purinz ver of "you will be my world" !!
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1
"Sakura is so smart, and interesting, and wonderful," Yunjin gushes, waving her hands around. "I wish I was her best friend, her someone special? Like what Kazuha is to her? I want to be her favorite person in this school."
Chaewon tries for a smile but it comes out wrong. She shuffles the cards in her hands, watching Yunjin as she talks excitedly. She glows with the force of it, and Chaewon 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 Yunjin's friend, but it's not enough. She wants to be Someone to Yunjin, 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. Chaewon gets familiar with the slope of Yunjin's handwriting, the way her letters are all slightly italicized, all of them leaning right like a strong breeze had pushed them over.
Yunjin is the sunshine, and Chaewon basks in it.
She's only thirteen, but she will look back on those moments, and know that she spent a summer away from Yunjin, falling in love.
3
"You... look fabulous," Chaewon says, blushing slightly.
"Well, thanks!" Yunjin says. "I've always liked this uniform."
"Yes," Chaewon says, and then blinks. "No, silly, that's not what I meant. I meant, you. You look lovely."
Yunjin smiles at her, and there's something in her expression, almost a question. But Chaewon doesn't probe, and Yunjin doesn't ask.
Chaewon wants nothing more than to loop her arms around Yunjin'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. Yunjin looks almost hurt.
"Dinner, let's go," Chaewon says, not meeting Yunjin's eyes.
4
She spends most of the term trying not to look at Yunjin's legs, and not entirely succeeding.
She spends most of their years at school, trying not to look at Yunjin.
They say you outgrow many things during your adolescence, but this doesn't end for Chaewon – not even close. If anything, she just grows into it.
And it's common, easy, expected – for her to sit next to Yunjin, for her to rest her head on Yunjin's shoulders, for there to be barely any space between them. They hold hands all the time.
It provides Chaewon some comfort that, even as they graduate, Yunjin seems to want her still. Yunjin too, like Chaewon, hasn't outgrown their friendship.
5
"I got a car, and you should see me drive!" Yunjin 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, Chaewon thinks. She knows Yunjin is good at many things, and as for the things Yunjin is not good at, she truly tries until she gets there. They're both nineteen, but Chaewon feels older, and Yunjin hasn't changed much in temperament from how she used to be in school.
"You must take me out then," Chaewon says, smiling. "To the countryside, for a picnic. We'll make a whole day of it."
"Oh, of course," Yunjin says, the laughter in her voice light and airy. "I'd like that, Chae."
6 (a)
The truth comes out, as it always must. At Kazuha and Sakura's housewarming, ignoring Minji and Hanni, who'd gone off somewhere and gotten lost ("probably disappeared for a kiss," Sakura had said, and Kazuha 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 Chaewon 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?" Yeonjun asks.
Soobin shoots him a look, a love, have tact kind of look.
Chaewon meets Yeonjun's eyes. She will not be ashamed of this, her love for Huh Yunjin.
6 (b)
"How long, Chaewon?" Yunjin 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 Yunjin's cup is empty, and she hasn't gone for a refill. In fact, she sets her glass down on the table.
"Long enough," Chaewon admits. She folds the napkin in her hand into a paper dog. She's ready, she thinks, for whatever shape Yunjin's rage will take. If she gets hit, she probably deserves it.
But Yunjin's hands when they reach out for her are gentle, and Yunjin's body as it leans into hers does so in an act of a love so tender and cautious that it makes Chaewon want to cry.
"You should've said," Yunjin murmurs, pressing a kiss to Chaewon's cheek, her hands settling on Chaewon's lower back in a way that is intimate, improper and simply perfect. "You should've asked, Chaewon, you didn't need to carry this alone."
"You like men," Chaewon murmurs. "You – Heeseung's brother, that summer, you said he kissed very well..."
"I like you," Yunjin insists. "That was, I don't know, practice? It was pleasant, but it wasn't anything special."
"I always thought you were so unattainable," Chaewon admits.
"As I did you," Yunjin says. "Chaewon, my Chaewon. There's nobody I adore quite the way I adore you."
She thinks she's crying then, or maybe Yunjin is. They lean forward, press their foreheads together, and when they kiss she tastes salt. Yunjin's hold on her gets firmer, more assured, steadier, and Chaewon trembles with emotion as she lets her body fold into Yunjin's.
"Come now," Yunjin says, quietly. "Let's say our goodbyes and go somewhere where it's just the two of us."
Chaewon hums in agreement, wiping at her face with her hands. Yunjin gets a handkerchief out of her pocket, gives it to her, along with a gentle smile.
"We have so much future ahead of us," Yunjin 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," Chaewon says, quieter. "Yunjin, I love you so."
Yunjin kisses her again, and then moves away, putting some space between their bodies and taking Chaewon's hand. Humming a Christmas carol under her breath, she gently leads Chaewon back into where the party is going on, where they will say their goodbyes.
And then Yunjin 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.
