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The last time Hongjoong had seen Seonghwa had been ugly. Hurt feelings and unspoken words clouded her memory of that day, turning into an uncomfortable swirl of longing in her stomach. Hongjoong wanted to remember more of the interaction, to be fully cognisant of the final moments she spent with the beautiful girl that had never left her mind since. In the heat of the moment, though, Hongjoong had turned to the only coping mechanism she had known at the time and washed away every difficult emotion with alcohol.
Nonetheless, the look on Seonghwa’s face had haunted her for years. Such delicate features were not meant to be distorted in the ways Hongjoong had caused. The desperate look from Seonghwa had followed her around for years, like a shadow. Only in the deepest of nights did it reveal itself, feeding on her when she was left with nothing but her choices and the sound of her husband’s breathing, weighing on her shoulders. She had done her best to push it away, but she couldn’t escape the pure betrayal and defeat on Seonghwa’s face as she broke her heart.
Hongjoong never saw Seonghwa after that day. Somehow, their orbits that had been so intricately intertwined drifted apart. They had come together in a supernova and died in its explosion, leaving nothing but the faint glow over their short time together to exist light-years away. Hongjoong hadn’t made any move to seek Seonghwa out, purposely avoiding the other woman. If she never saw Seonghwa and had no idea what the other girl was up to, then maybe the pain would fade away with her memories. It didn’t work, though; the pain didn’t dull, and the memories didn’t blur. Slowly, she had learned to live with the heartbreak, keeping it tucked under her ribs, a constant ache that lived next to her heart.
Rain pounded on the windshield as Hongjoong sat in her car. She had arrived home minutes ago, but had made no move to get out of the vehicle. Today, her chest was aching especially hard. It did that sometimes, when her past became too hard to ignore. It was a consequence of letting the pain grow by opening Pandora’s box and letting herself remember Seonghwa. In any case, she couldn’t walk in to face her husband in her current state. Not now, not when she felt like this. Not when she had no answers to give him about her emotions.
The radio played faintly as she rested her head against the steering wheel, willing away every thought about the beautiful girl who lived only in her memory. The one who had haunted her dreams last night with her beauty and self-assurance. It wasn’t until a familiar voice reached her ears that Hongjoong was pulled out of her stupor. Soft notes laden with emotion, the kind of talent that couldn’t be found anywhere. She knew that voice. She knew it in ways better than she knew her own. She had heard that voice laugh with unadulterated happiness, cry out in unfiltered pleasure, but worst of all, she had heard that voice echo raw pain. Seonghwa.
It's fine, it's cool
You can say that we are nothing, but you know the truth
And guess I'm the fool
With her arms out like an angel through the car sunroof
Seonghwa’s voice was as beautiful as Hongjoong remembered, although all of its light was gone. The hopeful melodies that lived in her memories, reminding her of nights filled with hopes and dreams, had been replaced by somber notes of defeat.
I don't wanna call it off
But you don't wanna call it love
You only wanna be the one that I call "baby"
The next words sent a shockwave through Hongjoong’s body, causing her to curl in on herself as a memory pushed its way to the forefront of her mind. Seonghwa wrapped around her in bed, drawing lazy patterns against her unclothed abdomen. Her skin was warm against Hongjoong's, eyes fond where they met her own. Only the light sounds of breathing and distant echoes of pleasure hung in the air. The moment was beautiful, tender, and soon to be shattered.
“I love you,” Seonghwa had whispered, almost to herself, but loud enough for Hongjoong to hear.
It wasn’t an off-base confession. The two of them had been seeing each other in whatever capacity their relationship could be defined, for a while now. They spent time together, confided in each other, sought each other out for comfort and care, so Seonghwa’s words shouldn’t have been so jarring to Hongjoong. They shouldn’t have been so jarring, but they were. The beauty of the time they spent together was the fact that it was unlabeled. No words that could define who and what they were had been decided. In that grey area, Hongjoong didn’t have to worry about the implications of her feelings for Seonghwa. In that grey area, Hongjoong didn’t have to confront the truths about herself she so desperately wanted to avoid. Seonghwa’s words, however, made it all real. There was no plausible deniability when love was involved. Panicked at the admission, Hongjoong had done the only thing she knew how to do at the time, and ran. It marked the first time Seonghwa’s face crumpled with the force of Hongjoong’s actions.
