Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Sol has loved her best friend since the age of nine. 

It doesn’t scare her. 

She’s ten when she first realises it, recognises the feeling for what it is. Love, what a strange thing. Her mother tells her that children can’t fall in love, and ultimately, even though she doesn’t feel like a kid anymore, that's what she is. 

She tries not to think about it too much so she doesn’t get sad. 

(She had been so sure).

When her mom leaves the kitchen her father kneels down by her side. He taps her sneaker, gesturing for Sol to give him her foot. “I fell in love with your mom from the moment I first saw her,” he says in a quiet voice, picking apart Sol’s shoelaces. She can tie them herself now, but her dad was able to double-loop them a lot better than she could. “I was eleven.”

Sol has never heard her dad talk about falling in love with her mom before. He has the soft beginnings of a smile on his face, the lines around his eyes crinkling fondly. She wonders if this is how she looks when she thinks of Jiwan, if the warmth in his eyes translates to her cheeks when she remembers how good it feels when Jiwan grabs her hand, tugging her down the school corridors like Sol is her favourite person in the world.

She feels herself blushing. (She hopes not, that would be so lame).

Sol has never really put thought in how her mom and dad got together. Her parents are obviously made for each other, so it’s hard to visualise them living separate lives. She can’t even picture it, what it must’ve been like before they started dating. She can’t imagine her own life without Jiwan either.

“If you’re in love then you are in love,” her dad says with comfortable finality, his smile reflected kindly from her eyes. “Being in love is special no matter how old you are. Don’t listen to your mom.”

He taps his nose twice like this is their little secret, before following her mom into the living room. Sol remains seated at the dinner table wondering if one day her and Jiwan will be like her mom and dad, if they’ll be married in a big house with kids and their own love stories to tell.

The thought gives her butterflies.

She can’t wait to tell Jiwan.

Sol forgets.

The next time she sees Jiwan she finds herself distracted by the waves in her hair. Jiwan is rattling on about how her mom had braided her hair the night before and let her sleep in them, so now her hair is curly and full. It compliments the roundness of her face prettily, and Sol feels like she’s forgetting something.

(It’s on the tip of her tongue).

Jiwan looks really cute today, and it’s not just Sol who has noticed.

The boys are shoving each other in Jiwan’s direction, none of them bold enough to approach her alone. Sol can hear them from where they’re standing, and it’s rude of her to be ignoring Jiwan’s ramble about the homework she’s forgotten to do for English, and how she’s scared Mr. Bu will shout at her for it because sometimes he can be really mean, but all Sol can focus on is a boy called Daejung making his way down the hallway.

Sol scowls, and he stops in his tracks. 

Jiwan tilts her head curiously when she realises Sol isn’t listening (because that’s so unlike her), and follows the line of her sight.

Jiwan blinks in surprise. “Daejung?”

His expression is caught somewhere between surprise and bashful, and Sol scowls harder. “Hi.”

Jiwan’s grin is inviting, encouraging the boy to make his final steps over. Jiwan seems happy to see him, and Sol can’t help but feel guilty for her reaction so she tones it down, but only a bit. She’s not sure it really matters to him, anyway. He carries on talking like she’s not even there.

He ends up asking her if she would like to sit with him for lunch. Jiwan declines because she’d already promised her time to Sol, but the request has Jiwan buzzing for the next few days. Sol tries not to be smug over the rejection because her dad taught her better than that, but still. He hangs his head low on the way back to his friends, and Sol can’t hide her satisfaction.

Jiwan buries her face in Sol’s hair, squealing below her breath. “Wow, can you believe that?”

“What?” she asks, tangling her fingers in Jiwan’s.

When Jiwan pulls away her cheeks are as pink as the jigglypuff bag strapped to her back, and her eyes stretch into half-moons as she smiles. “Wow, I can’t get over it. He asked me to sit with him! Me!”

They both feel triumphant for different reasons, Sol realises, and maybe one day that will bother her more. 

She frowns, suddenly cross with what Jiwan is insinuating. “Well, why wouldn’t he?”

Jiwan rests her free hand onto her hips and rolls her eyes. “I’m not popular, Sol. He could have asked anyone in our grade.”

Sol drops her hands. “Well no one is as pretty as you,” she blurts, sounding angrier than she means to. Her ears redden in embarrassment, and she curls away from Jiwan’s side, upset with herself. Jiwan must think she’s so stupid.

Instead, Jiwan plants a wet kiss to the side of Sol’s face and before she can react whisks them away down the hall. 

Sol will deny it if anyone ever asks, but for the first time in her life, Sol is glad that Jiwan isn’t looking at her. What she might find is a star-struck mutant in her best friend’s place, blushing profusely while trying to unscramble its thoughts.

They make it to English in one piece, and Sol has long forgotten about Jiwan’s crisis until the moment it hits them. Mr. Bu is standing at the centre of the class announcing that he’s ready to make the rounds to collect their homework. Sol glances over at her best friend, lip barred between her teeth, with a genuine look of fear in her eyes.

Sol grabs her pencil and flips it over, scrubbing the name at the top of her worksheet. She flicks the eraser dust away with her hand and writes a new name in place of her own. Jiwan doesn’t realise Sol’s scheme until Mr. Bu is standing over them, demanding Sol’s homework. 

She bows her head. “I’m really sorry, sir,” Sol mumbles. “I forgot.”

Even though Jiwan isn’t the one who gets scolded, she still cries at home-time when she walks with Sol to the bus stop. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she weeps, swiping the tears away from her eyes furiously. “Your parents are going to get so mad at you.”

Sol smiles, thinking of her father. “It’s okay, my dad will understand.”

My dad understands love, she doesn’t say. And the dumb stuff it makes you do.

Sol’s mom is less forgiving. She’s forced to apologise to her teacher for wasting his time, but she still doesn’t regret it. She also gets detention every day after school for a week, but Jiwan sits outside for every single one of them. 

It’s worth it, just to see Jiwan wave at her through the window. Every now and again Jiwan will pop her head over, just to smile encouragingly at Sol when their teacher isn’t looking, and it’s enough for her.

All in all, it’s been a good week. Detention isn’t that bad, anyway, and it gives her a lot of time to sieve through her feelings. 

She smiles. 

Jiwan chose Sol over a boy.

They spend a lot of time in Sol's garden as twelve year olds, making potions out of plants and perfumes out of crushed flower petals. Sol thinks they're too old for such childish past-times now, but Jiwan loves it.

One day she makes a bracelet out of a daisy chain and slips it onto Sol's wrist. "When I'm old I'll buy you a real one," Jiwan says, after her effort falls apart an hour later. "But for now, I'll just make you another one."

"And if it breaks again?" 

Jiwan pretends to ponder it, but Sol can see she's not working on a real solution. Jiwan pulls a funny face when she thinks really hard but all she's doing now is smiling.

"Well that's easy," Jiwan plucks another daisy from the grass. "I'll just keep making them for you until I die."

Sol giggles, and pushes Jiwan by the shoulder so she falls back against the grass. She crawls over her small body, looking down at her. "That's just silly. And you'll make the grass look really sad."

"So?" Jiwan wriggles beneath Sol, but makes no effort to remove her. "What should I do then? How else will I share my love?"

"Just be my friend. Forever. That's the easiest thing ever."

Sol’s dad treats them to bowling on a weekend in March, and Sol checks it off as one of her favourite days ever. Her dad takes a back seat role in their day out and leaves them to their own devices, warning them that he trusts them enough to look out for themselves but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t expect them to ask for help if they need it. And most importantly, behave. 

He blends into the background so effortlessly Sol sometimes forgets he’s there, watching silently from the bench behind their lane. 

Sol is kind of good at bowling. She doesn’t even need the barriers most of the time but Jiwan asks her to use them, claiming she felt like a baby being the only one. “Besides, it feels like cheating,” Jiwan says, turning up her nose. “And I don’t want you using any excuses when I beat you fair and square.”

Sol snorts. “You have no chance of beating me. You still use the light balls.” 

(What Jiwan makes up for in momentum she loses in force).

“Hey! Are you calling me a weakling?”

“Aren’t you?”

Jiwan huffs, and returns her lightweight ball to the machine. She picks up a heavier one instead, arms straining, just to make a point. “Okay. So when I beat you with this ball what excuse will you use, then?”

“I won’t need one because I’m still going to win.”

Jiwan throws the ball angrily and awkwardly, sending it ricocheting off the fences. It slows down each time it crashes against them. By the time the ball makes it down to the pins Sol is in stitches, laughing so hard her chest hurts. 

The ball strikes three pins that wobble pathetically before tipping to the ground. 

Jiwan sticks out her lip in frustration, eyebrows drawn so close together that Sol fears they’ll become stuck in that position. That’s what her mom always said, that if you pull a face for too long it’ll stay that way. The thought bounces around in her mind until she’s automatically reaching out for Jiwan’s face. She uses her fingers to straighten her frown, ignoring the way Jiwan watches her curiously. 

“That was your fault,” Jiwan grumbles, stomping back over towards the bench when Sol has finished rearranging her face. The scowl is still there, just less severe. “You distracted me.”

“You can’t blame me for everything. Maybe it’s just better to admit that you're bad at this game,” Sol laughs. She remains by the ball machine and picks up Jiwan’s previous ball. It’s pink and has smaller holes for the grip, and no competition is worth hurting yourself for. She brings it back over to Jiwan and pushes it into her hands. “Just use this one. It’s still your turn.”

Jiwan takes the ball and sighs dramatically. “I hate bowling,” she decides, carrying the ball over towards the end of the lane and getting ready to throw it. 

“Wait, you’re holding it wrong.” Sol puts her hands on Jiwan’s waist, adjusting her stance so that when she throws it her right hip is tucked in, away from her throwing arm. “It’s easier to throw it if you stand like this.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah. Go ahead,” Sol steps back. “My dad says that it’s better if you put your right foot behind your left as you bowl so you have better balance.”

Jiwan takes a small run up and throws it the way Sol demonstrated. It’s still a little awkward for her first time but the ball travels all the way to the pins without bumping off the barriers once. “Wow, I did it!”

Jiwan turns and jumps into Sol’s arms. “Yeah, you did!”

