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Minatozaki Sana, in every sense of the word, is confident that Park Jihyo is honey yellow.
From an ever-present, blindingly sweet smile to a warmth that could match the sun's, Jihyo's honey yellow can be seen from miles away.
As much of a romantic as Sana usually is, she had no clue that she was in love with Jihyo from the moment she met her. She just chalked it up to making a new best friend. She was friends with Jeongyeon and Tzuyu and she didn't want to date them.
Sana first met Jihyo by accident in the grocery store. She was getting her usual weeklies — green onions, some kind of vegetables, a little snack for the drive home, and milk — when she bumped into Jihyo. Like the usual clumsy person she was, Sana was looking down at her shopping list as she reached into the large refrigerator for a gallon of milk. She brought it down right as Jihyo tried standing up from her bent position, hitting her with the heavy jug.
"Oh shit! I'm so sorry." Sana set her milk in her cart and covered her mouth, a hesitant hand reaching out in apology. "I should have been looking at the milk or anywhere else but my list."
Jihyo rubbed the top of her head, one of her eyes closed in slight pain. She looked up at Sana though and let out a small laugh, shaking her head. "It's okay. Thankfully a gallon of milk isn't enough to knock me out. I've got a pretty hard head."
Sana was more than embarrassed and felt awful. Usually with her clumsiness she either hurt herself, or whatever item it was that was spilled on the ground or her furniture. It was rare that her clumsiness ever affected another person. "Still, I'm really sorry. Is there anything I can do?"
Jihyo just smiled and waved Sana's offer off. "I'm really okay. I promise."
Before Sana had even a second to think of introducing herself or giving her number to the girl she just assaulted, in case she did eventually want a favor in return, she was waving and headed down the bread aisle. Sana stood there, the gallon of milk in her cart, her shopping list held limply in her hand, and the image of the girl already burned into her brain.
//
The second time Sana met Jihyo, she was at the post office. She needed to mail thank you letters to some of her family that lived out of the country and saw the back of Jihyo's head when she finished. Sana was sure it was Jihyo based off of the girl's height, the way her hair fell perfectly on her shoulders, and the same jacket she was sporting in the grocery store.
Sana never had much trouble speaking to people she had never met before or had only a few interactions with. Jihyo was no different except she didn't usually assault new people with milk. "Hey, are you the girl from the grocery store?"
Jihyo turned around, her smile stirring something new in Sana this time. "I am. You don't have any milk this time, do you?" Jihyo looked at Sana in fake suspicion.
Sana groaned and brought her hand up to her face in embarrassment.
"I'm kidding. I'm Park Jihyo by the way."
Sana got over her momentary embarrassment and introduced herself. She had plenty more things she needed to do with the rest of her day, but suddenly standing in line and getting to know Jihyo better seemed to be more important than anything.
Sana quickly realized that she liked Jihyo. She liked the way the girl spoke. She liked the air of confidence she carried. She liked her quick wit. She especially liked her smile. Most of Sana's friends told her that she had an infectious smile, but Sana's very sure that Jihyo had her beat.
By the time Jihyo got to the front of the line and finished sending what she needed to send, Sana really did need to continue with her day. She didn't want to just leave Jihyo again though and hope that fate caused their paths to cross in another odd location.
"Would you want to hang out sometime? I'd really like to hear more about your work as a veterinarian."
Jihyo seemed a little surprised but nodded anyway, pulling her phone out so Sana could type her number in. "Sure. Just let me know when you're available and we can get coffee sometime or something."
Sana said her goodbye to Jihyo before jogging out of the post office, leaving Jihyo to stare at her slowly disappearing figure. When Jihyo stopped staring at the door, she looked down at her phone, a light chuckle leaving her as she looked at the sparkling pink heart emoji Sana put beside her name.
//
The third time Sana met Jihyo, it was fully intentional. She invited Jihyo to a tteokbokki place her friend Jeongyeon owned. Jihyo was more than happy to accompany her, stating that she hadn't had good tteokbokki in a long time.
Once they established their spot in a little corner of the small restaurant, Sana started asking Jihyo every question in her mind she could think about being a vet. She wanted to know what the cutest animals she worked with were. She wanted to know which animals were the hardest to work with. Which ones were the easiest?
Jihyo was more than happy to answer all of Sana's questions. People didn't usually ask such interesting questions about her job. Most of the time they just asked her about her salary or how long the hours were.
"Well what about you? You never told me what you do." Jihyo asked this between bites, deciding that Jeongyeon's tteokbokki place was now her favorite.
"Oh I guess I didn't," Sana said with a small smile. She put her chopsticks down and took a sip of her water before leaning back in her seat. "I'm a kindergarten teacher. I know that it's not the most interesting job in the world, but I really love the kids. They always have a lot of energy and I think I can match it well."
Jihyo nodded, finishing the last few bites of her food. "I think that's really cool. It takes the right person to work with kids and you seem like you'd be an amazing teacher. I've only met you a few times, but you're always very bright and happy."
As Jihyo said this, Sana scoffed in her head. If anything, Jihyo was the one who was always bright and happy. I mean, she was still smiling when Sana hit her with a gallon of milk.
//
Jihyo very quickly became a constant in Sana's life after that third time they met. She was always at Sana's apartment or Sana was always at hers. They traded cooking for each other and movie nights for a while, taking their time to get to know each other. Jihyo also quickly fit into Sana's small group of friends and vice versa.
