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Yizhou’s world breaks apart and reforms on a random Wednesday in Shanghai.
You see, no one really wakes up in the morning and expects the entire internet to fall down upon them. Yizhou, least of all. Yes, she has been a victim of attacks from strangers that have way too much time to spend analyzing and picking apart her every move. But this is different. First off, she’s not the only person involved.
There’s also a certain kind of entitlement and invasiveness that bleeds through the cracks of the internet when people believe they are owed something from you, whether it being a statement, denial or confirmation. Something Yizhou had thought she had understood after being in the spotlight for almost half her life. But life has always proven itself to be full of surprises for her.
She’s getting a bit ahead of herself. Here’s how it starts:
It’s summer, and she’s only in the city for her guest appearance in a top variety show scheduled for Friday. The air conditioner in her hotel room is broken and she’s opened up a window to hopefully swallow up some heat in the room. It’s been a while since she’s had so much time and so very little to do and so she sets up her phone, ready to go live after seeing some comments under her weibo page along the lines of ‘lack of communication’, ‘we miss you’, ‘it’s been so long’.
She idly fixes her hair and hits the ‘live’ button. It’s been a while but it never ceases to fill her with some degree of awe watching her viewers jump from zero to hundreds until they finally settle in the thousands.
She lets her lips curl into a smile, “Hi. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I missed you guys a lot. Did you miss me?”
The comments almost immediately rush forward in rapid succession and Yizhou tries her best not to burst out into giggles as she attempts to keep up with the onslaught of questions and hearts that fill her vision.
“Where are you?” she reads the first comment that catches her eye. She glances around the room and briefly angles her phone to point at the opened window, sharing the view, “I’m in my hotel room in Shanghai. I can’t tell you why I’m here though. It’s a secret.”
“New music?” another comment reads. “No, not for this schedule. But I am working on new stuff that I can’t wait to show you all. I think my next album is going to really show a new side of me, so I’m really excited to finish working on it.”
She reads a few comments. Some that make her laugh, others that make her gasp and few that get her rolling her eyes. One comment in particular draws her attention though, “Yizhou, your bracelet is so pretty. Where did you get it from?”
“Oh,” she lights up, sitting a little bit straighter.
She brings the bracelet adorned on her wrist closer to the phone’s camera. It’s dark blue with a string of silver charms brandishing it. There isn’t much to the bracelet and it isn’t particularly eye-catching but Yizhou had seen it and immediately wanted it.
“I bought it in Thailand during one of my schedules. It’s really pretty isn’t it? I’ve been wearing it as a sort of good luck charm recently.” She says, fiddling with the charm. “I actually have a lot of stuff that I bought in Thailand back home. I’ll be sure to show them to you during my next live.”
She glances at her battery percentage and pouts, “Oh, I think my phone’s about to die. This live was a bit on the shorter side. I’ll make sure to charge my phone for the next one.” She takes another look at her battery, “I have to go now. Take care of yourselves and see you later. Bye!”
She turns off the live with a smile and wave, plugs her phone in to charge and walks to her bed to hopefully take a nap before her manager calls her to discuss the schedule for the next day.
Simple as that.
It’s a bit silly that the internet decides that this is the final nail to a coffin Yizhou never knew she was even lying in. A thirty-six-minute live and a blue bracelet.
It’s only a week later that Yizhou begins to realise that there’s something wrong. She wakes up to a phone full of messages and a weibo account in a very much different state than how she’d left it just the day prior.
First off, in the past twenty four hours, her follower count had risen by thousands and her last post had more replies than the account had ever seen. The comments, of course, are very unhelpful; congratulatory and crying emojis in equal measure, a string of unintelligible sentences and bursts of ‘Yizhou, say something’, ‘Yizhou, clarify your position’, ‘Yizhou, are the rumours true?’ popping here and there on her page.
