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The scenery is passing so fast Hyejoo has a hard time focusing on it. She tries to empty her head, look at the forest from the window but the phone that buzzes in her hand breaks her from her peaceful thinking. She unlocks it and ignore the notification in favor on opening the text conversation with her mother, scrolling until she finds the one she’s searching for and opening the tiny picture attached to it.
Chaewon on the picture looks just as tiny as she did when Hyejoo left. Her hair seems lighter, though it’s hard to be sure with such a low resolution picture, and her face still looks pretty even if she can barely make it up. She zooms in until Chaewon’s face takes all the screen, just a blurry bunch of grey pixels, and like the first time she opened that text memories she was sure she had buried forever come back to her mind.
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Hyejoo is barely eleven when she enters the boxing club for the first time. She’s always been an agitated child, always fidgety in class and rarely focused during lessons, and she has troubles getting along with other kids her age. Her parents are worried enough that they take her to see the family doctor to voice their concerns, to get some help. The doctor simply smiles and tell them Hyejoo just has too much energy and that they should consider signing her up for sports activities.
Truthfully, the boxing club had been their very last hope. Hyejoo had tried everything from football to swimming along with a impressive number of martial arts but after each she’d shrugged her shoulders and said she didn’t felt like playing it again and her parents had sighed and said let’s try something else then.
But then Hyejoo enters the boxing club and while her parents starts chatting with the coach her sight immediately settles on the tiny girl with the long black hair who’s hitting a punching bag in a corner of the room like she wants it dead. She can’t seem to be able to stop watching.
“Chaewon!” The coach calls. The tiny girl stops in her track, grabbing the bag before it hits her. “My daughter,” He says to Hyejoo and her parents, then continue to the girl: “Hyejoo here is considering joining. Can you show her around?”
Chaewon takes off her gloves by pulling the velcro with her teeth and Hyejoo watches, transfigured. Chaewon politely bows in front of Hyejoo and her parents, introduces herself and asks Hyejoo for her age, seriously telling her she can call her unnie, if they’re going to train together, and takes her to the lockers to start the visit. She has a tiny little bird voice, long and thin legs and a pretty, doll-like face and Hyejoo is so fascinated that when they finish their tour and Chaewon suggests they should have a match she agrees immediately.
The sound of Hyejoo’s back hitting the floor attracts the adults and her mother screams when she sees her nose bleeding. Chaewon is kneeling next to her, profusely apologizing and offering to take her to clean her nose. There’s a window on the ceiling and Chaewon, illuminated from the light from above, looks like an angel. Hyejoo takes her hand and announces her parents she wants to take boxing lessons.
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The thing about the boxing club is that it gives Hyejoo both a solution for her too-much-energy problem and for her no-friends problem. Chaewon always kicks her ass when they fight (It makes sense, she figures, because Chaewon is older and has been training since forever.) but when they’re done she cleans the cuts on Hyejoo’s face and checks for her bruises, then she takes her to her home so they can drink juice together while they wait for Hyejoo’s parents to pick her up.
Chaewon is a lively, funny type of girl but she takes all her requirements very seriously. She’s always ready for mischief but she scolds Hyejoo when she does stupid mistakes, when she whines about not wanting to practice, when she tells her how she got in a fight when someone at school.
One day Hyejoo comes to practice feeling very down and when they get into position to fight after their warming up she sees something in Chaewon’s eyes, something that makes her think maybe she’s going to be gentle on her today… But then Chaewon punches her right in the face, says It’s your fault for not protecting yourself enough I always tell you to raise your fists higher! and Hyejoo feels so much relief she forgets to raises her fists and gets hit in the face again.
Afterwards Chaewon cleans the blood under her nose, gives her juice and holds her hand while Hyejoo cries and tells her about the naughty prank a girl from her class pulled on her. Chaewon wipes her tears and promises her one day she’ll be a big star and those girls who are being mean to her will be nothing, and she tells her she’s here, she’s here always, and Hyejoo first experiments a type of feeling she doesn’t know how to call. She’s only thirteen. She figures she has time to give it a name.
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Some days Hyejoo doesn’t go home after her training: she stays at Chaewon’s for the night, getting a thrill of doing everyday activities next to her friend. Everything is funnier, happier with Chaewon: doing her homeworks (Chaewon is not a very good student and she whines a lot in front of her mathematic exercises.), brushing her teeth, cleaning the dishes. Chaewon has an older brother and three younger ones, none of them interested in boxing so she doesn’t know them very well but the house is always lively and loud, so different from her own. Chaewon and her brothers often wrestle each others as signs of affection and Hyejoo is a little jealous at that closeness.
