens to carve out a space of its own in Chaeyoung’s chest whether she likes it or not. She draws what she feels.

Deep orange azaleas and bananas; puppy dogs and honeypots; clouds and waves; stars and stalks of lavender. It may be a motley assortment of things, but Chaeyoung lets her mind wander aimlessly as Tzuyu sits across from her on the beach towel, and the imagery simply comes to her.

The persimmon sunset kisses Tzuyu’s skin, the descending star forming an outline around her shoulders like rested palms – just as warm to the touch, no doubt.

“What are you looking at?” Tzuyu asks after looking over her shoulder.

“I can’t look at my date?” The concept still makes her tongue feel numb. Chaeyoung can already feel the weight of her phone from the beach bag four feet away, can mentally see the inevitable text from Dahyun that will likely ask, Are you acting like a loser yet?

“Can you?” It’s said with a soft smile, the bashful kind that has Tzuyu practically squinting and Chaeyoung struggling to breathe.

“Yeah.” Chaeyoung clears , putting her drawing pad down. “You look like an elf.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Absolutely. You look unreal.”

Tzuyu looks away then. “Ah.” She brings her knees up to hug them, fluidly moving a flowing white beach dress that does not relent against the towel, the sand, the gentle sea salt breeze. It imitates water.

Chaeyoung quickly clarifies, “I mean that in a good way.”

“I know.” It’s soft, much like her when her stoicism melts away, and Chaeyoung inhales in time with Tzuyu’s cheeks as they rise into a smile she can’t fully see.

This transition is difficult but not an unwelcome growing pain. They aren’t doing anything different from what they would do in the past, but now there is a weight to it; expectations, new rules, unsteady ground – perhaps sand was a bad idea.

(Sana had been eyeing her for a while, and Chaeyoung was feeling restless underneath her stare.

“What is it?” Chaeyoung looked up from her phone. Could still feel Tzuyu leaning against her shoulder as they watched a music video together.

Sana sighed. “I just realized that I don’t know it. I’m trying to remember.” She looked to Jeongyeon beside her. “Do you know their anniversary?”

“Whose?”

Jeongyeon shook her head, either ignoring Chaeyoung or failing to hear her. “No idea. I never asked.”

Dahyun leaned in toward the girls. “They started hanging out last May.” Then she looked to Chaeyoung. “It’s almost been a year since then, right? Did you already ask her out by June or was it July?”

Chaeyoung stared at Dahyun blankly. “You’re talking to me?”

“Who else?”

Chaeyoung looked at the girls once more. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” All three of them instantly looked to Tzuyu, who retreated from Chaeyoung’s shoulder.

“When did you and Tzuyu start dating?” Sana asked, and Chaeyoung coughed on her own spit.

“What?! We’re not dating!”

“We’re not?” Tzuyu asked, voice small and eyebrows strained with confusion.

“,” came out of everyone else’s mouths, while Chaeyoung could only manage one syllable.

“Oh.”)

It had been a reasonable misunderstanding. Tzuyu had claimed that she grew up believing that a lot of their mutual experiences were signs of liking one person liking another. They used to go on outings just between the two of them all the time, they may or may not have exchanged multiple flirtatious remarks that Chaeyoung had only realized were flirtatious after the embarrassing revelation, and they had a subconscious habit of orbiting around one another even amidst a group. Perhaps it had been more conscious on Tzuyu’s behalf – Chaeyoung isn’t entirely sure.

“What are you thinking about?” Tzuyu asks. She turns her body slightly on the towel to face Chaeyoung, the fabric rumpling along with her dress. Chaeyoung reaches for it instinctively, her fingers grazing the light material.

“That I’m doing a bad job.” She chuckles despite herself. “I even took us to the beach since it’s the one place we haven’t gone to together, just so that it’d feel new. It’s just—it’s different. And that’s fine, but I guess I want to be better.”

Tzuyu’s giggle is as airy and weightless as her dress. “It’s a first date.”

Chaeyoung snorts softly, sitting up fully to inch closer. “Well, according to you, we went on many.”

“Well,” Tzuyu’s blush is a watermelon pink, “I thought it was one of those unsaid things. I don’t necessarily need anything ‘new,’ like a beach. I liked you then, I like you now.”

