Prompt: Soul asylum just slaps me with the memory of a prompt that goes like “she missed the last train but—”

-

There’s this thing about trains and commutes.

You wouldn’t really think about them 24/7 because there are more pressing bigger problems in life. Yet they— these damned trains— demand you think about them more.

Because it’s either they are suddenly under construction, delayed, rerouting, or they just outright stopped operating. Calling it a day— they’re closed. When the damned service was supposed to be 24/7.

This is why you should have learned how to drive.

Wheein whispers to herself, the closed station in front of her.

There are several pressing problems in her already apparent predicament. She can’t contact her driver— driver friend, Byulyi. Neither could she reach out for Hyejin, because the two are conveniently out of town. And her— her… And Kim—

She just broke up with Kim Yongsun. It’d be a very awkward encounter to—

The streetlamp above Wheein started flickering. Dragging her out of her own head. Now that the only thing illuminating her vicinity threatens to leave her in the dark, she just releases a huff and a well, it.

Calling up your ex in the middle of the night?

“Hello?” She answered. She ing answered. Kim Yongsun answered her call.

She did not prepare that she’d get this far.

“Are you there?”

Wheein bites her lip— conflicted on what the hell do I say and how do I say it?

“I… missed the train.” She manages to squeak out— whisper pathetically, looking down at her feet.

“There’s no train service today— and for the next coming days.” Yongsun’s voice was— detached despite being on the other line. Despite not hanging up.

“Oh. I didn’t know.” A dumb answer— a response purposefully meant to do nothing but delay things.

“Okay.” Wheein gulps at the apt and brief response. Her sweaty hands suffer the cold winds of the night.

She’s really going to make me say it, huh?

Yongsun’s really— purposefully being like this to make her eat her words before and actually say something she genuinely believes— something of her.

Fair game. Wheein did dump her a few hours ago— door slamming on the owner of the apartment. Walking out on someone— silent and avoidant at the crucial moment.

Wheein gulps at the very dead silence— every passing second felt too long, too drawn out. Yongsun still hasn’t dropped the call, obviously waiting— deserving an explanation.

“I’m sorry I—”

“I don’t need your apology.” Yongsun cuts her off, patient enough to not drop the call but— and rightfully so— demanding to push Wheein to talk.

-

Because in the years of their friendship and its fruition to something more, Yongsun was left in the dark— in the scary unknowns of how Jung Wheein feels. Something so certain— her laughs, her dimpled-smiles, her over-the-top dramatics, the constant teasing and recurring softness— can't help but bring doubt.

In every shared night where Yongsun is so tired she couldn’t sleep;

When distant stars decorate the night sky, the moon reflecting weaker lights,

And each time the lack of illumination brings the cold and the darkness creeps every corner,

The arms wrapped around her waist, the smaller body hugging her into red-cheeked and heart-racing warmth and comfort, all under the safe blanket,

The scary cold makes things so sure— makes the arms around her, the lithe body near her, the very person with her— it makes the warmth they bring all so dismantling, comforting,

And under the nightlight, in the silence of darkness, Yongsun—

I love you, you know that?

Yes. I know that.

Yongsun can’t help but— can’t help but doubt something so sure, so certain in comfort.

Then in each morning afters;

And whenever the protruding rays of the sun hits her face, she turns away,

Facing, succumbing, resting deeper into the arms of the person that holds her close, hugs her dearly as she giggles awake— husked, dry, and low— at a slightly taller woman turning small into her wrapped embrace,

Did the sun hurt you? A tease, surely.

Yes. Protect me. And she does, silently.

Yongsun can tell— it’s obvious when her embrace is warmer, arms close in tighter and she holds her closer in a hum.