Archive of Our Own

When Minjeong’s parents told her that they’d be moving, it felt like the end of her life. She’d be moving schools, losing friends, won’t be close to the auntie that always gives her extra treats whenever she ordered her usual snack of seotteok seotteok.

She’s a growing tree who dug in her roots and her parents are ripping her right out—it’s a whole new world and she’s rightfully upset!

“Minjeong, please talk to us?”

Ignoring her mom’s plea, Minjeong crosses her arms and grumpily turns away. This is a lot for a seven year old to process! She’s at a tender, sensitive age!

“I understand you’re mad, baby, but you’ll make new friends! It could be fun!”

(It wouldn’t! She hates meeting new people! It takes her weeks just to introduce herself sometimes!)

“We even looked around where we’d send you to school. There’s an arcade not far from it. And there’s a restaurant that has all the food you like. Give it a chance, won’t you?”

“No!” She harrumphs angrily, stubborn as a bull.

Her mother sighs, lovingly pats her head. “I can see you’re upset. Why don’t you tell us why so we can help you more?”

It should be obvious! They’re moving away from everything she knows! Why did they even need to move? Everything was perfect! Zipping her mouth shut into a stern line, Minjeong glares at the floor.

“Honey,” she hears her father say, “we’ll give you time to think about it and warm up to the idea, but we are moving.”

No room for doubt. No room for rebuttal. It makes her feel so insignificant. Didn’t her opinion matter?

“Why didn’t you ask me?!” She can’t help herself from asking. She’s upset! This isn’t a temper tantrum; she’s rightfully mad! “You say I’m important and that my opinion matters, but you never told me about this before! I would’ve said no! Is it only for the stupid stuff you’ll listen to me?!”

“Minjeong,” her mother frowns, hurt, “We tell you everything. When I lost my job, I told you. When we changed out your mattress, we told you. Small things, big things, we’ve never kept you out. But this is important, and we need you to understand that we didn’t want to move either. Your opinion and your feelings matter to us. But some things are out of our control.” Her mother takes her father’s hand, and waits for Minjeong to put her hand in hers. “Your appa’s work is requiring him to move, otherwise they’ll let him go.”

Softening up when she sees the sincerity and gentleness on her parents’ faces, Minjeong’s anger fizzles into a melancholy sadness, “I don’t wanna leave, eomma. I’m comfortable here. I told Chae I’d bring something for her birthday but I won’t be able to if I can’t see her at school.” Pulled into her mother’s arms when she notices the quivering of her lips, Minjeong doesn’t mean to cry, but tears leak out anyway. “What if I won’t make friends? I don’t want to be alone. I don’t know how to make friends. I don’t know how I did it.”

Cooing at her and soothingly running her fingers through her hair, her mother presses a kiss to her temple. “You won’t be alone, baby. You’ll always have us. And you will make friends. You won’t even need to try. You have a beautiful heart! As long as you’re yourself, the right people will come to you.” Pulling away and cupping her cheeks, she smiles at her, “You’re our girl! You can do anything! You’re strong and smart and we believe in you! We’ll be with you every step of the way, but I know you’ll be just fine.”

Sniffing up her tears (because she’s a big girl!), Minjeong closes her eyes when her mother wipes away her tears with her thumbs. “What- what about Chae?”

Kind smile, loving eyes, her father hands her a tissue for her running nose. “We can drive you to their house after school. You two can hang out and we’ll plan something with Chaehyun’s parents. That could work, right?”

Opting to nod her head, Minjeong thinks she’s being the best daughter her parents could ask for when she internally promises to stop making a big deal out of moving. At the big age of seven, Minjeong decides she’ll take on this whole moving thing with stride. As much as she has moped, she’ll make this change as easy as it could possibly be for her parents. They didn’t want to move either, she reminds herself. And they’re not throwing tantrums! She can be a big girl too!

-

Their new house is nicer than their old house. Minjeong would never tell that to her parents. She’s still pretending to be a little reluctant about moving, but really, she likes that her room has a nice, big window. She’s always liked looking at the moon and she can see it glowing, bright and unobstructed, most nights.

She’s even made a new friend! If Minjeong felt new, the new girl felt even newer! A foreigner from Japan, Uchinaga Aeri and Minjeong made a pact to stay by each other and be best friends. Easy! And mature! Minjeong’s very proud of herself for having a friend within the first month of going to a new school.

She’s slowly getting used to everything but her mom was right. She’s doing just fine.

The best part of this is the new puppy she befriended! It’s a black, little thing, wet-nosed and hyper. It approached her one day while she was waiting to play with Aeri at the park by her place. Looking for tags because every owned dog she knows has one, the dog’s neck was bare and before she could tell her parents about it, it ran away. Minjeong’s resolved that the puppy only really likes her because it’s awfully skittish, scattering when someone other than Aeri or her approaches it.

Today, Minjeong and Aeri are at the park after school, celebrating the end of the school week. They’ve worked hard! Minjeong aced her spelling and math test and didn't pummel her fists into their face when someone called her puny (aka: she didn’t cry)!

Her parents are relaxing on a bench not too far from them, talking to each other about boring adult stuff like groceries and bills. Minjeong, on the other hand, with a scabbing scrape on her knees from playing roughly with the boys, has her hands full with the same black puppy who cries like she’ll die if Minjeong doesn’t give her tummy rubs. And Minjeong doesn’t want the cute puppy to cry! She has a soft spot for cute puppies! It physically hurts her heart to hear her whimper!

“Minjeongie! Come on!”

Aeri, on the swings and kicking her feet after Minjeong’s turn on it, waits for her to push her.

“Puppy, I have to go push my friend on the swings. I’ll be back! Wait for me, okay?!”

As if understanding her, the dog gets up and sits, big, innocent and rounded, dark eyes blinking at her. Closely following her when she walks to Aeri, the puppy sits back down, barks once before laying down to patiently wait by her feet. 

“Do you think Puppy would like to go on the swings?”

Aeri’s reply comes as she goes, far and then close, but she yells with a joy so bright Minjeong could hear her from a mile away. “Yeah! It’s so fun! Are you-“ she swings closer, “ever going to-“ she swings further, “name her?”

Minjeong takes a moment to think, knitting her eyebrows together. Helping Aeri to a stop, Minjeong digs her feet into the floor. “What if Puppy has a name for herself and we just don’t know it? It wouldn’t be nice to rename her if she has a name…”

“What if Puppy doesn’t like us calling her Puppy?”

A gasp rips from Minjeong’s lips.

She’s right!

“Puppy!” Minjeong yelps with an alarmed voice, now crouched.

The black dog, once snoozing peacefully, jolts awake, sharpened eyes looking for the human’s voice. Trotting over, she nudges into her hand with a quiet, rumbling purr before looking up at her curiously.

“Do you like it if we call you Puppy?”

The dog tilts her head, as if confused.

“Is that a no?”

Aeri makes a stink face. “I think she’s confused.”

“Nah, she totally understands. Right, Puppy?” Minjeong asks, high-pitched lilt to her question.

A quiet, little bark rumbles from the puppy.

“See?!” Minjeong’s eyes and lips open wide with amazement. “She answered me!”

Her friend squints suspiciously at the dog. “So…does Puppy like Puppy or what?”

Puppy’s excited wagging of her tail and happy howl answers for her.

Minjeong, smug, smirks triumphantly. “I knew she liked it! Puppy and I are like this,” she says, crossing her fingers. “We’re besties! Like you and me!”

“Yah…Minjeong,” Aeri gasps, “should I be upset I’m in the ranks of a stray puppy?”

“I love Puppy!” She exclaims proudly, puffing her chest.

Aeri starts. Holds her tongue. Slow, small smile. Knocking her shoulder into Minjeong’s and petting Puppy, “Wanna get bingsu after this?”

A smile races onto Minjeong’s lips. “Yeah!”

-.-.-

Minjeong is seventeen and they haven’t moved since she was seven. Her dad is the director of his team, influential and revered by his company. If Minjeong looks back on it, the move was necessary and beneficial. She’s already apologized to her parents for being a stinky brat about it and they easily forgave her because that’s what loving and understanding parents do.

She’s seventeen and Aeri is still her best friend, except now, they have another! Ning Yizhuo is another transfer student—she dreams of being an idol and she’s training at a company for it so she’s usually making up for lost time and sleeping whenever there’s a chance she can get some extra z’s.

Puppy still follows her around. Except, Puppy isn’t very puppy-like anymore. At least by size. She’s grown to be like those dogs that are taller than people on their hind legs. Like, much bigger. It’d almost be intimidating if Puppy weren’t the same hyper, happy-go-lucky, cutie she was when Minjeong first met her. She never expected that little, lovable runt to go through such crazy dog-puberty and for her to still be alive, but what does she know? Her parents still haven’t agreed to getting a dog. It astounds her that the canine is still doing well, but she figures Puppy is doing fine if she’s grown to be that big and strong without having any owners Minjeong knows about. And Puppy has always turned away from any of Minjeong’s invitations to be adopted. She always trots to wherever her home is at the end of the day, but Minjeong doesn’t mind. She always comes back.

An arm slings over her shoulder.

Wonbin, sandy blonde and broad-shouldered, grins. “Hey, Minjeongie!”

Smiling back at him, Minjeong grabs one of her textbooks. “Hey, Wonnie! What’s up?”

“The boys were thinking of hanging out after the girls’ volleyball game. Kazuha said her girls are going. You in?”

Usually when Wonbin says, “The Boys”, he usually means his cluster of well-meaning, goofy boys that do Little Boy things like copy stupid TikTok trends (and not the dancing kind, more like the acrobatic one's way out of their skill set) or play flag football which usually turns into rolling around in the grass and playing silly games that usually involve pelting one another with a ball.

Which means, it’s not Minjeong’s thing.

But the girls’ volleyball team? They’re totally her thing.

Oh, she’s so there.

-

Is it true that Minjeong learned volleyball so that she knows when to cheer when she’s watching her school’s games?

Well, yes!

But more specifically, Minjeong is at these games because she’s cheering for women!

Pretty, pretty women, who look even prettier when they’re sweaty and strong and cocky.

The spandex is just a bonus.

Every game is a test of discipline. No, her eyes won’t be magnetized by butts! She’s better than that! She’s-

“Free!”

The ball sails over to their side of the court.

The libero easily bumps a pass to their setter.

“One! One!”

“Two!”

The setter, with a smooth arch of her back, sets the ball behind her.

Two-step approach, a wind-up, a fierce outside hit to the left-back corner of the court.

No, Minjeong can’t comment on anything that jiggles. No, she cannot!

She’s better than that! She’s-

Her eyes track a player rotating to the back, spinning the ball in her hands. Her eyes love looking at number 11. She loves the number 11. Isn’t it such a great number?

“Your girl is about to serve.”

“She isn’t my girl!” Minjeong hisses.

Yizhuo rolls her eyes. “She would be if you talked to her.”

“I talk to her!”

Then, Aeri laughs, scoffing. “Asking Jimin about math homework you don’t need help with is not talking to her. Ask the girl out already!”

Just thinking about it makes Minjeong blush. She, like most people on this damn campus, has a crush on this girl. No way she’s special among the bunch.

“How?! She probably just sees me as her cousin’s friend and underclassman that she tutors!”

