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Namjoo has never quite understood where society gets the impression that people who like so-called “intellectual” things can’t be horny.
(There is a lot to be said about what constitutes an “intellectual” thing, especially in an era where media are spilling over their boundaries into other media and anyone can access any art or information at any time. There is also a lot to be said about who is allowed to like “intellectual” things, and whether “intellectual” things have value in society, which of course circles back around to the definition of an “intellectual” thing again. She needs to journal; these thoughts need somewhere to go.)
But as she was saying, in her experience, people typically decide to become “intellectuals” and like “intellectual” things because of how very horny they are. Because–once again in Namjoo’s experience–by reading poetry and philosophy books and studying every subject they can get their hands on, they’re trying to convince themselves they’re not a bad person for being ridiculously attracted to the least advisable person in any given room, and then desperately trying and failing not to think about them while getting off, and being faced with the catch-22 of either not getting off and staring at their pillow for an hour in frustration or getting off and knowing exactly how bad of a person they’re being because they can’t stop thinking about–
Alright, at this point, she probably has disclosed enough specific information to give herself away. So, yeah, what she should’ve said from the beginning is this:
It’s her. She’s People Who Like So-Called ‘Intellectual’ Things and Are Also Horny. Sue her. It’s a mess. It’s been a mess for years, and it’s not going to stop being a mess. It’s not her fault she just falls in love with people, and it’s not her fault she has a high sex drive, and it’s not her fault that she writes bad poetry about it.
(Okay, no, the bad poetry is definitely her fault, she’ll take the L on that one. Although, if it never sees the light of day, and no one ever reads it, did she really write it at all? Perhaps it just appeared in her journal one day. No one would know. Maybe it was a Love Poetry Elf, like, a gremlin, or maybe Yoonji just copied Namjoo’s handwriting, close enough.
[She spends a solid few seconds pondering whether she could ever blame the poems on Yoonji while she was drunk until she remembers that Yoonji probably doesn’t know what a sestina is, because she’s cool and writes actually good, minimalist poetry.])
So here she is at this party after the play, which is yet another thing she’s still trying not to think about, and Hobi has abandoned her, so she’s sitting at this table morosely like a sick duck floating on a pond, and worrying about how she keeps turning over a poem by Whitman in her mind as a distraction from—well—
Okay. So she’s given herself even more away now.
Namjoo always buries the lede. So, yeah, what she really should’ve said from the beginning is this:
(The impalpable sustenance of me from all things at all hours of the day…)
Jin looks so pretty in her costume.
(The certainty of others, the life, love, sight, hearing of others…)
Like, inconveniently beautiful.
(It avails not, time nor place...)
Maliciously stunning.
(I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me…)
Fuck it.
She’s wearing a dark rose-colored dress and matching lipstick, and her silky dark hair is pulled into an updo at the nape of her neck. The whole getup emphasizes her broad shoulders and narrow waist, the softness of her frame. She looks a little bit like a super-hot 19th-century English governess, and also like herself, and Namjoo isn’t sure exactly how she managed to find the absolute nexus of the things that would make her weak with attraction–although, actually, she probably couldn't control looking like herself–but. Once again. Here she is. At this party. Vaguely weak with attraction.
Jin’s facing toward her, laughing at something someone beside her is saying, but then, for some reason, her eyes move toward Namjoo, and she grins, like she’s whispering something just to Namjoo from across the room.
Namjoo spits out the sip of apple cider she’s just taken and wipes at her one nice blouse with her napkin. She’s completely sure Jin’s laughing at her, because she’s not the kind of person who’d pretend she isn’t, which just makes Namjoo like her more because she hates when people pretend they’re not laughing at her. They’re going to do it anyway, she’s accepted that by now, she does some things to warrant it.
(An itemized list from the last twenty-four hours alone would include items such as: tripped and fell on the stairs, tipped over her water glass no fewer than three times at lunch, lost her pen for a half hour and found it in her hair.)
She likes that Jin doesn’t hide it. Jin doesn’t hide much of anything she’s thinking, not around Namjoo at least (well, not around Yoonji, and Namjoo by extension). Namjoo likes that.
Her inner monologue is using the word “like” as though it isn’t familiar with any other transitive verb.
There are a lot of reasons why this isn’t a good idea, says her inner monologue, a lot of reasons why Jin is the least advisable person in any room, and damn. Namjoo was going over the Whitman and thinking some stupid shit trying to avoid this particular speech, which comes up whenever she sees Jin and she pretty much stops digesting properly.
(But here we go again.)
Reason number one: Jin is Namjoo’s best friend’s roommate.
Six months ago
“You’re sure I look okay?”
“You look fine,” says Hobi. She looks pink, which could mean she’s lying, but two factors that would tend to indicate otherwise are that she’s a) hanging upside down off the end of Namjoo’s bed and b) a completely terrible liar with about eight other more obvious tells. “Why? Is this a date?”
“No,” Namjoo says. “I’m meeting a friend from last semester, she’s not my type, we’re much too brooding for each other. I’ve just never been to her place before.”
“Is that how that works? Can you both be too brooding for each other?”
“Don’t question my logic, I’ve read a lot of compatibility horoscopes,” says Namjoo. “Gives me something to do with newspapers other than contemplate the impending nuclear holocaust. Anyway, she’s just really cool and smart and I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”
Hobi swings upright. “She’s brooding, you say? Is she single?”
Their eyes lock in the mirror. Hobi gives Namjoo a blinding smile.
“What did you say your type was again?” Namjoo asks. They’ve only been friends for six months, after all, and Hobi tends to go out, dance with people at parties, sometimes make out in the bathroom, and never bring them home, so Namjoo literally has never seen her date.
(She has a lot of theories about this, and several of them involve childhood trauma, but as far as she knows Hobi didn’t have much so maybe she just likes dancing and making out, which seems suspiciously functional and hedonistic to Namjoo, but it’s Hobi so literally anything could be going on.)
“Oh, you know,” Hobi says, waving an airy hand. “I go with the flow, nothing in particular really.”
Namjoo intensifies the mirrored stare. Maybe there’s some kind of dilution effect in the glass and she needs to stare twice as hard to get the effect of a direct look. Like the basilisk from Harry Potter. Namjoo continues to stare and pretends as hard as she can that she’s a giant snake.
(Yeah, she’s definitely horny. Which Freudian fixation stage is “giant snake”?)
Hobi swallows. “Petite, emo, mouthy?”
“That clinches it,” says Namjoo, smoothing down her dress and sighing at herself in the mirror. “You’re never meeting Yoonji. Now I’m going to be late so I’m going.”
“Wait, Namjoo,” Hobi whines as Namjoo gathers her bag, taps her hair to make sure it’s not escaping too badly from its short ponytail, and leaves their room, “you can’t just say that and then not–”
“Oh, yes, I can,” Namjoo says as she realizes she forgot her key, and then looking down at her feet that she’s still wearing slippers, and comes back into the room. “I love you, I’ll see you later.”
