Chanmi and Hyejeong are best friends.  Rated M for angst, dark themes.  This is the longest I've written yet, and the most emotional, for me.  Happy Valentine's Day.  I will probably come up with something fluffier for you to enjoy for tomorrow, y'all.

~

It's in fourth grade that Chanmi first falls in love, though she doesn't know it yet.

The girl's name is Shin Hyejeong.  She's pretty, to Chanmi anyway; she's got the biggest, darkest brown eyes Chanmi has ever seen and she's got a cute bob of shiny hair, held back with a lovely red ribbon on one side.  "Hello!" she announces on their first day in class together, and waves and smiles a gap-toothed smile full of braces, perfectly confident.  "I'm new here.  I hope we can get along well."  Chanmi's not paying too much attention to what the girl is saying; she's too busy staring at her, feeling her heartbeat flutter uncertainly in her chest.

At lunch and recess she watches from a distance, wanting to make that first step towards friendship, unsure of how she should do it, afraid that she'll make a mistake and look like an idiot in front of this girl who so captivates her.  She stands by the swing set, one hand wrapped around the cold metal like it's a lifeline, and watches Hyejeong, shyly, from between the bushes, laughing and playing with the other children.  It takes until Hyejeong drops a ball near her feet.  It rolls to a stop by her sneaker, big and round and red, and when Chanmi looks up Hyejeong's there - right there, her brown eyes wide and her smile big and friendly.  Chanmi's heart skips a beat.

"Hi!" says Hyejeong, and it's only then that Chanmi realizes the other girl's hand is shaking, too.  Maybe she's nervous?  No, Chanmi thinks, not this bright bubbly girl with her bold red hair tie.  She's not nervous.  She's never nervous.  "Are you taking gym class with me?"  She extends her hand, and Chanmi wonders if she's supposed to shake it, or something.

Instead, she grabs the other girl's hand, squeezing it tight, looking away before she can see Hyejeong's look of surprise.  "My name's Chanmi," she says, still with her head down.  "Nice t'meet you.  Maybe we can...we can be..."  It's nicely mechanical, just the way she's been taught, until she breaks down.  She didn't know anything else to say, and now she doesn't know again.

She realizes that she's still holding Hyejeong's hand, and the other girl hasn't let go yet.  She looks up and sees that Hyejeong's smiling at her, maybe a little shocked still, or maybe amused, but smiling nonetheless.  "Friends!" she says, and gives her hand a squeeze.   "Let's be friends.  Right?"  She lets go of Chanmi's hand, reaches down to pick up the ball.  "D'you wanna come play with us?  We need a catcher, since Choa left."

"Okay," says Chanmi, and smiles shyly.  And that's the start of a friendship that lasts well into their high school years.

x

In junior high, Hyejeong stops wearing the red ribbon; she's switched to an orchid now, a purple orchid.  Chanmi's pretty sure it's a silk fake, since it never wilts, but she loves it anyway.  It goes beautifully with Hyejeong's long dark hair, which has never stopped being as shiny as the day Chanmi first saw it, though it now flows over her shoulders, to her chest.

Chanmi gets over her shyness.  She becomes loud, boyish despite her girlish looks, and becomes accepted into the boys' crowd, though she still always preferentially sticks with Hyejeong.  Sometimes people, mean people, joke that Chanmi is like Hyejeong's boyfriend, since Chanmi is like a boy.  Chanmi protests that she's not gay.

Meanwhile, she dotes on Hyejeong.  She makes lunches for her to take (albeit not very well, since she can't cook); cards for every holiday, Christmas and Chuseok and birthdays, painstakingly painted onto special paper her mother got her; brushes Hyejeong's hair after gym (which they have taken together since grade school), hugs her when she cries, listens to her secrets when she's alone.  They laugh together, cry together, and share a special bond that no one else in the school seems to share.

One day in gym class, Chanmi notices something.  Hyejeong's body is pretty.  Not just pretty, beautiful.  Chanmi finds herself wanting to touch those white curves, to run her hands along Hyejeong's hips, to know what those legs would feel like draped across hers, touching her own skin -

"Chanmi?"  One of the other girls is staring at her, half-; Chanmi turns her face away quickly, blushing, because it's rude to stare.  "Chanmi, are you okay?  You've been staring at the corner for half a minute now."

