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Jeonghan stumbles out of the dentist’s office in her new high heeled black boots clutching onto a harried-looking woman for dear life, hair falling into her face where it hadn’t been before. She could barely walk in those boots when Jisoo had dropped her off at the entrance an hour ago, so it’s really no surprise that she’s barely staying upright in them now, wobbling on the thick platforms and clutching at the poor dental nurse who stands a whole head shorter than her. When Jisoo steps out of the car to come and meet her, she can hear her laughter echoing across the car park, along with the loud clunking jangle of the buckles on her boots.
“You here for Miss Yoon?” the nurse asks hastily, and Jisoo holds her hands out for Jeonghan to latch onto her instead.
“Hi babe,” Jeonghan says, giggling like she’s just said the funniest thing in the world. “Hi.”
“Yes, that’s me,” she tells the nurse, letting Jeonghan drape herself over her side, hands latched around her shoulders.
“Her surgery went well, no complications,” the nurse says, breathing a little easier without Jeonghan’s weight sinking onto her. “She took it like a champ even though it was a tough tooth to grab. Will she be staying with someone for the next twenty-four hours?”
“Hi,” Jeonghan says, blowing air into Jisoo’s ear. “Hi, babe.”
“Yes, I’ll be with her.”
“Alright. No hot drinks, no smoking or alcohol, no strenuous activity for the next few days. Ibuprofen is best if she needs a painkiller, she should try to use antiseptic mouthwash after eating, and stick to soft or liquid foods for a little bit. No driving for two days, either.”
“I can’t drive," Jeonghan tells her, stumbling over the words. “I’m gay.”
“Thank you so much,” Jisoo says, wrapping her hand around Jeonghan’s wrist to pull her away from where she’s quickly trailing down to pat her butt. “I’ll take good care of her.”
“Alright,” the nurse says, turning to flee the scene as quickly as she reasonably can.
“Babeeee,” Jeonghan drawls beside her.
“What?” Jisoo says, putting an arm to her waist to guide her around the car.
“Hi,” Jeonghan says, leaning back into Jisoo uncooperatively and then bursting into another fit of giggles.
“Can you please get in the car?” Jisoo asks patiently as Jeonghan goes over on her ankle in the stupid platform boots, stumbling sideways in Jisoo’s grip.
“Thought you said you’d take care of me,” Jeonghan groans, planting her hands onto the passenger seat window.
“I am,” she replies. “I need you to take your hands off the door so I can open it for you.”
“How are you going to take care of me if you can’t even say hi to me?” Jeonghan slurs.
“Jeonghan?”
She looks up from the car door, subconsciously swaying back into Jisoo as she does so.
“Hi.”
Jeonghan smiles at her, or what is probably meant to be a smile, because she’s got a wad of gauze stuck in the back of her mouth, and her lips and cheeks are swollen and tender. “Hi, sexy.”
Jisoo takes the opportunity to pull open the car door and guide Jeonghan into the passenger seat. “Yeah, hi. How did your surgery go?”
“Surgery? Mmmh.” Jeonghan draws out a long hum, sprawling on the seat with her legs still hanging out of the car. Jisoo sighs and bends down to place her heavy boots into the car after her, though Jeonghan barely seems to notice. “Pretty good. They were so fast.”
Jisoo pulls the seatbelt over her and clips it into place. “You were in there for an hour.”
“No I wasn’t,” Jeonghan says, snapping her fingers. “It was done like that. Like that!”
“It was done while you were under general anaesthetic, which is why you felt like it was done like that.”
“Yeah,” Jeonghan mumbles, suddenly lethargic. “Like that.”
“Okay,” Jisoo says, patting her thigh. “I’m just going to walk around the car, okay?”
“Mmh,” she agrees, staring into the middle distance.
Jisoo leans out of the car and closes the door on her side, jogging around to the driver’s seat. When she opens the door, Jeonghan startles like she hadn’t been expecting her, and Jisoo gives her a placating smile as she slips into the seat.
“Hi,” Jeonghan says.
“Hi,” she repeats, fishing out her car keys. “Ready to go home?”
“Yessss,” Jeonghan draws out, kicking her feet out in front of her like a child. “We’re going to have pancakes.”
