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Oh Haewon likes order—she likes routine.
She has to, to survive.
There are plenty of things she can’t control: the mess that is the inside of her bag at all times, the way her headphones always end up in a tangled ball. Her tiny studio apartment, cramped and disorganized, because she doesn’t have time to make it better—doesn’t have time to make it her own. Her diet, because she doesn’t have time to make it better. Her mental health, because she doesn’t have time to—
She has to like routine, to make it through her days—her weeks, her months, the year. She has to embrace it.
Every day has to fit the mold she has found for it: wake up early, prep for seminars; go to campus, wrangle the freshmen, take on whatever other work her advisor wants her to, lead discussion groups and hold office hours and get him his coffee; go to her own classes, and handle her own course load; spend her lunch break and any free time at all working on her research and the most recent draft of her dissertation; watch her advisor take a red pen to said work until it feels like she has to start at square one. No time to rest, no time for dinner—no, not for Haewon, who has to take the bus across town to clock in for her shift at the gogijib and work until closing. By the time she’s done, it’s already after one, and she catches another bus home, back to that cluttered, lonely studio apartment, where she shampoos the grill smoke out of her hair then collapses into bed so that she can do it all over again in the morning.
She knows it’s not forever, but god, sometimes it really, really feels like it will be.
The one bright spot to her routine—the one pocket of peace and calm in the hurricane of her schedule—is the stop she lets herself make between getting off the bus and walking home.
There's a convenience store a few blocks from Haewon’s bus stop. It's technically in the wrong direction—technically not the closest to her apartment, either, but the closer option requires walking past her apartment and down another block, which feels worse somehow. She'd rather stop on the way home, even if it means walking a block in the wrong direction.
She likes to stop and eat before she gets home. She likes the twenty minutes of peace and quiet somewhere that isn't her dark, empty apartment, somewhere that feels marginally less lonely but devoid of the stresses of her everyday, devoid of the weight of academia and the smoke of the gogijib.
She likes Lily, too.
Sometimes it feels like she’s surfacing from underwater when she walks through the doors of the store, like she can breathe for the first time all day when she sees the smile on Lily’s face, hears her cheery, warm greeting.
She tells herself that it’s because sometimes Lily’s is the first friendly face she’s seen all day—because Lily is the only person she sees who doesn’t expect anything from her.
They’re not friends, not exactly, but Haewon likes to think that they could be, some day. Or maybe—
The convenience store is Haewon’s favorite part of her routine. She spends a few minutes picking through the ramyun and the snacks, puts together a—very unhealthy—dinner for herself, and then she eats it at the narrow counter that runs along the shop’s front window.
Lily’s polite customer service had morphed into something more genuine once she started seeing Haewon every week night; she’s unbelievably kind and unerringly observant, which Haewon had discovered as Lily began gently prodding at her with small talk—commenting on her choice of snacks, complimenting her bangs the day after she chopped them shorter in a fit of annoyance, offering Haewon her umbrella one night when she noticed that Haewon didn’t have one and it was beginning to drizzle outside. Haewon had been slow to open up, but Lily was an unstoppable force, and Haewon found that she was starting to look forward to their conversations at the register, that she wanted to get to know her better. She’d started asking Lily about herself, asking when her break was—offering for Lily to join her at the counter, if she wanted to. Asking about her hobbies, what she did when she wasn’t at work. Her blood type, what year she was born, where her accent came from.
Eventually, they’d found a little routine of their own, much the same every night: Haewon gets off of her bus between one thirty or two and walks down the street to the convenience store. Lily abandons the register as soon as she walks in, helps her pick out her dinner, and then she takes her break and sits with Haewon while she eats as they talk about anything and nothing—about the store’s other late-night regulars, or about the kids in Haewon’s freshman seminar. About the stray cats outside that Lily feeds every night, or the customers at the gogijib. About Haewon’s exhaustion or Lily’s caffeine habit, really a sugar habit, which Haewon has started to tease her about just to see how pink her face can get.
“You should just drink coffee milk,” she’d said, the first time Lily offered her a sip of her most recent breaktime concoction. It was sweet enough to make Haewon’s teeth ache.
Lily had gasped, hand to her heart. “That’s not true! It’s not that bad,” she’d replied, as if Haewon hadn’t just watched her pour a box of cookies-and-cream milk into her iced coffee.
