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“…And where do you think you’re going?”
Uriel flinches away from the doorknob. “Ack! G-Gabriel…” She throws her handbag behind her and scuttles away from the door, as if that would help her case at all. “I was just… you know… oh! I heard a knock just now but you were asleep so I thought I’d get it! Wouldn’t want to wake you, after all!”
It’s too early in the morning for this. Gabriel rubs her eyes and checks the wall clock—oh, it’s the middle of the afternoon… well, still too early—before speaking again. “If you want to buy something, you know you can just do delivery.”
Giving up her little facade, Uriel groans and folds her arms over her chest. “But come on,” she whines. “There’s just something about going out to get your stuff yourself, you know? I guess you wouldn’t know, though,” she adds, in a mutter that has Gabriel’s brows rising. “You’re no fun. Do you really think I’m famous enough to be recognized even with shades and a mask? Seriously!”
“It’s for your own good.”
“What’s the worst that could happen? It’ll only be for a minute!”
Gabriel massages her forehead. This is why she tries not to wake up before seven in the evening, if she absolutely has to wake up at all. “What are you going out to get anyway?”
Uriel brightens, as if the question is a good sign that Gabriel is closer to letting her escape. “Do you want to come with, Gabriel? I bet you’ll like it! Besides, I checked the delivery app the other day and the store wasn’t there, so I, like, have an actual reason for going out to get it myself. Come on, come on! You should enjoy yourself and actually do a normal-person thing!”
Gabriel scowls. “Normal-person thing?”
“Yeah, ‘cause normal people don’t sleep all day then work all night. You need to relax,” Uriel insists, hopping over to tug on Gabriel’s arm. “I promise it’ll be quick! Heewon-ah told me trying this would be a life-changing experience, and you trust her more than you do me, so… come on! Let’s go!”
Not for the first time, Gabriel wonders what choices she had made in her life that led up to this. Had it been when she chose to keep her job at the call center working night shifts rather than follow Uriel into the music idol industry? Or before that, when she recklessly, impulsively decided to live with Uriel in one apartment when relationships between members of their college fraternity group began to fracture? Or even earlier, when she first met Uriel while they were thrown into detention for delinquency in high school together? They’ve known each other for so long now that trying to pinpoint one specific moment where Gabriel decided she had no choice but to stick with Uriel from then on would be impossible.
She sighs. “At least let me dress first.”
“Yes! I knew you had it in you!” Uriel cheers. Her grin is nothing like the sparkly plastic ones she beams for her adoring crowds during concerts, the sort of expression that Gabriel’s always found creepy from her, but the smile Gabriel can still remember seeing almost ten years ago, when they’d waited exactly five minutes in that empty detention classroom together before kicking the window open and sneaking out by scaling the building walls.
At least at night, when Gabriel is up and awake, she doesn’t have to see that smile in all its blinding splendor. There’s danger in the way Uriel’s eyes can look soft in the low light of her phone or laptop, but at least those aren’t the sort that can be weaponized against Gabriel and her too-weak heart.
Of course, Uriel just has to open her mouth again. “Okay, hurry up now! And make an effort today, don’t just go out in pajamas like last time!”
“Shut up,” Gabriel grumbles, looking away from that stupid face. Yeah, it really is way too early for this.
Gabriel likes to think she’s a completely different person compared to her idiot high school self, but she hardly even notices the problem when she pulls Uriel onto the back of her bicycle and she has to bike like hell halfway through after a traffic enforcer shouts over at her. By the time they get to the mall Uriel had directed her to, she’s soaked in sweat and panting for breath, nearly sliding right off her bike when she locks it in the parking lot.
Uriel, on the other hand, is having the time of her life clutching her belly and laughing her guts out. “I can’t believe you forgot you were breaking a whole law! Is this how long you’ve spent inside the house that you’ve forgotten traffic rules entirely?”
“Shut. Up,” Gabriel mutters. Damn it, the traffic enforcer won’t find them all the way here, right? She had swerved through the streets at breakneck pace and lost him after several minutes of panicked cycling, so hopefully he had given it up as a lost cause and returned to his station. Ugh, her calves are burning; she’s not used to going that fast for that long. Most of the time she bikes at a leisure pace so she can arrive at nine on the dot for work and not a second earlier. “Let’s just go already. And won’t you tell me what you’re even here for?”
“That’d ruin the surprise,” Uriel huffs. “Don’t worry, I promise you’ll like it. Or at least you won’t hate it. Or… actually, I don’t know.”
“How reassuring.”
