Archive of Our Own ^beta

Peeling the sticker off a fresh box of push pins is one of the best feelings in the world. She could justify a new box every single day just by reminding herself of the way it recoils when she pulls up the very end of the sticker, the way the newly revealed cheap plastic shines in the yellow light from her bedroom ceiling fan. And the way that, with each new box she collects, she grows one step closer to finishing her corkboard.

These ones are translucent blue, the color of looking straight down at a drop off of the ocean floor. One hundred pins. One slightly crinkled handwritten note.

what about thailand? warm there - hyejoo

She smooths the paper against the edge of her desk and pulls nine pins out of the board, presses the note to it so the edge only overlaps a tiny bit with the note next to it, and puts fourteen pins in a line across the top. The nine black ones she removed along with five of the new blue. Fourteen pins closer. One step closer.

She remembers the first time Hyejoo told her she was going to run away. It wasn’t in a note; the notes are just how she brainstorms plans. That first time, she was sitting on Chaewon’s couch, five seconds from giving up on her biology homework.

“This isn’t my real life.”

She remembers laughing and tapping the back of Hyejoo’s hand with the tip of her favorite pen.

“I hate to tell you, but it is. Your life has cellular respiration notes in it.”

She had looked up at Chaewon, her hair falling out of its ponytail, her face blank.

“No. My real life is somewhere else.”

Most days, Hyejoo never mentions it. She studies and plays on her PS4 and encourages Chaewon’s attempts to become better at baking. Most days, she acts like her real life is here, or like, if it is somewhere else, she doesn’t mind never finding it.

But sometimes she passes a note proposing a new place to try. Sometimes she muses about what she might be if she left. Chaewon reminds her that she would be broke and lonely, and then has her taste test her latest batch of meringue cookies.

This newest note was tucked into her history textbook when she packed her bag to go home. Some of them have doodles; sometimes Hyejoo doesn’t even sign her name, just draws a tiny wolf face in the margins because she knows Chaewon thinks it’s cute. Now the note, paper and idea and all, is pinned under the beginnings of a project Chaewon’s been kicking around for years. Hyejoo is the one who convinced her to finally do it.

A few hundred push pins in, and it’s only the beginning.

“Park Chaewon!”

“Yes?” she calls.

“We’re leaving! Please remember to clean the dishes!”

She waits until the sound of tires on asphalt has faded to inaudibility before half-jumping, half-falling down the stairs. The fridge is full of strawberries from yesterday’s shopping trip, and ordinarily they would be tempting, but she knows for a fact that there is also a glass bowl full of the extra frosting from her most recent batch of iced sugar cookies shoved toward the back. That’s the target.

Clad in her thickest sweatpants, sprawled out across the couch with the cold frosting bowl balanced on her stomach, she turns on the TV. Saturday night is her favorite night, even the Saturdays where Heejin is busy and she has to watch her dramas alone. The house to herself, hours to think about nothing at all (and Park Seojoon).

Usually hours.

Tonight, less than ten minutes.

She’s barely even made a dent in the frosting when someone knocks at the door and she nearly sends the bowl flying. Pausing the drama, she runs through her family’s schedule, combing her memory for any appointment she might have forgotten. A repairman, maybe. But her parents would have told her.

“Who’s there?” For the millionth time, she wishes she had a more assertive voice.

“It’s me.”

She catches her breath and opens the door, smiles at her girlfriend under the porchlight. Stepping aside and pulling her in, she asks, “Couldn’t text me first?” Flicks Hyejoo’s forearm, flops back down on the couch and offers the frosting bowl. “What brings you here, pretty stranger?”

Hyejoo rolls her eyes and shoves Chaewon’s legs out of the way. She eyes the bowl for a few seconds before accepting and running her pointer finger through the frosting.

“Ah, wait. A spoon.”

She leaves the bowl under Hyejoo’s care and spends too long trying to find a clean spoon (she really does need to do the dishes). By the time she’s back to the living room, there are two more finger tracks through the frosting than there were when she left. “Couldn’t wait?”

“It’s good,” she shrugs. “Were you baking?”

“That’s from a couple days ago. I made too much.”

Hyejoo nods and scoops two spoonfuls-worth in one fell swoop.

“So… what’s the occasion? Not that I mind you being here. You just usually don’t show up for drama night.”

She waits for Hyejoo to swallow, takes the opportunity to admire. She usually makes fun of Chaewon for getting mushy, but it’s hard not to get carried away. Hyejoo is beautiful.

“I wanted to- I don’t know.”

Chaewon slumps down further into the couch cushions so she can rest her head on Hyejoo’s chest. Most of her jackets have hardware that hurts to lie on and gets cold in the winter, but she isn’t wearing one of those tonight. Tonight, she’s in the hoodie Chaewon got her for her birthday, specially chosen for its softness and the way it hangs off her frame thick like a blanket. Perfect for closeness.

“Hmm, well, I’m already on episode seven of this one. But I’d be willing to start over-”

“I wanted to say goodbye before I leave.”

Leave . She searches Hyejoo’s face for more information, any sort of answer. “You just… you just got here? I’m sorry, I’m confused.”

She shifts her eyes from the bowl to the screen, carefully avoiding Chaewon’s gaze. “I’m taking a bus to Busan to stay with Jinsol-unnie for a few days. And then I’m gonna get a flight to Paris.”

Hyejoo’s heart is racing under Chaewon’s ear. She supposes that, if it goes fast enough, it can beat for the two of them; it’ll have to, because hers has stopped.

Pushing herself up to meet Hyejoo’s eyes, she asks, “What?”

She still won’t look at her, keeps biting her lip.

“Hyejoo, what are you talking about?”

She thinks about the corkboard upstairs, plastered in thirty-one notes and counting. Tries to remember whether any of them say Paris.

“ChaCha, I gotta… I have to get out there.”

She waits for Hyejoo to finally look at her before she says, “We’re leaving for university in a few months. Isn’t that out there?”

She’s struggling to keep the neutral face she likes so much; Chaewon can always tell. “It’s the exact same ‘out there’ that everyone else has. I know there’s something different.”

“You’ve worked so hard-”

“Yeah, but I never really wanted to.”

She can feel the tension in her face, eyebrows knit up and lips turned down. Like a character in the movies they like to watch around Halloween. “I know you did. Why now? Does unnie know you’re coming?”

“Yeah, she knows,” Hyejoo soothes, stroking Chaewon’s hand on the couch where it braces the two of them. “It’s just time. I don’t know why you’re surprised-”

“You usually give me some notice.”

