Hyunjin spotted the dull golden band wrapping around her ring finger, a sparkling diamond sitting atop like a lighthouse like it was a siren, a living manifestation of a plump fruit hanging on a branch that brushed against her fingers. She could be desired, but never had, never enjoyed. 

“Married.” The word burned in . Her lips trembled as she mumbled it. Her entire body rejected the idea, the institution; it was holy and it was clean, it was protected by armies of popes and priests wielding golden crosses and leather-back bibles. And yet she couldn’t help herself from wanting to rip it apart with crimson-stained teeth. 

“You are too,” Heejin shot back, she felt like she had to defend herself; the thick golden scar was choking both their ring fingers of blood, nutrients and a fulfilling love. 

“I know,” she mumbled softly, her wedding band weighing so heavy she didn’t think she would ever lift her hand again. Her eyes slowly met Heejin’s, they stared back at each other’s shared grief, a rope woven of responsibility, of a career on the line, a life of factory-made normalcy, tied tightly around their necks. 

“Happily?” Hyunjin asked, walking the thin line between ignorance and knowledge. It was easy to be deceived by golden-coated happiness, and it was difficult to remember not everything golden was good, and not everything good was golden. 

Heejin glanced back a slight look of disbelief that quickly melted away. Hyunjin expected nothing less from an award-winning actress. 

Those shining golden awards did little to deter the pack of grief and melancholy from circling her; they watched with oil dripping from their jaws. They, unlike most predators, jump straight for the kill; grief doesn’t believe in waiting. 

Heejin‘s laugh dissolved on her tongue the same way sugar did, it melted and then crumbled and left her begging for more. But her eyes hadn’t changed, her eyes were the only place she could find some fragmented, broken sense of truth; the truth that Heejin kept on a tight leash, tucked behind swirling rose-colored lips.

But when Hyunjin closed her eyes she could still see the two of them drinking their school’s watered-down chocolate milk in some forgotten math hall that no student or teacher bothered visiting. If she closed her eyes they were still those two kids with no baggage pinning them down and no constricting golden collars. 

(If she closed her eyes tight enough, tight enough so the tattered present couldn’t seep through her eyelids, they were still floating in a golden love, a love that didn’t rust or chip).

But when gold breaks, it shatters.  

Heejin glanced back at her with her hollow eyes, like something darker was lurking amongst her long and curled eyelashes. Her fingers rolled across the table and tapped quietly. 

(This was Hyunjin, and how could she hurt her with something they both already knew?). 

“No,” Heejin answered finally, still smiling with hollow eyes. “But what marriage has ever been happy?” 

Plenty , Hyunjin wanted to say. She wanted to say so many people were just drowning in yellow, eye-straining, lung-combusting happiness. She wanted to say there were more sparkling gold bands than there were stars in the sky, and the sky was infinite. 

“We would ,” she wanted to say, letting the words pool and letting her tongue wade in the sweetness of her words. “ We would be happy, and the moon and the stars would explode out of envy .”  If we could , she wanted to say.  If we could, love would never be the same. 

She swallowed her confession, beating it back so she wouldn’t foam at the mouth with desperate longing and desires that she knew would only set Heejin aflame. 

“Are  you  happy?” Heejin asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence. 

Heejin turned away, avoiding the painfully conscious look in her reflection’s eyes. Her reflection was a splinter of her living in a world with only an inch of depth, and even she knew the answer, but Heejin still wanted her to admit it. 

She wanted Hyunjin to dig her teeth into her grief’s scruff, she wanted to see the bitterness linger on her tongue as it had with her. 

“No,” Hyunjin answered with a weary sigh. 

Heejin nodded, the ever-growing curiosity had crumbled in her chest. “Like I said, nobody really is.” 

“That’s not true.” 

Hyunjin’s eyes were pleading at this point, begging Heejin to pull away from the rigidness of all the rules they had to endure, to just indulge herself for once.

