Archive of Our Own

My love will come

will fling open her arms and fold me in them,

will understand my fears, observe my changes.

In from the pouring dark, from the pitch night

without stopping to bang the taxi door

she’ll run upstairs through the decaying porch

burning with love and love’s happiness,

she’ll run dripping upstairs, she won’t knock,

will take my head in her hands,

and when she drops her overcoat on a chair,

it will slide to the floor in a blue heap.

— Waiting, Yevgency Yevtushenko, Translated by Robin Milner-Gulland, Peter Levi

– – –

Soobin isn't much of a fate person. She doesn't think many people are.

It's not that she's a pessimist, exactly. She just has a tendency to look at things as they are rather than as she might like them to be, and things as they are don't leave much room for the universe to be nudging anything in any kind of right direction.

Things as they are go like this: she wakes up to her second alarm most mornings unless she sleeps through both by accident; she makes the same breakfast she’s made for three years; she goes to work and comes home and watches anime until she's tired enough to sleep. Her life fits her well. She goes out for meals and karaoke and bowling with her friends on some weekends, and she hasn't been on a date for over a year.

She is, by most measures, doing fine.

She's washing up after dinner, listening to music so she doesn't go slowly insane, when her phone buzzes on the counter. She glances at it – Taehyun, asking if she wants to get lunch later this week. She dries her hands on her blueberry-patterned towel to reply, taking out one earphone so the lyrics don't interrupt the conversation. Her flat is so quiet in the evenings. The air doesn't move.

She texts back Thursday? and sets the phone down.

The thing about a life that fits well is that you kind of stop noticing it after a while. It fades into something impressionistic, the edges around where things used to be and aren't anymore worn smooth with time and with not thinking about it. Soobin is good at not thinking about things. She has, over the course of her twenty-five years, developed it into something close to a skill.

She finishes the washing up, grabs a snack from the cupboard, and settles in to watch something. She makes it through about twenty minutes of a documentary on penguins before she realises she hasn't processed a single word and has to restart it.

Her phone buzzes again. Thursday works! :) from Taehyun, and then immediately: Kai says hi

Soobin smiles at her phone, small and unconscious. Tell her hi back, she types, warmed by the image of the two of them crowded around Taehyun's phone.

This is her life. She has built it well and she is grateful for it and she is doing completely fine.

The buzzer goes.

– – –

Every time that Beomgyu has dreamed in the roughly two years and four months since they broke up, Soobin has been there.

She wakes up pleased, sated in the way she always felt when she got to be with Soobin after some time apart, before she remembers all over again and ends up having to talk herself into getting up and not going back to sleep. After it hit one year it was just kind of getting ridiculous.

Probably as a result of this, in those two years she thought about calling her maybe once a week on average. Once, during a particularly bad stretch in the winter, every day for two weeks. It tapered off into once a month after she started going on dates again.

She never did call. She had been very proud of this.

The bag on her shoulder has three days of clean clothes in it and she is standing outside Soobin's building in the soft greying night trying to remember what she was going to say. She had it down on the train – something about how she wasn't expecting anything, she just needed somewhere to stay for a little while, she was sorry for showing up without more warning, she knew it was a lot to ask. Reasonable and respectful. She had practiced her expressions in her phone camera.

She presses the buzzer before she can run away.

Soobin's voice comes through the intercom after a few seconds, a little cautious. "Hello?"

Beomgyu closes her eyes. She takes a second.

"It's me," she says. "It's Beomgyu. I'm sorry it's late. I just–" she stops. "Can I come up?"

There's a pause, during which Beomgyu wonders if this is what most people would call self-sabotage. Then there's a click, and the door is open.

– – –

Apparently, the universe does not care whether Soobin considers herself to be a fate person or not.

She's still holding her phone when she opens the door – Taehyun had sent a follow-up about Thursday, something about lunch – and then she sees Beomgyu and she forgets about it entirely.

Two years is long enough for memory to get hazy, she knows this. Beomgyu had been tucked away somewhere careful, preserved but never looked at, behind curtains. She'd done a pretty good job at not peeking.

She had not accounted for Beomgyu in person, outside her door on a Tuesday night. Her hair is different, is Soobin's first thought. More layered, she thinks it's called a jellyfish cut. But Soobin recognises what she's wearing as her sick hoodie, a fluffy purple thing that always made her look like a sheep that had tripped and fell into some hair dye. She's still the same height, still has the same round eyes, the same way of rubbing her thumb over the rough texture of her bag strap.

They stare at each other. Beomgyu opens her mouth, face determined, then shuts it. Her mouth starts to screw up, and Soobin has just enough time to think oh shit before she bursts into tears.

"Sorry," Beomgyu manages, "Sorry, I had a whole– I had things to say, I–"

"It's okay," Soobin soothes before she quite decides to say it. She steps back from the door. "Come in."

– – –

Soobin's flat is small and very messy, exactly the same as she's always been.

Beomgyu doesn't say this, of course. She sets her bag down where Soobin points and changes into the spare pair of slippers by the door. She looks around at the books stacked haphazardly on the floor and the cluster of plants on the windowsill and the Shiba-Inu patterned blanket in a little pile on the sofa, and she thinks well, Soobin definitely lives here. She doesn't say that either. That would be weird.

"Do you want tea?" Soobin asks. She's already moving towards the kitchen.

"Please," Beomgyu says as she begins to regain some control over herself. "Sorry, I should have – I didn't think to bring any food or drinks or–"

"You didn’t need to bring anything." Soobin glances back at her and her face does something that Beomgyu can't catch before she looks away again. "Sit down."

Beomgyu sits and contemplates whether she can curl up under that blanket or not. She opts to bring her knees up to her chest and try to blot some tears with her hoodie.

"You don't have to explain tonight," Soobin says from the kitchen. The flat is small enough that she doesn't have to raise her voice.