There's a snicker.  "Not surprising...considering that's where her girlfriend is.  Or was."

"Oh?"  A nasty tone of teasing has entered the first girl's voice now; hurriedly, Chanmi turns away and busies herself getting dressed.  "Is that really it, Chanmi?  Were you checking out Hyejeongie's  while she was changing?  Was it cute?  Did you like it?"

By the time she gets home, Change is tired, empty, worn.  Not just physically, because she was called out for being distracted three times in gym, and had to run extra laps around the schoolyard.  Because of Hyejeong.  Because of what those girls were saying.  It keeps swirling around in her mind.

Is she gay?  She sweats over the question at night, tries to convince herself it's not really important, refrains from talking to her parents about it and instead devours website after website full of information about it.  None of it really tells her what she wants to know.  Am I gay?  Can I still be a good person if I'm gay?  Everyone says it's so weird, so bad if you're gay.  Am I gay?

Am I a bad person?

Eventually, she stops thinking about it and, instead, thinks about Hyejeong.  She puts more effort than ever into her lunches, improving her cooking skills rather dramatically.  She buys new hair ties for Hyejeong, one orchid in every color, and finds new ways to braid Hyejeong's long hair.  She tries harder than ever to get good grades in class and in gym, because otherwise she'll be put in detention or extra tutoring, and then she won't get to see Hyejeong as much.  Not that she's stupid, or that she's a delinquent.  She's just distracted.

She finds herself asking more and more subtly whether Hyejeong likes guys or not - "not guys in general, just, you know, anyone in particular...?"  When she gets her reply it's almost always preceded by Hyejeong's pretty laugh at which point her heart skips a beat.  She can't help it; she's head over heels for her.

The only question is, head over heels in...what?  Idolization (she certainly hopes not)?  Sisterly affection?  Deep friendship?

Or...

Is it love?

x

On her fifteenth birthday she still hasn't stopped thinking about it, though it does niggle at her mind less, nor has she answered her own question.  Either of them, that is.  Any of them.  Hyejeong, meanwhile, still hasn't changed and that's just fine with her.  She's still she same beautiful, laughing, brown-eyed girl Chanmi has known since fourth grade - well, not brown-eyed; there's something magical about their color that isn't really defined in just "brown" - though she has gotten a little older, a little sweeter, a little sadder sometimes, Chanmi thinks.  Sometimes there's long pauses in their conversations where Hyejeong looks like she's about to say something, but doesn't.  Chanmi worries about her, but doesn't press her.  She respects her best friend.

One day they're sitting together on a cold bench outside of school, squirming in the winter chill.  Chanmi's birthday is half a year past now, and since then she hasn't wondered about her uality.  She's been too busy with juniors' college admission tests, with aptitude performance examinations and school projects.  Hyejeong is cupping her hands over Chanmi's for warmth, breaking off little pieces of the banana bread they're sharing.  Hyejeong's silent for a moment.  Then, she says: "Chanmi, do you like any boys?"

"Huh?"  Chanmi's jarred back into wakefulness; she's been busy thinking about her latest test, a physics exam, and wondering whether she'll get good grades on it or not.  "Well..."  To be honest, she's found she doesn't really like any of the guys, at their school, at least.  They're all smelly or loud or crude or uncaring, not because they mean to be but because they just are.  She takes another piece of banana bread absently.  "Do you?"

"I don't know..."  Hyejeong shifts and looks away, and Chanmi can tell she's becoming silent again.  This time, she doesn't want her to be.  She puts a hand on Hyejeong's arm and turns her back around.  "What is it?" asks Chanmi gently, as gently as she dares.  "You don't?  Is it because you don't think any guys like you?  Are you just not that dateable?"  She grins, trying to make the moment lighthearted.  She knows a lot of guys like Hyejeongie.  She sees their candies, piled around her locker every day of the year, though most prominently on Valentine's.