“You’re not going to have pancakes,” Jisoo reminds her. “You need to be careful with your tooth.”
“Not-tooth,” Jeonghan says. “There’s no tooth. I’m toothless.” She suddenly sticks her fingers into her mouth to press on her front teeth, checking that they’re still there. “Not toothless,” she sighs, pressing her head back against the headrest. “Not like an old man. Just like the dragon.”
“Yeah, babe,” Jisoo says, repressing a laugh as she starts the engine. “You’re a lot more like the dragon.”
“Wish I was a dragon,” Jeonghan says, staring out of the window wistfully. “Then I could fly. Do you think gays can fly?”
“If we could, you wouldn’t have been going to the dentist in those boots,” Jisoo teases. “Are you regretting them yet?”
“Nope,” she says, looking down at her shoes. “They were killing my heels before, but now I can’t feel the pain at all. It was a great plan.”
“So you’re going to get high on anaesthesia every time you need to wear those shoes, then?”
“Yup,” Jeonghan says, tipping her feet from side to side happily. “Wait. No. No, I’m too dizzy. Can’t dance properly.”
“You couldn’t even walk in a straight line in the car park just now. Not that you could do that in those boots anyway.”
“Shouldn’t they cancel each other out?” Jeonghan asks, poking at her cheek. “That would make sense. What do I have in my mouth?”
“It’s gauze, don’t touch it.”
“Oh,” Jeonghan says, splaying her whole hand over her jaw instead. “Good. I thought it was a tampon.”
Jisoo nearly misses her turn. “It’s not a tampon. Have you stuck a tampon in your mouth before?”
“Only once. Where are we going?”
“We’re going home. Your apartment.”
“Are you staying over?”
“I sure am.”
“Oh! Good. I like it when you stay over.”
“I like staying over too,” she admits quietly. Her eyes are on the road, but she can feel Jeonghan looking at her intensely from the side.
“Wish we lived together,” Jeonghan says. “We should move in together.”
“You think?” she asks, glancing up in the rear-view mirror.
“I do think. We should move to London together.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice.”
“Why not?” Jeonghan demands. “Why can’t we? I think we should.”
“Maybe we can talk about this when you’re not on a government-mandated high, yeah?”
Jeonghan is quiet for a few seconds, and Jisoo can see her pouting in her peripheral. “You don’t want to move in with me? But why? I’m so sexy, though!”
“That you are, Love. Like I said, I’m not against it, but we need to talk about it when you can actually walk in that straight line I mentioned before.”
Jeonghan leans down to unzip her boots, movements lethargic, wrangling them from her feet and throwing them over her shoulder into the backseat. “There.”
“Nice try,” she says, subtly clicking the child lock on in case Jeonghan gets any ideas about proving she can walk in a straight line in the middle of the A1. “Later, okay? After we make pancakes.”
“Yes! Pancakes!” Jeonghan gasps, looking out of the window again. “Oh, pancakes. I love Pancake Day. We should have one a month. Every month. Pancakes. What are you giving up for Lent?”
“Smoking, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. What am I giving up?”
“I don’t know. You said you didn’t want to give up anything after all those hours you gave to God already in your childhood church services and youth group meetings.”
“Yes, that’s right. He can have my tooth. Teeth. I’m giving up teeth for Lent. And my childhood.”
“Got it,” she says, fighting back a smile. They’re turning into the quieter streets now, getting closer to Jeonghan’s block of flats. “I wish I was recording this.”
“Recording what?”
“Nothing.”
“Mmh.” Jeonghan settles her head back to watch the streets pass for a little while, and there’s a rare comfortable silence in Jisoo’s car.
When they arrive at the apartment building, Jeonghan peers around at the street curiously, like she’s never seen it before. “Where are we?”
“Home, babe, your place. You ready to go in?”
“Uh-huh,” she says, making no movement to pull at the car door, staring at the red post-box ahead of them instead.
“Okay,” Jisoo murmurs, flicking the child lock off and stepping out. She rounds the car to Jeonghan’s side, opening the door only to startle Jeonghan again, who looks around at her like she’s seeing her for the first time. Then she gives her another open-mouthed smile, teeth not quite together over the gauze.
