Somewhere in Hongdae

February 4th, 11 p.m. 

“A toast…” a girl in blazing red hair said, her voice barely above the earth-shattering bass of the music that enveloped the whole club they were in. “For finals finally being final as well as our dearest friend Kim Minju finally turning twenty-one!”

A collective “cheers!” echoed throughout the small huddle of three friends (with someone muttering “that’s way too many ‘finals’”), all seated in a barely-illuminated booth by the corner of the club. All three shot back their glasses and took big gulps of the burning yet tangy liquid, feeling it spread throughout their throats until it flowed downwards to their stomachs. They set down their glasses on the table and felt themselves slowly letting loose, vibing with the atmosphere the club brought. They were in one of those hot places where most of the people who came in were university students in dire need of a wind-down, especially after exams. It was packed to the brim with patrons, most of them crowding the dance floor in front of the DJ who was playing some dance remix of a famous Dean song. Some of them chose to hang out with friends in the booths, while others were seated at the bar watching the bartender currently putting up a flairtending show. The multi-colored strobes shone through each surface of the establishment briefly without overpowering the overall dark ambiance, adding a more festive atmosphere within the club’s expanse.

It wasn’t really the first time that Minju came to a club, but her visits were definitely few and far between. She was the kind of person who would rather lock herself up in her room in solitude instead of going out, and her good friend Yuri (who she still found funny and cool at the same time with her hair having the same color of hot Cheetos) had to drag her out of their shared flat and into the winter cold just to spend the first hours of her incoming birthday inside some loud, cramped, and dark nightclub. They found their other friend Hyewon (their sponsor for tonight’s events) already seated at the booth when they came in, who welcomed them with a grin as she gestured to the big cake and some drinks already set on the table.

Minju wasn’t gonna lie; she was starting to have fun despite clubbing not being her scene. She supposed she deserved this after working hard to study for finals and this was definitely a welcomed change of pace, especially when she gets to be in the company of her close friends. She took another sip of her drink as she started bobbing her head to the beat of the music, her shoulders moving to its groove. 

The three friends did their best to make conversation despite the booming speakers, talking about some recent gossip as well as how they almost lost their wits during hell week. After another while of talking, eating cake, and downing alcohol, Minju felt herself getting more unhinged (no thanks to the alcohol). She checked the time on her phone and saw that there were only ten more minutes before midnight. They were about to order another round of drinks when she suddenly stood up and declared something to the people at the booth.

“Hey guys, guess what,” Minju started. “I’m turning a year older in a few more minutes, right? Since I’m gonna be a full and responsible adult by then, I dare you to give me someone to kiss at midnight!”

Hyewon and Yuri glanced at each other briefly before turning back to Minju with their eyebrows raised and their faces showing weirded-out looks. 

Minju has successfully grabbed their attention with another case of her infamous “unfounded shamelessness” in her slightly inebriated state.

“What the hell are you on, Kim Minju?” Hyewon said, already pulling the younger’s arm down to make her sit down, only to no avail. “You barely had anything yet and you’re already this bold?”

But Yuri was a mischievous one, so without thinking too much about it (as well as not missing any chances of making Minju do ridiculous things that her friend set herself up with), she smirked at her friend and accepted the challenge.

“Alright, anything for you, Birthday Girl,” she said, her eyes already scanning the nearby faces around them. She set her sights on one of the girls seated at the bar, her side profile in the view from their booth. Judging from just the side of her face, the girl was attractive enough to be the (un)lucky victim of Minju’s whims.

“There, the girl with the bob hair in the leather jacket by the bar,” Yuri said, nodding her head to the direction of the bar. “Kiss that one.”

Minju turned around to see for herself her acquired target, squinting to get a better look at her. When the image of the girl finally registered in her mind out of recognition, her heart dropped as she realized who she was.

“N-N-N-No! Not her! Anybody but her!” Minju exclaimed.

Hyewon looked at her questioningly again. “Why? You know her?”

