Work Text:
October 2024
Hope spilled out just like Haewon’s tears as she sat next to the hospital bed. With each moment that passed, the shitty waiting room chair became more uncomfortable. Haewon’s tailbone suffered. And her throat ached, oh how it ached. The sobs that escaped each time the weight of it all sank in.
Her girlfriend's hand lay weak and limp in her own.
Haewon’s back hurt too, from hunching over in her seat to be close, to watch Yoona’s face for a sign of… anything. Her other hand rested on Yoona’s torso, rising and falling with her.
She sniffled, a stray tear falling, lips pressed into a line. Another ache, her eyes. They burned from the tears she shed over and over again as beep after beep, doctor after doctor, second after second occupied her day.
For a moment, she lifts her hand off of Yoona’s body and wipes at her sniffly nose. It’s massive, her nose, swollen from mucus and tears. It too is also sore. She will have to find the energy to get up and find some headache medication.
Her eyes fall onto Yoona’s face. Bandages wrapped around her head. There’s a few cuts on the bridge of her nose and her left cheek, and Haewon feels her lip start to wobble as she thinks about those being the very places she would adorn with kisses.
Further down Yoona’s body, she has more bandages covering newly sown stitches in her biceps and forearms. Her wrist is in a splint, that was new, just put on today. The outfit complete with Yoona’s left leg elevated but a lifter. It hangs heavy as a green cast holds together her shattered tibia.
Haewon’s free hand slaps her mouth, covering it so a sob doesn’t wake the sleeping patient. How is Yoona going to afford this? How am I going to afford this?
This isn’t the first time Oh Haewon has been a visitor in this hospital for her girlfriend. But this is certainly the worst, the scariest.
She scootches her chair closer to the bed. Her elbows on the cushion, next to Yoona’s body. Both of Haewon’s hands are hold onto Yoona’s left. She squeezes both her hands but not oto strongly, as not to wake her up.
“Yoona-yah…” Haewon utters, hearing her own voice break. She takes a deep breath and tries again.
“Please baby, please. We can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep doing this” she pleads. Her heart wincing, thinking about all the scars and bruises on her body. She’s angry. And scared. And just for once she wishes Yoona would listen to her. After five years of being together, Haewon hoped motorcycles were just a phase, that Yoona would get her fix, get that young 23 year old energy out.
But now they’re 27 and 28. And Yoona still rides.
Haewon has been by her side for every cut, every scrape. She’s sat in the ambulance next to the love of her life as the EMT’s apply gauze, listening to Yoona grimace and yell in pain. She’s made the call, received the call. There had been enough nights of Haewon waking up in the wee hours, not feeling Yoona by her side and preparing for the worst.
She hates how well she knows this damn hospital wing.
This specific accident had Haewon on her knees, praying to whoever is above and sovereign to just help. Tonight can’t be the night she loses Yoona, it just can’t be. Her shoulders shake as she sobs, heavy gobby, sobs from the bottom of her heart. Yoona is the love of her life.
Haewon cannot stop her tears yet again. There's just too much.
“Please recover Yoona. And please never get on that damned bike ever again.”
May 2025
Haewon opens the window in front of her kitchen sink to listen to the sounds of the city. The linoleum of the floor is cool to the touch on her bare feet. Her coffee maker is moments from pouring the perfect brew into her favorite mug.
She yawns and rubs her sleepy eye with the palm of her hand. She catches a glance of herself in the fisheye mirror hanging on the wall and tousles her messy hair. Whatever. She doesn’t have to go into the office today. It’s a work from home day, not only that, but it’s a half day, which means Haewon can spend the morning responding to emails and taking calls from the comfort of recliner and have her favorite cd’s playing. This morning she opts for Sade’s ‘Love Deluxe’ and pops it into the cd player.
The coffee maker announces it is finished with a hissing noise that Haewon is not entirely sure is supposed to happen, but she’s been too lazy to really look into it.
