This is a bad idea.

Yeji sighs and rereads the form in front of her.

 

I, ___________________, give my consent to use my image in the class project for the Documentary: Intimacy and its Narratives (FILM 311) course. The JYP University Film Department agrees to compensate me with $300/week, for a maximum of four (4) weeks. I hereby agree to return all compensation received if I stop participating in the project at any time during those four weeks, unless for an unforeseen medical emergency.

Name: ___________________________

Email:  ___________________________

Signature:  _______________________

Date: __ /__ /____

 

Yeji stops fidgeting with her pen and starts filling in the blanks. This is a bad idea, she thinks again. She hesitates on the signature, sighs, and slowly fills it in, repeating in her mind, $300 per week. She then slides the paper forward to the film student in front of her, Son Chaeyoung, if she heard correctly, forcing a smile.

Yeji looks to her right. Ryujin sits with one elbow hanging over her chair and one pen spinning on her hand. Yeji turns forward again.

"Thank you, girls!" Chaeyoung says. "Just so I can have it in my notes, I'll ask you some questions now." She puts the forms in a folder and opens a notebook on the desk.

"Sure!" Yeji says.

"How long do you know each other?"

They've known each other since elementary school, but what was the year again?

"About 12 years." Ryujin promptly replies. "I moved to your school in third grade, remember?"

"Right." Yeji nods.

"Woah, that's a really long time. Which is perfect for my project." The filmmaker writes on her notebook. "And how long have you been dating?"

"Um, since like, sophomore year?" Yeji says and avoids eye contact with the student, turning to Ryujin.

"Yeah, like a bit over one year ago." Ryujin says.

"Exactly."

"Cool, so I'll email you two later with more details."

"Sounds good." Yeji says. "What's the documentary about, again?"

"Right, so in this class we're exploring relationships, their differences and similarities." She closes her notebook. "My project is about two women in a long term lesbian relationship. Each student will be exploring a different type of relationship and at the end we'll mash up everything together into one movie, or something like that."

"That's cool." Yeji says.

"And about the payment?" Ryujin asks. She finally stops playing with her pen and sits up.

"Ah, yes." The filmmaker reaches inside her bag then hands them each a check. "The department said to give your checks at the end of every week, but I'm fine with giving the first ones right now."

"Sweet!" Ryujin exclaims, examining the check.

"Thank you." Yeji quickly folds hers and puts it in her jacket's pocket.

"I look forward to working with you two." The student says as she gets up from her seat, putting the rest of her stuff inside her bag. "Thank you again for volunteering!" She smiles.

Ryujin roughly puts one arm around Yeji's neck, a bit too tight.

"No, we thank you!" She says.

Yeji tenses up but tries to keep a happy expression.

 

The student smiles at them and waves, walking away towards the library's exit. Yeji smiles back, and as soon as the student disappears from view she yanks Ryujin's arm off her.

"Hey! Chill!" Ryujin says, holding onto the table to not lose her balance.

"Chill!?" Yeji scowls. "I can't believe you convinced me to do this! It's never gonna work out!" Yeji rubs her temples, thoughts racing in her head. "She's gonna find out, then we're gonna ruin her project, lose the money, and probably be disciplined! We're terrible people!" Yeji lies her head down on the table, forehead first, a little too hard.

Ryujin sighs.

"She's only gonna find out if you freak out like this in front of her. Or if you look like you'd rather be dead than be standing next to me."

Yeji sits up and glares at her.

"I'm still pissed at you. You just had to up at the smoothie bar."

"I had everything under control!" Ryujin snaps. "You tried to with my way of doing stuff!"

"Yes, because it was the wrong way!" Yeji throws her hands in the air.

"If you didn't distract me with your little speech as if you were my ing boss nothing of that would've happened!" Ryujin points at her, eyebrows furrowed and mismatched eyes looking like they could shoot laser blasts through Yeji's face.

Yeji groans, clenches her hands, and takes a deep breath. It isn't worth to have that argument again.

"It doesn't matter anymore, we both got fired anyway. And now we're here."

