Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Nien is eighteen when she learns to love again. She has lost much, but gained much as well—for that, she is grateful.

“Yoon Seoyeon!”

The sound of her name already propels her out of her room, bringing her down the hall before pausing in front of double doors. Exhale. She pushes one open. “Yes, Father?”

His back is turned to her, and his voice only lofts across the rug by bouncing off of the large window he faces. Typical. “You’ve finished your last mock exam of the term, right?”

“I’m taking it tomorrow,” Seoyeon corrects. Her father doesn’t say anything—he doesn’t need to, because she can hear his voice all the same. Let’s not make any careless mistakes, yes?

She sighs quietly, blowing some of her bangs out of her eyes. “The hagwon called and said they’ll transfer me to the summer classes after my final exam at the end of next month— June. I just need to submit my first semester transcript, and then—”

“I’ll take care of that,” he interrupts.

Take care of what? “There shouldn’t be anything you need to take care of. I was just letting you kno—”

“Seoyeon.” He finally turns around now, positioning himself at his desk as he peers at her over the rim of his glasses. “What did I say about letting me talk?”

Different words come up her throat—something more along the lines of Why don’t you let me finish talking first—but she swallows thickly instead. “I need to let you finish speaking before I speak,” Seoyeon recites robotically.

“That’s right,” the man replies, already shuffling some papers on his desk with vague disinterest. “You’ll be accompanying me on a business trip soon,” her father glances at her, “so pack your bags quickly. We’ll be leaving after your mock exam.”

“What?” Her father only looks mildly surprised at her outburst, and he raises a single eyebrow for her to continue. “A business trip? I haven’t even finished the term yet.”

“I’ll take care of that,” he repeats. His gaze shifts to his monitor screen, and for some moments only the sounds of some mouse clicks fill the study. “We’ll only be in Taiwan for two weeks, and then you’ll be back in Korea in time for your final exam.” A pause. “It’ll only be for a short while, because you’re already in your senior year—”

“—and I need ample time to prepare for the CSAT in November,” Seoyeon finishes. Her father doesn’t say anything about her finishing his sentence, and it’s only after a couple moments of silence that he looks up.

“You’re dismissed.” His gaze returns to his screen and it’s like Seoyeon wasn’t there at all.

“Yes, Father,” she says quietly, bowing slightly before taking her leave.

We’ll only be in Taiwan for two weeks. Her father’s words repeat in her mind as she retreats to her room. Whatever. At least that’s two weeks out of hagwon.

“Yoon Seoyeon!” The man’s face was tight as he held an unfolded paper, a torn envelope on the table next to him. “Care to explain this?”

“What are you talking about, Dad?”

He brandished the paper to the twelve-year-old. 62/100. And below the mark, written in red pen: Incomplete. “Why did you turn in half of your assignment? Why is the other half blank?”

“Because I couldn’t finish it,” the girl said plainly. “She even wrote it on the side, ‘incomplete.’”

“Hey.” The paper began to crumble in the man’s fist as he glared at his daughter. “Do you think this is a joke? You’re in middle school now, Seoyeon. You’re going to start preparing for the CSAT soon. What are you going to do then, just leave half the paper bla—”

“God, I’ve just started, Dad,” Seoyeon complained as she interrupted him. “And it’s just one assignment. They were asking for my family tree, Dad, you know you never tell me anything about Mom—”

“Seoyeon.” Her father cut her off, turning around stiffly. His voice was ice-cold. “I don’t want to hear any more of this. Leave to your room.”

“But Dad—”

“I said leave!”

He waited until the doors closed again to shove the paper into the trash.

“Your father says you’re a senior in high school?” An older man whose name Seoyeon didn’t bother to remember looks at her with feigned interest in his eyes.

“That’s right,” she answers, and already she can hear his next words before they come out of his mouth.

“Then you must be preparing for the CSAT,” the man says. Bingo. Seoyeon closes her eyes and tries not to groan. If she knew that two weeks in Taiwan couldn’t keep her away from talk about the CSAT—the one and only topic of conversation at hagwon—and that, in fact, it would be worse because she would be meeting her father’s colleagues, she would have put up a bigger fight.

She opens her eyes. “Yes, that’s correct,” she answers, barely keeping the sigh out of her voice.

The man laughs—an ugly, disgustingly wealthy laugh—and claps a hand on the shoulder of the man next to him. “You know, my friend here creates questions for that exam.”

“The name’s Mr. Kim.” A younger man nods curtly and Seoyeon bows politely.

Her father’s hand comes to rest on her own shoulder, and his voice speaks up from next to her. “How about you, Mr. Chou? You forgot to mention that you make questions for the GSAT.”

The older man chuckles as he points a finger at her father. “Well, I try to stay humble, you know.” He looks at Seoyeon again. “The GSAT is—”

“The General Scholastic Aptitude Exam, used for university admissions in Taiwan in a similar manner to the CSAT in Korea,” she answers automatically. Her father’s hand tightens on her shoulder.

Mr. Chou just laughs again. “That’s right! You’re quite knowledgeable yourself…” He pauses.

“Yoon Seoyeon.”

“Yoon Seoyeon.” He repeats her name dismissively, like he doesn’t really intend to remember it. Not like I intended to remember his name, either. He snaps once. “Hey, you’re pretty good at Mandarin?”

“I take Mandarin classes in school,” she says simply at the same time her father says, “Seoyeon is at the top of her class in Mandarin exams.”

Of course that’s what you care about, is her immediate thought, and she tunes the three men out as they continue talking about her in front of her, not once asking for her input again. She asks her father about it, later, when they leave the venue.

“Is this really what we’re in Taiwan for?” she asks, eyes watching passing shops outside instead of her father next to her. She doesn’t need to look to know he’s looking at something on his tablet instead of her, either. “So I can meet your CSAT friends? You work in the financial sector, Father”

“Because,” her father starts, tone bored as if it were obvious, “I’ve had this trip scheduled for some time now. I just wanted to bring you along to give you a glimpse into Taiwan’s GSAT system, for a new perspective before you take the CSAT in November.”

He pauses, like he’s trying to find his next words. “This is good for you,” he says finally. “A change of pace.”

Yeah right, Seoyeon thinks. Good for my grades, more like. Since when have you ever cared about what’s good for me? She mutters a quiet agreement instead, and shifts her head to continue watching the window.

“How are your studies coming along?” her father asks at the end of the first week. Only the sound of cutlery against plates fills the air for a moment, before Seoyeon answers.

“They’re fine.” She doesn’t look at him, still, because she knows he isn’t looking at her, either.

“The hagwon gave you a workbook?” The question is redundant and Seoyeon wonders why he’s even asking in the first place. You’re the one who called them asking for a workbook.

“Yes,” she answers.

“That’s good,” her father says simply, and silence envelopes the apartment air once again.

Why do you act like you care about my life? Seoyeon wants to ask, but her father suddenly gets up before she can speak. He walks to the kitchen, placing his plate in the sink before making his way to the study in a likewise manner. Silently, always in silence, because the man has never felt the need for conversation.

The door closes with a click, and Seoyeon is left alone at the dinner table.

By the third time she wakes up on her paper Seoyeon thinks she needs a distraction. I can’t keep studying like this, she thinks, looking at the line of graphite where her pencil just trailed off. I want ice cream.

She pauses, listening for the sound of movement in the rest of the apartment—though she had heard her father head into his room only a little while after she started studying—and hears nothing. If he asks where I went, I’ll say I was getting a snack to keep myself awake. She blinks. Which is just true. She forgoes her jacket in favor of her wallet on her way out the front door.

It’s pretty warm, Seoyeon thinks as she starts down the road. Warmer here than in Korea. She wonders how cold it is in Seoul, and slides out her phone to open the weather app instead of messages. 17 degrees Celsius. She flips the card to Taipei. 24 degrees Celsius.

“Perfect weather for ice cream,” she mumbles as she turns the corner, approaching a convenience store. And stops. Her body seems to halt on its own as her eyes land on her: a lone girl sitting in the window, who doesn’t seem to notice Seoyeon as she gazes intently at a candle-lit cake slice in front of her.

Seoyeon’s first thought is that she’s pretty. Really pretty, she corrects, and even from a distance she can see that the girl’s eyes are big, nearly taking up half her face. Yet, there’s something about her expression that Seoyeon can’t look away from. The girl just keeps staring at the candle, staring like it would tell her something.

She blinks, and suddenly the girl is looking at her in the store instead of through the window.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” tumbles out of her mouth. Her gaze, Seoyeon is now realizing, is quite unnerving now that it’s focused on her instead of the cake. Her eyes seem to shine.

The girl blinks—her eyelashes are really long—before a slow smile spreads across her face. “Where are you from? You sound like a foreigner.”

Rude. The words prick Seoyeon’s skin. Is it that obvious? “That’s none of your business,” she says flatly. “Where’s the manager?” A glance around the store tells her there’s no one else besides the two of them.

“Dunno,” the girl replies. “I’m just alone.” She smiles at Seoyeon again, with a look she can’t decipher in her eyes. “Wanna sit with me?”

No. “Sure,” she murmurs, and moves to sit in the second seat over. She points at another package on the table when she sees the girl glance at the empty seat between them. “What’s that?”

The girl hands it to her instead. “Try it.”

Seoyeon reads the label—Binggrae Strawberry Ice Cream—and a small noise of exclamation escapes her. “So they export these here, too,” she mutters in Korean.

The girl mirrors her sound and looks at Seoyeon excitedly. “You’re Korean?” she asks in Mandarin, before slipping into a clumsy execution of Seoyeon’s native tongue. “Hello, my name is Nien.”

“Your name is Nien?” she repeats, although not before laughing once. The girl puts her hand on her chest in faux offense, though Seoyeon can see her smile all the same.

“Hey!” the girl—Nien—exclaims. “Your Mandarin wasn’t all perfect either. I’d like to see you introduce yourself.”

Like that’s a challenge. “Hello, my name is Yoon Seoyeon and I’m a third-year high school student from South Korea,” she recites in well-practiced Mandarin. A small part of her preens when Nien looks impressed.

The girl coughs. “Not bad, not bad,” she nods, and says something else in fast-paced Mandarin that Seoyeon admittedly can’t keep up with.

“I can say things secretly, too,” she shoots back. “How did you learn Korean anyway?”

“Okay, okay, hold on,” Nien laughs, holding up her hands. “Let’s stick to Mandarin because you know more of it than I do Korean. Truce?”

The smile on Seoyeon’s face is more than pleased as she opens the ice cream. “Sure,” she agrees easily.

“So you said you’re from Korea,” Nien starts, “but somehow you’ve ended up in this little old convenience store in Taiwan with me. Why’s that?”

Seoyeon considers the girl for a moment, weighing the cons of telling this girl the truth. It’s not like we’ll see each other again. “Well, I’m here with my dad,” she admits. “He’s got some friends on the committee that makes questions for the CSAT, so he wanted me to meet them to ‘prepare’ for November.”

She realizes with a start that Nien may not be familiar with Korea’s education system. “The CSAT is—”

“—a college entrance exam, super intense and basically life or death,” the girl finishes.

Never mind. Seoyeon nods. “Yeah, how did you—”

“We’ve got something similar here in Taiwan, ‘cept it’s called the GSAT.” Nien shrugs. “Sounded that way, anyway, and I figured it was about the same.”

She takes another look at the Taiwanese girl, who started taking bites of her cake. Really looks at her, and figures she must be at least Seoyeon’s age. Or maybe a little younge—

“Want some?” Nien holds out a piece of the cake on her fork when she notices Seoyeon staring. From the same fork?

“No, I’m— I’m good with this,” she says, suddenly shy as she takes a bite of her ice cream. She clears her throat. “What’s, uh, what’s the cake for? Special occasion?”

“You could say that,” Nien replies, gaze shifting to look out the window. “It’s my birthday.”

“Today?”

The girl suddenly giggles as she glances at Seoyeon. “Is today June 2nd?”

A tap on her phone screen tells her it is. 11:24 PM.

“Yeah, I get it,” she mutters, looking out the window as well. So she’s older than me. Two months.

“What about you?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, you said you’re here doing business with your dad,” Nien clarifies, “but that’s a daytime activity. What’re you doing out here so late?”

“I can’t get a snack when I want to?” Seoyeon complains. “And it’s not even that late out.”

“I’m just saying, it could be dangerous at night.” The girl holds up both hands when Seoyeon starts to object. “I’m not saying you can’t protect yourself or anything! But like,” she points to herself, “you’ve barely met me and you’re already eating my ice cream.”

Her chewing slows. “This wrapper was unopened when you gave it to me.”

“Well I wouldn’t poison you, princess,” Nien laughs. The sudden pet name ignites a feeling in Seoyeon’s chest, one that she doesn’t have a name for. “Other people, though, you never know. You know?”

“You just said I don’t,” she says reflexively. She relents after a moment of thought. “I guess you’re right, though.”

“I know,” Nien hums, satisfied as she turns back to the window. The feeling returns to Seoyeon’s chest and she thinks it even starts to hurt. This girl is so… smug.

“Well, since you want to know so badly,” she suddenly says, “I’m not out here for no reason.”

“Hm?” Her nonchalant answer pokes at something in Seoyeon’s belly.

“I was studying,” she continues. God, that sounds so lame. “For the so-called ‘life or death’ exam. Your words.”

“My words indeed,” Nien agrees, and the grin that she points at Seoyeon starts to make her head spin. Why are you suddenly agreeing! And how do you still sound so arrogant?

“I don’t think you would get it,” she says haughtily, and finally Nien drops her smile.

Her expression is unreadable. “What makes you think that?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” Nien nods as she puts her fork in her mouth, cleaning up the wrapper of her cake and tossing it into the bin next to the table. The girl hops off the chair and Seoyeon watches her sweep the rest of the crumbs off the edge as well, then turn to look at Seoyeon.

Nien takes the fork out and points it at her. There isn’t a trace of frosting left on those prongs. “You must be staying around here, right? Since it seems like you were just walking?”

“Weren’t you just preaching about my safety just now?” Seoyeon retorts, hopping off of her own chair as well. “Why would I let you know where I’m staying?”

Nien purses her lips as she considers her words, tossing the fork into the trash on her way to the doors. She opens one and—instead of walking through—looks at Seoyeon expectantly. She grins when Seoyeon doesn’t move. “What? I’m not asking to follow you home, but I can’t even hold the door open?”

Seoyeon bristles as she walks through. “Who said I said that?” Still, she doesn’t start for the apartment right away, and instead pauses in front of Nien.

A beat of silence passes before the girl speaks. “Well!” She holds up a hand in a wave, starting to walk backwards. “I’ll go first then, since I don’t think you’d follow me home to kill me in my sleep.”

“Who says I wouldn’t?” Seoyeon calls to the girl’s retreating figure, who seems to be backing up in slow motion.

Nien’s smile is entirely too wide, like she’s laughing at a joke Seoyeon isn’t privy to. “You’re harmless!” the girl calls back with a final wave, before turning around and disappearing around a corner.

“You don’t even know me,” Seoyeon mutters when she can no longer see the imprint of Nien’s body in the darkness. After a moment, she shakes herself out of a sudden daze and spins around. It’s late, she thinks as she starts towards the apartment. Seoyeon only looks back once before turning the corner.

The hallway light was on when Seoyeon unlocked the front door, and the girl walked into the living room to see a figure seated on the couch.

“Dad?” Her footsteps slowed, poised towards her room. “What are you doing up so late?”

The man sat up. “I need to make sure you’re home on time.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “You should start calling me Father.”

“Why?”

“Why what, Seoyeon? Be specific.”

“I mean, both.” Seoyeon shifted from one foot to the other. “Why are you suddenly interested in me coming home on time, and why do you want me to start calling you Father?”

“To make sure you’re coming directly from hagwon,” he answered. “You’re not going anywhere else before heading home, are you? You nee—”

The girl cut him off with an exasperated, “No, Dad, I’m not going anywhere after hagwon. I’m just coming straight home.”

The man was silent for a moment, considering his daughter. He nodded. “And it’s a good habit to build, discipline and respect for when you take the CSA—”

Seoyeon couldn’t stop the roll of her eyes and she turned her back to her father, heading for her door. “Goodnight, Dad. I mean, Father,” she sighed, pushing the door open and slipping inside quietly.

A faint Goodnight, Seoyeon lingered in the cold air.

“Do you ever leave the apartment when I leave during the day?”

The question makes Seoyeon stop chewing, and for a brief moment she almost thinks that it sounds like one of genuine curiosity. She swallows.

“Sometimes,” she answers truthfully. Squinting at her father, she continues, “Why are yo—”

“Don’t come home too late tonight,” the man says. He glances at her, almost like a silent apology for interrupting. What the hell is going on?

“Da— Father, are you sick?” Seoyeon asks. She raises both eyebrows at his raised one. “I mean, it just seems like you’re asking out of the blue.”

“We have a meeting early tomorrow. 8am.” He leaves it at that, the second half of his answer going unsaid: Go to sleep early so you can wake up early.

She nods slowly, turning her eyes back to her own plate. She considers telling him about Nien, though she hadn’t seen the girl in the convenience store since that night. Although, to be fair, I’ve only been back to that store during the day. Maybe she’s a night owl.

Her father’s grunt breaks her out of her thoughts, and Seoyeon looks at his face again. Has his hair always had that much grey? The man doesn’t seem ill, though, just mildly disgruntled like he always is.

Never mind, she thinks. I won’t tell him about Nien.

Not that I’ll see her again. Seoyeon remembers the conversation she had with her father this morning, and how she had answered that she only went to the convenience store on occasion. This is one of those occasions, she thinks as she heads down the familiar road. I just want a snack.

She ignores the other part of that conversation, when her father told her not to come back too late. And I won’t. It’s not like I’m meeting anyone.

Seoyeon’s steps slow as she approaches the glass doors, and she almost feels disappointment when no one’s eyes meet hers from inside. Still, she steps in and doesn’t head for the freezers in the back right away, instead deciding to peek into one of the shelves. I’m just curio—

“Woah, hey!” Two hands reach to steady her by the elbows as she nearly collides into a taller figure. Seoyeon looks up into familiar eyes.

“Looking for me?” Nien grins, mirth evident in the loose grip that stays on her arms. “We just met, like, a day ago but you miss me already?”

“Two days ago,” Seoyeon corrects, stepping back to put some space between the two of them. Nien drops her arms. The girl looks at her, and it almost looks like she wants to say something before suddenly shrugging. 

“Sure,” Nien says, and raises both of her eyebrows at Seoyeon as she side-steps her. Seoyeon watches the girl push through the convenience store doors and expects her to start walking down the road again.

Instead, Nien drops into one of the plastic chairs outside, slouching with hands in her pockets—the perfect picture of leisure. Seoyeon almost feels envious.

Why is she just sitting there? she thinks, creeping closer to the window to observe the girl more clearly. Unlike their first meeting, Nien doesn’t have anything in front of her, seemingly more content with watching the road and occasional cars passing by.

Seoyeon looks at the ice cream freezer, then back at Nien’s empty hands. With a quick glance to the cashier desk, she reasons, If there’s no one here to ring up my snacks, then I shouldn’t buy anything.

Her hands are already pushing the door open, and Nien doesn’t seem surprised to hear Seoyeon take the seat next to her.

The girl glances sideways. “Took you long enough,” she hums. “Looking for snacks again?”

Seoyeon ignores her first comment and nods. “Ice cream,” is all she says.

“You like ice cream a lot.” It sounds more like an observation than a question, and she watches Nien reach into the pocket of her pants. The girl pulls a candy out. “Want one?”

Seoyeon’s less hesitant to take it this time, and she notes the plain red wrapper as she inspects it for openings. In her peripheral vision she can see Nien laugh at the action but doesn’t hear a comment.

She tears it open. “Strawberry flavor?” she asks around the small candy, and Nien nods.

“Usually people eat for good luck during the new year, but,” the girl shrugs, “I like it year-round.”

“You like strawberries?” Seoyeon asks, remembering her ice cream from a couple days ago.

“Reminds me of my mom.” Nien’s hands go to a pendant around her neck, and Oh. It’s a strawberry. Before she can ask, though, the girl coughs and Seoyeon has to tear her eyes away from Nien’s bobbing throat to look at her face.

“My turn,” the girl says. “Hiding out from your dad again?”

“What?”

“You,” Nien clarifies. Well obviously, you’re talking about me. “You’re getting away from your dad again by sneaking out tonight, right?”

“Why do you ask?” Seoyeon shoots back instead of answering.

“Hey, not fair,” the girl tuts. “It’s my turn to ask a question, so I’m asking about your dad.”

“Then I should get to ask about your mom, too?”

“After you answer my question.”

“Fine,” Seoyeon relents. “Yes, I came out here to get away from my dad.”

“He was pushing the CSAT again?” Nien asks, then stops. “Wait, it’s not my tur—”

Something about Nien’s face makes her pause. The girl looks oddly earnest, like she genuinely wants to hear about Seoyeon’s relationship with her dad. Maybe it’s her eyes. “No, actually,” she interrupts, “he wasn’t talking about the CSAT again. Well, he was, but he also wasn’t.”

“I don’t get it.” There’s a ghost of a smile on Nien’s face as she does a small fist pump, but it looks like she’s mostly trying to keep a serious face. Cute.

“It’s because—” She stops to look at Nien again. I don’t even know this girl.

Nien seems to read her thoughts. “You don’t have to actually tell me,” she starts, holding her hands up. “I mean—”

“No, I’ll tell you,” Seoyeon decides. “You’re harmless.”

She sees the girl startle slightly, like she was surprised Seoyeon remembered her words from that night. She sits up, leaning forward expectantly. “Hit me!”

She’s like a puppy, Seoyeon thinks, and she blinks at the sudden thought. “What was I saying?”

“Your dad was but also wasn’t harping you about the CSAT,” Nien prods.

“Right, well—” She pauses to collect her thoughts. “It’s kind of weird, really. It’s not like he’s really absent or anything, but he’s also not really the type of dad to ask about my day or whatever. You know what I mean?”

Nien nods. “I’m familiar.”

“But then this morning,” Seoyeon frowns, “he told me not to come home too late. Which is groundbreaking, I know.” She laughs humorlessly, though it gets cut off when she hears a sound.

“That’s fair,” is a faint whisper in the air, but the owner of the voice doesn’t look at her. Maybe I imagined it.

She clears her throat. “But it was weird because he doesn’t usually care about anything unless it’s related to my academics— technically it was related to my academics, but still.” Seoyeon suddenly lets out a breath. “It was unexpected, I guess. It sounded like he actually cared.”

Nien hums, her eyes dancing as they make their way from the road to meet hers. She feels suddenly shy, and coughs awkwardly. “Sorry, I just dumped that on yo—”

“No, no, I asked for it.” The girl holds up a finger in the air, as if to press it to Seoyeon’s lips to stop her from continuing. “That’s how you play 21 questions.”

The sudden playfulness in Nien’s voice elicits a laugh from her. “21 questions? I haven’t even been keeping track.”

She gets a shrug in return. “Me neither.” Still, the girl beams at her. “It’s your turn now, though. You asked about my mom?”

“Sure,” Seoyeon grins, “tell me about your mom.”

“So when I was younger,” Nien starts, shifting in her seat as her hand goes back to playing with her pendant, “apparently I loved strawberries a lot? Like, my mom said that I used to come home from school and only want to eat strawberries, nothing else.”

The girl laughs, looking at Seoyeon as she says, “That, and broccoli.”

“You had an interesting diet,” she notes.

“Have,” Nien corrects, “‘cause I still eat broccoli and strawberries pretty regularly. They’re kinda like comfort food to me.”

Seoyeon hums in response. She supposes she can’t judge, though her comfort food is the more conventional ice cream.

“Anyway, my mom started calling me strawberry girl, ‘cause broccoli girl just didn’t have the same ring. And I still stick by that, you know?” Nien holds up the pendant, which glimmers under the street lamp. “Even though I’ve always kinda liked broccoli more, strawberries remind me of her.”