“This isn’t like those other times,” she shrugs. “I’m actually going this time.”

She shakes her head, maybe just to knock the cobwebs loose. “I thought you wanted to go to Thailand?”

“I decided I want to try Paris. City of Lights and all. Lots of young people, youth hostels. You know.”

“Hyejoo, you can’t just… leave.”

Her eyes are piercing, elegant. They’re one of Chaewon’s favorite of her features, in good company with her gummy smile and slender fingers, good for hand-holding. Now, they’re boring holes into the couch where Chaewon’s hand rests. Softly, “This has always been the plan. I never wanted to surprise you.”

“I’m surprised.”

“I just…” Her brows knit up like a worried-looking cat in one of the videos Jiwoo sends her so often. “I need to do it.” Chaewon would be more convinced if her voice didn’t pitch up at the end, a better fit for a shaky question than the fundamental truth Hyejoo is arguing.

It’s so unlike Hyejoo to give her time like this, moments to see her unsure and to think of ways to bring her back to land. On her parents couch, sweatpants and leftovers, better than anywhere else. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Chaewon can feel Hyejoo’s hand tense over hers.

She nods. “Okay. I understand why. I’m not- obviously, I’m not happy about it, but I understand. You always talk about it.”

She can’t hear Hyejoo’s heart anymore, but she imagines it’s still rabbit quick. “And I hope you know that you’re part of my real life. Like, even though this doesn’t feel like me entirely, you’re still real to me. I’ll always be thinking about you, Chaewon. Like, I don’t want to-”

“I’m coming with you.”

“What?”

Pushing herself to her feet, rubbing the goosebumps from her arms, she says, “Yeah, I’m coming.”

“You… Chaewon it’s… I’m leaving, like, tonight. My bus leaves at one in the morning.”

“Come on.” She tugs on Hyejoo’s wrist and starts up the stairs, knowing she’ll follow even if she’s confused. She’s always followed when it counts.

The gentle creak of the old stairs behind her, the melody of things falling apart, preparing to fall back together.

She hears the gasp before she remembers what might have caused it.

“It’s coming along.”

“Hmm?” she hums, throwing open her closet doors and digging out the old duffle she bought for tennis (before she gave up on it two lessons in).

“The corkboard. I didn’t think you were so far along.”

“Oh,” she breathes, winded from the sharp turns of the night and from having to rearrange half the pairs of shoes she owns to free the duffle bag from what was likely to be its final resting place had Hyejoo not decided to leave. “Yeah, it’s still only at the beginning. I just bought a new box. Darker blue, for the transition spaces between the black outlines and the aqua color.”

Hyejoo nods and leans in, squints like an old lady. Chaewon sometimes pokes fun at her for that. “Are these the notes I give you?”

“Yeah, under the pins. They’re the backdrop.”

She’s too focused on creating a convincing go bag to notice the gentle creaking of her bedroom floor as Hyejoo comes to wrap her arms around her waist. As soon as she feels it, though, she drops a balled-up pair of socks and crosses her arms over Hyejoo’s, wrapping herself up.

There’s still time. She’s still here.

“You don’t have to come,” she says, hooking her chin on Chaewon’s shoulder. She gives her a second to mull it over and then tucks her face into her neck. Tightens her arms around her waist.

“I’m going to, though. You’re my person. I’m going wherever your real life is.”

Quiet. A beat for Hyejoo to decide what’s next. “Okay. Can I help?” she whispers into Chaewon’s hair.

One step closer. “I need my toothbrush and hairbrush and things. You know the little bag I have?”

“The lavender one?” she asks, already untangling her arms to go root through the shoebox of a bathroom around the corner.

“That’s it.”

She tries not to grimace at the sound of Hyejoo riffling through her cabinets, messing up the system she’s developed. She plans on using that bathroom for her makeup tomorrow morning. Plans on coming back home and finding everything the way it’s always been.

Plans on bringing Hyejoo back with her.

“I, uh, I think I got everything.”

“Thank you,” she trills in her singsong way, hoping to lighten the mood. Hyejoo acts like everything is already said and done. “Okay, I think I have all the clothes and things I need. I still have some space left in the bag, though.” She pretends to think very hard, tries to emulate the face Jungeun used to make while watching Hyejoo pull out her switch when they all got together to study. “I just need to choose which things to bring.”

Hyejoo nods, but Chaewon can tell she’s a bit on edge about the shift in her plans.

“Do you have enough notes to cover the whole corkboard? They’re really tiny.”

“Huh? Oh, no. I don’t yet.”

“Why did you decide to use them, then? If you didn’t know you had enough.”

She packs her diary but forgoes the pencil; figures that, if they were really running away, she would assume there would be pencils wherever they ended up. “I figured they would keep coming in.”

“Hmm,” Hyejoo hums, tight-lipped. “How long did you think it would take?”

“I don’t really know,” she dismisses. Grabs her plushies and turns to ask, “Do you think I should take my polar bear or my puppy?”

“What?” she asks, eyes softening. “Take both. You should take both.”

“I don’t have room for both,” she whispers, sulky.

Shaking her head, she says, “Don’t worry, I have room. I’ll make room. Give me the polar bear.”

The smile comes easy as she passes the bear over to Hyejoo and watches her tuck it under her arm. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, I’ve got you,” she answers, glancing back to the corkboard. Scanning the rough push pin outline, maybe trying to read the words underneath.

She turns to zip up the bag and throw it over her shoulder, stumbles a half-step under the weight. Apparently, packing a bag under false pretenses doesn’t make it any lighter. Hyejoo takes one last look at the board and leaves ahead of her, saying, “I’ll go first, and if you fall down the stairs, I’ll catch you,” with her signature ‘bullying Chaewon’ laugh.

“Wow, my knight in shining armor.”

She doesn’t fall down the stairs (though it was a close call at one point), and when she’s at the bottom, she finds Hyejoo leaning into the fridge.

“Excuse me?” she laughs.

“Road snacks,” she explains, grabbing a bag of shredded cheese.

“ Shredded cheese , Hyejoo?”

“What? You don’t have any of the string cheese stuff.”

“So shredded chee-”

“Imagine how romantic it would be, us sitting on a bus and feeding each other cheese from the bag,” she antagonizes.

“I want out. I’m having second thoughts.”

“Hey,” Hyejoo soothes, playing along. “Come on, I need you. You can’t just offer to come and then leave me. What am I supposed to do in Paris without you?”

