The airport is surprisingly quiet for the early evening, relatively empty besides the few people bustling to catch a flight or those lingering around waiting for someone to arrive, lighting up when they see their loved one come around the corner and run over to greet them with a tight embrace.

Just a little bit longer, and that will be something Kim Sojung can participate in as well. No longer just waiting around, anticipating Jung Eunbi’s arrival, the first time they’ll see each other in person again after months apart.

They’ve navigated their way through a few years of distance, long stretches apart and quick, fleeting moments of time together before one of them has to leave again. And it’s been like reaching for something you can never quite grab to hold within your grasp. Her fingers brush against Eunbi’s, but any time she’s in Sojung’s grasp, she’s gone a few days later—back to square one of texting and navigating phone and video calls through time differences and their busy schedules.

Sometimes, when they’re apart and Sojung closes her eyes, she can vivdly remember the mornings they have spent together when she’d finally see Eunbi after months and months apart. They’d sleep in the same bed, sun shining, warm as it spills through her window in the early morning, but nothing could make her warmer than their close proximity as if there was never meant to be any space between them—Eunbi’s hands on her, Sojung’s arms around her, her fingers twined through Eunbi’s soft hair and their foreheads pressed together as they shared their laughs about something together.

Missing those types of moments when they only experience them in quick bursts of time is commonplace, a lingering ache of longing for something, for someone when you’re never completely certain of when you’ll see them next.

There’s something else that comes with being so far apart too, something a little heavier than just physical and emotional longing. Doubts, insecurities. Questions: do you still want this? do you want me? is this too much? can we make it? are we holding each other back by holding onto this?

It’s gotten easier to avoid thinking like that over time, but they’re feelings that never totally go away.

Really, it's terrible when everything Sojung’s ever wanted, the most important person to her in the whole world, is a picture on a screen in front of her, unable to be touched, impossible to hold. She and Eunbi had to work to learn that being so physically far apart means touch and actions aren’t forms of communication that can solely be relied on like they could when constantly in each other’s space their entire lives. Instead, honest words, talking things through, and verbal reassurances or declarations of feelings become much more weighted when dealing with a huge stretch of distance for an extended amount of time.

(Once, Eunbi had tearfully admitted after a hard day that she’s afraid she’s holding Sojung back from something better, forcing her to muddle through a few years long romantic relationship where they’ve spent more time physically apart than together.

But they’ve been best friends—together, side by side their entire lives, and distance doesn’t just erase that. It doesn’t wipe away how much they love each other. Besides, any time they’ve ever stood in front of something that may seem impossible, they’ve always taken it on together, at each other’s sides, supporting each other. Some distance has nothing on that, a bond they’ve spent their entire lives building between them.

While Sojung’s lying on her side in her bed, phone laid out before her in a way that almost mirrors lying in a bed together, it’s early morning for her and late at night for Eunbi, only further reminding them of the long stretch of space between them. The sun filters through her window while Eunbi’s room is dark besides the dim lights she has on. Right now, the next best thing she’s got to touching Eunbi is to press the phone to her forehead in a mock simulation of pressing her forehead to Eunbi’s, and sometimes when she closes her eyes she can imagine it, can pretend they’re together, vividly remember when they have been, tangibility that’s imagined instead of reality.

“You’re it for me,” she’d said back then, voice level in an attempt to sound casual when she says it, but really, how do you sound casual telling your best friend she’s your whole world, that you want to spend forever with her? “I love you, Eunbi. That’ll never change. You could be five minutes from me or across the world and I’d tell you the same thing over and over again.”

“Me too,” Eunbi whispers, voice fragile with emotion. “Sojung. Me too. I love you. I love you too.”)

They’ve both felt that way sometimes—insecure, doubtful, afraid. And they’ve both had to work through it, separately and together over the years.

But they’ve gotten through every hardship brought on by distance together. They’ve made it work, despite the lingering fear it wouldn’t. And every difficult moment in the years leading up to now has been well worth it if this is the end result they’ve been building up to for years—

(“I’ve been thinking about playing in Korea. About coming back in a few months.” Eunbi’s laptop is balanced on her knees. She fiddles with the sleeve of her shirt, like she’s trying to give her hands something to do as she speaks, long fingers twisting around the fabric. “Thought you should be the first to know, Sojung...”

