Chapter Text
They're both six years old when they promise to love each other forever. It happens on the trampoline in Yujin's backyard, while Liz and Rei are inside to beg Yujin's mom for more cookies.
Wonyoung and Yujin settle down, laying on their backs to look at the clouds in the sky. Well, Wonyoung is. Yujin is looking at Wonyoung. It's not a conscious decision — Wonyoung is just really pretty. Prettier than the sky. Definitely prettier than the clouds.
It's quiet for a few moments, but Yujin doesn't mind. Silences with Wonyoung are never uncomfortable. But talking to Wonyoung is even better, so Yujin's heart kind of jumps when Wonyoung gasps and grabs her hand, points at the sky, and says, "That one looks like a banana."
Yujin tears her gaze away from Wonyoung to look at the banana cloud, and she has to admit Wonyoung's right. Her smile reflects Wonyoung's. "It does."
Wonyoung's face is really close, and the twinkle in her eyes is so happy Yujin can't really help but lean in. She doesn't know why she's so compelled to press her lips against Wonyoung's, but it's sort of nice. It's also sort of gross, but the niceness definitely outweighs the grossness.
For two heartbeats nothing happens. Neither of them moves. Yujin's eyes flutter closed. She wonders if this is what her parents feel like sometimes when their faces are really close to each other when they're talking.
Then Wonyoung pulls back, frowning a little. "What was that?"
Yujin needs a moment to get herself together, and her eyes are still closed, but Wonyoung's voice grounds her a little. She looks into Wonyoung's eyes — there's a slightly confused expression in them, but also something else that looks a little like the way Yujin's heart is beating against her chest. And Yujin doesn't know why, but she's relieved. "I'm not sure."
Wonyoung doesn't move. "You kissed me."
"I guess," Yujin says in a soft voice. "Was that okay?"
Wonyoung's frown deepens, like she's deep in thought. Then she shrugs, her lips curling up into a shy smile. "I guess. But why?"
Yujin blinks. She didn't think that far ahead yet. "I don't know. My mom and dad kiss all the time, and then they say they love each other."
"Oh." Wonyoung pauses for a moment, her frown disappearing. Her eyes flicker down to Yujin's mouth, and before Yujin realizes what's happening, Wonyoung pecks her lips and says, "I love you."
Yujin tries to ignore the butterflies in her stomach, but she smiles and rolls back on her back. Her hand finds Wonyoung's, and she gives it a soft squeeze. "I love you, too."
"Forever?" Wonyoung asks, her voice timid and shy in comparison to before.
"Forever."
And then Liz and Rei come running outside with an entire pack of cookies between them and half-eaten ones in their hand, and Wonyoung jumps up to grab the cookies before Liz eats them all.
&
Things don't change in the years after that. They still hang out every day after school, usually at Yujin or Wonyoung's house, because they're neighbors and they live closest to school.
But then things do start to change. It happens on Yujin's eleventh birthday, when they're in the backyard, playing by the trampoline. Their parents are all inside, eating cake and talking about boring adult stuff, and Yujin's next to Rei, leaning her arms on the trampoline while Wonyoung and Liz are jumping up and down.
It's not the most comfortable position, but Yujin doesn't mind because she likes it when Wonyoung's happy and Wonyoung looks really happy right now. Yujin could probably watch her for hours.
"I gotta pee," Rei says, slipping her arms off the trampoline. As if it's a given, Liz stops jumping and climbs off the trampoline. They don't say anything — they just disappear inside.
Yujin watches them leave, and it's not until she turns back around that she realizes Wonyoung's stopped jumping too.
"Play with me," she says, holding out her hand. Yujin doesn't hesitate to grab it, letting Wonyoung help her climb on the trampoline even though she could've done it herself just as easily. Wonyoung sits down with her legs crossed, but when Yujin wants to sit down, too, she shakes her head. "You jump. It's a funny feeling."
Yujin isn't sure what's so funny about being bounced around, but she does what Wonyoung asks anyway. At first she's worried she's going to hit Wonyoung in the face or knock her over somehow, but her worry disappears the second Wonyoung starts laughing almost uncontrollably.
It doesn't last very long. Jumping is exhausting, especially when your heart was already beating out of your chest before you even started. Yujin lets herself sink down next to Wonyoung, and she smiles.
Wonyoung smiles back. "Thank you."
"Of course," Yujin says. "Anything to see you smile."
It happens right then. One moment they're just smiling at each other, the next Wonyoung leans in and kisses her. A little longer than last time, and with a little less nonchalance. When she pulls back, she's smiling again. "Happy birthday, Yujin. I love you."
"I love you, too," Yujin breathes, her forehead still pressed against Wonyoung's. She's eleven years old, and she has no idea what she's doing.
But some part of her knows she's in love with Wonyoung. There's no fireworks when the words cross her mind — just something that feels a lot like oh, and that's that.
