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Minjeong found the one thing more fucked up than herself and that’s the universe’s twisted sense of fate.
The Fates always have some fucked up bullshit up their sleeves; Minjeong has heard the stories. Martyred demigods, selfish gods and goddesses, strings of fate under their care and maltreatment. Put Minjeong in the mix and her punctured heart, a silly little pin cushion for The Fates’ tools.
It goes a little like this: Minjeong and Aeri are on their third date—the first was wildly successful and ended up with them agreeing to a second date that ultimately ended in Minjeong’s bed and nothing else between them. She likes her! Actually likes her! Aeri is sweet and funny, maybe a little clumsy, but her air of confidence is attractive and cool. Minjeong can already tell Aeri likes to pamper and cater—which Minjeong enjoys because she loves being attended to. And more importantly, when Minjeong is with Aeri, Aeri doesn’t want anyone else but her.
It gets twisted when Minjeong runs into Jimin again.
This time, she’s on a walk by her favorite riverbank in the quiet of night. Aeri and her just hung up on Facetime and Minjeong promised she’d text her when she finally gets home safely. The sound of restrained cries pierces the air and directly into her heart and there has only ever been one person who could rattle her like this.
It’s like her soul senses her, could never forget her, just as her heart can’t seem to forget how to stop beating for her.
It’s Jimin, alone, distraught.
Maybe it’s an old habit, maybe it’s her empathy and she can't ignore Jimin's pain, or maybe Minjeong can’t seem to avoid her or say no to her. But, she approaches the daughter of Hephaestus, intentionally dragging her feet across asphalt to warn Jimin of her presence.
Like she’s admonished, Jimin wipes her tears like she’s trying not to get caught, swallowing her sobs in her throat like Minjeong can’t hear them bleeding out. When her red-rimmed, glassy eyes make out her face, it’s like a hammer comes down on her—like Jimin’s messily sewn composure knows it can fall apart into broken threads. Her shoulders shake, her breath violently stuttering in her chest.
Jimin scoots over. Just a slight smidge. So Minjeong takes the spot next to her.
She’s never been awesome at comforting people—she never knows what to say and anything she comes up with never sounds right. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t try. For Jimin, she’s tried every single time she came to her hurt and upset.
This time is no different.
It’s miserable to be looking that sad in this cold winter weather. It’s already been quite gloomy, so cold that the only brightness Minjeong sees is the red of Jimin’s nose and eyes. She’s poorly dressed for the weather, like she only managed to bring a jacket with her and nothing else.
It doesn’t feel like she should but it also doesn’t feel like she shouldn’t, so Minjeong does it anyway. She lets her heart lead because her heart’s always had a knack at figuring Yu Jimin out. Undoing her scarf, she carefully wraps it around Jimin’s neck to protect her chest from the cold.
“How come you always forget?” Minjeong murmurs, thinking about all the times Jimin has neglected her scarf just to pull on Minjeong’s and give her a kiss. She generally forgets because she was always busy making sure Minjeong was covered.
It’s funny how things can change. Minjeong knows, deep inside her, that she could have treated Jimin better when they were together. Even if they’re not together anymore, she could start now, or never start. And it seems The Fates are allowing her now.
Jimin dissolves into a watery cry when she shrugs, nuzzling into the warmth of her scarf like she’s desperate for comfort.
“I was preoccupied,” she rasps, “I forgot.”
“Clearly.” Minjeong can’t help wiping away her tears with the soft pads of her fingers—it feels nasty when they dry all crusty and Minjeong doesn’t want that for Jimin. “I’m bad at this,” she wrings her fingers and looks out at the river. “So, I’m just gonna get to the point. I can tell you’re upset, I don’t mind being here or listening to you. But do you want me here?”
It’s quiet. It’s barely even audible, but Minjeong hears it.
“Stay.” Jimin gulps. “Please.”
Minjeong nods, she quickly shoots Aeri a text telling her she’ll spend a little longer outside—to think, to witness the liveliness of nature at night.
She sits in silence. She waits for Jimin to show her what she needs. Jimin neither reaches for her or tells her why she’s crying her eyes out. But when she cries, Minjeong takes the sound of it deep within her heart—to remind it that Jimin isn’t as strong as she always made herself out to be. She’s soft and sensitive, emotional and vulnerable when she’s fragile. She sits in her sadness, something she learned to become familiar with.
