Archive of Our Own

She used to move around a lot when she was younger, following her dad all over Asia whenever a new business venture opened up for him. It used to be hard at first, to leave behind the friends she made, having to start all over and make new ones again.

But she got used to it. She adapted. Sophia thinks it's one of her greatest strengths.

Home is where the heart is, her mother would tell her. Sophia knew that she was talking about family, but when she would stand at the backstage wings of her mom’s performances, she wondered if she meant the stage, instead.

Later, she packs her bags and moves halfway across the world at eighteen. She finds a home within her vocal performance classes and admits that maybe the apple doesn’t fall so far from the tree, even if the tree is all the way back in Manila.

(She builds a home in the form of brown eyes, curls, and waist beads she still keeps satin pouches for.

Sophia will insist that she was just a warm body to hold, which is half true, at least. What else should a home be if not warm?)

The apartment feels bigger now that all of Marquise’s stuff is packed into boxes. Sophia is too busy worrying about her future roommate arrangements to feel that sad about it.

“Sorry to have to drop this on you so suddenly,” Marquise frowns. “I know it’s not ideal, even if you have a month to figure it out.”

Sophia shakes her head in response. “No, no, I get it girl.” She attempts to wave her off but does some vague gesture with her wrist instead, preoccupied with holding a box. “It shouldn’t be too hard, I mean, this place is a steal.”

And it is. The rent is relatively low considering how close it is to their campus, and it’s spacious enough for two people to live comfortably. Finding it is still one of Sophia’s greatest achievements.

(She was tempted to, like, print out a screenshot of the listing and frame it above the table near the door. She’d say oh come in, and guests would look at the picture and say woah, how did you get this place for so low?

Which is ridiculous, in hindsight, because they don’t even get any visitors.)

“Yeah, but I know you get picky,” Marquise says pointedly. Sophia is carefully unpeeling a label off a box. It was so not straight.

“It’ll be fine,” Sophia murmurs. She’s being so careful with the sticker. “I’ll ask Lara or Yoonchae if they know anyone who needs a place.” The adhesive is so stubborn. She doesn’t want to have to scrape off sticky residue and hunt down a new sticker. “Rooming with a mutual friend will be, like, so much better than a stranger, right?”

The sticker finally peels off cleanly. Sophia hisses out a little yes before she places the sticker back on the box, straightened out this time.

She doesn’t have to turn around to know that Marquise is rolling her eyes. “Okay!” She claps once. “I think that’s all set.”

“I feel like you’re enjoying this too much.” Marquise crosses her arms. She’s trying to do this valley-mean-girl voice but it comes out wobbly. Sophia can tell that she’s trying so hard not to laugh. “Do you even care that I’m leaving?”

Sophia plays along. She’s going to miss their little bits. “No, I’m like, so upset, girl.” She whines. “But we just packed almost two semesters worth of stuff into less than five boxes.” She moves to stand next to the boxes, arms thrown out like she’s doing a big reveal. “You gotta admit that’s impressive.”

“I feel like that’s more of a reflection of my good budgeting choices than your packing skills,” Marquise gestures towards Sophia’s shelf. The beady eyes of her Sonny Angel figures collectively stare at her. She moves to adjust one of them, crooked in its placement. “But okay, freak.”

So, Marquise moves out on a Saturday. She has a month’s worth of rent until she’s forced to get a roommate to chip in. Sophia is good at change, and she’s even better at planning it, so she gives herself two weeks until she locks down on a roommate and everything will go back to normal.

Two weeks fly by faster than she expects.

“What am I gonna do,” she drags out the words. Normally, she would be a little embarrassed to do this in public, whining like a child. Sophia is composed. She is mature. She has her head on the table.

Sitting across her, Lara happily munches on her truffle fries. “We’ve gone through so many options, babe, it’s kind of on you that you keep rejecting them.”

Sophia is vaguely reminded of the scene from The Princess Diaries 2, where they’re going through a presentation of potential husbands. She’d rather not be in a position of arranged marriage, but at least Mia was going through options in, like, a home theatre. In her castle.

“Okay,” Sophia lifts her head. She’s pouting. “But I’ve yielded! I agreed with two people on your list!” She was also very lenient with those two people, considering their track records. Sophia did meticulous research on each of the roommate candidates.

“There’s like four days before the semester starts, girl. Everyone’s already figured out their accoms’ by now.”

“You don’t know anyone else? Like, seriously, I would take anyone at this point.”

That must be the wrong thing to say, because a look of something flashes across Lara’s face. Sophia can’t tell what it is. She kind of looks constipated.

“I do know someone,” Lara pauses. She’s looking at her like she’s trying to gauge her reaction. “But I don’t think you’re gonna like it.”

At this point, Sophia doesn’t think she has the right to like or not like it. Anything would be better than, like, being homeless. She gestures for her to continue.

“It’s Manon.” Lara holds her hands up before Sophia can protest. “Dani mentioned that she’s coming back to LA and needs a place.” As if placated by her silence, she drops her hands as a cue for her to speak.

A million questions run through Sophia’s head. She picks one at random. “She’s coming back to LA?” Another one. “How come nobody told me?” And another one. “Is she coming back to school?”

“Okay girl, first of all you need to let go of that cup,” Lara’s hands engulf her own, gently forcing her grip to loosen. “It’s going to explode and you’ll get, like, matcha everywhere.” She looks at her thoughtfully.

“And green isn’t really your colour,” she adds on.

Sophia glares. “See, this is why nobody told you about Manon.” Lara looks at her pointedly. “You get all freaked out whenever we bring her up.”

“You literally just told me green wasn’t my colour.” Sophia doesn’t actually care but she’s really trying to prove a point here. She does not get freaked out over Manon. Green can be her colour.

“I didn’t say you would look bad in it!” Lara scoffs, affronted. “Just that you have better colours.” Sophia has half the mind to throw the cup at Lara and see if she looks good in green. Fuck, she thinks. Maybe Manon does make her a little crazy.

“I don’t know when she’s coming back.” Lara picks up a fry. “Just that she wants to, and it’s maybe soon.” She is taking her sweet time talking in between bites. Sophia’s eye is trying so hard not to twitch. “She’s not coming back for school, I think, but you never know with that girl.”

Manon has always been the most impulsive out of the four, Daniela and Lara following close for second place. Sophia can’t imagine the state of their shared apartment.

(She tries to block out the voice in her head that reminds her that Manon’s impulsiveness was exactly what drew her in the first place, and what led to their breakup a year later.)

“Yeah,” Sophia says. “You never do.” They both know what it means. Lara is giving her this sympathetic look, but she doesn’t verbally address anything. It seems the elephant has the green light to stay in the room.

Sophia met Lara a bit after Manon, considering they’re a few years apart in age. Lara was one of those musical prodigies that graduated high school and enrolled in university early. She’s kind of like her soulmate, in a completely platonic way. Sometimes, she can’t believe she went all those years without knowing her.

A coffee shop at noon isn’t her ideal place of opening up, but she supposes beggars can’t be choosers.

“Do you think she’d even say yes?” Sophia murmurs. “She couldn’t even take one year with me and we didn’t even live together then.” She’s trying hard not to pick at her nails. Maybe a cafe is a good place to break bad habits.

“Okay, hey, no—” Lara insists. “Manon leaving had nothing to do with you.” She’s lifting Sophia’s face by her chin, forcing her to meet her eyes. “You need to stop blaming yourself for that.”

Sophia feels like she’s about to cry. Opening up about the ex she’s not entirely over is one thing, but crying over her in public months later is a low she refuses to go to. “I’m not blaming myself.” She clears her throat.

“I just mean, like,” she pauses. She doesn’t really know what she means. “Y’know, what if we’re not roommate compatible? We weren’t even couple compatible.” She reasons.

“Dani and I are roommate compatible but I don’t, like, want to fuck her.” Lara rolls her eyes. “I think it’s worth the shot, to ask. You don’t even have to interact a lot!” She starts listing out different scenarios where Sophia could easily avoid Manon completely. Sophia starts tuning her out after Scenario #3: Meticulously observe her schedule and plan yours around it. I know you’d love doing that, Sophia—

“I still have her number if you need it.” She concludes. Sophia hasn’t deleted Manon’s number. Lara doesn’t need to know that though, so she just nods.

“I’ll think about it.”

Sophia ends up emailing Manon.

Lara texted her the number a couple hours after their brunch, as promised. It matched the one saved in her contacts, so she guesses Manon never changed it.

(If Sophia were to be honest, she didn’t have to check her contacts to know that it’s the same number. She had it memorized by heart even before they started dating officially. She only needed confirmation that the number still belonged to Manon.)

She was going to text her. But even though Sophia had mustered up the nerve to unfollow her on Instagram, she never deleted their texts or the contact picture she had set—a candid photo she took of Manon, sleeping next to a kitten.

She thinks it’d be quite pathetic to be scrolling through old texts with an ex, while also being on the verge of getting kicked out of her apartment, so. An email will have to do.

A part of her wonders if Manon even checks her emails. She used to, in early mornings and late at night, but Sophia figures she had to, considering those were her ways of getting booked for photoshoots and modelling gigs.

Sophia doesn’t know if Manon still models. She refrains from checking her socials, and tells herself it’s to practice her self-control. Sophia is actually quite proud of her efforts at moving on, even if they’ve proven to be not as effective as she liked.

Manon ends up replying to her email the next morning. A one-liner stating, Sure, do u wanna txt abt the details? My number is xxx-xxx-xxxx. It’s followed by Sent from my iPhone. Sophia is a little peeved, considering she sent an extremely structured and formal email detailing her proposal. She almost made presentation slides to showcase the apartment.

She caves and texts her later in the afternoon, Yoonchae peering over her shoulder. She can’t believe it’s gotten to a point where a girl she’s supposed to be tutoring is instead, guiding her through texting her ex.