“Hi, beautiful,” she says, melting back into her chair.
“Hi,” she says, laughing properly this time. “Come on, I’ll help you out. Do you want me to get your boots?”
“No,” Jeonghan says, grasping her arms to keep her in place. “I only want you, baby. Will you carry me?”
“I’m not carrying you.”
“Please?” She attempts to make a kissy face at her, but her lips don’t quite meet properly. “I just think that would be hot. I think you should carry me in. I don’t want to walk in those shoes.”
Jisoo sighs, staring at the accursed shoes. Carrying her might be easier than trying to navigate the broken tiles in the hallway in those boots. “You’re absolutely daft, do you know that?”
“Yup,” Jeonghan says, cupping Jisoo’s face gently. “It’s only because I’m in love with you. Let’s get married.” She sends her a wink, still open-mouthed grinning.
Jisoo pulls her up out of her seat so that she’s standing on the curb in her clean white socks, then turns around so that her back is to her, a step down on the road. “Come on, then. Get on.”
“Yay!” Jeonghan says, wrapping her arms around Jisoo’s shoulders and latching on. She clumsily climbs onto her back, legs around her thighs, and Jisoo hoists her further up, hoping to the same God that will receive Jeonghan’s wisdom tooth for Lent that her cute pink dress is still decent at the back. “You’re so strong, Jisoo. Wow. This is fun!”
She knees the car door closed and manages to click it locked with the car keys in her hand. “You don’t have to flirt with me so much, you know. We’ve been together for nearly two years now.”
“Have we?” she gasps, tightening her grip as Jisoo steps up onto the pavement towards her building. “Wow! That’s amazing!”
“A year and eight months, but you know.”
“I can’t believe we haven’t moved in yet.” She rests her chin on Jisoo’s shoulder and sighs. “Are we moving in together?”
Jisoo shifts Jeonghan’s weight up higher so that she can reach out to open the front door. “We can, in the future. Still want to go to London?”
“Yes, London. I’m going to be famous.”
“Thought you were already famous, babe? You had the starring role in that episode of Casualty.”
“Yeah. Could be more famous in London, though.”
She presses the call button for the lift, heaving Jeonghan up a little higher again. Maybe there’s something in all this talk of London. Jeonghan isn’t usually the type to keep things to herself, but she also knows well how attached Jisoo is to the people in her tattoo parlour, how hard it would be for her to leave her family and friends in Newcastle and start again in London. But acting is all Jeonghan has ever dreamed of, and they always knew that her moving up and down the country every time she got a new role was never going to be sustainable.
“You could,” she says quietly. “Yeah.”
The lift stutters open, thankfully empty.
“Hey, Honey,” Jeonghan says. “Where are my shoes?”
Jisoo presses the button for Jeonghan’s floor, and the doors slide shut again. “You gave them up for Lent.”
“I did?” Jeonghan muses, breath uncomfortably hot on Jisoo’s ear and the side of her cheek. “Well, God can have them, then. They hurt my feet.”
“You’re hurting my feet right now,” Jisoo groans. “Should I give you up for Lent? I can throw you out with the rest of my fags.”
“Hey!” Jeonghan gasps, kicking the thin air beside them. “That’s mean! I told you not to call your cigarettes gay, it’s totally bi erasure!”
“I think vaping is the bisexual cigarette.”
“Oh,” Jeonghan says, stilling on Jisoo’s back as the lift comes to a stop. “Yes, you’re probably right.”
She meets the first dip in the broken tiles with sturdy shoes, but an extra bodyweight on her back she hadn’t accounted for, and nearly stumbles to the side. Jeonghan laughs and squeals, long and high, like she’s on a rollercoaster ride or something, holds it all the way down the hallway to her apartment door.
“Okay, I’m putting you down here. Stop screaming now, please.” She squats slightly to help her get her feet on the ground, but Jeonghan still struggles to point her feet in the right direction, swaying to the side as soon as she’s set down. Jisoo grips her arm quickly once she’s off her back.
“I’m okay,” she protests, words slurring again. “Just dizzy. Ooh, so dizzy. I feel sick.”
