JUST as Minju tries to find reasons to leave with Hyewon, she found herself a reason to leave Chaewon after their date. Knowing that Chaewon just got out of a relationship, Minju had little expectations for what would result from the date. People often critiqued her for being pessimistic about almost everything, but in reality, that pessimism stemmed from a fear of being hurt. At first, that’s what it was.

 

Minju would realize that the pessimism also stemmed from her fear of hurting others.

 

“Hey, you there yet? I’m parked at the lower parking area, first one to your left.”

 

“I am :) I’ll get out of my car” Chaewon texts.

 

Minju did the same and scanned her surroundings, her eyes landing on a girl with long ginger hair. She wore an off-shoulder summer dress in the shade of pastel lavender. Minju eyes formed into crescents as she realized it’s indeed, Chaewon. It’s as if all her worries disappeared and the sun had finally stopped hiding behind the clouds.

 

“Chaewon!” Minju called her, waving as the said girl turned her head towards her direction. She mirrored the same amount of enthusiasm through a wave and began to approach her. The two girls met in the middle and Minju just stared at her for a few seconds before her lips uttered words she never expected to say right from the get-go.

 

“You look beautiful. And wow, you grew out your hair.”

 

Chaewon giggled shyly and made an expression that showed her discomfort and gratitude in receiving compliments. She nodded and looked down at the pavement below their feet, “And you… you cut your hair, it suits you really well, Minju.”

 

Minju laughed it off as she normally does whenever she receives compliments. She diverts the attention to the pizza box she’s carrying and suggests that they find a nice space to eat. Chaewon agrees and they walk away from the lot, with Minju asking her how the drive here and whatnot. The conversation starts off slow, but as Chaewon got distracted by the cute puppies around her, Minju couldn’t help but .

 

“Looks like someone’s still obsessed with puppies,”
 

Chaewon blushes and Minju finds it endearing - how shy she gets at every little thing. Her mind drifts to the one girl she hoped not to think about during their date.

 

Hyewon.

 

She couldn’t help but recall that with Hyewon, it’s always the other way around. Hyewon makes her a flustered mess with her honesty and rawness. With Hyewon, things are never dull. She could return a teasing remark with an equally clever comeback to the extent that Minju couldn’t let go of her phone.

 

But Chaewon isn’t Hyewon.

 

Chaewon is Chaewon. She’s shy, clumsy, takes a little more to open up, and gentle. Minju knows she wouldn’t have a hard time complementing these qualities. Chaewon unfolds the blue and white checkered picnic blanket out of her Shiba-Inu patterned bag and Minju tries to help but they end up somehow failing to coordinate. Both of them laugh it off and Minju internally cringes at her clumsiness.

 

As they sit down and get to eating, Minju grabs a slice rather shamelessly and stares at Chaewon with a face of uncertainty. The latter just smiles and nods, urging her to eat, but Minju notices her hands unmoving.

 

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

 

“You first, I’m not that hungry hehe,” Chaewon reassures her that she’s fine. Minju shrugs with a small smile and doesn’t make a big deal about it. She starts eating but doesn’t fail to participate in the conversation with table manners. She asks Chaewon about how life has been since the past January when they met and Chaewon digs deep into the topic Minju has been most curious about, yet cautious of asking.

 

“I told you that I broke up with my boyfriend, right?”

 

Minju almost chokes on her pizza, but she forces a nod and listens carefully.

 

Chaewon absent-mindedly starts picking ants off of the blanket and smiles for a reason Minju doesn’t quite get.

 

“To be honest, we ended on bad terms, but also… we started on bad terms too. I mean, I initiated the whole idea of us being together, but I didn’t have the right mindset at the time.”

 

“When I asked him to be my boyfriend, I still liked you. A lot.”

 

“...But I remember you told me you liked this other girl at school, so I got tired. I knew I shouldn’t wait anymore.”

 

Minju spaced out for a minute or two as she heard Chaewon’s soft, yet regretful tone. She nodded in silence and finally gets the courage to look Chaewon in the eyes, “I… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you -”

 

“Oh, no It’s not your fault. It’s all me. I shouldn’t have gotten myself in a relationship if I didn’t truly like him and I had feelings for you.” Chaewon had a bittersweet smile the whole time saying this. It hurt Minju because once again, it reminded her of the inevitability of being hurt and hurting others.