Instead, Hyejeong just frowns at her.  "I don't know what you're talking about," she says, and before Chanmi can say anything, do anything to stop her, she's risen and taken the bread with her - it's her bread in any case, since Chanmi made it just for her - and tosses it, the uneaten, in a waste bin, which somehow hurts her heart even more, even though she knows there's no point in saving it much longer anyway.  "Let's go.  We're late for class."

Chanmi drops it then; they can't talk in class, not even for something this serious.  But outside, she catches Hyejeong again, right as she's about to leave.  "Jeongie...what is it?  You can tell me, you know."

This time, Hyejeong's will breaks, and she sighs.  "It's...someone I like."  She hangs her head.  "Someone who probably won't return my feelings."

Chanmi's heart quickens.  Though she likes to think she doesn't know why, she's sure she does.  "Who is it?"

Hyejeong shakes her head, swinging her backpack over her shoulders.  "Just...a guy."  She smiles at Chanmi.  "Let's go."

Chanmi does go, but with those two words she feels like her world has come crashing down around her.  A guy.  So it's definitely not Chanmi.

That's when she knows she's in love with her best friend.

x

A few weeks later, Chanmi isn't even trying to deny it anymore, not to herself.  She's gay, at least for her best friend.  Maybe she's Hyejeongual and she'll never love anyone else, boy or girl.  Romantically?  As a friend?  Both?  Neither?  It doesn't matter.  She's given up trying to box herself in with words, trying to define herself.  She just is, and she loves Hyejeong.  That's all.

She's not going to tell her parents about any of this.  She's already made up her mind on that.  She knows, from the few times she's stupidly brought it up to them, that they'll just brush her off again.  "You haven't found the right guy yet."  "Stop being so childish, Chanmi.  Stop focusing on your uality and then maybe you'll do better on your homework."  "You're idolizing a girl, Chanmi, what's so great about her?  There's nothing special about that girl.  She's just Shin Hyejeong.  Now go find a guy."  If only they knew.

So that's how she finds herself, the morning of February 13th, breathing into her palms outside of the florist's shop, waiting for the other customer to come out and trying to keep warm.  She's been thinking about this, and it doesn't seem fair to keep Hyejeong in the dark, especially when she's probably going to get snapped up by some boy soon.  She's got to confess.

The other customer comes out, brushing past her with a large bundle of flowers in their arms, and Chanmi breathes a sigh of relief, not looking at their face as she goes in.  She's somehow - irrationally - afraid that they'd be able to tell what she's about to do, just seeing her face, and that their reaction would be negative, and that one stranger's judgment would impact her for the rest of her life.  Hence why she waited until the shop was empty.  She can't bear to tell anyone else that she's gay.

She walks up to the counter and her heart rate goes up by at least double.  She places her money carefully on the counter, trying to keep her face downcast, as hidden as possible.  "Hello.  Do you...do you have anything that's good for a girl?"  Her voice gives away her gender, but that doesn't matter.  She trusts the florist.

"Yes."  Surprise registers in the florist's voice, just as she had expected.  "Who is it for...?"

"A..."  She sighs.  "A family friend.  A guy...he's trying to impress a girl, but doesn't have the guts to confess.  So I'm helping him out."  The lie rolls easily off her tongue, coming out of nowhere.  She's at once guilty, but she continues, anyway.  "I was thinking something not cliche...not roses.  Something better."  Hyejeong would like something simple yet elegant, Chanmi thinks.  Something symbolic of their friendship.

"Seems to be quite the day for you lovebirds, huh?"  Chanmi jumps guiltily, thinking the florist already knows her real intentions, but the florist laughs.  "There was another girl just in here, buying orchids for she wouldn't say who...what did you say you wanted, again?"

Orchids.  Chanmi realizes that they're perfect - just like the orchids that are always in Hyejeong's hair.  Simple, elegant, completely unique to their friendship.  Her heart jumps, just thinking about it.  "Yes, please...how much?"

"Ten thousand won, plus tax."  The florist grins and hands her a simple earthenware pot with purple orchids in it.  Chanmi takes it carefully like it's made of eggshells and glass.  "It's got a note too.  Specifically aimed at girls."  The florist winks.  "Tell your friend good luck...I'm sure it'll go well.  Even if he's shy, he's got to be a keeper if he's got as pretty a girl as you helping him, eh?"