“I think that’s too formal.” Yoonchae chides. “You need to be more, like, chill.” It’s obvious from her tone that she picked up the word from Megan. Sophia can feel her eagerly looking at her from the corner of her eye. She looks like a little tiger cub.

“Okay,” Sophia relents, because it’s Yoonchae. “You’re right. I’ll be more chill.” Yoonchae is beaming at her. She supposes it’s worth sacrificing her pride for Yoonchae.

hey this is sophia lol. what do u wanna know about the place? Sent. So chill. She places her phone face down. The ball isn’t in her court anymore. She’s walking to sit on the bench.

“Hey,” Yoonchae drawls out, shaking her shoulder. “I wanna see what she says.” She’s pouting. Sophia thinks of her brunch with Lara the other day and wonders if she’s been hanging out with Yoonchae too much.

“We’re here for tutoring, in case you forgot.” Sophia says, moving to open her laptop. “Don’t you have a paper due tomorrow?”

The professor of the fundamentals course Yoonchae is taking must be killer, because that snaps her out immediately. She’s scrambling to set her laptop up next to Sophia’s.

“Okay but—” she drops her laptop onto the table. It’s old and huge, and the fan starts roaring as soon as she boots it up. Sophia wonders how many paychecks she’d have to save to get her a new one as a gift. Maybe she can rope Lara and Megan into it, too.

“You better tell me what she says later.” Yoonchae says, typing away at her laptop. Sophia is surprised all the keys are still intact. “I wanna meet her, too.” She adds as an afterthought.

“Yeah, yeah,” she waves her off. “Send me the assignment doc.”

Manon doesn’t ask a lot of questions, surprisingly. She seems pretty disinterested, for someone who’s planning to live with an ex for the rest of the year. Maybe even longer. Then again, Sophia thinks, Manon has always been someone who goes with the flow. She can still hear her voice in her head.

Manon sends her the money for the first month of rent, even though she’ll arrive a week later. Sophia tried to insist that she didn’t need to, but it was sent along with a text saying it’s chill lol and she doesn’t really want to be the one to start the ordeal of sending Venmo transfers back and forth.

There’s a pattern of people telling her things are chill these days. It pisses her off, a little.

(When she whines about it later, Lara points out that it only started pissing her off after Manon had said it.

Hearing that only irked her more, but Sophia isn’t going to let Lara have the satisfaction of knowing that. So. She can be chill.)

Manon moves in on a Wednesday. It’s a little earlier than she expected, considering she said she’d fly in on the second week of the month. She assumed that would mean at the end of the week or the beginning of the next, but maybe she has her own definition of being a week late. Whatever.

Sophia has no idea what she’s doing. She had meticulously planned out what she’d do for Manon’s arrival, and even considered the possibility of picking her up from the airport with Dani.

She had plans to go grocery shopping, getting her some welcoming snacks using the funds Manon sent her for the first week. She’d give her a tour of the place and then end it with some ground rules.

What she didn’t account for was the possibility of Manon showing up early. Without Daniela. In the middle of her seven-step skincare routine, while she has a sheet mask on her face. The old Manon would have teased and joined her while they unwind on the couch. This Manon just stares at her blankly, one hand holding the strap of her bag, propped up on her shoulder.

“Hey.” She half-smiles. “Sorry to intrude. Mind showing me my room?”

Sophia scrambles to get the sheet mask off. It’s bunched up and soaking her hand. It’s a bad move, because now she can’t shake her hand like she planned to.

“Um yeah—” she stumbles to toss the mask into the bin. She has several in different places of the house, for convenience. “Here, wait, let me give you a tour.” She has her script ready in her head. The plan isn’t completely ruined.

“No, that’s okay. I’m pretty tired, so I’d rather just crash in bed right now.” She says that, but she doesn’t look the part. Manon looks really, really good actually. She doesn’t have her septum piercing anymore, which Sophia kind of misses. Her hair is tied neatly into braids now, too, instead of the usual curls she’s used to seeing.

Sophia tries not to take her dismissal to heart. They are just roommates now. “Yeah, no, you’re right. Your room is this way, right across mine.” Manon follows her dutifully, eyes flickering around the place.

“Thanks for coming to stay with me on such short notice.” Sophia is trying not to ramble. She always gets like this around Manon. She’ll start with basic questions, and then slip in something like Why did you come back to LA? and she’s scared that, at one point, it’ll circle back to Why did you leave me?

Manon moves past her to walk in the room. Her room, now. Their fingertips brush and Sophia tries not to shiver. Manon doesn’t seem to notice. If she did, she doesn’t seem all that bothered. “Yeah. Thanks for having me.”

Sophia stands at the doorway as she watches Manon scan the room. She knows it was technically her apartment first, but it feels like the room is off limits now. If the place was symmetrical, she probably would have, like, drawn a line to split it in half and save them the awkwardness. Sophia has always liked clear boundaries.

“My room is down the hall.” She jerks her thumb over her shoulder. “You can knock if you need anything. Or text. I don’t mind either.”

“Not email?” Manon teases, turning to look at her. Sophia feels herself freeze at that. She hasn’t heard that tone from her in so long. She feels like a deer in headlights.

“Relax.” Manon looks away. Sophia kind of wishes she didn’t. “I’m just joking. You don’t have to look so scared.”

She sounds a bit hurt. Sophia has half the mind to apologize, but she doesn’t know for what. She hates the thought of apologizing just for the sake of it, without knowing how to be better, so she doesn’t.

She lingers awkwardly at the door before she decides it’s time for bed. Even if it’s three hours before her usual bedtime.

“I’m gonna head to sleep now.” Manon hums, noncommittally. “Goodnight, Manon.”

She doesn’t say it back. She’s begun unpacking, and Sophia has a slight urge to come in and help her. She has to will herself to move, to remember that it isn’t her place anymore. She closes the door as she leaves, and turns to head to her own room.

Weekly brunches with Lara turn into debrief sessions, sometimes with Yoonchae tagging along. Manon has actually been a respectable roommate. A good one, if Sophia really thinks about it. She does her part of the chores. She doesn’t touch anything in the fridge that’s labelled with Sophia. She’s even begun to add labels to her own things.

(Manon used to drink oat milk, back when they were dating. She would usually get regular milk when they ordered out, but she argued it would be more efficient to just share a carton at home.

Milk spoils quickly, Manon would tell her whenever they went grocery shopping together. Sophia never minded getting both oat and regular milk, considering Manon is usually over at her place anyway.

Their dorms weren’t too far apart, but Sophia got a single for her first year while Manon had to be assigned with someone else. It was an easy win for Sophia’s dorm to be nominated as their headquarters.

Practice for when we move in together, Manon would tease and wink greasily. She has never been good at keeping a straight face; she always broke into giggles after. Sophia likes her laugh more than whatever cheesy line she said, anyway.

It’s ironic that they buy separate milk cartons—regular and oat—now that they’ve actually moved in together.)

In hindsight, there’s nothing for Sophia to debrief about. They don’t interact that much, save for the few mornings they share a kitchen space. Lara was right about Manon not going back to classes. Sophia doesn’t really know what she gets up to during the day.

She’d thought about asking a couple times, when they were standing side by side in the kitchen. She’s worked up the words for it, but she can’t seem to force it out of her. It’s beginning to cause an actual ache in her throat, and she’s worried it’ll interfere with her vocal courses.

When she arrives home later that night, she’s greeted by a face she doesn’t recognize. She’s about to sprint and start yelling about a break-in, when she hears Manon’s voice call out from the kitchen.

“Hey! Welcome back!” she yells. Manon has never really greeted her since she moved in. Sophia distinctly hears the sound of running water. Is she doing the dishes? Since when does Manon know how to cook?

She snaps out of her thoughts when the stranger holds out their hand to her. “Nice to meet you. You must be Sophia.” Sophia takes her hand and shakes it. She notes the firm grip. “I’m Sophie.”

Oh. She didn’t recognize her, at first, but Sophia is well aware of who Sophie is. She’s heard enough stories of Manon’s long-time best friend, the one she moved to New York for. The one she didn’t think she’d bring with, when she came back to LA.

They’ve never met, though Manon had wanted to introduce them when they had planned to go to New York for the summer. They broke up in early spring, so it never ended up happening.

She wonders if Sophie knew her as Sophia, the girlfriend, or if she’s just getting to know Sophia, the roommate.

Ex-girlfriend, she reminds herself.

Manon walks back into the room, shaking her hands to dry them off. Sophia kind of wants to scold her for it. She has a perfectly functional towel hung up next to the sink for that exact purpose.

“She kinda showed up unexpectedly,” Manon jokingly glares at Sophie. “Sorry, I know one of the ground rules is to text whenever we wanna have someone over.” Manon did look apologetic at least. Sophia kind of feels bad, even if she hasn't said anything yet.

“Just missed this one too much,” Sophie nudges Manon.She watches them nudge each other back and forth. Sophia suddenly feels a lot less guilty. It feels like an inside joke she’s not a part of.

“Um, yeah,” Sophia stammers. Both eyes snap to her. “That’s okay, I get it. Is she gonna stay over or—”

Sophia doesn’t see any bags around the room, but she supposes they might be in Manon’s already. She doesn’t remember if they established any rules about people staying over. She makes a mental note to talk about it.

It dawns on her then, what it might mean if Sophie stays over. Sophia has only been with Manon since she moved to LA, but she’s not unfamiliar with, like, hookup culture. She’s heard enough stories from Lara, even if she’s never experienced it herself.

“No,” Sophie waves her off. “I’m staying at a hotel nearby. I got a gig here, so I’ll be busy while I’m here, but I wanted to see Manz before I leave back to NYC.” Sophia nods along like she understands. She doesn’t even know what a gig means for them.