Jiwan spins them around and Sol catches her dad's eye, a gentle smile on his face. He nods, letting her know she’s doing a good job. 

“There’s no way you’re winning now,” Jiwan declares confidently, looking up at the scoreboard to see a total of eight points. Jiwan would only win this game if Sol threw plenty of dud balls. She’s no professional, but she usually always knocks at least seven on her first try. 

She picks up her one and fumbles, the ball slipping out of her hands. It bobbles down the lane pitifully at a snail’s pace, and Sol scores a four. 

Jiwan’s smile is so wide that Sol does it again. She mishandles the ball so spectacularly one would only assume that she’s doing it on purpose. It brings her total score to five, which puts Jiwan in the lead. 

“Oh, I’m so winning this,” Jiwan gloats, jumping up from the bench for her turn. She waits impatiently for the pins to reset before throwing down her ball. Her attempt is much better this time and she scores a seven on her first try. She brings it to nine on the second. 

Sol continues bowling bad balls and never makes it over a six. Jiwan ends up winning the game by fourteen points. 

Jiwan turns to her on the way out. Sol’s dad is walking ahead of them and can’t hear their conversation. Today has been so great and they haven’t even got food yet. “You didn’t let me win, right?”

“No, no…” Sol denies, shaking her head. “I just… I hurt my wrist so I couldn’t bowl as well.”

“You did?” Sol nods while Jiwan assesses the damage. She doesn’t like lying but the smile Jiwan had on her face as their final scores were revealed was worth telling a few fibs for. 

Sol flexes her wrist. “Yeah.”

Jiwan lifts Sol’s hand to her lips and places a kiss there below her palm. “Next time we’ll go when your wrist is stronger, and I’ll beat you all over again,” Jiwan says. “That way it’s fair.”

Sol smiles, thrilled at the idea of getting to repeat their outting all over again. “Sure. But you won’t get so lucky next time.”

“Luck? Yoon Sol, that was skill.”

The next boy that flocks to Jiwan’s feet is a little more persistent than the first, and a lot more handsome too. Before he’s even approached them, Sol knows Jiwan will have a hard time saying no.

They’re thirteen now, and Jiwan has taken a keen interest in her classmates. Sol is still her favourite. Jiwan makes sure to tell her every day, but sometimes Sol can’t help but feel like she’s losing her, little by little.

Sol still finds boys repulsive and doesn’t share any of her friends’ enthusiasm in kissing them. They’re gross and smell weird, and Sol misses the days where the girls in her grade all operated on the assumption that they had cooties. She misses the days where the best part of Jiwan’s was her, but things change, and they’re getting older now.

Middle school is actually kind of hell.

Sol hates how more and more boys share her affection for Jiwan these days, with everyone in her year losing their minds over the concept of dating. Some boys are more interested in getting physical than they are building a genuine connection like the girls are, and the thought of one of those guys charming Jiwan makes her feel ill.

(Some of them are probably nice, but Sol isn’t interested in them sticking around long enough to find out).

Jiwan gets more popular the older she gets, the more she blossoms. She’s lost a lot of weight in her cheeks, outgrowing her baby fat, but she’s still as adorable as she is pretty. Ugh, sometimes Sol swears Jiwan gets better-looking by the day.

Sol’s only saving grace is that Jiwan is picky. Even as a pre-teen she has high expectations for what she looks for in a guy, which crosses a lot of the boys off her list in their school. It’s supposed to make Sol feel better but it doesn’t.

It’s not until October that the weight of Sol’s feelings come catching up. One of the most popular boys in school asks Jiwan to the dance, and with a fire burning in her belly, Sol realises she’s in trouble. 

Jiwan smiles, tells him that he’s very kind but she already has a date. She grabs Sol’s hand and whips them away in a giggle. 

The fire dwindles down, and Sol thinks she’ll be okay for another day. 

Sol is minding her business at the back of IT when she’s given a reason to fear her own heart for the first time.

The boys in her class are messing around at the front, joking and leering over the shoulders of one of the quieter kids called Leron. He’s a new transfer and Sol thinks he’s kinda cool, though none of her classmates seem to share the sentiment.

He has long curly hair that he scrapes into a bun and he speaks three languages. Sol’s not sure where she’d heard it from, but the rumor is that he thinks in Korean, does math in English, but dreams in Italian. Sol doesn’t know how much of that is true, but he’s garnered a lot of attention since the day of his arrival nevertheless.

Leron doesn’t seem to enjoy the looks he gets, or the whispers that follow him through the halls. People only approach him in groups when he’s less likely to brush them off, and Sol doesn’t agree with the way he’s treated. 

She wouldn’t love it either.

She’s trying to focus on her presentation but the boys at the front are getting louder and increasingly harder to ignore. It’s the tone of their voices that catches Sol’s attention, mocking, and they use a word Sol hasn’t heard before but it makes her feel icky regardless. It’s in English, but somehow she knows they mean to offend.

She turns to watch them curiously, and Leron reacts immediately.

“I’m not gay,” he barks, jumping out of his seat and shoving one of the boys backwards. “Take it back!”

The class erupts in a chorus of ooooh’s , and suddenly everyone is paying attention.

“You wouldn’t react this strongly if it wasn’t true,” Jaebum sneers, his friends goading him on. Their teacher does a terrible job at diffusing the situation and Jaebum barges him back. “Just admit it! Admit you’re a homo!”

That word Sol does understand, and to hear it used in such a malicious context sends shivers down her spine. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up when the entire class gasps, and her blood runs cold.

Leron swings the first punch, and a few of the more impartial students launch into action trying to break up the fight. Sol tunes out to the commotion so she couldn’t tell you how it was resolved, the memory of Jaebum spitting the word ‘homo’ like venom looping in her mind, over and over.

Sol doesn’t understand why it feels so personal, not yet, but years later she’ll reflect on this moment nauseously recognising it as the first time she realised that loving Jiwan meant that she was gay.

Sol forgets all about Leron and people like him. After his parents moved back to Europe for work she was no longer haunted by his face, the words their peers would hurl at him, and all anxieties surrounding the secret he didn’t know they shared drifted away. 

It’s good again for a while. Jiwan is still her best friend and it’s easy to forget that her feelings are abnormal. Until Jiwan gets her first boyfriend, that is, and suddenly everything is awful.

Sol has been in love with her best friend since the age of nine, and for the first time she hates it.

On Sol’s fourteenth birthday they go bike riding through Daegu. Jiwan looks like a pumpkin in all her layers of protective gear, her clothes frumping beneath the straps of plastic clipped around her knees and elbows. She’s wearing a hideous puffer jacket beneath it all too, for extra padding, and she looks ridiculous. 

Sol loves it - loves spending time with Jiwan alone.

Her best friend has been dating Yunseo for a few months now, but Sol can’t really hate him. He’s kind of funny and he’s nice to Jiwan, in a non-expectant kind of way, and in her newfound maturity at fourteen, Sol finds it within herself to tolerate him. The first few weeks had been rocky, but Sol has come a long way in her journey to internalisation, and learning how to swallow down her feelings has been the best thing for them. 

Besides, they’re forced to hang out more now, and it only makes Sol more miserable when Jiwan’s efforts to help them bond, fails. Even if witnessing Jiwan kiss him makes Sol want to crawl out of her skin, she’ll remain passive in the face of her heartbreak out of respect.

Nevertheless, things could be a lot worse at fourteen.

They’re riding through one of the parks close to Sol’s home when Jiwan goes speeding ahead of her, daring Sol to race her. She’s giggling and breathless, complaining about her sore legs in between gasps for air when Sol’s phone clatters out of her pocket. 

Sol breaks too hard and too fast, and almost spins off of her bike in a fluster. “Seo Jiwan!” she calls, planting it on the floor and scattering to where she last saw her phone hit the concrete. 

Jiwan turns at her name and doesn’t see the lamppost coming. 

At Sol’s scream, Jiwan faces forward. She’s too close, and the brakes can’t save her.

Jiwan goes over in a heap but is back on her hands and knees by the time Sol makes it over to her. Sol has never sprinted so fast in her life, her brand new phone long forgotten somewhere along the path, and grabs at Jiwan’s face checking for damage.

“Where are you hurt?” Sol all but screeches, eyes wide and frightened. 

“Ahh,” Jiwan winches as she makes her way into an upright sitting position, while Sol becomes sidetracked with checking for rips in Jiwan’s clothing. “That was so scary.”

Sol finds a tear in Jiwan’s leggings and all hell breaks loose. There’s blood, and Sol spirals. 

She doesn’t notice the panicked way in which Jiwan watches her, the concern in her eyes. “Give me your phone, I need to call—”

“It’s probably nothing,” Jiwan interrupts, readjusting her helmet before taking it off altogether. She dumps it beside her and lets out a whine. Her bangs are messy and dishevelled, sticking to the sweat around her temples. 

Exhaling roughly, Jiwan tilts her head towards the sky and climatises to her plummeting adrenaline levels, nausea swooping through her stomach.  She laughs, then, finding humour in it all. “For a second I really thought I was going to die,” she jokes. 

It’s the wrong thing to say. 

Sol’s starts digging through Jiwan’s pockets, the silence unsettling. “What are you doing?”

“You’re hurt,” Sol swallows, blinking the tears from her eyes.

Jiwan snatches her phone back. “Hey, shouldn’t I be the one getting upset? What’s wrong?”

“You’re bleeding.”

Jiwan unzips her jacket and hikes up her shirt to get a better look at it in a fumble, fright striking her features. Now her racing heart has slowed she realises Sol is right, and she can feel a stinging sensation to her side. At the sight of Sol’s pale face, it’s only natural for Jiwan to absolutely assume the worst.

The angle is awkward and she can’t see well. Shoving the phone back into Sol’s grasp, she squeaks, “Take a picture of it!”

Sol’s breathing is all over the place, but she does as she’s told with shaky fingers. “I’m so sorry.”

Jiwan tilts the screen with a crease between her brow, and sighs at the offending injury. “Ah, Yoon Sol! You made me worried! It’s just a scratch.”