Her voice dropped to a whisper, “It’s not our marriage Heejin- it’s us and you know that.” 

Heejin’s eyes widened as if the growing flame in her eyes was prying her eyelids apart. Ignoring her accusation entirely. “Then tell me one person who is.” 

“Haseul and Vivi,” Hyunjin whispered, her eyes flicking to the door then to Heejin, she sat in silence for a few seconds, hearing for the footsteps of any interns coming to drag them away to another two-hour shoot. 

Heejin’s entire body pulled away from her as if happy marriages were bloodstains or flecks of dirt and mud on a pure white shirt. “Don’t,” she hissed. 

It was a double-sided warning; one side duller for Hyunjin, a harsh reminder that a love like theirs would only end up with them dead, and if not dead they’ll wish they were. 

The sharper side was herself, a deep wound to remind her to never follow Hyunjin again; a reminder to not let herself get lost in the honey that pooled in her eyes, or in her laugh that took the space of the air in her lungs, her selfish, parasite laugh that kept her alive longer than air ever could. 

(This time she’s too old to survive something like that. This time she’ll just drown). 

“What?” Hyunjin snapped, her eyes narrowed, “they don’t count?” 

“You know they don’t,” Heejin hissed as she got up from her seat. “I’m happy with my career- you know that.” 

“Happy with your career but unhappy with your marriage,” Hyunjin scoffed with a cruel laugh that tore as it flew through her teeth. 

Heejin glanced back, her entire face screaming sharp and dangerous. Her jaw rigid while her chest flared and her hands shook. Hyunjin gulped quietly as volcanoes erupted, cities crumbled, and hundreds of years of fleshy fury split within her eyes. 

Her biting tone quickly deflated and wrapped around the spiky fear gnawing at her chest. She skittered back for only a second before her hand flew out and clutched onto Heejin’s; begging without saying:  stay, don’t leave.

Heejin shuddered underneath her grip; waves of warmth rose and swept off of Hyunjin and crashed into her. Every nerve jump-started before they quickly drowned in the endless heat.

 Over the years her hands had become paler and colder to the touch; her body must’ve known nobody was going to touch her hand the way they had years ago, and no one would hold them and beg her not to go, or softly squeeze them and tell her the world wasn’t crumbling like she thought it was. 

A knock came at the door and the two tore apart from each other. Like they were caught mid-sin; they scrambled like Hyunjin was holding a bloody knife and Heejin was bleeding out on the floor, her eyes glossy and her skin cold. 

Hyunjin’s hand tore away from her and into her pocket as Heejin ran a few steps forwards; placing a comfortable distance that two co-workers with no past of late nights together hiding underneath a thin sheet whispering secrets that could only fit within their mouths. 

A distance only a future of cold formalities, and empty smiles that reflected plastic-coated interactions could have. 

“Come in,” Heejin called out as she pretended to organize things on the makeup table. 

The door opened and an intern, the two had met a few weeks back, peeked her head through the door, “Time to shoot.” 

“We’ll be right there.” Hyunjin swallowed her grimace, while it slid down a friendly grin rose and it looked as if a paper cut-out was pasted onto her face. 

(Heejin nearly frowned,  an actress who can’t even pretend to smile. Jesus ).  

“Fantastic,” she responded and left. 

Heejin turned back, her entire face aflame with resentment. “Don’t ruin this for me. I didn’t come all this way to be destroyed by a high school fling.” 

______

Hyunjin kept her confessions tied and thrown into the back with the rest of her memories and old apologies that were never sent but were often visited. Months had gone by and the confessions were beginning to cloud her body. 

She watched Heejin from a distance, her eyes drifting from their co-stars to Heejin during their breaks. 

(Heejin’s eyes would always find a way to her, and for a second her entire face would melt into a softened mess, her character’s constant frown would be kneaded into a gentle smile. This would last until the camera panned back to her). 

______

“This tastes amazing Heejin,” a co-star said as he sipped his coffee. “How do you make it so well?” 