And to the florist's utter surprise, Chanmi takes his hand and gives it a firm, solid squeeze.  "Thank you for that," she says solemnly.  "It gives me courage."  And she dashes out the door in a twinkling of bells before the florist can call her back, ask her what she means.

x

The thirteenth isn't Valentine's, but it's close enough.  Chanmi skulks around the school a bit, brooding, wishing school was in tomorrow too so she could give the flowers to Hyejeong then.  She's opened the card, taken one look at it, and thrown it away without a second thought.  It's a pile of sugary trash, filled with overly cheesy phrases.  Hyejeong wouldn't want that.  She'd be much happier just having Chanmi...if she wants Chanmi, she thinks.

Finally Chanmi's able to get ahold of Hyejeong, right outside their gym building, after the other girls have already gotten to their next classes.  It's free period for both of them, so Chanmi has plenty of time to talk it over with Hyejeong.

Still, she's scared.  She runs out to get the orchids, then comes back, to find Hyejeong sitting on a bench at the side of the pool, swinging her legs and humming.  She's beautiful like this, thinks Chanmi, watching her from around the corner, the orchids behind her back.  She's beautiful always.

The clock ticks by on the wall.  Still Chanmi doesn't make her move.  She's stricken with doubt and, before long, the butterflies in her stomach have grown into a great roaring storm, her hands shaking so hard on the orchid pot it's a wonder she doesn't drop it.  What if Hyejeong doesn't accept?  What if she doesn't like girls?  What is Chanmi thinking, anyway?

Finally the clock strikes next period and the rest of the girls come flooding in, getting their bags for gym.  Chanmi shrinks away and hides guiltily around the corner, and Hyejeong gets up, smiling happily, her humming louder now.

"What is it, Jeongie?" says one of the girls, and another turns to her, with wide eyes, and says, "You don't think it's...?"

Chanmi knows exactly what they're thinking.  She knows and it excites her, a little thrill of pride in her stomach, though she knows it would be hard on her, on both her and Jeongie, if it came true.

Hyejeong beams at them all and takes a deep breath, and announces: "Someone asked me out."

At once all the girls are curious.  Chanmi included.  Someone asks the obvious: "Who is it?"

"Dongwook."  At once Hyejeong smiles; seeing that smile, Chanmi's heart breaks.  It hurts.  It hurts.  "Im Dongwook."  Her fingers tighten, unconsciously, on the flowerpot.  "Remember him?  From class 2-C?  He's...very nice."  Hyejeong smiles shyly and her eyes sparkle, and Chanmi puts a hand over to keep her whimpers from escaping.  She bites the skin; her knuckles turn bloody.  She doesn't feel any pain.

"Ooh, Hyejeong's got a boyfriend..."

It's over.  It's all over.

Hyejeong blushes, laughs.  "Wellll, maybe not just yet...let's see how the first date goes."  Still, her smile is brilliantly, deliriously happy and she accepts all of the girls' congratulations.  Chanmi should be up there with them, congratulating her, too.  She is Hyejeong's best friend, after all.

Nothing more.

x

Later, she pushes past the other students, ignoring their shouts of surprise, and barges into the girls' bathroom, finding the first empty stall available, slamming the door shut behind her, sinking to the cold tile floor.  The orchids are still clutched in her hands, along with her hastily packed gym clothes.  Somehow, the flowers are unbroken, uncrushed.

She knows she should have expected this.  Sooner or later Hyejeong was going to be asked out.  It was going to happen.  Hyejeong is nice, pretty, sweet, funny, caring...  Not like her.  Not like Chanmi.

On the other hand, she didn't know what she was thinking, what she wanted to get from Hyejeong, if she had confessed, anyway.  Condolences?  It was a sure thing Hyejeong wouldn't have accepted...not after seeing how she'd reacted to some boy, anyway.

Chanmi sighs, raises her head and lets it fall back against the cold divider of the stall, taking deep breaths.  If she'd confessed, it probably would have ruined their relationship, right?  It certainly would have ruined any remaining dignity she had in the eyes of the other girls.