Chaewon knows she’s just playing around, volleying stolen rom-com line after stolen rom-com line for the joke. But it still makes her heart flutter. “Ah, you’re right.”

“You’re literally breathless! Too easily charmed,” she teases.

Back to the regularly-scheduled programming. “Where’s your stuff?”

“Car,” she answers, pocketing a few candies from the dish on the kitchen counter.

“You drove?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Hyejoo shrugs. “I mean, I wasn’t planning on coming back anytime soon, so the car wasn’t gonna matter to me. They’d probably just tow it or something. Not a loss to me. I didn’t wanna walk all the way to the bus station.”

If tonight goes right, it won’t matter that she brought the car.

“Fine. Let me write a note and then we can go.”

“A note?”

She glances at Hyejoo over her shoulder, explains, “I can’t just leave without any explanation. I’ll call them later, but for now they need to know I’m gone when they get home and I need to have an excuse.”

Hyejoo bites the inside of her cheek; Chaewon can see the tiny depression where it dips in. Other than that, though, she stays calm. Doesn’t rush, doesn’t ask Chaewon to leave fewer tracks.

It takes a moment to find a pen, but it takes no time at all to write.

Heejin was gonna take a taxi but I offered to drive her home. You know how far away she lives though. Be back as soon as I can but I might stay to talk for a tiny bit :) - Chae

Hyejoo leans over her shoulder to read it. “It’s good.” Adds, “You know, you really don’t have to… leave or anything. You don’t have to.”

She turns around to face Hyejoo and smiles. “I want to. I wanna go where you’re going. What would you do in Paris without me?”

Hyejoo smiles wide and bright, the kind she can’t fight back. “Probably have peace of mind for once.”

“Hmm, sounds overrated, I think.”

Chaewon lets her open the front door for her, remembers to make a bit of a scene of leaving. Turns to look at the house, stands at the stairs and shifts her weight from hip to hip, playing up her hesitation. Pretends it’s the last time she’ll be home for a while.

By the time she joins Hyejoo in the car, she looks hesitant too. It tugs at Chaewon’s heart to see her conflicted, but it’s better than the reckless certainty she had practically crackled with on the couch, telling Chaewon the plan as if she had no say in it.

“What’re we listening to?” she asks, unzipping the bag on her lap and digging her puppy out before shoving the whole thing into the back seat. Stroking the soft, well-loved fur on its ears keeps thoughts of failure at bay.

Hyejoo keeps her eyes ahead as she backs out of the driveway but passes her the aux cord without another thought. “You pick.” It’s this simple affection, this promise to care for Chaewon in ways no one else will see, that made her fall in the first place. If she were even a touch crazier, she really would follow her to Paris. She’d follow her anywhere, anytime.

Does Hyejoo know that?

Will she still know that after tonight is all over?

She pulls at the puppy’s ears, grits her teeth, and comes back to herself. “Could we, uh, stop a couple places first?”

“Huh? What?” Chaewon isn’t sure whether she’s asking because she couldn’t hear or because she can’t believe.

“Just… a couple places I wanna see again before we leave. I don’t know how long we’ll be gone, and I didn’t have time before now-”

“Yeah.” Her voice is tight, more tense than it was a moment ago. Chaewon knew this would be part of it. Doesn’t make it any easier, though. She hates to kill such a soft feeling.

“We don’t… I mean, I would just like to say goodbye to some things.”

“Where do you need to go?”

“When does your bus leave again?”

“One.”

“Just a couple places.”

“Okay but tell me where , Chaewon.”

“First, that little shop. The one in town where Yerim works.”

Hyejoo glances at her out of the corner of her eye, presses her lips together. “I don’t wanna see Yerim right now, ChaCha.”

“I don’t think she’d be working at 9:30 at night. It’s gonna close soon, Hyejoo.” She tries to channel the smallness of her voice, the way she can disappear if she needs to. The way she can threaten to shrink into regret in the passenger seat of Hyejoo’s car.

It isn’t a close call; Chaewon knew it wouldn’t be. Hyejoo wouldn’t withhold goodbye, so she gives in. “Okay.”

The drive there starts rigid, but as the stars come out and they start singing along to the music (loudly, out of tune), it melts. The edges grow softer and softer until they fall apart into something sweet. Chaewon thinks tonight is more than a mission to drive Hyejoo back home, and she thinks Hyejoo came to see her for more than just goodbye.

Maybe, somewhere in her brain, hidden away from even herself, she had wanted tonight to melt.

Maybe she had wanted someone to walk her back.

And Chaewon has always been the one to take her hand and guide her home.

~

“Oh, good, it’s still open,” she beams. The window displays are decorated with white pillow stuffing and paper snowflakes, the same as nearly every other little store on this downtown strip. Warm yellow light from the shop’s smattering of antique lamps pours out to the street, and if Chaewon squints, she can see through the towering shelves all the way to the back wall where they display Christmas ornaments this time of year.

Hyejoo locks the car and takes her hand. “Ready?”

Inside, it smells like cinnamon. The older woman who owns the shop always has candles burning in the back; Chaewon and Jiwoo used to play a game where they would try to guess what the shop would smell like before they went in, and whoever was closest could pick something small for the other to buy her. Chaewon still has the little collection of fancy bookmarks she amassed tucked away in a box on her bookshelf. A collection she would like to keep adding to, one that needs her here.

Chaewon guides Hyejoo around the store, taking care to avoid the desk where the cashier sits.

Yerim has been complaining about her new schedule for weeks, the one that has her toiling away for long hours in “the dustiest room I’ve ever been in, unnie” . Complaining specifically about how she has to close nearly every night of the holiday season, working until 10:00. Exhausting. And exactly what Chaewon needs, another tiny reminder of all that Hyejoo has here to make her life real.

“Look, this has always been my favorite part,” she gushes, dragging Hyejoo to the display of hand-sewn stuffed animals. “I’ve never bought one before, but they’re so cute.”

“You’re cute,” she replies, petting a lavender elephant.

“Me or the elephant?”

“The elephant, obviously.”

Chaewon huffs and loops their arms together, guides Hyejoo to the ornaments. They glint prettily in the soft light, sparkling like Christmas itself. “Wait, let’s pick ornaments for each other.”

“Chaewon…”

“What?” she asks, turning to catch Hyejoo’s eyes. Tugs on her arm and smiles. “Come on.”

“We don’t have room for them. And they probably won’t want us to take them on the plane.”

