a year of sundays || Chaennie

Epilougue - Part 2

warning: homophobia

THEN

Choi Minah is a year older than Ryu Haeun and she's far more mature in all the ways that Haeun wishes she could be. She's already had her first kiss with Kim Junsu; the local paperboy with beautiful chestnut eyes and a smile that belongs on the television.

Haeun remembers the day that Minah told her about it; about how Junsu took her out to the baseball field and how they listened to The Smashing Pumpkins before he held her hand and told her she was beautiful. There's a twinkle in Minah's eye that hits deep inside Haeun and it blooms quickly into jealousy, spreading into her veins and her blood and her mind.

She desperately wants to have her first kiss but nobody even looks her way.

(Not properly. Not until she's twenty-one and fixing up a handsome man's hand in a hospital room.)

---

She's an only child and Minah comes from a family of five. She has three brothers and a sister and Minah was the third born, so it comes as no surprise that the girl takes Haeun under her wing and they form their own little family.

She's the middle child, she says. Forgotten but not unwanted. And Haeun is spoilt and loved, almost too much, so they balance one another perfectly. Haeun teaches Minah about being special, Minah teaches Haeun it's not all about her.

They just work.

The truth is Minah isn't just Haeun's best friend; she's her everything. She's so much cooler and so much older, and she smokes exactly like she's seen the girls on TV do. There's a presence about Minah that just attracts Haeun, that keeps bringing her back.

And oh, she's well aware that her parents do not approve. No. Not at all. There's been more than one occasion that she's had to defend Minah to her father although she knows his opinion won't change. She has piercings in her nose and she listens to Tori Amos a little too passionately; she has a pixie cut and she dyed it blonde before the first day.

She's everything Haeun isn't but they're best friends.

Haeun isn't about to walk away from that.

Minah is simply misunderstood and she's been left to float around without direction or guidance. That's what Haeun is there for, she tells herself. To guide.

---

"Do you like him?"

Minah ponders on that for a moment. From between her lips, there's a long, even flow of smoke, and Haeun fidgets as she watches the cigarette burn. There's a black mark on the white paper from her friend's lipstick and she has to wonder where Minah can buy black lipstick.

She wonders a lot of things about Minah.

"I don't know who I like," Minah finally says and her white teeth chew at her bottom lip. She looks absolutely everywhere except for Haeun and the younger girl wonders what is on her mind, wonders what has her so deep in thought. "He's nice and he's mad attractive but I don't know, Haeun. Something was missing."

Haeun shrugs because she hasn't had her first kiss yet so she isn't the best person to ask for advice.

---

(Two years later and Haeun and Minah are watching an episode of 'The Nanny'. Haeun's father sits behind them at his desk, occasionally lifting his eyes at the entertaining show but mostly keeping himself to his paperwork as Haeun and Minah relax for an evening.

"Oh, honey I'm not gay. I'm just pathetic."

Haeun laughs at the line along with the audience and her father huffs in disgust but Minah stays quiet, quiet, quiet.)