VERISIMILITUDE Chapter 31

 

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YURI

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Waking up this morning had a different feeling to it, Yuri could hardly believe that she was here. First school dance. And yes, this is not the first time that she attended a party like this, and also not the first time that she’s seeing Hana dress up for formal parties. Except this time, she has Hana as her date. Another difference is that this was not a formal event because of their parents. And this night feels more right than anything ever did. She knows that they’re just young high school kids, but Yuri can’t help but feel like maybe, just maybe, she and Hana were meant to be together. She hopes so, anyway.

 

She’s not nervous, not the way that she thinks she would be. Maybe it’s because she knows Hana, well, she knows more about her and Hana made sure that she knows about Yuri too making her reachable in Yuri’s eyes— she stopped making her perfect and unrealistic in her mind— she is perfect, in the most imperfect ways. All Yuri knows is that she can’t wait to spend more time with her.

 

She went over to Hana’s house along with her parents where all of them agreed to wait— combining their group of friends is probably the best thing that they’ve ever done. They parked just outside the main door before she walks up to the door and buzzes in. Hana’s mama answers, and even though Mrs. Kim approves of her now, the sound of her voice still sends shivers of apprehension down her spine.

 

She takes a breath to steel her nerves before she enters the house. She felt her mama’s hand squeeze her shoulder in encouragement.

 

“Good evening, Auntie,” she bows to the woman who welcomes her warmly though she looks a little sulky. The head of the house shakes her mama’s hands and kisses her mom’s cheeks.

 

“They’re almost ready, or God, I hope so,” Mrs. Kim says and Yuri felt that the woman was also getting impatient. “Have a seat and I’ll go let them know that you’re here.” She turns around but not before telling Yuri, “In case your friends show up, just let them in.”

 

“Yes, ma’am,” she responded, feeling proud of herself that Mrs. Kim gave her this task of welcoming people into their home.

 

Yuri sits on the living room couch, one knee bouncing nervously as Mrs. Kim disappears as she ascends the stairs. Not a minute later, she heard the doorbell ringing and she stood up to let the newcomers in.

 

“Bro!” Charlee launched herself towards Yuri with a full smile. Tami and Jae follow her with their parents. They all settled down, as they waited for Mrs. Kim to be back.

 

She can hear their voices upstairs— which sounded like the girls are giggling.

 

It feels like eternity, but at most three minutes have passed before Mrs. Kim comes back out and tells them that Hana and her friends would be going down for another minute or so.

 

“Her mom helped her dress up,” Mrs. Kim says with a laugh, and Yuri immediately tries not to think about her pounding chest. Instead she gives Mrs. Kim a nervous smile.

 

Finally, after another eternity that was probably less than a minute, Hana steps out of the room, and towards the stairs, and for the first time Yuri understands the meaning of the phrase, take one’s breath away, because suddenly she can’t breathe and it’s because Hana is so beautiful that she has stolen the very air from her lungs with just a look.

 

Yuri springs up off the couch, almost too fast, almost too nimbly. She clutched the corsage box in her hands, nearly forgetting her own strength for a moment, the plastic cracking in her grip before she relaxed. Hana smiles at her, a smile that is both knowing and shy before she tucks a stray hair behind her ear.

 

“What do you think?” she asks, and then spins in a slow circle.

 

“You look… I mean… you’re always beautiful,” she says in a rush, yet those words are only a fraction of what she wants to say. But she holds back because she doesn’t want to embarrass either of them in front of their parents.

 

“You can say it, I’m stunning,” Hana replied.

 

But really, no words could ever truly do justice to how beautiful Hana looks right now. It’s not just the pink dress that shimmers when the light hits it, or the cute tiara on her head. No, something about her is just radiant, as if she has a sun glowing inside of her. God, she really loves this girl.

 

“You are stunning,” Yuri mimicked, almost as if she was bewitched by the girl in front of her.

 

“Thanks,” Hana says, and Yuri is only half-convinced she’s not imagining that she’s blushing. Her gaze flicks over her. “You look really nice too, Yuri.”

 

“Alright, you guys know the drill. Let me get a few pictures before you kids get out of here,” Hana’s mom says with a wave of her hand, gesturing for them to stand closer to each other. “I’ll just send the photos to you too,” she said to my mom.