(Hyunjin didn’t care for coffee, but Heejin’s coffee had a way of easing the hammering thumps in her chest). 

Heejin laughed and lightly tossed her hair to her shoulders, Hyunjin watched her eyes sparkle in the light of her co-stars’ compliments, her skin seemed to shine brighter and a rosy blush swept across her cheeks.  

Hyunjin smiled softly,  At least some things don’t change. 

“I always make it for my  husband ,” Heejin explained lightly, “he likes a little cinnamon in his.” 

The coffee turned stagnant in Hyunjin’s mouth; her smile dropped and she could feel the liquid turn to grey-tasteless stone, anchoring her jaws together.

The cinnamon burned against her cheeks and she felt like her entire body was rejecting it, like if it stayed in her body for a second longer her chest would tighten and her ribs would curl inwards and impale her heart. 

Suddenly Hyunjin couldn’t stand coffee anymore. 

______

Hyunjin stared back at the ink bleeding into the paper, the beautiful roses casting a dark shadow across her lung-tearing confession. Hyunjin breathed softly, her heart thumping in the back of . 

You are Schrödinger’s girl: both dead and alive.

Her eyes scanned further down the page. 

I know you think we’re dirty sinners in the hands of a pure-merciless world. I know you think we’re faults in evolution, maybe you think we’re a pair of broken receptors in our brain. 

But I think we’re clean, I think the stars carved out the sky just for us to lie together. 

She folded the card and gently tucked it between two roses. She had torn out so much of herself and stuffed it into that card she thought it would be leaking blood, and if not bleeding then gagging on months of twisted-up confessions

______

Hyunjin wiped the sweat off her forehead as she raised a cup of water to her lips. She heard the familiar sound of cameras swiveling, the hushed arguments between the producer and the director. She turned away from the snack-table and watched the interns and crew members fly past her. 

“Who sent that?!” somebody asked from the right. 

Hyunjin’s ears perked as she turned to see Heejin drowning in red roses, a few petals fell and circled her before being crushed by a few curious co-stars. She gripped onto her cup; if she hadn’t sent her heart inside that card she was sure it would be dangling from her ribs. 

Heejin beamed at the flowers, her smile forming into the sun to those flowers, their nourisher, the reason they could stretch their petals and bask in their golden glory. Hyunjin could see herself in every single red petal in every green petal and fanged thorn.

She pulled the white card from the crimson bundle, Heejin felt her smile splinter, slivers of it falling with the petals, and quickly yanked it upwards. Her eyes scanned the card; she let out a shuddered breath as she shoved it into her pocket. 

Heejin glanced at the small crowd surrounding her, their eyes all staring back at her. She wondered if they could see the dread creeping into her veins, or the sudden cold paleness spreading across her body. She pressed her shaking hand flat against her thigh. 

“Well, who was it?” 

“My husband,” Heejin replied with an uneasy laugh, “who else would?” 

Heejin pushed the roses farther away from her, the crowd had left and the incessant whispering had faded away. She would be drowning in a thick silence if it wasn’t for the sharp buzzing ringing in her ears as she looked away from the flowers and to the only person still standing in the rubble. 

Heejin had seen Hyunjin bloody and battered, with violet bruises blooming all over her body as sticky dark blood poured out of sharp left-hooks. There were nights where she watched strained croaks and final wishes slip from pale lips and had Heejin wondering if it was the end, like the end hadn’t happened before and then again. 

Those tear-stained bloody nights meant nothing now; rings of red circled around Hyunjin’s eyes as she shakily looked back at her. 

There was a painful absence of purple, but there didn’t need to be any. Saturated shades of bluish misery were painted across her face; there wasn’t any blood but Heejin felt like there should’ve been blood dripping from the knife in her hand, and blood pouring out of the gaping wound in Hyunjin’s chest.  

(Purple could be fixed, ice and bandages and a few days later Hyunjin would forget how her entire eye looked like it was colored in with a purple crayon. Blue meant broken, it meant shattered. Blue meant already gone). 