She’s nothing short of confused, and despite her attempts to reassure herself that she had done nothing wrong, a strange tightness wells up in her throat as she scrolls through her phone, panic settling in and gripping her.
Although she never searches her name in the matters of controversies, her finger reaches out to the search field. Her manager’s texts burst forth however, stopping her short.
Manager
Don’t reply to any comments
In fact, just don’t say anything
I’m heading to your apartment right now
Get ready
Impromptu meeting at the company
Apparently, Yizhou has a girlfriend. At least, according to strangers online, she does.
When her team mentions the name Aeri Uchinaga at the start of their meeting, she isn’t quite sure the reaction they expect from her. They throw around the words ‘idol’, ‘aespa’, ‘Giselle’, and Yizhou listens on blankly, lost beyond comprehension. Simply because she has no idea who that is. This is all new to her, she insists. And she can see the skepticism take root in their eyes as she explains the rumours are just that, rumours.
She understands that she should feel somewhat offended by the lack of trust the people she’s worked with for so long have in her but she just can’t find even a morsel of anger to pull from and that’s only because from the document they’d given her, there is supposed evidence to back up these rumours. Not just any kind of evidence, the kind that’s almost difficult to refute or explain away. Overwhelming evidence.
At around twelve noon yesterday, a post was made on Twitter titled Proof that aespa’s Giselle and Chinese singer Ning Yizhou have been dating for over a year. It’s a lengthy post with multitudes of pictures and videos of herself and another woman, no doubt Aeri, to back up the author’s claims. It’s garnered millions of views and the reaction is nothing short of explosive.
They say when something happens once, it’s an accident, twice it’s a coincidence, three times it’s a pattern. And what a pattern she and Aeri have made.
Proof number one (or less of a proof and more of a foundation from which every other accusation is built upon): Yizhou lived in South Korea from age six to eleven when her father had a promotion that required the entire family to uproot itself from China. During those years, she lived like any other Korean girl. She spoke the language, sang the songs playing on the radio, ate the food and played all the popular games. Meaning, any defence on the part of language barriers immediately cancels itself. Yizhou can speak the Korean language and Aeri is an idol active in Korea.
Proof number two: A year ago aespa’s Giselle started wearing a jacket during most of her lives. She explained it was comfortable and so she loved wearing it at home during her off days when it was cold. It was pink with white stripes and a bright hot pink zipper. Fans loved it and so she continued to wear it. A few months later, she announced that it unfortunately shrunk in the washing machine and so she’d have to buy a new and probably different jacket. It shouldn’t be a controversial matter except Yizhou owns an alarmingly identical jacket, and supposedly only started wearing it a week after the announcement. The conclusion is that the jacket did in fact not shrink and was given to Yizhou.
Proof number three: There are so many songs in the world and so multiple overlaps end up drawing a lot of attention. Yizhou has a very unique taste in music. Aeri also has a unique taste and is fond of recommending songs to her fans. Coincidentally, when Aeri recommends a song she loves, Yizhou ends up posting a cover of it on her social media and when she mentions a song she likes, a few days later Aeri would post that same song on her Instagram. Apparently, they’ve been confessing to each other through music for quite some time now.
Proof number four: Earlier in March, Yizhou had travelled to LA for vacation, and it just so happened to coincide with aespa’s LA concert that very same week. She had gone to a park and taken a lot of pictures to which she posted a huge chunk on her weibo page, one of which featured an acorn tree. A day later on Aeri’s Instagram, under a post captioned missing you, there Aeri is, in that very same park, under that very same acorn tree. The general consensus is that they had been there together that day.
Proof number five: It’s only a picture of Aeri on a bridge, water glittering in the background, hands in the air and a grin on her face. And on her wrist is a dark blue bracelet with silver charms. A carbon copy of what Yizhou had excitedly shown to her fans only a week ago.
You’re both wearing half of a matching pair that should be sold together, her manager stresses. And really, how the hell was she supposed to know that? She bought it at the fucking market.