“You are her cousin’s friend and underclassman that she tutors. Don’t know why you do when you get perfect scores, though,” Yizhuo says, checking out her manicure.

“Not helpful,” Aeri interjects. “Jimin’s cool! I’ve never heard one bad story about her! And Wonnie really loves her, too! She can’t be that bad!”

Minjeong pales at one particular thought. “What if I talk to her and it goes badly? What if I’m her one bad story?!”

Her friend rolls her eyes again. “How could you be when you won’t even talk to her about things outside of school?!”

“That’s safe! Those are safe conversations!”

“Safe won’t get you a girlfriend!”

Minjeong clicks her tongue.

They’re right, anyways.

For the better part of her high school career, Yu Jimin has been the apple of her eye and her tutor for math for three years straight.

Minjeong is very good at math. Math makes sense to her.

Talking to pretty girls, however, does not.

So, Minjeong is talking to a pretty girl about math and it makes enough sense that she isn’t running her mouth or looking like an idiot talking to Gorgeous, Gorgeous Jimin.

It’s basic math—they’re canceling each other out!

But it’s safe. So very safe that the only numbers they’re talking about are pre-calc numbers and not the digits to Jimin’s phone.

(She doesn’t even have her number. That’s what Yizhuo and Aeri are working with here. 

She has her Instagram and ghost stalks her Twitter. She only DM’s her on Instagram to plan their tutoring sessions and that’s about it.

This is not what Aeri meant when she told Minjeong to slide in her DM’s.

It’s quite dire, isn’t it? Doomed, really.)

“Tonight!” Minjeong announces. “I’ll talk to her tonight! And not about math!”

Aeri and Yizhuo arch their eyebrows at her.

“Or school!”

“You better.” Aeri sighs. “I bet even Puppy is tired of hearing about Jimin.”

“Hey!” Minjeong yelps indignantly. “Puppy loves when I talk to her!”

Minjeong’s friends just hum a sassy, “Mhmm,” and teasingly make a stink face. “Sure, she does.”

“She does!”

“Puppy just loves you, Minjeongie. Let’s be honest here.”

“Yeah!” Minjeong boasts. “Which means she loves it when I talk about the big, fat crush I have! I know she supports me,” she huffs.

Puppy will always have her side!

-

Wonbin’s place is nothing short of cozy.

It is also incredibly grand.

All Minjeong knows is that his dad owns a paper company and that they’re rolling in dough. There are rumors that he’s part of the underworld but Minjeong thinks those are just dramatic lies.

If it were true, she’s sure Wonbin’s dad could have the money to shut it down.

Right?

Whatever.

That’s not her concern. Her concern is talking to Wonbin’s gorgeous, stunning, amazing, beautiful-

“Hi, Minjeongie!”

“Hi, unnie!”

Jimin, freshly showered and smelling of Pretty and Fresh, saunters over to her, arms open for the hug Minjeong has definitely not been looking forward to since knowing about this plan.

(Upon realization that Jimin is a hugger when it comes to greeting people she’s cool with, Minjeong has been very happy to have been bestowed with two prizes: hugs and favor.)

“I didn’t know Wonbinnie was gonna invite you!”

Wonbin, currently tussling with one of his friends, yelling about things Minjeong doesn’t care about, looks up, distracted. “What’d I do?!”

“You should always invite Minjeongie to these things! I’d like to see her outside of tutoring!”

“Ack! Pause! Can’t you see I’m talking here?!” Wonbin complains at his friends; his friends just bellow with laughter, teasing him. “Minjeongie only likes hanging out with pretty girls, noona. She doesn’t care about us,” Wonbin jokes with a smirk.

“I care!” She retorts, high-pitched.

“Not enough to hang out with your himbo bestie who loves you,” Wonbin sighs forlornly, dramatically shaking his head.

“Sorry, it’s not very appealing to watch you guys play fight and try to get into the hospital with your crazy tricks.”

“Ahhh,” Wonbin reminisces with a far-away look, “remember the good old days when you used to wrestle with us?”

Minjeong rolls her eyes. “You mean when I was seven? You couldn’t suplex me when we were seven. The game was a lot more fair back then.”

They both react, one confused, the other defensive.

“You’d do that?” Jimin asks, concerned.

“We wouldn’t suplex you!” Wonbin argues.

“You’ve sat on me before,” Minjeong grumbles, unwillingly brought back to the time Wonbin hunkered down on her and sat his ass down on her back just so that she couldn’t chase him around the park for throwing wood chips in her hair.

“I was eight! I didn't know how to be a gentleman!”

Jimin shakes her head disappointed. “Yah, Minjeong, I swear I’ve tried teaching him, but I guess he didn’t listen.”

“I was eight!” Wonbin asserts again. “I was an annoying asshole because I learned it from you, noona!”

Jimin throws a glare at him. “I have never sat on a girl, Wonbin.”

“Oh yeah?” Wonbin haughtily retorts, glaring back playfully.

“Not without her telling me to.”

Wonbin withers with a grimace. “Gross, noona. I didn’t need to know.”

Laughing easily, Jimin runs her hand through her hair, smile so charming Minjeong swoons next to her.

(It’s so bad for her. It’s a disgrace.)

“What?! Don’t your friends let you sit on their laps?”

“You didn’t mean it like that and I know it.”

(Minjeong doesn’t entertain how else Jimin might have meant it. She’s not in the mood to yearn or think about Jimin in any regard she’s not supposed to.

Under the rug it goes!)

“How did I mean it then, Wonbinnie?”

Though they aren’t roughhousing, Minjeong watches their verbal tennis match with rapt attention. She totally sees where her friend’s annoying menace qualities come in. Jimin’s witty and quick and she loves to pull out a reaction.

Clearly.

Wonbin sputters, distressed when he shakes his head disgustedly. “Don’t say it like that, noona! I’m your family!”

Jimin only laughs, full and from her belly, wraps an arm around Minjeong’s waist to support her clumsy stumble.

It feels like her skin is on fire.

Is that her heart pounding in her throat? That isn’t right. It should be in her sternum.

Minjeong feels Jimin more than she sees her. Her nose ever so slightly grazes her jawline when she leans down to whisper by her ear. “Isn’t it fun teasing Wonbin? He reacts so well.”

Minjeong laughs nervously, a minuscule nodding of her head. She’s still stuck on Jimin’s arm making a belt around her. And then there’s the proximity of her lips and the way it felt to have her on her skin, even if for a little bit. It’s quite devastating for her brain—talk about a brain fart. It’s so bad there’s a haze of gas. 

Changing the subject, because what else can she do, Minjeong tries to pretend she isn’t the shade of a small cherry tomato when she looks up at Jimin. “You were really cool today, unnie.”

Jimin beams at her. “You came and watched?”

Minjeong just nods her head. She goes to all of her games. But Jimin doesn’t need to know that.

“I feel so honored,” Jimin starts. “The studious, busy vice president came to our game? If I knew, I would’ve played harder!”

“Unnie, if you played any harder, I think you might put a hole in the court.”

A happy laugh tumbles out of Jimin’s lips. “Maybe. But I’d dedicate a serve to you,” the volleyball player jokes with a bright and mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

(Minjeong likens her eyes to stars, the ones she loves looking at at night—gleaming and glittering.)

Unable to reply to such shameless flirtiness, Minjeong looks away with a racing heartbeat and flushed cheeks. “You don’t have to. If you did that for me, everyone is going to ask you to do that.”

Jimin just shrugs. “They can ask. I can say no. I’m only offering this to my favorite dongsaeng!”

Dongsaeng.

Minjeong deflates like an exploded tube of toothpaste that got run over by a monster truck. Again and again.

She almost forgot.

Jimin is her sunbae. She’s not even her friend.

Jimin is just a class A flirt. Everyone knows that. Jimin flirts with anyone she likes. And Jimin likes many people. She’s popular for a reason.

Minjeong, as she is cruelly reminded, is just a drop in the ocean.

Suddenly, Minjeong feels terrible.

-

Maybe Jimin has a sixth sense, but she clocks Minjeong’s bad mood within the hour.

It doesn’t help that she’s stinking up the room with her negative energy.

(She isn’t. She’s just sitting in the corner of the room, urging her friends to have fun while she wallows in her self-pity and sadness like a teenage girl should when her crush dongsaeng-zoned her.)

It confuses Minjeong though.

Surely there are plenty of people here vying for Jimin’s attention. Outside of the volleyball girls, the boys team has wiggled their way into the invitation. And the cheer team. All people Minjeong knows but only because she’s their vice president.

But, here Jimin is, rubbing shoulders with her like there’s no else worth talking to.

That can’t be right.

“Minjeongie~”

“Yeah, unnie?”

“Are you doing okay?”

Ah.

She’s only here because she’s sensed something wrong about her.

Lie! Lie! Lie!

“I’m okay! Just tired, unnie. Planning for events is more tiring than I was ready for today.”

Jimin, with that infamously kind heart she has, sadly pouts. “Would you like to go? I can walk you home! We’re not doing anything that fun anyway.” Jimin offers a hand, “Some fresh air sounds nice!”

Touched by her effort, who is Minjeong to say no? She’d probably never turn her down. Subtly wiping her clammy hands on her skirt, Minjeong timidly places hers on Jimin’s.

“I don’t think I want to go home yet, but I’d like a walk!”

When Jimin fondly pats her head, she has a smug smile playing on her lips, “Cutie Puppy wants to go for a walk!”

If Minjeong weren’t reeling from the nickname, she’d have fought sooner. “I’m not a puppy!”

“Really?” The older girl smirks, “But you got so happy when I mentioned a walk! It’s like I could see your tail wagging!”

“Unnie!” Minjeong whines, “People can like going on walks!”

Jimin just arches a brow, looking at their hands, Minjeong’s in her palm like she’s asked for a paw.

“I see where Wonbin gets being annoying from,” Minjeong grumbles, crossing her arms unhappily.

“Aww, Minjeongie, come on!”

Striding out of the room and shoving her feet in her shoes, Jimin follows at her heels, explaining herself with a sulky pout. “You just listen so well! Like a puppy! And you’re cute like a puppy! How could I not call you a puppy?!”

“Unnie, if you call me puppy again, I’m walking home alone.”

Jimin’s eyes wobble like jelly when her lips quiver dramatically, “But- But I wanna walk with you! And you said you’d stay!”

(Minjeong folds like a house of cards.

No cute girl should ever pout at her like that because she’ll just acquiesce. It’s not in her creed to refuse cute girls or a girl specifically named Yu Jimin.)

Rolling her eyes and walking out the door, Minjeong laughs to herself hearing Jimin fuss with her shoes.

“Agh, wait! Minjeong! I’ve got stupid high tops! It takes me forever to get my shoes on!”

And, of course, Minjeong waits.

Because Jimin’s right.

She listens well.

She will always listen to a pretty girl.

That doesn’t make her a puppy. Just terribly, terribly gay. Which, in some contexts, Minjeong supposes, can be synonymous.

Just not in this one!

She’s not a puppy!

-

The walk with Jimin is turning out to be the perfect place where Minjeong can talk to Jimin about everything that isn’t school.

“Were you always close with Wonbin?”

Next to her, Jimin has her hands in her pockets, kicking along a pebble she found half a block ago.

“No,” Minjeong says. “He stole my crayons the first week I knew him. I hated his guts.”

“He probably wanted you to be his friend.”

