NOW.
It's only 10PM and Chaewon is already contemplating what her chances of sneaking out undetected are.
Normally, Chaewon's fine with parties, but that's when they're smaller and more casual and Chaewon knows most of, if not everybody present. Right now, she can probably only name about ten out of the many, many people packed into Joohyun and Seulgi's apartment.
Joohyun's birthday is one of the first of the school year, when people are excited to get back to college partying after spending the winter holiday in their hometowns away from their friends, and coupled with the fact that Seulgi is a social butterfly who's friends with like, everyone, that tends to result in the kind of wild, lively party that Chaewon usually goes out of her way to avoid.
From the direction of the kitchen, Chaewon hears a crash, followed by the sound of breaking glass and a lot of yelling. She does not envy Joohyun and Seulgi and whoever they rope into helping clean up tomorrow.
She checks the time on her phone again. 10:02PM flashes back at her, almost mockingly, and she sighs. At least the music is good, although that's a given considering half the people in the apartment are probably majoring in something music-related. She's had one beer, two mixed drinks and one shot forced on her by Seulgi the second she stepped through the door earlier as some kind of entry fee, which is enough to give her a pleasant buzz and dull her usual mild discomfort with social situations as large as this to mere background noise, but not too much that the room has started spinning and she's seeing more than one Yunjin skipping towards her.
"Hi," Yunjin says when she reaches the sofa Chaewon has commandeered, handing her one of the two drinks she's carrying. "Sorry I took so long, there was a situation in the kitchen. Someone bet Yeri that she couldn't shotgun her beer while doing a handstand, and well, you know what she's like. She took it personally."
Chaewon scoots over so Yunjin can sit down next to her, and it's a tight enough squeeze that their thighs are pressed together. Chaewon is glad she's wearing jeans, grateful for the barrier, however flimsy, separating her own thigh from the expanse of skin left bare by Yunjin's tiny shorts.
They had shown up to the party separately; Chaewon with Ryujin and then Yunjin an hour or so later, third wheeling Jiwoo and Sooyoung. She'd lost track of Yunjin for a while after their initial greetings, catching a few glimpses of her through the crowd, always in conversation with a group of at least three other people.
That's just how Yunjin is. While Chaewon prefers to watch from the sidelines, Yunjin thrives as the centre of attention. She knows how to talk to people, how to start conversations and keep them flowing, how to do a lap of the room and return with three phone numbers and at least one new friend.
On paper, their contrasting personalities probably shouldn't work. But in practice, Yunjin makes up the perfect other half of their dynamic. Yunjin's always been able to get Chaewon to come out of her shell, holding her hand the whole time, and Chaewon's always the one to ground Yunjin when her head's in the clouds, welcoming her back down to earth with open arms. Sun and moon. Night and day. Yin and yang.
Eventually Yunjin had found her in the kitchen, rescuing Chaewon from where a particularly inebriated Seulgi was trying to convince her to try some of the 'custom made' jungle juice that is a suspicious shade of pink. They'd mingled for a while, chatting to an even drunker Joohyun before she'd been stolen away by some other friends, watched Sana and Momo absolutely destroy some boys that Chaewon doesn't know in beer pong, gotten some air on the balcony with Jiwoo and Sooyoung until their unsubtle eyefucking got a bit too uncomfortable to witness, and now they're here, semi-hiding on one of the sofas tucked away in the corner of Joohyun and Seulgi's spacious living room.
Well, Chaewon is semi-hiding. She doesn't really know why Yunjin is still here keeping her company.
"How come you're not out there?" Chaewon asks, nodding towards the makeshift dance floor — the living room floor with all the furniture pushed to the side — where there's a mass of bodies grinding on each other to the bass of what is probably some underground hip-hop group that only Sooyoung is cool enough to have heard of.
"Because you're here," Yunjin says, like it should be obvious. She takes a sip of her drink and then leans into Chaewon's side, resting her head on Chaewon's shoulder, content to just watch the party for now.
