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Yebin stirs in her sleep as the blaring sunlight shined through her face.
She slowly opens her eyes, scanning her surroundings. She looks up the ceiling and sighs.
Bed covers are tossed away as her feet shuffle on the ground in search of her slippers.
Yebin rubs her eyes as she stands up, heading towards the bathroom. She stares at her own reflection in the mirror. The one staring back at her isn’t human, she thinks. That person doesn’t look happy.
She forces out another sigh. She has made up her mind. She’s going to do this.
Later that day, she rummages through the drawers in search of one thing. A calendar.
She gets herself a red marker and starts circling the date.
13th May 2014
Yebin then flips to the next page, and circles her choice of date.
14th June 2014
That’s one month. She gives herself a month.
A month before it all ends.
Day 1
“Hey, wake up,”
“No.”
“Wake up! This is important!”
Yebin frowns and forces her eyes open, “I’m up, I’m up… what is it?”
Eunwoo gives her a sheepish grin in return, “I have something, or better yet, someone to show you,”
Upon hearing that, Yebin realizes that next to her friend, is a person she has never seen before.
Wow, she’s tall.
And pretty.
“Oh, cool.”
The tall, pretty girl she described as earlier smiles a bit and it truly surprises her. She has never seen such a beautiful smile either. Everything feels new to her.
Or is it because she just woke up from her nap?
Yebin learned two new things that day.
The first thing was that taking a nap at the library was the best decision she’s ever made ever since she got into the school, and the second thing was the new girl’s name,
Kim Minkyung.
Day 4
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
“I only talk when I need to,”
“Well then, I need you to talk to me right now,”
“Why?”
Minkyung huffs and proceeded to fold her arms, “because I’m bored as hell,”
Yebin scoffs, “start doing something then,” she says as she takes out her pencil case from her bag, “like copying someone’s homework.”
Minkyung arches her eyebrows, “homework?”
“Yeah,” Yebin nods, “specifically Physics,”
Minkyung snaps, “we have Physics homework?!”
Huge laughter is heard from the shorter girl, “yes, silly. It’s due this evening.”
“Shit.”
“Hey, relax,” Yebin searches for something else inside her bag as Minkyung stares at her, “I have something that could save us from trouble and by trouble I really mean getting kicked out of the class,”
“Well what is it?”
“Yewon’s book,” says Yebin with a playful smirk.
Minkyung laughs as she ruffles the other girl’s hair.
Yebin frowns as she feels her hair getting all messed up, but deep inside she wonders when was the last time she had a good laugh like this, with a person she just met 3 days ago.
This is in fact their first interaction besides the occasional greetings they always did every other day. How did this happen?
“Hey, aren’t you gonna copy her work?” MInkyung says, cutting her off from her thoughts.
“Huh?” she slips as she saw Minkyung placing her book on the desk with a blue pen already in her hand, “oh, right,”
Minkyung sighs, “even though we haven’t really talked much, I always knew you were the type to space out every 5 seconds,”
“I do not!”
Minkyung chuckles, “sure you don’t.”
Day 7
“Quick! Pick one, polar bears or alpacas?”
“Neither. I hate animals.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Minkyung says with her eyebrows scrunched, “how could you not love alpacas?”
“Well, do you?”
“Of course! They’re the cutest animals,”
“oh my god, how weird can one person be..”
Day 12
Yebin came to school earlier than usual today. She decided to stay in the classroom, listening to music on her headphones to pass time.
Until she feels someone disrupting her precious alone time, by taking her left headphone away from her ear, “what are you listening to?”
She presses pause and takes off her headphones, “what are you doing here?”
Minkyung places her bag on her desk and makes herself comfortable on her seat, “for starters, this is my classroom and here is where I sit so,”
Yebin rolls her eyes, “will you ever stop being a pain in the ass for once? I meant that it’s too early and you never come to school this early,”
“Well, I do now,” she trails off, “what about you, though?”
