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Romeo is stupid. Juliette might be even stupider than he is, but that’s because Jeongyeon couldn’t imagine shooting herself over some stupid boy. So if she’s making stupid decisions over a stupid boy, that obviously makes her stupider.
It’s the type of math Jeongyeon wishes her teacher would appreciate instead of making sure they have their multiplication tables memorized, but she can’t even get Nayeon to agree with her, so she doubts Mrs. Kim would be any more receptive.
“It’s romantic!” Nayeon wails, and at this point, Jeongyeon has given up on trying to get her to stay quiet. She focuses on ushering them to her room, pausing to make sure she doesn’t hear any noise coming from Seungyeon’s. Her sister would have a field day snitching on her if she found out Jeongyeon had been watching this type of movie, even if she tried to cover her eyes during the scenes she felt nine-year-olds weren’t supposed to see.
This is a classic, Nayeon had told her when she presented Jeongyeon with a pen drive containing an American movie. She couldn’t watch it at home because her mom wouldn’t let her, so the solution was to do it at Jeongyeon’s house since her parents arrived late from work and her sister spent her afternoons glued to the computer screen.
Jeongyeon had no interest in watching a movie as old as she was, but what Nayeon wanted, Nayeon got, and Jihyo wasn’t around to stop them. The blocky subtitles were annoying at first, but eventually the story – and looking around constantly to make sure it wasn’t today of all days that her parents came home early or Seungyeon left her room – managed to distract her. Nayeon was completely engrossed, uncharacteristically quiet until the ending, where she started sobbing so loudly Jeongyeon would’ve been worried if this was anyone else.
“It’s stupid,” Jeongyeon repeats once she closes the door to her room. She passes by Nayeon sitting at her desk and drops some kimchi from her cup into Nayeon’s before reclining on the bed, wondering briefly if her noodles are salty from the tears. “If he waited just a little bit they would be happy together. And she didn’t need to die!”
“They were in love,” Nayeon says, rolling her eyes. Her face is all red and puffy and she looks really weird every time she cries, which Jeongyeon always tells her and it always works at making her stop because she has to argue back that she absolutely does not.
Jeongyeon scoffs. “What is love, anyway?”
She doesn’t expect Nayeon to answer, because no matter how much she tries to convince Jeongyeon, being a year older doesn’t actually make her smarter. Of course, Nayeon puffs up her chest like she’s about to teach Jeongyeon a life lesson.
“Love is love,” she says, solemnly. Jeongyeon places her empty ramyun cup on the floor so she can swing at Nayeon with a pillow, dodging a kick as she does it.
“That’s not an answer!” She focuses on trying to trap Nayeon’s foot with her pillow so she can tickle her as punishment, but has to give up when Nayeon waves a toe too close to her face, scowling.
“Fine.” Nayeon adjusts herself on the chair, then looks around at the desk. Jeongyeon is curious but doesn’t want to seem like she cares, so she just watches as Nayeon picks up a pen, opens a couple of drawers, and then comes up with the journal Jeongyeon had gotten as a gift from her aunt’s wife, still blank.
Nayeon opens it to the first page and gets up to go sit beside Jeongyeon on the bed. She writes on top like it’s one of the thematic essays they always have to do at school about something or the other:
Love is…
And then below that:
dying with someone.
“What?” Jeongyeon looks up at Nayeon, who just shrugs.
“It’s the moral of the movie or whatever. If you love someone, then you want to die with them.”
“That’s not true.” Jeongyeon frowns, a familiar achy feeling blooming in her chest. She looks over at her closet, imagining she can see the pictures her mom convinced her to put away after facing them on the walls became too much.
“And how would you know?” Nayeon asks in a familiar haughty tone. Jeongyeon has to face away from her because it’d be too ridiculous if she starts crying five minutes after making fun of Nayeon for doing so. She hugs the pillow close to her chest.