Minju just gulped down the lump in . She couldn’t possibly tell her friend that the girl at the bar was the pretty girl she sees around school that she lowkey developed a crush on. Unless she wanted to subject herself to endless teasing for the rest of the night.

“J-Just…” she said, shaking her head. “Choose another one.”

Yuri shook her head at her, slowly catching on that Minju probably knew who the girl was. “Nope, no can do. Take it or leave it, Minju-ssi.”

“T-Then forget it! Let’s not do this dare anymore!” Minju contested.

“Oh, definitely no,” Hyewon said. “We made an oath how we will never back out on dares, Minju. Remember?”

Minju did, and at that exact moment, she found that oath they took a few years back to be incredibly stupid (only if she were on the receiving end of the inconveniences). But it was too late to raise that issue up now.

Minju dug herself her own grave, on the eve of her birthday no less. She guessed it was a good twenty-one years of existence, anyway. The only regret she has was making all of the decisions that led her to this point in time.

“Fine…” she sighed in surrender. “I’ll do it.”

“Alright!” Yuri said, high-fiving Hyewon. “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure to make it up to you with the best birthday present, Min!”

Minju left the booth while spouting incoherent grumbling and slowly made her way to the bar, weaving through the thick crowd while Hyewon and Yuri looked over her. When she arrived, she found an empty stool beside the girl in the leather jacket, almost as if the whole universe already conspired to make her miserable that night. She reluctantly slid her to sit on the stool and placed her arms on the countertop. She cleared and called for the bartender, taking a chance at glancing at the girl beside her. Minju noted that the girl was looking at her phone in one hand, animatedly scrolling through a chat (she couldn’t make out the conversation, nor did she plan to as she was not a fan of snooping) while stirring her cocktail with another. She immediately looked away when the bartender came to her.

“One Cosmopolitan please,” Minju said. “And do you think you can sneak in a shot of soju there? I kinda need it tonight.”

Minju saw from her peripheral vision that the pretty girl slightly turned her head at her direction upon hearing her order before going back to look at her phone, sipping on her own drink. She pursed her lips in embarrassment as the bartender gave her a wink and immediately went away to make her cocktail. When she finally got the red drink, she wasted no time and drank it. Unfortunately, the alcohol got caught in , making Minju almost choke on it. When she set the glass down, she gave out small coughs while lightly pounding a fist on her chest to relieve herself, making the girl look at her again.

“You okay?” the girl beside her asked, her voice clear amongst the noise.

A pretty face and a pretty voice? Minju could swear she was about to drop to one knee and ask the girl for her hand in marriage. She was just a dramatic and helpless gay girl, after all.

“I- uh…” Minju mumbled out, clearing after to make herself more coherent. “Y-Yes, I just wasn’t a bit ready for it, I guess…”

The other girl gave her a small nod, a small polite smile on her face. She turned away to tend to her drink once more.

Minju decided to strike up a conversation with her, no matter how small. She thought that just kissing her once midnight comes without any prior interaction would just be downright weird, and would probably earn herself a reputation in harassment. Taking another drink (a little smaller this time), she turned to her crush again and asked her a question despite her nervousness.

“So, uh…” she started. “Come here often?”

Goodness, she sounded so lame just then she wanted the ground to swallow her up whole.

Good thing the other girl had a heart of gold. If she felt any kind of awkwardness because of some stranger suddenly chatting her up she definitely didn’t let it show. In fact, she even humored Minju.

“Uh, not really,” she answered, pocketing her phone as she engaged more into the weird conversation. “It’s my first time here. My friends invited me.”

Oh, Minju thought. Just like me then.

“Where are your friends, if you don’t mind me asking?” Minju asked, slowly getting comfortable. 

“That’s what I’d like to know as well,” her crush said, her smile slightly growing. “They’re late.”

“Oh, that …” Minju said, feeling her lips forming into a small pout for the other girl’s predicament. “I hope you don’t mind the unexpected company, though.”