Still so serious. “Well… what about if we pick out ornaments and leave them with Jinsol-unnie? I’m sure she and Jungeun would appreciate them.”

If Chaewon didn’t know Hyejoo like the back of her hand, she would think she had started a staring contest. But she does know Hyejoo, so she lets her search her eyes for a moment, decide where she’s going to draw the line. She holds her gaze and draws her attention other ways. Asks her to indulge in a small roadblock with her fingertips on Hyejoo’s wrists, begs for a tiny window of opportunity with a squeeze of her hand.

Chaewon holds Hyejoo’s hands and prays she’ll let her convince her to stay.

“We don’t have much money. But okay.”

“We’ll get little ones. They’re less expensive,” she beams, wrapping her arms around Hyejoo’s shoulders. Relishes the way Hyejoo melts into the hug.

They fill the next fifteen minutes with ‘what about this?” and ‘I’ve never seen one like this before’ and ‘this would look nice on their tree’. Occasionally, Hyejoo will find a joke one tucked away behind bells and angels and they launch into a story about it. Chaewon nearly falls down laughing and thanks the universe for keeping Yerim occupied enough to refrain from checking on her most disruptive customers.

She makes sure to keep a read on Hyejoo’s mood, not wanting to push her luck too far. No sudden moves. So when she starts tapping her foot on the old carpet and gnawing on her lower lip, Chaewon moves along. Pulls a glittery fish off the wall and watches it sparkle in the lamplight.

“Got it?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “What did you pick?”

She dangles it in front of Chaewon’s face like a carrot for a cartoon rabbit. A snowy owl with delicate white feathers and tiny bead eyes. “Owl.”

“Very elegant.”

“A bird of prey,” she adds.

“Oh? Goth girlfriend, is that you?” Chaewon laughs.

“Stop, you’re so annoying.”

She sticks her tongue out and takes advantage of the light mood. “Let’s check out.”

“Done saying goodbye?”

She controls her face, knowing that betraying her knowledge of Yerim’s post here will mean the whole thing ends now. Before Hyejoo ever sees that she doesn’t have to fly thousands of miles away to find the real her.

“I think so. I think, with this one, I just needed to see it again.”

Hyejoo nods, reaching for Chaewon’s hand. They walk to the register.

“ No ,” Hyejoo gasps, pulling Chaewon flush against a shelf full of novelty mugs.

“Hyejoo, what? Are you okay?”

“Yerim is here,” she whispers, shell-shocked. “I can’t do it.”

“What? Why?”

“I- it was already so hard to go see you. I can’t say goodbye to everyone.”

She bites back a grimace at having to lie, even if only by omission. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t- I mean, you really don’t even have to tell her you’re leaving. It doesn’t have to be a goodbye.”

“Chaewon, I don’t think I can do it. She’s one of my best friends. I can’t do it.”

Chaewon has never seen her like this, this particular mix of panicked and obstinate. She’s usually so headstrong, moreso when she’s afraid. But the Hyejoo white-knuckling her hand and pressing herself into nothing against an old trinket store’s shelves is different, a deer in headlights.

Chaewon hits the brakes.

“Okay, okay. I’ll go pay for the ornaments. You go wait in the car,” she instructs. Traces a star on the back of Hyejoo’s hand and gives her a smile. “I’ll be out soon.”

Her eyes are boring into Chaewon, taking their time. “Okay. I’m sor-”

“I love you, Hyejoo. I’ll be out soon, okay? Don’t run away without me.”

She nods and slinks around the far end of the shelf, putting space between herself and Yerim’s counter. The little bell above the door chimes and she’s gone. Damn.

Chaewon looks down at the ornaments hanging from her fingers by their raggedy-charming twine loops: a discordant pair, equal parts elegant and unlikely. They’ll look good on Jinsol and Jungeun’s tree, but she can’t help but think that there’s some Hyejoo and Chaewon in them too. That maybe someday the two of them will have a tree, and it will have ornaments just like these.

Until then, the little parts of their future will live elsewhere.

“Hey, unnie! Thank god, I’m so bored,” Yerim calls as soon as Chaewon rounds the shelf.

“How’s the closing shift?”

“I’m losing my mind,” she replies, drawing out the vowels and rolling her eyes back in her head, always an entertainer, no matter how exhausted she is. “What could you possibly have needed here at-” pauses to check the faintly ticking clock on the desk- “9:48 at night?”

“Just these,” she answers, gingerly setting the ornaments on the desk, trying her best to avoid the thick layer of dust around the perimeter.

“Oh, cute,” Yerim coos, grabbing a brown paper bag and tissue paper the color of the night sky to wrap them up. “Christmas gifts?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“For who?” she prompts, eyebrow raised as if Chaewon has interesting drama to share instead of the details of an imaginary shopping list. “Unless it’s me, of course. I like being surprised.”

“Our Busan unnies, actually.”

“Oh? I miss them.” Chaewon wonders whether she’s this chatty with other customers or if it’s just because she knows Chaewon well enough to guess the answers to the security questions on her bank account.

“Yeah. Figured it might be nice to get them something for the apartment.”

“Maybe I should do that too,” she muses, biting her fingernail as she rings up the ornaments. It makes Chaewon cringe, but she knows that if she nitpicked every gross habit her friends have, it would never end. “I like the fish and owl combo. What’s the thinking on it?”

I don’t know about the owl, ask Hyejoo. I brought her here to see you.

“Just thought they felt like them. And I liked the sparkles on the fish and the little feathers on the owl. I don’t know.”

“Well, they’re really cute.”

“Thanks.”

Batting her eyes, Yerim reaches out and grabs Chaewon’s wrist. “Hey, would you stay with me until my shift ends? I hate closing by myself, and it’s only another ten minutes or so.”

“I, well- it’s kind of late-”

“Please, please , Chaewon-unnie. Park Chaewon, light of my life-”

“Okay… just let me put these in the car first,” she points to the bag. “I’ll be right back. Right back, and then we’ll hang out until your shift is over.”

“Thank you! I love you!” she trills from the desk, overacting like a crushing schoolgirl character in a drama.

Shit.

Hyejoo’s waiting for her in the driver’s seat, bobbing her head to music that really should be played loud turned way down on the volume dial. Her eyes glow like the moon at night, faint but undeniably luminous. Something to look for in the dark.

“Hey,” she whispers, just barely loud enough to be heard over the music.

“Hey,” Chaewon responds, handing her the paper bag. “Yerim’s about to get off her shift and she asked if I could hang around until then. Just wanted to let you know that I’ll be back out in around ten minutes.”