She figures it has something to do with modelling. She tries to picture Sophie doing a band gig, maybe decked out in a rockstar outfit with a mic in her hand. Manon always did like it when Sophia would sing for her.

She stops herself. There is no way she is comparing this girl to herself. She feels like a petty ex-girlfriend, which she absolutely isn’t.

Sophie ends the conversation with something about time flying by and getting back to her hotel. Sophia doesn’t really hear much of it but she smiles politely and walks her to the door. Manon hugs her before she leaves and Sophia kind of just awkwardly stands next to them. She’s surprised when Sophie reaches out to do a half-arm hug with her too.

“We should def meet up next time, Sophia!” She beams. It doesn’t look fake and that irks Sophia for some reason. Maybe it is an acting gig.

“Yeah. Def.”

She tells Lara about it on facetime, thirty minutes later. It usually takes her an hour to unwind after classes, but she skipped through her hair routine to catch Lara before she leaves for a party.

“—and she called her ‘this one’ like those girls on Instagram when they post their boyfriends.” She debriefs. She planned to detail the ordeal in chronological order but she lost sight of that somewhere along the way. Now she’s just ranting.

“That is typically how girls from New York talk, yes,” Lara says, sarcastically. She’s doing her eyeliner but Sophia knows she would’ve rolled her eyes if she could.

“Why does that piss you off, anyway?” Lara mutters. “Didn’t you say you were over her?” She shuts her palette to emphasize her point. She’s being unnecessarily dramatic, but Sophia supposes that’s why they work so well.

“I mean, I am.” Sophia defends herself. “I’m not, like, trying to get back with her.” She wonders if Manon can hear her through the walls. Maybe she should get her Dyson Airwrap while her hair is still damp.

“Do you think they fucked?” she asks, voice staticky over the phone. “Lara,” Sophia hisses. She does not want to think about that.

“It’s a rational question, girl,” Lara insists. “Did they have, like, the post-sex glow to them?”

Sophia thinks back on it. She doesn’t really know what that would look like on Sophie, and she was too preoccupied with cataloguing her to dissect what Manon looked like. She supposes Sophie was really happy to be around her.

“I don’t know what that would look like,” she deflects. “I don’t know how long they were here. They were—” She pauses. “Decent. When I arrived.”

Lara hums thoughtfully. Sophia can’t tell if she’s debating it or if she’s analyzing her makeup. She might be doing both, actually. “I don’t think they did,” she concludes, nodding.

“Then why did you ask me?” Sophia whines. Sometimes, Lara likes to ask her questions that throw her in a loop even though she already knows the answers. It’s good for critical thinking, she would say. Not a lot of people have that, these days.

“I already figured they didn’t. I wanted to know if you thought they did.”

And whatever, Sophia thinks. She doesn’t want to think about what Lara is trying to imply with that.

“Whatever,” she vocalizes. “You’re supposed to be on my side. Manon won custody of Dani.”

“I’m always on your side.” Lara says, earnestly. Sophia feels a bit of a tug at her heart. She might have lucked out in the romance department but she’s definitely a winner in the friendship one.

“Hey, wait, are you saying getting custody of me was a loss—”

“Bye Lars, love you. Be safe.”

Manon doesn’t bring anyone over again, after the first time. Sophia doesn’t know if that’s a good thing, that there aren’t any girls for her to bring, or if it means that there is only one girl, and Sophie is the special one.

She brings it up to her, one morning in the kitchen. She couldn’t help herself. She tries to word it nonchalantly, as Yoonchae had told her to. Sophia thinks she’s been spending too much time with Megan. Lara argues that her English has improved since then, so. It counts as a win in their joint books.

“So, how’s Sophie?”

Manon startles a little. They’ve grown more comfortable since the first month, sometimes making small talk during their shared kitchen routines. They’ve never gone past talking about the weather, though.

“Sophie is alright?” Manon answers, but her voice pitches up towards the end, phrasing it like a question. Sophia raises an eyebrow in response. “Sophie is good, yeah.” Manon reassures, nodding once, firmly. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” Sophia focuses on whisking her matcha. She tries to move her wrist in a W motion, like she learned from the videos, but her intensity just makes it look like a really angry scribble. “Just wondering, since you guys are doing long distance.” The words come out slightly bitter. She hopes it doesn’t seep into her drink and ruin it.

“Long distance?” Manon trails off. Sophia can feel Manon looking at her from where she’s leaning on the table. The space between the counter and the table is so small that if she turned around, she’s pretty sure they’d be almost nose-to-nose.

She reasons that as why she’s not turning around. She’s completely fine with looking Manon in the eye. She tries to hum as noncommittally as possible but it comes out off-key.

“You know Sophie and I aren’t, like, together right?”

And, well. Sophia kind of knew that, but she didn’t expect to get confirmation so early. She’s trying to flip through the pages in her head, only to find that her script is unfinished. Manon has a tendency of diverging from the original plot, anyway.

“Oh really? Could’ve fooled me.” She improvises. Sophia used to be a theatre kid, so she thinks she’s decently good at that.

“I don’t think we did, though.” Sophia forgets that Manon is better at knowing her. The whisk slips clumsily from her hand. Bits of green splashes onto her sleeve.

Manon sighs. Sophia can hear her move behind her, but she doesn’t know where she’s going. She’s seized by the thought that she’d pissed her off, that Manon was going to leave before she could apologize. She’s about to turn when she’s interrupted by gentle hands pulling at her sleeve.

Manon is wiping at her sleeve with a wet paper towel. “You were the one who broke up with me, Sophia.” She chides, her words contrasting her tone. She sounds exasperated but there’s no bitterness. Sophia is surprised to find that she isn’t saying those words to hurt her.

The stains have faded but there are still specks of green visible. Sophia wonders if she’ll be able to wash them out. Lara was kind of right, about green not being her colour.

“Have a good day, Sophia.” Manon says as she walks out, leaving her in the kitchen. She attempts a response, but she’s a beat too late. Manon’s door is already shutting softly and ending the conversation.

Fuck, Sophia thinks. I fucked up.

“You fucked up, girl.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Sophia groans. “Oh my god,” she runs a hand down her face. “Why did I say that?”

“I don’t know what went through your head for you to think that was a good idea,” Daniela chimes in. She’s a part of their weekly debriefs now. Sophia’s ready to admit that they’ve reached a whole new low. It must be bad if your ex’s best friend is willing to join in on the brunches.

“Do you think she’s mad? She didn’t sound mad. Did she tell you anything?” Sophia quickfires at Daniela. She can use her presence for some leverage, at least.

There proves to be no leverage, when Dani shakes her head. “Nope,” she says, popping the p. “Y’know Manon isn’t the type to talk about that. Why do you think I’m here with you?”

“That’s fair,” Lara says, at the same time Sophia whines, “You are seriously no help.”

“I think you’re stressing too much,” Lara continues, swatting away Dani’s attempts to steal her fries. “About this.” She clarifies. “You stress out too much in general though. I worry about you.”

Sophia feels a bit like a child, admittedly. Lara and Dani are sitting across from her, gentle parenting her on dealing with her ex, and they’re both younger than her.

She straightens up in her seat. “You need to stop eating fries every week.” She chides back, leveling the playing field. “Too much sodium.”

Lara sees right through her. “Don’t change the topic.” She bites into a fry to rub it in, rolling her eyes while she does so. Sophia scowls at her.

“Look, if you’re that worried, just talk to her.” Dani supplies helpfully from the side. Sophia’s reconsidering her custody of Lara. Maybe she should draft up a contract where they do alternating weeks between Sophia-Lara and Manon-Dani. She wonders what type of face Manon would make if she printed it out and showed it to her.

“Manon is super straightforward. She’ll tell you, if you ask.”

Sophia doesn’t even know what she wants to ask. Doesn’t know what she wants to know, from Manon. She wonders, belatedly, what would’ve happened if she asked Manon if she was dating Sophie, straight to her face. Maybe she would have burst out laughing, and they would move on with their day. Maybe that could’ve given her the clear, to pursue—

To pursue what, though? There’s nothing left for us, Sophia reminds herself. We’re not the same people we were when we fell in love.

So, Sophia doesn’t know what to ask. The topic has since shifted, Daniela falling into a rant about some guy she’s been seeing. Lara keeps giving her glances when Dani isn’t looking, but she doesn’t bring it up again. Sophia takes the out and figures that maybe she doesn’t have to know. Not now, at least.

The time comes sooner than she expected. She realizes that most things do, when it comes to Manon.

Lara manages to convince her to go to a sorority party. Sophia is normally averse to anything Greek-life, but it’ll be Yoonchae’s first ever post-finals party, and she feels inclined to look after her even if she knows Yoonchae is responsible and probably won’t even, like, drink.

She thinks that was Lara’s plan all along; inviting Yoonchae and Megan so that Sophia would tag along too. She wonders if the invitation was extended to Manon.

She gets her answer as she’s balancing precariously against the doorframe, trying to fasten her heel.

“Heading out?”

Sophia startles. She didn’t think Manon would be home on a Friday night. She hasn’t really been at home for the past few days, actually. She must be really busy.

(Sophia thinks that Manon has been avoiding her since the kitchen incident. Lara thinks it’s stupid that she’s calling it that.)

“Lara’s making me go to some party,” Sophia replies. “Yoonchae is going, which is why I am. I wouldn’t even think of going if she wasn’t.” She doesn’t know why she’s explaining herself. Manon probably doesn’t care.

“Taking an uber?” Manon is heading back into her room. She leaves the door open, so Sophia can still hear her.

“Um, yeah.” Her heels are on, and her uber should be arriving soon. She doesn’t know why she’s still standing at the doorway.