“My grandpa loved my grandma, and he didn’t die with her.” She tries her hardest to sound unaffected, clenching a fist when her voice wavers. It hurts to even think about it.
Jeongyeon hates crying because it makes everyone cry with her. Nayeon was even more of a mess than she was at the funeral, confusing some distant relatives when they learned she wasn’t actually part of the family, but Jeongyeon had found it strangely comforting. She’d never felt more like a child than in that cemetery, standing in the middle of all her older cousins and with Seungyeon too solemn holding their father’s hand, but she could squeeze Nayeon’s hand in hers and hide her face on Nayeon’s shoulder, pretending like she couldn’t hear her mom sniffling beside her.
She registers the sound of a pen scratching on paper but doesn’t turn around until Nayeon leans her weight on her as obnoxiously as possible.
“We should ask Jihyo.”
Jeongyeon laughs wetly. “She’s gonna say it’s a stupid question.”
Nayeon just grins at her in response. From the corner of her eye, she notices an ugly block of ink on paper, any words written underneath it completely hidden.
*~~*~~*~~*
Jihyo gets a new neighbor in sixth grade, and in an effort to make her feel more at home, invites everyone to meet at a food truck after school lets out.
Mina is from Japan and speaks very little Korean. Jeongyeon suspects that’s not the only reason she doesn’t contribute anything more than Hello, nice to meet you to the conversation the entire time they’re there, noticing how she tries to avoid everyone’s eyes regardless of who’s talking. Jihyo speaks slowly about anything and everything she feels Mina should know about the town and the school, like she’s giving Mina a tour instead of sitting on a plastic chair, and Nayeon interrupts whenever she thinks she has something relevant to add.
It must feel overwhelming. If Jeongyeon’s feeling in over her head with regular school and music lessons in Korean, she can’t even imagine what it would be like if she had to learn a whole new language on top of it, and meet new people and make new friends. Sometimes she can barely keep up with the two she already has.
She feels really bad for Mina, who spends most of the time with her head down, focused on her food. She’s so quiet that it takes Jeongyeon a while to realize she’s done with her tteokbokki, and she seems surprised when Jeongyeon takes some from her own plate to add to hers.
Mina also knows how to say thank you in Korean, Jeongyeon learns. Mina blushes prettily and has a mole on her upper lip, and even after Jeongyeon and Nayeon walk the youngest two home she can’t stop thinking about it.
She doesn’t find Mina on SNS, which makes sense since it’s all probably in Japanese, but she can’t help feeling disappointed.
Two days later, after she’s learned exactly five sentences in Japanese from the internet in case she ever needs them, she’s digging around in her desk for her calculator when she finds a familiar journal beneath the notebooks from last year’s school term.
Jeongyeon has never felt the need for a journal, simply because she can’t imagine herself writing anything in one. It has stayed blank, except for the first page, and Jeongyeon opens it despite herself.
After Mina becomes more confident in her Korean, when they become closer, Jeongyeon imagines asking her to eat together again. She wants to see Mina smile when she gives her tteokbokki.
Nayeon sees the journal hours later when she comes over after school because Jeongyeon hadn’t bothered to hide it. Nayeon is too dramatic and emotional and she cries when her mother scolds her after parent-teacher conferences, even if she does disrupt class with loud talk and gossip, because she can’t bear the thought of the attention on her not being positive. Jeongyeon has long learned to not let her opinions hold any relevant weight.
Still, she feels her heart against her ribcage as Nayeon opens the journal and looks over the first page silently.
“That’s it?” Nayeon asks, raising an eyebrow. She looks older when she does it, like she’s a proper teenager already, and the thought amuses and weirds out Jeongyeon in equal parts.
“Of course not,” Jeongyeon says with a conviction she doesn’t feel, because how the hell would she know, she’s just twelve. But she dutifully opens her backpack for a pen and scribbles the number 1 in front of the sentence written on the page. “It’s just one thing.”
It makes sense, if she stops to think about it. This isn’t all it is, surely.