She places her laptop down on her counter top and glides to the caffeinated delight. It smells great, like hazelnut. Only thing it needs to be perfect is a splash of oatmilk and some french vanilla creamer. ‘Kiss of life’ plays in the background and it influences Haewon’s movements as she twirls over to the fridge to open the door. There, behold, the carton of milk and the creamer. The accoutrement to perfect her morning delight.
But, when Haewon lifts the carton up, she pouts. It’s light. Too light. She tears open the top of the carton even further to take a peek inside, and to her horror, there is maybe a droplet or 2 pooled in the corner.
She throws her head back, “Ughhhhh”
Normally, the girl is on top of going to the grocery store. Yet for some reason this week, it just slipped her mind. Or she was lazy. Or maybe both.
She gives herself a light smack to the center of her forehead, reprimanding herself for poor decision making this week. She really doesn’t want to drink this coffee without the milk, nor does she want to dispose of it and have it go to waste.
Haewon then quickly finds the clock on her microwave and thinks.
There’s a convenience store just on the corner of the street by her apartment complex. It could be a 12 minute roundtrip really. Haewon squints at the clock and nods. She will be so brave and run down to get milk just before her first call of the day.
Hurriedly, Haewon dashes to her room and whips open the closet door. She shimmy’s out of her current pajama bottoms (daisy dukes with cartoon bears) and jumps into a pair of maroon sweatpants and pulls over a black hoodie from one of the many concerts she's been to.
She looks at herself briefly in the mirror by her door. Good enough, she thinks though she does smile a little, seeing the platinum blonde strands pop against her black hood. The big chop, a little late night bleach action (not without a few mistakes which were corrected by none other than Kim Jiwoo. Haewon thanks her lucky stars at least one of her friends is a hair stylist) and Haewon was brand new.
Okay maybe not brand new, but new enough.
The canvas bag hanging on the bar stool of her kitchenette is snatched as Haewon hustles out the door. She pops her headphones in while riding the elevator down, and is met with the temperate May weather and her fellow citizens of Seoul tending to their regular matters.
Haewon walks with haste down the street. She’s confident that she has enough time to run this errand before work starts. But it wouldn’t hurt to be quick. She can go grocery shopping this weekend, but for now, milk was a necessity. She doesn’t even have to think about where to go as her legs carry her to the dairy section.
She pulls out one of her earbuds and turns down her music and grabs the door to open the refrigerated selection of milk. Whole. One percent. Cashew? Gross, Haewon thinks. Her eyes then land on oatmilk she had come for. Her hand reaches out…
… and then she hears a laugh.
Haewon freezes. She feels her heart turn to stone. Eyes wide. Jaw. Stiff.
She knows that laugh.
She loved that laugh.
The girl raises up from her bent position ever so slowly, like she’s mechanical. She knows better, she knows she definitely should not look to see where the laugh came from because she thinks it sounds like Seol Yoona.
And yet she looks up anyways.
And she sees Seol Yoona.
Haewon thinks she’s going to be sick right there in the dairy aisle.
She sees Yoona, dressed in her typical Yoona-esque fit. A fitted black crop top, black cargos, and her hair spilling down like a stream, a random braid or two as well. It makes Haewon want to explode. Stupid Yoona. Stupid outfit that makes her look good. Stupid abs, stupid biceps. Stupid shampoo fairy hair.
But really, what makes Haewon want the earth to swallow her whole, is the sight of her hand being held by another.
Yoona’s hand was interlocked with a girl shorter than her. She wore baggy jeans and some vintage American basketball journey. Haewon hated to admit she had a crazy face card, and that the micro baby bangs looked so cool. Her jet black hair, a study in midnight.
The girl laughs along with Yoona. Haewon’s ex turns her head and sees Haewon, frozen. She her eyes linger, she’s not laughing anymore.
Haewon dashes out of there, slamming the door shut to the milk. In fact, she doesn’t even leave with milk. She doesn’t care. Her heartbeat is pounding in her ears and she can taste venom in her throat and if she doesn’t get home immediately she’s going to explode in front of everyone.