As it turns out, neither of them are wrong. It’s not just a scratch but doesn’t have the makings of a fatal wound either, and Jiwan skips off with a small cut that will probably leave her with a cool looking scar. As far as bike accidents go, Sol’s hysteria was much more damning than the laceration on Jiwan’s hip, and later, they’ll chalk it up to guilt. In Sol’s twisted form of reality, she’s managed to convince herself that she had indirectly been the cause of the crash, and if she hadn’t dropped her phone and distracted Jiwan none of this would’ve happened. 

Sol is sick with the thought of hurting her. 

Jiwan gives her a week to mope about it if only for the abundance of snacks and attention Sol gives her in exchange. Sol isn’t sure if Jiwan loves being doted on or if she’s allowing Sol to fuss for the sake of her feelings, but as time goes on, she finds it in Jiwan’s smile to forgive herself.

It really is just a tiny scar after all, but Sol never gets out of the habit of spoiling her. 

(Some nights, when Jiwan insists they share a bed together, Sol will run her thumb over Jiwan’s scar. Back and forth, with the lightest of pressure.

In the wake of ever-changing feelings, it’s the only constant that soothes her).

Her dad has started to age.

He’s way into his forties now and his sideburns are starting to grey. Now she thinks about it, she suspects his hair had probably started to lighten years prior, only now he’s getting sloppier at covering it up. She stumbled upon hair dye in his bathroom cabinet many months ago looking for spare toothpaste, but hadn’t connected the two. Suddenly it all makes sense. 

It had been Jiwan who had noticed first, poking fun at her dad and invoking a teasing fest between the two, the same way it always did. 

“Ah Jiwan, I wouldn’t be so confident if I were you.” Her father stands over Jiwan with a smirk on his face. “I’m a lot taller than you, and I can see things on the top of your head that you can’t.”

Sol tries not to be a downer by thinking about loss — on how one day she’ll lose her father, much like she might lose Jiwan if she discovers her feelings too. Now she’s spotted the greying she notices the tiredness to his eyes too, the wrinkles on his hands. She doesn’t know how she’ll cope with the calamity of either loss without the other to lean on. 

Sol watches Jiwan’s face transform anxiously at her father’s teasing, and smiles. 

Looking between them, Sol wonders if he knows. She wonders, with all her father’s wisdom, if he realises that Jiwan is the one she’s loved for all these years. She’s never directly confronted it, not since that night in her kitchen, but she’d like to think that her dad understands her heart well enough to have figured it out himself. He loves Jiwan the way he loves her, in a more magnified way than any of her other friends. It would be an incredible oversight if he’s missed it. 

Then again, sometimes parents see only what they want to. 

At the very least, she hopes he accepts her. She’s been exposed to the internet long enough to have read the horror stories, the lives like hers destroyed by the sin of loving another girl. 

(If Jiwan doesn’t, her father disowning her might be the very thing that breaks her).

She snaps out of it in time to catch the wink he sends Sol's way before leaving the room. Jiwan springs up onto her feet. 

Grabbing the crown of her head, she runs over to Sol’s mirror with her jaw hanging open in shock. “What did he mean by that? I’m not going grey, am I?”

Sol leans back on her elbows and watches the scene unfold. She needs to stop wallowing in the what ifs and catastrophizing the situation before it‘s even called for. 

“You know my grandma started going grey at sixteen. Sixteen!” Jiwan’s panic doesn’t show any sign of letting up. “I’m sixteen soon, Sol! Come here, take a picture of the top of my head.”

Sol laughs but doesn’t otherwise budge. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“He wasn’t serious, right? Get up! I’m having a midlife crisis over here.”

“You’re fifteen.”

“At this rate, I might only live to thirty! I need to dye my hair. Will you do it for me? Ah, what if it makes my hair fall out?” Jiwan gasps, a blanket of horror settling over her face. “Will it make me bald? God, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Sol pulls out her phone and hits record. This could be a funny memory one day that Sol might want to remember. 

Jiwan parts her hair every which way, staring down her reflection with intense concentration. Sol isn’t able to suppress her giggle quick enough, and Jiwan’s eyes snap over to hers in the mirror. 

She turns around. 

“You’ll still love me when I’m bald, right?”

Sol chuckles. “Oh, I don’t know… that might be a bit much.”

“A bit much? Yoon Sol!”

Jiwan leaps over towards the bed and bundles her best friend, digging her fingers into her sides. It’s hard to keep hold of the camera with Jiwan fighting to stay on top of her, Sol’s entire body bucking and jerking as Jiwan jams fingers into her waist, and then, her neck. Sol hates being tickled and is struggling to breathe through the hysteria Jiwan’s hands send shooting throughout her body.

It’s a relief when it all stops, and by the time Jiwan gives up Sol is absolutely wrecked, breathing heavily from beneath her.

The camera is pointing towards the ceiling watching her fan spin in circles. Jiwan makes no move to get off of her, and it’s only then Sol realises the position they’re in. Her hips are anchored in place by Jiwan’s knees, shoulders locked in by her elbows. Jiwan is staring down at her, breathless in her own right, and Sol is too scared to move.

“Yoon Sol,” Jiwan exhales, a veil of her hair falling down over her face. It acts a bit like tunnel vision for Jiwan is the only thing now that Sol can see. 

She swallows, braving the use of her voice. “Seo Jiwan.”

“When did you get so ticklish?” Jiwan asks incredulously, her fingers drifting across Sol’s collarbone, but this time, not nearly forceful enough to make her squeamish. Sol remains like steel against her touch, not daring to shift away. “This,” Jiwan continues, eyes following the patterns she draws across Sol’s chest, “does this tickle too?”

Sol shakes her head, so Jiwan’s fingers travel more purposefully, up over the slope of her neck. “No?”

Sol’s brain is running on fifteen percent capacity. Even if Jiwan was tickling her, Sol's not sure she would even register the sensation. What’s left of her functionality is entirely focused on Jiwan’s face, trained on every movement it makes, every twitch.

Inhaling deeply, Jiwan's eyes detail Sol’s features, tracing a finger across her cheekbone. “When did you get so pretty?” she whispers, as if to herself. 

Sol’s breath hitches. Jiwan is looking at her like she holds the stars in the sky, a quiet amazement in her short smile, and Sol, for the life of her, cannot think of a single thing to say. She’s fairly confident her heart has leapt to her throat anyway, and isn't even sure she’s capable of making sound.

Sol’s pulse races beneath her skin. She can feel it in her ears, pounding. She realises two things in quick succession:

The first is that her mother had been wrong all those years ago. Sol knows exactly what love feels like, and sometimes, in these few precious moments where the only reality that existed was their own, the one they shared alone in her room, Sol was sure Jiwan loved her too. 

“I slept with Yunseo,” Jiwan confesses, and Sol feels bile lilt in her stomach.

The second realisation goes as follows: 

Once, when Sol was eleven, she was forced to attend water safety classes by her school. They covered everything, from the possibility of drowning without a single drop of water entering your lungs, to simulating the real thing. Sol watched her classmates being thrown into the deep end of a pool when they least expected it, fully clothed, and told to swim. 

Sol had missed a lot of the practical lessons due to a calf injury, but as far as life skills go, Sol wasn’t too bothered about missing out. From Jiwan’s account alone it sounded kind of awful. The concept of dry drowning did stick with her though — a cruel and unsuspecting death. It’s a horrible way to die, thinking you had escaped fate only to be suffocated by your own body, hours later. 

Sol hadn’t understood it then, but she does now. Sol is sure that this feeling in her chest, this heaviness sinking down and filling her lungs... Sol is certain that this is what it must feel like to drown on dry land. 

“Oh,” Sol mumbles, wishing she could disappear. She closes her eyes and dreams. If she could disintegrate away from Jiwan’s troubled eyes and materialise elsewhere she would do it in a heartbeat. Jiwan is still straddling her, and Sol hates that she feels smothered. “You did, huh.”

Jiwan draws back, her sense of self slowly trickling back to her. “Yeah,” Jiwan whispers. “I… I broke up with him. It wasn’t… It didn’t feel right, with him.”

Sol hopes her surprise isn’t too obvious. “I-I’m sorry. I wish it could have been better for you,” she admits regretfully, and then winces. She has no idea why she just said that.

The insecurity on Jiwan’s face washes away, replaced by the bright smile she’s known for. “It’s okay,” she sings, climbing off of her best friend with practiced ease. It gives Sol a moment to breathe, to try to calm the racing of her heart. “There’s always other boys, right?”

Sol’s response is through tight-lips. She’s not sure she’s equipped to handle this anymore. “Right.”

(Sol is never brave enough to watch the recording back).

Loving Jiwan has been harder this year. She’s more affectionate than she’s ever been, an absolute menace for cuddling, and Sol doesn’t have the heart to push her away when sometimes it gets too much.

Jiwan with a few drinks in her system is outright overwhelming.

They’re at an age now where they’re starting to experiment — old enough to push boundaries but still young enough to have to resort to doing so unsafely. 

They’re sixteen and rely on the sympathy of strangers to buy them alcohol. They’ve collected as much change as they can manage which unfortunately means they don’t have much spare for mixers. They’ll always make do, but it’s never pleasant drinking anything straight from the bottle.

Sol isn’t very good at appealing to anyone’s soft side, but Jiwan is. Her bubbliness can warm even the coldest of hearts, thawing their resolve just enough to convince them to turn a blind eye to their morality.

They definitely shouldn’t be doing this.

Minjee’s parents are away for the weekend, and it’s the only excuse that they’ll ever need. She allows Jiwan to drag her along the street and sing songs into her ear the entire journey there. 

She’s not feeling it. At all. Jiwan has been acting a little strange recently and Sol isn’t sure if fusing whatever it is with alcohol is such a good idea, but Jiwan is adamant otherwise.

“Come onnnn,” she begs, hanging off of Sol’s arms. Jiwan has already had a drink or two while they were waiting to leave, and Sol can’t match her enthusiasm. “It’ll be fun!”

“Who’s going to be there?” Sol grumbles. She’s a lot taller than Jiwan now, which only gives Jiwan an excuse to try and climb her. Sometimes Jiwan will latch onto her back and demand to be carried, and Sol will complain but do it anyway. 