1- sharing your food
But Mina still has to learn Korean. The rest will come later.
*~~*~~*~~*
Mina isn’t what love is, Jeongyeon finds out pretty soon, but what friendship is.
Nayeon tries to figure love out in ninth grade with a boy Jeongyeon never bothers learning the name of, since she and Jihyo can just refer to him as “the idiot” whenever they talk shit about him. Jeongyeon would consider feeling bad about it if Nayeon didn’t join in on the shit-talking after their inevitable breakup in three weeks' time.
Mina is too nice and too quiet to talk shit about anyone, even with her fluent Korean, so she mostly just listens.
Nothing else gets written in the journal. Nayeon goes to high school, and aside from not having lunch together anymore, nothing changes.
Then Seungyeon graduates, and leaves.
Jeongyeon and Jihyo go to high school. She gives up on music lessons so she can focus on test prep.
Sana and Momo come together to the country, to their high school, and their lives. Nayeon befriends Momo, the way she befriends absolutely everyone, but for some reason, Momo sticks, and Sana along with her.
It starts to feel like too much.
They’re not neighbors like Jihyo and Mina. There’s an entire high school of people just as nice, people whose lives won’t change with this friendship the way Jeongyeon’s will, people who will be patient with Momo’s stumbling words and marvel at Sana’s language skills, so she doesn’t get it, at first. Why they always have to join them, why this one thing can’t stay the same.
She’s fretting over algebra homework before class one day, cleaning eraser residue and wondering if it’s possible to erase so much that she thins out the paper, when a sheet with the correct answers appears in front of her.
Jeongyeon doesn’t talk much to Sana and Momo, even if they now sit at the same table at the cafeteria every day, even if they’ve all been to Nayeon’s place together for a sleepover. Jihyo has begged her to improve her manners, but the thing is, Jeongyeon doesn’t think she’s rude. She doesn’t understand why they need to be friends, but it’s not like she’s ever said it out loud.
Sana doesn’t seem to think she’s rude, either, even if she noticed how Jeongyeon peeked at her midterm results when the teacher was distributing them last week. She’d gotten a 98 percent mark.
She looks down at Jeongyeon, and her eyes crinkle at the corners.
Oh, Jeongyeon suddenly thinks, this is why.
***
Nayeon and Momo kiss before Sana and Jeongyeon do.
She keeps thinking about it.
Nayeon hadn’t mentioned Momo the way Jeongyeon does with Sana. Sana’s lips meet hers, and Jeongyeon feels like she’s flying, puts her hands on Sana’s waist and wonders, did Nayeon feel this? Did her insides squeeze against the pull of gravity even though her feet are firm on the ground?
If Jeongyeon got her dusty guitar from underneath her bed, would Nayeon sing songs about Momo, the way Jeongyeon hopes every chord makes its way to Sana’s heart?
Does Nayeon wish Momo hadn’t gone to Japan to visit her sister during spring break like Jeongyeon wishes Sana hadn’t gotten on that airplane with her? Or is Nayeon too busy thinking about college now that she’s becoming a senior, and doesn’t have time for romance anymore?
Eleventh grade hasn’t even started yet for Jeongyeon and she already feels like drowning. Suddenly all everyone wants to know about her is what she plans on studying and in what college and how are her scores in the monthly Test Simulations, and if she’s aware that next year it’s only going to get worse.
All of her friends are in the same situation she’s in, with the same crazy hours and expectations – or worse, in Nayeon’s case, since she’s older – but no one seems to struggle the same way Jeongyeon does. It’s like she’s underwater looking around, hoping to see a familiar face, but everyone’s heads are breaching the surface.
It’s terribly selfish to hope that someone will stop swimming just to pull her up, and the realization only sinks her further.
Jeongyeon has never felt more selfish than right now, seeing Sana’s crumpled face through the computer monitor. She looks up at the webcam for a moment before averting her gaze, wondering if it makes it better or worse if they don’t pretend to meet each other’s eyes.