Jimin’s head rests on her shoulder and it’s like Minjeong’s world stops.
(For someone who’s trying to move on, she’s awfully stuck in her place.
Maybe she’ll always love Jimin like this.)
“My girlfriend cheated on me,” Jimin ashamedly admits, pained, but also, sounding far away like she’s dissociating. “I found her in our bed with someone else.”
Is it prickly anger that surged through her first? Or is it heartbreak and betrayal? Things were never about permission, but Minjeong hoped she let Jimin go for someone who deserved her—not someone who’d stab her in the back like this.
Minjeong grits her teeth through her sudden rush of anger, her nails biting into her skin. Sure, she proudly made boys and girls cheat on their partners and ruined their relationships for her own pleasure, but she’d never wish that upon Jimin’s (okay, maybe she did for several months, but that’s…that changed!). If it wasn’t her Jimin was cheating with, she’d never want it the other way.
Was this The Fates punishing her for her actions by attacking her where it hurts most? It’s like The Fates are mocking her, making Jimin shoulder her consequences like it’s her cross to bear.
It’s cruel.
“I’m sorry she did that to you,” Minjeong sadly utters.
“What could you do about it?” Jimin laughs sardonically. “It’s not like you could force her to love me.”
Well.
She could.
But Minjeong promised to never force anything when it came to Jimin after meeting her at the cafe.
“I mean…” she trails off, trying to place a smile on her face. “I could, but,” she wipes Jimin’s tears with the end of her scarf, “loving you doesn’t need force. It just happens.”
It just happens.
In three words Minjeong summed up just how fucking hard it has been to fall out of love with her.
It just happens, the same way “breathing” just happens. Minjeong is well-versed with this—struggles with it now when it feels like she’s caught between her past and present.
Jimin scoffs out a laugh. “I guess that isn’t enough.” Her tears stream down her cheeks, soaks into Minjeong’s winter coat when she dissolves into sobs. “Why isn’t it enough? Why isn’t love enough? It wasn’t enough for us, it wasn’t enough for her. Why can’t I find someone who’ll love me enough to make it work?”
It’s like Minjeong’s heart cracked when Jimin mentioned their old relationship. But it doesn’t feel right to tell her she could love her enough to make it work—to move past their grievances, to grovel and apologize for the way she hurt her and abused her trust.
She’s supposed to be moving on. She’s supposed to leave Jimin behind.
Why wouldn’t The Fates let them find their peace? Were their strings so entwined that a mess would be on their hands?
Words escape her. None of the right ones fill her mind, only the selfish ones that retreat to Jimin like a sanctuary—so homesick for her affection and love that it makes Minjeong feel queasy.
“Next time I see my dad I’ll ask him,” Minjeong leans her head against Jimin’s. She doesn’t think she’ll ever see that ghost of a god ever again, but if she does, she’d only have one question to ask. “If I could, I’d use all my favors to make sure you’d end up with someone deserving of you. Someone who’ll make you happier than they make you sad. Someone who stays and sticks it out with you. You deserve that more than anyone.”
When Jimin laughs, it’s watery and vulnerable—completely stripped of pretenses. “Why do you care so much? It’s not like you love me anymore.”
Minjeong harshly swallows, it tastes like, “Yes, I do! I think I’ll love you forever!”
Instead, she says this, “I don’t need to love you to care about you. The way we left things…all I could want for you is your happiness.”
At that, Jimin quiets. It feels like they walk on a tightrope—this tension. Could lovers like them ever exist together, but separately? It’s increasingly difficult to ignore their chemistry and the way her soul has made its home in Jimin.
Minjeong’s phone rings and it’s so abrupt it makes Jimin jump.
Aeri unnie 🌙
“I have to take this.”
Jimin nods, rearranges herself upright.
Though it feels untimely, Aeri’s call is short and sweet. She tells her goodnight and she shyly kisses her through the phone. Minjeong feels so giddy about it she can’t help sending one back.
And then there’s Jimin. There’s Jimin taking her hand in hers—warm, so warm Minjeong hasn’t forgotten its berth of cozy heat.