______

“You’re quiet today,” he said softly, the sounds of metal sliding across a plate and nearly silent chewing wafting in their apartment. 

Heejin glanced out to the balcony, the blueness of the sky washed over the greyness of the endless buildings, her eyes wandered downwards and sharp hues of red flowed vibrantly beneath the two; the roses seemed to wave to her as they blew in the wind. 

“Heejin?” 

She looked to her husband, “Hm?” 

“You’re quiet,” he repeated, not any harsher. His eyes pooling with concern, sometimes Heejin found his goodness repulsive, always caring, never taking. 

(If he ever did take, Heejin could only imagine the damage it would leave). 

“Just looking at the flowers.” She forced a grin, watching his concern dissolve into a soft smile. 

“Where’d you get them from?” he asked while swirling his cup. 

“I bought them from a florist after shooting,” she answered, forcing her eyes to scrunch slightly. She knew he loved it when her eyes squished together. 

(Hyunjin did too). 

He nodded, “They’re pretty.” 

(Hyunjin must’ve thought so too). 

“I didn’t know you liked roses,” he said after a few minutes of silence, “I never really thought you were the type.” 

Heejin felt the truth becoming warped at the base of . 

She cleared , she needed this lie to be delivered clean, without the taste of Hyunjin on her lips, and without guilt and fear. Even though roses were rising from her lungs and wrapping around her tongue; their thorns sinking deep into . had to be clean. 

“I’m not, they were the only ones left,” Heejin lied with a smile, full of blood-covered petals and the bitter aftertaste of not having Hyunjin’s name always lingering on her tongue. 

“So she doesn’t like you?” Jinsol asked, a slender cigarette in-between her fingers, a flickering shade of red amongst colorless ashes. “At all?” 

“Well, she told everyone the roses were from her husband,” Hyunjin explained with a huff of pearl-colored smoke. “She couldn’t even lie and say I gave them to her as a gift.”

“Then move on, why do you care so much about her anyways it’s not like she’s the only girl in the world,” Jinsol laughed. “I’ve seen girls that look like her at parties. If you ever came to those you’d know girls like her exist everywhere.” 

Hyunjin shook her head, “It’s like my mouth was made to say her name, every letter fits perfectly into my mouth, they fit into the tiny spaces in my teeth. And I don’t crush them… I don’t break her.” 

Hyunjin shook her head like she was trying to shake misery’s tight grip around . “It’s like my mouth was made to say her name. Every letter just slides into every groove in my teeth. Like- Like they fit in the spaces between. And when I talk- I don’t break her.”

She stopped, her eyes filling with bluish gloom as smoke flooded out of the crack between her lips. “For once, I don’t break something. For once I can say something without it breaking.” 

“Besides.” Smoke poured out of and twirled around her head, “I got all this love for her, and if I can’t give it to her, where the hell do I put it now? It’s not like an award, I can’t send it to my mom for her to show off when her friends come over.” 

“I’ll take it.” Jinsol glanced back at her for a split second, a small twist at the end of her smile, her voice cracking quietly, quiet enough for Hyunjin not to hear. “I’ll take all of it, even the scraps nobody wants.”

Heejin saw her everywhere. 

Hyunjin was a parasite living in her brain, feeding off the endless thoughts about her earth-shattering laugh and how she used to steal her old baseball jersey. How Hyunjin would proudly walk around with “JEON 19” written across her back like the name already belonged to her. 

Her mind was clouded with Hyunjin’s flowery scent of blossoms with a hint of smoke trailing right behind her, and the sharp scent of lotion that cut through the sweet lul of flowers: the lotion she used to ease the scars on her shoulders that used to bleed through her shirts.

“You have a husband,”  she thought. 

“He’s not pretty,”  the same voice interjected, a quiet whine behind her shaking tone. 

“Then find a pretty boy.” 

