Chapter Text
In retrospect, Sol should have said no, should have made up an entirely new excuse of her own, should have slammed the door in Ji-wan’s face the second she asked for something impossible from her, should have done anything but what she chose to do. It would have hurt much, much less and preserved the thin threads of soundness and rationality that Sol has taken enormous efforts in cultivating around Ji-wan. In retrospect, anything could’ve been better than agreeing to Ji-wan’s plan.
In the present, however, Sol is in love. And an idiot. She is an idiot in love who does not know how to say no to Ji-wan, no matter the scenario. It’s a fatal flaw.
“What do you mean ‘girlfriend’?” asks Sol in the present, trying to process what just transpired in front of her, her jaw clenched, her heart erratic.
In front of her, Ji-wan looks strangely jittery, her bright eyes flickering every second, her mouth pressed tightly together.
“Just for the weekend, that’s it!” she blurts out, coming forward to wrap her fingers around Sol’s wrist.
“What do you mean girlfriend?” asks Sol, her voice tapering towards the end.
“Yoon Sol,” whines Ji-wan, widening her eyes with a protruding lower lip, incorrectly interpreting Sol’s hesitance. “It’s not even real! You just have to pretend, just for the weekend, that’s it!”
That is the problem, Sol thinks. Asks out loud, “How did this even happen?”
Ji-wan’s brother, Ji-wan explains, is the root of all her problems. Sol thinks that it’s a little unfair to put the blame on him when Ji-wan chose to tell him that they are somehow, inexplicably dating — as though they’d ever date, as though Ji-wan would ever… would ever choose to be with Sol — but she dare not interrupt. Ji-wan’s brother, she explains, wringing her fingers and looking up at Sol with all her usual sunshine a little dim, has the extra budget for a romantic getaway at a resort out of town.
Her brother, Seo Jin-hwan, a hotel reviewer extraordinaire, rarely ever gets allocated the budget to bring along his people of choice to the hotels he is supposed to stay at. Ji-wan explains something about a couple’s package from the resort they’re supposed to be going at, and how it is her brother’s responsibility to review that and some technicalities of this specific weekend, but Sol is hardly listening, her mind a storm waging both against and for this idea, ringing with the idea of being Ji-wan’s fake girlfriend.
Friendless as he is, Ji-wan says with gritted teeth when the white noise in her mind dies a little, he wants his little sister to accompany him with her partner. (Sol just thinks that Jin-hwan does everything in his capacity to spend time with his little sister, but does not interrupt.) When Ji-wan tells him that she is no longer dating Mr What’s-His-Name #21 that Sol does not care to remember, he offers to set her up with one of his co-workers. A man: Ji-wan feels the need to emphasise. He wants to set me up with his co-worker who is a man, she repeats again.
Being set up, Ji-wan says while shuddering, wrapped her stomach up in thorny knots, until they sat like a stone on her stomach. “Something about going on a date with a man,” she says, and then blinks at Sol, as though she didn’t just come close to a revelation, before stuttering out a nervous laugh. “I mean, a blind date with anyone,” she rectifies as though she has thought about going on a date with another gender, “the thought made me want to puke.”
Perhaps you should examine why, Sol thinks, then berates herself for thinking that. “Why did you say my name?” she asks out loud.
Ji-wan blinks. “How could I not say your name?” She shakes her head, squares her shoulders, traces her fingertips from Sol’s pulse below her thumb right till the centre of her palm, and says, “He kept pestering me. Asking me why, because before, I’d jump at the option. And I was so annoyed by his constant questioning, and before I knew, it slipped out of my mouth that I am seeing someone!” she says, her voice soft. “He asks who, and in a panic, whose name could I say but yours, Sol?”
Could have been any man we regularly hang out with, Sol thinks. Kyu-hyun would’ve grumbled and sent Sol one long, panicked look, but he would’ve agreed to help because he somehow knows the depth of feelings that Sol has tried keeping at bay.
“So, now your brother thinks that we’re dating.”
“He even approves of you!” says Ji-wan, pouting. Sol looks away. “Like, he’s never said, ‘thank you for choosing someone actually worth your time,’ to any of my boyfriends before! He and his girlfriend don’t even want to meet with us once before we leave, so we’ll only have to pretend for three days! And then he may ask us some questions after, but that’s about it! You’ll help me out, won’t you?”