Chaeyoung wishes they were closer to the water, closer to something that could cool the heat on her face. “And what if I mess it up? What if this doesn’t work? If—What if I end up not feeling the same?”

Tzuyu’s expression shifts into a contemplative one as she looks to the ocean. “I’ll like you even still.”

“You never wondered why I didn’t kiss you?” It’s a sincere question, and she doesn’t want to linger much longer on Tzuyu’s words.

“I thought you were scared.” Tzuyu’s lips curve upward as she fights a laugh, her voice softening. “I know I was.”

Chaeyoung grins, her dimple dipping into her skin. “I’m definitely the scared one now.” She awkwardly points to her drawing pad when Tzuyu turns her face, her eyes all too close and far too unreadable. “I drew some stuff. Want to see?”

The smile is genuine. “Yeah.”

She sticks to simplistic explanations for the most part, given that it’s hard to articulate feelings into words when pictures can do it for her instead. Azaleas because Tzuyu is soft and feminine, the deep orange for the sunset bathing them; bananas because Tzuyu is tall and yellow is a bright and energetic color, the same feeling that Chaeyoung sometimes gets when they’re together; puppies because Tzuyu is happiest when with a dog; honeypots because Chaeyoung doesn’t know how so much sweetness can be contained in a single person (maybe the height helps); clouds because that’s where Chaeyoung’s head goes when they spend a good day together; waves because Tzuyu’s eyes drift like the tides, observant and strong; stars because it’s what Chaeyoung sees sometimes in the mischievous glint of her gaze; lavender stalks because Tzuyu is calm, pulled along by the breeze yet still steady and poised.

“I like the way you see things.” Tzuyu is bashful. “I like the way you see me.”

Chaeyoung doesn’t say anything, unable to summon speech while the sounds of rolling waves fill the air. She simply scoots herself close enough to sit at Tzuyu’s side. Finds her hand between them and tangles their fingers together. She feels like a schoolgirl for biting down a smile at the way Tzuyu gently squeezes back. Maybe she shouldn’t be so worried.

She looks at Tzuyu from the corner of her eye, sees how the girl is smiling through the silence. “I don’t think I could ever draw anything as pretty as you.” She’s proud of herself for saying it as smoothly as she does. A part of her wants to grab her phone and text Dahyun about it.

But Tzuyu’s next words trap her like a snare.

“You’re very attractive.” It’s borderline odd, just how bluntly Tzuyu says it in a soft voice. Like it’s a fact that she learned at age seven that never left her.

But Chaeyoung likes that about her, likes a lot of things about her – likes the way that Tzuyu turns toward her like a sunflower; likes the way that the strands of Tzuyu’s bangs feel against her fingers as she tenderly brushes them; likes the way that Tzuyu’s eyes breathe life when she’s so obviously holding her breath; likes the way that her ears fit right into the corner between Chaeyoung’s thumbs and indexes when she holds her face; likes the way that she can’t tell if the sun is what is making her feel so warm or the heat radiating beneath her skin; likes the way that Tzuyu meets her halfway when she dips her head.

Most of all, she likes the way that Tzuyu’s soft and hesitant lips feel against her own. The briny scent of the beach adds to the rapidly increasing sensation in Chaeyoung’s stomach that she is so, so alive in this moment, and she can’t help but breathe it in deeply through her nose. She wonders if it’s normal to feel the waves of the ocean in one’s chest. Wonders when air will leave her completely until she has no choice but to pull away.

It’s endearing, the way that Tzuyu mostly stays still, her arms almost afraid to move as her body all but swallows Chaeyoung’s. Incredible, even, how exciting it is to kiss her despite that.

“Wow,” is what Chaeyoung manages to say once she pulls back, her hands sliding down Tzuyu’s sides until they reach her warm forearms. A full blush has bloomed entirely across Tzuyu’s face, her eyes shining and unable to keep itself from smiling; she is trying very hard to stop it. Chaeyoung smiles, feeling her cheeks flush. “Was that okay?”

Tzuyu nods, her fists balling up the fabric of her dress in her lap. “Maybe you’re not doing as badly as you think.”

“Maybe you’re just the best not-actual-girlfriend-until-now that I’ve ever had.”

They giggle at that, the sun so low that the sky paints itself in pinks and blues and purples, and Chaeyoung draws again.