“Wait, what?” Hyejoo asks, jolting to life in her seat. “Chaewon, we don’t have all that much time.”

“Bus leaves in like three hours, right? I think we’ll be okay.” Sometimes people listen better to quiet voices.

“I- ChaCha, how can you… how can you do that? Hang out and act like nothing is… I don’t know, changing?”

She bites her lip and swallows the wrongness of the lie. “I just need closure. The more time with her, the better. For me, anyway.”

Hyejoo doesn’t respond immediately. Chaewon remembers when they met, those first few days, the learning period. Sometimes Hyejoo would snap back at everything like a whip, moving too fast for Chaewon to keep up. But sometimes she takes time to pull things apart. Chaewon can see the gears turning when she does that, can see her dissecting the scene and looking for her next line.

She did that when Chaewon brought her songpyeon on Chuseok, half a year into their friendship. Had stood in the doorway of her parents’ house holding the dingy plastic travel container Chaewon gave her for what felt like forever, thinking.

“Unnie- I hate calling you unnie.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Okay. Chaewon, I like you. A lot.”

Hyejoo’s time-out habit always makes time run slower. Creates a movie moment where, before, there was just dead air.

“Okay. I’ll be waiting.”

One last try can’t hurt. “You can come in and say hi if you want. Hang out with us.”

“I don’t think I should. It’ll be harder,” she answers, shifting to rest her hands on the wheel. “Just meet me out here when you’re done.”

“Well,” she improvises, avoiding the pest of giving up with her every breath. “I mean, she’ll probably see you out here when she closes up. Wouldn’t it be weird for you to be out here and not come in to talk to your best friend?”

She considers it, Chaewon watches her consider it. But then she shakes her head, smiles, and says, “I think it’ll be fine. See you in ten minutes.”

So Chaewon walks back to the shop, shoulders slumped and head hanging a bit lower than it had been a minute ago. The bell chimes, the cinnamon rushes to envelop her in winter warmth, and Yerim waves her back over to the desk.

She’ll try to enjoy it, even if Hyejoo can’t.

“You’re the only person who’s come in for the past hour and a half. It’s pretty late for shopping and a lot of our customers are little old ladies,” she grins.

“Well, I’m glad to be here.” I’m here on a failed mission. The world’s worst secret agent.

She tries to clear her mind of the car outside, the hoodie like a blanket and the girl wrapped up in it. Tries to give Yerim a good conversation, even though she knows it isn’t the last. They talk about the stress of preparing for university and a new artist Yerim found in the depths of the internet (she’s always the go-to for obscure picks), and Chaewon wants to be able to focus on those things.

But the car. The hoodie. The girl.

The bell above the shop’s door ringing. Ringing?

“Hyejoo! Hey, brat!”

“Hey, Yerim,” she greets, easy.

Chaewon catches her open mouth and quickly corrects. “Babe, hi.”

“Where’ve you been?” Yerim asks after pretending to gag at the pet name.

“Oh, fixing something with the car. It was making a weird noise.”

“Since when does Son Hyejoo know how to work on cars?” Yerim laughs. Chaewon had been wondering the same thing.

“Since fifteen minutes ago when my youtube tutorial ended.”

“You know what, fair enough,” she shrugs. “You two stay out here and entertain me while I pretend to sweep the floor.”

“Pretend?” Chaewon asks.

“Yeah, I really don’t wanna do it. And she’ll never know the difference.”

Chaewon and Hyejoo exchange a look. Technically, Yerim knows the shop’s owner better than they do, but it still seems a stretch that she would fail to notice the dust, as thick as it is. But it’s Yerim’s life, not theirs. Depending on how tonight goes, their lives will either curl up here until university or stretch thin over thousands of miles, the City of Lights and this place, intertwined and lonely.

So Chaewon lets Yerim pretend. Tonight, everyone is pretending.

They make small talk, reference old jokes. Hyejoo pokes fun at Yerim and brushes off her performative annoyance, holds Chaewon’s hand in hers and smiles at her in small, secret ways. She acts like someone who knows everything is coming to an end, an audience member rather than a character.

Ten minutes melt like ice in the sun. The broom returns to the back closet. Yerim grabs her bag and the key, ushers them out and locks up.

“Thanks, unnie. And Hyejoo?” She waits for Hyejoo to look back at her and pretends to spit. “Remember next time that I’m more important than your car.”

They laugh together, and Chaewon spots the exact moment Hyejoo comes back to herself. Her face falls and she blinks quickly, the way she does when they all crowd into Heejin’s living room to watch sad movies and she knows people are watching her.

“Hey, I love you, Choi Yerim.” Punctuates it by swatting her arm, typical Hyejoo flare.

She cocks her head to the side, looks to Chaewon in question. Chaewon shrugs and passes it off. If Yerim finds out, the whole thing will go sideways. Hyejoo will feel cornered, and she’ll run. She has to think this is the end.

“Okay… love you too? I do, I really love you,” she answers, wrapping Hyejoo up in a hug.

They look happy. Hyejoo is happy here. She just has to see it.

Hyejoo pulls away first and walks around to the driver’s side, waves Yerim off when she asks whether they need her to chaperone a date ‘for purity purposes’.

“Nah, fuck off.” It’s wrapped in a smile and delivered with love. Yerim laughs and staggers off to her car behind the shop, and Hyeoo ducks in and closes the door. The car is cold, bitingly so. Chaewon grabs her puppy and tries wrapping the floppy ears around her hands.

“Chaewon.”

“Hmm?” she hums, half-focused. The second hand is harder than the first.

“Here,” Hyejoo whispers, pulling her forward by her shoulders.

It’s gentle. Hyejoo’s always very gentle. No one would ever guess from the way she likes to dress, but she’s the softy. Always calling Chaewon before a nap so she can fall asleep to her voice, buying her little gifts, making room in her go bag so her girlfriend won’t be without either of her favorite plushies.

It would be so easy to melt into this idea Hyejoo’s built. The two of them in Paris with nothing but each other, exploring the city, making their way with no responsibilities and far too much freedom. When Hyejoo holds her delicately and leaves behind the taste of plum lip balm, it’s all simple.

“Could, uh,” she mumbles into Hyejoo’s cheek. “I have another place.”

Hyejoo pulls back and leans into her seat. Sighs and smiles, small and tired. “Okay. Where?”

~

Their table is open. It’s not a surprise, really; coffee shops are hardly bustling at 10:20 at night. But their table is open , and Chaewon hopes Hyejoo takes that as a sign.