"So Jihyo..." Sana's friend Tzuyu looked across the table at her, eyebrows raised suggestively. They had just gotten their food at a Japanese restaurant they frequented when Tzuyu started the interrogation.
Sana looked over at Tzuyu, spoon full of soup halfway to her still open mouth. "So Jihyo what?"
Tzuyu waited a beat and watched Sana eat her spoonful of soup, shaking her head in disbelief. "Really? Sana, out of all people, I thought you would realize it right away."
"Realize what?" Sana set her spoon down in her bowl, attention now fully on her friend.
"With all the romantic dramas you watch and all the books you read I really thought that you wouldn't be so blind about Jihyo."
Sana almost choked on the breath she had just taken, not believing what Tzuyu had (not so) sneakily brought up.
"Tzu if you're insinuating what I think you're insinuating, then you're completely wrong. I do the exact same things with you and Jeong that I do with Jihyo."
Tzuyu raised a questioning eyebrow and took a few bites of her food before continuing. Sana was a very intelligent person, but sometimes Tzuyu felt like she was talking to a brick wall. "Sana, you don't have dinner almost every night with Jeongyeon and I. You also don't watch movies and cling to us like your life depends on it. You also certainly don't hold our hands every chance you get either."
Sana pouted and picked her spoon up again. "We get dinner quite a bit and we're always watching movies! The only reason I don't hold your hand or Jeong's is because she's dating Naeyon and you're dating Chaeng. That would be a disrespect to both of them."
Tzuyu held her hands up in defense, and shrugged. "Suit yourself, Miss in denial. You'll see that you're head over heels for Jihyo soon enough. I can feel it."
//
Jihyo very quickly became a constant in Sana's life, but Sana realized it painfully slowly that she did in fact have feelings for the girl. It took almost two months and a suspiciously romantic movie for Sana to realize it. The lights were off at Sana's apartment since Jihyo said it helped with the ambience, and Sana's eyes were glued to the two characters on the TV. They had just finished a picnic — according to the male lead, it wasn't a date — and were about to just go their separate ways until the female lead grabbed the guy's arm and told him he was an idiot for not noticing she was madly in love with him.
Sana drank in every word the girl on the TV said, completely oblivious to the way that Jihyo was laser focused on Sana rather than the TV. It wasn't until the credits started to roll that the all too metaphorical lightbulb went off in Sana's head. She turned the TV off and flipped the lights on, jumping a bit when she found Jihyo already looking at her.
"Did you uh- did you like the movie?" Sana asked with a sheepish smile as Jihyo leaned her head against Sana's shoulder. Sana adjusted a bit, leaning back so that Jihyo could be a little more comfortable.
Jihyo just nodded and hummed in response.
This left an unusually awkward silence in the air. Sana stared at the loading screen of some randomly suggested movie, every single thing she did with Jihyo suddenly clicking into place.
The light touches. The nearly daily dinners. The frequent movies. The hand holding. The occasional kiss to the cheek. The longing look in Jihyo's dark brown eyes whenever Sana spoke to her.
Tzuyu was right. Sana was blind.
As the silence built and Sana became suddenly aware of the feeling of Jihyo's soft cheek against the thin fabric separating their skin, her breathing started to pick up. Her heart started to beat a little faster and her mouth started to dry up.
Before Sana could properly come up with how she wanted to confess these months worth of newly discovered feelings in a way that wouldn't scare the poor girl off, she blurted out, "You're honey yellow."
Sana immediately shut her eyes and flinched when Jihyo lifted her head off Sana's shoulder. Sana kept her eyes shut, too afraid to look at the surely judging look that Jihyo was sporting.
Jihyo just laughed though and took Sana's hands into hers, rubbing gentle circles in the backs of them. "Honey yellow, huh?"
Sana hesitantly opened her eyes and nodded. "Yes. That's not what I mean, though. I mean, you are honey yellow, but what I really wanted to say is that I'm a little slow. I'm not usually slow about these kinds of things, but I guess I just got so caught up in everything we were doing. I just feel really comfortable around you and you fit in really well with my friends and I feel like I fit well in yours. I guess I overlooked everything and thought that you were just a really good friend like Jeongyeon and Tzuyu, but-"
Jihyo's smile grew wider and wider as Sana rambled on. She found it endearing that she was this nervous. Jihyo was glad that Sana finally realized she had feelings for her. She just hoped that Sana realized Jihyo liked her back.
Jihyo was very much enjoying Sana's rambling and how red her face was getting, but the more she watched her mouth move and focused in on her lips, the more she just wanted to kiss her. So, she did.
It was sudden. Sana wasn't sure what was happening or when exactly the small distance closed between them. It only took a second though before Sana's eyes fluttered closed and she was pulling Jihyo closer by her waist. The kiss wasn't desperate or rushed. It was gentle and slow. Months of build up finally being released.
When the two inevitably parted, a little bit breathless, Sana rested her forehead against Jihyo's and started to giggle. Her giggle turned into a laugh as she wrapped her arms around Jihyo's neck, pulling her down on top of her on the couch. She couldn't get over the fact that it took her so long to realize she was head over heels for Jihyo. Even more than that, she couldn't get over the fac that it had taken her this long to kiss Jihyo.
From the first time I met you, you were honey yellow.