Sometimes Lily eats dinner, too, picking out the same ramyun as Haewon, both of them adding their hot water hip-to-hip.
Haewon grows increasingly fond of Lily’s smiling face waiting for her, of her daily greeting: “Haewon-ssi! How are you?”
“You can just call me Haewon,” she says one night, ignoring the burn of a flush over her cheeks.
Lily’s mouth rounds into an o of surprise for a moment, but it melts into a pleased, shy smile. “Then you should call me unnie,” she offers, and Haewon ignores the uptick in her pulse, the warmth in her belly at the thought of it. Lily blinks at her, sweet. Terribly earnest. “Please?”
How could Haewon say no?
✧
Lily introduces Haewon to the cats outside—this one’s Luna, she says, nodding to the black cat winding around her feet, her adorable accent coming out as she pronounces the cat’s name in English, and this one’s Nabi, and Mandu, and that’s Dubu—and lets Haewon help her feed them dinner. Haewon notices the well-worn notebook behind the register one night; Lily shyly, haltingly admits that she’s a singer, a songwriter. It’s why she works weeknights, she tells Haewon—it leaves the rest of her schedule open for trying to find singing gigs, for attempting to sell her songs. Her dream is to release her own music—to write, record and publish her own album. She’s hesitant to talk about it, and Haewon can see when a subject is sensitive, so she doesn’t push.
Over time, their stools move closer to each other, their elbows brushing as they eat. Their conversations grow deeper, more meaningful instead of carefully sticking to easier topics. Haewon opens up about her hectic life, about how bone deep her weariness is. About being terrified every time she turns in a draft of her dissertation, no matter how passionate she feels about her research. My advisor is—particular. Specific. I know it’s because he believes I can do better, but some days—
Lily’s smile had been understanding, her fingers warm when they brushed over the back of Haewon’s hand on the counter.
They talk about Lily’s fear of failure. About the way Lily’s had writer’s block for what feels like a year—no songs will come to her, any lyrics she thinks up ending after only a line or two, paper torn and crumpled, thrown in the trash. Maybe it’s a sign, she sighs, and even though she’s smiling, it doesn’t reach her eyes. It makes Haewon’s heart ache. Maybe the universe is telling me that it’s time for me to give it up and move on from my—silly little dream. She shrugs, jokes that she can pick up karaoke as a hobby when she wants to sing; she doesn’t need to be a songwriter.
Haewon doesn’t like to see her so downtrodden, full of doubt—it makes her chest feel hollow. “Don’t say that, unnie.” Someone like you deserves to have all of their dreams come true, she thinks. “I’m sure a song will come.”
Lily’s smile widens, just a little, and the pain in Haewon’s chest eases. “I hope it will.”
✧
“I’m jealous of how persistent you are,” Lily says one night, apropos of nothing, her chopsticks hovering over the top of her ramyun. Steam rises from the paper bowl lazily, curls in the air between them.
All Haewon has been doing is complaining about her dissertation again, about dragging herself back to the library to pull more articles. She doesn’t feel persistent; she feels tired. But she understands it, she thinks. She sees things in Lily she wishes she could feel within herself—she gets the desire to put that into words. “I envy you,” she says, and it makes her smile when Lily’s eyes widen, her brow wrinkling.
“Me?”
“Of course, unnie.” Haewon sets her chopsticks down on top of her own ramyun, swivels just enough on her stool that her knee brushes against Lily’s. It bolsters her when Lily doesn’t move away. “I wish I could be as brave as you.”
“I’m not—” Lily starts, but Haewon shakes her head.
“You are. You dream so big, even when the world can seem so small. You’re always smiling, unnie, no matter what, and you always ask me how I am, even when I can tell you’ve had a rough day yourself. Of course you’re brave.”
Lily’s cheeks are more pink than Haewon’s ever seen, her wide eyes bright under the store’s flat, cool lighting. Her mouth wobbles. “Haewon.”
Haewon reaches out, sets her hand on Lily’s back, just between her shoulder blades. Rubs her palm up and down Lily’s spine, just for a moment, the most they’ve ever touched. The most she’s allowed herself to have.
It’s been becoming painfully clear to her that she has feelings for Lily, feelings that seem to grow stronger every day. Every time she steps foot into this store; every time she closes her eyes during a particularly tough moment in her day and thinks of Lily’s face, of seeing her smile.