She nods, and gets the sense that there’s something about Nien’s mom that the girl isn’t telling her. She won’t pry, though, so she sits back in her chair. “That’s pretty cool, I think.” She pauses. “My comfort food is ice cream.”

“I could tell,” Nien remarks, and the grin she shoots at Seoyeon—eyes turning into crescents like she thought she was the funniest person in the world—makes something flare up in her chest. “Let me guess, your freezer is stock-full of bars and pints or something?”

“Obviously,” she says, rolling her eyes, “not everyone has interesting comfort food like you do.”

“So you think I’m interesting?” Again with that smile. Goddamnit.

“No…!” The lag in her brain is embarrassingly slow as she attempts to conjure a response. “Or, well, interesting in a bad way, maybe.”

“Is it in a bad way?” Nien hums, drumming her fingers folded in her lap. She does it with practiced ease, like her long fingers often sparred to a silent beat in time with her thinking. Seoyeon can’t seem to look away from the sight.

“I mean,” the girl continues, breaking Seoyeon out of her daze, “you say we only keep meeting because you want to get snacks, but you're sitting with me after buying nothing.” She looks pointedly at Seoyeon's empty hands.

“I don't owe you any explanations,” she retorts shortly. Then cringes, at how rude her words sound hanging in the night air. Even strangers deserve common courtesy— even if it's a random girl in a convenience store.

Nien doesn't seem to mind, though, and the girl even nods in agreement at her words. “Right. We don't know each other, and there's no reason for us to be friendly if we won't keep meeting.” 

Seoyeon watches her get up from the chair, making a show of stretching her arms above her head, and her eyes flit away quickly from the flash of a toned stomach as Nien's shirt rides up slightly.

It's warm, she wants to say, and feels the urge to comment on how nighttime in Taiwan doesn't seem to get cold like it does in Korea. She doesn't, though, because Nien speaks first.

“Well, that was a fun game.” The girl raises a single hand, looking down at Seoyeon still seated in her chair. “I'll go first then? And we won't see each other again, unless you decide to come back here to the same place at the same time for the third night in a row.”

She raises an expectant eyebrow, as if daring Seoyeon to object. The words It wouldn't be in a row dies on her tongue, and she continues to stare mutely at Nien. If Seoyeon’s being honest, she can't quite tell if the girl was annoyed at her or not, and she has half the mind to apologize for her bluntness earlier.

By contrast, her vocal cords must be broken today because no sound comes out. She only gives a faint nod.

Finally, Nien smiles again, and whatever cold front that settled between them dissolves as quickly as it came.

“Bye!” the girl says, saluting Seoyeon once. And just like that she's gone, leaving only the low hum of the store's outside freezer in her place.

She's so weird, Seoyeon thinks, and she shivers in spite of the heat. I need to head back.

“Ugh, studying is such a drag, I'm so bored,” was a common phrase uttered in the classroom, and today was no different. Sounds of agreement soon followed, even with nods from the quieter students.

“I wish we didn't have to study so much for a stupid test,” another student complained, slumping over her open book. “I'll just get married to a rich guy, and then I won't have to worry about this at all.”

“My perfect guy would be rich, tall—at least 180 centimeters!—and handsome so I could bear marrying him,” came an agreement, and the workbooks were soon abandoned with little regard.

“My future husband would be kind, and tall too—”

“I mean,” came a quiet voice, “do we really have to rely on a guy?”

A silence settled, then someone snorted. “What, then should it be a girl?”

“It's not like you're the biggest fan of studying either, Seoyeon,” someone else added.

Said girl's face flushed a deep red. “Well no, I didn't mean like— like a girl or anything—”

“As if.”

“—and like, yeah the CSAT sucks, but it also opens a lot of doors for our futures… you know?”

There was a pause, and then a slow clap resounded in the classroom. “Wow, this is why you're our class president, Seoyeon.”

“God, it sucks that my parents use their money to pay for endless hagwon and not let me avoid the damn test altogether,” a different student chimed in, and the others murmured in agreement. 

“No, but imagine those kids whose parents can't afford hagwon and they still have to worry about it. It's like, their only hope or something.” Someone turned to Seoyeon. “Isn't that so sad, class president?”

“Huh?” The girl startled, like she was surprised to be addressed. “Oh, yeah, I guess it is sad.”

Pairs of eyes studied her for a long moment, as if expecting her to continue. 

“... Right.” One of the first girls poked Seoyeon's desk with her pencil. “You know, you're kind of shy? Guys don't really like that sort of thing.”

Their class president only nodded with downcast eyes, and the classroom conversation shifted without a second thought.

Yoon Seoyeon is not a rude girl. I'm going to go up to her and say, Hey, I'm sorry for being rude yesterday, and then I'm going to say that we can be friends and that I have nothing against her friendship, Seoyeon thinks as hurried steps make their way down the road. No, not hurried— composed steps, steps with a purpose.

Her plan soon becomes for naught, however, when she turns the corner and spots her through the window: Nien, already sitting with a bored expression and an arm propped up on the table. And at the end of her arm, a hand pressing an unopened ice cream bar to the corner of her split lip. 

“What the hell happened to you?” Seoyeon suddenly bursts into the store and her words tumble out in likewise fashion. Nien jumps slightly at the sound, dropping the ice cream and wiping her lip. I saw that.

“Huh?” Guilt flashes through the girl's eyes. “Oh, thi—”

“Excuse me, are you this girl's guardian?” A middle-aged man stands at the register, eyeing Seoyeon skeptically. Where did this guy come from?

“I—”

Rapid-fire Mandarin cuts through her attempt at a response, and Nien pulls her down into a seat as the girl continues to explain something to the cashier. It's a much faster pace than the one Nien uses to talk to her, and internally Seoyeon curses herself for not paying more attention in her Mandarin classes.

Luckily, he seems to take the answer—Or maybe he's not being paid enough to care—and turns back to the register with the same indifference.

“What was that? What'd you tell him?” Seoyeon whispers, tapping the table to get Nien's attention.

The girl grins, then winces as the red corner of her lip seems to gleam under the convenience store lights. Seoyeon clasps her hands together under the table to keep from—God forbid—trying to touch it.

“I just told him my angel's come to save me,” Nien answers with a wink. The girl turns her head slightly and Seoyeon takes the opportunity to fan her reddening cheeks. What the hell.

Nien hands her an ice cream. “I mean, twice is a coincidence, but three times is a pattern.”

“What happened to you?” Seoyeon repeats again, ignoring the girl's Hey! She inspects the dessert's packaging. “This isn't—”

“—the one with my blood on it, no,” Nien confirms. She touches her lip with a finger. “But like, it's not even bleeding anymore. I just keep touching the scab.”

“Don't,” Seoyeon says immediately. She gets a noncommittal hum in response and the sound draws her eyes to Nien’s mouth, where her finger rests. As mundane as the action is, Seoyeon can’t stop watching as Nien moves her finger to rest on the middle of her lip without much thought. Her nail pokes the flesh slightly, which is red and plump, among other descriptions Seoyeon won't acknowledge. Jesus Christ.

She forces her eyes to look away. They land on the girl's cheekbone instead, which she realizes is starting to darken into an ugly purple.

Seoyeon doesn't stop her hand this time. “Seriously, what happened to you? Did you get into a fight or something?”

Nien tugs her wrist away gently. “I'm fine.”

“No, you're not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No—” Her retort is cut off by a sudden coldness on her lips, from a popsicle that Nien presses against them to keep Seoyeon from continuing. Even the girl seems surprised at her action.

“Eat it,” she says, taking Seoyeon’s hand to replace hers on the stick, “and I’ll tell you how I ended up looking like this.”

She nods, taking a small bite of the ice cream. Nien, however, just grins before speaking. What is she—

“So, it all began when my mom met my dad—OW!” The girl rubs the shoulder Seoyeon hit. “Damn, woman! You’re the one who asked me to talk!”

“I didn’t ask for your whole life story!” Seoyeon hisses. “Tell me why you look beat up!”

“Do I really look that bad?”

“Nien!”

“Okay, okay, I will,” Nien relents, holding her hands up in a sign of peace. One of them goes to scratch her cheek, right below the large bruise. Seoyeon thinks she feels lightheaded.

It sounds like Nien mutters something like This is so embarrassing before clearing her throat. “Ah, well, to be honest… I was beat up.”

She has to swallow a gasp. “By…?”

“Some kids at school.” Nien pauses, not looking at Seoyeon as she peers out the window, before continuing. “They like to get on me for a bunch of reasons—none of which are my fault, by the way—and I just…” She shrugs.

You just let them? “Like, one other student? Or—”

“Two, usually, sometimes three.”

Her gasp is resounding. “What? I mean, two on one is already unfair, but you could fight back or something. It’s self-defense.” She glances at Nien’s sitting figure. “You don’t really look… athletically opposed.”

“You think I take them in a fight?” The girl’s laugh is humorless, borders on self-deprecating. “I probably could. I’ve thought about it, certainly. But I don’t.” Nien shrugs again. “My mom always told me not to fight. Was always taller than the other kids, anyway, so it’d look like I was the one picking on them.”

She turns her head to Seoyeon, poking her non-bruised cheek lightly with a finger. “Can you believe it? Little ole me, picking on the other kids on the playground.” Nien puffs the cheek.

“Hey…” She chuckles in spite of herself before sobering up. “You don’t look like you could hurt a fly.”

“And I don’t!” Nien nods before mumbling something quietly, something that sounds like, Only fight to protect. Seoyeon gets the sense that they aren’t her words.

“Still…” She feels awkward as she reaches a hand out tentatively, ice cream forgotten in its wrapper on the table. “Doesn’t that apply to you?”

A raised eyebrow beckons her to continue. “I mean, if your principle is to only fight to protect, then doesn’t that mean you’re included?” Seoyeon clears her throat. “Because you’re worth protecting… too,” she finishes lamely.

Nien coughs, suddenly turning her head with a poorly-disguised laugh.

“Hey!” She pushes the girl’s shoulder lightly, picking her popsicle back up to distract herself from the shame spreading on her cheeks. “I tried with that, you know.”

“You did, you did,” Nien agrees, picking her own ice cream up. She tears the wrapper open, brings it to her lips, and—instead of biting it, like Seoyeon does—licks the frozen dessert. Seoyeon watches the popsicle melt slightly at the point where her lips make contact, with some of the strawberry flavor staining them. It’s oddly intimate, and Seoyeon has to force herself to look away. I feel so perverted.

“Usually,” Nien continues with a swipe of her tongue, “it’s not that bad where I look, like, mauled or anything. Just once in a while.” She says something else too, in a low mutter that Seoyeon can’t quite catch.

“What was that?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing.” Nien clears her throat. “And anyway, don’t I look kind of sexy with a busted lip?” The girl suddenly bites her lower lip, even going so far as to wink at Seoyeon.

“Eat your ice cream,” she says instead of answering, busying herself with her own popsicle.

“Yes ma’am!”

There’s a moment of silence, of the two enjoying their desserts, before Nien speaks again. “Why do you like ice cream so much?”

Her chewing slows. “What do you mean?”

“Like,” the girl clarifies, “you said last time that ice cream’s your comfort food. Why’s that?”

“Because…” Seoyeon considers telling her the truth—She did tell me about her own comfort food—and figures that it wouldn’t kill her to share. “It’s cold. I don’t like hot things.”

Nien hums at first. “Does that include summer?”

“Definitely.” She takes another bite of her ice cream. “I hate the sticky feeling. Winter’s the clear superior season.”

“Hey!” comes an immediate protest. “Don’t you at least like the warmness—”

“Warmth.”

“—the warmth?” Nien shrugs. “I mean, I think it feels like a big hug, but I guess that’s just me.”

“It is just you. I think it feels too constricting, like I’m being suffocated or something.” Her retort is quick, said in defense, and it’s only after she admits it that shame settles on her cheeks. She tries to hide it with her ice cream.

“I can see that.” The girl nods, seemingly taking in her rationale. A grin suddenly splits her face. “But you’re here, though.”

“Huh?”

“You’re here,” Nien repeats. “I’m pretty sure Taipei is much warmer than wherever in Korea you’re from— Seoul? And it’s basically summer, no less. But you’re still here, and you don’t seem to hate it so much.”

This was my dad’s idea, she wants to protest, but the words don’t make it out of her throat. Instead, it’s Nien’s words that linger—they’re unsettling, in a way, and leave her feeling strangely vulnerable.

“Or,” the girl draws out, the corners of her mouth rising, “it’s because of me. I’m just such great company that you’re willing to leave your air-conditioned apartment to sit in this dinky convenience store with me.”

“There’s air conditioning in here, too.”

“You walked in”—Nien quickly unlocks her phone with one hand, opening her weather app and turning the screen to show her—“more than 20-degree heat just to get here. You’re making me feel pretty special, you know.”

What do I even say to that? To her annoyance, the girl’s boldness is completely disarming her and makes her struggle to think of a response.

“Shut up,” she mutters. “I didn’t even know you liked summer that much.”

“I don’t!”

“Then wh—”

“I like spring more,” Nien clarifies, “but I like arguing with you. It’s cute.” She gets a smile directed at her, one full of unadulterated joy, and it only seems to grow in satisfaction at Seoyeon’s sudden squeak. What the hell is wrong with this girl?

 “You know,” Nien hums after a little bit, “if the fighting ever gets really bad, I could always turn to the universal medicine.”

This makes her curious. “Which is?”

“A cig.”

Seoyeon tries to hide her surprise, but she can’t say she succeeds very well. “Really?”

“Yup.” Nien shifts slightly in her seat, making a noise of appreciation as she takes another lick of her ice cream. “Half a pack at a time, lit with my strawberry-stickered lighter.”

Seoyeon could probably guess how her face looks—wholly disbelieving—because Nien’s grin only seems to grow wider as they stare at each other in the prolonged silence. When the girl doesn’t continue, though, she starts to feel a little concerned.

Does she really get in that many fights? “Are you seriou—”

Her question—one entirely of concern and compassion for Nien’s poor lungs—gets cut off when the girl starts absolutely cackling, nearly dropping her popsicle as her other hand clutches her stomach. “Oh my God, your fa—!”

“What the hell!” Seoyeon slaps her back as the girl doubles over, though that quickly turns out to have been the wrong move when she starts hearing hacking noises. “Are you seriously choking right now Jesus Chri—”

“I’m good, I’m good!” Nien sits up with a final cough, and Seoyeon’s halfway out of her seat when the girl suddenly grabs her wrist. “Where are you going?”

“To get you water, dumbass!”

“No, seriously, I’m fine!” When the grip on her wrist tightens she sits back down begrudgingly, though not without glaring at the girl.

“Are you going to explain what just happened in the last three minutes or do I have to figure that out myself, too?” She watches Nien finish the rest of her popsicle and eyes the stick dangling from her mouth warily. This girl is a walking safety hazard.

“No, it was so funny to see your reaction— your smile literally dropped so fast,” Nien admits with a giggle. “Except I ended up choking… which is just a little embarrassing.” The girl’s eyes dart away quickly as her cheeks darken into a rosy color, and the irritation Seoyeon was feeling seems to dissipate at the sight.

Hold on. Irritation?

“And just for your information,” Nien continues, “I don’t actually smoke that often. Or at all, really. Like I said, I prefer strawberries.” The girl shoots another grin at her, one that Seoyeon would call goofy, especially with the popsicle stick hanging out of the corner. She looks like a farmer. “You must’ve thought I was a delinquent or something, huh?”

“As if.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nien replies, almost absentmindedly. She takes the stick out of her mouth, pointing it at Seoyeon. “I’m not a goody two-shoes like you, though.”

She objects immediately. “What makes you think I am?”

“Well, for one, you always come here around 11:30 PM, give or take ten minutes.” Nien shakes a hand in a so-so motion. “No one is that punctual this late at night unless you’re studying or buying drugs, which,” she squints at Seoyeon, “I don’t think you are.”

“I could be,” she argues. “You know, with how stressful the CSAT is.”

“That’s true,” Nien nods, “and studying drugs aren’t uncommon at my school, either, but”—the girl raises an eyebrow—“you’re in a foreign country. Where would you find a dealer?”

Seoyeon has to give her that one. “I guess I wouldn’t,” she admits.

“Right.” Nien beams at her and oh. She has a word for it now, for how this particular smile is: infuriating. Infuriating because Nien keeps managing to get the last word in, finding ways to outsmart and one-up whatever Seoyeon throws at her. So annoying.

“Of course, there’s a third option.”

Seoyeon should resist. She shouldn’t—no, she can’t give in to the curiosity, especially with how Nien’s eyes seem to glimmer with joy watching her. It’s like the girl is looking right at the demons in her head.

“...Which is?”

“Me.” Nien says it matter-of-factly, entirely too pleased with herself. “You’re far away from home, thinking to yourself Man, what am I going to do here, when suddenly, you meet this girl who’s just so mysterious yet charming that you keep coming ba—”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough.” She pushes Nien’s good cheek, careful not to make contact with the scabbed corner of her mouth. “You’re practically in love with yourself, I get it.”

Something occurs to her. “Then, you should try not to get beat up so hard. Defend yourself a little, to protect your face.”

Seoyeon can practically see the words traveling through Nien's ears and making it to her brain in real time. The sight of the girl—speechless, jaw dropping in slow motion as her pupils seem to double in size and a brilliant scarlet dons her cheeks—does something to Seoyeon’s chest, makes it feel like it’s about to cave in from a nearly-painful squeeze. She’d have liked to stay in the moment a little longer, with the two suspended in something delicate, if it weren’t for the next words that leave Nien’s mouth.

“You just called me hot.”

“No, I did not,” she denies quickly. I did not.

“Yes, yes you did!” Nien insists, nearly bouncing out of her chair. “You just said I need to protect my face, because clearly, my face is an asset.”

“Well, I didn—”

“Oh my God, wow. I need to ride this high for a little longer.” The girl does a fist bump. “Hsu Nientzu, you’ve still got it.”

“You’re just being ridiculous,” Seoyeon complains, and she tries fruitlessly to stop the corners of her mouth from rising.

“We all heard it!” The girl points gleefully at Seoyeon and the cashier—the only other person in the store to witness Nien’s victorious wiggle. “And I—”

An alarm cuts the girl off. Her phone vibrates violently on the table, with the large time 00:00 flashing on the screen, and Nien seems to almost deflate at the sight. “Aw, man—”

Just as quickly, the girl brightens up. “Wait!” She grabs Seoyeon’s hand. “If you can come a little earlier tomorrow—like, 11 PM?—I have a surprise for you. Since you’ve said the magic words.”

Seoyeon can only watch as Nien quickly tosses her popsicle stick in the trash, grabbing her phone off the table and nearly dashing out of the convenience store. Her parting words are “You have to come, okay? 11 PM!” and just like that, she’s off.

“Okay,” Seoyeon agrees, to the door that swings in the girl’s absence. She’s so—

“You kids should take this somewhere else,” the cashier suddenly says, breaking her train of thought. Oh, right.

“Yes, sir,” she answers. Tomorrow, maybe.

(Hopefully.)

The kitchen table was mostly empty, save for some spare papers and mail at one edge. At the other edge sat a girl, scratching some numbers onto a sheet, already her fourth to join a forming stack of formulas.

Ring. A timer went off and was dismissed just as quickly, stark in the otherwise silent apartment. A quiet sigh joined it, at the same time a door creaked open. The girl didn’t have to turn her head to know who it was. Strangely, a sense of restlessness settled over her.

“Father.” She waited for the halt of his footsteps to continue. “Why do I have to do my work at the kitchen table? Why not a desk?”

Lightly, the sound of footsteps began again. “Is it uncomfortable?”

“Well no, I can still do my work…” The girl paused with a bite of her lip, wondering if she should go this far. “I’m just saying, the other kids at my school all have their own workspaces and stuff. I feel kind of silly sitting in the kitchen.”

The faucet turned on. A silence. Then: “You’re the class president.”

It wasn’t a question. Still, “Yes, I am.”

“That’s right.” The man turned to face her, continuing, “We work hard, Seoyeon. We make do without some things and we succeed regardless. Do you understand what I mean?”

As if silently directed, the girl’s gaze drifted to a shelf on the wall. A simple shelf, upon which sat only two items: the first was a smiling portrait of a young woman, and next to it, a certificate.

She didn’t need to look any closer for a reminder of what it was.

“Yes, Father,” she answered quietly.

There was a shuffling before a door shut, leaving her alone once again. She glanced around the apartment, at the lack of anything personal save for two pairs of shoes, sneakers next to loafers at the door. She looked away.

“Timer for fifteen minutes will begin in 3, 2, 1.”

“Father, how long is the rental on this apartment for?” She intentionally keeps her tone light, careful not to set off any possible alarms in his head.

He doesn’t look up. “Only two weeks. We’ve already been here for more than one week.”

Seoyeon nods, turning back to her food with practiced ease. “Is it alright if I step out tonight? I want to explore the area a little bit.”

“Explore?” Finally, he looks at her. His gaze isn’t suspicious, however, and instead seems more surprised.

“It’ll be a nice breath of fresh air before I go back to my studies,” she offers, watching his eyes carefully. Isn’t that why you’ve brought me here in the first place? “I want to see what there is around here before we have to head back to Korea. It’s not like I’ll have much opportunity to travel otherwise.”

It’s her final attempt at convincing him, yet the silence seems to be drawn out for uncomfortably long. I should have mentioned the CSAT. “And—”

“Sure.” He puts another bite in his mouth without another word, nodding quietly to himself as he chews.

A clock ticks and she blinks, unsure if she heard him right. “I won’t stay out too long.”

“You’ve still got your workbooks,” is his response, effectively commencing their conversation. Still, Seoyeon feels a little lighter. That wasn’t… so bad?

She sneaks another glance at him.

Maybe this trip is good for both of us.

She’s the one who told me I need to be here by 11 PM, and yet—the flash of her phone screen is incriminating—it’s already five minutes past. Seoyeon taps her foot impatiently, with one hand moving to rest on the chair next to her. Where is she?

Maybe I should sit down. She gets up quickly. “This feels weird,” she mumbles aloud, rising again to lean against the chair.

It all feels weird. Everything about this—especially how Seoyeon’s uncharacteristically nervous, nearly bouncing on her feet waiting for Nien to come. What am I even waiting for? She turns slightly. Maybe I should just go back to the apartment.

Before she can fully turn, a bright light encases her figure. Am I about to di—

“HONK!” Boisterous laughter follows the harsh sound, then the slowing of a revving engine. Seoyeon only removes her hands from her ears in time to catch the end of Nien’s sentence.

“—hop on!” The girl beckons her with a grin that nearly splits her face in half, using one foot to prop the motorbike in a standstill. She tugs the helmet off of her head with a hand, shaking her long hair out from underneath. It’s slightly wavy, Seoyeon notes, and the whole motion reminds her of a puppy.

Nien holds the helmet out. “Well, are you getting on or not?”

Her feet move before her mouth does. Still, she doesn’t take the helmet right away. “Where’s yours?”

“My what?”

“Your helmet,” Seoyeon clarifies, though it should be obvious. She can’t be operating this vehicle without proper protection.

“Well, it was on my head,” the girl drawls, “but now it’ll be on yours. Can’t let that pretty little head of yours get hurt.” Nien winks like it’s as natural as breathing.

The blush on her face doesn’t make her hesitate any less in accepting the helmet, and Seoyeon hopes it’s too dark for it to be noticeable. The bike’s headlight—the one that had shined on her earlier—illuminates the road in front of them instead of her, thankfully. She examines the headgear carefully.

“I’ve never worn one of these before,” she tries, eyes flitting to Nien’s face. The girl doesn’t budge. If anything, her smile only seems to widen at the admission.

“You’re so silly, Seoyeon.” She watches Nien shift the bike’s weight from her leg to the kickstand in one swift motion, swinging her other leg over to turn and fully face Seoyeon. Gently, the girl takes the helmet from her hands and—instead of putting it back on her own head—fixes it onto Seoyeon’s instead.

