Work Text:
Language is real. The power of it is that it gets deeper than any human touch. If I were to touch you right now, I would only get to your skin. But when I speak to you, I’m all the way through.
Ocean Vuong
Yubin, Yoohyeon sometimes thinks, feels like the bieup-nieun phenomenon.
The rationale is simple enough. Phonological assimilation. In Korean: putting those two consonants together results in a change. When placed before a nieun the bieup no longer retains its original pronunciation, getting realised into something closer to a mieum—/b/ to /m/ if followed by /n/. Ubiquitous, everywhere. To be, in formal register: -imnida. Ten years: shimnyeon. Announcing your departure: gamnida.
Yoohyeon is arriving, however. Hers and Yubin’s usual coffeeshop, just across the street from the university. She spots her: the firm set of her brow, the tight pull of her mouth. Yubin is not one for crowded places, or for patience.
But just then: a turn of Yubin’s head and she sees Yoohyeon. Yoohyeon watches, sees how the corners of her eyes soften down, the uncurling of her hand onto the table in front of her. Bieup is a voiced plosive—sharp release of air, pressure built up. Yoohyeon steps into Yubin’s field of view and it melts, edges taken out, turning into a low hum instead.
“Hi,” Yoohyeon says, leaning against the vacant chair meant for her. “Are we getting our usuals?”
A close-mouthed smile from Yubin, but tender, still. “Yeah.”
Semitic languages have triconsonantal roots. In Arabic: a word containing the consonants k-t-b, in that order, will always have to do with books, with writing, with scholarship. Put the right attachments and the meaning shifts. Katabat, she wrote; naktubu, we write. Kutub, books, miktab, typewriter, kutubī, a bookdealer. Endless permutations, all tied together, all the same at their core.
There is a rigidity in Yubin’s spine when she meets her grandparents that Yoohyeon doesn’t see anywhere else. A sweetness in her voice that’s only for her kindergarteners to hear. A sharpness in her words that she only wields when she’s with Minji, with Bora, with Siyeon. A strength in her laugh that only Gahyeon can bring about. An honesty that only Handong sees.
A trembling uncertainty when she has to meet a parent. A pensiveness when she reads a new book. A strange melancholy in the beginnings of every summer. A simmering heat when she kisses Yoohyeon. A quiet fondness when she recites poetry. When you turn away from seeing me, she’d start; Yoohyeon would scoff, but listen to her to the end anyway.
Yoohyeon’s favourite: Yubin on weekend mornings, unwilling to lift her eyelids before eleven. Sunlight on her handsome face, ache in Yoohyeon’s chest. Later, they’ll have breakfast, watch a film or two, and Yubin will take Yoohyeon’s hand in hers, not letting go.
This is a Yubin that’s only Yoohyeon’s. Yoohyeon wants, though—wants every version of Yubin, all her pasts and presents and futures. Frustrating, gorgeous, funny Yubin. Caring, aloof, heartbreaking Yubin.
They’re Yubin all the same, and Yoohyeon wants them all.
Yoohyeon likes giving her students exercises in ambiguity. Always loves getting their work back, parsed sentences diagrammed into syntax trees, every possible meaning laid out and made clear. For example: I hit a man with a hammer. Who holds the hammer—I, or the man?
If it is I, then the breakdown goes: [I (SUBJECT, NOUN PHRASE)] [hit (VERB) [a man (NOUN PHRASE)] with a hammer (PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE)]
But if it is the man: [I (SUBJECT, NOUN PHRASE)] [hit (VERB) [a man (NOUN PHRASE) [with a hammer (PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE)]]].
The difference is subtle, but there. In how the phrases are grouped, in where the brackets are placed.
Yubin rarely takes anything at face value. Rarely acts on impulse. Always careful, always attentive, always deliberate. Always breaks a situation into its constituent parts before acting on them. Date night venues, colour of chalk, choice of doctor. Nothing is spared—even argues Yoohyeon with the stunning awareness of a psychoanalyst. What made you feel that way? That made me react this way, so I’m sorry. Next time, we should both communicate better, yeah? We’re both accountable for this misunderstanding.
That’s Yubin: no space for nebulosity. Everything is clear-cut, everything is planned, everything must be laid out before proceeding.
But one day, Yoohyeon gets a phone call.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” Yubin’s voice comes. “You’re—I know your work is a lot lighter now, but—do you think you can free yourself ‘til the twenty-seventh?”
“How free?” Yoohyeon asks, shifting her phone to her other ear.
“Like.” A deep breath. “Take-a-leave free?”
