a/n: anyone watches seonam girls high school investigators? anyone ships sooyeon x eunbin let's bawl over the episodes together. INSPIRED FROM THE SHOW. (pardon typos, i wrote in one sitting.)

in school the bell rings and the students separate to their seats in a blink of an eye. in that millisecond that their eyes were shut two girls hope no one sees their fingers click together before they split into their classes. maybe the other students had seen it, and maybe they had brushed it off as an accidental bumping while scrambling to their classes. yet no one knows, for sure, if that is true, because no untrained, ignorant, normal eye would actually see past the skin and hear how loudly their hearts were beating.

out of love. out of fear.

these accidental encounters stir feelings within their hearts and they revel in the thrill but also shake in helpless anxiety.

what if someone sees?

sometimes they cross each other's past when they are still in school. they walk around each other like they are walking on glass. seungwan is overtly an amateur at this, and it makes hers and joohyun's hearts beat all the faster. seungwan repeats in her head that joohyun is a stranger, that they have never met, never talked and never has she touched her like she's got the whole of joohyun's skin memorised. she thinks it isn't enough because she finds herself with gazes that linger far too long on a stranger, a girl she's never met and hopes no one catches her red-handed. sometimes she clutches the fabric that covers her heart too tightly, tells her heart to stop beating so quickly, whether out of love or fear, because neither is beneficial in any way. according to society, she shouldn't have fallen in the first place. the fear is justified, then, but it is detrimental and her head pounds when all she can think about is why it was considered wrong to fall in love (with a girl).

joohyun, on the other hand, sits in her class, feels the crushing weight of loneliness amidst the boisterious laughter of her classmates and hears her pulse hammer in her ears. she lightly hits her chest several times, and feels the adrenaline run in her veins. she feels the embroided school badge over her heart as she clenches her chest with her fist, and can almost feel the badge burning in her palm. it is not everyday she makes contact with her secret girlfriend in school and while it is everyday she has to deal with how hard seungwan makes her heart beat, it is also everyday she turns her head until she feels dizzy, glances too often at her sides to make sure no one ever suspects any affiliation between them.

"the world has grown increasingly globalised... everywhere and everyone becomes more inter-connected..."

the professor rambles on and all that runs in her head is "how long, then, can a secret be a secret?"

---

outside school, anywhere outside school, as long as they approach each other from miles away, feels like a safer haven. they walk on streets, among nameless faces who could not care less about two girls laughing as their shoulders bump against one another's occasionally. best friends. in winter they take walks at the park, the trees are stark bare, the howling chill pierces every inch of their bodies. it is cold and their surroundings resonate every aspect of emptiness. their breaths are misty and their faces have never been paler. but they still walk, because the irony is that nowhere is really safe, yet everywhere, like these streets, is really the safest. seungwan thinks about how cold her own house can be, when her family has no clue to half of her heart, simply because that latter half was not with her. yet when seungwan stays close, too close, to joohyun, walks with a hand tucked secretly in joohyun's coat pocket and joohyun has her palm over hers, it does not feel so cold and empty anymore.

the sun begins to set and casts an ember glow on their faces, not too dazzling that it blinds them, just a warm hue that spreads over their faces to the coat's pocket to perhaps posit a reminder that they should not give up on what makes them feel alive. 

---

there are inevitable times when fear gnaws at the back of joohyun's head, when cold sweat is apparent on her face in the bleak wintry weather, because she cannot fathom the consequences of this: judgement and prejudice and isolation and and and — should her heart be revealed to have such an abnormality.

her hands shake too much and she is too scared. she starts to discount the 1.5 years they have pulled through and the pessimistic, cowardly side of her wins. she refuses to reply seungwan and she wants to run away, get into an accident, contract amnesia and wish she had never known a kind of love like seungwan's —one that was real and one that cannot be socially accepted. it's too implausible, she thinks, so a cold heart then should suffice.

she runs, runs away from any possible encounter with seungwan.

---

in the gruesome battle between the mind and heart, joohyun is not conscious of how the heart always wins, at least it is so if a love like theirs exists — to remind her of the perfect fit to her own self. she runs runs runs, but she winds up at the often vacant second-hand bookshop seungwan works at anyway. she stands outside, panting, breathless, as if her heart cannot keep up. then again, half a heart, scientifically, mathematically, is known to be inept. she is whizzing as cold air emits from and suddenly realizes how cold she is despite her running. her minds flashes to when seungwan would sit her down in the empty bookshop and she would read joohyun a poem.

"I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
and that necessary." (Atwood, 1987)

maybe it's the reminder of air (or the lack thereof), so joohyun gathers her remaining strength and runs inside.

---

she pulls seungwan from the counter, drags her to their favourite isolated corner. she is still panting, but it should be noticed that her breaths are getting more regular. seungwan is a little baffled, angry, too, because she wants a reason for the sudden silence and disappearance. she tries to form a coherent sentence to start an argument but joohyun's fringe hangs distractingly over her face and her breathing is deafening. seungwan steps closer, hears joohyun's breath hitches yet joohyun thinks she's beginning to be able to breathe again. seungwan tucks the fringe behind her ear, gazes longingly at the person who never ceases to start a fire in her heart.

"it- it's ok, i can do it myself" joohyun tries to take her fringe but seungwan has already finished tucking behind it behind her ear.

"i'll do it. there, done."

she feels seungwan's breath flit teasingly on her lips. she's dizzy and conscious all at once — she does not know if she will faint before making any move. but seungwan is always a step faster and tilts to kiss joohyun, and joohyun only registers this a good 10 seconds later, before responding to the kiss like she's been resurrected, like her heart has start beating all over again with a kind of renewed vigour, like she can finally breathe.

seungwan pushes the sentence conjured for the supposed argument to the back of her head, wraps her arms around joohyun and pulls her closer. fear, like the devil waiting at the sidelines to at any moment ensnare those who are weak-willed, lingers threateningly in some of seungwan's nerves, most of joohyun's fibres but the sun is shining a similar glow upon them as they embrace, and they are reminded of a warmth no sun, no other person can provide.

fear has to wait for another day to pounce on a man's weakness that society has so artifically imposed on him.

---

a/n: i left this story open (in this sense, not entirely fluff, happily-ever-after thing) because this topic is not easily reconcilable, especially in korea (since the directors also gave me a ty ambiguous ending for the couple in SGHI).

nonetheless, i'm back (for a moment only). hope you enjoyed it :)