A/N: Chapter is split between two POV's. Past is Yong and present is Byul. :)

CHAPTER FOUR: Lover of Mine

Lover of mine

Maybe we'll take some time

Kaleidoscope mind

Gets in the way

Hope and I pray

Darling, that you will stay

Butterfly lies

Chase them away

<<< PAST <<<

“Two dogs and a cat.”

“No, two dogs and two cats.”

“Four animals?” Yongsun pauses in the middle of the aisle, turning around to face her girlfriend. Byulyi stops the grocery cart accordingly, nice enough not to run her over. “Isn’t that too many pets for one household, jagiya?”

“I don’t think so?” Byulyie scratches her neck, and then spies her favorite brand of instant ramyeon and proceeds to grab a few for the cart. “But it can’t be uneven, unnie. We want our cat to have at least one cat friend in case the dogs bully them.”

Yongsun raises an eyebrow, slow and deliberate. “Byul-ah, you really think two dogs can bully one cat?” 

“...fair point,” Byulyi concedes. “Two dogs, one cat.”

“Names?”

“Hmm,” the younger girl purses her lips in thought. “How about we name one dog each and then name the cat together?”

“Sure,” Yongsun agrees, walking along the aisle again and leading them both. “I like the name Yongkeey.”

This earns her a laugh from her girlfriend. 

“What?” she looks at her innocently.

“Babe, Yonghee-unnie’s dog is called Yongsoon, and your mom’s cat is called Yongsook,” Byulyi points out. “I’m sensing a pattern here.”

“Yong is a strong name.”

“That it is,” Byulyi agrees, stopping right beside her. Her girlfriend sneakily looks at each end of the aisle, confirms that they’re the only ones in it, and then proceeds to place a sweet kiss on her lips.

Feeling bold too, and greedy at that, a smiling Yongsun leans in for another one before Byulyi can pull away completely. And this time, she makes it linger.

“Daebak,” her girlfriend says afterwards, a dopey grin on her face.

“That was just a simple peck, Moon Byulyi. No need to exaggerate,” Yongsun rolls her eyes playfully, a light blush on her cheeks. “I’m sure I can give you a better one when we get back to your place.” 

“Of that I’ve no doubt,” her girlfriend nods, eyes twinkling. “But I meant, Daebak for a dog name, unnie.”

“Ohh,” Yongsun says. “That’s not bad, actually.”

“Right?”

“What’s not bad?” Hani appears before them when they reach the end of the instant noodle aisle.

“Yongkeey and Daebak as names,” Byulyi supplies, and then elaborates with, “For our future dogs.”

“Woah, seriously?” Hani’s eyes widen almost comically. “It’s only been like, what, six months since you started dating? And now you’re already discussing pet ownership?”

“Hypothetical pet ownership,” Yongsun underscores.  

“Ugh, lesbians,” their friend rolls her eyes, before dumping an armful of items in their cart.

“Uhh…” Byulyi looks at all the party-sized bags of chips. “You paying for all of that, ?”

“Rude,” Hani clutches at her chest, taking offense. “You are, of course.”

Yongsun chuckles.

Her girlfriend, on the other hand, isn’t quite as amused. “For someone who still gets a weekly allowance from her parents, you sure are damn cheap,” Byulyi grumbles.

“Frugal,” Hani corrects. “Not everyone has a trust fund, Moon Byulyi.”

“It’s not a trust fund,” she sighs for what seems like the umpteenth time since their little shopping excursion began half an hour ago. “It’s a tiny portion of inheritance that’s getting smaller and smaller everyday.”

“I’m sure we can afford a few bags of chips, jagi,” Yongsun interjects, playing mediator as usual.

“But, unnie, it’s the principle of the matter,” Byulyi whines in a very petulant way. And even though such juvenile behavior would always annoy her in the past, now, and since it’s Byulyi, Yongsun sees it as the most adorable thing ever.

And so enamored is she, that she forgets where they are and who they’re in front of, and she erases the pout on Byulyi’s lips the best way she knows how. 

She kisses her again. And again. And again.

“You guys are gross,” Hani makes a face, and then makes a beeline for the beverage section just to get away.

“Uhh… what was that for?” Byulyi blinks a second later, still in a little bit of a daze.

Smiling from ear to ear, Yongsun gives her one last kiss before pulling away. “Now she’ll think twice before bugging you in front of me, jagi.”

Byulyi laughs heartily.

“My hero.”  

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.

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The kids are lounging on the sofa when they get back to Byulyi’s place sometime later.

And as Yongsun puts away the groceries with her girlfriend, she stops for a moment to look around the apartment, and makes a mental note of the novelty of it all.

Of all five members of their newly-formed friend group somehow ending up together in this place on a Friday night of all nights.

Sure, it’s happened in the past. But she can count those instances with one hand.