The shorter girl shrugs, “I couldn’t really sleep last night,”
“Why? You have problem sleeping?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. And it’s been going on for years so it doesn’t really bother me anymore,”
“That’s kind of… worrying.”
Yebin smirks, “you’re worried about me now?”
“N-no, I mean,” Minkyung stutters, “I was just saying..”
Yebin laughs at the sight of a nervous Minkyung, something she has never seen ever since they became friends, “don’t worry about it though, okay?”
Minkyung merely nods, “okay.”
Day 15
They’re both lying on the bed, Yebin’s bed, as the taller girl decided to stop by for no reason.
No reason.
Those words alone seemed sceptical to her when Minkyung said so on the phone right after she woke up from her nap. But she didn’t dare to ask why, or maybe she didn’t even want to ask why. Maybe she liked it either way. She, herself, didn’t know.
“Have you dated a guy before?” Minkyung suddenly asks, killing the silence.
“That’s a sudden question but, no, I haven’t.”
“…. A girl?”
Yebin gulps. She truly did not expect that, “… maybe.. yes.. once.”
Minkyung turns to face the other girl, “why did it end?”
Yebin is too dumbfounded to respond. She’s also trying to recall the girl she dated since it has been a while.
After not getting an answer, Minkyung reconstructs her words, “or it hasn’t ended yet?”
If Yebin didn’t know better, she could almost swear she heard a tone of disappointment from the other girl and it confused her to no end.
“It has. And, I don’t know. I guess we rushed it.”
“Oh..”
“How about you?”
“What about me?”
“Have you dated someone before?”
“I have and it didn’t end well.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
Minkyung chuckles, “you don’t have to,” she lets out a sigh, “in fact, it was kind of stupid. I haven’t even had my first kiss yet.”
Yebin is shocked for words, “you’re kidding, right?”
“I’m not, trust me,”
Yebin still finds that hard to believe. Minkyung is attractive in every way yet she still hasn’t had her first kiss? That sounds ridiculous to say the least.
Unknown to her, Minkyung is fiddling with her fingers, contemplating on something. Her breaths haven’t been consistent since she voiced out the words earlier. Something is driving her. She is aching.
“Can you help me with it?”
“Hm?”
“Can you help me with my first kiss?”
“W-what?”
“Gosh, you’re so slow.”
Minkyung sits up and moves so she could hover herself above the other girl, leaving her no chance to say anything. Their faces are just inches apart, with their bodies pushed against one another, deeper by the second.
Yebin feels like she can’t breathe, she can’t believe this is happening. But they were just talking nonsense an hour ago? And now she has a girl on top of her? It’s gotten to a point where she can’t even think straight.
This whole situation isn’t even ‘straight’ either.
Her thoughts are interrupted as soft lips are pressed against hers and she has no choice but to close her eyes.
This isn’t so bad.
For the first time since two weeks ago, Yebin can smell her scent. It isn’t that hard to know what Minkyung smells like. It smells nice, she feels like she could drown in this, she would.
“You smell like my mom,” Yebin mumbles subconsciously.
She also realizes that she should have never said that.
But that’s okay, because Minkyung is smiling that lovely smile now, despite breaking the kiss.
“Guess that means I should use some other perfume?”
“Why is that?”
“Because I don’t want you to think of your mom while we’re kissing,” Minkyung giggles.
Yebin ponders, “does that mean we’ll be kissing more?”
Minkyung says nothing afterwards, but she looks down, reaching for the other girl’s hand, “only if you want to,” she rubs her thumb against the back of Yebin’s palm.
Yebin hates to admit it, but it really does feel like there are butterflies floating around her stomach and she doesn’t despise it one bit. She then gently places her hand on Minkyung’s cheeks, noticing how her skin is so soft and her eyes are dark brown. Some makeup was applied as well. She wonders how in the world has she never realized this sooner. Maybe this was all for her.
Maybe, just maybe,
“I do.”
Day 18
“Unnie,”
“Hm?” murmurs the older one as she kisses along the younger’s prominent jaw.
“Why didn’t you tell me that you’re actually older than me?”
