I want to spend a lot but not all of my years with you.

We’ll talk about kids

                              but make plans to travel.

I will remember your eyes

                              as green when they were gray.

—

She catches sight of Byul first before the other woman can see her.

She smiles, welcoming the pleasant surprise of it all. Of course, even on a day when they don’t make plans to meet, she somehow manages to end up in the one place in Seoul where Moon Byulyi had decided to take all four of her dogs out for a walk. It would be comical if it weren’t something that happened to them so often. Despite herself, fond memories start slipping in unbidden and Yong smiles at them. 

They have a lot of shared memories here at the Han. Yong remembers them all so clearly. Bright points of happiness in her life where it was just the two of them; laughing over cups of instant ramyun, lying on the grass as the sun sets while the Yongkey sniffed at their feet, jogging by the river in the early mornings, talking about their futures with all the wide-eyed optimism a couple of twenty-somethings back then could muster. 

Of course, it’s during her walk down memory lane that Byul spots her too.

When Yong comes back to herself, Byul is already laughing and pointing at her, waving in a joking manner while Haengwoon and Janggu are already digging their paws in the concrete, trying to run over to her. 

Yong laughs and waves them over.

“Hello, creepy,” Byul greets when she comes over, plopping down beside Yong and busying herself with bringing out water bowls and treats for her dogs. 

“What do you mean ‘creepy’?” Yong asks, letting just a little bit of a whine into her voice because she knows Byul likes it and sometimes she just can’t help herself.

“You were so creepy just now, Unnie.” Byul counters. Now she’s pouring water from a packed tumbler into four separate bowls. Each dog is waddling anxiously in front of their designated dish. Byul has a finger up; the universal command for ‘wait’. “Just staring at me with a spaced-out smile on your face, not even responding when I called out to you. You were like that horror movie character—uhm who was that?—from that movie we watched when you had a cold.”

“The Mimic.” 

“Right. Anyway, what’s new with you?”

“Uhm.” She flounders around for something to say that doesn’t sound like a Naver headline. “Unnie just entered her third trimester so our mom moved into her house.”

Byul’s smile is bright and Yong knows it was the right news to share. Byul loves kids.  

“Wah, so just a few months away, huh?” Byul says, leaning back and stretching her legs in front of her. Below the dogs are entertaining themselves by running circles around Daebak, who seems content with just plopping down between Yong and Byul and taking a nap.

“I’ve already bought so much stuff for the baby, all my Instagram and Naver ads are now about motherhood and  babies.” Yong shares, and it gets the desired effect of having Byul laugh.

“When it’s your turn, just promise I get to be the cool aunt. Yonghee-unnie would never let me live it down if she steals that title from me.” Byul says.

Yong frowns because something about that statement doesn’t seem right to her, but she just can’t pinpoint what. So instead she says, “If you think I’m going to let you corrupt and turn my future child against me then you don’t know me as well as you thought.”

Byul’s smile dims a bit but she chuckles anyway and looks down at her dogs.

The feeling that something is off is still there and it keeps wriggling in the back of her mind like a worm burrowing holes into soil. She quickly thinks about something else to say. “Um. What about you? Anything new?”

Beside her, Byul just shrugs. “I’m on a bit of a break now. I’ve been spending a lot of time back at home with my parents. Hence the,” and here she gestures at the four dogs who have now clustered themselves into the most adorable puppy pile Yong’s ever seen. “I’m writing something new again though, trying to see if what I have is enough for a full studio album this time.”

“Oh,” Yong doesn’t bother hiding her pride. Byul has always been the more prolific songwriter between the two of them. “Anything I can listen to soon?” She nudges Byul playfully with her shoulder. The other girl smiles and nudges back.

“Maybe. None of it is quite ready yet.”

“That’s what you always say!” Yong whines, but there’s a smile on her face.

“Because it’s true!” Byul is laughing now too and Yong basks in the sound. The rightness of it. How it makes her feel. How it’s been a while since she and Byul have laughed together like this. 

“You should come over,” Yong says, apropos of nothing, surprising even herself. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

“I— uh. When the baby is born I mean. Unnie’s baby.” Yong stammers. She doesn’t bother trying to deny that there’s a blush creeping up her neck and heating her ears, but she turns away in the hopes that Byul doesn’t see it.

The other girl hums non-committedly. Yong turns to the sound to see that Byul is turned away from her, staring at something in the distance, nearer the Han River’s ramyun stations.

They’re quiet for a while and it’s nice. Silences with Byul have always been nice, a solid comfort built on the foundation of how long they’ve known each other. Yong pulls out her phone and snaps a picture of the view before her. The Han at noon is always bustling with life, especially during the warmer days of spring. Then she points the phone at their feet where Geongang and Janggu are having a little tussle. 

When she points the camera at Byul, the other girl is still looking away, but even as she snaps the photo, Yong knows that Byul knows her eyes are on her.

“Do you–” Yong starts, then clamps shut. Cutting the words off and stamping them back down until they settle as a cold weight in her gut. 

“Hmm?” Byul prompts.

Yong says the first thing that comes to her mind, “Do you have plans of seeing that new movie on Netflix?”

Byul looks down at her phone and opens the Netflix app, “Which one? Maybe I’ve already seen it.”

“It came out this week,” Yong says. She knows because she’s already watched it. “The one where the world is about to end?”

Byul just scoffs. “Netflix has dozens of apocalypse movies nowadays. I can barely keep track.”

“Well in this one the earth is about to get into a black hole, and it’s about the lives of a bunch of different people in the last week before the world ends.” 

“I’m guessing you’ve seen it then,” Byul says, and Yong can see her already adding the movie to her Must Watch list. 