After a long week of school work, usually someone has plans to go partying (Wheein), a shift at their part-time job (Hyejin), or another ill-advised Tinder date (Hani). 

Leaving Yongsun and Byulyi doing what they usually do. 

Everything and anything together.

“What’s this?” Byulyi asks, pulling Yongsun out of her thoughts. She turns to see her girlfriend peering inside a nondescript bag sitting in the middle of the dining table.

“I brought those earlier,” Hani answers, pulling herself up on the kitchen counter and opening one of her many bags of spicy chips. “I baked some muffins last night.”

Yongsun and Byulyi share a look.

“You baked?” Byulyi asks, cautious.

“Chocolate protein muffins,” Hani wags her eyebrows, practically preening.

“Protein though?” A suspicious Byulyi takes a muffin out of the bag and sniffs it a few times before letting Yongsun take a whiff of it too.

Well… it looks like a muffin and even smells like chocolate, but does Yongsun really trust any baked goods from Byulyi’s best friend? 

Also… 

“Since when did you start working out?” Byulyi voices out the same question running through her head.

“Who says I am?” Hani plays coy, chewing on a handful of chips.

“Her crush started working out recently,” Hyejin spills from the couch, throwing her cousin under the bus. 

“Really? Chorong did?” Byulyi turns to Hani, who’s a little busy giving a grinning Hyejin the stink-eye to answer her query.

“Wait, you have a thing for Chorongie?” Yongsun asks a second later, after it all sinks in. “Oh, Hani-ah, she’s straight.”

“Very straight,” Wheein nods from her place near Hyejin, their legs tangled together as they lie on opposite sides of the sofa. “And not even at all interested in getting the whole college experience and experimenting.”

“Wait, how do you know this?” Byulyi asks, before curiosity gets the better of her and she takes a generous bite out of the muffin.

Wheein inclines her head towards a red-faced Hani. “She tried to shoot her shot the other day.”

“Chorong-unnie thought she was kidding and laughed in her face,” Hyejin recounts with a grimace. “It was terrible.”

“It was awesome,” Wheein grins. 

“So? What’s the verdict?” A sour-faced Hani turns to Byulyi instead, electing to ignore the snickering of the younger two. “Is it good?”

Byulyi dry swallows the muffin in , and puts the rest down on the table.

“Remember when we were kids and we’d make mud pies in the garden and pretend they were chocolate fudge cakes?”

“Yeah?”

“This tastes exactly how you’d imagine one of those mud pies to taste,” Byulyi coughs. “Like dirt. But worse. So much worse.”

“But it’s chocolate…” Hani says lamely, as if that would help.

“To be fair, it’s hard to make protein muffins palatable.” Yongsun hands her poor love a glass of water, which Byulyi then proceeds to down in one go. 

“More?” Yongsun asks, surprised when her girlfriend asks for a refill.

“Damn thing was so dry,” Byulyi husks out, thumping on her upper chest with a fist. “I feel like it’s still lodged in my throat.”

“How much protein powder did you put in there?” Yongsun turns to Hani.

“The recipe asked for a cup, so that’s what I did.”

Byulyi narrows her eyes at her best friend.

“Do you know how much a cup is in baking terms?”

“Duh,” Hani her spice-coated fingers. She inclines her head at the item on the drying rack. “Like that.”

“That’s a ing mug, you .”

“Cup, mug. Tomato, tomatoh.”

The kids lose it at that point, the two practically falling off the couch in laughter.

Byulyi pinches the bridge of her nose, and Yongsun knows her well enough that she’s counting to ten in her head.

“Come, jagiya,” she pulls her girlfriend towards Byulyi’s bedroom before she has to break up yet another fight between the two childhood friends. There’s so much love and affection between the two, no doubt, but they also bicker like no other. And once they start it’s usually hard to get them to stop.

So, yes, Yongsun takes it upon herself to intervene.

And boy, has she gotten proficient in this whole distraction business.

For the next hour, Byulyi doesn’t even think about picking fights. Let alone anything else for that matter. 

Yongsun, her lips, and her discarded top on the floor, make sure of it.

.

.

.

The next day, she wakes up in one of Byulyi’s shirts and cocooned in Byulyi’s arms. 

It’s not a bad way to wake up.

Actually, Yongsun finds that this sits firmly at the top of her preferred ways to find herself out of slumber.

She grabs hold of the hand resting on the exposed part of her stomach. Ever so gently, Yongsun brings Byulyi’s fingers to her lips and places a soft kiss on the pad of each and every digit.

“G’morning, babe,” Byulyi mumbles into her nape, placing a kiss there. “Time ‘sit?”

She squints at the digital clock on the bedside table. “Eight-thirty.”

“Too early.”

“We have to be at unnie’s at ten for brunch, jagi.”

Byulyi groans. “Five more minutes.”

“Do you want me to shower first?”