“Hold onto me while I open the door, okay? I don’t want you to fall over. Here, put your arms—” Jeonghan wraps her arms tight around Jisoo’s waist, resting her chin on her shoulder again. Jisoo spits out the mouthful of blonde hair that falls into her face, but Jeonghan doesn’t seem to notice. “Alright, that works too.”
Jeonghan won’t let go of her once they’re in the flat, shuffling along with Jisoo as she shuts the door behind them. She wrangles her own trainers off with difficulty, then leads Jeonghan down the corridor to the open-plan apartment, high windows to one side and the spiral staircase leading to her bedroom and bathroom coming down in the middle of it.
“Home!” Jeonghan exclaims, swaying over to one side and flopping down face first onto her couch.
“Be careful with your tooth, Jeonghan,” Jisoo reminds her. “You’ve got to take care of it.”
“I told you,” Jeonghan says into a cushion. “Not-tooth. There’s no tooth anymore.”
“Right, sorry. Careful with the not-tooth, Toothless.”
“I am being careful,” Jeonghan says, propping her face up so her swollen cheek is squished against her hand. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Pancakes.”
“You can’t have any pancakes.”
“I know. But you can.”
“You want me to make them now?”
“Obviously. When else?”
“Tonight? Like the rest of the country?”
“When have we ever done things like other people?”
“Sorry, I forgot we’re not like other girls.”
“Exactly,” Jeonghan says, faceplanting the sofa again. “Chop chop. I want to spread the chocolate on for you.”
“You’re even more demanding than usual when you’re like this. I’m half convinced this is all an act to get me to do what you want. Did they really give you anaesthesia in there?”
“I don’t know,” Jeonghan says, rolling onto her back to stare up at the ceiling. Jisoo ducks down into her utensil cupboard for a bowl and pan, grateful to find ones that look relatively clean. If pancake making will keep Jeonghan entertained until she’s tired enough to fall asleep, then making them in the middle of the afternoon is fine by her. “What else could it be? Am I going loopy?”
“You’re an actress. Aren’t you all a bit loopy?”
“That’s—that’s not true. You’re talking about Julie Andrews there, you know.”
“That’s true. I shouldn’t talk about Julie in that way.”
“Exactly. Also, I’m not loopy.”
Jisoo grins, turning back to the fridge to fetch the milk. “I’ll take your word for it.”
Jeonghan has a barely-expired packet of flour and just enough eggs for a small batch of pancakes in her cupboard, which Jisoo considers a success. Jeonghan is quiet as she gets to work on the batter, but perks up again when she starts whisking it together in the bowl. Her hair is a mess from being pressed into the cushions, but she doesn’t seem concerned, pushing herself up to watch Jisoo from the safety of the sofa.
“Hey babe,” she starts, awkwardly laying down sideways and watching Jisoo whisk the batter quickly. “What are you going to have in your pancake?”
“That depends on what you have in. I spotted a banana and some chocolate spread in your cupboard just now, so that could work.”
“Oh,” Jeonghan says. “That’ll be nice.”
Jisoo tests the viscosity of the mixture with the whisk, and when she comes back satisfied, puts the bowl down on the side to click the hob flame on. “It will. Do you remember when we did Pancake Day last year?”
“It was our first one together,” Jeonghan says, wistful, words stilted around the gauze in her mouth. “I burned every pancake I tried to make.”
“You remember!” She pours the oil into the pan, listening to it sizzle. “I didn’t know it was possible to do pancakes that wrong, but you managed it. It was very impressive.”
“But yours were so good,” Jeonghan says, voice thick. Jisoo turns around to see tears running down her cheeks as she stares at the pan in distress. “Every one. You’re so good to me.”
“Oh, babe,” Jisoo says, leaving the pan briefly to come over and hug her. “They were just pancakes. It was nothing, really.”
“I love pancakes so much,” Jeonghan says, sniffing. “I can’t believe I can’t have any. I love pancakes.”
“I know you do, I know.” She thumbs at the tears on her cheeks, suppressing her laughter. “Come on, come and sit at the table. You can see me flip them properly from there.”