Beomgyu frowns. She had prepared. "I just want to say–"

"Beomgyu. It's late. You're tired. Whatever it is, it'll still be there in the morning." Her voice is firm and kind, a tone so familiar that Beomgyu just stops talking. The kettle starts to rumble.

And, well, Soobin is right, she is tired, she is so tired she can feel it sitting behind her eyes and in her joints, and she had been running on adrenaline since she left and now that she's here and sat down the adrenaline is retreating the battlefield. She picks at a loose thread on the hem of her sleeve and worries about falling asleep too early.

Her back is to the kitchen, but she listens to Soobin move around and thinks about how she has been in this flat exactly zero times before and it still somehow feels familiar.

Soobin comes back with two mugs and sets one in front of her. Beomgyu wraps both hands around it, sighing at the warmth.

"I have a spare toothbrush for friends," Soobin says, sitting at the other end of the sofa. There is a careful distance between them. "And extra towels are in the airing cupboard, second shelf, grab any one you want. You can borrow a t-shirt to sleep in." She looks uncertain for the first time – it's honestly impressive she's held up til now. "If you want."

"Thank you." Beomgyu hesitates. "I actually brought pyjamas."

Soobin looks at her and her mouth twitches. Her eyes flick to the single bag.

"I always pack pyjamas first," Beomgyu says, a little defensive.

"Are they a matching set."

It's not really a question. Beomgyu pouts at her. "They have little bears on them."

Soobin opens her mouth.

"Don't," Beomgyu says, and Soobin makes a face that isn't quite a smile but is adjacent to one, and for a moment it's so easy, and she's so tired, that Beomgyu forgets herself. "Unnie, are you still – do you still have that Minions t-shirt? Sorry," she adds immediately, catching herself. "Sorry, I don't know why I–"

"Yes," Soobin says quietly. "I do."

They both look at each other, then away to the safety of their mugs. Soobin doesn't comment on the use of unnie, which Beomgyu fervently hopes means it’s okay.

"The sofa folds out," Soobin says eventually. "If you want more space."

"Thanks." Beomgyu steels herself, then looks up at her. "Really. Thank you. You didn't have to. I didn't expect– I mean. Thank you."

Soobin shakes her head slightly, which means not right now, and Beomgyu lets it go.

They drink their tea. They talk about small things: Beomgyu's train journey, a show Soobin has been watching, staying on the surface. It's easier than it should be and harder than Beomgyu expected or hoped and she thinks, distantly, that she is going to think about this night for a very long time.

Beomgyu vanishes into the bathroom halfway through her mug of tea to change into pyjamas. She looks at herself in the mirror, messy hair and red eyes, and mouths what the fuck are you doing. Her reflection has no answer, just stares back at her. Beomgyu buries her face in her hands and takes a long breath before she emerges. Soobin’s eyes flick to the bears and she smiles, before her whole face does this scrunching thing and she looks away fast.

"Try to sleep," Soobin tells her as she collects the mugs, in a tone that doesn't leave much room for debate. She vanishes somewhere as Beomgyu drifts slightly, then comes back with a duvet and sets it over Beomgyu's legs. "I'll be just down the hall."

"Okay," Beomgyu says. Her voice comes out smaller than she means it to. "Goodnight, Soobin-unnie."

"Goodnight." She pauses, standing over her in the dim light. It's not enough to see her face. "Whatever reason you had, I'm glad you came to me."

She disappears down the hall before Beomgyu can figure out what the hell to do with that.

– – –

Soobin really did mean to go to bed.

She stands in the hallway for a moment outside the ajar living room door, listening to the pattern of Beomgyu's breathing that means she's still awake. She leaves to brush her teeth and wash her face, and when she returns she can tell that Beomgyu has thankfully fallen asleep.

She should go to bed. She goes in.

Soobin sits on the floor, chin resting on knees pulled to her chest, and watches Beomgyu sleep on her sofa.

She sleeps the same way she always did: on her side curled into a little ball, one hand tucked under her cheek, the blanket pulled up to her chin. She looks younger like this, or maybe just more open, and Soobin has a sudden vivid memory of watching her sleep in the early days and feeling so absurdly fond she hadn't known what to do with herself. She'd had to look away then, but now she lets herself watch.

Two years, she thinks. She takes a second to do the maths – two years and four months.

She doesn't let herself finish the thought that follows. She's gotten very good at that – identifying where a thought is going and rerouting before it arrives somewhere she doesn't want to be. It's a useful skill.

Beomgyu's face, relaxed in sleep, gives nothing away. She looks fine. A little tired, maybe, dark circles darker than she remembers them being. Soobin sort of wants to move her somewhere more comfortable, but the only other option is her own bed, which is the thought Soobin refuses to finish the most.

She stays until she's sure she's being ridiculous and probably creepy, and then she stays a little longer, and then she gets up quietly and goes to bed and lies on her back in the dark looking at the ceiling for a long time. She doesn't remember falling asleep, but she must.

– – –

Beomgyu is staying temporarily. That's what she told Soobin six days ago, over coffee, when the adrenaline had fully worn off and she'd slept for ten hours and felt human enough to be embarrassed about all the crying. She'd sat at Soobin's small kitchen table with both hands around her mug and explained: the job first, then the flat, then her now-ex-girlfriend Jiyeon, in that order, which is roughly the reverse of how bad each one actually was. Soobin had listened without interrupting, which she'd always been good at when it's important. She'd asked two questions – when did the job end and do you have somewhere to go after this – and when Beomgyu said a few weeks ago and not immediately, no, she nodded and said okay and refilled Beomgyu's coffee without being asked.

She hadn't asked about Jiyeon beyond what Beomgyu offered, which wasn't much. Beomgyu had watched something go kind of tight in Soobin's expression when she mentioned her, but elected to ignore it for her sanity.

They had agreed that she would stay temporarily, just until she righted herself and figured out her next steps. A few days, maybe a couple of weeks.

It's easy. That's the problem, it's so easy to be here.