She waits until Hyejoo is settled into her usual seat, framed by the twinkling Christmas lights wrapped around the thick wooden support beams littered throughout the café, and then she heads to the counter, not needing to hear Hyjoo’s order. She’s had it memorized for over a year now.

The cups warm her hands through their paper holders, almost too much before she sets them down. “Decaf?” Hyejoo asks.

Chaewon makes a face and is rewarded with a breathless laugh. “Too late for bitter coffee. This is hot chocolate.”

“So dark chocolate-”

“With cinnamon,” she finishes.

Hyejoo raises her eyebrows and swirls her hand around, a not-at-all-subtle ‘go on, I’m waiting’.

Chaewon huffs a laugh and continues, “And I made those nice, overworked people put chili powder in your hot chocolate because you’re a gremlin and I love you.”

“Thank you,” she answers, snooty and self-satisfied.

They sip in silence for a moment. This is how the shop looked the first time they visited, decked out in holiday decorations, windows frosted. They had been driving, no goal, no destination. Hyejoo had picked Chaewon up a few hours after school ended and they had spent nearly two hours on the road. Screamed the lyrics to their favorite songs from middle school, kissed at a stoplight (though it had made Chaewon feel guilty; her mom is a stickler for cautious driving). And they had ended up here, a tiny, understaffed coffee shop that looked like the North Pole.

And here they are again, full circle.

“Do you remember last year? Maybe the year before? When we’d always-”

“We’d always be here after school, yeah,” Chaewon smiles. “They remember us.”

“No way,” Hyejoo says, her eyes wide with the surprise of mattering in small ways to distant people.

“Yeah. When I walked up to order, that same barista from back then asked, ‘Is Hyejoo here with you?’”

“Huh.”

“Yeah,” she nods. “I think they must have a few people who come and order chili cocoa. It was out there on the counter with the other cocoa things.” Waits for Hyejoo to meet her eyes before she shrugs and adds, “Or maybe it’s just you, and they just started keeping it out there cause you always asked.”

“Hmm. Well, it’s really good, so they probably have a few people who want it. Probably everyone, actually.”

“Yeah,” Chaewon laughs. “Probably everyone, I’m sure you’re right.”

Hyejoo kicks her under the table and smiles. Looks to Chaewon’s hand resting on the table and reaches for it, slow motion.

Chaewon wants her to stay. She wants Hyejoo to want to stay.

“The lights look pretty,” she starts, squeezing Hyejoo’s hand over the table.

“Yeah,” she agrees.

“You think I could get lights like this for my dorm? Just a couple months away. Might as well start getting things to decorate.”

“Hmph. I don’t know.” She got whipped cream once; it was piled high like a snowdrift, and she kept getting it on the tip of her nose. Chaewon almost wishes Hyejoo had fallen in love with it, just so she could wipe cream off her nose every time they came here. Now, she doesn’t even get any cocoa on her lip. “We might have some trouble getting decorations from Paris back to Seoul.”

“Hmm, yeah,” she nods. Takes a chance. “So, you do want to go to university? We’ll be back by then?”

Hyejoo swirls her cocoa around in the mug and lets go of Chaewon’s hand.

She reminds herself that it’s just tonight, that she won’t have to get used to lonely hands.

“I mean, yeah. I wasn’t planning on coming back before, but… we did a lot of shitty work in high school. Might as well go to university.”

She controls her face, knowing that giving too much of her excitement away could make Hyejoo backpedal. Could pull the key thread and unravel the whole night, laying midnight blue sky and charcoal hoodie bare for what they were meant to be. Goodbye.

“Might as well.” She runs her fingertips over the fold of the envelope, pushes just a tad further. “What- if you don’t mind me asking- what are the details of this plan?”

“Oh shit, yeah,” she laughs. “Uh, so, the bus. That first. It leaves at one, and it’s gonna take us to Busan, where we’ll stay with Jinsol-unnie for a couple days until we can get plane tickets. I already have a bus ticket, but we can get yours at the station.”

“Does Jungeun-unnie know?”

She shrugs and answers, “If Jinsol told her.”

Chaewon nods, trying to finish her cocoa before it goes cold.

“Then we go to Paris. I heard there are tons of hostels, so we can stay in one for however long we need.”

Hyejoo sips from her own mug and lets the air go silent.

“That’s… that’s it?”

“What do you mean?”

Here, she’s allowed to scoff, to act shocked. Doesn’t even need to act. Hyejoo’s never been much of a planner, but Chaewon can’t believe she would ever dare to be so underprepared after spending years under Haseul’s wing. “I just mean, I mean, it isn’t much of a plan. Like, how are you paying for everything?”

“Well, I have a credit card. For tickets and stuff.”

“And money to spend? The credit card doesn’t come with-”

“I know it doesn’t,” Hyejoo snips. “I’ve been saving my stream money. Been making a lot recently cause I’ve been playing more.”

Chaewon gnaws on her lip, wraps her hands closer around the mug, chasing its warmth. “Okay.” Hyejoo needs to see the flaws on her own. “Okay, that’ll work.”

She wishes Hyejoo’s smile wasn’t like the sun. Or maybe that she wasn’t so easily lured into playing Icarus.

Chaewon racks her brain for something to say, some way to breathe life back into this shop and pull Hyejoo into nostalgia. Anything to remind her that she’s the one who’s been living her whole life, that there’s no Hyejoo more real than the one sitting across from Chaewon and tapping the toes of her sneakers under the table.

“ChaCha.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you nervous?”

“Oh,” she breathes. “A little bit, yeah. I wasn’t planning on, you know, leaving.”

“Look,” Hyejoo says, training her eyes to bore holes through Chaewon. “I’ll say it again. You don’t have to. You do not have to come with me.”

“I want to.” Immediate. Not entirely a lie, but not a truth she can follow through on.

“I want to make sure, though. You have a lot here.”

“So do you.”

It gives her pause.

“Chaewon, it’s gonna be rough for a little bit. Like, we won’t know anyone . And I heard Parisians are god-tier pickpockets.”

Hyejoo makes it easy to smile, even as Chaewon tries to hold water in her hands. “Well, I can’t let you face the pickpockets alone.”

She leans back and nods, but her appraising eyes don’t stray from Chaewon until she runs out of cocoa.

