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Nayeon and Sana have a spare room with a futon and an unboxed crib.
“You’re our baby,” Nayeon says, a duster fluttering in her hands, wiping the blinds down while Jihyo crouches over her suitcase.
Sana leans against the door jamb, her own thumb soothing over her own knuckles, until Nayeon looks at her. Then she smiles brightly. “Our practice baby,” she chirps.
After dinner, Jihyo lays flat on the stiff mattress. There are nonsense constellations pasted on the ceiling, plastic stars glowing a sick, dim green.
Yesterday, Jihyo and Mina were sitting side by side on the concrete steps at the back of their apartment building.
Mina was pretending to be interested in the stray cat circling the dumpster.
Jihyo was pretending to be interested in the shape of her breath as it clouded in the cold air.
They sunk inside their heavy coats, huddled against each other’s shoulders, and the muted touch was enough to make something angry twist up inside Jihyo. All the silent dinners, backs turned in bed, clipped conversations— all that undigested unhappiness sours in her stomach.
“I think we should take a break.” Jihyo’s voice is thinner in winter. Talking scars her throat.
Mina doesn’t look away from the alley.
“For how long?”
Jihyo is walking with Nayeon through her neighborhood, small steps, avoiding the rifts of ice that cut over the sidewalk.
“Two weeks,” she answers. Her scarf is wrapped over her mouth.
“That’s good. That’s normal. ” Nayeon shivers. “I think.”
Jihyo knows Sana and Nayeon have never taken a break. She’s not even sure what they argue about, or if they do. Nayeon has never complained to her about anything, and if Sana confided in Mina she never heard about it.
“Do you miss her?”
“It’s been two days.” Jihyo tries to laugh. “I’ve been on business trips longer than this.”
Nayeon almost slips on a porthole and seizes Jihyo’s arm. She laughs and means it. “But what about then?”
“I don’t know.” Their gloved hands knit together. “How long is it supposed to take to miss someone?”
Jihyo met Mina in a uselessly dazzling bathroom. It was at one of those corporate ballroom dinners. Jihyo had come for the open bar. Mina had come expecting a promotion, an award, a handshake with the CEO— but it had gone to someone else.
Jihyo, cheeks hot from rum, came into the bathroom to splash her face with cool water. Mina was already there, dabbing at her eyes with a rough paper towel.
“Fuck that guy,” Jihyo slurred.
Mina’s eyebrows perked. Mascara blurred in tear trails.“What guy?”
“You know.” She fished around her purse for lipstick. “That guy.”
Mina’s laugh was a wind chime, startled by a sudden breeze.
A hangover later, Jihyo took the elevator down two floors and found Mina’s cubicle. “I just wanted to say I’m not usually like that.” She means drunk.
“I’m not usually like that.” Mina means crying.
And they’re both right. They’re happy, mostly. They’re happier together.
Nayeon won’t let her pay for any dinners, always let’s her choose what to watch on TV, threatens to throw the dishes out of the window rather than let Jihyo wash them.
But Sana doesn’t have the same reservations. One Saturday she brings a paint can to the nursery, not bothering to knock, and tosses Jihyo one of Nayeon’s old film club t-shirts.
The color is labeled as ‘Pineapple Antarctica’. It’s a light yellow. They pull the futon into the center of the room and cover the carpet with old bedsheets.
It’s when they’re taking a break, sitting against an unpainted spot, drinking sodas that Jihyo works up the bravery to say it. “I’m sorry about.” She sighs. “Me.”
“My birthday is soon.”
Jihyo knows. Weeks ago, Mina had bought an overpriced essential oil diffuser for her.
“Mina will be there.”
“Right. I don’t expect— it’s not like you have to choose between us.”
Sana lets her head fall to Jihyo’s shoulder. Sana doesn’t say, I would choose her, but they sit there and breathe together and know that it’s true.
Jihyo didn’t expect herself to break first, and she didn’t expect Mina to either. They’re both stubborn people, both competitive, but she has a good excuse to dial Mina’s number and wait through three rings. For a moment, it’s just blank electricity, and then Mina quietly says, “Hey.”
“Sorry to bother you, but I—” Jihyo’s voice is too formal, too fast. She takes a deep breath that hopefully Mina can’t hear. “You know that thing you got for Sana? I was just wondering if. Well. Should I get her something too, or are we giving it to her together?”
“Together is fine.”
Jihyo waits for more, but there’s nothing. “Okay, well, I can send you half the money, because I know—”
“It’s fine.”
“Okay, I’ll— to be fair, I’ll take care of the card, okay? I can forge your signature.”