They’re only a few weeks into sophomore year, and Namjoo’s already feeling the pressure. She’s taking five classes again, which she wouldn’t mind except that two of them (if you include Logic, which she does, because oof) are STEM classes, and that isn’t her focus. She’s going to have to declare a major for real soon. And she still isn’t anywhere with her music, or her poems, which is why she’s going to meet Yoonji.
The two of them were in the same poetry workshop the preceding semester, and they did what Namjoo has come to learn was Yoonji’s version of hitting it off instantly, which consisted of Yoonji giving her completely genuine compliments that somehow sounded sarcastic until Namjoo cornered her and started talking her ear off about how much she loved her poems, and then Yoonji smiled fondly at her and took her under her wing.
(Yes, Namjoo had to duck.)
(The height jokes just never stop being funny, she reflects as she bangs her shin on a bench. One has to find humor somewhere, while one is jumping around on one foot cursing all manner of public outdoor seating and its public outdoor mother.
[Did that last sound like slut-shaming? It probably did. She needs to start thinking before she...thinks.])
They went to coffee a few times, but then things got hectic during finals, so they texted all summer, and last week Yoonji asked Namjoo how sophomore year was starting off and whether she was still interested in learning more about music production. The answer was obviously a resounding yes, because Namjoo now has two entire notebooks crammed with lyrics and nowhere to put them.
She’s hoping to foist some of them off on Yoonji today, or at least learn something. Yoonji is two years older than her, and Namjoo isn’t really sure why a senior who doesn’t ever seem to trip on the stairs and makes really interesting music and poems would want to help her, but hey, she’s not looking a gift horse in the mouth.
When she arrives at Yoonji’s apartment off-campus, she’s out of breath from trying not to be late and is instead five minutes early, but it’s starting to rain and she’s not dressed for it, so she presses the buzzer.
“Namjoo?” comes Yoonji’s low warm voice.
“Yep, it’s me, Kim Namjoo,” says Namjoo, and immediately regrets it. “Do you want my social security number or…?”
“Come on up,” says Yoonji, and she sounds like she’s laughing. She never hides when she’s laughing at Namjoo, which is nice.
The apartment is only on the third floor, so Namjoo takes the stairs because she doesn’t mind climbing them, and also whenever she gets in an elevator she gets the impulse to jump up and down in it, for science, so she tries to avoid that, because she’s trying to live past the age of thirty.
She’s barely knocked before the door swings open. Yoonji peers up at her from the dim apartment like a Seer from her sacred divination cave.
“Come in,” she says.
Namjoo does.
It’s...not what she expects.
There’s an old, comfortable-looking couch, and a fairly big TV, and some windows that let in gold afternoon light. There are a lot of candles around, which Namjoo would expect from Yoonji, but also a lot of video games piled on the coffee table, and a pillow shaped like a cloud with a face on a bright pink armchair in the corner.
The kitchen is full of groceries–more real food than dorm-life-or-bust-at-least-until-she’s-an-upperclassman-and-can-escape-this-hellhole Namjoo has seen since she left home. Yoonji wanders over to the counter, which houses a neatly kept knife block Namjoo makes sure to stay well away from.
“Want anything to eat or drink?” she asks. “We have...literally everything.”
“We?” says Namjoo.
“My roommate,” says Yoonji, waving a hand. “You know how they say not to go grocery shopping while you’re hungry? She’s...well, she’s always hungry, and she goes grocery shopping to relieve stress, so.”
“A fun new brand of retail therapy,” says Namjoo, clasping her hands behind her back. At Yoonji’s raised eyebrows she adds, “Uh, are you having anything?”
“You’re so polite,” Yoonji says. “It’s adorable. Have a juice box.”
“I’m not an actual child,” protests Namjoo.
Yoonji freezes with a juice box in one hand and a skeptical look on her face. “Do you want the juice box or not?”
Namjoo scuffs at the floor with one foot. “...Yes.”
“And, since I am an adult,” Yoonji says, “I will be drinking...chocolate milk.”
“Really?” Namjoo laughs as she tries to put the straw into her juice box.
“Rule number one of this house is that all of us are children.” Yoonji trots out of the kitchen, grabs the juice box, and stabs the straw into it in one go. “But some of us are more childish than others.”
“How Orwellian of you,” says Namjoo, sipping on her juice box and feeling rather like a horse being led to stable as Yoonji grabs her by the sleeve of her flannel and hauls her toward what Namjoo assumes is her room. She opens the door, and–yes, well. This sort of calm gloom is exactly what Namjoo expected.
Everything is the kind of gray that manages to be rather sweet instead of depressing, and there are a few posters on the walls, but nothing obtrusive. There’s a massive desk in the corner that takes up most of the room, crammed with sets of headphones, miscellaneous wires, and electronics Namjoo doesn’t even recognize.
“So, you brought your notebooks, didn’t you?” says Yoonji, settling into her massive office chair with her feet dangling an inch or two above the floor and looking for all the world like a madwoman in her lair. Namjoo considers placing a Craigslist ad for her: fluffy cat needed to complete evil genius shtick. Will pay extra for punctual hissing.
“How did you know about my notebooks?” Namjoo asks, even as she rifles through her bag to find them.
“You’re always writing in them,” Yoonji says, rolling her eyes. “Honestly, you’d think we’d never met before. Now, what do you want to learn about?”
“Everything,” Namjoo breathes, watching raptly as Yoonji powers on her computer and types in her password without looking at the screen or the keyboard.
“Typical,” Yoonji says, but there’s a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Well, sit down, kiddo.”
She points at the ottoman that rests at the end of her four-poster bed, and Namjoo pulls it up to sit beside her. Yoonji walks her through the basics of producing her own music, shows her some of the things she’s working on, and Namjoo tries her best to ask intelligent questions. Then Yoonji forces Namjoo to pull out her own notebooks and discuss her lyrics, and after a while Namjoo manages to force away her initial shyness and just revels in being able to share art with someone who really understands.
“Yoonji!” comes from outside the bedroom after they’ve been working for about an hour, and Namjoo starts.
“Ignore her,” Yoonji says. “Sometimes when I do it she disappears from lack of attention, like Tinker Bell.”
“Wasn’t the whole point of Peter Pan to make Tinker Bell not disappear?” says Namjoo, biting the straw of her empty juice box.
“I’m Captain Hook in this scenario,” Yoonji says, clicking her pen and making a mark in Namjoo’s notebook.
“Am I Smee then?”
“No,” says Yoonji. “You’re one of the poor sweet little Lost Boys who doesn’t know any better.”
“YOOOOOOOONJI!”
“Oh no,” Yoonji says, hunching down in her chair. “That’s her I’m-not-going-away voice. Clap if you believe in fairies.”
The door opens. Namjoo turns around, and as she does she has the sensation that she’s going to regret it.