Shaking her head at the accuracy, Minjeong laughs to herself. “You didn’t make friends like that, right?

Jimin barks out a laugh. “No! I’m normal, Minjeong. He didn’t get that from me.” Losing her pebble when it gets stuck between a crack, Jimin audibly whimpers a small sound, pouting at the ground, looking behind her when they leave it behind.

(Minjeong would like to file a complaint on who’s the puppy between the two of them. She’s practically walking like she’s got a tail between her legs!

It’s just not right.)

“You moved here, didn’t you? I feel like you weren’t here and suddenly, you were. Wonbin is very chatty when he likes people. It’s like he was obsessed with you the moment you came.”

Minjeong stalls.

Jimin doesn’t think she and Wonbin have a… thing, right?

That’s completely false.

(She likes girls.

She loves girls!

She has to let Jimin know she’s for the girls. Kim Minjeong is not meant for boys! That’s just not how she likes it! She has to be gayer. Somehow. The stupid uniform they all have to wear is cramping her futchy, lookie-here-I’m-gay style!)

“I was seven when we moved here. Before Wonbin, it was just me, Aeri, and this cute, little puppy.”

“Puppy?”

“I think a stray? But I’m not sure. I offered her kibble a couple of times and she didn’t eat any. But I found her at the park by the convenience store. She’d cry if I stopped petting her, so I just let her follow me around.”

“A puppy was your friend?” Jimin asks, an unjudging neutrality to her.

Shyly shrugging, Minjeong looks up, likes to see the twinkling of stars looking down on them. “She’d just stay by my side and listen to me when I was sad and lonely. I looked forward to seeing her because she made me happy. Puppy’s probably the reason why I didn’t miss my old home so much because my old home didn’t have Puppy.”

When Jimin doesn’t readily reply, Minjeong looks over, only to find Jimin softly smiling to herself.

“What?”

“Hmm?”

Minjeong’s smile reflects Jimin; she can’t help but to be her mirror when she looks so beautiful underneath the stars and bathed in moonlight.

“Why that smile?”

Blushing like she got caught red-handed, Jimin rolls her shoulders back into a straighter posture. “I’m happy you had Puppy to comfort you. No one likes to be lonely.”

No, Minjeong supposes. Not even she likes to be lonely.

When they make their way back, Minjeong walks with her heart throbbing on her tongue, just because Jimin’s brushing the back of her hand against hers when they walk, playful little fingers tickling hers but never holding them.

Minjeong, for the trainwreck that she is, doesn’t take the initiative to.

(She doesn’t have her phone number, remember?

She will take Aeri and Yizhuo scolding the fuck out of her and holding it over her head until she’s dead rather than making a move.

If Jimin wanted to hold her hand, she would.

Right?

That’s what Minjeong’s telling herself.)

Before the night ends, Jimin walks Minjeong home, her cozy varsity jacket hung over her shoulder because Jimin wouldn’t let her leave without it.

And Minjeong would be stupid to refuse her crush’s jacket. She may be useless. But she isn’t stupid. It didn’t take much for Jimin to persuade her.

Whether Jimin forgets or because Minjeong quietly waits until Jimin says something about it, the upperclassman leaves without her jacket.

Minjeong may or may not sleep with it in her arms just because it smells like Jimin. She’ll never tell a soul about it. That’s between her and whatever deity gave her Jimin.

-

It’s a little cold today.

(Read: very cold today. Minjeong had to double check her mirror to make sure she wouldn’t be too…nippy.)

Wearing Jimin’s jacket until Wonbin can bring the one she left at his place and forgot about (again), Minjeong waits by the victory bell in the quad. It’s not her usual meeting spot with her friends, but it’s closer to Wonbin than her locker is and she needs her jacket before people start asking her questions about Jimin’s name on her back.

Because people will ask. People love sniffing into Jimin’s business.

“Minjeong?”

Minjeong’s sleepy, little heart perks up like she’s just injected caffeine by the buttload into it. “Jimin unnie?”

“I almost didn’t recognize you! You look nice with my jacket on you!”

Bashfully smiling at her, because God forbid, a girl gets complimented by her crush of three years, Minjeong starts to shrug it off her small frame. “Thank you for letting me borrow it, unnie! Wonbinnie is bringing my jacket today so I can return this to you!”

Minjeong thinks she sees disgruntled annoyance in her eyes, but maybe her groggy eyes are delusional.

“Keep it,” Jimin says, fixing her jacket back on, fastening the first button. “At least until Wonbin gives you your jacket, keep it. It’s cold and you don’t even have a sweater on under. No way you’re going without something to keep you warm.”

“But-”

“Please, Minjeong? For me, so I don’t worry about you getting sick?”

Minjeong can only sigh.

She won’t not listen to a pretty girl. Damn.

“You keep saving me with your jacket, unnie.”

“I will always give you my jacket if you’re cold, baby.”

Baby.

Minjeong almost puts her finger in her ear to clean it out. Did she hear that right? She called her Minjeongie like she always does, didn’t she? Minjeongie doesn’t sound like baby, though.

“Uh- I-”

“Hey, Jimin!” A tall, pretty cheerleader with a bow in her hair waves her over. “Come here? Wonyoung wants to ask you something!”

Deafened by Jimin calling her baby, Minjeong completely misses the weary sigh Jimin exhales before fixing a smile on her face. “I’ll see you later? I’ll kick Wonbin’s ass if he doesn’t bring your jacket for you.”

Forcing herself out of her daze, Minjeong pops open the button Jimin previously closed. “Are you sure-”

A stern glare.

Fingers quickly press the buttons together again.

“I don’t need it, baby.”

(Baby! There it is again! She’s totally hearing this right.)

“You don’t have to worry about me. Volleyball likes to keep us warm,” Jimin says, tugging on the fleece team sweater she’s wearing, the white, pointed collar and loosened blue tie of her uniform layered over the neck of the sweater. Patting her head when she says goodbye, Jimin coolly approaches the group of cheerleaders, immediately pulled into their conversation.

Minjeong falls back into the pillar behind her, Jimin’s scent wrapped all around her. It’s going to distract her.

This stupid jacket is going to rail her academics today. She already knows it. She’s already sniffing it like it’s fucking glue.

There could be worse losses to have. Minjeong’s not too bummed about it; she’s sure she can get notes from her classmates. It’s fine!

-

Wonbin, with her jacket in his arms, waves her down.

“Minjeongie! Your jacket! I remembered this time!”

Jacket surplus? No problem!

Minjeong stuffs hers in her locker.

She’d much rather Jimin’s. She’s already made it warm with her body heat. She can’t be bothered to warm another.

Who cares if people ask about it?

Jimin asked her to wear it.

Jimin matters more than 100% of the student population.

She’s the best vice president their school could’ve asked for! Clearly, there’s no bias!

-

“Bro.” Aeri takes her pen away, stopping her from copying notes she completely missed.

“What?”

“How’d you go from never talking to Jimin about anything but math and school to wearing her jacket?!”

Minjeong shrugs. “It was cold and she was going to walk me home so she gave it to me.”

“Walk you home?!” Yizhuo parrots back, nosy and craving details.

“I wasn’t feeling the party and she noticed so we went for a walk and talked.”

Yizhuo and Aeri deadpan.

“You’re awful at spilling tea. No exposition, no set up, no imagery, no dialogue, just boring bullet points.”

“Nothing exciting happened!”

Yeah, except Minjeong’s heart was racing the whole damn night, creeping up her heart, sitting on her tongue like she could taste adrenaline, pounding in her ear. Sounds like she was pretty damn excited.

“You have her jacket! She has never given her jacket and there are plenty of pretty, cold girls around her!”

“She’s just nice! I was cold and she was wearing it over her hoodie so she gave it to me!”

Yizhuo shakes her head adamantly, “Pretty sure she likes you, dummy!”

“Don’t talk out of your ass! Jimin’s just like that!” Minjeong cries.

“Don’t talk about asses because yours is about to be kicked!”

-

There is heaven on earth and it’s here.

Here being a wide, grassy field.

Minjeong’s gotten good at sneaking out at night. It’s the only time she’s able to see her friend.

“Puppy!”

Heavy paws dig into the floor, running to her, lolling tongue in the wind.

Oh God. Is this how Minjeong’s life ends? Via a massive black dog steamrolling her? She raises her arms in alarm.

“Puppy, slow down!”

A blur of midnight black slows down only to run excited circles around her, fluffy tail swinging behind her so excitedly it could probably knock over bowling pins. Was Puppy always this tall? She used to have to crouch to hug the dog. But now, she’s almost able to hug her head to her chest if she lowered herself a little.

Something’s not right.

Just because they have special years, dogs don’t work like that.

“Puppy, what are you eating these days? Every time I see you, it’s like you’re bigger and bigger!” Minjeong pauses. “That’s not normal. Baby, what are they feeding you?! You should be getting older! It’s like you’re still growing!”

Puppy just huffs a disgruntled breath.

“You better be on a good diet or I’m following you to make sure you’re not eating something you’re not supposed to.”

As if having enough of her, Puppy butts her head into her gut, knocking the air out of her lungs.

“Oof! Puppy! Why’d you do that?”

Watery, big eyes wobble at her, wet nose nuzzling into her hand.

(Goddamn puppy dog eyes. She can never say no. Minjeong still hasn’t figured that one out.

Pretty girls and cute puppies, we all have our vices.)

“Wanna play? Is that why?”

A black tail quickly thumps onto soft grass.

“Get your toy!”

When Puppy comes back, a sizable branch is lodged between sharp canine teeth.

“Puppy, I can only throw that a foot in front of me. Get a smaller branch. I’m not you-sized!”

A sad whimper before she scampers away.

Returning with an appropriately sized stick, Minjeong laughs at the leaves and twigs stuck in her fur, picking them out and scratching behind her ears, little puppy groans when she buries her head into her hand for more scratches.

“Good girl! Thank you, baby!” Puppy’s tail swishes with excitment, quick flicks, hitting the back of her legs when she eyes the stick in her hand. When Minjeong launches it far into the grassy field, a happy laugh follows her command, “Go fetch!”

Making hasty bounds over, Puppy is back before Minjeong can get the chance to push Jimin’s jacket sleeves up. After some rounds, Minjeong’s skin tickles, blades of grass underneath her legs as she sits to take a break.

Puppy shifts to her side, opening up for a belly rub.

“Puppy, do I smell different to you?”

The black dog lifts her head, picking up on the question in her voice.

“I’m wearing someone else’s jacket today. I’ve been wearing this jacket. Since the day she gave it to me.” Minjeong smiles—she doesn’t even know about it. She buries her nose into the collar of it, gets lost in it. It’s starting to smell like her perfume. Embedded in the fabric, a marriage between her soft, vanilla notes and Jimin’s fresh and lush, this particular scent is starting to have a feeling. “It smells like her. But it’s starting to smell like us. I love it.”

It’s not just a crush anymore.

She thinks—she knows—she likes Jimin.

A lone tear slips down her cheek, moonlight streaking in its trace. She didn’t know she could feel like this in a night. In one realization. This small, little thing she could manage blossomed and bloomed into a garden of flowers to give her. It scares her that Jimin might not reciprocate. But Minjeong doesn’t expect her to. Instead of getting lost and depressed about what could be, Minjeong appreciates what is. There’s something so beautiful about this feeling that Jimin gives her. Breathtaking about it. She’s blown away and then, there is her anchor.