She’s told to go home while the team reaches out to Aeri’s company for further clarification on their part, and Yizhou tries to ignore the fact that her name has been trending for the entire day on almost every Chinese and international platform.
That night, she lays in bed, phone clutched in her hands and eyes fixed on a picture of the very same woman everybody insists she knows.
Aeri is tall, or at least taller than Yizhou from what she can tell. She currently has chestnut brown hair and dark eyes, although Yizhou has seen her with many hair colours over a range of pictures. Her smile is awkward, but not in a bad way. It’s almost endearing to see the tiny creases on her cheeks when her picture’s taken mid-laugh, and the way her distinct white teeth peek out through her pink lips each time they stretch into a smile. She’s electric and mysterious when she wants to be and then almost immediately soft and sweet at the same time. All in all, Yizhou’s never seen a woman quite like her.
At least, she thinks sardonically, her girlfriend is pretty.
Even though she should have expected it, it still takes her by surprise when Aeri reaches out to her only a few days later.
Aeri
hello
this is aeri by the way
from the dating rumours
Yizhou
hi
yizhou
but you already knew that
lol
wait how did you get my number
Aeri
oh yuqi gave it to me
is that cool with you?
Yizhou
that’s fine with me
makes a lot of sense actually
Aeri
just wanted to reach out
since everything is a mess out there with the rumors and all
Yizhou
oh yeah
i’m fine
taking a break off social media though
the company staying quiet isn’t exactly helping
Aeri
it’s a bit difficult to create a good enough statement
y'know explaining how all our matching couple items are just coincidences
the song thing really surprised me though
Yizhou
it surprised me too
my manager keeps giving me suspicious looks about it all
Aeri
lol
my manager thinks we’re dating and i’m just trolling her
Yizhou
i can’t lie it’s a bit shocking
the coincidences are so many
everyday something new comes out
Aeri
yeah
i think we both mentioned rewatching titanic the same week too
Yizhou
of course we did
ooph it’s time for my photoshoot
i’ve got to go
it was really nice talking to you
Aeri
same
good luck
and feel free to reach out whenever
we are dating after all
Yizhou
hahaha
Although she spends almost an hour contemplating whether or not she should do it, a week later Yizhou sends Aeri a photo of a bowl of kimchi-jjigae.
Yizhou
this is going to sound strange
but i’m in a korean restaurant eating kimchi stew
oddly thought of you
Aeri
lol
i’m flattered
it’s not everyday i get compared to kimchi stew
Yizhou
haha nooo
i’ve not texted someone in hangul in years
my mind immediately links everything from korea to you now
Aeri
you know what i’ll take what i can get
at least my girlfriend is thinking about me
Yizhou
aahhhh
Aeri
<3
Three days later, Aeri sends her a picture of the inside of a clothing store, her pale face and dark hair peeking from the corner of the screen. The main focus though is a pink jacket hanging off a rack. The very same accursed one Yizhou can no longer wear after being accused of ‘flaunting her girlfriend’s jacket’. Under it, is a short text, oddly thought of you lol.
It becomes a bit of an inside joke between them, to send random pictures to each other claiming that it had reminded them of the other. Aeri is a spontaneous but frequent texter and Yizhou can never expect when she’ll hear from her, whether it being ten in the morning or eleven at night. It keeps her on her toes in something akin to excitement, and at times she finds herself picking up her phone at random moments of the day, checking to see if she’s missed a message or two. It’s surprisingly easy to be Aeri’s friend, in a way that is so rare for her. And she can’t shake the feeling that regardless of if they had met much earlier in life or well into their thirties or forties, there would have still been traces of this electric pull of hers tugging Yizhou in. She’s beautiful, funny and carefree in all the ways that seem almost too good to be true. It makes sense that Yizhou would be a little bit infatuated.
Aeri sends her a link to a news article with a picture of the both of them entering the same shop in Beijing. The photo looks like it was taken a while ago and they probably entered the store at different times. But it’s all edited in such a way that makes it look like they had been there together.
