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Hyunjin takes a deep breath as she exits the club, swaying on her feet. Jinsol had insisted on extra shots, as always, and by the ninth one, Hyunjin’s head had started to spin almost as quickly as her heart had been spiralling.
She stumbles out of the door, and the bouncer gives her a strange look, but doesn’t do anything. Hyunjin’s been a recent regular at the nightclub—she’s been here every night for the past two weeks. She sighs as she leans against one of the walls, trying not to fall, trying not to slip up.
She tries to remember the last time she was sober, the last time the world wasn’t hazy. She can’t—all she remembers is soft hands, a deep voice, a pitying gaze. Hyunjin tries not to throw up.
She’s better than this, she really is. She can deal. She’s been dealing with it. It’s fine.
Hyunjin feels a soft hand wrap around her bicep, and in her drunken haze, she immediately turns her head (which does not help at all in her dizzied state), and bites out, “I have pepper spray.”
The girl who’s holding her bicep laughs, like straight up snorts. “I didn’t need to know that, but thanks.”
Hyunjin hiccups, and almost slips as she pulls her arm away from the girl. “Okay. Then, you know.”
She’s not sure if she’s making sense, but she doesn’t think the other girl cares that much. Hyunjin squints her eyes and tries to see the girl’s face, but the weed she’d smoked with Hyejoo and Chaewon made her sight blurry, and the shots, all the goddamn shots, Jinsol made her take did nothing to help her focus right now. She can’t see the girl’s face. Hyunjin wonders if she’s gone partially blind.
“I have…a girlfriend,” Hyunjin announces out of nowhere. It feels like something she should say.
“Okay,” the girl patiently replies. Hyunjin furrows her eyebrows, and swears she hears the girl snort again.
“Don’t…don’t—touch me.” Hyunjin tries to take a step back and stumbles.
The girl catches her.
“I said don’t!” Hyunjin hisses, pulling away from the girl’s arms.
The girl sighs. “You’re making this so hard.”
(Hyunjin suddenly remembers something else, some time ago, someone else. “You’re making this so difficult, Aeongie,” Heejin had said.
Hyunjin doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t know how to. Doesn’t want to.)
“Are you Heejin?” She suddenly asks, all soft and tired, high and drunk all at the same time.
“Who?”
“Heejin? Come here.” Hyunjin suddenly pulls the girls into her arms, and hugs her. That’s strange. She doesn’t remember Heejin being taller than her. She buries her face into her neck. “Smell different,” is all she says.
The girl wraps an arm around her and starts to pull her toward somewhere. They’re walking, is all Hyunjin really knows.
“My head hurts,” Hyunjin complains. “And my feet. I can’t feel them. Do I—Do I have feet?”
The girl laughs again. “Yes, you do.”
“Are you gonna take advantage of me?”
“No. Plus, you have pepper spray, right?”
Hyunjin nods into the girl’s shoulder, which is awkward and stiff. “Mm. So, you know.”
“I know.”
“I’ll probably win if you try anything.”
“Good thing I’m not, right?”
“Yep.”
They keep walking for what feels like a few seconds and a lifetime all at once. Hyunjin’s feet still hurt.
“Where—going? Where?” She asks. “Feet hurt.”
“My car,” the girl replies. “We’re near. Don’t worry.”
“Feet hurt, Heejin. My feet hurt,” Hyunjin groans into the girl’s shoulder. “My hands too. My back.”
“I’m not—“ The girl starts, but stops. “It’s gonna be okay.”
“My feet hurt, Heejin,” Hyunjin repeats. Why doesn’t Heejin get it? Did Heejin ever get it? Her feet hurt. “Make it stop.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I—listen, I’m not super sober too. Can we just walk?”
“Kay.”
When they reach what Hyunjin assumes is the girl’s car, she gets ushered into the backseat, which confuses her. “Wanna sit at front,” she complains.
“No, you’re halfway through passing out.”
“Wanna sit at the front,” Hyunjin repeats.
The girl sighs. “Fine.”
Hyunjin gets to sit at the front, where the only thing holding her up is the seatbelt.
“Don’t barf,” the girl tells her, her voice serious. “If you barf, I’m kicking you out.”
“M not gonna barf,” Hyunjin replies. “Don’t wanna barf.”
“It’s not about the wanting, but whatever.”
The car starts moving. The city night lights make Hyunjin’s head hurt. She can still hear the club music throbbing against her brain for some reason. Did her feet always hurt like this?
“Sleep,” the girl says. “You’ll feel better.”
“Don’t wanna miss,” Hyunjin replies.
She’s learning her lessons after all—if you blink, you lose everything; if you sleep, you wake up to an empty bed.