Beomgyu knows Soobin's rhythms the way she knows her own – she takes a long time to fall asleep, she doesn't wake up to her first alarm, she gets bitchy when she's hungry or tired, she sulks easily, she gets bubbly when she's been watching something good.

Some of it Beomgyu remembered, could've told you about a few weeks ago if asked. Some of it she's picking back up, like a language she thought she'd forgotten.

"You're in my way," Beomgyu tells her for the third time.

"I'm helping," Soobin says, also for the third time.

"You're sitting on the counter."

"I'm helping from a strategic position. High ground."

Beomgyu gives her a look, and Soobin dimples back at her. She's tall enough that her feet touch the floor.

They're making kimchi jjigae, or Beomgyu is making kimchi jjigae and Soobin is bothering her and eating pieces of green onion directly from the chopping board when she thinks Beomgyu isn't looking.

"That's for the jjigae," Beomgyu says, without turning around.

"How did you even see??"

"Unnie, get off the counter."

Soobin gets off the counter and immediately leans her forearms on it instead, which is functionally the same thing.

Beomgyu's feeling better. She's aware that she's feeling better, and she's aware of the reason for it, which is a little alarming, but she is genuinely trying to not make this into something it isn't. Soobin let her stay because she needed somewhere to go, and Soobin is a nice person. That's all this is.

Beomgyu passes her a wooden spoon and says stir this and actually be useful. Soobin sighs long-sufferingly but obeys while Beomgyu thinks about how Soobin's shoulder is maybe four centimetres from hers.

"You're doing it wrong," Beomgyu says, mostly to try and distract herself.

"How can you stir wrong."

"Stir the whole thing, not just the middle." She leans over to demonstrate.

"This is why I don't cook."

"You did once microwave a boiled egg."

"That was one time–"

"It exploded."

"It was a learning experience–"

"On my walls and ceiling," Beomgyu says, through giggles, and after a second Soobin begins to laugh too, and the kitchen feels very warm and very small and Beomgyu keeps stirring and tries not to want anything. She's not pushing. Any want that she does have is just going to have to simmer under the skin a while.

– – –

The thing about having Beomgyu in her flat is that Soobin's flat is small.

She's always known that her flat is small – she chose it because it's small, because small means contained and manageable. It's always been the right size for one person.

It is not, it turns out, the right size for one person trying to pretend they are not extremely aware of another person at all times.

Beomgyu takes up space in a way that has nothing to do with her physical presence, though her physical presence is more than enough given that she is incapable of sitting on furniture the way it was designed to be sat on. She is currently upside down on Soobin's armchair with her legs over the back of it, watching something on her phone with one earphone in, and Soobin is on the sofa reading the same paragraph of her book for the fifth time.

At least Beomgyu’s wearing jeans.

Her phone buzzes on the cushion beside her.

Kai is asking if you're free Saturday, since you couldn’t do Thursday, Taehyun has sent. And then, two seconds later: Also. Are you okay

Soobin looks at Beomgyu, who is now humming quietly to herself, still upside down.

I'm fine, she types back. Saturday should work.

She sets the phone face down.

– – –

Taehyun shows up on Saturday with Kai and pastries. She stops in the doorway of the living room, where Beomgyu is cross-legged on the floor reorganising Soobin's bookshelf by colour.

The silence lasts a few seconds.

"Hi Taehyun," Beomgyu says. "Hi Kai." She'd been warned by Soobin in advance so she's not too freaked-out – Soobin can see a tight anxiety around her eyes, though.

"Hi," Kai says, very carefully, and then turns to look at Soobin with an expression of enormous, barely suppressed delight.

Taehyun looks at Beomgyu. She looks at the bookshelf. She looks at Soobin.

It is now that Soobin realises she did not warn either of them in advance. She looks back at her with what she hopes is an expression that communicates please don't.

Taehyun's expression communicates we are absolutely going to talk about this.

They talk about it in the kitchen under the pretence of Soobin making tea, while Kai makes conversation with Beomgyu in the living room. She can hear Beomgyu explaining her colour-coding system with great enthusiasm. Kai sounds genuinely interested.

"So," Taehyun says.

"She needed somewhere to stay," Soobin explains.

"Okay."

"It's temporary."

"Okay," Taehyun says again, in a tone that does not quite mean okay.

Soobin flicks the kettle on. "She's going through a hard time and doesn't have anywhere else to stay right now. It made sense."

"It made sense," Taehyun repeats, not unkindly. "Soobin-unnie."

"Don't."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're doing the voice."

Taehyun frowns slightly. "I don't have a voice."

"Taehyun."

Taehyun is quiet for a moment. From the living room, Beomgyu laughs at something Kai said, bright and sudden, and Soobin can't help the way her lips tick up in a small smile.

"This is going to come back to bite you," Taehyun says gently.

"I know," Soobin says, which surprises both of them.

She pours the water. She doesn't say anything else, and after a moment Taehyun visibly lets it go, because she knows when Soobin has reached the end of what she's willing to give. It's one of the things Soobin appreciates most about her. As she moves past her to carry the tea into the living room Taehyun presses a hand to her elbow.

Kai has apparently agreed that organising by colour is a great idea and is now helping. Soobin looks at the two of them on her floor surrounded by her books and thinks this is fine very firmly; they're just so stupidly cute, and seeing them together is. A little overwhelming.

Kai catches her eye over Beomgyu's head and grins at her, huge and unsubtle.

Soobin sits down and is joined by Taehyun, who kindly engages her in conversation. Soobin takes the opportunity, happy to talk about things unrelated to the pretty girl sitting on the floor of her living room.

– – –

Soobin disappears to make a call, probably to her mother, and Kai says haltingly that she needs the bathroom and vanishes down the hall.

Beomgyu becomes very aware that she is alone with Taehyun.

She looks up from the bookshelf, where she's been finishing up the greens. Taehyun is looking back at her with an expression that is calm and not quite readable, which Beomgyu has learned means she has something to say and has been waiting for the right moment to say it. At least they’re both standing now, on equal footing.