The buckle is only a little loose as the faint click rings in her ears, and she sees arms encasing her vision—Nien’s holding her head with both hands. Just as quickly—or maybe it feels that fast in time with her thundering heartbeat—the girl’s hands drop from her head but don’t let go of her entirely. They rest loosely on her wrists instead.

“Seoyeon.” Nien’s voice is gentle, must be gentler than usual because Seoyeon’s overcome with a sudden dizziness. Her eyes are so… vast. The girl smiles, and Seoyeon must be in an observational mood tonight because she’s suddenly aware of everything, even the minute changes in Nien’s actions. Have her teeth always been that cute?

…?

“I think you’d like it better if I asked like this,” Nien says, exaggeratedly clearing her throat, “so here goes.”

The girl straightens her back, still keeping her hands on Seoyeon’s wrists as she flashes another grin at her. (If she had shifted closer while Nien was talking, neither of them mention it.) “I want to show you around Taipei tonight. Do you want to come with me?”

“Yes,” she breathes, and only feels slightly embarrassed at her immediate response because Nien responds in kind: her eyes crinkle into moons, shoulders coming up slightly as they wiggle in clear joy.

“Heh.”

“Heh?” Seoyeon repeats the syllable incredulously, and a giggle unwittingly slips out of her mouth. “What do you mean, heh?”

“Heheh,” is Nien’s response, and the cheekiness of her expression makes a chuckle escape Seoyeon in spite of herself. And another. And another. Until she can’t stop laughing, nearly falling onto the girl who’s laughter joins hers as well.

“Hey,” Nien protests through her giggles, tugging her wrist slightly, “we haven’t got all night! Come on!”

“Okay, okay,” Seoyeon gasps, out of breath as she’s guided onto the back of the bike. When she calms down enough to form sentences, she says, “You’re funny, Nien.”

Quickly, she adds, “Sometimes."

“I caught that~!” the girl sing-songs, shifting in front of her.

It’s then that Seoyeon realizes their position. She’s not a prude, of course, but she just… never considered what riding on the back of someone’s bike is like. As in, they’re seated very close together, and Seoyeon's nearly pressing herself entirely against Nien’s back. She pushes her shoulders. (Which, she does not notice, are quite broad.)

“Hey, how am I supposed to hold on?”

“What do you mean?” Nien’s tone sounds innocent, but the look she tosses at Seoyeon says otherwise.

“Like…” she draws out. Um. “How do I make sure I won’t fall off the back while you ride?”

“I won’t go too fast! Passenger safety first,” Nien reassures her before humming dramatically. “Well, if you’re really worried…” She reaches behind to grab Seoyeon’s hands, wrapping her arms around her waist in a loose ring. “Then you’ve just got to hold onto me.”

Seoyeon's leaning even farther forward now, with the shorter layers of Nien’s hair tickling her nose. She turns her head.

“Are you sure?” Her question was meant to sound skeptical but it comes out breathier than intended.

“Positive,” the girl replies, though her voice seems slightly higher than it was just a second ago. Seoyeon’s nearly certain she sees reddened ears poking out of her hair as well.

A lightness settles in her chest and she suddenly grins, though she knows Nien can’t see it. “Well, I guess I should trust the expert.” She tightens her arms around Nien’s waist, scooting forward on the bike as well and closing whatever little gap was left between them. “Take it away.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Nien’s voice sounds a little strained, and the girl coughs before kicking the bike off its stand. Then, the girl clears her throat, raises a pointing hand, shouts, “LET’S GO,” and that’s the last warning Seoyeon has before her heart drops to her stomach.

The two zip down the street, layering the roar of the bike’s engine with sounds of hollering intertwining with screaming laughter into the night.

When Nien finally brings the bike to a legally acceptable speed, Seoyeon feels like she can breathe, mainly because she no longer feels wind trying to push into her lungs. She loosens her grip around Nien’s waist (and tries to ignore the protest at the loss of contact from the voice in her head).

She clears her throat. “Where are we going?”

“Holy, your voice is so gone,” the girl snickers instead of responding. She takes them around the bend of the road, where the reach of the city lights starts bleeding at the edges, blending into darkness. Seoyeon tries not to feel nervous.

Nien continues, only raising her voice slightly over the low hum of the engine. “It’s ‘cause of all that hooting and hollering you were doing on the way here! You know, if you just had a little more trust in me then—”

“It’s your fault.” She hits Nien’s shoulder. “What am I going to say to my dad tomorrow when I’ve lost my voice?”

“That I made you scream all night, obviou—OW!” Nien yelps as her hand makes contact with her shoulder again, this time making the bike wobble with her.

You can’t just say things like that! was going to be Seoyeon’s reply, but the sudden movement of the bike makes her tighten her arms instinctively. “HEY! YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO DRIVE SAFELY!”

“I AM DRIVING SAFELY!” A squirrel scrambles through a tree at Nien’s scream, though the girl doesn’t turn her head to shout in Seoyeon’s face—which is more than she could say about herself. Oops. 

“YOU’RE THE ONE SCREAMING IN MY EAR!” Nien finally parks the bike when they reach the base of some stone steps, shutting the engine off and turning around indignantly. “Don’t you kno—!”

Correction: Nien’s eyes are really, really big. That’s the first thought that runs through Seoyeon’s mind, against the increasing volume of sirens and crashing noises. She’s been suddenly stripped of the ability to speak because—and she’s only realizing now, very belatedly—their faces are very close together. Very close. Extremely close, even, because they both stopped breathing and Seoyeon can’t seem to hear anything over her deafening heartbeat.

Until Nien suddenly sighs, sighs so quietly Seoyeon would have missed it if it weren’t for the proximity of their faces and how she can feel the girl’s breath ghosting her lips—Is that mint?—and Holy Shit.

Her gaze drops to her lips.

“AHHH!” In a flurry she withdraws her arms from Nien’s waist and scrambles to get off the bike, nearly crashing onto the sidewalk in the process.

“Are you okay?” The girl reaches a hand out to steady her but retracts it just as quickly when Seoyeon jumps like she’s been burned. Oh my God.

“I—”

“Oh, the engine!” Nien suddenly says in a near-shout, and visibly winces at the volume. “I, uh, need to check the engine! Gotta make sure I turned it off right.” The girl averts her gaze to the side of the bike, nearly twisting her body as she leans over. Pointedly, she’s not looking at Seoyeon.

The sight would have made Seoyeon laugh if it weren’t for the more pressing issue: extinguishing the blazing fire that is her face. “Right! HAHA.”

Oh my God, she repeats in her head as she spins abruptly, fanning her face with both hands. What is wrong with me?

Suddenly, the helmet is too tight and it's all too, too much. Her fingers fumble to unclasp the buckle that just won't budge—

“Here.” Nien materializes in front of her and in one, deft motion there's a click and the loss of pressure on her temples. “That's more like it.”

Seoyeon watches the girl as she doesn't step away immediately, instead lingering in front of her with a raised arm. It's barely noticeable, the sensation of Nien's fingers on her hair, fixing slight tussles and seeming to come to a stop until she feels it: a singular, light, pat on her head.

Widened eyes meet hers. “Ahem!” The girl backs up quickly, fumbling with the helmet in her hands as she stares at Seoyeon. Then, Nien takes a step forward and she takes a step back, instinctively. “I, uh, need to reach past you here.”

Her response is half a beat late as she stutters, “Oh, right! Yeah.”

Seoyeon watches the girl clasp the helmet buckle again and hang it on one of the handlebars, yet she doesn't turn around right away. Is she…?

Nien spins to face her again, wiping her hand on the side of her shorts. She clears her throat and seems to gain back some resolve with the sound, though Seoyeon can still see a lingering nervousness in her eyes. Or I'm just imagining things.

“So, we're here.” Nien raises her hands at their surroundings, though they're still standing on an empty sidewalk and Seoyeon isn't exactly sure where here is. “Follow me!”

Then, there's a hand extended in her direction and a pair of hopeful eyes watching her. Frustratingly, Seoyeon's brain buffers at the sight and she feels a crack in her chest when she sees Nien's face fall for a fraction of a second, then recover just as quickly.

She drops the hand. “Let's go this way!”

“Okay,” Seoyeon replies, too quickly, and she cringes as she follows Nien up the steps. Very smooth, Seoyeon.

Admittedly, Seoyeon is not that athletic. It’s a fact she reminds herself of as she trudges behind Nien on the path, trying not to inhale too loudly and clue the girl into her struggling state. It’d be so embarrassing for her to bring me here only for me to completely fail at it. Still, there are so many stairs and steps that Seoyeon can take before her legs start screaming at her.

She’d have tripped—for a third time, embarrassingly—if it weren’t for Nien warning her to watch out, we’re coming up on some more steps here. That doesn’t stop her from protesting, however.

“Nien,” she tries. Tries not to gasp for breath. “How many steps are we going to climb today? You didn’t tell me we were going hiking.”

“Can’t do it?” the girl immediately replies with a giggle. Her gaze softens slightly when she looks back at Seoyeon. “Or do you actually want to stop? We can just—”

“No, no, I can take it. Obviously,” Seoyeon objects. “I’m just asking why, that’s all.”

Nien nods, once, then shrugs. “It’s cooler at night than during the day. Didn’t want you to be drenched in sweat, you know?”

I’m already drenched in sweat. Seoyeon thinks it’s probably too dark to see clearly, though the thought does make her worry for the girl’s navigation skills. “I guess so,” she says. “Still, how many steps are in this place?”

There’s a movement and she assumes Nien probably shrugged again. “Dunno. A lot, I’d say.” A thoughtful hum. “Are you sure you can keep going?”

Then, like the goddamn Cheshire Cat, Nien’s smile suddenly blinds her in the dark. “Or, you know, I could always carry you.”

There’s another movement next to her, bigger this time, and from the shape Seoyeon guesses that the girl probably tried flexing her arm muscles or something. I can’t see a single thing out here.

She blames her heated face on the hike. “No, I can manage just fine by myself.” I don’t need to be carried by you, thank you was meant to be her next words, but her tongue gets caught in her mouth and an awkward squeak comes out instead. Jesus, I need to get it together.

“Your loss,” comes a reply in the dark, followed by exaggerated stomps that signal that they’ve reached the steps. The way Nien does it, in complete silence save for occasional giggles, makes a smile emerge on Seoyeon’s face—one that she allows because she knows the other girl wouldn’t be able to see it.

(Nien had started, aside from the verbal warnings, loudly stomping whenever they reached steps because of the first set they climbed, where Seoyeon was caught off guard and nearly smashed her face into the ground. She had caught the tail end of the girl’s mutter that they ought to put bigger signs for these or something as strong arms wrapped around her and felt her face warm for reasons other than shame.)

It’s after another incline climb a little bit later that she tugs on Nien’s arm. “Hold on, stop. I need a second.” She drops to a squat, feeling her shirt lightly clinging to her back in the humidity. Looking up, Nien looks hardly winded—the girl’s more preoccupied with squinting at a sign instead.

How can she look completely fine? “So when are you going to tell me where we're going?”

“We're almost there!” comes a cheerful reply. That's not an answer.

Nien abruptly squats as well, and large eyes meet hers in the dark. Their sudden proximity almost makes Seoyeon stumble backward, and she scrambles to straighten up onto her feet instead. The girl follows quickly with a giggle and something under her breath that sounds like whack-a-mole.

“Almost where?” Seoyeon insists, clearing her throat. Nien starts walking backward—In the dark! This girl is crazy—and she’s forced to follow. “How do I know you're not abducting me in this random…”

She trails off when they step into a clearing, and Nien's excitement is palpable as she smiles at Seoyeon. She takes her hand this time, tugging her along gently. “Come on, it's way better at the edge.”

Nien guides her to a railing, and beyond it Seoyeon can see the city they rode out of. The buildings below them are like tiny boxes, with masses of lights nearly obscuring them. Up here, though, the lights aren't as harsh, and the trees reflect only a faint glow instead.

There's another light in the corner of Seoyeon's vision. It's Nien, whose face is practically glowing as she beams widely at Seoyeon. “So, what do you think? Pretty awesome, right?”

“It is,” she agrees, nearly breathless as she takes in the view. She glances around the landing. “How come it's so empty? I would think there'd be more people who want to see this.”

“Probably ‘cause it's almost midnight,” Nien remarks. Ah. Right. “Either that, or they go to Elephant Mountain.”

She points at something now, a shape that sticks straight up against the other boxes. “Most people go ‘cause they wanna see Taipei 101, which is that huge building over there. It used to be called the Taipei World Financial Center, but now it’s got a bunch of restaurants and shops besides the offices.”

A pause. “And it used to be the tallest building in the world, too. 508 meters.”

When Nien abruptly stops talking Seoyeon turns her head to look at the girl, already expecting to see a beaming smile back at her. Now, it looks especially proud. “You looked that up, didn’t you?”

“And memorized it, too!” the girl crows. “I’m your tour guide, gotta stay on top of the game.” With this Nien puffs her chest, using her free hand to point a thumb at herself. Distantly, Seoyeon remembers that they’re still holding hands.

“It used to be a financial center?” she prods the girl, not wanting her to stop talking.

“Yep, it was a joint thing between a bunch of banks and insurance companies and stuff.” Nien shrugs, eyes still focused on the building. “They still use their offices, even ‘til today. Suited up executives and their millions of employees, you know the deal.”

Seoyeon does know the deal. In fact, her father is exactly that, a white-collar officeman taking meetings in sky-high board rooms just like those in the skyscraper. It’s a fact she’s been acutely aware of since she was young—she reckons that if they were to be standing at the base of the building, it’d be looming over her just like that reality had for her entire childhood. 508 meters.

Except, they’re not. Here, in this park that Nien has taken her to—I should ask her the name—the building looks normal, not towering and domineering. Here, its size is manageable, like Seoyeon can take it in and look away just as easily, no longer to have it plague her sight. Her eyes land on Nien.

The girl rocks lightly on her feet, clearly not noticing the mini-revelation Seoyeon’s currently experiencing. Nien’s quiet now, just taking in the sight along with her. In the dim moonlight, her expression looks light. Carefree. She’s a little taller than her, Seoyeon notices, and is just tall in general.

She looks at Taipei 101. Tall, but far away. Not restricting.

She looks at Nien. Tall, and right in front of her. Not restricting.

“You should take a picture.”

“Huh?”

“Of the view,” Nien encourages, spreading her hands out towards the city below them. “We’re not coming back here next time, ‘cause I’ve got other places I want to show you.”

You do? “Oh, um, right.” She fumbles with her phone, nearly dropping it as she steadies her hands to capture the skyline, making sure to keep Taipei 101 in frame. After a few more clicks she thinks she’s about satisfied, until she notices two fingers trying to enter the frame.

Their owner pretends to look innocent. “What?”

You can keep your peace sign is what she means to say, but what comes out of her mouth instead is, “Get into frame.”

Now it’s Nien’s turn to look confused. “Hm?”

“The view.” Seoyeon repeats the girl’s words from earlier, pointing to the railing as her camera remains poised. “Come on, my hand is getting tired.”

“Me?”

Who else? “Yes, you.” She lurches forward, grabbing Nien’s wrist and tugging her in front of the landscape. “Hey, you’re almost as tall as Taipei 101.”

“I can be taller!” the girl insists with a leap. Click. “Or should I pretend to hold it in my hands?”

“A little lower.” Click. “Try pushing it.”

“Pushing it?”

“Like”—she mimes pushing against a wall with both hands—“yeah, like that.” Click.

Nien straightens up now, holding up a peace sign with one hand while her other one rests by her side. “This one’s a classic.” Click. Click click. 

She pauses to admire her handiwork, and checks her gallery to see more pictures of Nien than of the tower alone. Well. That makes sense, she reasons. Nien’s more dynamic. She moves, but the tower doesn’t.

“You should take some, too,” Nien suggests, moving towards her.

She clicks her phone off. “Why?”

There’s a confused laugh from the girl. “What do you mean, why? You need to preserve this memory.” Nien shrugs. “You’re not going to stay here forever.”

The thought makes Seoyeon jump. I guess I… forgot about that.

Nien continues, holding out a hand. “I can take it for you.”

“No,” is her immediate denial. “I mean,” she hurries on when the girl’s face falls, “I’m awkward with people taking pictures of me. It’s not just you.” I wouldn’t know how to pose.

The explanation makes Nien nod, and the girl suddenly takes a step to the side. “Take a selfie, then.”

Silently, Seoyeon complies, though she can see Nien watching her out of the corner of her eye. Somehow, it makes her more self-conscious. “Hey,” she mumbles, “turn around or something. Stop watching me.”

When she’s satisfied that the girl won’t be able to see her, Seoyeon holds the phone back up, positioning it to capture the tower behind her. Still, something about it feels off. The composition is all wrong.

She goes over and tugs on the girl’s arm again. “You need to be in the picture.”

Nien’s demeanor only seems to falter for a split-second before recovering quickly. “I need to be in the picture?” The girl draws out the need with a grin.

“For the composition,” she mutters, about to shove the girl away until she remembers why she called her over in the first place. “Stand behind me.”

“Like this?” In her phone screen Seoyeon stands in the middle, with Taipei 101 over her right shoulder. That looks fine. Nien, on the other hand, is directly behind her and is keeping about a foot of distance between them. That’s not right at all.

“No,” she answers, squinting at her screen. “Move to the left.”

“This much?”

“Yeah.” A pause passes as she analyzes the frame again. “Okay, now come forward.” She rolls her eyes. “I don’t have cooties or anything.”

“Can never be too sure.” Still, the girl dutifully moves forward, and at the silent raise of Seoyeon’s eyebrows takes another step. Finally, their shoulders lightly brush.

“That’s good,” she breathes, consciously aware of how close their faces are. One turn, and they’d be—

Seoyeon’s stomach plummets at the thought. Damn my short arms, she thinks suddenly, that we have to stand so close to be in frame.

“I’m taking it,” she announces unceremoniously, and squeezes her eyes shut. Click.

I only need one photo anyway.

“Anyway, what was I saying?”

She coughs. “Taipei 101?”

“Oh yeah, Taipei 101!” There’s a pause, and— Seoyeon’s starting to get really good at this now. This being distinguishing between Nien’s many different smiles, all with their own quirks and tones and meanings that the girl gets across before even saying a word. Now, with this one that suddenly crawls across her face, Seoyeon knows she just thought of a terrible joke.

“You know, if you think about it, this is your Taipei 101.” Just terrible.

The girl points between herself and Seoyeon with a hand, her grin only growing wider as she continues. “I’m showing you all the sights and stuff, so I’m like the professor teaching you Taipei 101—”

Seoyeon pretends to groan. “Neither of us have ever been to university overseas! Or, I haven’t, at least.” She looks at Nien, and tries to imagine her in an American high school, like they show in movies. It’s not hard to imagine, but I don’t think she knows American universities like that. “How did you even think of that?”

“The internet is free and vast~!” Nien waves her hand as if to say obviously. “Anyways, Taipei 101 is a super famous building that people like to look at, especially from far away, for some reason.

“So there’s a couple places around Taipei you can see it from—but really, it’s so huge you could probably see it from any part of the city.” Nien says the last part dismissively, like she can’t believe people would go to dedicated locations just to see the building. But you’re the one who took me here.

The girl continues, starting to pull Seoyeon back in the direction they came from. “One of them’s called Elephant Mountain— it’s just another hiking trail, not really anything special. But it always gets so crowded.”

Something about that tickles Seoyeon. “So what’s special about this park?”

“Hm?” Nien’s footsteps slow and she stops as well, watching the girl’s face.

“What’s special about this park?” she repeats. “You just said Elephant Mountain isn’t really that special, which means there must be something special about this park. So, what is it?”

Nien looks at her for a moment, and up close Seoyeon can see the girl’s cheeks adopt a light dusting of pink. It’s a little odd to her—What’s wrong with my question?—but somehow, the sight is still endearing.

Endearing in an objective way. Like how a baby is endearing. Objectively, Seoyeon thinks.

The girl clears her throat, suddenly shy for a moment. Nervous eyes finally flicker to her before looking forward again as Nien starts to lead them out of the park again. “Ah, well, it’s just that I used to come here a lot. Just, whenever… you know.”

Oh.

The fact that Nien is willing to be so vulnerable with her—even though we’ve only known each other for a couple days—is more than a little surprising to Seoyeon. I guess I’ve told her things about myself, too, though. It’s for this reason, she tells herself, that the girl’s dejected expression looks especially heart-breaking.

Maybe I’ll try something out. She squeezes their still-connected hands, and gets a small yelp in return. Now she really won’t meet her eyes, and the girl’s jumpiness reminds Seoyeon of a small animal. A puppy, maybe.

Her smile gets wider. “This is where you go to chain-smoke half a pack with your strawberry lighter?”

Nien looks at her now, indignation coloring her irises. “No? Smoking is expressly forbidden in public areas. And—”

“I’m just kidding,” she says, now the one to pull them forward when she starts recognizing signs and steps. “It’s the same in Korea. I’m not really a fan of smokers, either.”

She finally gets a giggle out of the girl, who leads her down the entrance steps and pauses for the umpteenth time—What now?—before just leaping.

“WOAH HEY!” Seoyeon nearly lets go of Nien’s hand when she stumbles forward, though she’s caught just in time by the taller girl. Still, she pushes her away. “What the hell was that!”

She gets a grin and a shrug. “Didn’t feel like walking the last step.”

“It’s two steps—!”

They stop abruptly in front of Nien’s bike and Seoyeon watches the girl take the helmet off of the handlebar, bouncing it between her hands. “I caught you, didn’t I?”

She tries to keep her eyebrows bunched and smile down as Nien adjusts the helmet on her head. “You wouldn’t have needed to if we just walked off the steps like normal people.”

“Yeah, but that’s no fun.” There’s a tell-tale click. “And what if I wanted to?”

“Huh?”

Nien clears her throat and Seoyeon catches it: the flash of shyness in the girl’s eyes. Now, she lets the grin grow on her face, even as the girl suddenly says, “I’m not a smoker.”

“So you’ve said.” How many times is she going to tell me this?

Some confidence seems to return to Nien’s features. “I know, but ‘cause you said just now that you don’t really like smokers.” The girl drops her hands from the top of Seoyeon’s helmeted head to shrug again, gesturing vaguely to herself. “And I’m not a smoker.”

Ah. Seoyeon gets it now. This girl flirts like a defense mechanism.

Two can play at this game.

She walks to the back of the bike instead of replying, settling on it as Nien watches her curiously. “You don’t smoke, and I’ve never smoked before.” A dramatic sigh. “Then, even if I wanted to learn… no one could teach me.”

Seoyeon stops, letting her words hang in the air as the two stare at each other. When Nien doesn’t reply for another beat, though, she starts to feel more than a bit silly. Oh God, why did I say that?

“Nev—”

“I can teach you!” The sudden outburst makes both of them jump, and now Seoyeon’s not the only one blushing furiously.

Unexpectedly, her brain supplies her with the mental image of Nien smoking, balancing a cigarette between her slender fingers like the cool protagonist of a manhwa. It does feel a bit uncharacteristic of the girl’s otherwise playful demeanor—She did say she doesn’t smoke often—and Seoyeon’s knee-jerk reaction is one of disgust. Tobacco is pretty gross. Still, the notion does have some alluring factor. A morbid curiosity on her part, maybe.

(Maybe, just maybe, she finds it kind of hot.)

There’s something like determination in Nien’s eyes, though it softens slightly as she considers Seoyeon again. “But, I mean… are you sure? Cigarettes really don’t taste that good.”

“Not better than strawberries, I assume?” She coughs, and thinks that Nien should just take the out so they can pretend Seoyeon never said anything.

(A smaller, louder part of her is still curious.)

Nien begins to nod, then stops as a slow smile suddenly emerges on her face. She keeps looking at Seoyeon, but doesn’t say anything right away.