“You’re..coming back?”

She nods, lips curled into a smile now that the news has settled between them. “I’m coming home.”

Home. The word, the concept settles into the silence between them. Any time before this, it’s something that’s seemed far out of reach. But now the idea is right there, for the first time, something to wrap their fingers around and hold between them. Home.

“Yes?” Her heart thumps against her chest, and thankfully her voice isn’t caught in as she speaks her next thought, the choice her heart had immediately led her to the moment Eunbi said she’s coming back home after so much time. “You give any thought to where you’re gonna stay?”

Eunbi shrugs, but she looks like she knows where this is going, where it’s always been leading to. “Don’t know yet. I can get an apartment or…”

“Wanna move in together?” Sojung asks, unable to contain the idea any longer, to keep something meant to be shared between them just to herself. “My lease is up in a few months anyway. We could…”

Eunbi’s smile isn’t nearly as bright as it is in the flesh, but this one is just as good. “I was hoping you might say that,” she confesses, quiet, soft even though there’s no one else around. Just them speaking to each other over skype on their laptops. “I’d love that.”

It’s not a shocking development in their relationship. These few years apart, they’ve really just been building their own lives while separated from each other, distinctly their own, but always with an open space for the final piece of the puzzle to fit right back into place. No dramatic pretense, no huge fanfare or buildup. It’s just a known fact that no matter where they go or how much time they spend physically apart they’re still important, foundational parts of each other’s lives. A permanent fixture.

“So then let’s do it,” Sojung says, an equally quiet punctuation that settles the suggestion into place as something they both want, the next step they’re going to take together. “Let’s move in together.”

And Eunbi nods, eyes a little glassy, like she’s holding back tears now that the idea is right within reach, a future they can grasp onto. “Let’s move in together,” she repeats.

After all this time, it’s what they deserve.)

House hunting with someone living in another country has been an experience that’s involved many texts and pictures sent back and forth and a lot of FaceTime calls. But the whole process has been shrouded in this air of excitement, anticipation. They’re going to be together in one place—permanent, forever—from this evening onward.

It’s strange to think that they’ve never had their own space together. They transitioned from their childhood homes to their own apartments, separate but connected by the one fact that home isn’t about where they physically are staying. It’s about being together. Home is when they’re with each other.

There’s something simple—mundane, even—yet romantic about budgeting money to pay bills and signing your name on mortgage papers with the person you have every intention of spending the rest of your life with.

But the fact that she’s got a key in her pocket to their place, their home, the matching key sits on their counter, waiting for Eunbi to claim as her own when they arrive there later this evening is this most exhilarating thing she’s thought about in the months since they’d decided to do this.

Her phone buzzes with a notification, her attention snapping back to the text she’s just received from Eunbi.

[Getting off the plane now. I expected the best hug I’ve ever had in my life in a few minutes]

The text draws a laugh out of her, but her heart also races in anticipation, just like it always does when it’s been months since she’s last seen Eunbi in person. This time has months of buildup behind it as the first time there’s no time limit placed on how long they have together before one of them has to leave again. In just a few more minutes, they’ll have all the time in the world together.

She texts back a quick, [Okay, I’m gonna hug the hell out of you. See you soon ♡] and clicks her phone off. The lock screen catches her eye, distracting her like it often tends to. Eunbi stole her phone one evening they were together, easily guessing the passcode and changing the picture to one the two of them took on the beach, the sunset behind them—a selfie where Eunbi’s arm is thrown across Sojung’s shoulders, their smiles bright as they’d pressed themselves close together.

(“Can’t forget me if my face is the first thing you see every time you pick up your phone,” Eunbi had said before tossing the phone aside on the bed, her interest flitting back to Sojung instead of ing around with her phone.

