Their legs swayed over the edge of the furthest dock, shoes barely skimming the top of the water as their blackened silhouettes sat in stark contrast against the dusty mauve of the twilight. A buoy bobbed in the water nearby, and they listened to the sharp tolling of a ferry bell as it traveled across the horizon. Karina stabbed another rice cake with a toothpick and put it into her mouth, watching the careful look on Y/N's face as he drank from the beer can.
"So?" she asked. "What'd you think of that one?"
Y/N creased his brows and then took another sip to be sure of his opinion. The sun was about to set on his eighteenth birthday. To celebrate, Karina bought him a cake for the two of them to share and then got him a variety of beers from a local convenience shop for him to sample. Always the law-abiding citizen, Y/N had refused to drink alcohol at parties until he was of age.
"It sort of just tasted like carbonated water," Y/N said, sloshing his tongue around his mouth.
"What?" Karina said, picking up the can he drank from and taking a drink herself. It was good.
"It was alright," Y/N said, leaning back.
"Your taste buds are whack, you know that?" Karina said, reaching for a box of pepero that they bought from the convenience store. Y/N shrugged. Their little picnic at the end of the pier consisted of a single order to spicy rice cakes, two boxes of pepero, a sweet potato cake, and six cans of beer of different brands, of which three had been opened.
"I don't know," he said. "Beer is just beer to me. I don't really taste a difference."
"You are so lucky you have me, then," Karina said, pointing a pepero stick at him. "You poor soul. Where would you be without me? Lost, probably adrift in the middle of the ocean drinking mediocre alcohol."
Y/N scoffed. "Fine," he said, pushing the can at her. "What does it taste like to you, Professor?"
Karina smirked as she took the can in hand.
"I saw a video about this. There's a special way of tasting beer to really draw out the flavor."
Karina brought the can closer to her face and smelled it. Metallic and strong.
"Don't laugh, though," she warned. "This is an expert beer-tasting technique."
She tipped some of the beer into her mouth and then immediately pursed her lips and started making a gurgling noise, but then the liquid shot straight out of her mouth and onto her lap, leaving a trail of saliva dripping from her lip. Y/N, who had been drinking from another can, did a spit-take as he doubled over in laughter.
"You did that on purpose just to make me laugh, right?" he asked in between laugh attacks. His side was starting to hurt. Karina wiped the drool off with her sleeve, also laughing in spite of herself.
"No! That's how you're supposed to do it!" Karina said. She picked up the can again. "Hold on, let me try again."
She took another sip and tried to gurgle it again, only to accidentally spit it out a second time. Y/N erupted into laughs again. Karina punched his shoulder.
"Yah!" she said. "Stop laughing, or next time I'll spit it into your face!"
"Is that how experts do it?"
"Ugh. You spit beer all over your birthday cake, too! We were supposed to eat this."
Y/N skimmed some of the frosting off the top of the cake and licked it off his finger.
"Still tastes fine to me."
Karina smacked his shoulder again. "Gross," she said. "And you shouldn't laugh. This is serious stuff, this is the big leagues. I saw it on the internet."
Y/N laughed again, swiping one of the decorative slices of yam from the top of the cake and taking a bite. Despite the rain of beer that came down on the pastry, it really didn't taste to bad. Y/N silently commended the baker.
"Well, whatever that was," he said. "You should do it again at my party, everyone will die laughing."
Karina's smile faded. Noticing the shift in mood, Y/N cast her a curious glance. She was biting her lip.
"I'm really sorry, Y/N," Karina said. "But I can't go."
"What?" Y/N said incredulously. "Why not?"
"I told you," she said, fidgeting. "I leave in twelve hours. I need to pack, and I need a good night's sleep. My flight's at seven in the morning."
Y/N pursed his lips, took another drink of beer, and then leaned back against his elbows, shaking his head.
"You're unbelievable," he said. "After all the trouble I went through to make sure your boy, Jaewook, would be there, you're gonna flake on me?"
She smiled. "I can't believe you're actually going to throw a party," Karina said. "How'd you swing that one by your mom? Did she finally fish her panties out of her crotch?"
"No," Y/N said, his smile fading. He swallowed. "She's with him tonight."
The silence that came over them was like a black hole, sucking their joy. Y/N stared into the water.
"She thinks we don't know," he said. "And Dad's in Seoul again. Probably with someone else."
Karina didn't know what to say. It was a complicated emotion that took hold of her every time Y/N brought this up. Mr. And Mrs. Park had always been kind to her and her family, but she hated how their broken marriage was hurting Y/N. And she hated that she couldn't do anything about it except listen to him.