"Hello," Beomgyu says cautiously.

"Hello," Taehyun says. And then, gently: "This isn't going to work."

Beomgyu twists her fingers together. Taehyun is kind, a bit blunt sometimes but so empathetic. Beomgyu is also all-too-aware that she is in love with Soobin.

They've never dated and likely never will, but they have a kind of steadiness between them, and she's not sure where she comes into that now. She wouldn't presume whether Taehyun likes her, but she knows for a fact that her love for Soobin runs deeper than maybe anything else.

"I'm not telling you to stop," Taehyun continues, and Beomgyu knows she's lying. "But I know who you are, and I know who she is. I know you love her, but that doesn't mean you're both going to come out of this unscathed. Trust me on this."

Beomgyu can feel her shoulders drawing inwards, can feel the way her body is trying to run from this conversation. It takes her a minute to realise that Taehyun is holding a hand out to her, palm facing upwards. Beomgyu hesitates, flicks her gaze to Taehyun's face, takes it.

"I'm really not asking you to leave," Taehyun reassures, "or to stop talking to her. I'm just asking you to be careful. I need to know that you're going to be okay if this doesn't work out."

Beomgyu, horrifyingly, feels her throat start to tighten. She really, really doesn't want to cry right now.

"Okay," she says quietly, almost a whisper, and casts around for more words. "I'll be okay. I have other friends to help me. I'll be fine."

Taehyun studies her face for a moment, then nods. "Okay," she says, and gives Beomgyu's hand a squeeze. "Okay. I'll trust you."

Beomgyu really doesn't want to cry right now. "Thank you," she says, and means it so much her chest hurts.

"Can I hug you?"

She doesn't say you look like you need it, which Beomgyu is grateful for. She just moves forwards in response, hand sliding from Taehyun's palm and up to wrap around her.

Taehyun is a good hugger. Warm and solid. She feels like she would catch Beomgyu if she fell. Beomgyu is suddenly fiercely grateful that Soobin has her in her life.

– – –

Yeonjun picks a park bench in the sun and produces two canned iced teas from their bag like a magician, and Beomgyu thinks, not for the first time, that they are genuinely one of the best people she has ever met. They balance their kindness well with the cool, the shag haircut and the piercings. Sometimes Beomgyu wonders why they're friends at all, but most of the time she doesn't have to wonder.

"How are you doing?" Yeonjun asks.

"Better," Beomgyu says, which is not quite an answer. It's far from the full answer.

Yeonjun accepts this with a small nod and they sit in companionable silence for a moment, watching a dog try to steal someone's sandwich across the path. Beomgyu could have stayed with Yeonjun – they’d offered immediately, the same night everything fell apart, sincere in the way they always are. Beomgyu had said she'd figure something out and then had figured out Soobin, and Yeonjun had let her, because they’re kind of an enabler sometimes.

The sun is warm. The iced tea is good. Beomgyu has been staying in Soobin's flat for eleven days.

"Why did you go to Soobin?"

They sound idly curious, not even turning their head, but Beomgyu knows the question is not anything close to idle. They're sitting side by side and Beomgyu is very grateful for this because she does not particularly want to be looked at right now.

"I don't know," she says first, because she's a coward and it buys her a couple seconds.

Yeonjun waits.

"I mean– she was the– it made sense, practically, she has the space and we were–" Beomgyu stops and fidgets with the can's metal tab. "Still friends. Kind of? I thought we were still kind of friends."

"Mmhm," Yeonjun says.

"And I didn't want to impose on you."

"You wouldn't have been imposing."

"I know," Beomgyu says. "I know, I just."

She stops again. The dog has successfully stolen the sandwich and is sprinting away with it in its jaws, its owner going after it. Beomgyu watches it run, its desperate possession of the thing it wants.

She knew, standing outside Soobin's building at night, exactly why she was there and not somewhere else. She had known it on the train. She had probably known it before she even packed the bag, in the first terrible hour after Jiyeon said I think you should find somewhere else to stay and Beomgyu had sat on the floor of what had very suddenly become someone else's hallway and thought, like a reflex, I want Soobin.

Not I should call Soobin. Not Soobin would probably help.

I want her. A desire to just be around her, a certainty that it'll make everything better.

"I just wanted to see her," Beomgyu says finally, to the middle distance. "I had a reason to go to her, I had the whole – the flat and the job and all of it, and those are real, those are genuinely bad, but I think – I think if none of that had happened I would've found a reason eventually anyway." She exhales. She feels like a punctured balloon in a way that's oddly relieving. "Is that awful? I had a girlfriend."

"Not awful," Yeonjun says. "Maybe not perfect, but who is? And it's not like she was good to you either."

A shadow passes across Yeonjun's face like it always does when Jiyeon enters the conversation, so Beomgyu moves swiftly on. She can worry about being a bad girlfriend later.

"You're not going to tell me that this is a terrible idea?"

"Would it stop you if I did?"

Beomgyu considers this. "No."

"Then I won't." Yeonjun takes a long sip of their iced tea. "Do you know what you're going to do? More long-term, I mean."

"No," Beomgyu says again. "Not yet." She finally glances sideways at them. "I'm just being there. For now."

Yeonjun looks back at her, steady and warm, and nods once. They don’t make it a big thing, which is why Beomgyu loves them so much.

They finish their iced teas and talk about other things. The dog, eventually, trots back past them looking satisfied, and they both laugh, and Yeonjun makes a comment about doing anything for good food, and Beomgyu feels okay. Saying things out loud like that is always scary in a way, but she's okay.

She can't take it back now, but she's not sure she wants to.

– – –

By the start of the third week, they've reached a steady rhythm in the evenings.

Beomgyu knows the sound of Soobin in this bathroom now: the specific order of things, face wash then toner then moisturiser, the tap turning on and off. She knows that Soobin will appear in the living room doorway at some point to say goodnight, and that she'll be in pyjamas by then, some oversized t-shirt and shorts combination, her hair in a loose plait to protect it overnight. She always looks impossibly soft and impossibly familiar, a worn photograph. Beomgyu misses her the most in the evenings.