When they’re finished eating they usually go to the living room and dig into Chaewon’s father’s collection of boxing tapes, analysing the matches with eagle eyes with drinking hot chocolate. They cheer for the winners and boo the losers, screaming extra loud when they watch Chaewon’s father fighting. They promise each other one day they’ll be so big they’ll be captured on tapes as well, big enough to be on TV live, like Chaewon’s father was when he was younger.
They sleep in the same bed and Hyejoo waits until Chaewon falls asleep to listen to her peaceful breathing, the tiny sleepy noises leaving her mouth. She still has that baby bird voice and those long and thin legs and her face is getting prettier as time passes. She punches Hyejoo in the face even in her sleep and Hyejoo doesn’t even get mad.
+++
They both participate to regional tournaments, and they almost every time end up fighting each other for first and second place.
The coach take them both to see the South Korean Women's Youth National Championships to reward their progress and they spend their time gasping and screaming for their favorite boxers. The girls are barely older than them and some of them are already famous enough that it’s rumored they’ll be in the lineup for the Olympics in a couple of years! After the first day, when they’re finally cooling down in their hotel room, still jittery with excitement, they promise each other they’ll fight there one day.
Hyejoo does her best to forget that she still hasn’t won against Chaewon even once and that between the both of them, Chaewon surely is the only with real Olympic medals winning potential.
The coach of one of the girl fighting the championship is an old friend and former teammate of Chaewon’s father and after hearing about their recent performances he promises to come see the both of them practice. The girls don’t sleep at all that night.
+++
Hyejoo is so nervous the day the coach come to see them that she makes several mistakes, her moves sloppy and too slow, her punches imprecise.
Still, a week later she receives a letter that tells her she’s invited to join the former champion’s prestigious boxing school in Seoul.
“Wow!” Chaewon says when she tells her on the phone. “I’ve been accepted too. I’m so happy, Hyejoo-yah!”
+++
Chaewon never shows up to take the train to Seoul with her. She sends her an apology text, and then another when Hyejoo doesn’t answer. She sends apology texts everyday for weeks and she finally tries to call her one evening. Hyejoo doesn’t take the call. She erases the voice message without listening to it.
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Seoul is a big, big city and Hyejoo is a tiny girl. She’s still an agitated child and she still has the same troubles making friends, even with girls whose passion is the same as her’s, even if Seoul was supposed to be a fresh start.
There is this one girl who clings to her all the time, who is bright and kind and laughs about everything, who sticks to Hyejoo’s side even when Hyejoo tries to push her away. The girl’s room is just next to her’s, and she always comes in without knocking on the door first, which is how she ends up catching Hyejoo reading articles on the internet about Chaewon’s recent win at a regional tournament.
“Is she a friend?” Yerim asks, pointing at the picture of Chaewon in her headgear, a cut on her pretty cheek.
“I thought she was,” Hyejoo answers before telling Yerim the whole story.
“Sounds to me she was more than a friend,” Yerim says. “Am I wrong?”
Hyejoo is sixteen when she finally gives a name to the feeling that’s been growing in her chest for the past three years. She cries when she understands it and when she’s finished crying Yerim kisses her.
It doesn’t mean much. They’re two teenagers whose lives are dedicated to training and training, with little time to sleep, or eat, or live. They train and they train, and sometimes they kiss. It doesn’t mean much.
When Yerim calls it quit, something like a year later, Hyejoo is neither relieved nor mad. She has competitions, anyway, and she’s expected to be in the next Olympics lineup. She’s got little time to sleep, or eat or live. She has no time at all for kissing girls.
+++
The phone rings twice before a voice much older than she was expecting answers her. She forgets to talk for a second, taken aback. “Hello?” The voice says again. She snaps out of it.
“Coach? It’s Son Hyejoo.”
“Hyejoo, oh my god!” Her former coach sounds like he’s about to cry. “How are you? It’s been so long…”
“Five years,” Hyejoo says, faltering a little. She thinks maybe all of this might be a bad idea, after all. She plays with the handle of her bag, in which she put her gloves. She never leaves them in a bag too far from herself when she travels, more by superstition than by fear (Who would stole someone’s smelly gloves?) and right now the thought of them calms her down.
“I’ve watched all your Olympics match! You were really good. Really. We were all impressed. Congratulation on your silver medal!”
Hyejoo doesn’t take the time to wonder who’s that we. She doesn’t need to impress anyone but herself. “My mother sent me the article,” She says, “About the charity gala. I want to help.”
“Oh, that would be fantastic, Hyejoo, thank you so much. What would you like to do?”
Hyejoo takes a deep breath. She fidgets with the bag’s handle once more. “I want a fight with Chaewon.”
