Sua was standing next to the entrance of the subway she had just exited from, waiting impatiently for the red light to transform into a green one. The brown-haired girl kept checking her phone nervously, just in case she was going to receive another phone call in the last seven meters she had to travel. She ran to cross the road; she had arrived at the given address. Her face was clearly lacerated by concern.
"수아씨?"
tr: Sua-ssi? (Miss Sua?)
The 24-year-old turned to the side. An old woman was waiting for her, sitting on a green plastic stool. Her arms were crossed; her features were giving away a notion of déjà vu. She was representing all the soju tents owners of South Korea, right now. Sua sympathized with her jaded attitude. She knew that every night, at some point, these people needed to find a way to call relatives, or at least, the right contact that could take care of their wasted customers. There was no way dead drunk individuals could go back home safely by themselves.
"날 따라와."
tr: follow me.
They came into the red tarp-covered restaurant. The tent was only installed from the evening to the middle of the night. The mountain of green bottles, empty beers, disposable chopsticks, and plates would all be gone by the next morning. There would be no one left on the streets of Seoul either. The grilled food was very odorant but the smell of soju was what stayed with Sua the most. Despite the combination of meat roasting and fans diffusing the white smoke, the 24-year-old immediately located her girlfriend. She bowed to the ahjumma to thank her and quickly reached the back of the shop.
"Singnie..."
The upper body of Siyeon was lying down on the table, her arms so widespread on its surface that her hands were floating in the air on the opposite side. The young woman turned her head towards Sua as soon as her sweet voice had reached her ears. She started to speak to her, putting her right hand next to her face, making it into a fist.
"A-bo-bo-bo! A-bi-bo-bi-bi-bi!"
Sua chuckled at the gesture.
"Nope Sing-Sing, no alien language for tonight."
Siyeon looked at her interlocutor, faking being hurt on the chest. She pressed her heart and faked dying. Somehow, it made Sua feel better. Her girlfriend wasn't drunk, as in an alarming state of being drunk.
"So... What happened? Why are you drinking alone, like this? I was worried when the ahjumma called me, you know?"
Sua took the empty sit in front of Siyeon so that she would face her. She could see that her nose had reddened already. Her interlocutor's face was slightly swollen.
"The soju is really good here, you should drink some too." Siyeon managed to say without sounding too wrecked.
"No, I'd rather n-"
"AHJUMMA! One more bottle, please!" Siyeon shouted, her left arm in the air, only her index finger stretched out. Her eyes were struggling to stay open.
Sua raised her eyebrows with surprise. The brown-haired girl stayed silent for a mere second before bursting into laughter. She covered her mouth with her hands to laugh more as she saw the shop's owner approaching. Siyeon was so funny when she was drunk. Her inhibitions had all crumbled down with alcohol.
The old woman came with two new glasses and a bottle of soju. She rapidly looked at Sua, concerned that the tiny human wouldn't handle the drinks too well. The brown-haired girl was already swirling the green bottle and slapped its bottom with her palm. She was ready to twist off the cap.
"We might need a few beers too, thank you." Sua added playfully while looking at Siyeon making ugly faces.
The two young women didn't bother ordering some food as there was still plenty on their table. Sua was already thinking about eating the chicken feet next to Siyeon's noodles. She was craving for those.
"Thank you!" The youngest woman said to the owner of the pojangmacha when she quietly finished putting three cans of beer next to the cold grilled fish.
"Enjoy." The old woman added to sound polite; sound only - the lack of emotion in her voice betrayed her.
Siyeon took the time to watch Sua pick her food carefully. The way she was eating their favorite dishes with her chopsticks always made the younger woman soft. That moment would have been perfectly timed to steal her a kiss if they had been at home. But Siyeon couldn't do it here, not in front of everybody. The black-haired girl noticed the yellow hue reflecting on Sua's skin. God, even with bad lighting, Sua was breathtakingly beautiful. Beautifully, her heart ached.
"Wow, 시연이, that's really good!"
tr: Siyeonie
Siyeon gave away half of a smile in response. She was caught up in her own thoughts again; alcohol's effect for sure, she murmured to herself. Sua then poured the first can of beer in her glass and added soju. Ssomaek was truly the best mixture of alcohol. The brown-haired girl crushed the can to signify she emptied it already. She did not come into the rabbit hole to play. The woman was famous among their group of friends for having the highest alcohol tolerance. She stirred in the two alcohols with one part of the chopsticks.