She smiled again and shook her head. “No, not at all.”

The younger girl couldn’t help but slightly blush at her response, and Minju silently thanked the low-lit club that helped her mask it. She took a few sips from her drink as she thought of what to say next until she felt her phone vibrate against her thigh in her jean pocket. She took it out and saw a text from Yuri, which read “three more minutes!”. She frowned at the message and checked the time to confirm, feeling panic starting to settle inside her. 

She was already sweating her wits out thinking of a plan on how to execute the dare when she heard the other girl ask her a question.

“Hey uh, sorry if this sounds weird, but have I seen you before?” 

Minju turned to look at her, her eyes as wide as the brim of her glass. She couldn’t possibly answer that yes, she did in fact have seen her before, or at least in her perspective. She didn’t really mean to develop a crush on her when she sees her around school to the point that she would always be on the look-out for her whenever she was in common student spaces. But she doesn’t want to lie either, so she settled for a half-truth.

“Mm, maybe?” Minju asked. “What school do you go to?”

“HongDae,” the other answered. 

“Oh! We go to the same school then!” the younger replied, much too enthusiastic despite already knowing that fact. “I’m in liberal arts.”

“I’m in education. Maybe we share some classes together?”

Minju could only wish. “Maybe? I don’t really know.”

She chanced a glance on the watch on her wrist for the time and saw that there was only a minute left. If it was even possible her anxiety levels skyrocketed, her mind going haywire. It was as if her senses grew numb and the only thing she paid attention to was the turmoil she felt inside; even the loud club music couldn’t pierce through her ears anymore. Although she was still looking at the girl in front of her, whose mouth was moving as she was speaking to her, she couldn’t register a single thing she was saying. Minju only managed to let out a small smile out of politeness.

She looked at her watch again and saw the second hand. Ten seconds left.

She grabbed her drink and downed it in one go.

She faced the pretty girl (who was now looking at her in confusion) again with determination in her eyes.

Three…

Two…

One… 

The clock struck twelve.

“Happy birthday!”

Minju said loudly as she closed her eyes and moved in to place a kiss on the stranger’s lips. She pressed lightly on them, just enough to make their presence known. Without letting anything linger, she ended the brief kiss and left abruptly, immediately sliding off the stool and ducking into the crowd again to disappear. 

She didn’t even stop to turn around and look at the girl’s reaction. She was probably branded as an offender now.

Once she got back to the booth where Hyewon and Yuri were, her two friends cheered for her, whistling and even clapping their hands. She saw Yuri holding her phone out to her, and she quickly assumed that her friend was able to record the whole debacle to immortalize it.

“Woohoo! Happy birthday, Kim Minju!” Yuri said excitedly.

“Shut up!” Minju said, fanning her flaming face with both of her hands. “Now let’s get out of here before she reports me to the cops!”

“Why would you think she would even do that?” Hyewon said, taking a piece of strawberry out of the top of the cake.

“I-I don’t know! I just don’t want to see her! Please, let’s go!”

Her friends just shook their heads at her as they laughed but started to pack up their things from the table nonetheless (Hyewon didn’t forget the cake). The three then made their way out of the club and back into the February night, walking away from the club to a safe distance.

“Where do you wanna go now, Birthday Girl?” Hyewon asked. “The night is still young.”

“Noraebang,” Minju said. “We have way more fun in there than in a smelly club anyway.”

Yuri giggled at her, wrapping an arm around Minju’s shoulders. “Noraebang it is then!” she said, pumping her fist up into the air in excitement as their night was far from over. 

“But Min, who was that girl from back there anyway?”

“Not gonna tell you!”

---

Somewhere in Hongdae

February 5th, 12:02 a.m.

The girl at the bar has been craning her neck for a few minutes now, looking past the crowd of patrons for the girl who stole a kiss from her that night. She doesn’t know why she was looking for her, nor why she was even interested. Under normal circumstances, she would have probably been fuming and would have probably filed a complaint against her, but for some reason… it felt different.