 

Somehow, maybe it was at this point where Minju realizes that Chaewon might have liked her more than she could ever imagine. At this point, maybe she realizes that she starts to blame herself for more than she should have.

 

After that conversation, Minju realizes two things.

 

She wants to make Chaewon happy and she might just, be ready to be happy with her.

 

There’s a shift in the way Chaewon interacts with Minju after she lets that off her chest. Once they finish their small picnic and start to walk around, Chaewon finds herself doing things people do on dates. Minju doesn’t reciprocate these things and even Chaewon feels like there’s an unspoken barrier that Minju places between them.

 

They find themselves a stone bench overlooking the ocean under a pink gradient sky. The view is beautiful and Minju can’t help but stare at Chaewon for longer than she should whenever the younger girl shares a random thing about herself. Even if the thing is so random and peculiar, Minju laughs easily and there’s nothing more she can ask for.

 

She pulls out her phone while Chaewon is still deeply focused on her own device, trying to find the picture she wants to show Minju. The lighting is good, her smile is shy but natural; it’s a shot that Minju wants to imprint on her digital device. Even if everything turns out to be a lie, she knows that she sees beauty and wants to keep it even for a little while. The picture symbolizes a moment that there’s a flash of hope that Minju feels. She hopes she would accept and reciprocate a love she has never felt.

 

Right now, Minju is happy in the present.

 

Minju realizes the happiness is temporary as the sun sets and it’s time for them to part ways. Despite her two realizations, she decides that she has to be honest with Chaewon about where she is at.

 

She doesn’t include the part where there’s a girl named Hyewon in the back of her mind. Chaewon thanks her for her honesty and it seems like she is not in a hurry to jump into anything because she just got out of a relationship. Somehow by the end of the date, Minju feels a shift in Chaewon’s behavior. Her words get shorter, but her arms? They ask for a goodbye hug.

 

When Chaewon tells her that she’s willing to be friends first as Minju figures herself out, the latter realizes that she has hooked a fish that she never wanted to catch.

 

Things get more complicated when Minju tells her friends about Chaewon and the second question everyone asks is:

 

“So why don’t you two start dating?”

 

It seems like everything well. The keyword: ‘seems’. Minju realizes as she talks about Chaewon that she feels nothing but a sense of comfort and maybe even pity for the girl.

 

“Oh, right. Weren’t you worried that you’d become a rebound?”

 

That’s when pity arose in Minju’s heart. Pity is an emotion she despises so much because she’s felt it many times. Pity is a feeling you only feel towards someone who is weak. Someone who you think needs your care, your love, your kindness as if you have some type of power over them.

 

Minju would rather feel empathy for Chaewon, but she doesn’t.

 

Perhaps, because she’s been in Chaewon’s place so many times. She’s always been the one who waits. She’s never a priority.

 

“No, her boyfriend was. She liked me originally and she still does.”

 

But when someone expresses that they did something because they thought of you or when someone is persistent with you, there’s an evil side of your brain that tells you to feed into that attention - to reciprocate it, even if it’s fake or forced. A year. Chaewon’s been giving her attention for a year while in that span of time, Minju never gave the younger girl a chance.

 

“So then, what’s stopping you?”

 

Her.

 

That girl who lives 13 hours ahead of me and can’t break up with her girlfriend. That girl is what’s stopping me from accepting and reciprocating a love that I deserve. Funny thing is? The girl isn’t even stopping me. She supports me all the way.

 

She roots for my happiness. I want to root for it too, but the one who brings me joy?

 

She doesn’t think it could ever be her.

 

…

 

For Minju, coming home and being able to check her notifications is like returning from a long day at work. In particular, coming home and being able to scroll through Hyewon’s flooded messages gives her a sense of relief that here she is, returning to her person of comfort.

 

She sips on her juice box and sits on her bed, scrolling through the ten or so messages that consisted of random things such as Hyewon’s online class putting her to wit’s end, a song (sometimes it was song(s) plural) that reminded her of Minju, and a question asking her how the date went. It seems like Minju was smiling at every message except for that question.

 

Right, ho