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They say Kim Jiyeon looked best with blonde hair. But she can’t really tell. She doesn’t remember ever dyeing her hair blonde.
“You looked like a goddess, unnie. Really.” Juyeon tells her one Tuesday night, when they decide to go home early from a New Year’s party. “It’s like you were born to be blonde.”
Jiyeon used to be fond of her memories. It shows in the organized corkboard wall in her room, flickers of moments cemented into frames, like a giant scrapbook, tacked with pictures, scribbled notes and colorful stickers.
Now everything’s a mess of what happened and what didn’t happen. The past three months are snatched from her, October to December of 2016, some kept in the dark, most gone with the dented steel and burning rubber along a slippery road in the middle of winter.
She stares at the clump of pictures with red push pins, faces of her in stunning blonde hair, and threads her fingers through her now brunette locks. “It must’ve been tiring, keeping the blonde.”
“You bragged about it for weeks and grew tired of it shortly after.” Juyeon gulps down the last of her ddeokbeokki soup, “Ah. Also you often complained that your hair was dying because of the bleach.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if I did.”
“Though I think it has something to do with Luda unnie too. I’m not sure.”
“That Lee Luda?”
Juyeon tries to hide it but Jiyeon knows her enough to see through the forced curl on her lips. “The only Lee Luda you knew.”
They say Kim Jiyeon loved Lee Luda very much. But she can’t really tell. She doesn’t remember meeting Luda before this week.
(When Jiyeon wakes up again inside a box of white walls, they remind her the broken things; a part of her brain, a fractured left leg, a scraped shoulder blade, n number of ribs, three (four? Maybe more), some permanent scars, et cetera et cetera.
The only thing Jiyeon pays most attention to, in her post-surgery anesthesia induced grogginess and an intensive memory jog is that she lost a part of her memories three months prior to the car accident, which also explains why everyone looks the same yet so different at the same time.
They say she still needs to go through the memory tests again for assurance but Jiyeon thinks the doctor needs to work more on his poker face.
As if on cue, one of her best friends, Chu Sojung, swings the door to her private room open, her hair now the shortest Jiyeon has seen her in, bites into the straw of her coffee and beams, “Finally a day where you’re awake when I arrive. Look who I brought.” a girl walks briskly past her. “Luda’s here to see you.”
Jiyeon smiles politely, despite the dull ache spreading through her back. “Oh- Sojung-ah, you brought a friend?”
She doesn’t know why everyone stops moving, why Sojung’s expression changes like kaleidoscope swirls or why her brother runs his hands across his messy buzz cut and blurts out an exasperated, “Hold the f- Wait, are you serious?” that his satoori cuts clean through the silence.
“Y-You remember Nam Dawon, right? She’s her best friend. Lee Luda.” Sojung stammers, gesturing to the smaller girl beside her, who hovers a little too close to Jiyeon’s bedside. Petite, small shoulders and smaller mouth. Cute, despite the sad bloodshot eyes and fringes already a week too long. “If you don’t remember, well, Dawon is-”
“The love of Xuan Yi’s life.” Jiyeon interrupts. “The apple of her eye, the huǒ to her guō, the bap to her gim--” and the stranger beside Sojung turns around and chokes a sob.
Then Jiyeon realizes that this Lee Luda was introduced to her not just now by Chu Sojung but by none other than Nam Dawon, Xuan Yi’s girlfriend of two years, somewhere between those three months.
And that Jiyeon has forgotten a thing or two about her.)
A beep rings, a door opens and closes. Juyeon scrambles to the living room but Jiyeon stays still, eyes wandering around the faces under the red push pins for the hundredth time. She doesn’t need to check to know it’s Luda.
Their greetings don’t come in “Hello’s” and “How are you’s”, but in “Juyeon said she suddenly needs to be somewhere else.” , “Sojung unnie has a date to catch,” and occasionally “Xuan Yi unnie needs to study for her exams.” .