The coach stays silent for a long moment. “Of course,” He says finally, “If that’s what you want. Of course.”
+++
The club hasn’t changed at all in the five years Hyejoo has been away. There’s still the same aura, and the same smell, though she can’t recognise most of the younger students hanging out in front of the building anymore. They all seem to recognise her, though, and Hyejoo waves at them kindly, making a group of girls giggle under their breath.
When she enters the first person she sees is Chaewon, hitting the exact same punching bag she’d been hitting when Hyejoo had first entered the training room all those years ago. Her hair is definitely lighter, sandy blond and pulled in a high ponytail. She stops when the door opens and Hyejoo sees her eyes widen even from the distance.
“Hi,” She says before opening the velcro of her glove with her teeth. “I was expecting my students, not you.”
“The coach said I could come and train in here while I was staying in the neighbourhood,” She says, upset to feel that out-of-place in a place that used to be her home. Chaewon nods.
“I’m the coach, now,” She says. “Don’t show off too much, my students are dissipated enough without an Olympic medallist to distract them.”
After the practice ends and Chaewon retracts to the lockers the boldest girl of the bunch comes to Hyejoo, blushing a little when she looks at her.
“Coach Park talks about you a lot, you know.”
Hyejoo’s heart jumps sadly, like a fish out of water would. “Does she?”
“She often tells us about how she punched you square in the face when you two first met.”
The girl recoils when she sees Hyejoo’s expression darken. “I’m sure she does,” She says. The girl almost runs to the door. Hyejoo’s eyes follow her and she discovers a small poster of herself, hung up right next to the door.
She leaves the club satisfied by the idea of Chaewon coming out of the lockers only to see the giant signature she left on the poster.
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They don’t meet after that, not before the day of the charity gala. All the students, former and present, have organised little booths with baking good and coffee sales. Several fights are programmed with friendly bets organised by the club and a little wooden box next to the door as been placed to collect spontaneous donations.
The students are the first to compete, and then it’s Chaewon’s dad and one of his old friend who came all the way from Seoul just to support him, and Chaewon’s and Hyejoo’s is the last of the day.
She spends the day watching the fights, eating way too much cake and drinking way too much coffee for a professional athlete.
Chaewon sits next to her during one of the fights. She’s wearing a cute preppy dress and heeled shoes and her hair is curly.
“Are you still mad at me, Hyejoo-yah?” She still has that tiny baby bird voice, and her legs looks so elegant and delicate and her face is ten time prettier that it used to be. She looks like the prettiest doll, sitting with her back very straight next to Hyejoo, her thigh dangerously close to Hyejoo’s dark-jean-clad one.
“Why would I be, unnie?” She says, and even she can here how acidic her tone is. Chaewon nods gently.
“I shouldn’t have left you that voicemail,” She says softly. “But I’m not sorry for what I said.” Hyejoo nods so Chaewon doesn’t know she has no idea what she’s talking about. She looks hurt, which is not a good look on her but Hyejoo isn’t mad about it. Being happy about upsetting Chaewon makes her feel a little sick, still. Or maybe it’s all the cake and coffee. It’s probably all the cake and coffee.
Chaewon leaves to get ready for their fight and she does the same. There’s some unusual nervousness, the knowledge that she’s never defeated Chaewon even once in her life. But she’s evolved, now, she trained with the best. She won a silver medal at the Olympics game. She won’t let that tiny girl knock her out once again.
It’s when Chaewon punches her in the face that she realises her mistake: because sure she’s growned, and trained and fought but so did Chaewon. Chaewon kept training while Hyejoo did, and she kept growing and she kept fighting. She moves in a way that Hyejoo isn’t used to anymore, quick and nervous, aggressive. She moves like she trained for the sole purpose of still being able to defeat Hyejoo if they ever happened to fight each other again.
Hyejoo barely avoids being hit in the face again, ducking low so Chaewon closed fist only brushes against her headgear and she throws a punch to Chaewon’s unprotected stomach.
Chaewon plays quickly, moving so fast Hyejoo sometimes struggles following her, throwing punch after punch with an energy Hyejoo had no idea she possessed. She’s clearly leading the game, moving Hyejoo around to back her up in corners without difficulties and Hyejoo feels her focus slipping away from her. They ends in an aggressive embrace after a serie of vicious jabs (God, it still feels just as wrong to hit that pretty, delicate face.) and the contact of Chaewon’s bare skin with her own is what definitely makes her lose it. She punches her way out of it, too fast, too aggressive, not controlled enough. She can feel it happening but still: all the air leaves her lungs when she hits the floor, and again when Chaewon kneels next to her to check on her, worried look on her face, the light coming from above making her look like an angel.