“You’re going to break up with me.”
Sana doesn’t say anything in response, but Jeongyeon can see her lips quivering – or maybe she only imagines she does, because at this point she knows Sana’s tells – and it seems all the sadder in the form of a grainy image.
It’s not the first time Jeongyeon has said it. It’s a terrible habit she could never quite manage to shake off, even seeing how sad it made Sana. You’re going to break up with me, when Jeongyeon got home for a quick snack after school and couldn’t bring herself to leave for test prep, and Sana had to be the one to drop everything and talk her down from a panic attack. You’re going to break up with me, when Jeongyeon got too into her head and forgot they had a date planned.
You’re going to break up with me, when Sana insisted on calling Nayeon because she couldn’t make Jeongyeon feel better, but Jeongyeon forbid her because if this was bad for her surely it was worse for Nayeon, the one who actually had to take the CSAT soon.
It’s not the first time Jeongyeon has said it, but it’s the first time Sana doesn’t deny it.
Nayeon is livid afterward, won’t hear any explanation Jeongyeon gives her, and it makes for a very tense and awkward first week when the school year finally begins. Jeongyeon feels bad for Mina, who finally joins them as a freshman and finds herself caught in this weird standoff between the first friends she made in the country and the friends who came from the same country.
She seems to have had enough on the fourth day, though, when she meets them in the cafeteria and announces, very quietly, that she’ll be joining Sana and Momo today.
“You guys could come, too,” Mina says. Jeongyeon doesn’t say anything, too embarrassed that their friend group got to this point because of her, but she sees Nayeon open her mouth in her periphery, no doubt to remind Mina that after what Sana did there’s no way they could possibly be civil and how could she do this to Jeong–
Nayeon closes her mouth abruptly when Jihyo gets up.
“What are you doing?”
“Having lunch with our friends,” Jihyo answers, matter-of-factly. And it makes sense, that even though Nayeon is the person who knows her best, Jihyo is the one rational enough to realize Jeongyeon doesn’t hate Sana at all.
There’s this weird standstill when Mina and Jihyo leave, and Jeongyeon realizes with a start that Nayeon is waiting. Waiting for a reaction, or for Jeongyeon to say something, and for a moment it’s almost too much responsibility. Like if she doesn’t move, these cracks she formed in their friendship won’t have a risk of expanding, and maybe she won’t be the one to blame when everything inevitably crashes down around them.
Nayeon and Momo kissed before Sana and Jeongyeon did. They haven’t been together for a while, Jeongyeon knows, but she’s not the only one with something to lose.
Jihyo and Mina will keep going back and forth, but Nayeon will stay with Jeongyeon. She stands up. “We should go.”
There’s no way she’ll drag Nayeon down with her.
Nayeon tries to protest, and once they get to the table with everyone else, she makes a valiant effort to be mad at everyone and not participate in the conversation, which lasts about two minutes before she’s animatedly joining in a discussion with Mina and Momo.
Across the table, Sana smiles tentatively at Jeongyeon. Seeing her so close again makes something uncomfortable lurch in her chest, and Jeongyeon tries to tamp it down so she can smile back with all the things she should say but can’t get out.
*~~*~~*~~*
Nayeon gets into a university in Seoul.
Mina’s parents let them throw a going-away party at their house since it’s the biggest one among them, and even as all the families leave they stay for what’s going to be their last sleepover as six for the foreseeable future.
Jeongyeon couldn’t be more proud. She squeezes her hand tightly against her mouth, trying to keep the sobs in, hoping that everyone is still peacefully asleep in the bedroom as she curls into herself on the bathroom tiles.
She thinks the knock must be her imagination at first, but then it sounds again, louder. Jeongyeon holds her breath.
“I know you’re in there!” It’s Jihyo, and Jeongyeon doesn’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing. With anyone else (except Nayeon), there would be a chance they’d leave her alone if she asked. But with Jihyo– “Open this door before I wake the girls up, Jeongyeon.”
