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An hour before Soyeon tells Yuqi she loves her, she reflects on her life. With Yuqi in it, of course.
They're on a picnic, nice and beautifully quaint. The willow tree they've talked under for years holds their secrets like the greatest confidant a teenager could have, and whispers them back out into the chill summer breeze. It absorbs, but never tells.
Soyeon's told it stories about Yuqi when she wasn't there. How she'd help Soyeon gather her books during class when she'd dropped them, and how her smile was like that of a thousand sunrays propelled into your face, so bright it might just blind you. But Yuqi wasn't just that. A kind person, sure. And someone with a beautiful smile. She also had ambitions so far out Soyeon didn't know how to reach them.
One of these days, today, Yuqi and Soyeon sit under the willow tree.
"Maybe it's turning a hundred years old today, Soyeon." Yuqi's feet extend further than Soyeon's, and she wiggles them underneath the leaves. "It's too bad you're not as tall as me, this tickles."
Soyeon laughs, if not to steady herself from the intense fear she feels. "It's better to be short. I can sneak into way more places than you can."
Yuqi's voice goes deeper. "Yes, but I am the Terminator." Her hands move like a zombies', something completely uncorrelated to what she's saying. But then, as fast as light travels, she tickles Soyeon's neck. "And I'll find you wherever you run to!"
The two laugh like there's nothing in the world that can ever stop them.
Fifty minutes before Soyeon tells Yuqi she loves her, Yuqi proposes they try to sneak into the river opposite the willow tree. "Soyeon, it'll be fun. Get your feet wet."
Soyeon, steadfast as a rock, stays exactly where she is. "I'd much rather not. I wore something nice today."
"I know, you love me." Soyeon's heart skips a beat. "I kid. You don't need to dress up. We've been doing this since we were kids, and Mr. Kim surely won't catch us now."
"Mr. Kim? You used to say he was a leader of an underground crime ring who held his golden treasures in the river."
"I used to say a lot of things." Yuqi waves it off. "We're older now."
"We'll continue to get older."
"So let's go!" Yuqi puts her shoes down, white socks folded in them, before running out toward the river. She stops once she realizes Soyeon isn’t following her. “Soyeon! Come splash around with me!”
Soyeon frowns. “Splash is a word that sounds inherently childish. And my skirt looks nice.”
“It’s frilly and honestly a bit ugly.” Yuqi deadpans. “Just roll it up and we can splash around! It’s summer already.”
Soyeon, reluctantly, folds up her skirt. Unlike Yuqi, she kicks her shoes off and runs toward Yuqi in the near distance.
Yuqi looks down. “Soyeon, your socks are still on. And they’re rainbow?”
“I like rainbows.”
”Okay.” Yuqi extends a hand toward Soyeon. It’s a bit sticky from the candy she’d eaten earlier, and damp from the river she’d waved it in. Still, their hands fit together like puzzle pieces.
They ran together into the river, feet trampling over sandy spots and rocky floors. Yuqi even ran into a fish.
“We can’t keep Randy?”
”You named the fish Randy.” Soyeon is largely unimpressed.
Yuqi nods, still full of energy. “He looks like a Randy.”
Soyeon sighs. Yet there’s no place she’d rather be.
Twenty minutes before Soyeon tells Yuqi she loves her, Yuqi brings up the one thing Soyeon dreads the most.
Yuqi flips on her side. “Soyeon, where do you see your future?”
Soyeon freezes, but composes herself enough to flip the question. “Yuqi, where do you see yourself?”
Yuqi puffs her chest out, almost like Superman. “You already know, I’m gonna be global superstar Song Yuqi. Do some singing, maybe acting.”
“But you’ll go back to China.”
Yuqi shrugs. “Well, yeah. My family is there. Cousins, aunts, uncles… my home away from home. Technically my home.”
“So there’s no chance you’d stay?”
“Not truly. My parents are moving back after I graduate, right? So they’re going back home. Soon, so will I.”