“Uh.” Yoohyeon licks her lips. All she has left to do is grade a few more final examinations, so it’s possible, no problem posed whatsoever. But—“What’s going on?”
“I booked us a three night stay in Jeju.”
“Jeju?!” Shock jolts through Yoohyeon’s veins—this is the last thing she expected. “Why?”
“I—there was a half-off and I just took it,” Yubin exhales. Yoohyeon hears shuffling from her end of the line: a door closing, the scrape of a chair being pushed back. Yubin’s telltale sigh of taking a seat.
“Why?” Yoohyeon repeats, incredulous. “What do you want to do over there?”
“I miss you, I don’t know—we’ve both been so busy.” Yubin pauses. Vulnerability in her breath like fissured porcelain. Then, “We could go to the beach. Or Halla-san. Or make out for ten straight hours in the hotel room, I don’t know. Long as I’m with you, Yoohyeonie.”
It’s easy to forget, with Yubin, the magnitude of her love. Yubin, a quiet lover: shows affection in how she knows exactly how spicy Yoohyeon likes her ramyeon. In how she texts Yoohyeon, telling her to take her vitamins. Getting reminded like this, roaring wave that slams into her—Yoohyeon gets drenched in the warm saltwater of Yubin’s tenderness.
Yoohyeon laughs to hide the furious fluttering at the underside of her stomach. “Sounds good,” she tells Yubin, a burning heat in her cheeks, a sudden longing to see her.
That’s easy enough to parse.
[Yoohyeon (SUBJECT, NOUN PHRASE)] [is (VERB) [in love (PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE) [with Yubin (PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE)]]].
Yoohyeon likes to think of herself as an ardent adherent of Chomskyan theory—but then again, which contemporary linguist isn’t?
Universal grammar, he calls it. Humans are born with the faculty for language; it sits in the back of the mind, only waiting to be unlocked by the patient speech of their parents. Reading and writing has to be formally taught, but speaking doesn’t—babies babble, pure instinct. Language is inherent. Language is irremovable. The only thing that’s learned is the idiosyncrasies of the native language—the tones of Mandarin, the clicks of Xhosa, the stress placement of English. But the predisposition to learn it is there, from birth. No one is bad at their own mother tongue.
It’s fifteen minutes until four in the afternoon. Yoohyeon sits in the Social Sciences library, revising her syllabus for the upcoming semester—looks for whether or not a reading needs replacing, a module needs tweaking. Yubin sits beside her. The starkness between them almost comical: Yoohyeon and her five-inch thick books on cognitive sciences, on second language acquisition theory; and Yubin with her oversized alphabet coloring books and glued pictures on popsicle sticks.
“Sorry I’m taking so long,” Yoohyeon sighs. Yubin had come over a little past noon, the time she gets off work. Wanted to go home, initially, but chose to spend time with Yoohyeon instead. “I’m almost done.”
“Take your time,” Yubin replies. “No one’s in a hurry, here.”
Yoohyeon looks up to see Yubin tying her hair. Yubin returns her gaze when she finishes, a small grin gifted to Yoohyeon. Nostalgia pierces Yoohyeon, unannounced: Yubin, like this, looks so much like when they first met. Here, in this exact place—on a different floor, though, in the education section. Sun slanting in through the windows on her clean, heartaching face.
Then—Yubin’s hand accidentally brushing Yoohyeon’s arm; an ignition. A dryness in Yoohyeon’s throat. Yoohyeon takes it in hers, still registers the split-second jolt of surprise from Yubin, before pulling her into the back corner, inbetween shelves, hidden from view.
“How old are you?” Yubin teases, but lets Yoohyeon tilt her head back, anyway.
Kissing Yubin always feels like a revelation. Oh, this is how deep in I am, Yoohyeon would think. Or, How did I live my life before this?
It dawns on Yoohyeon, how she feels that any path she would have taken would have led her to Yubin. There’s just no other endpoint. Yubin is a frequency only Yoohyeon knows how to pick up. Yoohyeon’s axis is ever tilted toward her. It was always meant to be Yubin, as if Yoohyeon had only been waiting for her to arrive. The only questions were how—and how long would it take?
Yubin bites on Yoohyeon’s lip—a shiver travels down, down, through her spine. A quiet whimper. Yubin laughs at that, pulls away.
“How long do you wanna keep this up?” Yubin says, eyes darting—behind Yoohyeon, beside her, checking if anyone can see. Face flushed, a shyness rare and precious as sparkling sapphire. Yoohyeon wants the soles of their feet to take root on the carpeted floor, wants this moment to stretch out, languid as July afternoons.
Yubin feels inherent. Yubin feels irremovable.
Yoohyeon replies, “A long time.”