The other girl mutters something unintelligible behind her, and Yongsun turns her head to try and hear.

“I wanna shower together,” Byulyi tells her, eyes still shut closed.

Yongsun chuckles. “The last time we did that, we ended up running late.”

“It was worth the ten minute lecture from your sister.”

“Really, now?” she smirks at the memory. “I seem to remember you being close to tears, Byulyi-ssi.”

“Allergies. It’s always so dusty in her apartment.”

Well, that is true.

“So, if we arrive late for brunch again, can I tell unnie that it’s because you’re insatiable and you love shower too much?”

“Fine by me,” Byulyi murmurs, seemingly unphased. “I’ll just tell her the reason why it always takes so long is because you like riding my face a lot and you insist on coming at least twice in my mouth each time.”

Flushing all the way down to her neck, Yongsun squeals and takes one of the pillows and playfully whacks Byulyi’s face with it.

Yes, that’s the truth.

Doesn’t mean it has to be said out loud though.

“Shush it, Moon Byulyi.”

“If you really wanna shut me up, unnie,” Byulyi arches a brow, a slow grin spreading on her lips. “You know what to do.”

That she does.

So, with her eyes clouding with lust, she shimmies up the bed, grabs hold of the frame, and positions her legs on either side of Byulyi’s head.

And then she sits. And shuts her girlfriend up.

After all, Yongsun doesn’t need to be told twice.

.

.

.

In their defense, they’re only fifteen minutes late this time.

But Kims are notoriously punctual, so her sister still gives them heck. Or at least tries to.

Yonghee merely squints at the hickey on Byulyi’s neck, and then at the matching one on Yongsun, and just sighs.

“Incorrigible,” her sister mutters, shaking her head. “I can’t wait until you guys pass this honeymoon stage. It’s a crime that my baby sister is getting laid more than me.”

“Eww, unnie!” 

.

.

. 

Yonghee jinxes them.

There’s no other logical explanation for it.

Two weeks later, and precisely six and a half months after they started dating, is when the honeymoon phase ends for Yongsun and Byulyi.

Coincidentally, it happens after their first big fight.

.

.

.

And despite what most would think, when this happens and reality creeps in and catches up with the lovestruck pair, Yongsun isn’t blindsided at all.

Believe it or not, she saw it coming.

Truly.

As inexperienced as she is about love and relationships, Yongsun has an idea, no matter how vague, about how these things generally work.

After all, one doesn’t spend years after discovering their uality living vicariously through fictional characters, whether on screen or paper, as well as her own friends’ romantic liaisons, to be ignorant about all things romance.

Yongsun understands that there’s a natural ebb and flow to things.

That the intensity and the novelty of a new relationship eventually fades a few months in, and when the rose-tinted glasses come off, is when one sees things for the way they really are. 

You finally take notice of the flaws, of the other’s shortcomings. 

You see them for what they are; good and bad.

And that’s when most decide whether or not the relationship is worth pursuing at all.

.

.

.

See, there’s something that she realized about Moon Byulyi after only a couple of months of dating:

The girl loves a good party.

And while Yongsun prefers quiet nights in, Byulyi enjoys the pleasant buzz of socializing with peers over drinks.

Ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with it — Yongsun being quite introverted and Byulyi embracing the social butterfly that she’s shaping up to be.

It all boils down to a difference in personalities.

So, rather than make a big deal out of it, they decide on the most mature thing to do and find common ground earlier on. 

They strike a compromise.

Byulyi doesn’t force her out of her comfort zone; Yongsun doesn’t shackle her girlfriend to her and lets her have her fun. 

Provided that Byulyi prioritizes her safety, of course, and that she promises consistent communication between the two of them so Yongsun doesn’t worry.

And, you know what, it works.

With Yongsun’s blessing, Byulyi attends every party she gets invited to. 

Well, most of them. 

Of course, weekends are exclusively for the two of them. But since people their age thrive in debauchery and find every excuse to party, there never seems to be a lack of social events during the rest of the week.

So, Byulyi parties during school nights; Yongsun does her own thing at home.

And for several months, this setup works for them.

Until it doesn’t.

.

.

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It starts with Chorong barging into Yongsun’s room on a cold Thursday night.

“Have you seen this?” her roommate and best friend shoves her phone right at Yongsun’s face, interrupting the horror movie she’s watching on Netflix. “Wanna go there and drag her back here?”

Yongsun blinks at the screen.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?” she asks dumbly.

Chorong sighs, as if put out, and then pinches at the screen and enlarges the image. 

It appears to be her girlfriend in a very inebriated state. 

Byulyi’s passed out, lying on her back in the middle of the table, silver hair cascading off the edge like a waterfall. And she’s surrounded by a throng of party girls.

Girls who seem to be doing shots on Byulyi’s exposed midriff. 

