January

“Guess what I got you,” Yongsun sings as she walks into the apartment, and not for the first time, Chorong regrets ever giving her a key. When she doesn’t respond, Yongsun pouts at her with her hands on her hips. A seemingly innocent plastic bag hangs from her wrist. “Well, don’t you want to know what I got you?”

“Nope,” Chorong replies easily.   

“Why not?” Yongsun whines. She walks over to where Chorong is cooking dinner and leans against the counter. 

Chorong gives her a look. “Because,” Chorong says, “the last time you got me something it was .”

Yongsun’s eyes light up in recognition as she laughs loudly, “Right!” She hits Chorong’s shoulder and says, “What are you upset about? That was a great gift. I bet you even watched it.”

“As if,” Chorong scoffs, even as a blush rises to her cheeks. 

Yongsun smiles knowingly, but she lets it go. Instead, she holds up the plastic bag and says, “It’s okay because this gift is even better. Our local fire department was having a fundraiser, and yours truly did the very charitable thing of buying their product to give out to all my friends.” 

Something about Yongsun’s tone is just a little too giddy. Chorong stops chopping her vegetables and peers at Yongsun warily. 

“Ta da!” Yongsun exclaims as she pulls something thin and flimsy out of the bag. “Your very own y firemen calendar!” Yongsun is practically cackling when she leans forwards and whispers, “There’s y firewomen too.”

“I already have a calendar,” Chorong tells her. She nods at the one hanging by her fridge. It’s minimal and nice and has flowers. “A perfectly good calendar.”

“A perfectly boring one,” Yongsun says with a roll of her eyes. “You can’t seriously tell me you’d rather look at flowers than hot people.” When Chorong just shrugs, Yongsun shakes her head and says, “You’re a terrible biual.”

This time it’s Chorong’s turn to roll her eyes as she goes back to making dinner. She doesn’t bother telling Yongsun there’s enough for her too. She probably knew that before she even walked in. “I’m just a biual who doesn’t feel the need to stare at half- people every time I need to check a date,” Chorong says.  

“I think this will change your mind,” Yongsun says. She sidles up to her and flips through a few of the calendar pages. “I was going through mine earlier, and I saw this woman. She’s totally your type. I bet you’ll just drool over her all the time whenever it’s her month.” Chorong tries to ignore her, but Yongsun starts leaning in her space, making it impossible to cook.

“Fine,” Chorong huffs. “If I look, will you stop and let me finish cooking?”

“Yes,” Yongsun says with a triumphant grin. “Here, look.” She holds out the calendar, and Chorong grudgingly grabs it from her.

Despite herself, Chorong feels her jaw drop. The woman on the page is nothing short of incredibly attractive. She’s only wearing the pants of the firefighter uniform, leaving her upper half in nothing but a pair of suspenders and a black sports bra. The pants hang low around her hips, showing off sharp abs so defined that Chorong thinks you’d be able to feel them through the paper. That isn’t the only thing that made Chorong’s stomach flip. The woman has toned arms posed over her head, one hand loosely clasping the opposite wrist. Then, there’s the messy hair flipped to one side and the woman’s gaze, one that can make anyone, man, woman, or anyone in between, melt. 

Chorong gulps. There’s no way this woman is real.

“Aha! I knew it! Look at you. You’re probably already imagining what she’s like in bed, ” Yongsun croons.

“Yongsun!” Chorong explains, her face turning bright red at the accusation. 

Yongsun just laughs and bounces over to her other calendar. She looks over her shoulder and winks. “Don’t worry,” Yongsun says, “Let me go ahead and change this out for you before you forget!”

Chorong opens to scold her, but then she just sighs and shakes her head. It’ll be less of a headache to just let Yongsun do what she wants. At least this time, it’s something legal.

April

Chorong has honestly forgotten about the calendar. Well, not quite forgotten. She’s just never paid it much attention besides the neat boxes of dates it provides her. January had been some generic-looking man trying way too hard. February had been a different woman, but she hadn’t been Chorong’s type. Instead, Chorong had listened to Yongsun wax poetic about the woman’s arms for a month. Needless to say, Chorong had been relieved when it was time to flip the calendar and switch to another bland man for March.

Now, it’s April, and when Chorong flips her calendar, she pauses. Staring back at her is the same woman that Yongsun showed her in January. Chorong sighs a little, still in disbelief at how attractive the woman is. Her eyes wander to the corner of the page that gives the name of the firefighter and a fun fact about them. She’s always sort of absently read them for the other months, but this time she pays closer attention.

Jeong Eunji, age 27. Known for being the best singer at the firehouse. 

Eunji, Chorong repeats in her mind before blushing. She slaps her cheek lightly and walks away with a shake of her head. She’s being ridiculous. Chorong has seen plenty of attractive people before. Eunji shouldn’t be any different.

The thing is, the calendar starts to get distracting. It happens when Chorong is cooking or when she’s grabbing something from the fridge. She will just pause and stare at Eunji’s photo. It’s completely embarrassing, especially because she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it until Namjoo calls her out on it.

It’s one night when Chorong has Naeun and Namjoo over for dinner. It’s been a while since they’ve all been free, so naturally Chorong invited them over and offered to cook. Chorong is in the middle of preparing food for all of them when she goes to grab some peppers from the fridge. Just as she’s closing the fridge door, Chorong hovers with the fridge half-open, eyes subconsciously straying to the calendar.

Chorong must stand there for a while because Namjoo says, “Chorong, is everything okay?”

“Y-yeah!” Chorong replies, flushing when she realizes what happened. She slams the fridge shut a little too hard, and when she turns around, Naeun and Namjoo are eyeing her with twin, curious expressions. “What?” Chorong says. 

Naeun stares at her while Namjoo leans forwards and asks, “What were you staring at?”

“Nothing,” Chorong says too quickly. She winces, already knowing she just gave herself away. 

Resigning herself to her fate, Chorong silently watches as Namjoo gets up from the table. Namjoo walks over to where Chorong was staring, and there is a moment of silence. Then two. Then, Namjoo shouts, “Chorong!”

“What?” Naeun asks, getting up to see while Chorong buries her face in her hands.

A moment later, Naeun shouts, “Chorong!”

“Don’t say anything,” Chorong tries.

Namjoo laughs incredulously, “Don’t say anything about you getting totally distracted by your calendar of y firefighters?”

“Namjoo,” Chorong whines, peeking through her fingers. “Please.”

“No way,” Namjoo says, still laughing. “No way am I letting this go.” She sidles up beside Chorong and elbows her playfully. “I mean, I can’t blame you. She’s hot. Hey, maybe you can start a fire and get her over here.”

“Namjoo, no.”

Namjoo just laughs harder. Standing across from them, Naeun leans against the counter and folds her arms over her chest. “So,” Naeun says with a smile, “what made you decide to buy this calendar? I mean, I know it’s been a while, but…”

“It’s not like that,” Chorong says hotly. “Yongsun bought it for me as a joke.”

“What a good joke, it was,” Namjoo says. She plucks the calendar off the wall and grins. “A very good joke,” Namjoo says, raising her eyebrows. She turns the calendar around to show Naeun and says, “I think she’s the fire they’re supposed to put out.”

“Namjoo!” Chorong exclaims while Naeun laughs so hard that she bends over, clutching her stomach.

Chorong eventually snatches the calendar away and puts it back up, but it doesn’t stop Namjoo and Naeun from teasing her for the rest of dinner.

When Chorong tells Yongsun about this a few days later, the ot