Hockey Skates & Coffee

0.2

"Chaewon!" Yunjin called the next morning, the familiar steel water bottle with dinosaur stickers littered across it in her hand. Chaewon was no longer surprised by Yunjin's audacious greetings.

She nodded at the brown haired girl as she entered, continuing her routine on the ice, not caring about the interruption. Yunjin, if anything, taught Chaewon how to be even more focused. She was able to do her routines with any amount of shouting in the background. The telltale sound of Yunjin clunking onto the ice was music to Chaewon's ears and she swallowed the feeling of happiness she got from being around her. It was not allowed.

"You were right, Chaewon! Saerom said she'd lay off and she and I had a really great talk about all sorts of things, I think she should see a therapist if I'm being honest but that's besides the point-"

Chaewon nodded silently, if Yunjin were anyone else she wouldn't have been able to tell Chaewon did. Yunjin took it as encouragement to keep going.

"She said she would take my opinions into account more, and the teams next game wouldn't be until she was sure they were ready. And, and she's gonna write the team a formal apology, 'cause she coulda cost them a lot if our season gets cancelled and we don't make it to nationals." Yunjin was skating laps around Chaewon, who stayed in the centre of the rink and practised her axel dutifully. She was happy to know the Saerom situation was resolved, but she  didn't have much to say to Yunjin, she just needed to focus.

"Aren't you excited, Chaewon?" Yunjin asked, tone as gentle and hurt as a kid who only got one lego set on Christmas instead of two. It was an entitled sort of sadness, the kind of sadness that was too used to things being one way. The kind of sadness Chaewon didn't believe Yunjin deserved, in more ways than one. Because, on one hand, Chaewon wanted Yunjin to never feel any kind of sadness, wanted Yunjin to feel nothing but gentle wind on her face and the kind of happiness that comes as easy as breathing and the kind of laughter that takes that breath away. On the other hand, Chaewon had been giving Yunjin this kind of treatment for the entire time she'd known her, yesterday was the first time Yunjin had received any sort of reciprocation from Chaewon. She didn't deserve the sadness of rejection when it was all she was supposed to be used to.

Chaewon was feeling conflicted, so conflicted that she felt she was at war and almost instinctively returned to the routine that brought her so much comfort. It was ridiculous. This should be an easy decision. This should be the kind of decision she makes in a second because she does not like Yunjin. She doesn't like her and she doesn't want her smile to be plastered across every corner of her mind so she could never possibly forget it- as if she could forget it anyways but that's besides the point. Chaewon should make the choice that ends the same way things always used to end, this is the part where she leaves and Yunjin pretends not to be disappointed. This is the part of the play where the audience stops finding her loveable and starts realising she knows what part she must play. Chaewon must go.

But she doesn't. Chaewon stands there, useless, as Yunjin looks at her with a doe eyed gaze, looks at Chaewon like she's something deserving of all this kindness, all this fondness, all this desperacy. Why? Why doesn't Yunjin know this is easier?

"... Chaewon?" Yunjin asks, fidgeting under Chaewon's gaze.

Chaewon almost scoffs, she can feel the way her forehead is contorted, her eyebrows bunched together. She doesn't understand anything, she doesn't understand herself, she doesn't understand Yunjin, and she doesn't know why this whole ruse of her hating Yunjin isn't working.

"It's- I feel sick." She said, skating off the ice. This was her playing her role, this was where Yunjin played the pitiful fool and Chaewon played the fool who was so, so, much worse, so much more cruel, the fool with the knife and the fool with the wound.