She felt different.

Where is she?

“Kim Chaewon!” 

Someone stole her attention by the call of her name and realized it was her two friends she had been waiting for ages to arrive. She cocked her eyebrow at them and shook her head, looking unamused.

“You guys are late,” she deadpanned.

“Sorry, had to take care of something,” one of them said, who had blonde hair bright enough to pose as a threat to the strobe lights. “I’ll treat you to unlimited drinks as compensation!”

“No thanks Yena, I don’t plan on getting hammered tonight.”

“Aw, loosen up, Chae!” her other friend said, already sitting on the stool next to her. “Exams are finally over so let’s celebrate!”

“Yeah Chae, Eunbi’s right,” said Yena, holding Chaewon’s shoulders and shaking them, making her whole torso rock back and forth. “It’s what we deserve! Let’s go have fun!”

Chaewon then slowly got convinced that they did indeed worked hard to deserve a fun night out. After nodding and giving them a smile, Eunbi proceeded to order them some shots, which they enthusiastically took after clinking them together for cheers. The strong bitter taste of the alcohol washed over Chaewon’s tongue, making her face distort itself. 

That didn’t necessarily mean she didn’t enjoy it.

“Come on, let’s go dance!” Yena declared, already pulling on both of her friends’ hands towards the central dance floor in front of the DJ.

Chaewon, for the rest of their time at the club, forgot about the pretty stranger who kissed her that night.

It was only when they finally got out of the place after dancing too much and proceeded to a nearby restaurant for hangover soup (Eunbi insisted that they should, even if not a single one of them were drunk and the only alcohol they consumed that night were the shots they drank and a few cocktails) that she remembered what happened. She was on her third spoonful of soup when she was reminded of the girl she met back then, so after swallowing the savory liquid she turned to look at her friends seated in front of her with a pout on her face.

“Hey guys, something weird happened to me at the club tonight.”

Both of her friends looked up expectantly from their respective bowls, silently urging her to continue.

“Some girl kissed me when I was waiting for you at the bar,” she started, seeing her companions’ eyebrows raise in surprise. “She did it all of a sudden. One minute she sat next to me and we started chatting, and then the next she had her lips on mine.”

Yena and Eunbi eyed each other, their lips pursed in a way Chaewon could already recognize. She knew the moment she was finished with her story all that was going to come out of those mouths of theirs were obnoxious teasing directed only at her. 

“But the weirdest thing was how she screamed ‘happy birthday’ just before kissing me!” she continued anyway, her own eyebrows meeting each other as she pondered (unnecessarily) deeply on why she got a supposed birthday kiss. “I was so confused... I mean, thank you for the kiss, but it’s not even my birthday? At least, not for another six months if I recall correctly.”

Yena couldn’t hold it in anymore. She snorted out loud when she heard what Chaewon said and set her spoon down.

“Oh, so you admit you actually liked the kiss? Even if it’s sort of grounds for ual harassment?”

The blood couldn’t have rushed to Chaewon’s face any faster, all the way to the tips of her ears. She stared at Yena in shock, opening and closing as she lost her words.

“I guess that’s a yes,” Eunbi spoke up, joining Yena in poking fun at Chaewon. “Seriously Chae, when we said back then that you were easy, I didn’t think that you’d be this bad.”

Chaewon scoffed. She has had enough of this teasing and was not gonna have it any longer.

“I am not!” she said, fuming. “Whatever! Let’s just eat!”

Without saying another word, Chaewon started shoving food inside again, her friends only laughing at her antics and cooing at her because they found her angry self quite adorable (thus the reason why they always at any chance they get). They continued eating themselves, eventually falling to idle chatter after a while.

Chaewon secretly thought to herself that she would like to see the pretty stranger who stole her lips that night though.