Puppy’s concerned whine brings her out of her thoughts. She’s put her paw into her lap, sitting to rest her head on her shoulder.

Crying out a wet laugh, Minjeong wraps an arm around her neck, as if returning a hug. “Thank you, Puppy, for always being here. I love you.”

A low rumble, a small howl.

If she had no one, Minjeong felt that she always had Puppy. She’s always managed to understand her.

Puppy doesn’t leave her side all night. She walks with her home when they normally part ways at the park. Through her window, she watches Puppy sprinting away, hiding in dark shadows to hide her coat, the moon and stars lighting her way.

Minjeong knows this because she’s walked that path for her; Puppy will keep her safe in the dark—she believes in that.

This is heaven on earth.

-

Jimin messages her on Instagram two days later, early in the evening.

yujiman: hi minjeongie!

yujiman: can i stop by your place rq after practice?

Minjeong sees Jimin’s text bubble appear and reappear. Then, her phone buzzes again.

yujiman: i miss you baby 😸

Minjeong screen records her screen to take a screenshot of the message. She’d rather not risk Instagram telling Jimin she’s so overwhelmed by four little words and a cat emoji she has to save them in her gallery, and hide it because her friends are lucky snoopers. 

(She’s getting around to the baby part, all spelled out and everything. She’s rubbed her eyes twice and she’s still looking at “B-A-B-Y”.

Crazy.)

She doesn’t even know if Instagram does such a thing like that—she’s not that well versed in using it. But she needs that message saved.

It’s half past seven in the evening when Jimin comes by. Her hair is still a bit wet from the shower she probably took at the gym, seeing as the volleyball player told her that they’re usually done with cleaning at seven, but it kind of pisses Minjeong off.

It’s unfathomable to her.

Jimin is still so handsome.

She is so goddamn handsome it can’t be true.

But it is. She’s shown up to her house, with her sickeningly gorgeous face and stupidly broad shoulders and Minjeong can confirm it’s possible to be this attractive.

It’s just not fair.

“I’m sorry if I’m bothering you-”

“You’re not!”

Jimin smiles at her swift interjection, coolly leaning against her door frame.

“But I’m in need of my jacket for tomorrow’s game.”

Oh.

The jacket Minjeong just threw on the couch when she realized she’d be opening the door to Jimin and that it might look a little too “I like you!!!” for her taste.

That jacket.

It’s warm to the touch.

It’s obvious she’s been wearing it. She prays to the universe that Jimin won’t comment on it.

Smiling at the sight of it in her hands, Jimin slips her arms into the sleeves when Minjeong prepares them for her. When she turns back around, that small smile has turned into an affectionate, easy, and fond grin.

“It smells like you. I think I like it more now!”

Panic seeps away like water out of a clogged ear.

“You- you do?”

Shamelessly, Jimin wraps it around her tighter, snuggling into the fabric. “Can I give it to you for you to wear again after I’m done with it tomorrow? I don’t think I’ll want it otherwise.”

Remember: Minjeong is useless. Not stupid!

“You know your jacket is going to be more mine than yours if I keep wearing it like this, unnie?”

Jimin doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t even hesitate.

“I don’t mind it if I smell like you or you smell like me. I think we smell nice!”

Minjeong can only laugh. 

Maybe she isn’t alone in this thing.

Maybe a scent can have a feeling.

im.minjeong: i miss you too unnie 🫨

-

The next day, Jimin waves at her from across the campus. That damn jacket looks so fucking good on her Minjeong almost feels bad for taking half ownership of it.

She wears it the whole day; Minjeong doesn’t see her without it.

It is cold.

It’s not like Jimin will take it off until she’s in her volleyball uniform.

Minjeong needs to get her head out of the clouds; she can get lost up there if she strays too far.

-

Oddly, it’s like Jimin is around her more and more. Or Minjeong’s becoming even more aware of her presence.

Maybe it’s both.

Either way, Jimin has found a reason to drape her jacket over her shoulders again.

(Maybe she can keep her head in the clouds a little longer. This jacket is good at keeping her from flying away.)

“Oh, it’s serious.” Aeri taunts. “She’s taken off the jacket!”

“What’s serious?” Minjeong asks.

“They’re gonna play rock, paper, scissors for the last peanut butter cup. You want in?”

Wonbin and Jimin glare at each other. Minjeong, despite wanting it too, doesn’t want the candy enough to participate in this hoopla. “Thanks but no thanks. I can just get some later.”

Jimin’s scissor cuts paper.

Claiming her victory with a cheer and a cocky grin, she slides the candy to Minjeong. Those beautiful, big brown eyes of hers look like they’re glazed honey in golden sunlight.

“Want it?”

“Bro!” Wonbin lowly groans with a drawl dragging onto his words. “Minjeong noona has to play for that! That’s unfair!

Jimin just rolls her eyes with a playful grin, “It’s mine! I do what I want with it.” Ignoring her cousin’s extensive grumbling about favoritism and bias, Jimin turns to her again.

“You don’t want it?” Minjeong asks. Jimin did win it fair and square.

“Not as much as I want you to have it.” She offers with a saccharine smile.

(Minjeong’s always had a killer sweet tooth. Sweet tooth plus Jimin equals double the sweetness.

A peanut butter cup has never been more satisfying, more scrumptious.)

Jimin leaves her jacket with her until their last class when she’s asked to be excused by a yearbook council student.

That council student being Eunchae. Eunchae, the maknae, and setter, on their volleyball squad. Meaning Jimin orchestrated this fiasco just for her jacket back.

“You’re lucky I can wing these things. She looks like she could catch good lies with chopsticks.”

Jimin dismisses her with a wave. “Nah, Teacher Shin loves me. I was her TA! She’d have let us off.”

Minjeong awkwardly steps away. This feels like a two-person conversation.

Noticing her slipping presence, Jimin releases her from her social anxiousness with a happy smile and a soft, mischievous pinch of her cheeks, dragging Eunchae away from her.

“See you at the game, Minjeongie! I’ll dedicate a serve to you!”

“Serve!” Eunchae cheers, flopping her hand out before bringing it to her brow in a playful, mocking salute.

-

It’s the match point. They’ve fought through three sets. Winning this fourth one would end the match. With careful planning and a side of luck, it’s Jimin behind the serving line.

(While she’s more regarded as a bonafide outside hitter, she has a mean jump float serve. It’s proving to be a major benefit against this team—they’ve been struggling to consistently rally. It’s hard to rally when they can barely keep the ball in the court when it keeps shanking off of their arms.)

Before the whistle blows, Jimin’s already found her eyes, smiling at her, cute and dimpled and a little toothy, and it makes Minjeong’s heart tumble—a fluttering of butterfly wings in her tummy.

She doesn’t care if people see that she’s got Jimin’s name on her back. She’ll wear it happily even if that means getting interrogated by her friends. If Jimin wanted it, she’d do it.

Smiling back at her, she raises a pinky in cheering solidarity with the rest of their school.

It’s time to finish the game.

The whistle blows.

First, Jimin likes to scuff her shoes against the gym floor, cleaning the bottom of it with her hand if a squeaking sound isn’t produced. Then, she spins the ball in her hands, bounces it once. It’s her routine. Minjeong knows it by heart. Two rotations, one bounce. 

Three steps, a jump, a resounding smack, a quiet but high-pitched whistle, a deep and low thunk. 

Not a single touch. It’s like the ball smashed a dent into the ground before anyone could blink. Echoed cheers follow, the volleyball players coming together and yelling, “Ahhhhhhh- ace!”

The whistle blows again.

They’ve won yet another match. Jimin’s looking even hotter on the court, smirking up at her, unabashedly proud to have won it all with the single serve dedicated in Minjeong’s name.

What a talented, sexy, cute little jock.

Eunchae was right.

Serve!

-

Instead of a party like last time, it’s a small little dinner at the restaurant near school. The halmonies that work there seem to be fond of the chatter and bustle, schmoozing and being sweet with their offers of discounted banchan and sikhye.

Dissociating and blankly zoning out, Minjeong quietly sips her drink. It takes a lot of her to hang out this much; she’s still getting used to socializing for more hours than usual.

But it bears gifts.

It’s possible Jimin likes her back.

If it were Yizhuo saying it, she’d say Jimin definitely likes her back, but Minjeong isn’t Yizhuo. If she was, she’d have probably gotten Jimin’s number months ago—like, yesterday ago.

(Minjeong’s content with DM’ing Jimin—she really is! But, she’s starting to imagine how nice it’d be to have her contact on her phone, a special picture for Jimin’s name, hand-picked emoji’s Minjeong would choose for her.

She should ask. There’s nothing to be intimidated about. Jimin likes her enough to keep giving her her jacket. Giving her number is, like, the second removed cousin of that. It should be fine!)

She looks back at Jimin, stopped in a conversation with one of the students from the other school, very obviously flirting with her. Batting eyelashes, coy body language, sparkly eyes. Minjeong has seen that look for years. While she’s been jealous about Jimin entertaining it before, she’s never felt possessive before. That’s new. Some part of her feels a sense of ownership, and it’s not just the fact that she’s wearing Jimin’s jacket.

This must be what it is to like someone—this irrationality and icky, nagging in her tummy. She doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like the girl talking to Jimin, she hates that Jimin won’t leave her and sit next to her to talk with her instead. She’s feeling unrightfully territorial and dissociating seems like the best solution to tamping down that jealous entitlement roaring in her.

Jimin isn’t hers, even though she wants her to be. Wearing a jacket doesn’t count as a label—it’s just an abstract symbol Minjeong’s made up all on her own.

It doesn’t mean anything. Not really. As much as Minjeong wants it to, she hasn’t had the guts to talk about it. At least not to Jimin.

(Puppy’s the only one with the full story but she doesn’t count. She’s Puppy, not Jimin. If only it was as easy!)

It makes Minjeong feel the deep, prickling needles of discomfort, this urgency to understand what they are—what Jimin really feels and thinks about her.

Minjeong knows what she feels and it’s only getting stronger. She gets why Aeri and Yizhuo have been on her ass about this; she gets their frustration now. She’s due compensating for her ridiculous uselessness.

Soon. She’ll have to talk to Jimin soon. She can’t feel like this every damn time a pretty girl talks to Jimin. She can’t deal with the hypotheticals. It’ll get exhausting, very quickly, and Minjeong doesn’t have the space to make room for jealousy when she’d rather fill it up with affection and warmth.

As if sensing the torrid glares Minjeong’s trying to not send in her direction, Jimin doesn’t give Minjeong the chance to feel shitty for long because the moment she gets back and sits in her chair, she’s turning towards her.

“How big is your mouth?”

Interesting question.

“What?”

Preparing a perilla leaf and some kimchi, she flips grilled samgyeopsal. “Can you take big bites?”

Is she challenging her or something?

“I guess?”

Observing her as she wraps meat in the perilla leaves, Minjeong instinctively leans back when Jimin brandishes a cleanly rolled bite for her. “Say ah.”

Maybe it’s Pavlov conditioning but Minjeong is opening her mouth and saying ah before she's even realizing it. Fed into her mouth, Jimin nonchalantly starts making herself a bite when she’s done closing her lips around her food.

It’s funny how quickly her mood can change.

