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If there was a way she could express her relationship with Ayeon, Sol would describe it as a bridge that had been burnt long before either of them had a chance to cross. By the time Sol could see there was a lonely girl who could not dream within the eerie hues of Ayeon’s painting, her hands were already long out of reach.
“You like me too. Am I wrong?”
Sol’s breath caught in her throat. Ayeon’s words hung in their small curtained space within the nurse’s office, demanding to be acknowledged. It wasn’t simply a question but more of a confirmation. She knew. And she knew Sol couldn’t deny her.
Even so, Sol couldn’t bring herself to face her. She stared at her own tear stains over trembling knuckles, squeezing the blanket to distract her from the fact that she couldn’t look at Ayeon’s tears.
“I’m just…” She said, after a heavy breath. “Really grateful to you.”
There was a long pause, and Sol felt like she was being seen through, as she always had when held in Ayeon’s gaze.
“Yeah…” Despite the natural flow of her words, Ayeon’s voice carried a tinge of melancholy. “Well, at least you feel positively about me.”
Why… That’s it? Why wouldn’t she push? Why wouldn’t she be the one-dimensional Ayeon that would be easier to deal with? Especially after all the hurt they had carried by accepting each other.
Why…
“Why aren’t you disappointed in me?” Sol tried to hold it back, but she sobbed wholly. “You were always there when I was struggling… but when you needed someone, I turned my back on you. I’m the last person who should’ve done that to you…”
Again, she was reminded of each time the guilt drove deeper into her chest. When she turned her gaze away from Ayeon, even though her physical world was slowly turning as lonely as her sleepless nights. When she didn’t allow Ayeon’s messages to reach her, even when they showed up handwritten at her doorstep, with carefully prepared dishes just because she happened to see the easily neglectable ridges on Sol’s nails once.
She couldn’t allow Ayeon’s message to reach her even now. They could continue to use excuses that no one was here to see them as always, but how far would that go?
It’d be easier for them to ignore these feelings.
Sol forced her damp eyes shut and dropped her head lower. “Don’t waste your energy on me. I’m a terrible friend to both you and So-i.”
What Ayeon should have done was reject Sol. It would be a logical action. Perfectly fair for this distance between them.
What Ayeon did instead was breach that invisible distance and tenderly place her hand on Sol’s tear-streaked face. A touch that was so gentle that Sol followed its urge to raise her head and face Ayeon.
“You’re a good friend. I just wish So-i knew that you care enough to cry over her.” There was an untouchable smile on her lips, one that undeniably carried a guarded layer of heartache. A layer that only Sol could see. “If turning your back on me is what’s been weighing on you… Then just do me one favor.”
Sol gasped faintly under the restrained yet deep affection that seeped through the softness of Ayeon’s palm as she gingerly stroked the welling tears from the edge of her eyes.
“Please call my name as warmly as you can.”
The touch of Ayeon’s hand briefly parted after she had wiped away her tears, but Sol grabbed on without sparing a fragment of a rational thought, pressing the warmth she didn’t deserve close to her face. Sol shut her eyes and took it all in. Charcoal, paint, cedarwood, and a comforting fragrance of Ayeon’s jasmine-scented lotion waft over it all.
“Ayeon…” She breathed out her name with a reverence one would have for the unreachable divine. Her free-flowing tears silently streamed down Ayeon’s hand, staining the cuff of her sleeve. “Ryu Ayeon…”
Ayeon’s eyes shook when Sol looked up at her through the welling teardrops. The gentle hand against her face hardened just momentarily before Sol’s breath was taken away.
Ayeon had leaned down and pushed her lips against hers. In their gracelessly slotted lips, Sol tasted Ayeon’s almond lip gloss, full of faint sweetness before a lingering bitter aftertaste. Ayeon tasted of a twisted love that seemed plausible only within borrowed time.
Their kiss felt all too brief when Ayeon parted from her. Her eyes were wide, as though holding back a cloud of emotions she didn’t know herself. “Sorry…” She stammered breathlessly. “I wasn’t supposed to—”
Sol pulled Ayeon back to her, meeting her with the same desperation she had restrained with all her wretched efforts. In a startled instant, Ayeon’s hands landed on both of Sol’s sides, caging her between her arms. The long suppressed yearning in Sol’s heart pulled tight in a knot that could break the moment Ayeon says the word.
Ayeon was right. They weren’t supposed to do this. But everything stopped hurting when she felt Ayeon’s lips on her, and Sol no longer wanted to think about anything else.
Just one second. One. Two. Three. Four…
A bit longer wouldn’t change what they had already done.
Ten seconds. Fifteen? They couldn’t hear anything but the sounds of their intertwined breaths and the loud thumping of their hearts.
If only they didn’t have to be like this. If only they didn’t hurt anyone by doing this. If only this weren’t a short stolen moment, but one they could have over and over again.
Sol imagined what it would be like if Ayeon could’ve walked by her side. To take her hand without severing precious bonds in their selfishness. To reach her across the differences in the worlds that raised them, the scars they couldn’t mend, the harsh canvas that separated their dimensions. If only she could hear Ayeon’s soothing voice any time and allow herself to be comforted by it, without the constant guilt she had to continually shove behind her.
Sol lost count by the time she nudged Ayeon off, or perhaps she was never counting to begin with. Ayeon’s warmth breaking away from her lips was like losing her anchor and drifting away. But the bareness was fleeting when Sol caught the deep flush on Ayeon’s face that covered to the tip of her ears.
Ayeon dropped her head to Sol’s shoulder before the human copy machine could imprint her vulnerable expression to memory. Feeling the weight of Ayeon against her, Sol couldn’t keep down the fluttering sensation of how right it felt. Ayeon depending on her. Ayeon’s breaths against her skin. Ayeon.
“That was my first kiss,” Ayeon whispered, as if anyone else could intrude to hear.
Sol squeezed tightly on the bed covers despite herself. “It was mine, too,” she admitted honestly.
“I could tell.”
The casual tone made the weight of what they had just done feel a bit lighter while making it unbearably heavy all at once.
All Sol could think about was the restraints they had to put upon themselves upon sharing something so bare and intimate. First kisses weren’t supposed to be like this. At least Sol didn’t think so. Instead of clawing their hands against the bedsheets, Sol wished she could hold Ayeon in her arms, to freely feel the heat tingle across her skin, follow wherever Ayeon’s touches linger.
There was no, “What are we? What did that mean?”
No soft giggles. No excessive tugs and pulls for more. No more sincerity deeper than this.
They remained silent, burdened and woefully dependent on one another. A silence that carried an unspoken nothing happened here. Even though they both knew fully well that neither of them could forget the feelings they had just shared.
What they did was wrong.
A part of her—no, Sol knew with her whole heart that this earnestness of Ayeon only extended as far as her. If Ayeon had never met Sol, she would never have felt a sliver of regret over what she had done to So-i. But if Ayeon had never abhorred So-i, she would never have taken an interest in Sol. Their lives were intertwined in this tangled mess that they only knew how to hide rather than unravel. And now it’s surfacing for better or for worse.
That’s why, for Ayeon to have a good dream again.
“Ayeon, you need to sincerely apologize to So-i.”
For So-i.
For Sol.
For Ayeon.
For a myriad of hurts they had to overcome.