“Boys,” Jiwan grins, sending a clumsy wink Sol’s way. She whips a half-empty bottle of dark coloured liquid out of her purse and unscrews the cap. Jiwan wiggles it, as if to tempt Sol to make a grab for it. “Want some?”

Sol snatches it off of her and downs it, ignoring Jiwan’s whine. She wipes her mouth with her sleeve and swallows the last sip without a grimace. Handing the empty bottle back to Jiwan, Sol ducks her head to avoid the pout she knows Jiwan is wearing, and tells herself it was necessary.

She’ll need it to make it through an entire evening of Jiwan flirting with the morons in her class. To take the sting out of it.

Sol isn’t the person she was when she was nine, or ten, or fourteen. Sol knows when she’s beat. She’s not her father, and she and Jiwan aren’t meant to be. They’re not soulmates, or bound, or whatever else you’ll have, because Jiwan will never love her back. 

It was hard to accept at first, but Sol has had a lot of growing up to do in the last year. Sometimes she still feels kind of hopeless with it, but it’s a learning curve she’s determined to beat. 

This is what she knows: Sol has loved her best friend for as long as she’s known her, and sometimes she wishes she didn’t. Loving Jiwan isn’t the problem, it’s being alone in it — but there’s no point getting upset about it anymore. She’s growing up now, and she knows it’s time to move on.

They make it to the party, which surprisingly, appears really quiet from the outside. Sol tries her luck, claims they’ve got the wrong address and should just go home. Jiwan isn’t having it and bangs on the door until somebody answers.

She tries not to sway as she follows Jiwan up the pathway, Jiwan’s concoction getting the better of her. Sol still isn’t sure if she likes the dampening of her senses, the sensation of being drunk, but she has all night to figure it out. 

The door swings open and unfortunately, they are, in fact, at the right address. Sol sulks beneath her scowl.

The life of the party is in the living room, and it’s more of a gathering than anything else anyway. Which suits Sol. She hates large crowds, and it’s easier to keep an eye on Jiwan this way. Nothing too crazy is going on which is why from the outside it seemed kind of dead. Minjee explains it’s to stop her neighbours from snitching to her parents, which kind of makes sense too.

Jiwan disappears, then reappears with new drinks for the two of them, and then disappears again. It pans out like this for the majority of the night, until one of the boys empties his bottle with a smirk on his face, declaring that they should play a game called ‘partner’s spin the bottle.’

Sol has never heard of it, and is pretty certain it’s a sham. It’s likely just an excuse for him to make out with the girl he likes judging by the sounds of it (and by the way he’s eyeing her as a predator would prey). 

The rules go like this: you pick a partner, and when the bottle lands on either one of you, you both have to kiss. The catch, however, is as follows: you cannot kiss your partner in the same place twice. If you run out of space to kiss one another you’re banished to the bathroom for ten minutes, and a new game takes place.

Sol can’t think of anything worse, honestly.

Jiwan is squealing in excitement, and she might be the only one as enthusiastic as the random dude who suggested it. Sol notices two things, then. One, Jiwan drifts over to the mirror hanging above the couch and starts fussing with her make-up, and two, a suave looking dude called Taemin is staring after her with intent.

Sol shudders and turns away from them. She can’t believe she even agreed to come tonight.

Whilst the others arrange themselves in a circle Sol hangs back, distancing herself from involvement. She didn’t come here to shamelessly dote on any boy and makes that pretty clear. 

Taemin is still staring at Jiwan, who bounds over to Sol’s side in a hurry. 

“Come on,” she tugs at Sol’s arm. “It’s going to start.”

For the first time, Sol completely misreads Jiwan’s intentions. “What? I don’t want to partner with any of them.”

“Huh?”

“What?” Sol glances around the group and tries not to recoil. “No thank you.”

“I don’t want you to play with them,” Jiwan says, doing her best impression of an eye roll. It turns out as more of a blink. She’s slurring a little, and Sol can smell the perfume on her clothes. It’s intoxicating. 

Jiwan is saying something but Sol isn’t doing a very good job at listening. Her lips are moving and words are coming out, but Sol can’t focus enough to register them. 

She’s being glared at by Jiwan’s not-so-secret admirer, and it’s making her paranoid.

“Sol-ah!” 

Sol’s eyes drift over Jiwan’s shoulder. “Don’t you wanna hang out with Taemin?”

Jiwan scrunches up her face. “He’s just some boy. I’d much rather play with you.”

“Wait, what?”

Jiwan wraps her fingers around Sol’s wrist and yanks her from the spot, hard. She collides into the back of Jiwan but somehow they manage to stay upright. (She has a habit of doing that, you know. Throwing her around).

“The game is starting,” Jiwan explains impatiently, before shouting over to the circle. “Hey, wait! Wait for us!”

Sol is screwed.

Sol learns a few things in the next hour.

Jiwan doesn’t really have an interest in the game outside of their kisses, and spends most of each round talking Sol’s ear off about how she wants to celebrate her birthday. She also learns that, as impulsive as Jiwan is, she’s also a strategic thinker. She’s in this game for the long run. 

Minjee partners with a boy from Sol’s science class and they blow their first kiss on the real thing. It means they’ll have to spend the next few turns playing it safe, with boring cheek kisses and pecks to the hand and whatever else. Jiwan is taking this game a lot more seriously than that. 

Instead of kissing the back of Sol’s palm like Minjee and her partner on their second go, Jiwan kisses Sol’s wrist, arguing it’s not quite the arm nor is it technically the hand – which means she has two more kisses in that region still to go. She also takes human anatomy and tweaks it to suit her own agenda, claiming that their fourth kiss – a kiss to Sol’s knuckles – doesn’t count as a repetition either. “It’s between the fingers and the palm,” she waves off, with eyes only for Sol. “Read a textbook.”

“But they make up your hand, don't they? You already kissed her palm,” Taemin argues. He’s not playing but he’s definitely making his presence known. Sol would be on his side if he wasn’t being so loud in his annoyance. Jiwan is definitely making up her own rules for this bootleg version of spin the bottle though, but Sol doesn’t really care. 

Jiwan ignores him and spins again. It doesn’t land on them so Jiwan resumes their conversation.

Sol also learns that the shape of Jiwan’s eyes change when she’s had a few drinks. They’re sleepier, glossier. With her heavy lids and her childish, ecstatic smile, Jiwan rattles on to Sol, on and on and on, until the background commotion is a washed out muffle in Sol’s awareness. Jiwan looks so happy here.

Hm. The alcohol is definitely making ignoring these nuances about Jiwan harder. 

Sol stops noticing when Jiwan participates in the game. She’s acutely aware of the kisses, but Jiwan has always been loving in this kind of way so it’s easy to dismiss it as casual. Just Jiwan being Jiwan. Sol doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t initiating some sort of skin-ship anyway, and with Sol’s senses actively working against her, she has no hope sorting through what’s natural for Jiwan and what isn’t.

It’s not until Jiwan dips her head into Sol’s chest and presses her lips over her heart that Sol seizes up, each of her joints locking into place.

“What are you doing?” Sol whispers, a sharp edge to her voice. She’s not angry, just a little out of sorts, her throat the kind of dry that Sol doesn’t think a drink will soothe.

Jiwan places her hand over Sol’s. “The game,” she says easily, before launching back into where they left off. 

Sol tries to forget about it, but as much as she forcefully pushes it from her mind her heart refuses to let up. It’s not so easy picking up on what Jiwan is discussing with her now with the war waging on inside of her, and she’s struggling to follow the conversation. If Jiwan notices she doesn’t mention it. 

It takes a long while, but Sol finally succeeds with a distraction. Until their next kiss that is, where Jiwan, for the first time, falters before her.

“What?” Sol asks, wondering where the furrow in Jiwan’s brow came from. 

Jiwan utilises her shoulder to itch the side of her face, and uses her eyes to point to the bottle. “It’s our turn again.”

Sol looks around the circle and realises several couples have fallen away, or maybe just given up. Taemin is gone too, slumped against the back wall talking to one of the boys. Sol returns her attention to Jiwan’s. “Okay.”

“Okay? You mean it?”

“Wait, ‘okay’ what?”

“Sol,” Jiwan giggles, moving closer to create an illusion of privacy. “We’ve run out of space. There’s just one kiss left.”

One left… they can’t have, can they?

Sol tries to recall each of their kisses. Surely Jiwan hadn’t managed to cover so much ground without her notice, except… Sol remembers. Jiwan had kissed her neck when complimenting the smell of her perfume. There was barely any contact, sure, but it was there. And her knees, Jiwan had kissed her knees in between talking about her cousin’s new boyfriend, who looks like an actor from a k-drama. And her elbows, her shoulder, her forehead… Jiwan had covered all those, too.

Jiwan had even kissed her fingertips, each of them even though it wasn’t required, so she was right. All that was left was her lips.

“Woah,” Sol breathes, overwhelmed with herself. 

Then she thinks she’s probably going to vomit. 

Like, actual real life vomit. Jiwan is leaning in, giving Sol the go ahead to either move forward or back down if she wants to, but all Sol can focus on is the churning in her stomach that’s telling her she’s drunk too much and should evacuate to the toilet if she doesn’t want to ruin Minjee’s carpet. 

She doesn't, though, and remains suspended in place with her hands clutched to her belly, unsure of what to do about this new problem in the shape of her best friend's mouth. Her breathing is jittery. 

Jiwan watches Sol the entire journey to touch their foreheads together. “Ready?” she whispers, checking in with Sol every step of the way. 

It’s so unlike her that Sol doesn’t even know what to think. The Jiwan she knows is bold in her choices, pushy with her affection. A damn menace. It comes naturally, but this? Even Jiwan cannot hide the way her hands shake, as she rests them against Sol’s face. 

Somewhere deep down Sol knows she’s in a room full of people. Somewhere floating in the back of her consciousness Sol knows this is only a game — but a part of her, a very small, selfish part of her is telling to take the opportunity. To kiss the girl she loves and enjoy it whilst she has the excuse to. 

But it feels a lot like taking advantage, and so when Jiwan’s lips trace the side of her mouth, Sol scrambles out of Jiwan’s hold in a panic. 

