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Growing up, Yurim thought that Baek Yijin was her first love. It made sense in her head. He always took care of her and her family loved him like they would love their own son. It wasn’t like she thought about marrying him or anything of that sort, but Yurim wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea of having Yijin as her prince charming at the end of her fairytale.
Yijin was also the most popular and handsome guy around, smart and kind, and really, being young meant that the standards for liking someone weren’t very high. What wasn’t there to like about him?
So when he tells her that he isn’t in fact her first love, that instead she felt a lot more keenly about the sports car he was driving back then, she can’t help but to feel a little funny on the inside, like her view on love had been wrong this whole time.
But then, she supposes that she doesn’t actually care about this new revelation, and is almost glad that Yijin isn’t her love first after all. It makes things exciting again, like she has been shown to new doors and possibilities, that the first person who will make her feel butterflies is still out there waiting to meet her. That the Ryder to her Ellie still hasn’t entered her world.
(Yurim dreams about meeting her internet friend ryder37 once, and then forces herself to stop thinking about the impossible.)
She knows she has her own set of admirers, and it would be easy to just pick any one of them to date, but no one has really been able to get her attention. They call her pretty and tell her how amazing she is for winning at the Olympics. Nothing less, nothing more. That’s really how far it goes.
Then there was Moon Jiwoong. Pretty boy from class seven, and one of the few people who doesn't treat her like she is only worth her gold medal. He is sweet and makes her laugh, and Yurim feels a sense of comfort when she is around him. He should tick all the boxes in what could be the perfect fit to be her first love and yet, something feels missing.
Because the thing with Moon Jiwoong, charming jack-of-all-trades, is that he doesn't make her heart flutter like she thinks it's supposed to, nor does she think about him as much as he thinks about her. When he looks forward to seeing her at school, the only thing on her mind is watching the clock tick until she can be dismissed from class. The truth is that she likes him, but she doesn’t like him.
For some time, Yurim wondered if there was something wrong with her, if she was being too picky, or maybe she just wasn't ready for love. Because Yurim knows that if she had to choose between fencing or romance with a high school boy, she would choose fencing without a second thought. Without hesitation, she would choose the one thing she loves most, even if it means being in Na Heedo's vicinity for hours of the day.
Na. Hee. Do.
Yurim wants to hate her with every fiber of her being, but she knows deep down that hate is too much of a big word to reflect how she really feels about the other girl. What she feels about Na Heedo resembles more like resent. Then sometimes it feels like anger, and other times something a little too close to crossing the line between envy and want.
She feels resent, because Heedo doesn’t remember their first meeting and the way she made her feel afraid and humiliated. Yurim thinks it’s almost comical how Heedo praises her with what used to be stars in her eyes when the truth is the latter has won in every single of their bouts. It doesn’t matter that the number is only two, it’s two too many defeats for Yurim.
She feels anger, because how dare Heedo waltzes back into her world, takes everything she has worked for away from her and then smiles at her like she hasn’t crushed her self-worth on more than one occasion. When Heedo had the child-prodigy title attached to her name, Yurim was a nobody who had to build herself up from the ground. Finally reaching the top was supposed to mean Yurim had jumped over all the possible hurdles in her career. But then here comes Na Heedo, always one touch away from disrupting everything stable in her life. No one but Heedo has ever come close to bringing her down.
Then she feels envy.
Because Na Heedo has a natural talent, a natural charm that even Yurim can recognize. Not only is she a talented fencer, Heedo makes new friends with ease and has people rooting for her. It didn’t take long before Coach Chanmi and their younger teammates warmed up to her. Yijin, Jiwoong, Seungwan, Seungwan’s mother, they all like her. Yurim envies Heedo because things fall to her feet when she asks, because Heedo has a freedom that Yurim can only wish to have.
Because Heedo can afford to lose. Yurim can’t ever think of losing.
Yurim wants to hate Heedo. Truly, she does. But when Heedo becomes her shield that protects her from the sword, when she talks back against their senior and defends their right to train at night with so much determination, she knows that she could never hate her. Not when she makes her laugh days later when she makes a dramatic scene in front of the team, not when she meets her gaze while she is barely holding on to the loach in her hand.
It hits her in a spiral of emotions over loach soup with everyone seated at the table that she realizes that what she feels for Heedo is how she was supposed to feel for Yijin and Jiwoong.
“I really liked and idolized you. I think that’s exactly how much I can loathe you from now on.”
Yurim could never hate Heedo.
But what does it matter when Heedo is now the one who hates her?