(Now she’s really curious.)

“There is a way to do it that’s not that bad.” I thought there was only one way to smoke a cigarette.

She waits for Nien to continue, but the girl just climbs onto the bike in front of her in lieu of an explanation, kicking it off of the stand with a small hum. She’s not going to tell me? Seoyeon grabs her shoulders at the abrupt movement, bracing herself for an inevitable burst of speed.

They roll along instead. Not so inevitable, then.

They only get so far before Seoyeon gets curious again.

“Where are we going?” she asks, raising her voice slightly to be heard over the engine. In front of her Nien winces slightly at the volume, and she does feel a little bad for it. Still, it was either that or whispering directly into the girl’s ear, which Seoyeon didn’t want to attempt. Nien’s ears are red enough as they are.

“Can’t smoke at the park,” Nien calls back in response, picking up some speed as they enter the main road. Instinctively, her arms go to the girl’s waist.

She squeezes Nien’s middle when they’re safely stopped at a red light, and internally relishes at how the girl jumps immediately. Their surroundings are pretty loud and Seoyeon figures it might be hard for Nien to hear her.

She leans closer to her head. “You didn’t answer my question,” she insists. “Where are we going?”

Nien makes a strained sound and points instead of replying, slowing the bike as they head to the curb. She only catches part of the restaurant’s sign—Is that Korean?—as Nien cuts the engine, bringing them to a stop. Unlike before, the girl doesn’t turn around right away; instead, she hoists herself off of the bike quickly, dusting herself off as she turns to look at Seoyeon. She holds out a hand.

“M’lady.” Her smile is infectious.

“You’re so corny,” Seoyeon mumbles, but she takes her hand regardless. Nien steadies her with a hand as she hops off the bike, other hand already going to undo the clasp under her chin. The helmet comes off in a similar motion, and like before the girl fixes her mussed up hair.

(Like before, Seoyeon’s blushing all the same.)

When Nien’s finally satisfied she takes her hand again, hanging the helmet on the bike before pulling them towards the restaurant. Now, Seoyeon can properly read the sign—Mama’s Fried Chicken.

“That is Korean!” she exclaims as they get closer. “Mama’s Fried Chicken.” The familiar words wash like warm water over her tongue made comfortable with Mandarin. A thought occurs to her.

She tugs on Nien’s hand. “Hey, you say it.”

“Say what?”

“The name of the restaurant.” Seoyeon points at a smaller sign next to the door. “Mama’s Fried Chicken.”

“Mama’s Fried Chicken,” the girl imitates, in an accent that’s distinctly Nien. Seoyeon giggles.

“Hey, you can’t laugh!” Nien protests. “That’s, like, so mean! You can’t be laughing at foreigners!”

“Foreigners?” Her laugh is incredulous. “As in, you’re the foreigner?” Seoyeon gestures around them. “This restaurant and I are the only Korean things in the vicinity. If anything, I’m the foreigner.”

“But you just made fun of my Korean!” Nien insists. “I could have been making fun of your Mandarin this entire time but I haven’t—”

“Because it’s good.”

“—because it’s cute!”

There’s a sudden silence, and Nien’s eyes widen as she seems to realize what she just admitted. It’s the perfect opportunity—just perfect!—for Seoyeon to tease the taller girl, but she’s also been rendered speechless by the sudden compliment. Damn you, Nien!

“What’s all this commotion out here?” A voice cuts through their silence, and before either could react it excitedly continues. “Nien! I thought you said you couldn’t work tonight!”

In a blink Nien’s suddenly bent over, nearly 90 degrees as she crouches to hug an older woman who only comes up to the girl’s shoulders, at most. She’s probably even shorter than me, Seoyeon guesses.

Then, the woman turns to her and she prepares herself accordingly. “Hello, my name is—”

“A Korean?” Her introduction is cut off by the auntie—shop owner?—who gasps incredulously, reaching to hold both of Seoyeon’s hands in her own. “Nien finally brought home the Korean girl?!”

Between them, Nien starts to say something but the words don’t make it to Seoyeon’s ears—her mind is too preoccupied with the sudden situation to register anything else. Among the various questions running through her head and rendering her unable to speak, the most pressing one is Which language do I introduce myself in?! She gives a strained smile.

Better this than nothing. “Hello,” she starts, and cringes at how awkward she sounds. “My name is Yoon Seoyeon, and I am Nien’s friend.”

To her absolute horror, the auntie’s expression turns into one of confusion and worry. “You can’t speak Korean?”

“No, I can speak it!” Have I really been spending so much time with Nien that I can’t speak Korean anymore? She corrects herself quickly before she can dissect that thought.

“I can speak Korean. I am Korean— I came from Korea for a short trip.” Seoyeon feels a bit silly for how quickly she says Korean, Korean, Korea but repeats it again, for good measure. “I am a Korean person.”

“Oh my goodness, I was so concerned!” comes the auntie’s immediate reply—concerned?—as she returns to Seoyeon’s native language. Which is also her native language? she wonders. She looks Korean, Seoyeon thinks, and she should hope that she’s right after growing up around only Korean people for seventeen years.

“See, Nien was telling all of us about this pretty Korean girl she had met and I was so sure it was you because you’re as cute as a button—!” The woman claps her hands together as she speaks, oblivious to the sudden squeak that leaves Seoyeon’s mouth as a furious blush spreads across her cheeks.

Nien talks about me?

“Woah, hey, what are we saying?” Nien interjects, hands waving in the air as she looks between Seoyeon and the woman. They look like they want to hold something, she thinks absently as she watches the girl’s contracting and extending fingers. They’re all she can see, really, because she’s trying to keep her mind from going in all sorts of directions after that comment from the auntie.

Said woman looks unperturbed. “Oh Nien, what did I say about learning Korean?” She takes both of their elbows, nearly pushing the two teens into the restaurant as she continues in Mandarin. “How can you work in a Korean restaurant if you only know how to introduce yourself?”

“Wha—!” She sees Nien throw a pout at the woman over her shoulder.

“But that’s all I need anyway!” the girl says to the woman’s retreating figure, continuing to protest as she disappears into the kitchen. “Our customers all speak Mandarin!”

They only hear a faint Sure as sounds of shuffling continue to spill out of the area, and Seoyeon takes the opportunity to figure some things out.

She taps the counter. “Hey.”

“Hm?” Despite the apparent closeness between the auntie and Nien, the girl still seems to be nervous as she looks at Seoyeon.

“Who is that woman?” She keeps her voice to a hushed whisper, watching the doorway for signs of the woman’s small figure. Not her mom, surely? Somehow, she feels like that’s not the case.

“She’s my boss!” Nien says loudly, earning a smack on her shoulder. “OW—hey!”

“I didn’t know you worked,” Seoyeon comments, glancing around the small restaurant. It’s a standard fried chicken shop, with enough tables and chairs to seat entire classes of high school and university students at a time. She could probably walk down the road from her apartment in Korea and find the same place.

Upon closer inspection, there are some framed images on the walls, and if she squints just a little bit she could discern—

“You’re still here, right?” The auntie re-emerges, with some bags of boxes in her hands.

Seoyeon’s eyes widen at the sight. “Oh no, I couldn’t take this from you!”

“No, you must,” the woman insists, taking her hand to close it around the straps of the plastic bag. “I can’t just let you kids go into the night without some food!”

The auntie hands a second bag to Nien. “Here, you take some, too.”

“Wow!” Nien exclaims, playing up her gratitude as she takes the bag. No doubt at my expense. She raises a playful eyebrow at Seoyeon. “Usually I have to box the chicken myself, but you’re here just having it handed to you.”

“Well—”

“Of course she does!” The woman lightly smacks Nien’s shoulder and the girl pretends to wince exaggeratedly all the same. I guess she does that to everyone, comes a sour thought.

She puts her hand on Seoyeon’s arm. “I can’t just treat Nien’s special friend like any normal guest.”

Nien’s eyes nearly bug out of her head as she balks at the woman, spluttering as she attempts to form coherent sentences. Normally, the sight would have made Seoyeon laugh if it weren’t for the sudden churning feeling in her stomach.

Special friend? That makes it sound like… Like some sort of way, Seoyeon supposes for lack of better words. She doesn’t quite know why she can’t describe the feeling, doesn’t know why she even feels like how she does. I guess that’s just her observation, Seoyeon reasons. It just happens to sound like… like we’re… She can’t finish the thought when the rolling in her stomach gets worse.

“Ms. Kim!” Her name is Ms. Kim. The thought is filed away into Seoyeon’s brain as Nien continues. “We, uh— I mean, I wanted to show Seoyeon something!” The girl waves her free hand as she speaks. “I want to, I mean,” she corrects quickly. Then she says something under her breath, something that sounds like Want to. Present tense. Her hand is still waving.

Seoyeon interlocks their fingers. “I really appreciate the food, Ms. Kim. Thank you for being so kind to me.” She glances at Nien, whose redness has gone down save for her ears as she nods along to her words.

The girl clears her throat. “Yes! We’re just going to be in the back, if that’s okay?” Nien looks at Ms. Kim with hopeful eyes, then—for a brief second—gives Seoyeon the same look before focusing back on her boss.

Me? Why would you need my permission? The thought makes her feel a bit off-kilter, but she’s starting to realize that everything about this girl makes her feel that way.

“Oh yes, of course!” Ms. Kim looks more than delighted as she claps her hands again. “I won’t keep you kids here! Do you want me to keep your chicken warm in the oven while you go?”

“That’d be awesome!” Nien lets go of her hand to take her bag instead, leaning over to wrap her arms around Ms. Kim. “You’re the best, boss!”

“Don’t even mention it!” The shorter woman waves her hand in an Oh you motion when the girl lets go, taking the bags from Nien with one hand. Her other one goes to take Seoyeon’s, giving it a light squeeze as she drops her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Keep an eye on this one for me, will you? She’s quite the handful.”

She can’t help but giggle at her words. “Yes, I could already tell—oh!”

Nien suddenly takes her shoulders, turning her around to steer her away as she throws a “Thanks again, Ms. Kim!” over her own shoulder. Seoyeon imitates the motion and gives a likewise thanks as she continues to be directed by the taller girl towards a door in the back of the restaurant.

Nien’s grip is firm but not bruising by any means, she notices. The girl also seems not to struggle at all in lightly pushing her, though that’s probably because I’m also letting her. The thought is a bit embarrassing and she tamps it down in favor of a comment.

“I like her.” When Nien lets go of her to open the door she connects their hands again, not breaking contact as she watches the girl fumble with the lock.

I’m a clingy person, she thinks.

“Yeah, she’s awesome.” Nien readjusts their hands as they step out into the restaurant’s back lot, grabbing a water bottle on their way out. She leads them to a corner as she continues, “She knew my mom, did you know? So she’s kind of like my grandma figure…” The girl trails off with a thought. “Or my grandma here in Taiwan, at least.”

Here in Taiwan? She waits for her elaboration but it never comes. Nien claps her hands together instead. Just like Ms. Kim.

“Well, we’re here!” The girl suddenly drops onto a low plastic chair, with her knees almost up to her chin, and motions for Seoyeon to do the same. “This is where I’ve been going after our little convenience store rendezvous.”

Her heart rate suddenly picks up speed at the words, and her stomach does a flip. She swallows her blush with a mutter. “You make it sound so…”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Seoyeon shakes her head and tries leaving her legs in a loose criss-cross position. It’s only comfortable for no longer than five seconds, so she switches to having her knees up in a mirror of Nien’s image. Unceremoniously, the girl scoots her plastic stool closer.

“Technically, this is the employees’ designated smoking area, away from the back door of the shop.” Nien leans forward, almost as if to— Oh. She’s reaching for something behind Seoyeon, though their faces are so close together she could probably feel the heat emanating from her cheeks. And close enough to make me think— She doesn’t finish the thought.

Nien holds up what she was reaching for—a pack of cigarettes, right—from the low table situated slightly behind Seoyeon, a glance over her shoulder tells her. The girl grins goofily, a stark contrast to the graphic images and warnings of lung cancer sprawled all over the packaging.

“Now, because I’m not a smoker, as I’ve said before, these are technically my coworker’s pack.” Seoyeon imagines Nien sitting in with an unidentified individual on these very chairs—perhaps in a similar position they’re in now—taking a smoke break together and thinks she feels extremely ill. Must be the heat. Or the thought of tobacco, she considers, as an afterthought, because it certainly can’t taste any better than it smells.

Yet Seoyeon’s sitting here all the same, waiting to be taught how to smoke a cigarette because she’s just so curious.

Nien continues, oblivious to the churning of her stomach and flip of her heart. The girl pulls something else out, from her pocket this time. “This, however, is all mine.”

The famed strawberry-stickered lighter. Its body is bright orange, with a huge strawberry sticker wrapped around one side. Just like she said. The colors don’t go together in the slightest, but the sight is intriguing all the same.

(All of this is intriguing, but that’s the most Seoyeon will admit to herself.)

She watches Nien take a stick out, holding it up so she can see it more clearly. The motion makes Seoyeon realize she had been subconsciously leaning forward, so she straightens up with a small cough and faint burn of her cheeks. “That’s the one we’re smoking?”

“Yup.” The girl pauses after responding, seemingly realizing something. She says her next words with a grin, “I was going to say that since these aren’t mine we’ll just share one today, but you seem to be more eager than me.”

The splutter that leaves her mouth is embarrassing. “Ah, well— we’re— Well I’m just a beginner, so.” Seoyeon tries to shrug nonchalantly. “I don’t want to waste their cigarettes.”

“So courteous, Yoon Seoyeon,” comes a knowing tease. Her full name from Nien’s mouth makes her stomach nearly leap out of her body, though something else occurs to her as well.

“Wait.” Nien already has the cigarette positioned in her mouth when Seoyeon suddenly puts her hand on her wrist, stopping the lighter raised in a likewise manner.

Her expectations from before were slightly off. Yes, Nien is holding a cigarette to her mouth in a predictable manner, but there’s one crucial detail that Seoyeon’s imagination was missing. She grabbed my hands so many times and I never noticed.

Nien is wearing rings.

It’s not a lot. Just one on her right index finger and—a quick glance lets her know—another one on her left middle finger. They’re simple bands, but the moonlight somehow catches onto them and draws Seoyeon’s eyes to their shine. Moreover, the image of Nien, with widened eyes and an unlit cigarette at her command, nearly makes her forget what she stopped the girl for.

“What’s your full name?”

“What?”

“Your full name,” she repeats, suddenly feeling curious. She can’t be the only one who knows my full name if I don’t know hers. It’s not fair. “I thought I heard you say it once, but I don’t think you ever told me.”

“Hm.” Instead of a real response, Seoyeon watches the girl cup her hand around the end of the cigarette, using her other hand to light it with practiced precision. Then, as if knowing she couldn’t look away, Nien raises her eyebrows at her, flicking her closed mouth up slightly as if to say Watch this.

And watch Seoyeon does. She can’t seem to do anything else except stare, entranced like a student to their professor, as Nien steadies the cigarette between her slender fingers, apparently taking in a deep drag—Does she just inhale it straight into her lungs?—while her cheeks hollow out. Then, the girl removes the stick from her mouth, tapping some ashes off the end and turning her head to exhale the smoke in a steady stream, careful to point it away from Seoyeon.

(Maybe Seoyeon is a pervert. Because the sight of Nien, so casually smoking the cigarette under the light of the moon, is somehow exactly what she imagined and somehow not at all. The thought is perplexing, and it makes her squirm a little in her seat.)

“Your turn,” Nien says, holding the cigarette out to her. She takes it gingerly with her hand—I probably look so inexperienced—as the girl’s voice adopts a thoughtful tone. “If you smoke it correctly I’ll tell you my full name.”

“What?” When she nearly drops the cigarette Nien’s hand grazes hers, ready to catch it lest she actually drop it. Even though one end is burning hot. It’s certainly not the only thing burning.

“Can’t do it?” Nien raises an eyebrow, mirth dancing in her eyes. “You were watching me, weren’t you?”

And yes, Seoyeon technically was watching her, though she doesn’t know how much of that watching was of educational value. Still, the grin Nien is giving her is entirely too gleeful and seems to plant a competitive spirit that takes over her brain, because her hands start to move by themselves.

“Of course I can,” she says brazenly, raising the cigarette to her lips. Here goes nothing.

Her first thought is that it doesn’t actually taste like anything. She had expected it to taste somewhat like what the smoke smells like, but there isn’t really a strong flavor. Of course, she doesn’t have much time to dwell on the taste because her mind immediately moves to proving to Nien that she can smoke a cigarette, even though she did admit that it’s her first time.

(There’s a voice, one in the very back of her head, that tells her that Nien is entirely aware of this and just wanted to goad her into diving headfirst. A second voice, even quieter than the first, says that she knows this, and wanted to do it anyway.)

Then—because she’s not about to take the cigarette out and ask for last-minute technique advice—she inhales. Hard.

“Woah, woah, hey!” Nien jumps up immediately and takes the cigarette from her mouth when she starts coughing violently, moving to crouch next to her. The girl starts patting her back firmly, though not with hard force. Distantly, Seoyeon thinks the sensation is kind of calming, and it certainly takes her mind off the fact that her lungs are on fire.

“Ambitious, aren’t we?” Nien has the audacity to grin at her once she starts inhaling more air than smoke and earns a weak shove to her shoulder in response. Still, she takes the bottle of water offered.

“Shut up,” she mutters, though her throat still has a slightly raw edge. To her chagrin, Nien just pulls her own chair to where she’s crouching, sliding it cleanly under herself and leaving their knees interlocked.

The girl puts the cigarette out on the ashtray on the table with a large laugh. “Guess we needed that second one anyway,” she chuckles as she pulls another stick out of the pack. Something about her expression tells Seoyeon that she’s not surprised at this outcome at all.

Well if you just taught me properly… She knocks her knee into Nien’s.

“OW!” The girl yowls at the contact, dropping the pack back onto the table to rub her knee. “What was that for!”

“That was unfair,” she complains, taking the cigarette from Nien’s hand. “You should teach me how to smoke properly, instead of letting me make a fool of myself.”

“But it’s more fun that way!” Nien leans back quickly, just beyond the reach of Seoyeon’s swinging hand. She clasps her wrist instead, and uses her other hand to take the cigarette back. “But I agree, it was a little mean of me.”

Then she smiles, an earnest one that’s not laced with mischief this time, and Seoyeon thinks she couldn’t ever imagine this girl being mean.

“However.” There’s a practiced nonchalance in Nien’s voice as she continues. “There is another way to smoke. One that’s easier on the lungs, and might be better for beginners.”

Seoyeon nearly groans but Nien saves her the trouble, telling her outright instead of letting the suspense hang in the air.

“Have you ever heard of shotgunning?”

Like a gun? “Not as a verb, no.”

There’s a flash of something on Nien’s face—relief?—before her eyes suddenly curve into crescents again. “Then I’ll be the first to teach you!”

Teach? Seoyeon narrows her eyes. “You say that like you teach often.” Her question goes unsaid: Have you taught any others? Or maybe, the girl was taught by someone else. Her mind drifts back to the unnamed coworker.

Nien, however, just giggles at her comment and slides her lighter back out of her shorts. “Why, are you jealous?” She winks as she puts the cigarette in her mouth. Annoying. “Don’t worry, you’re my first and only student, too.”

The only makes Seoyeon feel a little bit better, until she remembers Nien’s first words—you jealous?—and an uncomfortable feeling blooms in her chest. Obviously, Seoyeon is not jealous. I have no reason to be.  It’s just… mildly embarrassing to be so clearly lacking in expertise. Especially when the expert in question is a harmless girl with fluffy brown hair and eyes that sparkle like she was born yesterday.

So no, Seoyeon is not jealous. Unsettled, maybe, but not jealous. I have no reason to be jealous.

It’s a mantra that repeats in her head when she scoffs, shifting her foot to lightly kick Nien’s ankle. “Just show me already.”

“Okay, okay, I am!” The girl holds up a hand, though her other one is absentmindedly flicking the tab of the lighter. “So, the way it’s going to work is, I’m going to take a drag of the cigarette first.” Nien mimes sucking in a gasp with the unlit cigarette, obviously exaggerating. Is that how I looked?

“Then, I’m going to keep the smoke in my mouth.” Taking the cigarette out now, she shifts closer as she says, “I’m going to lean in just like this, and…”

They haven’t started but Seoyeon has already stopped breathing, watching with bated breath as the girl’s face creeps closer to hers.

“I’ll exhale.” Nien sits up abruptly and leans back, making her jolt out of her trance. The girl’s eyes dart away quickly and Seoyeon can hear the clicking of the lighter as she fidgets with it again.

“I’ll, uh, try not to exhale too fast because you’re supposed to inhale at the same pace.” Nien coughs, still looking somewhere over her shoulder as she speaks. “I’ll match your speed.”

Seoyeon nods slowly as she takes in the instructions. Sounds simple enough. Her eyes flicker to Nien’s lips, then away quickly as she clears her throat. “Will our…” She clears her throat again. Get it together, Seoyeon. “Will our lips touch?”

Nien starts shaking her head vigorously as she loudly exclaims, “No!” They both jump at the volume, and it makes her realize just how close they’re seated. Which makes sense. We need to be close for it to work.

“I mean, no, not if you don’t want them to.” Nien starts to fiddle with the cigarette and she finds herself once again watching the girl’s hands. Her fingers are longer than mine. “Which, I don’t know if you’d want that. Why would you want that, haha?”

“Nien,” she says quietly, still watching her hands. “Let’s do it already.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, okay.” Then, the girl shifts closer to her—I thought the leaning came after the lighting—and before bringing the cigarette to her lips, whispers a single phrase.

“My name is Hsu Nientzu.”

What? Seoyeon doesn’t have any time to dwell on it, however, because Nien suddenly lights the stick and it’s go, go, go from there. Her brain kicks into overdrive as she watches the girl’s lips—They look soft, she thinks absently—and tries to remember what she’s supposed to do next.

Nien removes the cigarette from her mouth, and Seoyeon’s cataloguing the twitch of her lip as she tries not to let smoke escape when a hand suddenly enters her vision. She looks up to see Nien watching her, pupils trembling as her free hand is raised in a silent question: May I?

It only takes a small nod for Nien to finally put her hand on her jaw, fingers lightly angling Seoyeon’s chin as she gets closer, then closer still— Holy shit.

Seoyeon doesn’t bolt, unlike the last time Nien’s breath grazed her lips—only this time, there is no breath on her lips because Nien opens her mouth slightly and Oh my God it’s happening. Her eyes flutter closed.

The warmth hitting her lips makes her part them further, tentatively inhaling the smoke as it leaves Nien’s mouth. She barely swallows a cough this time, keeping her mouth closed as she remembers Nien doing. Nien. Hsu Nientzu.

There’s a stillness, then, and Seoyeon takes that as her sign to crack her eye open.

Nien’s pupils look overblown, she thinks distantly, but a louder part of her brain is more focused on the fact that Nien’s hand is still on her chin. They stay in that moment for a beat longer, with their faces mere centimeters apart, until Nien’s eyes seem to widen even further and she leans back when Seoyeon realizes she can’t hold it in anymore.

It being the smoke, of course, which scratches her tongue and leaves a sour aftertaste as she coughs roughly, aided only minimally by the claps on her back. Then, Nien grins and her easygoing demeanor is back, barely hidden in her voice as she puts the cigarette out.

“Well, what do you think?” The girl makes a show of dusting off her hands before handing her the water bottle again. Her other hand goes to rest on her knee and, unhelpfully, Seoyeon’s brain points out the fact that if she just adjusts them slightly, they’d be holding hands. “Not bad for your first time, right?”

A disgruntled sound escapes her. “The taste is actually awful.” Her thoughts on the other aspects of the experience, she decides, will be kept to herself. Drinking some water saves her the ordeal of having to elaborate, in any case.