“Oh look,” says the most beautiful woman Namjoo’s ever seen in her entire life, who is wearing far too few and also too many clothes. “You’ve got yourself a minion. How sweet. After all, what are evil deeds without a bit of henching?”
“Put on some pants, Jin, for God’s sake,” says Yoonji without turning around, from which Namjoo infers that it’s somehow a normal thing for the roommate–Jin–to walk around in only an overlarge T-shirt that barely reaches her thighs, and then her brain just completely shorts out. She feels like her digestive system has reached a bottleneck, like her intestines just sort of closed up and now everything is sitting in her stomach, slowly corroding in hydrochloric acid.
“I’m making sandwiches, do you want one?” Jin asks, and oh God, she’s coming across the room, and that’s her pretty hair, and those are her pretty legs. Namjoo has never been more thankful she doesn’t have a penis and therefore cannot have accidental boners.
“Are they the super boujee ones with the caramelized onions and shit?” asks Yoonji, snorting and finally turning around.
Jin smiles, and Namjoo experiences brief cardiac arrest. She has to get out of this apartment, this is very bad for her health.
“See, you always say these things like you want the answer to be no, but the answer, as you know, is always yes, and that’s the way you like it.” Jin reaches out a hand and runs her fingers through Yoonji’s hair, and Yoonji actually doesn’t complain, just lets her eyes fall half-shut and sighs a little. Oh, Namjoo thinks, her heart sinking. Is that what’s going on?
“I hate you,” Yoonji says. “Yes, I want a sandwich.”
“How about you?” Jin asks, turning to Namjoo with her hands on her hips, which makes her shirt even shorter somehow.
“I–” says Namjoo, and tries to say anything else. She is reminded of Descartes’ apple-basket theory; he built an entire worldview around the word I. It’s not really helpful right now, though, when she’s eye-level with Jin’s thighs.
“Get her one too,” Yoonji says, “and get out of here.”
“You got it,” Jin says, and actually winks at Namjoo, and leaves.
(The day after Christmas, when she was a kid, Namjoo would just lie on the floor of the living room and smell the Christmas tree, and wish that Christmas would come again, and again. She wants to say she doesn’t know why she’s thinking of this but she fully does.)
Namjoo manages to stay upright. When she looks back at Yoonji, she’s got her eyes fixed on the computer screen again, just like before. The thought crosses her mind that Jin was just a hallucination conjured up by her horny, lonely brain.
“She has that effect,” says Yoonji.
“I didn’t say anything,” Namjoo says.
“Mm,” says Yoonji. “We’re not together, by the way. She’s affectionate, and she’s older than me and means well so I sometimes let it slide. Don’t tell anyone I let myself be petted, I have a reputation to maintain.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Namjoo repeats. “Literally not a word exited my mouth.”
“Don’t think one could’ve, seeing as it looked like you lost control of your tongue there,” Yoonji says, taking a long sip of chocolate milk. “I was this close to turning you on your side so you wouldn’t choke on it. That or performing an emergency tracheotomy.”
“Ugh,” Namjoo says, burying her head in her hands.
“It’s okay,” Yoonji says, patting her on the back. “You’ll get over it eventually, everyone does.”
Present Day
Needless to say, Namjoo has not gotten over it.
And Jin is Yoonji’s roommate, and it’d be completely inappropriate to pursue a relationship with the roommate of the woman who’s become one of her best friends. Case closed.
Nor is it you alone who know what it is to be evil, she continues in her head as she sips on her apple cider and tries and fails not to stare at Jin.
“What are you doing?” Yoonji, looking even more nonchalant than usual in a black velvet dress, asks, appearing to take the seat at her side.
Namjoo, who has just gotten to guile, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak, curses Whitman for his–even posthumous–impeccable timing. “Nothing,” she says, putting her glass down on the table in front of her a little too heavily.
“You have that look on your face again,” says Hobi, sitting down on her other side, and why did she choose this exact moment, oh God, Namjoo’s been able to keep them apart for months, why now, in her moment of weakness–
“What look?” asks Yoonji, leaning around Namjoo to ask Hobi directly.
“Hello,” Hobi says, tucking a strand of auburn hair behind her ear. “I’m Hobi. You must be Yoonji. I’ve heard a lot about you. Not enough, but a lot.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you too,” says Yoonji, and socks Namjoo in the shoulder.
“Ow!” Namjoo says. “What was that for?”
“What look?” Yoonji repeats, leaning forward on the table toward Hobi and arranging her face into a baleful sort of charming expression. Namjoo wonders whether Yoonji just hit her to have something to do with her hands.
“Like she’s trying to keep her organs inside her body by sheer willpower,” says Hobi.
“That’s a very good descriptor,” says Yoonji sweetly, tapping a finger against her mouth, and Hobi smiles so bright Namjoo gets a headache.
“This is a nightmare,” Namjoo says.
“Just go talk to her,” Yoonji says, her tone reverting to its usual flat drawl. “I swear to God. I’m sick of your pining, you’re being willfully obstinate.”
...okay, maybe Namjoo made it seem like dating Jin would be a problem because of Yoonji, and maybe the opposite was true, and Yoonji had been encouraging her to ask Jin out for months. So, maybe she misrepresented that a little.
“You never talk to me about Jin,” says Hobi, pouting at Namjoo. “You just make this face like you’re sick and then run into the bathroom whenever I ask.”
“You should be grateful,” Yoonji says. “They’re a fucking trainwreck.”
“Well,” Hobi says. “It’d be good if I were apprised of the situation. Maybe we could go somewhere quiet and I could...debrief you.”
Namjoo drops her head into her hands, and with nothing to take up her attention, and the Whitman poem growing more and more difficult to maintain because she can’t remember more than snippets past section six, her inner monologue soldiers on. Well, it says. You may have bypassed reason one, but we’re just getting started.
So, yeah, what she should’ve said from the beginning is this:
Reason two: Jin is the funniest, most interesting, most attractive person Namjoo has ever met, in her entire life, and Namjoo is a massive mess around her, and also all the time otherwise, always.
Four months ago
Namjoo stares at her phone. Turns it off, on again, unlocks it another time, and rereads the message.
Yoonji (5:54 pm)
I’ll be a little late, got caught up in something at work
I told Jin you’d be over at 6
She should be there to let you in
Try not to break anything
Namjoo (5:55 pm)
No problem!!!!
In hindsight, the fourth exclamation point was probably a little suspicious.
But now it’s 6:03, and Namjoo’s been hiding in the hallway, pressed up against the wall next to their door like a weird, gangly secret agent, for almost ten minutes. And she’s going to have to go in eventually. To see Jin. Alone. Her stomach is already tying itself in knots.
She thinks about just going home, but Jin already knows she’s coming, and Yoonji will be disappointed. Besides, Hobi’s already dropped her off and left to go to her late-night practice with her freshman dance mentee, and she’s been talking all week about how excited she is to see Jimin, and so Namjoo would have to walk home, alone, and it’s chilly, and she’s hungry.