---

Hongik University

Sometime in the middle of March

The new semester just started, and Chaewon stepped inside the still relatively empty lecture hall just a few minutes before class started. She was scanning the room’s empty seats to choose where to sit until someone familiar who was going over their notes while slumped over the long desk caught her eye. She squinted a bit more to see who it was until she finally recognized her.

It was the pretty stranger who kissed her at the club about a month back.

Chaewon couldn’t help but feel herself become elated at seeing her again, barely fighting the smile that was about to break out on her face. Without wasting another moment, she slowly walked up the steps to get to the row where she was. Luckily, the seat next to her was empty, making everything just perfect for Chaewon to choose the right seat. She cleared when she reached her destination, catching the attention of the pretty stranger who looked up immediately. Chaewon looked on to see how her eyes immediately grew twice its size, which only meant that she recognized Chaewon too.

“Hi,” Chaewon greeted, a smile on her face. She pointed at the chair next to the girl, whose desk became an extension of her own desk, littered with stationery and notes. Chaewon doesn’t really mind anyway. “Is this seat taken?”

“N-No, not at all!” the girl said. Chaewon then watched as the girl immediately took her stuff off of the other desk and put it in front of her, making way for Chaewon to put her bag on it. Once it was cleared, she muttered a small “thanks” and sat down on the chair, starting to take out her own stuff to put it on top of the table.

An awkward silence then ensued. 

The situation they were currently in was definitely a stark contrast to the one they were in a month back; compared to the chaos of the club that brought them together to meet for the first time, the silence of the lecture hall felt more deafening than the banging music from that night. Still, Chaewon thought that she should be the one to initiate the conversation first since she was the one who approached her anyway. So, without hesitating any further, she cleared and turned towards the girl beside her.

“Hey,” she started. The other girl turned her head towards her at her call. “I believe we haven’t had a proper introduction yet.”

The other girl blinked. 

“I’m Chaewon, Kim Chaewon,” she said, reaching out a hand for the other to shake. “Nice to meet you.”

“O-Oh,” the girl finally responded, holding Chaewon’s hand with her own. “I’m Kim Minju. Nice to meet you, too.”

After a firm shake, they gave each other bashful smiles, slowly retracting their respective hands. The professor came in then, demanding the attention of everyone in the room. He immediately started the introduction and after briefly going over the points in the syllabus, he explained that all throughout the semester the class would be divided into pairs for every task and projects they were going to do. Without giving them the freedom to choose their own partners, he just made each student pair up with the one immediately next to them, stating it was easier to keep track of the pairs that way.

This meant that Chaewon and Minju were paired up for the whole duration of the semester.

Minju doesn’t know how many times her eyes had to grow wide that day, but hearing how the professor just divided the class up haphazardly like that, she couldn’t help herself. She slowly turned to look at Chaewon beside her, who returned her look with a cute smile (that she secretly swooned over).

“I’ll be in your care then,” Chaewon muttered out to her, giving her a slight bow of the head before facing front again. 

Minju swore she died right then and there.

The professor continued the lecture as the class went on. Minju was able to calm herself down enough to actually talk to Chaewon silently, already sharing ideas with her on how to do their tasks. Chaewon pointed some things out to her as well, commenting on how to execute them in a way that they could relate it to their respective majors. Just with this small exchange of theirs, Minju could feel herself crushing on the short-haired girl even harder, especially with how she sounded so intelligent and sure of herself.

It wasn’t long when the bell finally rang and everybody started to file out of the lecture hall. Minju thought that time went by too fast, and she almost visibly deflated at the thought of separating from her pretty crush. She was already standing up and packing her stuff into her bag with a frown on her face when Chaewon asked her a question.

“When’s your next class, Minju-ssi?” 

“Uh,” Minju mumbled, a bit caught off-guard by the sudden ask. She checked her timetable on her phone and responded. “Still three hours from now.”

“Nice, same as me then! In that case, would you like to go to the nearby café with me?” Chaewon said, pointing a thumb back over her shoulder.

