Work Text:
“Thanks Minji! I’m sorry for coming late!”
Minji just hums at her coworker and drags her feet out of the convenience store. She takes a look at the time on her phone, it’s already 6AM, an hour later than the time she’s supposed to leave. The sun is already peeking at the horizon, slowly replacing the darkness with its orange light and the street is already way more crowded than usual, filled with some old ladies taking their morning walk, and young adults doing their morning jog.
It’s a normal thing for Minji at this point, to work despite still being a college student, and to come home early in the morning. But sometimes, she wonders, how life would be if she lives like an actual normal person, if she comes back home at 6 in the evening and not 6 in the morning, if she can work on her assignment without worrying that she’ll be running late for work.
Sometimes, Minji just wishes this is not the routine she’s living in.
Because despite this being normal to her, it’s still exhausting. Especially on a night like today, when one of her groupmate didn’t show up to work on their project together, making the rest of them having to cover for him, when she had to deal with drunk customers catcalling her without being too rude because she can’t lose the job, when her coworker showed up an hour late, saying he overslept because he was watching football until late.
On a night like this, Minji just wants to go home.
On a night like this, Minji just wants to cuddle up to Hanni and let her small hands wrap around her like a cozy blanket, wiping away all the stress and worries.
The apartment is still dark when Minji locks the door behind her, only having the light on the entrance left on. She kicks her shoes off and throws her bag on the sofa, she’ll deal with them later. Ignoring her own bedroom door, she walks to the other room instead, tapping a light knock on the door before opening it.
It’s dark inside but she can still see Hanni’s small body bundled up in her favorite purple blanket, Minji smiles at the sight. She carefully climbs up the bed and lays herself on the empty side of the bed.
“You’re home,” Hanni whispers.
Minji just smiles. “Can I sleep here?”
“Of course,” Hanni says. She lifts her blanket and pats on the empty space between them. Minji quickly slides herself, letting the blanket fall around her, followed by Hanni’s thin arms wrapping around her tired body. “Tiring day?”
Minji just nods, hoping Hanni sees it despite the dark.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Hanni asks with a voice still full of sleepiness.
Minji shakes her head, she doesn’t want to bother Hanni. “Maybe later, I just need you right now,” she says, shifting her body forward, leaving no space between the two of them. “Good night, Hanni.”
“Good night, Minji.”
When Minji wakes up, Hanni is already gone, leaving an empty bed beside her. She peeks at the clock on the wall and it’s showing 12 o’clock, even for a Saturday, it’s already too late for Hanni who usually wakes up earlier between the two of them.
After one last stretch on the bed, Minji gets up and tidies up the bed. She leaves the room and is greeted by Hanni who’s cooking something in the kitchen. Her smile grows at the sight, if it were two months ago, there’s no way she would ever catch this sight of Hanni. She takes a step closer and rests her chin on the younger’s shoulder, peeking at what she’s doing.
“What are you making?” Minji asks.
“Just scrambled eggs with toast,” Hanni answers, “I’m making one for you too.”
“Thanks,” Minji says, her eyes looking down at her own clothes, realizing she didn’t even bother to change it this morning. “I’m gonna take a quick shower.”
Hanni is sitting at the coffee table, tapping her feet on the floor when Minji comes out of the bathroom. The two plates of scramble eggs sit on the table, still untouched.
“You didn’t have to wait for me,” Minji says as she sits on the floor beside Hanni, pulling one of the plates closer to herself.
“It tastes better when I eat with you,” Hanni says, picking up the fork from the side and taking a bite of the scrambled eggs. “I put too much salt again.”
Minji chuckles as she takes her own bite, yeah it’s definitely too salty. “It’s okay, you’ll do better next time,” she says, continuing to eat the rest of the food. She’ll worry about her sodium intake later.
“Do you, do you want to talk about your day?” Hanni asks once both of their plates are empty. “You said you’ll talk about it later.”
“It’s just, people were being annoying,” Minji starts, resting her head on Hanni’s shoulder. She continues to talk about her yesterday, about her groupmate, about the drunk customer, and about her co-worker. And it feels soothing, to be able to tell someone all your trouble, it’s calming, Hanni is.
“How about you? How was your day yesterday?” Minji asks this time. “You didn’t talk about it at all.”
Hanni scratches the back of her ear. “Well, you said, you said you’re gonna be working on a group assignment so I didn’t want to bother you.”
“You know you’ll never be a bother to me.”
“Just in case,” Hanni says, “I mean, you know, I can’t stop talking when something excites me.”
“And I like it, you know, hearing you talking about things that excites you,” Minji replies. Really, Hanni can talk about worms and it wouldn’t matter, Minji would still listen to it like it’s the most interesting thing in the world.
“Um, well, we had parasitology class yesterday and we learned about trematodes, flukes, that’s what people usually call it I think,” Hanni says, her face turning into disgust. “But it’s kinda disgusting. I don't wanna talk about it in detail.”
“And then, oh, I saw cats like a block away from here. I think she just gave birth, she has so many kittens with her. There were like four at least, following her like ducklings.” Hanni’s face changes into excitement this time and Minji can imagine Hanni stopping by to pet all the cats. “Minji, what if tomorrow we buy some cat food as well, so we can feed them?”
Minji moves her hand to caress Hanni’s hair gently, she can’t say no to that. “Okay, we’ll buy some tomorrow,” she says, making a mental note in her head. They’re gonna need to buy a feeding bowl as well if they wanna do that. “Did you watch any new documentaries?”
Hanni shakes her head. “But I watched this video on YouTube about solipsism. Have you heard of it?”
“No, what is that?”
“It’s an idea in philosophy that our mind is the only thing that exists,” Hanni explains.
Minji tilts her head, not quite catching the explanation. “What does that mean?”
Hanni taps on her knee. “So like, nothing else is real, just our mind, and everything else is created by our mind.”
That’s a really odd way of thinking, Minji thinks. “So if solipsism is true, that means I’m just a fragment of your imagination?”
“Something like that, yeah, this apartment too, and the scrambled egg we just ate, and all the animals in the world,” Hanni says, her eyebrows turning into a frown as she said the last part. Yeah, Minji wishes all the animals are real too, she can’t imagine Hanni without all her animals.
“Do you think it’s true?” Minji asks.
Hanni shakes her head. “I don’t think it’s true, no, but I thought about something.” She pauses and turns her head to just stare at Minji for a second too long before continuing. “If it is true that everything around me is just my imagination, then, then I think, you’re the best thing I came up with.”
And that was enough to make Minji freeze. She should get used to it by now, to all the things Hanni says out loud because she pretty much has no filter. But still, it feels astonishing to her sometimes.
“Well, do you wanna know what I think about solipsism?” Hanni nods. “I don’t think it’s true because I don’t think this small brain of mine is capable of creating something as beautiful as you are.” And because Minji can’t handle the idea of Pham Hanni not being real.
“That’s not true, you, you are really smart,” Hanni denies, “Besides, I think you’re more beautiful than me.”
Minji just laughs at the comment and wraps her arms around Hanni, pulling her closer. It still feels unreal, sometimes, that this is the life she’s living right now, that she has someone to come home to everyday, that she has someone that’s willing to talk about silly things with her. That she has a Pham Hanni.