The bouquet of flowers in her hands feel heavy, like a burden of weight sitting on her chest. Each step forward, her heart lodges itself further up , the thumping sending waves of nerves to roll throughout her body. 

Asking Heejin to be her Valentine has never been this hard before. Even if she has spent years with Heejin as her Valentine, this one is different. Or, Hyunjin hopes it will be. 

Hyunjin faintly remembers the first time she asked Heejin to be her Valentine. She was seven, innocently joyful, and heart b with love.

Wringing her fingers together and feeling her lips tug into a subconscious pout, Hyunjin’s eyes plead, “Mama, I’m sorry. I don’t wanna be your Valentine this year.”

As equally charmed as she is confused, Hyunjin’s mother squats to meet her daughter’s sorrowful eyes. Faking heartbreak and sounding tearful, Vivi clutches at her chest and playfully sniffs. (Hyunjin proceeds to rush into her arms and nuzzle into her neck, mumbling apologies.)

“Why won’t you be my Valentine this year, sweetheart?”

Hyunjin’s feet shift and teeter from her tiptoes to her heels. 

“You told me that when you love someone, you should ask them to be your Valentine. Like how Ma’s yours every year.”

Raising an eyebrow, her mother can’t help but to smile fondly, “And who will you ask to be your Valentine this year, Hyun?”

(Vivi knew who, just wanted to revel in the pure innocence of her daughter’s youth.)

It’s as if a warm glow of sun begins to shine when Hyunjin smiles, her eyes bright and lively and no longer sad and regretful. 

“It’s Heejin! She’s in my class and shares her banana milk with me during lunch!”

(Of course, Vivi knows who Heejin is. If it weren’t for Hyunjin rattling on about her every day during dinner and before bedtime, Vivi had forced herself out of her shell to talk to Heejin’s mother.)

“I wanna get her a card. The one with candy! Heejin likes chocolate and gummies, but she told me she likes chocolate more because it’s yummier!”

When Hyunjin arrives to school on Valentine’s Day, Valentine gram and chocolate in hand, Vivi watches as she bounces over to Heejin with a cheerful smile playing on her lips. Her daughter’s eyes turn into crescents when Heejin exchanges a Valentine gram with her. Leaving with the sight of her daughter being pulled into Heejin’s arms, their cheeks rubbing together with happy smiles, Vivi knows that Hyunjin meant it when she said she loved Heejin. 

Since then, without fail, Heejin has been Hyunjin’s valentine. The next year after Hyunjin first asked her when they were eight, Heejin had asked Hyunjin to be her valentine by baking her a cupcake and topping it with a Sweetheart. Yellow and pretty with pink letters saying, “Be Mine”, Hyunjin doesn’t even need to say yes when she leaves a happy kiss on Heejin’s cheek, right underneath the mole by her eye. 

Hyunjin doesn’t know when she fell for Heejin, just knows that she fell in a series of moments all wrapped together by a pastel pink bow with Heejin’s name all over it. 

Perhaps it could’ve been when Hyunjin’s basketball team won the playoffs and were crowned champions in her freshman year and Heejin had her face blown up and turned into a sign, her voice ringing like clear bells despite the crowd of people around her. It could’ve been their sophomore year when Heejin had a dance showcase and winked at her during her performance when she spotted her face in the crowd, proud grin on Hyunjin’s lips. (Hyunjin thinks it’s irrational how her heartbeat had tripled in pace, her stomach twisting with nerves). When Heejin sang for her in her room, her fingers picking at her guitar and her voice gentle and sweet, Hyunjin knew she fell for her there too.

Hyunjin knows she definitely fell for Heejin more when she gave her first kiss to the girl the summer of junior year. 

The summer between junior and senior year was especially hot, the sun blazing its unforgiving rays and the humidity gracing them like an uncomfortable blanket wrapping and curling around their skin like twisted vines. 