"Forever?" Wonyoung asks, and their noses brush.
Yujin closes her eyes. She takes everything in, from the way Wonyoung's face feels against her own to the thousands of butterflies in her stomach. She doesn't know how she'll ever not love Wonyoung. "Fore-"
"We're back," Liz announces, very loudly, and they jump apart. And then, "Were you kissing?"
"Uh—" Yujin says at the same time Wonyoung says, "No."
Liz looks back and forth between them with a look of disbelief and judgment, and Yujin feels Wonyoung inching away from her. She wants to grab her hand and keep her close, but she can't make herself move under the weight of Liz's stare.
"Good," Liz says. "Girls are not supposed to kiss other girls. We're supposed to kiss boys."
Her words feel like a punch to the stomach. Yujin's mouth goes dry and it feels like someone's shoved a glowing hot iron stick down her throat. She looks at her hands and wonders if her heart chose wrong somehow.
When she looks up, Wonyoung is on the other side of the trampoline, as pale as a ghost. She doesn't meet Yujin's eyes — she barely even acknowledges Yujin's there.
Something has changed. Yujin can feel it in the air, in the way Wonyoung's body language went from happy and honest to closed and distant.
Something has changed, because girls are not supposed to kiss other girls.
&
Being friends with Wonyoung is different from being friends with Liz or Rei. When Yujin is with Liz and Rei, there is no tension when their hands brush accidentally, and her heart doesn't flutter every time they smile at her.
Being friends with Wonyoung is different, because Yujin doesn't want to just be friends. She's thirteen, and her body is starting to change, and she can't stop thinking about Wonyoung's smile and her eyes and her hair and her hands. Mostly she thinks about what it means that somewhere in the back of her mind she's always thinking about kissing her.
By now she knows what Liz meant when she said that girls are not supposed to kiss other girls, but that doesn't mean Yujin doesn't want to kiss other girls. Well, one girl in particular.
It's Wonyoung. It's always Wonyoung. She'd choose her over anything, or anyone. She doesn't remember a time where she wouldn't choose Wonyoung over anything. Maybe there was just never such a time — they grew up together, after all.
The more time they spend together, the stronger Yujin's feelings become, until she can't breathe without wanting to hold Wonyoung's hand, until her heart beats against the walls of her ribcage, until it doesn't feel right to say anything but Wonyoung's name.
She's pretty sure she'll burst if she doesn't tell someone.
So she does, one night when everyone is out and it's just her and her mom. They're in the kitchen, and they just finished eating dinner. Yujin's so nervous she's chews the inside of her cheek until she tastes blood.
"Mom?"
Her mom looks up from loading the dishwasher. "Yes?"
Yujin doesn't meet her mother's eyes, casting her gaze downwards instead. Her hands are trembling. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course." Her mom presses a few buttons and closes the dishwasher, sitting back down at the dinner table. "Is something wrong?"
Yujin shakes her head. "Not really. I just — I don't know."
"You know you can tell me anything, right?" her mom says, a hint of worry in her voice. "Literally anything."
And Yujin knows, but it still doesn't keep her stomach from turning every time she thinks about all the potential reactions that she imagined over and over again at nights she couldn't sleep. Her tongue feels heavy. "What's it like to be in love?"
Her mom smiles. "It's different for everyone, but usually you can't stop thinking about them and you want to be with them all the time. Sometimes you really want to touch them, even if it's just your hands brushing, and you think they're the most beautiful person in the world." Her eyes turn dreamy, like when she looks at Yujin's father. "But why are you asking? Are you in love with someone?"
"No," Yujin says, although it's mostly a reflex. She shrugs, still avoiding eye contact. "Maybe."
"I've learned that usually when it crosses your mind that you might be in love with someone, you usually are," her mom says in a soft voice. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Yujin thinks about Wonyoung. She's always thinking about Wonyoung, clinging to the memory of their eleven year old selves sharing a kiss that was both meaningless and meaningful at the same time. She thinks about the way Wonyoung used to look at her, before Liz told them girls are not supposed to kiss each other.
"Promise you won't be mad," she almost whispers.
"I promise I won't be mad."
She swallows, finally looking up. "I think I'm in love with Wonyoung."
The silence that follows feels endless, even though it's probably just a few seconds. She watches the emotions flash over her mother's face — surprise, confusion, and something she can't identify.
Somewhere between the first time she ever says those words out loud and the moment her mom pulls her into a hug, Yujin starts crying. Quiet sobs with even quieter tears that melt together with her mother's blouse.
"Of course I'm not mad," her mom says. "My love for you is regardless of who you love. I want you to know that. You know that, right?"
Yujin nods, because she's still crying and her voice sort of stopped working. She clings to her mother like her life depends on it, lets herself be held until her tears stop falling and she finds her tongue.