This time Sol disappears, but she doesn’t come back. 

“What are you doing in here?” Jiwan catches Sol’s apprehensive stare and holds it, undressing any lie Sol had prepared before she had the chance to vocalise it. “Are you hiding from me?”

Sol wasn’t very good at this. 

“Hey, are you ignoring me?” Jiwan stumbles, over both her words and quite literally, against the doorframe. She bumps against it and staggers into the bathroom, planting herself down in front of Sol. “Why won’t you look at me? Is it because of what I did?”

Sol stares at the tiled flooring soundlessly, unable to offer anything else.

“Hey,” Jiwan pokes her knee. “Are you mad that I kissed you?”

Sol looks up. “You didn’t kiss me.”

“Uh-huh, I did. I kissed you more times than I ever have. Oup—” Jiwan hiccups, and Sol hates herself for finding it adorable. “Are you upset?”

“Not for the reason you think,” Sol mumbles, failing to meet Jiwan’s eyes. She feels so humiliated. 

“What do I think?”

“Ah, Jiwan. I can’t do this.” She hangs her head in her hands. “Can we just go home?”

“You’re my favourite person in the world,” Jiwan weeps, resting her temple against Sol’s knee. “Oup. Don’t be mad at me for too long, okay?”

“I’m not mad at you,” Sol mutters under her breath. “I’m mad at myself.”

Mad for going along with that stupid game, for almost kissing her best friend. 

In fact, it’s not the kissing that was the problem. It’s not even that Jiwan suggested playing it to begin with. It’s that, for that split second before Sol entered fight or flight mode, she had wanted it. So badly she was willing to cross boundaries to take it. 

She’d like to blame it on the alcohol, or on her low inhibitions, but it’s not the first time Sol has wanted to kiss Jiwan — and it probably won’t be the last.

The desire is one thing, Sol’s willingness to compromise her friends' trust is another. 

How could she do that to Jiwan? How could she mislead her in that way? Jiwan was in it for the fun and games, for the stories to tell under the impression that they were on the same wavelength. Sol is just a liar. 

She needs to tell her, but knows it’s also not an option. Not having Jiwan may hurt but losing Jiwan wouldn’t be survivable, and Sol isn’t prepared to take the risk. 

“Why?”

Sol has exhausted herself. “Let’s go home? Please?”

Jiwan lifts her finger and pushes it against Sol’s nose. She smiles, “Okay.”

(Later that evening during a troubling walk home, Jiwan rips up flowers from a public garden, roots and everything, and gifts them to Sol. 

Once home, Sol climbs into Jiwan’s double bed and scoots to the edge to give her best friend space. It doesn’t matter in the end, though, because Jiwan doesn’t want it. She squashes her body right up against Sol’s and wraps an arm around her waist. 

“Night Sol,” Jiwan mumbles, sighing into Sol’s neck. 

If not for the alcohol, Sol isn’t sure she would’ve gotten much sleep. 

They’ll return the flowers tomorrow).

At sixteen, her best friend is a lot more popular than she is now, but it doesn’t matter to Jiwan. She still insists on dragging Sol with them whenever they go out for the day in large groups, and though Sol prefers Jiwan’s company only, she goes anyway.

Because, well. Because Jiwan wants her too, and Sol has never been very good at saying no. 

Loving Jiwan doesn’t get any easier. 

Sol had written it off as an anomaly, Jiwan’s genuine attempt to kiss her that night — but it’s not the last time she tries. Jiwan is the same person she always is when she drinks, only a version of herself that’s dialled up to a hundred. With a few drinks in her system every aspect of her being is heightened, and all preservations completely fly out of the window. 

Sol’s not sure what she seeks from it, why Jiwan gravitates to alcohol with such tenacity, but whatever it is Sol hopes Jiwan finds it because she’s losing her goddamn mind. 

At first it had worried Sol, Jiwan’s recklessness and general indifference for her own health. Sometimes Jiwan drinks during the week by herself and Sol only finds out when she gets a call at three in the morning from an unintelligible caller, babbling on about god only knows what. 

Sol’s parents aren’t all that strict but they do draw the line at her leaving the house in the middle of the night, so Sol spends hours just listening to Jiwan on the phone until her breathing evens out and light snores filter through the line. 

On nights like these Sol doesn’t get much sleep. 

She’s grown increasingly paranoid, and obsesses over all the awful things that might happen if she disconnects the call, or drifts into a slumber ignorant to any trouble Jiwan may find herself in on the other end of the phone. What if she gets sick while still unconscious and chokes to death? She’s not even sure that one is really possible, actually… but what if she falls out of bed and twists her arm, and doesn’t wake up until it’s sore and swollen? What if—

That’s… she’s getting ahead of herself. Point is, Jiwan can be a bit of a disaster, and would be more likely to pass out in a ditch before she ever made an effort to get home safely. It may just be who she is, but worrying herself to death is just a part of who Sol is too. 

Maybe this is just who they are to each other. Jiwan calls, and Sol babysits her from across the city. 

They’re together this time, though. It’s a weekend, and Jiwan had called earlier than usual which meant Sol was granted permission to go and get her. 

Sol picks up Jiwan from a friend’s, and the second Jiwan makes eye contact she launches herself into Sol’s arms, nearly knocking the wind out of her. 

Her voice is shrill and loud, excited, but Sol is having a hard time understanding her. It doesn’t take a lot to convince Jiwan to leave with her. She seems happy enough to go along with anything now that Sol is with her, and links their arms together on the walk to the bus stop. 

Sol doesn’t feel like talking. It might be unfair of her to be upset at Jiwan, to be mad at her for being so irresponsible, but if Sol had the ability to ignore her feelings she wouldn’t be in such a mess to begin with. 

She wishes she could call her dad to pick them up, but knows it isn’t worth the trouble it would bring. 

“Jiwan. What are you talking about?” Sol sighs, propping Jiwan up as she stumbles. Jiwan hasn’t stopped rambling from the moment Sol had collected her, badgering her about everything and nothing, carrying an entire conversation despite the older girl not offering a single word. 

Sol is listening, vaguely, though it wouldn’t matter if she wasn't. Jiwan is talking in riddles and isn’t making much sense. 

“You,” Jiwan blubbers, giggling amongst herself. She’s using the slabs in the sidewalk as a hopscotch court, testing the limit of her balance. And Sol’s strength. Jiwan trips over a warped piece of concrete and sends herself flying forward, but Sol is able to stabilise her. “You are such a gentleman.”

“Aish,” Sol curses, rolling her eyes. “What’s gotten into you lately, huh? You drink way too much.”

Jiwan blinks at her, the knit in her eyebrows becoming more prominent as each moment slips from them. “This would be much easier if you were a boy.”

It’s a strange thing to say, but to Sol, it feels a lot like the sea is washing the ground from under her feet. Sol is no stranger to how vastly different the trajectory of her life would have been if she hadn’t been born a girl. 

“Sol. Sol. Look at me,” Jiwan whines, coming to a stop in front of her. She grabs Sol’s face, squashing her cheeks beneath her fingers. “Your face is so charming... You know, you always look after me. It makes me feel so special,” she babbles on nonsensically. Sol pulls away, rubs at her cheeks grumpily. “This is what I need,” she says. “I need to find a boy like Sol.”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Jiwan frowns harder. “I’m not that drunk.”

“Yes, you are.”

“You’re perfect. Anybody would be lucky to have a girlfriend like you…” Jiwan steps closer, grips Sol’s jacket to keep herself from swaying. “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

Sol is startled by the question. “What?”

“Why don’t you have a boyfriend? You’re so pretty and smart and beautiful and kind. And... you’re really talented, Sol, I wish—”

“Jiwan, slow down.”

“—I could be like you. People like you so much, do you not care? Why don’t you want a boyfriend?”

SoI has no idea where this is coming from. Sometimes it surprises her how little she understands Jiwan at times, how little she knows her, despite knowing all of her secrets. “People… don’t like me, Jiwan. They like you.”

“That’s not true. Everyone asks me about you. Boys do.”

Sol doesn’t believe that for a second. “I’m not interested in boys.”

“Have you kissed anyone yet?”

“I-I ...No.” Sol stammers, before resigning. “I want… I want my first kiss to be someone I care about.”

“Do you care about me, Sol?”

“I… Jiwan. What’s going on?”

“I wish you were my first kiss,” Jiwan mutters, and the atmosphere instantly becomes more charged. They regard each other for a second more before Sol clears her throat.

“You can’t…” Sol isn’t sure if Jiwan even knows what she’s implying. “You can’t say stuff like that.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to gross you out.”

“Ugh, Jiwan. You didn’t, but you shouldn’t...” She grabs Jiwan’s hand harshly and begins to drag her down the street. She’s restless in her state of distress, and if she allows herself to remain still for too long there'll be nothing to distract her from the low throb in her stomach, and Sol doesn’t have the nerve to unpack it. “Let’s just go home, okay?”

“You don’t want to kiss me, right?”

Jiwan is just talking nonsense… She's drunk, so Sol swallows the hurt. 

The words almost catch in her throat but she manages to push them out in the end. “I love you, Jiwan. But we shouldn’t kiss.”

Jiwan doesn’t mean it anyway, and that’s okay. 

“Because we’re girls?”

“Because we’re best friends.”

“Best friends,” Jiwan echoes, and Sol wonders why she sounds so sad about that.

Sol can’t settle. She’s been thinking of the night before all morning, and waking up to Jiwan laying across her abdomen didn’t help. 

She brings it up. It’s not… an intervention, as such, but she does confront the issue. The issue of her drinking, of how destructive she’s being.

Jiwan calls her a spoil-sport, says something about how it’s Sol’s own choice to abstain from alcohol but she shouldn’t project her wants onto Jiwan too, and suddenly they’re arguing. 

Sol, maybe it’s an oversight, but she brings up the kiss - the almost kiss - and Jiwan freezes. She closes herself off to the conversation immediately, and is no longer receptive to whatever point Sol is trying to make.

“What is going on with you? Why are you indulging in so much of all this self-destructive bullshit?”

“Sol.” Jiwan makes it clear by her tone that she wants Sol to let it go. Her eyes are empty, as chilling as Sol has ever seen them, and her words die on her tongue. 