Aeri
new proof just dropped
Yizhou
another one?
Aeri
yeah
we flew to beijing to shoot an ad a year ago
i remember passing by that store
we must have just missed each other
Yizhou
it’s so strange
all these coincidences
Aeri
maybe the universe is trying to tell us something
Yizhou
like what?
that we were always meant to meet?
Aeri
maybe
who knows?
either way i really like you so i’m glad we got to meet
Yizhou
i’m glad i met you too
aahh i’m shy now
Aeri
cute
Yizhou hears a ruffling sound at the other end of the speaker of her phone, and she can tell Aeri is doing something in the background. She tries to imagine Aeri somewhere in her brightly lit apartment, probably in her bedroom, smoothing out the rumples in her bedsheet as she prepares to lay down.
Yizhou wraps up her brief summary of the day, shifting slightly in the chair in front of her writing desk and adjusting her posture. When she’s met with only silence, she frowns, “Aeri? Are you there? You’ve been quiet for some time now.”
Aeri hums, muttering a soft, “Yeah - Yeah, I’m here. Sorry.”
Worry rushes forth in Yizhou from her tone, and before she can stop herself, she asks, “Hey, are you okay? You sound a bit…less. I don’t know.”
“Urgh, sorry. We just wrapped up our tour tonight. I’m just a little tired, that's all.”
“Oh,” Yizhou relaxes in her seat, “You could have told me you were tired. We really don’t have to talk today. I can call you tomorrow.”
“No,” Aeri whines playfully, “I really wanted to talk to you.” The effect isn’t as strong as she probably hoped when her yawn cuts her off.
“You sound tired, Aeri.”
“Maybe. But I really really wanted to talk to you.” This time, Yizhou knows that Aeri is laying in bed, very likely adjusting her pillow, as the rustling sound of cotton masks her drowsy voice for a brief moment, “I like hearing you talk. I like hearing you sing too. I listened to so many of your songs, you know.”
And it’s only because Aeri sounds so out of it, on the verge of sleep, that Yizhou finds the confidence to confess, “I listened to your songs too. To hear your voice.”
A brief silence fills the air and Yizhou isn’t sure how to dissipate it. Luckily, she doesn’t have to.
Aeri sighs sleepily. Another rustling sound, “By the way, it’s almost 2am where you are. Why are you still awake?”
“I’m working on my next album. Just testing out some concepts and lyrics before I go to bed to see if anything sticks.”
“Oh, anything you want to bounce off of me?”
Yizhou hesitates briefly, spinning her pencil on the desk, “Umm, not yet. It needs a little more work.” She thinks on it and adds, “But you’ll be one of the first to hear it once it’s done.”
The truth is, Yizhou had actually managed to complete a song, one of the first she’d liked in so long. Balls of paper litter the floor of her apartment, a testament to every other song that hadn’t resonated with her. Of course, she wants to show Aeri the song that had filled her with a sense of rightness, sing for her so she can feel it too. So that she can know what Yizhou feels. But how will she answer when Aeri no doubt asks what inspired her? How can she tell this pretty girl that Yizhou had been thinking of her when she had written down lyrics almost too personal for the world to hear?
She shakes her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Picking up the pencil on her desk, she rereads her last verse and promptly changes a lyric, “Is the offer still up to bounce ideas off you? I want to know if this sounds right.”
Yizhou furrows her eyebrows when she receives no response, “Aeri? Aeri, are you there?”
She brings her phone closer to her. Her palm shoots up, pressing against her mouth to muffle her giggles as she’s met with Aeri’s soft snores from the other end of the line.
“Good night, Aeri.”