Today, it’s a much simpler version.
“Juyeon already left.” Luda mumbles and stands beside her, neither too far nor too close, mimics the way her arms are loosely crossed over her chest and pretends to look at the pictures with the same enthusiasm, thinking Jiyeon wouldn’t notice.
“What happened to my blonde hair?” Jiyeon asks.
“We had a bet.” Luda says, “Whoever scores lower in last semester’s finals has to go back to the natural color of her hair,” she squints and leans closer to the corkboard. “See, here, it’s not clear in some pictures but the color of my hair used to be-”
“Pink.” Maybe if she looks at them long enough, she’ll remember- was what Jiyeon used to believe. “And you won.”
“Yes, I did,” Luda says proudly. “but it was a close call so I dyed mine closer to brown.” Her hair now is in a light shade of cappuccino, sometimes honey and even a shade of mocha, depending on the angles of light that hit her face.
“I think you’d look cute with whatever hair color.” Jiyeon says, and quickly realizes she probably told her the same thing before one too many times because Luda’s face turns blue all of a sudden. “I’m sorry.”
Luda purses her lips to a straight hard line and swallows the lump in her throat. “It’s not your fault.”
Probably, Jiyeon thinks, but she’s still sorry. “I know you’re younger than me but when exactly is your birthday?”
Luda chews on her bottom lip. “March 6, 1997.”
“Only child?”
“No. I have an older sister. Unnie, why are you asking about me all of a sudden?”
“I barely know you.”
“Oh. Oh. Right.” Luda coughs in her fist, pained smile and trembling lips. “Yeah, right. I mean, I’m sorry.”
Jiyeon frowns. “It’s not your fault.”
After a flurry of questions and answers, Jiyeon finds out Lee Luda is a Chemistry Major enrolled in the same university as her. March 6, 1997. 157cm. Blood type A. Pisces. Straight Dean’s Lister since her Freshmen year. Spent her entire life in Seoul. Plays a lot of Overwatch in her free time, a Taeyeon fangirl, prefers computer over console games.
Jiyeon also finds out that they first met back in October through Dawon, became friends in November and started dating in December. Like these three months, Luda faded away with the rest of her memories.
It’s almost seven in the evening when Luda leaves, and she might be fighting a sob down her throat when she turns down the corridor but Jiyeon couldn’t be too sure. She isn’t paying attention anymore.
+
They say Kim Jiyeon might get her lost months back. But she can’t really tell.
It’s been a month and she still can’t remember anything beyond flipping the calendar to October 2016 two weeks late (Xuan Yi nagging in the background because it’s already October 15 and it’s Mei Qi’s birthday) and texting Sojung what she wanted for her birthday.
Think. Remember. Jiyeon wants to remember. For the first time, she grasps the straws on the bottom of the chasm of her memories only to find there are fragments she lost.
Sometimes there’s bits and pieces of warmth, a lingering scent of cinnamon and vanilla when they stand a little too close to each other, a tiny cold breeze in Jiyeon’s back when her lips curl around the syllables of Luda’s name, but they’re not enough.
Somehow Jiyeon knows nothing will ever be.
Lately it’s become a routine of questions and answers. Factual. Mostly dots to mark the places she’s already been to, the trains she missed, GPAs, the car she used to drive, what she ended up getting Sojung for her 21st birthday (which lamely turns out to be a bundle of gift cards).
Jiyeon doesn’t ask Luda how many kisses they’ve shared or if they fell in love at first sight.
(Things like those don’t matter anymore.)
But it’s always in the smallest things, and at this point Jiyeon thinks Luda knows her more than she knows herself.
Like when she separately asks Juyeon and Luda the possible reasons why she drove her brand new Porsche off the road and ran into a post when a bus suddenly swerved against the sharp curb,
Juyeon says, “It’s that lamp post or that passenger bus. Unnie, you’re the kindest person I know. I think you’d choose to save others before yourself.”