"I never said that out loud," she says. "I was scared it would make things more real, but — they already are."
Her mom cracks a tender smile, still rubbing her back. "If only things worked like that."
"Liz said girls aren't supposed to kiss other girls," Yujin blurts out, figuring that now she's started revealing her secrets she might as well continue. "And now Wonyoung won't look at me the same."
"When did this happen?"
Yujin shrugs. "A few years ago, on my birthday. Wonyoung kissed me and told me happy birthday and-" She stops herself there, not ready to reveal the most sacred moment in her life so far yet. "When Liz and Rei came back from the bathroom Liz caught us and she asked if we'd kissed. Wonyoung said we hadn't, and then Liz went like, 'Good. Girls are not supposed to kiss other girls'." Her voice catches in her throat when she realizes she's still got the exact words memorized.
When she looks up, her mom is looking back with sad eyes. "Liz's wrong. Sometimes girls kiss other girls and sometimes boys kiss other boys. There may be laws against love, but there aren't any rules. People can't help who they fall in love with, and one day everyone will know that."
"I don't think Wonyoung knows."
Her mom tucks a strand of hair behind Yujin's ear, pressing a kiss against her forehead. "She will, one day. She's only twelve, and you're still just thirteen, even though sometimes you don't sound like it. There's still plenty of time to figure things out."
Yujin sighs, leaning into her mother's embrace. She knows her mom's right — they're still young. They're not even in high school yet. But she's never been surer about anything than the way she feels about Wonyoung. She doesn't want to lose her. She really doesn't.
&
Here's the thing: losing Wonyoung is not a fast process. It's like putting a frog in cold water and heating up the pan until the water boils and the frog is cooked. And Yujin doesn't realize what's happening until it's too late.
&
It starts long before Yujin knows what's happening, but it becomes apparent one afternoon when they're walking home from school. Liz and Rei both live a block or two closer than Yujin and Wonyoung, and the last ten minutes it's always just the two of them.
Yujin has been wanting to slip her hand into Wonyoung for as long as she can remember, but she never actually does it. They're in public, which means someone could see them — she wants to spare herself the pain of Wonyoung pulling away before their fingers really intertwine.
"Won?"
Wonyoung looks up, her dark eyes flickering up to Yujin's face.
"I talked to my mom," Yujin says, needing to get it out of her system. She hates keeping secrets from Wonyoung. "About what Liz said."
Wonyoung frowns. "Liz says a lot of things every day."
"You know what I'm talking about." Yujin looks down at her hands, dries her palms on her jeans. Maybe Wonyoung wants to lie to herself and insist Liz's words aren't burned in her mind forever, but they are for Yujin and she's not the one who looks away every time their eyes lock.
Wonyoung quickens her pace. "We're in public, Yujin. We can't talk about that now."
"There's no one around. No one will hear us, I promise."
"We're not going to talk about it," Wonyoung says with such finality in her words that Yujin almost doesn't dare to continue. But she's about to explode from all the different scenarios she's made up in her mind that'll definitely never happen if they don't have this conversation.
She stops walking. "Wonyoung, please hear me out."
For a moment she doesn't think Wonyoung's just going to keep walking, but then she slows down to a stop, a few feet away from Yujin. "What's there to talk about? Liz said some things. We were ten, Yujin."
"That doesn't mean it didn't hurt. Not a day has passed where I didn't think about it. We don't have to have a full conversation about it, but I do need you to know she was wrong. Sometimes girls kiss girls, and boys kiss boys. It happens, and it's okay."
Wonyoung's jaw clenches. She balls her fists. Her eyes are wide with the same fear Yujin still feels sometimes, deep down between the walls of her heart. "Who told you that?"
"My mom," Yujin says. "She knows more about this stuff than Liz. I trust her, Wonyoung."
"She's wrong." Wonyoung's voice is sharp and seething with anger. "Did you tell her about everything else, too? Gosh, of course you did. I'm so stupid to think-" She moves, and suddenly she's in front of Yujin, so close she could touch her if she wanted. "Don't tell anyone else. Promise me you'll never tell anyone else."
Yujin blinks. Wonyoung's eyes are desperate, practically begging her to promise. And they're only twelve and thirteen. They're not supposed to think about these things — they're not supposed to be afraid of themselves. Yujin hates the way Wonyoung hates herself.
"I promise," she says, just above a whisper. "I won't tell anyone."
Wonyoung relaxes, but only a little. She stares into Yujin's eyes, tears forming in her own. She's so close Yujin can see herself in the reflection of Wonyoung's pupils. She's so close Yujin could kiss her.
"Never," Wonyoung says, making it sound like a question and a demand at the same time.
And somewhere in the back of her mind, Yujin can still hear that same voice asking for forever. She nods. "Never."