Slowly, she gets up, washing her bloody knuckles in the bathroom sink.  She ignores the looks of the other girls, whom she knows to be watching her pot of orchids, her reddened, puffy, tear-stained face, her ruined hands, knows that they're already forming little theories in the back of their heads, thinking about this boy and that, wondering which of them Chanmi could have been stupid enough to confess to and be rejected by.  She knows they know she had been the one crying her heart out, loudly, in one of those stalls.

She just doesn't care.

Outside, Hyejeong's waiting for her, wide-eyed, probably having been informed by one of her other classmates about Chanmi's state of distress.  "Chanmi, what - " she begins, and Chanmi shoves right past her, shouldering her bag, without another word. She doesn't want to see Hyejeong any more.  That's done.

x

Days, months, years pass.  They're still friends, and Chanmi still hasn't apologized to Hyejeong for what she did, that day.  Nor does she give any explanation.  She's too busy listening to Hyejeong's happy chatter about her boyfriends, one after another - she does seem to go through them fast, Chanmi notices dimly.  She watches and she listens, and she tries to tally up all the ways Hyejeong's boyfriends are better than her: better looking, better at singing, better at school.  Anything to convince herself that it's her fault for not being better to Hyejeong.

Something's changed about their relationship, for all that they're still polite to each other.  One day, Chanmi just stopped taking lunches to Hyejeong.  Hyejeong's stopped wearing the hair ties Chanmi gives her, and Chanmi's stopped buying new ones.  Sometimes Chanmi thinks Hyejeong notices this change, and doesn't like it, because she looks off and pauses, like she's about to say something,  the way she always has.  Then she looks back and a determined look comes over her face, and she changes the subject, turns it back to boys or whatever they were talking about.  Just like that, the moment's gone.

They've stopped sharing secrets, too.  There's no more banana bread, no more nights spent with Hyejeong crying on Chanmi's shoulder, spilling out her heart to her.  They sit a respectful distance apart, at class or anywhere else, and they hug strictly on goodbyes.

At home the orchids stay on Chanmi's dresser, not without love and attention themselves.  Though at first Chanmi wanted them to just wither and die on their own, she couldn't bring herself to throw them away.  Not when they cost ten thousand won - a whole day's lunch money.  Then, they took on an importance of their own, as a reminder of Chanmi's childhood, of the youthful innocence, the love she once had, that she might still have.  She waters them and tends them daily, and never forgets to admire the blooms, full and purple in the sunlight, every day in the morning.

She can try to hide who she is, who she loves.  But she can never take it out of her.

x

One autumn day there's a phone call at the Im household.  The wife answers first, and her expression is at first confusion, then shock, then...something more delicate, as she holds the phone away from her ear and frowns, and tries not to hear what she thinks she's hearing.  Her friend, Chanmi, is dead.

She shouldn't have been surprised.  Her own children are long grown, and though Chanmi never married, she'd expect her to be a grandmother by now.  Her husband moves to embrace her and they grieve together, silently, at least consoled by the fact that their friend went, peacefully, in her sleep.

After, the wife goes up to her room, alone, and shuts the door.  There's a pot of white orchids on the dresser and she goes to it, takes a single bloom, hesitantly, and cups it in her hand, careful not to pluck the flower.  She remembers a day not so different from this one, six decades ago, when she bought flowers like these, in the very same pot, at a tiny florist's shop, not far from her school.  She stares at the orchids, then lets go of the blossom and backs away, sitting on her bed.

Maybe if things had been right - if she'd been less of a coward - she would have given those flowers to the girl they were intended for.  Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't have ruined their relationship, their friendship together, but, instead, they would still be together today.

She loved her.  She always has.  She loved her for her attentiveness.  For the look on her face when she was concentrating very hard.  For the quiet way she spoke when she was serious about something.  For the way she smiled, sharing bread just between the two of them, bread she'd made herself, with lots of love and more than a little burned crust.  She loved her for the way she'd always been there for Hyejeong.

She should have said something, when they were both young.

But she didn't.

So she stares at the flowers and remembers, and her hand clutches the bed sheet unknowingly; and though tears fall, it doesn't hurt.  None of it hurts.  It's too late for that.

Now is the time for remembering the girl she's loved since they were children, as she was in life, not as she is in death.

On the orchids, a petal falls.

-FIN.-