Hyunjung woke up earlier than usual for a Sunday morning, considering she had nothing to do, which was rare enough as it was. The sun bled through a gap in the blackout curtains, and painted a gleaming river of light  that cut into the bed sheets in rippling shapes.


Recently, she felt as if she was plagued by a recurring dream - one where she would run through an endless corridor - only to never arrive anywhere. It happened often whenever she slept late and alone. In the liminal space where she would come to and remember where and who she was, her drowsy mind barely remembered the feeling of being in motion before it inhabited a body that was largely still.


Whatever she had dreamt of last night - what felt like a happy and inconsequential dream this time - had quickly dissipated into the air just as she rolled over sleepily under the covers and she opened her eyes, in the way that even the most vivid dreams normally do.
 

The immediate and tangible reality set in, and a familiar figure rose from her bed, wearing a loose and worn shirt Hyunjung herself often wore as a teenager. A shirt that had now become communal, apparently.


Soobin wore it more often now whenever she slept over like this. In Hyunjung’s mind, it suited Soobin more, because the image of Soobin claiming it without even a bit of guilt as her favorite shirt to wear around the apartment now overrode the sentiment of her own youth, of memories of field trips and sports days. If it were anyone else, it would have annoyed her. But it isn’t anyone else.
 

These days, the corridor dream never visited her in her sleep the way it used to, like a ghost warded away by a strong charm. The anxiety she couldn’t place or describe had been evicted into the fringes of her consciousness without much of an explanation.


She fixed her gaze onto the blurry figure of what looked like Soobin’s back, and Hyunjung quickly realized she hadn’t worn her glasses yet. The smaller girl’s slight frame was turned away from her own, and her arms were stretching outward into the air, from what she could see.
 

And when Soobin turned around to look at her, Hyunjung could only close her eyes and feign sleep for no good reason, if only to not give away that she had been intently watching her for what felt like a while now. She then felt a soft hand upon her face, moving the hair away from her own forehead, then lingering on her cheek again before pulling away.


Immediately after, she could only hear the sound of careful footsteps and the bedroom door opening outward to inevitably let the rest of the world in. Hyunjung took it as a sign. She stayed in bed but clumsily grabbed her glasses from the table as quietly as she could to watch Soobin slightly waddling as she maneuvered through the kitchen drawers without difficulty or even a beat of confusion.


On the counter, she had set aside two empty bowls, two big spoons, a carton of milk, and an opened box of Honey O’s. Soobin had only paused briefly to look at a bag of sliced almonds that Hyunjung bought two days ago, before she snuck in a quick glance into the bedroom doorway, as if sensing a disturbance. Thankfully, Hyunjung had already pulled the sheets over her head seconds before, but it was close.


Shrouded in the warm darkness of the blanket, she could make out the sound of pouring milk, then the sound of a phone vibrating on the counter. Soobin answered it in a largely hushed tone, not realizing Hyunjung was already awake anyway, which was sweet in its own way. A work call. Hyunjung then ever so slightly peeked out of the sheets at Soobin nodding and mindlessly stirring a bowl of cereal and milk with one hand and the phone in the other, pressed against her ear. Yes, she nodded, yes I handled it yesterday, Luda sent it in advance. More nodding, a long stretch of just listening. I cc’d you in the email, but I can send it again. Yes, it’s a pdf. It’s all there. She shifted her weight onto her other foot and folded her arms. Mmhmm. Thanks, bye. She stirred the bowl a last time and checked the time on her phone before she  languidly walked back into the bedroom and sat on the bed next to Hyunjung, glasses-less, who was feigning sleep for what felt like the tenth time.


“Shaki, wake up.”


“Good morning.”
 

“It’s like, 11. So it's barely morning, but that’s okay. You slept like a baby.” Soobin held her arms out to prop the taller girl up until she was sitting across her, then embraced her and let her face dig into the crook of Hyunjung’s neck. “That makes me happy. You’re getting lazier, so I can get away with it more.”


“Oh, you wish.” Hyunjung laughed. “It’s just Sunday, and we drank yesterday. But I’m not hungover. We’re still bad at drinking though. And we’re getting old.”