While Luda says, “You’ve always been kind and selfless. But you probably got distracted because it’s the first snowfall and the last I’ve heard of you, Tinashe was playing full blast on your speakers.”
Or when she separately asks Sojung, Xuan Yi (who still looks odd with her bright blonde) and Luda why her favorite color’s sky blue,
“Your favorite color’s sky blue?! I thought it’s pink?” Sojung says, between boisterous laughter.
Xuan Yi says, “It’s because it’s calming, isn’t it?”
While Luda says, “Birds? You told me once you always like to see birds in the sky.”
Today, when Sojung and Xuan Yi leave, Luda meets her in balcony of her penthouse; striped turtleneck, cream coat, a strained smile, and greets Jiyeon with, “They said they’re-”
“You don’t need excuses when you come here.” Jiyeon interrupts.
Luda looks away first and sits on one of the chairs, phone at the ready. Jiyeon leans on the railing, watches the steady stream of cars on the highway and counts how many people on the sidewalk can she see are wearing yellow.
The afternoon sun bathes them in shared solitude, whispers the last of the winter winds and hints at spring with stolen glances and hesitant smiles.
“Don’t you have anything to ask me?” Luda asks when the sun starts to set.
“I’ve exhausted every possible question without getting too personal.” Jiyeon bends over the metal, dangles her arms until the tips of her fingers reach the edge of the plantbox. “Ah, wait. I have one.” she turns and leans against the railing. “Do you know what animal you remind me of?”
“Is this a question or a joke?”
“Just ask me “What” and let me live.”
Luda frowns. “Okay, then, what?”
Jiyeon beams and says, a little too sudden against the wind, “You remind me of a puppy.”
“What?”
“I said you remind me of a puppy.”
A heartbeat falters before Luda replies. “How so?”
“I don’t know, just your overall appeal, I guess.” Jiyeon shrugs and squints at the spontaneous drop of Luda’s expression, as if she’s slapped across the face with bad news. “Yah, why are you frowning? You should be grateful! Puppies are cute. I could’ve compared you to a rat.”
Luda’s grimace gets carried by the wind as the breeze lifts the white curtains up, a stretch of it molding the soft contours of her face.
Jiyeon isn’t sure what’s funnier, the way Luda gently set her phone down as the cloth masks over her head or the way she stayed still right after for a couple of seconds as if she’s done with life.
When the fabric slips away and their eyes meet, Jiyeon laughs and the irritation on Luda’s face melts into a smile.
Luda laughs too, eventually, bright and loud, caramel hair gleaming under the afternoon sky and for the first time she seems more alive than the pictures on Jiyeon’s wall.
+
February dissolves in Jiyeon’s mouth and she can’t remember what it tasted like; the planks of chocolate, love letters murmured in scented ink, rose petals stuck between her teeth and the roof of her mouth.
Sojung immediately digs in the mini mountain of chocolates and flowers Jiyeon dumps on the dining table. “Luda wanted me to give you something, but only if you want it.”
Jiyeon grabs the bundled stash of love letters she received throughout the day. The one in her hand reads, in fancy typography, “Jiyeon sunbaenim, my heart flutters every time you pass by the corridor at three in the afternoon with your friends. I think you are very pretty. Even prettier than the roses I sent you.” she folds it back and reads other ones that say, “Kim Jiyeon-nim, I’m not good with words but I love you.”, “Jiyeon-ah, it’s your favorite church oppa-”, “Jiyeon-ssi, I’d like to know you better---”
“Sojung, do you think-” she folds and unfolds the corner of the last letter she read, and waits for her best friend’s full attention, which she receives after a stretch of silence and a half-bitten bar of chocolate. “-that I should let her go? Luda, I mean. Do you think the Kim Jiyeon before would want me to be so hung up trying to recover my past?”
