Chapter Text
( — 1920.)
park jihyo doesn’t believe in soulmates. she doesn’t believe in fireworks after your lips touch and a splash of color behind your eyes when you first meet.
she rolls her eyes every time her parents retell their meeting story to anyone that will listen to a classic tale. today, it’s a sappy and cliché encounter between a wandering traveler with a loan he has to repay with his life and the daughter of a thriving bank owner who wants to help him live. two worlds that should never meet, but the spark and thrill too great to ignore.
(they always make sure to embellish small details, make them grander than what they are. sometimes, jihyo’s father is a rival mafia son, hellbent on securing revenge in the name of his fallen father that can only be obtained by stealing off with his only daughter. other times, her mother is a lowly kitchen aide that takes care of the grounds eldest son before he’s sent off to be wed to another.
no one knows the truth, though. that jihyo’s father was a dying soldier in a far off war. and jihyo’s mother, a war nurse with a kind heart in a cruel world, sank her teeth into his neck within seconds of his last breath.
but it always ends the same, regardless. their eyes meet. colors flash and fireworks pop. they fall in love.)
it depends on the time they’re living in, the way the people around them would react. and now, the people in their fancy suits and necks shining with pearls, preen at the exciting story from the new faces in town as they retell of their epic story of strife to greatness.
(each time, jihyo rolls her eyes all the same.)
——
“aren’t you tired of spewing that same story in every new era?” jihyo comments once the last stranger leaves their table. she hears them mumble about how extravagant it all is, a love story so moving, and groans audibly. “the people are so gullible and it’s unfair of you to string them along when they’ll never know the feeling from any of your stories.”
jihyo’s father laughs and she feels the weight of his words before he even says them,
“not everyone can be so lucky, jihyo. we just want to share the experience for those who never will.”
she swallows, knows the meaning rings true for the people they entrance and for her as well.
(she doesn’t need love. doesn’t care for it. has never felt the need. she’s fine alone.
she’s fine .)
her mother’s touch to her hand startles her, but the loving and careful look in her eyes calms her no more than a second later. “have you not given any further thought to finding your own, dear? you do deserve happiness as well.”
jihyo knows they mean well. knows that they want her to have what they’ve had for hundreds of years. what their kind thrive off of to survive happily.
(she knows that they want to live out the rest of the life they choose to lead, knowing that she’s okay.)
but she shakes her head, anyway. she’s selfish and she only needs them to be happy.
she refuses.
she’s fine.
( — jihyo & tzuyu; 1973.)
chou tzuyu is the first person jihyo’s met in a while that isn’t instantly enamored with the glamorous spell her parents cast across town upon their arrival.
(tzuyu is sixteen and in that stage of ‘rebelling’ according to her parents when they’re welcomed to the neighborhood. she stays out past when the street lights come on and hangs out with the kids who smoke behind the roller rink on the other side of town. apparently, she doesn’t care about anything that doesn’t interest her even the slightest bit.
she’s different. jihyo likes different.)
so when tzuyu’s parents invite her family over for a welcoming dinner, tzuyu doesn’t gawk with stars in her eyes like her gullible parents do when jihyo’s father mentions the latest story of how they met.
(this time, it’s a simple meet-cute at a burger joint in the summer of 1935. jihyo’s father spills a milkshake on her mother's skirt. when their eyes meet, it’s apparently a beautiful beginning. there’s a quick wedding and jihyo arrives a couple years later. the rest is history.)
and tzuyu just doesn’t care because that’s all it is to her—a story .
jihyo rolls her eyes. she sees tzuyu do the same over a bite of mashed potatoes when her mother mentions the milkshake was chocolate and that stains . jihyo smiles.
( — 1976.)
“do you believe in soulmates, tzuyu?”
tzuyu turns from where she’d just gently placed a vinyl on her deck— roadrunner by the modern lovers —and gives jihyo a long look.
“i believe in loving someone.” she stops long enough to let the sounds of the song fill the room, then settles on the floor beside jihyo again. “but at the same time, i don’t need to love someone like that either, you know?”
jihyo nods, because she does know. it took her years to figure that out. yet here is tzuyu, just freshly nineteen and still learning about life, beating out the decades upon decades that jihyo possesses.
tzuyu is what jihyo wishes she was when she was unsure. tzuyu only says what she knows and with finality. and jihyo couldn’t have picked a better person to look up to despite their vast difference in life experiences.
(she couldn’t have picked a better person to call her best friend. her life partner.)
tzuyu looks at her when jihyo remains silent after that, and the younger girl places her hand on jihyo’s between them. it’s an uncommon occurrence, because tzuyu values her personal space greatly, so jihyo knows she’s serious when she whispers, “and don’t worry about if you don’t find that certain someone you may or may not need to love, too. you’ve always got me.”
and jihyo knows she does.
/
“can we stay a little longer here this time?” jihyo questions when her parents tell her of their plans one gloomy saturday afternoon. the windows of the home they’ve been in for the past three years shake with a loud clap of thunder, but none of the three barely blink as jihyo practically begs.
they don’t question it or get to even think about it. they see the way jihyo perks up when the doorbell rings despite the rain and they hear tzuyu yell for their daughter to hurry and let her in before she freezes. they smile and decide that maybe, just maybe, they can scrape by with another year before people get suspicious.
/
“do you promise to come visit?” tzuyu questions as she helps jihyo place the last of her shirts into an already overpacked suitcase nearly four months later.