Before meeting Aeri, Yizhou never used to think much about Korea outside of work. She hadn’t lied all those months ago when she’d told Aeri that she links everything from Korea to her. She sees Hangul and immediately thinks of Aeri, she eats kimchi stew and thinks of Aeri, her friend brings soju back from her world tour and Yizhou immediately thinks, ‘I wonder what Aeri’s doing right now.’ And it’s all so new to her.
Even back when she had lived in Korea, she did so with a sense of patience. Of course, she had loved her friends, and the music and food, but by the time her mother told her they were returning to China, she was all but ready to go home. Korea was beautiful and bright in a uniquely lovely way but it wasn’t home, and Yizhou had missed home. So no, Yizhou had not been overly attached to Korea and so, it’s strange that these days, it’s all she ever seems to think about.
It’s only during a video call between them that Yizhou decides to share with Aeri what she’s been mulling over for a week now.
Aeri’s face fills up her screen as she babbles on about her group’s next comeback and the hassle of deciding what colour she should dye her hair. She’s still very beautiful even with all her makeup cleared off and her hair messy, and Yizhou doesn’t mean to blurt it out as she does but she effectively cuts Aeri off with-
“I want to come and see you.”
Through her screen, she sees Aeri blink a few times, “Come and see-. Like coming here? To Korea?”
“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it for some time now,” Almost immediately, Yizhou begins to feel a bit rash and silly, unsure of what to say, “I just…I just want to come and see you.”
She looks down at her lap. The call is quiet for a while and Yizhou begins to wonder if Aeri had fallen asleep just like the last time.
“Okay.” Aeri says softly. When Yizhou looks up, Aeri’s endearing smile and white teeth greet her, and she feels the beginnings of a smile on her own lips as well.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Aeri laughs brightly, “It’s a date.”
It takes over a month for Yizhou to finally have three consecutive free days in her schedule, and she books a flight to Korea almost immediately.
The plane ride felt longer than three hours, electricity buzzing underneath her skin. And it’s only when the plane lands that she feels brief disappointment that Aeri couldn’t pick her up from the airport. She doesn’t blame her though, it was unavoidable. Not due to any lack of effort on her part but for the sheer fact that her company had decided today of all days was the start of their album recording sessions. Yizhou simply can’t fault her for that.
And so she calls for a taxi and heads to her hotel. As she takes in the view, she can't help but notice how similar but so alarmingly different Korea has become since she left it, so much so that she expects the strong wave of nostalgia that rises in her even before she feels it. It’s like finding an old toy you once loved as a child, now subtly changed by the passage of time.
Once she arrives at her hotel and organises her things in a way that is distinct to her alone. She takes deliberate care to follow the instructions Aeri had sent her on how to arrive at their meeting point, that is, the right app to download, what location to punch in, the right thing to tell the driver once he comes to pick her up.
The ride takes her to a cafe tucked secludedly in the otherwise busy streets of Seoul. As she stands on the almost deserted pavement, she begins to wonder if she had made a mistake with her destination, maybe typed a character wrongly, because try as she may, she just can’t seem to spot Aeri. Just as she feels worry and panic well up in her, she hears it. Footsteps.
“Yizhou?”
She doesn’t know what she expected to happen the first time she sees Aeri, maybe fireworks, thunder or the feeling of the Earth sliding back into its right alignment. All she feels though is her own heartbeat racing in her chest. She can’t tell if it’s due to anxiety, excitement or something else. All she can say is the first thing that comes to her mind.
“I knew you were taller than me.”
Almost like a dream, Aeri bursts into laughter and Yizhou sees those creases on her cheeks that had endeared her all those months ago come to life before her eyes. Her laughter sounds different than it had on the phone. More real and hearty. She’s prettier too, less contained. And even with her dark cap low on her head, her face still holds all of Yizhou’s attention. Sharp and bright.
Aeri steps closer, until Yizhou only has to reach out to touch her, “Is it strange for me to hug you? This is technically our first time meeting.”
Yizhou rolls her eyes and laughs, flinging herself into Aeri’s arms. She feels Aeri’s shoulders relax against her arms and gives into the urge to pull her tighter into her space, pressing them as close as they can possibly be.