No time like the present, she tells herself, and twists around and knocks on the door.
“Who is it?” Jin yells from inside. Namjoo gets the impression she likes to yell from other rooms, just to let people know she’s coming. It’s somehow endearing, if only because Namjoo actually appreciates the warning, seeing as she stops functioning whenever she sees Jin and she likes to store up a bit of brain function in advance.
She confirms that she fully remembers her own name, then double-checks, before she calls, “It’s Namjoo? Yoonji said you knew I was coming over for dinner.”
The door opens a crack.
“What’s the password?” Jin asks. Namjoo can only see a sliver of her face and her long dark ponytail, a few strands escaping into her eyes.
“Yoonji sucks?” says Namjoo.
“You’re good,” Jin says, wagging a finger at her as she opens the door fully. “I was thinking something along the lines of ‘Welcome to the Hotel California,’ but you’ve sucked up to me effectively enough that I’ll let you in anyway.”
Namjoo tries not to think too much about the words “sucked up to me” coming out of Jin’s mouth, laughs a little hysterically, and crosses the threshold.
(She’s relieved to see that Jin’s wearing actual clothes today–it’s always a toss-up whether she will be. To be honest, Namjoo’s not sure whether it’s better or worse. Jin always looks sort of like she’s defying some law of nature; she gives Namjoo the same feeling as those insects that walk on water, but...a lot more warm and fuzzy and a lot less gross, and basically not the same feeling at all but Namjoo is having trouble with thinking at the moment.)
“Are you okay?” asks Jin, making a Big Face of Concern, all round eyes and disappearing mouth. Namjoo has noticed that she makes a lot of Big Faces.
“Yep,” Namjoo says, snapping out of her momentary daze and toeing off her shoes because she knows Yoonji doesn’t like them in the apartment.
“Great,” Jin says. “Okay, so I’m almost done making dinner, and I know you’re vegan, don’t worry, I made some tofu too for you.”
“Thank you,” Namjoo says, “but it’s really okay, I–”
“Shh,” says Jin, guiding her by the shoulders to a stool in front of the kitchen counter. “Now sit here and don’t touch anything, Yoonji said you have trouble managing objects.”
“Of course she did,” Namjoo says, grimacing and focusing on the counter. Jin’s hands are strong and warm, and she can still feel them.
“Actually,” Jin says, grabbing some plates out of a cabinet, “she said you have trouble ‘navigating the physical world,’ but in the current context I think what I said works well enough.”
“That’s sadly very accurate,” says Namjoo. “Things sort of tend to lose their molecular structure as solids when they enter my vicinity.”
“I can see how that would happen,” says Jin, looking up at her from the stove, and then quickly back down at the three different pans sizzling in front of her. “You could say that you don’t have a sense of object permanence. You can laugh, that was a joke.”
Namjoo laughs, which is almost embarrassing, but she can’t help it. Jin’s mouth quirks at both ends, not a Big Smile but it’s warm and exciting somewhere in Namjoo’s deep chest.
That’s when Namjoo decides that Jin is the funniest person she’s ever met. It’s not even what she says, necessarily, but how she says it, like there’s a well of humor inside her that leaches out into every cell and blood vessel, manages to find almost anything funny and turn it inside out so that Namjoo finds it funny too. Namjoo’s been told her whole life she takes things too seriously, and she’s never seen a problem with that, but there’s a sense of perspective that comes with Jin’s wit that she suddenly longs to have.
“So,” she says. “You’re...a senior too, right?”
They haven’t ever been alone, she recalls vividly. They haven’t ever talked, just the two of them. Jin has sort of just drifted through Yoonji’s vicinity while Namjoo’s been around, bringing the two of them snacks or telling Yoonji that a bill is due.
“Yeah,” Jin says. “I’m studying acting. I have an audition tomorrow, actually, for a play this winter.”
“Really?” says Namjoo. “That’s–cool. Very cool.”
“No money in it,” Jin says, scoffing.
“I’m double majoring in English and philosophy,” Namjoo tells her. “So. I’m not judging you.”
“Well, I’m judging you,” says Jin, drawing her eyebrows down into a Big Judging Face. “All that thinking is going to make you sick. You need to take care of yourself, go take a throwaway art history course or something.”
“So why acting?” says Namjoo, trying to say as few words as possible so she has less of a chance of messing them up.
“I’m good at it,” says Jin, shrugging. “And I love it. I figure those are two good reasons. I started when I was pretty young, I actually got scouted once for a talent agency but I turned it down. I wanted to go to college, I wanted to figure things out for myself for a few years.”
“I can understand that,” Namjoo says. “It’s hard enough to be a person when you’re allowed to be one, I can’t imagine what it’s like when you’re not.”
Jin turns to her, and she doesn’t make a Big Face. She just looks, for a long enough moment that Namjoo can hear her own breath catch in her throat.
“That’s the thing about acting,” she says, turning off the heat on the stove burners. “You can become anyone. You can escape yourself, and everyone is looking at you but they’re not looking at you because of what you look like, or because they’re judging you, they’re looking at you because you made them feel something; you made them feel what you’re feeling. It’s like a transfusion, and every single person in the audience is your same blood type, and you never run out, you just keep giving and giving, and they keep taking, and then when they leave they’re all walking around with a part of you living inside them, forever, because if you do it well enough they’ll remember you for the rest of their lives.”
She stops talking, puts her hands on her lower back, and stretches.
"The role that is what we make it," says Namjoo, "as great as we like/Or as small as we like, or both great and small."
She looks at Jin the way she’d look at a constellation whose shape she was trying to determine, and then explains, "Walt Whitman. It's, uh, it's my favorite poem of his."
"That's beautiful," says Jin. She leans forward onto the counter toward Namjoo, dark eyes sparkling. "You'll have to read it all to me sometime."
Namjoo nods, trying not to breathe because Jin is so close she might be able to smell her skin.
“Okay, well, dinner is ready,” Jin says, backing away from her and laughing a little. “I hope you’re hungry, because if you don’t finish everything on your plate the gods will be displeased, and by the gods I mean me, and you’re not allowed to argue or you don’t get dessert.”
That’s when Namjoo decides that Jin is the most interesting person she’s ever met.
They bypass the little dining table in the corner of the kitchen entirely and sit in the living room instead. Jin sprawls out in the pink armchair, tucking the cloud-face-pillow into her side. Setting down her plate on the coffee table, she takes out her scrunchie and scrapes her dark hair out of her face.
“Right,” says Namjoo, to nothing in particular.
“Sorry?” says Jin, looking up at her with her scrunchie between her teeth. She grabs it with one hand and ties up her hair again. The striped T-shirt she’s wearing is slipping off one shoulder.
Namjoo already decided that Jin is the most attractive person she’s ever met but she re-decides it.
“Eat,” Jin says, furrowing her brow. “Do you want to make me sad? Because that’s what you’re doing.”