Sojung bites another mouthful into her chocolate and scoffs, “The Kim Jiyeon before would tell you to leave Luda and live your own life, but-”
“But?”
“But naturally, you’d be drawn to her since you’re curious. Well, you spent most time with her during those three months so there’s that.”
“And?” Jiyeon doesn’t realize she’s been tearing up the corner of the letter in her hands until Sojung glances a little too long at the shredded paper below her fingers.
“And what?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t have any. If she makes you uncomfortable, you would’ve shooed her away the first time she came over, or you could tell us and we’ll sort it out.”
“Thank you for your wonderful help.“ Jiyeon says. “What does she want to give me?”
“I’m glad I could be of use.” Sojung replies. “I can’t say. Do you want it?” Jiyeon nods, but Sojung only asks again. “Do you want it?”
“Yes. Won’t she come today? I can’t see why she can’t give whatever that is herself.”
“Are you serious? I know you don’t feel anything for her now but you don’t have to be so cruel.”
“You and Xuan Yi do a good job of taking her lightly.”
“Cut her some slack. If I was in her place I don’t think I could even look at you after everything, much less go to your place regularly and, I don’t know, become Kim Jiyeon’s personal memory bank.”
Jiyeon frowns because Sojung is somehow right. “Just give it to me.”
Sojung reaches inside the pockets of her jacket and what Jiyeon expects to be a folded piece of paper filled with sappy confessions turns out to be a polaroid picture she’s never seen before.
She and Luda are in the middle of it, laughter etched on their faces, Jiyeon’s dark hair already peeking from the roots, her arm dangling carelessly around Luda’s shoulders, and Luda, her hair a faded pastel pink, pawing on Jiyeon’s palm.
Scrawled on the bottom is Jiyeon’s neat handwriting that reads,
December 12, 2016. Jiyeon is a parrot. Luda is a puppy.
Like the rest of their pictures, Jiyeon doesn’t remember what happened on the 12th of December, why they’re laughing like they’ve never laughed before, or why she wrote that she’s a parrot and Luda is a puppy.
But Jiyeon has likened Luda to a puppy before, and the little thing has struck a chord far away, cracked a fissure somewhere within her. Slowly, slowly, before an ache she never saw coming slams her in the chest so hard that when Sojung asks if she’s alright, she shakes her head and doesn’t say anything.
+
They say after you forget, it won’t feel a thing. But she can’t really tell.
Jiyeon thinks she hasn’t forgotten all of Luda.
Maybe she never did.
Sometimes her left leg and the side of her ribs hurt when she moves too much, but she doesn’t complain. She knows it’s just the anesthesia wearing off and her body’s healing.
Perhaps lost memories work the same way, that the numbness of her mind has an expiration date and would wear off after a while. It would be painful at first, but at least she’s healing.
Then everything would feel better.
A fissure has made a home in her skin. A wound reopens each time she and Luda meet, each time they talk, each time she catches a whiff of cinnamon and vanilla. Whenever Luda smiles, tears prick Jiyeon’s eyes and her chest caves in, as if her body has found a way to mourn the tragedy that has become of them.
It’s alright, she tells herself, because maybe one of these days the anesthesia of her mind would finally wear off and all those lost memories would slam right back in her head where they belong.
It’s alright.
+
It’s not alright.
March trudges on in a private resort owned by Xuan Yi’s family, Jiyeon twirling between exquisite cocktail dresses and bottles of champagne, laughing a little loud and talking too long to strangers she’ll probably forget tomorrow.
(When Sojung tells her that Xuan Yi was recently accepted by the Fashion Institute of Technology, nothing registers in Jiyeon’s mind until Sojung gives her that look that means everything related to it happened sometime between October and December of 2016.)
Jiyeon isn’t sure why suddenly she wants to drown herself in alcohol- perhaps because she’s celebrating something she can’t remember looking forward to, or because it’s Xuan Yi’s party and Dawon is here which also means Luda is here.
