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There's glitter on the floor after the party
Girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby
Candle wax and Polaroids on the hardwood floor
You and me from the night before, but
New Year’s Day by Taylor Swift.
Nayeon almost says no.
She’s standing in front of her closet, her phone pressed to her ear and Jihyo’s voice is bright and insistent on the other end. There’s a dress draped over her arm she hasn’t worn yet, tags still on, and bought impulsively months ago.
“Come on,” Jihyo says on the other line. “It’s not that kind of party. Just friends. Music. Food. I promise!”
“But Jihyo,” She says, looking at her own reflection in the mirror. “I don’t have any energy on meeting new people.”
“You don’t have to meet everyone!” Jihyo says, “Just one. Maybe two if you’re feeling wild.”
Nayeon laughs, because when was the last time she’d entertained someone like that?
Like, on a date?
Oh yeah, right.
Just two years ago.
With her ex-girlfriend.
“My girlfriend is hosting,” Jihyo adds, her voice softening. “And she’s convinced no one’s going to show up. I already told her my friends would be there.”
“So,” Nayeon says, arching a brow at what she just heard, “you’re emotionally blackmailing me.”
“Yes,” Jihyo replies cheerfully. “With love.”
Nayeon groans, dragging a hand down her face, but she’s smiling anyway. Jihyo has always known how to ask without pushing.
And Jihyo knows she can’t say no to her best friend.
“Come on,” Jihyo says gently. “You don’t have to talk to everyone and you don’t have to stay long! Just show up.”
Nayeon looks at the dress again.
“Fine,” she says. “But if I leave early, I’m blaming you.”
She can practically hear Jihyo pumping her fist in the air. “Thank you! I owe you one!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Nayeon mutters, rolling her eyes fondly.
When the line disconnects, she tosses her phone onto the bed and slips the dress on, looking back at her reflection in the mirror.
She looks pretty good.
More than good, actually.
And for the first time in a long while, she isn’t dressing for anyone else.
-
Don't read the last page
But I stay when you're lost, and I'm scared
And you're turning away
I want your midnights
But I'll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day
Mina says yes without thinking.
Sana asks while they’re walking to the parking lot after shift, her arm looped casually through her best friend’s.
“You’re not on call tomorrow, right?” Sana asks.
Mina blinks. “No? What’s with tomorrow?”
“New Year’s Eve!” Sana says, grinning. “I’m hosting a New Year’s Eve party tomorrow, remember? And I refuse to let you spend it alone or working again.”
That makes Mina pause.
Last year, she’d been on call and spending her holidays in the hospital.
Again.
Just like the previous year.
But this time, something in her stirs at the thought of breaking the pattern.
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll come.”
Sana looks momentarily surprised because Mina rarely agrees so easily, but then she flashes her a smile. “Yes! I knew you’d say that.”
At home, Mina stands in her bedroom, her eyes fixed on her last white coat for the week. The others are already at the cleaners. This one would’ve been hers if she agreed to take the on-call shift tomorrow.
Suddenly, her phone dings.
A message from her colleague, asking if she could take the shift tomorrow. The whole department knows that Myoui Mina is a sucker for covering other shifts and Mina bets that she’s the first one he asked.
She hesitates, even though a part of her always wants to say yes, but then she shakes her head and types a refusal.
Besides, she’s planning to resign anyway. Maybe having a small clinic in the middle of the city instead of working in a big hospital.
There’s no need to work hard anymore.
She already got what she wanted.
Well, not everything.
The doctor looks back at the white coat. Her hands hover over it, then she closes the closet door, leaving it behind.
She chooses a dress for the party instead.
-
You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi
I can tell that it's gonna be a long road
I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe
Or if you strike out and you're crawling home
Nayeon tells herself she’s only stopping by for a few minutes.
She’s already late for the party, which is on brand, and the mall is still stubbornly dressed in Christmas with overhead speakers playing something cheerful and lights refusing to come down just because the year is ending.
She has her phone in her hand, her thumb hovering over Jihyo’s name.
“You’re unbelievable,” Nayeon mutters as she dials.
Jihyo answers on the second ring. “Hi to you too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me it was Sana’s birthday?” Nayeon demands, passing through a group of people near the escalator.
There’s a pause.
“Because it was two days ago?”
“That’s not an answer.”
Jihyo laughs. “I didn’t think you were coming to the party anyway.”
“That’s not the point,” Nayeon says. “Jeongyeon told me. Jeongyeon! Do you know how offended I am that I had to hear it from her?”
“You love being offended.”
“Only when it’s justified,” Nayeon replies, stopping in front of a small home goods store. “I’m getting her something. Didn’t she like coffee?”
“Yes, but you don’t have to—”
“I know,” Nayeon cuts her off, already stepping inside. “But I want to.”
Jihyo hums fondly. “You’re a good friend.”
“Don’t get sentimental on me,” Nayeon says, though she’s smiling. “Just promise me you’ll warn me next time you’re dating someone important.”
“Too late for that.”
Nayeon scoffs, hangs up, and finally lets herself look around.