"I just don't get why they're still together," he said. "Obviously, neither one of them is happy. I think they're just doing it for my sake. I should do what my sisters did. Check out of here as soon as I can."
Karina smiled gently. "You could come to Los Angeles with me," she said.
"And do what?" he said.
"Well, the music scene is also really intense there," Karina suggested. "You could do your music there. We could get a house on Sunset Boulevard with a view of the hills and an outdoor patio, and you could write angry songs about your parents, sell it to Capitol Records, and become a multi-platinum producer."
He laughed again because he knew it was impossible, but it was such an attractive thought.
"We could get a house?" he asked.
"Well, obviously, it would be my house, since I'd be a famous actress," Karina said. "I would just be renting you a room until you actually go platinum."
He looked like he had another snarky reply on his tongue, but he held it back and chose to stare at her instead. A smile crept up onto his face and he shook his head gently.
"Why do I feel like you're actually going to do it?" he said.
She smirked. "Because I am."
Karina scraped a bit of the cake frosting off, trying to avoid the parts where Y/N sprayed saliva and beer all over it. The two of them were still looking out at the sky, where the clouds were swirling in the pink and purple sunset hues. The air was starting to get dryer and cooler, especially this close to the water. Y/N had let Karina borrow one of his hoodies since she forgot to dress in something warmer.
"Did you know that your birthday coincides with the equinox?" Karina said.
"What is that?" Y/N asked.
"It's when there's an equal amount of both daytime and nighttime," Karina said. "There's two of them, your birthday falls on the autumn one. The autumnal equinox."
It was a mystical time. Twilight always was, but Karina felt it even more keenly today, now. Sunset on the day of the autumn equinox. It was neither day nor night, neither summer nor fall, it simply was. The threshold of a new season, a summer preparing to cross over into fall. Just as she was preparing to cross over into something new.
"Are you scared?" Y/N asked. Karina looked at the horizon and imagined traveling across it, all the way to the shores of Los Angeles, thousands of miles away.
"Terrified," she whispered. "But where would the fun be if I wasn't scared? Scary things are the only ones really worth doing."
Y/N smiled.
"So, I guess the next time I see you, you'll be Hollywood's next it-girl," he said. Karina laughed, taking another pepero stick and biting off half.
"If you're nice to me, I'll say hi to you in public," she said.
"Really? You would do that for me? You would stoop that low?"
"What are best friends for?" Karina said. Of course, she was scared, but she was ignoring all that negative energy and choosing to be excited, instead. Hollywood was all she ever dreamed of growing up. And now she was going.
"I'm going to miss you," Y/N said after several seconds of silence. Karina turned and looked at him fondly.
"I'll miss you, too."
They looked back at the sun beginning its descent past the horizon, on and on, bringing its light to other, distant parts of the world.
Karina was still looking at Y/N. Still looking at her best friend of seven-going-on-eight years. While the earth turned and the sun followed its downward path, Karina's mind leaped back in time, revisiting all the small moments she had shared with him. All the piano lessons, all the recess games of tag, all the talent show rehearsals, all the homework and study sessions, every milkshake they shared at the diner, all the walks through the park, every school dance and spring fair and she wondered where in all that mess her feelings for him had shifted.
When Karina was with Y/N, she felt not just comfortable, but safe. Right. Correct. Like their souls were molded to each other, made to fit like two pieces of a puzzle. She wanted to protect him, from bullies, from heartbreak, from failure, from his parents' fighting. She wanted him to achieve every goal he ever dreamed of. And she wanted to be by his side as long as she could.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Y/N said of the sunset, but when he turned to Karina for her reaction, she had shifted closer to him. Her eyes were soft and her lips slightly parted.
It was a moment too perfect to waste. Sky, purple and pink, and soft. The air is cool and salty. Neither day nor night. A moment to be seized, a moment made for crossing thresholds. Karina's courage surged.
She kissed him.
It was different in her imagination. Karina had pictured the magic of this moment so many ways, but the reality of it fit none of her fantasies. When she leaned into him and kissed his lips, she felt him tense up. And when she pulled away and opened her eyes again, she saw that his had never closed.
He didn't kiss her back.
After what felt like an eternity of not saying anything, Y/N turned his face away and cleared his throat. "Do you think that was a good idea?" he asked.
Karina's face burned up. Shit, she thought. A mistake. A terrible mistake. Her blood started to course through her veins, her thoughts blared one message to her: get out of there.
Before Y/N could say or do anything else, Karina stood up, turned, and ran off without another word.
Summer was over.