“Your hands get so cold so easily,” is all Jimin provided, slipping their hands inside her pocket. “If I’m keeping you out here, the least I can do is give you my god-given warmth,” she smiles—somewhat shy, somewhat uneasy, but terribly soft and tender.
Minjeong doesn’t take her hand away. Two roads diverge. There is a road not taken, and one Minjeong knows like the back of her hand.
Aeri is new; she carries the face of change. She’s the first since Jimin that allows Minjeong to be herself without wanting anyone else. She’s sincere and she makes Minjeong feel good about herself.
But The Fates strum on Jimin’s string, play it like Orpheus and his lyre. She knows its melody. And like how Orpheus’ song could make flowers bloom, it makes her heart unfurl and open to the one girl who might always be its favorite.
A song plays in Minjeong’s heart and it lulls her confusion into silence. The soul tied to hers is Jimin’s. Minjeong could tear with all her might and pretend she’s Minjeong without Jimin by her side. But it seems The Fates have them slotted as two halves of a whole that Zeus forced apart.
So, where do all these puzzle pieces fit?
-
Situationships—Minjeong’s favorite playground.
Until it’s her playground.
She’s stressed out! Teetering, like a seesaw, she flips between Aeri and Jimin. Her and Aeri aren’t official; they mutually agreed to having an open relationship while parsing through what they mean to each other. Minjeong knows Aeri has a roster, Aeri knows Minjeong has…someone.
Someone who is fully using her and Minjeong sniffed it out the moment Jimin decided to. The good are never easy and the easy are never good—Minjeong has lived by that and when Jimin approached her with a familiar coy saunter and bedroom eyes, Minjeong had let her into her pants like it was a revolving door she’d always have access to.
Bottom line—and Minjeong can't avoid it: Aeri is everything good for her when Jimin isn’t.
Call her pathetic. Call her needy. It has nothing to do with Minjeong missing her body and the essence of her soul, the weight that drapes over her or the way Jimin looks golden underneath her. But Jimin has always been a good lay. Even when she’s using her to get over someone. She can tell; there’s something so irreverent about the way Jimin touches her. So different from the way she used to. Just another girl, just another body. But at least Jimin doesn’t imagine anyone else but her when she’s with her. That might kill her. Still, it hurts more than Minjeong is willing to admit because she fucks Jimin with her heart in her hands, kisses her skin like its her way to spell love on her soul—stamped on her heart. She doesn’t know any other way to be with Jimin, doesn’t know how to do it without love.
While Minjeong lays with her, that love that never went away sings and trills.
If she doesn't leave after catching her breath, Jimin is never there the morning after. On better nights, she'll cuddle, but only until Minjeong eventually succumbs to sleep.
Maybe Jimin could teach her how to fall out of love with her the way she has—maybe then, they’d both be free from The Fates.
-
Aeri surprises her one night and Minjeong thanks every god and goddess out there it’s not a night where Jimin barges in and pushes her up against every wall in her place to kiss her breathless before Minjeong can begin to say hi.
But, when they cuddle—on sheets Minjeong had the foresight to clean that morning—Aeri leaves to pick up a sweater carelessly thrown on her computer chair.
“This is cute,” Aeri flips it, appreciating its softness, “I’ve never seen you in this. Is it new?”
Minjeong blinks, tries to pretend it's not a big deal.
It’s Jimin’s.
It smells like her and Minjeong wore it the entire fucking day before chucking it off when Aeri told her to open the door for her.
When she brings the sweater to her nose, her brows furrow.
It doesn’t smell like her. She knows it doesn’t.
Minjeong wore it because it smelled so strongly of blackberry and bay, Jimin’s own natural scent embedded into its threads. Minjeong wonders if her perfume has rubbed off on it, if Aeri noticed the baby powder on the collar of it.
Aeri doesn’t look upset but her eyes lose the smattering of stars that Minjeong adores. “It’s someone else’s, isn’t it?”
She doesn’t lie—Minjeong doesn’t know when she started telling the truth so easily. “It is.” She doesn’t elaborate. Something tells her Aeri already knows.
But she’d know it when Aeri roughly pushes her into bed and binds her to her headrest and mercilessly fucks her until she cries from overstimulation. Aeri takes her time with aftercare, she stays the night and helps Minjeong make breakfast the next day.
