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They’ve been together for almost three weeks now.
Jimin met her at her best friend’s 26th birthday party, intensely manning the bar with glares and an interminable look of eternal disappointment towards the unwarranted existence of men, and Jimin decided that she's going to be the love of her life.
So, Jimin walked to the bar with the confidence of a student who studied Physics for a Literature exam. She went there in stride, leaned an elbow against the cold surface of the counter, mouth curved into a smirk, then she said: “Do you come here often?”
To which the beautiful love of her life answered with a tired: “It’s a birthday party. It’s an annual thing. How often do you think that is?”
And Jimin swooned because that was actually so smart. Seriously. It’s like she just went splat on the floor, so ridiculously down horrendous and she’s in no rush to get up any time soon. Then, they got to talking (with Jimin flirting here and there), and somehow, she managed to score a date by the end of the party.
They decided to become a couple that same night because apparently, her precious sugarplum was bored and had nothing better to do, so why not date the hot girl that flirts like a goober?
Jimin, naturally, was ecstatic. She was over Neptune, even.
Who wouldn't want to be with someone as dear as her lovely honeybunch?
So now, they're girlfriends, they're making out, her sweet pretty angel is on her lap, and Jimin thinks it is the perfect time to feel sentimental with her girlfriend of approximately 20 days.
She pulls away, smiling when her pulchritudinous boo bear whines in protest. Jimin’s heart aches in a really pleasant way as she looks at her for a moment.
“Why’d we stop?” her pookie wookie asks, chest slightly heaving.
“I really like you—” pause. Jimin’s smile drops.
She blinks, jogs her memory about all the things she's learned about her sweetiepie, and then it dawns on her. She knows she's twenty-five. She knows she’s in a band with her best friend Yizhuo. She knows she likes going on walks, she knows she likes snacks, and she knows she's one of the only people who actually understands Tenet, and yet…
Jimin doesn't know her name.
She doesn't know her girlfriend’s name.
This is bad. Shit. This is terrible!
Jimin gulps, takes it like a woman, and brings her attention back to her girlfriend. “I really like you, um… uh, Bluey.”
Nailed it.
“Bluey?” her nutter butter wafer tilts her head, then starts playing with the baby hairs on the back of Jimin’s head. “That’s new.”
“Well, I like blue, and I like you.” Jimin doesn't tell her that she just really has no idea what her name is. “Uh, babe? Will you excuse me for a second? I need to– um, I need to pee.”
UFO (that’s her interim name) shoots up an eyebrow, amused at Jimin’s audacity. She hops off Jimin’s lap, and Jimin grimaces internally as she balances herself up. God, Jimin wants to kick herself out of her own house for even thinking of referring to the love of her life as a UFO (Unidentified Fine Object) because for one, her baby is not an object. Two, it really is so ridiculously strange how Jimin has been basically letting a stranger (on paper, at least) sleep in her bedroom, wear her hoodies, and shove their tongue down her throat for weeks without even knowing which letter their name starts with. This entire situation is preposterous!
The bathroom in her apartment isn't that far from the living room where she left her cutie gumdrop, so Jimin feigns walking slowly to give herself enough time to think.
Think. Think. Think. Think.
She could ask Aeri, but then Aeri is Aeri, and Aeri would probably be just as useful as those decorative mugs her mother holds captive in their cupboard. Jimin is pretty sure if she were to ask Aeri if she knew her girlfriend’s name because Jimin just kind of failed to get hold of such trivial information about the love of her life, Aeri would certainly say yes, but would purposely keep it from Jimin for funsies.
Jimin could ask Yizhuo, but she’s known the girl for like, a week! Yizhuo is also fiercely protective of Jimin’s darling lovebug, and she’s been working like a dog trying to impress the younger girl. Approaching her out of nowhere asking about her peanut butter’s government name is not going to be a good look on Jimin.
Therefore, those two are out of the question.