“To go over the shared tasks?” Minju asked innocently. “Alright.”

“Well… There’s that but…” Chaewon then put a hand over her nape, smiling shyly at her. Minju could spot the pink dustings on her cheeks, although she wasn’t sure if it was just her blusher or not. “I kinda also wanna hang out with you, if that would be okay?”

Oh. Oh.

“Ooohh,” Minju drawled, understanding what the other girl insinuated. She could feel the blush creeping up her own cheeks as well. She pursed her lips and nodded her head, trying to keep herself from beaming when she was already squealing inside. “Yes, definitely. Definitely okay.”

Chaewon inwardly pumped her fist in success as she grinned at Minju’s response.

The two then walked out of the lecture hall side by side, starting small talk as they made their way out of campus and towards their destination. Once they got to the café and settled in at one of the tables, they brought out their notes from their class and discussed some work. After that, their supposed meeting became an actual hangout, holding conversations about themselves where they got to know each other a bit more. It wasn’t long until Chaewon brought up the kiss from the night at the club, to which Minju had to explain herself in a blushing mess how everything was just a dare she stupidly nominated herself to get into because it was her birthday. When Chaewon burst out in laughter as her eyes turned into crescents, Minju didn’t know if she would let herself shrink in embarrassment or just continue to watch how the other girl was being adorable.

“But you know,” Chaewon said when her laughter died down. She leaned closer to Minju and spoke low, feeling the heat in her face again. “I actually liked it, truth be told.”

Minju was about to lose it for real. If Chaewon was going to be this bold every time, she would just go and bare it all for her. But she knew she needed to level the playing field; the other girl can’t be the only one who advances like this. So she composed herself with a quick exhale and leaned closer to her as well, pursing her lips before smiling at her.

“Would you like a proper one on your actual birthday?”

Chaewon just stared and blinked at the girl opposite her, knowing how she was getting hot by the second she continued looking. She drew in a sharp breath, feeling her heart race as what Minju just said set in. She brought up a hand to and looked away, but not moving to lean back on her chair. After taking a moment to think about what the girl just said, she shifted her eyes back to Minju’s, this time shining with something that hinted on what would come next if they both decided to take the next step together. 

“I’d like that,” Chaewon whispered, just enough for Minju to hear amidst the idle noise of the café.

They both shared smiles at that, slowly baring their hearts at each other little by little. 

Minju thought that maybe taking on that dare wasn’t so much of a mistake after all.

---

Somewhere near Hongdae

July 31st, 11:50 p.m.

Minju officially asked Chaewon out after about two months of being more than friends but less than lovers. What happened was pretty funny in hindsight; she recalled being met with Chaewon’s confused pout when she asked her to be her girlfriend with a small teddy bear in hand, only to be surprised when the other girl pulled out a rose and offered it to her while explaining how she also planned to ask her out that day. Needless to say, they both said yes and have been going strong since then. Naturally, their two friend groups merged as well, resulting in a bigger squad that was more or less chaotic when all members were present. Not to mention the budding crushes between them.

(Yuri asked Minju one day that almost resulted in her spitting out her lunch. “Hey Min, what did you say was the name of one of Chaewon’s friends again? The cute one with the blonde hair?” It wasn’t long until Yuri and Yena started going out themselves, getting dubbed as the “ketchup and mayo couple” much to their demise.)

Now, the two are hanging out in Chaewon’s small apartment watching a movie while sharing a tub of ice cream between them. The original plan was to hold a small celebration on the eve of Chaewon’s birthday then immediately go over their notes to study for finals together, but they soon got too bored (and distracted because of each other) and decided to ditch studying and just watch a random film. They were on the bed, the laptop set in front of them, with Minju sitting in between Chaewon’s legs as she leaned back on her, while Chaewon had her arms around her lover’s waist with her chin on her shoulder. Minju was the one holding the ice cream and just fed Chaewon spoonfuls every time. Although their position wasn’t really ideal especially when eating the dessert, they didn’t really mind because they were much too comfortable to properly arrange themselves. 