But it would be wrong to pursue something too aggressively. It would be wrong to put pressure on Lily—on someone who’s probably just being nice because it’s her job to be. Someone who is the kindest person Haewon thinks she’s ever met. Someone who spreads joy and light without even realizing it, because it’s in her nature.
Not because she feels the same way.
The ache of wanting someone isn’t foreign to Haewon, but neither is the fear of ruining the precious thing you have, this little bubble of happiness you’ve managed to foster when everything else can feel so bleak. Haewon understands the gravity of it, understands the risk of mistaking kindness for affection.
With Lily—with this precious thing Haewon is somehow lucky enough to have found—it’s not a risk she’s willing to take.
“Haewon,” Lily says again, “I—”
Haewon pulls her hand back, grabs her chopsticks. “You should eat the rest of your dinner before it gets cold, unnie.”
Lily swallows, and then she nods, reaching for her ramyun, dipping her chopsticks into the bowl.
✧
It’s nearly three when Haewon all but stumbles into the convenience store one spring night, the coat she grabbed in the morning far too thin for the lingering chill in the air, although that’s the least of her problems. She’d tied her knotted hair back on the bus, had rubbed away any traces of ruined makeup as best she could; she can only hope she doesn’t look nearly as bad as she feels.
“Haewon,” Lily calls from behind the register, “how are you?”
Haewon almost doesn’t want to meet her eyes; she doesn’t want to see what pity looks like on Lily’s beautiful face.
Maybe it’s not that bad—maybe it’s not obvious that she’s falling apart. Maybe the night air helped make her face less puffy.
Of course, when she looks up and meets Lily’s eyes, Lily’s smile falters, slides right off of her face altogether, her brow wrinkling with concern. “Haewon?”
Haewon was stupid to think she could hide it.
It feels like her entire day has been cursed, from the moment she woke up.
She overslept, somehow missing all three of her alarms; she didn’t have time to do any prep work or grab breakfast on the way to campus, barely making it in time for her first seminar, only to find out that the file with her discussion points had gotten corrupted and refused to open. She had to run the class off the cuff, which she absolutely hates doing, and then afterwards her advisor decided it was the perfect day to rip her latest draft to shreds.
At work—already exhausted, emotionally and physically—she managed to drop a full tray of soju and the accompanying glasses, and not only did she soak herself, but it’s all going to come out of her paycheck, which is going to ruin her budget for the month.
To top it all off, by the time she managed to clean everything up—the glass, the soju, herself—her closing tasks had piled higher and higher, and she missed her usual bus home.
Gone was her routine—gone was her hope of finally getting to eat something more filling than junk from a campus vending machine, her hope of making it home at a ‘reasonable’ hour and having enough time to take a nice hot shower before bed.
She’d thought missing the bus was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but waiting forty minutes in the cold for the next one really pushed her over the edge, breaking the tenuous hold she’d managed to keep on her composure.
At least she’d been alone at the bus stop, so no one had to bear witness to her crying, searching fruitlessly in her overstuffed bag for a tissue.
She’s sure her eyes are still red-rimmed, her nose pink, but she thinks she’s managed to at least stop shaking. “I’m fine,” she says, brushing Lily off as best she can. As aggressively as she’s willing to, which isn’t very aggressively at all.
She slips into the ramyun aisle before Lily can ask any more questions, but Lily is undeterred. She appears at Haewon’s side, and though Haewon doesn’t want to look at her, pretending to be engrossed in choosing which noodles to buy, her warm fingers brush over the back of Haewon’s hand and then close around her wrist.
A riot of emotions swells in Haewon’s chest, clogs her throat. Her eyes burn no matter how hard she tries to stop it; Lily sighs next to her, says her name so softly, and the next thing Haewon knows, she’s being pulled into a hug. Their first.
Haewon bursts into tears.
Horrifying, embarrassing tears—sobbing, really, gasping for breath and pressing her face to Lily’s shoulder, clinging to her. She feels pathetic and lost and small and like a complete failure. Like she doesn’t know what she’s doing with her life.
Lily holds her under the hum of the fluorescent lights, in between shelves of ramyun and instant rice and potato chips; she rubs her hands over Haewon’s back and tells her it’s okay. It’s okay, Haewonnie. It’s okay to be tired. It’s okay to need help.