Everything is confusing, and yet, Minjeong loves every damn second of it.
-
While things are confusing for Minjeong, they make themselves clearer for Aeri.
“I don’t want an open relationship anymore.” Aeri holds her hands in hers, a pleading look in her eyes. “Could you…” she pauses, so far from understanding the grasp Jimin has on her but fighting for her anyway, “could you leave whoever you’re messing with behind? Be with me, Minjeong, please?”
Yeah, Minjeong doesn’t know what she wants, but she knows she likes Aeri. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t waste her time with her if she didn’t. She can’t tell if she’s waiting for Jimin to open her eyes to her or if she’s holding onto false hopes, doesn’t think it’s fair if Aeri has already decided on her while Minjeong tosses between her and Jimin like they’re both two snacks and she could only have one.
Her brain tells her Aeri. She wants her—shows her she wants her. Not just for her body. She makes sense. She cares for her, maybe more than Minjeong knows.
But her heart? Her heart is under the hands of The Fates, tied to Jimin’s, and Minjeong isn’t sure if Jimin is her fated tether or her anchor dragging her under.
She asks Aeri for time; she’s lucky Aeri likes her enough to wait.
Minjeong already feels undeserving.
-
It’s not a good idea to drink around Jimin, but it also isn’t a good idea to keep sleeping with her when Minjeong still loves her while Jimin seems loveless.
(She does both anyway—fuck it, or whatever!)
She charmspeaks these guys into leaving her alone because she doesn’t want Jimin to feel intimidated, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s like she stakes her claim. Her arm around her waist, fingertips indenting crescents, her nose is buried in her temple, “Minjeongie,” she slurs with a low tone, “I wanna dance.”
“Sorry, boys,” Minjeong smiles, charmspeaking, “Why don’t you run along? Find another girl to bring home.”
“Sure, beautiful,” they reply dazedly, that pinkish glint in their eyes fading away.
The raven-haired demigod watches with a prowling darkness in her eyes—so possessive, if Minjeong allowed herself to fill in some blanks. Pride glimmers like treasure in her chest.
Jimin tugs her to the dance floor, turns her around to grind against her ass and holds her waist in a harsh grip like she’s trying to brand her handprints there. Wetted lips press against her neck and Minjeong lets her, tilts her head so Jimin can leave open-mouthed kisses on her throbbing pulse. When her lips seal and suck a dark hickey onto her, Minjeong hates that she keens—that she craves more.
She’s not supposed to. She’s not supposed to give into Jimin. She’s supposed to talk to her and tell her to stop messing with her if she doesn’t feel something for her.
But still, they don’t make it to the Uber before Jimin rushes her into a dirty bathroom stall to sink two fingers into her. It hurts, she isn't wet enough for the sudden intrusion but Jimin slams her palm into her clit like a hammer on gravel. It's rough and it shouldn't turn her on but it does and it makes her wetter. It only encourages the older woman more—smirking against her lips, tongue down the throat of a woman she calls a needy little bitch.
Minjeong hates that she loves it, that her body can't hide it. Because she hates it. She hates it as much as she loves it.
It’s the first time Jimin makes her feel like she’s less than what she is. It’s the first time she cries in front of her, and it hurts. Jimin chooses to ignore her tears, kissing her deeply, lashing her tongue against hers like it’s a fight Minjeong doesn’t want to win. Her tears burn her flesh like acid and Jimin isn’t supposed to hurt her like this—Jimin has never had a bone in her to do this, the heart to be so ignorant to pain and casually cold.
It’s like Jimin stopped believing in love the way she had. This has to be the punishment The Fates had for her. To watch the love of her life lose the love in her heart and treat her so flippantly.
Maybe this is what she deserves. Maybe this is what is laid out for her, planned for her. The consequences are rotten, just like the taste of Jimin’s bruising lips and nipping teeth—sharp and stinging, the reminder of resentment that only seems to fester.
She’d deny it until she died, but she still wishes Jimin could love her again. It doesn’t feel like going back to square one because this is worse. Because it’s Jimin hurting her instead. The beautiful girl with a heart of gold, born from the fires of sincerity and loyalty, seems to have turned dull and rusty like old pennies caked with grime.