Tonight she's in the bathroom herself when Soobin knocks.

"I need to get my–" Soobin opens the door a crack and then stops when she registers that Beomgyu is right there, closer than expected. "Sorry. Moisturiser. It'll take two seconds."

"Go ahead," Beomgyu says, and moves to make room. The bathroom is not very big.

They move around each other carefully – Beomgyu brushing her teeth, Soobin reaching past her for the shelf, a kind of choreography that has become familiar, making Beomgyu's chest ache a little if she thinks about it. She tries not to think about it. She spits, rinses, and they trade places at the mirror without discussing it.

"I think I'm almost out of conditioner," Beomgyu says, mostly just for something to say.

"There's a spare under the sink, you can use it."

"Ah, I'll just replace mine."

"You don't need to."

"I want to."

Soobin catches her eye in the mirror briefly and then looks away. "Okay," she says. "If you want."

They finish up. Beomgyu turns off the light and they move into the hallway together, and this is normally the part where they say goodnight and go in their separate directions and Beomgyu lies awake for a while, and that's what's going to happen this time too–

Soobin kisses her.

Just her mouth pressed to Beomgyu's cheek, a way of saying goodnight without words. Quick and warm. And then she goes very still.

Beomgyu doesn't move. She feels sort of like a prey animal, if you don't move it can't spot you–

The hallway is dark and quiet. She can hear both of them breathing. She can feel the exact spot where Soobin's lips were, which is ridiculous, it was barely anything, it was nothing, it was–

"Goodnight," Soobin says. Her voice comes out completely even, which must cost her something. It must, she can't be genuinely unaffected.

"Goodnight," Beomgyu manages, then turns tail and practically runs to the living room.

– – –

Soobin lies on her back in the dark and stares at the ceiling.

It was habit. That's what it was. They used to do that, a goodnight kiss, it was just a thing they did, it came from somewhere old and instinctive and her body moved before her brain could catch up, that's all that was, that's the whole explanation.

She puts her hands over her face.

What is wrong with you, she thinks, which is not really a question. She’s been doing so well. She’s been careful and normal and friendly and then she just– right in the hallway–

Beomgyu hadn't pulled away.

Soobin removes this thought from her head immediately and does not pursue it. It doesn't mean anything. Beomgyu was probably just startled, or leaned in out of habit. Beomgyu is kind and wouldn't have wanted to make it weird. It doesn't mean anything.

She turns onto her side and stares at the dark emptiness of the wall.

You've made it weird, she tells herself. Well done. Three weeks of being careful, of life being good, and you fucked it up anyway.

She doesn't fall asleep for a long time, even longer than usual.

– – –

Beomgyu lies in the dark and touches her cheek with two fingers and then immediately feels stupid about it.

She should sleep. Tomorrow they'll both pretend it didn't happen and that will be fine, that's probably the right thing, that's almost certainly what Soobin wants. Beomgyu is good at following Soobin's lead. She's always been good at that.

She stares at the ceiling and thinks, not for the first time and certainly not the last, about the end.

They hadn't fought. They never fought. There was no single moment, no terrible argument, nothing she can point to and say that's it, that's when it broke.

Soobin had been there and then she had been less there and then she had been somewhere Beomgyu couldn't follow, and Beomgyu had stood at the edge of it and waited, because she knew Soobin, knew she needed space sometimes, knew that pushing never helped. Pushing would just make her defensive, and then they would've fought. They never fought.

She'd waited a long time.

At some point waiting had started to just feel like being left. She still isn't sure exactly when that tipping point had been. She remembers missing her all the time, even when they were in the same room.

What she remembers, more than anything, is the specific feeling of not knowing. Not knowing what was wrong, not knowing if she'd done something, not knowing if the distance was about her or in spite of her or nothing to do with her at all. If Soobin had forgotten about her or wished she could forget about her or neither.

She had asked, only a couple of times, and Soobin had said I'm fine, I'm just tired and Beomgyu had known it wasn't true and hadn't known what to do with that.

She should have pushed harder. Or maybe she shouldn't have. She genuinely doesn't know. Maybe they were always going to end up like this.

The flat is quiet. Down the hall, Soobin is either asleep or not asleep, and Beomgyu doesn't know, and that feels familiar.

Maybe it's happening all over again. Beomgyu can't help but think, selfishly, that at least this way she gets some more time with Soobin before it falls apart once more.

– – –

The morning after, they were both very normal about it.

Soobin made coffee. Beomgyu thanked her for the coffee. They watched something over breakfast, eating together on the sofa. They talked about it, silly and light, and did not talk about anything else, and Soobin had thought: Okay. Good. We're doing this. She could do this. It was fine, it was already fading into something they were both simply not addressing, which was probably the best approach and one she was comfortable with.

That had been four days ago. They've been slightly more careful since – a little more deliberate about space, not quite meeting each other's eyes. It's not awkward exactly. It's more like they're both carrying something fragile and have agreed without words to be very careful not to drop it.

It's fine. It's completely fine. Soobin isn't sleeping very well.

The call comes on a Wednesday evening, while Beomgyu is doing something on her laptop on the sofa and Soobin is supposedly reading.

She sees the name on the screen and feels her stomach drop the way it used to do almost every day and does only occasionally now, a kind of bracing. Her cheeks heat, her body tenses, everything goes slightly grey. She gets up without saying anything and takes it to the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

It's not a bad call. It's not a bad call at all, it's her mother just checking in, relaying some news about her aunt that is not exactly good but isn't a crisis, asking when Soobin is coming to visit next. Twenty minutes, maybe. The kind of call she can handle now, has been handling for a while. Things are better. Things have been better for over a year.

She sits on the floor after and looks at the carpet for a while.