“Yeah, I actually kind of hate the taste.” Nien shrugs and says, “Strawberries, am I right?” Then she pointedly swallows, as if to prove a point, but all it does is draw Seoyeon’s eyes to the girl’s bobbing Adam’s apple. Stop it, Yoon Seoyeon. 

She thrusts the bottle out. When Nien makes a questioning noise she almost groans, rolling her eyes. “Drink it, dummy. So it doesn’t just linger in your mouth.”

For a very brief, short-lived second Seoyeon thinks the girl is about to put the bottle to her lips—Which my lips touched—but she doesn’t, instead angling her head up to pour water into her mouth without contact. It does feel like the girl’s showing her jawline off, though, which is irritating to Seoyeon for reasons unknown to her. At least she didn’t touch it.

Nien wipes her mouth and cap the bottle again, setting it down between them. “Anyway, cigarettes aren’t the best for this. I’ve heard that weed is better.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Why did we use cigarettes then?”

“‘Cause weed is illegal here, duh?” The girl suddenly squeezes Seoyeon’s knee between two of her own when she sees her about to roll her eyes. “Kidding, kidding. Well, actually, I’m not kidding because it is technically illegal here, but I know what you mean.”

“Why don’t you just say that, then?”

“Your reactions are cute,” Nien says, and— Oh. She’s serious. Or, at least she looks that way, with how she stares at Seoyeon with a completely straight face, eyes boring into hers.

“O-Okay,” she stutters, suddenly unable to look the girl in the eye. Why would she say that? Probably just to catch Seoyeon off guard, she concludes, so she tries to pull her phone out to cover her awkward lack of a response. “Oh my God, it’s already 1 AM.”

“1 AM flat?” When Nien attempts to peer at her screen she just turns it, nearly shoving it in the girl’s face.

“1:13 AM,” she corrects, clicking it off and sliding it back into her pocket before getting to her feet quickly. Nien only looks slightly surprised—Is that the right word?—as she follows suit. It sounds like the girl mutters something like, It’s already Sunday.

Still, there’s something nagging at the corner of Seoyeon’s mind, and her feet don’t take her to the restaurant right away. Then, Nien tilts her head and Ah. That’s what I’m forgetting.

She fishes her phone out of her pocket and quickly opens it to a screen before pointing it back in Nien’s face. A second confused tilt of her head nearly makes her scream. Don’t make me spell it out.

“Here,” she coughs, pushing the phone closer to the girl, who takes it with hesitation. “Give me your Instagram so I can give you your photos.” Half a beat of silence makes her continue hurriedly, “I’m deleting them as soon as I send them.”

“Ah, I get it now.” Nien smiles cheekily as she begins typing something, though her head is still angled up at Seoyeon. “Does that line usually work when you pick up girls?”

Girls? “No, what the heck!” she stutters, hand already reaching to take the phone back. “I mean, I don’t— No, I don’t pick up girls. I don’t pick up anybody!” Why would I pick up… girls? Guys are supposed to do that.

Something suddenly crosses Nien’s expression and disappears as quickly as it came, and under the pale moonlight Seoyeon might be able to believe she imagined it. The girl smiles broadly with a, “Make sure to accept my request quickly, okay?” as she takes Seoyeon’s elbow, leading them back to the restaurant.

When she gets to her apartment door Seoyeon enters the passcode as quietly as possible, pressing her finger to the small speaker that would make a beep whenever someone entered the apartment. This time she thinks she muffles the sound pretty well, only hearing a small—

PING!

Seoyeon nearly jumps three feet in the air at the sound and quickly pulls her phone out of her pocket, shutting the ringer off with shaking fingers. Then, a silence. Is he still awake? The stillness in the apartment tells her that its only other occupant is asleep, but it takes a couple more moments for her heart to match its pace.

She looks down at the offending item. Who is texting me? The question is rhetorical, of course, because until tonight nobody ever texted Seoyeon. She taps on the notification, from an obvious tzumei602.

1:21 AM

nien 🍓 did u get home safe??

The question makes Seoyeon laugh. Of course she doesn’t use proper grammar. She types a response back.

you accepted this message request

you *you

you you literally dropped me off

nien 🍓 replied to your message: “*you”

nien 🍓 fuck me???

nien 🍓 welllll 😍

you hey.

you that’s not a censor

you i was correcting your grammar

nien 🍓 replied to your message: “i was correcting your grammer”

nien 🍓 I*

you no.

you the i is lowercase to differentiate from lowercase L

nien 🍓 ok fineee

nien 🍓 replied to your message: “you literally dropped me off”

nien 🍓 not in front of yoiur apartment 🙁

nien 🍓 you made me park a block down

She decides she can’t be bothered to correct every typo Nien makes. Staring at the second message, then, she’s considering if she should send the first response that came to mind or not. Of course I did, I can’t let my dad see you. Even though he isn’t awake at the moment. Or the lobby person. Another PING! draws her eyes back to the screen.

nien 🍓 or you just want to keep me as your little secret 😉

nien 🍓 why are you not replying :((( it feels awkward

Seoyeon bites her lip.

you i haven’t told my dad that i sneak out, so

nien 🍓 is typing…

you but i did get in safely, thank you for asking.

nien 🍓 is typing…

nien 🍓 that’s good ☺️

nien 🍓 i think youre tired so i’ll stop bothering you now

nien 🍓 gnight seoyeon :P

How can you tell I’m tired over text? is what she wants to ask—because her messages sound perfectly coherent, in her opinion—before she remembers that the girl was with her for the better half of the last three hours. She deletes her message.

you good night, nien

Among the cars parked outside of the hagwon center, one was noticeably missing. It wasn’t in the physical presence of the cars—sleek black and white sedans and SUVs nearly filled the parking lot, with little room for another to squeeze in. Rather, it was felt in their absence.

When all of the vehicles dispersed at 11 PM on the dot, students followed suit. Only one was left standing.

“Yoon Seoyeon!” A voice boomed through the parking lot, walking quickly with an air of contained haste. To onlookers, he was a concerned father, made tardy by circumstances out of his control.

To Seoyeon, he was a teetering facade.

“Father,” she greeted curtly when he came within speaking distance.

He raised a beckoning hand in response. “Quickly, the bus will leave without us if we don’t hurry.” His words carried a typical undercurrent of anxiety. Neither of them acknowledge it.

Side by side on the sidewalk, the pair was a sight to behold. The man was laden with bags—in his hand was a briefcase, on his back was a backpack. His other hand held an unwrinkled blazer, raised slightly to keep from dirtying sleeves that accommodated his tall frame. Next to him, the girl walked with a phantom weight that kept her shoulders hunched. Their resemblance was striking; a clear conclusion could be drawn, then, for their difference in height.

He didn’t address it and she didn’t question it. For both, it was easier than exchanging pleasantries.

The girl pointed at something instead. “Delayed. The bus isn’t coming for another half hour.”

They stood under the bus stop for another moment, shrouded in a familiar apathy until, at long last, the man spoke. It was preceded by a vague shuffling first, a rearrangement of items in his hands until one pulled an item out of his pocket—a wallet. He handed her some bills.

“It’s hot today.” 11 PM and 21 degrees Celsius.

It was only when she stepped into the cool air of the convenience store that the girl remembered her father. She glanced across the road, to the bus stop that sat a lone figure. He had put her backpack down, she noticed, and his hand moved to loosen the collar of his dress shirt.

A quick trip to the freezer brought her back to the cashier. “Can I just take these two?”

“One vanilla ice cream and”—the worker nudged the other bar with their scanner—“a strawberry ice cream?”

The girl nodded, handing a bill over the counter. Then, gathering her change and the desserts, she quickly made her way back to her father, keeping one bar in her hands as she held the other out. Then, “Here’s your change.”

He only sniffed. “You keep it.” Waiting until she took the seat next to him, he continued. “I’ll be purchasing a car soon, so we won’t have to keep taking the bus back from hagwon.”

The girl stilled for only a moment before opening her ice cream. Keeping her gaze forward, she said, “A car? Are you sure we can afford it?”

“Afford it?” Her father bristled, shifting slightly in his seat. “What have I been working so hard for? Of course we can afford it.”

“Yes, but,” she pointed out, “I’ll be starting high school soon, which is closer to the hagwon center. So it wouldn’t really be necessary, if it’s just to drive me home.”

The sound of biting ice cream lingered in the air before the man finally released a small breath. “You’re very smart, Seoyeon.” She barely held back a scoff at his change of topic. “Much more than me, sometimes.”

This made her pause. Her eating slowed, unsure if she should look at him or not. The faintness of his voice made her sneak a glance anyway.

He turned to her instead. “Keep studying hard. It’ll pay off in the end, especially because you’ve started in a better place than others.” An obvious reference to the many textbooks that piled in their home. Still, they settled back into a silence, deciding that to be enough conversation for the day.

The man stood up first, already hauling the backpack onto his shoulder as his other hand held a stick. “The bus is here. Let’s get home quickly, it’s important to get a lot of sleep.”

7:11 AM

nien 🍓 good morning seoyeonnn

nien 🍓 its still early so u should be asleep still but

nien 🍓 im up :( going to school :(

nien 🍓 anyways hope you have a good day tday :P

Seoyeon is not, in fact, asleep. She’s been suddenly afflicted with insomnia ever since Nien dropped her off early yesterday morning, and she obviously wasn’t going to be the one to text Nien first.

(Even though the girl was strangely offline for the entire day—Aren’t Sundays usually rest days?—and only sent a couple reels to Seoyeon around midnight with the caption i know you’re asleep so watch these in the morning. If Seoyeon had gone out to find the convenience store empty that night, Nien didn’t have to know.)

Now, having been lying in her bed for the past five hours, she decides to reply to Nien.

you i’m not sleeping yet, actually

you don’t text and drive

nien 🍓 woahh i didnt think youd see this right away

nien 🍓 replied to your message: “i’m not sleeping yet, actually”

nien 🍓 too busy thinking of me 😍?

nien 🍓 and im not driving btw

nien 🍓 i only use my bike for pretty girls 😉

The girl’s messages make her bite back a grin. I can see her face saying that in front of me. She sits up, shifting into a more comfortable texting position.

you replied to nien 🍓’s message: “and im not driving btw”

you don’t walk and text

nien 🍓 im at a red light!

nien 🍓 sent an image

The sudden photo catches her off-guard, taking up nearly her entire screen. She clicks on it for a closer look. It’s a nondescript traffic light, she notes, set in the red color like the girl said. Surrounding it is a similar warm color, though lighter as the sky is bathed in a faint orange. The girl herself is noticeably absent from the photo. Still, it’s unironically a captivating image, and she suddenly thinks that Nien has a knack for photography.

you it’s pretty

nien 🍓 its a stoplight??

A sudden thought makes her jolt. A knack for photography… Realizing she forgot to check the photos she took of Nien last night, Seoyeon swipes out of Instagram and opens her gallery instead. And I forgot to send them to her.

They’re nice ones, sure, if not a little blurry from her amateur composition skills. How am I getting outdone with a traffic light? Still, Nien looks nice in them, she thinks, and she should send them to the girl before she forgets. A quick selection and press of the share button takes her back to Instagram.

7:20 AM

nien 🍓 hello

nien 🍓 hellooo

nien 🍓 chat am i muted

you sent six images

you here are your photos btw

nien 🍓 oh whos that baddie 😍

nien 🍓 wheres yours!!!

you what do you mean?

nien 🍓 your picture

nien 🍓 or should i say Our picture 😆

The one we took together, right. Seoyeon nearly forgot about it, and certainly didn’t remember to check it last night. Opening her gallery again, she finds herself looking at the picture of Nien she left off on. With one leg off the ground, the girl is holding out a peace sign and leaning towards Taipei 101 in the background, beaming at the camera. She looks like a long-limbed starfish.

She pauses. Right, the picture. Seoyeon swipes past another photo and her eyes land on herself first— or, rather, herself in the screen. Both arms outstretched and holding the camera, her head is slightly ducked and her eyes are tightly shut. I look so nervous. Shifting her eyes to the figure next to her, though, Seoyeon’s breath catches in her throat.

It’s Nien, of course. That much is obvious. What’s also entirely obvious, now—what Seoyeon didn’t realize in the moment when taking the photo—is that Nien isn’t looking at the camera at all. In fact, the girl has one hand held up behind her with two bent fingers— probably to make bunny ears on her head, if Seoyeon had to guess. Ultimately, the girl didn’t, and it seems like that was a surprise to her as well.

Instead, Nien’s head is pulled back slightly, as if to get a better look at Seoyeon. Which is odd, she thinks with a stutter of her heart, because she isn’t holding the camera in front of her face this time. What’s most perplexing—confusing, she thinks—is how Nien’s eyes look.

The girl in the photo is looking at Seoyeon with the most adoring expression she’s ever seen, with slightly widened eyes and parted lips. Even in the dimness of the captured moonlight the girl’s eyes are shining, and they’re directed at a single subject.

It’s dizzying, to say the least. And confusing. Very confusing, even, because at this point she and Nien have known each other for less than a week and granted, have spent the entirety of that in the sensitive hours between late nights and early mornings, but still. There’s no reason for the girl to look at her like that.

(She’s not quite sure how to feel about it, herself.)

A sudden notification raises another question in her head. She checks it quickly—“are you ghosting me rn”—and considers this second pressing matter: can she show Nien this?

Should she show Nien this? Does the girl know she was looking at Seoyeon like— like what? Seoyeon hasn’t read enough romance books or seen enough movies of the genre to aptly describe it, but the emotion was palpable—even an onlooker could tell that it wasn’t a normal look between friends.

(Was it?)

(Are we friends?)

There’s a sickly feeling in Seoyeon’s chest and she can’t breathe, suddenly nauseous and uncomfortable. Quickly flicking through Nien’s incoming messages, she sends a simple response.

7:27 AM

nien 🍓 are you ghosting me rn

nien 🍓 im checking my phone under my desk btw they might catch me

nien 🍓 seoyeon?

you here

you sent an image

you focus on your class

She shuts her phone off and tries to ignore the sinking feeling in her chest.

Seoyeon doesn’t know why she’s hiding from her dad. Or rather, hiding Nien from her dad. Maybe it’s the going out at night part of it, where she routinely doesn’t get home until after midnight. I did tell him that I wanted to explore the city, though, and he did let me, she reasons. And the getting home late part— God forbid a girl doesn't feel drowsy until the sun’s long past setting. Who gave me that habit of staying up late in the first place…

But no, Seoyeon doesn’t think it’s that. Again, she’s not a prude, not some shut-in who barely goes outside. Mostly. And whatever qualms her dad would have about that—Who am I kidding, he’d have a lot of qualms—would be attributed more so to who she’s hanging out with, rather than what she does.

Maybe it’s the motorbike. And the cigarettes. But Nien isn’t a delinquent, she defends to her father in her head. And I was the one who asked her to, anyway. Also, it’s not like Nien is some stranger on the street trying to offer her drugs—she and Nien have shared vulnerable things with each other, and she knows why the girl even brought up smoking in the first place. That reminder puts a different feeling in her chest, one that’s still ugly but feels more like searing heat than… nausea.

Nausea. She feels nauseous, she could say, when she thinks about Nien in general, and maybe this is the greater reason behind her aversion to telling her dad. Something about the girl that makes Seoyeon feel like her dad just wouldn’t get it.

Maybe it’s the fact that she’s in a new place. Maybe it’s the fact that Nien’s way different from anyone else Seoyeon’s ever hung out with—If I can even say I’ve ever hung out with anyone—and that in the few days that they’ve known each other, she’s already admitted some things about herself that no one’s ever asked before.

(But that would be considering if anyone had ever asked.)

Maybe, just maybe, that’s the crux of the issue. The fact that they don’t know each other, and that Seoyeon went ahead and told this girl all about herself anyway. And yet, that isn’t particularly frightening in the least—somehow, the thought is scarier in ways she doesn’t want to explore.

Of course, her dad would not understand any of this. Not about Nien, not about the feeling of liberty that comes with speeding down streets—Has he ever felt free before in his life?—on the back of a motorbike, not about Nien’s mom—

Well.

Maybe that’s the one thing he would understand. She lets out a breath. “But what would I know,” she mutters, getting up from her bed. “It’s not like he tells me a goddamn thing.”

The thought lingers in her head as she makes her way out of her room, and she even considers asking him about it. Except this time, I’ll ease into it instead of asking him forwardly ‘What happened to—

“Seoyeon? You’re up early.” A voice breaks her train of thought and she flinches involuntarily when she realizes her father is standing in the kitchen. Speak of the devil.

“Oh, yeah, I am,” she answers lamely. “Just wanted some water.”

He sips on his glass, watching her as she takes a cup off of the table. “You don’t usually wake up early”—I wake up at 5 AM every day—“because I don’t see you come out of your room until right before you go to school.”

This is a little weird, is her thought as she pours some water out of the pitcher, keeping her eyes on him. He’s strangely… not unpleasant. Granted, he’s probably still referring to the CSAT in some shape or form, but he’s asking in a way that makes it seem like he has concern, too.

Like a normal parent, she thinks dryly.

A noncommittal noise exits her throat as he continues. “Or maybe you’re holed up in there studying in the early morning.” Ding ding ding. Seoyeon stares at him blankly. It’s like he doesn’t hear the words coming out of his mouth.

Even so, his tone isn’t stifling or dismissive like it usually is. Maybe, she considers, when you take away his chronic stress, underneath all of that he’s a pleasant person. She looks at him again. I seriously feel like something’s come over him.

Outwardly, her father looks about the same—tall, gangly, with a dormant nervous energy like he’s constantly reassuring himself that he has control over the present situation. Maybe he was visited by the ghosts of CSAT past.

“Something like that,” she allows, perching on the arm of the couch as he continues to drink his water in silence. We’re like roommates, she concludes, observing him. Just… passively coexisting.

“You’re going out a lot.” Never mind.

“I said that,” Seoyeon reminds him.

“Don’t think I disapprove,” he starts, “but you shouldn’t lose focus, okay?”

There it is. What their conversations always loop back to—she has to hold back a groan.

“Yes, Father, I know.” She bites her tongue to keep from rolling her eyes. “I need to relax enough to do well on the CSAT but not so much that I end up doing worse. It’s about balance, I know.”

“Right.” He nods, then turns to set his glass in the sink. “The CSAT is very important”—When is it not?—“and it was especially important for me, when I was your age.”

?

Now this is a topic they haven’t breached before. She watches him linger in the kitchen, seemingly preoccupied with a sudden memory and only somewhat paying attention to Seoyeon. Still, she’s careful not to make any sudden movements and scare him away from the sudden vulnerability. When will I ever have this opportunity ever again?

“When you were my age?” she asks carefully.

Her father nods in response. “You know, I didn’t grow up very well-off. And that taught me the importance of living reasonably, and not wasting money on things you don’t need.”

Huh. And here she thought her childhood was spent in a small two-bedroom apartment for a different reason.

“But the CSAT… the CSAT saved me.” He looks dead serious as he says this, not even looking at Seoyeon anymore. His gaze is on one of the rental’s empty picture frames instead, and if Seoyeon tried enough she could imagine the frame of the same size sitting in their own house in Korea. The one of…

“That test opens doors, Seoyeon.” Her father looks up at her now, and his eyes hold an unfamiliar intensity as they bore into hers.

“Yes, Father,” she mumbles automatically.

“I was a farmer’s boy. I didn’t have a future until I begged my parents to let me go to school.” He pauses, as if suddenly considering something. “We would have continued to be poor if I didn’t take my education seriously.”

The abrupt hoard of information is making Seoyeon’s head reel, to say the least. I mean, not to say that I couldn’t deduce why he cared so much about a single test, but it makes sense now. It makes a lot of sense, actually, as she recalls all the times her classmates asked her why she used to get picked up from hagwon in a bus and all her father would say in response was, “That’s none of their business.” I guess he was never shallow in that sense.

Would he be opposed to Nien…? For a moment she actually considers the thought, but her father continues before she could ask.

“So you absolutely cannot be distracted.” He’s already making his way back to his room, throwing a final command over his shoulder before he disappears. “You should stay home tonight. Who knows what kind of trouble you could run into if you go out at night all the time.” And then he’s gone.

It’s not even all the time, she wants to protest. It’s audacious for him to even claim such, she thinks, because she could count on one hand the amount of times she’s gone out like a normal teenager. As if I’m going to clubs or anything like that. Still, her frustration is curbed by a newfound regard for her father. I guess… he’s understandable on some things. Things like the importance of education.

So I’m not seeing Nien tonight? The thought makes her frown. I’m not going to run into trouble if I’m going to be with Nien. A sudden sense of rebellion flares up in her stomach. He can’t control my life.

She pulls out her phone.

7:28 AM

nien 🍓 reacted to your message with ‘🫡’: “focus on your class”

8:02 AM

you pick me up by the convenience store at 11

A moment passes, and then,

nien 🍓 is typing…

nien 🍓 yes princess 🙇

It was already 8 PM when the door to the apartment opened, and inside stepped a usual occupant. Usual in terms of frequency, however, and not in terms of the time.

“They let me go early today because they’re sorting out summer enrollment,” the girl suddenly said, though the volume of her voice was only just above a whisper. With a sigh, the girl muttered an afterthought and removed her shoes slowly, as if to draw out the moment. “I’m home,” she announced.

Shrugging her backpack off, the girl set it down next to the kitchen table with one hand and used the other to fan her face. A quick glance to the thermostat made her exhale quickly, blowing her bangs out of her eyes.

“And I forgot to buy more ice cream,” the girl lamented. “What was the point of coming home early anyway?” Yet, she didn’t move back towards the apartment door.

One step, then another towards the refrigerator. Her eyes bore into the handles, as if silently imploring it—to do what? She knew it was a foolish prospect.

Still, she opened the freezer side. “I knew it—”

The girl stilled.

Sitting in the center of the freezer, as if unsure of its position, a container of ice cream stared back at her. It wasn’t out of place, not necessarily. It was the gesture that felt unfamiliar.

Glancing around the apartment again, the girl called out, “Father?”

No response. Nothing else was out of the ordinary; only the single container of ice cream.

BEEP. A figure stepped into the apartment as the sound of a scratching pencil slowed. Simultaneous glances to the clock held different emotions; from worn eyes, exhaustion. From crystal eyes, confusion.

“Hello, Father,” the girl greeted. A small grunt came in response. “You’re home a little late today.”

“I was busy.” Shuffling to the kitchen, the man opened the fridge to take out a container of meat. The small box seemed to trigger a thought in the girl, and suddenly,

“Why—!”

The man seemed to freeze, just barely noticeably from the halt of his chest. The girl surged forward.

“I mean, why—” A strained sound escaped her, as if she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She tore her eyes away from her father and looked to the wall instead. “Why… did you come home late today?” The man tensed up, still with his back turned as if giving her an opportunity to stop. “She didn’t— her anniversary isn’t for another—”

“Seoyeon.” An emotion flashed in his eyes at the same speed he turned around. The moment was volatile and seemed nearly pivotal; Seoyeon almost leaned forward in her seat as she looked at him.

Sighing heavily, her father seemed to deflate with the motion. “I… am going to wash up. Prepare dinner in the meantime.”

He set the container onto the counter and walked quickly to his room, shutting the door without so much as another word.

Seoyeon bit her lip and set her pencil down in the same defeated motion. She didn’t dare glance back at the shelf, already knowing who would stare back at her if she did.

“He can’t control my life, he can’t control my life, he can’t control my life.” Her chant is hushed as she slips out of their rental, having been careful to make sure her father was asleep before heading out. She remembers his advice—Warning, more like—to stay in and go to sleep early and wonders how bad the repercussions could be if he knew she was actively going against him.

I mean, not really that actively, she thinks. It was more like a suggestion. And I considered it— I just didn’t want to. And sure, Seoyeon had never really been one to defy her father because he was a generally reasonable person—Not like I have anyone to compare him to—and she never felt a desire to disobey him.

