Meet Me in the Afterglow (Purinz/Chaewon x Yunjin)

Tiptoeing

NOW.

Yuri has never been the most subtle of people; it's certainly not a coincidence that she sends Yunjin an emoji-laden text the day after Minjeong's birthday, of all days, demanding a FaceTime catch up. But to her credit, she doesn't immediately bombard Yunjin with the thousand questions she's probably dying to ask the second she pops into view on Yunjin's laptop screen.

Instead, she slowly works her way up to it, asking about Seoul and the research study, filling Yunjin in on the latest gossip and chattering away about her job at her parents law firm and Yena's latest semi-successful adventures in branching out from cooking to baking.

It's a nice way to spend her morning, reverting back to Japanese easily while she chats to Yuri, sitting at the bistro table in her parents back yard while she has her breakfast.

Yuri is in her apartment; Yunjin can see the corner of the horrendously ugly art hanging on the wall behind her, the one that Yuri claims is modern art by some underground Dutch painter when really it just looks like someone has thrown a plate of spaghetti at a canvas and let it dry, as well as the Hello Kitty cushion behind her that Yena won for her at an arcade on one of their first dates. Yena herself is nowhere to be seen, and there's a distinct lack of loud barking in the background, so Yunjin can only assume she is out with the three dogs she and Yuri have.

"So," Yuri says, leaning slightly closer to the camera so her face takes up the entirety of Yunjin's laptop screen and the cushion and the hideous painting disappear from view. "How did it go? The big reunion?"

Yunjin takes a sip from her cup of coffee, wishing she'd had the foresight to rehearse her answers to the questions she knew Yuri would want to ask.

Yuri has never met Chaewon, only knows of her, tiny bits and pieces from whenever Yunjin was drunk or sad (or both) enough to mention the ex-girlfriend she left in Korea. As such, it's always been slightly easier to talk about Chaewon with her. There's always been a little less pressure to seem like she's okay.

Even so, it's still not a topic Yunjin enjoys talking about.

"It was fine," Yunjin eventually says, hoping that will be enough to placate Yuri.

"Fine is a very broad term," Yuri says, not placated in the slightest. "Fine can range from oh my God I'm still in love with her all the way to oh my God I've made a huge mistake coming back here I'm booking a one way flight back to Tokyo as we speak can you please come pick me up when I land."

Yunjin rolls her eyes, tearing the lid off her peach yogurt and shoving a spoonful in her mouth so she can stall for time a little longer. "I mean we didn't really talk that much, but all things considered it was... surprisingly okay."

"All things considered?"

Another stalling spoonful of yogurt. "How bad the break up was. How awful the aftermath was. How long it's been since we last saw each other."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

Yunjin shrugs, like she doesn't remember exactly when it was, like the memory isn't taking shape in her head with the usual accompanying dull pain in her chest, the walls of Yunjin's living room shifting into focus and the look on Chaewon's face that Yunjin has never quite been able to forget.

"When we broke up, I guess."

Now that Yunjin is actually allowing herself to acknowledge the distance between them, it's hard to believe how long it's been since she's last seen or spoken to Chaewon. Back then, Chaewon was her first thought upon waking up in the morning and her last thought before falling asleep at night, and it would have been unfathomable to a twenty-one year old lovestruck Yunjin to think of a time where she would actively choose not to think about Chaewon.