Jeongyeon splashes some water on her face before she opens it, but just one look at her has Jihyo immediately frowning and stepping forward so she can shut the door behind her.
“Do you want me to call Nayeon unnie?” Jihyo asks, and Jeongyeon immediately shakes her head in response. “Are you sure? Maybe she could make you feel better.”
Jeongyeon wishes she could curl into a ball and disappear. She settles for sitting on the toilet seat, feeling small despite being almost a head taller. “She would just get sad seeing me like this. I don’t want to ruin her night.”
Jihyo draws closer, putting a hand on her shoulder. Jeongyeon has the feeling her tears would lose a war against gravity if she looks up at her, so she keeps her head down. “I’m sure that’s not true, but okay.” She squeezes her shoulder. “But we’re all here for you, don’t forget that.”
She couldn’t. Her tears lose the fight anyway, and Jihyo doesn’t move even as Jeongyeon squeezes her arms around her, just cards her fingers through Jeongyeon’s hair and lets her dampen her pajama shirt.
She’s grateful for Jihyo, grateful for every one of the girls that make her feel less alone.
But saying goodbye to Nayeon is still going to hurt like hell.
*~~*~~*~~*
Senior year means less free time, more hours in test prep, and staying up until late so she can finish her studies and chat with Nayeon on her computer before going to bed.
Senior year brings a stressed out Jihyo, who one time tries to sign them up for mock exams every day of the week and is only stopped by Sana’s pout, which Jeongyeon is glad to learn doesn’t just work on her. There’s comfort in knowing she’s not the only one freaking out, and in knowing she can be a shoulder to rely on, this time.
Senior year also brings Dahyun, a bright-eyed freshman with a wide smile that turns the color of a tomato every time Sana breathes in her direction. All of Jeongyeon’s friends think it’s adorable.
Dahyun doesn’t quite fit in the space Nayeon left behind, but she carves one for herself nonetheless. Jeongyeon is a little lost in how this came to be, just knows that one day during lunch she looked around and their table was filled with six people again, and in every day that has passed since then, she feels a little less lonely than the day before.
“Does it bother you?” Mina asks at lunch once, voice completely devoid of judgment, and Jeongyeon doesn’t even have to ask what she’s talking about.
She glances to their right, where Sana seems to be taking extreme delight in making Dahyun become every shade of red under the sun. It does, if Jeongyeon is honest about it. Because there’s nothing in the world that quite compares to how Sana smiled at her.
But when it happens, she can just turn to Jihyo and Mina and ask about whatever game they’re into at the moment, or get Momo to talk about the newest idol choreography she’s learning the steps to. Most often, she shoots a text to Nayeon and distracts herself with the tales of being a college student in Seoul.
Jeongyeon can admit that Sana deserves to smile at someone else. And Dahyun is just too nice not to be smiled at.
That evening, she actively searches for the journal and finds it buried in her closet beneath her school books from the previous year. It’s almost funny seeing Nayeon’s clumsy handwriting at the top, followed by her own questionable penmanship as a twelve-year-old. Jeongyeon simultaneously thinks she has learned many things about love and nothing at all in the six years since then, but today there’s something specific she hasn’t been able to get out of her mind.
There’s already a pen in her hand, so she just writes it down quickly before shoving the journal into a drawer, wondering distantly what Nayeon would think about it.
2- wanting someone to be happy
***
Jeongyeon leaves her Saturday morning class craving jellies.
The CSAT is just a month away, so she should be going home to revise the material until her eyes try to fall off of her face to escape looking at more quadratic expressions, but the seniors in their friend group recently made a pact that only one of them could freak out about that at any given week and it’s currently Momo’s turn. And she already has plans, anyway.
Instead, she makes the slight detour to the convenience store a block away, sighing when the doors close behind her and she's engulfed in the warm temperature inside. There's not much time to appreciate it though, so she thoughtlessly picks a packet of jellies and goes to pay.
