Work Text:
“Yeong, do you ever look up at the stars?”
Jiyeong blinked. Once. Twice. Before shaking her head. “I don’t ever feel the need to.”
“Why not?” Saebyeok adjusted herself on their small picnic blanket, set up on the beach underneath the night sky. “They’re beautiful, you know.”
The other girl smirked before speaking, “Not as beautiful as you are.” She was playfully pushed to lay on the blanket, giggling softly.
“I’m serious. Why don't you like to?”
“It’s not that I don’t like to, I just don’t need to. It doesn’t feel necessary for me. I’m content like this, I don’t need anything more.” Jiyeong sighs, as though lost in thought. “I have everything I could have ever wanted.”
Saebyeok looked down at Ji, brushing the loose bangs out of her face. “That being?”
She sat up as well, intertwining their hands.
“You of course.”
Saebyeok blushed, looking away. “Cheesy. And what else?”
Jiyeong giggled once again, “You’re so shy. But I guess a family too. Everybody here is so nice, it feels like they like me. Like I finally have a chance to be somebody .. My own person.”
“It doesn’t just feel like we like you, we do like you.” Saebyeok faced her, smiling lightly. “And I for one can confidently say that I also love you.”
Jiyeong blinked. “Oh.” Her face heated up, eyes going glassy, though she’d blame it on the sand getting in her eyes.
Saebyeoks eyebrows furrowed in concern, “Sorry. Did I say something wrong? I know it was probably a little bit too early for that - you don’t have to say it back.”
“No,” She grinned so hard that it could almost hurt, tears streaming down red cheeks. “It’s just I’ve never been told that before. I ..”
“I love you too.” Jiyeong stuttered her way through the words, looking down at their hands.
“See who’s the shy one now?”
“Shut up, tease.”
Saebyeok chuckled, pushing them both down to lie on their blanket in the sand, staring up at the sky. “Maybe it’s time you try something else new.”
Jiyeong looked back at her, “That being?”
“Looking at the stars. They’re so pretty. I used to stare at them everyday when I was in the North.”
She pecked Ji on the cheek, “They gave me hope, the knowledge that something else was out there. The idea that maybe one day I could have this and be happy.”
“What if I don’t like what I see in the stars?”
Saebyeok raised an eyebrow, “The stars aren’t fortune tellers. They’re more of .. Inspiration. Like a song or a really good movie.”
“Like Inside Men?”
“Exactly like Inside Men.”
“Ok.” Jiyeong nodded, keeping eye contact with Sae. “I’d like to, then. But together though.”
“There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“I’m not scared! Just do it with me, please?”
“Whatever makes you happy.” Saebyeok leaned in, giving her another peck - this time on the lips.
“I’ll lift both our hands up to the sky and we’ll look together on three.”
“On three, I like that ..” Jiyeong nodded once again, with more conviction.
Saebyeok raised their connected hands to point up at the night sky.
“Ready?”
“Yeah.”
“On one,
two,
three.”
They both looked up, a gasp coming from Jiyeong as she looked at the sky. It was beautiful, the amount of stars making her wish she had a camera with her - so she could keep the moment in her head forever.
Their hands were at the center of the sky, a sight the Jiyeong may have loved a little bit too much for her own good. Her heart swelled as she peaked back at Saebyeoks face.
She’d been content with having nothing, been happily drifting about meaninglessly waiting to either rot in prison or live on the streets as a nobody. But Saebyeok was so much more than that.
She was .. Love. Inspiration. Happiness. Hope, even.
The stars were beautiful to Jiyeong, but only because they mirrored her loves freckled cheeks.