The store is warm and quiet compared to the hallway outside. The shelves are lined with things that feel meant to be held. It was full of mugs and candles. She slows, fingers trailing along the edge of a display.
She wants something small, but thoughtful. Something that says I see you without saying I tried too hard.
Then, a mug catches her eye.
It was a cream colored mug and slightly imperfect. There are little blue and yellow stars scattered across it like someone had pressed the night sky into clay.
She smiles without thinking.
“This is such a Sana thing,” she murmurs, lifting it carefully.
She imagines Sana’s face and as always, it’s bright and stunning, and she would be insisting she didn’t need to get anything. Nayeon turns the mug in her hands, already certain about her choice.
A few aisles away, if Nayeon would walk a few steps, she’ll see someone familiar.
She hadn’t meant to come in here.
Mina stands in front of a rack of scarves, her hands buried in the pockets of her coat. She’s been here longer than she meant to be, caught in the same loop of I don’t need anything and I should bring something to the party.
Mina reaches for a scarf without thinking.
It’s soft and the kind of thing you’d wear every day.
Her hand remains a little longer on the fabric.
For a split second, her chest tightens for no reason she can name.
She lets the scarf fall back into place and steps away.
A few aisles over, Nayeon sets the mug into her basket and exhales, relieved.
Like she’s crossed something off a list she didn’t realize she was carrying.
And then, she proceeds to the counter.
Mina walks over to another aisle and doesn’t notice the woman who just left a few seconds before her.
The shelves are full of mugs and candles, her hand hovers on the cream-colored mugs and notices the candles on the other.
She chooses a simple candle. It has a simple, clean scent, and something Sana would like.
She tells herself she’s done.
Then she hears it, right across the counter of the store.
Not clearly, but not enough to place it.
Just a voice. It was light and familiar in a way that makes her chest tighten before she understands why.
Mina freezes and her brows knit together.
For half a second, she considers following it. Like turning the corner and letting herself check who it was.
She doesn’t.
She exhales through her nose and shakes her head, almost embarrassed.
You’re imagining things, she tells herself. It’s been two years.
Across the store, Nayeon pauses for no reason at all. A strange heaviness settles between her ribs, brief and inexplicable.
She frowns and presses a hand to her chest.
“God,” she mutters, “what is that?”
It passes as quickly as it came.
Nayeon leaves in the front door with a neatly wrapped mug and the faint feeling she’s forgotten something important.
On the other end of the store, Mina adjusts her grip on the candle and proceeds to the check-out counter. By the time she reaches the door, the feeling has dulled into something manageable.
Mina exits through a different door, a candle tucked under her arm, unaware that she’d just breathed the same air, stood under the same lights, and existed with Nayeon in the same moment.
They don’t hear the door open or close.
And they don’t know someone else just decided not to look.
The red string doesn’t tug.
It just tightens, quietly, waiting for a night loud enough to pull them together.
-
Please don't ever become a stranger
Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
Please don't ever become a stranger
Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
Sana’s apartment is already loud when Nayeon arrives.
Not loud in the overwhelming way, but just alive. The apartment is big enough to accommodate a lot of people with the music humming through the speakers, glasses clinking, and laughter bouncing off walls.
Nayeon steps inside, shrugging off her coat and putting it on the coat rack just right behind the door, her gift bag tucked under her arm.
Warmth greets her immediately as soon as she steps in, Jihyo wraps her arms around her shoulders.
“Wow,” she says, scanning the room. “She really went all out.”
Jihyo grins, already halfway gone, pulled away by someone calling her name. “Told you. Make yourself at home.”
And just like that, Nayeon is on her own.
But not lonely.
She moves easily through the apartment, the way she’s learned to do now.
Nayeon is unafraid of space and of pauses.
She accepts a drink from Jeongyeon, laughs when Dahyun says something ridiculous, compliments Chaeyoung on the playlist and means it.
She doesn’t brace herself.
She doesn’t look for exits.
This is who she is now.
Someone who stays.
She sets Sana’s gift down on the kitchen counter with the others. The bag is already open, and the cream-colored mug sits softly among brighter wrapping paper, tiny stars catching the light like they’re meant to be noticed later.
Somewhere behind her, the front door opens again.
Mina steps inside, the candle tucked carefully in her hand.
She pauses just past the threshold, taking all in the noise, the warmth, and the way the place feels full without being suffocating.
It takes her a second to breathe it in.
Sana beams when she spots her. “You made it!”
“Yeah,” Mina says, smiling back. “Happy birthday. Again.”
She places the candle gently with the rest of the gifts, right beside a mug she doesn’t really look at.
It was cream-colored and had a familiar shape.
She doesn’t linger long enough to wonder why.
The music changes and Mina looks over, seeing a woman with tattoos who’s in charge of the music. Sana gained a lot of friends after dating her gym buddy named Park Jihyo a few months ago. She still didn’t meet her, but Mina hopes she will at the end of the night.
Mina sticks close to the edges at first, talking with Momo and Tzuyu, listening more than speaking. Most of the faces are unfamiliar and guess they are Jihyo’s friends, Sana’s friends, and people who seem already woven into each other’s lives.