“We’ve been together our whole lives. I’m not gonna forget what you look like,” she’d teased, fondness curling around the words, settling between them as Eunbi flops down against Sojung’s chest, Sojung’s fingers tangling in the younger's hair.)

She’s never had the heart to change the picture. And while the notion she’d forget Eunbi in their time apart is a silly one, she’s fine with admitting to herself that Eunbi’s at least partially right. It’s nice to have her girlfriend’s face be the first thing she sees every time she picks up her phone.

God, she’s got it bad. But she’s known that for a long time. Years and years, really, even before they’d confessed their feelings to each other in high school. As Eunbi’s older sister always likes to tease, it’s been writing on the wall for years, a fully expected development to many outsiders in their relationship. Even if it hadn’t been so obvious to the two of them at first and they’d spent a good while afraid to say they loved each other in fear it would damage a lifelong friendship.

Now, with just a few minutes the only thing left keeping them apart, time seems to tick by slower than before.

Just a few more minutes.

She’ll have Eunbi in her arms in just a few more minutes.

And after those few minutes finally pass by, the moment Sojung catches sight of Eunbi when she walks around the corner, she’s bounding across the airport to reach her. Eunbi does the same when she sees Sojung. They reach to meet each other in the middle, just like always, jet lag and exhaustion and time zone differences be damned. Nothing’s keeping them from this, the very last time they have to rush to see each other in an airport after months and months apart.

The smile that lights up Eunbi’s whole face is a sight she never wants to forget, Sojung thinks as she crashes into Eunbi into a tight hug and lifted her up, so happy to see her that she sweeps her off her feet and relax into her arms, squeezes her like she never wants to let go.

She doesn’t have to. She doesn’t have to let go. Not now, not ever. Tonight they’ll spend the first night of their lives as a couple who has moved in together under the same roof. From now on they’ll no longer have to distinguish between my place and your place, temporary spaces for quick, fleeting moments in time. Now it’s just theirs. Their home. Permanent. They’ll have a home together.

Eunbi laughs, loud and elated, right in her ear, so close after so long spent apart. If they weren’t in the middle of people passing by, she knows Eunbi would wrap her legs around Sojung, cling to her tightly like she’d done so many times when they were children.

“Hey, eonnie, people are staring,” Eunbi says after a few moments, forehead pressed against Sojung’s shoulder. There’s a tell-tale wet spot on her shirt from her tears.

Who gives a care? Sojung wants to say. None of those people looking at them have spent years in a massively long-distance relationship with the love of their life. But she concedes a little, lowering Eunbi back to the ground. They can hug like this too. One moment a loud declaration, the next a quiet sway.

“Told you I was gonna hug the hell out of you,” she says when they pull back slightly, fingers brushing against Eunbi’s cheek. They’ve never really been huge on public displays of affection like this—more in the mindset of if it happens, it happens—but today is different. Today is the start of the rest of their lives together. “Welcome home,” she breathes, quiet but certain.

“I’m home.” Eunbi leans into the barely there press of Sojung’s fingers on her cheek, savors the brief moment of contact and god, Sojung thinks she’s never loved someone so much. That she’ll never love someone this much. It’s always been Jung Eunbi, only Jung Eunbi who has Kim Sojung’s heart in her hands like this.

After a few more moments, they finally pull apart, no matter how much they don’t want to break the contact between them just yet.

“So, was that up to par? Best hug you’ve ever had?” she jokes, pressing her hand to Eunbi’s shoulder, squeezing gently, a gentle thread of lingering contact.

Eunbi makes a show of considering it, thoughtful, before she says, “Yes, but I think I definitely deserve more than just a hug. You gonna pay up?”

She laughs. “Oh, I will. Soon as we get home, yeah?”

Home. The word settles between them, perfect, right.

“Yeah,” Eunbi agrees, and even as she nods, Sojung can see the emotion in her eyes, can hear the way her voice hitches a little, choked up at the prospect that this is finally, finally theirs. “Let’s go home.”

Let’s just say it’s a hard-fought battle to keep their hands off each other as they get Eunbi’s stuff and on the ride back home.