First, Minjeong’s beside herself with possessiveness and doubt and then comes charming, grinning Jimin and her sweet, little acts of service. Suddenly, Minjeong no longer feels like she’s rolled in shit and made to sit in it.

She’s great! She’s perfect! Jimin is feeding her delicious food on her own volition! Why wouldn’t she be happy?

-

Today, Yizhuo and Aeri are kicking her ass into gear.

AKA: they’re hanging out and annoying Minjeong about Jimin.

“Please, tell me you have her number now!” Aeri groans.

“I do!”

“And you text her about fun things that aren’t school?” 

“Yes!”

“Oh, great!” Yizhuo gleefully cheers. “You’re more ahead than we thought!”

Minjeong drops her face into her hands. She deserves this, doesn’t she? Let’s make fun of the useless gay!

“Anything juicy,” Aeri asks, waggling her eyebrows suspiciously.

If you’d call extensive discussions about nature documentaries and movies released in the last year juicy, she could say yes.

And the cute flirting Jimin works into their conversations. But Jimin’s always been good at playing her cards. Flirtatious remarks are always in her hand.

Minjeong…keeps up.

Or, she tries. And she’d like to think she’s doing well!

(Unlike what she expected, Jimin flirts like a middle school boy and Minjeong has been best friends with Wonbin before he needed deodorant and she wanted to shave. She knows middle school boy.

And still, she isn’t sure if Jimin means half of the flattery she says. She’d like to think she does—she’d hate it if Jimin is using these lines on anyone else. It’d be disingenuous, something Minjeong has never attributed to her.

Her anxiousness is just eating her up. She’s always somewhere between radically confident in her god complex, so sure Jimin is hitting on her. Or, she’s in the dumps, wallowing about how she’s way over her head and Jimin is just being Jimin.

It’s hard to tell. Jimin is just so …Jimin. Jimin has always felt sweet and sincere and affectionate. Even when they were on a tutor-student basis, she managed to share her fondness with her through the treats she often gave her when she performed well. (And she always did because Minjeong is a lying liar who lied about needing help when she didn’t.) Jimin always encouraged her with a complexity of faith so strong that Minjeong felt her belief in her. Patient, kind, caring. She has always been those things; Minjeong liked her for reasons anyone else would.

But more importantly, Minjeong liked Jimin. She likes her so much she’d cut to the chase and say falling in love is on her horizon. These feelings are getting unmanageable. The jealousy and possessiveness, her confusion and doubt, the sheer, painstaking yearning she’s getting into just because she’s chosen to like one of the most sought out people she’s ever known.

It almost feels like it’d be a phenomenon if Jimin would like her back.

It’d be sensational.)

Letting Aeri and Yizhuo snoop through her phone, Yizhuo gasps. “She’s sending you selfies?!”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t send any back?!”

Minjeong pauses. “Am I supposed to?”

Yizhuo snaps a glare so hard at her her heart stops. “Kim Minjeong, I’m going to kick your ass! When you like her back, yes! Please and thank you! She is doing all the pleasing! Where is the thanking?!”

“I didn’t know!” She wails. “I don’t take a lot of selfies! I feel weird!”

Her friends look at each other, mischief in their smiles. “We can help.”

As it is, Selfie Workshop is all about angles and self-confidence and lighting and a natural purse of her lips.

“You were born with pretty lips! Use them!”

Smirking with a chuckle, Minjeong teases, “Fellas, is it gay to call your friend’s lips pretty?”

But Aeri deadpans with a dry scold,. “You have at least five pictures unanswered. You don’t get to laugh or joke around.”

Sheesh. Tough crowd. Minjeong awkwardly puffs out her cheeks, looking admonished.

“Get over feeling weird and silly and pose in front of your mirror or something. Find what works for you. Jimin will probably love it if you send her blurry pictures, but she’d probably froth at the mouth if you took some nice ones too.”

Minjeong grimaces. Frothing at the mouth is a bit much, no?

“Remember, Minjeong! You’re gorgeous and Jimin drools over you on a regular day! Golden hour is your best friend! You can do it! Send your girl some selfies!”

While profusely denying that Jimin is her girl, she isn’t (not yet at least), it is against her will that her cheeks flame a cherry tomato red, heat in the tips of her ears.

By the end of what felt like a session, Minjeong sends a pair of selfies to Jimin. She’s taken it in front of her bed, facing the mirror by her window, a golden glow in her room and lighting up the soft features of her face—her lips and nose and eyes. A denim corset brassiere with a dipping sweetheart neckline, cropped just at the top of her ribcage, showing a slim and trimmed waist, and her hair in a bun. She remembers Yizhuo’s tips to emphasize a highlight; Minjeong shifts herself so shadows play favor to the contours of her hips and abdomen. After taking rows and rows of photos, she chooses two she likes. In it, she has focused on the smooth line and gentle dip of her neck and shoulders, her sharp collarbones and jawline, a soft and relaxed shape of her lips.

This…this would be enough, right?

It makes her so nervous she sends it without letting herself think twice about it. She even throws her phone on her bed and thinks about taping her hand to her desk so she won’t restlessly check her phone for a reaction.

minjeong: have a good practice unnie >.*

minjeong: [Pictures attached]

But, immediately, her phone incessantly rings.

jimin unnie 💖😸: MINJEONG

jimin unnie 💖😸: WARN ME NEXT TIME UR GONNA DROP PICS LIKE THAT

jimin unnie 💖😸: WTFFFFFFFFFFFF

jimin unnie 💖😸: you look so good baby!!!

jimin unnie 💖😸: 😍🥰😍🥰😍🥰😍🥰😍🥰😍🥰😍

Several texts from Yunjin ping her phone.

huh yunjin (volleyball, PAL): lol u looked so hot dummy capt. jimin got a bloody nose

huh yunjin (volleyball, PAL): ur my hero

huh yunjin (volleyball, PAL): look at how silly she is with her bloody nose. it’s even on her shirt 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

huh yunjin (volleyball, PAL): [Picture attached]

huh yunjin (volleyball, PAL): pls keep doing what u do 🫶🏻

huh yunjin (volleyball, PAL): thank u for ur service 🫡

Going back to her chatlog with Jimin, she sees new texts fly in.

jimin unnie 💖😸: the girls are making fun of me because i got distracted by your text and got hit in the face with a ball and got a bloody nose 😭😭😭😭😭😭

jimin unnie 💖😸: sooooo worth it tho 😍😍😍

jimin unnie 💖😸: you look incredible

jimin unnie 💖😸: have i ever told you that 

jimin unnie 💖😸: if i didn’t, you do. you always do.

jimin unnie 💖😸: i hope i can see you in that top with my own eyes bc i think my life shifted seeing you in that picture

jimin unnie 💖😸: pls say that i can 🥺

jimin unnie 💖😸: PLSPLSPLSPLSPLSPLSPLSPLSPLSPLSPLSPLS 😭🥺😭🥺😭🥺😭🥺😭🥺😭🥺

Laughing at her shamelessness, her silliness, and her own honest amusement in Jimin’s misfortune due to Being Too Hot, Minjeong texts back.

minjeong: hurry over after practice 🥰 i'll wait for you before i get ready for bed

Right at seven, Minjeong’s phone vibrates, Jimin’s name on her screen.

jimin unnie 💖😸: practice done!!!! gonna shower so i’m not stinky when you see me

jimin unnie 💖😸: i’m zooming baby!!!!!

jimin unnie 💖😸: 🏃🏻♀️💨

When Minjeong opens the door to Jimin, she sees the girl’s mouth fall agape, dropping unabashed and shameless.

“Letting flies in, unnie?”

Tiredly leaning her forehead into the hand she has propped on her door frame, Jimin weeps with unveiled excitement, “How’s it that you’re even hotter in person?!”

Fully blushing at her theatrics but pretending she isn’t puffing her chest and going to brag about it to Yizhuo and Aeri later, Minjeong giggles. “Are you gonna get a bloody nose and bleed on your shirt again?”

Jimin’s eyes flash up at her.

“How do you know about that?!”

“Yunjin. She sent me a picture,” Minjeong says, showing Jimin her new contact picture.

“That little shit,” Jimin cusses, offended but amused smile on her lips. “She’s running dolphin dives tomorrow. I’ve just decided!”

“Don’t punish her! She gave me your new contact pic!”

Black locks sway as Jimin shakes her head profusely. “I’ll send you better ones. Just not that one. I was at a weak point in it!”

“That’s why I like it!” Minjeong laughs. “You look so cute in it!”

“I’ll send you cute, baby. This is so embarrassing for me.” Jimin says, hiding her face in her hands.

“Is it really? I can change it if you really want me to.”

She’s quick to answer back. “You don’t have to. But I’ll keep sending pictures until that one is dethroned!”

That’s a fair trade if Minjeong’s ever heard of one! Cute Jimin pictures to restore her pride?

Done deal!

-

So, Minjeong’s, like, ninety-five percent sure Jimin likes her.

All thanks to that guy in her class who decided to ask her out at the wrong time and place.

Wrong time and place meaning: Jimin in Minjeong’s vicinity, her varsity jacket on her shoulders, Jimin’s arm around her waist, chin resting on her shoulder.

Honestly, he should’ve read the room. Context clues! They were all there. Like Jimin’s stringent glare and the way she brought Minjeong closer to her front, stopping her side conversation to pay attention to them and standing upright. Minjeong doesn’t usually see Jimin upset—she’s usually a happy puppy around her. But she stood tall and intimidating and her lips were in a straight line, freezing cold stare, an immediate iciness enveloping them.

Minjeong can still feel the ghost of Jimin’s fingers curling around her thin waist, firm grip on her like she’d rather die than let go.

She’s still very happy about Jimin’s visceral reaction to a guy who, frankly, stood no chance, Jimin or not. But the mere fact that there is Jimin—jacket smelling of them on her, that possessive hold she had on her, her stern demeanor—means absolutely no one stands a chance.

In Minjeong’s opinion, they’re kind of pussyfooting everything. They clearly like each other, but she’s waiting for Jimin to ask her out.

Which she does.

“Minjeong?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

Wait. That’s not asking her out.

“What? What are you sorry about?” Minjeong asks, confused tilt of her head.

“I’m sorry for the way I acted back there with…whatever his name was.”

Did she regret it? Did she regret scaring off that guy? Did she not want her the way Minjeong swore she did? She couldn’t entertain these questions anymore. She couldn’t keep wondering where they stood.

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything wrong though.”

“I- I didn’t?”

“No? I liked it.”

“You…” Jimin stops, collecting her thoughts. “You didn’t mind what I did?”

“Why would I? I like you, unnie.”

Whatever guilt that swirled in Jimin’s eyes dissipates, turns into an effervescent brightness that curves her eyes into happy crescent moons, a splitting grin playing on her lips.

“Can I- I would like- Would you go on a date with me? I really like you, too, Minjeongie!” Jimin brightly says, practically vibrating on the spot with excitement.  

When Minjeong agrees with a laugh, Jimin can’t seem to contain herself, giving her a big, bear hug and lifting her up from the ground.

“I can’t wait to go out with you, baby! I’ll text you later!” About to continue, the bell interrupts her when it rings. Instead, she asks, ever so chivalrous and charming, “Walk you to class,” with her hand held out for her.

Minjeong doesn’t answer. Boldly taking Jimin’s hand in hers and tugging her in the direction of her next class, Jimin’s giggle follows her like her shadow. 

