looking at the stars, admiring from afar.
---
1
"Haewon is so smart, and interesting, and wonderful," Jinsol gushes, waving her hands around. "I wish I was her best friend, her someone special? Like what Lily is to her? I want to be her favorite person in this school."
Yoona tries for a smile but it comes out wrong. She shuffles the cards in her hands, watching Jinsol as she talks excitedly. She glows with the force of it, and Yoona is full of some sort of longing that she can't put a name to.
It's a desire that feels bottomless. She's already Jinsol's friend, but it's not enough. She wants to be Someone to Jinsol, someone that nobody else is.
At the time, she thinks "best friend," but it'll take her a while before she understands what the longing really is. It will take her longer to make her peace with it.
2
They send letters and postcards all summer. Yoona gets familiar with the slope of Jinsol's handwriting, the way her letters are all slightly italicized, all of them leaning right like a strong breeze had pushed them over.
Jinsol is the sunshine, and Yoona basks in it.
She's only thirteen, but she will look back on those moments, and know that she spent a summer away from Jinsol, falling in love.
3
"You... look fabulous," Yoona says, blushing slightly.
"Well, thanks!" Jinsol says. "I've always liked this uniform."
"Yes," Yoona says, and then blinks. "No, silly, that's not what I meant. I meant, you. You look lovely."
Jinsol smiles at her, and there's something in her expression, almost a question. But Yoona doesn't probe, and Jinsol doesn't ask.
Yoona wants nothing more than to loop her arms around Jinsol's waist, to hold her gently. To drop a kiss to her forehead. To melt into her, intertwined. To kiss her.
She pulls away so suddenly it's practically violent. Jinsol looks almost hurt.
"Dinner, let's go," Yoona says, not meeting Jinsol's eyes.
4
She spends most of the term trying not to look at Jinsol's legs, and not entirely succeeding.
She spends most of their years at school, trying not to look at Jinsol.
They say you outgrow many things during your adolescence, but this doesn't end for Yoona – not even close. If anything, she just grows into it.
And it's common, easy, expected – for her to sit next to Jinsol, for her to rest her head on Jinsol's shoulders, for there to be barely any space between them. They hold hands all the time.
It provides Yoona some comfort that, even as they graduate, Jinsol seems to want her still. Jinsol too, like Yoona, hasn't outgrown their friendship.
5
"I got a car, and you should see me drive!" Jinsol says, making driving motions with her hands. "My dad says I'm almost as good as him, and he's been driving for years!"
I bet, Yoona thinks. She knows Jinsol is good at many things, and as for the things Jinsol is not good at, she truly tries until she gets there. They're both nineteen, but Yoona feels older, and Jinsol hasn't changed much in temperament from how she used to be in school.
"You must take me out then," Yoona says, smiling. "To the countryside, for a picnic. We'll make a whole day of it."
"Oh, of course," Jinsol says, the laughter in her voice light and airy. "I'd like that, Yoona."
6 (a)
The truth comes out, as it always must. At Lily and Haewon's housewarming, ignoring Ryujin and Yeji, who'd gone off somewhere and gotten lost ("probably disappeared for a kiss," Haewon had said, and Lily had grinned), they sit in a circle and drink and speak about the secrets and scandals of their youth.
Somehow, the talk shifts to crushes, and then, to falling in love, and someone asks Yoona the question she is dreading. And she knows that to lie in these games is unacceptable, whatever else is allowed.
So she says it with all the breath in her chest: that she is in love, and unlikely to ever get over it.
"And who's the lucky man?" Hyunjin asks.
Felix shoots him a look, a love, have tact kind of look.
Yoona meets Hyunjin's eyes. She will not be ashamed of this, her love for Bae Jinsol.
6 (b)
"How long, Yoona?" Jinsol asks, something in her voice restrained like she's holding back.
They've left the room and are in the balcony now. Still clutching drinks and napkins, though Jinsol's cup is empty, and she hasn't gone for a refill. In fact, she sets her glass down on the table.
"Long enough," Yoona admits. She folds the napkin in her hand into a paper dog. She's ready, she thinks, for whatever shape Jinsol's rage will take. If she gets hit, she probably deserves it.
But Jinsol's hands when they reach out for her are gentle, and Jinsol's body as it leans into hers does so in an act of a love so tender and cautious that it makes Yoona want to cry.
"You should've said," Jinsol murmurs, pressing a kiss to Yoona's cheek, her hands settling on Yoona's lower back in a way that is intimate, improper and simply perfect. "You should've asked, Yoona, you didn't need to carry this alone."
"You like men," Yoona murmurs. "You – Jisung's brother, that summer, you said he kissed very well..."
"I like you," Jinsol insists. "That was, I don't know, practice? It was pleasant, but it wasn't anything special."
"I always thought you were so unattainable," Yoona admits.
"As I did you," Jinsol says. "Yoona, my Yoona. There's nobody I adore quite the way I adore you."
She thinks she's crying then, or maybe Jinsol is. They lean forward, press their foreheads together, and when they kiss she tastes salt. Jinsol's hold on her gets firmer, more assured, steadier, and Yoona trembles with emotion as she lets her body fold into Jinsol's.
"Come now," Jinsol says, quietly. "Let's say our goodbyes and go somewhere where it's just the two of us."
Yoona hums in agreement, wiping at her face with her hands. Jinsol gets a handkerchief out of her pocket, gives it to her, along with a gentle smile.
"We have so much future ahead of us," Jinsol says, and she's glowing, and she looks happy, like everything is uncomplicated, like they're in first form again, two new girls sitting in the hospital room, listening to the sea, playing board games. Learning each other for the first time, both liking what they saw.
"We do," Yoona says, quieter. "Jinsol, I love you so."
Jinsol kisses her again, and then moves away, putting some space between their bodies and taking Yoona's hand. Humming a Christmas carol under her breath, she gently leads Yoona back into where the party is going on, where they will say their goodbyes.
And then Jinsol will drive them home, home to the flat they're renting out together. And there, they will say a new kind of hello. One that it's taken them years and years to get to. But now they are here.
