THEN.
Her final year of high school is weird without Yunjin.
Chaewon still has Jiwoo and Heejin, of course, and FaceTime and KakaoTalk and Snapchat ensure she still talks to Yunjin and sees her goofy face everyday even if it's through a screen or a selfie, but it's just not the same.
When Chaewon gets made captain of the swim team, Yunjin can only beam and congratulate her through the screen of her laptop, their call cut short after fifteen minutes because Yunjin has a class to get to, instead of leaping onto her in a bone-crushing hug and then dragging her out for bubble tea in celebration the way she did when Chaewon first made the team two years ago.
There's no Yunjin waiting for her in the parking lot after swim practice and cheerleading have both finished, ready to drive them home via Starbucks or the mall, and there's nobody to indulge Chaewon's fondness for Sunday morning walks in the botanic gardens because Heejin refuses to get out of bed before noon on a weekend and Jiwoo claims that that time in the morning is a government conspiracy.
When Jiwoo invites them over for a movie night, the sofa seems much too big for just the three of them. With Yunjin in Seoul and Haseul even further away in Hong Kong on a scholarship at some prestigious business school, there's no one to pull the age hierarchy card when everyone's squabbling over what movie to watch, and there's no one to hog the popcorn or share the blanket or put their cold feet on Chaewon.
It hurts sometimes — aches, on the particularly bad days — missing Yunjin, knowing that a chunk of her heart is miles away in Seoul, but mostly it just feels like Chaewon's going through life a little off-kilter. Like she's constantly missing the last step on the staircase and having to take a moment to right herself each time she automatically turns to where Yunjin should be to tell her a joke or make a teasing comment or ask her to hang out after school.
The longest they've spent apart is one month, the summer during Yunjin's first year of high school when Chaewon and her family spent all of July at her grandparents in Gwangju.
(Chaewon returned to discover that Yunjin had finally shot up to tower a good few inches over her, the persistent remaining baby fat on her face had given way to sharp cheekbones and a sharper jawline, and the sunny days she'd spent helping her cousin with his gardening business for the filthy rich of Cheongju had turned her scrawny little best friend into someone tanned and muscled and hot.)
Now, Yunjin is in Seoul, two hours away by train, and she'll be there for an entire year before Chaewon graduates and comes to join her in the capital. And Chaewon is terrified that Yunjin will realise that with the new life she has and the new friends she'll make, she won't really need Chaewon, and slowly but surely she'll forget about her.
Chaewon blurts this out once, during one of their late night phone calls when it's past midnight and both of them are about to drop off, general drowsiness and the sound of Yunjin's breathing drastically lowering Chaewon's defences.
"Nobody could ever replace you," Yunjin assures her softly. "You're my best friend. I'm not going to find a new one, I promise."
Chaewon tries so hard to believe her. She plays Yunjin's words back in her head every time she sees Yunjin get tagged in a Facebook check-in by someone called Kang Seulgi, every time Yunjin posts a photo on Instagram and tags renebaebae and peachmomo, every time Yunjin sends her a Snapchat of her food or her coffee or a tray of shots and Chaewon can clearly see there's someone else at the table with her.
Chaewon clings onto that promise whenever Yunjin calls her to tell Chaewon about her day and Chaewon feels like she's being left behind, like she's missing out on Yunjin moving on in her life while Chaewon is still stuck in Cheongju, right where Yunjin left her.
Like when Chaewon answers Yunjin's FaceTime call while she's procrastinating her geometry homework and it takes her a second to recognise the face shoved into the camera, because the person grinning back at her is no longer blonde.
"Your hair?" Chaewon blurts out.
Yunjin laughs, dramatically running a hand through her freshly dyed jet black hair. "Is the result of a box of hair dye that Momo had lying around, five thousand won worth of sake and Sooyoung's peer pressure."