Better doesn't make up for the years it took to get here. It doesn't reach back and erase what those years felt like from the inside. Soobin knows this theoretically, has made a kind of peace with it, but sometimes something will catch against an old thorn and she'll be back there for a moment.

She takes a breath and goes back out.

Beomgyu looks up when she comes in, and Soobin watches her do a quick, instinctive assessment. In the old days Soobin used to find it overwhelming and kind of scary, being seen like that, known like that. Tonight she sits back down in her chair and hopes very hard that the assessment comes back as nothing to worry about.

"Everything okay?" Beomgyu asks. Her voice is purposefully light.

"Fine," Soobin says. "Family stuff. Nothing serious."

A pause. "Okay," Beomgyu says.

Soobin reads the same paragraph four times and does not take in a single word. She’s aware of the silence from Beomgyu's side of the room, which has changed slightly. The air feels weighted, waterlogged.

She should say something. She knows she should say something. It's old stuff, I'm fine, it catches me sometimes, it's nothing. Any of it would do. Beomgyu wouldn't push, would just nod and accept whatever Soobin gave her and let it go. She knows this. She knows exactly how this would go if she would just open her mouth.

She turns a page she hasn't read.

The problem is not that she can't find the words. The problem is something more embarrassing than that – the situation has improved, genuinely, substantially, and she still goes horrible and hollow when it surfaces. She doesn't have a good reason anymore. Whatever she said now would require context, would require the whole story, and the whole story is something she has never given Beomgyu and the longer she doesn't give it the more enormous it feels, like a door she's been leaning against for so long she's not sure she could open it even if she wanted to.

You're doing it again, she thinks.

She knows. She can't quite stop.

They watch something after dinner, Beomgyu's pick, something silly that normally would have made Soobin laugh. Beomgyu is quiet in the way she only is when she's very tired or upset or angry.

At some point Beomgyu shifts over until their shoulders touch.

Soobin doesn't move away. She stares at the screen and feels the warmth of it and thinks about how Beomgyu has always done this — small, undemanding contact, just to say I'm here, it's okay.

Soobin looks at the screen and hates herself a little, quietly, trying not to take up too much room.

– – –

Beomgyu thinks about it for two days. She thinks about it while she's job hunting at Soobin's kitchen table, sending applications into the void that eats applications with her second coffee going cold beside her. She thinks about it in the shower and on the sofa and in the small hours when she should be asleep. She turns it over and looks at it from different angles, and what she keeps coming back to is this: she has been here before. Not in this flat, sure, not in this specific configuration of circumstances, but in this feeling. The watching and waiting and not-knowing and telling herself that pushing never helps.

She knows how that ends. She was there for it. She's seen this film before, etcetera.

But, well. She is not the same person she was two years ago, and neither, probably, is Soobin. And even if history is determined to repeat itself, she would quite like to make different choices this time around. She is a person with free will. She is twenty-three years old and she is in love with someone who is currently somewhere else in this flat being quiet and sad and unreachable, and she is so tired of not saying things.

She gets up from the kitchen table.

Soobin is in the living room, doing something on her phone, feet tucked under her on the sofa. She looks up when Beomgyu comes in.

"Hey," she says, her face going all soft and crinkly. At least that face hasn't gone anywhere.

"Hey," Beomgyu says. She sits down on the other end of the sofa, slightly further away than usual. "Can I say something?"

Soobin’s smile fades. "Okay," she says carefully.

"You don't have to respond to it right now," Beomgyu says, "or at all if you don't want to, I just– I want to say it." She picks at the hem of her sleeve. "You kind of went away the other night, after the phone call. I recognised it, it was familiar, and it. Freaked me out, kind of. That's not the right word, but. Yeah."

Soobin says nothing. She's a coiled wire of tension, eyes a touch too wide.

"I'm not angry," Beomgyu continues, "and I'm not trying to make you talk about anything you don't want to talk about. I just." She stops. Tries again. "Last time, I waited. I kept thinking you'd let me in eventually and I just had to be patient enough, and then at some point I realised I'd been patient for too long, and then it was over." She looks at her hands. "I don't think I ever told you that. That I was waiting. I don't think I said it out loud. Maybe you never actually knew."

A car passes outside, its headlights making Soobin glow for a second.

"So I'm saying it now," Beomgyu says. "I think we were both being careful and that just made it easier to say nothing, and I don't want to do that again. I don't know what that phone call was about. I don't need to know. I just want you to know that I'm– I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere, and you don't have to, like. Manage me."

Soobin's expression twists up, and Beomgyu regrets saying the word manage, a little bit.

"That's all," Beomgyu says, a little quietly. "Sorry. I know that was a lot."

"Don't apologise," Soobin says. Her voice comes out unsteady.

"Okay." Beomgyu exhales. "I won't."

The silence that follows is different from all the silences they've been having since Beomgyu showed up weeks ago. There's more in it, somehow, and Beomgyu restrains herself from breaking it, from popping it like a balloon.

"I heard you," Soobin says finally, quietly, which is not nothing. Which is actually quite a lot. "I understand," she adds, which is even more.

Beomgyu nods. She doesn't push further. She's said the thing, which is more than she managed last time, and for now that's enough. She tucks her feet up under her and reaches for the remote.

"What do you wanna watch?"

Soobin blinks, her posture starting to curl in on itself. "Um. Can we watch Dungeon Meshi?"

They watch Dungeon Meshi. At some point Soobin's shoulder finds hers and stays there, and Beomgyu lets herself lean into it and thinks different choices.

– – –

Beomgyu is in the shower and Soobin is sitting on the sofa not reading her book, which might be becoming a habit, and thinking about what Beomgyu said. She's been thinking about it more or less constantly for three days, turning it over and running it back.

I was waiting.

She hadn't known. She genuinely hadn't known that's what Beomgyu was doing – or maybe she had known and hadn't let herself look at it directly, which amounts to the same thing. She had been so convinced that she was protecting Beomgyu by keeping it contained, by not making her carry any of it, and meanwhile Beomgyu had been on the other side of that decision waiting and not understanding and eventually deciding she wasn't wanted.