Mina doesn’t mind.
She’s learned how to exist quietly in crowded rooms.
Then she hears it.
It slips through the music and the chatter, through clinking glasses and someone shouting lyrics off-key.
A laugh.
Bright.
Unmistakable.
And gone before she can turn her head fast enough.
She freezes.
Her grip tightens around her drink, her knuckles whitening.
That laugh. She thinks, I could recognize it anywhere.
She knows it the way you know your own name and the way your body reacts before your mind can catch up.
It’s not loud and it’s not meant for her.
That almost makes it worse.
Mina scans the room.
There are people everywhere. There are Sana’s friends, Jihyo’s friends, people Mina vaguely recognizes, and others she doesn’t.
The room is alive, chaotic, and glowing with end-of-year energy.
I shouldn’t be doing this, she tells herself. I shouldn’t be looking.
Another burst of laughter cuts through the noise.
Closer this time.
Mina’s heart stutters, then settles into a dull, aching rhythm. She turns slowly, eyes searching where that familiar laugh is coming from.
A girl with dark hair laughing into her friend’s shoulder.
Not her.
Another laugh near the kitchen.
Again, not her.
Someone cheering near the couch.
You’re imagining it, she thinks. You want to hear her.
She takes a breath, forces herself to look down at her drink, and letting the moment pass.
Then, the night keeps moving.
They orbit the same rooms without touching them at the same time.
Nayeon drifts toward the balcony when the living room gets too warm, her glass sweating in her hand. She slides the door open and lets the cold rush in. She presses her palms to the railing, breathing out into the night.
Inside, Mina takes the empty spot Nayeon just left, leaning back against the counter, and listening to Sana talk about nothing and everything. Mina listens, nods, and smiles when expected.
Across the glass, Nayeon shivers, suddenly aware of the cold and suddenly aware of a strange ache she can’t trace. She rubs her arms, glances back inside like she’s forgotten something.
She hasn’t.
Not really.
For a moment, just a moment, Mina lifts her gaze from her glass without knowing why.
Across from her, the balcony door is still swinging slightly, curtain fluttering like someone’s just passed through. Just a crack and it’s enough to let the winter air slip inside, enough to make the curtains shiver. It’s out of place in a room full of warmth and noise, laughter stacked on laughter, and glasses refilled before they’re empty.
The countdown starts somewhere in the apartment.
A lot of voices start to overlap.
Someone turns the music down. Nayeon guesses it was Chaeyoung.
And someone else shouts too early. Mina guesses it was Momo.
Ten.
Mina glances toward the balcony without thinking.
Her chest tightens.
She doesn’t know why.
There is a familiar woman standing there.
She’s leaning on the railings and her hand wrapped around a glass she isn’t drinking from. The city lights spill in behind her, soft and distant, like the night is holding its breath.
Nine.
It isn’t immediate recognition.
It never is.
It’s a shape at first. A familiarity that slips under her ribs before it reaches her mind.
The slope of a shoulder.
The way someone stands slightly apart from the noise, like they’re listening from inside themselves.
Mina’s heart stutters.
It isn’t panic and it isn’t longing sharp enough to hurt.
It’s something gentler and heavier.
Eight.
Mina doesn’t move right away.
She watches Nayeon tilt her head back, her eyes closed and lips curved in a small smile, like she’s saying goodbye to something only she can see.
Like she’s thanking the year for what it taught her.
Seven.
Mina tells herself she doesn’t need to go out there.
And that she can stay where she is.
Let the year end without rekindling anything.
Six.
Her feet move anyway.
The cold air brushes her face as she steps closer, wanting to see if the woman standing in the balcony is real.
Five.
Nayeon opens her eyes.
For a moment, she thinks she’s imagined it.
The way grief used to do tricks like that.
But Mina is there and she was real, framed by the door like she’s always belonged in this quiet space.
Four.
Nayeon’s smile fades but not in panic and not in pain, just in understanding.
The kind that comes from having loved someone long enough to recognize them anywhere.
For a heartbeat, neither of them speaks.
Three.
They are only a few feet apart, separated by a balcony door and a cluster of people who don’t know what they’re standing between.
Mina thinks, absurdly, She looks happy.
Nayeon thinks, just as quietly, She looks well.
Mina stops just inside the balcony. She doesn’t cross the threshold. She lets Nayeon decide the distance.
This time, she decides.
She always does.
And always will.
Two.
Nayeon exhales.
Not surprised.
And this time, not afraid.
She steps closer.
One.
“Happy New Year!”
The sound washes over them from inside the apartment, muffled by glass and cold air. The fireworks burst in the sky, reflected in Nayeon’s eyes.
For a second, they stand there on the balcony.
Two people who loved each other once, who learned how to live without it, and meeting at the edge of something new.
Mina speaks first.
“Hi.”
Nayeon smiles.
Not the kind that hurts.
The kind that means I’m okay.
“Hi,” she replies.
The door stays open.
Just like how their hearts for each other were.
Please don't ever become a stranger
(To the memories, they will hold on to you)
Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
(Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you)
Please don't ever become a stranger
(Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you)
Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
(I will hold on to you)