Jimin will not and can not ask Aeri and Yizhuo for her sweet pumpkin’s name. They usually call her beloved puppygirl those cheesy, stupid nicknames like Turtle and Ming-unnie, so Jimin’s pretty sure they don’t even know it themselves (she’s only saying this to make herself feel better).
She throws a glance at the living room, and she lets out a deep sigh as she takes in the way her baby jellybean simply exists. Oh, how lucky is she to be able to breathe the same air as her.
It’s a fucking shame she has no idea what she’s called.
“Jimin-ah?” her girlfriend calls out for her, and Jimin feels like crying.
Her angel cupcake knows her name, says it like it’s the most fragile yet prettiest thing in the universe, and Jimin doesn’t even know if hers starts with a vowel or consonant. God should just strike her with lightning right here and right now.
But then, Yu Jimin is first and foremost a lovergirl. This slight hiccup isn’t going to discourage her about her stand in their relationship. So who cares if she has no clue about her girlfriend’s name? Well– Jimin does. She actually does care a lot, but it’s not that big of a deal, is it? She can just casually ask her sugar booger and then she’ll casually break up with Jimin which–no! No. Big no. Just no. Jimin is not going to ask her. She can figure it out on her own!
Putting on her big girl pants, Jimin squares her shoulders and walks back to the living room as if she wasn’t just on the verge of breaking down minutes prior.
“Hey, you look a little pale, unnie. Are you okay?”
“I- I am. Sure. I’m totally okay!” Jimin smiles so wide it physically pains her cheeks. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I wasn’t, though? You’d probably have to bring me to the nearest hospital and you’re gonna have to fill up those forms asking for your full government name.”
Her girlfriend doesn’t seem amused. Instead, she frowns and glares at Jimin. “No, not really. I don’t find that funny, Jimin.”
Jimin stops smiling, then she scratches the back of her head awkwardly. “Right. I- I’m sorry for saying that, baby. I don't know why I said that.”
Actually, she might have a clue.
“Are you really okay? You’re acting weird, unnie.”
“Yeah, I’m– I’m good.” Jimin feigns laugh as she artlessly sits beside her sugarplum. She blinks, trying to make the gears in her brain work properly. “Are you? You’ve been working hard lately, baby. You wanna go out with me? To unwind? I know a place, but it’s– it’s a bar. They’d probably ask you for an ID to see if you’re underage—which you aren't. Speaking of IDs, wanna see mine? I can show you mine if you show me yours, and then–”
“Unnie.”
Jimin stops rambling when her honey bun suddenly grips both her shoulders, and looks at her straight in the eyes.
“Hey, do you happen to have your birth certificate with you?” Jimin questions, and instantly regrets it when her girlfriend’s eyebrows furrow even more.
“What’s up with you and your sudden obsession with my legal documents?”
“Nothing! Why– I– well!”
As Jimin continues to sputter incoherent words, UFO folds her arms under her chest, now eyeing Jimin suspiciously.
That specific look is Jimin’s Achilles’ heel. Her sweet lovely baby regarding her with any hint of distrust? She might as well just jump off the tallest cliff! It’s unacceptable!
Naturally, Jimin sighs in defeat.
“Promise you won’t get mad at me?”
Her toothache-inducing yum-yum merely shoots her an unimpressed look. “Unnie, you know I can't promise you anything unless you tell me what's going on first.”
Well. She supposes that’s fair. Her baby is just so smart, isn’t she? Jimin’s pretty sure her brain is now positively wrinkly—what with all that knowledge she has and thinking she makes on a daily basis. She’s simply the smartest woman in the world.
Anyhow.
Jimin winces awkwardly as she eventually decides to face her conundrum. “I kind of… don’t know your name?”
There.
She’s said it.
Bracing herself for her moon cake’s inevitable reaction, Jimin’s shoulder relaxes when she doesn’t immediately receive any. She’s not sure whether or not that’s a good thing.
“Kind of?” Her dearest gelatin tilts her head like a clueless little puppy. “What do you mean?”
