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Mizi shifts listlessly in her seat. She’s all too aware of how she stands out; a few people—relatives, many of whom Sua didn’t seem to particularly care for or like, and only exchanged a few pleasantries with when they arrived—have been eyeing her curiously and whispering among themselves about this strange, unfamiliar girl sitting front row with the bride’s precious little sister.
She hadn’t even wanted to go, but Sua practically begged her to come with her, and told her Hia wouldn’t mind anyway and that she would even appreciate Mizi’s attendance, and when Mizi had tried to wriggle her way out of it by telling her she had nothing nice—that is, nothing expensive—to wear to the wedding, she countered it with an offer to lend her a dress, and if shoes were a problem too then she’d lend her a pair as well, and by that point Mizi had run out of excuses and finally just agreed. Sua did end up lending her the dress she’s wearing now, as well as her shoes, and by all means she looks respectable, but a nice dress and nice shoes won’t ever change the fact Mizi isn’t from this world, and she knows Sua’s relatives can sniff it from a mile away.
A beggar, taking advantage of their poor, naive Sua—or, Sua’s little plaything. Her pet.
Mizi can’t decide which is worse.
The idle chatter all around Mizi begins to taper off as the lights dim and a voice over the speakers asks everyone to rise for the beginning of the ceremony. Mizi rises up to her feet a little too quickly, then smooths her hands down the front of her dress—Sua’s dress—to play off her nerves, aware that it’s maybe a little weird for her to feel nervous at someone else’s wedding, then, along with everyone else, turns towards the double doors at the back of the hall as the music begins.
For a moment, Mizi forgets to feel out of place. The mothers of the couple make their way down the aisle first, and then the groom, and then, finally, Hia steps through the doors with an arm looped around her father’s arm. There are gasps all around, oohs and ahhs, and even Mizi can’t help the way her own mouth drops open in awe: even with a veil covering most of her face, Hia is undeniably beautiful.
Mizi glances at Sua expecting a similar reaction, but finds she’s crying instead.
She’s perfectly still beside Mizi, staring down the aisle at her sister, her mouth pressed into a thin, tense line and her fingers curled tight around fistfuls of her skirt.
Puzzled, and more than a little alarmed, Mizi takes one of Sua’s hands in hers and squeezes.
Sua is startled by it at first, jolting like Mizi had just shaken her awake. She turns to Mizi and looks at her like she’s surprised to see her there—like she wasn’t the one who asked Mizi to come here with her in the first place—blinks, and just turns away again, her eyes following her sister as she passes by them.
Mizi stares at Sua’s face for a long, quiet moment, then turns her attention ahead too.
The reception is as swanky as the wedding ceremony, but about ten times more enjoyable because of the buffet. Mizi is, of course, at her best behavior, resisting the temptation to just pile as much food as she can onto her plate in front of Sua’s entire extended family and instead asking for modest, acceptable proportions and taking her time with her food even if all she wants to do is wolf it all down and then rush back for seconds. Sua tags along with her, just because, eating very little herself; in and of itself, that isn’t anything concerning or even surprising given how Sua’s never had a big appetite, but Mizi still tries to nudge her towards eating anything at all anyway.
They have the table to themselves for the most part. Sua’s parents are busy catching up with her aunts and uncles and cousins, and Hia is busy making the rounds with her husband, taking pictures with all of her guests and taking time to just catch up with them and bask in their congratulations. Mizi spends most of that time observing Sua, who pushes her food around her plate sullenly.
Under the table, Mizi bumps her knee against Sua's and murmurs, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Sua replies almost mechanically, glancing at Mizi before she goes back to glowering at her plate of barely-touched food, “I’m just not very hungry, that’s all.” After a while, she pushes her plate towards Mizi and says, “You can have it, if you want.”
Normally, Mizi would be happy to finish Sua’s leftovers for her—this isn’t anything new for them—but her heightened self-consciousness being surrounded by all these well-to-do people in this very, very expensive hotel stops her from reaching over and polishing off Sua’s plate. That, and she can tell that Sua isn’t being very honest with her right now, and that she isn’t fine, and no amount of delicious, extravagant food can distract Mizi from that.
“Unnie,” she starts, but then Sua suddenly gets up, her chair scraping against the floor a little too loudly that the people a table over turn their heads towards their direction, curious and confused by the commotion, and Sua mumbles, “I’m going to the bathroom,” and then rushes off before Mizi can get another word in.
She gets up to go after Sua, but Hia appears at her side before she can take another step.
“Mizi-ya!” Hia says, cheery, and then she’s pulling Mizi against her side. She gives her a once-over and teases, “You look like a proper little lady today,” and even if she doesn’t say anything about it out loud, Mizi can tell from the look on her face that she recognizes Sua’s dress; Mizi supposes she should be glad she’s spared her a jab, no matter how seemingly lighthearted, about it. She does add, “But you know, you’d be even prettier if you just grew your hair out,” though, playing with the ends of Mizi’s short hair.
When Mizi blushes, a little embarrassed, Hia just ruffles her hair and says, laughing, “What am I saying? Hey—I’m glad to see you here, Mizi-ya. It means a lot.”
Mizi finds that more than a little hard to believe—she’s only just Hia’s little sister’s friend, after all: her presence couldn’t possibly ‘mean a lot’—but she just plasters a smile on her face and replies, “Congratulations, unnie. You look really beautiful, and the ceremony was really beautiful too. I’m really happy for you.”
Hia is still smiling, but she only hums in response.
Uneasy, Mizi can’t help but look away, throwing a glance towards the direction Sua rushed off to. When her gaze drifts back to Hia, she finds her eyes fixed on the same point in the distance too.
“She’s still sulking, huh,” Hia says, more of a statement than a question.