 

She and Hana pose, her hand on her waist and the smell of her perfume clouding in her nose. Mrs. Kim must’ve taken a dozen photos, and all Yuri can do is hope that at least one turns out well, or she knows that they would make fuzz and take more photos until they take a decent shot.

 

She then asked the whole group to have photos, and this took a lot of time too. Some were already expressing their impatience, but Yuri was just happy that Hana’s by her side while the parents took turns taking photos.

 

“Bro, I told you that this is a nightmare! All the parents are here, and at this rate we might not be able to get into the dance itself.” Charlee whispered to her, and she just chuckled.

 

“Alright, all good now,” Mrs. Kim says when she’s satisfied after forever.

 

Hana’s mama points a finger at her, “You have her home no later than eleven, Yuri.”

 

“Yes, ma’am.”

 

She saw that other parents were talking to her friends too, and she couldn't help but smile at the sight. She smiled at her parents too and her mama even gave her a thumbs up. Hana’s mama saw this, and she frowned, making Yuri stop and resume her serious expression. She doesn’t want Mrs. Kim to think that she has bad intentions tonight.

 

Hana practically drags her out of the house, intertwining her cool fingers in hers. By the time they enter the car, they’re both giggling and chuckling, although Yuri thinks that neither of them know what’s funny. Maybe nothing is. Maybe it’s just the giddiness of being two kids in love with the idea of being in love, of making the memories that will follow the rest of their lives. Tonight is a night that they’ll never forget.

 

“You really look beautiful,” she tells Hana, grinning like a fool.

 

She’s blushing again. “Thanks. You told me that a million times already.”

 

And then she presses a kiss on Yuri’s cheeks as she scoots closer. She’s still grinning as they start to drive away. Hana plays a song on her phone, and she sings along, and she does too even though she doesn’t know some of the lyrics. The drive to the school has never gone by so quickly.

 

Before they got out, Hana turned to her, “Did you bring my shoes? And did you bring your shirt?”

 

She looks down at Hana’s feet, “Uh, you’re wearing it?”

 

Hana gave her an unamused look, “You know what I mean. My flat shoes and your other shirt!”

 

She lets out a sigh, “Will I really need to change clothes?”

 

“But what if you need to?”

 

“What if I don’t?” Hana gives her a grating look, and Yuri huffs out another breath, “It’s in the trunk, okay?”

 

“Okay. That’s good,” then Hana gave her the sweetest smile.

 

She got a whiplash because of how her date’s mood changed.

 

The music can be heard even outside the school, its bass thumping through the concrete. Yuri takes Hana’s hand as she leads her to the doors, her heart pumping out its own staccato beat. She’s excited, and happy, but beneath that runs an undercurrent of trepidation. She doesn’t have a track record of things going the way she wants. Everytime she can touch happiness with her fingertips, it gets gripped away from her by some new problem.

 

No, she thinks as she holds the door open for her again. Not tonight. Not tonight.

 

And then they’re at the entrance of the dance, the lights low with twinkling fairy lights flashing. There’s a blush tint to the room that makes Hana’s dress shimmer even prettier than before, and she wants to take her onto the dance floor to see what it looks like when she swirls and spins.

 

They find Luna and Ruby Jane, reconciled at least for tonight, while the former watches her like a hawk.

 

She’s so glad that Ruby Jane does not make her head hurt as much as before, but sometimes, she would just decide to piss Yuri off and then just walks out after that, just like what happened when she joked that she would take Hana away from her. She knows that the girl is just joking but it hit a nerve, and she doesn’t want to feel that way ever again. She doesn’t want to lose Hana.

 

Then they were met by June and Seul. Tonight, it seems that June was letting Seul get away with her teasing, and she just hopes that Seul would not take it to the next level if she doesn’t want to end the night with them fighting. She knows that they already have an established relationship and she wished that there would come a time when she and Hana would have the same thing.

 

She sometimes stops and thinks too many times before she would joke around because she’s afraid that she might say the wrong things. It’s different when you’re teasing your friend and teasing your girlfriend. Something can go wrong in a snap. Yuri knows that well. It baffles her how she used to always tease Hana at the start of the school year, and now she’s trying her hardest to not annoy her girlfriend.