Sol was beginning to think that she could only acknowledge these drunken advances from Jiwan as long as she accepted that they were not to talk about it. 

If that was Jiwan’s rule, then Sol plans on going along with it on the basis that in following rules, things usually go smoothly. Usually. 

She retreats.

Jiwan sets her up on a blind date, but leaves out the part where she tells Sol.

She’s three quarters of the way through the evening when the boy pushes forward and kisses her, and Sol realises with stark clarity why they’re here. She thought they were just friends, that they liked the same things. Her dad had been telling her how she needed to reach out to more of her peers – that her teenage years were as much about paving the way for her academic future as it was for creating memories.

Now, she wonders how much of their shared interests had been fabricated for the sake of her feelings, to further his own chances. 

Sol ends up working herself up into a panic, and excuses herself to the bathroom. She runs water over her wrists and counts to twelve, and allows herself this moment to cry - to be hurt by Jiwan’s intentions, of the existence of this boy she was blindsided by. Jiwan had made this evening sound like such a good idea, and now Sol knows why. 

She stares herself in the mirror and rearranges the grievous expression on her face to resemble something more passive. She tightens the line of her jaw, and gears herself back up to return to her date with her head held high. She tells him she’s feeling a little unwell and would like to go home. 

Disappointment flashes in his eyes, but he’s quick to cover it. “Of course,” he says, offering to walk her to the bus station. Sol tells him that his assistance isn’t needed, but he chances his luck and joins her anyway. 

The second her bus pulls away from the stop and turns out of view, Sol cries. 

She sobs the entire journey home. 

No one bothers her anymore. Sometimes Jiwan will try arranging her a date, but she knows better now than to spring these things on her. They'd fallen out after that night. Sol had detached herself and made it clear she had felt ambushed, and Jiwan had showered her in messages of regret and apologies.

It didn’t take long for them to go back to how things were before, like nothing had ever happened, but that’s just the nature of their relationship.

Sol and Jiwan’s relationship begins to yo-yo. They fall apart but bounce back to each other in the end, though each time Jiwan leaves it takes longer for her to return. 

It’s no one's fault. They’re just getting older now. 

Seventeen is an awkward age. You’re expected to make decisions as an adult while still being treated like a child. College applications are coming up and Sol is in two minds over what to do. 

She loves Art. She loves the process of sculpting, of moulding blank materials into something beautiful, meaningful. Repurposing discarded, broken things, and forming them into something to inspire. She’s loved it for as long as she can remember. 

Seoul has a prestigious art school that might offer her a scholarship if her exam pieces are good enough, but Sol doesn’t know how practical a degree in Art would be. It’s too niche, and will likely mean leaving Jiwan behind too — the only person in this entire school she’s ever built a relationship with. Her mother always tells her it’s grades over friends, education over companionship, and that after graduation most people lose touch anyway. But this isn’t most people, it’s Jiwan. 

“Where is Jiwan going to college?” her dad asks, chipping away the tension between Sol and her mother after their disagreement. Their views are always vastly different. “Is she staying in Daegu?”

Sol shoves a spoonful of soup into her mouth as a means of stalling. Her dad, ever patient, gives her whatever time she needs. “I… don’t know.”

“You can’t be that close if you don’t know where she's applying,” her mom argues. 

Sol snaps. “We just haven’t spoken about it.” 

A hand covers her own, and Sol forces herself to relax. Her father is looking at her empathetically when he suggests talking it out with Jiwan. “She’s your best friend. Why don’t you invite her over and discuss it together?”

“Because,” Sol says, despite not having an actual reason. “She’s… probably busy.”

Her dad smiles without any humour. “Stop making excuses.” He taps her hand as he stands, clearing his plate. “Talk to her or I will.”

So. She calls Jiwan and tells her they need to talk.

It doesn’t take long for Jiwan to arrive. She’s on her street by the time Sol finishes packing the dining table away, and Sol barely has time to think before there’s a knock at the door. The funny thing is Jiwan really was busy, but she dropped everything as soon as Sol had mentioned that she had something to tell her. It sounded important, Jiwan reasoned, when Sol had told her it could wait, and didn’t hesitate before finding an excuse to leave the company she was in.

Sol then finds out that Jiwan had been on a date, and feels guilty for intruding on it.

The first thing Sol thinks when she opens the door is… wow. Jiwan is beautiful. In a ‘I’m speechless’ and ‘my throat is kind of dry’ way. She probably could’ve done without seeing the way Jiwan presents herself when she has someone she wants to impress, though, but she’s quick to push it to the back of her mind. 

The second thing she spots is that Jiwan is no longer a foot shorter than her, and directly being eye-to-eye with the girl she loves is a lot more intimidating than she could have imagined. Sol has no idea when that happened, and kicks herself for allowing it to escape her notice for so long.

She focuses back on Jiwan. Something about her energy is off, but Sol doesn’t think to mention it.

She brings Jiwan up to her room after she flicks off her shoes and greets her parents in the living room, but as soon as they’re alone the tension is noticeable. 

Her bedroom is untidy, the sheets unmade and dirty laundry scattered all over the floor. Sol scarpers around to stuff them into a basket, and makes a half-assed attempt at tucking in her the edges of her bed before she notices Jiwan standing at her desk, a pensive look on her face.

Between the few seconds it takes Sol to realise what Jiwan is looking at, the colour has drained from her face and breath escapes her.

“Jiwan…”

Jiwan picks up her sketchpad, tracing the pages with her fingers. “You’re gonna be a famous artist one day,” she voices, sounding awfully low-spirited all of a sudden. 

Sol tries to distract Jiwan from how embarrassing the situation is, the fact that she has just been caught with a sketch of Jiwan on her table, but Sol only draws more attention to it. “I had to rush it,” she explains. “I was supposed to have my dad model for me but I forgot, so I…”

Jiwan doesn’t ask how Sol knows every curve of her face, or how she was able to commit each of her features to memory. Jiwan doesn’t ask, so Sol doesn’t explain. Doesn’t speak of how she’s had years to study them, and years of Jiwan haunting her dreams.

No. Neither of them mention any of that. 

“You won’t forget me, will you?”

“What?”

“One day everyone is going to see how special you are. They’re going to love you.” Jiwan looks up, locking eyes with Sol. Her voice wobbles. “You’re gonna be the best artist Korea has ever seen, Sol. I mean it. You’ll leave everyone behind.”

You’re gonna leave me behind is what Jiwan doesn’t say, but Sol hears it anyway. 

“You’re a way better drawer than me,” Sol tries to deflect, but Jiwan’s sorrowful frown doesn’t fade. “And your painting skills...”

“Promise me. Whatever happens, you won’t forget me.”

Sol screws up her face. “Why are you saying it like this?”

“Promise me, Yoon Sol! I won’t forget you.”

Sol crosses the stretch of carpet between them and takes the sketchbook out of Jiwan’s hands. She places it back on the desk and flips it closed. “I won’t forget you Jiwan-ah, because you’ll be with me every step of the way.”

Jiwan frowns, watching her questionably.

She grabs Jiwan’s hands. “I’m applying to Hongseo University. My dad thinks I have a real shot at a scholarship.”

Jiwan smiles. Sol knows she’s happy for her, but there’s a sadness in her eyes too. “You have more than a shot. You’re amazing.”

“Come with me.”

“What? To Hongseo? I-I can’t… they’d never…”

Tears prick in her eyes. She should’ve known this conversation was going to make her emotional. She squeezes Jiwan’s fingers to ground herself. “Seo Jiwan, you are incredible. Come with me.”

“You know I’d never be able to keep up.”

Sol scoffs. “Are you kidding?”

“It’s not natural for me like it is for you.”

“If you don’t want to study Art then apply to a different college in Seoul. There’s loads of amazing places to go. Just… Be with me. I don’t… I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Whatever Jiwan was holding onto, breaks. She bursts into tears and wraps her arms around Sol’s waist, and cries, whole-heartedly, into her chest. “I was so scared you were gonna run away for good, that you wanted to get away from us.”

“Us?” Sol holds the back of her head and clutches her fiercely. 

“Me and you,” Jiwan sobs, burying her face. “I thought you wanted to leave our friendship behind.”

“What?” Sol shakes her head, disbelief in her voice. How could she think… It almost feels like a confession when she says, “You’re the only reason I would stay.”

They fall asleep together that night, tangled in Sol’s single bed. They’re both too big for it now but neither of them are up for moving, content with holding each other to stop themselves from spilling over the edges. 

Sol’s not usually like this. She’s not usually so shameless in her affection but Jiwan has been distant recently, and Sol can’t bear it. Even if it’s just for tonight she’ll hold Jiwan, her best friend, despite her feelings. Despite the fact that this embrace, or any in fact, means more to her than it ever will to Jiwan.

She gives herself this one night.

(Sol is greedy. One night turns into two, then four.

It’s summer break now, and Sol has yet to sleep alone). 

Jiwan develops a bad sugar habit in the shape of gummy bears. 

Every time they hang out Sol comes armed with gelatin, because it’s easier than having to stop off at multiple convenience stores on the way to their destination just to get Jiwan her fix. It becomes something of a habit over the course of the summer, and now Sol never goes anywhere without them. 

“Where are we going?” Jiwan asks happily, accepting the packet of bears from Sol. “Is it somewhere fun?”

Sol grins, unable to keep up with the air of mystery. She knows Jiwan will love it and is excited on her behalf. “Remember how you said you wanted to see a capybara in person?”

It’s enough for Jiwan to start squealing, jumping up and down on the spot. “We’re going to a zoo?”

“I emailed one a few weeks ago and they got back to me this week. Not only do they have capybaras but they have baby ones, too, and they said that we get to feed them.”

Jiwan almost passes out. Sol watches different waves of emotions travel through her features, from disbelief to delight to exhilaration, neither settling for too long before being replaced by something grander. Jiwan is gripping her hand so firmly Sol feels her bones begin to ache, her fingers losing circulation from the rest of her palm. 

“We get to feed the babies?!”

Sol’s own face transforms, the sparkle in Jiwan’s eyes creating a warmth in her belly. Honestly, Sol falls a little bit more in love. 

