Work Text:
Spring, 2015
Seoyeon hated gym class.
The field was always too dewy in the morning, and her sneakers never quite dried out afterward. The teacher’s whistle always blew just when she was about to say something interesting to her best friend. And worst of all, Kim Yooyeon was in the advanced class, the one that actually did fun things like archery or yoga or swimming.
Seoyeon was stuck outside running laps on muddy grass.
But on that particular Tuesday, something odd happened. Yooyeon wasn’t in the gym building—she was out here, stretching on the edge of the same field, arms extended like a dancer, hair pulled back in a half-bun. Seoyeon only noticed because the light hit Yooyeon’s hair just right, catching a streak of copper she hadn’t seen before.
“She’s in our class today,” whispered Dahyun, nudging her. “Apparently she got switched because of a schedule conflict.”
Seoyeon blinked. That kind of thing didn’t usually happen. Yooyeon was known at school as the reserved, top-of-her-class student who never got anything wrong. She was… distant. But not cold. Just unreachable. Like looking at a star and wondering if it would ever fall low enough to touch.
That day, they ran three laps.
Yooyeon ran ahead of Seoyeon every time—but once, halfway through the second lap, she glanced back and smiled.
And just like that, Seoyeon’s least favorite class became her favorite hour of the week.
High school years came and went like chalk drawings on pavement—softly, briefly, and always washed away by the next season.
Seoyeon and Yooyeon never became close friends. They shared classes occasionally. Exchanged polite smiles in hallways. On rare occasions, a teacher would pair them up for a project, and they’d share a few hours, a few notes, and maybe one joke that lingered longer than it should’ve.
But fate didn’t weave them together yet. Not permanently.
Still, Seoyeon remembered the colors.
Green, from the field where they first shared a class.
Beige, from a sweater Yooyeon wore the day she presented her portfolio in class. Seoyeon had stared at her too long, and the flutter in her chest refused to settle.
Yooyeon didn’t notice. Or maybe she did.
But neither of them said anything.
Summer, 2018
University life came fast and harsh.
Yooyeon threw herself into music classes and part-time jobs, barely keeping her head above water. She dated a girl with a nice smile who played the drums, then broke up with her after three months when she realized she only ever talked about herself.
She sat in the backseat of a taxi one night, radio playing a random song, thinking about how nothing ever quite clicked.
She wondered—fleetingly—what Seoyeon was doing.
She didn’t even know if she’d gone to college.
Fall, 2019
Seoyeon stayed behind.
She’d gotten into a prestigious university in Seoul too, but her mother got sick the week before the semester began. Cancer. A cruel kind.
So Seoyeon stayed in Daejeon, took local classes, and picked up freelance illustration gigs. She hardly spoke to anyone from high school, but one day she scrolled past a post tagged “Kim Yooyeon Busking—Hongdae,” and stared at the thumbnail for a long time.
She didn’t click.
But she remembered her voice. A low, airy mezzo that always hovered just above her in choir class. Beautiful, effortless.
She wished she had said more back then.
Winter, 2020
They met again by accident.
Or maybe not.
Yooyeon was singing at a café open mic in Itaewon, doing a stripped-back cover of “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac. Seoyeon was there sketching the crowd for a client who ran a zine. When Yooyeon sang the chorus, Seoyeon’s pen stopped moving.
Afterward, their eyes met across the room.
This time, they spoke.
“Kim Yooyeon,” Seoyeon said, her voice low, a little amused. “Still making everyone fall in love with your voice.”
Yooyeon laughed. “Yoon Seoyeon. Still impossibly cool.”
“Are you… currently living in Seoul?”
“Yeah,” Yooyeon replied. “You?”
“Since last year.”
Their conversation was short, but it lit something electric under their skin. They exchanged numbers this time.
This time, the thread pulled tighter.
In the weeks that followed, they met again. Once for coffee. Then twice. Then it became weekly. Then they didn’t need a reason.
They learned each other in the quiet spaces.
Seoyeon drew when she was overwhelmed. Yooyeon hummed nonsense melodies when she was lost in thought.
Seoyeon liked rain, but only if she didn’t have to go outside. Yooyeon loved quiet cafes where no one knew her name.
And somehow, it worked.
They didn’t name it.
But it felt inevitable.
Spring, 2021
Yooyeon wrote a song called “Invisible String” and played it once at a small show. Seoyeon was in the audience.
It wasn’t about anyone, Yooyeon claimed.
Seoyeon smiled, but she didn’t believe her.
“Do you think,” Yooyeon asked one night as they walked along the Han River, “that everything happens for a reason?”
“I used to,” Seoyeon said. “Not anymore.”
Yooyeon nodded slowly. “I still want to believe it. That there’s something guiding us. Even if we don’t see it.”
Seoyeon didn’t answer.
But she reached out, gently, and tucked a strand of hair behind Yooyeon’s ear.
Summer, 2022
It happened quietly.
They had both just finished major deadlines—Yooyeon’s first official EP, and Seoyeon’s debut gallery collection. They were exhausted. Happy.
And when they got drunk off cheap wine in Seoyeon’s apartment, laughing over the same dumb high school memory of running laps and eating convenience store kimbap, the silence fell between them.
Yooyeon reached first.
Seoyeon didn’t hesitate.
And when their lips met, it felt less like something new and more like something long overdue.
A thread pulled taut.
Finally visible.
Fall, 2023
They fought for the first time.
It wasn’t explosive—just the kind of slow unraveling that happens when two people love each other but don’t quite know how to say the right thing.
Seoyeon was offered an artist residency in Berlin. Yooyeon was preparing for her first solo concert in Seoul. The timing was cruel.
They tried long distance.
They tried video calls.
But the thread thinned.
And then one night, after an especially bad call, Seoyeon said, “Maybe we need to let go for now.”
Yooyeon didn’t argue.
But she cried for hours after the line went dead.
Winter, 2024
Yooyeon filled the silence with work. Songs. Shows. Late nights.
She wrote a track she never released. It was too raw. Too true.
Seoyeon lived in Berlin for nine months. She learned German. Drank coffee from tiny cups. Drew a comic about a girl and a ghost she couldn’t see but always felt.
One panel had a sketch of a girl singing near a tree.
Readers didn’t know the girl had a name.
Spring, 2025
They saw each other again by accident.
Or maybe not.
It was a creative retreat organized by mutual friends—music, art, nature. Yooyeon hadn’t known Seoyeon would be there. Seoyeon hadn’t known either.
Their eyes met on the first day.
And this time, they both smiled.
The tension wasn’t anger or sadness. Just memory. And something deeper than time.
That night, Seoyeon walked up to her by the ocean.
“I saw your concert stream in February,” she said.
“I read your comic,” Yooyeon replied.
A pause.
“I missed you,” Yooyeon whispered.
“I never really let go,” Seoyeon answered.
They walked along the beach, shoes in hand.
Sand cold, sky gold.
“I used to think we just kept missing our moment,” Yooyeon said.
“I think,” Seoyeon replied softly, “we were always in it.”
They didn’t talk about the past much after that. They didn’t need to.
It was all there—in the way Seoyeon still tilted her head when she listened, in the way Yooyeon still tapped her fingers in rhythm when she was nervous.
The thread never broke.
Summer, 2026
Yooyeon stood in a small concert hall, singing the last song of the night. The lights were soft. The crowd quiet.
She sang “Invisible String.”
This time, the lyrics had names. Moments. A life.
And in the back of the room, Seoyeon stood by the door, holding a yellow bouquet, smiling like she knew every line before it was sung.
Because she did.