Manon doesn’t reply, and the silence begins to turn awkward. Sophia decides to head out then, but a jacket is draped over her shoulders as soon as she touches the door handle.

“Just in case,” Manon murmurs. Sophia can smell her perfume, something citrus and slightly woody. She doesn’t know if it’s from the jacket or from their proximity.

“Call me if you need anything,” Manon says, stepping away. “I can come get you.”

So, maybe she does care. Sophia doesn’t want to think about why she still does.

Sophia meets Manon at a party in their first year. It’s a freshman welcome party co-hosted by a frat and sorority, and Sophia is determined to solidify her place in the community.

She told herself that the party was purely for networking purposes. Still, she ends up drunk, rearranging the alphabet magnets on the fridge in the kitchen. Someone wrote some vulgar words, which Sophia thinks is, like, so not freshman appropriate.

She’s in the middle of arranging the word Welcome when a voice pipes up from behind her.

“Are you struggling to remember how to spell welcome? Or did the fridge say something to piss you off?”

She words the second question like a statement. Sophia is drunk and half-considering it, the conviction in her tone almost enough to convince her. She snaps out of it when the girl behind her laughs. Her body finally catches up to her mind as she turns to look at her.

She’ll blame the strobe lights later, but this is genuinely the most drop-dead gorgeous girl she’s ever seen.

“Woah,” she says. “You’re gorgeous.” Immediately, she follows it up with, “I can’t find the O.”

Gorgeous-girl-with-the-braids, as Sophia has dubbed her in her head, steps forward to scan the fridge door.

“You could always use the U,” she says, holding up the magnet. “W-E-L-C-U-M,” she spells out as she arranges the letters. “See, you even get to save an E.”

The girl must be drunk too, because Sophia does not see how her solution is better in any way. What do they even need a spare E for?

She doesn’t remember how they concluded the arrangement. The rest of the night is a hazy blur in her head, but she remembers being walked home and making it to her bed safe. She wakes up wearing a jacket that does not belong to her. So maybe the girl wasn’t that drunk.

Sophia prides herself on her record of being punctual, so she still manages to show up to class on time, albeit slightly hungover. She’s usually early, so she misses out on getting her usual seat—third row, center—but the girl who ends up in the empty seat next to her makes it worth it.

“Hey,” a familiar voice whispers. “Is this seat taken?”

Sophia must be gawking, because the girl—the super gorgeous girl from last night, her brain unhelpfully supplies—sits without waiting for a response.

“I’m Manon,” gorgeous-girl-with-the-braids tells her. Manon tells her.

“I’m Sophia,” she manages. Her mouth feels dry. It’s not an ideal thing to feel when she has a vocal class later that afternoon. “I didn’t tell you if that seat was empty yet.”

“Well,” Manon grins, cheekily. “It isn’t, now that I’m sitting on it.”

Sophia was determined to solidify her place in the community, first year in. Instead, Manon shows up and solidifies her place in Sophia’s life. She didn’t mind, not until Manon up and moved, all the way to New York, all the way from Sophia.

She thinks it’s a little fucked up for Manon to worm into her life and leave, all in what’s supposed to be her most formative year. She can still feel the space at the root. Sometimes, she thinks she’ll always leave space for Manon, no matter how much she grows

So. Screw her for being a little upset about it, still.

The interaction with Manon sets her slightly off-kilter. She’s beginning to wonder if Manon had slipped something under her heel when she wasn’t looking; a petty way of getting back at her. Sophia feels off balance, like she’s constantly leaning towards one direction. If she gives in, let gravity take over, she thinks it will lead her back to Manon.

She’s desperately trying to distract herself with Yoonchae, but her distress must be obvious because it feels like it’s her looking after Sophia instead.

“Are you okay, unnie?”

Yoonchae looks so concerned for her. Sophia feels a twinge of guilt, having unintentionally dimmed her first university party experience.

She spots Megan at the corner of her eye, bright pink bangs catching her attention. She hasn’t gotten the chance to get to know her more, with their clashing schedules and Megan’s extremely demanding dance club.

She’s only ever heard good things about Megan, though, and Sophia likes to think she has a decent radar for good people.

She hopes she’s right. “Hey, Megan!” She calls out, hand cupped over her mouth. Yoonchae looks bewilderedly between her and the oncoming girl.

“Hey guys!” Megan says, cheesing at them. She has dimples near her eyes, Sophia notes. She realizes she’s never really seen Megan up close. Sophia throws an arm around Yoonchae’s shoulder. “It’s Yoonchip’s first party,” she says, jostling her shoulder. “Mind looking after her for me?”

Megan perks up at the prospect of playing tour guide for the night. “You got it, boss!” She does a little salute before turning to Yoonchae with a gleam in her eye. Before she knows it, Megan is already tugging Yoonchae by the arm and into the life of the party.

Sophia is left standing, watching the two fondly. She gets a short moment of reprieve before her previous thoughts catch up to her.

She feels a wave of embarrassment wash over her. She’s standing in the middle of a frat house, with every stimuli in the world for all her senses, and she’s still thinking about Manon.

Lara must have some kind of Sophia-Manon detector because she pops up by her side for the first time all night.

“Girl,” she drawls out, a smile wide on her face. She puts both hands on Sophia’s shoulders. “You need to let loose!” She screams the last word in her ear.

Sophia doesn’t know if it shows on her face, but Lara must be able to sense her discomfort. She’s hurdled towards the kitchen, where everything is calmer.

“Are you good?” Lara looks too sober all of a sudden. She would’ve been good in theatrics. “Overwhelmed?”

Sophia manages to shake her head. “No, I’m good,” she affirms. “It’s just—” she pauses. Just what? she thinks to herself.

“Just Manon?” Lara finishes for her.

Sophia thinks there must be something about kitchens and their innate tenderness. She had first met Manon in the kitchen, almost two years ago. She’s about to come clean about her feelings in the kitchen, now too.

“Yeah.” Sophia nods, wringing her fingers around her wrist. Lara rummages around the fridge, knees half bent and her head sticking in. “I think there’s still something there.”

She hears a thud as Lara straightens up, ramming the top of her head into the fridge door. Sophia doesn’t even get the chance to ask if she’s okay before Lara whips her head around to look at her.

“What do you mean something there? Wait, did you guys kiss?”

Sophia looks at her bewildered. “No,” she flushes. “We did not kiss. Why would that be your first guess?” She hisses, eyes darting around to see if anyone was listening in.

The kitchen is mostly empty, besides a few people coming in and out to get a refill. They don’t stay for more than a minute, and they’re probably too drunk to notice Lara and Sophia anyway.

“Okay,” Lara rolls her eyes. “I mean, everyone knows you’re not over Manon,” she continues, ignoring Sophia’s scoff of protest. “But I didn’t think you’d be so ready to admit it, like, now. I was thinking six months, maybe. Sooner if Manon starts going on dates.”

So she hasn’t been going on dates, Sophia notes. She crosses it out immediately. That’s not any of her business.

“Okay, well,” she reasons. “You try living with your ex.” It’s a weak argument. They were actually doing really well when they were barely interacting. Sophia only has herself to blame for actively seeking Manon out. Lara doesn’t have to know that, though.

“You’re literally the one who asked her to live with you.” Lara deadpans. Fuck. She got her there.

“She’s the one that agreed to it!” Sophia huffs, indignant. She realizes a beat too late that the argument doesn’t really work in her favor. Blaming Manon includes blaming herself, by extension.

Sophia wonders when they became a joint package again.

“Can we just, like—”, her shoulders sag. She's so going to regret this. “Get drunk. Or something.” Lara’s eyebrows are raised so high. “I just don’t wanna think anymore.”

Lara takes pity on her then, because she turns to open the top cabinet. She’s much more efficient with it compared to the fridge, which Sophia thinks makes no sense considering her height.

When Lara turns around, she has a liquor bottle in hand. “Here,” she thrusts the bottle out. “If we’re gonna drink, we should at least get the good stuff.”

Sophia takes the bottle and brings it to her lips. “Wait. How did you know where they keep the good stuff?”

“Just drink it, girl.”

Sophia loses Lara somewhere later in the night. She ends up in someone’s bathtub, alone, the bottle of liquor now empty beside her. Her head feels woozy, but she still feels a little restless. She feels warm all over, blood simmering under her skin.

Her fingers are itching for something, but she doesn’t know what. Sophia feels like breaking into a run. She doesn’t know how long she’s been at the party, but it must be close to sunrise. Perfect time for her usual morning run. She looks at her feet and frowns. She probably can’t do that in heels.

Call me if you need anything.

She pulls out her phone and dials Manon’s number on instinct. It’s a little hard with how blurry her vision is getting, and she almost thinks she dialed the wrong number until she hears a familiar voice at the end of the line.

“Hello?” Manon croaks out, voice raspy. Sophia has half the mind to apologize for possibly waking her up, but she’s a woman on a mission.

“Manon.” Sophia urges. “I need my running shoes.”

There’s a beat of silence on the other end. Sophia pulls her phone back, checking to see if Manon hung up. She hasn’t. She’s about to call out for her when she hears rummaging.

“The white ones right?” Manon asks through a yawn. “With the pink highlights?”

Yes, Sophia nods determinedly. “Yes,” she voices out loud. She forgot Manon can’t see her.

“Send me your location. I’ll come get you.” Sophia puts her on speaker, swiping through to find their text thread. She hears the notification ding over the phone as she clicks send. “With my shoes?”

“Yes,” Manon reassures, exasperation audible even through the speakers of her phone. It’s half-hearted though, Sophia knows there's no heat to it. “With your shoes.”

Satisfied, Sophia hums. “M’kay. I’ll be waiting.” Her speech is beginning to slur. “Be safe,” she adds.

“I will. I’ll see you soon.”