Being on the national team and sharing a room do not make things easier. It’s hard to ignore each other when they are together almost every minute of the day. It’s even harder to ignore her when their conversations always escalate to fights and Heedo reminds her over and over again how much she used to mean to her.
“You’re an open book, but can you read me?”
Yurim stiffens, the same way her expression hardens. She doesn’t admit that after spending months training together, she knows Heedo like the back of her hand. Yurim also doesn’t tell her that she is wrong, and that Heedo is the one who doesn’t know her like she claims she does. She wants to tell her that while Heedo says she can read her like a book, she can’t even see how much she is hurting. But Yurim isn’t ready to tell the truth and fights the urge to cry instead.
The silence that follows is deafening. Heedo waits. She waits for any type of reply, any change in Yurim’s demeanor just to show that she minimally cares, but nothing comes of the other girl. And so, Heedo tries again, even though she is tired of trying, tired of her efforts not getting reciprocated.
“I gave you that umbrella. That’s how much I liked you, Ko Yurim.”
The confession feels like a punch to the guts. Of course, the umbrella she holds so dearly was given to her by Heedo. Of course, it had to be her. It has always been her. Like how the moon always finds the sun after each cycle, everything goes back to Na Heedo.
(If she had any type of hope for their future, Yurim would call this fate.)
Yurim holds her fist, swallows back a sob. It hurts every time Heedo reminds her of how she used to like her, how things are now all in the past and put behind her, when Yurim is still stuck in the same place. How could she blame Heedo for hating her though? When she hasn't given her a reason to like her beyond her fencing abilities. Yurim hasn’t been exactly kind to her, that she can at least admit, and she wasn’t remotely close to apologizing for the way she acted and the words she said.
So when Yurim has the chance to extend the olive branch and make peace, she does what she does best, she protects her walls and pushes people away from the world she has built around herself.
“You should have stayed a fan. Why did you have to cross over the line and make a mess out of everything?” Yurim grabs her bag and walks out without looking back, leaving the words hanging in the room.
Yurim returns to the dorm late at night when Heedo is already asleep. The only source of light in the room is the lamp on Heedo’s desk. Yurim wants to believe that Heedo left it on because she was being considerate, but is aware it’s more likely because she simply forgot.
She drops her bag on the floor and sits on her bed, watching how Heedo suddenly kicks her comforter and mumbles something in her sleep. The sight makes her smile, and then fills her with regret.
“You don't know how much it affects me when you say that you liked me, Na Heedo.” Yurim says quietly enough so that it doesn’t reach Heedo, but loud enough so that she can release the burden she has been holding.
She walks over to switch the lamp off, and eyes the box containing Yijin's recordings. She looks back at Heedo’s sleeping figure and then back at the cassettes, her heart weighing heavier with each breath she takes.
“Maybe I wished that you didn’t only like me as a fan.”
Maybe, just maybe, she wishes that Heedo didn’t like her as just a world class athlete, but as someone worth loving beyond her accomplishments, as a teenager and a friend trying to live up to the pressure and the expectations adults put on her. But it doesn't matter if she tells Heedo how she truly feels. She knows she is already too late.
Besides, why would she make herself go through the pain of a rejection? Why would she put her heart at stake, bare herself and for once be vulnerable in her life for someone who won't ever feel the same way? Why would she risk losing everything she has worked for and waste her sweat and tears for a girl who now hates her.
But more than anything, Yurim thinks about the country watching her every move, waiting to haunt her down for taking the slightest hint of a wrong step. She thinks about Yijin with a conflicted face, perhaps betrayal, reporting on a matter that should never be reported in the first place. Or worse, her parents' look of disappointment, years of supporting their daughter only for everything to crumble because she happens to love a girl.
Because South Korea's beloved gold medalist loves a girl. A girl who happens to be her rival on the national team, a girl whose name is Na Heedo.
Yurim loves Heedo.
Yurim loves Heedo and the way she brightens the room every time she’s around, how she finds the positive in every situation, how she is brave and stands up for herself and for what she believes in. Heedo is clumsy, reckless, and sometimes Yurim thinks she is a fool for throwing around the words I like you so carelessly, but still Heedo is fearless. And she is kind and caring and everything good in the world.
Yurim has loved Heedo since they were eighteen.
They say that your first love is the one that hurts the most. Yurim understands it now. Although she had hoped that it would have happened like the love she witnessed in her favorite comic book, if Na Heedo is her first love, then Yurim can accept the pain that comes with her first heartbreak.