"Please, tell me what's up? I can see that you're acting weird. It's really not like you to come to this kind of place alone." Sua pointed out to her. "You know you can tell me everything, right? We've been through so much already..."
The younger girl sighed, a hand on her neck, the other one playing nervously on the table. She was not ready to cry, she felt too tired for that. But the words Sua had just pronounced were painfully resonating within her. She knew she could tell the older woman anything. Sua was always trying her best to listen and to understand what the 23-year-old had to convey, to be there for her, to make her opinions feel valid even though she didn't agree with them. The black-haired girl was convinced that Sua's aptitude to listen was the main reason they never got into a big argument. Her diligence was a strong key to the hold of their relationship.
But as the years had passed, Siyeon had realized that the communication was non-reciprocal. And it hit her hard; particularly in those weeks when Sua had extremely low self-esteem but was trying her best to hide her moments of weakness, thinking it would be an unnecessary burden to share with her girlfriend. In all honesty, it hurt her pride as a human being. The silence treatment was too much to take on, especially when, in Siyeon's case, she could figure out everything that had happened to Sua in a blink.
"I love you." Siyeon half-whispered while locking her watery eyes with Sua's intense glaze.
"But..." Sua continued, waiting already for the fallout.
"I love you sooo much."
"그러나?" Sua reiterated while staring at her drink.
tr: but?
Yes, she might have needed to drink this one before listening to Siyeon's grievance. She quickly sipped half of it.
"But no matter how hard I try, I cannot love you enough for you to love yourself... And you have no idea how much it hurts. 아프다, 수아야!"
tr: it hurts, Sua-ya!
Sua felt knocked out when she saw a tear beading out of Siyeon's left eye. It was the first of a long series. The older woman bit her lower lip out of embarrassment. Mortification towards herself that was. Had she been too self-absorbed in her toxic perfectionism that the thought of Siyeon suffering from it never occurred to her before?
"Siyeon-ah..." She let out while reaching for her girlfriend's hand. Her voice was quavering.
"When you look defeated, when you are in pain, when you cry... All these sides of you, they are not shameful; they make you a whole, they make you exquisitely human. That's what you tell me all the time. I keep your words in my heart to be strong outside because I know that the moment I come back home, I'll find you there and I'll be able to crumble down safely, feeling a wide range of emotions that I'll let out on you, that you will help me tame down. I can't feel weak when I reach my lowest because I have you. That's how it feels to be loved by you. That's how healing your words are to me. 수아야, that's how much I trust you. Because I know you love me for who I am and not for who you could expect me to be."
tr: Sua-ya
Siyeon brushed her girlfriend's hair with her right hand. She pouted uncontrollably. The 23-year-old rounded her fleshy lips while empathizing with the woman facing her. Saying that Sua was feeling guilty right now was an understatement. The older woman poured another drink for herself. Maybe alcohol really became her way to cope with life? What did she know?
"Our couple... Y-you have to share the responsibility; half-half, am I right? haha... I am not a kid anymore. I hate it when you hide to cry in the bathroom, pretexting you are going to take a shower. I hate it when you have cried for a long time in the bedroom all alone and suddenly, you get out of it, eyes red as poppies and just carry on with your day as if nothing had happened."
"Ya! You're the one to always say there is no going backward, just going forward!" Sua defended herself loudly.
"Unnie, it makes me feel horrible."
"Why?" Sua was genuinely intrigued.
"By thinking you are not worthy, then where does that live me, huh? If you merely think you're enough to cheer yourself up and you refuse to rely on me, to be consoled by me when times are tough, then... What am I supposed to think? It feels like I will never be enough. I can't be reliable because you don't let me. And, I have no idea how to improve and be a more suitable person for you because I am left aside. You've stopped seeking my advice, you stopped talking to me about your problems. Am I less than an adult in your eyes?"
Siyeon hit four times her chest with her fist while focusing on her interlocutor's drink.
"Ahhhh..." She exhaled loudly. "In my heart, it aches to question myself about this: am I decent enough? I can't take the pain anymore these days."