“We do. We have to wear these suits but yeah,” Sol exhales, heart fluttering. “We get to feed them. They’re only a few weeks old.”

Jiwan jumps into her arms, wrapping her hands around Sol’s waist. “I love you so much,” Jiwan exclaims, “I could kiss you! Baby capybaras? Really?”

Sol’s pulse does a thing. “Really.”

One day Sol wakes up with Jiwan wrapped around her, her hands splayed against her stomach and head nestled into her chest. She’s barely conscious, pulse drumming in her ears, when Sol realises that something has changed. 

She blinks her eyes blearily, a weight in her stomach she’s slow to identify.

She’d been dreaming about Jiwan - which isn’t a first - but the nature of it had been.

Sol can’t even look at her. It feels like someone has poured a bucket of ice down her back. 

Jiwan sinks further into her, pressing in close, and Sol jolts upright.

She’s worried Jiwan will hear the thudding of her heart with the way the side of her face is pressed up against it. Grossed out at herself, Sol untangles herself before she fully thinks it through. Jiwan shuffles in her sleep, reaching out for a body that’s no longer there, and Sol scarpers off to the bathroom before Jiwan can peel her eyes open.

They stop sharing a bed after that. 

Sol gets her letter of acceptance first, with a grant to full scholarship. She screams and she cries and dances around the kitchen with her father, who reassures her that bursarship or not, he would’ve blown his entire life savings to send her.

She texts Jiwan a picture of it with two shocked faces, and counts down the seconds until she gets a reply. She’s absolutely buzzing, praying Jiwan will have one to match. There’s a knock at the door moments later, and her dad is the one to answer it.

Sol is burning holes into her screen waiting for a message notification to pop, when something warm and soft clatters into her side. “Yoon Sol! We’re going to university together!”

Jiwan is waving something in her face but doesn’t give her the space to read it, and now there’s a party of three hopping around in the kitchen.

Sol is so overwhelmed by the happiness she feels she starts crying again, so much so she doesn’t notice her dad slipping out of the doorway when Jiwan cradles her face and kisses both cheeks.

“You’ll never get away from me, Sol-ah. I’m going to be with you for life.”

Sol wouldn’t ask for anything else.

College opens Sol’s eyes to the world a little more. In an environment surrounded by people just like her, her social circle, for the first time ever, thrives.

To Jiwan’s credit she’s the one responsible for rounding up their group of friends, but for once she's actually found an arrangement of people that Sol actually likes. It helps that they’re all in the same class and share the roof to smoke, but they also just mesh well.

Seoul brings out the romance in Jiwan. Where Sol hols herself up in the studio in her down time Jiwan scours her dating app, rotating between different diets and detoxes week after week in preparation for the next guy. Sol expected it to be like this, but it’s still jarring. Especially when Jiwan offers her an evaluation on each boy that takes her out, oblivious to Sol’s disinterest.

Sol nudges Jiwan’s elbow and slings her bag over her shoulder. “Wanna smoke?”

Jiwan shakes her head in protest, and Bitna rolls her eyes. “She quit again, but it won’t last.”

“Why?” Sol asks. Jiwan had just dumped the last guy she’d taken out around a week ago, she couldn’t have possibly already gotten—

“Another date,” Bitna scoffs, turning to Jiwan. “I don’t get why you date so much. You should just sleep with them, instead. They get too clingy when you treat them like a boyfriend.”

Jiwan slaps Bitna’s arm, indignant. “I’m not like you! I want to date someone nice, not someone who just wants to have sex with me.”

“They’re only nice because they want to have sex with you,” Bitna lectures, waving her finger around in the air. “I’m telling you. Boys? They’re not good for anything else.”

“Alright,” Sol grimaces, creating a space for her exit. “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

She leaves Jiwan and Bitna arguing amongst themselves, neither of them contesting her exit. “Don’t think I don’t see you hiding that vape in your pocket, Jiwan!”

“So? It’s not the same thing as smoking. Besides, it’s just a temporary thing anyway.”

Bitna huffs out a laugh. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“Yah!”

The first semester goes by in a blur. It’s a lot of hustling and stressing over what concepts she wants to explore in her studies, especially with their professor breathing down her neck. She’s placed a lot of faith into Sol and it hasn’t helped the way her classmates look at her. Sometimes even Bitna calls her the ace of the group, and it doesn’t feel like the compliment it should be.

It makes her feel like she needs to do better than she is, and Sol has never been good with expectations. Honestly, it’s a little too much.

She’s thought about leaving. There’s an exchange program the university offers that she’s been invited to apply to, but Sol’s not sure how serious this feeling of restlessness is.

She puts in an application anyway, just in case. She’s got time to do her research on what schools she might want to go to, comforted by the thought that she has an out if she ever needs one. She’s got time to decide, and no one has to know.

She won’t tell Jiwan. She doesn’t want to see the disappointment on her face and know she’s the one who’s caused it.  

There’s other reasons, too. It’s partly because she’s not sure she wants to go, and partly because she knows her decision will be swayed by Jiwan’s hurt before she even has the opportunity to make it. Sometimes Sol doesn’t know who she is outside of her best friend. Doesn’t know who she is outside of her feelings for a girl who will never love her back.

She snaps herself out of it. Either way, whether she stays or goes, she has to work hard if she wants to make it to graduation.

In hindsight, her dedication to her art may be the best thing for her. It’s what stops her from fixating on her relationship with Jiwan. Sometimes Jiwan claims she never sees Sol anymore despite sharing a lot of their classes, and blames Sol for their otherwise mismatched schedules, but Sol knows it’s not her fault. Not entirely, anyway.

Jiwan may work less than she does, yes, but she fills up her rota in other ways. Between social drinking and dating, Jiwan has a lot less expendable free-time than Sol does. 

Whenever they do have a spare moment to hang out, usually on the walk between classes, Sol makes an effort to ask about her dates. It’s masochistic, but she doesn’t want Jiwan to feel like she’s unsupportive. 

She tells Sol all about how the men in Seoul are a lot more handsome than the ones in Daegu, and details her plans on exploiting the dating pool until she gets sick of it all. Sol can’t imagine she ever will, but she listens and nods in all the right places, because she can tell Jiwan genuinely enjoys discussing it.

Things since they started college have been good, but it’s hard to deny that they’ve become more distant. It’s different from how they were in middle school, when they would alternate most days between who’s house to hang out at, but priorities change when you get older, and that’s okay.

Plus, with all this talk of love and lust within their friendship group, Sol isn’t afforded the space to deny her feelings like she used to. Honestly, it can be a little suffocating (especially when Bitna tries to give her dating advice), so Sol has learned to be grateful that they’re not as close.

“Why are you dressed so nicely?” Sol asks, knocking into Jiwan’s shoulder as they walk.

Jiwan links their arms and grins. “You think I look nice? I have a date.”

“Oh.” Sol pauses. “Aren’t we supposed to hang out tonight?”

Jiwan grabs her hands, and rocks forward on her heels, pouting. “Will you tell them I couldn’t come? He couldn’t do it tomorrow so we moved it to today. People say you shouldn’t push back dates for too long because it’s not good luck.” Jiwan squeezes her hands. “Please? Could you?”

“Who’s ‘people’?” Sol shakes her head, refusing to be sidetracked. “Wait, I only agreed to go because you begged me to!”

Jiwan rolls her bottom lip into her mouth. 

“Ah, Jiwan! You promised you wouldn’t leave me alone. They’re more your friends than mine.”

“I know! But I swear they’re really nice, and they’ll love you as much as I do.”

Sol doesn’t sulk anymore, but she does come close. She’s been trapped into attending a meet-up she wouldn’t have been invited to if not for Jiwan’s insistence, and can’t even bear the thought of being there without her best-friend to mediate conversation.

“You owe me,” Sol groans, dropping Jiwan’s hand and walking ahead of her. 

Jiwan squeals in victory. “Of course! I’ll find you a blind date, too!”

Sol hates gatherings, but she hates the idea of that more.

The evening is filled with everything Sol despises. 

All these girls talk about is Jiwan’s date, pestering Sol with questions about a boy she hasn’t so much as heard the name of. She’s not sure why they seem to think she has so much information on him — she’s pretty sure Jiwan herself went into it not knowing what the guy looked like.

Sol is as miserable as she is jealous. She doesn’t let it show, not even when Jiwan’s friends gush over how handsome he must be if Jiwan hasn’t replied to their group chat, romanticising the idea of connecting with someone’s soul via text before revealing their faces to each other. She doesn’t let it show, and participates in the conversation whenever she’s called upon, but she cannot ignore the storm battling inside her.

They seem like the kind of people who idolise fairytale fantasies, which makes perfect sense when Sol questions why Jiwan likes them so much. Maybe Sol is just cynical, but they all have that idealism in common that Sol can’t relate to.

One of them tells her to text Jiwan privately because she’ll be more likely to respond to Sol, asking for an update, and though Sol really doesn’t want to know how it’s going she messages Jiwan anyway.

Her phone rings halfway through a conversation about what their ideal type of guy is and Sol leaps across the table to answer it. She feels everyone's eyes on her and excuses herself from the group.

Everything goes downhill from there. 

Oblivious to where she’s walking, Sol crosses the restaurant and collides with a stranger. She drops her phone and hits her head against the leg of a table, but that’s not the most mortifying part of it. She absolutely drowns him in his own coffee, destroying his shirt.

She ignores the throbbing of her head and apologises profusely, and though he keeps telling her that it’s fine she doesn’t feel it. She offers to pay for it and he seems rather indifferent, uninterested in a reimbursement of the ruined shirt, but Sol insists until he agrees to exchange numbers.

It makes her feel a lot better, and after all of her embarrassment, she grabs her bag from her friends’ table and tells them she’s going to head home.

She ignores the excitement buzzing around the table and walks out instead of answering their questions of: Who is that? What did he say? Why didn’t you ask him to sit with us?

(She never finds out how Jiwan’s date went).

Coffee boy calls her while she’s in company, and that’s how the rumour that Sol is dating starts. 