Minjeong is one hundred percent sure Jimin likes her.

She’s very good at math. Those are incredibly handsome odds!

-

With spring break around the corner, her classes had been busy with exams. But, finally, after clobbering her last test, she’s free! 

Though Jimin asked her if she’d be free to hang out with her Friday night, Minjeong already mentally promised to plans, probably for the only thing able to top the chokehold Jimin has on her.

“Puppy! I missed you!” Minjeong sweetly coos with a baby voice.

The black dog lowly howls at her, thrilled, the sound of her thumping tail beating the ground. When Minjeong tries to hug her, she’s very aware of how she doesn’t need to lower herself down to do it.

“Puppy, seriously. How big are you supposed to get? I hope your house can accommodate such a big dog.” Not answering, Puppy wallows and rolls around on the grass instead. “You stopped being puppy-sized a long time ago, baby. Should I call you Puppy still? You’re more like a wolf,” Minjeong laughs to herself.

Puppy snorts out a sound, gently prodding her forward with a wet nose pushing her back.

“What is it, baby?”

Trotting forward, the canine stops when she realizes Minjeong is still behind her trying to figure out her intentions. 

She whimpers, circling anxiously.

“Did you want me to follow you?” Minjeong guesses, walking to her. “Is that it? Where are we going, Puppy?”

Following her through the shadows she hides in, they stop at a trail leading up an incline. Minjeong remembers this as a reservoir she used to bike past whenever she had guitar lessons as a kid. What would Puppy be showing her here? Was she actually a stray and taking her to her home? Maybe her family?

With faith built into ten-year companionship, Minjeong follows Puppy up through a dirt trail, backroads and pushing through branches and shrubbery to reach a particular spot.

It’s beautiful. From where they’re at, Minjeong can see the lights of the city that’s usually an hour train ride away. They’re far enough away from their home that she can’t hear cars driving or echoed sirens. It’s much quieter and more peaceful. The moon, waning, shines brightly, reflecting off of the water in the reservoir. Away from all of the bright lights, stars are even brighter here. Minjeong easily maps the Big and Little Dipper.

“Do you hang out here when you’re not with me? Is this what you wanted to show me?”

Puppy huffs, sitting down next to her, huddling closer and keeping her warm with her body heat.

“It’s pretty here. Maybe I’ll come more often. Would I see you more? I always wonder where you come from. Is this your home?”

The canine doesn’t answer. Laying down, a heavy head rests on her lap. Reveling in the silence, Minjeong soothingly runs her hands through Puppy’s fur, scratching her ear and smiling at how she nuzzles into her more, pleased puppy sounds when she grunts.

“Thank you for taking me, Puppy. It’s beautiful. It feels like I can just…let time pass without worrying about anything.”

Judging by the path they took to get here, Minjeong guesses that this isn’t a popular hangout spot. It’s fairly hidden and she’d have never found it on her own.

Puppy is probably one in a million—more intelligent than Minjeong ever knew dogs to be.

She’s plenty lucky to be here.

Minjeong hopes Jimin won’t mind a big, black dog as her only competition. Puppy’s kind of, like, everything to her.

Maybe Jimin would love her too!

She reminds her of a puppy sometimes—Minjeong’s betting they’d get along quite well!

When it’s just her and Puppy and the stars, Minjeong can’t think of many other things she’d rather be doing.

“Puppy, did you know there’s a constellation for you?”

The canine only looks at her when she sits again.

“It’s called Canis Major, but we can’t see it where we are. The stars make a big dog, like you! For now though, I can show you where the Big Dipper is. Do you see that star over there, baby?”

Puppy howls softly, soulful look in her eyes. A black tail curls around her. 

Minjeong makes a wish hoping that Puppy will always be this gentle and kind, so untouched that she’ll never know how cruel the world is.

She’s always believed in dogs being man’s best friend.

Puppy’s hers. Minjeong wishes she’ll never lose that. Even if time takes her away from her, Minjeong doesn’t want to lose these memories—this feeling of companionship. She’d never feel alone if she could keep her forever.

-

Today, Jimin and Minjeong are “hanging out.”

Jimin was very adamant about this not being the date.

“Wait, so we’re just hanging out? Why can’t it be a date?”

Jimin, tongue peeking out as she colors in her coloring book, puts down her colored pencil when she’s done. “I haven’t thought of something good enough yet, but I miss you. I just want to spend time with you.”

Maybe if Minjeong weren’t throwing confetti in her head and celebrating with her overeager heart, she’d have put up a stronger fight. “Our date doesn’t have to be crazy, unnie. As long as I’m with you, I’d be happy.”

When the black haired girl turns her body to her, Minjeong quickly has her arms full with her when she pulls her into a comfortable embrace. “You deserve a date you can brag about. I want you to be able to look back at it fondly and tell a story that gives you good nostalgia. I’m happy with whatever we do, but I don’t want to cheat you out of something incredible just because I’m impatient to be with you.”

How could Minjeong refute that?

She wouldn’t.

“Okay, unnie. Let’s hang out!”

“Great,” Jimin says, soft and low but tender. “I’ll pick you up at six? Maybe get some dinner? I wanna take you somewhere after.”

Teasing her, Minjeong tickles her arm with skating fingers, “Dinner and an activity? This sounds like a date, unnie.”

“It’s not! I’ll call it a date when it’s a date!”

Though Minjeong jokes, her heart has never felt closer to Jimin, never felt so much affection for her.

She thinks she could miss Jimin even when she’s with her. Hangout, date, it wouldn’t matter. As long as there was Jimin, there would be Minjeong—happy and bubbling, effervescent like the sun chose to shine through her.

They’ve just finished dinner and Jimin insisted Minjeong wear a blindfold.

Most times, her red flag radar would be going crazy.

She’s getting in someone’s car and wearing something that completely disorients her. Except it’s Jimin. Minjeong thinks she could trust Jimin with her eyes closed and her heart open. The only red thing she’s seeing is the slight shade of streetlights telling Jimin to stop.

After the car ride, Minjeong hears Jimin opening her door and helping her out, hand padding the top of her head when she accidentally bangs it into the lip of her car door.

“Be careful, baby,” Jimin coos, rubbing her thumb over the area that her hand had protected.

Grumbling, Minjeong feigns annoyance when she crosses her arms, “I wonder how I could have done that? It's not like I can’t see or anything!”

While Jimin laughs, Minjeong lets her lead her further away. Hearing the crunch of rubble under her shoes Minjeong frowns.

Where could they be?

Jimin wouldn’t actually murder her, would she? She’s too young to die!

Internally talking herself out of her spiraling thoughts, Minjeong yelps when Jimin picks her up on her back.

“Unnie!”

Chuckling, Jimin reinforces her hold on her. “We have to do a bit of walking. I’ll put you down soon, baby.”

As Jimin walks, there’s a peaceful ease that they talk with—a natural flow, comfortable silence that doesn’t feel like quiet. 

“You like looking at stars, right?”

She does, but she’s never really told anyone about it. It’s just one of those things about her she figures is too meaningless to share.

“How do you know?”

“Sometimes, when we’re out, I see you looking up at the sky, and when I listen in, you’re usually trying to find constellations. Figured you might like looking.”

When Jimin lowers her and unties her blindfold, Minjeong feels her heart stop.

“I’ve…I’ve been here before.” Minjeong gasps. Next to her, Jimin still has that gentle fondness in her eyes, but she’s visibly nervous. She can see it in her wavering smile, the way her eyes shake.

It couldn’t be. But it’s not everyday she’s taken to the same hidden, beautiful lookout. And Jimin, who’s usually so sure of herself and confident—so unwavering even in her nervousness—looks scared, timid, and tentative.

“You-” Minjeong starts.

No way.

No way this is true.

Puppy couldn’t-

But that would explain Puppy’s rapid growth in size, the way Jimin’s been treating her recently and the attention she’s been generously showering her with.

Her parents joked about these myths that waxed about werewolves being real. But there’s no way. There’s-

“Woof,” Jimin quietly barks, too afraid to keep eye contact with Minjeong.

“You’re lying.”

The girl just shakes her head, solemn and serious.

“Are you playing with me?” She spits out, terrified to hear the truth. She doesn’t want to hear it, but she needs to.

Minjeong needs to.

“No!” Jimin hastily defends. “Can I tell you everything? I promise no more secrets. I’ll answer whatever questions, anything. I know it’s a lot, but believe me when I say I have never shown myself as Puppy with the intention to hurt you or play with your feelings.”

Jimin is Puppy.

It’s officially real now that she’s said it. With her own mouth.

What. The. Fuck.

She needs answers.

Minjeong takes a seat on the blanket Jimin seemed to have prepared earlier.

“Start talking, unnie.”

Or, Puppy.

Puppy is Jimin.

Minjeong is slow to the roll. She can’t fathom it.

Is this real?

This isn’t a dream, right?

This hangout that Minjeong had high expectations for isn’t a dream, right?

“I didn’t think I’d ever have to tell you. But, I got attached to you. When you found me the first night, the wolves in my litter were all bigger than me. Stronger than me. So, I was always the runt they left out.”

Jimin talks so casually about these things. Wolves, litters, runts. This isn’t casual! This is the super-fucking-natural!

(Minjeong already knew this but, like, there’s so much to Jimin she doesn’t know.

Normal, human traumatic experiences were just one thing.

Now, Minjeong’s left to uncover supernatural traumatic experiences?

She must like Jimin a stupid amount because she’s still kind of, super duper, very into her. Despite the fact that she turns into a wolf. Or something. And that she’s been lying to her about Puppy. But Minjeong is willing to listen—she really just needs to understand.

Oh, fuck. Her friends won’t call her a furry now will they?)

Jimin anxiously twiddles with her fingers, sitting next to Minjeong like there is a chasm between them. Minjeong almost craves the body heat that emanates from Jimin. It makes sense why she’s so damn warm all the time. She’s a fucking werewolf! Jesus fucking Christ.

“You gave me comfort when I felt alone and small and helpless. You wanted me and you made me feel good to be around you. I made you smile and you loved me.” Despite the brittle shiver in her voice, Minjeong sees a gentle smile on Jimin’s lips when she looks out into the vastness below them. “I didn’t know it’d happen, but I ended up loving you back, Minjeong.”

Minjeong’s breath stutters in her chest, remembers what Jimin told her that night she gave her her jacket:

“No one likes to be lonely.”

They were both lonely—they both had each other.

Jimin loves her back.

As if Minjeong loved Jimin.

And she does. Kind of. She loves Puppy. Minjeong loves Puppy. She can’t deny that.

But Minjeong likes Jimin. Maybe falling in love with her, but she never expected this truth bomb. What the fuck?!

“I didn’t want to leave you-”

“But you did.” She interrupts, “There were years in middle school when I didn’t see you. I thought you died.”

Jimin looks down, still scared to look into her eyes. “I needed to get in control of my wolf. I was starting to present and I couldn’t trust myself to be around you when I was easily triggered or having lunacy every full moon. I don’t know what I’d do if I ever hurt you. In any form. But especially in my hide. Humans can’t easily recover from werewolves.”

Humans can’t easily mend wobbling trust either. Maybe werewolves could. Maybe Jimin could.

(As confusing as it is, Minjeong doesn’t despise her, and if it came down to it, she’d trust her to protect her. Jimin and Puppy. Or, just Jimin, as Minjeong corrects herself.

