Gaeul wouldn't stop worrying until Yujin finally texted.
YJ: so um. that went well
GE: YUJIN
GE: OH YUJIN IM SO SORRY ARE YOU OKAY
GE: DID YOU GUYS FIGHT?
YJ: no
YJ: it actually was okay
GE: yeah you said that the last time she broke your heart
YJ: no i mean it this time you little fool
GE: mhm mhm alright
She breathed a sigh of relief. Alright, maybe it wouldn't be bad as the last time.
Rei tapped her forearm. Gaeul looked up to see the lecture hall almost empty, the last of the students exiting with their bags over their shoulders. Liz was standing up, looking back at her.
"Gaeul-ah, class is over. C'mon!"
Gaeul packed up her bag clumsily. "Give me a second!"
.
"Yujin, stop being like this!" Gaeul shouted, tearing Yujin away from the torn notebooks in her hands. "Why would you destroy your own work?"
"They were for her," Yujin yelled back, thrashing herself out of Gaeul's arms, "and now they're nothing! Good for shit!"
Bits of paper fluttered down, scattering across the room. Half the notebook was intact still. Gaeul grabbed it and flung it onto her bed out of Yujin's reach. In front of her, Yujin broke down into sobs, shoulders heaving as she struggled to keep her noise to herself. She lay curled up on the floor.
"They're still your writing," Gaeul said as gently as possible, patting Yujin's shoulder. "Are you going to get rid of everything you made for her too?"
"Yes," Yujin deadpanned.
Gaeul blinked. She wasn't expecting an answer so quickly and surely.
"What about the things she gave you?"
"Yeah, those too."
"Yujin, you can't be like this. What are you going to do now?" Gaeul asked, pointing at the ruined pages of writing.
"What's poetry anyway?" Yujin grumbled. "They're just a bunch of pretty words to bullshit reality."
She rolled onto her back, hands crossed over her chest. The tears had ceased, but they had washed some of the sparkle out of her eyes. "Beautiful things are only beautiful when humans make them beautiful," she said solemnly.
"Of course you'd say this, Ahn Yujin," Gaeul chuckled. "Even when you're kicked into hell you're all poetic."
Yujin sat up.
"Yeah. But now I think I'll never write again."
.
After Yujin went to shower, Gaeul took the liberty of cleaning up after her. She swept up the pieces of Yujin's heartbreak with a broom, collecting them all neatly in a dustpan.
A large shred with visible enough writing caught her eye. She picked it up to read it.
In beautiful blue ink, it read:
As meadow is to flower;
As you are to me.
.
"Did you get me the ice cream flavour on purpose?" Wonyoung piped up.
They were sitting in the living room, Azzo curled up in a little ball in her lap. A plate of cut fruit sat on the coffee table between them. Wonyoung wore another set of Yujin's clothes.
Yujin nodded, eating a slice of pear.
Wonyoung looked away. She pet Azzo. She cleared her throat. "Uhm, thank you. You remembered."
"I remember a lot," Yujin said, smiling.
A weight lifted off Wonyoung's chest.
"You don't hate me?"
"Oh no," Yujin said, "I definitely did. For a month at least." She swallowed. "But I could never hate you, you know? You're-"
Wonyoung leaned over and pecked her cheek. She shut up immediately.
"I hope that was okay," Wonyoung whispered. "You never ramble."
Yujin pressed her palm to her cheek where Wonyoung had kissed. "It was okay," she said, grinning widely, though she didn't look at Wonyoung. Her heart might've exploded if she did. She coughed.
"So what do you do, uh, in S.S.?"
"I'm a dance and vocal major," Wonyoung said, chewing a slice of apple. "Gaeul and Rei are dance majors too, so we have common classes together. And we hang out with another girl, Liz. I met her when I first got into S.S."
"Ooh," Yujin said, acknowledging. It sounded good. "Does Liz know about me?"
"Of course she does," Wonyoung said. "I never shut up about you since then. I must've talked her ears off in the first year. Oh, but, she's never seen you. Only in pictures. So I guess that's why she let me go on a blind date with you."
Yujin giggled. Wonyoung smiled with her.
"Good," Yujin whispered.
They sat in comfortable silence after. They warmed up to each other right away, Wonyoung even daring to rest her head on Yujin's shoulder.
There was still the seed of doubt in Wonyoung, as there always had been. It had sprouted and left deep, deep roots that dug into the depths of her subconcious over the span of so many years.
The things they had gone through together and they way they had hurt each other wouldn't all be resolved in a single night of confessions. The thought hit Wonyoung so hard her heart imploded.
She turned her head up, and was met with a soft jaw and Yujin's closed eyes, lips turned up in a content smile.
Maybe things wouldn't be okay right away...
But being with Rei and Liz and Gaeul and Yujin made it bearable.