“Yeah, uhm.” She realizes she doesn’t want to tell Byul that the movie was so sad it made her cry during the last half hour. Instead, she says, “Really got me thinking, what I would probably do if I knew the world was going to end.”

Byul is staring out in front of them now, admiring the same view of the river and the families or friend groups milling about the Han. “Knowing you Unnie, you’d probably spend your last days cleaning your house so that it looks nice for the apocalypse.” She knows Byul is baiting her into disagreeing so they can have a few rounds of playful back-and-forth arguing. Yong is almost tempted to play along.

Instead, she asks, “What about you?”

“Me?” Byul makes a show of thinking the question over. Her lips pursing in that oddly cute way that scrunches up her nose while her head tilts up to look at the sky as if the answer is floating somewhere amongst the clouds. Yong wonders if Byul is imagining it: a gaping black hole of nothingness marring the sky, in all gravity and life until there's nothing of the Earth left. 

It takes long enough that Yong feels her attention drift elsewhere. There’s a couple near the banks, walking hand in hand while they talk. The girl is playfully poking at the guy’s face while he makes a show of shoving her hand away despite the smile turning up the corners of his lips. 

“I’d tell you I still love you,” Byul suddenly says, and Yong’s whole world stops. Comes to a screeching halt where nothing remains; no sound save for the rapid thundering of her heart in her chest, no people except for her and Byul. She turns to look at Byul to find the other girl still looking at the sky. Byul’s voice is so soft that if they weren’t seated next to each other, Yong is sure she wouldn’t have heard the next words that come out of . “I would tell you I never stopped.” 

It’s been more than a year since they ended things. Yong knows because the memory of that day still plays in her mind when she’s alone. When it’s cold and raining, or when she finds herself accidentally scooping more kimchi on her plate than she means to in anticipation of someone stealing from her plate that never comes. 

“Then,” Byul says, and she turns her head to look at Yong. Her expression is so sad that it practically breaks Yong’s heart anew. “I’d turn into space dust and disappear forever.”

The silence between them is heavy now. Charged with meaning and regrets and words left unspoken over the course of more than a year. Very different from the peaceful and familiar thing it was just a few moments ago. Yet they continue looking 

In that silence, Kim Yongsun realizes two things:

The first is that since sitting down on the bench with her, this is the first time Byul has met her gaze, and she can’t bring herself to look away.

The second is that breaking up with Moon Byulyi will forever be the biggest regret of her life. 

“Byul, I—”

“There you are!”

They both turn in the direction of the voice, but Yong already knows who it is.

Sodam is walking up to them from the ramyun stands with two steaming hot instant ramen cups carefully balanced in both hands. She had offered to treat Yong to one when she had caught her looking at the ramyun area where she and Byul had once pitched a tent together in the rain.  She has also been Yong’s girlfriend for the better part of a year now. 

Yong can’t see Byul’s face, but the weight in her gut from earlier feels colder and heavier anyway.

“Sorry it took so long, the line was crazy,” Sodam says, cheery as ever while she hands Yong her ramyun. “Byulyi-ssi! I didn’t know you were joining us!” Sodam turns her smile to Byul, unaware of the awkward tension that has befallen their little bench. 

It’s like a light switch, the way Byul’s expression flips from the heartbroken look she had earlier to a bright smile. As if nothing had happened at all. 

“Oh, I’m not,” Byul says, already packing up the dogs’ water bowls into her bag and standing up. “I was just passing through when I saw Unnie and she told me to keep her company while she waited for you.”

“You should stay then!” Sodam says as she stands closer to Yong, her arm coming around Yong’s shoulders. “Get yourself some ramyun and join us!”

It’s only through muscle memory that Yong brings up her own arm to wrap around Sodam’s waist. She smiles up at Sodam then, because Sodam has always been bright and cheery and sweet and right there when Yong needed her. 

But also, Yong doesn’t trust herself to look back at Byul. She isn’t sure which could be worse, to look and see Byul staring at her, or to look and see Byul not staring at her. So she doesn’t. 

“No, I should get going,” Byul’s voice sounds happy and unbothered like she hadn’t just dropped a bomb that has disrupted the course of Yong’s life. This is how Yong knows she is the only person on Earth who can hear the undercurrent of hurt there. Time hasn’t lessened how well she can read Byul’s every tone and action. 

“Besides, it’s a long walk back and I need to have these little demons home before my dad gets worried that they ran away from me.” Byul finishes, already tugging at the cluster of leashes in her hand.

Janggu pulls away from the group briefly to sniff at Yong’s foot, one of his legs coming up to paw at her shin. She extricates herself from Sodam just enough to reach down and scratch his chin. When Byul tugs at Janggu’s leash, it takes everything in her not to tear up. 

“I’ll see you guys around,” Byul says and it’s only when she hears Byul’s footsteps moving away that Yong turns to look. Watching Byul walk away will never not hurt, something that she learned very early on after the breakup.

When Sodam moves to take the spot where Byul had been sitting, Yong tries not to pay attention to the disappointment curling low and thick in her chest. Every day she hopes it will go away entirely because she does love Sodam. She does. How could she not? Sodam is so easy to love; kind and dependable and lovely as she is. It’s just that after seeing Byul again, after what Byul told her, Yong has finally accepted what she's long tried to deny: that it’s not the same. It will never be the same.

So she slurps at her instant ramyun and lets the broth burn a line down . When she looks up again, she smiles at Sodam because that’s what you do with your girlfriend isn’t it? You smile at them and hold them when they do the same for you. So that’s what Yong does, through the ache in her chest and the regret lingering cold and bitter in her gut.

Yong smiles. 

—  

  The garden you plant and I plant

                          is tunneled through by voles,

                                                     the vowels

                                                     we speak aren’t vows,

            but there’s something

                           holding me here, for now,

            like your eyes, which I suppose

                                                     are brown, after all.