Son Chaeyoung is there behind the counter, but the girl next to her is new. Jeongyeon recognizes her from SNS, an exchange student from Taiwan. She’s gorgeous in person, with a striking face and the statuesque body to match, and Chaeyoung seems to think the same from the way she cranes her head to look up at her with stars in her eyes.
The girl doesn’t seem to notice, though, her attention set on the book that’s in front of both of them. As Jeongyeon gets closer she sees a frown on her face.
The girl points at something on the page. “This answer. I don’t remember how to say it.” She pauses, seemingly deep in thought, and Jeongyeon silently hands Chaeyoung the jellies and her card so she doesn’t interrupt her thoughts. “When it becomes water,” the girl finally says, doing a vague hand motion that reminds Jeongyeon of rain. Or maybe tickling someone.
“The melting point!” Chayeoung exclaims immediately, and the girl lights up with a smile. ”There you go, unnie,” Chaeyoung says to Jeongyeon this time, handing over a small bag, before turning back to the girl once more.
Jeongyeon walks home quickly so she can be in time for her 2 PM chat with Nayeon, booting up her sister's old computer while getting rid of her layers and hunting for a pair of sweatpants. Her parents promised her a laptop when she gets into college, but she tries not to think about it too much.
She munches on the jellies as she waits for Nayeon to get online, rolling her eyes when she realizes she got Nayeon’s favorite flavor on autopilot. How useful would it be if she could shove it through the cables and send it to Seoul. It makes her think back to what happened in the store, the interactions between Chaeyoung and the girl, and how well they communicated despite the language barrier. Nayeon would find it adorable, probably gush in public and make Chaeyoung blush ten shades of red.
She opens the bottom drawer and fishes the journal before she can think twice about it, writing quickly as she makes sure Nayeon isn’t online yet.
3- understanding someone
It doesn't take too long for her to get the blinking notification of Nayeon's video call, and Jeongyeon ignores the swooping in her stomach when her face fills the computer screen. She probably should have eaten something with more nutritional value.
"Hey, Jeongie" Nayeon greets her cheerfully, bunny teeth peeking through, and Jeongyeon can't help but smile back.
For the next hour, Nayeon very carefully doesn't ask about the CSAT, and in return, Jeongyeon doesn't ask about her missing home, and it doesn't feel like pretending at all.
*~~*~~*~~*
Living with Nayeon is both exactly as she expected and completely different.
The apartment is very small and relatively close to the university they’re now both attending, and Jeongyeon goes to Seoul a couple of days before Nayeon’s current lease ends so that she can crash on Seungyeon’s couch before helping with the move.
There’s just enough space in the bedroom for two double beds and a bedside table in between, where Nayeon always leaves a clutter of her cell phone and earrings and rings and lipstick despite Jeongyeon dumping them into the drawer every night.
Nayeon tries to convince her that doing the dishes is a good substitute for not cleaning the bathroom and threatens to buy takeout any time Jeongyeon tries to teach her how to cook. She also wakes Jeongyeon when she doesn’t hear her alarm and buys her energy drinks when Jeongyeon pulls an all-nighter to finish an essay, forcing her eyes open so she can try and keep her company until the fight is inevitably lost and all Jeongyeon can do is stare at her slack face, wondering if the tightening in her chest is a sign of too much caffeine.
Their schedules mostly match, so it’s not an unusual situation to find them like this: sitting on the floor in front of the TV, a drama playing in the background as they bicker about something or the other.
“But consider this,” Nayeon says, “if I send a corrupted file instead of my essay, that guarantees me at least one more day to do it.”
“Unnie,” Jeongyeon says, thoroughly exasperated, “there are still five days until your essay is due. Why don’t you just start on it now?”
Nayeon’s grin spells trouble, and Jeongyeon is helpless in the face of it. “But where’s the fun in that?”