You can kiss a hundred boys in bars
Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling
You can say it's just the way you are
Make a new excuse, another stupid reason
Good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
Well, good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
Good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
Well, good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
Hongjoong closed her eyes tighter, arms moving from their purchase on the steering wheel to wrap around her middle. She had avoided Seonghwa at all costs after her admission. How could she face her when she had run? How could she face her when being in her presence might make Hongjoong admit that she felt the same? Instead, Seonghwa’s pained expression danced behind her eyelids every time she dodged a text or silenced her calls.
It wasn’t until a week later that they ran into each other. Hongjoong had been convinced by her friends to finally leave her apartment after holing up for the last few days. Under the insistence that she wouldn’t have to drink with them, Hongjoong had begrudgingly agreed. Alcohol sounded like it would be dangerous in combination with the thoughts swirling around her head. Her resolve stood strong for the first hour of the outing, but the moment Seonghwa slipped into her peripheral vision, Hongjoong found herself ordering a shot. Maybe the alcohol would numb the strange feeling in her chest every time she saw the woman. That weird pang of longing that only subsided when she was in her arms. The feeling that had only deepened in their week apart. When Seonghwa’s eyes dimmed when they made contact with her own, Hongjoong decided she needed another shot. Seonghwa was never meant to look hurt, not when she had been sculpted so beautifully. It wasn’t an expression she wanted to cement in her mind or on the other’s face.
Two more empty shot glasses were sitting in front of Hongjoong by the time a guy was approaching her at the bar. He was objectively handsome, the kind of guy her friends would drool over. There was no reason for them not to interact other than that Hongjoong didn’t really want to. She pushed those thoughts away, though, as he came to stand next to her. They talked a bit, meaningless words over the thump of the bass. Soon, he was buying her another shot, and not long after that, she found herself kissing him. Maybe it was the vodka dulling her senses, but the kiss didn’t contain the same electricity she experienced when her lips were interlocked with another person, when her lips were intertwined with Seonghwa’s. The action was simply the slide of mouths against each other, and when Hongjoong moved her hands to wrap around the man, she wasn’t met with a soft embrace like she was used to. When she finally parted from the stranger, Seonghwa’s form had disappeared from the bar. No matter how hard Hongjoong looked, she couldn’t find her. A strange sense of guilt built itself inside of Hongjoong, mixing with the bitter taste of man and alcohol on her tongue. This feeling wasn’t any better than the discomfort that she had already been feeling all night, so Hongjoong did the thing she could think of to curb the swirl of disappointment in her stomach and took another shot. The rest of that night was an unintelligible blur from there; more lips were pressed on her own, but none of them were the ones she wanted.
I'm cliché, who cares?
It's a sexually explicit kind of love affair
And I cry, it's not fair
I just need a little lovin', I just need a little air
The next time Hongjoong and Seonghwa met up, they didn’t talk. Instead, their bodies moved in sync, trying to express what they couldn’t say into the nonexistent space between them. It had felt wonderful, the press of skin on skin in the only way Hongjoong had ever felt worshipped. Seonghwa had been the one to leave first that time, with her lips bitten like she was physically trying to restrain herself from saying something. They both knew the words she wanted to utter. Hongjoong selfishly wanted to hear them again, but that couldn’t happen unless she was able to admit that she might feel the same.
Think I'm gonna call it off
Even if you call it love
I just wanna love someone who calls me "baby"
The words were on the tip of her tongue as she lay next to Seonghwa. They had been every time since the other’s admission. Their hands were intertwined by the pinkies only, bodies covered only by a sheen of sweat from their previous activities. The silence was charged, filled with everything that Seonghwa was too scared to be rejected for again, and every piece of herself that Hongjoong was scared to speak into existence.
“Seonghwa, I-” she started. Maybe for Seonghwa, it would all be worth it. Maybe for Seonghwa, she could become the person she was so deeply afraid of. The person she so desperately wanted to be. The words died in her throat.