“Unnie, it’s been a while.” Dawon greets her, untangles her arm from Xuan Yi’s, who’s grinning like an idiot, and embraces her.
Just as how astonished Jiyeon was when she first woke up to see Sojung with short hair, Xuan Yi as a blonde, Juyeon dark-haired and fringed, and her older brother who swore never to cut his shoulder-length hair having a messy buzz cut, Dawon’s image before October 2016 superimposes on the one standing in front of her.
The last she remembers of Dawon, the clear S-line where Xuan Yi’s other hand rests was barely visible. Now she’s poised, polite and more dignified; even her voice sounds different, in a good way.
Jiyeon smiles and hugs her back. “Look at how you’ve grown!”
“Right?” Xuan Yi says. “She wouldn’t believe me.”
“It’s not much.” Dawon says, shyly.
Jiyeon expected after some time she’ll get used to the changes caused by her memory jump, but as Xuan Yi boasts about how Dawon earned the “Hot Body” title in the entire university without sounding impolite, all Jiyeon can think of is getting another glass of champagne.
“If you want to avoid Luda unnie, just tell us and we’ll clear the way for you.” Juyeon tells her.
“There’s no point in avoiding her. We’ll keep on running into each other one way or another.” Jiyeon says, because Juyeon’s always been a good friend and it’s her turn to help by pointing at a newly-arrived Cheng Xiao who looks gorgeous as ever.
Jiyeon sees Luda by the bar a few minutes later, talking to a girl as tall as Juyeon, beautiful and with an eye-smile that could rival hers. In turn, Jiyeon chats with one of Xuan Yi’s friends, Meng Mei Qi, and shows off her slight improvement in her Chinese.
While she learns that Mei Qi just got accepted in one of Beijing’s top dance schools, she also learns that Luda is having too much fun with the stranger that when she leans to whisper in Luda’s ear with an irritating exaggerated smile, and Luda turns beet-red and giggles, Jiyeon excuses herself from Mei Qi and storms to the bar in a heartbeat.
The internal ‘Why are you doing this?’ suddenly pops up halfway through but she isn’t in the mood to play games with her head.
The stranger leans closer to Luda’s ear as she approaches and Jiyeon digs her nails in her palms.
“Luda, we need to talk.” She blurts out, perhaps a tad too idiotic and unsure but her pride keeps her from walking away.
“You must be Kim Jiyeon.” The girl beside Luda extends an arm, sickeningly plastic smile and all. “Lee Mijoo.”
Jiyeon already hates the name. “I said we need to talk.” she repeats, staring a little too hard at Luda, who’s looking everywhere but at her. She starts tapping her arm impatiently.
One. Two. Th-
She grabs Luda by the wrist, surprised at how slim it is, drags her a few steps outside to the pool before letting go, Mijoo’s laughter ringing in her ears. She doesn’t know why she’s suddenly so angry or why Luda didn’t resist and went along out with her but when she turns, Luda's holding back a smothered laugh.
“Unnie, are you jealous?”
“What?” Jiyeon snaps. She is not- why would she be? “Listen-”
Luda clears her throat but there’s a sly curl on her lips. “She’s my cousin.”
“What?”
“Mijoo unnie. You’ve met her before.”
Jiyeon feels her vocabulary has suddenly shrunk to a two-year old’s. “W-we already met?”
“Twice. You didn’t like her before, too.” Luda mumbles. “Wow. It’s like you’re fated to not like each other.”
Flashes of heat sear Jiyeon’s neck and cheeks; she looks at the seven feet deep pool beside her and thinks death by drowning isn’t a bad way to go.
She’d ruin Xuan Yi’s party, sure, but it’s arguably better than getting petty and jealous over the wrong people. Over Luda’s damn cousin.
They don’t even look alike.
…They actually kind of do but that’s besides the point.
And well, fuck.