This only tells her they’re mendable, that they’re not hopeless, that she’s down so fucking bad, it doesn’t matter that her reality has shifted into something new and confusing and intimidating.)

“I was always going to come back. Seeing you again motivated me to work through my training no matter how hard it was. I couldn’t leave you, Minjeong. I couldn’t leave someone who made me feel loved when I felt incapable of it.”

All along, Minjeong thought she fell first and the hardest.

Maybe it’s Jimin who fell first. She fell hardest too. Because Jimin has only ever loved her while Minjeong is split between Puppy and Jimin—she doesn’t know how to merge those two categories together in her head.

But, it’s true what they say about wolves.

Loyal. Fiercely loyal. Because Jimin’s in her life after ten years (she’s also processing that Jimin knows all of her secrets; she blabbed way too much to Puppy) and she doesn’t run away even when she looks like she’d disappear if she was given the chance. 

“All those nights you listened to me talk about you. Did you- was I- why didn’t you come up to me? You knew I liked you. What took so long?”

Jimin, looking unusually clueless, shrugs helplessly, “I wasn’t supposed to know. Puppy was your confidant. Not me, Jimin, your sunbae and math tutor that I knew you didn’t need. I wanted to give you the time and space to confess to me if you wanted to. I waited and waited for you to open up, talk to me about yourself. I thought, maybe I could make it easier for you to approach me. I thought that it couldn’t be that hard since you did it so easily with me when I was in my hide. But, you never…I could never get to that part of you. Until Wonbinnie’s party.”

Jimin sighs, weighed down by her own struggle to reach for her. “You looked so sad that night. I could see it a mile away. After that first conversation we had, I could tell I had hurt you somehow. I couldn’t live with that and I knew you liked walks to clear your mind so I offered.”

Minjeong softly wails thinking about that night. It feels like forever ago. “You called me puppy!” It’s like salt in her wound. “You’re Puppy! I can’t believe-”

“You are a puppy to me though,” Jimin quietly mumbles.

“Not the time, unnie.” She glares.

“Right.” Jimin deflates with a downtrodden and ashamed look. Minjeong’s starting to see puppy behavior in Jimin in everything she does—flattened ears and all. She’s so…Puppy. It’s…she’s working on it! “I’m sorry.”

“You hid the truth from me for so long, Jimin unnie.”

Looking afflicted, but not remorseful, Jimin shrinks. “Puppy was important to you. I didn’t want to ruin her for you. I didn’t want to disappear in your life again. I saw how sad you were when I stopped visiting you.” Looking smaller, Jimin curls into herself even more. “I have too much baggage to dump on someone who doesn’t need it. I’m telling you now because I love you, because you’re starting to pursue something intimate and romantic with me. You need to know and I want you to. I’ve always wanted you to know about this.”

She sighs heavily, clicks her tongue, shaking her head at herself. “And I’ve always wanted you. I was fine wanting you in silence. But then you started showing me, Jimin, that you could actually want me and do something about it. I couldn’t refuse. I can’t refuse you. But I can’t let you have me until you know everything you are getting. I refuse to lie and hide anymore. But I also refuse to hold you down. If you…” she sucks in a deep breath, forces shaky exhales. “You’re not stuck with me. I don’t expect you to stay if you don’t want to.”

There Jimin goes again—thoughtful, compassionate, sincere. All things that Minjeong adores about her.

Tossed around by the barrage of thoughts rampaging her mind, Minjeong couldn’t even try to squeeze a coherent one out of her mouth. 

She can’t really liken this to coming out. But it’s so similar in that Jimin hasn’t changed. All the things Minjeong liked about her before haven't changed—that generous patience of hers, her dedication to care and love, to honesty and openness. That beautiful smile of hers hasn’t morphed into an evil snarl that despises or scares her. She’s that same puppy who listened to her when she cried, when she craved comfort, someone who could show her love just by their mere presence. 

She’s never known what it’s like to feel so disconnected to someone. And yet, so intertwined. Why aren’t the dots connecting? Why couldn’t she understand?

(Love morphed into a new thing she didn’t know how to hold, how to make space for. Jimin has changed what it means to love her in a single night, and yet, there’s nothing in Minjeong that tells her to run—to leave like Jimin expects her to. If she wanted to. Bullshit. She’d wish Jimin would fight harder for her.)

It frustrates her. How could she know what she feels if she couldn’t glue her thoughts together? It frustrates her because Jimin shouldn’t have to look so scared of losing her, but she does. She can’t take the haunting look of fear out of her eyes like she can’t take Jimin out of her life.

As if sensing her struggle, Jimin neither bridges the gap between them or asks for a reply. Though, Minjeong can see through how she masks her anxiousness, how she fears her silence. Quietly, she looks into the sky, watching the stars and lights as they shine. Staying by her side, like always. Waiting for her, like always.

Despite it all, Jimin understands.

She’s always seemed to know how to stay by her in the exact way Minjeong needed her to.

(Maybe this is how Jimin fights. She figures out what she needs and she stays. She stays in her sadness, in her insecurity. She digs into darkness and disorientation with her, she never runs away. Through the fog, through the storm, she’s stayed.)

Together, in the serenity of night, stars blinked down on them. Did they expect a change? Were the stars hoping for a better outcome? 

(Did Jimin? What did Jimin hope for and dream about? Minjeong can’t help but to wonder.)

When Minjeong spares a glance at her, Jimin is reverently gazing at the moon, silver halo in her eyes.

(Stars and the moon.

Minjeong and Jimin.

Maybe they were always meant to be close.

Minjeong thinks she’ll stay.)

“Are you going through wolf puberty?”

Jimin’s brows furrow, shocked look knitting her face when she turns to her. “What?”

“You’re getting really big.”

Jimin coughs, caught off guard. “I guess?”

“Will you ever get big enough to carry me on your back?”

“Are you being serious, Minjeong?”

Minjeong sighs, focuses her eyes on the girl and sasses, “You said I could ask you anything. I’m asking. Where is your answer?”

Maybe she could’ve said it more nicely, but Jimin knows who she’s dealing with. She sees through Minjeong’s messes. She has comforted her dreams and woes as a little, black puppy. She has heard of the fights she’s had with her parents—how she gets when she’s struggling to grasp what she feels. Attitude isn’t breaking news, so Jimin takes it with stride. “It depends. If I hit another growth spurt, I could probably train myself to do it.”

“Cool…”

Jimin nods her head awkwardly.

A more serious question.

“Is it just you?”

She shakes her head, no. “But please don’t ask me who. Not until I know where you stand with me can I reveal others.”

Fair. Just because she’s feeling like this does she forget what boundaries are.

“Do you really like me, Jimin unnie? I’m not just…a figment of a dream you got lost in?”

When Jimin’s brows dip into a wounded curve, a devastating wash of insult and betrayal. “All my life I have chosen you. I’ve always cared for you from the outside. Do you know how hard it was to just be your tutor and Wonbin’s older cousin,” she air quotes with her fingers. “I meant so much more to you! And I had to pretend you were a stranger! I love you but I have to pretend I know what it’s like to be unchanged by you. It’s so difficult not opening up to you, Minjeong. I don’t just like you. Please don’t underestimate what I feel for you.”

This is a lot.

Minjeong sobs out a breath, digs the palm of her hands in her eyes. Her head pounds, feels too heavy to support on her own.

Quietly, Jimin mumbles, “I’m sorry. I know this is a lot to take in. I’m probably overwhelming you; I’m sorry. But I’m not going anywhere, baby. Not until you tell me to leave.”

Fondness. It’s all Minjeong feels when Jimin calls her baby. She loves how it sounds when it’s Jimin saying it. This new wave washing over her cleans her, breaks through her fog.

(This is how Jimin fights for her. She fights to stay rather than to chain her to her ankle. Minjeong understands now. She’s learning to understand how Jimin loves her. And Minjeong’s starting to know what she really feels for her—a respect and adoration she’s never felt before. 

“I don’t know the ways I love you yet, Yu Jimin, but I know I do. Please wait for me, baby. I…” Minjeong gasps, struggling to fathom that she’s just called the girl of her dreams baby. “I want to understand. I want to know more, but I need to sort through what I’m feeling.”

Overwhelmed by the onslaught of emotions tiding in her, Jimin just emphatically nods her head, quickly wipes glassy tears out of her eyes. Then, her throat bobs as she gulps, fragile like she’ll break when she fully looks at her, finally lowering her defenses and brave face. The weary and terrified ghosts in her eyes remind Minjeong of humanity—of Jimin’s vulnerability. “Could you hold me? Please?”

Minjeong thinks her heart breaks to hear the anxious hesitation in her voice, to see how fear could hollow out her eyes.

This is when Minjeong knows she might be falling in love. She’d do anything to take that look out of her eyes, to turn it into the glimmer of happiness. She’d do anything to build Jimin up again.

Minjeong would hold her like she could hold all of Jimin’s broken pieces together until she could put herself back together again. Throwing her arms around Jimin’s neck and engulfing her with an embrace, it’s when Jimin slowly returns it does she start to cry, heavily weeping into her shoulder.

She must’ve been so terrified.

Minjeong’s heart aches, squeezes like it’s being wrung out.

She could see herself loving her.

She could fall in love in a breath and it wouldn’t surprise her.

She’ll figure it out. She’ll dig into herself and confront her skeletons just to understand what Jimin means to her. She’d hate to make her wait long.

Jimin is…Jimin is a lot of things.

A werewolf.

(What the fuck?!)

Sensitive and compassionate beyond measure. She’s loving and patient and so gracious. 

(Maybe she invented infinity.)

Jimin is Puppy. Minjeong frowns.

“Unnie?”

“Yeah?”

“Feels weird calling you that when you’re…uh…in your…hide. Can I not?”

Jimin laughs at the ridiculous question and the awkward way Minjeong forms the words on her tongue, looking tangibly freer when she answers. “Sure, baby, I don’t mind.”

“I don’t want to call you Puppy anymore.”

Finally, Jimin moves, fazed. She almost looks sad and mournful. “That’s okay. I understand.” But she braves a question with a hopeful, yet playful smile. “But not even as a nickname?”

The little twinkle of hope in Jimin’s eye makes Minjeong laugh. She’s still that brash, flirty girl Minjeong fell for. That hadn’t changed.

“I’ll think about it, unnie.”

A genuine smile blooms on Jimin’s face, dimpled cheek and slightly crooked. Minjeong much rather prefers the look of happiness on Jimin. She still loves being the person to offer happiness like it is a gift for Jimin to have and own like it’s a thing she can covet.

Could she already love this girl? Could she love Yu Jimin?

Minjeong’s one hundred percent sure she could.

-

“Unnie, do you think I could use you as a pillow one day?”

“You already have?” Jimin says, thinking about the time Minjeong napped on her during lunch because she barely slept the night before.

“No, like, when you’re a wolf.”

“Oh.”

(Minjeong’s slowly getting the hang of this casual thing. She’s just pretending she’s roleplaying until she’s convinced herself that’s what her life has become.

This is a gesture of love.

It has to be. What else could it be?)

“Sure. But I don’t think I’m big enough to keep you all warm though. You’d have to curl up.”

Jimin says that like that’s a bad thing. It isn’t.

“I don’t mind that.”

“Oh.”

A minute passes.

