Chapter Text
(Heejin means to tell Hyunjin, she really does. The acceptance letter is heavy inside her bag, inside her heart. There is so much to say, and not enough words.
She lingers, she waits, she lets it be.)
“You’ve been staring at your phone for an hour,” Jiwoo points out mid-chew. She pauses and keeps chewing for a bit, and then points the chicken leg at Heejin. “Something you wanna tell me?”
Heejin breaks out of her reprieve, looks up from her phone, and blinks owlishly at Jiwoo for a bit. Jiwoo’s eyebrows furrow, but she doesn’t stop eating her fried chicken. “You good?” She asks Heejin. “You’re not touching your food either. Should I be worried?”
(Heejin remembers telling Jiwoo first, asking her to keep it a secret.
“There’s this girl named Hyunjin, I think I like her.”
“Oh,” Jiwoo says, and then smiles at her. “Okay.” She promises to keep it a secret, but Sooyoung finds out one way or another.
Heejin can’t even be mad. She should have known Jiwoo would tell the older girl anyways.
“You never introduced us to her,” Sooyoung comments, when they’re at Jiwoo’s house.
Heejin shrugs. “You guys are different.”
Jiwoo pouts. “We’d like her, though. Cause she makes you happy. And you like her too!”
Heejin puffs her cheeks out. “Kay. I’ll ask her to hang with us tomorrow.”
Sooyoung doesn’t say anything. She isn’t one for new people, but she isn’t hostile either. She keeps her mouth shut, and furrows her face into Jiwoo’s shoulder.)
“Do you and Sooyoung still talk?” Heejin suddenly asks out of nowhere. She’d walked around on egg shells about the whole Sooyoung-topic with Jiwoo, the way Jiwoo pretended the whole Hyunjin-thing didn’t happen either. They don’t really have the time to be sad in New York, they have enough on their plates already.
Jiwoo drops the chicken leg, and looks at Heejin with wide eyes. An awkward pause follows, and Heejin already has an apology bubbling up her throat, when Jiwoo finally replies. “Uh, sometimes, I guess? She greeted me on my birthday, and I did the same, so. I don’t know. We’re okay, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Sorry,” is all Heejin says. She doesn’t know why she asked in the first place.
Jiwoo shrugs, and tries to continue eating. “It’s okay. Don’t be worried. Soo and I are, uh, we’re dealing. You know? Like, it’s been a couple of months. It’s better now.”
“That’s good,” Heejin replies. “At least you guys are okay.” She feels a small stab of guilt. She hasn’t really talked to Sooyoung ever since Jiwoo and her broke up. It isn’t anything malicious, it was just awkward. She was here in New York with Jiwoo, and though she never meant to choose sides, she was sort of backed into Jiwoo’s corner by circumstances.
“Why are you suddenly asking, anyways?” Jiwoo raises an eyebrow at her.
Heejin’s eyes travel to her phone, and the text. The text she received an hour and a half ago that says: hey, was wondering if we could talk?
She feels like throwing up—her hearts thudding painfully against her ribcage, and her hands feel sweaty. She doesn’t know how to tell Jiwoo. Saying it out loud makes it a reality, and Heejin’s reality, which she’s spent so long building, spent so many days trying to put together carefully, feels like it will shatter the moment she acknowledges what she’s pushed into the back of her mind and heart.
“Nothing.” She lies. Heejin’s an actress, after all, she’s made it on Broadway. She’s good at this.
But her heart is pure, and Jiwoo’s known her for so long that it doesn’t even convince the other girl at all. “Sure,” Jiwoo says. “You don’t have to tell me, if you’re not ready, but don’t lie, bitch.”
The bitch sounds a lot like Sooyoung. Heejin meets Jiwoo’s strangely perceptive gaze, and realises there are still parts of Sooyoung in Jiwoo—the bluntness, the sometimes rare sharp gazes Jiwoo throws around, Jiwoo’s penchant for listening to hip hop music. Heejin wonders if there are still parts of Hyunjin in her that others see.
.
The text doesn’t sit in Heejin’s inbox as long as it sits heavily in her mind, and even more so in her heart. She doesn’t reply for the first two days, doesn’t know how to, doesn’t know if she still should.
It stays, it waits, it lingers.
.