A waiter passes by with a tray of champagne glasses and by the time he leaves, Jiyeon’s throat is burning, two glasses of fizzy champagne are sloshing around her stomach and Luda’s clutching her by the arm.
They sit beside each other by the pool, shoulders almost touching, uninterested at anything and anyone else as Jiyeon sobers up little by little. Tonight, there’s cinnamon and vanilla again in the midnight air despite the haze and desensitization of alcohol.
Jiyeon wishes she could float, that the stars would take her without questions, take away the pain too, and give her back everything she lost so she and Luda wouldn’t have to go through this mess.
It might be a bit too late but Jiyeon's way past caring when she greets her with a, “Hi. It's been a while.” for the first time since they’ve met.
Luda stares at her for few seconds, before a curl lifts the corner of her lips. “Hello, unnie." and she adds, after a while, "I know you weren’t really jealous. You didn’t have to take it seriously.”
“Maybe I was.”
“Maybe?”
“Maybe. I don’t even know what’s happening anymore.”
Jiyeon doesn’t hear Luda say the practiced, “It’s alright.” that they’ve always been telling each other even when nothing is; but instead she hears the, “Anything is better than ignoring me.” that dissipates in the air after Luda empties her glass.
Jiyeon gets reminded of the fissure that lies between flesh and bones, the one that shatters her little by little each time they meet. This time she can already feel the parts of her that are going to break if she takes a step with the wrong foot. “Why don't you ever give up on me?”
Luda glances at her and scoffs, shaking her head, as if she’d said something stupid.
"I can't." she says simply, and she’s smiling but Jiyeon thinks she’s trying so hard not to cry. “Do you want me to?”
Jiyeon doesn’t know what to say and maybe she doesn’t need to say anything at all but it’s the first time she’s really looked at Luda, at them, and whatever the hell it is they’ve been doing all this time. Beyond her fragmented memories, Jiyeon realizes three things;
One. She lost something far far greater than her memories, something only she and Luda shared.
Two. Without admitting to it they both have been unconsciously trying to get it back since the very beginning (or the only beginning Jiyeon knows).
And three. They are two souls past the moment of their tangency, trying their best to make their ends meet again with every word, every smile, and every memory.
“No.” Jiyeon admits, quietly. It’s difficult to speak when everything feels like slipping away. “Sometimes I think I’m starting to remember but I’m not so sure... But I’ll keep on trying so let’s not give up on each other.”
Luda tips her chin up and the moonlight gleams delicate features of her face and colors her hair a shade of dark mocha. “I wasn’t planning to.” She smiles a real smile this time, and Jiyeon feels her chest caving in on itself again.
Jiyeon reaches for Luda’s hand and clasps her trembling fingers beneath hers. “Don’t cry.”
“Unnie,” Luda’s eyes never dare to leave her face that night. “You’re the one crying.”
“You didn’t have to say it aloud.”
“Sorry.”
Jiyeon doesn’t know why but when Luda squeezes her hand, a mix of a choke and a sob tears through her throat and she only cries harder.
+
Sometimes Kim Jiyeon knows every inch of Lee Luda, sometimes she’s a stranger she almost bumps on the subway.
That’s the thing about Luda. She’s new yet overfamiliar.
She’s many things to Jiyeon; a stranger, an acquaintance, a schoolmate, a friend, an ex-girlfriend, the shy curl on her lips, an ache in her chest, laughter and tears, the first person on speed dial, a face that pops up in her head whenever she’s reminded of something beautiful.
By day, a lingering memory in variations of cappuccino, honey, caramel and endless rallies of question and answers.
By night, a haunting yet lovely dream, between swirls of pastel pink and fleeting yet vivid polaroid pictures.
It’s a lazy afternoon, a one-hour drive to a mat of blooming wildflowers and lavenders and saturated spring between Seoul and Daegu. Jiyeon is propped on her elbows, legs stretched that her sneakers overflow beyond her pink blanket to rest on the grass.