You can kiss a hundred boys in bars
Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling
You can say it's just the way you are
Make a new excuse, another stupid reason
Good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
Well, good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
Good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
Well, good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
The lyrics began to fade into the background as Hongjoong’s tears began to overtake her. Full body wracking sobs, amplifying the ache in her chest as the memories came flooding in. Seonghwa laughing at one of Hongjoong’s unfunny jokes. Seonghwa fondly cooking them dinner after Hongjoong’s first attempt had gone horribly awry. Seonghwa’s arms enveloping her as she cried into them. Seonghwa’s soft voice lulling her to sleep.
Bullying its way to the surface, though, was Hongjoong’s last memory of Seonghwa: the tears running down her cheeks, the sadness in her eyes that was so clearly not only for herself, but for Hongjoong as well, and above all, the devastating love that was still apparent.
The last time they had seen each other was right after Hongjoong had gotten engaged. It was at the beginning of their final year at university. Seonghwa had just returned from studying abroad in the United States the year before. Hongjoong was wrapped around the sturdy frame of the boy she had met right after Seonghwa had left. He was a year older, hard in all of the places Seonghwa was soft, square in every place Seonghwa was round, masculine in every way the other woman was not. Their relationship was fine; they got along well enough. Personality-wise, they were a good match, but no matter how hard Hongjoong searched for it, she couldn’t find the spark in her chest that was ignited when she was with Seonghwa.
The bar was relatively empty, as it was a Tuesday; just a few patrons, outside of Hongjoong and her friends, were scattered around. Seonghwa had walked in in all of her unbridled glory. Her hair was longer than the last time Hongjoong had seen her, and it was dyed a striking blonde color. She was absolutely beautiful. For a moment, it felt like time stood still, and reality crumbled. The man pressed against Hongjoong was irrelevant, anything in her sight line meaningless, as her senses filled with nothing but Seonghwa. Watching the woman walk back into her life felt like the first gasp of air after being submerged under water. It shouldn’t have felt so good. In their year apart, Hongjoong had convinced herself that she had moved on; her relationship with Seonghwa had never really been anything official anyway. Plus, she wasn’t like that; Hongjoong was straight. Straight and happier than ever in the arms of the man she was set to marry. Hongjoong was a liar.
A searing pain curling itself around her left ring finger pulled Hongjoong back to reality, amplified by the once soft hand around her waist twisting itself into talons. The cool metal of her engagement ring weighed her hand down like an anchor, not letting her get swept away from the shore she had planted herself on. It didn’t matter that Seonghwa was back; Hongjoong was getting married. The vice around her heart tightened at the reminder, the same one that was tightening itself around the muscle in her chest as the radio continued to play.
Despite sharing the same space, the two women weren’t able to talk until later that night when Hongjoong had managed to pry herself away from her fiancé’s clutches. Nerves bubbled inside of her as they faced each other. The conversation had started off fine, after all, they were at the bare minimum friends, if they ignored the reality that they were so much more. Seonghwa told her all about her adventures in the States, and Hongjoong talked about all of the things that had changed at the university in Seonghwa’s absence. It was easy, like falling back into a routine that hadn’t been separated by time, space, and silence. Eventually, though, Seonghwa asked the question Hongjoong had been dreading all along.
“And who is that?” Seonghwa asked, words weighted as she tipped her head to the man, no, Hongjoong’s fiancé at the bar.
Hongjoong inhaled sharply. “That is Jihoon,” she replied. It was a cop-out, and they both knew it. Seonghwa was asking more about him than just his name, and Hongjoong did not want to tell her.
“You two look close,” Seonghwa pressed. Her attempt at being nonchalant did not quite land.
“Yeah, he’s-” Hongjoong swallowed. The words stuck in her throat. She had never been good at telling Seonghwa things that would alter the course of their relationship. “Jihoon is my fiancé,” she managed to force out. At least this time, she hadn’t choked; she said what she wanted to. The words tasted awful in her mouth. The truth of them, and the fact that they were made up of thinly veiled lies, felt heavy on her tongue. Despite her admission, faced with the only person who had ever seen her without her walls, heard her without her words, Hongjoong felt more cowardly than ever.