Too ashamed to even dare move her mouth, Jimin pouts, and grumbles unintelligibly.
“Unnie, I don’t speak gibberish.”
“I said, I have no idea what your real name is, and I’ve only been calling you my sweet adorable sugar booger in my head for almost three weeks now.”
Now that she’s hearing it, the urge to slam her forehead against a solid surface grows tenfold. While wearing a helmet, of course. She doesn’t want the love of her life to worry about her.
“You’re serious.” UFO blinks, and Jimin almost hears the way her eyelids close—and then her girlfriend’s nose flares for an insulting yet polite amount of time before she suddenly bursts out laughing. “Oh, my god– unnie! You’re actually being serious!”
“Yeah, I– what– ya! Don’t laugh at me!”
UFO doubles over with laughter, the sound charmingly taking up space in Jimin’s ribs and hugging her bones there. She really is the most beautiful person she’s ever met, and that’s saying something because Jimin has seen Girls’ Generation live. Her beauty is simply out of this universe. It goes beyond things that are beyond. Nothing else will ever compare, Jimin has known this the moment she met her.
“You’ve been shoving your tongue down my throat for three weeks, and you don’t even know my name?”
That’s what she’s been saying! Ah, they really are soulmates, she and—whoever this person is.
(Her dearly sweetest beloved. That’s who this person is, actually.)
“In my defense—” Jimin lifts an index finger, said defense locked and loaded on the tip of her tongue until her dearest banana pudding situates herself on her lap and takes her words away by literally taking them from her mouth.
She kisses back, obviously. She places her palm on the small of her girlfriend’s back as an attempt to steady her—only it remains an attempt because her Gay Baked Alaska just can’t stop laughing for one second. Seriously! What’s so funny about Jimin’s misery? And while in the middle of a very heated make out session too!
Jimin groans in protest as UFO continues to cackle, which annoyingly breaks their mouths apart.
Unbelievable.
“Unnie… how—” UFO giggles, clutching her stomach as she scampers off Jimin’s lap. “How’s that even possible? Aeri unnie knows my name! You could’ve just asked her! Actually, you could’ve just asked me!”
“Okay, then!” Jimin grumbles, huffing as she folds her arms. “What’s your name?”
Her girlfriend flutters her round pretty eyes and Jimin forces herself to accept her fate before she hears the answer.
“Guess.”
Jimin cannot believe this woman.
She’s also so obsessed with her an impossible amount.
Jimin tries fifteen times, fifteen of them she guesses wrong, and her girlfriend laughs for twenty. She decides to feel less miserable just because of that alone.
If her sugar booger finds the whole thing funny, then the chances of her breaking up with Jimin is less than any numerical percentage to ever exist in the world. It’s just not plausible. Jimin refuses to even think about it anymore.
She and her unidentified girlfriend are absolutely perfect.
Jimin will know her name before the night ends.
Two days later, Jimin still doesn’t know her girlfriend’s name.
It doesn’t help that her sweetest cheesecake is being a little shit about it (fondly) by telling their closest friends about Jimin’s unfortunate, tragic predicament, and so naturally the people around her have been entirely useless. Sans her vanilla donut, of course. She can do no wrong in Jimin’s eyes. She can vaguely remember her sister’s supposedly cautionary spiel about putting a person on a pedestal and how she should never ever worship the ground they walk on, but Jimin figures a little reverence here and there shouldn’t hurt. After all, if there is anyone in the world who deserves Jimin on her knees, it’s going to be her caramel croquembouche.
“It’s Youngwoo, isn’t it?”
UFO’s brown eyes move themselves away from the movie she’s been watching for almost three hours now (ridiculous!) in favor of looking at Jimin in amusement.
“Unnie, I just told you it starts with an M.”
Well, surely, it’s not Moungwoo.
“Also, that sounds like a man’s name.”
“You said your name is unisex!”
“It is,” UFO shrugs, nonchalantly bringing her gaze back to the television. The nerve of this girl! Honestly! Jimin cannot believe her. “Ah, unnie. Seriously. Don’t think about it too much.”