“Just trust me!” Uriel insists. “Then again, now that we’re here, why don’t we go to other places too? You haven’t bought any new clothes in, like, forever, have you? I bet your coworkers are all sick of seeing the same shirt for the past how many years, let’s get your wardrobe updated—”
“I have plenty of clothes,” Gabriel says, affronted. “And no one is looking at what I wear, they’re all busy working themselves—”
“That’s just what you think! In reality, they’re probably secretly judging you for wearing the same pants for a week straight—”
Gabriel fixes her gaze up at the ceiling and prays for strength.
She’s neither Uriel’s manager nor her personal bodyguard, yet right now she has no choice but to fill in the role of both. At least no one seems to recognize her despite her rapid rise to popularity, although that may just be because Uriel moves around too fast for most passersby to get a decent look at her—she drags Gabriel to a clothing store first, which has Gabriel groaning in irritation before she gives in and lets Uriel shove her into a fitting room with a half-dozen different outfits Uriel picked out for her. “See!” Uriel squeals, when Gabriel reluctantly lets her have a look. “I knew this would go with your eyes!”
“I’m wearing contacts,” Gabriel sighs. “The ones you insisted on, by the way.” As for why she had agreed and gone along with the bright pink color contacts, Gabriel would rather not say.
“And? They look good! And when you take them off and use your glasses instead—” Uriel grabs a coat off the rack—“this would look so good with them. Ooh, you’ll have everyone in the office swooning for you in no time! Speaking of, you’re still single, huh? Aren’t you ever going to get someone nice? You won’t be banging hot forever, you know!”
Gabriel shoves her out of the dressing room.
She has to lug the three shopping bags around with her in return for Uriel having been the one to pay for them, which really isn’t doing Gabriel’s arms any favors. “Have you eaten? Probably not, right? Do you even eat more than once a day anymore?” Uriel jabbers on.
“It’s fine, I eat enough,” Gabriel sighs. Uriel means well, she knows—even when they were younger Uriel had been a bit of a fitness freak, waking up at the crack of dawn and running the length of their neighborhood or around their entire college campus, usually more than once. Back then it was because she had to work to make the other gangs take her ditzy blonde self seriously; now it’s so she doesn’t accidentally break a leg while dancing on stage.
Uriel squints at her. “Fine. But have a snack, at least! You can’t go to work later on an empty stomach. I think they offer good food where we’re going anyway.”
“Oh, so the life-changing experience is a café?”
“Ack. N-Not quite. Look, you’ll know when we get there, okay!”
Still, Gabriel has to admit walking around isn’t as awful as she thought it would be. There’s no crowd of fans trying to get Uriel’s autograph yet, and the air-conditioning in the mall is miles better than the sweltering heat their apartment is eternally trapped in during the afternoons. It’s been a while since she’s left the house for anything other than work, the occasional grocery run, and concerts, and it’s been even longer since she’s been able to spend time with Uriel like this.
The thought has her staring at the floor. How long has it been since they first met anyway? It has to be over a decade by now, and that thought has her sighing. They had been good years, even if they hadn’t seemed like it at the time—it had been sort of impressive realizing how often her life hinged on how fast Uriel could come help her in a juvenile scuffle in the alleyway near their high school. Then the quiet moments afterwards, when they would crowd atop Gabriel’s thin mattress and help patch up each other’s latest wounds, and Uriel would press deliberately hard on a painful bruise and make Gabriel smack her, and she’d hop away laughing and shouting, and Gabriel still remembers how she realized she’d never find anyone more…
“We’re here!” Uriel announces, pulling Gabriel out of her thoughts and into… “It’s not a café, for your information,” she adds, before Gabriel can say anything. “Haven’t you ever been to a milk tea place?”
Gabriel feels her nose wrinkle of its own accord. “What… is that smell?” It’s not entirely unpleasant, but it isn’t exactly fragrant either.
“Which one?” Uriel asks. She’s already dragged Gabriel, shopping bags and all, inside and over to a table for two, and Gabriel doesn’t have the energy to protest. “Ooh, I guess you mean the brown sugar! Yeah, it’s kinda weird on its own, right? But it tastes really good, don’t worry. Okay, let me get our order real quick. How does peach sound? You like peach, don’t you? Give me one second!”
“Wait, Uriel,” Gabriel sighs, but Uriel’s already sprinting towards the counter. It’s her way of caring, Gabriel knows, but she still sometimes wishes Uriel would slow down just enough for Gabriel to keep up.