Ryujin relaxes, her apparent fury now gone.

"Yeah, we're here, three hundred dollars richer." Ryujin grabs her check and waves it in front of Yeji. "That'd take us like three weeks at the smoothie place. So you're welcome." She smirks.

Yeji rolls her eyes.

"Seriously, Yeji. All that money for, like, holding hands in front of a camera? It can't get easier than that." Ryujin folds her check and sticks it in one of her front pockets. "You endured me for what, ten years? I'm sure you can power through these four weeks." She gets up and leans on the back of her chair, getting closer to Yeji's face. "Just don't it up and we'll be fine."

Yeji scowls at her and forces herself to not start another argument. Ryujin ignores it and turns away.

"See ya later, girlfriend." She says over her shoulder.

Girlfriend. Yeji shudders at that word.

Only after Ryujin is gone Yeji remembers they didn't even plan anything out. She closes her eyes and rubs her temples again, taking another deep breath. Four weeks of pretending to be Ryujin's girlfriend. Those are about to be the longest weeks of her life.

 

*

 

"That sounds like a terrible idea." Lia says as she reaches for a napkin at the center of the table.

Yeji pokes at her food with her fork, not feeling particularly hungry as she usually does at that time of the day. She is having lunch with her best friend before their afternoon class and telling her about her new job for the next month or so.

"Because it is. I'm a terrible person and I'm going to hell." She picks a cherry tomato and puts it in .

"You can still call it off." Lia gives her a worried look.

"No, I–" Yeji sighs. "The money is good. Do you know how hard would it be to find another nice campus job at this time of the semester? All the good ones are taken." Yeji shakes her head. "The smoothie bar hours were perfect."

"I still don't get how you were fired after two weeks?" Lia takes a sip of her glass of water. "You are good at everything."

Yeji groans.

"I told you, it was Ryujin's fault." She places her fork down, giving up on finishing her food.

"If the problem is the money I could help you while you look for something good again?"

Yeji shakes her head. "No way, Liaー"

"You can pay me later, whenever you can!" Lia reaches for her hands.

"You're too sweet." Yeji smiles. "But it's not just the money..."

"What is it?"

"It's justー" Yeji sighs. "When Ryujin showed up at the smoothie bar she was like... civil? Until the accident, of course. But I don't know," Yeji lets go of Lia's hands and hugs her own arms. "I just thought we'd be able to reconnect again, somehow..."

"Don't you two hate each other?"

"Yes? I mean, no?" Yeji pauses. "Sort of? She definitely hates me, but I don't know why."

"You could just talk to her, you know?" Lia gestures one hand in the air. "You don't have to pretend to date her."

Yeji shrugs. "She's never been much of the talking type."

Lia nods and her expression changes to an annoyed one. "Yeah, she is more of the punching type."

Yeji snorts.

"I guess."

"Well, if she tries to fight you let me know because I'd love to help you kick her ."

"Lia." Yeji chuckles. "Good to know you got my back."

"Always." Lia smiles and checks the time on her phone. "We should get going."

On her way to class Yeji grabs her phone and clicks on Ryujin's name. The last messages they exchanged were from yesterday.

Ryujin texted since we're both unemployed now would you wanna do it? With an image attached of a poster on a bulletin board. Its title in bold letters was CALL FOR COUPLES! and if Ryujin didn't mention the unemployed part Yeji would be sure she had texted the wrong number.

Yeji's immediate and obvious reply was 'we're not a couple??' which was followed by Ryujin's 'duh they don't have to know that. let me know by the end of the day or ill find someone else.' 

Before Yeji replied again she took the time to zoom in the picture and actually read what was there. She was ready to reject Ryujin's super polite request until she read another sentence with small bold letters at the end of the page: $300/week per individual!!!

Maybe it wasn't too difficult for Yeji to be convinced to join in this madness.

Yeji scrolls up. The previous message before this conversation is from more than a year ago. Around the time Yeji gave up on trying to reach out to Ryujin. She was ignoring her texts anyway.

She finally texts Ryujin saying they should meet up that afternoon to come up with their backstory.