“I can’t not think about my girlfriend’s name too much!” Jimin whines, throwing her head back in despair, only ever sobering up when she feels her heart constrict at the sound of her girlfriend’s laughter. She adjusts herself on the bed to face her beloved yellow M&Ms fully. “Just tell me please, baby. Don’t you feel bad for unnie?”
There. She’s bringing out the big guns. The biggest guns. The only gun she has, really. For now, at least. Jimin is very much aware of her girlfriend’s affinity for older women, and just her luck, she just so happens to be one year ahead her melted Nutella. And fine, a year is nothing compared to a four or five or six or nine year gap between two consenting adults, but that hardly matters when it’s UFO herself who loves acting like Jimin has a millennium on her. What’s a girl gotta do? Not spoil and pamper her? Unacceptable. Jimin will give her girlfriend her lungs if she so much as unnie’d her while batting her eyelashes.
“Hmm…” UFO hums, still not looking at Jimin as she vaguely considers it before eventually shaking her head just as she got Jimin on the edge of her seat. “Not really, no. I do find it entertaining.”
Evil, evil woman. Jimin’s girlfriend is mean and evil and the prettiest girl ever. She’s the only girl for Jimin.
“What did I do to deserve this? Why are you torturing me? Why are you making me suffer? Why are putting me through the hardest—”
Her darling hash brown cuts her off with a messy, aimless kiss, and Jimin decides that maybe the world isn’t so bad.
“Why don’t you know your girlfriend’s name?” says Unidentified Girlfriend once she pulls away, gently patting the dazed and gooey and lovestruck look away from Jimin’s face. Obviously, it doesn’t work. If anything, Jimin just sighs when she feels the pads of her girlfriend’s fingers grazing her cheeks.
“Because you don’t want to tell me,” Jimin grumbles petulantly.
“I would’ve told you if—say, you asked me about it before you asked me to be your girlfriend,” UFO says with a teasing smile.
“Why didn’t you tell me your name before I asked you to be my girlfriend?” Jimin counters, and then smiles dopily when it hits her. They’re both stupid, she and her baby.
That means they’re meant to be.
“If a pretty girl asks you to be their girlfriend, you simply say yes. You don’t think about anything else.”
“Aw, you think I’m pretty?” Jimin preens and then melts. What a charming girl, her girlfriend!
“The prettiest, unnie,” UFO affirms. Jimin will turn into a puddle any moment now. She can feel it in her bones. The tiniest spaces in her joints, even! “Sucks you don’t know who I am, though.”
Jimin gasps, eyes wide and glaring.
“Lies!” She exclaims, seriously not liking even just the implication of her not knowing the littlest things about the loveliest person in her life. “I know you well enough, baby! Ask me anything about all things you—except your name, for obvious reasons—and I’m telling you I can ace it! Try!”
“Okay, what’s my favorite color?”
“Pft, easy. It’s blue.”
“Unnie, that’s your favorite color.”
“But we’re soulmates, baby. All colors are the same when you’re in love.”
“You mean when you’re color blind?” Still Unidentified Girlfriend deadpans, and before Jimin could frown and pout about it, her girlfriend reaches for the remote on the bedside table, pauses her movie, and looks at Jimin with her lovely brown eyes and lovely smile and her lovely nose and her lovely face. “But I do think we’re soulmates, too.”
“You do?”
Stars cloud Jimin’s eyes. Billions of them, all bright and drawn to her sunshine.
“Of course, unnie. It feels like I’ve known you my whole life,” says sunshine. Her cheeks are red now. She’s shy just by admitting it—Jimin can tell—yet her certainty outshines everything else.
They’ve known each other for twenty-three days, but that’s a tricennium in lesbian years. They really should’ve gotten married five days ago.
Oh, well. There’s always tomorrow.