“Trust me, the drive to my apartment’s pretty long. Take advantage of it.”
“Mm? I have pepper spray. Did you say take advantage?” Hyunjin starts to fumble for her purse.
A hand reaches out and stops her hand. “No. I meant—whatever. Relax.”
“Kay.”
(Hyunjin has a girlfriend. She’s really pretty, flawless and fair skin, small face, nice eyes. She’s nice too, always helping out others, never judged Hyunjin for the weed or the other things, like being weird and little four dimensional. Heejin—that’s her name.
All of Hyunjin’s friends like her. Even Jungeun who’s a little overprotective, and Hyejoo who was rough around the edges. They all liked Heejin.
“My feet hurt,” Hyunjin says after soccer practice, throwing herself on to Heejin’s bed.
“You want a massage?” Heejin asks, looking up from her laptop, where she was maybe working on a song or something.
“Mm,” Hyunjin hums back, throwing her feet on to Heejin’s lap, missing her laptop by only a bit.
“Watch it,” Heejin warns her, but there’s no real threat there. She takes Hyunjin’s feet and massages them.
Her feet don’t ever really stop hurting, because practice is brutal, but Heejin always makes it better.)
Hyunjin doesn’t realize she’s fallen asleep, until the girl gently shakes her awake, and the feel of Heejin’s fingers against her skin, and smell fades into the back of her mind. She shakes her head, the throbbing is less prominent now, but her eyes still feel unfocused.
“Huh?”
“We’re here. Come on.” The girl opens the door for her, and helps her remove the seatbelt and get out. Hyunjin wraps an arm around the girl’s shoulders, and the girl wraps one around her waist.
They enter some complex, and then an elevator, and then a room. Hyunjin doesn’t really pay attention; she doesn’t remember anything—which was the goal, after all.
“Here.” Hyunjin is suddenly laid out on something very soft. There are pillows—she likes that. She grabs one and buries her face into it.
“Don’t barf on the couch,” the girl warns her.
“I’m not,” Hyunjin’s reply is muffled.
“You want water?”
“Kay, if you have.”
“Alright.”
It feels like forever, and Hyunjin’s half sure she was already dozing off again, when the girl taps her shoulder, and helps her sit up. “Here. Drink.”
“Don’t spike it,” Hyunjin mutters.
“Ohmygod, I’m not,” the girl replies, exasperated.
“Just saying.”
“Okay.”
Hyunjin half drinks, and half spills the water. She wonders if the girl will be upset. “At least it’s not barf,” the girl comments. Hyunjin’s relieved the girl isn’t mad.
“Heejin,” Hyunjin says, even if she’s kind of sure this girl isn’t Heejin. But who would know, anyways? Not Hyunjin—she learned weeks ago that she didn’t know Heejin as well as she thought. Maybe this girl was Heejin, and if she wasn’t, was it wrong to want her to be Heejin?
Hyunjin’s convinced if she pretends hard enough, the truth won’t be the truth, and her dreams—where Heejin stays forever—will come true.
(Heejin’s not gone, though. She’s still here, isn’t she? She’s not gone.
Hyunjin doesn’t know what’s true and what’s fake.)
“I’m not—“ The girl starts again, but stops. “You should sleep.”
“Am not sleepy. I have a girlfriend.”
“Yes. As you’ve said.”
“I’m drunk.” That, at least, is the truth. Hyunjin’s sure of that, at least.
“You’re drunk,” the girl agrees. “And you need to sleep.”
Hyunjin lies back down, and the girl gets off the couch, so that she can take up all the space. “I have a Heejin, you know.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, if you know, okay?”
“Hm.”
Hyunjin closes her eyes.
(“You look like a cat, you know?” Heejin tells her.
Hyunjin perks up. “I like that.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I like cats.”
“Okay.” Heejin laughs, young, and maybe still in love.
“You’re kinda like a puppy, Heejinnie.”
“Am I? Everyone calls me bunny, though.”
Hyunjin rolls her eyes. “Sooyoung and Jiwoo are blinded by each other. They don’t see that you look more like a puppy.”
Sooyoung and Jiwoo aren’t her friends, they’re Heejin’s friends. Sometimes, Hyunjin gets jealous of them, but that’s normal, she’s thirteen, and they’re all still kids anyway.
“If I’m a puppy, and you’re a cat, then we can’t be best friends,” Heejin replies with a playful tone.
“That’s dumb. I’m pretty sure it can work out.”
“It can now, can it?”
Hyunjin nods. “Just need couples therapy.”
Heejin laughs. “Sounds good.”