“It won’t just be three days,” Sol haltingly says. “He is your family. He will think we are together even after that.”
Ji-wan blinks. “Is that a problem?”
“Is it not?”
“Are you planning on dating someone else?”
“Are you not?”
Something akin to trepidation flickers on Ji-wan’s face. “Men exhaust me,” she says. “So probably not.”
Before Sol can even respond to that, Ji-wan says with a tiny smile that looks sad more than anything else, “If you find someone suitable for your tastes, and you decide to date them, then we can come up with an excuse of amicably breaking up. Is that acceptable to you?”
In all honesty, the no isn’t even somewhere close to being on Sol’s tongue. It’s buried deep within, someplace she can’t get to around Ji-wan. Instead, she asks, “Why can’t you just be honest with him about it?”
Ji-wan pouts again, as though she knows the effect it has on Sol; her cherry lips that are somehow pinker today imprinting themselves on her mind, and sighs when Sol does not relent. “Because!” she exclaims, leaving Sol’s hand and standing abruptly. “He’s— you know! He’ll be mad at me! And he’ll try setting me up with a man again! And I don’t want to even think or talk about dating a man”
“He can’t force you,” Sol says. She has met Ji-wan’s brother on several different occasions, and he is kind and funny, and he very much cares for his sister. If Ji-wan does not want to talk about it, he won’t force her.
“But then there’ll be a bunch of questions that I have no way of answering!”
Ji-wan suddenly kneels in front of Sol, holding her hands in desperate fervour. “Just think about it,” she says, unknowingly pressing her thumb on Sol’s pulse. “Think of it as a normal vacation! Don’t we desperately need it? Nothing even has to change! We’ll be sharing a room, sharing meals, just with the added, false knowledge of my brother knowing that we are dating. I mean, I know that I’m not your type. I know that I could never be, but—”
“I’ll do it,” says Sol, not wanting to hear Ji-wan’s rant of how she is sure that she isn’t Sol’s type when Sol looks for Ji-wan in every person that she meets. “I’ll accompany you.”
At once, Ji-wan’s face lights up in a wonderful shade of baby pink, and Sol basks in the full force of sunlight emitting from Ji-wan. “You’ll be my girlfriend!” she shrieks in pure happiness. “I mean, my fake girlfriend!” she says, just as excited, standing up and pulling Sol with her.
“I will,” says Sol, hoping that she does not regret signing up for this. Ji-wan continues jumping, gripping her fingers and twisting her hand. Sol is fond, and in love, and helpless to do anything but let herself feel the after-effects of Ji-wan’s excited little dance with a smile on her face. If Sol’s little decision can cause Ji-wan such happiness, then it is all worth it, she thinks.
***
In retrospect, Sol blames Ji-wan’s brother entirely.
***
Sol and Ji-wan are to leave for the resort for a 3-day getaway, in two weeks.
“For that,” says Ji-wan, twirling her pen on her lips, “we need a plan.”
“A plan,” Sol deadpans.
“Yes!” exclaims Ji-wan, plopping her head in Sol’s lap. “I know that most people have mistaken us for a couple and that is fine, of course, but this is different.”
Before Sol can even begin processing that, Ji-wan settles more firmly on her thigh.
The plan, says Ji-wan, her head in Sol’s lap with Sol’s fingers in Ji-wan’s hair, a notebook in her hand that is mostly just filled with doodles with two lines of the outline, is that you’re going to have to touch me more.
Do you even hear yourself, thinks Sol. “What?” she breathes out, her body locked in place, the key in Ji-wan’s hand.
From below, Ji-wan huffs, snuggling further into Sol’s stomach. “You don’t touch me at all!” she says. “I mean, you do, but you rarely initiate it!”
That’s only because Sol is afraid of asking for more and taking everything Ji-wan offers, and more until nothing is left. Yearning for someone she can never express her love for has embedded itself in every vein of her body: she cannot exist without it. Cannot be moderate about her wants, not when they threaten to drown her.
“It’s like you’re scared of touching me!” she infers accurately for someone who is a self-proclaimed ‘unobservant fool’. “But, my brother won’t believe it if you don’t touch me.”
“Touch you, how?” Sol asks, resuming running her fingers through Ji-wan’s hair.