“Are you alright?” She asks softly after taking off her mouthguard. Gone also are her headgear and her gloves. “You’re bleeding, I’m sorry.”
“I was always a bleeder,” Hyejoo answers after spitting out her own protection. “I’ll survive.”
Chaewon looks at her, her expression unreadable. She wipes under Hyejoo’s nose, collecting some blood on her thumb. “Let me take care of that, yeah? For the old times sake.”
Hyejoo follows Chaewon outside the club, feeling very much like she’s doing a big, big mistake. Chaewon leads her to the staircase outside of the building to the flat on top of the training room. The door is unlocked, and the flat tiny but tidy, clear walls and simple furnitures. The door opens to a room thats a mix of a kitchen and a living room and separated from the sleeping area by a screen decorated with blue butterflies. Chaewon gestures for Hyejoo to sit at the table and goes to the bathroom to retrieve sterile gauze and antiseptic and, after an hesitation, opens a cupboard to grab two glasses and a box of juice. It’s still the same brand they used to drink after practice. From where she sits Hyejoo can see CHaewon’s father old VCR under the TV, and a row of tapes on the shelf just next to her. Some look newer and when Hyejoo tilts her head to read the titles she discovers they’re recording of her own fights. Chaewon ignores her curious glare.
Chaewon operates with the dexterity of someone who’s used to cleaning people injuries, her gestures professional and calm, her hand steady on Hyejoo’s cheek. She’s done that countless of times for Hyejoo, and probably just as many for her students. She meets eyes with Hyejoo suddenly and her moves falter, a light blush spreading on her cheeks. She looks pretty even like that, surprised in a moment of vulnerability, covered in sweat.
“Why didn’t you leave with me?” Hyejoo attacks, unable to keep that peaceful moment between them to grow. It pains her to see Chaewon’s pretty eyes widen.
“I lied to you, Hyejoo-yah,” She says. Hyejoo wants to interrupts her, to tell her that she obviously knows that but she keeps quiet. “I lied to you when I said the coach wanted me as well.” Hyejoo frowns.
“Why would he… You were always better than I was.”
“He said I was good but had little room for improvement. He thought I was at the top of my capacities already, while you had the potential to grow big. And he was right.”
“He wasn’t! That idiot!” Hyejoo protests vehemently. “You beat me today, didn’t you?” Chaewon smiles, gently, like she’s just indulging Hyejoo. “You should have told me! Why did you lied to me?”
“Because I wanted you to go, Hyejoo-yah. I was afraid you’d be mad at him if I told you he rejected me, that you’d decide to stay because of it. Or… That you’d be too afraid to go alone and that you’d renounce because of it.” She doesn’t leave Hyejoo the opportunity to answer. “I know it was stupid. I should have told you the truth and encouraged you to go. Forgive me for that. I was just sixteen.”
“I was so lonely without you…” Chaewon pushes the glass of juice towards her and Hyejoo obediently takes a gulp of it, still watching Chaewon closely.
“That’s why I confessed to you,” She says softly. “Because I thought you’d either be receptive and we’d… We’d find a way to make it work, or you’d be disgusted and you’d forget everything about me. And then maybe I could forget about you, too.”
“What are you saying?” Chaewon laughs, a sad tiny laugh.
“Hyejoo-yah, don’t make me repeat myself.”
“What are you saying? Please.” Chaewon shakes her head. “Unnie, what did you just say?”
“In the voicemail, Hyejoo, you know…”
“I erased the voicemail without listening unnie. Tell me… Please, tell me what you said.”
Chaewon closes her eyes, her cheeks growing redder. She hesitantly takes Hyejoo’s hand. “I said I was in love with you, in the voicemail.”
Hyejoo can feel her heartbeat quickening madly, stronger than in the middle of a fight. “And are you, still?” Hyejoo grabs her hand before Chaewon can retreats so she uses the other to hide her face, head bent in embarrassment. “Chaewon unnie. Are you still in love with me?”
“We’re two different persons, now Hyejoo-yah, I…” Hyejoo squeezes her hand gently and grabs the other, forcing Chaewon to look at her in the eyes. “Yes, I do. I never stopped thinking about you.”
Hyejoo pushes the two glasses out of the way and tangle her fingers in the damp hair at the back of her head, leaning over the table to crash their mouths together. She might have started bleeding again because Chaewon’s lips taste of sweat and the juice from their childhood and iron and when they separate her skin is smeared in red. She wipes it with her thumb, suck her thumb in her mouth and watches Chaewon grows even redder.
“Seoul’s just a two hour train ride away,” She says, kissing Chaewon’s mouth again. “And I promise we’ll make it work.”