The elevator isn’t fast enough, Haewon runs up the stairs, gaining a second wind. She makes it to her apartment do a yells a few choice obscenities as her shaky hands fumble to press the code onto her door to unlock.
She finally gets in and immediately, she collapses. She walks but a few steps before her knees fall to the ground and she crawls to her bedroom. Haewon holds onto her arms and hugs herself as she sobs. Ugly sobs too. She cries hard. Harder than she has for a bit, almost as hard as when her and Yoona broke up.
She’s frustrated with herself. She’s been putting in the work to heal. She truly has. Haewon goes to a therapist now, seeing them every other Wednesday. She’s gotten back into some hobbies, like going to the movie theater once a week, and building legos, and she even started writing poetry again. She changed her hair. She started working out again. She calls her grandmother once a week. She’s done so much to build herself up, she’s done so much to get over Yoona.
But she hasn’t fully succeeded.
She begins to ration to herself, she only looked at me like that cause of my hair. She hasn’t seem me after I cut it short and dyed it. Of course she would look at me like that.
But then the rationalization quickly turns into a spiral. She thinks about the girl Yoona was holding hands with. She begins to talk poorly of herself and begins thinking things like, she looks fitter than me, she must be fitter than me. She looks young too. Of course, Yoona went for a beautiful younger woman instead of a dried up person like me. I bet she rides Yoona’s bike. I bet she looks good when they’re sleeping together. Yoona probably can’t get enough of her.
“What do I care? Good for her,” Haewon grumbles in between sniffles, “she’s found someone good. She’s moved on.”
She doesn’t believe herself for a second as she collapses into herself like star and begins wailing again.l The tears are hot, heavy. Her nose feels swollen. She thinks she’s genuinely going to throw up. Her chest is tight and her heart is wild. Just when she though she was turning a corner, Yoona drags her back in.
Haewon sends her boss a message. She can’t log on today, wifi problem, she lies.
Instead, she lets her hot coffee cool off on the kitchen counter, and she lies on the cold bathroom tiles, just in case she does get sick. And because she feels absolutely worthless.
At some point she falls asleep. She shivers on the floor, sniffling, crying less hard than before, but tears still stain her rosy swollen cheeks. In the weakest voice she whimpers:
“I miss you Yoona. I miss you so much.”
The heartbreak makes her feel like she’s gonna die.
June 2025
Not known for going out, Haewon feels accomplished for getting herself to the bars tonight.
Jiwoo and her girlfriend Jinsol, whom they all call Bae, invite her out for drinks and fun. Jiwoo begs Haewon to “get out of that beautifully curated cave and come live a little”. She tries to hang onto “curated” and not “cave” but Jiwoo is right. Instead of a living space, it’s Haewon’s hiding hole. Needless to say, the incident a few weeks ago has set Haewon’s healing back a bit.
But that’s behind her now. Haewon is at the bar, tequila pineapple in hand. Jiwoo did her hair, giving her a slick back look with loads of gel, freeze spray, and the magic one o little wisp free, curled in the middle of her forehead. She’s wearing pumps for the first time in ages, and one of Jiwoo’s silver dresses that maybe is a little too short but is persistent. (“you are NOT going out looking like a gay dweeb unnie!”)
Haewon’s not sure what a ‘gay dweeb’ looks but based on Jiwoo’s frustration and Bae’s giggles, she thinks she probably not too far off the mark.
The tequila pineapple is gone, It’s dangerous. It goes down like juice. She orders a second, and a third. She begins to loosen up a little. Before she knows what she’s doing, she feels her head bobbing ot the music. She smiles and looks for her friends.
Jiwoo and Bae are back at their table. Jiwoo is straddling Bae. Haewon sees the couple giggle, Jiwoo tucking a hair behind Bae’s ear and putting her face in her hands. Bae’s hands crawl down Jiwoo’s back and hold, no, grab her waist.
Haewon stops watching, her smile fallen. She remembers when her and Yoona were drunk and in love at the bar. She remembers them dancing flirtaiously out on the dance floor. She sighs thinking about the bathroom walls where Haewon was pinned against as Yoona pressed her lips into her and felt Haewon all over.