“Does it matter?” Minkyung stops to look at the younger girl.
“Well, yeah. I kinda take that very seriously,”
“But we’re just a year apart,” she slides her hand on Yebin’s arm in search for hers, “so I didn’t think it would matter. I’m sorry,” she kisses her.
Yebin smiles into the kiss, “it’s okay, I’m not mad at you or anything,”
“Good. On second thought, I do like hearing you call me ‘unnie’,” says Minkyung as she brings her lips near the younger girl’s ear.
Yebin shivers at the sudden contact, “do you?”
“Yes. Now shut up and kiss me.”
Day 21
“Have I ever mentioned how your hands are fucking huge?” Yebin mentions as she places her hands on top of Minkyung’s.
“Language, young lady,” says Minkyung sternly.
Yebin gives out a defeated sigh, “sorry, Mother.”
“Incest stuff aside, your hands are pretty small,” Minkyung kisses the back of the younger girl’s hand, “they’re cute, just like you.”
Yebin laughs, “you’re too cheesy it’s disgusting,”
Minkyung puts out her tongue in a mocking way, “sucks for you because you’re dating me,”
“I am?” Yebin honestly asks.
“Yes, stop being an asshole and keep up with me,” Minkyung tugs her hand, leading her to the cafeteria since it’s lunch time and her stomach has been grumbling since ten minutes ago, geez.
Since they’re rushing, Minkyung’s hand would slip down to the other’s wrist. At first it all feels normal to her but after a few moments, she senses something unusual. Marks. There are marks.
Minkyung stops and glances down to take a closer look of her wrist. Yebin is now aware and she worries, this is the last thing she wants.
“What are these marks? They look like-“
“It’s nothing,” Yebin quickly cuts her off.
“Yebin-ah,”
The said girl then kisses the taller’s cheeks, her lips staying where it is a little longer than they should, with their hands intertwined.
“I’m fine, we should go.”
Minkyung obliges and never brings it up again.
Day 23
Minkyung pokes Yebin’s arm, who’s seen busy scrolling through something on her phone, “Hey,” she says.
“What is it, babe?” the girl replies.
A blush crept on Minkyung’s face. She’s always liked the way Yebin would call her ‘babe’ once in a while. Makes her heart flutter, makes her head go haywire.
“Pick one: A, B or C”
Yebin chuckles, “how am I supposed to pick one if I don’t even know what they mean?”
“They’re just places I have in mind and I’m not telling you what they represent,” Minkyung explains.
“Hmm..” Yebin contemplates, “fine, I choose B.”
Minkyung smiles, “amusement park! That’s cute,” she nods, feeling satisfied.
“Unnie,” Yebin scoots herself nearer to the older girl, “I’m okay with any place, really. I mean, we could go to the nearest park and do nothing and I’d still like it,”
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the past week, though?” Minkyung questions.
“You don’t like it?” disappointment can be heard from the tone of Yebin’s voice.
“No, no! I love it! It’s just, I want us to do something different once in a while,”
“Alright then, let’s get going,” Yebin says as she stands up on her two feet, grabbing a denim jacket she wore to class two days ago, “I hope it won’t be crowded.”
Minkyung seems confused, “wait, we’re going there now?”
“Of course!” Yebin exclaims, excitement evident on her face and reaches out her hand for her girlfriend to hold.
Minkyung sighs contentedly, locking their hands together.
Day 25
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Minkyung asks, frustrated.
It’s a Sunday afternoon. They were just about to go out to the nearest coffee shop since the older girl was craving for a cup (or rather two) of Americano and justified it was because finals are coming up in two weeks. Although that didn’t really make any sense to Yebin, she complied anyway.
Minkyung had already locked the door, until the owner of the hand she was holding realized that she left the house without her wallet. And so Minkyung offered to go get it herself, took off her shoes and opened the door, shuffling towards Yebin’s room, looking for the said wallet in the drawers until her hand accidentally grasped something she shouldn’t have, in Yebin’s opinion.