“Yeah,” Jeonghan says, miserable, but allowing Jisoo to pull her up and walk her over to her dining table by the windows. “I’d like that.”
“I know.” Jisoo gives her a kiss to the forehead before she leaves to go and put the first layer of batter in the pan. “It’s a sucky Pancake Day for you, but we’ll have so many more, okay? Maybe next year we can book a table in a creperie in London.”
Jeonghan perks up immediately. “London? When we move in together?”
“Sure,” she says, looking over at her hopeful face as the pancake hisses in front of her. “If it’s you or this city, I know what I’d pick every time.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, babe. Believe it or not, I do mean you.”
Jeonghan giggles, cheeks still pink from the crying, but her smile dazzlingly bright. “Me.”
“Here we go,” she says, wiggling the pan until the smooth underside of the pancake comes loose. “Ready?”
“For what?”
In answer, Jisoo flips the pancake up and over in the pan. Jeonghan whoops and throws her hands up, then clasps them together, eyes shining. “Again, again!”
“Give it another minute,” she says, and Jeonghan leans against the back of her chair, watching intently. “You won’t have a shortage of pancake flipping, I promise.”
“It’s so clever,” Jeonghan muses, grasping at the back of her chair. “Hey, when can I take the tampon out?”
“If you mean the one in your mouth, you can take it out whenever you like as long as you don’t go poking at your not-tooth.”
“Okay. I’m thirsty.”
“You can take it out then. I’ll get you some water.”
Jeonghan pulls the gauze out of her mouth and stares at it. “Oh. Not a tampon.”
“Here, I’ll throw it away.” Jisoo offers, coming to her side with the glass of water. “Trade?”
Jeonghan eyes her, warily holding out the gauze. Jisoo waits until she’s sure she’s got the glass grasped firmly in both hands before she lets go and picks up the gauze. It has a little dried blood on it, but it’s thankfully not too gross otherwise.
“Alright,” she says, taking it between two fingers and delicately chucking it into the bin. “Ready for the second flip?”
Jisoo makes a total of seven pancakes, one after the other, each one flipped to Jeonghan’s unwavering delight. She piles them up on a plate, places them in the middle of the table, then gets another two plates out.
“Why?” Jeonghan says mournfully, staring at her plate. “You said I can’t have one.”
“Are you hungry?”
Jeonghan shrugs. “Bit.”
“The nurse didn’t say you couldn’t eat. She said you have to eat soft foods.”
Jeonghan lifts her head to gaze at Jisoo, eyes shining. “You mean…?”
“As long as you take it in small bites, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to have some. Pancakes are a soft food, aren’t they?”
Jeonghan bursts into tears properly this time, genuinely sobbing over her empty plate, and Jisoo hurries to pass over the box of tissues from the coffee table. “Come on now, my love, let’s not cry. You’re alright.”
“I’m going to have a pancake,” Jeonghan says, voice thick. “I really love pancakes.”
“I know, I know,” Jisoo says, ducking her face to hide her smile. “They’ll taste even better if you don’t cry all over them, okay? You don’t feel sick still, do you?”
“No, I’m okay. I want pancakes.”
“Then I’ll get you a pancake. I’m going to cut it up for you, but you still have to eat slowly and carefully, okay Toothless?”
“Yeah,” Jeonghan says, grasping Jisoo’s hands for strength. “I will, I promise.”
“Okay. Let me get that for you.” She kisses Jeonghan’s chubby cheek and stands to take a pancake from the pile, placing one on each of their plates. Then she grabs the chocolate spread and Jeonghan’s single banana and starts slicing it up into thin little pieces. “You want to start on the chocolate spread, love?”
“Mmh,” Jeonghan agrees, clutching her butterknife in both hands. On second thought, is she supposed to let Jeonghan use a knife right now?
“Be careful, okay?”
Jeonghan gets the lid of the jar off without issue, then goes about spreading the chocolate as slowly and sporadically as she pleases. By the time Jisoo is done with the banana, she’s completing some sort of Jackson Pollock piece on her pancake.
“Banana?” she asks, lifting her plate to slide some slices off.
“Banana,” Jeonghan agrees, and Jisoo tips several of the slices onto her pancake, then the rest onto her own.