“I feel that way, too. All the time,” Jimin smiles. “Please, please, my sugar plum. Tell me your name? Don’t you want to hear me say it? Your world will stop, surely. I just know it. I’ll even say it all sweet and sexy and—”
“And I believe you.” UFO simply shrugs and somehow that’s it.
“Good! Perfect!” Jimin beams, and clasps her hands together in anticipation. “What is it then?”
“I really like being your girlfriend, unnie,” Strawberry Sorbet says, adjusting her jaw to kiss Jimin’s temple. “I hope you like being mine too.”
“I… me too…” Jimin sighs dreamily, scoots closer to the bed so her girlfriend can rest on her shoulder comfortably, and the night ends there.
Minutes later, she gets a feeling she’s been tricked.
A stranger sends Jimin a bouquet of assorted flowers at her doorstep on November 23rd, 2026, which coincidentally happens to be her and her chocolate truffle’s 24th day anniversary. It comes with a card—as all bouquets often do—that says ‘Always yours, Minjeong <3’ and Jimin scoffs then leaves it there to die.
Her name is not Minjeong. It’s Jimin. Surely, even her supposed bitter marmalade should know that so as to not accidentally use Jimin’s address before sending stupid flowers to her equally stupid sidepiece.
Hypothetically, of course.
Her precious girlfriend would never ever send romantic flowers to somebody else because she’s obsessed with Jimin.
Jimin has decided that this bouquet simply did not come from her dearest darling universe.
So.
Into the trash can it goes.
It doesn’t stop there, however.
Days pass and the bouquets continue to show up in her mail like letters from a toxically codependent utility company threatening her with bills. She ruminates about telling her girlfriend, but then she ultimately decides against it. Not because she wanted to hide it from her darlingest chocolate chip cookie—no, absolutely not— it’s just… is it even worth mentioning when the bouquets weren’t even for Jimin in the first place?
“Are you mad at me?”
“No?” Jimin frowns, setting her chopsticks down on the dining table before angling her body towards her vanilla boo bear beside her. “Why would I be mad at you? I could never be mad at you. Have you seen yourself? No one could ever get mad at that adorable face—”
UFO huffs, her shoulders sagging down as she despondently plays with the noodles in her bowl. “Unnie, I’m serious...”
Completely abandoning her dinner in favor of giving all her attention to her girlfriend, Jimin blinks in silence, gauging where this conversation is heading. Actually, now that she’s thinking about it, her dearest fruit-flavored ice cream did seem a bit blue the second she stepped into Jimin’s foyer two hours ago. And even if blue is Jimin’s favorite color, she absolutely despises it when it just paints over her girlfriend’s emotions like it had a right. It doesn’t. Nobody in this world does. Not even Jimin herself.
“Oh.” Jimin drags her chair closer to her girlfriend, her eyebrows furrowing. “I really am not mad at you. Why would you think that, baby?”
She so desperately wants to kiss the pout off her darling Jolly Rancher’s lips, but she figures now is not really a good time for that. Her girlfriend is telling her something important, and Jimin will listen.
“I don’t know…” UFO mumbles, the downcast tone of her voice pinching at a really feeble part of Jimin’s heart. She simply cannot stand seeing her like this! “It’s just… you threw my 24th day anniversary gift for you in the trash…”
“What!? I would never! What are you talking about? What gift?!” Jimin reacts before the words could even leave her girlfriend’s mouth entirely. Almost jumping out of her seat, Jimin’s fingers grip the backrest of her chair so as to not lose her bearings.
“What do you mean ‘what gift’?” UFO feigns grit by scoffing and folding her arms together. “I’ve been sending you bouquets daily, and you—” her lips then pucker like those cute little ducklings by the pond where she and Jimin had their ninth day anniversary, “you keep throwing them in the trash. Do you not like them, unnie? You can just say so, you know? I can try giving you something else and then—”
“No, wait, wait, wait, wait. Pause!” Jimin’s eyes snap open, and they’re even wider than saucers by now. “Those were from you?”
“Yeah? Who else?”
“But— my name is Jimin!” Jimin states the obvious.