“Okay.”
Jihyo can hear Nayeon laughing in the other room. “So, uh. What’ve you been up to? I’ve been watching paint dry, actually, and—”
“Write something sweet,” Mina murmurs.
Jihyo talks to the dead phone line for an hour.
Around 10pm she feels her heart breaking and goes to bed to listen to it happen.
It takes hours.
She doesn’t cry.
The iceberg in her chest collapses, a brittle orchestra of pops and clicks and squeals.
It keeps her awake until the sun rises.
“You never ask me for advice.” Nayeon has a habit of saying things in this inquisitive way that reminds Jihyo to be interested in herself, in her own behavior. They’re sitting on the porch, which is so stupid because it’s so cold, but they have hot chocolate in their hands and it’s snowing and halfway beautiful.
“I don’t think you and Sana really are— it’s not the same.”
“Well, nothing is ever the same.” Nayeon loves this, Jihyo knows. The big sister role. Her eyes get brighter, her voice gets louder. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t help you.”
“Yeah.”
Across the street, kids are tripping through the snow.
“She’s in Japan right now,” Jihyo breath smokes from her lips. “For Christmas.”
“Were you planning to go?”
“No. We don’t really— the whole family thing.”
“Right.” Nayeon licks at her own hot chocolate moustache before bringing a gloved hand to wipe it away.
“You know, whenever I look at couples who aren’t happy, I think ‘okay, then just break up.’ And now— we’re not happy, unnie. I’m not, and if Mina thinks she’s happy then— that’s really sad.”
Nayeon kisses her hair and Jihyo is too sad to shrink away from it. “She used to make you so happy I could barely look at you.”
“Yeah.” Jihyo knows there’s a question beneath that. The what happened? what changed? But it’s hard to say, even harder to know for sure. At some point, disappointments start to layer. Kind words don’t come as easily. The avalanche builds and no one wants to be the one who whispers do you still love me, the one who shakes the snow from the mountain, the one who drowns them both.
“Here’s the thing.” Nayeon grips her in a half-hug, arm slung over Jihyo’s shoulder. “You are going to be happy again.”
Jihyo’s heart beats harder.
“But you have to do something very brave first.”
Jihyo sets her laptop up on a couple pillows, sitting cross legged on the futon, watching as Mina fiddles with her phone.
“The connection seems pretty good,” Jihyo says, just to say something, to test the steadiness of her voice.
“Yeah.” Mina’s voice is mostly clear, a little high. Behind her, a Christmas tree beams. “Okay. So.”
They go through the formalities of how her flight was, how her family is.
“I painted this,” Jihyo says, leaning back, pointing at the walls of the nursery. “Pineapple Antarctica.”
Mina tries a smile. “It’s pretty.”
The natural thing to think is maybe we should paint our bedroom. Jihyo stops herself before it floats from her heart to her mouth to the laptop microphone.
Mina watches the silence, and then— “I don’t want to fight on Christmas.”
“I didn’t—” Jihyo makes a fist under the blanket where Mina can’t see it. “That’s not why I called.”
“But we need to have a fight. If we don’t have a fight, we’ll break up.”
“So what do you—”
The picture goes all jumbled, and Jihyo knows Mina is walking up the stairs. It takes a minute— the sound of a closed door, the rustle of bedsheets, and then Mina comes back in her pajamas. “Will you listen to songs with me?”
Jihyo tucks herself up under the duvet, turns the lights out, and watches Mina’s own black screen. She plays carols and choirs, the jazzy American songs. “I wanna hold you,” Jihyo whispers when she’s sure Mina is asleep.
Jihyo carpools with Momo to pick up the cake for Sana’s birthday party.
The wipers work frantically against the windshield, snow falling like ash.
“I heard about you and Mina.” Momo is never one to shy away.
“Has everyone?”
“Sana’s fault,” Momo says, with a smirk that means it was actually Nayeon.
Everyone filters in at different times. When Jihyo comes in, holding the door for Momo and the cake, Tzuyu is in the kitchen and Jeongyeon is crouched in front of the fireplace. Chaeyoung and Dahyun come later, with their own fold-out chairs that they set up in the already cramped living room.
“Mina’s coming straight from the airport,” Sana announces, smiling, her head in Nayeon’s lap.
Jihyo’s hands flutter nervously, picking at the upholstery on the armchair. She goes to the bathroom, splashes her face, then regrets it, pats her cheeks dry and goes to smear make-up back on when she hears the door open and then a chorus of seven squeals.
It’s not the worst thing that has ever happened.
Mina sits beside Sana, and Jihyo stays in her armchair.