Sua grabbed Siyeon's hand again, in distress.
"You know it's not true, Siyeon-ah! Of course, you're an amazing human being! I-I don't push you away because I look down on you." Sua stuttered. "I try to avoid these talks with you because I am afraid to put too much pressure on you. You are still young; I want to protect you from this sometimes ugly world we are left to face. I don't want you to feel sad because of me..."
Sua emptied her second concoction of beer and soju. The hand she was holding slipped through the side and poured her a third drink before the 24-year-old could reach the third can of beer.
"자, 내가 도와 줄게." Siyeon pleaded.
tr: here, let me help you.
Sua contemplated her girlfriend's figure. A timid smile was forming on her dried lips; she was happy to pour her senior's drink. It was true that the young woman had changed. Siyeon was a young adult now. The word adult kept haunting her brain. It was stuck in her mind causing her a major headache. If she could just accept the fact that leaning on a younger shoulder was nothing to be ashamed of, everything would work out better. The brown-haired girl heavily sighed.
"I hear what you're telling me, Singnie. And... Honestly, you're right. It's just that our society expects me to be that strong older lead... I hate how my body and my mind are conditioned by our culture's expectations. I want to change that for me, for us. But you also need to talk to me when you feel excluded because I am not sure I always know where to draw the line. I know you muttered this situation because you were afraid I would worry too much. You thought I would blame myself, even more, seeing that I hurt you in the process. But what good it does if none of us can talk it through? I don't want us to stop communicating because we're afraid to hurt the other's feelings."
"We should trust each other." Sua and Siyeon said in unison.
Siyeon snorted and moved her little finger forward.
"Pinkie promise?" She asked innocently.
"Pinkie promise!" Sua replied while trying to cover a tear that was rolling down her cheek. "Let these walls collapse!"
Siyeon laughed. All traces of sadness were slowly disappearing from her face. She checked the time. It was already three in the morning. Her entire being felt less heavy. She thanked the green bottles of soju that were lying down around her. The young woman looked at Sua moving her stool next to hers.
"What are you doing?" Siyeon panicked.
"I want to kiss you~" Sua replied.
"H-here?!"
"There's no one watching us, Sing-sing. We're the only ones left~" Sua pointed out to her girlfriend.
Siyeon hadn't had time to turn her head to look around that Sua had already put her lips on top of hers. The brown-haired girl kissed her girlfriend again. And again. And again. Then she attacked Siyeon's nose, and her eyelids, and her chin with her repeated wet kisses. She called it the vodka kiss because soju tasted like watered-down vodka.
Siyeon hugged her to make her stop. It had been a long time since they just took time to cuddle comfortably. Despite the scent of chicken and beer, the embrace felt really good.
"수아 에게 시연이 란?" She asked Sua, out of the blue.
tr: to Sua, what is Siyeon?
"시연이 란... 내 사랑~~~" The older woman replied, using her cutest voice.
tr: Siyeon is... my looove~~~
"내 사랑~~~" She repeated louder.
tr: my looove~~~
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Hi beautiful people, this is tumblr handle @suayeonsroom!
I hope you liked the third short story of this collection.
Sua is now 24 and Siyeon 23. It's been 4 years they are together!
Please don't hesitate to give me feedback on my writing by voting and/or commenting below, on the SuA and the Siyeon of this story. If you are a shipper of Suayeon like me, don't hesitate to go see my edits of them on my tumblr.
Stan talent, Stan Dreamcatcher always. ♥
- P A R K S O O G I
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Korean vocabulary for you:
-씨 '-ssi' meaning "Miss" ; polite affix.
날 따라와 'nal ddarawa' meaning "Follow me.".
그러나 'geureona' meaning "But".
아프다 수아-야! 'apeuda Sua-ya!' meaning "It hurts me Sua-ya!".
자, 내가 도와 줄게 'ja, naega dowa julge' meaning "Here, let me help you".
수아 에게 시연이 란? 'Sua ege Siyeon-i ran?' meaning "To Sua, what is Siyeon?".
시연이 란... 내 사랑~ 'Siyeon-i ran... nae sarang~' meaning "Siyeon is... my looove~~~".
내 사랑~~~ 'nae sarang~~~' meaning "my looove~~~".