Luda is beside her, splayed out across the same blanket, stabbing sliced strawberries from a plastic cup with a couple of toothpicks, “I dream of you, too,” her voice bends the silence, curves around the fractured images of them. “and in my dreams you’re always laughing; at me, at someone else, at something else.”
Jiyeon snorts. “Don’t I look crazy if I’m laughing all the time?”
“I always like seeing you smile.” Luda muffles shyly between strawberry bites, her ears bright red, “Anyway, where’s your gift?” and her expression changes at the desperate attempt for a change of topic. “My birthday’s about to end and I haven’t received a gift from you.”
“How can you not- What do you mean where?” Jiyeon scoffs in disbelief and gestures to herself. “Your gift is right beside you all this time.”
Luda coughs into her fist and glares, “Unnie, please.”
Jiyeon laughs at her, leans back and reaches for her wallet, “Yah, I never got to ask you about this.” she takes the plastic cup of strawberries from Luda’s hands and tucks a polaroid picture between her fingers. “December 12th 2016. I want to know why I wrote that I’m parrot and you’re a puppy.”
Luda doesn’t seem to mind but sits up and stares at her, as if considering whether to tell her or not, “You’re a parrot because you talk too much,” her eyes glaze over their smiles. “I’m a puppy because you told me I’m cute and that I don’t listen to you.”
“Why did you give it to me on Valentines?”
“For the good memories.” Luda says. “I thought if I gave that to you, you would remember even a speck of that happiness.”
“You know,” Jiyeon stabs and eats half a strawberry, and says a little too casually. “it actually hurt a lot when I saw that.”
Luda flinches and her expression drops, “I’m sorry.” she pulls her hand back but Jiyeon holds it still. “I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s alright.” Jiyeon pauses, searching for the rivers of cracks that used to wake her up at night with unwanted tears.
Embedded deep in her skin, between where flesh and bones meet, she finds not the fissure but only the scars- one above her kneecap, one on her right shoulder blade, several small ones on the sides of her torso, and though she can’t see it, she’s sure there’s one at the back of her head.
Luda frowns when she doesn’t speak for a while. “What is it?”
“Now that I think of it,” Jiyeon thinks the anesthetic of her mind is finally wearing off. “It doesn’t hurt as much anymore.”
They stare at each other for too long, and Jiyeon notices that Luda has long eyelashes when she watches the myriad of expressions that cross her face.
“I-I shouldn’t have given that to you… if it-” Luda starts to stammer. “I never wanted you to hurt--. Sometimes I feel like I’m going crazy, because of all these memories, and I’m the only one who remembers. I don’t know if-if it’s real, if we really dated, or- if I’m just making things up because I-I never stopped loving you and even if you never remember me, it’s alright. I just wanted to see you smile again and-”
Jiyeon threads her fingers through Luda’s caramel hair and closes the gap between them and their first kiss (according to Jiyeon) happens a few minutes before the sunset on the 6th of March 2017, nestled into blooming spring flowers somewhere between Seoul and Daegu.
+
April stumbles upon them in a warm evening, the hour of silence and guilty truancy, warmer than the usual spring, but it’s comfortable. Luda is sitting on Jiyeon’s lap, an arm loosely around her neck and shoulders as Jiyeon paints her nails pink and in shades of red.
“Am I heavy?” Luda asks.
“Not if you don’t move.” Jiyeon says, but Luda wiggles on her lap and Jiyeon slaps her playfully in the arm. “You’ll ruin it! I just said-”
"I heard you the first time." Luda rests the balls of her palms on Jiyeon’s shoulders, trails her fingers on her right shoulder blade where a scar rests underneath her shirt, leans closer and kisses her first.
Jiyeon twists the cap back, sets the nail polish down and kisses Luda on the mouth. It’s more urgent this time; her tongue sliding past Luda’s lips, heavy breaths and deft hands snaking under her shirt until Luda sighs in her mouth.