The shower turns off. She listens to the sounds of Beomgyu moving around the bathroom, the familiar order of her, and thinks about how she has been given an enormous amount of grace she didn't ask for and isn't sure she deserves, and thinks about doors she has been leaning against, and thinks: Okay.

She can do this. She is going to do this.

Beomgyu emerges in her bear pyjamas with her hair wet and stops when she sees Soobin's face.

"Hey," she says warily. "You okay?"

"Can you sit down?" Soobin says. "I want to tell you something."

She tells it badly. She knew she would – she is not built for this kind of thing, for cracking herself open in front of someone, and it comes out halting and slightly sideways and not in the right order. She starts with her aunt and then has to backtrack to explain about her parents, and then she loses the thread for a moment and has to find it again. Beomgyu sits at the other end of the sofa and listens without saying anything and without looking away. Soobin kind of wishes she would turn around and look at the wall or something.

The shape of it, roughly, is this: things had been difficult with her family for a long time before they broke up, in ways that were slow and grinding and hard to explain because there was no single event, just a weight that kept accumulating. Her parents being her parents. Her aunt's illness. Things she couldn't fix and couldn't make better and couldn't talk about without feeling like she was handing someone a problem with no solution. Work had started suffering. She had started suffering, without making much noise about it.

And Beomgyu had been there, bright and warm and wanting to help, and Soobin had looked at her and thought: I can't put this on her. I won't.

"I convinced myself it was the right thing," she says, to her hands. "That I was– protecting you from something. That if I just held on until it got better I wouldn't have to make you carry any of it." She frowns. "It did get better, eventually. But by then–"

"By then it was over anyway," Beomgyu says quietly.

"Yeah."

Neither of them say anything else for a while, and Soobin makes herself look up.

Beomgyu is crying, only a little but still crying, and she feels herself go hot-cold with fear.

"I didn't stop wanting you," she says, full of a need to never make Beomgyu feel unwanted again, even for a minute. "I just didn't want you to see me like that. I thought– I think I thought if you saw me like that you'd–" she stops, then pushes past it, finishes the thought she's never let herself finish. "I thought you'd leave anyway. So."

She watches something move across Beomgyu's face. The towel has been sitting forgotten on her shoulders this whole time and her hair is starting to dry at odd angles and Soobin loves her so much it's almost funny.

Beomgyu is still crying, but not the awful hitching sobs when she's truly upset. There's something almost cathartic about the quiet tears down her cheeks, an expression. Soobin badly wants to hold her and isn't sure if she's allowed.

"I think," Beomgyu says, her voice trembling but pushing through it, she's so brave, "I think I'm stronger than you think I am, sometimes."

Soobin's stomach drops. The idea of Beomgyu feeling underestimated or coddled grates against her. See, she thinks insidiously, you can't do anything right. Every attempt you've made has failed. This is why she doesn't love you anymore.

"Don't freak out," Beomgyu says gently, reading her face perfectly. She swipes quickly at the tears on her own cheeks and moves closer. Soobin resists the urge to move back.

"I'm not angry with you," Beomgyu continues, "I just think that, um." Her face twists slightly and she takes a breath. "I think that you love me? And. Because of that, you want me to be safe. You protect me from anything that might be hard, or sad, and then I don't get the chance to see if I could make it anyway."

She gestures at herself with a cute flick of her hands. "And I can. I have had the worst few months of my life, and I'm fine. Even without you, I would've been fine. Like, it would've really sucked, but I would've been fine after a while."

Soobin struggles to not take that too hard. She's trying to listen, to understand, and she is. But she can't help but want Beomgyu to need her.

"But," Beomgyu says significantly, moving forward again. She's close enough to touch, now. Neither of them try. "But, I don't want to be fine. I want you. You make me a lot better than fine. I feel safer with you than I ever have, happier, more me. Just being around you makes it all easier. Do you understand? Soobin, I know everything you were afraid of me knowing, and I want you."

Soobin looks at Beomgyu. Beomgyu looks back at her, and Soobin thinks fuck, she means it. And then immediately: does she mean it? And then again: she means it.

She doesn't know what to do with that yet. She can feel the shape of it, enormous and terrifying, and she doesn't know if she's allowed to let it be true. To actually internalise it.

"Okay," she says, which is nowhere near enough. Her voice has gone very small. "Okay. I– yeah."

Beomgyu's mouth does something that is almost a smile. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Soobin says, and her voice cracks slightly on it, embarrassingly, and Beomgyu makes a soft sound and finally closes the distance between them. The size difference means that Beomgyu is kind of wrapped around her, up on her knees so that Soobin's head can rest in the curve of where her neck meets her shoulder. And Soobin lets herself be held, really held, for the first time in a very long time.

It feels so familiar, so warm, like falling into her childhood bed, and she doesn't cry but it's a very close thing.

I want you too, she thinks, into Beomgyu's shoulder, and doesn't say it yet because she's not sure her voice will survive it, but she thinks it so hard she's half convinced Beomgyu can hear it anyway.

– – –

They stay like that for a long time. Beomgyu doesn't rush it. She keeps her arms around Soobin and her chin tucked over her head and doesn't say anything, which is not something that comes naturally to her, but it feels important. There's something in how Soobin is trying to bury herself in Beomgyu that tells her maybe this is not the time for words, but the time for just being here.

She is so good at being here. She has always been good at being here, for Soobin specifically. She threads one hand through Soobin's hair.

After a while Soobin exhales, long and slow, and shifts slightly. Beomgyu loosens her arms but doesn't let go, and Soobin doesn't pull away, staying close but with the space needed to talk.

"Sorry," Soobin says into her shoulder.

"If you're apologising for telling me the thing I've wanted you to tell me for two years," Beomgyu says, "I will actually kill you."

A small sound comes from Soobin that is almost a laugh. "Okay."

"I mean it."

"Okay," Soobin says again, softer. "I know."