“Hongjoong-” is all Seonghwa had managed to sputter out as her face twisted in that haunting way Hongjoong never quite could forget. Silence stretched between them. Then, quieter, pleadingly, “Don’t do this.”
Something else washed over Hongjoong at the words. She’d like to say it was anger towards Seonghwa. Seonghwa had left; they hadn’t seen each other in a year. She didn’t even know Jihoon. Who was she to waltz back into Hongjoong’s life and tell her not to get married? But Hongjoong wasn’t mad at Seonghwa; she couldn’t be, no matter how hard she tried.
“The wedding is in October,” Hongjoong replied, jaw set. Maybe if she looked sure of her decision, she would feel that way too, but the look on the other woman’s face was beginning to crack her resolve. A selfish part of Hongjoong wanted Seonghwa to react, for her to be upset enough to change Hongjoong’s mind. Maybe if Seonghwa didn’t let her walk away like every other time Hongjoong had left, then she wouldn’t have to go through with the marriage. Maybe if Seonghwa could talk her out of it, she would finally be free. However, Seonghwa didn’t say anything; she simply deflated as Hongjoong felt the crushing reality of defeat. Her future was written. If Seonghwa couldn’t save her from this fate, no one could.
“Please don’t do this to yourself,” were the last words uttered between them before Seonghwa turned and left the bar. A quiet divorce from the only solace Hongjoong had ever found. A life sentence, and Hongjoong had been the jury, judge, and executioner for her own trial. It was a moment so silently painful that Hongjoong wanted nothing but to drown it out. When she got back to her fiancé, Hongjoong began to drink.
When you wake up next to him in the middle of the night
With your head in your hands, you're nothing more than his wife
And when you think about me, all of those years ago
You're standing face to face with "I told you so"
You know I hate to say it, I told you so
You know I hate to say, but I told you so
The lyrics of the bridge of the song sliced through Hongjoong’s heart like a knife. All of the anger left her body with the last few beats of the torn muscle. Seonghwa had been right, and Hongjoong had been a coward, kept up late at night, haunted by the ghost of who she could have been if she had just let herself. With Seonghwa, she could have been Hongjoong, the real Hongjoong. The Hongjoong that wasn’t plagued by the knowledge that no matter how hard she tried, she would always be living a lie.
Who even was the Hongjoong that had married Jihoon? Certainly not someone she recognized. A wife, yes, but what else? What else defined her identity beyond her connection to her husband? She had long since conceded to tying her worth to what was expected of her. She didn’t have any wants for this Hongjoong, nothing that was attainable in the cage she had trapped herself in. Instead, she measured her life in the successes of their domesticity, convinced that happiness could only be found in the mundane stability she had woven herself into.
When she lay in bed late at night and allowed herself to reminisce, the only moments of true happiness she had experienced were found in the fleeting moments she had shared with Seonghwa. Moments in time immortalized in her head, because she never let herself have them for more than a few seconds in reality. Moments blurred at the edges by her own insecurities, and worn with time.
You can kiss a hundred boys in bars
Shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling (Well, I told you so)
You can say it's just the way you are
Make a new excuse, another stupid reason
Good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
Well, good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
Good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
Well, good luck, babe (Well, good luck)
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
Hongjoong wept as the song continued to play. She wept for the young girl who had been so afraid to look in the mirror and see a lesbian staring back at her. She wept for the girl who had convinced herself that she could find happiness in a man. She wept for Seonghwa, the girl that she had loved and had loved her back. Most of all, she wept for the version of herself that she could have been. A Hongjoong who was happy and free could have existed. A Hongjoong that knew what it was like to love and be loved without the weight of fear. A Hongjoong that didn’t have to perform. A Hongjoong that wasn’t kept up at night chasing ghosts.
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling
As the song faded out, Seonghwa’s voice pulled itself away from Hongjoong, just like it had years ago. All Hongjoong was left with was a hole in her chest from where her heart had bled out and the pain that had been there long before the wound. She stayed there for a long time as her eyes poured out what was left of her crushed soul. Finally, with shaking hands and tears still running down her cheeks, Hongjoong pulled out her phone. Without thinking, she thumbed through it until her finger was hovering over the contact that had sat dormant in her phone for years.
Her finger pressed down.
The phone rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
“I love you.”