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Ryujin climbs up the ladder, sweat trickling down her back as she pulls herself onto the terrace. The moon is soft in the sky, not quite a full circle, but nearly there. She settles into her usual spot, leaning against the wall, one leg swinging off the edge. She is almost convinced that if she turns her head to the left, she will see Yeji huddled up beside her, can almost feel her presence, hear her breathing. Soft, like everything else about her.
Yeji is soft and kind and a hundred other things. She’s as bright as the summer sun, as gentle as the breeze during the onset of autumn. She is beautiful, in a way that Ryujin doesn’t think anyone else is, really. She likes her coffee hot and sweet, first thing in the morning. She twirls her hand and takes a bow when she feels particularly happy. Not once in the last seven years has she addressed her without an endearment. She is hardworking, almost to a fault. She likes to kiss Ryujin’s forehead when she wakes up. Ryujin lists off these facts in her head, counts them on her fingers, wonders if she is given the chance to know them in every universe.
In another life, they are seatmates on a train to Jeonju. They make casual conversation about the book Ryujin is reading, Yeji’s dogs that she can’t wait to see again, about their mutual love of dance. They don’t meet again.
In another life, they don’t meet at all.
In another life, Ryujin walks into the practice room to be greeted for the first time by striking cat eyes and a smile that threatens to split the girl’s face. Her name is Yeji, she learns, and she may be the most beautiful person Ryujin has ever seen. They are as inevitable as the next sunrise. When Yeji kisses her in the dark after their debut stage, Ryujin feels infinite.
In another life, they meet in university. Yeji spends all of finals season cooped up in the library and Ryujin can’t help but notice the pretty girl hogging her favorite spot to study. They end up sharing the table.
Yeji introduces Ryujin to her girlfriend, Jisu, and Ryujin introduces Yeji to Yuna and Chaeryeong. The five of them become inseparable. A few years down the line, Yeji asks Ryujin to be her maid of honor. Ryujin stands beside Yeji, who looks radiant as ever, and tries her hardest to blink back her tears as Yeji and Jisu exchange vows. She cries her eyes out alone in the bathroom until Chaeryeong finds her, muttering soft nothings into her ear until her breathing evens out. They remain friends for the rest of their lives.
In another life, Ryujin sees a tall girl with long black hair enter the JYP building as she is getting ready to leave. Their eyes meet for a brief second, and Ryujin feels her stomach flip as the girl throws her a smile, eyes crinkling into crescents. Ryujin leaves the training program later that year, but never forgets that smile. She recognises the girl instantly when she sees her on TV years later. Hwang Yeji, the leader of Itzy. Ryujin can’t stop the grin that breaks out if she tries.
In another life, Ryujin is the stranger Yeji sees in the park sometimes, who always has a tangerine and a kind smile to offer her.
In another life, they try, they really do. They exist in fleeting moments, in hands that reach for the other at every chance, in spaces that they carve for themselves under the camera’s watchful eye. But they are two teenagers under the unrelenting lens of millions. What they try their hardest to hold together with battered, bleeding hands breaks anyway, and they break along with it.
In another life, they grow old together.
In another life, Yeji’s eyes shift to the grave next to her grandmother's. Shin Ryujin, it reads, nineteen years old. Yeji brings her a bouquet of daisies every month.
In another life as Itzy enters their seventh year, Ryujin and Chaeryeong break the news to the other three that they are dating. Ryujin’s eyes gravitate to Yeji as they have always done and she is greeted by the usual smile, dimple and all. It doesn’t reach her eyes. Ryujin notices, she always does. They don't talk much after that. Itzy is active for three more years, and once they take their final bow, they stop talking altogether. Ryujin thinks nothing could’ve prepared her for the ache in her chest when she realises they aren’t friends anymore.
In another life, Ryujin’s home is in Yeji’s arms.
In another life, they are a patchwork of missed chances, a collection of words left unsaid. They are made of every transient moment where they banter as if they are nothing more than fair weather friends, every instance that the leap of faith is the road not taken, every conversation with a confession that isn’t spoken into existence.
In another life, their shoulders brush as they pass by each other on a busy street.
In another life, Ryujin falls asleep on a stranger’s shoulder on the bus. She wakes up to a soft smile and eyes that twinkle down at her. She wonders, briefly, head still resting on the stranger, if this is what angels look like.
In another life, they wake up tangled together every morning. Ryujin makes them breakfast and Yeji brews them tea. They go on long walks in the park during fall and lay on flower fields in summer. Yeji buys every odd thing that reminds her of Ryujin, and Ryujin gets her all the Hello Kitty figurines her heart desires. Their house is covered wall to wall in pictures and memories, of their time in Itzy, of their time after, unmistakably and unapologetically them. Their story is not perfect, even when it's passed down. It is messy and cracked and raw. But it is beautiful to them, because at the end of it, they are together.
The night wind whips at Ryujin’s hair as she recalls the day things shifted between them.
Yeji is curled up next to her on the bottom bunk, as she often is these days. She is staring, Ryujin realises. And Ryujin is tired, so tired, of overthinking every last glance they share. The words slip out before she can stop them. “Yeji, you’re staring,” she says, sharper than she intends, more accusatory.
“You’re beautiful. Can you really blame me?” Yeji asks, the honesty catching Ryujin unaware. She shifts to look at Yeji, and the depth of emotion in her eyes tugs at Ryujin’s chest. She wonders briefly what Yeji is letting her into, as their eyes lock, and she finds herself unable to look away, to move a muscle. She is trapped in this moment, she thinks, as she vaguely registers Yeji closing the gap between them. She blinks once, twice, registers Yeji tilting her face toward her, their noses almost touching. She closes the gap, kisses her as if it is second nature. She thinks Yeji tastes like every beautiful thing in the universe.
Ryujin wonders what they would’ve been if things were any different. If Yeji didn’t dislike sleeping alone, if they were never roommates, if they never wanted to become idols, if every little event that has lead to them as they are took place even a little differently. She likes to think they’ve defied the odds.
Because in this life, Ryujin falls asleep in the crook of Yeji’s neck. In this life, she smiles every time Yeji shouts “Let’s go Ryujin!!” on stage. In this life, Yeji kisses Ryujin every chance she gets. Because in this life, Yeji settles beside her on the terrace, presses a kiss to her temple, whispers a soft “I love you,” into her hair, and Ryujin has never been happier.