(Minju also realized how dangerous it would be if some of the ice cream dropped on her shoulder, with her skin exposed courtesy of the off-shoulder top she was wearing. Chaewon already told her how if ever that happened, she already thought of “creative” ways to help her clean up. Minju gulped at that, immediately heating up; she didn’t know if she liked the prospect of that or not. Either way, she still made sure to be extra careful when she reached the spoon over to Chaewon’s mouth.)

Minju noticed there were only a few minutes before Chaewon’s birthday so she decided to ask her questions about it, halting the spoon of ice cream in its travels towards her girlfriend’s mouth for a while.

“You’re gonna turn twenty-one in roughly… five more minutes,” she said, glancing at the clock on the far wall. “Anything you’re looking forward to as you turn a year older?”

“Hm,” Chaewon hummed, actually thinking about it earnestly. “I don’t know. Besides hoping for the usual stuff like good health and all that, I guess I’m just looking forward to whatever life throws at me. This is what I’ve already been saying every birthday, but this time…” she paused and looked at Minju, a soft glow in her eyes that let the other girl know that she was giving all of her affection to her that instant. “...there’s a welcome change.”

Minju smiled at her and leaned her head on Chaewon’s feeling her heart flutter at her words. Without moving away, she watched the clock to count the seconds down until it was finally midnight.

Three…

Two…

One…

And the clock struck twelve.

She moved away from Chaewon and faced her fully, opening to finally greet her when the other girl actually beat her to it.

“Ha—”

“Happy birthday!”

Chaewon declared all of a sudden, detaching her hands away from Minju’s waist to move it to her face, squishing her cheeks as she brought her closer to kiss her soundly. She took her sweet time just holding Minju close to her while engaged in the smooch, smiling against her lips. Once she moved away, she laughed at Minju’s look of surprise and began pinching her cheeks.

“And that one wasn’t out of a dare,” Chaewon said.

She watched Minju’s expression as she gradually understood the meaning behind the kiss. The other girl whined and lightly hit Chaewon on the shoulder with her hand, a pout on her face. Chaewon just continued to laugh, bringing Minju even closer and enveloping her in an embrace.

“Thank you for spending my birthday with me, Min,” she softly whispered to her ear, giving her a kiss on her temple after. She felt her lover melt into her embrace and wrapped her arms around her too, snuggling her nose into her neck. 

“Always, Chae,” Minju replied. “I’ll spend it with you next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, until you get sick of me. If that’s even possible.”

Chaewon just giggled at what she said, shaking her head because they both knew they were in it for the long run (despite only going on for a few months still). Minju moved away from her after a while to give her present, which was in the form of jade stud earrings. Chaewon beamed at her and gave her another kiss in gratitude, immediately putting it on her ears even if they were only at home. Minju found it a bit ridiculous, but she still enjoyed seeing how much the other girl liked it.

They spent the rest of the evening eating more ice cream and watching even more movies until they both passed out on the bed in each others’ arms.

(Chaewon forgot to take off the earrings before sleeping that night.)

==

A/N: Hello! This is my weak attempt to get back into writing. I put it off for a while because I was preoccupied with some stuff and all sjdks I woke up the morning of my birthday unnecessarily early and told myself I wanted to write, so I went over to the trusty prompt generator and started writing this! I meant to publish it the same day but well... I had a few setbacks but at least it's here now? Anyway, hopefully I'll start writing regularly again... after I finish my current game of Fallout: New Vegas. Best stuff. 

To end this nonsense, 2kim is not dead if you don't let them die! 2kim forever!

Thank you again for reading! Always appreciate it uwu

P.S. If anyone wants to join the small community we have over at the 2kim discord don't be shy and slide into my DMs (@seungchaeng), I don't bite at all :D We're all friendly there!