She doesn’t know if she dozed off or if Manon somehow teleported, but soon comes faster than she expected. Before she knows it, Manon is kneeling in front of her, hand braced on the rim of the bathtub. In her other hand, she holds up Sophia’s running shoes.

“Hey,” Manon whispers. “I got your shoes.” She shakes them as proof. She looks tired, but there’s a gleam in her eye that Sophia recognizes as pride. It makes her want to reach out, run her hand through her curls.

(She also kind of wants to kiss her. She’s not drunk enough to allow herself that thought though.)

“Thank you,” Sophia can’t stop herself from smiling. “Can you help me up?”

Manon sets her shoes down and hoists her up by her arms. Sophia can see her eyeing the bottle that’s rolling around the tub. “Had fun?”

“Yeah,” Sophia nods. “I need to run now, though.” She’s a woman of routine. She doesn’t plan on breaking her good habits now, after three years of consistency.

Manon looks like she’s about to protest, mouth opening, before she reconsiders and closes it. Sophia is about to poke fun at her, but her inebriation renders her speechless. The words aren’t forming in her head. She just knows she wants to tease, wants to see Manon squirm. Sophia doesn’t get the chance to, though, Manon finding her words before her.

“Y’think you could slow down this time, maybe? I’m not as fast as you. We could walk home together.”

In any other time, Sophia would huff and insist that Manon catch up to her. She’s always tried her best to push Manon further, fully aware that she’s capable of so much more than she lets herself believe.

It’s been so long since they’ve walked home together, though. Since they’ve walked anywhere really. They used to walk everywhere together, enjoying the air while catching up on their days. It’s why neither of them ever bothered to get a license.

“Okay,” Sophia relents. “I’ll slow down for you.”

Manon is already kneeling down to unclasp her heels for her. Sophia doesn’t know if she’s swooning or if it’s the alcohol causing her to feel unsteady. Manon makes quick work of her heels, Sophia holding on to her shoulder as she slips them off.

She’s about to bend down to put on her shoes but Manon swats her hand away. “Wait,” she interrupts, digging through her coat pockets. “I brought you socks.”

Sophia is definitely swooning. She brought her running socks too, the ones she specifically has for sports activities, Nike logo donning the cuffs. She lets Manon put on her socks and shoes, even tying the laces for her.

“Okay,” she stands, clapping her hands once. She gives Sophia a once-over. “All good?”

Sophia feels a bit like a princess, heart soaring. “All good,” she beams.

They end up at a playground near their apartment. It’s one of those smaller ones filled with sand, placed at a park for kids to play. It’s almost sunrise, so they’re the only ones there, sitting on the swing set.

“This is nice,” Sophia says, honestly. “I missed spending time with you.”

That must have caught Manon off guard, because her slow swinging comes to a stop. “Really?” She asks hesitantly. “I didn’t think you’d ever want to be around me anymore.”

Sophia turns to look at her, eyebrows raised. “We literally live together.”

“I mean, yeah, but—” She scoffs lightly. “You only asked me because there was no one else right? Daniela told me you ran out of roommate options.”

Sophia doesn’t know if she’s reading too much into it, but her tone comes off sourly towards the end.

“No,” she admits quietly. She supposes Manon is technically right. If there was another option though, Sophia doesn’t think she would have even considered it. Sometimes, she thinks a part of her was always half-waiting for Manon this entire time.

“I didn’t think you were an option,” she relays. “If I knew you were coming back to LA, I think I would have chosen you from the start.”

Manon doesn’t look convinced, but she doesn’t say anything. “No, really,” Sophia persists. “Maybe I wouldn’t have asked you until the last minute, but, like, I would’ve thought about it a lot.”

Silence engulfs them for a moment. The sun is beginning to peek out, the early rays of sunlight creeping up in front of them. If she stretches her legs, she thinks she can reach them. Sophia feels like she’s running out of time.

“I didn’t think you’d say yes,” she murmurs. “I mean, we couldn’t even last a year together.” She laughs humorlessly. “I didn’t think you could stand to be around me.”

Manon makes an affronted noise at that. She stands up abruptly, moving in front of Sophia. She’s backlit, the sun having half-risen.

“Sophia.”

She tilts her head up, making eye contact with her. Sophia has never seen this expression on her face.

“There has never been a day where I regretted being with you.” She looks so serious. Manon has always struggled to keep a straight face, but that version of her is nowhere to be seen now.

“Even with how we ended,” she starts, before cutting herself short. She shakes her head, as if clearing her thoughts. “If I went back in time, I would do it all again.”

Sophia is stunned silent. Manon has never been someone who lingered in the past. She’s always been so relentless, always moving, and moving, on and away from everything that no longer served her. On and away from Sophia.

This Manon stands unfamiliar to her. Her stance is so firm, shoes resolutely half-buried in the sand. She looks the same, but there’s a new depth in her eyes. Sophia wants to drown in it.

“Okay,” Sophia accepts. “Me too.”

The sun rises fully. They head back home.

Sophia wakes up with a pounding headache and a dry mouth. She’s immediately relieved when she remembers that it’s a Saturday; she has no classes or needs to use her voice.

The night before comes back to her in flashes. She doesn’t remember much of drinking with Lara, but she remembers most of her conversations with Manon. She had sobered up for the most part by the time they got home, being able to change on her own and make it to her bed.

Sophia doesn’t remember putting Advil on her table though. There are two tablets placed on a folded piece of tissue paper, a glass of water sitting next to it. There’s no note, but it must have been Manon.

Her phone tells her it’s half past noon, and the silence in the rest of the apartment means Manon has likely gone out to do whatever she does in the day. Sophia makes a mental note to ask her about it sometime, now that they’re on better terms.

Are we on better terms? she wonders. What does that even mean?

Thinking about it makes her head hurt, and she already has an existing headache on top of that. She pushes the thoughts away and moves to check her messages.

She replies to Yoonchae first and foremost, making sure she made it home safe. She gets a cute sticker of a cat with a thumbs up as a reply, so she moves on to her other texts.

There are seventeen messages from Lara consisting of keysmashes and kissy face emojis. Sophia doesn’t have the energy to decipher them yet, so she reminds herself to reply later.

The next message, though, surprises her.

It’s a text from Megan, a little lengthy, which scares Sophia. She’s relieved when she skims through it and realizes it’s just her form of digital rambling.

hi sophia i hope u made it home safe :D yoonchae and i just made it back to the dorms, she drank a little but i made sure she got to her bed safe and sound o7 we had a lot of fun but we wished u were there with us TT we should hang out next time with yoonchae and lara!!!

There’s a follow-up text, sent a couple minutes after.

this is megan btw! sorry idk if u saved my num lol

Sophia thinks back to the party last night. She mentally reviews her calendar for the upcoming weeks and wonders if there’s a time where all four of their schedules could line up.

She glances at the digital clock on her bedside table. She can make time today, just to get to know Megan at least.

She sends a quick text inviting her out for a late lunch before she gets up to brush her teeth.

They end up in a hole-in-the-wall, something called a kopitiam according to Megan. It’s a place she often frequents when she has hangovers, Sophia finds out later.

They’re sharing a bowl of laksa when Megan perks up. She has these humungous shades of sunglasses perched at the tip of her nose. They would look ridiculous on anyone else, but Sophia thinks it oddly suits her.

“Hey,” she prods. “Is it weird living with your ex?”

Sophia chokes on her soup. Megan is patting her back, her other hand already filled with tissue. Sophia can see her wince, but Megan speaks before she can ask how she knew that.

“Sorry. I’m friends with Dani ‘cause we’re in the same dance club. Also, I lied and Yoonchae was a bit more drunk than I told you last night so she kind of rambled on about it on the way home and then I asked Dani the rest. I didn’t mean to be nosy, though, but Yoonchae had said it in such an ominous way because she started speaking in Korean halfway through and I got concerned that you were being held hostage by your ex or something. Sorry, again.”

Megan relayed everything so quickly Sophia needed time to process. She panics at first, at the thought of Yoonchae waking up hungover alone, but she remembers the silly cat sticker she sent earlier and forces herself to calm down.

“Okay, that’s okay,” she reassures Megan. “I don’t mind you knowing.” Even if she does, a little. It’s not Megan’s fault she thought Sophia was being held hostage. It’s a little sweet, how concerned she was even though she isn’t really that close of a friend to her.

Megan still looks a little guilty, wide eyes staring at her intently. “I’m not being held hostage. And she’s an okay roommate, I guess.” She pauses, thinking back to the earlier afternoon. Two tablets of Advil and a glass of water. “She’s a great roommate, actually.”

“But?” Megan trails off. “There’s something else, right?”

Megan is much more perceptive than she looks. She’s leaning forward, head resting on her hands, both elbows propped up on the table. The shades are beginning to look a little ridiculous now, with the position she’s sitting in.

Sophia runs through imaginary scenarios of sitting here with someone else. Yoonchae, Lara, Daniela, Manon. She tenses up at the last one. Megan is actually kind of the best person for her to talk to about this.

“Yeah,” she admits. “Is it that obvious?”

“I mean, I know I haven’t met your roommate but I did see you walking out the party with someone last night.” She says, in between sips of her soup. “I kinda put two and two together later, when I found out about your roommate.”

Sophia is immediately horrified at the concept of Megan seeing them walk out together and immediately assuming they were together. She remembers the major events of the night but not the little details. Was she too drunk? Did she end up clinging to Manon, like she used to?

Megan must notice because she clears her throat to clarify, “She looked at you very fondly. And she was, like, super careful with you. I didn’t think you two were a couple, but it was clear that she cared about you a lot.” She looks up, seemingly replaying the night in her head.

“I lowkey thought you had stockholm syndrome, or something, when I was debating calling the cops in case your ex slash current roommate was, like, holding you captive.”