“Right,” Namjoo repeats, and eats.
“How is it?” Jin asks, sitting bolt upright in her chair and grinning as she grabs for her own plate.
“Good,” Namjoo says. “Really, really good. Everything you make is really good.”
Jin shrugs, but she’s beaming, in a quiet way that doesn’t require the brusqueness of teeth.
“I wanted to make something nice,” she says, and then looks down at her plate, and her ears go red.
There is complete silence as Jin demolishes her entire plate of food in two minutes flat.
Namjoo just sort of stares, and tries to follow along as best she can.
“I’m back,” grumbles Yoonji as she slips through the door, and Namjoo sighs in what is half relief that she is no longer left to be a complete disaster alone with Jin, and half deep disappointment that she is no longer left to be a complete disaster alone with Jin.
(God, she’s so fucked. What is even going on in her brain?)
“How was work?” Jin asks, setting down her empty plate, which she’s been–licking?–Namjoo was trying to completely avoid looking at her while she was doing that–and wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand, and how does she make that so hot oh God?
“Fine,” Yoonji says, yanking off her combat boots that must weigh half of what she does and going into the kitchen to serve herself. “Wow, Jin, this must have taken a while. Any special occasion?”
“It was nothing,” says Jin. “It’s National Cook-for-Oscar-the-Grouch Day, and you were the closest thing I had, so I had to make do. Waste not, want not, that’s what I always say.”
She pulls her legs up into herself, and puts her face into her knees. Namjoo can see her ears are pink again.
“Do you want dessert, Namjoo?” she asks suddenly, poking her nose out from her legs and jumping up. “I found you vegan cheesecake. Do you like cheesecake?”
“How did you even–that must have been so much trouble,” Namjoo says, looking up from her plate, which is now almost empty. “You really don’t have to–”
“Do. You. Like. Cheesecake?” asks Jin, making a Big Inquiring Face.
“Yes,” says Namjoo. “I love it.”
“Good,” Jin says, and grabs Namjoo’s plate out of her hand as she makes her way into the kitchen.
“Just let her do it,” says Yoonji, settling down on the other end of the couch. “Food is her love language.”
“I don’t deserve it,” says Namjoo quietly, looking down at her hands and trying to ignore the way her heart is fluttering. “I was a mess tonight, as usual.”
“Hush,” says Jin, appearing beside her with a generous slice of cheesecake and handing it to her.
Namjoo nearly jumps out of her skin, and feels herself flush.
“You weren’t a mess,” says Jin, settling back into her ridiculous pink armchair with her own piece of cheesecake.
“Only because you didn’t let me touch anything,” says Namjoo, too-obviously trying to make a joke out of the whole thing.
“Be that as it may,” Jin says, pointing at Namjoo with her fork, “you are enchanting, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
She makes a Big Funny Face, and Namjoo laughs, to cover up the sirens and clanging alarm bells that signal her entire body announcing, Namjoo.exe has stopped responding.
Present day
“You’re going to have to talk to her eventually, or she’s going to think you didn’t like the play,” says Yoonji. “I’m going to go get a drink.”
“Let me get it for you,” says Hobi, and Namjoo doesn’t even have to take her face out of her hands to see the face she’s making, like she’ll just absolutely die if Yoonji doesn’t let her buy her a drink.
“Fine,” says Yoonji, sounding manufactured and flat.
Hobi disappears from Namjoo’s side, and Namjoo finally feels safe to take her face out of her hands.
“At some point later,” Yoonji says, following a moving target behind Namjoo’s back with her eyes–and Namjoo would bet a great deal of money that the bull’s-eye says Jung Hosook– “we’re going to have to have a conversation about disclosing exactly how attractive your friends are to me as soon as it becomes relevant or possibly before, but for the moment we’re focused on your weirdness in other arenas and I don’t want to overload you, so I’ll tell you again: go talk to her, otherwise she’ll be hurt because she really values your opinion and I can tell she’s waiting for you to tell her what you thought. You did like it, didn’t you?”
“Like it?” Namjoo groans. “She was...she was amazing. She was incredible. She does this thing with her voice where it sounds like music when she’s just talking, she does this thing with her face where–”
“Okay, fine, don’t tell me, save it for Jin, God you’re sappy,” says Yoonji. “I’m going to go find Hobi and have my drink now.”
“No, no, Yoonji, don’t leave me,” Namjoo whines. “If I talk to her alone I’m going to make it obvious I’m in love with her.”
“That’s the point, idiot,” says Yoonji, backing away and pointing to Namjoo, then over to where Jin is still talking to two men at the next table, then back to Namjoo, and pounding her fist against her palm in what would be a threatening way if she didn’t so resemble a kitten with its claws out.
Namjoo chugs the rest of her apple cider, which does absolutely nothing because it’s apple cider, but she somehow thinks being drunk would probably make this whole thing worse, so it’s yet another catch-22-type situation.
So, the thing where Jin hates her because Namjoo doesn’t really...work around her might be mostly in Namjoo’s head.
(But on the other hand, she was joking when she called Namjoo enchanting, right? Isn’t Jin always joking? And if she’s always joking, doesn’t that also mean she’s never joking, or at least that anything she says is on the same level of seriousness or non-seriousness as anything else, which means that her calling Namjoo enchanting was not necessarily an exceptionally joking statement?)
“Hi,” says Jin, sounding a little breathless beside her, and Namjoo jumps. She has got to stop doing that.
“Hi,” says Namjoo. “God, you really just appeared like that, huh?”
“Did I sneak up on you?” Jin asks, grinning. “Sorry. In my defense, you’re very easy to sneak up on. You’re lucky you’re not feral, you’d never survive in the wild.”
“Definitely lucky I’m domesticated into purely theoretical realms,” Namjoo says. “God knows what would happen to me were I set free in the physical world, which, as we all know, is hardly my natural habitat.”
“It’d be a fun nature documentary, though,” Jin says, adopting a really terrible Australian accent. “‘And now we see a wild Namjoo, attempting to come down a set of stairs while writing in a notebook. This is a dangerous maneuver, folks, she’s risking the survival of her young–’”
“What young?” Namjoo sputters. “I don’t have any children!”
“Not that you know of,” Jin says meaningfully, and before Namjoo can say anything about how outlandish that is on multiple levels, she adds, “and also, your children are your poems and songs. They run around all terrible and cute and you shepherd them into formation on paper and in sound. That’s what kids and parents do.”
Namjoo vaguely remembers saying something along those lines to Yoonji once.
“I didn’t realize you heard me say that,” she says.
Jin shrugs. “I hear a lot of things. It’s one of the many prospective benefits of occupying the physical world. You should give it a try sometime.”
And then, as though she’s been working up the nerve to ask, she says, all in a rush, “So, what did you think?”