Ji-wan hums, soft and low. She sits up, throws her notebook on the coffee table, and holds Sol’s wrist in her hands. “Touch me instead of calling my name,” says Ji-wan, placing Sol’s hand on her waist. “A shoulder touch is a bro-zone, so you’ve to hold my waist.”
Ji-wan wears an orange crop top with a potted flower design, today. The top rides high, and where Sol’s hand — enclosed by Ji-wan’s unyielding palm — lies, her skin is soft and smooth. Sol’s fingers instinctively curl, pulling her closer, until only the thin material of their clothes and the damp air separates them. Sol, suddenly, foolishly brave, presses her fingers in the soft skin of Ji-wan’s waist, rubbing her thumb across her waist in what she hopes is a caress. Ji-wan lets out a high-pitched sound, causing Sol’s heartstrings to tremble. When Sol looks at her — flushed from head to toe — it’s a sight to behold, with her mouth parted, her eyes hazy, her nose red.
Ji-wan’s eyes gain focus again and grow heady with an emotion Sol does not want to name. She flounders under Sol’s gaze, and stands up abruptly, causing Sol’s hand to drop in the space that Ji-wan once occupied. Thus begins her routine dance of doing everything she can to make sure that the past few moments did not exist in the slightest. This is okay with Sol. This is not the first time Ji-wan has pretended like so. Ji-wan will now laugh, high and awkward and hastily make her way out of Sol’s house. Sol will stand right in front of the wooden door slammed in haste and ache, and ache, and ache.
What Sol does not expect is Ji-wan holding out her hand, her gaze far from shy, far from denial. Sol tentatively places her hand on Ji-wan’s — who pulls her up. “Good,” she says, beaming, even though she won’t meet Sol’s eyes now that they are this close.
“That’s exactly how I want you to call me. Let me put some distance between us and then you practice the same motion standing up.”
“Come now,” Ji-wan says after Sol’s nod and following her own directions. “Call me.”
Obediently, Sol walks over, her heart in her throat, wraps her arm around Ji-wan’s waist and pulls her closer. “Seo Ji-wan,” she calls lowly, curling her fingers there. “Hello.”
Despite the shudder — Sol is not quite sure who is shuddering here: how many times has she dreamt of pulling Ji-wan close like this, holding her by her waist, as if to tell people ‘this is Ji-wan, and I am hers’ — that makes their breath hitch for a moment, Ji-wan beams up at Sol, turns around and loops her hands around Sol’s neck. Sol’s hands automatically grip Ji-wan’s waist more firmly in place.
“Yoon Sol!” she yells with a wide smile, her eyes turning into crescent moons. “Hello!”
Sol smiles back, borrowing some light that emanates from Ji-wan.
“This is nice,” whispers Ji-wan. “Is this comfortable for you?”
“It is,” replies Sol, trying to encompass how much she has wished for this very moment into comprehensible words. “You?”
Bright-eyed, Ji-wan nods, wisps of her hair falling on her forehead. “Whenever a boyfriend did this to me, I always for some reason, felt weird. But with you, Sol, it feels quite normal.”
Sol tucks those wisps of hair behind Ji-wan’s bright pink ear. “Normal,” she whispers.
Ji-wan’s eyes flicker. The setting sun seldom casts light in Sol’s apartment, but today, the orange and the pink in the sky only seem to colour all her home, and with it, it floods Ji-wan’s state of being, making her seem ethereal, glowing. “There is only very little that we don’t do,” says Ji-wan.
She puts some distance between them and opens her notebook again. Ji-wan is quite charming when determined. “We have to master these non-verbal cues, alright? My brother’s girlfriend is a psychologist. She definitely will figure it out if there is some awkwardness between us. So here are some things that we must do…”
***
For the next two weeks, Sol and Ji-wan practice being pretend girlfriends.
This myopic, foolish choice should not be as easy to execute as it is, Sol thinks. It shouldn’t be easy to follow her body’s cues when she asks herself what would Sol do if she was allowed to tell Ji-wan how she felt?
Sol isn’t complaining, though. Ji-wan looks at her in awe when she does something Sol — the one who keeps her feelings buried within — would not do. She pulls her close, cradles her neck, tucks her hair behind her ear and lets her fingers linger on Ji-wan’s neck. Sol is done for.