Sophia pictures police cars surrounding her apartment building. Manon being escorted in handcuffs and Sophia in a fluffy blanket.

“I’m not being held captive,” she reaffirms again. “Please don’t call the cops.”

Megan rolls her eyes. “Okay, I know that now,” she says. “God forbid a girl gets concerned.”

“I think I’m still in love with her,” Sophia blurts out, finally. “I don’t know what to do with that, though.”

Megan tilts her head at her. “What do you mean? Do with what?” She questions.

Sophia doesn’t really know what she means either. She’s been figuring it out as she goes, never allowing herself to stop and think about it.

“Like,” she starts, an attempt at voicing out her thoughts. “She’s a different person now. We dated in our first year, and I’m in my third now.” She pauses, trying to find her words. “I spent more time missing her than actually being with her.”

Sophia thinks back on the previous nights. Manon, warming up to her, glimpses of the version she knew slipping through. Manon, who’s still the same but all too different. Manon, being the one to bring up the past, acknowledging their breakup when she was the one running from it.

“She isn’t the same person I fell in love with.”

“Is that a bad thing, though?” Megan interrupts her thoughts. She chews through a mouthful of noodles, swallowing before she continues. “You’ve probably changed too.”

Sophia stays silent. She thinks back to the first night when Manon had arrived, when she compared the Manon standing in front of her to the one in her head. She wonders if Manon was cataloguing her differences too.

“It didn’t work out the first time between the two of you right?” Megan barrels on. “Now that you’re both different people, wouldn’t it make more sense to try again?”

Sophia’s never thought of it that way. It’s not like they broke up because they started hating each other. She had blamed Manon for it, at first, but by the time third year rolled around, she was ready to accept that they were both just young and immature and in love.

It’s silent for a bit, the only sounds coming from the bustle of the kitchen. Sophia is extremely grateful for Megan’s perceptiveness; she remains silent, letting Sophia play with her thoughts in her head.

“What if she doesn’t want me anymore?”

Megan hums, thoughtful. “Then she doesn’t.” Sophia nods, shoulders sinking. “But I don’t think she would have agreed to live with you if a part of her didn’t want to get to know you again.”

Megan sets her chopsticks down. “I can’t tell you if I think it’s gonna work out. I think it’s worth trying, though.”

The bell at the counter rings, breaking them out of the bubble they’ve created. The world starts around them again.

“Thanks, Megan.”

Things come to a head a few weeks later.

Sophia and Manon have fallen into a rhythm that’s weirdly domestic. They’ve already formed a routine before, sharing the kitchen in the early morning before parting ways for the rest of the day. Sometimes, they sit together in silence with RuPaul’s on, even though they’re both on their phones the entire time.

It’s different now, though. They’ve both been spending more time at home. Sophia chalked it up to recharging her social battery, but she doesn’t know why Manon isn’t out and about in the city anymore. Maybe she was avoiding her before.

They talk more in the mornings now. It’s still mostly comfortable silence, both needing time to fully wake up before engaging in conversation. But jokes flow more easily, and they’ve warmed up enough to even nudge each other sometimes. Sophia isn’t unfamiliar with Manon’s touch anymore.

(Once, Manon had come home late at night with a bag of alphabet magnets. Sophia was working on a paper, her laptop perched on the kitchen counter. She likes to pace sometimes while she voices her thoughts aloud.

She had shaken the bag, pulling out two smaller mesh ones. Look, she told Sophia. I got two bags so we’d have extra letters.

It’s a callback to their first meeting. They never really talked about that night, so Sophia is a little surprised that Manon even remembers.

They end up arranging the letters together, paper forgotten and laptop abandoned. Manon insisted on doing WELCUM to commemorate their first meeting. Sophia is a little peeved at the thought of a guest seeing that on their fridge. They agree to compromise and add an E.)

The magnets on the fridge have become a way of communication between them. Sometimes, Sophia likes to arrange them into sweet messages, alphabets spelling out HAVE A GOOD DY. There still aren’t enough letters even with two bags, so Sophia has two more in her online shopping cart.

Other times, the letters are enough for a proper sentence. BUY MORE MILK, she’d spell out. She’d come home to NO FUCK YOU, under it, with the U in BUY now missing. Still, she knows there will be cartons of milk sitting inside the fridge if she were to open it.

Sophia has also committed to re-following Manon on Instagram. She did it on a whim one night, and she almost took it back until a notification came in that Manon had followed her back almost immediately.

She finds out that Manon does model still, but has added a handful of new skills to her roster. She scrolls through behind-the-scenes dumps of music videos, painting timelapses, and even a short clip of Manon, hunched over someone’s laying figure, holding a tattoo gun.

(Sophia has never considered getting a tattoo, but she plays around with the idea in her head. Manon, designing the tattoo for her. Manon, loading the ink cartridge into the gun. Manon, hovering over her—)

Sophia is perfectly content with the dynamic they’ve made. It feels like they’re getting somewhere and even if it’s not at the pace she’d prefer, she’s learning to be grateful that they’re getting there at all.

She’s in the middle of a Mamma Mia 2 rewatch when she hears a small knock on her door. “Come in,” she calls out, moving to sit up.

The door cracks open and Manon pokes her head in. Sophia is reminded of those cute pictures of baby deers she’d get on her timeline.

“Up?” Manon asks, glancing around the dark room. “Did I accidentally wake you?”

“No, you’re good,” Sophia waves her off, turning her laptop to show her. “Just rewatching.”

Manon steps closer, bowing slightly to take a look at the screen. “I liked the first one better,” she says. Sophia is surprised that she could tell the difference.

Manon glances at the digital clock on her bedside table. Sophia’s eyes follow her. It's half past eight in the evening. They’re both oddly free; neither of them are usually home this time.

“It’s a little late, but do you, maybe, wanna grab dinner?”

Sophia nearly snaps her neck at how fast she turns to look at Manon. The speed must have thrown her off, because she’s immediately backtracking.

“I mean, you don’t have to if you’re not up for it.” Manon puts both her hands up. “No pressure,” she adds, dropping her hands slowly as she steps back a little.

Sophia lurches to grab her wrist before she can slip away. “No, let’s do it.” She glances down at her pajamas. “Let me just get dressed real quick and then I can call an uber for us.”

She’s moving to get up, heading towards her closet. “There’s no need for that,” Manon says over her shoulder. “Take your time. I can drive.”

Sophia freezes, one hand holding a hanger. She turns to look at her, incredulous.

“You can drive?”

So. Manon can drive.

Sophia is sitting in the passenger seat. Of Manon’s car. That she never knew she had.

She can’t seem to wrap her head around it. Manon, who had never even mentioned ever wanting to learn how to drive. Manon, who would post pictures from the subway when she moved to New York. Manon, who now has a license and a car and apparently drives regularly without Sophia’s knowledge.

She thinks back on her conversation with Megan. She wonders how she had changed—if Manon had her own moments of surprise at Sophia’s actions.

Sophia is too occupied with her thoughts to realize that Manon never told her where they were going. She’s always had a bad habit of trusting Manon too easily. It seems like her body never fell out of that.

It’s only when Manon pulls up to the curb that she realizes where they are.

“Wait,” Sophia says, leaning forward in her seat. “You still remember?”

Manon eases into a parallel park. “Duh,” she scoffs, shaking her head. “We used to come here all the time.”

Here is a small Filipino restaurant run by an elderly couple that used to live in Manila. Sophia had hunted it down within the first month of arriving in LA. When she would get homesick, she’d come there to enjoy the dishes, even if they don’t quite fill the craving for her dad’s cooking. She started bringing Manon with her, shortly after they began dating.

After they broke up, it hurt too much for Sophia to go back there alone. The elderly couple had become quite fond of Manon, and them as a couple, and she didn’t know how to break it to them that Manon wouldn’t be coming around anymore.

“Mr. and Mrs. Reyes!” Sophia greets as she walks through the door. “Kamusta po kayo?”

Manon follows closely behind, having held the door open for her. Sophia wonders if they still look like a couple.

“Sophia, Manon!” Mrs. Reyes replies, happily putting her hands together. “It’s been so long!” She gestures back to where the kitchen is. “Berto’s even gotten worried sometimes, wondering how the two of you were doing.”

Sophia tries not to wince, guilt blooming in her chest from the remark. She knows it’s mostly her fault. It’s not like Manon could have visited from New York.

She has an apology ready on her tongue but Manon beats her to it. “That’s my bad, Mrs. Reyes.” She grins sheepishly. “I’ve been keeping Sophia busy, making a mess out of things. I just got back from NYC, actually.”

She has a hand on Sophia’s shoulder, signalling her to play along. Mr. Reyes steps out of the kitchen at the same time, so she figures that’s her cue.

“Mr. Reyes! I’m so sorry we worried you,” Sophia says, clasping her hands together. “People weren’t joking when they said the second year of uni kills you.”

He seems to buy their lie, because they get waved off with a laugh. “We’re just glad you two are okay,” he starts. “Are you guys eating well? Ah, you need to eat more, regardless, you two are growing kids!”

They’re both in their twenties now, which is far from being growing kids, but Sophia lets herself get coddled still, having missed the feeling of being nagged at.

Mr. Reyes lingers around their table once they’re seated, but after an unsubtle nudge from his wife, he retreats to the kitchen for the rest of the night. Sophia kind of wishes they would come bother them more, having missed their presence. She turns that into an initiative to visit another day.

A part of her is a little excited at the prospect of getting to spend time alone with Manon. They were friends before everything else, and some nights, Sophia had missed her best friend more than her lover.

Mrs. Reyes sets down several dishes and Sophia feels her mouth water at the sight. She turns to thank the older woman, but when she turns back, Manon is already scooping sinigang into a smaller bowl.