Words muffled by Yizhou’s hair, Aeri whispers, “I can’t believe you’re real.”
Yizhou burrows her face further into her neck, smelling her sweet perfume. She can’t believe she’s real either.
When they pull away, Aeri holds her at arm’s-length, just staring at her face. She lets out another laugh of disbelief and casually links their fingers, “Oh, let me show you around. You haven’t been to Seoul before, have you?”
“No. I lived in Busan.”
“Great.”
And show her around she does. She takes Yizhou as far as she can go. Pointing out the cafes she likes, and restaurants she eats at, malls she shops at and the streets she passes when she sometimes goes for a morning run. With each place they pass, Aeri lights up, quickly promising Yizhou to take her there the following day. She mentions any fact that comes up in her mind, stories about events long since passed, like she wants to bring them into existence once more and relive with them Yizhou.
The pure elation she feels makes Yizhou wish for a brief moment that they were two normal girls free to do anything they wanted without the pressing eyes of the world weighing down on them.
“Okay, so there is one more place I want to take you,” Aeri starts, taking a turn and pulling her along, “I actually wanted to take you to a cat cafe since you mentioned liking cats but they close surprisingly early. This was the next best thing.”
An aquarium.
Yizhou’s never been to an aquarium before, she confesses once Aeri buys them their tickets. And as the aquarist lets them in, she struggles to decide on which tank to focus on, wanting to take them all in at the same time. The further they go in, the more she wants to see. So once the tour guide lets them roam the place on their own accord, she pulls Aeri to the jellyfish tank.
They’re small. Much smaller than they had seemed on the television and they fill her vision with their soft colours of pink, yellow and purple as they swim aimlessly in the water. It’s the first time she’s seen anything so beautiful.
“Wow. They’re so cute,” she says, watching their umbrella-like heads bob up and down.
“So cute,” Aeri repeats, glancing briefly at Yizhou with a smile.
“Do you think they can understand us?”
“Might as well give it a try.” Aeri focuses on the small pink jellyfish closest to them, its body bouncing lightly as it stays suspended in the water, “Hey, can you understand me little guy?”
The jellyfish stares at them, blankly.
“Hey,” Yizhou calls a bit louder through the glass.
“If you can understand us, I think your friends are waiting for you over there,” Aeri points to the bloom of jellyfishes gathered at the far right of the tank.
They both stare at the jellyfish with bated breaths, waiting to see what it would do. It seemingly stares at them right back for a few seconds before swimming away, joining its fellow jellyfishes.
“That’s insane,” Yizhou turns to Aeri wide-eyed.
Aeri laughs and intertwines their fingers, tugging her, “Come. There’s an underwater fish tunnel. I want us to see that too.”
They go all the way down until they finally see blue light glowing from a distance. Aeri, with new found determination, pulls her into the light and all at once, they’re surrounded by glass and water. The tunnel is almost spherical in shape, curved above their heads, such that regardless of if they look up or sideways they are encircled by water and fishes.
“Woah,” Yizhou gasps.
They move further, pointing out any fish that particularly grabs their attention and trying to share their own view through each other’s eyes.
“Wait,” Aeri stops them mid-step, pulling out her phone from the pocket of her jacket, “I want to take a picture of you.”
Yizhou blinks, “What? Right now?”
“Yes, right now. I want to be able to look at you whenever I want when you go back to China.”
Aeri takes a few steps back, angling her phone to Yizhou’s face. They’re both coloured in brilliant blue.
“You see my face almost everyday. We can always facetime each other.”
Aeri doesn’t look at Yizhou directly this time, only staring at her through the lens of her camera, “Not really. It’s not the same. Plus, I want to remember you like this.”
She doesn’t clarify what like this means, and Yizhou finds herself too much of a coward to ask. And so she just stands there, in the presence of hundreds of fishes, and allows Aeri to capture this moment as many times as she wants.