She knew before coming that a mug doesn’t last forever. But sometimes everything can change in a moment, and an old friend coffee shop is full of them. A tiny part of her is disappointed when Hyejoo offers her hand and pulls Chaewon’s coat tight around her shoulders, making a joke about being more ‘gentlemanly’ in Paris.

“You better not,” Chaewon laughs. “If we get there and you start acting all French romantic, I’m leaving.”

Hands up in surrender, she laughs, “Okay. Got it.”

She grabs the hand Hyejoo originally used to hoist Chaewon from her seat and leads her out of the shop (waving at the baristas on the way out) and into the cold.

The street is lit up in glittering white and yellow, a scene straight out of the climax of the shitty American Christmas movies they all used to watch at Haseul’s house. It isn’t snowing, but every single shop window as far as the eye can see is decorated with fake frost, and it’s almost cold enough to make her nose run.

“Could we… I don’t want to delay us too much-”

“We have some time.”

It’s warmth, sweet as holding her as they nap together, reassuring. She squeezes Hyejoo’s hand and continues, “Could we walk around here for a bit? We don’t have to go in anywhere else. Just… it’s really pretty this time of year.”

Hyejoo nods and sweeps her arm out, licks her chapped lips and says, “Lead the way.”

They float through mainstreet like snowflakes (or like ghosts, ready to disappear on a gust of wind). Hyejoo lets Chaewon drag her around to different windows, past the old fashioned candy shop smelling like caramel and marshmallow, across the street to feel the velvet bows on wreaths displayed outside the florist.

Hyejoo lets Chaewon take her everywhere. Maybe she’ll follow her back home.

“Oh, a dog!” Chaewon points, digging her fingers into Hyejoo’s arm so she doesn’t miss it. “Looks like one of those wolfy ones, a husky or something.”

“Mhmm,” Hyejoo hums. Chaewon can tell she zones out for a moment, but she’s sure that she’ll process it later and be glad they saw it. In that way, she is predictable.

In other ways, she is not.

“ChaCha.”

“Hmm?”

She pulls Chaewon towards a storefront, out of the way of any foot traffic. Taps the toe of her sneakers with her boot and tugs the sleeves of the hoodie she drowns in over her fingers. “Your butterfly board…”

It takes her a moment to catch up. Feels like everything tonight has been just out of her reach. “What about it?”

“You just bought all those new pins. I saw the box on your desk.”

Like ice skating on a lake, mid-December. The one they went to a year or so ago in the summertime, that very lake all frozen over. Fresh ice. She treads carefully. “Yeah, I did.”

“I think… well, that’s a cool idea. The butterfly made of pins. With the notes underneath.”

“Thank you.”

And it almost seems like that’s the end. Hyejoo’s fidgeting like she does sometimes when she’s nervous, like she has something to say that’s stuck to the roof of her mouth, bitter and sticky, and Chaewon can’t let go. She takes a step, tests the ice. “What would you have done if I hadn’t asked to come?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugs. Tilts her head back and sighs. “Thought about you every day. Maybe I would have still come back soon. Not for university, but for you.”

She nods, balancing on the head of a pin. To jump ship now and hope Hyejoo will follow, or to continue the charade?

“That butterfly isn’t done,” she mumbles.

Back to the butterfly. It pulls Chaewon from her head.

“It isn’t,” she agrees.

Hyejoo turns to face Chaewon, mumbles, “You shouldn't leave it unfinished.”

The ice cracks, a thick fissure and a sound like glass breaking.

“Well, I don’t really- you shouldn’t go without someone- Paris can be dangerous-”

“I mean, you’ll need more notes,” she shrugs, averting her eyes.

Chaewon tries to forget the crack, to forget the regret of putting too much weight on the thin shell of an early winter and an underdeveloped plan. Tries to focus on Hyejoo, not losing her, but having her.

“I… for the butterfly… yes?”

“I… it’s a cool project. Hate to leave it.” She licks her lips and catches Chaewon’s eyes. “We should probably stay, then. So you can finish it.”

“Oh.”

Eyes on the horizon, on the wisps of hair curling around the curve of Hyejoo’s cheeks.

“I don’t, uh… Hyejoo-”

“I should probably keep saving up anyway.”

And like that, Chaewon is safe. The ice holds.

And Hyejoo, at the edge of the lake with a rope and blanket, is shivering to her bones.

“Baby?”

Normally, she doesn’t like when Chaewon calls her that. Now, she looks at her and waits.

“Do you wanna go home? And we can… we can talk more about it?”

“We don’t have to-”

It’s so easy to wrap her up. So easy to throw her arms around Hyejoo’s shoulders and melt. Her heart is racing, and her hands find their way to the back of Hyejoo’s neck and bring her close.

“Let’s head back?”

Hyejoo nods, her chin digging into Chaewon’s shoulder.

Hyejoo follows her home.

~

She drives Chaewon back and drops her off, walks her up to the porch, lets her stick her cold hands in the kangaroo pouch of her hoodie.

“Are you tired?”

“Yeah,” Chaewon sighs.

“You were never going to come with me.” It isn’t a question.

She starts to pull her hands from the pocket, but Hyejoo shoves her own in and holds Chaewon’s there. It’s an odd position, but no worse than the one Chaewon’s cornered herself in, lying to Hyejoo all night.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It… it kind of isn’t. I didn’t know what to do. But I was lying to you.” Hyejoo nods but doesn’t say anything, just dips her neck to make eye contact with Chaewon’s abashedly hung head. She continues, “I really didn’t want you to leave.”

Hyejoo sighs and loosens her grip on Chaewon’s hands. They stay still, though.

“I stand by that, though. I think…” How to phrase it? How to put into words the insistent worry over Hyejoo’s detachment, the fragile feeling of butterfly wings covering ghostly graphite wishing like a tarp in a hurricane? “I just think that, even if there is something for you somewhere else- which I’m sure there is- that doesn’t mean what you have here isn’t the right thing. You’re still Son Hyejoo here.”

She nods. “Yeah. I’m still Son Hyejoo here.”

“And, Hyejoo, if you still want to leave… I won’t stop you from doing it again. As long as you give yourself the time to start right. If you’re gonna go-”

“Don’t get sappy, please-”

“I will get sappy, and you’ll listen to me,” she snaps. It doesn’t have the desired effect; her voice squeaks on the end and Hyejoo laughs, warm like chocolate. “If you’re gonna go somewhere else and be someone else, you deserve to start strong. That means having money, a plan, it means saying goodbye to people you’ll miss-”

“Would you go with me if I did that?”

“This isn’t about me, Hyejoo,” she dismisses.