It’s okay to not be okay.
It feels like time slows down; it feels like forever before Haewon finally calms, her tears tapering off, her breathing returning to normal. Lily squeezes her a little before she lets her go, keeping her hands on Haewon’s shoulders when she pulls back like she’s holding Haewon in place to study her. Like she’s holding Haewon together.
Haewon sniffles, salt still stinging her eyes, the skin of her cheeks sticky and tight from her tears. She must look absolutely awful, but Lily smiles at her, and she returns it automatically, the worst of her dolor drained for now.
“Better?”
She blinks, tries not to sway into Lily’s space when Lily lets her go. “Yeah. Thank you, unnie.”
“Of course.”
Lily peers around; she backs to the end of the aisle, looks out into the rest of the store, and Haewon realizes with a shock that anyone could have walked in and seen her having a meltdown. Embarrassment makes her flush with heat, but then Lily is turning back towards her.
“Why don’t you grab whatever you want for dinner, and then I’ll lock up and walk you home?”
Haewon balks—Lily can’t just do that for her—though part of her delights in the idea. Lily would do that for her?
“It’s fine,” she says, knowing it’s the right thing to do, knowing she shouldn’t ask more of Lily than she’s already given. “It would practically be breakfast now anyway, I should just—”
“Haewon.” Lily’s tone is still gentle, but it’s more firm than Haewon’s ever heard. Serious. “Pick out what you want and then we’ll go. I’ll be back before the morning shift team shows up, and even if I wasn’t, they won’t care.”
Haewon swallows down any continued refusal. “Okay, unnie.”
Lily smiles, pleased, and bustles off to do whatever she needs to so that she can close up the store; Haewon finds her favorite ramyun, decides to treat herself—may as well after this horrible day—and hunts down sliced cheese and boiled eggs. She decides to skip the snacks, but when she gets to the register, Lily already has some of her favorites there, chips and candy and a cider, and Haewon is horrified to find herself feeling choked up again, overwhelmed with gratitude, unused to feeling so seen. So known.
Lily scans the items, slips them into a bag. Haewon goes for her phone to pay, but Lily brushes her off, tapping her own phone to the screen before Haewon can stop her. “Unnie’s treat,” she says, and she’s not teasing, not smug, her smile completely genuine.
Haewon swallows around the lump in her throat, takes the bag from Lily’s outstretched hand. “Thank you.”
She waits by the door as Lily finishes closing up. She does something to the register, scribbles on a piece of paper she tears out of her notebook—leaving a note, probably—and then flicks the lights off before meeting Haewon at the door. “Ready?”
Haewon nods, and then follows Lily out into the cold, watches her lock the doors.
Night is beginning to thin out into dawn as they walk, the pale blue glow of first light leaking into the sky. The streets are empty around them, no one else out at this hour, and when Haewon reaches haltingly for Lily’s hand, Lily takes it without hesitation, lacing their fingers together—an anchor in Haewon’s stormy sea.
Haewon’s heart sings. Maybe this day wasn’t cursed after all.
It’s not a long trip; they walk in companionable, comfortable silence, their joined hands swinging between them, and every time Haewon looks at Lily, she catches her looking away.
“I’m sorry,” she finally says when they’re almost to her building. “I didn’t mean to freak out—”
Lily squeezes her hand, cuts her off before she can spiral. “It’s fine, really. I freak out all the time! I cry when one of the cats doesn’t show up for dinner, or when I see a commercial that’s too sad, or when I bang my knee on that same stupid corner shelf in the store that I always run into when I come out of the back room.”
It’s clear that she’s rambling to lighten the mood, to make Haewon smile, and it works, keeping her tethered to the now—to this perfect moment with Lily’s hand in hers—instead of letting her sink back into her despair.
Haewon’s apartment building looms ahead, and she slows to a stop, lets go of Lily’s hand. Her fingertips graze over Lily’s palm as she pulls away—her eyes graze over Lily’s face, taking her in, this unbelievable, amazing girl. This ray of sunlight who came out of nowhere, slipping so neatly into Haewon’s hectic life. This person who makes Haewon reinspect her own feelings about self-sufficiency, her resignation that she’s better off alone. This person who understands her in a way that it feels like no one else does. This person who makes her understand that she doesn’t have to be lonely—that she doesn’t want to be lonely. This person who makes her want, for the first time in a long time, more. Not just more between them—sure now that the risk would be worth it—but more for herself, too. A better balance; a fuller existence. Happiness, and not just for fleeting moments, not just in stolen, companionable pockets of night.