" Sooyoung's peer pressure, she says like it's a bad thing," Sooyoung's disembodied voice says from somewhere offscreen, before the camera shakes and Sooyoung herself appears, peering over Yunjin's shoulder to wave cheerfully at Chaewon before ruffling Yunjin's hair. "You look hot, bitch, you're welcome." Sooyoung sighs wistfully. "If only you weren't so tragically straight..."
And then there's Sooyoung, Yunjin's roommate and new (non-Chaewon) best friend.
Sooyoung is gorgeous in that completely unattainable way, like she's just stepped out of a Yves Saint Laurent advert, appears to exclusively wear crop tops regardless of how close the thermostat is to zero and has a different leather jacket for every day of the week, and judging from both the huge rainbow flag hanging on the wall of her side of their dorm and ninety percent of what Chaewon overhears in the background of calls, swings the same way as Chaewon.
She's that effortlessly cool girl who, were Chaewon not busy being hopelessly besotted with her best friend, she would probably start crushing on from afar after the first time she sauntered into the background of Yunjin's FaceTime call. So it's only natural that Chaewon would feel jealous. She used to be the one to occupy the majority of Yunjin's time, and now there's someone else to fill that space. Someone taller and cooler and more sociable, someone with abs you could cut glass on, someone with a cute Busan accent, someone who probably doesn't bottle up all her complicated best friend related feelings.
Nobody could ever replace you, Chaewon reminds herself later, when the call has ended because Yunjin and Sooyoung are going to some party tonight, you're my best friend. I'm not going to find a new one, I promise.
/
It's a month or so into the school year when Chou Tzuyu, Yunjin's successor as head cheerleader, decides to throw a party on a Friday night, and Jiwoo and Heejin insist on all three of them attending.
"You're not just a swim team jock now, Chaewonie, you're the jock," is Jiwoo's attempt at logical reasoning, like Chaewon isn't perfectly aware the only reason Jiwoo wants to go is so she can flirt with all the cheerleaders. "It's like, a legal obligation of high school that if you're invited to a party by school royalty then you have to go."
"Plus I hear Tzuyu is single," Heejin singsongs, either unaware of or just ignoring the fact that Chaewon has exchanged the grand total of about five words with Tzuyu in the entire two years they've attended the same school.
"Wait, really?" Jiwoo says. "I thought she was dating that Chaeyoung girl from the photography club?"
"That's what I thought, but Soojin told me that Hayoung told her that Dahyun said Chaeyoung and Tzuyu are just friends," Heejin says. "So, Tzuyu is single, Chaewon is single. Captain of the swim team, head cheerleader. It's meant to be."
So, albeit a bit reluctantly, Chaewon allows Jiwoo and Heejin to follow her home after school finishes to get ready, because her parents won't be back before they leave for the party and because Soeun has left enough party-appropriate clothes in her room since moving away for university that they can borrow.
("You mean slutty?"
"The word I would use is revealing."
"I am not slut-shaming your sister, but Chaewonie you are not wearing a damn turtleneck to this party.")
She sends a Snapchat to Yunjin just before they leave, a mirror selfie with the caption first senior year party at tzuyu's mansion wish me luck, and receives a very blurry selfie of Yunjin and Sooyoung in response, Yunjin holding up a shot of what Chaewon assumes is tequila — at 6PM — and making a kissy face at the camera, while Sooyoung is already in the process of downing her own shot, and the caption reads sooyoungie says you look hot ps I love yooou tell heekkie and wooming I said hi with about every second word misspelled.
Despite promising to not leave Chaewon to fend for herself at least for the first hour, Heejin gets stolen away by some of the cheerleaders almost the second they walk in the front door, and Jiwoo disappears not long after to flirt her way around the house like a social butterfly. Chaewon, on the other hand, ends up spending most of the party talking to Tzuyu — which then advances to flirting with Tzuyu once she's had a few drinks — but she figures that she's merely a substitute for Chaeyoung, Tzuyu's best friend who has been out all week with the flu.