(jihyo hates that it’s all crumbled so quickly. hates that all it took was for one unassuming man to find out their secret. hates that they had to take care of it, him , and now have to leave the life they’ve created here.
hates that she has to leave tzuyu.)
jihyo doesn’t promise, but she does smile and tzuyu seems to take that as her agreement, anyway. she goes on to tell jihyo about the new puppy her parents promised to get for her now that she’s officially ready to move out on her own, and jihyo hates that she’ll never see tzuyu this happy again.
she’s been okay with leaving before, has never had a single regret whenever she stepped foot out of an old town. but she’s never had a person she had to leave, either. never had another heart attached so securely to her own. she’s never had a chou tzuyu before.
“i’ll miss you,” she blurts out in the middle of the younger girl brainstorming dog names— wags is horrendous, but it makes tzuyu smile so jihyo allows it without any teasing—and feels her eyes sting from even the idea of having to walk away and never look back.
tzuyu’s got her arms around jihyo in an instant, a laugh bubbling out of her throat as the older girl sniffles pitifully into her shoulder, “i told you before that you always have me. no need to cry.” she tsks and pats jihyo’s head, ”you’ll get more wrinkles than you already have.”
jihyo snorts and whacks at her arm.
“brat. nevermind, i changed my mind. i won’t miss you.”
tzuyu smiles.
——
unsurprisingly, jihyo cries again when tzuyu practically chases after their car to properly say goodbye despite waving them off no more than ten seconds ago.
the younger girl is out of breath and her hair is just starting to stick to her forehead with little beads of sweat when she finally catches up at a stop sign, but jihyo still bursts out of the car and into her arms, tears running down her cheeks and a promise of never forgetting tzuyu for as long as she lives spilling from her mouth.
(years and years. decades. lifetimes. jihyo has all the time in the world to remember tzuyu.)
jihyo’s father calls for her and tzuyu’s grip tightens like she refuses to let go.
(jihyo wishes she wouldn’t.)
but tzuyu does with a kiss to the crown of jihyo’s head. it doesn’t feel final, almost, the way that tzuyu looks at her, like she knows jihyo isn’t gone for good. but then, with a sad smile on her face, and an i’ll be seeing you thrown over her shoulder, she turns and walks back down the sidewalk.
( — 1980.)
when jihyo sees tzuyu again, they’re both older.
jihyo looks the same, but she’s able to play it off with a mixture of easy smiles and eyes that shine when her words drip with honey when someone catches a slip of the tongue from her and becomes suspicious.
but tzuyu looks different. the baby fat that surrounded her throughout their years together has completely vanished, leaving nothing more than sharp angles of a jaw and curved cheekbones. from what jihyo can see from this distance, the girl has grown, too. awkward limbs that jihyo had promised she’d grow into now curled confidently over her chest. and her hair is now a dirty blonde compared to the black jihyo last saw her with, and mutedly, she briefly notes that tzuyu could probably suit any color she tried.
but it’s her eyes that grab jihyo. her eyes are a little colder, more calculating, and unsure as she speaks to a random person that calls her name. but when they catch jihyo’s for the first time in four years across a crowded campus, they soften and pinch, curious before realization hits. that tell-tale smile curls onto her lips as she excuses herself and makes her way over.
jihyo meets her halfway, because she’s never been one to make tzuyu do all the work between them, and throws her arms around the younger girl with such ferocity that they almost topple over in the middle of the crowd.
tzuyu laughs and asks how she is, but it doesn’t register because all that echoes through jihyo’s head is tzuyu, tzuyu, tzuyu .
her best friend.
her life partner.
her tzuyu.
——
“i told you that i’d see you,” tzuyu comments hours later after class has ended and the sun has sunk, when jihyo settles down beside her. they’re sat on jihyo’s couch, plates full of take out italian food from a hole-in-the-wall cafe that jihyo frequents since her move to town and subsequent enrollment in the local university, and she thinks it’s quaint, isolated and homely enough for someone like tzuyu to enjoy, too.
tzuyu takes a bite of a noodle and hums in appreciation. jihyo smiles.
“you did. i’m glad you meant it.”
tzuyu reaches over and grabs jihyo’s hand gently, cradles it against her chest.
“i’ll always mean it. and like always, i’m staying with you.”
it’s simple, the way tzuyu says it. like it’s a fact, like it’s something she’s always known, and that jihyo should always remember.
jihyo smiles and squeezes her hand, “and i’m staying with you.”
( — 1981.)
“are you sure about this, tzu?”
tzuyu hums and jihyo glances back to where the younger girl is signing off on a letter to send to her parents. from what jihyo could see before she slipped it into an envelope, she wishes them well and tells them that she loves them. she mentions that this might be the last letter she can send for a while, if at all, but that she’ll never forget them.
(jihyo knows she won’t. tzuyu never forgets the ones she loves.)
“i’m sure about everything, jihyo.” tzuyu slides the letter into her bag and pats it, like it’s a reminder that this is final. “i’m sure about this decision, this life choice. everything.”
jihyo could cry. and she hates that because she’s shed so many tears because of and for tzuyu that she would think she’d be out by now. but she isn’t, because a tear slips from her eye anyway that tzuyu quickly wipes away with a smile.
“i thought i said no more wrinkles?”
like last time, jihyo still whacks her arm. like last time, tzuyu still smiles.
“you ready, park?”
jihyo looks around her now empty apartment. the books and trinkets she’s collected over the years and the picture of her and tzuyu from the carnival last month are tucked away in a box in the back of tzuyu’s beat up car, and it makes the place already look less lived in despite the furniture she leaves behind.
but she knows any place with tzuyu will feel like home.
“always.”
park jihyo still doesn’t believe in soulmates. she still doesn’t believe in fireworks after your lips touch and a splash of color behind your eyes when you first meet.
but, she does believe in having someone who loves you unconditionally despite not believing in the idea of needing true love themselves. she believes in a life that feels more alive with someone else.
she believes in the bite on tzuyu’s neck that’s slowly healing and the smile on her face when she promises jihyo a lifetime by her side.