Soyeon realizes her fears hurt more when they are confirmed by the person she loves. Pretty quickly, an overarching feeling of doom takes over her, and she feels… almost frozen.
“There’s really no chance?” Soyeon tries, weakly. “You’re going to uni here, right?”
Yuqi shrugs. “Wherever they accept me.”
“You’ve been accepted everywhere you applied.”
“That’s the superstar Song Yuqi in action.” Yuqi flexes, but Soyeon thinks it shows off the wrong muscle. Brain over brawn, or something. “Probably back to China, then.”
Soyeon wrings out some of the lone water still in her hair, creating an annoying damp spot on the front of her shirt. “Damn it.”
“Yuqi, I’m afraid.” At that, Yuqi perks up. Her eyes look concerned, and Soyeon would have thought she said she was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
“Of what?”
Soyeon pauses. “You.”
Five minutes before Soyeon tells Yuqi she loves her, Yuqi is trying to calm down.
“So you don’t want me to leave.” Yuqi states, trying to get a feel for what Soyeon’s worries are.
“Technically so. I mean, you scare me in the way that you can do anything you put your mind to. Academic, creatively. I don’t want to be left behind.”
“Soyeon, we’ve known each other forever. I wouldn’t just leave you.”
At that time, Soyeon extends a hand. She’s sitting under the tree while Yuqi stands above her, nervous pacing. It’s making Soyeon feel constricted. But a butterfly falls on her finger instead. It’s a monarch.
Yuqi is momentarily distracted by the butterfly, and she gently holds Soyeon’s hands so that she can hold it in her palm. “It’s a monarch, you know? They only visit one place for so long, before the weather changes.”
“Are you sure that’s correct?” Soyeon questions. “When’s the last time you read a geography study?”
Yuqi tries to brush that off. “Irrelevant. I've absorbed the information, so I know it.”
As the words leave her mouth, the butterfly beats its wings and flies away. At one moment, it eclipses the sun as it glides through the summer breeze.
Yuqi sighs. “I wish I could have held it longer.”
“Who named them monarch butterflies? Like they were going to rule the world.”
“Alone? Or as a humongous butterfly cohort?”
“Who knows?” Soyeon looks to where the butterfly had just flown out.
“Maybe you’re a butterfly, Yuqi. Like the Monarch. I don’t know, it sounds stupid.”
“No, continue.”
“It feels like…” Soyeon pauses. “Like you’re drifting to a place I can’t reach. That you’ll top the world alone and I can’t join you at all. But I want to be there with you, even if we fail.”
“We are going to succeed, Soyeon. Together. But I didn’t think you were pondering it so much.”
Soyeon whines. “Yuqi, sit down. My head is getting sore looking up at you all the time.”
They look each other in the eyes as Yuqi continues. “You know as well as anyone I don’t really think about my future. What will be, will be. You make me think… harder.”
“I’m glad.” Soyeon smiles. “Together forever.”
With that, Soyeon leans in and kisses Yuqi.
“You taste like nectarines.”
Now, Soyeon tells Yuqi she loves her.
Yuqi smirks that funny smirk she always does, making Soyeon giggle. “I kinda knew. I mean, I teased you about it earlier.”
“But aren’t you afraid? Of what people might think of us?”
“Never. Nobody can stop us. We’re alive now, aren’t we? Things are changing, but we can try and break the old and ride with the new.”
Soyeon flits her fingers over the broken branches of the willow tree, and the soft grass they lay on. Then, Yuqi’s face. She looks into Yuqi’s eyes, deeply.
“I love you, Song Yuqi. Please don’t leave me.”
“Jeon Soyeon, never in a million years.”
And they lie there in the sun’s rays for what feels like forever.
The monarch butterfly comes back, later. With a speckled partner, too. Yuqi feeds it a nectarine while Soyeon braids her a flower crown.
They’re in the yard for what feels like eons. And when Soyeon’s mom questions her new white sock, the one Yuqi had given her, she brushes it off.
“It’s different, bold. Like what I want to be.”
She can feel Yuqi cheering her on, chin on her right shoulder. It’s what she wants, too.