The people around them notice — of course, they do. They notice how Sol and Ji-wan cling onto each other, how they rarely go someplace without holding each other, how they rarely choose to be separated. Ji-wan, who usually does not attend classes on a regular basis, remains present from all of them — their arms interlinked, their legs twined together, and on the more fearless instances, Ji-wan makes a home for herself on Sol’s lap: sometimes, she straddles Sol’s lap, her chin hooked on Sol’s shoulder, as she scrolls through social media on her phone and Sol holds her in place with one hand, reading a book with her other hand. Some other times, they sit back to chest, as Ji-wan talks about something with fiery passion and Sol is fully content with holding her and listening to her.
(Sol does not mention the increasingly short crop tops that Ji-wan seems to be wearing, and Ji-wan does not mention the way Sol’s hands curl more protectively, more firmly over her bare skin. It’s fine.)
It’s not that they’ve never been inseparable like this before: quite the contrary, they rarely ever stray away from each other in private. However, under the guise of practice, they’ve also been this liberal with each other in public.
It’s good, thinks Sol. It’s good that this gives her an opportunity to get it out of her system. Perhaps, after they come back from the resort, the itch underneath her skin to do something about her feelings that had suddenly started growing uncomfortable despite it being present ever since Sol met Ji-wan would disappear into nothingness. Perhaps this would help Sol get over Ji-wan — not fully, of course, who even is Sol without these feelings running deep into her soul, who even is Sol without loving Ji-wan — in whatever little ways that she can, so it’s more manageable, more malleable so they can fit inside Sol’s seams yet again.
It’s good. Sol has this under control.
***
In retrospect, Sol should’ve known that getting a little taste of what it is like being Ji-wan’s girlfriend would only make it harder to curb those feelings. Would only make it harder to get over Ji-wan in whatever ways she can.
***
Somewhere in the middle of the second week while sitting on the floor as Ji-wan practices experimental braids on Sol’s hair, she says, “You can back off if you want.”
“Back off,” repeats Sol, her eyes suddenly snapping open.
The rhythmic movement in her hair never stops, even when Ji-wan takes a deep breath, seemingly gathering her thoughts.
“Hm. You’re the most important person to me,” she says, then tsks, as though biting her tongue, and says in a softer tone, “I didn’t mean to force you into it. I can say that I’ve come down with a cold, or anything. If you're not comfortable, Yoon Sol, say the word and I will cancel in a heartbeat.”
It would be the most rational thing to do.
Rationality, however, has long since left Sol around Ji-wan.
“I desperately need a vacation,” Sol says, even though she would prefer to stay home. “This weekend is not purely selfless, you know? I am doing it for me, too.”
I would do anything in the world for you, Sol thinks. I would gladly walk into the flames of my love if it meant providing you warmth.
“I don’t want to be overbearing by making you do so much.”
“You’re not,” says Sol. “I am not doing this out of duty. It feels effortless, to me. Doesn’t it feel effortless to you, too?”
Ji-wan instead does something that makes Sol’s heart sing a song:
She turns Sol’s head, and presses a kiss, right on the centre of her forehead. “Being with you is the easiest thing I have ever done.”
***
By the time The Day arrives, Sol has half-resigned herself this three-day getaway, killing her. She isn’t going to remain unchanged after this. This experience will, she is sure, sew itself in every fabric of her existence. Her body will remain moulded around it.
Ji-wan’s brother, Seo Jin-hwan and his partner Won Su-min decide to pick them up at dawn on a dim Friday morning from near Sol’s house. Thinking that it’s a waste sleeping at her own home since she’ll have to come there early in the morning anyway, Ji-wan decides to sleep over at Sol’s house.
That way, she says, her eyes crinkling, we won’t be late.
Sol smiles. She knows that they’ll be late regardless, and yet she taps Ji-wan’s chin with her fingers, and says in jest, you only like me because I am your alarm clock.
Ji-wan grows placid at that; she doesn’t reply to Sol’s statement, choosing to listen to her talk about the one class they don’t share in quiet contemplation, but the space between them has a weight the shape of unsaid words between them.
When dinner is over and they’re both huddled at the sink to clean the plates, Ji-wan nudges their hips together and says in a tone so soft that Sol thinks that she’s imagined it, “I like you because you’re Yoon Sol,” she says, the weight dissolving. “Not just my alarm clock,” she mutters, her hands clasped around the half-washed wok with ferocity, “but my whole entire world.”