Lying shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor of Hyunjin’s room with their legs resting on her bed, Hyunjin is acutely aware of Heejin’s hand on top of hers. (The older girl has always found a way to touch her without reason—walking so close to her that they stayed connected like magnets, looping her arms with hers, tangling their fingers together when they watch movies in the darkness of Hyunjin’s room). (It means nothing and everything to Hyunjin).

“You ever wonder what being kissed feels like?”

If Hyunjin wasn’t sweating before, she thinks she would start to when Heejin turns her head to focus her warm brown eyes on her. (It feels a lot like being under a spotlight, being scrutinized with a warm glow threatening to spill into something crueler.)

“Sometimes. When I watch movies. Or when my moms are lovey dovey in front of me.”

Heejin laughs and continues to mindlessly caress her fingers on the back of Hyunjin’s hand. (Hyunjin feels every pass they make and it makes her palms sweaty with nerves).

“You mean all the time then? If I didn’t know better, I’d think your moms just got married. It’s like they’re stuck in their honeymoon phase.”

Hyunjin groans and hides her face in Heejin’s hair in embarrassment. It’s not like the two have walked in on them doing anything but, there have been too many moments that came too close for their liking. 

Hyunjin loves her moms, endlessly and wholeheartedly. But she could do without their mush and gush at the dinner table. But then again, Hyunjin supposes she’d rather it that way than any other because she liked seeing her mothers happy and in love. It gave her hope for herself—that she’d be happy in the future with her loved one too. 

(Somewhere in her wishful thinking, Heejin being beside her is in it too.)

When Hyunjin has her head turned to keep her eyes focused on Heejin’s, Hyunjin hates how she gets locked on her lips when Heejin’s tongue swipes across them to wet them. 

Heejin’s lips have always looked so soft. Not that Hyunjin spent a lot of her time looking at them or anything. They just, stood out to her sometimes.

Usually, it’s when Heejin smiles at her (which is all the time). Or it’s when Heejin sings (which is more often than not). It’s especially when Hyunjin’s name leaves her lips like a song, a teasing lilt to her voice (which is pretty much daily since she enjoyed teasing Hyunjin as much as she herself liked teasing Heejin). 

(Okay so, Hyunjin looked at Heejin’s lips much more often than she would like to admit. But, a girl’s gotta have her secrets.)

“Do you? Wonder what it feels like?”

Hyunjin doesn’t know if it’s her imagination but, when Heejin closes her eyes for a brief moment to open them half-lidded, it feels as if she can trace Heejin’s eyes looking down at her own lips. 

Hyunjin berates herself. It’s definitely her imagination. Why would Heejin look at her lips like that?

Heejin her lips again and Hyunjin sees how her breath stutters before she answers. 

Unless.

“Lately. It’s all I’ve been able to think about.”

Hyunjin’s heart pounds against her chest like desperate fists knocking against doors, begging and pleading for them to open. She can feel its thumping against the temple of her head, feel how her stomach twists into knots, and how her toes curl to edge off the nerves. 

Hyunjin’s voice leaves in a whisper, close to a rasp, her words fighting for space in when her heart lodges itself there. 

“Like, right now?”

It takes a moment for Heejin to answer. The silence is deafening and thick, as if the sharpest knife couldn’t cut through the tension rippling like waves between them. 

It’s just Hyunjin’s heartbeat roaring through her ears and the steady sound of the clock on her wall ticking like a bomb. 

Low and quiet, Heejin’s voice brings goosebumps to her arms even if heat permeated her room like a heady mist. 

“Right now, more than ever.”

Hyunjin moves a ghost of an inch closer, as if she could move even closer. She thinks Heejin does too. 

(Hyunjin could.) (Heejin does.)

Just as quiet and ten times more nervous than Hyunjin has ever been in her entire life, “Would you hate me if I said I’m thinking about it right now? With you?”

Hyunjin could choose to ignore how Heejin’s fingers lace through with hers, how the girl swallows a lump in , and how her lashes flutter when they close before they open again. 

But, why would she when Heejin’s other hand comes to softly rest at her cheek, her thumb caressing the skin underneath it w