And between grits of teeth, sharp intakes of breath and gaping moans that burn through the silence of the night, Jiyeon realizes that unlike the mind, sometimes the body doesn’t willingly forget.
They say Kim Jiyeon might be better off without Lee Luda. But she can’t really tell. She thinks she’s better because of Luda.
Her favorite things now include the way Luda looks at her, the way Luda easily wraps her long fingers around her wrist. The way Luda holds her. The way Luda moans in her mouth. The way Luda calls her unnie. The way Luda grumbles whenever she picks her up after classes with her white Maserati and hoards all the attention.
For someone born with a competitive streak, Jiyeon even oddly likes the way Luda lets her pity-win when they play Overwatch.
It’s strange, really.
Sojung, Xuan Yi and Juyeon have already caught on (no thanks to Dawon) and are, unsurprisingly, wriggling their eyebrows and giving her looks the moment they hear she and Luda did everything for the first time all over again.
Jiyeon blushes a deep red the entire time but she really doesn’t mind.
Something is always better than nothing.
Trying is always better than not doing anything.
+
May walks in but Jiyeon’s memories from October to December 2016 remain forgotten.
She stands in front of the corkboard of pictures in her room, stares at the group of pictures under the red push pins one last time.
“Unnie, what are you doing?” Luda asks when she starts to remove the pictures one by one.
“I should’ve done this a long time ago. I wasn’t sure before but I am now. I’m taking them down.”
“Obviously.”
“Help me out?”
It turns out there’s a billion things Jiyeon forgot in those three months.
And that even if the anesthetic of her mind has fully worn off there’s nothing coming back. (As of now, she thinks, remaining a bit hopeful.)
There’s no recollection of her ever being blonde.
There’s no Sojung calling her at least a dozen times because she couldn’t make up her mind about the birthday gift she wanted to receive and chopping her hair because her long hair’s high maintenance.
No Xuan Yi staying up all night for a week pondering over her life decisions, her application letter to the Fashion Institute and dyeing her hair blonde as a symbol of a ‘new beginning’.
No Juyeon organizing parties left and right, and attempting to ask Cheng Xiao for dates in between.
No Dawon spending her time in the gym every time she’s free (to which Jiyeon even became her gym buddy for a month).
There’s not even a trace of Luda and her cousin Mijoo before January 2017.
(Heck, Jiyeon wanted to get back even just the things she learned in those three months because it turns out she also forgot half of her semester’s worth of coursework.)
But it’s alright. Some things you have lost will never come back.
Both their hands are full when Luda pulls the last red push pin together with the group picture underneath labeled, Tokyo, Disneyland (November 6, 2016). “What are you going to do with these?”
“About that,” Jiyeon runs her thumb over the corners of a picture dated December 1, 2016, where she and Luda are wearing Squirtle and Eevee onesies respectively. “Can you keep them somewhere safe?”
“Are you sure?” Luda trails off, fingers fidgeting over layers upon layers of forgotten moments. “But these are your…”
“Ours. These are our memories. I was careless and lost mine so I’m going to have to make it up to you.” Jiyeon corrects her, and maybe her words came out a little too optimistic because Luda looks teary-eyed all of a sudden. “Rather than getting caught up trying to relive the past, we can always make new memories and- oh, I didn't mean to make you cry because of this-”
“Unnie, I’m not crying because of that.”
Jiyeon hooks an arm around Luda’s neck and wipes her tears with her fingers. “Why are you crying, then?”
“It’s just that since you decided on this just now, I’m not going to count anything before this." Luda mumbles and purses her lips. "You have a lot of making up to do.”
Jiyeon bursts out laughing and kisses the side of her head, “I’d better get started then.”
She looks at Luda, and at them again, and sees that now they are two souls meeting again, another moment of tangency, every word, every smile and every memory worth the effort of not giving up.