&
It becomes worse the day they're having a sleepover at Yujin's house. It starts out like any other Wednesday, which means dinner with Yujin's parents, because Wonyoung's parents have to work late and because that's how it's always been.
It's the end of the summer between junior high and high school for Yujin, and Labor Day is nearing. Soon Yujin won't be able to see Wonyoung while they're walking to school together, or during lunch breaks, or after school when they walk back home.
She tells herself that's the reason she's kind of staring — to remember. Because who knows what will happen next year? She's going to have new experiences, and homework is going to pile up, and there will be house parties that she might get invited to if she surrounds herself with the right people. And it's not like anyone will notice if she doesn't take her eyes off Wonyoung for extended periods of time. They're all too busy eating and talking about mundane things like the weather and politics and food anyway.
But when Yujin and Wonyoung go upstairs to Yujin's bedroom a to watch a movie on the crappy secondhand TV that was no longer of any use after Yujin's parents finally got a flat screen a little while later, something's off.
Yujin notices it immediately. She's tuned in to Wonyoung's frequency, catching onto everything that's even remotely different than usual. Wonyoung's eyes don't stay focused on the same spot for longer than a few seconds at a time, and she's twitching her fingers like she does when she's nervous.
"Is everything okay?" Yujin asks, climbing onto her bed. "You seem a little out of it."
Wonyoung blinks. Her voice is low and distant. "Yeah, I'm fine. What do you want to watch?"
Yujin studies Wonyoung's face. She looks into the eyes she's been falling in love with for as long as she can remember, notices the way Wonyoung's hair is getting really long, longs for those lips against her own. She knows what it means now, kissing someone. It makes her wish she'd done it again, all those years ago. Now she barely remembers what it's like to kiss Wonyoung.
She decides it's not worth the effort. If Wonyoung wants to talk to her about whatever's bothering her, she will. Pushing Wonyoung never works, Yujin learned. "I don't know. Clueless? To prepare for high school?"
"I'm not going to high school yet," Wonyoung says so quickly she almost interrupts Yujin. "Can we watch something else?"
Taken aback, Yujin nods. "Sure. Finding Nemo?" It's an old favorite, one they've watched countless of times. One she knows Wonyoung really likes — more than Clueless.
But Wonyoung doesn't seem as eager tonight. She nods, but it's without the usual joy in her eyes.
Yujin crosses the room to put the DVD into the DVD player, and when she turns around Wonyoung's still at the edge of her bed. And when she climbs back into bed, Wonyoung doesn't really move. Not even when Yujin holds her arms open like she always does.
Yujin's stomach turns. She doesn't know what's wrong with Wonyoung, but she doesn't want to ask again either. Normally she doesn't mind facing confrontation, but with Wonyoung rules don't apply. So she leans back against her pillows and watches the movie with her arms wrapped around a stuffed animal instead of her favorite person in the whole wide world.
They're only at the part where Marlin meets Dory for the first time when Wonyoung turns around abruptly. "You have to stop staring at me."
Yujin pauses the movie. "Excuse me?"
"It's weird. You're always staring at me, and maybe you think I don't notice, but I do. Maybe you think it's okay, but it's not." Wonyoung's voice is shaking — her hands are, too. She doesn't meet Yujin's eyes.
"Uh-did something happen to make you upset?" Yujin asks, carefully.
Wonyoung rolls her eyes. "I'm just tired of you looking at me like I'm made of gold, or something. You even did it at dinner tonight. It's like-" She hesitates. "It's like you're in love with me."
The tone in her voice makes Yujin want to throw up. She swallows in an attempt to get rid of the sour taste in her mouth, swallows the words that have been on the tip of her tongue since they were both six years old.
"I'm not in love with you," she says, but it comes out so weak she doesn't even believe it herself. "I'll stop staring."
"Good," Wonyoung says. She leans closer to Yujin, and for a moment Yujin's heart stops beating, but it's only to grab the remote and continue the movie.
Yujin still can't really help staring at Wonyoung because even when she's saying words that make Yujin's chest ache until she can't breathe, she's still the most beautiful thing Yujin has ever seen. At some point, though, Wonyoung lets out an exaggerated sigh and almost turns around, and Yujin's eyes are glued to the screen for the rest of the movie.
Later that night Wonyoung goes into the bathroom to get changed, and Yujin changes in her bedroom with the door closed. It's painful, because they used to take baths together and now they can't even be in the same room with just their underwear on.
Something has changed. Yujin doesn't know what or why, but there's a soft voice in the back of her head that tells her it was only a matter of time.
They don't talk for hours after Wonyoung comes back and they climb into Yujin's double bed together. They don't inch closer to each other until their shoulders are touching and their faces are so close they could kiss if they wanted. Instead they're on opposite edges of the bed, and they don't share a good night kiss because girls are not supposed to kiss other girls.