And she strongly stands by her opinion.
“Because of this! Because I’m afraid you’d act this way!” Yebin yells, annoyance clear in her voice.
Minkyung groans, “for how long have you been consuming these?” she asks urgently, shaking the pill bottle right to the other girl’s face.
Yebin snatches the bottle with a single move, which caught Minkyung off guard, “I’ve told you that I have trouble sleeping when we first talked to each other.”
“What about the razor blades, then?”
“That’s it, that’s enough.”
“Is that why your wrist is-“
“I said enough!”
Minkyung stops. She’s speechless. Yebin has never screamed at her face before. Her whole body turns stiff. She can’t feel anything. Everything is malfunctioning.
Yebin regrets it.
“Fine, I get it.”
And so she leaves and the door is slammed shut.
Yebin can hear her heart breaking.
Day 26
“Did something happen and I wasn’t there?” Eunwoo breaks the silence.
She’s having lunch with Siyeon and Jieqiong, along with Yebin and Minkyung seated at the opposite ends of the table.
Jieqiong looks up from her plate, crumbs of bread evident on the lower part of her chin, “Why? Are you sensing something?”
Eunwoo nods, “yeah.. something seems off today..”
Siyeon snaps, “these two never faced each other the moment we sat down and ate on this damn table,” she points her fork at Yebin to her right then at Minkyung to the left, “and trust me, they’re never like this.”
“Did you guys have a fight?” Jieqiong is the first to burst the bubble on the topic.
Yebin merely shrugs.
Minkyung is silent.
“Well, you clearly did,” Eunwoo concludes.
“Is this because of the boy Minkyung unnie talked to during History?”
Yebin has never jerked her head up so fast at hearing a mention of a “boy” before. Heck, she seems surprised herself.
Jieqiong smirks playfully, “oooh, which boy are we talking about here?”
“Are we talking about that Hyunjin guy? The one with the perfect nose?” Eunwoo interrupts.
Siyeon looks at her weirdly, “since when do you care about other people’s nose?”
“To be honest, since I first saw him,” Eunwoo confesses. She proceeds to make odd noises later due to embarrassment and the others can’t help but laugh.
Well, except for Yebin.
“We were just discussing about the project Mr. Kim talked about. He was the only one without a groupmate so I asked him to join my group,” Minkyung finally speaks.
“So he wasn’t hitting on you or anything?” Siyeon asks.
“No..” Minkyung confirms.
“Or else Yebin here would’ve punched his face,” Jieqiong says out of the blue.
The said girl choked on her food, massive coughing erupts.
“Minkyung unnie, you should’ve seen the way Yebin looked at you when I first brought you to the library,” Eunwoo snickers.
“Major heart eyes!” Jieqiong follows.
“Totally,” Siyeon adds.
“Stop it you guys!!” Yebin yells, despite her mouth being filled with food.
And then she’s coughing again.
And again,
And again,
She’s almost having trouble breathing at this rate, trying hard to catch some sweet oxygen, until soft, long and assuring pats are felt on her back.
Yebin turns. She never noticed Minkyung moving to sit beside her, but here she is now.
Her face is currently flushed, she is fully aware of this and refuses to face the older girl.
Minkyung never fails to catch that glimpse of redness on the younger’s cheeks. She smiles by herself, still brushing her hand over Yebin’s back despite knowing her breathing has gone normal since two minutes ago.
The three musketeers watch the whole thing in amusement and laugh in unison.
Yebin and Minkyung followed suit. All of them are having a laughing fit now, and this is the moment where Yebin realizes that she has the best of friends.
Day 27
It’s been one day since they somewhat reconciled, but it feels like there has been no progress whatsoever. And it’s driving Yebin mad.
The most they’ve done is “accidentally” touching each other’s fingers.
Yebin scoffed in her mind (if that’s even possible in the first place) how the hell did they go from making out on the couch to touching each other’s fingers?
“You’re doing it again.”
Upon hearing the familiar voice, Yebin returns to reality, “huh?” she says, confused.