Yongsun sits up, toppling the laptop that was on her chest. “When was this taken?”

“Just now,” Chorong says, grabbing Yongsun’s jeans from the dresser and throwing it at her. “Bomi sent it to me.”

A frown makes its way to her face as she pulls on her pants. She checks her phone and the timestamp of her girlfriend’s last message. “But Byulyi just arrived at that club an hour ago. Why is she already that drunk?”

“Pre-gamed, maybe?” Chorong hands Yongsun her wallet and the lanyard carrying her transport pass. “Or, more likely, just up to her usual antics. You know how much of a flirt your girl is.”

Yongsun stops by the doorway.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know,” Chorong waves a hand, walking past her to grab her own purse. “Everyone says that Byulyi’s an expert at flirting her way to a good time.” 

“...”

“Last week, I heard that she scored a bunch of free drinks for her table all night just by working her magic on some unsuspecting frat boys.”

To her credit, her friend has no idea that she just dropped a bomb on her. Chorong only clues in when she turns around and realizes that Yongsun is still standing frozen by her bedroom door.

“Oh, Yong…” Realizing her faux pas, Chorong clutches at the back of her neck, looking chagrined. “I thought you knew.”

.

.

.

So, yes.

That’s when Yongsun finds out just what her social butterfly of a girlfriend has been up to all this time.

The following day, severely hungover and contrite, Byulyi comes clean.

.

.

.

Apparently, Yongsun has Wheein to thank for teaching Byulyi the best way to score free drinks.

Flirt.

Flirt.

And flirt some more.

Because the more affable a person is, the more strangers will be willing to buy them drinks. Plus points if they’re good looking.

And Byulyi, her sweet, sweet Byulyi, always so excitable when it comes to great deals and free things, takes their friend’s advice and gives it a go.

It’s all harmless flirting anyway.

It’s not like she’s looking to hook up.

At least that’s how her girlfriend justifies it in her head.

So, with Wheein by her side doing the same thing, Byuli smiles, jokes around, plays games, and flirts.

Two hours into this whole routine, the two friends are already buzzing and having a great time, free drinks flowing from every which direction.  

And their success rate as a duo is so astounding that what starts as an experiment ends up being the standard.

.

.

.

Byulyi is a snotty mess by the time she’s done explaining her side.

It’s ten in the morning and they’re both still in her bed.

Yongsun has already missed her first class of the day, and at this rate, she’s probably going to miss the second one too.  

Not that academics is anywhere near her mind right now as Byulyi continues to make a mess out of her sweatshirt with her tears.

“Yong,” Byulyi sniffles, tugging at the sleeve of her pajamas. “Say something… please…”

She scrubs her face with her hands and sighs. “What do you want me to say?” She turns to the younger girl.

“I dunno,” her girlfriend mumbles uselessly. “Anything. Just please don’t break up with me. I promise I’ll never do it again.”

Her chest tightens at the thought of breaking up, but Yongsun makes sure she doesn’t show it in her face.

So, keeping her voice level, she holds Byulyi’s tearful gaze and says, “True or false, all that flirting meant nothing.”

“True.”

“True or false, at some point, it led to something physical.” 

“False,” Byulyi says. “Unless you count pushing someone away the moment they get handsy as physical, then I suppose, half-true?”

Yongun shuts her eyes and exhales through her nose.

“I got them thrown out of the club, if that makes it any better.”

It doesn’t, really. 

But what’s done is done.

“True or false, you respect our relationship.”

“True.”

“Then, why would you do that, Byul-ah?”

Byulyi hangs her head in shame. 

“Because I was stupid, unnie. And I have no excuse except that.”

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Yongsun sends Byulyi home shortly after that.

And she doesn’t speak with her the whole weekend.

Ignores her calls.

Refuses the flower delivery.

.

.

.

She’s making a stand. And so far she’s holding strong.

But then…

Byulyi shows up at Yong’s doorstep on Monday morning with a single sunflower, bloodshot eyes, and a teary promise to always respect Yongsun and their relationship.

And Yongsun, also sleep-deprived and feeling all sorts of wretched, lets Byulyi stew in silence for the better part of two seconds before she reaches up to caress her cheek and place a tender kiss on those quivering lips. 

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.

.

Six and a half months into their relationship, the honeymoon period ends.

And this stage, past that rosy, smitten stage, is quite precarious for new relationships.

Because it’s the make or break stage.

And Yongsun’s happy to note that she and Byulyi find themselves firmly in the make stage when all is said and done and the dust settles.

Not that much has changed, mind you.

Byulyi’s still allowed to party, believe it or not.

But now she behaves accordingly. In a responsible, safe manner that doesn’t make Yongsun worry. 

And that’s what love is about, Yongsun realizes. When the shiny veneer fades and you're left with reality, love is choosing to trust the person you hold dear above all else.

It’s a choice she makes freely. And consi