She deserves more, and she can see that now, thanks to Lily. They both deserve more.
Haewon takes in the soft smile on Lily’s face, makes herself take a breath. “I’d like to see you more, unnie. Maybe during the daytime?”
Lily’s grin splits her face wide open, and Haewon can only imagine how beautiful she’d look in the sunlight. “I’d like that too. Very much.”
Before Haewon can say anything else, Lily darts closer, and then she’s pressing a soft kiss to Haewon’s cheek, her lips just barely brushing the corner of Haewon’s mouth. Haewon’s certain her heart stops for a split second.
When Lily pulls away, she’s flushed pink, easy to see even in the weak pre-dawn light, and Haewon’s cheeks ache from smiling. “There’s that bravery I talked about.”
They exchange numbers, fumbling with each other's phones, cold fingers knocking together. Haewon already wants to hold her hand again.
“I might not be at the store for a few nights,” she says, having made a decision as they walked to take a few days off from work. “I’m going to try to get some real sleep—revisit my draft with a clearer head.”
Lily’s unspoken approval is glowing and obvious, and the desire to reach for her hands is eclipsed entirely by the need to kiss her for real. Haewon’s moving before she can stop herself, cupping Lily’s warm cheeks with her bare hands, pressing their mouths together. It’s a short kiss, a soft kiss—a dry brush of lips, Lily gasping against Haewon’s mouth. Haewon pulls away after a second, lets her fingers trace over Lily’s jaw and her neck before she lets her go entirely.
“Goodnight, unnie,” she says, fighting the grin that’s tugging at her mouth. “Or good morning, I guess.”
Lily laughs, bright and beautiful, and making herself walk into her building is one of the hardest things Haewon has ever done.
✧
When Haewon finally makes it back to the store the next week, it’s at the end of Lily’s shift instead of in the middle of it, the sunrise glowing pink and amber outside the store.
Lily’s clearly surprised to see her, sleepy and sweet behind the register. They’ve texted a little, but just checking in on each other; Haewon didn’t mention stopping by.
“Haewon!”
Haewon smiles, bobs her head in a nod. “Hi, unnie.”
There’s so much Haewon wants to say, so much she wants to do, but unlike the middle of the night, there are other people in the store, and not just someone breezing in to buy a handful of snacks or some beer and disappearing again. There are students on the way to school, people eating breakfast; a few morning shift workers are bustling around, restocking shelves, chatting with customers. A tall girl with long, dark hair is behind the other register. She eyes Haewon up and down, leans over to murmur something to Lily, and Lily goes pink, her eyes darting to Haewon and then away again as she says something back in a voice too low for Haewon to hear.
Haewon moves to the coffee machine, curious and pleased, wondering just how much Lily has told the other girl, what she’s said. She gets herself a hot coffee, grabs a can of Lily’s favorite, too, the presweetened kind that makes Haewon shudder just looking at it, and then she heads to the register, sets the drinks on the counter.
Lily rings them up without commentary, smiling shyly when Haewon nudges the can across the counter at her once she’s done paying. “Let me walk you to the bus stop?”
Lily’s smile turns into something warm and wide, something Haewon has grown so familiar with—so fond of. “Of course.”
Haewon waits as Lily disappears into the back room; she’s wrapped up in a hoodie when she comes back out, her bag under one arm, the can of coffee in hand. Haewon watches her say goodbye to her coworkers, her heart soaring when Lily sees her by the door and that perfect smile spreads over her face again.
Lily reaches for Haewon’s hand as soon as she’s close enough. “You’ve got perfect timing.”
Haewon squeezes her fingers, uses her elbow to push the door open. “Yeah?”
Lily nods. “I’ve been writing again—I actually finished a new song last night. I’d love to know what you think.”
Haewon already knows she’s going to love it.
They walk through the door and out into the morning sun hand in hand, the light turning Lily’s hair gold, and to Haewon it feels like a new beginning. It feels like the start of the rest of her life.