“I think you and I both know that already, unnie.” UFO states the obviouser. Is that a word? Ah, Jimin couldn’t care less. She has bigger things to worry about!
“Well! If I’m Jimin, then who the hell is Minjeong?!”
“Unnie.” Her sweet tiramisu stares at her with her lips a straight line. “You can’t be serious.”
Jimin blinks once, twice, and suddenly her girlfriend is lunging at her like an overexcited Maltese puppy pouncing on its very confused weasel stuffed toy.
“Oh. You are!” UFO exclaims, her palms squishing the sides of Jimin’s face out of some kind of (cuteness?) aggression.
“What? Why? Why are you laughing? Ya!” Jimin gently pries off her girlfriend’s hands off her cheeks. “Are you in an inside joke cabin that you just kicked me out of?”
“Unnie, those bouquets were from me. Minjeong. That’s my name.”
Oh.
Oh.
Well.
Jimin feels like crying.
“Why didn’t you just say so?!” Jimin chides, burying her face in her hands as her elbows rest on the table. “You know I didn’t know your name!” And suddenly, she’s sobbing. “You know I didn’t, Minjeongie…”
Oh, would you look at that. A nickname already.
“Oh– unnie, I’m so sorry. Are you crying? Hey…” UFO— well, Minjeong— is quick to take Jimin into her arms as the older girl cries her heart out. “Oh, Jiminie…”
“I– I threw your flowers away…”
Jimin makes a mental note to check her calendar soon. When’s the last time she had her period? And isn’t her girlfriend so dashing? Immediately coming to the rescue like that? Jimin could stay in her arms for eternity and still ask for more.
“It’s okay, unnie. Don’t cry, please. It was my fault, I’m sorry. Can I see your face, unnie?” Her gentle mango sticky rice lifts her face to get a proper look at her.
She knows she looks like a mess right now, but Minjeong is whispering the sweetest things in her ear and she’s smiling and she’s cooing and she’s holding back her adorable giggles while still looking genuinely sorry and then everything feels better for Jimin.
“Your name is really Minjeong? It’s not some– some sidepiece?” Jimin knows it’s not. It doesn’t hurt to ask, though.
Minjeong (oh, what an adorably adorable name! Jimin could actually explode this time) shakes her head with that saccharine smile of hers, and Jimin just knows she’s about to say something smartly smart.
“If Minjeong is a sidepiece, then wouldn’t that make me your sidepiece?”
“You’re my girlfriend and my sidepiece,” naturally, Jimin has to reply with something stupidly stupid.
“I feel like I should be offended.”
“There’s no one else for me, Minjeong-ah.” Jimin promises, making sure that her voice is also an octave lower to prove a point. “See how sexy it sounds coming from my mouth?”
“Sure, unnie.” Her now identified girlfriend nods, grinning as she scrunches her nose. “You’re an idiot.”
“You are, too. We both are,” Jimin sighs, then she pouts when she remembers something. “I’m sorry about the flowers.”
“Mhm, it’s fine. There’s always tomorrow.”
Jimin kisses her butterscotch shortcake’s scrunched nose, and then drops a bomb on her head. “I think I’m in love with you, Minjeongie.”
Ah, she’s insane. Jimin is insane. Very insane.
“That’s a little too soon.” Minjeong messes up Jimin’s bangs just to have something to do with her hands before suddenly attacking Jimin with firework kisses. “I think I’m in love with you too, Jiminie.”
Luckily for her, Minjeong seems just as insane as she is. Oh, their relationship is so going to work out in the future! Jimin can already see it.
“I love your name. It’s the best name to ever exist, and I think you’re the Minjeongiest Minjeongie,” Jimin says with a dopey smile as she drinks in the sound of her girlfriend’s giggles. “But I’m going to keep calling you my sweet pretty angel.”
“Okay,” Minjeong nods again, pliant under Jimin’s touches and sheer audacity. “okay, unnie. You can call me whatever you want.”
“Sweet!”