“Here,” she says gently, wrapping up Jeonghan’s pancake, then grabbing her own cutlery to start cutting it up. Jeonghan watches intently, her knife and fork clutched in each hand. When she’s done, Jisoo tentatively picks up the first piece of pancake between two fingers and gestures for Jeonghan to put her cutlery down. “I’ll feed you, okay?”
“I’m not a baby,” Jeonghan grumbles, opening her mouth for the bite of pancake anyway.
“Aren’t you? Zoom! Here comes the dragon!” She swerves the bite around in the air as she gets closer to her mouth, and Jeonghan tracks the movement with her head.
“Stooop,” Jeonghan groans. “You’ll make me dizzy again.”
“Sorry babe,” Jisoo says, putting her free hand on the back of Jeonghan’s chair. “Remember to chew on the left side of your mouth, okay? Keep it in there.”
Jeonghan nods, eyes still trained on the pancake, and Jisoo puts it to her lips. Jeonghan takes it in, diligently chewing on one side, then slumps back in her chair with a groan.
“Pancakes!” she exclaims, putting her hands up into the air. “Thank you God for pancake day! I promise I’ll go back to church!”
Jisoo snorts. “Yeah, alright. You want another one?”
“I want them all,” Jeonghan says, and Jisoo settles into her seat properly, preparing to see the whole pancake go down safely.
By the time they’re on the fifth (and second to last) bite, Jeonghan has gone quiet, staring down at the remains on her plate. Jisoo raises it to her mouth, and she chews, but she doesn’t cheer the same way this time.
“You okay?”
“I’m okay,” Jeonghan says. “Jisoo?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you mean it? What you said about London?”
Jisoo smiles, gathering up the last bite in her fingers. It’s slippy with the remainder of the banana, and she wraps it up tight with the tips of her fingers. “I promise we’ll talk about this soon, but I really did mean it. I want to move in with you. If it’s in a new city, then so be it. I want to be with you. We’ll make it work.”
Jeonghan opens her mouth, taking the last piece and shutting her eyes as she chews slowly. “I was so scared you wouldn’t want to.”
“If you’d asked me this six months ago I probably would’ve been scared too. But we’re good, aren’t we, babe? We’re so good. Why would I give that up just to stay in the same place I was born in for my whole life?”
Jeonghan nods, swallowing. Then she leans forward in her chair and embraces Jisoo in a loose hug, planting a sloppy kiss to her cheek. “Mmh. Can’t feel my lips.”
“That’s alright,” she says, a smile in her voice. “Well done for eating the pancake.”
“Thank you for making me the pancake.” She leans back, tears on her cheeks again. “You’re amazing. You’re my favourite.”
“Thank you. You’re my favourite too.”
“I know,” Jeonghan says, abruptly standing up and swaying on the spot. Jisoo quickly stands after her and grabs her forearms to stop her from tipping sideways. “But now I want to nap so I can be sober sooner.”
“Alright,” she says, wrapping one of Jeonghan’s arms over her shoulders. “This way then, your majesty.”
“Noo,” she groans. “Not the stairs. I’ll die! On the couch!”
“You’ll complain about your back when you wake up.”
“Yup,” Jeonghan says, going limp on the sofa as she plonks herself down onto the cushions. “Thanks for the pancake. Love pancakes. Love you.”
“I’ll be the one having to deal with you when you wake up all moody,” Jisoo reminds her.
“Yeah,” Jeonghan says through a sigh. “Your favourite moody.”
She tsks at her. “You’re my favourite girl, but your moods certainly aren’t my favourite.”
“Favourite girl,” Jeonghan grins, eyes shut, arms thrown up around her head. “Yeah.”
“You definitely missed the point of that statement on purpose.”
“Sleeping,” Jeonghan says, genuine drowsiness in her voice. “Night night, now.”
Jisoo walks around the back of the couch to drag down the big blanket Jeonghan keeps there. By the time she’s unfolded it and laid it out over Jeonghan, she’s already fast asleep, her open-mouthed breathing heavy.
“Goodnight, Toothless.” She smiles down at her, planting a quick kiss to her forehead. “Love you too.”