He asks to meet her face-to-face and she isn’t sure why she agrees to it. Maybe it’s just an extension of her guilt, but she quickly realises as he ushers her into a restaurant she used to visit with Jiwan that it’s a mistake.

His name is Juhyeok, and he refuses to co-operate with her whenever she tries to repay him. Every attempt she makes he swats away, batting away the envelope like the thought of it irritates him.

If he doesn’t want the money then why is he here?

Sol is starting to lose her patience and forces it into his pocket while his guard is down. He looks startled, but doesn’t contest it. It makes her feel better for a little while, glad to be done with it, before he sneaks it back into her bag as they leave and it’s the same fight all over again. 

She sighs, inclining her head. “If you don’t want to take it then you should’ve let me pay for our meal.”

He smiles cheekily, and if Sol were anyone else she might find it charming. If she were Jiwan, even. “You can pay for our coffee.”

Sol matches his stare. “Coffee?”

“Next time,” he shrugs, and Sol no longer has the energy to argue.

She doesn’t understand him. Not the way he looks at her, not the way he asks questions or takes an interest in her degree. Not even when he offers to walk her to the bus stop when she leaves. 

Maybe it’s this quality he has that reminds her of Jiwan, of the way she could apply honest motivations behind Jiwan’s actions yet still misunderstand why she does certain things. Jiwan is an open-book as much as she is a mystery, as is this boy, who invites her out to discuss payment options while simultaneously turning down every offer Sol gives him. 

Maybe that’s why when he asks to see her again at the flea market next week Sol says yes. 

Or maybe she’s just going mad. 

Jiwan has been acting strange recently.

She asks about Sehun, a boy in their class. She asks if Sol likes him and Sol tells her it’s a really stupid question because of course she does –  she wouldn’t hang out with him if she didn’t. 

Jiwan thrusts the packet of gummy bears back into Sol’s hands. “I won’t eat these.”

Sol stares blankly between the sweets and Jiwan. 

Jiwan is acting strange, and Sol isn’t sure what to do about it. 

A lot has changed since she started college, but a lot has remained the same, too. Jiwan still enjoys drinking and Sol isn’t much of an avid socialiser. 

They’re at Nabi’s, and Sol has reason to believe that some otherworldly being is punishing her. Somehow a word association game has transgressed into spin the bottle, and Sol wonders how she got here. After years of repression she’s back where she started, participating in childish games that play with her heart. 

It starts off fine — she’s only being dramatic. But truthfully, Sol isn’t in the mood for any of this. She’d only agreed to dinner and only because Jiwan had asked her to come. She feels bad about not hanging out with her as much outside of school and suspects Jiwan is acting out because she misses having so much of Sol’s attention. (And she also kind of misses her). 

But she certainly didn’t agree to this — spending a drunken night at Nabi’s and taking care of Jiwan on her mission to drown herself in Soju.

Yunji spins first and dances around her kiss with a boy Sol can’t name. She launches forward and pecks him on the mouth, and they both falter awkwardly in the middle of the circle. Yunji pulls away as he leans back in, grabbing her around the neck demanding that she let him kiss her properly. There’s tongue and Sol pretends to vomit. 

(They don’t stop kissing until her braces clash against the inside of her lip, and she bleeds).

Sol drifts away during Bitna’s turn, watching Nabi and Jaeeon in between spins with a kind of envious fascination. They both clearly like each other but something is holding them back, while the entire group is smothered by the tension between them on their journey to figure it out. Honestly, sometimes Sol wishes she had Nabi’s problems.

Bitna nudges an elbow into her side, calling out that it’s Sol’s turn and she’ll spin the bottle on her behalf. Sol’s body feels loose with alcohol, and she finds she doesn’t really care who it lands on anymore as long as it’s not… anticipation builds in her stomach as the bottle begins to slow. 

Jiwan fights off Sehun, scrambling to Sol’s side. Sol is definitely being punished.

At first, with Soju warming her belly and Jiwan crawling towards her with excitement in her eyes, Sol thinks: this is finally it. Her senses have softened around the edges, and for a wicked moment Sol isn’t scared.

Then Bitna makes a strangled sound at Gyuhyun beside her, and Sol is stricken with the reminder of where she is.  

Jiwan is already puckering up in front of her, waiting on her hands and knees. 

Sol flinches. 

She forfeits, downing her shot glass in a panic. She risks glancing at Jiwan and doesn’t miss the wave of hurt in her eyes, and now Sol remembers why she doesn’t do this anymore. 

Exactly this… this is why she swore away from alcohol after the last time they found themselves in this position, teetering along the boundary of friendship almost tipping over into something more. Sol will never be the one to break it, and as willing as Jiwan is for the sake of good fun, Sol’s not ready to find out exactly what she’s missing either. 

Sol grabs her coat and ditches the circle, ignoring the curious eyes from Nabi, and Jiwan, who’s staring down into her own lap. Her cheeks are burning, desperate for fresh air. 

Sol needs to get out of here before she does something stupid. 

Something stupid takes it’s form in sharing a bed with a drunk Jiwan. She’d climbed underneath the duvet in a huff after cornering Sol into a conversation about that guy from the cafe. She’d missed his call whilst she was outside getting some air, and Jiwan hasn’t been able to let it go since.  

Sol isn’t sure why Jiwan is so worked up about it, but Sol had given up on decrypting Jiwan’s alcohol waffle years ago. She never understood the way Jiwan’s brain rewires after a few drinks and has long accepted that she probably never will, and tucks a prickly Jiwan into bed after borrowing some sweats from Nabi.

Once she nestles into the pillow Sol takes a step back, but Jiwan is quick to grab onto her wrist and doesn’t let up until Sol slips in beside her.

“Aren’t you mad at me or something?”

Jiwan hums ruefully. “No. I love you,” she exhales, tugging Sol by the waist until their hips are pressed up against each other. “Goodnight, Sol.”

Whilst Jiwan drifts into a slumber Sol’s mind flickers restlessly. She thinks about Jiwan’s questions about having a boyfriend, and the letter of admittance she received from the exchange program. All that’s left to do now is apply to the foreign universities of her choice and wait to hear back if she’s successful. Her professor has such high hopes.

Jiwan snuggles closer, and Sol rests her chin on the top of her head. Her heart sends a thud through her body, and Sol worries that this is how she’ll always feel. 

Nabi asks her a question about the interchangeability of love and lust and all Sol can think about is Jiwan.

She withdraws from the student exchange program.

Jiwan is still weird with her. She’s not sure why. 

She plans to ask her at the flea market assuming she’s there, and knowing Jiwan she probably will be. 

Juhyeok is kind of nice. He can be funny sometimes, and finally lets her pay for the milkshakes they stopped off for before they’d arrived. He’s a good friend, and she’s certain Jiwan will like him. 

She spots Jiwan at a table with a few of her friends as they make their way through the crowd and waves, but is forced over to one of the stands hosting two-person games before she can reach her.

The first game is just a matter of throwing a dart at a board. She looks over at Jiwan’s table and locks eyes with her. She smiles, but Jiwan doesn’t reciprocate. 

She throws the dart. 

The second one is a lot more awkward. She and Juhyeok have to pop a balloon without using their hands or any other parts of their bodies. They can only use each other’s torsos. 

It takes seconds to beat and it’s kind of stupid, but even Sol will admit it’s entertaining. She thinks it would be a lot funnier to play with Jiwan because most things are, and makes a mental note to ask Jiwan to join her in another round later. 

She’s also gifted a plushie of a cartoon character that Jiwan absolutely adores at the end of the games as a prize, which makes it even better.

She makes her way over to Jiwan, Juhyeok by her side, and plops the teddy in front of her. 

Jiwan snaps at her. 

“Is he your boyfriend?”

Jiwan never snaps at her. 

Never like this, never this confrontational. Jiwan can be whiny in her anger, sure. Sometimes she’ll mope for days when Sol has done something to upset her, but this? Sol isn’t sure how to handle this. 

“What’s up with you?” She asks, lowering her voice to keep whatever fight they’re having between themselves, but Jiwan is not as sympathetic to Sol’s company as she is. 

Jiwan’s eyes are cold, wild. They drill into Sol’s violently. “Why did you bring him?” she snarls. 

Sol feels Juhyeok flinch at her tone. “I… I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Sol stammers. 

Jiwan has never been shy around new people before, so Sol knows that isn’t it. Jiwan has never been upset at her for making her own friends before, often joking that if Jiwan didn’t force Sol to socialise she would be a loner. 

Jiwan looks between Sol and the boy, and something in her expression shifts. Guilt, maybe, but something more too. “If I knew I would’ve brought one, too,” she says, looking down at the plushie. Hostility takes back over at the sight of it, her tone accusatory when she asks, “Did you enjoy your couples game?” 

“I…”  Jiwan is looking straight through her, and Sol swallows hard, unable to keep the anxiety from her voice. “Uh…”

She can’t find the words, and only has her silence to offer. 

Jiwan thrusts the bear into Sol’s chest and storms away, leaving Sol behind wondering what’s happening to her best friend. One of their friends chases Jiwan, but Sol doesn’t check to see which one. 

Sol doesn’t know what to think. She apologises to Juhyeok finding that she now has another debt she needs to make up for, and tells him she needs to go home. To think or to… she’s not sure, there’s an anxious spark in her chest and she just needs to get out of here. 

Sol doesn’t realise Jiwan was behaving jealously until she’s digging her keys out of her bag to unlock her door, and it’s too late. Even so, honestly, Sol doesn’t know what to say to her. 

What can she say? She’ll always be Jiwan’s… but how can she explain that to her when Jiwan is not hers? How can she explain that no matter what friends she makes, no matter how far she runs from it, no one will ever be more important to Sol than her?

She cannot confess, nor offer herself unconditionally anymore. They’re not the same people they were in middle school, and there’s nothing Sol can do.

Sol hopes she’ll just snap out of it, but can’t fight the feeling that she’s losing her best friend.

Maybe this is just the relationship they have now. 

Jiwan finds out about her application and doesn’t speak to her for days. The closest she gets to Jiwan is through the gummy bear sculptures on her desk, because she doesn’t show up to class all week either. 

Sol has loved her best friend since the age of nine. 

It scares her.