(“I think you’re gonna be famous one day,” Hyunjin tells her. They’re fifteen, in Heejin’s room, just the two of them in their own world while Sooyoung and Jiwoo pay attention to the movie they all should be watching.
Heejin playfully rolls her eyes. “I’m not.” She shrugs. “I don’t wanna be anyways.”
“You’re so good at singing, and you’re so pretty though.”
“You’re just saying that cause you have to.”
Hyunjin pouts. “No, I’m not. You’re gonna be famous doing your little plays.”
“Little plays,” Heejin repeats with a laugh. “Cute.”
“Maybe I’ll be famous too, as your best friend.”
“Nah. You’d be famous as my number one stalker.”
Hyunjin blinks at her. “True.”
Heejin playfully slaps her. “You’re not supposed to agree!”
“We are watching a movie!” Sooyoung suddenly yells out from where she and Jiwoo are snuggled up.
“Sorry,” Heejin says in a lower voice.
Hyunjin and her more or less shut up, cuddling into each other. The movie plays on, Heejin doesn’t really know what’s going on, but it’s about a girl and boy, who fall in love and share kisses, and it’s just a teenage romcom to be honest, but she kind of wishes Hyunjin would kiss her like that too.)
The play’s lead actress and Heejin’s somewhat friend, Haseul, talks to her at lunch. Haseul’s an interesting case, Heejin and almost everyone knows her from Haseul’s Opera days, and why she switched to modern plays all of a sudden still gives everyone whiplash, but she’s here, and she’s also the topic of a lot of backstage gossip, because, well, she was dating the play’s director—Vivi, who had dyed purple hair, and looked like she rode motorcycles and did fiddler on the roof in high school.
Heejin doesn’t believe any of the backstage rumors though, anyone with working ears can tell why Haseul deserves to be here. Plus, she thinks the older girl is sweet. She doesn’t bat an eye at any of the vicious, jealous understudies that vie for Vivi’s approval instead, which makes her cool in Heejin’s books.
“You good?” Haseul asks her over pasta.
Heejin shrugs. “Yeah. Why, what’s up?”
“I don’t know. You were kinda off today.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. No fake-wrestling with Ryujin with the props,” Haseul teases her. “Things good?”
Heejin doesn’t know what comes over her, but suddenly, her shoulders slump, and she tells Haseul, even if Haseul doesn’t know Hyunjin, even if Haseul is not Jiwoo or Sooyoung even. Heejin is tired, and she tells Haseul the truth.
“I’m just, I don’t know. You ever feel like something’s haunting you?”
Haseul furrows her eyebrows, maybe confused. “Uh, no, not really. I didn’t know you believed in ghosts.”
“No, not ghosts,” Heejin replies. A part of her thinks: but it’s similar, in a way. Always trailing after her. Always in her nightmares, and even the good dreams. “Like, you know.”
“I don’t?”
“Ugh. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I ran away from something, and now it’s all coming back, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.”
“Ah.” Haseul sips from her water bottle. “Now that, I understand.”
Heejin groans, and rubs her eyes. “It sucks.”
“That it does.”
“I don’t wanna acknowledge it.”
“That, you don’t.”
“Are you gonna be helpful or not?”
Haseul laughs, and twirls her finger in a circular motion. “I’m just listening. It feels like you never really talked about this, so. Plus, I don’t know shit about your situation. How am I supposed to give you Iroh-level advice?”
“I hate that you just made an Avatar reference while trying to comfort me,” Heejin replies. “Imagine if I didn’t know Avatar, that reference would totally fly over my head.”
“You’re changing the subject,” Haseul points out. “Stick to the story, Heejinnie.”
“You’re not allowed to call me that, you know. I’m still pouring my heart out.” Heejin pouts. “You’re supposed to call me that after I spill my guts.”
“You’re literally taking forever to spill your guts, I’m just moving things along. Continue.”
“Fine, Jesus. I used to wonder how Vivi ever snatched someone like you.” Now she gets it—Haseul isn’t all eye-smiles and encouragements, maybe she’s also fire and tenacity after all.
“She’s very lucky.”
“Uh huh.”
“You’re a bitch, Heejin, but you’re a bitch I’m concerned about. So, do tell your ghost stories.”
“It’s not a ghost—“ She starts, but then stops. “Fine. Whatever.” She takes a deep breath, and tells Haseul everything.