“I don’t want a boy-“ 

“You can’t have anyone else.”  Her voice solid and unshaking, but dripping with endless grief. Grief of a life drained of any color; grief of a life lived full of hesitant hugs, and nausea-inducing kisses in-front of cameras and crowds. 

Heejin’s pencil snapped in her hand. A low groan slipping from her lips as she buried her face into her hands. 

(There was no one else but pretty boys. Pretty boys with soft voices and small hands that drew circles on her back. Nobody else could be an option).

Especially not her . 

She pulled her face from her hands; brown charcoal streaking across her left eyebrow as a dash of bright crimson sliced through her nose, and gentle shades of creme exploded liking dying stars across her cheeks. She looked back at the drawing; eyes that webbed together stars and modern-day tragedies. Eyes that she eventually learned that sinking in didn’t mean complete death, just the absence of the body her soul would rest within her eyes.

Eyes like those wouldn’t hurt her. Eyes like hers haunted Heejin; Hyunjin had pretty girl eyes with broken girl bruises. 

Heejin’s favorites were scratched onto the back of a receipt for a meal Hyunjin couldn’t remember. Tucked behind some foggy memories and old recipes she learned from her mother; placed under some childhood memories of a small white dog and a white dress sticky from disgust. 

(The dress was a memory that stretched halfway out of a grave she doesn’t remember digging).  

And amongst all those memories and those tiny wisps of a future, she couldn’t predict; she never saw a future where Heejin would walk out of the smoke rising from the tiny kitchens that lined the walls of this district.

She saw futures where Heejin burned her red roses and left their ashes at the foot of her bed. 

She saw plenty of gold-trimmed tragedies, but she never saw pearly dreams of Heejin pulling on her hands like she used to do. And yet, that was the one that came true. 

“Hey.” Hyunjin felt a gentle tug on her left hand. “Are you gonna eat that?” 

“Huh?” Hyunjin replied, still wide from the shock of seeing Heejin sit across from her, willingly. 

Heejin’s deep voice hadn’t changed, “Your soup. Are you gonna finish it? If you aren’t, can I have it?” 

Hyunjin frowned as she pulled her bowl closer to her, she didn’t need ten years of experience with Heejin to know nobody was better than her at stealing food. One second she’d be talking to someone and then when she looked back, Heejin would have her plate in her lap, half of the rice tucked in and all the meat shoved between her teeth. 

“I want it,” she said with a slight pout. 

Heejin groaned as she dramatically collapsed onto the table. “It’s so good though.” 

Hyunjin felt her younger self tug her eyes back. “I’ll order you another bowl.” 

Hyunjin smiled to herself watching the yellow lights dance and tumble downwards and melt across Heejin’s forehead and shiny smile. She raised her nearly empty bowl of soup to her lips. 

“Ugh,” Hyunjin grimaced as a loud slurp erupted between the bowl and Heejin’s plush lips. “Old habits die hard I guess.” 

“Like you’re one to talk about old habits,” Heejin said as she wiped drops of broth off her chin, “you’re the one still covering up that old scar with a bandaid.” She leaned across the table, her finger drifted across the bandaid, her palm hovering above Hyunjin’s glistening throat. 

Hyunjin felt the blood in her body rush into her neck, pooling underneath Heejin’s finger, like they’ve been waiting years just to feel her touch again. All the mangled nerves flared underneath that old scar tissue, blazing heat erupted from Hyunjin’s throat and at Heejin’s fingertip. 

“My publicist makes me cover it up now,” Hyunjin explained, gasping softly as Heejin’s hand slid off . “I don’t mind it anymore.” 

“Probably for the best,” Heejin said with a chuckle, “you probably don’t want to explain the story behind that one.” 

“It’s not like I got it killing someone.” 

“No, you got it  almost  killing someone,” Heejin frowned. 

Hyunjin laughed, “He was being an . Weren’t you the one who wanted him to be found at the bottom of a river?” 