And yet, Minjeong holds her like she bleeds gold still—loves her like Jimin has love to return to her.
-
Minjeong calls Aeri over for dinner.
She breaks it off with her and Aeri leaves before she can tell her she could have loved her if she met her first.
Maybe it’s better off that way.
-
It feels like Minjeong is waiting for nothing, but she doesn’t have the stomach to be with anyone other than Jimin. She can’t hurt anyone else the way she hurt Aeri. She owes at least that to her. Her father might be proud of how she’s trying to become responsible over other people’s hearts and feelings—but that also requires him to actually be a loving, doting partner. Something he will never be, as Minjeong negotiated with herself.
(If she had daddy issues, of course, they’d have to be because of some asshole god who decided to get freaky with a hopeless romantic who didn’t know better than to protect her heart.)
She doesn’t know how they get here, but she’s crying her eyes out, begging Jimin to turn around and look at her—see how much she has hurt her, how Jimin could take her to her highest of highs and lowest of lows.
There are two people responsible in this relationship and Minjeong can’t be the only one holding herself accountable.
“Unnie! Please!” Minjeong begs and begs, “Why won’t you open up to me?!”
Jimin laughs, dry and rough like sandpaper on skin rubbed raw, “Why should I trust you?” A knife, curved at the tip to make a letter J hooks inside her heart—bleeding and vulnerable. “The last time I trusted you, you betrayed me. You played with me like I was nothing to you.”
Fat tears roll down Minjeong’s cheeks. It doesn’t make sense. Though trying to read Jimin is like trying to read a book backwards and upside down, Minjeong thought she had made some progress. “What- what about all the times before today? Sleeping with me, at the river. What about then?”
Her ire is sharp and caustic, like a brand seared onto Minjeong’s soul. “I don’t need to trust you to use you,” Jimin scoffs.
“You’re lying!” Minjeong runs her hands through her hair in distress. “You- I know- stop saying things you don’t mean!”
A single brow arches, “How could you know?” Jimin reclines in her chair, easy, so unlike Minjeong’s screwed up face and tense body. “You’re so desperate to be with me—it’s so easy.” She rolls her sleeves to her elbows, nonchalant. Like battering Minjeong’s heart is just another day.
(And so what if it is?)
Minjeong wonders if Jimin feels the way her father felt when Zeus banished him from Mount Olympus. Does she see her broken heart as a deformity? For her to be like this, so cruel like this, Minjeong thinks Jimin might despise the world—maybe everyone in it including herself, because the Jimin Minjeong knows celebrated in love and human connection like they were things to cherish.
She has to be in her still. Minjeong has to believe in that—that Jimin hasn’t completely lost herself to the pain of heartbreak.
(It is now.
Minjeong knows the time is now.
She needs to take responsibility.)
“I never apologized.”
Jimin’s eyes burn into her. They stare and stare, inquisitive. The air shifts and it’s like time stops for her.
“When we broke up, you left, and I never apologized. The Fates would lead me to you, have us meet and meet, and we’d pretend like I didn’t hurt you.” Minjeong shudders through a shaky breath. She sits beside Jimin and it feels like a chasm divides them. “So much time has passed and I still haven’t taken responsibility for the way I hurt you. I could say I’m sorry but we both know that’s not enough.”
The relaxed leisure in Jimin’s body is a facade, just as Minjeong guessed, because she tenses like she is made of stone—petrified like those before Medusa. There is always more to Jimin than she lets on; she keeps her cards close no matter how open and free she seems.
(Minjeong has known that for as long as she loved her.)
Jimin doesn’t respond, but she nods her head, just a minute little movement.
She’s listening.
This is all Minjeong can hope for.
“I did things I know I should have never done. You trusted me, not just to treat you well, but to keep you safe. From myself. And I failed. Miserably. I loved you so much it scared me. I projected my fears onto you and I know that wasn’t fair.” Though she’s rationalizing, Minjeong will always understand why Jimin is like this. If it were her, she’d have brought Hades to earth, pleased Persephone to find that Hades and earth all existed on one plane she’d no longer have to travel between.