More importantly… Gabriel frowns. Milk tea? The term sounds familiar, and she thinks she’s heard her coworkers throw it around a few times, so it’s probably some fad she’s not updated with by virtue of having zero social media and a general incapability to care about things outside her immediate vicinity. Still, this is basically a café, isn’t it? There are food and drinks and tables, but mostly for snacks rather than full meals. Sounds like a café to Gabriel.
Sounds like a café date, if she’s being specific.
She glances up at the blinking neon menu over the counter, skimming the text to try and see if anything looks good, even though she knows she’s just going to develop a week-long addiction to whatever Uriel gets her. Milk tea… milk tea… the more she repeats the words to herself, the better-tasting they sound. It better live up to her expectations now, or else she’s going to have words with both Jung Heewon and…
…and what is Uriel doing, talking to the stranger in line?
“It can’t be! Are you really the Demon-like Judge of Fire?” the man is gushing. He’s almost a full head taller than Uriel, but he can’t be older than either of them by a few years. “I-I’m your biggest fan! It’s so good to meet you! I missed out on the fan signing event so I couldn’t even get close to you… b-but I was at your concert last month! You were amazing!”
“Aww, you’re too sweet,” Uriel laughs, letting him shake one of her hands with both of his. This smile Gabriel recognizes, much as she doesn’t want to—it’s the fake one she plasters on like a mask, carefully crafted to stay on and hold steady until she can let it drop. Gabriel had first seen her use it around Michael during their frat days, and once she dived into the idol industry she had learned to adapt it, make it sweeter and sunnier for her fans.
Gabriel props her chin up on the edge of her palm. She can’t quite bring herself to hate any part of Uriel, but she certainly doesn’t like how that smile looks on her.
The man moves out of the way to let Uriel order first, but doesn’t stop babbling on at her side. “I never thought I’d see you here! I mean, the news always mentions how you have to be with a million bodyguards if you want to go out, but you’re all alone today? Did you run away from the agency or something?”
The pity laugh Uriel gives him hurts to hear. “No, no, I’m just… I thought this would be quick, so I convinced them not to come—”
“Do you have some time before you have to go?” the man interrupts. Gabriel runs a hand down her face in frustration; even the employee taking Uriel’s order looks tired. “Just, I’d really love an autograph! And maybe, a photo… together…?”
“Ah, uh.” Uriel fumbles with her wallet. “Um, if you could just give me a second—”
Alright, that’s enough. Gabriel shouldn’t have let it go on for this long in the first place. “Hey,” she snaps, standing from the table, stalking over to where they are, and inserting herself between the two of them. She’s taller than Uriel—not by much, but it’s something, and she doesn’t have to tip her head up to meet the man’s eyes. “Quit it. We’re busy and she needs to get back soon, we don’t have time for this. Maybe next time, alright?”
There. Nice, direct, and to the point. Gabriel can see Uriel relaxing behind her, and the employee sliding a plastic bag over the counter. Now they just have to—
“Um.” The man gives her a critical look that instantly frays every single one of Gabriel’s nerves. “Sorry. Who are you?”
“…Excuse me?”
“I mean, you’re not her manager, are you?” the man says, an undercurrent of disdain running through his voice. Gabriel, too astounded by the fact that someone is both pretentious and shameless enough to speak like this, can only stand there. “And you’re not her personal bodyguard either, everyone knows what Jung Heewon-ssi looks like. Listen, it’s just an autograph and a photo, it’s not like it’d take that long. It’ll be fine, right, Uriel?”
And Gabriel can see it, the white of her knuckles as Uriel takes the plastic bag from the employee, the way her smile begins to look dangerously strained around the corners, the veins standing out against her neck—all signs that have Gabriel preparing herself to duck, lest she get caught up in the crossfire of whatever weapon Uriel happens to be holding that day.
But then, quick as it had come, the fight leaves Uriel in a heavy sigh, her expression flickering with resignation, the knowledge that she has to keep up a good image for her reputation and continued business, and Gabriel could kill something. It’s a miracle the media hadn’t dug up anything about her past delinquency, else she would have been over for by now, but is Uriel really supposed to just stand there and deal with behavior like this? If she wants to keep her job, is she just supposed to roll over and let these sorts of people have their way?
Well, maybe Uriel has to. But Gabriel doesn’t.
“If she doesn’t want to, then she doesn’t want to,” Gabriel cuts in, before either Uriel or the man can say anything. “Just because you’re her fan doesn’t mean you’re entitled to her time. Let’s get going already, Uriel.”