“We can always work things out you know.” Hyunjin says, blinking at her.
“Okay. If you say so.”
“I do!”
“Okay, okay.”
Heejin sleeps over that day. In Hyunjin’s dreams, Heejin will always sleep over. In Hyunjin’s dreams, she does not wake up to an empty bed. There is no growing up, there is no nothing but Heejin and her, and an eternity.)
Before Hyunjin can drift off, she suddenly calls out. “You think I’m pretty?”
“Sure.”
“You wanna kiss me?” She asks, serious, her eyes still closed. “You can kiss me, Heejin.”
“No thanks.”
“Yeah,” Hyunjin breaths out. “I figured.”
“Sorry.” The girl really does sound sorry.
“It’s okay. Heejin said she didn’t wanna either.”
The girl doesn’t reply, and Hyunjin sleeps.
.
When Hyunjin wakes up, she can still taste Heejin’s lips, and hear a distant, faint, “Hope you’re happy.” She groans into the pillow, which definitely does not smell like her pillow, because this pillow smells good, smells like it’s been washed.
She cracks open an eye, and the morning light filters through unfamiliar curtains.
Okay, she’s been kidnapped. She immediately sits up, and regrets it just as fast, as she feels a dull throb in the back of her head.
“Morning, pepper spray,” a familiar voice greets her.
Hyunjin fully opens both of her eyes, and there, sitting by the small dining table in a kitchen connected to the living room, is Ha Sooyoung.
Hyunjin hasn’t seen her in a couple of years. She wonders if she’s still dreaming. She still feels kind of drunk, and kind of high, even if it’s definitely been a few hours.
“What time is it?” She asks, and then: “And what the hell did you just call me?”
Sooyoung rolls her eyes, and give her a small smile. “It’s 5 AM, and don’t curse at me. I saved your life, you know.”
She snorts. She and Sooyoung knew of each other, have met, occasionally hung out because of Heejin, but they were never friends. Not really.
“I did,” Sooyoung insists. “But then, maybe you only remember Heejin.”
Hyunjin’s heart thuds. “Was she—?”
“No, Hyunjin. She’s in New York, remember?” Sooyoung sounds like she doesn’t resent Heejin for leaving, it’s just a fact for her. Something she knows, while it’s something that haunts Hyunjin.
Right.
“I forgot,” Hyunjin tells her. It isn’t really a lie. The past couple of weeks, maybe even months, had stretched into a hazy blur. If she wracks her head for anything, she doesn’t really remember much—it was always just popping pills with Hyejoo, or drinking with Jinsol and the others.
“How’s Heejin, anyway?” Sooyoung off-handedly asks her. “She’s still your girlfriend, right?”
Hyunjin makes a sound in the back of her throat. “Don’t you talk to her anymore?” She shoots back.
“She’s been busy, remember? Theatre stuff. Broadway,” Sooyoung says, suddenly narrowing her eyes. “Don’t you know that?”
Hyunjin’s not sure if she should lie. Her mouth feels dry. “Water?” she asks instead.
Sooyoung sighs and gets up, prepares her a glass of water, and hands it to her with a calculating look. “You look like shit.”
“Gee, thanks.”
The taller girl shrugs and nudges her to move over. Hyunjin does, and Sooyoung sits next to her on the couch.
A beat passes, and then another.
“Thanks for, uh, taking care of me.” It sounds weird, even to her, because Sooyoung isn’t her friend, has never been her friend, but she guesses drunk girls will always have an affiliation for each other.
“Thanks for not barfing on anything,” Sooyoung replies, making Hyunjin laugh a little.
“Where’s, uh, Jiwoo?” Hyunjin asks.
Sooyoung suddenly grows stiff next to her. Her voice sounds strained when she replies. “With Heejin, remember? In New York.”
“Oh.” Hyunjin hadn’t known that.
“We broke up,” Sooyoung tells her. “When she left. So yeah. I wouldn’t know, like, how she is.”
Suddenly it all clicks into place—why Sooyoung doesn’t know about Heejin and Hyunjin’s current predicament, Heejin had chosen her side it seems, she’d chosen Jiwoo’s. Maybe Sooyoung and Heejin weren’t even friends anymore.
“Sorry,” is all Hyunjin says, but she means it.
“It’s okay. She’s happy, I think.” Sooyoung gives her an uncharacteristically soft smile. “Me too. It was good for us both.”
“Oh.”
“Mm. We might get back together someday. Things ended well.”
“That’s nice.”
Hyunjin’s not jealous.
(There was a broken vase at some point, some torn up letters, and when the door slams shut, that’s how Hyunjin knows the ball has dropped. When she chases after her, Heejin’s still in the hallway.