 

“Dude, stop teasing June or you’ll suffer the consequences later on.” Yuri warned her in a whisper.

 

This did the trick as Seul literally stopped, and looked at June. She’s probably gauging if she already went too far with her jokes. Fortunately, June is in a really good mood to be pissed off at Seul’s teasing. Not to mention, that they are surrounded by their friends. June just hooked her hand on Seul’s and asked, “What?” when she saw that her girlfriend was still staring at her.

 

“Nothing, it’s my turn to stare at you,” Seul responded, making Hana and their friends tease them more. Yuri was proud of her friend for making June happy with her antics.

 

Yuri can’t believe how much time has already passed since they started this school year. As she looks around, she feels this surge of happiness because she’s so glad that she was able to finally say what she feels to everyone. And in turn, she received so much support from them.

 

When she turned around she saw that Jiyeon arrived at the party too, alone. Her eyes followed the girl, and saw her walking towards their other teammates.

 

If she’s being honest, she hates having a fight with anyone, no matter who it is. At one point, she was really determined to have a friendship with Jiyeon. She still regrets what happened that day, and that she wouldn’t want that to ever happen again. She just hopes that tonight will go smoothly.

 

She held Hana’s hand as she guided her towards the table that’s reserved for them.

 

Jia made sure that she would reserve the table that would fit all of them.

 

“I’m happy seeing us all together,” Hana whispered to her, and squeezed her knee.

 

“I’m the happiest when I’m with you, baby.” Yuri whispered back and she quickly leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, making sure no one noticed. She pulled away quickly, admiring the shade of red on Hana’s cheeks.

 

Oh, how she loves when Hana blushes because of her words.

 

“W-what was that for?” Hana asked, placing her hand on the cheek she kissed.

 

“Just me showing my gratitude towards you. Thank you for existing,” Yuri said.

 

“Y-you could’ve just said so,” Hana replied.

 

She just smiled, laughing to herself and pulled Hana by the waist to be closer to her.

 

“As much of an annoying nuisance as you are at times, I admit that you’re pretty cute when you’re proud of what you’ve done,” Hana giggled.

 

“And you’re cute when you’re embarrassed,” Yuri fought back. “Plus, I’m also making sure that the people who wanted to attempt to steal you away would be disheartened and would stop themselves from doing it because they could see that you’re happy with me.”

 

“Are you only trying to piss off the people around us?” Hana pouted.

 

Yuri panicked, “Of course not, baby. I genuinely wanted to make you happy, it’s just a plus that making you happy can keep other people away. I promise.”

 

Hana pouted some more, seemingly not convinced by her explanation.

 

“You know that I love you… so much. Right?” Yuri said as she took Hana’s hand.

 

Hana finally smiled at that. “I know!”

 

Yuri was relieved to see her girlfriend smiling again and began talking to her friends. They were talking about things that Yuri was not interested about so she looked around once more and this time, she saw Ji Eun looking a little lost.

 

“Baby, I’ll just go and greet a friend.” She whispered to Hana, a little too low, not knowing that Hana was unable to hear what she said.

 

She then stood up and walked towards her friend.

 

“Ji Eun!”

 

“Oh, it’s you.” Ji Eun replied with a warm smile. “Why are you here and not with your girlfriend?”

 

“I am with my girlfriend, what do you mean?” Yuri chuckled and looked over to where Hana was.

 

“, I know that. I mean, why did you approach me?”

 

“You just look like you need help navigating the area, as if you haven’t been here for almost the whole year,” Yuri chuckled at her own joke.

 

“You’re amused by your own joke, I see.” Ji Eun crossed her arms, but couldn’t help but smile at Yuri’s statement. “But yeah, I can’t seem to find my table.”

 

“Now, I realized what we’re missing all this time! We should’ve prepared a map for the square room like this, because some might get lost in this vast space,” Yuri teased. Clearly being sarcastic because anyone could see the walls from end to end.

 

“Funny, Kim.” Ji Eun rolled her eyes. “I’m not technically lost, I just can’t find my table!”

 

“Tomato-tomahto,” Yuri chuckled, “Do you want to just sit with us?”