Jealousy is a disease. And Haewon’s caught it.
She had that once. She had what Jiwoo found. It’s not fair how things shook out.
It’s not fair Yoona couldn’t curb her ego for Haewon. Haewon would have done anything for Yoona. She would have stolen the stars out of the sky just to make her smile. She would have followed Yoona absolutely anywhere.
But Yoona’s hubris always seemed to get in the easy. The more you tell her not to do something, the more stubborn rebel came out. No she would not quit riding her motorcycle. No she would not stop going to dangerous rides at night with her friends. No she wouldn't quit smoking.
She wouldn’t even apologise for scaring Haewon so many times.
Haewon misses Yoona, but Yoona has a new girl, and Haewon has been left in the dust.
Haewon downs a fourth tequila pineapple. And if the universe wasn’t cruel enough, then it must’ve set out to prove itself tonight.
Oh Haewon stumbles to the DJ booth to request a song, something that will make people dance. Horse tranq music for all she cares. Maybe it’ll disrupt the lovebirds she came with from devouring each other's faces. She can barely feel her legs she feels so light. The alcohol clouds her judgement. She bobbles through the packed bar and bumps into someone wearing a leather jacket.
“Oh fuck” Haewon says.
The person turns around. It’s none other than Seol Yoona.
“Oh Haewon?”
Oh how Haewon missed hearing her name from that voice.
“Yoona-yah..” Haewon starts and then stops. Her bottom lip quivers. Her eyes become damp. The alcohol is certainly heightening her emotions right now, but she chooses not to care. She didn’t think she would ever get to stand this close to Yoona ever again.
Haewon hiccups, “Wh-where’s your girlfriend?” she tries to tease.
Yoona furrows her brow in confusion. “My girlfriend?” she stares into Haewon’s eyes, and Haewon thinks the room is starting to spin. “Oh you mean Kyujin. Oh she’s-” Yoona stops as Haewon’s index fingers is placed on Yoona’s lips.
“Actually, don’t tell me” she says. As she speaks she sways a little bit. She falls forward. Yoona catches her.
“Unnie, how much have you had to drink?”
Haewon is relegated into a fit of laughter. Her head falls forward, forehead resting on Yoona’s chest. Tall, strong, gentle Yoona. She babbles like an infant, unintelligible mutterings pour out.
“Haewon-ah? I can’t hear you”
Haewon raises her slumped head off of Yoona’s chest and looks up, her hands clamp down on Yoona’s shoulders.
“I’m so glad you’re here” her drunken smile becomes soft, genuine. She looks up to Yoona with her big brown eyes full of universes of love and tenderness.
“From now on, no more dangerous stuff,” she continues.
Yoona, lost for words looks back into the Haewon’s dreamy orbs. “Unnie-”
Haewon cocks her head to the side. “Yoona. Play safe – with me.”
Yoona blinks and tries to speak, but nothing comes out. Her arms are holding Haewon up right, and Haewon thinks she could melt right then and there. She also knows Jiwoo would kick her ass for this right now, and if Kyujin was around she probably wouldn’t appreciate the gesture.
But Haewon’s okay with getting her ass beat tonight if that means she can tell Yoona these things.
In a room full of people, loud music, and alcohol flowing like milk and honey, it’s almsot liek Yoona and Haewon are the only two people there. Haewon lazily sways as a shocked and speechless Yoona holds her.
Maybe heartbreak will kill her, but at least she’ll die here. Inebriated, light, and held by the person her red string is tied around.
***
Haewon wakes up with a pounding headache.
She rolls out of bed and makes a beeline for the bathroom. She gets sick as last night's decisions fall into the toilet.
When she’s finished, she stumbles over to her bathroom sink and puts her hands on the counter and leans her entire body weight against it.
She looks awful. Thick bags under her eyes. The freeze spray in her hair seemingly wore off as her disheveled platinum locks look like they’ve been through the ringer. A whole mess. This is why I don’t go out, she thinks to herself, Oh Haewon does not come undone like this.