It’s only when Aeri brings the phone down and pockets it back, that Yizhou allows herself to let go of the breath she was holding. Aeri smiles, walking forward and grabbing her hand, pulling her further into the tunnel.
Afterwards, they roam through the aquarium, moving from tank to tank, talking amongst themselves. They stop at a small but tall tank filled with fishes with particularly vivid and distinctive colouring. And when Yizhou turns about to make a funny comment to Aeri about one of the fishes, she realises that Aeri has disappeared from her side.
She hears nails hit the glass, and whirls around to find Aeri on the other side of the glass - the fish tank now in between them.
Aeri laughs, pointing at one of the fishes between them with black and dark grey scales and then Yizhou’s shirt and jacket of the same colouring, mouthing the word “dating.”
Yizhou laughs, pointing at another fish the same colour as Aeri’s clothes and repeating the word back.
She watches Aeri laugh and even though she can’t hear her, her bell-like laughter still rings in Yizhou’s mind. With the tank creating a distance between them, Yizhou can’t help but stare. At Aeri’s face painted blue from the water, at how unreal she looks despite the fishes passing by and obstructing her face every few seconds. She looks like something Yizhou had made up in her mind. Not for the first time, she thinks to herself: How did she get this beautiful girl to spend the day with her?
They meet halfway and head over to another tank stretching to the roof. And despite not being told so, Yizhou knows their day is about to come to an end.
Aeri stares intensely at the fishes in front of her, as if lost in thought. Before Yizhou can say anything, she speaks, gaze still fixed on the tank, “I’m really happy you came.”
“Me too,” Yizhou confesses.
Aeri turns to her, “I don’t know how to explain it. I know this is our first time seeing each other face-to-face and we technically talk on the phone practically everyday but I feel like I’ve missed you. Like I’ve known you before and this is our first time seeing each other after so long. And I know it doesn’t make sense….”
Yizhou wants to tell her that she knows what she’s feeling but her tongue seems to turn to lead in her mouth.
Aeri reaches out, brushing Yizhou’s hair that had slightly shrouded her face behind her ear. Yizhou tracks the movement with her eyes until the hand falls back to Aeri’s side.
She is struck with the realization that she wants Aeri to kiss her. She isn’t quite sure who leans in first, only that they’re a hair’s-breadth away from each other, “Are we at the part where you kiss me?” she asks, almost desperately, “I really want you to kiss me.”
Aeri’s lips are soft when she kisses her, and a shiver runs down Yizhou’s spine as she breathes in the soft scent of her perfume and tastes her strawberry lip gloss on her tongue. And when Aeri’s hands slide down, settling on Yizhou’s waist, she gives into the urge and sinks her fingers through dark brown hair, marvelling at the softness of its strands.
They pull away almost hesitantly and with lips still brushing and breaths intermingling, Yizhou asks, “Does this mean we’re dating now? Are you my girlfriend?”
“Haven’t we been dating for over a year now?” Aeri jokes.
“I’m serious.”
Aeri laughs, hands unconsciously tightening around Yizhou’s waist, “Ning Yizhou, my girlfriend. I like the sound of that.”
Yizhou rests her hands on Aeri’s shoulders, “Me too. I really like it.”
An automated voice rings throughout the building, announcing that there are only a few minutes until the aquarium closes for the day.
Aeri kisses her softly on the corner of her lips, “It’s getting late. Let me walk you back to your hotel.”
Yizhou is someone who has always been focused on the present. From the moment she’d stepped into the industry, her team had always told her, of course the future is important, but this career is all about the present. And through it all, she’d tried to live in the present, always making the most of the now in her life. But for the first time in a while, she feels excitement for the future ahead of her and what it means for the both of them. Her and Aeri.
She reaches for Aeri’s waiting hands and allows her to lead her away - allows her to take her anywhere she wants to go.