No one says anything unforgivable.
Sana likes her presents, and she gets that pitifully happy frown when she opens Jihyo’s card, flinging her arms around Mina and planting a pink kiss on her cheek.
Everyone filters out at different times— Dahyun first, followed unsuspiciously by Momo; then Chaeyoung and Tzuyu. Nayeon tries to piggyback Sana to bed, and Jeongyeon follows.
When she comes back to the living room, her eyes flit nervously between Jihyo and Mina before she grabs her scarf and heads out with a few mumbled goodbyes.
Jihyo lets out a self-conscious laugh of relief when the door shuts. Mina is looking at her like she’s never not been looking at her.
“So, are you—”
“Can I see your bedroom?”
“Pineapple Antarctica,” Mina murmurs, spinning in a circle beside the futon.
“Yeah. Paints always have.” Jihyo clears her throat. “Weird names.”
“I think it’s exactly right.” Mina’s smile is playful and Jihyo’s heart leaps. “Every time I see a pineapple in Antarctica I—”
“I don’t want to stay here.”
Mina’s face falls and Jihyo is going to be brave.
“I want to go home.”
“With me?”
Jihyo glances at her suitcase. She hadn’t packed. She hadn’t hoped. “Yeah. Or not. It was just—” Jihyo winces. “I missed you.” She hates saying it out loud. She hates that it’s so important.
Mina slumps against the wall. She looks so wonderful, with her high-collared coat, silk shirt underneath, the same one Jihyo has unbuttoned for years, her hair almost messy from hours without rest. “Have you considered breaking up?”
“Yeah,” Jihyo says, because honesty with Mina is automatic. But only when she asks for it.
“And what was your conclusion?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No.” Mina pushes her back against the wall, slides down until she’s crouched, head hanging. “It’s obvious that we’re both lonely again.”
Jihyo looks down at her hands.
“What I don’t want,” Mina continues, “is for us to— I don’t want you to only think of me when you’re lonely. I don’t want to be that girl in the bathroom who’s so much sadder than you are, and I don’t want you to make me sad just because— because you think that's the only time I need you.”
Jihyo is not sure if her heart is beating. She waits, to feel a pulse in her wrists, a sound, but nothing comes.
“And I’m sure you have something cruel to say too.” Mina lifts her head and her eyes are dark and bruised. “And you just need to say it, baby.”
Jihyo sets her jaw.
“You asked for a break. You don’t do anything you don’t want.”
“Do you— do you even like me, Mina?”
Mina glances at her wristwatch and Jihyo’s chest constricts. “I love you.” It’s plain and electric.
“It hasn’t felt like it.”
“Ah.” Mina reaches down to unlace her shoes. “Do you only want me when I want you?”
Jihyo knows her face is an unflattering red, and Mina has found an unflattering thing in her heart, and she is an ugly person in a pineapple antarctica room who has hurt a beautiful person. The muscles in her shoulders go slack.
Mina slips off her coat, unwraps her neck from its scarf.
“I’m s—”
Mina rises to her knees, leaning forward until her hands are on top of Jihyo’s. “It’s not a bad thing. It’s a normal, human thing.”
“I’m supposed to be better than—”
“You’re not.” Mina kisses her knuckles. “It’s good that you’re not. Otherwise, I’d never understand you.” She kisses again, in a flurry. “I thought you didn’t care. I thought you didn’t even notice the— we’ve been growing apart, haven’t we?”
Jihyo looks at the mess on the floor. Her open suitcase. Mina’s coat, Mina’s shoes. “Where are you going to sleep?”
Mina tucks her cheek against Jihyo’s thigh. “Right here.”
They lay in silence, the backs of their hands brushing.
“Was that the fight,” Jihyo asks.
Mina twists under the sheets, huddles closer. “A bit of it.”
“Okay. Good.”
Mina laughs. “Did you think of something you want to argue about?”
“No, I’m just. Thankful we’re going to talk about it.”
Mina’s hand ghosts under her shirt. “You’re being so polite.”
“I don’t want— I can be harsh. On accident. Even with you.”
Sana’s constellations glow dimly on the ceiling.
“Jihyo,” Mina says, like a spell. “You don’t have to be perfect for me to love you.”
She doesn’t sleep much that night. Instead she listens— the buzz of electric heat, Mina’s steady breathing, her heart rebuilding itself and floating with a tense, tenuous happiness. When the sun rises, when she hears Nayeon stumbling in the kitchen, when Mina rubs the sleep from her eyes, when she knows it’s real she draws the blankets over her ears and tries to sleep in all the glorious noise.