Jeongyeon is saved by the obnoxious ring of Nayeon’s phone. She automatically looks down at it, catching the name Yongbok before the sound abruptly stops. She glances at Nayeon, who just lets out a giggle.
“Who is that?” She asks despite herself, then wonders why there’s a part of her who doesn’t want to know the answer.
“Just someone from that last group assignment I had.” It’s short and to the point and entirely unlike Nayeon. Jeongyeon just stares at her, her stomach contorting weirdly around itself. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Why is he calling you?” It’s an innocent question to ask her best friend. There’s no reason for her voice to sound so grave, or for Nayeon’s eyes to widen almost imperceptibly.
There’s a calculated ease in the way Nayeon answers her. “He confessed to me,” she says, and Jeongyeon’s chest caves in. She raises a hand in surprise, frowning when she finds it intact. “I told him I don’t feel the same,” Nayeon rushes out, obviously misinterpreting her gesture.
Nayeon must think she feels hurt or betrayed that she hadn’t known this important piece of information. She’s looking at Jeongyeon with caution like she’s carefully waiting for her next move, and Jeongyeon wants to reassure her. Of course, Nayeon gets confessed to; Jeongyeon herself watched it happen plenty of times when they were in school.
But Jeongyeon knew all the people confessing then, knew there was no way they had a chance with Nayeon, ninth-grade idiot notwithstanding. How stupid of her to not consider that now Nayeon had university students to choose from, older and mature and glamorous and unlike Jeongyeon.
It’s been almost two years since Momo. Plenty of time for Nayeon to find someone new.
“Jeongyeon!” Nayeon calls urgently. Jeongyeon raises her head to find Nayeon closer than she was before, watching her with steady eyes. “Where did you go just now?”
Jeongyeon shakes her head, reaching for the remote to turn up the volume of the TV. “Don’t worry about it.”
Nayeon worries. Jeongyeon sees her fiddling with her rings and turning her head ever so often when she thinks Jeongyeon isn’t looking, and it’s something that has happened a million times before – Jeongyeon freaking out and Nayeon wanting to comfort her – except this time Jeongyeon can’t stop noticing all the details.
How nice Nayeon’s hands are, with her long elegant fingers. The way she bites her lip. How she gets sucked into the TV drama despite herself, laughing when the main character falls into her love interest’s arms.
How Jeongyeon can’t imagine her with someone else without feeling like her heart wants to rip itself out from her chest.
The journal is carefully wedged between two of her sweatpants in the closet, and the fact that she went through this much trouble to try to hide it from Nayeon suddenly makes perfect sense, like she’s spent the last year collecting puzzle pieces but only now bothered to fit them together. Nayeon usually takes her time in the shower, but the nervous energy that buzzes through Jeongyeon compels her to write in a rush, like Nayeon would burst through the bathroom door at any moment and catch her in the act.
4- being afraid to lose someone
There’s no tilt in the planet’s axis, and no one from the future shows up to warn her against this. There’s just Jeongyeon and a pen and a revelation, and a girl in the bathroom that she’s in love with.
Somehow, that’s the scariest part of it all.
****
The next day, Nayeon is sitting on her bed when Jeongyeon gets home, with the journal in front of her crossed legs. Jeongyeon almost has a heart attack before she remembers that there are no names written in there, nothing to incriminate herself.
No reason Nayeon would suspect anything.
“You still have this,” Nayeon says. It’s an empty statement, and Jeongyeon recognizes it as her need to fill the air with talk. Something’s making her nervous. Jeongyeon doesn’t want to think about what it could be.
“How did you find it?” It comes out more defensively than she would’ve liked, and Jeongyeon tries to mask it by sitting down too, the journal now between them. She avoids looking at it, feeling her face heat up. It feels entirely too childish now, like she’s still the same nine-year-old trying to understand the world of adults and failing miserably.
“I looked around for it as soon as you moved in,” Nayeon says, no hint of shame in her voice.
Jeongyeon’s mouth drops open. “Why would you do that?”