There are so many things Namjoo could say that they crowd up inside her brain, all shoving to be heard, like Black Friday shoppers waving coupons in lines. Big, current, ongoing, obvious things she wants to say in the present, but must confine to the past perfect so as to seem like they’re in a specific context and not big, current, ongoing, obvious blanket statements.
You were incredible.
You are incredible.
I loved the way you said–
I loved the way you looked when you–
I love the way you–
I love–
Even if she manages to corral her present tense away, all of these are roads that lead only to one place, and she can’t go there.
“You were really good,” she says finally, and feels her chest wrench at the dip on Jin’s face, the tiny signs of disappointment around her eyes and mouth.
(That’s the thing about Jin–even though she makes all her Big Faces, her face, when it’s not being shoved into those curated shapes, is so incredibly expressive that even the smallest movement makes a huge shadow on it, like a projector onto a movie screen. It’s one of the things Namjoo noticed when she was onstage–the way she can make the delicate arch of one eyebrow carry an entire scene, the way the set of her mouth tells a full story.
Sometimes Namjoo wonders whether she makes the Big Faces on purpose, so that her little expressions won’t be so noticeable. Namjoo’s always seen them, though–always looked for them. She’s never been satisfied to settle for the obvious, and Jin is so much less obvious than she first appears.)
Jin gives her a Big Smile and says, “Thank you.”
She looks soft and a little tired in the dimming light of the party. Namjoo wants to wrap her up in her arms, pick her up and carry her home, or at the very least persuade her spine back against a wall so she can feel enclosed and safe. But she doesn’t. And she doesn’t do anything else, either.
Namjoo meant what she said to Yoonji. She has to watch what she says and does around Jin, because her life now feels like a choose-your-own-adventure book where half the endings are her grabbing Jin by the waist and yelling, I LOVE YOU PLEASE LOVE ME.
That’s the one thing she can’t do, though. And it’s about time she let her inner monologue run itself out, get to the thing she’s been putting off thinking about all night, the thing that no one knows except for the two of them.
Namjoo is always burying the lede, isn’t she?
So, yeah, what she really, really should’ve said from the beginning is this:
Reason three: Jin doesn’t like her back.
One month ago
“No, I am not going to the party, and I am absolutely not wearing that,” says Namjoo, scowling at the tiny red thing that Hobi is trying to convince her is a dress in her most unctuous snake-oil-saleswoman voice.
“Come on,” Hobi says. “At least wear something a little different than the customary flannel over the gray dress and/or T-shirt and jeans.”
“I like that look,” Namjoo says. “It’s reliable, it’s consistent. I’m like gay Steve Jobs.”
“Was Steve Jobs not gay?” asks Hobi, eyes wide, as she pulls off her shirt and starts putting on the red dress herself.
“Didn’t he have a wife? I thought they made a movie about it.” Namjoo pushes aside a few more tiny dresses. “God, Hobi, don’t you have anything that looks like it was made for a person and not a Shih Tzu?”
She crosses the room to her own closet, pulls it open, looks at the six flannels, eight T-shirts, and four gray dresses hanging there, and sighs. “Okay, fine, you have a point. But come on, you’re tiny. None of your clothes are going to fit me.”
“Oh!” Hobi says. “Wait! I have something in here that I got from a clothing swap months ago, I meant to take it in but I forgot.”
Namjoo sits down on her bed while Hobi tunnels into the back of her closet like a dedicated and only slightly less noisy jackhammer.
“A-ha!” comes from inside the closet, and then, “Uh-oh.”
“Are you stuck?” Namjoo asks with no small trace of concern; Hobi’s closet is packed tight with clothes.
“I got it,” Hobi shouts, and then she crawls out of the closet on all fours, with something silver gleaming on her back.
“Here,” she says, puffing out her chest proudly and holding out a pale gray slip dress. “Look, it’s gray, not too far out of your comfort zone...you can even wear tights if you want.”
Namjoo notes with amusement that Hobi is speaking to her in the wheedling tone one might use when trying to train a stubborn dog. She narrows her eyes at the dress. It’s more revealing than her usual dresses–would show her arms and shoulders, and more of her chest than she’s used to. Namjoo has round arms, and a soft stomach, and she likes her body, but she doesn’t usually take a lot of pleasure in showing it to people.
“You know,” Hobi says casually, setting the dress on Namjoo’s lap and turning to the mirror to comb through her fluffy bangs, “Jimin’s best friend is in the acting department and she says Jin might be there.”
Namjoo hasn’t seen Jin in a few weeks, other than in passing; she’s been busy with rehearsals, and is always hurrying somewhere or laughing with some really artsy-looking theater majors. The thought of a few hours in the same house as her makes Namjoo’s chest feel tight.
“Teaches me to tell you anything,” she says, but she’s already pulling off her jeans.
They decide to walk, because even though the party is on the other side of campus, it’s only twenty minutes or so and it feels silly to drive or call an Uber, and besides, later, when they’ll probably be drunk, they (read: Namjoo) will want the fresh air.
By the time they get there it’s almost nine and the party is in full force; there are people out on the front lawn, and up into the house, which is shooting light and music out into the night willy-nilly.
“You good to come in?” Hobi asks. Her tone is all business, but she’s messing with the ends of her shoulder-length hair. “It’s okay if you want to go home.”
“No,” Namjoo says. She squares her shoulders. She’s been here for a year, and it’s high time she gets comfortable with parties, because she wants to be, she wants to have fun.
(And also Jin might be inside.)
(But that’s a totally tangential factor.)
“Okay, great,” says Hobi, and they mount the stairs and bang into the house.
The music is immediately overpowering. Hobi and Namjoo grab bottles of beer–not Namjoo’s drink of choice but they’re sealed, and she’s not into accepting uncovered containers of liquid from strangers–and hover at the edges of the room. Namjoo sees Hobi’s eyes flicking to where people are dancing in the center of the space.
“Go ahead,” she shouts over the music.
“I don’t want to abandon you,” yells Hobi, the corners of her mouth tugging down. “Do you want to join me?”
“I’m not there yet,” yells Namjoo, laughing, “but you go!”
“Okay,” Hobi shouts. “Come find me if you need anything!”
Namjoo just nods and shoves Hobi forward, grinning as she immediately begins to tear shit up. She wants to spin around and point and yell, “That’s my best friend!” but she thinks it might be weird to yell that at a stranger, so she just sips her beer instead.
There’s a tap on her shoulder, and she turns.
“Hey!” Jin shouts, giving Namjoo that small, genuine smile of hers. She’s wearing a dark blue crop top and glittery eyeshadow, and her hair is down, falling in a smooth dark sheet to her breastbone. As usual, Namjoo’s stomach starts hurting.
“Hi!” yells Namjoo. She’s sort of glad the music is so loud, so she can have an excuse not to say anything and avoid making a fool of herself.
Jin’s just standing there, and even in the dim light Namjoo can kind of make out her eyes moving across Namjoo’s collarbone, then down over the triangle of her exposed chest. All the blood in her body rushes to her head.