It’s a miracle that Sol does not drop the knife on her foot. A miracle that her throat manages to mutter, “You’re my whole entire world, too,” she says.
The silence between them, for the first time in forever, isn’t filled with chatters or voices from the television. Instead, they go about doing some chores in silence; the silence isn’t suffocating, not really, but there is a silent acknowledgement of something changing beyond what they can control that weighs on them.
They go to bed, not even pretending to sleep on the opposite side. Sol opens her arms, big enough for Ji-wan to slots in as though she belongs there, hugging Sol with such fervour — Sol does occasionally feel too big or too small for her body, but in Ji-wan’s arms, she feels just enough — that Sol is convinced that her arms were made for holding Ji-wan.
Sol wakes up entirely tangled in Ji-wan; this is not an unusual occurrence, but Sol basks in it as if it’s the first time that she woke up with Ji-wan’s head in her neck, her hands all around Sol in a warm embrace.
She has about twenty minutes before Ji-wan needs to wake up, twenty minutes of quiet reflection as Sol prepares for the day.
Turns out, Sol doesn’t have to wait that long.
Over the sizzle of the omelettes and the hum of the early morning, Sol does not notice the pitter-patter of footsteps that come from behind her. She jumps, surprised, when she feels two hands enclose her torso, bringing her close to a body she can recognise anywhere, anytime.
Ji-wan hooks her chin on Sol’s shoulder. “Good morning,” she mumbles, her voice hoarse. “This smells so good.”
“Good morning,” Sol replies, turning her head to look at Ji-wan. Her heart feels full; this is all she wants from life — to stay in her home with Ji-wan, food for them cooking on the stove until eternity ends. “Did you sleep well?”
“I always sleep well with you,” says Ji-wan. “You spoil me. I can never sleep well alone.”
Me too, Sol does not say.
Instead, she holds Ji-wan’s hand and drops a kiss on her forehead. As an unspoken rule engraved in the sand, they'd never exchanged platonic, friendly kisses in ‘bro-zones’, as Ji-wan calls it, before. Sol doesn't know why the rule exists only for them, but she'd seen Ji-wan kiss all her friends in school on their cheek, their forehead, their hands, but never her. To say that it never bothered her would be a lie, but Ji-wan never made her feel less loved because of that; quite the contrary. The unspoken rule, though, was shed over during the two weeks they ‘practised’. It was Ji-wan who held Sol’s hands in hers, a week ago and kissed her on the forehead. Sol still feels her lips tattooed there.
Ji-wan beams at the kiss and plants a kiss on Sol’s cheek.
They eat as Ji-wan recites a dream she had, they brush, their hips knocking together, they take turns in getting dressed, and leave the house, hand in hand.
The air is humid and sticky, but also somehow cold when they step outside fifteen minutes after they’re supposed to. Sol is grateful that she decided to wear her jacket, regardless.
As soon as they spot Jin-hwan and Su-min waiting for them downstairs, they fall into the script they’d decided: Sol holds Ji-wan by her waist, and Ji-wan hangs off on Sol, with practically no space between them.
Though they’ve done this in public and in front of friends who didn’t quite understand what was happening, it is different now. Sol can feel her heartbeat pick an unnatural pace.
They greet each other good morning-s and hello-s and settle in the car comfortably. Throughout the time Sol spent in Ji-wan’s childhood home during school, she had always quite liked Jin-hwan’s company. He is a quiet, awkward man, full of fond smiles and tenderness that is somehow always available with him in abundance. His partner, Su-min, looms over the three of them and is light-hearted in places where Jin-hwan is severe, steering the conversation in a comfortable direction when things get awkward, and regards them all with gentle curiosity and unending warmth.
They don’t seem to notice that Sol and Ji-wan aren’t actually dating, and even though Sol never really doubted it, she sags her shoulders in relief, her hand curling over Ji-wan’s that lay entangled in her lap.
Ji-wan grins at her — sunshine flooding the car — clasps their hands together with her free hand and rests her head on Sol’s shoulder.
Sol lets her head rest on Ji-wan’s observing the scenery they leave behind. Old Korean songs play softly in the background. She lets her eyes drift shut. She feels safe and warm, a feeling that she has always sought out for, a feeling that coats her skin only when she is surrounded by the entirety of Ji-wan.