But Oh Haewon did indeed come undone like that.
It all starts coming back to her, the tequila pineapples, the jealously, Yoona.
Oh fuck Yoona.
Haewon whines and smacks herself in the forehead.
“You fucking idiot. You pathetic fucking loser” she reprimands herself.
She can only imagine Yoona going home to that Kyujin girl and now haewon is going to open her phone and see a missed call from an unknown number and the fit girl with chieselde abs is going to beat her up. Plus, Jiwoo will get a few jabs in as well after she learns what Haewon has done and how she did not tell her how she got home.
“My life is fucking in shambles”
She doesn’t even want to look at her phone. She doesn’t want to face the consequence of what she’s done/ She wants to disappear. Maybe she can use up all her PTO and visit Lily in Queensland for a while until this all passes. She can said Jiwoo apology flowers and then throw her phone into the sea.
Haewon looks into her reflection in her misery and notices that she’s not wearing what she wore out last night. Her sparkly sequin silver dress swapped out for an oversized concert tee and her bear booty shorts. Did she actually have the wherewithal to change into pajamas before passing out?
She leans back to peer out the doorway and see her alarm clock. 9:30am. Haewon wasn’t known for sleeping in large, and that still carried over even when she was hungover.
Her stomach grumbles. So does she. She decides she will take her lashings after she gets something to eat and a shower. The girl splashes cold water from the sink into her face and shuffles out of her bedroom into the living room.
Then Haewon lets out a scream that could shatter glass.
“Oh you’re up”
Yoona.
Seol Yoona is sitting on Haewon’s couch.
This can’t be happening.
Yoona sits on the couch, like a scared student in the principals office. Legs together, back upright and stiff, hands clasped together. It’s only when Haewon stops screaming does she move.
“Yoona what the fuck are you doing here?”
“Did you mean it?” she asks, ignoring Haewon’s question.
“What are you talking about?” Haewon asks in frustration.
Yoona looks down at her feet and then shoots up from the couch.
“I- I brought you home last night. You were really, really drunk unnie.”
Haewon feels her cheeks grow warm out of shame.
“I didn’t want you to have anymore and you were just so drunk I called a cab, but I didn’t want you to be alone. So I came back here with you” Yoona confessed.
Haewon stays silent, but her eyes don’t leave the girl on the couch.
“I uh, helped you change into pajamas I hope that’s okay” she continues.
Haewon nods, interpreted as gratitude. Yoona nods back.
“Jiwoo knows you made it back safe. She kinda saw us leave together but I called her as soon as you went to bed.”
Haewon tries to ignore the way her heart is skipping beats in her chest, overwhelmed by the information given to her.
“Why did you stay?” she final asks, barely above a whisper.
Yoona fidgets with her hands and takes a step to Haewon.
“I just wanted to make sure nothing went wrong, especially if you got sick or couldn't make it to the bathroom. I wanted to make sure you made it through the night.”
Haewon frowns. She feels weak. “You could have asked Jiwoo to come. She would’ve.”
“I- I know that” Yoona shyly answers.
Haewon rushes forward and shoves her ex.
“Haewon what the-”
All the emotion built up in her chest finally bursts out like water from a fire hydrant. Haewon lets her tears fall and the heat in her cheeks rise.
“Yoona you can’t just prince charming your way back here,” she begins, her lips wobbling, “I haven’t seen you for seven months, Seol Yoona, seven.”
Yoona stays quiet and receives all of Haewon’s pain.
“After the break up, we didn’t speak. I gave you your space. But I also needed to heal. It hurt, Yoona. Our break up heart so fucking bad. Seeing you hurt me so bad”
Haewon notices Yoona’s lip begin to quiver as she speaks up, voice raised, “Then why did you do it?”
Haewon grits her teeth. “You know why, Yoona.”
“You could have called.”