“Do you want to–um–” Namjoo shouts, gesturing in a way that she hopes conveys anywhere but here.
“Sure!” Jin nods, and steps to the side. Her fingertips find the small of Namjoo’s back as they’re making their way out. There are people everywhere, and they’re pressed close together. Namjoo’s only had one beer but she doesn’t usually drink much, and she feels a little dizzy and she’s not sure whether it’s from the beer, or the incredibly light, too-light brush of Jin’s fingers against the base of her spine, or the way her long hair smells like jasmine and mint.
They manage to get out of the crowded living room and up a set of stairs and they’re both laughing as they burst into the nearest room, which turns out to be a bathroom, and Jin sits on the corner of the inset bathtub and Namjoo settles onto the floor, legs crossed, and tries not to look at Jin’s exposed stomach, at all the lines of shifting muscle and skin that make up her body and manage to contain the exact right amount of Jin.
“So,” Jin says, and she sounds breathless and her face is a little pink. Namjoo wonders if she’s drunk a lot, but she’s not slurring her words, and her eyes are bright and alert. “How do you like the party?”
“Are you referring to downstairs, or to this?” Namjoo asks, looking up at her. “Because those are two different answers.”
“I’m going to come down there with you,” Jin says, and she hops down onto the floor and crosses her legs too, aligning her knees with Namjoo’s.
“I guess I’m referring to this,” she says after a moment, pressing her palms to her thighs.
Namjoo is so impressed that she’s still breathing properly that she wants Jin to know about it. She considers leading a guided tour of her own body, taking Jin’s slender hand with its curving fingers and pressing it to Namjoo’s sternum, saying, look how skillfully my heart is beating, moving it down, saying, look how deftly my diaphragm is expanding and contracting, moving it down, saying, look how easily my intestines are staying unknotted, moving it down—
(So maybe she just wants Jin’s hands all over her.)
It’s been several seconds.
“This is great,” says Namjoo quickly. “This is–this is really great.”
Jin grins, and it looks a little shy. “Tell me something, about writing,” she says. “Or music. Tell me something you love, I want to hear what you’re like when you love something.”
Her hair swings down as she leans forward, and Namjoo wants to take a section of it in each hand, run it through her fingers.
“It’s sort of like what you said about acting,” Namjoo says, and she’s focusing so hard on what she’s going to say that without thinking about it she reaches out and takes some of Jin’s silky hair in one hand. It’s as soft as it looks.
Jin takes a quick breath.
“Oh shit, sorry,” says Namjoo, and tries to make her hand stop doing what it’s doing, but it’s being stubborn and refusing to leave its new friend.
“No, it’s...it’s okay,” says Jin. “You can do that, that’s okay.”
“Okay,” says Namjoo, and it’s more of an exhale than a word. She strokes through Jin’s hair, gently working out a tangle. “Well, yeah, it’s kind of like you said. I can make something, can just...pull something out of thin air, tinker at it in my mind and on the page and in music, and then I’ve created, and if I really work I can make something beautiful that other people can enjoy, and enjoy in the full meaning of the word, really get joy from.”
She reaches up further into Jin’s hair, bringing her hand up to the back of her neck, and then to her scalp. Namjoo brings her other hand up to rub at her temple, then back to just behind her ear, moving it down to caress her throat below her jaw. It feels sickeningly intimate that Jin leans into her hand, into her.
“And then, if I do my job right,” Namjoo says, lower than before, “someone will look up from the page, or let the song fade out, and feel what I’m feeling, and then they’ll carry a little piece of me with them in their heart, forever.”
When she tilts her head forward ever so slightly her forehead meets Jin’s, and she can feel her breath.
She keeps moving (that’s right, forward motion, however slow, is still forward motion), and Jin doesn’t pull away, just sits still like she’s waiting, like she’s been waiting, and when her breath is softening Namjoo’s mouth they’re kissing, which shouldn’t be at all surprising and yet is so much of a shock that Namjoo can feel her whole body tense up.
Namjoo firms up her grasp on the back of Jin’s neck, and puts the other hand around her back, and Jin falls back onto her elbows, bringing one of her hands up to Namjoo’s face. She’s warm and soft and taut and trembling a little and so perfect, it’s completely perfect, and it’s been so long, and Namjoo is admittedly very horny, and so when Jin moves her hand down to Namjoo’s chest and lets it hover over her dress, Namjoo nods excitedly.
“God, you’re so hot,” she says, breaking her contact with Jin’s wet mouth, and then she feels Jin stiffen against her.
She pulls away. “Jin? Did I–do something wrong–?”
Jin isn’t meeting her gaze. She’s looking up, and to the side, with wide eyes.
Namjoo scrambles off of her and draws back onto her knees, her feet curled up beneath her. She wants to reach out but that doesn’t seem right. “Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry.” Jin shakes out her hair and sits up. “This was–this was a mistake, I think we’re in different places with what we want here.”
“No, I’m sorry,” says Namjoo. She isn’t even sure what she’s apologizing for but this feels like it must be her fault.
“I think I should go,” Jin says. “I think it’d be best if we just stayed friends. Can we do that? I really like being friends with you.”
She’s finally looking at Namjoo now, but she looks sad, almost frightened, and her tone is pleading, and Namjoo hates it all.
“Of course,” Namjoo says. “I really like being friends with you too. But–”
Jin is out the door before she can say anything else.
Namjoo sits back against the sink and presses a hand hard against her mouth.
This was a mistake. I think it’d be best if we just stayed friends.
Present day
So there it is. The immovable obstacle that no force, no matter how unstoppable it might think itself, can make budge.
(And no matter how many “intellectual” things Namjoo tries to distract herself with, no matter how many jokes she makes about how horny she is, no matter how many times she goes over it in her mind, she knows a) that she’s in love with Jin, b) that Jin doesn’t feel the same, and c) that Namjoo’s feelings are, one way or another, making them both miserable. Have been for weeks, even though they’ve been pretending nothing happened.
Like right now, when they’re just sitting at this table, both looking in some indeterminate direction that might be napkins.)
“We have to talk,” says Jin finally, and when Namjoo looks up at her she finds that she’s got this hard look in her eye that Namjoo hasn’t seen before.
“We’re talking now.” Namjoo bites her lip. “In fact, we’re usually talking. We’re both pretty good at it. I’d argue you’re better than I am, in terms of content, but on the frequency front, you know, we both get by.”
“That’s not what I mean,” says Jin. “Although you’re completely wrong about the relative quality of our conversational content.”
“Oh,” says Namjoo. “Do you want to–go somewhere, or–?”
“Probably best.”
Namjoo stands up and leads the way out of Jin’s director’s dining room. It seems wrong to do this in the house. They might end up yelling, or crying. Telling someone you’re not in love with them and you need to stop seeing them works out like that, pretty often, at least from what she knows from books.