She’s about to tease Manon for her urgency but she’s interrupted when the bowl is slid towards her.

“What?” She blurts out. “For me?” Sophia points to herself as she glances around. She feels a little stupid, dropping her hand. They’re the only two in the restaurant, and Manon wouldn’t be serving someone else even if they weren’t.

Manon simply hums, voice low. “Be careful, it’s hot.”

For a minute, Sophia just stares at her. She feels an intense want to tell Manon everything she’s been feeling. They used to talk about their days over dinner like this, catching each other up to speed. At their restaurant. Sophia thinks they have a lot to catch up on.

“Okay, I know I said it’s hot but you can still, like, blow on it and manage—”

Sophia cuts her off. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we never broke up?”

The ladle clatters against the table as Manon drops it. Bits of sinigang are splattered on her wrist. She doesn’t look down.

Sophia watches the flicker of emotions run through Manon’s eyes. It feels like they’re swirling, constantly changing before they settle into something akin to sadness. Sophia recognizes the same feeling within herself. She wonders if Manon can see the same look reflected in her eyes.

“All the time,” Manon whispers.

There’s a beat of silence. Sophia starts to speak, as openly as she can.

“I think a part of me was always waiting for you to come back. I kept telling myself you wouldn’t, that you loved New York too much to come back.” She shakes her head, letting out a laugh. They both know it’s an empty one. “I’ve never had anyone choose a city over me before.”

Manon shakes her head, “I wanted you to come with me. I never planned on staying for long, not unless you were there.” She ducks her head, trying to look Sophia in the eye. “I always planned on coming home to you,” she pleads.

“You never asked me to come with you,” Sophia whispers. The hurt bleeds through her voice, the wound of being left behind reopening. She had never let it fully heal, always picking at it like a scab. In a sick, twisted way, Sophia wanted to keep it as proof that Manon had loved her, once.

Manon’s face contorts itself in a way Sophia has never seen. “You didn’t ask me to stay,” she replies. It doesn’t sound like a rebuttal. It’s a quiet admission.

(Their breakup has always been hazy to everyone. Sophia had allowed herself a grace period of a week, before she buried her feelings under her responsibilities of being a functional human being. Manon was a flight away, and she had always been a private person. Nobody ever really knew what happened between them.

If Sophia was being honest, it wasn’t pride or self-preservation that held her back from talking about it. The breakup felt like a blur to her too; a big grey area that she didn’t know how to navigate through. For the longest time, it felt like they were walking through it together, before Manon left her alone to figure it out herself.

She never considered that maybe Manon was still there, figuring it out on her own too. They just lost sight of each other.)

“Do you think—” Sophia starts, scared of the answer. “Do you want to try again?” She forces out.

Manon looks so relieved. Sophia begins to think that it wasn’t just her waiting all this time. Maybe they’ve been holding their breaths together.

“I do,” Manon affirms, nodding. She catches herself at the last second and adds, “But I’m not the same person I was two years ago.”

Oh, Sophia thinks. It seems that they’ve always been on the same page.

“I can’t promise that who I am now is someone you can love.” Manon doesn’t seem insecure about it. Sophia recognizes it as a disclaimer, but not an apology. She feels a burst of pride at the realization.

“I can’t promise that either,” Sophia agrees. She reaches out to hold Manon’s hand over the table. “I don’t think we can jump back to where we left,” she shakes her head. “But I’d really like to get to know you again.”

Manon interlaces their fingers. “I’d really like to get to know you again too, Sophia.” She grins, a bit wetly. Sophia thinks she might cry.

It must be obvious, because Manon breaks a joke as an attempt to cheer her up. Some things never change.

“You’re not gonna make us shake hands or something as a redo at an intro, right? We didn’t even shake hands the first time.”

Sophia doesn’t think anyone has ever known her like Manon does. She’s proven right, when Manon laughs, doubling over. She’s squeezing her hand with every breath. Sophia squeezes back.

“Oh you so were. That’s so cheesy, dude.” Sophia can’t find any ounce of annoyance in her. She attempts at rolling her eyes, vexing, but she knows it doesn’t come off that way because she’s smiling too hard.

“Do you have an outro quote for us too? Like in those old Barbie movies?” Manon is giggling so hard she can barely get the words out.

“Wait—” Sophia interrupts. “How do you know they do that in Barbie movies?”

Manon freezes. Suddenly, it’s all too easy for her to stop laughing. She moves to pull her hand away, but Sophia knows her just as well. She tightens her grip, shifts forward as she narrows her eyes.

“Okay, relax,” Manon relents. “I watched some of them in New York.”

Sophia feels betrayed, almost. She tried to get Manon to watch them with her so many times but she always fell asleep halfway through them. She never really minded, because sleep would overcome her shortly after and falling asleep to Barbie movies with Manon is kind of, like, Sophia’s dream life.

She doesn’t get the chance to voice out her offense before Manon cuts her off.

“I watched them whenever I missed you,” Manon murmurs. She’s avoiding her eyes, glancing around like a child being scolded. “Which is a lot of times, so I ended up going through the entire filmography.”

Sophia does the math in her head. She’s pretty sure there are only around forty movies—

“I went through the filmography multiple times.” Manon deadpans. “I can see you counting in your head. We were broken up for two years. I didn’t only miss you forty-four times, Sophia.”

Sophia can’t stop grinning. She must look like an idiot, swinging her feet under the table. Manon has a stupid smile on her face too, though, so at least they look like idiots together. She can’t wait to get to know her, all over again. She hopes she keeps getting the chance to, for every version of Manon, for the rest of her life.

“So, you’re in a situationship?”

Sophia gawks. “That is not what this is.” That sounds ridiculous. “We’re not highschoolers.” She stabs at her salad, indignant. Manon is so much more than a situation to her. Using that word in that context sounds stupid.

“You’re not dating, you’re not friends,” Lara counts off her fingers, stopping to ponder. She hesitantly puts down a third finger. “Are you guys fucking?”

“What?” Sophia squeaks out. They haven’t even gone on a date. They’re only just finding their footing again, having been thrown off balance for two years without each other.

Sophia tells her exactly that. Lara doesn’t seem convinced. She folds the third finger back though, so Sophia is momentarily placated. Small victories.

“Okay, but you were together for a year. That’s plenty of dates.” Lara presses on. “Also, you literally live together.” Megan pipes in from beside her. “Talk about falling into stereotypes.”

Sophia regrets ever introducing Megan to Lara. They’ve formed some fucked up alliance where they terrorize everyone together. Sophia is their prime victim. She takes back every nice thing she’s ever said about Megan.

Debrief brunches have now turned open-season. It used to be just Sophia and Lara, with the occasional presence of Dani or Yoonchae, but they were always explicitly invited via text—from Lara—or Google Calendar requests—from Sophia. Most of the time, the requests are ignored though. Sophia thinks everyone is growing more and more uncultured.

She’s proven right by the current state of their brunches. Nobody texts anymore. Anyone just shows up, whenever they want. It’s chaotic, and Sophia doesn’t know who to expect when she makes her way to the cafe. One of these days, it might not even be Lara waiting. She might, like, charm someone into meeting Sophia for her, once she’s gotten sick of her Manon-talk.

Every thought she starts ends with Manon, in one way or another. Sophia kind of understands why Lara had to bring in reinforcements.

“Alright,” Sophia relents, metaphorical white flag waving in her head. “Let’s say, hypothetically, we were in a situationship,” she puts her hand up, halting Lara’s protests. “Where do we go from here?”

“You and everyone else in the world wants to find that out, Sophia.” Lara sighs, like she’s burdened to be the carrier of all situationship weight. Sophia needs to up her drama game. “That’s between you and Manon to figure out.”

A situationship is surprisingly domestic, Sophia comes to understand.

Maybe it’s because they’ve skipped through all the steps of dating and jumped to, like, living together, but it’s surprisingly easy for them to fall back into a dynamic they’ve technically never had.

Manon is a good roommate. She becomes an even better one, when Sophia starts getting greeted by kisses in the morning.

(“Good Morning,” Sophia greets, finding Manon already leaning on the kitchen counter. She blinks at her, bleary-eyed, but there’s fondness in her eyes and Sophia can see her smile hidden behind the rim of her mug.

Manon doesn’t greet her back, not verbally at least. What she does, though, is push herself forward from the counter and kisses Sophia straight on her lips.

Sophia is a little caught off guard, because she’d thought it’d take a while for them to get to first base, even though they’d technically completed a full game already in their first year. Not that she’s complaining.

“Was that okay?” Manon asks, leaning back to put some distance between them.

Sophia runs through all the reasons she had listed out in her head on Why we should take things slow this time, and finds that they’ve all turned obsolete.

Sophia steps forward and kisses her back.

“More than okay.”

Things have always been easy with Manon. She doesn’t see why that has to change, now.)

They still sleep in their own rooms. Sometimes, Manon would seek her out and starfish on Sophia’s bed while she finishes the rest of her elaborate night routine. When she’s done, Manon would make space for her to slip into bed, leaving space between them until Sophia’s skincare would dry. Sometimes they’d just fall asleep. They always wake up tangled together anyway.

In the morning, Sophia would slip out to go on her morning run, leaving Manon with a kiss on her forehead. Every so often, she’d tag along, trailing behind Sophia as she takes pictures of the park they run at.

That’s a new thing, too. Manon had purchased an old, second-hand film camera when she was in New York. Sophia has seen some pictures on her Instagram, but Manon has yet to develop the rest.

(“So, you’re into photography now?” Sophia murmured, trying to keep her face straight with the sheet mask on her face. “How’d that happen?”

They’re lying down on opposite ends of her bed, facing each other. Manon is wearing a matching mask, having been convinced to wear one with Sophia. Her hair is pushed back by a yellow headband, a small green dinosaur adorning the top. Sophia wants to eat her whole.