 

Ji Eun looked at where Yuri’s table was and saw a certain individual looking sharply at them, “And risk getting killed by the end of the night? No, thanks!” Ji Eun responded. “I don’t want to be mobbed by your fans again! Remember when they won’t stop asking me how close we were!”

 

“What can I say? People go crazy around me.” Yuri shrugged, smiling from ear to ear.

 

“Your ego might make this room burst because of how big it is,” Ji Eun laughed because Yuri even had the audacity to look proud of what she said.

 

“But seriously, you can just join us—”

 

“I’m sure that my table is just around here, don’t worry about me, and just go back to your date!” Ji Eun said and rubbed the side of Yuri’s arms, urging her to go back to Hana.

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“I am,” Ji Eun confirmed.

 

“Look for me later, okay? Or just text me,” Yuri offered.

 

“Are you seriously asking me to look for you later, when I can barely look for my table?” Ji Eun giggled.

 

“Whatever, Lee.” Yuri said as she slowly walked backwards.

 

Yuri was still smiling as she approached her table and sat beside Hana again, but then she noticed that Hana was frowning.

 

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

 

“Oh, nothing. What did you and Ji Eun talk about?” Hana asked reluctantly.

 

“She just said that she’s lost, and I told her that she should’ve brought a map,” smiling a little, remembering how their conversation went.

 

“Where is she now? Why didn’t you ask for her to join our table?”

 

Yuri saw that one of the committee was going towards them.

 

“I did, but she said that she’ll just find somewhere a little quiet.” Yuri replied, smiling at Hana, and squeezing her hand. “The party is about to start, baby.”

 

“I need to go to the restroom, I’ll… uhm, be right back.,” Hana excused herself, in a little rushed manner.

 

Is she okay?

 

“Yuri, where do you want this to be placed?” The committee member arrived and asked her about the placement of the instruments.

 

Yuri thought that something might be wrong, so she tried to wrap up her conversation quickly, before standing up to follow Hana.

 

When she arrived, she heard people talking.

 

“You look really pretty, by the way.”

 

“Thank you,” she heard Hana respond.

 

She balled her first because she knows who Hana was talking to. She can’t help but feel anxious and overthink. Did Hana purposely meet Jiyeon here? So many other thoughts ran through her head.

 

“You really are a bundle of joy, always kind and seeing the good in people. I missed you.”

 

It took every bit of self control to stop herself from barging in and punching the hell out of Jiyeon again. She thought that the girl already learned her lesson and would really stay away from Hana. But it seems that Jiyeon’s plan was to be just subtle about it.

 

Hana loves me. Hana loves me. Only me.

 

She whispered to herself like a mantra. She doesn’t want to start trouble. Not tonight. Hell, if possible, never again.

 

She spaced out so much that the next words that the two were talking about became a blur for her. She thinks that it is her brain trying to block out anything that could make her burst again.

 

After a couple of seconds more, she snapped back to reality when she heard Hana raising her voice. She probably would’ve thrown everything out the window again by barging in and dragging Jiyeon away, if she didn’t hear what Hana said.

 

“Jiyeon, I hate to break it to you but we never talked about you. I never even thought about you. Can I please go now?” Her voice sounded so irritated, that she can’t help but smile because it proves just how much she’s just overthinking things.

 

She panicked and ran away before her girlfriend found out that she’s listening to their conversation.

 

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Almost half of the night was finished, and they both enjoyed dancing goofily with their friends, and exchanging partners as they literally danced the night away.

 

Mona and Tami seem to be having the most fun the whole night to everyone’s surprise. While Maia and Charlee were just huddled closely together most of the time, they also look like they are really enjoying themselves. At one point, she notices that Jae was missing, but Nia was still at the dance floor dancing with Jia. And then a little while later, Nia was nowhere to be found too, while Jia excused herself and talked to the principal.

 

It was almost perfect.

 

The whole night, she notices that Jiyeon was trying to get Hana’s attention and even goes as far as trying to ask her for a dance. It was a good thing that Hana was oblivious about it, but she constantly tries her hardest to stop herself from approaching Jiyeon.

 

She enlisted her friend’s help so that Jiyeon would not dare to come near Hana for the whole night, and she prays that it would be enough, because if not, she doesn't know what else to do than to confront Jiyeon again. She’s sure that she would really need to talk to her again, but she’s hoping that her reserve sel