“Right!” Uriel sighs. Gabriel wishes she could reach out and pluck the tension off of her shoulders. “I’m really sorry, but I do need to get going. Don’t worry, there’ll always be a next time, okay?”
“What? Wait! Seriously, who even are you?” the man calls, having the gall to try and make a grab for Gabriel’s wrist.
She snatches her arm out of the way in time with a scowl, the gears in her head spinning rapidly. She can’t lie and say she’s Uriel’s manager—who is, for one thing, a guy—nor her bodyguard—Jung Heewon is taller than both of them, and would be wearing a suit, besides. It would be strange to just call herself a friend, since Uriel’s publicized pretty much all of her friends except for Gabriel, for some strange reason Uriel has always avoided explaining in detail…
There’s only one option left, then. “I,” Gabriel says, and she doesn’t think she’s ever sounded quite as haughty as right now, “am her girlfriend, so hands off.”
And she takes Uriel’s hand to tug her out of the store, trying to ignore the way her own heart feels like it’s ready to beat straight out of her chest.
“G-G-Gabriel!” Uriel squeaks, even as she scrambles to keep up, the plastic bag in her other hand rustling noisily. Gabriel’s thankful she had the mind to take the shopping bags with her rather than just leave them by the table, because it would have been extraordinarily embarrassing to return to the store afterwards. “That was… T-That was… Gabriel!”
“What?” Gabriel huffs, turning slightly to meet Uriel’s wide, panicked eyes. They’re a decent distance from the store now, so Gabriel loosens her grip on Uriel’s hand, only for her heart to shoot up to her throat when Uriel makes a displeased noise and grabs her hand this time, holding tight enough that Gabriel is fairly sure every bone in her hand creaks a little. “If you get in trouble for this you can just say they misheard ‘girl friend,’” Gabriel adds, when she catches the worried looks Uriel keeps shooting from over her shoulder.
“No, no, I don’t want that,” Uriel says, too distracted to notice how Gabriel freezes up at something like that. “More importantly, he keeps staring! Wait, actually, he’s recording us! Ugh, I don’t want you to get on the news, this is all my fault…!”
Gabriel stares down at her, still stuck on her previous words. “You don’t want… what…?”
“Because the last thing you’d want is to be publicized, right?” Uriel says, breaking away from her over-the-shoulder glances to give Gabriel a concerned look. “You hate it when people look at you and stuff! That’s why… But now you’ve gone and… He’s following us,” she hisses, sounding one part horrified and one part murderous. “Gabriel, can you stay still? Just for one second? It’ll be quick!”
“What?” is all Gabriel can say, still more than a little dazed, when Uriel tugs her down and—
Gabriel does not process anything further than the faint taste of strawberry and the flowery scent of Uriel’s shampoo. When Uriel draws back she does it slowly, like she’s trying to savor the moment before time has to speed up again.
And then they’re at a respectable distance again, and when Uriel turns around to check she visibly has to bite down on her lower lip to stifle what would have been a not-for-fans grin. “Heh, he looks like an idiot. Okay, come on, Gabriel, while he’s distracted!”
Gabriel lets herself be dragged around the mall until they end back up at the parking lot, blessedly deserted at the moment and the lights too dim to light much of anything up. They skid to a stop beside where Gabriel had left her bicycle, both of them gasping and panting, but of course the first thing Uriel does once she catches her breath is check her plastic bag. “Oh, whew,” she sighs, “nothing spilled. Man… can you put these in the front basket, Gabriel? I’ll hold the other bags—”
“What,” Gabriel coughs out, “was that?”
Uriel stares at her. “What was what?”
“You know! That!” Gabriel sputters. She’s not usually this ineloquent, but can anyone really expect her to be eloquent right after what just happened? “It’s one thing to pass ‘girlfriend’ off as a mistake, but a k—a ki—” Fuck, she can’t even say it. “But something like that? How are you going to cover that up? That recording is going to be everywhere within an hour!”
Gabriel’s expecting Uriel to say it had just been an act and that she can easily cover it up with a quick statement to the press; she is not expecting Uriel to frown. “Well, I. I don’t. I don’t want to cover it up.”
“…You…?”
“D-Don’t you get it!” Uriel asks, except it comes out like more of a shout. “It… You… I… Just, you know! Sheesh! It’s not that hard!”
That has Gabriel speaking again. “What do you mean it’s ‘not that hard,’ I—use your words, Uriel, damn it! You think I can understand everything you do right away!?”