“I bought the camera on a whim,” Manon answered. She’s less concerned about the state of her mask, letting it slip as she talks. Sophia’s hand twitches.

“You always did like those photography exhibitions,” Sophia reasoned aloud. Manon getting into photography made perfect sense to her. It was only a matter of time, really.

“Y’wanna know something?” Manon scooted closer. Sophia reaches out to adjust her mask. It’s fruitless, because it crinkles again when Manon starts to smile. Sophia doesn’t find herself minding this time.

“I started taking more pictures in New York because I wanted to show them to you,” she says, leaning on Sophia’s propped up knee. “They didn’t feel enough, though, like I wasn’t capturing how it felt. How I felt.”

“I kept seeing you in everything,” Manon admits. “Like, it was kind of embarrassing. I’d take pictures to show you and then never send it, so they’d just sit in my gallery forever. I had to pay for extra iCloud storage.”

Sophia kind of wants to kill herself. This entire time, she had thought she was the one left pining after someone who didn’t want her anymore. She never considered that Manon had brought Sophia all the way to New York with her, in a way.

“Film pictures made things feel more tangible. It felt like I could bring something physical back to you.” Manon laughed, shaking her head. “Which was even more embarrassing, because I didn’t think you’d ever want me back in your life.”

“I’d come up with all these scenarios in my head. I thought, maybe I’d just show up to your classes and pester you until you take me back. Or, I’ll show up to your doorstep in the pouring rain with, like, a huge bouquet or a bunch of huge homemade signs like in that romcom you like.”

Sophia knocks her knee into Manon’s shoulder. “You’re ridiculous,” she says. Manon knocks her shoulder back onto her knee. “Or,” she adds, grinning, and Sophia already knows it’s going to be something stupider than the last. “I’d borrow Dani’s car and blast music outside your window until you’d be forced to come down and take me back.”

“I’d call the cops on you,” Sophia tells her, gravely.

“Did you ever think about me?” Manon whispers, suddenly quiet. “Did you ever picture what it’d be like if I came back to you? Or if we bumped into each other in the street, or something?”

“I did,” Sophia admits, fingers fiddling with the drawstring of her sweatpants. Her eyes fall, tracing the logo on Manon’s shirt. “Of course, I did.”

“The specifics didn’t matter to me, though. Whether it was in New York or LA—I never pictured the details.” She trails off.

“I only ever pictured you.” She lifts her chin, looking Manon in the eye. “I just—” She’s already staring back at her.

“I just wanted you to come home to me.”

Silence settles in the room as they stare at each other. Manon seems to be soaking it in, eyes lighting up as she processes.

“I only committed to coming back after you emailed me,” Manon laughs, breathily. Sophia feels her lungs empty out, wants the breath Manon takes to be hers. “Once I got the green light from you, I was packing my bags to come back home.”

The timer on her phone rings then, breaking them out of their moment. Manon moves to a stand, slipping off her mask as she does so. “Come on,” she outstretched her hand. “You still have to moisturize.”)

Sophia slows to a stop, turning back to look at Manon. As if feeling her stare, she lowers her camera and moves to catch up to her.

“When are you gonna let me see your photos,” Sophia nudged her, playful. “I’ve only seen the ones on your Instagram, which other people have seen.” She emphasizes the last part, putting her hand on her hip.

“I haven’t found a place to develop them yet,” Manon says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, guiding them into a slow walk. “The ones on my Instagram were just test pictures.”

It’s early enough that the sun is up, but the rest of the world isn’t. The park is quiet and breezy, and it feels like time has slowed down, just for them. The wind is picking up, but Sophia feels so warm even in her light tracksuit.

“I’ll make a whole exhibition for you, when they’re ready.”

“You better,” Sophia scoffs. “I’m holding you to that, Meret Manon Sarpong Bannerman.”

“Oh,” Manon mock-gasps. “Full government name. She’s serious, everyone.” She gestures to an invisible audience. She pulls Sophia closer, if it’s even possible. She doesn't know who leans in first, but they meet in the middle for a kiss.

“I promise, Sophia Elizabeth Guevara Laforteza.”

Sophia is locked outside of her apartment.

Her key is turning, and she can hear the lock clicking open, but the door won’t budge. Sophia admits she isn’t the strongest, but she does enough exercise to consider herself a healthy person. She runs almost everyday, and she hits the gym regularly. She might not have an insane core like Manon does, but she can handle a heavy door.

Except her own apartment door, apparently. Manon was out meeting a client for a shoot, and she doesn’t know if calling a locksmith is a viable solution, considering she’s pretty sure the lock isn’t the issue.

She debates calling Lara to stay at her place until Manon comes back for them to figure it out together. Maybe the strength of two people will be enough to force the door open. Or they can sleep in the hallway together. She’s in the middle of scrolling through her contacts when the door swings wide open.

“What— Manon?” She questions, bewildered. “I thought you were meeting—”

She’s interrupted by a tug on her sleeve, Manon pulling her in and covering her eyes with her other hand. Before she can protest, Manon is already shushing her and guiding her to move.

“Just trust me,” Manon says. “I have something to show you.”

Manon returns her vision when they’re standing in front of her door. Sophia is about to turn, questions armed and ready on her tongue, when Manon leans forward to open the door for her.

Sophia gasps as the room is unveiled to her. There are a bunch of strings hung up from wall to wall, forming a web of connections in red. Among them, fairy lights engulf the dark room with low, yellow undertones. They look like fireflies.

She doesn’t realize she’s standing frozen at the doorway until gentle hands usher her in. Manon’s room looks smaller than hers, mostly because she has a ton of plants; big pots sitting in corners and smaller ones hanging from the ceiling. There’s a keyboard, shoved to the back of the room. When she had first moved in, Sophia would hear Manon play through the walls of their apartment. The longing was the hardest to ignore on those nights.

She’s careful not to knock anything over, but she’s entranced by the lights around her. Now that she’s standing closer, she can see small prints hanging from the red strings. Sophia can vaguely hear the guitar of I See the Light playing lowly in the background.

Manon knows her too well.

“It’s not exactly an exhibition,” Manon starts, walking in front of her. “But I wanted it to be something personal. Intimate. Something between us, and not for the rest of the world.”

Sophia reaches out to touch the printed images. There are a couple of buildings, presumably in New York. When she flips them over, she can see some notes in Manon’s handwriting.

There are some pictures that she recognizes. Sceneries from places they’ve visited together recently. The sunrise at the park they frequent. The swingset, from the playground that night after the party. Sunlight filtering through trees.

Sophia goes through each picture in awe, seeing the world through Manon’s eyes. She understands now why Manon had insisted on getting that camera. She feels an ache in her ribs at the thought of Manon doing all this, just to show her.

She pauses when she reaches the last corner, furthest away from the door. Manon sides up to her, hands on both her shoulders.

“These are my favourite ones.”

They’re all pictures of her. Candids of Sophia lit by the sun at the park—walking ahead, sitting on a bench, looking up at the sky. Sophia, at the counter of their kitchen, whisking her matcha. Sophia, asleep in the late afternoon, sunlight streaming through the blinds and painting her warm.

Sophia, in all the ways Manon fell in love with.

She doesn’t realize she’s crying until Manon steps into her view, wiping her cheeks with the pads of her thumb.

“Oh, baby,” she coos. “Don’t cry. Or I’m going to start crying too.”

Her voice is already quivering, though. Manon has always been the bigger crybaby between the two of them.

“I love you,” Sophia chokes out. “I love you so much, Manon. I don’t think I ever stopped.”

Manon is laughing. She’s still holding her face in her hands, leaning forward to touch their foreheads together.

“I know,” she sniffs. They’re both crying now. “I can feel it. I didn’t know if you could feel mine, so I had to print all these out for you.” She pulls back, plucking a picture from the corner.

She flips it over to reveal her handwriting. I love you, Sophia. Thank you for letting me come home.

Sophia rolls her eyes. She’s so extremely endeared by her. “And I thought I was supposed to be the dramatic one.”

“You’ve infected me,” Manon whines. “I’m literally playing the Tangled soundtrack for you.”

“You literally fell asleep when we watched it the first time,” Sophia deadpans. “We didn’t even reach this scene.”

Manon laughs, leaning in to peck her lips. “Yeah, but we can always watch it again. I’ll make it through longer, this time,” she promises, waving out her pinky finger.

Sophia scoffs, but intertwines their pinky fingers together. “We’re rewatching all the Barbie movies, too.” She feels pulsing under her skin at the contact. God, she thinks. How foolish of her to think she could ever get Manon out of her system.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

(“Wow, you did all that for her and she still isn’t your girlfriend?” Lara mocks.

They’re at a joint brunch, complete with Megan, Dani, Yoonchae in attendance; Manon finally added to the list. Sophia looks at them and thinks of home.

“Wait—” Manon says, mouth dropping. She turns to look at Sophia next to her. “We aren’t girlfriends?”

Sophia stammers, mouth opening and closing like a fish. She can hear the others snickering behind her. She mentally hopes they all explode.

“You never asked me!” Sophia defends. She’s trying to furrow her eyebrows but she can’t stop smiling.

It seems Manon can’t either. They’re both stupidly grinning from ear to ear. “I literally made an entire exhibition for you. We kiss all the time? We live together? I’ve seen you—”

“Okay,” Lara interrupts. “We have babies here,” she gestures toward Yoonchae and Megan. “Let’s keep it PG, you animals.”

That sparks an argument of You’re literally only a year older than me, Lara and Still older! which Sophia tunes out when she feels Manon slip her hand into hers.

They share a look of fondness—Sophia moves her hand to circle around Manon’s wrist.

Yeah, she thinks, pulse against her thumb. She knows where her heart has always been.)