Until now, apparently. A small part of her wonders why that is, though it gets quickly answered by a simple, Because I’m in a new environment. New city, newfound pleasant relationship with her father, new experiences—it’s all enough to make anyone curious and emboldened. And if a certain enigmatic girl happened to come out of nowhere and worm her way into Seoyeon’s conscious thoughts, that’s just part of the experience.

Though she would never boost Nien’s ego by letting her know, Seoyeon is still thinking about the girl even as she approaches the now-familiar corner. Which should be obvious, she’s picking me up. Still, her thoughts are of a rather perplexing caliber, one that makes her head hurt if she thinks about anything deeper than the repetitive loop of Nien bad? Nien good? What’s up with Dad?

But again, she will never admit any of this to the girl, and seeing her leaning against her bike—seemingly having not noticed Seoyeon’s slowing steps—makes her dilemmas dissipate accordingly. In their place, instead, are replaced with present thoughts about Nien.

She just looks so harmless. The girl really does, and in this moment when Seoyeon hasn’t yet stepped into the light spilling out of the convenience store, she takes the chance to really observe Nien.

Her hair—which Seoyeon realizes is actually a dark brown color, not black like the filter of nighttime made it seem—cascades down her shoulders and seems to be perpetually wavy. Unlike her, Nien is wearing a sleeveless hoodie that shows off her arms—Seoyeon looks down lamely at her simple tee shirt and shorts—and though the girl’s denim shorts are cut mid-thigh, they somehow still accentuate the length of her legs.

Begrudgingly, she’ll admit that the girl is pretty tall, though it does make her feel a small flash of irritation. Like she’s trying to be a goddamn model in front of this random 7 Eleven.

(And Seoyeon doesn’t have a complex about her height, not really. Sure, it gets awkward when people ask why she’s a perfectly average height when her dad is tall and lanky and she has to explain… In any case, she just doesn’t like being called short. And with Nien’s height and tendency to poke fun at nearly anything, she’s just waiting for the girl to slip up.)

Nien’s frame, however, is slightly understated from her slouch against her bike as the girl laughs at something on her phone. Her phone, which is mere inches from her face. She has bad eyesight or something? Seoyeon has half the mind to reprimand her when—

Bzzt.

nien 🍓

sent you a reel

LMFAOOOOOOO

It’s probably not even that funny. Sliding the phone back into her pocket, she steps out of the shadow and walks up to Nien, though she has to hide her grin when the girl suddenly startles.

“Seoyeon!” The girl scrambles to put her phone away. “Did you just get here? Why didn’t you text me?”

“I’m not always checking my phone for you, you know.” Her attempt at nonchalance falls flat when the two of them end up in a silent face-off and she finds herself suddenly nervous. What in the world would I be nervous about?

She clears her throat. “Were you waiting long?” Sidestepping Nien, she moves to sit on the back of the bike and waits for the girl’s response with a carefully blank expression.

Nien doesn’t stir. She just keeps staring at Seoyeon, not saying a single word. And Seoyeon’s not a generally self-conscious person, but this is getting a little weird. “Hello? Earth to Nien?”

“Huh?” The words seem to snap the girl out of her trance and she chuckles sheepishly. “Oh, sorry. No, I wasn’t waiting that long.”

Still Nien doesn’t move. If anything, her stare isn’t one of judgement or any negative emotion, if Seoyeon had to guess. It’s more like… quiet curiosity, like all Nien wants to do is observe. Like the girl is peering right into Seoyeon’s innermost thoughts—the concept makes her bristle.

“Hey.”

“Hm?” Again with the startle. Is she even paying attention to me?

“Are we going to go or what? Stop looking at me.”

Finally, Nien climbs onto the bike in front of her. “Sorry, damn!” She takes the helmet dangling off of the handle—I didn’t even see that there—and hands it to Seoyeon. “We can’t take a moment to enjoy each other’s presence anymore?” 

The girl kicks the stand up and Seoyeon involuntarily tenses, ready for the vehicle to just take off as she quickly clicks the helmet into place. In contrast, Nien just guides them slowly out of the neighborhood at an ambling pace.

Now she’s just making me feel bad. “Okay,” she coughs, “how was your day today?”

“Oh, so now you care about me.”

This girl—! “Hey—” Before she can get the rest of her retort out Nien speeds up suddenly, merging onto the main road. That was unnecessarily fast.

Seoyeon grabs her shoulders and leans forward, positioning her face right by the girl’s ear to be heard over the surrounding traffic. “You sped up just now so I wouldn’t hit you, didn’t you?”

“I could feel it coming.” She can’t see her face but she’s nearly certain Nien is grinning ear to ear as she speaks. “Actually, no, I didn’t just speed up for that. I was abiding by road laws. That’s how you enter traffic, you know.”

“Stop lying. You were going too fast.”

“Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t,” answers Nien gleefully. “But how would you know that? You don’t ride on other people’s bikes, do you?”

The girl’s words—barely flirting by any standards—could be passed off as just a simple observation, and which makes the heat that rises in Seoyeon’s face all the more embarrassing. Annoying, is her first thought. This girl is so cheeky, is her second.

“You didn’t answer my question.” A questioning noise makes her roll her eyes. She wasn’t even listening earlier. “How was your day today?” she repeats.

Nien hums and she feels the sound rather than hear it over the sound of the engine. “Hm, kind of boring, like it usually is.” The girl shrugs and the motion makes Seoyeon remember her hands are resting passively on them. Road safety.

“I didn’t get into any fights today, if that’s what you’re asking. Maybe it’s ‘cause no one wants to do anything on Mondays.” Nien veers off of the main street as they pass a stoplight, entering a smaller road and slowing the bike down. “Was thinking about what we’re going to do tonight, mainly.”

Seoyeon must be getting sick or something, because she feels her heart jump in her chest despite their slowing speed. She clears her throat and tries not to dwell on it. “What are we doing?”

“What’s your favorite food?” the girl asks instead of answering.

“I’ve already told you—”

“No, wait, besides ice cream.” Nien’s head bobs in front of her as the girl hums. “Okay, then what’s a food that you crave sometimes? Like, from your hometown or whatever.”

The question makes her pause. What does she like to eat? She could say that she’ll eat anything, But that sounds so lame. Maybe something from Daejeon. “Uh, kalguksu, probably.”

She purses her lips, then remembers that Nien can’t see her. “Kalguksu is wheat noodles—”

“—cut and served in a thick broth,” Nien finishes for her.

?

“How do you know that?”

Suddenly, the bike’s engine is cut and the girl turns around to flash Seoyeon a smile. “You act like you live in a bubble. I know what kalguksu is, Seoyeon, just like how our 7 Elevens have Korean ice cream.”

Then, Nien waves her arm with a flourish and directs her attention to where they are. Or where they will be, actually, because the girl has parked them in a neighborhood just across from a bustling night market.

“It’s a shame there aren’t really any good kalguksu restaurants around, but the food here’s pretty good, too,” Nien adds with a shrug.

Seoyeon isn’t unfamiliar with the concept, of course. They have them in Korea, too—stands of street foods all cooked up in a matter of minutes and served fresh to locals and tourists alike. It’s just so much larger here in Taipei, though the street itself seems pretty nondescript, judging from a glance around the block.

She swallows. “It looks… pretty busy.” Admittedly, Seoyeon’s Mandarin isn’t superb—just enough for Nien and her rental apartment’s lobbyman to understand. Even from where they’re parked she can hear the sounds of people and vendors talking at rapid speeds. What if they ask me something and I just have to stare at them because I didn’t catch it— that’d be so embarrassing.

Nien seems to sense her apprehension, though, because the girl climbs off the bike quickly and offers her a hand. “Here,” the girl says, her other hand moving to the clasp under her chin, “you don’t have to worry because I’ll order for us! You won’t have to lift a finger.”

“Are you sure?” she responds automatically, and stops herself from saying I can handle myself because really, could she? “I mean, I think I could probably get by…”

“Don’t be silly! You think I’m offering because I think you’re not good at understanding Mandarin?” Yes. “I understand you, don’t I? And you get me just fine.”

She starts to say I guess so when Nien continues, cutting her off. “Besides, I said I was gonna be your tour guide, didn’t I?” She winks. “You should let me help you. I’m pretty good company!”

Instead of a response, Seoyeon busies herself with the helmet when she finds herself unable to look the girl in the eye. “Since you want to so badly,” she mumbles, almost pushing the headgear into Nien’s hands.

The girl just hangs it on her bike and takes her hand again. “Of course I do! Come on, you need to get a taste of real Taiwanese street food.”

The first thing Nien makes her have is something called stinky tofu. She could smell it before they even got near the stall and nearly succeeded in pulling them in the opposite direction, were it not for the girl’s iron grip on her hand.

“No,” Nien had insisted firmly. “You need to try this, it’s actually fire.”

Seoyeon had relented, though now as the girl holds the container between them she’s having second thoughts. The presentation actually does look really good, but that smell…

“Plug your nose,” Nien instructs. “I’ll feed you, so just open wide.”

She complies with an Okay, though it comes out nasally from her blocked nostrils. The sound seems to only make the smile on Nien’s face grow wider, and the girl starts tracing the path of an airplane with the skewer. “Okay, now say Ah!”

“Just put it in already,” she deadpans. God, I sound congested.

“That’s what she sai—OW! OKAY!” Nien nearly drops the skewer from the punch to her arm but recovers with a sheepish grin. “That was on purpose, by the way.” Then, for some reason, the girl starts blowing air on the piece of tofu. I swear it doesn’t even look that ho—

Wow. Her fingers let go of her nose as she chews the piece Nien finally feeds her, and Wow. The umami flavor of the tofu just blooms on her tongue, and is complemented stunningly by the sweet sauce. It’s amazing, to say the least.

She doesn’t need to say a word for Nien to get the message, and the girl pops another piece of tofu into her own mouth with a satisfied nod. “What did I say? What did I say? It’s so worth the stink.”

“It’s pretty good,” Seoyeon admits, and opens her mouth for another piece. She raises an eyebrow when Nien doesn’t move. Did you not say you were going to feed me? “Well? Where’s my tofu?”

“Okay, okay, don’t need to get whiny on me now.” The girl quickly pierces another portion and blows a puff of air on it before feeding it to her. I guess it is kind of warm.

“Why do you blow air on it?” she asks around the piece, chewing slowly. “It’s not scalding or anything.”

“That’s because I blow on it,” the girl responds automatically, though she blinks as she actually processes Seoyeon’s question. “Hm, if I were to give a real answer… it’s a force of habit, I guess.” Nien shrugs as she bites another piece. “Actually, my mom did the same for me after I burned my tongue when I was young.”

“Of course you did,” she agrees. She can just imagine baby Nien excitedly biting into a food—a steaming broccoli, maybe—and bursting into tears just as quickly from the heat. “I bet you were a handful as a kid.”

“Hey!” Nien protests. The girl swallows quickly, clearing her throat as she says, “Actually, my mom told me I was actually very well-behaved as a kid. Like, she’d take me to the night market and I’d only run into the crowd three out of ten times, tops.”

She pretends to scoff. “Right, and I bet you burned your tongue multiple times until you finally learned to stop biting your food too quickly.”

Nien’s expression has Guilty written all over it and she smiles inwardly at the girl’s momentary speechlessness. Busted. It makes her feel oddly giddy and she has to cough before her chest starts to hurt.

Turning to move deeper into the street, she says, “Now I want to try the other foods here.”

“Coming!” Nien licks her lips as she tosses the empty container, leading Seoyeon with a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go this way!”

“You like sweet things, right? ‘Cause you like ice cream?” Nien poses the question to her as they stand in line at another stand, and from the sign at the front she can read the words fried milk. Milk? Fried?

“I’m Korean,” she says in response. “If our food isn't spicy, it’s sweet.”

“Awesome!” the girl exclaims, ordering quickly when they reach the front. She turns back to Seoyeon to hand her a skewer with three golden cubes. Wait, I think I’ve seen these before. “These fried milk things are pretty dope. Still don’t really know how they do it, though.”

“I think they have these in Korea,” she guesses, and taps Nien’s skewer with her own when the girl motions to toast them. “I’m pretty sure the milk is frozen beforehand and melts when they fry it.”

“Either way,” Nien says, taking her elbow to move them out of line as she bites one of her own cubes off the stick, “they’re awesome. I think the milk balances the dough out pretty well.”

She takes her own bite and nods. “I think it’s more like a custard.”

“I think it’s more like a custard.” Her words are imitated in a high pitched tone and the culprit nearly leaps in the air as she pushes against her shoulder.

“I do not sound like that.”

“And we are not in a 3 star Michelin restaurant,” Nien throws back, giggling as she bites another fried milk cube. “If you wanted that I’d have taken you back to my chicken place.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “I was going to try all of this anyway, you know. That’s why I came here in the first place.”

“Right.” Nien nods exaggeratedly. “You were going to try all of this super niche street food that you wouldn’t have been able to find without your super amazing tour guide, so that’s why you sat in a 7 Eleven for several days in a row just buying ice cream. Right.”

“He—”

A sudden gasp stops her defense. Oh, here we go. “Orrr”—Nien beams as she draws out the syllable, clasping a hand around the one holding her skewer—“you mean to say that I was part of your plan, because you knew you wouldn’t be able to find all of this without my help.”

Seoyeon sighs in defeat. “Sure. Let’s say that.” Let’s ignore how I said I saw these in Korea, too.

“Aww, Seoyeon, you’re getting soft on me.” Nien hums happily as she tosses her finished skewer in a passing trashcan and she does the same. She will admit, though, that seeing the girl genuinely pleased with the thought of Seoyeon intentionally seeking her out makes her feel happy, too. Her smile’s just contagious.

“So where to next, then?”

“You’re about to take the words out of my mouth,” Nien exclaims as she stops abruptly and points at a sign. Ah, of course. “We have to get milk tea! I don’t know if you usually have milk tea in Korea—”

“Not really.”

“—but Taiwan literally invented milk tea, so.” The girl shrugs. “You can’t visit without having it at least once.” Nien points at a large pan. “Like, just look at that thing. It’s filled to the brim with boba.”

Seoyeon watches the vendor scoop out the soft pearls into plastic cups and suddenly thinks of something. “I guess something like this wouldn’t be great for someone with a fear of a bunch of small holes.”

“Yeah,” Nien agrees, “like try-something phobia.” She pauses. “Wait, that’s not you, is it?”

She looks at the girl and lets the moment draw out, wondering how she’d react if she told her she did have trypophobia. She doesn’t, but the thought of messing with Nien is a little too enticing. “Ma—”

“Nah, you don’t,” the girl concludes. “You took too long to answer so I know you’re lying.”

“Wha— that could mean anything. What if I was thinking of a way to break it to you gently?” Seoyeon considers something else. “Also, thinking time has nothing to do with honesty.”

“One, if you really did have a fear you would have reacted already so I do know you’re lying,” Nien starts off, “and two, yes it does. For you it does—you’re a chronic thinker.”

“No, I am not,” she denies quickly. She’d have protested more if it weren’t for the fact that they’ve reached the front of the line and Nien has to order their milk tea, so she settles on glaring at the side of the girl’s head instead. Chronic thinker! What’s wrong with thinking? Nien looks far too cheerful for someone who just implied that Seoyeon was also a chronic liar. And that was just going to be a joke anyway… she can’t even let me have that one.

The worker returns with two cups and hands them over to Nien, though not before leaning over and dramatically whispering, “I think you should give the one with extra pearls to your girlfriend. It always works to get them to stop being mad at you.”

Girlfriend?

Nien nods sagely as she accepts the cups. What is she— “I’ll keep that in mind.”

What the hell does that mean?

They start walking away from the tent and Seoyeon automatically reaches for one of the cups as she tries to forget about what the vendor said. “Anyway, thinking before you speak isn’t a sign of dishonesty,” she continues with a cough.

Nien holds it out of reach instead. “Maybe not for everybody, but it’s kind of your tell.”

“What makes you think that?” She reaches for the cup again.

Still, the girl doesn’t hand it over. “Why don’t we test it out?” Nien pauses to clear her throat, positioning one of the straws just under her mouth—That better be her cup—as she looks at Seoyeon intently. “Be honest, did your heart flutter when he called you my girlfriend?”

Yes. She blinks. What the hell kind of question is that? Of course anyone would be surprised—we’re barely friends. She doesn’t say that, though, and realizing the drawn-out silence is proving Nien’s point she huffs pointedly. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Seoyeon snatches the cup out of the girl’s hand before belatedly realizing that it’s the one Nien was using as her fake microphone. She swaps them instead.

“Hey!” Now she’s the one who has to hold her cup away from the girl. “This one has more pearls, though.”

“Just keep it,” she mutters, taking a sip from the straw. Damn you, Nien. “Okay, this is pretty good. I’ll admit it.”

Nien looks like she wants to say something else but decidedly drops it. “Obviously, it’s my recommendation.” The girl starts walking again and they—quite literally—fall back into their rhythm as they meander along the tents. “I like this place ‘cause they always get the pearls just right. They shouldn’t be hard, you know.”

She chews thoughtfully. “These are pretty soft. And sweet.”

Again, the girl opens her mouth as if to say something before just closing it again. She looks like a fish. Nien nods instead. “Yeah, they are.”

After pointing at a few more stalls that ultimately weren’t interesting enough to warrant paying for an unsatisfactory experience, they arrive at a final vendor.

(“It needs to be something worth spending my hard-earned money on,” Nien had insisted gravely. Seoyeon tried arguing that she would use her own money, but it was no use against the girl’s vow to be her one and only stellar tour guide.

She had to hit her with a, “Then shouldn’t everything I want be worth spending your money on?” for Nien to finally give in—eliciting a rare blush on the girl’s face, which she gleefully counted as a win for herself—and pull them to the tent they stood in front of now.)

Nien starts to read off the sign. “This one is called—”

“Red bean bun,” she finishes with recognition. “We have a similar thing in Korea. It’s called hobbang.”

“Oh, what? So you’ve had these before?” She sees the girl already turning away. “Let’s try something else, then.”

“No, let’s stay here.” She tugs her back to their spot. “I’m craving it anyway. It’ll be a nice taste of home.”

“That’s deep,” Nien comments, taking a bill out of her wallet in exchange for two of the small buns. The girl waits for her satisfied hum before she starts moving again, and Oh. We’re back to where we started. Somehow, Seoyeon hadn’t noticed that Nien had been leading them in a circle. Huh.

Speaking of the girl, she doesn’t look like she’s enjoying her bun all that much. Her eyebrows are slightly scrunched, and there’s a slight pout in the downturn of her lips. Somehow, the dejected puppy look is really tugging at Seoyeon’s heartstrings.

“Why do you look like that?” She cringes at the bluntness of her question and finishes her own bun with a swallow. See, now I can’t enjoy myself. “You look upset.”

Instead of the playful reply she was expecting, Nien seems to droop even further. “I don’t know… I feel regretful, I guess.” Before she can object—What would you have to regret?—the girl continues. “Like, I wanted to show you a bunch of new foods that you’ve never tried before, but instead we just got stuff I like or things you’ve already had before.” The girl pauses. “And tofu that stank, I guess.” Nien is pointedly not making eye contact.

“Hey. Look at me.” She doesn’t continue until the girl finally looks up. “I still enjoyed myself, didn’t I? And I liked everything that we ate today, even the tofu.” She rolls a hand nonchalantly. “It was probably my favorite thing, actually.”

The words smooth out Nien’s eyebrows and seem to ease a tightness in her chest on the way, because the girl suddenly lets out a huge breath. “Okay, I hope you mean that ‘cause I really did feel bad. I mean, I don’t even know how long you’ll be here for.”

Seoyeon freezes at the words. Ah… right. There’s a feeling of heaviness in her chest, one that doesn't get any lighter from the look—Of hope?—in Nien’s eyes. I need to tell her.

The girl doesn’t seem to notice Seoyeon’s expression as she continues, starting to lead them over to where she parked her motorbike. “Anyway, my last day of school is this Wednesday! So after then we can really have some fun, instead of always meeting in the middle of the nigh—”

“I leave on Wednesday.”

The words make an impact immediately. Nien’s expression is indecipherable, like all of her energy is being channeled into registering Seoyeon’s words and nothing else. Why do I feel like I’m the one doused in ice water? “I mean—”

“So tonight’s your last night, then.” The girl’s words come out as a statement rather than a question, and Seoyeon watches her shift on her feet with obvious discomfort. The sight induces a pain in her chest sharper than she expects.

“No! No, I mean, we still have tomorrow.” Stop talking. What am I saying? We’re not going to keep in contact. “We can still… we can still hang out—”

“You’re leaving on Wednesday.”

“Wednesday morning,” she corrects, and the tinge in desperation in her voice is obvious even to her own ears. “We can still— we have tomorrow.”

Nien furrows her eyebrows, and she clearly has something on her mind. Say it. Say what you want to say. Tell me. Seoyeon’s demands can’t seem to materialize on her tongue and she can only stare helplessly at the girl.

“Okay.” The girl shakes her head in a similar motion to a puppy shaking off water. “Okay,” she repeats, “we’ll hang out tomorrow, then. Make the best of your last day.”

She nods silently, mouth suddenly incapable of forming words. She watches Nien cough, looking in her general direction but with blank eyes, like she was looking at the air between them instead. It’s only after a moment that the girl rolls her shoulders, seeming forcing herself out of a trance.

“In that case, you should get a lot of sleep tonight.” She watches the girl take her phone out of her pocket, clicking the screen on. “Or, wait! This morning, actually, since it’s already past midnight.”

Nien takes a large step towards the bike, reaching to hand the helmet over. “Then, get a lot of sleep for the rest of this morning, and then we’ll see each other tonight? It’s going to be awesome, so make sure you look forward to it!”

Then the girl settles onto the front of the bike and turns to look at Seoyeon with a smile, and her eyes finally start to return to how they had sparkled earlier. The tightness in her chest only slightly eases up but doesn’t get any lighter.

She swallows and pretends to busy herself with the helmet. “Sure.”

“You can drop me off in front of the building today.” Seoyeon’s voice is too loud in the night air, joining only the low hum of the bike engine. The fact makes her cringe, on top of her present awkwardness about the situation.

Nien was unusually quiet the entire ride, only remarking occasionally about things she found interesting along the way. Seoyeon had thought that she was pretty tolerant of silence, but now, sitting on the back of the bike of a girl whose face she can’t see and thoughts she can’t discern, the desire for sound is nearly overwhelming.

Especially when they had passed a road and Nien, seemingly offhandedly, mentioned that right down there is my school. Just that, with no other clarification or intention to explore. If Seoyeon was braver, if she had more courage than just enough to get on Nien’s bike despite barely knowing the girl, she’d have asked Nien to turn them around and show her.

Alas, Seoyeon is barely brave, and now the night has come to an end.

“Are you sure?” Nien’s voice sounds disbelieving, as if she had given her some grand permission to do more than just stop the bike one block later than usual. “What if your dad sees me?”

“He won’t.” I don’t really know that. “Besides, it’s… not that big of a deal.”

The shoulders in front of her stiffen for barely a second. She’d have missed it if there was anything else in her line of sight; normally, Seoyeon would pat herself on the back for being perceptive, but now it just makes her feel a bit ill. Among other things that have made her feel ill tonight.

Then, Nien cuts the engine and—instead of getting off—scoots up on the seat.

“What are—”

In a split second the girl twists her torso to face Seoyeon and brings her hands up to hold the sides of her head. The side of Seoyeon’s helmetted head would be a better description, but the feeling of Nien’s hands penetrate the sides of the helmet anyway. More importantly, the girl’s movement leaves what could barely be considered a gap between them as they sit face to face.

Nien’s grin is shit-eating. “I think this is mine.”

The words barely register in Seoyeon’s ears before she hears a Click and the headgear comes cleanly off her head. Just as quickly, the girl’s hands fix the stray hairs on her head—the motion is just like the other times Nien did the same thing, which confuses her because Was she not upset this entire time?