Mizi purses her lips, unsure of how to proceed. She doesn’t know if she’d call it ‘sulking’ but in the days leading up to the wedding, Sua has been more quiet and more withdrawn than usual. She didn’t think there was anything concerning about it at first—Sua is really close with Hia, after all, so Mizi doesn’t think it’s all that strange for Sua to be a little bit sad about her sister leaving her behind to build a life of her own, and start her own family—but now…
Hia sighs, pulling Mizi out of her thoughts.
“She’s a really sensitive kid,” Hia laments to Mizi. She sounds like she’s joking at first, but then she gets this weirdly serious look on her face, enough to make Mizi start feeling a little uncomfortable again, and then she tells Mizi in a voice just loud enough to be heard above all the chatter, “Between you and me, I was honestly contemplating if I should even push through with the wedding, let alone the engagement, knowing how Sua would react. She isn’t the kind of person who can make it on her own, you know that? But…” This time, she turns to look directly at Mizi, arresting her gaze. A smile spreads over her face, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “She has you now, doesn’t she, Mizi-ya?”
Mizi doesn’t say anything.
Hia studies her for a second, then looks past her towards the doors of the ballroom again. “You should go after her,” she tells Mizi, slipping back into that casual, affectionately exasperated tone she sometimes uses with Sua. “She must be looking for you already anyway.”
And Mizi just nods quietly, extricating herself from Hia’s side.
She keeps her head down as she makes a beeline for the exit, only looking back once at Hia’s direction. But she’s already moved on to another table, a big, practiced smile plastered on her face as she sidles up to her husband. Mizi watches her for a second, replaying their… bizarre conversation in her head, then ducks out of the ballroom to search for Sua.
In the end, Mizi finds Sua out in the courtyard. She’s all alone, sitting on a bench with both her legs drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Mizi observes her from a distance at first, then she quietly and carefully walks up to her.
“Your parents are looking for you,” Mizi lies as she approaches Sua, gauging her reaction—or lack thereof, seeing as the lie was never very convincing in the first place with how Sua’s parents are like—before she takes up the empty spot beside her on the bench. A shiver runs through her. “Aren’t you cold out here?”
“I’m fine,” Sua mumbles, not quite looking at Mizi.
They sit together in awkward but not uncompanionable silence for a while. Mizi mulls over what to say, or if she should just keeping sitting here in total silence with Sua instead. Eventually, though, she says, “I know you’re sad about Hia-unnie leaving.”
Sua slants her this hurt, almost angry look. Mizi doesn’t know if she’s angry at her specifically for bringing it up, or if she’s just so embarrassed about it that it comes off as angry. Or maybe she’s just a little annoyed that it took Mizi this long to go after her, and now that she’s here, she wants to stick her finger into what is obviously an open, bleeding wound.
Either way, it isn’t the kind of thing Mizi is used to seeing on, and receiving from, Sua—which is about as much confirmation that she needs that Sua is sulking.
They’re far away enough from the festivities that the music and chatter blur into a low, constant hum, just loud enough to remind them the celebrations are still carrying on without them.
“Whenever Mom and Dad got me gifts,” Sua says, voice dropping to a whisper, almost like she’s afraid that even this far away, Hia might hear her, “I would always end up giving them to unnie. Even the things I bought on my own, and saved up for myself—all of it would go to unnie, because she knows I can’t really say no to her, and that Mom and Dad can’t really say no to her either. She always got what she wanted.”
Mizi just watches Sua. Waits.
“I hated her sometimes for it,” Sua admits, gaze fixed to some point in the distance, “but she still felt more like family to me than Mom and Dad ever did, even if we aren’t related by blood.”
“I know I’ll still get to see her,” she goes on to say after a beat, shrinking even further into herself, “but it won’t be the same without her around the house anymore. I… I don’t want to be all alone there, with our parents, without her.”
“You won’t be,” Mizi assures her instantly, leaning closer to her. When Sua angles her face towards Mizi’s, she sees that she’s about to cry again already; Mizi scoots over completely now, until her body is pressed up against Sua’s, warm and solid. She wraps an arm around Sua and tells her, even more resolutely, “You won’t be, because I’m still here, right? And it’s… It’s not just because your house is bigger than mine, and you have a nicer room than mine. You’ve helped me a lot, and I really like being with you, and I—I really like you,” and she feels shy for a second, embarrassed, “so I’ll always be with you, no matter what.”
She presses her forehead against Sua’s. Vows, “You have me now.”
Sua regards Mizi quietly at first before she murmurs, sniffling, “Okay.” A smile eventually breaks over her face—still a little sad, but a smile all the same. Then:
Sua nudges their noses together, tentative enough that Mizi thinks it’s accidental at first, but then Sua does it again and Mizi realizes, face already burning up, oh. She’s fairly certain that they’re all alone out here, but she casts a very quick, small glance around anyway just to make sure, then, finally, she closes the distance between them and presses her lips against Sua’s. Her glasses make it a little awkward, but Sua doesn’t seem to mind.
When they pull away from each other, Mizi nudges her glasses up the bridge of her nose, laughing softly and shyly under her breath. She still isn’t quite used to kissing Sua, and she doesn’t really know yet what all of the kisses they’ve shared lately really means for the two of them—if it means to Sua what it means to Mizi, or at least, what she’s starting to want it to mean, even if it feels like they’ve already crossed a certain line beyond mere friendship—but the simple truth of it all is that it always feels so nice kissing her, and nice isn’t something she often gets to feel, so she’s going to savor every taste she gets of it.
Mizi offers her hand to Sua, and together, they walk back inside.
And she decides, as they slip back into the ballroom, disappearing into the background of the festivities, that she likes the prospect of it—a whole lot.
The two of them, together forever.