That’s when she tells Hyunjin. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I am!” Hyunjin insists. “Aren’t you?”
Heejin doesn’t answer, but she’s still there, in the hallway.)
Hyunjin suddenly turns to face Sooyoung, and they’re kind of close right now, and Sooyoung’s pretty—in a sharp way, big perceptive eyes, full lips, high cheekbones. Their eyes meet.
“Do you wanna kiss me?”
Sooyoung suddenly snorts. “Are you kidding me?”
Hyunjin pouts. “You said I was pretty.”
“You wouldn’t sleep unless I agreed.”
“Can I kiss you? I kind of wanna kiss you. I think. I’m not sure.”
Sooyoung shakes her head, and pats her arm. “You have a girlfriend, Hyunjin.”
“We can say I’m still drunk. Or high.”
“Heejin left you, didn’t she?” Sooyoung’s gaze is full of pity and then understanding.
Hyunjin doesn’t know when she starts crying, but suddenly she’s sobbing, and she can’t breathe, and then Sooyoung has a stiff arm around her shoulders.
(Hyunjin still has a girlfriend. In a way. Things are hard. Things are weird. She misses Heejin. She wants her back, but she’s not even sure if she really lost her. Can you want something you’re not sure you’ve lost? She just wants to be happy.)
Sooyoung and her don’t really talk anymore, and the apartment is filled with the early morning light, and Hyunjin’s sobs, and maybe even the sound of her heart breaking. Somehow, she falls asleep.
.
When she wakes up, it’s late afternoon, and Sooyoung’s already showered, and is wearing something else. Hyunjin feels kind off gross.
“You should call her,” Sooyoung says, not even bothering with small talk. “She might answer. Have you tried?”
Hyunjin groans, and shakes her head. “She won’t.”
“Have you tried?”
“No.”
Sooyoung rolls her eyes. “You should just call. Or text. I don’t know. That’s what I did.”
“Jiwoo and Heejin are different.”
“They’re both good people,” Sooyoung retorts. “Heejin’s not an asshole. She might pick up.”
“She chose Jiwoo, though,” Hyunjin fires back, and knows it’s a low blow.
Sooyoung doesn’t even bristle. “She had to. They’re in New York. I have friends here. It’s just them there.” She throws a towel, and bar of soap at Hyunjin. “Shower. And then call her.”
.
Hyunjin showers and thinks about what Sooyoung said. When she’s done, and she wears Sooyoung’s shirt, which is a little small on her, because Sooyoung’s thinner than her, they just sit in silence.
Sooyoung hands over her purse at some point. Hyunjin knows her phone is in there, and as she rummages for it, she kind of hopes the battery’s dead.
It isn’t.
Sooyoung just levels a look at her that she can’t really read. Hyunjin sighs, and picks up the phone. She scrolls to Heejin’s contact.
“I can’t call her.” Hyunjin’s voice sounds soft and broken, even to herself.
Sooyoung doesn’t say anything else except, “I guess it’s all up to you. You gotta start somewhere, though.”
“Tomorrow,” Hyunjin says.
Sooyoung shrugs. “Okay. Tomorrow’s just today, you know. Just a little later. Maybe too late.”
“I’m probably too late, already.”
“Maybe.”
They sit in silence, and Hyunjin stomach growls.
“Lunch?” Sooyoung asks her.
“Yeah.”
.
They eat, and when she’s done, she takes her purse, and Sooyoung walks her all the way to door of the apartment complex. They stare at each other—not quite strangers, not really friends, but somehow something.
“Thanks, um, again,” Hyunjin awkwardly tells her.
Sooyoung stares at her for a second, and then smiles. “Yeah. No problem, pepper spray.”
Hyunjin groans. “Stop calling me that.”
“At least I know you’ll be safe the next time you get hammered.”
“A girl can never be too sure, you know.”
Sooyoung shrugs. “Yeah, okay.”
Hyunjin turns, and Sooyoung holds the door open for her. “You gonna call her?” Sooyoung asks just before Hyunjin’s gone out.
She looks at the sun shining down on Seoul, the busy street, all the people going somewhere, doing something.
“Yeah,” Hyunjin answers after awhile.
“Tomorrow?”
“Maybe tonight.”
She sees Sooyoung smile. “Okay.”
“Bye, Sooyoung.”
“Right back at you. Hope I never see you again.”
Hyunjin rolls her eyes. “Bye.”
“Bye, pepper spray.”
And then, Hyunjin walks, her feet still hurt, but her heart’s a little better. She might call tonight, and Heejin might pick up, and maybe it's time to start sobering up and remembering things.