“Apparently I was playing the bottle flute with a bottle of soju and your head was the mic. Yeonjung sent a video. But again, you’re old, and you fell asleep right after brushing your teeth. Thank God you listened to me and drank enough water.” Soobin gently pulled away to face her to hold out her hand, which Hyunjung took to finally get up from the bed. The smaller girl then pulled the taller girl by the arm into the kitchen.


“I made you breakfast. Soggy cereal.”


“Just the way I like it. Completely soggy.”
 

“I know. I forgot to pour myself cereal. Got distracted by work.”


“So… You thought of me first, huh. You like me too much.” Hyunjung quickly wrapped herself around the smaller girl before she could react, but she only rolled her eyes and scoffed playfully. So no denial? No fake disgust? That’s new, Hyunjung thought to herself. She then poured Honey O’s into the empty bowl, before she tore into the unopened bag of sliced almonds and placed three big scoops into the bowl and set it right in front of Soobin. The taller girl then motioned for her to sit with her on the couch.


“Crunchy with almonds. No milk. The way you like it. Let’s eat?”


Soobin briefly looked like she wanted to say something before sitting down, which wasn’t lost on Hyunjung, but did that thing that she does when she holds something in - she bit the tip of her tongue and looked down - which was strange, because Soobin always had something to say about anything. The small brunette did what she usually did when they sat down to eat, scanned the room for the remote, and turned the TV on to watch the news.


Today, Hyunjung felt Soobin was inside her own head, and she couldn’t help but notice. She seemed to always be able to know how Soobin felt before she could even verbalize it, even if she wasn’t able to understand it. It was interesting to anyone on the outside looking in, their friends, their family -  how they could connect so seamlessly despite being so fundamentally different - Hyunjung could go for days without talking at all without any good reason to in direct contrast to Soobin. But that couldn’t happen now, not anymore, and it’s because Soobin was in her life that could speak at all some days, because they simply couldn’t leave each other alone. 

Hyunjung couldn’t help but be attentive - she saw things in Soobin that people didn’t care to notice - yes, Soobin is funny, and outwardly charming, and clever - these are things that people come to know within minutes of meeting her. 

But Hyunjung gazed upon Soobin with precision and intent even in incredibly mundane things - when they did their laundry together and Soobin would find Hyunjung’s socks and pair them up so she never had to steal anyone else’s, when Soobin’s mom would call to remind her to file her taxes among other things while Soobin only listened intently without a hint of annoyance, when Soobin would cook for Hyunjung whenever she was sick - even though she never did it even for herself - even things that Soobin hardly noticed about herself - how she would brush off personal questions by being funny, and got away with never revealing anything personal about herself but made everyone comfortable instantly just from the way she could joke her way in and out of a conversation.


It was also apparent to Hyunjung that Soobin had no shortage of self-esteem - she laughed at her bad pictures, and thought all her angles were good, and never took from anybody who said otherwise. She didn’t care if she had no makeup on, whether at a bar or at the opera. Even now, while she looked at her, from the tip of her eyelashes, her glass-like skin - the way her smile would reach the crescents of her eyes - Hyunjung found Soobin incredibly beautiful down to the most minute details, even if she didn’t say it often. And to anyone else from the outside looking in, she didn’t have to.

Because somehow, they always looked like this. 

Soobin turned to see Hyunjung looking at her, laser focused, as if the television wasn’t even on. 

Soobin knew Hyunjung more than anyone on the planet - how intense she could be, how moody she could get, how she could withdraw, and how she could be so vulnerable - especially like this, her feelings bare on her face - Hyunjung didn’t have to say she was in love with Soobin, and she never really had to, because the way she looked at her always gave it away. She didn’t ever bother to hide it either, and she didn’t want to. The way she talked to her gave it away, the way she touched her gave it away, and Soobin would have to be stupid or completely devoid of sense to not know.