They stay like that a little longer, in the quiet of the flat they've been living in together for weeks. She thinks about what Soobin said – I thought you'd leave anyway – and feels the weight of it in her chest, how Soobin had been so convinced of her own disposability that she'd made the choice for both of them before Beomgyu even got the chance to vote.

She doesn't say any of this. There will be time for all of it. Right now she just keeps her arms around her and thinks I've got you, I've got you, I've got you very loudly in the hope that it transmits somehow.

Eventually they separate. They're both red-eyed and neither of them comment on it.

Soobin goes to make tea, probably because she needs some space and some time to process, and Beomgyu sits on the sofa and watches her through the kitchen doorway and thinks different choices.

She'd said that to herself the other day, and then it had felt like a small tentative thing. Now it feels more solid, a foundation to stand on.

Soobin comes back with the tea and sets Beomgyu's in front of her and sits down beside her – not at the other end of the sofa with the careful distance they've been maintaining, but close. Actually close. Their knees are touching.

"I should have told you," Soobin says, after a while. It's a statement of fact and also sort of an apology.

"Yeah," Beomgyu says. "But I should have asked harder. Takes two to tango. So."

Soobin looks at her with half a smile.

"So," she agrees

It's not a resolution, not quite, not the full thing – there are still things neither of them have said, things that need to be settled. But the air is different. Whatever had been accumulating in the flat for over a month, the careful distance and the loaded silences and the two of them being so precise about everything, has released some pressure. Beomgyu can breathe more easily.

She shifts slightly so she can lean her head on Soobin's shoulder. After a moment that stretches, Soobin rests her cheek on top of Beomgyu's head.

Beomgyu closes her eyes.

There you are, she thinks. There you are.

– – –

It takes three more days for Soobin to believe it. Not because Beomgyu gives her any reason to doubt – she doesn't, she's exactly herself, warm and present and sometimes draped across Soobin like a very affectionate puppy. It's just that Soobin has spent two years constructing a particular understanding of how things are, and understandings like that don't disappear overnight just because someone said something nice. She knows this. She's trying to be patient with herself.

But something is different. Something has been different since that evening, and Soobin keeps noticing the difference the way you notice a sound that has stopped, not a presence but an absence.

That waiting-to-lose-it feeling, the low-grade brace she's been carrying around so long she'd stopped registering it. It's still there, might always be, but it's a lot quieter.

On the third day Beomgyu falls asleep on the sofa in the late afternoon, which she does sometimes when she's had a long day, boneless and done with the world, her face smushed into a pillow. Soobin finishes washing up and comes to stand in the doorway and look at her.

She thinks about the first night, sitting on the floor watching her sleep and not letting herself finish any of her thoughts. She thinks about two years of not-thinking. She thinks about I know everything you were afraid of me knowing and I want you, which she has turned over in her mind so many times in the last few days it's gone smooth, like a stone in the sea.

She feels something in her chest release and unfurl and unwind until she feels like there's a garden growing in there, behind her ribcage.

She goes and sits on the edge of the sofa beside Beomgyu and waits. After a few minutes Beomgyu stirs and blinks at her.

"Hi," Beomgyu says sleepily. She blinks again.

"Hi," Soobin says.

Beomgyu looks at her face for a moment, reading her. Whatever she finds there makes her face sort of melt.

"Hey," she says again, softer.

Soobin reaches out. She pushes a piece of hair back from Beomgyu's face, her fingers brushing her temple, her cheek, slow and deliberate.

Beomgyu's breath catches slightly. She doesn't move.

"Okay?" Soobin asks quietly.

"Yeah," Beomgyu says. "Yeah, very okay."

So Soobin leans down and kisses her, soft and unhurried, and it’s familiar because everything about Beomgyu is familiar, and different because everything is different now, and Beomgyu makes a small sound against her mouth and kisses her back like she's been waiting and Soobin thinks oh, pleased and relieved that she's allowed to have this. The angle is awkward and it could not matter less.

When they pull back Beomgyu is looking at her with a small, wondering smile.

"Hi," she says again, for the third time.

Soobin laughs helplessly. "Are you going to say anything else?"

Beomgyu makes her eyes go all wide and sparkly. “Don’t you think we’d be more comfortable in your bed?”

Soobin can’t help but laugh at the boldness of it, can’t help but lean forward and press another kiss to her mouth.

They do end up in Soobin’s bed, but they don’t actually do anything further than lazy making out. The month-long dam of all that careful distance has been broken and it’s like they’ll both explode if they’re not touching in some way.

After some negotiating Beomgyu ends up tucked under her arm with her cheek on Soobin's chest, which is the configuration they always used to default to, and Soobin has one arm around her and her chin resting on top of her head. Beomgyu is very warm and slightly heavy and Soobin can feel it against her own body when she breathes. It's a sensation she was convinced she would never get to feel again.

"I love you," she says to the top of Beomgyu's head. Not the first time she's thought it, but the first time in a long time she's let herself say it. It comes out surprisingly steady.

Beomgyu is quiet for a moment. Then she tips her head up to look at her, and her eyes are a little bright but she's smiling hugely.

"I know," she says, which should be annoying and somehow isn't. "I love you too. I've loved you basically the whole time."

"The whole time?"

"The whole time," Beomgyu confirms, settling her cheek back against Soobin's chest with great finality, like the matter is closed. "We can talk about it later, but you're stuck with me now. I want you to know that."

Soobin tightens her arm around her.

"Good," she says. She presses another kiss against Beomgyu's hair, eliciting a content little sigh.

Outside the light is beginning to fade, the entire flat lit a burnt gold. Soobin isn't much of a fate person. But she thinks, looking at the ceiling with Beomgyu warm and sleepy against her, that maybe she doesn't need to be. Maybe it's enough to just be someone who, when the universe put Beomgyu on her doorstep, stepped back and let her in.

Maybe she's been overthinking this.

She closes her eyes.

She doesn't feel like she's waiting for anything.