“Who are you afraid of losing?” Nayeon retorts, but she doesn’t let Jeongyeon answer. “You see, I would’ve thought Sana at first, but this wasn’t written here the last time I read it.”
“You’ve been reading my journal?”
Nayeon rolls her shoulders back, full of false bravado, and the sudden mix of fondness and fear that hits her almost leaves Jeongyeon lightheaded. “I was waiting for the right time to tell you, and it seemed the perfect way to know if you’d finally figured it out.” Nayeon meets her gaze, and Jeongyeon shivers at the smile she lets out. “I should have figured I only needed to take one look at you to know.”
Her fingertips are tingling. Her heart slows down and speeds up, and Jeongyeon has the uncanny feeling that her body already understood what her mind is still trying to wrap itself around.
“I can’t believe you read my journal,” Jeongyeon says, like Nayeon wasn’t the one to write in it in the first place. Nayeon just giggles, and she’s completely relaxed now, her head tilted down to look at Jeongyeon through her eyelashes.
“Jihyo called me an idiot for it, if it makes you feel better. She said I should just tell you already.”
Jeongyeon blinks at the information. “You talked to Jihyo about us?”
“So you admit there’s an us,” Nayeon says, lighting up when Jeongyeon laughs in response. She puts the journal aside, occupying its place, and her knees bump Jeongyeon’s thigh. “I’ve been waiting for you to catch up.”
Her eyes are clear, and Jeongyeon tracks the nebulas in her irises and imagines she can see their nineteen years together in them, the way you count rings on a tree.
It’s as familiar as breathing, the feeling when Nayeon kisses her, this thing she has known all her life but is somehow just figuring out. It was her grandmother’s hugs, her dad cooking dinner, and the pit in her stomach when Seungyeon moved out. Jihyo, reading over her essays. Mina learning a new Korean word. Sana and Momo laughing together.
It’s Nayeon – it always has been, ever since she was nine years old and watching a foreign movie, but even before that – it’s their families’ friendship and having playdates as babies. It’s Nayeon making fun of her scraped knee but crying when she pressed a band-aid to it. It’s Nayeon, dating other people, moving to Seoul, but staying with Jeongyeon anyway.
But it’s also this new, breathy sound Nayeon makes when Jeongyeon holds her face, and Jeongyeon, wanting to feel her hands everywhere. It’s giving each other space to shower and change into pajamas, and lying down together with their clothes still on, fighting sleep and losing anyway. It’s how Jeongyeon wants to freeze this moment in time but can’t wait for what’s to come.
She wakes up with Nayeon fluttering around the room, shoving a notebook into her backpack with a half-eaten energy bar in one hand.
“I’m late,” she explains unnecessarily, leaning down to kiss Jeongyeon’s hair. “You still have half an hour before you have to get up, I set your alarm for you.”
Jeongyeon can’t go back to sleep now that she’s seen her, though, and settles for rubbing her eyes so she can watch her properly. She props herself on one hand, and Nayeon pouts.
“You looked too cute asleep,” she complains. Jeongyeon refrains from glancing at the wall clock so she can have a moment more together.
“So you’re saying I don’t look cute awake?”
“You always look cute, baby.” Jeongyeon can’t hide the blush that spreads to her cheeks at this and narrows her eyes at Nayeon, who looks absolutely delighted at this turn of events. “It’s just harder to leave with you looking at me.”
And yeah, it’s this, too. Jeongyeon not wanting her to leave, but getting up so she can physically drag Nayeon to the door, avoiding a kiss because of morning breath and offering her cheek as a peace offering. Watching her go.
The journal is in the same place they left it last night, on Nayeon’s bed, but the pen next to it wasn’t there before, a garish pink Nayeon insists helps organize her notes. Jeongyeon opens it, smiling at the contrast between ten-year-old Nayeon’s handwriting at the top of the page and the current one.
It’s the way her heart expands as she reads it.
Love is…
5- what i feel for you.