“Excuse me, I’ll be just behind. Don’t look back.”

Minjeong doesn’t question it even though she hears rustling behind her, looking out into the starry, diamond sky. It’s magnificent like it always is.

Minjeong doesn’t startle too badly when a wet nose nudges her thigh.

Jimin.

It’s Jimin.

Not just Puppy, but Jimin.

Taking up a small sliver of the blanket she prepped, Jimin lays herself down, a space left for her.

“Right now, Jiminie?”

A small bark, an excited thumping of her tail.

“You like it when I say your name like that?”

A louder bark.

“Okay, baby. I got it.”

When Minjeong leans into Jimin, she’s surrounded by her warmth. She barely needs the flannel Jimin insisted she wore. If she really snuggled in, she wouldn’t need it at all.

She could get used to this.

-

Before Jimin drops her off, they squabble in her car.

Day one into “It’s Complicated” and they’re already bickering. Minjeong doesn’t hate it; it’s pretty fun, actually.

“Remember when you teased Wonbin about stealing my crayons?”

“Yeah. How could I forget a single thing about that night?” Jimin asks, happy twinkle in her eye when she reminisces.

Minjeong rolls hers. Jimin’s shamelessly and openly being a softie now that Minjeong knows her heavy-hitter secrets. It’s kind of cute or whatever.

(She loves it. Oh, she eats it up!)

“You didn’t make friends like a normal person. Wonnie is more normal than you for stealing my crayons. You let your wolf self be seen as a dog just to be my friend while you loved me. Ten years is a long time. I don’t know if you should be judging, unnie.”

Talk about zing! er! Minjeong can’t help but to smirk like a cheshire cat. Jimin gets all sulky when she teases her about Wonbin.

“It worked, didn’t it?” Jimin grumbles with a pout. “I’d say very well since you decided to stay.”

“Well, yeah,” Minjeong blushes. “It worked out. But that’s not the point.”

“But that’s the most important part! The end!” Jimin closes with finality and a cheeky grin.

Scoffing, Minjeong leans into Jimin’s shoulder when she laughs, nuzzling into her.

Jimin doesn’t freeze but Minjeong feels the girl’s heart start to thrum through her body, fast and excited, pure and honest.

Minjeong’s sure Jimin fell hardest. She also fell first.

And to think Minjeong ever worried about unrequited feelings.

She feels silly.

It’s not going to stay complicated for very long.

-

“It’s Complicated” lasted for two weeks before Minjeong ran like a lunatic to her house to pick up Jimin’s volleyball bag that she forgot because she was too busy schmoozing Minjeong for more affection. 

(Wait. Is it problematic to say lunatic? Her almost girlfriend is a werewolf. She should be careful with her words.)

Jimin has a game and she doesn’t have her gear. Major problem to have! And she couldn’t leave school so Minjeong unfairly used her vice president sticker privileges to get herself out of class and grab her bag.

Freaking Jimin. If she weren’t so deadset about sticking to Minjeong until she most absolutely had to leave before Weight Room, this wouldn’t be a problem! 

(But Minjeong loved every bit of it. She’d deny it to hell and back but she isn’t ignorant to the truth.)

When Minjeong came and saved her day with it, Jimin swallowed her in a large embrace, those toned arms and strong back muscles rippling under her thin athletic tee, and more importantly, Minjeong’s hands.

It’s so sexy Minjeong would do it again. She’d go through that entire circus again. She fucking loves hugging Jimin when she’s in her volleyball uniform.

Shamelessly and mindlessly, and openly lovingly, Jimin cradles her cheek to press a tender kiss on her forehead.

“Thank you, baby! I love you!”

And just as shamelessly and mindlessly, an easy slip of her tongue, Minjeong says it back, beaming up at her.

“I love you, too, unnie.”

Jimin blinks blankly, then shocked. Her eyes, dilated pupils and all, flutter down to her lips, then to her eyes.

“Yuji! Stop the heart eyes! We need help with the nets and setting up!”

(Fucking Yunjin. Minjeong sees dolphin dives play in Jimin’s mind. She won’t defend her this time.)

Jimin shakes her head with a pointed glare but it melts into a sweet gaze when she’s back to looking at Minjeong. Though Jimin tugs on her lip to stop the smile growing on her face, it stands no chance when Minjeong gets on her tiptoes to kiss her cheek. Jimin’s happy smile reminds her of summer and laughter and sweet, melted vanilla ice cream trickling down her fingers. Saying goodbye and wishing her luck as she runs a hand through her hair, Minjeong internally coos at the subtle way Jimin leans into it.

(Puppy…she thinks to herself, smiles to herself.)

On her tiptoes to whisper by her ear, Minjeong noses into her cheek. “Later. I’ll kiss you later, baby.”

(All pink and flushed when she pulls away, Minjeong notices the way Jimin’s ears have turned red, wiggling as if sensitive.

Interesting.)

When Jimin wakes up from her little daze with a goofy grin, she blows Minjeong a million kisses and practically announces to the world she’ll dedicate a serve to her.

(When the day comes that Jimin is synonymous with everything, Minjeong would welcome it into her arms, deep into her heart.

It’s inevitable. She believes in that.)

Minjeong doesn’t hate it.

She might even love it.

-

It’s like the world doesn’t want them to kiss. Every time they’ve tried and had a slight chance, something isn’t right. A friend pops in, a phone rings, Minjeong’s eaten something with garlic and she refuses to kiss with garlic breath. 

She wants the right mood, the right feeling, lighting, everything!

She understands why Jimin toiled so hard with perfecting their date. First’s can’t be taken back and they can’t be done over. She wants this kiss to be so fucking mindblowing Jimin can never kiss another girl that isn’t her.

Her possessiveness is getting out of hand; she needs to chill. She’s her girlfriend now. She shouldn’t need to worry. Jimin has endlessly loved her for ten years now. She couldn’t just stop loving her when they’re just getting started!

(When Minjeong expects fireworks and stars glittering in her eyes, she gets something better.

Softer, warm and tentative, sweet. Was it home that felt like this?)

They’ve just been stargazing at the field where Jimin and she play when the former is in her hide. But, tonight isn’t the time for big puppy Jimin to run around and let out her zoomies and annoy Minjeong with the sheer size of her affection.

Tonight, Minjeong’s bluetooth speaker lowly croons a slow and chill R&B playlist she made specifically for kissing. Jimin had been holding her for the better part of the night, citing, “You're my girlfriend, that makes you my teddy bear!”

She wasn’t upset about it—she likes it when Jimin holds her. She’s warm like she’s wrapped in a cozy blanket, her scent is all around her just how Minjeong likes it, Jimin talks quieter and lower when she’s this close and Minjeong loves listening to the deep satin of her voice.

But Jimin doesn’t hold her when Minjeong kisses her. Arms supporting her weight as she hovers above her, Jimin shivers in her arms when Minjeong slides her lips between hers—gently suckling on her bottom lip, sighing when Jimin tilts her head in a different angle to kiss her more languidly and passionately, like she’s been waiting for it the second Minjeong started wearing her jacket.

She’s neither insistent nor stiff. She’s malleable in her arms, softly sinking into her embrace, a velvet tongue that licks into her mouth.

Jimin kisses her back and it’s more than Minjeong knows how to describe. Jimin kisses her and Minjeong never needs to kiss anyone else ever again.

If the world wouldn’t let them kiss, Minjeong would defy the world and fate itself—string together the stars it takes to make Jimin the person she’ll love, the only one she’d kiss.

She’d do whatever it takes to stay by Jimin’s side.

-

Summer is slowly ripening. It’s hot enough that Minjeong is able to wear a sleeveless shirt and a light pair of trousers. They’re out at Jimin’s favorite lookout and her girlfriend is holding her in her arms like she’s her favorite teddy bear. (Minjeong knows she is.)

“Unnie, do you gnaw on bones?”

“What? No?” Jimin says, sounding defensive and wounded.

“You sound like you’re lying.”

“I’m not! I’m not a dog!” She argues petulantly.

Minjeong arches a skeptical brow. A werewolf isn’t that far off from a dog. “You’ve played fetch with me before though.”

“That’s different!” Jimin refutes indignantly. “That’s like playing catch! I’d play catch as a human! I wouldn’t eat bones as a human!”

“But you would as a wolf?”

“You’re insufferable.” Jimin grumps, sulking and turning her head away from her.

“Aww,” Minjeong coos, teases with a smirk after she pecks her lips, “Did you want a pup cup? Will that make you happy? I can make you one! I remember you ate it clean last time!”

Jimin wails when she remembers the time in a hot summer when Minjeong had brought a cup of whipped cream to her to eat. She had looked so excited to see her try it, Jimin was willing to look a little silly for her.

Now, it’s come to bite her in the ass. But Jimin isn’t one to just take it.

“I’d rather eat it off of you.” She lilts, hoping to get a reaction out of her.

Well.

Blushing cheeks, mischievous smile on her lips. “We can do that.”

“Oh, word! Really?!”

Minjeong can almost see a wagging tail and perked up ears; Jimin is just so puppy.

“If you stay a human.” Minjeong says, slinging back another remark.

“That’s-” Jimin yelps. “I was going to!”

The next time Jimin is in her hide, she doesn’t let Minjeong off from teasing her. It certainly doesn’t help that Jimin likes being annoying and being a general menace to her now that she’s become comfortable with her and their deepening relationship.

(Jimin’s lookout has turned into their lookout and Minjeong likes that things like these are becoming theirs—to share, to love. The sun is out and they don’t have to hide in the shadows when it’s just them two.)

“Ack! Jiminie! You’re heavy!” She says, struggling to support Jimin’s head on her shoulder.

She’s much larger now. The last growth spurt that hit her has made her just a bit shorter than Minjeong when she’s on all fours. Which means she weighs so much more.

A loud, playful howl, paws wrestling Minjeong to the floor and resting her head on her tummy.

“You act like a lap dog, Jiminie. You’re a two, three hundred something pound werewolf. My bones are made of glass and paper—you’ll break me!”

For a flutter of a second, Jimin rests the full weight of her head on her.

(Jesus. Minjeong wheezes pathetically, unable to breathe. Maybe Jimin does know she’s a massive wolf.)

Little, amused snarl when Minjeong whines and flails underneath her, Jimin snickers out a wolfish laugh. Getting up, she circles behind her, and curls around her back—Minjeong’s favorite pillow.

“Puppy.”

Jimin’s ears perk up, tall and attentive, surprised to hear Minjeong call her that again.

“What does it mean when Wonbin’s asked me if you marked me yet?”

Jimin freezes behind her, side-eyeing her with a look.

“What? Is that bad? Is that, like, a werewolf ritual thing I should know about?”

Jimin hides her face under her paws, embarrassed and suddenly too shy to look at her.

If only she knew what that meant. She’ll just have to ask Jimin what that means when she can talk back to her.

-

“Unnie?”

“Minjeong, please.”

“What does it mean? Do you not want to do it? Is that why? Is it bad? Just tell me if it’s bad!”

Jimin huffs out a small sigh, cradles her cheek in her hand when she kisses her slow and ardent. “If it’s you and me, it’ll be everything I could ever wish for, baby. When we get there, I’ll tell you everything. But I want to take my time with you, enjoy everything about being with you. Could you wait for me?”

There’s only one answer.

It’s clear.

Minjeong would wait forever.