After twelve years, Chaewon is used to spontaneous cuddling; Yunjin is an affectionate person anyway, always has been, and it only increases with the amount of alcohol she puts into her body. Twelve years, however, doesn't seem to be long enough for Chaewon's heart to stop doing that inconvenient little leap whenever Yunjin touches her.
They end up leaving the party just after midnight.
In that time, Chaewon has had two more drinks, taken a few hits of the joint Sooyoung was passing around, been coaxed onto the dance floor for a few songs by Yunjin and a very persistent Joohyun who insisted that Chaewon had to listen to her because a) I'm older and wiser than you, and b) it's my birthday bitch, and now she's feeling pleasantly tipsy enough that the late night chill when they step out onto the street doesn't really register.
Yunjin, on the other hand, does not like the cold, and instantly starts complaining. Chaewon links one arm with Yunjin, the other with Ryujin, and they start the ten minute walk through the city to the apartment Chaewon shares with Ryujin and Jiwoo.
(Jiwoo was nowhere to be found when Chaewon was saying her goodbyes. Predictably, neither was Sooyoung, so Chaewon can only imagine that they had ignored the stay the fuck out especially sooyoungs both ha and park sign taped to Joohyun and Seulgi's bedroom door and would not appreciate being interrupted.)
Chaewon's place is closer to Joohyun's than Yunjin and Sooyoung's apartment, and Yunjin usually comes over anyway whenever Jiwoo is staying with Sooyoung, both to give the couple some privacy and to prevent herself from accidentally overhearing things nobody ever needs to hear, so Chaewon hadn't been too surprised when Yunjin had thrown herself into Chaewon's arms and dramatically declared that she's staying over.
She pointedly ignores the raised eyebrow Ryujin sends her way when Yunjin starts babbling about getting more cuddle time with my favourite girl, and walks a little faster.
Ryujin disappears into her own room after bidding them goodnight when they get in, and Chaewon forces a glass of water on Yunjin — her tolerance for alcohol might be higher than Chaewon's, but her tolerance for hangovers is almost nonexistent — before ushering her into the bathroom and letting her get ready for bed.
When Chaewon comes into her room after brushing her teeth and taking her makeup off, Yunjin is already curled up under the blanket. Chaewon switches the light off, manages not to trip over the clothes Yunjin had thrown on the floor while getting changed into pyjamas, and slides into bed beside her. At the dip of the bed, Yunjin lets out a sleepy grumble, rolling over and wrapping an arm around Chaewon's waist before Chaewon's even fully settled.
She breathes out a drowsy goodnight Chaewonnie that Chaewon feels ghost against the back of her neck. She tries not to shiver.
"Night, unnie," Chaewon manages to get out after that brief moment she always needs to recalibrate, the one that happens every time Yunjin says her name like that.
Yunjin's breathing evens out within minutes, but it takes Chaewon a lot longer to fall asleep.
Chaewon doesn't really know when it began. When Chaewon was eight years old, Yunjin burst into her life like a firework, bright and loud and captivating, and one day Chaewon realised she couldn't look away. It crept up on her so slowly that it took Chaewon years to notice it was even there, and even longer still to admit it to herself.
Chaewon doesn't know when it began. Maybe it was right from the moment they first met, when something drew her towards Yunjin right from the very first moment, that red string of fate tugging her across Jeon Heejin's backyard and into Yunjin's life, almost like they were meant to find each other. Or maybe it was after that, when Yunjin became her best friend, her anchor, her partner-in-crime for everything from the ongoing prank war with Jiwoo and Heejin to anime marathons instead of studying to lazing around in Yunjin's backyard doing nothing at all. Or maybe it was later, in a closet in Park Chaeyoung's house, or later still, when Chaewon realised she looked at Yunjin the same way Yunjin looked at Kang Heesu.
Chaewon doesn't know when it began. All she knows is that at some point over the past twelve years, Yunjin had snuck into her heart, made a home there, and never left.
It's not like it's some kind of shocking revelation. Chaewon knows she's in love with Yunjin. Just because it's been dormant for a while and is just slowly waking up again doesn't mean it's something new.
(In retrospect, Chaewon never really stood a chance.)