So she's a little surprised when she gets to her homeroom on the Monday morning after the party to find Tzuyu already lurking there.
"Uh, hi?"
Friday night was the most she's ever spoken to Tzuyu in the entire time they've known each other, but Chaewon had assumed it was just a temporary camaraderie born of alcohol and circumstance and Chaeyoung's absence. Tzuyu's presence at her homeroom suggests otherwise.
"Hi," Tzuyu says with a dazzling smile that has stolen half the school population's hearts. "Can I talk to you for a minute? It won't take long."
"Sure." Chaewon glances sideways at Jiwoo, who is looking between them with barely concealed glee. "I'll meet you inside, Wooming"
Jiwoo scurries off into the classroom, but not before shooting Chaewon a horrendous wink and two thumbs up over Tzuyu's shoulder.
"What's up?" Chaewon asks warily, wondering if she'd actually fallen and hit her head on her walk to school today.
"I had a nice time on Friday. Talking to you, I mean. A really nice time." Tzuyu smiles at her again, and is she— is she blushing? Tzuyu's always seemed to operate on a plane slightly above mere mortals like Chaewon, but right now she looks like every other nervous teenager about to ask out their crush. Understanding begins to dawn on Chaewon as to what is happening right now. "Do you want to do it again sometime? This time without the alcohol and hundred other teenagers wrecking my living room?"
Chaewon thinks about Yunjin, miles away in Seoul. She looks at Tzuyu, here, in Cheongju.
"Yeah, I would. How's Wednesday?"
"Wednesday is good. We could get some food and then go see that new movie you mentioned at the party? The one about the aliens?"
"Sounds nice."
Tzuyu smiles. "It's a date."
And that's how Chaewon starts dating her first girlfriend.
It's easy, being with Tzuyu.
Tzuyu is nice. And sweet and funny and she brings Chaewon flowers and always has a supply of chocolate for whenever Chaewon gets a sugar craving. She makes Chaewon's heart skip a beat whenever they hold hands and she gives her butterflies whenever they kiss. Jiwoo and Heejin like her, Haseul approves of her, Chaewon's parents love her, and Yunjin reassures Chaewon that Tzuyu passes the best friend test even if she is a little intimidating.
(Yunjin obviously shows Sooyoung a picture of Tzuyu at some point because the next time she FaceTimes Yunjin she hears Sooyoung holler hey ladykiller in the background. Chaewon appreciates the support from the most esteemed lesbian she knows.)
It's easy to be with her, even if it doesn't feel like a forever kind of thing.
(A tiny traitorous part of her brain keeps wondering if it's only easy to be with her because she doesn't make Chaewon's heart race. Not like Yunjin does. If it's easy to be with her because her kisses feel like just kisses — even when they kiss after a date, when they kiss in the backseat of Tzuyu's car, when they kiss hidden under the blankets on Tzuyu's bed — when one kiss in a cupboard with Yunjin made her feel like she was doused in gasoline and set alight. But hey, Tzuyu's only the second person Chaewon's ever kissed. It's only natural that she compares her to Yunjin, right?)
It's easy enough that when the break-up comes, Chaewon isn't too surprised.
Everything about their relationship is still good — great, even — but it's begun to feel stale and drawn-out. Like they're both waiting for something new to happen, only it never does because neither of them really make the effort to.
It still stings a little when Tzuyu is eventually the one to bring it up, because it's her first break-up, but deep down Chaewon had been thinking the same thing. Besides, Tzuyu's going back to Taiwan for university, Chaewon's going to Seoul, and she's pretty sure neither of them are cut out for long distance.
It's refreshing to discover that love doesn't always have to hurt or end in heartbreak. Sometimes things just run their course and come to an end naturally, and that's okay.
Chaewon is going to be okay.
Chaewon is moving to Seoul in two months and she's terrified that distance hasn't lessened the hold Yunjin has always had on her, but she'll be okay.