“Could I? Really Could I have called?” Haewon fights back, “Before I knew it, you were boo’d up with some younger girl.” Haewon feels like a vein is going to pop.
“That girl and I went on 2 dates Haewon.”
“But aren’t you-”
“I’m not seeing anyone, Haewon. I waited for a long time, and then one of my friends set me up with Kyujin, that was the first time since we broke up. We went on 2 dates and that was it.”
“I- I didn’t-”
“You didn’t know. Yeah I know that.” Yoona replies, her own emotions displayed. “Haewon I miss you.”
She wasn’t quite sure how she was standing up right. The room was spinning and her legs felt weak.
I miss you too, Yoona, she thinks but doesn’t say.
The two stand there, two feet apart, then one foot. Yoona steps close into Haewon, aware of the risks of potentially being shoved again.
“I don’t want anyone else. And I don’t want you to want anyone else. I didn’t want anyone else taking care of you last night. I wanted to be the one who got you home safe, who helped you get ready for bed. I’m selfish, Haewon, I know that. But I want to be yours, I want to keep growing with you.”
“I waited by your bedside until I knew you were asleep. You held my hand and I couldn’t contain my tears. You looked so bad, and I wanted to make it better. I wanted to hold you, but I thought I shouldn’t. What if you woke up scared wondering why the hell are my arms are you? So I slept on the couch and woke up about an hour ago, waiting for you.”
“Haewon I’m sorry.”
And right there, Oh Haewon broke. The words she wanted to hear for so long but never. Was it too late?
Yoona continued, “I’m sorry for how many times I’ve scared you. When you were half conscious and hiccuping, you just looked so.. Awful, I was scared. I was scared to leave your bedside in case you threw up. You know how people die from that right? I was so terrified, and I realized, that’s how I made you feel each and every time, and I’m sure it was even worse sometimes.”
Haewon wept. “When you got into that last accident, if you had told me ‘Baby, I’m sorry’.. If you’d just said that. We wouldn’t have broken up.”
Yoona’s own tears began to fall.
Haewon fell into Yoona. Her left fist hitting Yoona’s shoulder as she cried. “It’s all your fault, you idiot.”
Yoona. Patient Yoona, took the beating until Haewon fatigued out. They stood now, a foot from each other, the seconds moving slowly, staring into each other's eyes.
“I love you,” Haewon confessed through tears.
“Haewon-ah” Yoona whispered. The taller girl stepped forward and held onto Haewon’s hands. Delicate, soft, just as Haewon remembered. The hands of the girl she loved most in the world. She was furious, but it was love in disguise. There’s no one Haewon would feel this way for ever, not ever again if it wasn’t Seol Yoona. She wept and felt humiliated at Yoona watching her cry.
Yoona squeezed her hands softly and leaned forward, placing a kiss on Haewon’s forehead.
“Yoona-”
“Haewon. I sold the bike.”
The world froze right there. Haewon wanted to pinch herself, test to see if she was dreaming or not. She looked into Yoona’s own warm, brown eyes. She tried to smile, but she just couldn't stop crying. She leaned forward, throwing her arms around Yoona’s neck and shoulders, her own shaking as she cried, but this time, it was tears of relief.
Yoona rubbed Haewon’s back, drawing delicate circles that made Haewon’s heart leap. She hummed and repeated, “I’m sorry. I love you so much. I’m so sorry.”
Haewon leaned back to look into the face of her muse again, placing her hands on her cheeks. “Jiwoo is gonna kill me” she laughed through her tears, yoona doing the same.
“Oh Seol Yoona, I love you so much.”
Yoon sniffed and nodded, “The platinum looks really good, my love.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Yoona answered, closing the gap between the two and softly landing a kiss on Haewon’s lips.
***
Haewon’s phone buzzed in her bed. Many unanswered calls and messages, but the most important, from Kim Jiwoo.
[puppy jjyu]
oh haewon. as soon as you and yoona get back together and finish kissing, CALL ME!!!
And
[puppy jjyu]
also jinsolie says congrats but we are celebrating with ice cream next time no alcohol.