“You’re staring at me again,” Minkyung utters matter-of-factly.
“Oh,” Yebin’s face starts showing hints of red, “sorry,” she looks down to her opened and rather untouched book.
Minkyung smiles, “are you even actually reading that book?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it about, then?”
“Oh, it’s about a boy and a girl-“
Minkyung immediately fakes a yawn, “sounds boring to me already,” she says, in the midst of smiling.
Yebin chuckles, “trust me, it’s not.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Well, for starters, the story is-“
Yebin stops abruptly,
because Minkyung has her fingers pressed against the younger’s lips.
“W-what are you doing?”
“Is this a new lipstick?” Minkyung is curious, her eyes are fixated exactly where they need to be. On Yebin’s red, plump lips.
“N-no, they’re the.. the usual,” Yebin stutters.
“I see..” Minkyung mumbles. She doesn’t miss the flicker of Yebin’s eyes down to her lips at a split second. That’s when she mentally congratulates herself. That’s when she knows she succeeded.
Yebin still hasn’t said anything, though.
Minkyung grows impatient.
“I know you want me to kiss you,” Minkyung moves closer, her eyes never leaving Yebin’s, “but I won’t do that until you kiss me first,” she decides.
Yebin is puzzled, “what? Why?”
“Because you’ve never kissed me first.”
Yebin swears she heard a dejected tone in Minkyung’s voice when the latter says that, and it makes her hate herself for that very reason.
Why am I such an idiot?
Yebin frowns, “how did you.. ?”
“Don’t think I didn’t know. I always knew. And I’ve been waiting for you to do it first ever since we started going out,”
Yebin clenches her fist, she is utterly mad at herself.
“And I’ve waited, but there was nothing. So it made me think that maybe you just don’t feel the same way I-“
Yebin leans in and closes the gap between them.
Minkyung is too shocked for words, but the moment she felt those familiar lips on hers, she knew she has found her home again, and so she reciprocates with just as much passion.
They keep kissing and kissing, this time with Yebin leading the way.
Day 30
After much consideration and much, much more kissing, the two have decided to live together. Minkyung offers to move into Yebin’s house and the latter thinks it’s a fantastic idea because the older girl likes to clean and she doesn’t, so it’s a win-win situation here, really. No other justifications needed.
They’re cleaning the house now, and yes, Yebin is included because she’s whipped that way. Minkyung has the role of mopping the floor while Yebin thinks picking unwanted stuff up and throwing them away is a good alternative for a workout.
“Us being in bed is a workout too,” Minkyung teased.
“Unnie!” Yebin complains.
Minkyung laughs and Yebin shakes her head in disbelief. She walks into her own room to see if she could clear off some stuff she doesn’t need anymore. She searches for something under her bed is surprised to have found something.
It’s the calendar.
The calendar has been collecting dust under her bed for almost all month. She wondered how it got there and how was it forgotten? However, she never forgets the date 12th June, circled with a red marker. She also notices that it’s today.
12th June is today.
“Huh,” she expressed to no one in particular.
Today would’ve been the day for her to finally end it all, end her life.
She created the countdown originally to stop her sufferings. She was miserable, to say the least.
I was just not happy.
But then a girl, this amazing girl named Kim Minkyung came along and she changed her life, for the better.
Sure, some fucked up shit happened but we’re all good now.
She looks out to the living room, where Minkyung is still preoccupied with mopping the floor, beads of sweat rolling down her face. Yet Yebin has never seen someone so beautiful.
She smiles to herself. She then collects the calendar along with the box it came from. The box also contains some razor blades (that she now despises so much, because it caused a crack in something she’s built up with Minkyung for some time) and the bottle of sleeping pills (that she doesn’t need anymore because she no longer has any problem falling asleep, not with Minkyung wrapped around her body every night).
Yebin stands up with the box in her hand and starts searching for a plastic bag that she could use to dump this together with.
She doesn’t need them anymore.
Because she has Minkyung with her now.
Because she has found Minkyung.
And she has found her reason to live.