“This way,” Jin says, gesturing toward a set of French doors. She ushers Namjoo through before coming out herself. It’s a balcony, long and slender against the whole side of the house. In the summer it would be profusely fragrant with flowers, but in winter everything is skeletal. Namjoo’s always liked that, the bare bones of winter. It’s like the world has experienced life now, and is going to sleep to forget. A fresh start.
As it is all she can smell is Jin close behind her, jasmine and mint. There are no flowers.
They draw close to a small semicircular patio that sticks out from the balcony. Jin crosses it to lean against the low railing, and Namjoo is struck, as usual, by how beautiful she is. She looks like a tragic heroine, and just as unhappy, which is Namjoo’s fault.
Namjoo doesn’t want her to be like this, sad and cold and beautiful like a sculpture. She wants Jin to be herself, to laugh like she always does, to be happy.
“Did I ever tell you why I don’t date very much?” Jin sets her chin on top of her folded hands as though balancing something delicate on an unsteady column of books.
“I don’t think so.” Namjoo feels awkward and stupid just standing there but she doesn’t know what else to do. She wishes she could just dissipate into mist. The water cycle is aspirational, truly.
“It’s because...this will sound silly–”
“No it won’t,” says Namjoo.
Jin turns just a little, so that she can see Namjoo out of the corner of her eye. “I guess...I know what I look like, and sometimes I feel like people don’t really like me, or want to get to know me, they just want to drape me over their arm like a pretty scarf, or to hold me for a little while, to take what they want and then be done. It’s happened...more than I care to admit. So I have friends, good ones. I don’t like falling in love, it’s typically an unequal exchange.”
There’s not really anything that can be said to that.
“I’m sorry,” Namjoo says finally.
Jin’s shoulders drop. “For what?”
“For kissing you,” says Namjoo, crossing the balcony to her side. “I hadn’t asked first, I should have known you wouldn’t want me to, I’m sorry. I crossed a line.”
“I–” Jin turns. “Did you say that you thought I didn’t want you to kiss me?”
“Yes?” Namjoo furrows her brow. “You said you just wanted to be friends.”
“Well, yes, but that was after–” Jin scrutinizes her, mouth set thin. “You told me, you said I was–”
“Oh no,” says Namjoo, as something clicks. “Jin, you have to know, I really can’t be held responsible for what I say around you, my brain sort of stops working and then my digestive system feels like it pauses, so really I’m just a collection of half-processed chemical impulses, so when I said you were hot, what I meant was that you were hot, yeah, but that wasn’t all I was thinking in the moment, it was just the small fragment of my thought process that happened to exit my mouth at the time, I’m so sorry.”
“So what you’re saying is…?” Jin’s smiling now, just a little one.
“I always bury the lede,” says Namjoo, rubbing the bridge of her nose with two fingers. Jin pries them away gently and presses her narrow fingertips to Namjoo’s temples, rubbing soft circles.
“No, wait.” Namjoo takes Jin’s hands away from her face and holds them tight. “I want you to hear this. I’m in love with you. I kissed you because I’m in love with you, and I’m in love with you because you’re amazing, and you’re funny and interesting and thoughtful. I thought you were so incredible tonight, I have a list of your best moments on the back of my playbill, I didn’t want to say anything because I was worried I’d end up letting you know I was in love with you by accident because it would be so obvious, but I loved the way you spoke and the way you moved and the way you can tell an entire story with just your face, you’re like a lightning rod–”
Jin’s wearing heels, and she has to lean down to kiss Namjoo, but Namjoo doesn’t mind. She just holds Jin’s hands tight when she kisses her back, and then releases them, and gets one up into Jin’s amazing hair under her bun and the other on her shoulder.
“I thought you just wanted to fuck me.” Jin sighs, shuddering and open against Namjoo’s cheek. “I like you so much, I’d have rather stayed friends than have sex with you once, no matter how badly I wanted to.”
“You’re perfect,” Namjoo tells her, kissing at her jaw and then mouthing at her ear. “I’m sorry I was an idiot.”
“I was also an idiot,” Jin volunteers. She noses at Namjoo’s cheek. “We’re a matching set of idiots.”
“We should get sashes,” says Namjoo, biting at a rogue strand of Jin’s hair. “Like prom king and queen.”
“I want a scepter,” Jin says immediately as she tilts Namjoo’s chin up to set her teeth against Namjoo’s throat.
“Jin, I will get you a scepter if it’s the last thing I ever do,” Namjoo gasps.
“That’s what I like to hear,” Jin says, and grabs her to kiss her again, slower.
She’s got her whole body aligned with Namjoo’s, and her full mouth is hot against the night air, all soft and wanting. Namjoo sighs and arches up into her.
“Sorry if this is completely terrible,” Namjoo says. “I’m sort of a mess around you.”
Jin smiles against her mouth. “I keep telling you, you’re enchanting. Also, I tend to lose my molecular structure as a solid when I get near you, so we’re even.”
“What can I say?” says Namjoo, and her body is so warm. “I have no concept of object permanence.”
“A-ha!” comes a triumphant shout from behind them, and Namjoo lets her head thunk down onto Jin’s shoulder. “I love being right!”
“Yes, yes, good job Yoonji, you win,” says Jin, scratching her short nails across Namjoo’s scalp.
Namjoo straightens up and turns to find Yoonji has transformed into a compact, vibrating hunk of pure righteous energy. Behind her, Hobi, holding two drinks, is doing a little happy dance. She catches Namjoo’s eye and bounces on her feet a little, smiling her most geometrically genuine smile.
Yoonji puts her hands on her hips. “Ah, how sweet is vindication,” she says. “Come on Hobi, let’s go spread the word to everyone.”
“Sounds good,” says Hobi, and hands Yoonji her drink, which she knocks back in one go.
Hobi grins and trips off after Yoonji. “Happy trails, you two! Use protection!”
“Obviously, you heathens!” Jin shouts, curling an arm around Namjoo’s back as she arches toward their retreating forms. “What do you take me for?”
“Okay,” says Namjoo as they disappear inside, pulling her playbill out of her back pocket and snuggling closer into Jin’s shoulder. “I have my annotated list of all my favorite moments from your performance, which we can go over whenever you like, preferably as soon as possible because I want to tell you how amazing you were before I kiss you some more, which I also want to do as soon as possible.”
“I have more of your cheesecake in the fridge,” blurts Jin. “Just coincidentally, it’s not like I’ve been keeping one there for months in case you came over.”
Namjoo eyes her skeptically.
“It’s exactly like that. I’ve been doing that.” Jin muffles her laugh with Namjoo’s hair.
“Great,” Namjoo says. “Then let’s go home, I’m hungry.”
Jin doesn’t make a Big Face. She just squeezes Namjoo’s waist and kisses her ear because it’s the closest part of her, and as they make their way back inside, she says, “So, did I do well enough tonight that I’m going to live in your heart forever, as we like to say?”
“I hate to say this, because I know it’ll just inflate your ego even more,” Namjoo says, “but you were already there.”