“But would you?”

“If I say yes, will you be smart about it?”

“Can I hold you to it?” she asks, eyebrow quirked, clamping her hands around Chaewon’s wrists again and pulling her in closer.

She can’t resist anymore; she giggles. “ Obviously not. This is another lie to get my girlfriend to behave like a reasonable person for once.”

“Gross! Don’t want to.”

“Promise me.”

“ You promise me .”

Chaewon doesn’t even know what they’re promising each other. But under the porchlight, they pull their hands from the hoodie and link pinkies. It’s trust in a pure form, trust to be real people wherever they are.

Trust to do the future together, separated by thousands of miles or the space of a breath.

Trust to do the best thing and to make it painless.

As painless as it can be.

~

It’s the snow coming down in fluffy clumps on Christmas morning and Hyejoo showing up at Chaewon’s family’s annual party. Twinkling lights and spending the days together. They meet with Heejin and Yerim every day to study for exams, but rarely ever get anything done. They go shopping; Chaewon buys lights for her room, just like the ones at the coffee shop. Hyejoo buys black and white cords of all lengths and names so she can bring the things she’ll need for her favorite games, and Chaewon pretends to know what she’s talking about when she jokingly asks for her advice.

It’s a full year of university. Learning to be themselves ( creating themselves), learning to become what they want to be, learning to survive off of kraft macaroni. Heejin meets a girl and Chaewon helps her dress for the first date while Hyejoo does everything in her power to distract them ( “Just dress like a fuckboy. You were born to ‘hey mamas’.” ) It’s barely surviving weed-out classes and being each other’s shoulder to cry on, transcribing angry emails to professors and reading them back, deleting them before they can be sent. It’s hard. But they do it together.

It’s Hyejoo’s notes filling up the little box Chaewon keeps at the front of her desk drawer. Hong Kong, Reykjavík, Tokyo, the world scribbled in Hyejoo’s messiest handwriting. Sometimes she passes them across the library table while they pretend to study; sometimes she makes the trip to Chaewon’s dorm on the other side of campus just to drop one off (or so she says). When she leaves to go home for the summer, Chaewon takes every single one, held together with a straining lavender binder clip.

The first few weeks are relaxing. She settles back into her parents’ home (chagrined at the conversion of her nintendo nook to a sewing table) and fends off complaints from extended family about her freshly dyed hair. She goes to sleep each night looking out at the still unfinished butterfly, and she gives herself time. No reason she needs to look through all the notes now, no reason to browse foreign office supply sites for the perfect color pin. No reason yet to finish.

She forgets the feeling of peeling the sticker off a new box. It’s okay.

Her parents used to ask for updates on it, but they haven’t in weeks. That’s okay too.

For a while, going to sleep to the thought of never finishing was easy. The butterfly had turned into something scary, the edge of a cliff, and Chaewon was satisfied leaving it alone. But just for a while.

Not forever.

It isn’t a grand revelation; none of her big moments are. Her epiphanies have always been quiet. It wasn’t life changing when she picked a university. It wasn’t a shock when she realized she liked girls, and it was even more of a nonevent realizing she loved Hyejoo. One day she just knew.

One day, she just wakes up. She looks at the butterfly, pixelated and glitching against her wall, and she stands, stumbles on stiff morning legs to her desk. She pushes on the prongs of her binder clip and watches the notes tumble to the laminate surface, mixing with stray eraser shavings.

She doesn’t change out of her pajamas to go to the store. Buys a box each of royal blue and black and three of cyan, brings home hundreds of push pins. She peels the stickers off and folds them in half before throwing them away, starts sorting through the notes, spends more time on the ones she’s forgotten the details of. Was New Zealand from when they stayed up until 2 a.m. the night before their first midterms?

Slowly, she builds a butterfly. It takes six days of sharper focus than she’s ever felt before and constant trial and error. Lots of snack breaks and Oh My Girl on shuffle through her speakers. She watches its wings unfurl, spends hours pinning it against her wall and pretending she doesn’t see the irony.

Wings to fly, to cover up the idea of flight. Pinned and clipped.

She only gives herself a moment to admire it once it’s finished; after around thirty seconds, she checks airfare rates. She isn’t nervous. She isn’t sure, either.

“Hyejoo?”

“Yes?” her voice comes crashing through Chaewon’s phone’s speakers. “What do you want?”

“Wow, snippy today,” she teases.

“I’ve been stuck on the same fucking level for three days. It’s maddening.”

“You’re playing Madden ?”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that. Try again.”

Deep breath. “I finished it today. Just now, actually. Like fifteen minutes ago? Twenty?”

“Finished…” she starts, her voice tapering off. A few seconds, and then, “Oh. The butterfly.”

“Yeah.”

The line goes silent. Sometimes Chaewon can hear the music from a game in the background when she calls, but there’s nothing now. Hyejoo must have paused it. Before she picked up, or after she heard?

“So…”

“I looked at tickets to Paris. If you want to try.”

“Sorry?”

“If you want to give it a… like a test run.”

“A test run.”

“A month. We’d be back in time for fall semester.”

Nothing. What feels like five minutes of pure nothing. And then, “You want to?”

“You’ve been saving up, right?”

“It’s been… like a year. Well over a year, ChaCha.”

“I just wanted you to have a plan.” The butterfly bears down on her. Hyejoo texted her just last night about new pleather sneakers she bought, ‘perfect for walking around all day on cobblestone streets’. She can’t have misinterpreted. All these notes, all these years; she knows it can’t have died. “Do you want to go?”

“Have you asked your parents?”

“Did you ask your parents last time?”

“I want to go.”

Good.

“Then let’s go.”

~

Neither of them leave notes; they say goodbye in person. They pack enough for a month away, make sure Hyejoo’s saved enough money to get them by. Chaewon bought a pocket guide of common French phrases to practice, and she quizzes Hyejoo in the back of the car on their way to the airport. The radio mixes with ‘ merci, madame ’ and ‘ pas mal ’ and ‘ je voudrais du café allongé, s’il vous plaît ’, sounding a whole lot like the future.

Yerim pulls up to the doors and lets them out, wishes them well and makes sure to yell loud enough to embarrass them as she sends them off.

The air smells like gasoline and disinfectant. A building of glass and metal beckons to them, and she can’t help but swoon thinking about the ornate old stone architecture waiting in Paris. The real Chaewon digs out their real boarding passes for their real flight. She takes the real Hyejoo’s hand.

Together, they step from one real life to the next.