“I didn’t want you to be the one to put him there,” Heejin said with a light sigh. 

“I wouldn’t mind- I didn’t mind,” Hyunjin grinned while peeling the bandaid off her neck. 

Hyunjin placed her hands onto Heejin’s. She wanted to say, these are yours, you don’t have to keep them or even look at them. Just know they’re yours. She pressed her lips against Heejin’s, these are yours, they’re for you, but you don’t have to take them. You can love me whole, or you can love me in pieces. 

Heejin didn’t kiss her again. 

Heejin closed her eyes, her head resting in the soft curve of Hyunjin’s shoulder. She listened to the song beating within her chest, the quiet thumps and whooshes slowly convincing her heart to dance to the same beat. 

The small fruit rolled in her left hand, the sweet smell of mandarins wafting towards her nose. She looked down at the fruit, splotches of orange were painted across her hand, her fingers smelling of sharp citrus. 

She began to peel, bright orange falling back to reveal a softer shade. She pulled at a slice and raised it to Hyunjin’s lips. 

“I love oranges,” she mumbled as she ate the slice, a smile stretching her soft lips as an amber colored drop trickled to a little below her bottom lip. 

“I know,” Heejin replied, her thumb gently brushing against her bottom lip, the drop of citrus pressing into the pad of her finger, the warmth of Hyunjin’s skin radiating till the air around them became heavy and sank towards the floor. 

(She fed her till she had nothing left but an orange coil and a few seeds sitting in the palm of her hand). 

She wondered if Hyunjin ever grew tired of citrus fruits and their sourness. Was it possible to grow tired of things so well loved? 

Hyunjin flopped onto her back, the grass tickling her face. The starry night spilled across the sky, darkness floating in between pieces of dying star-dust. “Do you remember that day you fell into that river?” 

“Yeah.” Hyunjin couldn’t see her face in the bluish darkness but she knew Heejin was pouting, her lips could be pressing against each other so hard they could fuse. “There was a fish in my pocket, I didn’t know till I got home but the little guy was there.” 

“Wow, you murdered a fish?” Hyunjin laughed with a dramatic gasp, a hand gripping her non-existent pearls. “Don’t let the reporters hear that you might lose your only two fans.” 

Heejin punched Hyunjin’s shoulder before sprawling across the grass, her head resting on Hyunjin’s arm. “. I’ll have you know-“ 

“That your fan club increased by five-hundred people this month? Or that your articles get thousands of clicks every day?” Hyunjin smirked, “trust me I know. I paid the 20,000 won to be in your fan club, you should post more pictures by the way.” 

“You’re in it?” Heejin turned to face her, her eyebrows raising in the darkness. 

“Yeah, but totally not worth the 20,000 to only  see pictures of your dog and plants,” Hyunjin sighed as she glanced at her phone. 

“Shut up,” Heejin rolled her eyes as she raised her phone to snap a picture of the sky, tapping away at her phone, and a second later Hyunjin’s phone began to buzz. 

Hyunjin took a picture of the same sky, it caught the dark trees and it was a few feet away from Heejin so she wouldn’t show the same stars. 

Same sky, same night, but different stars. 

Upon posting it Heejin sheepishly muted her phone after it started to shake in her pocket. 

“Post notifications huh.” Hyunjin laughed quietly. 

Heejin ignored the loud alarms blaring from her phone, her hands shaking as she took her husband’s phone. 

She could hear her publicist nearly screaming into her ear, her company’s CEO sending her rapid-fire texts; some were threats, some were accusations, but the majority were clouded with confusion. 

“It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay darling,” he murmured as he gently pulled her into a hug. 

Heejin froze in his grasps, her hand tightening around his phone. If her career wasn’t already crumbling then it was nearly on the verge. 

[EXCLUSIVE]: Actresses Kim Hyunjin and Jeon Heejin rumored to be dating.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed and let me know what you think, comments and kudos are always appreciated! :)

The next chapter will be out next Friday! :)