Seoyeon is confused. Confused and terrified, because she doesn’t know what to make of the girl’s expression even though she’s sitting right in front of her. Is she mad at me? Did I do something wrong? She’s not scared of Nien—she doesn’t think Nien has the capacity to be scary. Yet, the feeling of terror sits on her chest all the same, making it hard to breathe what little air is between them. 

So she pushes her.

“Wha—”

“Thanks for dropping me off!” Seoyeon hurriedly plants a foot on the ground and hoists herself off the bite, nearly losing her balance as she hops into standing in front of Nien. Her words come out faster than usual and it’s only then that she realizes how hard her heart is beating. Any louder and the other girl might be able to hear it, so she quickly adds, “This was fun. And, uh, the night market, too. Thanks.” She wipes her hands on her shorts and distantly realizes that they’re shaking, too. “We’ll see each other tomorrow night?” 

For the last time, her brain helpfully reminds her.

A smile spreads across Nien’s face; it’s slow and… happy. Not mischievous like it usually is, when the girl finds something particularly funny. It’s a warm smile, Seoyeon thinks, and it makes the summer air feel even warmer. “Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“... Yeah.” Her echo is lighter and comes out like a breath. She clears her throat. “Well, goodnight then!” 

Spinning suddenly, she quickly walks to the apartment lobby and tries to ignore the feeling of Nien’s eyes on her back. Saying it like that makes it sound a bit stalker-like, she realizes belatedly, but despite the late hour she doesn’t feel unsafe. Just… nervous.

Thankfully, the security guard isn’t at his post like he usually is, so instead of heading for the elevator right away, Seoyeon turns to duck under one of the windows. She brings her eyes just barely above the sill. 

Right where she left her across the road, Nien is still parked on the curb and looking in the building’s direction. Instead of starting to move, though, the girl takes out her phone and turns to poise it in front of herself instead. Why is she—

PING!

12:38 AM

nien 🍓 sent an image.

nien 🍓 proof i dropped you off + a pic tgt sicne we forgot

Just like the girl wrote, the picture is one of herself, with her free hand holding up an index finger. It points at the illuminated apartment building behind Nien’s smiling face, and Seoyeon can just imagine the outline of her crouching figure underneath the window. It’s the thought that counts, I suppose.

She looks up to peek back out the window and sees Nien adjust the helmet on her head, phone no longer in her hand. I won’t reply right away then. Seoyeon gets up as well and begins to make her way to the elevator, continuing to reason to herself. Nien would probably respond right away if I reply now, so I need to be in a comfortable state to receive it. She’s about to start driving, anyway.

Her train of thought rolls along as she steps out onto the third floor, pausing only as she enters the code to the rental. If Nien gets distracted looking at my text, she might get into an accide—

“Yoon Seoyeon.”

Seoyeon hasn’t breathed for the past minute. I’m so done, is the only thought in her mind now as she stands frozen in front of her father. The man has his hands folded on the kitchen table, regarding her as she continues to linger in the front area.

“Yoon Seoyeon,” he repeats. He nods his head to a space in front of him. “Come here.”

She complies silently, thinking of what she was possibly going to say to him. Should she be mostly honest and say she wanted to check out a night market, leaving out the part of how she got there? How much does he know? Would he call her bluff immediately?

“Do you know what time it is?” A glance at the clock makes her cringe.

“Almost 1 AM.”

“Exactly.” Her father’s tone is ice-cold, though not without a tinge of confusion as he continues, “Why?”

… Why? “What do you mean?”

He presses his lips together, and his vagueness only makes her more afraid. Of course, they’ve had spats here and there, but this is the first time Seoyeon feels genuine fear of his possible reaction. Maybe because it’s my first time hiding something so big from him.

“Why did you sneak out? What could you possibly be doing at 1 in the morning, especially after I told you not to go out so often?” The implication—that Seoyeon goes out all the time, that she’s some sort of troublemaker—makes irritation flare up in her chest, but it’s replaced by a cold surge just as quickly when her father narrows his eyes. “Are you hiding something from me?”

The silence that gets drawn out makes the guilt ring louder in her ears.

Even her father seems surprised at the wordless admission, momentarily speechless as he stares at Seoyeon. Then, his eyebrows draw together and then comes, “Yoon Seoyeon! I did not raise you this way.” Great. “What is it? Who are you hiding from me?”

“It’s nothing.” The lie tastes bitter on her tongue.

Her father scoffs now, short and disbelieving, as he nearly balks at Seoyeon. “I can’t believe this. Don’t tell me you’ve been getting caught up with some delinquents—”

“She’s not a delinquent.” The interruption makes her face hot and she can hardly believe she’s so bold as to cut him off so blatantly. Her father seems to think the same, and he quickly rises to his feet.

“So you are meeting someone behind my back.” His eyebrows furrow further as he steadies himself with a hand on the table. “Who is this girl? How do you know she doesn’t cause trouble?”

Now it’s Seoyeon’s turn to bristle. Somehow, the sudden urge to defend Nien is making her speak up more than defending herself. “She told me she doesn’t. She swore it. And—”

“What’s her name?”

She swallows uncomfortably. “Her name is Nien. And I can tell she’s a good person.” The explanation, admittedly, sounds lame even to her ears, and her voice trembles all the while. Still, she continues.

“She’s just someone I met here, Da— Father. She’s not distracting me from my studying at all. In fact,” she asserts, her voice getting firmer as she suddenly gains resolve, “isn’t that why you brought me here? So I could clear my head and prepare better for the CSAT? That’s what she does for me.” Yes, that’s what Nien is doing for me.

“By doing what?” Her father’s voice sounds wholly distrusting. “Again, what business do you have hanging around with some girl in the early hours of the morning—! Do you know how dangerous the streets can be at night? Especially for young girls like you.”

“Father, we’re not getting into trouble.” Her voice adopts an increasingly distressed tone as she reiterates that Nien is not a goddamn troublemaker. What kind of people does he think she makes friends with?

“You don’t know her.” He points out the obvious and it only adds to her ire. “Where does she even go to school? How old is she? She’s not influencing you to do anything, is she?”

Influencing me? Seoyeon could laugh. “No, Father, she isn’t influencing me to do anything.” A stone settles on her chest.

“You don’t know tha—”

“What could she be influencing me for, Father?” She wants to laugh or scream, do something to release the growing tightness in her chest. Influencing her? The cigarettes, Seoyeon suddenly thinks, were my idea and she didn’t force them on me. If anything, Seoyeon was evolving by her own accord by agreeing to let Nien lead her around a city she doesn’t know when she’s just a random girl—

“It’s not like— like, I’m gay or something.”

The declaration stuns the two of them into their second silence of the night. Her father looks taken aback, certainly, as he didn’t expect Seoyeon to say something along those lines. She doesn’t see much else of his expression, however, when her eyes suddenly drop and she forces out words she didn’t know were climbing into her throat.

“I’m not— I’m not.” For some reason, she can’t bring herself to repeat it. “If that’s what you’re worried about, that I’m getting distracted for that reason, I’m not. I’m not, and I’m really tired now, so can we finish here?”

Her request borders on desperate, and still she does not dare to lift her eyes to meet her father’s. She doesn’t know what kind of expression is on his face, doesn’t know if he’d be surprised or even relieved at her confession. Imagine if I… was like that. When he’s already a single father trying to just put me through school. She remembers the reminder that he never forgot to instill throughout her childhood until now, that he would handle everything for her because, Your only job is to focus on school. Don’t get distracted by anything else. Seoyeon thinks she’s about to be sick.

“Go to bed.” His simple command breaks her out of her thoughts. There’s a moment in front of her and she slowly raises her head to see his back turned to her, one hand still on the table. “It’s late. Just go to sleep.”

“Yes, Father.” She nods slightly though he cannot see it and quickly turns to head into her room. It’s only after she closes the door that she slides down against it, heart thundering her chest. Suddenly short of breath, she feels like she must have run a marathon with how disoriented her thoughts are.

A PING! pierces the air.

12:38 AM

nien 🍓 sent an image.

nien 🍓 proof i dropped you off + a pic tgt sicne we forgot

12:51 AM

nien 🍓 sent an image.

nien 🍓 felt like taking a walk and saw this

nien 🍓 reminded me of u :P

nien 🍓 goodnight seoyeon

She clicks her phone off.

“Miss Yoon Seoyeon, just what do you think you are doing?” A female voice boomed across the courtyard, and in a matter of moments the young girl was whisked away to the front office. It all happened so quickly—a flurry of paperwork, hurried calls—before she found herself sitting in the passenger seat of a new car.

It smelled new, at least. Just enough so that onlookers could believe that the car wasn’t nearly the girl’s age, wasn’t repurposed into a front of what it once was.

Her father spoke up first. “Your school called me today.”

The man didn’t want to speak too aggressively, lest he unintentionally lose focus and crash the vehicle before the two returned to their home. He adopted the direct approach instead.

“Why was that girl trying to sell you drugs?”

“She was not trying to sell me drugs.” The indignant answer was followed quickly by an explanation. “She approached me first because she wanted help for an upcoming test. I told her that I could make arrangements for her to study with me, but…”

“But…?” His voice held thinly-veiled suspicion, laced with fear.

The girl shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “But she thought I had ‘other methods.’ Like… drugs.”

“It is illegal to exchange substances without physician oversight, not to mention that you are minors—”

“Yes, Father, I know.” The girl exhaled frustratedly. “But don’t you know that nearly all the students at my school take some sort of vitamin—”

“You want to take drugs?” A loud screech filled the air as the car lurched to a stop in front of a red light. “Is that how I taught you, Seoyeon?”

“No, Father, it is not.” Her answer, albeit tinged with exasperation, was resolute. “You’ve taught me to succeed by my own merit without external distractions or vices.”

The girl sighed quietly, then sat up as she continued to face out the window. “I am not trying to argue with you, Father. I agree. I should study hard to succeed.”

The car resumed at its rolling pace. “So why do you insist on defending this girl? Is she your friend?”

“No, she is not.” The girl’s hands balled into fist in her lap, then she flexed them very slowly. “She just… She came up to me first. I felt like I should help her— Help my classmates, in general.”

“Don’t associate with girls like that.” His tone was firm and left no room for objection. “If some people use additives to succeed, it’s not fair to everyone else.”

“Yes, Father, I know,” the girl replied. Her tone was neutral, though it bordered on dejection. “She’s been suspended now, for underage possession of drugs.”

“And you never know with delinquents.” Her father said the word like it burned him. “They can convince you to do all sorts of things.”

“Yes, Father.”

The morning is, surprisingly, uneventful. She leaves her room to find her father already sitting at the kitchen table, looking at something on his work tablet as he spoons rice and soup into his mouth. He looks chipper, Seoyeon thinks wryly, and it makes the sourness in her chest worsen.

“Heading into another meeting today?” she asks politely. For a few moments he doesn’t answer. Damn, okay.

Her father glances up. “Yes, it’ll be the last one before we leave tomorrow. You’ve started packing already, haven’t you?” He looks at her with a blank expression, but she already knows what he’s implying. That I’ve been too busy fooling around to remember to pack. As if.

Her suitcase is half-filled anyway. “I have.”

“That’s good.” She waits for him to continue, maybe to give her a final order to stay in the apartment tonight or else, though she can’t really imagine what the or else would be. She’s not particularly eager to find out.

He continues to chew his rice. “I’ve contacted the hagwon and told them we’ll be back by tomorrow, so you can probably start again by that night.” He pauses, then adds an afterthought, “Or you can take another day to rest. They’ll understand.”

The narrowing of her eyes isn’t obvious, but she feels it in her heart anyway. What is this? What happened to being mad at me? We’re not going to address that again? Moreover, this unperturbed attitude towards her academics is… not entirely like him. A whole day of rest to myself in Korea… how lucky I am.

Korea. Right, she’ll be leaving this place soon, to return to her life that has only ever revolved around a college entrance exam. And leaving… something else. Someone else.

She swallows uncomfortably. “I’ll think about it,” she answers, and starts to make her way to the refrigerator. Despite the opportunity, her father neglects to add anything else. Instead, he stands and goes to place his bowl in the sink, leaving the table on the table as he retreats to his room. The sound of running water tells Seoyeon that he’s started washing up—he’ll be leaving the apartment soon.

Her eyes fall on the tablet. Usually, she couldn’t care less about the work her father does, but something about it makes her curious. She’s just been so, so curious lately.

So she opens the device.

No password, surprisingly. I thought he’d have been the type to lock everything away.

… Could she have looked sooner?

In any case, the screen lights up to the item he was last looking at, which is… a calendar. Not even set to today’s date—the top bar tells her it’s June 9th—it’s set to two months later. More specifically, two months and four days later, to August 13th, just one week after—

“Seoyeon, is my tablet out there?” The sudden voice makes her voice jump and she shuts the device off quickly.

“Uh, yes, it is Father!” she calls back. Her hand twitches, suddenly feeling like the device is radioactive. “Should I leave it by your door?”

His voice is slightly muffled by the wood as he replies, “No, I’ll be out in a moment. I just didn’t know if I left it on the table or not.”

She makes a noise of agreement and grabs a bowl from the rack, busying herself by the rice cooker in case he decides to come out earlier than she expects. The calendar quickly exits her mind—He’s probably just scheduling a meeting or something—and her thoughts instead return to the more pressing matter at hand.

At the same time, her father emerges from the room, adjusting a tie around his neck with one hand. His other one holds a bag, which he sets on the chair as he picks up the tablet to slot it in. Then, he heads for the front door and leaves only one command in farewell.

“Don’t open the door for anybody.”

She taps the side of the bowl with a finger. “Yes, Father, I won’t.”

When she hears the click of the lock she sits down at the table, right where her father was. Pulling out her phone in likewise fashion, her finger nearly opens an app reflexively. She swipes away and opens another one instead.

The longer she stares at the blinking cursor, the less confident Seoyeon feels about this. Still, it’s just a question. It won’t hurt. She starts typing.

how do i know if

No. That’s not what she means. Her stomach nearly lurches as she retypes her query.

signs of gay homosexuality

The loading bar speeds across her screen in an instant, and the first result is an article whose title reads, Male homosexu—

Back to the search bar. in girls, she adds to the end.

signs of homosexuality in girls

She reads the results—there are some people talking about knowing since they were young, who’ve played with dolls and made the two girls kiss. Interesting, maybe, but it doesn’t apply to her. Still, there are unusual palpitations in her chest as she considers it, and she’s not quite sure how to identify the emotion.

Some more scrolling and she finds results of people detailing their “gay awakenings.” It seems, from what Seoyeon’s gathering, that this is an experience that people have when they realize that they are… attracted to the same gender. Even just thinking about it makes her heart leap into her throat, like her body is physically rejecting it.

She forces herself to keep reading.

These people talk about watching TV shows, seeing beautiful actresses, meeting someone, and just knowing. But how do you know? she thinks. What does it feel like? Is the feeling a foreign one, completely brand-new and unexpected, like being suddenly faced with a light you didn’t know was blinding?

It feels different from looking at guys, apparently. That’s obvious. You’re attracted to who you’re attracted to, not anyone else. 

Seoyeon’s stomach starts rolling and she quickly opens a second tab.

homophobia definition

Dislike of or prejudice against gay people. She narrows her eyes. That doesn’t help at all. I’ve never met a gay person before—how would I know if I dislike them?

She tries to think about it logically. Well, gay people are still people. Who am I to criticize their lifestyle? It’s not like she was in any position to be judging anyone else’s life. I don’t think I hate gay people, she thinks, which is more than I can say for the rest of Korea. The thought makes her feel a bit better, and she closes the tab with satisfaction.

Back to this. Being gay means liking girls… She thinks of her own dating life, or lack thereof. No girls. And attraction… Seoyeon’s never liked a girl before. She tries to imagine it, what it’d be like to like a girl—

The feeling from before returns, though this time it lies much more heavily on her chest and makes it hard to breathe.

If I’m having such a strong reaction, she suddenly realizes, then I’m not gay. It just feels so… wrong. The feeling gets more manageable, like a rock pushed slightly to the side. That’s it, she thinks with a sudden seriousness. I’m not gay.

She puts her phone down in exchange for her chopsticks. That’s just it. She points her chopsticks in the air, at nothing in particular. I’m not gay.

Seoyeon hates loose ends. She hates leaving things unsaid, hates having to guess what the situation is when she could just as easily figure it out. And if it’s not the most pleasant thing in the world, she can take it—that’s why she’s fine with being alone at school. From her classroom to hagwon to home, she almost prefers being alone. It’s easier than having to constantly explain herself to people.

She’s not blind—she knows how her family looks. That she only has a father, and that they don’t live extravagantly like others. She’s fine with that—what’s most important is her academic standing. If the other kids don’t care to associate with her otherwise, then so be it.

Nien is not another kid.

Unlike her classmates, who found Seoyeon off-putting for her bluntness and considered it reason enough to politely ignore her, Nien did not ignore her. She’d say the girl did a little more than not ignore her. Which is why she can’t just leave her without an explanation.

Well, technically I did tell her I was returning to Korea. It’s not like she was blindsiding her, but still— Seoyeon does not want to leave this as a loose end. That’s the line of reasoning that leads her to staring at her phone screen, chewing on a finger as she reads the text.

11:05 PM

nien 🍓 should i pick you up at your apartment

nien 🍓 ?

you no

nien 🍓 is typing…

you meet me at the convenience store

nien 🍓 is typing…

nien 🍓 okie

nien 🍓 7 11 it is

She checks one last time for the sound of her father’s steady breathing—thank goodness he told her he was going to sleep early to make the flight—before slipping her shoes on.

I won’t take long, she thinks as she slips past the open door. I’ll just… say goodbye.

Seoyeon already has a sinking feeling in her stomach. To make matters worse, the heaviness in her chest is back, having returned the moment she turned the corner and saw Nien leaning against her motorbike.

The girl bounds up with a beaming smile, already holding the helmet in one hand. “Oh good, you’re here! Come on, we’ve only got—”

“Let’s go inside,” she interrupts. Raising her eyebrows slightly, Seoyeon watches the girl blink slowly, then place her helmet back on the bike after a beat of silence.

“Oh, okay! Sure, we can chill inside first.” When Nien’s hand starts to come up as if to take hers, she spins deliberately and walks into the convenience store first, pretending not to see it. Thankfully, the store is as empty as always—less witnesses for what she’s about to say to Nien.

Said girl looks at her worriedly. “Hey Seoyeon, are you okay?” She motions to the chairs at the front, now actively reaching for Seoyeon’s hand. “We should sit dow—”

She clasps her hands together. “Nien.”

“... Yeah?”

The girl’s words nearly get lost through the rushing of blood in Seoyeon’s ears and she has to gasp quietly to breathe in air. In front of her, Nien has a worried expression on her face and it only makes the rolling in her stomach worse. “I have to tell you something.”

There’s a pause, then a short bark of a laugh. “I know you’re leaving for Korea—”

“You know I’m straight, right?”

She watches the girl freeze as the words hit her in real time, making her eyes widen and her figure go still. Then Nien laughs once, a strained chuckle in the otherwise silent store save for the hum of the freezers. “Well, we’ve never come out to each other, so no, I didn’t kno—”

“I don’t like girls.”

Nien’s smile drops. “... Okay.”

“As in, I’ve never had a girlfriend and I’ve never even kissed a girl—” The memory of Nien exhaling cigarette smoke into her mouth suddenly enters her mind, along with how close their faces were. The image of the girl’s eyes then, up close and half-lidded, is extremely clear and she feels a surge of panic to get all of her words out as quickly as possible. “And I’m not—”

“Okay.” Nien’s fully frowning now, eyebrows drawing together as she stares at her, as if trying to figure something out. “I get it. Is this some kind of sick joke or something? Because it’s not funn—”

No, it’s not, she wants to protest, but she can’t find the words when the girl suddenly cuts herself off. She watches her eyes narrow and they cloud with a look Seoyeon can’t name—all she knows is that she feels suddenly small under it.

“Oh, I see now. You leave tomorrow.” What? “You’re telling me this now, right before you leave, so you can clear your conscience and dip and pretend like you’ve never met me—”

“No!” Her outburst is louder than she expects. “No, I just… I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

Somehow, her attempt at an explanation only makes things worse because Nien suddenly flinches like Seoyeon hit her.

“The wrong idea,” the girl repeats. She takes a step back, pointing a finger to herself. “I’m getting the wrong idea. Wow, you’re hilarious, Seoyeon.”

“No, you don’t get it—”

“I think I get it just fine. I’m Yoon Seoyeon, I don’t kiss girls because that would be unbecoming of me.” Her mocking tone is especially venomous on unbecoming. Then, Nien laughs harshly and it’s all wrong—it’s not her usual laugh of joy at all. It sounds devoid of emotion, entirely flat.

What’s worse is the words that follow, which seem to bury like bullets in Seoyeon’s chest. “You should realize that not every gay girl is going to be in love with you.”

. . .

Gay? Nien is gay? Her brain latches onto that part so quickly she nearly forgets what came after it. In love?

“I’m not like you,” she blurts out.

Her words land like a missile, and immediately Nien’s face contorts as if she physically struck her.

“I can’t do this.” The declaration leaves no room for objection as the girl suddenly storms past her and out the door.

“Wait—!”

“Don’t follow me,” Nien spits out sharply over her shoulder, hurrying to climb onto her bike. The girl forces the helmet onto her head and kicks the vehicle off its stand just as quickly. 

“No, Nien—” She reaches for the girl’s shoulder, but her violent recoil makes Seoyeon’s hand falter with an identical flinch.

“You don’t know me, Seoyeon.”

The engine loudly ignites, and then— She’s gone. Seoyeon stumbles as the feeling of the girl’s shoulder disappears from underneath her palm.

Panic settles like ice in her chest. I need to go after her.

She’s about to break into a sprint but a more rational part of her brain stops her—I can’t possibly catch her on foot. A quick scan of her surroundings nearly convinces her that may be her only choice, until— There. Leaning against the plain brick wall, a lone bicycle seems to shine.

It’s not motorized like Nien’s is, but it’ll have to do. She nearly runs as she crosses the street and grabs the handlebars, already wheeling it in the direction that the girl left in as she hops on. Now, where the hell did she go?

Seoyeon barely remembers the last time she had to pedal her own bike. Still, the pain in her legs is hardly noticeable as she flies down the road. Normally, she wouldn’t have even tried bearing the danger of the main street, among the large cars and motorbikes with a single metal-frame bicycle, but these aren’t normal circumstances. She barely even registers the absurdity of pursuing a girl she’s known for a week through a foreign country hours before her flight out of said country.

At this moment, she only has one thing on her mind. Find Nien.

She starts with the park Nien brought her to—What was it called? I never asked!—which she only finds after nearly riding in circles until she found a road she recognized. Like that night, the park is strikingly empty, except now its curb lacked a certain motorbike. Onto the next—

“HEY! WATCH WHERE YOU’RE GOING!” The shout nearly makes her crash the bike as she swerves into the busy traffic.

“I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY!” Bright lights blind her as she tries to place the source of the voice and her head snaps back forward immediately. I can’t crash on this thing before finding Nien.

… And Dad would kill me.

Continuing along the main road, her eyes scan the shops’ signs as she looks for a specific place. Mama’s Fried Chicken, where are you? Her eyes flick between the road and the sidewalk, until finally— There it is.

She jumps off the vehicle, stopping short of nearly riding it into the store. “EXCUSE ME! Excuse me,” she frantically addresses the shop owner from before, “is Nien here? Or did she come here recently?”

“Nien’s friend—!” The auntie’s concern is evident as she looks at Seoyeon. “No, Nien hasn’t been here all night. Is something wrong? Are you looking for her?”

Her instinct is to deny it—No, nothing’s wrong—but her urgency leaks out. “Yes, I am looking for her. Do you know where she is? Or where she could have gone?”

She gets an apologetic frown. “She usually just goes straight home after work, but she’s never told me where she lives. Maybe you can try her school? Although it’s pretty late now, I don’t know why she would still be there.”