“What’s so hard to understand about what I just did!? Ugh! You’re always like this!”
“Always like what? Go on, tell it to me yourself!”
“I like you!” Uriel just about screams, loud enough that her voice echoes in the parking lot. Gabriel had already been coming up with another sharp retort, but that has all the words in her head disappearing in an instant. “Stupid! Isn’t it obvious? Hasn’t it been obvious for a while!? I can’t believe you sometimes! Stupid, idiot, fucking oblivious dumbass—”
Uriel’s colorful cursing is more than familiar to Gabriel that she tunes it out easily enough. It takes a moment to reboot her brain, but when she does she reaches out and takes Uriel’s wrist, gently tugging her back so they can face each other again; Uriel stops swearing, though she still glares up at Gabriel with shining emerald eyes. “What,” she huffs, little to no bite in her voice. “Okay. I get it. I’m the stupid one here. Whatever! Just, can we just forget about this and go home already, I—need to meet up with someone, actually, I just remembered now—”
“Uriel.”
Uriel falls quiet, staring down at her feet. Gabriel keeps a hold on her wrist, even when she can feel her own hand beginning to sweat, and swallows before speaking again. “No,” she finally says, “I… think I really am the stupid one here, actually.”
Uriel blinks. Stares. “What?”
This isn’t working. Gabriel’s never been one for elaborate, romantic speeches, even if she knows that’s the sort of thing Uriel regularly swoons over, and she doubts she’d be able to get anything out even if she were given all the time in the world anyway. Instead of comforting Uriel when they’d been trampled over by those upperclassmen, Gabriel had brought out the first-aid kit and got to work; instead of reassuring Uriel she’d done nothing wrong when rifts had formed among the members of Eden, Gabriel simply showed up at the door of her apartment one early morning, bags packed.
No, Gabriel’s always been much better at just doing things, and Uriel’s always been the best at understanding her.
So Gabriel loosens her grip, ever so slightly, to give Uriel the chance to pull away if she wants to. Slowly, carefully, well aware this could ruin everything they’ve built up between them for the past decade, Gabriel leans in.
Of course, the slowness and carefulness of it is immediately ruined when Uriel realizes what Gabriel is trying to do, gasps, and then grabs Gabriel by the face to kiss her again.
It’s much less abrupt this time, at least; it’s a little hard to focus with Uriel’s long hair tickling Gabriel’s nose, and the stiff, awkward angle they start at, because Gabriel doesn’t know a single thing about kissing, but thankfully all of Uriel’s romance novels must come into play here when Uriel tilts her head and kisses her harder. She tastes of strawberries and smells of flowers, her hands cupping Gabriel’s cheeks, her skin soft as an angel’s feathers, and Gabriel could melt when she feels Uriel smiling against her mouth. She feels like the late nights after concerts, the shared quiet of an apartment, the victorious swell in Gabriel’s chest when they first kicked that classroom window open together—she feels like the thrill, the adrenaline, the rush of blood to her head Gabriel thought she’d left behind her after so many years. By instinct or reflex she reaches up to tangle one hand in Uriel’s hair, and Uriel makes a little sound in the back of her throat that Gabriel thinks she could live off forever.
“Wait—wait,” Uriel gasps out, delightfully breathless; Gabriel draws back, more than a bit dazed by what just happened. “Gabriel! If we stay here any longer, the milk tea is going to get warm, and then it’ll taste gross!”
“Are you serious? Really? Now?”
“Yes, I’m serious, this is a serious matter,” Uriel insists. She’s already clambering onto the bicycle, although she can’t quite keep the giddy smile off her face, nor do her cheeks look like they’ll be less pink any time soon. “Come on, come on, hurry up!”
Gabriel dawdles for a second longer, pretending to be busy arranging the milk tea in the front basket, when in truth she does so to reach up and touch a finger to her lips. They’re still warm and tingling, and when she sits down for Uriel to automatically wrap her arms around her waist Gabriel almost jolts in what she’s not sure she’d classify as surprise. “The sooner we get back,” Uriel sing-songs, propping her chin up on Gabriel’s shoulder, “the sooner we can do that again, right?”
Gabriel manages a scoff. “What happened to your precious milk tea?”
“Our fridge exists for a reason! You can even bring it with you to work later, then tell everyone who asks that your cute and beautiful girlfriend bought it for you—”
Gabriel kicks off without warning, grinning in vindication at Uriel’s half-surprised, half-affronted yelp. Her arms are tight around Gabriel, her body warm against her back, and for a moment it feels like running away from everything together again.