But really, when you’ve spent months and months for a few years without the touch you positively crave readily available, a tiny stretch of time on a ride back home is nothing. Soon enough, they’ll have each other all to themselves. Forever.

________________________________________

Eunbi practically drags Sojung inside when they finally arrive at the house, wide awake now even though she had been falling asleep on the ride back. “Hurry up, Sojung! I’ve been waiting forever to see.”

“Okay, okay. I almost liked you better when you were sleeping.” That comment earns her a slight slap on the shoulder. She laughs and grabs her set of keys, goes to unlock the door without protest—she’s been waiting for this moment as long as Eunbi has, after all—and pushes the door open, stepping out of the way with every intention of letting Eunbi step inside first.

But she doesn’t. Instead, she reaches for Sojung’s hand, curls their fingers around each other. Together? the touch asks.

Yeah. Yeah, there’s really never been any other way, has there? She grins at Eunbi and squeezes her hand, her answer. Let’s go.

So they step into their home for the first time as a couple, hand-in-hand.

Sojung drops the bags she’d helped carry in, squeezes Eunbi’s hand as they stand in the doorway of their home together for the first time. “You like it?”

This whole thing is a little bit of a different experience for Eunbi, she’s sure. Sojung has been in here multiple times already. When she’d first looked at it in person after they’d picked it out online together, sending pictures to Eunbi to confirm this is the house they want for themselves. When she’d also had to pull up FaceTime on her phone so she could take Eunbi on a tour of the house that way. When she’d moved in at the beginning of the week prior because her own lease on her apartment ended.

Eunbi’s never been here in person. She’s only seen it through pictures and the FaceTime tours they’ve done together. She signed all the papers online. She doesn’t have her own set of keys in her hand yet.

Her fingers slip from Sojung’s grip as she steps further inside, takes it all in.

It’s still a little empty, lacking some personal effects because it hasn’t been lived in by the both of them yet. It’s basic, but theirs to make their own space, pieces of them both filling a house to make it a home. Their home.

“Eunbi?” Sojung steps closer, rests her hand on Eunbi’s back as she stands by her side.

“I love it.” When Eunbi turns to look at her, eyes watery with tears, she pulls Sojung into a hug. “I love you.” Her hand brushes against Sojung’s face as she leans in to kiss her.

And as much as she wants to get lost in it, there’s still one thing left to do.

“Wait, hang on.” She pulls back, presses her hands to Eunbi’s shoulders. “Gotta give you somethin’ first.”

“Mood killer,” she hears Eunbi mumble as she turns to walk away. Sojung sticks up her middle finger over her shoulder in response, Eunbi slapping at her hand as she follows closely behind her.

“Here.” Sojung grabs the key off the counter, presses it into Eunbi’s hand. “It’s officially ours now.”

“Yeah.” Eunbi looks down at the key in her hand for a moment before she closes her fist around it, sets it back down on the counter in favor of turning her attention back to Sojung. “Ours.”

This time, when they lean in to kiss, Sojung’s got her full attention on her best friend in front of her, pulls Eunbi in, lips covering her own. Eunbi’s hands wrap around her back, fingers digging into her shoulder blades as she squeezes Sojung tightly. Pulls her closer and closer and closer, electricity building and building with every searing touch, every brush of their fingers and kiss of their lips.

They’ve got all the time in the world. But she doesn’t want to waste even a single second of forever now that they’re experiencing it together.

________________________________________

When they wake up the next morning, together in bed, Sojung pushes her fingers through Eunbi’s hair, brushes it off her forehead in a gentle touch. For the first time, there’s no lingering thoughts in the back of her mind about the next time they’ll have to say goodbye. Right now, she’s only thinking about what’s in front of her.

“You’re looking at me like this is everything you’ve ever wanted,” Eunbi whispers the teasing comment, voice still a little rough from sleep, eyes bleary. She smiles, bright, happy. Even with the morning sunlight spilling into the bedroom through the window, Eunbi still the brightest presence Sojung’s ever seen. Beautiful. Perfect.

“Maybe it is,” she says with a laugh, and pulls Eunbi closer, back into her arms. You are.

together : forever.