Would go back there, she corrects automatically, because between being at school during the day and now fleeing pursuit at night, Nien was at the convenience store. Specifically, talking to Seoyeon, whose big mouth just went and ruined everything. The memory is still sore, fresh in her mind.

“Thank you.” She bows quickly to the woman, already pushing the door of the shop open to step back into the warm night air, getting back on the bike.

Wait, where is her school? The thought doesn’t occur to her until she’s pedalling madly down the road, and Screw it. It’ll probably be faster for her to figure it out instead of turning around to ask the auntie again.

Luckily, Seoyeon doesn’t have to waste more time trying to figure out which of the many high schools in the area is Nien’s because she suddenly remembers what the girl told her. Right down there is my school. The memory is from when Nien had dropped her off at the apartment, and she thanks the stars she isn’t that directionally challenged because she’s actually heading on the right path.

(She passes a night market and considers stopping, except it’s unlikely that Nien would be in there because What sense does that make? Still, a quick ride through the adjacent street tells her none of the parked motorbikes belong to the girl.)

Large brick walls come into view as she turns down a road, and in the center are large steel gates. They bar access to a courtyard on the other side, she guesses, but that’s not relevant because she’s not looking to enter the school—not unless there was someone inside. A tug on one of the gates tells her it’s locked, and a glance at her surroundings confirms her fear. No motorbike in sight. Flipping hell.

She stops her own bike and nearly collapses forward, blinking back a sudden onslaught of frustrated tears. Nien… where are you? It should have been obvious that she wouldn’t be able to find the girl—It’s her home turf, after all—but that didn’t stop her from impulsively going after her. There are probably countless pockets around the city that Nien hasn’t shared with her, and if she didn’t want to be found then Seoyeon was better off just going home. Maybe I wasted my time.

She just didn’t think Nien would take it so roughly—isn’t it obvious that Seoyeon’s straight? I mean, imagine me being… It’s hard to imagine, and any attempt to do so makes her want to claw her skin off.

And now I’ll just get on the plane and we’ll never see each other again.

But actually, the more she thinks about it, the more terrifying it seems that Nien’s so attached to her. Or rather, more correctly, that the two of them seem to have gotten so close in just one week. 

It was an unconventional… friendship, one could say. But what do I know about unconventional? It’s not like she has a ton of experience with friendship to draw from. Her eyes latch onto a random brick in the wall as she continues to recall, I mean, even from that first day— She kept waiting for me in the store and I just… kept coming back. Seoyeon doesn’t know why she kept coming back. Curiosity, maybe?

Most likely. And as scary as new experiences tend to be, Seoyeon’s actually satiated a lot of adventurous urges she didn’t know she had through this trip. Which can be attributed mainly to Nien, who showed her around the city and made her try a bunch of new things.

Maybe her life was kind of sad. It consisted primarily of studying, studying, studying, and it took an entire overseas trip to realize that the state of being she had grown accustomed to was suffocation. Leading to me practically trauma-dumping onto her. And making her feel obligated to be vulnerable with me.

She sits up with a small cough. Thinking about it now, it starts to make sense why the nature of their relationship is the way it is. “Which is probably not healthy,” she guesses aloud. It’s not. “It’s not healthy,” she repeats, and soon it becomes a chant, bordering on hysteric as she reiterates, “It’s not healthy, it’s not healthy, it’s not healthy.”

That’s just it.

Being around Nien isn’t healthy for her. Especially with how I haven’t been focusing on my workbooks lately. How her father would hate to hear that. And it’s not like he’s right—he’s certainly not right about Nien—but maybe… Maybe Seoyeon’s been deceiving him. And deceiving herself, by insisting that she’s not getting distracted. And maybe, she has been getting distracted, and it’s her own fault.

The ball in her mind has started to roll, and now it’s hard to stop.

That’s right, she realizes with a start. She’s the problem. She’s the one who made Nien run away, who’s been lying to her father about the nature of her expeditions, who’s been using Nien for her own gain— Goodness. Maybe I am a bad person. It’s definitely a hard pill to swallow, but on its way down it seems to reposition the stone in her chest and a new sense of resolve washes over her.

It’s better that Nien probably hates me now. It really is, because now it’s easier for them to go their separate ways. Which was going to happen anyway. She continues to reason as much as she rolls the bike back up the road, and instead of turning towards her apartment she heads in the opposite direction: towards the convenience store, to return the bike that she stole. I just keep doing this.

Still, she leans the bike back against the wall and takes a final glance at the store to see if just maybe, she’d see Nien sitting at the table waiting for her again.

(She doesn’t, of course, and tries not to let it sting as she makes the walk back home.)

“And I need to finish packing,” she murmurs, opening the lobby doors. “I still—”

“Excuse me, miss.”

She startles and finds herself looking at the security guard. Given her frequency to exit and enter the building at egregiously late hours, she’s surprisingly only run into the guard a couple times. I guess today’s my lucky day.

“Yes?”

“A guest left something for you. You’re Yoon Seoyeon, aren’t you?”

She doesn’t remember ever giving him her name. “Yes… I am.” Despite her reservations, her curiosity is piqued. “What is it?”

“Here.” He opens his palm, and in the center is two items: a strawberry milk candy, and— A lighter.

She doesn’t need to see the underside to  know there’s a strawberry sticker stuck to it. Sucking in a gasp, she nearly swipes it out of his hand. “Thank you,” she answers curtly. Then, after a pause, she asks, “Did she say anything else? Anything about me, or just in general, maybe?”

“Erm, no, she didn’t.” The security guard steps back politely. “Did you need anything else?”

“No, I don’t.” She shoves the items into her pocket and bows quickly. “I’m going up now. Goodnight.”

The guard bids her a likewise farewell and lets her scurry to the elevator. The doors barely close before she opens her phone.

12:01 AM

message failed to send: “nien”

message failed to send: “answer your phone please”

message failed to send: “Hsu Nientzu”

She taps the icon.

This account does not exist.

The plane is cold, and Seoyeon can’t sleep.

She’s practically shivering in her seat, wondering how her father could be fast asleep across the aisle with just a small blanket draped over himself. An identical one is lying in her lap, but it’s hardly enough against the air-conditioned cabin. Here in the sky, warm summer nights are a distant memory.

(It’s still mid-June, and she knows that Korea’s nighttime temperatures are far from matching Taipei’s. She guesses that the evening warmth won’t catch up until August, and wonders if it would force any emotions back to the surface. Somehow, the thought makes her both apprehensive and intensely curious.)

None of that matters when she’s freezing her butt off, and she contemplates asking for another blanket to somehow bear the next two hours. She shoves her hands into the pockets of her jacket, hoping to warm them up—

Something makes contact.

Pulling the item out, Seoyeon remembers a crucial detail from her hurried packing just hours before. I forgot to leave the lighter behind. The item is nearly offensive in her hands as the strawberry sticker nearly screams at her, and there’s a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach at the thought of this lighter getting increasingly farther away from its owner.

Until she remembers who the owner is. Why did Nien give me this? What could she possibly need this lighter for that Nien wouldn’t?

(She thinks about sentimental value, too, and notices that the edges of the sticker are only slightly beginning to wear. The thought only confuses her further, so she shoves it down.)

In any case, it’s not like Seoyeon could return it now. She doesn’t even know where Nien lives, and while she could look up the girl’s school once she connects to the Internet again, she doubts they’d be too pleased at receiving their student’s lighter. Who knows, it might be contraband for her.

Fiddling with the item in her hand, another idea occurs to her. It’s a foolish one, maybe, but it forces her halfway out of her seat. And the coast is clear.

Seoyeon locks herself into the cramped bathroom and catches a glimpse of herself in the small mirror. She looks tired already, though they haven’t stepped foot back in Korea yet. Somehow, as if entranced, her eyes don’t leave her face as she raises a fisted hand.

Right. Staring at the item won’t make it go away, but somehow, that’s not her concern. A short thrill races through her body as she takes a quick glance around the compartment. Nothing in here is flammable. Most likely. Perfect.

It’ll be like her last act of rebellion. The last time she’ll let this newfound impulsive side control her until she returns to Korea, returns to her life of obedience and expectation.

Yet, for how much Nien was making her watch while she lit their cigarette, she never really paid attention to the actual lighting process. Drawing on the memory now, nothing useful comes to mind.

She observes the lighter. There’s a wheel, her brain points out helpfully, and a stopper. She puts two and two together: she needs to roll the wheel and press the stopper. Probably at the same time.

Several tries and two bruised thumbs later, Seoyeon still can’t seem to get the lighter to ignite. She even tries shaking it—Maybe there’s no more fluid inside—but she doesn’t think it’s dead. Nien wouldn’t give me a useless lighter.

Unless the girl would, as a subtle sign of how she sees Seoyeon now. She tries not to think about that possibility.

(Later, when they finally get back home she makes a beeline for her room, shutting the door carefully as her other hand reaches into her pocket. There, she tries just one more time to fire the lighter—it nearly clatters to the floor with the flicker of the small flame. She feels a rush of satisfaction, one that gets quickly squashed by an overwhelming feeling of guilt and shame. She should just throw it away.

She shoves it into her drawer.)

Crying. Then, silence.

.

.

.

“Hello, is this Mr. Yoon?”

“Yes, you’ve reached me. May I ask what this call is about?” The man’s phone was wedged between his cheek and shoulder as he only partially listened to the speaker, still preoccupied with the report on his screen.

“This is the Seoul Regional Hospital. Your wife has been recently admitted to our hospital and we are requesting your prompt arrival.” The caller didn’t finish speaking before the man was already out of his seat, computer forgotten as he vacated the office.

It takes ten minutes to get to the hospital.

He made it in seven minutes.

She died in five.

The gathering was small, with what few relatives his wife had in attendance. Most sat at the table and talked quietly among themselves, with some remaining standing at the walls. All were watching the man.

He stood silently by the casket, eyes not leaving the portrait of his wife. To his chest he held a newborn, whose carrier was placed below the singular wreath he stood next to. Neither of the two made a sound, dictating the volume of the rest of the hall.

At long last, there was a small mew.

He reacted immediately. Straightening up, the man shifted slightly—careful not to move too quickly and upset the infant—as he turned to the rest of the party.

With a bow of his head, his voice carried throughout the venue. “Thank you all for paying your respects.”

“May she rest in peace.” Murmurs of agreement followed as the guests approached the man to give their final regards, and one by one they exited the hall.

Only one other person remained.

“So,” the shorter man started tentatively. Evidently finding words inadequate, he pointed his nose to the man’s chest.

“Speak, hyung.”

“Alright, then.” The man’s brother spoke bluntly, not mincing his words as he looked at him. “What are you going to do about her? I mean, I know you can’t really afford to hire help right now, but—”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“How are you going to do that?” His brother’s eyebrows drew together in clear concern. “Didn’t you just get your new job? You’ll need to put a lot of work in to advance. You can’t possibly handle a newbor—”

“Did you come all the way from Seoul just to tell me that?”

There was a frustrated scoff, though it smoothened out with a small shake of his brother’s head. “No, of course not. You don’t mean that. But I meant what I said. You need help—”

“I’ll make it work,” the man insisted. At the second small sound from the baby he bent to pick up the carrier, beginning to make his way to the exit. “I’ll keep working and I’ll balance the two.”

Stopping for a moment, it seemed like something suddenly occurred to him. Turning to his brother, he said, “Don’t you think I’ll need to, now more than ever? You know I— we will need the money. Seoyeon will. And she needs a parent, too. She can’t lose both of them at once.”

“Then you shouldn’t be alone,” his brother countered. “Look, I have a friend who just transferred to education administration, but he was working in the finance sector for a while before that. Got to where you’re probably trying to go.” He held up a hand, as if to physically offer the suggestion. “He just had a baby girl, too, so maybe you two could—”

A third cry cut him off, this time a bit louder and more drawn out.

The man didn’t even look at his brother now, setting the carrier down as he adjusted the newborn in his hold. “I don’t need help,” he reiterated, now settling the baby into the seat, “so stop trying. I can handle it.”

His brother opened his mouth as if to protest, then closed it in defeat. “Fine. Since that’s what you want, I’ll let you be. But know that you can always call. Seoul isn’t that far away, so you shouldn’t hesitate to contact me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

It seemed like his brother realized that was as much as he was going to get, so he sighed quietly and looked at the carrier instead. “So… Seoyeon? Did you choose the name?”

“No. She did.”

Neither of them needed to acknowledge who she was.

“Hey, where’d you go?” A classmate Seoyeon doesn’t remember the name of asks her the question as she pulls out her seat at hagwon. She’s been in Korea for all of seven hours and already she’s being investigated for her whereabouts. “Summer classes started a week ago.”

They’re not really classmates, not in the sense of sharing a class in their actual school. They just happen to attend the same hagwon, and this person was more often sleeping or trying to lift answers than actually talking to Seoyeon. It’s abrupt, and she thinks people being excessively nosy is probably a pet peeve of hers. Still, she’s not rude, so, “I was on a business trip with my dad.”

“What’d you do? Where’d you go?”

This person is so nosy. She spies a stack of papers by the door—something she forgot to pick up on her way in, probably—and notices that the one on her seatmate’s desk is painfully empty. “Hey.”

“What?”

“How old are you? Shouldn’t you be speaking formally to me?”

The kid smirks back at her. “You’re a third year in high school, right? I’m a first year, but they put me with you guys ‘cause I’m pretty smart. Want me to call you unnie?”

Her seatmate seems generally easy-going, like she lacked worries—probably due to her age, if Seoyeon had to guess. Still, she reminds her of someone, though the realization makes her stomach drop suddenly. A flash of irritation washes over her. “What’s your name? Show some respect.”

“It’s Hayeon,” the girl answers. “Wait, you didn’t answer my question—” At this point Seoyeon stops listening, because the whole you didn’t answer my question and general attempt to initiate friendly banter is reminding her too much of someone she’d much rather not think about right now, so she cuts her seatmate off abruptly.

“Hey, Hayeon.” Said girl’s eyes widen and Man. She feels it, what she feels when she has to address her presidential duties and her classmates stop looking at her like a peer and more like an authority figure. Her tone is a little mean, she’ll admit, but she doesn’t stop. “Stop asking about my private life and get me a paper.”

“Okay.” Hayeon’s reply is just a squeak as she gets up quickly, already oriented towards the door. She watches the younger girl and wants to feel satisfaction but she doesn’t, she just feels bad and also Nien would’ve—

Her irritation returns stronger than ever, so she forces her eyes down.

Seoyeon’s father is a bit of a perplexing person.

She thinks as much one night, when they’ve just finished dinner and she’s about to put her bowl in the sink. Just as she’s about to get up, he abruptly stands up first and she moves aside out of habit. Breaking their silent routine, however, her father doesn’t head for his room right away— instead, he turns for the fridge.

Correction: the freezer. Because he suddenly opens it and pulls some items out, handing one of them to her. Then, in her hand is a frozen ice cream bar, and before the coldness even registers on her skin he’s already out of the kitchen, moving to sit on the couch where his tablet lay on the coffee table.

All in the span of a minute, entirely without words. Still, there’s an unexpected warmth.

“Dad, are you hot? I’m very hot right now.” The question was posed by a little girl, who sat on the ground as a man typed something on his laptop. Breathing indications of the heat, the two wore similarly-plain tee shirts and shorts, though the man’s posture was more fitting in an office setting rather than a small living room.

The child, no older than four, turned over on the ground. “Dad, it’s so hot in here!”

For however small the apartment may have seemed to the little girl, its walls were even closer—heat even more stifling—to the man. Still, his typing stalled. “Shall we do something about it?”

The girl shot up. “Yes, Dad, we should! Are we going to get a fan?”

“A fan…?” The question made the trace of a light in his eyes disappear slightly, then reappear just as quickly. She didn’t notice. “How about ice cream instead? You can hold it in your hand then.”

“ICE CREAM?” As if already energized by the dessert, the girl scrambled toward the front door. “Let’s get ice cream! I want ice cream!”

The soft sound of the laptop lid replaced his response, and soon the two were on the road, heading for a familiar convenience store.

If Seoyeon thought her father had changed for good, she was sorely mistaken.

Maybe she was terribly naive for thinking so, that he’d somehow reformed and stopped acting like her schooling was the end all, be all of her life. Either that, or a spirit had possessed his body for the past two months since that trip and his old self was only now breaking free.

Such scenarios are being imagined in Seoyeon’s head as she looks at her father in front of her, and the more reasonable part of her mind tells her that he looks just the same as always. Maybe, just slightly, a little more haggard.

He has her trapped in the inopportune space in front of their front door, and if she was any faster she’d already be out of the house and on the way to school. She’d also not have to try to be calm with him, not have to wrestle a newfound inclination for exasperation that’s been afflicting her these days.

Alas, Seoyeon is not on the path outside their house, and her patience is thin.

“Today is the first day of the semester.”

She fights the roll of her eyes. “Yes, Father, I am aware.”

“The first day of your last semester,” he reminds her. He’s also standing awkwardly, she notices, in the living area like he was waiting to catch her. So maybe I wouldn’t be on the path by now. “Remember to keep up your work until the end.”

When have I not? Really, his observations are so astute. “Yes, Father, I will.”

“And—”

The clock behind his head ticks loudly, as if mocking her. The longer he continues to recite these repetitive, rather meaningless reminders, the faster she’ll have to walk to make it to school. Like I don’t already walk fast enough.

“Father, I get it!” Even she startles at her sudden interjection, and she hopes he won’t mind it too much. “I—”

“Did you just raise your voice at me?”

Her blood runs cold.

“No, I didn’t,” she replies, a bit fearfully. Concern now overcomes the frustration in her body, which is in itself a cause for concern because she’s never had to feel like this before. Because for as many times as he’s treated her like a typical teenager whose academic life he needed to micromanage, she’s never taken it to heart because she’s never actually had a reason for him to treat her that way, never actually acted out or talked back to him—until now.

Except this would be the second time she’s done this, because the first was—

“I am just expressing concern for you, Seoyeon, like any parent would. Am I not allowed to be your father now?” There’s a tight expression on his face, like he’s straining to keep it neutral.

“You are.”

“You think because you’re 18 now, you know everything? Because you’re one year closer to adulthood?”

Ah.

So that’s what this is about. He looks like he wants to say more, of whatever else he wants to say to her when he seems to realize her position, with her bag already on her back and figure angled towards the door. “You’ll be late,” he says instead, the fight apparently leaving his body. “Should I take the car out? I can drive you to school.”

“I can walk it,” she answers quickly. “I’ll just go fast, it’s fine.”

“Okay,” he agrees, and it’s like whiplash with how quickly the tension is cut, and now they’re back to their vaguely-awkward roommate dynamic that had been developing before this sudden spat. So those two months weren’t my imagination…?

She ducks her head in a small bow. “Then, I’ll get going now.”

“Yes, go quickly. You don’t want to be late.”

That’s ironic, she tells the image of her father in her head as she hurries out of the house, considering you were the one keeping me from going to school in the first place. She adjusts the bag on her shoulders as she picks up the pace. Whatever. I’m going now.

It’s too warm today.

And on top of that, people keep irritating her, mostly by just being nuisances to the classroom environment instead of bothering her directly. Usually, she’d ignore them, but now she finds the task nearly impossible.

Which is another thing— this mood she’s been in lately, where she lets her buttons get pushed more easily than usual. It’s upsetting to think about, because she’s never been this quick to aggravation before, and for once in her life she just wants to go home.

Two figures enter her view. She identifies one of them as a junior who often visits her class—Yubin, was her name? Kim? Gong?—and standing somewhat behind her is a friend, someone Seoyeon only vaguely recognizes from around the halls. She’s more like standing over her.

“Hey, class president.”

“She’s not your class president,” the girl’s friend cuts in immediately, putting a hand on her elbow as if to pull her back. She looks at Seoyeon apologetically. “Sorry, she just randomly wanted to come over here, we’ll get out of your way—”

“What do you want?” Normally, she’d have just let them leave—it’s easier than having them find out firsthand that Seoyeon isn’t necessarily that interesting—but the look the first girl gives her is a bit unnerving. It borders on manic as she stares at Seoyeon. Okay, crazy eyes.

“Well, we’re just curious, prez—”

“Not your president.”

“—about what you’re doing sitting here all by yourself.” The girl says it like it’s an uncommon occurrence. “Isn’t it”—the girl’s voice drops to a hushed whisper—“your birthday today?”

“How do you know that?” Her question is echoed by the girl’s friend, who doesn’t look frightened at the concurrence. She seems to be more concerned with how her shorter friend somehow knew Seoyeon’s personal information.

“I saw it when I was looking at the attendance sheet in the teachers’ office earlier.”

“What were you doing up there?”

“I’ll tell you, Lee Jiwoo, just wait—!” So her friend’s name is Jiwoo. The girl turns back to Seoyeon. “So, isn’t it your birthday today? Where’s your cak—”

“I’m not celebrating my birthday.” She tries to keep the irritation from seeping into her voice as she says this, looking up from her seated position at the two underclassmen still standing at her desk. Kids are so tall these days.

“Aww, what? Why not?” the girl continues. “I thought you’d at least have a cupcake or something, with a little candle to make a wish.”

“What candle? And how would she light it?” Jiwoo jokes, laughing slightly at the apparent absurdity of the situation. “I’m pretty sure lighters aren’t allowed at school. And class president unnie doesn’t seem like the type of person to smoke or anything.”

And how do you know that? The younger girl is right, of course, but that doesn’t stop the hairs on Seoyeon’s arm from standing up as she hears her words. What makes you think I don’t smoke? I can’t handle it, or it’s not expected of me—?

She’d have protested as much, would have told these kids off for sticking their noses in her business, if it weren’t for the thoughts suddenly swarming her head.

Although she would hate to admit it, the mention of a lighter elicits a visceral reaction in her body, one that seems to terminate all sense of rationality from her head. She thinks of the drawer in her room, holding the small lighter buried under clothes about a mile away, and of its origins from even farther.

This is the second time in a single day that she thinks of that time, and it nearly undoes all of her efforts from the past two months to put it behind her. Ah, this is so annoying…

“I don’t know, I just thought she would!” the younger girl cries indignantly. “I mean, it just seems like something she’d keep handy, because she’s the president—”

It’s too tight, the feeling in Seoyeon’s chest, and she stands up quickly. The movement doesn’t do anything to help her sudden urge to just scratch all of her skin off, and the feeling of her head is suffocating as she stands at eye-level with the girl.

“Yubin.” She gets a wince at the sound—So that is her name—and the younger girl almost looks guilty as she faces Seoyeon. “Is that really what you came to ask me about? If I keep a lighter to light a birthday candle for myself?” Never mind how pathetic that sounds, she thinks, as the creatures crawling under her skin multiply at an abnormal rate.

“Well, no…” Yubin stutters. Behind her, Jiwoo makes a noise of disbelief. “Actually, I wanted to know something,” the younger girl confesses in a hushed tone. “I heard there was a new senior transferring and I thought you’d know something about it. I’m curious.”

A new senior? Not even a new student, but a new senior, transferring halfway through the year? “What are you talking about?” she asks bluntly. Wouldn’t that be the cherry on top of her birthday, already noticeably worse than the neutrality of previous years, that she now has some new student to show around. Just when I wanted to be left alone today. “There’s only one semester left.”

“She’s righ—”

“That’s why!” Yubin exclaims, cutting her friend off. “I heard she came from Taiwan!”

Seoyeon’s blood runs cold, for the second time that day.

Taiwan… There’s no way. “Impossible,” she denies, already getting up from her seat. I need to get out of here. “Move out of the way so I can get something from the snack shop—”

“No, I’m being serious!” the younger girl insists, moving to remain in front of her. “I’m not lying, unnie! There’s seriously a new kid transferring from Taiwa…” Yubin trails off with widened eyes, matching Jiwoo’s shell-shocked expression as their attention shifts to something behind her.

Fucking hell. A turn of Seoyeon’s head confirms her suspicion.

“Hsu Nientzu.”