Normally, it had always been comfortable - the way they had their own planet, and no one else understood their language, or the unspoken laws of their relationship. The other day, Dayoung asked her, do you two really have to talk to each other on the phone in the bathroom while washing your hair? And to Soobin, it made sense, it was the way things were with them. But in a sense, she was starting to want more. They were like two trees that had grown to become entangled, she could feel herself becoming vulnerable to the point of reliance, and it scared her to a degree, but she never let it rattle her to a point where she wanted things to change between them.

While Soobin looked back at Hyunjung, who was looking at her like she was literally the best thing since sliced bread (and she knew how much that girl loved bread), she was hit by the realization like a bolt from the blue - that if someone held a mirror to Soobin’s own face at this very moment, she would probably look just as dumb and goofy with the way she was looking at Hyunjung right now.

It wasn’t news to her that everyone wanted Kim Hyunjung - the girl that turned heads who was oblivious to everything around her whose face and gait had an almost universal appeal - girls and boys equally fawned over her looks, her voice, her style - had no shortage of admiration from anybody. Normally, she didn’t care. It was just Hyunjung, and even when Hyunjung was made aware that some people worshipped the ground she walked on, it never changed the way she was. She was still aloof and strange, sometimes indiscernibly so, for reasons even Soobin didn’t know, but didn’t have to. She was just Hyunjung.

But Soobin started to feel something inside herself change - it’s not that she wanted to know what would happen if Hyunjung ever wanted more from her, from this, whatever this was. 

It’s that all the things she loved about Hyunjung had become an immeasurable part of her day to day life with her hardly noticing. It felt like a blink of an eye, but what they themselves built in their little planet had taken years of trust and intimacy and care. Hard conversations, an abundance of touch, and gentle gazes. The warmth of attention that burned between them had become comfortable, and suddenly Soobin was faced with the age-old question.

What if things did change? What if this disappeared entirely from her life?
 

If Kim Hyunjung were to exit her life without a trace, who would Park Soobin even be?
 

Hyunjung didn’t even have to ask how Soobin liked her cereal, she was just attentive in the way she normally was. Soobin found that Hyunjung’s own qualities were bleeding into her, and she was starting to act like her, and vice versa. Their senses of humor were sustained by a chain of inside jokes. Hyunjung was even making other people laugh. Soobin didn’t care that Hyunjung liked her cereal soggy in such a gross way. She liked everything about Hyunjung, and not just because Hyunjung liked everything about her. Her ears started to feel hot, and her body, warm enough as it would get (which was a lot), started to heat up.
 

They had been staring at each other for a few minutes now, and Hyunjung trailed her gaze to Soobin’s mouth, which made Soobin start to bite her own lip.

Hyunjung had said it before over drinks, Park Soobin,you’re my soulmate. They were both bad at drinking, but it’s not like it wasn’t true.

Things might have become physical at times, yes they would kiss when they would lose at drinking games or when dared to, yes, sometimes they would make out when everybody left, yes, they had been sleeping beside each other more often lately now that Hyunjung lived by herself, and in turn, they had been waking up beside each other for a while, and Hyunjung didn’t have those weird, lonely dreams. Not anymore.

But it would be weird to define it at all, Soobin thought to herself, because calling Hyunjung something like - gag - a girlfriend? It just didn’t seem adequate. Partners? Maybe. They shared clothes, and they shared secrets, and they were beginning to share a life, and they were ridiculously bad at talking about it.


“Soobin, are you okay?” Hyunjung broke the silence, burdened with tension, before smirking with the right corner of , in the way the shorter girl always really liked more than she cared to admit.

“Do I not look okay?”


“Well, you barely touched your cereal. And you didn’t even eat that much last night.”


“I can’t get anything past you, can I?”

“Nope,” Hyunjung smirked again, in that annoyingly attractive way. “You can’t. I’m always watching.” The taller girl, in a large black hoodie, had made both her hands into funny little binoculars, and stared even more intently at Soobin, her smile creeping into her eyes.


“Literally.” Soobin covered her own face with her own hands, she could feel her cheeks as they started to get hot.


“When were you ever this shy?”