Jimin is better than her, by any means. Not even Jimin could be spared from the inevitability of cruelty snagging and snaring on a good and pure heart.
“I was scared you’d leave me, because everyone eventually does. So, I did whatever I could to keep you. But, that’s how I lost you. I didn’t trust you, I didn’t have it in me to let myself fall.” Minjeong braves taking her hand, hopes Jimin won’t take it away like she’s been burned.
And she doesn’t. Just like the night at the river, their fingers are intertwined and Minjeong swears she sees the gold string tying their fates together. Her heart, pounding against her ribs, echoes in her brain and thumps against her ears. It’s almost deafening.
“I’m sorry, all I can say is that I’m sorry. I wasn’t ready to receive your love. I held onto you so tightly I suffocated you. But-” she hesitates, scared to put herself out there. And yet, she does. For Jimin, she will. “But I’m ready now. I’m greater today than I was before. I want to heal with you. I want to be with you.”
When Jimin frowns, her fingers slipping away from her, Minjeong holds tightly, “But we don’t have to be! All I care about in the end is you. I don’t want you running away from happiness. I don’t want you to be afraid of falling in love and trusting someone again.” The taste of salt is strong on her lips, the silent tears that roll down her cheeks. “I’d try to prove that you can put your faith in someone, love again, for the rest of my life if you’ll let me. You don’t have to force yourself to trust me, just let me. I want to earn everything you give me, but let me work for it. Would you? Please?”
Jimin sighs, deep and heavy. “I don’t know…” She grimaces, shedding her armor of bristly defense. “It’s like I’m giving you a loaded bow and arrow. How can I trust that you won’t use it on me again?”
“I’ll use it to protect you this time. I’ll aim it at anyone who dares to hurt you. I won’t let myself hurt you the way I did before.” With desperation stronger than her fear, grit more stubborn than her persistent persuasion of abandonment, Minjeong professes to her, “It’s not because of Eros that I learned how to love someone. It’s because of you. Loving you changed me and molded me into a better person. Let me show you, Jimin unnie! I want you to fall in love with me again, so you can see that I’m giving you my all!”
Minjeong squeezes her hand in hers. She puts her hopes in a bucket, ships it to her heart because it’s still held in Jimin’s hands for her to keep—for her to throw away. But Minjeong hopes she’ll let her stay, hopes Jimin will let her try again.
“If you hurt me again, Minjeong…”
“I won’t!”
“The moment you’re not you, I’m leaving.”
Minjeong shakes her head frantically. “I haven’t been anyone else but myself in months. I- I’m also trying to love myself more and I…I like the way I am. Even though I’m messed up and do stupid things like lose the love of my life. But I promise, unnie, it’ll only be you and me!”
“You used to break your promises,” Jimin grumbles, wary.
“Not this one. Not anymore. If you want me again, despite everything I put you through, I never have to doubt your sincerity.”
Jimin turns to face her, finally letting Minjeong see the playground her emotions make of her. There’s hurt and reluctance, a glimmer of hope, something like the mist and rainbow of Iris in her eyes. Her silence is heavy, just like the weight of her stare on her face, like she’s making sure she’s choosing the right thing.
“Show me you love me, Minjeong. Prove to me that you love me.” A glimmer of starlight, of warmth from the hearth that Hephaestus blessed her with, Jimin manages a small and soft smile. “Never make me doubt you again. You are your mother’s daughter. Love me the way she would—I will stay if you can love me the way she loves Eros.”
Unconditional. Relentless. Merciful.
Her mother loves Eros with her all—just as Minjeong loves Jimin.
“I promise, Jimin unnie. Until Olympus falls. And even then. The Fates can cut our string but I’d love you like this without them.”
Jimin rolls her eyes, lighthearted. “Those damn Fates. They’d never let me stray too far from you. It’s not about wanting you again. It’s about wanting you still. With or without them, Minjeong, I think our souls are tied together.”
And for what it’s worth, Minjeong is grateful The Fates love her enough to tie her to Jimin.
Jimin will always be her great divinity. Love is in the shape of Yu Jimin and she will hold her close to her heart, keep her there like a wind chime that rings every time a breeze blows by. For the rest of her life, Minjeong would bring the wind to hear the melody of chimes.
This is her song.