“Shh. Stop looking at me.” Soobin then covered Hyunjung’s stupid little hand binoculars, only to realize she was touching her hands. Hyunjung made a break for it, and took Soobin’s hands into her own. She was enjoying this newfound embarrassment, a new dimension of affection for the girl in front of her had bloomed in her heart. Was she flustered? That too, was new.


“I don’t want to.” Hyunjung puffed her cheeks, and Soobin laughed in that annoying Soobin-y way, but it was music to Hyunjung’s ears anyway.


“Okay.”


“Okay?”


“Okay.” Soobin found herself staring at their hands, their fingers intertwined. She then looked up at Hyunjung, who was unsurprisingly staring back at her, in her Hyunjung-y way. “Park Soobin.”


“Yes?”


“How are you feeling?”


“Sick.” Soobin couldn’t help but smile as she said this, knowing they looked and sounded ridiculous. “We’re so gross. I want to vomit. But I want you to promise me something.”


“What?”


“That after what I’m about to do, things won’t change between us. Promise?”


“Okay, but w-”


Soobin launched herself onto Hyunjung’s lap, carefully, and quickly, and a little more clumsily than she would ever admit. She placed her finger on Hyunjung’s mouth, initially to shush her, but also to touch her lips. Before she knew it, her thumb was a hair’s breadth away from Hyunjung’s bottom lip, close enough to feel her breath. Before they knew it, their foreheads were touching, and their eyes started to close. They kissed, not as a dare, both incredibly sober this time - the first, quickly. 

The second, softly and unbearably tender - Hyunjung held Soobin by the waist, and then she found her other hand traveling to her leg, and it wasn’t like other times where Soobin would break contact if she felt things were going too far, because this time, Soobin was leaning into her touch.

The third kiss said more than any confession ever could, or more than any word could define or determine. Soobin’s hands were locked on Hyunjung’s nape, and she kissed Hyunjung the way she realized she had always wanted to kiss someone and had wanted to be kissed - deep with intention and the force of longing. When she broke the kiss to look at Hyunjung, her eyes were still closed. Soobin felt like she was looking at her with a fresh pair of eyes, knowing that after this, things would clearly never be the same. It was a fool’s promise, and a fool’s errand to pretend that things wouldn’t change between them.

When Hyunjung finally opened her eyes, she mulled over what she was about to say.

"I can’t promise you things won’t change, but you knew that.” She pulled Soobin even closer, until her face lodged into the crook of her neck, against a curtain of brown hair. “But I want you to know that I don’t care if things change. I don’t think I could live a life properly as myself if you weren’t in it.”

Soobin traced her face only with her eyes, and nodded, and gently bumped her forehead against Hyunjung’s - as her fingers started to play with the taller girl’s long black hair. “Likewise. You better not leave me alone,” she said as if it were a command, if commands could be so tender.


“You’ve been sleeping in my apartment for five days now, and you’re telling me not to leave you alone? You made that decision yourself when your clothes started appearing in my closet..”


Soobin could only smile - but in the way that Hyunjung always told her was her favorite - the toothy smile where she could hardly see her eyes.“Yeah, I know. I still mean it. I want you in my life, and I’ve been in yours for a while now, because you like me so much.”


“Yeah. I love you.”


“I know. I’m in love with you.” No follow up quips. “So don’t leave me alone.”


The tv was still on, but it could be at maximum volume or totally broken for all they cared. The bowls of cereal (one crunchy, one soggy) were on the table, unfinished. The bed was unmade, and it had started to rain outside. But they wouldn’t have noticed a thing.


They kissed well into the afternoon, as if to make up for lost time. And when they finally finished their cereal and washed the dishes together, brushed their teeth together, and wasted the whole Sunday together, they both knew that something had changed, even if the things they did together stayed the same. The language that they spoke began to change as it flourished with recognition - the awareness that no one else could speak it, as lovers, as friends, as soulmates - or the two lone people on their little planet.


Hyunjung slowly began to forget the recurring dream where she was endlessly running down an empty corridor. At some point, Hyunjung had gotten Yangmal from her family’s apartment, and Soobin had done the same with Lucky. Their days, even when mundane, were warm, and beautiful, no matter what it was like outside that apartment.